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ltwilliammowett · 3 years

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Admiral Sir Sidney Smith

Well, Sidney Smith was one of the most colourful personalities of his time. He was arrogant, wilful, pompous, energetic, extravagant, capable, brave, theatrical and boastful. A flamboyant genius who could not stop talking about himself, and who claimed that he was perhaps the best English-Frenchman that ever lived , he was nonetheless always happy to dispense praise on others, generally after they had been inspired to great deeds by his over-brimming self-confidence, diligence and determination. He had a reputation for being kind-tempered, kind-hearted, and generally agreeable, but in warfare took more risks with the lives of his men than his contemporary, Lord Cochrane.

Admiral Sir Sidney Smith,by Louis-Marie Autissier 1823

If you listened to original voices from the time. Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Troubridge declared that Smith made him sick, while Admiral Lord Exmouth called him gay and thoughtless. And even Nelson is reported to have said he was the gayest man in the Navy who behaved like one. Well he was of a slight build, penetrating dark eyes, a high-arched nose, striking and sharp looks and dark curly hair. Smith, like his father who had been a rake, was a lady s man, with very good manners and a razor-sharp mind, proficient in several languages and artistic talents. All in all, Sir Sidney Smith, whose real name was William Sidney Smith, was an interesting man.

He was born on 21 June 1764 in Park Lane, London, joined the Royal Navy in 1777 and soon distinguished himself in combat. He first distinguished himself in the American Revolutionary War, as a result of which he was promoted to lieutenant in 1780. This was despite the fact that he was not yet 19 years old. He served on HMS Alcide 74- guns, under Captain Charles Thompson, on which he was present at the Battle of Chesapeake on 5 September 1781, at St Kitts on 25 and 26 January 1782 and at the Saintes on 12 April. These successes led to his promotion to Master and Commander as early as 1782, and only one year later on 7 May to Post Captain. At that time he was only 18 years old. During this time he had built up a reputation as one of the most successful prize bringers, having managed to capture several prizes with his Sloop Fury, 16-guns and earning a sum of around 30,000 pounds. (By today's standards, that would be about 5 million pounds.) After that, his luck ran out, because he was discharged from the service and was then on half- pay, because of peace.

Now unemployed, he moved to Bath to study French, but when he heard in 1787 that there might be a war with Morocco, he secretly went there to study the coast and the language. In short, he tried his hand at being a spy. But when he returned home to present his findings to the admiralty, he was not able to do so. Because there was no more talk of a possible war and he was once again empty-handed. After his efforts to take up an ambassadorial role in China had been unsuccessful, Smith took six months' leave in Sweden in 1789. The following January, he reappeared in London with an embassy from King Gustav III of Sweden and a request to be allowed to serve in the monarch's fleet. The government did not approve of this unofficial emissary and so he returned to Sweden claiming to be in possession of dispatches for the King to serve as a volunteer in the war with the Russians. Assigned as commander of the light squadron, his fleet of a hundred galleys and gunboats dislodged the Russians from the islands protecting Vyborg Bay, where they had blockaded the Swedish fleet in June, thus leading to their relief.

Battle of Vyborg Bay June 25, 1790 , by Ivan Aivazovsky 1846

Although he did not act officially, he was knighted by the King of Sweden in 1790 for his actions, which caused great amusement in England. Yet he returned home briefly, only to try his luck at the Prussian court for the next two years. Initially tolerated and advised against the Russians at court, his political views became more and more disapproved of and in 1892 he tried to enter Turkish service. When he heard in 1793 that there was going to be a war between England and France, he tried to come back home and although he was still under half-pay, he was given a new commission. Although he did not act officially, he was knighted by the King of Sweden in 1790 for his actions, which caused great amusement in England. Yet he returned home briefly, only to try his luck at the Prussian court for the next two years. Initially tolerated and advised against the Russians at court, his political views became more and more disapproved of and in 1892 he tried to enter Turkish service.

When he heard in 1793 that there would be a war between England and France, he tried to return home. He obtained a felucca and, dressed in Arab robes and turban, sailed to Toulon to offer his services to Admiral Lord Hood, who was trying to support the French royalist forces. It was on this occasion that Sydney Smith and Horatio Nelson first met. The young revolutionary Colonel of Artillery Napoleon Bonaparte was rapidly decimating the royalist forces. Admiral Hood asked Sidney Smith, who was serving as a volunteer, to destroy as many royalist ships in the harbour as possible to protect them from the revolutionaries. He succeeded in destroying about half the fleet, despite the lack of supporting forces. In July 1795, again officially in the service of the Royal Navy, his squadron captured and fortified a small island off the coast of Normandy, which served as a forward base for the British blockade of Le Havre for the next seven years. On 19 April 1796, he used his ship's boats to take out a French ship anchored in Le Havre.

Sir Sidney Smith Transferred from thence to the Tower of the Temple on the 3rd July 1796

As he sailed out of the harbour, the wind suddenly died and Captain Sidney Smith and his crew were captured. He himself was taken to Temple Prison in Paris. Despite all offers from the British government to buy him out or exchange him for a French captain, the French refused. Sidney's reputation had preceded him and he was known to be a keen spy. He stayed in prison for two years until he managed to free himself with forged release papers. On his return to London, Smith was received by Earl Spencer, First Lord of the Admiralty, for a private audience with the King, and as a sign of goodwill, His Majesty sent the esteemed Captain Bergeret back to France in exchange. He was sent to the Mediterranean in 1799 and charged with reinforcing the defences in the Levant for protection against Napoleon, who was moving his army east and north from Egypt. When Napoleon laid siege to Acre in the same year, Sidney Smith used his guns to support the defenders and his fleet to supply them, and did so as an independent commander . This arrogance with which he performed earned him a sharp rebuke from both Admiral the Earl of St Vincent and Rear Admiral Lord Nelson, who as the next flag officer was particularly outraged that Smith had taken the right to hoist a broad pennant as commodore when he should have been under his command. The situation was only resolved when the broad pennant was brought down and Smith submitted to Nelson .

Napoleon eventually abandoned the siege and said of Sidney Smith, "This man made me miss my destiny." Smith's success in halting the French advance was rewarded a pension of 1,000 guineas, along with many other awards, including a coveted Chelengk and a sable coat from the Turkish Sultan. For their part, the French were so annoyed with him that Buonaparte apparently tried to have him assassinated. From 1799- 1806 he had small operations in the Mediterranean and in 1800 even tried to conclude an agreement with French General Jean-Baptiste Kléber to evacuate French troops on British ships. However, Admiral Lord Keith did not agree, so there were disputes in Keiro until the agreement was reached in 1802. Sidney had been back in London since 1801. Where he was elected to the British House of Commons as MP for Rochester in 1802. He held this mandate until 1806.

Commodore Smith at Acre

Unlike most senior naval officers in home waters, Smith did not attend Vice Admiral Lord Nelson's funeral in London on 9 January 1806. Instead, after a brief stay in Bath, he arrived in Plymouth on 14 January to sail with a small squadron to the Mediterranean to join Vice-Admiral Lord Collingwood. Were he land forces commanded in southern Italy trying to defeat a superior French force. Despite a great victory, he was replaced by a British Army officer, largely because he once again could not control his famous arrogance. On the one hand, he had exceeded his command, even though he had been rear- admiral since 1805, and on the other, he had antagonised the French generals by sending them newspaper cuttings about his great successes.

In October 1807, he cruised off the mouth of the Tagus and in November escorted Prince Regent John of Portugal, who had been expelled by the French, and the royal family to Rio de Janeiro in the Portuguese colony of Brazil. There, the Prince Regent decorated him as a Grand Knight of the Order of the Tower and the Sword. In February 1808, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the British fleet off South America and, contrary to his orders, subsequently planned an attack on the neighbouring Spanish colonies together with the Portuguese. Before these plans could be implemented, he was ordered back home in July 1809.

Sir William Sidney Smith, by William Say 1802

On 31 July 1810, he was promoted to Vice Admiral of the Blue. Between 1812 and 1814 he operated in the Mediterranean as Admiral Pellew's second-in-command, during which time he was decorated in Sicily by King Ferdinand as a Grand Knight of the Cross of the Order of St Ferdinand and of Merit. After Napoléon Bonaparte was defeated in 1814 and exiled on Elba, he returned to England. On 2 January 1815, in recognition of his services, he was struck Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath by King George III, and thus at last received a British knighthood.

On 15 June 1815, he attended the Duchess of Richmond's ball in Brussels. Three days later, hearing gunfire, he rode out and met the Duke of Wellington, who had just defeated the returning Napoléon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo. Smith then accepted the surrenders of the French garrisons at Arras and Amiens and ensured the Allies entry into Paris without a fight, as well as King Louis XVIII's safe return there.

After the war, he lived mainly in Paris with his wife. He took part in the Congress of Vienna and campaigned for the abolition of slavery and debt bondage, and in particular for the raising of funds to free Christian slaves from the Barbary pirates. He was promoted to the rank of Admiral of the Red on 19 July 1821, and Lieutenant-General of the Royal Marines on 28 June 1830, but did not hold a naval command of his own after 1814. His wife died in 1826 and on 20 July 1838 he was raised by Queen Victoria to the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. Smith died on 26 May 1840 at his residence of No. 9 Rue d Auguesseau in Paris, he was 75 years old.

#naval history #persons of the navy #admiral sidney smith #it is a very long post #i had to put it under the read further line #age of sail

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lilallama · 3 years

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(Sorry if I spell something wrongly lol) Idk, This is my opinion? Gryffindor, Jungkook. Hufflepuff, Taehyung & Yoongi. Ravenclaw, Namjoon & Jin. Slytherin, Jimin & Hobi??? I literally just searched the meaning of each house and just picked one based on the personality shown. Also, If you don't think this matches them, Sorry ;-;

[Don't worry, sweetie ^^. You don't have to apologise! 💕🍑]

Hoseok is a lot more two faced than I actually tend to show. The way he presents himself is mostly a mask. While he seems mostly calm on the outside, he's actually quite the opposite on the inside. Out of all the boys it'd be easiest for him to manipulate/influence Y/n (@bangtans-apollo Tae is quacking-) and he's aware of that. That's one of the reasons why they started the club 1. To protect Y/n, 2. The club concept came because it'd be easier to meet up and they would automatically get a clubroom and 3. Hoseok threatened to tell on them if they don't join, he'd make Y/n despise each one of them.

He is a strong leader (one of the Slytherin traits), I try to make him resourceful (but I am not myself so that might not shine through too much), he is definitely cunning. The whole ordeal with wanting to be with Y/n no matter what is pretty ambitious, I'd say. And lastly the traditionalism trait, he is very into tradition and has to keep his domestic fantasies with Y/n a secret. His parents raised him very traditional, he would hate it if (female) Y/n would ask him out first or would propose first and would at first frown upon his attention to (male or non binary) Y/n.

All in all Slytherin seems very accurate.

Now concerning Jimin; similar to Hoseok he too can be a two faced snake. He doesn't hide his true thoughts from Y/n or the boys, if anything he overshares sometimes (one time he started talking to Taehyung about some... rather inappropriate things concerning Y/n. That got his Y/n privilege taken away for a whole month). And despite practically pleading to be the "dumb bimbo" stereotype, he is surprisingly clever and intelligent. Before Highschool, before he made his first experiences with popular boys, he was a straight A's and B's student. Yet once he had his first boyfriend, he discovered that the people surrounding him typically preferred the dumb blondes. (He actually broke up with the captain of the football team for Y/n.)

He also sometimes displays ambitious, just in a whiney sort of way. Self preservation is definitely something. Unlike Taehyung, Yoongi, Namjoon or Jeongguk, he wouldn't let himself be killed for Y/n's sake. If Y/n were to be killed he would end up deluding himself into thinking a person who looks similar to them is them and would force Y/n's personality and style on them. Cunningness is 100% accurate. He's fake. He pretends to be a silly sweetheart who loves everyone but will spread rumours about you, blame things on you etc. and everyone believes him. His cunningness concerning Y/n is more whiney than anything.

So I do think Jimin fits Slytherin.

Namjoon was raised by strict parents who forbade him a tremendous amount of things and painted his world for him. It was engraved in his head, he was going to be the CEO of their company one day. Yet despite everything he still had a head of his own. Maye it was because if his high IQ that he understood that his parents weren't the only opinion in his life. Don't get me wrong, they still left him scarred (sadly literally, as his father once hit him bloody) and traumatised but not without a mind of his own. Ever since he was small creativity and originality was something he admired and loved. It was partly reason of why he fell for Y/n, their individuality, their mind, their heart, their soul.

We will not need to discuss intelligence, it's a trait he undoubtedly has. He is always willing to learn and showed interest in many different things before Y/n captured his focus. He is most likely one of the wisest members as he is aware of how twisted his love for them truly is (once again something I tend to fail at portraying) and tried to stop it when it started. But somehow that only made everything worse and by now he doesn't care anymore at all. When he was a child he used to be more openly curious than nowadays (as it caused him many punishments from his parents).

I feel that Namjoon would fit Ravenclaw.

Seokjin was spoiled all his life. His parents adored him, other kids adored him, everyone adored him. While he might've acted oblivious he knew that it's because of his money. Similar to Jimin, Seokjin changed when he entered high school. While he always was a pretty intelligent and well behaved student (still very arrogant though) he then became less concerned with studies and once made a teacher cry (that was before he met Y/n). He loves standing out as an individual, that includes making anyone change who crosses his path with the same outfit (not in school as they wear a school uniform. But outside, yes, he has that much power. Everyone knows Kim Seokjin).

As said before, Seokjin is far from stupid. He is a very intelligent individual but doesn't show the extent of his nolage. Instead aiming for a cool "Queen B" persona. He is witty with his comebacks (something I cannot write because I do not possess that superpower), he's quick with his words. He holds respect for people who are 60+ years old as he believes they've been through a lot in life already. These people have wisdom he could only gain by experience and that he respects (there is one very sweet lady that lives alone in a very big mansion a few streets away from his penthouse. He always visits her because he loves her genuine kindness. When he met Y/n she recently passed away and he saw a part of her in them).

Seokjin could qualify for a Ravenclaw.

Taehyung was raised by a very Christian family that he still cherishes very much. Because of their intense belief he was raised to worship. He never fell in love, so when Y/n crossed paths with his, he started showing love how he's used to it (Out of all the boys Taehyung is straight up insane. Something in his brain might be wired wrong, there is no explanation on why he likes them, on why he believed that's what love is because his parents treated him with normal, familiar love. So he is simply sick, there is no "saving" him. He's better of in a mental hospital). But he was always a very kind boy. Giving instead of taking, never wanting anything in return. Out of everyone, Taehyung was the one who welcomed new students and made tons of friends. But he grew out of it as his focus turned to art. He aimed to make his parents proud so he didn't have time for friends.

His loyalty is unlike any other. You could torture him half dead and he'd still forgive you, stay loyal to you, serve you. He is Y/n's servant. He works hard on improving his artistic abilities and also to maintain fairly good grades. For Y/n any labour he'd have to be put through would seem like a blessing. Another trait for Hufflepuff would be fairness and he surely is fair. As one of the least jealous members of the club he really only cares if Y/n's okay with what's happening or could get hurt (he always kets the other members have more privileges than he has because he believes it'd be not only greedy but prideful to want Y/n to hinself. He avoids any sin when it comes to Y/n, envy, wrath, pride, sloth, nothing will ever come near his modern day Jesus).

Taehyung definitely is a Hufflepuff.

If the boy who works two parttime jobs, to pay for rent, bills and food, cleans the shabby apartment by himself because his alcoholic mother is busy messing it up again, yet still treats his mother with kindness, only to be treated like trash by seven more powerful and successful guys in his school who all like the same person he does and still manages to maintain the position as intern and honour roll student at a prestigious school for roch people, isn't in Hufflepuff then I don't know what. This poor soul is incredibly sensitive and kind. He isn't judgemental (as he himself is used to people judging him). All round very sweet.

I think it's very clear that he's very diligent and hard working. He holds great passion for music and enjoys writing poetry, a very sensitive soul. Yoongi isn't someone to complain about something being unfair (cough cough Jimin cough cough) or try and steal Y/n away from them. His day dreams consist of imagining Y/n liking him back, but he is certain that would never happen (according to you guys, it seems a lot of you would pick Yoongi if you'd get to decide). Not only is Yoongi kind but loyal as well, he'd never imagine leaving anyone behind even his useless mother.

Yoongi is 1000% a Hufflepuff.

Jeongguk tends to be hot tempered, he goes from zero to a hundred in a matter of seconds. Everything in life seems like a challenge to prove he's better than others think (his father was a notorious serial killer who killed twenty one people yet got away with a ten year prison sentence and got released after six, ten months later Jeongguk was born). In truth he did not care for anyone else, only Y/n. So all tge chivalry he could muster was directed at them.

He is one brave guy who doesn't get easily scared (I guess living with as well as being a serial killer at sixteen years old desensitised him). Jeongguk is courageous just not in/for a positive way/purpose. He deluted himself into thinking that Y/n needs protection, HIS protection. He once attacked a teacher because they were helping Y/n with a question, that's very daring (more like stupid) just not in a good way. A (still not) more positive example of his daringness is when he wants to impress Y/n. He hung from a skyscraper for five minutes doing pullups, just to inpress them. One time he also jumped across his luxurious pool at home (and almost slipped, almost bashing his head in) just to prove that he can jump further than someone they talked about.

I could very much picture him as a Griffendor.

If you enjoyed reading my work, please consider reblogging it. Thank you for reading

#yandere bts #cooking club #hogwarts au #yandere jimin #yandere taehyung #yandere jungkook #yandere namjoon #yandere hoseok #yandere seokjin #yandere yoongi #harry potter au

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the-river-person · 3 years

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Monster History in the Librarby

Niven was getting ready to close the Library for the night. All the usual patrons had gone home already. Both of the editors for the Snowdin Newspaper, as well as the Loox that often hung around by the tables and played word games like crosswords, junior jumble, or soduku. Speaking of which, Lady Garf, one of the editors of the newspaper who specialized in making games for it, had left a few of the ones she’d been working on. With a sigh he collected the pages and stored them behind the main desk, he’d have to remember to give it to her tomorrow. The bell on the door tinkled and Niven looked up to say that they were actually just about to close. But the words died on his lips and he stared at the person who had come in. Face hidden by a dark cloak, they were somewhat tall, nearly reaching the height of Sir Papyrus, captain of the Royal Guard. Though he couldn’t see their face, he caught a glimpse of white fur. Was it Ice Wolf? Just a little over a year ago he’d started coming in every few months to check out books to read during his work breaks. No, Ice Wolf was much bigger. “Is this the Librarby?” Asked the figure, a male voice, deep yet not unpleasant, almost musical really. Niven grimaced at the question. He’d once harbored hopes of getting the sign repainted. But there really wasn’t any point now, was there? Not only had everybody just gotten used to it, but even if he did repaint it, the sign would just reset along with everything else in a few short weeks. It wasn’t worth the effort, but it still irritated him. Forcing himself to smile he quickly decided just to see what this Monster wanted before closing up. “Yes, it is. We don’t usually see too many non-locals in here. Most just pass by on their way to the ruins or the Greater Snowdin Caverns. Are you from the Capital?” “You could say that,” said the figure, sounding mildly amused. They offered no further explanation, and Niven decided not to push his luck further that way. “What can I do for you?” For a moment the Monster was silent, looking round the small library as if gauging its potential somehow. Not for the first time, Niven wished for the resources to make a much grander library, something akin to the great libraries he’d read of in human books: Ashurbanipal, Alexandria, Pergamum, Villa of the Papyri, Trajan’s Dual Library, Celsus, the Imperial Library of Constantinople, House of Wisdom in Baghdad, "Dharmaganja" ("Treasury of Truth") and Dharma Ghunj ("Mountain of Truth") in India’s Nalanda University. There were so many, and all he had was a few shelves. A couple histories, fiction, somone’s book report left here years ago and never retrieved (it was gleefully shelved as something new and at least 3 people had checked it out since for the sheer novelty), poetry, only a single science book about astronomy, and an entire shelf devoted to joke books and word games. But if someone was really coming out here, far from the Capital, to look for something specific. Well... They had to be desperate. New Home’s public library was much bigger, and if you couldn’t find something, you might humbly petition the King and Queen for access to the castle archives in the chance it might be there. Nobody came to a tiny town at the edge of civilization. Well... they did come. Sometimes they even bought things at the general store or stayed a the inn. But that was really just people on their way to the Ruins after Reset Day, the crowds and the general traffic as Monsters carried out their plans for the next three weeks. Getting puzzles ready for the famous DT and Royal Guardsman Monster Kid, who lived right here in said small town. So some people came through, a lot of people. But not for books. Never for the librarby that hadn’t even spell its name right when the sign was painted. “I’m hoping,” said the Monster. “That you might have texts on Monster History from before the war. History, perhaps theology? Mythology and folklore? I’ll take anything you’ve got.” Oh, so that’s what he wanted. Niven gulped. Okay so maybe it wasn’t accurate that nobody had been coming to their tiny library from out of town. There was that person from the capital he’d only seen once, a shifty fellow who was supposed to be a castle servant. White hair, pale purplish skin, and a terrifying grin with sharp yellow teeth. Niven had been freaked out by the Monster’s weird face markings and the J like tail that had lashed back and forth in agitation. Jevil, or so he had said his name was, had been after books on Monster Religion. It was a surprising subject, one few cared about. But Niven had a couple of rare tomes on it, possibly texts even the Royal Archives didn’t have. And that, it turned out, was the entire point. Jevil was a scribe in the Royal Archives and kept the smaller of the castle’s two libraries in good order for the King and Queen’s more general use. Thankfully he hadn’t come again after the first time, having taken a stack of books with him. He sent them back a month later, along with a few coins for the late fees, and asked for more books, naming each specifically. So Niven had shipped them off to the Capital, and sure enough they returned the next month with a request for more books. Sans the skeleton had become a familiar face as he came by so often to pick up or deliver boxes of books headed for the weird little Monster. And Jevil wasn’t the only one. Ice Wolf had been checking out the weirdest things. Niven would have expected a joke book, or even an interesting novel, but no. Ice Wolf wanted to read about physics and geology and historical documents and traditions. Niven hadn’t had much cause to write to the Capital Public Library in... well ever really. But to get some of the texts Ice Wolf wanted he pulled up his sleeves and penned message after message requesting various books until someone came down about nine weeks in to ask why on earth there was suddenly more book traffic going to Snowdin. “Oh, heh heh.” He laughed nervously. “I believe we do have some things. If you’ll come this way please.” The Monster followed him into the lower levels of the library, a section which held most of the least circulated books and materials available only by request. He really needed to dust down here, now where was the light? Ah yes. A dim bulb flickered to life, bathing the shelves in a warming and distinctly yellow light. From the shelves he pulled book after book, most dusty, a few with a little water damage, and many quite old. These he stacked before the Monster, who shifted in surprise as he looked over the growing pile. As Niven set another book on the pile he caught a better glimpse of the face beneath the hood. A white furred goat-like face with black markings on his lower cheeks and eyes of a dark muted red. Niven almost dropped the books in surprise but hid his reaction by faking a sneeze, though maybe with all the dust in here it really wasn’t that fake. This was a Boss Monster! But not Asgore, not nearly tall enough and certainly much thinner. But not the motherly Toriel either. It didn’t make sense, all the other Boss Monsters had been killed in the war, only the King and Queen had made it Underground with the others. And the only other Boss Monster living since then had been... Hadn’t Asriel Dreemurr become a flower? How had he regained his body? Or... something similar. It wasn’t quite a child anymore, though not yet an adult. Somewhere in between if appearance was anything to go by. A teenager maybe. That didn’t make sense either as his age should have been tied to Asgore and Toriel’s, and none of them could age anyway with the Resets, but maybe being a flower did odd things to you. Niven watched out of the corner of his eye as the prince began flipping through some of the books. “Monsters and Humans have always dwelt together in the world, though the nature of this coexistence had been woven together with myth, legend, and superstition for thousands of years.” Asriel read the passage from a “Brief History of Monsters and Humans”, it was volume nine of the collection, which was anything but brief. The author had been criticized for his long winded and needlessly flowery language. Still it made for good reading, if you had the time for it. “Owing to the nature of Monster’s Souls and the intrinsic connection their magical bodies have to the state of their soul, Humans were often under the mistaken impression that the Monster Clans were more numerous than they really were. As new generations of Monsters were born, they sometimes took on new and often unique forms different from their elders, forms that matched the state of their very soul.” The Prince broke off reading and looked up at Niven, who suddenly realized he’d stopped taking books off the shelves and had been staring as he listened. Flushing, the Lizard started to turn back to the shelf. “Is that why some of the Monsters around are things like Aeroplanes or shaped like bathtubs and obsessed with washing? Because they were born with new forms?” Niven turned back around. It was a good question, and not really covered that well in schools. Sure they touched on the subject, but no one really focused on the implications of how Monster Souls behaved. “Well, more or less. You have to understand that Monsters such as the Tsundereplane couldn’t have been born until Monsters learned of the existence of human airplanes. And anime of course. Then when this new Monster was born, their soul manifested a body that fit who they were at their foundations, the most basic structure of all the things they could become. We Monsters don’t have much control over this, we can’t shift our own forms at will, but our appearance is far more closely tied to who we are than you would think. Creatures like Woshua were born of groups of water dwelling Monsters. Humans often characterized us with names like Fay or Fairy, Spirits, Daemons, and lots of other things. And human folklore has a lot of tales about faeries who insist upon cleanliness and washing, often enacting terrible punishment if specified arrangements weren’t kept, like leaving washing water out at night for them to bathe in, or having a strict routine of personal hygiene while living in an area where said fairy has to deal with you often. Sound familiar? At some point the bathtub must have been an image they focused on, and at some point a Monster child was born with that form as part of who they were.” Asriel nodded, forgetting that he was trying to hide his face and letting the hood slip down a bit as he listened with wide eyes. Just barely visible in the upper shadows of the hood were his horns, not terribly big, just poking up from the white tufts of fur. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll take this one. And these.” He plucked another four books from the pile. “Can you hold the rest for me?” Niven found himself agreeing to do just that as he followed Asriel back up the stairs and let him out. As he locked up and turned out the lights, he wondered why nobody had heard anything about the prince yet if he was back to his true self?

#jevil #snowdin town #librarby #undertale #undertale au #aeontale #asriel dreemurr #tsundererplane #woshua #toriel dreemurr #asgore dreemurr #monster souls #library #snowdin librarby #flowey the flower #ice wolf undertale

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ewokaythen · 3 years

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Y/N changes her hair

1st story of Mobsters daughter in class 1A

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I walk into the school cafe making sure to stay close to a wall, and out of sight from any class 1A students. I have nothing against any, well most of the students in 1A. They are just too nice. Every time we talk I can feel the pity in their stares and I can feel them carefully picking their words. They try to avoid talking about multiple topics such as parents and prison. I get that they are trying to avoid hurting me or making me feel left out, but in the process of doing that that have made me feel like even more of a outsider.

The only person who doesn’t visibly show pity is Katsuki Bakugo, that’s because he doesn’t care. As long as I stay out of his way he wont start stuff. I scan the room and find him sitting by himself. That’s odd normally he has a whole crew of people sitting with him.

I open up my bag and reach for my lunch sac.

‘huh, where is my lunch?’ I wonder. I dig around my bag and when I don’t find it I groan loudly. I can’t believe I forgot my food! If I stand and go get food now, I’ll loose my seat to some other kid that wants a solo seat.

“Found her!” A loud voice says. I don’t have to look up to know that it is Midoriya. He had some hyper fixation with being my friend. Suddenly multiple seats pull up to my table. I look up from by bag to see that the whole mystery gang is here. “ Hi Y/N! How are you liking UA ? Is there any subjects I can help with? Did you already eat? What did you have?” He starts throwing all of these questions at me. Iida puts out a robotic hand to stop him.

“Midoriya calm down you’re scaring her!’ He yells loudly.

Midoriya turns red and starts rambling on about how sorry he is. His hands swing around in the air almost knocking over Todoroki’s soba. All of class1A, minus Bakugo, had crowed themselves around the table. Denki and Mina are practically sitting on top of me. I can feel my parience wearing thin. I don’t want to snap at any of them because I know they are trying to be nice, despite my past.

“You know you have pretty hair Y/N.” Mina complements me and touches my hair starting to braid it. My hair is long and straight. However is isn’t straight naturally. My mother had always told me to keep my hair long and lady like. I was born with a slight natural curl in my hair, it’s from my fathers side and my mother has always wanted me to be just like her. That includes with hair.

“ Yeah! It makes you look like a princess!” Uraraka beams bubbly. With that I quickly stand.

“Yeah. Thanks.” I quickly walk off before anyone can stop me. She isn’t the first to call me a princess. My mother made sure I was raised like one. She gave me everything and made sure I always looked the best. I wore dresses and heels. I wore make up and smiled at every one. No one would question someone with a well behaved princess of a daughter. Well I’m tired of being a princess. I’m tired of being a perfect well behaved fake . I’m finally free of my moms control and yet I haven’t been myself.

I make my way to the teachers lounge. I reach out to open the door but It swings open before I open it.

“Young Y/N! What has brought you here?”

“ AllMight! I have a favor to ask!”

--------Time skip to that night------

“Wow.” Class 1A stares at me in shock.

“You hair-” Kirishima says in awe.

I touch my hair . It took some time and guilt tripping but I managed to get All Might to take me to get my hair done. My hair had gone from long h/c to shoulder hair that goes barley past my shoulders. I had it dyed black with green tips.“Your hair is beautiful !” Mina yells. She pulls me into the dorms and starts playing with my hair.

“This really suits you!” Yaoyorozu creates two green scrunchies. She hands them to Mina who starts to put my hair into pigtails.

“When your hair starts to fade we can go get dye together.” Kirishima points to his hair.

“You look like a rock star.” Denki wraps a arm around Jirou to pull her in for a closer look. She stabs him with her long ear lobes sending sound waves through him. He quickly lets go.

Mineta starts to walk towards me but Hagakure kicks him like a soccer ball.

“Your hair is so cuuuutteee.” Her and Uraraka gush.

“It goes so well with your green energy beams!’’ Midoryia adds. Of course he would bring up my quirk. I swat everyone away. I feel myself blushing.

“Hey extras! Leave Finger guns you’re creating a lot of noise and some of us are trying to sleep.” Bakugo yells from his room. He slams his door shut and a tired looking Todoroki opens his door. He walks to the living room and see my hair.

“Looks nice.” He says calmly before turning back around.

“Okay everyone the fun is over! its 9 pm and we should all be in bed to get a good nights rest So that we can preform to our best ability in class!” Iida gets on his class president high horse once again.

I roll my eyes. "Sure thing captain." I give him a slight salute. I hear Kirishima hold in a chuckle. Uraraka and Ashido giggle and grab on each other's arms as they head to their rooms. Slowly everyone breaks off to head to bed.

Kirishima wraps a friendly arm around me. He is probably the only person I don't mind touching me. He has some claiming aura to him. I think that's why he is so close to Bakugou, even someone as pissy as Bakugou feels a little clamer with Kirishima around.

"You know I think you have two quirks." I say once no one else is around. I can't loose my street cred because of him.

"Huh? What do you think lt is? " He flashes a sharp toothed smile.

"Calming aura." I put a closed fist on my open hand.

Kirishima looks confused. "You think my aura is calming?" We walk in silence for a few seconds and I grow embarrassed.

"It- it was just a stupid thing. Bakugou is somewhat calm around you. I don't feel the need to be rude around you. " My cheeks burn I did not just say 'feel the need to rude around you.'

"No! I just thought it..." He pauses. "I thought it was nice. I don't think I have heard to complement any one before. I figured you like Bakugou in a 'I say mean things but I actually respect you' kind of way" I didn't notice we walked past his room.

"I know you did not just compare me to that hedgehog." I raise a eyebrow at him, and he throws both hands up in self defense.

"No! I just think you two would get along if either of you gave each other a chance." He pats my shoulder. "Good night y/n."

I see that we are at my room. "You didn't have to walk me all the way to my room." I open my door. "Good night Kirishima. " I say and shut the door quickly. Why does he have to be so nice.

3rd pov

Bakugou leans against his bed room door. If it weren't for him being tired he would of swung open the door and said something. Instead he runs a hair through his hair and walks to his bed.

"Yeah as if I could get along with Princess gloomy." He mumbles and flops onto his bed.

-----

I have writers block so I’m not going to finish this

#my hero academia #bakugou katsuki #mina ashido #izuku midoriya #denki kaminari #kirishima eijirou #tenya iida #shoto todoroki #anime

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morwensteelsheen · 3 years

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i woke up this morning like “i want to write a story justifying why éowyn would have dropped her virginity like a hot potato” and anyways 4,000 words later i am Not At That yet but i am getting a better sense for what i think her life would’ve been like. it’s below the cut in its unproofread state lol also a brief reference to what faramir was up to circa TA3011 because i can’t help myself

Until her twelfth birthday, Éowyn had never thought of herself as particularly more of a girl than a boy. She was addressed as a (young) lady when she wasn’t being addressed by her kin, and had certainly been forced into dresses and skirts — though this came perhaps a little later than it should have, if the judgemental looks from the various women of the court were anything to go by; but outside of those instances, there really hadn’t been much to differentiate her from her elder brother. She had learned to use a sword just as he had, she had been taught (with limited success) to speak several politically-important languages, and had been given as free a rein on Meduseld and Edoras as he had at her age. Those years, she would later realise, had been some of the easiest and most contented of her life, even if the dark cloud of their parents’ passings ever hung over her.

On her twelfth birthday, in a firestorm of misfortune, everything had changed. First, and entirely by coincidence, Éomer had received his first posting, in Captain Grimbold’s éored stationed in the Wold. For Éomer, it was nothing but excitement — at long last he would be able to take off out into the world just like Théodred and would finally get to define himself as a warrior and as a man. That he would be going quite far away from home only heightened the excitement. For Éowyn, who had always been closesr to her brother than anyone else, it was the end of an era, though in exactly how many ways she had not, in the moment, fully known.

Second, she had her first blood. It was not something anybody had warned her about and, in that manner which precocious children are wont to take up, she attempted to solve the problem without knowing quite what the problem was. Hiding in her chambers, hands and knees shaking somewhat at the sight of unexpected blood, she had changed into something thicker (and darker in colour), and bundled the soiled garments up in a spare bedsheet. What little she knew of such matters told her that to be caught bleeding must be a sign of some personal failing, and so must be handled in the utmost secrecy.

There was, she knew, a small fire burning in the western gardens that morning to clear fallen foliage from the previous week’s thunderstorms. With luck and a little careful manoeuvring, she imagined she would be able to sneak her secret bundle into the flames without arousing any suspicions.

Creeping through the halls of Meduseld (mercifully quiet owing to the ceremonial changing of the guard happening later that day), Éowyn had accidentally stumbled upon the third thing that would change her life forever.

Even to her young mind, he immediately seemed a man of contradiction. Undeniably young, but somehow carrying himself with the comportment of a man several decades older; the dark hair and shorter stature of a Dunlander, but the presence and language of a man of the Mark. At first, he had not noticed her — he was so diligently listening to the King that it seemed to her he might not have noticed if an entire éored had passed him by. But when, failing to mask herself fully behind a passing attendant, Éowyn had been spotted by her uncle, the man’s attention had fallen to her entirely.

He was impeccably behaved, granting her the courtesy of a deep bow — despite few ever humbling themselves before such a young girl — and spoke to her levelly (not, to her ears, taking notice of her youth). In the practice yard and on horseback, Éowyn was accustomed to being spoken to with little regard for her age, but rarely was such deference extended into the stricter social edifices of Meduseld.

By any stretch of the imagination, it should have tickled her pride to be spoken to as an equal, it had, of course, been something she had longed for ever since she had first mastered stringing words together into sentences. Something, however, unsettled her about the entire interaction, raising hairs on the back of her neck and forcing her shoulders back into a defensive posture. She told herself that it was a natural consequence of having been effectively caught attempting to bury evidence of a misdeed, and that had she not first met him while she was clutching a bedsheet hiding a bloodied shift, she might have had an entirely different opinion of him.

After she was dismissed and scampered out into the gardens, she was immediately caught by Ceolwenne, the daughter of one of the Lords of the Eastfold who had recently arrived at Edoras to be presented at court. Ceolwenne, who Éowyn had, until that moment, had very little time for, had taken one look at the bundled sheets and Éowyn’s ghost-white face and immediately pulled her into a hug. Together, they had thrown the bundle into the garden fire, and Ceolwenne had, in perhaps flightier language than Éowyn might have preferred, explained what that blood had meant and exactly what she should do to prepare herself in the future.

It should have been a tremendous relief to her to discover that it was not a sign of moral failure and to find that it was something that women could speak to other women about in relatively frank terms. Instead, and for reasons then entirely unexplainable to her, it filled her with a deep, abiding sense of dread.

Thereafter, the changes in her life came on gradually, some of them so slowly that she hardly noticed they had happened at all. The years passed and she grew up. At least two or three times a year, she bled, but now she knew what to expect (though that did not mean she found it any less unsettling). Éomer and Théodred were away for greater and greater stretches of time, and the man, who she now knew as Gríma, took on a greater and greater role in the Golden Hall.

At first, Éowyn had imagined that the duties bestowed upon her were duties given to account for Théodred’s absence — welcoming local and foreign dignitaries, maintaining the daily running of the household, and seeing to the needs of the King. But with these duties came certain infringements on the life she had come to enjoy. Gone were the comfortable linen dresses and loose hair of her childhood, replaced by elegant velvet gowns and coiled, braided updos; no longer could she practice for hours on end in the practice and tilt yards, not when, as Gríma took care to remind her, the household could not cope without a strong commander at its helm.

With the finer gowns and the increased hours spent indoors came a change in how people spoke to and looked at her. After years of hoping to be treated as an adult, she began to learn that what she had hoped for was to be treated as an adult man, not an adult woman. Adult men could sit in counsel with her King-uncle, and could drink until late at night and argue about the mechanics of war and glory. Adult women could not.

It was as much a sign of her becoming aware of herself as it was a sign that she was physically changing. Slowly, so slowly that she hardly noticed it if she didn’t think about it, her hips swelled and her breasts became heavier and more pronounced. Her face slimmed, her lashes lengthened and darkened, and hair grew on parts of her body that she had not expected it to grow. All of these things seemed to her to be things of little note — except, perhaps, as an occasional nuisance when gowns that had previously fitted her no longer did — but seemed of great consequence to the people around her.

The whispers of the women and men at court wriggled their way into her subconscious. Lascivious tales of noble women undone by pregnancies out of wedlock, peasant women trapped by Dunlenders and subjected to unimaginable acts of violence, and women who took so happily to the chore of sex that they freely took multiple partners — to the chagrin of the court. Without expecting it or inviting it, Éowyn soon learned that the mantle of womanhood that she was now inheriting was a heavy and burdensome load.

She was fourteen the first time she had recognised a man staring at her chest. He was a minor sergeant from just outside Aldburg, twenty-two years old, fairly handsome for so short a man, and loud-spoken with a riotous laugh. They had been standing opposite one another in conversation at the outlying perimeters of a celebratory dance when she had followed the line of his sight. When he realised she was aware of where his attention was turned to, he had smirked at her, then disappeared off to find the hand of another young girl for the next dance. Beside her, one of the fluttering twits who hovered around the court in search of a high-born husband leaned in to her and giggled, telling her in no uncertain terms that she should be honoured by the man’s interest in her body. She did try her best to be honoured, but the only emotion she could conjure within her was a vague sense of fury.

After that, she had taken to finishing her domestic duties as hastily as she could so she could slip out of her gowns and exhaust herself in the practice yard. The first few times she had done so, she had moved so speedily through her duties she began to trip up and make careless mistakes, which had resulted in Gríma keeping an ever-closer eye on her work. When mistakes were inevitably discovered, she found herself forced back into gowns for longer and longer periods of time, and being forced back into gowns meant being forced back under the sometimes-lewd gaze of men. These failures, she was told, were an abdication of her womanly duty to maintain a neat household. Thus, womanhood became inextricably bound up with restrictions on her liberty and the unsettling and unwelcomed notice of men.

Ceolwenne married Elfhelm on a cool spring day, a humble but pretty affair. They went away for a few short weeks, and when they returned, she had a wealth of stories to whisper to Éowyn. Ceolwenne, who had been far better prepared for a woman’s life than had Éowyn, seemed to have entered her marriage with a plethora of insecurities and expectations — most of which had turned out to be wrong. Even still, it was the first time Éowyn had heard that sex could be anything other than a wearisome duty to be endured.

When she was sixteen, Théodred’s èored briefly returned to Edoras for some ceremonial formalities. A young rider, at most three or four years her senior, watched her in the practice ring as she proved to her cousin all that she had learned in his absence. Théodred, with a small smirk, departed after just two rounds, leaving her alone with the man. He introduced himself as Alaric, a local boy under Théodred’s command. He was quick-witted and praised her combat skills, and she had been happy to have someone who wasn’t her kin speak admiringly of her ability to fight. He’d told her he had little experience with cleaning up in the royal stables, and that he needed advice on how to properly stack the saddles so as to avoid her cousin’s ire.

Because she was sixteen, and because she had so rarely been around men who didn’t see her desire to fight as a threat to their manhood, she convinced herself she believed that he needed help, and followed. Inside the stables, she made a valiant attempt at showing him the ropes, until he’d pinned her to the wall and kissed her breathless.

It was sloppy, bordering on bad (though then she had no basis on which to judge the quality of a kiss), and it surprised her. But he didn’t seem to mind that he was kissing somebody in breeches who reeked of horse, so she kissed him back until a stable boy interrupted them. When Théodred’s men left at the end of the week, she didn’t watch them leave, and she never again asked after him, though for many years afterwards she often thought of that day in the stables.

A few months later, her marriageability was first spoken of. Lord Boromir of Gondor, a steadfast and favourite friend of Théodred’s had momentarily passed through Edoras on an unofficial diplomatic errand. (After he had left, her uncle had made it clear that he thought Boromir had been sent by his supercilious father to sniff out weaknesses in the Mark.) Lord Boromir had very proudly admitted that he expected that his younger brother, a captain fighting at the far eastern reaches of Gondor, would soon announce his betrothal to the eldest daughter of some lord from the south of the kingdom. It was, he said, a remarkably politically-savvy match, certain to bring the more capricious southern fiefdoms back into line.

Gríma, invited but not desired at that dinner, had, as was his way in those days, managed to redirect the conversation towards the theory of marriage as a political tool, and how a more stringent application of that theory in Rohan (as was seen in Gondor) might come to the kingdom’s benefit. He had implied, though had stared her down while he spoke, that unwed women kin of the King ought to make themselves more available to men of good sense.

Éowyn, who had never before given much thought to marriage, except in passing recognition to the fact that she would likely one day have to marry, blanched at the notion that any future marriages of hers would be discussed so openly. But then it occurred to her, with the swiftness of a winter gale blustering through an open door, that she was, in fact, of a perfectly reasonable age to be thinking of marriage.

In a move that had endeared him to her immensely, Lord Boromir had pointed out that while he referred to his brother as “younger,” he was in fact eight and twenty years old, and his apparent intended was only a few years younger than that, and both had come about the arrangement after many years of unattached life in adulthood.

The door, however, had been kicked open, and the monster that dwelt within could not be so easily returned to its enclosure.

It seemed to her the most frustrating conversation in her life in the subsequent two years, and it seemed to her to occur at two levels. The more overt level was that of the occasional discussion of marriage candidates’ suitability. Men would come, from time to time, to seek out the hand of Lady Éowyn, and Lady Éowyn would, with ruthless efficiency, dismiss them. In this, she had an entirely unexpected ally in Gríma, who seemed to find fault in all of her suitors as quickly as she did, and was far less reserved in his dismissals.

The more subtle level was that of discussions of what would be expected of her after marriage. At first, the language had been amorphous: Théodred had been slow to marry, Éomer was far too pleased with his status as the effective “spare”, what would become of the line of Eorl? Who, asked those who dared ask aloud, would ensure the birth of an heir? In those years, Gríma became a master manipulator of conversations. Where compliments paid to Éowyn had once concerned her ability to uphold her duties, or her voice, or her ability to dance, soon they focussed on her youth, her femininity, and, for the bolder flatterers, the curve of her hips.

She reached an age where she took to working with the elder women of the court on the various tapestries and blankets and carpets that they wrought on their looms. Then, she learned that sex, despite for so many of them being a frustrating burden at worst and a bore at best, was a regular topic of conversation. In their conversations, she came to learn much she hadn’t before had a way to learn. There was a moment, she learned, in the midst of sex where people reached what the women referred to as a “crisis.” For men, this crisis was not only common, but nigh on mandatory, the ultimate and only goal of sex. For women, this crisis was uncommon, but certainly not unheard of, though often stumbled upon quite by accident. Despite their language, all of the women seemed to speak fondly of this crisis, as if it was something to be actively sought after. Having no experience of her own against which to measure her opinions, Éowyn merely accepted that this was the way things were, and that, even if it was a happy one, a crisis sounded like a level of instability she would rather not invite into her life.

Meanwhile, her uncle seemed to age ten years for every one that passed. Her duties became more numerous and more laborious. Stubbornly committed to her precious few minutes of freedom a day, she fought hard to preserve her few hours of swordplay a week, even if it came at the cost of sleep or eating. It was to her benefit and detriment that she placed such a high premium on that time; benefit, in that she never felt as if she couldn’t defend herself from physical harm if needs must, detriment in that it became Gríma’s easiest way to wrest control over her. She had to guard it jealously, had to take to keeping a dulled blade beneath her bed for the days in which she found all the practice blades mysteriously locked away, and had to implicitly enlist the help of the servants to cover her tracks.

More men came seeking her affection, and she sent them all away. Some men, the younger ones, the maverick officers, didn’t come looking for her hand in marriage, but to take their chances at cracking the Lady of Rohan’s stony exterior. It became a game of sorts amongst men in the know, winning her attention was a warrior’s challenge in its own right, akin to slaying a first — or tenth — orc. Whether she was oblivious to it or intensely obstinate the men never figured out, but either way, none ever had any success.

What to them was a game became a struggle for life and death for her. For each man that flirted with her or sent tokens of affection, Gríma tightened his grip further and further. Her uncle had been almost entirely unmanned, his thoughts so consumed by the looming conflict that the social troubles of his youngest ward bled into the background noise.

Gríma touched her for the first time a little while after her seventeenth birthday. It was a brisk spring morning, and she was scheduled to meet a minor lordling from the Gondorian province of Anórien. She had gone out to the veranda without a mantle and, after a single shiver, Gríma had disappeared back into the hall, only to return with a thin, dark cloak. Though she was loath to accept any gestures from him, she was already surrounded by far too many dignitaries of the Mark who could not be trusted with any sign of defiance from the representatives of the House of Eorl. So, she had tipped her head in assent when Gríma presented her with the mantle, and held her hair back as he stood before her and secured it around her through. To onlookers, it would have seemed as if the fastener on the cloak was particularly fussy, because it took him several long seconds to finally catch it through. To Éowyn, the seconds stretched like hours as Gríma brushed long, moist fingers across the hollow of her throat, over and over and over until finally she’d stiffened, and he seemed to be broken from his trance.

A month passed before he touched her again, and then it was only a hand against the small of her back as he passed her in the council room.

A few weeks after that, it was his fingers wrapping around her arm to escort her away from her exhausted King.

Orcs pushed further into Rohan, a worrying puzzle that panicked all those in Edoras who had any business of knowing. Her cousin spent more and more time riding between his detachment and Meduseld, and each time she saw him he seemed tauter, more bereft of good humour, and, unsurprisingly if frustratingly, less able to listen to her worries. Through no fault of his own, he could hardly notice that it was not just his father whose constitution was bowing under the burden of conflict, and failed entirely to notice that Éowyn had grown distant and jumped every time someone entered the room without fair warning.

Her change in mood did not go unnoticed by Gríma, who quickly used it to drive a wedge between her and her uncle. Théoden, who had also become increasingly paranoid, seemed convinced that his line would die out. It took some careful manoeuvring from Gríma, but in time her uncle believed that it was Éowyn’s reserved personality that most threatened the House of Eorl. She was instructed, in no uncertain terms, to have a more open temperament and to show more warmth to their guests and allies.

It went against every defence she had learned. If she were to be more open and inviting towards their guests (who were all, invariably, men) then she would be indirectly inviting Gríma’s jealousy. She had always tried to deny that that is what it came down to — he was twenty-one years her senior, had known her since she was barely into girlhood, it all seemed incomprehensible to her — but at this earliest of breaking points, it was almost impossible to deny.

For three years, there was a stalemate of sorts. It was not a receding of hostilities, so to speak, but there were no escalations either. She found that if she didn’t put up any resistance when his fingers slipped under the hem of her sleeves or he stopped so close to her side she could feel his breath on her face, then she wouldn’t lose time in the practice ring, and wouldn’t be cornered into emotionally devastating arguments with her uncle and liege-lord.

Men continued to call, though there were fewer as the conflict worsened at the borders of the Riddermark. A daughter of a lord of the Westfold came to Edoras, Edith was her name. She was beautiful and self-possessed, she laughed loudly and drank heartily, and charmed the entire court within hours of her arrival. She took many bewitched men to her bed without a hint of shame, and in so doing left no room for anyone to criticise her. Better to die of good sex out of wedlock, she told Éowyn, than of bad sex in wedlock.

Théoden’s condition worsened, and Gríma cast a wider and wider shadow across Meduseld. Éomer was made third Marshal of the Mark, and Théodred began to spend more time in Edoras. The condition in the Westfold became bleaker with each passing week, the Dunlendings now threatened harm greater than they had ever been empowered to do before.

&c. &c. &c.

#e writes #I want to get more into her moral Panic about it but I felt like I needed to set it up quite heavily #I don’t even know if this makes sense but #I feel very strongly about this

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pocket-luv101 · 4 years

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Summary: Mahiru sneaks into a masquerade ball to dance with Kuro. (KuroMahi, Historical Romance AU)

A/N: This is a part of the “Their Clandestine Romance” series that’s set between the two fanfics.

“Why do I have to go to the party full of boring adults? There won’t be other kids for me to play with.” Hyde whined as Mahiru helped him with the buttons on his jacket. While he was a tutor for the royal family, Mahiru would often act as a nanny for the younger siblings. He heard of how difficult the children could be before he took the job but he found that they were simply energetic. Most of the rumours around the royal family were simply untrue— especially the ones around the king.

“If I have to be bored at the masquerade ball, you need to be tortured with me.” As if his thoughts had summoned him, Kuro stepped into the room. His lazy drawl made Mahiru’s heart flutter but he was careful not to show his reaction to the others in the room. Kuro stood next to them and tousled his little brother’s hair. “Behave and we’ll take you to that Hamlet play you told me about.”

“Also, you don’t have to worry about being bored or alone at the party. You have your siblings to talk to and your angel friend will be attending as well.” Mahiru reassured him. He fixed Hyde’s tousled hair and then went to help the other children prepare for the party. In the corner of his eyes, he watched Kuro speak with his younger brother. He could see how much he cared for his family from their laughter.

As their tutor, he was able to see the person Kuro was beyond his title of king. He was nonchalant but fiercely loyal to the people he cared about. The combination of his subtle smirk and his dry humour was able lift his spirits. They could talk about something mundane yet Mahiru would enjoy the conversation. All of those things led Mahiru to fall in love with Kuro.

“It’s time to go to the main hall for the masquerade ball. Remember to stand tall when you’re each introduced. After that, you can have fun. The nobles will be too drunk to judge you.” Mahiru had barely finish speaking before Lily and Wrath took his hands to pull him forward. He didn’t mind the way they tugged on his arms and laughed. “At least you two are excited for the party.”

“I wanna dance!” Lily told him and the others quickly added what they wanted to do at the party. Mahiru nodded along with their words and walked down the hallway with them. Since he was an only child, he had always wanted a big family. He never thought he would be able to have children though. Yet, Kuro made that wish come true. They were lovers and they would take care of his young siblings as if they were a married couple.

“Who do you want to dance with, Mahiru?” Wrath asked him.

“I’m not a nobleman so I can’t attend the masquerade ball. I’ll be spending my evening grading your essays but come to my classroom if you need me.” Even as he avoided her question, he glanced towards Kuro. They had to keep their relationship a secret due to their different classes. He cherished every moment he could steal with Kuro yet his heart yearned for more.

“You’re going to tear Mahiru’s arms off with how rough you two are being.” Kuro’s voice brought him out of his thoughts. He gently took Mahiru’s hand from Lily and squeezed it gently. The way he tenderly rubbed his thumb over his knuckles held a message only the two could hear. He wished he could hold his hand while they walked down the hall. He reminded himself that he would only endanger Mahiru if the truth was revealed. Kuro let go of his hand far too quickly for both of them.

They neared the grand entrance and Mahiru took out a bag of masks. He stood in front of Kuro and rose onto his toes so he could slip the black mask over his face. His fingers lingered against his skin as he adjusted the mask so it would be comfortable for Kuro. The mask hid most of his features but Mahiru was able to see his red eyes.

“Should I start the introductions, Your Highness?” He quickly stepped away from Kuro when he heard the royal advisor approach them. The man didn’t give Mahiru a glance as he spoke with Kuro about the masquerade ball. Kuro dreaded the party and he wished he had a few more minutes with Mahiru. He was led away from Mahiru and pushed Kuro into the ballroom. The introductions began and Kuro prayed the party wouldn’t drag long into the night.

He waited for the royal advisor to introduce the family. The silence that followed their entrance spoke volumes. Most people were entranced with the image of the royal family and stared at them as they descended the stairs. Between his appearance and status, many people would try to court him but Kuro mostly ignored them. There was only one person he wanted to dance with but he wouldn’t be attending the masquerade ball.

Mahiru discretely excused himself and walked away from them. He walked back to his room but he paused a few feet from them. He looked back to him and he was surprised when Kuro did the same. Their eyes met but he couldn’t read his expression due to the mask. He smiled at him reassuringly before he walked around the corner of the hall.

He was taken by surprised when someone walked into his path. “Shouldn’t you be in the ballroom, Tsurugi? You’re the captain of the guards.”

“I found a mask and I think it’s yours, Mahiru. I came to return it to you.” Tsurugi dangled a masked in front of him. The golden mask was shaped like a cat. They both knew that the mask didn’t belong to him since a simple tutor couldn’t attend the masquerade ball. He didn’t know what Tsurugi had planned until he grinned at him. “I should go back to the ballroom. You’ll never know who can sneak into the party while wearing a mask.”

Mahiru slipped into the ballroom and he was glad that most people didn’t notice him among the crowd. He had changed into an elegant costume and wore a mask to disguise himself. Only a few people knew him but he couldn’t help worrying that he would be discovered. His heart was beating rapidly in his chest and he wondered why he decided to sneak into the party.

He walked to the window and the cool breeze helped calm him. Mahiru debated what he should do. While he was a very social person and enjoyed dancing, he didn’t like complicated politics. He was reminded of how the party was a way to network for political power more than anything else.

“May I have a dance?” Mahiru recognized the voice so he knew Kuro asked him the question even before he turned to face him. Kuro bowed slightly and held out his hand to him. He had imagined dancing with Kuro in a ballroom a thousand times but he never thought they would be able to. A thousand pair of eyes were watching them and he could feel their judgement. He didn’t want to let the moment slip away though.

“It would be an honour, My King.” Mahiru placed his hands in Kuro’s. He brought him to the center of the room and then they faced each other. Kuro kissed Mahiru’s fingertips before he brought his hand to his shoulder. Then, Kuro placed his hand on his waist and led him through a simple slow dance. The song started and the music almost drowned out the whisper Kuro gave to Mahiru.

“My council has been pressuring me to dance with someone all night. I finally found a person I want to dance with. You won’t get angry if I accidentally step on your feet, will you, Mahiru?” Despite his disguise, Kuro recognized him. Once he heard Mahiru giggle, his suspicions were confirmed. They both relaxed into the moment and the world faded around them.

In Kuro’s arms, he didn’t have to worry about their stations or people’s judgement. Mahiru moved closer to him and leaned his forehead on his strong chest. He could hear his heartbeat and he swayed in time with the sound. They rarely had the chance to dance together yet matching his slow pace came naturally to him. “I wouldn’t mind parties if I get to dance with you.”

“You have to keep up appearances, Kuro. I know you call it troublesome but you have to maintain alliances with other kingdoms.” Mahiru reminded him and his own words stab him. While most would call Kuro lazy, he saw how much he cared for his kingdom. Their eyes met and Mahiru found himself smiling painfully. “You have a duty to your kingdom.”

“I have a commitment to my lover as well.” Kuro whispered back to him. Like many nights, he imagined if they were born in a different time without the complication of his royal blood. He would be able to hold Mahiru in public. “I want to be with you, Mahiru.”

“To be honest, thinking about you dancing with someone else makes me jealous.” Mahiru admitted.

They barely finished dancing before they heard a loud crash. At the far end of the hall, the table was turned over and World End was covered in food. Mahiru could easily picture what happened to cause the mess. His first worry was that he was hurt and Mahiru ran to help him.

He reached World End’s side and he looked him over for injuries. Mahiru was relieved that he didn’t appear hurt and took out a napkin to wipe the food from his hair. He noticed that World End was looking over his shoulder and he could finally sense the eyes on his back.

“It’s impolite to stare. Please, return to the party.” Mahiru turned to the nobles who were watching World End with disdain. He knew he should be polite to the lords but he couldn’t stand the way they would judge a child for an accident. He moved in front of World End to protect him from their stares. Kuro walked to them and Mahiru was relieved to see him.

“Let me apologize for my brother. The chef will bring out more food in a few minutes. Until then, enjoy the band.” He told the crowd and they started to disperse. He was glad that the lords and ladies didn’t cause a scene after his order. Kuro turned back to his little brother who was staring at the ground. He knew the pressure that their title had on them all too well.

“I couldn’t reach the food.” World End pouted. Kuro’s response was a brotherly pat on his shoulder.

“Next time, you should ask Kuro or me for help.” Mahiru told him a gentle yet firm voice. He helped him to his feet and then handed him a plate of treats. “Let’s go and get you some clean clothes.”

“It looks like we all survived the party. Since you had to stay up late, I’ll postpone tomorrow’s lesson.” Mahiru told the children as he tucked them into their beds. While the castle was large enough for each sibling to have their own room, they were close and wanted to share one. He loved how close the family was and he hoped society wouldn’t change them as they grew up.

“Mahiru, can you go to the main hall and get my doll? I think I forgot it at the party.” Lily asked him.

“Of course. I expect you all to be asleep by the time I come back with your doll though. It’s late.” Mahiru said and blew out the candle next to his bed. He left the room and made his way to the ballroom. He was busy taking care of the children so he wasn’t able to dance more. Even if he had the chance, Kuro couldn’t be his partner like he yearned for. He debated if he should visit Kuro since he was likely tired after the party.

The main hall was dark when he entered so he searched for a candlestick to use for lighting. He passed the glass doors to the garden and a hand grabbed his arm. His small gasp was stifled by a hand over his mouth. As he was pulled behind the curtain, he recognized the person and he freely stepped into their arms. “You should be careful walking around in the dark. Didn’t your uncle warn you that vampires might steal you away at night.”

“Vampires aren’t real, Kuro. You should save those scary stories for your siblings.” Mahiru chuckled and wrapped his arms around Kuro’s neck. Throughout the party, his only wish was to dance Kuro and he was finally in his arms now. He smiled up at him and said: “If a vampire did capture me, I hope you’ll come and save me.”

“I’ll chase that vampire even if he takes you across the world. Lord help that troublesome vampire if he did anything to you.” The moonlight was dim yet Kuro was able to see Mahiru clearly. He brushed his bangs from his brown eyes and thought of how their brightness reflected his personality. “Thank you for standing up for my brother.”

“He’s a good kid. I love your family and I’ll do anything for them. I’m actually here in search of Lily’s missing doll. Will you help me? I’ll give you anything you want as a reward.” Mahiru said and tightened his arms around him to draw him closer. He threaded his fingers through his light hair until he touched his cold crown. “I should’ve handled the situation better though. I might’ve offended someone powerful.”

“I wanted to yell at them too. You had the courage to do that while I didn’t. My title is troublesome.” He sighed. Mahiru placed his hand on his cheek and his light touch made him feel stronger. He was more dignified and honourable than most lords he knew. One of the things he came to love about him was how he saw people for who they are before their title. No matter if the person was royalty or a simple squire, Mahiru was kind to them.

With a finger beneath his chin, Kuro lifted his face and kissed him softly. “We weren’t able to finish our dance. There’s no music but will you dance with me?”

“A private dance like this is better than a party.” Mahiru smiled at him and let Kuro sweep him into a dance.

#servamp #kuromahi #sloth pair #servamp kuro #mahiru shirota #fanfiction

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whatdoesshedotothem · 3 years

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Sunday 15 April 1832: SH:7/ML/E/15/0052

8 5

12 ¾

- Let[ter] fr[om] L[ad]y St[uar]t inclos[in]g half sheets fr[om] Mrs. Hamilt[o]n to L[ad]y S- [Stuart] de R- [Rothesay] and let[ter] fr[om] L[ad]y G- [Gordon] 1 half sh[ee]t full - fine morn[in]g F[ahrenheit] 61° at 9 1/2 in my r[oo]m and 67° at 9 3/4 in the balc[on]y - Mr. West preach[e]d 33 min[ute]s fr[om] 1 Tim[oth]y 1.15 - queer Evangel[ica]l serm[o]n awake all the time w[e]nt out at 1 1/2 for 1 1/2 h[ou]r - met Captain Cameron she asked him to dinner the murder is out we talked it over she will not say no so ‘tis done ca[me] to my r[oo]m soon aft[e]r 4 - wr[ote] the foll[owin]g to L[ad]y S- [Stuart] ‘Hast[in]gs Sun[day] 15 Ap[ril] 1832. Th[an]k you ver[y] m[u]ch my d[eare]st L[ad]y St[uar]t, for all y[ou]r k[i]nd anx[iet]y ab[ou]t me, and for Mrs. Hamilton’s excell[en]t let[ter] - we will talk ab[ou]t all this - I shall n[o]t fix an[y]th[in]g till my arriv[a]l in Lond[on] - I fear there is no chance of my see[in]g L[ad]y St[uar]t de Rothesay - I h[a]d a let[ter] fr[om] L[ad]y Gordon this morn[in]g who is alarm[e]d already - I kno[w] n[o]th wheth[e]r Vere will, or can for fear of overweight, wr[Ite] at all today - poor dear girl! I really feel for and pity her excessive shyness and incredulity on going out to take our little walk we un expectedly met a friend whom between ourselves I rather coutned upon seeing again rather sooner at last poor Vere has found herself almost forced into entering upon the subject with me and I have really thought it right assured as I am of your approbation to express my gladness to see our friend who is to dine with us this evening as I find he stays tomorrow I conclude he will call in the morning when it will be so natural for me to be out that even Vere’s fastidiousness can find not fault the mere being asked to dinner might be taken as enough I hope and think it will we ha[ve] h[a]d a good deal of n[or]th east wind till today; b[u]t Vere h[a]s borne it bet[ter] then I expect[e]d; and I am in bet[ter] sp[iri]ts ab[ou]t h[e]r than I w[a]s - ever, dear[e]st L[ad]y St[uar]t, ver[y] affect[ionatel]y y[ou]rs A. [Anne] Lister’ at 5 20/: took d[o]wn my no[te] 3 p[ages] of 1/4 sh[ee]t to ‘the Hon[oura]ble Lady St[uar]t Whitehall’ to Miss H- [Hobart] to enclose w[i]th Mrs. Hamilton’s let[ter] to L[ad]y S- [Stuart] twenty minutes with Miss H- [Hobart] laughing and joking but found the tears sstarting as I kissed her forehad and ran away what are you going said she but I was off

saying oh I dare not look behind me a few tears are falling but away with them ‘For hum[a]n weal

heav[e]n husb[a]nds all events’ I am satisfied I can keep uo the friendship try to arrange with Lady Gordon and be better off than with Miss H- [Hobart] ‘tis strik[in]g 6 - dress[e]d - din[ner] at 6 3/4 - on going down saw them on the sofa to[ge]ther and both looking so satisfied I suspected how it was the moment we left the dining room about eight he staying behind quarter hour she told me it was all over he made his offer

in a very flattering manner to her done it very well and she had accepted him I said it was much better I was very glad of it she gave me her two cheeks to kiss I kisse[d] the first one then the other but said nothing she morelized a little said how a moment changed our whole lives but she thought she should not repent he stays tomorrow I asked if he would dine with us yes she did not care now what was ssaid I gently suggested that it would be more consistent with her former primminess to tell him that now they could not mistake each other she thought he had better not dine here two days together they could see more of each other at the Lodge and perhaps he would not be the less pleased with her for this I was not prudish but now perhaps I even felt more particular than she did she seemed satisfied with what I said said Italy had already been mentioned for the winter he came in we soon had coffee I poured it out ordered tea in half an hour and soon came upstairs a little before nine and left them to their happiness what a sudden change for us alll for me too she will go to Italy but not with me well tho’ I made my eyes very yed [red] with crying before dinner I already begin to think it is better she would have left me in the lurch when I could have managed less well than now odd enough we had scarcely gone out to the house this afternoon when we a long small man at a distance before us and she said how very far that man’s arms are for his ssides (one saw the light between the uper arm and side) I don’t like that when who should it be but Captain Cameron he shook hands with us both we walked up High street and past the nursery garden and then took several turns in the croft I thought she walked up and down very satisfiedly in returning along George street I heard her ask him if he would eat his mutton chop with us ‘I shall be very glad to see you’ ‘will you really’ said he in a low voice oh oh thought I then it’s all over and we talked it over on our return she owned that aunt and she had agreed it would be very foolish to refuse him but still she refused to believe he really would offer till he had absoultely done it she will soon be sufficiently in love well my prospects are changed it was only this morning at

SH:7/ML/E/15/0053

breakfast I had spoken of my father and mother as having been unhappy together an ill assorted match and spoke of Marian as if I wanted to make a thing better always pulling it down again she liked to everybody be cock of the dunghill etc etc in fact I have gradually of late become more confidential luckily I have never told her my fortune or income and on the whole said nothing I am very sorry for I do not feel uncomfortably committed tho’ I did laugh and say befor[e] church this morning well if it was not for the petticoats the thing would be clear enough yes that it would said she perhaps ssaid I laughingly it is pretty much the same thing in spite of them (the petticoats) how little dream what so few hours would bring forth while doubting of Captain C- [Cameron] she liked to keep me within reach better have me than neither or nobody le jeu vaut la chandelle I am satisfied perhaps I shall do tolerably yet at all rates I feel more comfortable after having written the above - fr[om] 8 55/.. to 9 1/2 wr[ote] the last 33 lines in Miss H-‘s [Hobart] room my own full of smoke w[e]nt d[o]wn to tea at 9 35/.. - talked away agreeably enough he staid till eleven and a quarter she then ate an orange and when she had done it I asked for my orangeade oh said she I had forgot it I made no ob[servation]s but kept up very well ca[me] upst[ai]rs at 11 1/2 and to my r[oo]m at 11 35/.. - kissed her forehead as usual and glad to be off rang my bell immediately to get rid of Cameron and have no fear of interruption feeling that I should make a fool of myself as ssoon as alone why do I do it she never cared for me well she even think for one moment of what I may or may not really feel on this occasion? well flow on my useless miserable foolish tears but they have flowed before perhaps even more uncomfortably than now there is less mortification the thing is at least intelligible I shall get the better of it and at least be thankful that my fate is fixed shall I see much of her hereafter or not how odd will seem our meeting in Italy! but I shall be better then how thankful I am this business did not happen sooner I shall at least escape the lovemaking she says I behave beautifully she little guesses the misery of this tearful moment as I write but no more surely it will be over by morning Finish mild sunless day - F[ahrenheit] 63° at 11 3/4 in my r[oo]m and 49 1/2° at 12 3/4 in the balc[on]y

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ineffablecolors · 5 years

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The Wife [7/?]

The Wife || Ch 7 ~ 4.4 k || Ch1 Ch2 Ch3 Ch4 Ch5 Ch6 || FF.NET&AO3 Summary: No one knows all that Emma has been through and certainly no one knows all that Killian has been through and being husband and wife doesn’t make them any less unknown to each other. And really, how can you help someone heal when you don’t even know how hurt they are? A/N: First - it has been such an amazing few days for this story, guys!! There was this gorgeous manip by @spartanguard 😍 and now this awesome illustration of Captain Jones by @marcella2727 ❤️ Second - solid MT for More-than-hands Touching, you’ve been warned guys ;)

“Well, that won’t do.”

Emma looks up from the list she is compiling. Dinner was a somewhat disappointing affair last night, seeing as Killian was supposed to be back – he was supposed to be back the evening before, as a matter of fact – and she kept delaying the meal until it looked like Granny might serve her, if she didn’t let her set the table already. So now Emma has to come up with a different menu for tonight and not focus on the fact that she feels like she has exhausted all her best ideas over the last two days.

How might Granny choose to punish her, if she makes her roast a turkey again?

She shakes her head and focuses on the girl sitting across from her. Alice seems to have abandoned all attempts at keeping her correspondence from Emma since their conversation in the library and she hopes the girl is reacting to something written in the letter in her hand, rather than becoming frustrated with her father’s continued absence.

Emma herself is somewhat less than successful on that account.

“Is everything alright?”

“Papa must bring me the latest Dickens. Robyn has already finished it and, at this rate, I will know all by the time I get my hands on it!”

Emma does her best to hide her smile behind a cough. Anyone who has known Alice for longer than a day can tell that her interest in horses and wild animals far exceeds her interest in books and the beautiful piano in the drawing room – that Emma hasn’t dared to touch yet, but nothing seems to exceed her need to know all that everyone else around her does.

“I’m sure he won’t forget. You did write it down for him.”

If the good-natured tease in her voice is obvious, Alice takes it with a smile and playfully narrowed eyes before she leans her head to the side. The gesture is absolutely identical to the one often seen from her father and Emma feels a little tingle down the back of her neck.

“You really shouldn’t tell him you don’t want anything or you’ll soon need a vanity just for all the jewelry you’ll accumulate.”

“Oh, I’m sure he won’t—“

“But he will.”

Emma’s eyebrows draw together and she gives Alice a questioning look – her tone is much too weary for the topic of presents, expected or not.

“I— Well, I do not know what it was like later on but… I remember when I was little— because I would be so happy, you see? I’d be so excited when he came back. And my mother… the first thing she always did was demand to know what he had brought her. She would make a terrible row, if he hadn’t or… if whatever it was didn’t suit her fancy, I suppose, since I can’t… can’t remember him ever coming back empty-handed.”

Emma curls her fingers around the pen in her hand and takes the deep measured breaths she normally uses to calm herself after a nightmare. This one is not her nightmare. The very thought that this is obviously one of the more vivid memories Alice has of her childhood incents her beyond words. Which is for the better since she can’t speak ill of her mother in front of her, even if she already knows that she absolutely detests this woman she never met and thankfully, never will.

Emma wouldn’t have trusted herself to behave like a lady, if she ever met the previous Mrs Jones.

Frankly, presumptuous as it probably is, she feels a sense of indignation at the very thought that such a woman carried the title before her.

“So he will get you jewels,” Alice concludes matter-of-factly. “She was always sufficiently pleased with jewels.”

“But I don’t want—“

“Oh, I know.”

Emma closes her mouth and stares at Alice, surprised by her confident tone and the soft smile on her lips.

“But the sooner you decide what you do want, the easier it will be for both of you.”

She focuses back on her list and on not reading anything in Alice’s statement that is not really there.

*****

His thumb slides back and forth over the smooth stone – it’s cold and unyielding – both things that she probably imagines herself to be and both things she is not.

“Does the gentleman like this one?”

Killian blinks up at the jeweler and shakes his head. No, the yellow sapphire is captivating but it is not the colour he wants, no matter how hard the salesman tries to pursued him that it is. So he ignores the pursed lips and sour expression on the man’s face and lets his eyes roam freely over the displays.

Over the years, Killian has learnt the advantages of compromise but it has never come naturally to him. So, while he should really be heading home soon, if he doesn’t want to arrive when everybody has already gone to bed and while he is gradually becoming acquainted with a new kind of exhaustion – one born of the ache in his left forearm that kept him company all night and the other ache that feels a lot like homesickness, Killian can’t bring himself to settle for something that doesn’t feel right.

It is utterly ridiculous, of course, this supposed homesickness. He used to sail across the world for months on end without even laying eyes on a spot of land, let alone setting foot on it. Let alone coming home. And yes, he feels absolutely wretched wasting any of the time Alice is at home and yes, he worries that he has led Emma astray by underestimating the duration of his trip and thinks – perhaps rather fancifully – that the delay might cause her some worry and yes, it has been almost four full days now – longer than he wished and anticipated his business to take. But none of that justifies this kind of fretting and whining – be it only in his mind. He is not a young lad on his first leave and it does him no credit to think and act like one.

So he grits his teeth and rubs at the spot just under his elbow that sometimes manages to alleviate the pain and continues to patiently slide his eyes over the different gems and metals before him. He will be making his way home soon enough, he just wants to make this last purchase. It takes him by surprise – how much he genuinely wants to find something that she will like, something that will suit her.

His eyes catch on a hue that looks almost familiar, set as it is among little white stones rather than black lashes.

“May I see this one?”

The jeweler obliges him and presents the ornament with a flourish that is completely unnecessary – Killian already knows he will be walking out with it.

*****

“What is she, looking for buried treasure or something?”

Ruby turns to find the kitchen window wide open and her grandmother leaning out of it, glaring at the spot where Emma is preparing flower beds. Or rather, that seemed to be her idea when she took her gloves and tools and seeds out into the front garden, before she seemed to get lost in an almost hypnotic state of digging.

Ruby passes the old woman the empty glass of water she brought to their mistress and gives her an admonishing look.

“Granny.”

“What? She keeps digging like that, there won’t be any soil left for her to plant anything in.”

“She is worried.”

“What is she worried about? I told her yesterday that he is always too optimistic when planning his travels.”

Ruby squeezes one eye shut and leans an elbow on the windowsill. She wishes Emma asked her or even Alice about why Captain Jones might be gone longer than anticipated. While Granny isn’t wrong – he always relies too much on the belief that everyone will be as quick and punctual and efficient in getting down to business as he is – Ruby is sure that her grandmother probably didn’t put too much effort into acknowledging and soothing Emma’s feelings.

Admittedly, Mrs Jones can be admirably self-possessed when she truly puts her mind to it, but all one needs to do is catch her in a solitary moment to see the feelings rolling beneath her calm and smooth surface.

She took the first two days of her husband’s absence in stride, Ruby will even go so far as to say that she was tentatively excited to prove to herself and everyone else that she could handle the household on her own for a bit. But lunchtime on the third day was as far as that feeling carried her. After that Ruby could almost see the doubt and anxiety sneaking in. Emma did not enjoy being the solitary queen of the house and she enjoyed the idea of being left to it for an undetermined period of time – of Killian being gone for an undermined period of time – even less.

Turning her attention back to the front of the house, Ruby catches her impatiently trying to brush awry blonde strands over her shoulder with the back of her dirt-smeared hand, there are quite a few stains on her purple dress already and a definite air of frustration and lack of peace to all her movements and Ruby wonders if she should ask Peter to fetch Alice.

Miss Jones, being much more familiar with her father’s idiosyncrasies and poor time management, and thus, not at all concerned by a day or two’s delay, will certainly be able to coax Emma back inside and placate her for some time.

Then she catches sight of the dark shape coming up the road and sighs in relief.

“Ah, thank the Lord, she would’ve dug us all into a ditch in another day or so.”

Ruby ignores her grandmother and keeps her back to her and her grin hidden. There is a detectable trace of satisfaction in Granny’s grumbling and Ruby knows that, in all honesty, she has been rather pleased with Emma’s discomfiture the last two days.

It’s not until Roger’s hooves are trampling down the path leading to the main entrance that Emma’s head jerks up. Ruby can’t see her face – though the absolute stillness that seems to arrest her every muscle is clear enough – but she does have a perfect view of Captain Jones and the way he leans his head to the side, as if trying to determine what on earth his wife is doing in the dirt on the front lawn. His voice is heavy with the miles he has just ridden but it carries easily in the golden, late-afternoon hush.

“You should know – I was a naval captain, not a pirate. And if I were, I certainly wouldn’t have buried my treasure in front of the house.”

Ruby hears Granny chuckle, probably pleased to have her treasure talk mirrored by Killian himself.

He dismounts with obvious weariness but practiced ease and Ruby is about to head inside as well when she sees Emma get to her feet and almost run to the man before her – her momentum arrested by her body colliding with his, his sudden and forceful exhale audible in the bubble around them, her hand coming up and probably getting dirt in his hair.

Ruby knows she should look away but for a moment she is caught in place by her guilt over the fact that none of them took the proper time and care to provide Emma with the reassurance she obviously needed.

Captain Jones seems equally frozen for a second before his right hand tentatively settles on the shoulder blade of the woman in his arms. His face is partially obscured by falling strands of golden hair but Ruby can swear he leans in to catch the scent on them.

Glancing over her shoulder, she is chastised to see that Granny has gone back inside to provide the couple on the front lawn with some privacy and when she turns to look at them again, there is a foot of space between them and Emma is obviously in the process of realizing that she is covered in a fair amount of dirt.

If gambling was an appropriate pastime for women, Ruby would bet her next wage that the captain doesn’t care one bit.

*****

As he rides off to find his daughter and Jolly, Emma takes a moment to collect and glare down at her dirt-smeared self. She is distinctly aware that this is not the picture she is meant to present to world and husband alike but her actions currently seem to take precedence to the state of her person in their ability to fluster and embarrass her.

“Idiot,” she mutters under her breath as she imagines looking at herself from the side, or maybe just from Killian’s perspective, and realizes how childish she must have appeared.

Silly, she has been and continues to be even now – as she gathers her gardening tools and wonders what gown she should change into for dinner – completely ridiculous. But, truthfully, she can’t help it and she feels a rare bound of pity for her own self because of that.

Is it her fault that she never had a friend come running to her room as a child? Is it her fault that she never got to welcome a parent when they returned from a journey? Is it her fault that she never received a lover come to pay his respects? Is it her fault that all she’s known is people leaving and not once has she seen someone come back?

No, Emma tries to tell herself that none of that is solely her fault and yet, she cannot help but scold herself for reacting so disproportionately to the situation now. That thought is probably what makes her jump back and flush the second she walks in and comes face to face with Granny.

“Give these here,” the old woman takes the dirty tools from her hands and shoos her up the stairs. “Go wash yourself and get changed for dinner, I’ll fix everything else.”

Emma stares at her – a little dumbfounded by the woman’s strict but almost indulgent tone.

“Go on then. They’ll be back any minute now and I have a mind to feed and put you all to bed early tonight.”

Emma feels her face stretch in an uncontrollable grin that doesn’t diminish in the least at Granny’s eyeroll. The old woman tries to glare but, with Killian back, the high spirits have obviously already permeated the whole house and affected even its crankiest inhabitant.

*****

Mrs Lucas’s plan proves harder to execute than Emma expects, seeing as there are apparently traditions to be kept after dinner.

For the first time, Emma sees Alice put her foot down and refuse to let her father go into his study. Then again, he doesn’t fight her too hard on it. Killian demands to distribute whatever he has brought with him, Alice demands to hear all about Roger’s antics during the journey and, naturally, Alice prevails.

And Emma swears under her breath and does her best to dab away the tea she spits out with her laughter as Killian explains in almost ungentlemanly detail the interest Roger took in a passing mare in the middle of the road. He points out that his horse is absolutely unbeatable when it comes to speed and durability and makes better time than any other even with the unexpected detours but, if the way his ears have flushes a little is any indication, expedience has often cost him more than one embarrassing encounter.

“Now,” Killian slaps his hand on his tight and reaches for the satchel he left by his chair, drawing out two books. “The latest of the overpraised and overprized Mr Dickens.”

“Oh, come now, papa,” Alice snatches the books eagerly and passes one to Emma.

She takes it instinctively and lifts her questioning eyes to Killian, who just shrugs and smiles at her.

“You better be prepared, love, she likes to discuss each chapter as she reads and there will be no consideration for whether or not you’ve fallen behind.”

“I only do that when I know you’ve already read the book!” Alice argues indignantly. “And, anyways, I can write to Robyn, while I wait for Emma to finish it.”

Killian’s face turns to a stone for a second before he moves his gaze back to Emma’s and she does her best not to shrink from the way his eyes probe into her – hard and demanding. It’s probably only the slight indignation she feels at this measure of suspicion and the confidence in her own trust-worthiness that makes her stand her ground and stare right back at him until he sighs deeply in what is definitely a combination of acceptance and relief.

“Well, then,” he coughs a little and takes a moment to adjust to the new reality of one more shared secret between them and Emma can’t help but wonder how many there really are in the room – some swirling freely around now, some still hidden in the private recesses of only one or two of them. “Speaking of Miss Hood.”

His hand reaches into his left breast pocket and takes out two poaches – one blue and one red, their quality obvious in the intricate golden patterns on them. He drops the red one in his wooden hand and catching Alice’s eye tosses the blue one at her with a practiced movement and a grin.

She catches it the way Emma imagines all children who still remember tossing a ball around with their fathers catch things.

“Is it for her?”

Killian shakes his head.

“I’ll leave it to you to procure jewels for your own lady,” he tells her with a teasing movement of his eyebrows and Emma can’t help feeling extremely glad that she knows enough to be here for this.

Alice pours the contents of the pouch in her palm and Emma smiles at the oblong, childlike shape her lips assume and the roundness of her eyes.

The locket in her hand is indeed a piece of art – the gold glimmers warmly in the firelight, a heart with another heart raised on the left half of it, a beautiful blue stone set in its corner and gorgeous vine-like engravings running along the other side. But it’s not until she flicks it open that Alice lets out a choked little sound – the perfect child of a laugh and a sob, and in the next moment she is flying across the room and throwing herself in her father’s arms.

Killian seems much better prepared for this attack than he was for Emma’s earlier, his left arm tightening around her waist as his hand raises up to cradle her head. When he meets her eyes over his daughter’s shoulder, Emma is already wound tight as a spring and ready to look away or even leave the room but the warmth in his eyes keeps her where she is. If he is recalling her own display as well, he does not seem to find the need to shy away from it.

“May I?” Alice asks as she pulls back and, at her father’s nod, rushes to Emma’s side, handing over her new treasure and swaying a little before her, obviously impatient to receive her praise of it.

And she is not unreasonable in her expectation. Aware as she now is of Alice’s constant struggle between her homes and her loves, Emma has a hard time retaining her own composure at the perfect union of the contrasting miniatures inside – Killian’s dark hair and hard edges and the blond waves and soft curves of a girl about Alice’s age.

“It’s gorgeous, sweetheart.”

Alice beams at her and, looking at Killian, Emma saves this moment in her mind as the first time she has seen Killian Jones look quite proud of himself. When their eyes meet again he seems to remember the red pouch in his prosthetic.

“Ah, as for this—“ he moves to sit a foot away from her on the settee as Alice makes herself comfortable on the rug in front of the fireplace.

“You didn’t have to—“ she swallows and tries to soften her voice.

It’s completely unreasonable of her to be upset with him and she is not, not truly. Only, after what Alice told her, she hoped that Killian won’t bring her anything, that he would know she didn’t expect him to pay in gems to enter his own home, and now she can’t help but feel a little sad and just a little insulted.

“I told you I don’t need anything.”

At least some of her thoughts must flow through into her tone because Killian draws back and gives her a confused, uncertain sort of look before he bows his head to stare at the small bag in his hand.

“Aye, that you did.”

His voice is quiet and strained and sounds like he is conversing with himself rather than her – he sounds almost angry and now Emma feels rotten for tarnishing his return and cooling the warmth in the room in literal seconds.

“I just—“ but she can’t really explain without betraying Alice’s confidence and she doesn’t want to sour his mood further by talking about his late wife.

“No, you’re quite ri—“

“I’m glad you’re back.”

His eyes rise sharply and take their time searching hers and Emma doesn’t dare look away and make her words seem like a becoming platitude rather than the plain truth.

“I’m glad to be back,” he says carefully but his features relax a little and Emma lets the corner of her mouth lift up in reply. “Would you—“

He extends his hand in the space between them, the vibrant red resting on his palm is a tantalizing offering and Emma cannot deny her curiosity. She reaches over tentatively and lets her fingers pull on the golden strings, opening the pretty package, before she turns her own hand palm up and leaves it before his, the tips of their fingers brushing lightly.

Killian manages to appear both amused by her antics and nervous about whatever it is that he has brought her. And all that on top of the exhausted air he has carried about him since he dismounted Roger and the obvious relief of being back in familiar surroundings and the slight mellowness of the bottle of wine they shared over dinner and the way he has been favoring his left side in a way that she has never seen before despite his injury.

Emma cannot imagine being disappointed, no matter what tumbles out of the pouch he tips into her expectant palm. And then she doesn’t have to imagine anything.

“Oh.”

“Well, I… I thought you couldn’t go to your first ball as a married woman without an engagement ring.”

She doesn’t know if that is perfectly reasonable or perfectly unnecessary but she is most certainly not going to make up her mind right now, seeing as she feels like she is on the very verge of being hypnotized by the object in her hand. A pirate her husband might not be, but how to find treasure he most certainly knows.

The sing is simply stunning – solid gold that manages to look both delicate and eternal, a perfect circle of little white gems which are unmistakably diamonds. But the best part, the part that refuses to let her eyes blink closed is the stone in the middle – she does not even know what it is called, she just knows it’s the perfect mixture of blue and green and absolutely mesmerizing.

“If you’d like something else—“

Instinctively her hand closes around the ring and she pulls it toward her chest. Killian huffs out a little laugh and his posture finally seems to relax completely, while Emma flushes at her childish antics and extends her hand toward him again.

“Do you mind?”

His eyes narrow with something much different from displeasure and his tongue swipes over his lower lip as he contemplates her for a moment. Emma raises her eyebrow a little expectantly and he finally picks the ring between two fingers and uses the others to gently nudge her hand over. Despite the late hour, spending the better part of the day on horseback and the fact that her own fingers are habitually cool, his skin is as warm as always. His fingertips are calloused and his palm looks almost twice as large as her own and Emma thinks she has never been so conscious of the power in a man’s grip.

This time, unlike their wedding day, when he slips the ring on her left hand, she doesn’t watch the motion, she watches his face. Killian, on the other hand, is carefully focused on his task, the new ring clinking lightly against the wedding band on her next finger as he pushes it past the knuckle. It’s an almost perfect fit and Emma is about to remark on that when she feels his fingers move beneath hers and his eyes rise up to meet hers.

It seems to take half the evening for her hand to reach his lips and it’s only as they press against her flesh that Emma realizes he was probably giving her the time to decide if she wants to pull away. As it is, even if she felt any such inclination, she wouldn’t give up the knowledge that the only cold point on Killian Jones appears to be the tip of his nose for anything in the world.

*****

She wakes up in the dead of night. The fire in the hearth is down to the last embers and the night outside is starless and Emma stays on her side, burying her face further into her pillow and drawing her knees up, taking those deep, measured breaths that have served her well for years now.

They have brought her back to herself after nightmares featuring all sorts of places and faces and painful moments past and imagined, surely they can help her heart settle down after a little dream of her husband’s lips on her own.

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#captain swan #cs ff #cs fanfic #cs au #knight rook #knight rook ff #the wife

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adrienzviaguine · 5 years

Text

Stranded in foreign soil.

Lucy Heartfilia was, for all intent and purposes, a porcelain doll for most of her life.

Born as the only child of one of the three sacred bloodlines. She was never allowed to play and be rough like the servants "brats" as her father would qualify them.

No.

She was to be a quiet, well behaved and well educated doll for her to be attractive and respectable.

Her mother died giving birth to her, and her father never saw most of her life, always having client pay their respects and leaving to attend grand balls for his company.

She had never known the warmth of a family.

She could not connect with her tutors or her maids and butlers. Most of them were too awestruck to be in the presence of the direct descendant of Anna Heartfilia, the last queen of the Elves.

She ended up becoming a well oiled automat, that would smile mysteriously and speak softly.

She lived secluded and lonely.

She was so isolated and cut from all love that she never even thought of rebelling or flee.

And that is why she was not prepared for what happened.

She had been in a ship going to join her father in the colony of TelMilin, far to the east from the heartland archipelago.

She had spent her whole travel secluded inside her cabin. Reading and enjoying her isolation. The night she would go on the deck of the vessel to watch the stars and communicate with their spirits.

And then, one morning she had been awaken by a great lurch.

Tumbling out of bed and experiencing pain for the first time shocked her so much that she was rooted to the ground.

Quickly getting into her dress, she was further frightened by the cries and scream of both the crew and the tempest.

She got out of her room and tried to reach the deck to help when a bigger lurch sent her sprawling to the ground, while the ship cracked and, finally, fully broke under the might of a powerful wave.

Salt water lunged at her, gripping her and chocking her like a vilain in one of her books would.

She was then knocked out by a flailing beam.

It was a long time after that that she woke up. Miraculously alive.

The ship was wrecked on the shores of a sandy white beach. To her left, she could hear a fire cackling. The warmth seeping through her clothes that had dried up by this point.

Voice echoed from around it and she groaned, her imagination filling her with vision of bandits or worse, Beast folk.

"Lady Heartfilia! Do you hear me?"

She moaned and grumbled a relived and annoyed "dunt" which she wanted to mean don't.

"Lady Heartfilia, I can't make out what you said...?" The voice, which was now identified as female, breezy and young, sounded timid, even hesitant.

"Don't call me Lady... I hate when people do that." She finally got out.

She opened her eyes to see two brown orbs, very similar to her own, headed by two navy blue eyebrows.

She blinked and got out a very attractive young woman, with long braided blue hairs and a very kind face. She had an amused face printed and probably patented too because it was a look perfect for her.

Lucy groaned. Here she goes again with her wild imagination.

"Told ya she was alright Metalhead!" Cackled a voice fiery and raucous voice.

"Never said she ain't! Just tha she'd be a piece of work like all those prickish nobles!" Replied a gruff and deep voice.

"Shut up and stop swearing." Replied yet another another male voice, a very cold and detached one at that.

A sigh which sounded very feminine and motherly sounded before a head full of matted scarlet hairs came in her view, gently pushing the young bluenette with an armored hand.

"Miss Heartfilia, I am Captain Erza Scarlet of the Elite Guard of Al-Maryan. We saved you from drowning as is conform to our contract with your father..." Lucy almost sighed. Of course the first people to treat her like a normal person would be contracted to her dad. "But I will be honest, our situation is very dire."

Lucy blinked, then tilted her head to the side and smiled calmly. Which seemed to unnerve the redhead quite visibly.

"To be honest, I've been living on borrowed time all my life. This situation makes it no more dire to me than any other. Death will just come from somewhere more exciting than me slitting my wrist open."

All the while she said that, she was smiling mysteriously. Erza's eyes widened comically as did those of the blue haired girl that had been checking her head for something.

A very deep silence fell on everyone, not that she knew who else was there.

She turned her gaze toward her left to see three men. The closest one to her was a raven haired, tall and lithe man, smoking a pipe, with his grey eyes firmly set on the sky. He was reclining against a rock and was quite oblivious.

Next was a tall, well taller, man with a very robust looking frame and red crimson eyes. He had cocked his head at her and seemed in the process of seizing her up. He also had a quite a few piercing on his face. She tried to follow his wild mane of black hair but soon realized it almost went to the ground.

The final one was a smaller, lithe man, with pink hair and a very well carved and symmetric face. He had pointy-ish ears and a small button nose similar to her own. He was staring agape at her, his eyes filled with shock. But behind it, she saw it. The rage, the fury and the sadness similar to the one she saw in herself.

"Are we only six?" Lucy asked curiously.

The one smoking answered.

"Nah. We're nine. Two other member of our team and a young archivist that was traveling on board of the ship as well."

"Ah." She got out. "And where are they?"

"Damned if I know." Was his reply.

The blonde arched an eyebrow and turned her gaze toward the shuffling bluenette. Lucy realized with a start that she too was armored in the same garb as the others. Furthermore, she could clearly see the similarities between her and the pinkette.

"Well we know they survived because they contacted us with our communication amulets. But they are somewhere else... We're not really sure where."

Lucy blinked and yawned. Her head was spinning suddenly. Her helper seemed to have been waiting for it and gently laid her back down on the sleeping furbag she had been put on.

"You've got a mild concussion, you should rest for now."

And before the heiress could answer she was placed under a sleep spell and fell immediately.

Wendy, for this was her name, lowered their patron gently before looking gravely at her teammates.

"Well..." Said Natsu. "Jellal was right to be worried."

Gadjeel grunted. "We can't let her get to her father then is what ya saying?"

Natsu nodded.

Gray smirked. "Should get her to Erza's boyfriend. He'll help her and may protect us from daddy's wrath!"

Wendy looked at Erza who was looking as if she'd aged several century in a short span.

"We should start by trying to survive and locate ourselves."

The others looked at her before nodding.

Wendy looked at Lucy and sighed, using her magic to speed her healing.

She was greatly disturbed.

And quite afraid.

But they'll make do.

They always do.

#fairy tail #nalu #lucy heartfilia #natsu dragneel #nalu fanfiction #natsu x lucy

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mira-gilastorm · 6 years

Text

Fear Cuts Deeper Than Swords

Chapter 1: Brace for the Cold

Winterfell was bustling with activity like it hadn't in months. Something about the King travelling north with his whole family. Sansa chattered on and on about it to her ladies. Arya was just excited to see real-life knights and it was Clary's job to keep up with Arya. She was, so far, the only one who could other than Jon. And the Septa seemed to prefer a lady-in-waiting do it. It had made her mother uncomfortable to see her bonding with the Stark girl, but Jocelyn wasn't really in any position to refuse the Wardens of the North. Besides, it wasn't like she ever let Clary have friends. Arya was fun - a kindred spirit. She was wild and didn't care to play by the rules of her gender. She would train and fight with her brother Jon when no one but Clary was there to see and it was endearing. But not today, today the Stark men had gone off to behead a deserter from the Watch and everyone else was preoccupied with readying the great Keep for a royal visit.

"What do you think they'll be like?"

"Who, m'lady?"

Arya gave her a frustrated glare. "All of them. Any of them. Just, what do you think they will be like?"

Clary turned the corners of her mouth down. They were sitting at a railing above the training yard, watching Arya's littlest brother train in archery. He was barely a tot and using what amounted to a toy bow - it was almost comical. The younger sister could shoot circles around her brother if they'd give her half a chance. Coming from a family that allowed her to train in secret, it angered Clary. "I know the Queen is said to be a beauty unparalleled. She has the Lannister gold hair and emerald eyes and her twin brother, Ser Jaime of the Kingsguard, is as handsome as she is beautiful. They call him Kingslayer and Oathbreaker for killing the Mad King he was sworn to protect."

The little wolf scoffed. "Like any sane person would have done otherwise. The man was going to burn the whole world to the ground if someone didn't stop him."

Clary watched her charge for a moment, considering. Arya was barely ten and one, not yet a woman grown. But she spoke like a warrior beyond her years. "Even still, I heard the cooks saying all three of the children are coming as well. They're all supposed to share in their mother's beauty." Arya's face darkened again. That was a sore subject. Her sister, Sansa, was the spitting image of their lovely mother - with the red Tully hair and bright blue eyes. But Arya was a Stark, through and through, with gray eyes and flat brown hair that did what it wanted, no matter how many times Clary attempted to tame it. It didn't help that Jon was always ruffling it like she was some kind of pup.

"Are you two supposed to be up here? Wasn't Septa looking for you, little one?" Lord Stark's voice was husky from the cold. His sons and ward trailed after him, carrying awkward bulks. Clary lowered her eyes and curtsyed as her mother had taught her.

"We're watching Rickon and the others try to hit targets. They're miserable archers, Father. I'm much better than the lot of them!" She turned her gray eyes to Clary for confirmation.

Clary could see the Stark boys smirk at her knowingly. She nodded in deference to Eddard Stark. "It's true, m'lord. Your daughter is an unparalleled archer. With proper instruction, she would be a valuable asset to the North."

Arya beamed at her lady's words. "See, Father? Even Clary knows! Although she's more talented than she lets on herself. You should see her spar with a dagger and short sword. She's a natural!"

That got the Lord's attention more than the praise of his youngest daughter. "What's this about you girls sparring?"

"Arya has not been sparring, m'lord. I train with my mother regularly. I didn't know she was aware of my skills." She averted her eyes from the retinue of soldiers where she knew her stepfather was watching with a glare.

Robb, the oldest Stark boy, barely six and ten, stepped forward. "And what business does your mother have knowing how to handle a blade, much less teaching my sister's lady-in-waiting how to wield one?"

Jocelyn had warned her daughter that this might happen when she was chosen to be close to the Starks, and she told her there was always one thing to say that would help explain any out-of-ordinary family traditions that northerners sometimes took to protect themselves. "It is family tradition for all of us to be able to fight, daughters or sons." She raised her face to meet the steel gray stare of Lord Eddard Stark. "Winter is Coming, m'lord."

He nodded stiffly. "Indeed it is, Miss Rivers." He motioned behind him to his boys and the men standing at attention behind them. Jon Snow, his own bastard son, brought up an armful of the largest wolf pups Clary had ever seen. Arya squealed in delight. Bran and Robb were already holding pups of their own, and Theon looked to be carrying two others. Clary's eyes drifted to her stepfather, a Dornishman who had taken her in and treated her as his own daughter when he married her mother. He gave her a brief nod of approval. She had handled the questions well. Luke Garroway was the captain of Eddard Stark's personal forces. They had fought together in King Robert's Rebellion, she knew, and it was why she was trusted to be Arya's lady, despite having no name or true-born father to speak of.

Arya had picked out her wolf. "Clary! What should I name her?"

She moved to her Lady's side, admiring the pup she had cuddled to her chest. "Something fierce, like yourself, m'lady."

Some of the men snickered at her comment but Arya's eyes shone. "Nymeria, then. Her name is Nymeria."

* * *

"Two months on this bloody road, Jace. Two months." His brother was miserable. He hated dealing with anyone outside of the downworld.

Alec, Isabelle, and Jace all rode with the king's convoy. It had been mother's idea - to ride with the mundanes. The Institute generally operated outside of the workings of the common humans, especially these Westerosi nobles, but Jace was enjoying himself. His golden hair wasn't out of place with the queen's Lannister family so he was assumed to be a cousin of some kind.

"You could try not to be so pleased with the situation." Alec brought his horse alongside Jace's.

He flashed his brother a charming grin. "And where's the fun in that? How often do we get to actually enjoy ourselves?" Alec glowered, refusing to answer. "Besides, I've never been north. I'm interested to see what this warlock is on about."

"You didn't read the letter." It wasn't a question. Jace rarely stopped to do anything other than train and ready his weapons.

His nose scrunched up in distaste. "Nah, that's what I have you and Iz for." At the mention of their sister, they both glanced over their shoulders at the collection of carriages and wagons they were travelling with. "How do you think she's fairing with the other ladies?"

Alec rolled his eyes. "If she isn't astonishing them with tales of long forgotten battles that we probably fought last week, then I'd say she's miserable listening to their idle castle gossip."

That was likely true. Their sister had drawn the short straw, as a female, and was in a carriage with several of the Princess Myrcella's ladies-in-waiting. The Lightwood name got them far in King's Landing, so it wasn't hard to join the party northward. But it came with the strings of playing by the mundanes' rules.

"This warlock claims mundanes are starting to report seeing wolves and ice demons. Sounds like the north is overdue for a visit from the Clave." Alec was recounting details of the mundanes' sightings as someone called a halt ahead of them. The brothers exchanged a glance and both urged their horses to the front of the caravan where they could see the impressive walls of Winterfell. The gates opened and a line of well-trained soldiers filed out, marking the road in honor of the king's entrance. Jace and Alec led the way in, followed by the Kingsguard and royal carriage. A line of nobles waited to meet the king. Jace and Alec paid them no mind. They weren't here for the royal visit or whatever other mundane concerns brought King Robert all the way to the North.

"Mother said we would likely find the warlock near the library. He apparently poses as a partially trained Maester, some sort of apothecary and librarian now."

Isabelle bounded up, clutching at the cumbersome skirts. "Sounds like a good guise for a warlock." Her dark hair and hazel eyes stood out in the cool air of the north.

"Glad to see you survived the ladies, Iz." Jace quirked a brow at her.

She scoffed. "Honestly, I think I've met shax demons that had more brains than those girls. All they wanted to talk about was how many sons this Lord Stark has and whether Princess Myrcella will end up betrothed to one. The poor girl is seven, Jace, and all they can talk about are these Stark boys-"

Alec held up a hand to stop her before she started listing off the Stark boys and reasons they would make good suitors for the princess. "We're all here. Glamour, but remember we don't know how many downworlders live here. And we've all heard the stories about the blood of the First Men giving the Sight. Behave as if you can be seen." All three nephilim pulled out their steles and activated their glamour runes.

They moved quickly, watching closely to see if any eyes followed them or noticed them at all. Jace thought he saw one of the Stark's soldiers glance at them, a Dornishman, but at second glance he seemed to just be scanning the yard. They made their way up into the main keep without issue. Near the tower steps that should lead them to the library, Jace heard whimpering and shushing.

"Nym, you have to be quiet. Lady Arya will be back as soon as she's finished greeting the royal guests."

A small gasp escaped Izzy's lips as they saw the largest pup imaginable. The pup, Nym, turned at the noise, eyes wild and mischievous. Jace could tell there was no way to fool whatever that beast was. It saw right through his glamour and leaped down several steps to crash into him, dragging a lovely redhead with it.

She stared at him, shocked, before gathering her thoughts much faster than he was able to. "I'm so sorry. She's the Lady Arya's wolf and is just as wild as the little lady. We're still training them, but they're only a few weeks old, so they'll learn."

Her bright green eyes were uncertain, but hiding something and his instincts kicked back in. "You have the Sight?"

"The what?"

"You can see me."

The girl looked him over, in his red and gold - Lannister colors - and decorative sword. "Isn't that the point?"

Alec cut in. "Jace, come on." He held her stare for a moment longer before turning to follow his brother's order. Isabelle stopped ruffling Nym's fur and the three moved past the redhead to continue up the staircase.

"If you're looking for Lord Bane, he won't be up there." They turned to stare down at her where she was peering out a window at the scene down in the yard, which must have been why she was there to begin with. The king and Lord Stark were disappearing down into what looked like some kind of crypt. Strange, but the two had history, and it wasn't his place to get involved in mundane concerns.

Alec was the one speaking up for their group. "And where will we find Lord Bane?"

The girl glared up at them from her place in the window. "Wherever the party is. He has rather," she smiled slightly, as if at a private joke, and Jace found himself wanting to ask her what it was, "extravagant tastes."

Jace shrugged, smirking at his brother. "Looks like we'll be spending time with the royal party after all." He peered briefly over the window's edge to see people filtering in.

"Well, I hope you enjoy yourselves, whoever you are." The redheaded girl pushed herself off from the window and made a clicking noise to the wolf, whose ears perked up immediately. "But I must really return to my duties and make sure Lady Arya doesn't do something crazy like collapse a banner on the Lannister soldiers or the like." She curtsyed deeply and Jace caught a quick glimmer off of something tucked in the folds of her gown, a weapon or maybe - just maybe - a stele. He couldn't be sure. Whatever it was clearly had runes marked on the hilt.

Isabelle descended a few steps to put her finger under his chin, drawing his attention from where the girl had been. "You're drooling, Jace. Over a mundane." She tilted her head in the teasing way only Izzy could before turning to Alec. "So what do we do, big brother? Do we wait for the warlock here, hoping he comes back alone, or do we seek him out in a lovely royal feast?"

Jace snickered, shaking his head. Of course Izzy wanted to go to a party. She was always the center of attention - their perfect distraction on missions. Her beauty, strength, and confidence radiated off of her and it was impossible to overlook. She was all raven hair and honeyed-green hazel eyes, with pale skin that drew eyes from everyone.

Alec relaxed his head against the stone wall he was leaning on, staring at the keep's ceiling as if it might save him. "Fine, but we don't draw attention to ourselves." He glared at Isabelle. She raised her hands in defense. Then he turned his stern gaze on Jace, who had taken to toying with his decorative blade. "Goes for you too. No showing off."

"Me? When have I ever?"

* * *

Daenerys hovered outside the door of Illyrio's sunroom. She'd never seen anyone like the woman who'd come to visit today and couldn't help the curiosity that dragged her to listen at the cracked entrance, as the obvious topic of conversation.

"Has the girl shown any signs? Marks?"

"No, she has no mark, but I'm telling you, there's something different about her. She's not mundane. I would swear my magic on it."

"And what of the boy? Her brother."

"Entirely human. Possibly mad. He's selling her to the Dothraki in return for the promise of Westeros." Dany's heart quickened at this. She was to meet her potential husband soon and the deal was to be struck - a bride for a throne.

"You know the Clave doesn't interfere in mundane affairs. We hardly intervene with downworlders. The Accords must be upheld. The Rebellion nearly cost us everything."

"So you would let the Dothraki possess a girl with the blood of the dragon?"

"What would you have me do, Magister? Whisk her away to Idris? Confine her to the Gard?" A chair scraped the carpeted floor and she could hear the woman pacing.

Illyrio raised his voice from the hushed tones, betraying his frustration as he very rarely did. "I would have you protect her. As you should have protected her forebears - an entire race, gone! And now there are no more dragons. Is that not part of the Accords? Shadowhunters protect downworlders and mundanes alike."

Dany could hear the woman sigh. "If she is what you say she is, I will assign one of my own to her as lady-in-waiting. She is overdue for an assignment abroad anyway. But make no mistake, Magister, we will not intervene, only protect."

"You intend to send a shadowhunter into the Great Grass Sea with an undefeated Khal? Will she remain glamoured?" Dany was becoming more and more aware of how little she knew of what they were talking about.

"Unnecessary. Anyone who knows to question her runes will be silenced or at least treated as a threat to the princess. Aline is the best the Volantis Institute has."

"Aline. You would send your own daughter?"

"If this girl is what you say, then there is no one else I would trust. She must be properly watched and trained. There are rumors of remaining Circle members hidden throughout Essos. They would kill for one with her power. You were there. You know how Valentine sought to use their line to end our world. As I said, the Rebellion nearly cost us everything. It will not happen again."

Dany stepped away from the door. The woman had seemed strange when she'd been escorted quickly to Illyrio, dressed in all black leathers, despite the intense heat of Pentos, but the tattoos over her exposed skin had marked her as a kind of woman Dany had never encountered before. A shadowhunter based on what she had just heard, willing to send her own daughter into the horde of Dothraki to keep Dany safe from some threat she had never heard of. Downworlders, Idris, Clave, Valentine, Circle - these were foreign words to Daenerys. But being in danger was not unfamiliar. That was a word that had followed her from the womb.

She took the steps back to her borrowed rooms gracefully, stopping to admire the gardens beneath her. She knew this was all going to be gone soon and she would be living among a people her brother disdainfully called barbarians. She'd gladly read every book in any language Illyrio lent her on the Dothraki. She was bracing herself for a violent wedding and was grateful that she'd learned to ride a horse young. He brother's impatient steps clicked behind her, followed by the Magister's heavily padded shoes.

Dany turned holding her head as she'd been taught, regal and proud, feeling trapped between her door and the group at the foot of the stairs. Her brother joined her on the steps, facing down the Pentoshi and women accompanying him. Viserys grabbed her wrist tightly, lacing her arm over his. She smiled briefly at him, as he would have expected. The two women with Illyrio were both shadowhunters, based on what Dany had learned - the one from before and now one who could have been her sister, dressed in similar black leathers with the same rune tattoos.

Illyrio stopped a few steps below the Targaryen siblings, bowing low in that way that always pleased Viserys. "Your Grace, may I present Mistress Jia Penhallow of Volantis and her daughter Aline." He motioned toward the two women grandly as they bowed like trained soldiers.

Viserys sneered. "In Westeros, our women curtsy to show respect."

Jia's dark, narrow eyes drifted over him as if he were a curiosity. She stood upright, her pitch black hair falling straight down her back. "Forgive me, your grace. It's been quite some time since I spent any time in the company of Westerosi." She spoke the Common Tongue of Westeros flawlessly with only a slight accent.

Dany could feel her brother's rage growing at the woman's insolence and refusal to pay him absolute homage, as he believed he was due. She glanced at the younger shadowhunter. "We are honored to meet you both." She inclined her head to each of them even as her brother pinched her arm. That would leave a bruise. It took all Dany's effort not to sigh.

The Magister gestured again and Aline stepped forward. "Mistress Penhallow has offered her people's support to our cause and offers her daughter, Aline Penhallow, a warrior among their people, as guard and lady-in-waiting for the Princess Daenerys."

Jia locked eyes with Dany. "Please, consider this a gesture of good faith between my people and your own - the beginnings of a new alliance, if you will."

Viserys' eyes lit up at that. He was always plotting with Illyrio, trying to make political arrangements and alliances. But Dany had heard what they said. They weren't interested in her completely human brother, so they must have just been saying what needed to be said to get his approval of the arrangement. She felt slow at having to think through it, but glad that she was learning to play the game. Perhaps Aline could help her learn.

Her brother tugged her arm hard, nearly pulling her off-balance. They were descending the stairs. "We thank you for this show of loyalty and alliance, Mistress Penhallow. And, of course, my sister would be honored to have your daughter as her lady and guard."

Dany extended a hand to Aline who took it and bowed again in deference. "It is an honor, Your Grace."

* * *

"What do you keep staring at?" Simon turned to glance behind him. It was like he looked straight through the strange group she'd met on the library stairway earlier. You can see me, he'd said. Obviously, not everyone could, or the serving girls would be all over him with his Lannister-gold hair and mismatched eyes, like they were with the rest of the royal party.

"Nothing," she turned back to Simon and whatever story he was telling. Apparently, the little Princess Myrcella enjoyed his music and the queen had invited him to play in King's Landing. "I'm so excited for you! It's what you've always wanted, right?"

"Well," he drew out the word, "I don't really want to go without my best friend." Her face fell. She couldn't leave Winterfell - her mother, Luke - Lady Arya. "But it looks like we'll all be travelling south soon, so I don't have to worry about that!" He grinned that ridiculous grin of his.

Clary frowned. "What?"

"Seriously, Rivers, where have you been all day? Not chasing that direwolf around again, I hope. The King wants Lord Stark to be his new Hand and now we're all supposed to go south to King's Landing! I was playing for Sansa and all her ladies and the princess while they were doing their sewing or whatever it is ladies do, and it was all they could talk about. That, and the fact that Sansa is going to be betrothed to the Prince Joffrey. She's going to be queen one day. I thought she was going to fall over from sighing so hard."

Simon did a perfect impression of Lady Sansa and Clary giggled. "How miserable was my poor Lady Arya the whole time?"

"Oh it was like she couldn't get a stitch right. I thought the Septa was going to take her fingers off. She ran off partway through. Did she come find you?"

Clary shook her head. "She must have found Jon." The two looked down their table to the brooding bastard who was feeding his white wolf pup scraps.

He swayed a bit and Simon raised a brow, snapping his fingers. "Jon! You in there?"

Snow swiped his hand out of his face, quick as ever, even drunk on too much ale. "Aye. Just enjoying my time down here with you lot."

"Oh come off it, Jon," Clary snapped. "You could be stuck up there with the Lannisters." She lifted her chin toward the Queen and her brothers, heads held high. "We're much better company."

He glared at her and her musician friend. "I suppose so. A bastard, a minstrel, and my little sister's mysterious lady, who can fight with a short sword and wrangle direwolves. Quite the company indeed."

She scoffed. "Your mood leaves much to be desired, Jon Snow." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lord Bane still lounging, surrounded by a group a travelers ready to be regaled by his fanciful stories, not far from where they sat at the lower tables. His mock-Maester's chain hung around his neck ornately, decorative and jewels flashed from each of his fingers as his waved his hands for emphasis in his storytelling.

A drunken roar of laughter echoed from the high table. The King was full of wine and memories. This night was going to go downhill, fast. She decided she was going to ask some questions. She glanced at Simon and Jon. "Excuse me." She ignored the dumbfounded looks on both of their faces as she made her way across the Great Hall. Movement from the other side of the room followed her. So they were watching her too. She had suspected as much.

"Lord Bane, do you mind if I steal you away? I'm afraid we have some guests with urgent need of your guidance." The librarian's eyes focused on her as he halted his story of the time he tamed a fire-breathing cobra in Dorne.

His gaze flicked to the trio who were not far behind her and he smiled sweetly. "For you, Miss Clary, anything." He stood gallantly and motioned almost imperceptibly to the others to follow. They made their way back to the steps of the library tower where he rounded on them all. "Clarissa Rivers, what are you doing involving yourself with shadowhunter business? Surely, Luke and Jocelyn have both warned you about the dangers."

The tall one with dark hair stepped forward, as if to defend his group, but Lord Bane held up a hand, still glaring at Clary. She averted her gaze. "It wasn't like I was trying to get involved in anything. They showed up here. I just kept Nymeria from eating them."

He rolled his eyes dramatically, lowering his hand and acknowledging the shadowhunter, looking him over appreciatively. "Fine, pretty boy, what do you have to say? What were you doing wandering around unglamoured?"

The other two snickered. The girl, now dressed in something much less ornate, put a hand on the other man's shoulder, who seemed at a loss for words. "What my brother means to say is, we were glamoured - completely, not just our runes. She saw straight through it, her and that beast of a pup."

Lord Bane massaged his temples in exasperation. "Of course she did. I almost forgot your nameday had passed, Clary. Damn. So much for that contract."

Clary stared confusedly at the librarian and the three strangers. They seemed to have some kind of understanding that she was clearly missing. "I'm sorry, contract?"

"Yes, with your mother. But we'll discuss that after I've concluded my business with these lovely shadowhunters here. If Luke or Jocelyn find out I've allowed you to be involved in their affairs, I'll be finding myself a new position, far away from Winterfell, and, believe me, this one wasn't so easy to come by." He made a distasteful face, waving his hand like he could snatch another out of thin air, before turning on his heels and storming into his library.

The two dark haired shadowhunters followed quickly, with the golden one, Jace, close after. Clary decided she wanted to know what was happening and started toward the entrance.

Jace blocked her way faster than should have been possible. "You heard the warlock. He'll discuss his contract with your family after he's given us the information we need."

She set her jaw, the same way she did when Lady Arya was being particularly stubborn. "Glamours, runes, shadowhunters, warlock - you keep saying these words like I'm supposed to know what you're talking about, but I don't rightly care. If this discussion deals with the safety of the Stark family or my lady that I protect, I have a right to hear it."

The shadowhunter leaned back on the doorway, eyeing her with a blank expression before shrugging and entering, leaving the door open for her.

"What's she doing in here?"

"She was insistent."

"It's too late now, if we're going, we're going." Lord Bane stood in front of a swirling window of some kind, where Clary could see nothing but snow and trees on the other side. He snapped and waved his hands and they were through.

The three shadowhunters seemed completely unphased by having been transported from the safety of Winterfell to the Seven knew where. But Clary turned, trying to see the keep or a village or anything other than trees or snow for as far as she could see ahead of her. Behind them, however, was something she had only ever heard of in stories. The Wall was taller than she had even imagined. She knew the legends said that Bran the builder used magic to construct it. Based on what she was seeing, she had to believe it.

"You couldn't warn us before dragging us out beyond the Wall?" The girl shadowhunter's raven hair was flecked with snow. "All your letter said was ice demons have been sighted and wolves are getting more bold. The Clave doesn't have any record of any ice demons, up north or otherwise." Her hazel eyes glinted with fury. "If you portaled us out here to freeze our asses off just to make a point to the Clave, you are in for a rude awakening, warlock."

Clary's teeth were chattering. She was still dressed for the feast. The taller shadowhunter noticed her. "Great. Now the mundane is going to freeze to death on our watch. Mother's going to be so pleased."

Bane and the woman were still arguing, but Jace made quick strides over to her, pulling out a metal object from a holster near his thigh. It was like something her mother kept above the hearth in their home, not quite a weapon but something about it radiated a power she felt like she knew. Both she and the other shadowhunter eyed him warily as he approached her with it.

"Jace, don't."

"Trust me, Alec." He grabbed her hand and pushed the sleeve of her dress up gently to press the cool metal to the inside of her forearm. Suddenly there was a searing pain before warmth flooded through her, obscuring any cold from the snow. Her eyes widened as they met his - one blue, one golden brown. He smirked at her, raising his brows in a quick motion, dropping her hand, and flipping the object down into its holster again faster than she could follow.

She stood in obvious shock with words feeling caught in her throat. The tall shadowhunter - Alec, grabbed her wrist and examined it. "How the fuck did you know? You could have killed her!"

His raised voice grabbed the attention of the others. Lord Bane hovered over the shadowhunter's shoulder, strangely close while staring down at Clary. His sister moved to stare at her wrist and then up at her face. "Look at her, big brother, she's in shock. She has no idea what's happening." She tugged Clary's wrist out of her brother's grip and pulled her to her side. "I'm Isabelle. The boys call me Izzy. The grumpy one is Alec and the one who almost just killed you," she shot a pointed glare over her shoulder, "is Jace. It looks like you're one of us. So the question is, Jace, how did you know?"

He shrugged with his arms crossed as the rest turned on him. "I saw her carrying a runed blade earlier. Between that and her ability to see through our glamour, it was a safe bet."

Lord Bane pushed past Alec and grabbed Clary away from Izzy. "Oh, a safe bet? What if she had been a mundane with the Sight? Then, not only would we be beyond the Wall with nothing but the three of you and my magic, but we would also be potentially facing a wight. Something I'm not too keen on right now." He put an arm protectively over her shoulder as he marched her past Jace. "So why don't you save your gambles for the jousts, hmm?" He kept moving through to snow into the treeline. "Come on, pretty boy. Try to keep your siblings in line on our way, will you? Can't have them killing FreeFolk by runing them or something."

Clary heard Izzy laugh and she turned to see Jace and Alec exchange confused looks. Jace raised his hands in surrender, motioning for the others to go ahead of him. The others caught up quickly, giving Clary and Bane a respectable berth.

Alec glanced sideways at them a few times. "Lord Bane, your letter said mundanes. You neglected to mention they were wildlings reporting these things."

"Oh please, you and I both know I'm no lord of anything. It keeps the mundanes from asking too many questions. It's Magnus, please."

Clary was caught under Magnus' arm, between him and the shadowhunter and was forced to look up from one to the other as they spoke. She could see his face and he almost seemed unable to rephrase his question for a moment. She felt the need to blush for him. Bane was always so forward.

"Alright then, Magnus. You neglected to inform the Clave that it was wildlings that were reporting these supposed ice demons and wolves."

Magnus practically glowed with mischief. "If I had told dear Maryse who was making the reports, would she have sent you?" He glared at the siblings. "No. I would have been left to deal with the growing threat with the sparse downworld resources we have in the north. They sent raiders over the wall to reach me, not to pillage or plunder, just to get word to us southerners that the White Walkers are coming. The stories these wildlings could tell-" he broke off. Clary felt him shiver.

Isabelle was holding her skirts as they stepped over branches. "So your saying there're White Walkers out here, ice demons frightening enough to send the wildlings over the wall to you."

Jace piped up from behind them. "I think he's saying he wants us to hear it from them. But what about the wolves?"

"You didn't mean the direwolves? They're only pups! And Luke is helping the Stark children train them." Clary pulled ahead of the rest of the group, turning to face them, though none would meet her glare.

Alec crossed his arms at the delay. "No, not those beasts the Starks call pets. What do the FreeFolk call them? Skin-changers?"

Magnus watched him curiously, but nodded. "Indeed. You see, the FreeFolk are not as closed minded as those south of the Wall. Downworlders often move about openly among them, but an entire pack making an alliance with mundanes... This is unheard of."

Isabelle scoffed, resuming her pace through the trees, deciding they had answered enough of Clary's questions. "This is insanity. You've dragged us up here for superstitious wildling nonsense."

Her brothers followed, but Magnus gave Clary an affronted grimace. "I'm so glad Maryse sent her children. So charming."

She snickered and turned to follow after the trio of shadowhunters, the warlock matching her stride. She nearly ran directly into Jace - again. They'd stopped at the edge of the treeline. Spread out beneath them was a valley full of campfires, warding off the northern cold.

"You didn't say we were walking into a military encampment." Alec shot a glare over his shoulder.

Magnus shrugged. "It's not. It's an evacuation."

* * *

Jon made his way out into the snow, closely followed by Ghost, escaping the noise from the Hall that was echoing in his drunk skull and the humiliation that had been his encounter with his uncle Benjen. He replayed the tripping and falling over his own drunken feet on the way out and groaned again.

"That fun in there, Jon?" he turned to face Lucian Garroway, captain of Winterfell's guard.

He winced. "Oh yeah, a right proper feast, complete with drunken humiliation."

Luke nodded, crouching down and holding out his hand to Ghost. All the other Stark children had allowed his help with training their direwolves, but Jon wanted to train Ghost all on his own. "I take it you and Ghost here weren't up at table with your siblings, then." He made a pleased sound as Ghost shifted closer and allowed him to stroke his snout, not needing Jon's reply.

Jon watched curiously. Ghost seemed to almost like the soldier. "No we sat with Clary and Simon."

He glanced up at the mention of his daughter's name. "Have you seen Clary? I would ask Simon but he had been called upon to play by our very intoxicated King."

They both laughed. "Aye. She went with Lord Bane to discuss something. Interrupted his favorite story about the Dornish snake too."

Lucian stood suddenly. "Was she with anyone?"

Another voice answered from above them. "If you're speaking of the lovely red-head, I believe she was with a trio of our travelling party. Don't ask me their names, though. I couldn't tell you. Light-something, I think. It was a bit of an ordeal when their mother requested they join our group."

Lucian muttered a curse. "You'll have to excuse me. I believe I'm going to have business to attend to." He inclined his head. "M'lord."

Jon watched him stalk away toward the homes built along the walls, likely to tell Clary's mother of what he'd just learned.

"So this is one of the infamous direwolves I've heard so much about. And you must be Ned Stark's bastard." Lord Tyrion Lannister sauntered over to Jon and Ghost awkwardly in the snow. Jon grimaced at his use of the word. "Did I offend you? Sorry, dwarfs don't have to be tactful. You are the bastard, though."

Jon felt himself sober a bit. "Lord Eddard Stark is my father," he admitted stiffly.

Tyrion eyed him as if he were a particular curiosity. "Allow me to give you some counsel, Jon Snow. Never forget what you are - the rest of the world surely won't. Make it your strength," he tilted his head slightly as if remembering something, "and then it can never be your weakness."

The ringing in Jon's head was really and truly gone now. He glared at the Lord standing in front of him and his wolf. "And what would a Lord of Lannister know of being a bastard?"

The dwarf smirked. "All dwarfs are bastards in their father's eyes."

Jon felt his head go fuzzy again and Tyrion turned to go back into the feast. It was then he realized Clary had gone up the steps alone with Bane. Who had Lord Tyrion been talking about?

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Visions of Dune: Bringing the Ultimate Sci-Fi Epic to Life

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The story of 2021’s Dune begins with a kid falling in love with a book. Before he was the world-famous film director of Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, Denis Villeneuve was a teenager who devoured sci-fi novels. When he was “between 13 and 14,” he remembered seeing “these eyes.” The iridescent blue eyes were on the face of a man staring at the young Villeneuve, painted by Wojciech Siudmak, for the 1970 French paperback translation of Dune. Villeneuve was utterly mesmerized by the cover. “When you’re a kid, the covers can really make an impact,” he says. “The artists that were drawing them were so talented that even though I had never heard of Dune, I was drawn to that title and the simplicity. I was always attracted to the desert.”

Like many serious readers of science fiction, Villeneuve’s obsession with Dune began free of artistic pretension. “I instantly fell in love with it for several reasons,” he says. “The way Paul is trying to find his identity while finding his home in another culture, with the Fremen. I was fascinated by the way they need to survive and adapt…I have always been in love with biology, the science of life, of nature. The way Frank Herbert used biology was insanely beautiful. To me, reading Dune is like a paradise. The book stayed with me all these years.”

When you talk to Villeneuve now, childhood giddiness illuminates the corners of everything we’re talking about. Yes, Villeneuve loved Star Wars, too (“The Empire Strikes Back is always good for the soul,” he says). But what makes Dune so much different from other popular heroic epics is that, despite the escapist sweep of the story, its underlying message is anything but escapist. The story of Paul Atreides is not an aww-shucks hero’s journey. In her 1978 review of Star Wars, Ursula K. Le Guin referred to the protagonist of that film as “Huck Skywalker.” And when you think of the story of Dune in that way, no one would confuse Paul Atreides with any member of the Skywalker clan.

The story of Dune concerns a powerful family—House Atreides—being pushed into a terrible situation on the planet Arrakis by opposing forces on all sides. Smack dab in the middle of that is the notion that Paul could—and will—initiate a huge uprising against his enemies at some point in the future. Paul, and his parents—Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) and Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac)—set out to do good, but create even more conflict as a result.

“At the very core of Dune is a warning,” Villeneuve says. “Anyone who is trying to blend religion and politics—that is a dangerous cocktail. I think Herbert wrote it as a warning, [against] leaders that pretend to know what will happen, who pretend to know the truth, who might be lacking humility. When someone behaves like a Messiah, you have to be careful.”

A Boy and His Sandworms

One of the messiahs of Dune is a guy destined to have multiple names: Muad’Dib, the Kwisatz Haderach, and, of course, Paul Atreides. On our planet, he’s known as Timothée Chalamet. Ferguson says that Chalamet’s unique qualities as an actor were the “essential” elements that make the movie work. “Timmy brings the smaller to the grander,” she says. “He’s carrying this huge movie, and it’s lazy of me to use this word, but he brings such an indie feel to it.”

When it comes to “indie” films that nearly everyone knows about, Timothée Chalamet is one of the most famous male actors on the planet in 2021. From his roles in Call Me By Your Name to Little Women, Chalamet has the kind of star power that is subtle and undefinable, because as Ferguson points out, he’s not playing the role to seem like a big movie hero. Paul Atreides is the opposite of a Han Solo or Captain Kirk type, and so is Chalamet. “I always tried to bring Paul Atreides back to the ground,” Villeneuve says. “I told Timothée, you are the hero, of course, you are a tremendous fighter. But I think you have the burden of having a very strong instinct that will be boosted by spice.”

Chalamet reveals that in terms of becoming that “tremendous fighter,” some of his hand-to-hand training happened in a wine cellar while filming Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch. Chalamet also asserts that working with Villeneuve on Dune didn’t feel like being involved in a Hollywood blockbuster, and that transitioning from The French Dispatch to Dune made perfect sense. “It felt like working on a high-level indie,” Chalamet says. “I haven’t worked with the Coen Brothers, but I imagine it would be like this, just on a bigger scale. The Dark Knight is what made me want to act. It has incredible behavioral specifics. It has incredible performances and in the middle of it are sweeping cinematic sequences. In a way, Dune is like that. When you can get on a project of this size that has this much dramatic integrity, working with one of the best directors in the world right now, it’s exactly what I wanted.”

Chalamet says that beyond fight training, immersing himself into the world of Dune and “spending time with the props,” was important to feel a connection to the objects of Paul’s world. He also didn’t shy away from the idea that this was yet another adaptation of a beloved book. “I learned that from Greta Gerwig when I did Little Women. Nobody minds another good movie based on a good book.”

But for Chalamet, the journey isn’t quite over. “I’m champing at the bit to film Part 2,” he says. “I read all of Dune Messiah in lockdown. I’m ready.”

A New Dune, For Everyone

Perhaps unfairly, being really into Dune carries with it a kind of connotation that only the truly nerdy at heart get why science fiction devotees are so obsessed with the spice. John Hodgman makes two jokes about “Third Stage Guild Navigators” in his book Medallion Status. In Russian Doll, Nadia uses the phrase “Jodorowsky’s Dune” as a nerdy password to gain access to a back room. When Patrick Stewart was cast in Star Trek: The Next Generation, to his fellow castmates he was “the guy from I, Claudius,” while to writers like Michael Chabon, he was “the guy from Dune.” Unlike Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings, the broad appeal of Dune has always been tentative. But, in addition to Chalamet’s favorable comparison to The Dark Knight, Villeneuve makes it clear that the purpose of this Dune wasn’t to just make book readers happy.

“It would be so easy to make a Dune movie only for hardcore fans,” Villeneuve says. “My goal was to please the hardcore fans, that they feel the spirit, the poetry, and the atmosphere of the book—but to make sure that someone who had never heard about Dune would also have fun and understand the story. I had to make sure that everyone would be on board right at the beginning.” To that end, the new Dune sports a radical narrative shift from the source material. In this version, the opening narration and framing of the story is given by Chani (Zendaya), a member of the Fremen tribe, native to Arrakis.

Villeneuve describes this as one of his “bold” decisions but stresses that the narrative point of view doesn’t change the story at all. Logistically, the story of Dune is about House Atreides coming to take over the spice mining on the planet Arrakis. The native Fremen have been abused and tortured by previous occupiers, House Harkonnen, so in the new opening narration, Chani wonders “who will be our new oppressors,” a line not spoken in the book. Instead, the narrative framing of the novel is from the quasi-historical point of view of Princess Irulan, a woman Paul eventually marries for purely political reasons. So, what Villeneuve has done by giving the opening narration to Chani is flip the point of view from the aristocracy to the working class.

Villeneuve also says that elevating Chani’s role, and the roles of several of the female characters, was all because the movie required “bold” decisions to become the best film version of the story possible. “A book and a movie are totally different mediums. I had to make certain decisions. This is why I decided to make the first book into two movies. I had to condense some ideas to tell the story in the most eloquent way possible so that it will be understood by everybody,” Villeneuve says. But he’s also quick to point out that adaptation is not the same as leaving things out on purpose. “When you adapt it’s an act of vandalism. You will change things. But, from the beginning, I said to the crew, to the studio, to the actors: ‘the bible is the book. We will, as much as possible, stay as close as possible to the book.’ I want people who love the book to feel like we put a camera in their minds.”

Ferguson’s Lady Jessica is arguably the character who sets the story of Dune into motion. In this future-world, the mystical matriarchal order of the Bene Gesserit can control the sex of babies that are born into its sisterhood. And in defiance of her orders from her fellow Bene Gesserit, Jessica had a son, instead of a daughter. Jessica asserting her right to choose, in essence, makes it all happen. Ferguson believes the emotional power of these stories is more important for audiences than the nitty-gritty specifics. “We can go into some kind of nano version of ourselves, but if it doesn’t read through on the screen, to the audience, it isn’t worth doing.”

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Dune Review: A Sci-Fi Legend Is Born

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Talking about accessibility, Ferguson says that she believes the new Dune represents an ongoing paradigm shift of artistic and thoughtful science fiction in the 21st century. “Once the door’s open and you know that there are so many incredible stories within science-fiction storytelling, there’s musicality and rhythm that is needed to create these worlds within worlds, it’s very complex, everyone doesn’t get it.”

But, even though there are levels of “philosophy” and “complexity” to Dune, Ferguson feels that the film doesn’t operate in spite of its level of detail, but because of it. “The sandworms, the resources of the stillsuits, I could go on forever,” she says. “In this film, it’s the details, the smaller things that matter.”

Seeing the Future

Spoiler alert: if you’ve never read Dune, the book itself actively tries to spoil the pages ahead. Whether it’s snippets of imaginary historical texts that open each chapter or the prophetic flashes of Paul Atreides, the story of Dune sprinkles flavors of its own future into the beginning, middle, and end. There are many reasons why Frank Herbert’s book reshaped the notion of what an epic science fiction novel could be, but the idea that the narrative is always a little ahead of itself is a big part of its addictive power.

“It’s not something you’d have any sort of self-conscious perspective on,” Chalamet says, speaking of Paul’s early moments of clairvoyance in the story. Before Paul goes to the titular planet of Arrakis and meets Chani, he has glimpses of his future, and later, during a fateful first meeting with a sandworm, the near-magical spice brings that vision into focus. Chalamet says that in playing Paul, these scenes required careful subtlety in order to convey a realistic sense of knowing one’s own future.

“It’s a layer,” Chalamet explains. “As opposed to lucidly having visions of a pleasant landscape. These aren’t futures that are something [Paul would] would be happy to skip into. What he’s seeing and feeling is a visceral experience of a hyper-specific telling of tragedy, but also that he has a hand in that tragedy. If you were going through that it would be a hell of an experience.”

As Chalamet points out, the spoilers for Dune “have been out there for four decades,” so, for old fans, the true lure of the new film version is discovering how the things we know are coming, will make us feel. For longtime spiceheads, watching Chalamet in the first Dune trailer was like the opposite of Paul’s traumatic flash-forward: we see the hyper-specific events, and we’re hoping for an emotional victory. For those who have waited for a perfect film version of Dune for several decades, there’s almost no “self-conscious perspective” left. From the tribulations of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unmade film to David Lynch’s divisive 1984 version to the uneven Sci-Fi Channel iterations from the 2000s, hoping for a worthy adaptation of Dune, has, for fans, been a hell of an experience.

But this time, with this director, and this cast, the future looks good. And yet, even if you know every spoiler, and have every detail of every character’s journey clear in your mind, with this Dune, we still don’t really know what the emotional future holds, exactly. The Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear tells us “fear is the mind-killer,” and so, for the new Dune, the hope must flow.

A Dune Movie Trilogy?

When directing Timothée Chalamet through his visions of the future, Villeneuve says he was careful to point out that “the future is shifting, the future is always in motion, so it means sometimes these visions are not always accurate.” The same could possibly be said for what audiences can expect for a sequel to Dune. As Chalamet confirms, “we’ve only filmed the first part of the story,” meaning, what everyone will be waiting for next isn’t a sequel to Dune, but simply the rest of Dune. With a TV series in the works for HBO Max—Dune: The Sisterhood—how much more of this world should we expect?

According to Villeneuve, the goal is a trilogy.

“I always thought there would be two movies for the first book. And I always thought Dune Messiah would be a powerful film. I always saw a trilogy.” Chalamet is also primed for one more film beyond Dune: Part Two, revealing that he thought Dune Messiah “was amazing, and in some ways, more traditional than the first book. I’d love to do it, when and if we—hopefully—get to it.”

In addition to a pandemic and the shifting schedules of various actors, completing Dune: Part Two any time soon seems overly optimistic. But Villeneuve is hopeful that he will make the trilogy. “Well, my mind didn’t go much further after that!” he says. “That’s already a lot. The books after that get a little more complex. But I do see three movies.”

In an uncertain time, Dune feels like a shockingly prescient social lens. Ferguson says she believes that “when people are depressed, they go for musicals or sci-fi,” and that Dune serves as a kind of balm for the anxieties of the culture at large. From climate change to imperialism, the book and the film shine an adventurous light on what Chalamet believes isn’t a prediction of the future, but rather “a projection” of what might happen. If Dune does its job, it won’t just start conversations about the future of cinema, but perhaps the future of the planet, too. In real life, there may be no golden path for humanity, but for now, with one ambitious work of cinematic expression, the sleeper has awakened.

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Dune opens in cinemas and on HBO Max on October 22

The post Visions of Dune: Bringing the Ultimate Sci-Fi Epic to Life appeared first on Den of Geek.

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tommysandwich · 7 years

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A Legacy of Laughter: A Brief History on Party Ponies

Jester magic is a strange kind of magic. To the normal pony, it behaves erratically, switching between making its wielder utterly invincible or the victim of a cruel joke. It allows the wielder to snatch any given object right from behind their back, or from their mane, or from behind a tree, or any implausible location that said wielder desires. The wielder bends and stretches in inequine manners, getting flattened from sudden impacts but not dying, healing from injuries just moments after they occur, and even showing literal metaphors to get their point across.

But, the strangest thing about the jester magic wielders is the fact that despite these otherwise horrific occurrences, they’re not all that terrifying (at least, not for long).

They’re actually hilarious.

Jester magic wielders, commonly known as “party ponies”, have the important task of cultivating and maintaining joy throughout Equestria. Many are called, but few are chosen—many ponies have been born with the magic, but very few out of millions of ponies in a single generation earn the talent to match, thus becoming a true and fully realized party pony. For most of those who don’t, the magic fizzles away; however, there are those who still wield the magic, despite having talents in areas like geology or business.

Party ponies are insane multitaskers, have a bizarre worldview, unbridled creativity, and a positive attitude that they seek to share. It doesn’t mean that they’re immune to sorrow, spite, selfishness, sickness, or slip-ups; they’re equine just like their fellow ponies. But, they recognize the importance of their talent, and have been making ponies smile for centuries.

Pre-Banishment Era

Though ponies like Chancellor Puddinghead and others have been noted to be strange, and likely many have possessed the magic for many years (the number possibly rised after Discord’s rule), the first recorded full party pony in Equestria popped up just mere decades before Nightmare Moon’s banishment…

Jamberry Harvest was born a peasant farmer in a village far from the capital. She used her unique gifts to aid in her family’s farming and entertain her fellow villagers. Such was her reputation that a young mage named Wayer Rune grew curious and visited the town to study her. He was victim to much frustration and the butt of many jokes, but he and Jamberry grew fond of each other.

Allowing her a visit to the city ended up having her pounce on the open position as court jester, blowing the Royal Sisters away and leaving Wayer flabbergasted over how he’d explain to her family that she’s staying. Nevertheless, one of the first inter-tribe marriages occurred between the jester and the mage, and the newly-minted Jamberry Rune continued to make the Royal Court laugh for years to come, with tricks and jokes and utter merriment that none had ever seen before. And she had done something considered impossible for her time; she brought together noble and peasant in shared joy.

Her life came to a sad end, however. The Minotaur War killed her brother and broke her husband’s sanity, to the point that he created a Wolf Plague, and she too was falling into madness. Fear, denial, anguish, and heartbreak made her magic falter, and once her husband was arrested and banished, she lost the will to live. All mourned the loss of this mare, and no other jester has ever lived up to her standard.

Her legacy continues through her five foals and their posterity, and the word “jamboree” was created in her honor.

Shimmersong was the Crystal Empire’s only known party pony. While Crystal Ponies are naturally happy, Shimmersong was more than willing to help things along from time to time. Being a gifted minstrel, she’d attract a crowd through her songs and made sure that everyone knew the Crystal Anthem. She was even friendly with the Crystal Princess Amore, who came to her to have her troubles soothed by lyre.

Oftentimes, she was a big help in setting up the Crystal Faire, often arranging the entire thing by herself. She annoyed the planners, but as long as the Faires were a success and Shimmersong was there to please, few ponies cared. In fact, it was disappointing the year she couldn’t set it up, simply because she fell terribly ill that day. But, most years were a good time for all—except for one little colt who couldn’t attend because of some mysterious annual illness. The one time she tried to visit and give him a personal show, it seemed to make things worse, so she backed off with a broken heart.

However, one day, that colt grew up, disposed of Princess Amore, and took over the Crystal Empire—calling himself King Sombra. Even as he enslaved the populace, Shimmersong tried to keep everypony’s spirits up, imploring them to not let their spirits be broken. She always slipped free of her shackles and attempted to find the Crystal Heart while singing to her fellow citizens. It wasn’t long before Sombra had enough, and executed her in front of all the Crystal Ponies, in order to break them once and for all.

After their disappearance, reemergence in the modern day, and the defeat of Sombra, the Crystal Ponies at last recollected their memories of the beloved minstrel, and made a plaque near the Crystal Heart to honor her.

So far, they haven’t found another Crystal Party Pony yet, but perhaps the next generation brings promise.

Recovery Era

After Nightmare Moon’s banishment, Equestria was fairly politically unstable and needed to recover from the wars, disasters, and plagues that claimed many ponies, as well as adjust to having one princess. These were stressful times, and party ponies during that time took up the task of helping heal with their own brands of merriment.

One surprising place that one of these ponies popped up was in the military of all places! A young knight named Esprit De Corps, often given nicknames like Sir Laugh-a-Lot and Sir Merriment, had been fighting off invaders who opted to conquer Equestria in its weakened state when he noticed the depressed states of his fellow knights. So, he took part in another war—the war against pessimism and despair, which his strange “jester lance” cutie mark appeared to support.

So, he fought both battles in his unconventional ways—instead of killing the enemy, he opted to embarrass them, bringing laughter among the ranks of his army. Antics like catapulting pies, unleashing cats into enemy camp, replacing swords and crossbows with toys, and other things worked remarkably, and many enemy armies backed off so that they didn’t have to deal with the crazy knight.

Back home, he balanced life as a husband and father, and that of a Royal Guard. He was at first stationed in normal places like a normal guard, but his stations grew stranger and stranger over time, to the point that he often ended up in Celestia’s mane (it’s a good thing that Celestia liked him and found him funny). Of course, the captain grew very irritated with him and often scolded him for his unprofessionalism, threatening harsh punishment.

After his wife passed away, he stayed in Celestia’s mane for a long time to grieve; he didn’t ever come out. As a matter of fact, some say he fell into a pocket dimension in there, and couldn’t find his way back. For all anypony knows, he could still be alive, and may crawl out any day now…

As a pegasus named Gallow Humor had proved, not all party ponies were defined by bright colors and cheery music. She grew up in a rather solemn village, defined by either stoicism or fear, for what reason was there to be optimistic? The country was just barely held together, and ponies were subject to gruesome monster attacks and the occasional madpony seeking to hasten the end of others’ miserable existences.

Gallow, being the adventurous sort who laughed in the face of danger, took to teaching her village about the idea of “fun scary”—getting a thrill from fake danger, creating horror stories to entertain alongside warnings, employing dark humor so casually, putting on disguises and carving pumpkins to scare away evil, and giving offerings to Nightmare Moon.

She got in trouble plenty of times. Village elders often complained about her lax attitude toward the macabre, and often tried to stop her from ‘corrupting’ the foals. Some believed her stories about vampires, inspired by an infamous bloodthirsty rogue that disguised themselves as half-bat and committed gruesome murders (some even believed she was the rogue, though it was proven later that she wasn’t). She even got kicked out of town after she ended up setting something on fire.

But, she still spread her traditions, hoping to help ponies laugh at fear instead of letting it control them. As the existence of Nightmare Night and its traditions show, she succeeded better than thought possible.

Light Mood was appointed an official event planner at Canterlot Castle, and he went above and beyond to live up to his task. A passionate and romantic stallion, he always gave a unique flair to everything he did, from dinner parties to balls to Summer Sun fairs and to even the Grand Galloping Gala. He was notable for his accent, his singing, his tricks with fire, and his way with the ladies.

Often, he’d train unicorns to create an elaborate dance number with the food that was presented at his events, and as long as Celestia was wowed, he knew he wasn’t in trouble—so long as the food wasn’t totally wasted and nopony got hurt. He has gotten in trouble for accidentally burning somepony a couple of times.

He often butted heads with the scheduler, due to Light being a bit more spontaneous for the scheduler’s liking. Light was known for getting bored a little easily and going off to entertain somepony whenever he had the chance. Even if the other nobles got irritated with him, Celestia was quick to notice that he charmed ponies enough to lighten their spirits, and so allowed it.

Since he died, the Gala hadn’t been very interesting—up until Celestia invited her faithful student Twilight Sparkle and her friends a few centuries later.

At the end of the Recovery Era, a musically-inclined unicorn named Waterworks had been born in a seaside outpost called Baltimare. What was interesting about this pony in his town was his combined party pony and nature talking abilities, and musical inclination turned just about anything into a song. Be it in the bay with fish and crustaceans, the pond with amphibians and birds, or in a house with the pets, Waterworks clearly had a gift. As long as he could makeshift a baton, he could pull it off.

The town was impressed with his composing and orchestrating skills, especially when it came to the water shows, somehow convincing various sea creatures big and small to participate. Everypony in town loved it, and some felt that they should share their wacky little conductor. While the proud and kind of neurotic Waterworks was not fond of traveling, he was roped into having his own coastal orchestra road show to other colonies on the East Coast. No matter where he went, he could create a show, and receive applause for it.

Celestia had received word of this conductor, and had Light Mood arrange a concert for Waterworks to perform at. The performance was well-received, and Celestia was impressed with how a simple town like the little Baltimare could produce such a pony. She even had Light and Water make a show at a Gala.

Baltimare is still proud of their great water conductor, and how thanks to him their town grew into the major Equestrian city that it is today.

Equestria’s Rebirth

The party ponies of the Recovery Era, as well as inventors, scientists, mages, and many others, had steadily rebuilt Equestria back to its former glory, and back to the basic tenants of harmony. While Celestia still hurt from her sister’s banishment, she went forth with Equestria’s progress. Native Equestrians spread from the Canterlot province to settle elsewhere on the continent, and seaport Manehattan experienced a population explosion from immigrants, pony or otherwise.

With this renaissance, so came more party ponies to enrich the culture in their own special way.

In years past, Hearth’s Warming was celebrated with a feast, singing carols, and raising the flag. Now those were fine traditions, but during the Recovery Era, they were often solemn, being more about keeping away Windigos than really celebrating friendship.

Well, a mare named Holly Daybreak realized that such an important holiday needed to be joyous bonding time for friends and family. Filled with boundless cheer, she set off to make an Hearth’s Warming even grander and more fun for her hometown, despite the bitter cold winter season in the eastern mountains she resided in.

She made wreaths and garlands out of local evergreen branches, and decorated the conifers around town with toys, gems, candles, and crafts she had made—with a heart-shaped gem on top to represent the Hearth’s Warming Heart. She passed around mint and chocolate candies that her sister had made, and collected bells from old harnesses to create musical instruments. And on Hearth’s Warming Day, she left crochet dolls that she made personally on her neighbors’ doorsteps, as a gift. As the years went by, she took to giving more thoughtful gifts based on who she was giving to.

At some point, she decided to spread her ideas to other places, and after she left, her neighbors picked up her slack and celebrated the holiday as they always did, giving each other gifts instead of Holly doing all the giving. Meanwhile, Holly would be passing on ideas to towns, picking up more ideas from them, and then leaving her little crochet dolls on doorsteps, spreading the idea of giving gifts to friends.

It’s been speculated that she was the inspiration for A Hearth’s Warming Tale’s Spirit of Hearth’s Warming Presents, but it’s certain that holly is used as decoration in honor of Miss Holly Daybreak.

Pony pioneers were eager to build new homes on new land, and Overall Enthusiasm was no different. Though an outcast from his town for not being a normal earth pony with a sensible talent or even sensible magic, he joined up with a wagon train and offered to play his fiddle to raise their spirits. Though they found him strange, he was a fellow outcast and was friendly to boot. Many dances were held and many songs were sung during the trip, and Ovie even took a fancy to a pretty mare named Strawberry River.

The company went on to settle in the Salt Lick Valley, named so because the basin desert was just one big salt lick with only a crescent of grassland on its east side. Even the big lake was salty! But, those crazy ponies tilled the land and made it bloom, and Ovie was there to help keep their spirits up, though he had least had to haul building material (be it lumber from the mountains or rocks from canyon rock farms). Still, he just had a contagious party pony spirit that kept his friends going.

The leader, Bridle Yearling, appointed him as a master of ceremony in the valley, and an event planner for their annual “we-entered-the-valley” holiday, which the newly-minted Salt Lick ponies called the Frontier Festival. He was always behind preparations for Celestia’s visits and was sure to show the best aspects of their home.

He did eventually marry Strawberry, and have a large family with her. His legacy lies in both the annual Frontier Festival, still celebrated by Salt Lick residents, and in his many descendants.

Tea parties were a big staple of the Griffish Isles, especially with a mare like Kettle Fun around. She was an odd sort, being both a sweet, polite, motherly figure, and yet also rather mad. If she spotted somepony who was stressed, it was suddenly teatime, and she’d pull out a tablecloth, stashed in random places for tea emergencies, and roll out an already set table. She didn’t care if they were pony or griffon—a sour face is asking for a spot of tea, and if it happened to be your birthday… well, things got a little dotty.

Sometimes she went a little overboard with her tea parties. She often had various steaming kettles that end up creating musical numbers through huffing, puffing, whistling, and tooting. She used her magic to make all the wares dance, and sometimes had the kettles outright shoot their tea into the teacups instead of just pouring. She has stopped criminals by shooting hot tea at them this way. There was even a time where she made a tea lake.

She’s traveled to the Equestrian mainland and had an audience with the Princess. While tea was a drink familiar to the mainland, the tea mare’s visit and Celestia’s approval made tea parties popular event in most places in Equestria, especially among mares. There were some who didn’t care for tea, and Kettle never understood them.

Since most ponies haven’t met her, they always assumed that she was always polite and motherly, and didn’t really know how truly weird she was.

As Pantomime has proved with his life, sometimes you don’t need words to communicate, or even entertain. Being a mute, little Panto had to find some other way to communicate, and rely on the art of facial expressions and body language to get his point across. His experimentation with his eternal game of charades led to some unbelievable twists and stunts that hardly anypony else could do, and he used that to enhance his visual storytelling.

He was rejected several times in theater auditions, simply because he couldn’t talk. But, he eventually got himself a part as an expressive extra, and he turned out to be the audience’s favorite. He eventually went and traveled in his own show, selling his own brand of silent comedy that no other could replicate.

For some odd reason, strange circumstances would happen when he arrived into town, as if he wasn’t allowed to end his constant comedy act. While as optimistic as any other party pony and fairly polite to others, he did exude an aura of sarcasm in response to his weirdness magnet status.

He has teamed up with other comedians, who while they didn’t have the magic, were still pretty funny in their own right. He schooled them in silent performance, though sometimes he had to remember that they weren’t capable of some of his stunts. He found it equal parts fun and frustrating to work with others, as sometimes working alone can get lonely… but at the same time, somepony always messes up!

Nevertheless, when film was invented after his passing, with no sound at that, filmmakers always had their actors study the silent party pony, so that they could tell stories without words.

Southern Equestria was a bit different from Northern and Central Equestria. Few went beyond the southern jungles and dared to see the diverse cultures that had settled into various city-states. One such city-state was the hybrid cloud-ground city Rio de Cavalo, home of feathered rascal Samba Suave.

Being an adorable, excitable child, a suave, good-looking ladies’ stallion, and some odd practitioner of mysterious magic at the same time, it was clear that whatever street he appeared on was soon its own little party. A normal day would suddenly turn into a carnival if he was fluttering by, strumming his umbrella like a guitar. He was always up for a good time, and even when getting in trouble with officials, he was fairly popular in his hometown.

Then, Samba and his out-of-city-state pal Gatillo Fácil made a friend with a member of the Equestrian navy, and Samba showed them around. Then, the curious party ponies sailed up north to see what was beyond the jungles, and were surprised at the many cities that they saw. Samba didn’t hesitate to charm the citizens, especially the ladies, and taught them some dances and the music of his hometown.

He was taken on a cross-country trip with his two buddies to see many growing towns and cities, the sights, and the ponies. He shared his musical talents and his food (which like every other party pony, stored in his ‘secret compartment’), and did his notorious flirting. But, as fun as the trip was, he soon grew homesick and was returned to Rio soon enough.

While he’s long since passed, stories of the pegasus with strange, joy-bringing magic are still told in Rio, and many have tried to imitate his tricks during their annual parade.

Gatillo Fácil (Trigger Happy) was a wanderer who covered Southern Equestria, commonly described as a vaquero who was a one-pony mariachi band. Having been kicked out of his home in Ciudad Galope for being irresponsible, he’s always been dead set on proving to his father that he can spread joy instead of misery. With the voice of an angel and a tendency to fire magic from his horn whenever he got excited, life definitely got more interesting when he rolled into town.

Gatillo made friends with fellow party pony Samba Suave in Rio de Cavalo, and they later had a shared friend in the Equestrian Navy, who took them on tour of northern Equestria. Like Samba, he shared the music, activities, and food of his region (from the “secret compartment”) with the locals, and was the ultimate big brother for any foals that he had the pleasure of meeting.

After the tour, he still wandered like usual, but, he did return to the north several times, usually going through the jungle and fighting off predators in the process (he’s a tough guy). His visits made things like piñatas and mariachi music stick to the public’s mind more. It helps that he still had the voice of an angel and was incredibly friendly—though still pretty hyperactive.

Sadly, there was one trip he made, to find a burro friend going up north to sell food and see if he’s doing alright. He went through his usual jungle pass and never came out.

Ponyacci had a rough youth. His neglectful parents were more focused on their own drunken pleasure than their son’s happiness, and he was just expected to smile and be cute for them, despite actually being miserable. On hearing that his parents would have been happier without him, he packed up and joined the circus that was in town, where the ringmaster put him under tutelage of the clowns.

He picked up tricks from not just the clowns, but the acrobats as well, and proved himself a fast learner. He received standing ovations as a teenager, and if he was amazing in youth, then the prime of his life made him incredible.

However, he still did have problems. Some clowns got jealous of him for stealing their thunder, and a couple even tried to sabotage or frame him. His attempts at romance failed, for he was either laughed off or if he did get a girlfriend, she’d cheat on him. And when original ringmaster died, his replacement was greedy and stole bits from their pay because he had low views on “circus freaks”. Some quit, but Ponyacci couldn’t, having no real home to go back to. And during all that time, he wondered why he was smiling and laughing for the crowd when he was feeling despair.

Thankfully, that nasty ringmaster had been arrested for financial fraud, and was replaced with a nicer one. His daughter Juneflower took a job as a makeup artist for the clowns, and my, how Ponyacci was smitten. While June was serious and wanted Ponyacci to romance her like a normal stallion, he honestly couldn’t hold back his silliness for long. Thankfully, June learned to lighten up and appreciate his natural silliness, and they married. They’d go on to have six foals.

Ponyacci continued a long, wonderful career of decades, continually proving himself the greatest clown in Equestria. Everywhere, he was making ponies everywhere laugh and cheer. He always had a new trick or joke, and the roar of laughter was music to his ears. He even passed on some of his knowledge to apprentices he had over the years, with the most notable and successful being Cheese Sandwich.

He wasn’t happy to retire in his old age, but, thanks to encouragement of a fan named Pinkie Pie, he’s now running a clown school, where he can still have his mark on generations to come.

Surprise was certainly a surprise in every sense of the word: she was a surprise foal, she loved to leave surprises just about anywhere, she was a surprisingly creative singer with a lovely voice, she was surprisingly smart, and she possessed the ultimate magic of surprises. With a penchant for flying upside-down, there’s no telling when she’d come and strike up a conversation.

She had wanted to be a Wonderbolt in youth, thinking that her little swift-teleport trick could impress, but it was clear as she grew that she was too erratic to the point of likely being dangerous in that setting. So, she resigned herself to her typical magician’s act and on-the-fly songs at birthday parties. And when a prank set off too early caused a disaster that badly injured several ponies, she left town in shame.

Much to even her surprise, Surprise bumped into a Mr. Quartzenmeyer, a builder from Nickerlite, which was a small mining/rock farming town with heavy emphasis on rocks. Seeing as the town was a little dull, she decided to stay and try to spice things up. While the townsfolk were hard workers, they found that they liked having a chance to wind down and have a little fun every so often. Even town leader Feldspar Granite Pie didn’t mind, and Feldspar’s wife Petra Pinkamena eagerly befriended Surprise.

Along the way, she and Quartzenmeyer caught the love bug, got hitched, and five foals were born to them. One such foal, Cloudy Quartz, would be chosen to marry Feldspar and Petra’s son, Igneous Rock. And when both Surprise and Pinkamena were widowed, they took to living on the rock farm to be with their four granddaughters from that couple. Surprise sang songs with them, while Petra would be the storyteller. Surprise was mistakenly called “Granny Pies”, but her friend didn’t mind, preferring “Nana Pinkie” anyway.

Several bright years passed, but all good things must come to an end. Not being close enough to a hospital meant that health problems caught up to both of them a little too early and they passed away in the night. Although the Pie family mourned the loss of both grandmothers, it was soon apparent that their spirit lived on in one granddaughter: little Pinkamena Diane Pie… aka Pinkie Pie.

Modern Age

The time was nearing for her sister’s return, and Celestia was already looking into possible candidates for the Elements of Harmony. She often pondered if the ponies the Elements would fall to would be older or younger, male or female, rich or poor… but, no matter who they were and where they came from, the Element wielders must embody their virtues, and strive for their best selves, even in adversity.

One Element was Laughter, which was destined to fall to a wielder of jester magic.

Thanks to the relative scarcity of party ponies (less than fifteen out of thousands or even millions of ponies alive at a time) and a need for a foil, a marriage between two party ponies has not happened until recently with Frosting Flair and Disco Ball. Frosting grew up a baker while Disco helped his parents run a bar, up until he started his own family dance club since he was no fan of alcohol. They met when she catered to the opening and have since been inseperable.

It was often said in the early years of their marriage that Equestria was doomed and that they were due for a partypocalypse any day now. Their dances were whirlwinds of excitement in a literal sense, they always had a surprise packed in their treats, and have gone overboard with fireworks more than once. Their marriage spats were always Goof-Offs (to the point where they wrote down the unspoken rules of party pony battles in a rulebook), but they were both quick to forgive and made up very easily.

Ponies feared the day they had a foal—who, ironically, ended up being a math teacher when she grew up. Said daughter, Pi Thrower, holds a great deal of patience for their shenanigans, despite a more deadpan and serious nature. She doesn’t give the same luxury to her students, however.

They still run their club in Las Pegasus to this day, hosting many big names and giving family-friendly fun to all ponies. They both abide by the belief that everyone should indulge their inner child from time to time, and in their club, there’s no shame in playing in the kids’ zone.

While this inter-party pony marriage has worked, time will tell if another marriage of its kind would come forth.

Born of a family with a flower motif, Daffidazey was marked as the quirky one out of six fillies. A bubbly little goofball, she always had the desire to see her sisters happy. Be it throwing their birthday parties, looking out for them (despite only one being younger than her), and even planning their weddings. The sisters in return planned her wedding to a travelling salespony in return, though it was a painful job to get it as wild as possible.

A staple of hers is using flower petals as confetti, and has been since she was a filly. As weddings are her favorite to plan, her occupation is that of one of Equestria’s oddest wedding planners. Her home base is in the Salt Lick Valley, but she and her family travel the land for their services (besides, her nephew Bananas takes care of party-ponyness there).

She’s also notable for being one of very, very few ponies to have ever survived giving birth to not one, but two sets of twins! The births were years apart and neither were very fun, but she wouldn’t trade her little duos for any other, and tended to spoil them (at least her husband had the sense to discipline them). They usually tried to help with the wedding planning, with mixed results.

The elder twins have since grown up and have their own occupations, but the younger are still with Mom and Dad. Being young teens, they may resent their current lifestyle just a wee bit…

Born in the metropolis of Manehattan, Cheese Sandwich was well aware of his unusual abilities from a young age. He mainly kept it private and used it only to shield his little brother Tomato from the reality of their dysfunctional family. He enjoyed spending time with the little hyper nut that worshiped him, as well as their grandparents, which mitigated the situation somewhat until they passed away. He even inherited his love and talent for the accordion from his grandpa.

Cheese was a boy who spent so much time hiding, thanks to his mother telling him horror stories about what ponies did to “freaks” like him, and bullies picking a shy, poofy-haired, four-eyed foal as one of their favorite targets. In the schoolyard, he was always referred to by nickname, never by his real name. Things got worse when Tomato started school, and seemed to make a lot of friends and get good grades—which quickly made Cheese jealous and start shutting him out. Add in his mother’s frequent guilt trips and demands to earn a respectable talent and study and not get distracted by the nonsense he likes, and this poor kid was seriously burdened to the point of bending. When Tomato accidentally caused Cheese’s accordion to get smashed, that was when Cheese snapped, and he ran away.

At first, it was just aimless wandering, not caring what happened to him. But, stumbling into Ponyville one day, he discovered a party and was surprised at how much joy was surrounding him. The presence of another pony with the exact same type of magic as him—a filly named Pinkie Pie—made it click: this was what his weird magic was for. He wanted to talk to Pinkie and learn more, but, as always, shyness got the better of him and he took off before she even noticed.

But, he wasn’t going to give up without a fight. He decided to try and find the best clown in Equestria, Ponyacci, so that a professional adult could train him, and maybe, just maybe, he could impress that filly. Once he did find Ponyacci, it took a bit of convincing (and a little lie of him being an orphan instead of a runaway) to get him to accept him as an apprentice, but, it happened, and Cheese considers Ponyacci to have been a better father than Cheese’s own father. And boy, did Cheese grow into one of the most insane and creative party ponies who ever lived.

His career was full of ups and downs. He has many fantastic parties under his belt, a practical knowledge of mechanics and engineering, and he wrote a whole lot of songs, some that poked fun at celebrities and life in general. At the same time, he was still terrible at interpersonal relationships and often struggled in conversation not about parties—nomadic lifestyles don’t lend themselves to making oneself many friends besides a rubber chicken. He feuded with his brother for years until they slowed down and talked things out so they’d rebuild; his relationship with his parents is still strained; and when meeting Pinkie again when planning a party in Ponyville, he ended up sending the wrong message and she challenged him to a Goof-Off. Luckily, they cleared up the misunderstanding and became friends. Cheese denies having romantic feelings for her, but it’s clear that the boy’s smitten.

Still, for all his accomplishments, he’s still got a way to go. He’s got a fair amount of pride and doesn’t like allowing himself to look weak. Underneath all his goofy mischief, friendly charisma, and his occasional teasing snarks, there’s still a fair amount of seriousness and world-weariness in him, and he still keeps a lot to himself.

But most of all, he’s still very much a scared little boy in hiding.

Pinkamena Diane Pie, better known as Pinkie Pie, came out pink in a world of gray. Raised on a rock farm near Nickerlite, her family always noticed that there was something off about her. Of course, it was clear she got it from her grandmothers, who lived with them and keep the foals entertained. So long as she didn’t hurt herself and did her chores before any play, they could put up with it. She had enough of an imagination to keep her occupied in an otherwise boring setting, and she got along with her sisters, mainly Maud. She even had a notorious sweet tooth that came out when they visited town or made rock candy.

Of course, when her grandmothers died, she fell terribly depressed. All her cheer, all her imagination, and all her energy faded, and like the rest of the family, coped by carrying on with their farmwork. There was no talking, there was no smiling… there were only rocks. Boredom used to make her stir-crazy; now it just made her tired. She once got in trouble for throwing rocks; the punishment of extra work that day would change her life.

As she had finished up her extra work, a shockwave cleared the sky, frizzed her hair, and left a rainbow for her to see. For the first time in years, a tidal wave of happiness crashed on her in full force, and she brightened up within seconds, feeling a buzz stronger than before and a big smile from ear to ear. Her first instinct was to set up a party for her family so they could feel this cheer. She was nervous about them being angry, but what a relief it was to see her hard work pay off and her family’s spirits lifted.

In the weeks after, though, they got a little sick of her throwing a party every day. As much as they liked having some rest every now and again, she was overdoing it. Realizing that it was out of boredom of her isolation and that her cutie mark was already there anyway, her parents decided that maybe an apprenticeship would do her good. After a bit of searching in several towns, the Pies met the Cakes of Ponyville, and the Cakes agreed to take Pinkie in to learn the trade of the baker.

Pinkie was comfortable with the Cakes, and she really liked Ponyville. As much as she missed her family, she also made lots of new friends to throw parties for. The townsfolk thought she was weird and a little scary at first, but they grew used to her antics over the years, even embracing them sometimes. In adolescence, Pinkie’s heart always broke when somepony broke a friendship off because she was “uncool” or “annoying” or “can’t keep her mouth shut” or something like that. While she still did her thing, she always worried in the back of her mind that everyone thought of her that way. She was not trying to be annoying, she was trying to make ponies smile!

Then, one day, she met Twilight Sparkle. Her first instinct was to throw her a welcome party, which doubled as a Summer Sun party. Then, Nightmare Moon appeared, and one thing led to another, and Pinkie found herself in the middle of the Everfree Forest, standing with Twilight and four acquaintances and finding out that they embodied the Elements of Harmony. Pinkie Pie, to her excitement, was the Element of Laughter. Then they defeated Nightmare Moon, and brought back Princess Luna.

After that, life went on as normal for the girls. Pinkie drew closer to those friends, being the cheery fun that they need. She still bakes and throws parties, and now makes friends in new places—thanks to Princess Twilight’s map and various political connections. She can be obliviously insensitive and overbearing at times, but for the most part, she is loved in her community and several others.

Born of the Canterlot gentry, Party Favor always wanted to fit in, but just couldn’t for one reason or another. In a family of talented mages, his horn couldn’t even make a spark, which many took notice of. Foals didn’t let him play because why should they let a magicless colt into their unicorn games? His older brother tormented him, often with claims that he’s “helping” him with his problem. His father was ashamed and was mainly passive-aggressive in regards to Party Favor.

Even after Party Favor discovered his talent, his popularity over that was brief, and as he grew, he was the subject of snide remarks for his unsophisticated talent of balloon modeling. After being mocked at an art show, he went off on his own to try to find some place that would accept him. And just his luck, he happened to bump into Starlight Glimmer, who convinced him to give up his talent, since that was the cause of his misery, and become equal with others in her town.

Of course, he soon realized it was a nightmare with everyone screaming for help under forced smiles. Removing his cutie mark didn’t solve the problem of the horn, but saying something only got him thrown into the propaganda hut. After a time of despair, he did manage to find a light in forming genuine friendships with two mares named Sugar Belle and Night Glider.

It wasn’t until Twilight Sparkle and friends came that things looked up and the whole town was set free. He, his friends, and Starlight’s former lackey Double Diamond helped the girls get their cutie marks back in return. After that, the town took the time to heal, and Party Favor built up a reputation as the town’s local “balloon wizard”.

There still were things that popped up. The town took some time to reach out to others, being a little timid of their reputation and possibly being mocked for stupidity. Party Favor was nervous to throw a party for a business scoping out the area for a ski resort, but with a little encouragement from friends, he managed to create a balloon fun fair, which got him and the town a bit of positive attention. And then when Starlight came back to apologize for her wrongs, they forgave her.

It wouldn’t be later until his horn finally got its magic going (thanks to an accidental lightning strike), and while he had trouble controlling it at first, he got the hang of it thanks to his faithful friend Sugar Belle. It helps him whenever he needs to put something in a high place.

He still prefers to use his hooves, however.

As the second of eight foals, Bananas had been a hyperactive goofball from the day of his birth. He’s grown into a big, tough guy that could pin down a minotaur if he wanted to… but, he’s too friendly to consider wrestling anypony, though he does heavy lifting from time to time. It’s still best not to tick him off.

As the Salt Lick Valley’s current party pony, Bananas has a way of being pretty much everypony’s big brother, whether it be being a playmate for some, or having a tendency to tease some others, especially his actual younger siblings. While he usually stays in his home town of Neighton, he’ll hitch a ride on some balloons to travel elsewhere if he senses somepony needs him, playing his trumpet just to give the area background music (more than one pony has complained about that).

He has a terrible fear of trains thanks to a foalhood accident, and will avoid them whenever possible. Unfortunately, since his balloons can’t carry more than one pony, he usually has to take a train whenever going on an outing with his family. He carries out a ritual of feeding his “minions” (his pet fish), and carrying around a bunch of good luck charms. He clings to his older sister Flora as a security blanket.

He enjoys dressing up as a clown, whether it be for a foal’s birthday party or for the rodeo. The birthday parties have him see smiling foals cheering him on, though sometimes he’ll forgo the greasepaint of the birthday kid has a fear of clowns—he can still entertain them as Bananas. As for the rodeo, he enjoys the big crowd and sometimes doing Western-themed humor. Though, he does sometimes hit on the cowgirls in his own goofy, jazzy way.

While he does get along with Aunt Daffidazey, Bananas does wish to meet other party ponies closer to his age. He’d feel a little less lonely with a peer that has his type of magic.

Rumors in Halterside say that Comedy Gold was born laughing. And her parents would have confirmed that rumor—she laughs at the world, and all who are at the mercy of her mischief.

She’s always screwing with ponies in one way or another, and her feisty nature makes you think twice about laughing when she doesn’t want you to. She’s scared off potential bullies, and made it clear that anyone picking on any of her three older siblings is going to have to deal with her. And when she’s in carnival mode, you better just accept the fair games heading your way.

A way to immobilize this mare is to sneak dairy products into her meal—she’s lactose intolerant and she get sick within a half hour. Nightmare Night’s her least favorite holiday, given that’s when her father died and she’s essentially banned the celebration. She’ll celebrate other holidays, but not that one. And she’s had karma bite her in the butt plenty of times when she goes too far—that’s what jester magic often does.

She’s pretty territorial and doesn’t easily play nice with other party ponies visiting Halterside. In one instance, she got hostile toward a visiting Cheese Sandwich—who was there because Goldie recently had colic and was recovering from the surgery to correct it! However, if she’s visiting other places and meets another party pony, she’s a little nicer, but no less feisty. There may be some insecurity relating to her talent hiding under her aggression, but it might be dangerous to try to find out for sure.

She’s usually helping her brother, Silver Shill, out with his business. Since opening a pizzeria with a friend, Goldie’s found a little more structure in her life with a job in entertaining others at the restaurant. She often helps the town set up local festivals, though she still enforces her ban on Nightmare Night (everyone’s too afraid to challenge her).

Nevertheless, despite her personality, she does genuinely like making things fun for everyone. As long as she controls her temper and her pride, it’s all good.

Party Pony Youth

At a tender age where they just received their marks, the Youth are just getting started in the world of jester magic. It’s important that they learn the difference between spreading joy and indulging in pleasure, as many ponies are often confused over the role of party ponies—thinking them as careless loonies off to trap innocents in the ways of drunkenness and fornication.

It’s up to the elders to teach them the true party pony way—that of bringing cheer to the citizens of Equestria, and encouraging all ages to celebrate life.

Mimic Bang is a young pegasus colt from the cloud city of Cirrcago who has an odd gift for imitating just about every sound there is. He’s typically quite mischievous, and likes to surprise ponies with his realistic noises and often those of things that don’t exist in Equestria.

Mimic often uses his talent in the foal theater, providing sound effects for shows.

From down in New Horseleans, Confetti Dance loves a good parade. Her name fits well, given her love of dancing and her ability to pop confetti from her own little magic spell. She also likes making necklaces and bracelets, and she’s a great singer, so you bet that she’ll be jazzing it up wherever she goes.

She’s a stubborn and sassy filly, often insisting that she’s right. Don’t be surprised if she gets into an argument.

As the granddaughter of Ponyacci, Sparkleworks is also currently the youngest party pony. She’s sweet and bubbly, but she might be a little thrill-seeker, wanting to throw knives and set off fireworks. She’ll also relax with a sketchpad, and often sketches out her many ideas.

Living in Mane-tua close to her grandparents, she’s also in training to be an acrobatic clown, and is often her grandfather’s assistant at his clown school.

The Future?

No one quite knows what the future holds for party ponies. There are still yet unmarked foals in many Equestrian cities and towns that show potential to be party ponies, and there are party ponies not yet born. The Crystal Empire could finally have another party pony in their ranks, another inter-party pony marriage could happen, and another town could grow thanks to the influence of one.

Who knows what the future of celebration holds? However new ideas of fun and music come to light, you can bet that the party ponies will be at the forefront, spreading it around and giving new meaning to laughter.

Only time will tell.

#party ponies #pinkie pie #cheese sandwich #party favor #ponyacci #bananas #comedy gold #jamberry rune #and many others #big essay thing

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dolgelo · 7 years

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DOLGELO’S RP PLOTTING CHEAT-SHEET!

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Mun name: Clio/Mary/realisnametoolong OOC Contact: direct messages here are always a bit problematic because the site and app don’t always notify me of new one, dis.cord only for mutuals - i’ll probably make a drop soon

Who the heck is my muse anyway:

Mitsuru Kirijo is one of the main and playable characters of the series Persona, in particular, P3, where she makes her first debut. Born into a wealthy family well-known around Japan and beyond, she is the only heiress of the company, based on economy and electronics, named the Kirijo Group. After undergoing various experiments during childhood from a secret branch of said company, all about cognitive science, she awakened to her other self or Persona to protect her father and kept doing that ever since. She, together with other users chosen in the high school of the city, creates the battling group SEES, whose hideout is Iwatodai dorm, and she makes of fighting shadows her true and ultimate goal, in order to eliminate their nest, the Tower of Tartarus, and the Dark Hour, the hidden time in which Shadows hunt down common people, making them victim of what the public knows as Apathy Syndrome.

Points of interest:

1) Her strong devotion towards her goal and the figure of her Father, that she adores and defends, is also her greatest weakness. The girl’s demeanor might seem icy, perfect and basically untouchable and gracious in its entirety, but in reality, Mitsuru happens to be a very fragile person, with phobias, fears and a great predisposition to telling countless lies to her companions and dormmates. Although she has no ill reasons to behave that way, Mitsuru does not feel like sharing that burden she always carried with anyone else and thus, avoids to tell everyone about the truth, just like the incident of the lab of the Group that did cause the Dark Hour to exist in the first place. This side of her personality, that unfortunately gets the best of her almost until the very end, also makes the girl also unable to ask for anyone’s help, in a direct way. It often results in pretty uncomfortable situations and the inevitable awkwardness of finally having to tell the truth, or speak of her own feelings - something she doesn’t like doing, at all. She’s not perfect at all.

2) Being educated to a certain etiquette, Mitsuru is shown as a lady-like beauty, with interest in reading, logic-based activities, having tea while reading a book and fleuret competitions. It all has to do with her upbringing that, although strictly sheltered and protective during the first years - given she had to succeed her father one day as CEO of the corporation, through marriage - educated her to delicate and elegant manners since forever. She is never vulgar and has a particular soft spot for refined food and sweets. Despite this, however, Mitsuru has always shown another, wilder side of her personality, especially when it came to education: from climbing up trees and escaping the cares of maids when being just a little child, to desiring to avoid rules, arranged marriage and judgment of old men deciding of her life and body by running away on her motorcycle, somewhere far where to just be herself. Or also enjoying junk food and breaking some rules, from time to time.

3) Although not having had the chance to grow up together with her mother, because of the woman’s degenerative and odd illness that forced her outside of the house and Mitsuru’s life, the girl is extremely caring towards youngsters and people in need. She’s extremely motherly and protective towards them, showing a delicacy and gentleness that collide so much with everyone’s ideas of the icy queen of execution reputation she might have. If she punishes, she does that to make one’s think and realize their mistakes - she’s not evil and will always want the best for her friends and youngest people. It also piles up the fact she’s extremely naive too; she won’t recognize bad people until they betray her trust. Only then, she’d have no mercy of them.

What they’ve been up to recently:

Mitsuru has been elected president of the student council of the private school of Gekkoukan. Valedictorian and brilliant in the role of captain of the fencing club, she is the daughter, only heiress, of the group actually founding the school - from elementary classes to the last ones of a teenager’s academic career. She is also founder of the secret SEES, a club disguised as a mere afterschool students organization that, in reality, is linked to the supernatural; for Mitsuru, and all the other younger members of this Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, there’s a mission to be finally resolved: the elimination of the Dark hour, the hidden hour that after midnight, every day, turns normal people into coffins and lets Shadows loose - creatures capable of attacking people, causing even Apathy syndrome to spread around. Given the role to Arisato, the transfer student with the Power of the Wild Card, she takes the job of a secondary member - together with her Persona; first Penthesilea, then Artemisia. She acts as a sort of mother, inside of the dorm; caring but firm, Mitsuru

In her successive timeline, that takes place a couple of years after Graduation Day, Mitsuru is now attending college - an economy course to be exact for, one day, be finally a rightful and just head of the family corporation - the one famous worldwide and specialized in both electronics and the everyday life her father’s legacy -- Kirijo Group. Hidden under the latter’s influence and name, Mitsuru founded another group of young Persona Users: Shadows Operatives, whose task is to help people dealing with supernatural disasters associated with Shadows activities.

Where to find them:

- Gekkoukan High School, hallway in front of faculty office - Library of Gekkoukan - Student council classroom - Iwatodai Dormitory, lounge or command room - Tower of Tartarus - Kirijo mansion and Shadow Operatives HQ - Yakushima family estate and beach

Current plans:

ATONEMENT. To pay for the sins of her family, of her grandfather in particular who had, with the price of his own life, tried to remake the world with the help of an evoked Nyx, her Harbinger and Plumes of Dusk he studied. Those researches, with its scientists and experiments, cause the Port Island incident of 1999 that killed numerous people and did bring forth the Dark hour.

ELIMINATION OF THE CURSE OF THE DARK HOUR. Mitsuru’s true objective, that she believe will bring peace to her own family and a smile to reappear on her father’s place. Although selfish, in a sense, it’s the will that keeps her fighting, in the first line too.

ACADEMIC CAREER. Mitsuru aspires and points to the utter best when it comes to education. And she wants her teammates to be clever just the same, prepared and able to manage a healthy and successful school life and battles at night. Even during college, she will not stop encouraging her ex-teammates to study, if they do think of continuing being a, maybe, University student.

TO FIGHT FOR A MORE PEACEFUL REALITY. After the demise of her father, she begins seeing the world and people under a less selfish light; to not just hope for a better present with the intention of a single man’s well-being, but for a greater deal, many more people and right ideals.

TO LEAD A WAY NORMAL LIFE AND KNOW MORE ABOUT THE WORLD. Child-like curiosity is often at fault when dealing with Mitsuru on relaxing occasions; being raised in a sheltered environment, she truly desires to finally and fully experience the “real world” as much as she can - one way or another. From its people to the food she never had tasted yet, to love matters and even the most useless and insignificant experiences like a simple stroll can be -- she just wants to know more about the outside world and to be, maybe, part of it too, once put etiquette aside first.

Desired interactions:

GETTING TO KNOW BETTER OTHER YOUNGER USERS. Mitsuru is caring and motherly at heart and has a good time dealing with younger Users she can instruct; it’s part of her character to go towards others that way, listen to them too, and she often thinks they must be defended, shielded by the difficulties and hardships that fighting Shadows would cast upon them; might be because of her own pride or just trying to protect latest generations from the risks, but a confront about the matter, when facing the issues with Mitsuru is often needed.

LIGHTHEARTED TIME WITH SEES. Under the icy façade of the imperious and firm cold girl she exhibits when surrounded by people who do not know her well enough, there lies a rather naive and curious girl - not that different from others of the same age, except for heritage. One thing she tries to not get too fixated about, not with her oldest friends - for she too wants to live like a normal girl and have fun like the others do. And so, she takes the risks and proposes activities, free afternoon outdoors... whatever that’d keep her relaxed and at ease with her dormmates.

LOVE ISSUES. Certainly less angsty than a certain marriage one, but I’ve always desired for girls talks threads - that did rarely came at all here. It’s a shame, for I love the idea of Mitsuru at least partaking in them, not necessarily being the subject to discuss; she smells affection, you can not fool her... she will know and she’ll surely desire to hear more about it. What would be cute as well, though, is to maybe see tables turn and her being the one interrogated - that’d be quite a sight.

Childhood or pre-2007 timelines are always welcome too, in fact - I adore sassier smol muse.

Offered interactions:

EMPRESS ARCANA TO ITS FINEST. Mother, older sister, tutor and supporting figure for your problems. She’s your girl. Caring and nurturing are the main aspects of her Arcana and Mitsuru is a clear example of all that; she will lend people a hand, offer advice and make anyone treating you bad/bullying you/etc experience utter hell and make them regret it all. Sweet with those who deserve it, firm when necessary - she won’t see the bad in your muse until openly revealed. Let her sign you and your friends up for summer courses or clubs at school even if you don’t need it because she’s worried, and she cares. It’s her character and it’s extremely endearing in my opinion, especially since most of the people here consider her just the cold ice queen of executions?? No. She’s much more. She merely doesn’t demonstrate to be as such all the time. All is gained, when deserved - even her most sincere and sweetest side.

THE ISSUE OF HER MARRIAGE. This is angst. We all know of the girl’s past arranged marriage, the one that makes all her reasons to fight and care for herself and her friends almost crumble. It is an inevitable part of her character and story that I, as a mun, can not ignorance if I truly desire to write and be satisfied with my own take on Mitsuru. No matter how much I do, to be honest, hate it -- but at the same time find extremely interesting to explore. Arranged business marriages are not that rare in Japan and Mitsuru is, from the longest time, victim - for a greater good, of course, of all that mess too. She hates the man for how he treats her but, for the Group’s sake, decides to engage in dates, accompany him and promise to one day marry the rich heir. Discussing, talking about this matter is, from what I’ve seen so far, really interesting, it offers development between our muses and always leads to a bit of angst which is always welcome.

ANGST. Can’t spell Mitsuru without angst... right? Ahah, she’s complicated, fragile and a good liar. Stubborn too, at times - no matter what she does preach often around the dorm, and she had no intention of letting other even help her carrying or sharing the self-inflicted burden and family sins she made hers since mere childhood. This results in fights - just like with Yukari in-game, and generally to see Mitsuru as a sort of superior human being, with no time to dedicate to others or even herself at some point, too busy fighting her own personal war. That’s sad, and what makes it worse is that she often does not realize it - thus leading to incomprehension. Always interesting to explore.

Current open post/s:

None at the moment but if you have any ideas for plot, just write me a starter, or hit me up ( if tumbl r permits me to see dms, i cry )

Anything else?:

Because of university keeping me busy most of the year with all its exams, I might be a bit slow with replies; I’d hardly be completely inactive but, yes, that is the only problem about me and writing. Overall, I’m quite timid at first - so it gets me a lot to be all open, fine and dandy with you - just don’t read all of that as me being proud, bitter or whatever, I don’t think I am. Plus I’m always open to plot and discuss thread, I’m always honored as much as there is respect and patience!

Tagging: i was tagged by @aragakisan weeks ago, but steal it if you wish!

#(( ooc ;; ᵃ ᵛᵒᶤᶜᵉ ᵉᶜʰᵒᵉˢ ᶤᶰ ᵗʰᵉ ˢᶰᵒʷ ˢᵗᵒʳᵐ ))#long post

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