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letterboxd · 3 years

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Best of Sundance 2021.

From pandemic-era stories, via portraits of grief, to the serendipitous 1969 trilogy, the Letterboxd crew recaps our favorite films from the first major festival of the year.

Sundance heralds a new season of storytelling, with insights into what’s concerning filmmakers at present, and what artistic innovations may be on the horizon. As with every film festival, there were spooky coincidences and intersecting themes, whether it was a proliferation of pandemic-era stories, or extraordinary portraits of women working through grief (Land, Hive, The World to Come), or the incredible serendipity of the festival’s ‘1969 trilogy’, covering pivotal moments in Black American history: Summer of Soul (...Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Judas and the Black Messiah and the joyful Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street.

The hybrid model of this year’s Sundance meant more film lovers across the United States—a record number of you, in fact—‘attended’ the prestigious indie showcase. Our Festiville team (Gemma Gracewood, Aaron Yap, Ella Kemp, Selome Hailu, Jack Moulton and Dominic Corry) scanned your Letterboxd reviews and compared them with our notes to arrive at these seventeen feature-length documentary and narrative picks from Sundance 2021. There are plenty more we enjoyed, but these are the films we can’t stop thinking about.

Documentary features

Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) Directed by Ahmir-Khalib Thompson (AKA Questlove)

One hot summer five decades ago, there was a free concert series at a park in Harlem. It was huge, and it was lovely, and then it was forgotten. The Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969 brought together some of the world’s most beloved Black artists to connect with Black audiences. The star power and the size of the crowds alone should have been enough to immortalize the event à la Woodstock—which happened the same summer, the film emphasizes. But no one cared to buy up the footage until Ahmir-Khalib Thompson, better known as Questlove, came along.

It would have been easy to oversimplify such a rich archive by stringing together the performances, seeking out some talking heads, and calling it a day. But Questlove was both careful and ebullient in his approach. “Summer of Soul is a monumental concert documentary and a fantastic piece of reclaimed archived footage. There is perhaps no one better suited to curate this essential footage than Questlove, whose expertise and passion for the music shines through,” writes Matthew on Letterboxd. The film is inventive with its use of present interviews, bringing in both artists and attendees not just to speak on their experiences, but to react to and relive the footage. The director reaches past the festival itself, providing thorough social context that takes in the moon landing, the assassinations of Black political figures, and more. By overlapping different styles of documentary filmmaking, Questlove’s directorial debut embraces the breadth and simultaneity of Black resilience and joy. A deserving winner of both the Grand Jury and Audience awards (and many of our unofficial Letterboxd awards). —SH

Flee Directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen

Flee is the type of discovery Sundance is designed for. Danish documentarian Jonas Poher Rasmussen tells the poignant story of his close friend and former classmate (using the pseudonym ‘Amin Nawabi’) and his daring escape from persecution in 1990s Afghanistan. Rasmussen always approaches tender topics with sensitivity and takes further steps to protect his friend’s identity by illustrating the film almost entirely in immersive animation, following in the footsteps of Waltz With Bashir and Tower. It’s a film aware of its subjectivity, allowing the animated scenes to alternate between the playful joy of nostalgia and the mournful pain of an unforgettable memory. However, these are intercepted by dramatic archive footage that oppressively brings the reality home.

“Remarkably singular, yet that is what makes it so universal,” writes Paul. “So many ugly truths about the immigration experience—the impossible choices forced upon people, and the inability to really be able to explain all of it to people in your new life… You can hear the longing in his voice, the fear in his whisper. Some don’t get the easy path.” Winner of the World Cinema (Documentary) Grand Jury Prize and quickly acquired by Neon, Flee is guaranteed to be a film you’ll hear a lot about for the rest of 2021. —JM

Taming the Garden Directed by Salomé Jashi

There’s always a moment at a film festival when fatigue sets in, when the empathy machine overwhelms, and when I hit that moment in 2021, I took the advice of filmmaker and Sundance veteran Jim Cummings, who told us: “If you’re ever stressed or tired, watch a documentary to reset yourself.” Taming the Garden wasn’t initially on my hit-list, but it’s one of those moments when the ‘close your eyes and point at a random title’ trick paid off. Documentary director Salomé Jashi does the Lorax’s work, documenting the impact and grief caused by billionaire former Georgian PM Bidzina Ivanishvili’s obsession with collecting ancient trees for his private arboretum.

“A movie that is strangely both infuriating and relaxing” writes Todd, of the long, locked-off wide shots showing the intense process of removing large, old trees from their village homes. There’s no narration, instead Jashi eavesdrops on locals as they gossip about Ivanishvili, argue about whether the money is worth it, and a feisty, irritated 90-year-old warns of the impending environmental fallout. “What you get out of it is absolutely proportional to what you put into it,” writes David, who recommends this film get the IMAX treatment. It’s arboriculture as ASMR, the timeline cleanse my Sundance needed. The extraordinary images of treasured trees being barged across the sea will become iconic. —GG

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World Directed by Kristian Petri and Kristina Lindström

Where Taming the Garden succeeds through pure observation, The Most Beautiful Boy in the World relies on the complete participation of its title subject, actor Björn Andrésen, who was thrust into the spotlight as a teenager. Cast by Italian director Lucino Visconti in Death in Venice, a 1971 adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novella about obsession and fatal longing, Andrésen spent the 1970s as an object of lust, with a side-gig as a blonde pop star in Japan, inspiring many manga artists along the way.

As we know by now (Alex Winter’s Showbiz Kids is a handy companion to this film), young stardom comes at a price, one that Andrésen was not well-placed to pay even before his fateful audition for Visconti. But he’s still alive, still acting (he’s Dan in Midsommar), and ready to face the mysteries of his past. Like Benjamin Ree’s excellent The Painter and the Thief from last year, this documentary is a constantly unfolding detective story, notable for great archive footage, and a deep kindness towards its reticent yet wide-open subject. —GG

All Light, Everywhere Directed by Theo Anthony

Threading the blind spots between Étienne-Jules Marey’s 19th-century “photographic rifle”, camera-carrying war pigeons and Axon’s body-cam tech, Theo Anthony’s inquisitive, mind-expanding doc about the false promise of the all-seeing eye is absorbing, scary, urgent. It’s the greatest Minority Report origin story you didn’t know you needed.

Augmented by Dan Deacon’s electronic soundscapes and Keaver Brenai’s lullingly robotic narration, All Light, Everywhere proves to be a captivating, intricately balanced experience that Harris describes as “one part Adam Curtis-esque cine-essay”, “one part structural experiment in the vein of Koyaanisqatsi” and “one part accidental character study of two of the most familiar yet strikingly unique evil, conservative capitalists…”. Yes, there’s a tremendous amount to download, but Anthony’s expert weaving, as AC writes, “make its numerous subjects burst with clarity and profundity.” For curious cinephiles, the oldest movie on Letterboxd, Jules Jenssen’s Passage de Vénus (1874), makes a cameo. —AY

The Sparks Brothers Directed by Edgar Wright

Conceived at a Sparks gig in 2017 upon the encouragement of fellow writer-director Phil Lord, Edgar Wright broke his streak of riotous comedies with his first (of many, we hope) rockumentary. While somewhat overstuffed—this is, after all, his longest film by nearly fifteen minutes—The Sparks Brothers speaks only to Wright’s unrestrained passion for his art-pop Gods, exploring all the nooks and crannies of Sparks’ sprawling career, with unprecedented access to brothers and bandmates Ron and Russell Mael.

Nobody else can quite pin them down, so Wright dedicates his time to put every pin in them while he can, building a mythology and breaking it down, while coloring the film with irresistible dives into film history, whimsically animated anecdotes and cheeky captions. “Sparks rules. Edgar Wright rules. There’s no way this wasn’t going to rule”, proclaims Nick, “every Sparks song is its own world, with characters, rules, jokes and layers of narrative irony. What a lovely ode to a creative partnership that was founded on sticking to one’s artistic guns, no matter what may have been fashionable at the time.” —JM

Narrative features

The Pink Cloud Written and directed by Iuli Gerbase

The Pink Cloud is disorienting and full of déjà vu. Brazilian writer-director Iuli Gerbase constructs characters that are damned to have to settle when it comes to human connection. Giovana and Yago’s pleasant one-night stand lasts longer than expected when the titular pink cloud emerges from the sky, full of a mysterious and deadly gas that forces everyone to stay locked where they stand. Sound familiar? Reserve your groans—The Pink Cloud wasn’t churned out to figure out “what it all means” before the pandemic is even over. Gerbase wrote and shot the film prior to the discovery of Covid-19.

It’s “striking in its ability to prophesize a pandemic and a feeling unknown at the time of its conception. What was once science fiction hits so close now,” writes Sam. As uncanny as the quarantine narrative feels, what’s truly harrowing is how well the film predicts and understands interiorities that the pandemic later exacerbated. Above all, Giovana is a woman with unmet needs. She is a good partner, good mother and good person even when she doesn’t want to be. Even those who love her cannot see how their expectations strip her of her personhood, and the film dares to ask what escape there might be when love itself leaves you lonely. —SH

Together Together Written and directed by Nikole Beckwith

Every festival needs at least one indie relationship dramedy, and Together Together filled that role at Sundance 2021 with a healthy degree of subversion. It follows rom-com structure while ostensibly avoiding romance, instead focusing on how cultivating adult friendships can be just hard, if not harder.

Writer-director Nikole Beckwith warmly examines the limits of the platonic, and Patti Harrison and Ed Helms are brilliantly cast as the not-couple: a single soon-to-be father and the surrogate carrying his child. They poke at each other’s boundaries with a subtle desperation to know what makes a friendship appropriate or real. As Jacob writes: “It’s cute and serious, charming without being quirky. It’s a movie that deals with the struggle of being alone in this world, but offers a shimmer of hope that even if you don’t fall in fantastical, romantic, Hollywood love… there are people out there for you.” —SH

Hive Written and directed by Blerta Basholli

Hive, for some, may fall into the “nothing much happens” slice-of-life genre, but Blerta Basholli’s directorial debut holds an ocean of pain in its small tale, asking us to consider the heavy lifting that women must always do in the aftermath of war. As Liz writes, “Hive is not just a story about grief and trauma in a patriarchy-dominated culture, but of perseverance and the bonds created by the survivors who must begin to consider the future without their husbands.”

Yllka Gashi is an understated hero as Fahrjie, a mother-of-two who sets about organizing work for the women of her village, while awaiting news of her missing husband—one of thousands unaccounted for, years after the Kosovo War has ended. The townsmen have many opinions about how women should and shouldn’t mourn, work, socialize, parent, drive cars and, basically, get on with living, but Fahrjie persists, and Basholli sticks close with an unfussy, tender eye. “It felt like I was a fly on the wall, witnessing something that was actually happening,” writes Arthur. Just as in Robin Wright’s Land and Mona Fastvold’s The World to Come, Hive pays off in the rare, beaming smile of its protagonist. —GG

On the Count of Three Directed by Jerrod Carmichael, written by Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch

It starts with an image: two best friends pointing guns at each other’s heads. There’s no anger, there’s no hatred—this is an act of merciful brotherly love. How do you have a bleak, gun-totin’ buddy-comedy in 2021 and be critically embraced without contradicting your gun-control retweets or appearing as though your film is the dying embers of Tarantino-tinged student films?

Comedian Jerrod Carmichael’s acerbic directorial debut On the Count of Three achieves this by calling it out every step of the way. Guns are a tool to give insecure men the illusion of power. They are indeed a tool too terrifying to trust in the hands of untrained citizens. Carmichael also stars, alongside Christopher Abbott, who has never been more hilarious or more tragic, bringing pathos to a cathartic rendition of Papa Roach’s ‘Last Resort’. Above all, Carmichael and Abbott’s shared struggle and bond communicates the millennial malaise: how can you save others if you can’t save yourself? “Here’s what it boils down to: life is fucking hard”, Laura sums up, “and sometimes the most we can hope for is to have a best friend who loves you [and] to be a best friend who loves. It doesn’t make life any easier, but it sure helps.” Sundance 2021 is one for the books when it comes to documentaries, but On the Count of Three stands out in the fiction lineup this year. —JM

Censor Directed by Prano Bailey-Bond, written by Bailey-Bond and Anthony Fletcher

The first of several upcoming films inspired by the ‘video nasty’ moral panic over gory horror in mid-’80s Britain, Prano Bailey-Bond leans heavily into both the period and the genre in telling the story of a film censor (a phenomenal Niamh Algar—vulnerable and steely at the same time) who begins to suspect a banned movie may hold the key to her sister’s childhood disappearance. Often dreamlike, occasionally phantasmagorical and repeatedly traumatic, even if the worst gore presented (as seen in the impressively authentic fictional horrors being appraised) appears via a screen, providing a welcome degree of separation.

Nevertheless, Censor is definitely not for the faint of heart, but old-school horror aficionados will squeal with delight at the aesthetic commitment. “I’m so ecstatic that horror is in the hands of immensely talented women going absolutely batshit in front of and behind the camera.” writes Erik. (Same here!) “A great ode to the video-nasty era and paying tribute to the great horror auteurs of the ’80s such as Argento, De Palma and Cronenberg while also doing something new with the genre. Loved this!” writes John, effectively encapsulating Censor’s unfettered film-nerd appeal. —DC

CODA Written and directed by Siân Heder

A film so earnest it shouldn’t work, with a heart so big it should surely not fit the size of the screen, CODA broke records (the first US dramatic film in Sundance history to win all three top prizes; the 25-million-dollar sale to Apple Studios), and won the world over like no other film. “A unique take on something we’ve seen so much,” writes Amanda, nailing the special appeal of Siân Heder’s coming-of-ager and family portrait. Emilia Jones plays Ruby, the only hearing person in her deaf family, at war between the family business and her passion for singing. While Heder is technically remaking the French film La Famille Bélier, the decision to cast brilliant deaf actors—Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin and Daniel Durant—makes this feel brand new.

But it’s not just about representation for the sake of it. A sense of authenticity, in humor as much as affection, shines through. With a script that’s 40 per cent ASL, so many of the jokes are visual gags, poking fun at Tinder and rap music, but a lot of the film’s most poignant moments are silent as well. And in Ruby’s own world, too, choir kids will feel seen. “I approve of this very specific alto representation and the brilliant casting of the entire choir,” Laura confirms in her review. Come for the fearless, empathetic family portrait, stay for the High School Musical vibes that actually ring true. —EK

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun

Perhaps the most singular addition to the recent flurry of Extremely Online cinema—Searching, Spree, Host, et al—Jane Schoenbrun’s feature debut ushers the viewer into a haunted, hypno-drone miasma of delirium-inducing YouTube time-suck, tenebrous creepypasta lore and painfully intimate webcam confessionals. Featuring an extraordinarily unaffected, fearless performance by newcomer Anna Cobb, the film “unpacks the mythology of adolescence in a way that’s so harrowingly familiar and also so otherworldly”, writes Kristen. Not since Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse has there been such an eerily lonely, and at times strangely beautiful, evocation of the liminal spaces between virtual and real worlds.

For members of the trans community, it’s also a work that translates that experience to screen with uncommon authenticity. “What Schoenbrun has accomplished with the form of We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is akin to catching a wisp of smoke,” writes Willow, “because the images, mood and aesthetic that they have brought to life is one that is understood completely by trans people as one of familiarity, without also plunging into the obvious melodrama, or liberal back-patting that is usually associated with ‘good’ direct representation.” One of the most original, compelling new voices to emerge from Sundance this year. —AY

Judas and the Black Messiah Directed by Shaka King, written by King, Will Berson, Kenneth Lucas and Keith Lucas

It was always going to take a visionary, uncompromising filmmaker to bring the story of Fred Hampton, the deputy chairman of the national Black Panther Party, to life. Shaka King casts Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton, and LaKeith Stanfield as William “Wild Bill” O’Neal, the FBI informant whose betrayal leads to Hampton’s assassination. Both actors have never been better, particularly Kaluuya who Fran Hoepfner calls “entrancing, magnetic, fizzling, romantic, riveting, endlessly watchable.”

Judas and the Black Messiah is an electric, involving watch: not just replaying history by following a certain biopic template. Instead, it’s a film with something to say—on power, on fear, on war and on freedom. “Shaka King’s name better reverberate through the halls of every studio after this,” writes Demi. A talent like this, capable of framing such a revolution, doesn’t come around so often. We’d better listen up. —EK

Pleasure Directed by Ninja Thyberg, written by Thyberg and Peter Modestij

A24’s first purchase of 2021. Ironically titled on multiple levels, Pleasure is a brutal film that you endure more than enjoy. But one thing you can’t do is forget it. Ninja Thyberg’s debut feature follows a young Swedish woman (Sofia Kappel) who arrives in Los Angeles with dreams of porn stardom under the name ‘Bella Cherry’. Although Bella is clear-eyed about the business she’s getting into, Thyberg doesn’t shy away from any of the awfulness she faces in order to succeed in an industry rife with exploitation and abuse. Bella does make allies, and the film isn’t suggesting that porn is only stocked with villains, but the ultimate cost is clear, even if it ends on an ever-so-slightly ambiguous note.

Touching as it does on ambition, friendship and betrayal in the sex business, Pleasure is often oddly reminiscent of Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls. Or rather, the gritty film Showgirls was claiming to be, as opposed to the camp classic it became. There’s nothing campy here. Kappel is raw and fearless in the lead, but never lets the viewer lose touch with her humanity. Emma puts it well: “Kappel gives the hardest, most provocative and transfixing performance I’ve seen all festival.” “My whole body was physically tense during this,” writes Gillian, while Keegan perhaps speaks for most when she says “Great film, never want to see it again.” —DC

Coming Home in the Dark Directed by James Ashcroft, written by Ashcroft and Eli Kent

A family camping trip amidst some typically stunnin—and casually foreboding— New Zealand scenery is upended by a shocking rug-pull of violence that gives way to sustained terror represented by Daniel Gillies’ disturbingly calm psychopath. The set-up of this thriller initially suggests a spin on the backwoods brutality thriller, but as Coming Home in the Dark progresses and hope dissipates, the motivations reveal themselves to be much more personal in nature, and informed on a thematic level by New Zealand’s colonial crimes against its Indigenous population. It’s a stark and haunting film that remains disorientating and unpredictable throughout, repeatedly daring the viewer to anticipate what will happen next, only to casually stomp on each glimmer of a positive outcome.

It’s so captivatingly bleak that a viewing of it, as Collins Ezeanyim’s eloquent reaction points out, does not lend itself to completing domestic tasks. The film marks an auspicious debut for director and co-writer James Ashcroft. Jacob writes that he “will probably follow James Ashcroft’s career to the gates of Hell after this one”. Justin hits the nail on the head with his description: “Lean and exceptionally brutal road/revenge film … that trades in genre tropes, especially those of Ozploitation and ’70s Italian exploitation, but contextualizes them in the dark history of its country of origin.” —DC

The World to Come Directed by Mona Fastvold, written by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard

Mona Fastvold has not made the first, nor probably the last, period romance about forbidden lesbian love. But The World to Come focuses on a specific pocket in time, a world contained in Jim Shepard’s short story ‘Love & Hydrogen’ from within the collection giving the film its name. Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby are Abigail and Tallie, farming neighbors, stifled by their husbands, who find brief moments of solace, of astonishment and joy, together. What shines here is the script, a verbose, delicate narration that emanates beauty more than pretence. “So beautifully restrained and yet I felt everything,” Iana writes.

And you can feel the fluidity and elegance in the way the film sounds, too: composer Daniel Blumberg’s clarinet theme converses with the dialogue and tells you when your heart can break, when you must pause, when the end is near. “So much heartache. So much hunger. So much longing. Waves of love and grief and love and grief,” writes Claira, capturing the ebb and flow of emotion that keeps The World to Come in your mind long after the screen has gone silent. —EK

Related content

The 2021 Sundance Film Festival lineup by Letterboxd rating

Letterboxd’s ‘Official’ Top 50 of 2021

Awards Season 2020-2021: our awards-tracker list

Letterboxd’s Festiville HQ: our home for up-to-the-minute festival coverage

#sundance #sundance film festival #sundance 2021 #sundance2021 #questlove #summer of soul #black woodstock #shaka king #judas and the black messiah #letterboxd top 50 #best of sundance 2021 #letterboxd

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kazbrkker · 4 years

Text

Chapter 4: Proxy War

Chapter summary: Alexis and Alex head to the second part of the mission: destroy General Barkov’s airbase. (2953 words)

Warnings: mentions of PTSD, anxiety and bruises.

26 OCTOBER 2019, 1900 "Alexis" and "Alex", Codename Aces CIA with Urzik Militia Al-Raab, Urzikstan.

First day into the assignment and Alexis had already received two generous gifts.

A fresh pink and red bruise rested just above her elbow, courtesy from the soldier earlier. Travelling further up her left tricep was another strip of exposed flesh, from a bullet that grazed her while they were running for their lives. She scoffed at the addition of new injuries, hastily ripping off a gauze to bandage the wound and hoped they wouldn't scar.

Struggling single-handedly, she managed to roughly rip a jagged piece of gauze. Almost thoughtlessly plastering it against her bare flesh, when without warning, her pathetic excuse of a bandage was snatched from her.

Alex loomed over her seat, crossing his arm. She scooted over the table she sat on. He chastised, "Don't underestimate these flesh wounds. They are small but nasty, especially in dusty environments like Urkzistan. Takes little to get infected."

"This is why I rarely get assigned to places like these." She mumbled dejectedly, watching him patch her up perfectly.

Alex had feather light touches for such a muscular man. She teased, to which he placed a finger on her forehead and pushed. He was more tender only when it came to her, a fact that everyone knew. Moments later, he proudly patted his handiwork. Alex lowered to eye level with the bandage, pouting smugly.

Alexis frowned at his suspicious behaviour.

"A kiss for your booboo?"

'Dumb ass.' Alexis sent an unforgiving hard flick! to his forehead. He snickered, rubbing the red spot.

Hadir entered the room with a few fighters, a brief pause in his steps upon witnessing their close proximity, "Alena... How are your wounds?"

From her peripheral vision, Alex subtly bit his lip and roughly tossed the bunch of bandage into the medkit. "Not Alena– " She placed an easing hand over his to silence him.

"I'm still alive. Are we ready?"

"Always about work, Alexis. You hardly changed." Hadir's gaze followed their intertwined hands and chuckled, somehow amused by their reactions. "I set up shop on the edge of Barkov's base. Keep those fucking dogs in check. Friends close, enemies closer. No grenades, so we improvise."

He handed them bottles of molotov cocktail. Impressive, for what scraps it was made out of. Alex echoed the same sentiment.

"What, you think we fight this war with sticks and stones?"

Sensing the pricks in Hadir's words, she quickly hopped off the table and patted Hadir's back. "With sharpened sticks and a big enough stone, why not?"

They followed Hadir to the roof. "You are too optimistic, Alexis." She laughed at that statement. "Those bastards only understand violence... So I show them violence."

"Violence is not a catalyst, it is a diversion. Too much of it, the evil it does is permanent, Hadir."

"You'd have to send me more English dictionaries, Alexis." Hadir cheekily replied in his mother tongue. "Barkov has an air force, so we have one too. RC planes loaded with C4."

Witnessing the unfamiliar grittier edge in Hadir, Alexis thought back to her first encounter with the siblings. It wasn't hard to read Hadir, the man was practically wearing his heart on his sleeves. One could say that pointed to a certain amount of naivety, but she liked it, a kind of genuine rare in their line of work.

Headstrong, direct, loyal, three words used to describe Hadir and it would be the truest thing one could hear. Like his sister, Hadir didn't quite fit in the mold. Five years ago, the lieutenant possessed a vivid sparkle in his eyes that was lacking in his sister. Always eager for a fight, a true never-backing-down-spirit. Today, the light dulled.

But what would she know? Perhaps that was the unfortunate cost of living in a civil war.

When they reached the roof, the sun had long set, leaving behind a cast of darkness that enveloped the sky. Even in nightfall, Urkzistan still felt like a hundred degrees, but the staggered waves of wind did some to alleviate the heat.

Alex and Alexis each grabbed a remote controller for the RC planes, crashing it into the army's helicopters. There was some excitement in using amateur, yet creative equipment like these, evident in her uncharacteristically large grin. "Good hunting."

"Stay low. The airbase is ahead."

The drones flew over the hill to the airbase's tarmac. Using the bird's eye view, she expertly memorized the tarmac's landscapes before crashing her drone into a target. The remaining helicopters exploded upon impact, illuminating the night sky in a series of twisted fireworks.

"Good flying, brothers and sisters... Let's get down there." Farah praised, a smile at bay. Weapons in hand, they hopped down to the airbase's perimeter.

"Airbase perimeter is dead ahead! Second team will cover us with the cannon." Hadir yelled over the sounds of the explosions.

Alexis subconsciously reloaded her M4A1 while Alex requested for air support. His words barely registered in her brain as a bout of anxiety hit her, feeling choked. Her grip tightened on her rifle, forcing big intakes of oxygen into her burning lungs. She quickly released her fingers in an attempt to fulfil the urge to feel the Earth under her, big handfuls of sand, dirt and grass.

Her heart thudded painfully in her throat, telling herself, 'You're okay. You're okay, you're here. Breathe.'

"Copy, 3-1. I'm tasking an unmarked gunship to your position, stand by." A muffled reply from her comms grounded her back into reality, she was here, this was happening.

Alexis hurriedly looked around, everyone else was too focused on the plan to notice her. Like it never happened, she forced herself to swallow the thickness in her throat, and along with that, her fear. She packed her emotions into a box and pushed it far into the back corner of her mind.

Alexis placed her all her focus, hyper-fixated on one thing: survive.

"Roger that," Alex replied, crouching beside Alexis. They were surrounded by the full force of the militia. Their spirits were contagious, feeding her a much needed level of adrenaline and confidence.

"Get ready! We attack their armories, take their weapons, and take their airfield! Cousins– we fight to free Urzikstan and take back our country. For Urzikstan!" A mortar cannon fired to breach the airfield's perimeter walls. That was it, upon Farah's orders, everyone sprinted, guns blazing into the south wall of the airbase.

It was like clockwork, shooting, running and hiding behind covers. She slipped back into familiarity, the anxiety in her dissolved and overtook by a rush need for survival and adrenaline.

The two CIA agents worked seamlessly, benefits from the countless missions that shaped their chemistry. She glared at Alex, annoyed when he stole her shot. He shrugged, firing his rifle while branding an excuse. Truthfully, he just liked to piss her off.

"You were distracted."

"I'll give you something to be distracted about." Her words mixed with more tautness than normal, but in the midst of all that blood and fighting, Alex didn't pick up on it.

"Hm. Wouldn't be the first time."

Alexis specially took a break from firing to throw her middle finger up. She aimed her carbine at the snipers on the watchtower opposite her. Two sharp bursts later, they lifelessly fell over the tower.

"Good job, Alexis! Watchtower is clear! Move in, move in!" Farah yelled and they pushed further into the base. Following behind Farah's team, Alexis and Alex flanked left, two sharpshooters ridding of enemy hostiles within seconds.

The enemy backup came instantly —two helicopters hovering over the airbase. The heavy fire forced them behind a tiny wooden crate. Lucky for them, Hadir's plan was foolproof. He loaded just enough RC planes, and more. Alex took remote control of the RC planes.

Seeing their cover was so small, Alex immediately shielded her with himself, hugging her as tightly as he could to minimize their exposure. Alexis quickly reached for a Molotov but paused. A crafty smirk as she kicked around for the biggest piece of concrete she could throw. She looped a tactical rope over the rock.

"Take the southeast one, this one's mine!" She ordered, blindly nudging Alex's knees and pointed at the helicopter just 300 yards shy from their position.

"With a rock?" Alex bewilderedly asked, multitasking while controlling the RC planes.

"Mind your business, I'm a good shot. Remember Cairo...?" Alexis trailed off to close her right eye in concentration.

"Unfortunately."

She filtered through the comms, "Hadir! Watch this!"

Eyeing for the tail rotor (the weakest link in a helicopter), she used the length of the rope as torque, then released. The heavy weight of the rock propelled it forward, the rope entangled among the spinning blades before the block of concrete broke its spin. Small sparks ignited as the blades came in contact with the object. Within seconds, the tail rotor failed, causing the helicopter to spin uncontrollably.

It crashed into a flower of sparks and fire. Alex whistled lowly in admiration at the sight, a mumbled 'damn' escaping from his lips.

"What did I say about finding a big enough stone?"

"Well played, I guess you don't have to send me more books, Alexis!"

"Visual learner, then." Lady Luck certainly was shining down bright on her, blessing her with good timing and that majority was the work of the pilot's own anxiety. Not that she would ever tell. She winked at Alex, jerking her head at the other destroyed chopper.

A number of militia members also witnessed the fiasco, all shouting Arabic words of praises. Her stunt did wonders to renew their fighting spirits. They pushed right towards the first armory.

Alexis waited for the most apposite timing before sprinting to her next cover, flawlessly lodging bullets in the new waves of snipers on a hangar's roof. She spotted a distinct red building. "3-1, got eyes on the armory."

"Copy that, I see it too. Two tangos, let's drop 'em." They cleared the armory for reloading.

"Good work, both of you! Regroup outside! Tarmac is through the gate. Everyone to the gate!"

Alexis was a phoenix on the battlefield. Her presence mighty, fearless and deadly within a single shot. Years of experience flowing in her blood, every move was calculated and precise. One shot, one kill, she dropped targets effortlessly. She knew exactly where and when to shoot, throw a grenade or to advance. It was compelling to see her move.

It had been longer than five minutes and yet, their air support still was nowhere near them. She was growing impatient, this tarmac was the turning point vital for their success. As another round of hellfire rained down, more of their own got caught in the crossfire. They helplessly watched as grunts of pains called out, watching comrades pierced with rounds of ammunition dropped dead beside them.

"Saint to Watcher, we are taking heavy fire from enemy helis! Get us that air support, now!" The chopper was late, and the agent was furious watching others pay the price. She'd be damned if she cared if her tone was 'appropriate'.

Switching to a crawling position, a sudden pain shot from her arm. She groaned mid-shot, knowing the bandage came loose and her dive roll into the sand and dust did not help. She stayed to clear stragglers while the rest pushed through the barracks to advance further into the tarmac.

"Sister! The tarmac is ahead of us!"

"I see it! Brother, get us more planes in the air!" Hadir tried, but in a turn of events, the militia's safehouse was under attack.

Fuck. She didn't like how the tables were turning. They really needed that damn helo.

"My planes are down. We need air support. If you guys really want to help us, now is the time!" Hadir pleaded.

Alex nodded reassuringly, "We have a helo on the way! We're on our own until then! Where's the last armory?"

"In that hangar across the tarmac! We take it and the base is ours!"

"Roger that! Saint," Alex called for her. "Race you there."

"Rog." She replied lazily, pushing herself off the ground and charged to the next armory. "Let's end this."

Alexis ran past the second hangar, where Farah and her soldiers were successfully sweeping up the enemies. Catching her breath, she met an awaiting Alex outside the armory, a displayed triumphant smirk since he reached first.

Hushed whispers came from inside, revealing their headcount. In the same formation, they boosted each other on top of the armory to reach a latch. On the count of three, Alexis used all her strength to open the heavy latch door for Alex to snipe the three soldiers.

"Last armory is secure. Resupply on us." Alex commented. Both of them busied refilling their ammunition. She caught with ease as Alex tossed an unloaded sniper rifle. Her lips curved upwards approvingly. "A Windrunner...? You are too good to a lady, Echo 3-1..."

Alex watched her hands appreciatively glided along the .50 BMG's body with a grin, knowing it was her perfect weapon. Her happiness was short lived when the airbase power was cut off, leaving them in the dark. He shrugged as she returned it and left. Without a thermal scope, it was useless to them.

"I hear incoming!" Farah alerted as more tanks rolled up to the hangar. Alexis cursed, this was never ending without their helos.

"Shit! Alexis, we could really use some help here!"

Her comms sounded, "Echo 3-1, Viper 1-1 on approach. Ready for tasking. What's your position?"

'Oh hell yes', she thought, immediately ceasing fire and slumped on the ground to regain her energy.

"Viper, this is 3-1. God damn good to hear your voice!" Alex conveyed in relief. "Friendlies in the hangar, taking fire from troops on the tarmac. You are cleared hot!"

"Farah, Hadir! Get your people to stay inside the hangar!" Alexis shouted, pointing at the helo. The siblings nodded in gratitude.

"Saint to Viper, did you take a nap or something?" Alexis thought she recognized Viper's voice and callsign. Beside her, Alex almost had a cardiac arrest from her unexpected accusatory tone.

Instead, a chuckle came from the receiving end. "Saint! We ran into a little fuel situation at baseplate. How many times must I save your pretty ass?"

Alex glanced questionably. 'He had a crush' she mouthed, waving dismissively. Alex rolled his eyes in response, of course he did.

All of them remained in the hanger while Viper cleaned up. As they looked around, their headcount was drastically reduced. This sucked —she hated this part. The part where they paid the price, a hefty one, even for the victorious.

A sudden burst of gunfire shot into the hangar, barely missing the lot. "Jesus!" Alex commented, equally taken aback.

Alexis yelled into the comms, "Viper, do you mind doing a little landscaping – a tank right outside the hangar! Pretty sure we almost fucking died!"

"Copy. Anything for you, Saint." Alexis was about to call Viper out for his inappropriate comments, but since Viper was the one saving their asses, she stopped and settled for an unsatisfying eye-roll. From the annoyed expression, it was clear Alex felt the same.

After a few rockets and hellfire from Viper, they successfully claimed the airbase. "All targets destroyed. Tarmac is cleared of enemy movement, over." She looked to Farah, a warm smile slipping on the commander's face.

They won. They took the airbase and shoved it where it would hurt Barkov. Without air support, his army would face tremendous setbacks.

"Solid copy, Viper 1-1. Appreciate the high heat, don't be a stranger." Alex thanked.

"Never by choice, 3-1. Nice to hear from you again, Saint, hope to see you at the next one! Viper, out."

"Don't I know it! Echo and Saint, out." Alex interjected before she could even touch her comms.

Walking through the empty airbase, her adrenaline pumped at the sweet taste of victory. For Alex and her, victory was probably their only constant. The taste no longer revelled on their tongues the same way it used to —watered down after hundreds of missions. To them, today would have been just another victory tucked under their belts.

But for the Liberation Force, they were a step closer to freeing themselves from the cage Barkov ruthlessly shoved them in.

As Alexis, Alex, Hadir and Farah surveyed the scene of their victory, a once foreign feeling of contentment coursed through her veins. From the look on Alex's face and the way he ethnically perched his arm over her, he definitely felt that way too.

"So you do kill Russians." Hadir said jovially.

"Only the bad ones."

Hadir looked to them sincerely. "Today was a great victory for Urzikstan. Thank you, brother and sister."

"We make a good team." Alex passed a genuine smile, proud.

Alexis huffed, looping her arms around the siblings endearingly as if to stake her claim. Her uncharacteristic affection shocked him, even though he was aware of their history. "Welcome to the team, Alex."

Farah smiled. "Yes, we've bought time, but Barkov will retaliate."

"So will we." Hadir finished. They'd be more than ready.

They had no idea where this war was going to take them. However, one thing was for sure. When they were done with this assignment, Roman Barkov would be dead. It was a promise they swore upon.

Farah glanced at her team. After today, they were comrades.

a/n: sorry this was a very technical chapter. peep alex's silent jealous streak tho... masterlist here. want to be tagged? let me know!

#call of duty x oc #call of duty x reader #alex modern warfare #echo 3-1 #john price #kyle garrick #kate laswell #farah karim #hadir karim #oc: alexis #ysr writes: kl #killer instinct #fanfiction #alex cod #modern warfare #call of duty modern warfare

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queen-of-deans-booty · 6 years

Text

Always There For You- Part 1

Characters: Jensen Ackles x Reader, Jared Padalecki

Word Count: 1,676

Warnings: Some angst, some fluff, it’s all a little mixed

Summary: Working on set has always been a dream come true to you and meeting Jensen has been an even bigger dream. You didn’t think anything could go so wrong.

Author’s Note: This is a commissioned fic for a very lovely anon! This is a short series lasting 6 parts and I hope you all like it as much as I loved writing it! This is about POTS or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome so if this is a trigger, then don’t read this.This is unbeta’d and any and all mistakes are mine.

Feedback the glue that holds my writing together

Tags at the bottom

Working on the set of Supernatural was always a pleasure. You got to work with your boyfriend, your brother, and your best friend. Acting was so much better than any other job you ever had. You got to work with cool people, got to use amazing props and got to be a whole other person who you could get lost into.

Even though you were Jared’s younger sister, you were actually playing an Angel that decided to be on Team Free Will instead of joining sides in Heaven. You played a fallen Angel and Castiel’s brave sister. It was fun getting to play an angel and to work with Misha and even Alex. He was kind of new to the show but you had gotten to know him since some of your scenes are with only him.

Every single day, you got to wake up and do something exciting but lately, you’ve not been feeling up to it. You loved working on set and were usually one of the first ones ready to go for the day. However, this day, you just weren’t into it and tried to hide it from everyone else.

You hoped it didn’t show in your acting since you were trying your best not to sound or look too tired.

“So, get this,” Jared played Sam as he walked into the war room with his laptop in hand. You and Jensen were sitting at the table and looked at him as Jared sat down.

“Great, another case? We just got back from one not even 10 hours ago.” Dean complained, taking a swig of the apple juice disguised as beer.

“I have no problem with another case.” You smiled, playing the part of your Angel so well. You actually took tips from Misha about how to play an Angel like he did and let’s just say you took those lessons seriously.

“Yeah, that’s because you have Angel juice that can keep you going. What do you got, Sam?” Dean asked.

“Right, so this may or may not be our thing but I just figured we should check it out anyway,” Sam said, telling you and Dean about the case. While Jared was talking, you felt your vision go a little blurry. You thought nothing of it since you didn't go to bed until late as a result of staying up with Jensen all night. You just blinked quickly for a few seconds and it went away.

When you looked at Jared, he was still talking about the case. You didn’t focus on the words he was saying but it was hard to try and catch up.

“Alright, let’s pack up then. Meet at the car in 10.” Dean said, standing up. Sam closed his laptop but you couldn’t do anything. You were feeling a little dizzy and since you were so tired, it didn’t help.

“You okay, Y/N?” Jared asked, breaking character.

“Cut!” The director called and Jensen looked at you.

“I’m fine, just really tired. I felt a little dizzy there for a second.” You said when you felt a hand on your back.

“Is she okay?” The director asked and you looked at Jensen who was right by your side.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Might need some water or something.” You said and Jensen stood up before walking to the director.

“Can we take 5? She’s feeling a little dizzy and might need some water or something light to eat.” Jensen asked.

“Yeah, sure, take 5!” The director yelled and the ringing noise that signaled a break sounded before people either went to the bathroom, took a phone call, or ate something. Jensen walked right back to you and grabbed your hand.

“Come on, sweetheart.” You nodded and got up, using his support to get to the snack table.

“Are you okay?” Jared asked when he caught up with you and Jensen.

“Yeah, I think I’m just too tired today. It’s all your fault, really.” You lightly hit Jensen in the chest with a chuckle.

“My fault? I told you to go to bed but you didn’t listen to me.” Jensen smiled, handing you a bottled water. You and Jensen were dating and have been since a few months after Jared introduced the two of you. He had literally been the best boyfriend a girl could ask for and you were glad he was all yours.

“You’re just so interesting to talk to.” You giggled, downing half the water easily.

“Here, why don’t you have a sandwich or something. When was the last time you ate?” Jared asked, being the protective older brother. You took the sandwich only because you could feel your stomach growling.

“I think this morning? Could have been last night.” You shrugged and took a few bites of the sandwich before placing it down. You felt much better now that you got food and water in your system.

“You need to eat more.” Jared said and you rolled your eyes playfully.

“Yes, dad.” You chuckled.

“You feeling better?” Jensen asked.

“Yeah, much.” You smiled. It was perfect timing too because a few minutes later, the director called for everyone back again and this time, you got every line right without messing up. Maybe you were so tired and that was the cause of your dizziness. You remember a time before Jared even got casted on Supernatural, you and he would spend all night together, staying up like little kids and the next morning, you would feel dizzy because you didn't get enough sleep. So, you figured this is what happened here.

“Alright! That’s a wrap everyone! Good work today and Y/N, get some rest.” The director said and you smiled at him before walking to Jared and Jensen who were on the side.

“You guys hungry? I can run out and get something for us to eat,” Jared suggested just as Jensen put his arm around your shoulder. You were still very tired but not as tired as before.

“You want to get some Chinese food from that place I like?” You asked, grinning at your older brother.

“That is all the way across town.” Jared said, looking at you.

“I’ll love you forever.” You sang and he sighed with a shake of his head.

“Sure, I can do that. Jay, want to come with me?”

“Yeah. We’ll be back shortly.” Jensen said to you before placing a kiss on your lips. Jared already left the group so you didn’t worry about bothering him with PDA. You kissed Jensen back, pulling him in closer to you.

“Don’t be long.” You whispered against his lips before letting him go.

“I wouldn't dare.” Jensen joked, winking at you before leaving to find his best friend. You bit your lip to stop your smile from spreading so wide. How did you ever get so lucky?

After eating with Jensen and Jared in Jensen’s trailer, you decided to turn in early and get some much-needed sleep. You just wanted tomorrow to come where you would feel a lot better and filming would be more enjoyable.

Walking into your trailer you immediately got ready for bed. You put on your favorite pajamas, plugged your phone in and brushed your teeth. Before you would actually get settled in for the night, you got a glass of water and stayed by the sink while you drank it.

You thought back to today’s events and noticed how worried Jensen got. He was such a good boyfriend and you were the luckiest woman alive. After finishing the glass of water, you set it in the sink and turned off the light. As you were walking to your bed, your heart started beating super fast. You stopped and put a hand over your heart as if that would slow it down.

Following that, you started to feel lightheadedness which you didn’t understand why. You didn’t know what was going on and before you could reach your phone to call Jensen, you fell forward. You didn’t see the corner of the counter and smashed your face into it, busting your lip open and no doubt causing a huge bruise on your face.

You fell to the ground and passed out from your heart beating too quickly. You didn’t know how long you were out but when you woke up, you reached for your phone. You groaned in pain and shakily got up on all fours. You gently touched your face with one hand while reaching for your phone with the other, wincing when you touched your busted lip.

You grabbed your phone and sat on the ground, trying to collect yourself. You had no idea why this happened or if this was something serious. This has never happened before which worried you. You thought back to earlier when you got dizziness because you didn't eat enough food and maybe you didn’t eat enough with Jensen and Jared.

You looked at the time and realized only 2 hours had passed from the time you passed out to now. You sighed and placed your phone on the counter before shakily getting up. You walked to your bathroom and turned on the light to see the full extent of damages. Yep, you would have a nasty bruise on your right side of your face tomorrow and your lip would be swollen.

Shit, how were you going to hide this from Jensen or Jared? You knew they would be worried and would over react. All you did was trip. You didn't have to tell them you passed out for 2 hours. You just figured you would go to the makeup trailer and have them cover this up before anyone else woke up.

Or maybe you could go to Misha since he does have an EMT certification. You didn't know what you would do but you did know you had to go to sleep. You cleaned up the dried blood on your face and made sure you were okay before getting into bed.

You would figure all this out tomorrow morning.

The Queens:

@mogaruke @whit85-blog @inlovewithbja @spn67-sister @kdfrqqg @jarpadandjensenaremyheroes @roxyspearing @mishamigose @cobrakai1967 @essie1876 @crispychrissy @jerk-bitch-and-an-angel @starswirlblitz @untitled39887 @ta-n-ja @notnaturalanahi @tahbehonest @posiemax @vonthesupernaturalwriter @li-ssu @just-another-winchester @obsessivecompulsivespn @emoryhemsworth @newtospnfandom @jessikared97 @wh1sp3r1ng-impala @charliebradbury1104 @shaym-rassu @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @kristaparadowski @bloodyvoodoo @jadalecki-jackles @likiyoshi-lijie @skybabydead @jae-sch @notmoose45 @the1younevernotice @heyitscam99 @lifelovelaughangell123 @jennferjareau @crazyspn67 @speakinvain @nunnallynara @gh0stgurl @spnbaby-67 @internationalmusicteacher @teamfreewillsstuff @internationalmusicteacher @crankthatcastiel @rhiannonj79 @calaofnoldor @untitled39887 @broken-soul-bruised-heart @your-basic-potato @lostnliterature @superkrazy04 @alexwinchester23 @lonelycaffeinateddreamer

The Dean Beans:

@akshi8278 @mega-mrs-dean-winchester @winchesterandpie @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @carribear31 @dont-you-dare-say-misha @oreosatmidnight @not-naturalfangirl @iam-a-cutiepie @kristendanwayne @milo-winchester-4ever @jensenackesl @codyshany316 @helllonearth @juniorhuntersam @pouterpufftrain @ruprecht0420 @carriemichelle2012 @sandlee44 @gucci-daddario @kukindukin @starry-chaos @05spn18 @my-wayward-heroes @baconlover001 @supernatural-teamfreewillpage @onlydeanandjensen @expectosel @redsalv20 @dragonrider10 @designcted @xxtheoutsidersxx

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youvegotyourvictory · 6 years

Text

Hamilton on Broadway

08.25.18

Yesterday was two months since I saw Hamilton with one of my very best friends. Making a list of some things I never want to forget.

1. I imagine death so much, it feels more like a memory

I’ve been listening to Hamilton for almost two and a half years. This line still hits me the same way it did when I was first learning the words.

2. Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now

At the most random times, this line hits me like a bus. It’s not every day, but sometimes I do think about how miraculous it is that any of us are alive. How lucky we are.

3. King George is even funnier live and the album really doesn’t do his facial expressions justice, there’s no way it could. Just.....every time he was on stage, I laughed

4. Dying is easy, young man, living is harder

I think about this line all the time. Washington says it to Alex and obviously it speaks to Alex’s character, because he’s always willing to die but never really willing to use his strengths to stay alive. He always wants to fight and is ready to verbally take down anyone he deems fit—willing to die in a war that’s never really going to be his own, just to prove himself. All of that is so much easier than living.

5. Eliza in Helpless

I already love Eliza so much—both fictionalized character and real life woman—but she’s so cute in Helpless. It’s so great to see her this in love.

6. King George saying, “Everybody!” in You’ll Be Back and people coming out of the woodwork just so they can sing along with him

7. If there’s a reason I’m still alive when everyone who loves me has died then I’m willing to wait for it

I’ve spent a few late nights thinking about this, thinking of the legacy Burr left behind—how he just wanted to keep his mouth shut and stay out of trouble, until the moment it really counted. I can’t imagine all that must’ve motivated him, knowing he was the only person he had left. Everyone around him had died, and still he wanted to keep his head down and wait for a reason to do more.

8. Tomorrow there’ll be more of us

It’s probably for the best that this song isn’t on the original cast recording because if it was I would definitely cry every time I listened to it. I can’t even begin to express how much it kills me that John Laurens died before he could lead his regiment to safety—and ultimately, freedom. And Alex’s reaction to it, his pause and then, breathless, “I have so much work to do”—his immediate need to work faster and harder than he had before. There’s no doubt anywhere that he was deeply in love with Laurens.

On Tuesday the 27th, my son was killed in a gunfight against British troops retreating from South Carolina. The war was already over. As you know, John dreamed of emancipating and recruiting three thousand men for the first all-black military regiment. His dream of freedom for these men dies with him.

9. The part of Non-Stop when Angelica and Eliza are on the outer ring of the stage and then Hamilton is talking about both of them and once he’s done talking to Angelica the stage starts moving so she drifts away from him and then Eliza comes in to view

This is really one you just have to see in person to fully appreciate

10. Jefferson in the purple suit

I have never seen an article of clothing transform someone so easily and completely. Before, Lafayette was careful, calculated, etc, but as soon as the purple suit came out, he did a total 180 and strutted everywhere, fully in control of the stage. It was like magic.

11. Hamilton’s green suit

It’s a look and probably an aesthetic choice that some people don’t care for, but boy do I love it

12. The cabinet battles

Honestly what took everything to that next level was the fact that we were in New York watching it. Hearing “You could’ve been anywhere in the world tonight, but you’re here with us in New York City” felt so....incredible because I had never even listened to Hamilton in the city before. And it was true—we really could’ve been anywhere else, but we were there, in the theatre, watching it all unfold.

13. Take a Break

One of my favorites in the play, due entirely to Alex and Angelica’s exchange in the second verse. Also, Eliza’s beatboxing and Philip’s pride when he raps for Alex is something I wish I could replay forever. Hearing the screams of “un, deux, trois, quatre, and CIIIIIIIIIINQ” was something that made all of us burst into cheers and applause

In a letter I received from you two weeks ago, I noticed a comma in the middle of a phrase. It changed the meaning—did you intend this? One stroke and you’ve consumed my waking days. It says, “My dearest Angelica” with a comma after ‘dearest.’ You’ve written “my dearest, Angelica.”

The breath between ‘dearest’ and ‘Angelica’ is so much more pronounced live and I really wish I could live in that moment for the rest of my life

I also really love how they both take the time to focus on this and show that it holds a lot of weight and meaning to each of them, and then after a pause Angelica says, “Anyway, all this to say...” completely moving on from the subject

14. Southern motherfucking democratic republicans

No need to even say more than that. Y’all already know.

Actually I lied. I didn’t remember a lot from the bootleg going into this because it had been a decent amount of time since I’d last watched the whole thing—usually if it pops up on YouTube again I just listen to the few songs I know will make me sob, the ones I really want to hear, and then I leave it alone. I think in my head I kind of wanted to save it until I could finally see it in person. Before seeing it live, I think I’d only watched the bootleg all the way through maybe two times. It just felt like something I needed to wait for. It was well worth it. Anyway, like I said, I didn’t remember much so I certainly didn’t remember the shot of Burr, Jefferson, and Madison all walking together across the stage with the spotlight on them as they sang this part. Power move.

15. King George pulling up a stool so he can watch everything unfold, see all the drama as it happens, and watch Hamilton destroy his own career

I lost it at this part. I knew that he does this, but seeing it in person just made it so much funnier. Again, I think it was mainly due to really being able to see his facial expressions there. Just the thought of King George sitting there as all of this is happening in the 1700s is so funny to me and it’s just.....god it’s good

16. King George throwing Reynolds pamphlets and dancing around Hamilton was just....top-tier comedy

17. Hamilton’s black suit

That velvety suede one. If you know you know

18. Eliza’s scream at the end of Stay Alive (Reprise)

This was one of the moments I couldn’t forget the first time I watched the bootleg. No matter what I’m doing or where I am, if I’ve been completely fine throughout the rest of the songs, this is the moment that gets me every time. It’s always guaranteed to make me start crying. Not only is it heart wrenching to hear her scream after Philip has just died, but to see her yank her hand away from Alex when he tries to comfort her is something that’s been with me ever since that first watch. I don’t think I’ll ever really forget it.

19. It’s Quiet Uptown

I knew I wouldn’t make it out of this without sobbing. I usually don’t make it through the OCR without crying, and seeing it in person is so much more painful. Alex pleading with Eliza, telling her he’d change everything if he could, telling Philip that he would love where they moved to. Seeing Alex grieving, and then to see Eliza come in and be completely stoic, refusing to even look in Alex’s direction. Also the fact that literally everyone looks weary and so incredibly run down—even Angelica in her narration looks like she’s been crying for weeks.

Can you imagine?

Alex turning one of Eliza’s phrases back on her—look at where we are, look at where we started—he knows he’ll never be able to make this all up to her but he still begs her to let him in and let him try to help her.

It speaks volumes that all records state that Hamilton was never the same after Philip died—a large portion of him died that day too. Can you imagine?

Eliza, do you like it uptown? It’s quiet uptown.

One of the parts that gets me every single time, without fail: Look around, look around, Eliza.

I started crying during the last song and didn’t stop through the entirety of this one, but one part that made the tears flow faster was Eliza’s gentle “It’s quiet uptown” and Alex’s breakdown as soon as she speaks for the first time.

There’s a part in the Hamilton companion book that Lin wrote where he describes something that happened to the company during rehearsals and every time I read it I cry and cry, so I’ll just leave you with it:

The power of “It’s Quiet Uptown” was intact from its first day: Actors cried while singing it, the production team cried while listening to it, Andy couldn’t bear to choreograph it, not with his daughter, Sofia, fighting cancer, and getting sick on the way to school, and the whole family hoping the next round of chemotherapy would work. ... On November 16, 2014, Oskar and Laurie Eustis’s beloved son, Jack, died. He was 16 years old. ... Oskar and Laurie were about to spend half a year or more in the world of a show that pivots on the loss of a child. ... Two weeks later, the full company assembled for the first sing-through of the show ... when Oskar and Laurie walked in. ... Hearing “It’s Quiet Uptown” for the first time since their unimaginable loss was bound to be wrenching. It was wrenching, for everyone. When the sing-through ended, we offered words of consolation that were heartfelt but inadequate before a grief larger than anyone could comprehend. There was one thing that the Hamilton company didn’t know that day. When Lin had learned of Jack’s death, he had sent an email to Oskar and Laurie expressing his deepest condolences. He also sent them the demo recording of “It’s Quiet Uptown.” “If art can help us grieve, can help us mourn, then lean on it,” he wrote. If they preferred to delete the song, he would understand.

Oskar and Laurie did lean on it. In the rehearsal studio that afternoon, nobody knew that “It’s Quiet Uptown” was the only song they had listened to in their first week of mourning. They had listened to it every day.

20. Best of Wives and Best of Women

This one gets me every time. I know I’ve said that about everything so far, but god....this one is so meaningful.

I can’t say anything that will be better than what Lin has already said about the song so I’ll leave you with the liner notes he wrote from the Hamilton companion book:

In the musical of my life after I’m long gone, my wife Vanessa is going to be the one who steps forward as the hero. Vanessa is not particularly fond of musicals—she only likes good ones. She is not effusive in her praise, or boastful. But when I looked up from that Chernow book and said, “I think this is a hip-hop musical,” she didn’t laugh, or roll her eyes. She just said, “That sounds cool.” And that was all I needed to get started. As I fell in love with the idea of a love triangle between Eliza, Alexander, and Angelica, she said, “Can you have Angelica rap? That would be cool.”

I am someone who is so averse to travel that I wrote a whole musical about not wanting to leave my block in Washington Heights. It was Vanessa who booked us trips and time away from New York. “You don’t get any writing done here because life keeps popping up.” Thanks to her, Hamilton was written in Mexico, Spain, Nevis, Sagaponack, St. Croix, Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic—long trips where Vanessa would take me there and then leave me alone to write while she explored. She is my first audience, and she’s a tough audience, so I know if I impress her I’ve cleared the highest possible bar. She’ll come home from work and say, “Your king tune was stuck in my head all day—that’s probably a good sign.”

This started out as a note trying to explain how my wife really is the ‘best of wives and best of women,’ but I’m trying to get at something more important—this show simply doesn’t exist without Vanessa. It’s a love letter to her.

21. The World Was Wide Enough

There’s nothing I could say here that would accurately sum up this one, so I’ll simply put this:

Death doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints—it takes and it takes and it takes. History obliterates. In every picture it paints, it paints me and all my mistakes. When Alexander aimed at the sky, he may have been the first one to die, but I’m the one who paid for it. I survived, but I paid for it. Now I’m the villain in your history. I was too young and blind to see. I should’ve known. I should’ve known the world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me. The world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me.

One thing I’ll always remember: in the Hamilton documentary, Leslie Odom, Jr. is talking about Burr’s legacy, basically that he did all of these other things in his lifetime—a long war career, accomplished lawyer, worked with Hamilton on the first murder trial of the country, etc—but the one thing he’s most remembered for is being the man who shot Hamilton in a duel. Leslie talks about how much more Burr could’ve done if the duel hadn’t gone down the way it did, that it was a really sad moment in history, that Burr wasn’t a lonely man when he shot Hamilton. Burr had friends, a great job, so many things going for him, but still he chose to shoot Hamilton in that moment. Leslie goes on to say, “I think that our show is doing a really good job of...reminding us that....all of us are more than one thing.”

There’s another moment, from Lin’s episode of Drunk History, where he describes the duel and says, “And so, Burr’s the monster. And what’s ironic about that is Burr was never the monster. Burr was the cautious motherfucker who never let his opinion be known. And Hamilton was the reckless motherfucker who let his opinion be known about everything. And in the one moment where it counted most, Hamilton was cautious, and Burr was reckless. And that defined their legacies forever.”

22. There’s a moment that Lin took out that we don’t get to see, but I’m going to include it here anyway. Eliza, reading Hamilton’s last letter to her—the one he was writing when she begged him to “come back to bed, that would be enough.” Among his last words are these:

I need not tell you of the pangs I feel, from the idea of quitting you and exposing you to the anguish which I know you would feel. With my last idea; I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world. Adieu best of wives and best of Women. Ever yours

23. Eliza in the finale

As I said, I already love Eliza so much, but hearing this final song is something I’ll always think about.

Eliza lived fifty years beyond Hamilton’s death, something I can’t even begin to imagine doing. Of all the things Hamilton put her through, she still loved him in the end. In her own words—I am so tired, it is so long. I want to see Hamilton.

Again, during this I couldn’t help but remember the fact that we were in the very city where much of this musical takes place. All of these real events occurred in this city.

Hearing Eliza recount all she had done after Hamilton’s death is inspiring and exhausting and amazing, but the line that always got me and I knew would hit me even harder in New York City....

Oh. Can I show you what I’m proudest of? [The orphanage.] I establish the first private orphanage in New York City. [The orphanage.] I help to raise hundreds of children. I get to see them growing up. [The orphanage.] In their eyes I see you, Alexander. I see you every time.

Not only does she establish this orphanage, but it still lives on today. Eliza’s orphanage lives on in the form of the Graham Windham organization, a fact that always blows me away. She established and served as director of the orphanage for 27 years—she dedicated a significant portion of her life to this work. And to know that we were in the city where she did this, where she got to see the Hamilton legacy growing before her very eyes in the form of these children—I lost it.

Oh, I can’t wait to see you again. It’s only a matter of time.

Two months have passed and I still can’t believe I was there, really seeing Hamilton the way it was intended to be seen. I’ll never forget it, and I hope someday I’ll get to do it again.

#finally I got around to typing all this out!!#sorry for the long post I just really had a lot to say!!!!!!#hamilton0825 #text #personal

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newagesispage · 4 years

Text

OCTOBER 2020

PAGE RIB

The Stones opened Rolling Stones # 9 on Carnaby St.** Bill Wyman auctioned off many unique items for the Prince’s Trust.**Wyman’s bass used for groundbreaking records in ’69 and ’70 broke a record at $384,000. The famous amp that got him into the Stones went for $106,250 and the most expensive toilet seat cover sold at auction with the tongue logo went for $1,142. Brian Jones Rock and Roll Circus guitar sold for $704,000.

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VOTE!!!!

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In San Francisco people can order dinner and drinks delivered with a drag queen performance.

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Joaquin and Rooney had a baby that they named River.

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Real Time has been renewed thru 2022.

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The new film, No Sudden Move about 1955 Detroit will star Don Cheadle, David Harbour, Benicio Del Toro, Ray Liotta and Kieran Culkin.

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Shep Smith is back with Just the Facts on CNBC.

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The Presidential debate: Well, Good Biden moments-“You don’t panic, he panicked.” “It is what it is cuz you are what you are.” “Everybody knows he’s a liar.” Wouldn’t know suburbs unless he took a wrong turn.” “Will you shit up man?” “Get out of your and trap.” Imagine if Bernie or a younger candidate with real energy were there. Imagine someone quick on their feet because we need that. The bully style of scary clown 45 does fluster a normal person as it supposed to. Joe held his own and had real dignity though. It is hard to not respond to the President’s ridiculousness but he needs to be ignored. Trump and son both seemed like they were about 8 Red Bulls into the day with all that pent up anger. Who should be drug tested? Biden? Trump went on about forest management but most of that land belongs to the Federal government. ** I have never seen my mailperson trying to sell ballots.** Trump said that bad things are happening in Philadelphia. Biden should have showed some love for the state. He is on a tour of it now though. ** Chris Wallace said, “Why you not?” Was that a real question? 45 said, “I was a private business people.” They all had a little trouble talking. It is exhausting the way people put up with his manners. **As soon as the debate was over, the Trump army wasted no time reaching out to goons to be poll watchers. Do they know that you just can’t show up randomly for that??**Apprentice insiders say Trump abuses Adderall.

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The other day when Trump took the podium for a rant, an open mike caught a someone saying, “Oh shit” On Fox.

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For those who insist Trump is a religious man, I’ll grant you he pays taxes like a church. –Stephen Colbert

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Letterman is ready with My Next Guest Needs no Introduction. This season includes Robert Downey Jr., Lizzo and Dave Chappelle.

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There are about 9 million feral swine in this country known as super pigs.

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There is talk of Levar Burton replacing Alex Trebeck when he retires. YES!!!!

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Cigar Afficionado magazine has named CBS Sunday Morning the greatest show on tv.

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The U.S. built tunnels under Trump’s wall to let water, garbage, DDT and other toxins flow thru. Millions were spent for nothing and now millions more will be spent to address this problem that empties into the Pacific Ocean.

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Days alert: Melissa Reeves is being replaced. Is it that she does not want to commute from Nashville or that she is a bit too conservative or something else? Is it an end of Days with old side characters and replacements of the stars??** Ava is coming back, JJ is back, Eric and Sami are gone. ** Absolutely loved the pic of Abigail 1 that confused Abigail 2. Funny!!!! It reminded me of the OLTL moment during Asa’s funeral when Blair saw the 1st Blair in a flashback.

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“Smaller than expected” would probably explain a lot about the proud boys. –Andi Zeisler

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Why does anyone listen to Christie or Rudy??

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Looting isn’t part of protesting just like murder isn’t part of arresting.

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A judge has said that Florida has created an “unconstitutional pay to vote system.” This has now been overturned. What are the things that can be termed felonies to keep one from voting? The list includes releasing helium filled balloons, driving without a license, catching the wrong lobster and disturbing turtle eggs. Amendment 4 was originally put into effect to stop freed slaves from voting. But SB7066 makes sure that felons complete the terms of their sentences. The fines, fees and restitution can be hard to navigate. There must be proof before they can vote but all counties keep their own records and there is no organization statewide. Mike Bloomberg, John Legend, Michael Jordon and others are paying off millions of dollars in debt for felons in Florida so that they can vote if they can unravel some of the puzzles. Now Florida Republicans are saying that that is also illegal.

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Two thirds of the world’s wildlife has disappeared in the last 50 years.

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At our own peril, we have to step up or everything is lost. –John Batiste

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Michael Jordan will start up a Nascar team with Bubba Wallace.

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Laraine Newman signed up to be a poll worker. How do you get people to vote? Celebrity poll workers? Hey whatever works as long as the masses don’t gawk and hold up the lines.

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A refrigerator sized asteroid is headed to earth and may arrive about the time of the election.

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So the coronavirus relief funds were funneled by the pentagon to defense contractors.** What kind of a selfish fucking world do we live in? At least we know which people in this world give a flying fuck about the rest of us. Rally and fair participants, relief money scammers and mask protesters, we hear you loud and clear!!

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The Emmys went on thru the week of the 14th thru the 20th. Winners included RuPaul, Don’t fuck with Cats, Leah Remini, The Apollo, Eddie Murphy, Last Week 2nite, SNL, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Crown, Better Call Saul, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Archer, Hollywood, Maya Rudolph, Dan Harmon, Bad Education, Cherry Jones, Regina King, Julia Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Uzo Aduba, The Last Dance and Stranger Things. Schitt’s Creek (and practically the whole cast), Dave Chappelle and Succession took home the big ones. Norman Lear became the oldest Emmy winner ever. Letterman ‘hitchhiked’ to the Emmy’s to present an award. I was really rooting for Amy Sedaris!!

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Bill Murray and Rashida Jones will star in Sofia Coppala’s On the Rocks.** The Doobie Brothers want Bill Murray to stop using their music to sell his golf clothes.

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Danny Trejo and Jessica Tuck will star in ‘The Shift.’

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Illinois is pulling down statues including Chris Columbus. Woo Hoo!!

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13 mummies have been discovered in a well, stacked one on top of the other. The Egyptian discovery from about 2,500 years ago has been well preserved.

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Hysterectomies on immigrant women in detention camps?? Really??

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Scientific American mag is 175 years old has never endorsed a candidate but Joe Biden id their man.

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Word is that in Indonesia the anti- maskers are forced to dig the graves of the Covid 19 victims.

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The Breonna Taylor case continues with a settlement and too few charges.

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Scary Clown 45 announced he will call in to Fox and Friends every Monday or Tuesday but a host told him that they were not committed to that.** The Scary campaign put up ads with “Support Our Troops” but the problem is they are Russian troops and jet fighters.** Trump did a phone interview on Fox Sports and talked about golf.

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It is a shame that Hillary lost the election and many more of us would be alive if she were running the show. But, I can only imagine the shit they would have given her.

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Brad Pascale, Trump’s former campaign manager, went to the hospital after being taken into custody in Florida after threatening suicide.

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Just remember , 1619 Project: Good 1776 Commision: Oh my! Why do these rich old fucks want us to stay as stupid and uninformed as they are? Haven’t we been in the dark long enough? They are the fake news masters.

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Jim Carrey will play Biden on SNL. Chris Rock will be host the season 46 opener on Oct. 3. New players will be Lauren Holt, Punkie Johnson and Andrew Dismukes.

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Gulf War Syndrome is a chronic and multi symptomatic disorder that has affected military personnel from the Persian Gulf War. The DOD is resisting the strong evidence and needs more of a spotlight. The possible exposure to chemical weapons may even have been passed on to their partners through sexual contact. All of this came to light in the mid 90’s thru complaints that were told to Ross Perot. Let’s hope Tammy Duckworth looks into this further.

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Amy Coney Barrett has been nominated to the Supreme Court. Her previous statements tell us she believes the ACA is unconstitutional, abortion is always immoral and the country should undo marriage equality. She is a member of People of Praise.** If she was a Muslim and everything else was the same regarding her beliefs and associations, Republicans would call her a religious extremist and never let her step near the Supreme Court. –Wajahat Ali.** Notorious A.C.B. ?? Do they have one original idea other than new ways to cheat and steal??

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Finn Wittrock has a funny little Emmy Uber ride on Funny or Die.

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Breonna Taylor’s neighbor’s wall got more justice that Breonna herself. –Jordan Uhl

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Go Stevie Wonder!!!

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Dax Sheppard went off the wagon for a while.

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A Giant Gundom? Really?

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A fun prank would be if we stopped this from becoming a dictatorship on Nov. 3rd and whatnot. –George Wallace

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Sen. Kevin Kramer has been acting a little crooked on building the Wall.

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The Metropolitan Opera has cancelled the whole season.

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Happy Doomscrolling

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Can dogs be trained to detect the coronavirus?

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Rand Paul is an idiot. Birx and Atlas have ruined reps. Give ‘em Hell Fauci!! ** Everything Atlas says is false. –R. Redfield

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Eric Trump must testify in court about the Trump business’s a judge has decreed. The Trump biz has made about 19 billion in the last 3 years.** The world is gobbling up the news about the Trump tax returns with tales of debt, the $72.9 milliion refund and foreign influence. How does the IRS let a refund like that happen? How bad of a businessman do you have to be to lose that much $? National security threat. One of his fans will probably bail him out.

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Bet we’d all own houses if we stopped eating so much avocado toast and committed tax fraud. -Kashana

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Mary Trump has sued The President and his siblings for fraud.

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Ellen is selling off $10 mil in art.

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61% say we should abolish the electoral college.

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The Netflix series, Challenger :The Final Flight reminds us that like The Titanic, the arrogance of man can change so many lives.

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Wilderness of Errors is a great doc. It proves just how right the book and mini -series got it.

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The remains of the 1644 warship, Del Menhorst have been found off the Danish coast.

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Everybody is talking about Jeff Daniels in The Comey Rule. The actors were upset when Showtime was going to push back the release until after the election. The actors said they wouldn’t promote the film so the film has premiered.

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David Tennant gets better and better and now he is giving us DES on ITV. Quality AND quanity.

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Independent prosecutors are not going ahead with a case against NE Patriots Robert Craft for soliciting prostitutes.

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America has no memories. –Wallace Shawn

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Tyler Childers has released ‘Long Violent History”. Give it a listen.

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Does it seem like the administration gets a word of the week and they really push it? Caravan-Herd-sedition-looters- Antifa. It is like they all share a brain and do not have a thought of their own.

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Chris Petrovski `will star in ‘Listen’ about a young Israeli soldier.

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On a personal note, I love the way that Autumn makes my brain feel. The spring allergies are gone, the hot muddled summer thinking fades and everything opens up.

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Gubler is back and in the video for Future Islands ‘Moonlight’.

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Niecy Nash wed Jessica Betts.

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Check out the Curious life and death of… on the Smithsonian channel.

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Conan is looking hot with his grown out hair.

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I just love Mel Rodriguez and Weijia Jiang. Some people just don’t get enough credit.

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Vet’s crisis line: 1-800-273-8255

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Donald Trump is taking page out of Charles Manson’s playbook. Start a race war, then convince the public you alone can end it. He’s a lying racist piece of garbage. –Rob Reiner

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Serious Question: Would good Christian conservatives have mounted a Go fund me for Timothy McVeigh? –Michael Mckean

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Old Navy will pay employees to work the polls on Election day.

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Trump is the most effective anti -liberal in my lifetime. –Newt Gingrich

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Tommy Chong does not seem too happy with Joe Rogan.

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Anna Faris is leaving CBS’s Mom as it heads into its 8th season.

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Q Anon should take advantage of the ACA. –Joe Biden

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Word is that the White House told Federal agencies to ban race based sensitivity training. The thinking is that Un American propaganda training sessions have no place in Federal Government.

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I wish I lived in a country where John Kelly, James Mattis and John Bolton had at least half the balls of Sally Yates, Maria Yovanovitch, Fiona Hill, Reality Winner, Christine Blasey Ford or Stormy Daniels. – Andrea Junker** If only Mad Dog Mattis had the balls of Olivia Troye – Michael Mckean

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38 million Americans live in poverty.

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80 year old Sam Little with a possible 93 murders has now been called the most prolific serial killer in the U.S. and he has a photographic memory. Whoever takes this on, please let David Alan Grier play him in the movie.

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You must check out the album, the Angel Headed Hipster.

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Everybody is talking about Cottage Core.

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The Trump campaign can’t help themselves with things like playing ‘knockin’ on Heaven’s door’ and ‘Fortunate son’ at rally’s. It was like the time my Grandfathers young wife brought a purse to the funeral that boldly stated ‘Jackpot.’ True Story.

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Glenn Howerton and Seth Meyers should play brothers on something.** Also Meyers and Larry Wilmore wondered if the cancellation of Wilmore’s show was a reason for the racial unrest and terrible results of the last election. Hmmm.

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Can we remember this election enthusiasm for all future elections? We need to take things seriously EVERY time.** So many say that even with our divide, we all want the same things in the end. I do not think that is really true. It seems that in this divide, we have different ideas about what we want this country to be.

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Harry Styles has replaced Shia LaBeouf in Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling.

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Cat Cora has filed for a restraining order against her ex- wife, Jennifer who it seems has been stalking her.

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Showtime’s The Comedy Store sounds interesting with stories like Jimmie Walker who claims that Freddie Prinze wanted to kill John Travolta.

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Maplecroft, Lizzie Borden’s last house sold for about $890,000.

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A woman ref in the NFL?? It’s about time!

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Doc Martin will end after its 10th season.

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Kelly Clarkson is being sued by her management firm.

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Pope Francis refused to meet with Mike Pompeo.

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R.I.P. Tom Seaver, Sophie Farrar, Kevin Dobson, Toots Hibbert, Stevie Lee, Bruce Williamson, Ben Cross, Diana Rigg, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Rev. Robert Graetz, Ron Cobb, Gale Sayers, Dan Dettman, Kevin Burns, Mac Davis, wildfire casualties, Covid victims and Helen Reddy.

0 notes

imwastingmylifeinhere · 7 years

Text

Magnus Chase and the Obligatory Hogwarts AU Ch4

On ao3

And her it is, folks! I hope you enjoy this and just know that I’ve never written a sporting event before, so any comments on the game are very appreciated. Once again, thanks to @tearfulmelody for editing this.

Btw, I’m sorry in advance.

The Hufflepuff Horror Party had come soon after their Hogsmeade visit and it was great.

Of course, that was to be expected. The Hufflepuff House prided itself on, among other things, throwing great parties, and they all put their best efforts into it. The party took place in the Hall of the Slain, the night after the Halloween Feast. The hall was decorated so it was dark, like you were standing inside the Forbidden Forest in the dead of night. In fact, fifth year students from Hufflepuff, when asked to practice spells that made plants grow faster in Herbology, had practiced on tree seeds from the Forest. This resulted in full grown trees decorating the Hall, completed with spider webs and fake bats that flied as if they were real. The traditional floating Jack ‘o Lanterns of Hogwarts weren’t missing either. They drifted across the room, casting their dim, in many cases multicolored light upon the partying students like magical disco balls.

In the end, while they might not have gone to the party as the Scooby Doo gang, they went as the Power Rangers (blame Magnus). That, of course, had brought up the discourse of who would get to be the Red Ranger. In the end, after a lot of fighting and arguments between Halfborn and Alex he preferred not to think back to, they had decided Sam should be the Red one. Halfborn was Blue, T.J was Green, Magnus was Yellow, Alex was Pink and Mallory was Black. The might have been incredibly warm in their suits, and wearing their helmets may have resulted to Halfborn stumbling over a group of second years, but hey, they had an excuse to strike ridiculous poses without anyone judging them (that had been Magnus’ main argument in favor of this choice).

They had a great time! There were party streamers and confetti all over the place, which the first and second years used to play war. At any given moment, you could be knocked off your feet from a rushing kid who was running away from an attack or on a mission to steal the enemy’s supply of party goods. Since Alex had never had the opportunity to partake in Hogwarts’ legendary Party War, the table 19 gang joined the younger students, Magnus, Sam and Alex on one side and Halfborn, Mallory and T.J on the other. They threw confetti and party streamers at each other. Halfborn head-locked Alex and rubbed confetti on his hair as he struggled to get away. T.J and Mallory had a full on “snowball fight” with balls made of party streamers and dragged Sam into it too. Magnus used his legendary attack and threw a giant pile of party supplies at the enemy side while yelling “Booyakasha!”

It had become much quieter at ten, when the first, second and third years had to leave because of curfew. The older years, however, were allowed to stay longer and Magnus, like his friends and everyone in his year, were extremely giddy about being able to stay longer. They danced and pulled ridiculous shit, like trying to form a human pyramid even though they had never done that before. They ended up a mess of spandex clad bodies on the floor, wiggling around like fish out of water and trying to get untangled.

Magnus and Alex were by the buffet table, having a competition to see who could find the nastiest Every Flavor Bean. This far in, Magnus had to eat some that tasted like egg, berries, vomit, grass (which tasted surprisingly nice) and pineapple. He was about to eat a green one Alex handed him that could be either bogeys or green apple when Alex talked.

“So what did Sam want to talk to you about the other day?”

“What do you mean?” Magnus asked as he popped the candy in his mouth. Thank goodness, it was apple.

“When Sam took you outside to talk when we were in Valhalla,” Alex said. “You didn’t look too good afterwards. Neither did she, now that I think about it.”

Magnus averted his eyes from Alex, now finding the bowl of candy much more interesting. After his talk with Sam, he had tried to act normal. He had tried to act like everything was fine, but his mood had dampened significantly and, even though he hadn’t realized it, all his friends picked up on it. Magnus joked along with them and laughed with them, but he wasn’t there with them; his heart wasn’t in it.

“Look,” Alex said as he stepped closer to Magnus, the candy forgotten completely now. “I… don’t know what’s happening, honestly. And I’m not good at this whole ‘friends’ thing, I never got much practice. But everyone is worried about you and… I’m worried too.” He paused, taking a deep breath like he was psyching himself up to say what he wanted. “What you said after what that boy did really helped me. I want to help you too and talking to people makes you feel better.”

He sighed, running a hand through his hair, pink tonight to match his costume. “I’m not that good in talking to people about what bothers me, so I probably don’t have a right to tell you this, but… talk to Sam. Even if you don’t tell her everything, getting some of it off your chest will help, whatever it is.”

Magnus looked at the bowl of multicolored beans silently. What Alex said made sense, but still… he was afraid.

When he finally talked, he didn’t look at Alex. “I thought you’d ask me to tell you what happened.”

From the sound of his voice, the notion surprised Alex. “No, you’ve know Sam much longer. If it’s something so bad to make you this miserable, I thought you’d trust her with it more. Plus, I wouldn’t know what to do if you cried. I’d just stand there awkwardly.”

Magnus sighed. All around them, the music was beating loud and fast as students danced under the shining colored lights. It was noisy and the air warm and even a bit study from the dozens of sweaty teenagers. Magnus had never thought he’d be in a place so bright and alive and feel anything but that. Until now, he had never understood how you could be around so many people and feel so utterly lonely.

“But,” Alex said, his voice cheery. Maybe a bit to cheery. Like he was hoping that his cheerfulness would rub off on Magnus and make him feel better. It didn’t quite work. “If anyone has hurt you, then I’m 100% willing to make them pay. That’s what friends do, right?”

Magnus gave a pathetic little chuckle. He wondered if Alex could bring his mum back from the dead by punching the Grim Reaper in the face.

“Yeah,” Magnus answered absentmindedly. Maybe he should talk to Sam. Maybe it would make him feel better. “Thanks for talking to me, Alex.”

“No problem,” he said cheerily and popped an Every Flavor Bean in his mouth. Unfortunately for him, it was cat piss. “Eww! Gross!”

Magnus, despite himself, laughed at his friend’s misfortune. What Magnus didn’t know was that Alex knew perfectly well what that bean tasted like before putting it in his mouth ad it was hardly an accident.

“Come on!” he said after most of the cat piss taste left his tongue and Magnus had had a good laugh at his expense. “Let’s go dance with the others!”

“Nah, I think I’m good over here,” Magnus said. “I need to do some thinking.”

“Nuh uh. No way. I’m not letting you here on your own.” As Alex said that, he grabbed Magnus by the wrist and dragged him to the middle of the dance floor. “Plus, I asked them to play that song we talked about in class about now.”

“What song?” Magnus asked, right as the band started playing Macarena. He looked Alex dead in the eye. “Seriously?”

She beamed at him. “Yep! Now show me how you dance this again!”

~~~~~~

Magnus had meant to talk to Sam after the party. He did, he really did, but… some things are easier said than done. In the week that followed Halloween, he had caught himself about to speak to her at least a dozen times, but every time something always happened and he didn’t get the chance to talk. Every time he told himself it didn’t matter because he could just talk to her next time. But when the next time came, he still chickened out of it.

Magnus was in the library, doing his homework. T.J was tutoring some younger students for extra credit (not that he really needed it) and he wasn’t quite sure where Halfborn was. He was supposed to run some errands for Professor Jack, if Magnus remembered correctly but he wasn’t sure. He was sitting by the large window that overlooked the Quidditch field. Mallory, Sam and Alex were practicing along with the rest of the Slytherin team.

Sam was the team’s Seeker from this year on since the previous one had graduated. It had been the position she wanted since the beginning, but up until now she had been a Chaser. She was great in the field, but then again Sam was born to fly. Learning how to fly on a broomstick had been what she was most excited about in their first year, and she was amazing at it.

Mallory was a Beater, because of course she’d choose the position when you had to beat up people. She was deadly in a game and might have broken her fair share of bone by accident while playing (both her own and other’s). Alex was a Chaser and with their first match of the year this Saturday, she could hardly stay still.

He turned back to the Potions essay in front of him and struggled to get the words to come out. He knew he should have started earlier, but with everything that was happening he couldn’t focus on it for long. That resulted with him having to turn in the essay in two days and being hardly half way through the first paragraph.

He sighed again, using an erasing spell to erase the line he had just written. Ugh, why couldn’t he write it? It was just a simple essay! And it wasn’t even on something difficult, he knew this stuff, but he couldn’t concentrate enough to write it.

Or, well, he was concentrated on something, just not what he was supposed to. Struggling to talk to Sam about his mother meant that the topic was always front and center in his brain instead of at the very back, along with all the other horrible things he would have preferred never happened. That, in turn, meant that he had had a horrible mood for days.

Magnus, well, Magnus was a bottler, if that hadn’t been clear enough already. He didn’t talk about what bothered him, at least not on his own accord. If something troubled him, he never brought it up, preferring to keep it in instead of annoying people with his problems. If he did talk to someone, it was after the other person initiated it and asked him what was wrong. And even then he wouldn’t speak unless the bottle was absolutely filled to the brim and one more drop would make it explode.

But keeping all that in, when the bottle was full and heavy with all the small or big things that bothered him, made him feel horrible. And Magnus didn’t like feeling like that, which in turn made him feel even worse and drop by drop the bottle kept filling.

He groaned again, much too loud for someone in a library, and flopped down on the table, letting his head rest on the hard wood. This shouldn’t be so difficult and he shouldn’t get so frustrated or sad over it but he was and that made it even worse.

The blonde was contemplating asking T.J. to write it for him when he heard the scraping sound of someone pulling back a chair. He looked up to see Professor Hearthstone sitting opposite him.

The Ancient Runes teacher was tall and thin, he reminded Magnus a bit of Jack the Pumpkin King from the Nightmare Before Christmas with his long arms and legs. His hair, complexion and even eyes were so white that Magnus wondered whether or not they would be able to find him in snow. There was a slightly pointy tip to his ears and Magnus knew that he had elf blood in his family, however distant it might be.

“Professor Hearthstone?” Magnus asked, confused as to why the Ravenclaw Head of House would be here. “Is there something I can help you with?”

That’s actually what I wanted to ask you, the Professor signed.

Professor Hearthstone was deaf and talked in BSL and Halfborn had taught Magnus after he asked him because it seemed interesting. A few parents had complained about his hiring in Hogwarts, saying that the fact he couldn’t speak would make lessons more difficult for students. A lot also had problems with his elf descendancy and didn’t want their children to be taught by him. As T.J. had explained to them, the matter was resolved when Professor Hearthstone sent every single parent who complained about him a letter containing his family tree to show them how far back his elf ancestor was. In the letter he also told the parents that he used a spell to voice his thoughts for lessons, so if they wanted to complain they should first inform themselves, and that, at the end of the day, their children didn’t have to take his lesson if they didn’t want to.

I understand you are not necessarily my student, the Professor continued, however it has come to my attention that something is troubling you and I wanted to help.

“H-how did you realize?” Magnus asked, too tired to even try and lie about it.

The teacher raised an eyebrow. I talk frequently with Blitzen, and many of your friends are students of mine. They’re all worried about you.

Dread filled up Magnus’s heart. He didn’t want to worry his friends, that was why he didn’t let them know what was wrong with him. But doing that changed nothing, apparently, because his friends still worried, and felt powerless to help their friend when they didn’t even know what to help him with.

“I-I don’t really want to talk about it,” Magnus muttered, training his eyes on his unfinished essay.

Professor Hearthstone reached out and raised his face so Magnus would look at him. I understand, he signed, but as a teacher, I don’t enjoy seeing my students in pain. I understand you might not want to talk about some things, and you might not feel comfortable talking about them to everyone. But I know firsthand how much it can hurt everyone around you and most importantly you to keep them in.

Professor Hearthstone sat up straighter. I am not here to make you talk to me. I understand you might not want to. But letting it out of you will help. If you don’t want to talk to a teacher or a friend, you can write about it.

“Like a dairy?”

I suppose. What I wanted to say is that you should talk about it if you want to. I can guarantee to you that if you talk to a teacher, they won’t tell what you told them to anyone.

Professor Hearthstone stood up, tall and slightly imposing despite being so thin. However, I cannot make you talk if you don’t want to. In the end, it’s your choice.

The Ancient Runes teacher walked out of the library, leaving Magnus behind, sitting on his own by the large window that overlooked the Quidditch field and feeling lost.

~~~~~~~

The sky was bright and the atmosphere was buzzing as the stands around the Quidditch filled were alive with the Hogwarts students, young and old, excited for another match of the wizarding world’s most famous sport.

If one where to look at the stand from high up, they would see a sea of red and green. Students of all ages were wearing their house scarves proudly to cheer on their teams. Some were waving banners or flags and there was even a student that had charmed a stuffed lion to roar. The air was buzzing with the cacophony of the students shouts and the game hadn’t even began yet. Magnus knew from experience it would get much worse as the game progressed.

T.J. and Magnus were in the stands, excited to watch their friends duke it out in the field. Supporting both teams, they were among the few, if not the only, students dressed in both House’s colors. T.J had Halfborn’s scarf hanging around his neck and Sam’s scarf in hand, prepared to start waving it around when the game started. He had a large hat that had ‘Slytherin’ spelled out on it in silver, glittering paint and a Gryffindor flag in the other hand. Magnus, in the meanwhile, was wearing Alex’s scarf around his neck and, like T.J, held Mallory’s scarf in one hand and a Gryffindor flag in the other, with his blonde hair covered by a large Gryffindor hat.

“Slytherin! Gryffindor! Slytherin! Gryffindor!” T.J. practically chanted, turning from side to side and waving his arms around.

“T.J., the match hasn’t even started yet,” Magnus said, keeping a straight face with great difficulty. T.J. always got over excited about Quidditch matches.

“I’m practicing,” the dark skinned boy said and went back to waving his arms.

Magnus smiled. T.J. was rightfully excited. Quidditch matches between Gryffindor and Slytherin always got the school buzzing with excitement. The two Houses, while not out for blood, were definitely the most competitive among the four. Their matches were always intense and managed to get everyone’s adrenaline pumping, even if they didn’t know a lot about the sport.

It wasn’t long before the commenter started talking, announcing the teams’ entrance.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and all you lovely folks in the stands, it’s time for the much awaited match between Gryffindor and Slytherin!”

The stands roared with excitement. Magnus could swear the whole pitch was shaking from the power of their voices, and he might have cared about them collapsing and falling down if he wasn’t screaming alongside the other students.

The Gryffindor team run in the field, brooms in hand, as the announcer introduced them and gave fun facts about them.

“And Halfborn Gunderson walks in, real name a total mystery. But don’t be fooled by his size, because this giant of a man will beat you in grades like he beats you on the field. Will he be able to score points for his team?”

Claps, whistles and cheers rocked the stands as the Gryffindor students and supporters went wild. Their whole team was lined up in the filled, a row of blazing red and gold flowers among the green grass.

“And now, on the other side of the field, please give a warm welcome to Slytherin!”

The announcer did the same thing as before as the Slytherin players walked in, walking proudly in their dark green robes.

“Mallory Keen walks into the field. Petite as she might me, don’t underestimate this fiery redhead unless you want a concussion. Though I wouldn’t mind getting one from a beauty like this.”

Mallory stood next to her teammates with the confidence of a winner, her wild mane of hair pulled back in a puffy ponytail. She didn’t seem to have heard the announcer’s flirting, and if she did, she didn’t seem to care.

“And here we have Alex Fierro! She/her today, folks, and this young girl seems ready as hell to win her team points!”

Alex was holding her broom on her shoulders, like one might hold a stick to carry buckets of water. She beamed up at the stands and the crowd went wild.

“And now, the Slytherin Seeker, the lady of the skies herself, Samirah al-Abbas!” Sam ran onto the field, green hijab fluttering as she run. She had earned herself a reputation in Hogwarts as an amazing Seeker.

Hunding went over something with the teams, probably asking them for a fair game, before releasing the balls. The players shot up after them, fast and fierce. They flew with such speed and precision Magnus got equally scared and thrilled watching them. They flew left and right, high and low, so fast Magnus could barely keep track of them.

Magnus wasn’t the best person to describe a Quidditch match to you, mostly because he only knew the basics of the game, like how many points a goal was worth and that the game ended when the snitch was caught. His limited knowledge, however, didn’t stop him from realizing the game was bloody intense. It was been twenty minutes into the match and no one had score yet. The players flew up and down, throwing balls and catching them, zipping past the stands so fast Magnus’ hat was almost blown off.

Sam and the Gryffindor Seeker were hovering above the rest of the players. Their eyes were scanning the field, patiently waiting for the appearance of the Snitch. At one point, Sam suddenly dipped down, chasing after a golden blur. The other Seeker soon followed her, desperately trying to catch up. In his hurry, he crashed into Sam and they both lost their chance at the Snitch.

Another twenty minutes passed and now the two teams had each scored a goal. Alex and Halfborn were in a heated battle over one of the quaffle and neither of them was giving up anytime soon. Mallory and the other Beater flew around and attacked the enemy players. Once, Mallory smacked a bludger so close to a Gryffindor player it only missed her by a hair. The Gryffindor girl, surprised by the ball that had just zipped past her, lost her balance, and fell off her broom. Luckily, the pitch was charmed so if one of the students fell, it was like falling on a trampoline instead of on hard ground.

Magnus’ voice was going hoarse by the time Alex scored her second goal. The crowd’s excitement was contagious and Magnus’s cheeks were flushed red from all the yelling and cheering. He was about to turn to T.J to tell him something when the two Seekers suddenly dipped down. They flew towards the ground, going faster and faster, chasing the tiny golden ball that zipped past the other players.

The whole student body watched with bated breath as the two Seekers were neck to neck. They held onto their brooms with one hand, the other hand stretched forward to catch the Snitch. Down and down they went and Magnus couldn’t take his eyes of them.

Then, a breath away from the ground, they pulled up. Magnus wasn’t sure whether his heart had stopped beating or whether it was beating too fast. He would never understand how Sam could pull stunts like that without feeling scared.

The two teams had stopped playing, waiting to see who caught the Snicth like the other students. The silence that descended on the field was just as deafening as the cheering had been before.

Then Sam raised her right hand up high to show a pair of gold wings jutting out of her closed fist and fluttering wildly.

The stands erupted with cheers. The Slytherin supporters’ yells were loud and happy, and while you couldn’t make out what each student was saying, you could still understand how ecstatic they all were to have won the match. Even Gryffindor was cheering, simply happy to have seen such an intense match.

“And Slytherin wins, folks! What an amazing match!”

“We won! We won!” T.J cheered, ignoring the fact that, since they were cheering for both teams, they would have won either way. Still, Magnus didn’t have the mind to tell him that because he was too busy cheering along with everyone else. Watching his friends play Quidditch gave him this adrenaline-filled feeling like his whole body was buzzing with energy begging to be released. If this is what it felt like for Sam to be flying out there, no wonder she loved it so much.

The stands emptied slowly as the teams went to their respective changing rooms and the students started leaving for dinner. Magnus was still high from the match. He remembered when he first came to Hogwarts, how excited he had been over the peculiar sport. He wrote to his mum after every single match and even though what he wrote must have made no sense whatsoever, she always seemed so happy to hear his rapid, excited rambling.

His mind wondering off to his mum brought Magnus back to the scary reality of what he had promised himself to do after the match.

Talk. He was going to talk to Sam.

A part of him told him not to. A part of him found excuses, how she must be tired, how he shouldn’t bring her down with his troubles after she just won a match. You can just tell her some other time, part of him said.

But Manus knew that if he listened to that part of him then he’d never speak to Sam. And he wasn’t sure how much more the bottle could hold before it burst.

One by one, the Slytherin team members left the locker rooms, excited for dinner after such a great match. Mallory, Halfborn, Alex and T.J were talking among themselves and even though Magnus was standing next to them he wasn’t paying any attention to what they were saying. The last Slytherin player left too, but Sam was still nowhere to be found.

“Hey, um, where is Sam?” Magnus asked. He really hoped he didn’t look like he felt. Like a nervous wreck.

“She’s still inside,” Mallory said, gesturing at the locker rooms with her thumb. “It’s her turn to tidy up the place today. We told her she didn’t have to do it since she won us the match, but you know what Sam is like.” She shrugged and went back to the conversation she was having with Halfborn.

“Oh, um, I’ll go check on her,” Magnus said as he slipped away from the group.

Inside, the locker room was, well, like any other locker room. There were white tiles everywhere and wooded benches as well as the ever present musky/sweaty smell that came with a room sweaty teenagers change clothes in. It was eerie to be in here without any of the other players (Magnus had come here with Sam once to cheer her on before a big game), especially when he only knew some of them from the locker room.

Magnus moved through the little rooms, like the boy’s and girl’s changing areas, the showers and this little lounge thing for before games, but Sam wasn’t there. Things were clean and tidy so she must have already finished with this.

He moved deeper inside the locker room. His heartbeat was getting faster and faster and his flight instinct was going crazy. Dread settled in his throat like heavy, gooey slime and it wouldn’t go away no matter how hard he tried to swallow it down.

He reached an open door with a sign on it that read “Sports equipment”. He heard moving around and rattling from inside and, with the eagerness of a man heading to his execution, stepped inside.

Sam was on top of a stool, putting away some spare Quidditch things Magnus didn’t know the name of. Her back was to him and she hadn’t noticed him yet. If his flight instinct was going crazy before, now it had gone completely haywire. He bit his lip anxiously. He felt so frightened, like it was his first day of school again and he both wanted and was afraid of going. He was just a scared little child that wanted his mummy, even if he knew she couldn’t be here to tell him everything was fine.

Yet, scared or not, Magnus took a step closer and made himself known.

“Um, Sam?”

She turned around to look at him. He green hijab, now pulling around her neck, rustled as she moved. “Oh, Magnus. What are you doing here?”

“I, uh…” Deep breath. “I need to talk to you.”

Maybe it was the tone in his voice, maybe it was that he held himself like a frightened rabbit, maybe it was that nothing good ever came out of “I need to talk to you”. Whatever the reason, Sam’s carefree expression disappeared completely.

“What’s wrong?” She asked as she moved closer to him. Her brows were furrowed together, creating a wrinkle between them like every time she was worried about something.

“It’s- “his voice broke, “it’s about my mum.”

The wrinkle became even deeper. Sam’s arms were held in front of her body, like she wanted to reach out to Magnus but she was afraid he’d crack if she touched him. He felt like he would.

“What you said. B-back at Valhalla. She’s not sick.” Another deep breath. And another. They came out shaky, shivering, like leaves in the wind.

“She’s dead.”

Sam didn’t talk. She didn’t gasp or anything like that. She stayed quiet, so quiet it was like Magnus was on his own. Even if she wasn’t standing next to him, he wouldn’t have noticed. His eyes were glued to the ground, to a dirty spot in the floor that was getting blurrier every second.

When Sam finally talked, it was quiet and breathless, as though she couldn’t even begin to phantom what she was hearing. “When?”

“T-this summer,” Magnus continued. The cork was off the bottle and he couldn’t put it back even if he wanted to. “We- we were going to go camping the next day. I had gone to bed early so I wouldn’t be tired and- and- When I woke up, when mum woke me up, there-there was smoke. Smoke and-and heat and” a sob tore its way out of his throat, “Mum- she told me to get up and-and we ran to the door but then part of the ceiling collapsed.”

Magnus hadn’t realized it, too deep in his memories, but Sam had led him to the stool she had been using and sat him down. She rubbed his back but all it did was remind Magnus of his mum doing the same when he cried and his sobs came harder.

“We ran for the fire escape. We-we were almost there when-“ Magnus felt like he was going to throw up. “The ceiling collapse again. On-on mum.”

A small gasp came from Sam but Magnus kept going.

It was like he was there again. Their small apartment, the place where Magnus had made so many happy memories, turned into a fiery inferno. Smoke and heat and flames everywhere and Magnus was scared, so scared. His tears dried on his cheeks from the heat and his mum held his hand, telling him it was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay. They would get out of there.

They didn’t. He did.

“S-she was trapped and-and I tried to get her out but-“ Another sob tore his body in half. “I wasn’t s-strong enough. She-she told me to run. She t-told me she’d be right b-behind me. I-I grabbed my b-backpack a-and jumped out the window. I la-landed in the ga-garbage bin and I-I looked up e-expecting her to come- but-“

It hurts. Stop. It hurts.

“The-the window ex-exploded.”

Please stop. Stop, please. It hurts.

“She didn’t come out.”

Sam was holding him close, hugging him. Her body shook with silent sobs and Magnus felt her tears soak the back of his shirt. They stayed like that, hugging, crying rivers, oceans. Sam didn’t speak. No ‘I’m sorry’, no nothing. Sam knew what it was like to lose your mother. She knew that ‘I’m sorry’s felt like empty words.

She knew there was nothing she could do right now except holding Magnus as he cried his heart out.

Magnus wasn’t sure how long he was crying. It could have been a few minutes or it could have been days and he wouldn’t have noticed the difference. He cried and cried, leaving wet trails down his cheeks, and he didn’t even know he had this many tears in him.

Magnus was crying, still crying, when his friends appeared on the door. Whatever they were going to say –about where Magnus and Sam were this whole time, about missing dinner if they didn’t hurry up- died in their throats when they saw their two friends close together, crying like it was the end of the world.

Alex wasn’t hesitant to touch Magnus, not like Sam had been. Then again, he was completely wrecked now. There was nothing for her to break.

First it was Alex, then T.J, Mallory and Halfborn. They rushed forward, not a word spoken, and hugged Magnus and Sam. They didn’t know what was happening, and they didn’t really need too. What they knew was that their friend was a crying mess and maybe, just maybe they could put all the broken pieces of him back together if they hugged him hard enough.

Magnus thought of what people always said when you couldn’t move on from a loved one’s death. How they wouldn’t want you trapped in the past, how they would want you to move on. He wondered if his mother was somewhere out there, anywhere, watching Magnus happily, glad he made the first step.

He liked the idea she was.

Magnus stayed there, crying in the smelly Quidditch storage room as his friends and his mother’s memory held him close.

#magnus chase and the obligatory hogwarts au #magnus chase #alex fierro #fierrochase #fanfiction #my fics #ch4

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ladyrevanhalin · 5 years

Text

ONLY LIGHT CAN CAST SHADOW: CHAPTER THIRTEEN - SEROCCO AND THE CATHAR MASSACRE

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15753210/chapters/38115335

The Miraluka planet of Katarr was brimming and alive with the Force. It was the reason why the Revanchist had suggested that they rendezvous here before taking the prisoner to Coruscant to go on trial. It would be far easier for the Revanchists to recover from their recent nightmare on Flashpoint in a place that was so full with energy from the Force.

Many were deep in meditation as the ships—the Stalwart Nightingale and the Williwaw—sat landed on the planet’s surface. Away from the others so as not to disturb them, the Revanchist sat in the med bay of the Nightingale with her apprentice, tending to his head wounds. Across the entirety of his skull were a network of crude stitches which seemed to be holding him together. It appeared as though Demagol had performed a vivisection on the man’s head in an attempt to observe the brain. There were soft spots also along many of the stitched points. The Revanchist could only assume that the doctor had drilled through the bone in these places.

In all, Malak was lucky just to be alive. The guilt of this thought ate away at the woman’s soul. Had it not been for the stroke of luck with that Padawan from Taris, it was almost certain he would have been dead before she could reach Flashpoint.

The man grimaced, letting out a groan as his Master applied a Fresh kolto patch to his head. The Revanchist winced at the sound.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m trying to be as gentle as I can…. I… I’m sorry….”

“Why do you keep apologizing? You’re not the one who carved my head open.”

“I may as well have been…”

“Halin…”

“Please don’t call me that.”

Malak let out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t like the Revanchist.”

The woman froze, her hands trembling. She swallowed, so as to contain her emotions from escaping. The words cut through her like a knife.

“The Revanchist,” he continued, “is so caught up in chasing phantom visions that she forgets the real war is happening right in front of her. Halin, on the other hand… Halin would have sensed the distress of a friend much sooner… I’d rather follow Halin into battle than the Revanchist….”

He waited for a reply from her, but the woman remained silent, her eyes downcast, lost in thought. Malak sighed again.

“I’m not sure why I bother…” he said plainly.

The Revanchist choked on the well of emotions caught there in her throat. She made a move as if to leave, but her apprentice caught her wrist before she could do so.

“Please… Please just speak to me,” he said to her. “I’m trying to understand… To understand what’s happening to you. You’ve not been yourself since we met in the grove on Dantooine. I don’t understand why you’re suddenly so cold lately…”

There was another moment of silence between them. He waited, and waited… and finally, she answered:

“The Council was right…”

The man looked at the woman in disbelief, wondering if he had heard her correctly. Even as Halin, the woman before him had always had her fair share of disagreements with the Jedi Council. These disagreements were what drove her to enter the war—what drove her to become the Revanchist in the first place… and now, she was saying that they were right?

“…I had sensed your distress some time ago… Not long after having arrived on Deralia…”

“Then why did you ignore it if you knew something was wrong?”

“Because you are Malak.”

The man looked at her, puzzled at the answer. He’d assumed that the name she’d given to him was a passing whim, meant to separate their current actions from their time in the Order as Halin and Alex…

“I don’t like Malak either…” he replied bitterly.

“Don’t say that…”

“And why shouldn’t I?”

“Please….”

“Please what? Please just accept that my closest friend left me and all of the rest of those who followed her to be tortured to death by the Mandalorians? Well you know what, Revanchist? I can’t do that! You don’t care what happens to any of us! Look at me! Look at what they’ve done to me! Do you think that this,” he said, pointing to his scalp with his free hand, “hurts? Well, what hurts, even more, is you! I….”

He caught himself before he could say it. ‘I love you’ were the words that wanted desperately to escape his lips, but he could not bring himself to say it out loud. Not now… He looked at her face. Her eyes were wide with obvious remorse as she stared at him. This situation must have caused her just as much pain as it had him. He sighed, letting go of her wrist.

“I miss Halin…” he said gently.

“I’m sorry…” she said in a voice no louder than a whisper. “I truly am…”

“Sorry doesn’t alter the past….”

“I know that… but it can alter the future… I’ve decided to disband the Revanchists once we return to Coruscant….”

“What!? You can’t be serious…”

“One of them is already dead because of my foolishness, and I almost you as well. The Council was right. It was stupid of me to involve anyone else in this. I shouldn’t have let you follow me. I shouldn’t have let any of you follow me!”

“We followed you because we thought that you were right—because we believed in what the Revanchist stood for… We believed in ‘justice for the innocent.’ We believed in you…”

She simply shook her head. “You’re all better off without me. I… I can’t ask you to risk your lives in vain….”

“If we stop now, then everything will have been in vain.”

“But…”

“But what?”

The young woman froze. She’d heard the voice again—and this time, it hadn’t been a vision. There on Dxun…. There was more there than just Mandalorian outposts, or even Sith tombs… There were even greater forces at work. She debated for a moment whether she could tell him. Perhaps… perhaps little at a time… Until she was sure that he was ready to understand….

“I’m a danger to all of you… it’s these visions… I’m no seer, but they’re so… so vivid… I don’t know how to control them… and all I see… all I see is darkness… so much darkness….”

Her words concerned Malak. Just what kind of darkness was she talking about here? “Can you be any more specific? Onderon, for example… what did you see exactly?”

“I saw the planet and its moon… at first, everything was peaceful… but then a sort of shadow started stretching from the moon, like an eclipse that engulfed the entire planet… and then… and then there was a voice…”

“A voice? What sort of a voice?”

“It was difficult to distinguish at first… and yet it seemed as though it were always there… and it wasn’t the first time that I heard it either… The same voice was in my previous vision…”

Malak was a bit confused by this. She had told him previously of her first vision, but had never mentioned any sort of a voice… “But what did the voice say to you?”

It was here that the woman froze in hesitation. “I… I can’t say it… I dare not repeat it…”

“You need help. Maybe back on Coruscant there is a seer among the order who can help you interpret their meanings… Who can help you learn to control when the visions come…”

“And then what? I can’t stay there… Someone needs to help the Republic with their war, Malak. And while I don’t want to risk you or the others, it doesn’t mean that I plan on stopping myself.”

Malak just shook his head. “I swear you’re the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met… Whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with me. You can’t do this alone… Discuss it with the others if you will, but I think that they’ll agree with me.”

“I put all of you in danger. I knew that something had gone wrong, I sensed your distress, but I did not act. I foolishly continued on my own, thinking that you would be able to handle the situation just fine without me…”

“Well then, change the future,” he said. “Don’t go running off on your own anymore. Let us help you… Promise me that much. If there is something that you need to investigate… another one of these visions, you’ll take me with you. And if you sense that something is even the slightest bit wrong, you’ll attempt to check in with someone from that company… We all knew that this would be dangerous, Halin. We knew it when we first decided to join you…”

“Please don’t call me Halin….”

“I’m sorry… I can’t help it. You’re not the Revanchist—not to me, at least. It’s too impersonal. Will it really kill you to let me call you by your name? At least in private?”

She bit her lip. “I suppose if the others aren’t around…”

“It’s settled then. At least until you manage something that’s less of a mouthful, for me, you’re Halin.” He smiled at her, as if attempting to lighten the mood.

Halin returned the smile. “And I promise to check in more often instead of rushing off on my own… Even if you are Malak.”

“There you go again… I still don’t understand why you call me that. I still prefer Alex. I get it that you want to disconnect from your life as Halin… but is it really necessary for me too?”

“Surely it isn’t so bad…”

“But is it necessary? Malak… what does that even mean?”

The woman smiled again and took up a fresh kolto patch to change the one she had previously placed on his head. “You know, I call you ‘Malak’ as a compliment…. It was clear after you refused to leave me in the grove…. Malak is the Angel.”

The man would have raised an eyebrow at this, but extraneous facial movements pulled on where the stitches were, and so they were best avoided. The Revanchist removed the old patch and applied the new.

“You are Malak because you protect,” she continued to explain. “Because you watch over… It is for this reason that I left you in charge on Suurja…” It was at this point that her expression became somber again. “Why I had assumed that all would be okay….”

Again, silence fell upon the two. This time, it was Malak to break it. “I’m sorry I let you down…”

Halin sighed. “You never let me down…. I suppose I just assumed too much. I was naïve…. I realized that this was a war, but somehow I thought just scouting would be less dangerous… The fighting was over. There was no reason for there to have been an ambush on Suurja… They shouldn’t have known we were there…. I’m so sorry… You did everything that you could, Malak. Hazar should have been my responsibility, not yours… He was too young. I never should have let him near the front with your company… I should have been there to stop it…”

“Halin, if you had been there, they would have captured you too. They would have tortured you too. And Opela, and Fiolli… We should just be grateful those of us who made it through did… How does it look up there?”

“Pretty bad,” the woman admitted, examining his injuries. “I’m doing what I can, but you’re going to have some nasty scars…”

“Maybe I’ll just have to start going around with a hood all of the time like you do,” he said half-jokingly. “Or I could always get a tattoo or something to cover them. I’ve always wanted an excuse to get one…”

“Now that I’d like to see,” Halin laughed. “All right, nerf-herder, I should go check up on the others…”

“Nerf-herder? I thought I had been upgraded an ‘angel’ now.”

“Watch it, Malak—even angels can still be nerf-herders. Now get some rest. We’ll be leaving soon.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, watching as the Revanchist left the med bay. They would need to get the prisoner to Coruscant as quickly as possible. Malak didn’t like the idea of keeping him around, yet Halin had insisted that the best option would be to have the Republic hold him on trial. He supposed that might have been the most ‘Jedi’ approach to the situation… but a part of him craved to see the demented Doctor suffer in exactly the way he had made the Jedi suffer. A trial would be justice, but a greater satisfaction would have come with revenge.

><><><><><

The Revanchists were returning to Coruscant with the prisoner in tow. They were all understandably shaken after the events on Flashpoint. The situation had been like a cold splash of reality to the overenthusiastic advances the group had made. Suurja was a lesson to be remembered.

In light of her companions’ obvious uneasiness at the prospect, the Revanchist herself had agreed to be the one to watch over the prisoner they carried. He was quite different in appearance than the Mandalorians she had witnessed on Dxun during her investigations. His armor was generally more lithe and slender, and seemed to be outfitted with some additional equipment for medical or scientific purposes.

He had been knocked out by a rogue Mandalorian who had been helping the Taris Padawan at Flashpoint station, but it was unknown whether the unconscious state of the prisoner would continue until they reached Coruscant. After all, the Core Worlds were a long way from the Outer Rim… The Revanchist hated being stuck on guard duty, but she supposed that it was only fair given the way things had turned out up until this point.

She had been there for a few hours already when the prisoner began to stir. She moved a hand to her lightsaber to be ready in case of any dangerous situation which might arise. The prisoner was bound, but, given his history, she did not wish to take any chances…

“Don’t move,” she warned him. “They’ve told me all about you, Demagol the Flesh Carver.”

A low chuckle erupted from the suit of Mandalorian armor. “Did they now? I suppose I should be flattered that you’ve heard of me, Jedi… You weren’t among my patients though… I would have remembered a pretty face…”

“You would have remembered the name of the Revanchist, Demagol! I was not there when my company was ambushed on Suurja and brought to your laboratory on Flashpoint. I was not there when you killed a Padawan among them in cold blood, or when you nearly tortured my apprentice to death. But I am here now and I will see to it personally that you pay for your crimes.”

“The Revanchist? Is that so… Somehow I always thought you would be a man… and taller.”

“Don’t try my patience. Many would not be so kind as to take you to Coruscant for trial. It’s a bit ironic, really… that after your heinous experiments on Jedi, your life should only be spared now because of the mercy of the Jedi….”

“Don’t lecture me about your mercy missions, Revanchist. We both know very well that there’s no place for such foolishness in times of war. You and I are not so very different, you know? We each support the war effort in our own unique ways, unorthodox they may be….”

The woman clenched her teeth. “I’m nothing like you, Demagol!”

“Ah, you see, but that is where you are wrong….” The low laughter began again. The Revanchist could feel it echoing over and over, pounding inside of her skull. She clenched her hands over her ears, trying to muffle the sound, but it just kept pounding and pounding, as if it were not coming from the outside at all. And then… and then the voice came, slipping through the noise like oil over a smooth hard surface…

‘You are no hero… you are no savior… like the Flesh Carver, you will be… the Butcher!’

“Shut up!” she screamed, “Get out of my head!”

Without warning, without thinking, she grabbed her lightsaber hilt in one hand and reached out, her fingers stretched out as if to lock him into a choke and, while she never physically made contact with him, the Mandalorian rose from the ground, clutching at his throat…. But the laughter did not stop. The laughter continued pounding and pounding and pounding until…

“Halin? Halin!”

It was Malak’s voice. Suddenly, she realized what she was doing and let go of the prisoner, deactivating her lightsaber and returning the hilt to her belt. She clutched her hand which hand locked the prisoner into a choke and massaged it gently through her glove. The sound of the voice and of the laughter had suddenly stopped, but her temples were still throbbing, her ears still ringing.

“What were you thinking!?” her apprentice exclaimed. “I was watching the security cameras and suddenly heard you scream and saw your lightsaber… What was going on!?”

“The voice! The voice was there… He was laughing and then came and it… it…”

“Laughing? Halin, what are you talking about? Demagol has been unconscious the whole time. Whatever that Mandalorian did to him back on Flashpoint knocked him out good…”

“The whole time…” Halin murmured in repetition.

“I don’t like this. You’re mixing the visions with reality. It’s like you don’t know what’s what any more…. You need help.”

“No! No… No, I’ll be fine… I need to meditate, that’s all. My mind is restless….”

“It seems a little more than restless… You almost killed him, Halin.”

“I know that! I… I don’t know what’s wrong with me…” She massaged her hand again, as if to check if it were really her own. What she had felt in that moment… What she had felt was hate, desperation, unrestrained raw emotions… and what had alarmed her the most about it was how natural it had felt. “Please,” she continued, more softly this time, “I need to meditate… Did anyone else see the security footage during that time?”

Malak shook his head, “Not that I am aware of.”

“Good,” she said, giving a single nod. “See to it that it stays that way…. Lock the prisoner away and ensure there is nothing nearby that could be used for escape. I will be meditating in the Starboard dormitories should you need me.”

With this, she swiftly left, still rubbing her hand the whole time. Malak was concerned. He knew very well what he had seen. It was a common Sith technique used to cause asphyxiation, crushing the windpipe of one’s opponent. While he’d heard of it before, he’d never actually seen the technique in person. After all, the Sith had hidden their presence since the time of the Great Sith War. But this wasn’t some Sith who had suddenly come out of hiding… This was his friend. This was his Halin….

Once he had finished securing the prisoner, he left to go find her. Something was very much not right. It was only getting progressively worse, and if they didn’t figure out something soon, then surely her mind would be lost… He knew very well that she was against seeking the aid of the Order on Coruscant, but it may very well have been her only chance for stopping the progression.

He found her in the starboard dormitory, just as she had said. However, upon entering, he felt that there was a second presence in the room. A strange, dark presence. Something else was here. Something seemed to be following Halin. It was then that he heard it…

“Tse satsetop sirbmu ni…”

Malak looked about frantically. Was this the voice that Halin had been talking about?...

“Tse satsetop sirbmu ni!”

He looked to where it seemed to be coming from. There was a footlocker with a faint red glow between the cracks of the opening—a glow that seemed to be coming from inside. He approached the footlocker when he heard:

“Don’t touch it!”

It was Halin. She’d broken her meditation and had rushed to him, catching his arm. He turned to look at her.

“It’s trying to trick you into letting it out,” she continued.

“But what is it?” Malak asked.

The Revanchist swallowed. She hesitated, glancing around the room to ensure that no one else was there before replying to him. “It’s a Sith Holocron.”

“Here!? But what is it doing onboard?”

“It’s something I picked up while on Dxun… While I was investigating the moon and the Mandalorian base there, I found it…”

“Don’t tell me you opened it!?” Malak exclaimed, ripping his arm from her grasp

“Of course not! I’m not stupid! But I couldn’t just leave it there either…. What if it were somehow responsible for corrupting the Mandalorians? Or even worse—what if they discovered how to access its knowledge of the Dark Side? It was too dangerous to be left there…”

“I wouldn’t say that here, on a ship full of Jedi, is any less dangerous…”

“Well, as you recall, it was not my original intention to be among everyone again so soon… I was hoping to be able to locate a safe place where it could be left or destroyed before the Council sent me to retrieve you from Flashpoint…”

“Why didn’t you leave it with the Council while you were there?”

“The thought had crossed my mind… but how do you think they would react if I brought them such a thing? Many of them had already condemned me for starting the Revanchist movement in the first place, and the situation with Hazar and Flashpoint station only served to worsen my relationship with the Council. You should have seen Master Zez-Kai Ell when I appeared before them… Imagine what they might think if I brought them a real Sith holocron! They would probably assume I was some sort of Sith Lord come to uproot their entire ancient tradition.”

Halin tried to force laughter at her own remark, but it only faded breathlessly into a terrified expression on her face as she again clutched at her own hand.

“Malak?” she continued, “Do you think me a bad person?”

“Of course not,” he said. “I wouldn’t have followed you if I did…. But I do think that you need help. You can’t take on the burden of everything by yourself. You need to leave the holocron with the Council.”

“I’ve already told you why I can’t do that… Besides, who is to say it wouldn’t corrupt them as well?”

“While you may not agree with all of their choices, and neither do I… the Masters are far more experienced in dealing with such things… I have an idea. You said that Opela and Fiolli were also meeting back with us on Coruscant?”

“Yes…”

“Then have Opela bring it to them.”

The Revanchist considered the thought. Opela had a good standing relationship with many of the high Council members…. At least, before she had joined the war effort. There was no doubt that it would be easier for Opela to bring such a thing before the Council than it would be for her to do such a thing herself. Yes… Yes, perhaps such a thing would work after all…

“Tse satsetop sirbmu ni!”

“Hush, you!,” Halin said, turning sharply to the footlocker where the holocron was stashed. “I’ll not have you causing any more problems on board.” She turned back to Malak. “We contact Opela immediately and explain to her the situation. In the meantime, the starboard dormitory is to be closed to everyone. No one may enter until we’re docked and the holocron is being removed—this including ourselves… On that note, I would rather not stay here. It’s becoming restless with so many Jedi around and I don’t know how much longer I can resist its temptation in such close proximity….”

Malak nodded. It was agreed. They would leave the holocron for the Council to dispose of. Malak was a bit relieved by this. After all, perhaps it would allow for his friend to get some much-needed rest. He had never seen her in such a state as she had been locked in the room with Demagol… But at the same time, her visions had started before Dxun. No… no, surely there was much more to it than this. She knew something that she still wasn’t telling him. There were greater powers at work here. Something was watching them. Somewhere, an invisible puppet master was pulling all of the strings attached to this war. Only time would tell whether they were all a part of the puppet show as well.

><><><><><

Opela followed in close step with Master Atris as the Council Member carefully transported the holocron through a series of passages leading to a vault underneath the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. The thing seemed to be screaming all of the while, as if it knew and understood their intentions to dispose of it. The whole task made Opela rather nervous. She could feel the dark side energy which radiated from the holocron. She regarded Master Atris with a concerned expression, but the Master remained focused with her gaze forward.

“What language is it speaking?” Opela asked. “I’ve never heard anything like it before….”

“It is of the ancient Sith tongue,” the Master replied. “Pray you never have to hear it again…”

“What is it saying?

“Things that I dare not repeat… Explain to me where you found this again?”

Opela shook her head. “I didn’t find it. Halin did when she was on Dxun she said…”

“Ah yes, the self-proclaimed ‘Revanchist’… She should have told us of this rather than about the Mandalorian base when she appeared before the Council… No doubt she was debating using its knowledge for herself. It wouldn’t be the first time she attempted to access knowledge that was forbidden…”

Opela was confused by the way of which Master Atris spoke of Halin. It seemed that her distaste for the woman was rooted in occurrences from even before the emergence of the Revanchist. “Master Atris, why do you despise her so?”

“I feel no such thing,” the Master replied. “Hatred is the path to the Dark Side… I merely believe that she should show more respect for the Council’s decisions and try to see their wisdom behind them rather than reacting so violently in opposition. Her actions were irresponsible and cost one young Padawan his life. I’m only glad now that you and the rest have returned so that her poor influence can harm you no longer.”

“She meant no harm in her actions. She had thought all of us to be safe. It was why she had chosen to place everyone where she did, based on their strengths… Though I’m sure she will consider placements differently in future scouting…”

Master Atris stopped, causing Opela to stop alongside her. “Future scouting? Don’t tell me that you intend to follow her back into this war…”

“I made her a promise, Master Atris, and I intend to keep it.”

Master Atris continued walking, quickening her pace this time so that Opela practically had to jog to keep up with her.

“No! She will lead all of you astray! It is foolishness! This holocron only further proves such. Mark my words, Opela Moraf—the horrors that you will find in war are ones that no one can fully cope with—Jedi or not—without grave consequences. Continuing to follow down this path will lead you to violence, hatred, destruction, and ultimately the Dark Side. You will not return as yourself—if you return at all!”

It was at this point that the two made it to the doors of a large vault beneath the temple.

“You are not permitted beyond this point. There are many relics of the Dark Side here that could easily corrupt a mind unprepared. That is, if you’ve not begun to be corrupted already. Reflect upon my words, Opela Moraf. For if you leave this temple and join with the Revanchist again on this crusade, you will not remain a Jedi.”

><><><><><

“Why did you come with them here?” The Revanchist asked, the irritation evident in her voice. Her arms were folded as she stood face-to-face with Talon Chan on the Deralian deep-space shuttle that Opela and Fiolli had returned upon. “Deralia needs you in case of another attack. If the Mandalorians return, it will be in much greater numbers than before.”

“Halin, they need you just as much as they need me,” Talon protested.

“I told you, I’m not Halin anymore!”

“Revanchist or not, you’re still Halin Chan. You’re still my little sister.”

“And you’re still not listening to me. You shouldn’t be here!”

“Why are you like this? It seems like you’re avoiding me….”

“Well, if it seems like I’m avoiding you, then perhaps that’s because I am. I’ve already lost someone under my command and I don’t need you foolishly following me around and getting yourself killed while trying to deal in Jedi business.”

Talon shook his head. “You just don’t get it, do you? I’m trying to help you, Halin…”

“I don’t need your help.”

“Why do you hate me? What did I do deserve this from you?”

“I don’t hate you, I—” She stopped herself mid-sentence, swallowing hard. She understood well why the Order discouraged contact with family members. It was a strange set of emotions that surrounded Talon’s presence, and she didn’t understand them. It made her feel uncomfortable. It made it difficult to focus. The woman let out a sigh. “I don’t hate you….” She repeated, more gently this time.

Talon was no less confused about his sister’s treatment of him. He wasn’t certain whether she was trying to protect him or trying to forget him. The man sighed and reached out, placing his hands on her shoulders. “I’m just worried about your safety… Being a Jedi was never a ‘safe’ thing to begin with, but war… war is something completely different…. People aren’t willing to negotiate. Lives are lost every day. Likes are taken every day….”

He broke off and turned from her, going to a locker there on the ship. “I wanted to bring this for you,” he said, opening the locker and pulling out something gleaming in bronze. “You’re going to need it if you end up on the front lines…”

The Revanchist looked at the thing which Talon Chan held before her. It was a suit of armor in the style of the Deralian Royal Military Guard.

“I’m not wearing that,” she said simply.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Jedi robes don’t offer the greatest protection against blaster fire…”

“That’s what a lightsaber is for. Besides, how is one supposed to move in that stuff?”

“Halin, please take it.”

“Fine. But I’m not wearing it.”

Talon rolled his eyes. “You always were stubborn, even as a kid. Just… promise me you’ll be careful out there…”

“Only if you promise to go back to Deralia.”

“I promise.”

“Then I swear to you that I will be careful not to get hit be any stray blaster fire.”

Talon chuckled. “That’s close enough I suppose… Well then, if I’m going to be getting back, I’ll need you to get off of my ship. Otherwise, you’re coming back with me.”

The young woman smiled. “Goodbye, Talon. I’m sorry our meetings are so brief…”

“I’m just happy they exist at all. Given our track record before, I would say it’s quite the improvement.”

“I’ll show myself out then. Have a safe flight. May the Force be with you.”

“May the Force be with you.”

><><><><><

“She didn’t seem happy,” Opela told the other Revanchists of her encounter with Master Atris upon bringing the Sith Holocron to the Jedi Temple. “She said that if we continued, we wouldn’t be Jedi any longer…”

The group was gathered about the Stalwart Nightingale attempting to decide their next course of action. The Council had anticipated that the group would stop once they returned to Coruscant, but the Revanchists had other plans. They had a cause, and Flashpoint had only served to strengthen their resolve. There were undeniable atrocities being committed in this war, and it was up to them to put an end to them.

There were murmurs among the group at Opela’s words, but the Revanchist seemed more certain than before. Her blue-grey eyes burned with a defiant determination. It had become more than just a war to help the Republic defeat the Mandalorians. It had become a war to win over the Jedi Council—to re-define what it meant to be Jedi.

“If we stop now,” the Revanchist began, “then everything we have strived for until this point will be lost. Deaths will have been in vain. Sacrifices will have been for naught. We cannot allow their fear to control our actions. You saw the way that they reacted upon our return. You heard all that they had assumed. Are we to allow their ignorance to determine who we are and what we stand for?”

“I agree with the Revanchist,” Malak said. “I say we press onward.”

“Any opposed?” the Revanchist asked. She looked around the others. There was concern clearly in many of their eyes… but no one dared to speak up. Whether it was because they agreed or because they were afraid to be thought of traitors to the cause was unknown. After all, the last mission they had gone on had been quite gruesome. It was only likely to go downhill from there.

“It is settled then. We continue as planned. Ferroh? You had mentioned you had lost contact with your people on your home planet? That Cathar was one of the first planets attacked at the beginning of the Mandalorian crusades?”

The Cathar hesitated. “Yes… The Mandalorians had never forgiven my people for defeating them in the Great Sith War… After all, the Cathar are a proud warrior race, but our planet is not within the Republic… I’m afraid that no one knows for certain what happened on-planet though. The only ones left of my people that I’ve been able to make contact with are all refugees, scattered on different worlds…”

“I see… Malak, what is the latest update on the Mandalorian front?”

“The Republic is still trying to hold the defense between The front and Taris… It looks as if Admiral Karath is planning to mount a defense at the planet Serrocco to buffer against the Mandalorian advancement.”

“Then we divide our forces,” the Revanchist said. One group will head to Serrocco to make contact with and aid the Republic military there. We will not wait for the battle to clear and risk another ambush unprepared from leftover soldiers… The other group will follow me to Cathar to investigate what remains. If Cathar was the start of this war, perhaps we can find some clue there as to the Mandalorians’ goal and how to stop them.”

“I would like to volunteer to lead the group to Serrocco,” Opela stated. The Revanchist regarded her with confusion. Only weeks before, when they had been headed to Deralia, she had been hesitant to accept any positions of leadership… and yet now she had volunteered on her own accord?

“Why the sudden change in heart?” the Revanchist asked her.

“If we’re meeting the Republic military leaders, then you’ll need someone who can deal with the diplomatic aspects of the situation. Negotiation is a strong point of mine. If we’re acting against the Council’s orders, then it will take negotiation to convince the Republic to accept our aid.”

A small smile crept to the Revanchist’s lips. It was good to see Opela finally taking some initiative. “Very well then, Lieutenant Moraf. I leave the Serrocco company in your care. Fiolli, Nisotsa, Tavlon and Xaset—you will join her. The rest of you are with me. Serrocco Company will take the Williwaw and Cathar the Nightingale. If there are any complications, you report back immediately to your commanding officer. Do I make myself clear?”

There was a bought of ‘ayes’ from the group. Things were taking shape again. Things would be better off this time around. She could sense that much. Perhaps this would finally be the turning point for the Revanchists.

><><><><><

While the battle had yet to start, the situation on Serrocco was far worse than Opela had initially anticipated. She couldn’t say that she agreed at all with the Republic’s decision of Tactics in the matter. They had chosen to place their surface-side outposts and camps near the cities of the native Stareb species. Their reasoning was that they assumed the Mandalorians would not want to possibly destroy anything that could be valuable for looting after the battle.

Opela could not follow this logic. After all, the Mandalorians were not space pirates. In her opinion, all conflict should have been kept away from both the Stareb cities and human settlements alike. It was selfish for either side to knowingly place innocents in danger because of their fighting. What was the point in conquering a planet if there was nothing left by the end of it to be conquered?

Opela sat aboard the Williwaw, waiting for a reply to her transition for a request of an audience with Admiral Karath of the Republic Navy. He was the one who was in charge of the Republic’s fleet in this sector, ad so any and all negotiations would have to ultimately pass through him if they were to be of any consequence. So far, there had been no such luck.

The woman let out a frustrated sigh, debating whether she should take a break from waiting in order to check out the camp. She was quite curious to see what a Republic military camp would look like up close. This transmission was important though. She couldn’t risk missing it.

Finally, a sound came over the communicator. “This is Darrick Kilvaari, communications aboard the Courageous. We’ve received a transmission request from you, Williwaw, over?”

“Yes, Courageous. This is Lieutenant Opela Moraf, Jedi Knight, representing the Revanchists. I wish to speak with Admiral Saul Karath, over.”

“The Admiral is busy with preparations for the battle I’m afraid…”

“Tell him that the Revanchists are looking to aid the Republic in any way possible during their fight. I have both healers and combat specialists aboard. We are ready to provide Jedi support immediately if permitted to do so, over.”

There was a short pause on the line followed by: “Please stand by, Williwaw. We’re contacting Admiral Karath now, over.”

The silence resumed and the anticipation that came with it caused the absence of sound to become deafening. So much of their mission relied on being able to cooperate with the Republic military forces. This meeting was important for them. It was important that it be successful. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of waiting, Darrick Kilvaari returned over the transmission.

“Admiral Karath is heading planetside. He’s agreed to meet you at one of the army commissaries in four standard hours. Name is Little Bivoli, over.”

Opela breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, there was some progress. “Got it. Tell the Admiral I’ll be there. Thank you so much, Kilvaari, over.”

Finally, she could afford to step away from the communications console. She would have to prepare for her meeting with the Admiral. She changed into fresh robes, checked her general appearance, and then set out. After all, it would reflect poorly if she were late, and should she miss the Admiral, there would perhaps not be a second chance to make the Revanchists’ appeal…

><><><><><

When the time came, Opela Moraf went out to the commissaries ship known as the Little Bivoli. The place was rather a bustle. It seemed to be quite popular with both the soldiers and locals alike. So much so that Opela began to wonder whether it would even be possible to get a table at the place. Beyond that, she had never met the Admiral before, and so she wasn’t exactly certain what he looked like. With this many people around, it might prove difficult to actually find him. That was, at least, until she heard a commotion coming from the area around one of the far tables.

“You’re lucky you’re a finger, boy! On the Courageous, the Admiral would space you for that!”

It seemed that the Admiral was already here. Opela acted quickly. After all, she did not want to miss him. She headed to the location of the commotion and found the Admiral walking away from the situation to his own table with a rather stern look on his face. She approached him.

“Admiral Karath, I take it?” she asked him.

“I am he. And who might you be?”

“My name is Opela Moraf. I am a Jedi Knight and lieutenant with the Revanchists. I was in contact with the Courageous earlier and they informed me that I should meet you here in order to discuss future negotiations between the Revanchists and the Republic military…” She reached a hand out to shake his.

“Ah yes, Lieutenant Moraf. Welcome. Please pull up a seat. Tell me more about your proposal,” he said, accepting her handshake.

While certainly official in his proceedings, the Admiral seemed amicable enough. Following his gesture, the Jedi Knight sat at the table. “Well,” Opela began, “I fear I must begin with a disclaimer…”

“Oh? And what sort of a disclaimer is that?”

“Our movement of the Revanchists is not sanctioned by the Jedi Council. I must inform you that we are acting on our own. However, I assure you that, even so, our intentions lie purely in the protection of the Republic and its people…”

The Admiral groaned and Opela could not help but to be put back by his reaction. “Great,” he said. “The last thing I need is to be dealing with more rogue Jedi…”

More? The statement caused the woman some confusion. Had other Jedi approached him with similar proposals previously? And if so, why had the Revanchists not heard of them until now? “I beg your pardon?”

“Recently I’ve had to deal with a troublesome Padawan who turned and killed his classmates. I was bringing him in to the Council when the ship was ambushed and he escaped. I’m sure you’ve heard the news recently….”

“Not really,” Opela admitted. “Our investigations haven’t left much time for keeping up with anything outside of the war. I find it difficult to believe that such a thing could happen though. Jedi are pacifists by nature….”

“And yet here we are, discussing your involvement with my company during the war.” And with this, he gave a laugh. “It seems rather ironic, don’t you think, that you of all people should be lecturing me about the peaceful nature of the Jedi. As much as the support would come in handy, I’m not going to risk the Republic’s relationship with the Jedi Order just to satisfy the desire for combat of a few young Knights.”

“But you yourself admit that the Republic needs Jedi support…”

“Even as an Admiral, there’s only so much I’m sanctioned to make decisions about when it comes to the finer political points of this war.”

“You mean like how close your troops are setting up to the Stareb cities,” the woman said, turning her focus to the stone spires only a couple of miles away.

The Admiral grew red in the face, slamming his hand on the table before standing up. “Look, Lieutenant, guys down here are army. My business,” he said, pointing upward, “is up there with the naval positions. I don’t choose the placements of ground troops, and I don’t question the authority of those who do. Now I suggest you show yourself out of this camp before I decide to call up your Council and tell them all about this.”

Opela inhaled deeply, being careful not to allow the Admiral to intimidate her, and stood as calmly as she could. “That will not be necessary,” she said. “I thank you for your agreeing to meet me. If you will not accept our aid here, then we will find alternative means of supporting our cause. Goodbye, Admiral Karath. May the Force be with you and with your fleet. I shall leave you to conduct your battle strategies as you see fit.”

If there was nothing that could be done in conjunction with the troops directly, then perhaps it would be best for them to re-focus their efforts toward protecting the Stareb cities, or to assisting injured left on the battlefield once the fighting commenced. Sure it wasn’t the sort of involvement that there had initially been hoping for, but at least it was something they could do that might make a difference in the battle, however small that difference might be.

><><><><><

Opela Moraf returned to the Williwaw with a report of her meeting with the Admiral. She sent a transmission to the Stalwart Nightingale, explaining to the Cathar company their lack of success thus far. It was a frustrating time just getting the Revanchists to be recognized in the war. The Republic respected the Jedi Council, and largely depended on their support. Unfortunately, it would take more for them to be willing to risk upsetting them…

The day was a rather frustrating one. The Serocco Company was forced to remain apart from the military camps. Instead, they split up, making their way to different camps across the planet’s surface, each one positioned near a different Stareb City… They did what they could in subtlety to encourage the troops to move their positions, but no one was willing to risk the consequences of disobeying orders from the higher-ups in the chain of command, and after the conversation that Opela had had with Admiral Karath, a warning had been issued to avoid Jedi scouts trying to become involved in the war effort. Needless to say, the military was not very cooperative.

The Starebs themselves were no more receptive of the warnings. Gullible as they were, they did not seem to believe that, without the warning sirens going off, there was no reason to consider evacuation. It seemed as though everything the Serrocco Company tried was a wasted effort.

According to the soldiers they had been able to speak to, the Mandalorians were expected to drop within the next day. Time was of the essence.

It was around sunset when the thing finally happened. Warnings began to sound. The dark shapes of ships in the atmosphere above increased. Flashes of light began to appear in the sky. It was happening. It was happening all so quickly… The Mandalorians had arrived!

><><><><><

Cathar was a lush planet, thick with vegetation and non-sentient species. It was strange that somewhere so seemingly teeming with life should feel so very void. Even the abandoned buildings were alive, carved directly into the great ‘city-trees’ as Ferroh said they were called. It was all so beautiful, yet so morbid. So alive… and yet so dead.

The Revanchists searched through every empty hall, down every winding road, in every abandoned tent and hut… and found nothing. Nothing but silence—an eerie and unnatural silence.

“It’s just as it was when I last visited… it appears as though everyone has simply vanished,” Ferroh stated.

The Revanchist pulled her cloak around herself in order to better keep the native insects away. This place made her uneasy. The Force felt strange here. In the cities, there was no sign of life… but also no sign of death. No sign of battle, or conflict… Nothing! No clue as to what could have possibly happened to the Cathar people. It was as if someone had deliberately washed away any trace of its history.

It was their intention to extend their search beyond the cities when they all felt it. All at once, billions of voices crying out in horror…

><><><><><

It was a planet of mostly desert landscapes, tall stone spires stretching toward the orange sunset. It was all so beautiful… Like dancing flames, their light reflecting off the glassy mirror of sand. All was calm, all was still. Lights began to appear in the sky. More and more until…

Honor… Without honor, let them burn! Let all of them burn! Let Serrocco burn!

All at once, the lights in the sky grew closer, larger, until everything was consumed in one brilliant flash. Suddenly the flaming orange of the sky engulfed the entire surface, burning wildly out of control. Screams of children pierced her ears so sharply that she thought her eardrums would surely burst. Pieces of stone mingled with blood and limbs flew in every which direction, the great stone cities crumbling into mere ruins of glass and sand.

And through all of it, slipping through like an oil, oozing over the flames and feeding their destruction, a peal of laughter began to resonate in that place. It was everywhere! Everywhere…

><><><><><

They all felt it. All at once, billions of voices crying out in horror… and then all being silenced at once.

The Revanchist was bent over clutching her abdomen and seemingly wreathing in pain. The shock of the experienced vision coupled with the great disturbance that all of them had felt in the Force had caused her to vomit. Her entire body was trembling.

Her apprentice seemed to immediately notice the difference in her reaction compared to the others, for he rushed to her side. Unable to help himself, her name sprung from his lips. “Halin—!”

She was in too much of a state of shock to protest. She looked as though she could very well vomit a second time. She had grown quite pale, as if every ounce of blood had been drawn from her veins in an instant. Her eyes were wide and pupils dilated, silent tears flowing down her cheeks. All she could do was to repeat, almost incoherently: “I feel it… I feel it… I feel it….”

Seeing that she was in no state to continue forward, Malak decided to take charge in her stead. He was sure that he wouldn’t hear the end of it from her later, but right now, they had all experienced great pain. They needed someone to direct them from there, and Halin Chan was in no condition to do it.

“Cathar Company,” Malak said, addressing the group. “We need to return to the Stalwart Nightingale, now! We should make contact with the Williwaw and ask if Serrocco Company has sensed the same… If they’ve had any developments…”

“Serocco,” the Revanchist breathed. “I feel it… I feel it….”

The company regarded their debilitated leader with concern. Malak glanced among them, trying to read their expressions. Halin was in a very vulnerable state. It had seemed she’d experienced another one of her visions, and if it had coincided with the great loss which all of them had felt, it could have very well accounted for her intensified reaction. His fear, however, was that it would be seen as a weakness in her leadership.

The movement was barely holding together as it was. After all, all that they had was their leader and their cause. Take away one of the two, and the whole structure would be left on the brink of collapse. Malak had determined that he would not allow for this to happen, even if it meant he had to take over himself. Protectively, he placed an arm around her as if to shield her from the threat of judgement, and encouraged her to rest her head on his side.

“What are you all waiting for?” he said, addressing the others with as much authority as he could muster. “I said move out. To the Nightingale!”

><><><><><

The meeting after Serrocco was a difficult one. Because they had been spread out attempting to assist the Starebs, many from the Serrocco company were not physically close enough to a transport to make it off-planet in time. Even so, Many ships had been grounded, unable to lift off before the nuclear warheads from the Mandalorian fleet had come raining in from above. It was unlikely anyone survived on the surface. Opela and Fiolli were close enough to the Williwaw that they were able to save themselves and the ship. Nisotsa and Xaset had made it off-planet, but with a group from the Republic army, and were being sent back to Coruscant to face the Jedi Council for ‘attempting to interfere with Republic military activities.’ No one had heard a word from Tavlon.

The war had only just begun and their numbers were thinning with each battle. The Revanchist sat with her head hung in her hands. Another… Another, and there was nothing that she could do to stop it. She felt powerless. She hadn’t even been able to command her own company during the occurrence. The shock of Serrocco and the vision of the attack had happened so suddenly that it was as if someone had bashed her over the head with a plasteel cylinder. If it hadn’t been for Malak, she wasn’t sure how she would have been able to even get back to the ship.

Opela approached the Revanchist and seated herself alongside her. She was unsure how she could console her friend in such a situation. The loss of another among their ranks had upset all of them greatly… “There was nothing you could have done….”

“But I could have…. I saw it happening… If only I could have seen it sooner, I could have stopped all of it… I could have saved Tavlon… I could have saved all of them…. If only I could learn control….”

“Tavlon died a hero. He died trying to protect innocent lives… He was a true Revanchist.”

A silence passed. Opela placed her hand on the other woman’s back as if to comfort her.

“Malak told me about what happened on Cathar when Serrocco was destroyed…. He was worried—and still is. He cares very deeply for you, you know…”

“He is my closest friend,” the Revanchist replied simply. “I don’t know what I would do without him sometimes. It’s like we’re two sides of the same coin.”

Opela smiled at this response. She was glad that the other was finally beginning to see the connection between the two of them. She hoped that, for Malak’s sake, the Revanchist would come to realize on her own the way in which he felt about her. Even if it were nothing more than a mutual understanding, at least he wouldn’t have to hide it anymore.

After the groups had rejoined following the investigations on Cathar and on Serrocco, Malak had approached Opela again about the situation of his special ‘bond’ with Halin. He’d been increasingly worried for her lately, particularly because of a series of ‘visions’ she had been having. Lately, they had seemed to grow more and more intense, completely incapacitating her at times, as the one had at the time of Serrocco.

It was Serrocco which had forced Malak to take action. He’d had to assume command over the Cathar Company when it had happened and practically carry Halin back to the ship she was so incoherent. He constantly felt her distress and pain since they had left from Dantooine several months prior, and it bothered him. While Halin was the sort of charismatic idealist that took to inspire people to follow, whatever shadow of darkness was threatening her had stifled her capacity for leadership. He was concerned as to whether the pressure of being the ‘Revanchist’ was what was causing her deteriorating mental stability. He knew he couldn’t convince her to stop, but he thought that perhaps he could at least convince her to share more of the responsibility.

He had hoped that, with his and Opela’s combined persuasion, he could convince her to allow them to handle much of the effort in her stead. So far, there had been no luck, but the fact that she was still weakened from Serrocco had only increased the necessity.

“You certainly are,” Opela said to the Revanchist’s comment about herself and Malak. “You know, he’s only trying to help you… Maybe you should let him…”

The Revanchist simply shook her head. “I can’t ask that of him… He’s always been so shy around others when I wasn’t there, and I don’t think he’s fully forgiven me for what happened on Flashpoint… I couldn’t put him into that sort of a situation again. It makes him uncomfortable…”

“I think seeing you like this makes him feel even worse…”

The Revanchist sighed. “There’s just no winning either way, is there?”

“At least until you’ve recovered… Give him a chance. He might just surprise you.”

Opela watched her companion, waiting to see how she would react. It was what was best for all of them… she only hoped that the other would see it that way.

“I suppose… but just until I’m well again… You know, I’d hoped for his sake we would have been able to join the Republic in combat by now. It’s where he truly shines…”

“There will be a time,” Opela said, patting the Revanchist on the back. “It’s a big war, and there’s a role for everyone to help. Try to rest. We need you battle-ready when the time comes… It would make Malak feel better.”

><><><><><

The news channels were all abuzz in the Republic and across the entirety of the Outer Rim Territories. Taris had finally fallen under siege from the Mandalorians, and it didn’t look as though the Republic were going to be able to repel them. All of the Jedi had been recently pulled from Taris by the Jedi High Council following a recent tragedy with the deaths of several of the Padawans there, presumably by one of their own, so there were none to aid on-surface when the invasion came. This happening so soon after the destruction of Serrocco had made it a dark time for everyone.

The Republic was growing desperate for a way to defeat Mandalore the Ultimate’s growing army of Mandalorian neo-crusaders. Likewise, the Revanchists were growing desperate to find a means to be able to officially enter the war. It seemed as though their entire effort thus far had been running from shadow to shadow trying to do what they could, but not be caught doing it.

“Halin?” Malak said gently, tapping on the doorway to the chamber in which the Revanchist had been meditating. “There’s someone on the Communicator… says they want to speak to you directly…”

It was then that he noticed how pale she was. Sweat was pouring from her temples. Her body was stiff and she didn’t seem to be breathing. Not again…. Swiftly, he went to her, kneeling down and taking her hands. They were like ice. “Halin! Halin, you need to snap out of it! Focus on my voice. Open your eyes… Dammit, Halin, open your eyes!”

Finally, her eyes flew open and she gasped for air. Malak gave a sigh of relief. It must have been another vision. He didn’t like how frequent they were growing, and they were taking a toll on her both physically and mentally. He wasn’t sure how much longer she would last if this kept up… When she had decided to first set out, she seemed to have attracted the attention of some sort of dark power. Slowly, whatever it was that she had awakened was trying to take hold of her.

“Calm down,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close, as he had when he had seen her on Dantooine the night that she had decided to leave. “What did you see?”

“Space,” she said, softly. “I saw space…”

“And what else was there?”

“Asteroids…. Debris…. And strange creatures….”

“Creatures? What sort of creatures?”

“I…. I don’t know…. I had never seen anything like them before…. It was like some sort of an eel, or a snake…. But they were massive! And they lived in open space… They filled me with a sort of dread, though I wasn’t sure why at first. They had seemed to be asleep…. But then, there was a light…”

“A light?”

“Yes… It looked like… Like some sort of a dying star…. And when the creatures felt the light, they began to awaken…. And when they did… When they did, they began to feed… They consumed everything… everything in sight…. And then…. And then they traveled further… deeper into space. They were approaching systems… systems I recognized… Inhabited systems with billions of people…”

It was at this point that he could hear tears threatening to fall from the way that her voice broke. He held her tighter. “Shhhh…. Did you hear the voice again?”

“Yes… It started when they approached the system, but you broke my trance before I could make out what it was saying….”

Malak was somewhat relieved that he had come when he did. Who knew how much worse it would have been had the vision continued… It seemed to him that this voice was the thing that truly terrified Halin, even more so than the visions themselves…

“I’ll tell the person calling that you’re unable to respond at the moment…”

“No…. No, if they’re trying to speak to me directly, then maybe it’s important. Maybe it will finally be something to turn things around for all of us…”

“You’re in no condition to receive calls right now. You look like death…”

“They don’t have to see me,” she protested, pushing her way out of his arms. “I’ll wear my cloak and over holovid they won’t notice a thing!”

Malak sighed. He’d wished she would have stayed like that a little bit longer, there in his arms. These were stressful times and having her so close made him feel a little better. He hoped that he made her feel just as safe as she had made him feel.

He watched her pull herself up. Her legs shook at first, like a newborn animal that was trying to stand for the first time, and so he put his arms out to catch her in case she were to fall, but she managed to stabilize herself on her own. She pulled her cloak from where she had lain it and put it on, pulling its billowing hood over her head. Neither her face nor frame were visible when she was like this. She was like some sort of specter of a figure, ambiguous, yet unquestionably authoritative in appearance.

“Come, Malak,” she said. “Put me through with the caller… did he give his name?”

She was already walking toward the communications array and so Malak was left with no choice but to follow. “He said he represents Lord Adasca of Arkania, and says he has a proposal for you, but that he could only present it to the Revanchist leader directly…”

What he didn’t tell her was that he had claimed that he was the Revanchist when the call had come through, but that his lie had not been believed. He’d hoped to save her from the trouble by doing so, but the ruse was seen through immediately. Apparently, the caller had anticipated that the Revanchist would not be so easy to reach, and suspected the falsehood when he’d first answered.

The Revanchist sat in the seat at the communications array and pushed the button to accept the call that had been on hold. A hologram of a Duros Male flashed before her. “Ah, greeting, Revanchist Leader. I’m so happy that you have decided to accept my call,” he said upon seeing her cloaked figure. “My name is Eejee, and I’m calling on behalf of Lord Adasca of Arkania.”

“So I’ve been told,” the Revanchist replied. “I’ve heard that he has some sort of a proposal for me?”

“Yes,” the Duros replied. “He insisted that I only give the invitation to you directly.”

“A bold request, given that he has chosen not to call me himself.”

“The Lord apologizes, but he has been busy entertaining a special guest as of late, and has had little time, so as his secretary I’ve been keeping up with his business work as able.”

“What sort of an invitation is this?”

“To view a new weapon that has been in development.”

Halin further paled under her hood. A new weapon… The timing of it all… It must have had something to do with what she had seen in her recent vision.

“And just what sort of a weapon is this?” she managed.

“I’m sending over files with the details now. It’s quite an interesting thing, really… You see, Lord Adasca wants to be certain his project does not fall into the wrong hands… He’s asked me to contact specific groups who he think might be responsible enough to control such a thing.”

“I see… and who else has he contacted about this?”

“Now now, that information I am not at liberty to disclose freely. If you wish to see, then I suggest that you consider meeting us in the Omonoth system in five days time aboard Lord Adasca’s flagship, the Arkanian Legacy. We look forward to meeting you in person, Revanchist.”

The transmission ended and data was displayed from what the Duros Eejee had sent about the weapon in question. Halin removed her hood so she could more clearly view the information. Her apprentice could sense the disturbance in his friend and Master and moved closer to view the information with her. It was information on a species of large space-dwelling beasts called ‘Exogorths.’

“It’s just as it was in my vision…. I have to go,” she said, standing.

“Halin, you can’t. You’re still recovering…”

“I told you what I saw, Malak! If those things are there as he says, and if someone were to release them into an inhabited system…” She stopped. She couldn’t bear to think of the results that might come from such a thing. “I have to go…”

“No you don’t,” Malak said firmly. “You’re staying put—I’ll go!”

“Malak, don’t be ridiculous. You heard already. Lord Adasca is only willing to deal with me directly…”

“He sent his secretary to call us. I say we return the favor. I’ll say you were busy with other matters and sent me in your place.”

“It’s too risky. If we fail…”

“It’s too risky for you to go on your own! Send me on the Williwaw with Fiolli to pilot. We don’t need a large group for the task.”

“Malak, no! My decision is final!”

“Any chance I could bribe you?”

The woman gave him a look of disbelief. “Bribe me? Malak, you can’t be serious. We’re not kids anymore and this isn’t any time to be playing around! Now as your commanding officer and as your Master, I am telling you no!”

“And as your friend I am telling you that I won’t let you go running off again when you’re too weak to fight back if something goes wrong.”

“I can fight just fine if I have to. As I recall, the last time we sparred I had you bested after only a few minutes.”

“The last time we sparred,” he said, growing rather exasperated with her persistence, “you weren’t barely coherent from the after-effects of your visions! You’re not going!”

“Just watch me!”

“Halin, don’t make me do something we’ll both regret…”

The woman laughed. “Are you threatening me?”

“No,” he said, using the Force to pull her closer to him and swiftly applying pressure to a point on her neck, rendering the woman instantly unconscious. “I’m making you a promise.”

He set her back into the communications array chair and downloaded the data from the Consul regarding the information from Lord Adasca. He knew he would be in for an earful when she woke up, but it was for her own good. He would go to the Arkanian Legacy and see exactly what this proposal from Lord Adasca was all about…

><><><><><

The Williwaw was regrouping with the Stalwart Nightingale after Malak’s meeting with Lord Adasca on the Arkanian Legacy. Things certainly hadn’t turned out the way that anyone had expected during the deal. To Malak’s surprise, the other parties invited by Lord Adasca included not only the Republic Military’s Admiral Karath, but Madalore the Ultimate himself! As expected, things went very much awry…

However, as badly as the situation there had turned out, what Malak was dreading, even more, was his return. He’d not spoken to Halin since leaving on the mission, and given the circumstances of his departure, he couldn’t imagine that she would be very happy to see him again. Whatever he had imagined couldn’t have possibly prepared him for the sort of welcome which he received.

The fire in her eyes when he saw her was unlike any which he had seen in her before. And despite their obvious difference in size, he could not help but to feel intimidated. She marched straight up to him and slapped him across the face.

“Ack!” Malak exclaimed, rubbing his cheek. It would seem as though she had finally recovered from the Serrocco vision. “What was that for!?”

“For being a disrespectful nerf-herder!”

“I missed you too,” he muttered.

“You know, in a real military setting, a stunt like that would have you spaced!”

Malak rolled his eyes. “Guess I should feel lucky I have such a benevolent Master then… Are you feeling better now?”

She turned away. “You know, I would have been fine, going on my own…”

Malak sighed, “Somehow I doubt that, Halin… I’m almost surprised I’m even back myself after how things went there. Mandalore himself was there.”

With this, Halin’s eyes widened and she swiftly turned back to him, practically lunging at him as she grabbed the utility belt suspenders of his bodysuit and pulled his face closer to hers so as she could look him in the eye.

“Mandalore the Ultimate!?”

“Yes,” he said, slightly dazed by the ferocity of her reaction. “Lord Adasca called him there under a flag of truce. Apparently, he wanted to see who would offer him the best price for the weapon that he’d been able to develop.”

Halin paled and let go of him. If Mandalore were to get hold of such a thing…

“Please tell me….” She stopped, afraid to finish her thought.

“No… No, Mandalore doesn’t have it. No one does. One of the scientists responsible for its development seemed to have a higher moral ground than the rest of the bastards involved… Sacrificed himself playing hero by baiting the creatures away to some part of the unknown regions,”

Halin breathed a sigh of relief. “I suppose things turned out for the better then… Whoever the scientist was, he’s saved more lives than he probably could have imagined… It’s a shame we never got to meet him… He will be remembered though as a hero of the Republic…”

Malak nodded. “I didn’t come back empty-handed though.”

“Oh?” she said, raising an eyebrow.

Malak pulled something out of a bag that he had been carrying with him and tossed it to Halin. “Catch,” he said.

She caught the thing, which was a rust-red colored droid head of some sort.

“Lord Adasca had several of the things aboard the Arkanian Legacy and they attacked us at some point. They resembled the model I found you schematics for a couple years back, and so I thought you might be interested. Consider it an apology present.”

Halin examined the droid head. The memory core still seemed to be intact. With such a thing, she could probably study the droid enough to replicate one should she choose. The war was growing more and more complex with every passing day. Any advantage that they could gain would be for the better…

“Don’t think I’m letting you off the hook that easily,” she said to him, looking up from the droid head.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Master,” he said, bowing to her in a mocking fashion.

Halin rolled her eyes. “All right, nerf-herder, you’re on probation. Any more stunts like that and I’ll have you spaced for real.”

Malak grinned. He liked it when she was spirited like this. It reminded him of how she had been before they had left to form the Revanchists. And even though she had claimed that Halin Chan was dead, for a while, it felt as though he had Halin back there beside him.

><><><><><

“Let me through!” the Revanchist demanded, pushing her way past her apprentice in an attempt to get to the Communications Consul. “I want to speak to them myself!”

Malak grabbed her arms, dragging her backward. “Halin, don’t you think it would be best if Opela handled the situation…”

“I don’t care if it’s what’s best! Those fools have no right to make demands like this!”

“Whether you agree with them or not, they’re still the High Council.”

“Whether they’re the High Council or not they’re still a bunch of Gammorian-faced hypocrites!”

A call had come recently from Coruscant. It was the Jedi High Council contacting the Revanchists with a formal cease-and-desist order. After hearing about the Adasca Affair, they had decided that there was no place in Jedi dealing in arms deals for weapons of mass destruction. While they had turned the other cheek until this point, this was a situation which they felt that they could not ignore.

“Hundreds of Systems would have suffered the consequences had that situation gone any differently!” the woman continued in protest.

“I know that better than anyone!” the man replied. “I was there, after all!”

“What we are doing is right, and the Republic will fall without us!”

“Halin, please…”

“Don’t call me Halin! They’re the ones who killed Halin!” And with this, she let out a sob.

It was at this point that Opela approached them. She had finished the call with the Jedi Council and wore a somber expression on her face. It couldn’t have gone well…

“They won’t be swayed,” she said simply. “If we don’t go back, they’re going to have an arrest warrant issued for all of us… Honestly, I don’t see any way out of this…”

“No,” Halin said tearfully. “No, we can’t… Not now…. Not yet….”

“I’m sorry,” the other woman continued. “I did what I could… They say that, if we come willingly, there will be only minor suspensions for all of us…”

“No,” the Revanchist repeated, swallowing hard and managing to contain the rest of her tears. “No, we continue our course back to Cathar.”

“With all due respect, I don’t think that’s the wisest decision at this point…”

“There is something there that we missed, I can feel it! All we need is something! Some shred of a thing that will show to them the importance of the Jedi in the outcome of this war… If Cathar is where it all started, then Cathar will be our best option…”

“But with the communication having been open, it’s possible that they were able to track our signal and already know where we are headed. They could come after us themselves if they choose…”

“Then let them come! Let them come and let them see for themselves, but I will not be taken back and branded as a traitor for doing the right thing. Others have already given their lives for our cause. We cannot stop now…”

There was a moment of silence between all three. Either decision they made, there was much at stake. So much to be lost…

><><><><><

The Revanchists made their way through the grassy planes and marshlands of the planet Cathar. After a vote among the crew, they had decided to press onward. While there was much for them to lost in continuing, there was also much to be gained. If, as the Revanchist had said, they were able to find something to justify their actions to the Council, then they would be forced to hide no longer! And if the Council approved, then others would help them! They would no longer have to hide from both sides. They would openly be able to help and fight alongside the Republic’s military forces. They had to at least try.

The cities of Cathar were just as they had left them before—eerily empty with no trace of life or death to be found. There were no battered or battle-scarred buildings or piles of rubble anywhere. It was all so very strange…

“Ferroh,” the Revanchist said, addressing the native Cathar within their company, “is there any place where your people might have fled to in the event of an emergency situation?”

“Maybe the beaches,” he replied, “but they wouldn’t have been able to stay for long if they did. Cathar people aren’t suited well for wet climates….”

“It’s worth at least checking out… Company, move out! We head for the shoreline. This could be our last chance to be able to find something to convince the Jedi Order to support our cause. We cannot fail!”

><><><><><

The sounds of waves could be heard in the near distance. It had been a two-day hike from where they landed to the nearest waterfront. They were weary, but hopeful. The Force resonated differently here than it had in the settlements. There was still some sort of residual energy from whatever had taken place years before. They could feel the moisture of sea spray in the air and quickened their pace. They were so close now—so close to discovering the truth about what had happened to the Cathar.

They could see the beach now. There were faint traces of an attack here, but not much else as far as they were able to tell at this point. There were some small scattered debris, a few scraps of clothing and trinkets…

“Halt right now, Revanchists! This crusade of yours has gone on long enough.”

The company spun around and saw several Jedi Masters approaching them, many of whom here on the Jedi Council. It seemed as though Opela’s concern that they might have been tracking the communication was well-founded, for there they stood now, closing around the Revanchists.

Halin began to tremble. No… No, not yet… We’re so close… We just need a little more time…

“You don’t understand,” the Revanchist said to them. “It’s more clear now than ever that the Republic needs us…”

“There is nothing warranting Jedi aid in another war!” said one of the Masters.

“You are to abandon this childish cause of yours and disperse—forever!” stated another.

“No!” the Revanchist protested. “No, I refuse!”

It was Malak who stopped her before she could do something she would regret. He took hold of her wrist, preventing her from rushing toward the Masters. “Halin, don’t… We’ve done what we could. It’s time to go home now…”

The Revanchist swallowed hard, collapsing to her knees defeatedly, her back hunched over. Her apprentice finally let go of her wrist. In her entire life, she had never felt so very empty… So defeated… She closed her eyes, letting her senses take in the flurry of stimuli around her—the presence of the Masters, the broken spirits of her comrades, the roar of the sea, the taste and smell of the salt…. These were the last moments that she would ever feel as the Revanchist…

But when she opened her eyes, she saw something there before her, half-buried in the sand. She wasn’t sure what it was that compelled her to pick the thing up, but the moment she did… the moment it hit the light… all began to change.

From further up the hill, a stampede of Cathar began to run in their direction, seemingly running for their lives. Halin Chan quickly got to her feet and all of the Jedi there, both Master and Revanchist alike, quickly made way for the terrified crowd to pass through.

It was then that they noticed what followed behind. A group of Mandalorians led by Mandalore the Ultimate’s right-hand man, Cassus Fett, was shooting at the Cathar people, chasing them and driving them toward the sea. Swiftly, the Revanchists sprung to action, each drawing their blade and attempting to defend the poor Cathar from the Mandalorian onslaught.

What was strange, however, was that none of their blows seemed to hit. It was as if none of the Cathar, nor any of the Mandalorians, seemed to notice the Jedi at all! However, it was very evident that every one of the Jedi there could see what was happening. Halin spun around observing their surroundings. This feeling… It was the same way she felt during the start of one of her visions…. But this time… This time everyone could see. It was a vision that all of them were sharing! But rather than a vision of the future, this was a vision of the past.

Many of the Masters shouted out in protest, insisting that the attack on the Cathar people halt, but it was of no use. These were two separate times, and while the past could communicate with the present, there was no way for the present to communicate with the past. But while the present could not communicate with those in the past, perhaps one other from the past could.

As the Mandalorian attackers began driving the Cathar deeper into the sea waters, one Mandalorian woman moved in front of Cassus Fett, blocking the path between the Mandalorians and the Cathar.

“Cassus, wait,” the Mandalorian woman said. “They’re already defeated. There’s no need for us to do this…”

But Cassus Fett would not be swayed. “The Cathar left a stain of dishonor on the Mando’ade,” he stated. “Today, I wash it clean in the waters of their own presumption. But, if you truly believe that they need a defender to stand with them, then do so!”

And with this, he gave the signal. The Mandalorians, with their jetpacks, flew above the Cathar people and their lone defender and, in a swift and merciless act, opened fire, raining down an assault of terror and destruction from above.

When the dust of the battle finally settled, the Mandalorians and the Cathar alike had all vanished. The Jedi stood stunned at what they had all just witnessed. It was at this point that Halin finally looked down at what was in her hand—what she had picked up just before the vision had begun. It was the mask of the unknown Mandalorian woman. The woman who alone stood up to Cassus Fett and swore to protect the Cathar people from needless slaughter.

“They were beaten,” Halin murmured. “You didn’t have to do it… One of you knew, but the rest… the rest didn’t listen…”

And with this, Halin brought the mask of the Mandalorian woman to her face. “I don’t know your name, but I will take up your cause… I will wear your mask until there is justice—until the Mandalorians have been defeated once and for all. So swears… Revan!”

#kotor #kotoredit #female revan #revan #revan malak #revalek #jedi exile #star wars #mandalorian wars #fanfic

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