#Four Critical Links in the Chain of Survival

[emccprtraining]

Life-Saving Knowledge: Understanding the Four Critical Links in the Chain of Survival

Knowing what to do can mean the difference between life and death in emergencies. At EMC CPR& Safety Training, we emphasize the importance of understanding the Four Critical Links in the Chain of Survival. This knowledge is invaluable and can help you take swift and effective action when it matters most.

[usafphantom2]

B-2 Gets Big Upgrade with New Open Mission Systems Capability

July 18, 2024 | By John A. Tirpak

The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber has been upgraded with a new open missions systems (OMS) software capability and other improvements to keep it relevant and credible until it’s succeeded by the B-21 Raider, Northrop Grumman announced. The changes accelerate the rate at which new weapons can be added to the B-2; allow it to accept constant software updates, and adapt it to changing conditions.

“The B-2 program recently achieved a major milestone by providing the bomber with its first fieldable, agile integrated functional capability called Spirit Realm 1 (SR 1),” the company said in a release. It announced the upgrade going operational on July 17, the 35th anniversary of the B-2’s first flight.

SR 1 was developed inside the Spirit Realm software factory codeveloped by the Air Force and Northrop to facilitate software improvements for the B-2. “Open mission systems” means that the aircraft has a non-proprietary software architecture that simplifies software refresh and enhances interoperability with other systems.

“SR 1 provides mission-critical capability upgrades to the communications and weapons systems via an open mission systems architecture, directly enhancing combat capability and allowing the fleet to initiate a new phase of agile software releases,” Northrop said in its release.

The system is intended to deliver problem-free software on the first go—but should they arise, correct software issues much earlier in the process.

The SR 1 was “fully developed inside the B-2 Spirit Realm software factory that was established through a partnership with Air Force Global Strike Command and the B-2 Systems Program Office,” Northrop said.

The Spirit Realm software factory came into being less than two years ago, with four goals: to reduce flight test risk and testing time through high-fidelity ground testing; to capture more data test points through targeted upgrades; to improve the B-2’s functional capabilities through more frequent, automated testing; and to facilitate more capability upgrades to the jet.

The Air Force said B-2 software updates which used to take two years can now be implemented in less than three months.

In addition to B61 or B83 nuclear weapons, the B-2 can carry a large number of precision-guided conventional munitions. However, the Air Force is preparing to introduce a slate of new weapons that will require near-constant target updates and the ability to integrate with USAF’s evolving long-range kill chain. A quicker process for integrating these new weapons with the B-2’s onboard communications, navigation, and sensor systems was needed.

The upgrade also includes improved displays, flight hardware and other enhancements to the B-2’s survivability, Northrop said.

“We are rapidly fielding capabilities with zero software defects through the software factory development ecosystem and further enhancing the B-2 fleet’s mission effectiveness,” said Jerry McBrearty, Northrop’s acting B-2 program manager.

The upgrade makes the B-2 the first legacy nuclear weapons platform “to utilize the Department of Defense’s DevSecOps [development, security, and operations] processes and digital toolsets,” it added.

The software factory approach accelerates adding new and future weapons to the stealth bomber, and thus improve deterrence, said Air Force Col. Frank Marino, senior materiel leader for the B-2.

The B-2 was not designed using digital methods—the way its younger stablemate, the B-21 Raider was—but the SR 1 leverages digital technology “to design, manage, build and test B-2 software more efficiently than ever before,” the company said.

The digital tools can also link with those developed for other legacy systems to accomplish “more rapid testing and fielding and help identify and fix potential risks earlier in the software development process.”

Following two crashes in recent years, the stealthy B-2 fleet comprises 19 aircraft, which are the only penetrating aircraft in the Air Force’s bomber fleet until the first B-21s are declared to have achieved initial operational capability at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D. A timeline for IOC has not been disclosed.

The B-2 is a stealthy, long-range, penetrating nuclear and conventional strike bomber. It is based on a flying wing design combining LO with high aerodynamic efficiency. The aircraft’s blended fuselage/wing holds two weapons bays capable of carrying nearly 60,000 lb in various combinations.

Spirit entered combat during Allied Force on March 24, 1999, striking Serbian targets. Production was completed in three blocks, and all aircraft were upgraded to Block 30 standard with AESA radar. Production was limited to 21 aircraft due to cost, and a single B-2 was subsequently lost in a crash at Andersen, Feb. 23, 2008.

Modernization is focused on safeguarding the B-2A’s penetrating strike capability in high-end threat environments and integrating advanced weapons.

The B-2 achieved a major milestone in 2022 with the integration of a Radar Aided Targeting System (RATS), enabling delivery of the modernized B61-12 precision-guided thermonuclear freefall weapon. RATS uses the aircraft’s radar to guide the weapon in GPS-denied conditions, while additional Flex Strike upgrades feed GPS data to weapons prerelease to thwart jamming. A B-2A successfully dropped an inert B61-12 using RATS on June 14, 2022, and successfully employed the longer-range JASSM-ER cruise missile in a test launch last December.

Ongoing upgrades include replacing the primary cockpit displays, the Adaptable Communications Suite (ACS) to provide Link 16-based jam-resistant in-flight retasking, advanced IFF, crash-survivable data recorders, and weapons integration. USAF is also working to enhance the fleet’s maintainability with LO signature improvements to coatings, materials, and radar-absorptive structures such as the radome and engine inlets/exhausts.

Two B-2s were damaged in separate landing accidents at Whiteman on Sept. 14, 2021, and Dec. 10, 2022, the latter prompting an indefinite fleetwide stand-down until May 18, 2023. USAF plans to retire the fleet once the B-21 Raider enters service in sufficient numbers around 2032.

Contractors: Northrop Grumman; Boeing; Vought.

First Flight: July 17, 1989.

Delivered: December 1993-December 1997.

IOC: April 1997, Whiteman AFB, Mo.

Production: 21.

Inventory: 20.

Operator: AFGSC, AFMC, ANG (associate).

Aircraft Location: Edwards AFB, Calif.; Whiteman AFB, Mo.

Active Variant: •B-2A. Production aircraft upgraded to Block 30 standards.

Dimensions: Span 172 ft, length 69 ft, height 17 ft.

Weight: Max T-O 336,500 lb.

Power Plant: Four GE Aviation F118-GE-100 turbofans, each 17,300 lb thrust.

Performance: Speed high subsonic, range 6,900 miles (further with air refueling).

Ceiling: 50,000 ft.

Armament: Nuclear: 16 B61-7, B61-12, B83, or eight B61-11 bombs (on rotary launchers). Conventional: 80 Mk 62 (500-lb) sea mines, 80 Mk 82 (500-lb) bombs, 80 GBU-38 JDAMs, or 34 CBU-87/89 munitions (on rack assemblies); or 16 GBU-31 JDAMs, 16 Mk 84 (2,000-lb) bombs, 16 AGM-154 JSOWs, 16 AGM-158 JASSMs, or eight GBU-28 LGBs.

Accommodation: Two pilots on ACES II zero/zero ejection seats.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How to save the new from Big Tech

This Saturday (May 20), I’ll be at the GAITHERSBURG Book Festival with my novel Red Team Blues; then on May 22, I’m keynoting Public Knowledge’s Emerging Tech conference in DC.

On May 23, I’ll be in TORONTO for a book launch that’s part of WEPFest, a benefit for the West End Phoenix, onstage with Dave Bidini (The Rheostatics), Ron Diebert (Citizen Lab) and the whistleblower Dr Nancy Olivieri.

It’s no longer controversial to claim that Big Tech is a parasite on the news business. But there’s still a raging controversy over the nature of the parasitism, and, much more importantly, what to do about it.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/18/stealing-money-not-content/#beyond-link-taxes

This week on EFF’s Deeplinks blog, I kick off a new series on the abusive relationship between Big Tech and the news, analyzing four different dirty practices and proposing policy answers to all four:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

The context here is that various governments around the world have taken notice of the tech/news problem, and are chasing a counterproductive “solution” — the “link tax,” where tech firms are required to pay for the links and short snippets their users or news search-tools make to news-stories. In some cases, the “tax” is indirect: tech is required to negotiate a payment to make up for other misdeeds (like ripping publishers off with ad fraud).

You can argue that this isn’t a link tax, it’s just pressure to bargain, but because these rules typically ban platforms from simply blocking publishers’ content if they can’t reach an agreement, they become link taxes: “You must carry links, and you must pay the sites you link to” isn’t meaningfully different from “You must pay for linking to those sites.”

This “must-carry” dimension — requiring tech firms to publish links to sites they don’t want to link to — has lots of things wrong with it, but in the US, must-carry has a showstopper bug: it contravenes the First Amendment and any law with a must-carry provision is unlikely to survive a court challenge. So people who care about protecting the news from Big Tech predators — like me — need to try other approaches.

But no matter where you are, requiring tech to pay fees to news is the wrong approach. For one thing, it’s a solution that only works for so long as Big Tech stays big: that means that efforts to break up Big Tech, force it to pay taxes and fines, and limit its profits (say, through privacy laws that end surviellance ads) are incompatible with link taxes and adjacent proposals.

The big risk here is that news outlets will become partisans in the fight against shrinking Big Tech, because news companies’ destinies will be linked to the tech giants’ own fate. More immediately, there’s the risk that news companies that depend on negotiating payments from Big Tech will not act as the effective watchdogs we need them to be.

That’s not just a hypothetical risk: in Canada, Big Tech entered into negotiations with the Toronto Star — the country’s widest-circulating paper — ahead of a proposed “news bargaining code” that was working its way through Parliament. Once that settlement was reached, the Star abruptly killed “Defanging Tech” its excellent critical series on the tech giants it had just climbed into bed with:

https://www.thestar.com/news/big-tech.html

Another important risk from “bargaining codes” and link taxes is that they tend to favor the largest and/or most sensationalist news companies, who have the leverage to bargain for the highest sums. In Australia, Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp bargained for a sizable payment from the tech sector — but then it laid off its news workers. Merely transferring money to media giants doesn’t mean an increase in investment in news. That’s especially true in the Canadian context, where a US vulture-capitalist fund bought out the National Post and its nationwide affiliates and then loaded the chain up with debt, while hacking newsroom staff to the bone and beyond. There’s no reason to think that tech payments to the Post will go anywhere except to the financial speculators who are its major creditors.

Meanwhile, the proposed US version, JCPA, has a payout schedule based on the number of clicks a news outlet generates for each platform — a metric that will see the lion’s share of money going to the far-right clickbait sites that push conspiracy theories, disinformation, and culture-war nonsense — and see floods of social media traffic as a result.

Any solution to the tech/news conflict should benefit the news, and the workers who produce it — not the shareholders of the giant companies whose short-sighted consolidation, mass firings, and sell-offs of physical plant created the hyper-concentrated, brittle news sector of today:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/16/sociopathic-monsters/#all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print

Luckily for the news, there’s a whole bushel of policy levers we can yank on to make the news better, stronger, and more sustainable, even as tech monopolies and the surveillance they rely on are consigned to the scrapheap of history.

In this series — which will publish weekly over the next four weeks — I’ll dig into four policy prescriptions for making a better news that is free of Big Tech, not dependent on it:

I. Break up ad-tech: Following the lead of Senator Mike Lee’s AMERICA Act, we must end the ad-tech sector’s self-dealing. Ad-tech scoops up 51% of every ad-dollar. That’s thanks to the ad-tech companies practice of offering marketplaces in which they represent both advertisers and publishers: that’s like a game where the referee pays the salaries of the head coaches for both teams. If we pare back the ad-tech tax to, say 10% and split the difference between advertisers and publishers, then every publisher will see an immediate 20% increase in their top-line revenue, without having to “bargain” for a “voluntary” payment from tech companies.

II. Ban surveillance ads: America is long overdue for a federal privacy law with a private right of action. When we finally get such a law, surveillance advertising is dead. Ad-tech has long argued that people like ads, so long as they’re “relevant,” a state that can only be attained through continuous, invasive surveillance. In reality, no one consents to surveillance — which is why, when Apple gave its users a one-click opt-out from spying, 94% blocked spying (unfortunately, Apple only blocks its competitors from spying on Apple customers; even if you opt out of spying on your Apple device, Apple will continue to spy on you).

The natural successor to surveillance ads is context ads: ads based on the content you’re looking at, not the surveillance data an ad-tech platform amassed on you without your consent. Context ads are intrinsically better for publishers: no publisher will ever know as much about a reader’s behavior than a spying ad-tech platform, but no ad-tech platform will ever know as much about a publisher’s own content than the publisher does.

That means that the benefits of a ban on surveillance ads wouldn’t just be an end to creepy internet spying — it would also transfer power from tech companies to news companies, online performers and other creative workers.

III. Open up app stores: 30% of every dollar spent on app-based digital subscriptions is claimed by two companies, Google and Apple, the mobile duopoly. This app store tax is a pure transfer from news to tech. The EU’s Digital Markets Act and the proposed US Open App Markets Act are both designed to kill the app store tax. Dropping mobile payment processing fees from 30% to the industry standard 2–5% will instantaneously make increase the revenue from every subscriber by 25% or more.

IV. Make social media end-to-end: Tech platforms’ predictable enshittification strategy always ends with publishers no longer being able to reach their subscribers unless they pay to “boost” their content. Social media companies claim to be facilitators of the connection between publishers and audiences, but in reality, they take those audiences hostage and ransom them off to publishers. An end-to-end rule for social media would require platforms to reliably deliver material published by accounts to their own followers, who asked to see that material.

The debate over news and tech starts from the erroneous — and dangerous — assumption that the platforms are stealing the news media’s content, by letting their users talk about, quote and link to the news. This isn’t theft: if you’re not allowed to talk about the news, then it’s not the news — it’s a secret.

The platforms are stealing from news, though: they’re not stealing content, they’re stealing money. Between sky-high ad-tech rakes, app store taxes, and ransom demands to reach your own subscribers, the tech companies have grabbed the majority of money generated by news workers and the companies they work for.

Ending this theft will produce a more sustainable and robust source of funding for the news — without compromising news companies’ ability to aggressively hold tech to account, and without propping up financialized, hollowed-out media monopolies at the expense of an independent press.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/18/stealing-money-not-content/#beyond-link-taxes

[Image ID: EFF's banner for the save news series; the word 'NEWS' appears in pixelated, gothic script in the style of a newspaper masthead. Beneath it in four entwined circles are logos for breaking up ad-tech, ending surveillance ads, opening app stores, and end-to-end delivery.]

Image: EFF https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[starcrossedlovrs]

Marauders meets My Chemical Romance: The fan fiction: “I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love” by me, starcrossedlovrs (AO3). Rating: Mature. Warnings: Graphic Depiction of Violence and Major Character Death

In a world where darkness lurks beneath the surface, Sirius Black grapples with guilt and addiction while haunted by his brother’s transformation into a vampire. Alongside his friends, they confront supernatural threats and their own inner demons. As they delve deeper into the shadows, their bond is tested by a dangerous pact. Can love and loyalty prevail against the darkness threatening to consume them?

Chapter eighteen “They Come In Pairs”:

The full moon cast a pale, eerie glow over the abandoned town, illuminating crumbling buildings and twisted streets. Remus Lupin moved through the shadows, his senses heightened by the silver chain around his neck. The chain was more than a mere accessory; it was a lifeline, holding back the vampire side of him and allowing his humanity to surface. This mission was off the books—the Order believed him dead. But Remus and his friends knew the truth, and tonight, he was infiltrating a vampire nest to gather vital information.

 

He found the entrance hidden within a derelict building. As he stepped inside, the air changed, becoming thick and oppressive. The scent of mold, decay, and old blood assaulted his senses. Remus moved cautiously, every sound and shadow potentially signaling danger. The nest was a grim place, with scattered blankets and discarded bottles—a stark reminder of the broken lives these vampires led.

 

“Who are you?” a voice hissed from the darkness, startling Remus.

 

“I’m Michael,” he replied, using the alias they had prepared. His real name was too risky, potentially recognizable to those who knew of his past.

 

“And what are you doing here?” The voice remained unseen, adding to the tension.

 

“I was bitten a few days ago and left to die. But I survived. I’ve been looking for a place where I belong,” he said, injecting his voice with a mix of anger and bitterness. He knew these emotions would resonate in such a place.

 

A tall vampire with long blonde hair and a black cape emerged from the shadows. He scrutinized Remus, cold fingers gripping his face, the touch sending a shiver down Remus’s spine.

 

“Why should I trust you?” The vampire’s breath was foul, making Remus want to recoil.

 

“Because I hate humans,” Remus spat, forcing the words out. “They would kill me without a second thought. I want them all dead.”

 

The vampire seemed satisfied, his grip loosening. “Well, well,” he murmured, gesturing for Remus to follow. As they walked deeper into the building, the smell of decay became more pronounced. Remus stumbled over something—his foot caught on the protruding arm of a body. He steadied himself, forcing down a wave of nausea.

 

They entered a larger room where a few other vampires lounged, their eyes cold and calculating. Remus quickly assessed them—four in total, each a potential threat.

 

“This is Michael,” the blonde vampire announced. “He will join our nest.” The others murmured in acknowledgment. A gaunt vampire named Adriel approached, eyeing Remus critically.

 

“You hungry?” Adriel asked, a twisted smile on his lips. Remus nodded, though the thought of feeding revolted him. He knew he had to maintain his cover.

If you want to continue reading, here is the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56978692/chapters/144893479

[science-lings]

Whoops I’m late to the party but here’s some tropes.

Positive trope! As a traveler Hyrule has a lot of interesting and funny stories to to tell.

Negative Hyrule is a completely ignorant cave boy with the rough intelligent and personality of a 5 year old.

Positive Sky wrapping his sail cloth around someone.

Positive Warriors going full burrito with the near infinite cape he pretends is a scarf.

Negative Time Twilight and Wild’s bonds are treated like they are the only one’s that really matter with the unspoken implication they are the only REAL family.

Positive item trading! One of my favorite trope if rarely seen tropes. Yes Wild show Four your slate and argue over the definition of science. Spinner race time Twilight and Warriors. Let Sky Wild and Wind compare gliding items. Give Hyrule a hookshot! Rings for everyone!

Negative tossing my own take on the Mipha’s Grace is Fairy Bottle With Extra Steps is that we have had some form of Heal by Death in every game except the first. Hyrule has dolls he can find and Legend and Wind even having non fairy items they can purchase to resurrect with. All of them should be aware of the possibility even if only a few have used it. If anything meeting other people who treat dying casually should far more horrific then the simple existence something they can all potentially do.

Positive saying fuck destiny and finding ways to meet again after having to part at the end of the adventure.

You're not late I'm still collecting for the part 2's

Hyrule being a super experienced traveler is so good, this guy has been wandering since he was like eight and he's got a lot of campfire stories. And while I think it's not outrageous to assume that schooling in this era is a little lacking that doesn't mean that he's dumb in any way at all, he's very clever and he knows how to read thank you very much. Maybe he had some education in Calatia. I mean he was smart enough to leave and survive on his own and save his namesake a few times so like.... not stupid.

Any large piece of fabric that the chain owns can and will be used as a blanket. Scarf, sailcloth, cloak, Wind probably has actual sails that he used to have on the king of red lions that he uses to keep the water off of him bc it's more like a tarp than a blanket. Snuggles are inevitable.

While I am a fan of the wolf bloodline, I do get why depictions of it may undermine the importance of found family. I think it's a very valid criticism to point out that it may sometimes put forward the idea that blood family is more valid than an adopted family which could be unsavory, though I doubt that's ever the intention of the authors/ creators. I think that family is a fascinating topic with all these guys who grew up in vastly different but still quite lonely circumstances.

I love it when aspects like items and spells and stories from the other games are shared between the links and utilized to show how vast and different their experiences are. Aside from hookshots, nearly all of them have those bastards.

I mean, anytime people legitimize game mechanics into plot stuff it can be interpreted in different ways so I don't think that 'all of them come back from the dead' is a bad take lol, I think people fixate on Wild specifically with this kind of thing because it is implied he's already died and gone through the whole resurrection thing but more long term, and if that could've just been fixed with a fairy then the entire 100-year sleep just wouldn't have been needed. So it poses the question of if fairies really can bring a link back from the dead. But now I'm rambling...

I'm completely on the side of 'they all meet up in the afterlife as the timelines are assumed to have converged at some point before botw, and it wouldn't mess up the timelines if they just meet up after a few thousand years of waiting. I like the idea that they're watching and rooting for each other. That they've never been alone and there were always some of their brothers watching over them. (I also like to think that Wild caught a glimpse of them when he was placed in the shrine of resurrection)

[mynwcpr]

Pediatric CPR Training: Strengthening the Chain of Survival for Kids

CPR, or Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, is a life-saving technique that can make a critical difference in emergency situations. While we hope we never have to face such scenarios, it is essential to be prepared, especially when dealing with pediatric emergencies. Pediatric CPR training plays a vital role in strengthening the chain of survival for children, empowering individuals with the knowledge and skills necessary to save young lives.

Understanding the Importance of Pediatric CPR Training:

Pediatric emergencies can occur in various settings, including schools, homes, and public places. When a child experiences sudden cardiac arrest or stops breathing, immediate action is crucial to improve their chances of survival. Pediatric CPR training equips individuals with the ability to respond effectively during such emergencies, ultimately strengthening the chain of survival.

The Chain of Survival:

The chain of survival encompasses a series of actions that, when performed promptly and correctly, greatly increases the chances of survival for pediatric patients. The four links in the chain are:

Early Recognition and Activation:

Recognizing the signs of a pediatric emergency and activating the appropriate emergency medical services (EMS) is the first vital step. Promptly calling for help ensures that professional medical assistance is on its way while you initiate life-saving measures.

Early CPR:

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation involves a combination of chest compressions and rescue breaths. By performing CPR immediately, you can maintain the blood flow to the child's vital organs until advanced medical care arrives. Pediatric CPR training provides the necessary skills to perform chest compressions and rescue breaths effectively.

Rapid Defibrillation:

In some cases, sudden cardiac arrest may occur due to an abnormal heart rhythm that can be corrected with the use of an automated external defibrillator (AED). Pediatric CPR training educates individuals on how to identify the need for defibrillation and how to use an AED safely.

Effective Advanced Medical Care:

Once EMS personnel arrive at the scene, they provide advanced medical care and transport the child to a healthcare facility for further treatment. Properly performed CPR prior to their arrival significantly increases the child's chances of a positive outcome.

The Role of Pediatric CPR Training in Strengthening the Chain of Survival:

Pediatric CPR training ensures that individuals are equipped with the knowledge and skills to confidently take action during critical moments. By receiving this training, parents, teachers, childcare providers, and other individuals within the community become immediate responders capable of initiating life-saving measures.

Benefits of Pediatric CPR Training:

1. Confidence and Preparedness:

Pediatric CPR training instills confidence in individuals, empowering them to take immediate action during emergencies. By being prepared, they can effectively and competently respond in high-stress situations.

2. Quick Response Time:

When every second counts, a prompt response is crucial. Pediatric CPR training teaches individuals how to recognize signs of distress and respond promptly, ensuring that the child receives immediate attention.

3. Increased Survival Rates:

When pediatric CPR is initiated early, it significantly improves the chances of survival and reduces the risk of long-term complications. By strengthening the chain of survival, pediatric CPR training directly contributes to saving young lives.

The Importance of Professional Training:

While online resources and information can provide a basic understanding of pediatric CPR, receiving professional training is highly recommended. Organizations like "My NW CPR" offer comprehensive courses that cover both adult and pediatric CPR techniques, ensuring individuals are well-prepared to handle emergencies in real-life situations. Professional training provides hands-on practice, scenario-based simulations, and expert guidance, enabling individuals to develop the skills necessary to administer life-saving measures confidently.

Conclusion:

Pediatric CPR training is an essential skill that can save young lives in emergency situations. By strengthening the chain of survival, individuals trained in pediatric CPR play a crucial role in improving outcomes for children experiencing cardiac arrest or respiratory distress. Being prepared, having confidence, and possessing the knowledge and skills to act swiftly during emergencies can make all the difference in the world for a child in need. Consider enrolling in a professional pediatric CPR training course to become part of the chain of survival and contribute to a safer community for children everywhere.

[dinoracha]

Valkie 64 review

[Note: An update tweaked some gameplay mechanics but came after I finished the game. This may make some criticisms/views obsolete. If I return to the game, I'll update this review.]

Link to Steam store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2190590/Valkie_64/

Steam review version here: https://steamcommunity.com/id/dinoracha/recommended/2190590?snr=1_5_9__402

Throwback games straddle the line between being faithful homages to games of previous generations while injecting modern design, like mechanics and better performance compared to those older platforms. Valkie 64 does a fine job eliciting memories of Nintendo 64 action-adventure classics but stumbles over its own feet in delivering a polished, well-executed homage to said classics. It absolutely looks the part, but playing its part is another story.

The narrative of Valkie 64 is thin enough that it barely exists, but that's not the game's main draw: There are four main worlds to traverse with optional exploration/side quests to net heart pieces for greater survivability. As I finished the game in over four hours, each world can take around an hour to clear out the optional content, poke around and tackle the respective dungeons. Thanks to this the game proceeds steadily, even with some side quests requiring you to start in one world and then complete it elsewhere. Unfortunately, even though they're optional and there's an achievement for completing the game without getting heart pieces, they are practically mandatory to obtain due to the game's combat and its less-than-stellar hitboxes.

The game likes to provide some variety to its combat by having attack buttons for horizontal and vertical sword swings, with the ability to chain them together for lengthier combos or if you're against one or multiple enemies. All of that's great, but it boils down to getting in two or three swings and then dodging to avoid enemy attacks, or annoyingly, just by touching them as most enemies continuously move towards you. Sure, contact damage in a throwback game does make sense, but it looks silly to have a lizard bump their elbow against Valkie and she takes damage for it. Since health restoration when out exploring is limited to dropped/found hearts or a purchasable revive usable on defeat, leaving a dungeon to top up can be a time sink. 

This makes one boss fight incredibly irritating as it teleports away upon being hit. You'll land a hit and the boss will blink away, but because the arena is primarily on a sheet of ice, Valkie will slide into the boss' hurt box the moment before blinking away, resulting in cheap damage being taken. An optional mini-boss and even the final boss plainly showcase how hit-and-run the combat can be and practically encourages cheesing fights, as standing your ground leads to your health being shredded. At the same time, the amount you deal is only a portion by comparison. Heck, the final dungeon is a string of glorified gauntlets with enemies and hazards seemingly smattered around haphazardly, and using every cheesy strategy to deal with the horde is necessary to survive.

Eventually, this makes fighting enemies you encounter needless unless they're tied to unlocking progress - Except the economy of Valkie 64 is very tight, meaning that getting money for items and upgrades is a process that takes time. Saphil (the in-game currency) drops in small increments, and with some purchases requiring multiple hundreds of saphil and no (as far as I found) ways of finding saphil in more significant amounts or as rewards, grinding for cash in a game like this is drab. Yes, most of these purchases are optional so grinding is self-inflicted, but as stated above, not getting them leads to more time spent running to and fro healing or missing out on combat upgrades. If these time sinks were streamlined for better efficiency, the game's playtime would've been shortened drastically. I don't think this was an intentional design choice, but one to keep players from finishing the game too quickly.

Let's be honest: The DNA from the Nintendo 64 Legend of Zelda games is all over Valkie 64, especially in its dungeon designs and polygonal graphics. Although the level of depth in the progression and puzzles isn't as involved in Valkie 64, the dungeons are still passable in being a contained level to explore - The lava dungeon being most memorable, as you climb up high walkways and can see how far you've travelled from ground level. Outside of dungeons, each world has its own flavour and NPCs that populate it: A plains world, an ice world, etc. These sprinkles of life and personality help to fill in the gaps left by the straightforward narrative, and make meeting inhabitants of the next world something to look forward to.

It's hard to recommend Valkie 64 both in terms of a throwback game and a third-person action game as it's fine in both regards, except that's all it is - Fine. Ultimately the combat and how that works mechanically are its most significant drawbacks, exemplified by its boss fights that devolve into hit-and-run tactics. At the time of writing, Valkie 64 is $7.99 (CAD) finishing it in just around four hours, and that's with pursuing most side quests and some saphil farming. I don't regret my time with it, but it left me wishing that the combat, traversal and world-building had a bit more to it. If you enjoy adventures that you can complete in an evening, absolutely, Valkie 64 will provide a nice enough time, but I can't recommend it past that.

[squidos-goodies]

Hello and welcome to @sky-squido’s art and fics!

 – My art is tagged with #squido draws (or you can click here)  – My writing is tagged with #squido writes (or you can click here)  – My ao3 is sky_squido (or you can click here)  – And I also sometimes post little ficlets to my main (@sky-squido)​ and you can read them all here.

I’m on Discord! You can find me at @Sky-Squido#4521 and I tend to materialize in lounges on LU Main when people least expect it and be chaotic for a little before vanishing.

Fandoms: LinkedUniverse; Critical Role (C2) // Favorite Characters: Wind, Legend, Sky; Caleb Widogast, Beauregard Lionett, Caduceus Clay // Favorite Zelda Games: Wind Waker, A Link Between Worlds, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword // Favorite Genres: hurt/comfort, slowburn character development

Misc:

 – Some of my fics can veer heavily into darker mental states (What Hyrule Hadn’t Seen and To Isolate) so please exercise caution and check tags!  – I have a personal rule to always finish fics I post on ao3 and I’m very careful about how many writing wips I allow myself so if you want to know if I plan on finishing a fic, the answer is yes! – Do I take commissions? Not officially, but if you really want one ask me and maybe we can work something out. – I draw on an iPad Pro 2 (i like my home button okay) and use ProCreate because it slaps. – My least favorite genres are grimdark and hurt/no comfort so if I’ve broken a character you care about, just give me a minute, it gets better I promise.

I’ve started using the tag #maybe it was an adventure here and on my main for things i make that let the boys grow from their adventures and come away stronger and maybe even have fun because zelda games are fun and we are more than the bad things that happen to us and i will die on this hill.

Current Writing WIPs:

Hey Four, Wanna Kill a Dragon With Me? - 40,473 words, 7/10 chapters. This is a lighthearted fic about Wind and Four, their struggle for respect in the group, their growing friendship, and the many, many questionable decisions they make along the way. This is a story of adventure. #maybe it was an adventure.

A Sense of Direction - about 30k words and climbing. currently not posted anywhere, but i intend to, so it’s worth listing here, if only so i can keep track of it. a celestial navigation textbook masquerading as a fanfiction.

Completed Longfics:

What Hyrule Hadn’t Seen - 83,838 words; 11/11 chapters. A gift, a flower crown, a walk, an ambush, a Guardian, a mistake. What Hyrule hadn't seen was the last thing Legend ever saw. This is a story of acceptance.

The Price of Adventure - 41,919 words; 4/4 chapters. What does it mean to be family? Legend sure as heck doesn't know, but maybe Wind can explain it to him. Provided, of course, that the two of them survive long enough for Wind to make his point. That's... a surprisingly tall order, given the individuals in question and the lives they lead. This is a story of family. #maybe it was an adventure

To Isolate - 187,562 words; 10/10 chapters. Sky only just figured out that Ganon was the manifestation of Demise's curse when he starts noticing... something working its way up the chain. Nobody is okay, Sky least of all, but he’s determined to figure out what’s going on or die trying. He has no idea what he’s getting himself into. This is a story of courage. 

[everlarkbirthdaygifts]

Happy Birthday, alepaolvi!

Apologies for the delay on your birthday gift, @alepaolvi​! We hope you had a wonderful day on October 2, and got exactly the presents you were hoping for! To bring your party back around, the lovely @norbertsmom has written a story just for you!

Author’s Note: Happy belated birthday, @alepaolvi. Sorry for the delay. I hope you enjoy your arranged marriage fic with a jealous Gale. This is set in Panem au. The revolution happened a few years before it did in canon. You may notice several lines are taken directly from the book, and tweaked to fit this new timeline. Special thanks to my bestie, @mega-aulover for her help. Rated T.

A Different Kind of Reaping

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When I wake up, I reach out for Prim but find the other side of the bed is empty. Prim has her own bed now, but sometimes I forget we’re no longer in the Seam. I prop myself up on one elbow. There’s enough light in the room to see that she’s not in her bed. Of course not. She’s been so excited to help me get ready for today. I’m sure she and mother are up prepping my clothes and making breakfast.

The two of them are so alike, with their blond hair and blue eyes and perky attitude. At fourteen, Prim is fresh faced and as lovely as the primrose for which she was named. My mother is still beautiful, if not a little weary in her grief at the loss of my father. Even seven years later, his absence is still felt, especially today.

I get out of bed and pull on trousers, a shirt, and tuck my long dark braid up under a cap. I slide my stocking feet into my leather hunting boots and grab my bow and sheath of arrows along with my foraging bag.

On the table is a feast fit for celebration: eggs, bacon, toast, and orange juice. All luxury items just a few years ago, before the war. Now a gift to me on my reaping day.

Reaping day is so different now. Before the revolution, reaping day was the day all district children between the ages of twelve and eighteen had their names put into a drawing. In punishment for the failed first uprising, each of the twelve districts had to provide one boy and one girl, called tributes to participate in the Hunger Games. The twenty-four tributes would be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena to fight to the death. The last standing tribute won.

“Sit down for breakfast, Katniss,” my mother says. “You’ll need your energy today.”

I set my hunting gear down and sit, loading up my plate and tuck into the meal. I want to go out into the woods one last time before the ceremony. Who knows if I’ll be able to go back out after today?

Prim plops down in the chair beside me. “Are you excited, Katniss?” she asks as she loads up her own plate.

“Um,” I hum around a mouthful of food because I really don’t know how I feel. “A little scared, I guess.”

When the revolution was won by the districts, the Hunger Games were abolished. But soon after it was discovered that the population was critically low, and at risk of extinction after all the loss during the war. The new senate that ruled the country with one representative from each district, came up with a plan to help repopulate the nation: arranged marriages.

They decided to reclaim the reaping day as a day to bring new families together. That first reaping day after the war, men and women eighteen and older were matched to form new families. I wasn’t old enough then, but I am now. I don’t know how I feel about having my future decided for me.

I think back on all of the questionnaires we had to complete in our last month of school. We also had to list the names of those we would be happy to be matched with. We weren’t allowed to leave it blank, so I wrote down the one name I secretly wish for, but I’m sure I won’t get.

I may not even be matched this year. Not everyone is matched in their first year, so they have to go through it again the next year. Special deferment was granted for those who fought in the war to put off their reaping a year or two.

“Leave your sister alone, Primrose. She has a big day ahead of her,” mother says as she joins us at the table. She pours herself a large mug of coffee and cups it with both hands, holding it under her nose to breathe it in. She closes her eyes before taking a sip.

I’m the first to finish and get up to leave. “Thanks for breakfast,” I tell them as I grab my gear and head toward the door. I’m in a hurry. My old hunting partner, Gale Hawthorne is back in the district today. I haven’t seen him since he went away to fight in the rebellion. After the fighting was over, he stayed in the military and moved to district three so he could study under the victor Beetee Latier.

“Don’t forget your cheese,” Prim says as she gets up from the table and hands me a perfect little goat cheese wrapped in basil leaves. It’s been a tradition since she started making goat cheese to give them as gifts on special occasions.

“Thank you,” I tell her with a hug as I pocket the cheese.

“Don’t stay out too long, Katniss,” mother says. “You need to report to the Justice Building by one thirty. We need time to get you ready.”

“I won’t,” I tell her as I slip outside.

Our part of District 12 is the merchant quarter. My mother and Prim run the apothecary, but we didn’t always live here. I grew up in the part of the district nicknamed the Seam, where the miners live. The apothecary had been vacant since my grandparents died when the mayor’s mansion was bombed at the start of the revolution. After the war, my mother applied for and was granted permission to take it over.

As I’m skipping down the back steps, I look over to the bakery next door. Peeta Mellark is walking toward the trash bin with a bag in his hand. He looks up at the sound of our door closing. “Hey Katniss,” he says with that contagious smile of his. “Heading out to the woods, I see.” He nods to my hunting gear after placing the bag in the bin.

“Yep,” I tell him with a smile of my own. “Gotta catch dinner for tonight.”

“Ooh. Wild game, that’s one advantage you have over the other girls in the reaping today,” he says, crossing his arms as he leans against the small fence that divides his yard from mine.

“Whatever you say, Mellark,” I tell him, shaking my head. He’s always teasing me about how different I am from the other girls who live in town. Not because I’m from the Seam, but like I’m some unique creature he’d never encountered before.

As I walk down the path I wonder who Peeta will be matched with. He’s such a kind person. He was the only person to help me and my family after my father died. He gave me bread that helped us survive and gave me hope to go on. I’m sure he’ll have no problems finding a match today. Lots of girls will be hoping to be the next baker’s wife. Peeta lost his mom at the start of the war. She was one of those lost in the bombing of the mayor’s mansion.

Even though there’s an entrance to the wood close to home, I make my way through town toward the Seam to the entrance by my old house. It makes me feel closer to my father. That’s where he would take me into the woods when I was a child.

The streets of the Seam are empty today. Usually, the workers would be out heading to their morning shift at the mines or the medicine factory, but the ceremony isn’t until two. Might as well sleep in if you can.

Our old house was almost at the edge of the Seam. I only have to pass a few gates past it to reach the scruffy field we call the Meadow. The barbed wire loops that used to top the high chain-linked fence that separates the Meadow from the woods are gone. The fence remains to keep the wild animals out of the district, but gates have been installed at several locations around the perimeter to allow citizens access to the woods.

As soon as I’m in the trees, I look around for signs of a threat, like packs of wild dogs, bears, venomous snakes, or rabid animals. Inside the woods they roam freely, but there’s also food if you know how to find it. My father knew and he taught me some before he was blown to bits in a mine explosion. There was nothing even to bury. I was eleven then. Seven years later I sometimes still wake up screaming for him. But since Dr. Sidney, the head doctor, came to the district after the war, I’ve learned how to deal with my grief. My nightmares aren’t as frequent. Dr. Sidney helped my mother as well. She no longer lies in bed staring at the walls.

Before the war, trespassing in the woods was illegal, and poaching carried the severest of penalties, but the woods belong to us now, the citizens of District 12. Still, most people aren’t bold enough to venture out unarmed. My bow is a rarity, crafted by my father along with a few others that I keep well hidden in the woods, carefully wrapped in waterproof covers. If my father was still alive, he could have made good money selling them, but before the rebellion, if the officials found him selling weapons, he would have been publicly executed for sedition. Which is kind of ironic since the mine explosion that killed him was one of the catalysts for the rebellion.

We were never prosecuted for poaching back then because most of the Peacekeepers had turned a blind eye to the few of us who hunted. They were as hungry for fresh meat as anybody. Now we get food shipped in from other districts regularly, and I can sell my game openly to the other merchants at their back doors, and at my booth in the open-air market called the Hob.

In the woods waits my hunting partner Gale. I feel myself relaxing and quicken my pace when I think about seeing him again. I only got a quick chat with him yesterday when he arrived, mobbed by his family. He asked if we could meet up to hunt this morning like old times. I climb the hills to our rock ledge overlooking the valley. A thicket of berry bushes keeps it hidden. The sight of him brings on a smile. We used to be the best of friends before he went away.

He looks different than I remember. Not just older; he stands different, ridged and yet alert as if he is waiting for an attack from a wild lone wolf. He’s wearing gray uniform pants, and a faded black shirt. His eyes are sharper; they scan the area, before settling on mine.

“Hey Catnip,” says Gale. He knows my real name, but I had whispered it when we first met so he thought I said catnip. It stuck as a nickname even after all this time.

“Look what I shot,” Gale says as he holds up a loaf of bread with an arrow stuck in it. I let out an uncomfortable laugh. It’s fine bakery bread, the kind used during a toasting ceremony.

I’m not sure if he’s trying to impress me with what he can buy with his fancy new job, so I take the bread in my hands. I pull the arrow out and hold the puncture in the crust to my nose, inhaling the fragrance that reminds me of the blond haired, blue eyed son of the baker.

“Mm, still warm.” He must have been at the bakery at the crack of dawn to buy it. “Prim gave us cheese,” I tell him quickly as I pull it out of my pocket.

“Thank you, Prim,” Gale says as he pulls out a shiny knife from a sheath on his hip. I watch as he slices the bread. He could be my brother, same straight black hair, although his is cut short in a military style, same olive complexion, we even have the same gray eyes. We’re not related, at least not closely. Most of the families in the Seam resemble one another this way.

That’s why my mother and Prim, with their light hair and blue eyes used to look out of place when we lived in the Seam. They were. My mother’s parents were merchants. They ran the apothecary. That’s why she got it after the war. Now I’m the one out of place. I have the look of the Seam, but I live in town.

My father got to know my mother because he would collect medicinal herbs and sell them to her shop. She really loved him to leave her home for the Seam. Back then, the homes in the Seam were nothing more than shacks really. We had to boil water from the spigot in the yard if we wanted it hot. After the war, all of the squat gray houses in the Seam were replaced with new homes that are well insulated with running hot and cold water and reliable electricity.

Gale spreads the bread slices with the soft goat cheese, carefully placing a basil leaf on each slice while I strip the bushes of their berries. We settle back in the nook in our rock. I don’t eat much, since I already had breakfast, but it’s a nice treat. Everything would be perfect if all this day off meant was roaming the woods with Gale for a casual family dinner tonight, catching up on how our lives have changed since the war ended, but instead it feels awkward, like I’m here with a stranger instead of my old friend Gale.

“What’s it like in District 3?” I ask quietly to break the awkward silence between us. It was never like this before. He would rant about the unfair treatment the citizens endured, and how we should rise up against them. But now that the revolution is over and won, we don’t really have much to say.

“It’s alright, but I’ll be moving to District 2 after the ceremony. You’ll love it there. Mountains bigger than these. Lots of woods to hunt in.”

“Why would I want to go to District 2?” I ask. The idea is preposterous. I can’t leave my sister. Before the war, the fantasy was to run off, and live in the woods, but this conversation feels all wrong now. There’s never been anything romantic between Gale and me. When we met, I was a skinny twelve-year-old, and although he was only two years older, he already looked like a man. It took a long time for us to even become friends, to stop haggling over every trade. Then he went off to war and moved to District 3 as a hero. His hero status gave him the option to postpone his reaping until this year.

Gale’s good looking, strong from his time as a soldier, and he has a good job in another district. He will be a desirable match at the reaping today. I don’t know why he would want me.

“Forget it,” he snaps.

I let out a breath and ask, “What do you want to do, hunt, fish, or gather?”

“Let’s fish at the lake,” he says. “We can leave our poles and gather in the woods. Get something nice for tonight’s betrothal meal.”

Tonight, after the reaping, everyone is supposed to celebrate, but I’ll be betrothed. I’ll be spending time with my intended. He and his family will come to my house so we can get to know one another. Does Gale hope it will be him?

We fall into the comfortable silence I remember from hunting with him before he left. By late morning, we have a dozen fish, a bag of greens, and best of all, a gallon of strawberries.  

On the way home, we swing by the Hob and trade half the fish and greens for fresh vegetables. Greasy Sae gives us a nod as we walk by. Even with the beef and chicken coming in from other districts, her wild game soup that she calls beef is always a hit. The customers around her booth are talking away about today’s reaping.

When we finish at the Hob, we go to the back of the mayor’s home to sell half of the strawberries. The mayor lives in a modest house not unlike the others in the district. After the war, the residents of the district realized that the old mayor’s mansion was just another tool the Capitol used to keep us in the district divided. The poor people of the Seam resented the wealth the mayor and the merchants had. So when the mayor’s home was rebuilt, he had it built the same as all the others.

The mayor’s daughter Madge answers the door. She was in my year at school, and my closest friend since Gale left. Her everyday outfit has been replaced by an expensive white dress, and her blonde hair is done up with a pink ribbon. Clothes fitting for the betrothal reaping.

“Pretty dress,” says Gale.

Madge shoots him a look, trying to see if it’s a genuine compliment. He used to antagonize her when we were younger, but now that he’s been gone for a few years it’s hard to tell. She presses her lips together and smiles. “Well I have to look nice for my reaping today, don’t I?”

“I’m sure you’ll have the match you want,” Gale says with a scoff.

Madge’s face has become closed off. She puts the money for the strawberries in my hand. “Good luck, Katniss.”

“You too,” I say, and the door closes.

I turn to Gale, “What did you mean by that?”

“Her father’s the mayor. People in power can influence the outcome of the reaping,” Gale says.

Madge’s father isn’t just the mayor. He was quite influential during the war. He was able to convince the residents of District 12 to join the revolution by bringing in Annie Cresta. Then he became our district’s liaison with the rest of the rebels.

Annie Cresta was the last Victor of the Hunger Games,and the spark that started the rebellion. She won the summer after my father died in the mining explosion. During her interview, after winning her games, she started screaming about her father and brother who were lost at sea with a whole ship full of fishermen just before her games. The Capitol played it off as her going mad. But during her victory tour she was more subdued, she would compare her district’s loss to the loss each district had suffered from a tragedy that same year.

The rumors started that perhaps the mine explosion that killed my father wasn’t an accident, but a sabotage to take out the rebel miners who had been planning an uprising. While in District 11, she talked about the silo collapse, in District 10 the stampede, and so on until she had rallied half the country behind her. Before her tour reached the Capitol, District 13 re-emerged from the ashes to sweep her off to be the face of the rebellion.

District 12 was one of the last districts still neutral to the rebellion even though the mayor tried to get our residents involved. He asked Annie Cresta to come back, to rally us to join the cause. Most of our Peacekeepers were recalled to the Capitol to fight off the uprisings in other districts. Those who stayed behind were sympathetic to the districts’ plight. The residents of District 12 wanted to wait out the war. If we didn’t join in, nothing would happen to us.

After the rally, while most of the residents of the district were at home debating why we should join the rebellion, the mayor hosted a dinner for Annie with the most influential Merchants and Seam residents. After the dinner was over, the mayor, his daughter Madge and a few others were seeing Annie off to her hovercraft back to District 13 when the mayor’s mansion was bombed by the Capitol. All those still inside were killed, including the mayor’s wife, his staff, my grandparents and many others.

The rally that day, along with the bombing that took out the mayor’s mansion, is what finally convinced the residents of District 12 to join the rebellion. We couldn’t stay neutral. The war came to us. Gale, among others old enough, went off to fight in the war. Not everyone came home. The baker’s oldest son died. Gale stayed in the military.

As we walk back toward my house, I glance over at Gale, still wondering why he came home this year. He could have participated in the reaping in his new district. I hope he didn’t come back here for me.

Gale and I arrive at the divide between the Seam and town and split up our spoils.

“See you in the square,” I say.

“Wear something pretty,” he says flatly as he walks towards his mother’s house in the Seam.

When I get home, Peeta is in the yard next door, feeding the pigs. “Hey, Katniss,” he says. “Good day hunting?”

“Yep, got some fish and greens for tonight,” I tell him.

“I’ve got a few recipes you can try out on your new family if you want?”

“Sure, that last one with the nuts was nice.” Curious I get closer. “So are you ready?”

He stops feeding the pigs. “I’m nervous,” he confesses.

“Nervous?” Peeta has nothing to be nervous about. He’s good like my sister Prim. Any of the women today would be lucky to have him.

“Well, what if the girl they pick for me doesn’t erm,” his face turned pink. “Well, like me.”

What he is saying is impossible.

“My parents didn’t have the best marriage, you know.”

I nod. I can see why he would be anxious. His parents did not get along; they hated each other but miraculously, had three boys.

I wish I had the words to be able to tell him that he had nothing to worry about. But nothing comes.

"Listen, I'll see you at the reaping. I've got to get ready. Don't want to scare my bride away by smelling like a pig pen."

I shake my head and laugh. When I go inside my mother sets aside her knitting and jumps up from her chair. “There you are,” she says as she helps me remove my hunting gear. She hands my bag to Prim and ushers me into the bathroom. “Get yourself a shower. You need to start getting ready.”

I scrub off the dirt and sweat from the woods and wash my hair. When I’m done I find my favorite dress from my mother’s collection laid out on my bed. A soft orange, with white lace insets near the collar, and a tie at the waist. “Are you sure?” I ask.

“Of course. I’ll fix your hair,” she says.

After I’m dressed, I sit at the vanity as she towel dries my hair and I watch as she braids it up into a crown on top of my head. I hardly recognize myself in the mirror.

“You look beautiful,” says Prim in a hushed voice.

“And nothing like myself,” I say as I hug her. Things are going to be so different after the reaping today.

Prim and mother get dressed. We have a quick lunch and then it’s time to go to the Justice Building to check in.

As we head toward the square, we are joined by others headed that way. Attendance is not mandatory like it was for the Hunger Games reapings, but most people show up anyway.

Mother and Prim hug me goodbye when I go into the Justice Building. After checking in, I’m ushered into the women’s waiting room. I find Madge and join her at the refreshment table.

At precisely 1:45, our escort, Effie Trinket, comes into the room. Miss Trinket was on track to be an escort for the Hunger Games, but she was actually a rebel working inside the system to help bring it down. After the revolution she became our escort for the betrothal reaping. Her bright pink clothes and makeup, while much more flamboyant than what those of us in the district would wear, is nowhere near as garish as the makeup and outfits worn by our last Hunger Games escort.

“Ladies, it’s time to follow me out onto the stage,” Effie says and we all line up to follow her out.

As we go out onto the stage, a cheer begins to rise from the crowd gathered in front of the Justice Building. Effie escorts us to the several rows of seats arranged on the left side of the stage. Madge and I sit next to each other.

Once we are all seated, Effie goes back into the building, but comes out a few minutes later followed by the group of men for the reaping. She escorts them to the seats on the right side of the stage. They are all wearing their best suits. Peeta gives me a wave before he sits in the second row. Gale sits in the front row in his military uniform.

At precisely 2 o’clock, Mayor Undersee steps up to the podium and begins his speech. He talks about the history of Panem: the dark days, the first failed rebellion, the 70 years of the Hunger Games, and then the revolution that freed Panem. He talks about how we have to rebuild Panem, the population lost from the Games and the war. Which brings us to today, the Betrothal Reaping. He then introduces Effie Trinket.

“Welcome, welcome,” Effie says. “It’s such an honor to be here, to help bring together the families who will be the future of our country.” She goes on to explain how the selections are not random. The answers we gave in the surveys taken during school, as well as our DNA were used to determine the matches. “Now, onto the pairings!” she says, and with a flair of her hand pulled out a stack of envelopes.

She plucks the first envelope from the stack and calls out, “Delly Cartwright!”

Delly jumps up from her seat, and quickly walks up to stand next to Effie. Delly is practically vibrating in anticipation. I wish I could be that excited. I just hope I get someone I can stand.

“And your match is,” Effie pauses dramatically, “Thom Davison!”

Thom, one of Gale’s old classmates who didn’t get matched in his previous two reapings, looks around bewildered. He gets a nudge from the person sitting next to him before he gets up and walks up to the podium to formally meet Delly.

Delly and Thom are ushered to the back of the stage where they stand next to each other whispering, with big smiles on their faces. I guess that means they are happy with that match.

“Very good,” says Effie. “Our next match is the mayor’s daughter, Madge Undersee.”

I squeeze Madge’s hand and she stands and gracefully walks up to stand next to Effie Trinket.

“And your match is… the local hero, Gale Hawthorne!” Effie exclaims. A quiet murmur goes through the crowd. That pairing was unexpected. I think everyone expected me to be paired with Gale, but I know it would have never worked out, we’re too alike.

Gale doesn’t look very happy at his selection, but stands and walks up to meet Madge. They stiffly shake hands, then walk back to stand next to Delly and Thom. It’s quite the contrast between the two pairs.

“Wonderful!” Effie says with a little too much enthusiasm. “Next up we have, Katniss Everdeen.”

I stand up slowly, then stiffly walk to stand next to the podium.

“And your partner is… Peeta Mellark,” Effie calls out.

My eyes go wide as I think, Oh, it’s him, my neighbor, my friend. The boy, no man, I correct myself, who saved my life and gave me hope. The man who reminded me that I was not doomed. The man who’s name I wrote on my questionnaire. I feel a smile come across my face as I watch Peeta get up and walk toward me. The smile on his face matches mine.

When he reaches me we stand and stare at each other for a moment before Effie Trinket clears her throat. “Go ahead, shake hands,” she urges. Peeta's large warm hand engulfs mine, and he gives me a reassuring squeeze. “Go ahead,” she tells us, nudging us toward the back of the stage.

When I drop Peeta’s hand, I feel the loss of warmth immediately, but I feel his hand at the small of my back as he escorts me to join the others. “Told ya I’d see you at the reaping,” Peeta whispers in my ear, and I can’t help but laugh. After that, I’m in a bit of a daze and miss most of the remaining matches.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, Effie dismisses the few remaining people who didn’t get paired up and calls the matched pairs to the front of the stage. Delly and Thom lead the way, arm in arm. Madge and Gale walk stiffly side by side. Peeta takes my hand and leads me toward the front of the stage, and the couples behind us follow suit. When we are all lined up, Effie calls out, “District 12, I give you your new couples. Please join us in the reception hall for family introductions.”

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That’s the end of part 1. This will continue as a work in progress.

A few notes: Dr. Sidney is named after Dr. Sidney Freedman from the final episode of the TV show M*A*S*H. He helped the main character work through his PTSD. Thom Davison is named for Dave Thomas of Wendy’s fame, who seemed like such a sweet man. The character Thom in canon is only mentioned a few times, but he is such a great guy. Gale’s friend who helps carry him back after the reaping, and then after the war Thom comes back and takes on the task of clearing away the debris so the district can rebuild.

[tenspontaneite]

Peace Is A Journey (Chapter 12/?)

In which Callum navigates a delicate medical matter, Rayla comes to some conclusions, and Corvus arrives in Verdorn to find it in an uproar.

(Chapter length: 15k. Ao3 link)

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Amaya watched as the last of the unit settled into place before her, arranged row-by-row, all at attention. She inclined her head, running her eyes over them, and straightened to raise her hands, the motion pulling at the ceremonial banner she still wore. She supposed that, now, she’d be more-or-less obliged to add the Justiciar’s heraldry to everything. She’d already been issued with a new seal to press into letters, and that was only the start of it.

There would be a lot of adjustments to make, now, and a lot of changes. And, really, that was why she was here in the parade grounds now, even when every minute she lost was critical. She couldn’t afford to spend time on any lengthy speech, but…there needed to be something. She owed her troops that much.

Gren, beside her, raised his voice in time with her hands, conveying her words to the soldiers as she spoke them.

“Units six, seven, eight, eleven, twelve, and fifteen of the Standing Battalion,” She began, watching Gren from the corner of her eye to know when to continue. Timing was important in speeches, after all. “As you all know, or can at least see, I stand before you now as a Justiciar, consecrated not an hour past in the Hall of Paragons.” A cheer attempted to rise up among the soldiers, but she raised a hand to quell it. “And, accordingly, today I address you for perhaps the last time as your General.”

That subdued them. She could see the rustling passing among the crowd, pauldron to pauldron, the unease on their faces. They trusted her leadership. They trusted her guidance, and were made uncertain by the prospect of losing it. For a moment, she felt a sharp pang of regret for abandoning them – but, no. She exhaled, and hardened her resolve. Anyone could be the General of the Standing Battalion, in the end. But only she could be the Justiciar to hunt and bring justice to the elf who’d stolen her nephews. If they were still alive – and her heart hurt at the mere thought – she was the only family they had left. If they weren’t alive, there was no one else who could serve the justice owed them.

She had to put this first. For their sake, for hers, and for the kingdom’s.

“I am a Justiciar now. I have my mission, and I have my duty.” She said, the motions of her hands fierce and sharp. “For now, that duty leads me away from you. But I have served with you all these past years, I have trained with you all, and I have fought with you all. You are the finest military force in Katolis history, with or without your General. You are the Shield that protects the realm, and you will remain so even when I am gone.”

Amaya watched their reaction as Gren spoke her words, and felt the calculating eye of the General in her watching too. They straightened at her words, as they should. Felt the pride, as they should. She saw the morale rise among them, just as she’d intended, and was pleased.

Now for the orders. “From now until I serve with you again, you will be placed under the command of Lieutenant Fen. You are henceforth ordered to report to him at the Breach, and see to the safety of Katolis through these troubled times. While I serve Justice, you must keep the sanctity of our borders, and ensure that Xadia does not exploit the wounds their assassins have dealt. Written copies of your orders will be available from Captain Camsun.”

Her eyes strayed to the side, just briefly, to see the captain in question. He’d been distraught at his failure at the Banther Lodge. Had sworn to atone for his inability to stop the elf who’d – who may or may not have murdered Callum and Ezran. While he served as Crownguard now, he’d been a member of her Battalion for many years, and she knew him to be a man of conviction and courage. He had requested re-assignment to the Battalion, along with several of his unit, and she’d been happy to accept. He would fight all the harder, she knew, to redeem himself for what he perceived as his failure.

And, besides, it was always good to have another seasoned officer around. Especially when she’d be leaving the Battalion headless in short order.

She inclined her head, and then moved on to the next order of business. “My next request is a request only. Any and all of you are free to decline.” She waited for Gren to relay that, waited to see them shifting with the anticipation, then went on. “I ask for five volunteers to be reassigned from the Battalion to my entourage. Five who will bear my standard, act as adjuncts, and serve with me in the pursuit of Justice. Those who would volunteer, step forward.”

There was a brief, stunned beat while the words sank in.

Then, every single damn soldier stepped forward.

She sighed, exasperated and fond all at once. It wasn’t as though she’d expected anything else to happen, knowing the fierce loyalty and conviction of her soldiers, but even so…

In any case, she’d made sure to decide ahead of time who she’d pick, should the choice be available. “Ksenia. Medea. Zain. Kurien. And Marcos. Step forward.” One by one, the soldiers extracted themselves from the formation. Four were Battalion soldiers of long service, whose skills she well knew. The last was one of Camsun’s unit, a Crownguard who’d allegedly encountered the Moonshadow elves on the night they came to Katolis, and had somehow managed to survive. That experience, plus his alleged skills as a scout, had made her decide to pick him over more seasoned Battalion soldiers. With Corvus away and ahead, she needed another scout with her.

She nodded to them as they lined up where Gren waved them to, and then back out at the rest of the Battalion.

“You have your orders, and your duty. And I have mine.” She said. “I know you’ll continue to be a credit to the Kingdom in my absence. Dismissed, soldiers; may Valor ride with you.”

The salute rippled out across all six units of the Battalion she’d brought with her, their numbers barely diminished by the exit of the volunteers at all.

She’d come to Katolis expecting that some of them would need to be reassigned to the city, to bolster its defences. Instead, it seemed that the threat was at the border, and the only survivor of the assassination was fleeing to Xadia; Amaya had actually gained soldiers for the Battalion, via the Crownguard who were now eager to do their part to avenge what had happened here. It was an unexpected outcome, but welcome. She was glad to leave the Battalion strengthened. It would need every last soldier.

She exhaled, feeling in the moment an end of an era. Perhaps she’d be the General of the Standing Battalion again, one day. But even if that day came, she’d be a different woman when it dawned. She could expect no less, with the quest ahead of her.

As the units began to filter out, each accepting their official orders from Camsun, Amaya gestured her new five adjuncts over to her, and began to speak to them. Ksenia and Zain, she knew, had a good grasp of sign. Especially Ksenia. If Gren was otherwise occupied, Ksenia could probably do a decent job of interpreting for her. The rest, though, would likely need to depend on Gren for a while. “Thank you for volunteering.” She said to them. “I’ll keep this short, as we need to leave the city within the hour. First: you retain your military ranks and privileges, and will be considered as reassigned to a special task-force under my command. While you are on this task-force, you will not be addressed by your ranks. Your title will be ‘Adjunct’, instead. You may be asked to perform any number of tasks on my behalf, including logistical management, investigation, scouting, and more. Commander Gren is second-in-command, and after that, the chain of command is as follows: Ksenia, Kurien, Zain…”

Gren’s mouth moved all through the briefing as he spoke her words. Established the chain of command. Elaborated on jurisdiction, duties, and pay. Informed the unit as a whole that they would all be required to gain or develop skills in Katolis Sign Language, to better serve under her. And, finally, gave them the option to leave now, if anything was unacceptable to them.

None did.

With all of them formally accepting their new roles, Amaya nodded to them, and said “Good. Now, get moving. You must convene at the stables within half an hour, packed and ready to depart. If you are not there, we will leave without you.”

With all of them duly debriefed, and all given their orders, she left it at that, and turned away to stride to her quarters. She had entirely too much to do and far too little time to do it.

Still, she found time to speak discreetly with Gren as they walked. “What do you think?” She asked. “Too little? Too much?”

“Just right, Amaya.” He assured her, with a smile. “Short but sweet – enough to motivate them, but not over-the-top.”

She sighed, and nodded, accepting his verdict. “I’ll never get used to the speeches.” She said, rolling her eyes as her hands moved. “I suppose I’ll be doing less of those now that I’m a Justiciar. Perhaps there’s Justice in the world, after all.”

He laughed at that, surprised, and signed back “I suppose so.”

She hesitated at the archway, just for a moment. She knew her duty. She knew that, as a person and an aunt and a sister, there was nothing else she could possibly do than pursue this course of action. As a Justiciar, her duty was even clearer. But even so, it hurt to leave her soldiers without her.

With one last lingering look at what she was leaving behind, Amaya left the parade-grounds, the banner of Justice still trailing in her wake.

  ---

 In the end, Rayla was gone a while. Longer than collecting firewood should warrant. Callum supposed she needed space to think, and get her head together, just as much as he did. Just as much as, he assumed, Ezran did. The two of them didn’t speak in her absence, just laid there in the meagre shelter of the windblown trees, watching the sky.

The clouds were thick enough that it was somewhat surprising to be able to see them moving. But the winds were strong here, and so he could see the way the white shifted and roiled overhead, chased into a new shape every second. It was strangely calming to watch, a soothing reprieve from all the chaos and emotion and uncertainty of the day.

The cold of the ground seeped into his back until his whole body felt numb, and he didn’t even mind. That chill was restful too, in its own way.

He was just…so tired.

He’d fallen into a vacant, exhausted sort of calm by the time Rayla returned, her approach heralded by the crackle of loose rock under her feet. He didn’t sit up, and instead waited until she was close enough to be standing above him, leaning over to obscure his view of the sky. “Taking a nap, Callum?” She asked, with a light teasing note to the words, but he thought there was some concern there too.

He huffed, smiling tiredly, and pulled himself laboriously upwards as Rayla set the pile of wood down a short distance from the fire. “…Nah. We’re just resting a bit.” He said, eventually, nodding to where Ezran hadn’t bothered to sit up yet. “It’s been a crazy day.”

He saw her dark fingers flex at her side before she nodded. “You’re not wrong.” She said, wry, and sat down beside him. Ez finally deigned to sit up and join the proceedings, and at the sight of the gravel that had settled in his hair, Callum reflexively reached out and started picking it out.

“Did you have a nice walk?” He asked her, while he was doing that, Ezran wordlessly and almost drowsily shuffling himself into Callum’s side.

She startled a little at the question, glancing quickly at him. “I was collecting firewood.” She reminded him, as if she thought he’d forgotten.

“Well, yeah, but with how long you were gone, I kind of assumed you were…you know, taking a walk to clear your head a bit.” He reasoned, and watched her ears twitch down in time with her nonplussed expression. “After today, I wouldn’t blame you.”

“…And here I thought Ez was supposed to be the one with empathy powers.” Rayla said dryly, and settled beside them. She leaned over to inspect the water, which he’d deigned to take off the boil somewhere in the middle of his sky-watching daze. She did not, he noted, say anything either way about the accuracy of his assumption.

“’S a good brother. Notices people. And feelings.” Ezran mumbled, drowsy and a little incoherent, into Callum’s shoulder. He smiled, picking a last stone chip from Ezran’s crazy hair, and then ruffled it affectionately.

“Can’t compete with you though, bud.” He said to him, and shifted a little to better accommodate his brother’s weight. “I’ve just got regular noticing-people’s-moods skills. You’ve got special magic empathy dragon-talking skills.”

“I guess I am pretty special like that.” Ez agreed, and yawned. He rubbed his eyes. “…Sorry, I guess I got kinda sleepy, just laying there. I think maybe the thing with Zym tired me out too.”

“Makes sense to me.” Callum nodded, nudging Ez gently. “Maybe get an early night tonight, huh?”

“Mm.” Ez sighed, still leaning drowsily into his side.

Rayla watched them with a soft smile on her lips as she manoeuvred the pot aside and refilled their waterskins from it, slow and careful to avoid spilling it. Then she cast an analytic eye around the cliffside, and reached for the gloves she’d abandoned at the fireside earlier. He guessed she wanted to go get more snow to melt. Still, he found himself oddly reluctantly to see her go off again when she’d only just got back.

“Sit down for a while.” He said to her, impulsively, and reached out to tug gently at the jacket-sleeve over her elbow. “You’ve not eaten yet, right? You can go get more snow for the water later.” Ezran, evidently picking up on his words, helpfully nudged a jar of meat over.

She blinked down at him for a few moments, oddly startled, then dipped her head with another small smile. “…I suppose I am pretty hungry.” She agreed, settling herself back down, and accepted the jar that he and Ez shuffled over to her. His fingers crossed hers, briefly, as he handed it over. They were cold. He eyed her, briefly, but…in the end, if she wanted gloves, they were right there, and so was a campfire. She didn’t need him worrying over how cold her hands were.

Rayla shifted a little closer to the fire, and a little closer to them, before she started eating. He watched her from the corner of his eye, oddly satisfied by her proximity. It was comfortable to have her here with him and Ezran, all of them sat together at their camp. Familiar, by now, in a way that put him strangely at ease. He sighed, quietly content with the warm weight of his brother at his side, content with the presence of Rayla nearby, and considered getting out his sketchbook. Now would be good drawing-time, after all, and he rarely passed up an opportunity to draw.

But, for once, he just kind of wanted to…sit here. He looked into the flickering fire-light, eyes half-lidded, and wondered if this sense of ease could be attributed to how tired he was.

Rayla looked at him as she ate, the light purple of them hovering in the periphery of his vision. “Ezran isn’t the only one feeling sleepy, I’m guessing.” She commented, after a little while, and he glanced over at her. He thought he saw a trace of his same contentment pulling at the sides of her lips. It was nice to see her looking relaxed, after how awful the last few days had been.

He smiled tiredly at her. “Not so much sleepy, I guess, as just…I don’t know.” He looked into the fire again, watching it flicker and leap on the wood. The crackling of it was a nicer sound than the breeze hissing through the trees behind them. “…I guess, I’m just glad we’re here.” He said, eventually, the words quiet but heartfelt. “We’ve been travelling for days now, and…I’m just glad to be here. Glad you’re okay now. Glad we’re all okay.” He shrugged, just slightly. Not enough to dislodge his brother, who was looking up with a half-opened eye and a very relaxed countenance.

The small smile on her lips widened. Went soft and fond, in that way it’d been doing lately. “…Sappy prince.” She commented, after a moment, her voice warm enough that he was attempted to accuse her of being sappy right back. She reached over with her free hand and rested it, just briefly, on his arm; a little affectionate gesture. And then, as she was withdrawing the hand: “I’m glad, too.”

He wasn’t quite sure why he did it, but he reached out and grasped at her hand as she withdrew it. She stilled, blinking, and as he processed his own actions, he took a moment to be very glad that the hand in question was her bound one, as it gave him a plausible excuse to work with. Cheeks prickling with heat, he said “Mind if I have a look over this? I think it’s probably about time I change the bandages, anyway.”

Her eyes flickered down to their hands, then up to his face again. Her ears moved, and though he knew it must be some sort of emotion that moved them, he wasn’t quite familiar enough with elves to know what it was. “…Go ahead.” She said, in the end, and shifted closer to allow him to pull her hand more easily between his own.

Her fingers were still cold. He wasn’t sure if that was the ambient temperature, or just the lack of circulation still. Reflexively, he pressed them between his palms for a moment to warm them, and then ducked his head at – yet again – being more touchy with her hands than he’d intended. He didn’t look at her face, not quite brave enough to see her reaction, and then trailed his fingers to her wrist to undo the bandage as if nothing had ever happened.

The sight of the sores, inevitably, brought him a little more down-to-earth. A flash of alertness broke through his pleasant lassitude, his eyes flicking over the ruined skin to note the changes. “It’s better.” He spoke, absently, almost to himself, and felt his gut flicker with relief at the realisation. “See? It’s drying out, now. That means it’s starting to heal.” He inspected the blister on her last finger, and found it in a similar state, the redness of it gone dry and hard at the surface. No longer raw and wet and weeping as it had been before.

Rayla blinked down at her own wrist, leaning in to inspect it with him. “It does look better.” She said, surprised, and tilted her head. “Feels better, too, I guess. Bit less like an open wound.”

He traced the edges of the sores carefully, turning her wrist over to look. She’d scratched the skin away at the sides, and at one part at the top – but the sores were plainly still there, even in the places where she’d not exposed them. They ran more or less the full circumference of her wrist, on both sides of the binding, and it occurred to him that they’d probably leave very distinctive scars.

Still. Now that they were capable of healing…he’d still have to worry about infection. He pursed his lips, contemplative, and reached to the side for his bag and its healing-stuff. “I don’t think I need to use as much of this stuff, now that it’s closing over.” He said, frowning at the glass bottle of alcohol. “Probably in a day there’ll be no point in keeping the bandages on, either. But for now…”

She sighed, resigned, and waited while he applied the alcohol, dabbing it around her binding on a wad of bandage. She didn’t seem to find it all that painful, so that was a definite bonus of the sores scabbing over.

He was aware of Ezran watching the whole affair, still leaning against his side, but his brother didn’t speak. That was a little strange for him. He’d have expected Ez to comment on the healing of her wrist, but instead, he was just…watching. Looking between them, quiet and thoughtful.

Callum ignored his brother’s eyes, and finished up with her wrist, tying a fresh bandage into place over the binding. He knew it was still there, but he still kind of liked the way the bandage covered it up. He really, really didn’t like that binding. “How’s that?” He asked, and she drew her hand away to turn her wrist around, inspecting the bandage and flexing her fingers.

“Good. Thanks.” She said, absently, grimacing as she moved her hand.

His eyes followed the motion. “…Still hurts, I guess?”

“Sore.” She admitted, setting the dark hand down on her knee. “And prickly, still. But tons better than yesterday.” She sighed, turning it over so it was palm-up. “I suppose I’d better do what that healer said, considering my wrist’s still bound.”

He blinked, startled. “…What, er.” He cleared his throat. “Keeping your hand moving?”

“That too, but, you know. The hand massage.” She pressed her fingers into her palm with a light wince. “I…well, it doesn’t hurt like it did yesterday, at least.” She said, unhappily enough that it obviously still hurt quite a lot. Callum side-eyed her, reached into his bag, and pulled out a piece of willow bark. Wordlessly, he set it on her knee. She glanced over at him, lips curving unbidden into a smile, and popped it into her mouth. “…Thanks.” She said, as she moved the piece of bark to her cheek, and looked down at her hand again.

Suddenly, she frowned.

“…Did I ever actually do my hand yesterday?” She asked them, abruptly, looking across at them with a furrowed brow. “That’s why I took the lilium in the first place – but I don’t know if I actually did it. Before I, you know, scratched my wrist open.” She grimaced, even as Callum ducked his head and tried not to look too suspicious.

Ezran straightened, the motion very perceptible against Callum’s side. “Wait, you don’t remember?” He asked, and when Callum looked down at him, he seemed abruptly much more awake, eyes lit up and intrigued. “How come you don’t remember?”

“Side effect of the lilium, apparently. Yesterday evening’s mostly a weird blur.” She shrugged, as if to conceal how uncomfortable that statement plainly made her, and looked over at them with a little more suspicion. “So? Did I do it, or not?”

Callum shrank back a little, his neck prickling with heat, and attempted to turn invisible. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work, and all that happened was Ezran elbowing him in the side until he cleared his throat and said “I, uh. Um. No, you didn’t.” He had to take another second to squirm under her stare before he could add “I, uh. I did it. For you, I mean.”

She stared for a few long seconds, brow furrowed, and then looked down at her hand. “…You did?” She said, sounding almost confused. She squinted, as if trying to see something through a fog. “I…maybe remember that?” Her ears sort of…flicked down, and he wished he knew enough about elf-specific body language for that to mean anything to him.

“You were kind of really out of your head.” Ezran said, helpfully, eyes dancing between them with an odd enthusiasm. “Callum kept telling you to do it but you kept messing with your bandages instead, so he just did it for you.”

Slowly, Rayla closed the fingers of her good hand around the bound one, a strange look on her face. “…I think I do remember.” She muttered, as if to herself, and then her eyes flickered side-ways to his. Her cheeks pinked a little. “…Thanks?” She offered, shoulders hunching ever-so-slightly as he looked back at her. It occurred to him, all of a sudden, that she might be rendered as self-conscious by the memory as he was. “For…helping.”

It was a strangely baffling thought. “…No problem.” He managed, voice coming out somewhat higher and squeakier than he’d have preferred.

She cleared her throat, awkward, and looked away. Still chewing on willow-bark, she pressed her fingers along the palm of her bad hand, suppressing tiny winces as she went. He couldn’t help but watch her. Couldn’t help but feel his own fingers twitching with…with the urge to reach out? Chase her hand away and replace it with his own?

Ezran, beside him, shifted. Callum looked over just in time to see his eyes slide slowly between the two of them, and then for him to say – loudly- “You know, I think it probably works better if someone else does it.” Rayla paused, looking over at him, eyebrows shooting up, and Callum elbowed his brother in alarm.

“Ezran, what are you doing?” he hissed, and the boy looked up at him, utterly unrepentant. There was a spark of mischief in his eyes that Callum didn’t trust in the least.

“Making sound medical suggestions.” Ez answered, evidently feeling cheerful, and being very blatant about it. “Rayla, I think it’ll be way easier if Callum does it for you. He can use two hands. You can’t. It’s just smarter.”

Rayla’s eyes, still wide, flicked from his brother’s face to his. Her cheeks pinked, and her shoulders rose a little more. She opened her mouth, but didn’t say anything.

“Callum doesn’t mind.” Ezran insisted, for him, and elbowed him in the side again. Callum winced and shot a panicked glance his brother’s way, hands fluttering up nervously. “Right? Callum?”

At his prolonged silence, Rayla seemed to close in on herself, as if trying to make herself look smaller. She opened her mouth again, and started to say “It’s – it’s fine, you don’t-“ Just as Callum finally managed to blurt something out.

“I don’t mind.” He blurted, and her words froze on her lips, even as he felt his face going probably irredeemably red. “I mean. If you – if you don’t-“ He cleared his throat. “-think it’s weird.”

She ducked her head, and looked away. Her ears twitched down again, and they actually looked kind of red at the tips. “You’re weird, Callum. Never mind anything else.” She muttered, shoulders hunched defensively, and – for a second, he thought that was a it’s definitely weird, never come near me again sort of response-

But then, quick and almost aggressive, she thrust her hand out towards him. Without so much as looking in his direction.

The sight of it accompanied a hot rush of comingled emotion under his skin, and Callum faltered for a second, with about three different kinds of feeling trying to shove themselves to the forefront. Mortification, awkwardness, a strange muddled pleasure…

Then he reached out, and took her hand between his again. A few minutes ago, when he’d been doing her bandages, it hadn’t been awkward, or weird. Well, mostly. Now…

He shot his brother a look, hoping it conveyed the approximate sentiments of I hope you’re happy.

Ezran smiled back at him sunnily, evidently more than pleased with what he had wrought.

Callum squirmed, and then…well, he had her hand, and he had it for a reason, so…he just…sort of…got to it, cradling her hand between his and pressing his thumbs gently into her palm. Massaging some circulation back into it was, as it happened, a very different sort of experience when she was sober and lucid and tense beside him – if he thought he’d been flustered yesterday, he’d been an idiot. He felt like his face was going to combust, and his head was too muddled to really know why.

I mean, like Ezran said, it makes sense, he thought to himself, a little frazzled, as her hand warmed between his. The fingers were still just too cold. It works better this way. It makes sense. Why am I making it all weird?

He supposed, in the end, elf or not, Rayla was a girl. And extended hand-holding of most varieties with a girl was likely to be something that made him feel awkward. Hand massages, even for valid medical purposes, kind of really did qualify. That was…well, that explained it, right? He should just…try to be less awkward and weird about it. It was fine. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, observed that she was still determinedly not looking at him, and had to suppress a rush of internal panic that wanted to convince him that she was annoyed with him and never wanted to talk to him again. That was his thought-spiralling talking and he knew it. But still…

Where had all that nice, peaceful calm from earlier gone?

Trying to feel like less of an awkward, red-faced mess than he knew himself to be, Callum just…kept on, as clinically as possible, and did his best to shut his brain up.

Ezran, beside him, seemed weirdly smug. What did he get out of this? What was his angle? What did he think about the flood of mortification he could probably empathy-feel through Callum’s side?

Still. Even as awkward as it all was, Callum could hardly miss the way Rayla flinched, sometimes, when he pressed a little more firmly on her skin. At the reminder that her hand really did still hurt, he…didn’t exactly stop feeling mortified, but it kind of went into the background of his head where it belonged, so he could focus more on being concerned about her. He tried to press as gently as he could, and where he had to, increased the pressure slowly, but she was still wincing.

After several minutes of watching this, he felt settled enough and concerned enough to consider speaking to her again. “…How’s the pain?” he ventured, a little timidly, and she twitched slightly in his direction. “Are you okay?”

She turned her face in his direction, just enough for her eyes to flicker to his from the side. Despite the pain she had to be in, her cheeks were still a little pink, her expression still stubbornly – almost aggressively – closed-off. “…Not too bad.” She muttered, after a moment. “It’s…fine.” The line of her visible ear was as pink as her face.

He studied her as best he could, and in the end had to take her at her word.

Just like yesterday, it was kind of hard to know when to consider the hand massage complete. He wasn’t sure if you were meant to stop when you’d done work on the whole hand, or do it several times. The idea was to circulate the hand, right? So…in theory, warming it up, and working on it for longer…those were good things? He really didn’t know. He did recall that the Healer had recommended doing it several times a day, though, and felt his cheeks go pink again.

He got the feeling that, thanks to Ezran, he’d basically been signed up to do this every day until they found some way to get her binding off for good. He didn’t mind – it was true that he could do the job better than she could, and it wasn’t like he didn’t want to help her – but he sincerely hoped it would get less awkward eventually.

In the end, he went over her palm, fingers, and back of her hand twice before he thought it made sense to stop. He hesitated, feeling her skin pretty much just as warm as his now, and then reached out and deposited her hand on her knee. “I…think that’s about done for now?” he said, almost questioningly, when she glanced at him.

Her ears twitched, and so did the fingers he’d let go of. “…Thanks.” She said, after a moment, her posture still tense and closed-off. Then, in an abrupt rush of motion, she got to her feet. “I’m….going to go-“ She paused, for a second, plainly searching for an excuse. Then she bent to snatch her gloves from the ground. “-get more snow.” She finished, and whirled and walked away so briskly that she definitely seemed to be in a hurry. She disappeared past the trees in seconds, which he supposed made sense, since they’d cleared most of the icy snow from the cliffside, but…

Callum slumped, a little, watching her go. “Thanks, Ez.” He muttered, to his brother, deeply sarcastic. “Now she’s mad at me.”

Ez made a rude noise at him, still leaning contentedly into his side. “No she’s not, don’t be dumb.” He refuted, and Callum glanced at him.

“What, did your empathy tell you that?” he asked, dryly.

“My eyes told me that.” He said, and stuck out his tongue. “It’s fine, you’ll see. She’s just not used to letting people help her with stuff.”

“Or, not used to people massaging her hands.” Callum mumbled, into his scarf, nerves still making his skin buzz.

“That too.” Ezran agreed. “But it’s fine, Callum, stop worrying. She’s not mad at you. And it’s for a real healer-y reason, so there.”

Ezran was typically a good judge of people and their moods, but even so…Callum drew up his knees, planted his face onto them, and groaned.

He wondered if it was weird that, already, he kind of missed the weight of her hand between his.

 ---

 As soon as she found a decent-sized snowdrift, Rayla buried her gloved hands into it, and took a great armful of the stuff up to carry through the trees back to their cliffside camp. By the time she got past the treeline and dumped the stuff unceremoniously a couple of metres away from their fire, the warmth of Callum’s hands had already left her bound fingers.

She wondered if the tingling of the skin was the same prickling numbness as before, or something entirely different. The wondering was slightly pointless, though, because she knew.

She clenched the fingers inside their poorly-fitting glove almost angrily, and went about her work. On her second trip back, she noted that Callum had very sensibly started melting some of the stuff in the pot, so she at least didn’t need to prompt him to do that. He looked up at her, as she deposited the second armful of snow in the nascent pile, and her ears prickled with heat.

Not quite ready to talk to him or even look at him yet, she whirled away and returned to the trees.

After a few rounds of that, the front of her – his, really – shirt and jacket was soaked through and freezing-cold, and the chill had seeped deeply through the gloves. The cold settled her, in a way. Slowed her down enough that her emotions started to follow, smoothing out from their prickly edges and mortifying heights. She grew coherent enough to start thinking angry, frustrated thoughts at herself as she worked.

She berated herself for being so stiff and awkward about the whole thing. She berated her hand for tingling, and missing the warmth. And she especially berated herself for the way she hadn’t quite managed to say no when Ezran suggested it. She’d tried. Opened her mouth to say that, no, it was fine, she could do it – but…

In the end, she’d remembered just enough of yesterday’s rendition that, in some strange rush of half-named feeling, she didn’t want to say no. The memories were dreamlike and blurred, suffused with sleepy contentment, and through that rosy drug-induced haze, his hands had felt…nice. The touch had been soothing. The warmth, too. And, without either pain or sobriety, her experience of it had been unambiguously positive.

But this time? It had been mortifying. It had hurt.

So, really, she thought she was justified in being absolutely furious with herself for still liking it.

A few dozen moments from the past several days were clicking into place in her mind with a terrible, irrevocable clarity, and she groaned to herself, embarrassed and frustrated all at once. The next time she found some snow, she buried her face in it, if only so that the shock of the cold would bring a snap of quiet to her head. The icy flakes of it stung on her cheeks, and melted in her hair, but she really couldn’t bring herself to care.

It just figured that the first time she ended up with a proper friend around her own age, she’d end up making a mess of things.

Her next thought, with her face still planted into the snowbank, was that she had to be very careful when she let Ezran near her, now. How did one hide one’s feelings from an empath? Did she just…try to avoid experiencing certain emotions when he might be close enough to pick them up?

…Had he already been picking them up? In retrospect, all the warm fuzzies when she looked at Callum smiling or being earnest or generally existing were pretty damning, but had Ezran been in empathy-range for any of that?

….She couldn’t quite remember, and that made her gut prickle with unease. As if she needed another secret to guard, with all that she was already carrying.

At least he can’t read thoughts, she thought to herself, grumpy, and picked herself up out of the snow. She wiped it off of her face and picked up an armful, heading back to camp again.

Thinking of the practical issues of navigating an empath did settle her, somewhat, so when she returned through the trees that time, she felt less like a complete embarrassing mess. She dumped the snow down, eyed the pot Callum was melting it in, and reluctantly concluded that there was probably more than enough to finish filling their waterskins, now. And boil the old bandages, probably.

Still. That didn’t mean she had to come back and sit down yet. Without a word, she flounced back into the trees again, and went to sit on a nice cold rock for a while.

Once she had spent some time in solitude coming to terms with the realisations of the evening, and determining that absolutely no one must know, she thought she was approaching a state where she was ready to behave normally again. As justification for her extended absence, she brought some branches back with her when she returned.

“We’ve got enough water and wood now, I think.” She announced, as she reintroduced herself to the campsite properly. She dumped the wood with the rest, and then deposited herself back beside Callum as if nothing was wrong. She staunchly avoided letting any of her recent conflict, awkwardness, or anything else of the sort onto her face. She would have sat next to Ezran, instead, but that was just asking for him to empathy-magic his way into her newest problem.

“…So I see.” Callum said, bemusedly, eyeing the final size of the snow-pile and then the unnecessarily-tall firewood stack. His eyes flickered to hers, and his shoulders rose just a little, in a way that made him look still-embarrassed. “…Why is your hair wet?” He asked, after a moment, brows furrowing.

Rayla raised a hand to her hair, noting that it had indeed picked up enough melted snow to be visibly wet. “…Fell into a snowdrift.” She explained, vaguely, and his eyebrows went up.

“…Fell.” He repeated, a little sceptically, with an expression that said he doubted her story very much indeed.

“Fell.” She agreed, and stared at him evenly, as if daring him to point out the flaws in that statement.

He cleared his throat, shrugged, and looked away. “Well, okay then.” He accepted, though he was clearly unconvinced, and leaned over to look at the bubbling pot. “Mind if I draw, now that you’re back?” he said, after a moment. “Didn’t want to leave the pot unwatched.” A very sensible sentiment, and one she’d apparently successfully drummed into his head when she inducted him into the noble art of travel-cooking.

She tilted her head. “What about Ezran? Why couldn’t he watch?” She asked, and looked over at the boy in question. She blinked, promptly guessing the answer to her own query.

“He’s talking to his dragon.” Callum explained, unnecessarily, since she was perfectly able to see the way he was cradling the egg close, eyes completely shut as he leaned into his brother’s side.

“I can still hear you, though, it’s not like I’m asleep.” Ez muttered, a second later. “And he’s not my dragon. He’s his own dragon.”

“He’s more yours than he’s anyone else’s, though. Except his mum’s.” Rayla pointed out, after a pause for thought. “You’ve got to be his best friend, right? Can’t imagine he’s done much talking with anyone else through the eggshell.”

A smile flickered onto the young prince’s face. “…Yeah, well. I guess that’s true.”

She leaned back, idly curious. “What’s he saying? Anything interesting?”

He stuck out his tongue. “Best friend stuff.” He said, loftily, and did not elaborate.

Rayla snorted at him, but didn’t press. It would be quite hypocritical of her to do so, given she’d intentionally avoided sitting close to him to prevent him getting wind of her current emotional climate. Then, to Callum, she said “Draw away. I’ll handle the pot.”

He smiled at her, open and grateful in that earnest way of his, and reached for his sketchbook. “Thanks.” He said, opening it on his lap. Rayla turned to the pot, and tried to ignore the way her gut had flip-flopped on her when he smiled.

It occurred to her that the next weeks to however-long of this journey were going to be kind of insufferable, now. Now that she’d noticed what her stupid emotions were doing, it was going to be very hard to un-notice. If not impossible.

Still. Rayla was quite good at ignoring things when she put her mind to it. She’d manage.

She saw the flipping of paper out of the corner of her eye as she squashed more snow into the pot with the tip of a blade, heard Callum leafing through his sketchbook, and then eventually the soft scratch of charcoal. It wasn’t until several moments later that she glanced over, and blinked to see what he was drawing. Ezran, she saw, was looking too, eyes fixed on the page with a strange solemnity.

Rayla turned more fully to inspect the page, fingers clenching reflexively. “…Still on your mind?” She asked, a little too lightly, as she looked at the charcoal representation of her own hand. He’d said that, hadn’t he, when she first saw the drawing? That it had been on his mind?

It was strange to look at it – a depiction from days ago. Bereft of the cuff of exposed flesh, bereft of bandages, bereft even of the blister on her last finger. He’d been troubled enough then to draw this, even before things got worse.

His eyes flicked up to her, looking a little uncomfortable. “…Well, yeah, kinda.” He said, shrugging awkwardly, and kept on at the shading. “But also…I just don’t really like to leave drawings unfinished, in this book.” He paused, for a second, charcoal hovering over the page, and admitted “…It’s a bit less depressing to work on, now that your hand is probably going to be okay. Hopefully.”

She tilted her head, a strange pensive mood settling over her, and her eyes flickered to her hand. She didn’t have any delusions that she’d escape the binding unscathed. Being bound as long as she’d been bound – however long she would end up being bound – was sure to leave marks deeper than the inevitable scars on her wrist. But…she’d be able to keep the hand, now. Unless something went horribly wrong. “Hopefully.” She echoed him, and flexed the dark fingers. They ached and cramped at the movement, as always, and the now-healing sores were really starting to itch. Absently, she scratched carefully around the edges of the wrist-bandages. “Are you doing to draw the bandages?” She asked, as she looked down at them.

He huffed, not quite amused, but…appreciating the dark humour of the situation, maybe. “I guess the drawing is a little out of date, huh.” He remarked, looking down at the binding represented on the page, with a tightness around his eyes that implied the sight troubled him. She wondered what it was he saw, to make him stare at it like that. A reminder of how close it had been? A reminder of when she’d stood there and tried to make him give up hope as she had? In the end, what he said was “No, I think I’ll leave it like this – it’ll just be your hand, a couple days ago. Before…today happened.” He made a face, and all over again, Rayla was reminded of the sheer length of the day.

Had it really been just a handful of hours ago, that everything changed?

Ezran looked between them, quiet, hands settled on the smooth surface of the egg. “I think it’s good, to have that drawing in your book.” He said, after a moment. “It’s…a reminder. Not a happy one. But it is happy, in a way, because when you started drawing that, you thought you were gonna have to cut her hand off.” Callum winced at that, and Rayla knew his brother’s words had hit uncomfortably hard. “But that’s not what happened, and now…” he looked up at Rayla. “Now, you get to keep your hand. So that picture is like – a reminder of how much better things can turn out than you expect them to.” He nodded, clearly satisfied with having said his piece, and made no move to keep on speaking after that.

A moment lingered among them in pensive silence, with the crackle of the fire and the drone of the wind rising up to fill it. Then Callum reached to the side, and gently ruffled his brother’s hair. “You’re a wise kid, Ez.” He said, with quiet pride, and rested a hand briefly on his shoulder. “You sound a lot like dad when you say stuff like that.”

Rayla’s hand clenched, in a startled sort of reflex, in time with her gut.

Ezran sounded pleased, at least. “Thanks, Callum.” A pause. “You called him ‘dad’, that time.”

Callum blinked, startled, and raised a hand to his neck. “I did? Huh. I guess…” he shrugged. “I guess what you said before is sinking in.”

“What, that you should call him ‘dad’?”

“Yeah. And that he’d want me to.” Callum smiled, a quick hesitant thing. The sight of it in her periphery was like a physical blow.

“He would.” Ez said, entirely certain. “So next time you see him, you call him that. Okay?”

Callum laughed, softly, heartbreakingly warm. “I’ll keep that in mind, Ez. Thanks.” He said, and returned to drawing.

All the while, Rayla breathed, doing what she could to keep her conflict from her face, even as grief stabbed her like a knife through the heart. Not grief for the King she’d never known, but for the sons who’d have to mourn him. And then there was the guilt – because she still hadn’t told them.

After everything, after all this time…she still hadn’t told them.

She was silently glad that she hadn’t sat too close to Ezran.

The spent the rest of the late-afternoon in relative quiet, with Ez apparently communing with the egg, Callum drawing some picture or other, and Rayla slowly making her way through both the snow pile and her surplus of unpleasant feelings.

When she’d filled the waterskins and boiled the bandages clean, she considered the pot, and then took the latest batch of water away before it had finished boiling to wash up quickly behind some trees. She took the opportunity, out of sight or hearing of the boys, to wash her face and gasp and sob a little with the panic and pre-emptive grief of what she needed to find a way to tell them. She breathed, eyes closed, as the water grew icy at her fingertips, and didn’t return to the camp until she’d regained her composure.

She returned without explaining where she’d gone, and poured the water out. All wordlessly, she melted some more snow and brought it to heat, but not to boil.

“If either of you want to wash up, there’s this pot of water.” She told them, breaking the comfortable quiet that had been prevailing, and they both looked up.

“Wash up?” Callum asked, doubtfully, eyeing the pot. It was not, in fairness, very large.

“That’s about the best you get when you’re in the mountains.” She informed him, grateful that her voice sounded normal now. “Unless you feel like breaking the ice off a river to take a wee dip.”

He shivered at the mere thought, and set his sketchbook aside. “…Yeah, fair point.” He looked questioningly at his brother. “Ez? You want to take the pot, or are you good for now?”

Ezran considered it, then sniffed under his arms thoughtfully. “I smell okay, I think. I don’t get smelly like you do.” Rayla snorted, reluctantly amused despite everything, and reached out to drape a wash-cloth over the side of the pot.

“Flattering.” Callum told him, lips quirking. “Just you wait till puberty catches up with you, bud. Then you’ll stink too.” Still, he hefted the pot, stood, and went off into the trees with it.

By the time he returned, having evidently spilled water all over his clothes in the process of trying to wash his hair, Rayla was beyond ready to call the day done. “Good, you’re back.” She sighed, standing. “I think we need to be getting to sleep now. It’s been a…” She paused, to add a great deal of feeling to the words: “…a very, very long day.”

Callum blinked, and looked at the sky. The sun hadn’t set yet, though it was getting there, but he didn’t seem to find this any grounds for objection. “…I could really use an early night, yeah.” He said, ruefully, and knelt to start packing his things up.

With all three of them helping, it didn’t take long to get everything nicely stowed-away in their bags. Rayla piled gravel into the fire, not especially wanting to leave it burning directly beside trees while they slept, and then hefted three bags over her shoulders to take them into the tent, the two human princes trailing behind her.

As was usual, they fell asleep before she did. Even with how exhausting the day had been, it took Rayla a little longer. She thought of the King whose death she still held secret, words seemingly locked behind her teeth. She looked at Callum, gut twisting at the new knowledge the day had wrought, and the lingering certainty that she’d hurt him terribly, whenever she finally found a way to tell him about his father.

In the end, too exhausted for even those dark thoughts to keep her awake, Rayla drifted off, holding her bound hand as if to echo the warmth it remembered.

 ---

 Corvus had never been to Verdorn before, and despite the trajectory of the trail, had not particularly expected to change that in the near future. He was, to his knowledge, in pursuit of an elf with human prisoners. Whyever would an elf assassin risk intersection with a human settlement? It wasn’t as though Verdorn were especially significant in tactical terms – it was just another mining town, after all – so he doubted there were any obvious objectives to be served in approaching it.

And yet, the trail was very clear.

He observed the footprints of the elf veer off for a while, finding a road before returning, and then apparently directing the entire group to travel along the same route. A route that led, unerringly, to Verdorn.

That could be a problem. Verdorn was a paved town, and he’d certainly lose the trail there. At best he could make a loop of the town’s periphery and hope to pick out a likely grouping of footprints leaving it.

…Then again, if they’d passed through the town in daylight, there would be witnesses. Verdorn was small enough that it would notice strangers.

Corvus considered the sight of the town, picturesque in the shadows of mountains, and headed towards it with a sigh, mind whirling as he walked. Would an elf carry money? Could she be looking to provision for the journey through the mountains that her course implied? Was she not concerned that her hostages might call for help if she brought them to civilisation? Had they called for help, perhaps?

Well. Only one way to find out.

He followed the road into town, and quickly noticed how strangely quiet the streets were. The memorial flames were still lit along the thoroughfare, but there was no one around. But…if he listened carefully, he thought he could hear a distant clamour of many voices. He narrowed his eyes, and followed it, picking his way along the roads to what seemed like the centre of town. The centre of town where, apparently, a good number of people had gathered in a very noisy fashion.

He arrived at a crowded town square, where a large crowd was gathered in front of what seemed to be the town hall, shouting at an official-looking person who was trying to make proclamations.

“-might I remind you that the decision of the town council to approve the reduction of a guard was unanimous?” Called the official, in vain, over the protests of the crowd. “And, I might add, it’s not as though a town guard would have made much difference in the – incident-“

“Don’t you call it an ‘incident’ like that, they nearly died!” Someone shouted, absolutely outraged, to a chorus of angry cheers.

Another bold voice rang out. “How are we meant to sleep at night when elves could come through the streets murdering us all?” They demanded, and Corvus straightened with interest at the edge of the crowd. “We’re not safe!”

The probable-mayor tried again: “There’s absolutely no indication that this elf was more than a lone agent-“

“But what if there’s more?” A particularly outspoken man near the front shouted, shaking a pickaxe in the air. “How are we meant to protect our homes?”

“…We’ll implement a curfew, and an increased watch, until we’re sure the threat has passed.”

“And the other people who live up the river? Or on the outskirts?” One of the first speakers prodded, unimpressed. “What happens to them?”

“…They’ll simply have to be more careful. Or else they can take shelter in the town hall for a while…”

He listened for a few more minutes, intent and focused, and then politely started navigating his way through the masses to the front. He received a few grumbles and dirty looks in the process, but eventually broke his way through the highly spirited mob and to the front, whereupon all eyes fell on him. His nerves threatened to trouble him at the sudden attention – he was a tracker, he wasn’t exactly accustomed to operating under mass scrutiny – but he clamped down on the response, took a breath, and spoke clearly.

“Greetings.” He said, looking from the suddenly-wary crowd to the bemused mayor. “My name is Corvus. I’m a tracker with the Standing Battalion. I’m pursuing an elf who I suspect has passed through here. Forgive me for the interruption, but it seems some of you might have information for me.”

There was a brief hush, during which the mayor slumped with palpable relief, the words ‘Standing Battalion’ rustled through the crowd like the wind in a forest’s leaves, and he began to hear the General’s name from one or two corners.

Then, the mayor spoke, hurrying forwards a few chests to offer a formal salute. “We’re delighted to have you – Corvus, was it?” The man said, as Corvus nodded politely back. He turned back to the crowd. “We’ll discuss town security this evening in the hall. Concerned citizens may send one representative per family. Until then – we’d best help the General’s man with his search.” Corvus watched the response of the crowd – there was some grumbling, but it seemed his entrance had largely diffused the worst of its tempers. The mayor noticed this, and went on more confidently. “Melana? Meldrin?” he called, eyes fixed near one edge of the group. “You two come here, since you saw the outsiders. Everyone else…well, do what you like.”

The edges of the crowd started to disperse a little, and a duo of dark-haired people came forwards. They looked quite similar – he thought they must be siblings, or cousins at the very least. The Mayor nodded to them, and then led them all through the doors of the town hall for – he assumed – a little privacy. He found them a bench and sat down, sighing wearily.

“One elf passes through and the whole town goes mad.” The man grumbled, and shook his head. “I didn’t introduce myself – I’m Dallin. These are Melana and Meldrin – they met with the strangers yesterday.”

“Only for a couple of minutes.” The man, Meldrin, protested.

“I’m not convinced they’re the same strangers, anyway.” The woman added, arms crossed.

Corvus looked between them, a little awkward, but more than focused enough to bypass that. “May I ask – how many strangers did you meet?”

“Three.” Melana answered, succinctly. “A girl and two boys, one quite young. They were all kids, anyway.”

He nodded, heart beating a little shallowly in his throat. “…I’ve been tracking a group of three. One elf, female, and two humans.” He said. “From what I heard out there, it seems like someone had a violent encounter with the elf?”

The mayor nodded. “This morning.” He agreed. “A pair of local hunters stumbled across a camp. There was a girl with her hood up, but one of them identified her as an elf by her hands. She attacked them. Knocked one out and restrained the other, and tied them both up.” He glanced to the side. “They got free a few hours later and hurried back here. From the descriptions they gave, the elf’s group is probably the one that passed through yesterday.”

Corvus listened closely, thoughts running all the while. To tie the hunters up and leave them alive – that was oddly merciful for a Moonshadow elf. They tended to dispose of their witnesses, rather than let them live to bring warning. “You spoke to them?” he asked the pair of siblings, instead of the dozens of other questions he could feel brimming behind his lips.

They nodded, a little jerkily. “They wanted directions.” Meldrin said, rubbing the back of his neck. “To, well. To a Healer.”

He blinked. “A Healer?” He asked, surprised, as the track of his thoughts abruptly halted. “Did they seem sick? Injured?”

“Not that I could see, in the couple of minutes they were there for.” Melana frowned a little. “Honestly, we weren’t talking to them that long, I don’t think we can tell you much. You’d be better off seeing if they went to talk with Farthing or Marla. Marla’s seeing to the hunters, actually, so if you wanted to talk to them, you’ll find them at hers.”

Corvus nodded, extracting locations and descriptions of both people before he returned to his questioning. He grilled the siblings on descriptions of the strangers, what they’d said, and anything else they might have noticed.

The humans were described as a dark-haired boy with green eyes and pale skin, and a younger boy with dark skin, dark hair, and blue eyes. He was allegedly carrying a weird yellow-and-blue animal that neither of them recognised.

Corvus had only seen it once, but he remembered the Prince’s glow-toad. He thought of the small animal tracks along the trail, and shivered with trepidation.

He thanked the mayor and siblings for their time, and took directions to the closest of the potential informants. He sat with the man named Farthing for ten minutes before politely excusing himself, receiving nothing useful from the encounter except a confirmation of the description and some sort of hint that they’d asked him about dark magic. He arrived a while later by what certainly seemed to be a house of healing, and knocked promptly on the door.

“Come in!” Called a voice from within, and he opened the door on a large room with two occupied beds and a middle-aged woman sat at a table with her mortar and pestle. He performed a quick, cursory assessment of the three visible people: the two men on the beds didn’t look especially injured, and were in fact sat up, and had probably been talking with one another before he interrupted. The woman was certainly the Healer, and she was appraising him more-or-less the same way he was her.

“I’m Corvus, of the Standing Battalion.” He introduced himself, after a moment, and bowed shallowly: respect for a professional, with no implication of fealty. “I spoke with the Mayor, and he directed me here. I’d like to speak to the three of you.” He closed the door behind him.

“Certainly.” The woman said, after a moment. “I’m Marla. I’m the Healer. These are Sedvan and Hadrian.” The men on the beds made a few murmuring noises of greeting, both clearly curious. “If you’re wanting to speak to all of us, I imagine you’re here about the strangers that passed through yesterday.”

“Yes, that’s right.” He nodded, and after a second, took the chair the woman had begun gesturing at expectantly. He cleared his throat. “I’ve been tracking an elf travelling in the company of two humans.” He settled on, eventually. “I’m told your patients here had an altercation with them. And that the group passed through town in search of healing.”

Marla inspected him for a moment. “You heard correctly.” She said, shooting a glance at the men, Sedvan and Hadrian. They seemed content to keep quiet and watch for now, and she continued. “I never saw the elf personally. The two boys were the only ones that came to see me, and we spoke for quite some time on a medical matter.” She fixed him with a level stare. “And – Corvus, was it? If you expect me to discuss the details of that meeting with you, I will need to see some sort of official documentation. I take my vows very seriously, and as you may know, confidentiality is included within their mandate.”

He hesitated.

Whatever had been discussed with this Healer could very well be important to know. His orders weren’t exactly confidential, but…they were potentially sensitive. He considered it for a few seconds, then bowed his head in acceptance. He reached into one of his many pockets and rifled through the papers until he found the official orders General Amaya had issued him with, unrolling the paper carefully and handing it across the table.

The Healer accepted the paper and read over it. Her eyebrows shot up, and she passed it back. “…Well then. I am at your service.” She said, and glanced over at her patients again. “We’ll have to go speak away from prying ears.”

Both men immediately protested. “Aw, come on, missus Healer.” Hadrian complained beseechingly. “That elf attacked us, didn’t she? We should get to hear about it.”

“I will not break patient confidentiality for the sake of your nosiness, master Hadrian.” She said severely, levelling a stern finger in his direction. Then she exhaled, and with what looked like visible effort, pushed herself up from the table to her feet. He watched with interest, marking the evident pain and difficulty that movement held for her. An old injury, perhaps? Or, more likely, some sort of chronic condition. “With me, if you please.” She said to Corvus, and hobbled her way towards the door at the back of the room.

He rose and followed her through to what seemed to be personal living quarters, including a small kitchen and table-and-chairs set of its own. She collapsed at this with evident relief, and motioned him to sit opposite her.

“Mind, we’ll have to keep our voices low, or those insufferable sods will certainly eavesdrop.” She said, shaking her head. “But this is about as secure as the conversation can get. Now, what did you want to know?”

He considered his answer for a moment. “Descriptions and impressions of the boys who spoke to you. Any details or identifying information you could offer. And what they were here to speak to you about.”

She made a pensive noise. “Well, at the very least, they were unusual enough that I ought to remember the whole thing well enough.” She said, and held quiet for several seconds, plainly arranging her thoughts. “The boys were of different ages. The elder had brown hair, smooth, and pale skin. Green eyes. I’d estimate him around fifteen years, possibly a year or two younger. The younger was darker-skinned, with remarkable pale blue eyes. Dark hair as well, but big and puffy. Same hair type as your own, in fact, though certainly not styled the same. I’d estimate him as no older than eleven years, perhaps.”

Corvus breathed carefully, pulse anxious in his throat. It all matched. “Anything else?” He asked, trying not to betray his nerves. “Did they introduce themselves, or give away any personal information?”

Marla shot him a narrow-eyed look that suggested she very well saw his concern. “They didn’t introduce themselves, and I chose not to press them on it. I gathered from speaking to them that they had no money and no adults to care for them, and that they had only come to Verdorn for the sake of looking for a Healer.” She paused. “I assumed them to be brothers from the way they behaved, and when I said so, they didn’t correct me. Whether or not that was true, though, is anyone’s guess.” She thought for a second. “The elder boy did call the younger by something once, though. Some sort of nickname? Something like Ed. Or Ess. Along those lines.”

He inhaled, sharply, fists clenching in his lap. “…Anything else?” he pressed, a little stiffly. “Were they wearing any identifying marks? Anything unusual?”

“They wore quite fine clothing. High-quality, with good dyes.” She said thoughtfully. “It was a little dusty, perhaps, but noticeable. The younger boy carried a bag with the Towers on it. The elder boy was wearing a large book on a strap – he took notes in it, at one point. I saw glimpses of drawings inside it, I think.”

He could feel his fingers trembling a little. “Right.” He said, a little hoarsely. The woman stared at him.

After a few seconds, exasperated, she said “Look, master Corvus, I’m no fool. It’s obvious you know something more than you’re telling me. If you would dispense with the secrecy and tell me what you’re looking for, I’m sure I could be of considerably greater help to you.”

Corvus breathed, and considered it. Eventually he said “This is a matter of great sensitivity, you understand.”

“I’m a Healer, boy.” She told him, unimpressed. “If I don’t have confidentiality carved into my bones by now, then we might as well burn the Guild down as worthless.”

“I understand.” He said, a little grimly, and took a deep breath. “You saw from the official orders that the elf I’m pursuing was one of the assassins to attack the capital. But this one in particular was seen pursuing Prince Callum, at the last known sighting of him. She was later spotted at a location where the Princes were expected to arrive. When they failed to appear, it was assumed that she’d killed them.”

The woman listened, and then sat back, heavily. “You’re pursuing the one who killed the Princes.” She said, voice thick with the weight of a nation’s grief. And then she paused. “…You’re pursuing an elf thought to have killed the Princes,” She said, in a new tone, eyes widening, as her evidently-sharp mind raced ahead to some salient conclusions. “An elf and – and two humans, boys who – oh, bloody Mercy!”

He nodded at the shock dawning on her features, a little relieved at her response, as well as how quickly she’d caught on. She well understood the gravity of it, then. “I’ve been hesitant to confirm the elf’s human entourage as the Princes until now. It’s no small thing to say, that the heirs of Katolis might be alive.” He said, grave, and leaned forwards with his elbows on the table. “But – your description matches. It matches in every way. At this point I feel it’s likelier than not for-“

“-for the boys to be princes, rather than random vagrant children, yes.” She interrupted, waving his words away, expression dazed. “Fortitude follow me. Lord and Lady, if it’s true….” She shook her head.

“Healer, you must understand my caution now.” He said to her, and she nodded a little dazedly. “And you understand why I need to know everything you can tell me. Anything could be critical.”

She rubbed at her eyes, set in a face that had gone rather pale. “Of course.” She said, automatically, not-quite-attentive. Her shock was quite understandable, all things considered.

He eyed her. “What are your thoughts?” he asked, after a moment, because she was clearly having them. At the question, her eyes snapped up to meet his again, alertness returning to her bearing.

“My thoughts are that I really wish I’d insisted on meeting their ‘friend’.” She answered, and when he eyed her expectantly, she sighed and took a second to arrange a sentence. Then, in a measured tone, she said “The boys didn’t come to me for themselves, you see. They came to get advice for a friend of theirs. Female, travelling with them. A friend with, purportedly, a dark magic binding tightening on her wrist.”

Corvus straightened, astonished. “A – did you say a dark magic binding?”

She regarded him. “Not something you were aware of, then? But yes, that’s the sum of it. The boys said she’d had a spell cast on her, with the result of an unbreakable bind around one wrist that is tightening to the point of severe permanent damage. They came to ask for help on how to deal with the symptoms, or the pain.” She opened her mouth to continue, but he held up a finger to stall her, a little overwhelmed.

“Dark magic,” he repeated, brow heavily furrowed. The only known dark mages in Katolis proper were Lord Viren and his daughter, and they – if there had been any report of them encountering the assassin and putting a spell on her, surely he’d have heard?

So…what did it mean? What could it mean?

He was following the trail of three people, one of whom was certainly the elf spotted at the Banther Lodge. The other two were now confirmed with reasonable certainty as the Princes. In all likelihood, there was no way the Princes would be soliciting medical advice for someone new and unknown. It had to be the elf. So, if the elf had a dark magic binding on her wrist, and there were only two dark mages who could have done it, and they hadn’t said anything – what did that mean?

Lord Viren isn’t telling us everything, he thought to himself, grimly, and knew he had to put it in his report. If the Lord Protector was withholding potentially critical information…well, it wasn’t a good sign. He’d been with the Standing Battalion for long enough to pick up the gist of the General’s opinion on the man, so it probably wouldn’t surprise her to hear that there were ulterior motives at work here.

He exhaled, shook his head, and returned to the matter at hand, with a quick apology for his lengthy silence. “My apologies. You’ve given me a lot to think about. Please, tell me everything you discussed with them.”

The Healer eyed him for a few seconds, but obligingly related the boys’ descriptions of their ‘friend’s’ issues, as well as the advice she’d given them, and the medication. He noted with interest the fact that the younger brother – Prince Ezran, for Mercy’s sake – had elected to leave when the discussion became especially grisly, and the Healer’s estimates on the time remaining for the elf’s hand.

“So she’s essentially working one-handed now, I imagine.” He concluded, when she was done, and nodded briskly to himself. From the reports from the Lodge, this elf was a dual-wielder. Her hand’s condition represented a very exploitable weakness – something to aim for, even. And if she was taking the lilium, even better: it would dull her reaction time considerably.

It was valuable intelligence, to be sure. He exhaled, and then opened his mouth to question the healer on a topic he knew he must. “Healer Marla,” he said, slowly, seriously enough that the woman straightened a little to listen. “Would you say it seemed like the boys were being coerced to speak with you?”

She blinked, a little startled, and thought. “Well…no.” She answered, just as slowly. “No, I wouldn’t say so. They seemed worried, more than anything else. Genuinely so. The elder boy was obviously distressed, when I gave him directives on performing a field-amputation.”

His brow furrowed. “And it couldn’t have been distress motivated by fear?”

She looked at him archly. “Certainly it was motivated by fear, but I don’t think it was fear of his companion, if that’s what you’re implying.” She said, a touch impatiently. “Look, master Corvus, I understand no more than you how a prince comes to have care for an elf that killed his father, but it obviously exists. Or rather, I do understand, and so should you, and if you ignore it you’ll have more than the elf to deal with.”

Corvus sighed, a little wearily. He supposed it made sense that a Healer would know of the concept. “You think they have captives’ accord.”

“Don’t you?” She retorted, folding her arms. “Admittedly, you know more of the situation than I do, but if the friend they referred to really is one of the elves that attacked their castle…” She shook her head.

“I’m trying not to jump to conclusions here, Healer.” He said, rubbing at his temples, and considered for a moment whether it was entirely safe to speak his thoughts with her further. Getting information was one thing, but he barely knew the woman, and Healer or not – this was sensitive information. But, he supposed, his thoughts were hardly more potentially damaging than what she already knew. He sighed.

From what he’d seen of the campsites, the Princes had relatively free reign of them. Given the information about the elf’s hand, it had gone from likely to certain that the elf was having them perform tasks around the camp, but…

“Can you think of a genuine reason why the Princes might genuinely have built a friendship with this elf, rather than a mockery of it born in captivity?” He asked her, eventually, because he was having a hard time finding an answer with only his own thoughts to lean on.

It was well-known among soldiers – and apparently Healers – that captives held for long periods might form a rapport with their captors, forming affections and loyalties even under threat and duress. There were known incidents of captive soldiers even defending their captors, when the rescue parties came, and those were trained fighters – adults who had been part of vested military action against the people that captured them. The princes were only boys – how much more vulnerable would they be to this sort of play on their sympathies?

It was the obvious explanation for the worry the Healer had observed in the boys. But obvious answers weren’t always the correct ones, and it was his duty to think of everything that could have an impact on his mission.

The Healer’s mouth opened, then closed. After a considerable pause, she said “I think that no friendship born in captivity can be genuine, so, I suppose….” She stopped again, brow heavily furrowed, and voice pensive. “I suppose, what you should rather ask…is whether you’re certain the princes are captives.”

He blinked, nonplussed, and she continued into his silence.

“If they are captives, then obviously they have captives’ accord, and that’s that. If they’re not, then it could be genuine friendship.” She shrugged. “Personally, I think that latter option is about as likely as Mayor Dallin sprouting wings and moving to Xadia, but you’ll know better than I do.”

Corvus tried to speak, but then stopped short, utterly flummoxed. He frowned past his growing headache, and did his best to think. He had to consider every option. He had to assess every risk. Was it reasonable, or even plausible, to assume that the Princes could be genuine friends with an elf?

His gut response was no, absolutely not. His next three thoughts were also no, absolutely not. And when he forced himself to think about it further, it didn’t seem any likelier then, either.

The elf was part of a team that had assassinated the King, and that was incontrovertible fact. The Princes – Callum, at the very least – had been aware of the threat of the assassination, and that it was the reason behind their relocation. Under those circumstances, could he imagine any situation in which they willingly agreed to traipse across the Kingdom in the company of an elf assassin?

…No. No he couldn’t. Nothing genuine and uncoerced, in any case. Plausibly, they might agree to go with the elf if she’d held some threat over them – the Kingdom’s safety, or their own safety, for example – in which case it could not be called ‘willing’. Perhaps she’d lied to them, conjuring some story that led them to follow her to Xadia, and that could not be called ‘willing’ either.

In the end, no matter how he tried, he couldn’t fathom any good, genuine reason for two Princes of Katolis to flee in secrecy with an assassin of Xadia. If it were anything legitimate, he’d expect them to entreat the aid of General Amaya, or at the very least send some word of their safety. In no world could he imagine their willingly allowing the Kingdom and their only remaining family to think them dead. It was inconceivable.

He sighed. “Captive’s accord, then.” He conceded, wearily, and closed his eyes. What a mess, he thought, and tried to muster his resolve.

So, now he was on the trail of an elf and two princes who thought she was their friend. Whether they’d been lied to, or simply developed an accord with her despite the circumstances of an ‘honest’ captivity, this could be…difficult.

They might not be receptive to rescue attempts. They might try to escape him, rather than her, if he gave them the opportunity to flee. They might, if things were sufficiently bad, even try to defend the elf – and while they might only be boys, and he doubted an elf would let Prince Callum arm himself, that was still a complication he certainly dreaded the thought of.

So, what should he do? Attack in stealth, to capture the elf and bring her to General Amaya to have the truth discerned? Try to talk to the party of three, and risk their escaping him?

Attack, and the Princes might easily think him an enemy, even if their rapport with the elf wasn’t too advanced. They might interfere. Might work against him. Unite against a common enemy, and deepen their false camaraderie in so doing.

Try to talk to them peacefully, and they might refuse, and then he’d have sacrificed the element of surprise. And if the elf’s orders didn’t necessarily require delivery of the princes to Xadia alive…

He stilled at the thought, ice settling into his veins.

He preferred diplomatic resolutions where they could be found. Peaceful options. But, as he thought through the potential consequences of open diplomacy here, with an elf that had his Princes at her mercy…No, it was nice to think of non-violent approaches to conflict resolution, but he absolutely couldn’t risk what might go wrong.

Hostages were more valuable alive, so the elf likely wouldn’t slay them unless pressed…but taking hostages was in itself a statement of willingness to harm them, and he didn’t know what the elf’s orders were. For all he knew, she might consider Prince Callum expendable, what with Prince Ezran the heir to the Kingdom – if he approached under peaceful terms, she’d certainly be close enough to the boys and have enough warning to cause irreparable harm.

For a moment, Corvus imagined reporting such a thing to General Amaya. His blood ran cold at the mere inkling of the thought.

He opened his eyes, decision made. He’d have to ambush the elf, and keep her away from the Princes at all costs. Ideally, he’d capture her alive, and figure out the truth of the situation from there onwards. He always preferred the merciful option where it was available. But, in the end…

In the end, this elf was leading his Princes through harsh terrain towards enemy territory, having attacked multiple citizens of the Kingdom and participated in an assassination of its monarch…and that was not a situation that invited leniency. If he had to kill her to ensure the Princes’ safety, then so be it.

He pushed himself back from the table. “You’ve been a considerable help, Healer.” He said to her, and bowed with all due formality. “Thank you for your information.”

She regarded him evenly. “You’ve come to a decision.” She noted.

“Yes.”

“I won’t ask you for details. I suspect you’ve already told me more than is wise.” She rose, carefully and with obvious effort, to her feet. “Instead, I’ll only wish you luck. I assume you’ll want to interrogate masters Sedvan and Hadrian?” He nodded curtly, and she led him back across the room to the door, unlatching it and opening it with unusual haste. She poked her head through and said, in a louder voice than the low tones they’d been conversing in, “I’m pleased but admittedly surprised to see you both where you ought to be, you young devils. I’d half expected to find you with your ears pressed against the door.”

Corvus followed the Healer, allowing some reluctant amusement to lift him from his dour thoughts, and watched one of the men in the beds clutch at his chest as though mortally wounded. “I am shocked, shocked, at your insinuations, Healer.” He pronounced, with great dignity. “To even suggest that we would eavesdrop on official business of the Standing Battalion-“

“And I’m sure the still-circulating news of a certain unnamed elder’s embarrassing rash had nothing to do with your remarkably coincidental presence outside my door two weeks ago, is that it?” The Healer inquired, eyebrow raised, as she passed into the room and promptly reclaimed her seat at the room’s table.

Solemnly, the man pronounced “Just so, Healer.”

“I’m sure. And if you’re so well-behaved, you can sit and answer master Corvus’ questions for him before he leaves.”

More than capable of taking a cue, Corvus slipped through the doorway and went to occupy the seat at the nearest bedside, already compiling questions in his mind. “I’m told you encountered the elf’s group this morning?” he opened with, and watched both men nod.

“It was early.” The first man, Sedvan, began. “We’d not had much luck on the hunt yet, just bagged a couple of pigeons, but then we smelled wood-smoke nearby….”

Question by question, Corvus drew the entire story out of the two young hunters, and then pressed on to extricate every detail he could about the physical states of the assailants, their behaviour, the minutiae of their interactions…

In the end, the men’s descriptions of the human boys, again, matched the others perfectly, and were a dead fit for the Princes. Even more damningly, the elf had outright referred to the elder boy as ‘Callum’. The elf had apparently enlisted his help in tying up the hunters, ordering him around and muttering disparaging things about humans. She’d evidently been in good enough physical condition to defeat the hunters with ease, but had not used any weapons, and evidently wasn’t completely up for fine motor tasks involving both hands.

Prince Ezran – because there was little use denying that these were the Princes, now – had emerged from the tent sometime after Sedvan had been tied up and Hadrian was starting to recover from the blow to his nape. The men admitted to being a little too panicked to pick up on fine detail, but to their memory, both humans had seemed healthy enough, and they certainly had not been restrained.

Corvus retrieved directions to the elf’s campsite from the men, and then had exhausted everything of use they had to offer. “Thank you for your help.” He said to them, and rose at last to leave.

He nodded to the Healer, who had been probably the most incisive and helpful witness he’d ever had the fortune of interrogating. She nodded back, and said “Fortune follow you, and Prudence guide your feet.”

He accepted the blessings with a grave bow, bade her farewell, and closed the door behind him. The first thing he saw, out of the corner of his eye, was the familiar roof of the House of Paragons, so very close by. Perhaps it was just the Healer’s words, putting them in mind, but he hesitated at the sight of it.

He had a long way to go, and an urgent mission.

…but the House was right in front of him. And he needn’t linger. Just…stop by, and perhaps take some of the virtue the House enshrined along with him when he left. Corvus warred with himself, but only for a span of seconds. Mindful of every delay, he slipped across the bare distance separating him from the House’s door, and pushed it open.

The interior was dark and candle-lit, like nearly every House he’d stepped within. Its hall was not large, which he should have expected from the exterior – but it was still startlingly small, in contrast to what he’d grown used to in the large cities he’d been passing through for years. At the end of the room was the usual raised podium where a priest might stand, though for now there seemed to be no priest in residence. He glanced at the statues lining the walls, each with their little altar and brazier of flame, and saw only the greater six – none of the smaller Paragons – and the statues themselves were barely nine feet tall, hewn from the mountain’s native granite. But that was well enough. He passed by the statues of Justice and Valor and fell, after a second of consideration, at the feet of Prudence.

The statues here were rougher, with less detail than you might see in the Houses of larger settlements, but he could recognise Prudence well enough. There was the mirror in her hand, the snake around her opposite wrist, and that same look of thoughtful severity in her carved features as they stared down at him. He had no candle to light for her, but nonetheless, he could feel her eyes upon him as he closed his own.

Let the decisions I make be the right ones. He prayed to her, with a touch of desperation. Let them not be mistakes that lead the kingdom to ruin.

He’d tried. He’d tried to think of the best thing to do, to reason, to truly think as clearly and objectively as he could about the situation he was faced with…and if there was a better option, he couldn’t see it. The Lady Prudence valued caution, and reason, and applying the fullest extent of one’s insight into the choices one made. He prayed that he’d done enough.

There was a lot that he did not know. But, in the end, there was little that he could do except draw from the information he did have. The pressure of the situation was immense, and he doubted very much that he would hear anything from the General before he had to act. He was on his own.

He exhaled, head still lowered to Prudence, and then slowly rose up. Receded, with all due respect, from her effigy, and then passed quietly from the hall.

Corvus looked around, to get his bearings, and then set himself half-running out of town up to the river his quarry had strayed so close to. He had to find the willows, and then – then, finding the trail would be simple. He was mere hours behind them, now. If he hurried…or, even, if he didn’t hurry…he’d catch up to them. Soon. It would more than likely be the middle of the night by the time he caught up, but…that was alright. That was more than worth it, to finally find his quarry.

He drew deep breaths to quench the worry beating in his heart, and moved on.

However this ended, it would end tonight.

 ---

End chapter.

 Notes:

Thanks to Neceros for pre-reading and offering feedback for the last couple chapters while my usual editor has been busy. Thanks to everyone who commented, bookmarked, or left kudos – or on tumblr liked/reblogged - it’s nice to see my effort project getting more attention.

Chapter 13 is near complete. I would expect it to be posted on Friday or Saturday this week – the 6th or 7th of December.

 On Rayllum:

1 Here we see the difference in self-awareness levels (and possibly also the denial levels) between Callum and Rayla. Because Callum is like “hm I wonder why I’m feeling all blushy and awkward about this? Nope, can’t think of anything, welp, guess I’m just weird” whereas Rayla takes one look at her feelings and is like “oh fuck.” 2 just because this is a slow burn doesn’t mean it’s going to take the feelings a long time to happen. Just means…well, that they’re going to take their sweet time getting their shit together. That said, Rayla did surprise me a little by figuring things out this early. 3 welcome to Ezran being a shipper-on-deck. If you look closely, you can see the precise moment he’s like oh, and also the precise moment he decides to stir shit.  

Unreliable narrators:

Most people will unconsciously run with assumptions that they made or that were prompted by subtle word choices a very long way. Marla, in this chapter, is entirely unaware that the boys themselves never actually mentioned that it was dark magic; she simply assumed, and then failed to encounter any information that would make her question it. Corvus, similarly, would have no reason to think that the binding would be anything other than dark magic – after all, it would make absolutely no sense for the elves to disable themselves, would it? Even Viren, who is aware of Moonshadow assassin philosophies, doesn’t seem to canonically know anything about Runaan’s binding, so I sincerely doubt Corvus would know anything Viren doesn’t. As such, Marla’s unwitting misinformation has led him to some interesting conclusions.

Similarly, Corvus has done some very serious and rational thinking about the boys’ situation with Rayla, and without the knowledge of the egg, has absolutely no reason to come to an optimistic view of the whole affair. Even Claudia in canon, who knows about the egg and saw Callum and Ezran help Rayla, assumes that the boys were kidnapped or coerced. Given he’s working with much less information than her, Corvus’ conclusions aren’t surprising.

It’s quite fun to play through the thought processes and reasoning of characters working with incomplete information.

Psychology note: In this chapter, Corvus and Marla talk about something called ‘captives’ accord’, which is what we would call ‘Stockholm Syndrome’.

Worldbuilding note: We see the Healer Marla again in this chapter, with further reference to the Guild and her vows. I’ll do more in-depth worldbuilding on this most likely in the notes of chapter 14 or 15, but briefly put: Healers, with the capital ‘h’, are trained and graduated from the Guild of Mercy in Duren. They are the most highly respected medical professionals in the Pentarchy, and take binding vows to Mercy before they are allowed to graduate. Other types of medical professional, called healers, doctors, and medics, exist in the Pentarchy in far greater numbers.

[creative-aj]

TALES

OF

LILLYCO

                                                                                          Made for fun because I have been thinking of this for ages.

            PROLOGUE

Kari Anyu was living a normal life at home, she thought it was perfectly ordinary that her father was the chief of police, and her mother was the mayor of the town of LillyCo. But her friends and acquaintances at school all respected her, she understood, but it was kind of annoying how she always heard what she wanted to hear. She wanted some constructive criticism, not a bunch of requests that chicken wing flavored slushies should be legal. 

She thought of that and asked herself; 

“who the frick would drink something like that?” the other kids in her high school were all very weird, and her gym teacher was a furball of torture. 

She thought back to the time they were at basketball practice, and a student accidentally kicked her in the face with the ball so hard that she fell onto the pavement with a nosebleed and head injury. She was still told to lift weights while her wristbands were tied so tight that her paws were purple. That stuff was normal around here.

First, I will tell you about this said place and how it started.

There were 10 tribes all living together, but the most powerful leader of the light tribe, Amai Shan, decided that they should be split up because the tribes often quarreled a lot. Then, the leader of the dark tribe, Nightblade Kaii, disagreed. Saying that nobody should care about violence because it happens every day. This angered Amai, who everyone else agreed with, she made an announcement, and with a raise of her staff, the tribes were split up into different realms created by magic. The cave realm, the earth realm, the glitch realm, the ice realm, the aqua realm, the flame realm, the galaxy realm, the universe realm, the underground realm, the sky realm, and finally, the overworld. That last realm was empty, Amai, before retreating to her realm, brought in intelligent abnormal creatures, nekos, anthros, kitsune, cryptids, Lycans, paranormalities, and humanlike things with odd abilities. Others moved in, giving the place a name, LillyCo. They then elected a mayor, who made rules to follow. Soon, citizens were getting jobs and education, until there was a disagreement between humans and abnormalities, which created a battle lasting up until this very day. They still dislike each other, but prefer living their own lives….

….for now.

TALES 

OF LILLYCO

                        CHAPTER 1

One day, during Lillycan work hours, an old television with strict labels, DO NOT TURN ON BY ANY MEANS flickered. Static flashed on and off until seven children burst out of the screen. The children looked dirty and scratched up, one girl was bruised and beaten but managed to scramble to her tiny feet. 

“Hey! Is it just me or is this raincoat getting super tight around my chest?” she asked herself.

“Where exactly are we?” asked a boy with a chained foot

“Wherever we are, it’s probably better than that bloodbath of a world!” Another kid sat up and rubbed her eyes.

“Um, sister? You can unbutton that you know.” A girl in an oversized hoodie put a quivering hand near the girl in the yellow raincoat

“BACK!!” she smacked her hand. “Don’t touch me there or I’ll bite you!!”

“Geez! Sorry, Six.”

Hope Anyu stood in shock.

“Wha-... I haven’t seen a surviving child from the Little Nightmares dimension in years! This is impossible, are you holograms?” she asked

“Uh.. no..?” said the coated girl

“Please, children. Introduce yourselves.” said Hope.

“M’kay. Six Mawchild.”

“Seven Mawchild”

“Four Mawchild”

“Flicker Mawchild”

“Noodle Mawchild”

“Ten Mawchild

“And Eleven Mawchild”

“Fascinating!” Said Hope. “Now, you may pass.” The children thanked her and passed into town, Six gave Seven a wet lick with her forked tongues.

“Hey, no biting.” he joked.

The children came to a large building, it looked like a hotel with multiple stories. Six absolutely hated sleeping outside, so she suggested they see about it. The children walked into a beautiful scenery. Paintings on the walls, a golden chandelier, spinning doors, and lots of corridors. Along with a lot of elevators. 

“Whoa!!” Eleven exclaimed, “It’s magnificent!”

“Hello there!” said the lady at the front desk, who appeared to be a humanized calico with the name, ‘Sarah’ on her collar. “Welcome to LillyCo elementary school and dormitory, are you here for a room?” 

“Yes, absolutely!” said Six. 

“Here are your keys then, enjoy your stay!” She handed everyone a card with a barcode and some room numbers on it, and a map of the place. When Six and Seven got into the room they were both placed in, Six fell onto the bed and sighed long and hard, 

“Aaahhh, Sev, have you ever lived somewhere so pampering?”

“Nowhere, not to mention there’s clean air here.” he looked out the window to the blue sky. 

“Yea, the air back in the maw was toxic.” said Six.

“We do NOT speak of it.” Seven grunted in a harsh tone, Six apologized. Suddenly, she felt really tired. 

“Sev, I'm gonna go to bed for a little while.”

“That’s okay, Six. I’ll be meeting with the others downstairs, goodbye, my love.” He kissed her on the cheek and walked out the door.

Six woke up sweating in the hot weather. She felt dizzy and woozy. 

“Darn, it feels like I forgot the AC.” she hopped out of bed, only to see an odd-looking chain necklace on her nightstand. It was linked together firmly with tiny chains, and an upside-down crucifix on it, it looked like a cross with two lines on the bottom. The necklace smoked as if infused with dark energy. “Bizzare,” she said. The dark energy was so alluring to her that she had to put it on. Upon wearing it, the cross shape was oddly heavy, she didn’t seem to mind it though. The smoky substance disappeared and gave Six a tingly feeling in her body. There was no doubt that this piece of jewelry was enchanted, and had strengthened her powers. 

“Oh, you found the thing I see.” said a distorted, familiar voice.

“What do you mean? It was on my nightsta- Gluttony?!” Six turned around to see a girl who looked identical to her, besides her black hair, pale skin, gleaming red eyes, tall horns that stuck straight out of her head, a glowing pentagram on her stomach, and two tails with stingers, one shaped like a heart, the other with a dagger-like end. This girl was once Six’s shadow and a voice in her head. “you look... Different.” Six was quite puzzled.

“So do you! Heck, when was the last time you wore peck-peck shorts and a cropped shirt?” Gluttony smirked. 

“Uh, never but-” Six was interrupted by a scream coming from the room two doors to the left of her. She swung her door open and ran there. She saw Flicker cowering in a corner hiding from a rubber spider on her dresser.

“KILL IT.” she demanded. “KILL IT NOW.” Six could barely hold back her laughter and collapsed. “What are you laughing at, Six?!” Flicker asked in an angry manner.

“That’s fake!!” Six giggled and picked up the spider. “Also, I saw Noodle placing it here.” 

“I need a talk with my brother, thank god it’s not real.” she vanished into thin air.

Seven came back later that night.

“Sorry I was gone for so long,” he said.

“Oh, it’s ok. I was planning on looking for you though.” said Six.

“You mustn't worry about me, dear.” Seven held Six’s hands in his.

“We should sleep now, goodnight.” Six kissed him on the lips and the two fell asleep hugging.

Seven was the first to wake up to an early start, he saw a blue light under a crack in the ceiling dripping water. He investigated the blue light and took the blanket off it. It seemed to be a wet foot brace in the shape of a fish, it smoked with blue energy and oozed water. He wanted to get a closer look at it but ended up taking his chain off quite easily and put on the foot brace where the shackle was. Energy took him over and he felt the brace lock onto him, he raised his hand pointed to the sink to test his water bending skills, but they were stronger than before, this thing was an enchanted charm of power.

“Ah, Nightblade was right. We do really suck at hiding stuff.” said a voice that sounded exactly like Seven. He slowly turned around hearing this. Seven saw a boy with a shadow child mask who looked similar to him, but a darker version, and had small horns and a stinger tail.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Me? Or that freak in the mirror?” asked the stranger.

“You.” Seven corrected him.

“Just call me pride, but I’m basically shadow Seven.” explained the stranger.

“Did I summon you by picking up this thing that won’t come off my foot?” asked Seven.

“Okay, first of all,” said Pride, “You didn’t even try, and second of all, no. you didn’t.”

“Oh, okay. So you’re like that horrible she-demon who tried to eat me alive?” Seven asked.

“You mean Gluttony?” Pride gave Seven a confused look. “No, I’m not like her, but I do like- know what? Nevermind.” he blushed but managed to cover it. Just then, Six awakened. 

“SEVENNN!! IT’S 3:00 IN THE MORNING AND I’M TRYING TO S.L.E.E.P!” she fell back asleep and pulled the blanket over her head. Seven began to sweat profusely.

“Dude, you ok?” asked Pride.

“No.,” said Seven, “She hates it when I wake her up..” 

Later that morning, at about 8:00 MA, Six was reading through a booklet about school when a bell rang. Six and Seven ran out with their school supplies and found their classroom after walking up 10 flights of stairs. 

“Well..” Six panted. “We’re gonna have to do this every weekday.”

“Great.” said Seven, “The last thing I want is to be out of breath before class all the time.”

Chapter 1 of TOC more coming shortly :)

Story by @fennekinstudioz all credit to her

Cast so far:

@fennekinstudioz and me

You still can join so if you do please ask us.

[h3trappedcollection]

Author Interview Part V

The talented and all-round fabulous @weilongfu joined us today for another part of the Author Interview. 

Stories written for the Collection:

The Day of Singularity

Four meetings with Officer Meng (But one with Shao Fei) 

Interview:

How did you come into the Trapped fandom?

I came into the Trapped fandom the way I’ve gotten into many of my fandoms. By everyone around me screaming about it. People like @andwebegin, @ctl-yuejie, and @florbexter were pretty instrumental in getting me aware that it was going to happen. Especially after having taken their word about HIStory2: CTL, I was more than willing to check out Trapped. Especially after I found out more about the potential plot. 

My usual philosophy after that is to at least watch the first few episodes. If I’m not hooked by anything, then I give it up. Trapped kept me hooked for good! I fell in love with everyone in the show and the rest is… history? 

Who’s your favourite character?

I love a lot of characters in the show for different reasons. I love Zhao Zi for his honesty and genuine desire to do good. I like the mystery and mischief of Jack. I admire Tang Yi’s deep feelings and emotions. And I greatly enjoyed Shao Fei’s straightforwardness and ability to commit. If I had to pick one, I’d go with Zhao Zi because we both love food, potentially like dangerous boys, and we both want the world to be a better place.

What’s your favourite trope?

I honestly have been enjoying a lot of the AU fics that are in the fandom. Like the original Trapped setting is great, but pushing the boys into college or further back? It’s been an amazing thing to read and I’ve enjoyed it immensely. As to whether I’ll write it? Eh… Someone did ask if I’d ever write a proposed fic about College Freshman!Jack dating HS Senior!Zhao Zi so…

What do you like about writing for Trapped?

The best part about writing for Trapped has actually been the fandom. Everyone is so supportive and nice. It’s a real pleasure to see the responses I get which are also always very friendly. 

Aside from that? Trapped has such varied and interesting characters. It’s very easy to find the right knob to twist or switch to flip that can make a large variety of fics happen. 

Care to elaborate about your writing process?

My writing process is a mess!

I don’t usually outline because then I over-outline. A lot of my fics were spawned from just coming up with a good title! And that’s in every fandom I write for. 

But once I get going, things usually just flow. I’ll go back and read it once or twice to make sure I haven’t truly fucked something up, but once I’m done, I’m usually done for good and I post it before I second guess myself. Truly, I treat writing fics like how I take exams. Just get it done and hand it in before you delete/erase something that actually worked!

Sometimes it’s not that easy, and I have struggled with a few fics just because I’ve managed to overthink myself or I get hung up on an idea, but I have yet to find a better or more comfortable way for me to write. 

Your favourite Trapped fic by another author?

Oooo…. Well I have to give a shout out to @decadentdeerpolice and @the-wintry-mizzenmast for their lovely fics during the last exchange. I absolutely loved how they filed the prompt for me. 

I’m also a big fan of Skuld’s The Divine Art of the Househusband series. It’s definitely a twist on what Jack’s life as a househusband would be like and it’s always fun to see a new update!

I also liked @sarah-yyy ‘s fics fortune and amuse bouche. 

The next set of fics I’m actually eagerly awaiting updates on is Flor’s Breaking the Firewall series. The espionage and manoeuvring that’s happened in just the first parts is already super fun.

What do you want to write but never had the nerve to?

Hmm… I’m not sure? There aren’t a lot of ideas that I’ve never really had the nerve to put down on paper, if only to get them to stop bothering me. There are a few that never really made it to paper though. Like my Fantasy!AU where all the boys are different positions and have different abilities. 

I wanted to write Jack as a member of the Assassin’s Guild. Zhao Zi would be part of the guard and mostly be seen as a scribe, except when he pulls the robes off and gives most thieves a run for their money in his trap deactivating, lock picking, and ward/seal breaking. Shao Fei would, of course, be a paladin as he believes in the law and doing what’s right. Tang Yi would so be a weapons master type character, as once he was adopted by the ‘noble’ Tang Guo Dong, he was trained in many styles to defend himself. 

The idea fell apart after that because I had no idea what they’d do afterwards. Plus they’re missing a ranged caster and committed healer in the party and everyone who has played D&D knows that’s a mistake waiting to cause a total party kill. (I mean you could argue Hong Ye would totally make a great sorceress and Dao Yi would be the cleric cleaning up her messes, but let’s not get this any bigger.)

If you want, please share a snippet of your current Trapped WIP!

It wasn’t very often that Zhao Zi wondered what was the first link in the chain of decisions that lead him to slightly less than desirable outcomes. Not because Zhao Zi lacked insight or critical thinking, he was a police officer after all. It was often because Zhao Zi was usually pretty good at pulling himself out of a pinch.

A smile and innocent disposition were very good for many things. When those failed, being flexible in many ways helped some more.

(The third option was that he was legally allowed to carry a gun, even if no one wanted Zhao Zi to carry a gun.)

But as Zhao Zi lifted a large, homemade sausage to his lips while Jack eyed him expectantly, Zhao Zi contemplated if his grandmother would approve of what he was about to do to a perfectly decent piece of food and what had brought him to this new point in his life in the first place.

------

Zhao Zi had been through practice interrogations before, but none of them had prepared him for someone like Jack. And despite Jack’s initial countenance, there was something about his smile, how easily he showed his teeth. It should have been predatory and dangerous. But in the curve of Jack’s eyes, Zhao Zi knew he wasn’t in any danger.

Of course, Zhao Zi knew plenty about Jack. Working with Shao Fei for so long, Zhao Zi knew plenty about Tang Yi’s most recent right hand man. Jack was a known mercenary, but he’d somehow managed to keep his nose just clean enough, just on the gray side of legal. All evidence was circumstantial. Even the International Crimes Division was often stuck dancing around Tang Yi’s lawyers when they were aiming for whatever secrets were hiding in Jack’s mind.

So it was Jack’s smile and eyes that allowed Zhao Zi to sell Shao Fei out in exchange for food. He did not expect the food to taste as good as it would. Nor did he expect that he might enjoy Jack pulling him close as Zhi De knocked over his bowl of noodles.

Zhao Zi decided to be open-minded. Jack was certainly interesting and fun. No harm in getting to know someone, right?

------

Jack knew he was smitten the moment Zhao Zi sold out his friend for food.

Good survival instincts. Good taste. Cute face too.

Jack was also hardly the kind of guy who just let things happen to him. But Zhao Zi was a new quantity. He’d have to slowly edge his way in, find out just how Zhao Zi might handle another man pursuing him.

So when Zhao Zi said, “Don’t you need to try it?”

Jack knew this was his chance to appeal to the clear foodie Zhao Zi was. “I don’t need to. I know I’m a good cook.”

“Huh? I meant Ah Fei’s number!”

“Too subtle,” Jack thought.

But Jack got to hold Zhao Zi close and a promise to see him again anyway.

“That could be like a date, right?” Jack thought as he rushed to collect Tang Yi from the hospital.

Thank you so much @weilongfu for the Interview

[greenpeacemagazine]

Going For It: The Actions We Need For The Coming Decade

© Pierre Baelen / Greenpeace.The Greenpeace crew jumps from the MY Esperanza during a swim stop, at the end of the Amazon Reef leg of the Protect the Ocean expedition, in 2019.

2020 marks the start of a new decade and it’s pivotal that we use this moment to kickstart the restoration and renewal of our forests, oceans and the climate. We asked four Greenpeace campaigners what we can do as individuals and as a collective to enact positive environmental change for our shared future. Here are their thoughts on how we can have an impact.

Making waves through individual actions

Emily Charles-Donelson, Digital Campaigner

Facing the climate crisis can feel like an overwhelming task. How can an individual have an impact? Well, what about starting at home – looking within our own fridges and shopping bags.

A study in the Journal of Industrial Ecology revealed that the stuff we consume – from food to knick-knacks – contributes up to 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions and accounts for 50 - 80% of total land, material, and water use. Even seemingly small things add up – for instance, one third of the food produced globally is lost or wasted every year. That food waste generates 8% of our total annual greenhouse gas emissions worldwide – four times as much as global aviation! 

Everyone has a role to play along the production-consumption chain, and broader policy shift s can be enacted through individual change and collective pressure. For those who can, it’s important to support local businesses, local farmers and only purchase what we need. Secondhand shopping, swapping items with neighbours, mending and making your own clothes, and growing and baking your own food, are also opportunities to challenge waste and support a circular economy. And by opting out of wasteful consumption, we’re showing that change is possible, and sends a message to corporation and governments that that insist on business as usual. 

We must lead the way for policies that will uphold a sustainable, healthy system for future generations. Our actions today can create a safer, more resilient tomorrow.

© Jurnasyanto Sukarno / Greenpeace. A Greenpeace tree planting workshop in Jakarta, Indonesia, part of Make SMTHNG Week in 2019.

Moblizing to shift power

Isabelle L’Héritier, Offline Mobilization Campaigner

Over the past few years we have seen hundreds of thousands of citizens from all walks of life challenging those in power and calling for real environmental action. More than ever before, it is critical to continue mobilizing and supporting changemakers – like the inspiring student climate strikers – and to push for system change and climate solutions.

The current systems aren’t working and business cannot carry on as usual. We must collectively keep the pressure on our governments and major decision-makers to create the policies and systems needed to support a just and green world for all. And like all great changes in history, it will be ‘people power’ that drives this vital change!

What I encourage is for people to go a step further, whatever that looks like for you. Trust yourself, get a bit outside of your comfort zone, embrace your power as a citizen and try new actions. For example, if up to now you’ve limited your activism to signing petitions or sharing on social media, consider attending a rally or a march, calling or sending an email to your MP, joining a Greenpeace or community group, sending an opinion letter to your local newspaper, participating in a direct action, or being a part of another form of system change. 

At Greenpeace, we use transformative, participatory and creative approaches to empower our supporters and allies, and build their autonomy, confidence and skills while they take action with us. Equipped with the tools to create, share and organize, we hope to shift the power from established institutions and dominant companies to individuals and their communities.

Because together, when we organize, we make change happen.

© Evan Habil / Greenpeace. A young environmental activist in Nairobi, Kenya, holds a placard during the global Climate Strike on September 20, 2019.

Holding corporations accountable 

Sarah King, Head of the Oceans & Plastics Campaign

Holding corporations accountable for their role in the climate crisis is important in charting a greener, more just world for people and the planet. Greenpeace is no stranger to shining a light on the wrong-doings of major corporations and putting pressure on decision-makers to embrace solutions. And the thousands of people who support us are key at every step in the process. 

Corporate campaigning comes in many forms but it’s generally a combination of exposure, direct dialogue with the company, public pressure, cross-sector engagement, and the threat of reputational damage that creates change. With more and more companies sharing information through social media and monitoring conversations, corporate campaigning has become very digitally focused. Influencing online conversations and showing widespread support for positive change – for example, using petitions – is one way that Greenpeace gets and holds a company’s attention, often while conversations behind the scenes are taking place about what it will take for us to stand down.

© Marlon Marinho / Greenpeace. In 2019, at corporate headquarters in Toronto and around the world, Greenpeace delivered a message from supporters urging fast-food giants to reject the Brazilian government’s anti-environmental agenda and goods linked to destruction of the Amazon.

Over the years, I’ve engaged with companies of all sizes and discovered that across the board, companies make changes when they hear directly from the public – especially their customers. While it may seem like signing a petition is futile, that simple action is a piece of an overall strategy aimed at driving corporate change. 

Changing companies and broken systems doesn’t happen overnight. But we continue to see positive steps being made that are building the future we want and need. Never underestimate the power of your voice and taking action, because even if you don’t see change at the pace you want, we will get there! 

Greenpeace doesn’t officially partner with companies, which allows us to have no permanent friends or foes. Because we work on so many issues, a multinational corporation could be more responsible on one aspect of its business while completely failing on another. Our independence and dedication to our mission for a green and peaceful future trumps all.

© Amy Scaife / Greenpeace. Greenpeace staff, volunteers and community allies teamed up for clean-up activities and plastic polluter brand audits on World Clean-up Day, in 2018.

Restoring our relationship with the Earth and First Peoples

Shane Moffatt, Head of the Food & Nature Campaign

Protecting the world’s forests, and their vast carbon stores, is a priority to mitigate the climate crisis, and as the third most forested country on Earth, Canada has a big role to play.

We need to remember that these forests are first and foremost Indigenous cultural landscapes, shaped by the Peoples who have governed and stewarded them since time immemorial. And so restoring the Earth is inextricably linked with restoring Indigenous knowledge, culture and governance of land. 

The principle of free, prior and informed consent for provides a guide to accomplishing this. 

This principle of consent is a minimum standard for the “survival, dignity and well-being” of Indigenous Peoples everywhere, and it must involve good dialogue and inclusive community processes when decisions about the future of Indigenous lands and forests are being made.

In doing so, new conservation and economic models can be developed that benefit people and the planet. 

© Rogue Collective. Thousands gathered in Vancouver, BC, for the Indigenous led “Protect the Inlet” mass mobilization against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in 2018.

Shamefully, this principle has still not been enshrined in Canadian law, and the implications for reconciliation and climate action are profound.

But we can do something about it. This is a call to action to non-Indigenous Canadians to get political. Tell your elected officials that Indigenous rights and climate action can’t wait. 

Sign a petition, show up at a rally, share news stories about Indigenous rights and stand with a local First Nation. Your voice matters and together we have real power. 

We each have a responsibility to future generations to build a culture of respect for the Earth and human dignity. It’s time to step up and stand in solidarity with our Indigenous brothers and sisters.

© Jean-Simon Begin / Greenpeace. Woodland caribou, Canadian boreal forest.

FEELING INSPIRED TO TAKE THE PLUNGE? VISIT GREENPEACE.CA/ACT TO TAKE FURTHER ACTION WITH US THROUGH OUR CAMPAIGNS OR BY JOINING US AS A VOLUNTEER.

[thecreaturecodex]

Empyreal Lord, Holda

“Summer” © Sandra Duchiewicz, accessed at her ArtStation here

[Inspired primarily by The Witch: A History of Fear by Ronald Hutton and its discussion of European folk religion]

Empyreal Lord, Holda CR 27 CG Outsider This beautiful woman radiates an aura of supernatural calm. Garlands of flowers are woven into her hair.

Holda The Fair Mother, Queen of the Seasons Concerns domestic labor, agriculture, witchcraft Domains Chaos, Community, Good, Weather Subdomains Azata, Family, Home, Revelry, Seasons Worshippers good-aligned witches, homemakers, women Minions azata, good-aligned fey, tsukumogami Holy Symbol a crossed spindle and broomstick Favored Weapon sickle

Holda the Fair Mother is the guardian of women and wives everywhere and a patron of agriculture and the home. Legend says that she once led the Wild Hunt, but retired from it in order to focus on improving the lives of mortals. She still maintains links to the Wild Hunt, however, and may lead fey of all kinds on cross-country rides and revels to celebrate harvests and other milestones. Her greatest festival is in mid-winter, to celebrate the approach of spring and to bring cheer to those in dark times.

Holda’s influence extends over domestic skills of all kinds, but particularly those seen as “women’s work”—cooking, cleaning, sewing and weaving. Those who beseech her aid find themselves blessed with miraculous abilities of creation, able to make magical items even if they are not capable of casting spells. Holda is known to curse those who are mean, impolite or wicked in embarrassing but non-harmful ways—cursing the malefactor so that toads climb from their mouth whenever they speak is a favorite. She frequently travels in disguise as a mortal woman, taking care to look fairly inconspicuous. Her seasonal aspect does influence her appearance, however—in her spring aspect she appears as a young maiden, in summer and autumn aspects she appears a mature woman, and she is aged in her winter aspect.

Holda is unusual for an empyreal lord in that her most devout followers are as likely to be witches as they are to be clerics. Many but not all of her faithful are women. Due to this link with witchcraft and womanhood, some authorities distrust or fear Holda, and her followers are sometimes persecuted in patriarchal lands. Holda’s agents frequently work to protect and support mistreated women around the world. Good-aligned fey often serve or at least respect Holda, with nymphs and hamadryads being common in her faith.

Holda    CR 27 XP 3,276,800 XP CG Medium outsider (azata, chaotic, extraplanar, good) Init +16; Senses blindsense 60 ft., darkvision 60 ft., detect evil, low-light vision, Perception +45, true seeing Aura holy aura (DC 27), primal (30 ft.) Defense AC 46, touch 27, flat-footed 33 (+12 Dex, +1 dodge, +4 deflection, +4 armor, +15 natural) hp 610 (33d10+429); regeneration 10 (evil artifacts, effects and spells) Fort +35, Ref +29, Will +33 Defensive Abilities freedom of movement, resolve; DR 15/epic and evil; Immune ability damage, ability drain, charm effects, compulsion effects, death effects, electricity, energy drain, petrification; Resist cold 30, fire 30; SR 38 Offense Speed 30 ft., fly 60 ft (good) Melee +4 keen speed sickle +46/+46/+41/+36/+31 (1d6+13/19-20x2) Ranged +5 longbow +48/+48/+43/+38/+33 (1d8+11/x3) Spell-like Abilities CL 20th, concentration +27 (+31 casting defensively) Constant—detect evil, freedom of movement, holy aura (DC 27), mage armor, true seeing At will—good hope, greater teleport, heal*, make whole* 3/day— quickened displacement, fabricate, holy word* (DC 25), overwhelming presence (DC 28) 1/day—control weather*, gate, greater restoration, heroes’ feast, resurrection, empowered fire storm (DC 27) * Holda can use the mythic version of this spell in her realm Spells CL 20th, concentration +30 (+34 casting defensively) 9th—astral projection, mage’s disjunction, mass cure critical wounds (DC 29), mass hold monster (DC 29) 8th—demand (DC 28), discern location, power word stun, protection from spells, stormbolts (DC 28) 7th—chain lightning (DC 27), greater arcane sight, extended mass suggestion (DC 26), regenerate, spell turning 6th—cloak of dreams (DC 26), cone of cold (DC 26), greater dispel magic, greater globe of invulnerability, greater heroism 5th—baleful polymorph (DC 25), break enchantment, dream, mark of justice, reincarnate 4th—arcane eye, discern lies (DC 24), extended heroism, neutralize poison, scrying (DC 24), secure shelter 3rd—bestow curse (DC 23), lightning bolt (DC 23), magic vestment, remove blindness/deafness, speak with dead, tongues 2nd—detect thoughts (DC 22), fog cloud, gentle repose, owl’s wisdom, extended shield of faith, status 1st—charm person (DC 21), enlarge person, identify, ill omen, reduce person, unseen servant 0th—detect magic, detect poison, mending, stabilize Statistics Str 28, Dex 35, Con 37, Int 30, Wis 29, Cha 28 Base Atk +33; CMB +42; CMD 69 Feats Brew Potion, Combat Expertise, Combat Casting, Craft Wondrous Item, Dodge, Extend Spell, Improved Initiative, Improved Iron Will, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Mobility, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Quick Draw, Quicken SLA (displacement), Rapid Shot, Shot on the Run Skills Bluff +45, Craft (weaving) +46, Diplomacy +45, Fly +49, Knowledge (arcana) +43, Knowledge (local) +43, Knowledge (nature) +46, Knowledge (planes) +46, Knowledge (religion) +46, Perception +45, Profession (farmer) +43, Sense Motive +45, Spellcraft +46, Stealth +48, Survival +45, Use Magic Device +42 Languages Celestial, Common, Sylvan, truespeech SQ change shape (any humanoid, alter self), empyreal lord traits, seasonal aspect, seed of life Ecology Environment any land or underground (Elysium) Organization unique Treasure double standard (+4 keen speed sickle, +5 longbow, other treasure) Special Abilities Primal Aura (Su) All creatures in Holda’s primal aura gain a +10 on all Craft and Profession skills while they remain in the aura, and gain the benefits of the Master Craftsman feat for 1 month. Holda can revoke this benefit as she pleases. Resolve (Ex) If Holda makes a Will saving throw against an attack that has a reduced effect on a successful save, she instead avoids the effect entirely. Seasonal Aspect (Su/Sp) As a swift action, Holda may change her form to reflect one of the four seasons. When she does so, she gains a +4 enhancement bonus to two of her ability scores and gains the use of an empowered spell-like ability once per day, as shown below. Spring: +4 Dex, +4 Cha; empowered sunburst Summer: +4 Str, +4 Int; empowered fire storm Autumn: +4 Con, +4 Int; empowered horrid wilting Winter +4 Con, +4 Wis; empowered polar ray Holda is in her summer aspect in the statistics above. Spells: Holda can cast spells as a 20th level witch. She does not require a familiar to prepare spells, merely one hour of meditation. She is considered to know all witch spells except for those with the Evil descriptor, as well as spells from the Wisdom patron.

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

Comic Series to Read (Pt1)

+ZOMBILLENIUM by Arthur de Pins

Francis von Bloodt, a vampire and good family man, operates the one-of-a-kind theme park Zombiellenium. But this unique amusement park doesn't just hire anyone: mere mortals need not apply--only genuine werewolves, vampires, zombies, and other citizens from the undead community are employed. A stunningly beautiful, fully painted graphic novel, this work presents a wryly humorous and lighthearted take on the traditional horror genre. 

It’s hilarious, fun and ridiculously fascinating at times. Lotta jokes, love it. Need Vol 4 so damn bad, cmon man it’s been YEARS (also there’s a movie now but i haven’t seen it yet)

.

+ Monstress by Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda

Set in an alternate matriarchal 1900's Asia, in a richly imagined world of art deco-inflected steam punk, MONSTRESS tells the story of a teenage girl who is struggling to survive the trauma of war, and who shares a mysterious psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, a connection that will transform them both and make them the target of both human and otherworldly powers.

This is fascinating, but quite dark; the story is pretty complex and the art is amazing. 

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+A Distant Soil by Colleen Doran

A teen brother and sister, Jason and Liana, are confined to a mental hospital where they are the subject of secret government experiments. They escape their prison only to be pursued by supernatural forces, strange alien people, and creatures with unique powers. Separated and kidnapped by two different factions of warring worlds, they learn they are the children of a race of powerful and ageless psychic beings. The brother and sister are then used by both factions of these alien forces to unknowingly battle against one another.

I’ve never actually had the chance to read Volume 1, I got Volume 2 from a bookfest and loved it; it was a little hard to gather details without the beginning of the tale but it was enthralling none the less. Some nsfw, and dark themes.

.

+HORIZON by Brandon Thomas, Jason Howard, Juan Gedeon & Martin Frank

Zhia Malen thought she'd fought her very last war, until she learned her planet was targeted for occupation...by a desperate world called Earth. The people of Earth will be told that her arrival on our planet means invasion. These are lies. This is retaliation. Skybound's newest original series will show you that survival isn't just a human instinct...

Initially a little difficult to understand what is happening, the story launches into a mission of life and death without bothering to fill in the backstory; you discern as you go. Very interesting. Significant violence, gore/body horror, torture perpetuated by, and against, protagonists. 

.

+THE WICKED + THE DIVINE by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie

Every ninety years, twelve gods incarnate as humans. They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are dead. The team behind critically thermonuclear floor-fillers Young Avengers and Phonogram reunite to start a new, ongoing, superhero fantasy with a beautiful, oversized issue. Welcome to The Wicked + The Divine, where gods are the ultimate pop stars and pop stars are the ultimate gods. But remember: just because you're immortal, doesn't mean you're going to live forever.

This really is one of my favourites, the story, the art, the colours, the way it weaves myth and modern society is insane and enticing. Not to sound like a desperate fan but I would sell at least four of you to Satan for the newest volume to be released early... [LGBPTA+, poc characters and protags, drug use, nsfw, nudity, sex, violence, manipulation, various phobias and cruelties, etc.]

.

+BITCH PLANET by Kelly Sue Deconnick, Valentine De Landro, Robert Wilson & Taki Soma

In a future just a few years down the road in the wrong direction, a woman's failure to comply with her patriarchal overlords will result in exile to the meanest penal planet in the galaxy. When the newest crop of fresh femmes arrive, can they work together to stay alive or will hidden agendas, crooked guards, and the deadliest sport on (or off!) Earth take them to their maker?

Imagine a world where the Republicans put men on top and women were just supposed to be mindless, bubbly, weight-conscious, subservient creatures... hard to, isn’t it? Where looking ugly is a crime. Basically, the patriarchy is so oppressive having your own thoughts and being a woman can get you tossed to Bitch Planet for insubordination... 

Long blurb, because it’s such a fucking fascinating story of women rising up and taking back power; poc and lgbpta+ characters, complex women’s stories, and a world so horrifying you can’t believe it could exist.  [Lgbpta+, poc protags and supports, violence, misogyny, nudity, sex scenes, and I must point out that there is a rape-related story, but the book warns you before the chapter, and you can skip the whole thing, and not lose much but a backstory. The writers are very sensitive to how distressing even partially-graphic scenes can be to readers. And always check the ‘ad pages’ for hidden messages!]

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+ORCHID by Tom Morello

When the seas rose, genetic codes were smashed. Human settlements are ringed by a dense wilderness from which ferocious new animal species prey on the helpless. The high ground belongs to the rich and powerful that overlook swampland shantytowns from their fortress-like cities. Iron-fisted rule ensures order and allows the wealthy to harvest the poor as slaves. Delve into the first chapter of "Orchid," the tale of a teenage prostitute who learns that she is more than the role society has imposed upon her.

There are strong themes of rape, cannibalism and slavery, so it’s not for everyone. Imagine a world where the entire earth turned against humanity, the rich took the only dry land and forced the poor to live in the muck beneath; all animals want to kill them. The Cannibal Barges that hit land bring only death and destruction...

If you are strong or beautiful, you become a slave for the rich. If you are poor and female, you are made a Valk (prostitute), PROPERTY tattooed across your chest and KNOW YOUR PLACE burned into your arm. Orchid, a Valk, is thrown into a world of turmoil when a rebel crashes into her home, rescues her brother and is sold into slavery with her. Setting off a chain of events that is almost unbelievable. (3 Volumes in total, hard to get ahold of, but online too.)

[newstfionline]

Saturday, October 2, 2021

Tropical storms and hurricanes have hit U.S. shores with unparalleled frequency (Washington Post) Unrelenting and unprecedented, back-to-back Atlantic hurricane seasons have punished the Gulf and East coasts of the United States. An unsurpassed 50 named storms have formed over the warming Atlantic waters since the start of the 2020 season, with a record-setting 18 striking the Lower 48 states, including seven hurricanes. Few coastal communities from Texas to Maine have been untouched by the onslaught of cyclones, and the Gulf Coast has been hit particularly hard. Louisiana has become a magnet for these storms, with four hurricanes and two tropical storms striking its coast since the start of the 2020 season. Some areas, such as Lake Charles and Grand Isle, have been hit more than once and have yet to recover. Remarkably, two of the strongest hurricanes in Louisiana state history, Laura and Ida, have occurred in the past two years. The high-end Category 4 storms, each of which roared ashore with 150-mph winds, are only matched by the Last Island Hurricane of 1856. The wrath of many of these storms extended far inland because of their swaths of copious rainfall. Disastrous flooding unfolded from Ida’s remnants in the Northeast, causing more than 50 deaths. The price tag of these storms is staggering and still mounting. Seven of last year’s landfalling tropical storms and hurricanes were deemed billion-dollar weather disasters by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with total damage of over $42 billion.

Dollar stores (NYT) Roughly one in every three stores that have been announced to open in the United States this year is a dollar store, according to Coresight Research, a retail advisory firm, a sign of how well the industry did in 2020. The business model, which relies on relatively cheap labor and inexpensive goods, is designed to flourish even when its core customers are hurting financially. The strategy was honed during the high unemployment and wage stagnation of the Great Recession of 2008.

Venezuela introduces new currency with 6 fewer zeros (AP) A new currency with six fewer zeros debuts Friday in Venezuela, whose currency has been made nearly worthless by years of the world’s worst inflation. The highest denomination until now was a 1 million bolivar bill that was worth a little less than a quarter as of Thursday. The new currency tops out at 100 bolivars, a little less than $25—until inflation starts to eat away at that as well. The million-to-1 change for the bolivar is intended to ease both cash transactions and bookkeeping calculations in bolivars that now require juggling almost endless strings of zeros. Under the old system, a two-liter bottle of soda pop could cost more than 8 million bolivars—and many of those bills were scarce, so a customer might have to pay with a thick wad of paper. It’s the third time in 13 years that the country has had to reset its currency in such a way. The changes come as the bolivar has dropped in value by 73 percent in value in 2021 alone, speeding a shift towards conducting transactions in U.S. dollars.

Old Irish Goats deployed to protect Dublin hills from wildfires (Reuters) An ancient breed of Irish goat has been deployed to protect the hills around one of Dublin's most affluent suburbs from wildfires. Old Irish Goats—a bearded breed that has dwindled to near extinction—love to eat the vegetation and the local council hopes grazing by a herd of 25 will leave the north Dublin suburb of Howth less prone to natural wildfires. Conservationists also hope the deployment will contribute to the survival of the small stocky breed of goat. "It's the old Irish ladies that have a job to do here and they're well able to do it," herder Melissa Jeuken, who answered one of Ireland's more unique job opportunities, said of her "hard working crew" of 25 nanny goats and kids.

British shortages (Reuters) British gas stations remained dry on Thursday as the country continues to face a truck driver shortage, cutting stations off from their supply chain. As citizens harassed station attendants and struggled to fill water bottles with petrol, the government ordered British soldiers to start driving fuel tankers to restock stations across the country. The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents 65% of gas stations in Britain, reported that 27% of pumps were fully dry, and just 52% of pumps had enough of both gas and diesel. The lack of truck drivers has also impacted other industries in the UK, and worker shortages stretch beyond just the transport sector. Pharmacies have reported their supply chains being impacted by lack of drivers, and farmers have noted that thousands of their pigs may need to be culled due to lack of butchers able to process the swine. While some have blamed the U.K.’s withdrawal from the E.U. for the labor shortage, ministers were quick to point out that similar supply chain freezes had occurred elsewhere due to COVID-19 testing slowdowns.

Portugal has nearly run out of people to vaccinate. What comes next? (Washington Post) Portugal’s vaccination campaign is almost over now, and it has exceeded even the wildest goals. Some 85 percent of Portugal’s population is fully vaccinated—aside from tiny Gibraltar, the highest rate in the world. “We have actually run out of adults to give shots to,” said Lurdes Costa e Silva, the chief nurse at a Lisbon vaccine center that is already half-shuttered. Portugal’s feat has turned the country into a cutting-edge pandemic laboratory—a place where otherwise-hypothetical questions about the coronavirus endgame can begin to play out. Chief among them is how fully a nation can bring the virus under control when vaccination rates are about as high as they can go. In Portugal, every indicator of pandemic severity is quickly trending downward. The death rate is half the European Union average and nine times below that of the United States.

Online Tiananmen museum is blocked in Hong Kong as Internet curbs widen (Washington Post) Access to an online museum commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre appeared to be blocked in Hong Kong, the latest regression for Internet freedoms and a strike against a symbol of what distinguished the city from mainland China. The website, 8964museum.com, which chronicles the massacre in timelines and other descriptions, was inaccessible in the city without a virtual private network on Thursday but reachable from other parts of the world. The museum’s physical space closed earlier this year; police also raided it a few weeks ago. The tightening of controls on material the Chinese government considers sensitive comes as Hong Kong moves to scrub official remembrance of the June 4, 1989, slaughter of hundreds of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing. Erasing memories of Tiananmen fits within Beijing’s broader remaking of Hong Kong, using a far-reaching national security law to detain and silence government critics, activists and civil society groups.

Trains packed with commuters as Japan fully ends emergency (AP/Reuters) Japan fully came out of a coronavirus state of emergency for the first time in more than six months as the country starts to gradually ease virus measures to help rejuvenate the pandemic-hit economy as the infections slowed. At Tokyo’s busy Shinagawa train station, a sea of mask-wearing commuters rushed to their work despite an approaching typhoon, with some returning to their offices after months of remote work. The emergency measures, in place for more than half of the country including Tokyo, ended Thursday following a steady fall in new caseloads over the past few weeks, helping to ease pressure on Japanese health care systems. In possibly related news, as Japan's government lifts the latest COVID-19 state of emergency that prevailed for the last six months, orders for beer kegs and bottles were up by 230% in the run-up to Friday's reopening, compared to the previous week.

Australia to ease international border restrictions from November (Reuters) Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday announced an 18-month ban on Australians travelling abroad will be lifted from next month, easing one of the toughest COVID-19 restrictions imposed globally. Reopening the international border for citizens and permanent residents will be linked to the establishment of home quarantine in Australia’s eight states and territories, Morrison said, meaning that some parts of the country will reopen sooner than others. The first phase of the plan will focus on citizens and permanent residents being allowed to leave Australia, with further changes expected to permit foreign travellers to enter the country. Morrison slammed the international border shut in March 2020. Since then, only a limited number of people have been granted a permit to leave the country for critical business or humanitarian reasons.

Israeli foreign minister visits Bahrain (Reuters) Bahrain hosted the Israeli foreign minister for the highest-level visit since the countries established ties last year and which included a tour of a U.S. naval headquarters to signal common cause against Iran, which said the visit left a stain on the Gulf Arab state's rulers that "will not be erased".

Dubai’s Expo opens, bringing first World Fair to the Mideast (AP) After eight years of planning and billions of dollars in spending, the Middle East’s first ever World Fair opened on Friday in Dubai, with hopes the months-long extravaganza draws both visitors and global attention to this desert-turned-dreamscape. Named Expo 2020, the event was postponed by a year due to the outbreak of the coronavirus last year. While that could have an impact on how many people flock to the United Arab Emirates, the six-month-long exhibition offers Dubai a momentous opportunity to showcase its unique East-meets-West appeal as a place where all are welcome for business. Not long ago, the site of the 1,080 acre (438 hectare) expo was barren desert. Less than a decade later, it is a buzzing futuristic landscape with robots, a new metro station, multi-million dollar pavilions and so-called districts with names like “sustainability” and “opportunity”—all built, like much of the Gulf, by low-paid migrant workers.