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#not sure that incensed in terms of anger is also spelled like that but that's what i found looking it up so... there we go
medicinemane · 3 years
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You know, I was going to start this differently, but I'll open with that I really appreciate good parents
They don't have to be perfect, but the parents and guardians and people raising kids who really try to do what's right for them, those people are so great and important and do such an important thing in this world
On the other hand there are way too many parents who treat their kids like a possession to be molded into what the parents want. Nothing is ever good enough, they can have the perfect kid who doesn't do drugs or drink or anything at all and they'll act like they're raising a monster
You'd think I was taking about one specific set of parents, and I kind of am but actually I can instantly think of 5 parents like that. It takes me a minute to even remember which friends they belong to, but I instantly know 5 sets of ungrateful parents who don't realize that they lucked out. All they choose to see is mistakes and flaws when they have a fantastic kid
So I love the good parents who really try to support this little human they know is unique and not just an object or a tiny version of them, because... incense me, fill me even beyond anger with a sorrow that... that they could fail the people who depend on them so badly, that they could be so selfish that they put their own needs before the child they're supposed to protect
It bothers me, it bothers me how many bad parents I can think of where I can point to concrete examples of their bad behaviour and I'm only getting a small sample. I just... I don't have enough time or words so I'll leave it at the fact that I'm just filled with profound sorrow at the whole situation
So thank you to the good parents, and even just the decent ones. To those of you who had say... particularly controlling parents, or ones where nothing was ever good enough, or any and everything else... I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that
This is for some specific people, but even if I don't know your situation and it applies... it's for you too
#not sure that incensed in terms of anger is also spelled like that but that's what i found looking it up so... there we go#most of these parents i wish i could give a stern talking to and find a way to get through their thick skulls#but there's one i would like to with no hyperbole beat to death if he wasn't already dead to my knowledge#none of you know who it is and... the reasons were told in confidence so i won't be sharing any details#but never having met that man i can say he was one of the worst monsters I've ever directly known of#i truly can't convey just how awful that beast was without breaking the trust of someone who...#unfortunately i don't think considers me a friend anymore#but i could never be mad at them for that because i get just how much anger and pain that vermin caused them#and just... that wasn't even all of it#it's not fair what they went through#a lot of my friends i don't think what they've been through or are going through is right and i wish i could change it and maybe will someda#but this one friend... it shouldn't be possible to have that much bad happen#the least fate could have done is spare... well... not my place to talk about#they... they asked me to be their son's godfather at one point you know but... things change... not always for the better#this wasn't about them when i wrote this#it was about a number of friends or people i like and one of them in particular#i hadn't even thought about this person in a long time#but their father certainly was one of the worst to ever exist and i hope I'm remembering right that he's dead#because the vermin can't be walking around the earth doing more unspeakable harm
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haphazardlyparked · 3 years
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the war AU, part 2
the part where it’s not actually a war, and i clearly know nothing about politics but i sure do a lot of BSing. :))) 
---
Hikaj couldn't help but compare the double-edged sword he held with the woman who wielded it: High Lady Masara, a knight of the cultish order that half-ruled Amir, from what Hikaj had learned so far of the surprisingly secretive order. The sword itself was light and well-balanced, with unfamiliar runes etched down its length that had Hikaj’s best warmage tearing his hair out. It all reminded Hikaj of the first time he had met the high lady.
She had visited Kas years ago, with one of her king's councilors, and they had both been unfailingly polite. Duke Inarim, High Lady Masara, and their whole, modest entourage. Hikaj knew, because his spymaster had complained that the Amirran servants had answered all of his questions happily, or happily misunderstood them—and his veiled offers of bribes for real information. 
At the formal dinners they attended, the high lady said little, but was always polite, and Hikaj had heard her laugh often enough. It had been enough to make him wonder if she knew something incriminating about every person she crossed paths with. Admittedly, he had been a little high-strung those days. Torral was the kind to be happy doing a job competently, but Hikaj's other dear uncle had liked the regency a bit too well. Hikaj had walked a fine line, trying to appear non-threatening while still presenting himself as a future ruler full of potential that his vassal kings and dukes could put their weight behind. It had made him very suspicious about every interaction around him.
But then they had danced, and Hikaj had started to see that High Lady Masara didn't laugh at anyone in particular, but at all the little parts of his court he hardly saw anymore. From the tiny carved woodland creatures that flitted through the ballroom's ceiling to the tendency to change glasses for each new drink at dinner, she had taken delight in the novelty of his court--not laughed at its secrets. She had seemed to know very little about Kas, actually.  
Now, with the weight of Masara's strange sword in his hands, Hikaj was back to thinking that maybe it was the secrets. When he had recognized High Lady Masara in the knight he'd been told had charged his advance company alone, he felt a little bit like laughing himself. At himself. 
They'd gone riding during the Amirran visit, in a large party that scattered into small groups and wended their collective way through the manicured Forests of the Empress-Mother. The ever-changing groups of courtiers flitting here and there again centered around a string of nobles who preferred the most sedate of paces. High Lady Masara had been one of those riders, hesitant in her sidesaddle, good-naturedly laughing at her own inexperience with a shifting tide of the Kassan court. Hikaj decided she simple hadn't had many chances to ride before.
Now, he wondered what kind of rider the knight Masara was. How many more things in Amir were mysteries to him? 
***
Hikaj crossed his camp back to the bespelled tent, Masara's sword and scabbard in his hands and a nervous energy quickening his step. He should have let Qemaile go and poke the bear, he was the mage, after all - but Hikaj honestly wasn't sure if Lady Arlis would send poor Qemaile into a uselessly towering rage, or leave him crying and still unhelpful. Hikaj needed his mage, as temperamental as the man was, so he went to the tent himself.
It was guarded, but the flap was tied open for light, breaking the net of spellcloth. They had stopped burning the slightly caustic incense and started opening the tent after the high lady and her squire had each given an oath not to flee. Hikaj had made sure his healers looked after the high lady, too. While Lady Arlis had surrendered with barely a scratch on her, one of Masara's arm was broken and a spear had gone through - luckily enough, the healers told Hikaj - mostly skin and muscle where arm and shoulder met. It was declared to be healing as expected, and it had not seemed to trouble Masara too much on the (admittedly slow) ride back to Amir's capital city.
The ride had taken a week because of the hilly country, which turned large companies of men into slow, winding targets on the narrow roads, but Hikaj had taken the risk. He had also left a rear guard behind, to keep Amir's forces penned up in the blasted mountainous Foothills as a guarantee.
Now the spelled tent - and the bulk of the imperial soldiers - were all camped outside Amirasa's outer walls. At the Sascrin knights' request, the tent's opening faced the city that rose up on a high hill, topped by a sprawling palace that overlooked the cliffs and the sea on one side, and Amirasa on the other.
Hikaj blocked their view of it when he ducked into the tent.
He could tell they'd been looking because Lady Arlis had the intent, stormy look on, the one that seeing his blue-cloaked guards on the walls always provoked. She was leaning forward in her chair, her elbows on her knees, and she reminded Hikaj of a wildcat about to pounce. Masara, of course, was calmly collected by her side. But was she also angry behind that calm? Or was she hiding something else? 
Or maybe he was reading too much into what was just polite civility. It didn't help that Masara's attention--but not her expression--shifted as soon as she saw what Hikaj was carrying. Arlis didn't see--she straightened and jerked her head to the side so that Hikaj couldn't see her face when she noticed him. Struggling to control her anger, probably.
She was able to mirror Masara's calm for abut half a second, and then her eyes narrowed suspiciously on Masara's sword.
"Oh, let me guess," the squire immediately snapped. “You have questions.”
Hikaj tried a smile. "There must be something you can speak about," he said, already conciliatory in his preamble. Part of him regretted already starting on the back foot, but the rest of him was focused on High Lady Masara's sudden smile.
She didn't say anything.
"Why should we spill secrets to the emperor we're at war with?" the young and very vocal Lady Arlis demanded.
For a fourteen year old, she was shockingly forceful. But then, she was an ambush-laying, sword-wielding fourteen year old. It didn't help that every time she opened her mouth, the high lady—who was an ambush-laying and sword-wielding noblewoman herself—would nod in agreement, and then cycle through a wide variety of polite looks.
Hikaj opted for what he hoped was the safest answer: technicalities.
"In the purest sense of common accord, we are not at war, because neither your king nor I have declared it,” he corrected Lady Arlis. “I suppose we could call it… armed conflict?”
Arlis gasped with deep offense. “Or more accurately, invasion or attempted conquest!”
Masara turned her steady gaze on Hikaj, and then stoked young Arlis's fire.
 “You are correct Imperial General, technically," she said, turning her gracious concession into an elongated but. "Yet I fear my king has been a little busy fleeing your unprovoked… armed conflict... to make war declarations just yet.”
Lady Arlis leapt on that. "Yes! We'll see what the king says once - once he has a chance!" she told Hikaj, furious in her enthusiasm.
Hikaj was a general who knew when to retreat. He didn't quite try to hide Masara's sword and scabbard--there was nowhere to put it--but he lowered his hands and made it clear he wasn’t going to ask any questions about it. Of course Masara would want her weapon back--knights everywhere felt the same about that, Hikaj suspected, no matter how peculiar otherwise they were to him--but Qemaile wanted to study it more, and frankly, Hikaj worried it might scare some of the men if he returned it to her.  
That problem for later.
Changing topics, Hikaj did his best not to get kicked out of the tent by the furious silences which had driven him from it before.
"Instead of declarations of war,” he said, in his best diplomatically soothing voice, “would you not prefer peace?"
Masara's neutral expression seemed to consider that, but Arlis frowned deeply.  
“We had peace before you came,” the squire eventually said.
Hikaj looked at Masara when he answered. “Did you?”
She met his gaze, but for once, she was the one who looked away first. “Whatever we had,” she mused, “it was certainly not bloodshed from Amirasa to the Foothills.”
Hikaj bit back the dozen different things he wanted to say. He had weighed the risks and made his agreements before the first Kassan soldier set foot in Amir, and even if he was starting to re-evaulate those decisions, now was not the time to throw any plan away. Revealing any inopportune might weaken his leverages in Amir, and no matter how unfortunate this campaign was turning out to be, he did need this kingdom as a bulwark against Lapur. 
So he winced and said, "No, it was not, you are correct. But I do believe smaller conflict is justified to avoid greater perils."
"For Kas, perhaps," Masara countered.
"Not just for Kas," Hikaj maintained, though he didn't mention Lapur specifically. He knew Masara would already be thinking of Amir’s other large, imperial neighbor; who west of the sea of sands didn’t? “Regardless of how it began - would you not like the chance to end it?"
That made Arlis scowl, though Masara smiled and dryly observed, “I am sure the terms would be so wonderfully generous."
Hikaj suppressed a shrug. "That is what negotiations would determine, I suppose."
Masara didn't answer, but her unchanging, humorless smile seemed to say, What treaties ever went well for the ones who were forced to the table by a greater military power? Even Arlis didn't say anything, though the naked outrage in her glare made it clear what she thought of this kind of coercion.
"How could we trust an agreement with you?" Masara asked finally. “We have no foundation for trust yet.” She paused, purposeful and considering, then added, before Hikaj could fumble for an answer, “Though we could work on that.”
Hikaj felt weakly grateful for the opening Masara left him. “What would you suggest?”  
Arlis bristled again, probably ready to demand that the Kassans leave Amir immediately, but High Lady Masara said, “Something small, to start,” as though she were thinking aloud. “An easy trade. You could answer a question for me, perhaps, and I could answer one for you… or I could give you a demonstration with my sword.”
She didn’t look at the scabbard while she suggested the little deal. Hikaj met her dark, careful eyes, and told himself her offer was probably not a threat, and he definitely did not feel a sudden, thrilling swoop in his chest.
“All right,” he said.
Arlis scoffed and then muttered, just loud enough for Hikaj to hear, “I’ll demonstrate the Lady’s Peace for them.” 
That was definitely a threat. 
• • •
After whatever Lady Arlis had claimed to have done and Hikaj’s healers’ work, Masara's wounds all looked as though she'd had months to heal, not a little over a week. Her right arm was still in a sling though, so she held her sword in her left hand. She still wore the knee-length blue tunic that the healers had found for her too, as well as her gray knight’s cloak. But whereas her presence usually filled the small spellcloth tent, out in the open, she suddenly looked small and alone. Just one injured woman with a sword, facing off against a dozen archers.
That was probably what Hikaj's men had thought, right before Masara had charged them. He tried not to fall into the same trap when the high lady turned to him, smiled, and raised the tip of her sword with the ease of long familiarity.
“Shall I begin?” she asked.
“No!” Qemaile insisted from where he stood at Hikaj's side. He hopped from one foot to the other in his excitement, and from somewhere in his robes little bells started jingling. “You must explain what spell you plan to use! Incantation! Materials! Something?"
Masara laughed. Not at Qemaile, per se, but Qemaile retorted just the same, guestring out at Masara and her sword. "I want to know what I'm looking for!”
"You will see it," Masara assured him. It didn't really assuage Qemaile’s defensiveness, but she didn’t give him time to argue more. "Please, Imperial General, when you are ready, count to ten and then give the order to shoot."
She turned back to face the archers, who stood some hundred meters off.
Hikaj raised his hand and began to count. Before he'd even finished saying the first number, Masara's sword leapt into action, the tip of a blade tracing a large shape in the air before her. By the time Hikaj got to six, Masara's blade began to glow, first a small point of bright light, one of the etched runes turning to silver light that began to grow, sliding along the blade like liquid before it reflected into a bright arc of light that flashed, and then settled into a faint shimmer in the air. Hikaj reached ten, and lowered his hand. Twelve bowstrings twanged.
Fear flashed hot through Hikaj as the arrows whistled through the air--this was mad--but then all twelve shots slammed against the abruptly solid silver light, metal tips lighting in an incandescent spark before the wooden shafts splintered. Half-melted arrowheads and wood fell to the ground, and High Lady Masara lowered the sword. 
"The arrow guard," Lady Arlis said into the silence, after the silver light faded away and Masara's sword was nothing but etched metal again. "It is one of the first things we learn."
“But I didn’t see the spell,” Qemaile wailed. 
Hikaj was still staring at Masara. She had shifted the sword to her broken arm, and was holding it awkwardly in the sling so she could use her left hand to wipe sweat off her forehead, or maybe to brush her dark curls out of her face. He imagined her thundering down a narrow path through the Foothills, wreathed in silver spouting from her sword and staring down his men, and he felt a shiver in his spine.
“Figure it out, Qemaile,” Hikaj said. “I want that spell.” 
“But my lord, it’s not a spell!” 
• • •
In the tent (after Qemaile has asked his hundredth question and Masara had managed her ninety-somethingth evasive reply) the high lady shifted in her chair to turn a flat, expressionless look on Hikaj. It was just the three of them again, and an empty chair, but Masara didn’t even glance at Lady Arlis. The squire, for once, seemed just as unsure of what Masara would say as Hikaj. 
“Imperial General,” the high lady said finally. “Who betrayed us?" She asked the question without preamble, firm and direct. Arlis closed her eyes and looked away. Was she surprised?
Hikaj himself was taken aback. Not was there a traitor, but who. How had Masara known? Had she known all along? If she’d known, that would change Hikaj’s understanding of what had gone wrong so far. 
“I cannot build a foundation of trust alone, Imperial General.” The quiet, matter-of-fact tone was belied by the intensity of Masara’s brown eyes. She had said they could start with a small trade, an exchange of trust, but Hikaj suddenly realized this question was important to her. Maybe she’d been waiting for a chance to ask this whole time. 
“No, of course not,” he agreed. He tried not to hesitate. Maybe the arrow guard had not been such a little demonstration, either. “It was the prince,” Hikaj said. “It was your cousin, Prince Panam.”
Masara closed her eyes, and then nodded once, shortly.
"I thought so," she said, and it was a quiet exhalation that seemed to take the strength out of her. She leaned back in her camp chair and bowed her head. 
The silence was too loud; not even Arlis raised her voice to accuse Hikaj of lying. When he looked to the squire, he was shocked to see she had tears in her eyes. 
“The High Priest, too?” she asked, her voice a thick whisper. Hikaj thought she was talking about the assassination that had drawn Kas into Amir, at Prince Panam’s invitation. Hikaj had had nothing to do with it, despite Arlis’s most heated accusations, but he had known the prince must have. 
Masara didn’t raise her head when she replied. “It would seem so. Our own armed conflict, after all.”  
“I’m sorry,” Hikaj found himself saying, feeling awkward and intrusive. “I’ll--I’ll leave you now. Have a good night.” 
Then he rose from the campaign chair, flinched as the unstable thing folded loudly in on itself, and fled the tent. 
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