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libermachinae · 3 years

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Jupiter

Also on AO3 Summary: A quick walk around the neighborhood. Notes: Bit of prowlcoswave written for day 1 of @soundwaveweek! Prompt was ‘together.’

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Cosmos gave the tether an experimental tug. Soundwave’s solid form meant he did not move, but nor did the harness pop off, which was exactly what Cosmos wanted to see.

“Looks good,” he said, stepping back to cast a quick final check over both him companions. “Feel ready to go?”

Soundwave stood quite confidently, arms at his sides, a familiar tilt to his head that could have meant he was thinking or listening. He nodded easily, field sparkling with confidence, which could have been entirely for Prowl’s benefit, whose own field was sodden with an excited dread. He was trying to stand with poise, but next to Soundwave it was all too obvious the way his doorwings quivered and his biolights flickered. Cosmos felt his spark sink.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said, stepping as close as he felt Prowl’s anxiety would allow. “It’s just supposed to be fun, but I don’t know if it will work if you’re…” Was there a way to say ‘terrified’ that wouldn’t offend Prowl’s pride?

Cosmos spent too long thinking about it. Prowl’s doorwings hitched up, his gaze sharpening though his biolights continued to waver.

“I want to do this,” Prowl said. “Faulty risk analysis, that’s all. Not worth a delay.”

Cosmos doubted Prowl’s programs were at fault: he was the only mech Cosmos knew who made algorithm tuning a part of his regular maintenance, and what they were doing was potentially very dangerous. Before he could make a mistake of trying to reason Prowl into fear, though, Soundwave put a hand on Prowl’s shoulder, the ring of hand meeting plating indicating that Prowl had been shivering.

“Cosmos: accomplished in interspacial rescue,” he said. “Soundwave: can locate Prowl at any distance. Prowl will be found, if you want to be.”

“Of course I would want to be,” Prowl snapped, but it seemed like Soundwave’s words had done the trick. Prowl had calmed under his touch, not trying to flick the hand away, and after taking a moment to cycle a ventilation he looked back to Cosmos.

“You’re ready?” Cosmos asked again, and this time Prowl nodded, grim but certain.

“Ready,” Soundwave said, his light tone an intentional contrast to Prowl. He stepped closer to Cosmos, his hand dropping down to Prowl’s to gently encourage him forward. He surveyed them, not searching for anything specific now but just as a general final check. And to steal an opportunity to look at them.

“Okay,” Cosmos said. “You know the drill. I can hover for a few seconds, but the sooner you grab on the better. Then, just… hang on.” He’d done this in the past, but usually it had been an officer delivering the instructions while he and a crewmate or two waited for the signal to go. He knew the process well enough, but instructing someone else (and perhaps instructing these mechs specifically) was a different feeling.

They both nodded, though, betraying their confidence in him, so he stopped himself before he could start overthinking it. He did a short hop up into his alt mode, the last panels only just sliding into place when he felt two hands wrap around his grab bars. He almost hesitated, but the reassuring brush of Soundwave’s field propelled him forward and up, launching out and away from Sanctuary.

There was only a moment of conscious drag before his systems recalibrated to accommodate the additions to his undercarriage. Prowl and Soundwave were doing exactly as instructed, holding on tight to him with their free arms wrapped around each other. For his part, Cosmos tried to keep his acceleration even, adjusting his velocity by hundredths of a degree to avoid jarring his passengers. He didn’t talk for a full minute, focused on escaping Sanctuary’s artificial gravity bubble, but as the pull finally dwindled to a negligible enough force it stopped factoring into his propulsion algorithms, he allowed the iron grip of self control to relax.

“And that’s all there is to it!” he said, maybe a little pridefully. He was, after all, pretty good at his job. “How are you both doing?”

“Status: impressed,” Soundwave said.

“And Prowl?”

His answer was not so forthcoming, and without being able to see his expression Cosmos wasn’t sure whether it was because he was thinking or too frightened to get any words out.

“I’m okay,” Prowl said at last. “It went… exactly as you described.”

“Well, good,” Cosmos said, even if that didn’t tell him much about how Prowl actually felt about the experience. “You want to go back any time, just let me know and I’ll get us straight back home.” He felt a bloom of warmth in Soundwave’s field, the same he always did when one of them called Sanctuary home, and even Prowl released a couple gentle blossoms at the word. “Otherwise, we’re going nice and easy: a quick tour over Jupiter, maybe do a couple passes over an upper atmospheric storm, and then back. Sound good?”

“Affirmative,” Soundwave said. Prowl didn’t say anything, which would have worried Cosmos had Soundwave not been there, monitoring the things Prowl wasn’t ready to say out loud. He pushed confidence at Cosmos, who returned it with his own, swooping over Jupiter’s orbit.

Flying over objects as large as planets was never without risks. Cosmos’ fuel tanks, though standard for interstellar class shuttles, were still finite, and dip too far into a large gravity field could result in overtaxing his systems trying to break free again. He had spent enough time near Jupiter to be familiar with its unique quirks, though, and as he’d said, the flyby came easy to him now: he could put one part of his processor to handling the flight while another gave voice to an ongoing commentary about the gas giant and its role in the solar system. Prowl and Soundwave listened obligingly as they passed over orange clouds marbled with white and ribbons of charcoal shadow. Soundwave was a rapt listener, asking indulgent questions that allowed Cosmos to spin off on tangents about the chemical makeup of the clouds and the gravitational interplay of the planet’s many moons.

This, though, they could see easily from almost any window on Sanctuary, so Cosmos angled south, taking them to the planet’s underbelly. There, cumulonimbus whirlpools roiled in shades of blue, spitting lightning just visible to Cosmos’ specialized sensors. He took pictures and sent them across the link to Soundwave and Prowl, explaining as he did so the unique makeup of Jupiter’s clouds and the forces behind its raging storms.

“It reminds me of the electron storms that started after the Gatterus Assaults,” Prowl said, the first time he’d spoken beyond the occasional hum to indicate he was listening.

“Precisely!” Cosmos said. They were still well within the safety zone, so he angled them slightly closer, searching the clouds for a better example of the phenomenon Prowl was referring to. “I haven’t had time to read all their literature, but some human researchers have proposed—”

He was cut off as he was startled by a particularly explosive burst from the planet, bright enough even his companions could have seen it. Whether it was the lightning itself or the electrical feedback or Cosmos’ sudden movement, he didn’t know, but Soundwave’s grip loosed and he slipped away, sinking rapidly into the void.

“Whoops!” Cosmos reacted instantly, transforming and pulling Prowl to his side with one arm while he activated the jet propulsors in his pedes. Prowl was rigid against him, his field a mess of jagged fear, but Cosmos projected back all the calm certainty he truly felt as he held Prowl tight.

Though the tether kept Soundwave from drifting far, uncontrolled drift was disorienting and unpleasant; Cosmos caught up to him rapidly and snagged him with his other arm. He pulled Soundwave into his side and shut off his jets. Soundwave, in turn, made a grab for Cosmos, clinging to him tightly in a way that was nonetheless not unpleasant. Though his motors were buzzing with activity, his field wasn’t projecting high stress, which was a huge relief.

“Alright, Soundwave?” Cosmos asked, old training keeping his tone lighter than he felt.

“Affirmative,” Soundwave responded. He loosened his grip momentarily, though clung on again almost instantly. Cosmos, for his part, kept his grip firm. “Soundwave: flight capable.”

“I know.” Cosmos wouldn’t push the issue though. For the moment, Soundwave appeared calm. There would be time to delve more into things once they were all back on the station. Cosmos gave Soundwave a quick squeeze before turning his attention to Prowl, who had not released his hold on Cosmos and was perhaps clinging even tighter now. “What about you?”

“I was enjoying it,” Prowl said, tone clipped, “up until that.”

Not unexpected. Cosmos kept his disappointment to himself (as much as one could in Soundwave’s company).

“Prowl: not reassured by Cosmos’ demonstrated retrieval proficiency,” Soundwave said.

“I was already well aware of it,” Prowl said. “In case you’ve forgotten, I was his commanding officer. I’ve seen his records.” Prowl shuffled, freeing one hand to reach across the short space and grab Soundwave’s elbow. “I’d just… never seen it happen before. I wasn’t ready to see you… floating.”

Soundwave took Prowl’s arm in turn, perfecting the trio’s huddle.

“Soundwave: unharmed,” he said. Their voices were getting quieter, the buzz of motors dampening as they calmed down from the brief fright. Cosmos angled his propulsors to keep them on a safe trajectory, but otherwise didn’t interrupt, focusing on holding them close to himself and each other.

“I know,” Prowl said. “Don’t coddle me.” He was, though, still holding tightly to both of them.

They drifted in silence for some time, in no rush to get back to the station. Cosmos could have flown them back in his root form, but it would have been an uncomfortable ride for all of them, possibly more off-putting than what had already happened. Instead, he waited, and eventually Prowl spoke up again.

“Next time, we’ll add an additional tether,” he said, “between Soundwave and myself. That way, if one lets go, the other has a better chance of holding on.” He looked at Cosmos, intentionally keeping his gaze off Soundwave. “He slipped away from me.”

Ah. The pieces fell into place, and Cosmos held Prowl a little closer.

“Sure,” he said. “I can also look into changing the angle of the grips to make it harder to let go.” It would take some time to find the tools for a mod, but Cosmos wasn’t in a rush to bring them out here again. Not until they were both ready.

“Soundwave: ready.”

Cosmos’ field brightened and he extended it to blanket them both. Despite the fact that he wasn’t ready yet, he was glad to hear Soundwave say that. He might have loved the universe, but space itself felt at times too big and too lonely, its many curiosities interesting but not as fulfilling when there was no one to share them with. Even just pointing out clouds from above, Cosmos felt at peace with his work in a way he hadn’t known in years.

High above Jupiter, Cosmos rolled along, holding his two favorite people close.

#maccadam #transformers #oneshot #my writing #soundwave week #prowlcoswave #prowl #cosmos #soundwave

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morihaus · 3 years

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"Aleshut Annales" or: "A Brief History of the Alessian Empire"

Scribed by Dorceveus Mir

Translated by Yoricka Vaughn

Antiquarian of the Scenarist's Guild

Foreword:

In the field of Alessian Antiquities, significant finds are few and far between. Much of the works of the first empire were torn down by its former supplicants amidst the War of Righteousness, a heated rebellion against the excesses of the Alessian Order that would conclude in the empire's dissolution, with their fortresses sacked, monasteries razed, and potentially millions of written records, firsthand accounts, and other cultural artifacts lost to the mists of time. For this, we cannot truly blame our ancestors, but nevertheless, for us scholars of history, the lack of any pristine Alessian documents has been more than mildly irritating.

The Alessian period of Cyrodiil lasted from the year 243 to 2331 of the First Era, and yet for this stretch of 2088 years, the most we have in the way of writing are fragmented mythological texts, local legends of the era, and only the most widespread and accessible of the Order's doctrine that managed to escape historical erasure. That is, until the fascinating discovery of a cave in the Valus mountains, hosting a ruin that may have served as a hideaway for the last holdouts of the Order. Though much inside has been withered with the passage of time, one particular text of note was remarkably well-preserved: Aleshut Annales, by one Dorceveus Mir.

Dorceveus Mir's Aleshut Annales represents an unprecedented repository of knowledge on the Alessian Dynasty of the First Empire, utterly unmatched in its comprehensive narrative and relatively un-mythologized contents. Of course, 'relatively un-mythologized' is often a ways away from the whole truth; the Alessian Order was famous for its sensationalist propaganda and revisionist hand in its own history, a fact which has contributed to the lack of concrete information on their empire, but still, this text's recovery and restoration has breathed new life and enthusiasm into the field of Alessian Antiquities, and now, it is my pleasure to publish my transcription of its contents for the general public.

Enjoy Yoricka Vaughn's official translation of Aleshut Annales, or, if you'd prefer, a Brief History of the Alessian Empire.

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Glory and Grace to the One! Equal praise be to Unitary Akatosh! Equal praise be to Missing Shezarr! Equal praise be to Ascendant Alessia! Proper-life to the Emperor! Proper-life to the Prelate! Para Ada, Para Ardis, Para Imperatum!

All the lands of Ald Cyrod were once at the hands of wicked elves, who had come in blood and conquering, and had then ruled over the lands of men for one thousand generations. They were the Ayleids, the worshipers of daimon and the slavers of men, and long did they rule over Cyrod with torment, toil, and other dark iniquities.

This was the world in the days of the slave queen, the vaunted Al-Esh Paravant, who found the Missing Shezarr in her heart, and who was then found by the One through its great face, Unitary Akatosh. Through the patronage of the divine for her pure-questing, she led the Nedes to freedom and glorious triumph, and in the final and greatest show of her worthiness to sit the throne, the Dragon did ignite the fires of the covenant with her, gifted her with a stone of his own blood, the Chim-el Adabal, and the first-crowned was made Emperor of Cyrodiil.

The age following her victory was one of jubilant celebration and happiness. The cruel elves were made to heel to their new master and never again were men slaves; the Nords, though confused with their beast-visions, recognized the glory and piety of Alessia, and did much to help raise up new cities after fighting alongside her armies; the Nedes were all now free to worship the One, its subgrandience recognized by Alessia, and no more would the daimons ever threaten the innocent. Though the land was ancient, through its new mother, Vaunted Alessia, it was reborn, and this was the age of its blossoming youth.

Emperor Alessia ruled the land for 23 years, for the struggle of her youth weighed on her body, and the One called to her spirit. On her death bed, the One sent Champion Pelinal to take her spirit up to its rightful heaven, and thus the blessed Saint Alessia became Mortal Ascendant, and thus was year 0 of the Alessian reckoning.

Yet still, in mother's child Cyrod, the Order was not born until 82 years hence, the birth after death which proved the illusion.

The firstborn of Alessia, beget with blessed beast-become-man Morihaus, was called Belharza the Man-Bull, for in some ways he was ugly and bestial like his father, yet he was wise like his mother, and for this reason he was Man before Bull. He ruled justly for the first half of his reign, but as time wore on, he grew more like a beast and came to see his minotaur brethren as closer to him than the Nedes, and all his officers were minotaur, and all in his court, all of his lovers, even his chosen heir, were beast-men stock.

The men grew fearful, for he cared little for defending their ways, and even loosed the close restraints kept on the elven vassals, now left free to plot as they pleased. He was absent, spending his days grazing in his Dibellan gardens, forsaking the wisdom of his mother and the light of mankind.

But one kept to her will still, and that was Marukh the Ape-Seer. He heard the songs and tales of Saint Alessia and longed for what she dreamed of, but the land under Belharza was not that he recognized, and so he journeyed to the stone-meadows of the west to ponder on the folly of the Empire and beseech the divine.

After years living in deep spiritual contemplation, the Ascended Saint Alessia herself met with him as spirit shape and spoke the wisdom he sought. The elven ways were obfuscations of the truth, the truth that only upon her death and ascension could she herself see, and she spoke to him of the One, of the illusion of death, and the right reaching to proper-life.

Marukh recorded her words in his doctrine, and his preaching found purchase on the ears of the dissatisfied Nedes. True students flocked to him, and so began the Brothers of Marukh, anon Alessian Order.

In the 89th year hence Alessia's ascension, the old Emperor Belharza had planned to pass his crown down to a bull-maid, and the fires of the covenant grew dim for the weakness of this Emperor, and divine blood was winnowed, but the Brothers knew the true heir of Alessia, born of the heart of Cyrod itself and suckled on the mono-thoughts of the Prophet Marukh. She was Ami-El, first student of the prophet, and before the Dragon she effaced the Man-Bull and the taint of his brethren, and for this she was consecrated Emperor by the worthiness of her blood-right.

Thus began the age of Emperor Ami-El, and her righteous Alessian Order. The Seventy-Seven Inflexible Doctrines were most gloriously enforced, the error of elven tolerance was corrected, and Ayleids at last were driven from Cyrod by Ami-El and her crusaders.

Ami-El was a warrior of the faith, and also was she companion to the young High King Borgas, who carried the revelation of Alessia's Shade to the unenlightened barbarians of the north. For its praises to mankind they loved it, and so too for its critique of the Aldmeri fallacies did it find purchase among the men of Skyrim. Alas, the beloved disciple of the One was still Nord, and acted with zealous impunity as he called war against Valenwood and went without the counsel of the Emperor, all to be felled by the brutal magic of the elves- which turned them into 10,000 beasts who swallowed his army.

Ami-El ruled from the battlefields, and so found her end while rooting out elves in the black-woods of Nibenay in the 127th year. She passed down the amulet to her sole daughter and heir, Lattia, who would solidify the sweeping policies set in motion by her mother.

First did Emperor Lattia order the priesthood, who suffered for lack of a single doctrine. As the Prophet had sojourned to the cycle, his followers became lost, confusedly inventing names and natures for their god; the One was difficult to know in whole, and many sects had come to fervent quarreling over the one and solitary truth. The divinely wise Lattia assembled all the great curates and mystics of Cyrodiil, all the minds of the faith, and there in the Monastery of Canulus did she bestow in the voice of the emperor the mono-thought that would be the single doctrine of the Order.

In this Council of Canulus, Emperor Lattia set the precepts forward for the faith of the Empire; she elucidated the nature of the One, of Akatosh and Shezarr and their interplay, of the veracity of the other seven facets, and of the powers and station of the Alessian Order as servants of the One and the Emperor.

Over the long rule of the heavens-sent lady, she tended also to the turmoil of the Nords, who for 1 and 20 years had made war amongst themselves for the vacant throne of Borgas. The northern empire was all tumult, losing land to rebellious provincials and devious elves as they raised weapons to each other and wrapped tongues around themselves.

When Jarl Olaf of Whiterun called council, Lattia visited upon the Nords to voice her support for him as High King, and all the barbarians of the north were awestruck for her sharpness of tongue and power of her voice. In time they saw her wisdom, and by the time the east fell to their elven supplicants, the council would see Jarl Olaf to the throne of High King, and he would recognize Cyrodiil as Empire ascendant, and Skyrim as its vassal.

Emperor Lattia the Great ruled so to escape death, becoming part of the Empire itself, for she brought faith and culture to the reborn heart of Nirn. In addition, she beget three sons, the Nedic Calgus and Emerius, and the Nordic Gorieus, a sign of the union of Cyrodiil and Skyrim, and crown-heir to the Empire.

In the 195th year hence Alessia's ascension, the Great Lady Lattia passed away, leaving heir Gorieus to rule the Empire in her wake. Her reign was long, of 68 years, and in her life's twilight she foresaw that the enemies to the Empire and its Order would take her absence as chance to rebel, so it was her wisdom that she chose Gorieus, her warrior son, tutored by generals of the north in Bruma hold.

After his momentous coronation, Emperor Gorieus took quickly to putting down revolts from the most powerful of his vassals, including the High King Kjoric the White, proponent of the heathen ways of beast-worship and misguided dragon-fear.

It is unfortunate that Gorieus is remembered most for the latter years of his reign, when his Nordic warrior-ways failed him. Troubles began in the 212th year, in the fiefdoms of Colovia, which remained independent from the greater Empire in their stubborn and brutish ways. The kingdom of Skingrad had finally found peace with the Empire under its new king, Alessian adherent Dorald Larich, but this did not please envious brother Rislav, who spilt his brothers blood and revoked his proclamation of vassalage.

The Emperor Gorieus was forced to bring the might of his legions down upon Skingrad and its kin-slaying king, but through trickery, Rislav brokered a pact with Kvatch to lure the legion into a trap, killing thousands in the ambush and forcing the emperor into a rout.

This was the beginning of the rift of Cyrod, of Colovia-Nibenay, as well as the fall of Gorieus. Four years later, he met Hoag son-of-Kjoric in Glenumbria, where the treacherous Nordic king had forged a depraved alliance with the western elves in order to undermine the Empire, leaving the lost lands of Nordic High Rock in the hands of their crumbling hegemony.

As the west was stolen by treacherous men and scheming elves, the warlike emperor turned his attention to the lands of the east, where the dwarves and elves had created their own unholy alliance against the righteousness of mankind. He made to reclaim lands lost by the Nordic Empire, but in few months time, the accursed walking-weapons of the dwarves marched down from the north, accompanied by wicked elven sorcerers and summoners, who all ran through the armies with arrogant profanities.

In the 218th year, Emperor Gorieus perished in the elven homeland. Though the Elder Council attempted to recall his only surviving son, Dydraures, back to Cyrodiil to be crowned Emperor, the wicked elves of Morrowind intercepted and assassinated him as a sacrifice to their false gods.

So was the line of Gorieus undone by the elves, and the council was forced to select a new heir of Lattia. From the line of Calgus they selected Mharda, pious exarch of Bravil.

ii.

Emperor Mharda was a firm adherent to the Alessian faith, and quickly began to use her station to increase the power of the Order, wisely entrusting them as guardians of the Empire and increasing the scope of their responsibilities.

This closeness with the Order led to her firstborn daughter Sidanya falling deeply in love with a young curate, a man named Urdus, who was on the path to becoming arch-prelate for his deep devotion. Alongside the beautiful exarch Sidanya of Bravil, their love was sung by all the poets and bards of the Empire; they were emblematic of the ideals Emperor Mharda emphasized, the unity of the Empire and the love and kindness of the One, and all in the Imperial family were beloved by their people.

Tragically, in the 234th year hence the ascension of Alessia, Emperor Mharda was struck down by a terrible plague amidst expansion into the Kothri lands. The people mourned her greatly, none more than daughter Sidanya, and yet she steeled herself with imperious calm, knowing her duty to her people and the One, and so ascended to the throne as Emperor Sidanya with Arch-Prelate Urdus at her side.

Sidanya's reign was as celebrated her late mother's, for her love with consort Urdus shone brightly and warmed the hearts of all men. Such was their love that they engaged in a joining ritual, once devoted to facet Mara, and were united in immortal love before the One as Emperor and Emperor-Consort, souls entwined in spiritual union. They were the missing pieces of each other, finally whole, and under the warmth and goodness of their rule, the Empire was exuberant and all loving.

In the 256th year, the mystic rituals of Urdus would endanger this love, as the palace was set ablaze as he made to peer into the mysteries of the Dragon's covenant. The flame was unnatural and unflinching, and it swallowed Emperor Sidanya with a dark hunger like punishment, and the eldest son of the two-in-one could only just spare his father the same fate.

Ill-fate hung over the Empire in these times, first with the tragedy of Mharda, then Sidanya, and still more was to come and test the Alessians.

Eldest son Oryasileus was to be declared his mother's successor, yet father Urdus made an odd request in his grief, that he be the one to light the ritual fires, for Sidanya's soul, gone to this world, was not yet gone to him, and he felt her presence as he clutched the stone in his hands. His son consented to this, and Urdus honored the covenant with his own blood, the amulet around his neck.

Unknown to all, the grief of the Arch-Prelate masked sinister ambitions. Although Oryasileus was Emperor in name, his father still ruled as though at Sidanya's side, acting in her name, abusing the powers she graced him with to procure strange materials, components for the esoteric work performed in the bowels of the palace, the lightless chambers left untouched since the misrule of the elves.

While Oryasileus was left ineffectual, the power of his station cleft in twain, his absent father tucked himself away in his arcaneum, never relinquishing the Chim-el Adabal, for he saw in it the road to return to his beloved, a tool to his end, Aldmeri arrogance clouding his mind.

The Empire suffered during the reign of Oryasileus, Emperor in name only. The jungles swallowed Imperial roads, the outlying lands became troubled and resistant to authority, the good and holy Order became infested with grasping priest-kings who stole vacant power without the Arch-Prelate attentive to right them.

There were many revolts, none larger than pagus Bravil's. The Exarch Lauriel, second daughter to Mharda, denounced her nephew as a puppet emperor, and in this she was correct, but like many, she only used this to satisfy her hunger for power, launching fleets and armies to besiege the capital and claim his throne for her own. She was thwarted by the efforts of Sidanya's second son, Celeminus, a great general and his brother's staunchest ally; Lauriel warned her nephew of Urdus's improper deeds, the darkness of the elves that had taken root in his heart, but the young general still held love for his father, and saw only mourning, not madness. In the end though, he still thought on her words, and so stood with Oryasileus when the moment came to confront their father.

In the 282nd year hence the ascension of Alessia, Oryasileus gathered allies and spoke out against the Arch-Prelate, who had overstepped his station and cast the Empire into chaos. He spoke to his father and called him traitor, blasphemer of the One and his mother's name, and so enraged was the Dread Urdus that he slew his son, pronouncing himself as the one and supreme ruler of the Empire.

So was forced Celeminus's hand, and he marshaled the forces of the Imperial supporters to take down the blasphemer Arch-Prelate. The true keepers of the Order answered his call, rejecting those snakes they'd called brothers and affirming the birthright of Celeminus over his father, and the unworthy cried out their support of the Emperor-Prelate and all his darkness,

The War of the Emperor-Prelate waged for two years, the wise Celeminus fielding armies from all the disgruntled vassals of the dread Emperor, with even the godless Colovians recognizing his valor and strength as his right to rule. In the end, in the 284th year, Celeminus stormed the Imperial Palace and defeated his sorcerous father, reclaiming the amulet of right-ruling and restoring the power of Saint Alessia's bloodline.

Emperor Celeminus was Celeminus Restorer, for under his reign, by his wisdom and power and the grace of the One, he repaired the long-suffering Empire and ushered in an age of holy unity under his Celeminian Dynasty.

iii.

Emperor Celeminus worked feverishly to mend the lapses in Imperial administration. He gutted the foul priests from the Order and reassigned them to repair faltering infrastructure, priest kings and crusader legions restructured into armies of brick layers and brush cutters.

Honoring the loyalty of the Colovians during the war, Celeminus gifts the hand of his daughter Sercia to King Irlav of Skingrad, descendant of Rislav, and the tensions of the west and east are at ease for a time.

With matters settled in the heart of his Empire, Celeminus turned his attention to the pagus of Leyawiin, the contested city where Khajiit and Nedes walked beside one another and made the Topal rich with commerce. Its coffers were fat with profits, its tithe would greatly aid the reparation of the Empire, but its council had declared independence amidst Oryasileus's reign, and they refused any emperor as their master.

The Emperor could not abide by this insubordination, and so began the War of the Leyawiin Republic in the 287th year.

The forces of the Empire fought to tame the unruly pagus- the battle was hard-fought, for along with their heathen traditions, the cat-folk taught the Leyawiin men new ways of war, and their warriors moved through the canopy as deft and dexterous as jungle cats themselves. The united armies of Cyrodiil were too strong to resist, and the emperor did drive the traitors out and claimed city at last.

Shortly after, in the 290th year, Emperor Celeminus declared invasion of the cat-lands in retribution for their acts against the Empire, demanding they relinquish the wealth earned through Leyawiin's trade.

The Cathay War was a lengthy campaign; the aging Celeminus perished in the midst of it, falling to sickness and fatigue for all his ruling. His son Parachius was declared Emperor in the year 293, and would conclude the war in his father's stead.

The war ended in the Treaty of the 16 Clans, with the exhausted forces of the cat-folk acquiescing to the demands of the united Empire. The cat-folk would trade with men once again, and the men would reap the rewards

Parachius ruled in the manner of his father, his mind set on unity and strength for the Empire. As with his sister, his children were joint in political unions: Fjalor Frost-Bitten of Falkreath came to join with Stenda, his daughter and heir, whereas Denador joined with the Jarl of far frigid Winterhold, Elja Ice-Eye.

Under Emperor Parachius, the Empire was strongly united and prosperous. Rich trade came in from the north and south, and the Alessian Order regained legitimacy by way of associating with this ruler of Cyrodiil.

When Parachius joined his heavenly predecessors in the year 340, his daughter and heir Stenda took the throne. She was old, for her father had ruled long, but she had suckled her children on the Nordic ways of war, and prepared her eldest daughter Hreina to rule as a warrior Emperor, for she saw the future in conquest.

In the year 347, Stenda relinquished the throne, pronouncing her daughter as Emperor Hreina, who did quickly call out for war with the elves of Valenwood.

Emperor Hreina pushed into the forests, gaining land for the Empire's western reach, but the wood elves would take it back always, rising like weeds to steal away these hard-fought victories. History taught her that a large invading force would only draw out the beasts at the command of the elves, and so these small victories were her all.

She succumbed to infection from her questing in Valenwood, and passed with less than 20 years at the throne.

Her daughter Signa succeeded her, and took quickly to the joining of clans rather than the fielding of armies. Her crown heir Hilyad was wed to Mira Torum, daughter of Chorrol's warrior queen, tying the Imperial line to Colovia's most powerful family.

Heir Hilyad held great ambition from a young age, idolizing the father of his dynasty and all the other great emperors of war. He saw the Empire and wept for its stagnation, wandering for much of his youth in the countryside, pondering as he went.

In Skyrim, he met an Alessian hermit who spoke the same dream. The monk's name was Rettavendus, and to Hilyad he promised a glorious resurgence, he foretold the fall of the elves and the rise of man, and his words graced the ear of the Emperor-to-be, who took him immediately for an advisor of the heart and spirit.

In the 324th year hence Alessia's ascension, Hilyad rose to the throne, Rettavendus at his side. He was a mystic Emperor, one who heeded ritual and ceremony, listening first to Rettavendus, who spoke for the divine, and so too the Order, who called him prophet and prelate.

Meanwhile, emperor-consort Mira began to manage the Empire materially, tutoring their daughter Trebatina in Colovian ruling, whereas Hilyad sought to educate her in the Alessian mysteries. There was much tension between the joint pair, but Hilyad did not contest her, for his prophet spoke that the elves were vulnerable, and that man would reclaim what it lost in Morrowind, and to this he gave all his attention.

Word arrived that the dwarves and elves warred against one another in Morrowind, their union collapsing under the weight of their traitorous depravity; the vision of the Prophet was true. Unfortunately, the power of Morrowind was still greatly feared, and the Nordic kings refused to serve the Empire, instead only heeding the ghost of an ancient king, acting without the right-reaching of the Emperor and his Prophet.

So the legions were not present at the Battle of Red Mountain, fabled confrontation that ended the war. Rettavendus shook and trembled as it raged without him present, but Hilyad comforted him and made to invade once the elves had exhausted themselves, fending off the dwarves and the Nords and each other.

But the moment had gone, for in the 435th year, Hilyad's invasion of Morrowind was thwarted by elven trickery, the three-headed council of tribunes pretended themselves as gods- the typical fashion of elves- and used violent magics to sunder the entire invading force. The Emperor fell in battle, and his prophet vanished for 20 years.

In the wake of Hilyad, his consort took little time to mourn him. She was eager to usher their daughter Trebatina onto the Imperial throne, and under her, the Empire began a slow rot; the Order was neglected, as was the faith, and she styled herself as a Cyro-Nordic king, settling disputes with violence, acting often, questioning little.

20 years hence, Rettavendus reappeared as an old man, arriving before the Imperial court with a young maid named Pera, who was the hidden heir of Hilyad, a secret whispered to him with the Emperor's dying breath. All the years he'd been scouring Cyrodiil for where she was hidden, and then raising her to rule as Hilyad's true heir. Now that she was a woman, he honored his perished liege by demanding that she inherit the throne instead of Trebatina.

The Alessian Order supported Pera and celebrated the return of their lost prophet, but the Colovian Estates would not easily relinquish the position they'd taken under Trebatina.

The Elder Council attempted to select which heir was legitimate, but being split between Colovian and Alessian creeds, no decision could be reached. As was customary in the grisly western courts, Trebatina executed the councilors who did not support her. Alessian Nibenay was in outrage, and the Order took arms against her as false Emperor. The hidden heir Pera declared a war against her heathen half-sister, and the divided heartland became a battlefield of west and east.

iv.

The wrongfulness of the west had plunged Cyrod into turmoil. The land ran with the blood of its children, and the armies were locked in stalemate at the battlefields of Bruma and Bravil, as both moved as Slave Queen, making to surround the Rumare and besiege the city as in myth. Trebatina would efface the works of Alessia and write her own history, but Pera was the Returned, Blessed Reassertion, and this was her right-quest to heal the Empire of her furthermore.

The Prophet brought her word to the north as Perrif's falcon, and the lords of old Winterhold and Eastmarch saw her and shouted her claim in their voices, and many of the Nords followed them, but there were the jealous jarls of the west who made pacts with the Colovs, and for their greed and darkness would see Torum keep the throne.

Olmir of Falkreath harrowed Bruma through the Pale Pass, and his men ported goods to the highlands through the passage, so morale in the north was poor, but their claimant was wise in mono-thought and spoke righteous truths; Pera reached the ear of the Jarl and warned him of the power madness of her half-sister, who saw not past the scope of petty flickering mortalship, and would turn the land to decadence and tyranny and no doubt covet the northern lands for herself. Her voice struck him free of her beguiling, and with new sense his blood would control Bruma, and the pass would be his in whole.

Olmir set his blood-sister Bysri to the throne and his armies, and alongside claimant-general Pera she led the true breaking of the border and began the winding retreat of the Colovians.

Profane Trebatina and all her line were felled by the righteous Alessian Order, and in 461 Arch-Prelate Rettavendus gloriously pronounced Emperor Pera as one and true Sovereign of the Empire.

For her bravery in war and her heart that beat with divinity, it is held that Pera was myth-echo to Al-Esh, and so the Prophet proclaimed, and so she confessed atop the throne, for she had indeed returned to put an end to the faithlessness of the brutal westerners, and so she dismantled their estates and dressed the men of Colov in silks and cloths and teaching all the people of the One, so that a Colovian Priesthood could take root, and so was the ruling of the west ever hence.

Rettavendus's vision of a revitalized Empire came to pass, and Hilyad's memory was honored by his true heir, who the true believers called Veravant, which is second-crowned; so the Veravanic dynasty began in celebration.

Emperor Pera reigned for a glorious 43 years by the grace of the One and the way to proper-life. She left the Empire of prestige, of unity and divine favor, and as her soul again faced the illusory cycle, the people wept, but smiled, for she would come again. So was the year 504, and the crowning of Emperor Canalatta.

Canalatta was born of the union of her mother and a spirit of the north, who, like Morihaus, took the shape of man to please and serve the Emperor, but she, blessed child, was born fully man and without fault, and so worthier to reign.

As with Great Lattia, Canalatta held a great council of the faithful in the monastery of Mothata and established the act of priesthoods, which made equal branches of the Order in Colovia and Nibenay, and turned too to Skyrim as still the Nords resisted right-teaching.

The 540th year rose up Emperor Tel-Bel, who met the distant men-of-Yoku, whose Ra Gada carved their name onto the death-lands and scattered the Nedes without knowledge, for they were not under Cyrod, and so not known to Alessia's glory. Their warrior-king Yokeda Razul met with the divine emperor, and saw past his hatred of the infidels and recognized his brother under the One and by way of the sword, and so did not heed the fear of his council and struck the accord of Craglorn, halting his men's advance and becoming friend and ally to the Emperor.

The descendants of Tel-Bel would keep friends with the Ra Gada, anon Redguard, and the kingdoms of Hegathe flourished by the nurturing love of the Empire.

The Emperor Tel-Bel lost his life hence three years to man-eaters of the jungles, and so beloved was he that the Order cleared such swathes of rolling canopy and rooted out the offending beasts and blasphemers.

Daughter and heir Telin-El was pronounced Emperor in the 553rd year hence Alessia's ascension. She looked to Craglorn and wept for its people, unenlightened, clinging to the primitive traditions preceding revelations of Alessia and Marukh, who better knew the One than any, and so she set forth to bring the faith to them in a new Priesthood of Craglorn, and so did this happen, and Elinhir's star-seers were cast down from stone towers as pretender priests to make way for the One Faith.

Emperor Telin-El bore a son named Athel-Hev, who bore a son named Huttascus, who in his youth was eccentric yet charming, and who took to his mother's efforts to proselytize his uninitiated Nede-kin. In the Nibenean Priesthood he journeyed to the farthest southern reaches of the blackwood, and there met a Kothri believer, Zuuik, and the two were fated lovers, then made one before the One. A son was born to them, his name Altel, but sick was he from birth, and he did only grow frail and small as a child, and would last but eight years. It was 592 when Altel passed to fever, and left his parents to mourning.

The Emperor herself held a grand ceremony for her great-grandchild, and the Empire wept for its fallen son, but none wept more than father Huttascus, who lost part of himself in the loss of his son, and grew fearful of all the world.

Four years hence, a second son, Mantiel, was born to them, and met much love from his parents, and all the fear of his father; Huttascus kept his son in the Imperial isle for all his life, indulging the curiosity of a child in the Mytho-Histories of the Alessian Order, tales of killing-questing-healing, and he became the beloved child of the isles in those days, known for soaring heart and strange humor.

In the year 625, Telin-El was returned to the cycle after a most long and glorious reign. Huttascus was heir, but was unfit to rule, for his mind was too fearful and his faith weak, and so his body roiled with sickness for but a month before the One reclaimed him, and his son Mantiel was left to rule well.

Quickly Emperor Mantiel took to traveling, circling Cyrodiil with his voracious wandering as the wise Order and his Council tutored him well in the matters of state. He was a laughing Emperor, young and exuberant, and left much to the trusted and loyal Order while he partook in the joy of his people and their ceremonies; a harvest dance of Pell's Gate was where he met the she-sower Nim, his emperor-consort, who joined him in his travels and spread their love and joy throughout the lands. Twin girls were born to them, Cele and Culila, and all the traveling family were most beloved, and the dourness of his father forgotten.

Emperor Mantiel kept company with the prominent figures of his age, but none more so was he enamored with the Redguard adventurer Gaiden Shinji, grandest swordsman in all of Tamriel. Mantiel so loved to spectate the man that he constructed an arena within the capital, and so Shinji held many exhibitions there to the delight of the Emperor and his people, such was the open heart and generous nature of the Emperor.

The royal family of Mantiel was beloved by their citizens as common royals, who often would travel the lands participating in local festivals and celebrations. Mantiel continued to attend such events up until his 86th year, wherein he did perish in a particularly rigorous mystic dance of the blackwood, meeting the illusion of death as he met life, smiling.

So his daughter became Emperor Cele, and continued a rule of good humor.

Amidst Alessian light and revelry, there were shadows and ill tides to the west, as the dread King Styriche of Verkarth rose his small city to encompass much of the death-lands, for he resigned his soul to the daimons of backward death-illusions and unholy warping of the mortal matter and did command a dark host of his monstrous kin; none of the Empire knew, however, as the dark ones moved in secrets and only stalked the periphery- but this was not to last.

By the days of successor Emperor Valimus, the undead and man-beasts grew common troubles to the Craglorn, and even the Colovians became troubled for their infestations, but for all the efforts of the priesthood the vermin would only scatter and regroup; they grappled with serpent's tail as its head drew back with venom, and so the darkness took root, unbeknownst to the Emperor or Order.

Crusader-bands were for naught as the beasts made themselves at home in the courts of Cyrodiil, growing bold, hungry for the dismantling of the right-deeds of mankind. Soon, the Imperial family were victims of their sorcerous trickery, and they began their slaughter of the Emperor's heirs and all the holy rulers of the land, for this was their hunger for destruction.

In the 761st year, the hideous creatures brought fear and chaos to the land, and the Cyrodiils feared the darkness, for the monsters came with it, feasting on their flesh and blood, fallowing their crops and livestock, stealing thralls away in the night. The courts grew few, and the councilors grew paranoid and suspicious, twisted against each other by the cruel machinations of darkness.

The Emperor had but one heir, Malexilid, who though capable and wise at appearance was but a cruel simulacrum of the Gray Host, a vampire, and so the betrayed Emperor, who was so taken by loss he died in grieving for his family, and for the fall of his Empire.

The Elder Council had lost much, and now frantically tended to the contesting heirs of the Veravanics, but there would be no order amidst such turmoil, and so the One sent forth a young general from the province of Craglorn who had spent past years exterminating covens of vampires and packs of man-beasts across the Empire's western front, a warrior woman by the name of Hestra, whose blood was of Pera, who was of Alessia, and her soul burned with same fire, and her killing-questing was her worthiness to show she could heal her beloved Empire. The Council recognized her ruling-right, and so declared her Emperor Hestra, and prayed that she be the savior of Cyrodiil.

The voice of Emperor Hestra lit the great fires of man's soul again and moved like Missing Shezarr as she raised forth the legions, who numbered as many as they had ever before as the students of the One commended their souls to the protectorate of man; so in the first years her legions pierced the veil of darkness and scattered the servants of evil to westward winds, and Holy Hestra did not falter as the Host met her with its challenges, and she slayed the bellowing bloodmoon beasts to make of their coats a mantle, and resisted the glamours and illusions of twelve deathly beauties to make of their blood enchanted stones, and her generals wore the steel hides of monsters and the warding blood-rings, so they were prepared to make invasion upon the Vampire of Verkarth, the Dread Styriche, and his armies of the dark.

In the year 763 hence the ascension of the ascended Alessia, Hestra led with fire her forces, and the 10,000 of the legions met with the offending blasphemers whose nature was not with the One, and their righteousness forced the King Styriche into rout, for their dark spells could take no purchase on the true warriors of Godsent Hestra. So the fleeing daimon-kin met Bangkorai, gates to the High Rock, and the Martyr of Evermore Pelin cried to the One, who made of his body a font of blood, and he dove to the beasts to hold them- so transfixed were they by senseless hunger- and the garrison so did hold the fiends until the legions arrived and destroyed them.

Emperor Hestra was impressed at this bravery, and saw the miracle of the One as sign of their worthiness, so she did admit High Rock to the Empire, and all swore to her liege and saw the goodness and greatness of the One and the Empire; so it was too in Skyrim, and Emperor Hestra met with the High King, who knelt at her feet and sung her glories, and the heresies of the Nords were forgiven and all forgotten.

The hinterlands of the Reach were brought into the Empire with the fall of twelve kings, who did see Hestra's might as right to rule, but there was a dark spirit surging in the uncharted lands: Fao-Lan, the Red-Eagle, who was rebellion to the witch-men and their walking god of slaughter, and whose chest caved without heart and eyes burned without human soul. He cut with bloody blade strokes and curse-runes into the flesh of the Alessians, and the Martyred Legion of Peace was lost, but triumphant, and the lands were ordered to the priesthood and purged of daimon.

In the year 769, the sea-lanes of Topal were troubled with brigands who harrowed Leyawiin's trade, and who melded into the eastern marsh and its estuaries when pursued, and the blackwood-men feared follow them into the unknown, but not Great Emperor Hestra, who feared no darkness, mortal or spirit. She called for the head of the Pirate King Bramman and loosed 500 ships with her voice, and so the river-ways of the marsh were mapped as new battlefield, and the strongholds rooted out and redressed in the colors of Saint Alessia.

Men from Cyrod to High Rock did also meet the lizard-folk of the black marsh, who were but whispers of the Kothri and the Lilmothiit, but now were real and mysterious; and the Red Bramman was one of these folk, who learned man-speak and man-sail from a daimon of greed and plunder, and who envied the wealth and splendor of the Empire, so he began his own kingdom of thieves in the mangroves by a secret river, and when defeated, would retreat through the winding streams and canopies he knew alone.

Wise Hestra found his secret waterway and made to raid his thieves-keep, and did call Bramman out to duel, so he accepted, and in his one act of nobility did fall in honorable combat with the Emperor as the legions razed his fortress and reclaimed their stolen wealth.

The western reaches of the marsh and its river-ways were then kept by the Empire for trade and protection, and the Kothri-lands were made territory of the Empire, joining Craglorn's men as rescued kin of the Paravanics.

772 was the last war of Hestra, as the great conqueror saw her victorious navies and declared invasion of the cat-lands of the Topal coast, and the rich cities were besieged by her fleets who numbered so to coat the horizon, and the Khajiit were helpless without deserts and forests to aid their defense, and their boats were but merchant skiffs; but on the south came the ships of the high elves, mankind's most ancient foe, and their fleet was great in number, and their hulls shimmered of dew and glass and gilded metals, and they led their armies upon the forces of Hestra.

These were the kin to our oppressors, who warred with Saint Alessia and Crusader Pelinal, who the Alessian Order drove from our lands so that we might escape their fallacies of slavery and suffering, these were the sons to their fathers, returned from their west-isle of Summurset to claim revenge. They impeded the efforts of mankind, the nature of elves, and broke the siege with their great swarming of ships.

Emperor Hestra's heart burned with the spirit of crusader, so she made to push against the largest of the Aldmeri fleets, as Pelinal did storm White-Gold, but as he, she perished for her heroism, torn asunder by the sorcery of the elves, flagship cast to the depth of the bay. She was truly the savior of Cyrodiil, the greatest servitor to the One and all of the Empire, which grew twice-fold under her ever-right guidance.

The Emperor Hestra took no consort and left no heir, thus her brother Rhem was pronounced Emperor by the Elder Council. The elves left the cat-folk with great ships and weaponry, and so while her armies wished to honor their late emperor with conquest, it could not be done, and good men of the Empire were left grief-stricken and mad with fury for the iniquities of the elves.

Ancestral hatred of the elves returned to the Alessians, bringing tension to the High Rock, where the Bretons still recognized the names of elven gods and pledged worship, so conditioned by their ancient oppressors; the blasphemous traitors of their man-blood spoke of the daimon patron of elves, pretender-god Auri-El, and called to him in name of the One, Akatosh, which bore outrage from the Alessian Order, who knew right-thought, and made wars of scripture to expunge the Aldmeri taint from the face of the High Rock.

In the 818th year hence Alessia's ascension, Emperor Rhem passed after ruling long and just, tending to the holdings of elder sister Hestra and glorifying her holy deeds with great works, immortalizing her in monuments to her piety and strength, and bringing her message of the One to the hinterlands of admitted High Rock and liberated Verkarth.

Emperor Nirnen succeeded him, and she called the Empire to war with the elves, and so gathered up her children, generals of the Order, and devised their plan. Abbot General Ingerem was her eldest son and wisest of her children, and it was his mind and sword entrusted to invade the Valenwood, the bastion of elvendom that had ever resisted the Empire and its allies to mankind; the Empire was greater and more powerful than ever before, and so the riches of the elves would be forfeit, and man could prepare for the final battle against elf-kind.

The largest army of man in history was assembled, warriors of Colovia, Nibenay, Skyrim, High Rock, all donned the armor of the legion and the crest of the sigil of the One and marched forth into the green, razing and burning the forest as they went, goading the elves into decisive battles and keeping strong. The invasion was glorious triumph, again and again the elves faltered to the Empire, and the west weald spilled southward as they marched. The Green Witch and her Silvenar, sorcerous rulers of the wilder-elves, did call forth the thousand beast hunt and changed their armies into flesh-tearing beasts and monsters, but even the Silvenar, in the shape of a war-beast, did fall in one of these hunts, for the soldiers of the Empire were many and great, and learned to interrupt the beast-magic with warrior cries and druid-tricks.

The loss of their King Silvenar dealt a blow to the morale of the elves, who seemed all defeated in one fell swoop, and so the tree-thanes fell to the feet of their conquerors as they hunted the great-oak Falinesti to destroy the Camoran, the remaining keepers of the green.

But woe, the high elves came again to deprive mankind of its triumph, for they were the allies to the Camoran and gifted their men with enchanted arms, forged with the secrets of their ancestors, and carved the names of men onto arrows of bone, which never missed when fired.

Fate reversed, and the Alessians lost their own war-leader Ingerem, and the armies receded to Cyrodiil as the elves preformed cruel revelry for the bloody defeat of mankind.

The Empire wounded, second-son to the Emperor, Glathes, vowed to continue the work of Ingerem, and so he traveled to the lands of the Redguard, Hegathe-now-Hammer-Fell, and spoke to ally the ruling kings with the rest of mankind against the elves, but the ruling council turned up their noses, balking the Alessians, who to them were so soundly defeated, and they gave no pity to their fellow-men for their defeat at the hands of elves. Glathes thoughtlessly pronounced that if not allies, the Redguards would be enemies of the Empire, and so when they did not capitulate, he forced his men to march for the reputation of the Empire.

The arrogant war was costly, the Redguards knew the ways of desert-war and crag-war better than any soldiers of the Empire, and their armies fought ferociously to defend their homeland, so the reduced legions could not contend, and Glathes saw that more terrible were the Redguards as enemy, and perished, raging on the battlefield, spitting at the soldiers of the Redguard and calling them ally to the elves, for which they slew him brutally.

The invasion was swiftly over, and Verkarth was taken by the Redguard, whose kingdoms swelled to all of the death-land, for the accord of Tel-Bel and Razul was violated, and so the lands west of Colovia were no longer protected by the bond of mankind. The Empire was shrunken, even more gravely in debt and disrepair, and so the twilight of Emperor Nirnen was filled with misfortune and unruliness, as the vassals decried the power of the Empire and the Order, and revolts raged to restore the pre-enlightenment ways of the backwards provincials.

The throne at her death was a difficult burden to bear, and it fell Ene-Yenna, granddaughter of Nirnen, just 17 years of age in the year 854. Her first act was to declare a Rule of Order, putting local governance into the hands of the esteemed generals of the Alessian Order, who as right-ruling provincial kings would work to mend the broken Empire through tireless effort and devotion in the name of the Emperor, bringing peace to the provinces and piecing together the dominion of man.

Emperor Ene-Yenna spoke the words of the Order, who in the time of strife served the Emperor's will by mono-thought, and had all attuned to her thinking wave and the dictated will of the One. The Empire would be much prepared by the time of her death thanks to the goodness and oneness of the joint Emperor-Order.

Emperor Padri-El succeeded her mother in the 889th year hence Alessia's ascension, and has ruled in the same manner, in glorious mono-thought with the ever faithful Order, who have successfully restored Alessian values to all the lands of the Empire, displacing traitorous heathens and instituting their own heavenly regimes, carrying the will of the Emperor to the farthest reaches of her realm.

Though the centuries of the great and blessed Empire of Man have been oft unkind to our Alessian Order, they are now indisputably the shepherds of the Empire, the agents of the Emperor's will, so by extension the will of the One. Our blessed Emperor need not trouble herself with mortal stresses of her predecessors, for the ever-wise and pious Arch-Prelate Fervidius Tharn has her people well in hand, and her lands all in Order.

---

Postscript:

This document has been dated to the 1190th year of the First Era, or 924 in the Alessian reckoning, representing 948 years of the First Empire's history, as well as fascinating insights into the politics of its first millennium of existence. A total of 29 emperors are listed; an unprecedented number, as no more than 7 had ever been reliably proven to exist within prior Alessian scholarship.

The year 1190 should be significant to any with a passing interest in the First Era, for it's just a decade shy of the fabled Middle Dawn, a most puzzling period in which records fail to follow any singular coherent narrative. Faulty note-keeping? Or a sign of linear time's complete shattering at the hands of the esoteric Alessians? This antiquarian will leave that for the reader to decide, but what I can say for certain is that the dark age of the Middle Dawn seems to have directly contributed to the sudden and crushing fall of the Alessian Empire.

The only Emperor that the Elder Council has seen fit to acknowledge past the date of this text is one Shor-El, who must have come to rule at some point during the 1008 year stretch of the so-called dragonbreak. From that point on, scattered references to hundreds of different emperors can be found throughout Tamriel, though none can be certified to have ever ruled, or even existed, at least not with our current evidence. Accounts from the War of Righteousness make little mention of the reigning Emperor, who it seems at that point had become little more than a puppet for the Alessian Order- something, I should note, the closing paragraphs of this text seem to attest to.

Nevertheless, for all the questions left unanswered and the biased nature of these annals, this is the most comprehensive history of the Alessian Empire ever uncovered, and should be celebrated for what it is: a momentous discovery and invaluable window into the First Era, its politics, and its culture.

I should hope these writings ignite a passion in those of you who contemplate our past, who would take arms in the fight to beat back the uncaring march of time and preserve the stories of our ancestors for future generations. Though this war began thousands of years ago, when the first scribe put quill to parchment, it continues today all throughout the world. Everything, no matter how niche, how forgotten, how willfully destroyed, is a part of our stories, and it is our duty as antiquarians, historians, as denizens of Tamriel, to remember them.

#tesfest21 #mori writing #oc: alessians #fair warning: this is in the neighborhood of 8000 words #it's a long historical text with an imperialist and alessian bias glorifying the acts of emperors #a lot of patronizing and villainizing of other cultures and faiths #longest single thing ive ever written

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solarianvoidthearoace · 3 years

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Excerpt#3 from my JonGerry AU WiP

CN/TW: smoking mention, disclosure of finances, discussion of sleep-overs, relationship negotiations, explanation of heteronormativity and amatonormativity, gender coming-out (sort of?), fond insults/banter

Still, Gerry cringed a bit,

“I suppose I have to apologise for not telling you…?”, he winced,

“I mean you couldn’t have known and… looking back it does feel like sort of misleading you, I mean all you knew was that I work two jobs.” They buried his face into Jon’s chest. Instead of commenting, he simply patted their hair, holding Gerry close and letting him be dramatic for a minute.

“Well, that does explain your insistence to pay whenever we are out together”, Martin spoke up after a minute,

“I noticed you even occasionally snatched the bill when Jon or I mentioned inviting us others.” Gerry slowly looked up,

“Well, yes. I can’t imagine you floating in money. I grew up working in a bookshop after all and it only really build a financial buffer after I sold it all to collectors. And Jon mentioned his overtime going unpaid more often than not. Plus it’s just nice to know I can do that for you without having to make cuts on anything. Only thing I really want to cut on is smoking, but that’s an intervention for another day, yea?” They gave Jon a gentle squeeze around the waist. He was still reluctant to let them go but did move onto the armrest of the armchair instead.

Despite Gerry’s reluctance, the three of them did talk a bit more about his finances, something he had glossed over when clueing Jon in about his art career. After some more reassurances that they won’t see Gerry in a different light, they let the evening end. Seeing Martin off at Gerry’s doorstep was weird, in Jon’s opinion. But turning around and knowing he was with Gerry to stay had him almost glowing.

“Home is where the heart is”, Gerry smiled, gently cupping Jon’s chin,

“Seems like I finally get both in one place.” Blushing, Jon looked down,

“It’s not like…”, he suddenly thought better of it, biting his lip. A gentle brush of Gerry’s thumb against his bottom lip, light nudging of their fingers under his chin, had him look up again.

“Not like what, doll?” He relented with a sigh, his exhale ghosting over Gerry’s hand,

“It’s not like I never called you my home before.” A warm shiver ran down Gerry’s spine, making them wrap their free arm around Jon and pulling him in. Instead of a kiss, which would have been so easy with the way they still held his chin up, Gerry rested their foreheads together,

“Welcome Home, then.”

Gerry had been right, though. With Jon no longer having an apartment of his own, Martin spend the occasional afternoon at their now shared flat. He didn’t really mind, they weren’t exactly friends with Martin themself but the man was nice to spend time with, even shy as he still was around them.

Besides, due to Gerry’s admittedly haphazard working hours without any structure or obvious sense to them - something Jon had called him out on multiple times before moving in - he always had an excuse to leave Martin and Jon in favour of working on his art.

Which was the thing responsible for his discombobulated working and waking hours, mostly. Gerry could admit to themself, that the secondary job at the bar was mostly to keep a somewhat steady life rhythm while adhering to his own night owl inclinations.

Between Jon’s nine-to-five, the overtime he often threw in on top, and neither of them needing to cling together every hour of their free time, it was nice. Maybe a bit more companionable than what other people would consider a romantic relationship, but they always had been liberal and somewhat alternative when it came to their life choices.

Which all is rather winded to say Gerry didn’t care that Martin picked Jon up on a Saturday morning. It was Martin who seemed bothered by it.

“And it‘s really okay with you if Jon stays with me from time to time?”, he was still wringing his hands over it. Gerry shrugged, leaning back against the kitchen counter and crossing his arms,

“Why shouldn’t it be? I’m the one he moved in with. Besides, it’s not like I ever was the type for heteronormative or amatonormative relationships in the first place.”

Martin’s brow furrowed, looking around in thought before his expression turned somewhat helpless,

“So, I know what heteronormative means, supposing every relationship ever has to imitate a hetero one with one partner needing to be feminine and the other masculine, clean-cut roles and divide into approximating that 40’s cliche of the obedient stay-at-home-wife.” He shuddered at the thought,

“But what’s amatonormative?“

Gerry pulled a face, lifting one hand to rub at his chin, elbow still resting where they had crossed his arms,

“Uh, m’kay, so…” He gestured, pulling a face in contemplation,

“It’s something asexual and aromantic people struggle most with, but basically it impacts anyone and everyone. It’s pretty much the belief that everyone needs exactly one monogamous romantic-sexual partnership as the end goal for their private life to count as fulfilled. So it does hurt anyone who doesn’t want to partner up for whatever reasons, as well.” They shrugged halfheartedly, waving his hands around a bit, before facepalming,

“Ugh, Jon is better explaining this, throwing in words like „sole focal point“ and „emotional hierarchy” and shit. Like, how it interplays with other relationships any one person has, society expecting them to prioritise their romantic partner with whom they obviously have to be sexually active, because society sucks.” They gave an exasperated eye-roll, huffing at the thought, before focusing back on Martin.

The man nodded slowly,

“I think I get it. So it also hurts anyone non-partnering, like you said, but also everyone non-monogamous, regardless whether the person is a-spec or allo. Huh, I have been participating in open or otherwise non-monogamous relationships for years and didn’t know we had that much in common with… I suppose primarily aromantic people.” He hummed a sort of affirmative noise, before blinking.

“It’s weird how many things impact a broad variety of people. Oh, that reminds me, how do you feel about gendered terms? I know I should have asked way sooner, but it honestly slipped my mind, I kind of just stuck with what Jon used for you. Like, which are okay?“ Standing more relaxed than earlier, their hands propped on the edge of the counter on either side of his hips, Gerry tilted his head. Some more of their hair spilling over that shoulder,

“I did already tell you I’m genderqueer, not a man and also not exactly trans-feminine. So as for how to refer to me, anything that’s fun”, they smirked, stroking the curtain of his hair back.

“I mostly go by what’s considered male terms, though. But among friends, as sparse as they are, I’d actually prefer everyone made an effort to remember I go by he/him as well as they/them pronouns. Even if I don’t exactly present that way, it is defining to me that I’m not actually a man. As opposed to you or Jon, who just doesn’t stick to gender connotations”, he couldn’t help his snort,

“Because where’s the fun in that anyway?”

Martin suddenly had a teasing glint in his eyes,

“So you’re Jon’s joyfriend?”, he smirked. Gerry raised a brow, fighting to hold back his own grin,

“Please, I’m always a joy to be around.” As he grinned back at Martin, there was a huff from the doorway,

“A significant bother is what you are”, Jon managed to get out halfway believably before softly smiling himself. Gerry’s expression changed, his eyebrow slowly raising while they gave Jon a sceptical once-over,

“Says the guy purposefully calling me Jared just to annoy me.” He scoffed, albeit smiling fondly,

“Love you too, Jon.“

“In my defense, I didn’t know of your name change then! I was just teasing because you were being a twerp.” The two of them were broken out of their bickering, before they really got going, when Martin let out a giddy squeal,

“You’re adorable!” After a short pause, Gerry faked an exasperated huff,

“There you go again, dipshit, ruining my reputation.” He had barely finished before he doubled over in giggles, which had Jon snicker as well. Calming down, they exchanged a fond look. The silence in the kitchen stretched, before Gerry pushed themself off the counter,

“Alright”, he gestured at shooing the other two out of the kitchen,

“Get going. I was promised a quiet Saturday. Take care, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, don’t don’t anything stupid, either, and remember your bedtime. Now shoo!”

It still wasn’t often that Jon spend the night at Martin’s, but occasionally Gerry had his bed all to themself for one night at a time again. But somehow word about Jon’s changed living situation got out. Which in turn lead to his colleagues asking about the “new guy” he had moved in with while still dating their common former colleague Martin. It took Gerry some days to figure out the leak but that didn’t exactly make it better.

Sasha, Gertrude’s assistant and second-in-command, had caught onto someone having moved in with Gerry, connecting the dots with their recently resurfaced boyfriend. In turn, Sasha happened to know a snitch by the name Timothy Stoker, who decided to spike the gossip at Jon’s work with this new knowledge. Gerry finally resigned himself to having to plan a small house warming party, when Daisy, his barkeeper colleague, asked about it.

It was quite frankly beyond them, how everyone from his and Jon’s social circles seamed to know one another all of a sudden. In hopes of at least inconveniencing some people, he talked to Jon about picking a date for the party at random.

Didn’t work out. Miraculously everyone had time, a ride, and was up to snoop into their respective acquaintance’s or colleague’s private living situation.

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chaosintheavenue · 4 years

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Fallout Van Buren: The Basics

I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment, and entirely too much Van Buren information floating around in my head, so I decided to make a post summarising the main details of the game Van Buren could have been for those who want to know more about it, but would rather not trawl through pages and pages of design documents.

First up, for those that may not know, Van Buren was the codename of what would have become Interplay’s Fallout 3, had it not been cancelled during development. All that has ever been released is a tech demo with glitches galore and no direct relation to the intended plotline, some concept art, and a bunch of incomplete design documents.

Please note that, as a lot of planned content was scrapped even before the game itself was, some artistic interpretation is necessary to make the storyline flow, so some parts of my summary are my own personal takes on stuff.

(Warning: this is pretty long. Also, be aware that the New Plague gets involved in Van Buren a lot more than it did in any published games, so proceed with caution if you’re trying to avoid that sort of thing)

Plot overview:

The player character would start the game, in full Bethesda style, as a prisoner in an NCR prison. Choosing the crimes that had led to their imprisonment, and whether they were innocent or guilty of them in reality, was likely going to be part of the character creation and skill selection process.

At the start of the game, the Prisoner would wake up one day in a new cell in the automated, robot-managed Tibbets Prison. This prison was under attack by a group of rogue NCR soldiers led by a very skilled, but also very evil, scientist called Victor Presper. Many of the robot guards were damaged and weakened by this attack, and in the confusion some prisoners, obviously including the player, would have escaped.

Once away from the prison, the Prisoner was free to explore the map looking for more information on this Victor Presper, and would most likely end up wandering from place to place and completing a bunch of side quests for people they met along the way, as most Fallout protagonists do. More info is given on some of the locations they might have travelled to below!

At some point, the Prisoner would become aware that a large robot was pursuing them. This robot was ARGOS, controlled by the AI running Tibbets (ODYSSEUS), and its mission was to retrieve and recapture the escaped prisoners. If ARGOS did capture the player at any point, it would return them to their cell. Their original, still-damaged cell, which they could immediately escape from again. Yeah, nice work, ARGOS and ODYSSEUS…

Over time, the player would start to notice that the NPCs in locations they were visiting were becoming ill, and many would die. Somehow (it’s never specified how), it would be revealed that Tibbets was not just any prison, but a quarantine prison, and that all inmates- the player character included- were carriers of the New Plague, and had been spreading it to every location they visited on their travels.

(Quick lore break here: if you’re unfamiliar with the New Plague, its Wiki page is here, and you can find previous posts of mine about it here and here. Warning for detailed descriptions of illness, blood, death mentions, and parallels with current circumstances in all of these links!)

From here, the Prisoner had to round up the other escaped prisoners and return them to the facility to prevent further outbreaks- either by convincing them to return by various means, killing them and dragging their bodies back, or alerting ARGOS to their locations. Along the way, clues would appear that Presper was behind the whole fiasco, and was still working at odds with the player’s aims (as one design doc succinctly puts it, ‘that bastard is up to something’).

The overall main aims of the Prisoner (well, a Good Karma one, at least) would be:

To stop Presper

To cure the New Plague

To establish trade routes between settlements, likely involving getting the old trains network and running again. Of course, if done too early in the game, this would speed up the spread of the Plague…

Eventually, the Prisoner would find and confront Presper in space, on board a pre-war ballistic orbital missile base (aptly named B.O.M.B.-001), which still contained live nuclear warheads and had been activated by ODYSSEUS once the New Plague started to spread again. Presper’s plan right from the start was to activate this orbital base, then use its missiles to ‘clean the slate’ of the wasteland, so to speak, then start over with his own vision of humanity. The ending would have involved the Prisoner either launching the warheads at settlements they’d visited during the game, or blowing up the satellite with themselves on board to spare the wasteland.

Locations:

Boulder Dome- a pre-war science facility in Boulder, Colorado. Has a lot of New Plague information, making it a very useful location for more scientific Prisoners to work on a cure. Also contains a handful of environmental suit-wearing scientists who spend their days completing maintenance tasks to keep the Dome in working order, waiting in decontamination tunnels, and usually being generally mistrustful of one another. Yes, this is definitely Fallout, not Among Us!

Burham Springs- a former mining town in Utah that has been permanently burning for years. Home to the Gehennas, who will make an appearance below

Denver or Dog Town- a city of dogs. Let me repeat myself, a city of dogs

Hoover Dam- was going to be a large settlement, nothing at all like the version in New Vegas

New Canaan- a town of Mormons on the Great Salt Lake, as mentioned in New Vegas. Wouldn’t have had much significance in the overarching Plague plot as far as I can tell, but it takes a more central role in my own tweaked OC storyline because I saw an opportunity to tie VB and NV together through its characters. This location was cut during development and replaced with a smaller settlement called Jericho, but the mentions of New Canaan and complete silence on Jericho in NV mean that the New Canaan information is generally considered to be ‘more canon’

The Nursery- a pre-war facility that’s essentially a contained nature reserve to the extreme. There are lush green trees, clean water, and pre-war animals here. Also, the famous Harold would have made an appearance

Reservation- formerly Los Alamos (a real-life nuclear testing facility). Now a ghoul settlement, and also intensely radioactive. Almost a combination of the Glow and Necropolis or Underworld

This was just a brief summary of my personal favourites, but there are many more locations too!

Some of my favourite pieces of concept art:

(All taken from the Fallout Wiki)

Boulder Dome!

Gehennas!

Hoover Dam!

Reservation entrance!

I feel like this post wasn’t the most coherent, so if I made no sense or you want to hear about the planned storyline, locations, and companions in more detail, I strongly recommend Retcon Raider’s series on YouTube!

You’re also very welcome to ask or chat to me about any aspect fsghgf! That said, there are some areas of the lore I know a lot about (namely, the main storyline, the Boulder Dome, New Canaan, and anything remotely tied in with the New Plague stuff), and others that I’m not as familiar with just yet, so I’m not exactly an ever-flowing fountain of VB knowledge lol.

#fallout van buren #new plague #fallout lore

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Mythic Quest Season 2 Pulls Off Another Standout Flashback Episode

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This article contains spoilers for Mythic Quest season 2 episode 6.

According to co-creator and lead actor Rob McElhenney, the Mythic Quest team didn’t go into the show’s second season on Apple TV+ with a plan to recapture the energy of season 1’s infamous flashback episode, “A Dark Quiet Death. But they ended up doing so all the same.

“We’re always trying to just stretch and do something different,” McElhenney tells Den of Geek. “It’s never a function of like, ‘Oh, that flashback episode worked, so let’s do another flashback episode.’ It’s more like, ‘Well there are no rules.’”

In Mythic Quest season 1, the desire to operate under no set storytelling rules led to the stunning fifth episode “A Dark Quiet Death.” That installment was a flashback to the mid ‘90s in which two game developers, “Doc” (Jake Johnson) and “Bean” (Christin Milioti), met, fell in love, made some art, then sold out and fell out. The half-hour was seemingly unconnected to anything else in the Mythic Quest mythos, save for a scene at episode’s end when McElhenney’s lead game designer Ian Grimm purchased the cavernous studio that Doc and Bean once used to make their indie titles.

The episode was a thematic companion to Mythic Quest’s main storyline and an exploration of the insidious interplay between art, commerce, and human ego. Now, season 2’s sixth episode, “Backstory!” explores some similar themes via an extended flashback that actually involves a character the show’s audience is already familiar with.

As played by Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham, Mythic Quest lead writer C.W. Longbottom is equal parts caricature of an aging blowhard sci-fi writer and a realistically tender depiction of a man intent on finding story wherever it might lurk. “Backstory!” takes things back to Los Angeles in 1971 when “Carl” Longbottom is fresh off the bus from Clear Lake, Iowa, and eager to begin his junior copy editing job at famous sci-fi magazine Amazing Tales Publishing.

Playing the young C.W. with equal parts wide-eyed wonder and bitter creative disappointment is Josh Brener, who most audiences likely know as Nelson “Big Head” Bigetti on HBO’s Silicon Valley.

“I was worried at first because, you know, it’s somebody else portraying you, so you’re kind of in their hands,” Abraham says. “It was a treat though. I got in touch with the actor to let him know how much I admire his work and how good he made me look. He had soul and heart and I think that’s essentially what C.W. is. You actually love this guy. You want him to win in the end and I think he does.”

Mythic Quest: Everlight Ushers in the Post-Pandemic TV Era

By Alec Bojalad

The plot of the episode surrounds Carl’s relationship with his new copy editing peers Peter Cromwell (Michael Cassidy) and A.E. Goldsmith (Shelley Hennig). The trio begin as allies (or a “tripod” like the aliens in their beloved H.G. Wells’ creation) and attempt to get one another’s work published by Amazing Tales. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that A.E. and Peter’s fiction is much more suitable for public consumption than Carl’s strange, illogical hard sci-fi.

“Carl, it’s not enough to propose a future where things are different. They have to be inevitable and unexpected at the same time,” A.E. tells the young writer, trying to help him.

Unfortunately Carl is in no position to hear her. Sure, it makes no sense that humans in the future would have flesh packs on their back when backpacks would work just fine. But Carl wants humans to have flesh packs on their back because that’s how his imagination wants them to carry things.

Eventually, after A.E. and Peter find creative and professional success, Carl resorts to a soft form of plagiarism when he adopts all of the extensive notes that none other than Isaac Asimov provided on his manuscript and publishes them as his own. That’s enough for Carl to take home a Nebula Award, but A.E. understands precisely what happened.

Carl, however, does find some semblance of real success in the form of an eerily accurate prediction. At his lowest, after Asimov essentially rewrote his story, Carl drunkenly takes off down the street in an uncharacteristic Southern California downpour. While walking, he sees a game of Atari Pong running on a model television in a storefront window. His eyes light up with the possibility of future storytelling. He then tells his peers that one day stories won’t be linear, but rather bolts of lightning.

“The inevitable march of technology will not be stemmed. Enough iridescent geometry to create an entire world…no, worlds. We will give birth to creatures the likes of which have never been seen! Naturally, none of these worlds will mean anything on their own. They’ll need to be infused with story.”

And infused with story they’ll one day be, as Ian Grimm and Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao) track the aged C.W. down at a renaissance fair to write the story for their new Mythic Quest game.

“Backstory” was written by special guest writer Craig Mazin, a prolific and powerful Hollywood presence who is now best known for creating HBO’s classic Chernobyl miniseries. This is Mazin’s first time penning a script for Mythic Quest but he did guest star in several of season 1’s episodes as the highly inappropriate games tester Lou.

Mazin also appears in this episode as Sol Green, the publisher of Amazing Tales. Mazin and McElhenney gave Sol the same last name as Lou to suggest that one is a grandfather of the other. But McElhenney is not discounting the canonical possibility that Craig Mazin is simply just an eternal force of nature.

“Again, there are no rules, so who gives a shit? Lou could be a character who has existed since the beginning of time,” McElhenney says. “To me, it’s the spirit of Mazin that lives on throughout the millennia. He’s like that in real life. I mean, that really is what he’s like.”

In addition to the presence of the writer of Chernobyl as a potentially immortal being, “Backstory!” differs from its “A Dark Quiet Death” flashback predecessor in one major way. This isn’t the end of the Carl Longbottom story. Next week’s episode, “Peter,” will continue the tale of C.W. Longbottom’s sci-fi writer life, this time in the present. And playing his friend-turned-rival Peter will be yet another actor of note.

“We essentially do a play between two Oscar winners: William Hurt and F. Abraham Murray,” McElhenney says.

It looks like Carl was right: stories don’t have to be linear. They can be bolts of lightning too.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

New episodes of Mythic Quest season 2 premiere Fridays on Apple TV+.

The post Mythic Quest Season 2 Pulls Off Another Standout Flashback Episode appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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slightly-nerdy-rambles · 4 years

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Robstar Week Day 5: Righteous Fury (Prompt: Rescue)

This prompt gave me an excuse to do an action scene, and I love writing action, so it was definitely one of the most fun prompts for the week. The direction I chose to take it also gave me a chance to play around a bit with the interplay between Starfire’s emotions and her powers, and those of you who have read my fic Joy and Fury may recognize some of what’s going on in that regard.

Righteous Fury

The world was tinted viridian as Starfire scanned it from high above.

It was not really a world, per say. More of what Raven had called a ‘pocket dimension’ – the extradimensional space owned by that creature who had the gall to call himself the Master of Games.

The thief who had been travelling the galaxy and using a powerful artifact to steal away those who lost his games, so he could use their skills and weapons as his own. And like any thief, she was going to take him down and make him return what he stole.

“Starfire.” The sound of her name snapped her out of her idle thoughts, and she released some of her focus on joyful thought keeping her aloft. She’d been using him as the source, again – perhaps not the best choice of subject considering the circumstances, except that it made her all the more determined to find him.

Robin was her k’nonaki, after all – her great bond, the source from which she most easily drew her power-linked emotions. And if the “Master” thought he could take him away from her, she would only be too eager to prove him wrong.

“There are four main paths branching out of the coliseum,” she reported as she touched down by the others. “Besides the one that we know connects the competitor’s quarters, the others lead to a series of several large buildings.”

Cyborg nodded, a thoughtful frown on his face. “Must be the tournament arenas. At least that means he doesn’t have more of these mini-dimensions to go hiding in.” He turned toward Raven, who was sitting in her meditative position.

“Got anything?”

Raven took a few seconds to respond, standing up when she did. “He’s here. Robin’s aura is faint through the gem, but I can still sense him. But I can’t get a bead on the Master of Games without sending out my soul and alerting him that we’re here – he must be out in one of the other buildings. They’re in that direction,” she finished, pointing down one of the hallways.

Beast Boy rubbed one arm. “Guess we’re lucky he got Robin and not someone you don’t have a freaky mind bond thing with, right?”

Starfire shot a warning glare at him, eyes narrowed. “I do not see how this situation can be considered ‘lucky,’” she hissed.

Beast Boy shrank back from her, but Raven laid a hand on her arm.

“We’ll get him back, Starfire. Along with everyone else the Master captured,” she said calmly. “Getting riled up over it isn’t going to help.”

Starfire gave her a sideways look. “You forget, Raven. My emotions only strengthen me.”

With that, she turned and began to stalk toward the far path that Raven had pointed out. Herald, who had been called on to bring the team here when the Master had first vanished with their leader, leaned over toward Beast Boy.

“Do her eyes always glow like that on missions?” he asked in a low voice.

“Only when she’s about to eyebeam someone in the face or like, really pissed,” Beast Boy stage-whispered back. “I dunno if I’ve ever seen it last this long, it’s kinda freaking me out.”

Starfire ignored them and continued forward, but she swore she could feel their eyes on her back. The conversation died down after that, and everyone walked quietly for several minutes.

“…I should have warned everyone about that gem,” Cyborg finally said, his voice hollow. “When I got captured back in the Tournament of Heroes, I was trying to blast that thing. I knew it could be activated by prolonged contact, but it didn’t even cross my mind that nobody else saw it.”

Without a word, Starfire lifted off and poured on speed until the others disappeared behind her. She told herself it was so she could scout ahead, but… she knew Cyborg was just trying to be sensitive when he said “everyone.”

After all, Robin wasn’t the one who had tried a hard blast against that accursed gem. He’d merely jumped in the way to save her.

She would not let him suffer for her mistake. She could not.

The doors to the first arena were coming up fast. They were closed tight, locked probably, but Starfire barely even slowed down and simply smashed her way through.

There was very little to the floor and walls of the arena, which was instead dominated by a dozen massive cages hanging high above her. She drifted further in, scanning the area for any sign of her foe or the next exit that would bring her closer to him.

There. Up in the far wall, level with the rough midpoint of the hanging cages, a rounded balcony led out to another doorway. Probably so the Master could watch his “contestants” directly if he so chose.

As Starfire darted up to the balcony, the low blare of a horn heralded the opening of a portal on its level surface. The Herald and her remaining teammates stepped out, forcing her to halt before the doorway.

Cyborg held up a hand. “Star, you’re going too fast,” he said, gentle but firm. “If we spook this guy or give him too much warning, he’ll just teleport away and we’ll have to hunt him down all over again.

Starfire’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she dropped her gaze to the side. “There is nothing stopping him from leaving to find more victims if we wait,” she retorted, “and he cannot resist a challenge, can he? I intend to give him one he will not soon forget.”

“I think it’s safe to say we all do,” Cyborg replied, a little smile quirking the corner of his lip. “And we will. Together, because that’s how we beat someone like him.”

Starfire let out a low breath and nodded, though the blazing emerald never quite left her vision. He was right, of course – she could stay angry all she wanted, but letting her righteous fury blind her would only cause more problems. She had to remember that.

Cyborg nodded wordlessly to Raven, who raised her arms and enveloped them all in a darkness that pulled them through the next barrier without a sound.

By the time they were about halfway down the next corridor, Raven suddenly halted.

“They’re near,” she reported in a low voice. “The Master should be hiding in the next arena.”

The Titans all shared a look and a brief nod, but before they continued, Starfire thought of something. She flew over to her team’s current companion.

“The Herald? I believe it would be wise of you not to engage in this battle directly,” she said with a thoughtful frown. “If the Master of Games manages to take your horn, he will have an even easier time escaping us, and we may no longer be able to follow.”

Herald considered this for a moment. “Yeah, I can hang back for this one. Send me any victims you rescue from that necklace, and I’ll send ‘em home before your friend can capture them again.”

That matter resolved, the Titans soon found themselves at the next entrance. Through the thick doors, they could hear the clanging of metal-on-metal and occasional blasts from some energy attack the Master had stolen. Starfire caught Cyborg’s eye and raised her fists, and he nodded – for all that they couldn’t give their presence away too early, their opponent would be more likely to stick around if a bombastic entry promised an exciting “game.”

With a determined little smirk on her lips and the thought of her beloved’s rescue guiding her strength, Starfire smashed through the doorway like so much tissue paper and barreled into the arena. With a start, she realized that she recognized this one: it was the fighting ground she had been sent to during the brief run of the Tournament of Heroines. Thick steel beams criss-crossed an otherwise open space, spread far enough apart that flighted opponents could weave among them without too much trouble, but passing each other close enough that ground-bound competitors had places to jump from one to the next.

In the middle of it all, the Master of Games was flying on massive feathery wings and aiming another blast of red-hot energy at one of the beams. He paused mid-attack as she entered, turning toward her, and her hands lit up with starbolts almost of their own accord.

“We are not finished with you,” she spat.

“Yeah, Gameboy,” Cyborg chimed in behind her. “Last I recall, we were just getting started.”

The Master’s face twisted into a wicked smirk. “Another round? I don’t mind earning a few more trophies, even if I’ve already won the grand prize.” He punctuated that statement with a flick of his wrist, and Robin’s bo staff seemed to grow out of the palm and into his grip.

“Very well then! The Teen Titans versus The– Urgh!”

A powerful eyebeam – aimed at the stomach, she could not risk hitting his gem with that kind of attack – threw the villain back hard against the steel beam directly behind him. He peeled off after a moment and began to fall, his stolen wings twitching in a daze, but Starfire would not give him the chance to recover. Swooping in, she grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and forced him back against the beam.

But the Master had already recovered enough to bring the staff to bear. He bashed the butt of it into her torso, forcing her back with a grunt.

A rush of wings passed by her in that moment, and before the Master could follow up his attack, a large green woodpecker swooped in and gripped ahold of his necklace’s chain. With a force and precision designed to drill into trees, Beast Boy’s beak struck the gem.

A blazing light forced back shapeshifter and Tamaranean alike, and three figures came tumbling out. One was a Thanagarian – the source of the wings no doubt, considering they were suddenly gone from the Master’s back – but she did not recognize the other two, nor had she time to see if she could place their species.

“Get to the exit!” Starfire barked in Thanagarian, pointing the way in case the others didn’t recognize the language. “We will deal with him, but our friend can get you home.”

As they ran, the Master of Games recovered his senses with a growl. He was in the air again, doubtless with the aid of another victim’s power, but a hit from Cyborg’s cannon forced him back before he could attack. Beast Boy followed this up by swooping back in and grabbing the necklace again, but the Master swatted him away before he could peck at the gem.

As woodpecker shifted into panther and caught ahold of one of the beams, Starfire flew in again and began to harry her opponent with starbolts. He retaliated by spitting globs of slime at her, making her aim difficult, but it mattered little – her goal now was to keep his attention on her, for she could already see the dull glow of Raven’s magic enveloping the necklace to yank it off.

But even then the gem sparked to life, and Starfire swore she could see it pulling at her friend’s energy. Fear added to her blazing fury and warrior’s confidence and focused determined joy then. She could not let this happen again. She would not.

This ended now.

With a guttural yell, Starfire tackled the loathsome being who threatened her loved ones. The force of it drove them both down past the steel beams and onto the arena’s floor, knocking the wind out of her opponent. His gem, its hold on Raven’s power broken, swung wildly with the impact and clattered against the ground.

And with both hands lit and clasped together, she slammed her fists into it – a force that would have shattered a lesser artifact into a million shards.

Light filled the building again, and when it cleared, nearly a dozen newcomers were sprawled across the floor. One in particular grabbed Starfire’s attention, and the light in her eyes dimmed in an instant.

“Robin!” she cried, rushing over and dropping to her knees beside him.

Robin smiled and clasped the hand she offered him, pulling himself upright. “I’m okay,” he reassured her. “I could see what was going on, you know. You were… very impressive.”

Starfire let out a tired sigh and pressed her forehead against his, eyes closed. “I had an unusually personal stake in the matter.”

She could hear her other teammates’ hurried footsteps coming in behind her, but before they could catch up, another sound grabbed her attention. She turned to see the one who called himself the Master of Games standing up with a groan and looking at her and Robin with pure hatred in his eyes.

Beast Boy winced and spoke up while Raven silently directed the other rescued victims toward Herald. “Please tell me he doesn’t have even more people stuffed in that thing.”

Robin shot Starfire a confident smirk, which she responded to with a single sharp nod.

“If he does, we’ll just have to take care of that too,” he said aloud. “All of us, together.”

#Teen Titans #Robin #Starfire #robstar #robstarweek #Beast Boy #Raven #Cyborg #Herald #writing #prompt #fanfiction #Master of Games #I really wish we had another thing to call him #Why yes I am in fact planning on a Tournament of Heroines fic sometime further down the line

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tseneipgam · 3 years

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"Summer on the high plateau can be delectable as honey; it can also be a roaring scourge. To those who love the place, both are good, since both are part of its essential nature. And it is to know its essential nature that I am seeking here. To know, that is, with the knowledge that is a process of living. This is not done easily nor in an hour. It is a tale too slow for the impatience of our age, not of immediate enough import for its desperate problems. Yet it has its own rare value. It is, for one thing, a corrective of glib assessment: one never quite knows the mountain, nor oneself in relation to it. However often I walk on them, these hills hold astonishment for me. There is no getting accustomed to them.”

"the whole wild enchantment , like a work of art is perpetually new when one returns to it. The mind cannot carry away all that it has to give, nor does it always believe possible what it has carried away.”

"To pit oneself against the mountain is necessary for every climber: to pit oneself merely against other players, and make a race of it, is to reduce to the level of a game what is essentially an experience. Yet what a race-course for these boys to choose! To know the hills, and their own bodies, well enough to dare the exploit is their real achievement."

"The presence of another person does not detract from, but enhances, the silence, if the other is the right sort of hill companion. The perfect hill companion is the one whose identity is for the time being merged in that of the mountains, as you feel your own to be. Then such speech as arises is part of a common life and cannot be alien. To “make conversation,” however, is ruinous, to speak may be superfluous. I have it from a gaunt elderly man, a “lang tangle o’ a chiel,” with high cheek bones and hollow cheeks, product of a hill farm though himself a civil servant, that when he goes on the hill with chatterers, he “could see them to an ill place.” I have walked myself with brilliant young people whose talk, entertaining, witty and incessant, yet left me weary and dispirited, because the hill did not speak. This does not imply that the only good talk on a hill is about the hill. All sorts of themes may be lit up from within by contact with it, as they are by contact with another mind, and so discussion may be salted. Yet to listen is better than to speak. The talking tribe, I find, want sensation from the mountain — not in Keats’s sense. Beginners, not unnaturally, do the same — I did myself. They want the startling view, the horrid pinnacle — sips of beer and tea instead of milk. Yet often the mountain gives itself most completely when I have no destination, when I reach nowhere in particular, but have gone out merely to be with the mountain as one visits a friend with no intention but to be with him."

"This is the river. Water, that strong white stuff, one of the four elemental mysteries, can here be seen at its origins. Like all profound mysteries, it is so simple that it frightens me. It wells from the rock, and flows away. For unnumbered years it has welled from the rock, and flowed away. It does nothing, absolutely nothing, but be itself."

"it is the August-blooming ling that covers the hills with amethyst. Now they look gracious and benign. For many many miles there is nothing but this soft radiance. Walk over it in a hot sun, preferable not on a path (‘I like the unpath best,’ one of my small friends said when her father had called her to heel). "

"The more one learns of this intricate interplay of soil, altitude, weather, and the living tissues of plant and insect (an intricacy that has its astonishing moments, as when sundew and butterwort eat the insects), the more the mystery deepens. Knowledge does not dispel mystery.Scientists tell me that the alpine flora of the Scottish mountains is Arctic in origin — that these small scattered plants have outlived the Glacial period and are the only vegetable life in our country that is older than the Ice Age. But that doesn’t explain them. It only adds time to the equation and gives it a new dimension… My imagination boggles at this. I can imagine the antiquity of rock, but the antiquity of a living flower — that is harder. It means that these toughs of the mountain top, with their angelic inflorescence and the devil in their roots, have had the cunning and the effrontery to cheat, not only a winter, but an Ice Age. The scientists have the humility to acknowledge that they don’t know how it has been done."

"Half-closing the eyes can also change the values of what I look upon. A scatter of white flowers in grass, looked at through half-closed eyes, blaze out with a sharp clarity as though they had actually risen up out of their background. Such illusions, depending on how the eye is place and used, drive home the truth that one of an infinite number, and to glimpse an unfamiliar one, even for a moment, unmakes us, but steadies us again. It's queer but invigorating. It will take a long time to get to the end of a world that behaves like this if I do no more than turn round on my side or my back”

"So simply to look on anything, such as a mountain, with the love that penetrates to its essence, is to widen the domain of being in the vastness of non-being. Man has no other reason for his existence.”

"a flower caught by the stalk between toes is a small enchantment"

"It is nonsense to suppose, when I have perceived the exquisite division of running water, or a flower, that my separate senses can make, that there would be nothing more to perceive were we but endowed with other modes of perception. How could we imagine flavour, or perfume, without the senses of taste and smell? They are completely unimaginable. There must be many exciting properties of matter that we cannot know because we have no way to know them. Yet, with what we have, what wealth! I add to it each time I go to the mountain—the eye sees what it didn't see before, or sees in a new way what it had already seen. So the ear, the other senses."

"So my journey into an experience began. It was a journey always for fun, with no motive beyond that I wanted it. But at first, I was seeking only sensuous gratification – the sensation of height, the sensation of movement, the sensation of speed, the sensation of distance, the sensation of effort, the sensation of ease: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. I was not interested in the mountain for itself but for its effect upon me, as puss caresses not the man but herself against the man’s trouser leg. But as I grew older, and less self-sufficient, I began to discover the mountain in itself. Everything became good to me, its contours, its colours, its waters and rock, flowers and birds. This process has taken many years, and is not yet complete. Knowing another is endless. And I have discovered that man’s experience of them enlarges rock, flower and bird. The thing to be known grows with the knowing."

#book

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justfangstvdto · 5 years

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Open Coffin 2 | Chapter 03 “Living On Borrowed Time”

Disclaimer: This is a sequel! Find Part 1 here. For some context, I´d advise you to watch The Originals to understand some occurrences.

Chapter warnings: a little bit of a slow breather chapter, timeline divergence, canon divergence, Also apologies for the long break in between...I allowed myself time to let it marinate a little, feel free to wait for more chapters to come before reading,

Word count: 5450

Tags & Author Note at the bottom. Feedback is my lifeblood and keeps the writing coming (eventually...lol).

Open Coffin 2 Masterlist

Your feet dragged over what was left of the road in the cemetery that had been split open by centuries of floods and moving earth. The white paint of a few sparsely placed tombs was so bright you had to shield your eyes from the reflecting light. The trees swayed in the gentle breeze, diluting the light above into a shaded mess. There had never been an English word for the way the sun and wind interplay with each other to create dappled sunlight, but it decorated the entire tree-lined walkway.

Leaving the shadows, you turned the corner towards the far end of the cemetery, skipping some of Lafayette´s prominent resting places, "Why the hell did I agree to this again?"

“Because you're taken with my personality?” Kaleb was walking behind you a step or two, taking his sweet time as if he had no trouble wasting seconds to nothing. He had convinced you to not kill him immediately with a promise of revealing his intentions. You agreed, knowing that if he walked you into a trap you could still end him with a rub of your fingers. It was a win-win, though a time consuming one so far.

And time was running out. You hid a bloody nose from his eyes when he was unconscious - the second one that day - and it was only going to get worse from here on out.

“You think if I´d be taken with you, I would´ve handcuffed you to a radiator?” You scoffed, ignoring his attempt to lighten your mood completely.

“I don´t know,” he shrugged, “you might be into that.”

You rolled your eyes at his comment, progressing further. Passing another set of stones older than dirt, you adjusted the straps of the bag that carried your letters, fastening the metal handler around your shoulder. It was comforting to know that they were with you again and that they only fell into the hands of the stranger next to you. After a few more steps, the sound of shoes crushing loose stones under his weight grew silent.

"This is it," he said and nudged his head towards the building on your left.

You looked at the building towering next to you and it took a moment for you to scramble together where you are. Like a squared lighthouse, the second story building had glass windows on the second floor that wrapped around all sides. The first floor was used by the local witches as a place to congregate and meet with each other, while the second floor was full of plants, herbs and other ingredients for all kinds of spells. You knew the place all too well. Besides plants, it currently housed a newly moved in leech that fed on people's weaknesses. One that was followed by her offspring and one - that despite the meaning of her name - was the worst of them all.

Esther.

"Of course you're working for her. I should've known.” You pinched the bridge of your nose, breathing out the weight of uncertainty from your lungs. Finally, the pieces revealing the stranger in front of you fell into place. Esther sends a distraction. Needless to say, you were not surprised.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you too are working with her?" He had a smug grin on his face as he replied as if he´d outfoxed your question. Smug Bastard.

"Let me guess, she's the one that wanted my letters?”You asked, and he confirmed with a nod “Why?”

“To exploit your secrets, I'd imagine." He shrugged, then opened the door to the building and stepped aside “After you.” You brushed past him, brushing against his torso trying to fit into the outlandish small door frame. At least this time you were not wearing any hindering clothes as you did 100 years ago. You remembered that once a part of your coat ripped trying to enter this building and if you'd look closely you might even find particles of the clothing still littering the doorframe.

Entering the room at the top of the building, you heard Kaleb breathe out in annoyance once he laid eyes on Finn. He- who was still inhabiting a local Voodoo master with the name of Vincent Griffith - stood at the table, ripping feathers from a dead crow that laid on it.

“Ah, Finn. Just the person I didn't want to see." Kaleb looked at him with such disdain one would have deduced that there was some sort of sour history there. Still, Finn said nothing and blankly stared through his borrowed eyes.

Looking at him, you wondered if the people underneath Esther´s and Finn's possession had any control left. Did they feel or see too? Or were they gone, totally locked away? You never wanted to find out first hand.

“Kaleb, Y/N. I see you two have been acquainted.” You heard Esther speaking from an adjoined room before you saw her. But now she wasn´t the teenage witch she had been inhabiting when you met, it was a local shop owner and witch that had been selling witch items not far from Marcel's new place. But even in another body, she remained the most questioned pawn on the board.

“I guess it was bound to happen since you sent him to steal from me. I don't appreciate you meddling in personal business. That wasn't part of the deal.”

“Did I, now?" She paused and shared a look of disapproval with Finn next to her "Very well. Since Kaleb revealed himself to you, you´ll join forces for the time being. Perhaps then I'll get what I seek."

"Yeah no, I don't do teams." You shook your head and glanced at Kaleb next to you “No offence.”

“You'll do as you're told," Finn said. His jaw was clenched and he tipped the tip of his finger against the table. Ah, the scolding finger. Another thing he had in common with his brothers.

"Oh, of course!” Kaleb scoffed, slicing his words in a sudden stern veer “Now Finn, the sycophant, speaks up! Are you gonna grovel at your mother's heels for eternity, or what?"

Finn dragged his eyes from the table and ogled him down as if he would implode to dust under his gaze “I advise you to stay your lane."

You rolled your eyes at their ongoing dick-sword fight, wishing they´d either attack each other for a little entertainment or simply hold their tongue until you´re out of the way.

“We should move this along.” Esther sounded annoyed as she ordered Finn to the back room with a nod of her head. He tore himself away from the hostile conversation with reluctance, yet he complied. “Now,” Esther looked at you with stern expectation “What brings you here? I do hope it is not another empty promise.”

"I come bearing gifts." You said, stepping forward to the table in the middle of the room. You brushed dried up leaves from the roses that grew in the room from the table with your elbow. Kaleb's eyes went wide when he saw what you held in your hands. The white oak stake in all its silver veined glory. You watched Esther's eyebrows ripple with surprise. She wasn't expecting you to bring the white oak to her as you promised.

She reached out to grasp it, but you brought the tip of the stake to the ceiling to withhold it from her “I need some repayment first. A part of the spell, an ingredient from the list, something."

"You haven't fulfilled your part of the deal." She stated with certainty in her voice.

“This is the start of it. You said you wanted to convince Klaus and Elijah to become human, right? But of course, they´re not as easy to persuade as you thought. If you can't convince them, pour salt into their wounds until they can't do anything but listen. You´re their mother. I´m sure you have secrets about them floating around in your head somewhere. Use them.”

“I am well aware of-”

“I'm not finished. They're hiding something big. Elijah went off like the attack dog he is without me doing anything to cause this, which means that they're hiding something. They have to be. He's too suspicious of me to not want to keep something hidden away. I can find out what it is if you give me something first.”

“You will give me the white oak stake and I will consider handing you a fraction of the spell”

So that's how this is gonna go. You're baiting the wrong person here, Esther...

You considered your options for a moment, going over the possible outcomes of any branch, but all led to disaster. All but one. That meant not playing her game anymore. It would never get to the point where she would keep up her end of the bargain. But this endeavour trying to gain her sympathies had no use. It was time for Plan B.

"Fine. I'll be back with more soon” You met her observing gaze, looking at her without a glimmer of fear she so hoped to spot. You let her grasp the white oak stake and let it fall into her hands.

“It's not like I'm living on borrowed time or anything." You muttered as you turned to leave through the door you came into.

What Esther will do with the white oak, that only her twisted mind would now. But at least it will give you time to come up with another plan. Including another obstacle that was your new companion who, if your senses were not completely obliterated, knew too much to not work against you.

For now, however, getting out of the fire line is what was important, or you´d not stand to see this through.

You stood on the corner, watching as Marcel paraded around in front of his new initiates. He was trying to rebuild his community, the one that Klaus took over with his scheming and intrigues. You never grasped why he thirsted for power as much as he did. Perhaps, you thought, he tried to eliminate the feelings of not possessing any power whatsoever when he was young. Or it was to outgrow Klaus' shadow that has been resting on him and this city. Even now exiled on the other side of the river, he tried to rebuild what Klaus took from him.

Marcel, similar to New Orleans was a Phoenix rising from the ashes. Burnt down countless times, defeated and broken, yet resilient. You wondered how he kept going after all this time. Possibly he was just better at moving past issues than you were. Or he was nothing but more skilled at concealing it.

“I'll be right back.” You informed Kaleb, as Marcel announced the end of his drafting process. Marcel spotted you walking towards him out the corner of his eye, smiled and outstretched his arms, waiting for your opinion of his recruits.

“So, what do you think?”

“I don´t know, a little too groupy for me, to be honest.” You shrugged, “But I'm not a team player so what do I know?”

“Fair enough.” He nodded and let his eyes wander for a second before he spotted Kaleb watching your conversation like a hawk. “Who is this guy?”

“A friend.” You answered, hoping he wouldn´t pester you with questions. You had no time to waste.

“Since when are you making friends? Especially ones with death stares.”

“Well, guys with death stares are kind of my brand.” You joked, but Marcel was nowhere near laughing. Your smile fell and you cleared your throat before you continued “Anyway, listen, do you still own that cabin out in Terrebonne? I could use a little retreat.”

Marcel cocked his eyebrow “Who do you have to hide from now? I know you´ve been going the extra mile to piss people off lately, but that has to be a new record.”

“Nobody yet, but there will be soon. I'm just getting the hell out of dodge before that.” You felt bad for only visiting Marcel to get something from him, but you were not exactly running on a lot of time. You were sure he understood.

“Cabin´s still there, but I had it warded against magic a while back, so no zapping in and out of the place. You can disable it if you want once you´re there.”

“Great. So a road trip it is.” You were not particularly thrilled of hanging out in a confined space with someone you barely knew. But there was no use in complaining.

"In that case,” Marcel continued “you´ll probably want your ride back. It's down at the docks, with all your stuff in it."

“Shit I haven't thought about that piece of metal since-” You paused, but there was no need to finish your sentence. Marcel understood.

“I assume you have a passcode for the doors? Or do you want me to blow the door up to get in?”

"Uh, yeah. It´s…" He scratched the back of his head in avoidance.

The second you knew why he was stalling, your face fell “Don't tell me the password is…password.”

“No, of course not.”

“It´s password, isn't it? You dumbass.”

“It's a car, not an atomic bomb! As if anyone's gonna steal that old thing.”

You slapped his shoulder, shoving him back a step or two “How dare you. You can insult me, but never that car, alright? It's been through a lot.”

He smiled before raising his hands in defeat. “Alright, alright. Call me if you need backup with this one.” He nudged his head to Kaleb still standing where you left him.

“Thanks, but I never need backup.”

----

You definitely needed backup. Even simply to hurl Kaleb out of the window for how annoying he was. Throughout the first few miles, he flipped radio channels with his magic, whistled along to every song that came on, or bumped his knees on the glove compartment repeatedly. He even asked about Marcel with such vigour, you barely managed to divert the topic. You knew many people had something against Marcel and his supernatural politics, you included, but Kaleb´s disapproval was on the upper spectrum. This only added to his questionable character.

You halted at a rest stop a few miles down the road after Kaleb insisted on getting road trip snacks. He had an extra pep in his step when he found the snack Aisle, you could see his excitement through the smudged storefront windows.You pulled out your phone when he disappeared into the back isles dialling a string of numbers you haven't thought about in the last decades. You tapped your foot throughout the beeping tone, anxiously waiting for the other person to pick up.

You heard a groggy moan before the scruffy voice of an old friend cut through. "Y/N ain't that a nice surprise.” Shank said, “It's been what 90 years?"

"Yeah not exactly. We saw each other about a year ago in New York. Or have you forgotten?"

Shank considered for a moment “Oh yeah something seems to brush through my drunken haze. I think. ”

Shank did not drink to forget like most, he drank to remember. He claimed that once he entered a state of non-sobriety, memories he had long forgotten would creep up. You always thought it was nice he even could forget anything at all.

“Anyway,” Clearing your throat, you continued “I need you to do some dirty work.”

“Dirty work?” He sounded surprised yet elated by the prospect of digging up some dirt by either burying someone or by digging up secrets “What are we talking about? Murder, mayhem? Mayhem with some murder?”

“Not that kind of dirty. I need you to pull up all the records you can find for a guy called Kaleb. I don't have his last name, but I'll send you a picture.” You looked over your shoulder to check if Kaleb was already finished with getting snacks, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“I see what I can do.” He agreed and you could hear him hammering on the keyboard through the phone “Is he a problem I need to know about?”

“I don't know yet. I just want to make sure we're on the same side.” You explained, leaving out the details he had no use of knowing about “Thanks for doing this, by the way, I know I haven´t exactly been around.”

“You can thank me by checking in with the boss.”

Of course, he would bring her up. How could he not? He was so blindly loyal to her, it was a wonder that he was not killed yet.

“I don't know what Mae told you but I don't want to speak to her ever again.”

“Just call in, kid.” He seemed impatient in his wish, but, you had no intention of following through with it. That chapter was closed.

“I'll think about stopping by instead.” You lied. You had no intention to go anywhere near the headquarters.

There was silence on the other end, then what sounded like a drink that was poured before Shank spoke once more "You can't. It's all gone."

"What do you mean it's gone?”

“Haven't you heard? The Guerra Werewolf pack bombed the place. Did the same to the crescents on the Bayou. Whole building collapsed in broad daylight, almost everyone died. Some of them people were dumb as a ton of bricks, but they were family.”

“Shit. I didn't know.”

"Nobody knows except Boss and I, and our high and mighty Mikaelson's of course."

"If there's anything I can do-”

“Nothing to be done.” He answered curtly, then returned to his task at hand. "I'll get you the info. Take care of yourself, kid.” And without another word, he hung up the phone.

Entering the car, you leaned forwards after terminating the call, head pressing into the steering wheel. How have you not heard of the explosions? If you had, you would have made the Guerra werewolves suffer longer. Or at least dragged some of them back to the surviving members they could do with them whatever they liked.

You pushed the thought away when Kaleb showed up at the register. You snapped a photo of Kaleb when he appeared at the register through the windshield, disguising your action as trying to find a signal.

“Did you find it?” He asked through the opened passenger window before throwing the three bags worth of snacks behind him on the backseat.

“Find what?" You asked him, confused about what he meant.

“The signal?” He said when he opened the passenger door and hopped in “I saw you from in there.”

“Oh, yeah I got like one and a half bars at best.” You lied. before reaching out for the key stuck in the lock cylinder. Turning it with the foot on the clutch you started the car, ready to continue the journey.

------------

On a lonely stretch of road close to Morgan City, Kaleb had finally resorted to looking out of the window for the first time since leaving New Orleans. Silence at last. Ah, yes. Hair breezing in the wind, soft tunes that played on the radio and some nice peace and...

“So New York huh?” Kaleb asked and you had to stop yourself from burying your face in the steering wheel.

...Quiet, yeah not so much.

“Just because we're working together, doesn't mean we have to talk.” You blew him off, “Also, is there an encyclopedia of Y/N somewhere I don´t know about or how do you know where I was?”

He smiled and said "Touchy, are we?”

"I don't know why you're surprised. Do I look like the person that ́is offering free hugs or something?"

"Well, if you ́re offering, I wouldn't say no." He shrugged, flashing a pearly white smile that you figured was deadly to girls' hearts in the vicinity.

“Fine.” You sighed and turned the radio volume down. “Ask away. What about New York?” You hoped he would be satisfied with a few questions answered.

“You, uh, what do they say.”He tipped the tip of his finger against his lips as he considered “Ah yes dropped off the map. Then years later you resurface in New York. Why that filthy city out of the whole world to choose from?”

You stranded there, was the short answer. The real answer was much more complicated. “I did it for the Bagels.” You shrugged.

Kaleb almost choked on a corn chip as your words registered “The bagels?” He said through a cough or two.

“The bagels.” You confirmed, "And I spent some time there back in the '50s, so I knew my way around."

You did not tell him that you just found yourself in New York one night after you tried aimlessly to find something to dull the pain. You did not tell him that you spend weeks feeding through the drunkards that wandered the streets at night. Or how you made the top spot on the wanted list on several covens or small circles of witches for stealing spellwork. You had nothing to lose, and nothing to fear from any of them. You had your goal, and you did not care about casualties.

So you lied. He had no use hearing any of those things.

“And what about your family? Did they visit you there?” He asked further.

Why do you ask so many questions, Kaleb?

You dug your nails in the fabric of the steering wheel at the mention of your so-called family. You have not seen Stefan or Damon in years. But only thinking about them resurfaced memories of the last time you spoke to Stefan on a lonely winter night in New York, months after everything that happened.

You remembered how cold your hands were from the freezing storm that iced the city overnight. There was another blizzard predicted to roll through in the day to come, but people in New York had experienced harsher winter conditions than that. You watched them drink their mulled wine and cinnamon-spiked coffee from the bench you were sitting on. The snowed-over trees of Central Park were a perfect backdrop for the winter wonderland they were seeking.

The ring tone felt like an endless repetition of empty promises, each more disappointing than the last. What if he had no desire to pick up the phone? Or perhaps he was in trouble? Maybe you should- But then his voice cut through the silence. He didn't say your name just answered with a standard phrase you´d greet strangers with. You told him who you were and before you could explain that you wanted to make amends, he said: “Whatever it is, I can´t help you.” Then he hung up and left you in the cold with nothing but the light of your phone that remained the sole evidence for your conversation.

Clutching the steering wheel tighter, you shoved those memories back where they belonged; behind a door and forgotten as so many have been.

“I don't have a family” You finally said. “What about you? Got any family left?”

“They're all crazy as loons.” He shook his head “No, my family these days contains of one person. The only one that's never given up on me.”

Huh. So you were in the same boat after all. Interesting...

“Is that the reason you started working for Esther? To be reunited with them?”

“That's the primary goal, yes." He confirmed and reached for another chip in the bag. “So, New York.” He repeated once again “What did you do?”

“I'm sure you´ve heard the stories. Everyone has.”

“I rather get information from the source. Can´t trust chatter these days.”

“I've done what someone like me does.” You answered with the hope he would have the sense to stop pestering you with questions.

“Well, darling, there is nobody like you, so have to be a little more specific.” The familiarity of the word of endearment made you turn your head and you glanced at him, but he was already staring ahead.

“Murdered, maimed, pissed people off, you know, the usual. Bad things happen when people like me grieve.” You replied, focusing on the road ahead once more.

“All that to get your boyfriend back?”

You slammed your foot on the breaks, halting the car with a loud screech. You leaned over with fury dwelling in your eyes "Let's get one thing straight, you'll never bring him up. Ever. Matter of fact, why don't we keep our history to ourselves."

"I didn´t-"

You didn't let him finish. Instead, you turned the radio volume up, ending the conversation in an instant. You felt his stare every now and then and he nervously fumbled with his left hand and outstretched his fingers only to retreat them a moment later, as if he was regretting reaching out.

The song on the radio swallowed the silence as it played on, thick with grief as a man sang on about how he couldn't go on without his special person by his side. How absolutely cliche it was for the song to play right at this moment when you were reminded of him.

If Kol was here he would point his finger into the air and utter “See there's the universe again. Laughing at us, taunting us, but also telling us we ́re on the right path.”The memories of his smile and the way it would outshine your grimmest thoughts drifted over you, a cruel reminiscence of paradise lost but never forgotten. You relived flashes of memories every day, in the place you dared not to touch nor let go. As long as you remembered, nothing was lost. Kol still existed. You still existed.

The road ended in a mess of mud and overturned ground as the song played out. End of the road for now. And that meant digging through the outskirts of the swamp. On foot. At that point, you started thinking this was a bad idea.

-----------------------

Birds settle on a power line across the dirt road leading to the cabin. Most birds gathered as a group, some were scattered, but one was sitting next to them and tilted his head to observe them. They scattered into the wind when the cabin door behind you fell in the lock. You felt his eyes on you as he stepped forward on the roofed deck. Thanks to an invisible spell Kaleb was unable to see Mikael parading around with a wooden lance on the space before the cabin.

“I didn't mean to upset you. I'm sorry.”His voice sounded remorseful and quiet as he leaned against the brittle railing where chipped-away paint chips rained onto the dirt.

“It's fine. Just forget about it.”You brushed him off. You could have told him that he found your weak point, and that was not the mention of Kol, but the fact that you had forgotten about him for a moment and then Kaleb brought him up.

“It's nice here. If you ignore the blasting heat.”He was trying to establish some sort of small talk, but you were never one to care for it, and certainly not now.

“Yeah.” You glanced at him through the corners of your vision.

Above, the birds screeched and tore through the silence, and you looked up to see them retreat into the trees. It was getting dark now, stars had started to crack through the sky, some lighter patches, others clusters of faint and bold light. You gazed at those bright friends of the moon and the midnight blue canvas stole every thought from your mind. The carousel of worries was forgotten for a moment. That was one of the advantages of life outside of the city where stars were put to death every night by the shine of streetlights and suffocated by manmade pollution.

You turned your head again and caught Kaleb's gaze in the light the oil lamp that swayed in the breeze provided. You had to warn him. Warn him about the danger he put himself in being here with you. People around you either leave or end up six feet under. He at least deserved some cautious words.

“Listen,” You turned to him “everything I plan goes bad for me usually. And this time it's foolish too, so if you want out-”

“Nonsense. I'm with you. And I don't change my mind.” He said as a matter of fact as if standing by words was such a common thing to do "Besides, what am I supposed to do, play lapdog with Finn?" He scoffed and shook his head, the image alone too ridiculous to fathom.

The corners of your lips tugged into a smile, an expression which was mirrored on his face. But, when he looked at you next, his face went pale. Before you could ponder about what he saw, you felt the warm liquid run down your nose even before you smelt the copper that taste.

“Shit, sorry.” You wiped the blood away with the back of your hand which stained the fine lines that covered your skin with the crimson remnant ”You´re squeezy around blood, huh?”

"No-” He shook his head, then paused “that is why you said you´re living on borrowed time?”

You were surprised he heard that “Yeah. I just need to undo some things I´ve done before I kick the bucket. A monster seeking absolution. What a cliche, right? Whoever, be it the universe or whatever, that´s conducting my story has never heard of an original plot, that's for sure.”

“You're not a monster. “ He said.

“Isn't drinking blood enough cause to be one?”

“That describes what you are, but who you are isn't defined by the things you've done. Nobody can be summed up by the total of their wrongdoings. I don't believe that, and neither should you.” You opened your mouth to deny what he declared, then stopped yourself from saying it. Kaleb noted your silence as a sign to drop the topic “I might be capable to help you figure out what causes this. If you let me.”

“I have nothing to lose, so why not?” You shrugged, knowing that time would run out eventually. And at this rate, it won't be too long. “But first there's something you should know. I'm not working alone here.”

“I hope not, or I'd be nothing but a figment of your imagination.” He grinned and nudged your shoulder “As flattering as that is, I´d rather be real. Being invisible will drive you mad.”

“You better see it for yourself then.” You raised your hand towards the space Mikael had been training while you spoke, uttering one simple word to reveal him “Invisique.”

You watched Kaleb's expression closely as it dawned on him who remained only a few feet away from where he was standing.

“Mikael.” He swallowed and withdrew with a few steps backwards, until his back hit the rigid wooden wall. He was scared. Good. That meant he wasn't a fool.

“So you know who he is. Good, that spares me the history lesson.”

“How is he here?” He sliced his words in a sudden stern veer, and kept his back flush with the wall, not moving an inch.

“Let's get inside and I'll tell you what you need to know.” Opening the door you went inside first, holding the door open behind you. “Don´t worry, he won't come near us.”

Kaleb tore his eyes from Mikael and secured the door with his hand. Before entering he looked over his shoulder, suddenly feeling like he was being watched. He scanned the tree lines and the road up ahead but there was nothing to be seen. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something tussle the leaves in the distance beyond Mikael's training ground. And he feared that the storm above and the vampire that hunts vampires was the least of his worries.

And who or whatever was watching him, he thought, surely agreed.

-----

A/N: And we´re back with another one! This is a little bit of a slower one, but I hope you liked it! If there anything that stood out to you or anything that you liked or disliked, let me know!! I would love to hear your thoughts.

Open Coffin Series Taglist: (message me if you want on or off this list!)

@shadyladyperfection @thegoddessofvampire @newurleans @originalbish98 @acourtofhopeanddreams @bonniebird @imnoaingeal @vaniileiinkeks @relmi-llorrac @piercethepottorff @maliae14 @5-seconds-of-animals @the-geeky-engineer @rock-n-magick @flymeawayworld @givemesomehybrid @mikealsonlover @nuteller28 @fandoms-fandoms-everywhere99 @drkplum @fandooomqueenforyou @free-the-fangirl @clockworkballerina @twisted1ginger @superwholocksociopath474 @pacifyprincessxo @mustachio1616 @thealyana @sandyclaws @unicorntrooper @buckysummers @sanity-is-overratedxp @akshi8278 @lunna-star-8 @graysonmalfoy @woodworthti666 @elenavaldez02 @lilulo-12 @selmasemlan @thelostallycat @characterobsessed @cococola-cocaine @crazyinternetgirl @tvdplusriverdale @-thatgirloverthere- @alwxadria345 @trymexo @mizzezm @willieshakesqueer @spunky-89 @putyourherohaironstefan @xxdragonagequeenxx @thegingerthatwaited @shootingstarsaretearsofheaven @hinata7346 @controloffandoms @sabrielflowers

#kol x reader #kol mikaelson x reader #kol mikaelson imagine #the originals fanfiction #tvd imagine #the originals #kol mikaelson #open coffin 2 #open coffin

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cookiedoughmeagain · 4 years

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Haven DVD Commentaries - 5.07: Nowhere Man

Commentary with Brian Millikin (writer for the episode) and Nick Parker (writer of the companion episode 5.08).

I love these two and their commentaries so much because they talk a LOT and they have many things to say. Which is awesome, if sometimes hard to capture in text, so this is a mixture of direct quotes and paraphrasing.[My comments in square brackets]

BM: It’s kind of a two-parter, these two episodes, maybe a little bit less than some of our other two-parters of the season. That was something we set out to do.

NP: Yeah, not to the same extent as 5.05 and 5.06, but there is a lot - the Trouble carries on through both episodes, and that was an edict we had going into the season.

BM: We really wanted there to be a hard ending to a couple stories in this episode, and in the next one. So, Audrey gets to a place at the end of this one, and so do Mara and Duke, and everyone else. And this is the first episode of the season where we have Audrey Parker back. I was excited to do this because last season I wrote the episode just like it - ‘The New Girl’ - it was one of my favourite ones I did. And it seemed like all episode long it was Lexie who had come out of the Barn, but in reality it was actually Audrey. But it was fun because it was kind of like a new pilot. And then this one is not like a pilot, it was much different because Audrey had been around - even though she wasn’t in control of her body she was there to witness what Mara was doing. Which was something I think we were really attracted to …

NP: I agree

BM: … the idea that she feels a certain culpability or responsibility because she was in the back seat watching what Mara was doing.

NP: She was there, inside.

BM: Yeah and it’s a stark contrast to what we’ve done before.

BM: So this scene [the opening scene with Audrey Nathan and Duke on the Rouge] we talked about all these different versions of starting right on the heels of the previous episode. As it is I think it’s maybe an hour later, two hours later. Which is a little bit weird if you think about it. It means that episode 7 and 8 really take place within …

NP: 5, 6, 7 and 8 all take place within about 12 hours.

BM: This entire season takes place over the course of about 3 days.

NP: Yep. And there were also several different versions of this opening scene where they’re discussing the split and what to do with Mara, and I remember one which was pretty interesting where we talked about it just being Nathan and Audrey having this conversation on their own, and Duke being separate from it.

BM: Yeah, but we kind of wanted it to be the three amigos here. And Emily did a great job of playing the, almost PTSD that she has a little bit; she’s been through hell. And we had a version of this too where a lot of the scene was about them testing to make sure that she was really Audrey. But that just felt kind of unnecessary; first of all we knew that she was really Audrey, and we felt like the audience would too. So we just flew past it and assumed that she is. And the most important thing for us was that they don’t know what happened at the end of the last episode, they’re just winging it.

[As Duke goes to see Mara in the hold] NP: I love that Duke just has basically a prison cell in his boat, like always ready to go.

BM: It’s the biggest hold of a boat I’ve ever seen. I think it’s wider than the boat itself, the actual boat, but it looks great.

NP: The hold of his boat is bigger than his bedroom.

BM: But I love the set, and more than that, I love the two of them in here. Remember from the very first day of the season we always knew we were going to get to this point right here; episode 7, half way through with Audrey and Mara split. And we kept it to something of a surprise, and I think a lot of people thought it was just going to be Mara all season long and then maybe in the season finale it would be Audrey, or that at some point maybe Audrey would claim her body back. But we had always wanted to have both; to have our cake and eat it too. And we just thought it was more interesting for the story that way.

NP: And I think we decided to develop it even more and push it even further because Emily is so, so good as Mara.

BM: Absolutely.

NP: We were like; we’re going to give her as much screen time as we can.

BM: I know we all expected her to be good as Mara - I mean she’s always great as Audrey, and she really brings something to Sarah and Lexie. So we expected her to be good - but I think she was even better than we had anticipated. We love her as Mara.

NP: Yeah, you can just see her having fun in the role. She’s enjoying getting to stretch her legs a little bit, and it shows.

BM: I think the other actors had fun with it too; enjoying playing off of her as Mara. I mean, how many times have Eric Balfour and Emily Rose been in the same room together, and now they’re in the same room together, but it’s not Audrey. It’s someone else entirely. In fact she’s closer to Hannibal Lecter than anything else. That was sort of the impetus for all this stuff with her in the hold of the boat; yes it’s easier to shoot [all in the one set], but alse we thought it was dramatically interesting to see what they would do with it. It makes sense to keep Mara prisoner, at least for now just to figure out what to do next, and then it’s like well; this is great, we’ve got Mara being held in prison on Duke’s boat and Duke has now become her jailer. And that interaction between the two of them gave us so much.

NP: Yeah and particularly with what they’re discussing in this scene with the unknowing of what the split means and how it works, whether Audrey is connected to Mara. Because it’s all uncharted territory.

BM: She said it right there [as Duke’s leaving]. That was the thing that was most interesting to me about it, was the idea that she’s a prisoner, but she is actually in control. Or at least that’s what she says; she claims to be holding all the cards and to know what’s going on. And whether she does or not doesn’t really matter, because they definitely don’t. And she might. So that power interplay was something that we haven’t been able to do in the show before, and when you get to the fifth season of a show I think you’re just looking for these interesting new things you can try.

NP: And because we’re in the fifth season now I think we get to live with the characters a lot more.

BM: Sure.

[As we see Audrey and Nathan in bed together] NP: This is probably a lot of fans favourite scene. We don’t get to see these two actually be together that much. Stuff’s always so crazy in Haven that they never really get to just be together in bed and be together as a couple.

BM: No, and it’s sad because here we’ve got an actual tender scene between Nathan and Audrey and guess what - work calls. Because it just does.

NP: Every time.

BM: They don’t get a lot of time to just hang out and be with each other.

NP: I like that line; “Case Face”.

BM: I think I took that from the fact that we always talk, here and on other shows too, about having Writer Face. When you’re off on script or an outline or working on an episode. You know, you still come in to have lunch with the other writers, or you’re still in the hallways and at the coffee machine, but you’re not really there.

NP: You’re basically a phantom.

BM: With this distant look in your eyes as you try to figure out … how are they going to get out of it in act four if they don’t have a gun … or whatever. We always call it Writer Face, so Case Face was from that. I think I ripped off, everybody.

NP: Yeah. And that’s fine. That’s what good writers do, right?

BM: But the other important thing in this scene - there were some versions where we had it in that first scene but that just felt like too much - is Nathan revealing that he can’t feel her any more. Which leads him to believe (correctly) that she is no longer the same; she’s not immune to the Troubles any more. Something is different about her. And it’s such a big deal that we decided, I think correctly, to put it in this scene between the two of them. Because it’s big deal obviously, for the two of them. At the same time, he says it doesn’t matter to him and I think we all believed that. You know, what would it be like if when he realised he couldn’t feel her he wasn’t in love with her any more?

NP: Yeah, that was something we talked about a lot.

BM: As someone who can’t feel anyone- yes he could feel her and that might have been one of the things that maybe got him started

NP: Yeah.

BM: But it’s certainly not where he is now. Not any more.

NP: Yeah.

BM: And I think maybe it spoke highly of their relationship that he believes it doesn’t really matter. Although I do think that it matters to her.

NP: Of coure.

BM: But maybe less to him. And he’s also just got her back. I don’t think there’s any version where he wouldn’t have wanted to be with her anymore just because he couldn’t feel her.

NP: No, I agree. But this lack of immunity after living with it for so long, now finding out that she isn’t, it throws her off her game which I think is an interesting dynamic in this episode. She has to live in that reality. And he’s telling her it’s all fine, that they’re going to make it. But you can see her having some self doubt.

BM: Absolutely. And we liked the emotion of that and having to grapple with that because it was a way for them to express some of the … I guess the best word for it is still PTSD of what they’ve gone through with the Mara situation. What they’re still going through. Without it being all about that. It was a microcosm of the fact that they’re sort of pawns in a larger game that they’re not in control of necessarily.

NP: Yep. Oh there’s Kirsty.

BM: Yes, Kirsty Hinchcliffe, Lucas Bryant’s wife.

NP: Officer Rebecca Rafferty.

BM: Yeah. We wanted to put her in this scene because we very much wanted her to be in the next scene she shows up in. And she’s also super-useful here, along with this townperson they meet, in establishing that people aren’t necessarily warm to the idea of Audrey being back. After what they’ve been through with Mara. Mara killed a bunch of people, she was running around causing all kinds of problems, and for the people who are in the know (like Rafferty) even they are probably a little reluctant to necessarily throw their arms around Audrey and trust her again.

NP: Yeah and I think that’s something we’ve got to explore in the second half of season five, is that, so much crazy stuff happens in Haven, all the time. So what do people know and who knows what? We talk about it in the room all the time but it’s not fully explored, because we do so much with our characters. And it is something we got to do a little bit more [5b] because things got so crazy, is how people actually react to it and how do they talk to our characters about it.

BM: Yeah, it was kind of a point of emphasis coming into the season for Matt McGuinness and Gabrielle Stanton, our show runners, was to live in the reality just a little bit more and show how people would really react to some of this stuff. And having a lot of these two-parter episodes where the case of the week extends into the next episode, which allows us just a little bit more real estate to do that kind of thing.

NP: Yeah, just to live in it. This is the most lively farmers’ market.

BM: Absolutely. Not the first time we’ve seen this farmers’ market. We were here in episode, er, four of the first season; Consumed.

NP: Oh yeah. It is so crowded there.

[As Nathan talks to Reggies] BM: Ah, this is Dylan Taylor as Reggie. And we totally stole the name from True Detective which had aired a few months before we shot this episode.

NP: We are huge fans of True Detective.

BM: And we just needed to give some flavour, and a voice to the character, and so we thought, let’s write him a bit like Reggie Ledoux.

[Having never watched True Detective, I looked Reggie Ledoux up; the fandom.com wiki describes him as a “brutal and vile drug dealer” that manufactures meth for a violent criminal biker gang, and an “accomplice and right-hand man” of a serial-killer. Yikes.]

BM: So we called him Reggie and had always intended on changing it but the name had this kind of blue-collar gritty quality and that’s who the character was. Enough that we wrote in that he has a bit of a Southern drawl, or this back-water drawl.

NP: I think back water. He brought the Southern to it, it was nice.

BM: And he really went for it and it totally worked. But we got a call from set on the first day he was there - he’s a great actor, he’s done a load of stuff, he didn’t audition, he didn’t have to, we were lucky to get him - so he shows up and he’s doing this accent and we get a call from the Producer on set. And she’s saying; I don’t know if we have a problem, but Dylan is doing an accent. And we said; Well check the script, it’s in there, it’s going to be great. And we wound up really enjoying his performance, he’s fantastic. Our showrunner Matt, was upset that he meets an untimely end in the next episode because he wanted us to bring Reggie back. He told us not to kill him but we’d already shot that scene where he dies.

NP: Matt wanted Reggie to be the new Guard back guy. Which is a role we’ve kind of rolled from character to character for production reasons in a lot of ways. But Reggie was so good that we were wondering how we could have him come back and be the Guard bad guy.

[The scene where Nathan gets hit by the Trouble] BM: So something bad is about to happen to Nathan. Which was always the plan for the episode; this has actually been in the works for a long time. We referred to this story as Ghost Nathan. Going back to the first season we had a bank of episodes [that we’d like to do]. And a lot of them were ones that we could never produce, but one of them was a ghost one where we figured we could have someone walking through walls and stuff. And I - maybe it’s because of my unabashed love for the movie Ghost - but I always thought we could do a Ghost Nathan episode. And we never had anything we could do with it. It was one of those things you’d pull it out if it worked for the episode. And it did work for this one. Because we needed the Trouble in this episode to do a few things for us. First of all it works because Lucas Bryant is great at selling the ghost of it all. He’s standing in this room with Kirsty, his wife, and she has to ignore him and he has to sell it - they both do. The best special effect in the episode is not people walking through walls or him sticking his hand through the phone, the best effect is the performance. And it’s not an easy thing; everyone ignoring him and him acting like they can’t see him.

NP: Well yeah and in that scene it was just him there and her ignoring him the entire time, but there’s several scenes where we had to shoot two versions; one with Lucas and one without, and then patch them together.

BM: Yeah even this scene [Duke and Audrey looking at Nathan’s shadow on the floor] there are a couple of wide shots where Nathan’s not in it. WhichI think our producers were not super-happy about because it definitely added to the load that we had to shoot. But Audrey and Nathan have been separated for, what six episodes this season, and they’ve just got back together again. And there was a version where we could have gone with a story where they were the power team back together again. But we liked the idea of a bit of a role reversal. That she would be thrust into this position of trying to get him back. And he’s trying to get back to her. And what that did for their characters and for so many other story lines, particularly the other big thing that we had to deal with in this episode that she’s not immune to the Troubles. So we wanted to go with a Trouble that really played to that. So the idea that she can’t see him now, when any other episode before this one she would have been able to. She would have been able to see him if she was immune and it would have blown up the episode. So this was the perfect time to do it, in an episode where, for the first time ever, Audrey is not immune to the Troubles.

NP: And an important detail is that right now, they don’t know what this Trouble is, so she doesn’t know where he is. The supposition is that he’s dead, and we’ve had dead Nathan before but always found ways to bring him back. But because of the way this Trouble works there’s no body, no nothing, so they have no way to bring him back.

BM: And that scene we just saw [Duke and Audrey finding Nathan’s shadow on the floor] there were versions of it that went a lot further in that direction. Where Duke was basically talking about the idea that it looks like Nathan is dead.

NP: Yeah, he’s gone.

BM: And Audrey was fighting back against him. And it was really, really heavy. And we eventually pulled back on it, I think correctly, because Matt and Gab felt that it was just too sad. We did still play with it a little with Duke, he’s still much closer than Audrey is to believing that the worst has happened. And that makes sense because Duke is not quite as romantic, he’s a little bit more of a realist.

NP: Yep.

BM: And he’s already been through a bunch of bad shit already. And he’s beginning to come around to the idea that he’s just lost Nathan; another punch in the series of punches he’s been taking. But Audrey clings a little bit longer. We wanted her to escalate her anger over the course of the episode as she’s starting to consider that it could be maybe legit. But we definitely pulled back on the two of them holding each other and mourning his loss. Just yet.

NP: Yeah, it will grow.

BM: So the other thing we needed to do in this episode, again talking about the realism of it all, is that we felt like it couldn’t be easy for Audrey to be Audrey again, not with everything that Mara had done. And the best way for us to show that was to have actually the Guard be the main threat in this episode. The case of the week is sort of an issue, but the real threat in this episode ends up being, what is the Guard going to do not understanding the Mara/Audrey situation of it all.

NP: Yeah and just having the Guard as the threat is something we talked about for so long at different times. And this was a good way of escalating it at the right time, with Mara having been the threat that she was for so long, and Dwight being out of town. We did not have the wonderful Adam Copeland for these two episodes, so he’s gone and the Guard is doing their own thing in his absence.

BM: Yeah it wasn’t our choice, really, to have no Adam Copeland in this episode. It was just by his schedule, due to his contract, we were just not going to have him for this episode or the next one. So we kind of got stuck with no Adam, but it wound up really working for the story because I don’t think that the Guard threat could have played as well, with them going off the handle, with him around. So it actually wound up being a story that works because Adam’s gone. It’s almost about the fact that he is gone.

NP: This actor is great, who plays Glen.

BM: Yes, his name is Dylan Trowbridge.

NP: Glen named after Glen Holler/Holland [not sure of the spelling]

BM: Our friend Glen. His last name, Andros, is a Stephen King reference. Nick Andros was the deaf character from The Stand.

NP: Perfect. Got to work in those Stephen King references.

[As Audrey arrives at the farmers’ market] BM: Now, Amy the photographer who Audrey is about to talk to is, the Troubled person of the episode. So we had to plant her in the background when we were here a while ago, and now she’s here too. Because we needed the logic to work in the background. And that’s why there’s also some dialogue here about how she had gone home because the Trouble works when she prints out the photo, when she makes the photo final, the way a painter would finish a painting or whatever. So we had established that she had not been here all day but had gone home and printed some of the photos. She must have liked the looks of Nathan. And then here we have Audrey tell her to send her some pictures and she’s got the hard copies in the next episode. So we imagine that right now, Amy is going home, printing out all the photos she has of Reggie. But maybe her printer is out of ink,

NP: Or it takes her a while to get home.

BM: And then she prints it out of course, the second that Audrey has Reggie at gunpoint and so he disappears.

[As Nathan walks up to the crying woman in the graveyard] NP: Oh remember the fun we had coming up with what this woman is going to say?

BM: Oh my gosh yes. We had always intended there to be a bit of a horror movie scare there. Totally helped by the fact that Rob Lieberman, our director for this episode and the next (as well as other Haven episodes) has a ton of experience in that department. He did Fire In The Sky, super-scary movie. And he’s great. So he totally leaned into it. You can even see here [where Nathan’s talking to the ‘ghosts’] all these interesting canted angles and stuff it just feels a little bit moodier and scarier than it otherwise could. Because if you really look at it, it’s a beautiful day. It would have been great if this was nighttime but we couldn’t shoot any of these scenes at night.

NP: And Chris Masterson does a great job here as Morgan, does an incredible job as the ghost guide, the greeting committe, giving Nathan the rundown on how everything operates. And functionally for the logic of the story it’s really important because of what he’s saying about crossing over as your residual self image. Which is stuff that plays to important plot points later in this episode and the next one.

BM: Especially in your episode. This scene was exposition heavy, it was kind of a bear trying to make it as conversational as possible.

NP: But Chris sells it.

BM: He totally does. But yeah a lot of the stuff that Morgan talks about here about the theories of how it works is his understanding, but his understanding is not correct. But it’s what we have to go with for the time being.

NP: Yeah everything he says is true from his point of view, but his understanding is not correct.

BM: Yeah we were lucky to get Chris for this episode. We had his brother, Danny Masterson, last season in your episode 411. He was one of the two Darkside Seekers. The other Darkside Seeker, Kris Lemche, is about to appear in the next episode.

[As we flash back to Nathan talking to Garland’s ghost] BM: Ooh the flashback. In the exact same cemetery. I always wonder why that says Rufus P. Parker there [on the gravestone between Nathan and Garland]. The Parker kind of threw me off.

[Personally I think it says Barker, but it’s an interesting comment anyway:)]

BM: But we’ve got a bunch of flashbacks, little quick ones like that over the course of the season. And it was sort of by design, not knowing, and still not knowing frankly, whether this would be the last season of the show or not. So just in case it was, we sort of wanted to hearken back to previous seasons before and try to connect things a little bit better. And even just seeing what our characters looked like a couple of years ago has a little bit of an emotional whallop to it.

[As Nathan watches Duke frustratedly flicking through the Crocker journal] BM: So we’re coming up on the twist here at the end of this third act that I used to sell the episode. Because the way that it works on our show, and most shows, is that you’ve got the roadmap of the season (the big things that need to happen), this one we knew this was the first one with Audrey and Mara split, and Mara in the hold of the boat. And we didn’t know a ton else about what it was going to be. We knew that we were going to start pushing Mara and Duke’s relationship as they get to know each other and see eye to eye a little bit more, and then in episode 8 a little bit more, and in episode 9 a little bit more. But that was kind of it.

NP: Episodes 7 and 8 to a large extent were about finishing up the story lines from the first half of the season, and this was platforming for everything that was going to happen in the back end.

BM: So we knew that we needed a big Trouble that would take up these two episodes, and we needed it to help us tell some stories about our characters. But the way that we sold this one with the ghost of it all was basically that - from the get-go from pitching it to our show runners and everybody - was that at the half way point of the episode, ghost!Nathan and Duke are in here and they’re talking to Mara, and Duke leaves, and then she reveals that she can see Nathan. And that was the turning point of the episode. If we’ve done our jobs well enough maybe not everyone saw it coming, I think that a good amount of people probably did see it coming. But it helped us in a lot of ways, it really turned the screws on the Mara story really quickly.

NP: Yep.

BM: Now she’s even more in control because she’s the only person who can see Nathan. And that tells us that Nathan’s not really dead of course. And it tells Nathan that he’s the victim of a Trouble. But it also helped us tell a story about the fact that Mara’s immune to the Troubles and Audrey is not. Which was the big thing that we needed to tackle. And what better way to do it than the fact that Audrey can’t see Nathan and the only person who can, is Mara.

NP: That’s it.

BM: So once we had that as the middle twist of the episode, everyone was on board. There was no going back then.

NP: And the back half of that is something maybe we’ll talk about more in 508 but, because Mara is immune and can see him, how does Audrey use her lack of immunity to her benefit.

BM: Absolutely. The end point of this episode is really about Audrey bottoming out a little bit. We wanted to get her to a place where she kind of has to confess that she is not who she once was, and she maybe can’t do this anymore because she’s lost her, superpower (for lack of a better term). And then the next episode is where she gets her groove back to some extent, and realises that it’s not about her immunity, it’s about whatever she does with whatever she has at her disposal. And she ends up using her lack of immunity to her advantage. So this episode was sort of the Empire Strikes Back, then you’ve got the Return of the Jedi.

NP *sounding doubtful* Well…

BM: Don’t think about it.

NP: Oh there’s Reggie . And I love the other backup Guard member who looks very much like Jordan McKee from previous seasons.

BM: She looks just like her.

[Me: *squints doubtfully at the screen*]

BM: Her name is Justine [I can’t catch the surname]. She has worked on the show in the past and she’s great. She had some lines at some point in time. And a name, I feel like her characters’ name was Riley. And then it ended getting cut because there was just too much going on in the episode and too many people. I should also say while we’re talking about the Guard, that Mitchell, who is coming back to our show, was in episodes three and four. He was a bit of a late addition to those; we were trying to bring back as a returning Guardsman, the guy from episode 403, Bad Blood, but he wasn’t available. So we created a new Guardsman, as Mitchell. And then we brought him back for this episode which was great.

NP: We just needed to have someone with some animosity towards Nathan and the police department who was a more militant member of the Guard.

BM: Absolutely. And we actually tried to bring Mitchell back a couple episodes from now and then he wasn’t available. So we had to go with another person, so it was a bit of a case of musical chairs of Guard members.

[Nathan talking to the two ‘ghosts’ in the graveyard] NP: And Nathan here is revealing the truth.

BM: Yeah. It’s kind of classic. We had been a little bit worried that in the previous acts there was really just that one stretch of 10 minutes where Nathan thinks he’s dead. And no one wanted him to lose his drive, because he should always be trying to figure out what’s going on. But now that he knows that he’s the victim of a Trouble, he’s in Nathan mode. And is going to do whatever he can.

NP: He’s got Case Face now.

BM: Absolutely. But again a lot of this and Morgan’s attitude on hearing what Nathan has to say, pays off more in the next episode. It’s laying the groundwork for the fact that maybe not everyone wants to go back. It’s a little of the insitutionalised thing; a bit of a Shawshank Redemtion thing here that if you get used to living this way maybe you don’t want to go back. Although as we’ll discover in 508, Morgan has a pretty good reason for not wanting to go back.

NP: A very good, if selfish, reason.

BM: Yeah, but you can’t blame him. And that’s what you’re looking for in your motivation for a bad guy. Where when you find out why they’re doing what they’re doing you feel like you’d probably do the same thing.

[As Audrey is pointing her gun at Reggie] BM: Reggie here is a bit lighter on motivation. He’s just a bad guy. But you don’t really stop to think about it because Dylan is so good.

NP: He just sells it.

BM: But even here, his little speech here was important to me to get his POV across a little bit. Which, from his stand point, Audrey has caused all of this to happen, which she did. And then she was Mara, and now she says she’s Audrey but she can’t be trusted; bad things are happening. So why should he listen to her? I put myself in Reggie’s shoes and realised that if the show was about the Guard, Audrey and Nathan would be the bad guys.

NP: Yeah. I also love the aspect of that scene there where Reggie is down on his knees at the mercy of Audrey, much like in his final scene in True Detective, on his knees at the mercy of someone there.

BM: Yeah, totally ripped that off too.

NP: I think there was an earlier version of the script where Nathan runs out of the van there and it drives through him.

*Both being amused at the intense level of concentration on Nathan’s face as he watches Bishop tap the security code into the door*

BM: What you don’t see, is that you have to imagine that in his head for the rest of this scene Nathan is just thinking to himself like; 1283. 1283. Gotta remember the code. 1283. That is why we had it be a four-digit code because if it was six it would be harder to remember. But I love the look of Guard HQ here. Remember Rob Lieberman was totally responsible for it. He mentioned to us when we were on the phone to us, he said; I’m going out on a limb here but I’m thinking like the movie Children of Men. And we were both like; Could not love Children of Men more, please do it.

NP: Such a moody and gritty feel.

BM: But if you recognise a bit of the layout and architecture of the hallway we just saw and the long room here [where Mitchell has Audrey tied to a chair in front of the desk that Bishop’s Trouble disintergrates], this is actually the same building that we used the interior of for the Barn at the end of season three and briefly in season four. I think this is the second floor of that building. The first floor is painted all white, every inch of it, because it was the Barn. And up here it’s the exact same layout but now it’s Guard HQ.

BM: Now poor Bishop.

NP: He has got a rough, rough Trouble

BM: So we imagined that he would have to be one of these people wearing gloves, and that they would have to be these chemical resistant ones because he’s got this acid touch. So then it’s like well he’s going to look silly wearing these giant gloves. Because those gloves are real, they can actually protect against any sort of corrosive acid. So we figured he should be wearing coveralls as well so it kind of matches, so it seems like he’s an industrial type guy. But the actor must have been burning alive because this was the middle of summer in Nova Scotia which means that it was about 90 degrees.

[Nathan talking to Mara again in the hold] BM: So this scene here, in a way is the climax of the episode. At least it was for me. This is where the shit hits the fan. Nathan comes to her with his plan for her to tell Duke what’s happening to Audrey. She says no, and then it’s about getting her to help. And then it all just fell into place; it seemed like the right story to tell about Audrey and Mara. And to be evolving what is Mara’s relationship to them now that she is her own person. Because she’s only going to do what’s in her best interest. And she keeps holding this card over their heads as to whether she’s connected or not. And we went into this season knowing that they weren’t connected, knowing that hurting Mara wasn’t going to hurt Audrey (unlike the thing with William) but that question comprises the entirety of this episode. Because we realised the characters don’t know that. So a lot of this is Duke trying to figure out whether she is or not. And Mara withholding her knowledge. So then we knew that the last beat in this episode would be Mara revealing the truth. Because at that point she doesn’t need them to wonder whether she’s connected or not because she’s got something better, which is that now she knows they need her to help Nathan.

NP: Well and that’s always what her bargaining chip is, that she can’t threaten them with anything, it’s all about the knowledge she possesses.

BM: And the actors all did a great job with this scene. There are takes where Nathan’s there, and when he’s not. But it all really worked. And she is just the right amount of funny in this scene.

NP: And cruel.

BM: Because she’s still enjoying messing with them, and it worked out really well. It really worked out really well. And here, what Eric had to play is realising that Nathan is alive again, but also realising that Audrey’s in Trouble. It’s not as easy as the three of them make it look. But it’s amazing because we have our three leads, they’re back in the same room together, they do this every day for years. But now, she’s the bad guy, Nathan’s a ghost, and Eric has no idea what’s going on. So I was really excited about being able to write a scene - and this is a three or four page scene - with all them in the room together but everything is different from how it usually is.

NP: Yeah, and this was one of the ones that had to be shot twice.

BM: And the other story that we’re telling in this episode is Audrey’s relationship to the town, and them not trusting her, is she lying about who she is, and all this doubt that everyone would have about her, after having lived through the tyranny of Mara for a while. And so the thing that we wanted to do in this scene [as Bishop is dissolving the desk] is kind of to some extent close that story off. It still comes up a bunch of times throughout the season, but she does something here, or could do something here, that proves to them that she is Audrey. She has a kind of I Am Sparticus Moment; I am Audrey Parker. It seemed a little cheesy in the script but Emily totally sells it. And that I Am Audrey Parker moment was an important one for us.

NP: Absolutely.

BM: We started this episode with her kind of in this fetal position trying to grapple with what she is now, finding she’s not immune, what is her identity now. So it felt important to us that she get to a different place by the next episode.

NP: Well yeah because there’s a sense in which her superpower is immunity to the Troubles, but really, on an emotional level, her superpower is her empathy for everybody and understanding what they’re going through. So she’s like; I totally get why you did what you did, so you’re going to be OK. Forgiveness is her thing.

BM: I never noticed that Duke brings Mara a can of food there. That wasn’t in the script. I’ve seen this episode a bunch of times and I never noticed that before, but it makes sense.

[As Mara is cutting her wrist with the chains] BM: We had a bit of an issue here because we knew that we wanted her to cut herself to prove that her and Audrey aren’t connected, but it was only when we were about to start shooting we realised; how is she going to cut herself when she’s chained up? So we had her use one of the chains, and it might be impossible to do in real life, but Emily totally sold it.

NP: Yep, she gets it.

BM: And I love this. We basically get three episodes of Mara in the hold of Duke’s boat. And I love them all. We always thought of it as the Hannibal Lecter scenes and the power play of it between her and Duke, and it really starts to work very well I think in these last two scenes. And super well in episode 8.

NP: It was fun. And I think one of the challenges of this is that we knew she was going to be chained up in the hold, and so the challenge is how do you differentiate each scene, and each episode, and what is the arc for each one? And so we really had to bear down on what they were going to be about.

BM: Well it was kind of a story unto itself, and here she tells us just a little bit that she’s actually affected by it, when she admits that she liked it when they said they needed her. Is she telling the truth, is she not - Duke doesn’t pay her any mind at all and walks out, but what is she thinking, what is she doing? Is she warming to Duke a little bit or does she have some angle that she’s playing - that’s the question we wanted everyone to be asking.

NP: And that’s the question we live in a lot in 508.

[Audrey talking to a ghost!Nathan (kind of) in her apartment] BM: So this scene also just fell into place really naturally. We knew that Nathan’s ghost situation was not going to be resolved at the end of this episode. And we knew that our first Audrey/Nathan scene in that bed over there was this tender scene, and I wanted to get them back in that same room and have them be in the room together but as far apart as possible. And all of the circumstances they have to deal with have kept them apart - again. And so she thinks that he’s there, but doesn’t know for sure that he is. And they’re both great in this scene.

NP: Again credit to both of the actors for selling this, that she’s talking to him but not looking at him.

BM: Yeah I talked to them about it, they really enjoyed doing it because it’s a really heartfelt scene between the two of them and she’s confessing this doubt that she has (and she’s a very confident person) and they’re both there together but she has no idea whether she’s even there or not. And he knows that she can’t hear him. So he’s watching her go through this. And it’s a scene between the two of them that is unlike anything else, in its DNA that we had been able to do before now. So it felt like an opportunity and I think they both felt that way too.

NP: Yep, love this scene.

BM: But we also just wanted them to bottom out a little bit here because then episode 8 is kind of the come back

NP: The Return of the Jedi as you so nicely put it.

BM: Exactly. We unfreeze him from carbonite. We go fight in the forest.

NP: There’s some Ewoks. It’s great.

[Nathan back in the graveyard for the final scene] BM: So this was always the end of the episode, picking up the ghost case of it all. And we always wanted, right on the back of Nathan being confident that he’s safe and he’s going to take care of it, to then come over here and see that his Deputy Glen has been killed. And we always wanted to have this message left for him [“Even ghosts can die”] scrawled on the grave. And we landed on that one pretty quickly because it couldn’t be too long.

NP: And it sets us up nicely for 508.

BM: Thanks for listening everybody, we will see you again for 508.

#haven 5 #haven dvd commentaries #5.07 - Nowhere Man #havensyfy #i always start out intending to summarise more #but it's actually eaiser a lot of the time to just type out what they say rather than stopping to think about how best to describe it #so i don't often manage to condense much #and these guys talk QUICKLY #so there is a lot of stuff here #long post

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