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abybweisse · 4 years

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Possible backstory for Bard, Part 3

⚠️ Long post.

⚠️ Some slightly graphic images (from the manga) and descriptions of warfare and death.

😅 There is a TL/DR at the end of this post for all three parts.

Here’s Part 1.

Here’s Part 2.

Bard’s uniform, hat, and other recruitment memory details

Bard mentions trenches (weird for the Apache Wars), but he also mentions Apache arrows. And poisonous snakes in Arizona. He might be mixing his various war experiences into his faked PTSD episode (the trenches might have been from a previous experience). But he must mean Terry was bitten in Arizona, during the Apache Wars, since he had much earlier told Snake he’d had a bad experience with snakes in Arizona.

The odd idea of a trench in the Apache Wars is one major detail that Yana-San seems to have overlooked. Or she has simply changed it on purpose, which is possible. I mean, it works really well for Bard’s “outbursts” to include the horror of hunkering down in trenches. And that detail could actually have come from previous experience, say during the Civil War. He just wanted to display classic symptoms of PTSD, so it doesn’t really matter if everything happened during the same battle or even the same war.

He meets Sebastian any time between later 1887 and early 1888, after Mey-Rin joins the Phantomhive household (She joined sometime in 1887) but before Chlaus’s visit in spring or summer of 1888. I’m basing the timing of Chlaus’s visit off the weather being warm enough for lemonade to be a good idea, the garden needing to be weeded, the roses already starting to have spent blooms, and Sebastian deciding to set up dinner outside in the garden.

So, here’s the scene where Bard is recruited by Sebastian.

There’s a LOT going on here.

From the spurs on their boots and the Hardee hat with the crossed swords ⚔️ on it, they are US Calvary. Like I said before, this might be the 4th US Calvary, which was one of the most decorated calvaries in US history. There would normally be a number just above where the swords cross, but this has been omitted... or there wasn’t enough room to show it. Yana-san can have them be from the “US Calvary”, in general, if she so chooses.

Bard is probably a high-ranking officer, but the rank itself is not clear. The three stars on his shoulders are for a lieutenant general.

The single stars on his coat lapels don’t make sense with the three on his shoulders, so 🤷🏻‍♀️. It’s not how you would designate a four star general. The leaf pin on his ascot is probably an oak leaf, which can mean a lieutenant colonel (silver) or an army major (gold).

I think it might be that Yana-san kept seeing “lieutenant” and got confused about the fact there are different rankings that include “lieutenant” in the name. And the star on the lapels probably just looked nice and gives the impression that he’s ranked pretty high.

Then we have this odd detail that I’m not sure anyone has mentioned before: his fallen comrade is only wearing one boot, while the unbooted foot (and leg) are mostly covered by a text bubble.

This dude was probably Terry, and that text bubble is probably covering up a swollen foot and/or leg with a gnarly snake bite wound.

The rest of the people there seem to be dead or dying. One guy looks like he might have even been partly scalped. It could also be a gunshot wound.

I looked it up, and turns out that even though the Apaches were not traditionally scalpers, they did sometimes resort to it. What’s worse is that various campaigns in the US involved rewards for the scalps of Native Americans. Some people tried so hard to make a buck this way that they would scalp Mexicans, too, and try to pass off their hair as that of a native. The tradition in Europe was to behead your enemy and bring back the entire head, but they were killing natives in such vast numbers that they switched to scalping because it was easier to carry back home to claim bigger rewards. A lot of them didn’t even kill their enemies first. They just removed part of the scalp and left them there. Yikes! Some US authorities created rules regarding how much scalp you had to cut off. The Native American tribes who engaged in this practice didn’t have the same monatary motivation, so they killed the enemy, took what they got and usually stretched it out over a hoop for decoration. If that guy in the upper right hand corner was scalped, then it was probably just a relatively small section removed, and this is likely not how he died.

Either he really is the last survivor of his troop, or they did sustain heavy casualties, though not everyone else is dead... but Terry might be the last one that Bard considered a “friend”. Then Sebastian shows up with a deal that Bard couldn’t possibly refuse. Since Sebastian can’t transport Bard to England too quickly without giving away the secret of his demonic nature, either Bard was given the money and information needed to make his own way to London (where Sebastian would take him to Phantomhive Manor), or Sebastian actually travelled the slow way, with Bard, all the way back. Makes me wonder whether our earl is also there to recruit him.

TL/DR:

Bard might have previously fought in the Civil War, when he was a teenager, and he might not originally be from Arizona. The Civil War might be where/when he first learned to make explosives.

By the time Sebastian finds him, Bard was an officer in the US Calvary: either the 4th US Calvary or some equivalent to that in the Kuroverse. The Hardee hat with the crossed swords means US Calvary, but there’s no number on this one. Because of his ranking as an officer, this is probably his hat. And that troop was probably his.

His real ranking is hard to determine because Yana-san has given him insignia that clash, but he could be (in the Kuroverse) simply a “lieutenant” of some kind, like lieutenant colonel. Honestly, Yana-san can give him any rank she wants to, since the ranking system doesn’t have to be the same in the Kuroverse.

Bard could be partly named and modeled after W. B. Royall, colonel of the 4th US Calvary from Nov. 1882 to Oct. 1887, when he retired. W. B. Royall —> B Roy —> Bardroy/Baldroy?

Bard wasn’t personally using the Gatling guns (Gatling, 1865) that were used during the later Apache Wars, since he was on horseback most of the time.

Bard would have had the use of small firearms, a sword, and various small explosives available at the time, like grenades (inventors: Adams, Ketchum, and GW Rains), land mines (GJ Rains), and dynamite (Nobel). All of those explosives were inventions of the 1860’s, too.

That far out west, and fighting enemies with way less advanced weapons, Bard and his comrades were relying on weapons technology a good twenty years old.

Trench warfare wasn’t really used in the Apache Wars because the US was the one with the more advanced weapons (and was largely on the offense), and the (mostly) defensive Apaches generally didn’t dig trenches as a war tactic. So, either Bard is jumbling various war experiences together for the grand effect of it, or Yana-san has decided to add trenches to the Apache Wars.

Sebastian finds Bard in Arizona during one of the Apache Wars. Should be one of the altercations after Geronimo was captured in 1886, but Yana-san might fudge the timeline in order to bring Geronimo into the story, since he’s so famous.

Terry was bitten by a snake in Arizona, even if that’s not really where the trenches were. And that’s probably when Sebastian found Bard, too. It best matches the timeline for the war, the uniforms, the location... and even the fallen comrade with one shoe removed and his leg hidden by a text bubble.

Bonus: Bard meets Hiram Maxim, originally a fellow American, probably after relocating to England. Maxim spent much time in England but made trips back to the US and would take various weapons and other inventions to England. The machine gun Bard uses in the circus arc is a Maxim original, invented ~1885. Even though it should have existed when Bard was fighting the Apaches, he wouldn’t have had access so far West to something this new made back East.

Edit: There is also now a Part 4/Update. And a Part 5/Addendum.

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witchesoz · 4 years

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What we know of Oz: Book 1, generalities

Let’s begin with the first Oz book L. Frank Baum ever wrote: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900. There will be a lot to say for this one, so I’ll split it into several parts. # The world of Oz is supposed to be one of a “modern American fairytale”. Baum’s ambition was to offer American children “local” fairytales and a literary world unique to the New World, rivaling with the old fairy tales of Europe. This is why the world of Oz reuses so many tropes and ideas from typical fairy tales (witches and wizards, magical objects and beings, talking animals…) yet updates them, reinvents them and twists them to make the tale differ from the traditions of the Old World – for example, take the idea of a “good witch”. This was something never done before, or at least without as much media coverage. Up until now, witches had always been depicted in children literature as wicked and evil beings, and Baum’s decision to present a good and benevolent witch was revolutionary (that is why Dorothy is so shocked upon hearing that there are good witches in Oz). # Oz is a land of colors and a land of life. In this book, there is a clear visual opposition between the Kansas, the “civilized world”, and the one of Oz. Oz is like a lost Eden Garden, filled with greenery and animals, vibrant with colors and life and sounds, while Kansas is a world utterly grey and gray, all the colors washed off or bleached, a place of harshness, dust and old age. Just compare this description of Kansas: “When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.” With the one of the place Dorothy’s house lands in: “Midst of a country of marvelous beauty. Lovely patches of greensward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage. A small brook, running and sparkling.” # But where the hell is Oz? The location of Oz has been a big debate for years now. And in fact the first book seems to imply that Oz is located somewhere in the United-States!

You see, the tornado that carries away Dorothy (and not a cyclone. Baum made a mistake by calling it a cyclone when it is a tornado) isn’t some magical portal to another dimension here – it is merely a real tornado, that physically made Dorothy’s house change place. And given that a tornado can’t go far, it is highly possible that Oz is on the North American continent, maybe even inside the United-States! It seems reinforced by the fact that the Wizard of Oz actually came from Nebraska and was too carried away by winds to Oz… Outside of that we know that Oz is cut from the rest of the world by a great desert that surrounds it – there are no mentions of magically deadly sands or things like that, though. In the first book, the desert is merely considered too big and too wide to be crossed. We also know that this isolation allowed Oz to not be “civilized” – the Witch of the North explains that they could keep their magic and their wizards and witches due to Oz being an “uncivilized” country, while civilized countries saw all their magic practitioners disappear. The exact meaning of “civilized” is quite unknown, and still up to debate – it probably means the advance of science and technology in this precise case. A very interesting fact to note is that the Witch of the North mentions that the land of Oz was “cut off” from the rest of the world a long time ago – which implies strongly that Oz was, a long time ago, connected to the rest of the world, and that the desert wasn’t always there. At least we know that it was cut off a long time before Kansas was even made – a theory one could make would be that the land of Oz was always there in the center of the North American continent and that it was isolated when the colonization happened, which could have been the bringing of “civilization” but this is just a wacky theory I’m making. # The Munchkins aren’t the only small people in Oz. At least, in this book. As you will see, many peoples are described as small – the Munchkins, the Witch of the North, the Guardian of the Gates, the Quadlings… Or rather, they are described the same size as Dorothy, who is a “very well grown child for her age” (even though her age isn’t specified… in the first books she seems to be around eleven or twelve years old, but in later books she is rather between fourteen and sixteen). This is a very important point to understand this first book – when Oz was conceived in Baum’s mind, it was created as a world the size of a child. Everyone is the size of Dorothy, everything happens at her level, and thus the threat is less scary and she can be treated as an adult. This idea was reinforced by the original illustrations that represented ALL of the characters as roughly the size of Dorothy, from the Wicked Witch to Glinda. However, in the later books, Baum obviously had to abandon this idea since Dorothy wasn’t the only protagonist anymore, Dorothy ended up growing up, and he also needed a bit more diversity in his cast (he couldn’t just have small people everywhere all the time).

# Oz is not an unified country. When a character uses the term “Land of Oz”, it usually refers to the entirety of the lands inside the great desert. But this Land of Oz is made up of five different regions, each associated with a specific geographical point, a specific color and a specific population. In the East live the Munchkins whose color is blue, in the West live the Winkies whose color is yellow, in the South live the Quadlings whose color is red. In the first book, the North is actually left undescribed – we would only discover later that the North is the land of the Gillikins, whose color is purple. And at the center of Oz there are the lands surrounding the City of Emeralds, whose population doesn’t have a particular name, but is of course associated with the color green. A very interesting fact must be pointed out: this central region has quite an ambiguous position. We know in this book that the Emerald City, which is basically the fifth region itself, was built for the Wizard of Oz, while the other four regions existed long before that. As a result, it may explain why this region is quite different from the others – it has its own specific color but its inhabitants don’t have any specific name like the Munchkins or the Winkies, and are merely Ozians. Now the question is: did a green region exist before the Wizard came or was the green region created around the City of Emeralds? But I’m afraid we won’t get the answer. On a similar note, the different regions, while all part of the greater whole that is the Land of Oz, are still treated as independent areas, as their own lands and countries. Each has their own ruler, their own population, their own names. And there is no idea here that a region rules over the others – in later books the Land of Oz became a kingdom, dominated by an Ozian King living in the Emerald City, but in this first book the Emerald City isn’t the capital of Oz, and isn’t ruling over all Oz. The Wizard is specifically said to only rule over his City, and each country has its own ruler and keeps to itself. To cut it short, Oz seems to be much more a confederation of states than a federation or a feudal system like it would become later. # And just like there are four main regions in Oz, there are four Witches too – at least, by the time Dorothy arrives. Each Witch corresponds to one of the four regions/cardinal point (in fact the television series Emerald City referred to them fittingly as the Cardinal Witches): one in the North, one in the South, one in the East and one in the West. These Witches are divided into two categories: the Good Witches (represented by the one in the North and the one in the South), and Wicked Witches (represented by those in the East and in the West). Forget already about this idea that “only wicked witches are ugly”, that was put in for the movie – and the movie also mixed up the two good Witches, of the North and South, into one, which created some plot holes. But what exactly is a Witch? Now, this is a good question… the word Witch is always put with a capital in the book, just like the terms of any important character (the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Guardian of the Gates) but also just like any word used to refer to the Ozian population (a Munchkin, a Winkie…). We also know that the Witches have a specific color associated to them – white. This was why Dorothy was mistaken for a Witch, because she was wearing white. (And yes, it also means that the Wicked Witches wear white in the book, that was another idea Baum used to “upgrade” the idea of witches). All of these indications clearly show that they are different from normal Ozians, either a simple different social group at the same level as the Munchkins and Quadlings, either an entirely different species. One thing is sure: the Witches are HIGHLY respected in Oz, or at least very high in terms of social position. Of the four Witches we meet, three are rulers of their own countries (East, West and Glinda). While the Witch of the North is not mentionned to rule over the North (she just calls it her "home"), the Munchkins still bow down lowly to her when she leaves. And when the Munchkins believe Dorothy to be a Witch, they are too afraid to even go near her, and it is the Good Witch that has to take the first step.

A personal note I want to make is about the choice of the term “wicked”. It was probably for the alliteration, but wicked has quite a connotation you know? It isn’t like calling someone “evil”. Someone who is evil is bad passively, by nature, by essence. But “wickedness” is an active form of badness, one done in action. A wicked person will dedicate themselves to cause harm and disasters and to make people suffer, it is similar to the world maleficent (“that does evil”) and malevolent (“that wants evil”). Such an analysis allows a lot of theories to arise… is a witch good by nature and chooses to become wicked? Or is a witch neutral but then has to choose between good and wicked? It should also be noted that in Baum’s books, the Witches actually can’t go back to being good once they are classified Wicked. Indeed, while other Ozian villains reformed, sometimes after having their memory wiped out, the Wicked Witches always stayed bad and evil, always. So maybe they are indeed evil at core? Or maybe once a witch choses to be wicked she can’t go back? Again, there is a lot of theories possible, ESPECIALLY since the Witches lack any kind of backstory.

We don’t know where they come from, we don’t know if they were always witches, we don’t know if they have family, none of that. (Because yes, in the original books, the Witches are all unrelated to each other, there are no “avenge my sister” plot).

Another point I would like to make: in the book, the term “Sorceress” is used apparently as a synonym for the word “Witch”. Indeed, the Witch of the North welcomes Dorothy as “great Sorceress” (see the cap), Boq mentions that Dorothy must be a “great sorceress” (without cap) since she is wearing white and has the silver shoes, and in later books Glinda prefers to be called a “Sorceress”, with cap, than a Witch. It seems in general that Sorceress is a more… “neutral” and more “polite” term for Witch, with less connotations, or used when one ignores if a Witch is bad or good. Some theories going around think that “sorceress” is a term used to designate those that practice magic because they learned of it, studied it and acquired magical powers, while “witch” refers to beings able to do magic due to natural abilities, due to their fundamentally magic nature. It could be right – after all, Gayelette is referred to as a sorceress without being called a “Witch” (at least if my memory serves me right, I’ll have to recheck that). However, there is also the difficult part of The Witch of the North’s backstory. When she talks about the civilization, she mentions that before it the world had “witches, wizards, sorceresses and magicians”, and that by staying uncivilized Oz could keep its “witches and wizard” – no mention of sorceresses or magicians. She speaks of them as if they were separate categories, the witches paired with the wizards and the sorceresses with the magicians. Maybe sorceress is an alternate word for witch, and magician for wizard, but their clear separation seems to insist on a difference… again, the theory of “study VS nature” may be applied here. It is possible that witches and wizards are the male and female beings naturally able to do magic, while sorceress and magician refer to those that learned and studied the art of magic. To be honest this whole classification isn’t clear in the first book, more elements from later books should help us see better in this matter – but right now all one needs to know is that Oz has Witches and Wizards.

#oz #what we know of oz #the land of oz #witches #wicked witches #good witches #oz history #deadly desert #oz geography #l frank baum #the wonderful wizard of oz #book #lore #oz colors

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wongiemei · 5 years

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3. Social Darwinism

A rash has slightly developed on your neck where the sun hit it just right without the defense of your coat. It was very uncomfortable but you didn’t let it bother you, instead focusing ahead outside the window. After your shopping trip with Jaehyun, you felt like it was time to go home even though you wanted to stay longer and didn’t want to be trapped in that house.

It’s been weeks since the wedding but you felt like it was longer.

The car stopped, the driver stepping out and walking over to your side before opening your door so that you can get off.

“Your highness,” he greeted before bowing and extending his hand out for you to take.

You gratefully nodded and grasped his gloved hand to step out of the vehicle, adjusting the sunglasses that has fallen to the bridge of your nose. The chauffeur went to the trunk to retrieve your shopping bags and luggage from your trip to France.

The smell of the daisies and the roses from the garden out back was so strong that you were sure anyone, even without super senses, could smell it.

You loved the smell of roses.

Heels clacking against the marble floor of the entrance hallway, the maids stopped in their tracks and hastily bowed 90 degrees upon the sight of you. As you raised your hand to take of your sunglasses, some of them visibly flinched and it unconsciously placed a smirk on your face.

You’re worked so hard to be feared and you have lost so much to be at the status you are now and you weren’t going to let that go to waste because of a stupid little boy.

The butler, whom you now know as Jun, led a few footmen who were carrying your luggage and stopped a few feet behind you. With a flick of his gloved hand, the maids were dismissed and they scurried away from the sight of you.

“Take these to the Head Maid and she will take them to Her Highness’ room.” The footmen nodded and wandered off to the old woman waiting by the staircase. Jun stepped in front of you and smiled kindly before raising an arm. “If you could follow me, your Highness. The Prince has requested your attendance to the drawing room.”

Upon walking down the hallway with gold-painted walls, you could feel the eyes of the portraits that hung up high. Although they weren’t even supposed to be real, the judgeful eyes of the past ancestors of the Orenda kingdom seemed to follow you and you could even hear their hateful whispers and hisses.

‘Kalon blood, on our territory?’

‘Perish and repay the lives lost of our House for yours!’

‘Dirty blood mixed with ours will taint the House line for eternity!’

The whispers weren’t even there but the creation of your imagination as you could feel yourself slowly slipping away to insanity with this forceful arrangement that altered your life forever. With the gender you were born with and the belief that no woman could rule a kingdom, the only way you could have what you wanted was to ally yourself with your rival House.

But the only way you’ll keep your sanity is to play wisely and not hesitate to let him burn for the benefit of you.

Pushing open the tall oak wood doors, you were a little startled at the amount of faces when you only expected one, your husband’s. Even without getting to formally know them, it was still your duty as a royal to be familiar with all of them as they were all princes from various kingdoms of your world. From the honey-haired boy to the ridiculously bright orange-haired prince, the only thing that they all had in common was the bright red eyes.

The stark difference between the twin princes of the Cerilian House was enough to show the diversity of the line of their ancestors. Situated in the Indian Ocean, their kingdom could easily prey on poor fishermen filled with luscious human blood.

Born with platinum hair, Lee Jeno always stood out from the rest of the 4 Lee princes and combined with his defined facial structure, he became feared and his ruthlessness was enough to make him Jaemin’s right man. He was the one Jaemin called first regarding the ambush attack on his family from House Pezzerio and together, they became the most feared duo in the Underworld. Even though he rarely spoke during council meetings, Jeno’s eyes always held whatever he wanted to be expressed and he was known to always keep an eye out for his brothers and the crown prince, Taeyong. Rumor has it that Jeno’s eyes and ears are so sharp, he could easily detect a traitor from across the room. There is no definite answer as to if this was true but who do you think was supplying his brother, Donghyuck, his toys?

Meanwhile, Lee Donghyuck stayed in the shadows. Known as the playboy prince, he often stayed away from his kingdom, preferring to spend his time in Tuscany with human girls to feast on. The melanin, honey haired boy wouldn’t even be thought of as a vampire, much less a vampire prince, due to his soft features. However, out of the 4 princes, he was the most cruel. He saw the world and its people, human or Underworlders, as toys and nothing but his source of enjoyment in this dark world he lived in. Like his brother Jeno, their smile could be saying one thing but their eyes were always very honest, especially if it didn’t reach their eyes. With a dangerously playful nature, Donghyuck participated in the torture of war criminals and traitors of House Cerilian and had a thirst for the look of intense pain from the enemy as he used his lighter to tease the fragile vampire skin.

House Dormir was placed on the East China Sea, extending to the North Pacific Ocean and ending near Hawaii. With the vast territory, their kingdom usually split up in 2 different sections with 2 princes who co-ruled the kingdom. With the Orendian and Kalonian kingdom being smaller even when combined, House Dormir was known to sometimes challenge the authority of the Capital just because of the size of their territory.

Being a direct ancestor of the original line of Dormir kings, Zhong Chenle became powerful even before he turned 12. The death of his King father and older brother urged his mother to make him mature quicker with plans of ascending the throne by his 18th birthday but he wasn’t prepared. Rebelling against his mother and doing anything he can to piss her off, he teamed up with Jisung and constantly did childish things to make their immaturity known. Showing up with orange hair definitely caught the attention of the council and they knew this little boy was going to bring Dormir’s downfall. In came the 3 older princes: Jaemin, Donghyuck, and Jeno. At first, he was being used as a pawn for the Orendian Kingdom and the Cerilian Kingdom wanted to take over his large territory and split it for themselves. But Chenle was smarter than that and he threatened the 3 enough that they stopped the expansion, instead becoming close to the boy after seeing themselves in him.

However, this couldn’t be done without the help of Chenle’s cousin and the future ruler of the other half of Dormir, Renjun. With his quick wit and intelligent way of thinking, Renjun helped Chenle play many wars to get what he wanted. Not knowing if he was going to be trusted, Chenle was suspicious but Renjun has made it clear with his clear intentions as he only wants to rule alongside Chenle. After all, with Chenle by his side, everyone was forced to submit to him due to the power his family has. Known as the Night Raven, after his famous midnight colored hair, Renjun called the shots whether captured criminals got to live another day or not. He knew exactly where someone’s weakness was and would mercilessly torture them with it, all with a smile on his face. Let’s just say, him and Donghyuck get along very well.

Last but not least, the little pink haired boy. Known as the last surviving son of House Vermille, Park Jisung built a strong connection to Zhong Chenle and by association, became connected to the rest. You knew him ever since you were little and saw him as a little boy in the parties you were forced to attend and his mousy features that have defined itself due to his growth. You always remembered him as the boy with the sharpest teeth as whenever he smiled, he would accidentally cut his bottom lip and him sheepishly smiling afterwards. His innocent and adolescent nature made you feel nostalgic because you wanted to take him under your wing since he was so young. With just turning 140 a few months ago, Jisung was by far the youngest crown prince and the least capable. You vaguely remembered when he turned 115, he reached the age of intense hunger and he wiped out an entire French village thus almost causing a war with Metanoia. But, your family stopped the war because House Kalon, too, had territory in France and they didn’t want to jeopardize the alliance they’ve made to the kingdom in the Atlantic Ocean near Languo.

Of course, you knew them.

The perfect plan to obtain Underworld domination was to start a fire in this room as it contained the most powerful people in the Underworld.

All of the boys studied you and you cracked a smirk, crossing your arms across your chest. “Well, hello boys,” you greeted with a sultry tone.

Closing the door behind you, you stopped short by the end of the oval wood table that seated your husband at the head. Making eye contact with him, Jaemin smiled before he stood up and walked over to you, arms wrapping around your middle and pressing a slow kiss to your temple.

“Hello, darling. How was your trip?” Jaemin asked with a sickeningly sweet tone that made you wretch inside.

Placing a gentle hand on his strong bicep, you peered up at him through your lashes. “Enjoyable, but not pleasing enough.” You answered with a smile but grit your teeth and squeezed his arm the hardest you could and his smile fell, replaced with a hardened expression.

Oh, he is going to destroy you later.

“You could’ve told me your little friends were coming. I could’ve came back earlier and arranged for scones,” you gazed at the others who wore faint amused smirks at the interaction in front of them.

Jaemin’s gaze remained on your face and you felt it piercing through your cheeks, “There was a human boy found wandering the woods. He will serve as our refreshment.”

Nodding silently, you took a seat beside Jisung and laced your fingers together. “So what has brought you all to this side of town?”

“Malor just lost an entire noble family in England a few days ago from vampire hunting. They planned to stay in Yorkshire for a few months for vacation but word got around of their true identity and burned their vacation home. The Council wants to know our opinion about it and the family wants us to deal with it. Something about this being a trial run for the future.” Jeno explained as he visibly tried to get comfortable while crossing his legs.

Jaemin nods and he returns to his seat and leans back, brushing his long fingers through his hair. You unknowingly licked your lips at the action and only noticed your behavior as he caught your eye and looked at you teasingly. You coughed and held your right hand out to examine your nail.

“Well, Malor is quite known for their, should I say -idiotic- elites. Vacationing in a country that has vampire stories riding the winds and not expecting to be hunted with no hesitation? Consider me improper but they deserved their demise.”

Donghyuck let out a dry chuckle and rested his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his right hand. “I must say, princess. I never considered you as the deserving justice type.”

You returned his cheeky smile with a wink, “If I were to rule the Underworld, I would make sure the weak and stupid ones were gone first, right? It would be better if it wasn’t done by my hand.”

“Applying Social Darwinism to your court? A bold yet risky move,” Renjun commented, eyeing you curiously.

It must be odd seeing a woman speak so rashly and freely about topics like these, much less a royal woman.

“Our world can only survive if we get rid of weaklings. Sorry, but I don’t make the rules.”

Chuckles surrounded the table and even Jeno had to suppress the smile that threatened to come out. Jaemin looked at you once more and he started to think differently of what he originally thought was a privileged, spoiled brat who only wanted the crown of jewels on her head, not the responsibility.

It was the good kind of different.

“Well, because of that rash attitude, the union of your houses has caused quite an uproar with an underground resistance that is forming in the Capital as we speak. The war from years ago is still fresh in the minds of many and are outraged at the outcome of the 2 kingdoms. Word has it that they are planning an attack and it is even sponsored by other kingdoms as well. My men have no guaranteed answers and no direct evidence for the suspected Houses or whether the attack is directed to you or to us by association.” You eyed Jeno curiously and noticed the strong aura he radiated. It felt familiar but strangely ominous and made you nervous.

“Well, why don’t we catch them now? We know there’s a rebellion happening and we know that they’re planning something. Are we just going to stand and wait for it to happen?” Jisung argued and Chenle nodded in agreement, looking at the faces of the elders.

You turned to him and placed a manicured hand on Jisung’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, little mouse. A lesson about war, it is in your best interest for the enemy to come to you. Thinking on your feet is the best way to win and as a bonus, requires less thinking which should be beneficial for you.”

“So, what you’re saying is, they should come to us rather than us going to them?” Chenle asked curiously, confused by this battle tactic.

You nodded, “Precisely.”

“If they are planning something, it’s only natural for you two to be the target since you’re the future king and queen. Someone might be taken as an exchange for you but it’s suspected and there might be a way to escape that,” Renjun commented.

You frowned, slightly confused and even a little shocked at what they were saying. “Don’t focus on only the two of us. All of you are princes as well and it’s only wrong for you to be thinking about our safety. Regard your titles as you are also a royal member of your respective kingdoms. Any action placed upon you can cause a war and a rebellion amongst the people and give them more power. The last thing we need is an internal conflict that could possibly weaken us.”

But Jaemin grinned cynically, razor sharp teeth on display. “Oh, darling, you don’t have to think about that. If something were to happen to my boys, with the combination of our armies, we could crush anything. I could feel a revolution running through my veins and with the help of them, we could destroy those other treacherous kingdoms.”

“So what do you have in mind, Jaems? What could bring them to us?” Donghyuck asked, lazily playing with a stain on the wood.

Both you and Jaemin looked at each other and you scoffed as you seem to be thinking what he was thinking.

“An auction. Human auction.” He answered and Donghyuck smiled happily, eager to find more beings to play with.

“There is no certainty that we will find a King that is sponsoring this rebellion but it could give us a good idea that could help narrow it down. We must not be rash about this situation but we must be on high-alert as well.” Nods were sent to you and Jaemin sent you an approving nod.

“Well there we have it! We got a plan, we execute the said plan, and we live happily ever after! Huzzah!” Donghyuck exclaimed, rising out of his seat.

But Jeno tugged down his shirt and made him fall back on his seat again. “Not so fast, Dongie. We still have to talk about your magical adventure in Milan that caused a few dozens of missing girls’ cases to appear.”

You stood up, brushing invisible dust off of your skirt. “As much as I would love to ask about your insane thirst for young, virgin maidens, Donghyuck, I do have a party to plan.”

“But it’s not a party,” Jaemin remarked. You scoffed and sent him a manic smile.

“With wine, cocaine, and blood? Oh, yes, my love. It is a party.”

The bed creaked as a series of powerful thrusts of his hips snapped towards you, making you whine and gasping for air. Your arms were starting to give out, letting Jaemin hold you up by your waist and continue slamming himself into you. Sweat gathered on his forehead and left his luscious blonde locks to plaster themselves against his porcelain skin.

“I” thrust

“Am” thrust

“Your” thrust

“King” thrust

“Understand?” thrust

A high-pitched whine left your lips as he sunk deeper into you, relishing the satisfaction of him touching you places you couldn’t even fathom was possible.

Not hearing your response, Jaemin let one of his hands go and swiftly twisted your hair into a make-shift ponytail and tugged you close, lifting you so you were against his chest and on his lap. The sudden action made you scream since he sank even deeper.

“I said, understand?” He hissed and you couldn’t even control yourself, whining and moaning at the sharp thrusts.

“Yes, my king.”

“Good.”

a/n: not gonna lie, this was kinda weird to write and severely overdue. THANK YOU to you guys who stuck by me even though i haven’t updated in a while and never stopped supporting me!! i love you guys!!

Taglist:

@d0dges @bobohu-s-ane-yeobo @heyyyun @thwia

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bookofjin · 4 years

Text

Annals of Gongzong

[From WS004. Since he was posthumously made an emperor at the beginning of his son’s reign, his biography is placed in the annals section, after that of his father. This is the end of WS004.]

The Respectful Ancestor [gongzong], the Luminous and Stately [jingmu] August Emperor, taboo Huang, was August Emperor Taiwu's oldest son, his mother was Lady He. 1st Year of Yanhe, Spring, 1st Month, bingwu [17 February 432], he was installed as August Heir-Apparent, at the time he was 5 sui.

He was clear, bright, and deeply insightful, if he heard something he did not forget. Reaching adulthood, he was fond of reading the classics and histories, always thoroughly understanding the great righteousness. Shizu very much marvelled at him. When Shizu campaigned east against Helong, he decreed Gongzong to Record the Affairs of the Masters of Writing, when he campaigned west against Liang province, he decreed Gongzong to oversee the state.

Earlier, at Shizu's offensive against Hexi, Li Shun and others all together told that Guzang had no water or grass, and it was impossible to march the host there. Gongzong had a doubtful countenance. When the Chariot Drove to arrive at Guzang, he therefore spoke to Gongzong, saying:

East and west of Guzang City, outside the walls, there wells up springs joining together to the north of the city, they are great like the He. From the remaining ditches they flow into the middle of the desert. Between them there are therefore no arid land. The marsh grass is thick and abundant, and can provide for the great army for several years. The many words of people likewise can be bad. For that reason have this directive, so as to set aside your doubts.

Gongzong spoke to the palace subjects, saying:

There were subjects who was not indeed like this, how is that loyal! I earlier heard that there were doubts, but still the Emperor decided to march, and that was all. Why are misinformed people in great affairs, how can those who talk again face to see the Emperor?

4th Year of Zhenjun [443 AD], Gongzong accompanied Shizu to chastise the Ruanruan. When they arrived at Luhun Valley, they and the thieves came across each other. The miscreants were in fear and terror, and the section groups agitated and in chaos. Gongzong talked to Shizu, saying:

Now that the troops of the great army have arrived, [we] ought to quickly advance and strike, soon while they are unprepared. Routing them is certain!

The Prefect of the Masters of Writing, Liu Jie, firmly remonstrated, considering that the dust was abundant and the thieves were many, to set out to arrive on level land, he feared they would be encircled. It was necessary for the army to greatly assemble, and then afterwards striking them would be possible. Gongzong spoke to Jie, saying:

The abundance of this dust is caused by the thieves' frightened agitation, the people of the army are the reason for the chaos. Why be above the encampment and yet have this dust?

Shizu doubted him and thereupon did not press the attack, and the Ruanruan escaped far away. And then when they captured the miscreants' scout cavalry, Shizu asked them about it, and they replied, saying:

The Ruanruan did not expect the troops of the official army to arrive, above and below were frightened and afraid, and they guided the multitudes to flee north, passing through six or seven days. They then understood there were no pursuers, and first then slowed the march.

Shizu deeply resented it. From that point when Gongzong's words on the great affairs of army and state saw much acceptance and employment, and [he?] thereupon understood the ten thousand moments.

Earlier, when Gongzong oversaw the state, he once ordered, saying:

The Book of Zhou tells: “Relying on agriculture for plough service, the tribute is the Nine Grains. Relying on gardens for planting service, the tribute is herbs and wood. Relying on labour for other material, the tribute is receptacles and things. Relying on trade for market service, the tribute is goods and property. Relying on shepherding for livestock service, the tribute is birds and beasts. Relying on maidens for female service, the tribute is cloth and silk. Relying on cross-beams for mountain service, the tribute is their material. Relying on gamekeeping for marsh service, the tribute is their things.”

Should arrange to have the ministers teach the population within the imperial demesne, and make the families without oxen consider the strengths of man and ox to trade with each other, tilling and breeding, hoeing and weeding. Should for the families with oxen give one person of a family without oxen planting fields of 22 mu, repaid with the personal hoeing work of 7 mu, like this be the proportion. Arriving at giving the young and elderly in families without oxen planting fields of 7 mu, the young and elderly repaying with hoeing work of 2 mu.

Everyone to consider poor families with 5 mouths or less as the model [?]. For each class of family with a different number of mouths, with the recommended planted qing and mu, clarify and set up register entries. For the heads of those planting in the land, headline the family and personal names, so as to distinguish merit in sowing and cultivating.

Also prohibited drinking alcohol, mixed amusements, and rejecting [ones] original [trade] to sell goods. The cultivated farm lands were greatly increased and opened up.

1st Year of Zhengping, 6th Month, wuchen [29 July 451], he passed away at the Eastern Palace, at the time he was aged 24.

On gengwu [31 July], the document said:

Alas! Verily, you were expansively endowed with clarity, and sagacity, [your] precocious intelligence was early completed. [Your] proper position at the lesser sunny side [i.e. the east] brought about shouldering the foundational structure. With visitors at the four gates, the seasons of the hundred measures were put in order. Truly governing with numerous achievements, in wind and rain [you] did not go astray. [You] ought to have relished without limit, revering our august throne, why the misfortune, that before long [you] should pass away and die! We must put to use sorrow and grief in their hearts!

Now send the Envoys Holding the Tally, the Combined Grand Commandant Zhang Li, and the Combined Minister over the Masses, Dou Jin, to receive the record, and forthwith [at] the coffin bestow the posthumous title of “Luminous and Stately”, so as to make evident the brightness and cause virtue. If the soul yet has awareness, should still praise it.

When Gaozong acceded to the throne, he was retroactively venerated as the Luminous and Stately [jingmu] August Emperor, his temple title the Respectful Ancestor [gongzong].

Your Subject the Historian says: Shizu's intelligence and clarity was remarkable and a cut above, his power and awareness prominent and outstanding. He relied on the resources of two generations, and exerted a spirit of conquests and offensives. Thereupon the military carriage set out in four directions, circling around the sinister barbarians. He swept away Tongwan, pacified Qin and Long, rooted out on the Liao and the sea, and cleansed the source of the He. The southern barbarians shouldered responsibility, the northern Ruan curtailed their tracks. Broadly settling the Four Corners, mixing as one the Rong and the Hua, his merits were indeed great. Thereupon he caused the legacy of Wei to brilliantly stride pass a hundred kings, how was it not godly far-sight weaving the warp, and his affairs will instruct the ages?

If arriving at the beginning, the eastern successor did not come to an end, and not therefore the schism complete suddenly, strong roots bequeathed to forestall, is it better to not think of it? Gongzong was clear, virtuous and had a commanding reputation, [but] early in his generation perished young, is his the grief of the Unrepentant Park?

[The “Unrepentant Park” was the grave of Han Wu-di's heir, Liu Ju]

#ws004

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sareyen · 4 years

Text

A Machine Without Feelings: A Jane Eyre AU (Part 1/11)

Read on ao3

Chapter 1

Charles hid behind the heavy crimson curtains in the alcove by the eastern window. It was his favourite little nook; the sun rising in the east always made it the warmest part of the grand Westchester estate in the morning, and Charles always liked the way it overlooked the gardens that were always bright against the stony backdrop of the grey stone mansion. What he liked most about the nook, though, was that it was safe. His stepbrother, Cain Marko, had not found this little corner of peace yet, allowing Charles to tuck his knees up onto the plush cushion seat of the alcove and prop a heavy book across his lap.

"Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Pollens," Charles murmured quietly to himself, wanting to say the foreign words out loud, but struggling to wrap his young tongue around the tough words he was trying to learn. He had almost seen ten winters now, and in the confines of the Westchester mansion - a prison, he had sometimes thought – Charles wanted to drink in any form of knowledge he could. He had always been a genius, as his favourite nurse, Kitty, always told him. Charles soaked up knowledge like the Westchester grass did after a heavy rain, or how Cain’s stomach soaked up all of the sweet cakes he ate gluttonously.

This was one of Charles’s favourite books; even though he couldn’t understand all of the large words, he grasped enough from the words he did know and the pictures to decipher meaning. The sciences had always interested him, more so than Cain’s novels about pirates and sea monsters, and found a small kernel of happiness whenever he read about how plants grow and spread. He often looked at the twisting ivy climbing up the walls of Westchester, unruly and vibrant, alive amongst the dead stones. His mother, Sharon, called them weeds and asked their servants to cut it down when they could, but she often forgot about it all by the time the bottle had emptied.

Charles smiled to himself as he ran his fingers over the long German words, casting his eyes over the pictures of plants and pollen, of seeds and leaves. He didn’t know how much time passed, until he heard the bang of an ornate door, his eyes going wide as his entire body froze.

“Where is he?! Where in the dickens is that gibface little meater?!” Charles heard his stepbrother’s voice call out, the clack of his shoes deafening on the hard floor. Charles tried to breathe evenly and shallowly as to not make any noise, blue eyes trained on the miniscule slit between the curtains.

He saw Cain prowl past, eyes narrowed into slits in his puffy face. His thick lips were pulled back with a snarl, and his nose sniffed like he could smell Charles’s fear. Charles bit down a gasp when Cain’s eyes suddenly snapped to his alcove, his feet clunk, clunk, clunking on the wood.

Charles leapt out of the alcove before Cain could find him himself, as if offering himself up as some sort of sacrifice would make Cain go easier on him today.

“Ah, there’s our Charlie-boy,” Cain sneered, the taller, older boy sauntering over with a smirk. His eyes looked Charles up and down, before focusing on the book cradled against Charles’s chest. “What is that book?” Cain demanded, jerking a fat finger against Charles’s chest and the book, the smaller boy stumbling back with the force. “Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Pollens,” Charles responded meekly, cowering as Cain snorted.

“You have no business taking our books,” Cain said, as if this mansion belonged to him already. It did not. It had originally belonged to Charles’s father, Brian Xavier, but when he died it was left in the hands of his mother. If his mother had been any other woman, the estate would have been passed on to Charles. But Charles’s mother was a drunk, her mind lost in the drink more often than not; her new husband, Kurt Marko, easily coerced her into giving him everything she owned. Sometimes, Charles thought that included him.

Charles did not often incite violence nor conflict, but it had always irked him whenever Cain would claim everything that Charles’s father had carefully cultivated as his. Cain was just like his father, and even though still a child, Charles knew that they were wasting away the vast Xavier fortune on nothing but folly.

“These are not your books,” Charles replied, steeling himself as he clutched de Pollens closer to his chest. “They were my father’s books. They are Xavier books, not Marko books!”

“You little-” Cain spluttered, growing bright red with fury. “Your father is dead and buried in the ground, and everything in this house belongs to my father! And as his real son, it thus belongs to me! Everything here is mine; these curtains are mine, those windows are mine, and that book in your hands is also mine!”

As Cain yelled, he lunged forward to wrench the book from Charles’s hands. Charles knew that the moment he grabbed it, the larger boy would smash it over Charles’s head, like he always did. ‘No!’ Charles screamed in his mind, terrified at being hurt again. Charles’s body shook as it remembered in vivid detail how it felt to be pushed to the ground by his stepbrother, how the older boy’s hands tore at his brown hair and bruised his stomach and ribs.

“Give the book here, you rat!” Cain growled, and Charles yelped when Cain snatched the book from Charles’s weak hands and smashed it over his head. Charles felt dizzy as he staggered, something wet and sticky dribbling down over his forehead, making his hair stick to his skin.

Charles blinked, hand shakily moving to his hair. When he pulled it back, his fingertips were red with blood, matching the crimson curtains behind him. Charles felt anger, white and hot, course through him unlike anything he has felt before. Charles had always been a measured and calm child, but the blow to the head sparked something in him, driving him momentarily mad. There was a screaming inside his head, one of injustice mixed in with fear, which caused Charles to move.

Charles yelled out, closing his eyes and swinging the heavy book haphazardly in an arc through the air. There was a thump and a cry of pain, but for once, it did not come from Charles. “What is going on here?” a voice thundered, the male timbre carrying throughout the high ceilings and ornate walls of the room. Charles felt his heart fly into his mouth as he peeled open his shut eyes, Kurt Marko stalking over to the two boys with murder set on his face.

“Father!” Cain snivelled, jumping up as he held his throbbing head, pointing towards Charles rudely. “This little cretin assaulted me!”

“Assaulted you?” Charles repeated, feeling the blood on his crown ooze a little. Kurt Marko looked heeded his son’s words, eyes whirling to Charles as his devil spawn grinned in victory, like a cat that just caught the canary.

“After all I have done for you, but marrying your mother to save your family, this is how you repay me?” Kurt Marko drawled, grabbing onto the back of Charles’s coat, hauling his tiny frame into the air.

“I did not… I didn’t…” Charles stuttered, fear seizing him, the book in his hands cluttering to the ground.

“To the Red Room with you,” Kurt Marko said, and Charles’s eyes widened and blurred, tears streaming down his face.

No, no, no, not the Red Room. Not that room. Please, please, please, anything but the red room!

If the Westchester mansion was a prison, the Red Room was its torture chamber. Charles had been locked in there many times since he was a boy even younger than ten, even after he did his best to not anger the Markos. It seemed like, no matter how hard he tried, they still painted him as the problem. Kurt Marko turned a blind eye to Cain’s cruelty, to the way he would capture birds in the gardens and snap their necks on the edge of the fountain. He ignored the way Cain bullied tutors and the maids, and how he was, in every way, an unnatural, demon-like child.

Maybe it was because Kurt Marko, too, was a demon.

“Step-father, Mr. Marko, sir, please, please not the Red Room,” Charles pleaded, skinny legs shaking in his light-coloured trousers. His tunic felt soaked through with cold sweat, and Charles felt like he couldn’t breathe as Kurt pushed him roughly through the heavy doors. Charles’s legs gave in to the force, and the boy was flung forwards onto the carpet. His knees thudded heavily, and his palms hurt as they braced him on the floor.

“Unnatural children need to be punished, you know this, Charles,” Kurt said, voice eerily calm, though his mouth was curled up into an amused smile. “Children like you, that were born bad, need to be taught how to behave. This was the task God gave me, and you will be grateful that someone pitied you enough to try and save your soul.”

“No! Please! I won’t- I’ll do anything- Please! Don’t leave me in here!” Charles begged on his knees, tears sliding down his reddened cheeks and coating his tongue. Kurt just responded with a cold smile, stepping out of the room and closing the door behind him.

Charles screamed and battered his little fists against the door, but it did not yield.

The Red Room was one such room in the far, almost forgotten wing of the estate that had not been refurbished by the Markos. It had all of the old furnishings, the old, gloomy wallpaper, and smelled of grief and despair. It had been the room Charles’s dear father had spent his last breath, and the draft in the fireplace and flow of air through the slits in the mouldy windows made it seem like his spirit was still here.

Though the spirit of Brian Xavier had been gentle and just in life, Charles believed that his soul was now restless as he saw what has become of his precious Westchester, and now he haunted this room. In his fury, Brian Xavier did not recognise those still walking on the mortal plane, and as night descended, he would come into the room screaming with the voices of all of the past Xaviers, a chorus of anger and hate.

Charles was a child, and though he was level-headed and rational, he was still just a child. He was terrified, and each squeal of the wind at the window, each rattle and rasp of air pushing down the ashen and dusty chimney was like a scream of a haunted spirit in Charles’s mind.

It was as if he could hear the voices of all the dead Xaviers in his head, their phantom minds overwhelming him, until he could finally take no more and collapsed onto the floor, darkness claiming him.

*** Charles woke to the feeling of a cool cloth brushing against his forehead and the tune of a maid’s song. Charles whimpered, feeling feverish, and the cloth was replaced by a gentle hand. Charles’s eyes opened blearily, and he turned his head stiffly to match the soft touch to a face. He felt relieved when he saw Kitty’s face smiling down at him, brown hair tied back in a tight knot.

“Master Charles, you have awakened,” Kitty’s voice spoke gently in his ear, relieved and comforting. “Here, sit up, child. You have been sleeping for a day and an hour since we found you on the ground in the Red Room. You are weak and hungry, I’d bet. Have some water, and I have some soup and bread for you.”

“Thank you, Kitty,” Charles said, ever polite, even when in the grips of sickness. The kind words of her little master made Kitty smile, patting his head affectionately as before gently holding a glass of water against his chapped lips, which were a shade paler than their usual bright berry red.

Kitty, along with the other servants of the household, adored the young Xavier, though after his mother’s remarriage, was forced to take on the surname Marko. The servants never called him that, though, and in their hearts they addressed the cherubic-faced boy as ‘Master Xavier’. They knew their master did not like sharing the Marko name, and they shared that sentiment. They believed the Markos to be nasty and evil, and never wanted to lump their gentle Charles with the likes of them. They never openly showed this, though – they were fearful of their masters as much as they hated them.

Still, they did what they could for the young master that treated them with kindness, the only one in the family to do so. Even though he was still but a boy, he reminded the older servants of their now dearly departed Mr Brian Xavier.

Kitty nodded in encouragement as Charles nearly drained the entire glass, wiping the corner of his mouth with a towel before putting the glass onto a tray on his bedside table.

“Do you think you can eat, Master Charles?” Kitty asked, gesturing to a small bowl of vegetable soup and stiff bread. Charles did not really want to eat anything, his stomach feeling like it was knotting itself shut. Charles never had a hearty appetite on a normal day, and Kitty often chastised him in good nature, saying that his small appetite is why he is small for a boy of his age.

Charles did not want to waste Kitty’s efforts to bring him food to his rooms, though. It was always hard enough for the servants to scrounge up some extra things for Charles to eat, since the Markos forbade him to dine with them.

Charles just nodded in answer to Kitty’s question, the woman smiling happily and helping feed Charles, his body still weak with fever caused by immense fear. He ate as much as he could, finishing most of the soup but only eating a few morsels of the bread, too tough for him to stomach. Kitty was satisfied with his efforts, and after he ate she helped tuck him back into the bed, pulling the blankets over his shoulders.

“Rest now, Master Charles,” Kitty spoke softly, stroking the younger boy’s hair like she used to when he was younger. The touch helped send the boy off to sleep, though these days sleep was fitful and restless.

“Thank you, Kitty,” Charles murmured again, sleepy. “Good night.”

“Good night, Master Charles.”

***

Kurt Marko nodded to the man – Mr Shaw – as he grabbed his cloak and walking stick. The man had a menacing smile as he had peered down at Charles, inspecting him from head to toe. He had introduced himself as Mr Shaw, the master of Graymalkin School for Children. It was a school primarily aimed to help educate orphans or wayward children; neither of which Charles believed he was, but the prospect of going to school made his heart beat with excitement.

Charles tried to hide how elated he was when Kurt declared that he was going to be sent to school. Charles always wanted to learn, and now to be given the opportunity to be taught properly outside the confines of Westchester? Charles could only think that his nightly prayers had finally been answered; to be able to escape from the clutches of the Markos, his alcoholic mother, and the house that he hardly loved.

His step-father told him that he would leave by couch in two days, and Charles had to swallow back the plea to leave tomorrow. To just leave now. He would not miss many things in Westchester, and the things he would miss could be counted with the fingers of one hand; Kitty, his alcove, his father’s libraries, the gardens in the springtime and his bedroom. But those five things were not enough to tether him to Westchester, and he could not wait to go to school.

Two days had gone by relatively quickly; Kitty helped him pack his belongings, of which there was not much. Kurt never spent money on Charles, so he only had what he had been left before the Markos came, and only the bare minimum after that. It had not taken long for Kitty to neatly fold and press a single change of clothes into a worn and aging case, rolling up some spare socks and tucking in a small box of biscuits for the long carriage ride. She also gave him his father’s old pocket watch, securing it to Charles’s small hip.

The dawn of his leave had come, and no one but the servants came to bid him farewell. They all hugged him, some of them teary, but others happy for him, knowing that their intelligent little master was happy to be given an opportunity to learn. Kitty cried the most, though she tried to hide it; she was the last to hug Charles, holding him tightly outside the door of the carriage. “I will be praying for you always, Master Charles,” Kitty said through a sniffle, and Charles felt his eyes grow a little wet at the sound. “Please keep your health in mind, and if the chance is given, please write. I am sure we would all like to hear about how you have been enjoying school.”

“I will, Kitty. Farewell,” Charles promised, pressing a kiss to Kitty’s cheek, making the woman laugh, wiping at her eyes with a cloth. She helped Charles clamber into the coach, closing the door behind him. Charles waved his small hand out of the carriage all the way down the long gravel path, head poking out of the small window to watch Kitty and the staff get smaller and smaller, until the coach turned a corner and Westchester mansion disappeared from sight.

It was a long ride to Graymalkin School, one that Mr Shaw had been a little surprised at when he found out that Charles was going to make it alone. If Charles could read Kurt’s mind, he was sure he had been hoping for Charles to die on the road, whether by overturned coach or bandit attack.

Unfortunately for Kurt, but fortunately for Charles, he made it to the school in one piece, though weary from the journey. His bones were creaky with disuse, and his spine felt out of place, but he brightened when he saw the plaque outside of the school.

Graymalkin School for Children.

‘A fresh start’, Charles thought to himself giddily as he stepped out of the carriage, a man wearing a dark suit standing in wait. He had tanned skin and long, dark hair, and had a stoic expression on his face as he regarded Charles.

“Who are you?” he asked simply, and Charles opened his mouth with practised manners.

“Charles Marko,” the boy said, hoping that one day he could rid himself of the blighted Marko name. Even though he was out of the sight and touch of Kurt Marko, it was still too early for him to feel like he was free from his reach. Charles sincerely hoped that one day he could shed the name and fear of the Markos, but ‘I’m still only ten,’ Charles reminded himself. He could still grow.

“Ah, Mr Shaw informed us that you would be arriving around this time. Come, let us get you settled. I am Mr Quested, the arithmetic teacher here,” the man said, voice even but not harsh, though his face did not betray any flicker of emotion.

Charles followed the man obediently into the building; like Westchester, the school building was made of stone, but it was nowhere near as grand. The entire single-level building would have been the size of the Westchester stables, and looked decrepit. Charles had heard that Kurt had payed a small sum for his admittance into the school, and wondered where that money was going since the school looked like it had not been maintained at all.

The inside of the school was ice cold, the chill from the cold stones not mitigated by fires nor rugs. Charles shivered, the small boy prone to chilly temperatures, and pulled his coat around himself tighter.

Charles was led to an inner room where, finally, there was one fire going. Another man with a harsh face, who Mr Quested called Mr Azazel, prodded the fire roughly and ordered Charles to strip the moment he entered the room. Mr Quested told Charles, whose eyes were wide like a startled deer, that Mr Azazel was the languages teacher and that he was going to give Charles the school’s uniform.

Charles quickly changed into the scratchy, slightly too-small grey uniform, the high collar chafing under his chin. Mr Quested took Charles’s old clothes, which were simple and old, but far nicer in quality than that of the uniform, and discarded them to the side.

“Now, we will show you the class rooms. You have arrived in time for first classes,” Mr Quested said, and Charles felt the cold seep out from his body at the prospect of learning, brightening visibly. Mr Quested did not comment on the sudden spring to the boy’s step, just leading him into a large hall where many pairs of tired yet curious eyes peered back at him, all wearing a similar grey uniform. There were rows of girls sitting to Charles’s left, and boys in a similar configuration to his right.

Mr Quested introduced Charles to the other children – his classmates – and he was instructed to take a seat on the boy’s side. Charles did as he asked, plopping himself down for his first assembly.

This was where things would change, Charles believed.

He was right, but what he didn’t realise was that they didn’t necessarily change for the better.

***

School was not what Charles had pictured it to be. It was not that Charles did not learn things; he did gain knowledge in English, arithmetic, botany, languages (French and German, and Russian from Mr Azazel), geography and history, amongst other things. Charles just did not expect it to be so cold and harsh and strict. Mornings began in the dark, where Charles would wash his face with ice-cold water shared by others. Breakfast was unpalatable slop, cold and pasty in his mouth and borderline inedible. Lunch was a no better affair, the stew a sludge of fat and undercooked roots, but Charles tried his best to stomach it, because otherwise he would writhe around in his cold straw bed starving until morning broke, and he would live it all over again. Living at Graymalkin School was as hard as living in Westchester, but in a different way.

Charles had never felt so cold before, his pale skin always icy to the touch, his feet always numb. He wished that he was allowed to wear the woollen cloak Kitty packed him, but he had to wear the school’s grey uniform that was thin and short, not covering Charles’s cold wrists and ankles well at all.

The teachers were also horrible. Mr Quested was the most tolerable of them all, and taught his classes methodically but dryly. Mr Essex was very knowledgeable about the sciences, which Charles was interested in, but often took time out of his lessons to berate his students; he usually picked on students that were slow to grasp things, and though Charles was never slandered, he felt great pain for his fellow pupils that had to quietly hold in their tears as Mr Essex cursed at them. Mr Azazel was intimidating, and would snap the necks of students with hard reed when they mispronounced a word as they read foreign texts, or force them to stand with their arms up until they conjugated complex verbs incorrectly.

However, the worst of them all was Mr Shaw. Mr Shaw stepped in for classes on various occasions, and out of all of the teachers, he was the most fond of physical punishments and public ridicule. Charles had been a victim of his attentions once in the few weeks he had been at Graymalkin School. Charles had spoken up in one of his classes, offering an eloquent rebuttal to one of the points Mr Shaw had raised about a text they were studying; Mr Shaw had grown livid that someone like Charles had argued with him, but Charles had been adamant that he had not said anything that should cause offense. Mr Shaw called him a liar and unleashed the wrath of God upon him.

Charles had endured ten lashings on his wrists, his light skin easily marked with red. Mr Shaw had not finished there, and made him stand on a stool in the middle of the large hall with a chalk board with ‘Liar’ scribbled across it. Mr Shaw had denied Charles dinner that night, and Charles whimpered as he stood there with a near-empty stomach.

Students marched past him after they had their own meal, and a few cast pitying looks at him as they trudged past to the segregated bed chambers. The girls parted to the left, and the boys to the right, Charles merely watching them leave while swallowing his saliva down sadly, hands held behind his back.

Suddenly, something coarse and rough was pressed into Charles’s hands discretely, and he stroked his fingers over it. It was bread.

Charles’s eyes widened as he searched the sea of grey pupils that all brushed past him, and his heart thumped when one head turned back. It was a girl, head full of blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She had a mischievous curve to her mouth that was so unlike any one else at this school, teacher or student alike.

When Charles was finally allowed to retire to his scratchy bed that night after having sneakily eaten the contraband bread, Charles found that he slept a little better at the thought of the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl that he didn’t know the name of.

***

The girl, he would later find out, was called Raven. She was an orphan, and had been at the school for a year already. Raven was bright, daring, and so alive that Charles always felt lighter in her presence. He had not realised how lonely he had been until he began to spend time with Raven, though their interactions were limited since Raven was in the girl’s classes, and they only interacted during the afternoon yard time.

When they were allowed to play in the yard, Raven and Charles would always gravitate towards each other; Raven had said that the way he had argued – debated, Charles emphasised – with Shaw had been the best thing she had seen the entire time she had been here. No one ever told Shaw that he was wrong, not even Mr Quested or Mr Azazel, but Charles had.

“I got whipped for that, you know,” Charles said, though his mouth held the quirk of a smile at that, the lingering pain on his wrists not as harsh when Raven laughed at him, face so bright. Raven had asked Charles early on in their newfound friendship if he was an orphan or a wayward child. Charles said that he was neither, and Raven had smirked, and said ‘definitely wayward, then’. Raven then told Charles that she was both an orphan and a wayward child, though she was proud of the latter. Wayward and proud, she had declared, standing on top of a bench and waving a long stick from her hands.

“Then you can just be wayward,” Charles had said after that, smiling at the slightly younger girl. The girl looked at him in confusion, and Charles beamed wider. “I will be your family, so you do not have to be an orphan. You can just be wayward and proud.”

Raven had embraced him tightly and called him brother, and for the first time, Charles felt like he had a real family. Sharon, Kurt and Cain were distant memories; Raven would be his family from now on, and he would be Charles Xavier.

School had gotten a lot better after befriending Raven; Charles clearly excelled in his classes, which earned him the favour of the teachers there. Even Mr Shaw could not deny that Charles was the most advanced pupil, and found it hard to punish him as much when he did not do anything that warranted punishment.

Instead, Mr Shaw turned his sights onto Raven, whom he knew was close to Charles. Shaw punished Raven whenever Charles frustrated him, and despite Charles’s best efforts to protect his sister, he was still only a boy. Even after being at Graymalkin School for a few years had not changed the fact that he was powerless against people like Shaw. The only way he could protect Raven was to let himself be punished by Shaw – so Charles often dropped chalkboards, or wore one part of his uniform incorrectly, giving Shaw reason to vent his frustrations upon him.

Charles’s wrists became worn with marks and scars from lashings, and he was sure that the backs of his legs painted a similar picture. But, Raven was safe from Shaw, so Charles could brave it.

But while Charles could protect Raven from Shaw, he could not protect her from other things. It had been two years since Charles went to Graymalkin School when typhoid fever blitzed through the meagre campus. Teachers covered their faces with linen clothes while coughing and feverish children were sequestered in a cold room full of hard cots and left to die.

By chance, or by Kitty’s prayers, the fever had left Charles untouched. Raven had not been granted the same fortune, and in the deep winter of that year, she had fallen ill and passed soon after.

Charles had wailed for days – weeks – after that, and had refused to leave Raven’s lifeless and ashen body even as the teachers covered her with a sheet to be buried. Charles had begged and screamed at Raven’s still body to come back or to take him with her, and he only stopped crying when his despair had robbed him of all energy and he fell into a cold, dreamless slumber.

The yard that Charles and Raven used to play in, where they had become brother and sister, was soon dug up to bury the many dead children of Graymalkin school. The teachers organised a mass funeral for all of the lost students, and their grey uniforms were switched to black for one week. Charles cried as they sang a dark funeral song, rain pelting down. As the rain fell, he remembered Raven’s sunlight blonde hair and ocean blue eyes, how she smiled and laughed and was the very meaning of life.

Charles buried a little bit of himself with Raven that day; Charles did not laugh as much as before, even though Raven said that his smile was nice and made him seem like a different person. He did not act out against Shaw, nor did he complain about the slop they called porridge or the rancid fat in the stew. Charles simply did what he came to school to do; learn, learn and learn.

It was eight years after he came to Graymalkin School for Children that Charles left it behind. Mr Shaw had long since left the school; it had been discovered that he had been hoarding the money meant for the school for his own means and was subsequently cast out, a new committee at the school stepping in to oversee things. Life was not so bleak once Shaw was ousted, and that was what allowed Charles to stay and teach at Graymalkin for two years after graduating from pupil to tutor.

Charles was a popular teacher; he was kind, understanding, patient and gentle. He was also the best teacher in terms of actual instruction, knowledgeable in every aspect, but particularly in the sciences. He would make classes interesting by allowing students to go out into the yard rather than sit on rickety wooden chairs inside a stone classroom, and his lessons were the only times the pupils felt free to express their opinions. The students loved him, and when he told them that he was leaving, there were many wet eyes and sobs amongst the children.

They loved their Mr Xavier – because that was the name he had taken, once again – and Graymalkin wouldn’t be the same without him there.

Charles’s heart was warmed, and he believed that he had truly found his calling in teaching. But there was some niggling feeling inside of his soul that told him that there was more out there, outside of Westchester, and outside of Graymalkin. Graymalkin had shaped him to become the man of eighteen that he was today, but he knew there was something missing.

Charles said goodbye to Raven before he left Graymalkin, cleaning off the rock used as a headstone with a pail of water, and placing some freshly plucked flowers bundled in a string of lace beside it. Charles smiled as he nestled a little wooden board with etched letters in front of it, thumb brushing over its corners.

Raven Xavier Beloved friend and sister Forever wayward and proud

Next chapter (2/11) →

#cherik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #ao3 fanfic #ao3 #jane eyre #charlotte bronte #charles x erik #xmen #xmen fic #magneto #professor x #raven darkholme #mystique #mr rochester #i just love cherik and jane eyre ok

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prolifeproliberty · 4 years

Text

A Summary of the CHAZ: Myths Debunked

So I’ve been watching the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone situation since it began, and I’m seeing a lot of disinformation. Here’s what’s happened so far.

tl;dr - The whole thing is much less exciting than either side makes it out to be - it’s not a socialist utopia and it’s not a terrorist takeover. Ultimately, the CHAZ will not last long. It is by no means autonomous (there have actually been discussions about changing the name, but none of the suggestions seem to stick), and it is not set up for any kind of long-term sustainability. Many protesters already seem burned out, and funds will begin to run dry soon. If left alone, the CHAZ will likely dissolve within a couple of days.

- Leading up to June 9th there had been a lot of conflict between protesters and police, including rioting and destruction of party on the side of protesters and tear gas and rubber bullets on the side of police.

- On June 9th the police evacuated their East Precinct and the protesters moved in, using barricades to block the streets coming into the area. They labeled the area an autonomous zone, now known as “CHAZ”

- Shortly after this point, armed security showed up. It appears to have been originally members of the John Brown Gun Club, a socialist militia group.

- The evening of June 9th the protesters gathered for a rally and marched to city hall, where a city council member and self-identified socialist unlocked the doors and let them in. They held a “town hall” in the city hall building and different people took turns speaking, including the city council member.

- The protesters then returned to the CHAZ where someone set up a projector and they watched the documentary “13th”, a film about incarceration of black people and prison labor.

- Raz, the much-hyped “warlord”, initially tried to become the “police” or security force of the area. There was some initial conflict when Raz and his group tried to stop someone from putting graffiti in certain areas (I think the person was covering up his graffiti?) and there is video of that person being beat up.

- Raz appears to be a rapper who would like to be the leader of a gang, and he saw this as his chance. There’s evidence online of some pretty troubling things he has done and said, including a very disturbing music video.

- The next day (June 10th) the group held a town hall/people’s assembly where people spoke about a wide variety of things. If you watch the videos from that meeting, there was a mix of people speaking - some were very practical, talking about the future of the CHAZ, others very idealistic, talking about socialist theory, and others rambled in a way that was very hard to follow. At least one person appeared to have mental health issues and it was unclear if what he was saying was real or not.

- During that assembly multiple people called out Raz and his group and said what happened was unacceptable. From what I’ve seen and read, people are saying they haven’t seen him around much since then and there haven’t been any more incidents with his group.

- All throughout there has been discussion of ceding the area to descendants of the Duwamish tribe that lived in the Seattle area prior to the arrival of American settlers. Two Native American women, at least one of whom was Duwamish, took the mic during the June 10th meeting. One of the women spoke about violence and discrimination against indigenous people, and then the two led the group in a traditional song for missing women.

- During that day at some point people started work on a garden. It is very limited, mostly a few tomatoes and some herbs. It’s being called a community garden where people plant what they want - the lack of planning and coordination meaning there is no real potential for it to become a primary food source any time soon.

- Reports of food being stolen appear to come from a photoshopped tweet. The person who supposedly sent the tweet has their Twitter locked, so it was difficult to confirm whether the tweet was real.

- Reports of businesses being extorted for protection money also seem to be false. Most business owners in the area have reported higher foot traffic and more sales than they’ve seen in a while. It’s possible some individuals may have asked for donations, and that could have been interpreted as extortion.

- Reports of IDs being checked at the barricades seem to be false as well. It’s possible that some individuals were trying to identify people who wanted to come in and cause trouble/make fun of them (there was a lot of social media talk from people saying they would raid the zone). But there was no actual effort to keep people out, and many have reported that they entered and left without ever being questioned, or were offered water and snacks upon entry.

- There are a few individuals who seem to have taken leadership roles, organizing assemblies and marches, but they have no official designations and their roles seem to be very temporary and fluid.

- There is no real long-term strategy or plan. The protesters seem to be surprised they got this far.

- Most meetings and discussions have involved a lot of people suggesting ideas, but few or no attempts to reach any kind of consensus or implement any of these ideas.

- Funding and supplies are coming through donations from supporters. Many protesters are sharing venmo and paypal information in hopes of receiving support. Tables are set up with snacks and water, and there are medical tents with volunteer medics (not sure whether they’re doctors and nurses or just volunteers with first aid training).

- Protesters seem to be frequenting local businesses, including a hotdog cart and some local restaurants. One salon has opened its bathrooms to protesters.

- Many protesters come and go throughout, while others have stayed and slept in tents. As far as I’ve seen the protesters have not entered the precinct.

- Today, June 11, several Seattle police officers walked into the precinct with little incident besides some chants from protesters. They said they were inspecting the building to determine what, if any, cleanup needed to be done to make it operational and said they were preparing to move back in.

- Protesters debated what to do about this. They considered barricading police in the building and debated whether this idea would cause more harm. They did vote to sanitize their bullhorn.

- Eventually some protesters did barricade the doors of the precinct after they believed all officers have left (though they did not confirm). Shortly after, other protesters moved barricades away from one of the doors (presumably so any cops still inside could leave).

- At this time (evening of 6/11), there are reports of police staging outside the zone with vans and patrol cars, seeming to be preparing for mass arrests. A rally/meeting was held for a couple of hours, and now people are simply milling about the main intersection.

#CHAZ #autonomous zone #seattle autonomous zone #seattle #capitol hill autonomous zone

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quentinblack · 4 years

Photo

Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter 5: Andromeda II - Wotcher! (link to fully story on FF.net)

Featuring: Andromeda Tonks, Teddy Lupin, Bobby Tonks.

Word Count: 2.4K words

Warnings: References to Alzheimer's

Andromeda shuffled down the street with Teddy as quickly as she could.

It had started spitting, which was something she hadn’t counted on when she’d left the house just ten minutes ago. It looked like it was going to be a nice spring day, with the sun shining and barely a cloud in the sky, but then the sun had cowered behind one of those clouds and now it looked as though the heavens may open.

This was the trouble with travelling the muggle way. You didn’t have to worry about taking an extra coat or umbrella if you were using the Floo network or apparating. Andromeda couldn’t fathom how the muggles managed to cope with the unpredictability of the weather. You’d probably be alright if you lived in a place that was perpetually cold or hot, but not in Britain where the weather seemed to change on a complete whim whenever it fancied it.

Andromeda couldn’t see much of the pavement that she was walking on as Teddy was held tight to her waist in his blue baby sling, which meant he took up most of her peripheral vision. This was a particularly large risk as they were walking the streets of Fratton, which quite possibly has the largest ratio of dog-shit to pavement in all of England.

If avoiding dog-poo wasn’t enough of a challenge in itself – Andromeda also had to navigate the absolutely bewildering road system. There were some stretches of pavement on the way to Fratton Station where when crossing a road, or merely just from pavement to pavement - you would have four different directions of oncoming traffic potentially coming at you!

Andromeda struggled to understand the way muggle roads worked at the best of times, but Portsmouth was by far and away the most difficult. Ted had always said that if you could learn to drive in Fratton you could work out how to drive anywhere. Nymphadora had never had the patience for it and had much preferred apparating everywhere once she was of age.

Andromeda caught a slight glimpse of the train approaching in the distance. The platform was pretty busy with lots of families bustling here, there and everywhere. The red and blue train sauntering into the station almost resembled a sliced-open Battenberg, with the front of it dead flat and the rest of it sort of curving out.

Ted always said the modern electric locomotive trains were a wonderful feat of British engineering, but looking at the industrial, ugly train as it approached the platform – well, it certainly lacked the glamour and pizzazz of the Hogwarts Express.

The journey that they’d be taking would probably take them the best part of four hours, with their initial train to Waterloo clocking in half of that time. There was something about being on muggle trains that Andromeda found quite relaxing and enjoyable, perhaps it was just the nostalgia of those long journeys to school when she was younger.

In truth, Andromeda was just glad to be out of the house. It was a chance to get some fresh air and to be around lots of people, even if those people were only there for a passing moment. She’d been cooped up in that house for almost a year in hiding and barely seen more than a handful of people in that time – and half of the people she had seen had been there solely to torture her.

The time on the London bound train flew by and before she knew it they’d gone right through the Hampshire countryside and into Guildford, before eventually docking into Waterloo. The station was absolutely heaving with people and Andromeda struggled to work out where exactly they were meant to be going, but eventually a kind station guard directed her to the Jubilee underground line, which would take them to West Ham where they could make their connecting train.

It wasn’t her first foray on the London underground as she’d travelled on it many times with her late husband, but it was her first time along and she felt quite uncomfortable. The tube was jam-packed with foreign tourists and Andromeda could barely even fit on the carriage when she first got on.

The one silver lining of travelling with Teddy was that almost immediately a tall, bald man wearing a white t-shirt that read “ATLANTA 96” offered his seat to her. Andromeda thanked the man and noticed that the 5 multi-coloured rings on his shirt very much looked like Quidditch hoops, but she quickly learned that he was definitely a muggle when she saw him reach for his portable telephone and start talking into it.

It took a lot of sweat and a few tears from Teddy, but it wasn’t too long before they found themselves on the C2C train heading to Southend. Andromeda was very thankful when a dark skinned man offered up his seat to her and she stared out of the window as the train departed the East-London platform. It had been an early start for the both of them and Teddy soon nodded off in her lap – and it wasn’t long before Andromeda herself followed suit.

~ ~ ~

Andromeda’s eyes shot open as Ted’s cry gradually shifted into that of her grandson’s. She looked down into her lap and saw little Teddy’s tears dry up slightly when he noticed that she was awake again.

She shifted uncomfortably on her seat and as she saw the sea outside her window noted that they were almost there now. Andromeda felt her bum and back ache a little as she moved. Their carriage was now virtually empty, with only a mother and small son a few seats down and a greasy looking teenager in the corner for company.

The lad in the corner had short, spikey gelled hair and was wearing a black t-shirt with ‘Austin 3:16’ in block caps on it. Andromeda assumed his t-shirt must be some sort of religious reference – he didn’t particularly personify what she’d come to think of as the Christian-type, but she still struggled to get her head around muggle customs despite being married to Ted for the best part of 25 years.

The little boy a few seats down was fully engrossed in playing with his spaceman plastic action-figure, whilst his Mother read a book called Bridget Jones. This thankfully left Andromeda free to daydream outside the window as she stared into the sea and Teddy rested his eyes again in her lap.

This is the LTS Rail Service to Shoeburyness. The next station is… Westcliff. Please ensure you take all of your belongings with you when alighting the train.

“That’s our stop Mummy, isn’t it?!”

“No, no, Harry, Southend is one more after this one sweetheart”

Andromeda couldn’t stop herself looking over at the excited little muggle boy and his mother a few seats down from them.

“Mummy?! Mummy?!”

“Yes, Harry?”

“Are me and Buzz allowed to get some sweets when we’re out in town? We promise we’ll be good!”

“What do you say, Harry?”

“PLEASE!”

“That’s better! Now if you promise you’ll be a good little boy and are on your best behaviour whilst Mummy gets her eyes tested and pops into Boots for her prescription, then I’ll let you get some pick and mix in Woolies.”

“YAY!! Thanks Mummy! You’re the best!”

Andromeda almost allowed a slight smile to escape her permanent poker face. It did warm her heart to see the little boy’s face filled with such joy as he embraced his mother, but unfortunately it also served to remind her that Teddy would never experience such joy with his own mother, which made her feel very dejected as she glanced down at him.

She supposed at least in his Godfather he would have a positive male role model – and someone who actually understood what it was like to have no parents.

~ ~ ~

Teddy stirred slightly at the sound of the seagulls scuffling over some discarded vinegar-soaked chips on the pavement. The sudden movement from her grandson caught Andromeda by surprise and she instinctively reached out to grab him, forgetting that he was tightly secured in the muggle baby-carrier that Ted had originally bought for Nymphadora.

The mini panic caused her to momentarily stop in her stride, but Teddy didn’t notice as he was already back to sleep. He wasn’t as light as he once was. It was only really that he’d been such a tiny new-born to begin with that meant she was still able to carry him when walking in the first place.

Andromeda found the turning she was looking for and headed down it. Their destination wasn’t far now and she’d soon be able to have a nice sit down and a cup of tea. She saw the giant cherry tree in the distance and headed towards it, quickening her stride and walking into the road momentarily to avoid the litter on the pavement.

It looked like a fox had a fight with a black sack full of rubbish the night before – and the fox had won, quite comfortably, as the street was littered with empty juice cartons, crisp packets and banana skins. The middle aged-witch had to double take, as she could’ve sworn that one of the crisp packets proclaimed to contain Vanilla Ice Cream flavour crisps. It must be a strange muggle thing, she thought.

The tree came fully into view and shaded them from the sun, as Andromeda walked up the path towards the big red front door of Stapleton House. She pulled the door-knocker back a few times and after a few moments the door made a buzzing noise, indicating it was now unlocked.

A slightly tanned lady with a friendly smile on her face greeted them at the door.

“Oh hello,” she said in that very distinctive voice adults only ever use when talking to babies. “And what lucky person are you here to see today?” she asked Teddy warmly, although of course she was really addressing Andromeda.

“Robert Tonks,” Andromeda said.

“Robert Tonks…err… Robert… OH! You mean Bobby!”

“Yes.”

“Oh that’s fantastic! It’s been a little while since he’s had any visitors. I’m sure it will make his day to see you both. He’s down in room 14. Follow the hallway all the way down, take the first left, then right and he’ll be in the room next to the garden.”

“Thank you,” Andromeda replied courteously, not wanting to make too much of an impression on the nurse in-case she started asking any questions.

Andromeda opened the door to room 14 and saw Robert Tonks sitting in a brown armchair facing away from the door. He was staring at the television that was bizarrely not actually showing anything on it at all. It was just a black screen, with lots of yellow and blue writing on it.

She looked over at his bed frame which read:

ROBERT “BOBBY” TONKS.

ALZHEIMER’S.

DOUBLE INCONTINENT.

“Hello Robert,” Andromeda said warmly. The elderly man, now in his 70s with not a spot of hair on his head turned around instantly and looked at her curiously through his glasses.

“Hello,” he said blankly. “Who are you?”

“It’s me, Robert, Andromeda. Ted’s wife,” she said calmly. He had been losing his memory for the best part of three years now, so she was used to having to be patient with him.

“Andromeda…Ted’s wife… Ted. Ted…” he pondered to himself. It was evident that he was trying very hard, but could not quite put it together in his mind.

“Your son, Ted,” she prompted.

“My son…Ted…Ted…Ted! My son Ted! Yes. Yes of course. Chip off the old block, just like his old man. Kind and loving like his mother, too. Are they here too? Ted and Agata”

“No… no not today Robert. They’re busy today, but I am sure they’ll be here tomorrow,” she lied.

It was much easier that way.

Ted’s mother had died of cancer about five years ago, long before Robert had started losing his memory and had to be put in a care home. But he often forgot. The first few times her and Ted had taken the painstaking trouble of telling him that she wouldn’t be visiting him that day, or ever again, because she was dead – and it was horrible. It was like he had to go through the whole grieving process all over again.

The least they could do was spare him from that, although now it wasn’t just Agata who was dead. It was his son and granddaughter too. But Andromeda had barely been able to grieve properly for either of them herself yet. She was hardly about to stroll on in and announce to him that they were dead.

“Oh. Well, at least you made the trip ehh, Andromeda? And wow… my goodness. Is that? Is that little Nymphadora? Haven’t you grown sweetheart?” he said in amazement at Teddy.

“No, Robert. This is Nymphadora’s son, Teddy. He’s your great-grandson,” she said smiling and lifting Teddy up and taking him over to meet Robert.

“Great? Great-grandson?” Robert uttered in disbelief, as he took Teddy into his arms.

“You see that, lad,” he said, pointing to the television screen with lots of writing on it. “That’s the Premier League table. The 20 best football teams in England play each other twice, then whoever gets the most points at the end wins the title. And look at that. It’s the last day of the season and look who sits at the top…The Arsenal! That crazy French fella Arsene Wenger has only gone and won it for us hasn’t he?!”

“I said to Ted we were mad to hire him. Should have gone for Johan Cruyff. But look at that – he was right. Said all along Wenger would win us the league!” Robert mused to nobody in particular.

Andromeda was always amazed at how no matter how badly Robert’s memory deteriorated – he would never forget anything to do with football, or conversations he’d had with Ted in relation to it.

Robert suddenly looked over at Andromeda in slight panic and fear. He ushered for her so he could hand Teddy back.

“Are you okay, Robert?” she asked worriedly.

His face was fluxed with shame and anguish.

“I’m sorry Andromeda. I think you’ll have to call for a nurse…I’ve messed myself.”

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littleredwritinghoodxx · 4 years

Text

Views from the Loft

Original Publication Date: August 19th, 2019

Rating: T

Genre: Romance/Humor

Summary: Zelda, in that second, realized she wanted to remember that moment forever. A thought occurred to her, and she quickly took out the Sheikah Slate and snapped a photo from the loft. Link still didn't remember much from before the Great Calamity, but perhaps they could create new memories: memories of him, her, and their little Hateno home. A look into a year with Link and Zelda.

Word Count: 5,333

Summer

The grass was soft under her fingertips, the small flowerbed alive with insects and fauna. The sun was high above her in the sky, beating down on that little Hateno Village in East Necluda. Zelda relished in the way the sun felt upon her skin, how the breeze swayed in the afternoon, its tendrils tickling her face. It had been months since she and Link had defeated Calamity Ganon on that fateful day in the Hyrule Fields, and since then, Zelda took no small thing for granted.

She supposed she hadn’t known what to expect following one hundred years of constant battle against the Calamity. She had plenty of time to mull it over, plenty of time to imagine and dream of what she would do once the battle was over. Yet, she never did expect that Link would practically throw her onto Epona's back and whisk her away to one of the far corners of Hyrule, to a small little quiet village, with no agenda, and no expectations.

Zelda adored it.

She had no obligations, no commitments, no duty. She could argue that after one hundred years of sealing Calamity Ganon in the sanctum of Hyrule Castle that she was well due for a break: and so break she did. She found herself falling into a lazy sort of schedule: she would wake late by mid-morning to the smells of Link cooking breakfast in his – their – kitchen, and would quietly observe him from over the railing until he noticed her. He always got this big, goofy grin on his face every time he saw her for the first time in the morning. It was a look she wanted to permanently etch into her memory. After breakfast, she would change into a smock, and would go to the market for groceries, or make a trip up the hill to see Purah, or lay in the yard doing absolutely nothing, and she found the peacefulness and the slowness from Hateno Village to be absolutely delectable.

Some days, on days much like today, Link would join her in the yard, either tilling in the garden, fishing in the pond, or with her, rolling around with her in the grass like two idiots in love: for that they were. Despite their relationship prior to the Great Calamity, things between them came naturally – easily. It had started as a practicality: Link had not connected the dots that by bringing Zelda to his Hateno home, he would need to contract Bolson to bust out the wall under the loft to construct a second bedroom with furnishings. When he had admitted this to Zelda, he looked almost sheepish, claiming that with everything going on and storming Hyrule Castle, he just forgot. Of course, this was completely understandable to Zelda. She had always been a practical woman, and seeing as his bed was large enough for two, she merely suggested that they share his bed from the loft.

You should have seen how red the tips of his ears got at that.

But he agreed – and as the proper gentleman he was, he made sure to give her plenty of space in the bed, making sure not to touch her, as he slept on the very edge of the bed.

As you can imagine, that didn't last long.

The next morning had found him migrated towards the center of the bed, with a warm and very real Zelda tucked under his chin, her hands fisted in his tunic, their legs tangled together. His arms were wrapped around her, feeling her gentle inhalations in the dewy Hateno morning.

It was heavenly.

So began a nightly ritual between the two where, try as they might, they were both doomed to migrate towards each other in the night. After one hundred years separated from each other, it was surprising that they could even resist at all.

So then it should come as no surprise to you all to hear of the day Link, Farore's Champion, somehow mustered up his courage and kissed her.

They were walking back down the hill from the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab; Zelda made frequent visits up the hill to visit Purah and to let her tinker with the Sheikah Slate, and from time to time, Link would make that trip with her. This was one of those trips, and it was a trip that ended up bearing fruitful results: Purah had made a breakthrough with the runes, and she had learned of a way to upgrade the camera rune to include moving pictures, with sound qualities as well. She was still programming the Guidance Stone with the right information, so she gave the two of them explicit instructions to come back next week with the slate to download the camera rune update, which found them shoved outside the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab with a slammed door in their face, both trying hard to keep their cackling down lest Purah hear them.

A heavenly glow was cast upon Hyrule in the evening dusk, casting shades of magenta and orange and cerulean blues. Much of Hateno and Necluda was hidden in the shadow of the Dueling Peaks and Mount Lanayru, and thus most of Hyrule was hidden from view. It was their own little slice of heaven, a world without the constant reminders of their loss and struggles. Despite this, as she looked across Hyrule – her Hyrule – a blossom of pride and joy bubbled up from within her: this was what she was fighting for. This land of hers, glowing softly in the sunset, finally at rest, was what made one hundred years of fighting worth it.

That, and having the man next to her made it worth it, as well.

She had paused under an apple tree, gazing over the land, and only realized just then at some point in their trek down the hill, Link's hand had ended up placed in hers, their fingers intertwined: a perfect fit.

She sighed, gazing over the land, rubbing her thumb across Link's hand, "Beautiful, don't you think?"

"I do."

But Link wasn't looking out over Hyrule. He was looking at her, his eyes intense, yet soft, never wavering. Zelda looked towards him, realizing this. Gently, he cupped her face with his free hand, moving closer, his hand holding hers coming across the small of her back. She wasn't breathing, her lips slightly parted, as she looked into his eyes with the same sort of intensity, waiting for the next moment.

"Zelda," he breathed, "What would you say if I told you, right now, that I love you?"

He could be so oblivious sometimes.

"I would say that I love you, too," she nodded fiercely, fisting his tunic in her hands. He leaned down and pressed his lips firmly to hers, melting into her.

They shared that first kiss in the perfect sunset glow overlooking Hateno Village, hands soft and learning, tender and sensitive. They shared their second kiss with Zelda pressed up against the outside of their front door, Link fumbling with his key as Zelda's hands were frantic, stroking over every plane and crevice of his arms, his torso, his back. They shared their third kiss tangled in the sheets of their bed atop the loft, clothes being tossed and strong arms pining her down, their kisses messy and passionate, just the two of them in the moonlight.

That was a few weeks back, nearing the end of that spring and transitioning into summer. Zelda sighed, amidst the flowers and the wildlife, placing a hand on her lower stomach. She was in love with Link, and him to her. She couldn't think of a more blissful way to live her life. And thus their routine continued: Zelda found herself the next morning right where she always was, quietly observing Link from the loft, waiting until he noticed she was awake. He stood with his bare back to her, quietly cooking breakfast in the kitchen below, the smells making their way up to the loft and filling Zelda with a sense of home.

Zelda, in that second, realized she wanted to remember that moment forever. A thought occurred to her, and she quickly grabbed the Sheikah Slate from the desk nearby and snapped a photo from the loft. It was a simple picture, just their quaint little kitchen with Link standing over the stove, the profile of his face showing slightly, a small content smile adorning his features. Upon hearing the snap of the Sheikah Slate, Link perked up, turning around and facing her, with that goofy grin he always had on his face every morning when he saw her.

She snapped a photo of that too.

Link still didn't remember much from before the Great Calamity, not that it mattered much anymore, but perhaps they could create new memories; memories of him, her, and their little Hateno home.

Autumn

Link had, indeed, ended up contracting Bolson earlier that summer to bust out the wall beneath the loft to make a room for Zelda. Bolson had just finished construction on the room itself as the hot summer winds transitioned into the cool winds of autumn, the leaves around their Hateno home turning a vibrant mix of orange, red, and yellow. Although it was clear that Zelda would not have need of the room – she was quite content to share the loft with Link – it came not a moment too soon.

One autumn morning found the two of them tangled in each others arms, their kisses lazy – skin hot against each other in the cool Hateno morning – with Link gently caressing the small, but telling, swell of Zelda's stomach.

The new room downstairs would be made into a nursery for the little one on the way. Link had suggested that he gather some wood to build a crib for the baby. However, Zelda protested, asking if he had ever built anything in his life. Link said yes, and Zelda suggested he go to Bolson to construct them a new crib. Link then asked her if she thought he would do a poor job at building one.

Link was good at everything he did; of course she knew he would make a fine crib.

So the two of them compromised and Link left the home to go to Bolson to contract him on building a crib.

And thus began a new pattern of 'compromises', and more time for Zelda to have Link all to herself.

The days were getting colder and shorter, and Zelda was enjoying her afternoons spent under a tree, either reading a book, or cataloguing different species of plants, or testing the new 'video' rune on the Sheikah Slate that Purah had upgraded.

It was unlike anything she had ever seen. It was already incredible that the Sheikah Slate could create real to life still images that were more accurate than Hyrule's finest painter, but now, she could record moving pictures complete with sound. It was almost like she was really there, reliving that memory.

Her first video that she recorded with the Sheikah Slate was up at the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab, just moments after Purah had handed her the slate and asked her to test it out.

She had pressed a little red button on the screen of the slate, and then it flashed in red letters 'recording' on the screen of the slate.

What do I do now? She had asked, moving the slate around. The camera on the slate moved side-to-side, capturing views of the upper walls of the tech lab.

Point it towards Link, Purah said, off screen, Have him say something into the camera.

The camera moved towards Link, capturing him in its lens. Even from the camera, it was clear that Link's cheeks were red, and he was almost embarrassed.

Link, say something! She heard her own voice say off camera.

Well, I don't know what you want me to say, Link said, rubbing the back of his neck.

Say anything! Anything that comes to mind! She heard Purah's voice say off camera.

Link stared into the camera lens for a moment, a contemplative look in his eyes, before in a flash, he reached out, and the camera shook.

Hey, what are –! The camera stilled and it was facing Zelda, an appalled look on her face. Though the smock she was wearing did well to hide it, if you were looking for it, you could see the small baby bump rising from her dress. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright. She was glowing.

I want to have it documented, recorded, transcribed, whatever it is that this does, Link's voice was off behind the camera now, though you could hear the smile in his voice, that this woman right here is the most beautiful, most stunning, most radiant, and the strongest person I know… and she's mine.

You are such the romantic, Zelda admonished, a smile on her face, as she reached forward to grab the slate back from him. The camera angle turned, and was now face down, showing an aerial shot.

Link was laughing. Hey, give that back! Zelda was jumping beneath the camera, trying to grab it from Link's outstretched hand.

Not unless you kiss me first, Link said, grabbing her around the waist with his other hand. Zelda's cheeks and ears went bright red.

Link, turn off the camera, that would be indecent, Zelda said, squirming.

You know what would be indecent? Link said, his voice dark and rough, a naughty look in his eyes, as he leaned down and whispered something into Zelda's ear. You wouldn't be able to hear in the video what he said, but she squeaked, turning the rest of the way red as she squirmed out of his grasp and grabbed the slate from his hand. The camera shook, the sounds of Link laughing maniacally in the background before the camera stilled completely, the end of the recording.

She found herself replaying that video over and over again; not for the things he whispered in her ear, she was still blushing over that, but for all of the things he said about her. He said she was beautiful, stunning, radiant… and the strongest person he knew.

And he called her 'mine'. It evoked a very possessive side of him, and she had come to realize that she didn't mind that so much.

Because she was just as possessive of him as he was of her. She found herself craving his touch, and wanting to be near him always; and he found, too, that he didn't mind that so much. They found themselves less just Zelda and less just Link: they were a pair, a couple, a team.

And that team had to somehow work together to make a cake for Link's birthday.

It was a cool autumn day, and though it was too cold to comfortably be outside, it wasn't yet cold enough to start a fire in the fireplace. Which meant Link and Zelda wore layers upon layers inside the little Hateno home. Link would have gone about his day as normal, had it not been for Zelda grinning like an idiot at him since they woke up.

"Zelda, why are you looking at me like that?"

"Well, because today is a very special day!"

"…why is today a special day?"

"It's the Autumnal Equinox, Link!"

"…Okay…?"

"And you know what that means, right?"

"We're halfway to winter?"

"Link, today is your birthday!"

Though Link couldn't remember when his birthday was, Zelda remembered.

Though Link couldn't remember how old he was turning, Zelda remembered.

So naturally, she was going to light the cake ablaze with one hundred and twenty candles.

She had asked Link what kind of cake he would want, knowing that one hundred years ago, his favorite cake was a vanilla cake. It came as a surprise to her, then, that he responded with a chocolate cake. A little part within her was hoping that he would respond with wanting a fruitcake, which was her favorite kind. It had been over one hundred years since she had last had the dessert, and she would have committed atrocities to have that sweet dessert grace her palate again.

So she went out to the market to gather the ingredients for the cake, only to walk in and stop frozen in her tracks.

She hadn't the faintest idea on how to bake a cake.

Thus, you can see how Link got dragged into baking his own birthday cake.

He went back down with her to the market, explaining all of the things she would need to bake a cake: Tabantha flour, milk, eggs, sugar, goat butter, and chocolate.

Zelda at least got the chocolate part right.

They headed back up the hill towards their little house, and laid out all of the ingredients onto the table. Link explained that first, they had to measure out the flour into a bowl and then mix the eggs and milk into it. She went ahead opening the flour while Link put the chocolate into a pot, placing it over the fireplace to melt.

She poured the flour into the bowl, a little too quickly at that, and as it landed, a cloud of flour puffed out from the bowl, coating her face in a thin white layer. She coughed, a small white puff emerging from her lips. She squinted her eyes, the flour coating her eyelashes.

"So once you get the flour into the bowl…" Link turned around from the fireplace, facing Zelda and noticing her face.

In his defense, he at least tried to hold himself together.

That lasted about two seconds until he was doubled over, laughing.

"Zelda," he managed between laughs, "How in Hylia's name did you manage to get flour everywhere?

In response, Zelda flicked a chunk of flour in his direction, landing on his neck and tunic.

"Like that," she responded.

Thus began the first of many 'food fights' in their little Hateno home, and soon, their little kitchen was covered in a fine dusty layer of flour, and it would be months before either one of them could truly admit that their kitchen was clean. There was flour on the floor, on the table, the counters, in their hair, their clothes, their faces.

And the two were laughing like idiots in love, holding each other up as they both doubled over on themselves.

Zelda stood up, wiping a tear from her eye, "Hold on, I want to take a picture of the mess you made."

"The mess I made?" Link started, dusting himself off, "You're the one that couldn't get the flour into the bowl."

Zelda was laughing as she was running up the stairs, two at a time, leaving dusty footprints in her wake. She grabbed the Sheikah Slate from off the desk and leaned over the railing with it, opening the camera, "Smile, Link!"

In response, Link placed his hands on his hips, staring at the camera, an exasperated, but amused look on his face. She snapped the photo of that, smiling softly as the picture generated in front of her.

She placed the Sheikah Slate down, and headed back down the stairs. Link was dusting himself off, and had a peculiar expression on his face, "Okay, what next?" Zelda asked, turning back towards the bowl of flour. Or perhaps what had once been flour: hardly any remained.

"Well," Link smirked, "We will need to get more flour, all of what we had is currently on the floor and in our hair. Speaking of which…" He leaned in close, a dark look now in his eyes, "We should probably get cleaned up."

Zelda met his gaze, and her cheeks flushed, "Well, what did you have in mind?"

He grinned, leaning close to her ear, "If I told you, you would think it was positively indecent."

Zelda squeaked as Link scooped her up in his arms, laughing as he carried her out into the cool Hateno air, his long strides taking them towards the bathroom around the corner of the house, practically tossing her in and joining her, closing it shut with a firm click.

Winter

Zelda never remembered winter being this cold. She sat, bundled as she may be in layers and blankets, next to their roaring fire in a rocking chair, shivering, as Link stoked the fire, willing the room to warm up. She had a cup of hot chocolate on the side table next to her, steaming and cooling down. They were lucky that they had gone to get firewood when they did, or they would have been stuck inside during the blizzard with no firewood, no heat, and scarcely any light.

A blizzard stormed outside their little Hateno home, the winds whistling and deafening against the windows and the walls. It felt like it had been storming for days, and Zelda briefly wondered just how much longer the storm could hold up for.

A few weeks prior had found the two of them in the bitter cold, one week until the winter solstice. The temperature was dreadful, biting to any exposed skin, and somehow between the two of them, they had failed to realize that they were out of firewood.

With that, Link had donned his Snowquill tunic, a woodcutter's axe strapped to his back, and was about to head out when:

"I'm coming with you."

Link did a double take, as Zelda was just finishing lacing her snow boots, a red ruby circlet tied around her head, and winter coat strapped around her growing belly.

"What? Zelda, no," Link protested, "You can't come with, not in your condition."

"Link, I'm pregnant, not dying of the influenza," Zelda rolled her eyes, "Besides, I can help you carry back firewood. We'll be able to bring back double what we could if you just went alone."

"Zelda, it's below freezing outside. I don't want for you to get sick."

"That's why I'm wearing this," Zelda pointed to her circlet, "and why I'm wearing a jacket and boots. Besides," she crossed over to the door, opening it, and a strong gust of wind burst into the Hateno home, "you know as well as I do that it's dangerous to go alone."

Zelda led the way outside, with Link following behind, grumbling under his breath. As she stepped outside, she very nearly regretted her decision, the bitter air penetrating through her layers, making it seem like the circlet was doing nothing.

She stepped behind and allowed Link to lead, following him across the bridge and into the center of town. The wind here was ruthless, billowing in from between buildings, coming from the north at Mount Lanayru. The wind took a slight turn, and suddenly, she saw little white flecks dancing across the air in front of her, landing on the ground and in her eyelashes.

It was the first snow of the season, and her first snow in one hundred years.

Zelda smiled.

They took a left and made their way down the hill towards the Ginner Woods, both of them visibly holding their hoods closer to their face. Looking back, Hateno Village glowed softly in the snowfall, its little houses on the hill glowing with small fires burning in each fireplace. A steady stream of smoke billowed from each chimney in soft, frothy waves.

You have to really see it to understand the splendor that is Hateno Village at dusk in the wintertime.

They reached the woods and Link took the axe from off his back, and without any preamble, he swung it at the nearest tree, powerful muscles moving as he downed the tree in one swing.

How he managed to do that was beyond Zelda's comprehension. She was constantly in awe of this man.

Very quickly, Link had created a substantial pile of firewood near the road. Clearly, he was creating a stockpile to last for all, if not most, of winter. There was something about the way that the air nipped at Zelda's red nose and cheeks that told her that this winter was going to be one of the coldest in the books.

Satisfied with his handiwork, Link sheathed the axe back onto his back, and bent down to grab a small pile of wood. Gingerly, he transferred that pile of wood back to Zelda, and he took the rest off the ground into his arms.

The snow was beginning to come down harder as they made their trek back up the hill into Hateno Village. The skies were dark, a promise of a heavy snowfall. Zelda noticed off handedly that the little houses glowing on the hill were harder to see in the snowfall, seemingly dimmer and softer.

It made Hateno Village all the more beautiful.

They made their way to the little bridge in front of their home, and Zelda got excited for warmth as she saw their house glowing from across the way. She couldn't wait to get inside to warm up, as she wiped at her nose running from the cold.

They took the wood and placed it under a small shed on the left hand side of the house, Link setting his down first and then grabbing Zelda's load from her, before setting that down as well. From there, it didn't seem that they could get inside the house fast enough. The snow was falling at an alarming rate, and there was already a pile of it formed at the front door. The two of them barreled inside, Link shutting the door behind them, the sounds from outside dulling at that.

Zelda practically threw her jacket and hood off, now wet from the melted snow, and chucked it into the storage room. She heard Link laugh softly at that, as she nearly ran to the fireplace, sitting directly in front of it, warming her red fingertips.

"I told you, you shouldn't have come with," Link laughed, grabbing her jacket and hood from the storage room and climbing up the stairs to the loft. He hung the wet garments from the railing upstairs.

"Aren't you freezing?" Zelda chose to reply, jaw clenched as she willed her shivering away.

"You forget," Link said, coming next to her now, placing a blanket over her shoulders, "that my Snowquill tunic comes from Rito Village, where their clothing can withstand temperatures that rival the Hebra Mountains. Your coat and snow boots from Sophie's down the street ain't got nothing on it."

"Well then, the two of us will just have to make a trip to Rito Village before next winter, won't we?"

"Not quite," Link said, a soft smile on his face, "This time next year, the two of us will be the three of us," he said, placing a hand gently on her stomach.

Zelda placed her hand over his, and slowly, Link leaned in, pressing his lips to hers.

She sat in the rocking chair, thinking back on that memory, one hand absentmindedly going to her belly where Link had placed his, the other to her lips. He stood up in front of her, the fire now roaring in the fireplace, and sat across from her, smiling at her.

"What are you thinking about?" He asked, a contemplative look on his face.

"You."

"Me too."

He grabbed his book from off the side table and donned his reading glasses; something about seeing him in glasses stirred something deep inside her. She smiled, curling up further in her blankets and reached out, grabbing her hot chocolate. Everything about this winter evening was perfect. It was pure bliss.

She set down her hot chocolate and grabbed her Sheikah Slate from the side table, opening up the camera rune and snapping a picture of Link sitting in his chair by the fire, his glasses slipping down his nose as he read his book, his brow slightly furrowed.

He looked up a quizzical look in his eyes, "Must you always take pictures of me when I'm not looking."

"Not always," Zelda said, and snapped again.

Spring

There was nothing more perfect, Zelda realized, than seeing Link holding their beautiful baby girl.

She was born on the first day that spring that the snow had completely melted, small flowers beginning to bud and animals coming out of hibernation. It seemed fitting that she was born in the spring. It was the beginning of a new generation, a generation that would never be born into a world where Calamity Ganon held its malicious reign.

Link sat at the little stool next to their bed, Zelda being propped up by pillows as he held his little girl. Time seemed to stand still for them.

It was crazy to think that this time last year, Link was still freeing the Divine Beasts, and she was still locked in her one hundred year battle with Calamity Ganon. So much had happened in a year. Their lives were so different now. All of Hyrule was at peace, seeing an era of wealth and prosperity that only the oldest generation remembered from prior to the events of the Calamity. And Link…

Zelda had never seen Link so gentle before.

The way he held their baby girl was seemingly not with the same hands that wielded the Master Sword, not with the same strength that destroyed enemies, not with the same command that she had seen enemies quiver under his gaze. He held her as though she were a delicate flower, with a tender adoration in his eyes that could only be described as unconditional love.

Zelda realized she loved him even more than she had before.

"She has your eyes," Link murmured softly, looking up at her with an almost boyish glee, "She's beautiful," He breathed, bringing his gaze back towards their daughter.

Nothing in her one hundred and seventeen years of life could have prepared her for this day. Nothing could have prepared her for how perfect this moment was. Her life was absolutely brimming with joy, she and Link finally getting the peace they deserved. All was right in her little land of Hyrule.

She looked down at her baby girl, the soft coos coming from her lips bringing bubbles up from Zelda's stomach. Her breath hitched; they did it, and in that moment, Zelda finally felt like she had won.

She didn't realize she had been crying until a rough hand cupped her face, a calloused thumb wiping the tears away. She looked up at Link and saw that he was crying too. Gently, he captured her lips with his, a chaste, tender kiss on a beautiful spring day.

She knew she would never forget this day, but found herself opening the Sheikah Slate to the camera rune, setting it to self-portrait mode. It was their first family portrait, and though both their faces were covered in tear streaks, the two had never looked happier.

She snapped a photo of them, and reflecting back was a beautiful portrait of Link, Zelda, and their beautiful daughter from the loft in their little Hateno home.

Zelda took their daughter back in her arms, smiling as their baby girl's face scrunched into a tiny yawn, her big green eyes gazing back up at her mother.

Not much could make this moment better.

Not much, except one thing.

"Zelda," Link breathed, a small sparkle in his eye. He almost looked nervous, but his eyes were bright. He licked his lips.

"Yes?" Zelda asked, turning her head towards him, only to have the breath taken from her lungs as she saw Link on one knee beside the bed, a small sapphire and diamond ring in his hand. He gently placed it over her left ring finger, shining softly in the cool Hateno sunlight.

"Marry me."

And as you can see, that moment did get better for our princess and our hero.

fin

#zelink #loz fanfic #legend of zelda #breath of the wild fanfiction #breath of the wild

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thatsparrow · 5 years

Text

(alan grant/ellie sattler • post-fallen kingdom • read on ao3)

"Goddamn Hammond," Alan says when he sees the push alert from the New York Times. Then, "Ellie, wake up." It's somewhere near 2 A.M. but Nublar and Sorna had turned him into a light sleeper and that particular nervous habit has proved harder to kill than a genetically engineered raptor. His glasses are still sitting on the nightstand and so he has to squint a little at the screen to read it properly—Ellie and the kids gave him hell for weeks when he finally caved and increased the font size—but his eyes aren't so bad that he can't recognize the earth-shaking magnitude of the situation spelled out by the headline.

LIVE: Seven different species of dinosaurs have been spotted in and around the Northern California town of Mendocino. They are believed to have originated from the closed Costa Rican theme park, Jurassic World.

"Alan?" Ellie asks, half asleep and eyes blinking shut against the light off the screen. "What is it?" He offers the phone in lieu of an answer, waits as her vision adjusts enough for her to read it, knows she's finished when her whole body goes fossil-still.

"Goddamn Hammond," Alan says again, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose. "I don't care that he's dead. Damn him for his recklessness, damn him for the parks, and damn him for every act of foolishness that's followed." He lets out a slow sigh, rubs at his eyes. "I'd never admit it to the bastard, but Ian was right. It was only a matter of time until something like this happened."

Ellie has the full article open now, but it's no more than a short paragraph, this story is developing at the bottom. "We don't know what this is, yet. Maybe it's just another San Diego."

"A half-dozen people dead plus some kid's labrador?"

"Short term," Ellie says. "Containable. It sounds like whatever species have been seen so far are all herbivorous."

"You trust the people of Mendocino to know the difference?"

"I trust them to recognize sharp teeth." She sighs, pulls her thumb across the screen to refresh the article even though it's been no more than a minute. "What a mess. What an absolute mess." She hands the phone back to him, lets out a tired exhale. "What I wouldn't give to put Hammond's genie back in the bottle."

"What should we do?"

"Sell any remaining stock in InGen?" He raises an eyebrow at her and she smiles a little, but there's no humor in it. "That was a joke. I don't know, Alan—what can we do? We're academics, not dinosaur hunters. Our only relevant experience here is not having died twenty-five years ago. We could offer ourselves up in an advisory capacity, I guess, but even then, there are plenty of people out there who have done hands-on work with them. Whatever insight we may have had is outdated by over a decade at this point. Comparatively, we're like—"

"Dinosaurs?"

"Exactly."

Alan exhales, considering. "You're right, I know that, but I just—" he breaks off, turning over the phone in his hand. There's a video embedded in the article, a grainy thumbnail of what looks like the back of a Stegosaurus. The way the image is frozen, it looks like the Stego's tail is in mid-motion, suspended on an arc that would take it through the wall of a garden shed. With any luck, Ellie is right, and all the theropods were killed by the eruption on Nublar. Then again, if luck was playing any role here, Hammond's experiments should have failed at the start. "It feels like we should be doing something, doesn't it?"

"It does."

"What if we drove up there?"

"To Mendocino?" Ellie asks, and he nods. "Tonight?"

"I was thinking first thing in the morning, maybe. Wait until more reports come in. Who knows—maybe this will all have been cleared up by then, anyway."

"You think?"

"No, but I've never tried being an optimist before."

Alan refreshes the article again and sees a new paragraph of text, bare bones information that mentions three additional species—including a suspected Allosaurus—have been spotted near I-20 heading east. Life finding a way. Goddamn Malcolm. Goddamn Hammond. Goddamn it all.

—

The next day does bring more news, and none of it good. The current theory is that Hammond's former partner, Benjamin Lockwood, funded some sort of rescue operation to Nublar, retrieved an unknown number of species that were brought to his Northern California estate for a black market auction, and at some point during this process—predictably, Alan thinks—the dinosaurs escaped and bedlam ensued. Further details include: Lockwood's body in an upstairs bedroom, his death attributed (surprisingly) to natural causes; correspondence between Lockwood's assistant, Eli Mills, and an auctioneer, both of whom are still missing, though suspected dead (and, Alan presumes, suspected eaten); and an unknown theropod body in Lockwood's front hall, impaled on the horns of an Agujaceratops skull. Most of the servers in the lab below the estate were blown skyward, but of the data that's been recovered, it seems to be another genetic experiment, a cross-breeding of the Indominus with a Velociraptor.

("They never fucking learn," Alan says when he gets to that section of the report, hands white-knuckled around his coffee cup. "This has Wu's fingerprints all over it. Not enough to put raptor and rex DNA in a blender with whatever else they could get their hands on—no, he had to scale it down and make it twice as clever. If this wasn't intended for military application, I'll eat my hat, then buy another one and eat that, too.")

Though the article leaves a good number of questions unanswered, it does make clear that Hammond's follies have again found their way to the mainland, and with a sense of permanency this time. New sightings are reported with alarming frequency as the morning goes on, increasing in both the number of different species and the distance they've traveled from Lockwood's estate. Tracking efforts have been mobilized, but it's all too little, too late—not to mention the public debate that sparks up again over the question of recapturing or killing.

"Okay," Ellie says once they've read through the reports, putting her phone face-down on the kitchen table and burying her face in her hands. "It's a mess. Officially. This makes what happened in San Diego look like an incident at a petting zoo. We've got at least twenty species running loose—including, so far, a T. rex, a Baryonyx, and an Allosaurus—that are all spreading further apart by the moment, and as of now, the best method of tracking them is to wait for someone standing by to post about it to Twitter."

"I hate Twitter," Alan says, reflexive.

"I know you do." Ellie smiles at him a little, then lets out a slow breath. "So what should we do? We know more than we did last night, but really it's just enough to tell us that this situation is worse than we could have imagined. I'm ready to jump in the car and start driving if you are, but at this point, I'm not sure what good that would do."

"Might feel better than just sitting here," Alan says, lacing his hands behind his neck to keep them from reaching for his phone again. "But no, you're right, I'm not sure what it would actually accomplish."

Ellie's quiet for a moment, fingers drumming an absent rhythm on the table. They weren't exactly young when Hammond first brought them to Nublar, but looking now at the ridged veins on the back of her hands—thinking of the new wrinkles across his own forehead and his hair that's gone grey-white in recent years—it strikes Alan how much older they've both become. Maybe too old to be playing games like this.

"Can I ask you something?" Ellie says.

"Always."

"Imagine that we did have a plan, and we knew exactly what was needed to make a difference here—what side of the debate would we be on?"

"What do you mean?"

Her hands are still restless, index finger tapping lightly against the wood. "Half the world seems to think they should be shot down as they're spotted, and the other wants to see them safely rounded up and brought to some sort of preserve. We never talked about it much when it was a question of the eruption on Nublar, but now I'm curious"

Alan frowns a little, brows pulling together. "They're dangerous, Ellie. That's more true than ever with no fences or open ocean between them and the rest of the world."

"The sauropods aren't."

"They're megafauna that belong to a different age. They can still do damage on a scale that society isn't ready for." He looks at Ellie, a little surprised. "You think they should be kept alive? After everything that's happened?"

"Don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to agree that everyone would be better off if all of the raptors had died before they'd hatched, but—" she breaks off, smiling at him a little helplessly. "I don't know, Alan. I think back to when Hammond first drove us around in that Jeep and you turned my head to look out the window and it—it was all of my childhood dreams come to life. Nothing could compare to seeing the bones that I'd spent my life studying brought to life in front of me and standing sixty feet tall, and I know you felt that, too. Look, say what you will about Hammond—and God knows that I have—but whatever may have been the end result, you can't deny that there was something noble in his intentions."

"I seem to remember another saying that has to do with 'good intentions'."

"Alan—"

"They're not real, Ellie. You know that. They are, at best, distantly removed cousins of the dinosaurs that really lived, and probably more closely resemble whatever amphibian DNA that Wu mixed into the fossilized blood. Whatever you felt—whatever we felt—on Nublar after seeing them for the first time, it was just a fantasy."

Ellie's smile turns a little sad. "It was a pretty spectacular fantasy." She pauses, then reaches out to take one of Alan's hands, both of them weathered and older, palms still a little callused from years spent in the field. Ellie's thumb runs a gentle pattern over his skin. "I'm going to ask you for a favor now, alright? For me, and for the sake of your younger self, I want you to imagine a world where it's not all or nothing. Where kids can grow up learning that raptors actually had feathers, and where they can visit a preserve and see the drawings from their picture books come to life. You don't have to remind me of all the bad that's come from the parks and Hammond's efforts, but you can't lie to me and pretend that there wasn't some good in there, too."

Alan makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat—which is as close as he's willing to get to a yes—but then he does let his mouth twitch towards a smile, lifts their joined hands and presses a kiss to her knuckles. As if he could ever say no to anything she asked of him.

Ellie gets up and moves to take their emptied mugs to the sink, and as she starts to run the water, Alan does as she's requested, allowing himself to remember the bright moments among the bad. Weighs the terror he'd felt at seeing the T. rex chewing through the Jeep's roof towards Lex and Tim against the moment of resting his palm against the gentle curve of the Brachiosaur's nose. Watching the Spino's hungry jaws carve through the hull of the Kirbys' chartered plane with all the ease of crushing a soda can. Leaning his body on the belly of the Triceratops and feeling its breath thrumming all the way through his chest.

No, Ellie's not wrong—for all his flaws and his arrogance, Hammond had managed to build something beautiful. Still, it's just as much a lie to pretend that the near-death experiences shouldn't weigh heavier than the rest. Were those brief moments of splendor really worth Muldoon or Arnold or any of the others who'd lost their lives for the sake of Hammond's hubris? Not to mention whatever poor civilians might now stumble into the path of the wandering Allosaurus or Baryonyx or any other not-yet-identified theropods who have found their way to the mainland. It's too much cost with not enough reward. Would it be worth it if the carnivores were gone? You can't play that game when the technology is already there; someone is always going to get ambitious and want something with more teeth.

It's a question that keeps him up at night, even after he and Ellie have decided that there's nothing for them to do at the moment—other than keep an eye on their phones and wait for a call from the government or InGen. So they wait, and Alan wonders, and meanwhile news reports still surface with regular frequency of sightings. It's a disaster with no obvious answer, and he's no closer to coming up with any sort of solution—but at least if there's a decision to be made, it won't be coming from him.

And then the presumed-dead Claire Dearing calls Ellie about a potential rescue mission for the last remaining Velociraptor and the whole question suddenly stops being so theoretical.

Goddamn it.

#jurassic park #jurassic world #fallen kingdom #alan grant #ellie sattler #my fic

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aleksya · 4 years

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COME WITH ME, LET'S MAKE SOME TRAVEL TRIP IN NETHERLANDS,DE HOGE VELUWE NATIONAL PARK!!!

De Hoge Veluwe National Park is my dream place ever! I love the vibes and also the environment. Here are some interesting things you must know in my place.

image of Pinterest

Hoge Veluwe National Park (Nationaal Park De Hoge Veluwe), one of the most popular attractions in the Netherlands, lies just eight kilometers north of Arnhem. Occupying an area of 13,750 acres, this huge park is the largest continuous nature reserve in the country and is notable for its diversity of scenery, which includes everything from dense forests to high sand dunes. It's also unique in being a privately owned national park, one of only two such parks in the Netherlands (and the only one that is fully enclosed).

Hoge Veluwe National Park is famous for its tremendous diversity of landscape, a mix of thick forest, heath, and even sand dunes. Perhaps the best preserved - and certainly the most interesting geologically of the country's national parks - Hoge Veluwe consists of a large area of sandy soil formed during the Ice Age. This fascinating scenery is interrupted in the south and east by moraines standing between 80 and 100 meters high.

-Hoge Veluwe Highlights-

·Hoge Veluwe's Birds and Beasts

From well-placed observation points in the center and northwest sections of Hoge Veluwe, visitors can watch animals including red deer, roe deer, and wild pigs, as well as moufflon, a species of wild sheep originating from Sardinia and Corsica. In winter, a variety of birds congregate in the park, including marigold finches, titmice, chaffinches, woodpeckers, jays, magpies, and thrushes. If you're here for the wildlife, the best times to do some animal spotting are early morning and late evening, so plan your visit accordingly. Be sure to pick up a park map upon arrival for details regarding locations of wildlife observation posts and refuge areas, some of which are accessible by car. These are available from the entrances, visitor center, tea house, or park shop.

·Hiking and Biking

As with so much of the Netherlands, Hoge Veluwe National Park is predominantly flat, making touring by bike one of the best ways to enjoy its magnificent scenery. And as the Netherlands is one of the most bike-friendly nations on the planet, it seems only natural that more than 1,700 of the country's famous White Bikes have been made available for use throughout the park (they're free with admission); simply turn up, ride as far as you like, and drop it off at one of the distribution points or park entrances when you're done. Specially designed children's bikes are also available, as are versions with front or rear child seats.

·Home Sweet Home: St. Hubertus

Built as the main residence for Hoge Veluwe's wealthy owners, Anton and Helene Kröller-Müller, Jachthuis Sint Hubertus was designed by one of the Netherland's leading architects, Hendrik Berlage, and was completed in 1923. Named after St. Hubertus, an accomplished huntsman, this magnificent mansion contains numerous references and symbols relating to the legend of the great saint, most noticeably its antler shape (the masonry also incorporates a cross).

·The Kröller-Müller Museum and Sculpture Garden

Built to house the private collection of the Hoge Veluwe's art collector owners, the Kröller-Müller Museum (Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller) is home to numerous fine examples of 19th- and 20th-century European art. Built in 1938, the building was designed to bring art and nature together, a concept continued in the impressive glass extension added in 1977.

Highlights of the collection include some 4,000 drawings, 275 sculptures, and several hundred paintings. Work from the late 19th and early 20th centuries predominates, including 280 paintings and drawings by Vincent Van Gogh from his time in The Hague and Paris. Other treasures include Art Nouveau works by Odilon Redon, James Ensor, and Jan Toorop; Impressionism and Expressionism paintings by Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, and Auguste Renoir; and Cubism, including examples from Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger.

·Going Underground: The Museonder

Europe's first underground museum, the Museonder opened near the Kröller-Müller Museum in 1993. Visitors are taken on a unique journey through a series of subterranean pathways providing displays and information related to the area's natural history and geology, as well as once-native wildlife, including the skeletons of mammoths, rhinos, and giant stags. Some exhibits focus on organisms that live underground, including burrowing animals and insects, and the root systems of trees.

-AND HERE ARE SOME TIPS AND TOURS: HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR VISIT TO HOGE VELUWE NATIONAL PARK-

Visiting from Amsterdam: If you're based in Amsterdam while enjoying a stay in the Netherlands, consider joining an organized tour to get the most out of your Hoge Veluwe experience. A great option is the small group, half-day tour to the Kröller-Müller Museum and Hoge Veluwe National Park. Highlights of this guided tour include transportation to and from the park and museum (a journey of approximately 75 minutes, Wi-Fi included), with plenty of time to explore the galleries containing works by such greats as Picasso, Monet, and Van Gogh. Afterwards, you're free to explore the park by bike (there are plenty of well-marked trails to explore).

Dining: A number of on-site dining opportunities are available in the park, including De Koperen Kop, offering a variety of self-service meals (lunch and dinner), along with a pleasant terrace and a playground for the kids. Lunches and snacks are available from Monsieur Jacques Café-Restaurant in the Kröller-Müller Museum, while light refreshments are offered at Tea House Jachthuis Sint Hubertus.

Camping: On-site camping is available for tents or caravans, with wash and shower facilities provided for a small additional fee (optional electric hookups are also available).

Address

Koningsweg 17, Schaarsbergen

Official site: www.hogeveluwe.nl/en/14

And yeah! if you also planning to visit in Netherlands,Hoge Veluwe National Park don't be hesitate, it's worth it! what are you wanting for?

xoxo

special thanks for the reference:

planetware.com

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allgirlsareprincesses · 5 years

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Still More Search for the Lost Husband: The Revival of the Prince in Star Wars

Yes, there’s more! Though I covered this to an extent in my original folktale post, I felt a deeper look into the resurrection motif of The Search for the Lost Husband was necessary, especially in light of the new Hux comic. As the lovely @corseque has pointed out (have I tagged her in every post I’ve made so far? I hope so, because I stand on the shoulders of giants….), Ben Solo is clearly presented as the Sleeping Prince, metaphorically dead just like Anakin Skywalker. I’d love to delve a bit into the actual folktales that are the basis of this motif, how it appears as a pattern in Star Wars, and what that means for Ben Solo’s redemption and likely resurrection in The Rise of Skywalker.

In many versions of ATU-425, the lost husband is deathly ill, in a deep sleep, imprisoned, cursed, pretending to be dead, or some combination of the above. As with the flight of the fairy bride, this princely suitor is metaphorically dead, and in rare cases literally dead. After their separation, this is how the searching wife finds him when she comes to his rescue, and she may use any number of means to revive him: Sometimes she makes a blood sacrifice, others she might need to make him a special concoction, and often all that is needed is a declaration of love. Interestingly, the famous kiss of life doesn’t often appear in these tales as it does in the revival of the fairy wife, though sometimes Beauty kisses the Beast when she tearfully agrees to be his wife. Sometimes, the prince does not immediately recognize his wife after his revival, and she must complete another task or put on her royal raiment for him to know her as his true bride.

The most obvious place that this tale appears in Star Wars (before the Sequel Trilogy) is in the rescue of Han Solo in Return of the Jedi. Frozen in carbonite “in perfect hibernation,” Han is asleep, enchanted, imprisoned, and nearly dead when the princess creeps into Jabba’s throne room (in a palace of evil on a dead planet, no less) to rescue him. When she frees him from the carbonite, he falls to the floor as if dead, and then wakes to find that he is blind. I intend to cover this in a future post, but blindness in mythology is often used as a metaphor for death (which by the way is a pretty insidious form of historic ableism, but I digress). As Leia’s mask distorts her voice, he does not recognize her at first, but knows her immediately at her declaration of love and subsequent kiss of life. This one scene effectively crams nearly every revival motif from the Search for the Lost Husband into just a couple minutes of screen time.

The other obvious “sleeping prince” in the Skywalker Saga before the sequels is Anakin, although sadly we never see him revived by his bride. This is because his story ends tragically, as the Quest for the Lost Bride tales tend to do. That leaves only one more candidate for the classic rescue and happy ending of the Search for the Lost Husband, and that is our dear Ben Solo. Certainly it’s clear that Ben is in many ways metaphorically dead in the first two films of the final trilogy, but in the recent Hux comic, Lucasfilm has gone out of their way to show him sleeping, mask off, while Hux and another character discuss how much like his princess mother he is.

Given that the Lucasfilm Story Group is apparently being about as subtle as a sledgehammer at this point, what might we expect for Prince Ben in The Rise of Skywalker? Well, let’s review several ATU-425 revival stories to see the possibilities:

In East O’ the Sun and West O’ the Moon, the lassie arrives at the castle after her travels to find her prince imprisoned by an evil family of trolls. He is now betrothed to the troll princess, and will marry her in a matter of days. Using gifts given to her by those she met on her journey, the lassie buys the right to spend the night in the prince’s room. However, the cruel trolls make him a sleeping draught, and no matter what the girl tries to wake him, he sleeps on. The lassie tries a second night to wake the prince, but the same thing happens. However, this night, other prisoners hear her weeping and calling to the prince, and tell him when he wakes the next day what they heard. Realizing what has happened, he slyly pours the drink out instead of drinking it, and the third night is awake when the lassie is allowed into his room. They spend the night embracing and planning the defeat of the trolls the next day (achieved by the lassie washing a black shirt to pure white). Check out this stunning illustration by PJ Lynch, inspired by Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss:

**Trigger Warning for some dark and gruesome imagery in the following paragraphs, especially about blood**

In Pajaro Verde, the prince becomes deathly ill when shards of broken glass become embedded in his body, and flees to his father’s house. In her search for him, the princess comes across little birds who tell her that she must give them a sleeping potion, cut their throats while they sleep, and fill a bottle with their blood. Then, she must cover the prince with the birds’ blood, and the glass will be drawn out of him and cure him. The princess does as they say, and when she arrives at the palace, soaks a sheet in the blood and covers the prince with it. Immediately, he begins to recover, but he does not recognize his wife, and is instead pledged to another. On his wedding day to the false bride, the princess approaches him in all her royal attire and crown, and the prince suddenly remembers her, declaring her his true wife and love. The Enchanted Snake is an almost identical Italian tale, in which a blood sacrifice is again the cure for the ailing prince.

There is also, of course, the classic Beauty and the Beast, in which the neglected Beast lies dying in his garden when Beauty comes upon him after the visit to her family. Realizing her true feelings for him, Beauty calls out to her Beast, kissing him and accepting his offer of marriage. At her confession of love, he transforms into a handsome prince, and he and Beauty live happily ever after.

In The Ninth Captain’s Tale, the fair Sittukhan is the first to fall into a deathlike sleep and is revived by a sultan’s son, but is then abandoned by him. Sittukhan enchants herself into a rich and beautiful princess to entice her wayward lover, and failing to recognize her, he begs for her hand. To win her, she tells him, he must wrap himself in burial clothes as if dead and be carried in a funeral procession to a place of rest. This he does, and when they are alone, Sittukhan unwraps her lover’s burial shroud, revealing both him and herself. After teasing him for the lengths he would go to for a bride, she consents to be his wife and they marry. In this story, it is remarkable that the imagery clearly shows her raising her bridegroom from the dead, rather tenderly if somewhat macabre.

From these stories, we may perhaps assume that Ben Solo will indeed die, and that the keys to his resurrection may be a blood sacrifice of some kind and a declaration of love by his true bride. You could even argue that he’s already been baptized with blood in the imagery of cleansing salt in the red wound of Crait. However, few of these stories feature a notable villain comparable to the diabolical Palpatine who will be returning to menace our heroes in The Rise of Skywalker. Given what we know from the trailers, does the Emperor have a clear role in this part of the myth? Does Dark Rey have a part to play?

WOULD YOU BELIEVE I actually found in my collection a story that until now, I didn’t realize contained this motif? This is The Blood-Drawing Ghost (the version I have is simply called Kate Culhane: A Ghost Story), an Irish folktale over a hundred years old. In the story, a deceitful young man leaves a fine blackthorn stick on the freshly-dug grave of an old man. Kate, a young woman whom he is courting, offers to retrieve it, but when her hand touches the blackthorn stick, a ghostly voice tells her to open the tomb. Though she tries to resist, Kate is compelled by magic to obey, and she is forced to pull the gruesome corpse from his grave and carry him on her back. Though her burden is heavy and painful, she must carry the dead man a great distance until they reach a house in the village that is unprotected by holy water. Inside, the corpse searches for something to eat, but Kate can find only oatmeal. Upstairs, they find that the wealthy family has three sons, and the dead man forces poor Kate to hold a bowl under their hands as he drains the blood from each one in turn. He then has her mix the blood with the oatmeal and eats it, instructing her to eat it as well, but she cleverly hides the food in a handkerchief instead.

The old man then forces Kate to again take him upon her back and carry him back to his grave. On the way, she asks if there is any cure for the dead young men whose blood was drained. The old corpse tells her that if only a bit of the oatmeal mixture had been saved, just a bite in each man’s mouth would bring him back to life, and they would never know of their deaths. At the graveyard, the dead man tells Kate that as she has eaten his food, he will pull her into the grave with him before the cock crows three times. In my version, he does actually try to drag her into the grave, but thankfully dawn breaks and the brave girl is able to escape. She makes her way to the house of the three dead sons, where the family has discovered them and is lamenting their misfortune. She tells the family that she can revive the young men if only they will give her the eldest as her husband. They agree, and she feeds the sons the bloody oatmeal she had saved in the handkerchief, reviving them immediately. Kate marries the eldest son and they live happily for all their days.

Call me crazy, but this looks like a great plot outline for The Rise of Skywalker based on what we know so far. First, there is the brave girl who goes to retrieve a special stick, or in this case the legacy lightsaber, as Rey did in The Force Awakens. When she touches it, she is drawn into a dark struggle between good and evil, life and death. If Rey becomes a target for the risen spirit of the Emperor (who resembles nothing so much as a corpse) as many suspect, then he may attempt to use her to do his dark bidding, or convince her to become his apprentice/alcolyte. At least, this is what is suggested by the appearance of Dark Rey and some of the links she has to Palpatine in her musical theme and backstory on Jakku. Further, the Emperor has already tried to drain two sons of the Skywalker line (Anakin and Luke), and now it seems he may attempt to drain a third (Ben). There’s certainly been a lot of talk about Ben Solo’s bloodline, at least.

Just as Psyche was instructed not to eat the food of the Underworld lest she be forced to remain there forever, Kate has the sense not to share in the bloody feast of her deathly captor. Since we know Rey will likely have a “dark night of the soul” in Episode IX in which she is sorely tempted by the Dark Side, I take this as the model for her resisting that temptation to taste the fruits of death. And finally, just as the corpse attempted to drag Kate into his grave with him, Darth Sidious will make one last effort to entrap or destroy our heroine, but she will escape him. Unfortunately, it is still too late for Ben, the third son whose life he drained away. Or is it? Perhaps Rey, in her brush with the Dark Side, will have learned the cure to rouse her beloved from his deathly slumber. Perhaps it will be the sacrifice of Ben’s own blood that saves him, along with the love of a clever girl.

Hope you all enjoyed this latest installment! Let me know if there are any specific folklore topics you’d like me to explore in Star Wars. This has been a great way to pass the time during the agonizing wait for TROS!

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