#A depressed leader who lost all his troops and didn’t even do anything when the ground caved and he fell through

[clownsuu]

No but why if your Octavio both the hottest version and most unhinged malewife

He’s just- a little bit of everything you could ever want in a dramatically large octo who totally didn’t use the same ass battle tactics for the last 3 fuckin games and is still shocked he lost every time MDHGFDHUDJDJDJ

[ofbloodandbullets]

So it’s recently come to my attention that not everyone in the world has actually watched The Old Guard (WHO KNEW?!) so I’m going to try and do some info dumps about the world, the general canon and Andy’s history, personality, powers etc.  This will ... probably get kinda lengthy. 

Also: MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS FOR COMICS & MOVIE.

The first thing you need to know is that for the main part, the history and the world that TOG takes place in is the exact same one as the real history of the world.  It’s set in modern day, though the plot points stretch back to 7k+ years ago.  It’s also important to note that there is a lot of historical inaccuracies and some things in canon that conflict themselves so it’s best to just take it all with a grain of salt and just go with what works best for your particular preferences etc. 

The main difference between reality and TOG is that in TOG there are a very minute like .00000000002% of the population that are immortals.  Now, it’s important to note that these people can die but they resurrect pretty close to immediately after they die no matter the amount of damage done.  Now it can take some time to fully heal or reform, depending on how extensive the trauma (being blown to bits or burned etc. will take longer to fix but there’s no amount of damage that we know of that can actually keep them dead).  

There are times when, for reasons unknown to the characters in character (or to us as readers  of the comics / viewers of the movie etc) that the immortality just stops.  There’ll just be a time that they suffer injuries that just don’t heal, and they die.  There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to this, be it age, number of times they’ve died, whatever.  Now, I have my own entirely headcanon and personal preference based theory which you can find HERE but it’s totally just a random idea that I had that I liked to explain the loss of Andy’s immortality in the movie (that doesn’t happen in the comics) and lets me say that she regains her immortality post canon so that I can nudge things back in the direction of the comics for post movie plots and so on.

Andy is, as far as we know, and as far as she knows, the oldest (human) immortal, coming in at around 7,000 years old.  She was born into a tribe, the Scythia (hence what she’s generally called: Andromache the Scythian).  A nomadic warrior tribe that I headcanon to be a matriarchy, Andy was betrayed by the ‘queen mother’ when she was sixteen and killed in battle because the leader feared that Andy posed a danger to her continuing rule.  This person was practically a mother to Andy and it was a horrific betrayal.  What was almost as shocking to Andy was the fact that she got back up again after being literally stabbed in the back and killed.

In the vein of trying to thwart prophecies making them happen, Andy killed the matriarch and took her placce ruling the tribe, eventually becoming a God King to her people and ruling over them for hundreds of years until her loneliness absolutely overwhelmed her and one day she just vanished.

At some point after this, she began to dream of a woman, feeling a pull towards this stranger that she couldn’t begin to explain.  After dozens, maybe hundreds of years, she managed to track down the woman in question (Noriko in the comics, Quynh in the movie) and realized that they’d been dreaming of each other.  (In the comics she meets Lykon before Quynh/Noriko, whom she had also been dreaming of).  

Now, the connection between these immortals isn’t explained in canon, and for a long time, Andy, Lykon, Noriko (and eventually Joe, Nicky, Book) thought they were the only ones but there is a scene in the second set of comics that implies that there are other ‘packs’ of immortals.  I headcanon that it’s a ‘like calls to like’ / kind of Sense8 simpatico type thing - like minded souls drawn to each other, which is why Andy and the others didn’t know about the other immortals, but again, that’s just entirely my thoughts on the matter. 

Lykon is the first to succumb to the loss of immortality, a short couple hundreds years after he and Andy find each other.   He dies on a battlefield, one that he and Quynh/Noriko and Andy fought on like a hundred/thousand before, champions for the abused etc.  Skip forward a couple hundred years again and enter Joe & Nicky, a Knight and a Muslim warrior who kill each other on the battlefield only to both wake up and spend (an unspecified amount of time) hunting and killing each other before eventually Andy & Quynh/Noriko find them.  In time, Joe & Nicky realize that they love each other.   (Important to note that Quynh/Noriko and Andy were also lovers).  In the movie, when the first major surge of witch hunts began, Quynh/Noriko and Andy go to help the women that stood accused, only to be captured and accused of witchcraft themselves.  After being hung, drowned, burned at the stake and coming back to life every time, the witch hunters settled on locking Quynh into an iron coffin and dropping her into the ocean.  (In the comics, Noriko is lost at sea during a massive storm that had thrown their ship entirely off course with Andy having no clue where they actually were at the time.) 

Joe & Nicky arrive in time to rescue Andy, but Noriko is already gone and despite spending decades tracking down every person even remotely involved in the so called ‘investigation’ into the women’s inquisition and punishment, Andy wasn’t able to find anything about where Quynh could be. 

Cue angst & depression & guilt for ages after.

The trio still steps in over the following decades, trying to help prevent the worst of atrocities, but Andy quickly begins to spiral into an, at best apathetic, at worst, entirely distant and withdrawn mindset and steadily begins to lose hope that they’re actually making any difference at all.

Skip ahead a century or two and enter Book; a Russian conscript who had been forced into the fight after being convicted of forgery.  Hung for desertion, Book spend days dying over and over again as he hung there, unable to attempt an escape until the troops finally packed up and moved on.   He and Andy, Nicky and Joe meet up and Book kinda reluctantly joins their little group.  It’s revealed that Book dreams, still, of Noriko/Quynh and while he can’t tell where hse is, dreams of her still dying, drowning on the floor of the ocean over and over and over like she had been for the last hundred or two years.  

Book returns at some point to his mortal family which ended in disaster when his last remaining son was dying of cancer, cursing and screaming at Book for ‘choosing not to save him’ by making him immortal too, even though it’s something Book had no ability to transfer or make happen.  Between his nightmares, losing his son and a number of other factors, Book decides he wants to end it all but no matter what he tries, doesn’t die and stay dead.

Eventually he’s approached by a pharmaceutical company that has figured out what he is and wants to run tests on him to see if they can unlock his healing / immortality for other people.  Merrick’s company works in league with an ex CIA agent whose wife died of a horrific terminal disease who hopes that they can find a way to keep anyone else from dying if they don’t have to.    Initially it was just supposed to be him, but he’d set up a display to stream for proof of what he was / they were and the corp decided they wanted all of the immortals.   Book ends up betraying the team, and he and the others end up locked up and tested on / killed / experimented on etc.  

There’s another character introduced in the meantime, the first new immortals in centuries, an American soldier named Niles.  There’s a lot more that goes on here, but the main point is that in the movie, Andy stops healing from her wounds shortly after she tracks down Nile and is put into incredible amounts of danger when Merrick (the leader of the pharmaceutical company) captures Andy, Joe, Book, Nicky.  Book is devastated, Nicky and Joe are furious, Andy’s just tired.

Eventually, Andy and the others break free with Niles’ help, destroy the lab they were originally held in etc and set out to try and hunt down any other proof, lab results, anything that Merrick got his hands on during the tests.

The group meets and settles on a hundred year exile for Booker (which I think is one of the stupidest things - like, the man’s clearly desperate and depressed and lonely and mentally unstable so by all means let’s isolate him for a fully century) and at the end of the movie we see him stumbling home to his apartment six months later to find Quynh standing in his apartment, pouring and drinking a glass of water which is a whole power move considering how many millions of times she died by drowning.

In the comics, Quynh/Noriko was driven entirely mad and to the point of wanting vengeance against Andy for abandoning her and spends a while gaslighting Andy and torturing her physically and emotionally and what not until she manages to isolate Andy from the other immortals and scoops in to ‘rescue’ Andy.  IDK what they’re going to adapt this to in the second movie, 

Again, via the link posted above, my Andy slowly begins to regain her immortality (again, IDK what they’re going to do with the next movie).  

Uhhhh yeah.  So I .. think that’s the majority of what you need to know for canon info about Andy.  THIS is also an important PSA regarding my Andy’s history & her longest lasting relationship that has nothing to do with canon at all but that is part of Andy’s bg in every verse, even if it never comes into play.

[hobicomeholla29]

Shatter - Part 1 - JHS

Pairing: Hoseok x Reader

Genre: Angst/ Romance/ Fluff in the future

Word Count:3.9k

Warnings: Mentions of death/Mentions of wars/Mentions(hints) of depression/Mourning

Rating: PG13

A/N: Hey! Hey! Before I get into anything else I first have to that all the beautiful who helped me with checkin, beta reading and giving me fantastic feedback in general! @sugaa-sugaaa​ @spicykoreantatertots​ @nottodayjjk​ Thank you so so much for your words of support and for pushing me through to deliver a good piece for everyone!

That being said, This is a 2 shot! Please look forward to part 2!

THIS IS A REPOST. Cuz it wasn’t showing up in the tags.

Summary: In a post-apocalyptic world, where humankind’s greed has lead planet earth to turn into a ball of dust, all Hoseok wants is a better and bright future, yet strong feelings and a positive mind doesn’t always cut it.

Masterlist

The early morning sky was filled with an eerie fog that threatened to smother anyone who didn’t wear the appropriate attire for being outdoors.

You stood straight; hands balled in tight fists. A mixture of emotions running through your body. Sadness, anger, helplessness, fear…

You were the only ones standing in the middle of the empty field, no one else daring to stand still and be surrounded by the suffocating drafts of air that carried large amounts of toxins –a consequence of humankind utilizing nuclear weapons in the past.

You remember stories being told about your ancestors taking long walks through lucious fields without sporting gas masks on their faces, just imagine enjoying the air in the atmosphere instead of fearing it.

Most parts of the beautiful earth that once existed were now wastelands, all thanks to what was called The Colossal War.

Civilization was anything but civilized after that, creating division and animosity between groups of people with different ideals.

Clans were created and with them the claiming of lands. Lands that provided resources for sustenance, yet the quick dwindling of resources and supplies made some clans selfish, refusing to barter with others and instead attempting to conquer their lands as well.

With bigger and stronger clans taking over the smaller and weaker ones, eventually only four major clans remained, the only exception being small factions that settled between the abandoned areas near the borders of each clan.

Some factions were harmless, only looking for a peaceful place to live, making them nomads, since they had to constantly move to avoid being forced to pledge to one of the four major clans. Others were rioters, ready to go against anything and anyone who posed a threat to their beliefs and wants.

During the long solars that came and went after The Colossal War, much had changed.

Technology, communication, transportation, settlements.

It had all changed, but you really couldn’t say it was all for good.

Technology had turned obsolete at a steady pace, leaving only a few gadgets that were still able to function without being saturated or losing signal without proper cell towers.

Most of them had been vandalized or burned to ashes, mostly to steal copper from the area.

The only remaining signal towers were those of glass recorders.

A glass recorder was the device that kept track of a person’s life.

Since The Colossal War in 3010, civil wars had been blowing up everywhere. Causing inconvenience in simple tasks like having troops return to a fallen soldier’s clan to inform their family about their passing.

A simple duty as this one might have worked back in 2020 but not in 3011.

If troops were sent back, they were at risk of running into an enemy faction and breaking into another battle.

Hence, in 3015, glass recorders were created.

A glass recorder was a device made out of bulletproof glass. Its interior was filled with cables and microchips that contained a person’s personal information, tracking and broadcasting an individual’s vital signs at all times. Constant long-ranged waves went from the glass recorder - to the signal towers around the globe - to the chip installed in the individual’s neck and back.

You could say its data sharing function was similar to the behaviour of olden times bluetooth connections, except that the only information it could send and receive was vital signs and  identification details.

Many tried hacking them, attempting to rob information from the device and using it for ulterior motives, however they are designed with an auto destruction mode in case of hacking or death and their towers were heavily protected by troops from each clan.

Usually their sizes were similar to that of an old cellphone.

On one side there’s a knob, remarkably similar to what DJs back in the day used on their mixing boards. It acted as a switch between the different modes the glass recorder could be set on, them being Vitals, Information and Hologram. And on the other side there was a touchscreen, where vitals could be read and holograms could be activated.

There was also an XBS dock entrance on one side of the device. It was mostly used by the law enforcers by transferring any new information about an individual from their archives to the glass recorder, whether it was good or bad.

All of that information, including marital status, first degree relatives, occupation, date of birth and allergies could be found on information mode.

On vitals, details were given about their current health status and the sound of their heartbeat could be played.

And finally on hologram mode, you could see a three-dimensional scale of the owner’s body, making it easier to check for injuries or if any internal damage had been taken.

Besides glass recorders, communication had jumped back to messaging via written letters or oral messages sent via a messenger.

Any vehicles that had existed on the face of earth, had been overhauled.

Updated to cater to the usage it now provided to the arid ground.

Motorcycles, cars, buses, trucks and ships, all modified.

Additional exhaust pipes, thicker tires, dust shields, dredging machinery, artillery and artillery holders, were examples of things you had seen being mounted on different transports, including aircrafts.

As for yourself, you lived in a colony that had been forced to be part of one of the major 4 clans, The Jeon Clan.

The Jeon clan was strong, the Jeon clan was powerful, the Jeon clan was feared, the Jeon clan was blinded by its greed, the Jeon clan stood above everyone and if you refused their ways, then you refused living.

That’s how your small clan ended up under their command.

It was common to hear stories as an infant about how the Jeon clan conquered. They always portrayed the glorious stories of how leader -Jeon the 1st-  had tirelessly battled large creatures and evil men to save small clans from their miserable lives, however in each capsule each family shared the story with their offspring as they remembered it best.

Meaning some stories were wonderful, while others were resentful memories and stories of how their clans had been forced to change their ways or how they had lost loved ones to the Jeon reign.

You were only 7 when it all happened.

You remember it so clearly, it felt like you were reliving it each time.

_

You stood in the middle of the large hangar, eyes searching left and right for your father.

Men and women ran all around, either towards shelter or towards the battle zone.

A military truck’s engine roared in the background, yet you couldn’t figure out which of the twenty something trucks near you had been brought to life.

You frantically ran in the opposite direction. You needed to find him, you needed to convince him not to go.

Running as fast as your short legs could take you, you tightly held on to the glass recorder in your hand.

Tears started prickling your eyes the longer it went without you being able to find him.

Two NSTV vehicles sped past you, swiftly followed by a caravan of men on choppers, armed to the teeth.

Luckily none of them seemed to be your father.

You were getting desperate.

All he had done was left a note on your bed with his glass recorder.

“My beautiful cyberflower, I love you so much. And because I love you, I must defend you. Papa might not be back for a while, but he will make sure that if he doesn’t come back at all, it is because he was able to create a better place for you to live in."

He promised he would never go, that he would stay no matter what.

That he wouldn’t do the same thing your mom did.

Leaving you behind was never the solution. You preferred having them both and figuring everything else out later than having none of them and still being lost.

Why was it so easy for them to leave you behind…?

You didn’t notice you had dropped to your knees, you didn’t notice the tears that cascaded from your face and you certainly didn’t notice how your mourning wail had halted all activities under the hangar.

All frozen in place, no one in the building could figure out why. How could the desperate cry of a child send shivers down their spine? How could it express without mistake, their inner thoughts and feelings.

They felt the grief and pain of having to put their lives on the line to give their loved ones a better future.

A future that should have been granted to them, but the Jeons thought differently.

Yet, your clearest memory from that day was the tight embrace that pulled you out of your dazed state.

The embrace that told you that even if everything didn’t turn out as you wanted, he would be there to walk you through it.

He would be there with that bright smile of his that cleared away all of your cloudy days.

_

A rundown metallic shed stood at a distance, it was probably used in the past by troops as a hideout, yet for several solars it had been a place you used for solace.

The location gave you a quiet place to think, a quiet place to run away to when everything got too hectic at the colony, a place to yell out of frustration. It was your place -even if it was on enemy’s territory.

However, today said shed felt smaller, its tall walls choking you, suppressing your lungs, no calm remained in it as the words that dropped from your lover’s mouth bounced from wall to wall. The echo made you feel like the words were mocking you by constantly repeating what he said.

"I must go, and you must stay.”

You knew you had heard word of people in the colony joining forces with others near you, to topple the Jeon clan.

Nonetheless, you figured it was just tittle-tattle.

Yet here you are standing in the middle of the building, right in front of your lover, who is spewing the same nonsense your father did so many solara ago.

"Is this a joke? ‘Cause I’m not laughing…"

You saw his hands clenched into fists in annoyance, he tried holding in his feelings, yet the frustrated sigh that left his lips sold him out quickly.

Deep down he knew you wouldn’t take the news lightly, that you would want to accompany him on this journey as well or avoid the whole thing in general. But if he let you, if you came along, his departure would have no meaning. He was leaving for you. He thought you would be more rational.That the conversation would last less than a fraction of a solar, but he stood corrected.

"I can’t stay here on my own. You can’t leave me just like that.” You were distraught. Your eyes searched for his, yet his gaze remained on the door you had used moments ago to enter the shed.

You needed to bring his mind back to you, to the present where you both still remained, you needed to keep him away from thoughts of the unknown future and the doom that could be.

Why was he trying to be person number three on your mourning list?

Your eyes remained on his, yet your fingers occupied themselves trying to find his glove-covered ones, the action making him look down at your entwined fingers.

His eyes seemed to soften at your actions and that alone helped you breathe easier. Deep down you knew that you had to stay back and wait for him, it would be the safest place for you, the colony was your home, but the news he dropped on you like a bucket of cold water had your common senses frozen.Why would he want to leave you so suddenly?

Maybe he no longer wanted this, maybe you were too much, maybe that promise he made solars ago about walking the path with you was too heavy and too much of a burden…

“You must stay, for me,” He said, “and for them.” His eyes dropped to your stomach, his free hand caressing the bump that had started forming not long ago.

“Hoseok…please…” You had to try at least one more time. If he still was that warrior at heart that you had once met, then he was certain to leave even with you crying rivers.

“I must go, my love. I have to be a part of this fight that will give our family the freedom that they deserve. The freedom that WE deserve.” His eyes glossed over, yet not one tear abandoned his eye. He was sure of his decision and nothing could stop him now.

“You don’t have to… A lot of men are already there."

"And I am sure they also have families and other reasons to be there. I will lend them a hand and they shall lend me one. We will fight for a better life and world, a better place to raise our offspring, a better place to grow old.” At this point in conversation, his eyes are boring into yours, yet there is no anger towards you. Only love, strong, heated, unwavering, caring and passionate love. There was certainly no way for you to fight against that.

For a split second, his eyes left yours, and you followed the movements of his left hand. Carefully, he pushed his hand into his pocket, retrieving a device that you were very familiar with.

His glass recorder.

“I- I can’t."

"It’s the only way for you to know my status… and if it ever comes to worse, you’ll know not to wait for me any longer.” He said as he placed it in your hand.

“Please stop talking like you are a dead man already!"

"Y/n-” You interrupted him mid-sentence. You were blabbing now. All your thoughts and fears spilling out at once.

“No! I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want you to go! I want you here with me, with our babies. If you tell the Chief he will let you stay. We are expecting! I can’t lose you; you are walking to your grav-"

"Y/N!” His sudden yell made you flinch, but nonetheless, you looked him in the eyes, only to find them filled with tears. Filled with fear but determination as well.

He was always like this, a young man with a mission. Fire in his eyes, determined to make this world a better place, even if it scared him to the core. He always said…

“There is no better way to deal with fear than to walk right over it…” Those stupid words he repeated everyday since you were 7. “This is me walking all over it. This is me putting you -putting them over my fear of what may be."

"I love you."

"And I love you, my beautiful cyberflower.” His hand grabbed yours, slowly bringing each one of them to his face and kissing your knuckles and palms softly.

“I’ll always return to you."

And so, you watched him ride his chopper towards the horizon.

His silhouette quickly disappeared in the darkness of the night.

Even though the light of the moon shone brightly, it felt dark around you, as if your clouds had returned with the sole departure of his bright smile.

Your hand squeezed the device he left behind, your grip getting stronger the further he drove and now you really wondered, "How is it so easy for everyone to leave me behind?"

150 solars and 149 lunars went by, yet nothing had changed.

Since the day Hoseok had left, your days consisted of nothing but worrying, eating, and visiting the shed.

An old steel bench was set outside of the old metallic building and just like any other day you’d visited, you sat on the edge of it, contemplating life and hoping today was the day Hoseok would return to you as he had promised.

As time flew by, you added this day to the list of other ones where your lover didn’t return and although you tried to remain as positive as possible, you couldn’t stop thinking about why life was so cruel? Why did any of you have to live through this? It certainly wasn’t fair. No one deserved to be forced to choose death if they didn’t choose what someone else wanted.

Since your great-grandparents’ days, the future was supposed to be glorious, beautiful, and bright. Technology was supposed to make everything better. But somehow it all turned to worse.

Pride, arrogance, and selfishness had created the horrible world that you now lived in.

People lost their lives as an exchange for a promise they never received.

They fought battles to free people who were slaves to their own fears and now this was the consequence of all that was done. What a sad life to live. What a horrible life to live.

You rubbed your stomach feeling your bump as it continued to grow. Time doesn’t stop for anyone, is what they say and your clear example is how close you are to being due.

The walk back to your clan’s colony was an easy 10-minute walk that could turn mortal if taken while distracted, hence you carried a machete in your boot.

Once you set foot on your colony’s official territory, you swiftly made your way to your family home capsule, ready to wash off the sorrow and go to bed as you would wait for the next solar to come.

Sadly for you, that hope disappeared the second you made eye contact with someone you didn’t wish to see at the moment.

His eyes caught yours and you saw a mix of emotions: sorrow, understanding, relief and worry, all conveyed to you in a single glance.

You knew what was to come, it was always the same dialogue, but you didn’t want to do this today.

Today you felt drowned, disappointed, you could feel that dark cloud that loomed over your head enlarging day by day.

"You know it’s not s���”

“Save it, Namjoon. I’m not a chil—"

“—But you are a carrying woman, who is walking carelessly to a place where no one can or will follow you.”

“I am not carele—”

“Y/N, shut up for once and put this through your thick skull!! Hendra is enemy territory!!”

And with that he left to his own family capsule, stomping all the way to the door and slamming it closed.

For the first time, you felt different and maybe it had something to do with the fact that Namjoon and your argument didn’t end in the usual monotonous sermon he always gave you, where he remained calm all the way and you rolled your eyes in annoyance.

The funny part about the entire thing was that you were cousins, and your family capsules were right beside each other, so you were sure you’d have to see his sour expression the following day.

Finally in your own capsule - the one you used to share with Hoseok, you took that shower that you daydreamed about and headed to your room.

Just like every night, you muted your room to the outside world, opting to listen to the broadcast of your beloved’s heartbeat.

It was the only thing that helped you sleep at night and somehow you felt as if it pacified the two progenies in you.

You didn’t know when or how it happened, but eventually 365 solars had gone by.

365 solars since the day of his departure and you weren’t getting any better at being without him.

You were now a mother of two. A dawn and a dusk. One born in the early morning and one almost 12 hours later.

So, you gave them names that matched their arrivals to this world, Dawn and Dusk.

All times prior to that day, you felt that once they arrived, there would be this large turning point in your life. That once you had someone who depended on you, your days would start to shift into something brighter, yet somehow, even after the arrival of your children, you felt almost no difference, bordering on saying that you might even felt worse.

Their faces were the perfect mix of your deoxyribonucleic acid and his. Two different beings creating harmony in the body of two newer ones.

Their father had left to give them a better future but, in the process, he had left a broken family behind. It felt incomplete and hollow and somehow you envied the blissful ignorance that your infants currently lived in. Not able to understand the sorrowful life that currently surrounded them.

Another 365 solars went by.

You still listened to Hoseok’s heartbeats every night. The glass recorder remaining as your sole companion in addition to your —now— toddlers.

The night remained quiet. You could barely hear the murmur of voices from the capsule near yours. If you were right, you were sure it was Namjoon and his wife, discussing the plan for retrieving meals for the clan the following morning.

You shifted on the foam mattress that only reminded you more of him. A very faint and almost gone notion of his scent wafting up from what used to be his pillow.

From afar you watched the two small bodies –lying on the second mattress in your room— inhale and exhale deep in their slumber.

They had —just like you— fallen asleep to the beat of the heart of a stranger you placed in front of them and made them call him father.

You loved them, every bit of them. Would do anything for them not to suffer, and maybe just then, in that moment, you understood a bit of Hoseok’s reasoning.

You toss and turn all of a sudden jerking awake from your slumber. You could not recall when you had fallen asleep, so your mind remained disoriented for a short minute, trying to grasp your surroundings. Your heavy eyes roamed around the room, picking up on every detail, the babies were still asleep, the clock read 3AM and the glass recorder wasn’t beating…

THE GLASS RECORDER WASN’T BEATING!

Violently, you pulled the sheets off your body, grabbing the device as soon as your hands were close enough to grab it.

“Why are you not beating? Why are you not broadcasting? What the fu—”

And it hit you like a train… but you didn’t believe it, you couldn’t believe it.

You shook it and twisted the knob and switched it to hologram mode, but it wasn’t working and you didn’t know what to do, your hands were shaking, your thoughts were jumbled…

“This can’t be happening.”

And when a fake solar illuminated your mind, you quickly turned around to plug it in to your old computer, however, the universe had other plans for you and without announcement the device cracked.

You watched it crack little by little, extending all around the recorder, slowly marking the beautiful device with horrible lines that marked its ending, it didn’t stop until it was no longer graspable and all that was left behind was crystal dust in your cupped hands.

You didn’t hear when Namjoon and his wife entered your room or when your kids were taken out of there. Your sobs alerting 3 capsules nearby of the sorrowful occurrence of the night.

It was the worst type of Deja Vu, because just like your mother and father, you’d never see him again…

“Hoseok…”  

Thank you so much for reading part one of this 2 shot! Hopefully it didn’t scare you off for part 2!

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Wilk and Grisha Yeager from Attack on Titan had the same goal: to liberate their races from oppressive regimes. But their parenting styles were radically different. Zeke resented Grisha because Grisha raised him not as a child but as the prince and future savior of Eldia since his birth. Asirpa, on the other hand, remembers Wilk fondly and shows no signs of being raised as a tool and weapon. Why did Noda portray Wilk differently from Grisha as a father and a freedom fighter?

Well...

I’m not really a fan of “Attack on Titan”. I recently tried watching the first series and I loved the animation (I so wish GK could benefit of such an amazing animation!) but, for some reasons, it still didn’t really intrigue me that much even if I could see it was a well constructed story with lot of interesting characters so I ended up stopping there.

Maybe I should give it a second chance when work isn’t draining me.

Anyway, back to your question I can’t really compare Wilk’s raising methods to Grisha‘s because I didn’t manage to see Grisha’s methods yet... but still the answer to your question is pretty simple.

They do things differently because they’re different people/characters written by different authors for different purposes.

Not all the fathers and not all the freedom fighters are the same so it’s not like Noda and Isayama HAD to forcefully represent them as the same. Sure, sometimes in stories authors chose to go for the same tropes, so you meet father figures who act the same but this is not a given. You can also have authors who chose to defy those tropes in favour of different portraials.

Even if we consider GK, who has two fathers who’re also 2 freedom fighters we see how Kiro and Wilk raise their children differently.

Wilk views Asirpa as a future leader of the Ainu and seems to count on her to reach his goal where Kiro wants to be the one who’ll reach his goal for his children.

Wilk started to train Asirpa when she was really young... while Kiro left his children safely at home and didn’t involve them in the gold hunt.

Even in the way in which Kiro and Wilk handle Asirpa they’re different.

Neither of them taught her to kill or encouraged her to do so but Wilk, in chap 137, entrusted her with the task of murdering a bear when she was really small (even though, truth to be told, he was there to cover her back)...

...while Kiro, when they were facing a bear in chap 68, told her to stand back.

Kiro wanted Asirpa to be educated on the minorities outside Japan and to learn about the risks all the minorities were facing as well, where Wilk preferred her to learn about Ainu culture and go to a Japanese school.

This reflects the fact they’ve different views on how to raise children and on how to introduce them to their cause.

They’re not the only ones who, despite being fathers in similar situations, act differently.

Thinks to Ueji’s father and Koito’s father.

Both had a right to be disappointed in their children as they were performing poorly at school but Ueji’s father insisted he was disappointed with him and, officially, gave his dog away so as to force him to focus on his studies where Koito senior instead first let Koito be (probably also due to him suffering depression due to his son’s death) continuing to spoil him without scolding him and then acted supportive when Koito decided to switch from the navy to the army (even though navy and army had poor relations ans this could be a problem for him).

And then we’ve Hanazawa who pressured his son into becoming an idol for the army.

Fathers, and even more characters, come in any flavours in Golden Kamuy. They don’t have to be all the same or follow the same rules because their goals are similar.

So, back to Wilk, I think he loved Asirpa and put value in showing his daughter that love. Maybe he was a loved child, so he learnt to pour love to children from his parents, maybe it was Riratte who influenced him by giving him love.

It’s also clear Wilk wanted Asirpa to be involved in his cause... but I think he also wanted it to be her own choice, not something he forced upon her because there’s nothing that makes you more devoted to a cause that the fact YOU decided for yourself that’s what you want to pursue.

So he gave her an aducation of which she would benefit once she were to decide to become a partisan... but didn’t introduce her to partisans, didn’t pressure her to hate Japanese or educate her to murder people.

Ultimately what Asirpa will do with her knowledge is Asirpa’s choice.

Truth to be told though, Wilk seemed so enamoured with his ideals it could be he believed Asirpa’s choice would come naturally and she wouldn’t need to be forced into it.

It’s hard to say.

It’s also worth to mention that, in truth, we only have small fragments of what Asirpa’s life with Wilk was. As she loved her father and lost it when she was a little above 6 it’s entirely possible that, if she had some unpleasant memories of him, she subconsciously removed them and kept only the good ones.

Long story short it’s really hard to judge how Wilk was as a father because there’s little material and all of it is seen through Asirpa’s eyes.

He clearly came out as an odd father in Ainu’s eyes as the education of Ainu children at the time was very gendered, with the boys going with the fathers and learing how to hunt and the girls remaining with their mothers and learning female works so Wilk, teaching Asirpa how to hunt, surely came out as odd... and he would have looked even odder if it turned out he wanted Asirpa to lead the Ainu... so his actions aren’t just moved by his love for her.

He clearly has a goal for her.

But back to your question what’s interesting though is that his goal for her is not to be a tool or a weapon in his hands, is to be a leader. Somehow Wilk didn’t want Asirpa to be an instrument but the master of her own destiny. If anything he hoped she would surpass him as a partisan warrior and become what he couldn’t be.

The one who would lead Ainu... gaining what he couldn’t get, freedom for the Ainu.

Fathers who view their children as weapons or tools often instead want to be the one who’ll become something or who’ll gain something, with the kids being merely pawns in their games, not masters of their own destiny.

In a way it’s a matter of trust and ambition.

Wilk didn’t aim to lead the Ainu for himself and trusted Asirpa to be able to do a better job than he would, other fathers just want to reach something for themselves and don’t trust their children to be able to reach goal without them ‘leading/directing/using’ them.

We see it in the Hanazawa/Yuusaku relation, where Yuusaku is a pawn, meant to inspire Hanazawa’s troops and not make his father look bad.

And it’s interesting because Ogata too expected Asirpa to be a pawn in Wilk’s game and didn’t quite understand why he hadn’t taught her to kill... whcih Wilk should have done if Asirpa were meant to be just an instrument in his hands.

Wilk instead wanted for her something more than just that.

Said all this, I don’t mean Wilk was an awesome father.

In his love for his own cause he still influenced and directed Asirpa’s growth toward the destination he wanted. It was much lighter manipulation than the one children were normally subjected back then (back then fathers were to chose a child’s future job and, possibly, also who they would marry) but it’s still manipulation.

He might have been blind to it, thinking he was doing it for Asirpa’s well being... but he still forced her in a situation that was pretty dangerous and manipulative.

Long story short I think Wilk wanted to be a good father... but that ultimately he still prioritized his goal over what Asirpa might want in the warped idea Asirpa would surely want the same as him.

But well, that’s just me so I might be wrong.

[mando-chicken]

Dark Fives AU Timeline

The Dark Fives AU is an AU based on the concept of a force sensitive Fives. This will be a general overview of the draft timeline, it may be subject to change as I begin to develop the AU further, but it should give you a general idea of what happens.  

This took me so long to write oof, putting it under a read more to save your dash space!

To begin with, Fives didn’t really see himself as being any different to his other brothers. For the most part he just assumed that everyone had finely tuned senses, and thanks to a bit of a small attention span during his younger years he didn’t really notice when strange things happened.  

Items he’d placed in a certain location would move closer to him and he would just assume that he must have put it closer to himself than he’d originally thought, or he would anticipate something before it happened and just put it down as dumb luck or a funny coincidence. Echo was usually too buried in regs or whatever exercise they were completing to notice these small tells either.  

This advantage in skill over the other cadets was one of the many reasons their squad was fast tracked to their final test at a young age.   

His skills give him an edge during battle and later during ARC training, but for a long while his abilities remain largely dormant.

Fives, occasionally, unconsciously influences the emotions of his brothers when feeling a particularly strong emotion – when he was agitated about failing the test the first time his anger rubbed off onto Hevy and Echo who then began to fight – he’s entirely unaware when he’s doing it, but it seems to effect Echo the most prominently.

When Fives loses Echo his abilities cause almost the entire 501st to plunge into a deep sadness as a wave of depressing emotions crashes over them from Fives. The Jedi notice something is bothering their troops but can’t quite pinpoint it thanks to Fives withdrawing himself from everyone else for a while.  

It’s on Umbara when Fives finally cracks. After all the stress and horror that Krell put them all through he finds himself alone in one of the unused hangars, pacing and muttering angrily to himself. He’s worked himself up and when his emotions reach their peak he can’t help shouting, releasing all of his pent-up emotions at once.  

Everything surrounding him is suddenly all violently throw away from him in all directions and it’s like the floodgates have finally been opened. He can feel the force as it all pours into his mind for the first time, whispering, shouting, screaming at him all at once. His panic only makes things worse; his mind being filled with images, thoughts and feelings of brothers all throughout the galaxy.  

And he can feel them all dying.   

It isn’t until Rex decides to come looking for him almost half an hour later that he’s finally found. Everything within several meters of his person is floating in the air dangerously, but Rex only needs to take one look at the state his vod’ika is in to brave the danger. He’s shaking and finding it impossible to get down enough oxygen, begging for the horrible voices and feelings to get out of his head and leave him alone.  

Rex holds him for what feels like hours, struggling to get through to the distressed trooper and fearful of making the situation any worse than it already is. Eventually, however, Fives is exhausted from his panicking and begins to slowly drift off, calming slightly as he does so. It’s only then that Rex decides to call Kix to give him a once over and is able to get a somewhat shaky explanation.  

They decide that until they can completely confirm what is happening to Fives, they won’t speak to the Jedi, their trust too shaken after killing Krell earlier that very day.  

It becomes very difficult for Fives to hide his abilities after that – clones are used to expressing their emotions with one another, but due to having received no training on force abilities Fives finds almost anything can set off his abilities and it begins to become a bit of a hazard during battle.  

Deciding that he’s becoming a danger to his brothers, Fives begins to experiment with the force during his downtime in the hopes of being able to control his skills. Without instruction on how to use the force he finds himself getting easily frustrated by it, but as a result finds that getting agitated is perhaps the easiest way of getting the force to do as he wishes.  

When Tup attacks a Jedi, Fives senses what he’s going to do just before he does it, but it still unable to reach his brother in time. For a long while afterwards he blames himself for not reacting fast enough, despite all the training he’d been doing with his abilities.  

Much of the arc continues the same way as it is portrayed in the show, up until the final confrontation with the Coruscant Guard. Able to sense Fox’s intention to fire at him, Fives reaches out with the force, throwing back the approaching troopers into the side of the large crates behind them. While none of the Guard are seriously injured by his attack, they are rendered largely unconscious from the strength of the attack.  

Without the Guard to disrupt them, Fives is able to pass on all the information he’d learned from his time on Kamino and from the chancellor. Anakin is still highly skeptical, but with the convincing of Rex he’s willing to at least let them do a little investigating on their own.  

While Anakin and Rex inform the chancellor that Fives was killed during a shootout – alleging that his body was lost when it fell down a nearby shaft to the lower levels – Kix and Jesse are quick to escort their brother to a disused medical facility within the GAR where they can begin some tests. 

Finding the presence of the inhibitor chip is easy enough, but after a lengthy discussion they decide to allow Kix some time to study the chip and try to figure out just how it works. Anakin is very much interested in Fives’ force sensitivity, but unfortunately is unable to find the time to try and help the trooper hone his abilities, especially when the outer rim sieges begin.  

Unfortunately for Fives, he is barred from joining his brothers in battle and forced to remain back on Coruscant by himself, unable to leave certain areas in case he is discovered. During this alone time, he is able to channel his frustration into strengthening his abilities.  

When Echo is saved by Rex, Anakin and the Bad Batch he returns to Coruscant after being informed that Fives is still alive and the two of them are finally able to reunite.  

Anakin is more than angered when Kix later confirms their fears about just what the chips were intended for and he immediately gives the order for the 501st to have their chips removed as subtly as possible.  

When Anakin confronts Palpatine, he brings with him Rex, Fives and Echo (who insists he won’t let Fives go without him). Palpatine is all too happy to admit to everything, deciding that it’s time to try and turn Anakin to the dark side. For the most part he succeeds, but makes the mistake of insulting the gathered clones. What he wasn’t expecting was for one of them to practically throw him across the room with the force. He especially wasn’t expecting his loyal trooper, Fox, to draw his blaster and shoot him squarely through the back.  

Fox is loyal to the chancellor, but his loyalty is to the Republic first and foremost, and there’s no way he can allow someone who has openly admitted to manipulating both his brothers and both sides of the war. He’s never been so happy that people tend to forget his presence in the room.  

Skywalker takes over as chancellor, stating that it was Palpatine’s last act before he died after being gunned down by a ‘rogue bounty hunter’. With a little bit of Echo’s newfound computer skills, they’re able to come up with a flawless video that they show in place of the actual security footage that has already been erased and replaced.  

His first act as chancellor is to free all clones, offering them all rights as full Republic citizens and permanently ending all clone production, passing on the information about the chips to all medics in the GAR. The senate is in uproar over the decision, but there’s nothing they can do about it, Anakin has the entire clone army on his side.  

The Jedi, too, are upset by this development, but they are quickly outlawed and chased from Coruscant. Many of them die, but not as many as in the original purge. Cody assists Obi-wan in leaving Coruscant in secret, but refuses to leave his brothers behind and elects to stay with them in the GAR. During all the chaos the wolfpack and a large portion of the 104th are able to flee Coruscant with their Jedi and several younglings in tow – while no reported sightings are ever confirmed, it’s suspected that they’re all living together somewhere in the outer rim. Many other commanders and captains decide to leave the army, sneaking their Jedi out with them as they go.  

Without Dooku and Sidious to lead them and assist war efforts from behind the scenes the war is brought to a close, taking only a few months longer. The planets and systems that had defected from the Republic are brought back into the fold and quickly after the first Galactic Empire is formed.

The Kaminoans attempt to keep many of the young clones who are yet to be born, but Emperor Skywalker, who has recently become a father himself, refuses to allow these children to be kept as slaves and sends in his men to take them by force. Fives can’t recall a more glorious sight than watching Tipoca City burn, all his brothers safely by his side.  

Anakin takes on training Fives personally and within a few years he is anointed as the first member and leader of their new Imperial Inquisition. He trains force sensitive younglings to use their gifts and even manages to find a few fellow force sensitive brothers who quickly become a part of a tight knit group of fearsome enforcers of the Empire’s will.  

Rex and Cody share the burden of commanding the GAR, and Rex continues to serve as Anakin’s most trusted advisor. Cody on the other hand oversees the training of civillians who hope to join the GAR, ensuring that their skills are sharp enough to be considered for entry. It’s a hard job for them both, but they’re determined to ensure that standards are upkept for both the safety of the Empire and their brothers who chose to continue serving in the army.  

Echo works closely with the special forces, reporting directly to Rex, Cody, and occasionally Anakin. He meets up with the Bad Batch and they quickly become a formidable team and good friends. He of course returns back to Coruscant regularly to meet up with Fives and the two of them often exchange crazy stories from their work.  

[thanksjro]

The Persistence of Loss: More Ghosts Teaching Robots Life Lessons

This is a story written by Mark Stevenson, but it takes place in the Eugenesis continuity. Fun fact: when everything’s fanfic, that means everything’s equally canon! TMUK took advantage of this nodule of wisdom very frequently.

This is running on Microsoft Word in compatibility mode, by the way. No PDFs here.

It’s after the events the Epilogue of Eugenesis, and there’s a thing called “the List” hanging up in the new Autobase. You know, the one that was set up in the fucking concentration camp.

The worst part of this is how many questions are stirred up by the fact this is on printer paper. Where did the paper come from? Does this mean Cybertron has some sort of plant life that could be pulped down and made into paper? Did they bring some from Earth on the Ark?

What the List is isn’t directly stated, but considering the events of Eugenesis, it isn’t hard to guess.

Meanwhile, Bombshell, everyone’s favorite mind-controller and giant bug, is messing around with the Quintesson corpses, utterly fascinated by the way they’re built.

I never covered this in my breakdown, but the little dudes who were flying the Tridents? All those nameless nobodies? They’re hardwired into their controls. There’s no transition from steering to hand or seat to ass, it’s all one and the same.

Swindle is, of course, disgusted by Bombshell’s little distraction, but there’s not much point arguing with a guy like that, especially now that the tentative peace in the wake of the Quintesson invasion is about to be bashed in with a hammer, since Galvatron’s going to be back on Cybertron in the next few hours. Flattop cuts in, saying they’ve got company inbound.

Over at the remains of Delphi, Scourge has decided to have a little alone time, just thinking his thoughts. It’s nice and quiet, the sunset is positively lovely, and he’s honestly probably overdue for some sort of interruption.

Welp, looks like he wasn’t dead after all. I guess he just decided he was going to sit the entirety of the genocide out.

Though maybe he just didn’t realize it was happening, because this Cyclonus really is just stupid as shit. He laughs at a comment Scourge makes, completely forgetting that they’re in the Sonic Canyons, and nearly kills the both of them. Once the danger’s passed, Cyclonus finally asks Scourge what’s bothering him. What a good friend.

Back at Autobase, Rodimus Prime is sad. He’s always sad, but he’s particularly sad right now. We’re still only a couple of days beyond him having woken up, so he probably stopped self-isolating over Kup’s death roughly twenty minutes ago.

He’s currently reflecting on Emyrissus, the Micromaster he sent to assassinate Galvatron, whose death was as awful as it was predictable, or so Rodimus likes to think. He knew Emyrissus was going to die.

You see, this is why Rodimus is a better leader than Optimus is, at least in terms of empathy. He understands that he’s in a position of power, one that can make or break a person’s very life, and that scares the shit out of him. Regardless of Eugenesis Optimus being one from prior the horrendously long war, he was still enough of a figurehead to at least entertain the thought of his being put on a pedestal by those around him.

But no. Instead everyone deserved to die.

Thanks, space dad.

Stevenson, you are playing a dangerous game here-

Mirage and his friends are being ambushed by a group of Decepticons. He’s currently rocking around with Ramhorn and Kick-Off, and they’re currently barricading themselves behind a wall. Ramhorn, being a wildcard, runs out of cover and decides to just go for it. Mirage silently wonders if this is why the Transformers as a race can’t function outside of making war. That thought doesn’t get to the self-reflection stage, however, as he basically says “fuck it” and vaults over the wall himself, though he at least has the bright idea to go invisible beforehand.

Getting back to Scourge’s angst, it would seem that Nightbeat was right on the money about not having hit him with the mind wipe device. Scourge remembered everything, and it's tortured him for the last 27 years- even more if you think too hard about all the time travel. He was fully convinced that after he went through the wormhole, that was it- the Transformers lost, and he had his very own countdown. THAT would be why he blew himself up in Liars, A-to-D.

Now that it looks like everything’s going to be about as okay as it gets on Cybertron, he’s really not sure what to do with his life anymore.

These two fucking idiots have a great big laugh together, to the point where the nearby homeless population wonder if the Quintessons came back. They eventually calm down, and Scourge asks Cyclonus what I’ve been wondering for months: what he did in the Eugenesis Wars.

Over with Rodimus, Kup is at the door.

Alright, let’s see where this goes. I’m betting on hallucination.

Kup enters, closing the door behind him at Rodimus’ request, and comments on the state of the office. It’s positively dreary, and that’s with the inclusion of the window.

Kup seems to be a sort of manifestation of Rodimus’ self-loathing. He should probably see a therapist, but last I heard Rung was over with the Decepticons, and he’s probably the only mental health specialist on the entire planet.

Which makes me wonder why Galvatron hasn’t killed him yet. Guy’s not exactly a fan of therapy.

Kup’s tough love comes from a good place- he can see Rodimus is deep in the rut that is Depression™, and he needs a swift kick in the ass to help him get back on track. I don’t quite think that’s how this works, but something’s got to give, I suppose.

Because you see, Kup’s seen the future, and it ain’t pretty- Star Saber isn’t someone to be trusted, and his whole gang is going to be coming down on Cybertron like sharks smelling blood.

Then again, Kup’s not real, so what does he know?

Rodimus asks what this is all actually about, seeing as Kup always had a reason for showing up for anything. Kup admits that he wants to talk about Emyrissus.

The problem is that things are only going to get harder from here on, as the lines between good and evil are blurred, as the Autobots sink deeper into the dredges of war to try and win this thing. Emyrissus is just the most glaring example at present. Kup opens the door, and Rodimus worries that the Micromaster is going to pop out to join the conversation, but Kup just says that he doesn’t have enough memories of the guy to build him in his head like he can Kup.

Kup tells Rodimus that he needs to learn to let go, and stop blaming himself for everything that’s gone wrong with this war. Then he’s gone.

Rodimus goes to join the troops.

Over with Mirage, things aren’t going so hot. He’s been shot. HIs team members are either too busy to help, or completely AWOL. He scrabbles for his gun- very reminiscent of Liars A-to-D here- only to have someone else’s gun put to his head. It’s Bombshell. Look at the scenes coming together all nice-like!

Bombshell threatens to shoot him, and Mirage is very okay with this plan. He’s hit his nihilism barrier and broken clean through it- what’s the point? All they do is fight, all they do is kill, and one day there won’t be anything left, and all will be lost to time. There’s nothing worth living for anymore.

The postpartum depression is hitting Mirage very hard.

Bombshell recalls the Quintesson soldier, and orders his team to stand down. They won’t be killing anyone today. He promises Mirage that when the war is over, they’ll have a chat, then leaves.

Mirage is, understandably, confused by this.

Back at Autobase, Rodimus is being followed by a smattering of groupies, as he makes his way to the List. By the time he gets there, nearly fifty folks have joined the throng. He figures now is as good a time as any to speak to his troops, and he hops up on a toolbox so everyone can see him.

First and foremost, he tells them that he’s proud of them. Then thanks them for being here with him.

Then he addresses the elephant in the room.

Then Nightbeat pushes through the crowd towards the Prime. He’s fresh off the presses, and he knows what Rodimus was about to do to the List. He knows, and he encourages it.

With a flourish, Rodimus Prime rips the List off of the wall, and everyone bursts into applause.

Finally getting back to Cyclonus’ deal, it turns out he was buried under Darkmount the whole time. Bit anticlimactic, that. With the Mystery of the Missing Cyclonus solved, the two decide to go get plastered at Maccadam’s, and also maybe stab a few people. Good times.

Meanwhile, off-world, Great Shot enters the office of Star Saber, and they join in the long-standing tradition of talking shit about Old Cybertron. Star Saber is less than impressed with the Autobots, and how they got their asses kicked by a bunch of guys that look like flying eggs. Still, helping them out gives him something to do, and that something is rebuilding Old Cybertron into the gleaming, perfect image of New Cybertron.

And then there’s a quote directly ripped from Hitler himself, to really sell you on the fact that Star Saber is a Bad Fucking Dude.

The end!

This will most likely be the only non-Roberts Eugenesis-related work I’ll be looking at. There are others, but they’ve been lost to time. Also, they’re not really why I’m doing this, so… yeah.

Up next…

Huh.

Guess I’ll start on the professional stuff.

[mars-the-4th-planet]

Penny is short for Pennsylvania, a fictional city-state in the dystopian book "the land without a king".

"That is ridiculous homie." One Atlas soldier said to the other, wiping grime off his armor. "You really think they named Penny after one of the places in those books?"

"Nah just trying to lighten the mood. I've been fighting all week man. First in Vale, now out here against Grimm. The only good part would be is that we are doing it with Penny out here with us but she seems down and out today."

"At least our kings reached a truce so they could fix penny up and put her backpack thing back on."

"I heard they needed a welder for it."

"Yeah I gave em mine."

"Bro why did you have a welder?"

"Long story."

The soldiers marched around the village in the woods, making sure no more of the flying Grimm were hiding and waiting to strike. Penny Polendina was with them, equally dirty but mostly unharmed. It had been a rougher fight in which flying Grimm had stormed her but had been unable to do more than thrash her across the ground before her swords lacerated them. Penny had most of the Grimm kills in that battle, as usual.

The truce had come about quickly, and a deal was made that Atlas forces would help defend against the ensuring Grimm attack and then leave and not return to Vale without permission. In return, Vale royalty agreed to release Penny. They didn't want her to be destroyed in the first place. A new law was quickly put in place that robotics with artificial intelligence were protected by a right to trial by jury like humans were, and that non-intelligent robotics were to be returned to their respective kingdoms if captured.

The battle between Vale and Atlas had lasted less than a day, but it had been severe enough that the troops and huntsmen of the two kingdoms fought the Grimm seperately instead of together as a team. Enmity between the two peoples was strong, and would be for many years to come.

Because of this, and the fact that so many people had fought and died for her sake, Penny Polendina was sad, practically depressed. She did not feel worth that much suffering. No matter how many Grimm she killed, she could not make up for her lost Atlesian comrades who gave their lives to defend her. Nor could she, despite being so powerful, bring them back. She sat down under a tree and watched bugs, not knowing what more to do.

WHAP!

A zooming red bolt of bisexual and roses slammed into Penny with enough force to knock her to the side. "PENNYYY! YOU'RE ALL RIGHT!" Ruby Rose yelled and squeezed her favorite robot. "I was looking for you so much!!"

Penny hugged her friend back and put her down next to her. "Thank you ruby my friend. But I am not all right." Penny said sadly, twitching her cat ears.

Ruby looked her up and down. "You seem undamaged Penny? Is something wrong?"

The robot girl looked Ruby in the eyes. "Yes. So many people fought to the death for me Ruby. I can't go on knowing how much blood is on my hands. I am a protector, it is in my programming to minimize the amount of allied casualties, but on that day I was the cause for them. There is tension and anger between two kingdoms because of me... I... I'm not worth it!! All I do is go from one place to the next leaving hurt behind. Ruby, I don't think I should continue being activated. I should be turned off and put in a box until the next attack by Grimm or criminals or whoever, and after that go back in the box again. I am too dangerous and too easily fought over, I don't want to be a pain on the human species any more."

Penny put her face in her hands and started to make sad low-pitch boops in rapid succession, which was a way for her to sort of cry. Ruby wanted to comfort her so bad, but she was not sure how. Still, being Ruby, she tried her best.

"Penny... I... I know they only did it because they loved you, and I love you too. You deserve the world. And those who would take you away from us deserve to be fought as hard as we can fight. And I... I would give my life for yours too! No regrets!"

Ruby kissed Penny on the cheek, but this was not the right response. Penny just felt more guilty. "No-! Ruby, you can't die for me! I am just a machine!"

"Penny wait!"

But it was too late, Penny ran off. Ruby used her semblance to zoom after her.

....

Later, that night, team rwby had caught up to their leader and were gathered around Penny in the Atlas soldiers camp. Each member was sitting cross legged and Penny was laying down like a board in the middle between them. They each began talking to her at once.

"Penny, you don't need to feel guilty about what happened. It was an escalation of violence, it's not your job to make humans behave rationally and calmly. If anything it was that judges fault for endangering." Said Weiss.

"Yes, and you were just defending yourself against Arianna. Although you probably should have put less energy into those lasers." Said Yang.

"Are we not going to talk about the wolf faunus named Rabies or..." Said Blake. "Oh fine. Penny, you are an important ally of Atlas and they should have known that you should have been handed over to Ironwood first thing. Jacques Schnee is a horrible man, and he's not even a citizen of Vale he's from Atlas! Which means even more that you should have been given back to Atlas! That judge must have been corrupt or something."

"I love you Penny, and I want you to be happy more than anything!" Said Ruby.

With each team member having said things to Penny, she looked up at them. "Sorry, I have to pee. Can I go?"

"I don't know can you- wait that's impossible." Yang answered for them. "So no you can't."

"What do you mean?" Penny wiggled her cat ears in confusion. "I need to go for a minute, it won't take that long."

"But..." Ruby said, puzzled. "You're a synthetic person."

"Yes, I am a synthetic person Ruby my friend! But I too must take a minute in private to process information sometimes."

"I have several questions." Said Yang.

Weiss asked one first. "Can't you process anything in milliseconds? I mean you're a robot..."

Penny shook her head. "With most things that is true, but synthetic persons like me are not so good at certain things. Like dealing with a social and moral sensory overload. My computational abilities do not cover that very well, so like I said I need time to process things just like humans do sometimes. You are all making me think difficult concepts for me, and if I do not take a break and try to address it immediately, I sometimes act weird or buggy. Like when me and Ruby were-"

Penny thankfully cut herself off before explaining further. "So may I go?"

"Sure I guess you may Penny... But... That's not what peeing is."

Penny looked more confused. "What is it then, friend Ruby?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

Weiss answered for her. "It's the reason why some things that are normally white can be yellow, like snow or Yangs hair."

Yang rolled her eyes and Blake growled and creeped off muttered "There's a lot to see in this life, not wasting it here."

"Oh man..."

"What? You guys joke all the time!"

"There is a time and a place for jokes."

"You sound like professor oak! What, is this not it?"

"No, it just wasn't very good."

"Speaking of Professor Oak," said Ruby. "Weiss are you a boy or a girl?"

"Hehehe I think even oak could tell that I'm a woman."

Yang winked. "I don't know, maybe Ruby should... Check?"

"That joke is way worse than mine Yang!" Weiss pouted. Ruby meanwhile blushed.

Penny returned. "Thank you for being patient friends. I am told that peeing is a very private thing, as you do not want to interrupt your friends processing from a stressful social situation and make them feel even more awkward right?"

"Yea... Totally..." Ruby agreed, deciding not to correct her robotic friend/gf.

Join us next time for what Roman and Neo have gotten up to!

[haberdashing]

Honor

This is an Endgame-based fic; major Endgame spoilers lie ahead. If you haven’t seen Endgame, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

This is a canon divergence AU, the point of divergence being a few minutes before the movie’s end.

During the aftermath of the final battle with Thanos, Thor makes a decision about what path he should follow next.

also on AO3

Thor wasn’t the one to ease the makeshift gauntlet off of Tony’s arm after the battle was done, after Tony was done. Thor wasn’t close enough to Tony for that, either physically or emotionally. Tony was a friend of Thor’s--a friend from work, he supposed, the same words that Thor had once used to describe another fellow Avenger when their paths happened to cross--but that was all.

Thor stood in the background and watched as those who knew Tony better, who would feel his absence much more strongly than Thor ever would, took over. Thor didn’t help move Tony’s body, didn’t participate in the discussion of funeral arrangements, but he still overheard as others made plans for the gauntlet itself, plans to return the Infinity Stones to their rightful place in the timeline.

Thor couldn’t help but mentally compare Tony’s story, Tony’s actions, to his own. Technically, both of them had killed Thanos, but Tony was the only one who deserved real credit for it, though Thor’s drunken self had tried to milk his belated kill for all it was worth once before. The similarities between the two, though, ended there.

Tony had spent the five years after the Decimation building a life for himself, building a family for himself, moving on and making the most of things in a damaged but all-too-real world.

Thor had spent the five years after the Decimation depressed and alcoholic, hiding from his own people when they needed a leader the most, wallowing in grief and guilt and self-hatred, refusing to even speak or hear the name of the one who had caused the world (including but certainly not limited to Thor himself) such immense pain.

Thor hadn’t even agreed to join the plan to fix things, to prevent the damage that Thanos had caused, until he was promised access to alcohol along the way.

He was in a sorry state, wasn’t he?

And to think, five years ago he had thought that he was ready to lead his people to their new life in Midgard, on Earth. He had lost an eye like his father before him, and what he had lost in literal vision he thought he had regained in metaphorical vision, ready to guide his people to a new life in a new home.

Thor knew better now, though. He had his missing eye back, and with it he could see reality that much more clearly.

He didn’t deserve to be the king of Asgard, not when he had failed both Asgard and the rest of the world by not taking out Thanos when it mattered most, by only succeeding in carrying out that kill when it was too late for Thanos’ death to make any real difference.

Valkyrie had been in a state not unlike Thor’s own for some time, drinking to numb the pain of losses that could never be reversed, but when New Asgard was grieving she had done worlds more for them than Thor had. As a plan for how to make things right was starting to fit together in Thor’s head, he went to Valkyrie and told her that she was the one who deserved to lead the people of New Asgard now, that he would be leaving and handing over his reign to her. She seemed surprised, but Thor knew it was right, Thor knew it was the best move he could make given the circumstances.

After that conversation, as a vast number of mourners prepared for Tony’s funeral, ready to pay their respects to a hero who had given his life to save the rest of the universe from obliteration, Thor tried his best to avoid attention as he sneaked off to carry out his latest plan. He wasn’t a fan of sneaking around--that was generally the modus operandi of his brother, the other person whose name Thor had refused to say or hear for five years and counting, not the modus operandi of Thor himself--but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Security was surprisingly lax around the Infinity Stones and the Iron Man gauntlet that now held them, given that they could do, well, just about anything, but Thor supposed that people had other things on their mind as Tony’s funeral drew near, and that people had assumed nobody would dare to touch the gauntlet now that the world had seen the toll it took on its user.

The gauntlet didn’t quite fit Thor, pinching in several places as Thor eased his hand inside it, a reminder that the gauntlet had been made to fit a hand that wasn’t Thor’s own. But he wasn’t going to let a small detail like that stop him.

As Thor prepared to do what he had set out to do, he pictured in his mind’s eye the face of Pepper and Morgan Stark as they had watched Tony die. Pepper had been better at putting on a brave face than Morgan, but then, Pepper had had years of experience in doing so. Being close to Tony Stark required a level of bravery in and of itself, Thor supposed.

Tony Stark had a family that would miss him for the rest of their lives. Thor couldn’t say the same about himself.

Tony wasn’t the only one Thor had set out to save, though. There were other losses that could be reversed, other losses that deserved to be reversed. Half the people of Asgard, slaughtered by Thanos and his troops on their way to their new home on Earth. Heimdall, who had died as he had lived, an honorable man doing his best to serve the people of Asgard.

And Loki, whose death wasn’t quite so honorable, but who was worth saving just the same.

Thor wondered if Loki would mourn for him. It was a strange concept, Loki grieving over Thor, or Loki grieving in general, really. Loki certainly hadn’t seemed especially distraught over the death of either of their parents. Admittedly, Loki’s relationship with their parents had been... complicated, even more so than Thor’s own. But Thor supposed that his relationship with Loki could well be described as complicated, too.

Thor had mourned Loki, though. Thor had grieved for his brother more than once, in fact, had anguished for some time over deaths both real and false. Perhaps it was only fitting that Loki would now get to learn how grieving for one’s brother feels.

Thor had theorized before that he would be able to handle the power of the Infinity Stones better than the other Avengers because he was an Asgardian, because lightning coursed through his veins, but after Thor snapped his fingers, as a sharp and overwhelming pain surged from his hand and through his arm into his entire being, Thor was pretty sure that none of that made a difference. Thor was feeling the same pain as Tony had felt when he had saved the world, and Thor was going to die the same way that Tony had, sacrificing himself for the sake of the greater good.

Thor could think of no higher honor.

[amilynh]

Okay, let’s try this again. I’d love a DVD commentary on Leia and Hera’s conversation in “War Orphans.”

Excerpts included from “War Orphans.” [I hope you’re happy...this is longer than the fic itself...  LOLOLOL!]

Before she even touched him, the princesspulled him away, holding more tightly if anything. “I’ve got him,”she snapped.

“I’m so sorry–”

“Don’t.”

I knew from the time I got the promptthat I desperately wanted to see Hera and Leia interact, and I used Jacen asthe catalyst, having Hera need to do a job and Leia casually volunteer to watchJacen (to everyone’s surprise and Hera’s embarrassment).  I did a bunch of assembling ofinformation…that Hera is about 10 years older than Leia, that Leia (likeLuke) is only about 3 days younger than Ezra, and that neither of them has everlived in a time where the galaxy was not at war (even though there is a lull inopen hostilities on the Core Worlds after the rise of the Empire).  We knew by the time I wrote this that Leiaand Hera were both on Yavin IV, that Hera flew at the Battle of Scarif, thatshe was likely to have been on Yavin again when Han and Luke returned from theDeath Star was a Super Compartmentalizing Leia, and that Hera flew against thesecond Death Star.

I thought quite a bit about how wellthese two women would know each other, and I decided that they would know eachother by name, reputation, and from planning meetings, but that, sadly, sincethey move in different circles–by social standing and, in particular, by rolein the Rebellion–they wouldn’t be friends.

I believe Leia was prickly from themoment she was captured on the Tantive IV until, well, after Han’s rescue fromTatooine.  I think that was most noticeablein the period between her imprisonment on the Death Star and the evacuationfrom Hoth; I think Leia was just…existing then, and I think that the Leia weseen in ESB very much did not expect to survive the war.  In many ways, I think she considered herselfa dead girl walking; she’d cheated death already (on the Death Star, by notbeing on Alderaan, in countless raids and on countless missions, in dodgyspacecraft….) and everyone she’d ever loved died in front of her eyes aftershe’d been relentlessly tortured.  I thinkher prickliness is entirely a self-protection mechanism…and a side-effect ofher depression, survivor’s guilt, rage, grief, and single-minded vendetta againstthe Empire.

I liked having everyone surprised at hervolunteering to take care of Jacen because ALL of the above would lead anyoneto believe that the workaholic princess who is the Face of the Rebellionwould…be too busy, not like kids, have no capacity to deal with a child’semotions, etc.  However, I believe Leiais 100% a pragmatist, and if Hera was more needed in the air than Leia was inCommand?  She’d volunteer in aninstant.  I do think, although she doesn’tthink this way about herself, that Leia believed in the need to keep in mindwhat they were fighting for:  children,customs, loved ones.  Leia only eschewedthose because hers are all already gone; she doesn’t HAVE anything left to livefor when she thinks about after the war (not yet…)…but Hera does, and Leiacan safeguard that. 

Even so, she’s prickly with anyone whosees her “weaknesses,” and with anyone who questions her.  Having her refuse to hand over Jacen, havingher refuse to accept comfort or sympathy from Hera…she can’t.  She just absolutely cannot let anyone touchthe depths of her grief, not even kindly. She packed it all away before comforting Luke, before saying “We have notime for our sorrows,” looooong before this, and she’s not about to look intothat box herself; I believe she feels, at this point before ESB, that if sheever looked–really looked–at the gaping, yawning maw of grief that is thedestruction of Alderaan…she would never, in her mind, recover or climb backout of that chasm.  Grief that great isbottomless and it’s daunting to look at. So, here, she has this child with her who fears losing his parents theway she has already lost hers, this child who never saw and will never seeAlderaan, this child who reasonably could die or lose his mother (as he’salready lost his father even before his birth), this child who is already makingmilitary plans because that is what his entire life is immersed in…and theutter trust in a child who will ASK Leia if his mommy is going to die(something Jacen can’t ask *Hera*…), and to whom she couldn’t bring herselfto give a harsh answer to (because, let’s face it, we’ve seen Leia with Wicket:she’s a sucker for kids), but to whom she can’t quite fully outright LIE…andyet…she might be wrong.  And so thiskid melds into her, sobbing, and falls asleep on her **like she’s a realperson**…not a princess or a leader or a figurehead or a mascot…and all ofthose things she has tucked away…she can’t deny their realty as they press ather in the form of a warm little kid, treating her like the kind of real personSHE can no longer see herself as.  And,of course, a kid who is openly grieving and crying over the very losses andfears that Leia tries to pretend she doesn’t notice in herself…that’s a toughsituation NOT to cry in.  And I reallywanted Leia to dissolve into that emotional place she denies herself for thefirst three years of time in which we know her.

Then Hera comes in and sees her, sees theversion of her that NO ONE WILL SEE, DAMMIT…the version of her she tuckedaway and boxed up deep inside herself when Vader was rifling through hermind…and it is almost as much of an intrusion as the torture…or so it seemsin that first moment.  And NO WAY is shegoing to hand off the child who is her one tether, her one lifeline in thatmoment, and the catalyst for her own emotional outlet: the ONE person who hasever treated her Just As Leia in the past 2+ years (without the weight of allthe knowledge of the Death Star and Alderaan and Who She Is and What She StandsFor…because Han treats her Just As Leia, too, but he does so as someone who onlyknows Post-Alderaan Leia)…because Jacen knows Bail is dead, that it wasbecause of the Empire, but, to him, it’s just a simple fact without the WEIGHTthat is attached for the adults.  So Leiasnaps at the poor kid’s mother.

“It was no trouble. You hadimportant work to do.” Leia swallowed audibly. Breathed. Breathed again.She gestured to the scattered toys. “He’s going to be a great general,like his mother and grandfather. He planned an entire assault on that tooka ofhis.” Her voice grew less damp with each word.

“Princess, I can take him if…” Heraleft the offer hanging.

Leia tightened her grip on Jacen. “It’sLeia,” she said, voice even. Her small, gloved hand stroked Jacen’s back.“I got him to call me Leia. You should too.”

Then Leia starts to try and pull herselftogether:  act like a Princess, act likea Diplomat, comment on someone’s skills, give an assessment, give orders. Shestill can’t let go of this child, but she can put her façade back together, onecool, calm compliment at a time.  And,simultaneously, I want so much for Leia to have some *women* around her, so sheopens herself up, just a tiny bit, by encouraging a first-name relationshipbetween her and Hera.  I think Leianeeded women around her so badly, and Hera, along with Shara Bey, are two ofthe few named women we knew were part of the Rebellion at this stage.

Leia peered around Jacen’s head thenleaned back. “Your son led his troops to victory over his tooka. Then heheld up three X-wings told me, ‘These ones died fighting the Empire. Like mydaddy.’”

“Why would you tell him that?” Leiademanded.

But…that leads straight back to the cruxof the matter…who this child is, what he knows, who this child’s parents are,and the reality of being a child who knows their parents might die at any timebecause, well, just like Leia and Hera, Jacen has already lost a parent to theEmpire, too.  And Leia, who is AllPragmatism, oh, she Just Cannot with the idea that this child might know fartoo much, even though it IS pragmatic and realistic.  She has this momentary break with her abilityto can because can’t they have just one thing that is not touched by theEmpire?  Can’t there be SOMETHING that theEmpire hasn’t tainted?

“After he said his father died, hesaid, 'Like your daddy.’ Why would you tell him that?”

And to make things worse, Jacen knowsabout Bail…he knows SO MUCH MORE than he should, and Leia, used to being the subjectof gossip, can only assume that someone is talking about her EVEN WITH THISCHILD.  So, as much as she admiresGeneral Syndulla’s piloting and leadership skills, part of the reason she won’trelinquish this child is that she now has serious reservations about the otherwoman’s judgement in terms of parenting skills. AND she feels that, not only has Hera seen her cry, seen her “weak,” butif Hera will gossip to her small child, what else might Hera tell about thiswhole day…Leia babysitting, Leia crying in a distant tunnel…  And, of course, when Hera, who sees that thisis a manifestation of the Force, starts to say so, it sounds like the worstkind of assumption-making and victim-blaming, and Leia goes right back on thedefensive…and lets one of her most closely-held secrets slip in the process.

“I didn’t tell him anything,”Hera said. “It’s possible someone else did, but I think it was you.”

Leia turned, her eyes flashing and dangerous.“I told him nothing of the kind.”

“I don’t think you,” Hera paused,bit her lip. “I don’t think you told him on purpose.”

“You think I just accidentally let slipto a toddler that the Empire blew up my entire planet before my eyes?”

They’d made her watch, Hera realized. Becauseof course they did.

One of the questions that I like to askpeople for their head canons about is, “Who do you think knows that they madeLeia watch the destruction of Alderaan…and when do you think they learnedabout it?”  In my head, it’s Han, Luke,and (probably) Carlist Rieekan, and (probably) Mon Mothma.  I don’t actually think that Hera is on thatlist in canon (even my personal canon), but the idea of having her find outhere was tantalizing, and gave me the chance to talk more about how much thesetwo women, these two mothers (one current in the story and one, at the time ofthe story, a future mother), these two leaders…how MUCH they have in common, and,simultaneously, how differently those similarities have presented.  This is particularly and additionallypoignant given that it’s possible that Jacen might have been among the Jedistudents slaughtered by a four- or five-years-younger Ben Solo, which wouldeven more horribly link their stories. But this line “because of course they did,” is one of my favorites.  I like giving Hera the information notbecause Leia made a decision, but because she’s ripped open, and although she’sreconstructing her shields and walls…she hasn’t got them really working, andshe forgets to filter herself.  I likehaving Hera’s stomach drop because she knows…she KNOWS how the Empire works;she’s been tortured by them too, as was Kanan, as have been others Hera knowsand loves…and yet, she was a) too preoccupied to think about this at the time(see: having a baby) and b) this is pretty low even for the Empire.  But Hera, like most of the Rebellion, doesn’treally believe ANYTHING is too low for the Empire, and although she hadn’tactively thought about what must have happened, I know that she wouldimmediately recognize that OF COURSE.

Leia scoffed. “Luke doesn’t even knowthat. I never told him. And he says he can’t see into people like that.”

“Kanan could.”

Leia scoffed. “If Darth Vader couldn’tget something out of my head, I doubt–”

“You had to protect yourself fromVader.” Hera had no idea how Leia–a kid Ezra’s age–had managed that, butapparently she had, and without the Force. Hera shook away the thought. The wellof feeling there was too deep. Focus, Hera. “Not many people feel aneed to protect themselves from a 3-year-old.”

I wanted Leia to be on such a tear that shedidn’t even realize until after she blurted it out that she was giving more informationto Hera than she’d probably given even to High Command…and certainly morethan she speaks of.  I want so much forLeia to have more people who KNOW how badly she’s been hurt, and who will talkwith her or listen to her or give her a place to crash, judgement-free, if sheneeds.  I want her to have comfortingwomen around her…and for them to do that well…they need to know things thatLeia Organa Very Much Does Not Talk About.  As I questioned how Jacen could get past Leia’s(impressive) shields, I realized AS Hera was about to say it that, well, ofCOURSE Leia wouldn’t be powering up Super Shields around a 3-year-old…and Ireally liked getting to let Hera say that, letting Hera remind Leia that thereis nothing WRONG with her, that different circumstances call for differentresponses.  

I also liked lampshading Leiahaving the Force by having Hera (who, again, is FAR too concerned and FAR toopreoccupied to examine it closely…and FAR too impressed by this amazing youngwoman) think about how it seemed odd and even unlikely that Leia could have enduredthat kind of extended torture without giving something up AND without the Forceto use as part of her self-defense. Little does Hera know that Leia WAS using the Force…just unconsciously(another of my headcanons) and passively; if it were otherwise, Vader would havesensed it.  There is nothing I love morethan Force-using Leia, so I had to have at least a hint at it, even though itdoesn’t fit in this story to have it be explored more fully…of course, this also allowed me to highlight how LITTLE they know about the Force.  EACH of them has known next to NO ONE who is Force Sensitive and all of what they know about what is possible is from that limited, limited source.

Leia chuckled mirthlessly. “If you heardHigh Command, you might see otherwise. When Shara Bey’s son was born, you’dhave thought an acid lizard had got loose on base.”

This line was merely because I wanted tomake a joke about High Command being FREAKED OUT about having babies/childrenaround…even though it’s the reality of a rebellion this size; they MUST allowchildren in order for their parents to be able to be there…but it doesn’tmean that these folks who still remember and want to restore the Republic are*comfortable* with that.  Of course, tothat end, I spent 2-3 hours searching for a critter that is canonical and thatI could use as an example of what they’d imagine might have got loose in thebase.

I really enjoyed having Leia’s hard-edgedvoice that could cut transparisteel, the description of Jacen asking if, sinceLeia’s mama died in the war, if that meant his mama would die; that is kidlogic, and I still like it.  I likedhaving them end up crying together.  Iliked having Leia point out what Hera feels she should have known…but whatJacen has been hiding from her…and I like that both women understand thatthere is no alternative, no way to honourably pretend they don’t know thesethings because, well, they are simply real, and no grief or fear from any ofthem or this toddler can change the fact that they are both utterly committedto this being the only option: to fight.

Leia’s jaw hardened. “Don’t you daredie.” Her eyes bored into Hera’s. That glare was sharp in a way thatreminded Hera of Kanan.

Hera nodded.

“Just…don’t you dare. I promised him Iwouldn’t let you die.”

“I always fly to come home.” It hadto be enough. It was all she had.

“Fly safe, General Syndulla. Don’tmake me a liar.”

And then I loved getting to drop anotherhint–that fiercely sharp otherworldly stare of Leia’s that reminds Hera ofKanan–about Leia’s Force sensitivity. ANYTHING I can do to play with that makes me happy.  And I love Leia exacting a promise from Herathat Hera can no more keep than Leia can keep her promise to Jacen.  Of course…there is a little more to thosepromises than there would be without the Force behind them…but it is just alittle when the Greater Good of the Force is flowing toward the destruction ofthe Empire.  I know, of course, that Herasurvives the second Death Star assault, so I like planting this conversation,knowing that it will turn out well, but knowing that it is fraught for both ofthem.  

I love this scene and this story somuch.  Thank you for asking about it!

[sirro85-blog]

Lieutenant Dale Luttig blessed his old man for making him learn how to fix the communications array as it hummed back into life, wherever Dad was now Dale was quite sure he'd be giving that slow steady nod, the closest he ever came to praise.

"Hello!?" A voice crackled over the radio.

"Hello, is anyone still out there? Is anyone still fighting, this is Corporal James Dubrovic of the Planetary Defence Constabulary to all human forces, we have wounded, we have women and children, there are civilians and elderly here...we are experiencing stronger and more aggressive attacks on our position and we cannot hold...over."

Dale snatched up the mouth piece and depressed the button, "James, it's Dale, son have you heard from any of the others? Over."

"Lieutenant? Am I glad to hear from you, no, the sergeant went quiet 5 minutes before we lost comms, but now comms are back I think that means a rescue ship might be here!..over."

"Sorry son, that was me, have you seen what's happened to the positions they captured?"

"Prisoners I think, getting led away...what are they Lieutenant?"

"They're called the Garax James and they're probably raiding which means it's off to the slave pens if they catch you. The normal defences we rely on won't work on them, this planet isn't earth-safe, it neither gets warm nor cold enough and the weather doesn't get extreme enough. It's gonna be on the PDC to stop them. Over"

"I'd heard Garax were like crocodiles, these things are more like...iguanas," a pause, "over."

"Not a priority now son, can you get to the central command hub? How many of the PDC are left? Over."

"Yes, it'll take time though, we have wounded and elderly, there's 4 PDC, total 20 of us-over"

Dale heard a noise but when he turned could see nothing, 20!? Of 350!? the Garax had slaughtered PDC easily, 5 of them was never going to be enough to hold the remaining defences, "head to the centre son, we'll hold them there. Out"

Dale started to make his way to the command post, keeping an eye out for Garax raiders; the Garax had swept down onto the planet's small colony, and the PDC armed with little more than side arms and shock sticks had little to no chance of withstanding them.

Dale realised he was being stalked just in time to dive for cover, the wall above his head exploded as a blast hit it. Dale wished he'd made it another 100m, he could have bottle necked them and bought the others some time, here all he was was a distraction. He stared at his side arm and thought about his dad, time to earn another nod he thought.

His first round ricocheted off the lead Garax's helmet snapping it's head back and the second round took it in the throat. The Garax returned fire with their hand cannons the wall he'd initially dived behind cracked and shattered. He covered his head as he crawled further into the room, looking desperately for more cover.

"Hell of a shot that, these fuckers have body armour that takes some beating." Shouted a human voice.

"Who is that? Who, who's out there?" Whoever it was was standing in a corridor with at least 8 Garax warriors.

"Names Kovac, Major Kovac of the Dark Horses, we caught your distress signal, you wanna come out?"

Dale had heard of the Dark Horses, mercenaries and some of the toughest bastards in the galaxy by all accounts. He stood and hesitantly edged out of cover, in the corridor stood roughly 12 humans, armed and armoured in an older style than the modern soldiers Dale saw occasionally. No two weapons appeared identical and they all seemed to have a different set of kit hanging from belts or packs but even their ragtag appearance seemed to feed the air of professionalism they gave off.

A tall man approached him, younger than he had expected he loomed over Dale, "Kovac, anyone else with you?"

"Lieutenant Dale Luttig, PDC, no sir I came out alone to fix the comms," Dale stared up at Kovac, he was early 30s but from what he could see of his hair beneath the helmet it was white naturally or prematurely he couldn't say.

"That was you? Good job lieutenant, we heard the conversation as we were dropping in but we didn't want to alert the Garax, I've got one team heading out to the northern section to see why half the Garax troops are out there, Captain Becca here is getting me to your central command hub and my third unit is about to cut off the Garax from their ships, arrogant fucks have barely left them defended. Is there anything else you can tell me?"

Kovac pronounced it "lefftenant" in the military way, Dale turned as the Captain introduced herself, she was another giant, 6 foot but still small beside Kovac who must stand at 6'6" and was heavily built to go with it, "uhh, no sir, sorry, I can't explain the North, unless they've found a group of survivors."

"No problem Lieutenant, Captain if we're ready?"

"Sir, Ocampo! Aova'a! on point lead us out." Two soldiers pushed on past those in sentry and the group started to move.

"Major, is it possible, can I head out to the northern section? If my family are anywhere they'll be out there!" Dale asked suddenly, "there will be other PDC in the command to answer any questions you need."

The Major paused and then signalled the Captain, "of course Lieutenant, I'll send two of my men to get you there." He looked down the line and signalled, "Assem, Buckets, you two take the Lieutenant here to Captain Wolf, once you get him there see if Wolf needs any supplies, he's reporting heavy resistance."

They met up with Captain Wolf less than 10 minutes later, there were signs of recent combat but no living Garax in sight, Captain Wolf gave Dale a perfunctory greeting but then turned to Buckets, "if you two can get me more ordinance, ammo and water the dust is choking the further put we go."

Buckets nodded and he and Assem headed out into the gathering gloom.

"Captain, you can filter the dust through a cloth," Dale explained pulling his own face covering out of his neck and over his mouth and nose.

Wolf stared at him a moment and then smiled, "good advice Lieutenant it's cold here, I never thought to use desert wear, Shemaghs out you lot!"

Around him the soldiers covered their heads with scarves and adjusted their helmets. Wolf turned to Dale, "one last building up ahead, got maybe a dozen of them in there, they tried to rabbit when we first got to them but they hadn't counted on Richards and Hemmings here, these two are the best shots in the Squad. You had family out here?"

"My mother, wife and kids are off planet now, but mum lived in North section," he closed his eyes a moment, "if she's not on a slave ship she's here."

"Knickers! Cover the Lieutenant here, keep him hole free while we get this last group our of here."

A slender, grim looking woman of indeterminate age walked up and nodded at him, then turned away slightly.

"This is knickers, don't let her care free attitude fool you she's the best I've got."

Dale tried a smile that was met with no reaction.

"Tragic, born with no sense of humour," Wolf said with a smile.

Dale wanted to ask how she got her incongruous nickname but looking at her grim face he decided he wasn't brave enough.

The two stood back watching the Garax position get rolled, Dale knew little of war but just seeing these soldiers cycle their weaponry and how they performed each of their tasks told him he was amongst some consummate professionals. As soon ass the last Garax was captured Dale saw the soldiers start to reload and restock, the position was secured and those with any injuries were dressing them.

A tall man with a heavily scarred face introduced himself as Sergeant "Fluke" Glover, he explained there was a hostage situation and the Captain would appreciate his help.

A few minutes later he was explaining the layout of the warehouse to the Captain.

The Captain walked out to meet the Garax leader his four remaining soldiers with the line of hostages with Knickers, Dale and another soldier in support. Communication was limited as the Garax were more interested in paying insults than any negotiation. Wolf refused to consider single combat and smiled through the worst of the insults insisting that he would only do so if the Garax gave up the hostages when they lost. More insults were paid and then the Garax gave a signal, one human an elderly man Dale did not recognise was pushed out of line and without any warning the Garax executed him.

Dale stared as the man fell to the floor, Knickers had raised her rifle and dropped to a knee and the other soldier was pointing his rifle at the lead Garax. Wolf had gone very still.

"I accept the challenge," Wolf said.

The Garax gave a hiss of pleasure and strode forward unlimbering what looked like a medieval battle-axe as it did so. Wolf calmly walked forward to meet it. When they were less than a dozen yards apart the Garax swung the axe as though warming up, Wolf paused. It occurred to Dale just as Wolf began to move again that neither Knickers nor her counterpart on his left had lowered their rifles, it happened in the blink of an eye, one moment Wolf was edging to his right and the next he had drawn his side arm and unleaded a volley of shots into his opponent's chest, at the same time four shots rang out. Hemmings and Richards had reached their position.

Dale stared at the soldiers around him, Knickers, the unnamed soldier, Hemmings and Richards had all fired within a heartbeat of the Captain firing. "You agreed to single combat," he said, a little stunned.

"Single combat?" Wolf's voice dripped scorn, "we're soldiers not boys playing games."

Dale busied himself with checking the hostages, none of them seemed hurt, just scared and shocked, none of them had seen his mother. He became aware that the soldiers were getting ready to move again, and hurried over to Wolf. The captain glanced past him causing Dale to turn, once again dour faced Knickers stood behind him.

"Major secured your central command, Captain Dorman has freed the captive on the ships." Wolf gave a vague gesture, "other than a few prisoners, we're done here."

"What will happen to the prisoners?" Dale asked, anger giving rise to vengeance in his chest.

"Whatever the Major decides will happen." Wolf answered.

Once they got to the site the Major already had the prisoners bound and ready to be taken from the planet, some angry residents were unhappy that they couldn't exact revenge. The Major stood between them and the less than half a dozen prisoners.

"If we allow you to murder these unarmed prisoners we will be no better than them," he sighed, "today, we have furthered the lesson that Humans are great warriors, masters of the violent arts, it would be nice if we could be better known for our natures of mercy, justice and clemency?"

The Major looked up and saw Dale, "Lieutenant, your mother is with the medics, farewell.' Dale nodded his thanks and hurried off. By the time he returned from checking his mother. Major Kovac and the Dark Horses had departed the planet.

Had a couple of asks looking for something a little different, not sure it really works but lmk what you think. I love feedback and do my best to meet requests if I can.

[kainfamilyfortune]

Thea - Journal Entry #2

Year 33rd, Month 8th, Day 13th - The War of Thorns

The sky cried heavily for you today, so much so that the grave diggers didn’t seem to be inclined to keep up with their work. I easily dispatched of them, handing them a few silver to go to the pub. I took off my pauldrons and leg guards, my chest piece, finally taking off my gloves and chain mail under shirt. Grabbing the shovel leaning upon a gravestone left by one of the workers, I dug six feet under. Calluses began to spur between my thumb and pointer finger on both bare hands. Beads of rain drenched my long amber hair. I paused only to gauge the depth before I called out to my squad sitting underneath a tent, giving their final blessings, to bring your body forward. Carefully we set you down into the earth. Unwrapping the animal skins around your sword and intertwined your fingers onto the handle, before silently putting my head onto your chest. I cried, enveloping my arms around your stone cold form; knowing very well that you’d never embrace me back, knowing that you would never tell me that I was being stupid for crying over a dead man, when I showed to be strong in the past when it came to death, I couldn’t help it. As we shoveled the dirt back into your grave, I imagined us on the farm.

My squad started cleaning up his grave as I adorned my armor once more when a messenger boy came flocking up the grave site, “Kain! Thea Kain!” I replied back to him, “Aye, boy, yes?” And he handed me a somewhat soggy letter with a waxy red crest of the lion. I swallowed my depression and quickly headed for shelter under the tent as the four of us huddled around. Juliet looked up to me, “Aye?” Her thick Gilnean accent protruded through. I eyed her carefully as I unfurled the letter, breaking that beautiful seal. 

Infantry Leader to the 112th - Thea Kain,

   I write to you with my deepest condolences to you and your squad today. I know that we will allow you this time for grieving, for we are grieving in this time as well for Dustin Hatfield. We must keep our goals in check though in these trying times of war and hardship. Your squad is one of the brightest stars and we cordially invite you to our next steps in turning the tides in the war effort. Details will be given at tonight’s meeting at Lion’s Rest. Be prepared to leave in the following days. 

                                                          We will Prevail, Lord Maxwell Tyrosus

I could feel my demeanor start to return on the last line. His signature sign off on every letter I have ever received from him. My face hardened as I spoke the letter aloud to gain the attention of my squad, which turned to a grim realization. War. It was upon us truly, in this moment - for some, it wouldn’t be the first time. We finished the rest of our clean up and headed to Lion’s Rest, for sun fall was nearly approaching us. I could feel the dirt still laden my skin, the pores extruding it and the rain washing it away like a baptism. I would grow stronger for this. I would become anew.

The meeting was a call to arms, farm hands traded hoes and pitchforks for swords and shields. Their newly crowned helmets and tabards didn’t quite fit right, but no one was joking around, or poking fun at the new initiates, not even the fresh troops from Duskwood, who stuck out like sore thumbs. Squads were formed, one by one, with orders being handed out like graduation diplomas, we stood in line, awaiting our call. Names were being called left and right. I tried to focus on the sound of the rain, looking up at the cool grey sky.

“112th Infantry. Kain, Thea.” My attention snapped to a General in front of me, then to each of my squad mates, “Dawson, Juliet.” Her dark hair came down to just her shoulders as she had her name called, you could still see her ears perk up, a yellow flash in her eye. She was driven instinctively, young and slim in build, but when her temper got the better of her, the beast escaped to terrorize all that stand in her wake. Friends included; but we were working on that. I patted where a few claw scars would be on my arm. Luckily the curse is only transferred by being bitten or digesting the blood of the beast. She had a sense for adventure and a love for the Alliance, so I couldn’t say no when I met her at the interment camps outside Stormwind’s walls, all the able hands and fresh perspective was I all I needed. Plus, she makes me laugh.

“Peddle, Gereon.” The oldest of our troupe, He just turned 58, the old bastard. He said he was going to retire and open up a stable and general good store in Westfall by the name of ‘Peddle’s Purveyance’ - I told him that he might not know what the word Purveyance actually means, but then he simply waves his hand and scoffs at the party; defensively telling us that ‘It’s an older meaning! You kids changing how my vocabulary is.’ And then he’d grumble about it while we were on duty for a few hours and forget. He had a tuft of brown hair, graying a bit on the sides of his wide forehead. Slight bags under his crystal blue eyes that saw through two wars already - I had to guess his motivation for still wanting to fight. He was calculated as he was still a brute in combat. I was surprised when he initially requested that I apply for infantry leader when I enlisted in the army. People told me that he just has an eye for potential, despite him being crotchety in a way, he had a purpose, and his smile the day that I was accepted for infantry leader, made me believe it.

“Townsend, Darvell.” Despite his gruff demeanor and large stance; I still see him as a huge softy. Well at least to us. Water droplets cascade off his head as he brushes the rain off then proceeds to stand at attention. His dark brown eyes pierce down to the general who barked out his name, striking some fear at least for a second. A smile can be seen just barely itching the corner of his lips. I still see the full smile, brandishing underneath, from a long lost childhood. Darvell was my first neighbor when my father and I fled to Stormwind. He was maybe a couple years younger than me, but he had no issue showing who was king of the playground when we were in our studies. He favored the sword and shield - so he was typically my sparring partner when it came to drills, I know full well he could take a hit infused with the Light and because I’m the only person that could beat him, one on one. Towering over the flock by at least a foot, anywhere he went, including now, amongst a least a thousand men and women awaiting orders in the rainy capitol.

The general focused back upon me, “Your orders Ms. Kain.” And he handed me a rolled-up piece of parchment, tied with a dark blue ribbon. His gaze quickly darted to me and then Darvell who shifted to folding his arms across his burly chest and the general moved on to the next group. I looked up to Darvell, “You know, you shouldn’t attempt to intimidate your superiors. Eventually someone ought to handle you toe to toe, that isn’t me.” I let out a chuckle, unfurling the orders, Juliet peering next to me. “Where, Where?” She asked impatiently. 

“Kul Tiras. Hmm, that’s  the isle off of Gilneas, right? I thought they didn’t want to join the war, I wonder what Anduin is planning. I’m sure we’ll figure that out, might have to do with Miss Proudmoore.” I darted the words out to the group, Juliet looked excited, per usual. Gereon took the letter from my hands and began to look further down, his eyes dashing quickly from line to line. “We leave in a week. Best get your gear sharpen’d and consolidate what’cha can.” He exclaimed. I looked down to the shield, still scratched up and bent where I had to wedge it underneath a Kal’dorei ballista for leverage back at Darkshore. I nodded to Gereon then looked to everyone, harnessing my commanding voice, “If you have anything to do, I’m giving you the next three days, starting tomorrow. That should be enough time for you to find a blacksmith to upkeep your gear and for you to pack your things, provisions, and Darvell - don’t forget undergarments this time, please? After that, it’s back to full combat training, meeting in old town at dawn. I want us in line on the first boat out of here sailing to Kul Tiras. Do I make myself clear?” I trained them well, following my question, they nodded and replied “Crystal.”

I made my way through the crowds of soldiers gathered throughout Lion’s Rest, back towards the cemetery alone. The sky was still crying for you. I know that you will fight with us in spirit when we make landfall on this foreign land, I wonder what’ll be like there. I paused in front of the fresh mound of dirt. Your headstone is simple, nothing flashy - just as you would’ve chosen; Something that came up all too often in conversation was what headstone we would pick out for one another. If we wanted to be buried or cremated. Where would you be buried or scattered. I often dodged the topic of death, only telling them that I didn’t want to be buried, that I’d prefer cremation, because realistically I did that so I couldn’t come back if we were to lose this war.

[lastyoungrenagadeheartache]

November 6, 2018

Four and a half more hours and I'll be home. God, I can't wait to see the ocean. Feel the sand against my skin, breathe in the crisp salty air, and get lost in the waves.

I thought a bit of a life update might be appropriate here, since it's been a few months since I last wrote. Things got pretty bad for awhile, depression, anxiety, ED. My grades where slipping and so was my health, physically and mentally. Which I now regret entirely, since thanks to my own stupidity of not caring for myself I ended up with Pityriasis Rosea. It's resulted in a lot of pain and other issues, but hopefully with the medication and oils it will be under control soon. Luckily I got away, I met some new people, and started myself anew. I've spent more of the last month in California then in my "home" state, but let's be honest here, I'm a Californian by heart. In less than a year I'll be living there, hopefully, anyways. I met Erin, who has been nothing but good to me. He's been so patient with me, and careful with the trauma Kevin left me with. Of course I'm still scared, rediculously scared. I don't want to get hurt again. I don't want to be used again. I don't think Erin has anything close to these intentions, but it's still terrifying to have to trust in someone's word. Not knowing what goes on behind your back. He's sweet to me though, last night I had a bit of a meltdown. I told him the reason I no longer sleep in my own bed, a place I haven't layed in months. He told me one day I'll be in our bed, in his arms. And if I still can't bring myself to sleep in a bed, on nights when the anxiety wins, he'll sleep with me on the floor until I feel better. I don't think he realized how much that means to me.

I went to Catalina Island, The Aquarium of the Pacific, and the California Science Center. I'm so greatful for the opportunity to have these experiences, even if it was less than ideal. I was able to have my first experience on a plane, I was incredibly anxious, but as soon as we took off I was in love. I remember one of the leaders asking my friend how I was doing, Gloria just laughed and said that I was loving it. I turned to face them and realised that the whole troop, and the stewardess, was enjoyably watching my excitement. We left from the Salt Lake International Airport and landed in Burbank, California. From there we went to the science center which was in LA. There we got to see relics from King Tuts tomb, water cycles, and the Endevor Space Shuttle. Then we drove to Long Beach, where we stayed in a hotel for the night and woke up to a beautiful view of the port. We left the hotel at about seven that morning, our boat was supposed to leave at nine. That didn’t happen, however. The weather in Catalina was bad with strong winds that forced them to have to bring the docks in so we where unable to board. We where stuck there on the Catalina King for almost 6 hours before we left the port. Catalina was beautiful, with its sea glass covered beach and all its mountainous terrain. We went snorkeling, and got to see the underwater world in both the day and the night. We did a squid dissection, and had many animal encounters including sharks, fish, and invertebrates. Three days later we sailed back to Long Beach, and did a haunted tour of the Queen Mary, then went to the Aquarium of the Pacific where we stayed for the night. The next morning we flew back to Salt Lake, but I wasn’t even in Utah for 24 hours after landing before leaving again.

By 5 AM I was in the car driving to California, like I am now. We where on our way to Disneyland to attend Mickey's Not-so-Scary Halloween Party. We had a 3 day park hopper pass, and our party day. We where able to eat at the PCH Grill with the characters and the Storytellers Cafe. We also took a day off at the beaches. We went to Laguna and saw the tide pools, full of small fish and hermit crabs. Then we went shopping in Balboa, I hit up the candy shop, as per usual. We ended our night in Newport, where we watched the sun go down and collected shells. The day we headed home we spent the morning at the beach, there where a lot of anemones stuck to the rocks and a lot of small clams. I also found a little crab, he was cute. The waves of course, boogie boarding. Always makes me feel so free, so careless. Fills me with a sense of adventure and wanderlust. Going home from that was somber, at the least.

Now I'm back on the road, visiting Disneyland once again. I can see the Vegas lights sparkling in the distance. We're in for a long night. But it's worth it, it's always worth it. I'd drive this passage a million times as long as I always get to come back home.

Sammy

[savinscripts]

❝  The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.❞ 

Two months passed, with Fane recovering slowly but steadily. A week after he woke, the Maester’s had gotten him out of bed for the first time. It hadn’t been easy, and he was pale, sweating, and exhausted by the time it was over, but he’d made it to the chair near the fire. They worked with him everyday, and each day he went a bit further, supported by a crutch on one side and a solid body on the other. He refused to be pushed around in a chair.

Inevitably, responsibility came a few days later, once he’d been allowed to move back to his own chambers - the Maesters close by and a squire always posted outside his door - in the form of paperwork and requisitions. Letters from the South and other Northern Holds. Decisions that only the Lord could make. And it left him tired, but it could only be helped so much, despite the best efforts of Faye and Lady Savin.

Walking would come weeks later, once the leg was healed enough to bear his weight. But with slow and steady progress, and people around him willing to tell him when he was overtaxing himself, the day finally came when he only needed a cane on his injured side. It was also the same day that he decided he’d been cooped up inside long enough.

Which is why they were in one of the smaller, private courtyards now. And also why Faye waited patiently while he pushed through the ever growing frustration of his slow pace, walking just behind and to the side of him as they traversed the snow-covered path

To say it was slow going would be an understatement in his opinion, he’d lost a lot of his strength in the time he’d been recovering and it left him frustrated when he couldn’t manage or achieve things that before seemed so simple. Going from being fully able to being reduced to needing other people to help him do something so simple as walk was a blow to his pride and part of the reason he pushed himself. Perhaps too hard on occasion, but pushed himself regardless to try and achieve what he had lost.

The work didn’t help much, but it was a distraction at least; allowing him to get back to some semblence of normality and something that he was rather good at-- that being organising troops and missions. It was a double edged sword though and for as much as it helped it served as a reminder that he was stuck here whilst people he knew and cared for were out there dying whilst he sat safely behind his walls. He fixed his appearance at least; trimming down the beard that had grown thicker in his time unconscious.

Walking outside for the first time in months was yet another blessing and a curse, the clack of his cane echoing off the stone walls of the hallways with every shuffled step he took along face set in a mask of concentration to ensure he went where he wanted. He’d found his foot less responsive than it had been before and no matter what he’d done nothing much seemed to aid it. Faye had been a blessing in the time of his recovery, present when he needed her opinions to make decisions but unfortunately also there witnessing the darker days. The days he questioned what the point of going on was when he would never be the leader that was expected in this time of war.

How could a cripple lead? How could a cripple fight?

They’d been walking Fane very acutely aware of how Faye deliberately walked slower for him the thought nagging in the back of his head as he stared at the path ahead of them. “We can’t stay here forever… We need to head back South at some point” it had been something he’d been saying a lot lately but everyone seemed to come up with this reason or that reason about why they couldn’t go yet. He knew what most of them were doing, trying to keep him here out of harm’s way as long as possible and he could recognise when he was being handled with kid gloves.

Faye knew there was a fine line between going to fast and not fast enough. The Maesters seemed to think that Fane was progressing well, but that slower was the better course. She understood why they were being cautious. They were afraid. Blackspire had escaped losing their Lord by the narrowest of margins. Margins most were thankfully unaware of, even if everyone had know of his injury and subsequent illness.

But Faye could see him growing restless. Restlessness led to recklessness, and while she knew Fane wouldn’t risk himself needlessly, there was a point where even the most stoic of men would lose their minds if kept tightly reined for too long. And Fane was reaching the end of his patience. With himself, and with others. She’d seen him more frustrated and more angry over the last two months than in all the months previous. But she couldn’t blame him. She would likely have felt the same if circumstances had been reversed.

Though if she were honest, it frightened her sometimes how deeply depressed he became on occasion. There was nothing to be done for the state of his leg except letting it continue to heal. And he may never regain full use of it, but at least he hadn’t lost it. Which she reminded him of from time to time.

They walked along, Faye not feeling any rush or frustration in the pace of their journey. He voiced his opinion - once again, having done so several times over the past week - of the need to return South, to the rest of their men. The North had been won. For the moment. It was the South that needed them now. And Faye agreed. To a point. If he couldn’t walk, how could get on a horse? Because if he couldn’t ride, unless he planned to journey in a carriage, then he couldn’t travel.

But still.

“I seem to remember you were the Lord of this House at one point,” Faye said, the smallest amount of acidity in her voice as she came to walk beside him instead of behind. “Or is it House Armen now? M’Lord.”

There was very little that could help his moods lately, it was understandable to a point. By all accounts he was still a young man and supposedly in the prime of his life except all the things he should have been doing now had been cut short by the state of his leg. Was he getting better? Yes. But was he getting better fast enough to meet his own standards? No. His leg wasn’t the only thing that had been injured in the incident; his pride was also wounded and it only got damaged further whenever he saw the looks other people gave him.

He’d been trying to battle through, but where Faye and everyone told him it would get easier with time he only found it harder. Every day more a struggle than the one before to get out because his hope was dwindling, his belief that perhaps he might find some way back to where he was before gradually growing dimmer. Because what use was he now? There was more on his mind now than simply wars and the deaths of his men, but the legacy of his house.

After all, what prospects did he have now? A crippled Northern Lord who could do what to defend his lands and home should people come to invade? The answer: next to nothing and it was a thought that plagued him every night as he lay in bed wondering just what would become of his family because of his own failings. Was it really any wonder why he felt so low when so much pressure hinged on his shoulders?

His words hadn’t been anything meant to provoke her ire or spite, but apparently they did just that and the acidity of her tone resulted in his features turning into a deep-set frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he was forced to stop and had he not been reliant on his cane to maintain his stance would have straightened. There was an anger simmering in his eyes, daring her to test him. “I only ask for your opinion on what we should do but apparently you hold some ire to the situation… Please, don’t let me stop you from voicing your criticisms apparently you’ve been reserving them from me” she wouldn’t be the first, let her join the rest of those that seemed to judge his every move and action. Apparently he was right in his assumption that she like the other leaders around the castle believed him to be the hold up on returning to the war effort whilst simultaneously questioning his ability to lead. A low blow indeed considering most of his worries of late circulated around that very capability and to have it so openly struck at out of the blue left him feeling rather attacked. Typical. The one person he thought might still be his friend siding against him.

They talked about things quite frequently. Things that bothered him. Things he feared. And the same for her. But Faye knew there were things he didn’t voice. Things he wouldn’t. And so with her as well. She didn’t think him a cripple. Even if he walked with a limp for the rest of his life, or never rode a horse again, she would never think him a cripple. Stubborn, yes. And a thousand other things, but never that.

But as yet she didn’t know those thoughts, so they were left as they were.

Others, however…

Faye stopped as he did, matching the expression on his face with one of her own. He didn’t scare her, and unlike some, she wasn’t going to molly-coddle him like a child. She took a step towards him, pushing back against the challenge in his eyes. “It means… that you know what you wish to do. You know what’s needed. You always have. But instead of doing it. Instead of giving the order and riding South as you wish to do, you keep asking for permission.” The word rolled off her tongue, incredulous and angry. “The Lord does not ask permission. He does what’s best for his House. His people.” Faye knew he was utterly aware of that fact, but her temper was up and she couldn’t help it.

“And my ire has nothing to do with the situation. It is what it is; nothing can change that. But is has everything to do with the fact that I will ride with you wherever you chose to go, whenever you chose to go there. Whether you’re truly ready or not. My ire is with myself.”

It came down to time. Enough time to heal versus too little time to wait. Push too hard too soon, and end up back at the beginning. Don’t push hard enough and the world moves on without you. War doesn’t wait. And Faye knew that. Fane did as well.

“I have never doubted you, Stefan,” she told him firmly, though with no less anger. “And I’m not criticizing you. I have no idea what I’d do in your situation. What I’m doing is telling you… that if you can look me in the eye and promise… promise me that you’re ready, one hundred percent, to ride back into the fray, then I’ll saddle your fucking horse for you. And we will ride South. But if you can’t…” She shook her head, voice going a bit quieter, but no less intense. “Then I will be right here. Where I’ve always been. At your side. Until the day you are ready.” Faye’s lips were pressed tight, her face flushed from her rant. But she didn’t look away or step back.

“Or until the day comes when you tell me to go.”

This was by no means the end of his life, it was just that right now that was precisely what it felt like and his anger stemmed from his fear that everything would have to change. That he would be forever barred from doing the things he loved and wanted to do. It was hard, especially with all the pitying looks that he noticed shot in his direction of course people meant well with their sympathy but it felt almost like pity. As if they or anyone else could understand what it was to have something so essential to life such as gait taken away from you.

His goal wasn’t to scare her, he wasn’t setting out to put fear into her not yet at least but her words only made him stare incredulously at her. He’d been asking for an informed opinion and this was what he got instead? “Maybe I don’t and I was looking to my friend to give me some advice about what she thought our next move should be” his voice didn’t raise like hers but instead, remained level and gravelly. “I’m stuck on the decision on doing what I want and what’s best for my people, what do we do when we get back South and rejoin the forces” if they even made it that far considering his own inability to mount a horse yet. “What happens to my army when we get there and they have no one to command them? No one to take them on the field of battle because their Lord can’t even sit a horse properly let alone defend himself” the title was spat with vitriol and resentment. “I’m not asking permission, I’m asking for an opinion and instead all I get is you...” he trailed off with a shake of his head, it wasn’t worth it.

But then she went on to claim she wasn’t criticising him and he couldn’t help the spike of anger that caused “yes, that’s precisely what you’re doing. Don’t fucking deny it, probably feels good to say it and get it out there doesn’t it? Easy cheap shots at my expense, right?” Because that’s what he felt like right now, a target, left open and vulnerable to attack and the person he least expected it from was her. It stung and he could feel the wounds her words caused. Yet, then she went on to claim that she would stay right where she was and he could only shake his head unable to fathom why she was still here. “Why? That’s exactly what I’m asking why do you stay? There’s nothing for you here, nothing to do except to sit around and… wait for what? For me to miraculously heal?” Fane wasn’t sure what compelled him to say it, though he wasn’t sure if he ever truly would be ready and the idea he was chaining her here… He couldn’t do that, not to her.

Faye didn’t doubt that things would quite certainly change for him. At least in some way. She didn’t doubt that things would be hard. But she also didn’t doubt that if he put his mind to it, and didn’t let himself be dragged down by fear and depression and anger, that he could make it back to damn close to where he was before. Faye saw the looks as well. Well meaning in their sympathies, but sympathy was hardly what Fane needed. Faye felt it for him, of course, but she had never looked at him in such a way, or pitied him for one second.

“Then ask me that, instead of alluding to it.” Her voice lowered as well, though it didn’t lose any of its ferocity. “I am not some chamber maid or squire to be hinted at about what you need. If you want something, get on with it.”

She stood there for his rant, taking in everything he said and understanding as best she could where he was coming from. Her ire softening only a little. Though if she were honest, it was partly her own fear - that she wasn’t going to mention to him - of what may or may not happen to him in the worst of circumstances that made her so snappish. “Last I checked, their Lord was also not dead. He stands right here, stubborn and bull-headed as ever. And if you want my opinion - my honest opinion - on what we should do…” Faye trailed off, unsure he would like what she had to say. She chewed her lip for a moment, looking off left and then right as she searched for the words. “We need to go, yes. But you have to give yourself more time. Send your First back ahead of us. Let them take men and instructions. Give yourself a few more weeks. Gods, Fane, you nearly lost your life!” The words wavered a bit, and Faye blinked past the stinging in her own eyes. “You’ve been back on your feet for only a few weeks now. After taking a blow that would have hobbled most other men. If you go too fast - and I know you can’t stand sitting here while men are out there dying - then you risk doing worse harm. Harm that you won’t recover from.”

His next words hurt, especially when all she had ever tried to do was help him. Support him and be his friend. And the sting caused her to fling her own. “If I was going to take a shot at you it most certainly wouldn’t be with words,” she growled. “Though since you're so defenseless, it would be cheap, wouldn’t it.” Her words were angry, but not meant to be cruel. It made her angry to see him like this. Not at him, but at circumstance. The blow to his pride had probably been worse that his injury.

But what hurt the most is when he asked her why she stayed. Telling her in no uncertain terms that there was nothing for her here. Faye wasn’t sure why that hurt more than everything else, why it cut deeper. But it did. Something flashed across her face - true hurt maybe, or something else… something she didn’t have a name for - and finally she took a step back. Her gaze faltered for the first time since they’d started arguing.

“Why? You have the audacity to ask me why I-“ She cut herself off, unable to continue for fear of saying something she didn’t mean. Instead, she pulled her composure back around herself, and gave a small, stiff bow. “I apologize then, my Lord, for being such a burden to you, and for wasting your valuable time. And mine. Perhaps you would heal a bit faster if I wasn’t here to distract you from such things. Or from your duty.”

With that she turned and walked off, her cloak flying behind her as she left him standing there by himself. Alone in the snow.

“And so what if I did? It would be no more than any other man who put his life on the line in every battle… We’re all going to die in the end, so what if that was mine?” some of the bite left his words as she gave him the answer to his request though and he tipped his chin down lips pressing together as he considered what she had to say. “What’s worse than this?” At least if he had died it’d be over with, it had only been a few weeks yet it felt like in that time he’d aged tens of years.

He did appreciate everything that she had done, and continued to do despite never being asked to do it. Unfortunately, her words had struck a nerve because she was right, and the issue was he knew she was right. And having that pointed out so candidly was just another blow that he couldn’t stand to take right now leading to his behaviour; not that it was excusable for what he said but it summed up how belittled he felt when anyone spoke to him in such a way.

It resulted in him lashing out and questioning something that could potentially change everything.

The words stung but they only served to fan his own annoyance and a part of him was tempted to respond. After all, the only thing she was good with was a bow wasn’t it? But he clamped down on his words and instead folded one arm across his chest but still at an angle due to the necessity of his cane to support his weight. But apparently those words weren’t needed, as what he said next seemed to do damage enough that they cut clean through any anger and instead a glimmer of something else broke through her anger. And for a moment, he wanted to take them back while simultaneously feeling just a little satisfied that maybe she felt a little of what he did now.

That would turn to guilt when he realised what he’d done later on, so as Faye took her leave he was left in the courtyard staring after her and something in his chest ached to watch her depart. But he made no effort to chase after her, instead, he stood and snowflakes caught in the dark locks of his hair until she vanished from sight.

“Maybe not to you. But every man on that field would give his life for you. Many already have. And many more will before this is over. You are their Lord. Their Commander. You owe it to them to live. Because without you it all falls apart. Without you-“ she stopped herself. Words that weren’t meant for right now lingering in her throat. So she swallowed them back.

Faye sighed, frowning deeply. “What’s worse? Being dead. There are families - wives, children, mothers, fathers… - out there that wish their son was still alive. That would give anything to see their child, their father, their husband … alive and breathing. You’re not a selfish man, Fane. And self-pity doesn’t suit you. Not one bit.” Perhaps it was cruel to say, but how could he look on the life he’d been given with such contempt, when so many others didn’t have the option.

But his words stung, and she couldn’t stand there and look at him anymore. Not when he’d clearly cut her deeply. So she left. And didn’t turn around.

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

For two days she avoided him. She didn’t visit. She didn’t seek his council. She stayed busy with her men, with training and preparing for the eventual ride South again. It was the evening of the second day when the raven came. Faye had been watching the farrier shoe her horse when the squire had found her, holding out the rolled missive.

Faye took it with a nod of thanks, frowning slightly when she saw her Father’s seal. She broke it open quickly, and read over the message. She had to read it twice, so great was her shock. But there was no mistaking her Father’s hand, and the words within. Betrothed. To the Lord of Widow’s Watch. A good match, her father had written. A powerful alliance. She was to ride home within the month.

Faye felt the tight grip of fear over her chest. Bile rose in her throat, and she stumbled away from the farrier, making excuses for not feeling well. She made it to cover before she was violently ill into the snow. Her skin crawled even now, remembering the man’ piggish eyes on her. Faye wretched until there was nothing left, taking huge gulping breaths of air to calm herself. It took awhile, and once she was calmer, instead of anger, she felt resignation take over. Fane’s words, that there was nothing for her here, rang in her ears again.

He was right it seemed. There was nothing anymore. Nothing at all. Especially here. He’d made that abundantly clear. She pushed off the wall, crumpling the letter and making her way towards the kitchen.

Two hours later, Faye was drunk, shooting snowballs off fence posts in a back courtyard. An empty bottle of Southern Red lay in the snow at her feet, and another was stuck in a drift nearby. She aimed her bow and let the arrow fly. It ricocheted off a stone pillar behind the fence, missing the snowball completely, and disappeared into the dark between the torches. “Fucking hell…” she sighed, but didn’t make a move to retrieve it. Instead, she grabbed up the bottle from the snowdrift and took a long pull.

It was only later that evening when he refused to leave his chambers for his meal, sitting alone in the emptiness of the quarters did he realise how… silent it was. His life had been rather devoid of happiness, optimism and laughter recently but sitting there all by himself it truly struck him how well, lonely he felt. Everything seemed duller somehow, and whatever he tried to eat only stirred the uneasy feeling that had been gnawing in his gut since he’d stood there watching Faye turn and walk away that morning.

More than once he’d debated walking the route to her chambers, to apologise for what he’d said and how he’d treated her. It was unfair, this was something he had come to realise and it left him feeling guilty which was just another emotion to add to the dark haze of self-directed anger and loathing that had been prone to overcoming himself lately. The weight of it all sank to the base of his stomach and ultimately he’d turned to having a stiff drink and crawling into bed which is where he was tempted to stay for the forseeable future. Unfortunately, he was still a lord and the castle wouldn’t go on forever without him.

He needed to get his act together.

More importantly, he needed to make right what he had broken. Explaining, why instead of staying in he washed and dressed early before roping a squire into accompanying him out of the castle and a long the rocky slopes to fetch a few items. By the time he returned from the short journey his leg was aching profusely and weight-bearing was difficult but he forced himself to limp in the direction he was told Faye would be located. His boots shuffled and his cane clicking on the cobbled stones.

What he didn’t expect was to be met with a near-death experience at the end of a stray arrow. One that startled him out of his concentrated pace and resulted in him placing his cane down on an icy patch, a patch that sent his method of support skidding away and him down into a snowdrift soon therearefter. The flowers he’d brought from the morning’s excursion also scattered as the chill of the snow sank into his body and a slightly pained noise worked its way up his throat. The landing had been a rough one and when he finally managed to sit up wincing at the deep ache in the bone which had been jarred by the fall. Shivering as a consequence to the cold but not willing to be left on the ground he struggled to retrieve his cane and after a time worked his way back to his feet doing his best to keep the pain from his expression as he tried to retrieve the fallen flowers which now looked rather dejected.

Great. He sighed eventually abandoning his attempt to retrieve them to instead hobble to use the arch as a better support. He wanted to say something, but he had no idea what or where to start… Instead, he chose to wait. However long it took, even if the dampness of his clothes would set a chill into his bones it didn’t matter if he couldn’t fix what he’d done. There was no anger anymore, only regret in his expression where he stood observing her shooting the broken flowers clasped loosely in his hand. Yet, as he observed her from his perch he could tell something was terribly off and the weight in his stomach sank lower at the thought of having done this to her.

Gods. What had he done?

Faye didn’t hear him fall, the snow muffling the sound. Her head was muzzy, and her thoughts were dulled down to what she was doing at the moment. Which was better than where they had been. She felt like scrubbing her skin with iron wool to try and get the feeling of wrongness off her skin. The creeping stain that had her feeling dirty, even though she’d never been touched.

Her argument with Fane sat at the forefront of her thoughts too. She worried for him so much. Cared so much for his well-being. But it seemed as if he didn’t care about any of that. Because she wouldn’t tell him what he wanted to hear. But she wouldn’t lie to him. She’d never lied. She would tell him the truth, no matter how hard it was.

But it appeared Fane had his own truths. Her welcome being worn out was one of them.

Faye stumbled backwards as she eyed the snowball still sitting on the fencepost. Her bow drug the ground, the bottle hanging from the other hand glinting in the torchlight as she moved towards the quiver hanging on the ledge.

She set the wine down and fiddled with the arrows for a bit before selecting one. As she did, the hairs on the back of her neck rose up. A familiar feeling, unlike the greasy feeling of the Lord of Widow’s Watch’s gaze. Faye turned, and after a bit of difficulty, nocked the arrow. She drew it back, took aim, and let it fly. It stuck in the post below the ball of snow. Her bow lowered, and Faye glowered at the offending white orb.

The prickle on her neck didn’t leave, so finally she let out a sigh.

“If you’re going to hide in the dark, m’Lord… make yourself useful and find my arrows will you?” Her words were slurred a bit, where they were usually clear and precise. She wore only her breeches, boots, and a white linen shirt wrapped about the middle with the sash she always wore. For once, her hair was completely unbound from it’s usual braids and knots, and fell around her face in a mess of blond waves. It stuck to her face and neck, in the fine sheen of sweat she’d worked up firing arrow after arrow. But she didn’t care about any of this.

The bottle returned to her hand, and she turned it back, taking a long drink and watching the only dark space where there was room for Fane to hide.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there debating whether this was a good or terrible idea but he’d set himself up now and he had to go through with it. Good or bad, it needed fixing because the damage that was done was his own fault and fundamentally his own to fix as a consequence. For a few moments when Faye was busy inspecting her bow; he wasn’t sure if she had noticed his presence or not he rested his head against the thick oak beam of the porch under which he lingered.

He could feel the coldness setting in, the wet snow having seeped through many of the layers of his clothes leaving him shaking slightly and his breath clouding over in front of his face. Nor did it do any good for his leg, but it was what it was and he tested the pain by shifting his weight a little onto that leg gritting his teeth as the pain flared back into existence with the act. Clearly having been aggravated by his fall.

Her voice cut through his contemplation of how he was going to manage to get back to the castle now considering he was struggling to rest here let alone make the trek up to his chambers. But it would all be for nought anyways. Not if he couldn’t make amends for his words. Still, he glanced around noticing one of the arrows a little distance off debating whether or not he’d manage to make it.

Better to try he supposed, gripping his cane tight he weighted it prior to pushing off the wall features contorting as he tried to put weight through his leg. Enough that on more than one step of the short journey his legs almost went from under him and by the time he finally picked up the arrow he’d broken out in a sweat. No doubt he’d pay for the stress he was putting his leg through later but if this was a start he’d do what he could. Sucking in a short breath he steeled himself for the short journey back holding the arrow out when he was propped up again eyes lowered to try and hide the pain the short journey had aggravated.

“Faye…” he stated quietly but got no such response “Faye—“ he repeated more firmly. “I want to talk… we need to talk.”

She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he hobbled over to hand her the arrow. Part of her - the part that hasn’t drank nearly two bottles of red - felt bad. But the other part said it served him right for being an ass. She didn’t ask him to come down here. She was just fine. Besides, she’d be leaving soon. And she wouldn’t be his problem anymore.

Faye took the arrow, sparing a few seconds to look at him, indecision warring over her face before before going back to her shooting. She stepped back and nocked the arrow Fane had handed her.

She let it loose, and it skirted the post, disappearing into the dark. “Cocksucker,” she cursed it under her breath.

“Why’s that?” she asked him as she turned and stumbled back for another arrow. “There’s no need. Not anymore.” Turning back, she spread her arms out and gave him a clumsy curtsy. “Unless you haven’t heard the good news.” Her expression was a mix of anger, resentment, and drunken resignation. “I’m to be married. Isn’t it wonderful?” Another shot, this one pulled back quicker than the others and hitting the mark dead on

The arrow was promptly plucked from his grasp and his gloved fingers curled around the now empty space, momentarily watching her walk back before his arm drifted back down to his side. Uncertainty warred within him, but he was here now and he might as well go ahead with it. However, whether Faye was paying him attention was questionable especially when he hard her cuss as her arrow went flying.

She stumbled and he immediately shifted forwards slightly concern overtaking any thought of what he’d been about to say. “Woah---” but it was what she had to say next that knocked the breath from him and he had to take a long moment to process what it was he’d just heard the shock apparent on his features and a pain aching in his chest. Something that hurt even more than anything else he might’ve been feeling right about now.

“What--” he breathed in a puff of cold air staring at her not quite believing what he just heard. “No…” please no, Gods no… “to who?”

Faye stood upright as best she could, her face laced with bitterness now. She didn’t see his own expression, unable to meet his gaze. “I’m to be the Lady of Widow’s Watch now,” Faye said, every trace of humor or wine-induced warmth gone from her voice as she laid out her fate at Fane’s feet. Though if he knew her at all he would hear the utter contempt and disgust - and a slight trace of fear mixed with resignation - in her voice as well.

“I leave in a few days.” Even now preparations were being made for the journey. Though a raven hadn’t been sent in response yet. Faye needed a bit more time before she could write that particular message. Writing a suicide note would have been easier. She moved back to her quiver and raised a hand to draw another arrow out, but stopped, fingers brushing the feathered ends instead. “You should go back inside, Fane. It’s cold.”

As soon as the title left her lips his own face twisted, a stab of anger and something so much deeper striking him. Fear as well, the fear that he was losing his best friend to such a cumbersome oaf as Lord Flint. He was bristling where he stood, contempt coursing through his veins and the sad broken flowers utterly forgotten in his grasp.

The prospect of her leaving so soon was more of a cold wash than anything else, and if her words before hadn’t caused him to blanche that prospect certainly did. “No-- no, you can’t… Not… him, of all people gods please don’t leave” me. Not even caring about the pain in his leg he stiffly walked over as fast as he could “I came out to apologise… For everything I said… How I treated you it was-- Gods it was so fucking stupid of me...” Please don’t hate me. Please don’t leave.

Faye huffed, all the fight gone out of her demeanor. “As if my wishes were even considered in this. My father saw it high time I was married. I’ve put him off three times before… and since Lord Flint-” The words were said with utter disgust. “- took a liking to me while he was here, he decided I’d make a nice wife.” Internally, Faye just felt numb. Even if Fane’s pleas tugged at her heart, leaving her chest aching and tight. But where before she would have raged and screamed and fought tooth and nail against such a thing, what reason did she have now? She had no other prospects, no other choice. Her line would out if she didn’t marry and-

She shuddered visibly at the thought of laying with such a man. Who only saw her as a trophy and was ages older than her on top of everything. Even now she felt dirty.

Movement caught her eye, and she turned to watch with no small amount of concern as Fane hobbled towards her faster than what was safe. His apology was… appreciated. “It’s alright,” she told him in return. “I should’ve remembered my place.” His words still stung, that there was nothing for her here. She shouldered her quiver and bow, and smiled sadly at him. “And my place is not here.”

A moment passed, and another, and Faye finally cleared her throat. “Will you come inside?”

Fane’s own expression mirrored her own, though whether it was disgust at the thought of a lecherous old man taking an interest in Faye or the thought of her attention being forced elsewhere… It turned his stomach and sent it plummeting. Never before had he felt anything remotely similar to this and Fane glanced up at the shadow of his home, a light drift of snow starting to fall as they stood there but he couldn’t stand the distance between them. Not since what had happened the other day.

Explaining his rather unsafe hurry to get to her, and with a few close calls on the icy cobbles he managed to get to her. “No--” he stipulated again, his voice growing firmer along with his gaze then as she echoed the sentiment of his words the other day. “No it’s not alright… I was upset and I lashed out because what you said bloody well hurt me and it was only in the time that I didn’t see you… Didn’t have you around that I realised I don’t just want you here-- I need you here because there’s no one I trust more.” His breath clouded as he spoke, his fingers curled tight around the stems. “You aren’t a Lady of Widow’s Watch, you’re Lady Lacroy of Burning Rock and you… You deserve so much better than that lecherous old fool and I know that you know that too..”

Funny how a situation could reverse their roles-- when this time last week it was her reminding him of who he was. “There’s got to be a way to stop this… I want to help you stop this.” Because I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. His eyes were on the verge of pleading but not quite, enough to say that he was willing to fight with her, to fight for her. “You’ve been here for me through everything, the least I can do is try to help you with this…”

Faye listened to what he had to say, and felt the sting in her eyes that meant if she stayed much longer she would end up in tears. Fane had never seen her cry. She’d cried when he’d almost died. And she’d cried before she’d gotten drunk enough to just be angry and resigned about her fate. But he’d never seen it. And she wasn’t about to start now.

“I’m sorry for hurting you.” And she was. To the bottom of her heart. “I just couldn’t stand to see you feeling sorry for yourself. There are too many people that are overjoyed that you’re still here - me included - for you to feel sorry for whatever lot life will end up bringing you. You’re walking. Without a cane,” she pointed out. “Don’t lament that.”

But his next words stopped anything else she had to say just then. That he needed her here. So many things sat on the tip of her tongue, loosened by the wine she’d consumed. To scream at him that she damn well knew who she was, and that no, she didn’t deserve to spend the rest of her life lying beneath a grunting pig, stripped of her titles and giving him power over all that was rightfully hers, her body included.

But she didn’t say any of that. “Unless I go against my father’s wishes for a fourth time, or my future husband keels over from old age… or I die on the journey home… there is no other way, Fane.” There were avenues that didn’t occur to her then, and likely never would. Being so out of the realm of anything that had ever ventured into Faye’s mind. Well, her rational mind.

“Though I think dying would almost be preferable…” A flit of sorrow washed across her face, but Faye pushed it away, blinking rapidly. “It’s done. It can’t be undone. Not by any mortal hand at least.” She huffed and gave him a tiny, sad smile. “Do your Old Gods listen to prayers better than The Seven?”

He wasn’t about to let her leave, not without a fight of his own. Odd, what ignited a flame that had for a time been snuffed out. Fane could see the glassy glimmer of her eyes, the hint of tears reflecting the pure whiteness around them. Her apology in kind caused his eyes to scrunch up slightly a small huff and weak laugh “you needn’t be sorry…” His pain was the least of his concerns right now, her own well-being was paramount in his mind.

Faye seemed entirely resigned to this fate that seemed to be set to unravel in front of her, and the words made him press his lips together in a tight line. He reached to hold her arm then as best he could with the flowers whilst propping himself on his cane, ultimately gripping her sleeve and feeling the warmth of her skin beneath. His heart was pounding in his chest as he considered everything.

“There has to be another way…” there had to be.

And then the idea came to him, an insane and risky gamble. One that would alter both their fates but perhaps his Gods were the only way to stop this. “Do you trust me?” he still gripped her arm not tight enough to harm but enough to keep her attention “do you trust me to ensure your freedom? To let you keep your decisions in how you live and shape your life?”

Faye simply nodded as he said she didn’t need to apologize. It wasn’t worth arguing over. They were both sorry. That was what mattered. When he reached out to take her arm, she looked down, noting with a slightly furrowed brow the crumpled flowers in his hand. But then he was talking again, and her attention was drawn back to his face.

She sobered a little bit in that moment, as he gripped her arm so tightly, a fire sparking in his eyes that she hadn’t seen in weeks. Since before his accident. “I’ve always trusted you, Fane,” she said in return. “But… what’re you thinking? Please don’t do anything rash… not for my sake.” What ‘rash’ might be, Faye had no idea. But she’d always trusted his plans in the past, and it had never turned out badly. Or well, not too badly.

“If I don’t come home, my father will send men for me…”

He could smell the wine she’d been drinking, but his attention was only on the potential answer she’d given with her flyaway remark about gods. Her remark about doing something rash may have fallen on deaf ears, his mind churning ahead about the potential outcomes of what he was about to suggest. It was likely mad by most accounts but when had he been entirely sane in many of his ideas and concepts.

“And they’ll find you married, he can’t marry you to another man if you’re already wed…” whether she’d pick up on his train of thought he wasn’t sure. “I know… Things haven’t been incredible lately and I can’t say there won’t be days that things might get dark… But if there’s one thing I can promise it’s that you’ll never be forced to do something you don’t want… And this is the same but-- I wasn’t lying when I said I needed you here… Need you here beside me.”

He swallowed slightly then, his hand slipping down her arm to take her hand uncertainty about how she might respond gnawing in his stomach. But he’d gone this far, drawing in a breath his shoulders lifted slightly “marry me…” His voice was quiet, but when he spoke again it grew more certain in his words his eyes intense and focussed solely on her own “marry me and be my wife, my equal and nothing less than that… Let me guard your back as you’ve guarded mine...” How well he could do that in his current state was questionable but… He’d be damned if he let her just leave without fighting to give her a reason to stay.

To say Faye was utterly confused at first would have been an understatement. Even if she hadn’t been drinking that night she still wouldn’t have had a clue what he was talking about. Married? What was he on about? She didn’t want to be married at all… to trade one person she didn’t love for someone else she didn’t love? That was no solution, that was just more of the same…

So great was the rush of white noise in her head, that much of what he said after that was lost. She heard him say he needed her - he’d already said that, hadn’t he? - more than just in theory. He needed her by his side. But what he said next send her from muzzy headed to stone cold sober in the matter of seconds it took him to say it.

And then… Gods above… just when she was thinking she’d misheard him, he said it again, squeezing her hand in his and looking at her with an intensity that told her that he was as serious as he’d ever been about anything. But all she could do at first was stare back at him. Her eyes had gone from hooded and dull, to bright and intense, taking in every word, every possible alternative meaning behind what he was saying. What he was suggesting. Because it was utter and complete madness.

To go against her father’s wishes. To deliberately disobey him and risk dishonoring him and angering the Lord of Widow’s Watch, whos men were needed in the war effort. But something in her - something in the deepest part of her that trusted him without question, and an ever deeper part that had started to feel more than just friendship (though she didn’t know love for what it was) for him - made her nod. And once she started, once the barrier of shock and fear was broken, and her freedom and her life were all at once gifted to her by someone she’d come to trust like no other (though the true gravity of what it would mean to be his wife wouldn’t come until later) her mouth moved to say, “Yes. Yes… I’ll.. I”ll marry you…” The words ended in a breathless sound, and Faye gulped in a lungful of cold air, feeling lightheaded but not willing to let go of his hand just yet. Gods, he was mad.

Once she had taken a few deep breaths, she was a bit more steady. She looked at him, and something passed across her face. An unreadable look that stayed there between a long, weighted silence as her words of acceptance faded out against the stones of the courtyard.

Faye licked her lips, suddenly feeling very unsure of herself. Though she gave him a small smile that managed to touch her eyes. “What now?” Never having done this before - and still utterly reeling - she had no idea what the procedure was. Though she was certain this wasn’t the norm.

Suddenly, she remembered: “The raven…” she said with a hint of excitement, “bearing the message… it… I’m the only one that saw it. I didn’t tell anyone else.”

There were few alternatives to what he was asking of her, the point being he was entirely serious in what he was asking of her despite his own trepidation of the matter. Later he would come to realise it was his fear in losing her that outweighed any other he might’ve held previously. He couldn’t do it, nor would he.

Flint was a Northern Lord, the house wasn’t particularly prestigious by any account especially by comparison to the one they were at presently. Technically, this match would be a more appealing thing to be sold if it came down to that in dealing with her family not that Fane really cared about such things. Just that if this would ensure her happiness and her freedom to the best of his capability then… Wasn’t it his duty and right to safeguard that? To safeguard her right to choose and make her own decisions about where she wished to head in her life.

It was odd, to have it all agreed so promptly. The last time he’d ever been in a situation like this he’d been told he was to marry a stranger he’d never met in his life and told to do his family proud. And though he felt like he was floundering a little in regards to what he should be doing he just had to hope it was right. Her answer though eased some of the worry that had been gnawing away at him since the question was asked and he huffed out a low breath of relief squeezing her hand as he stood there a smile of his own creeping onto his lips.

“You’ll need a cloak… Something with your family crest on it… Your handmaid, then once I have things arranged I’ll send word when to go to the Godswood… We need to keep this quiet for now until everything is sorted…” After all, they couldn’t run word getting out about what they would be doing. Better to keep the circle small for now.

Fane was thinking miles ahead of where Faye was at right now. She had yet to even truly wrap her head around what was happening, and could only make it a few steps from now. Her mind, usually so clear and well-balanced and logical, was thoroughly off kilter, and it unsettled her. The most prominent thought in her mind right now being that she wasn’t marrying Flint. She was no longer beholden to a man she did not love, a man she loathed and found repulsive in more ways than merely the physical. No, she wasn’t going to marry Flint, she was marrying Fane. Fane, who was her friend, and a good man. Fane, who she cares for deeply, and whom she trusted. Fane who she knew would keep his word about not making her feel like a prisoner. And who would care for her and protect her as his own.

Later, once the immediate shock and utter madness of it all had settled down, Faye would be able to think more deeply about things. About the actual repercussions of what they were doing. Right now, she was desperate and scared. And Fane had willingly offered her an out. And he’d meant it, she knew. She could see it on his face, and in the way he held her hand so tightly.

And when he smiled, it settled some of the butterflies in her belly. Not all, but some.

But then: “Tonight?” she asked, not expecting it to happen so soon. “But... but I’m not… we’re not-“ ready. Faye stopped as he continued, knowing that every word he said was true. If they were to do this, it must be now. To wait was to risk disaster. The castle had ears, and while nearly everyone here was utterly loyal to either Fane’s family or Faye’s, whispers slipped about. If they weren’t already headed for disaster now, on this slippery path they’d cobbled together out of thin air and desperation, then they would find themselves there soon if they dallied.

So Fane was right. Only Catarina and perhaps one other person could know. The timeframe of what they were planning sobered Faye a bit more, and she swallowed. He was doing this for her. And later, there would be time for deeper conversation. But right now… “Alright. I’ll be ready.” She held tight to his hand, looking at him through the darkness and the torchlight. Just before she made to move away, to prepare herself, she stopped. “Fane… are you sure this is what you want?  I know you don’t… love me. You don’t have to do this.” There was a pause as she waited to see if he had anything else to say. Finally: “If we… when we do this… I will honor you as my husband. In every way,” she said, dipping her head and blushing slightly, not being so naive as to understand there were duties a wife was beholden to, free will or not. Some things simply must be done.But that was for later. “And I will stand by you,” Faye continued. “I will take care of you, and have your back as I always have. Just as you’ve done for me. I promise you.”

He had to think ahead, if they were going to manage to pull this off then they needed to think both about the potential repercussions and anything else that needed to be considered. Flint was a Northern Lord and likely would be thoroughly offended by this, but it was all Fane could think of to stop her from being shackled to a life of misery and unhappiness with a man who would see her as nothing more than a brood-mare. She deserved so much more than that.

There was only so much he could do to reassure her, whilst this wasn’t new territory for him it was certainly a long time since he had been involved in such antics. The stammering was met with a calm look, despite the uncertainty that fluttered inside of him he knew that he’d need to keep himself together for the sake of both of them if Faye’s current reaction was anything to go by. “We can’t wait for long… I know this is mad and fast but… I’d only be able to make up reasons for you to stay here for so long before as you say people would come looking for you.” Remembering the flowers he’d gathered earlier he laughed a little pressing them into her hand “I went out and got these for you… Granted they’re not so nice as they were but I thought you might like them.”

“Wait for Damien, he’ll bring word of what I’ve managed” only now did he break his hold on her hand raising it to touch her face lightly dark eyes reflecting the torchlight that was burning nearby. He’d started to turn when she called for him again, and his head tilted slightly. You don’t have to do this. “I never do anything I don’t want to do” Fane answered patiently another smile being offered and a nod, sure in his decision “I’d rather be married to someone I care for and trust implicitly than a complete stranger.”

Her promise to honour him softened his features slightly “don’t worry about any of that, but I will be faithful to you also and I will do my best to always be honest with you… Nothing needs to change beyond maintaining those two tenants hm?” Still, he shivered slightly against a fierce gust of wind “go sort whatever you need to… I’ll see what i can pull together.”

Faye would rather die than be subjected to the fate that they both knew was waiting for her as Lord Flint’s wife. Not only would it give him dominion over her lands and her people, it would give him dominion over her body as well. By law. There would be nothing Faye or anyone else could do.

So this, in truth, the only way.

And Fane’s calm in the midst of it all helped ease Faye slightly, though her heart still hammered in her chest and her body still felt the shock of it down to her bones. So she tried to remember who she was, what she’d been through. She wasn’t some simpering girl child to be coddled and petted, nor would she allow this to overtake her sensibilities.

“It is mad,” she said with a half-hysterical laugh. But it quickly sobered as the truth of it sank down as well. She may not have shared the letter with anyone else, but her father knew. Lord Flint knew. And he was sure to have been boasting to others about having her as his wife. The unweddable Lady Knight of Burning Rock. He handed her something then, and she looked down to see a small gathering of slightly abused flowers.  Faye looked up at him as she took them gently, not wanting to harm them any more than they already were. She smiled, her eyes softening.

“They’re beautiful. Thank you.” Clasping them to her chest, she turned after his final instructions to gather her things and start her preperations.

She didn’t argue with him, knowing what he said to be true. Sighing, she nodded again. “Me as well.”

They said their final words, Fane promising her nothing would change. And Faye nodded, even as she felt that in this he was wrong. Because as much as they might remain honest with one another and be faithful as man and wife, everything would change.

But it wasn’t to be helped. They had made their mutual decision, and would hold to it.

Faye walked away, headed to find Catarina, and prepare for her wedding.

[hobicomeholla29]

Shatter - Part 1 - JHS

Pairing: Hoseok x Reader

Genre: Angst/ Romance/ Fluff in the future

Word Count:3.9k

Warnings: Mentions of death/Mentions of wars/Mentions(hints) of depression/Mourning

Rating: PG13

A/N: Hey! Hey! Before I get into anything else I first have to that all the beautiful who helped me with checkin, beta reading and giving me fantastic feedback in general! @sugaa-sugaaa​ @spicykoreantatertots​ @nottodayjjk​ Thank you so so much for your words of support and for pushing me through to deliver a good piece for everyone!

That being said, This is a 2 shot! Please look forward to part 2!

Summary: In a post-apocalyptic world, where humankind’s greed has lead plannet earth to turn into a ball of duts, all Hoseok wants is a better and bright future, yet strong feelings and a positive mind doesn’t always cut it.

Masterlist

The early morning sky was filled with an eerie fog that threatened to smother anyone who didn’t wear the appropriate attire for being outdoors. 

You stood straight; hands balled in tight fists. A mixture of emotions running through your body. Sadness, anger, helplessness, fear… 

You were the only ones standing in the middle of the empty field, no one else daring to stand still and be surrounded by the suffocating drafts of air that carried large amounts of toxins --a consequence of humankind utilizing nuclear weapons in the past. 

You remember stories being told about your ancestors taking long walks through lucious fields without sporting gas masks on their faces, just imagine enjoying the air in the atmosphere instead of fearing it. 

Most parts of the beautiful earth that once existed were now wastelands, all thanks to what was called The Colossal War. 

Civilization was anything but civilized after that, creating division and animosity between groups of people with different ideals. 

Clans were created and with them the claiming of lands. Lands that provided resources for sustenance, yet the quick dwindling of resources and supplies made some clans selfish, refusing to barter with others and instead attempting to conquer their lands as well. 

With bigger and stronger clans taking over the smaller and weaker ones, eventually only four major clans remained, the only exception being small factions that settled between the abandoned areas near the borders of each clan. 

Some factions were harmless, only looking for a peaceful place to live, making them nomads, since they had to constantly move to avoid being forced to pledge to one of the four major clans. Others were rioters, ready to go against anything and anyone who posed a threat to their beliefs and wants. 

During the long solars that came and went after The Colossal War, much had changed.

Technology, communication, transportation, settlements.

It had all changed, but you really couldn't say it was all for good. 

Technology had turned obsolete at a steady pace, leaving only a few gadgets that were still able to function without being saturated or losing signal without proper cell towers.

Most of them had been vandalized or burned to ashes, mostly to steal copper from the area. 

The only remaining signal towers were those of glass recorders. 

A glass recorder was the device that kept track of a person’s life. 

Since The Colossal War in 3010, civil wars had been blowing up everywhere. Causing inconvenience in simple tasks like having troops return to a fallen soldier's clan to inform their family about their passing. 

A simple duty as this one might have worked back in 2020 but not in 3011. 

If troops were sent back, they were at risk of running into an enemy faction and breaking into another battle. 

Hence, in 3015, glass recorders were created. 

A glass recorder was a device made out of bulletproof glass. Its interior was filled with cables and microchips that contained a person’s personal information, tracking and broadcasting an individual’s vital signs at all times. Constant long-ranged waves went from the glass recorder - to the signal towers around the globe - to the chip installed in the individual's neck and back. 

You could say its data sharing function was similar to the behaviour of olden times bluetooth connections, except that the only information it could send and receive was vital signs and  identification details. 

Many tried hacking them, attempting to rob information from the device and using it for ulterior motives, however they are designed with an auto destruction mode in case of hacking or death and their towers were heavily protected by troops from each clan. 

Usually their sizes were similar to that of an old cellphone. 

On one side there’s a knob, remarkably similar to what DJs back in the day used on their mixing boards. It acted as a switch between the different modes the glass recorder could be set on, them being Vitals, Information and Hologram. And on the other side there was a touchscreen, where vitals could be read and holograms could be activated. 

There was also an XBS dock entrance on one side of the device. It was mostly used by the law enforcers by transferring any new information about an individual from their archives to the glass recorder, whether it was good or bad. 

All of that information, including marital status, first degree relatives, occupation, date of birth and allergies could be found on information mode. 

On vitals, details were given about their current health status and the sound of their heartbeat could be played. 

And finally on hologram mode, you could see a three-dimensional scale of the owner’s body, making it easier to check for injuries or if any internal damage had been taken.

Besides glass recorders, communication had jumped back to messaging via written letters or oral messages sent via a messenger.

Any vehicles that had existed on the face of earth, had been overhauled.

Updated to cater to the usage it now provided to the arid ground.

Motorcycles, cars, buses, trucks and ships, all modified.

Additional exhaust pipes, thicker tires, dust shields, dredging machinery, artillery and artillery holders, were examples of things you had seen being mounted on different transports, including aircrafts. 

As for yourself, you lived in a colony that had been forced to be part of one of the major 4 clans, The Jeon Clan. 

The Jeon clan was strong, the Jeon clan was powerful, the Jeon clan was feared, the Jeon clan was blinded by its greed, the Jeon clan stood above everyone and if you refused their ways, then you refused living. 

That's how your small clan ended up under their command. 

It was common to hear stories as an infant about how the Jeon clan conquered. They always portrayed the glorious stories of how leader -Jeon the 1st-  had tirelessly battled large creatures and evil men to save small clans from their miserable lives, however in each capsule each family shared the story with their offspring as they remembered it best. 

Meaning some stories were wonderful, while others were resentful memories and stories of how their clans had been forced to change their ways or how they had lost loved ones to the Jeon reign. 

You were only 7 when it all happened.

You remember it so clearly, it felt like you were reliving it each time.

_

You stood in the middle of the large hangar, eyes searching left and right for your father. 

Men and women ran all around, either towards shelter or towards the battle zone. 

A military truck's engine roared in the background, yet you couldn't figure out which of the twenty something trucks near you had been brought to life. 

You frantically ran in the opposite direction. You needed to find him, you needed to convince him not to go. 

Running as fast as your short legs could take you, you tightly held on to the glass recorder in your hand. 

Tears started prickling your eyes the longer it went without you being able to find him. 

Two NSTV vehicles sped past you, swiftly followed by a caravan of men on choppers, armed to the teeth.

Luckily none of them seemed to be your father.

You were getting desperate. 

All he had done was left a note on your bed with his glass recorder.

"My beautiful cyberflower, I love you so much. And because I love you, I must defend you. Papa might not be back for a while, but he will make sure that if he doesn't come back at all, it is because he was able to create a better place for you to live in." 

He promised he would never go, that he would stay no matter what. 

That he wouldn't do the same thing your mom did.

Leaving you behind was never the solution. You preferred having them both and figuring everything else out later than having none of them and still being lost. 

Why was it so easy for them to leave you behind…?

You didn't notice you had dropped to your knees, you didn't notice the tears that cascaded from your face and you certainly didn't notice how your mourning wail had halted all activities under the hangar. 

All frozen in place, no one in the building could figure out why. How could the desperate cry of a child send shivers down their spine? How could it express without mistake, their inner thoughts and feelings.

They felt the grief and pain of having to put their lives on the line to give their loved ones a better future.

A future that should have been granted to them, but the Jeons thought differently. 

Yet, your clearest memory from that day was the tight embrace that pulled you out of your dazed state. 

The embrace that told you that even if everything didn't turn out as you wanted, he would be there to walk you through it. 

He would be there with that bright smile of his that cleared away all of your cloudy days. 

_ 

A rundown metallic shed stood at a distance, it was probably used in the past by troops as a hideout, yet for several solars it had been a place you used for solace. 

The location gave you a quiet place to think, a quiet place to run away to when everything got too hectic at the colony, a place to yell out of frustration. It was your place -even if it was on enemy's territory. 

However, today said shed felt smaller, its tall walls choking you, suppressing your lungs, no calm remained in it as the words that dropped from your lover’s mouth bounced from wall to wall. The echo made you feel like the words were mocking you by constantly repeating what he said. 

"I must go, and you must stay.” 

You knew you had heard word of people in the colony joining forces with others near you, to topple the Jeon clan. 

Nonetheless, you figured it was just tittle-tattle.

Yet here you are standing in the middle of the building, right in front of your lover, who is spewing the same nonsense your father did so many solara ago.

"Is this a joke? 'Cause I'm not laughing..." 

You saw his hands clenched into fists in annoyance, he tried holding in his feelings, yet the frustrated sigh that left his lips sold him out quickly. 

Deep down he knew you wouldn’t take the news lightly, that you would want to accompany him on this journey as well or avoid the whole thing in general. But if he let you, if you came along, his departure would have no meaning. He was leaving for you. He thought you would be more rational.That the conversation would last less than a fraction of a solar, but he stood corrected. 

"I can't stay here on my own. You can’t leave me just like that." You were distraught. Your eyes searched for his, yet his gaze remained on the door you had used moments ago to enter the shed. 

You needed to bring his mind back to you, to the present where you both still remained, you needed to keep him away from thoughts of the unknown future and the doom that could be.

Why was he trying to be person number three on your mourning list? 

Your eyes remained on his, yet your fingers occupied themselves trying to find his glove-covered ones, the action making him look down at your entwined fingers. 

His eyes seemed to soften at your actions and that alone helped you breathe easier. Deep down you knew that you had to stay back and wait for him, it would be the safest place for you, the colony was your home, but the news he dropped on you like a bucket of cold water had your common senses frozen.Why would he want to leave you so suddenly? 

Maybe he no longer wanted this, maybe you were too much, maybe that promise he made solars ago about walking the path with you was too heavy and too much of a burden... 

"You must stay, for me,” He said, “and for them." His eyes dropped to your stomach, his free hand caressing the bump that had started forming not long ago. 

"Hoseok...please..." You had to try at least one more time. If he still was that warrior at heart that you had once met, then he was certain to leave even with you crying rivers. 

"I must go, my love. I have to be a part of this fight that will give our family the freedom that they deserve. The freedom that WE deserve." His eyes glossed over, yet not one tear abandoned his eye. He was sure of his decision and nothing could stop him now. 

"You don't have to... A lot of men are already there." 

"And I am sure they also have families and other reasons to be there. I will lend them a hand and they shall lend me one. We will fight for a better life and world, a better place to raise our offspring, a better place to grow old." At this point in conversation, his eyes are boring into yours, yet there is no anger towards you. Only love, strong, heated, unwavering, caring and passionate love. There was certainly no way for you to fight against that. 

For a split second, his eyes left yours, and you followed the movements of his left hand. Carefully, he pushed his hand into his pocket, retrieving a device that you were very familiar with. 

His glass recorder. 

"I- I can’t." 

"It's the only way for you to know my status... and if it ever comes to worse, you'll know not to wait for me any longer." He said as he placed it in your hand. 

"Please stop talking like you are a dead man already!" 

"Y/n-" You interrupted him mid-sentence. You were blabbing now. All your thoughts and fears spilling out at once. 

"No! I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want you to go! I want you here with me, with our babies. If you tell the Chief he will let you stay. We are expecting! I can’t lose you; you are walking to your grav-" 

"Y/N!" His sudden yell made you flinch, but nonetheless, you looked him in the eyes, only to find them filled with tears. Filled with fear but determination as well. 

He was always like this, a young man with a mission. Fire in his eyes, determined to make this world a better place, even if it scared him to the core. He always said... 

"There is no better way to deal with fear than to walk right over it..." Those stupid words he repeated everyday since you were 7. "This is me walking all over it. This is me putting you -putting them over my fear of what may be." 

"I love you." 

"And I love you, my beautiful cyberflower." His hand grabbed yours, slowly bringing each one of them to his face and kissing your knuckles and palms softly.

"I'll always return to you." 

And so, you watched him ride his chopper towards the horizon.

His silhouette quickly disappeared in the darkness of the night.

Even though the light of the moon shone brightly, it felt dark around you, as if your clouds had returned with the sole departure of his bright smile. 

Your hand squeezed the device he left behind, your grip getting stronger the further he drove and now you really wondered, "How is it so easy for everyone to leave me behind?" 

150 solars and 149 lunars went by, yet nothing had changed. 

Since the day Hoseok had left, your days consisted of nothing but worrying, eating, and visiting the shed. 

An old steel bench was set outside of the old metallic building and just like any other day you'd visited, you sat on the edge of it, contemplating life and hoping today was the day Hoseok would return to you as he had promised. 

As time flew by, you added this day to the list of other ones where your lover didn't return and although you tried to remain as positive as possible, you couldn't stop thinking about why life was so cruel? Why did any of you have to live through this? It certainly wasn't fair. No one deserved to be forced to choose death if they didn't choose what someone else wanted. 

Since your great-grandparents' days, the future was supposed to be glorious, beautiful, and bright. Technology was supposed to make everything better. But somehow it all turned to worse. 

Pride, arrogance, and selfishness had created the horrible world that you now lived in. 

People lost their lives as an exchange for a promise they never received.

They fought battles to free people who were slaves to their own fears and now this was the consequence of all that was done. What a sad life to live. What a horrible life to live. 

You rubbed your stomach feeling your bump as it continued to grow. Time doesn’t stop for anyone, is what they say and your clear example is how close you are to being due.

The walk back to your clan’s colony was an easy 10-minute walk that could turn mortal if taken while distracted, hence you carried a machete in your boot. 

Once you set foot on your colony's official territory, you swiftly made your way to your family home capsule, ready to wash off the sorrow and go to bed as you would wait for the next solar to come. 

Sadly for you, that hope disappeared the second you made eye contact with someone you didn't wish to see at the moment.

His eyes caught yours and you saw a mix of emotions: sorrow, understanding, relief and worry, all conveyed to you in a single glance. 

You knew what was to come, it was always the same dialogue, but you didn't want to do this today. 

Today you felt drowned, disappointed, you could feel that dark cloud that loomed over your head enlarging day by day. 

"You know it’s not s—” 

“Save it, Namjoon. I’m not a chil—" 

“—But you are a carrying woman, who is walking carelessly to a place where no one can or will follow you.” 

“I am not carele—"

“Y/N, shut up for once and put this through your thick skull!! Hendra is enemy territory!!” 

And with that he left to his own family capsule, stomping all the way to the door and slamming it closed.

For the first time, you felt different and maybe it had something to do with the fact that Namjoon and your argument didn't end in the usual monotonous sermon he always gave you, where he remained calm all the way and you rolled your eyes in annoyance. 

The funny part about the entire thing was that you were cousins, and your family capsules were right beside each other, so you were sure you'd have to see his sour expression the following day. 

Finally in your own capsule - the one you used to share with Hoseok, you took that shower that you daydreamed about and headed to your room. 

Just like every night, you muted your room to the outside world, opting to listen to the broadcast of your beloved’s heartbeat. 

It was the only thing that helped you sleep at night and somehow you felt as if it pacified the two progenies in you. 

You didn't know when or how it happened, but eventually 365 solars had gone by. 

365 solars since the day of his departure and you weren't getting any better at being without him. 

You were now a mother of two. A dawn and a dusk. One born in the early morning and one almost 12 hours later. 

So, you gave them names that matched their arrivals to this world, Dawn and Dusk. 

All times prior to that day, you felt that once they arrived, there would be this large turning point in your life. That once you had someone who depended on you, your days would start to shift into something brighter, yet somehow, even after the arrival of your children, you felt almost no difference, bordering on saying that you might even felt worse. 

Their faces were the perfect mix of your deoxyribonucleic acid and his. Two different beings creating harmony in the body of two newer ones. 

Their father had left to give them a better future but, in the process, he had left a broken family behind. It felt incomplete and hollow and somehow you envied the blissful ignorance that your infants currently lived in. Not able to understand the sorrowful life that currently surrounded them.  

Another 365 solars went by. 

You still listened to Hoseok’s heartbeats every night. The glass recorder remaining as your sole companion in addition to your —now— toddlers. 

The night remained quiet. You could barely hear the murmur of voices from the capsule near yours. If you were right, you were sure it was Namjoon and his wife, discussing the plan for retrieving meals for the clan the following morning. 

You shifted on the foam mattress that only reminded you more of him. A very faint and almost gone notion of his scent wafting up from what used to be his pillow. 

From afar you watched the two small bodies –lying on the second mattress in your room— inhale and exhale deep in their slumber. 

They had —just like you— fallen asleep to the beat of the heart of a stranger you placed in front of them and made them call him father. 

You loved them, every bit of them. Would do anything for them not to suffer, and maybe just then, in that moment, you understood a bit of Hoseok’s reasoning. 

You toss and turn all of a sudden jerking awake from your slumber. You could not recall when you had fallen asleep, so your mind remained disoriented for a short minute, trying to grasp your surroundings. Your heavy eyes roamed around the room, picking up on every detail, the babies were still asleep, the clock read 3AM and the glass recorder wasn’t beating… 

THE GLASS RECORDER WASN’T BEATING! 

Violently, you pulled the sheets off your body, grabbing the device as soon as your hands were close enough to grab it. 

“Why are you not beating? Why are you not broadcasting? What the fu—” 

And it hit you like a train… but you didn’t believe it, you couldn’t believe it. 

You shook it and twisted the knob and switched it to hologram mode, but it wasn’t working and you didn’t know what to do, your hands were shaking, your thoughts were jumbled… 

“This can’t be happening.” 

And when a fake solar illuminated your mind, you quickly turned around to plug it in to your old computer, however, the universe had other plans for you and without announcement the device cracked. 

You watched it crack little by little, extending all around the recorder, slowly marking the beautiful device with horrible lines that marked its ending, it didn't stop until it was no longer graspable and all that was left behind was crystal dust in your cupped hands. 

You didn’t hear when Namjoon and his wife entered your room or when your kids were taken out of there. Your sobs alerting 3 capsules nearby of the sorrowful occurrence of the night.

It was the worst type of Deja Vu, because just like your mother and father, you’d never see him again…

“Hoseok…”  

[sinrau]

Clint Lorance had been in charge of his platoon for only three days when he ordered his men to kill three Afghans stopped on a dirt road.

A second-degree murder conviction and pardon followed.

Today, Lorance is hailed as a hero by President Trump.

His troops have suffered a very different fate.

Depression

Fatal car crash

Shooting death

Cancer

Hospitalizations

Drug abuse

PTSD

Arrests

Alcoholism

Suicide

‘The Cursed Platoon’

By Greg Jaffe

James O. Twist poses with local children during his deployment in Afghanistan in 2012. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

They thought of the calls and texts from him that they didn’t answer because they were too busy with their own lives — and Twist, who had a caring wife, a good job and a nice house — seemed like he was doing far better than most. They didn’t know that behind closed doors he was at times verbally abusive, ashamed of his inner torment and, like so many of them, unable to articulate his pain.By November 2019, Twist, a man the soldiers of 1st Platoon loved, was gone and Lorance was free from prison and headed for New York City, a new life and a star turn on Fox News.This story is based on a transcript of Lorance’s 2013 court-martial at Fort Bragg, N.C., and on-the-record interviews with 15 members of 1st Platoon, as well as family members of the soldiers, including Twist’s father and wife. The soldiers also shared texts and emails they exchanged over the past several years. Twist’s family provided his journal entries from his time in the Army. Lorance declined to be interviewed.In New York, Sean Hannity, Lorance’s biggest champion and the man most responsible for persuading Trump to pardon him, asked Lorance about the shooting and soldiers under his command.Lorance had traded in his Army uniform for a blazer and red tie. He leaned in to the microphone. “I don’t know any of these guys. None of them know me,” Lorance said of his former troops. “To be honest with you, I can’t even remember most of their names.”

The soldiers of 1st Platoon tell their story

An ‘entire month of despair’

Soldiers from the 1st Platoon fire a mortar during a firefight with Taliban in April 2012 in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

The 1st Platoon soldiers came to the Army and the war from all over the country: Maryland, California, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Indiana and Texas to name just a few. They joined for all the usual reasons: “To keep my parents off my a–,” said one soldier.

“I just needed a change,” said another.

A few had tried college but quit because they were bored or failing their classes. “I didn’t know how to handle it,” Gray said of college. “I was really immature.”

Others joined right out of high school propelled by romantic notions, inherited from veteran fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers, of service and duty. Twist’s father served in Vietnam as a clerk in an air-conditioned office before coming back to Michigan and opening a garage. In his spare time Twist Sr. was a military history buff, a passion that rubbed off on his son, who visited World War II battle sites in Europe with his dad. Twist was just 16 when he started badgering his parents to sign his enlistment papers and barely 18 when he left for basic training. His mother had died of cancer only a few months earlier.

“I got pictures of him the day we dropped him off, and he didn’t even wave goodbye,” his father recalled. “He was in pig heaven.”

Members of the 1st Platoon James O. Twist, Reyler Leon, Joe Morrissey, Andy Lehrer, Mike McGuinness, Dallas Haggard (kneeling) and Brandon Krebs pose with a flag in Afghanistan in 2012. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

Several of the 1st Platoon soldiers enlisted in search of a steady paycheck and the promise of health insurance and a middle-class life. “I needed to get out of northeast Ohio,” McGuinness said. “There wasn’t anything there.”

In 1999, he was set to pay his first union dues and go to work alongside his steelworker grandfather when the plant closed. So he became a paratrooper instead, eventually deploying three times to Afghanistan.

McGuinness didn’t look much like a paratrooper with his thick, squat body. But he liked being a soldier, jumping out of planes, firing weapons and drinking with his Army buddies. After a while the war didn’t make much sense, but he took pride in knowing that his soldiers trusted him and that he was good at his job.

Nine months before 1st Platoon landed in rural southern Afghanistan, a team of Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden.

Jarred Ruhl, Dallas Haggard and Mike McGuinness in Afghanistan in June 2012. (Courtesy of the Carson family)

Samuel Walley, the badly wounded soldier Twist pulled from the blast crater, wondered if they might be spared combat. “Wasn’t that the goal to kill bin Laden?” he recalled thinking. “Isn’t that checkmate?”

Around the same time, Twist was trying to make sense of what was to come. “I feel like the Army was a good decision, but also in my mind is a lot of dark thoughts,” he wrote in a spiral notebook. “I could die. I could come back with PTSD. I could be massively injured.”

“Maybe,” he hoped, “it will start winding down soon.”

But the decade-long war continued, driven by new, largely unattainable goals. When McGuinness saw where the platoon was headed — just 15 or so miles from the spot in southern Afghanistan where he had spent his second tour — he warned the new soldiers they were going to be “fighting against dudes who just really f—ing hate you.”

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They were told by commanders they were waging a counterinsurgency war in which their top priority was winning the support of the people and protecting them from the Taliban. But no one seemed entirely sure how to accomplish that goal. They helped build a school that never opened because of a lack of teachers and willing students. They met with village elders who insisted they knew nothing about the Taliban’s operations or plans.

An Afghan girl watches as soldiers from the 1st Platoon walk by during a mission in April 2012, in the Zhary district of Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

In May 2012, they moved to a new compound near Payenzai, a remote Afghan village west of Kandahar, which consisted of little more than mud-walled houses, hardscrabble farmers and the Taliban.

So began what Twist described, in a blog post written years later, as an “entire month of despair.”

Four soldiers were severely wounded in quick succession. On June 6, Walley lost his leg and arm to a Taliban bomb. Eight days later, yet another enemy mine wounded Mark Kerner and 1st Lt. Dominic Latino, the platoon leader. Then, on June 23, a sniper’s bullet tore through Matthew Hanes’s neck, leaving him paralyzed.

The platoon was briefly sent back to a larger base a few miles away to shower, meet with mental-health counselors and pick up their new platoon leader. Lorance had served a tour as an enlisted prison guard in Iraq before attending college and becoming an infantry officer. He had spent the first five months of his Afghanistan tour as a staff officer on a fortified base.

This was his first time in combat.

1st Lt. Clint Lorance during training at Fort Bragg before the deployment to Afghanistan in 2012. (Photo by Alan Gladney)

“We’re not going to lose any more men to injuries in this platoon,” he told then-Sgt. 1st Class Keith Ayres, his platoon sergeant, shortly after taking over on June 29, according to Ayres’s testimony.

His strategy, he said, was a “shock and awe” campaign designed to cow the enemy and intimidate villagers into coughing up valuable intelligence. When an Afghan farmer and his young son approached the outpost’s front gate and asked permission to move a section of razor wire a few feet so that the farmer could get into his field, Lorance threatened to have Twist and the other soldiers on guard duty kill him and his boy.

“He pointed at the child . . . at the little, tiny kid,” Twist testified. He estimated the child was 3 or 4 years old.

On Lorance’s second day, he ordered two of his sharpshooters to fire within 10 to 12 inches of unarmed villagers. His goal was to make the Afghans wonder why the Americans were shooting at them and motivate them to attend a village meeting that Lorance had scheduled for later in the week, his soldiers testified.

His real motive, though, seems to have been cruelty. “It’s funny watching those f—ers dance,” Lorance said, according to the testimony of one of his soldiers. Lorance didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, he stood by his men in the guard towers, picked the targets and issued orders. His troops finally balked when he told them to shoot near children. They refused again a few hours later when he ordered them to file a false report saying that they had taken fire from the village.

“If I don’t have the support of my NCOs then I’ll f—ing do it myself,” Lorance exclaimed, according to testimony, referring to noncommissioned officers.

Sgt. 1st Class Keith Ayres looks over maps with other soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division in April 2012, before a joint mission with the Afghan army in Kandahar province. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

On the day of the killings for which he would be convicted, Lorance posted a sign in the platoon headquarters stating that no motorcycles would be permitted in his unit’s sector. The platoon’s soldiers were falsely told before the day’s patrol that motorcycles should be considered “hostile and engaged on sight.” Several soldiers testified that Lorance told them that senior U.S. officials had ordered the change. At least two sergeants recalled the guidance had come from the Afghans and did not apply to U.S. forces. Due to the conflicting testimony, the jury of Army officers acquitted Lorance of changing the rules of engagement. Still, Lorance’s actions left soldiers confused on the critical, life-or-death question of when they were authorized to open fire.

The mission that day was a foot patrol into a nearby village to meet the elders.

Less than 30 minutes after they rolled out of the gate, three men on a motorcycle approached a cluster of Afghan National Army troops at the front of their formation. Lorance and his troops were standing about 150 to 200 yards away in an orchard, tucked behind a series of five-foot-high mud walls on which the Afghans grew grapes.

At the trial, Lorance’s soldiers recalled how he had ordered them to fire.

“Why aren’t you shooting?” he demanded.

A U.S. soldier fired and missed. The motorcycle carrying the three men, none of whom appeared to be armed, came to a stop. Upon hearing the shots, McGuinness began running toward Lorance, who was closer to the front of the U.S. patrol, to see why they were shooting.

The puzzled Afghans were now standing next to the stopped motorcycle, “trying to figure out what had happened,” according to one soldier’s testimony. Gray, who was watching from a nearby armored vehicle, recognized the eldest of the three men as someone the Americans regularly met with in the village. He recalled the Afghans waving at them.

Todd Fitzgerald testifies during Clint Lorance’s 2013 court-martial at Fort Bragg, N.C.

“Smoke ’em,” Lorance ordered over the radio.

At first Gray and the other soldiers in the armored vehicle weren’t sure whom Lorance wanted them to shoot. “There was a back and forth with the three of us in the vehicle,” Gray recalled in an interview.

Then Pvt. David Shilo, who was in the turret of the armored vehicle just inches from Gray, fired, striking one of the men, who fell into a drainage ditch. Because the platoon had been told that morning that motorcycles weren’t allowed in their sector, Shilo testified that he thought he was acting on a lawful order. Shilo declined to be interviewed.

The two surviving Afghan men bent to retrieve their dead colleague when Shilo cleared his weapon and shot again, killing a second Afghan. The third man ran away. Two U.S. soldiers testified that it was possible that an Afghan soldier also fired.

A few minutes later, a boy approached the dead men and the motorcycle, which was standing on the side of the road with its kickstand still down. Lorance ordered Shilo to fire a third time and disable the bike. This time he refused.

“I wasn’t going to shoot a 12-year-old boy,” Shilo testified.

David Shilo testifies during Clint Lorance’s 2013 trial at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Relatives of the dead were now on the scene screaming and crying. Lorance’s immediate superior officer, Capt. Patrick Swanson, who was two miles away and couldn’t see what was happening, ordered him over the radio to search the bodies.

Lorance was convicted of lying to Swanson, telling him that villagers had carried off the corpses before his men could examine them. In fact, Lorance’s troops searched the bodies of the dead Afghans and found ID cards, scissors, some pens and three cucumbers, but no weapons, according to testimony.

The troops continued their patrol into the village while McGuinness and a small team of soldiers provided cover from a nearby roof. About 30 minutes after the first shooting, McGuinness spotted two Afghan men talking on radios.

“We have to do something to the Americans,” one of the men was saying, according to U.S. intercepts. McGuinness and his troops received permission from the company headquarters to fire and killed the two men. The platoon cut short the patrol and returned to the base.

At the outpost the soldiers were shaken. “This doesn’t feel right,” Gray said.

“It’s not f—ing right at all,” McGuinness replied.

Lucas Gray, Joe Fjeldheim and Mike McGuinness in Afghanistan 2012. (Courtesy of the Carson family)

A few minutes later Lorance burst into the platoon’s headquarters ebullient. “That was f—ing awesome,” he exclaimed, according to court testimony.

“Ayres looked sick,” one of the platoon’s soldiers testified. McGuinness was furious.

The lieutenant tried to reassure his sergeants. “I know how to report it up [so] nobody gets in trouble,” he said, according to testimony.

Lorance’s soldiers turned him in that evening, and at the July 2013 trial, 14 of his men testified under oath against him. Four of those soldiers received immunity in exchange for their testimony. Lorance did not appear on the stand, and not one of his former 1st Platoon soldiers spoke in his defense. The trial lasted three days. It took the jury of Army officers three hours to find him guilty of second-degree murder, making false statements and ordering his men to fire at Afghan civilians. The jury handed down a 20-year sentence.

In response to a Lorance clemency request, an Army general reviewed the conviction and reduced the sentence by one year.

‘Why do you care so much?’

Dave Zettel reveals a tattoo of a lighter to represent the 82nd deployment outside his home in Blythewood, S.C. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

The war crimes and their aftermath followed Lorance’s soldiers home to Fort Bragg and, in some cases, into their nightmares. On many nights Gray woke up to the image of a group of Afghan soldiers surrounding his cot and emptying their rifles into his sleeping body in retaliation for the murders.

“I dreamed it,” he said, “because I thought that’s what would happen.”

Dave Zettel wasn’t on the patrol when the killings were committed but was in the guard tower when Lorance ordered him and another soldier to fire harassing shots into the neighboring village. On his first full day back in the States, Zettel went out to a dinner with a large group from the platoon and their families.

By the end of the night, the soldiers, rattled from the tour, the stress of Lorance’s upcoming trial and the return home, were intoxicated and emotionally falling apart. Zettel held it together until he was alone in a taxi with his wife and brother. In the quiet of the cab, he felt a crushing guilt that he had made it home unscathed.

“I just lost my s—. I felt like a failure,” he said. “I felt abandoned and so f—ing angry.”

In Afghanistan, Army investigators, who were primarily pursuing Lorance, threatened Zettel with aggravated assault charges for the shootings in the tower. And they showed McGuinness a charge sheet accusing him of murder for killing the Afghans who were talking on the radios about targeting Americans.

The threats of prosecution hung over them for months. Eventually, the Army concluded that McGuinness’s actions were justified. Prosecutors never pursued charges against Zettel.

Instead the Army issued administrative letters of reprimand to Zettel and Matthew Rush, the soldier who fired the rounds at the civilians from the tower. Zettel had watched from the tower but did not shoot.

The 1st Platoon leadership team in Afghanistan in May 2012. From left: Dan Williams, Mike McGuinness, Chris Murray (sitting), Keith Ayres, Dominic Latino and Jace Myers (sitting, right). (Courtesy of the Carson family)

Ayres and McGuinness — the senior sergeants in the platoon — received disciplinary letters, which can hinder or delay promotions, for their failure to turn Lorance in sooner or stop the killings on the third day.

McGuinness legally changed his surname, which had been Herrmann, in an effort to shed the stigma of the crimes. “I wanted to get away from the entire situation and I thought I’ll change units and no one will know,” he said. But, because of the investigation and trial, McGuinness’s orders to report to an airborne unit in Italy were canceled. “I ended up staying. People didn’t forget,” he said. “It was awful.”

Shilo, who fired the fatal shots at the men on the motorcycle, was granted immunity and left the Army not long after the trial.

Lucas Gray and James O. Twist in Afghanistan in 2012. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

Even those who weren’t punished or even on the patrol that day felt tainted. To some of their fellow troops they were the “murder platoon,” a bunch of out-of-control soldiers who had wantonly killed Afghans. To others they were turncoats who had flipped on their commander. Gray was waiting for a parachute jump at Fort Bragg when he overheard a lieutenant colonel deride the platoon as nothing but a bunch of “traitors and cowards.” Gray was just a low-ranking specialist, so he kept his mouth shut.

The unit had seen some of the heaviest fighting of the long Afghanistan war, but received no awards for valor. There was no recognition for Twist, who had pulled Walley from a blast crater and applied a tourniquet to the remains of his arm and leg. No one acknowledged Joe Fjeldheim, the platoon medic, who had cut a hole in Hanes’s neck and inserted a breathing tube after a sniper’s bullet left him paralyzed and choking for air.

“Not a single write up. The only thing we received were Purple Hearts for the guys that got messed up,” Zettel said. “We were treated like we had an infectious disease. The Lorance issue evaporated any support from the Army when we got back, and it was absolutely crushing to those who needed help.”

“I think when you see stuff like that sometimes it just flips a switch in some people and you’re just not the same. … I almost drank myself to death for two years,” said Lucas Gray at home in Pulaski, Va. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

A group from the unit gathered regularly at Zettel’s apartment off post to drink. Some Saturdays Fjeldheim would show up at 9:30 a.m. with booze and a plan to stay numb through the weekend. When the troops were too hung over to make it to mandatory morning formation and training, he would administer intravenous drips in the barracks.

“I was working at Macy’s, and I’d dread coming home because someone was doing something stupid or crying in the bathroom,” said Zettel’s wife, Kim. Often, it fell to her to offer a bit of empathy.

The soldiers blamed the killings when they were passed over for promotions or stripped of rank for drinking too much or missing formations. In early 2014, Gray was hospitalized for alcohol withdrawal and put on suicide watch. He had been drinking a half-gallon of whiskey each night to fall asleep. “It was my off switch,” he said. A few days into his hospital stay, when he was still dosed up on Valium, an officer visited him.

“Why are you like this?” the officer pressed. “They are just dead Afghans. Why do you care so much?”

The question infuriated Gray. Before the war crimes, he had believed he was helping Afghans and defending his country. “It’s like you’re this hardcore Christian and some entity drops from the ceiling and says it’s a sham,” he said. “That’s how it was for me. I thought of the Army as this altruistic thing. I thought it was perfect and honorable. It pains me to tell you how stupid and naive I was. The Lorance stuff just broke my faith. . . . And once you lose your values and your faith, the Army is just another job you hate.”

‘You need to stop running your mouth’

Mike McGuinness at home in Raeford, N.C. McGuinness legally changed his surname, which had been Herrmann, in an effort to shed the stigma of the crimes. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

McGuinness tried to intervene on behalf of his soldiers. He talked to Gray’s new commanders, who McGuinness said wanted to run him out of the Army for being drunk.

“Did you ask him why he’s drinking too much?” McGuinness pressed them.

Zettel asked McGuinness to meet with his new platoon sergeant when the Army, without explanation, blocked him from attending Ranger School.

McGuinness also spoke up for Jarred Ruhl, who had been one of his best soldiers in combat. Ruhl came home from Afghanistan with orders for Hawaii and a promotion to sergeant. But he soon began skipping morning formation, was demoted twice to private first class and forced from the Army.

“I just don’t know how to deal with everything that happened,” Ruhl told him. He had been standing next to Lorance when the lieutenant gave the orders to kill the Afghan men.

Jarred Ruhl holds an M203 grenade launcher mounted on his rifle as Dallas Haggard works the M240B machine gun while on duty in Afghanistan in June 2012. (Courtesy of the Carson family)

McGuinness, who said he felt like a failure for not stopping the killings or shielding his men from the fallout, was also self-destructing. “I was mouthy and insubordinate,” he said. He felt distant from his two young children and said he was drunk “six days a week.”

When conservatives rushed to turn Lorance into a hero, McGuinness felt as though the last shreds of his integrity were under assault. Former Lt. Col. Allen West, who had been relieved of command in 2003 for staging a mock execution of an Iraqi prisoner and was later elected to Congress in the tea party wave, blasted Lorance’s conviction in a Washington Times op-ed as a product of the Army’s “appalling” rules of engagement.

The rules were drafted by generals who worried that high civilian casualty rates were driving Afghans to support the Taliban. But West insisted that the rules put U.S. troops at undue risk and reflected President Barack Obama’s “outrageous contempt for the military.” West didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Fox News’s Sean Hannity took up Lorance’s case, calling the conviction a “national disgrace.”

In 2014, McGuinness was out drinking with an Army friend, and when the friend went home, stayed at the bar until he had downed enough booze to “sedate a rhino.” A military police officer found him later that night, sitting in his truck on All American Parkway, the main drag through Fort Bragg, with a gun in his mouth.

A nurse in the psychiatric ward at Womack Army Medical Center asked him if he really wanted help. “If you tell me that to get better, I’ve got to eat a 100-pound bag of gummy bears, then I’m going to eat 100 pounds of gummy bears,” he recalled telling her. “I just can’t do this s— any more.”

It was the end of a 16-year Army career.

Matthew Hanes during his deployment in Afghanistan in May 2012. (Photo by Dave Zettel)

Soon the platoon began to suffer losses at home. First Kerner, who was wounded in a bomb blast with the unit’s first platoon leader, died in March 2015 of cancer at age 23. Doctors discovered the malignancy when they were treating his combat wounds. Five months later Hanes, who was paralyzed by the bullet he took to his neck, died of a blood clot at age 24.

“Saying I love you doesn’t even scratch the surface of how much you truly mean to me,” he wrote in a note to the platoon three months before he fell into a coma. His closest friends from the unit — Zettel, Dallas Haggard and Fjeldheim, the medic who saved his life — were at his bedside in York, Pa., during his final unconscious hours.

At the funeral there was heavy drinking, just like at Bragg, but now that many in the platoon were out of the Army and no longer had to worry about drug tests, there was also cocaine to numb the pain.

Wives traded tips about how to persuade their husbands to go to therapy and talked about hiding their guns when they grew too depressed.

Ruhl complained to McGuinness that life at home felt empty. “Are you in therapy?” asked McGuinness, who was seeing a therapist and getting ready to start college at age 33.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” Ruhl said.

“It doesn’t f—ing matter what you think you can do,” he pressed. “It can’t make things worse.”

Dallas Haggard and Jarred Ruhl while on a long patrol in Afghanistan in June 2012. (Courtesy of the Carson family)

A few months later Zettel, who had finished college and was commissioned as an officer, stopped in to see Ruhl at his home in Fort Wayne, Ind. Zettel was on his way to a leadership course for new Army officers in Missouri.

Ruhl’s stepbrother told him that Ruhl had pulled a gun on a woman in a traffic dispute just days earlier. “Take his gun,” Zettel advised Ruhl’s stepbrother. “Take it apart and hide the pieces so that he can’t get it.” It was impossible, the stepbrother said. Ruhl took his gun everywhere.

Ruhl confided to Zettel that there were days when he couldn’t stop thinking about killing himself.

“How are we going to fix this?” asked Zettel, who helped Ruhl sign up for counseling at a VA hospital.

Before he could start, Ruhl pulled his gun on an acquaintance at a party. His stepbrother tried to wrestle it away and the firearm discharged, severing Ruhl’s femoral artery. He died before paramedics arrived.

“We kind of got betrayed,” said Dave Zettel outside his home in Blythewood, S.C. “We were pegged as if we were like a rogue unit. Which we clearly weren’t. It was kind of disheartening.” (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

Zettel came back for the funeral, then returned to Missouri to finish his five-month leadership course. Four years had passed since the war crimes, but the murders and their aftermath still seemed inescapable. A captain teaching Zettel’s class on rules of engagement used Lorance as a case study, telling the new officers that Lorance had been trying to impose discipline on a platoon that had lost control after one of its soldiers was shot in the neck. The captain was referring to Hanes, who had given Zettel his first salute when he was commissioned as an officer.

Lorance’s soldiers, the captain continued, had violated the rules of engagement and now Lorance, who hadn’t fired a shot, was serving a 19-year prison sentence.

Zettel blew up. “I was there and you need to stop running your mouth,” he recalled shouting at the instructor.

The instructor suggested they step out of the classroom. Zettel grew angrier.

“If I ever see Lorance on the street,” he said. “I am going to rip his f—ing throat out.”

‘Y’all are being led the wrong way’

Sean Hannity of Fox News arrives in National Harbor, Md., on March 4, 2016. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Six days after Trump was inaugurated as president, Hannity asked him in a White House interview about pardoning Lorance. “He got 30 years,” Hannity said incorrectly. “He was doing his job, protecting his team in Afghanistan.”

“We’re looking at a few of them,” said Trump of the case.

In the months after his conviction, Lorance had begun to receive support from United American Patriots ( UAP ), a nonprofit group that represents soldiers accused of war crimes. UAP helped Lorance find new lawyers who claimed in an appeals court filing that they had uncovered evidence showing that the younger victim was “biometrically linked” to a roadside bomb blast that occurred before his death. The sole survivor, the lawyers said, took part in attacks on U.S. forces after the Americans tried to kill him.

“The Afghan men were not civilian casualties . . . but were actually combatant bombmakers who intended to harm or kill American soldiers,” the lawyers wrote in their appeal.

In 2017, a military appeals court dismissed the biometric data as irrelevant because Lorance had “no indications that the victims posed any threat at the time of the shootings.” The judges found that the surviving victim’s decision to join the Taliban after the platoon tried to kill him probably would have helped prosecutors by demonstrating “the direct impact on U.S. forces when the local population believe they are being indiscriminately killed.”

But the biometric evidence and support from UAP helped Lorance’s mother and his legal team get on Trump’s favorite television shows — “Fox & Friends” and “Hannity” — where they offered a new account of the killings that differed dramatically from the sworn testimony. In their telling, the motorcycle wasn’t stopped on the side of the road with its kickstand down, as testimony and photos from the trial demonstrated, but was speeding toward Lorance and his men when he ordered them to fire.

“He’s got to make a split-second decision in a war zone,” Hannity said on his television show. “How did it get to the point where he got prosecuted for this?”

“I feel if he had not made that call,” Lorance’s mother replied, “my son today would be called a hero, killed in action.”

Hannity turned to Lorance’s lawyer, John Maher. “Was there anybody in the platoon that was with Clint that said that was the wrong decision?” he asked.

“That I don’t rightly know,” replied Maher, who had reviewed the platoon’s testimony.

“Then who made the determination that this was the wrong thing to do?” Hannity pressed.

“The chain of command,” Maher said.

“People that weren’t there,” Hannity concluded. Hannity and a Fox News spokeswoman did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In a recent interview, Maher said his response to Hannity’s question had been “potentially inartful.” Lorance was in prison because the 1st Platoon soldiers turned him in and testified against him.

But Maher maintained that Lorance had made a split-second decision to protect his men from an enemy ambush. Some of the 1st Platoon soldiers said that the Afghan men had been standing on the side of the road for as long as two minutes before the U.S. gun truck opened fire on Lorance’s orders. Others, including Lorance, estimated they had been stopped for only a few seconds.

“That’s probably an eternity sitting here in the safety of this environment,” Maher said. “But I assure you that it’s not like that under volatile, uncertain, unforgiving conditions where life and death are right around the corner and a tardy decision results in death or dismemberment.”

The Afghan men were about 150 to 200 yards from the U.S. position when they were killed. To reach Lorance and his troops, they would have had to scale multiple shoulder-high mud walls.

Aaron Deamron, right, and Zach Thomas run for cover as they are fired upon by Taliban fighters during a mission in Zhary district of Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan in April 2012. Thomas would receive a concussion in the incident. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

Zach Thomas, who had been standing just yards from Lorance when he gave the order to fire, was driving to community college in 2017 when he heard Hannity talking about the Lorance case on the radio.

“My blood just started boiling,” he recalled.

Thomas had spent his last day in the Army testifying against his former platoon leader. He was just 18 when he left for Afghanistan, and like many in the unit, his return home had been difficult. He drank to blunt his PTSD and depression. Two of his sergeants were so worried about him that they let him move out of the barracks and spend his last two months living at their house. His plan after the Army was to forget about Afghanistan and start a new life in his hometown of Crosby, Tex.

Zach Thomas and Jake Jensen before their deployment at Fort Bragg. (Courtesy of Zach Thomas)

Thomas pulled over on the side of the road and looked up the number for Hannity’s radio show in New York City on his cellphone.

“I’m a big fan, but y’all are being led the wrong way,” he told a producer for the show. “This isn’t some innocent guy.” The producer asked him if he knew about the biometric data Lorance’s lawyers had uncovered.

“I don’t know about any of that information, but I was there and these people were not enemy combatants,” he said. He could tell he wasn’t convincing the producer so he gave her McGuinness’s cellphone number and urged her to call him. She talked with McGuinness as well but never invited him on the show.

A handful of other soldiers from the platoon did their best to counter Lorance’s story. Todd Fitzgerald, who was also standing near Lorance when he ordered the killings, took to Reddit to defend the unit. He and several other soldiers spoke to the New York Times for a story that detailed the inaccuracies in Lorance’s defense. Fitzgerald, McGuinness and Gray were interviewed for a documentary about the case, “Leavenworth,” that aired on the Starz Network.

In April 2018, the platoon suffered its fourth death since returning home when Nick Carson, 26, crashed his car late at night.

Carson had been with McGuinness in Afghanistan on the day of the killings, and like his squad leader had been threatened with war crimes charges.

“I don’t know what’s fixing to happen, but our platoon leader is making us all out to be murderers,” he told his parents in a 2012 phone call from Afghanistan. “Just know, I am not a murderer.”

Nick Carson eats a meal during his deployment in Afghanistan in May 2012. (Photo by Dave Zettel)

Carson’s mother and stepfather were at Fort Bragg a few months later when he returned from the war. “He got off that big plane, hugged us and cried and then he said, ‘I love y’all but I need to be by myself. I just need to go,’ ” recalled his stepfather.

Carson stayed in the Army after the combat tour, but he struggled with PTSD, depression and anger. He and Ruhl had been best friends and were supposed to go to Hawaii together when they returned from Afghanistan. After Ruhl’s death, Carson tried to explain on the platoon’s private Facebook page why he was skipping his friend’s funeral. “It’s not that I can’t physically be there,” he wrote. “I won’t let my last memory of Jarred be at his funeral. I am sorry for that. Most of you know how close Jarred and I were, so this has been extremely difficult to accept.”

On the night of the car accident that killed him, Carson had been drinking and wasn’t wearing a seat belt. His parents said he may have fallen asleep while driving. The platoon blamed the war crimes and the deployment.

In Afghanistan, the platoon had dubbed themselves the “Honey Badgers” after the fearless carnivore.

Back home, they began to refer to themselves as “the cursed platoon.”

‘Who is it this time?’

A loaded pistol on a side table in the home of Lucas Gray in Pulaski, Va. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

On October 23rd at 2:44 a.m., Twist’s wife, Emalyn, messaged Sgt. 1st Class Joe Morrissey, who had been Twist’s team leader with the platoon in Afghanistan.

“James committed suicide tonight,” she wrote from the hospital where the doctors were preparing to harvest his organs. “Could you let his other Army friends know. . . . This is a fucking living nightmare.” It was the platoon’s fifth death since returning home four years earlier.

Morrissey woke to the message at Fort Bragg and began sobbing. His soon-to-be ex-wife knew immediately that another member of the platoon was gone. His first call was to McGuinness, who was returning home from a late-night shift as a bouncer at a Fayetteville bar. The two immediately began calling the rest of the platoon, which was scattered across the country.

The deaths had imbued them with a grim fatalism. “Who is it this time?” a few answered when they saw the 5 a.m. calls from Morrissey’s phone.

“It’s James,” Morrissey said again and again.

At Fort Jackson, Zettel was administering a predawn fitness test to recruits when he got the call. He punched a fence and rushed back to his office so the new soldiers wouldn’t see him fall apart. Alone at his desk, Zettel thought about the steady stream of calls and texts Twist had sent him over the past five years, and he wondered if the messages were an indirect way of asking for help.

McGuinness caught Gray as he headed off to his job at a weapons arsenal in southwest Virginia. His wallpaper on his work computer was a photo of Twist and him in Afghanistan, their rifles slung across their chests. “Back when we were cool,” Twist had written when he texted it to Gray.

The hardest call was to Walley, the soldier Twist had dragged from the blast crater. “What’s wrong?” his fiancee asked him when he got the call. “It’s Twist,” Walley told her. She tried to hug him, but he pushed her away. “I need to take this in alone,” he said.

Samuel Walley with his fiancee Hannah Smallwood in their garage in Buford, Ga. Walley lost his right leg and part of his left arm in Afghanistan. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

At the funeral, Walley spoke first for the platoon, rocking back and forth on his prosthetic leg. Walley was wounded a month before the murders, but they had affected him too. At times, he felt abandoned by those who had tried to distance themselves from the unit, the murders and the war. “I have to wake up every single day and look in the mirror. Every single day I am hopping in a wheelchair,” he often thought. “I don’t get to forget.”

In January 2016, he was drunk and despondent in his apartment outside Atlanta and accidentally fired his pistol through the ceiling and into the apartment above him. After the shooting, Walley cut back on his drinking and returned to college. He was just one semester from graduating.

He stared out at the packed and silent church.

“Twist would probably give me a little bit of crap right now for having not wrote a speech,” he began. “But I figured I’d just tell a story. It’s a little bit of a harsh story, but I think it needs to be told.”

Members of the 1st Platoon at James O. Twist’s funeral in Grand Rapids, Mich., in November 2019. From left: Joe Fjeldheim, Jake Jensen, John Twist, Zach Thomas, Dan Williams (holding left side of flag), Alan Gladney (wearing glasses), Lucas Gray (partially visible), Reyler Leon, Samuel Walley, and slightly behind him is Dave Zettel, Brandon Krebs, and Mike McGuinness (in sunglasses), Brandon Kargol, Joe Morrissey, Dom Latino, Dallas Haggard, Brett Frace and Zach Nelson at the far right. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

Walley had spent dozens of hours reconstructing every second of the day he was injured. Eight years after the blast, he and his fellow soldiers would still argue over the smallest details: What kind of bomb had caused his wounds? Was it a pressure plate or remote-detonated? What exactly did Morrissey say as he and Carson lifted Walley into the helicopter? For Walley, the details were sacred. Remembering brought him comfort.

He took a breath and described the explosion and its aftermath. “My right leg was about 20 feet away. It was completely removed. My left leg, the tibia ripped through the [skin]; my foot was facing toward my butt,” he said. His right arm was mangled.

“Twist ended up coming through this cloudy haze,” Walley continued. “He was the most selfless man that I ever knew on this planet. He did not care if he died. He did not care if his limbs were to get ripped off. He didn’t care. He just cared that his guys were okay.”

A few minutes in a combat zone can define a life for good or for ill. “I believe that 10 minutes defined Twist,” Walley said.

Morrissey spoke next of Twist’s successes as a soldier, state trooper and father. “Those of us who knew Twist were extremely proud,” he said. “Unfortunately . . . underneath it all, the demons are still there, still tearing away at us day in and day out.”

‘The men and women in the mud and dirt’

President Trump welcomes Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance and Army Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, left, at the Republican Party of Florida’s Statesman Dinner in December 2019, in Aventura, Fla. Both soldiers were granted full pardons by Trump. (Joyce N. Boghosian/The White House)

The 1st Platoon soldiers were still filtering home from Twist’s funeral when Pete Hegseth, a “Fox & Friends” co-anchor who had advocated on Lorance’s behalf, tweeted that Lorance’s pardon was “imminent.”

The actual release came two weeks later on Nov. 15.

“It’s done. It’s a political move,” one of the 1st Platoon soldiers wrote on the group’s private Facebook page. “Time to move on.”

Ayres, who had skipped all five of the platoon’s funerals, agreed. “Not worth any of our time,” he wrote. “What matters is that everyone that matters knows he is a piece of s—. Let’s move on and enjoy life.”

For McGuinness it wasn’t an option. He couldn’t bear the thought that Lorance was being hailed as a hero by Trump and others, while soldiers like Twist were being forgotten. “I’ve buried people that struggled with what happened, and whether through their own hands or their actions, they’re gone,” he said. “I’m not going to sit quietly while he gets paraded around and they’re not recognized.”

He texted with Gray, who wasn’t on Facebook.

Lucas Gray

Fuck it all. The one reprieve we had is gone.

Mike McGuinness

I feel so shitty right now.

Lucas Gray

I’m going to drink until I can sleep.

Mike McGuinness

I might do the same.

Others in the platoon argued on social media with pro-Trump friends, who insisted Lorance was innocent. “You realize I was f—ing THERE, right?” one soldier wrote to a fellow veteran. “Like you realize I was one of the godd— WITNESSES who testified, right?!”

Later that evening, Twist’s father, John, called McGuinness, hoping to talk about his son and the pardon. McGuinness shared his memories of Twist, who came to the platoon when he was just 19. “We put so much work into him,” McGuinness said. He talked about Twist’s quirks — his irritating tendency to correct McGuinness when he got a minor fact wrong about a weapons system.

Twist’s father asked whether the murders and the trial might have contributed to his son’s torment. Twist wasn’t on patrol the day of the killings, but McGuinness believed that what had happened with Lorance had wounded him too. “Twist had a big heart. He was like Gray. He wanted to do good,” McGuinness said. “When Lorance took that away, he took a little part of Jimmy, too.”

“You don’t go into the military thinking you are going to be part of a war crimes case,” said Mike McGuinness at his home in Raeford, N.C. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

“This is absolutely amazing,” Lorance said as his car, escorted by the county constable, rolled to a stop in the high school parking lot.

“It’s a hometown hero’s welcome,” said his cousin from the back seat.

Lorance climbed atop a flatbed trailer. Someone from the crowd gave him an American flag. The vice commander of the local VFW handed him a microphone.

“God Bless Texas!” Lorance yelled. “God Bless America!”

At his side was the head of UAP, the group that had worked to free him. Lorance’s case and the publicity generated helped the group boost annual donations by about 150 percent, from $1.8 million in 2015 to more than $4.5 million in 2018.

Lorance, who was wearing his crisp, blue Army uniform — his pants tucked into his boots, paratrooper style — knew exactly what his backers wanted to hear. “We finally have a president who understands that when we send our troops to fight impossible wars, we must stand behind them,” he told the crowd.

“Amen!” cried a voice from the high school parking lot.

“Amen is right!” Lorance answered.

Former 1st Lt. Clint Lorance addresses a crowd as he returns home to Merit, Tex., on Nov. 16, 2019, after he was pardoned by President Trump. (Courtesy of Farmersville Fire Department)

For those in the parking lot that night, Lorance’s freedom was proof that Trump would stand up for them and their town, population 215, at a moment when large swaths of the country seemed to hold them and their way of life in contempt. “You know how many people just want to see that someone cares,” said Tiffany West, 37, who was standing feet from the stage.

Lorance thanked his family and the lawmakers who pressed for his release. He talked about Trump and Vice President Pence, who had called him at the penitentiary to tell him that they were setting him free. “We had a nine-minute conversation,” Lorance said. “Yeah, I was timing it. . . . They took time out of their busy day to ask me what I was going to do with the rest of my life.”

He blasted the craven “deep state” military officers he blamed for his conviction. “That’s not really the military. That’s the politicians who run the thing,” he said. “The men and women in the mud and dirt. That’s the real U.S. military.”

He was still talking nearly an hour later when the television news crews from Dallas, about 60 miles away, began packing up their equipment.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I know it’s cold.”

“Go ahead!” a voice shouted.

“You’re home!” added another.

Soon the crowd began drifting away for the night, past Merit’s post office, its volunteer fire department, its recently shuttered convenience store, and the decaying wood clapboard building that once held its cotton gin. Lorance handed the microphone back to the local VFW’s vice commander, a Gulf War veteran who had organized the gathering and would now get the final word.

“There’s going to be people out there that are going to try to use this against Trump,” he warned. “Well, we’re going to throw it right back in their faces!”

Lorance visits the set of “Fox & Friends” in New York on Nov. 18, 2019, after receiving a presidential pardon. (Mark Lennihan/AP)

The next morning Lorance boarded a plane for New York City, where he appeared on “Fox & Friends” and Hannity’s radio show. In December, he joined Trump onstage at a GOP fundraiser.

In interviews after his release, Lorance insisted that the soldiers who testified against him were pressured by the Army or had turned on him because he was an exacting commander and they lacked discipline. “When I walked into the guard tower and the soldiers didn’t have their helmet or body armor on, I told them to put it on,” he told Blue Magazine, which advocates on behalf of police officers. “And they didn’t like that, they didn’t like taking orders like that, but I was brought in there to enforce the standard.”

‘There’s almost always more to every story than we know’

John Twist created a wall in his living room memorializing James and other family members who served in the military at his home in Grand Rapids, Mich. The flag was signed by members of James’s platoon after his funeral. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

In Grand Rapids, Twist’s father spent much of the winter trying to unravel the mystery of his son’s death. His dining room table was covered with foot-high piles of papers from James’s life.

There were old report cards, passports and programs from high school wrestling matches. A second pile from the Army included a spiral notebook that his son had used as a diary when he was going through basic training. A third pile contained a printout of the essay — “The Invisible War Inside My Head” — that his son wrote the day before he died.

In it, Twist wrote briefly about the killings that had “rocked and split up” his platoon. The longest section of the essay recounted the day Walley lost his arm and leg. “I found Sam in a small crater,” he wrote. “He was missing his right foot and all the muscle and skin around his right tibia/fibula.” That image, he said, played again and again in his head when he returned from the war.

“I really don’t understand what PTSD is,” his father said. “You can read about it, but I don’t get it. So far the only thing I can get is that it’s like having . . . poor Sam Walley getting blown up” playing in your head over and over. “And how do you get rid of that?”

James O. Twist with his son Ben, celebrating his first birthday in August 2019. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

Twist’s wife, Emalyn, 27, also had been thinking about the meaning of her husband’s life and sudden, violent death. In early March she was sitting alone in the parking lot of a nearby Target. Her three children — ages 1, 3 and 5 — were with a friend. She balanced a Starbucks coffee in one hand and hit record on her cellphone camera.

“It has been kind of a bad week, filled with a lot of ‘it shouldn’t have to be that way’ kind of moments,” she said. Earlier that morning, she had turned over their house keys to the new owners. Her 5-year-old son spotted the family’s moving trucks in the driveway and panicked, yelling for her to “stop them.”

Twist’s children remembered their father as a dad who liked to wrestle and sing them to sleep. Emalyn couldn’t forget her husband’s insecurity, bouts of self-loathing and verbal abuse. On the night her husband took his life he was upset with her for going to see a therapist and terrified that she was going to divorce him. In a blog post, Emalyn described him slamming his head into the kitchen counter until blood was running down his face. Then he stormed to their bedroom and shot himself.

Emalyn pressed a pair of leggings to her husband’s head in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. With her other hand, she dialed 911. As she listened for the sound of approaching sirens, she stifled the urge to vomit and prayed that their children would not wake.

Emalyn Twist writes about her experience following Twist’s death in Emalyn’s Blog: Words of a Young Widow. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

“I couldn’t stand to live in that house or sleep in that bedroom when I had seen so much in there, and that just makes me mad, because I loved that house and I loved that neighborhood,” she said to her cellphone camera. “And I shouldn’t have had to leave. I shouldn’t have had to pull my kids out of their little social circle and all those people who loved them. It shouldn’t have to be that way.”

For years she had helped her husband hide his pain from family, friends and even his fellow soldiers. Now she was determined to be honest. “I just don’t have to keep up this facade of the grieving widow all the time, even though that’s also what I am,” she said. “There’s almost always more to every story than we know. It’s important to pay attention to that.”

She stopped recording, turned on the ignition and picked up with her day.

‘I love you’

Dave Zettel at home with his wife, Kim, in Blythewood, S.C. The couple are expecting their first child. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

In April with the country locked down by the coronavirus, McGuinness arranged for a dozen of the guys from the platoon to get together on a video call for beers. He and Walley were finishing up their last few college courses before they graduated. A couple of the soldiers and wives were expecting their first children. Two were in the early days of divorces.

An hour into the call almost everyone was drunk or stoned — except for the pregnant wives. One soldier kept streaming as he sat on the toilet. When he was done everyone screamed at him to wash his hands. Another soldier vomited and curled up on the floor.

“This is better than getting together at funerals,” McGuinness said cheerily.

The troops talked about their plans for the future. Morrissey was just back from another tour in Afghanistan, where he mostly sat on base while the Afghans fought each other. “There’s no war left there anymore,” he said.

“What are you going to do when you retire?” McGuinness asked him.

“Let me finish, before you laugh,” Morrissey replied. “I’m going to go to school to be a barber and open one of those high end barber shops where you can get a drink, a real gentleman’s haircut and shave with a straight razor.”

Walley tried to talk, but everyone was talking over him. “No one listens to me,” he joked. “Everyone just stares at the guy with two limbs.” He and his fiancee were planning their wedding for the spring of 2021. They had already reserved a “mansion where we can fit the whole platoon,” he said.

“Just tell me the day and I’ll be there,” McGuinness promised.

Zettel and his wife were expecting their first child on Aug. 10. He was planning on leaving the Army for good in October. “It’s not going to join the Army,” Zettel said of his unborn child. “I’m going to burn everything so it doesn’t even know I was in the f—ing Army.”

The soldiers talked about the guys they had lost to suicide and self-destructive behavior. And they spoke briefly about Lorance, who has a memoir titled “Stolen Valor” that is going to be published by Hachette Book Group in the fall, when Lorance has said he is planning to start law school. A blurb for the book, posted by the publisher, calls Lorance “a scapegoat for a corrupt military” and asserts that “his unit turned on him because of his homosexuality.” Lorance’s lawyer said there was no evidence that homophobia played a role in conviction.

“We looked,” Maher said, “and we came up with nothing.”

In interviews, troops said that in Afghanistan they didn’t know Lorance was gay and wouldn’t have cared.

“We took s— from so many people for so long,” McGuinness said. “I’m not letting that happen anymore. I’m going to fight back.”

The soldiers shared tips about how to find a good therapist and promised to look out for one another so that there would be no more funerals.

“You guys mean everything to me,” McGuinness said. “We have to do this more often. We have to look after each other. If you guys are hurting, hit me up. We can do this instead of just letting things fester.”

He rose from his desk chair — a little wobbly from all the beer. It was 2:30 a.m., and they had been talking for more than four hours. “I love you a–holes,” he said, and signed off the call.

An American flag decorates a roof along a country road in North Carolina. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

[ Are you a veteran? We want to hear your response to this story. ]

Under the current administration, the Office of the Pardon Attorney has become a bureaucratic way station, data and interviews show.

[jerome-katie]

The Environmental Effects of The War in Iraq

Katie Jerome

It’s no secret that war is not good for the environment. When the U.S. military bombs another country we are destroying their physical environment even when we don’t try to (e.g. precision strikes). Bombs explode and hurt children and women and not often their targets. They blow up houses, landscapes, farms, the way people get their livelihood, cultural centers, and places of religious worship. The U.S. does this all in the name of democracy and freedom, and we have done it again and again throughout history in order to maintain power and control over other nations. This blog focuses on the Iraq war specifically and will start by discussing how we got to war with them, then I will discuss effects, and lastly, I will discuss symbolic packages the United States government did use to convince us we needed to be in this war.

A Brief History

We went to war with Iraq on March 19th, 2003 shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. We started the war on the principle of the Bush Doctrine which made it okay to preemptively strike countries who we thought would attack us. Al-Qaeda brought the planes into the towers, they are a part of the Afghani terrorist group called the Taliban, not based in Iraq. But Bush and the American government and media lead the people to believe that we were going into Iraq to fight the War on Terror, the War on Terror was being fought in Afghanistan already at the same time.  

America has a history of infiltrating other countries government’s when they’re not being run the way America wants them to be run. We have invaded in Iran’s government and Iraq’s to create an anti-Iran sentiment. Saddam Hussein was America’s puppet until he invaded Kuwait in 1990 that was when the war became really about assonating him in 2003. That is why we went to war with Iraq. It was painted that Iraq terrorists were the ones who crashed planes into the towers on 9/11, but that was not true. We went to Iraq to get after Saddam Hussein because he wasn’t doing what America wanted him to do. So we went to war in Iraq and we still have troops there 14 years later.

Here is a video clip explaining all that happened.

In the documentary, “Why we Fight” there is a clip of Geroge W. Bush Jr. saying he knows that Saddam Hussein didn’t have anything to do with 9/11. Bush Jr. was the president at the time. Why are we fighting when the head of the U.S. government doesn’t know why we’re fighting it?? George W. Bush is seen as one of the dumbest presidents there has been until Trump came along, but still, even he should be able to know why we went to war in Iraq.

Additionally, Vice president Dick Cheney was the vice president of a military contract company called Halliburton. That connection also adds to how militaristic we’ve become in the last 10 years.

Environmental issues of the Iraq War

War causes so many issues to the environments both social and physical I’m not going to go in depth about them because there’s already a lot of research out there talking about effects.

Some effects on the environment during combat are:

Destruction- Setting off bombs is going to destroy anything that it hits for at least 300 meters around it as my professor said in class one bomb will destroy the length of 7 cars. It’s no joke.  

Resource Extraction- War uses a lot of resources oil and oil is a reason why we have gone to war in the past thinking about the war in Afghanistan and Kuwait. The Middle East is home to oil reserves where we have been getting our oil from for decades.

Invasive Species- The planes, helicopters, and other vehicles that come from America to the other countries to a foreign country bring seeds, pollen, and sometimes weeds with them to the other country and those species aren’t native to the country, so that causes problems for the ecosystems that are already at work there.

Hunting and Poaching- Soldiers need to eat in the field and when there is combat. Farmers and others who live around the combat site will flee they will kill and eat their livestock. Meat is easy to cook and right there in front of them. Soilders also are given rations and will get care boxes from home occasionally, so if the food is durable enough to go into the field with them they will take that as well.

Social Issues of the Iraq War

War causes all kinds of issues for the humans involved in the military and the civilians abroad.

War creates veterans who often have a hard time getting work after they return home and have psychological issues like depression and PTSD after having to kill people in combat if not also permanent or not injuries from combat. Vets from Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom have between 3 and 25% of a chance of having depression when they return. And between 10 and 18% have PTSD or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder according to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.

War creates refugees who can no longer stay in their homelands because it’s no longer safe to live there. 1 in 25 Iraqi’s were displaced from their homes according to the Costs of War study done by the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

War also causes the death of civilians, soldiers, and academics. Death also affects the families that are left behind. There was a case of a father who lost his son in the World Trade Center bombings on 9/11. He wanted to get back at the people who killed his son, he got a bomb with his son’s name on it and it was sent with 100% accuracy to Iraq the military claimed. He finds out later that were not in the conflict that he thought we were in and he was devastated that he put his son’s name on a bomb, but he didn’t know at the time, so he says he doesn’t regret what he did because he didn’t know. He also talks about the loss of feeling like we can trust our government to do what’s best for our country this is especially hard for him to believe because he’s a Vietnam veteran, he served his country and trusted them to know what’s best.

The Media

A significant part of this issue is also the media. News reporters who were to report on the Iraq war were to be pro-military and many news folks who didn’t support the war or said anything remotely not supporting the war was fired. Even reporters who went over to Iraq to be with soldiers. Not to say that many reporters just didn’t survive being in Iraq. This is the same with government representatives. Anyone who is anti-war is seen as a crazy liberal socialist, so even democratic political leaders have to support military action to be respected in government and continue their work and the climb of the government ladder.

Symbolic Packages of America

We want to think that democracy works the way that we’ve always been told it works. People continue to tell us to call or write our government leaders when we have a problem with a policy, but we forget that think tanks are also a part of the governmental system. They have more power than citizens have to change things especially when it comes to military policy decisions.  

I’m coming to believe that the America I thought I lived in isn’t the America that the rest of the world sees. America is home to many struggles and we are one of the most diverse countries in the world because of war, really. We pride ourselves on freedom, democracy, individualism, and the free market, but as I get older I’m starting to see a different America. An America where I can’t trust the government because something is always going on that I don’t know about. We go to other countries and undermine and destroy their governments so that we can remain in power. What are we so afraid of? America not being number one? Maybe were so afraid of losing power because we didn’t have it in the first place?  We’ve been stealing since day one when Europeans claimed this land after native people had been living here for centuries. America likes to paint other countries as bad and scary and unsafe to live in and because of that for a long time I’ve looked at the Middle East and only seen the conflict and refugees coming over here not knowing how to speak English and making me take extra time to help them at work, but not the beauty that can be in these places and not the sadness that they feel in having to leave their homelands and come to America and Canada to the very countries that are bombing their homes.

Iraq is beautiful and culturally rich and though a bit more patriarchal than America. But what irks me is this feeling that American government has this need to take over other countries governments and continue to keep them relying on us for leadership and guidance when we don’t spend enough money or time on our own people who are suffering here. Pertaining to the Iraq war specifically, it’s a war that we didn’t need to start and one that has gone on for more than 10 years.

Conclusion

War causes a lot of destruction and damage to the communities we infiltrate abroad. What can we do here is talk about war as a real issue, call congresspeople, protest the war, realize how militaristic the U.S. actually is and see it as not a given it doesn’t have to be this way and we should know what is going on in our country with our leaders all the time. Trump is causing harm in a lot of areas right now so there’s a lot of work to do, but it’s important to note that President Obama dropped bombs too, in fact, he spent on average 18.6 billion dollars more a year than George W Bush in his time in office. War is a systemic issue within American society and the government it isn’t one president or one leader it’s an issue with many more facets than I talked about here. Choose one that intrigues you and fight!  

Note: In this blog I don’t go into the physical monetary costs of war, but I attached a video by the company “GOOD” who does a really good job of breaking down the costs and the money that we put into war it’s outrageous what we spend on war as a country and it connects back to Eisenhower’s farewell address warning us against the military industrial complex and giving too much power to that system. I also have his full speech attached here and the quote where he talks about the military industrial complex specifically.

Works Cited

Jarecki, E. (Director), Jarecki, E., & Shipman, S. (Producers), & Jarecki, E. (Writer). (January 2005). Why we fight [Video file]. Retrieved May 10, 2017.

LALLANILLA, M. (2016, October 04). How Does War Affect the Environment? Retrieved May 10, 2017, from https://www.thespruce.com/the-effects-of-war-on-environment-1708787

Costs of War Project. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2017, from http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/refugees

PTSD: National Center for PTSD. (2007, January 01). Retrieved May 10, 2017, from https://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/ptsd-overview/reintegration/overview-mental-health-effects.asp

War documentary that we watched earlier in the semester for extra credit...

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