#also judging one chapter or multi chapter? that seems unfair

[thefinalcinderella]

Kaze ga Tsuyoku Fuiteiru Chapter 7 - The Qualifiers (Part 3)

After this chapter I have officially finished 50% of this book...yeah that’s right after 2 years I have finished half of this book...

Next chapter is pretty long, we might be staying there for a while folks

Full list of translations here

Translation Notes

1. A “one-two finish” refers to members of the same team winning first and second place 

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When Kakeru reached the finish line, he was handed a water bottle by a staff member and ordered to move; if he stayed near the finish line, he would become an obstacle to the later runners.

He wondered how the others were doing. He was worried, so he lingered under the trees next to the finish line to check on the situation. There was another cheer, and he caught a glimpse of a Kansei uniform on the other side of the crowd—it was Kiyose.

“Haiji-san!” Kakeru shouted and leapt out onto the pathway that the runners who finished passed through to get to the lawn. Kiyose was crouching. Startled, Kakeru ran over to him.

“Are you okay?”

He didn’t seem to be breathing too much. The runners who finished in the top rankings had that ability; they were able to run the race at their own pace and with ease. There was no way they would be gasping for breath and unable to move after reaching the finish line. “It’s your leg, right?” Kakeru judged after checking Kiyose’s breathing.

In order to lessen the burden on his muscles even just a little bit, Kakeru poured water from the bottle onto Kiyose’s shin. After Kakeru lent him a hand, Kiyose stood up and started walking with a slight limp in his right leg.

“Kakeru, good work.”

Kiyose’s first words were words of appreciation towards Kakeru. Is this really the right time for that? Kakeru felt like crying.

“Yes.”

 When he hung his head, Kiyose laughed and ruffled his hair.

“Let’s go cheer on the others.”

“But, we should cool your leg imme—”

“It’s not a problem. Let’s go.”

Kiyose slipped into a gap between the spectators. Kakeru followed him, saying, “Excuse me.”

At the finish line, there was a close race for eightieth place. Since the results were decided by the combined times of ten people, everyone was desperate.

“It’s the twins, it’s the twins!”

Kakeru spotted Kansei uniforms in the tight group. On the other side of the course, Hanako was jumping up and down.

Jouta and Jouji both gritted their teeth and crossed the finish line. After them, Yuki, Musa, Nico-chan and Shindou finished in the eightieth to ninetieth places. King fought bravely and finished in one hundred and twenty-third place.

“Good. That’s a good pace,” Kiyose murmured. Prince, however, was nowhere to be seen. Among the regular schools, there were more and more that had all ten people finish the race.

“It’s not looking good for us at this rate.”

Kakeru stamped his foot. He almost wanted to run one more time himself. Is he here yet? Is he here yet? Then, from behind the trees, where Kakeru had been staring as if in prayer, Prince appeared.

“He’s staggering…” Kiyose furrowed his brow. Prince had already passed his limits, and his eyes were unfocused.

“Prince-san, run! The finish line is right in front of you!” Kakeru shouted, trying to at least guide him by ear.

“I know that.” Prince struggled forward, fighting the nausea that was rising up. Sweat was flowing from him and his fingers were unpleasantly cold. Where did the blood go? Prince vaguely wondered. My face is probably pale as a sheet of paper right now.

He was clearly anemic, but he couldn’t collapse here. There were twenty meters until the finish line. If Prince stopped running, Kansei, which only had ten people, would be eliminated from the qualifiers. If Hakone was a no-go for them because of him, his collection of books would surely be burned. He had to avoid that.

Prince summoned up all of his willpower. As soon as he did that, his stomach squeezed, and he finally felt an unendurable nausea.

He no longer cared about the several hundred people watching him. As Prince ran, he threw up with all his might. He could hear the female spectators along the route letting out cries of “Kyaa!”

“This is no time for throwing up! Run!” Kiyose’s angry voice rang out.

Are you a demon or something? This is why I hate sports clubs. Prince cursed at him in his head, wiping his dirty mouth with his hand. Of course, he had no intention of stopping his feet. He wondered why he was doing sports, something he wasn’t good at. He wondered why he had been doing all this running practice like an idiot.

It was to participate in the Hakone Ekiden.

Because I thought it would be nice to share in you guys’ muscle-headed dream for once…!

Prince crossed the finish line in one hundred and seventy-sixth place and lost consciousness on the spot.

Everyone in Chikusei-sou had fallen flat in their encampment on the lawn. Less than half of them had the energy to even check their wristwatches for their times after finishing. Yuki had given up on the attempt to clearly grasp the ten’s combined times.

The tallying and calculation of intercollegiate points took up more time than expected, so the results were to be announced at around eleven o’clock. They had to wait at least another hour after all the competitors had finished running.

“We’re in a delicate position.” Kiyose calmly calculated while icing his shin. “When averaging our positions, we’re probably in the mid-eighties. That’s borderline.”

“Depending on the intercollegiate points of the schools that are also borderline…”

Nico-chan glared at the sky with a difficult look on his face.

“It’s possible we won’t qualify,” Yuki said.

Oh no, the twins moaned. Shindou and Musa were quiet, looking like they were praying to their respective ancestors and patron gods. King was plucking at the grass. Prince didn’t so much as twitch, still lying facedown on the grass. Hanako and the shopping district people, who were surrounding them, were unable to give any careless encouragement, and could only wait for the results.

Kakeru suddenly looked at Kiyose’s hands; the ice they had brought in the cooler box was melting in the plastic bag.

“I’ll go get some ice. Maybe they’ll give us some at that store over there.” Wanting to escape from this oppressive atmosphere, Kakeru stood up. Musa seemed to feel the same way.

“I shall go as well,” he said and followed him.

They cut across the lawn and headed for the store with the red roof. It was easy to tell which schools were confident that they would qualify by the expressions on the runners’ faces; it was the borderline schools, like Kansei, that were exuding a sense of high tension, but the schools that had clearly ranked lower were generally calmly waiting for the results to be announced. Among them, there were teams that were happily picking at the multi-tiered bento boxes made by their female managers.

There are all sorts of people, Kakeru thought. For those people, their goal was to make it to the qualifiers. They knew the outcome from the beginning, so when they were finished running, they made it into a picnic-like event and enjoyed themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that, but we’re different, he felt.

I don’t want it to end the qualifiers. I want to see even greater heights. I want to be an even faster and stronger team and compete in the Hakone Ekiden. That’s what I’ve been training for, and that’s what I’m going to keep training for.

“I wonder what will happen, Kakeru,” Musa spoke to him worriedly.

“We can get to Hakone,” Kakeru assured him. Burning magma was gushing up from the pit of his stomach. Everyone had run the qualifiers with all their might today; there was no way they could lose.

Musa’s eyes widened at his forceful words.

“Kakeru, you seem to have gotten stronger somehow.”

“That’s not true.” Kakeru shook his head. “We ran pretty hard, didn’t we? So I just think we’ll be okay.”

Musa nodded. “You are correct. We are going to Hakone. All together.”

When Musa said it, it sounded like the happy ending of a fairy tale, or a reliable prophecy.

When Kakeru and Musa asked for some ice, the shopkeeper readily gave them some. Since they came empty-handed, the shopkeeper put the ice into a paper cup. “We were careless,” Musa said. A group of spectators walked by behind him.

“Another black runner. It’s pretty unfair to bring in foreign students.”

“With a bunch of guys like that, then Japanese runners won’t be able to compete.”

Musa’s face stiffened at the whispered comments that they intentionally let him hear, and Kakeru was about to turn around and object.

“It’s fine, Kakeru,” Musa stopped him. “I have heard a lot of comments like that today alone.”

“We can’t let them say something so one-sided!” Kakeru still tried to chase after the spectators that were getting further away, but Musa seized his arm.

“We must not get into quarrels. They are talking about foreign students who came here because of their talent in athletics. I am embarrassed. I am embarrassed of myself. They don’t seem to be able to tell the difference, but my legs are not fast. I am just a foreign student with no talent to be envious of.”

“That has nothing to do with this!” Kakeru was indignant. “You, me, the people who took first and second place today, we all ran the same course. And yet…”

He didn’t know how to say it, but Kakeru was frustrated. He felt like Musa, who he lived with, Kakeru himself, and the international students from other schools he had never exchanged a word with were all being insulted. That’s right, I can’t express it well, but it’s an insult to everyone who’s taking running seriously. Kakeru squared his shoulders.

“It’s just as Kurahara said,” someone said. When he turned around, he saw a lanky man with a shiny and round head. “But let it go. They’re amateurs who don’t know what running is.”

Kakeru and Musa watched as the man bought oolong tea at the store. Kakeru had seen him before. Without letting his guard down, he searched his memory in a panic. I recognize this shiny head.

“Rokudou’s Fujioka! …san,” Kakeru deduced the answer.

Rokudou University had won the Hakone Ekiden several years in a row. This was their captain, Fujioka Kazuma. Kakeru had only met him at the TSU meet in the spring, but he wondered why someone like him would come to the qualifiers.

“I’m here to observe our opponents,” Fujioka said, perhaps reading Kakeru’s question. “Kansei has become quite strong. It looks like you’re going to make it to Hakone.”

Fujioka had the complacency and presence of a champion.

“Thanks to everyone’s hard work.” Kakeru’s natural competitive spirit reared its head, and he answered back proudly. Fujioka let his gaze collide with Kakeru’s, not taking a step back, and then looked at Musa.

“You shouldn’t care about people like that. It’s a ridiculous opinion.”

“Which part of it is ridiculous?”

Kakeru stopped Fujioka, who was about to leave while drinking his tea. The way the spectators talked about Musa made him angry. However, he couldn’t figure out exactly why he was angry, but Fujioka seemed to know what was causing this annoyance.

“Please tell me,” Kakeru pleaded.

Fujioka stopped and stared at Kakeru with interest. “Alright then,” he said and turned to Kakeru and Musa again.

“There are at least two ridiculous parts. One is the reasoning that it is unfair to include foreign students in the team because Japanese runners can’t compete with them. So what about the Olympics then? What we’re doing is a competition, not a kindergarten field day where we all hold hands and one-two finish. (1) It is natural that there would be individual differences in physical ability. But on top of that, sports are about equality and fairness. They have no idea what it means to compete on the same field in the same sport.”  

Musa was silent, attentively listening to Fujioka’s words. Kakeru was just simply overwhelmed by Fujioka’s quiet analysis.

“Their other misunderstanding is thinking that winning is good,” Fujioka continued. “If a Japanese athlete takes first place, if they get a gold medal, is that all that matters? I firmly believe that isn’t true. That shouldn’t be the essence of competition. Even if I win first place, it isn’t a victory if I felt that I lost to myself. Things like times and rankings change rapidly from competition to competition. Who decides who’s the best in the world? It isn’t because of that, but because we have unchanging goals and ideals within us that we continue to run.”

That’s right. Kakeru felt his hazy, pent-up feelings clear up. I got stuck on these things and they made me angry. Fujioka’s amazing. What Kakeru felt and wanted to say were extremely easily untangled and put into words.

“You haven’t changed at all, Fujioka.”

Before they knew it, Kiyose was standing behind Kakeru and Musa.

“An outsider said something unnecessary.” Fujioka bowed to Kiyose in a stoic manner and left this time.

“No, you were helpful.” When Kiyose said that, Fujioka turned his head over his shoulder and a corner of his mouth lifted into a smile.

“Looks like you’ve got quite the lineup.”

“Well, I suppose.”

“I’ll be waiting at Hakone.”

With a resolute attitude befitting a champion until the end, Fujioka disappeared between the trees. It’s like he said “I’ll be waiting in nirvana,” or something. I wonder if he’s not going to wait to see the results announced even though he came all the way here, Kakeru thought, but he hurriedly bowed towards Fujioka’s back.

Musa also said, “Thank you very much,” and bowed deeply. Fujioka’s words had energized Kakeru and Musa, like dispelling thunderclouds.

“I came after you guys because you left without taking the bag.” Kiyose lifted the plastic bag.

“Sorry,” Kakeru said and accepted the bag, then transferred the ice he got from the shopkeeper to it. Kiyose was already walking without dragging his leg.

“Is he called Fujioka-san? He is an amazing person.” Musa seemed deeply impressed.

“I guess that means you need emotional strength and wisdom in the true sense to continue winning Hakone,” Kiyose laughed a little. “Well, he’s always been strangely calm; as a high school student his nickname was ‘Trainee Monk’. It's a bit unpleasant, isn’t it?”

Kakeru and Musa looked at each other and nodded, saying, “That’s true.”

Spectators and runners were beginning to gather at the large display board near the finish line.

“It’s almost time for the announcement.”

“Let’s go.”

Musa jogged back to Kansei’s encampment. Kakeru matched Kiyose’s pace as they made their way across the lawn. He was curious to see what the results would be, but they had come this far and there was nothing they could do about it now. What occupied Kakeru’s mind at the moment was Fujioka’s figure.

The power to change thoughts into words. An eye that calmly analyzed the hesitation, anger, and fear within you.

Fujioka was strong. His running speed was extraordinary, but the mental strength that supported it was incredible. When I was just running recklessly, Fujioka must have been analyzing himself in his fast-moving head and pursuing running on a deeper and higher level.

Kakeru felt both battered and inspired with a strange kind of excitement.

What I’m lacking are words. All I do is let my hazy feelings stay hazy. But I can’t do that from now on. I’ll be as fast as, no, even faster than Fujioka. In order to do that, I need to know my running self.

That was definitely the “strength” Kiyose had spoken of.

“I feel like I’m starting to get it,” Kakeru murmured.

“Is that so.” Kiyose seemed satisfied.

A student in a gakuran carrying a megaphone climbed onto the stage. He reverently opened the memo with the results of the qualifiers. He was a student member of the administration committee from the Inter-University Athletic Union of Kanto, which organized the Hakone Ekiden. His assistant, a female student, stood by the display board while the gathered people listened attentively with anticipation and anxiety.

“We will now announce the qualifying schools for the Tokyo-Hakone Round Trip University Ekiden Race. First place, Tokyo Sport University.”

The TSU crowd gave a loud cheer. Kakeru saw Sakaki being given a spank of joy by his senior. The TSU runners hadn’t come apart, reaching the finish line in a good position together; it was a victory of total strength that displayed the depth and closeness of the runners.

The female student pulled out the first place card on the display board. The name “Tokyo Sport University” and the total time of ten people were written in the first place column: ten hours nine minutes and twelve seconds. The average place for the ten runners was forty-ninth place.

“As I thought, it was a pretty fast-paced race,” Kiyose groaned in a low voice. The expression on his face showed that they were in a difficult situation to qualify. Kakeru curled his hands into fists.

“Second place,” the announcer dispassionately read the memo aloud. “Koufu Academy University.”

Cheers erupted from another corner. “Hmph,” King sniffed.

“That announcer is putting the perfect pause between ranking and the school name.”

“Don’t act all important, get on with it,” Prince, who had finally come back to life, immediately complained.

“Aah crap, my heart feels like it’s gonna explode.” The twins and Hanako were huddled together, quivering like young birds that had fallen from their nest.

The announcement had proceeded to fifth place, but Kansei’s name was not called. Up to this point, all the schools had been Hakone regulars; if they couldn’t get into sixth place, the seventh to ninth places were likely to be different from the total time order of the qualifiers because of the intercollegiate points involved.

“Sixth place.”

“Please please please!”

“Kansei, Kansei!”

Their desperate prayers were in vain, and the announcer said, “Saikyo University.”

“Aah!”

“Are we done? Are we done?”

Nico-chan and Yuki looked up at the sky. Kiyose was staring at the display board in silence. The glint in his eyes suggested that he was looking through the white cards that still hid the seventh to ninth place columns.

“In accordance with the rules, seventh place and below are determined by subtracting each school’s intercollegiate points from their total times. Seventh place, Jonan Cultural University.”

Kakeru felt like he was losing the strength in his legs, but he managed to hold on. They still had a chance. There were two more participation slots to be filled. He felt a pain in his right shoulder, and he looked to see Shindou’s fingers digging into it. Musa’s face was half-buried in Shindou’s arms, and he was mumbling something in his mother tongue.

It’ll be okay. It’s going to be okay. Kakeru stretched out his arm and gently patted Shindou and Musa’s backs.

“Eighth place, Kansei University.”

He thought he misheard. King leapt upon them. Kiyose raised his arms to the sky with a rare full-faced smile. Shindou and Musa weakly sat down on the grass. Nico-chan and Yuki high-fived each other, and Hanako and the twins screamed as they slapped Kakeru all over his body.

While being mobbed, Kakeru looked. At the display board, where the words “Kansei University” shined brilliantly. At Prince, who shed a single tear outside the circle.

We did it. The truth finally reached his brain. We are going to be in the Hakone Ekiden.

The next thing Kakeru knew, he was bellowing from the pit of his stomach.

Kansei University’s total time was ten hours sixteen minutes and forty-three seconds. The ten’s average place was eighty-sixth place.

Jonan Cultural University, in seventh place, had the actual time of ten hours seventeen minutes and three seconds. The intercollegiate points put them ahead of Kansei. The school that just barely passed in ninth place was Shinsei University.

Their time was ten hours seventeen minutes and eighteen seconds. Kakeru looked up at the time written on the display board and exhaled with relief and joy. Kansei University had successfully obtained their ticket to Hakone on their first attempt. And they even finished in ten hours and sixteen minutes, which was good enough for seventh place.

There were cries of surprise everywhere.

“Kansei actually did it.”

“And I heard they only have ten people on their team.”

“That’s the school where the third place and sixth place guys came from, right? I already learned their uniforms.”

“Me too. It’s black with silver lines. It’s kind of cool.”

As they were cleaning up their encampment on the lawn, they were asked to give a few words to the close coverage cameras, but Kakeru’s mind was dizzy and lacking oxygen. He was more tired than when he was running and his feet were unsteady.

We've only passed the qualifiers; the actual race is next January. The Hakone Ekiden is in approximately seventy-five days. Even though he told himself that, happiness filled his chest.

Kiyose once said this: “Hakone isn’t a mountain in a mirage.” That really was true. The residents of Chikusei-sou had finally reached the point where they could see the mountain as a real entity.

While feeling excited, Kakeru swiftly folded the plastic sheet. Jouta and Jouji were sitting on the grass. They were frowning for some reason as they peered at the notes of the results they had copied from the display board.

“What’s wrong?” Kakeru called to them. The twins looked up at him.

“Haiji-san said we’re going to the top,” Jouta muttered.

“Mm? Did he?” Kakeru responded lightly, but Jouta wasn’t convinced.

“He did say that. But, this time…”

“What about it?” Kakeru put down the plastic sheet and crouched down next to the twins. “Let’s clean this up quickly and go home. I’m sure we’ll have a party tonight.”

“Kakeru, doesn’t ‘top’ mean winning?” Jouji asked with a grim face. “Our total time is ten hours sixteen minutes and forty-three seconds. TSU, who qualified in first place, has a time of ten hours nine minutes and twelve seconds; that’s a difference of seven and a half minutes. And yet, this is still the qualifiers, right? So, how fast do the runners of the schools that win Hakone run twenty kilometers?”

“If we practice, can we get to that level by New Year’s?” Jouta asked him seriously. “Hey, what do you think, Kakeru?”

Kakeru couldn’t answer anything.

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[thepandapopo]

His Star

This is my first FE fic in over ten years. The last time I wrote anything for FE was back in FE7 which, to this day, is my second favourite game of all time.

I have been on a Claudeth binge lately and since it is our favourite deer’s birthday tomorrow, I thought I would try my hand at a fic.

This is most likely going to be a multi chapter fic as I am spinning the plotline in my head as we speak, but whether or not that plot bunny makes it to paper is a different story.

Pairing: Claude x F!Byleth

In which Byleth falls sick for the first time in her entire life, but those who slither in the dark insist on making her life difficult. 

OR

The one where Claude fears he won’t make it in time.

Chapter List: 1 / 2 / 2.5 

Masterlist

XxXxXxXxX

“Professor, you need to rest!”

For someone so demure and dainty looking, Marianne is deceptively strong. Though, Byleth thinks absently as she lets her former student push her back down onto her large 4 poster bed, she shouldn’t be so surprised since she’s seen even Raphael himself bend to the gentle bishop’s will in the odd instances that he sustains a critical enough injury to land himself in the healer’s tent.

“Don’t worry, Professor. I’m sure Seteth will be able to hold down the fort while you recover.” Leonie says from her place at the foot of the bed. Despite the fact that the war has been over for nearly 6 months, her lance is still clipped neatly to her belt, next to her sword scabbard - close enough within reach to attack on a moment’s notice.

Since the end of the war, Leonie had taken it upon herself to act as the new Queen’s Head of Royal Guard. When Byleth had questioned the orange haired girl about her decision, she was merely met with a grin and a simple “I would be a terrible apprentice to Captain Jeralt if I let anything happen to his only child.”

“I’m... sorry.” Though the words themselves are not strange on her tongue, the unfamiliar dryness of her mouth and stuffed nose make Byleth sound weaker and more hesitant than she would have liked.

Leonie snorts, “you don’t have to apologize for catching a cold, Professor. Especially one due to stress. Despite what I think of you when you’re on the battlefield, you really are just a person like anyone else - of course you’re bound to get sick every now and again.”

Still, Byleth broods silently as she watches the blue haired healer usher her other student out the bedroom door, she has never gotten sick in her entire life until now and it just seems a tad bit unfair.

Fusing with the progenitor goddess has several advantages, but unfortunately it seems like being immune to illnesses is not one of them.

As her eyelids begin to lose the fight against consciousness, Byleth cannot help but let her mind wander longingly until she falls asleep dreaming of beautiful emerald eyes and a crooked grin that shines brighter than the dawn.

----

It only takes one week of being bed ridden before everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

Byleth is finally starting to feel well enough to stand up without feeling like she has ingested a vial of Claude’s infamous dizziness poison, when the scouts return with a report that the remnants of the Imperial army have joined forces with Those who Slither in the Dark and are marching for Derdrui, the country’s new capital.

It does not take a tactical genius to figure out that they are coming for the newly appointed Queen and Archbishop of the United Land of Fodlan.

Urgent messengers are sent out to all the nearby houses, requesting any available troops they can spare without leaving themselves vulnerable. It’s almost laughable the pitiful number of men that show up to help fight, but the arrival of all her golden deer is enough to raise Byleth’s morale and hope that she can conquer this disadvantaged fight without her schemer by her side.

Despite the protests from her students - former students, she corrects herself - Byleth steels herself and leads the meager army at her disposal in a defensive formation. This is her duty, after all. Without her, troop morale would falter and that in itself can be the deciding factor in a battle. Additionally, though she has not used it in several months and truly, she does believe in all her students’ skills, Byleth cannot help the unease that creeps up her throat when she thinks about her precious deer on the battlefield without her Divine Pulse. She has fought so hard to make sure they lived to see the peaceful world Claude and her dreamed of, that it would seem like a cruel joke only for them to fall now.

Even sick, the Ashen Demon earns her reputation. Fells of enemies fall to the Sword of the Creator as it burns with power, whipping around its wielder like a snake striking with deadly precision at the enemy’s weakness. Byleth refuses to let any enemies get close to the city. Her people have already been ravaged by war. They deserve peace, not another battle at their front step.

Hilda is somewhere to her left swinging Freikugel and cleaving through enemies with all the difficulty of a hot knife slicing through butter. Byleth is tempted to relocate the pink haired girl to the back line to act as a final barrier, but she knows that those orders will fall on deaf ears.

“If you insist on going out there Professor, then I have to come and make sure you don’t die. Can you imagine what Claude would say if he came back to find you dead? He would mope for the next century!”

Ignatz and Lysithea are further back providing cover with their long ranged attacks. Arrows and black magic rain from the sky, piercing through unsuspecting enemies and carving a path for Byleth’s battalion to advance and cut through the ranks of the enemy.

Somewhere to her right, she can hear Raphael’s battle cries above the cacophony of sounds. Judging by his sheer volume, Byleth knows that he is doing well despite being far outnumbered. Besides, the brawler is accompanied by Lorenz and Bernadetta, and while Lorenz specializes in black magics, he knows enough healing spells to keep them afloat. Plus, no matter how timid she is off the battlefield, Bernadetta is a force to be reckoned with when protecting her loved ones. Especially her mountain of a husband.

Marianne, Leonie, Felix, Ingrid, Seteth and Flayn are scattered elsewhere to protect against the enemies from crushing them in from both sides, but as the battle wages on, it becomes more and more apparent that their ranks are thinning and those that still stand are beginning to feel the fatigue of being outnumbered three to one.

The battlefield has long since warped into a jigsaw of cracked earth and chasms, courtesy of some nasty earth spells from Those Who Slither In the Dark. Where there should be rolling plains leading out onto the salty water of the ocean, there are now steep cliffs of jagged rocks jutting out of the ground, and despite her best efforts, Byleth eventually finds herself cornered on the precipice of one such cliff.

It can’t end like this.

Another enemy falls to her sword and Byleth barely has time to parry an oncoming arrow before another wave of nausea assaults her body.

She knows she’s probably burning up right now. Mint green strands of hair are matted to her skin with dirt and sweat, and the pounding behind her eyes is growing increasingly difficult to ignore. Byleth is pretty sure that had it not been for her father hammering in years of battle instincts into her, she would have had her head lopped off ages ago.

Despite how much she tries to will herself to stay in that cool, collected mindset that has won her numerous battles, Byleth cannot stop the tightness in her chest that accompanies the tears of frustration accumulating at the corner of her eyes.

She wanted to see Claude again. To feel his arms around her. To fall asleep to the steady pounding of his heart that seemed to inexplicably speed up every time she let her body melt into his. To let herself drown in the scent of pine needles and spices.

She could try using the Divine Pulse, but where would she rewind to? A few minutes would not be enough to make a drastic enough decision to turn the tide in their favor.

It’s not fair.

Goddess. She is so tired. But she cannot give up. Not when she has a promise to keep.

“I love you. With everything I am. And the next time we see each other... it will be at the dawn of a whole new world. A peaceful, happy world.”

Claude...

The ground beneath her feet teeters and he sky is suddenly above her. It is a brilliant blue with fluffy white clouds and even though she knows she is falling, she cannot help but be reminded of the first time Claude invited her out on his wyvern and they spent the afternoon soaring and diving through the air on a beautiful day just like this.

Claude... I’m sorry I couldn’t keep our promise...

She thinks it is a trick of her mind, but right as Byleth feels her consciousness slipping away, she hears his voice one last time crying out her name with such fear and anguish.

Then, there was nothing.

----

“BYLETH!”

Claude feels his heart stop and clench painfully as the familiar black and green figure tumbles off the edge of a jagged cliff.

He is shooting across the battlefield on his wyvern’s back before he can even spare a thought to how absolutely reckless it is to fly so low in the range of archers.

Behind him, he vaguely registers his generals shouting at him in alarm and Nader barking out orders to support the retreating Fodlan forces.

All he can think about right now is getting to His Star in time.

Later, he will wonder to himself if perhaps he might have the power to pause time as well, because although it was probably less than 4 seconds, Claude swears that the world around him slowed as all of his senses honed in on his one goal.

Please, goddess, let me reach her in time.

---

To those who participated in the Final battle with Those Who Slither in the Dark, they would recall vividly the moment when a loud battle cry rang out from the east heralding the arrival of the Almyran army.

They would also recount the arrow of white and gold that shot across the battlefield towards the Queen whom had made her last stand on the edge of a cliff before fainting from exhaustion and tumbling down to the depths below.

Above the din of weapons clashing and cries of agony rose a single name, cried out with such fear and panic that even those who knew not whom the shout belonged to, felt their hearts clench painfully with the raw emotion.

Although not many could say for certain what happened next, all the surviving Fodlan soldiers would recall shortly thereafter seeing their former leader, Claude von Riegan, atop his white wyvern loosing arrow after arrow on the lingering enemies with such brutal efficiency that reminded everyone exactly how he had ended the war.

When the fighting ceases and casualties are tallied, fear for their Queen runs rampant through the soldiers. For those who have had the privilege of fighting under the combined leadership of Claude, the master tactician, and Byleth, the Ashen Demon, they know how strong the bond is between the two, and although they have their doubts, they allow themselves to let their worries melt away when they see Claude exit the medical tent with a look of such knee wobbling relief that he has to lean on a nearby wall to stop from collapsing.

XxXxXxXxX

Ugh. I hate how this ended. I’ll come back and fix it another day.

Anyhoo, hope you all enjoyed it!

Chapter 1

Next: Chapter 2

[mollymauk-teafleak]

Black Coffee

Vax'ildan needs a way to make money. Life got pretty rough after Syldor cut him off and he and his sister found themselves living in a tiny apartment in the city.

He needs a quick way to make some money. What he finds is Percival de Polo.

-

We’re calling it the sugar daddy au and we’re unapologetic, folks. Will be multi chapter if people like it.

Please consider reblogging, leaving a comment on Ao3 or donating to my ko-fi page!

Thanks to @minky-for-short and @spiky-lesbian

-

Always meet them in a public place.

That had been the prevailing advice when he’d looked on the Internet, when he’d asked Molly’s mother, when he’d finally decided to do this slightly crazy thing.

So Vax had messaged back, after stewing over those handful of words for nearly half a day, after they’d popped up with a unusually cheery message chime that honestly was a bit of a weird choice for an online sex forum. Though Vax didn’t know what else he’d expected. A moan of lust maybe, every time a message from his anonymous friend came in?

I’d like to meet you and talk about this face to face.

He’d replied, sat cross legged in his underwear on the bed that took up the majority of the space. He’d have called his bedroom the box room of the apartment, if his sister’s hadn’t been equally as claustrophobic.

1pm tomorrow at the Blooming Grove café? It’s on fifth street.

Vax thought it was a good choice. Nice, airy and Caduceus made the best coffee he’d ever had in the whole city. Also it wouldn’t hurt to be in a place where there would always be a stronger-than-he-seemed, seven foot tall friend within earshot.

He’d frowned than, tugging at a loose strand of ink black hair that had come loose from his bun. He’d told himself he was overthinking this. Catastrophizing, that’s what the CBT book his sister had lent him called it. Odds were this guy was just a nice enough, probably lonely middle-aged man. If anything seemed off, Vax could easily just politely decline and get out of there. He’d escaped from far worse.

Besides, maybe the offer would scare him off. Maybe Orthax- obviously not his real name but his username on the website- would lose his nerve and shut down and that would just be the end of it.

But then the reply came, less than five minutes after Vax’s offer when he’d taken five hours.

I know it, good choice. See you there. I’ll have a red carnation.

Vax had smiled at that, maybe even snorted a little. How romance novel. How Gone with the Wind.

It was a little sweet.

His estimation of the guy’s age had shot up but the amount he feared for his life went down.

And now he was sat here, at the comfy table for two right in the window, the one with the black iron seats and the mosaic table top. Dark eyes flicking to his watch, he noted it was now five minutes past one and there wasn’t a single flash of red to be found amongst the dinner crowd.

What if he never showed up? Maybe Orthax had lost his nerve at the last minute.

Vax frowned and leaned back in his chair, trying to figure out how that made him feel.

It wasn’t like he was dying to be someone’s sugar baby. After all, if he felt completely, 110% okay with it, he wouldn’t have lied about where he was going to his sister when she’d asked, dashing back to grab her forgotten lunch and seeing him half in, half out of his leather jacket, chasing Trinket around for his second shoe. He’d told her he was going to meet another art director, once she’d wrenched his now dripping shoe from her hairball of a dog.

And instantly regretted that lie, when he’d seen how her face lit up with hope for him.

Truth was, he thought as he took another sip of his black coffee to match how bitter he felt inside, the auditions had been very thin on the ground lately and even the few he did get didn’t go very far. Most directors wouldn’t even see him dance, not once he told them he was trans.

No auditions meant no jobs. No jobs meant no money coming in. And he and Vex would rather lose the apartment than ask Syldor for money, after he’d made it so acidly plain they wouldn’t be seeing another penny as long as Vax lived as himself.

The old man could rot as far as Vax was concerned.

He sighed, screwing up his face, fingers tight on his own arms. He was getting angry again, he could feel it, the kind of anger that could so easily make him say and do stupid things. But it was so much simpler to get mad at his bigoted ass of a father than at the whole world, the world that just didn’t seem to want to let him be happy, the world that had always been so unfair to him, the world that had left him sat here, messaging random people on the internet, offering to sell himself, hoping for one last chance to not fuck his whole life up.

“Are you…sorry, this is going to sound insane if I’m wrong but are you Raven?”

Vax opened his eyes, startled.

Well, he was a hell of a lot younger than he’d been expecting. Wasn’t half bad on the eyes either.

“I am. You’re Orthax?”

Tall, very tall. Human. White hair but it had to be the result of dye rather than age, no one with naturally white hair would wear it in such a neat, subtle undercut. Shockingly blue, tired looking eyes behind a pair of circular, gold rimmed glasses. Stubble creeping up his jaw. Looked like he needed a good night’s sleep.

And he actually did have the red carnation in his pocket.

The guy’s face wrinkled in gentle embarrassment, “Yeah. Sorry, it’s a rather stupid username. I didn’t think how bad it would sound out loud.”

His voice was prim, sculpted, a borderline ridiculously high society accent. But it was the only thing about him that gave any hint of the wealth Vax assumed he’d have; his clothes were dark and simple, no logos or brands, just dark blue jeans and a pain grey collared shirt that was a little oversized. Wait, no, there was a ring on his finger. The gleam of real gold, a crest too small to make out from his distance.

Vax cracked a smile, “It’s fine. Doesn’t have a reference to the size of your genitals so it’s better than most I see on there.”

The guy laughed, a short, bark of a laugh like he didn’t do it very often, “Even so. Now we’ve met face to face, can I be Percy?”

“Sure,” he nodded, “Then I’m Vax’ildan. Vax for short.”

“Lovely. Can I get you a drink, Vax?”

He tipped his mug, judging that he had maybe two swallows left. Having two drinks at a café was rank extravagance on Vax’s budget, even with Caduceus’ heavy friends discount, and all of a sudden the idea of having one bought for him seemed strange. But he was going to have to get used to that if this was going to work.

“Sure. Black coffee please and an amount of sugar I’m not comfortable telling you right now. The guy behind the counter knows.”

That made Percy laugh again, “Sure. A gentleman after my own heart.”

Vax paused as he watched Percy move through the maze of mismatched tables to the counter (Caduceus didn’t have the best eye for organisation). Being called a gentleman had gave him a happy little tightness in his stomach and it was probably good that he’d been able to make the guy laugh twice. So far so good.

Vax had always been very good at reading people in a short space of time. It was partly good intuition, partly a strong sense of empathy inherited from his mother, partly survival instinct from his years with Syldor, trying to work out how much he could trust people, how much he could be himself versus how much he’d need to lie.

It was serving him well as it ever had in trying to set up this delicate arrangement, helping him reject a handful of people and decide Percy was the only one he was going to agree to meet. And it was telling him a lot about Percy right now.

He seemed sad. There was no other word for it. There were too many lines around his eyes for someone as young as he was, down turned ones that clearly didn’t come from smiling. That shirt wasn’t doing a good job of concealing how slender he was, his nails were bitten uncomfortably close, there were old burns and scars on his hands and he’d missed part of his hair when he’d brushed it. And of course there was the fact that he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. It didn’t take a lot of Vax’s intuition to see that.

In short, he looked a bit bedraggled. At first Vax had been stunned that someone with such good looks and, presumably, a lot of money needed to inquire after a sugar baby. But as he watched him fumble for change, exchange a few pleasantries with Caduceus and pick his way back over to their table with two mugs, he was starting to piece it together.

Percy was just a little bit lost. He needed someone to hold his hand.

Vax mentally shrugged. He could do that.

“Here…” Percy sat the two coffees down, one in front of Vax, “I promise I didn’t look when he put the sugar in.”

Vax smiled wanly, “I’m pretty sure he stints me every time. It’s for my own good.”

Percy slid into the chair opposite him, muffling a cough, “Sorry…and I’m sorry for being late too. Time got away from me when I was working.”

“Oh? What do you do?” It was as good a place as any to make a start.

The tips of Percy’s ears reddened, “Well. Not work as in for my job. It’s…well, tinkering? Just messing around with machinery for my own amusement. I have a little work shop in my apartment.”

“Sounds interesting,” Vax smiled, wondering if he could be paid for his company in putting up all that flatpack furniture that was still sitting around in his own place.

“Well…” that seemed to please him, “I’ve made a few things. Odds and ends, patented a few things actually…”

Vax filed that away for something to return to later, something to do a little research on, “So what’s your day job?”

The discomfort returned a little, though it seemed a well-worn kind, something he was used to, “I, uh…I run my family’s company. Whitestone Industries.”

Vax nearly choked on his coffee, “Wait, what? Seriously?”

It was one of those ubiquitous household names, a little silver stamp on everything from electronics to massive civil engineering projects and charity initiatives. So huge and all encompassing, it was hard to imagine it as a family business.

Fuck, he’d suspected anyone with a kink for having a kept partner would have a fair amount of spending money but he hadn’t expected an oligarch.

“Yeah…” Percy looked down awkwardly, tracing his finger between the pretty glass tiles on the table top, “I don’t do that much, the board just puts stuff in front of me and I sign it. It’s the surname really…they let me mess around in the aerospace engineering department sometimes.”

Vax paused, his dismay fading. While he wasn’t about to feel sorry for someone who earned more money by the hour than his mother had ever seen in her life, he could see how that would be lonely. Having the pressures of your family bend and twist you into a position you couldn’t hold long before your muscles began to burn and your head swam.

He could understand that.

“Well…” Vax gave a friendly smile, soft and gentle as he could manage, “You’ve always got your work shop to come home to?”

“Yeah,” Percy looked up, like he really appreciated those words, “I do…so what do you like to do, Vax’ildan?”

“You can call me Vax,” he reminded him, leaning forward on his elbows.

“I like saying it,” he said it like it was something he was admitting, “It’s beautiful.”

Charming as well, huh? Vax was starting to think this whole thing was his very first good idea.

“I’m a dancer,” he stirred his coffee idly, spoon ringing against the china, “Aspiring, really. It’s been a while since I had a gig. I do teach a class down at the community centre and my friend Mollymauk lets me choreograph for his shows. They do Shakespeare mostly so there’s not a lot of call for it but…”

He trailed off limply. He felt like he was in front of someone who remembered him from Syldor’s, meeting him in the street and asking politely how he was getting on, all the while both of them painfully aware that he’d been disowned and this entire conversation had been an unadulterated mess.

But Percy had a smile in his voice, Vax heard it even when he didn’t lift his eyes to see, “That sounds lovely. I really admire anyone who has a creative job, especially people who teach others, I could never do that.”

Vax’s eyes darted up, too stunned to worry that he was looking a bit of a fool, “Really?”

Percy blinked, even tilting his head a little like a puppy would, “Forgive me but…have you ever had a compliment before?”

Vax opened his mouth…and had to close it again, smiling sheepishly. After a moment, the two of them found themselves laughing quietly under the chatter contained within the café. What else was there to do?

“Glad I could be your first, anyway,” Percy’s laugh ended in a cough he muffled into the back of his hand, “I’ll make sure I throw in as many as I can in the future.”

Vax lifted an eyebrow, “Does that mean…this is going to be a thing? You and me?”

Percy smiled playfully, eyes flashing a little, something Vax hadn’t even thought he would be capable of doing, “Well…I’d certainly be up for it though I think we should talk ground rules?”

Vax’s smile softened around the edges and any lingering worry that had survived in his chest died away at that moment. He was approaching this like a blueprint, of course, but there was comfort in that, reliability.

“Why don’t you tell me what you were thinking, then?” He’d finished his second coffee at that point, a pleasant buzz starting up in his veins.

Percy nodded, ticking them off on his fingers as he went, suddenly becoming very business-like and formal, “I’d pay your rent, I understand that’s the main monetary concern for people. I’d also send you a number of gifts every month once I get a better idea of things you like though some would be sexual in nature. I’d send these to your apartment or you could keep a separate P.O box if you prefer to keep that information private.”

Vax tried not to look too eager, though his heart was hammering in his chest, “And in exchange?”

“A…we’ll call it a date for want of a better word though we’d be by no means exclusive, you could pursue any other relationships though I’d prefer to be the only one with whom you had this kind of…arrangement. But one date every fortnight at least. You can suggest activities but so can I, we’ll reach a compromise. If you need to cancel any, that’s fine, though I’d like it to be rearranged if possible.”

Vax was fighting a bemused smile at how much like a meeting this felt, “And how many of these dates would end in sex? All of them?”

Percy looked taken aback, “I’d…I’d never force sex on you, Vax’ildan, never. I’d like to be intimate with you but if there’s ever any night you’re not feeling it or you’re not in the mood that’s fine. You just have to tell me.”

Vax’s amusement was replaced by surprise for a moment, surprise at the sincerity in Percy’s voice. He really did seem to care about Vax’s consent and comfort. Something that really shouldn’t come as a shock, he realised, but still…

“Understood. Same to you, of course,” he nodded.

Percy looked relieved, apparently genuinely hating being thought of as a person who would demand sex simply because he was paying for it, “I’d also appreciate pictures, whenever the mood takes you. And…” he stopped suddenly, finally seeming shy and even a little embarrassed, “I’d just…I’d like a friend. Tell me how your day is going. Tell me what you thought of whatever was on TV last night. Stuff like that.”

The expression on his face, which so clearly screamed that Percy hadn’t had that kind of friendliness in a very long time, that was what made Vax reach out and put his hand over Percy’s where it lay on the table. It hadn’t been a deliberate action, something he’d thought about, but he was glad he’d done it after Percy’s shame turned to relief and gratitude.

“That sounds perfectly reasonable,” Vax smiled, feeling Percy’s fingers turn under his to hold, knotting them together, “Got a contract you want me to sign or something?”

Percy smiled, blushing lightly under his gentle teasing, “No…sorry, a force of habit, I guess. Whenever you don’t know what to say at board meetings, if you use that kind of tone I’ve found they’ll leave you alone. Even if what you said was complete bullshit. So I guess I do it when I’m nervous?”

“Don’t be,” Vax grinned, “I think this is going to work out fine.”

Percy was full of polite apologies that they couldn’t start things right away but he had work to get back to. Actual work, he promised, not his tinkering.

But they exchanged numbers and Vax stood outside the café, watching his white haired saviour disappear into the crowds, clutching a fresh coffee to see him through the afternoon. It was getting cold but he lingered, waiting until he lost sight of Percy. Percy of the tired eyes and burned hands and family money he seemed so awkward about. Percy who smiled sweetly most of the time and darkly when he wanted to and asked for a friend.

Vax smiled wryly to himself and turned himself back towards home.

At least it wasn’t going to be boring.

[japanandkoreastopgivingmeships]

Jaesuk/Janiel Fanfic Contest

It’s been awhile, so I decided to make another one. I basically just copied and pasted everything from what I published on Wattpad.

Before I tell you the rules, this contest is for writers who have the main ship as Jaesuk/Janiel. If they aren't the main ship, then this, sadly, isn't for you. I can always make another contest for you if you think this is unfair. If they are at least one of the main ships, then that's okay too—just say so in your description.

If you have any questions after reading the rules, I'll gladly answer them.

Like the previous event, it'd be appreciated if you spread the word! You don't have to, though.

Rules:

For Both Readers and Writers: Please do not diss someone else's fanfiction for whatever reason. If the person is dissing you, please ignore them. Though, don't indulge them either.

If the writer decides to add another ship other than Jaesuk, please don't hate on them. Also, writers, please warn your readers if you're going to have any other ship than Jaesuk. There are only a few exceptions:

1. People are misunderstanding and there really isn't a thing going on between them. This has to be a legit misunderstanding.

2. If the writer unintentionally put in the ship, ask them if they are planning on making it a ship; if not, they don't have to warn readers, though please mention a light ship or something along those lines.

There can be other exceptions, just ask me and I'll give you a yes or a no.

Submissions: You can put as many stories as you want for Lookism. This is to make more fanfictions for the fandom, so feel free to add as many stories as you want. You can add up to 1 to 50 if you wanted (I don't think any of you guys would, though).

Unlike the previous contest, you'll have to submit a fanfic that you haven't published yet.

There are some exceptions:

If your fanfic has less than ten votes, feel free to join.

If your fanfic was posted a week before the contest date (but not more than a week ago), feel free to join (even if you have more than ten votes).

If you wrote a fanfic for the previous fanfic, but you never got the chance to join, I'll be nice and let you join.

If you wrote a fanfic and wanted to join the next contest, but it took too long, then it's only fair if I let you join.

Please don't lie just so you can put a fanfic on here with a lot of votes, making you more likely to win (not saying that any of you guys would, though).

Inspiration: This isn't a rule... If you need help with actually writing the fanfiction and/or need someone to inspire you, feel free to ask for inspiration from me! I'll gladly help make you feel like writing the fanfiction. I'll even gladly help you with ideas! That and I just like sharing ideas. If not, you can completely ignore the inspiration paragraph and pretend it doesn't exist.

Eligibility and Restrictions: This contest is open to all countries. To be a part of this, you must be at least 13 years old. I hope you guys don't mind that I will also be joining this contest as well!

Methods of Entry: You can enter the contest by linking it in the comment section and tagging it as #lookismJanielcontest or #lookismJaesukcontest. Copy and paste your story in the comment section and tag it to make it easier to find your story (our fandom is kind of small, so please do both). Please only do one of the two tags. Depending on if you use English or Korean names, use the one you're planning on using in your fanfic. Please comment on this chapter for your submission. If you forget to do something, I will gladly remind you on your fanfiction or PM you!

I need an opinion on some things:

1. If there are any people who want the English and Korean names to be two separate contests, please tell me.

If you want it to be the same contest, please tell me.

If you don't care, please tell me.

2. Do you want this contest to be available on other fanfiction sites? I've heard some people want it to be available for Ao3 (Archive of Our Own), but I'm not sure how I'll do that exactly.

3. If you want it on Ao3, should we make it a separate contest? Ao3 has a different voting style than Wattpad, so it'll be hard to determine how the writers can win. If there are two contests, should we let them enter both contests? Please give me your opinion.

You'll know if you did it right if I add you to my, "Lookism Candidates: Jaesuk/Janiel 1." From Wattpad.

If you did it right, and I didn't add you, please PM me or comment that I didn't add you!

Content: Since this fandom is small (which is weird since this manhwa is amazing), and this contest was made to make more fanfictions, all categories and ratings are acceptable. The stories can be as long as a one-shot to a long multi-chaptered one (it can be as long as you want). You can make it an AU fanfic or as canon to the manhwa as possible. Honestly, I think the readers will appreciate anything you write for Lookism.

If the fanfic reading language is not in English (it's in Spanish or something), you are still welcome to join (this is to make the fanfictions increase, after all).

If you want to write a ship that isn't Jaesuk, please leave a warning. If you decide to make a fanfic where the main ship isn't Jaesuk, this contest is not for you. If it's among the main ships, it's fine. Again, just warn people.

Also, if you're one of those people who posts pictures instead of writing on Wattpad, feel free to do that instead (if you want)! However, there's only one thing you need to remember and do. You need to state the person who made it, whether you were the one who made it or you found it somewhere online. If you don't this, you won't be included in the contest, sorry!

Before I forget, the fanfiction does NOT have to be completed to join. I repeat, the fanfiction does NOT have to be completed. That way it'll be less pressuring, and you'll be able to continue the fanfiction even if the contest is done.

You can choose any version of Lookism you want, whether that's the Webtoon (English names) or the one with their original names.

You can have OCs in your story too! Please state that you have an OC in your story, though.

Deadline: The contest will start at December 4, 2017, but you can submit your fanfictions in at any time (after this day until the due date).

The contest will end on January 5, 2018 at 6:00 PM (Mountain Daylight Time). If the contest isn't getting at least 10 submissions, the contest will end on a later date. If it seems like a close tie between two fanfictions, both of them will get the prize. This will be the end date unless I happen to change my mind or some of the readers/writers want more time.

If I happen to change the end date or time, I will post another chapter stating the new end date/time. If not, I will post a chapter to state the winner.

Prizes: Since I didn't plan a prize yet, feel free to volunteer as the prize giver!

Judging: The judges will be the readers. Whoever can get the most votes on their fanfiction will win! If you're doing this on Ao3 (if we end up accepting that), we'll have to think of a way to see how the winning process works.

Good luck, and I hope you can make this fandom feel happy with all the fanfictions (for Lookism) you write!!

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Part 2 of my Terqua story that crosses over with Roswell. https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/21648895/chapters/51623266

Jealousy Coming Back

Liz's PoV

"Max, you're not talking about your family in all of this," Liz said—what she thought was—the obvious, as she approached her husband that night... in a training area so beautiful, that she was wishing for the first time that maybe she was a bit more physically active so she could properly enjoy it. "The Collective Consciousness is hurting everyone, and it’s doing so from your former planet… so I get why you want to go there. But Max… that's also where your mother is being held captive by Kivar's men. And now you have allies who are going to help you destroy the Collective Consciousness... but if they just go in, guns blazing, they could risk killing your family, too. Have you... thought about that at all? Do you care?" Liz honestly didn't know the answer to that question. Even though Max, thankfully, had tried to put the title of “king” behind him, there were still sometimes he fell into that persona when he was trying to do what was right. So, would Max think sacrificing his mother as collateral damage for the greater good would be fine? Liz wasn't sure. But she knew the healer side of him would never do that. “I have thought about it, Liz. How could I not?” And Max’s voice was so much like when he’d told Liz that he wanted to be with her… that loving her had made him human, when they’d been hiding out from the Special Unit. “But I trust these people’s souls… they seem good. And their Keyblades only steal away people’s energy so that they don’t want to fight anymore. They don’t actually hurt anyone. Which is exactly what we need for this quest, don’t you think?” “Yes, it is,” Liz said wryly. “And I guess these Keyblades could be used to keep Tess in line, then, if it comes down to it.” But instantly, Liz knew that that wasn’t fair at all, seeing as how the woman had more than made up for what she’d done in sacrificing herself—and taking out the Special Unit as she did so—to protect her son from growing up in a lab. How Tess had come back to life after that, Liz had no idea. But she could tell that it hadn’t been Tess’ plan, since whenever she looked into the other girls’ eyes… she looked like she was barely there at all, and that she didn’t want to be. Max looked like he wanted to say something in response to what Liz had just said—a million apologies, probably; for Alex most of all, undoubtedly. And then for all the pain he’d put her through when it came to Tess—and Liz hated herself for letting all of her own insecurities and resentment come back again. Max really didn’t deserve to be going through this turmoil anymore, since it really was water under the bridge at this point. So, to show Max that she’d long ago forgiven him, Liz went and sat on his lap and kissed his cheek… and she hit her head under the massive workout ring just above them as she did so, but it was alright. “Max, what do you say we make use of the Keyblade wielders’ hospitality and go sleep together in some of the beautiful places here?” The shy Liz of the past would have never suggested this, of course. But now she was a woman—and a married one, at that—and she’d learned long ago what happened when you didn’t take the things you wanted in life; and she didn’t plan to make the same mistakes again anytime soon… Especially since Liz could see that—despite what Max had said—this was going to be a long and bloody battle, that she wasn’t sure she was going to survive. Max laughed at Liz’s words and leaned his forehead against hers, just as shooting stars shot across the sky above them—something that Liz would later worry about. “Of course, Liz. You know how I’ve always loved when you fantasize about me… so whatever you want.” But when the two of them realized Michael and Maria had the same idea, they went back to their room instead… and couldn’t complain about it in the slightest. … The next day, Liz and Maria—because Maria had approached her with the current problem TM—were standing outside in the gorgeous water on an elevated section of grass. When Liz had first seen the navy blue H20, and the cute lily pads and fish there, she’d been unable to resist standing on it on this hot day and destressing… which was exactly what she needed right now. “I’m telling you, Liz. I’m going to break up with Michael. I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t!” Since Liz loved Maria more than anything else in this world, she fought against the urge to bury her face in her hands in front of her, as she felt a migraine coming on. And not for the first time, Liz found herself wishing that Maria and Isabel were just a bit closer, so Isabel could maybe deal with this. Both Maria and Isabel could be pretty high-strung, after all, where she really wasn’t. But then again, Isabel probably would have just taken Michael’s side and then Maria would have come to her complaining about that. “First off, it’s bad enough that he wanted to get rid of all of my scented oils—and you know how I need those to stay calm in high-stress situations like this!—but then he was trying to paint the room the color of that hideous Courtney’s hair? Liz, I’m done. I swear, I’m so done!” Okay. So, Liz could get why Maria would be upset about Michael throwing away her perfumes—she wondered what was up with that, since really he should have known better by now—and Max was going to have to have a word with him about it for sure. But she couldn’t believe that, after all these years, Maria could still be jealous of Courtney and even recall what she’d looked like so vividly. “Why was Michael trying to paint the room, anyway?” Liz asked incredulously—and then tried to lower her voice, as she felt the tone was getting too far into the “judging” category that she’d been trying to avoid—“I mean, we’re not staying here long. And these rooms aren’t ours forever… Don’t you think it’s a bit rude of Michael?” “Exactly, Liz! Michael can be so rude, and-“ It was at the point that Maria was ranting so loudly that the whole uni—err, multi-verse—could have probably heard her, that Miss Aqua showed up and stood in the pond herself—‘amusing’, Liz thought, as she clapped her hands together—and put a calming hand on Maria’s shoulder. “…I’m only hearing part of what’s going on. But if your boyfriend tried to paint his room, it’s fine. Paint is paint, and we can always redo it later, if we want to… or use magic to do so. No big deal.” Oh! That was right! The Keyblade wielders had magic, and could change the looks of molecular structures, the way that Max, Michael, Isabel, and Tess could! Liz had already nearly forgotten that… maybe because she didn’t want to really believe it was possible, because it threw out nearly everything she’d thought she understood about science… but then again, Liz was getting used to that more every day. But still… this must have been good news to Maria, at least—as it gave her a reason to not be furious at Michael anymore—and before Liz could blink, Maria was beaming at Aqua and begging her to teach her how to do spells and Aqua was agreeing right away. And this terrified Liz, because didn’t it mean that Maria would try to be on the front lines on this mission now? In the past—at least before Liz had gained her own powers—the two of them had been in the background and helped the pod squad from the side. And maybe it was unfair to still want that for Maria, seeing as how Liz had long ago stepped into the spotlight herself, but what could she say? She wanted to protect her surrogate sister. “Not to break up all this fun color talk—and couple talk, was it?—but we really should be coming up with a plan to get into Antar. …For instance, does anyone here know what it looks like… or what it looks like from the inside?” This was Terra talking—as he came to stand under the waterfall just beside everyone, which scored him points in Liz’s book—but she didn’t know quite what to make of him. Because he seemed to Liz, like the type of soldier she’d often feared would take Max away to be experimented again… but he clearly wasn’t. So, what was his happy medium? Liz would have died to know. Sadly, Liz nor Maria had any good answers to Terra’s questions. They were the humans, after all. And while Liz had some visions of the future now, it wasn’t a constant thing or something she could control at all… so she had no idea about Antar at all, save from the few things she’d heard from Max, Michael, and Isabel. “Max, Michael, Isabel, or Tess might know that. They may remember what it was like being there in their past lives. But moreover… I’d ask Tess. She’s the only one who’s actually been there in this life,” Liz explained to Terra, as she tried to discreetly size him up. Even if she ended up befriending this boy… would he betray her, so that she’d be the one taking the wrap for a “bank robbery” again or anything like that? "But before you talk to our dear Pod Squad, and get us all traveling through space again, can you maybe find Kyle first? He’s the worst of us when it comes to disappearing in new places. Kyle, where are you!” Maria bellowed, as she reluctantly stepped out of the water and looked like she was about to step into Terra, Ventus, and Aqua’s ethereal-looking castle without drying her shoes off. But there was no need. Because after scratching his chin for a second, Terra figured out who Maria had been talking about. "Oh. Your friend with my hair color? He's talking with our friend Sora, who just showed up," Terra smiled. And the way he'd said it... it seemed to Liz like Terra was saying Kyle was lucky to be around Sora. And Liz was happy for Kyle, if that was the case. "I think Sora's giving the kid a speech about how he knows what it's like to be the unchosen one—Sora really likes to give speeches, by the way—but your friend's in good hands." “And also, Miss Liz, don’t worry too much about Sora talking your friend’s ear off. Terra here’s being modest, as he’d been known to make speeches too… like how I never stopped lighting his way back and stuff,” Aqua giggled with a hand over her mouth, as Terra blushed and shuffled on his feet in an uncomfortable way. Liz was about to say something more to all of this, a girl with dark red hair landed a ship down on the Land of Departure, got out of it, and came running their way… and it was clear by what she said next, that she’d been informed on what was going on. "Okay! Enough talking for now! Let's get in the gummi ships and do this thing! Your friends can tell us where we’re going via the gummiphone." "As if you ever do much talking, Kairi," a man with silver hair ribbed this "Kairi”, as he came out of the ship she’d just been on and joined her side as she playfully punched him in the arm. "'Gummi ships'?" Michael asked now, as he snacked on some French fries he’d just made and even left some in the water below them for gulls that were landing there. "I'm all for you guys helping us out, but I thought we'd be taking our own ship." "The Granolith, Michael?" This was Isabel… who was finally here with a Kyle and Tess. And if Liz had heard correctly, Isabel had been chewing Kyle out just a moment ago—since she loved him so much—about how he really shouldn’t go off alone, as that was how he’d nearly gotten killed by another alien last time. But the glamorous Isabel seemed to be done lecturing Kyle now, as she instead turned her attention to Michael. "That's a horrible idea! And not just because it has bad memories associated with it: of when Tess escaped in it with Zan, after everything we learned about her—...err, sorry, Tess—but because it was Hell on Earth for Tess when she was back on Antar. You know Tess pretty much returned there just to live on house arrest, and for people to hate her. And they did things to the Granolith... since they despised her so much. And that sounds way too dangerous to me, as it did before, so I don't care how silly these 'gummi ships' sound. We're using them!" "Yes," said Liz. "We can figure out the rest later, but for now... let's just use these 'gummi ships.'" And she must have proven to be the voice of reason to everyone…because before Liz knew it, everyone was loading up into five gummi ships. Max kindly helped Liz into the one they'd been using (though where her husband had been before this, she didn’t know and that unnerved her some). And then- then a few hours later, Liz was seeing the dreaded sight: the red water that looked like Jell-O, where Max had first seen Tess and fallen in love with her. Author’s Note: I feel in my other KH crossovers, I ignore the other fandom too much in favor of KH. I don’t want to do that here, since the story is about Max, Michael, Isabel, and Tess’ planet—and since they’re all great characters—so that’s why this is a Liz chapter. And I’ll probably do this kind of thing in the future. If you have questions, let me know. I was going to answer a lot of stuff in this AN… but I’m too sick to. Also, any bad editing or weirdness in this chapter is also because I’m sick. Yeah…

[ratherhavetheblues]

THE COENS’ THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS “All day I’ve faced a barren waste/Without the taste of water, cool water…”

© 2019 by James Clark

     In many ways, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), looks to a past leaving it nearly an anachronism. The helmsmen here, Joel and Ethan Coen, have, in their business affairs, been forced to locate their complex communications in the swill of the multi-cocktail Happy Hour known as Netflix. (Years before, David Lynch, apropos of the vein now virulent, was heard to declare, “I didn’t make this picture for your damn phone.”)

As you probably know, the boys are nothing if not resilient, and with this unwelcome matter in the air they prove to be even more feisty and irreverent than usual. Their strategy to be large as life is a wild and wonderful tour de force. Inasmuch as this film with a vengeance is multi-faceted, let’s ease into it by way of its amusingly wicked parody of Millennials, those softies utterly disinclined to show up at a theatre to see a Coens’ film.

You might think the lads are staging some kind of revival of Cowboys and Indians entertainment, inasmuch as the setting is the “Wild West,” and its six vignettes comprise the product seen to be slices (in various tones) of the fateful drama of what used to be a big money-maker. Actor, Tim Blake Nelson—directly addressing the audience as if it were packed with fast friends—leads off with a singing cowboy, Buster Scruggs, so hilarious in enjoying his domain that we barely register that the song he so confidently sings is about dying of thirst (“Cool Water”) and that he takes low-key umbrage that one of his wanted posters accuses him of being a misanthrope (his horse whinnying in support when prompted to consider that the charge is patently unfair). That he brightens up with the thought that “Song never fails to sooth my restless heart,” constitutes the first of many displays of assurance that heavy baggage can be exorcised on the order of a good cleaning lady. (The writer/ performer of the song, “Cool Water,” Marty Robbins, was not only a country/Western musical profit-centre in the Nixon-era, but also a NASCAR driver, always in the hunt. On one racing occasion, he was seriously injured swerving into a wall to avert smashing into a stalled vehicle. Hold that thought in fathoming the protagonists stalled here, in other ways.)

Buster visits two bars along that musical afternoon, and although his tenderfoot appearance elicits disdain from the regulars, he manages to maintain some of the tenets of a civilization which emphasizes sweetness and light, and also systematic/ mechanistic advantage. On the first visit, asking for whisky, he’s told that, “This is a dry county…” Noticing that everyone is drinking, he points out the discrepancy and his temerity tweaks someone to recognize him as, “The Texas Twit.” Buster corrects that whisky-driven rudeness to, “The Texas Kid” and, being a virtuoso technician has to shoot the uncontrolled mental-health victim with a bullet symmetrically placed in his forehead. That is followed by Buster’s vigorous massacre of the bad-mouth’s friends, including one wounded at the doorway to be needles, “I’ll leave you to the wolves and the gila monsters.” Confidently moving along to the bar in the next town, the straight-shooter complies with the establishment’s gun-check policy. He soon (ever the games-player, presaging cyber-mayhem) is at a poker table being coerced to take up the hand of somebody, perhaps feigning, needing to leave quickly. Buster takes exception to the irregularity, eliciting from the pushy, burly and surly contestant the problem of a six-shooter in his face. Always expecting from others sweet reason, the Texas Kid points out the violation of the authority’s rules of passivity. Of course the unreasonable one prepares to do away with an obstacle, but he meets acrobatic Buster’s resort to stomping on the several planks consisting of the gaming table, each time breaking parts of the gunman’s face. Our protagonist goes into a victory lap, singing about the loser in terms of “Surly Joe,” a bit of professionalism and wit which enthralls the room and also us, somewhat. We are especially touched—beyond the volatile emotional outpouring—by Buster’s being located in a social media heaven, going viral. (Part of the deadly improv consisted of the plaint, “He never really took to empathy…” followed by the smug axiom, “When you’re unarmed, your tactics might gonna be downright Archimedean ” [the latter being remembered for an effective screw].) Interrupting the fun, the victim’s brother cries out, “You killed my brother!” and he demands a shoot-out on the dusty street. The muddled and aged aggrieved is far from a gun-geek and the people’s choice toys with him, shooting off four of his fingers. (He had swaggered out to the site, remarking, “I should go into the undertaking business.”) Supposedly charming us with his bonhomie, he grants the ��geezer’s” not knowing give-up; and, with only one bullet left (having geared up with the six-shooter but not the pair of effete collectible micro-shooters which he calls “princesses”) he decides on a “trick shot” with a mirror and shooting backwards (his supposed constituents holding firm). With that show done, another begins. A man in black, the sartorial opposite to Buster’s creamy white (would you call the former, “Death?”), playing a doleful harmonica, rides slowly to the trick-shot zone. And, being another simplistic country/ Western singer, he declares he’ll reap the bounty on Buster’s head. Buster, unarmed now without his gadgetry, has a moment of less insulation (“I should have seen this coming, Can’t be top dog forever…”). Shot symmetrically in his forehead, our majoritarian has taken the easy way to sustain joy. To the song the hunter in black sings, “When a Cowboy Trades his Spurs for Wings,” Buster is shown with angel wings coursing high above problematical life. His parting words here have to do with certainty of life after death, because—conformist-style—so many have written to that effect. Likes!

A scintillating Buster like that comes down the pike rather seldom. In the second chapter, the young hacker can’t even gain the affection of his horse. Thinking a solitary bank, manned by another geezer, would be something to keep him in 5-star dinners for a while, he discovers that the old are not always the weak and the ridiculous. The contretemps involves him having a shot-up leg in being suckered that the big denominations are near the floor, under the counter. While the sprightly banker repairs for some protective coating, our protagonist clears out the till and limps to the stone well in the yard. There he’s snubbed by his less than wonder-horse, who could have effected an escape. (Settling for a clunker seeming OK, if you imagine a life of ease has to involve an angel replacing every wreck.) The banker returns wearing pots and pans, and the marauder’s efforts to kill him bounce off. An uncool local posse strings him up, the horse now on hand to lurch forward and let the rope on the tree branch work the nose. The officiating judge tells him he now has his opportunity to say his piece, before dying. First, he decries, as a primordial crisis, the unfairness of the banker’s armor. An argument erupts about who gets the horse, and the voice of the new declares no one should get it. At this juncture of smallness an Indian war party appears, sending arrows into necks and putting an end to reveries for those whose reveries go nowhere. The nemesis here is as shallow as the one in the first episode, the Coens’ irreverence being truly wild. The dude with the noose is spared by a chieftain on the (false) basis of thoroughgoing challenge of authority. With everyone in sight dead, except the tied-up complainer and his recalcitrant horse, there ensues the clown-show, slow-motion acrobatics of his attempting to dismount without strangulation—he leaning back, and the inattentive mount meandering as he nibbles on some weeds. He sees a horseman and a few cattle, calls out, is rescued, and soon they regard each other as “sidekicks.” Within the same hour the newcomer bolts away from an oncoming posse after cattle rustlers; and the bank robber goes to the gallows on an erroneous charge. His having recently escaped one execution seems to have allowed him to strike a brazen tone in the vicinity of the hangman. (But perhaps he and many of his sidekicks, from years before, had been beneficiaries of a stunning leniency.) Tied up on a four-noose extravaganza in a town turned out for the morbid event, the failed bank-robber looks for something good turning up. An elderly felon cries and the insouciant youngster asks, “Your first time?” He spots a pretty woman in the crowd. Their eyes meet, and she smiles. The black hood covers his head. From the perspective of inside the hood there is a crunch and a cheering clientele. What wouldn’t miss, missed.

Another presumptuous figure, follows. But unlike the first two, he generates far more cogent passion. In the wintry Northwest mountain ranges, where mortals find nothing easy, a young man with no arms and no legs sings for his supper on a cold roadway as enclosed by a proscenium arch and stage, doubling as a caravan. His “song” involves declaiming stirring instances of a fate of finitude few mortals take to heart. The eeriness of his presence is enough to whet curiosity. But, far from a freak-show, as we discern this outreach, his skill in dramatic expression is of a caliber to haunt and maybe elicit reflection. A keynote of his performance is the sonnet, “Ozymandias,” engaged by the poet Shelley. as drawn to lyricism by the “recent,” 19th century discovery of a Pharaoh’s tomb—far more mineral than personal. Not only does he convey the emotive pathos of the impermanence of all creatures; but in reciting the Gettysburg Address he brings to bear the paradox of powerful love for human kind. Moreover, in an onstage scene called, “The Sash my Father Wore,” his commitment iterates the exigency of going to war—perhaps military, perhaps the wider and deeper factors of struggle every day of one’s life. This first performance we see is well appreciated and rewarded. The impresario feeds him some morsels of meat; but such a viable constellation does not last long—the fickle clientele far more amenable regarding the catchy enough oddity than the rare spoken and facially powerful gifts. The burden of “Ozymandias” and the fading of fame bites rapidly to the point of the businessman, seeing how popular a “mathematical chicken” could be, changing the show and dumping the orator into a rushing cataract. That the food had become indigestible and then no more was one more (and monstrously problematic) ingredient of the dubious calculus counting upon the world to gratify one’s thriving. Also, the performer’s insufficient food and mounting desperation resulted in a fine heart becoming a mediocrity. Perhaps his campaign was based upon suddenly needing to find kindred spirits to help him survive. As such he would be a barometer of his era’s sensitivities, and ours. There is a scene where the “Professor,” still caring to a point, visits a bordello, with his carrying his associate; and he turns the little man facing away from the bed. The hooker wonders if all of his appendages are gone. That excruciating, shared strangeness, flows to the measure of remorse after the murdering. Zaniness arrested, this singular expediency widens, deepens and tempers the jolly hatchet job.

Chapter Four features a protagonist even older than the impresario, who becomes an unlikely inspiration to those not finnicky about the full measure of facticity, in their film experience. Whereas the foregoing three dramas had been situated in badlands or austere, cold darkness, here we have a near paradisal valley, replete with many monarch butterflies and ravishing woodlands creatures. An elderly prospector and his cute donkey enter this range through a narrow opening in a thick, green forest, and the jaunty protagonist, a veritable Santa Claus, proceeds to pan for gold in a lovely stream. Before finding his mother lode, he had climbed a tree to loot four owl eggs, with a beautiful mother owl watching untroubled nearby, giving you just one of many moments that only a Mexican strategist and his far-flung fans could like. Perhaps Disney sanguinity infuses the sequel, where those owl eyes have an effect, and he replaces three of the four eggs. The rationale, “She won’t have remembered how many she had,” smacks of a constituency of shoplifters. As if this were not alone Academy Award enticement, the old elf comes to us in song—“Oh, God keep you, Mother McCree…” After back-breaking toil and impressive savvy, he finds the Bonanza, only to be attacked by a gunman. Shot in the back, his jersey becoming a blood-red blotter, he waits his turn to turn the tables. He kills his adversary and walks out of the pit where his gut was blown away, revealing his intestines pouring out on the ground. He’s heard to insist, “It didn’t hurt nothin’ important.” Next day, he’s in a clean shirt and looking pretty good, looking like The Revenant. His tag-line, “There’s a pocket up there. Where, I don’t know,” is a limp cliché. But it conceals everything the virals won’t touch. Similarly, the declamation, “I’m old but you’re [the gold] older,” mocks the primordial, with self-satisfaction.

Demonstrating that there are vast options to skin a cat, we now come to a composition called, “The Girl Who Got Rattled.” Our protagonist may be a young nineteenth-century woman taking orders from a brother about a spiel of very lucrative matrimony which would greatly help his floundering business career; but it is her own reckoning which tells us something about life today. At a boarding house in a “civilized” State of the Union, she’s made much of by the presiding host, in sharp distinction from how the latter regards an elderly woman who has fallen asleep at the dining table. That the girl’s imminent trip by covered wagon train to Oregon has been speculative with no firm commitment of marriage in sight (not unlike Buster’s being drawn to heaven); and only the feckless urging of an underperforming and exaggerating sibling to count upon, introduces to us, notwithstanding the era, to a figure sanguine to a fault. (Another boarder, a middle-aged man, who would, over the months, have seen through their effete wishfulness, strikes a tone of down-to-earth being disregarded in not only unpleasant ways but also in very dangerous ways.)

Once on the go, the weak brother soon dies of a cholera phenomenon which, to put the matter in full relief, could be called a plague. (The optics of the ox-wagon train must put into critical relief a very different protagonist, namely, Emily, in Kelley Reichardt’s film, Meek’s Cutoff [2010], a figure evincing a progress of courage and circumspection truly of another world from the placid and vaguely safety-net-assured, Alice Longabaugh [pronounced, Longbow].) The Coens’ film’s momentum of upending, has, by this stage, spotlighted not a single trace of strong coherence. Here, though, there is a partial equilibrium, requiring the rather reckless depiction of Indians being very inept, whereby to place Alice in a fool’s paradise, or Wonderland. This circuitous range of parody may best be disclosed with regard to the recently-deceased brother, and his spunky terrier, “President Pierce.” She remarks, after the burial on the range that Gilbert, her brother, “did very little,” but radiated intense political views, which she abhorred (in her once-over-lightly way). President Pierce, the politician, was a one-term American President just before the Civil War, whose lack of consideration for blacks sowed much turmoil. As with the rough trade about “wild Indians,” Alice, being remarkably confrontational, in her pat, namby-pamby way, channels to the present time, where political correctness has become a gigantic and cirrhosis creed, particularly amongst young, diet-puritan women. Hearing about her plight and her brother’s politics, the handsome young straw-boss of the junket, namely, Billy. is quick and pleased to pronounce, “He was a failure.” That ruthless assessment, by one being a member of her generation, clearly coincides with the protagonist’s needs. In the same vein, she’s in a quandary about many of her fellow travelers’ annoyance caused by President Pierce refusing to stop barking. He offers to put down the dog, and she doesn’t bat an eye finding it the way to go. She plugs her ears  The Good Samaritan, however, flubs the shooting.  He tells her, “We’ve seen the last of the President.” A few days later he’s back She finds she has had Gilbert buried many miles back, having left all of her funds in one of his pockets. The youngster tending to the oxen—having been promised a wildly inflated salary—begins to want some down payment. Billy promises to deal with the matter; but he soon admits he doesn’t have a clue. More of the same, the young outdoorsman finds that Alice, the low-wattage misadventurist, is his kind of girl. He proposes, and she quickly accepts. Though neither has any skills for life in a frontier town, they plan to settle down there. Their ace-in the hole is a one-off  premium for married couples.

Apparently inured to the neighbors taking umbrage, she’s seen, with the canine survivor on her lap, straying away on her pony from the train and having a Saturday Night Live giggle about a prairie dog colony. Her Wonderland quickly sours when an Indian war party comes to play. The senior guide, Mr. Arthur, had noticed her disappearance and was able to single-handedly rout the dubious warriors. But, with the battle in doubt, Alice, crouching in a sort of pot hole, uses the suicide revolver, a sort of magic cake, provided for the possibility that the expert warrior might be killed. A lack of fight, extending beyond unruly mobs.

In the final vignette, middle-aged stage-coach riders hope to convince their fellow-travelers that they have everything figured out. (Here, in contrast to Alice and Billy, in having a flood of facile clichés, most of the premises in the coach have been subjected to long-term perception.) A trapper displays his gift for clever gab, as disarming the assumption that he is of no account. He had for years lived with an Indian woman who knew no English, just as he knew nothing of her language. His kernel of discovery involves that range of communication whereby it is possible to share a remarkable level of understanding by body language. His own pell-mell fluency, however, lands him in a bemusing embarrassment. Shifting from elevated one-to-one to amateur anthropology, the laborer hastily insists, “People are like ferrets.” A lady coming to reunite with her husband (a minister of the cloth and a theologian), after being with her daughter and the latter’s children for three years, begs to differ. She posits the more complicated situation of the upright and the sinning. That brings into the fray an elegantly dressed French bounty hunter, who, with Cartesian confidence, concludes that “one can’t know another’s soul.” The lady counters with, “Any decent person knows of eternal love, the love of the Creator.” A Polish gambler ridicules her position, and gets hit over the head with her umbrella. He then goes forward with a probability that her daughter had been eager to get her out of the household; and that her husband could not have sustained love during her long absence. His Slavic accent and poker deceptiveness adds to the aura of certainty about the traditional bonds rotting away, to the advantage of cynics and fatalists. (More important than the ideas floating around, is the gulf between this series of taking a stand by going to some trouble, and the smoothie addiction in the foregoing stories.) The French killer, with a lucrative corpse on the roof, has a partner. The latter is the one pulling the trigger while the diminutive Parisian chats up the prey to lull the victim to an easy death. This more middle-of-the-road figure has a fine singing voice and he proceeds to shower the company with a heartfelt rendition of, “The Streets of Laredo.” “I saw a young cowboy wrapped up in white linen…” Within the calm in effect from the song, the Gallic spellbinder treats the assembly to the land he really inhabits, and its conveyance. He evokes an aura derived from the moment the wanted man realizes his death has commenced. “The passage to death.” (Conjuring such intensity accomplishes [or hopes to accomplish] more than a disclosure of matter of fact. The French connection has opened a door to the surreal, the more real. Such mood enacts energies surpassing normal communication, but including its generally underestimated sensual presence. Soldiers of fortune. What could that mean, about change going forward?) Though that pristine moment fades, and on reaching the hotel the pair joke about possibly displaying the corpse along a corridor for the night, the mystery of that passage to death holds forth in another way. With the travelers in their hotel late at night, the coach makes a turn-around and races at full speed passed the place of arguers and swayers of truth. The tight linkage of the team of horses recalls the engagement of another group of flounderers being dragged along a nondescript countryside by the spectacle of Death, in Bergman’s The Seventh Seal.

Aspects of that latter film saturate The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and their presence here add to the questioning about happy (even goofy, even lethal) trails in the 21st century. With happy-go-lucky Buster on horseback and singing, we have an amalgam of, first of all, the vigorous, bawdy, Squire Jons, far more viable than his precious master, the knight, Block. But in the gathering of that harp and those angel wings, we have a Buster buying into Block’s obsession for immortality. Jons excels in cleaning up nasty bars and other places where inferior entities should not be, though they pose extreme difficulty; but, in the end, he joins with Block in that linkage driven by the phenomenon of Death. (The veer to pointlessness for those once on top of the world, being a cinematic volatile, endowment of the other kind of energy our energy-mad planet won’t touch.) The song Scruggs (a name first of all seeming too rude for his wit and couth) sings for us at the fanfare carries a quirky version of Bergman’s duo of persistent ease, and a down-to-earth warrior/ wag. First, we have Jons: “All day I’ve faced the barren waste/ Without the taste of water, cool water/ Old Dan and I with throats burned dry for water/ Cool, clear water.” [Now Block] “The nights are cool and I’m a fool/ Each star’s a pool of water/ Cool, clear water. And with the dawn I’ll wake and yawn/ And carry on to water/ Cool, clear water.” And now, a sorely put-upon employee denounces that unhinged leader. (Here the factor of misanthrope comes forward with its paradoxical juggling.) “Keep a-movin’, Dan, dontcha listen to him, Dan/ He’s a devil, not a man/ And he spreads the burning sand with water…” Back to the deus ex machina (a millennial instinct as old as the hills). “Dan, can ya see that big, green tree?/ Where the water’s runnin’ free/ And it’s waiting there for you and me?/ Water/ Cool, clear water” [always metaphorically there for the right acrobat]. “The shadows sway and seem to say/ Tonight we pray for water/ Cool, clear water/ And way up there He’ll hear our prayer/ And show us where there’s water.”

The most notable feature of the ho-hum robber, in the second episode—over and above his being an inveterate predator upon wealth he doesn’t own, and, therefore a version of the clergyman who became a thief upon victims of the plague, in The Seventh Seal—is his being a witness to the noisy and blood-letting flagellants peeking out from that Indian war party, temporarily saving his skin. Here the boys touch upon—here, and later—the matter of a Happy Hunting Ground, supposedly reached by such observances. Irreverence, reminding us that other passions (far less showy and presumptuous) occupy the field and spread a frisson for those who have taken the trouble.

The lucky “sweetheart” in the gold business brings aboard The Seventh Seal’s reflective performer, Jof, the inventor of acrobatics and impossible juggling. The childish prospector serves as a contrast to real uncanniness and delight.

The tale of the damaged thespian evokes the mad woman prisoner, caged and headed for burning at the stake (in our Bergman shoot-out), on the pretext that it was she and her impiety who caused the plague—when, in fact, you could say the plague has always been here, and always will, millennials bringing on, with their overexposure to cheap thrills, their special poison.

Alice and her tepid Wonderland traces to the caravan of Jof’s wife (the “practical one”).

And the coach in the last hurrah—pegged as a death march along the sightlines of The Seventh Seal—now shows, in the unstinting power and flair of the horses, a fresh dynamic. A bit stressed though our helmsmen might be, they’re still alive and kicking.