saphronethaleph

[saphronethaleph]

A Family Grassland

“Hey, boss,” Hugin said, alighting on Odin’s shoulder. “Don’t look now, but here comes trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” Odin replied. “It can’t be anything too bad, can it? I have not seen calamity coming to Asgard in later times.”

“Well, depends what you call trouble,” Hugin replied, glancing over at where Vili was observing curiously. “But I’d call it trouble, if you ask me.”

Odin snorted.

“Get to the point,” he demanded.

Hugin bobbed his head, spreading a wing. “Well… Loki’s back.”

“...oh, no,” Odin muttered. “And he’s not just back from… doing something normal, is he?”

It was unlikely. Loki was one of the Aesir, truly, just like the rest of them, but trouble and havoc were his finest friends and he did seem to spend an awful lot of time indulging them.

Constantly.

“All signs point to no, boss,” Hugin said. “He’s been missing for a few months.”

“I wondered why it was so quiet around here,” Odin muttered. “Vili, could you-”

“Not a chance, not in the least,” Vili replied. “I’ll come and watch for moral support, but you’re the ruler of Asgard and this is your responsibility.”

Odin muttered something sulphurous, then Hugin took off from his shoulder and Odin followed him towards the mighty gates of Asgard.

Halfway there, Geri joined him, Munin riding on the big wolf’s back, and Odin fixed his familiars with a glare.

“Where is Freki?” he asked.

Geri shrugged, burping discreetly. “Probably still eating,” he said. “I know I was at dinner when Munin brought the news. I want to see this as well.”

Munin cackled, and Odin massaged the temple over his missing eye with a hand.

“I know I wanted this job, and the rewards are mighty, but sometimes it’s a bit much,” he said, then halted as Loki approached under the boughs of Glasir.

There was no mistaking him, and Odin brought out his spear Gungnir before rapping it on the ground.

“Who seeks entrance to Asgard?” he asked.

Loki laughed.

“So asks the god who knows all, sees all!” he replied. “And the one who’s got two incorrigible gossips as familiars, to boot.”

Hugin took flight with a whirr of wings.

“Where have you been, you old reprobate?” the crow asked, once he was out of immediate chastisement range of his master.

“I travelled afar, once more!” Loki answered. “To a land far to the north, and to the west, to islands which rest in not water but ice, and where the sun never rises in the winter-time, where the auroras dance their nightly dance.”

He spread his hands. “Of course, I am the father of lies, changer of shapes, inconstant as the flame and subtle as the spider and the tangler of words and meanings, so you can take as much or as little of that as you like.”

“And the worst of it is, you don’t even just lie,” Odin sighed. “That would make things far too easy, and you couldn’t have that, could you…”

“Not at all,” Loki agreed, sounding positively delighted by the very question, even though it hadn’t really been one. “How are the pups doing, Geri?”

“They’re growing,” Geri answered, sounding somewhat more embarrassed as Loki reminded everyone present of the existence of those pups.

Loki smirked. “Good, good,” he said.

“Stop this,” Odin requested. “We both know why you’re here, Loki. We all know why you’re here. The very stones of Valhalla know why you’re here.”

He glared. “Who, or what, was it this time?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Loki lied.

Vili sniggered.

“Yes, do explain, brother,” he asked. “Odin, All-Father, who sees all… explain what you mean, if you would?”

“Brothers,” Odin muttered. “What manner of being did you sleep with this time, Loki?”

“Oh, so that’s what you mean?” Loki asked, sounding delighted. “So you’re wondering what new member of the big Aesir family I might have brought home with me after a liaison or dalliance?”

“Yes,” Odin grated.

Loki grinned. “I don’t see why you think I would have done.”

Hugin and Munin landed on Vili’s shoulders so they could laugh as hard as they liked, and Odin tapped Gungnir on the ground as he attempted to regain some semblance of dignity.

Not that it was anything other than a lost cause. Loki was like that.

“Experience,” Odin replied. “We are standing in the gates of the wall which was largely built by Svathilfari, the stallion, until you seduced him away from his master and mothered Sleipnir. Fenrir, the mightiest of wolves, whose jaws are as the sky, was the result of a ‘fling’ you had with Angrboda, as were the world-serpent Jormungandr and a half-zombie by the name of Hel. And I’m not sure how that even worked on a genetic level.”

“What’s genetics?” Vili asked.

“Something you learn about if you learn about everything,” Odin replied. “Also: silence, I am talking.”

He glowered at Loki. “And that is just the beginning of it. You have fathered children on, or mothered children by, a veritable menagerie of beings. Nidhoggr’s daughter who hatched from an egg laid by you is out with Vé learning to hunt, I am fairly sure you seduced Gullinbursti at some point… there was Skinfaxi and Hrimfaxi…several of the Valkyries…and that is before getting into the many, many diplomatic incidents you have caused with the other realms.”

Odin turned his attention to Geri. “And, of course, at least one of my own familiars.”

“Loki is a very sweet talker,” Geri muttered.

“So,” Odin resumed. “Out with it, Loki. What is it this time? A bat, perhaps? A tree? Have you found a way to beget a child of the morning itself?”

Loki pulled a small fox out of his sleeve, placing the kit on his other hand.

The little divine beast yawned, tail flicking, and blue-purple-green light swished behind his tail in a trail of light that dripped to the ground and whirled in a familiar way.

“…the aurora,” Odin sighed. “You managed to sleep with the northern lights.”

“Indeed I did,” Loki confirmed. “My oath, not that that’s worth much of anything, but the fur on that vixen is remarkable-”

“Why do you do this?” Odin demanded. “Is it truly that you simply cannot keep it in your trousers?”

“Half the time it’s actually others getting into-” Vili said, then got glared at with sufficient venom that he actually shut up.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Loki challenged.

“Because it is the fate of your children to bring about Ragnarok,” Odin replied.

“So?” Loki asked, as his youngest son scampered up his arm to sit on his head and take in the sights. “Because fate sounds like something that you either can fight, or you can’t. And if you can’t fight it, then why exactly would there be any point whatsoever in trying? So it’s not like I’m making anything any worse… I know those prophecies and they say overmuch about Fenris, but not a word is said about Ylver Nidhoggsdotr, so it would seem that she is irrelevant at best in the outcome of Ragnarok. Repeat as needed.”

He shrugged. “While if fate can be fought, and a wyrd can weave and waver, then… well, the argument holds no water. And I am Loki, my lord of the Aesir. I am the tangler of words and meanings, and if fate says that my son Fenris is the instrument of Ragnarok to bring down Asgard then I will find a way out of that trap.”

The voice of the trickster god had suddenly become flat and serious, and Odin considered – then sighed.

He, too, had sons, after all.

“I admit to your point,” he said. “Just… do you think you could be a little more low-key?”

Loki applauded, all his good humour back again. “Oh, very nice!” he said. “Very nice indeed. I’ll consider it purely for the wordplay… but first I need to introduce little Boreas to his many brothers and sisters.”

[saphronethaleph]

Task Completion

Ben Solo – no, Kylo Ren, that was who he was now.

Kylo Ren stared at the cracked and burned helmet that had been Darth Vader’s, and slowly inclined his head to it.

“Grandfather,” he said. “I will finish what you started.”

“Oh, good,” a voice said, next to him, and Kylo jumped.

“Who said that?” he demanded, turning, and confronted a transparent blue twenty-something human male, athletic and with tousled hair.

“I did,” the transparent blue silhouette said. “And I have to say, I’m really glad you’re going to finish what I started.”

Kylo looked at the spectre, then at Vader’s burned helmet, then back at the spectre.

“...you are not Darth Vader,” he said.

“No, I’m Anakin Skywalker,” the spectre replied. “Vader was my slave name. But nobody else ever wore that helmet.”

Kylo blinked.

“...that can’t be right,” he said, under his breath. “Why do you look younger than me, then?”

“Because this is about as old as I got before losing several limbs and my wife and catching fire,” Anakin(?) stated, shrugging. “I’m dead, kid. I can look how I want. You’re not my dad… the Force is.”

Kylo looked even more confused.

“Oh, huh, you must not have heard that part,” Anakin shrugged. “Anyway, where was I… right, right, the bit about finishing what I started. Listen carefully, the coordinates are-”

“Coordinates to where?” Kylo said, out of patience. “You are speaking nonsense. I do not believe that you are Darth Vader.”

Between one moment and the next, the force ghost was wearing Vader’s helmet, armoured suit, and cape.

“I do,” Vader said. “I find your lack of faith insulting. Perhaps you should remember that the mask tells you nothing of the face beneath it.”

Kylo frowned.

“...so why were you trying to give me coordinates?” he asked.

Anakin took the helmet off.

“Because that’s where Sidious is,” he replied. “On a planet called Exegol. He’s building a fleet to use to conquer the galaxy.”

“Sidious… you mean Palpatine?” Kylo asked, now very confused. “Isn’t he dead?”

“I certainly tried to kill him, but it didn’t quite take,” Anakin said. “He cloned himself. It’s very inconvenient, actually. But that’s the thing that I started but didn’t finish.”

“I thought the thing you started but didn’t finish was wiping out the Jedi Order,” Kylo admitted.

Anakin laughed. “Ha! No, I finished that,” he said. “You’re a smart kid. Terrible impulse control, mind you-”

“I’m not a kid,” Kylo insisted.

“I’m your grandfather,” Anakin stressed, deliberately. “I’m allowed. Anyway. You’re a smart kid. Did Luke have to recreate the Jedi Order from scratch and do… honestly, not a great job at it, I get how he had so much trouble but you’d think he’d have handled more students than that in nearly two decades, several of you were older than I was when I got a padawan. But yeah, as I was saying, Luke had to recreate the Jedi Order from scratch and I think we can both agree that that happened. So! Jedi Order got destroyed, kind of regret that because you’d have had a much better education if I hadn’t and you still… you know, existed… but killing Palpatine is something which I tried very hard to do and didn’t finish.”

He frowned at Kylo, who was trying to decide if the whole ‘hearing voices’ thing was the result of some kind of hereditary lunacy.

“So?” Anakin asked. “You don’t seem to be moving yet. You’re not telling me you’ve got impulse control, are you? I’ve got no idea who that could come from…”

“I was really expecting to just have to kill my uncle,” Kylo muttered.

“Why would I want you to do that?” Anakin asked. “I never wanted him dead. Yes, I cut off his hand, but if you’ve got another good way to disarm a Jedi I’d like to hear it, and I wanted him to rule the galaxy with me as his enforcer. When Palpatine threatened him I literally threw Palpatine down a reactor shaft.”

He shrugged. “Actually, that is the other interpretation of finishing what I started, which is to kill anyone who could threaten Luke’s life. But I think that’s basically the same except you commit suicide at the end, so let’s just go with murderizing Palpatine as the goal here.”

“You’re not what I expected,” Kylo said.

“I hear that a lot,” Anakin mumbled. “Honestly, sounds like an everyone else problem. Now, hurry up, Exegol isn’t going to destroy itself… well, it might, but we can’t rely on it…”

[saphronethaleph]

Bedrock Assumptions

“That was… uhm,” Max said, blinking a couple of times, as they carried Bagon back to the Pokémon Centre. “That was, really impressive, but… how did you do that, Ash?”

“Do what?” Ash replied.

“The tree!” Max said. “You picked up a tree about three times as tall as I am and threw it! You’re not that much bigger or older than me, are you?”

Ash frowned, then visibly realized what Max was talking about.

“Oh, yeah, that!” he said, chuckling. “Yeah, it’s just normal for me, I guess it’s kind of a long story…”

“What kind of long story could explain that?” May asked. “And how haven’t we heard about it yet?”

“Because I didn’t actually find out about it for a while after it happened?” Ash said or possibly asked, shrugging.

“Pika kachuu,” Pikachu declared.

“Gon?” Matt’s Bagon said, looking confused.

Pikachu shrugged.

“Anyway, I’m technically made of animated rock,” Ash resumed. “I… think it’s basalt?”

“Actually it’s a welded ignimbrite,” Brock supplied. “Because it’s made of Ash.”

Ash nodded, clearly immediately forgetting the technical details.

“How does that… what?” Max asked, staring. “Is that… how does… I don’t even know the right words for that! How did that happen?”

Ash chuckled. “Uh… I actually don’t remember,” he admitted, which got Max to stare daggers at him, not that Ash noticed. “Well. Mostly I don’t remember. So what happened was, before my first Pokémon League I ran into the middle of a fight between Mew and Mewtwo.”

That did not seem to clarify the situation.

“You mean the Mew from Rota?” May said.

Max snapped his fingers. “Is that where Doctor Yung got the idea from?”

“What are you talking about?” Matt said, his voice vague and unclear, and Bagon shrugged.

“It wasn’t the Rota Mew,” Ash replied. “I… think. But anyway, I got turned to stone, which I guess might or might not have killed me, I don’t actually know and we’ve not met Yveltal yet who’s the one who’d have an expert opinion…”

He was silent for several seconds.

“Maybe Xerneas?” he asked.

“Not the point,” Max sighed.

“You died?” May asked.

“I don’t know if I died, I said,” Ash replied. “I mean, I don’t have a great memory of what happened so some of this is what Mewtwo told me. Anyway, a lot of Pokémon cried, and now I’m alive again, if I stopped being alive that is, but it didn’t turn me back from being made of stone.”

He shrugged. “Because, uh… if it turned me back from being made of stone but didn’t make it so I was alive, then I guess I’d be dead of being made of stone? Is that a syndrome? It feels like it should be. And if it made me alive again, it didn’t need to bother with making it so that I’m not made of stone, because… well, Brock alone has at least two Pokémon who are alive even though they’re made of rock, so it’s the same kind of thing, right?”

“I still can’t get over the bit about how you died,” May admitted. “Or… didn’t die. Whichever it is, it’s still weird, right? You get that it’s weird… right?”

“It probably is weird or something,” Ash shrugged. “I actually didn’t realize this until we met Mewtwo again, because Mewtwo wiped our memories, and I guess whatever was going on meant I could still eat and stuff. I’m even still the Chosen One!”

Then he frowned. “Wait, am I Lugia’s Chosen One or the Chosen One in general, or is it kind of a mix?”

“I thought I was Jirachi’s Chosen One,” Max said, thinking. “And I bet May is Manaphy’s Chosen One. But there was the thing with Lucario…”

Brock chuckled. “I can think of one Pokémon from Altomare who probably wants you to be her Chosen One,” he said.

Ash frowned. “Huh?”

“I’m sorry, what is up with you people?” Matt demanded. “You’re – he just said that he’s a rock that died and came back to life and you’re treating it as normal?”

“No, not normal,” Ash replied. “Ghost Rock, if anything. Hey, Brock, are there any Ghost Rocks or would that be a new type combination? I can’t remember. Maybe we should contact Professor Oak about it?”

“Chuu,” Pikachu said, sniggering.

[saphronethaleph]

So funny story about that magic crystal thing...

The use of the jadachin* continued long after the Mongols ceased to be primarily shamanistic in faith. Boyle notes that in the late Yuan or Northern Yuan period, the Mongols (who were Buddhist at this time) used them against the Ming. In the Islamic world, jadachin appeared at the Battle of the Mire (1365), in which the Amir Timur (1335–1405) was defeated by the Chaghatayids of Moghulistan. Abu Sa’id, a Timurid, employed jadachin in 1451, not in battle put to produce rain in a desolate area.62 Other evidence suggests that the use of the jada stones became prevalent throughout Central Eurasia after the Mongol Empire, demonstrating once again the cross-cultural importance of the Mongol Empire. Molnar notes that while weather magic appears to be a global phenomenon, the use of weather stones as a “meteorological weapon” appears to be a particularly Inner Asian phenomenon. Furthermore, while there are no pre-thirteenth-century examples of the Mongols using weather stones, the Mongols’ use of bezoars as weather stones spread throughout the empire thereafter.

Lee, Wayne E.. Warfare and Culture in World History, Second Edition (p. 86). NYU Press. Kindle Edition.

*jadchin - a bezoar used as a "weather stone" to cause inclement weather

So yeah, they actually did have magical crystals that controlled the weather, at least if you asked them about it...

the partition of the Mongol empire sounds like the background of a JRPG. “Long ago there was this guy who ruled the whole world and then divided it up into four parts: the Cold Slavic Forest realm, the Hot Persian Desert realm, the Vast Steppe and Mountain Pass realm, and the China realm” oh let me guess, then he gave each realm a magic crystal that controls the elements

[saphronethaleph]

Mark My Hamill

Slowly, almost reverently, Rey climbed the stairs on Atch-To. One at a time, looking around curiously to see what the home of the original Jedi was like.

It was… hallowed ground. Ground that sent a thrill through her with every step, because this was where the Jedi Order had begun.

Where the Force had first been harnessed, or… maybe even that wasn’t the right way to word it.

Where mortals… where beings had first learned to listen to the Force.

And she was here to make contact with Luke Skywalker.

Then she came over the lip of the island’s peak, and… stopped.

“Um,” she began.

Because she hadn’t really known exactly what to expect, but what she was faced with was not it. She’d… sort of anticipated a human.

Instead, the… person?… she’d found was a kind of reptilian creature, maybe ten metres long and festooned with spikes, with a yellow belly and purple body half-covered by furled purple-black wings. And it – he? - had three reddish horns, rising up from a very unhuman head.

“Well?” asked the being, and the voice sounded about right, at least. There were stranger harmonics to it, but it certainly sounded like the few recordings Chewbacca had had lying around of Master Luke’s voice.

...or, close, anyway.

But that would mean…

“Are you… Master Luke?” she asked. “Because… based on his sister, I was expecting a human?”

“Oh, this,” the creature replied. “That’s a vision quest gone wrong. Or, well, a vision quest can’t go wrong. It’s a vision quest that didn’t quite go like I was expecting. And to answer your question… no, I’m not. Not any more.”

Rey’s confusion must have been plain on her face, because Luke (?) sighed, shaking his head.

“A Jedi,” he said, slowly and carefully. “Is in tune with the Light Side of the Force, and in a state of inner peace. A Jedi Master has a duty and responsibility to pass on their understanding of the Force to the others, and after the absolute pile of bantha leavings that I made out of my attempt I am quite clear that I am no good at it.”

He extended a wing, examining it. “And when I tried to get back my mojo, well… vision quest. I ended up looking like this, and quite honestly I don’t think the Force could have given me a better signal that I was urgently required to retire very quickly before something got even worse.”

Rey’s mind ground away at that for several seconds.

“...the Force turned you into this?” she asked.

“Did Leia teach you anything?” Luke demanded. “The Force is the energy of the entire universe. It is more powerful than the destruction of stars. It is the workings of fate and what holds all of reality together, and a mere infant who has the slightest connection to the Force can outmuscle the combined gravity of a planet simply by desiring that it be done. The Force is capable of all things, and all things are possible through the Force. So yes, the Force turned me into this.”

He chuckled. “The Force is mighty and powerful and strong. It is not tame. It is never tame. Do not make that mistake…”

Then Luke shook his head.

“And now I’m teaching again… I should really make sure to not do that.”

“But-” Rey began, then stopped and tried again. “We need your help!”

“To do what, exactly?” Luke asked.

Rey held out the lightsaber, then stopped, because she’d belatedly realized that Luke didn’t really have a way to use it.

“To stop the First Order,” she said, instead.

Luke chuckled.

“You don’t want that,” he said. “You might think you do, but you don’t.”

“Don’t tell me what I want,” Rey said, stung.

“I don’t mean you,” Luke countered. “I mean the galaxy. Because – if you look to a single person to save you, then you’re demanding that they solve all the problems that come along. That means asking them to rule the galaxy, in the end… the New Republic had a chance to create a durable institution that didn’t need anyone to save it. And what’s happened to it now?”

Rey shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I literally don’t know. About two days ago I’d never set foot on a spaceship and I’d never left Jakku.”

“Jakku?” Luke repeated. “Wow. And I thought I was from a dump.”

Rey felt very slightly offended on behalf of her homeworld, but that was entirely swamped by the much stronger sensation of agreeing with Luke in every particular about that selfsame homeworld.

Luke chuckled, seeing her expression.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“...can you teach me how to use the Force?” Rey asked. “If you’re not going to help. Maybe I can.”

“I said, the Force sent me a message that I should not do any more teaching,” Luke retorted.

“Was it a message not to teach, or a message not to interfere?” Rey challenged. “Or was it just that you ended up turned into a ten metre flying purple lizard, and you interpreted the rest of it the way you wanted?”

Luke laid his head on his paws, inspecting her.

“...interesting,” he said. “All right. Tell me why I should help you.”

“Because Kylo Ren and Snoke are both on the side of the First Order,” Rey replied. “If there are Jedi and no Dark Jedi, then that leads to peace – but if there are Dark Jedi and nobody on the side of the light?”

Luke blew air out of his muzzle.

“...hmm,” he mused. “All right, we may as well see what happens.”

“We’ve secured the escape pod,” one of the stormtroopers reported, standing to attention, and Kylo Ren nodded approvingly.

“Good,” he said. “It is just as Supreme Leader Snoke foresaw. The scavenger girl has turned herself in. It is her destiny.”

He reached up, and opened the pod door.

Then stared.

“...er,” he began.

“I know,” said Rey’s voice, coming out of a kind of sleek black-purple winged lizard about two metres long, with her staff held poised in a wickedly curled tail tipped by a sharp blade. “Vision quest. Don’t ask. Where’s Snoke?”

Kylo pointed, more or less because he couldn’t think what not to do, and Rey-the-lizard breathed out a jet of pure obliteration that punched a hole in the Supremacy ten metres wide and that went perfectly straight right through to the far side of the ship.

There was a sort of muted explosion, possibly from Snoke exploding, but Kylo wasn’t willing to place any bets on that.

“Thanks,” Rey added, as air started to flow out of the hole, and closed the escape pod door again.

[saphronethaleph]

Piano Alto

“Whoa!” Ash said, shading his eyes and looking up. “That’s-”

“The Sword of the Vale!” Iris gasped. “It must be – there’s nothing else it could be, right? It even looks like the stories say!”

“I’m surprised you know the old stories,” Juanita admitted. “It’s… one of those things that seems like such an old story, I’m always surprised when someone from outside Eindoak Town knows about it at all.”

“Of course I know about it!” Iris defended herself. “I’m a Dragon specialist!”

She coughed, nervously. “...in training. Once I’ve got enough dragons I’ll be a proper Dragon specialist, though!”

Pikachu sniggered. “Pika kachuu!”

“Then… we need to rescue Victini, right?” Ash asked. “I promised that I’d help Victini go and visit the world outside Eindoak, and I’m going to keep my promise!”

“I think that’s a fine idea!” Cilan said. “Though I have to ask – how exactly are you going to put together the recipe? There may be a few missing ingredients.”

“...huh?” Ash said, confused.

Iris looked annoyed. “I think he’s asking how we can get up there,” she said. “Though I’m not certain.”

“You don’t just need to get up there,” Juanita said. “There’s a terrible problem – the Dragon Force is going to ravage the land, running wild and out of control, and to stop that you need to stop Damon and release Victini. But Damon’s got Reshiram, so the only way you can stop him is with Zekrom.”

Ash nodded.

“So… where’s Zekrom?” he asked.

“In the castle dungeons,” Juanita replied, then pointed. “Which are… up there, attached to the rest of the castle. Which is now in the air.”

“Then I guess there isn’t a choice,” Ash declared. “We need to get up there to get hold of Reshiram – Latias, I need your help!”

“...what?” Iris asked.

Latias destealthed in a flash of blue.

“What?” Iris repeated, more hysterically. “Latias – how – how long has she been there?”

“Uh…” Ash began, frowning, as Latias waved. “So I guess that would be… and… yeah, about three years?”

Pikachu took one look at Iris’s new expression, and fell off Ash’s shoulder with an overwhelming fit of the hysterical giggles.

Latias giggled as well, then Iris shook her head and rounded on Ash.

“What the hell?” she demanded, perhaps not unreasonably. “How did – but – three years!? How have I not heard about this before? You’ve got a Latias! And I pay attention to legendary dragon sightings!”

“Pika-chuu, kachu pikapi kaa!” Pikachu called, from the floor, and Ash nodded.

“Yeah, Pikachu has a point,” he said. “How come you didn’t recognize that time he battled a Latios?”

“I… shut up,” Iris said, in the tones of someone who’d just made a connection. “But what I’m getting at is that I’m pretty sure I’d have seen it if someone had a Latias, because I did see about that guy with a Latios!”

“But Latias is invisible most of the time,” Ash said. “So how could you have seen?”

Iris just kind of stared at Ash for a long moment.

“...I can’t tell if you’re being funny or not,” she groaned. “And… I really don’t know which I’d rather… I just… gah!”

“Um,” Juanita said. “How much longer is this going to take?”

“And how come you didn’t tell me?” Iris added. “You know I’m a Dragon specialist in training, you should have known I’d be interested in that!”

“I told you about Zekrom and you didn’t believe me,” Ash defended himself, quite reasonably if you asked him. “And that was the most recent one so I stopped there, I didn’t mention that time I rode Giratina or the time that Dialga sent me and my friends back in time or the time we stopped Dialga and Palkia from fighting or the time when I helped rescue Rayquaza from an army of crazy robots-”

He stopped.

“...hey, Pikachu?” he checked. “Is Lugia a dragon? I’m not really sure but there was that giant blast of energy and I guess that could qualify…”

“Lugia isn’t a dragon,” Cilan provided. “His flavour is a fine blend of Psychic and Flying! Though I have to say, Ash, you’re quite a good fit for all sorts of types, as we’ve seen.”

“But-” Iris protested, then stopped and took several deep breaths.

“...Ash,” she said, as calmly as she could. “Is Latias on your team?”

“Kind of?” Ash answered. “It’s complicated.”

“And she’s been with you for all that time?” Iris went on. “Three years, you said? Since well before you arrived in Unova?”

“Yeah!” Ash confirmed.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” Iris asked.

Ash shrugged.

“Because I heard you shouldn’t kiss and tell?” he replied.

Latias giggled.

Iris took a few seconds to process that, then the ground began to shake as the corrupted Dragon Force burst forth.

“Ti-a-as!” Latias squeaked, casting an illusion of herself as a Latias holding a sign between her paws.

“Oh, yeah, the catastrophe!” Ash said, remembering. “Latias, how many people can you take up there?”

Latias held up both paws, raising two claws on one and one on the other.

“I’ve got a Golurk to take me up there,” Juanita provided.

“Right!” Ash decided. “Then let’s go and get that Zekrom, and save Victini!”

He swung up onto Latias’s back, and she offered her paws to both Iris and Cilan to hang on to.

“So… how many people have you actually told about Latias?” Cilan asked, curiously, once Iris and Zekrom had managed to beat up Damon’s Reshiram and once Victini had been freed.

“A few people, before I heard about the kiss and tell thing, but they didn’t really believe me anyway,” Ash replied, shrugging.

He was leaning back against Latias, who was tired but happy with the whole situation, and Victini was snoozing next to Pikachu as they decompressed after the whole sequence of events.

Iris was still off zooming around on Zekrom and having a wonderful time.

Ash shrugged. “I guess there’s something about saying that I have an invisible legendary dragon Pokémon as a girlfriend that’s just… hard for people to believe. Not sure why, it’s not like it’s weirder than the idea of Brock having a girlfriend.”

Cilan chuckled, tasting dinner to see if the risotto was ready just yet.

“You’re certainly one to order off menu, Ash,” he said.

[saphronethaleph]

Shepherds Find This Easier, Apparently

“I’m impressed, Lord Karstark,” Ned said. “Karhold is built well.”

“It’s not much of an achievement, to be honest,” Rickard Karstark replied, with a shrug, as he looked up at his ancestral home. “Built more for durability than comfort, I think.”

“Nevertheless,” Ned told him. “It’s been damn near nine years that summer has held, now, and I won’t bother repeating my Words. It shows restraint that you kept everything so that a storm wouldn’t destroy it… some down south wouldn’t see so far.”

Rickard chuckled.

“I’m no southerner,” he replied. “And it’s going to take a day or two to get all the broken branches off, anyway.”

Ned nodded.

He didn’t consider it a failing on the part of the man. Sure enough, the storm that had blown down out of the northeast had been unusually powerful for a Northern summer, and it had stripped branches from trees – trees which had, of course, grown to the height and size they were since the last winter.

“It’ll be another day or two that you’ll be enjoying our hospitality, I think, my lord,” Rickard added. “I have fifty men out to clear the road, but it takes time. I know it’s a shame – your journey back to Winterfell will be marred by more signs of the storm than this, I think. And I know you have young sons and daughters to get back to.”

“Some aren’t so young as that,” Ned mused. “Still, it’ll do Robb good to be the Stark in Winterfell for a time – give him experience – though I will send a raven from your tower if you have one.”

“Probably,” Rickard muttered. “I’ll have to check with the Maester.”

“Excuse me?” a young voice asked, and both lords – and some of their armsmen – turned to see who had spoken.

It was a lad of… about the same age as Robb, maybe a year or two older, if Ned was any judge. He had a deep brown hair with a tint of red to it, and was wearing a green jerkin and trousers with a furred vest and boots for warmth.

He also looked a bit damp and windswept.

“Hi, uhm, important people wearing armour, and… so on,” the lad said, his voice a little querulous in a way that was halfway between a voice about to break and an elderly maester about to forget what he was talking about. “Where are we, exactly?”

Rickard and Ned exchanged a look.

“...this is Karhold,” Rickard said, eventually.

“Great,” the lad declared. “Now I know exactly where I am, I just don’t know where that is… I was looking for something that was a bit more… general?”

He waved his hand vaguely, taking in the general mess of fallen branches and damp mud around them. “We got blown off course during the storm, and I’m sort of hoping to have an idea… where… we are?”

“Blown off course,” Ned muttered.

He could see that happening, right enough. Someone out in that storm in a ship would have had to run before the wind on bare poles for hundreds of miles.

“Yep, that’s right,” the lad agreed. “Turns out, storms do that! Who knew…”

He chuckled, nervously.

“How far did you go, if you don’t know where Karhold is?” Ned asked. “You do know this is the North, correct?”

“Yeah, I know that much,” the lad said, nodding. “The pine trees make it obvious, and so does the temperature… even in summer you need some way to stay warm, even if it’s not nearly as bad as it is at home. But I was hoping for something more specific than just that we’re not… south?”

“This has got to be some kind of jape,” Rickard muttered. “My lord, how can someone consider Karhold to be unknown but The North to be too generic?”

“I’m wondering that myself,” Ned said. “Where are you from, lad?”

“It’s a small island village to the northeast of here,” the lad replied. “North of Ibben. It’s… four days north of hopeless, and a few degrees south of freezing to death… I’d tell you more specifics but I’m not sure what would really help.”

North of Ibben? Ned hadn’t known there was anything north of Ibben.

“What kind of-” Rickard began, then stopped. “Ned!”

The urgency in his voice bade Ned pay attention, and he glanced at Rickard before following his gaze – and his jaw dropped.

Because something fucking enormous was rising over the nearby hill.

“Huh?” the lad said, turned, then began waving his hands back and forth. “No! No no no! I’m fine, this is just a conversation, you don’t need to-”

His next word was cut out as a hundred-and-fifty-foot black dragon crashed down to a landing on the slope, not twenty yards away, and the lad practically plastered himself over the thing’s nose.

“I’m fine, bud!” he said, his voice soothing and urgent. “I’m fine, everything’s fine here, I was going to get an idea of where we are…”

“That’s a dragon,” Ned breathed. “I thought they were all gone…”

He refocused, noticing the very visible harness on the dragon’s back. This was no wild animal, even before considering how the lad was reacting.

And Ned couldn’t help thinking about Jon.

“And – you don’t look like a Targareyn,” he added, as the giant dragon apparently calmed down.

“A who?” the lad replied.

“...Targareyn?” Ned repeated. “The dragon lords? The last noble house of Old Valyria?”

“Never heard of them,” the lad said. “I… think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding?”

He patted the head of his now-quiescent dragon, which visibly rolled its eyes and snorted.

“How can you have a dragon and not have heard of Valyria?” Ned asked. “I don’t see how that’s possible. Dragons went away nigh on a hundred and fifty years ago, and – and Valyria was the only place that had dragons.”

“We’ve just always had them?” the lad replied, with a shrug. “There’s plenty of them living around Berk. It’s not like it’s hard, you just… make friends with them. Right, Toothless?”

The dragon – with the distinctly inglorious name of Toothless!? - made a kind of gronk noise, and thwapped the lad with the end of its tail.

“Thanks for nothing, you useless reptile,” the lad said. “So how is it that everyone thinks these Valyrians are the only ones who can have dragons, anyway?”

“First, lad, I’ll have your name,” Rickard asked. “I’ll believe you were blown off course, but this is my land and you’re… I don’t know what. A guest, maybe?”

“Hiccup,” the lad introduced himself. “Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third. I know, dreadful name, blame my dad.”

He smiled, nervously. “So, uh… do you have some kind of map I can look at?”

Toothless grrronked.

“We can look at,” Hiccup amended. “I know, I know, you do most of the work anyway…”

Ned felt rather like a stiff drink, at this point.

Maybe two.

[saphronethaleph]

Matched Pair

Ash shaded his eyes, looking up at the huge bulk of the Tree of Beginning, then over at Lucario.

“You’re… sure?” he asked. “That’s where Pikachu went?”

“Almost certainly,” Lucario replied. “And… I do not know precisely why, but I can guess. It is a matter of Mew being… I am not sure of exactly how to express it. Mew is tired, but not by effort. By their life.”

“...oh,” Ash said, swallowing. “I guess… I can kind of understand that, but… what can we do, then?”

“There are some possibilities,” Lucario replied. “It may be that the Tree of Beginning can be healed. Or it may be that I can help Mew in another way-”

He paused, then looked over. “And it may be that we can skip this whole tedious business with modern machines that grumble and emit foul gas, and instead get their help.”

“Whose help?” Ash asked, confused.

“Their help,” Lucario replied, pointing.

“...what’s up with the back of the car?” Max said, frowning.

“Wait, hold on,” Ash said, thinking. “I guess… this must be because of aura, right? So you can see something that the rest of us can’t?”

He frowned. “But… you said that my aura was like Sir Aaron’s, so I can see with it as well, can’t I?”

“With training, yes,” Lucario replied. “Though… actually, I may as well just see how quickly you learn. First, close your eyes.”

Ash closed his eyes, and the rest of his friends watched with interest.

“Now, focus on the fire in your heart,” Lucario went on. “The pulse of your soul. The condensed form of all the experiences you have ever had. Feel it around you. Understand what it is to be yourself, and to be separate from the world but still a part of it. Aura is an expression of yourself, but in order to reach out into the world you must understand your place in the world – not apart from it, but not solely a part of it either.”

“Right…” Ash said, sounding uncertain but determined.

“And… without opening your eyes, try to see,” Lucario said. “Look around. Your eyes aren’t necessary to see.”

“I’m pretty sure-” Brock began, and May hushed him.

“...huh,” Ash said, eventually. “I can see some weird glowing things in the back of the car. I guess that’s about where the supplies and stuff would be kept?”

“I am impressed,” Lucario declared. “Well done, Ash. Normally that takes hours.”

“You couldn’t have said that?” Ash demanded, turning to Lucario. “I could have been standing here for hours!”

“I said I was impressed,” Lucario replied. “And I didn’t tell you in case exactly this happened… but we’re getting off topic.”

He stepped closer to the car. “Are you willing to help?”

There was a long pause, and Ash could hear a whispered argument.

Then all the piled supplies scattered everywhere as two very familiar faces came springing out.

“It looks like we’ll have to reveal ourselves!” Jessie said.

“Because otherwise we’d be given the boot,” James agreed, flourishing a rose, as the two of them posed on top of the car.

They paused.

“Oh, it’s not the same without him,” Jessie sighed. “We couldn’t do the whole motto without his smart comments.”

“Team Rocket!” Ash said. “What are you – wait…”

He frowned. “Where’s Meowth, then? If he’s not here he must be somewhere else… did Mew take him too?”

“That’s what we’ve decided to assume!” James said. “And that Mew should prepare for trouble!”

“Because we’ll make it double!” Jessie agreed. “And-”

Lucario coughed.

“Why are you doing this, exactly?” he asked.

“They’re Team Rocket!” Ash explained. “They keep trying to steal my Pokémon!”

“No, they don’t,” Lucario replied. “If they were trying they’d probably be better at it.”

“...what?” Ash said, thoroughly derailed.

“How does that work?” Max asked. “Though I guess they are terrible at it.”

“Watch it, brat!” Jessie said.

“But you’ve tried – how many times now?” May asked. “It must be about a hundred just since I met Ash. And how often have you succeeded?”

“More like three to four hundred or so all told, but how does Lucario know how good they are?” Brock frowned. “Something here doesn’t add up.”

He glanced at Kidd, who’d mostly been watching in something like fascination. “Do you have any idea what’s gong on?”

“We’re far beyond my frame of reference,” Kidd admitted. “And that’s saying a lot from me… thousand year old talking Pokémon that can see through walls isn’t something I’ve had to deal with before.”

“Wait….” Ash said, thoughtfully.

He had his eyes closed again, and he was looking from Team Rocket to his friends.

“...I can see them, but not you,” he explained. “Not nearly as well, anyway. So there’s something weird going on… Lucario, how come you were asking them for help?”

“I admit, I didn’t know the bit about how you’d had to deal with them trying to steal your Pokémon,” Lucario said. “But I’m still sure that they are both trustworthy and able to help us get to the Tree of Beginning, in… about five minutes, actually.”

“Okay, I’m even more confused than before,” Max said.

Ash, for his part, had started suddenly frowning.

“...wait,” he said. “It just occurred to me… you guys actually do tend to help when there’s some kind of disaster, don’t you? And you do way better when you are!”

He put his hands on his hips. “So what’s going on, huh?”

Jessie and James exchanged glances.

“...well, we had a good run,” James sighed. “It figures the Twerp would eventually run into someone who could clock us.”

“Honestly we’ve been on borrowed time since the end of his Johto trip,” Jessie replied. “And still we don’t have the kitty-cat with us.”

“Then we’ll improvise!” James declared. “Let’s do this!”

They struck a pose.

“Listen, is that a voice I hear? Jessie said.

“It’s speaking to me, loud and clear!” James answered.

“On the wind!” Jessie said.

“Past the stars!” James agreed.

“In your ear!” they chorused.

The two of them swapped places, and Ash noticed that it was Lucario’s turn to look perplexed.

“Do they do this a lot?” he asked.

“Yep,” Max said. “This song’s new, though.”

“Bringing chaos at a breakneck pace,” Jessie told them.

“Dashing hope – putting fear in its place!” James said, throwing his rose into the air, and Jessie caught it.

“A rose by any other name is just as sweet,” she said, sniffing it.

“When everything’s weird, our work’s complete!” James announced, as they linked hands and leaned over either side of their perch on the car.

“Jessie-”

“-and James!”

“And Meowth’s also a name!” they said, in unison once more.

“I can’t believe we’re all just watching this,” Kidd Summers said, quietly.

“Putting the do-gooders in their place,” Jessie hinted.

“We’re Team Rocket!” James went on.

“In your face!” they chorused, then Jessie’s Wobbuffet landed on top of them.

“...that didn’t explain anything,” Max complained.

“Are you hoping that if you’re confusing enough you’ll forget what I asked?” Lucario said, folding his arms. “If you’d been causing less nonsense we could have rescued them by now.”

“Spoilsport,” Jessie muttered.

“Twerps!” James said, struggling out from underneath Wobbuffet – though not without difficulty. “Don’t you ever wonder how we have such amazing disguises?”

“How we’re always back without issue after being launched into the sky?” Jessie asked.

“And how we have such fabulous hair?” James went on. “Really, Jessie’s hair isn’t very realistic, but it looks great.”

Lucario glared at them, and both Rockets wilted.

“Fine, fine,” Jessie muttered, then flashed bright blue and turned out to be a Latios.

James did the same, turning out to be a Latias, and everyone stared.

“...okay, I’ll be honest, I was expecting you to be the other way around once I saw you,” Lucario conceded. “That, I didn’t realize.”

“We take turns!” Jessie-Latios said. “Depends which of us feels more boy-mode or girl-mode today!”

“Or what Mew thinks would be funny,” James-Latias added.

“...what… the hell?” Max said, which was pretty much what everyone was thinking.

“We were asked to keep an eye on the Chosen One and our instructions were very broad,” J-Latias declared, with a thumbs-up. “So we decided to give him special training!”

“Though it’s mostly because it’s funny,” J-Latios added, shrugging.

[saphronethaleph]

The Problem of Susan

“Was there not another?” King Tirian asked, looking around at the vision of those who were friends of Narnia. “I recall hearing of a Queen Susan.”

The seven friends of Narnia exchanged glances.

“...well,” the young man who was King Peter began, coughing.

“That is,” the older man added. “It is… a little uncomfortable.”

“She is no longer a Friend of Narnia,” the young man who was King Edmund said.

“Why?” King Tirian asked. “How could it be that Queen Susan is no longer a Friend of Narnia?”

“She came to like lipstick and boys too much,” King Edmund informed him.

“Yes,” Jill added. “It’s… well, as we’ve said, it is not a comfortable topic, but if we must explain then I fear we shall have to touch on it.”

“Lipstick and boys,” King Tirian repeated. “...no, I do not understand.”

“Oh, it’s quite simple, really,” Eustace said, shaking his head. “Must you make such a business out of it? You Pevensies and Pooles are always going around in circles about things like this.”

He coughed, delicately. “Alas, for Queen Susan has turned out to be straight.”

King Tirian looked blank.

“...straight?” he repeated.

“Not gay,” King Edmund clarified, not that it helped very much. “You see, Aslan is a very queer sort of Jesus, since he is a lion, you know. And you must realize… those who come to Narnia always have to be in the closet.”

[saphronethaleph]

Matched Fleet

“Okay, everyone, maintain your spacings,” Poe said, glancing left and right. “Their alarms are going to be lighting up across the board, so let’s make this quick!”

“Roger that, Black Leader,” Black Two said, as the squadron of X-Wings split their S-foils and dove towards Starkiller Base. “ROE?”

“Turrets and fighters,” Poe replied. “Just like in the briefing.”

Laser fire began shooting up at them, and Poe jinked his fighter left-right-left to dodge three bursts before putting a shower of coherent light into one of the turrets. It exploded, then a second went up, and the rest of Black Squadron fanned out to clear out the area – shields occasionally pulsing with impact as a bolt splashed off them, but even a heavy turbolaser bolt couldn’t down a modern X-Wing with a single hit.

It was close, though, and Black Four shot down into a trench to let her shields recover.

“Fighters coming in!” Temmin warned, and Poe whistled over the comm.

“Black Squadron, we are on CAP!” he called. “Any of those fighters is still up, it’ll kill the extraction mission!”

He frowned, twitching his fighter into a climb, and vaped two First Order TIEs in quick succession.

Poe knew his part of the mission – he knew Han, Finn and Chewie had gone in on a rescue mission to get Rey out of there, and shut down the shields if they could. And he knew that the Falcon was down there somewhere, hidden, but that it would be vaped in seconds if it tried to take off under enemy top cover.

He just wished he knew what Leia’s plan was for the battle. Sure, rescuing one of their own was a good thing, a great thing – and Force knew, Rey was one of their own now from what Finn had told him – but he couldn’t see how this was anything more than a raid.

There was something he wasn’t seeing. He was sure of it.

Poe just wished he knew what it was.

“Charge levels at sixty percent,” one of the techs reported, and Hux smirked.

The Resistance would pay, soon enough. The New Republic had been shown for the farce it was, and now the Resistance would go the way of Hosnian Prime – destroyed, by the invincible fist of the Empire.

Even whatever they were doing now showed how inferior, how degenerate, they had become. The First Order was unstoppable.

“What is Kylo Ren doing?” he asked, suddenly curious. “Is he still interrogating the scavenger girl?”

“He didn’t inform me, sir,” an officer replied.

Hux shook his head.

It was impossible to get the help, these days.

“Then find out,” he prompted. “I should at least give Kylo Ren an opportunity to watch us triumph. Unless he’s decided to take out his little toy and clear away these fighters from our skies?”

“No launch request for his TIE,” an officer contributed. “Wait… sir! There’s a YT-1300 freighter taking off from the surface!”

“So that is how they shut down the shields,” Hux muttered. “I wonder how they got through… well, no matter. Starkiller Base is a kriffing planet. No starfighters can destroy a planet.”

“Sir!” another tech reported. “Massive hyperspace signature!”

Hux crossed the control room to the console in a run, and stared at the screen.

It was a massive hyperspace signature. So big that the screens were having trouble breaking it down.

Hux’s teeth ground together as he waited for the CIC to give him a good picture of what he was looking at, and five seconds oozed by.

Ten.

Fifteen – then, suddenly, data codes snapped into place.

“...what the kriffing hell?” he demanded.

The screen was showing forty-five marked groups for the signatures, and CIC was saying that each of the groups was an echelon of six battlecruisers.

“Where did they come from?” Hux shouted. “How does the New Republic – but – that’s… that’s not possible!”

He snatched up his comlink, and called the CIC.

“This is Hux!” he said. “Explain yourself – how is this possible?”

“We don’t know, sir!” the analyst on the other end of the call replied, almost babbling in his haste. “We’re digging into the models now – but – someone on my staff pointed out that, uhm… the Rebels defeated the Imperial Navy?”

“And?” Hux said.

“So we know they downsized their fleet after the war, but – sir, our fleet was twenty-five thousand Star Destroyers at peak strength,” the analyst said. “And they beat us. It’s – that means that downsizing their fleet still means they could have this many ships!”

Hux couldn’t see the comlink for several seconds, because all he could see was red.

He sort of understood Kylo Ren, now.

“...then why did you not tell anyone?” he demanded.

“Projection R-14 five years ago was based on total New Republic military spending over the past twenty-five years,” the analyst said – it sounded like he’d dug one out, then. “It concluded that at military spending ten percent that of the Empire, but no need for widespread repression and no epidemic of capital ships being blown up by rebels, the total strength of the New Republic sector fleets could be… in this rough area. It was rejected by, ah, Brendal Hux as being… improbable for the degenerate New Republic to achieve, sir, because most of their spending must have been corruption… that’s what he said…”

Hux threw the comlink at the wall, and the way it broke into half a dozen pieces brought him some brief catharsis.

“Sir!” the comms tech said. “We’re… ah… getting a message…”

“This is Admiral Ackbar of the Grand Fleet!” the hated alien declared. “Addressing the operational crew of the First Order superweapon Starkiller Base! You have committed an act of war against the New Republic – surrender immediately or your base will be destroyed by bombardment!”

Hux’s eye twitched.

All he could think, over and over in his head, was the question of how could they have missed this.

[saphronethaleph]

Pushmi Pullyu

“Allegiant General,” one of the bridge officers reported. “We’re detecting a small force of capital ships entering the area, through the safe corridor… they’re deploying now.”

“Small?” Pryde asked. “Small by what comparison? This fleet is one thousand and eighty strong, I think anything is small by that measure. Give me numbers!”

“Twenty-four capital ships,” the bridge officer replied. “They’re… the warbook is showing them as Starhawk class.”

“Starhawks,” Pryde muttered. “Thirty years out of date. Do they have any escorts?”

“Fighters only,” the bridge officer replied – Pryde couldn’t remember his name, and frankly he didn’t much care. “They’re maintaining a close formation and altitude, our primary guns can’t target them.”

Pryde smirked. “Then we’ll show them how much we don’t need our primary guns,” he said. “Ready the turbolasers!”

“We’re outside normal effective range, Sir,” his flag captain warned. “It’ll take time to batter down their shields, but we can do it.”

“Then advance to range, of course,” Pryde said. “Don’t let them get away, Captain.

“I’m reading a power surge, sir,” the bridge officer – Trach, that was his name – reported. “It looks like they’re firing up their main batteries?”

The whole of the Steadfast lurched, and Pryde staggered. The initial turbolaser volley missed entirely, none of the targeting systems ready for when the ship suddenly jolted by fifteen degrees.

Then there was an almighty crunch, and Pryde stared out the window.

Because the front of his ship had just been torn off.

“What just happened?” he demanded.

“It… it’s their tractor beams,” Trach said, and Pryde turned his attention left and right. Other Final Order ships were being torn to pieces, ripped apart or crumpled by the intense power of the tractor beam arrays being used by the Starhawks, and Pryde tried to focus.

Tried to think.

How was this happening? The New Republic couldn’t be this-

Then he watched as the front of his ship was launched by three Starhawk tractor beams right through the Sutta, causing a massive secondary explosion which gutted the Star Destroyer entirely, and something about that sight – besides the incredible contempt that it was displaying – made him realize something.

The Starhawks were operating in groups. Squadrons.

The Xyston-class had been equipped with upgraded shields, he knew that much… but, now that he thought about it, the original Starhawk’s one battle with an operational tractor array had seen it throwing around a Star Destroyer without significant difficulty and from outside conventional turbolaser range… through its shields.

And, yes, the Final Order’s battleships had had their shields upgraded so that a Starhawk couldn’t do that, but they hadn’t been upgraded to be literally three times too dense to let a Starhawk do that.

It was… humiliating. Intolerable. Decades of Imperial engineering and toil had been entirely circumvented by the simple expedient of the New Republic using more than one ship on the same Imperial ship.

There was another huge secondary explosion, this time on the Yarmosa, and Pryde’s eyes snapped to the main tac plot.

The Starhawks were using the forward part of his line as ammunition. Tearing off chunks of Xyston-class Star Destroyers, and his own Resurgent-class,and then flinging them right through other Imperial ships… aiming, by the looks of it, for the axial superlasers.

“All ships, full speed,” he said. “All ships that can still move, full speed! We need to close the distance, there’s not that many of them!”

The Steadfast jolted again, and someone shouted in fear from the engineering station.

“Quiet!” he shouted. “You are an officer of-”

“Reactor shutdown!” the engineer said, and Pryce paled.

Because the repulsorlift systems were powering down. He could feel it, feel the odd floating sensation of free fall – and knew what would happen at the far end.

Which would take, based on their altitude, about fifteen seconds.

“Commander, that one’s starting to rotate,” Syndulla said, tapping one of the Star Destroyers on her display board, and a few seconds later the Yavin, Galaan and Noctu shifted the focus of their beams. The indicated Star Destroyer shivered, surrounded by shield scatter as it tried and failed to hold off the assault, then all three Starhawks shoved in a synchronized manoeuvre and forced the targeted Star Destroyer back to crash into one of its fellows.

“Echelon four, shifting targets,” the force commander reported. “That one on the right suffered shield failure.”

“They’re getting lined up,” Syndulla noted. “There – Echelon two, Echelon three, push one into that knot of capital ships there, you should do significant extra damage.”

All six ships followed her commands, and Syndulla shook her head.

“For some reason, the Empire always assumes that everyone’s terrified of them,” she said. “You’d think they’d have learned otherwise… did they think the Starhawks evaporated?”

“I think they’re technically not Imperials any more,” Ezra pointed out.

Hera snorted.

“Yeah, but they’ll always be the same to me,” she said. “Echelon five, retask – that one looks like a command ship…”

Entirely separately to all that, of course, there was a rather wonderful irony in using a ship built around a single very powerful central weapon to defeat the Final Order.

The Empire had spent decades and untold billions of credits trying to make a superweapon starship work. And the New Republic had done it in months.

It was enough to make a girl feel proud.

[saphronethaleph]

AvP

Alan closed the door to his office, sat down, and shuffled through some papers.

After that unfortunate incident at the school, he was going to need to get back to work. There was… not the Biron case, that had been placed on hold, it would be the Jones one…

“Mr. Barnes,” said the most awful voice he’d ever heard, and Alan jumped in his chair before looking around.

“Who said that?” he asked. “Who’s there?”

Nothing.

“Are you a cape?” he added.

“I am not,” the awful voice said, sounding like gravel being gargled. “I am nothing to do with your unfortunate ui’stbi infection. No, this is… a courtesy, you would call it.”

A chuckle, and Alan looked around again – more carefully, this time.

There was the faintest ripple in the air…

“What do you mean, a courtesy?” he asked, trying to reach for his phone without making it obvious.

“Since your daughter is probably going to be dead by tomorrow,” the voice told him, and Alan froze.

“...what?” he asked.

“Your younger daughter, of course,” the voice added. “Surely you don’t mind?”

“...what?” Alan repeated, more loudly. “What are you talking about – how could you – I don’t care who you are, but you can’t get away with that!”

“She is the friend of the one called halkrath vor’mekta, Shadow Stalker,” the voice pointed out. “I have been watching. They accompany one another. You help her out. The one called Shadow Stalker treats others as prey because they are weaker than her… it is what makes her ideal prey in her own right. She will understand, I am sure.”

The voice sounded… amused, more than anything.

That was the terrible thing about it.

“Understand – you’re saying you’re going to try and kill Shadow Stalker?” Alan asked. “And my daughter?”

“You should be honoured,” the voice said, chuckling, and that was an even worse sound. “Haven’t you made it clear by your actions? You see nothing wrong in hunting prey. You see nothing wrong in even those close to you being treated as prey. You defend those who hunt them.”

The shimmer… was moving, Alan thought.

It was hard to tell for sure.

If he shouted, then could he get Carol in here quick enough? It was…

...no, probably not.

“It’s – that’s-” he tried, trying to come up with a way to explain.

A way to get across that Emma had to be safe, that – that he hadn’t meant… a way he could tell this monster, this whatever-it-was, to leave his daughter alone.

A way he could protect her.

It had always, only, been about protecting her.

No matter what.

“Nothing, then,” the voice said, with finality, and the window opened. A moment later, something jumped out of the window, and was gone.

Alan ran to the window, looking outside to see if he could spot something – anything – to tell him what had just happened.

But there was no sign.

“...what the fuck do I tell the PRT?” he asked, out loud, as he pulled the window closed.

Because… the PRT had to know. That monster, whatever it was, had to be stopped before it went after his daughter and her friend.

But he couldn’t think of a way to explain what had just happened that didn’t mean… explaining what it had said.

[saphronethaleph]

Seating Arrangements

“I thank you all for attending this special session,” the Speaker of the House said. “While I appreciate that this is going to be something of a surprise, we are now at a point where certain matters that were previously covered as official secrets now not only can but must be revealed more openly and publicly. Please keep your questions for the end.”

He checked his notes, then looked up at Parliament – some of whom had already noticed the change in seating.

“In particular,” he said. “To seat an additional member of our number. The exact procedure by which this seat was established are not normal, but nor are the situations normal; I am sure there will be a debate on the matter in the fullness of time. However, I must say firmly that this is a matter of principle and that I will be hoping for all details to come out in the debate before any decision is made.”

It was all a load of fluff, of course, but it was fluff that set the tone for any ongoing discussion. Which was… the point of it all, really.

So much of politics was framing.

“One month ago, after extended negotiations involving the Governor-General and the Prime Minister, an additional constituency was established on, and by the name of, Solander Islands,” the Speaker said. “This constituency is within the same structure as the Maori Electorates, but it is distinct; the criteria for voting in Solander Islands are different but are still related to being native to claimed New Zealand territory, though in addition residence does have to be in place. This was part of the delay before the election could be held, which was two days ago, and as a consequence I’d like to introduce your newest colleague for their commencement speech.”

He stepped to the side, and the representative in question took his place at the stand.

“Mr. Speaker, thank you,” they said. “I’ll begin by introducing myself; my name is Tek, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to both speak with you now, and join you in deliberations in the future.”

They paused.

“And yes, I know, there’s the matter of appearance,” they added. “But I’m sure I’ll manage being in a room of people who look so unusual.”

That led to a ripple of baffled laughter, and Tek went on.

“It is, I think, to our great benefit that the people of this country are so open-minded and respectful,” they said. “And that the values here include in particular those of freedom, the position of not being servile, and representation, the ability to have a say in how one’s community and country runs. And speaking for myself, as well as for my constituents, I hardly think it will be surprising that we all appreciate that Aotearoa in particular is willing to give a voice to those who are of great antiquity in their community. This is a precious and rare trait, and you should all be proud of it – I know that I am proud to be a part of this community.”

They shrugged. “I do not want to take up too much time before the questions that are inevitably coming, so I will conclude with a word from the language of our old masters. It is the word for freedom from slavery, freedom from oppression, and freedom to make our own decisions. Tekeli-li!”

There was a smattering of still-somewhat-disquieted applause, and Tek glooped back from the microphone, looking around to see how their speech had been received.

“Thank you, Member Tek,” the Speaker said, returning to the microphone. “Last year, an expedition was launched to the eastern Queen Maud Mountains…”

[saphronethaleph]

Advanced Spyrology

“Okay, this is weird,” Spyro mumbled.

“Weird,” Trigger Happy repeated. “Yeah, that’s really helpful.”

“Hey, shut up!” Spyro replied, sticking out his tongue. “I’d say something that made more sense if I knew something that made more sense, golden-glo.”

The gremlin snorted.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t,” he replied. “But, okay. What does weird mean?”

“Weird means weird,” Spyro answered, sitting back. “Like… something happened, and now everything is wrong.”

He held up a paw. “See, I was really cool before I met you guys. That’s how come I got invited to be a Skylander.”

“Here we go again,” Trigger Happy said, sniggering. “This is just a chance for you to boast about the cool stuff you did before becoming a Skylander, right?”

Spyro shook his head. “That’s just it!”

He thumped his tail on the ground. “Because I can’t.”

Trigger Happy blinked a few times, then inspected Spyro’s head from the side.

“What are you doing?” Spyro asked.

“Trying to see if I can see light through from the other side, scalybrain,” the gremlin replied.

“Hey!” Spyro protested, bristling and flaring his wings. “Knock it off, okay!”

He shook his head. “I’m being serious. I did all kinds of cool stuff before I became a Skylander but I can’t think of what any of those things were. I was…”

Then the purple dragon coughed.

“I was going to talk to Cynder about it, okay?” he asked, looking embarrassed.

“Oooh,” Trigger Happy said, giggling. “Trying to impress a girl?”

“Hey!” Spyro protested. “I helped free her, you know! And I was trying to say how helping her out was nothing special, because I’d done all kinds of cool stuff, and I completely blanked on what.”

Now Trigger Happy was looking a bit worried.

“...none of them?” he asked. “Not at all?”

“Nope,” Spyro agreed. “I know I did cool stuff, just, not what, and I was left standing there looking like an idiot until Cynder flew off!”

He shook his head. “So, come up with an answer to that one.”

“Yeah, I’m stumped,” Trigger Happy said, immediately. “I can’t shoot the problem, I am out of ideas.”

“Yeah, I guessed,” Spyro muttered. “Okay, uh…”

He frowned, head tilting.

“The weird thing is, I think Cynder was involved?” he said.

“Sure this isn’t a daydream now?” Trigger Happy asked.

“Shut up,” Spyro grumbled.

“Well, if you do think she was involved, why not ask her about it?” the gremlin suggested.

“I thought you were out of ideas,” Spyro pointed out.

Trigger Happy shrugged.

Spyro shook his head, frowning.

“...you… what?” Cynder said.

“I can say it again, if you want,” Spyro replied. “Did I at some weird time in the past do something to help you before I was a Skylander?”

“You realize how weird a question that is, right?” Cynder countered. “You don’t have to hold over my head how you saved me, I’m grateful but it doesn’t mean-”

“I don’t mean that time!” Spyro replied, wings flaring. “I mean before then. Pay attention, eesh.”

Cynder shot a black look at him.

“What kind of thing are you thinking you would have done to help me, anyway?” she asked. “Apart from breaking me out of Malefor’s control?”

Spyro frowned.

“...uh,” he said. “Can’t think of anything, sorry.”

“Are we done?” Cynder asked.

“Wait,” Spyro said.

Cynder spread her wings to fly off.

“...hey!” Spyro protested, then frowned. “How come you never use your wind element, anyway?”

Cynder was halfway through taking off, flubbed her wingbeat, and tripped over forwards. She rolled over twice, picked herself up, and glowered for a moment as Spyro sniggered at her.

Then she shook her head, and her expression changed.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“How did I know… what?” Spyro replied.

“Wind,” Cynder answered. “I don’t have wind, Spyro. My element is Undead. But… I’ve dreamed of having wind, and I never said anything about it to anyone. Ever.”

Spyro frowned.

“...so what does that mean?” he asked. “Because my element is Magic, not… dreams, or whatever it would have to be to find that out.”

“I don’t know,” Cynder admitted. “But… all right, something weird is going on here, you’ve convinced me of that much.”

“So what now?” Spyro asked.

“Now…” Cynder replied, thinking. “I guess we try and find someone who might know about it. It’s something to do with you, and with me, maybe…”

She exhaled. “Okay… I know a few people. Maybe we can work something out.”

Weeks later, far away from the Skylands, a portal opened.

Malefor, who was still chained to a very large anchor and the ruins of the ship it had been attached to when he was pushed off the Skylands, looked up – then growled slightly as Spyro and Cynder came through the portal.

“I assume you’re here for a reason,” the dark dragon said.

“We want to find out what the heck is wrong with me!” Spyro said.

Cynder coughed.

“I have a few ideas about that,” she said. “I think everyone does.”

“That came out wrong,” Spyro muttered. “But – you know something, Malefor, so out with it! What’s going on and how come I don’t know anything about my past?”

Malefor chuckled.

“Okay, yeah, he knows,” Cynder declared. “That’s the I-know-something-you-don’t chuckle. I’d recognize it anywhere.”

Malefor shook his head, still smirking.

“And why should I tell you, exactly?” he asked.

“I can think of a few reasons!” Spyro replied. “You did some kind of spell on me, didn’t you? To make me forget my past!”

Malefor chuckled again.

“It’s not just you,” Cynder said, head cocked slightly. “It’s… everyone? No, it’s about… he changed things and he’s laughing about how much we don’t know about it.”

“Wow, you’re good at that,” Spyro admitted, legitimately impressed.

“He did raise me,” Cynder replied.

Malefor’s chuckle had ended, and he shook his head.

“You are dangerous, my dark daughter,” he said. “Very dangerous.”

“...hang on,” Spyro muttered. “Hey, Cynder, go over there a sec, okay?”

Cynder frowned, then paced over to where Spyro was pointing.

“Great!” Spyro said. “Now, is it me or do we kinda look alike?”

“Trying to measure yourself against greatness?” Malefor asked.

“You think you’re great?” Spyro retorted, laughing. “No way! We’ll beat you again if-”

“He’s trying to distract you from how you said something meaningful,” Cynder interrupted. “I think you might actually be right about that, Spyro.”

“Hey, don’t sound so surprised,” Spyro muttered. “So, what, am I his kid or something?”

“No, but… similar in another way,” Cynder said. “I think…”

She closed her eyes, shaking her head and frowning as her tail lashed from side to side.

“I almost had it there,” she said.

“What a shame,” Malefor said, snidely.

“Is the background noise bothering you?” Spyro asked. “Because I think I can stop it.”

Cynder’s wings twitched, then relaxed, and she approached Spyro.

“I think… there was something,” she said. “I really hope this is right, Spyro.”

“What is?” Spyro asked, mystified now.

Cynder leaned in.

“I love you,” she whispered.

Spyro’s eyes snapped open, then he gasped.

“...huh,” he said, before rounding on Malefor. “Okay, what did you do?”

“Oh, fine,” Malefor muttered. “I may as well get in one good gloat… I told you purple dragons could master any element, and I told you that purple dragons could remake the world. Did you think that was an idle boast?”

“You used an element,” Spyro said. “To… turn the world into a new version of itself.”

“Exactly,” Malefor replied, with a chuckle. ���Everyone thinks of elements in such pedestrian terms. They didn’t recognize that I had created the element of fear… that anything, truly anything, could be an element. Like decay… like technology... like rebooting the whole universe, if I so chose!And-”

Spyro spread his wings, light crackling around them in a peculiar, pixelated sort of way.

“-and you made a mistake,” he replied. “You told me what you did!”

Wild light surrounded them, and then the whole world shone around them-

Up in the hills over Midday Gardens, Spyro rolled on his back and sighed.

“So, what do you think?” he asked.

“You could have had better aim,” Cynder replied, shaking her head. “And you could have made Trigger Happy into just about anything other than a gnorc running a beach resort.”

“I didn’t have much time to aim,” Spyro pointed out. “At least my face looks better now.”

Cynder chuckled.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” she replied, lying down next to him.

She yawned.

“Still not sure you did enough to stop Malefor,” she mumbled.

“I turned him red,” Spyro pointed out. “That was the only thing I could think of. So he’s not a purple dragon any more.”

“I suppose that’ll have to do,” Cynder sighed.

[saphronethaleph]

Heavy Thing Goes In...

“Hoopa has a good idea!” Hoopa said. “Ashkan, Hoopa will bring some friends to help us out!”

“Friends would be great,” Ash replied, glancing back at the absolute havoc that was happening as Hoopa’s dark side – or Unbound self – or whatever you wanted to call it, brought in more and more Legendary Pokémon.

“Good!” Hoopa declared, twirling rings on their fingers. “Allez – Hooparing!”

Three golden rings went spinning out in front of them, and the big one activated first. A black-scaled, shiny Rayquaza came through, coiling in mid-air, and frowned at Ash.

“Hi!” Ash called. “I haven’t met you before but I met another Rayquaza – do you know him? We didn’t talk much, though.”

Shiny Rayquaza looked baffled for a moment, then shrugged.

“Pika-kachuu! Pikapi kachu pii!” Pikachu volunteered.

Then the two smaller rings triggered, and a Latias and Latios came zipping through.

Latias immediately did a double-take and zipped closer to Ash, head tilting, then cleared her throat.

“Ash?” she asked, voice squeaky but understandable. “I – know that’s a silly question but I did see someone who looked exactly like you once and that was embarrassing-”

“Oh, that was probably Ritchie,” Ash said. “Or it could have been someone else. But yeah, I’m Ash Ketchum!”

“Tii-os?” the Latios asked, pointing at Pikachu. “La-tios?”

“Chuu!” Pikachu nodded, cheeks sparking. “Pikachu pika, pi?”

“Wow!” Hoopa said. “Hoopa only asked for Pokémon that would be willing to help Ashkan and Pikakan! Hoopa is surprised that you both know Ashkan and Pikakan!”

“Both?” Ash asked, frowning for a second as he looked over at Latios, then brightened. “Oh, you must be Tobias’s, right?”

“Os-ti!” Latios confirmed, nodding more confidently now. “Ti-laaa-tios?”

“Well, I had something I wanted to say to Ash before and never got the chance because I couldn’t say it properly-” Latias tried, then there was a sound like tearing cloth as a Roar of Time went overhead.

“Uh oh!” Ash said. “We need to get out of here-”

Pikachu sprang up onto Latios’s back, cheeks sparking, and Latias swept Ash up onto her own back. Ash grabbed Hoopa, as well, then all three Dragon-types zipped away just ahead of Palkia arriving and slamming a Spatial Rend into the ground.

“We need to do something to slow them down!” Ash said, looking around. “Rayquaza, can you help?”

Rayquaza’s scales began to shine, then there was a burst of light as the Sky High Pokémon Mega-Evolved – without any Mega Stone involved.

Latias and Latios Mega-Evolved as well, then all of Unbound Hoopa’s Pokémon launched attacks at them at once, and Mega Latias, Mega Latios, Pikachu and Rayquaza shot back their strongest attacks to match them.

There was an enormous explosion that lit up the whole central bay of Dahara City, illuminating it like it was daytime and making some of the street lamps momentarily switch off, and Ash pointed behind a building.

“Over there!” he said, and both Eon Pokémon shot over behind the building.

“Hoopa!” he added. “Can you help?”

“Hoopa has already summoned three Pokémon, Ashkan!” Hoopa protested. “Four if you count Lugia which Unbound Hoopa sent home! Hoopa does not have unlimited rings!”

“Right,” Ash said, reaching for a Pokéball on his belt, then shook his head. “...but what about… Hoopa, do your rings work better if you’re only going a short distance?”

“Hoopa can do that, but Hoopa cannot pass through them,” Hoopa replied. “And Hoopa’s rings must start near Hoopa! Hoopa cannot send them far away.”

“Ash, you’re… thinking of something, right?” Mega Latias asked, then glanced at Mega Latios – and Mega Rayquaza, who had also squeezed behind the building and was taking up most of the space behind it. “I remember you were good at that, but you battled him once, right, Latios?”

“Tii-os, lati-oss,” Mega Latios said.

“Chuu!” Pikachu declared, pointing at his chest. “Pika pika-chuu, pikapi chu!”

“Ti-lati-os,” Mega Latios frowned, apparently not quite sure of how Pikachu had put it.

Mega Latias giggled.

“Sounds like it,” she said. “And I know Ash keeps helping out Legendary Pokémon!”

Ash frowned, then snapped his fingers.

“Got it!” he said. “Hoopa – what about if you brought one of the other Legendaries through a ring and immediately sent them through a second ring?”

Hoopa frowned, then brightened.

“That would work, Ashkan!” they said. “What are you thinking of?”

“Well… Unbound Hoopa has summoned some really big Pokémon,” Ash replied. “We’re going to need to knock some of them out to solve this… Latias, can you get us somewhere Hoopa can see to aim?”

Twenty crowded seconds later, Mega Latias was in the middle of doing a snap-roll away from a Roar of Time when Hoopa made a gesture.

“Allez – Hoopa Rings!” they said, and Ash saw a blur of gold beside them. For a moment, something huge and pealescent thundered through the narrow gap between the two rings, then the Roar of Time cut off very abruptly with an almighty thump that echoed through the city.

As Palkia landed at very high speed on top of Dialga.

Even the shadow Unbound Hoopa seemed to be taken aback, and Mega Latias skidded to a halt in mid-air so they could get a better look at Hoopa’s ringwork.

“How did you get this idea, anyway?” Mega Latias asked. “I never would have thought of that.”

“I was thinking about how it is that I keep meeting Legendary Pokémon, and how Dialga and Palkia and Groudon and Kyogre were in the middle of a fight where I had to get help to stop it!” Ash replied. “You know. Time is a flat circle!”

“Yeah, it looks like he is,” Mega Latias winced, as Palkia stepped off her counterpart and gave the impression of looking surprisingly sheepish for a possessed Legendary Pokémon. “Ouch...”

[saphronethaleph]

My, My, My, Elijah

Bilbo opened the door, and broke into a broad grin.

“Gandalf!” he said. “Oh, how wonderful it is to see you! It’s been years!”

“So it has,” Gandalf agreed. “Many more than I would like, but less than I could fear. Bilbo, it is good to see you so well.”

“Come in, come in,” Bilbo requested, stepping back. “I’ll be sure to get you something… what would you like?”

“Just tea, thank you,” Gandalf requested.

“Of course, of course,” Bilbo agreed. “And something to eat? There’s a rather fine loaf on the go, or I have some smoked bacon-”

“Just tea, thank you,” Gandalf reiterated, with a smile.

Bilbo nodded. “Yes, well then – that will be just fine. Capital, in fact. I do apologize, Gandalf, but it’s so rare that we meet and it seems a shame to have nothing more than tea to celebrate.”

Gandalf smiled.

“You are a thoughtful man, Bilbo Baggins,” he said. “Despite your… Tookish ways, of course.”

Bilbo chuckled.

“You don’t think I’d have come along with you on such an adventure as that without a little in the way of Tookishness, do you?” he pointed out, sitting down in an armchair in the front room, and Gandalf folded himself into the much bigger, overstuffed armchair on the other side of the room.

“I suppose not,” Gandalf mused, looking around, and frowned slightly. “I realize it has been a while, Bilbo, but… something seems different about your house.”

“Yes!” Bilbo agreed. “There’s someone else living here now, you know. I have an heir.”

“An heir,” Gandalf repeated, interested. “And how might such a thing have come about? What lady of Hobbiton caught the eye of Bilbo Baggins, I wonder?”

He smiled, amused. “And was it that I was not invited to the wedding?”

“Oh, no fear, no fear,” Bilbo replied, hastily. “No, he’s not my son in body, though certainly he is my heir legally… you see, I adopted him, four years ago now. The orphaned son of relatives from east of here, Brandy Hall way – it was that or end up leaving Bag End to the Sackville-Bagginses, and that was something I could not tolerate.”

“I suppose such would be a consideration,” Gandalf nodded, contemplatively. “You are getting on in years, old friend.”

Though Bilbo didn’t look it, it had to be said. Ninety-four years old, and it was as if he hadn’t aged a day since they had gone on the quest to the Lonely Mountain over four decades before. Years lay more lightly on the Halflings than on Men, but even so, that was a little ridiculous.

“Uncle Bilbo?” a slightly hesitant and muffled voice said. “I’ve brought the tea.”

“Excellent – thank you,” Bilbo said. “With the large teacup?”

“Yes, Uncle,” the same young voice agreed, and Gandalf leaned out of his chair to see the young Hobbit who Bilbo had taken as his heir.

Which was… not exactly what he saw.

Instead, there was what Gandalf could only, unmistakeably, describe as a dragon coming in through the door, purple-scaled and orange-bellied… balancing on three legs, holding a tea tray in one paw and his mouth, wings out slightly for balance. He reached the table and rose smoothly to his hind legs, using his other foreleg for support, and deposited it neatly on the table.

“It’s just lightly brewed, right now, Mr. Gandalf,” the dragon added, helpfully. “I don’t know quite how you take it, so you’ll need to leave it another few minutes to steep if you want it strong.”

“I see,” Gandalf said, with a nod. “Thank you… alas, I’m afraid I don’t have your name.”

“Spyro, sir,” the dragon introduced himself. “Spyro Baggins, at your service.”

He bowed slightly.

“Gandalf, at yours,” Gandalf replied. “Though… I’m terribly sorry, Spyro, but would it be possible to get a little milk for the tea? I’m afraid I sometimes take mine with milk.”

“Could you, Spyro?” Bilbo asked. “I do apologize, I should have mentioned.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” Spyro replied, and was back out of the room in moments – heading, Gandalf was sure, to the cold room.

“Well, now,” Gandalf said, smiling, and turned his attention to Bilbo. “The orphaned son of relatives from east of here?”

“Yes,” Bilbo concurred, nodding. “My second cousin and his wife. Alas, they drowned in a boating accident… I assume, at least, for he was found on the riverbank. So I took him in.”

“I see,” Gandalf mused. “And I’m sure that if I asked anyone in Hobbiton, they’d tell me the same thing.”

“Of course,” Bilbo confirmed. “I do pay attention to what they say about me, you know – and about my young nephew. If you’ll believe it, they say he’s been quite good for me. Old Mr. Gamgee told me once that Tolman Cotton declared – in the way of someone who wishes that declaring to be heard quite far and wide – that he knew the lad was more purple than some others, but had a good head on his shoulders, and that he was doing a good job of keeping me from my more fanciful notions. Which is entirely too unkind to me, I’d say, but generous to Spyro, so I find it hard to complain.”

Gandalf nodded, slowly.

“How curious,” he said. “How very curious.”

Then he turned, at the sound of paws on the floor, and took the milk from Spyro.

“Thank you, young Master Baggins,” he said, and Spyro looked quite pleased at both the thanks and the title. “I think your coming to Hobbiton will do Bilbo a great deal of good, and others besides.”

“I say!” Bilbo protested, with a laugh. “Have a care, Gandalf – you’re not telling me that even you, who recruited me for that adventure, find my Tookishness tiresome?”

“I find your hiding behind it amusing,” Gandalf replied.

Privately, he had to wonder whether Bilbo’s second cousin and his wife had actually existed – though, whether they had or not, it made little difference to the situation.

And, right now, that situation was that there was a youngster, anxious to please and feeling nervous around a tall outsider… and there was tea to be poured.

So Gandalf decided to solve both at once, as best he could.

“Would you like me to pour you some as well?” he asked Spyro, already pouring some of the steeped tea into the large teacup himself, judging the strength, then added a little milk. “Or do your tastes run elsewhere.”

“I’d prefer mine without milk, Mr. Gandalf,” Spyro requested. “Are you really a wizard?”

“Indeed I am, though you’ll find that wizardry is less about flashy spells than many think about it,” Gandalf said, pouring some more tea for Spyro and finishing off with a third cup for Bilbo – just the way he remembered his old friend liked it. “It’s far more about how things are, and recognizing the difference between that and how things seem…”

Several decades later, and hundreds of miles away, the Council of Elrond stared at the simple golden ring on the table between them.

“The Ring is the very essence of Sauron,” Elrond of Rivendell stated. “It would corrupt, and ultimately destroy, whoever tried to use it.”

“I would not throw off such a weapon if it came into our keeping,” Boromir of Gondor replied.

“The Ring is a weapon, but not to be turned against its master,” Gandalf warned. “It is more in the nature of an army, or a skilled armsman, or a traitor in a castle – though none of those capture its true nature. It is a fragment of Sauron, and even if you could use it against him and achieve a seeming of success – it would all come to ill, in the end.”

“It’s part of Sauron,” Spyro voiced. “So it is how things are that it will not oppose Sauron, even if it seems that it does. Any attempt to use it will come to a bad end, unless it is for Sauron’s aims.”

“That is a fine way of saying it,” Gandalf said.

“So it must be destroyed, then,” the dwarf Gimli declared. “If it cannot be turned to good ends, then it must be put to an end for the good of all.”

“Alas, but it can only be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom,” Elrond said, as Spyro tilted his head slightly and moved across in front of Sam and Merry. “That is where it was created. Otherwise it would-”

Elrond was interrupted by a sudden blaze of intense blue light, as Spyro exhaled something that was to dragon-fire as the most mighty dragon-fire was to a match. All the Elves present, and Gandalf, flinched back in shock, then Elrond shook his head and blinked twice before looking at his table.

Which wasn’t there any more… and nor was the One Ring.

“I was thinking,” Spyro explained. “About why it is that it can’t be destroyed… it’s because it has to be destroyed in the world that is unseen, not the world that is seen. And I’m quite sure that my bright fire can do that.”

Gandalf raised an eyebrow.

“I did wonder why only six of the Nine Black Riders reached the Ford of Brunien,” he said, nodding slightly.

“I fear I should have asked more questions about the fighting before I arrived,” Aragorn admitted.

Elrond was looking at his hand.

“...ah,” he said. “Vilya appears to be losing strength, slowly but steadily… it would seem that it worked.”

“Nobody told me it had to be destroyed, before,” Spyro added. “I’m sorry about your table, Mr. Elrond, but I did want to hurry.”

“Well, that was easy,” Legolas of Mirkwood observed. “Should we continue with the meeting?”

[saphronethaleph]

Πορφυροβάφοι

“Yess…” Malefor chuckled, placing his paws on the ground around the Well of Souls.

At last, he had returned. His spirit had been trapped within Convexity, his body turned to a wisp – but the Ancestors had not been able to stomach truly killing him, and now on the darkest night of all he had returned.

“Good work… Cynder,” he added, turning to the small form of his young servant. “You have done well.”

“Dark Master,” Cynder bowed.

“We worked hard to bring you back,” Gaul said. “I worked hard to bring you back. I managed to overcome Cynder’s… reluctance.”

“Oh, I am quite aware of Cynder’s reluctance,” Malefor said, with a dark chuckle. “But there was nothing she could do about it, after all. She was fated to be my servant… while you, Gaul, have a different fate.”

Gaul frowned, and Malefor turned – his expression sly.

“Yes,” he said. “You have a different fate before you, Gaul, and there is nothing much else that needs to be said about it. Your goal is to rule the world, is it not?”

“Yes,” Gaul echoed. “Yes! That is the promise that you gave to the Apes!”

“Indeed it was,” Malefor said. “But, of course… that means that your fate is to challenge me, and your fate is thus to be defeated.”

His wings glowed as he summoned his power – the true, terrible energy of a Purple Dragon, the might that could remake the world, destroy destiny itself, make elements all anew.

The power that had scared the Ancestors so.

“Wait – I don’t-” Gaul began, backing away in sudden apprehension, then Malefor unleashed a burst of power, of an element that no other dragon had ever possessed.

The element of decay.

It struck Gaul, and burned him up, turning him into a skeleton animated only by shadows of ambition forever unsatisfied. And, through him, all the Apes. Every last one of Gaul’s minions, from the greatest to the least.

They would know fear, and pain, and they would remain in shadow, forever denied the light of the day.

Malefor was… harsh, but not cruel. He would not deny them continued existence, to accept the eternal night that they had always wanted.

“What now?” Cynder asked, as Gaul fled, to hide forever in the shadows and darkness.

“Now… we have a world to destroy,” Malefor replied. “But first… we have a purple dragon to deal with. Spyro has shown himself a coward… or merely incapable… by not coming here, and trying to stop Gaul himself. But we will have to stop him soon enough, regardless of where he hides.”

“We will?” Cynder said.

“Yes,” Malefor confirmed. “Because… the whelp is dangerous, if he ever gets time to get his paws under him, to get control of his powers. A purple dragon’s power is versatile, we can create whatever elements we wish – even grant them to others, or pull them out of a dragon who does not deserve them, though I don’t believe such a thing would be permanent… but perhaps it would be. For a purple dragon’s power is also immense.”

He chuckled. “Perhaps even – limitless, though who can truly say? Those old fools who used to teach me said that purple dragons could do anything, and then they fought so hard against me when I tried to do something. Something worthy of the awesome import of a purple dragon, breaker of destinies, master of elements, shatterer of worlds.”

Then Malefor paused, raising a claw to his chin. “Now, there’s an idea…”

“Purple dragons can do all that?” Cynder asked. “I didn’t realize…”

Her tail waved slightly from side to side.

“You see why it is so important to stop Spyro – or, if possible, get him to understand the truth,” Malefor replied. “But – come, Cynder. There are armies to be mustered – lands to be overrun. I must control much of the world, and I will require months of effort to ready my plan. This phase of the world will be brought to destruction, and I will shape the new form it will have.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You see? Gaul could never understand such complete domination over all that exists. Not merely to conquer, but to remake.”

“I understand,” Cynder told him, though much of her attention seemed to be on her paw.

“Fret not,” Malefor said. “I will return you to being the Terror of the Skies in a moment, Cynder. After all… it is your destiny to serve me.”

Cynder nodded, then closed her eyes.

She was saying something too quietly to hear, and Malefor leaned closer.

“...breaker of destinies,” she was whispering. “Master of elements. Pull them out of a dragon.”

“Yes, that is what I said,” Malefor agreed, slightly puzzled.

“Purple dragons can do anything,” Cynder went on, speaking a little more loudly now.

Then she planted her paw on the ground, and took a deep breath.

“Is it okay for me to say that I hate pirates?” Sparx asked. “Because I really hate pirates. And I’ve gotta say, man, I don’t like your habit of passing out all the time, either. It gets on my nerves.”

“The Chronicler had important things to tell me, Sparx,” Spyro replied.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve got to say I don’t think much of that guy either,” Sparx provided, helpfully. “Destiny this and elements that – you don’t think he could have maybe hurried it up a bit? Or not lived in such an out of the way place?”

“I have to admit, I’m worried,” Spyro admitted. “It took us so long to get there…”

He looked up at the Mountain of Malefor. “By now, the Dark Master might have returned. I just hope we’re not too-”

There was an incomprehensibly vast explosion of violent purple light, one which blew out the entire side of the mountain, and Spyro stared before yelping and ducking to the side.

Most of the explosion had been pointed about a quarter of the way around the mountain from them, but enough had come their way that he really needed to dodge – then, as the debris faded, Spyro stared.

There was – a giant purple dragon, with huge wings and horns, fighting in the ruins, lashing out with fire and ice and a kind of screaming reddish blast that was like a sonic attack from the Earth element but also not. And it – he, that was Malefor – was fighting a tiny spark that blazed with white-purple light so bright that it hurt Spyro’s eyes-

“-wait,” he and Sparx said at the same time.

“Is that Cynder!?” Sparx added. “What exactly is going on?”

“I don’t know,” Spyro replied, then he winced as Malefor scored a hit with a shard of ice the size of a building. Cynder hurtled towards them, then her wings flared and a swirl of wind exploded around her as she halted just short of crashing into them.

“-Spyro?” she said, incredulously, then Malefor hurled a chunk of rock at them that looked like it was almost as big as the Dragon Temple.

“Look out!” Spyro warned, and Cynder cut it in half with another of those incredible bursts of white-purple light.

“How did you do that?” Sparx demanded.

“I think Malefor made me a purple dragon by mistake,” Cynder said, very quickly. “Spyro – purple dragons can do anything, that means you can do this too – he wants to kill you – we need to stop him!”

Spyro looked at her, then at Malefor as the Dark Master approached them rapidly, then nodded.

“All right,” he said, and opened up with a burst of dozens of homing fireballs which hit Malefor in an overlapping cascade of explosions. Then he and Cynder had to dodge out of the way, in different directions, as Malefor countered with a wave of water like a tsunami.

“I’m… just going to hide over here,” Sparx provided, helpfully. “Behind the mountain. In case it helps.”