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actualfarless · 3 years

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The Engineer And The Witch: Part I

Cursed with misfortune, Tera Bec finds her calling as an engineer, only to be thrown into a war between the mighty kingdom and rebel colonist.

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All Tera wanted was a quiet life. Her mother always accused her of finding trouble and Tera always cried that it chased her, no matter how she ran or hid. In school, she found herself ending fights she didn’t start, sometimes in self defense, but often in defense of others. She tried to keep her head down. She tried to behave. She tried to keep her hands at her side. But when a larger kid shoved another to the ground, they flew at him with a mind of their own and Tera had no choice but to follow.

Even outside of school, she couldn’t escape trouble. There was no fighting at home, but things still broke. Glass slipped from her fingers. Wood cracked in the furniture and walls. Pipes burst with such frequency, their landlord almost gave up on plumbing entirely. Some of the locales, mostly irate neighbors, said she was cursed. Bad luck.

Eventually, Tera had to accept they were right.

She couldn’t fix her luck, so she set to fixing everything else instead.

For many kingdom ships, Bar Tannis was the last port before open seas. Every vessel docked for supplies and maintenance, from merchant cargo craft to inquisitor warships. By large, Tera had little interest in the civilian ships, fascinated far more by the kingdom machines than sails and oars. She spent her afternoons on the docks, waiting patiently for navy vessels. The captains and their officers kept to themselves, hardly willing to humble themselves for the Port Authority, certainly not for the questions of curious children. The crew, however, were eager to talk, particularly the engineers once she learned the right questions to ask. They loved to discuss their machines and all the work that went into keeping them afloat. The engineers eagerly pointed out the difference between steam, arc, and etherium engines. Cold engines, some called the last group, though they burned as hot as any other. Conversations graduated to watching them work to assisting with repairs. The engineers joked that they only wanted free labour, but the way they guided her hands and checked her work told a different story. Their machines were extensions of themselves. Each was happy to train the next caretaker and Tera was happy to learn.

Her curse seemed subdued when she worked. No machine broke that was not already broken. No terrible news of the vessels she touched reached the shore. Not for a long time.

Engine ships were not her only training and far from the most interesting. Word spread through Bar Tannis and though few were willing to trust a cursed child, she eventually found an apprenticeship with a watchmaker and, from her, Li Shen. Engineer Shen, he insisted. He specialized in mekanica prosthetics but he found more than enough work servicing mekanica for the Port Authority. More than enough to offer Tera a holistic education. She fell in love with his work immediately. Unlike the ship engineers at the docks, almost tripping over themselves as they excitedly babbled off technical knowledge, he was quiet. Reserved. To every question Tera asked, he asked her thoughts, guiding her to the correct answer with comments and questions of his own. Engineer Shen didn’t fear mistakes like her other tutors, so long as those mistakes did not cost him money.

Tera learned quickly. Her patchwork solutions became elegant designs. Sometimes she even improved the original. Under her mentor’s careful guidance, she designed her own mekanica, a light utility robot with a passion for sweeping. She hoped it would get her out of chores, but Engineer Shen always found new tasks faster than she could build mekanica for them.

Eventually her mentor and her parents came to the same realization. Between a flurry of letters and a series of awkward interviews with grumpy kingdom officials — including her father’s boss — Tera joined an engineering school.

It should have been a celebration.

Tera never considered the possibility. She excelled in her apprenticeship, but her grades were average at best. Her curse never found its way into her designs, fortunately, but she had not fully escaped it. Her skills with a wrench kept her family’s apartment from flooding and her years of lifting heavy machinery meant most bullies bowed out of fights when she stepped in. Yet she still earned her fair share of bruises. Engineer Shen taught her how to make a protocol bypass from a tuning fork and she taught herself how to disassemble hostile mekanica one handed. Useful skills, she insisted, but nothing worthy of an engineering school, least of all a mainland college. Still, one wanted her.

It should have been a celebration.

Then a kingdom ship sank.

Tera always took after her father: brown skin, dark hair, warm eyes, and an unwavering sense of duty. He worked as a clerk in an inquisitor’s office — a place most rational citizens feared — but the moment he heard the news from the colonies, he signed up to hold a rifle. The kingdom gave him a powder gun and stuck him on a ship without further question. Tera tried to do the same, despite her parents’ and Engineer Shen’s protests that she finish her education first. She would have, had the inquisitor not cornered her.

“Riflemen are cheap,” the inquisitor said. “Engineers are not. We need you on a ship.”

Tera disagreed, but she was not foolish enough to defy an inquisitor, eager as she was to serve the kingdom. With her luck, she knew she’d graduate well after the war was done. Her father left for the colonies and boarded an eastward ship for the mainland.

Three years later, Tera Bec joined the crew of the Eon Heart as the third engineer. The ship was originally designed as a pirate hunter. She was a light cruiser, armed enough to threaten the wooden ships of the rebels and fast enough to keep pace with the quickest of them, but not so sturdy she could withstand prolonged conflict. The ship was the twin to the Eos Heart, one of the first ships she learned on. The twin to the ship the colonies sank.

The Eon Heart relied heavily on her sails to cross the great ocean. Under ordinary circumstances, Tera would have had a week to study the engine, meet her team, and adjust to the slight sway of the ship, a constant even in calm waters. But three years into a war was not ordinary circumstances. The captain departed less than two days after Tera set foot on board. He didn’t even bother to stop at her home. With Eon Heart’s speed, starvation was no risk, but Tera wished she could have seen Engineer Shen and her mother once more before leaving for war.

Tera slowly adjusted to life on the Eon Heart. The ship was nothing like the sprawling city of Bar Tannis or the campus of her college. Even compared to the ships she frequented as a child, the Eon Heart felt cramped. The passageways could hardly fit two abreast. She had to duck when passing through doorways so not to bang into the bulkhead. She shared her quarters with the second engineer, Mayer Dunn, making the small space tighter, but at least she was not trapped with the landsmen who were stuck four and six to a room.

The engineering crew on the Eon Heart was small. Despite that, despite sharing a room, Tera hardly saw Mayer. She spent most of her waking time in the engine room, tinkering with the nearly obsolete engine, recording parts in need of replacement at the next port and patching them as best she could. Mayer’s duties often had them on the gun duck or mending the rest of the ship with engine scrap. When she did see them, they seemed hollow. Like a ghost on the edge of the ether. Unlike the other officers, Mayer wore the marks of war as a heavy burden. They were gaunt and pale and their eyes sunk deep into their skull. Scars lined their chest and arms, some from engine work, clumsy mistakes while making repairs. Not all. Like Tera, Mayer kept their hair short. A jagged line of raised skin ran from their ear to the back of their skull. Tera knew better than to ask but only by the grace of their mismatched schedules did she manage to resist.

The chief engineer was a red-scaled lizardfolk who went by Gharos. She found her complaints of the ship’s cramped quarters laughable compared to his. By no means was Tera a small person, yet Gharos towered over her. His arms were like tree trunks that flexed and rolled beneath his shirt and, occasionally, not that she’d tell anyone, invaded her dreams. He wore a stern face with piercing amber eyes beneath a brow of spurs that matched the spikes along his jaw, yet he was a patient man. Friendly even, if caught in the right mood.

There was little downtime on the ship. Tera cycled from caring for the engine to standing watch and back. Her professors warned that most ships ran training drills but the Eon Heart’s captain did not find it necessary, for which Tera was thankful. What time Tera did have, she spent asleep or listening to Gharos’ stories or, if neither sleep nor the chief engineer could be found, rereading her father’s letters. She could chart his path through the colonies. Her father’s letters spoke of honor and duty.

They also spoke of nightmares.

Her father did not shy away from describing the brutality of the front. War, as he expected, was bloody. People died. If they were lucky, they died from a bullet to the heart. Maybe a sword or axe or knife. If they were unlucky, the bullet hit their leg and left them bleeding in the mud for too long before help arrived. The medics carried healing salve that sealed cuts and bruises, but healing salve could only do so much. Less when the medics had to water down the supply to make it last between supply runs. Cities changed allegiance monthly. A town the kingdom rescued one day could be a trap for a retreating battalion the next.

Monsters lurked in the darkness.

Her father described them as shadows born of the ether. He saw them on the hills at dusk and dawn, but they disappeared in the night, even under the light of the moons and stars. People vanished with the morning light . No one could tell if they defected or were picked off by the shadows. To be safe, he wrote, he slept with a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other.

Worse still, rumour spread that colonies bolstered their forces with witches. Tera’s father had not seen any witches himself, but he mentioned an inquisitor now led his battalion, driving them deeper into the colonies, almost to the edge of known land. He mentioned stories Tera already knew, whispers of their abilities that followed them through the kingdom. Rumors claimed they could control weather and animals and even other people. Schoolyard myths claimed they manipulated the ether itself. The way her father described the inquisitor, she seemed inhuman, but if that kept him safe from witches and monsters and the colonial army, Tera wouldn’t worry.

Not that there was anything she could do for weeks.

The Eon Heart found the war well before she hit the colonies. Tera awoke to the thunder of guns — the drums that matched her beating heart. The ship shook and shuddered as a series of cannons battered her sides, leaving dents and a small scar in her hull. The sulfurous smell of gunpowder filled the air. Frantic shouts echoed down the passageways, intercut with the ringing of the alarm bell and return volley. Tera stood paralyzed in the engineering quarters, her thoughts muddied, until she felt a hand on her back push her out.

“Engine room,” Mayer said.

Training took over instinct and she followed them down the hall, stepping aside for every gunner and rifleman that ran down the passageway. Spending most of her time with Gharos, Tera hadn’t realized the youth of the Eon Heart’s crew, but as each passed, wearing ill-fitted uniforms and looks of equal parts excitement and fear, the truth was unavoidable. Few on the ship were as old as Gharos or Mayer. Few were even as old as Tera, barely graduated from her college. The difference was only a few years but they were little more than children.

Children with rifles.

Tera felt the tingle on her skin before she was through the door. Her hair frizzed and stood on end. Ordinarily, the engine room was quiet. The only noise came from the primary engine, always idle and waiting, humming to itself. Now with the engines full bore, she could hear nothing but the arc of electricity between coils. Blinding flashes of light filled the room at irregular intervals. Mayer ran for the auxiliary engine on the starboard side. Deafened, Tera ran to her station, careful to give Gharos space as he attempted to wrangle the engine’s lightning.

Wrangling was not the term her professors used. Too unprofessional and simplistic for them, and strictly unnecessary on a well-maintained machine, a point they liked to press upon struggling students. But her professors did not have to deal with the practicality of a curse. A standard arc engine had two rows of coils, arranged in top and bottom pairs like the teeth of a mechanical monster, with a spark gap between them. Ideally, arcs only jumped between the corresponding pair. With engines running at full, especially in the cramped quarters of the Eon Heart, the arcs could — and often would — jump to adjacent coils and overcharge. To stop this, kingdom engineers installed inhibitors, limiting the power each coil could produce. When they failed, as they often did for Tera, wrangling was the answer.

Engine work was not for the weak of mind or weak of body, a common refrain from her college, and one she felt in her heart as she pulled each tooth from its insulated dock. The coils weighed more than the average mekanica and without space for assisting tools, she had to pull each by hand. Still, Tera ran down the row, flipping the priming switches once the coils were in place. At the end, she pulled the starting lever and the bottom plates slid into place. Already her engine began to hum with power. Not enough to work the engine yet, but as Tera worked the crank, blue beams of electricity jumped between the coils. She threw herself into starting the engine, breathing with every rotation the way she practiced, trying to clear her mind of everything except the motion of the work. The old metal gears needed oil, but fighting with the crank was not her problem. Even with the roar of the engines, she could hear the booming cannons on the decks above and the seemingly distant sound of rifle fire. She felt the ship shake with every shot that landed. The engines pulsed and surged. She could only hope the Eon Heart’s armor plating would hold.

Sooner than Tera expected, the auxiliary engine reached its operating power, filling the engine bay with its brilliant blue light. Were luck on her side, she could leave it be, focusing her efforts on routing power and taming the primary engine with Gharos.

But luck was never on Tera’s side.

She saw a familiar flash and the burning smell stung her nostrils as one of the inhibitors failed. Charred metal fell to the grated floor, smoldering and drawing arcs from nearby coils. Tera pulled on her work gloves — careful to tighten the straps over her sleeves — as she ran down the engine bay. She kicked the offending piece of metal to the scrap pit below, nearly tripping over herself as she did, and flipped the priming switch on the coil, disconnecting it from the charging plate. With a swift kick to the release, she slammed the tooth back into its dock. Arcs still danced on the surface, but the risk of a surge was mitigated. Tera cleared the rest of the scrap from the busted inhibitor, nearly cutting herself on the sharp edge, and chucked it into the pit. Once clear, she pulled the coil back out, locking it in place, and flipped the priming switch again.

From idle, the coils could take a few minutes to arc, but wrangling was about as far from idle as she could.

A sudden jolt of electricity acred between the top and bottom teeth as the eager coil reconnected to the charging plate, nearly blinding Tera. She felt the tingle of electricity on her skin which singed the hairs on her arm. If not for her gloves and boots, she’d be on the floor, lucky to be breathing. Her heart pounded in her chest. This was far from her first time wrangling, but the threat of death always lingered in the air. Even as she tamed one coil, another threatened to surge.

Wrangling was undeniably an art. There were no rules on how quickly a charge would dissipate. No visible cues for when she could safely pull the coil out from its dock. Wrangling relied on pure instinct. Nothing more. The coils pulsed like a beating heart and Tera fell into a rhythm with the engine. She saved each tooth moments before it surged. Her muscles burned from the effort. Sweat pulled her shirt tight to her back. But there was no time for a break. To breathe. To recover. Tera hardly had a moment to wipe her brow.

Then she saw it.

A coil on the far end of the engine row pulsed with energy, one she had only just tamed, now too far gone to be wrangled into submission. Lightning arced off it to the floor and bulkhead and, more worrying, jumped the gap between her engine and the outstretched teeth of the primary engine. Beneath the blue, Tera saw the familiar glow of a coil mere minutes from disaster. Memories of college flashed through her mind, a demonstration by her professors. Memories of the destruction caused by overheated, overcharged engines. The Eon Heart would not survive. So close, she would be one of the lucky ones, killed before she felt the heat.

Protocol dictated she cut power completely.

Tera ran down the row, flipping the priming switch of every coil she passed, but not bothering to shove the heavy teeth back in her docks. She rested her hand on the lever. Even if she couldn’t stop the surge, she could minimize the damage. Maybe save the ship.

The muffled sound of guns continued outside.

At the end of each engine bay sat a cabinet stocked with additional tools, spare parts, and protective gear. The Eon Heart’s supply was short, but she found what she needed: a spare boot, a spool of wire, and a telescoping rod used for maintenance in hard to reach areas. Tera pulled her knife from her belt, sawing at the wire until she had a lengthy section, enough to tie the knife to the pole in a makeshift spear. She plunged the knife into the boot and raced down the engine row, skipping past Gharos and whatever he tried to say. The light was too intense for her to see. Her heart beat in her ears. She slid to a stop by the coil, jamming her thumb to the pole’s release. Either she would save the ship or she killed everyone on board.

The pole sprang to its full height. A moment later, while the boot still wobbled from the sudden force, the untamed arc energy of the coil surged into her syphon. The pole glowed red. The boot began to smoke. But she could breathe. The coil didn’t explode. The glow died enough that she could shove the tooth back in its dock. The coil would take a lot of time before she could pull it out again and her syphon would be too hot to handle, even through the insulated work gloves, but her engine was safe. The Eon Heart was safe.

Running down the row, Tera rearmed the charging plates, carefully checking each coil. If her engine threatened to surge again, she’d have to follow protocol. There weren’t enough spare supplies to build a syphon for every coil. But if her engine threatened to surge again, she’d be dead. Tera managed to stop her curse once. She wouldn’t be so lucky to do so twice.

Then the sound of guns stopped. The engineers froze, forgetting, for a moment, the buzzing of the engines. The three craned their necks to the ceiling, as if they could see decks above if only they stared hard enough. A few minutes later, the three rapid rings of the bell echoed through the engine room. All clear.

Tera pulled the priming lever, cutting power from the auxiliary engine. Her skin glistened with sweat. Now that the battle passed, she felt the exhaustion weigh on her shoulders. Walking down the row, Tera flipped the priming switch on every coil and pushed them back in their docks. The charge in her syphon still lingered, but the coils calmed. Without the thunder of the cannons or the buzz of the engines, the air felt empty in its silence. Tera slumped against the bulkhead, sliding down into a ball, head in her knees. Her heart still pounded in her chest. Her body shook from stress. She released a calming breathe, but it did not ease the tension in her shoulders.

She survived. The Eon Heart survived.

Tera wasn’t aware of the bottle shoved in her face until Gharos slumped down next to her.

“Drink it,” he said calmly. “It will help.”

Tera tossed the bottle back, drinking deeply. She spat it out the moment the bitter liquid hit her tongue and turned to Gharos with an annoyed glare.

“I said it would help. I did not say it would taste good.” Gharos kept his usual stern gaze, but Tera noticed a flicker of a smile. She grumbled and took a careful sip.

“The first time is the hardest,” he continued. “I would tell you it gets easy, but I do not wish to lie to you. I have served the kingdom for nearly a century. I have never found it easy. I remember my first time aboard a warship. I was not an engineer then. Better in some ways. Worse in many others. Be thankful you did not have to kill today.”

The lizardfolk took the bottle from Tera’s hands, draining what remained before tossing it to the scrap pit below. He settled his gaze on the syphon. “You did not disconnect the engine.”

“Sorry, Sir, I thought I would—”

“What you did was clever. I am sure we would have lost the engine without it. Who taught you that?”

“Oh.” Tera felt the pressure in her chest lessen. Relief that she was not about to be lectured. “Li Shen. Before I joined the college, I was his apprentice, working on mekanica and such. He taught me how to make a bypass.”

“That is not a bypass.”

“Same concept. Divert energy away from one point and route it to an insulator instead of a terminal. I’m just glad it worked.”

“I see.”

The pair sat in silence for a moment. Tera’s syphon still cooled, but she could see that it would not survive another surge. The boot was charred and blackened. The joints of the telescoping rod fused together. The engines themselves were no better.

“We need to stop for maintenance,” Tera said suddenly. “The engine’s going to surge again if we don’t get the inhibitors replaced. I think some of the coils are fried too. I’m sure there’s more, but I can’t think of them. Not right now.”

“We do.” Gharos released a heavy sigh. “We do, but we will not.”

“We… won’t? I thought the kingdom was winning. Aren’t there any docks in the colonies we control?”

“We control plenty. Ability is not the issue. You have noticed the captain does not run the engine at sea? Aside from this recent exception. Our gunners are inexperienced, yet he does not force them into drills. I know you have not seen the magazine, but trust that our stores are low.” Gharos patted the deck. “She’s on her last legs.”

Tera narrowed her eyes. “When was the last time you did maintenance?”

“Maintenance? You know we do that daily. But what you mean, repairs? New parts? A thorough inspection with the Port Authority? Not since before the rebellion.

“What!?” Tera jumped to her feet, the energy in her shock too much to be contained by sitting. “Why not? Protocol is every six months. A year at most.”

Gharos met her anger with the same calm he always had, but he met her eyes, unwilling to look away. “That is what they say in your schools. Scholars make the decisions there. Engineer who know how delicate our machines can be. But tell me, do you see scholars here? I am not a learned man. Mayer was a student like you once, but no longer. I see children and broken people. No scholars. No engineers. No soldiers. The captain makes the decisions on this ship. We hope on our lives they are good.”

“Haven’t we told him about the engine? We could have died!”

“We could have. We did not. That is what he asks of us.”

“So the captain does know.”

“He does. He does not care. We spend a day at port, two if we’re lucky. There is no time to requisition supplies. Not enough if we wish to fix her. Especially not in the colonies. There are few metalworkers who would take our order. None that could work fast enough.”

“Why?”

“Vengeance blinds us, Tera Bec. The Eos Heart was more than sister to our vessel. We all have loss. Or the captain is deluded enough to believe he can win the war single handed, if only we are fast enough. I do not claim to understand. I keep the engines running and the guns firing and I hope that is enough to delay death another day.

“I am sorry for whatever misfortune brought you to this ship. I cannot suggest you leave. I can ignore your exit when next we port. I would hate to lose a gifted engineer, but I would hate for the kingdom to lose you as well.” Gharos rose to his feet. His stare had softened. “When your bypass runs out of static, bring it to me. I would like to see it in greater detail.”

With a wave, Gharos left the engine room, leaving Tera alone with the unstable engine and the unbearable weight of hundreds of lives on her shoulders, a burden passed from the captain to Gharos and now to her.

Under the chief engineer’s direction, Tera refined her design for the syphon, creating half a dozen with the limited supplies available. Her original design failed during its second use, as she expected, but it bought her enough time to shut the engine down before it failed. The new designs were sturdier, less unwieldy, but Tera knew they couldn’t last forever. The three engineers clipped them to their work belts in pairs, hoping to never need them, but knowing it was only a matter of time until they had none left.

After that, the engines would fail.

By the time the Eon Heart reached the colonies, the atmosphere on the ship shifted from naive excitement to dread. A shadow lingered over the vessel and everyone within. With every battle, Tera passed fewer faces as she ran to the engine room. The ship barely held together. Mayer and Gharos patched the hull with scrap stripped from the engine. The crew bet on their own deaths, whether drowning, cannonfire, or engine failure. A common joke, they insisted, on vessels of war, but one they made sure would never reach the captain’s ears. Tera lost track of the days, counting the passage of time by battles fought.

She repeated Gharos’ words in her mind, growing more tempted with each passing day. Even when the food stores ran low, the captain pressed on, resupplying from a friendly ship. Each day the guns above thundered and the engine threatened to blow a hole in the hull and each night Tera fell into a dreamless sleep, only to wake to the roar of the cannons once more. The ship was a prison. A tomb. Death, she knew, was inevitable, but she heard so many stories of heroes — stories of triumph — that, even with a curse, she did not expect the ether to claim her in the war. Her fathers letters wrote of the inquisitors. How they prevailed against entire armies single handed. Yet there were no inquisitors aboard the Eon Heart. No heroes. Only a mad captain and his broken crew.

She had not heard from her father in some time.

Death came for Tera in the form of a balding man. The bells rang through the ship and she once more ran down the passageway, hurrying to warm the engine when a heavy hand clasped her shoulder. She wheeled to see him, an officer, one hand gripped tight on a powder gun, and by him, Gharos. The lizardfolk’s eyes wouldn’t meet her own and though the balding man barely came to his shoulder, Gharos had never seemed so small. He stood in the man’s shadow, second and subordinate.

“We need you on deck,” the balding man said. His voice was calm — level — yet he drowned out the sounds of the ship. Gunners rushed past them, no longer bothering to fully change into their uniforms. Most were unwashed. Bloodsoaked. Unfit for combat.

The officer shoved the rifle into Tera’s arms. She stared at it then to Gharos and the man, waiting for one of them to explain. Neither did. “I am an engineer.”

“Did I ask? We need you on deck.”

“Sir, if I don’t get to the engine —”

The officer pulled his pistol from his holster. “We are short riflemen and gunners. Either you will report to the deck, or I will consider this an attempted mutiny. Am I understood?”

Gharos nodded subtly. Tera followed his lead.

“Good.” The balding man holstered his weapon. His smile sent a shiver down Tera’s spine. “Chief Engineer, we should find your other assistant. We need every gun we can find.”

The officer continued down the passageway with the nonchalance of a stroll through the park. Gharos lingered until the balding man was out of earshot, then he dropped his voice to a whisper. “I will keep the engines tamed as long as I can. We’re meant to escort the troopship to shore. That will be your best chance to get away.”

“Get away? Gharos, without me and Mayer, the ship won’t survive.”

“I fear the captain understands that too well. I have lived a long life. I do not mind giving it for the kingdom.” Gharos motioned to her rifle. “There is a point near the bow that Mayer reinforced. It is far from the engine and it should protect you from rifle fire. Not cannon fire, no, but rifle fire.”

He met her eyes. Tera expected anger or sadness or even bitterness in his amber eyes, but he seemed resigned to his fate. He pulled a small bottle from his jacket and offered it to her with a slight smile. “A farewell gift. I’d hoped it would be part of a celebration, but I think it will taste the same. Now go, Tera Bec.”

Gharos did not wait for her to reply. He followed the balding man down the passageway in search of Mayer.

Tera’s father wrote that the air felt different in the colonies. Lighter as if someone removed a heavy blanket. Cleaner. Fresher. He wrote of the beauty of the twin moons over untamed wilderness, great celestial bodies on a backdrop of stars. He wrote of the serenity of nature. That even in the middle of the war, even with witches, ether shadows, and other vile creatures, he felt at peace. The colonies were a magical place, capable of warming even the coldest heart.

Tera disagreed.

The smoke stung her lungs as she stepped out on deck. The air was thick with ash and embers and the screams of wounded soldiers. No moons shone over the Eon Heart. The swirling darkness of the sea below called to her, but Tera kept her boots on the deck. Gunfire drowned out the sound of gentle waves. The cannons bellowed, shaking the deck with every shot. Tera ran for the bow. She nearly slipped on the slick mixture of blood and water. On either side, the crew fired volleys from their powder guns before ducking beneath the bulwark to reload, two rounds for every round of cannonfire. Tera ducked behind the plated portion of the hull. The difference was subtle, likely invisible to a layperson, but the metal welded to the side was sturdier where Tera hid than anywhere else. Rifle fire pinged harmlessly off the plates.

The colony blockade formed a tight ring around the bay, a wall of ship and cannon. The colonist’s ships greatly outnumbered the kingdom’s but they were all made of wood. No armor. No plating. Most were not much larger than the Eon Heart. Smaller than the rest of the kingdom fleet by far. A wall placed cannon shot could carve a hole through their hulls. Even rifle fire splintered the wood. With time, the kingdom would win the skirmish at sea. Yet the fleet formed a tight arrow around the troop ship, flying toward the blockade as though loosed from a bow.

With the power of its engine, the Eon Heart surged ahead of the rest of the kingdom’s force. The wind nearly took Tera’s gun from her hand as she peaked over the bulwark. She realized all at once and far too late the captain’s plan. The Eon Heart rammed her bowsprit into the side of the largest kingdom ship. The crash flung Tera from her feet and from her safe spot. She grunted as she hit the deck. The impact forced the air from her lungs. Her head spun. The Eon Heart tore a hole through the side of the colony ship and both nearly rolled over before settling back to back down, interlocked, ship within ship. Screams echoed through both ships. Around Tera, the crew of either vessel traded their rifles and cannons for hatchets and knives, charging across the splintering decks, eager to fight to their last breath. Tera struggled to her feet and felt a jolt of white hot fire surge through her leg. She grabbed the bulwark for support, and limped forward to join the rest of her crew, every step igniting the fire once more.

A colonist lizardfolk jumped in front of her, as tall as Gharos, but lean with eyes of venom. He gripped a hatchet in either hand, charging toward Tera with a sound somewhere between a hiss and roar, unintelligible but full of fury. Tera shifted her weight to her good leg, shouldering her rifle. She pulled the trigger and a deafening sound rang out, but if she hit the lizardfolk, he didn’t stop. Screaming through the pain, Tera swung her rifle at him like a club, throwing her weight and strength to the hit. The lizardfolk slammed into the bulwark, painting it with a streak of blue blood, and dropped his hatchets. Tera fell to her knees beside him. The pain of her busted leg winded her. From her knees, she swung again, catching beneath the colonists scales and splintering the wooden stock on his face.

Tera scrambled for one of the dropped hatchets, raising it above her head to deliver the final blow when she felt the air shift. The hair on her neck and arms stood on end. Then, before she could so much as shout a warning, a brilliant light filled the sky and the Eon Heart exploded into shrapnel.

Tera fell into the darkness below.

#Tera Bec #The Engineer And The Witch #Does it count as a prequel if I haven't posted the stories its based on?#I did definitely make a note to add Tera & [redacted] to the actual series (that doesn't exist yet) at some point #Everyone knows 90% of writing is coming up with a world and characters and doing jack shit with them #But this made me excited to work on bounty again so once I finish part 2 im gonna work on the bounty intro again

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tsarisfanfiction · 4 years

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I Just Can’t Wait To Be Free

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Gen Genre: Family Characters: Gordon, Scott

And another fic for @gumnut-logic‘s #irrelief! The prompt used here is “Any characters – trapped in a lift/elevator” from @darkestwolfx

When Scott gets stuck, Gordon’s the only one around - too bad he can’t stop laughing.

“Stop laughing.”

Scott sounded tired, frustrated, and just about ready to throttle the nearest unfortunate brother – who just so happened to be him – but that didn’t stop Gordon cackling loudly at his eldest brother’s misfortune.

International Rescue had the best rescue gear in the world. International Rescue had access to some of the best technology in the world. International Rescue currently had one of their operatives trapped in a lift and no-one could figure out how to get him out.

Not that Gordon was trying particularly hard, he had to admit. If the situation was different, then of course he’d be donning his Rescue Mode and trying to work out the fastest and most efficient method of extraction. But they weren’t on a rescue, they weren’t even on the mainland – any mainland – and Scott didn’t need to be anywhere in a hurry, so Gordon felt quite justified in cackling at his brother’s current situation.

It wasn’t every day Scott got stuck in his own launch chute, after all. Luckily, he was returning from a rescue, not the other way around, so there was no real urgency to get him out. There was the concern that if Thunderbird One’s launch chute was malfunctioning then it would need a complete service before anyone stepped foot in it, and Scott would have to take the long way down to the hangar until it was deemed fit to use again (complete with pulling on his spare uniform by hand, which Gordon did not envy), but that was a concern for later.

Mostly because Scott was still inside, Brains was at a conference the other side of the world with Moffie, and Virgil was still in the air with an ETA of another hour. Kayo was off doing Kayo-things who knew where, Grandma was still unaware in the kitchen as she conjured up another inedible horror, Alan was with Virgil and John was off-planet.

John and EOS had tried to remotely fix the chute, but it quickly became apparent that it was a mechanical issue, and therefore nothing that could be done by remote control wizardry. An ion wrench was probably the tool for the job, and even if Gordon didn’t have a ban on touching Virgil’s tools (and no-one went near Brains’ without strictest supervision), fixing errant launch tubes was rather different to repairs on a submarine.

Hey, they all had their specialities. Gordon’s just happened to be not this.

So, really, there was nothing for Gordon to do except sit and laugh as Scott growled at him from the other side of the false wall. He’d even offered to stream Into The Unknown to Scott’s comm to relieve his boredom until Virgil got back, but that had been rejected.

Virgil had been alerted to the situation, at least. He’d told Scott that he was hurrying back and had got an irritated snipe at the sluggish speed of Thunderbird Two in response. Not Scott’s smartest move – a private message to Gordon had informed him that if Scott was going to be like that then he could wait because Virgil was certainly not going to push his beautiful ‘bird for the sake of an ungrateful brother who was at no risk of harm except to his ego.

Hence the hour ETA.

Scott was too smart to not realise that was not Two’s top speed, but no apologies had come out from the chute – Gordon knew those would come later, once he was free and no longer stressed out from being trapped in a small area for who-knew-how-long. Scott wasn’t claustrophobic, not by any means, but there was always something about being stuck in a place with no way out that got to people.

They’d all done enough cave-in rescues or similar to know that one.

That was why Gordon was laughing. It might annoy the heck out of his brother, but as long as he could hear a voice, Scott knew he wasn’t alone, hadn’t been left there. ��Gordon might not be able to get Scott out, but he could make sure he knew he hadn’t been forgotten.

Oh, Scott would never thank him for it, of course. Scott had a heavy dislike for being mocked, and there were other ways he could have made his continuous presence know – his usual methods of calming rescuees on missions, light-hearted banter and stories – but hey, he was a younger brother. He had a duty to be irritating sometimes.

“Gordon, your Ed impression is not helping.”

Gordon stopped laughing immediately, squinting at the (currently not) swivelling fake wall between him and Scott.

“Did you just make a Lion King reference?” he demanded. He knew Scott liked pre-millennium movies, and the Lion King, despite its lack of anything space or plane related, had always been a family favourite. They’d seen it several times on family movie nights.

Was it his imagination, or was the answering silence a little apprehensive? “Scoooooootty.”

Silence continued to answer him, and a hyena-like grin slowly spread across his face.

“Iiiiiii’m gonna be a mighty king,” he started, leaning his back against the wall just next to the rotating section. “So enemies beware!”

“Gordon,” Scott complained. He just laughed.

“Come on, Scott,” he encouraged, before singing the lines again.

“No.”

“You can do Simba’s part instead?” he offered.

“No.”

“Scoooooott.”

“No.”

Well, if he wanted to be a spoilsport…

“I’m gonna be a mighty king,” he repeated again. “So enemies beware!” Then he deepened his voice. “Well, I’ve never seen a king of beasts with quite so little hair!” Too deep. Ah well.

“I’m gonna be the main event, like no king was before! I’m brushin’ up on lookin’ down; I’m workin’ on my ROAR!”

Still silence from the chute, so he cleared his throat and tried another pitch.

“Thus far, a rather uninspiring thing.”

That was better.

“Oh, I just can’t wait to be king!”

Ah, now this was going to get a little tricky solo. He cleared his throat again.

“You’ve rather a long way to, young master, if you think- No-one sayin’ ‘do this’-”

“Now when I said that…” Scott’s voice finally broke through the sullen silence the other side of the wall and Gordon allowed himself a victory punch. He knew Scott wouldn’t be able to stay silent the whole time. Little brother’s intuition. He lifted his voice higher for Nala’s line.

“No-one sayin’ ‘be there’!”

“What I meant was…” It sounded rather like Scott was taking out his exasperation through Zazu. Well, it was in character.

“No-one sayin’ ‘stop that’!”

“What you don’t realise…” Gordon hoped John was recording this. Oh who was he kidding, of course he was.

“No-one sayin’ ‘see here’!”

“Now see here!” That sounded familiar.

“Free to run around aa-all day!”

“Well, that’s definitely out.”

“Free to do it aall myyyyy waaayyyy!” Gordon finished the section with a blemish, and quietened, waiting. Question and answer phrases were one thing, but there was no guarantee that Scott would continue into the next section.

Big brother didn’t disappoint.

“I think it’s time that you and I arranged a heart to heart.”

Gordon’s hyena-grin settled into something more genuinely pleased as he picked up the answer, tapping lightly on the false wall for emphasis.

“Kings don’t need advice from little hornbills for a start!”

“If this is where the monarchy is headed count me out!” Scott barked, answering knocks in time with the words. “Out of service, out of Africa, I wouldn’t hang about! This child is getting wildly out of wiiing!” Scott was no Virgil – none of them were – but he could hold a tune when he put his mind to it. With nothing else to do except knock on his side of the wall to emphasis certain words (and Gordon was fairly sure the ‘child’ he was actually thinking of was not a certain fictional lion cub, but maybe an annoying but lovable squid instead), now was a perfect time to put his mind to it.

“Oh I just can’t wait to be king!” Gordon replied. “Everybody look left! Everybody look right!” He whipped his head around, even though there was no-one there to- oh, hello John! He gave his older brother a cheeky wave, and got an eyeroll for his trouble although the spaceman stayed mercifully quiet. “Everywhere you look I’m, standing in spotlight!”

“Not. Yet.” Scott answered, biting it out in a perfectly-Zazu fashion, and Gordon grinned triumphantly at John before launching into the choral line. To his absolute delight, Scott joined in.

“Let every creature go for broke and sing! Let’s hear it in the herd and on the wing! It’s gonna be King Simba’s finest fling!”

“Oh I just can’t waaaaaaiiiit… to be kiiiiiiiing!” Gordon finished with a flourish. In front of him, John shook his head and vanished, maybe to report to Virgil. Or maybe to explain to Grandma what her grandsons were doing.

“Are you satisfied now?” Scott asked. He sounded a little less stressed, which Gordon counted as a win, especially as the entire operation had taken less than five minutes, and Thunderbird Two was still nowhere near landing.

Fifty-five more minutes to fill before Virgil and his ion wrench came to the rescue.

“No way, Scotty,” he drawled, settling back against the wall again and ignoring the murderous silence. “What next?”

“No.”

So it was back to that was it?

“Hakuna Matata,” he drawled, and heard a sigh of resignation behind him. “What a wonderful thing.”

By the time Virgil finally arrived an hour later, freshly showered and clearly in no hurry to rescue their brother, although he was dutifully carrying his toolbox, Gordon had dragged Scott through every movie duet he could think of and then some.

It was a dishevelled eldest brother desperately wanting a shower of his own that eventually found freedom, but a smiling one.

#irrelief #irrelief2020 #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #tsari writes fanfiction #darkestwolfx #scott tracy #gordon tracy #the lion king #song fic #john tracy #virgil tracy #family #i couldn't think of another title so you get this awful pun i'm sorry #thunderfluff

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queenjunoking · 3 years

Text

Wolf Taming Pt 25 (2/2)

CW: Noncon - Shock Collar - Pain - Petplay - Drugs - Kidnapping - Manipulation

It was 6:30.

The moment it hit 6:30 I received a call. I was expecting it to be from the same number. But it wasn't. A chill went down my spine.

It was Eos.

There was no red notification. I just let it ring. Eventually my phone went silent. Unfortunately it wasn't silent for long and it began to ring. It was Eos again.

I was in such a hurry I hadn't had time to think about who filed the report. Eos was here but… surely Sasha acting out on a phone call wasn't enough to get her taken away from me? Things misbehaved when they were new.

Did… Satori give me up? Did he report me? He always pushed me to get people to help me around the house. Did he not think I could take care of her on my own?

It was 6:35.

My phone rang for the third time. It wasn't going to stop. There was no point in waiting any longer. I answered the call.

"Sweetheart." Eos was laying the honey on thick the moment she knew I was on the line. I could tell when she was really upset with me, she’d treated me like a misbehaving child. "You need to let us in. I don't want this to get worse for you."

"Why are you here Eos?" I came across as more panicked than I wanted too.

"I was asked to come assist because we knew eachother and they thought that I might be able to talk to you. And honestly hun, you have a history of hurting people very badly when they try taking something from you. We both know how that retrieval team ended up after you were done with them. The Society wishes to do this without violence if possible."

"Where is she going to be taken?" I was starting to have trouble breathing.

I heard her sigh. "Sweetheart. I was informed of the vote late last night and called in favors to spare Sasha from auction. Instead of being put up for anyone to buy she will be living with me."

I felt my heart stop. "No. No no no. You can't have her. You're going to break her."

"No Sweetheart. I'm going to make her better. If you let us in I'll even let you come and see her. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"I'm not letting you in." My hands were starting to shake.

"Z." I felt irritation creeping into her voice. "You're being irrational." She smoothed out her voice again. She sounded like she was trying to placate a child. "Have you slept at all tonight sweety? I know you have trouble sleeping since that night. It can be hard to make good decisions while you're sleep deprived."

"I'm sleeping just fine!" I yelled into the phone. The stress was becoming too much. It was getting hard to catch my breath.

The phone went silent for a moment. I heard some mumbling, Eos must be talking to someone.

"Z. Sweetheart. Are you ok? You sound like you’re on the edge of a panic attack.” The sound of concern in her voice infuriated me.

“I’m fine!” I was having trouble keeping my voice down.

“Z. Darling. I'm only going to be allowed to ask this one more time without you facing repercussions. If we need to we can get in without your help. But I'd rather you let us in. Will you let us inside? There’s no reason for you to get in trouble over this."

I went silent. Getting in trouble would make getting Sasha back almost impossible. I couldn't stay down here forever. Either they'd break in or we'd be trapped here until we starved. I felt tears stain my cheeks as I disarmed the security.

"Thank you sweetheart. We'll be down in a moment. It’s going to be ok." With that Eos ended the call.

I went to one of my apps and followed the instructions. It wasn’t often I felt like this but I needed something to focus on. A small ball appeared on the screen. Some text appears on it.

-Breathe in-

I breathed in until the ball fully inflated.

-Hold-

I held my breath.

-Breathe out-

I breathed out slowly until the ball was back to its original size.

I kept following the instructions until I started to feel it pass.

Then they walked into the room. Four masked men followed by Eos. The people that did this job wore masks to conceal their identity so they couldn’t be retaliated against. Eos stood by the door as the men approached the cage.

“Please open the cage door Miss Z.” Their voice was synthesized.

I hesitated for a moment, but it was pointless to resist at this point. I unlocked the cage door. One held the door open so no one could get locked inside. Two of them went inside and lifted Sasha. The fourth was watching me to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid.

“Please… don’t hurt her.” I wanted to reach out and touch her as they carried her past me, but the one standing next to me held me back.

“She will be fine Miss Z. She will be transported to Mistress Eos’s farm where she will be trained as she should have been.” He looked down at me. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew there was contempt in his eyes.

“Please take her to my farm. I’m going to stay here and talk with Z.” Eos approached us. The mask man nodded and went upstairs. I went to follow him and Eos placed a hand on my shoulder. I hated when people touched me.

“I want to see her.” I glared at her.

“It’s not going to make you feel any better.” She wasn’t hiding her condescension anymore. “You know Z, I couldn’t help but notice her collar was missing.”

I looked over in the corner of the room where I threw the remains. “There was an issue with it I tried to fix. Guess my hand slipped.” My eyes narrowed at her.

She sighed and rolled her eyes at me. “You really should be thanking me Z. She would have been put up for auction. Would you want Callidora going up for auction or would you rather belong to someone you knew?”

“Callidora?” I blinked in disbelief.

“Hm?” She was beginning to look disinterested.

“That’s not her name. Her name is Sasha.” She couldn’t just give her a new name. That was her name.

“Z. Sweety.” I hated this tone. “It's the name you gave her. I mean, do you really want me using the name you picked out when she’s in my stables?”

“Stables? Why would she be in the stables?” Sasha was a canine. I had her registered as one.

“I’m sorry Z, but she was wasting her potential here. I mean look at this place.” She gestured to the room. “Locked in some cage to be taken out occasionally when you see fit? Callidora deserves more. She’ll get a nice spot in my stables and she’ll get to walk around outside daily. Under my gentle guidance she’ll shed the bad habits you allowed her to occur. The pain she’ll go through is your fault. It's easier to remove your influence entirely. Her name is just another bad thing you have your fingerprints on.”

“You’re going to make Sasha a horse.” I blinked in disbelief.

“No honey. Sasha is a dog’s name. I’m going to make Callidora a horse.” She crossed her arms and started tapping her fingers impatiently.

“No! You can’t do that! She’s mine!” I was starting to lose my temper

“You know Z, you become so childish when you’re out of your element. What are you going to do? Stomp your foot until I give her back? Know your place.” Her eyes narrowed at me.

“I know my place! This is my house! You're in my Wolf’s Den! You and those assholes are the ones invading my place! You don’t have any right to be here!” The stress was too much for me to handle, I couldn’t stop the words from spewing out of my mouth. I was digging a hole for myself but I didn’t care.

“This is your place? I’m the one who found this house for you because you didn’t know how the process worked.” She jabbed me in the chest with her finger. “I’m the one who decorated it for you because you couldn’t be bothered to make anything look nice.” She jabbed me again. “When you were going through the process to get Penny I’m the one who showed you how to do it.” Jab. “Then when you got bored of her I showed you how to sell her.” Jab. “Now I’m cleaning up after your mess because you couldn’t train your dog right.” Jab.

“Sasha doesn’t need you to train her! We were doing just fine. You don’t care about anyone you train. They’re just things to you. All you do is run them ragged day after day. How is that any better!” I was training Sasha the right way. I cared about her and personalized her training.

“I may train my slaves harshly Z, but they’re all the better for it. My farm is known for the spectacular animals I create. But I’ve seen what you’ve done. You got quite the epithet for it. Z the Torturer.” I glared at her. “Oh, don’t you dare pull that annoying face at me. I’ve seen your work. I know what you did to all those assigned to you in the Auction Hall. Too broken to be good for anything really. None of them could be trained to obey anything, they barely reacted to anything. You could whip any of the people who had the misfortune of being assigned to you and they wouldn’t shed a single tear.”

“They only had to spend a small amount of time with me before they moved on and they were better for it. The people under your care have to deal with you for the rest of their lives. I can’t think of a worse fate.” She raised her hand in the air like she was going to slap me. A few seconds past before she took a deep breath and lowered her arm.

“Only have to deal with you for a small amount of time? I don’t think you know how trauma works dear. I think the only time I ever saw really react is when one of them was on stage and you walked into the room. They started screaming their head off when they recognized you. Though I’ll occasionally see the eyes of a statue in the Auction House go wide when you walk past. It’s a good thing they can’t make any noise. I really can’t believe you. The Auction House gave you anything you could have ever wanted to continue that work and it still wasn’t good enough for Z.” She bent down and got close to my ear and whispered “Was losing Bridget too much for you? If you wanted to you could always go see her. I’m not sure she’d recognize you though.”

“Shut up.” It came out as a whisper. I was trying to keep my temper under control. I just wanted to be alone.

“Don’t get mad at me Z. I wasn’t the one that broke my own friend. I can’t imagine how terrible that must have been. Seeing my friend and getting a glimmer of hope before they put me in that… thing you made. I bet that feeling of betrayal stung until they just couldn’t feel anything anymore.”

“Shut up!“ I screamed at her. I kept trying to resist her bait but I couldn’t anymore. “I wasn’t going to let anyone else touch her! I care about the people I worked with!”

“Oh Z.” There was a genuine sound of pity in her voice. “You can’t possibly think you’re capable of that.”

“I do! I care about them a lot! And I don’t need your help!” I was fuming. I cared about everyone I worked with. I was doing what was best for them. They were better off with me than any of the other breakers.

“Have you ever been grateful about anything in your life Z? You’re only here right now because I helped you get here. You got to join the Society and I helped you fill out everything you needed. I didn’t even ask for anything from you. When you needed obvious direction I got you a job in the auction house as a breaker. I could have just left you to your work. It's the only job you showed any aptitude for. But you got bored and didn’t want to do it anymore. Poor little Z couldn’t be grateful for her lot in life. You got that disgusting little epithet and on that virtue alone you were allowed to own slaves. People of your rank don’t get to do that for a reason.” She wore the smugness in her voice like a trophy.

“At least I earned my position! I got my epithet on my own merits. You got your position because you were born into it! You never had to earn anything in your entire life!”

I felt a pain in my cheek as my head whipped to the side. I blinked a few times to clear my vision. She... slapped me?

“You ungrateful little filly! I’ve earned my position.” She was seething.

“Filly?” I was still trying to clear my head.

“Yes Filly you stupid bitch.” She practically spat it at me. “If you had just let yourself get captured none of this would be happening. Neither of us would have met Sasha. You’d have been a show pony in my stable and Sasha would have gotten a normal life. Wouldn't that have been a nicer fate for her? Having a fulfilling life with friends and family? But you resisted and you cost her everything. You were the perfect target. No one gave a shit about you. You had one friend and she was broken by your hand. Had you just vanished like you were supposed to I bet she’d probably be safe at home right now as well. You do nothing but hurt anyone you have affection for.”

“You… were the one who sent the retrieval team?” I didn’t know what else to say. She had knocked the wind out of me.

She placed a finger under my chin and tipped my head back so I met her eyes. “You’re quite slow sometimes Z. But a lot of animals are pretty dumb. Just because you dress the part of master doesn’t mean you belong. Metaphorically of course, you never actually dressed the part. You barely take care of yourself half the time.”

She let go of my chin and slapped me across the face again, sending me to the floor. I didn’t know how to react. I just touched my cheek as I looked up to her. She examined her hand as she spoke. “She could have had such a lovely life and it could have cost nothing. Because that's what you are. Nothing. Zilch. Zero. Z. Worthless. A nothing name for a big nothing. Too stupid to even think up a new name for her paperwork she was filling out to join one of the most powerful organizations on the planet. So I wrote down one that suited you. I bet you wanted someone else to name you anyway. I would have named you Callisto.”

She knelt down beside me and grabbed my chin again, pulling my head left and right like she was examining an animal. “Your only value is that you're still quite beautiful. Unfortunately you lost that cute quality I wanted in a filly when you snapped that night. I’d pay a lot of money to see first hand what made you snap like you did. You looked so cute before. So skittish and nervous. But then those stupid assholes failed such an easy mission. Now you look like this. Somewhere between a resting bitchface and someone who hasn’t slept in a week. You have no idea how much pleasure it’s brought me knowing that I’m the reason you get so little sleep. I’m the boogeyman in your closet and you didn’t even know.”

She lifted her hand up and I did something I’m not sure I had done since I joined the Society.

I flinched.

She gave me a smile and lowered her hand before standing back up. “You know, it's not too late to give up your membership in the society Z. Become what you were obviously meant to be. No one would blame you. I'm sure there would be a long line of people to buy someone as pretty as you. Be glad you have that Z because you have nothing else to offer anyone. Why bother pretending anymore? Wouldn’t it be nice to finally be the one to be up for auction? Getting to hear all the people who want you enough to put down money to buy you? Wouldn’t it be nice if anyone wanted you Z?”

She stared at me for a few moments. “I see you’re too dumb to realize I was waiting for an answer. Maybe you’re too dumb to be a filly. Tell you what Z. If you ever feel like giving up and stopping this stupid act all you have to do is come to me and ask. I’m not sure what I’ll do with you, but I’m sure I can find a purpose for you. Maybe you’ll even get to see Callidora again.”

“Her name is Sasha.” It was the only thing I could muster up.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Stand up Z.” I sat on the ground just staring at her. I was still trying to take in everything she had been saying. “I said stand up!”

I slowly got to my feet. Eos held her arms out wide and approached me. I tried to take a step back, but I was against the cage. She grabbed me and pulled me into an embrace. I felt my entire body tense up.

“Good luck rebuilding Z. You have no money, no friends and, most importantly, no Sasha. You didn't deserve to have any of those things anyway." She let go and took a few steps back away from me. “I want you to thank me Z. Be grateful that I took in your pet. Thank me for not letting her get put up for auction. For training her since you failed at such a simple task.”

I couldn’t feel any rage or hate. I didn’t even feel sad. I just felt numb and stared at her.

“Ah. Right. You’re too stupid to read between the lines. How about I just spell it out for you? You’re going to be a good girl from here on out. Because you won't be the one to suffer if you aren’t. I don't think you care if you suffer so there's no point in punishing you. But your former pet will be the one to suffer for anything you do wrong from here on out. Everything that happens to Sasha is all your fault because you were the dumb filly who didn’t know her place.”

She was right. I didn’t really care what she did to me. But I didn’t want her to hurt Sasha. She was going to look for every excuse she could to hurt her.

“Now dear. I believe you were going to thank me for something?” She started tapping her arm impatiently.

“Thank you Eos…” I mumbled, not meeting her eyes.

“Louder. Look at me when you’re speaking.” She didn’t try to hide how annoyed she sounded.

I looked into her eyes. I could see the contempt in them. “Thank you Eos.”

“Mistress Eos.” Ice crept into her voice.

“Thank you Mistress Eos.”

“Good girl Z. Keep being a good girl. I'm watching you." She flashed me a smug smile and walked out of the Wolf’s Den.

By now Sasha was on her way to her farm. Once the drugs wore off Eos would start her training. I put my back against the cage and slid down to the floor. I felt tears sting my cheeks. I felt lost.

What was I supposed to do now?

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echopulse-archive · 3 years

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if they had a kid meme. | @anamnesiis

Name: Celestia

Gender: ( cis ) Female

General Appearance: An even mix of both, though Celestia takes more of an appearance to Emet-Selch. With sharp, gold eyes (she, too, always looks tired.) his eye brows, and she did inherited the third eye, though it is hidden by a fringe. She has Aria’s hair color, (though more of a darker color.) and has her nose, mouth and face-shape. Long and sleek hair, she is a bit taller than Aria, yet a head shorter than Emet-Selch.

Personality: She’s rather quiet at times, doesn’t enjoy talking, and can be very observant. Celestia does have a dry sense of humor, and uses sarcastic speech often. However, she is kind and sweet. Depicted as quick-witted, and clever as well.

Special Talents: Magick, for sure. An all-around spellcaster, her magicks are much more potent than average from Amaurotine parentage. She also learned art from her mother, sketching and doodling portraits of people, beasts, and animals in a little pad. Can summon Eos/Selene/Seraph at a whim, you could often find one of the fae sitting on her shoulder.

Who they like better: Aria.

Who they take after more: Emet-Selch.

Personal Head canon: She sometimes rabbles about things if they don’t go her way, jokingly blaming higher divinities for her misfortunes (celestia vc: *gestures to the sky* see the gods hate me!) aka a bit of a princess. ---She also wishes to spend more time with her father, as he is rather distant towards her, ever since she was a small child, never really spent a lot of time with her, and she didn’t understand why.

Face Claim:

#anamnesiis #eos whispers. ( answered. )#but it was i dio. ( ooc. )#ok but tHANK U #had to give her the galvus trait of beautiful hair

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chcrrypcps · 6 years

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(f) korean names; mix n match !

80+ KOREAN SYLLABLES to mix n match together to form names!

-- common hanja meanings attached !

**not all name meanings are listed & not all names have to mean something-- some people just like the sound of them!

(male version here!)

애 (ae)

愛 love, like, to be fond of

哀 sad, mournful, pitiful, pity

涯 shore, bank, water's edge

埃 fine dust, dirt

碍 obstruct, block, deter, hinder

艾 artemisia, mugwort

아 (ah)

兒 son, child, oneself; final part

亞 second

我 our, us, my, we

牙 tooth, teeth; serrated

芽 bud, sprout

雅 elegant, graceful, refined

안 (ahn)

安 peaceful, tranquil, quiet

案 table, bench

眼 eye; hole

岸 bank, shore, beach coast

顔 face, facial appearance

배 (bae)

北 north, northern

配 match, pair; equal

杯 cup, glass

輩 generation, lifetime

korean for pear

백 (baek)

白 pure, white, unblemished

百 one hundred

비 (bi/bee)

秘 secret, mysterious

悲 sorrow, grief; sorry, sad

飛 fly, go quickly

卑 humble, low, inferior

肥 fat, plump; fertile

丕 grand, glorious, distinguished

빈 (bin)

彬 cultivated; well-bred

분 (boon/bun)

芬 perfume. fragrance. aroma

憤 resentment, hatred

보 (bo)

保 protect, defend, care for

寶 treasure, jewel, precious, rare

普 universal, widespread

補 mend, fix, repair, restore

甫 begin, man, father, great

輔 protect, assist

복 (bok)

福 happiness, good fortune, blessings

卜 fortune, prophecy

馥 fragrance, scent, aroma

별 (byul/byeol)

korean for star

차 (cha)

茶 tea

差 different, wrong

채 (chae)

采 gather, collect; pick, pluck

採 gather collect, pick select

彩 hue, colors

초 (cho)

草 grass straw herbs

哨 whistle, chirp

焦 burned scorched; anxious vexes

천 (cheon/chun)

千 thousand

天 sky, heaven; celestial, god

川 stream, river

泉 spring, fountain; wealth money

淺 shallow, superficial

賤 cheap, worthless

다 (dah/da)

多 much, many

茶 tea

도 (do)

道 path, road

島 island

都 elegant refined

徒 disciple, follower

桃 peach; marriage

悼 grieve, lament, mourn

어 (eo)

語 language. words, expressions

漁 to seize; to pursue

御 chariot

억 (eok)

億 many; hundred million

憶 memory; to remember, reflect upon

抑 to repress, curb, or hinder

언 (eon)

言 words, speech, speak

彦 elegant

은 (eun)

銀 silver, cash, money, wealth

恩 kindness, mercy, charity

隱 hidden, secret

殷 abundant, flourishing; many, great

誾 respectful

가 (gah/ga)

歌 song, lyrics; sing chant; praise

價 price, value

佳 good, auspicious; beautiful; delightful

고 (goh/go)

古 old, classic, ancient

苦 bitter; hardship, suffering

固 strength; solid, strong

孤 orphan; solitary

故 ancient, old

枯 withered, decayed

국 (guk/gook/kuk/kook)

國 nation, country

菊 chrysanthemum

규 (gyu/kyu)

叫 cry, shout; hail, greet, call

하 (ha)

夏 summer

河 river, stream

荷 lotus, water lily

해 (hae )

海 sea, ocean

害 harm, destroy, kill

희 (hee/hui)

喜 joy, love

希 rare; hope, expectations

稀 rare, unusual

姬 beauty

熹 warm bright; glimmer

禧 happiness

화 (hwa)

火 fire flame; burn; anger, rage

花 flower, blossoms

和 harmony, peace; peaceful, calm

嬅 beautiful

禍 misfortune, calamity, disaster

혜 (hye)

慧 bright, intelligent

현 (hyun/hyeon)

賢 virtuous, worthy, good

炫 shine glitter; show off, flaunt

玄 deep, profound

효 (hyo)

曉 dawn, daybreak; clear

孝 mourning; obedience

일 (il/eel)

一 one; alone, singular

日 sun, day, daytime

인 (in)

麟 female chinese unicorn

人 people, mankind, man, population

仁 humane; benevolence, kindness

認 to recognize, know, understand

寅 respect, reverence

忍 endure, bear, suffer

재 (jae)

才 talent, ability

災 calamity, disaster, catastrophe

財 wealth, riches

宰 to slaughter; to rule

栽 to cultivate; to care for plants

자 (jah/ja)

子 child, offspring; fruit, seed

資 property; wealth

慈 kind, charitable, benevolent

紫 purple, violet; amethyst

磁 porcelain

지 (ji/jee)

地 earth, ground, soil

紙 paper

志 determination, will

智 wisdom, knowledge, intelligence

池 pool, pond

진 (jin)

珍 precious, valuable; rare

眞 genuine, real, true

주 (ju/joo)

晝 daytime, daylight

朱 cinnabar, vermilion

酒 wine, spirits, liquor

宙 time as a concept

洲 island

珠 precious stone, gem, jewel, pearl

정 (jung/jeong)

正 right, proper, correct

情 emotion, feeling, sentiment

程 journey, trip

精 essence, spirit

征 invade, attack, conquer

靜 gentle, quiet, still

淨 pure, clean, unspoiled

貞 loyal; virtuous pure

晶 crystal; clear, bright, radiant

汀 beach, bank, shore

禎 good omen, lucky

경 (kyung/kyeong/gyung/gyeong)

敬 respect, honor

輕 light, gentle

警 guard, watch

鏡 mirror, glass

卿 noble

炅 brilliance

瓊 jade; rare, precious; elegant

미 (mi)

美 beautiful, pretty; pleasing

微 small, tiny

迷 bewitch, charm

민 (min)

閔 mourn, grieve

憫 pity, sympathy

敏 clever, smart

旻 heaven

玟 gem

문 (moon/mun)

門/ gate, entrance

文 literature, writing; culture

명 (myung/myeong)

命 life; destiny, fate, luck

明 light, bright, brilliant

冥 dark, gloomy; night

나 (nah/na)

奈 bear, endure

내 (nae)

耐 patient; endure, bear

남 (nam)

南 south

오 (oh)

五 five

午 noon

惡 evil, wicked, bad, foul

傲 proud, haughty; overbearing

嗚 sound of crying, sobbing; sound of sadness

娛 pleasure, enjoyment, amusement

汚 filthy, dirty, impure

烏 crow, raven; black, dark

옥 (ok)

鈺 rare; treasure

玉 jade; precious stone, gem

沃 rich, fertile

라 (rah/ra la/lah)

裸 bare, nude

란 (ran)

蘭 orchid; elegant, graceful

亂 create chaos; revolt

리 (ri/li/lee/ree)

李 plum

梨 pear

림 (rim)

林 forest, grove

린 (rin)

麟 female chinese unicorn

사 (sa)

四 four

使 messenger

死 die; death; dead

士 scholar

思 think, consider, ponder

師 teacher, master

私 secret, private, personal

絲 silk, fine thread

:沙 sand, pebbles

蛇 snake

詐 trick, cheat, swindle, feign

邪 wrong, evil, vicious

唆 mischievous

상 (sang)

上 top, superior, highest

賞 reward, prize

傷 wound, injury

常 common, normal, frequent

象 ivory; elephant

喪 mourn

祥 happiness; good luck, good omen

裳 beautiful

霜 frost; crystallized

서 (seo)

西 west

庶 numerous various

徐 composed, dignified; quiet, calm

恕 forgiveness; mercy

誓 swear, pledge, promise, oath

설 (seol)

雪 snow; avenge

선 (seon/sun)

瑄 ornamental jade

仙 transcendent, immortal

善 good, virtuous, charitable, kind

鮮 fresh, new; rare

璿 fine jade

璇 star; beautiful jade

성 (seong)

晟 clear bright; splendor

城 castle; city, town

誠 sincere, honest; true, real

聲 sound, voice, music

聖 holy, sacred

盛 abundant, flourishing

星 a star, planet

승 (seung)

勝 victory

承 succeed

乘 rise, ascend

昇 peace; rise, ascent

신 (shin)

辰 early morning

信 trust, believe

新 new, fresh, modern

神 spirit; god, supernatural being

晨 early morning, daybreak

辛 bitter

시 (si/shi)

矢 vow, swear, promise

時 time season; age, period, era

施 grant, bestow, give

詩 poetry

屍 corpse

소 (so)

消 vanish, die out, melt away

笑 smile, laugh

素 white silk

昭 bright, luminous

蘇 revive, resurrect

슥 (sook/suk)

宿 constellation

淑 good, pure, virtuous, charming

순 (soon/sun)

純 pure clean simple

循 obey, comply, follow

殉 to be a martyr, to die for a cause

脣 lips

淳 honest, simple

수 (su/soo)

樹 plant, tree

守 defend, protect, guard

收 gather collect; harvest

秀 refined, elegant, graceful

壽 old age, long life

殊 different, special, unusual

와 (wah/wa)

瓦 pottery

왕 (wang)

王 king, ruler, royalty

旺 prosperous; prosperity

위 (wee/wi)

位 throne, rank, status

偉 great, robust, extraordinary

危 dangerous

威 power; powerful; dominate

慰 calm, comfort, console

衛 guard, protect, defend

違 disobey, defy, rebel; be different than

尉 officer, military rank

원 (won)

源 spring

園 garden, park, orchard

原 beginning, source, origin

願 to wish, ambition, desire, want

怨 hatred, enemy, resentment

苑 park, garden

瑗 a ring of fine jade

媛 beauty; a beautiful woman

우 (woo/wu)

友 friend, companion

牛 cow, ox, bull

雨 rain; rainy

優 superior; excellent

宇 house, building, structure

愚 stupid, foolish

憂 sad, grievance; grief, melancholy

羽 feather, plume; wings

佑 to help, bless, protect

祐 protection; divine intervention

욱 (wook/ook)

頊 grief, anxiety

旭 brilliance, radiant

昱 dazzling, bright light, sunlight

煜 bright, shining, brilliant

郁 sweet smelling; rich in aroma

운 (woon/wun)

運 luck, fortune

雲 clouds

云 clouds

芸 art, talent ability; rue (herb)

야 (yah/ya)

夜 night, dark

野 open country, wilderness, field

惹 irritate, offend

예 (yeh)

禮 manners, courtesy, customs, rights

藝 art, talent, ability

豫 comfortable, relaxed, at ease

譽 fame, praise

銳 sharp, keen, pointed, acute

隷 servant

睿 shrewd; clever, keen

芮 tiny, small

醴 sweet wine; sweet spring

여 (yeo)

女 woman, girl; feminine

旅 journey, travel; traveler

與 to give or to grant

餘 surplus, extra, excess, remainder

麗 beautiful, magnificent, elegant

勵 to strive, encourage

廬 hut, cottage

驪 a pure black horse, stallion

열 (yeol)

烈 fiery, violent, ardent

劣 bad, inferior

연 (yeon)

然 promise, pledge

燃 burn; ignite

緣 karma, fate

戀 love, long for, yearn for

燕 swallow (bird) ; comfort, enjoy

蓮 lotus, water lily; paradise

漣 flowing water; ripples

영 (yeong/young)

永 perpetual, eternal, forever

英 petal, flower, leaf; brave, hero; england, english

令 commandant, magistrate

領 neck, collar; leader, guide

映 to reflect light

榮 glory, honor; to flourish or prosper

寧 serenity, peace; peaceful

嶺 mountain ridge, mountain peak

影 shadow, reflection; photograph

泳 to dive, swim

詠 sing, hum, chant

零 zero; fragment, fraction, sliver

靈 spirit, soul

瑛 crystal, gem

盈 full, overflowing

이 (yi/ie)

二 two; twice

利 gains, profit

李 plum

易 change

異 different, unusual, strange

梨 pear; opera

泥 earth, mud, clay

怡 harmony, joy, pleasure; to be glad

유 (yoo/yu)

柳 willow tree; pleasure

遊 wander, roam, travel

柔 soft, gentle

維 maintain, preserve

裕 rich, abundant, plentiful

劉 to kill, destroy

육 (yook/yuk)

六 six

율 (yool/yul)

栗 chestnuts, chestnut tree

윤 (yoon/yun)

潤 soft, moist; sleek, fresh

尹 govern, oversee, direct

胤 heir, successor

#rph #name help #korean names #writing reference #reference #korean #krp #character help #muse help #mine #queued #if you guys want i can try to make a male version !

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mzargentum · 7 years

Text

The Stormsender's Daughter| Prologue

Prologue| Chapter I

@ravagekamisama @aquathemermaidstripper @digitalkanvas @prettyprompto @insomniasix

The sun set awakened my slumber for the night holds the key. The key to quiet. We never realize the beauty of nature until it’s all that surrounds us, or until its gone. Willownoire. The forest of old. Beckoned the moonlight as it shown over the trees illuminating the veins in its bark, the roots at its base, the soil pulsating under my feet at every step. The flower petals glistened like a blue fire within. The subtle breeze blowing its crystal like pollen past your nose. Your eyes could follow the crystal shards into the sky and you would stop at the coeurl curled up on top of a large branch cleaning its paw. Beautiful creatures. So delicate and poised, yet electrifyingly dangerous. Still peaceful in the right setting. As were the other creatures that roamed freely and peacefully among the forest, among the people who reside within these trees. Hidden from the metallic civilizations that lie beyond the dirt and grass. Everyone….everything had a soul here. Peace. Love. Tranquility. We do not fret to misfortune and we do not fear the storm…for I am it’s sender and this was my kingdom. Welcome the downpour as it blessed my beloved and I with a humble gift, a child of royalty, beauty, and power. Asteria Zephyr; the Pythoness. She grew alongside the behemoths, brash and strong, yet elegant and beautiful. Her silver hair danced through the wind. Summoner of storms, telepathically bound to the elements. Seeing and hearing all. Adapted to all aspects of life. Knowing peace. The Astrals, as I, were not always the Gods among the elements, but the keepers of the peace. The deliverance from evil. A brotherhood of none other. Titan, Shiva, Leviathan, Bahamut, beside me to marvel at her glory in our conquest for peace. Perfection. Beloved by all. As well as those who could end her with a mere flame of a kiss. A man, so unruly yet charming, witnessed the beauty from afar. Unraveled by her angelic form, the rage of the storm surging through her veins, the burning passion brewing in his chest. In his eyes. I could sense it. He would bring destruction of everything I loved. He wooed the innocent fawn with his treacherous gaze to which I ceased without a strap of hesitation. The glare he returned to me chilled my bones to the core, but I firmly stood. Do not fret, they all said, she is a goddess among us. They judged my worry and my fear and advised I ceased for I am the storm. I am not to know fear. But I knew what remained of my heart would soon cease to exist. The man, so cunning with his ways, slowly convinced Asteria of my foolishness. That they were destined to love for eternity. That their souls were to be forever bound and to blossom. With this, the man took my beloved Asteria under the stars, illuminated by the moon. I sought to end this, but my dear Asteria would not see harm come to her beloved. She beseeched I end my worrisome ways and allow her to be free to love and know peace with the man. Alas, I sided against it much to her dismay. My beloved ashamed of my decision to break our daughter’s heart. I knew no good was to come of this man, but the thought of losing Asteria was more than my old bones could bare. I ceased my ambitions on the sole condition that he would never be given my blessing to marry my beloved child. Although her glee cooled my nerves, I felt the devil’s flame brewing beneath my feet. The man was furious, burning in anger. He loved the Pythoness and wanted nothing more in this world than to make her his own. It was his mission. His goal and he was to achieve it by any means he saw fit. The man approached my throne asking once more for Asteria’s hand in marriage, only for me to refuse. He asked once and only once before he swiftly exited and began to lay waist to my forest, to the people residing within it, with ravaging flames. The crystals were replaced with embers and floated through the blackened wind. He asked once more for Asteria’s hand. I refused. Before my eyes, my beloved was slain by a swift slice to her throat. She fell dead into my arms as I knelt cradling her corpse. The man approached and asked once more. I refused yet again. The man lunged toward my body to strike his final blow before as I hurled a bolt of lightning toward him. I was prepared to die as long as my beloved daughter would never have to live under his scourge. Just as he closed in, my dearest Asteria intercepted the blade of her beloved. No longer allowing him to lay waist to her home. Betrayed and heartbroken, the man hurled his sword into Asteria’s heart. Her blood seeped into the dirt below mixed with her salted tears as the pain seared through her fragile body. Placing her hands upon the blade, the raging flames scorched her pure essence. Her hands quivered and turned to black as the man’s vengeful daemonic essence seeped through her veins up her arms. Her legs were limp as her body chilled welcoming her death. Her weak state allowed his essence to engulf her legs. Accepting her fate, she raised her head to the man before her body began to illuminate a radiant blue from the moonlight’s gentle touch. He stared on in anger and impaled her once more. She was dying, but she still breathed, still had power. “I will not stop you…but you shall never claim me as your prize”. At her final words, the man withdrew his sword from his lover’s body, all evidence of life escaped her as her body fell to the dirt in a pile of ash. The man looked upon me, such fury emitting from his eyes. She was dead, but not gone. Asteria’s final wish, her final spell, to grant her spirit back to my being to one day deem worthy a new prodigy. A new Pythoness. The man reverted himself to a calmed tone. Grazed his blade against his palm sweating to me, an oath in blood. “Ramuh, King of Willownoire….I pledge, whenever you deem a putrid soul a worthy vessel…I will be there…somehow…someway..I will be there…and when the power of the Pythoness is in my hands….you will remember this name”. Ifrit. It was a name that was scarred into my mind. Branded in my memory for eternity, but I knew no fear. For I…am the storm.

Centuries passed. Willownoire prospered. Kings, queens. The forests grew. I ascended as well as my brethren. Ifrit was a mere memory. Erased from the prophecy. Peace was at its peak…or so I thought. War erupted between the kingdom of Niflheim and Lucis. The weakened forces of Willownoire were soon taken by the imperial army. Willownoire became an outcasted nation. Hidden within the mist and trees. Marooned. Forbidden. Forgotten. Then finally, light shown upon a bright December morning. The kingdom welcomed the tiny screams of a newborn baby. A girl. A princess. Fingertips and toes pitch black and silver hair. Merely days after her birth, word of the mysterious princess flooded throughout Eos. There was finally hope of Willownoire emerging from the shadows yet again. Alas, that hope was lost as word of the princess welcomes a maroon haired man to the forest gates. His grin appeared as bloodthirsty fangs in search for its next meal. His amber eyes displayed a forbidden flame. A man of no consequence. He peered to the newborn babe who had just awoken from her slumber to see his mischievous grin. “why…I almost did not believe it. The Pythoness…as she lives and breathes….a pleasure to meet you at last, your highness”. He bowed at her presence removing his hat in a seemingly heartfelt gesture. Though the man was gentlemanly, he was sure to reaffirm his grip on the king’s throat by demanding, as gratitude for allowing their once prosperous kingdom to live in peace, they allow him to escort the princess to Niflheim to keep as his betrothed until she was old enough to marry reassuring them they would see her again. Not willing to sacrifice the kingdom for the love of their child, they reluctantly comply. The man whisked the princess away from her family falsely leaving the sense of hope in their hearts. Hope that the storm would pass. Little did they know, the storm took the only true hope they had away and that there would only be death and destruction in its wake.

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