#The Dragon's Clause

[dragons-clause]

The Dragon's Clause

Sabo x Fem Reader CW: Forced marriage, intrigue, character death, fantasy violence, blood, magic, language, smut, 18+ mdni

Summary: The Nusjuro empire is one of Five Empires in the world, each over seeing the safety and welfare of the Kingdoms that share a continent with them. You're the niece of the King of Lulusia, a small, but rich kingdom whose northern border faces the Wilds, a large swath of land overrun by beasts and monsters.

Unforeseen political issues complicate your life, and you find yourself facing unexpected clauses, causes, and claws!

Chapter 1: A Review

The Empire of Nusjuro was one of five empires across all the realms that had been founded around the same time some eight hundred years prior. Each of the empires had within them several kingdoms. The Empires themselves offered protection to those kingdoms willing, and able, to pay them tribute.

A sign of deference and reverence.

Kingdoms unable or unwilling to pay the tribute often found themselves razed to the ground and struck from the records of history. The empire itself rarely even had to raise a hand, simply allowing other surrounding kingdoms to wipe the offending kingdom from the maps and records through their own greed.

Such actions struck you as foolish, when the lands beyond the borders of any given empire were rife with monsters. It seemed wiser to have more people focused on dealing with the abominations, than wasting resources and lives over foolish things like borders.

The foul beasts were born up from some source none could be sure of. It was agreed that the creatures were hardly natural in their creation, but despite the ferocity and danger of them, their existence was lucrative. Beasts from the wild were soaked in magic, so all parts of them held value, from their hides to the bones. There was a cost in pushing them back, but it was often off-set by the beasts’ own corpses.

Your own country of Lulusia was lucky enough to border lands with particularly useful beasts at its border. Coming out ahead with monsters was a mix of how difficult it was to deal with the beast, and how effective its remains could be processed. Lulusia made decent coin from its monster expeditions, though the neighboring kingdom of Goa struggled to break even on the costs of its own expeditions.

What Lulusia lacked, however, Goa had in spades, and so the two kingdoms had known prosperous trade and peace for some time. Lulusia’s king, your uncle, was good friends with Goa’s king, as the two had attended the academy in the kingdom of Germa back in their youth.

Germa was the academic center for the Nusjuro empire, and almost all nobility, and most assuredly all royalty, attended a year or more at the academy there. Less time was needed for those who had taken up academic studies prior to attendance, and more time was needed for those seeking to specialize in some variety of magic or academia.

Magic in this world was easily categorized into three sections: Basic magic, or cantrips as they were more commonly called, advanced magic, also known as restricted magic, and specialized magic. Cantrips were little more than ways to make one’s life easier, requiring almost no magic to conjure, and very little knowledge to command. Cantrips were useful for things like lighting stoves and campfires, donning and doffing armor used by knights, mending clothes, and helping road-weary travelers stay clean when there was neither an inn nor bath within easy reach.

Advanced magic required more magic, and with few exceptions, formal instruction of some variety. Advanced magic applications covered the gamut from teleportation magics, to destructive rains of fire, to defensive capabilities. Often one either dedicated their time to learning magic or the sword, though there were plenty of people well-practiced in both. Knights capable of wielding advanced magic were either Guardians, or Elemental Swords, depending on their specialization.

Guardians protected themselves and their charges with defensive spells, and Elemental Swords, or simply Swords, were often adept at a single element of magic, and incorporated it into their fighting style.

Your father had been a Sword, and a grandmaster at that. He had three elemental magics he was adept with, and had utilized that flexibility to be the best border knight that Lulusia had known for some generations. His capacity in that regard, and his decision to step down, had kept the small kingdom at peace despite concerns about a war of succession between him and his brother.

“Stay focused lil’ scale, you have a lot to cover during your travels.” You murmur to yourself, turning the page in the book you were currently working through.

Beyond advanced magic was specialized magic. It was difficult to learn specialized magic in a formal setting, and most people who had some sort of specialized magic had either discovered it by happy accident, or been naturally gifted toward it. Specialized magic ran the breadth and width of imagination, allowing the user to transform their own body, or effect the world around them. Some people could seemingly produce materials out of thin air, creating everything from strings to great forests, with minimal magic use and efficiencies far beyond what any known restricted spell could manage.

In some cases the only difference between were-beasts and specialists was the simple fact that specialists had more control over their transformations.

One of the most famous specialists was the Royal Mage of the Dawn Kingdom, who taught at Germa’s academy when his kingdom’s princes had attended. He was known only as The Phoenix, and you weren’t even sure what he looked like, his fiery, feathered form being the most well-known appearance of his.

The Dawn Kingdom had the largest northern border, and as such its military might was impressive compared to its size. Though the current stability within the kingdom was thanks to the adoption of a second prince, who specialized in fire magic to such a degree that people called him the Flame Emperor. A risky moniker, given how touchy the empire is regarding such things, but apparently it fit well enough that there hasn’t been any backlash regarding it.

It was possible, though not plausible, that there wasn’t anything the empire could do about it. Once a name like that caught on, it wouldn’t matter if the Dawn Kingdom attempted to quell it. Things like that had a life of their own.

You shake your head, you’re getting off task again.

The Dawn Kingdom’s problems weren’t yours. Your problem was specific, though maybe “problem” wasn’t so much the word as “predicament” was.

Things between Lulusia and Goa had been slowly deteriorating, and it had been decided between the Kings that a renewal of bonds between their nations was in order. King Seki’s daughter was ill, and he had refused to risk her health, either by land or by teleportation, which itself was a draining process. Seki’s only other child was his eldest son, the crown prince and heir apparent to Lulusia.

That left you.

As the daughter of the king’s brother, you were, by rights, a royal. As such you were afforded certain privileges, such as an education in magic and etiquette, and other more functional academic pursuits. In exchange for those privileges, however, many of your options were decided for you. As the only child of your father, you were forbidden from becoming a border knight, this would have been regardless of your gender, since noble bloodlines fell under the Covenant of the Celestial Dragons, or more commonly referred to as the Divine Clause.

It was a holy document, said to be thousands of years old, that named the bloodlines of the five elders, the twenty saints, and hundred valors. The founding bloodlines for the Empire, the Empire's prominent families, and the hundred kingdoms.

It was more like the sixty-seven kingdoms currently. The number had been in flux for as long as you were alive, and far before you, you were sure. Despite the stability the Empire seemed to promise, there was little more certain in the world than war between kingdoms.

The Divine Clause was one of several such concepts handed down from the Empires and their collective grip on the world. Your father hadn’t been a fan of the system as it was, and you had inherited at least a little of his disdain. You kept it tucked down, as much as you did many parts of yourself.

You’d kept your grades, grace, and martial skills hidden from your uncle, and cousins. You didn’t play the fool, but you’d been prudent to keep yourself below the bar of your kin. Royalty though you were, you weren’t foolish enough to think it would protect you. Your uncle might not have been cruel, but he would’ve burned you at the stake to protect his wealth and his children, of that you had little doubt.

Komane and Maneko had been friendly toward you when you were all children, but once Komane’s illness kept her inside more, and Maneko left for the academy, there had been a sort of neutral business affect to your interactions.

You weren’t surprised things had turned out this way, in all honesty.

With a sigh you return to your studies. You needed to review the interactions of Lulusia and Goa before your arrival. Information was going to be your only weapon until you were able to amass support directly for yourself, and you’d have to do that carefully. Like with your cousins, it wouldn’t be wise to outshine Goa’s crown prince before establishing yourself.

The major kingdoms of concern were your own Lulusia, which required little extra reading, you knew the ins and outs of your own home better than the king. Then Goa, which was your destination, and finally the Dawn Kingdom, which was entwined with Goa.

Lulusia and Dawn had almost no direct interaction with one another, but Goa and Dawn had established robust and lucrative trade routes, met regularly to make sure things were favorable for both kingdoms, and had several things in common.

One of the most notorious things they had in common were that neither kingdom’s crown prince was the biological heir of the current king. In the case of the Dawn Kingdom it had been an event of grandeur and celebration.

In Goa it had been awkward at best. Rumor had been that the King and Queen had intended to cow their son into compliance by adopting an heir apparent. Despite their actions and threats, the biological son hadn’t buckled to whatever demands they required, and they had no choice but to crown the adopted son.

Thus did Goa end up with a Grand Duke.

News regarding him was split down class lines so deeply it was hard to say which was truth. The commoners seemed to exalt and love the Grand Duke. Tasked with keeping the northern border safe, it was rumored that he did so almost single-handedly. The only person with a stronger flame than his was the crowned prince of the Dawn Kingdom.

Nobles, however, painted a far different tale. The Grand Duke was a monster with a soul of ice. Stone hard skin, and a grip of poison. A twisted and scarred man who hungered for the throne, and brought an unnatural chill into every event he attended.

Rumors of his desire for power ran the gamut of hysterical to blood-chillingly believable.

Both sets of rumors pushed the limits of possibility, since no one could guard miles upon miles of border by themselves, and if he was truly so cruel, he would’ve been imprisoned by the Empire on the request of his own kin. So while rumors were all you had, you couldn’t depend on them.

The Duke, however, wasn’t your concern. The crown prince was, and there wasn’t much to be said about him, good or ill. Your Uncle knew only good things concerning him, as his friend, the King of Goa, was not like to speak ill of his heir no matter what.

It was likely that your Uncle was aware of some flaw or failing within Goa’s crown prince and had no intention of handing over his daughter - regardless of the political power that could be gained from it. Otherwise he would’ve sent you with her, as her lady-in-waiting, and had you assure her health and well-being until she was married to the prince.

But, you knew you were effectively a sacrifice from the beginning, and truths among Kingdoms was finicky at best. You’d have to verify things before you could earnestly believe anything, but leaning back and observing were things you were well-practiced in.

[quinloki]

Decide How I Celebrate Sabo's Birthday

One week to decide.

Two choices.

Consider your options carefully, and then vote accordingly.

The Dragon's Clause is a Fantasy Magic Royal AU Sabo x Reader I've been working on for a while. I decided I didn't want to start posting it until 3/20 - Sabo's birthday - and as such I have, currently, 6 chapters completed. (Well, 5.95, but the sixth is really almost done).

I can't say I'll have more done by then, but here's the question I have for you.

Option 1 - I release the chapters as a weekly schedule, every Wednesday, until the story's done (or I run out of backlog cause I can only write so fast and I have many other WIPs).

Option 2 - I release everything I have done and edited on 3/20 and just flood the start of the story. Subsequent chapters will release as they're completed, just like with any other WIPs I have.

Option 3 - I release TWO* new Sabo stories on 3/20 and we don't fuss about the details of when and how the first story is scheduled or not.

*Might be a one-shot, might be a short story, might be longer.

Random fact, today is Stelly's birthday, but who the hell cares?

[cantheykillmacbeth]

Could Piccolo Jr. From dragon ball kill MacBeth? I know he's male presenting but he was also spat out as an egg by another male presenting characters so I assume he counts for the other two clauses but I'd like your expert opinion.

Yes, Piccolo Jr. (aka just Piccolo) from the Dragon Ball series could kill Macbeth!

He is a Namekian, a species which reproduces asexually via spitting out an egg from which the child hatches. Additionally, Namekians in the series seem to all be masculine, with the only female Namekians in the series being special exceptions. This applies Piccolo for the Unconventional Birth Clause and Birth Parent Clause!

Thank you for your submission!

[fizzigigsimmer]

Dragon!Shifter AU

I wrote a little in the tags on the OG post but I am still thinking about this so...

The way Billy arrived at the academy, swooping over the castle and roaring loud enough to shake the walls before he flew up towards the Grandmaster’s tower and disappeared into the clouds, there’s no way for anyone not to know who he is and what he is.

Steve’s very used to the way the student body can latch onto a person and OBSESS. You’d think, with their powers and their lineages that the students wouldn’t be effected by things like fan mania, but no, they’re just as impressed by pretty faces and showboating as ordinary humans are. Steve can’t go anywhere without his classmates stuffing the poems and ballads they’ve composed - praising his pale elfin good looks and comparing him to snowdrops, stars, and moonlight - under his pillow or in his satchel when he isn’t looking. And at least once a week someone actually gets up the courage to stand in the courtyard and sing. He’s been crowned King of Midsummer every year that he’s been old enough to attend the end of term festival reserved for the higher level students.

But from the minute Billy Hargrove saunters out of the Grandmaster’s quarters he’s all anyone can talk about. It’s so fucking annoying. His golden skin and sun streaked hair, his glittering blue eyes and the flames that (apparently) dance in them when he’s wielding magic (Steve wouldn’t know because he can’t stand the prick and the less time spent in his company the better) and the inked markings that decorate his back and shoulders that glow gold just before he shifts his shape.

Steve knows Billy’s markings intimately because he sees them three times a week during Champions practice, usually right after Hargrove strips naked and dives from the banks of Emerald Lake, changing shape in a burst of golden magic just so he can knock Steve and the rest of his teammates off their feet with a ten foot wave. And Billy does that shit on purpose, because he doesn’t have to be big as a house when he shifts.

Billy has a demi form, effectively no bigger than a kitten. Steve can hold most of his bendy lizard like body in the palm of his hand while Billy’s long serpentine tail coils around his wrist, warm despite the cool scales that line his body. No one knew dragons could go small like this. Well, correction, Steve supposes it makes a lot of sense now why humans call so many lizards dragons. Wingless, one scaly lizard thing scuttling around looks like another, and it turns out Dragons have been coming to the human world far more often than people think.

Steve discovers that Billy can go small after Flight Studies one day, which he’s endlessly thankful is not one of the classes he has to share with Hargrove. While some elves have strong enough magic and a sturdy enough connection to the fae realm that they can achieve winged flight, Steve remains as grounded and talentless in this area as they come. It’s enough of a sore spot as it is because his dad and all of his cousins fly. The last thing he wants to put up with is Hargrove giving him shit about it.

Steve comes back from class still wingless, but sweaty from all that straining to connect with Gia, and immediately heads to the room he shares with Tommy in the Blue Hall to change before supper. He doesn’t expect to find anything but shirts and tunics in his drawer, so he nearly shrieks the house down when he opens it to find a big lizard thing coiled up in a nest of his shirts.

Patrick, one of the selkies who shares the room next door, comes running in to see what the commotion is about just as the scaly creature raises its long neck, blue green scales glinting in the late afternoon sunlight and yellow eyes fixed on Steve as it opens its mouth and hisses. It has a small row of very sharp looking teeth and a very pink tongue.

Steve slams the drawer shut.

“Whoa! What was that?!“ Patrick demands, drawing closer, only to scurry back along with Steve as the drawer with the creature inside rattles violently.

“I have no idea. Probably another one of Munson’s freaky little pets.” Steve seethes, speaking of the boy from Black Hall who is infamous for his love of dark magical creatures, the more dangerous the better. The drawer rattles hard before suddenly popping open, and one very pissed lizard crawls its way out onto the top of the dresser. it twists its upper body until its head faces the two gaping boys. For a moment Steve admires the elegance of its long body and the dramatic spiny fins that raise from its back as it elongates itself, thinking that the strangely human expression of absolute grump that it wears on a decidedly lizard like face is unexpectedly funny... and then the creature opens its mouth and Steve and Patrick bolt with a yelp, scrambling for the door as a stream of electric blue flame erupts from the creature’s mouth.

The House Head thinks they are pulling a prank when they bring him back to deal with the beast, only to find the room completely creature free and no sign of anything burning. But Steve knows what he saw, and Patrick isn’t known for being a prankster so the Head promises to go over to Black Hall and have a talk with Munson. He advises the boys to keep their windows shut going forward, so nothing has an opportunity to crawl in.

It doesn’t work, because Steve doesn’t know it but the creature was actually a dragon shifter who also happens to live in Blue Hall, just one floor below. Steve doesn’t notice either that first time that one of his shirts is missing.

Long before Billy was ready to admit he liked Steve as a person, he liked the smell of his soap and his magic. Dragons are creatures of indulgence, so the things they like they take to horde. Steve never gets that shirt back or any of the other things Billy ends up claiming from Steve’s room. Not until Steve starts sleeping in his bed. But anything he brings back with him from Billy’s room, Billy just replaces with something else.

It’s expensive dating a dragon, is what he’s saying. The only solution is to cohabbitate.

 The First Part

[yes-i-am-happyaspie]

[safyresky]

Scrimbly Jacqueline 9/52: Jacquie's term as Jack Frost in the Santa Clauses.

Yeah, you heard me right! I am stepping my toes into the series with my beloved blorbos. ME! WHO HAS NOT STOPPED COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW BAD THE SERIES IS!

Lore/musings and pre-edited scrimbly under the cut!

RIGHT SO. YEAH! AFTER TWO SEASONS OF JUST THE WORST WRITING AND NONE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND BONES BUT NO MEAT, I HAVE FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW EXACTLY CS WOULD WORK IN A TSCS UNIVERSE bc, imo, there's no way these two are from the same universe. NO way.

Right, so here's what's going on with Jack and the Frosts in tscs, and why Jacquie is ROCKING this fit. I will try to be succinct:

Jack thaws, changes, reunites with the fam, blah blah blah. Santa's very untrusting and this does not change, and I think maybe the events of CS happen the same way but Santa is a HUGE DICK the ENTIRE TIME.

Blah, blah, Pyros happens, yadda yadda, things go on and Santa just keeps getting worse--refuses to see that Jack has changed, starts saying boomer-esque things in Council meetings, to the point where every Council member can't stand him--and Jack gets the brunt of it

He complains to the fam. Winter and Blaise are like, we do NOT fuck with this Santa guy. Jacqueline is ready to throw down the more Jack tells her about things he says/does at meetings

She's like "Jack. Jack. Please. Let me at him. PLEASE."

Jack's like "We'll file that away for later."

Finally Jack has HAD it, he is too cute and pretty and has worked far too hard for this ABUSE to be levelled at him at the hands of Santa Claus. He's worth it! He knows when to take care of HIMSELF. This is a TOXIC WORK ENVIRONMENT and he will NOT be having ANY MORE OF IT

He steps tf down, Jacqueline takes over, and she is FERAL. She's WORSE than Jack. She makes things a NIGHTMARE for Santa. I have a whole THING planned for how s2 goes with her in Jack's place >:3

And THAT is what's going on here! Jacqueline has stepped up and is ready to THROW DOWN WITH SANTA who is wholly, wholly unprepared

OUTFIT BACKGROUND TIME!

The vest IS JACK'S! She steals it from him! (Santa thinks the vest works the way the Santa jacket does. Jacqueline does not correct him. In fact, she spins a terrifying tall tale of how she killed her predecessor for the spot and took the vest off his slushy, dead, body. Jack thinks it's gd hilarious. Santa is fear.jpeg)

Her hair is still snowy but with more blue and is POOFIER. It is constantly tangled/windswept. POOF BABY.

Speaking of poof: apparently it is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for Jacqueline to NOT wear poofy sleeves. Idk why. SO! Poof sleeve dress shirt! I used to have one just like it and I MISS it, it was so elegant~

Skirt is FIT AND FLARE BABY! Or skater skirt style. She thought of bringing back the pencil skirt and went "fuck that", she needs to MOVE and GROOVE

BIKE SHORTS! I am so sorry everyone who has done Jacquie art for this lil fact I'm about to drop on you all: she wears BIKE SHORTS under her dresses and skirts ALL THE TIME. Stops chafing and if she does a flip she's not worried about flashing people, and they are way more comfy than LEGGINGS. Cold doesn't bug her, anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(She is also prone to overheating easily. Summer sprite blood, everyone expects; I think she's just got too much energy all the time and it keeps her warm)

I did not draw them BUT with this cool work casual ish fit, she still wears her worn grimy leather boots. She's truly the messiest icon.

GREAT friends with the rest of the Claus fam btw; but NOT Scott. And the more she hears from his fam, the angrier she gets lol

AH I am SO EXCITED to unleash this design on y'all. I have been thinking about tscs!cs NON STOP this month! NON STOP! Also, February appears to be the month of FASHION JACQUELINE scrimbles, lol

I tried a lil something different with the hair! Did the messy lines in a light blue then went over it with my very light blue almost white watercolour marker. I like it!

Jack's vest is SO low cut tbh, WILDIN. Very excited when I saw that I DID have a metallic silver prismacolour pencil crayon! It looks GREAT on the VEST and it SHOWED UP IN THE PHOTO! I DIDN'T THINK IT WOULD! :D

Very proud of her hands!! And the way the watercolours worked on her glowy magic hand was AMAZING. I cackled the entire time I coloured this post lining it >:)

Anyway that's all the ramblies for this scrimbly for now. I have a bunch of other silly doods for this lil au? ??? ??? of sorts??? I uh, I prepped for this scrimbly unintentionally. Just started doodling the scenes in my head from this version of cs, so there's some funny lil scrimbles coming your way, eh. Thursday? We'll see! I have one more I NEED to draw out then I will be at peace.

Or I'm a big ol' liar and I will 100% write this whole thing and wake up 100k words later very confused.

Anyway, take the non-edited scrimble! I have yet to find a bright enough place in my house OR at work to take a decent photo of art without shadow or fucky lighting. Ah well. Maybe one day ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[wakinguponsaturday]

me @ me: stop thinking about your 'permanently on hiatus' teen Inquisitor fic. it's been 7 years. you are so busy right now you don't have time to pick this back up

me @ me: she was ELEVEN when the mage rebellion started. she was sent to the Templars as a political maneuver to bolster her family's reputation when she was EIGHT. her sister died in her arms days before they received word of the conclave. and you're just going to abandon her. wow

[decima-does-art]

The showdown of the century, commission of my friends character fighting Santa, who became his character when he lost...oops

~~~

Like what you see? Commission info in pinned ✨️

[the-goblin-dm]

It's worth a watch, but I get that long videos are expensive mentally, so here's a TLDW

Rules and methods are not protected under copyright

You never needed an OGL to make content that is compatible with the rules of D&D, provided it doesn't reproduce copyrightable material like characters, monsters, images, names, etc

Wizards of the Coast has revised the OGL and taken out pretty much everything we had a problem with

The real OGL was the friends we made along the way

Now if you still choose to leave dungeons & dragons as a system and explore other games or make your own I absolutely encourage that.

I've said for a long time that DND is good, but it's far and away not the easiest system to get into, certainly not the most flexible, and definitely not the best if you want to max out the role-playing and storytelling aspects of a TTRPG. But there is still a lot to love about it, so I hope this comes as good news to some of you who were mourning or considering leaving the system because of the new OGL

[savageboar]

it's so painful watching clips of other ppl playing mhr and why do so many ppl just not eat and/or go for spiribirds...this shit makes me anxious just watching it

[dragons-clause]

The Dragon's Clause

Sabo x Fem Reader CW: Forced marriage, intrigue, character death, fantasy violence, blood, magic, language, smut, 18+ mdni

Tag List: @mfreedomstuff

Chapter 8: Enter the Dragon

Sabo sat in the tent at the northern border. Things were mostly packed and he was finally ready to return back to his estate for a time. The expedition had been a success despite the suddenness of it and the lack of bodies, though it had required a lot more focus and work from him than was usual.

Koala wouldn’t have let him take half the risks he had if she’d been able to stay. He had to send her back though, once word had come through about their new guest. It wouldn’t be fair to leave Hack to face the brunt of whatever entitled bratty aristocratic spy his father sought to hoist upon him again. Though perhaps calling them spies was a bit of a stretch. While all had loyalty to his father, none had been particularly skilled in extracting information from anyone.

Not that it was an easy feat in the first place. Half of the staff at the Estate was directly linked to Sabo in terms of business, personal, and secret matters. None of them would betray him even if the wealth offered was substantial. Other employees were often residents of Aquilegia, and were paid handsomely.

Pay aside, Sabo’s work in the last decade for the village had certainly risen him to almost uncomfortable heights with the residents. His father had effectively banished him to the remote area when he was fifteen, and it had taken an immense effort to make the strides he had.

It all worked out in the end. He’d connected with The Network a few years before he’d been sent to Aquilegia, and the town’s distance from the capital gave him a lot more freedom than he was sure his father had intended. The border expeditions weren’t even that bad, aside from requiring as much of his attention as they did, but even these events gave him opportunity to take care of other aspects of his business.

He finally had some time to read the reports Koala had been sending. None of them had been marked priority so he hadn’t bothered reading them until now. Nothing had been tied in black either, so Koala hadn’t been on the verge of murdering anyone.

His fingers wrap around the handle of a cup of coffee forgotten from the night before, since he was due to leave soon he hadn’t bothered to brew a morning pot. Grimacing at the bitter, and cold, coffee he begins to read the reports. Confusion furrows his brow for a second, but more than that there’s a grin.

I’m sure you’re ignoring most of these, but that’s alright.

Lady Lulusia has been nothing but good. She requests no more than what she needs, and I even caught her cleaning her room this morning! She practically apologized for waking up early and had explained that tidying in the morning was such a habit she hadn’t even realized she was doing it. I would’ve taken it for hogwash honestly, but she’s been voluntarily taking walks with Hack and asking him questions about the estate.

Things like who built it, and what kind of stones were used. He’s smitten. Completely smitten. You’re not going to marry this lady because Hack will elope with her.

Sabo nearly snorts, taking another sip of coffee and making a face. He’d forgotten the damn cup was cold he was so focused on Koala’s report. Sliding the cup further away he picks up another random letter and reads it.

Good news, I think.

She hasn’t tried to bribe anyone yet. This is the second day and all she’s done is ask everyone their names, and I mean everyone. I think the stable boy was about to wet himself honestly. If this is some kind of power play or intimidation tactic, I have no idea how it’s meant to work. She hasn’t caused any issues or delays with anyone’s work.

Oh, and I forgot to mention this in the first letter, but she only had three trunks. Inazuma said he had to have almost all her dresses repaired. I can’t say if the King’s using her, or if it’s him, but I’d lay money that your mother loathes her.

“Huh.” He reaches for the cup until remembering the contents were cold. Pulling off his glove he sighs against his finger, igniting it, and drawing a line of flame around the rim of the cup. Putting his glove back on he shuffles through the reports and puts them in order, giving the spell a moment to warm up the coffee before taking a careful sip.

Having the reports in order the most immediate thing he noticed was how Koala’s tone changed. Deeply suspicious in the first letter, she was convinced that the lady was playing at being a pauper. The second day he’d already read so he moved past that. The third day she thought Hack had accosted her and was forcing her to take a walk through the estate, much as he could force any noble to do anything.

The fourth day caught his attention.

I can’t [something is written here, but it’s been effectively crossed out].

I’m not sure the King actually sent a noble this time. She’s going to turn out to be an assassin or something. Her manners are solid, and she’s got the capacity to speak that way that you hate, but she doesn’t seem to really care. She’s not an animal or anything, but this morning-

No, never mind. You’ll see when you get back, but don’t worry, we’re okay. I’ll keep sending letters, but I don’t think you have anything to be concerned about.

Sabo taps the report on the desk, finger against his lip in thought. Koala would only omit information for a small number of reasons. The reports being intercepted was always a risk, but not really a concern. Another possibility was that whatever assumptions or hypotheses she had, she wasn’t ready to share them.

The letter itself was a mess. The scratched out part, the interrupted flow of her thoughts. Setting his concerns aside he picked up the report after it. It was the one where she was joking about Hack eloping with Lady Lulusia.

He grunts, a smile on his face. Whether it’s what his father truly wants or not, this uninvited guest might just be the one that stays. Unfolding the next report he laughs, putting a hand over his mouth and nearly shaking trying not to just howl.

It’s a very short letter, and it appears to be the last one. Koala hadn’t even bothered to send a report the last two days.

If you don’t, I will. Not even Hack could stop me.

Sabo murmurs a few words quietly, and the reports flutter into the air, catching fire and swirling away in a small twist of ash and dust. A severe looking man steps into his tent once the reports are gone. Karasu is a tall man with no love of the cold. He’s wearing a large feathery fur coat with a hood, and a scarf that covers a good bit of his face.

He doesn’t even bother to remove any of the articles when he regards Sabo. It’s just as damnably cold in the tent as not as far as he’s concerned.

“Nothing more for the archives then?” He prompts and Sabo shakes his head.

“Koala had no concerns of note, certainly nothing that required preservation." He answers. “Father has seen fit to push a different kind of noble into my home it seems.”

“Will I not be needed then?”

Sabo’s silent for a moment, and then shakes his head. “No, I still want you to do as you had been. You’re the best suited for it, but I would start off easy. I want to see how this plays out.”

“Oh? Your curiosity is actually piqued?”

Sabo shrugs, giving Karasu a devious grin and nothing more as the two exit the tent. There’s no nearby Teleportation Station, for safety reasons there aren’t any within twenty miles of the northern borders. Beasts can activate the circles just as easily as humans, even if it could be purely by accident.

Both Sabo and Karasu, however, can cover the distance from the main estate to the border in short order. What would be a day of hard riding, or almost three days by carriage, is, for the two of them, just a couple of hours. Sabo’s way of doing so, however, is reserved for emergencies only, since it can easily cause a massive forest fire.

So the two return to the estate, with Sabo riding Karasu’s raven form. The ride would be cold for Sabo, but his specialization kept him warm even in the most frigid of climes. Karasu was a specialist as well, and paired well with Sabo, since his power was over soot and cinders - even to the point that he could himself become that very substance.

When the two land at the Estate’s main gate, Koala is already coming out to greet them.

“What perfect timing!” She calls out, waving them to hurry along. She pulls out a feather duster, drawing lines against the feathers with her fingers until she smacks it into Sabo and knocks all the dust and soot off him. “No time to freshen up properly, you need to come see this.”

Koala holds the duster up to Karasu and he puts his hands up and shakes his head. Tucking the duster away she begins leading Sabo.

“Did something go wrong in the last two days?” Sabo questions, following along at Koala’s hurried pace.

“Well, yes and no.” She gives him a sheepish look. “It’s really best for you to see this, instead of me trying to explain it.”

“Some context, Koala, would be helpful.” He grumbles.

“The Lady Lulusia has taken to practicing her sword forms in the morning before breakfast.” She begins.

“Her -.” He starts, nearly tripping over his own two feet, but Koala cuts him off.

“And a couple days ago one of the estate guards requested to spar with her.”

Sabo remains quiet, he’s still trying to process that a royal from Lulusia is practicing their swordsmanship in his backyard. All manner of possibilities run through his mind. She’s skilled and holding her own, she’s not skilled and berating his guards for it, she’s an utter disaster and isn’t skilled enough to know it, or she’s moments away from beheading someone for their insolence.

“Context was, perhaps, not needed.” He admits, as Koala guides him onto the viewing deck of the training grounds.

The Lady Lulusia, or so he assumed because he didn’t recognize the young woman in training garb with her hair braided and coiled neatly against the back of her head, was currently instructing his guards if he was seeing things properly. The guards appeared to have volunteered for the instruction, given the way they were paying attention to it.

“Koala?”

“Mm, yes?”

“Why are my guards taking instruction from our guest?”

“… The Lady had requested I not speak on that, your grace.” She answers. The tone in her voice is business, but her smile is wide and full of delight.

“Gone for a week and my authority is already in question.” Crossing his arms he gives her a stern look.

“Alas, it is a manner of honor, I gave my word, your grace.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighs. “I’m going to have some breakfast,” he nearly groans the words, walking back into the estate with Koala close behind. “After Lady Lulusia is done and has had time to clean up and eat, I would like you to bring her to my office.”

“Perhaps… the tea room?”

Sabo flinches, his shoulders dropping as he looks up to the ceiling for a moment. It was certainly more polite that way, and he did tell Karasu he was going to come at this situation a little more gently.

“The tea room, then. I’ll be in my office in the meantime.” He corrects, walking away.

Even as he walked away, he let his mind wander back to the training grounds. Her ease around the guards, and the gear, was evident. He couldn’t see her face from where he and Koala had been, but appearances were the least of his concern.

He was, after all, the Scarred Beast of the North, who was he to judge?

[quinloki]

Gaaaaaah! I can't do it! I CAN'T DO IT!

I can't sit on finished chapters like this and WAIT FOR THEM TO POST.

I just can't.

I'm not a schedule kind of person. It's driving me half mad and it hasn't even been seven days, I'm not doing it.

I'm not.

Y'all will just have to deal with sporadic updates as I complete chapters because a schedule makes me so twitchy I'm nearly screaming at my desk.

There are a few things where I lack patience, and THIS IS ONE OF THEM.

So, like Get Flooded or something I'm about to post FIVE CHAPTERS OF The Dragon's Clause TODAY.

[cantheykillmacbeth]

I think Cynder from The Legend of Spyro is a strong contender for being able to kill Macbeth 💀

Yes, Cynder from The Legend of Spyro could kill Macbeth!

As a female dragon, she applies for the Gender Clause and Unconventional Birth Clause (hatched from an egg).

Thank you for your submission!

[thewolfofthestars]

I think any and all bosses I work under need to realize that I am, at all times, about 5 minutes away from unionizing my workplace

[dedalvs]

Hello there! I was wondering if you could possibly translate this quote: (I know it's a different fandom, but I was wondering if you could translate it anyways. I think it would be neat to see it in High Valyrian.)... "Not all who wander are lost."

So listen… I know this wasn't the intent, and I know that you're kind of standing in for tons of people from my past, but like… When people ask to have something translated, do they really not give any thought to the grammatical complexity of what they're asking for? And 100% this is not just you, but like… Embedded clauses, relative clauses, counterfactuals…

Something I didn't realize till I started creating languages for a living is translation is my least favorite part of language creation—and it's what I spend the most time doing.

Okay, so, "Not all who wander are lost". Good lord. First, there's "lost", which has a literal and metaphorical meaning in English. Absolutely no idea if this would translate in High Valyrian, and I'm pretty sure I don't have a word for "lost", and I don't even know how to go about creating one. Spanish perdido essentially comes from "wasted" or "squandered". We know where English "lost" came from. There actually is a word for "to lose" in HV, but it's to lose a battle. Doesn't make sense to use it here. So I'm going with something that kind of evokes that mists that surround destroyed Valyria and use the locative of "fog", so to be sambrarra "in the fog" means "to be lost".

I also don't (or didn't) have a word for "wander", but I made a derivation based on one of my favorite words, elēnagon, which means to oscillate or swerve. Jorelēnagon now means "to wander". Seems to fit.

And that was the easy part. A relative clause is something like "The dragon that I saw is big". "Whoever I saw is big" also features a kind of relative clause—an indefinite relative clause. These things are absolute murder to create. But no. It's not just that. It's a modified indefinite relative, because it's not "Whoever wanders is lost", it's "All who wander are lost". BUT IT'S NOT JUST THAT. It's negated on top of that. NE. GA. TED. And not just in the usual way: It's the Mothra fumbling quantifier that's negated. It's not whoever wanders. It's not all who wander. It's NOT ALL who wander. This is like my nightmare—being asked to translate something like this. This is giving me flashbacks to season 1 of House of the Dragon when they asked me to translated "Would that it were", as if that was some reasonable thing for a human being to say in any language ever.

Anyway, if you type "indefinite relative clause" into my High Valyrian grammar, you come up with nothing, because I always forget to write down how the hell I decided to do them. I think because I have both relative adjectives and pronouns that I can just use the damn pronouns by themselves. God. "Not all…" Are you kidding me?! You know High Valyrian has a whole collective number to handle "all", right? What, do I just negate that? Will the meaning be the same as a negated quantifier?! Like it's [[not all] who wander], right? And you can bracket like that because they're all separate words. But what if "all who" is one word? What then?! BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT IT IS!

(By the way I just added a sentence to my grammar that includes the phrase "indefinite relative clause" so I can search for it. It's not like this wasn't written up, but I honestly probably forgot what the term was when I wrote the section the first time and I never revisited it.)

Okay. I'm calm and cool. So. Returning to the translation. There are two types of relative pronouns: One that refers to people or things, and another that refers to concepts or ideas or places. We're talking about people here, so we need the first one. And we need it in the collective. That's lȳr. Leaving the negation aside, this can be translated fairly easily:

Jorelēnus lȳr sambrarra ilza.

Okay, that's "All who wander are lost". I chose the aorist subjunctive for the relative because it's like "anyone who may wander"; I think it makes sense. Lȳr is grammatically singular, so it triggers third person singular agreement in both verbs. Since we're using ilagon as a locative copula here, I think (think) the present tense makes the most sense. So that is "All who wander are lost".

Now how the flarking frump do you say "not all" when "all who" is lȳr?!

So since lȳr is a pronoun it can be modified with an adjective, which would like like this:

Jorelēnus dōre lȳr sambrarra ilza.

But the problem with that is I don't think it gives us the intended meaning. I think that means "None who wander are lost", and that's not what the intended meaning is at all. It is basically "Some people who wander are indeed lost—perhaps many of them—but some of those who are wandering are not, in fact, lost". This is also why you can't negate the matrix verb. That would mean "Anyone that might be wandering is not lost"—again, not the intended meaning. This is the crux of the whole translation: Negating the quantifier and not what the quantifier is modifying.

For that reason, the only thing I can think to do is to go to a much more prolix, and, frankly, un-Valyrian-like expression. This would mean taking the relative pronoun out of the collective, putting it back in the singular, adding in a quantifier, and negating it. That would be this:

Jorelēnus dōre tolvie lȳ sambrarra ilza.

Is that it? I honestly don't know. It is a translation; I'm not sure if it's the best translation. Another possibility is to re-translate it and say "A few who may wander are not lost". That would look like this:

Jorelēnusy lȳn sambrarra ilosy daor.

The pronoun is now in the paucal, which triggers plural agreement on both verbs. (And, by the way, thank goodness sambrarra is a noun phrase; it doesn't have to agree with anything!) And this is, basically, "A few who may wander are not lost".

I feel like the second translation is better maybe…? It feels more Valyrianesque. But I'm not 100% sure it conveys the same sense.

Anyway, I started translating this a little over two hours ago. That's what this takes. That's how long something this complex takes. Granted, it didn't have my full attention at all times, because I was watching Booksmart, but this was my second time watching it, so I didn't have to give the movie my undivided attention (though it had been a few years; there were bits I didn't remember). But yeah. Translation. My god. Like…why. Creating languages is fun. Translation is work. (And if it's not work, you're doing it wrong. Mic drop; soap box kicked.)

[louisbxne]

AALIYAH & JET LI - Try Again (2000) Dir. Wayne Isham

BRUCE LEE - Enter The Dragon (1973) Dir. Robert Clause