#there's been rallies and protests for months now. i think nearly half a year at this point bc i remember it started in the winter | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

actualfarless · 3 years

Text

The Engineer And The Witch: Part II

Read Part I Here.

Story below or available on Wattpad or Reddit.

Tera breached the surface, gasping for air. Her vision blurred and filled with stars that seared into her brain. Needles pricked her arms and legs. Her lungs burned. Her muscles ached. With every wave, the sea dragged her back into the inky depths.

Strong arms wrapped around Tera and pulled her from the water. She fell sputtering into the rowboat, straining to keep her eyes focused enough to see her rescuer. The only light came from the burning ships and distant cannon fire, painting the battle in silhouettes with every round. Even in the darkness, she recognized the raised scar on their scalp. Mayer rowed in silence, unflinching even as cannonballs splashed in the water around them.

“Thank you,” Tera said. Her voice was soft, barely a whisper, and if Mayer heard her at all, they didn’t respond. She huddled in the bow of the skiff, too weak to help Mayer row. Too weak to worry about the ongoing conflict. Unable to fight it any longer, she let the darkness take her.

Her body still ached when she woke, but the fire no longer burned in her leg and the stars no longer clouded her vision. Gentle morning light filled the room. A breeze wafted through the curtains. Four beds on wooden posts sat along one wall, a table and two chairs against the other. The other three beds were empty. By a stack of folded clothes on the table sat a bottle. Gharos’ gift.

No guns boomed in the distance. No shouts or cries.

The battle was over.

Tera shifted, raising herself on her elbows. Absence was something she was slow to notice, but once she did, she couldn’t think of anything else. Clarity broke through morning drowsiness, sharp and sudden. She felt no pain in her leg. She felt nothing at all. Tera yanked the covers off, knowing what she would see, yet unprepared to face reality. Her left leg ended in bandages above where her knee should be. She clawed at the emptiness, trying to bring her limb back from the void that swallowed it, but no matter how she tried, her leg remained gone.

Mayer stepped through the door before her mind could grasp what happened, quietly closing it behind them.

“Good, you’re awake,” they said, unconcerned by her frantic state. “I hoped to see you before I go.”

Tera stared at them, eyes wide, mouth agape. She struggled to form words, to form any sound at all, only managing to understate her distress. “My leg.”

Mayer’s eyes flicked down to Tera’s leg — to where Tera’s leg should have been — and nodded. Nothing more than acknowledgement. They dragged a chair over and sat by Tera.

“I’m sorry,” they said after a brief silence. Their stare was as cold and hollow as ever, but their tone soft. Sympathetic. “You were hurt in the explosion. Even with surgery and the best healing salve, you couldn’t have walked on it, and they have neither here. This was the best option.”

The statement fueled fury in Tera but exhaustion overpowered the emotion before she could even speak. She knew Mayer had no part in the decision. Even assuming they were right, she struggled to process the information. As she shifted in bed, turning to face them, she felt her movements were off, pushing with a leg that was no longer there. Her right leg hung over the edge, swaying slightly. Heavy and alone. The nothingness where her other leg should have been felt as solid as bone and flesh ever did. Absence given form.

For their part, Mayer said nothing, not demanding her attention until she could accept the amputation. They cast their eyes down to their hands folded in their lap, not daring to meet her gaze, not rude enough to gawk at her injury.

Tera couldn’t turn away. The light shifted and the breeze finally died and her eyes did not move, even when she tried, as though she could will her leg back to her body if only she stared long enough.

She couldn’t.

“You saved me,” Tera said finally.

“If you could call it that—”

“You did.” She pulled their gaze upward. “Thank you.”

Mayer nodded, a subtle movement, acknowledgement but not acceptance. Their eyes were wet. They turned away again, like staring at Tera any longer would break them. “I had to save someone. Now we’re stuck here.”

“You’re not, are you? You look fine.”

“I’m not, no.”

“So we won then? I was worried you were about to tell me we’re in a rebel hospital.”

“The kingdom won this time. The war continues. This wouldn’t be the first time Port Talen changed sides. I doubt it will be the last.”

“Right,” Tera agreed. If she believed her father’s letters, the colonists would attack the port as soon as they rallied. She hoped there was nothing left of the colonial navy. At least then, the Eon Heart’s sacrifice wouldn’t be for nothing. With solid supply lines, they were months away from winning the war. A year at most.

“You could find another ship. A better one,” Tera quickly added. “I’m sure there’s a few that could use your help.”

“You couldn’t work an engine with a mekanica leg.”

“Not an arc engine. I’d like to stay on land, though. I’d like to work with mekanica if I can. That’s what I’d do back home if… if there wasn’t a war.”

“That’s your plan? Stay here? Serve the kingdom?”

“Yes. What else?”

Mayer shook their head but said nothing. Answer enough.

Silence hung in the air for too long before, unable to hold her tongue, Tera asked, “Mayer, what happened? I knew things on the Eon Heart were bad, but I thought everyone died in the explosion. I thought I died.”

“You must be lucky.”

“Mayer—”

“Gharos. He had a plan. He always did.” Mayer sighed.

“Why?”

“Legends. Duty. I don’t know. He sacrificed himself for the kingdom. That’s what any good soldier would do, right? If the kingdom wins this war, history will know his name long after the ether claims the rest of us. Already he’s a hero. Tell anyone here where you served and they’ll thank you. As if Eon Heart was anything but a prison. They won’t remember us. They won’t remember every gunner who was sacrificed. They won’t remember Gharos.

“He knew the captain would drive himself mad someday. That’s why we had a plan.” Mayer dug their hands into their thighs. Their tone grew increasingly bitter with every word they spoke but, at that, their voice cracked. Their lip quivered as they sucked in a breath, straining to hold back a sob, one that slipped out anyway. “He was supposed to start the engines and run. I waited for him — I did! I waited as long as I could.”

“I’m sorry,” Tera said. She reached for them, offering a gentle touch, comfort, anything to ease Mayer’s pain, but they pulled away. Tears stained their cheeks.

“I loved him.” Mayer’s voice was so soft Tera thought she imagined the words. “The kingdom has taken everything from me. I wanted to leave so many times. Before they forced me into service. Before this vile war started. But I stayed! I stayed for Gharos and his stupid loyalist ideals and now… and now he’s dead. History will forget him.”

Mayer rose to their feet. They dragged the chair back to the table on the far wall, pausing only to pick up the bottle. They turned to Tera with a look somewhere between anger and sorrow, waving it with a question on their lips they couldn’t find the strength to ask. Instead, they slipped it into their breast pocket. Tera didn’t protest.

“I’ve seen enough death for one lifetime,” Mayer said at the door. “I no longer see a reason to serve a kingdom that doesn’t want me. I came to ask if you would come with me. You won’t, will you?”

“I can’t.”

“Hm. No wonder he liked you.”

Without another word, Mayer left.

Tera was alone.

She was not unused to her situation. She spent enough of her childhood in her room, nursing bruises from fights won and lost. The hospital was no different. Once each day, a nurse would rub healing salve on her wounds, though the product was poor and watered down, so it did little more than sat the itch of her sheets.

As the days turned into a week — then two, then more — Tera grew accustomed to the lightness of her phantom limb. The swelling died. Flares of pain became infrequent. Tera spent more and more of her time awake and bored in the confines of her room. She wrote letters to her mother and her father and Engineer Shen and any one else she could think of, passing them to the nurse with a request for more paper, more ink, but if they ever left Port Talen, she never received a response. Isolation quickly drove her mad. After enough complaints, the kind nurse found her a crutch so she could explore the rest of the hospital. She recognized a few of the wounded, but no one she had spoken to. Few survived the Eon Heart.

The hospital sat in the heart of Port Talen, on the corner of two avenues, and it occupied half the block. From the recent battle — or one long before — one wing lay collapsed in a pile of wood and brick. The other wing stood three stories tall, messy and littered with tools well out of Tera’s specialty. Weeks after the kingdom claimed the city, the hospital was nearly empty. Only those with serious wounds, those that couldn’t travel remained. Only those with serious wounds and the dead.

Makeshift tents covered the hospital courtyard. A field of white, grey, and blue stretched from the hospital doors to the fence on the far side. Even after the temporary morgue had long been cleared, every breeze carried the stench of death through windows and cracks in the hospital walls, a reminder of what awaited most who still lingered. Tera had volunteered to assist with digging graves, but the caretaker refused her help. Acceptable in the end, so long as she did not have to see the bodies. Or smell them any longer.

Most of the dead were buried in shallow unmarked graves. If there had been anything of Gharos left, so was he.

With the city under kingdom control once more, the bulk of the army pulled out, moving south and deeper into the colonies. A garrison remained for peacekeeping, but the colonists led the reconstruction efforts. Port Talen transformed slowly, piece by piece, day by day. Tera offered her aid to whoever would listen. All turned her away. The civilians watched their tongues, careful to find a reasonable excuse, following the example of the cemetery caretaker, but the way they eyed her uniform told her enough. No words or kindness could rid their hatred. The kingdom freed the city of rebel control but not the minds of its people.

The kingdom told her to wait for orders.

The end of summer brought an end to the otherwise ceaseless muggy heat that plagued the colonies. Cool autumn air set on the city and still Tera was no closer to leaving the hospital. The garrison claimed a restored building as an office for reassignment and recruitment. Her trips to the office became a ritual. Checking out of the hospital, trekking through the city on one leg and a crutch until the smell of the sea overwhelmed all else. All to ask for work. All to be turned away. The kingdom didn’t need her — not now — but if only she were patient, they would find new orders soon.

The ritual remained the same. The orders never came. Not until chance brought Tera an inquisitor.

She was pale with large eyes, a furrowed brow, and grey streaks through her light hair. By her stood a girl a few years younger than Tera and a surly lizardfolk. Each woman had a sword on her hip and a badge on her chest, though Tera didn’t need either. She had met enough inquisitors at her father’s work to spot them on looks alone. They all had the same dark look in their eyes, as if seeing something not meant for humanity. Something Tera was glad she couldn’t see.

As a child, her father stressed the importance of treating inquisitors with respect. Tera pushed her shoulders back and straightened her posture. Unable to decide if she should salute, Tera committed halfway. Her crutch fell to the floor a clatter and she nearly fell with it. The office went still. All eyes shifted to the door and the girl leaning on it.

“Bounty Hunter, would you?” the inquisitor asked.

Tera’s face burned with embarrassment as the lizardfolk approached. He scowled and toyed with the knives on his belt but he was gentle with Tera, bending slightly to offer his arm. With his help, Tera limped to a nearby desk and settled into a chair.

“Sit, nessa. We’ll only be a moment.”

“Actually, we’re done here,” the inquisitor corrected. She leaned the crutch against the desk. “I am Inquisitor Jo. This is Meera, my apprentice.”

Tera waited patiently for her to introduce the bounty hunter, but no one said anything.

“Tera Bec, Third Engineer of the Eon Heart.”

“Eon Heart? I’m sorry, I heard the news. I vow we will catch the witch who destroyed your ship. Do not worry.”

“Witch?”

“I heard the ship exploded, did it not? Nearly took the whole crew with her. Witchcraft is the easiest explanation.”

“Engine failure.”

“If it was the engines, then where were you? Did you not say you were an engineer? I assume you did maintenance when you docked.”

“We tried. I wanted to help Gharos.” Tera struggled to explain, nearly tripping over herself to correct the story. The disapproving looks of the inquisitors and bounty hunter only worsened her nerves. “It wasn’t his fault; the captain—”

“Mon Valis was a brilliant man. A fine captain, I understand. He could have been an admiral one day. Certainly deserving of whatever honors they will bestow. Few have sacrificed so much for the kingdom.”

The inquisitor met Tera’s eyes before she could interrupt. She left words unspoken, but Tera understood well enough. Silence would serve her well. Inquisitor Jo moved her gaze downward, resting on Tera’s injury.

“I find it hard to believe the ship was lost to engine failure and that is the worst of your injuries. Are you sure the witch did not poison your mind?”

“I… I’m not sure.”

“What is your specialty?”

“Mekanica.”

“I am sure we can find something for you in the city. Maybe even fix that leg. Meera?”

“Yes, Inquisitor?” The girl had not moved from her position at the inquisitor’s side, yet she stood so still, Tera had forgotten she was there.

“See if they know of an empty workshop we could use for Engineer Bec here. Then head to the ship.”

“Will Seros—”

“The bounty hunter and I will meet you there.”

“Yes, Inquisitor,” Meera said. She lingered for a moment, casting a meaningful look to Seros, one Tera knew all too well. The inquisitor and the bounty hunter pretended not to notice.

The workshop sat just off the docks, painfully far from the hospital, though the lizardfolk’s assistance made the journey easier. Like Gharos — like the others she had met — Seros stood a full head taller than she, lean and muscular beneath his scales. She leaned on him as they walked, in part from need, in part from comfort. His scales were green, not red. His eyes were yellow, not amber. But if she closed her eyes, she could imagine he was Gharos, alive once more.

If the layer of dust was any indication, the workshop had been abandoned for some time, but Tera had seen worse. Far, far worse. Half built chassis hung from hoists. Parts and scrap and workbenches filled with tools lined the walls. Metal stairs doubled back on themselves as they led to the office above.

The workshop was smaller than Engineer Shen’s, but that didn’t matter. She had spent months in cramped quarters on a tiny ship then months idle in a hospital. The workshop could have been a wrench and Tera would be happy.

For a moment, Tera was a young girl back in Bar Tannis. No war. No injury. No inquisitor nor striking bounty hunter. Just a girl and her tools.

Delivered safely to the workshop, the inquisitor dismissed Seros to go join her apprentice on the ship. Inquisitor Jo lingered, gloved hand placed firmly on her sword. Her eyes never lifted off Tera as they toured the workshop.

“Will this suffice?”

“This is… thank you,” Tera said after a moment. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”

“If I’m being honest, Engineer Bec, I am not entirely altruistic.”

“Please, call me Tera.”

“Then call me Bann.” The older woman flashed a smile, the first Tera had seen. “You have been in the port for a while.”

“I have.”

“What have you been doing?”

“Waiting until they find a ship for me. They told me they would reassign me. That was months ago.”

“I see. You need direction. Convenient then, the inquisition could use your help. I am well aware there is growing dissent. This ordeal with the colonies should have been over long ago and my order is spread too thin. We fight the war here, the threats at home only grow. We cannot simply abandon our post, not when the colonies need us, but the cost is greater than you know. All the while, the inquisition shrinks. We’ve had to resort to the aid of bounty hunters.”

“He seems nice,” Tera said before her mind caught her mouth.

“I do not care for ‘nice.’ I need loyalty. That is what I see in you.”

Bann pulled the glove off her hand. Fingers lined with brass and silver curled and unfurled as she held out her hand for Tera to see. Forgetting for a moment who Bann was, Tera took the mekanica hand in hers, turning it over to marvel at the delicate construction. She had seen a wide range of prosthetics with Engineer Shen, but none so finely crafted. The fingers were almost flesh in movement and detail. Polished wood filled the space between her knuckles. A white porcelain plate covered the back of her hand. All was detailed with the same loving care a watchmaker gave their most expensive pieces.

The inquisitor traced the lines on Tera’s palm. Her fingers moved with great precision, greater than Tera had ever seen in mekanica. All but the ring finger. It twitched and spasmed but otherwise remained straight.

“I lost it in a duel with a witch,” Bann said finally, breaking Tera from her spell. “I was young and eager to prove myself. I did win. I had an opening and cut into her, but my sword stuck. She carried through. In a moment of stupidity, I brought my hand up to catch her blade. I am lucky I only lost my hand.

“I know the struggles you face, Tera. In a time of peace, you would have walked out of that hospital in a month. You wouldn’t need a crutch. The rebels have taken much from us. I fear the kingdom’s dignity is the greatest loss. Talent is left to rot while old fools sacrifice others for a statue. Oh, yes—” she met Tera��s questioning eyes — “I know what kind of man Mon Valis was. I heard stories of his reckless behavior long before the war. Were I the one making decisions, he would have been removed from his post long ago.”

“Oh. I’m relieved.”

“Relieved?”

“You said he was brilliant. Earlier.”

“Even someone of my rank should not condemn the dead. Not publicly. I understand your grievances. I agree. But we must be united in beliefs. That is how we beat this threat. I don’t deny it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, but until this war is won, we have no choice. Civility is our way. Now, can you fix this?”

Tera nodded. Searching the workbenches, she pulled together a quick repair kit, including a clean cloth for the inquisitor to rest her hand. Mekanica could — and often would — be detached for service, but Bann made no effort to do so and Tera dared not ask. Her nerves bubbled in her stomach as she carefully unscrewed the protective layers and pried them off the inquisitor’s hand. The movement beneath was as fine as the casing.

Piece by piece, Tera took the hand apart, placing screws and pegs and various bits into small piles until no obstruction remained. Discussions of powering mekanica had been a debate Tera never really cared for. Simple prosthetics rarely had an internal power source, relying on pure mechanics to move, or not moving at all, but anything with complex movement required an arc core. Etherium for those with enough bar. Yet the inquisitor’s hand only gears, wires, and pulleys within its frame. No insulation. No core. Nothing.

“My prosthetist was a talented man. He could work wonders,” Bann explained, answering Tera’s unasked question.

Tera turned the inquisitor’s hand over, tracing the mechanics of the third finger. Despite the care taken with the rest of the hand, the wires were cheap and frayed, likely patched on the field. At one joint, the wire had snapped completely.

“It is well made,” Tera said.

“I must know, did anyone else survive the Eon Heart?”

Tera hoped the sinking feeling in her gut didn’t show on her face. She kept her eyes focused on the job before her. Under ordinary circumstances, mekanica repair was a delicate process and Tera was out of practice. Bann’s steady gaze didn’t help either. Tera strung new wires through the joints, though she took several tries to hook them in place.

“No,” she finally answered. “No one I knew well. I saw a few of the gunners at the hospital, but most of them are gone now. Reassigned or… they’re gone.”

“Hm. Disappointing.”

Tera let the silence linger in the air. “Are you looking for someone?”

“Yes. There was another engineer on your ship. A colonist. I believe they went by the name Mayer Dunn.”

Tera’s grip slipped on her screwdriver and it fell to the floor with a clang. Tera dropped after it, failing to catch the tool in the air, and dropping several screws as she tried. Bann did not move from her seat. She kept her hand on the cloth by the lamp and organized piles of parts. Her eyes never moved off Tera. Her face never changed.

Tera pulled herself back into her seat.

“You knew them, then?”

“I did. Why are you looking for Mayer?”

“You said the Eon Heart exploded due to engine failure, did you not? I know Mon Valis was a poor commander, we agree on that, but I cannot rule out sabotage. I think the captain’s leadership skills only make it more likely.”

“Mayer wouldn’t do that.”

“The Eon Heart was as much a symbol of the kingdom as it was a vessel. The surviving twin. A person of questionable character pushed to drastic action could see that as an opportunity.”

“Mayer wouldn’t do that,” Tera repeated. “They stayed with Gharos when the captain… when the ship exploded. I ran away but they didn’t. They didn’t make it.”

“If you’re so sure.”

Tera tightened the last screw and fit the porcelain plate back on the inquisitor’s hand. Bann flexed her fingers, testing each independent of the others. Satisfied, she pulled on her glove.

“Good work. I suspect I will return to Port Talen before long. I hope I can rely on you.”

“Of course.”

“The workshop is yours. I’ll arrange for a stipend and your official transfer.” Bann clasped the girl’s shoulders. “Welcome to the inquisition, Tera.”

“Thank you, Bann.”

The older woman paused by the workshop’s sliding door. “If there is anything I can do for you, do let me know. I am no Mon.”

Tera started to refuse, but a stray thought she couldn’t shake bubbled to the surface. “I haven’t heard from my father in a while. He is a rifleman out on the frontier. If you hear anything, would you let me know?”

“If he is on the frontier, you know it is unlikely he is still alive.”

“I do.”

The inquisitor accepted with only a slight nod before stepping out into the city.

Unable to contain her idle hands any longer, Tera set to work. Bann’s mekanica hand had been fascinating — inspirational — but the fix was otherwise boring. She took time to organize the scrap left in her workshop. Time to clean the dust from her tables. Time to draft plans. Morning light broke through the workshop windows before she even realized the sun had set.

She had designed mekanica before. A few times for Engineer Shen, but mostly as an exercise for her studies, and rarely prosthesis. Practical considerations gave way to art when materials were limitless.

The leg was functional, little more. Her design had no polished wood between the joints. No porcelain covers. She stripped one of the hanging chassis for parts, though the metal was ill-suited for prosthetics. Standard mekanica used a heavy alloy, not as sturdy as a ship’s hull, but too much for a limb. She carved grooves through it to lighten the design, like the fuller of a blade. There was only so much she could remove before she risked the structural integrity of the leg, but she took the opportunity to add a decorative flourish.

For the first time in months, Tera walked on her own two legs.

Word spread slowly through Port Talen, but she kept busy. She built prosthetics for the other survivors. She fixed the plumbing of the hospital. She found jobs left untouched by reconstruction efforts, jobs that did not pay, but vital to the health of the kingdom.

The first frost covered the ground before a ship engineer appeared at her door, looking for a new valve for a steam engine. From him, she met what passed for the Port Authority in the colonies. They commissioned three utility mekanica for loading and heavy lifting at the docks.

Tera nearly cried from happiness.

Assembling the mekanica took her through the end of winter. Engineer Shen taught her the basics of designing mekanica and the college refined her skills, but she learned little in the way of managing a workshop. Loading mekanica required sturdy frames made from strong metal. She had the tools to shape sheets as she needed, but only enough scrap for a single prototype. With shipments from the kingdom delayed and most of the colonial mines under rebel control, Tera struggled to source materials. The inquisition’s monthly bar couldn’t cover bids on new metal, but she found a junker in the shipyard willing to sell her salvage for a low price.

Piece by piece, she assembled the frames, spending more than a month on each, then two more weeks to fix their internals when one failed. Without sufficient insulation, she had to temper their arc cores. They failed to meet her designs. Not as elegant. Not as fast. But they worked.

By spring, she had orders for half a dozen more from neighboring farms and warehouses.

Tera hardly noticed the months pass. She expected the war to end quickly after the kingdom claimed Port Talen. Now it showed no signs of stopping. Supply lines by land and sea were disrupted by pirates and the remnants of the rebel navy. Soldiers shared stories of battles north and south and west. Yet the port remained quiet. The rebels never rallied. A few ships passed by the city near the end of her second summer, but they fled once they saw they were outgunned. Only the rising price of metal and her leg reminded her of the ongoing war.

Bann visited infrequently, always with a story. Alone every time. Her sincerity disarmed Tera, speaking earnestly her thoughts on the war and inquisition. She greeted Tera as an old friend which, by the war’s fifth year, perhaps they were. The inquisitor hardly changed: a few more streaks of grey in her hair, new scars, and patchwork fixes to her hand. Bann shared her adventures with Seros and Meera. Tera showed Bann her projects and designs, sure her details of the machine’s guts would bore the inquisitor, though Bann never said as much. The two would talk late into the night until Bann had to leave or Tera fell asleep at the table. Inevitably, the conversation always turned to the war and, inevitably, the same questions were always asked.

No news of Tera’s father from Bann.

No rumors of witchcraft from Tera.

Once Bann returned with only two fingers of her hand, the thumb twisted and bent back. The porcelain plate had shattered and Tera spent an hour picking pieces from the gears within.

“I’m not as fast as I used to be,” Bann admitted when pressed. She refused to elaborate.

Tera fell into a routine, though not a dull one, not to her. There were days she could forget the circumstances that brought her to the port. Days she spent so enraptured with her work, she didn’t realize night fell until the sun rose again. New orders rolled in with the seasons and maintenance kept her busy between. She repurposed her prototype — Cyan-2, named for the stripe on its chest — to assist with upkeep and moved a bed to the office upstairs. Exactly what she dreamed as a young girl in Bar Tannis.

The war forgot Tera.

She found a quiet life.

The war entered its sixth year when they arrived at her door. Tera awoke to the sound of them knocking. She shrugged the blanket Cyan-2 had draped over her shoulders and trudged to the door, sliding it open with a yawn. She expected Bann. They clearly were not. The two figures wore cloaks with the hoods pulled up to hide their faces. One watched the darkened street. The other stepped through the door as Tera opened it. She saw the gun and her heart rose to her throat.

Then she met their eyes.

“We need your help,” Mayer said. They pulled the other figure in and hurriedly shut the door behind them, “I’m sorry. There is no one else.”

“Tera?”

She froze at her name. Pushing past Mayer, the man pulled back his hood. The voice she hadn’t heard in years. The face brought tears to her eyes.

“Dad?”

#oof #this was technically ready like two weeks ago #but it was in such bad shape #now it's in like #okayish shape #it's good enough to post #this story has changed so much from the original plan #that the title probably isn't the best anymore #the titular witch is not as relevant as expected #also which character is the witch has changed #reduce reuse recycle but it's fiction

6 notes · View notes

tswiftdaily · 4 years

Link

In the 2010s, she went from country superstar to pop titan and broke records with chart-topping albums and blockbuster tours. Now Swift is using her industry clout to fight for artists’ rights and foster the musical community she wished she had coming up.

One evening in late-October, before she performed at a benefit concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Taylor Swift’s dressing room became -- as it often does -- an impromptu summit of music’s biggest names. Swift was there to take part in the American Cancer Society’s annual We Can Survive concert alongside Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Camila Cabello and others, and a few of the artists on the lineup came by to visit.

Eilish, along with her mother and her brother/collaborator, Finneas O’Connell, popped in to say hello -- the first time she and Swift had met. Later, Swift joined the exclusive club of people who have seen Marshmello without his signature helmet when the EDM star and his manager stopped by.

“Two dudes walked in -- I didn’t know which one was him,” recalls Swift a few weeks later, sitting on a lounge chair in the backyard of a private Beverly Hills residence following a photo shoot. Her momentary confusion turned into a pang of envy. “It’s really smart! Because he’s got a life, and he can get a house that doesn’t have to have a paparazzi-proof entrance.” She stops to adjust her gray sweatshirt dress and lets out a clipped laugh.

Swift, who will celebrate her 30th birthday on Dec. 13, has been impossibly famous for nearly half of her lifetime. She was 16 when she released her self-titled debut album in 2006, and 20 when her second album, Fearless, won the Grammy Award for album of the year in 2010, making her the youngest artist to ever receive the honor. As the decade comes to a close, Swift is one of the most accomplished musical acts of all time: 37.3 million albums sold, according to Nielsen Music; 95 entries on the Billboard Hot 100 (including five No. 1s); 23 Billboard Music Awards; 12 Country Music Association Awards; 10 Grammys; and five world tours.

She also finishes the decade in a totally different realm of the music world from where she started. Swift’s crossover from country to pop -- hinted at on 2012’s Red and fully embraced on 2014’s 1989 -- reflected a mainstream era in which genres were blended with little abandon, where artists with roots in country, folk and trap music could join forces without anyone raising eyebrows. (See: Swift’s top 20 hit “End Game,” from 2017’s reputation, which featured Ed Sheeran and Future.)

Swift’s new album, Lover, released in August, is both a warm break from the darkness of reputation -- which was created during a wave of negative press generated by Swift’s public clash with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian-West -- as well as an amalgam of all her stylistic explorations through the years, from dreamy synth-pop to hushed country. “The skies were opening up in my life,” says Swift of the album, which garnered three Grammy nominations, including song of the year for the title track.

She recorded Lover after the Reputation Stadium Tour broke the record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour late last year. In 2020, Swift will embark on Lover Fest, a run of stadium dates that will feature a hand-picked lineup of artists (as yet unannounced) and allow Swift more time off from the road. “This is a year where I have to be there for my family -- there’s a lot of question marks throughout the next year, so I wanted to make sure that I could go home,” says Swift, likely referencing her mother’s cancer diagnosis, which inspired the Lover heart-wrencher “Soon You’ll Get Better.”

Now, however, Swift finds herself in a different highly publicized dispute. This time it’s with Scott Borchetta, the head of her former label, Big Machine Records, and Scooter Braun, the manager-mogul whose Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine Label Group and its master recordings, which include Swift’s six pre-Lover albums, in June. Upon news of the sale, Swift wrote in a Tumblr post that it was her “worst case scenario,” accusing Braun of “bullying” her throughout her career due to his connections with West. She maintains today that she was never given the opportunity to buy her masters outright. (On Tumblr, she wrote that she was offered the chance to “earn” back the masters to one of her albums for each new album she turned in if she re-signed with Big Machine; Borchetta disputed this characterization, saying she had the opportunity to acquire her masters in exchange for re-signing with the label for a “length of time” -- 10 more years, according to screenshots of legal documents posted on the Big Machine website.)

Swift has said that she intends to rerecord her first six albums next year -- starting next November, when she says she’s contractually able to -- in order to regain control of her recordings. But the back-and-forth appears to be nowhere near over: Last month, Swift alleged that Borchetta and Braun were blocking her from performing her past hits at the American Music Awards or using them in an upcoming Netflix documentary -- claims Big Machine characterized as “false information” in a response that did not get into specifics. (Swift ultimately performed the medley she had planned.) In the weeks following this interview, Braun said he was open to “all possibilities” in finding a “resolution,” and Billboard sources say that includes negotiating a sale. Swift remains interested in buying her masters, though the price could be a sticking point, given her rerecording plans, the control she has over the licensing of her music for film and TV, and the market growth since Braun’s acquisition.

However it plays out, the battle over her masters is the latest in a series of moves that has turned Swift into something of an advocate for artists’ rights -- and made her a cause that everyone from Halsey to Elizabeth Warren has rallied behind. From 2014 to 2017, Swift withheld her catalog from Spotify to protest the streaming company’s compensation rates, saying in a 2014 interview, “There should be an inherent value placed on art. I didn’t see that happening, perception-wise, when I put my music on Spotify.” In 2015, ahead of the launch of Apple Music, Swift wrote an open letter criticizing Apple for its plan to not pay royalties during the three-month free trial it was set to offer listeners; the company announced a new policy within 24 hours. Most recently, when she signed a new global deal with Universal Music Group in 2018, Swift (who is now on Republic Records) said one of the conditions of her contract was that UMG share proceeds from any sale of its Spotify equity with its roster of artists -- and make them nonrecoupable against those artists’ earnings.

During a wide-ranging conversation, Billboard’s Woman of the Decade expresses hope that she can help make the lives of creators a little easier in the years to come -- and a belief that her behind-the-scenes strides will be as integral to her legacy as her biggest singles. “New artists and producers and writers need work, and they need to be likable and get booked in sessions, and they can’t make noise -- but if I can, then I’m going to,” promises Swift. This is where being impossibly famous can be a very good thing. “I know that it seems like I’m very loud about this,” she says, “but it’s because someone has to be.”

While watching some of your performances this year -- like Saturday Night Live and NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert -- I was struck by how focused you seemed, like there were no distractions getting in the way of what you were trying to say.

That’s a really wonderful way of looking at this phase of my life and my music. I’ve spent a lot of time recalibrating my life to make it feel manageable. Because there were some years there where I felt like I didn’t quite know what exactly to give people and what to hold back, what to share and what to protect. I think a lot of people go through that, especially in the last decade. I broke through pre-social media, and then there was this phase where social media felt fun and casual and quirky and safe. And then it got to the point where everyone has to evaluate their relationship with social media. So I decided that the best thing I have to offer people is my music. I’m not really here to influence their fashion or their social lives. That has bled through into the live part of what I do.

Meanwhile, you’ve found a way to interact with your fans in this very pure way -- on your Tumblr page.

Tumblr is the last place on the internet where I feel like I can still make a joke because it feels small, like a neighborhood rather than an entire continent. We can kid around -- they literally drag me. It’s fun. That’s a real comfort zone for me. And just like anything else, I need breaks from it sometimes. But when I do participate in that space, it’s always in a very inside-joke, friend vibe. Sometimes, when I open Twitter, I get so overwhelmed that I just immediately close it. I haven’t had Twitter on my phone in a while because I don’t like to have too much news. Like, I follow politics, and that’s it. But I don’t like to follow who has broken up with who, or who wore an interesting pair of shoes. There’s only so much bandwidth my brain can really have.

It’s sort of an amalgamation of all of it. People who aren’t active fans of your music, who like one song but love to hear who has been canceled on Twitter. I’ve had several upheavals of somehow not being what I should be. And this happens to women in music way more than men. That’s why I get so many phone calls from new artists out of the blue -- like, “Hey, I’m getting my first wave of bad press, I’m freaking out, can I talk to you?” And the answer is always yes! I’m talking about more than 20 people who have randomly reached out to me. I take it as a compliment because it means that they see what has happened over the course of my career, over and over again.

Did you have someone like that to reach out to?

Not really, because my career has existed in lots of different neighborhoods of music. I had so many mentors in country music. Faith Hill was wonderful. She would reach out to me and invite me over and take me on tour, and I knew that I could talk to her. Crossing over to pop is a completely different world. Country music is a real community, and in pop I didn’t see that community as much. Now there is a bit of one between the girls in pop -- we all have each other’s numbers and text each other -- but when I first started out in pop it was very much you versus you versus you. We didn’t have a network, which is weird because we can help each other through these moments when you just feel completely isolated.

Do you feel like those barriers are actively being broken down now?

God, I hope so. I also hope people can call it out, [like] if you see a Grammy prediction article, and it’s just two women’s faces next to each other and feels a bit gratuitous. No one’s going to start out being perfectly educated on the intricacies of gender politics. The key is that people are trying to learn, and that’s great. No one’s going to get it perfect, but, God, please try.

At this point, who is your sounding board, creatively and professionally?

From a creative standpoint, I’ve been writing alone a lot more. I’m good with being alone, with thinking alone. When I come up with a marketing idea for the Lover tour, the album launch, the merch, I’ll go right to my management company that I’ve put together. I think a team is the best way to be managed. Just from my experience, I don’t think that this overarching, one-person-handles-my-career thing was ever going to work for me. Because that person ends up kind of being me who comes up with most of the ideas, and then I have an amazing team that facilitates those ideas.

The behind-the-scenes work is different for every phase of my career that I’m in. Putting together the festival shows that we’re doing for Lover is completely different than putting together the Reputation Stadium Tour. Putting together the reputation launch was so different than putting together the 1989 launch. So we really do attack things case by case, where the creative first informs everything else.

You’ve spoken before about how meaningful the reputation tour’s success was. What did it represent?

That tour was something that I wanted to immortalize in the Netflix special that we did because the album was a story, but it almost was like a story that wasn’t fully realized until you saw it live. It was so cool to hear people leaving the show being like, “I understand it now. I fully get it now.” There are a lot of red herrings and bait-and-switches in the choices that I’ll make with albums, because I want people to go and explore the body of work. You can never express how you feel over the course of an album in a single, so why try?

That seems especially true of your last three albums or so.

“Shake It Off” is nothing like the rest of 1989. It’s almost like I feel so much pressure with a first single that I don’t want the first single to be something that makes you feel like you’ve figured out what I’ve made on the rest of the project. I still truly believe in albums, whatever form you consume them in -- if you want to stream them or buy them or listen to them on vinyl. And I don’t think that makes me a staunch purist. I think that that is a strong feeling throughout the music industry. We’re running really fast toward a singles industry, but you got to believe in something. I still believe that albums are important.

The music industry has become increasingly global during the past decade. Is reaching new markets something you think about?

Yeah, and I’m always trying to learn. I’m learning from everyone. I’m learning when I go see Bruce Springsteen or Madonna do a theater show. And I’m learning from new artists who are coming out right now, just seeing what they’re doing and thinking, “That’s really cool.” You need to keep your influences broad and wide-ranging, and my favorite people who make music have always done that. I got to work with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the Cats movie, and Andrew will walk through the door and be like, “I’ve just seen this amazing thing on TikTok!” And I’m like, “You are it! You are it!” Because you cannot look at what quote-unquote “the kids are doing” and roll your eyes. You have to learn.

Have you explored TikTok at all?

I only see them when they’re posted to Tumblr, but I love them! I think that they’re hilarious and amazing. Andrew says that they’ve made musicals cool again, because there’s a huge musical facet to TikTok. [He’s] like, “Any way we can do that is good.”

How do you see your involvement in the business side of your career progressing in the next decade? You seem like someone who could eventually start a label or be more hands-on with signing artists.

I do think about it every once in a while, but if I was going to do it, I would need to do it with all of my energy. I know how important that is, when you’ve got someone else’s career in your hands, and I know how it feels when someone isn’t generous.

You’ve served as an ambassador of sorts for artists, especially recently -- staring down streaming services over payouts, increasing public awareness about the terms of record deals.

We have a long way to go. I think that we’re working off of an antiquated contractual system. We’re galloping toward a new industry but not thinking about recalibrating financial structures and compensation rates, taking care of producers and writers.

We need to think about how we handle master recordings, because this isn’t it. When I stood up and talked about this, I saw a lot of fans saying, “Wait, the creators of this work do not own their work, ever?” I spent 10 years of my life trying rigorously to purchase my masters outright and was then denied that opportunity, and I just don’t want that to happen to another artist if I can help it. I want to at least raise my hand and say, “This is something that an artist should be able to earn back over the course of their deal -- not as a renegotiation ploy -- and something that artists should maybe have the first right of refusal to buy.” God, I would have paid so much for them! Anything to own my work that was an actual sale option, but it wasn’t given to me.

Thankfully, there’s power in writing your music. Every week, we get a dozen synch requests to use “Shake It Off” in some advertisement or “Blank Space” in some movie trailer, and we say no to every single one of them. And the reason I’m rerecording my music next year is because I do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies, I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it.

Do you know how long that rerecording process will take?

I don’t know! But it’s going to be fun, because it’ll feel like regaining a freedom and taking back what’s mine. When I created [these songs], I didn’t know what they would grow up to be. Going back in and knowing that it meant something to people is actually a really beautiful way to celebrate what the fans have done for my music.

Ten years ago, on the brink of the 2010s, you were about to turn 20. What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time?

Oh, God -- I wouldn’t give myself any advice. I would have done everything exactly the same way. Because even the really tough things I’ve gone through taught me things that I never would have learned any other way. I really appreciate my experience, the ups and downs. And maybe that seems ridiculously Zen, but … I’ve got my friends, who like me for the right reasons. I’ve got my family. I’ve got my boyfriend. I’ve got my fans. I’ve got my cats.

#taylor swift #interview #billboard #women in music #woman of the decade

451 notes · View notes

path-of-my-childhood · 4 years

Text

Billboard Woman of the Decade Taylor Swift: 'I Do Want My Music to Live On'

By: Jason Lipshutz for Billboard Magazine Date: December 14th issue

One evening in late October, before she performed at a benefit concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Taylor Swift’s dressing room became - as it often does - an impromptu summit of music’s biggest names. Swift was there to take part in the American Cancer Society’s annual We Can Survive concert alongside Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Camila Cabello and others, and a few of the artists on the lineup came by to visit.

Eilish, along with her mother and her brother/collaborator, Finneas O’Connell, popped in to say hello - the first time she and Swift had met. Later, Swift joined the exclusive club of people who have seen Marshmello without his signature helmet when the EDM star and his manager stopped by.

“Two dudes walked in - I didn’t know which one was him,” recalls Swift a few weeks later, sitting on a lounge chair in the backyard of a private Beverly Hills residence following a photo shoot. Her momentary confusion turned into a pang of envy. “It’s really smart! Because he’s got a life, and he can get a house that doesn’t have to have a paparazzi-proof entrance.” She stops to adjust her gray sweatshirt dress and lets out a clipped laugh.

She also finishes the decade in a totally different realm of the music world from where she started. Swift’s crossover from country to pop - hinted at on 2012’s Red and fully embraced on 2014’s 1989 - reflected a mainstream era in which genres were blended with little abandon, where artists with roots in country, folk and trap music could join forces without anyone raising eyebrows. (See: Swift’s top 20 hit “End Game,” from 2017’s reputation, which featured Ed Sheeran and Future.)

Swift’s new album, Lover, released in August, is both a warm break from the darkness of reputation - which was created during a wave of negative press generated by Swift’s public clash with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian-West - as well as an amalgam of all her stylistic explorations through the years, from dreamy synth-pop to hushed country. “The skies were opening up in my life,” says Swift of the album, which garnered three Grammy nominations, including song of the year for the title track.

She recorded Lover after the Reputation Stadium Tour broke the record for the highest-grossing U.S. tour late last year. In 2020, Swift will embark on Lover Fest, a run of stadium dates that will feature a hand-picked lineup of artists (as yet unannounced) and allow Swift more time off from the road. “This is a year where I have to be there for my family - there’s a lot of question marks throughout the next year, so I wanted to make sure that I could go home,” says Swift, likely referencing her mother’s cancer diagnosis, which inspired the Lover heart-wrencher “Soon You’ll Get Better.”

Now, however, Swift finds herself in a different highly publicized dispute. This time it’s with Scott Borchetta, the head of her former label, Big Machine Records, and Scooter Braun, the manager-mogul whose Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine Label Group and its master recordings, which include Swift’s six pre-Lover albums, in June. Upon news of the sale, Swift wrote in a Tumblr post that it was her “worst case scenario,” accusing Braun of “bullying” her throughout her career due to his connections with West. She maintains today that she was never given the opportunity to buy her masters outright. (On Tumblr, she wrote that she was offered the chance to “earn” back the masters to one of her albums for each new album she turned in if she re-signed with Big Machine; Borchetta disputed this characterization, saying she had the opportunity to acquire her masters in exchange for re-signing with the label for a “length of time” - 10 more years, according to screenshots of legal documents posted on the Big Machine website.)

Swift has said that she intends to rerecord her first six albums next year, starting next November, when she says she’s contractually able to - in order to regain control of her recordings. But the back-and-forth appears to be nowhere near over: Last month, Swift alleged that Borchetta and Braun were blocking her from performing her past hits at the American Music Awards or using them in an upcoming Netflix documentary - claims Big Machine characterized as “false information” in a response that did not get into specifics. (Swift ultimately performed the medley she had planned.) In the weeks following this interview, Braun said he was open to “all possibilities” in finding a “resolution,” and Billboard sources say that includes negotiating a sale. Swift remains interested in buying her masters, though the price could be a sticking point, given her rerecording plans, the control she has over the licensing of her music for film and TV, and the market growth since Braun’s acquisition.

However it plays out, the battle over her masters is the latest in a series of moves that has turned Swift into something of an advocate for artists’ rights, and made her a cause that everyone from Halsey to Elizabeth Warren has rallied behind. From 2014 to 2017, Swift withheld her catalog from Spotify to protest the streaming company’s compensation rates, saying in a 2014 interview, “There should be an inherent value placed on art. I didn’t see that happening, perception-wise, when I put my music on Spotify.” In 2015, ahead of the launch of Apple Music, Swift wrote an open letter criticizing Apple for its plan to not pay royalties during the three-month free trial it was set to offer listeners; the company announced a new policy within 24 hours. Most recently, when she signed a new global deal with Universal Music Group in 2018, Swift (who is now on Republic Records) said one of the conditions of her contract was that UMG share proceeds from any sale of its Spotify equity with its roster of artists - and make them non-recoupable against those artists’ earnings.

During a wide-ranging conversation, Billboard’s Woman of the Decade expresses hope that she can help make the lives of creators a little easier in the years to come - and a belief that her behind-the-scenes strides will be as integral to her legacy as her biggest singles. “New artists and producers and writers need work, and they need to be likable and get booked in sessions, and they can’t make noise - but if I can, then I’m going to,” promises Swift. This is where being impossibly famous can be a very good thing. “I know that it seems like I’m very loud about this,” she says, “but it’s because someone has to be.”

While watching some of your performances this year - like SNL and NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert - I was struck by how focused you seemed, like there were no distractions getting in the way of what you were trying to say. That’s a really wonderful way of looking at this phase of my life and my music. I’ve spent a lot of time re-calibrating my life to make it feel manageable. Because there were some years there where I felt like I didn’t quite know what exactly to give people and what to hold back, what to share and what to protect. I think a lot of people go through that, especially in the last decade. I broke through pre-social media, and then there was this phase where social media felt fun and casual and quirky and safe. And then it got to the point where everyone has to evaluate their relationship with social media. So I decided that the best thing I have to offer people is my music. I’m not really here to influence their fashion or their social lives. That has bled through into the live part of what I do.

Meanwhile, you’ve found a way to interact with your fans in this very pure way - on your Tumblr page. Tumblr is the last place on the internet where I feel like I can still make a joke because it feels small, like a neighborhood rather than an entire continent. We can kid around - they literally drag me. It’s fun. That’s a real comfort zone for me. And just like anything else, I need breaks from it sometimes. But when I do participate in that space, it’s always in a very inside-joke, friend vibe. Sometimes, when I open Twitter, I get so overwhelmed that I just immediately close it. I haven’t had Twitter on my phone in a while because I don’t like to have too much news. Like, I follow politics, and that’s it. But I don’t like to follow who has broken up with who, or who wore an interesting pair of shoes. There’s only so much bandwidth my brain can really have.

You’ve spoken in recent interviews about the general expectations you’ve faced, using phrases like “They’ve wanted to see this” and “They hated me for this.” Who is “they”? Is it social media or disparaging think pieces or... It’s sort of an amalgamation of all of it. People who aren’t active fans of your music, who like one song but love to hear who has been canceled on Twitter. I’ve had several upheavals of somehow not being what I should be. And this happens to women in music way more than men. That’s why I get so many phone calls from new artists out of the blue - like, “Hey, I’m getting my first wave of bad press, I’m freaking out, can I talk to you?” And the answer is always yes! I’m talking about more than 20 people who have randomly reached out to me. I take it as a compliment because it means that they see what has happened over the course of my career, over and over again.

Did you have someone like that to reach out to? Not really, because my career has existed in lots of different neighborhoods of music. I had so many mentors in country music. Faith Hill was wonderful. She would reach out to me and invite me over and take me on tour, and I knew that I could talk to her. Crossing over to pop is a completely different world. Country music is a real community, and in pop I didn’t see that community as much. Now there is a bit of one between the girls in pop - we all have each other’s numbers and text each other - but when I first started out in pop it was very much you versus you versus you. We didn’t have a network, which is weird because we can help each other through these moments when you just feel completely isolated.

Do you feel like those barriers are actively being broken down now? God, I hope so. I also hope people can call it out, [like] if you see a Grammy prediction article, and it’s just two women’s faces next to each other and feels a bit gratuitous. No one’s going to start out being perfectly educated on the intricacies of gender politics. The key is that people are trying to learn, and that’s great. No one’s going to get it perfect, but, God, please try.

At this point, who is your sounding board, creatively and professionally From a creative standpoint, I’ve been writing alone a lot more. I’m good with being alone, with thinking alone. When I come up with a marketing idea for the Lover tour, the album launch, the merch, I’ll go right to my management company that I’ve put together. I think a team is the best way to be managed. Just from my experience, I don’t think that this overarching, one-person-handles-my-career thing was ever going to work for me. Because that person ends up kind of being me who comes up with most of the ideas, and then I have an amazing team that facilitates those ideas. The behind-the-scenes work is different for every phase of my career that I’m in. Putting together the festival shows that we’re doing for Lover is completely different than putting together the Reputation Stadium Tour. Putting together the reputation launch was so different than putting together the 1989 launch. So we really do attack things case by case, where the creative first informs everything else.

You’ve spoken before about how meaningful the reputation tour’s success was. What did it represent? That tour was something that I wanted to immortalize in the Netflix special that we did because the album was a story, but it almost was like a story that wasn’t fully realized until you saw it live. It was so cool to hear people leaving the show being like, “I understand it now. I fully get it now.” There are a lot of red herrings and bait-and-switches in the choices that I’ll make with albums, because I want people to go and explore the body of work. You can never express how you feel over the course of an album in a single, so why try?

That seems especially true of your last three albums or so. “Shake It Off” is nothing like the rest of 1989. It’s almost like I feel so much pressure with a first single that I don’t want the first single to be something that makes you feel like you’ve figured out what I’ve made on the rest of the project. I still truly believe in albums, whatever form you consume them in - if you want to stream them or buy them or listen to them on vinyl. And I don’t think that makes me a staunch purist. I think that that is a strong feeling throughout the music industry. We’re running really fast toward a singles industry, but you got to believe in something. I still believe that albums are important.

The music industry has become increasingly global during the past decade. Is reaching new markets something you think about? Yeah, and I’m always trying to learn. I’m learning from everyone. I’m learning when I go see Bruce Springsteen or Madonna do a theater show. And I’m learning from new artists who are coming out right now, just seeing what they’re doing and thinking, “That’s really cool.” You need to keep your influences broad and wide-ranging, and my favorite people who make music have always done that. I got to work with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the Cats movie, and Andrew will walk through the door and be like, “I’ve just seen this amazing thing on TikTok!” And I’m like, “You are it! You are it!” Because you cannot look at what quote-unquote “the kids are doing” and roll your eyes. You have to learn.

Have you explored TikTok at all? I only see them when they’re posted to Tumblr, but I love them! I think that they’re hilarious and amazing. Andrew says that they’ve made musicals cool again, because there’s a huge musical facet to TikTok. [He’s] like, “Any way we can do that is good.”

How do you see your involvement in the business side of your career progressing in the next decade? You seem like someone who could eventually start a label or be more hands-on with signing artists. I do think about it every once in a while, but if I was going to do it, I would need to do it with all of my energy. I know how important that is, when you’ve got someone else’s career in your hands, and I know how it feels when someone isn’t generous.

You’ve served as an ambassador of sorts for artists, especially recently - staring down streaming services over payouts, increasing public awareness about the terms of record deals. We have a long way to go. I think that we’re working off of an antiquated contractual system. We’re galloping toward a new industry but not thinking about re-calibrating financial structures and compensation rates, taking care of producers and writers. We need to think about how we handle master recordings, because this isn’t it. When I stood up and talked about this, I saw a lot of fans saying, “Wait, the creators of this work do not own their work, ever?” I spent 10 years of my life trying rigorously to purchase my masters outright and was then denied that opportunity, and I just don’t want that to happen to another artist if I can help it. I want to at least raise my hand and say, “This is something that an artist should be able to earn back over the course of their deal - not as a renegotiation ploy - and something that artists should maybe have the first right of refusal to buy.” God, I would have paid so much for them! Anything to own my work that was an actual sale option, but it wasn’t given to me. Thankfully, there’s power in writing your music. Every week, we get a dozen synch requests to use “Shake It Off” in some advertisement or “Blank Space” in some movie trailer, and we say no to every single one of them. And the reason I’m rerecording my music next year is because I do want my music to live on. I do want it to be in movies, I do want it to be in commercials. But I only want that if I own it.

Do you know how long that rerecording process will take? I don’t know! But it’s going to be fun, because it’ll feel like regaining a freedom and taking back what’s mine. When I created [these songs], I didn’t know what they would grow up to be. Going back in and knowing that it meant something to people is actually a really beautiful way to celebrate what the fans have done for my music.

Ten years ago, on the brink of the 2010s, you were about to turn 20. What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time? Oh, God - I wouldn’t give myself any advice. I would have done everything exactly the same way. Because even the really tough things I’ve gone through taught me things that I never would have learned any other way. I really appreciate my experience, the ups and downs. And maybe that seems ridiculously Zen, but... I’ve got my friends, who like me for the right reasons. I’ve got my family. I’ve got my boyfriend. I’ve got my fans. I’ve got my cats.

Taylor Swift Discusses 'The Man' & 'It's Nice To Have a Friend' In Cover Story Outtakes

Billboard // by Jason Lipshutz // December 12th 2019

During her cover story interview for Billboard’s Women In Music issue, Taylor Swift discussed several aspects of her mega-selling seventh studio album Lover, including its creation after a personal “recalibrating” period, her stripped-down performances of its songs and her plans to showcase the full-length live with her Lover Fest shows next year. In two moments from the extended conversation that did not make the print story, Billboard’s Woman of the Decade also touched upon two of the album’s highlights, which double as a pair of the more interesting songs in her discography: “The Man” and “It’s Nice To Have A Friend.”

“The Man” imagines how Swift’s experience as a person, artist and figure within the music industry would have been different had she been a man, highlighting how much harder women have to work in order to succeed (“I’m so sick of running as fast as I can / Wondering if I’d get there quicker if I was a man,” she sings in the chorus). The song has become a fan favorite since the release of Lover, and Swift recently opened a career-spanning medley with the song at the 2019 American Music Awards.

When asked about “The Man,” Swift pointed out specific double standards that exist in everyday life and explained why she wanted to turn that frustration into a pop single. Read Swift’s full thoughts on “The Man” below:

“It was a song that I wrote from my personal experience, but also from a general experience that I’ve heard from women in all parts of our industry. And I think that, the more we can talk about it in a song like that, the better off we’ll be in a place to call it out when it’s happening. So many of these things are ingrained in even women, these perceptions, and it’s really about re-training your own brain to be less critical of women when we are not criticizing men for the same things. So many things that men do, you know, can be phoned-in that cannot be phoned-in for us. We have to really — God, we have to curate and cater everything, but we have to make it look like an accident. Because if we make a mistake, that’s our fault, but if we strategize so that we won’t make a mistake, we’re calculating.

“There is a bit of a damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don’t thing happening in music, and that’s why when I can, like, sit and talk and be like ‘Yeah, this sucks for me too,’ that feels good. When I go online and hear the stories of my fans talking about their experience in the working world, or even at school — the more we talk about it, the better off we’ll be. And I wanted to make it catchy for a reason — so that it would get stuck in people’s heads, [so] they would end up with a song about gender inequality stuck in their heads. And for me, that’s a good day.”

Meanwhile, the penultimate song on Lover, “It’s Nice To Have A Friend,” sounds unlike anything in Swift’s catalog thanks to its elliptical structure, lullaby-like tone and incorporation of steel drums and brass. When asked about the song, Swift talked about experimenting with her songwriting, as well as capturing a different angle of the emotional themes at the heart of Lover. Read Swift’s full thoughts on “It’s Nice To Have A Friend” below:

“It was fun to write a song that was just verses, because my whole body and soul wants to make a chorus — every time I sit down to write a song, I’m like, ‘Okay, chorus time, let’s get the chorus done.’ But with that song, it was more of like a poem, and a story and a vibe and a feeling of... I love metaphors that kind of have more than one meaning, and I think I loved the idea that, on an album called Lover, we all want love, we all want to find somebody to see our sights with and hear things with and experience things with.

“But at the end of the day we’ve been searching for that since we were kids! When you had a friend when you were nine years old, and that friend was all you talked about, and you wanted to have sleepovers and you wanted to walk down the street together and sit there drawing pictures together or be silent together, or be talking all night. We’re just looking for that, but endless sparks, as adults.”

Read the full Taylor Swift cover story here, and click here for more info on Billboard’s 2019 Women In Music event, during which Swift will be presented with the first-ever Woman of the Decade award.

[link to this tweet]

Was there ever a part of you that was like, “Oh shit, I like this darker vibe, let’s go even further down that path?” I really Loved Reputation because it felt like a rock opera, or a musical, doing it live. Doing that stadium show was so fun because it was so theatrical and so exciting to perform that, because it’s really cathartic! But I have to follow whatever direction my life is going in emotionally... The skies were opening up in my life. That’s what happened. But in a way that felt like a pink sky, a pink and purple sky, after a storm, and now it looks even more beautiful because it looked so stormy before. And that’s just like, I couldn't stop writing. I’ve never had an album with 18 songs on it before, and a lot of what I do is based on intuition. So, you know, I try not to overthink it. Who knows, there may be another dark album. I plan on doing lots of experimentation over the course of my career. Who knows? But it was a blast, I really loved it.

I mean, look, a Taylor Swift screamo album? I’ll be first in line. I’m so happy to hear that, because I think you might be the only one. Ha! I have a terrible scream. It’s obnoxious.

Why Taylor Swift's Lover Fest Will Be Her Next Big Step

Billboard // by Jason Lipshutz // December 11th 2019 - [Excerpt]

On why she chose to put together Lover fest: “I haven’t really done festivals in years - not since I was a teenager. That’s something that [the fans] don’t expect from me, so that’s why I wanted to do it. I want to challenge myself with new things and at the same time keep giving my fans something to connect to.”

300 notes · View notes

newstfionline · 3 years

Text

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

The winter storm (NYT) A sprawling storm dumped snow across much of the U.S., including areas that rarely get it. More than 6 inches fell on Austin, Texas—the most in 55 years. Millions of people are without electricity. The cold shattered longstanding records: Temperatures dropped to 17 degrees in Houston and to minus 38 degrees in Hibbing, Minn. At one point Monday, the Weather Service had winter storm warnings issued from Brownsville, Tex., along the U.S.-Mexico border to Caribou, Maine, a distance of more than 2,500 miles. Snow even accumulated on the beach in Galveston, a city where residents are far more accustomed to hurricanes than they are to wintry weather.

Millions endure record cold without power; at least 16 dead (AP) A winter storm that left millions without power in record-breaking cold weather claimed more lives Tuesday, including three people found dead after a tornado hit a seaside town in North Carolina and four family members who perished in a Houston-area house fire while using a fireplace to stay warm. The storm that overwhelmed power grids and immobilized the Southern Plains carried heavy snow and freezing rain into New England and the Deep South and left behind painfully low temperatures. Wind-chill warnings extended from Canada into Mexico. In all, at least 16 deaths were reported. The worst U.S. power outages were in Texas, affecting more than 4 million homes and businesses. More than 250,000 people also lost power across parts of Appalachia, and another quarter million were without electricity following an ice storm in northwest Oregon. Four million people lost power in Mexico. Utilities from Minnesota to Texas implemented rolling blackouts to ease the burden on power grids straining to meet the extreme demand for heat and electricity.

Pelosi says independent commission will examine Capitol riot (AP) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that Congress will establish an independent, Sept. 11-style commission to look into the deadly insurrection that took place at the U.S. Capitol. Pelosi said the commission will “investigate and report on the facts and causes relating to the January 6, 2021, domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex … and relating to the interference with the peaceful transfer of power.” In a letter to Democratic colleagues, Pelosi said the House will also put forth supplemental spending to boost security at the Capitol. An independent commission along the lines of the one that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks would probably require legislation to create. That would elevate the investigation a step higher, offering a definitive government-backed accounting of events. Still, such a panel would pose risks of sharpening partisan divisions or overshadowing President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda.

Ambassador sweepstakes underway as figures jockey for plum posts (Washington Post) Harry M. Reid’s phone has been ringing a lot lately, with calls from interest groups, friends and potential candidates themselves, all craving one thing: an ambassadorship. The former Senate majority leader then picks up the phone and dials Steve Ricchetti, one of President Biden’s top advisers, who for months has been fielding requests for plum positions. “There’s very few political jobs that bring the dignity of being an ambassador for the United States to a country. It’s a very prestigious position,” Reid said. But he suggested the would-be envoys shouldn’t hold their breath: “I think with the impeachment going on and trying to get the Cabinet filled, I think people should be understanding that things are more important than the ambassadorship right now with the president.” It is a sweepstakes that comes along every four or eight years—intense jockeying in public and private as the well-heeled and well-connected seek coveted positions that come with lavish housing, a staff of chefs and an expectation that the U.S. envoy will put the digs to use for parties. With its mix of famous figures and exotic locales, the competition always attracts interest. But it is under more scrutiny than usual this year as Biden stresses his desire to repair international relationships that frayed under Trump, with ambassadors likely to play a key role in that effort.

A third party (Gallup) Americans’ desire for a third party has ticked up since last fall and now sits at a high in Gallup’s trend. Sixty-two percent of U.S. adults say the “parties do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed,” an increase from 57% in September. Support for a third party has been elevated in recent years, including readings of 60% in 2013 and 2015 and 61% in 2017. Meanwhile, 33% of Americans believe the two major political parties are doing an adequate job representing the public, the smallest percentage expressing this view apart from the 26% reading in October 2013.

Kidnap capital Mexico eyes biometric phone registry, sparking privacy fears (Reuters) A plan by Mexican lawmakers to put millions of cell phone users’ data in a biometric registry, billed as a tool to fight kidnapping and extortion, has sparked a backlash from telecoms companies and rights groups who warn it could lead to stolen data and higher costs. Already approved in the lower house of Congress, the reform is in line with President Andres Lopez Obrador’s vow to counter crime using intelligence methods rather than force, but critics say it reveals the pitfalls of governments seeking to gather more citizen data for law enforcement purposes. Under the plan, America Movil, AT&T Inc and other carriers would be responsible for collecting customers’ data, including fingerprints or eye biometrics, to submit to a registry managed by Mexico’s telecoms regulator. But a telecoms industry group that counts some major companies as members warned in an open letter that the reform could increase phone theft as criminals look to get around the registry by stealing devices and could risk customers’ safety if personal data were misused.

As the virus crisis drags on, hard-hit French youth struggle (AP) On a recent evening, Leïla Ideddaim waited to receive a bag of food, along with hundreds of other French young people who are unable to make ends meet. She saw the chitchat that accompanied the handout as a welcome byproduct, given her intense isolation during the pandemic. The 21-year-old student in hotel and restaurant management has seen her plans turned upside down by the virus crisis. With restaurants and tourist sites shuttered and France under a 6 p.m. curfew, her career prospects are uncertain. Odd jobs that were supposed to keep her going during her studies are hard to come by. “I’m in a fog,” said Ideddaim, who moved to Paris last year and is now struggling to meet both her basic needs and her emotional ones. The pandemic has devastated economies the world over, pushing vulnerable people deeper into poverty or tipping some into it for the first time. In France, the economic fallout has weighed particularly heavily on young people—and their woes have only been compounded by disruptions to their studies and social interactions. Nearly a quarter of French young people can’t find work—two-and-a-half times the national unemployment rate and one of the highest in the European Union’s 27 nations. Many university students now rely on food aid and several organizations have rallied to meet the need.

Separatists grow majority in Catalonia despite Socialist win (AP) The pro-union Socialist Party claimed a narrow win in regional elections in Catalonia late Sunday, but the bloc of parties supporting secession by Spain’s northeastern corner widened their control of the regional parliament. The outcome confirms that pro-separatist sentiment has not waned despite the collective suffering of the COVID-19 pandemic and a frustrated secession bid in October 2017 that left several of its members in prison. Four years on, the wealthy region that has its own language spoken alongside Spanish remains divided down the middle by the secession question. However, it was not clear if the separatist parties would be able to overcome the in-fighting that has plagued their bloc since the dream of an easy breakaway from Spain proved elusive.

Moscow residents get the snow they longed for (Washington Post) The snow started falling late Thursday in Moscow, sticking to car windshields and hiding walking paths. By the time it was over on Sunday, parked cars were buried under heaps of snow. The weekend’s wintery blast was noteworthy even for the Russian capital. A year ago, as Moscow experienced its warmest winter in nearly 200 years of record keeping, Russians longed for the white covering that often makes January and February’s dark days appear brighter. This wallop caused more than 100 flights to be delayed or canceled as some residents traversed downtown in skis.

India arrests student activist (Foreign Policy) New Delhi police have arrested a 22-year-old activist for sedition after she shared and made edits to a document—a Google doc—shared by climate activist Greta Thunberg when she expressed her support for India’s farmer protests. The document provided background on the protests as well as providing advice on nonviolent actions to support the farmers. “The Indian state must be standing on very shaky foundations if Disha Ravi, a 22-year-old student of Mount Carmel college and a climate activist, has become a threat to the nation,” said P. Chidambaram of the opposition Indian National Congress.

India’s dramatic fall in virus cases leaves experts stumped (AP) When the coronavirus pandemic took hold in India, there were fears it would sink the fragile health system of the world’s second-most populous country. Infections climbed dramatically for months and at one point India looked like it might overtake the United States as the country with the highest case toll. But infections began to plummet in September, and now the country is reporting about 11,000 new cases a day, compared to a peak of nearly 100,000, leaving experts perplexed. India, like other countries, misses many infections, and there are questions about how it’s counting virus deaths. But the strain on the country’s hospitals has also declined in recent weeks, a further indication the virus’s spread is slowing. When recorded cases crossed 9 million in November, official figures showed nearly 90% of all critical care beds with ventilators in New Delhi were full. On Thursday, 16% of these beds were occupied.

Myanmar military guarantees new election; protesters block train services (Reuters) Myanmar’s military junta guaranteed on Tuesday that it would hold an election and hand over power, denied its ouster of an elected government was a coup or that its leaders were detained, and accused protesters of violence and intimidation. The junta’s defence of its Feb. 1 seizure of power and arrest of government leader Aug San Suu Kyi and others came as protesters again took to the streets and as China dismissed rumours spreading on social media that it had helped with the coup. As well as the demonstrations in towns and cities across the ethnically diverse country, a civil disobedience movement has brought strikes that are crippling many functions of government. The unrest has revived memories of bloody outbreaks of opposition to almost half a century of direct army rule that ended in 2011 when the military began a process of withdrawing from politics.

Defying Biden administration, Egypt again arrests relatives of Egyptian American activist (Washington Post) Egyptian security forces raided the homes of six relatives of an outspoken Egyptian American activist, arresting and imprisoning two cousins in defiance of calls by the Biden administration for the Egyptian government to improve its human rights record, rights advocates said Tuesday. The targeting of the relatives of Mohamed Soltan, a human rights defender based in Northern Virginia, marks the latest attempt by the government of President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi to silence its critics living abroad, according to political opponents of the former military chief. Sunday’s arrests came roughly three months after five of Soltan’s relatives were released from prison, days after Joe Biden won the presidency. They had been forcibly taken from their homes in June after Soltan filed a lawsuit in the United States against former Egyptian prime minister Hazem el-Beblawi for his role in inflicting torture on Soltan when he was imprisoned in Egypt. Biden highlighted the case during the presidential election campaign, tweeting that torturing Egyptian activists and “threatening their families is unacceptable.” He also warned of “no more blank checks for Trump’s ‘favorite dictator,’” referring to Sissi by a term that Trump once used for him. By going after Soltan’s relatives again, as well as the relatives of other foreign-based critics in recent days, the Sissi government appears to be challenging the Biden administration and its efforts to make human rights a foreign policy priority once again for the United States, activists and analysts said.

Zuma Risks Arrest After Defying South Africa Corruption Inquiry (NYT) Jacob Zuma, the former president of South Africa whose nearly decade-long tenure was tainted by breathtaking corruption scandals, refused to appear before an inquiry panel Monday, raising the possibility that he would be imprisoned for contempt. The panel’s leader, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, said he was seeking an order from the Constitutional Court, the country’s highest court, that would “impose a term of imprisonment on Mr. Zuma.” Justice Zondo’s move catapulted the simmering theme of corruption during Mr. Zuma’s term, which lasted from 2009 to 2018, into a tense showdown over the accountability of the former president. His successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, has promised to purge the governing African National Congress of endemic problems of bribery and graft that have severely damaged its credibility in South Africa, one of the continent’s most important economic powerhouses. Mr. Zuma, 78, had been set to appear before the inquiry panel, the Commission on State Capture, starting Monday for a week of testimony about his role in the corruption. The former president sent a letter from his lawyers instead, arguing that he was not legally bound to appear.

#headlines #news

3 notes · View notes

izaswritings · 4 years

Text

Title: Faults of the Mind

Synopsis: Having escaped the perils of the Dark Kingdom, Rapunzel finally returns home—but all is not well in the Kingdom of Corona, and the black rocks are quickly becoming the least of her troubles. Meanwhile, over a thousand miles away, Varian struggles with new powers and his own conscience.

The labyrinth has fallen into rubble. A great evil stirs in the world beyond. The Dark Kingdom may be behind them, but the true journey is just beginning—and neither Rapunzel nor Varian can survive it on their own.

Warnings for: cursing, threats of harm, aftermath of trauma, references to past blood and death, and references to past character injuries.

AO3 version is here.

Arc I: Labyrinths of the Heart can be found here!

Previous chapters are here.

Chapter V: The Answer

The lovely Moon, however, did not agree.

For three mornings and nights, the Sun lingered at the edges of the sky, hoping desperately to see the woman once again. But Moon was not there, hidden away with the shadows, and each day Sun left the horizon a little dimmer, a little more heartbroken. Still, she did not give up hope. Her heart, forever filled with light, rallied against her despair.

And on the other side of the great sea, concealed in darkness like a cloak, the Moon hid still, not wanting to be found. For the Moon was a secret being, often reclusive, and dancing was as dear to her as her own heart. That she had been seen embarrassed her terribly. That she had been seen dancing by a beautiful stranger, who had looked upon her with such awe…

And though the Moon thought she should simply run away, and hide from this stranger forevermore, something bid her to stay. Maybe it was the honest wish in Sun’s eyes, visible even from a distance. Or the lingering warmth of Sun’s smile, before Moon panicked and ran.

Perhaps it was the memory of her song.

And so the Sun continued her fruitless search, and deep in the shadows, unable to pull away, the Moon too slowly began to fall…

For the first time in months, Varian wakes with the sun.

Light streams through the guest-room window, falling bright and clear across his face. Beyond the frosted glass, the early morning sky blushes pink and new, clear and cold but for a few distant swaths of cloud. Though the wind rattles at the panes, it’s locked up tight, and the room is warm and cozy. When Varian rises to press his hand against the window, it is icy, and his touch leaves a faint imprint behind, the heat of his palm melting through to the frost.

It’s… peaceful.

Varian wonders at that thought, turns it over in his head again and again, examining it at all angles like a shiny new toy. He feels—not great, technically. His eyes are hot and gummy from lack of sleep, and his cheek still aches with a faint bruise, and his body is sore from the market… and yet. There is a stillness to it all. A sort of softness. Not like something has settled, but as if, for a moment, it has hushed.

He’d cried last night. Like a child, Varian thinks, with some secret curl of shame. When Yasmin had returned to the bathroom Varian had been hunched over Ruddiger, almost hiccupping from the sheer amount of tears. It hadn’t been all her fault—hadn’t been sparked entirely from her words, or her questions. Part of the breakdown had simply been from everything. In that moment in the middle of the night, it had all finally struck him, and sunk in.

Yasmin had said nothing upon seeing him. She had pushed him no further. The rest of that midnight makeover had gone almost mind-bogglingly mundane. After the haircut and impromptu lecture on proper nail care, as well as a long-overdue bath, she’d sent him off back to bed without any more comments about Corona or the attacks or anything. And when Varian had returned to the room, tired and reluctant and secretly terrified he’d open the door and see Adira sitting there… he’d entered to find her cot untouched and the room empty.

He’s not sure when he passed out—sometime around three in the morning, maybe—but now he is awake again, facing the day, and there is something lighter in his chest. Maybe it was the exhaustion, or the bath, or the drowsiness that comes from crying all the conflict right out of you, but for once, Varian’s sleep had been completely and utterly dreamless.

He exhales hard, watching his breath fog on the glass. His eyes are still sore from crying, and he rubs at them preemptively, sucking in a deep breath. With the dawn all his fears feel lighter, farther away. His head isn’t as fogged.

Day two, start, he thinks to himself. Gods.

Varian turns back to his cot, and sits to give Ruddiger a good head scratch, and then finally sets about getting dressed. He waits for Ruddiger to find his usual perch on Varian’s shoulders, then snatches up the yet-unfinished nightlight—hollow crystal and unpoured glowing solution—and heads down to the kitchen.

Ella is already there, cooking breakfast, and she looks up with a smile when she sees him. “Just in time,” she says, and goes to hand him a plate full of cooked eggs and fresh-cut ham, still sizzling slightly from the pan. She pauses when she sees the crystal in his hands. “Oh?”

“Um… Yasmin said you had something to seal it…?”

“Ah, the nightlight! Yes, she mentioned it.” Ella holds out her hand. “I can do that right now. Watch the eggs?”

Varian hands it over, biting back any fretting—the nightlight solution is already mixed and glowing, no extra steps necessary, she can pour the damn thing without issues, he’s just being silly—and hesitantly takes the spoon she offers him. Bacon and eggs. Shouldn’t be too difficult, right? Surely he’s gotten better at cooking since two years ago, when Dad banned him from the stove.

Ella returns five minutes later to three burned eggs and extremely crispy bacon, and Varian standing bright red in front of it all.

“So,” Varian says. “Bacon, um, bacon does not cook better with 300 degrees—trying to concentrate the heat was a bad idea—it does, uh, cook faster though, but. Um. Sorry.”

Ella is badly trying to hide a smile behind her hand. “…I’ll salvage it,” she says, muffled laughter in her voice, and hands him the sealed crystal. “Go, go, eat.”

Varian settles down at the table, still red in the face, and distracts himself by turning the finished nightlight over in his hands. Ella has put a lovely silver clasp on top, sealing it shut, with a little loop so he can hook it on a necklace chain or on his belt. The nightlight itself has a soft pale pink shine, warm and comforting, and it radiates quiet warmth in Varian’s hand, the crystal comfortable in the curve of his palm.

Varian eats his breakfast slowly, rolling the crystal absently against the table and keeping one eye on the stairs. He hasn’t seen Adira at all yet, not since yesterday, and he’s not really sure if he can face Yasmin yet, either.

It’s not that he’s avoided thinking about what Yasmin said to him yesterday, Varian tells himself. That question of forgiveness and redemption. It’s just… he doesn’t really want to think about it right now.

(He doesn’t really have an answer.)

Still. For all his watchful wariness, he jumps when he sees Yasmin stomping downstairs, and goes absolutely still when she marches up to him.

“Awake at last, are you,” Yasmin says critically, and eyes him up and down. “Well, I see the night has done you well—and you are clean at last, with a nice haircut to boot, if I do say so myself. Fantastic.” She claps her hands. “Come along. I have one last thing for you, and then I must be off. Chop chop.”

Varian hurries to his feet, ruefully thinking on how this is already becoming a habit. He’s only been here for two days, come on. “Wait, where are you going?”

“The city, obviously—with luck, the authorities should know much more by now, and I hate to miss on information. Now, hurry up!”

He follows her upstairs, wondering, but this time instead of her bedroom Yasmin shoves her way in a smaller side room squeezed in at the end of the hall, thus far unexplored. Varian peaks his head around the doorframe, interested despite himself. It’s a small, cluttered room, devoid of proper furniture, with only the bare frame of a bed stripped of sheets and mattress, and boxes piled up underneath. Yasmin is kneeling by the bed, and as Varian watches she picks out one chest and drags it out with a grunt of effort.

“Must be something useful still in here,” she’s muttering, pawing through the chest. “Hmph, too fancy, too old, too big… ah-ha.”

Varian likes to think himself adaptable, but even he has to take a moment to blink at the… thing Yasmin is holding up to him. “Uh… what is this?”

“New clothes. Obviously.” Yasmin stretches the shirt out, tilting her head critically. “You are nearly exactly the size Devdan used to be at your age. Yes, this will work. I will barely have to tailor these at all.” She tosses the shirt at him; Varian fumbles to catch it. She turns back to the chest. “Hmm, let’s see…”

“I don’t need new clothes,” Varian protests, half-hearted. He looks down at the shirt. It’s soft in his hands, off-white with a high collar and stiff sleeves. It looks… fancy. “And who’s Devdan?”

“I suppose you could call Devdan my nephew. Unofficially speaking. The son of a dear friend of mine. They stayed here, for a time, much as you are doing now.” Yasmin holds up a vest, now, and squints at it in the light. “Does not matter, you are not meeting him, he is in Arendelle with his father and none of your concern.” She eyes Varian up and down, gaze lingering on his threadbare hems, and sighs. “And you most definitely need new clothes. Those do not fit you at all.”

Varian picks at the hem of his shirt, unable to argue with that. His shirt, his pants… even his boots are all either cheap hand-me-downs or whatever he and Adira could find on the road, and none fit him properly, or even really keep him warm. Still. “I want to keep the coat.”

Yasmin gives the coat in question a stink eye. Varian shoves his hands in the pockets, offended on its behalf. “It’s a great coat!” he insists. “Heavy trench coat! Lots of pockets! It looks awesome!” If it were made of stronger stuff it would even be perfect for alchemy, like his old one was, but as it is this coat works just fine. He likes the pockets, the way the sleeves pool over his hands; it’s something he can hide in, and there’s a comfort in that.

“It is practically eating you,” Yasmin says, scornfully.

“I—I’ll grow into it!”

Yasmin’s whole face scrunches up at that, doubtful, but at last she shakes her head. “Fine, whatever, they are your bad fashion choices.” She shakes out the vest she is holding. “But I am getting you at least one nice outfit before you go, boy, so help me gods.”

Varian rolls his eyes.

The morning passes quickly after that. Varian tries on three pairs of boots and finds two that are both sturdier and better fit than his current ones, and Yasmin hands them off immediately, waving off Varian’s protests like smoke in the air. “I am being paid for this,” she snaps, at last, when Varian’s hesitance apparently gets too annoying. “I would have bought you new clothes entirely if not for the damn pirate attack; be grateful I have now been limited to hand-me-downs only. Honestly!”

Another few minutes of hemming and hawing over clothes later, at last she and Varian come to an agreement. Yasmin takes up the new outfit with the promise to have the clothes tailored and ready for wear by the time he leaves, and then pushes him out of the room without fanfare.

“That’s that,” she says, when Varian stares at her blankly. “The last of what I needed to do with you. The rest of the days are yours. Have fun, or whatever you angsty teenagers like doing these days.”

Varian splutters. “Angsty—?”

And all too soon, Yasmin is gone again, out the front door and into the unknown without any set time to return. With nothing more to do and the rest of his stay looming over him, Varian stands at the cusp on the staircase and hesitates for a long while. He’s been left here again, in the house with only Ella and Adira—who he has still not seen—for company.

He thinks he should probably find Adira. He thinks he should probably say something to her. Varian thinks very hard on this. He brings a hand to his bruised cheek—now molted green and pale yellow in the daylight—and in the end he goes to sit outside, back out on the front porch, watching the waving grasses and the wind play around the garden.

It’s not running away, Varian tells himself. He draws his knees up to his chest, inhaling the crisp morning air. It’s not running away if he has nothing to run from. He doesn’t even know where Adira is, right now, so there’s no real way this is running from her. Really.

He buries his head in his hands and groans. Oh, who is he fooling? He… he doesn’t want to see her.

She’s never hit him before.

He’s not entirely sure what to do about it—what to think about it. Nothing about that moment seems quite right to him. He’d panicked and summoned the rocks, all utterly without thinking, and then Adira had… but at the same time, he thinks, she hadn’t seemed angry. He’s pissed her off before; he’s broken down and yelled and been a brat, and the most she has ever done is snap back at him. So this—this wasn’t anger, he thinks. But in a way that is almost worse. Anger Varian can understand. But—fear?

He doesn’t know how to imagine Adira afraid. Something in him recoils at the very idea. Adira can’t be afraid. She can’t be. She’s too—confident, boastful, annoying—she’s too strong. She can’t have been afraid. Because if she was… if she hit him out of fear, of either Varian or the rocks… if Adira was afraid…

From the moment he met her, all those months ago at the edges of the Dark Kingdom, Varian had always thought Adira knew what she was doing. For all that she bothered him, angered him, infuriated him—he could trust in that. Adira would know what to do. She may not tell him what that was, but she still knew it. But now… now he isn’t so sure. Now, with yesterday in mind, everything comes into sudden focus.

What if, Varian thinks. What if Adira is just as lost as he is?

What if she doesn’t have the answers?

That terrifies him most of all. Before, the question was how to get her to give him the answers. Now it is a question of whether there is an answer at all—and he hates that. He hates that. He doesn’t even want to think about it, and at that thought his fingers tighten on his sleeve, and Varian buries his face in his arms.

Adira was right, he realizes, sudden, cold. I really do just run away.

Not just from her. Not even just from Corona. He’s running from everything else, too. The Moon—the rocks. Varian is still trying to run away from it all. The Moon is stronger than him. The rocks are stronger than him. The pirates, definitely. It’s all so much, all so big, and Varian is just one person. Fifteen years old, nearly sixteen, and yet in these past few months he has felt so small.

He doesn’t have that surety, anymore. That old, fanatic confidence in what was right and wrong and what had to be done. He doesn’t even have alchemy, or his gloves. And worst of all—

What will you do if you can’t be forgiven?

(The mirror, bright and silver, and every time he sees a flash of himself in the reflection his eyes turn away. We all have to face the mirror at some point, Yasmin had said, and she is right— but it is easier, still, to look away. To pretend he isn’t there. To pretend that person staring back isn’t him.)

Worst of all, Varian thinks, is that he doesn’t know what he’ll do. If—if he goes back, and apologizes, and is hated anyways. He’d like to be—better. He doesn’t want to be the person he used to be. But can Varian even trust himself anymore? How does he know what the right thing is? He’d thought he’d known before, and look where that had gotten him. He’d hurt people. He’d been… cruel.

And at the time? Varian had wanted to be that person. Varian had liked it.

What is to stop him, he thinks to himself, cold all the way to his bones—what’s going to stop him from becoming that person again?

Maybe this is why he’s running. Maybe this is why Varian can’t face Corona, or the rocks, or the Moon. Maybe it’s because he knows, deep down, that this dream of redemption is probably never going to last.

Maybe. Maybe. The very idea makes his throat go tight, his eyes burn. Varian presses his hands against his eyes, breathing deep. Ah, stupid. So stupid. This is what happens when he thinks about stuff—this is what happens when he stops running from his thoughts. Stupid, stupid, stupid…

“Something wrong, Moony?”

The thought ends, his mind abruptly blank. Varian flinches, going stiff, and snaps his head back to stare. His breath catches. Adira. She’s standing in the front door, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, looking down at him. Her head tilted in question. He—he hadn’t even heard her come up—but he’s been so out of it lately, that’s probably no surprise.

It doesn’t matter. She’s here. She’s… here. She’s here, and she’s waiting for an answer.

His mouth goes dry. His cheek throbs with a fresh ache of pain, and Varian fumbles for his words, struggling to wrench his mind back to conscious thought. “U-um, I…”

Nothing. The words die off.

Varian presses his lips in a thin line, and looks away, staring hard at the ground. The silence stretches.

Adira sighs, so soft he almost misses it. Her feet thunk heavy on the porch steps; she sits down beside him, gingerly, and Varian would flinch, except—she’s not next to him. Not really. She sits a few feet away, and the distance makes it easier.

Varian peeks out at her from the corner of his eye, trying not to move his head. He thinks he should probably say something, but his mind is abruptly free of thoughts, and anything he can think to say… isn’t very kind.

Adira isn’t looking at him either. She sits with her elbows propped on her knees, staring grim at the horizon line, her gaze distant and seemingly lost in thought. Blue breaks bright across the morning sky; sunrise is almost blinding. Even now Varian’s every breath mists like he’s breathing fire and smoke, but the sun shines so bright that he can feel the touch of warmth, beating through even the chill.

She doesn’t speak. The silence settles. Varian watches Adira and Adira watches the horizon, and slowly but surely, Varian relaxes. He rubs his shirt hem between his fingers and then settles Ruddiger more firmly on his lap, hugging the raccoon to his chest, and finally looks away, not quite willing to turn his back to her but feeling at ease enough to turn his gaze.

“Well?”

Varian jumps. His head snaps around to stare. His shoulders hunch. “What?”

Adira snorts. “I wasn’t just asking to start the conversation, Moony. You seem like you’re…” She eyes him, up and down, and shakes her head. “Spiraling,” she decides.

“I was thinking.”

“Hm. Well, don’t do that, then.”

“Don’t think?” He wants to be scandalized; bizarrely, instead, he has to bite back a laugh. It’s just so ridiculous—even when trying to fall asleep, Varian’s mind has always run at a million miles per hour.

“Don’t mope on whatever is making you look like someone stabbed your cat,” Adira corrects.

“I don’t own a cat.”

“Gods.”

“No, but I don’t—”

“Varian.”

He shuts up, turning away. He has to bite back a tiny smile.

“And now you’re feeling well enough to mess with me,” Adira mutters, but she sounds more bemused than truly annoyed.

“I don’t feel well at all, actually.” His voice is light, airy. Varian ruffles his fingers through Ruddiger’s fur. “I couldn’t sleep. I cried all last night.” He scrunches Ruddiger’s face between his hands, scratching under the racoon’s chin. “And my face really, really hurts.”

Silence.

There is a long pause. Adira shifts. “Ah. I deserved that, I suppose.”

“Mm-hm.”

“… I didn’t come out here just to bother you.” Varian squints at her. Adira raises a judgmental eyebrow back. “No, I didn’t. Honestly.” She shakes her head, the words trailing off, and there is another long, awkward pause before she finally speaks again.

“I came out here to apologize.”

Varian goes motionless, caught off-guard. He eyes her, sideways, and his lips press thin. This is uncharted territory, and he isn’t sure if he likes it. “…What?”

Adira’s eyes drift away, fixing back on the horizon. She shrugs. “You heard me,” she returns, mild. She leans back, stretching out her legs, her elbows propped up against the porch steps. Her expression is resigned. “But I’ll say it again, if you need to hear it twice.”

Varian watches her. Adira sighs, then turns and looks him square in the eye. “I’m sorry, Varian,” she says. Her voice is strong, each word intent. “For yesterday. I shouldn’t have hit you.”

Varian looks away first, unsettled. He’s not sure what to think of this—not sure what to make of the ease of it all. She says it so plainly. Like it’s easy. It makes something small and petty deep inside him go tight with a weird kind of envy.

But all he says is: “You hit me all the time in training.”

“That’s different,” Adira says, simply. “And you know that.”

It is, and he does, but he’d still wanted to hear her say it. Varian draws up his knees, resting his chin against his legs. His cheek aches. He feels suddenly very tired. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, almost mumbling the words. He stares out at the rising dawn. “Not really.”

Adira’s voice is firm. “It matters.”

“I was summoning the rocks. If you hadn’t—”

“There were better ways to handle that.” This time, it is Adira who falters. For a moment she almost seems to stumble, fumbling for the words, and the sight is so bizarre—so unlike her—that Varian can’t help but stare. Adira looks away. “I—I will admit that I… panicked. Forgot myself. Whatever.” Her voice hardens, frustration turned inward. “It’s no excuse. It should never have happened, but it did, and I’m sorry.”

Varian turns back to Ruddiger, curling fingers into soft fur. Ruddiger noses at his palm. “I thought you were too great to make mistakes,” he says, only slightly sarcastic, and he can hear Adira roll her eyes.

“Moony, half the reason I’m so great is that on the very rare occasions I make a mistake, I own up to it. The other half is that, yes, I rarely make mistakes.” She clears her throat. “And… that was one. So.”

“Uh-huh.” Typical Adira. But still— the note of her usual confidence makes him relax. Thank gods. She hasn’t gone completely weird, then.

But then… that does, in hindsight, make her apology uncomfortably genuine. Varian rubs at his hands, feeling something like cold, and tries to forget the look on Adira’s face when she’d hit him. The way she’d looked right through him. “…What does that mean, anyway? Forgot yourself?”

Adira says nothing for a long moment. Varian kicks at the dirt, his chest tight. Typical, he thinks, but this time the thought has no fondness.

“…It’s a long story,” Adira says, at last. She sounds tired. Varian’s head snaps up. “And not a happy one.”

“I don’t really care.” He watches her, intent. “I, I want—” He bites his lip, mentally backtracking. “If you’re really sorry… then tell me. I want to know why.”

“Still manipulative, I see,” Adira says, dryly, and she seems almost resigned. “But… fair enough.” She tilts back her head, watching the sky, and takes a deep breath.

“I have—experience. With the black rocks. What they are… and what they can do, when out of control.” She sighs, heavy, for once sounding almost weary. “You remember the labyrinth? The Dark Kingdom?”

He has never forgotten it. Not even when he really wants to. “…Yes.”

Adira nods. She links her hands. “I grew up there,” she says, simply. “I lived there. I swore to protect it with my life.” She tilts back her head. “And then I watched it fall.”

She waits. Varian says nothing. Adira shrugs, and looks back to the skyline. “As I said. I… panicked. For all of my many, many talents… I am… not good at this.” Her mouth twists like she’s bitten into a lemon. “But again. That’s no excuse.”

Varian pulls up his knees, wrapping his arms around them. Ruddiger scampers up his back, settling warm on his shoulders, but for once the comfort is muted. Varian links his fingers to keep from rubbing at his torn ear, and sighs into his arms. The anger has faded in him, turned ashy and dull, drifting away like smoke. She told him. He asked, and she gave him an answer. He rests his head in his arms.

“It doesn’t really hurt,” Varian announces, at last, to his elbows.

“Hm.”

“Seeing the rocks hurt more.”

“…Varian—”

“But it did hurt, a little,” Varian says, and finally lifts his head. “So. Thanks. For the apology, I guess.”

“…Of course.” Adira shifts, looking uncomfortable. “I… I meant it.”

Yeah. He thinks she really did. Varian nods, and Adira looks away, and this time when the silence returns, it feels a little lighter than before.

Varian stares out into the fields, watching distantly as the grasses bend and break to the breeze. The sunlight is starting to warm the crown of his head, near-uncomfortable. He feels—calmer, now. Like a peace has fallen over his thoughts, a tension unraveled from his shoulders. He looks back to the horizon, the burning blue sky, and wonders which way Corona is from here.

“Are you…” He trails off, hesitating, then tries again. “After you leave here, are you—going to Corona?”

Adira stills. “…Yes.”

Varian ducks his head in a nod, studying his fingers. He remembers the mirror, from yesterday. He remembers staring into his own face, and crying, not even really sure why. He remembers Adira smacking his chest with the staff, pushing him back, her voice like a snap.

This is your problem! You run away!

Is he running away? Maybe. Probably. Yes. But is he right to?

If the pirates really will attack Corona… then shouldn’t Varian be running to Corona? Shouldn’t he want to help?

…He doesn’t know.

And more than that. More than anything else.

Does Varian want to go back?

(He thinks about it. He thinks about all of it. The people of Old Corona, who walked away and left him alone; the King, who lied, who was responsible for the rocks in the first place. He thinks about Cassandra, who gave him a chance and hated him when it all went wrong; thinks about Eugene, smile gone, anger in his voice. Find someone else to lie to you! He thinks about Rapunzel—Rapunzel, who turned him away in the snow; Rapunzel who—who stood tall, and strong, and unwavering between him and death.

Cassandra, who gave him a chance— who wanted things to get better. Eugene, who sat Varian down and told him the truth long before Varian ever wanted to admit it. And he thinks about Rapunzel, who cried in that cave and for a moment must have hated him as much as he hated her, who still held him when he broke down and who offered him her hand in that awful, lonely tower.

Will you come with me?

He thinks about it.)

Varian closes his eyes. He swallows. I’ll go with you, he thinks. How easy those words should be. How simple it should be to say them. And yet.

And yet.

The wind howls. The grasses bend. Adira sighs and stands, and her hand comes down on his shoulder, squeezes not gentle but firm, strangely comforting even so. His cheek burns. He doesn’t flinch.

“You still have time to think on it,” Adira says, quietly. “If not Corona, then Port Caul… or anywhere you’d want to go. Yasmin won’t let you stay here, but she’ll make sure you’re settled, wherever you choose to go. There are other options. Corona isn’t the only road to take.”

Adira pauses. Her hand tightens. “But Moony?”

He doesn’t move.

“Sooner or later, you really are going to have to choose.”

His head lowers. Varian doesn’t answer. And Adira’s voice drops, bitter with something he cannot name, something almost like regret. “You can’t outrun anything forever.”

He wonders what she ran from. He wonders when it caught her.

He doesn’t ask.

Adira walks back inside without another word, and Varian stays there—sitting on the porch, knees to his chest, watching the sun rise and the horizon burn, thinking of home.

As rain sleets the darkened streets, Cassandra shivers in the cold and draws her coat closer.

Corona at midnight is a picture of silent beauty, even in the midst of a storm—lit by a soft lantern glow and utterly silent but for the distant whisper of the waves and the wail of the wind through the spiraling streets. But Cassandra is in no mood to appreciate the sights—the sky above is dark and clouded, pouring rain, and the winds are sharp with a lingering winter bite. The mist makes her hair frizz, and even in her warmest coat, she can’t quite defeat the chill starting to nip at her fingers. She smacks her hands together and grits her teeth, and gives her companion an icy glare.

“So,” she says, “mind explaining to me why exactly you called me out here at the coldest goddamn time of the day?”

“Personally, I thought you were immune to the cold…” Leaning against a darkened storefront, Eugene gives her a smile that is almost a smirk, humor bright in his face. “Ice queen! Don’t tell me! Could it be your cold heart is thawing?”

She glares at him, because it is raining and she’s cold and he’s the one who called her out here in the first place, with a rambling letter full of nothing. He’d underlined must tell in person three times, and then written TOP SECRET in the largest letters possible, and for all that Cassandra had rolled her eyes she’s here anyway—and now what, he’s mocking her?

She puts a hand to her sword, and lifts a brow. “I will cut you.”

“Hm. Guess not, then.”

“Eugene.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He straightens up, yawning into his arm. “Don’t get all in a twist; this isn’t fun for me, either. Gods, if only spring could come faster…” He trails off with a sigh. “Look, I’m sorry about all this, but this kind of information—” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t trust it to a letter.”

Cassandra stiffens, clenching her teeth at a sudden flare of heat in her gut. “You—found something?” Bitterness is a sharp bite on her tongue, weighing in her chest. Her thoughts twist and turn. Already. He’s already found something. It’s not just Rapunzel. All of them—in this twisted game they’ve found themselves in, Rapunzel and Eugene are stumbling upon all the answers, while Cassandra…

Her fists clench. Useless. She swallows it back. “What did you find?”

“Well.” Eugene runs a hand down his face. “Lance and I… we got a lead sooner than I thought.” He pauses. Exhales a shuddering, shaky breath. “It’s, um… not good.”

Cassandra watches him. Waits. The rains drums behind them, swept into a downpour by the wind. It pounds at the ground like a hail of arrows.

“You know what Blondie told us about? The people trying to back Corona in a deal?” Eugene meets her eyes. “Well. Have you ever heard of the Baron?”

Cassandra stares at him. The Baron. The biggest crime lord on the continent, with enough power and prestige to have a known name and a whip-tight false legal business. Everyone knows he works shady, but no one can prove it, and it’s made him one of the most dangerous enemies of Corona for that reason: enough power and cruelty to do whatever he likes, and clever enough to escape the law as he does it.

The Baron. Blackmailing Corona. Oh, god. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Unfortunately, no.” Eugene holds out a slip of torn paper, and Cassandra takes it, eyes scanning over the words. “This was written by his daughter, Stalyan. And if she’s a part of this, then he is most definitely involved.”

“…This just says Vardaros. How do you—”

“I’m… familiar with her handwriting.” Cassandra stills. “And Lance found a dagger with his crest in a drawer. We’re sure. Like, 99.99 percent sure, but if you doubt the .01 percent—”

“Why are you familiar with her handwriting?” Cassandra straightens. “Wait, how do you even know his crest? If we could identify his shipments from the get-go, the guards would have…”

Eugene winces. “…Oh.”

“Eugene—”

“Well, okay, first off, his crest is a golden spider against a red background, so jot that down. And, uh, I… Lance and I, I should say, we have… experience with—the Baron. Past experience.”

She narrows her eyes.

“Fine fine fine, I was set to marry his daughter, okay!?”

Um. What? “Stalyan?”

“Yes! But I freaked, I left her at the altar, and man oh man, I do not regret it, that family is… anyway, that doesn’t matter. Just, trust me when I say they are definitely involved, okay?”

Usually, such a story would make Cassandra roll her eyes, pinch the bridge of her nose and groan. Of course Eugene was set to marry the Baron’s daughter; of course she is involved in this whole tangled mess of political calamity. Why not? But something about the whole situation grates on her.

Barely two weeks out of the castle, and he’s already—!

The whispers are growing. She feels cold. The distant light of the streetlamps almost seems to flicker, and the rain hums like a song, a mutter of helpless disappointment.

Why does everything go easy for him?

Something in her snaps. “Why didn’t you bring this up sooner?” Cassandra snarls, and steps in close, one hand reaching out to fist in his shirt. She drags him forward. She just barely remembers to keep her voice low, hidden by the downpour. “Why didn’t you say—”

“Excuse me?” Eugene looks startled. He puts a hand over her wrist, his grip tight, trying to pry her off. “What are you— gods, Cass, it wasn’t important!”

Her hands seize up. “Of course it was—!”

“No, it wasn’t!” Eugene looks thrown, caught somewhere between hurt and anger. His hand tightens on her wrist; he twists her off, but doesn’t follow through with the move, prying her hand away from his collar and then holding it up, almost in warning. “It was a long time ago. And it was my business. My past. Stalyan was important in my life, sure, but that was both five years ago and also now not my life. I wanted to move on. So yeah! I didn’t mention it!”

He hesitates, then lets go, stepping back out of range. Cassandra watches him, eyes narrow. Eugene crosses his arms. “Look,” he says, a little quieter. “I get it, okay? I’m sorry for not bringing it up sooner. But it wasn’t important then. It is now, and I realize that, and I’m telling you. Get off my case.”

“I—”

“Seriously, what’s with you today?” He shakes his head, looking her up and down, something like concern furrowing his brow. “Are you… doing okay?”

“Excuse me!?”

“Well, you don’t usually bite my head off at the drop of a hat,” Eugene says, almost wry. He frowns. “And you look… uh. Hey, no, seriously, is everything okay?”

Cassandra’s hands curl, but something in his words strikes home. He seems genuinely concerned, and she turns her face away, shame a sudden spark in her gut. What is she doing? He’s—he’s right. She’s being unfair. He seems as out-of-breath and soaked as she is freezing, which means he must have rushed here as soon as he got the news. Without a coat, even.

He’s right. But that still doesn’t stop the sudden lock in her throat, or the sharp twist of jealousy in her chest, bitter as poison. How can it be that in all this time, she’s found nothing, whereas he and Rapunzel so intimately and effortlessly stumble across the answers? How can she possibly hope to protect them—to stand against the next labyrinth—if she can’t even help them with this?

It’s like they are leaving her behind, like being left in the dark, and the whisper rises again, beating in the back of her mind like a mantra. It’s not fair. It’s not fair.

But that’s no excuse. It’s not Eugene’s fault that Cassandra is useless—she shouldn’t have taken it out on him. He of all people… he’d stood outside that labyrinth too. He’d understand.

“Cass…?”

Her jaw clenches. She turns her face away. Yes, she thinks. Eugene of all people would understand. She could tell him. She thinks, after all this time, all they’ve been through—he might even listen.

But her throat locks up. The whisper curls. He was useless then, but he isn’t now, is he? He’ll just pity you.

And—and just like that, she can’t say it.

“No,” Cassandra says. She shakes her head, taking a deep breath, and meets his eyes again. “No. I’m fine. And—I’m sorry. That was out of line.”

Eugene looks hesitant. “Look, if you need to talk…”

“I’m fine.” She takes another breath. “Just… just tired. Night shifts are hell on earth. And lately, the dungeons have been… bothersome. Everyone’s been fighting, and it’s just… ugh.” It’s not even entirely a lie. Just last week, two prisoners had almost murdered one another for near no reason at all. Strangest of all was that they were usually pretty friendly with one another. Prisons are typically high-temper places, but lately… Cassandra doesn’t know. It’s just exhausting, whatever it is.

“Well, that’s no surprise.” But the joke seems weak, almost lackluster. He’s still watching her. Damn it, he’s not letting this go.

Cassandra fishes for a distraction—and finds it. “Hey,” she says. “This Stalyan thing. Have you told Raps yet?”

Bingo. Eugene looks away. Cassandra crosses her arms. “Eugene.”

“I was hoping you could,” he says, weakly, giving her a hopeful sort of smile. It’s the same smile he uses to con people. Cassandra lifts a brow, unimpressed. “There’s still some stuff I need to check out. Weird jobs floating around, an island to stake out… I can’t come back just yet. But soon.”

Cassandra sighs, suddenly tired. “You should tell her.”

“Cass—”

“Look, I know it’s really the least of our issues, but Raps… really cares about you.” Cassandra looks away, the words heavy. “If you and Stalyan have this complicated past, then she’d like to hear about this from you. Personally. Especially on the off chance we actually meet this lady.”

Eugene slumps. “I know,” he says, sounding tired. “But I’m not sure, if I go to the castle, if I’ll… be able to walk out as easily as I did the first time. Or worse, on the other hand— if I get banned for good…”

Cassandra looks away. She can’t argue with that. Who knows what the King is doing? Rapunzel is holding her silence, and they’re both getting caught in the middle of it. The chains chafe. “That said. I’m not exactly in a good position to talk to her, either.” She isn’t really sure if she wants to, right now, but she keeps quiet on that. It’s not—she doesn’t blame Rapunzel. She doesn’t. She’s just… she just needs some space. From both of them, apparently, given how this conversation is going.

Cassandra comes to a decision. “Write a letter, then. That’s a bit easier, isn’t it? And in that way, it’d still be from you.” She meets his eyes. “She needs to hear this from you, Eugene.”

Eugene looks away first, shuffling on his feet. He pushes a hand back through his hair, still dripping from rainwater. His smile is rueful. “Going for the throat with that guilt-trip, huh.”

“If it works, it works.” Cassandra smirks, for a moment truly holding back laughter. “You should have expected this, anyway. I always go for the throat.”

“Oooh, guard joke.” Eugene rolls his eyes, then sighs again, leaning back against the wall. “I hope we don’t meet Stalyan. Really, I do. She isn’t exactly known for… reasonable action. Or moral rules.” His head drops. He looks tired. “But… you’re right. I should tell her. Uh. Wait a minute for me to write it?”

“It’s not like I have anywhere better to be,” Cassandra says, and she rolls her eyes as she says it, even as the words make something pit in her gut.

Eugene just grins. “Hah, good point. Okay.” He hesitates—and then, awkwardly but sincerely, claps a hand on her shoulder. “But… I mean it. Thanks, Cass. And if you need anything…”

“I know.” Cassandra manages a smile, almost fond. “I got it.”

It’s a happy moment—something warm despite the midnight hour, something bright despite the pouring rain. A moment with a friend. She should be happy. She should enjoy this. She should take comfort in the fact that for all she isn’t contributing, she’s as much a part of this team as before.

And yet. And still.

Her throat is tight. Her eyes fall to the ground. Useless, the wind seems to whisper. The rain drums on in the back of her mind. Always useless. Do you really think you can protect them like this?

Can you protect them at all?

And by her side, unnoticed, her hands curl into fists.

Despite Varian’s disdain for it, he has heard tales of magic all his life.

Before alchemy, before logic, before the wonders of science convinced him magic was misconception and the truth lay only in the beakers, Varian was a young child enchanted. Every night, once the sun went down, his dad used to sit him down on the house steps and talk, quietly, of fairytales. Of magic and heroes and long-ago adventures, of daring and clever trickery. But the stories his father had loved most of all, the tales his father told quiet and hushed like a secret—were the stories of radiant Sun and her devoted, lovely Moon.

The tales had never really appealed to Varian, even then. The romance bored him, the magic made him frown, and the happy ending made him sigh. Where was the excitement? The swords? The great battles? But at this his father’s face would crease, would pull into a frown and a faraway gaze, and Varian soon stopped asking.

Of course, he knows better now. Most of Corona—most of the continent—knows not the tale of romance but a tale of mortal enemies, Sun and Moon fighting to the death over the fate of humanity, enemies from the very start. Why Varian’s dad knew and told a different story is a question that, even now, Varian has more guesses than actual answers for—but it doesn’t really matter. That’s not the point.

Days after his talk with Adira, with the sun just set and Varian alone back in the guest-room, he paces back and forth across the cluttered floor and thinks. He is alone in the room but for Ruddiger, whose little head follows Varian back and forth across the floor; Adira is downstairs with Yasmin and Ella, discussing Port Caul. It’s a conversation he’s not keen on hearing about, and so he is here—thinking. Weighing his options.

Varian thinks about Corona, about Rapunzel; he thinks about the labyrinth and the ruins of the kingdom buried beneath it, the symbol on the wall and on his father’s hidden helmet; his dad, dead in the amber. And he thinks about stories. He pivots before he hits the wall, ponytail swinging by his face, and thinks about magic, about legends, and how much Dad’s midnight tales could get wrong.

Magic, he thinks. Magic. He’s never liked it. Can, unfortunately, no longer deny it. It’s the lingering warmth in his chest from his Sundrop reversed almost-death, the icy cold pain in his hand from taking the Moondrop opal. It’s here, it’s part of him now—and it is, also, the rocks.

The rocks, which are now Varian’s. The rocks, which he can’t control.

He grits his teeth, thinking hard, pivoting again before he hits the wall. His fingers itch for chalk—he wants to write—but also, he’s pretty sure Yasmin would murder him in his sleep if he wrote on her walls, so that’s a no-go. Unfortunately.

In contrast to the last few days’ unending trauma conga line, the last few days in Yasmin’s home have been almost dull. After his talk with Adira, that morning of the second day, nothing more of note happens. To make matters worse, this also happens to be the last night. Tomorrow, Adira leaves for Corona. This is it—his last chance. There is nothing more to do. Nothing he can do. Except think, and pace, and wonder.

He has to make a choice.

Varian isn’t sure what choice that is, yet; where he’s going to end up is one, and Corona is most definitely the other, but somehow that doesn’t feel like enough. It’s more than Corona, somehow, and that’s where the problem lies—it’s a choice about the rocks, and Moon, and Adira, and redemption. It’s a choice about mirrors. It’s a question of where he’s going to go next, and all the alchemy in the world can’t help Varian here, as much as he hates to admit it.

It’s a choice about magic.

Because Varian knows: the rocks aren’t going away. He knows this better than anyone. He tried to run; they got him anyway. And if the disaster in Port Caul and the mishap in the gardens was any clue, then the rocks are here to stay.

He squeezes his eyes shut at the reminder, and mid-pivot his hand seizes with a sharp stab of icy pain. Varian stops, winces, and grips his wrist. The Moondrop power, again. It’s always ached more in the nighttime hours, but these last two nights it’s been near-unbearable.

He exhales a harsh breath, looking down at his hand, stretching out pale fingers. There’s nothing there. No mark to prove he ever took the Moondrop in his hand. Except for the missing half of his ear, there is very little to prove he even went on that journey with Rapunzel and the others; of his trial in the labyrinth, there’s nothing at all. Some days, bizarrely, he wonders if maybe he dreamed the whole nightmarish scenario up, those endless days of torture nothing more than a fever dream.

He almost wishes it was a dream. But he knows better.

And he’s been running from that too, Varian realizes then, with a sudden flash of exhaustion. The labyrinth. That awful, nightmare place. The place where he broke. The place where…

(Rapunzel’s offered hand, bandaged and bloody. Her pale smile. The distant glow behind her eyes, and her quiet plea. Will you come with me?

And this, too. Varian, who rose to his feet and took her hand.)

He closes his eyes, breathing deep, and turns away to sit on the cot. His hands are shaking, now—both of them. Not from power, or the cold. Just from the memory. Ruddiger curls up by his side, crooning comfort, but Varian can hardly feel it.

A glint of light catches his eyes, sudden illumination. He lifts his head. There’s a break in the night-time cloud cover, and with the passing of shadow the moon seems brighter than ever. Varian looks at it for a long time, hands lowering in sudden thought.

If he needs to start somewhere… why not start with the source? The cause of his fears, of this panic. The rocks, at the root of everything. The rocks—which he has no control over. And he needs control, Varian realizes suddenly. He needs control, or the next time things go wrong because of the rocks, it really will be entirely his fault.

And more than that—he is afraid to sleep. Not just because of nightmares, now, but because of the Moon herself… and he hates that. Fearing his own dreams was fine, but being afraid of someone else’s? No. He’s sick of her games, her twisted dreams; he’ll stick to his nightmares, thanks. But… he has to sleep sometime. He has to dream sometime. If he’s going to have to face her eventually, then why not on his terms? His way?

The thought is… really, really tempting.

Still—for a moment, Varian is utterly frozen. His next exhale is shaky and thin. Oh, gods. Oh no. He isn’t really thinking of doing it, is he?

He lifts his head. His eyes catch on the window—on his reflection. Wide eyes. Pale face. Clenched fists.

…Oh, gods, he’s really thinking of doing it.

No, no, no. Varian takes a deep breath. He’s not going to panic. He’s not. Adira is right. So is Yasmin. He can't run away anymore. If nothing else, he thinks, remembering the rocks, Old Corona, his dad— he has to try.

His fingers clench, tight fists, and he uncurls them slowly, watching the crescent imprints of his nails fade away. He looks back at his reflection. He takes a breath. Then another. Something burns in his chest—the echo of Sundrop fire, searing away the cold touch of death.

“Moon.”

One heartbeat. Two. His hand stings. His eyes, in the reflection, are a blue so bright it seems almost unnatural.

“Are you there?”

The inside of the house is warm. The candlelight soft and golden. But for a moment his hand aches with an icy chill, and something like a shiver crawls down his spine. The air is weighted. All at once, it is so much harder to breathe.

How interesting.

In the window, his reflection wavers. Tired blue eyes and a grim expression, replaced now by a cruel grin.

Calling upon me so soon, little boy?

Fear seals Varian silent. He has to fight to think. His chest feels numbed, disconnected. He can’t believe she really… she really came. She’s here. He’s forgotten how she felt— her presence like a physical weight; power so strong and malevolent it seems to twist the very air.

He forces the words through numb lips. “I…” He clears his throat. His terms. This is on his terms. He called, and she answered. The thought steadies him. “I—I have some questions.”

Moon barely blinks, but her thoughtful hum distorts the air like static. So demanding. I never promised you answers.

The whispering taunt strikes at something deep within, lost beneath the fear. Varian’s lips curl back, and his hands grip tight at the cot covers. “Tough,” he snaps, before he can think better of it. “I’m going to ask anyway.”

The reflection shimmers. He gets the impression, suddenly, of a person right behind him—the grin bearing down at the back of his head. An icy hand grips his shoulder, fingers curling like claws into his collarbone. White hair, glowing soft as starlight, drifts by his head. This time, Moon’s voice rings clear and cold in his ears. Such rudeness. Such anger. Have you no thanks for your savior?

“Savior?” She is so close it is abruptly hard to breathe, and the walls feel closed in all at once, the labyrinth re-created. Even the window cannot banish the sense of darkness, closing in. Still—his hands clench. The outrage grounds him. “You ruined my life!”

Oh no, child. I’m afraid you did that all on your own. I just came in the aftermath. She circles him, ghostly afterimages fizzing in her wake, like a skip in time. The labyrinth was months ago for you, honestly. Don’t tell me you’re still upset?

Varian grits his teeth. His hand fists in his shirt. He forgets, in this moment, to be afraid.

“You—” he splutters, cold with fury. “Of course I’m upset! You tried to kill me—you practically did kill me! You hurt Rapunzel! You trapped us! You impaled me! And, and everything else—”

Aren’t you over it by now?

He snarls at her. “Are you?”

For the first time, her smile wavers. The Moon’s eyes narrow, and her lips thin, and she turns her head away.

Varian watches her, breathing shaky, and leans back, deliberately putting space between them. He breathes in, a longer inhale. He—he needs to calm down. It’s a bad idea to snap at an immortal goddess, no matter how awful she is. Probably a worse idea to sass her.

But still. The Moon gets to him. Everything she does—everything she is—the labyrinth, the rocks, Port Caul—!

No. No, Varian has to stay calm. He has to try. She’s here, as terrible as this is, and he can’t miss this chance for answers—for the truth. So long as it gets him what he needs, he can sit through almost anything.

When he opens his eyes again, the Moon is looking back at him. In the mix of shadows and moonlight she seems almost ethereal; her eyes glow like spotlights, her hair drifting as though underwater, coiling across her shoulders. Her smile, as ever, is fixed perfectly in place, but… there’s something grim in the expression, now. Something bared, and furious, and seething.

If you called me here just to whine to me, I feel it is important to express a warning. She leans in, and her smile widens; in the glint of moonlight he can see the serrated edges of her needle-like teeth. If you invoke my name in vain again, trial or not, you will not escape the experience in one piece. Her form wavers, beginning to fade. Learn some respect, child, or I will teach it to you.

Varian freezes. Her form is turning ghostly. Through her, in the window-reflection, he can see his eyes flicker back to blue.

“No, I—w-wait!”

Pressure bears down on him. Do not dare to—!

He wheezes, the air abruptly thin. “I didn’t—invoke—in vain or whatever, I—I just wanted to talk!”

A pause. The pressure eases, slightly.

…Talk.

“Y-yes.”

Are you fucking with me, boy?

“A-am I—?” His voice squeaks. Despite everything, he almost laughs. Somehow, he never imagined an immortal goddess knowing modern cuss words. “N-no, no, no. I—I’m not.” His hand seizes in pain; he winces and grips at it. “I really did… just want to talk.”

You have a very funny way of showing it.

He bows his head. He should let it go, he shouldn’t rise to her taunts, but—

But he doesn’t want to let it go.

“You locked me in a labyrinth with someone I—hated. At the time.” His voice is quiet. “You hunted me down, you, you almost killed me—did kill me… and the black rocks, your rocks, they… from the moment they entered my life, it’s all been one big downward spiral.”

Varian curls his fists in the covers. “So yeah. I won’t lie. I… I really, really hate you.”

Cold pricks at the back of his neck. He closes his eyes, willing himself not to flinch. He thinks of Adira, standing tall, staff pointed down—the first training lesson she ever gave him. It’s fine if you hate it, Moony, she’d said then. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from it.

And Yasmin, in the market, when he lashed out at her charity: I do not have to like you to do you a kindness.

He is not here to do Moon a kindness. He doesn’t want to help her. But Varian knows enough now to know that this power—the black rocks—aren’t going away. And Varian doesn’t know magic. He doesn’t know anything.

He doesn’t have to like the Moon, he thinks, to learn from her.

“But I don’t think you like me, either,” he continues, and lifts his head, offering a thin smile. Moon’s eyes narrow. “Just a guess. And that’s fine. Whatever your reason.” He meets her eyes, tired blue to unwavering white. “I just… figured if I couldn’t run, I may as well as try and ask you all my questions head-on.”

She doesn’t look convinced, still, her eyebrow lifted in an expression of great contempt, and Varian starts to panic. He lifts his chin, forcing confidence to hide his shaking hands, his mind casting back. The dreams, the dreams—gods, what had she said back then? He can hardly remember. Something about a game?

He chances it. “And you have to admit,” he says, chin up and eyes rolling, trying to force the old arrogance that once came easy to him, “whatever your plans, it’ll probably be way more fun if I actually know what you want me to do, right?”

Silence. The Moon’s eyes narrow further. Her smile is gone.

Varian refuses to look away. His mouth is dry. His throat is tight with the tension, the threat. He meets her gaze and holds it, and his palms are slick with sweat.

A long pause. And then, at last, the Moon shifts.

You are right that I do not like you. The flicker of a crescent smile. If I had my way, your corpse would be buried with my labyrinth… but the Sundrop challenged me to watch. To learn. To… see what I might have missed. I do think she’s delusional, and I cannot wait to be proven right, but… here I am.

For a moment Varian doesn’t understand what the hell she’s talking about—and then clarity strikes. Rapunzel’s comment to Moon in that other world, he realizes. Her declaration that there was no use in telling Moon why she’d saved Varian because the god would not understand. Had Moon—had Moon taken that comment as a challenge?

The idea is laughable. And yet—here she is. Here they are.

Moon reclines in the air, her attention distant, unfocused. And your boldness is amusing, I suppose. And your ignorance in these past few days has… already vexed me.

Her mouth works, as if feeling out the words. Her smile returns, pale, a bare of teeth. Oh, why not? Fine. Ask your questions. I cannot promise you answers… but I will at least hear you out.

Varian almost falls off the cot. He gapes at her. “Really? Are you serious?”

Ah, and now I find my patience waning…

He feels almost scandalized. “Is that a joke—”

Tick tock, child. The brief humor drops from Moon’s voice. Speak your mind or shut your mouth.

“I…” Varian trails off, taken off-guard. He swallows hard. He has so many questions, he has no idea where to even begin. What he wants to know most of all is about the rocks, but… best to start small, he thinks. “Why… why did you warn me about the pirates?”

Hmph. Isn’t it obvious?

“Um… no?”

Moon blinks. …Humans. So limited in their view of the world. She considers him, and tilts her head, gaze distant and thoughtful. Let us just say… in that human city, I sensed a danger too great for you to handle, and hoped to ward you off before I’d have to step in. She sighs then, heavily. As you can see, that worked out spectacularly.

“You… why?”

You think I like the idea of advising an annoying human whelp? The longer you stayed away from danger, the longer I could ignore you. I’d hoped to avoid this part for a while yet. But of course you didn’t listen. And now, here we are. Stuck with one another.

“That’s not my…!” No. No. Stay calm, Varian. He has to stay calm. “…Never mind.” He takes a breath, swallowing down the anger, and changes tracks. “But I don’t get it. Why the pirates? How did you even know they were there, or—or going to attack? It doesn’t make any—”

I could be in the middle of a burning desert at midday on the damn Summer Solstice, and I would still know the touch of that… foul magic. Her lip curls on the words. Her eyes slit, bright with hatred. Of course I sensed them.

“Magic?” Varian shakes his head. “What magic? They were—they were just pirates! Just human!”

Human? Certainly. But you are a fool if you think that it was all it was. Or do earthquakes usually strike a city right when a raid is underway? Such timing cannot possibly be coincidental. The Moon laughs. Dear, stupid child. You should have seen this coming. Why on earth do you think my labyrinth existed in the first place?

“I—” Varian blinks. Frowns. To test Rapunzel, to get what the Moon wanted, to prove Moon right about… something? About humanity? He’s not sure. He had only ever caught snippets. Because you’re a cruel, heartless person and you found it funny? But he can’t say that, she’d probably stab him again, and once was more than enough, thank-you-very-much. “…I don’t know.”

Typical. Well, I will tell you what I told the Sundrop. There is something coming, child. There is a rot that grows forever beneath the deep, and it lingers in this world like a curse, even in sleep. Her voice drops. But now, I fear… it sleeps no longer. It is here. It is coming. The rot’s reaching fingers have finally found our throats.

Her words are low, cold, serious with all the weight of an incantation. Varian stares at her. He doesn’t move. His breath shudders out of him. Realization washes over him, cold as ice. “The pirates,” he whispers. “Corona?”

I have no interest in the games of mortals, Moon remarks. For one, they are usually very boring. But recently, human politics have become… rather interesting. Unnaturally so. I have my suspicions. And I know what I felt, there in that city.

The meaning of her words finally sinks in. Varian looks down, his mind whirling. The attacks had terrified him. Corona at war had chilled him. But this makes something deep within him go small and tight with fear. This is more. This is like the labyrinth—a force more than science, or logic, or even magic. A force that Varian, slowly and reluctantly, is beginning to think of as fate.

“It’s aiming for Corona.”

The Sundrop’s own home? But of course it is. How better to draw her out? If I was not bound to my kingdom, to my Moondrop opal, I would have done the same.

He shakes his head, his mind spinning. “Wait, but—that doesn’t make sense—the labyrinth—”

I had more than my own reasons for the labyrinth. The personal benefits were just a bonus. Though. I admit, by the end, I perhaps got a bit… carried away. Her chin lifts. Fortunately, the situation is salvageable. I have my doubts the Sundrop is strong enough, yet, though she is certainly better suited for what's ahead after my labyrinth, but you…

She looks him up and down, doubtful, and her lip curls. Unfortunately for us both, my kingdom is gone, and so you are my only real conduit. For the moment, anyway. With luck, soon you will no longer be necessary, but for now… well. Do your best to not get speared anytime soon, boy. Replacing you would take more effort than I can spare.

Varian swallows, trying not to react. That—doesn’t sound good, though he can’t say he’s surprised to hear it. The Moon seems to need him, for now… but that probably won’t always be the case. If she made a place like the Dark Kingdom once, presumably she could do it again. Maybe. He thinks.

Ugh, magic.

Varian takes a breath, pushing the thoughts aside for later. Okay. All very interesting information, but… not what he needs, right now. He called for this conversation for a reason. “Okay,” he starts, careful, calm. He straightens his shoulders, and does his best to meet her eyes. “Actually, that was…something I was hoping you could help me with? The not-dying thing.”

Moon’s lip curls. She hooks her chin in her hand and regards him through narrowed eyes. Explain.

Well. Okay, then. “How do I… the, the black rocks.” He steadies himself. “How do I control them?”

A smile flickers across Moon’s face, sly and cruel. Your mishap yesterday. Hah, yes, I sensed that.

He doesn’t like the look of her smile. “…Right. H-how do I stop that from happening again?”

Moon considers him. Her smile widens. He can see the gleam of knife-like teeth, and then she leans back and stretches, laughing softly under her breath. Oh, who can say?

Varian’s eyes narrow. His fingers clench. He has to fight to keep his voice steady. “You, obviously.”

Moon is still smiling. Her eyes glow in the darkness. Don’t get smart with me, boy.

He grits his teeth. “I—”

Your distress over this silly power is amusing, and far more entertaining than your frankly dull nightmares. And I have been so bored… no, on this I don’t think I shall tell you. Have fun finding out.

Varian stares at her, breathless, feeling gutted. She won’t—? And then the rest of her words sink in, and his lips peel back in a snarl. Blood roars in his ears, and for a moment the whole world feels very still, cold and quiet. She is smiling. She is laughing at him. And suddenly Varian wants nothing more than to snap that smile right off her face. He wants to make her bleed.

“I was wondering something else,” Varian says, sweetly, the heat rushing through his head. His fingers strangle the cot covers. “Why do you look like that, by the by?” He gestures, casually, to his face. His hand is shaking. His teeth ache.

Moon’s smile drops at once. Her eyes go wide. Her lips peel back from her teeth. And Varian smiles where she does not, bright and poisonous and angry, and says, “I mean, I’ve already seen the scars!”

Pressure slams down on him. The air goes snap-cold, burning against his skin, and Varian just barely keeps from crying out. All at once, the Moon is no longer distant, no longer ghostly—she is here, she is right in front of him, so furious that the air warps around her very image. For a moment, that smooth façade drops. For a moment, he can see the scars in question—the great ruts that carve up her face and shatter her eye, the cracks crawling deep through her stone skin.

You— dare—!

Varian lifts his head with difficulty, struggling against the unyielding hand slowly crushing him to the ground. His smile has dropped, the sweet anger fallen, and now all he is is furious. “I hate you!” he cries, too incensed to be any more articulate than that. “I hate you! You and your stupid—tell me how to control the rocks!”

Moon’s voice shakes with a snarl. No.

“Tell me!” Varian shouts back. Something roars in his ears. Is it blood? The wind? Or most frightening of all—power? “Tell me how to stop this!”

The Moon leans close. Her smile is a bare of teeth. Her eyes are bright and vivid with rage.

FIGURE IT OUT YOURSELF.

Something shatters. Wind howls. For a split second, Varian is falling, dropping in free-fall—

His eyes snap open.

His throat catches on a scream, and he lurches half-way out of the cot before he realizes where he is. Yasmin’s house. The guest-room. His bed. The room is lit blue by the midnight; the air is cool, the candles all blown out.

Sweat plasters his bangs to his face. He feels feverish. The room is far too warm, but maybe that is because Varian himself feels as if he has slowly frozen solid. His heart beats unsteady and rapid in his chest. He has—he is—what?

Soft breaths. A warmth by his side. He looks down and reaches out, and—Ruddiger. Ruddiger?

Ruddiger is sleeping. Ruddiger is calm. He…. He’s not acting like either of them were ever in danger. Come to think—had he—had he been in the room at all, after Varian called the Moon’s name? He can’t remember.

It’s quiet. Dead silent. Varian looks across the room, and sees Adira in her cot, blankets pulled up, still in sleep. She hasn’t moved. No, wait—when had she come in? Wasn’t she meant to be talking with Yasmin?

Varian turns to the window, his hands shaking. The sky outside is clouded and dark—no moon to be seen past the clouds. And the person looking back at him from the reflection is… himself. Varian.

It’s just him.

Slowly, his panicked breaths ease. Varian settles against the pillow, his mind racing. A dream. It had just been a dream.

And yet—he remembers it perfectly. He lifts his arm—the Moondrop one, the one that always burns whenever magical fuckery is abound—and looks at the hand. His veins are dark and blue. There is frost on his fingers, slowly but surely melting away in the heat.

Ah. Not just a dream, then. That is… that is… gods, he should have guessed. Moon and dreams. Maybe that conversation was never on his terms after all. Typical.

His breathing has gone very shaky. Varian falls back against the pillow. He stares wide-eyed at the ceiling, letting it all sink in. Breathes in. Breathes out. Rewinds the whole conversation back in his head, all the information bombshells and that disastrous ending, and slowly covers his face with his hands.

“Oh,” Varian says, weakly. “Oh, fuck.”

Morning comes almost too soon.

Varian doesn’t really sleep that night. After his conversation with the Moon, his mind is running too quick for rest. The information—the Moon herself—all of it is just so much, and he spends the rest of the night half-way between passing out and staring at the ceiling, his mind spinning, caught somewhere between regret for lashing out and a petty sort of inner voice that insists he probably should have insulted her more, that secretive conniving jerk. Watching you struggle is amusing, ha-ha-ha, Varian wants to punch a wall.

The night drags on, near torture, and Varian drifts in and out of sleep, until finally he blinks open fever-hot eyes to the crackle of distant birds and the morning rime on the gleaming window. Dawn, come again. He closes his eyes and sighs. Then he sits up.

Adira left sometime when he was half-way passed out; her stuff is gone, bags packed and cot rolled up. That’s right, he remembers, all at once. She’s leaving today. Last night was… the last night. Yasmin’s home is no longer open for shelter.

He sits there for a time, listening to Ruddiger’s sleepy snuffles and looking out the window with a distant stare. The sunlight sparkles over the frosted fields, crisp and clean, and he watches the light glitter for a long moment. He’s exhausted, but he feels oddly calm. The darkness is gone, chased away… and finally, Varian knows what to do.

He can’t deny the horror of it all—the fear creeping through. The sense that whatever’s going on, it’s something way, way more than he can handle. But if something like that is coming for Corona…. for Rapunzel and the others…

Varian looks down at his hands. He takes a breath. Takes another. And then he sets his jaw and gets to his feet, and starts packing.

By the time he pads downstairs, Ruddiger on his shoulders, his bags are packed and Varian himself is dressed in the new clothes Yasmin tailored for him. He fiddles with the sleeve as he thuds down the steps, unsure of how to clip the cuff, and Yasmin snorts when she sees him, the older woman standing at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in one hand.

“Dear gods, have you never worn a vest before?” She sets down her cup and goes over to him, tugging the sleeve from his hands. Varian watches intently as Yasmin buttons the cuff, memorizing the fabric fold as she steps back and pulls his vest straight, the heavy fabric sitting snug and fit on his shoulders. She surveys the outfit with a critical eye and hums. “Well. Not bad for a rush job.”

Varian makes a face, pulling at his hem. The clothes fit well, but they are unlike anything Varian has ever owned—and not just because he’s still missing his gloves and apron. He’s wearing a cream cotton tunic with buttoned sleeves, paired with a low v-cut blue vest embroidered with golden skeletal floral stitching and buttoned with small silver half-moons, the swirls of soft gold stark against the dark blue. The black pants are cut in a sailor-style, the ends tapered half-way down his shin to tuck in his boots. A dark magenta sash ties around his waist, the color so rich it nearly shines in the light. Above it all Varian’s oversized trench coat with its many lovely pockets envelops him, the pink nightlight swinging from one notch, the sleeves rolled up twice and still too long for him. Combined with the new haircut and the ponytail Varian is currently struggling to tie, he looks like an entirely different person.

He’s not sure if it’s a good look or a bad one, but it’s definitely troublesome. This stupid ponytail especially.

As if in answer to his thoughts, Yasmin snorts and pulls the ribbon from his hands. “At least you brushed your hair,” she murmurs, turning him around. “Pay attention. You will have to tie it yourself after this.” She pulls back his hair and secures it tight atop his head. “See?” She takes the end of the tail and loops it, tucking the strands away. “And do this to make a bun. Whichever style you please. Simple.”

Varian undoes the bun with a sigh, letting the hair fall as a normal ponytail. Ruddiger bats at it, letting it swing. He’s not used to having his hair tied back; the pull and weight of the ponytail on his scalp makes his nose wrinkle. It’s not uncomfortable so much as… odd. “I look like some nobleman’s kid.”

“Tsk. Nothing so fancy. Merchant schoolboy, perhaps. Apprentice wizard for the imaginative.” Varian scowls at the joke as Yasmin turns back to the table, sipping at her cup. “Regardless, it will help. The less you look like you, the easier it is to hide. Besides. New clothes and haircuts are a nice way to actually feel as though you are getting a fresh start.” She sips at the drink again. “It will help. Two birds with one stone, I believe the saying is? Like that.”

Varian hums, unconvinced but not really wanting to argue, and drops into a seat with a sigh. He takes Ella’s offered cup of coffee with a weak smile, then glances around the kitchen. “Um, where’s…?”

“Here.” Adira moves into the kitchen, taking a cup of coffee herself. “Thanks.” She turns to Varian and looks him up and down, and lifts one brow at the outfit change, but all she says is, “You seem tired.”

Varian shrugs, his eyes dropping to the mug. In the dim reflection of the drink, his irises seem almost unnaturally bright. He grimaces and looks away. “I…” He doesn’t want to discuss his talk with the Moon, not yet, and definitely not with Yasmin here—if she finds out he summoned and then insulted an immortal god in her house, she might strangle him with his new sash—so he shrugs as casual as he can. “Just, um, ah… t-thinking?”

There is a long pause. All three woman stare at him. Ella and Yasmin exchange a meaningful glance. Adira closes her eyes and sighs.

“Adira,” Yasmin says, conversationally, “he really is a god-awful liar. What on earth are you teaching him?”

“I take no responsibility for this.”

“Simply dreadful,” Ella murmurs sadly.

Varian sips loudly at his drink and ignores them. He’s a great liar, damn it. The best. He fooled Rapunzel down in Corona’s tunnels, hadn’t he? He just needs time to prepare, is all, that’s not his fault.

Ruddiger gives him a supportive chitter. Varian sighs.

“Well, regardless.” Yasmin sets down her cup. “Good morning, lovely weather we are having, etcetera —all pleasantries out of the way, I will get to the point. While I admit it was… interesting to have you both here, I must say it is time you moved on.” She looks between them, and her eyes linger on Varian for a long moment. “So. When will you be going?” The slightest of pauses. “And… where?”

The silence stretches, awkward, tense. No one moves. Ella is watching them. Yasmin sips at her drink, her gaze heavy on Varian’s head.

Varian pulls his mug closer, cupping the warmth in his palms, drawing strength from the weight of Ruddiger by his side. He keeps his eyes on the floor. “My bags are all packed,” he says, to the floorboards. He can feel, rather than see, all of them go still. “I’m…” For a moment he stutters on it. For a moment he fumbles.

Then he takes a breath, and says it anyway. “I’m ready to go,” he says, at last. “To Corona.”

In the ensuing quiet, Yasmin’s sharp and relieved exhale is clear.

Adira is quiet for much longer; she shifts slightly, and Varian’s eyes snap to her, searching, afraid. But Adira is calm, near-expressionless, and her voice is even when she replies: “Then we leave together.”

Varian ducks his head in a nod.

He hears Adira stand, but keeps his eyes down, and almost startles out of his seat when a hand abruptly finds his shoulder. He freezes, stiff—but all Adira does is leave it there, just for a second, her touch warm and grounding.

For a moment he thinks she’s going to say something—what, he has no idea—but all she does is squeeze his shoulder, once, then take her hand away. “…We’ll leave soon. Finish your food.”

Varian glances up through his bangs, watching her go. He feels a little wondering. That warmth in her voice—what was that? And the hand on his shoulder… he knows Adira isn’t big on physical contact. So then, what was the point of that?

He turns back to the room to find Ella with her face politely turned away and a smile on her lips, and Yasmin looking insufferably pleased with herself. He narrows his eyes, feeling the heat rise to his face. He grips his cup protectively. “What?”

“Nothing.” Yasmin sips at her drink. She is smirking. “Just… I am very good at my job.”

Ella smacks her arm without looking.

“I mean, we are all very proud of you, congratulations on your character development, whatever, make good choices.”

Varian rolls his eyes, and tips back his drink to hide a smile of his own. He finishes his meal quickly—when Adira says leaving soon she usually means leaving now—and sneaks away some bread for Ruddiger to snack on later, getting up from the table. He is half-way out the door before he hesitates.

He glances back. Yasmin raises an eyebrow at him, bemused, waiting. Varian chews at his cheek, deep in thought.

On his end: the market, the haircut, the clothes. But he remembers also the way Adira gave him answers that day in the field, when before there was nothing, and her new strange attempts at mentoring, odd but not unwelcome. He gets the sudden sense he isn’t the only one Yasmin has been bothering, and tucks his hands behind his back.

Yasmin is annoying and rude and cold, and still a stranger in many ways… but in these past few days, Varian knows, she has truly and honestly helped him.

“Thanks,” Varian says, rushed and hurried, and just barely looking Yasmin in the eye, and then he runs out of the room before Yasmin can laugh at him, or worse, look touched.

Packing takes no time at all, both Adira and Varian already prepared. Before Varian knows it, he and Adira have waved goodbye to Ella and taken up their packs, walking away from the little cottage in the fields for the last time. To Varian’s embarrassment, Yasmin goes with them, claiming to see them off, dressed in her heavy winter coat with a wrapped package under one arm.

Varian avoids looking at her best he can, his face red, regretting that moment of thanks with all his being, and pretends badly he can’t hear her laughing at him as they walk.

They reach their destination quickly, thank gods—a merchant camp nestled in-between two farms, a small circle of carts by the road. It’s apparently the same merchant camp as before, the one from Port Caul, just moved more inland to escape any drama from the recovering city. There are far less carts than before—most of the merchants having fled after the attack—but there is still a few lingering, and Yasmin approaches one at once, already bartering for their ride.

“Javon, yes? I have heard you are on your way to the west. I would like to discuss a deal with you—”

In less than ten minutes they’ve gotten safe passage assured and a deal made, Yasmin shaking the merchant’s hand with a grimly satisfied smile. She walks back to them with her head high. “There you go,” she says to Adira. “My final favor for you—free of charge, even.” She glances back, and they both watch as the merchant loads their extra bags onto his cart. “Lucky we came when we did. The others are going east and he is leaving now.” She turns back. “I suppose this is goodbye again.”

Varian looks up at her, surprised by the words and the sudden sense of loss. How strange, he thinks. He’s really only known her for a week or so—but what a long few days they have been. He feels as if he’s been here far longer.

Adira tilts her head. “This is it,” she says agreeably.

“So it is.” Yasmin crosses her arms and looks Adira up and down. “Well. It was far more excitement than I should ever like again… but it was good to see you, Adira.” She sighs. “Just, please. For the love of all the gods. Write to me next time?”

Adira almost seems to smile. “We’ll see.”

“Tsk, bothersome woman.” But Yasmin almost seems pleased, and when she looks down at Varian, she cocks an eyebrow and settles a hand on her hip, near-smiling. “Well, boy, I hope you remember what I have taught you.”

Varian meets her eyes with some difficulty, but manages. The echoes from their conversation still sting, but he takes a breath and refuses to look away. “I’ve, um… been thinking on it.”

“That is all I can ask.” Yasmin offers a hand. “You are a brat and a pest and more trouble than you are worth… but perhaps you are not so bad.”

Varian rolls his eyes, unable to help himself. “I really don’t like you.” But he takes her hand, and feels almost cheered. He manages a smile. “Um. But… uh…”

Yasmin snorts. “You do not have to thank me again. Once was enough. Uncomfortable for both of us. Do not.” She hesitates, then takes the package out from under her arm and holds it out. “Ella’s idea. From both of us. Blame Adira.” She pauses again, and then scowls at him. “Open it later, once you are gone and I cannot see. Got it?”

“Okay…?” Varian takes it. Tests it. It’s soft, so not a book… “What—”

“Once you are gone!”

“Okay, okay!” He stows the package away in the satchel. Ruddiger chitters up on his shoulder, clearly curious, and hangs down his back to sniff at it. Yasmin’s scowl turns to him.

“Goodbye, Yasmin,” Adira says, drawing the attention back to her. Yasmin fixes her with a frown.

“You will keep in touch?”

Adira shrugs. “I’ll try.” She hesitates. “It… was good to see you too.”

Yasmin makes a face. “Yes yes, goodbye, go already. You are going to give me hives at this rate.”

Adira briefly smiles at that, a hard sort of grin that is almost laughter, and turns away with one last wave over her shoulder. Yasmin, too, for all her annoyance, seems more fond than truly irritated. Varian looks between the two of them and shakes his head, turning to follow Adira to the cart. Ridiculous. He doesn’t understand them at all.

It feels almost anti-climactic, after everything. With every step, Varian waits for something to go wrong. He steps to the cart. He gets in the cart. He sits down in the back with Adira and watches the road. Nothing. The sky is cloudy but dry and the cold winds are beaten back by the warmth of his new clothes and heavy coat. It’s dizzying. Is he really leaving?

The merchant snaps the reins and calls the horses to a trot. The cart lurches into a roll. Varian draws his knees to his chest and watches as Yasmin slowly shrinks away against the gray skies and endless fields. How strange, he thinks. How funny. Leaving really is that easy.

He looks down at the satchel, and pulls out the package. He looks at it for a moment, and hesitates—but, well, if they’re going, isn’t that the same as being gone…? Technically?

Varian sneaks a glance at Adira, who is sitting cross-legged with her eyes closed. She opens one eye under the attention, and looks at him blankly for a full second—then snorts, softly, and closes her eyes again.

Well. He supposes that’s technically permission. Right? Totally. Yes. One-hundred percent.

He looks at Ruddiger. Ruddiger pats at the package with one paw and gives a meaningful look. Which—yeah, okay. There’s no saying no to that.

Varian opens the package.

It’s well-wrapped, sealed tight; it takes him a few tries to rip it open. He tears off the paper in one long strip, setting it aside for Ruddiger to play with later. There is an extra layer of tissue paper to get through, and he tests the thing in his hand, frowning. It’s light—soft, and malleable in his hands. He turns it over and pulls off the paper—

His breath catches. Varian goes absolutely still. In the corner of his eyes, he can see Adira is almost smiling.

Gloves.

Yasmin has given him alchemy gloves.

For an instant, all Varian can do is stare. The gloves are made from heavy leather, with stiff stitching and an oily waterproof sheen. They’re a little different from his old ones—a block maroon trim lines the ends—but still. Gloves. She’s given him…

And it hits him, all at once. Every question, every fear, every moment of struggle—every time he’s had to fight against the anger that burns constant in his chest, every instant of pushing back against the urge to run away. Nothing has changed, in the end. Nothing is very different. He’s still not sure what he’ll do—what he’s even doing now—or even the difference between forgiveness and redemption and why it matters.

But he holds the gloves in his hands, this gift he didn’t ask for and didn’t expect, and—he wants to. He wants to know. He wants, at the very least, to try and find the answer.

Varian blinks rapidly, feeling tears starting to well up. His breath hitches. His eyes burn. He lurches to his feet, standing shaky on the rocking cart, and leans over the back with his hands braced against the ledge.

“Yasmin!”

In the distance, he sees her head rise. He’s too far to properly read her expression, but she’s looking at him. She is waiting for an answer. Varian pitches his voice as far as he can. “I’ll—I’ll be good! I will!”

He lifts his voice, calling out, his words echoing across the fields: “I promise I’ll try!”

Yasmin’s form is growing distant, indistinct. She doesn’t yell back. But she raises her hand, a quiet goodbye silhouetted dark against the pale gray sky, and Varian almost thinks she might be smiling.

And then the cart turns down a bend in the road, and she is gone.

Varian sits back down in the cart and wipes the tears from his cheeks, pulling on the new gloves with trembling fingers. His smile wavers bright and thin on his face. The weight of the gloves makes a knot catch in his throat. For the first time in over a year, in a long, long time… Varian finally feels complete.

It’s not that things are better, really. He’s still afraid—still shaking with it. Going back to Corona still fills him with dread, and he has yet to learn how to deal with the rocks. But for the first time in a while, for all the problems ahead, Varian finally feels like he can face them. Adira’s presence by his side is almost a comfort; the cart, lurching down the road, is finally going somewhere. He finally knows where he’s headed. He finally has a start to this long road he has chosen to walk.

He reaches up and rests a hand on Ruddiger’s head, and the raccoon sniffs at the new gloves and squeaks, delighted. Ruddiger is warm and weighted on his neck, a soothing constant. Varian tilts his head back to that cloudy and bright sky, and his smile pulls hard at his cheeks. It’s a small smile, a fragile thing—but it is there, faint but real, and maybe that’s enough.

It’s not working.

Her head aching with the strain of staring at an empty canvas for far too long, Rapunzel blows a strand of hair from her face and settles back on her heels, one hand propped on her hip. She lowers the paintbrush almost reluctantly. The canvas is… it’s a mess. Colors an ugly swirl, a tangle of mish-mashing hues, and she changed her mind on the subject half-way through, and now…

Oh, it’s awful. A lost cause. She sighs and moves the canvas away from her frame, her heart heavy. Another one bites the dust.

Usually this works. Art has always been Rapunzel’s avenue of expression—her way of wants, of desires, of dreams. The new mural spread out on her balcony floor, for instance. But this time, something’s gone wrong. It’s not so much art block as it is something else—a restlessness, an itch, an emotion she can’t pin down. There’s something she’s feeling, something she needs to get down on paper, and yet…

She can’t figure out what it is, this time. It’s not working. For the first time in forever, Rapunzel has found an issue she can’t work through with paint. She isn’t exactly pleased with this astounding phenomenon.

Or maybe, Rapunzel thinks glumly, settling back on her bed, watching the rain pool outside her window—maybe it’s just too much. She’s had… so much to think about, these past few days. The attacks, the blackmail, Vardaros, the Baron…

Stalyan.

Rapunzel’s lips thin, her mouth twisting on the thought. It’s—she’s not stupid. She knows, she knows Eugene loved others, once, knows he was a rogue and a flirt and… well, she knows. Stalyan isn’t a surprise so much as she is… a name, at last, to put to the once many nameless faces. And she isn’t even really the problem. It’s just—

Rapunzel had to learn through a letter.

It’s that which grates on her most of all. This stupid situation—this stupid mess—and it’s so silly, anyways, because Eugene has written the exact same thing. I wish I could have told you in person. I’m sorry I couldn’t. And still, she can’t stop thinking about it—about all of it. Having to learn all this stuff through a letter, and then Cassandra hadn’t even been able to give the letter to Rapunzel. She’d had to sneak it through her window via Owl, because the secret passage route to Cassandra’s rooms only works so long as it remains undiscovered, and…

It’s—awful. It’s just awful. And annoying. And… ugh.

Rapunzel falls back eagle-spread on her bed, bare feet kicking in the air, hair loose and pooling on the floor of her bedroom. Beyond her window she can hear the soft drip of rain, a storm that has lingered over Corona for almost a week now, and she closes her eyes to the soothing sound. It’s only morning, but— she’s exhausted. And she’s already pushed her hands to the limit, from her frustration with the canvas. And she’s still in her nightgown. Maybe—she just needs a break. Maybe she should just go back to sleep…

A knock sounds at the door. “Um, Princess?”

Elias. She bites back a sigh and pries her eyes open, lifting her head. “Yes?”

“Um, your, your parents—um, uh, the King and Queen… request your presence gr-greeting some guests to the castle…”

Oh. Rapunzel closes her eyes. “The…um…” She should know this. “The merchant groups. Yilla. Renewing contracts.” More importantly—it’s busywork. All the politics are already figured out. She resists the urge to sigh again, louder this time.

The queen hasn’t pushed the question about her hands, even though she obviously wishes to. In that way, Rapunzel’s parting comment has left its mark. That doesn’t mean anything else has changed. Her parents are still, even now, trying to keep Rapunzel in the dark.

She scowls at her bedcovers, lowering her head to cradle her forehead in her palms. Pascal, on her shoulder, pats her face in quiet sympathy. “I’ll be right out,” she calls to Elias, exhausted with it all. “One moment!”

She gets dressed as quick as she can, in the stiff formal gown Rapunzel hates but her parents prefer for formal situations. Pascal helps wordlessly with the bodice, and while usually Rapunzel would braid her hair for this, she has neither the time nor ability—after her painting session her hands are stiff and frozen, tight with pain, and she grabs for the beads, instead. Pascal helps her with the clasp, and when Rapunzel pulls on her gloved she has to do so with her teeth.

She’s pushed it today, she thinks, somewhat mournfully, and massages gently at her palm to loosen some of the pain. Her fingers still won’t curl right. Pascal gives her a look.

“I know,” Rapunzel mutters, exasperated, and hides her hands behind her back when Pascal opens the door. Elias stands in the door, hand raised as if to knock again, amber eyes wide—when he sees her he squeaks and hurries aside, hands scrambling at his halberd.

Rapunzel sweeps out into the hall, right past Elias, and heads for the stairs. He scrambles to keep up, eyes wide behind his helmet. Despite everything, the sight almost makes her want to smile.

“We’re meeting in the throne room, right?”

“Ye-yes…”

She does smile at him this time, hoping to put him more at ease. She doesn’t dislike Elias—doesn’t really know him, honestly—but he doesn’t seem the bad sort, and his nerves are understandable. He’s stressed, too, and his support during the dinner conversation has endeared him to her a little. He reminds her, strangely, a little of Varian—less confident, and not at all angry, but… young. And trying his best, with all that’s been given. Quiet kindnesses.

The thought of Varian makes her smile falter. Rapunzel turns away. She hasn’t thought of Varian in… too long, she thinks. She’s tried not to. It’s—useless to worry about him, when he is so far away and she is unlikely to ever see him again, but sometimes thoughts like this crop up. It’d be a stretch to say she misses him—even now, after the labyrinth, she isn’t sure where they stand, and he’d been cruel to her for so many months before that—but sometimes she wonders how he’s doing. If he’s okay. If…

Useless thoughts, in the end. She tries to push past them. Quick, Rapunzel! Distraction!

“It’s—” Hello, train of thought, where did you go? Rapunzel clears her throat. “It’s… been a hard couple of weeks, hasn’t it?” She bites her lip, staring down at her bare feet. “I want to say, I’m sorry for all the trouble—”

“It—it’s no trouble!” Elias fumbles, then seems to blanch when he realizes he’s cut her off. He swallows hard. “It’s… it’s an honor, my princess.”

“Mm…”

He watches her, hesitant, and then slowly relaxes. “But…” His voice trails off, going small, and he takes a quick breath. “Ye-yes, it… it has been, um… quite a week. Haha.”

An understatement, really, and to such a degree she almost smiles, even though it isn’t really funny. Eugene’s letter had filled Rapunzel in on that, too. There’s been another harbor attack—the city of Port Caul, in the kingdom of Lencia, brought to its knees. It’s not at all near Corona—a two months journey at best—but it’s a major trade partner, and now it won’t be trading at all, not for a while. Another route lost.

“The castle has really been up in arms…” She glances back at him, wondering. “I meant to ask you—was it like this before I came back, too? It all feels so sudden to me, but…”

Elias hesitates. “It, um, it was… actually was kind of sudden,” he admits, voice small. “First it was a letter… and the routes started closing… and—and then—” He cuts himself off, looking away, and shrugs one shoulder. His lips are pressed thin and tight.

“…Oh.” There’s not much she can say to that. Rapunzel turns away, eyes fixing back on the hall. They move down the final flight of stairs, stepping out into the main wing of the castle. The grand hall stretches out wide before them, pale and blue in the dim light of the morning rain. The lamps burn small and golden, little haloes of light.

“Act-actually…”

Rapunzel blinks, looking back at Elias. The boy looks conflicted, his breathing quick and funny. “Hm?”

“I… I have a friend. Addy. Adeline. Um.” He shifts in place, his grip tight on the halberd. Rapunzel blinks, her attention focusing. He looks—afraid. Almost ill. She straightens. This is serious, apparently. “She… we—explore. Sometimes. Tunnels… and, and—dungeons.” He bites his lip, hard. “I’m, I’m sorry, I mean, I don’t know if it’s… um, im-important? But I know—you’ve been looking around—and all this, it happened… at—the same time. As the attacks. And, and everything else.”

Rapunzel watches him, closely, stopped fully now. Elias cringes under her attention. “Maybe? But my friend—Addy—she thinks—there’s s-something—in one of the cells, in the dungeons, and we heard them—and after that night, everyone started getting so angry, all the time, and Addy, she thinks—” Elias cuts himself off mid-word. His eyes go wide. His attention fixes over her shoulder, and stutters to a stop. “C-C-Ca—”

Rapunzel follows his gaze. Her breath catches. Pascal squeaks on her shoulder. “Cass?”

Down the hall, exiting through the other set of doors, is Cassandra. After a week of silence, seeing her is like a shock—for a moment, Rapunzel feels frozen, staring. Cassandra walks down the hall with her fists clenched and her eyes dark, mouth twisted on a frown. She’s not dressed for guard duty yet, and she doesn’t seem to have noticed them, her head bowed to stare unseeingly at the polished castle floors. But she’s here. She’s right here.

The conversation completely forgotten, Rapunzel races forward, almost tripping in her haste. “Cass!” she cries. “Cassandra!”

Cassandra stops in her tracks, her head snapping up. Her eyes widen. “…Rapunzel?”

“Cass!” She barrels into Cassandra for a hug, squeezing her tight. Cassandra hugs her back almost on automatic, and when Rapunzel pulls away she still looks stunned, blinking fast. “Oh, it’s so good to see you! I haven’t talked to you since—” Last week, she means to say, but then she remembers Elias at her back and the fact her father has banned her from seeing Cassandra at all, and blanches. “—sssssssince I came back! To Corona! Haha!”

Cassandra blinks and then gives Rapunzel a look, almost bemused, a faint smile pulling at her lips. She doesn’t seem to have seen Elias yet. “Since you’ve been back,” she agrees, almost a question, her eyebrows raised. She looks Rapunzel up and down and blinks again. “What’s with the get-up?”

“Politics,” Rapunzel admits, sighing heavily. She scowls down at the formal gown and then lifts her head with a weak smile. “Um, merchant contracts, I think.” Lower, she adds, bitter: “Busy work.”

Cassandra’s face is momentarily unreadable, but then she visibly shakes herself and frowns. “That’s… I’m sorry, Raps.” She squeezes at her shoulder. “Chin up, yeah? You’ll…” She trails off, suddenly, her eyes catching over Rapunzel’s shoulder. Something flashes through her eyes. She stops talking.

Rapunzel glances back, seeing Elias, standing small and nervous at the end of the corridor and trying desperately not to look at them, and sighs, her headache returning. Right. Elias. Replacing Cassandra, watching her for the King…

“It’s fine,” Rapunzel says, subdued. She tries for a smile. “He’s… he’s fine. He’s actually very sweet, honestly.”

“Sweet for a spy.” Cassandra’s voice is cold. Rapunzel frowns at her, and she shakes her head. “No. No, that’s good. I guess. Sorry.”

“Yes…” Rapunzel leans in, hugging Cassandra again on impulse. She’s missed her, missed having her by her side, missed just having a friend. “I mean it, though! It’s been a while. How are you?”

“I’m fine.” Cassandra steps away from the embrace, tone clipped. She rubs one hand at her upper arm, starting to look agitated.

“I’m glad.” Rapunzel steps back too, giving her some space. Her voice lowers. “Actually, um, I wanted to thank you—”

“Don’t mention it.”

“U-um, okay.” Rapunzel blinks fast and then rallies herself. She needs to go soon, but before she does— “I…” She drops her voice to a whisper. “I’ll try and get out tonight or tomorrow—I know we can’t really do anything, but maybe we could talk for a bit? Or visit Eugene? There’s some stuff I want to—to talk through, and—” She smiles, weakly. “I miss you guys.”

Cassandra doesn’t smile back. When she speaks, her voice is flat, and she is not whispering. “Are you serious?”

Rapunzel blinks fast, taken aback. “Um—”

“We don’t have time for this.”

“I—I just thought—”

“It’s not like I’ll have anything to report, anyway. Have I been any help at all these past few weeks?” She scoffs, cutting Rapunzel off before she can answer. “Besides, it’s not a good idea. Are you trying to get me into trouble?”

“I—no!” Rapunzel steps back, stunned. “Cass, of course not! I just thought…”

“We’re not even supposed to be talking right now,” Cassandra adds, poisonously, eyes snapping to Elias, and something in Rapunzel snaps.

“Cass!” Rapunzel shouts, and Cassandra’s eyes crack back to her. Rapunzel stares at her. She doesn’t say anything. The silence almost seems to echo. Cassandra’s eyes are wide.

“I don’t understand,” Rapunzel says, helplessly, her voice tight, and Cassandra outright freezes.

“You—!”

For a moment her face tightens, and she almost seems to snarl—and then the moment fades. Cassandra’s eyes squeeze shut. She brings a hand to her temple. Her lips curl not into a snarl, but a grimace. “…Sorry.”

“Cass…”

“Sorry. I just—haven’t been sleeping well.” Her hand drops. All at once she sounds tired, dull and worn thin. “It was good seeing you, Rapunzel. But let’s just… I’d rather not get into any more trouble than I’m already in, okay?” She turns away. “See you around.”

“Cass!”

It’s too late. Cassandra has already gone.

Rapunzel watches Cassandra go, feeling almost cold. Her breathing is tight. Her hands are aching. Her teeth clenched. Cassandra turns the corner and vanishes from view, and Rapunzel stares after her for a long time, something in her shaking. Pascal, on her shoulder, is frowning. His tail pats Rapunzel’s cheek. Rapunzel doesn’t move.

Hesitant footsteps approach her side, the clank of armor. “…Princess—are, are you okay?”

She breathes. “I’m fine.”

Elias is silent for too long. Rapunzel turns to him. “What is it?”

“You—you look—” He falters, his voice going small. “Um.”

The observation startles her. Rapunzel stares. “What?”

Wordless, Elias points a hand to his face.

Rapunzel raises a hand to her cheek, feeling numb. Her gloves come away damp with tears. She stares at it, wide-eyed, and thinks: Oh.

Oh.

The empty canvas, the uncertain emotion. The tangle of feeling in her gut. And this, too—the burn behind her eyes, inside her chest, in her heart. The roar in her ears. She knows this. She knows this.

Her mouth is dry. Her hands are shaking. She is struck with the sudden urge to—to break something, or scream, or just sit down and cry. Why is everything going wrong? Eugene, leaving. Stalyan—this part of his past he never shared, and he couldn’t even tell her to her face. Varian, missing, whose presence haunts her like a ghost—her parents—

She knows why Eugene can’t tell her. She knows why he didn’t want to. She knows it isn’t Varian’s fault that everyone is hounding her; she was the one who chose to let him go, after all, which is the main issue. Her parents are another story, but… she’d accepted this. She’d known this was coming. She’s fighting it. She was ready for this!

And yet.

Her hands shake.

Rapunzel stares at the floor, feeling cold, feeling flushed. She rubs hard at her face, trying to stop from crying. She hates this. She hates crying like this—her throat all twisted and her words all gone. She hates this.

Cass.

It’s not fair. She knows Cassandra is hurting. She understands why. But Rapunzel didn’t ask for this, either.

Why won’t you just talk to me?

A long time ago, after Varian nearly killed Rapunzel with the arrow and everything spiraled into pieces, Cassandra had sat Rapunzel down and asked her to be honest. To trust her. And Rapunzel had promised. She had promised, and she has—she has tried, over and over, again and again. She is trying so hard to be honest with them, even when it hurts, even when it’s about things she wishes she could lock away and never think about again. And it infuriates her. It rises in her like a burning wave, strangles her throat and makes her eyes hot, because—

I’m trying to be honest with you, Cass. So why won’t you be honest with me?

Why won’t you talk to me?

Rapunzel swallows hard. She closes her eyes. She breathes through her teeth. She raises her hands and threads them through her hair, yanks once and yanks hard, and then smooths the strands back with shaking, aching fingers.

Elias’s voice is so quiet. “I’m—I’m—I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” Rapunzel pries her eyes open, breathing past the wall of emotion beating against her chest. “I—it was always there, I guess, I just—I didn’t realize. Really.” She reaches a shaking hand and dabs away the tears with her gloves. “Sorry.”

Elias looks miserable. His eyes fall. “I…” He hesitates. “If there, there’s anything I can—”

“It’s fine,” Rapunzel repeats, quiet. She rubs her face dry and breathes in deep, pulling on composure like a cloak. Heat coils tight and bitter in her gut. She hates it. She hates this. “…We—we have somewhere to be, anyway. The merchants.”

Elias nods, hesitant. His eyes cannot seem to decide whether to stay fixed on the floor or on her.

“Right,” Rapunzel says. She takes another breath. “Right.” She rubs the last of her tears away and straightens. “Let’s go, then.”

His lips press. His head dips. But Elias does not argue, and he leads her to the throne room with his head low and his shoulders bowed almost in something like guilt.

She should say something to him, probably—but she’s tired. She’s so tired. She is so angry she aches with it. Her hands are shaking like a storm, and she has to fold them behind her back to keep her poise. Even her hair feels heavy, right now—a ball-and-chain, the weight of destiny. Awful, awful, awful. Her eyes burn. She wants to go home.

Rapunzel enters the throne room with her head high and her mind a million miles away. She is late, and the advisors look testy; Rapunzel’s mother meets her eyes for one second before her gaze flickers down to Rapunzel’s hands. Rapunzel moves them behind her back, poised, her expression unchanging.

Her father watches the exchange warily, his lips pressed thin. He seems to realize something is wrong. He studies her face. “Rapunzel—”

She meets his eyes. “Yes?”

He quiets. He looks away.

Rapunzel bites back another sigh, and heads for her seat by their thrones, settling into the chair exhausted relief. She folds her gloved hands in her lap, half-hidden in her skirts, and Pascal jumps down to settle in her palms, the weight of him warm and soothing against the ache. Rapunzel forces a faint smile for him and then keeps her eyes on the great doors. As soon as this is over, Rapunzel is taking a nap.

She’s so tired.

Trumpets sound, loud and echoing, and the noise makes her flinch. The merchant caravan is announced by the herald, their issues presented… the doors, swinging open, admit a bald middle-aged man with sweat on his brow, dressed in dark red threads. Yilla, the merchant leader. He walks with wringing hands.

And then, stepping up beside him— a woman.

Even from a distance, the newcomer is visibly striking. Long, dark brown curls frame a heart-shaped face, her clothes expensive and well-tailored. She is tall and smirking, her head high and proud, and she almost seems to be laughing as she leans over to the herald, whispering something in the man’s ear. Her smile is cold and bright and unwavering on her face.

Something washes over Rapunzel then. A warmth. A whisper. A hiss of threat. She straightens in her seat. Her head spins. Her eyes feel hot, burning. There is something here—something about this woman—that makes her every nerve scream in warning.

The herald is still listening to the woman, and when she finishes speaking he goes pale in the face. For a moment he fumbles. His glance back at the King is terrified.

“And—and if I may present,” says the herald, stuttering and shaking on his tongue, “with the merchant Yilla… his g-guest, Lady Stalyan of Vardaros!”

Deep in the dungeons of Corona, locked far away from the commotion above, a lone prisoner sits slumped against the wall.

His once-long and beautiful hair has gone ratty and grimy with time; his hands hang limp before his knees. His shoulders slump forward, his head bowed—in defeat, perhaps, or maybe sleep. In this dismal and empty dungeon hall, the prisoner rests with his eyes closed.

Water drips in the distance. Someone yells. The creak of metal armor from patrolling guards passes by and fades, again and again. And still, the prisoner does not move. Still, the prisoner does not speak. His shoulders are tense and taut. His fingers curled. His eyes closed, his ears straining. Not a man asleep at all—not defeated—but something else. He is listening. He is waiting. He has been waiting here for over a year.

And then, at long last: he hears the answer.

Something shifts in the shadows. An echo hums in the air, a low buzz like a swarm. The prisoner’s fingers seize and twitch at the icy touch trailing his shoulders, and then still at the whisper echoing in his ears.

His eyes burn. His smile pulls wide and cruel. The prisoner starts to shake, laughter wheezing through clenched teeth, and in the shadows of his eyes, his hatred shines bright and green.

“It’s finally begun, huh?” He crosses his legs at the ankle, lounging back against the wall. He exhales a long sigh. The air ripples at his breath—an echo, a whisper made manifold, a twist of magic like an oily rot. Halfway down the hall, a guard is struck with a blinding rage, his innermost anger set to boiling, and turns to strike his fellow. A sword is drawn with a shriek of steal. Someone screams.

The commotion catches an audience—another set of guards—footsteps pound on the stone, the men come running. The guard, down the hall, is apologizing. His sword is bloody. His fellow lies still on the cold floors. I don’t know what came over me, the first guard is saying, high and hysterical. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want— I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want this!

And far away from the disaster, safely hidden in his cell, Andrew tilts back his head to the dungeon’s grimy ceiling and laughs.

“Finally,” he says.

I don’t know what came over me!

“Let the countdown begin.”

#tangled the series #tts #rapunzel's tangled adventure #rta #varian #rapunzel #eugene fitzherbert #cassandra #adira #tangled #iza fanfic #fic: faults of the mind #fic series: the long road back to home #please reblog if you liked it!!!! 💖

53 notes · View notes

ladyinredfics · 5 years

Text

The Campaign

(Read on AO3)

A week before the election, when the strain of managing Tyrion Lannister’s campaign field operations had her seriously considering day drinking, Brienne overheard the volunteers talking in the break room.

“Come on, Pia, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.” That was Podrick Payne, volunteer coordinator and Brienne’s right hand.

Pia’s high, girlish laughter followed. “Oh, it was worse. So much worse. I sat in his lap and told him I’d been thinking about him since Harrenhal.”

Brienne knew exactly who Pia was talking about, because women all over Westeros had been panting after Jaime Lannister since he personally ejected a particularly odious protestor from his brother’s rally at Harrenhal, live on WNN.

Brienne could easily picture the lithe brunette sliding into Jaime’s lap, because she’d seen some version of that nearly every time the staff went out as they crisscrossed the continent campaigning for his brother. Last night Jaime had suggested they blow off some steam with the staff. Brienne had said she would go to the bar with them, but wasn’t in the mood to watch the endless parade of women hitting on Jaime. She’d snuck home instead, and fell asleep watching an old movie on TV. She hadn’t seen Jaime’s text (Where are you?) until this morning.

“Was I right?” Peck, Jaime’s assistant, asked in the smug tone he’d learned from his boss. It didn’t suit him.

Pia sighed heavily. “Yes, you were right.”

“Right about what?” That was Lewys Piper, who managed their social media accounts.

“Jaime,” Pia admitted. “He pushed me off him, nicely, and told me he was taken.”

Jaime was taken? That was news to Brienne.

She heard a pop can open. “I told you that, weeks ago.” Peck had learned that smug tone from his boss. It didn’t suit him.

“Well, who is it then?” Pia asked eagerly.

“No clue. He texts her a lot, and some nights he doesn’t answer his phone. That’s all I know.” Peck probably wouldn’t spill even if he did know who Jaime was seeing. He was quite loyal to his boss.

The door opened behind Brienne, and she froze, her face burning, begging the Mother that the person walking in hadn’t just been in the break room. The last thing she needed was to be caught in the supply closet eavesdropping on the staff. She picked up the pack of post-its and legal pad she’d come in here for.

The door closed and footsteps approached her.

“Spying on the kids again?” Jaime whispered from behind her.

“No,” Brienne whispered back.

“Could be that woman from the fundraiser, you know, the one in Riverrun? The one who kept grabbing his ass while they danced?” Pia mused.

Jaime stifled a laugh. “What are they going on about now?” he whispered in her ear. His body was right behind hers now, his breath on her skin and his warmth radiating against her back.

“No, no, it’s got to be the campaign chair in the Reach…. Margaery? The pretty one who organized the rally at Highgarden,” Pod chimed in.

Jaime wouldn’t let her escape now, not when there was fun to be had at her expense. “You told Pia you were taken,” Brienne explained.

“Ah, yes, when she made a rather clumsy pass at me.”

“You didn’t have to lie to her,” Brienne chided. “She would have taken no for an answer.”

“I think she was about two drinks past the edge of reason, or she wouldn’t have done it in the first place. Besides, I didn’t lie,” Jaime protested.

“He’s never going to tell us, not this close to the election,” Peck pointed out, to general grumbling on the far side of the wall.

“You’re not taken,” Brienne scoffed. None of them were. They’d been traveling non-stop for a year, ever since Tyrion announced his candidacy for Hand of the King, leader of the Westerosi parliament. Who had time for a relationship?

Jaime pressed closer, his hand finding her hip. “I felt very taken the other night. Would’ve liked to repeat the experience last night, but you didn’t answer your damn phone.”

Brienne let herself lean back into his body. His lips brushed the curve of her neck. “That’s not the same.”

Jaime’s hand slid across her belly, holding her to him. “No? Maybe the first couple times we could pretend we were just stressed out and horny, but come on, Brienne. It’s been months.”

The first night had felt like a dream. They’d been sleep-deprived and panicking over last-minute arrangements for a rally outside an old fort in the heart of the Riverlands. At 2:30 in the morning Brienne had found herself sitting on a bed in a hotel room looking at Jaime over a pile of invitation lists and half-drafted speeches and security plans, and he’d reached for her, dragged her into a kiss and then down onto the crumpled papers. They hadn’t even gotten all their clothes off the first time, and they’d laughed afterward, dispelling the awkwardness.

“Not now, Jaime.” She wasn’t ready for this conversation, couldn’t afford the distraction.

“That’s not what you said the other night,” he teased, nipping at her shoulder.

No, the other night, she’d begged him to do a lot of things, and he’d given her everything she wanted and more. In bed, at least, Jaime refused her nothing. Out of bed he was more contrary, but she still trusted him more than any man aside from her father.

“After the election, we can talk, if you still want to.” Jaime would likely take a post in his brother’s government, and Brienne would move on to the next cause. There were endless injustices to fight in this world.

He wrapped his other arm around her and embraced her briefly before letting her go. “You’re impossible, you know.”

He usually chose stubborn or pig-headed, but the implication was the same. “You said that Tyrion winning was impossible when we started out, and now he’s up three points in the polls.”

“I will happily admit to being wrong on election night,” Jaime conceded.

Brienne turned around. “Did you come in for something or were you just hoping to spy on the troops? Assess morale?”

Jaime shrugged. He looked delicious like this, tired and rumpled with his jacket long gone, his tie loosened and his sleeves pushed up. “I was looking for you.”

“Well, you found me. Now you’d better go before someone else walks in here and gets the wrong idea.” She had to be twice as stern with him when he looked like this, or temptation would lead her astray.

Jaime rolled his eyes. “The right idea, Brienne, and I will find a way to prove it to you.”

And he did, a week later, when Jaime kissed her on a stage in King’s Landing in front of thousands of campaign supporters, surrounded by falling balloons and confetti as Tyrion’s victory was announced.

#jaime x brienne #ficlet #modern au #game of thrones

127 notes · View notes

coneygoil · 4 years

Text

The Home We Built Together, part 29

Two young Vikings. An arranged marriage. Hiccup always wanted to win the girl of his dreams, but not like this. Now he and Astrid must learn to live together and maybe one day, learn to love…

Writer’s note: I didn’t expect to update “Home” so soon! Especially after the crazy busy week I had. Big things are coming! Thank you to everyone has kept up with this fic! <3 It’s a year this month that I started it. Didn’t think it would come this far!

“Toothless, you gotta get us out of here, bud.” Hiccup tried to turn his dragon around, but Toothless shook him off.

As much as Astrid had worked with Toothless and the arena dragons in peace, forming bonds and alliances, this situation she was in now was surreal and downright terrifying. These dragons didn’t know her, and her and Hiccup could easily become apart of their kill if one got the wild hair to try. Toothless would defend them, she trusted for the most part, but with the strange way he was acting, she wasn’t completely sure of that right now.

They continued to fly in the hoard of dragons through the thick fog until they broke through the veil once again to see the chilling sight of the volcano island. The dragons clustered together as they flew through a hole in the side of the volcano. A brief bout of darkness shrouded them. The eerie red glow they’d seen spewing from the top of the mountain was straight ahead of them.

Astrid hadn’t taken note of the heat until it slapped them in the face like scalding steam. She winced as it burned her skin. They exited the tunnel into a massive chasm. Many upon many shelves were rived into the sides of the rock, twisted and crude as if the heat itself carved them. Through the smoky haze that made Astrid’s eyes sting, she spotted different species of dragons clustered together on the shelves. They didn’t look happy or at home at all, more like alert and anxious. They circled around the hole, red hot flickering up from its bottomless pit.

“What my dad wouldn’t give to find this,” Hiccup commented, seeming far more calm about the entire situation than she felt.

Astrid pressed the bottom of her face into his shoulder guard, eyes flicking all around. Meeting the band of dragons on the island’s shore was a pleasant picnic compared to the terrifying sight they were faced with now. Astrid had never seen so many dragons in her life. Not even during the most turbulent raids!

After making a wide swing above the pit, Toothless landed on a rocky shelf, hiding behind a formation whittled large enough to shield them. He peeked around the rock along with Hiccup. Astrid stretched over Hiccup’s back; her view lessened by her position. A steady flow of dragons continued to pour in, dropping their prizes into the red haze.

“It’s satisfying to know all our food as been dumped down a hole.”

“They’re not eating any of it.”

Astrid still didn’t understand everything about dragons, but this was the most baffling behavior yet. Why would they sacrifice their food to a volcano?

The stream of dragons had slowed, only a light green Gronckle lazily buzzing in. It hovered above the middle of the pit and coughed up a small fish from its mouth. It looked so innocent and oblivious as it hovered there scratching an itch. A roar echoed from deep in the pit.

Astrid didn’t think she could find anything more frightening than being in a volcano with a thousand dragons. She was wrong. A massive head, ten times bigger than the largest boulder on Berk, emerged from the pit. It’s mouth, full of teeth longer than the tallest trees, chomped at the Gronckle and the poor dragon was no more.

Her and Hiccup shared a gasp, shaken to the core, as they both pulled back father behind the rock shielding them. The monstrous dragon’s nostrils inhaled in a powerful sniff that echoed throughout the cavern. A new smell amid the Sulphur and dragon scales. Astrid’s heart stopped. It had detected their presence.

“Get us out of here, bud,” Hiccup commanded.

Astrid barely had time to grab hold of Hiccup before they shot off. From the corner of her stinging eyes, she caught a glimpse of a massive dark streak aiming straight at their former hiding spot. A sickening chomp followed.

They flew upwards into the blinding mass of dragons as they circled toward the opening of the volcano to escape. Astrid could feel herself slipping and let go of Hiccup’s waist for only a split second to regain her grip. She didn’t realize what was happening until she felt herself falling. She barely heard her screams in the cacophony of chaos all around her. Her mind blanked, feeling as if she would pass out, and then her body suddenly connected with a hard surface. Screwing her eyes shut, she tried to suck in a much-needed breath, but the surrounding gases burned her lungs.

Her body hurt, mainly her back and legs, but miraculously nothing felt broken. It’d felt like an eternity, but in perspective, she hadn’t fallen far at all. A ledge protruding from the volcano’s upper level had caught her. She quickly looked over the side to watch a poor Zippleback get snatched up by the massive dragon’s mouth. She’d begged for that sacrifice to appease the colossus, but its nostrils drew in a deep sniff – clearly gifted with an amazing sense of smell.

It rose up higher, sniffing the side of the volcano, closer and closer to where Astrid had landed. Astrid scurried back on her bottom, the ledge providing no place to hide. Her stomach flipped violently as she pressed her back into the hot rock wall, awaiting her doom as the dragon’s nose drew closer.

She could hardly believe her ears at the sound of a Night Fury blast. A blue plasma blast shot directly at the massive dragon’s many eyes. It reared back, screaming it’s protest. Another blast hit it again, drawing it further away from the ledge. One more blast to the face and it retreated downward.

Tears pricked at Astrid’s eyes when the familiar form of Toothless landed on the ledge. She ignored the protest of her aching body and jumped in the saddle, securing her arms around Hiccup’s waist. Toothless launched toward the volcano’s hole once more, the path now free of retreating dragons. A deafening roar shook through the cavern. The giant of a dragon made one more attempt at catching them, but Toothless was faster and long eluded the hundreds of teeth as it clamped down on air behind them.

Astrid didn’t open her eyes until they were high in the night sky away from the veil of fog. She pressed her face between Hiccup’ shoulder blades, arms wrapped nearly completely around his middle. Trembles traveled throughout her body, from her inner core to the tips of her fingers.

“Astrid?” Hiccup’s voice reached through the screaming in her head. She jumped involuntarily when his hand touched her arm. “Astrid, are you okay?”

For the first time since they’d entered the volcano, Astrid took a deep breath, the intake of oxygen somewhat soothing her shaken nerves and reviving her stifled lungs. She nodded against his back. “I’m okay.”

The response was enough for Hiccup, and they flew in heavy silence for a long time, the choppy sea sloshing down below them. Astrid clung to her husband, his warmth and presence a balm to her shaken state. Finally, the achy chill of the night air roused her from her stupor. She shoved away the fresh memories, determined to think like a warrior again. This massive, monstrous thing was out there, threatening dragons and Vikings’ lives. This was not okay.

“That island—” she began, close to Hiccup’s ear so he could hear her clearly, “it’s like a hive. The dragons are her workers and that’s their queen. It controls them.” She paused, letting Hiccup mull over the theory. She knew he’d come to the same conclusion, probably faster than she had. “Hiccup, what’re we going to do about this?”

His head dropped as a heavy sigh left him. “I don’t know.”

He wouldn’t like this. “We need to tell your dad when he comes back from the campaign.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. He could be back at any day.” He sliced a hand through the air, resolved. “No, we need to think this through.”

“Hiccup, he deserves to know. We just discovered the dragon’s nest. The thing we’ve been after since Vikings first sailed here.”

“But we need to stick to the plan first. Show my dad that dragons aren’t what we thought they were. Do you think a fleet of Vikings could take down that thing?”

Astrid played the scenario in her head. A battle between a fleet of Vikings and the gigantic red dragon that could eat half the village’s warriors in one gulp. Would the queen’s own army rally behind her? Or would they mutiny against her? If the dragons did choose the queen, no matter how courageous Berk’s fleet was, they’d be wiped out within seconds.

The warrior part of her hated to admit it but, “No. They probably wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Hiccup twisted around, causing Astrid to loosen her hold and lean back to see him better. In the light of the moon, she could see determination shining in his eyes, a resolve that couldn’t be shaken. He looked stronger than he ever had before. “Give me time. I’ll think of something that will free the dragons and end the war. For good.”

Astrid knew he would keep his word.

The rest of the journey home fell quiet as they traveled over the sea, the moon casting a long spotlight on the water. They were dead on their feet as they trekked back to the village from the cove, hand in hand. Daylight was most likely a few hours away.

Astrid sat on their bed, donning her nightgown. Her bones felt as if they’d collapse in a heap from exhaustion, but her mind was still reeling even after all the hours that had passed since their harrowing experience on Dragon Island. She absently brushed her hair, taken down from the braid. Her gaze stared blankly at the wall while her mind’s eyes were somewhere far away--

Glowing red, pulsating eerily off the cavern walls. The jarring hurt from the fall. The scrapes stinging and the bruises blooming. The powerful intake of the red dragon’s breath as it searched for her. The burning heat on her back pressed against the hot rock. The consuming fear of being found and eaten alive. Drawing closer and closer…

“Astrid?”

A shuttering breath escaped from her thickened throat. She barely realized she’d flung herself at Hiccup, sob after sob raking out as she clung to him. His slender arms enveloped her, pulling her against him. She wasn’t sure how long she cried into the curve of his neck, releasing all the fear and distress that she’d kept at bay for hours.

Hiccup did not carry much muscle, but as he held her in the wee hours of the morning, he was the strength that she needed.

Tags: @martabm90 @chiefhiccstrid @drchee5e @celtictreemuffin @hey-its-laura-again

#httyd fanfiction #hiccstrid #arranged marriage au #the home we built together

74 notes · View notes

blackfreethinkers · 4 years

Link

Two kindergartners in Utah told a Latino boy that President Trump would send him back to Mexico, and teenagers in Maine sneered "Ban Muslims" at a classmate wearing a hijab. In Tennessee, a group of middle-schoolers linked arms, imitating the president's proposed border wall as they refused to let nonwhite students pass. In Ohio, another group of middle-schoolers surrounded a mixed-race sixth-grader and, as she confided to her mother, told the girl: "This is Trump country."

Since Trump's rise to the nation’s highest office, his inflammatory language — often condemned as racist and xenophobic — has seeped into schools across America. Many bullies now target other children differently than they used to, with kids as young as 6 mimicking the president’s insults and the cruel way he delivers them.

Trump’s words, those chanted by his followers at campaign rallies and even his last name have been wielded by students and school staff members to harass children more than 300 times since the start of 2016, a Washington Post review of 28,000 news stories found. At least three-quarters of the attacks were directed at kids who are Hispanic, black or Muslim, according to the analysis. Students have also been victimized because they support the president — more than 45 times during the same period.

Although many hateful episodes garnered coverage just after the election, The Post found that Trump-connected persecution of children has never stopped. Even without the huge total from November 2016, an average of nearly two incidents per school week have been publicly reported over the past four years. Still, because so much of the bullying never appears in the news, The Post’s figure represents a small fraction of the actual total. It also doesn’t include the thousands of slurs, swastikas and racial epithets that aren’t directly linked to Trump but that the president’s detractors argue his behavior has exacerbated.

“It’s gotten way worse since Trump got elected,” said Ashanty Bonilla, 17, a Mexican American high school junior in Idaho who faced so much ridicule from classmates last year that she transferred. “They hear it. They think it’s okay. The president says it. . . . Why can’t they?”

Asked about Trump’s effect on student behavior, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham noted that first lady Melania Trump — whose “Be Best” campaign denounces online harassment — had encouraged kids worldwide to treat one another with respect.

First lady Melania Trump speaks at the White House in May 2018 about her “Be Best” campaign, which denounces online harassment. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

“She knows that bullying is a universal problem for children that will be difficult to stop in its entirety,” Grisham wrote in an email, “but Mrs. Trump will continue her work on behalf of the next generation despite the media’s appetite to blame her for actions and situations outside of her control.”

Most schools don’t track the Trump bullying phenomenon, and researchers didn’t ask about it in a federal survey of 6,100 students in 2017, the most recent year with available data. One in five of those children, ages 12 to 18, reported being bullied at school, a rate unchanged since the previous count in 2015.

However, a 2016 online survey of over 10,000 kindergarten through 12th-grade educators by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that more than 2,500 “described specific incidents of bigotry and harassment that can be directly traced to election rhetoric,” although the overwhelming majority never made the news. In 476 cases, offenders used the phrase “build the wall.” In 672, they mentioned deportation.

Withrow University High School

Someone sprayed hateful graffiti across campus, declaring "F- - - N-words and Faggots" and "Trump." The graffiti also threatened gay and black students and featured multiple swastikas -- the latter often painted alongside the president's last name.

Lewiston High School

After Ashanty Bonilla, 17, tweeted criticism of Trump supporters who visit Mexico, a classmate posted her message on Snapchat alongside a racist response and a Confederate flag. The next day, classmates heckled the teen with racist jeers, tied a rope to the back of her car and wrote "Republican Trump 2020" on the back window.

Amon Carter-Riverside High School

Georgia Clark, an English teacher in Fort Worth, tweeted at President Trump asking him to remove undocumented immigrants from her high school. She mistakenly believed her messages were private.

For Cielo Castor, who is Mexican American, the experience at Kamiakin High in Kennewick, Wash., was searing. The day after the election, a friend told Cielo, then a sophomore, that he was glad Trump won because Mexicans were stealing American jobs. A year later, when the president was mentioned during her American literature course, she said she didn't support him and a classmate who did refused to sit next to her. “‘I don’t want to be around her,’ ” Cielo recalled him announcing as he opted for the floor instead. Then, on “America night” at a football game in October 2018 during Cielo’s senior year, schoolmates in the student section unfurled a “Make America Great Again” flag. Led by the boy who wouldn’t sit beside Cielo, the teenagers began to chant: “Build — the — wall!” Horrified, she confronted the instigator. “You can’t be doing that,” Cielo told him. He ignored her, she recalled, and the teenagers around him booed her. A cheerleading coach was the lone adult who tried to make them stop. “I felt like I was personally attacked. And it wasn’t like they were attacking my character. They were attacking my ethnicity, and it’s not like I can do anything about that.”

— Cielo Castor

After a photo of the teenagers with the flag appeared on social media, news about what had happened infuriated many of the school’s Latinos, who made up about a quarter of the 1,700-member student body. Cielo, then 17, hoped school officials would address the tension. When they didn’t, she attended that Wednesday’s school board meeting. “I don’t feel cared for,” she told the members, crying. A day later, the superintendent consoled her and the principal asked how he could help, recalled Cielo, now a college freshman. Afterward, school staff members addressed every class, but Hispanic students were still so angry that they organized a walkout. Some students heckled the protesters, waving MAGA caps at them. At the end of the day, Cielo left the school with a white friend who’d attended the protest; they passed an underclassman she didn’t know. “Look,” the boy said, “it’s one of those f---ing Mexicans.” She heard that school administrators — who declined to be interviewed for this article — suspended the teenager who had led the chant, but she doubts he has changed. Reached on Instagram, the teenager refused to talk about what happened, writing in a message that he didn’t want to discuss the incident “because it is in the past and everyone has moved on from it.” At the end, he added a sign-off: “Trump 2020.”

President Trump’s rhetoric has been condemned as racist and xenophobic since his candidacy began in 2015. Here is what he’s said. (The Washington Post)

Just as the president has repeatedly targeted Latinos, so, too, have school bullies. Of the incidents The Post tallied, half targeted Hispanics.

In one of the most extreme cases of abuse, a 13-year-old in New Jersey told a Mexican American schoolmate, who was 12, that “all Mexicans should go back behind the wall.” A day later, on June 19, 2019, the 13-year-old assaulted the boy and his mother, Beronica Ruiz, punching him and beating her unconscious, said the family’s attorney, Daniel Santiago. He wonders to what extent Trump’s repeated vilification of certain minorities played a role.

More than 300 Trump-inspired harassment incidents reported by news outlets from 2016-2019

Anti-Hispanic: 45%

Anti-black: 23%

Anti-Semitic: 7%

Anti-Muslim: 8%

Anti-LGBT: 4%

Anti-Trump: 14%

Note: Some incidents targeted multiple groups and, in other cases, the ethnicity/gender/religion of the intended target was unclear. Figures may not precisely add up because of rounding.

“When the president goes on TV and is saying things like Mexicans are rapists, Mexicans are criminals — these children don’t have the cognitive ability to say, ‘He’s just playing the role of a politician,’ ” Santiago argued. “The language that he’s using matters.” Ruiz’s son, who is now seeing a therapist, continues to endure nightmares from an experience that may take years to overcome. But experts say that discriminatory language can, on its own, harm children, especially those of color who may already feel marginalized. “It causes grave damage, as much physical as psychological,” said Elsa Barajas, who has counseled more than 1,000 children in her job at the Los Angeles Department of Mental Health. As a result, she has seen Hispanic students suffer from sleeplessness, lose interest in school, and experience inexplicable stomach pain and headaches.

For Ashanty Bonilla, the damage began with the response to a single tweet she shared 10 months ago. “Unpopular opinion,” Ashanty, then 16 and a sophomore at Lewiston High School in rural Idaho, wrote on April 9. “People who support Trump and go to Mexico for vacation really piss me off. Sorry not sorry.” Some of Ashanty Bonilla’s classmates at Lewiston High in rural Idaho harassed her last April after she tweeted a comment critical of Trump supporters. (Rajah Bose/For The Washington Post) A schoolmate, who is white, took a screen shot of her tweet and posted it to Snapchat, along with a Confederate flag. “Unpopular opinion but: people that are from Mexico and come in to America illegally or at all really piss me off,” he added in a message that spread rapidly among students. The next morning, as Ashanty arrived at school, half a dozen boys, including the one who had written the message, stood nearby. “You’re illegal. Go back to Mexico,” she heard one of them say. “F--- Mexicans.” Ashanty, shaken but silent, walked past as a friend yelled at the boys to shut up. In a 33,000-person town that is 94 percent white, Ashanty, whose father is half-black and whose mother is Mexican American, had always worked to fit in. She attended every football game and won a school spirit award as a freshman. She straightened her hair and dyed it blond, hoping to look more like her friends. “It’s gotten way worse since Trump got elected. They hear it. They think it’s okay. The president says it. . . . Why can’t they?”

— Ashanty Bonilla

She had known those boys who’d heckled her since they were little. For her 15th birthday the year before, some had danced at her quinceañera. A friend drove her off campus for lunch, but when they pulled back into the parking lot, Ashanty spotted people standing around her car. A rope had been tied from the back of the Honda Pilot to a pickup truck. “Republican Trump 2020,” someone had written in the dust on her back window. Hands trembling, Ashanty tried to untie the rope but couldn’t. She heard the laughing, sensed the cellphone cameras pointed at her. She began to weep. Lewiston’s principal, Kevin Driskill, said he and his staff met with the boys they knew were involved, making clear that “we have zero tolerance for any kind of actions like that.” The incidents, he suspected, stemmed mostly from ignorance. “Our lack of diversity probably comes with a lack of understanding,” Driskill said, but he added that he’s encouraged by the school district’s recent creation of a community group — following racist incidents on other campuses — meant to address those issues. That effort came too late for Ashanty. Some friends supported her, but others told her the boys were just joking. Don’t ruin their lives. She seldom attended classes the last month of school. That summer, she started having migraines and panic attacks. In August, amid her spiraling despair, Ashanty swallowed 27 pills from a bottle of antidepressants. A helicopter rushed her to a hospital in Spokane, Wash., 100 miles away. After that, she began seeing a therapist and, along with the friend who defended her, transferred to another school. Sometimes, she imagines how different life might be had she never written that tweet, but Ashanty tries not to blame herself and has learned to take more pride in her heritage. She just wishes the president understood the harm his words inflict. Even Trump’s last name has become something of a slur to many children of color, whether they’ve heard it shouted at them in hallways or, in her case, seen it written on the back window of a car. “It means,” she said, “you don’t belong.”

Georgia Clark taught English at Amon Carter-Riverside High School in Fort Worth, where a student accused her of racism. (Allison V. Smith/For The Washington Post) Three weeks into the 2018-19 school year, Miracle Slover's English teacher, she alleges, ordered black and Hispanic students to sit in the back of the classroom at their Fort Worth high school. At the time, Miracle was a junior. Georgia Clark, her teacher at Amon Carter-Riverside, often brought up Trump, Miracle said. He was a good person, she told the class, because he wanted to build a wall. “Every day was something new with immigration,” said Miracle, now 18, who has a black mother and a mixed-race father. “That Trump needs to take [immigrants] away. They do drugs, they bring drugs over here. They cause violence.” Some students tried to film Clark, and others complained to administrators, but none of it made a difference, Miracle said. Clark, an employee of the Fort Worth system since 1998, kept talking. Clark, who denies the teenager’s allegations, is one of more than 30 educators across the country accused of using the president’s name or rhetoric to harass students since he announced his candidacy, the Post analysis found. In Clark’s class, Miracle stayed quiet until late spring 2019. That day, she walked in wearing her hair “puffy,” split into two high buns. Clark, she said, told her it looked “nappy, like Marge off ‘The Simpsons.’ ” Unable to smother an angry reply, Miracle landed in the principal’s office. An administrator asked her to write a witness statement, and in it, she finally let go, scrawling her frustration across seven pages. “I just got tired of it,” she said. “I wrote a ton.” Still, Miracle said, school officials took no action until six weeks later, when Clark, 69, tweeted at Trump — in what she thought were private messages — requesting help deporting undocumented immigrants in Fort Worth schools. The posts went viral, drawing national condemnation. Clark was fired. “Every day was something new with immigration. That Trump needs to take [immigrants] away. They do drugs, they bring drugs over here. They cause violence.”

— Miracle Slover, referring to Georgia Clark, her former English teacher

Not always, though, are offenders removed from the classroom. The day after the 2016 election, Donnie Jones Jr.’s daughter was walking down a hallway at her Florida high school when, she says, a teacher warned her and two friends — all sophomores, all black — that Trump would “send you back to Africa.” The district suspended the teacher for three days and transferred him to another school. Just a few days later in California, a physical education teacher told a student that he would be deported under Trump. Two years ago in Maine, a substitute teacher referenced the president’s wall and promised a Lebanese American student, “You’re getting kicked out of my country.” More than a year later in Texas, a school employee flashed a coin bearing the word “ICE” at a Hispanic student. “Trump,” he said, “is working on a law where he can deport you.” Sometimes, Jones said, he doesn’t recognize America. “People now will say stuff that a couple of years ago they would not dare say,” Jones argued. He fears what his two youngest children, ages 11 and 9, might hear in their school hallways, especially if Trump is reelected. Now a senior, Miracle doesn’t regret what she wrote about Clark. Although the furor that followed forced Miracle to switch schools and quit her beloved dance team, she would do it again, she said. Clark’s punishment, her public disgrace, was worth it. About a week before Miracle’s 18th birthday, her mother checked Facebook to find a flurry of notifications. Friends were messaging to say that Clark had appealed her firing, and that the Texas education commissioner had intervened. Reluctant to spoil the birthday, Jowona Powell waited several days to tell her daughter, who doesn’t use social media. Citing a minor misstep in the school board’s firing process, the commissioner had ordered Carter-Riverside to pay Clark one year’s salary — or give the former teacher her job back.

A snapshot of the harassment in 2019

In the three months after the president tweeted on July 14, 2019, that four minority congresswomen should "go back” to the countries they came from, more than a dozen incidents of Trump-related school bullying — including several that used his exact language — were reported in the press.

Mahtomedi High School & Como Park Senior High School

During a soccer game, students taunted a majority Asian-American team (which also included at least one Hispanic player) by telling them to go back to their countries and calling them "Asian food names."

Baldwin High School & Piper High School

During a volleyball game, students told black players on the court to go back to where they came from and made monkey noises at them.

Barack and Michelle Obama Ninth Grade Center

After a 14-year-old failed to address a staffer with "Yes, sir," the man showed the student a coin with "ICE" written on it and said, "Even though you are a citizen, Trump is working on a law where he can deport you, too, because of your mom’s status." The man later lost his job.

Everett Alvarez High School

Frontier High School

Students waving "Make America Great Again" flags disrupted a meeting of the school's Gay Straight Alliance, breaking up the gathering by shouting slurs before following the group's members to the parking lot.

Edward Little High School

Students yelled "Build the wall!" and "Ban Muslims!" as a 16-year-old Muslim girl walked through the hallways.

A 16-year-old student was arrested after posting on social media -- shortly after the deadly mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso — a photo of a pickup displaying a Trump flag, a Confederate flag and several guns. He captioned the post, "west harrison ain't ready for round 2."

Fans told one Hispanic player on the opposing team to “go back to your country” and called others “f---ing beaner” and "wetback" during a soccer game.

During a game in which a student was accused of using a racial slur againt a black player, fans also waved a Trump sign and chanted "America" when their team scored.

Cheerleaders from a largely white school held up a sign that read "Make America Great Again" and "Trump the Leopards" before a football game against a much more diverse school.

Before a football game, players ran through a banner reading "Make America Great Again Trump Those Patriots," triggering a backlash.

At least two minority students were bullied — in separate incidents — because the district allowed students to display a Trump banner at a high school football game, according to parents and school board members.

After students painted the school rock with rainbows to celebrate National Coming Out Day, someone painted over it with "Trump 2020," "MAGA 2020," "NRA" and an expletive. Later, two students — one black, one white — got into a fight about the issue.

During a volleyball game, students told black players on the court to go back to where they came from and made monkey noises at them.

In an apparent prank against a schoolmate, students created a fake Twitter account — which praised Adolf Hitler and Trump in its bio — and tweeted out racist remarks against a black high school coach. Jordyn Covington stood when she heard the jeers. “Monkeys!” “You don’t belong here.” “Go back to where you came from!” From atop the bleachers that day in October, Jordyn, 15, could see her Piper High School volleyball teammates on the court in tears. The sobbing varsity players were all black, all from Kansas City, Kan., like her. Who was yelling? Jordyn wondered. She peered at the students in the opposing section. Most of them were white. “It was just sad,” said Jordyn, who plays for Piper’s junior varsity team. “And why? Why did it have to happen to us? We weren’t doing anything. We were simply playing volleyball.” Go back? To where? Jordyn, her friends and Piper’s nine black players were all born in the United States. “Just like everyone else,” Jordyn said. “Just like white people.” “It was just sad. And why? Why did it have to happen to us? We weren’t doing anything. We were simply playing volleyball.” The game, played at an overwhelmingly white rural high school, came three months after Trump tweeted that four minority congresswomen should “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” It was Jordyn’s first experience with racism, she said. But it was not the first time that fans at a school sports game had used the president to target students of color.

The Post found that players, parents or fans have used his name or words in at least 48 publicly reported cases, hurling hateful slogans at students competing in elementary, middle and high school games in 26 states. The venom has been shouted on football gridirons and soccer fields, on basketball and volleyball courts. Nearly 90 percent of incidents identified by The Post targeted players and fans of color, or teams fielded by schools with large minority populations. More than half focused on Hispanics.

In one of the earliest examples, students at a Wisconsin high school soccer game in April 2016 chanted “Trump, build a wall!” at black and Hispanic players. A few months later, students at a high school basketball game in Missouri turned their backs and hoisted a Trump/Pence campaign sign as the majority-black opposing team walked onto the court. In 2017, two high school girls in Alabama showed up at a football game pep rally with a sign reading “Put the Panic back in Hispanic” and a “Trump Make America Great Again” banner. In late 2017, two radio hosts announcing a high school basketball game in Iowa were caught on a hot mic describing Hispanic players as “español people.” “As Trump would say,” one broadcaster suggested, “go back where they came from.” Both announcers were fired. After the volleyball incident in Kansas, though, the fallout was more muted. The opposing school district, Baldwin City, commissioned an investigation and subsequently asserted that there was “no evidence” of racist jeers. Administrators from Piper’s school system dismissed that claim and countered with a statement supporting their students. An hour after the game, Jordyn fought to keep her eyes dry as she boarded the team bus home. When white players insisted that everything would be okay, she slipped in ear buds and selected “my mood playlist,” a collection of somber nighttime songs. She wiped her cheeks. Jordyn had long ago concluded that Trump didn’t want her — or “anyone who is just not white” — in the United States. But hearing other students shout it was different. Days later, her English teacher assigned an essay asking about “what’s right and what’s wrong.” At first, Jordyn thought she might write about the challenges transgender people face. Then she had another idea. “The students were making fun of us because we were different, like our hair and skin tone,” Jordyn wrote. “How are you gonna be mad at me and my friends for being black. . . . I love myself and so should all of you.” She read it aloud to the class. She finished, then looked up. Everyone began to applaud.

It's not just young Trump supporters who torment classmates because of who they are or what they believe. As one boy in North Carolina has come to understand, kids who oppose the president — kids like him — can be just as vicious. By Gavin Trump’s estimation, nearly everyone at his middle school in Chapel Hill comes from a Democratic family. So when the kids insist on calling him by his last name — even after he demands that they stop — the 13-year-old knows they want to provoke him, by trying to link the boy to the president they despise. In fifth grade, classmates would ask if he was related to the president, knowing he wasn’t. They would insinuate that Gavin agreed with the president on immigration and other polarizing issues. “They saw my last name as Trump, and we all hate Trump, so it was like, ‘We all hate you,’ ” he said. “I was like, ‘Why are you teasing me? I have no relationship to Trump at all. We just ended up with the same last name.’ ” Beyond kids like Gavin, the Post analysis also identified dozens of children across the country who were bullied, or even assaulted, because of their allegiance to the president. School staff members in at least 18 states, from Washington to West Virginia, have picked on students for wearing Trump gear or voicing support for him. Among teenagers, the confrontations have at times turned physical. A high school student in Northern California said that after she celebrated the 2016 election results on social media, a classmate accused her of hating Mexicans and attacked her, leaving the girl with a bloodied nose. Last February, a teenager at an Oklahoma high school was caught on video ripping a Trump sign out of a student’s hands and knocking a red MAGA cap off his head. And in the nation’s capital — where only 4 percent of voters cast ballots for Trump in 2016 — an outspoken conservative teenager said she had to leave her prestigious public school because she felt threatened. In a YouTube video, Jayne Zirkle, a high school senior, said that the trouble started when classmates at the School Without Walls discovered an online photo of her campaigning for Trump. She said students circulated the photo, harassed her online and called her a white supremacist. A D.C. school system official said they investigated the allegations and allowed Jayne to study from home to ensure she felt safe. “A lot of people who I thought were my best friends just all of a sudden totally turned their backs on me,” Jayne said. “People wouldn’t even look at me or talk to me.” For Gavin, the teasing began in fourth grade, soon after Trump announced his candidacy. After more than a year of schoolyard taunts, Gavin decided to go by his mother’s last name, Mather, when he started middle school. The teenager has been proactive, requesting that teachers call him by the new name, but it gets trickier, and more stressful, when substitutes fill in. He didn’t legally change his last name, so “Trump” still appears on the roster. The teasing has subsided, but the switch wasn’t easy. Gavin likes his real last name and feared that changing it would hurt his father’s feelings. His dad understood, but for Gavin, the guilt remains. “This is my name,” he said. “And I am abandoning my name.”

Maritza Avalos knows what's coming. It's 2020. The next presidential election is nine months away. She remembers what happened during the last one, when she was just 11. “Pack your bags,” kids told her. “You get a free trip to Mexico.” She’s now a freshman at Kamiakin High, the same Washington state school where her older sister, Cielo, confronted the teenagers who chanted “Build the wall” at a football game in late 2018. Maritza, 14, assumes the taunts that accompanied Trump’s last campaign will intensify with this one, too. “I try not to think about it,” she said, but for educators nationwide, the ongoing threat of politically charged harassment has been impossible to ignore. In response, schools have canceled mock elections, banned political gear, trained teachers, increased security, formed student-led mediation groups and created committees to develop anti-discrimination policies.

In California, the staff at Riverside Polytechnic High School has been preparing for this year’s presidential election since the day after the last one. On Nov. 9, 2016, counselors held a workshop in the library for students to share their feelings. Trump supporters feared they would be singled out for their beliefs, while girls who had heard the president brag about sexually assaulting women worried that boys would be emboldened to do the same to them. “We treated it almost like a crisis,” said Yuri Nava, a counselor who has since helped expand a student club devoted to improving the school’s culture and climate. Riverside, which is 60 percent Hispanic, also offers three courses — African American, Chicano and ethnic studies — meant to help students better understand one another, Nava said. And instead of punishing students when they use race or politics to bully, counselors first try to bring them together with their victims to talk through what happened. Often, they leave as friends.

In Gambrills, Md., Arundel High School has taken a similar approach. Even before a student was caught scribbling the n-word in his notebook in early 2017, Gina Davenport, the principal, worried about the effect of the election’s rhetoric. At the school, where about half of the 2,200 students are minorities, she heard their concerns every day. But the racist slur, discovered the same month as Trump’s inauguration, led to a concrete response. A “Global Community Citizenship” class, now mandatory for all freshmen in the district, pushes students to explore their differences. A recent lesson delved into Trump’s use of Twitter. “The focus wasn’t Donald Trump, the focus was listening: How do we convey our ideas in order for someone to listen?” Davenport said. “We teach that we can disagree with each other without walking away being enemies — which we don’t see play out in the press, or in today’s political debates.”

Since the class debuted in fall 2017, disciplinary referrals for disruption and disrespect have decreased by 25 percent each school year, Davenport said. Membership in the school’s speech and debate team has doubled. The course has eased Davenport’s anxiety heading into the next election. She doesn’t expect an uptick in racist bullying. “Civil conversation,” she said. “The kids know what that means now.” Many schools haven’t made such progress, and on those campuses, students are bracing for more abuse. Maritza’s sister, Cielo, told her to stand up for herself if classmates use Trump’s words to harass her, but Maritza is quieter than her sibling. The freshman doesn’t like confrontation. She knows, though, that eventually someone will say something — about the wall, maybe, or about how kids who look like her don’t belong in this country — and when that day comes, the girl hopes that she’ll be strong.

3 notes · View notes

tsc-living · 5 years

Photo

Kit sat still watching Ty set up the camera in their study, letting him set up the framing for the video. Kit didn’t bother even paying attention to the viewfinder; Ty framed it perfectly every time. Ty’s jaw length black hair kept flopping into his eyes as he leant over the camera and Kit could imagine the comments already.

Look at his hair I love him so much <3

Ty-Ty is so pretty I can’t!!

Never cut your hair again Ty!! You look so cute!

Do you think Kit loves him more with longer hair or short? Longer obvi look at his heart eyes!! Guys they aren’t even canon ugh #notp #theyrejustbros Nahhh they’re legit you can’t hide love like that lmao #hater

The two boys had been making YouTube videos together for close to three years, since they were fifteen, and they had accidentally racked up quite a decent following. 97% of which seemed to believe that they were dating and had been since they were younger teens. Three percent of their audience seemed to really hate the idea, which didn’t particularly faze either of the boys. “All ready,” Ty said, stepping around the camera after turning it on and sitting next to Kit on the lounge against their fan art covered feature wall, “Do you have the questions?” He asked and Kit waved his phone in the air as if that answered the question.

“Are we agreed on the title?” Kit asked although he knew they were in agreement, he was just procrastinating. Kit had been irregularly titling their videos something exaggerated with ‘NOT clickbait’ in brackets, but it was always ironic and always clickbait.

“Yes of course.” Ty replied and Kit cracked his knuckles nervously.

“Do you want to start the video?” He asked, flashing Ty with his cutest smile. It didn’t work because Ty just shook his head and smiled charmingly back at Kit.

“I did last week’s, besides this was your idea.” Ty said and Kit sighed, took a deep breath and turned his attention to the camera.

“Ready?” He asked and he saw Ty nod in his peripheral vision so he smiled broadly at the camera and waved at it, “Hey Kittens! It’s Kit and Ty here as you know…” He trailed off cringing at himself and Ty laughed.

“Try again.” He said and Kit nodded, smiled and waved again.

“Hey Kittens! So by now you would have read the title of this video…” He said and paused, waiting for Ty to cut in like they had scripted.

“’We’re Dating [NOT Clickbait]’” He said and Kit smiled, nerves fluttering in his stomach.

“Exactly,” Kit agreed and grinned cheekily, “But you know how this works.” He added, shrugging carelessly.

“It’s always clickbait.” Ty added, but he shifted, brushing their legs together.

“Well, usually…” Kit said, taking Ty’s hand in his, “But not today… which is why today Ty and I are doing ‘The Boyfriend Tag.’” He finished, his smile genuinely shy which was unusual for him. He could see in the viewfinder that Ty was smiling at him which made Kit blush.

“We’ll give you a moment to freak out about that.” Ty mused, turning his attention to the camera and Kit glanced at his wrist as if he had a watch there.

“Time’s up!” He announced and Ty laughed, “So shall we get started?” He asked and Ty nodded, taking Kit’s phone to hold it between them.

“So there are fifteen questions! First one is ‘where did we meet?’ Kit, where did we meet?” Ty asked, knocking Kit’s knee with his own. Kit rolled his eyes affectionately.

“We haven’t actually shared that story with you guys have we?” Kit said, although he knew they hadn’t, “Ty tried to kill me.” He said sweetly. Ty sighed and shook his head.

“No! I didn’t. We were fifteen and well, you know my brother and his fiancé are police officers right? Well, I wanted to go with them all the time and help them on investigations, but I was obviously not allowed to.” Ty began and Kit smirked.

“So he decided to hide in the back of their police car and go with them anyway.” He interjected.

“Yes exactly… Julian and Emma went inside Kit’s house-“

“My father was under investigation…”

“And I saw someone moving in the basement so I thought Emma and Jules were in danger. I snuck down and well…” Ty trailed off, giving Kit a sheepish look.

“I was hiding down there like my dad had told me to and this little wannabe warrior threw me into the wall and held a knife to my throat.” Kit finished. Ty looked embarrassed, making Kit laugh. He squeezed Ty’s hand gently, “Honestly, even though this was my first time seeing Ty ever, my first thought was that he was beautiful.” He added, knowing he sounded cheesy but unable to stop himself.

“That was our first time meeting, but what was our first date?” Ty asked.

“That is the second question?” Kit clarified and after Ty’s nod Kit delved into explaining, “So our first date was two years ago and I took Ty to Echo Park, we rode the pedal boats around the lake and had a picnic.”

“It was really nice, except Kit tried to see if he could capsize us and nearly succeeded.” Ty added.

“I nearly succeeded, we stayed dry.” Kit added hurriedly.

“What was your first impression of me?” Ty read off the phone.

“I answered that already, what was your first impression of me?” Kit rallied back.

“I thought you were going to hurt my family, but then I realised you were just a kid like me. A weaker kid than me too.” Ty replied and Kit scowled at him.

“I’m not weaker than you anymore though.” He pouted and Ty raised a sceptical eyebrow.

“Next question is,” He said, ignoring Kit’s protest, “When did you meet the family?”

“You never met my dad, but you knew Tessa and Jem before I did. Before they adopted me anyway.” Kit said and Ty nodded earnestly.

“Yeah, and you met my siblings when you moved into the foster home.” Ty replied before turning his attention to the camera, “But you guys already knew that so next question is… do I have any weird obsessions? If so, what?”

“I mean, animals and Sherlock are your thing… but I wouldn’t say they’re weird obsessions.” Kit answered and Ty smiled.

“I thought you were going to say that you were my weird obsession.” He admitted and Kit laughed, shaking his head.

“No of course not, that is an expected obsession. I’m pretty great.” He teased, “Do I have any weird obsessions?”

“Yes, you’re obsessed with chewing gum and it’s a new obsession of yours.” Ty answered. Kit pushed the piece of gum in his mouth to the forefront and popped it loudly before grinning at Ty. It was true, he had started chewing gum frequently and he knew Ty didn’t understand it, but he couldn’t seem to break the already forming habit. He glanced at the phone and read the next question to Ty.

“We have been together for two years, since we were sixteen.” He answered, before Kit read the next question.

“Do we have any traditions? Uh we eat dinner with my family every Monday and we eat dinner with yours every Sunday… and we go on a date every Friday.” Ty answered.

“And I bring you flowers every Wednesday.” Kit added, which was true even though neither of them really knew why that tradition had started. Ty smiled and looked past the camera to where a bouquet of sunflowers was sitting on their windowsill.

“What was our first road trip?” Ty asked, and then he blushed brilliantly red. Kit knew he was remembering their first road trip when Kit had just gotten his licence. Helen, Ty’s older sister, and her wife had finally legally adopted all of her younger siblings except Julian and Mark who were already out of the foster system, and Kit had been adopted by Tessa and Jem, but Kit and Ty had already started dating and didn’t like being separated. This meant that they begged and whined until Helen, Aline, Tessa and Jem had agreed to let the two boys go on a road trip during the summer, although they probably would have gone anyway. They had driven from LA to New York, stopping frequently so that Ty and Kit could explore different parts of their country. They had gone to art galleries, museums, zoos and on long hikes, often camping and sometimes sleeping in a motel. Kit knew Ty was blushing. It was on this trip that they had seen each other and slept beside each other with no clothes on, although they hadn’t done anything explicit until a month after their return.

Kit remembered Ty lying on his back in their small tent, his head pillowed on his arm, his hair tangling in his eyelashes. The sleeping bag had been thrown open because they had been overheating and his bare legs were poking out, just a strip of the fabric covering his hipbones to his thighs. Kit was sitting with his legs crossed and his pillow on his lap, watching his boyfriend. He had always believed Ty was beautiful, but his unselfconscious vulnerability in that moment was breathtaking.

“What are you thinking about?” Kit had asked and Ty smiled, shaking the hair from his eyes.

“That I never saw this as being a part of my future.”

“What bit?”

“The road trip, the camping on the side of the road, having a boyfriend, or lying bare next to him. It feels surreal, like I just dreamt it into reality and when I wake up it will be gone.” Ty explained, his eyes starry like the sky outside their tent. Kit lay down next to Ty and pulled the sleeping bag over them both, resting his head on his shoulder and kissing beneath his ear in the place that made Ty shiver.

“I’m going to be here when you wake up, and as far as I know we will still be naked in a tent half way between Los Angeles and New York.” Kit replied and Ty shifted so he could run his fingers through Kit’s hair.

“I’ve never told you I love you have I?” Ty asked and Kit shook his head, his breathing hitched. “Well I do, just in case you didn’t know that.” Kit rolled up onto his elbow and kissed Ty, long and slow, his hand resting on his flat and firm stomach.

“I love you too.”

Ty touched Kit’s cheek gently, drawing him back from the memory. “LA to New York was our first road trip, to see your cousin Jace and his wife.” He said and Kit nodded, tilting his head to kiss Ty’s fingers before the boy lowered them again.

“First time we said I love you.” Kit added and Ty smiled, his eyes soft and full of love as he looked at Kit. It was the heart eyes that their fans had so often commented on, and that they no longer needed to edit out or ignore.

“What’s the next question?” Kit asked and Ty read from the phone.

“What do we argue about the most?”

“We don’t fight all that much, usually just one off fights that don’t last-“ Kit stopped talking because of the look on Ty’s face. He looked amused and he had the superior ‘I know something you don’t’ look. “What?”

“When we first moved in together…” Ty began and Kit immediately knew what he was thinking.

“Ohhh that is a good point… we argued about who slept on which side of the bed.” Kit said with a laugh and Ty nodded, “For about two weeks we argued about who slept on the left side of the bed.”

“I won.” Ty added nonchalantly and Kit rolled his eyes before reading the next question.

“Who wears the pants in the relationship?” He read and then sighed loudly, “If Ty won the argument on who sleeps where, it’s clear he wears the pants in the relationship.” He explained. When they had first read through the questions Kit had explained what the phrase ‘wears the pants’ means, and he had immediately said that it was him. Kit could only agree.

They finished the video shortly after, then messed around with taking thumbnails, ending up with Ty kissing Kit’s cheek and Kit giving him a side eye and covering his smile.

They settled down at the desk in the study with a pizza to edit. Kit had his legs over Ty’s lap and watched, he was capable of editing their videos, but Ty was better and he enjoyed it more than Kit did. “Are you ready?” Ty asked, the mouse hovering over the upload button. Kit’s stomach exploded in butterflies and he leant forward to kiss Ty deeply.

“Yeah it’s time.” He agreed, lips still touching. Ty clicked the mouse without looking away or breaking the contact of their lips. They kissed again, Ty’s long fingers curling in the front of Kit’s tee shirt, pulling him more fully onto his lap. Kit straddled his legs and closed his eyes tight, letting Ty distract him as they waited.

It didn’t take long. The laptop started going insane with notifications within two minutes of them pressing upload. The video was eleven minutes long.

Is this real?? WTF OMG IT IS!!

THEY DID THAT <3

I fuckn knew it

ASDGJLJSHKHALJDGLKSJDHAAJD!?!?!?! What? Do not question me thot!

TOO CUTE I HAVE ALWAYS SHIPPED IT!!

ALL ABOARD THE KITTY SHIP KITTENS WE ARE SAILING!!!! We have been sailing for years! More like three honestly, you cant say they didn’t like each other way back when. Truer words were never spoken

I love them they are so cute I cannot handle this wtf

I knew they were gonna do something like this lmfao sneaky

$10 that this was Kit’s idea? P.s I love them so much

Kit did a 180 degree turn and they read the comments as they appeared, Ty’s arms around Kit’s middle and his chin resting on Kit’s shoulder. “That cat is out of the bag.” He murmured, the nerves slowly disappearing as the positive comments flooded in.

“I know that one.” Ty said, meaning he knew the figure of speech Kit had used. Kit grinned and leant back against his boyfriend.

“Because you’re brilliant.” He said and Ty kissed his cheek.

“I know that too.” He teased.

@skylarthebooklion your request was so cute and I had so much fun writing this omg <3

#kitty #kitty blackdale #kit herondale #ty blackthorn #kitty au #youtuber au #requested #fanfic #tc #tda #twp #tid #tmi #oneshot

162 notes · View notes

progressiveparty · 4 years

Text

Bigger Than Bernie: The Other Progressive Challengers Taking On the Democratic Establishment (via Christopher Hass)

Our Progressive Candidates

Our endorsed candidates are running for office representing progressive values. Fighting for progressive ideas, for the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, free college, ending mass incarceration and deportation. It’s time to empower the voice of a new generation of Progressives who represent the people. A new generation of Progressives who will fight for solutions that match the need of the many.

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

BERNIE SANDERS OFFICIAL ENDORSEMENTS

UNITED STATES SENATE

Maggie Toulouse Oliver U.S. SENATE – NEW MEXICO

OFFICIAL ENDORSEMENTS

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Rashida Tlaib U.S. HOUSE – MICHIGAN (MI-13)

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ U.S. HOUSE – NEW YORK (NY-14)

PRAMILA JAYAPAL, U.S. HOUSE – WASHINGTON (WA-07)

ILHAN OMAR U.S. HOUSE – MINNESOTA (MN-05)

RO KHANNA U.S. HOUSE – CALIFORNIA (CA-17)

Joaquin Vazquez U.S. HOUSE – California (CA-53)

Marie Newman U.S. HOUSE – ILLINOIS (IL-03)

OFFICIAL ENDORSEMENTS

UNITED STATES LOCAL GOVERNMENT

CANDIDATES CLICK HERE Can not find your progressive candidate?

Year 2020 – Recognize a Progressive – Nominate a Candidate:

The Other Progressive Challengers Taking On the Democratic Establishment

By Christopher Hass “Today,” Bernie Sanders booms in his monotone shout, “we begin a political revolution to transform our country—economically, politically, socially and environmentally.” He marks each beat with his right hand, as if conducting with an invisible baton. Behind him, a lone seagull flaps its wings as it flies across Lake Champlain. The crowd of 5,000 that has come to Burlington, Vt., on a sunny afternoon in May to witness Sanders’ official campaign announcement breaks into a cheer. At the time, it was easy to dismiss talk of revolution as the rallying cry of a 74-year-old democratic socialist who clings too dearly to memories of the 1960s. Eleven months and more than six million votes later, Sanders’ call for revolution is harder to ignore. But what, exactly, would this political revolution look like? It’s not hard to imagine Sanders marching in the streets with the masses—he’s walked plenty of picket lines, most recently alongside Verizon workers in New York City last October—but that’s not the revolution he’s calling for. For Sanders, political revolution means shifting control of American politics away from corporate interests, convincing non-voters to go to the polls and attracting white working-class voters back to the Democratic Party, all while moving the party left enough to embrace democratic socialist policies. A political revolution of that kind is going to require two things: a wave of candidates committed to a bold set of progressive ideas and a mass of voters with the political will to elect them. There’s evidence both of these are already here.

Progressives are fired up here for a victory against big money. —Jamie Raskin read the full interview In These Times spoke to U.S. House and Senate challengers across the country who are very much a part of this wave. They are all outsiders to varying degrees, and all of them are running against the Democratic establishment in its various forms—from corporate donors and super PACs to the head of the Democratic National Committee herself. These challengers range from first-time candidates to experienced lawmakers, from community organizers to law professors. Each is balancing the individual concerns of the voters they seek to represent alongside the larger mood of the nation. None of them is running because of Bernie Sanders, but they clearly benefit from the enthusiasm and sense of progressive possibility his campaign has created. It would be a mistake to call them “Sanders Democrats” (and it’s unlikely Sanders himself would want anything to do with the term). Some have endorsed Sanders, others remain neutral or even back Hillary Clinton. But they are coalescing around a set of progressive policies familiar to anyone who has heard Sanders speak, including single-payer healthcare, free college tuition, a $15 minimum wage and breaking up the big banks. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic platform more at odds with Bill Clinton’s centrist Third Way of the 1990s. More importantly, these positions increasingly reflect the popular will. Even after the brutal battles over Obamacare, polls show that more than half of Americans support moving to a single-payer healthcare system. Fifty-eight percent want to break up the big banks. Sixty-three percent support raising the minimum wage to $15. And Americans are nearly united in agreement (78 percent) that Citizens United should be overturned. What’s striking about recent polling, though, is not the support for these progressive policies (many have enjoyed widespread approval for a while), but the openness to new, radical ideas—especially among young voters. In a January YouGov poll, people under 30 rated socialism more favorably than capitalism. On the eve of the Iowa caucus, when asked how they describe themselves, 43 percent of Democratic caucusgoers chose “socialist.” Take a moment to let that sink in. This is what happens when you have a generation of young people whose central experiences with capitalism have been two recessions, a financial crisis, crushing college debt, flat wages and soaring income inequality. For young people, the devil they don’t know is looking better and better than the devil they do—and that sentiment is fueling insurgent challengers. Many of these candidates continually emphasize the need to purge U.S. politics of corporate money, starting with the Democratic Party. “It’s easy for candidates to say they’re for overturning Citizens United, but it’s really meaningless when they’re also taking so much corporate and dark money that they’ll never follow through,” says Tim Canova, who is running for Congress in Florida’s 23rd congressional district. “The Democratic Party has lost its way. It has gone corporate and Wall Street on so many issues that it has unfortunately turned its back on its own grassroots base.” And it’s more than a matter of principle: Many of these candidates believe that voters are fed up with how the corporate capture of the party has pulled it to the right. “The Democratic Party has been Lucy with the football and the voters have been Charlie Brown,” says Tom Fiegen, a candidate for Senate in Iowa. “Democrats have pulled the football away too many times, so the voters say, ‘Nope, I am not going to be tricked again. I am not going to have you lie to me and tell me you’re on my side, and then when I send you to D.C., you vote for the TPP or you vote for the Keystone Pipeline.’ ” Nowhere is this trust gap felt more keenly than among young voters. Sanders has won the support of young people like few politicians before. In each of the 27 states that held primaries or caucuses in February or March, he won the youth vote, often by more than 50 points. In his home state of Vermont, he defeated Hillary Clinton among voters under 29 by an overwhelming 95 percent to 5 percent. Tom Fiegen saw how this played out in Iowa. “In the conventions I went to,” he says, “there was probably 30 to 40 years difference in age between Bernie supporters in one half of the room and Hillary supporters in the other half of the room.” Fiegen himself has endorsed Sanders, and you can hear in his voice the same passion that has animated so many young people: “We are idealists. … We want a better world. We think we can achieve it. We’re willing to basically throw our bodies in front of the bus to do that.”

The number one lesson that everyone can learn from Bernie Sanders, and that I’ve tried to emulate, is: Tell the truth. —Tom Fiegen The challengers:

Tim Canova (FL)

Donna Edwards (MD)

Tom Fiegen (IA)

Lucy Flores (NV)

Alan Grayson (FL)

Eric Kingson (NY)

Pramila Jayapal (WA)

Susannah Randolph (FL)

Joseline Peña-Melnyk (MD)

Jamie Raskin (MD) It would be a mistake to overlook the fact that this year’s election is playing out in a moment when protest movements have interjected themselves into the national conversation in a way we haven’t seen in a long time. Black Lives Matter, Fight for 15, the climate movement and more have demonstrated the value of setting uncompromising demands and pushing the boundaries of what is politically possible. It’s no surprise then that some of these progressive challengers come directly out of protest movements. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state senator running for the 7th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, has a long history of activism and advocacy in Seattle. She founded the post-9/11 immigrant rights group Hate Free Zone (now OneAmerica), which has held massive voter registration drives. “The only reason I got into politics was because I believed it was another platform for organizing,” she says, “and that’s what I want to do with my congressional campaign. We’ve brought in thousands of leaders, young people and people of color and women who never saw themselves as part of democracy.” Joseline Peña-Melnyk, who is running for Congress in Maryland’s 4th District, says: “These movements give me hope for the future of our democracy. They show that the spirit that gave rise to the civil rights movement is still alive as people take up causes that matter and challenge the status quo.” Donna Edwards, a co-founder of the National Network to End Domestic Violence now running for Maryland’s open Senate seat, agrees. “I’ve always believed in outside movements,” she says. “Government doesn’t move effectively and elected officials don’t move effectively unless they have a big push from the outside.” Candidates like Debbie Medina, a democratic socialist running for state Senate in New York’s 18th District, are happy to be that push. As she told The Nation, “This election is just another rent strike.” Sanders himself is arguably the biggest protest candidate of them all. But a funny thing is happening: Many of the protest candidates are winning. By the middle of April, Sanders had won 16 states, as well as the Democrats abroad primary. Donna Edwards has led by as much as 6 points. Polls show Lucy Flores, a Sanders supporter running for Congress in Nevada, leading by 20 points. In Maryland’s 8th congressional district, Jamie Raskin’s two closest opponents are busy arguing over who’s in second place. For any new president to enact a progressive agenda, they’re going to need a new Congress. The establishment, however, is not going quietly. In Florida, where Tim Canova is challenging Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz for her congressional seat, news got out in March that the Florida Democratic Party (FDP) had denied Canova’s campaign access to the party’s voter file. His supporters created an uproar; the file is crucial to any campaign’s get-out-the-vote efforts. The FDP eventually backed down in order to avoid, in the words of the state party executive director, the “appearance of favoritism,” but the policy remains in place for all other Democratic primary challengers in Florida. And not just Florida—Democratic challengers in other states are routinely denied access to this data or charged extra for it. “The DNC and state Democratic parties must stop favoring incumbents over insurgents in Democratic primaries,” Canova says. “We need to recruit activists committed to our progressive agenda to run for office, and that includes challenging incumbent Democrats.” Given that these candidates want to rid the party of corporate influence, it’s no surprise that many are going head-to-head with big money. In Maryland, Jamie Raskin’s two biggest challengers in the Democratic primary are a wine mogul named David Trone, who has already spent more than $5 million of his fortune on the race, and Kathleen Matthews, who once oversaw the Marriott political action committee and is now herself the recipient of more lobbyist money than any Democrat running for the House in 2016. “My major opponents here have no real history of involvement in Democratic Party politics,” Raskin says. “They are creatures of the big money politics that have overtaken our country.” He’s won the endorsement of both liberal groups and a number of Democratic state lawmakers, and—borrowing a page from Sanders’ playbook—has relied on a surge of small-dollar donations to remain competitive. “Progressives are fired up here for a victory against big money,” Raskin says. In Nevada, Lucy Flores faces a multi-millionaire, Susie Lee, who has loaned her own campaign $150,000. But as Jeb Bush will tell you, money alone only gets you so far, especially in a year when voters seem more interested in authenticity. “The number one lesson that everyone can learn from Bernie Sanders,” Tom Fiegen says, “and that I’ve tried to emulate is: Tell the truth.” Donna Edwards put it this way: “We should not run away from who we are as Democrats and the values that we share. … We lose elections because our voters stay home.” For a President Sanders or a President Clinton to be successful, they’re going to need voters to come out not just in November, but in 2018, 2020, and beyond. For any president to enact a progressive agenda, they’re going to need a new Congress, made up of people like Donna Edwards, Jamie Raskin, Pramila Jayapal and others. When Barack Obama first ran for president, he spoke frequently about how his election was not about him, but us. He may have meant it, but it was hard to shake the feeling that at that moment in American history, it was in fact very much about him and the qualities he possessed. Today, when Sanders uses the same language, you believe him—if for no other reason than it’s hard to imagine a wild-haired septuagenarian in a baggy suit as the catalyst for a popular movement. Clearly, something deeper is going on. For the most part, Sanders himself has remained focused on his own election fight with Hillary Clinton. He has avoided talk of the future. But in a recent interview with Cenk Uygur of the “Young Turks,” Sanders let his guard down for a minute, saying, “We need, win or lose for me, a political revolution which starts electing people who are accountable to the working families of this country.” There it was—“electing people,” plural, not a single president. That’s what revolution looks like. These challengers are also carrying the flag of the political revolution sparked by Bernie Sanders. This Piece Originally Appeared in Christopher Hass Read the full article

2 notes · View notes

keldae · 6 years

Text

Drastic Measures (Chapter Twenty-Three)

Lightsabers igniting around him, Corso Riggs ducked into the back of the chamber and scrambled his comm link. Kriffin’ hoped I’d never have to use this, he silently complained as he tapped in a particular sequence. There was a slight tremor to his touch, movements hurried. Designed to alert the network of an attack and request assistance, he had only used the alert code once before -- a test run on Thunder’s orders. Balmorra’s resistance cell managed to scatter and escape the Zakuulans before they needed to sound the alarm. Dantooine was not going to be so lucky.

“Hope someone nearby’s listening,” Corso muttered with a final tap to the comm. Shoving the unit back onto his belt, he pushed to his feet and hefted his blaster rifle. As he held the stock against his shoulder, he listened for the sounds of approaching enemy forces, one eye trained down his scope. “Sounds like we’ve got our work cut out for us, Torchy.”

Across the galaxy, the alert message had its desired effect as the signal rippled through the network. Each knew the day would come when it was needed, but the reality of it seemed surreal, especially coming as it had from Dantooine. No one expected the Enclave to be the first target on the Zakuulan radar. But then, no one expected Master Taerich to be alive, much less hiding there, either.

While the news was startling to Cole Cantarus and the Corellian cell, it was on Nar Shaddaa, Alderaan, and Tatooine that the alert provoked the most response.

Kaliyo grumbled as she dropped the new scope she was attaching to her modified blaster rifle, scowling as she reached for the offending comm link. Blast, if whoever was contacting her right now didn’t have awful timing!

Her frustration turned to something approaching concern when she read the message. “Shit,” she whispered as she set her weapons to the side and lunged to her feet, running to find the old man. Cipher Nine needed to know this. “Agent!” she yelled, taking a corner at a run and nearly running right into her target. “Dantooine’s getting attacked, Agent.”

She couldn’t remember seeing Reanden Taerich ever going that shade of white before today.

Doc frowned as an alert started coming through on Vector’s computer console. “What’s that?” he asked, leaning over the Joiner’s shoulder to see.

“What is—” Vector frowned as he opened the alert. “It’s the Storm system. It’s an emergency warning code, coming from…” The Joiner paled and started frantically typing into the console. “Oh no. Oh, no.”

“What is it?” The Jedi who’d remained behind, Master Bel Iblis, stopped behind Vector and frowned at the anxiety she could sense. A few dozen metres away, Doc could hear the clicking of disturbed Killiks picking up on Vector’s anxiety. “Ambassador, what—”

“Dantooine’s under attack,” Vector hurriedly answered as he kept typing. “We need to warn Commander Malcom. Get Doctor Lokin and Doctor Oggurobb — we require assistance reaching Havoc’s comms while they're in hyperspace!”

Watching as Bel Iblis rushed off toward the resident scientists, Doc staggered back a step, fear lurching into his throat. Xaja was in danger -- again. Kriff, I hope that cure worked enough for you to fight, Red…

On Tatooine, it was Torian who delivered the news. Sorand -- Thunder, himself -- looked up sharply when he heard the Mandalorian’s shout echoing through the underground caves. He rose to his feet as Torian rushed into the command cavern. Alarm rippled through the Force from the blond-haired man, strongly enough to make Lana hurry in a second later, Corey right behind her. “What’s wrong, burc'ya?” the Sith asked as he started walking down toward the hunter, Korin right behind him.

“Dantooine…” Torian gasped as he shoved the datapad at Sorand. If he noted the Sith’s hands shake ever so slightly, he said nothing. “The Enclave’s under attack.”

All sound ceased in the cave as the resistance members struggled to process the news. Sorand looked down at the datapad, then at a rapidly-paling Korin, then back at Torian, feeling his face drain of colour. In an instant, however, his leadership mask fell into place. “Do your best to stay in contact with Corso; get any intel you can from him.” He whirled, looking to the former head of Sith Intelligence. “Lana, can you get in contact with the other cells and coordinate with their leaders?”

“I’m already on it.” The blonde Sith pulled her datapad out and began typing. Gloved fingers moved briskly across the surface, even as she spoke. “Your sister and Theron aren’t allowed to die before I’ve had a chance to tear them both a new one for sheer idiocy.”

“There ain’t a hope in hell that anyone’s gonna reach ‘em in time, Sith,” Andronikos spoke up. He was unusually sombre as he rested a hand on Sorand’s shoulder. “I know it’s your sister, but the only thing anyone’s gonna be able to do once they get there is scare off the vultures.”

“We have to try,” Sorand whispered, his fingers clutching onto the datapad hard enough to turn his knuckles white beneath his gloves. “We’re either saving them or avenging them.”

It was a hard toss-up, Theron thought, as to what was more terrible: the sounds of an orbital bombardment pummelling the ground overhead, or the sudden eruption of blaster fire and mechanical warcries of Skytroopers as the Zakuulans swarmed into the caves. Drawing his blasters in the same motion as he got to his feet, Theron fired as the hum of igniting lightsabers filled the cavern around him. Two of the blades were immediately extinguished as the Jedi holding them fell to the Skytroopers’ blaster fire.

He glanced over to the side, just seeing Corso fall back to frantically type a code into his comm link — probably a distress call to the Storm system. “Any odds we can get out of these caves and lose them?” he called over.

“Not likely,” Guss called back, guarding Corso with a lightsaber held in shaking hands. “Not unless we can get through the active kinrath tunnels…”

“Those are almost worse than the Zaks are,” interjected a raven-haired Jedi with striking violet makeup.

A particularly loud explosion rippled through the cave -- loud enough to temporarily drown out the sounds of battle. “And I think those were our emergency shuttles,” muttered Ashara, looking in the direction of the explosion.

“Great,” Theron muttered as he shot down another Skytrooper. They must have tracked us from Voss, he mused. The old man must not have been as good a distraction as he thought. If the explosion had been the destruction of the evac shuttles, then the ship they arrived on, the Corellian corvette belonging to his mother, might be their only way off world… provided that hadn’t been found and blasted apart as well. That, however, depended on them getting out of the caves. And right now, that didn’t look likely.

He had to give them credit: the Jedi were putting up an impressive defence. Satele had rallied the Jedi around her to form a wall of spinning blades, guarding the rebels who had already fallen and were out of the fight. How well could — Theron did a quick headcount — fifty-odd assorted Force-users hold off what looked like a full platoon of Skytroopers, human Zakuulan soldiers, and, to his dismay, the incoming flood of Zakuulan knights?

Then he saw a blur of green and blue as two human women jumped into the fray. The taller Jedi wielded a bright green saberstaff, the shorter bearing two vivid blue twin lightsabers. His heart leapt into his throat when he got a feel of Xaja’s mental state — steely, stubborn determination, and a fierce combative streak that no Jedi training could tame fully. A week ago you could barely function! he silently protested, nanoseconds before he felt the hair on his neck stand on end and dodged to the left, a blaster bolt thudding into the stone wall behind him.

But apparently two years in carbonite and a month of being dangerously ill hadn’t diminished Xaja’s combat abilities. Theron wasn’t sure if it was the effect of fighting beside Kira again for the first time in so long, or if her reconnection to the Force had brought back the muscle memory of ‘saber duelling. Whatever it was, it was like he was watching her fly into battle on Rishi again, or Manaan, or Ziost, or Yavin IV. She handled herself like a dancer, fluid and graceful, yet deadly quick with her blades and too acrobatic with the fast-paced Ataru form to be easily hit by the Zakuulans. The Jedi Battlemaster, Hero of Tython, and Bane of Technically-One-And-A-Half Emperors was back in her element, a perfectly seamless unit beside her former Padawan.

The shouts from the Zakuulans rose in volume as the hated ‘assassin’ was recognized, fire focusing on her. One of the Knights lunged at Xaja, polesaber striking from above; the Jedi nimbly avoided the blow in a maneuver that made Theron’s back ache in sympathy. She then launched into a counter-attacked against the Zakuulan, switching to what Theron was pretty sure was the Juyo form of aggression —

“The terrorist! Take him!”

Shit. Theron dodged backwards as another Knight swooped in for the attack, just barely getting out of the way of the plasma blade. He wasn’t sure if there were orders for him and Xaja to be brought in alive, and he really didn’t want to find out firsthand. He fired a series of rapid shots at the Knight, forcing the Zakuulan on the defensive as a red-haired Miraluka woman darted in to help with the fight. Finding himself back to back with Corso, he unleashed another storm of bolts into the Zakuulans as the Mantellian shot down another Skytrooper with a challenging yell. “Any luck from the system?” he shouted over the sounds of the fight.

“If the signal got out. I’m kriffin’ hopin’ so.” Corso swore, using some expletives that Theron was pretty sure he picked up from Korin. “Be a good time for some gorram grenades right about now!”

“You’re not wrong.” Theron ducked another Skytrooper shot. For an instant, he allowed himself to wonder if his bond with Xaja was letting him leech off her Force-sensitivity, giving him Jedi instincts. “If the signal did get through, how long do you think it’ll take for Thunder to get help out?”

“Unless someone’s already on their way for other reasons?” Corso’s brow creased worriedly. “Dunno if anyone’ll get here in time.”

This time it was Theron who swore out loud. It was unclear as to whether it was from Corso’s grim words; from another Zakuulan Knight charging at him, only intercepted at the last second by his mother; or from Xaja catching an unlucky kick to her leg. He watched as she crumpled with a yelp. Kira dove in to cover her.

A warning prickled against Theron’s awareness, but he didn’t recognize it in time to do more than turn his upper body slightly. The blaster bolt that would have taken him in the chest instead slammed into his shoulder, making him stagger backward with a strangled cry. He heard an alarmed shout of “Theron!” before a slender, yet surprisingly strong hand grabbed his arm and dragged him out of immediate danger -- his mother’s hand.

The former Grand Master adjusted her grip on her saber-staff to provide something of a shield, reaching for Theron’s injured shoulder with her free hand. “It’s not lethal,” she murmured, inspecting the wound. “It looks like it should be easily treatable if —”

The caverns shook with the echoes of another explosion, and Theron looked away from his burning injury to exchange a look with his mother. “I don’t think that’s going to be a concern,” he quietly said. “Not unless you think the Force can work a miracle.”

Satele offered him a small, sad smile as she moved her hand up to gently touch his cheek, with a soft touch that Theron wouldn’t have ever expected to come from her. “Theron, whatever happens down here…” She hesitated, taking a breath to steady herself and blinking in the dim light. “I’m proud of you. I have always been a very proud mother, and I wish I had told you long ago.”

Those were words that Theron had never expected to hear from Satele Shan, not even during the few years under Master Zho’s care when he had actually been an idealistic child before he discovered cynicism. But it was something he would never admit he wanted to hear from her… no matter how desperately he did. “Thanks, Mom,” he whispered, and saw Satele’s eyes soften for possibly the first time that he could remember--

He sharply looked up as a Knight of Zakuul appeared over Satele’s right shoulder, polesaber raised to stab the Grand Master in the back while she was distracted. A sudden spike of protective fear lanced through Theron’s chest. He felt his blaster settle back in his hand and quickly raised his uninjured arm to fire at the Knight. The Zakuulan fell with a blaster bolt in the centre of his helmet, not having suspected the spy to have been able to shoot him down so quickly.

Satele whirled as the blaster discharged, eyes widening as she looked at first the Knight’s body, then back at Theron’s hand. “What was that?” she breathed out, sounding more startled than Theron could ever remember her being before. The spy looked down at the blaster in question, then felt his heart stop for a second. Hadn’t he dropped the weapon when he was shot? Then how had it returned to his hand…?

He looked up to meet his mother’s dumbstruck look, a second before he felt a prickle of warning and ducked another shot that would have grazed his ear. Giving her head a quick shake, Satele spun back to the battle, saber-staff lighting the air around her as she deflected more shots away from her son. Forcing himself to put away the thoughts of how his blaster had returned to his hand, Theron gritted his teeth around the pain from his shoulder and fired around his mother, taking out a Skytrooper with deadly accuracy. Chances were that he wasn’t going to survive long enough to puzzle out what had happened anyway. May as well use the opportunity to take down as many Zakuulans as he could before the resistance cell fell.

Arcann rested his chin on his metallic hand as he studied the intelligence in front of him regarding Taerich and Shan. From Rishi to Dromund Kaas to Voss to— he glanced at the latest update from Overwatch— Dantooine? You have been moving around quickly. From what he understood of the Core Worlds, the idea of a Jedi willingly going to Dromund Kaas was unthinkable, half due to the risks of being murdered by a Sith, and half to the negative impacts of the Dark Side on them. Taerich must truly have been desperate to flee there.

But then, she also had ulterior motivations to go there. Accessing the information on Darth Imperius once again, he compared the profile of the Sith to that of Xaja Taerich. Yes, he could now see the striking resemblance between them. Pulling up an image of Cipher Nine, he could then see the traits both children seemed to inherit from the illustrious spy. So she fled to her family, and brought her lover and her friend with her.

Empress Acina swore she knew nothing of Imperius’ loyalties, and had given orders for her fellow Dark Councillor to be hunted down. The Eternal Emperor was not keen on trusting the Sith’s words. She would need to be investigated.

So Cipher Nine had fathered Taerich and Imperius; risked his own safety to protect his daughter -- after selling her to the Jedi as a child. Arcann frowned, unable to wrap his head around that concept. If he, Thexan, or Vaylin had been in such straits, Valkorion would have simply abandoned them. Their mother, on the other hand, had always been sentimental, attempting to ��rescue’ them multiple times. Cipher Nine must be weak to be swayed by his daughter. That must be it. Coddling was what mothers did, he thought, not fathers.

Still, rumours circulated wildly through his Imperial contacts of the agent’s prowess in handling even rogue Sith -- despite being Force-blind himself. Forced to protect his children, then, it was clear he had a skill set more than up to the task. Thus, weak though he might have been, the former Imperial spy remained a significant threat.

And while Xaja Taerich’s mother was confirmed to be long dead, she also had another brother, according to the files procured by Sith Intelligence: Korin Taerich, infamous Republic privateer and smuggler, who hadn’t been seen in months. Arcann frowned. Not knowing if the rogue captain was powerful with the Force like his siblings was a factor he wasn’t pleased with. Even if the captain had no connection to the Force -- which Arcann thought unlikely, given his Jedi mother and the power demonstrated by his two siblings -- there was a significant chance he had also inherited his father’s intelligence and ruthless characteristics. If he had half of Cipher Nine’s reputed intellect and vicious streak, he, too, could prove to be dangerous.

He sighed. It seemed the whole damned family, with concentrated effort, could possibly dismantle everything he had built, piece by piece. He couldn’t allow that to happen.

Frowning, Arcann then accessed another report taken from the Republic’s intelligence services. Theron Shan’s face stared at him in holo form, alongside those of the former Supreme Commander Jace Malcom and former Grand Master Satele Shan. The bastard son of two Republic war heroes, the spy had become something of a hero in his own right. He had earned his own influence to wield, likely with Republic forces or intelligence services. If he was truly Force-blind as the reports claimed, perhaps, the Zakuulan emperor mused, that influence was what Taerich saw in him.

Best to take out both troublesome families now, he decided, before they grew to be problems. Unfortunately, Cipher Nine had vanished somewhere in the chaotic Hutta system, and Imperius had gone rogue, disappearing without a trace. Jace Malcom’s whereabouts were also uncertain… but Satele Shan -- she had been located. Even better, it was suspected that her son and Master Taerich were with her.

A slow grin crept across his features, only half-visible behind the mask. Even if she doesn’t have them, she’ll have information. And perhaps the terrorist will come out of hiding for his mother.

Settling back into the Eternal Throne, Arcann switched on the stream of data provided by the Overwatch feeds. The Knight-Captain leading the attack force had reported finding a group of hidden Jedi rebels, likely under Master Shan’s leadership. Even if neither of the Shans was on Dantooine, there would be one fewer pocket of resistance in the galaxy by nightfall.

Zakuul’s flaw was pride.

The GEMINI captain looked down at the life sign readings from her ship’s crew. “I am fully assured of the Knight-Captain’s imminent victory, Overseer,” she addressed the holo figure of the Overwatch officer. “The Jedi cannot withstand an assault like this, or escape now that we have destroyed their shuttles.”

“We witness the last gasps of the Jedi resistance,” the overseer agreed, smugness in his tone even over the holo. “This will strike fear into the hearts of the rest of the galaxy’s would-be rebels. The assassin and terrorist will answer for their crimes.”

“I do hope the Republic assets do not believe in ritual suicide in the face of defeat,” GEMINI commented. “It would be a shame to not witness —”

The proximity alerts sounded. GEMINI turned her head to view the new alert coming through on her screens; if she could have frowned in confusion, she would have. “What the—?”

Cannon fire pummelled the side of the distracted ship, and one proud vessel of the Eternal Fleet went up in flames.

The forces of the Eternal Empire were well-trained and well-armed, and outnumbered the Republic or the Empire’s forces by an almost hilarious amount. But no army was completely flawless.

The incoming ship swooped low into Dantooine’s atmosphere, easily tracking the battle at the falling Jedi Enclave. The Knight-Captain leading the attack frowned when she heard the sound of a large ship’s engines bearing down on her location, knowing that she hadn’t given the command for her ship to reinforce her troops. She looked up, pale green eyes widening. She watched in shock as she and the troops still outside the cave entrances were mown down by cannon fire.

Even over the din of battle, the rumble of a ship’s engines descending over the roof of the hidden Enclave was entirely audible. Theron groaned, only partially from the pain in his shoulder, feeling Xaja’s awareness shift toward the sky. She could sense new lifeforms, and through her, Theron felt a sense of their bloodlust and adrenaline. The Zakuulans must have called in reinforcements to ensure the defeat of the resistance cell and the last Jedi rebels.

He shook his head as Xaja’s awareness overpowered his own; she was growing too tired to maintain a shield between herself and Theron, and he swore he could feel everything she did. The Skytroopers radiated no emotions, but the Zakuulan humans more than made up for the droids -- all Theron could feel from them was greedy excitement, pride, and the feeling of an imminent, assured victory. It was a stark contrast to the growing despair of the Jedi, faltering wills, exhaustion, and fear mingling with grim acceptance of what was to come.

Theron turned his head as Xaja suddenly sensed new lifeforms entering the caverns at a hurried run, rage and stubborn determination colouring the Force to red. The spy sighed, shifted to stand back-to-back with Corso as the younger mercenary kept firing at the Zakuulans with a challenging whoop. He raised his blaster with his good arm. “Good knowin’ you, Riggs,” he grunted as his finger tightened on the trigger, the bolt shooting out and slamming into a Zakuulan’s leg. The attacker dropped with a scream.

“You too, Shan.” Corso shifted against Theron’s back, his arm jerking slightly with the recoil of his rifle. “The cap’n’s gonna bring me back to life to kill me again for dyin’ out here like this.”

“Hells, the old man’s gonna do that to me for putting his daughter in danger.” Theron scowled. “I think he’d do it twice, too.” Corso snorted a wordless laugh that wasn’t disagreement with Theron’s grim prediction before shifting again, taking aim as the new lifeforms stormed into the cavern.

A new round of blaster fire joined the chorus of battle, rounds of plasma bolts tearing into the fray. Shouts arose from the chaos -- sounds of confusion and sudden, new uncertainty. When Theron focused along Xaja’s piggybacked senses, he was surprised to realize the new fear was coming from the Zakuulans as they were attacked from behind. “The resistance?” he asked, mostly to himself, as Corso turned to frown in bewilderment.

A deafening battle cry sounded as the newly-arriving soldiers fully moved into Theron’s line of sight. His jaw dropped when he recognized first the large number of decidedly-non-Zakuulan aliens in the newly-arriving force, and then recognized the sigils adorning their armour -- not to mention the unmistakable war droid in the ranks, gleefully firing at the Zakuulans. “Havoc Squad!” he shouted, and wasn’t sure if he was relieved to see his father’s old squad here, or worried at the possibility of Havoc still being loyal to Saresh.

Either way, the mood in the caves changed abruptly. Panic stirred in the Zakuulan ranks as the Jedi found renewed morale and pushed themselves forward for a final stand. Those uninjured joined ranks with Havoc’s front lines, and what looked like an extra squad or two of Republic soldiers; the rest started to fall back to Satele’s rallying point behind the lines, the grievously-injured leaning on their comrades as they prepared to fight or flee the caves.

Theron felt a nudge against his back as Corso turned toward him. “Think that’s our cue to head out?” the smuggler asked over the din.

“Good a time as any,” Theron grunted in agreement as he let Corso start pushing him toward the shelter created by Havoc’s lines. Out of the corner of his eye, he recognized Aric Jorgan’s lean, angular features highlighted by the explosion of a Skytrooper. The battle droid crumbled under the Cathar’s matchless aim. Either Havoc’s newest CO had been on a recruiting spree, or he had called in some favours with other Republic soldiers sympathizing with the resistance.

A large hand closed itself over Theron’s elbow and pulled, disturbing the burned wound in his shoulder. The spy hissed in pain, and the hand loosened its grip slightly. When Theron looked up to see who had grabbed him, he felt his heart leap into his throat at the sight of Jace Malcom staring back at him. The old soldier appeared to want to say something to his wayward son, but couldn’t seem to make the words form. For a second, Theron felt both Corso’s sudden confusion, and a heavy wave of too many emotions to sort or name from his father --

Another Skytrooper exploded from a lightsaber strike, and Jace seemed to snap himself out of his daze. “Move!” he barked out, giving Theron a shove toward the tunnel his forces had just entered through. Theron gratefully let himself be guided toward freedom by Corso’s hand on his other arm, just barely aware of Jace shifting his own position as if to provide the younger men a shield made by his own body.

He lingered long enough to look back, trying to find Xaja’s bright hair in the middle of the battle. For a second, despite the bond connecting them, he felt a spike of fear when he couldn’t immediately see her diminutive frame in the middle of the chaos. Then he saw Satele pulling the redhead out by her elbow and giving her a push toward Theron and the stream of injured Jedi survivors fleeing the Enclave. At this distance, through so much chaos he was unable to hear or lip-read the comments his mother made to the petite Jedi.

Xaja nodded at Satele and finally bolted for the exit to the caves, Kira only a step behind her. Theron felt a probe along their bond as Xaja then reached out to find him. Emerald eyes met amber, and Theron felt her relief at seeing him upright and alive. She nodded to confirm she was all right and right behind him. It was only then that Theron finally turned to flee the cavern with Corso’s aid.

In the middle of the desperate battle, there hadn’t been time nor focus for Satele to consider what she had witnessed. And there certainly hadn’t been time to ask Theron what that was, as she had fought to defend her injured son for as long as she could.

Nor had there been time to ponder what she had seen as Jace’s forces stormed the caverns, much less time to wonder how the blazes the former Supreme Commander knew to come with backup. However he had known, Satele would be eternally grateful he had come when he did. Then she had been too busy pulling her wounded Jedi back from the fight, barely looking up to make sure Theron and Xaja escaped alive. After that, it was running for Jace’s warship, one eye worriedly looking up at the sky for Zakuulan reinforcements. Jace had caught the first Zakuulan warship off guard, but he wouldn’t have that same advantage should the rest of the Eternal Fleet show up.

It was only after the entirety of survivors and their Republic rescuers had boarded the ship, and were fleeing the ruins of the Enclave that Satele let herself fall into a chair. Her mind raced as she tried to plan the next destinations of the Jedi survivors, or the impact this would have on the resistance. Thunder wouldn’t be pleased that the cell had been compromised, she knew, but at least most of her people had made it out. She closed her eyes in a moment of silence for the fourteen Jedi who had joined the Force. The loss of that many Jedi Knights was painful.

As her mind tumbled over the battle, the memory of what she had seen rushed back, and Satele opened her eyes with a frown. For thirteen years Theron had trained with Ngani Zho, never once experiencing the wonder that was an active connection to the Force. It had been assumed that he was Force-blind like his father. It seemed that, if he was going to become aware of a connection to the Force, he should have felt it years ago. Not even being permanently bonded to a powerful Jedi Master like Xaja Taerich should be enough to allow a Force-blind being to wield it.

Still, there was no other explanation for the way Theron’s blaster, lost when he was shot, found its way back into his hand, allowing him to fire a such a lethal blow so quickly. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t convince herself that she had hallucinated it, or that the strange brightness she could feel around him was just something she was only noticing after having not seen him for over a year. What did that Voss ritual do to you?

#drastic measures #kotfe au #Theron/Xaja #shit just got REAL #Arcann has apparently been doing his homework #panic mode is GO #you know Reanden's having a low-key heart attack #Commander!Dad to the rescue!#Jace saves the day!#also what new canon-breaking thing did we just see?#Theron's in denial #Satele is STUNNED #I would go so far as to say flabbergasted #also: MOM FEELS #you know Satele has always been a quietly proud mother #except maybe after Ziost #There is a reasonable explanation for this #that will be made known in later chapters #unless I forget

7 notes · View notes

fereality-indy · 6 years

Text

Wendip Week 2018 Day 6 Moving In Together

Monday June 12th, 2017

Mystery Shack

“Ok, would you be so kind as to tell me again why I’m covering you at the front counter. I mean why are you sitting out here waiting on Stu?” Gideon asked as he came out to the front porch of the Shack.

"Well, I’m waiting on a letter from Grandview University. Mom and dad were pushing for me to go to one of their alma maters but that would take me all way across the country. I rally want to stay near home and Grandview has an excellent Cryptography and Mythology departments.“ I say as I continue to watch the drive up to Shack.

“And what about you?” Gideon said as he turned towards Mabel.

“Nunya,” Mabel said before taking a sip out of her can of Pitt.

“Oh, come on. You can tell lil ol’ me, for old times sake.” He said as he tried to ply his old charm. The problem is my sister and I are two of the people who have been able to see through his malarkey.

“You know what, I’ll tell you why I’m out here if you tell us where you disappear to once a month. And don’t give me that ‘exchange’ program excuse. I don’t know of any exchange programs that last through the summer months.” Mabel shot back, tired of Gideon’s attempts to find out about her business. He had gotten over his crush on her a couple years ago, but he still is nosey about her life.

“Uhm, well I think I heard a customer. I better get back to the register.” Gideon said as he quickly dodged the issue. One of these days I’m gonna have to look into that, I already would have but Grunkle Ford said to left him have a few secrets.

Once I was certain that he was gone I turned to my twin and asked, “So what are you actually waiting for?”

“Pacifica is having some paperwork delivered from her lawyer and I’m one of people she has authorized to be able to accept it for her. She can’t have her parents know she’s doing this.” Mabel said as she went back to work on the sweater she was knitting. It was a little sweater for Stacey, and she has an applique of a cartoon heart talking on a phone that she is gonna add when she has it done. “Actually between the two of us we have nearly forty-eight percent bought and she has feelers out to get even more. At the next board… oh hey there’s Stu.”

I hopped up and met Stu as his truck made it into the lot. “How are you doing today, Stu?”

“Pretty good Dipper,” he said in his low gravelly voice, that and his stout body and it’s not that hard to see the family resemblance to his niece Grenda. Though he is definitely more hirsute than his sister and niece. Reaching into his bag he pulled out a stack of envelopes and handed them to me, “Here you go.”

I glanced through them quickly and saw that none of them were from Grandview. Disappointed I turn and started to head in when Stu called, “Oh, hey Dipper. I have one more. It was in the large mail pile.”

He was holding a nine by twelve manila envelope. I rushed back and took ahold it. When I saw it was from Grandview I ripped it open. With a cursory look I saw that it was the acceptance letter I was looking for and quickly reached up and pulled Stu into a hug.

“Well I take it that was good news.” Stu remarked as I let him go.

“Yep, college acceptance letter. Thanks.” I said before I turned and ran around towards the back of the Shack. Wendy was working on replacing the kitchen door from where someone had tied Waddles to the handle this morning. He was okay with it till a gnome ran by him with a bag of puffed cheese curds that Soos had ‘thrown out’. Soos put out a second trash can and started tossing new cans of Wrinkle potato crisps, bags of puffed VegStix, and other non-perishable foods when he learned that some gnomes struggle most of the summer to build up a enough supplies to survive through winter. The old door is now part of the ‘I Survived An Attack By A Wereboar’ display along with a photo-shopped picture of Wendy’s brother Kevin with Waddles head and front hooves.

I turned the corner and was struck by the scene before me. She was there in her tank top, with her flannel tied around her waist. She had her hair pulled back in a braid so that it wouldn't get in her face while she worked. Surrounding her was a group of tools she had borrowed from her dad when she heard what was needed. I was once again struck by how lucky I am that she had chose me. Snapping out of it I strode forward, “Wendy, it’s here. I made it. This fall I’ll be a freshman at Grandview University.”

“Sweet.” She said as she prepared to drill the hole into the door so that she would be able to put the handle and lock in. “I knew you could do it, I mean with your grades you could have gotten in anywhere you wanted. Now I know we’ve had this discussion before, but are you sure you didn’t chose Grandview because I’m going there?”

“Nope, that is just an added benefit. I chose it because it has nationally ranked departments in both cryptography and mythology.” I said as I braced the door as she pressed the hole saw against the frame, “Also since I got several base credits out of the way with my AP classes, there are a few elective courses I want to take that the combination of which is only offered there.”

When she was done drilling, she put down the drill and looked at me. “Well now that I’ve got the obligatory ‘Choose Your School For Yourself And Not For Someone Else’ protest out of the way, congratulations.”

She pulled me to her and pressed her lips to mine. When we came up for air she said, “We should go out to celebrate.”

“Already ahead of you, there’s a fairly new Vietnamese place in Schaal Lake that a customer told me about. It’s an hour and a half drive to get there but the Banh Mi and the summer rolls are supposed to be worth it. I’ll even drive, cause I know you’ve been working hard today.” I said as she went back to work on the door.

“Sounds good to me. Pick me up around six, ok.” She said followed by a quick a peck.

Later That Evening

After a shave and a shower I got dressed in jeans and grey flannel. I had made most of my preparations weeks ago and only had to call the restaurant earlier when I got home to make sure they would be open when we get to Schaal Lake. I made sure I had everything I needed and headed down to my Fjord Hauler. Even though it is nearly a decade old, it’s a reliable little truck. As I prepared to leave, I shot out a few texts I one to Wendy to let her know I was on the way.

It didn’t take long at all to get to Wendy’s. She has been staying with her dad since spring session. Dan was having some trouble over the winter season, what with Wendy in college and Marcus getting married and moved out. Though he dotes on little Colin. If it wasn’t for Mayor Tyler I think Manly Dan would have accidentally destroyed his house by now. He was over nearly every night cooking dinner and teaching the Kevin and Gus how to care for themselves now that Wendy wasn’t there to do things for them. It wouldn’t surprise me if the two of them follow Blubs and Durland’s example soon. They really aren’t hiding it that well.

When I pulled up Wendy was on the porch waiting on me. Since we were going out to eat she seems to have eschewed her hat and instead still had her hair in the braid from earlier. A fresh emerald flannel and some stone washed denim jeans completed her look. I reached over and opened the door as she walked up. She gave me a kiss as she got in. once she fastened her belt we were off.

During the trip we listened to some music and talked about some of the customers we had today, the music that was playing, Antonio and Stacey’s antics, and what courses we planned on taking. That last one lead into talking about how the school’s freshman housing regulations didn’t require me to live in a dorm like so many movies make you believe just as we entered Schaal Lake. I turned down a side road that by all appearances lead away from the interstate and into town.

“I mean really if we wanted to we could just stay in Gravity Falls and drive to classes every day.” Wendy said as we entered into a residential neighborhood.

“Lord no, if I wanted to have a two and a half hour commute I’d have stayed in California.” I said as we neared a house with a ‘For Rent’ sign out in front of it. I stopped in front of it as I continued, “I mean take this house. From here we would have a maybe a half hour to forty-five minute drive to school and still be close enough to the falls that we could be there quickly if there is some sort trouble.”

“Yeah and it would still far enough that dad couldn’t expect me to drop everything if Tyler couldn’t make it over for the night.” Wendy added as she looked around the neighborhood.

“Let’s take a look at it.” I say shutting off the truck. Wendy seemed reluctant at first but when I open the door and gently took her hand she came with me. As we passed the sign I pointed out that it said ‘Open House’ and ‘Hal Forrester Reality Inc.’.

“Maybe we can call for a tour, it says the realtor is based in Gravity Falls. But I can’t say that I recognize the name.” she said as we reached the front of the house.

Looking around we found all of the windows had their curtains closed. “Alright, I’m gonna look on this side to see if there are any windows where we can peek through the curtains. You check that side.”

“You sure?” Wendy asked looking a little apprehensive.

“Ok, who are you what did you do to my Wendy?” I said with a smile so she would know I was kidding.

“Hey this could be serious, the neighbors could call the police on us and neither of us have a juvenile record to fall back behind.” She said straight-faced before she started cracking up. “You’re right dude. Anyone asks were prospective renters.”

She gave me a kiss and then headed her way I started towards the other side but once I knew she had turned the corner I rushed out and grabbed the sign. Then back to the front door. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the key and let myself in, leaving the door cracked. Taking a quick look around I saw that everything was in order, so I headed to the to dining room for the next phase of my plan. I flash a thumbs up to the little red light shining from the bookshelf in the room.

I hear the door creak open with a call of “Dipper? Are you in here? Ok, man this isn’t funny. Wait a minute, what is Mr. Panduck doing here? And that’s one of my axes.”

Her voice was getting closer and my nerves were beginning to falter. What if she doesn’t like it. Oh man, get it together Pines.

Wendy then walked into the room, Mr. Panduck in one arm and her ax (not the one in the hall) in her other. And she looked ready for combat. Once she saw me and that I was ok she relaxed. Seeing that I said, “Well Wendy how do you like our little house?”

That seemed to shock her, “Our… our house? What are you talking about Dipper?”

“Well, we’ve been talking for a bit about moving in together once school started and on my last trip out to visit you I came across this house for sale and went through the whole spiel we went through outside by myself. When I talked it over with Grunkle Stan we decided to come check it out. After he finagled a better deal he ended up buying the house. And before you start, we are renting it from him. I hope you don’t mind that I took the initiative and found us some where that fit a lot of our requirements.” I said as I started to lose all of the bluster I had built up.

“Dip,” Wendy started.

“Alright I know I should’ve waited. I should’ve asked you first. I shouldn’t gotten your dad to help move stuff out here. He also checked the plumbing and fixtures. But it was mainly so he would know it was a two bedroom and I wouldn’t be putting any type of pressure on you. And now there is pressure. I screwed up. The whole premise here is screwed up. And now I’m rambling. Why am I rambling? Why can’t I stop?” I was saying till Wendy placed a finger on my lips hushing me immediately.

“It’s ok man, calm down. While, Yes I would have liked to have been in on the decision, you did good here. So take a slow, deep breath.” She said as she helped me calm down. “So dad knew about this huh? I guess that’s why he told me to ‘Don’t worry about being out late’ as I was heading out tonight.”

She started looking around some, as she continued “You say it has two bedrooms? The living room looked comfortable enough for when we do movie night. The kitchen is a little cozy, but having this pass-through certainly makes up for it. The backyard is big enough that we could host a barbeque if we wanted. So yeah, you did good. But we make the rest of the decisions together, alright?”

While her back was towards me, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my second surprise of the night. When she turned back towards me I was down on one knee with a ring on a simple plaid cloth in my hand. “Sounds good to me, why don’t we start with: Wendy Blerble Corduroy, will you marry me?”

She stood there stock still for almost a minute and I began to wonder if I screwed up, before she tackled me with tears in her eyes. “So is this a yes?”

“Yes, you idiot.” She said before she pulled me into a searing kiss. Breaking it I placed the ring on her finger. As she was getting ready to plant another one on me both her phone and mine went off signaling that we had texts.

“Ok, I just got three texts. One from Tambry saying ‘Congrats’, another from Lee saying ‘About time’ and finally one from Nate that I ‘Make an honest man out of you’.” Wendy said looking a little perplexed.

Looking up from mine I read, “And I got ‘Treat her right or else’ from your dad, ‘Mazel Tov’ from Mabel and Pacifica, and the Stans send their love.”

Still perplexed she asked, “How did they know?”

I pointed over towards the red light on the bookcase, “I was streaming. It was the only way to be able to do it with out Mabel being here and making a spectacle of it. Her first suggestion was to have the proposal written out in fireworks.”

Wendy chuckled at that and then got up. She walked over to the light and pulling the camera up before saying “That’s all folks. Shows over.”

Then she followed the cord and turned the computer off when she reached it. She turned back towards me and said, “Now not to complain, but the original reason I thought we were coming out this way was to get some Vietnamese food and I’m hungry.”

And as if she spoke it into exisistance there was a knock on the front door. As I passed her I said, “That’s another good thing about living here, they deliver.”

#gravity falls #wendy corduroy #dipper pines #wendip #WendipWeek2018 #moving in together

12 notes · View notes

newstfionline · 4 years

Text

Headlines: Friday, September 25, 2020

Tea prices (WSJ) The price of wholesale tea is up 50 percent since March, hitting $3.16 per kilogram, up from $2.13 per kilogram back in March. We’re still not at the $3.29 per kilogram demanded in October 2017, but the price hike is showing little sign of stopping. Every day 3.7 billion cups of tea are consumed, with half the U.S. population consuming tea daily, most of whom like it iced. Tea production is down in major producers like Sri Lanka and India.

California Plans to Ban Sales of New Gas-Powered Cars in 15 Years (NYT) California plans to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars statewide by 2035, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday, in a sweeping move aimed at accelerating the state’s efforts to combat global warming amid a deadly and record-breaking wildfire season. In an executive order, Governor Newsom directed California’s regulators to develop a plan that would require automakers to sell steadily more zero-emissions passenger vehicles in the state, such as battery-powered or hydrogen-powered cars and pickup trucks, until they make up 100 percent of new auto sales in just 15 years. Ramping up sales of emissions-free vehicles in California will be an enormous challenge over a relatively short period of time, experts said. Last year, only 8 percent of the nearly two million passenger vehicles sold statewide were battery-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles. The order would affect only new-vehicle sales, the governor’s office said. It would not prevent Californians from owning cars with internal combustion engines past 2035 or selling them on the used-vehicle market.

Venezuela’s broken oil industry is spewing crude into the Caribbean Sea (Washington Post) The sun had risen over the Caribbean Sea when Frank González spotted “the stain”—an oil slick on the water that stretched for miles. “The sea looked like butter, because of the thickness of the water,” said González, a fisherman who saw the spill this month while working off the coast of Venezuela’s Falcón state. “It was painful to see.” Venezuela’s once powerful oil industry is literally falling apart, with years of mismanagement, corruption, falling prices and a U.S. embargo imposed last year bringing aging infrastructure to the brink of collapse. As the government scrambles to repair and restart its fuel-processing capacity, analysts are warning that ruptured pipelines, rusting tankers and rickety refineries are contributing to a mounting ecological disaster in this failing socialist state. Oil workers say the gushing crude soiling the coast of Falcón state this month came from a cracked underwater pipeline linked to attempts to restart fuel production at the aging Cardón refinery. Not far from the oil slick, fishermen say, is a jetting geyser of natural gas from a second broken pipeline.

France tightens virus measures, unveils new ‘danger zones’ map (Reuters) France’s health minister unveiled a map of coronavirus “danger zones” around the country on Wednesday and gave the hardest-hit local authorities, including that of Marseille, days to tighten restrictions or risk having a state of health emergency declared there. Olivier Veran told a news conference the country would be divided into zones by alert level with Marseille, the second-largest city, and the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe for now the only two areas put on the “maximum” alert level. Like other European countries where the infection rate has soared in the past month, France has been gradually tightening limits on public and private gatherings locally, hoping it will be enough to contain the disease and avoid a second national lockdown. Among other measures, there will be a ban on public gatherings of more than 10 people and, in “maximum” alert level areas like Marseille, bars and restaurants will be closed from Saturday.

Protests Reignite After News of Secret Belarus Inauguration (Foreign Policy) Longtime Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko was sworn in to extend his 26-year rule at a secret ceremony in Minsk on Wednesday, emphasizing the embattled leader’s shrinking authority and increasingly precarious hold on power. No prior announcement was made regarding the ceremony, prompting thousands of protesters to flood the streets of Minsk to rally against Lukashenko once the news broke. Opposition leaders, who have put immense pressure on Lukashenko since he claimed victory in a landslide on Aug. 9 amid widespread accusations of voter fraud, called the inaugural ceremony a “thieves’ meeting” and a “farce.” In a statement, a spokesperson of the U.S. State Department said that “the United States cannot consider [Lukashenko] the legitimately elected leader of Belarus.” The European Union has already said it doesn’t recognize Lukashenko as president.

In India, engineers and MBAs are turning to manual labor to survive the economic crash (Washington Post) On a recent muggy afternoon in southern India, Earappa Bawge hacked at the ground with a pickax, his white shirt pasted to his back. Each dull thud reminded him of how far his hopes had fallen. Just months ago, the 27-year-old engineer was poring over project files in an air-conditioned room at a factory hundreds of miles away. The job was a ticket out of rural poverty for Bawge’s entire family, who had sacrificed for years so he could complete his studies. Now he was back in the village where he was born, propelled by a wave of economic destruction rolling across India during the pandemic. To survive, Bawge began digging ditches under a public works program. Alongside him were a former bank employee, a veterinarian and three MBA students. At the end of the day, each received $3.70. “If I don’t work, we don’t get to eat,” said Bawge, flicking beads of sweat from his brow. “Hunger trumps any aspiration.” As India’s economy reels in the aftermath of one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, a rural employment program has emerged as a lifeline for some of the tens of millions left jobless. The government program—which aims to guarantee 100 days of unskilled work in rural areas—was intended to combat poverty and reduce the volatility of agricultural wages. Now it is a potent symbol of how the middle-class dreams of millions of Indians are unraveling.

China to let in more foreigners as virus recedes (AP) Foreigners holding certain types of visas and residence permits will be permitted to return to China starting next week as the threat of the coronavirus continues to recede. The new regulation lifts a monthslong blanket suspension covering most foreigners apart from diplomats and those in special circumstances. Beginning Monday, foreign nationals holding valid Chinese visas and residence permits for work, personal matters and family reunions will be permitted to enter China without needing to apply for new visas, according to the regulation. Those whose permits have expired can reapply. Returnees must undergo two weeks of quarantine and follow other anti-epidemic measures, the regulation said.

Xinjiang crackdown continues (The Guardian) China has built nearly 400 internment camps in Xinjiang region, with construction on dozens continuing over the last two years, even as Chinese authorities said their “re-education” system was winding down, an Australian think tank has found. The network of camps in China’s far west, used to detain Uighurs and people from other Muslim minorities, include 14 that are still under construction, according to the latest satellite imaging obtained by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. In total ASPI identified 380 detention centers established across the region since 2017, ranging from lowest security re-education camps to fortified prisons.

Grand Theft Ayatollah (Foreign Policy) Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is investing in a new video game in which Iranian paramilitaries rescue George Floyd from U.S. police, according to Khosro Kalbasi, a reporter for Iran’s independent Financial Tribune. It’s not the first time Middle Eastern powers have used video games and cartoons to make foreign-policy commentary: In 2018, a pro-Saudi group produced an animated video depicting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman commanding a successful invasion of Iran.

Lebanon asks world’s help ‘trying to rise from its rubble’ (AP) Facing an economic meltdown and other crises, Lebanon’s president on Wednesday asked for the world’s help to rebuild the capital’s main port and neighborhoods that were blown away in last month’s catastrophic explosion. President Michel Aoun made the plea in a prerecorded speech to the U.N. General Assembly’s virtual summit, telling world leaders that Lebanon’s many challenges are posing an unprecedented threat to its very existence. Most urgently, the country needs the international community’s support to rebuild its economy and its destroyed port. Aoun suggested breaking up the damaged parts of the city into separate areas and so that countries that wish to help can each commit to rebuilding one. Earlier Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for swift formation of a government to be followed by tangible steps to implement economic, social and political reforms. Lebanon’s government resigned under pressure in the wake of the port explosion, and Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib has been unable to form a new government amid a political impasse over which faction gets to have the Finance Ministry, as well as other disputes. “Without such action, the country’s ability to recover and rebuild will be jeopardized, adding to the turmoil and hardship of the Lebanese people,” Guterres added.

Israel’s Netanyahu brings his dirty laundry to Washington. Literally. (Washington Post) Most politicians go to great lengths to conceal their dirty laundry. And then there’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Over the years, the Israeli leader has developed a reputation among the staff at the U.S. president’s guesthouse for bringing special cargo on his trips to Washington: bags and suitcases full of dirty laundry, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The clothes are cleaned for the prime minister free of charge by the U.S. staff, a perk that is available to all foreign leaders but sparingly taken advantage of given the short stays of busy heads of state. “The Netanyahus are the only ones who bring actual suitcases of dirty laundry for us to clean,” said one U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the details of a foreign leader’s visits. “After multiple trips, it became clear this was intentional.” Israeli officials denied that Netanyahu overuses his American hosts’ laundry services, calling the allegations “absurd,” but they acknowledged that he has been the target of laundry-related accusations in the past. In 2016, Netanyahu sued his own office and Israel’s attorney general in an effort to prevent the release of his laundry bills under the country’s freedom of information act. The relatively minor accusation joins a longer list of corruption allegations that have threatened the 70-year-old leader’s hold on power and triggered protests in Israel this month.

Australian offers free coffee, chat from his kitchen window (AP) It all started when Rick Everett walked out of his home in Sydney and put up a sign on his kitchen window that read: “Free coffee to combat the virus.” It was March, and the Australian acrobat had lost his job during the coronavirus pandemic. With more free time, he felt he could help out others in need. And he knew how to bake and cook after managing a chocolate and coffee shop and a pizza restaurant. When he started, he said the window would be open whenever he was home. He stressed that it wasn’t a coffee shop business; he just wanted to do something nice and meet his neighbors for a friendly chat during a difficult time. “Think of it as popping over to your mates for a coffee only it is a friend you have not met yet,” he wrote on a sign. “I am not selling anything. This is a gift and all it will cost you is a smile.” Soon his neighbors began to stop by, bringing him everything from cakes and loaves of bread to a six-pack of beer. Strangers began to recognize him on the street and wave hello. “It’s like I live in a small town again, and it’s really beautiful,” he said. “And what’s even more beautiful is people ring my coffee bell just to talk,” he said. “They don’t even want a coffee! They don’t want to take anything from me, but they’re most happy to have a conversation with me, which is really nice.”

#headlines #news

1 note · View note

tastesoftamriel · 6 years

Text

A bad day (a long tale by Talviel)

Loredas, 1st of Sun’s Dusk, 4E 208. “Stop right there, criminal scum!” A guard shouted, and a little figure dressed in black whizzed past Brynjolf and I so fast that our robes fluttered. The guard, who was tubby and flustered, looked like he had been running for some time now. He paused to take a breather, and looked up at us. “Did you see where he went? That Khajiit scamp in Thieves Guild armour, he must have run past you.” He panted. Brynjolf raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “No, lad, he might have climbed a roof. Khajiit are sneaky like that. Best of luck with your search, though.” The guard sighed, thanking Bryn and walking off looking peeved. When he was out of sight, we immediately set off at a quick walk in the direction the thief went. One of ours had drawn attention to themselves, and getting caught by the leader of Tamriel’s Thieves Guild was equal parts bad luck and sheer incompetence. Whoever the kid was, he would need a talking to.

Brynjolf immediately went to the Waterfront to wait in the Guild hideout, while I ambled innocuously through the Nobles District, hot on the heels of the Khajiit. I turned a corner into a small rose garden, and sure enough found him attempting to pick the lock to a sewer entrance and failing miserably. “Shadow hide you, friend.” I said loudly, so he wouldn’t take off. The thief dropped his lockpicks and squeaked, turning around to face me. “Khajiit is innocent! This one has done nothing wrong!” He protested, his bulging pockets indicating otherwise. I sighed and approached him carefully, making the finger sign of the Guild that Delvin had popularised over the years. The thief finally relaxed, dropping his shoulders. “Shadow hide you, sister. This one was most afraid of getting caught by the fat guard, oh yes. Please, keep the area clear while S'druz picks this lock.” “No, S'druz, you’re doing it wrong. Watch how I do it. See how I’m feeling for the movement of the tumblers? There we go.” I opened the sewer entrance, handing back the undamaged lockpick. S'druz smiled in wonder. He was only a few inches taller than I, and slight of build. A pointed face with keen amber eyes and striped grey fur peeked out from beneath the Guild hood. “This one thanks you, sister. Please, meet me at the hideout and I will have ready a token of my thanks for you.” He said, scurrying down the manhole and out of sight before I could say anything else.

I met Brynjolf at the Waterfront, eyeing a large cargo ship with masked greed. “There’s only one Khajiit in the Imperial City Guild, and he’s apparently out on a job, so we know who needs a smack across the knuckles when he gets home.” He sighed, looking stressed. Ever since we’d arrived in the Imperial City to celebrate our honeymoon a few days ago, all Brynjolf had done was whip the local Guild into shape instead of relaxing, promising to make the time up to me later. “He’s on his way back. Had to teach him how to pick a lock. Try not to be too hard on him, he’s just a kid and a rookie at that.” I said, wrapping my arms around his waist and looking to the harbour. “Aye, but you didn’t even attract the attention of a guard during your trial, lass. I don’t know who’s doing the recruiting around here but at this rate I’ll be stuck in the city for months trying to get this lot up to scratch. The Grey Fox must be turning in his grave.” Brynjolf put an arm around my shoulder absent-mindedly, fiddling with a ribbon on my sleeve while staring at the cargo ship as though it were a tasty steak.

“We’ve got information that there’s an auction about to take place in one of the houses in the Nobles District. That ship is apparently transporting at least half a million septims in art and rare goods for it. The Guild want to go on a heist but none of them are up to scratch for the task. It’s been a while since I broke into anything, so I think I’ll show them how it’s done.” Bryn mused to himself, stroking his beard. I rolled my eyes. “My love, sorry to say but you’ve lost your touch when it comes to sneaking. I see at least four guards on the deck there, and there are definitely going to be more below deck and probably security enchantments as well. With the racket you make, they’ll be onto you in…I’ll give it five minutes, to be generous.” “Well don’t you have a smart mouth on you today, Vi my love? Want to place a wager on it?” He snarled, grey-green eyes shimmering with the delight of a challenge. “Two weeks of three meals a day. Hope you’re ready to do some cooking, dear husband.” I grinned back, and got a slap on the arse. We taunted each other all the way back to the Guild hideout, enjoying the feel of the old days coming back, when I was ready to spring to a job- the more challenging the better. I was back in the game, and it felt good.

We were waiting in the underground complex the Guild had made beneath an abandoned hut when S'druz finally crept in, stinking of sewer water. He squeaked again in alarm and dropped to one knee when he saw Brynjolf, who was recognised more or less as the Emperor of the Guild of Tamriel. I choked back a laugh. The poor Khajiit was well over his head in the matters of Guild business, though his counterparts weren’t much better at this stage. Brynjolf barked at him to get up and gather everybody in the stone hall. Within minutes the Imperial City Guild was rallied, while Brynjolf and I stood at the front of the room, scanning our motley crew. “Right, all of you. I’m more than just a little peeved at conduct here, as little S'druz nearly ran my wife and I over while being pursued by the city guard earlier today. In Cyrodiil you stick by your old motto: Shadows hide you. Well, you can’t expect the shadows to hide you if you’re bloody running through town in broad daylight can you? Where is stealth and finesse? Why are you attracting attention we don’t need? And for crying out loud, we need to do something about the recruitment around here because letting any old fool into the Guild, as you’ve evidently been doing, isn’t going to do.” Brynjolf said, his usually soothing voice replaced by a commanding snap that only ever happened when he was really peeved (or playing rough in the bedroom). The Guild members were silent and their facial expressions ranged from uncomfortable to embarrassed.

“This one must apologise to Master Brynjolf and his most esteemed wife for my foolish conduct in the streets.” S'druz stuttered, his tail swishing nervously. “S'druz has been a member of the Guild for but a week now, and only knows the ways of the street. We have no mentor, no training as we have heard of your famed Skyrim Guild. Please, S'druz asks of you, let us learn your ways, and how best to serve the Guild and Lady Nocturnal.” The chamber echoed in agreement, and Brynjolf and I glanced at each other. Since the time of the Grey Fox, the Cyrodiil Guild had more or less vanished since the legendary theft of an Elder Scroll from the White-Gold Tower. The meteoric rise of our little Riften branch over the past several years had inspired copycat groups who were no more than bandits, and aspiring branches who wished to be officially affiliated with the Thieves Guild. We were the most formidable association above the laws of every province, yet without the strict ground rules we had implemented and honed in Riften, it was to be expected that until Brynjolf had completed his monumental task of overseeing every Guild branch in Tamriel, things were going to need to be shaken up to reach our standards.

Brynjolf stood in thought for a moment. “I completely agree, lad. It isn’t fair of me as a leader to come barging into your territory and tell you how to run a business, but for as long as you want to be affiliated with the real Thieves Guild, you play by the rules we laid out in Skyrim. And yes, if it’s training you’ll want, it’s training you’ll get. From now until the end of the month, I’ll be teaching speechcraft, pickpocketing, and business operations. Talviel here will be in charge of lockpicking, sneaking, and bypassing traps and enchantments. I have faith in all of you, but we have a tight ship to run and places to be so I expect all of you to put in the work you need to make the Guild succeed. Are we clear?” A chorus of nods and “aye” went around the room, but I stood there miffed. A month? Training the Guild, when all I’d agreed to with Brynjolf just a few days past was to act as a diversion and an occasional accomplice on special jobs? I smiled and spoke freely with the members who approached me, but inside I was seething. Honeymoon, yeah right.

I refused to speak to Brynjolf until we got back to our hotel room, where I nearly shouted him into a wall out of fury. “All you ever think about is work and your reputation! And to rope me into this when I barely said yes? You’re absurd! I’ve got my own career to uphold and without my permission you’ve just decided to delegate me for a month to training a group of buffoons who barely know how to pick a lock? Honestly Brynjolf, you are insufferable sometimes. Unbelievable.” I yelled, when he tried to cajole me into better spirits. “Lass, calm down-” He tried, which only infuriated me more as I hurled a vase across the room, where it smashed satisfyingly. “No, fuck off, Bryn. All I’ve agreed to was the heist on that ship and that’s all you’re getting unless I say otherwise. You’re the Guildmaster. I play my role as a Nightingale and anything else that relates to Guild business is what I choose to do, not you. I am your wife, not your minion. Go teach that lot yourself because I am done here.” I snapped, and stormed from the room before he could make me even angrier, if that were possible. With my mind a haze of red, I stormed my way through the city without thinking to the Akatosh Tavern, where my career as a chef beyond the borders of Skyrim began.

Garrus, the Breton chef and my former mentor, was pleased to see me, but his brow wrinkled in worry when he saw my stormy expression. He knowingly slid a bottle of Firebrand Wine across the bar to me, where I poured a goblet to the brim and chugged in down in a breath. “Bad day, little one? I heard word that you were here on your honeymoon, don’t tell me there’s trouble already.” He said sympathetically, pouring me another glass. “I wouldn’t be having an awful time if my stupid husband would just leave work alone for a minute and enjoy the first time we’ve ever had alone together.” “Ah, merchants.” Garrus nodded, and I played along with the tale I’d woven long ago, that my love interest was a potion merchant in Skyrim. “Well, I’ve always got time for you. Say, I know what’ll cheer you up, Talviel. Drink up and follow me.” He threw me a kitchen apron and I smiled wanly. Several hours later, my dress ruined with flour and syrup, Garrus and I had made hundreds of little pastries ready for the Sundas crowd and the week ahead. I was in a decidedly better mood after baking, with the help of a free flow of wine and nibbles. I had supper with Garrus, then went on a walk to clear my head in the night air.

I headed to the night markets at the Market District, browsing the wide array of unique ingredients on offer. I was sniffing a sample of saffron from Sentinel, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around, and found S'druz standing there meekly. “Look, S'druz, I’m really not interested in Guild business right now. I’m here on holiday and I just want to spend some time relaxing.” I sighed, crossing my arms. “Oh, no. This one does not come with business. S'druz was so enraptured by the honorable Talviel’s husband’s speech earlier that I forgot to pass you my token of thanks. For you, a staff I found. One of its kind in all of Cyrodiil, maybe even Tamriel.” The young Khajiit smiled, handing out a wooden staff with an odd carving at its head. Not wanting to be rude, I accepted it with thanks, despite never having used a staff in my life. We parted ways, but I kept my eye on him until he had pickpocketed his way out of sight. I stared at my gift, thinking to pawn it off, yet something about it stayed me. I decided to take it to the Arcane University in the morning, as they would probably have more use for it than I. With my satchel full of delicious things, I decided to go on a stroll beyond the city gates before heading back to the hotel.

I walked along the lake, throwing pebbles in the water as torchbugs darted overhead. The silence was delightful after the bustle of the city and the bad mood I’d spent the majority of the day stewing in, yet of course my luck was at an end again. From the edge of the forest, a howl rose up from the trees, followed by another. My hand went to my sword, only to realise I’d left it in the hotel. I braced myself for the wolves to emerge from the trees. Only, they weren’t wolves. Two hulking beasts sprang forth on their hind legs, spindly arms outstretched with long claws swiping at me. I leapt backwards in shock- I had never seen a werewolf before, though rumour was that my former lovers Aela and Vilkas were werewolves themselves. They were quick, yet clumsy in their movements from their gangly limbs. I set them on fire with a shout, which threw them off my trail for a moment while I sprinted back towards the city, but one of them clearly hadn’t been flambéed well enough as it barrelled towards me with renewed rage, its fur still sparking with embers. Without thinking, I took the staff S'druz had given me and cracked it across the face, sending it reeling. The werewolf roared and swiped at me, and I rolled to the side, scared that this was the end of me. Staggering to my feet as it crawled towards its cornered prey, I pointed the staff towards it without thinking, and it let out a blinding blast of light. The slobbery breathing of the werewolf suddenly stopped, and was replaced by a single heavy thud. I sighed with relief and rubbed my eyes, only to find a wheel of goat cheese where the werewolf had been.

“What in Oblivion?” I exclaimed, staring at the cheese, and then at the staff in complete bafflement. “Well, to be precise, where in Oblivion is what you should be asking, and that place would be the Shivering Isles, in case you weren’t aware.” Drawled a sing-song voice from behind me, and I whipped around so fast I almost fell over. A tall, lean man in a purple suit stood there, grinning widely at me. He clapped his hands with delight and pointed at the were-cheese. “For a first time staff user, I must say well done on turning that little beastie into such a delightful wheel of cheese on your first try. You may want to take up magic aside from those dull dragon shouts you use, imagine how much jelly you would be able to conjure!” The man giggled. My jaw dropped as my brain finally put two and two together. “You…you’re Sheogorath?” I choked out, unable to believe how bad my day was. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. I could be Hermy Mory, for all you know. But of course you know, what am I saying? You’re the little mortal that he took such an interest in yesterday! And of course you’re the underling of that old witch Nocturnal, though who knows why. Boring old hag she is, sitting alone in the dark with those silly birds of hers. No, I can guarantee that I am lots more fun.” Sheogorath said, shaking my limp hand enthusiastically. I snatched it away, shaking my head. “Look, Sheogorath, lovely to meet you and all, but I didn’t summon you. Or maybe I did, with this staff, which I guess is yours. Please, just take it back, don’t send me on a quest. I don’t have the strength for it and I’ve got a husband to get back to.” I pleaded, shoving the staff at the Daedric Prince of Madness. “Whaaat? You don’t want my lovely Wabbajack? But you love cheese! And I never said anything about a quest, though I may be needing your help for the little pickle you’ve just put both of us in.” Sheogorath pouted. “You see, the little pup you just blasted with the Wabbajack is a servant of Hircine. You know, my fellow Daedric Prince. Not a very fun guy either, I might add. He’s not going to be happy that my little fun-stick here turned one of his followers into a frankly divine wheel of cheese, and since you’re the one who blasted the wolf boy, you’re the one who’s going to do the explaining on my part.”

I groaned. “Can’t you just change him back or something?” “Me? Now why would I do that? I plan on bringing this lovely cheesy home for tea, hee hee! And of course changing him back wouldn’t be possible anyway, changes in molecular structure and all that, quite complicated. Anyway, come on, time to talk to Hircey!” Sheogorath waved a hand and summoned a portal, which he then threw me into before I could protest. I landed hard on my rump on the rough ground in front of a shrine, surrounded on all sides by trees. Sheogorath and his portal were nowhere to be seen. “Fuck!” I yelled, thoroughly done with the hell of a day I’d had. “Is that the way you greet the Prince of the Hunt, mortal?” Growled a disembodied voice that echoed through the thicket. I took that as my warning and immediately dropped to my knees, not wanting to add the wrath of a Daedric Prince to the list of crap I’d been through in the past several hours. “Apologies, Lord Hircine. I…I was sent here by Sheogorath because-” “Yes, I’m well aware you turned one of my coven into a wheel of cheese because of that buffoon’s trickery. I saw it all, and how he has tried to dump the responsibility on you, when you were simply defending yourself. It is nothing to be ashamed of, to shift your position from being prey to hunter. I have no quarrel with you. My anger lies solely with that clown I have to share Oblivion with, and I will have my revenge.” The voice thundered, and the trees shook with a sudden breeze.

“What will you have me do?” I sighed, realising that there was no escaping the will of the daedra when they wanted something, even in the dead of night in the middle of nowhere. “He took one of my children from me, and he will pay by giving me one of his.” “I will do no such thing!” Sheogorath’s voice shouted indignantly, from who knows where. “Sheogorath, you fool! You know better than to enter my domain! Bring me a sacrifice and leave!” Hircine said. I stood helplessly as their bickering escalated, unsure if I should interject. The wind in the clearing blew frantically and whipped leaves and branches every which way. A luminous pink rain began to fall (definitely Sheogorath’s), which was counteracted by a torrent of blood from the sky (definitely Hircine’s). I shrieked, holding my hands up to protect myself from the stinking deluge, and felt a soft whack against my cheek. It was raining cheese curds, and then bones.

Clearly the daedra didn’t need me to mediate their little spat. I stood to leave, and a maze of thorns erupted from the ground around the shrine, trapping me in. I had had enough and thoroughly lost it. “Both of you, stop right now and let me go! You obviously don’t need my help hurling various substances at each other and I have had the worst day since escaping Oblivion so let-me-out!” I bashed the thorns with the Wabbajack, that shot blasts of light here and there, presumably turning trees into food items. Hircine and Sheogorath continued yelling at each other without acknowledging that they’d heard me, so I did the only thing I could in that moment. “Strun Bah Ko!” I screamed, and the sky crackled with thunder and lightning, bringing down a nice torrent of hail and rain made of water for a change. The Daedric Princes had gone quiet. “What? You wanna damn my soul or something? Fucking go for it, I have had enough of this bullshit day with the bullshit Thieves Guild and bullshit magical staffs and bullshit daedra bitch fights! Either let me go or I’m calling a dragon to take me to Sovngarde because I am finished!” I roared. “Be on your way, mortal. This has nothing to do with you and is entirely the doing of this fool Sheogorath.” Hircine said, and the thorns retreated. Before either of the Daedric Princes could change their minds, I dashed for the trees as fast as my legs could take me, worried that my lovely hailstorm diversion was about to be replaced by flying frogs or pudding next.

Glancing up at the stars, I positioned myself as south of the Imperial City and set off on the long trudge back. I finally crawled back to the hotel before dawn, to find Brynjolf pacing frantically back and forth in our room. “Lass! What on earth happened to you?” He shouted in shock, taking in my dishevelled appearance. I caught a glance of myself in the mirror and winced. I was stained head to toe with blood, and covered in leaves, cheese curds, and who knows what else. “Run me a bath, Bryn. I don’t want to hear another peep out of anyone right now.” I groaned, dropping my ruined dress on the floor. At that moment, there was a knock at the door. Brynjolf drew his knife and opened it carefully. There was nobody there, except for a wheel of goat cheese on the ground. There was a note on top of it, that Bryn picked up and read with confusion. “We finally called it even. Thanks for being a sport! -Sheogorath. Vi, what on earth were you doing with Sheogorath?!” “Let’s put it this way, my love. Why stop at just having a bad day when you can get Daedric Princes involved too? Now run me a bath, or I’m going straight to bed covered in animal blood.” I growled, and Brynjolf raised his hands in peace, heading to the tub to run the water while glancing at me fearfully. Despite everything, I cracked a grin at the idea that my husband was labouring under the idea that I’d summoned a Daedric Prince simply because I was in a foul mood. It was far from the truth, but it would be fun to watch him squirm in return for teaching a group of inept thieves how to sneak.

#fanfic #fanfiction #thieves guild #cyrodiil #imperial city #brynjolf #sheogorath #hircine #daedric prince #tes #the elder scrolls #geek #nerd #games #gamer #gaming #chapter 25 #daedra

53 notes · View notes