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dindjarindiaries · 3 years

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10 Underrated Quotes from Season 2 of The Mandalorian

As previously seen with season one, I’m here with another list of underrated quotes from The Mandalorian—this time, from season two. I’m going to highlight some of my favorite quotes from the season or quotes that stick out to me and why I think they’re noteworthy.

I don’t own any rights to content from The Mandalorian and, if you haven’t watched season two yet, potential spoilers are ahead!

1. “Pay attention when a superior addresses you.” (Chapter 15: The Believer)

While this scene certainly isn’t underrated, I believe this line spoken by Valin Hess when he finally catches Din Djarin’s attention by the Imperial terminal deserves some reflection. It’s interesting to think about how responding to Hess’ first call of “Trooper” is something Djarin just... wouldn’t think to do, or is something he thought he could get away with. It seems that Mandalorians, while they value their leadership, don’t focus on hierarchical structures in their society, so Djarin isn’t used to having to obey orders like that. It’s even worse that he has to deal with this unfamiliar situation without his helmet for the first time since he was a child. It really draws our attention to how little Djarin knows about the Empire and other organizations outside of his covert.

2. “This is the Way.” (Chapter 11: The Heiress)

I think many of us can agree that the first time this statement is uttered in this episode, we’re less than pleased about it, thanks to Bo-Katan’s ridiculing tone. When it happens later on, however, there’s so much meaning packed behind the words. First, from Bo-Katan, who has witnessed Mando’s bravery firsthand and has likely realized how wrong she was making assumptions about him based off his covert and his traditions. In return, Mando’s response of the phrase is strained. Why? Well, it’s up to interpretation—but to me, I think it’s because Mando’s in awe of the idea of these Mandalorians who have already proven their abilities to him actually coming to respect him and the Way he’s known ever since he was a child. It was a great moment of reconciliation.

3. “Is he speaking? Do you... understand him?” (Chapter 13: The Jedi)

Something I love about this line in particular is the way it’s delivered. There’s such desperation concealed behind Mando’s modulator that tells us so much about what he’s been thinking while pacing the forest floor nervously. This desperation also tells us how eager he’s been to communicate with his child. Mando and Grogu have been together for a long time, now, and we know they’ve had plenty of one-sided conversations. I’m sure Mando has longed to know what Grogu’s been thinking in return, and now that he might have an opportunity to, we can really hear that sheer curiosity and desperation in his voice with this line he offers to Ahsoka.

4. “Jet back, you’re faster that way.” (Chapter 12: The Siege)

I’m sure we all have our mixed opinions about the season one Nevarro crew, but this moment in particular really strikes the depth of their friendship and companionship. Once they’ve all heard about Moff Gideon’s return and his request to get the child once again, there’s no doubt in anyone’s minds that Mando wouldn’t be going back for him immediately. Even though the job isn’t completely done and Greef, Cara, and Mythrol all still need a way out, they don’t even try to ask for Mando’s help. Instead, Cara insists that he gets back as fast as he can, even if that means the three of them don’t make it out themselves. I really love how that shared understanding and dedication to the child in all situations shows their deep friendship amongst the trio (and Mythrol).

5. “I’ve spent much time on Tatooine. I never saw a Mandalorian there.” (Chapter 9: The Marshal)

Mando’s response to Gor Karesh insisting that he knows of a Mandalorian on Tatooine could potentially be telling us more than we’re aware of. As far as we know, Mando’s only been to Tatooine once—and it was only for two days, tops. But here, he’s saying he’s “spent much time” there, which means it’s possible that Mando lived on Tatooine for a time while the Bounty Hunter’s Guild still operated out of there. If you think about it more, Mando knew exactly where to go for some work in Chapter 5, another hint that there’s more to Mando’s time on Tatooine than we’re aware of. The same thing could be said about his knowledge of Tusken and his friendship with the Sand People. Any time we get a potential hint of Mando’s backstory, I’m excited about it!

6. “Am I under arrest?” (Chapter 10: The Passenger)

This line comes quickly in the midst of Mando’s conversation with the New Republic pilots in Chapter 10, but I really love it. These few words say a lot about Mando’s character and how he responds to praise. He’s just been told all about his heroics in Chapter 6, when he risked his own life for Lieutenant Davan and reprimanded Mayfeld, Xi’an, and Burg—and when asked whether it was true, Mando offers no confirmation. He doesn’t even own up to his good acts. Instead, he simply acts this question, remaining the practical man we know him to be. This truly shows us the humble nature of Mando and how he tries his best to focus on the present rather than dwelling on things he’s done in the past, good or bad.

7. “... talent without training is nothing.” (Chapter 16: The Rescue)

On the surface, this seems like a very practical statement that many Jedi make throughout the series (see Ahsoka talking to Mando in Chapter 13 and Obi-Wan talking to Luke in Episode IV: A New Hope). When you think about it more, especially in context, you might be able to see Luke hinting at something much deeper. Luke heard Grogu’s cry for help from the Seeing Stone where it’s very possible Grogu was talking about his desire to protect his father by strengthening his abilities. Luke knows all too well what happens when you abandon training in an attempt to protect those you love—as for him, it didn’t go well. Yoda tried to warn him but he didn’t listen. Now that he’s learned his lesson, Luke can offer this wisdom to a Grogu who wants to keep his father safe. He knows that training first will then allow Grogu to protect himself and his father to his heart’s content, just as Luke was better able to protect his friends in Episode VI after he finished his training.

8. “Okay, I’m gonna protect you.” (Chapter 14: The Tragedy)

The scene in which this line is delivered is what truly establishes this episode as a tragedy. Mando’s tried three times to break through Grogu’s Force-field—not because he wasn’t thinking, but because he was so desperate—and now he has to come to terms with the fact that he’ll only hurt himself more if he keeps trying it again and again. Mando’s voice is pretty shaky if you listen to it closely enough in these lines, reluctant to leave his child atop the mountain alone but eager to protect him somehow. We know Mando doesn’t like to feel helpless, but we can sense he feels that way in this moment. He doesn’t even know if Grogu can hear him, yet he keeps speaking to him with such fierce protectiveness and reassurance. This is a promise he doesn’t fall through with, even if Grogu does fall into the Imperials’ hands for a time.

9. “Give it to me.” (Chapter 15: The Believer)

This is the moment where we all really knew what was about to go down. What I love about this quote is that Mando says it with no remorse. He says it firmly, insisting upon doing whatever it takes to get those coordinates and get to Grogu. He’s already made up his mind. Despite the fact he gave his word earlier about not showing his face, Mando’s going to do what he has to for his son. The firm way this line is delivered proves that, especially when he shifts from taking a backseat to Mayfeld to taking charge again as he pulls the data stick right from Mayfeld’s grip. I just really love Mando’s determination in this scene, despite the circumstances.

10. “I’ll see you again. I promise.” (Chapter 16: The Rescue)

Do I particularly think this line is underrated? No, not the direct meaning of it. But when you watch Star Wars Rebels and think more about the genius of Dave Filoni, there’s a whole new layer of meaning attached to these words. For those who may not have watched the show yet (you definitely should!), Kanan and Hera are two people who care very much for each other (wink wink) who once had to exchange a goodbye very similar to Mando and Grogu. Kanan was about to go on a very dangerous mission without Hera, unsure of what would happen to him, when he delivered these words: “We’ll see each other again. I promise.” This is almost exactly what Mando says to Grogu in the face of their temporary separation. The good news is Kanan and Hera did get to see each other again—but Kanan was changed forever. Will this happen with Mando or Grogu? It’s possible. But it’s just another one of those moments that makes me yell “FILONI!” in Darth Maul style.

#idk i just love the mandalorian and star wars #the mandalorian #the mandalorian season two #star wars #meta

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domromano · 2 years

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The world for Dominic Romano was very simple; kill or be killed.

Ever since he was a young boy, just a few years old, Dom had been forced to wage a war against the universe just to stay alive one more day. With every fall of the moon and rise of the sun, he had to pick himself up by the bootstraps and fight. As the years ticked by and he was moved from foster home to foster home, Dominic learned that there was nobody else on this planet that would look out for him; so he had to look out for himself. Growing up in the system had helped him develop tough skin and real world skills that he needed to make it in this life. This life was a life lived mainly in the shadows, taking jobs so undesirable that nobody would dare blink an eye in his direction. And if they did, they knew well enough to keep an eye back over their shoulder. He’d stolen, he’d lied, he’d cheated— and over the course of the last few years, he’d graduated into something far more sinister… targeted assassinations. The underground guild he was a part of operated much like that of the movies; he was sent a postcard in the mail with a location containing a time and then when he arrived, an additional package would be waiting with half his payday and the specifics for each target. The work was dirty, as were most of his marks (often times people involved in organized crime, someone who’d wronged someone else) but Dom had long since lost the part of himself that wondered “why”. At least this way, taking out marks every few weeks, he was handsomely compensated and could live a more comfortable life and in turn, killed less and less.

Admittedly, Dom’s latest target was a bit unusual. She was a young woman, stunningly beautiful to anyone with decent vision, and if the last several days of recon had taught him anything— her life was unremarkable. No dangerous activity or illegal contacts that Dominic could see. She followed a carefully set schedule and if Dom didn’t know any better, he would have wagered she’d known she was being surveilled and was doing so to appear like her nose was clean. Didn’t matter much to him, either way; the payday for this particular job was high enough that he’d be able to wait another six months before taking another job. He’d been watching her for three days now, learning her habits and routines, and as the sun set on another day and the sky turned from a warm orange to a dismal black, Dom prepared himself to complete his job. He’d cleaned his gun and secured the silencer over the muzzle, cleaned up after himself, paying extra attention to wipe clean any surfaces he’d touched. For the past three days, he’d been holed up in an abandoned apartment across from her building, camera equipment and surveillance materials setup in a window that directly overlooked her home. As he watched her go through the familiar motions of her night time routine, Dom slipped on his black leather gloves and tucked his silenced pistol into the back of his dark jeans. It was time.

Taking a moment to ensure she had settled into bed, Dom then exited the abandoned apartment and headed across the street, keeping his head low and his eyes alert. He’d already double checked his entrance and exit routes and as expected, he managed to find a way in through an open window on the first floor of the building. As he crept up the staircase towards her place, Dom’s mind began to wander; what had she done that someone had placed a price on her head? Did she deserve to die? Would anyone miss her once she was gone? Most of the time, these thoughts were nowhere near the forefront of his mind when about to complete a job. But there was just something about this woman…

As he picked the lock of her apartment and slipped inside silently, Dom pushed away his thoughts and entered her bedroom. She was sleeping soundly in her bed, breathing low and rhythmic. Dom pulled the pistol from his waistband and lifted it towards her, sight trained directly on the top of her forehead, when suddenly she rolled in bed and he flinched. The hands on the pistol were shaking, and beneath the material of his gloves, his palms were sweaty. His heart raced within his chest and his sharp blue eyes were narrowed as he stared down at this stranger. She was nothing more than a job; so why hadn’t he pulled the trigger already?

“Christ,” Dominic cursed himself, rage boiling just below the surface of his skin. Change of plans, I suppose. And with that Dom reached into the pocket of his coat and removed a syringe filled with enough sedative to keep her knocked out for at least an hour. He removed the cap and without hesitation, leaned over the bed to plunge the needle into her throat. He’d have to move quickly to get her to a safe location, and when they arrived, he’d have to have his questions ready. Once he found out exactly who she was and what she’d done, killing her would be easier. Right?

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moskaisley · 4 years

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migraine pt. 4 | tension

gif cred: @thestarwarsdaily

rating: mature

word count: 5.7k HOO BOY

warnings: ANGST ANGST ANGST EVERYONE IS ANGY, cursing, descriptions of vomiting and a panic attack, mentions of death, mentions of trafficking

a/n: I KNO THIS TOOK A LONG TIME .. AND I'VE BEEN STARING AT IT FOR HOURS. THANK U ALL FOR BEING SO SO SO PATIENT AND THANK U TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO LEFT LOVELY COMMENTS ON BOTH TUMBLR N AO3 <3

I really really appreciate you guys. As someone who doesn't consider herself a writer by any means, it's nice to know that people enjoy the stories I tell. I had a LOT of trouble with this, but the rest of the story is planned out so I'm hoping there won't be as long a break in between chapters again! we've got about 3 parts left :))

summary:

"Maybe you don’t hate him as much as he thinks.

Maybe you miss him as much as he misses you. Maybe you also long for him in the late hours of the night, replaying moments of your lives together over and over and over in your head. Maybe you didn’t regret taking this job. Maybe, just maybe, you will forgive this broken man and let him in your heart’s home once again."

Wherein wounds are reopened, split, and burned alive.

parts 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

ao3 link / masterlist

Detective Ira Volskaya was a shady guy. Incidentally, he was also your client.

He couldn’t have been much older than you were, but years of police work and crime stopping have weathered him into a brooding, suspicious man with greying hairs and droopy, tired eyes. You and Mando ended up far away from the city center of Coruscant, Volskaya insisting that collection took place in an abandoned warehouse. Judging by how secretive this all was and how strict the detective was on his instructions, you figured that this little exchange wasn’t “in line” with Security Force policy.

As Mando spoke with Volskaya, you helped unload Khan’s slab onto the docking station for his men to take away. Once they had it down the ramp, you walked over to them, catching his attention.

Taking a puff of his cigarra, he narrows his eyes and nods at you, “She wasn’t with you last time.”

“She’s just–”

Mando’s head darted between the two of you, hesitating.

“A coworker,” you cut in sharply.

The detective pursed his lips in suspicion, but left it alone. Instead, he turned to the briefcase at his feet, handing it over to Mando. As he double checked the amount in the case, your eyes caught Ira’s men loading the carbonite slab onto a speeder. Your mind drifts back to something Mando said on the Slipstream.

“he’s wanted for running multiple sex trafficking rings throughout the galaxy…”

You look back at the detective, “What’s going to happen to the rest of Khan’s operation?”

“We’re hoping that his capture will cause a fracture in his little empire. Break up the chain of command and let it die out.”

Volskaya takes another drag and sighs, smoke curling off his lips, “But with the new intel that’s come in, there’s a chance it’ll create a power vacuum. A lot of people wanted him dead. Someone new could easily take his place.”

Your stomach twists as you remember Aayn’vida trembling on the bathroom floor. There are probably still thousands of girls like her, just as scared and helpless. It makes your mouth go sour.

As if sensing your discomfort, Mando shuts the case abruptly.

“It’s all here. Let’s go.”

You kept repeating to yourself that nothing would satisfy you more than to get off this planet and move on from anything that had to do with Khan Horne. But there was a scathing pull at the back of your mind that tugged with each step closer to the Crest. Your gaze darted between the case in Mando’s hand, the slab on the speeder, and Ira Volskaya’s retreating figure. Furrowing your brows, you rub your fingers on your temple; collecting never felt this complicated. What’s gotten into you? You got your money and the job is done, so why was your brain screaming at you to stop Mando from closing the ramp?

Someone new… a power vacuum.

“Wait.”

Mando’s gaze turned to you, fingers hovering over his vambrace.

Fumbling over your words, you say something along the lines of stay put and that you’ll be back in a second. Turning back to the warehouse, you jog away from the ship and call,

“Detective!”

He spins on his heel back to you, face twisting in confusion.

Squaring your shoulders and huffing your breath, you say, “Give me a list of everyone who was involved in Khan’s organization.”

He eyes you quizzically, “I thought bounty hunters didn’t ask questions.”

“I’m not asking as a bounty hunter.”

“Then what are you asking as?”

“Someone who can get to them faster than the Security Force can,” You swallow hard, courage pulsing through you, “Someone who can help.”

The detective raises his eyebrows at you, impressed. And then he smiles, throwing his cigarra to the ground and stomping out the ashes beneath his foot.

Din Djarin was not good enough for you. He didn’t deserve you. This much he knew.

So he let you go.

He really thought he did the right thing. It escalated too quickly after the cockpit and he found himself falling hard. What started as relief for sexual tension turned into softer touches, shining smiles, flirtatious jokes that drove him over the edge.

And then,

“Do you ever think there’s more to this?”

He digs his nose into the crook of your neck, arm slung over your bare waist. Half-asleep, dizzy from your warmth, he relishes in the feeling of your body next to his.

“More to what?”

You let out a gentle sigh, “This life. Hunting. Living out of a tiny, broken ship hopping from planet to planet.”

“Hey, the Crest isn’t that bad.”

You slap him lightly against his chest, “You know what I mean.”

“What did you have in mind?”

A cottage. The ocean. Family.

All in the afterglow of a kiss that tasted like peaches.

Din had a feeling you’ve always wanted more, but this was truly the first time you spoke honestly and truly in length about it. Bounty hunting was rarely ever a sought after profession, and though you were good at your job, he knew it wasn’t something you ever planned on continuing. Twisting a peach pit in your fingers, you admit to him that your life would’ve been completely different without it. You would’ve taken over your father’s orchards and lived in your beautiful family villa, selling fresh fruit to nobles and townspeople alike. Your voice grows wistful as you recount sweet summer days spent chasing your older brother through the fields or weaving baskets with your mother.

“I wore sundresses, Din.”

He smiles against the soft skin of your neck and squeezes your thigh gently, “Sounds pretty. You should wear them again.”

“You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

“Very much so, yes.”

You let out a giggle, shoving him gently. He only held you tighter. A beat of silence passed between you before Din’s hand moved to interlace with yours, face suddenly contorting with unease.

“What happened?”

“What always happens.” Your shoulders rise and fall with a heavy sigh, and you grip his fingers tighter. “I was seventeen when Imps occupied our valley. They wanted to clear the farm for military barracks; when my father refused, they burned everything to the ground in the middle of the night. My brother and I escaped with a few other refugees.”

“And your parents?”

“Firing squad.”

“What about our brother?”

He feels your nails dig further into the crevice of his hand.

“He was stupid enough to join the Resistance. I don’t know where he is, but I’ve assumed the worst already.”

His heart twists in remorse at the hurt in your voice. Removing his hands away from yours, he pulls you in closer, stroking your hair with his calloused fingers and pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. In all your years of partnership, Din had never known the full extent of your past, only that you started young doing hits for spice cartels and eventually ending up in the Guild. Before, when he tried to ask why you started so early, your answer was always brief and bitter.

“There was only so much a girl could do to make money, Mando.”

The conversation never went further than that. But now, in light of your vulnerability and candor, your questions about the future suddenly made sense. It was never supposed to be this way; your life since adolescence had been solely dictated by fear and the need to survive. When you spoke about it, you sounded exhausted. With the decline of the Empire, how could he blame you for wanting to be more than a war-torn orphan turned ruthless hunter?

The more he thought about it the more it tore him apart.

Because suddenly he was 11 years old again, watching the carnage of his hometown disappear over the shoulder of a Death Watch soldier. Jarring visions of blood and empty eyes melted in between with hazy memories of happy trips to the market and bedtime stories. It felt like whiplash. The echoes of blaster fire and falling debris were loud enough for him to wake up shaking in a cold sweat. The pounding of his heart sounded a lot like cannon fodder and it was loud enough to give him the headaches you suffered from so often. He was ashamed to say that the only time he really remembered his mother’s face was when she was dead on the ground. But to his horror, in his nightmares, he began to see you instead of her, body lifeless and eyes devoid of any life. Everything he’d been ignoring since his youth, crushed and hidden after swearing the Creed and following the Way of the Mandalore, was suddenly washing over him like ocean waves in a storm. Because, unlike you, this life was so devastatingly simple and comfortable for him. It was almost sacred; he was bound by a near holy doctrine and devoid of emotional attachments. That is, until you came and found home under his skin. He was grieving for you before he even lost you. It was unbearable, filling his lungs and suffocating him until he was gasping for air–

“Are you okay?” Your drowsy voice whispered beneath him.

He swallowed hard and pulled you closer, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead.

“Go back to sleep, sweet girl.”

Any semblance of a normal life was lost on him. Din knew he couldn’t give you peace he didn’t have. He wanted to, though.

He wished he could gift you every star that shone in the sky.

Fuck 80%. He’d give you galaxies.

And yet, he still pulled a blaster on you and left you alone – too caught up in not facing his own demons. Din didn’t realize how much of a mistake it was to let you go until he was half-dead, bleeding all over your old bunk. A job went terribly wrong that day. He was ambushed on some godforsaken jungle planet and running on two hours of sleep, dreams plagued with visions of you crying at the foot of the Slipstream. He was so used to having someone cover his blindspots that he made a colossal mistake that nearly cost him his life. No one had his back that day, and was there no one to stitch him up and call him an idiot.

Existing without you was rougher than he thought it’d be since you’d seeped into every corner of his little life. He couldn’t pass a fruit stand without glancing over for your favorite peaches. When he’d wrangle with tougher bounties, he cursed at how much easier this shit would be if you were there. In the Razor Crest, you’d organized the kitchenette a certain way that Din couldn’t find a pot without tearing it apart, and then he’d wrack his brain to figure out how you organized it so neatly in the first place. He felt a chill when he passed your empty bunk. One day, he found a bottle of your headache medicine in the refresher cabinet. Din kept it. Just in case.

You were everywhere and yet, you weren’t.

You ran together for so long that others noticed your disappearance. Even Xi’an.

“Where’s your little puppy, Mando? She lost?”

He said nothing.

The Twi’lek moved closer, running a hand up his chestplate, “Or did you leave her behind, too?”

“Don’t,” he seethed. The victory in her eyes was disgusting.

Mayfeld’s teasing voice cut in, “Competition, Xi’an?”

“Hardly,” She gave him a vile smirk, “Did she whine like a bitch when it finally happened?” Din was quick to seize her hand away from his body, twisting her forearm near the point of breaking.

“I said. Don’t.”

She only laughed. He wished you were there to wipe that smirk off her face.

It was then that he decided to come and find you. As it turns out, bounty hunters don’t make great parents. The child had just barely survived again, and Din was getting desperate. He’d already lost track of how many times the baby was put in danger, and though he’d been able to keep him alive all these months, Din was definitely not a parent.

After picking up the most lucrative, non-Guild job he could get, he flew straight to the one person he could truly trust in the universe.

When he saw you tensely poised at the cantina, ten paces felt like ten parsecs.

The first thing he noticed were the strands of grey peeking through your hair and the dark circles beneath your eyes. You were by no means an old woman, but you weren’t getting any younger either. In the state that he left you in, three years had aged you and your fiery spirit. Your once lively, spitfire demeanor was now cold and tired.

In the beginning of this little reunion, Din was half convinced that he’d made a terrible mistake trying to make amends. He was desperate to be in your good graces. He needed to apologize. beg you. Grovel at your feet. Atone. Do penance. But you’d seem to shut down every time he tried, denying his pitiful apologies and forgoing any pleasantries. The Mandalorian was lost around you.

And then you got shot.

At that point, Din was positive you were marching straight out of his ship and jetting away in the Slipstream the second this was all over – not before kicking his ass, of course. All the guilt that had consumed him over the years nearly drew him to insanity as he took your limp body from Aayn’vida’s arms, cursing in Mando’a and imploring you to stay awake. Wiping the tears from your eyes and tending to your wound, his thoughts were hysterical. How could he do this to you? Put you through all this trouble only to get shot? And for what? A chance to –

“Din?”

The name fell so softly from your lips.

“Din, my head– it hurts so much.”

His mouth goes dry. He lets out a shaky breath, overwhelmed and eyes bleary.

“Sssh, lay down. You’ll be okay, cyar’ika.”

The Mandalorian only ever dreamed about you saying his name again. Upon your reunion, he noticed immediately how unnatural “Mando” sounded in your mouth, even if he’s heard it thousands of times. It stung when you refused to call him anything else. So hearing it whispered in the walls of the Razor Crest again made his heart beat violently in his chest and gave him the smallest sliver of hope.

Maybe you don’t hate him as much as he thinks.

“I saw Xi’an again.”

Initiating small talk felt physically painful, but he tried anyway. After Jaemai, you seemed to be a little more comfortable speaking freely with him. If you were still angry, you kept it hidden well. Besides, it was hard to be upset with a cute baby on board.

“Really?” You responded with casual interest, attention mostly focused on the child in front of you while Din piloted the ship.

“Yup,” he said, “She… uh...betrayed me and tried to kill the kid.”

“Sounds like her. Where is she now?”

“Prison.”

He doesn’t miss the cheeky grin that spreads across your lips. You softly chuckle and take the baby in your arms, cooing to him, “Good riddance, huh? That scary blue lady is gone for good, yeah?”

The kid gurgles in delight when he’s lifted up. Mando watches you lovingly play with the child, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He doesn’t remember you being so good with kids, but then again, that was a rare opportunity in itself. The thought of you with kids of your own makes his cheeks flush with warmth.

“Where did you even find him?” You ask, bouncing him up and down in his crib.

“Arvala 7. He was the asset.”

You look at him now, puzzled, “The asset? He’s a child!”

“He’s wanted by Imps.”

“Huh.” You hold the child closer to you now, rocking him in your arms. “And you saved him.”

He hummed in confirmation. A beat of silence passes by.

Mando notes the way the kid stares at you with warm, loving eyes, “He likes you.”

“Yeah?” You look back to the green baby raising him high in the air. His excited laughter is sweet in your ears and you giggle with him.

“Mando’s probably a mess when it comes to you. Probably forgets to feed you, doesn’t he?”

He rolls his eyes, but he’s heart flutters all the same.

Lowering the child back into his pod, the child fusses as you try to get him to settle down. You took the silver ball that was laying in his blanket and placed it in his hands to divert his attention. Din faces back towards the console while you sink into the co-pilot’s seat. Your old seat.

From the corner of his eye, he sees you pulling a data pad from your pack on the floor and plugging in a storage drive. You scroll through droves of information silently while Din keeps his gaze trained on the passing lights of hyperspace. But his curiosity only grew, and he was tired of straining his eyes to slyly look at whatever you were reading.

“What are you looking at?”

Your eyes don’t meet his, instead continuing to scan over the information before you. “It’s all the people who kept Khan’s ring running.”

“You got this from the detective?”

You nod.

“Why?”

A long sigh escapes you as you power down the datapad and slip it away.

“I guess you can say I’m retiring.”

Din’s body is quick to turn to you, “What do you mean?”

“You heard Volskaya, someone is just gonna take his place. There are still plenty of people like Aayn’vida. People who need help.”

Beneath his helm, his face twists in reluctance. He asks, “And you’re gonna do it alone?”

You furrow your brows at him, as if the answer was obvious. “Looks like it.”

Din straightens up in his seat, stomach turning uneasily. The air in the cockpit was suddenly suffocating, and he sensed your growing ire as you pressed your lips together.

“What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

You roll your eyes.

“You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“Your judgy thing!”

You point an accusing finger at his form, “The one you do with your face and your shoulders.”

“You can’t even see my face.”

“Mando.”

“Alright! It’s just–” he grits, struggling to find the words, “It seems...dangerous.”

“You say that like it makes a difference,” your voice cuts in, sharp like a blade, “do you not think I’m capable on my own?”

“What? No, I–”

Kriff, why is it so hard to talk to you? Din lets out a huff, scolding himself to get it together.

“Listen, we both know you’re more than capable of handling yourself. But this? This is big shit. Not some bail-skipper or petty thief. You go after them and they’ll be on you for the rest of your life.”

“What life, Mando?” you snapped, “When I was her age, I could’ve easily been one of those girls. Bounty hunting wasn’t a life, it was survival. This is something that’s important.”

“Y/N, you’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“Why does that suddenly matter to you?”

You both wince at the sharpness of your words and you turn away from him, suddenly embarrassed of your own outburst. Harsh silence blankets you both as you keep your gazes trained forward. The tension in the air is heavy and thick.

Your tight voice cuts through the quiet with a single question.

“Why did you bring me here?”

He feels like he’s gonna be sick.

“I–”

A giant crash abruptly resounds through the cockpit, causing the three of you to jerk forward. Alarms uproar through the ship as the two of you scramble into position at the console. Your fingers find the buttons easily, pulling up the radar and scanning the area for the threat.

A comm chimes in, “Give us the child, Mandalorian! It’s no use trying to run.”

“It’s a gunship, coming in from behind us,” you quickly inform, “Shit! The shields are weak, we need to get out of here now.”

He nods in agreement, gripping the controls again and lurching the ship forward and speeding off. Your attackers follow in hot pursuit, blasting your ship again. A hit lands, shaking the Crest violently again, earning a strangled cry from behind you.

“Y/N! The baby!” Din grunts, veering the ship back on course.

“Right!”

You nearly leap from your seat, securing and shushing the panicked child as you close his pram to keep him from falling amidst the chaos. Coming back to the co-pilot’s seat, you curse as you read through the multiple alarms flashing across the ship’s interface.

“Our shields are down, Mando. We need to end this.”

He curses under his breath, weighing their options. They didn’t have enough fuel for a hyperspace jump, nor the time to make any proper calculations. His gaze darts to the green planet approaching up ahead and bites the inside of his cheek. A crash isn’t ideal, but it solves the issue of being stranded in dead space. Another jolt and crash rock the ship forward.

“Strap in,” He barks at you, “We’re shooting our way out and going for an emergency landing.” You nod, securing yourself in your seat and preparing yourself for battle.

“It isn’t the worst planet to get stuck on.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that we’re stuck.”

The two of you stood at the foot of the Razor Crest which was currently smoking and leaking fuel into the forest floor. Though you’d survived the gunfight above, the ship had taken serious damage. The shield generators were nearly destroyed and the repulsor grilles were shot, making it impossible to fly the Crest without spinning off course. Normally, with the help of a mechanic, the job could be done within a matter of days, but you were both stuck in a thick forest with the next town over being at least a day’s walk. Repairs could take at least a week with the spare parts that were already kept in the ship, and travelling into town could easily make it two, assuming they’d even have what you need. This posed 2 issues:

Every day you stayed idle, the higher the risk of another hunter (or worse, an Imperial) turning up and kidnapping the child.

Din had yet to feel the wrath that had been building up inside you for the past three years. If the hunters didn’t shoot him, you definitely would, and you wouldn’t miss.

He takes his gaze off the ship and observes your surroundings. All things considered, it was a pretty nice place. The forest was lush, rife with tall trees and bright flora. The air was fresh and cool, and the whistles of birds carried through the treetops. He was somewhat grateful; you could have easily been stuck in a scorching desert or some awful jungle. Past the clearing–which had inadvertently been made by the ship crash– there was a lake, crystal clear and stretching for miles. If the circumstances were any different, maybe you would have enjoyed yourselves, stopped and admired the scenery together.

But they weren’t.

The fact of the matter is that there’s something acrid that permeated the air between you. Sometimes, he could catch it in the way you looked at him, how your eyes flared with sharp, visceral rage and piercing through his beskar like a hot blade. He saw it in the cantina at your reunion, and he felt it twist his heart during your last exchange before you landed.

“Why does it suddenly matter to you?”

Discussing the rift between you wasn’t a conversation he was eager to have. The attack on the Crest only delayed the inevitable, and now, shipwrecked on an unknown planet, he waited anxiously for the years to catch up on him. Your irritation with him didn’t die when you’d landed; it might’ve actually gotten worse. Every furrow of your brows, every curse under your breath only reminded Din of how much you were dying to say, and it only amplified his dread. But being the practical person you were, you remained focused on survival first, setting up camp and laying out a plan for repairs in the morning. Going into town would have to wait, as you weren’t sure what state the ship would be in after its initial mending. You stayed silent in the hours you both tended to your respective duties and it wasn’t until the late afternoon that he felt your presence once again.

He was in the middle of counting ration packs when you said, “We need firewood. It might be cold tonight.”

Din nodded, but as he watched you begin to walk away into the woods, he couldn’t help but spill the words bubbling in his throat.

“About what I said earlier. I didn’t mean to offend you,” he stood to his full height, “You’re–you’re right. It’s not my business anymore.”

You didn’t respond to him for a moment; your expression, frozen and unreadable. Your gaze tears away from him to look down at the toes of your shoes, and he hears you let out a dejected, breathy laugh as you shook your head.

“You know what I don’t get?” You ask, cynicism dripping from your lips, “You never answered my question on the ship.”

Din clenches his fists, nausea suddenly returning to him.

“Khan wasn’t a hard job. You could’ve easily caught him without me, so why? Why did you bring me? Why did you find me?”

“I couldn’t go into the terminal without attracting attention.”

“No, but you could’ve waited for him to move. Tracked him somewhere else,” your tone grows more clipped by the second, “I know you. You’re the best in the parsec and you would’ve found him. I might’ve gotten shot, but there were way harder quarries than him.”

When he still doesn’t answer, you march forward, fuming with indignation.

“For once, can you just tell me the truth?”

Din’s heart was nearly bursting out of his chest, anxiety rippling through him as he confessed.

“I need help,” he croaks, nearly cringing at the weakness and desperation in his tone, “with him.”

He beckons over to the child, carelessly toddling along the floor. Din watches your expression soften with pity as you watch him play.

“I don’t...I don’t know what I’m doing,” He continues, “I’m so confused and–and lost. I worry about him all the time. He’s always in danger. I’ve tried to give him a home, somewhere safe. But the Empire won’t stop until they find him.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re the only one I trust in this universe.”

Din waits for your answer with bated breath, drinking in every reaction. You looked pained, fingers finding their way to the bridge of your nose, pressing hard and you squeeze your eyes shut.

“And I’m supposed to trust you in return?”

Once again, he doesn’t respond, fearing that he’d only make the situation worse.

“You know I can’t do this.”

You cross your arms, hugging your body as you turn away from the kid to face him. He feels his heart sink, distress clawing away at him. I need you; I can’t lose you again. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.

“Could you at least think about it?”

“I can’t,” you say sternly, “I’m sorry about the kid, but I know you can figure something out. I’m not the right person, and you need to find someone else.”

You are. More than right. More than I deserve.

“I don’t know who else I can turn to.”

“Mando, you don’t understand,” your voice turns angry once again, “I can’t live everyday not knowing if you’re gonna stick around or not.”

“Things are different, Y/N. I’m not going to leave.”

“Why? Because you have a baby to take care of, you’re suddenly willing to stick around? What happens if things get serious? What is keeping you from walking out tomorrow? A few weeks from now? Are you gonna leave me without a ship this time? Shoot me if I don’t cooperate?”

Stop stop stop stop. He raises his voice, not in ire but in desperation, “This isn’t about us, this is about him!”

“It’s always going to be about us!” Din is stunned to silence as your eyes turn glossy and red with tears, “And after everything, I–I can’t trust you. I mean–kriff– you left me in the worst way possible. You only offered me a job because you knew I wouldn’t have listened to you in the first place, didn’t you?”

His shoulders go rigid, head dipping in shame.

You scoff, sucking in a deep, shaky breath before you go on, “We can’t act like nothing ever happened and just push it aside for the kid; it’s always going to be there. Every time we speak, every time I look at you I–”

You cut yourself off, hesitating to finish your thought. Running your fingers through your hair, you tug at it at it as you let out yet another frustrated huff, “I spent three years of my miserable life trying to figure out what I did wrong. If you can tell me right now what was going through your head that day, then maybe I’ll consider staying. But if you can’t, you need to find someone else.”

The words are there, but get caught in his throat. He’s terrified; speaking them aloud might just rip him in half, but if he doesn’t, he loses you a second time. But they don’t come; they linger and fester and rot on his tongue, and he can only clench his fists harder at his own cowardice.

The way you look at him is soul crushing.

“I thought so.”

You pick up your pack and sling it over your shoulders, skulking into the woods without another word.

You didn’t come back for hours. Night fell across the forest as Din paced outside the Razor Crest, playing out your conversation in his head over and over again until it made him dizzy. His gut was filled with dread as each minute passed by, and he couldn’t figure out if he wanted you to come back at all. It wasn’t until he heard a soft whine from the floating pram that he realized that so much time had passed. Din nearly forgot to feed the child his own hysteria.

“Hey, little womp rat,” he sighed, gently picking him up, “She’s right, huh? I really am a mess.”

The baby’s big glossy eyes stare up at him as if sensing Din’s unease. His tiny hands grab at the thick cloak around his neck, pulling himself upwards and nuzzling his face in between his neck and his pauldron. Is he… comforting me?

Something forms at the base of his throat as he croaks a gentle, “Thanks, kid.”

But this quiet moment of peace is interrupted at the cracking sound of a stick. He stills, listening further as footsteps grow louder and louder. His blaster is out and aimed behind him before he can even think to look. He whips around, clutching the baby closer to him only to see you abruptly dropping the chopped wood in your hands to the floor. The baby begins to cry at the sudden shift in movement.

He relaxes, letting his arm fall to his side but not holstering his blaster. Instead, he gently bounces the child in his other arm in an attempt to soothe him.

“It’s okay. It’s just Y/N,” he says softly. When Din looks back to you, you’re still frozen on the spot. His brows furrow beneath his helmet.

“Y/N? What’s wrong?”

You stutter, “Can you put that fucking thing away, please?”

He looks at the child, and back to you. A flare of irritation ignites in his chest.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Every time you point you point it at me, I expect you to pull the trigger.”

Oh. Shit.

Guilt pierces through his chest. He quickly slips it back into his holster

“I’m sorry I didn’t know it was you,” he apologizes. You’re still unmoving, looking at him as if he’d just burned you.

“Y/N, you know I would never–“

“But you were going to.”

“Not even then.”

As Din begins to walk forward, he notices the way your body shakes violently. His hand gingerly goes to rest against your arm to comfort you, but you tear yourself away from him, wrapping inward as you seethe.

“Don’t. Touch. Me.”

The look in your eyes makes Din’s blood run cold. Your pointed stare was piercing and hot and raw. It seared and flared with white hot wrath. Your breathing was ragged, chest heaving up and gasping for air. There it is.

The visceral rage and contempt you held for him had finally surfaced. It festered and boiled over, consuming you to the point where Din thought you would’ve killed him on the spot. But then, revulsion contorts your face, and you quickly shove past him, leaving him paralyzed in your wake. You disappear behind the Crest, and he hears you dropping to the ground.

He winces at the sound of you heaving the contents of your stomach into the lake.

Din sets the baby down into his carrier, and quickly rounds the corner of the ship to see you on your hands and knees at the edge of the water.

He’s speechless. The only words he could manage sounded disgustingly miserable from his vocoder.

“I’m so sorry.”

You sniffle as you drag yourself up from the ground. You don’t turn around to face him.

“You don’t have to tell me why you left. Even if I deserve an explanation,” you say, voice strained and pathetic.

“Because when this is all over, I don’t ever want to see you again. Keep your money and your jobs. I don’t care if it pays enough for ten lifetimes. If you ever try to find me, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

taglist:

@bella-ciaao , @tiffdawg thanx loves <3

#IM NERVOUSUSOSUSUOS #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian/reader #the mandalorian fic #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin/reader #baby yoda #pedro pascal #am i too dramatic #can u tell the leo jumped out #i will say #it gets worse before it gets better #migraine #my palms r sweaty #srry im 36 minutes late

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dustyphantom · 4 years

Text

The Eighth Day

This is for Day 7 of Fraxus week. I meant for it to be longer, but here it is nonetheless. READ UNTIL THE END BEFORE TELLING ME I MESSED IT UP.

For the most part, Laxus preferred the summer. He liked the heat, the warm sun on his skin, and the thunderstorms that rolled over Magnolia. But although none of that happened(or at least not normally) in winter, there were some parts of the cold season that he enjoyed. After all, winter was the season of holidays and staying cozy with one’s family(the latter of which Laxus would never admit he enjoyed).

Snow crunched under his boots as he made his way back from the guild hall, Evergreen at his side. A light purple scarf had been added to his normal attire, which he pulled over his nose every once in a while. In his bag were presents from the rest of the guild for them to open on Christmas day.

Evergreen eyed the bag, “So, have you gotten all of your presents?”

“Yeah, I got all of ‘em.” Laxus replied, smiling to himself. Part of the Thunder Legion’s agreement meant celebrating each other’s holidays. Since Freed was raised Jewish, that meant they got to celebrate an extra seven days of gifts. Today was the last day of Hanukkah, and Christmas was next week, so they had almost back-to-back holidays.

“Did you get something for Elfman?”

Evergreen blushed, pulling her forest-green scarf up over her mouth, “Just something small.”

Laxus chuckled. Although she’d finally admitted that she and Elfman were dating, she still tried to hide just how much she cared about him. Besides, everyone knew Evergreen wasn’t one to go small with gifts, “I think Elfman would need a pretty big ring.”

“Oh, shut up!” Evergreen shouted, face beet red as she shoved Laxus, “Besides, you and Freed are going to get married before I will.”

“Who says?”

She rolled her eyes, “Come on. The entire guild is waiting for one of you to propose.”

The lightning dragon tried to hide the flush of his cheeks, “Really?”

“Gods, are you really that clueless?” Evergreen laughed, “It’s pretty obvious. Master talking about how he wants to have another grandson before he dies? Mira always asking to see Freed’s hands?”

“Whatever,” Laxus grumbled, “They’ll have to wait a while for that.”

“So you’re not getting a ring?”

“No? Why would you think I was?”

“Well, you’ve only got seven presents for Freed. I thought you might have been getting the ring sized.”

A chill ran down Laxus’s spine, “There’s seven days of Hanukkah, right?”

Evergreen stared at him for a long moment, gauging if he was serious or not, “There’s eight.”

“I swear to the gods, If you’re joking with me--,”

The chill then exploded across Laxus’s body, freezing his heart for a moment. She was right! Dammit, he’d been celebrating Hanukkah with them for so long, how could he have forgotten? He counted on his fingers, thinking back on what he’d bought. He often got presents early, so he’d gotten eight for Ever and Bicks. However, he mulled over what to get Freed every year, waiting till the last possible day to buy his gift.

Laxus started walking faster, head down as he tried to think of something he could get Freed. Evergreen was jogging to keep up, but he paid no mind to her as he walked down the street. This was Freed! He couldn’t get him something cheap, or anything that would make it seem like he hadn’t planned this all out. Freed had probably planned out all his presents months ago. He was so organized like that, and so handsome too. Laxus couldn’t let himself be someone that didn’t deserve the man he loved. He would never forgive himself if he did something so insulting…

“Laxus, calm down,” Evergreen said, her voice cutting through his thoughts, “You’re panicking.”

It was only then that noticed how shallow and quick his breaths were. He steadied himself, taking slow, deep breaths. What would he do without the Thunder Legion?

“Damn, I’m so stupid,” he muttered, “Freed’s gonna be really pissed if he finds out. What if he hates me?”

Evergreen took one of his hands, holding it in her own, “You and I both know Freed could never hate you. He’ll love you no matter what.”

He tried to focus on what she was saying. Ever was right, Freed had never hated Laxus. He’s always been supportive, and the best boyfriend Laxus could ever ask for.

He slowly looked up, watching the people walking down the street, clad in their winter attire. Snow fell gently, catching in his hair and eyelashes before slowly melting away. The air smelled of pine from the massive tree they kept in the plaza and smoke from the chimneys of people warming themselves in front of a fire. His body relaxed as he took a deep breath, letting the air fill his lungs.

It was then that something in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned, looking at the shop across the street. The golden light from inside made it glow against the dark gray sky, reflecting off the snow on the ground. Laxus blinked. Was this some sign from the gods, that he’d stopped across the street from this shop? He grabbed Evergreen’s hand, pulling harder than he should have.

“Hey, watch it! What are you doing?” She shouted, trying to free herself from his grasp. Then she noticed where he was going.

“Are you serious?” She breathed, wide-eyed. Laxus only grunted in response, not even looking at her as he led her into the shop.

The store seemed like a place that was practically Laxus-repellent, jewelry and gems of every color under the sun shining from every corner and every display case. The windows were lined with displays of necklaces covered with an excessive amount of diamonds, even for Evergreen’s standards. The main counter made a u-shape around the room, which also served as display cases, full of golden and silver rings and earrings and even more necklaces. The lights from above with polished wood floors made the whole building look as if it were glowing gold.

Laxus walked through the entire display, examining all of the rings they had. Still not letting go of Evergreen’s hand. A clerk came out from the back, “Good evening, sir! If there’s anything you need, please let me know.”

Laxus didn’t even react, eyes locked on one ring; a silver band with runes engraved on it, and a single sapphire in the middle(Although she couldn’t read runes as well as Freed, she was pretty sure they just said “I love you”).

The lightning dragon pointed at the ring, “How much is this one?”

The clerk looked at the ring, “That one’s 500,000 Jewel.”

Evergreen looked at Laxus. This was a huge investment, was he sure he wanted to do this on a--

“I’ll take it.”

“What size?”

“Seven centimetres.”

“You have it memorized?” Evergreen chuckled.

“Shut up,” Laxus said, not even looking her way. He was too focused on doing this, on doing something right for Freed.

The clerk frowned, “We don’t have that size in stock here right now. We can have it in tomorrow though.”

The lightning dragon sucked in a breath, biting his lip, “What time?”

“I’d say around six o’clock. Is that alright?”

Laxus exhaled, his grip on Evergreen’s hand loosening for the first time, “Yeah, that’s great. Can I pay now?”

The clerk nodded, “Yes, we can do that.”

Laxus nodded. He paid without saying another word, only nodding to acknowledge the clerk’s well wishes. Evergreen followed him out, only barely trying to hide her smirk, “So it seems the master and Mira won’t have to wait so long after all.”

A small smile crossed the Lightning Dragon’s face, “Yeah, seems so…”

Looking back, of all the impulsive decisions he made in his life, this was the one he never regretted. Not for a moment.

#fraxusweek #fraxus #fraxusweek2020 #evergreen fairy tail #Laxus Dreyar #freed x laxus

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bitsypookums · 3 years

Note

Alethia, 1, 2, 7, 8, 11

1.) Where is your character from, and how did they wind up in their starting city (if they’re not from there)?

Alethia is of Ala Mhigan ancestry - her father, Apostolos Eclaircir, was a scholar, healer, and spy for the rebellion in King Theodoric’s court; her mother, Myrrhine, was a monk of the Fist of Rhalgr. They kept their relationship secret in the midst of Theodoric’s reign of terror, planning a celebratory wedding once the Mad King was finally ousted. Instead, the Temple of the Fist was ransacked just a month after Thia’s birth, and Apostolos was left with his grief and his baby girl.

Apostolos fled the court immediately, dodging a few assassins on his way to openly join the rebellion as a healer during the civil war. But when Garlemald invaded he left the fight, prioritizing getting his daughter as far away from the empire’s clutches as possible. He helped guide a band of refugees across the border into Gridania to plead for sanctuary, but they were rejected by the Elementals. Though Apostolos himself was offered a place within the conjurer’s guild, he was already wracked with guilt for leaving the rebellion behind, and could not stomach serving the forest that had rejected his countrymen.

Their search for sanctuary brought them all the way to the high walls of Ul'dah… and no further. Though his skills would have been quite marketable inside the city walls, Apostolos refused to abandon those who had survived the journey this far only to be turned away at the gates. Thia grew up in Stonesthrow, amidst the ramshackle shanties and tumbling dust. Already quiet, distant, and prone to long bouts of dissociation, Alethia became more and more laconic as her Ala Mhigan accent earned her jeers and mockery. Her greatest joys were in her father’s lessons - magic, history, geography, arithmetic, astronomy. The world viewed through his eyes seemed so much brighter than the dirt, blood, and coin of the roads that led to Ul'dah.

She spent most of her childhood attempting to be as invisible and unobtrusive as possible, but eventually her father’s lessons and her endless, volatile well of aether grabbed the attention of the Thaumaturge’s Guild. When she received an offer of sponsorship, her father strongly encouraged her to take the room, board, and access to more books than she had ever seen in her life. She made few friends there, and her long silences only lengthened, but the well of knowledge and the new outlet for her flares of aether more than made up for the mockery and isolation.

Apostolos died during an altercation with some Brass Blades shortly before Alethia finished her studies at the Arrzaneth Ossuary. The judge ruled that her father--a teetotal, spartan-living community healer and peacekeeper--had drunkenly assaulted the officers. The fact that his belongings were ransacked and any valuable potions or tinctures had gone missing was apparently of no consequence.

Thia left without a word, without ever officially graduating, and submitted her application to the Adventurer’s Guild. She wanted to help, as he had. An unmoored, unwanted, unknown creature of sand and dust.

2.) What major allegiances does your character have? Are they with the Scions through and through, or do they have different or additional priorities?

Thia is confused by any organization that offers her a membership, assuming they have low standards, bad taste, or odd priorities. She initially assumed the Scions were very elaborate pranksters. However, they were the first people to offer her answers about the fluctuations of her aether, the nature of the Echo, and the wider threats facing Ul'dah, Eorzea, and beyond. She quickly became quite fond of them in her own quiet way, though her lack of Sharlayan training and formal education made her feel she had little to contribute other than fireworks at first.

Aside from the Scions, Alethia had very few other organizational allegiances prior to the events at Baelsar’s Wall. Ul'dah was the most familiar, which mostly made its sins sharper in her mind. If she is loyal to anyone there, it is General Aldynn, not the Flames or the Sultanate (and certainly not the Monetarists and their Brass Blades).

Thia’s relationship with the Ala Mhigan Resistance is strained, confusing, and bittersweet. To many in Little Ala Mhigo and Rhalgr’s Reach, she represents the pampered, mewling cowards who abandoned the homeland to beg for scraps from the Sultana’s table. Still others--complete strangers--offer her stories of both her parents; some heroic, some mundane, but all sharp knives between her ribs. To honor the mother she never knew and the father ravaged by guilt, she threw everything she had into the liberation of their homeland.

7.) Does your character have thoughts of settling down some day? Is it in the region they came from, or somewhere they visited in their travels? Or are they a forever wanderer?

Thia’s wanderlust and desire to go where she is most useful are really just smokescreens for her all-encompassing sense that she does not belong anywhere. This has only gotten more pronounced as various city states clamor for her presence and assistance where they previously closed the door on Ala Mhigans. Life in Ul'dah is honestly more jarring, now, from her vantage point among the Scions. Her treatment there is so far removed from her young life as a refugee that she finds it by turns disorienting, amusing, and infuriating.

Gyr Abania is both familiar and alien, the fairytale land of her father’s bedtime stories and the ruined remnants of a home that will not claim her. Everything smells faintly of the spices that always perfumed her father’s alchemy; the textile patterns match the faded threads of his most treasured, weathered clothing; the music thrums and the rebels dance to the same tunes that broke out around the fires of Stonesthrow… but above all of it, a relentless voice echoes in Thia’s mind: “I will suckle on the souls of the hopeless and liberate the homeland they no longer deserve.”

No matter where she goes, Thia is eventually overwhelmed by feelings of, “I am not of this place; my name is foreign on their lips; I am unwanted here; I am a trespasser.” Displacement is baked into her understanding of herself.

8.) What is your character’s favorite place— to visit, or to stay in?

Despite its bittersweetness, Thia loves the Temple of the Fist, and will scale the walls of the Reach at all hours to walk the halls where her mother lived, trained, loved, and died. She would not admit it, but part of her hopes to some day receive an Echo vision of the brave and unflinching woman she cannot remember.

She is also fascinated by the Sunken City of Skalla, and has made several more exploratory expeditions there to study, catalog, and contain threats to resistance members seeking to redistribute the Mad King’s trove.

More recently, she became very fond of the Bookman’s Shelves and the Bureau of the Architect - one for its association with a certain person, and the other for how it clarified many things she never understood about herself.

11.) What’s your character’s family like (found, blood, or both)? Are they still in contact?

Thia has no surviving blood relatives, but she does have very close family friends who may as well be aunts and a cousin. Aledis was a sworn sister to Myrrhine in the Fists of Rhalgr, and remained close with Apostolos in the fallout of Ala Mhigo’s downfall. Her daughter, Valle, is the closest thing Thia has to a sibling. Thia is very protective of her, and content to sit and listen in warm silence as Valle enumerates new theories for an entire rainbow of new carbuncle varieties.

#ffxiv ask prompts #Alethia Eclaircir #there is Reward Art for people who read all the way through this ridiculously long response #ffxiv flailing #my art #sad ala mhigan is half my brand #catpella

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13thgenfilm · 4 years

Text

Team Building: On Wanda Bershen and Film Safety Nets

Written by 13th Gen’s Founder and CEO Marc Smolowitz, this article originally appeared in Filmmaker Magazine in March 2020.

On September 28th, 2019, Wanda Bershen died quietly, alone and under fairly tragic circumstances, after being rushed to the hospital from a rehabilitation facility on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She was 75 years old, and very few people were aware of her passing. This piece is one part obituary for Wanda—a remarkable woman who certainly deserves to be remembered lovingly in Filmmaker—and one part urgent call-to-action for our industry to have a long-overdue discussion about a difficult and troubling topic: the lack of safety nets, resiliency and end-of-life supports in place for aging independent film professionals.

The vast majority of you reading this did not know Wanda, but you may know someone like her—she could very well stand in as an everywoman whose story is far too common, one of those stalwart and passionate behind-the-scenes indie film culture workers who loved cinema and wore a compelling mix of hats: writer, curator, teacher, festival director, publicist, producer’s representative, film booker, television programmer and distributor. Her boutique company, Red Diaper Productions, made a huge yet hardly known impact on an incredible list of films and filmmakers around the world for more than 25 years. These efforts included focusing much of her attention and efforts on supporting women directors and organizing a powerful slate of word cinema touring packages, which introduced US audiences to contemporary cinema from Iceland, the Netherlands and various countries across Eastern Europe. Decidedly proud and fiercely independent, she did all of this entirely on her own as a freelancer, independent contractor and consultant. For most of her career, she managed to be reasonably vital even without the benefit of strong institutions backing her up.

There are countless people like Wanda who march through film careers, working hard without much recognition and likely without the means to plan—in any real or comprehensive way—for their long-term security and retirement. Wanda was also unmarried, without children or close family members nearby. Her community of closest friends and colleagues was a global one. While this is something to treasure when you’re well enough to travel to Rotterdam, Berlin and Karlovy Vary each year (the latter, in Czech Republic, was her favorite festival to attend), what happens when you stop traveling for work because it becomes impossible financially—not to mention physically dangerous? More important, what happens to someone older like Wanda when a new generation of leadership takes the industry reins without knowledge of her unique contributions? The sad, hard fact is that you kind of, well, disappear. This is exactly what happened to Wanda.

For many years, whenever I visited New York for business, Wanda and I would have dinner if our schedules aligned. I treasured our time together. Her wit and sense of humor were delightful, and her deep knowledge of film, especially international and genre cinemas, could put most film scholars to shame. But, in very recent years, our conversations became quite heartbreaking. She was struggling to find work that could sustain her financially. Her professional emails often went unanswered. When she tried to connect with others for networking opportunities at festivals and press screenings, she felt shunned and set aside largely because of her age and gender. The industry to which she had given her life’s work did not have space for her anymore.

Last August, I was planning a shoot in NYC, so I texted Wanda to reach out and get on her calendar. I got a message that her number was no longer valid and was immediately concerned. I sent her an email with no response. So, I did what made the most sense and went looking for her on Facebook. As I scrolled down her page, I realized there had been no posts from Wanda since March 13th. On March 20th, a post from her sister read, “Wanda Bershen was hospitalized Monday night at NYU Langone. If you are a friend of Wanda’s in NYC, please contact me…. Diagnosis is not yet determined. Wanda needs visitors and support as she goes through this. I live… too far away to be actively involved.”

It didn’t take long to uncover that she had experienced a devastating stroke and been bedridden without speech and the ability to move for the better part of five months. Her dearest friend in the city, also a film producer, had been valiantly trying to help, but if Wanda were to have any chance at survival, it would require that many more people get involved. Within days, I became part of a wonderful group of people from around the world—many of us filmmakers and film professionals who knew and adored Wanda for decades—who attempted (perhaps naively) to organize over email on Wanda’s behalf and advocate for her well-being and recovery. One of us referred to this small but mighty group as TEAM WANDA.

This sort of scenario is as dark and bleak as you might expect. In short, there were no immediate and apparent resources available to help someone in Wanda’s situation. When I managed to see Wanda in person several weeks later, it was clear very few visitors had been by. She lay in a hospital bed almost comatose yet her mind still seemed sharp, and she clearly understood the gravity and heartbreak of what was happening to her. I sat with her and kissed her forehead gently. I told her that there was a group of us around the world trying our best to help her. While I could sense her relief in hearing some encouraging news, I left her bedside that afternoon feeling helpless and hopeless. I urged the nurses on her floor to continue caring for her and to keep up her hygiene. My main concern at that point was her basic dignity. I knew in my heart that there was no way our committed worldwide cohort could move fast enough to change Wanda’s destiny. She died just 10 days later.

From my perspective, all of this is quite chilling, and the more I pondered what happened to Wanda, the more I wanted to kickstart a discussion among colleagues, so we can all work to make sure there are no more stories like this one. But, it’s not that simple. While we have a great deal of work to do on this topic as an industry, our nation seems unwilling to have an honest and forthright public conversation around the lack of meaningful policies that advance the cause of older Americans: retirement, long-term care and what it means to approach end-of-life with dignity. This is particularly concerning because we now live in a nation where people are both living and working much longer, yet we offer very little in the way of substantive help to our aging populations.

When one looks closely at specific industries, there are helpful models out there for safety net services and resilience (see roundup at right), but the independent film industry literally has nothing of our own, nor have we contemplated these discussions in any forum that I can find. By contrast, the Hollywood community, where there have always been more resources, has a great deal in place through its guilds and unions; for example, The Actors Fund of America. Even the visual arts have managed to develop funds to support artists affected by natural disasters (Craft Emergency Relief Fund, or CERF). And, of course, Visual AIDS was one of the most inspiring organizations that emerged during the worst years of the AIDS pandemic (see visualaids.org/history).

Not long after Wanda passed, I took to Facebook and posted about her story. While I certainly didn’t want to exploit Wanda’s passing, I also didn’t want her to have died without someone making a little bit of noise about the travesty of it all. What I encountered in the comments was revealing. Unsurprisingly, a great many people in our shared networks knew and adored Wanda, and there were just as many who were shocked to know she had even been so unwell. More important, there was a universal agreement when it came to one important point: We cannot let the tragedy of what happened to Wanda continue to happen to others like her who have helped build this business. To be sure, ours is a compassionate and beautifully collaborative industry with some of the most dynamic tentpole institutions around, many of which have been serving film professionals for some 50 years. We must turn to them now and insist on space for this mission-critical discussion. It will be an uneasy one to have, but we must do it for all of our own sakes.

_____

ROUNDUP OF SAFETY NET AND END OF LIFE RESOURCES:

National Coalition for Arts’ Preparedness and Emergency Response (NCAPER) ncaper.org/about

CERF+ The Artist’s Safety Net

cerfplus.org/stories-resources/how-to/

The Actors Fund

actorsfund.org/

Reimagine (End of Life)

letsreimagine.org/

Death With Dignity

deathwithdignity.org/learn/end-of-life-resources/

Speaking of Dying

speakingofdying.com/end-of-life-resources/

#film #filmmaker #film maker #film maker resources #aging #aging workforce #freelance #freelance issues #team wanda #Wanda Bershen #Marc Smolowitz #13th Gen #social safety net #film resources #film discussion

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0bsidian5ire · 5 years

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Prompt #2: Soul Collectors

Prompt: Bargain from @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast's #ffxivwrite2019

Set after Kharagal has met up with the Scions, but before Ifrit has been defeated

The first time Kharagal ran into Voidsent was on an escort job for a trader to Camp Bronze Lake. She'd heard of them before then of course, but Limsa Lomisa wasn't the kind of city that attracted people who wanted more raw arcane power. Half the point of arcanism was that it enabled mages to use less aether rather then more after all. Which meant that the Arcanist Guild hadn't taught Kharagal much more then that Voidsent possessed things, absorbed aether in a very weird manner and died oddly.

They really could have mentioned that by "possess things", they meant "can possess the gas rising from the vents around the lake", Kharagal grumbled to herself as she cast Ruin at the floating bombs that surrounded the caravan. The guild had been right about about the Voidsent's aether feeling weird, or rather wrong. It was like something in the center of the balls of gas that made up the bombs was eating the aether of anything the gas came in contact with, including the aether of her spells. Only the thing eating the aether didn't feel like it had any aether itself. It was like aether was draining into a hole.

Out of desperation, Kharagal shut her spellbook and swung it through the ball of gas. Surprisingly, her book briefly met resistance as it entered the ball of gas before scattering the gas. Whatever it was that was eating the aether blipped out of existence as the gas thinned out. Well at least that works, Kharagal thought and repeated the process with the other bombs.

By the end of the fight, Kharagal was getting annoyed at how the Voidsent seemed to not die correctly. She disrupted the gas body of the last Voidsent Bomb and paid special attention to how the hole of non-aether at the center of the gas seemingly disappeared into nothing. No aether released on "death"... she mused to herself. And it has to be going somewhere... What's really going on when you die? She shook herself and went back to the trader to give him the all-clear. She had a job to get done.

Still, the encounter didn't leave her mind. The Xaela had very few taboos on what was acceptable to do with aether. One of the universal things everyone agreed was not to be done with aether was to trade it to other beings for power. What kind of beings would accept aether in a trade, only myths talked about. Particularly one myth about a khan who had wanted to rule all the tribes and summoned a army of demons to fight his battles for him, rather then fighting them himself. The greatest of the demons had asked not just for the khan's aether, but for the aether of all his tribe and the khan had agreed. However, the khan's tribe found out about what he had agreed to and cried out to Nhaama for help against the khan for there was no other tribe who could stand against the demons and help them. Nhaama had answered them by flinging a solid moonbeam at the khan's ritual site. It had killed not only the khan and his army of demons but his entire tribe as well. However, the aether of his tribe had not been bargained with yet and so their souls were saved. For the soul is made of aether and aether lives on in the aetherial plane even after death... Kharagal finished the last line of the myth to herself. If Voidsent were the demons the myth was referring to and Voidsent ate aether... Does that mean they can eat souls? I should check with Nhagi'a after this. She mentally chewed on the idea the rest of the way to Camp Bronze Lake.

"Oh boy... Voidsent..." Nhagi'a sighed heavily and looked at Kharagal through his fringe of hair. His ears flicked, revealing emotions Kharagal was still figuring out how to read. "You do pick the hard to talk about topics, Kharagal. First the Elementals and now this..." They were in the common room in the Waking Sands talking over rounds of chilled cactus juice. "I'm actually amazed you've not encountered Voidsent before given your aether levels."

"They're attracted to high concentrations of aether?" Kharagal doubted that was all of it; the House of the Crooked Coin should be crawling with them in that case.

"Very much so." Nhagi'a fingered the staff next to him. "It's something we thumaturges have to deal with from time to time. Either Voidsent are attracted to all the aether we release, or the thumaturges that don't have a lot of aether think they can make the power difference up by summoning something stronger with the aether that they do have. You see that last one a lot when dealing with rouge thumaturges and they need to boost their numbers." He bit his lip. "It always ends badly for the mage."

"Because the Voidsent eats their aether?" Kharagal shuddered at the thought.

"If only." Nhagi'a took a deep breath and a long daft of cactus juice. "That's the best case scenario. Often times you'll find they were sacrificing other people to the Voidsent so it wouldn't eat their aether." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "It happens often enough that people disappearing in a given area is considered a reason to get the Thumaturges Guild involved since someone might be summoning Voidsent. And the more people missing, the worse the Voidsent ends up being to deal with."

"How do you get worse Voidsent?" Kharagal took a sip of her own drink.

"Depends on the size of the portal the mage can make to summon them and how much aether they can promise the Voidsent in question." Nhagi'a shuddered again and gripped his staff, this time more tightly. "And the... things... it can possess."

"Oh." Kharagl imagined how annoying it would be to face something that seemingly drank aether and was also hard to take down physically. "I'm assuming that has a huge effect on how hard it is to fight."

Nhagi'a nodded. "Voidsent that posses body parts are less dangerous then the ones that posses bodies. The ones that possess non-organic things are a lot more limited in what their body can do then the ones that take over organic beings. The worst are the ones that take over people though. Sometimes the person is still in there and the Voidsent can make use of their abilities and memories."

Kharagal felt the blood drain from her face. "What happens to them?"

Nhagi'a looked up at her. "I'm amusing you've felt how Voidsent... cease existing." At Kharagal's nod he let out a sigh. "So they don't really die. For whatever reason, it is possible to run into the same Voidsent again. We think they go back to their plane of existence when whatever they are possessing is... sufficiently destroyed. Which they can then be summoned from again."

"And the aether they've eaten?" Kharagal was almost afraid of the answer.

"Goes with the Voidsent." Nhagi'a winced at that.

Kharagal did too and took a long draft of cactus juice. She looked at Nhagi'a. He was rarely this subdued and was probably dealing with... something related to the topic at hand. "Hey, you want to go see who can destroy some training dummies faster?" Usually, Nhagi'a was more then happy to demonstrate how hard this thumagury hit.

Nhagi'a's ears flicked forward in what Kharagal by now knew was clear interest. "Yeah, that sounds like a great idea," Nhagi'a grabbed his staff and nearly ran out the door, a look of relief on his face.

Kharagal was right behind him. Practicing destroying your problems always made her feel better. And the Voidsent problem definitely deserved being throughly destroyed in her opinion.

Author's Notes: As far as I can tell, there aren't any Voidsent in Othard. Even in Eorzea, they naturally occur mainly in The Black Shroud with a few groupings outside if that region. And most of the Voidsent outside The Black Shroud are specifically summoned by mages. As often as the WoL runs into them, most people probably don't.

The myth Kharagal is remembering is a mythical retelling and interpretation of Xande pacting with the Cloud of Darkness and the 4th Umbral Calamity. Most of the taboos that the Xaela have about what can't be done with aether can be summed up with "don't be an idiot like the Allagans were", even if they can't remember who the Allagans specifically are.

Given where this is in the MSQ, neither Nhagi'a or Kharagal have their job stones yet. Nhagi'a in particular has yet to finish the Thumaturge quest line and become OP at sending Voidsent back where they came from.

#ffxivwrite2019 #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #final fantasy xiv fanfiction #voidsent #theorycrafting #worldbuilding #headcanon

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basilandthym · 5 years

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The next few days went far too fast. There was so much work to do, so much to organize for the future, and even with the struggles, so much to celebrate now that Arcturus was cleared of their 'blight'. And yet, despite the solution, Basil still came off as stressed and distracted. Parsley and Coriander didn’t seem to think it odd, so Thym had refrained from worrying about him. His worries wouldn’t be relevant for much longer anyway.

Thym, Chive, and the twins had their party, away from the eyes of elder Arcturus members who may be want to judge. Basil, of course, did not attend. For better or for worse, Thym's presence, their boundless energy, seemed to reveal cracks in their fellow youths' facades of early maturity. The four could most always be found as a group, enjoying the last of their time together. Their days were filled with more laughter, the nights with singing and dancing and perhaps a bit too much young wine.

Thym found, to their frustration, that they had begun to detest the thought of leaving, but far too soon, the time approached. The Draco would set sail the next morning, and they reminded themself that it was good. New things awaited them. A fresh city. And there Silphium and Rosemary had promised reliable connections and lodging at the very least.

There was no need for goodbyes yet, only good nights, as Thym left the company of their friends and retreated to their room, the thought of enjoying such comfortable rooming one more time surprisingly alluring.

As they prepared for an early slumber, Thym caught sight of a now-familiar object: A note left in their quarters. It had the telltale signs of Basil. Crisp and immaculate. They unfolded it to find the shortest note they'd ever read from him.

Meet me at The Tree, 8pm, wanted to talk to you about something.

-Basil

They shoved the paper into one of their coat pockets, and looked outside. It had to be nearing 8:30 already. In the dusk, the arboretum glowed a soft yellow that bathed the forest with an aura of magic. Beautiful. Unlatching the window, Thym swung over the sill, scrambling down the side of the building, and followed that light.

The chirp of crickets in the cool evening welcomed them as they neared the glass structure. Even with the soft glow of Diana’s tree, the crisp starlight wasn’t hindered, twinkling down and harmonious in the void above.

The guard who sat in vigil of the complex smiled warmly and offered Thym entry.

They spotted Basil pacing a couple floors up and scaled the stairs to convene with him.

“Very mysterious of you.” Thym said as they approached, producing the note from their pocket

“What's on your mind?"

At Thym’s arrival Basil stopped his pacing, staring past them for a moment in silence.

They glanced up "One more look before we go? A recount of our heroics?”

They posed dramatically, waiting for Basil to pipe up.

As he started to speak, Basil again walked the raised platform, the leaves of the tree overhead and just barely out of reach.

“I’ve seen you naturally and effortlessly connect with the intellectuals, scholars, and scientists that put their lives into this place. You fit in here.” He took a breath, a deadly seriousness carved into his face. Thym wondered if the altercation at the tree had been more traumatic for Basil than he let on. Was that why they were here?

Basil continued “Thym, I wanted to know...

What do you think of being able to not just keep those connections, but chase your promise in engineering... Live, travel, and study with others tracking down their dreams of the future...

Would you, given the chance, dedicate yourself to-”

“Wait, wait.” Thym stepped back, chuckling “Stop, go back…. Is this a speech? Did you practice this?” They tilted their head “This sounds like a speech. What are you saying?”

Thrown briefly, Basil stuttered.

“I- I- ah… Thym you - You are a brilliant engineer, and you deserve the chance…. I can see that. And I hoped I could provide you with that chance. If you want it. I would - I'll take you as my apprentice.”

Thym stood silent, processing the offer. Then laughed.

“That's… you know that wouldn't fly. Its funny, I…its a good joke.” They looked at Basil as the forced chuckles faded slowly.

He looked horrified, like this was all genuine. Like he was sincere.

Thym's eyes widened “No thats...thats not what you're like...You're for real aren't you? You mean that?”

“I don’t - I wouldn’t dare joke about- Thym...” Basil wrung his hands and limply stood, a fine sweat forming on his tensed brow.

“No no of course not. It's just-you can't possibly think...” Thym reached out to place a hand over Basils’, trying to pause his nervous fidgeting. Basil stiffened but didn't pull away.

“I’ve given this a lot of careful consideration.” Basil affirmed.

“Well,” Lowering their hand, Thym thought about the matter more seriously, “I'd say I'm going to disappoint you, but considering how you found me I guess there probably aren't high expectations?”

They smiled, small but genuine, and the arboretum seemed to glow all the brighter for it.

“Well I'd expect you to take your interest in engineering, be willing to learn more and improve your craft, and finally to chase opportunities to create and design when you desire.” A smile crept upon his own lips but he fought it, the seriousness of the situation focusing him away from emotion. “Do you think you could meet those expectations?”

“Yes!” Thym laughed again, this time a true expression of joy “Yeah of course I can! Holy shit, I can really stay? You think it'll work?”

“It'd be wrong to send you away. Like I said, you belong with Arcturus… I can't be the only one to see that. So Yes. You can- and with your potential, I believe you should.”

He didn’t voice his concerns that perhaps Thym’s entry into Arcturus would be denied in response to a myriad of factors. But Basil had to hope, in his review of his encounter and acquaintanceship with Thym, he had to admit. It felt fated that he discovered them. It felt right that they were so intertwined into the spirit of Arcturus. A guest? Hardly. He would advocate for them. Thym belonged here, more than he had once, maybe even more than he did currently.

"And no more… being passed between tour guides and supervisors… I'd be one of you?"

“I’d be responsible for your primary instruction, and yes there’d be an apprentice ceremony to make it official.”

Thym made a face. "A ceremony? I don't just...sit in your workshop and learn from your work or whatever?" they giggled "Pageantry. Huh."

He laughed “Try to think of it as… celebrating your welcome into the guild.”

“A celebration!” Thym beamed “I like this.”

Basil didn’t say how much the idea of skipping the ceremony would have lifted a weight off of him, he didn’t want Thym to get the wrong idea. And he truly believed an official position as an apprentice at Arcturus would be well worth celebrating. If only he could have lived the same, without worry. An apprenticeship could be truly invaluable, not only opening doors and resources, but offering fellowship and community.

“It's getting late... but… we should check in with Rosemary. Some news for her.” Unlike the other times he reluctantly said so, there was just a slight tinge of excitement sneaking into his voice.

"Oh my god yes!" Thym was actually bouncing now, punching the air "That makes it so official."

Thym spun in place and then, noticing there were more alchemists wandering the levels below them, shouted in excitement for the whole arboretum to hear.

"Hey! Im gonna be Basil's apprentice!"

At the outburst he jumped and then cringed while a chorus of confused muttering filled the building. Again, finding himself the center of attention thanks to Thym.

With a nervous smile, Basil patted Thym’s shoulder and gently eased towards the stairs.

Once more, words left him, but his hopes stayed. Hopes for Thym’s bright future, and that he could do his small part in helping them prepare for it.

#Basil and Thym #steampunk #steampunk comic #victorian #original story #original characters #industrial #steampunk oc #magic #alchemy #illustration #illustrated web story #web story #sci fi #scifi #scifi fantasy #ficlit #crystal

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celestaux-branchais · 5 years

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Forsaken Vows

{{These events take place 3.5-4 years ago IC, a loose blurb around Celestaux leaving Ishgard. It’s also rambly and jumpy and very self-serving and I only proofread once, you’re welcome.}}

Carvallain had always been fire. Bright and passionate and full of life- that had been what had drawn Celestaux to him as a child. The wild streak that somehow shown through the oppressive weight of Ishgardian nobility. Courage to the point of recklessness, and the silvertongue that always managed to talk his way out of it. Watching him was mesmerizing, to the point that the mask had slipped more than once or twice.

But Celestaux had always been ice. Cold with broken, jagged edges that he kept close to his breast in the hopes they’d not strike those around him. Where his friend threw sassy grins and the occasional wink, his face had remained smooth as stone. They’d made an odd pair, and more than once Celestaux had tried to peel away- for fire melted ice, and how could one afford to melt when there was naught else to protect the soft heart beneath? But he was weak and he could never drift far for long.

Until, like smoke, his flame had vanished. Gone, they’d said. Left aboard a ship to explore the realm. And then, not much later, dead. Ship overtaken by pirates, and slain in the fray. Had his heart existed outside a cage of ice, it might have broken. The cracks left were quickly refilled, strengthened with the permafrost that snaked its way in. He redoubled his focus with the blade- a weapon he hated but that had become like an extension of his own arm, and sunk himself deeper into Knight’s training.

The quiet moments he’d taken for himself- stealing away to his cousin’s room, perhaps the only place he’d been able to have a quiet discourse on literature- all but ceased. Lucien had been growing stronger, and Celestaux withdrew further. After so many summers spent abed, he was not about to force his cousin behind closed doors and away from his studies. They’d drifted, and by the time his cousin took his trip down the Witchdrop, they’d spoken hardly at all. The guilt settled heavy on his heart, frost slowly covering it until that, too, had become a part of him.

If he’d hoped to have learned his lesson, he failed. The draw to flame- to bright sun and optimism- had not left him. Bitter and cold as he was, he still gravitated towards those who put out light. Aymeric- a ‘dirty bastard with no business taking the mantle of a knight’, his father had said- found himself with an occasional second shadow. His burden was heavy, and yet he still retained his charming exterior. A lovely face, but that had drawn no special attention; that Aymeric spoke to him as comrade and knight- not as dreaded noble and hated Dzemael- it had been enough to warm the frozen spot within his chest.

And so he’d gone on, slowly mending any holes and cracks with frozen resolve. He kept his head down, avoiding promotions that might draw too much attention, speaking up only in support of those that rightfully deserved them- and quietly suffering the consequences for embarrassing the family name at home.

But then there had been a whisper. A knight’s cousin’s courier had made mention of a pirate in a far off port city. One that bore striking resemblance to the Lord de Durendaire. And wouldn’t that just be the funniest thing? A pirate for a bastard.

He’d sat on the rumour- it was hardly a rumour, for the it had been quashed as soon as it had begun- and at first did nothing. Moons passed, and while hope had long been something he’d long reconciled as foolishness, he found himself clinging desperately to it.

“If he were alive, and he had wished for you to know, he would have sent word.”

Those were the words that had kept him in place. The warning that, even should he dare go looking, he would almost certainly not like what he found. How many years had passed? How much had changed? How had he changed, growing ever colder and shrinking further behind the mask until it had become his own skin? He was not the boy he had been- and so how could he expect that he had not changed either? And even if he hadn’t- even if the pirate were still the boy he’d known deep down- what use had he for a frozen knight?

“What am I doing?” He tilted his head back to look at the stars, snow falling into his hood. The long robe hid his armour from view, but there was still the familiar clinking of chainmail with every step. Luckily, this far out into the wilds, he had little concern of being heard. His hand stayed steady on his sword, the shield long since pitched into the void of the Sea of Clouds.

He trudged deeper through the snow, keeping his distance from Whitebrim Front. Getting through the gates had been easy- he’d been another faceless guard, safe beneath the chain and helm of a Temple Knight- and had shown a false letter of great import that required urgent delivery- something far too dangerous for a simple courier, especially this time of night. And then, once he’d slipped well out of sight, he’d pulled the robe from his bag and replaced the helm with hood and pitched the wretched headpiece into the Sea of Clouds after his shield.

Daring the Coerthan wilds in the middle of the night- in the middle of winter- was a fool’s choice. But he hadn’t wanted to risk being followed. Though he left heavy footprints in the snow, they were quickly covered with fresh snow- all traces gone, as if he’d never been there at all.

The trek to the Twelveswood was long and grueling, but the Temple Knights had instilled in him a soldiers discipline. Even running from them as he was, he was grateful that the mindless march south was that much easier when he could simply fade back behind a soldier’s drive.

He’d stopped to rest but the once, a few bells of rest with his back pressed to the mountainside perhaps a bit closer to Dzemael Darkhold than was wise. But naught came of it, and it was not long before he was leaving the frozen north behind and stepping into the beautiful wilderness of the Northern Shroud.

Greenery and trees were things he’d only seen on campaigns since he was but a boy, and he found himself pausing long enough to draw the attention of the Wood Wailers. Just a traveler, he’d assured them, before requesting directions to Gridania.

It wasn’t that much farther- he could make the trip easily, but the moment he stepped foot in Fallgourd Float the weight of what he’d done weighed him down. He rented a room at the inn, using more gil than he’d allotted for this leg of the trip, and collapsed in the bed still fully clothed.

'What am I doing?’

The question repeated itself without end, the words becoming so blended together that they no longer made sense. This was madness- complete and utter madness. What business had he, abandoning his family- his oaths, his duty, his obligations- to chase what was surely just a rumour from a commoner spewing nonsense for attention. He would find nothing for him in Limsa Lominsa. He would end up a sellsword or dead in the gutter- or tuck his tail between his legs and return home to beg forgiveness.

Returning home was not an option.

There might be nothing for him in Limsa, but what awaited him at home- a furious father who knew how to hurt without leaving marks, an arranged marriage to a woman he dreaded- was worse. He’d prefer to be gutted in the streets for his coin purse than turn back now. Which, now that he thought about it, was another possibility in Limsa.

Sleep did not come- it hardly ever did, these days- and it was some bells later that he finally hauled himself out of bed to make use to the facilities. As much as he craved a hot bath, he settled for lukewarm so that his still-frozen toes did not burn. He scrubbed off the sweat and allowed the heat to seep in beneath his skin. Only once the water turned cold did he force himself out, drying quickly before simply collapsing back onto the bed.

Sleep did come, then. Just a few bells, hardly enough to call an actual test, but enough. When he awoke, he rose and donned his armour with mechanical motions. The robe he threw overtop, for even now out of Coerthas he was too freshly gone to feel at ease without it, and set out into the early morning light.

Gods, he’d missed trees. And foliage and animals that were not frozen hellbeasts or dragons ready to eat him whole. Despite his drive, he found himself taking his time through the forest. He could disappear here, instead. Learn the lay of the land, settle as but another labourer in whatever small settlement he stumbled into first. But that would not satisfy the curiosity, the driving need to know whether one he had lost yet breathed.

He abandoned you once. Why, then, would you not take the hint?

He grit his teeth, pausing within sight of the gate to Gridania. Why was he so set on finding this man? Would he even be remembered? He’d been one face of many- an annoying shadow at best- and here he was, so many summers later, attempting to track down someone who had so desperately wanted out that he’d organized his expedition and set out without a second thought.

Slowly, he took another step. It mattered naught, whether his old friend lived as pirate or privateer or whatever it was they were these days. There was a guild in Limsa, one of magic, and he would find something for himself that did not require ponzes of armour and blades and mindless obedience. Shunned or embraced, he could start over. Be someone who was not hated for his name and an utter disappointment to it besides.

Gridania was… not at all what he’d expected. Even as a city, it was full of greenery and plantlife. The market seemed as good a place as any to explore. He browsed over the wares, stopping only once his eyes settled on a smooth black mask.

“Ash Mask. Import from Limsa, real popular with those arcanist types.” The merchant behind the table spoke up, noticing his pause. “For you? Three hundred gil.”

“Two hundred.” Cele raised his eyes, studying the man. He pulled the coin from his pocket, waiting. They settled at two twenty-five, and yet he still walked away feeling ripped off. Perhaps this was why he’d never been allowed to visit the markets on his own.

With mask firmly affixed over his face, he finally dropped the hood. With face safely covered, he set out on the rest of his journey. He hitched rides with traveling merchants, trading protection for food. The journey through the Twelveswood was pleasant enough, and he’d have happily traded the oppressive desert heat of Thanalan for another ambush by Ixal or poachers. Coerthas had not always been ice, but dry heat was not something he had ever been prepared for. Though even miserable as he was, he’d elected to take the long way; seeing at least a little bit of what Eorzea had to offer had been his hope, and he’d certainly not been disappointed.

The ferryman in Vesper Bay was, despite his desire to wander, a welcome sight. Traveling was rough, and he longed to collapse in a proper bed for a night before throwing himself headfirst into what was hopefully a new life. The possibility of rejection still weighed heavy in the back of his mind, but it was easier to ignore when crowded behind the exhaustion of traipsing across the desert.

He’d parted ways with his latest companions back in Horizon, and so he boarded the ship to Limsa alone. The boat was all but empty of other travelers and so he’d dared to slip the mask from his face to get his first real look at the sea.

An endless expanse of glittering blue, teeming with life just below the surface. The further from shore they went, the more fish seemed to drift close to the surface. The shifted in a million shades of brown, all beautiful despite surely being robbed of their true colour. They passed large ships, with sails taller than buildings and weighed down with cannon that would give any Ward a run for its money. The sounds of men shouting carried on the wind, and he could practically feel the salt in the air. He leaned back in the boat, eyes drifting and trying to take in everything. Limsa was bright and shining and loud and so very alive.

Perhaps he could understand why someone might prefer the sea.

#cele lore #woops it's bad #cele snaps #{drabble}

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illuminateandrelate · 6 years

Text

Art - Mutsurie (Chapter 2)

He almost wished he hadn’t.

Mutsuki stared into a pair of his own watery green eyes, a rainbow reflected in the tiny white spots where the light was supposed to hit on the canvas, iridescent and shimmering. His hair was green in it, pulled back into a short ponytail. His eyes soft with a shimmer of long since forgotten empathy. The background was a blur of swirling blackness, his face in the piece almost glowing off of it. Pulled into focus, almost dragged forward with a sharp crystalized clarity.

Read Ch. 1 Here

He almost wished he hadn’t.

He felt something in his chest pierce as he drew a quick breath- this was from the auction. The clothes in the picture all too familiar, that godforsaken dress. The whole thing felt ethereal, unrealistic, too perfect, too kind, that couldn’t possibly be him.

But it was. He couldn’t misplace the scared and somewhat shocked expression on the art-him’s face. Once so familiar to have his features organizes in that manner on every mission, it felt like looking through a time machine.

He felt his eyes water, something dark and unnoticed in him clawing at his organs, squeezing them with its gripping claws, choking and suffocating him. He lifted his fingers up to his own chest, grasping at the pale white fabric that lay there. He stood up from his squatting positions, dropping the sheet with his free hand numbly. The crawling feeling that he'd once become oh so familiar with wormed its way through his heart like a bug in an apple, tunneling its way around as if it owned the place, eating away at what little remained. He squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath just like he'd worked on.

This was why he had left. To be free from these memories and their following ideas that followed him, pummeled him like wrecking balls, the ones that wouldn't let him free till he lay down and bled.

A quiet cough pierced the air and Mutsuki's attention was diverted to a newly arrived Urie standing in the doorway to the bathroom, glancing around the room, his gaze not lingering in one place for too long. A towel rested upon his bare shoulders, his lower half wearing boxer shorts and nothing else. Mutsuki felt a fresh flow of heat burn in his already much too pink cheeks.

"Uh," he stuttered a moment, trying to find a grip on exactly the right words. "I was just-," he bit his lip, "dropping off a gift for you and glanced around-"

Urie for once looked like a deer in headlights, his eyes still unable to meet Mutsuki’s gaze sat somewhere just below his eye level. He walked over to his drawers in silence, pulling out a black T-shirt and pulling off the towel before putting on the shirt. He walked over to Mutsuki, who tried hard not to pay any attention to the fact that the other boy was still in his boxers.

“Sorry.” was all Urie managed, pulling off the canvas with the sheet still attached as he leaned it against the wall, “I know it’s weird, I was testing some things and got totally totally-.”

“It's good.”

Urie turned to him, eyes wide. Mutsuki pretended to not feel as if they were the spotlights they seemed to be, beaming on his face. Pretended it wasn’t odd for Urie to be so flustered and out of sorts, with the way he always seemed to have a plan, a set dialogue. That it wasn’t odd for him to be anything short of curt and precise even if he had changed over the year.

For so long it had seemed odd that Urie painted. Painting was for the chaotic minds, painting was for the ones who saw color and opportunity, who saw paths of curved rather than straight. Now though, it didn’t seem quite so alien.

“Its amazing really,” he found himself speaking again, desperate to fill the brimming silence with words. “You give my face more justice than it deserves.” Now he was talking into a corner, contradicting from his sprinting thoughts of before. That was the other part, why he couldn’t come back, why he had to leave. It was so easy to fall back into his old traps of longing.

No, those days were best left behind.

He heard a quiet hum of disapproval from beside him and his gaze shifted so that he was looking back at the other man. Urie’s lips were pursed, his gaze calculating again on the sheet pressed against that canvas on the wall. His fingers rest somewhere on his lower lip and his chin and he sighed before removing them.

“Not quite.”

“Huh?”

“It's not quite right.”

“Oh,” it sounded disappointed, he realized when it came from his mouth. Though, he supposed that he didn’t really know much about art. Each speculation was his own on what looked good or bad. Similar to when he went to see a film that critics hated and he ended up enjoying. If you didn’t know anything, everything seemed good.

“What's wrong with it?” Mutsuki asked, not sure if he wanted to hear the rest or run from the room of taut molecules that seemed to waver terrified with every stretched breath. Urie turned to meet his gaze at last, something in his eyes unfamiliar to what he’d ever seen before within his years of knowing him. A flaming, burning gaze, speckled with something akin to passion.

He blinked and whatever window Mutsuki had been looking through was gone, the stony gaze he had grown so accustomed to returned. Urie turned away, walking back over to the dresser to pull out a pair of pants, speaking as he pulled them onto his pale legs, he sat down when he’d finished.

“Not sure,” he said at last, shattering the glass silence with a hammer of speech.

“Maybe it’s in the face?” Mutsuki offered, hesitant, trying desperately to smother whatever anxious candle the painting had lit in his chest. Something in him, the fool, realized he wanted to be glowing like that in someone's mind. Not another part of the murky blackness he’d become oh so associated with but as the star he’d seen in the art. The sun to a solar system.

Idiotic really.

“I wouldn’t be able to know, it’s hard to paint someone’s face when you never see them.” Urie said, his tongue dripping with bitterness, like the dregs of coffee at the bottom of a mug, distasteful and grainy.

Mutsuki shifted his gaze down to his fingers, a biting guild nipping at his heels. He opened his mouth, letting it flail in the air for a moment before closing it again. Urie was right, he hadn’t been to the Chateau in at least two months, now he came in expecting a warm welcome from everyone? Time moved things, changed them, it only made sense it would do the same here too. No matter what Mutsuki wanted to think the world was not static for the house and its members.

“I’m sorry.” He hushed into the frozen air, his gaze wavering even further downward. “I should vis-”

“No,” Urie interrupted, “No, you aren’t chained anywhere. You don’t have to do anything.” He glanced towards Mutsuki, the flaming gaze back. “I just miss you.”

Mutsuki’s face must’ve been beet red by now. He glanced from the dark haired man next to him to the covered painting. Knowing the words on the tip of his tongue were dangerous, were a sentence to confine himself in his own swimming emotions he’d so carefully pulled himself from.

“Maybe, I could be a real-life reference.” It was barely audible, “If you want.”

He could’ve sworn he saw a flush in the other boy’s face, just under his hairline.

THANK YOU FOR READING <3 <3 MAKE SURE TO LIKE, REBLOG, AND COMMENT IF YOU ENJOYED.

The third (and final) chapter should be dropping about Wednesday-Thursday of this week.

TY to @mikotofubar for beta-ing

Want more?

AO3

Fanfic Masterlist

#fanfiction #tokyo ghoul #tokyo ghoul re:#urie kuki #tooru mutsuki #Mutsurie fanfiction #mutsurie #mutuki/urie #quinx #qs #quinx squad #painting #fandoms #anime #tokyo ghoul fanfiction

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thiswaycomessomethingwicked · 6 years

Note

"ive been trying to grab your attention in class for over half an hour by poking you and throwing things onto your desk and you’re refusing to acknowledge me and gdi all i wanted to do was tell you that you look cute and now it’s gone too far and it can’t go back" ~~~~~~ seems like classic Downey/Vetinari to me!! ~~~ (bonus points if Vetinari is testing out one of his disguises and supposed to be invisible and Downey is Ruining Everything)

Vetinari,self-assured, one and twenty, believes he is possibly the best of his class inmost things. Oh, but as a gentleman he would never admit it. He isn’t abraggart. He is quiet and self-possessed, always just-this-side of demonstrablyself-confident. He believes there is nothing wrong with pride so long as it iswell-regulated and deserved. He is, in no way, arrogant or a twit. Two wordsthat would describe a certain one of his graduate cohort.

How Downeymade it into the graduate cohort Vetinari isn’t sure but he is convinced it must haveinvolved a minor miracle. You can hire enough small gods to orchestrate minormiracles and Downey, Vetinari firmly believes, is the sort to resort to suchtactics.

Vetinari hasnever needed to organize a minor miracle in his life. He would like to keep itthat way.

Currently,he’s loitering in the rafters of the upper-years lab. A bright, airy room, hedecided it’d be a good challenge to disappear into it. The large windows arewest facing an added difficulty Vetinari is keen to surmount.

Slowly helowers himself down onto a beam wide enough to support his weight andprovide cover from those below. The room is mostly empty, only a few studentslingering on their lab work. One of them, coincidentally, is Downey. The baneof Vetinari’s student existence is doing something complicated with mushroomspores. Vetinari watches for a moment, attempting to figure out what the otherman is up to but gives up do to a lack of a clear line of sight. Downey’s broadshoulders obscure his notes and some of the glassware he’s working with.

Vetinarislowly breaths out, works to level his heart rate and twists his head to affordthe best view of the room.

No oneappears to notice him as he is still. His challenge will be moving. Adjustinghis head again he looks down and sees that Downey is gone. Or not quite, hissatchel and books are still sprawled across the lab counter. Perhaps he went tothe bathroom. Odd, that Vetinari missed his movements.

Somethinghis the back of his head.

A pebble? Asmall piece of crumpled paper?

Somethinghits him again. He hears a snort and knows it’s Downey. Fuck. How did Downeysee him? He’s absolutely sure his position, from those below, would beunnoticeable. This is his fourth run and no one has seen him thus far. Not eventheir stealth professor who happened into the room on one of Vetinari’s earlytrial-runs.

Maybe Downeydoesn’t see him and he’s just chucking stuff up into the rafters for fun. Theman is an enigma to Vetinari because Vetinari cannot imagine being entertainedby dull things like dive-y pubs and messy flat parties. Downey appears to livefor social events and being loud and rambunctious in Guild corridors. Oh, andannoying Vetinari whenever the chance arises.

A smallprojectile hits his hand. Another hits his leg.

He isn’tgoing to move. He refuses to give Downey the satisfaction. Something hits hisleg again, this time a good deal harder. Vetinari silently curses Downey’simpeccable aim. The man even has impeccable aim half a bottle of brandy in. Heknows because he’s had a boot chucked at his head by a deeply drunk Downey onmore than one occasion. Usually proceeded by Downey shouting, ‘Hey!Dog-botherer, fetch!’ Before keeling over in laughter.

Who decidedDowney was a good idea?

A disturbedGod, probably. One with a terrible sense of humour and a vendetta againstVetinari.

A pebblehits his arse. Below him and still out of sight, Downey lets out a quiet breathof laughter. Vetinari can see the young man’s dumb face in his mind’s eye withthat stupid grin and his tendency to do finger-guns while going ‘eyyyy’ as hewalks away backwards.

Vetinaricould write a list about all the annoying things Downey does.

It’s deeplyunfair that the most obnoxious person on the Disc is blessed with a handsomeface and too much charm. Downey can turn the charm on when he wants to.Vetinari has witnessed it. Downey is impeccable in his ability to manage-up.

A pebblehits the back of his head again. He remains committed to not moving. Toremaining absolutely still. To outlasting Downey because he will not give oneWilliam A. Downey, assassin, the gods-damn satisfaction of acknowledging him.

Downeyhisses up, ‘Hey, DB. That can’t be comfortable.’

Vetinariignores him.

Downey says,more loudly, ‘Nice outfit DB. Mud brown is really your colour.’

Theremaining students begin looking over and Vetinari wants to drop down andpummel Downey for ruining his cover. But, again, he will not give the man thesatisfaction of a response.

This is atactic Vetinari has employed against bullies in the past and it has alwaysworked with the great, life-long exception of Downey. He puts it down to Downeybeing too stupid to understand the subtleties of being utterly ignored.

He hadcomplained to Ludo, the one person who can get Downey to do something Downeydoesn’t want to do. He had asked eloquently, ‘what the fuck is Downey’s deal?’

And Ludo hadreplied, ‘Um you’ll have to be more specific. Will’s got a lot of deals.’

And Vetinarihad explained, ‘His inability to back off. I’ve done everything you’re supposedto do to get bullies to leave you alone. He burned my book.’

Ludo hadthen said, ‘Oh yes, that night. And uh, Havelock, you know how boys pull girls’hair?’

And he hadn’tknown. So Ludo had just sighed at him and said, ‘Well I suspect it’s like that. But ifyou do anything with that information I’ll kill you.’

Vetinarihadn’t understood. Though he did believe Ludo would kill him, for whateverreason.

He still isn’tsure he understands. Why would anyone pull anyone’s hair? That seems unnecessary.And Downey had never pulled his hair. Just thrown things at him and called himDog-botherer and Scag. Scag doesn’t count, though. Downey calls everyone ascag.

‘Hey,Dog-botherer,’ Downey’s voice is suddenly close. Vetinari refuses to move. He feels ahand on his shoulder. Shit. ‘You look nothing like a rafter by the way.’

FinallyVetinari sits up. There’s Downey sitting in the middle of the rafter smirkingat him. He’s dusty, his usually pristine black marred grey and off-white. Vetinariglares.

‘I wastesting a different camouflage.’

‘Well itsucks.’

‘No one elsenoticed, Downey. This is my fourth time and no one has seen me before.’

‘Or they didbut didn’t say anything.’

Veitnariblinks at him. Downey’s smirk widens into a shit-eating grin. He needlesVetinari some more about how he actually has no idea how successful his attemptwas since no one was monitoring him.

Vetinari canfeel his cheeks burn. Downey tilts his head in considering of something. Vetinarisnaps, ‘what?’ Downey sneers, leans over and flicks Vetinari’s forehead thenscoots down from the rafters before Vetinari can retaliate. Vetianri shoutsdown at him, ‘Why are you like this Downey? Who made you this annoying?’

Downeygathers his books and satchel, he looks up Vetinari, they’re both so dusty, andsays, ‘I was going to say you actually look kind of cool for once. Since you’re about as cool as a uh, very uncool thing. But whatever. Ciao,Dog-botherer. Better luck next time with your stupid camo exercise.’

Downey then giveshim a rude gesture and walks out of the room.

#discworld #lord downey #ask #vetinari #fanfic #reply #writing #meme #prompt

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