#and honestly it's you learning more about linguistics which directly benefits you as well!

[uncanny-tranny]

If you need help practicing pronouns, try using the pronouns you struggle with on your pets!

Animals have very little understanding of pronouns and human gender. They won't care if you use he, it, she, xie, bun, literally whatever - they only care about you and their food. They'll be fine! However, your loved ones will appreciate your effort in using pronouns, and using them properly. It's a win-win situation!

[mimosaeyes]

“Moonshadow elf markings are a way to signal your identity. We renew them when they fade, and we redo them if we feel like we’ve changed. But you don’t just decide for yourself. You choose someone you trust. Someone who means the most to you.”

Post 3x09. Rayla asks Callum to help her paint markings on her arms.

[also available here on AO3]

Callum wakes, and reaches for her instinctively.

Since the battle — since the clash and clamour, the fall and then the flight — he’s needed Rayla beside him while they both wait for sleep to come. He thinks she needs him, too. He’s noticed all the times she twitches and flinches from the things that dwell in her subconscious, and come out to haunt her at night. His being there… helps. Sometimes, at least.

But when he creaks his bleary eyes open, he finds that the room is empty. Callum sits up, his brow furrowing, his movements still slow and clumsy. Where could she be? Where would she go?

He suspects he knows the answer, and yet it still surprises him somewhat when he finds her on the very top of the Spire.

The moon is full tonight. It seems to fill the entire sky with its glow, and it renders the silhouette of a certain elf nearly invisible. Rayla is little more than a shadow, curled up into herself on the edge of the platform.

Callum’s breath catches slightly in his throat. In the dream-like atmosphere, he approaches her and then, without saying a word, sits next to her.

After a moment, Rayla scoots closer and leans her head on his shoulder. After a few more moments, she sighs, and reappears out of her shadow form.

“There you are,” Callum murmurs.

He’s learning — gradually, and against his usual impulse — not to force her to talk about whatever it is that’s bothering her. The best thing he can do is be present, and wait for her to open up in her own time.

Rayla trembles ever so slightly.

“Are you cold?” he asks, and starts to tug at his scarf with his free arm.

She’s already shaking her head. “It’s just… you reminded me of Ethari.”

Of course. When Ethari temporarily broke the spell that ghosted Rayla, that’s what he said. Take my hand. There you are.

Which means… “You’re missing home.”

He doesn’t say it like a question, but she understands that it sort of is. “Always,” Rayla quietly admits. “But I don’t think I’m ready to go back and confront anyone. Not yet.”

She takes a deep breath and pulls back from him so she can look at him directly. “There’s something else I need to do. And I need your help.”

“Anything,” Callum says automatically. Then he flushes, embarrassed. “Uh, that came out a little too fast.”

For the first time since they’ve been up here, Rayla cracks a bit of a smile. “You’ve already jumped off a mountain for me. I think we’re a ways past that.”

Callum seizes his chance. “Speaking of, would you mind if we continue this conversation just a bit further from the deadly precipice?” Even seated and alone, sans monomaniacal dark mage, seeing Rayla here makes his heart clench.

“Oh!” Rayla’s eyes widen and she all but drags Callum away from the edge. “Better?”

Just those two words are enough for him to realise they’ve shifted for his benefit rather than hers. Even though she was the one who threw herself off the Spire without even a sliver of a chance at survival, he’s the one who gets nightmares about her falling. About not being in time to catch her.

On one occasion in the past few days, Rayla woke up crying and scrabbled around in the dark for him. She dreamt that he’d done as she asked and fled with Zym, and that as she stared down faceless human armies alone, she realised much too late that all she wanted was to see him one last time. That was what really horrified her.

Callum remembers her musing, almost detachedly, that she wondered if her parents had thought of her when they made their final stand. He hugged her for ages after she said that.

Now her hands are on his arms. She’s here, she’s safe, and she’s so impossibly brave and beautiful. Callum huffs through his nose. “Amazing,” he says, tipping his chin at her.

Rayla watches him with that one expression of hers that roughly translates to I don’t understand your human ways, but I find them quite endearing.

Callum clears his throat. “So, uh, what did you need help with?”

She answers with an apparent non sequitur. “How much do you know about these?” she asks, indicating the purple markings under her eyes.

“I know they’re temporary,” Callum ventures. Rayla mentioned as much in passing once. “And that they mean something, but I don’t know what. Is it a language of some sort?”

Rayla squints, considering. “In a way. There isn’t a real alphabet, or grammar. It’s pictorial.”

“Like linguistics, but with pictures…” He snaps his fingers. “Pinguistics!”

She rolls her eyes at him, but her expression is fond. “Why do I love you?”

“I dunno. But I love you too.” He beams at her.

Then she says, “I need you to fly me down to the forest.”

Callum hasn’t conjured mage wings since the battle. He’s not entirely sure it’ll even work for him again. Maybe that first time was a fluke, or a moment of grace born of desperation. After all, Ibis said that even for Skywing elves, mastering the spell is rare.

But he nods. “Stand back,” he warns. He doesn’t want the wings to knock into her. He holds out both arms and closes his eyes, focusing on his own breaths.

In. Out. In.

“Manus. Pluma. Volantus.”

…Nothing.

Disappointed, Callum reopens his eyes. Rayla takes a couple of steps toward him. He watches her and shrugs his distinctly non-feathery arms. “I’m sorry, Rayla. I—”

He cuts himself off as she steps right into his space and wraps both her arms around his neck securely. She stands so close that he can feel the ridges of her armour through his tunic. She gives him a gentle smile and leans forward to press their foreheads together. “I trust you, Callum.”

And it’s like something slots into place in his chest, evicting the lingering fear and anxiety, and leaving just: love, love, love. Barely moving his lips, Callum whispers, “Manus. Pluma. Volantus.”

He knows at once that it’s worked. His wings materialise around Rayla, enfolding her in softness and warmth.

She pulls back just enough to smirk at him. “I think your magic likes me,” she teases.

Callum makes a face at her. “Are we headed any direction in particular?”

“I’ll know it when I see it,” she replies, which doesn’t clear up his confusion at all. She clings tight as they take off, and he wishes once again that the spell gave him wings in addition to his arms, so he could hold her himself.

They drift down through the cloud layer and fly low over the treetops, on Rayla’s request. The moonlight is bright enough that Callum isn’t quite flying blind, but it’s still mildly terrifying. Not for Rayla, though. She whoops and howls a couple of times, until Callum starts asking himself if she really just wanted a joyride. He’d be okay with that, honestly.

Then she exclaims, “I see it! Down there!” She points at a small clearing, through which runs a brook.

As soon as they’ve landed, and before Callum is even done reversing the spell, Rayla is running over to a nondescript bush with dark berries. He can’t make out the colour at first, but then she plucks several of them and holds them out to him.

They’re the exact same purple as her markings.

“I’m not sure what they were called before we started using them as a pigment, but these are glyphberries,” Rayla explains.

Callum looks down at her palm, where the squishy berries have already left some juice. “Isn’t your hand going to be splotchy now?”

She shakes her head and reaches back to pluck a single leaf from the bush. “It’s only permanent — well, semi-permanent — when you crush the berries on the leaves.”

Suddenly she looks shy. “We, uh… We don’t do that bit ourselves.”

Some part of Callum realises that this is her repressed Moonshadow elf way of asking him to make the glyphberry pigment for her. He immediately takes the berries and leaf. “What do you mean?” he prods, while he sits on the grass and gets to work.

Rayla joins him on the ground and pulls out one of her swords. It really says something about how far they’ve come, that he doesn’t even flinch seeing the wicked curve of a weapon she threatened to kill him with, not too long ago.

She hands him the sword. He takes it with a gulp, and follows her instructions to lightly scrape the leaf, removing its waxy surface. Then he starts squeezing the berries, letting their juice drip onto the exposed area.

It feels… oddly natural, even though obviously he’s never done this before. Callum quickly becomes absorbed in his task, so he jumps a little when Rayla belatedly answers his question.

“Moonshadow elf markings are a way to signal your identity. We renew them when they fade, and we redo them if we feel like we’ve changed.”

That makes sense. After their journey together, after everything they’ve been through, Callum also feels like a different person from when they began.

“But you don’t just decide for yourself,” Rayla continues. “You choose someone you trust. Someone who means the most to you. And under a full moon, that person helps you inscribe who you are.”

Callum is blown away. Not only at the fact that Rayla chose him — he’ll have to file that away to think about later — but at the intimacy and complexity of the whole ritual. “So it’s a form of magic?” he speculates. “Are there words in ancient draconic I should be saying right now?”

“Is it magical?” Rayla smiles wryly at him. “I told you once that in Xadia, magic is everywhere. Even in ordinary things like dancing, and crafting.”

His eyes widen. “Like your key into Silvergrove. And the assassins’ flowers!”

Excited, he pauses his work, hand hovering over the grass. Rayla nudges it back over the leaf to avoid wasting any berry juice.

She looks pleased that he’s so quickly understood this aspect of her culture. But her face is clouded over by the same sadness it held up on the Spire earlier. Callum sobers once he notices.

He leans forward and briefly cups her cheek with the hand that isn’t covered in berry juice. He lifts her chin and gives her a small smile. He waits for her to return it.

Then he says, “Good thing I have this with me,” and produces the brush he used to paint the runes on his arms for the mage wings spell.

“Wait,” she says. Callum watches as she shrugs out of her outer armour, the parts that usually cover her upper arms and wrists. He realises suddenly that he’s never seen her without it. Its absence makes her look oddly vulnerable. Rayla rubs her arms idly, unused to the sensation as well.

“What are you thinking?” he asks quietly.

It takes her a moment to respond. “About my parents. How brave they were — are. How her laugh sounds, how he used to do different voices when he told me stories of the Dragon Guard. About Ethari, too. And Runaan.”

Her voice wobbles. “I want to honour them.” She doesn’t say because I may never see them again. She doesn’t have to.

Rayla puts her hand on his — the one that’s holding the brush. Together, they dip it in the glyphberry solution.

Callum can barely tell whether it’s him or her moving the brush. Part of him thinks that this is the worst way to paint anything remotely permanent: freehand, and in tandem. Yet somehow, in the moonlight, they’re perfectly in sync. He recalls the brief glimpse of Rayla’s parents he got. Their passion and vitality and togetherness. He pictures Runaan on the castle ramparts, expression fierce until the sight of the egg changed it to one of awe and compassion. He thinks about Ethari by the fountain in Silvergrove; his grief and confusion.

The new marking on Rayla’s upper arm is all curves, swirls, and cascading lines. Looking at it makes Callum think of lineage and sacrifice. Love, and loss. Once it’s complete, they move to her other arm and paint it there too, pausing only to dip the brush again.

Then Rayla hesitates. Their hands go still, midair.

“And you,” she says, as if they’ve been conversing all this time. In a way, they have. “You and Ezran.”

This time Callum can tell the impetus comes from her hand. She moves the brush to her left wrist. The one her assassin’s binding was on.

He stops her, because he can tell immediately what her intention is. “All the elves I’ve seen — their markings are symmetrical,” Callum points out. He wonders if it’s alright to take this sacred Moonshadow ritual, and introduce anything human into it.

“I’m a break from tradition,” Rayla says lightly, but with a solemn face.

They trace a line partway around her wrist. But they don’t close the circle. Instead, both ends of it veer off into a minimalist impression of wings. It’s a cross between the Katolis crown and dragon wings. In place of her assassin’s binding: her sworn loyalty to both humans and Xadia.

They paint the same symbol around his right wrist.

Callum puts down the brush and blinks as if waking from a trance. The glyphberry pigment has dried quite rapidly; he traces the lines on Rayla’s arms and wrist. She quivers as he does; not from the cold, he realises, but because this is her bare spirit, her core. And the two of them are bound together in their understanding of what it all means. Rayla takes his right hand with her left. Their markings match perfectly.

“Wow,” is all he can say.

They grin at each other for a moment, suddenly dizzy.

Returning Zym to his mother did work as a symbolic gesture, but there’s still a long way to go before peace. Ezran and Aanya have guaranteed Zubeia the cooperation of their kingdoms. But Rayla killing Viren while he was officially King, and Aanya killing Prince Kasef, means neither Katolis nor Duren can assure Xadia they can unite the other members of the Pentarchy for peace. Grudges will still be held. Prejudice will persist.

Everything else is a chaotic mess of politics and pride. Soon, they’ll probably be roped in as ambassadors on both sides of the border. Tough as it was to get Zym home, they really have their work cut out for them now. But they’ll do it together. And Rayla… Callum just knows her. She’s his point of stillness, his fulcrum, his north star.

Still looking steadily at him, she picks up the brush with her free hand.

“Oh,” Callum says, surprised. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to—”

“I know,” Rayla interjects. “Other elves might not take too kindly to markings you can’t hide under your jacket. But…”

She leans over and rinses the brush in the brook, then flicks away the excess water.

And she draws, invisibly and yet indelibly in Callum’s eidetic memory, countless spirals and dots and lines all down his arms. She outlines feathers, and runes that Callum doesn’t recognise but swears to himself he’ll remember and look up later. This is how I see you, she seems to be saying without words. How I know you. How I love you.

Moonshadow elves don’t have things like Big Feelings Time, Callum thinks distantly, because they say it all with actions instead.

The brush tickles now that his hand isn’t guiding it, too. Callum starts to laugh, but then Rayla squeezes his hand and he stills.

Finally, she reaches up to his face. He closes his eyes as she brushes a symmetrical pattern over his cheeks. After another moment, he feels her press a kiss to his forehead.

He opens his eyes. She’s smiling at him.

“There you are,” she says softly.

[ahusaka]

hey! this may be a super random question but im curious as to how you plot/outline your wips? im obsessed w into the haze

Thank you so much! Honestly this is gonna be pretty long because I’m self indulgent in worldbuilding so oop.

This isn’t necessarily an outlining technique as it is just for writing in general but be willing to consume other people’s works. You don’t even necessarily have to be a critic or anything but the consumption of different stories really helps a person develop their own tastes (not even just in genre but in the development of prose too) and aligns themselves with whatever themes and messages they want to deliver themselves. Into the Haze evolved and grew because I got to read so many things and adapt them into my own writing. You’ll also know what to avoid when writing too.

Secondly, the big worldbuilding. Now, quick PSA but you absolutely do not have to be elaborate with world building but for me, I’m always been big on it. Worldbuilding is all in the details where the details can be big or small. I’m personally a very big fan on exploring politics/linguistics/war history but a lot of people make their expertise on agriculture, religion, art, and so on. That shit’s hot as hell is all I can say and when you play up to your interests, you get some cool stuff.

I take the angle of politics and see where I can use schools of thought to really dig into it. Societies are just a bunch of dudes walking around and screaming about philosophies of rule and then some other dudes countering it. Those things resonate with me (lmao I’m literally a weirdo I’m sorry) because FOR REAL, you got so much things to go off of with literal schematics of how rulers can be “good” (not morally but they monopolize on things such as charisma or they’re just really good at suppressing debates same thing) or “bad” (fucking those guys who use fear and just make everyone hate them). You have different landscapes of how a “rule” is designated (it doesn’t have to be rooted in feudalism for fantasy!! Make some democracies 2020) and the motivations of which the rulers encompass and how they reflect onto their ruling societies. 

ALSO GEOPOLITICS ARE PRETTY IMPORTANT!!! They tie into trade and economics with neighbouring countries, important for alliances to be made, how war is conducted and executed (An example is how Germany invaded Belgium to get to France in WW1), what resources need to imported or exported, where major hubs are, and etc.

Class order/hierarchy. This is one of the biggest elements I like to talk about. You can go absolutely monkey with this (assuming you’ve laid the structure down of your ruling class to justify this). Class can be dictated by socio-economic structures (nobility = rich, peasantry = poor), religion (only certain people are mandated by god(s)), race (but people clown this too much so I don’t recommend this unless you are personally acquainted with the culture dealt with or like you have sensitivity readers), magic (most common, magic is banned and magic users are oppressed) and so on. Basically power and privilege stems from the historical basis of this class order/hierarchy which befalls the writer to create, connecting to the above political ruling because it’ll directly benefit their interests.

War is another thing I write a lot and want to say a lot of people don’t really write about the devastating effects of war. Once writers write a war they’re like “well the good guys won and everything was peaceful!” If only. The aftermath of war efforts is very gruesome and involves everyone just kind of traumatized, an influx of refugees of war, poverty, destruction of the environment, and in some cases, causes uprisings or the very least, protests if the war efforts continue. I’d really like people to consider those factors when war is central to their plot because it seems to be glorified a lot.

Culture is a big thing I also focus on and culture is basically the catch all for the cool stuff humans decide to make when things are relatively chill (or not chill in the aftermath). Usually culture is an export that can be shared and you’ll see influences in other countries if they’re relatively close together or if they’ve had a history of being invaded/occupied. ALSO SUBCULTURES EXIST SO!!!!!! Consider if your world is a melting pot, if there’s a dominant culture, if cultures co-exist, and you know so on. Culture can find itself in pretty much everywhere but the biggest would be the following:

- art

- theatre (ok but the coolest thing I’ve learned about Vietnamese theatre is their water puppets??)

- food

- language * (which I’ll mostly talk about)

- the dominant religion

- architecture 

- clothing (ESPECIALLY the fabrics used)

- weapons 

- stories (whether they tell them by mouth or writing them down, how they decide to enact these stories, etc)

Language is my biggest interest too because it’s really complex and not many people focus on it. It has ties in class hierarchy (people speaking in higher class tongue, the different dialects indicating class / schooling disparities) and the development of language can have roots in cultural shifts due to occupation of other countries and so on. Like the creation of language is so amazing honestly and if anyone needs resources hmu.

Magic systems have their own line of being categorized with rules and classified as hard and soft but I don’t necessarily limit myself to thinking about those and rather, think about the basis of their existence in relationship of them being culturally significant to the society. Basically, I construct a history of magic before I go into the details. My favourite way of constructing a magic system is by relating it to science (it’s what makes chemistry bearable sad emoji). But it really depends on how I want to write my story because, like I said, I find regulations on magic and laws on magic interesting and relating it back to the idea of political power. But culture (ESPECIALLY RELIGION) is important consideration and I would implore writers to think about the way magic is utilized (as a tool, as a weapon, as both, as a shortcut, etc) and how it relates before you really digest the nitty gritty of magic because you can do so much with it.

This is a vomit word post I’m so sorry but yes this is the general mess going on in my head when writing my wips. I was so tempted to go into characters but that would be a GARBAGE fest. In conclusion, read too much books and scream.

[justgottafinishthischapter]

Making a Fictional Language

So you’re writing a story where you want to create a fictional language. That’s great. Only problem is, you’re not quite sure how to go about it. Fear not, I have a few tricks up my sleeve that I use myself when constructing a language. Now of course, before we can discuss how to build a conlang, it’s worth mentioning what a conlang is.

The term “Conlang” is short-hand for Constructed Language. What this means is that the language is fully realized and fully formed with proper grammar, an expansive dictionary, and could theoretically be learned and used in day-to-day conversation. A Conlang is not a real language. It doesn’t exist in our real world. But it’s well formed enough that it could be learned and spoken with a wide reach of use. Examples of Conlangs include Klingon, High Valyrian, Dothraki, and Na’vi. There are some lesser forms of Conlangs such as Functional Languages. That is, languages that exist only to say a few words. Before being turned into an official language for the show, Valyrian had very few words. It was the job of a linguist to construct a language around the fundamentals that George established in his books. Another example is Atlantean from the Disney movie Atlantis: the Lost Empire. There is just as much Atlantean as needed for the script and nothing else, and if you wanted to learn the Atlantean word for fire, you’ve gotten your hopes up for nothing. Some are also simply text-based, such as Hylian in the Legend of Zelda. It uses different symbols, but it all directly translates to the Japanese language, making it just a re-skinned version of Japanese.

So, how does one actually build a conlang? Honestly, a good first step is to do some research on Phonetics. But the crash course is this: a Phoneme is the simplest sound you can make. There’s an international phoenetic alphabet (IPA) that you can find tons of online. Every distinct sound made by human language has a specific symbol to represent the sound. Learning to read these symbols and the sounds they make will make it easier to find sound links between words. Now, let’s get to the actual methods and the steps involved.

Method 1: The Library

You may have heard of a Sound Library before. For sound technicians, a sound library is a database of sound effects and noises they can Foley into film projects. Building a language can work the same way. In the Librarian method, look through the list of IPA and look for the sounds you want to use in your language. Think about the tone of the language, and whether you’re looking for something softer or harsher, and the kind of culture the people have. Once you have your library of phonemes, it’s just a question of how you want to go about forming words. You could roll die to decide syllables and which sounds to use, you could play it by ear, you could compare to languages you want to sound like. The main appeal of this method is that it creates a great consistency with the sound of a language.

Method 2: The Language Blender

You know you want your language to sound coarse and rough but you’re not sure how to make it sound that way? A good method I like using is taking common words that your world would use, such as Fire or Sun, and translate it into about 3-5 languages that fit the sound you’re trying to invoke. Once you have all of your words translated, you have two paths. Option 1: Find the middle ground. If 3/5 of your words had the letters ma next to each other, chances are, that’s a good pair of letters to carry over to your own language. Option 2: Take your real life languages and put them through the Language Mixer on Chaoticshiny.com. A major benefit of this method is systematically learning words in other languages, and even seeing the etymological roots that tie languages together. The one downside of this language building format is that you may end up with words that don’t mix well together, or as they mix, you find that the sounds of the words don’t tend to mesh well, so it’s important to have a Base Language, the root language you build your fictional language around. No matter what, include at least part of the translation from this language, and you’ll be more grounded in your approach. 

Method 3: The Root System

This is a conlang creating system I learned from Artifexian on Youtube, and I’ll link the video he made right [here] if you want to see it for yourself. He has a lot of great world building videos and I love his content, so don’t be shy about giving him your likes and support because he talks about a lot of the world building aspects people tend to gloss over, myself included. What this method does is it focuses on forming root words that then lead into forming other words.

This is a root system language sheet I designed based on my own fantasy world. In their culture, running water is associated with healing and cleaning because it carries off dirt and other foul things and wipes them away. For this reason, rivers have associations with cleanliness, healing, and life. And this is something worth keeping in mind when building your own language. How does the culture itself interact with the word you are describing? For instance, the reason we say “vandalize” to mean to destroy someone else’s property is because of the Vandal barbarians that plagued Europe during the last legs of the Roman Empire. Heck, the term Flanderize isn’t even that closely linked to the Simpsons, but it emerged as a result of Ned Flanders’ character becoming stock and one-note, which led to the creation of the term. When it comes to actually building the dictionary, this can be a really useful step. So, for example, let’s say the word for River in my language was Asar. A boatman might be Asarii, much like how we have work and worker, fight and fighter, dance and dancer, the suffix of -ii denotes someone who does the root term, in this case, they go on the river. Meanwhile, a fisher could be Asarakii, having Asar mean river, -ak as a suffix for a thing living in the river, and the -ii as a suffix for those who catch the things that live in the river. And for something more abstract like River of Time or River of Stars, you might get something like Asarag Talari.

UNIVERSAL CONLANG TIPS

Keep in mind the people the language exists for. if you’re creating a conlang for dragons, reptiles don’t have lips, so the labial sounds of [p], [b], [f], [v], and possibly even sounds that require lip shaping such as [o], [u], and [w] might not fit the creatures that need to be speaking. Furthermore, if the culture exists before global communication and they live next to the ocean, chances are, they won’t have a word for camel, desert, or sandstorm unless it’s a desert port city. This is why Dothraki has words for every kind of horse and no word for thank-you.

Remember that certain sounds can be switched around. Throughout human language, I’ve learned that certain letters can easily be switched out for each other, and this is in part due to linguistics history. Most of the letters that can be exchanged I actually realized while studying Grimm’s Law and the evolution of language, and by looking at Welsh in particular. In Welsh, the way to write a [f] sound is to write it as ff. When just one f is by itself, it becomes [v]. The sounds of [d], [t], [θ], and [ð] share a similar connection, as do [k] and [g], [ʃ] and [ꭓ], and [b] and [p]. So changing between these similar sounds could prove to be a useful strategy for mixing up your language.

You absolutely have to create a grammar system or you’re going to make a huge mess. That means word order, syntax, suffixes, tense, conjugation, and whatever else is needed. If it helps, learn how another language conjugates its terms. In Sumerian, the phrase “I am your king” is Lugdalzuimen. Lugdal means King, zu is your, and imen means “I am”. So word order is Object Possessive Subject. Then in the phrase Sesguene imes means “they are my brothers”. In actual word order it translates out as “brother my -s they are”. Now we see that the word order is Object Possessive Pluralization Subject. In the phrase Dumuninlagasakak, it becomes child queen Lagas of of. Meaning child [queen of Lagas] of or Child of the Queen of Lagas. By understanding how this language structures itself, something like the phrase River of Stars I made earlier could now be broken down to be something like Asartalariag (River Star -s of). I find it helps in this case to word it as “River star many of” to get “river of many stars” to figure out when the pluralizing suffix would be applied.

Resources:

Wiktionary.com

Chaoticshiny.com

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/definitionlookup (for all of your ancient greek translation needs. Set it to Latin transliteration)

http://www.abair.tcd.ie/?lang=eng (because Google Translate doesn’t sound out Irish words)

https://www.wordreference.com/enfr/ (it’s set English to French, but it has a lot of languages, and it’s great because it also teaches you slang uses of words.)

[homebrewsno1asked4]

2B 2

Welcome! Today’s subclass – inspired by 2B of Nier Automata, for those who just walked in – is the Planar Adjudicator.

What and why is a Planar Adjudicator, you may ask? I didn’t just want to make the 2B class a construct-killer; unless your DM’s world is teeming with robots, that won’t be particularly useful. So I reflavored the androids’ crazy superhuman combat maneuvers as laws of physics they’re allowed to break. And YoRHa as like interdimensional hitmen of balance.

Kinda like “if the Horizon Walker Ranger joined a Paladin order.”

I don’t remember the exact thought process, tbh.

Commence!

Clearances

As Planar Adjudicators climb in rank, they’re allowed to bend certain laws of reality, or waive them altogether.

When you first gain access to these clearances at level 3, you may take three. You may take two additional clearances each levels 7, 10, and 15. At these levels, you may also replace a previously-established clearance with another one of equal level.

See list of Clearances at the end of the class.

Save vs. your Clearances is 8 + proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier.

At level 3, the fighter usually gains multiple features with their subclass: 1) Each archetype's primary mechanic; 2) a coin toss between an exploration or interaction feature, usually packaged with an extra skill proficiency.

To fit with the Planar Adjudicator's "spacetime cop" theme, I made the main mechanic Clearances - or laws of reality that the Planar Adjudicator's allowed to break to better hunt their quarry. In an earlier draft, I tried to directly base these Clearances on the various Pod abilities; but after a few false starts, I realized that most of the Pods either don't translate well into D&D mechanics, or would provide game-breaking stat increases/extra attacks. So instead, I looked to the Warlock's Eldritch Invocations for inspiration, and the Clearances scale/stack similar to the Eldritch Knight's spellcasting. (I think... I'm sorry, I really need to be more careful about crossing out my design notes, not deleting them entirely.)

The Clearances are supposed to reflect Nier Automata's flashy combat; encapsulate more of 2B's skills and android abilities not covered by my earlier choices of Race, Background, etc; and beef up the Planar Adjudicator's flavor.

Basic Planar Knowledge Database

Take proficiency in either Religion or Arcana.

As an action, you detect the distance and direction between you and any creature involved in your goal, such as a person you seek vengeance against or someone you pledged to defend. You must be familiar with this creature – i.e. have met them personally, or you know more than passing knowledge about that creature. If the target is on another plane of existence, you instead discern the distance and direction of the nearest portal to that plane, though you don't automatically know which plane it leads to.

The Planar Adjudicator's other starting feature - Basic Planar Knowledge Database - bundles one of two lore-intensive Intelligence proficiencies with a barely-changed version of the Revenant's Relentless Nature. I don't think it's too OP because it's mostly for flavor, but Hey! I've been wrong before.

(Maybe BPKD should at least be 'use x times between rests’?)

Database Upgrade

You hone your insight into your extraplanar quarry by level 7, analyzing your deep repository of lore for weaknesses.

Your melee attacks (not ranged, not spells) now count as magical for the purposes of overcoming resistance.

You gain proficiency in Religion or Arcana, whichever you did not choose from Basic Planar Knowledge Database. Except for critical failures, you can treat any Arcana or Religion roll of 9 or below as a 10.

Fighters' level 7 abilities usually go one of two ways: an attack/defense buff; or an exploration ability packaged with a new skill proficiency. The Planar Adjudicator's Database Upgrade is bit of a mix of both.

This is a melee-only version of the Arcane Archer's Magic Arrow, as well as the other half of the Basic Planar Knowledge Database - while also borrowing a little of the Rogue's Reliable Talent. I'm hoping that's not too much, as religion and arcana are mostly fun roleplay skills anyway. Who knows; the way you run your games, this might be OP.

Executioner’s Clearance

At level 10, you gain two types of Favored Enemy. One is always humanoids. For the other, choose from aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, or undead. You gain a +4 bonus to damage rolls with weapon attacks against creatures of both types. Additionally, you have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored enemies, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them.

When you gain this feature, you also learn two languages of your choice, typically one spoken by your favored enemy or creatures associated with it; for example, elvish for humanoids and deep speech for aberrations. However, you are free to pick any language you wish to learn.

You also have advantage on saving throws against the spells and abilities of both these enemy types.

Fighters' level 10 features are exclusively combat-focused. Usually, they're an improvement to a pre-existing feature.

I borrowed the Ranger's Favored Enemy + Greater Favored Enemy for Executioner’s Clearance. Since even the stacked version of Greater Favored Enemy is still conditional, and it's already only a level 6 ability, I thought it fair to throw the Planar Adjudicator another bone.

Hammerspace

You can equip up to three weapons at a time, in any combination of weight class or ranged/melee. You can swap these weapons in and out as a free action, including in between attacks.

You stow any of these three weapons you cannot feasibly hold in a personal void not unlike a Bag of Holding.

Hammerspace adds a bit more Nier Automata-ness to the Planar Adjudicator's playstyle, what with the giant weapons floating behind you and switching between these giant weapons in an instant.

I can't for the life of me remember what I used as a base for Hammerspace. Honestly, I might have made it from scratch, but I wouldn't give me that much credit.

Unchain Protocol

Against your favored enemy types, your weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.

While the planar adjudicator is at half their hit points (rounded down) or below, they score critical hits on 18-20 for all enemy types, not just favored enemies.

While the planar adjudicator's hit points equal 10 + Constitution modifier or below, your criticals gain a damage bonus equal to your level in this class.

At level 15, Fighters gain a variety of types of combat features. Attack spells/spell-like abilities and attack/damage buffs are common.

I think this is another weird fusion of a couple different class abilities. Like Champion/Barbarian’s Improved Critical plus one of the Brute’s abilities, maybe?

The first part of Unchain Protocol stacks with Executioner's Clearance. The second and third stages of the Protocol affect all critical hits, for the trade-off of inching closer and closer to death.

Evasion System Overclock

When an enemy misses an attack against you, you may incur the effects of Time Stop as a reaction. All restrictions of Time Stop still apply. You take the turns afforded by Time Stop immediately upon using this ability. You may use this once a day.

I know 2B has the whole slow-time-when-you-dodge ability from the beginning of the game; but there’s no way to give the player its D&D equivalent at an early level without tipping the game balance like the fucking Titanic.

My thinking is, assuming the player tries to use this ability to hit or run, Evasion System Overclock only affords them one extra strike, or a get-out-of-combat-free card if the player’s okay with ditching the rest of the party and appearing 1000 feet away. Hopefully, this forces your Planar Adjudicator to be a little more creative and strategic with their extra turns.

Clearances

Law of Applied Force. All ranged attacks have a maximum range of 300 ft.

Law of Auras. You can cast Detect Magic at will.

Law of Darkness. You can see normally in darkness, both magical and non-magical, to a distance of 120 feet.

Law of Healing. Whenever you regain hit points from a potion, spell, or ally’s class feature, treat any dice rolled to determine the hit points you regain as having rolled their maximum value for you.

Law of Inertia. Whenever you successfully deal damage to a creature, you can push the creature up to 10 feet away from you in a straight line.

Law of Interspecies Communication. Although limited by the intelligence of the beast, you can understand and speak with beasts.

Law of Linguistics. You can read all writing. You can comprehend any written word or symbol, should it hold any linguistic meaning.

Law of Natural Cycles. Within a minute of its death, you may ask a recently deceased creature one question. The dead creature’s spirit provides the answer to the best of its knowledge, translated into a language of your choice.

Law of Resilience. Your AC becomes 13 + your Strength or Dexterity modifier while not wearing armor. You can use a shield and still gain this benefit.

Law of Rest. You no longer need to sleep and can't be forced to sleep by any means. To gain the benefits of a long rest, you can spend all 8 hours doing light activity.

Law of Vitality. You can cast False Life on yourself at will as a 1st-level spell.

Law of Warfare. Over the course of 1 hour short rest, you can bond a weapon to you. You can bond up to two weapons at once. These weapons gain a +1 to attack and damage rolls. You can summon or dispel these weapons as a bonus action.

Prerequisite: Level 5

Law of Conservation of Energy. For one minute, you can double your speed, gain +2 to AC, roll advantage on Dexterity saves, and take an additional action on each of your turns. The action can be used to attack (one weapon attack only), dash, disengage, hide, or use an object. You can use this feature once every long rest.

Law of Elemental Order. Every long rest, pick a type of elemental damage. When you hit a creature with a melee or ranged attack, you can use a bonus action to unleash an eruption of this damage type. This eruption is a 20-foot-radius sphere, focused on the target you just hit, and deals 8d6 of your chosen element. You are immune to this eruption. You can use this feature once every long rest.

At level 11, this feature recharges with a short or long rest, and the extra damage increases to 9d6.

At level 17, you can use this feature twice between rests, and the extra damage increases to 10d6.

Law of Proportional Might. Once per turn, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon, you can add 4d8 force damage to your attack, and you can knock the target prone if it is Huge or smaller. You can use this feature once every long rest.

At level 11, this feature recharges with a short or long rest, and the extra damage increases to 5d8.

At level 17, you can use this feature twice between rests, and the extra damage increases to 6d8.

Prerequisite: Level 7

Law of Opacity. Once per rest, you can use an action to gain the ability to see through solid objects to a range of 30 feet. Within that range, you have darkvision if you don't already have it. This special sight lasts for 1 minute. During this time, you perceive objects as ghostly, transparent images.

Law of Motion. For one hour, you are unaffected by difficult terrain, and spells or magical effects can't reduce your speed or cause you to be paralyzed or restrained.

You can spend 5 feet of movement to automatically escape from nonmagical restraints. Additionally, being underwater imposes no penalties on its movement or attacks.

Prerequisite: Level 9

Law of Gravity. At will, you can rise vertically up to 20 feet. While suspended, you have no momentum of your own and you may grab on to other objects in order to move as if climbing. You can change your altitude as part of your movement each turn.

Whenever you deactivate this clearance, you drift safely to the ground per the spell Feather Fall.

Law of Proportional Athleticism. Your jump distance is tripled.

Law of Spirit-Mortal Communication. You can speak to spirits - per the Speak with Dead spell - at will.

Prerequisite: Level 15

Law of Physicality. As an action, you and everything you wear and carry become invisible for up to an hour. If you drop an item or remove it, the item is no longer invisible, and if you try to attack or cast a spell, you're visible again. You can activate this clearance at will.

I don’t have an ending besides thank you for reading, hope it doesn’t suck!

[mindfulwrath]

HTCIC: Orbital Mechanic

"Dr. Vereen?"

"It's just Cameesha," Meesh said, for the millionth time. "I've put a sign on the door and everything!"

"Can I—sorry, Cameesha, can I speak to you for just a moment?"

Rubbing her temple, Meesh looked up. There was a handsome, round-faced latino man standing in her doorway, sweaty and flushed and looking far too excited.

"Come in and shut the door," she said. "Because whatever you're going to say to me, it can't possibly be any good if you're that excited about it. What was your name?"

"Raúl," he said, coming in and shutting the door. "I'm from xenolinguistics."

"Oh, goody goody," Meesh sighed, swiveling her chair to face him. "I heard you've all gotten busy of late."

"Yes, the messages," said Raúl. "We need you to help us plot a trajectory to send a message to Akaste that doesn't look like it's going to Akaste."

Meesh stared at him. "Shouldn't you ask somebody who, I dunno, does that for a living?"

"Everybody in telemetry is a snitch," said Raúl. "Can you do it or not?"

"I don't faff about with communications," said Meesh. "Trajectories, yes, I can plot you any trajectory you like, but I don't do bloody relays."

"Couldn't we—bounce it off of something, or something?"

Meesh opened her mouth and then her brain kicked in.

Akaste's moon was too close. Rhodea was nicely reflective, but there was no reason to be transmitting at Rhodea, and it would certainly come under suspicion. There was a giant molecular cloud not too far off, but by the time the signal got there and back it would be so attenuated it would be useless. Bouncing, therefore, was not an option, but there were more tricks you could pull with geometry than just that. . . .

"Bouncing, no," she said slowly. "But there's a satellite just installed at Akaste's L4 that'll be in line with us in about—what, thirty-six hours? Let me. . . ."

She dug into her notes, muttering to herself.

"L4?" said Raúl, rather helplessly.

"Lagrange point," Meesh said. "Gravitationally stable. Stupid to put a satellite there, because of the asteroids, but it's there. Now where did I—ah!" She pulled up her schematic of the orbits, which was now three months old. It took her about forty seconds to draw in the current planetary positions, and another ten to plot the L4 Lagrange point outside of Akaste. Raúl, bless him, stood quietly while she did.

"Right, so," she said, pointing to the L4. "That's what you're aiming for. In about thirty-two hours, you should be able to transmit something to wherever on Akaste you like whilst looking like you're transmitting to this satellite."

"What satellite is it?" said Raúl, coming a little closer to peer at the schematic.

"Fuck if I know," said Meesh. "I just put it there, I've no bloody clue what it does."

"Well—thank you," said Raúl. "Could you—explain all of this again? To our communications officer?"

"Got a commie in on the mutiny, have you?" Meesh asked.

"It's not—mutiny, we just want to send a message," Raúl objected.

"Without anybody knowing about it, sure, just a message."

Raúl glanced back at the closed door. Meesh had to restrain herself from bouncing up and down in glee. He leaned in even closer. He really was very good-looking.

"Can you keep a secret?" he asked, his voice low.

"Absolutely," Meesh answered, just as conspiratorially.

"We think the messages are unauthorized," said Raúl. "They're being sent by Akasteans without the sanction of their government."

"So you want to return the favor," said Meesh. "Person to person, like."

"Yes! Yes, exactly."

"And what's the benefit in that?"

"The people in command censor us constantly," said Raúl. "They think the Akasteans are trying to scare us off. They're angling to get other information, they don't think the solar flare is real."

"You do?"

"Better safe than sorry," said Raúl, shrugging. "This is all very, very against the rules, but it's the only way we're going to make any progress."

"Worse things have been done in the name of progress," said Meesh. "Are you going to keep on sneaking messages to them?"

"I—don't know," said Raúl. "Maybe? If they answer?"

"Well, then I suppose you're going to need more calculations, aren't you," she said, sitting back in satisfaction. "Probably increasingly complex ones, as you struggle to avoid getting caught."

"Oh, God," Raúl said, putting a hand over his eyes. "We don't have much to offer you, I'm sorry, but I'm sure we could scrape together—"

"Offer? I thought this was the offer. Of course I'll do it. I'm bored out of my bloody mind over here."

"You could get—we could all get sent home!" Raúl said, staring at her.

She shrugged. "Makes things exciting! When do I get to meet the rest of the sneaky renegades?"

"...Now?" Raúl guessed.

Meesh leapt up from her chair. "Now is perfect."

The poor linguists looked like they hadn't slept in a month.

Someone had brought in a pot of coffee, which was nearly all gone. There were papers all over the table and drawings all over the single whiteboard. One woman, tall and broad-shouldered, was staring out the window with her hands clasped behind her back.

Raúl cleared his throat, standing aside as though to present Meesh to the room.

"Everyone," he said, "this is Dr. Cameesha Vereen."

"Just Cameesha," she said. "I hear you're plotting a mutiny."

"It's not—" Raúl began, and broke off in a helpless sigh.

"If Bhattacharya doesn't tell us not to do it, it's not a mutiny," said the woman at the window.

"What she said," one of the linguists muttered.

"So who, might I ask, the hell are all of you?" Meesh inquired.

"Sorry," said Raúl. "That's Xander—" the only other black person in the room— "Ji, Liu, and Sam."

He pointed to them in order, ending with the tall woman at the window. Meesh went around and shook all their hands quickly, then deposited herself in an empty chair.

"Everyone uses she, her except Ji, who's a they," Raúl added. "And—me, I'm a he."

"Sure. So who's the commie?" Meesh asked.

"The—?" said Xander, frowning.

"Communications officer," Raúl said. "It's Sam."

"Hey hi," said Sam, dropping into the chair next to Meesh's. "So here's the problem: we can't encode the outgoing message."

"That's not my problem," said Meesh. "That's your problem. I'm only here for trajectories."

"Yeah, well, actually it is kinda your problem," said Sam, "because it means we can't use the main antenna."

"Ooh," said Meesh, and sucked her teeth. "That is a bit of a problem. How much of a message is this?"

Ji pushed a piece of paper across the table to her.

"That's what we have so far," they said.

  Hello Berserk, Eigenvectors, and In-Recent-Years,

We read you. This is Xander, Ji, Liu, and Raúl. We are transmitting without the permission of our commanders. Please do not transmit a response to this message.

We believe that the M-class solar flare is real. We cannot evacuate. We have magnetic fields that protect us from ordinary solar ions. Will our distance from the star protect us? We are much farther away than you, which may greatly reduce the ion flow.

Please tell us how you are translating our language. We want to learn your languages so that we can communicate better, and so that we can understand your cultures.

Thank you for the warnings.

End of message.

  "Coming on a bit strong, aren't you?" Meesh said, raising an eyebrow.

Ji snatched the paper back from her, scowling. "You're not a linguist, you wouldn't understand."

"No, I probably wouldn't," Meesh opined. "But I do know you sound like lovesick teenagers."

"Aren't you a teenager?" Raúl said.

"Oy, sod off," she snapped.

"All right, enough," said Sam, irritated. "That's how much of a message it is. We have four other antennas we can use. I figure the best one is the backup Earth antenna, since it has the highest amplitude and it's the least lossy."

"Sure, if you want to blast their bloody ears off," Meesh said.

"They don't have ears," said Xander. Meesh waved her off.

"If we were bouncing it off something, the Earth antenna would be fine, but that's not what we're doing. We're—look, I'll just draw it for you."

She got up and, again, doodled the respective orbits of Akaste and Rhodea, the bean-shaped oscillation of the satellite around the L4 Lagrange point ahead of Akaste, and the approximate orbital vectors of both planets.

"So in about thirty-six hours, you can shoot a signal at Akaste and it'll look like it's headed for the satellite," said Meesh.

"Then we'll need to use the mid-range antenna," said Sam. "Okay, sure, I can make that happen. How long before we slip out of line? What's our timing look like?"

"I'd say about . . . eight and a half hours?" said Meesh. She considered the relative velocities and angles, the probable position of the satellite, then nodded to herself. "Eight and a half hours, yeah, give or take a bit."

"That's way less than an Akastean day," said Sam, frowning. "What if the wrong side is facing us?"

Meesh shrugged. "Then I s'pose you'll have to find some other way. You could always wait 'til the L5 comes round in . . . a few months."

"We don't have that kind of time," said Ji. "This solar storm they're talking about is happening in a week."

Recoiling, Meesh exclaimed, "And we've not done anything about it?"

"Welcome to the military," Sam drawled. "So what're our other options?"

"If you've got less than a week, then not many," said Meesh, rerunning a whole host of calculations in her head. "Honestly, I'd say your best option is to say hell with it and transmit directly."

"Let's . . . save that discussion for if this doesn't work," Xander said. "Sam, we can get the right antenna, right?"

"I can make it happen," said Sam. "I'm gonna need to know where to point it."

"I can get you detailed coordinates, if you want them," said Meesh.

"That'd be great, thanks."

"Sure. Are we paranoid enough that we're not doing emails?"

The assembled looked around at each other. Raúl made a face like he'd just seen someone bellyflop off the high dive.

"Okay, I'll be that guy," said Xander. "Yes, we're that paranoid."

"Fantastic," Meesh said, grinning.

"You're enjoying this much too much," Raúl said.

"You're just not enjoying it enough," she countered.

"Yeah, woohoo, breakin' the law," Sam said flatly. "If Iyoda finds out about this, my ass is grass."

"What, is she going to chuck you out an airlock?" Meesh asked.

A very, very uncomfortable silence fell. Raúl cleared his throat. Xander fidgeted.

"What?" said Meesh, looking around at all of them.

"Don't—don't make jokes like that," said Xander. "They're . . . really not funny. Here."

Meesh's jaw dropped. "D'you mean to tell me someone actually got chucked out an airlock?"

"Look, someone can tell you later, can we just—get on with this?" Sam said, irritated.

"Er, yeah," said Meesh. "Yeah, sorry. So . . . coordinates."

"Yeah," Sam sighed, rubbing her forehead. "Coordinates."

[streetsolo]

A Flare in the Dark (chapter 5)

Click here to read on ao3 or

               You sit in a room, much like the one you had interpreted in every day for the past few days. You assume that they all probably looked more or less the same; the First Order surely couldn’t be bothered with aesthetics. Meeting rooms were meeting rooms. They were there to serve a purpose, and you highly doubted that the First Order was concerned with impressing anyone in a diplomatic sense. No, they had their soldiers and guns and advanced weaponry. If they wanted to impress anyone, they had muscle for that. Meeting rooms were probably of little to no importance to them.

               You are there quite a while, simply waiting, and you wonder if the Storm Trooper who was assigned to you got lost, or simply decided it wasn’t a meeting worth showing up for. B did say that this meeting was of little consequence, and so it made sense that the Storm Trooper would be running late. He probably decided to sleep in, or have a late breakfast, or chat with some people before he or she came in. You think it over. It made sense. Of course, on the other hand, it could also mean that they were taking a longer time reviewing your records before they came in, so they could better discern if you were lying. The thought scares you, but you immediately know that it is highly unlikely. They could simply bring your records with them if they wanted to fact-check you; no memorization required. Especially if these meetings were of no consequence, memorizing silly facts about a silly girl would be a gigantic waste of time.

               You are sitting facing the wall, the door off to your right. It suddenly slides open, and you expect to see a flash of white. Instead, you see a flash of black, and you know who it is before your eyes meet the black slit in that familiar mask. Immediately your heart jumps into your chest. Don’t say his name. Don’t even think it. That was what Taro warned you yesterday. And now? Now Kylo Ren was going to probe your mind to make you spill all of your secrets, even the ones you had no idea that you had.

               He sits down in the chair across from you, and you let out a heavy breath through your nostrils. You shrink a little under his intense gaze, forcing yourself to look at the mask but avoid staring directly into the eye slit. What kind of monster was under there? Did he have tentacles? Eight eyes? Wondering what he looked like was hardly the point, but if he was trying to probe your mind, it would probably be best to keep your thoughts distracted, wouldn’t it?

               “Name?” he asks. You give it.

               “Age?”

               “Twenty-six.”

               “Home planet?”

               You hesitate for a moment, and then state the name of the planet where you went to school. If he can read minds, he’ll know you’re lying. If he’s a good read of character, however, he might know you’re lying anyway. It was tough to tell.

               He pauses for a moment, settling back in his chair. “Do I frighten you?”

               Your eyes shoot up to the slit, and then look away. What was under there? “No.” You do what you can to make yourself look tall.

               “You’re not a very good liar.” Shit.

               “I just don’t think it’s fair that you can conceal yourself behind a mask while quizzing me about my true intentions,” you say firmly. Yes, you had been warned many times to beware of Kylo Ren and his temper, but maybe he wouldn’t lash out at you if you were honest. You could only hope.

               He cocks his head to the side. “Would you like me to take my mask off?”

               You hesitate, but try not to let it show. Do you really want to know what’s under there? “That’s up to you. It makes no difference to me who you are.”

               “And who are you?” he asks, making no move to take off the mask. “Or who are you pretending to be?”

               “I’m an interpreter,” you tell him. “A linguist. I study languages and I help aid in the clear and concise trade of information between two parties.”

               “And how many languages do you know?” he asks. That stupid flat tone of voice through the helmet is starting to get on your nerves, but you try not to let it show.

               “Verbal or nonverbal?” you ask. He just stares you down through that unblinking slit and doesn’t answer. Honestly, you knew so many you could hardly keep track. You knew when someone else was talking or signing whether or not it was a language you knew, or could at least figure out. With so many languages abound, there was always some occasional overlap. You decide to pull out a number and hope it sounds confident enough. “Forty-seven, fluently.”

               He crosses his arms over his chest, almost like he doesn’t believe you. “And how exactly would it benefit you to know so many languages?”

               “It just interests me,” you say quietly, but there is an edge to your voice. “People interest me. Cultures interest me. It’s just interesting.”

               “And how did you get to be fluent in all of these languages?” he asks. “Considering the primary language of that planet is Basic, I can’t imagine that you would have much experience with other languages there.”

               Your eyes widen ever so slightly, but you try not to let it show. “Rigorous study,” you tell him. “And we do have a trading post. All sorts of people do come round, now and again. It’s a good way to pick up new languages and assess your skills.”

               “A small one,” he says, as if he’s familiar with it. You can’t imagine that he would be. “But it’s not a major trading hub. Anyone savvy enough to venture there to trade would know at least enough Basic to secure a trade.” You stare him down. “If anything, knowing so many languages could only prove beneficial for survival. Learning the language and customs of another planet can make it easy to disappear from one place and blend in someplace else.”

               “There is peace there,” you say firmly as possible. “There would be no reason for me to run away. My dedication to my craft is hardly indicative of-“

               “Tell me the truth.” His fist slams on the table, and you flinch involuntarily. You stare him down. He is asking you for information, and for all you know, if you don’t tell him, he probably has very painful means of taking it.

               “Fine,” you say, giving him the name of a planet with a much larger trading hub, notorious for back-alley trades and shady dealings. “I was born there. My mother died when I was very young. My father would always take me with him wherever he went, and so I met a great deal of people and learned a great many languages early on. My father was fond of drink and ebla and he had quite a temper. One day he didn’t have enough money and so when I was not yet twelve, he sold me to an eclectic trading crew that dabbled in a bit of everything, mostly human cargo. One day I found my language skills proved useful when I overheard that they were about to be double-crossed in a trade. They kept me on their ship as an interpreter, and there I remained for years until we landed on the planet that housed my academia. The trading crew had stumbled upon a rare book that the school wanted, and while I was negotiating the deal, the man brokering the trade was impressed with my knowledge and quizzed me in over a dozen languages. He told me he was looking for a language tutor for his daughter, Sadie, to give her more worldly experience. I agreed only under the condition that I would not be a slave and that I could enroll in school with her. He was a very kind man, and incredibly wealthy. He paid a high price for both me and the book, and I have stayed close to his family ever since.”

               He stares you down, but you stare right back. That was it. That was the truth. You had nothing to hide. There was no reason for him to go into your head now, and you suspect he knew that. If he did, the only thing he would find there were memories that you didn’t care to dwell upon. As far as you were concerned, your life began when you enrolled in school and started tutoring Sadie. Both she and her family had never treated you as anything other than a friend, and you were grateful for an environment where your language skills could be used in a positive way. The only other person there that could confirm the story was B. He had immediately picked up on your advanced language skills in class, and you had reluctantly confided in him the truth of your origins. He had then taken on somewhat of a mentor role towards you, and although you didn’t particularly feel the need for one, his friendliness towards you was appreciated. Plus, he also gave you work, and work gave you money, which was always a nice incentive. Sadie’s father always offered, but you could never take anything from him. He had bought your freedom and gave your future a sense of safety and certainty. That in itself was something you would never be able to repay.

               “Is that the truth?” he asks. He had been sitting in the chair, arms crossed over his chest, almost slouching, as he listened to your story. Now he sat up and put his elbows on the table as he leaned forward.

               “Yes,” you reply, a little uncertainly. Of course it had been the truth, did he really expect you to rehearse such an unsavory story? “Sadie can confirm it, although her father never did want me to tell her how he had acquired me. He wanted her to have the experience of languages and cultures without their direct interaction, should she ever need it. He knows how life in the galaxy can be.”

               He is silent for a long while as you just sit there and wait. His glare is not nearly as ominous or oppressive as it was when he had first walked in, but it could simply have been because you were getting used to the mask. His expression behind the mask, however, was unreadable as ever.

               “Do you miss your father?” he asks, and the question takes you aback. You honestly chose not to think about your father as often as possible, not that that was difficult to do. He was part of a life that you no longer wished to recognize as your own.  

               “No,” you reply curtly.

               “Do you hate him?” What?

               “My father is most likely dead,” you reply. “It never does well to dwell upon grudges that we have no chance of remedying.”

               “Do you think he was an honorable man?” Seriously, what are these questions? you ask yourself. What could he possibly hope to gain by asking me this?

               You shake your head. “The man sold his daughter for drink. I would not say he was.”

               “Would you say that you are an honorable person?” he asks. You can tell by the way he leans forward that he is waiting for your answer. Was that his real question all along?

               You hesitate before you give it. “I am neither honorable nor dishonorable,” you tell him. “I am an interpreter. I do not make decisions. I interpret words. I carry messages, but I am not responsible for who says or does what with the information I provide, as long as that message does not stray from the initial utterance. It doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong, it’s not my decision. The consequences of someone else’s words do not rest on my conscience.”

               He seems to consider this for a moment. “Your reasoning is either very smart or incredibly stupid,” he says. He gets up suddenly, so fast he almost knocks the chair over, as he gets up and leaves the room. You stare after him for a moment, not quite sure what to do or say. But as the doors slide shut behind him, you realize there’s not much you can do with either. He’s gone.

               You let out a deep breath that you didn’t realize you were holding in and bury your face in your hands. That had been very, very intense, and you couldn’t believe you had told him as much as you had. Had he compelled the truth from you? You shake your head, as if to confirm this to yourself. No, it didn’t feel like he had used any sort of mind tricks on you, aside from the typical intimidation tactics that you could plainly see. You stand up slowly and make your way towards the door. You carefully peep out into the hallway, but he’s already gone.

               Slowly you make your way down to the cafeteria, where Sadie, Ladson, and Shayne are already eating. You grab food as quickly as you can and sit down to join them. “You were in there a while,” Shayne says. It’s probably not smart to talk about this in front of other Storm Troopers, but you can’t hold yourself back right now.

               “Who did you get for your interview?” you ask.

               “Just someone in a white helmet,” Sadie says, and the rest of them nod their heads. “Why? Who did you get?”

               “Just, someone in a white helmet,” you say nonchalantly. “I know our times were staggered. I wasn’t sure if it was one person doing all of our interviews or what.”

               “I don’t know,” Ladson shrugs. “We were all in and out within ten minutes. What took you so long? What were you telling them?”

               You hesitate for a moment, trying to think up a good excuse. “My guy got there really, really late,” you say. It’s not all that far from the truth. “I was waiting a really long time before they guy came in, then he asked me a few questions and then left really suddenly. It was all rather weird.”

               “Yeah, well, it can’t be any worse than what we’ll have to do later,” Shayne sighs. “Interpreting for the Tortutaru and General Hux? I’m surprised B and C didn’t just take this one.”

               “They could use a day off,” Ladson says. “And besides, our skills are more than good enough for the task at hand.”

               “Precisely,” Sadie says. It never dawned on you before just how annoying it was to listen to her agree with everything Ladson says. She must have caught the look on your face as she picks up her hands and asks you if something’s wrong. You make the sign to gesture that you’re fine, and continue eating your food. First the ominous stare, and now Kylo Ren was singling you out to learn your history firsthand. Why was he singling you out, specifically? What could be the reason for it? You didn’t know anything.

               Sadie’s partner is nice enough, but he likes to pepper his signs with a lot of word play and jokes and off the cuff remarks. Sadie is quick to laugh at his jokes, but you struggle to keep up, and are silently thankful that Taro is taciturn by comparison. Most of his humor and jokes go straight over your head, unfortunately. You always struggled to understand jokes in other languages, but this was hardly a surprise, considering you struggled to understand jokes in Basic. Sometimes the humor in a joke lied in the way he signed something, the way he would invert his wrist slightly to misproduce the sign intentionally. Sadie would laugh as if she understood, but whatever was funny about it lay past the point of your comprehension. Still, you took your cues from her, and you knew enough to smile so that it touched your eyes and laugh along. You had no idea if Sadie understood the jokes or if she was just better at interpreting the right cues for when to laugh, but either way, you let her interpret this meeting.

               There was a table in the center of the room so that each party could sit on either side, and one chair was pulled up to the side of the table for the interpreter. There were a row of chairs along the wall to the right, behind where Sadie was sitting, and so you took one close to her, so you would be almost right behind her in case she needed you. You knew she wouldn’t, but the back-up was appreciated anyway, especially in terms of emotional support. You had no idea what to expect of General Hux. Fortunately for you, he was extremely cordial.

               “Ladies,” he says as he walks into the room. You both stand, although her Tortutaru did not. You didn’t know his name; he just distinguished himself by a letter on his shoulder. “I’m General Hux, commander of the Starkiller base.”

               “It’s so nice to meet you,” Sadie says, and she sounds as if she’s almost gushing. If B was really looking for someone to play the innocent, nervous girl role, he should have picked Sadie. She was practically bred for it. You were far too cynical to be anything but.

               “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure,” he says, bowing slightly as he takes her hand and raises it to his lips. She giggles, and it’s everything you can do not to vomit in your mouth; the whole scene looks way too forced. You knew it, and you were sure Sadie knew it too, but it was almost mandatory that you play along.

               “I’m Sadie,” she replies. She gestures towards you. “And I believe you’ve already met-“

               General Hux says your name, and you try not to act too surprised. You had given your name to Kylo Ren, but General Hux was quite a distance away, and you were sure that he hadn’t heard you, which could only mean that your name had come up in conversation. It was probably only in passing, but after Kylo Ren’s visit earlier, you couldn’t help but wonder.

               “You’re good with names,” Sadie says as she sits down. He takes a seat down in his designated chair, and you are silently thankful he didn’t come over and kiss your hand as well as you take a seat of your own. He simply smiles good-naturedly at her as he starts the meeting.

               It’s interesting to see Sadie interpret. During class assignments, your feedback, more often than not, was that you always seemed emotionless, like a drone, constantly processing and churning away. That’s what it felt like to you, so it wasn’t really that bizarre to imagine that that’s what you looked like on the outside as well. Sadie was a whole different story. She made interpreting look almost effortless. Her eyes shined and she smiled while she was working. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but it looked like she was genuinely interested in what other people had to say, and sought to carry on that interest to the third party. Even when you could tell she was concentrating, she would bite her lip in a way that could only be described as endearing.

               It didn’t help that she was ridiculously beautiful. You would describe your own looks as gamine at best, but Sadie had long dark hair that she constantly wore in a single braid down her back. Her skin was darker than yours, and she had big brown eyes that stood in stark contrast to your own pale features. General Hux noticed it too, you could tell by the way he would sneak glances at her whenever she had turned to face the Tortutaru. You weren’t disgusted with him for looking; she attracted a lot of attention from both girls and boys alike, and she knew how to use it, but it still felt inappropriate. You still felt protective of her, and every time he glanced at her and did that cocky little half-smile of his, it made your stomach churn.

               The meeting didn’t take very long at all. He had simply asked about the Tortutaru’s history, which was not an expansive affair by any means, considering he had never really travelled outside his home planet aside from a few minor occasions. As he gets up to leave the room, Taro comes in, and Sadie and you switch seats. General Hux forces a tight smile in your direction, and you quickly force yourself to return it before he glances away. You can immediately tell he liked Sadie better, but that didn’t bother you in the slightest.

               Truth be told, I don’t really like you much either, pal, you say in your head. You turn to Taro and nod to him confidently, assuring both him and yourself that you are not intimidated by General Hux in any way.

               “Now then-“ General Hux starts, but he is interrupted by a knock on the door. “Come in.” There is a pause as the door opens, and Captain Phasma walks in, dressed in her signature silver armor. You smile up at her, politely, but she does not seem to take any notice of you.

               “Sir, your presence is requested. I’m told it’s important.”

               “It always is,” General Hux replies sarcastically. He looks at you then forces another smile at Sadie before he gets up and leaves the room. “I’ll return shortly.”

               Taro looks at Sadie and makes the sign for what? Sadie blinks at him in confusion, and you burst out laughing. You snap your first two fingers against your palm with both hands so loudly that there is a resounding smack as you hold your hands up in her direction. HA.

               “What?” Sadie asks out loud, repeating the sign on her hands.

               Taro taps under his eye and you spin around to face her, hanging loosely over the side of your chair to look at her. “The way he was looking at you,” you murmur.

               “Oh,” she sighs. “That.” She brushes her bangs out of her face. “He’s kind of creepy.” She realizes that she had stopped signing, and points to the door where General Hux had just left and makes a face, sticking out her tongue.

               Taro taps his first two fingers repeatedly against his palm, lightly echoing the motion you had recently made to show silent, gentle laughter. He turns towards you and makes the sign for interview followed by the sign for good. He tilts his head to the side.

               You hesitate. You want to tell him about Kylo Ren, but you don’t know if that would be appropriate. You don’t really want to talk to B about it, as you’re concerned what he will say if he knew you had accidently attracted negative attention to yourself, but at the same time, Taro was more or less your client. It wouldn’t really be appropriate to talk to him either. Telling any of the others seemed like an unnecessary risk to take, and you didn’t want to get them caught up in it, especially not Sadie. So was there no one on this base that you could actually talk to? Somehow, that seemed like an even worse position to be in. Apparently you had somehow captured the special attention of the most dangerous, powerful man on this base, and you were completely and utterly alone.

               Taro seems to sense something in your hesitance, but he doesn’t have time to question you further. The door slides open, and to your absolute horror, Kylo Ren walks in. The air in the room immediately changes. Behind you, you can almost hear Sadie making herself smaller as Taro sits up a bit straighter, eying Kylo Ren with weary concern. You immediately spin around in your chair and sneak a look at Taro out of the corner of your eye, silently waiting to take any direction from him.

               Kylo Ren’s gaze sweeps the room for a minute before he sits down in the chair that General Hux had previously occupied. He doesn’t look at you at all, and for once, you’re grateful for that. Taro turns towards you so suddenly that you can almost hear his neck snap as he tells you to sit in the chair next to Sadie. You immediately climb out of your chair and follow his instructions as fast as possible, resisting the urge to grab Sadie’s arm for support.

               Neither of them looks at you. Instead, they seemed to have locked gazes and were communicating purely by thought. The air in the room felt charged with electricity, and you couldn’t tell if it was because the Force was at play, or if it was because you were watching the mental energy of two powerful entities clash against one another. They both seemed to be intensely focused, especially Kylo Ren. His hands were gripping the side of the chair tightly with each gloved hand, whereas Taro’s posture suggested a stern, yet calmer, authority.

               Your attention is tugged away from them by Sadie, who glances at Kylo Ren with her eyes and then makes the sign for scary.

               You shake your head and lower your hands to make your gestures as hard to see as possible, so as to not call any attention to yourself. You shake your head and spell out the word mask and then make the sign for coward.

               She glances back at them and then back to you, making a face of confusion as she taps the side of her head twice with one finger. You just shrug, keeping your shoulders as close to your body as possible. You don’t have the faintest idea what they’re talking about. You highly doubt Kylo Ren speaks Tortutarune, so you could only imagine that they were trying to communicate in its rawest form: with mental pictures, with emotion, with pure energy. It was nerve-wracking. You didn’t need to see his face through the mask; the body posture alone suggested frustration. Whatever Kylo Ren wanted, Taro wasn’t giving it to him, or at least, not easily. Over time, Taro’s pose looked weaker as he leaned back in his chair, and you couldn’t tell whether he was struggling to maintain the mental energy or if he was in actual pain. Kylo Ren was sitting so far forward on the chair now that he almost may not have been really been seated at all, his hands out by his sides with his palms open, as if he were channeling.

               Suddenly, Taro turns to you and signs something to you. It’s a short phrase, a simple one, but you blink and make the sign for again. In truth, you were so caught up and focused on trying to see the mental energy expended between them as a tangible, physical thing that you had totally missed what he had signed. He signs it again, but you still don’t understand as you thrust your outstretched fingers into the palm of your opposite hand. Again. He signs it again, patiently, just a few simple signs, but for some reason it’s not working its way into your brain as a coherent thought.

               “What’s he saying?” Kylo Ren demands. You glance at him for a brief moment and look back to Taro, who repeats the phrase.

               “I, uh,” you stammer. You can feel Kylo Ren growing impatient, but you don’t understand what Taro is trying to say, you just don’t. The words are simple enough. You turn to Sadie in a panic, your eyes wide and desperate. Help me. What is he saying?

               Sadie sits forward a bit in her chair and gestures with her hand for Taro to sign it again. He does so and she bites her lip before looking at you and then back to Kylo Ren. “I think I have it right,” she whispers as she looks at you nervously.

               “What?” Kylo Ren demands. He gets to his feet, and you immediately thrust your arm out in front of Sadie in a reflexive, defensive gesture, ready to throw yourself between them if he were to approach.

               She glances at him nervously, then back at you. But she’s looking at you, really looking, as if seeing you for the first time. “He says you’re Force-sensitive,” she tells you quietly.

               You blink at her.

               Kylo Ren storms out of the room.

[antinonymous]

Our Friends

“Maybe these folk can bring us some good news.”

Kenny looked up from the desk that he and his brother shared with a scowl. It was a scowl in bitter agreement.

There hadn’t been a lot of good news recently. No, there were a lot of tensions. International tensions from issues mankind has dealt with for God knows how long. France has had a series of tumultuous leaders ever since their civil war, and the American colonies were yet-again filled with righteous folk preaching the end of the Monarchy. Kenny’s kid said to him that morning that he hoped one day to see the colonies.

Kid, our queen hopes to just keep the colonies, he thought to himself.

He still hadn’t replied to his brother Kemmy. He was generally upset that the two of them were assigned to work this case together in the first place. They both knew that there weren’t any genuine questions they could ask because the four men in their custody were all innocent with solid alibis, only taken to them to be rid of from America.

“Look”, he finally said, “We won. We have the four main people involved with the neo-revolutionaries and the People’s Continental Congress. There will be another culling for Queen and Country. They will learn -”

He spoke with plastic confidence.

“No we don’t. We have four influential men, yeah, but they are nonetheless entirely innocent. They are prisoners of war- an unspoken war. A rather embarrassing war. You should really reconsider my offer to leave. Trends look slim for British America. You can never kill ideas-”

“Oh shut the fuck up, Kemmy. It’s the modern day! The American Civil Wars had their times, their chiefs, their gods and their powerful men back in the 70s and 80s. George Washington is rotting! So is Elias Steward!  I’ll believe in the revolution when I see it. From what I see, revolution is dead! America is Britannia, and Britannia rules Supreme forever, so help me God!”

“Kenny.”

“What?”

“I know some kids drew a Betsy Ross flag outside your flat.”

Some silence.

“If we’re gonna get anything from these four Americans, I think you have to calm down first. We’re both well aware that colonies’ days are numbered and that our recent mass bombing striking 26 colonial cities means we may as well see what this fire is like before it burns everything in our theatre.”

Kemmy knew his brother like that, and always woke up early enough that he could check in on his brother as he slept, since Kenny lived much closer to the station. Even if he knew who did it, Kenny didn’t need to know.

Kenny scowled more intensely, saying “You sound like a separatist.”

Kemmy laughed.

“I’m a realist. Honestly, let’s just go in now. I think this is the calmest that I can get you.”

Finally, agreement.

“So who’s this first bloke?” asked Kenny.

“One Levi Wingley.”

“Ah yes, one of Steward’s personal henchmen.”

“The only one to come here willingly”

They began walking down the hall to the interrogation room.

“He’s the one of two who actually knew Elias Steward in person”, began Kemmy, “We have his brother and another one who met him a few times, but this guy is one of the founders of the original People’s Continental Congress in the early 00s. He smells rancid.”

They finally entered the room. Before them sat an old man with thick and short white hair wearing all red. His eyes were closed, and he was mumbling to himself in a language that the brothers could not recognise.

Kenny began.

“We need you to answer some questions in English, por favor.”

The man opened his brown eyes with a look of disgust.

“I’m practicing my Spanish for when I travel down there after I’m released. Do you honestly believe I intend to stay in England?”

“What languages do you know?” asked Kemmy, hoping he could mend the interview as it was happening.

“French, Spanish, Dutch and English.”

“Ah”, retorted Kenny, “From your college education, yes?”

Levi laughed, “From stealing your universities’ linguistic manuscripts”

Some silence returned.

“I was a tax collector from the University of Pennsylvania. God bless Benjamin Franklin. My formal education was learning how to, like a proper gentleman, reap what I do not sew. I hope you two are happy for the personal good that I’ve done for your economy.”

“Oh you’ve done plenty.” Kemmy was well-aware of both Levi’s anti-capitalist actions and history working for many British aristocracies. He had to deal with as well his own brother’s reactionary self.

“You went to the University of Pennsylvania, yeah?”

Levi nodded, adding,

”Pennsylvania was always my favourite. They don’t just quake when they’re spiritual.”

“How did you meet Steward?”

Levi was now inclined to scowl at Kenny, but he had no motivation.

Levi responded

“I don’t remember. I’ll be honest, Elias and I spent a lot of our time together doing copious amounts of drugs. I’d seen him several times throughout Philadelphia beforehand, but I remember he was, in a chance encounter, parallel to me on the street as the cops were harassing a man one night. Elias set him free, and I was there to pay the bail. Does an eye for an eye create blindness or visual depth?”

“What year was this?”

Levi struggled.

“Oh, it’s 1848, I met him in my early twenties. I’ll guess around ‘98. After I began hanging out with him was when we all really began experimenting with lots of drugs.”

Kemmy asked “is this what attracts people to the movement?”

Levi replied “the movement attracts the people to the drugs. People need an escape from reality every now and then. There is no soul, so we make souls. We need a heart where there is no heart, and the people thus find Opium. Monarchy and Capital create the Spirit of The World which I denounce as a Christian as the work of antichrist.”

“You complain about capitalism and imperialism and yet you do you so high as a kite while reaping the benefits of it!” said Kenny, thinking he was clever.

Levi lit up.

“Capitalism is not creation. In fact it inhibits the creation of new things when they are not profitable or marketable. Besides, the fact that we have this technology and this ease of use and this ease of life - I believe it is good. But, it is to embrace the common and ban the luxurious. And I intend to send this good out to the world. That which does oppress has with it the tools to liberate. It is the limited access to resources, such as drugs, that I fight against. I go after the cause of ailment.”

“Is this the type of stuff you and Steward would discuss?”

Levi looked at both brothers before responding.

“He and I did have conversations like this. These conversations have played out many times throughout many histories using many names and many languages.”

“When does it stop being a conversation? When does it turn into one of the most infamous court cases of the last 50 years? When does it turn into organised violence and nihilism?”

“The trial of Elias Steward was itself a conversation just like this. And that conversation started with the love of money. It was Jeffrey that betrayed us in Alexandria-“

“Why do you always need violence?” Kenny cut off Levi, but he was still calm.

“Our Party sought to re-unite the thirteen colonies under the peace of man and that which can fill every hand and every mouth. Mark my words- liberal revolution is the only one which will ever seize the thirteen colonies. Those terrorists from several months back do not see the black man as a man, and they have no comment whatsoever on women and the Indians. It will be based on capitalism directly, whatever America turns into. You don’t live in America, so I don’t think you don’t appreciate how Kaiser usurps our queen. Self-defence is very violent, and I’ll always only call for lots of self-defence. I wanted to create a country without capitalism. I aimed for only working to one’s needs.”

“So you’re like Jesus without the Christianity.”

“We wanted a union of workers leading the people instead of some arbitrary hierarchy which long outlasts their usefulness in civilised nations. 2nd Thessalonians 6:10: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

“Jesus didn’t call for violence.”

“Elias didn’t call for violence! What he and Jesus and myself always called for was the awareness that violence is always present.”

“Who was this Jeffrey person?” Kemmy asked this is a desperate attempt to get what they came for.

“Jeffrey was also a tax collector, but he was a reactionary. He gave away our locations to the government in 08, forcing Elias to court and forcing me into indentured servitude.”

Levi sighed, continuing

“I won’t beat around the bush; you have both myself and three of my famous allies with me, no? They won’t do you any good. None of those bombs were planted by us nor were we ever involved in the planning of the attacks.”

Kenny and Kemmy looked at each other. They already knew.

Kemmy asked, “then why did you agree to come here?”

“To watch this mess unfold from a good, safe distance. The others are to die in the crossfire, I presume.”

Levi began laughing again.

“The best you’ll get from us is a mild understanding of what people are revolting for. Now, Kenneth, Kemuel, may I please leave?”

The brothers looked at each other in angst, but left Wingley to be escorted out by other officers. Kenny was transcendent and unusually quiet as he and his brother strolled about watching Levi Wingley walk to a carriage and leave. By the grace of god, he was to survive whatever war.

“We’re still interviewing the rest of them, right?” asked Kemmy in a timid manner as they walked.

“Yeah. This next guy’s a lot younger. Marcellus Jonson. He’s a journalist who covers the neo-revolutionaries in the press.”

“Another scholar it seems.”

At this point the brothers were right outside Jonson’s room. Kenny had no emotion in his eyes. He pat his brother on the the back.

“Let’s learn.”

Before them in the room sat a scrambling man. He was looking at the walls in a mess, with his one hand twirling his short, brown hair and and the other below the table. He was the first to speak.

“What day is it?!”

The brothers didn’t want to be with this man for very long.

“It is Thursday, the first of June.”

Now his hands were in his lower head and beard. Kenny’s response must have not been well for him to have heard.

Kenny inquired “Is this important?”

Jonson was livid, replying “you arrested four of us, right?”

“Right.”

“Where are the others?”

“Well aren’t you the curious type.”

“...says the interrogator. Where are they?”

“My brother, Kemmy, and I have been assigned to deal with you four to get your testimony. Your friend Levi Wingley is on his way to some fucking port and going to the continent or wherever.”

“I could tell the crowd was quieting down.”

Neither brother had mentioned, to themselves or to one another, certain roughhousing taking place near the station by informed townspeople.

“We’ll be free to walk the streets of London by nightfall.”

“Well, whilst we have you, I would like to ask a few questions. I am uninformed, I’m an ameteur historian, the furthest one can be from an expert. What’s a man like Elias Steward doing with a boy like you? You began your career when you were 12- what’s- what’s his reaction?”

Jonson looked at both of them, having tried to forget the plagues of his youth.

“He and I had the same enemies.”

Kemmy chimed in, “the same enemies? That sounds like a process of elimination of what you know you don’t like rather than what you know you like.”

“Friends come and go in a different way than enemies do. It’s a division of identity among all of us based on mood, preference, and trust, among other things.”

“You’re missing my point.”

“I don’t care about your point! In different contexts I would perhaps discuss the ways of shaping identity. Are those the questions you’re asking?”

“No” answered Kenny, “in these meetings you attended, you became Steward’s friend. Now I’m his friend. Who are our friends? Why are they our friends?”

“Our friends need something. They lust. Our friends need to eat but sometimes can’t. They need land but sometimes have none and must be either indentured servant or landlord’s pet. Honestly, our friends are disgusting. They’re vile, sinful, lustful, sadistic, perverse, and wholly unclean. But their energy is never spent on fucking on me over.”

“Us” interrupted Kemmy.

Jonson smiled at him gleamingly.

“Never spent on fucking us over. Our friends are the victims of State and Capital. Cops are the tools of State and Capital. People can be good, cops can’t be our friends.”

His tone changed.

“But rest assured, our friends don’t massacre themselves en masse for taxation-related reasons. The men who carried out those attacks fucking hate our friends.”

“These are men are not with Elias Steward-“

“Quit bringing up that name! It’s meaningless and irrelevant! And yes, they hate him. His father was a slave, and your terrorists in America, who are likely already warring with the Empire, would never see him as anything more.”

Silence briefly engulfed everyone.

Kenny asked “then why are they so conflated?”

“Because there’s a range of deviation, a lot of deviation, from Empire. I remember hearing these terrorists get called Stewardites or Stewardists or something like that and that cannot be further from the truth.”

The man cleared his throat and spat on the floor, continuing “I know a bit about the actual followers of Elias Steward from the People’s Continental Congress from 1795 to 1808. A bunch of criminals whose writings I collected and archived. Do you have any questions about them? Look, Elias Christopher Steward was a man of the people, and people tend to misinterpret. He and his party didn’t really want to “free America”. He wanted to overthrow the world’s elite and have the world be operated by the worker’s; the actual operators. It would have been in North America, but the goal was to inspire others against imperial reaction. These terrorsists will fight against reaction, presumably, through the French, the Dutch and the Germans. But it will be a cold monster of a bourgeois nation with some other autocrat Washington. Can I leave? I am so sick of answering to yinz. Luka knows his shit, I’m so- please get me out of here.”

Kemmy asked what the rush was about, and Jonson replied that he fell in love on holiday with a man in his youth whom he had seen outside the police station.

“Luka Oxford? Is that who we need to ask about the acts of Elias Steward’s followers?”

“I haven’t slept in four days.”

With that, the brothers walk to Oxford’s station to have Jonson get out.

“Oxford wrote extensively on what happened to America after Steward’s trial”, Kenny says.

“Who was the judge of that? Wasn’t he famous for being a separatist sympathiser who executed him out of fear?”

“Uh,” Kenny hastily recalls, “Balder Byron. As far as I know, he was loyal up to his death, though it must’ve been terribly inconvenient.”

“I think he killed himself when he retired.”

“He worked other cases after that?”

“He had to.”

“Doesn’t sound like he had many friends.”

And with that, they’re at Oxford’s room.

Kenny asks, “who’s the last after this? Elias’ brother?”

Kemmy nods.

“So” Kenny says “I wont need much from him.”

They see another man with dark hair and dark brown eyes, just like Marcellus.

Kenny states “You Americans look all the same.”

He laughs remarkably, responding in posh Received Pronunciation.

“And cops.”

“Your friend Marcellus Jonson told me a few things about friendship. He told me lots stuff about friends.”

“He does that. I actually base my writing style off of him sometimes. A lot of us do.”

“And we’ve come to learn that not all of you follow Steward.”

“I mean, we all try to read him. It’s good to know what he did but his image has been distorted with time. During his trial, false accusations had been made of him of conspiracy with Satan, Jews and the Indians.”

“What?”

“That’s what got popularised. He was just a degenerate who wanted to end civilisation, and the Indians and Jews have had awful relations in America since. Everyone just blew Steward’s execution way out of proportion, and in the trial, those two groups were singled out as being the people whom Byron could be manipulative. After the trial, he plead for mercy by his fellow working class people, saying that he had to kill Elias, and that if he didn’t, everything would’ve actually gotten way worse for everyone. He tried to push the blame away from himself to save face. In reality, he executed a political radical and traitor; the leader of a Socialist party, and wanted to be the good guy. Even after his cousin was killed less than a year prior. ”

He puts his palm to his face.

“Are you men Christian?”

They looked at each other. Anglican.

Learning this, Luka asked for paper, ink and quill.

“Go buck wild” says Kemmy.

He writes to them

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good: His love endures forever.

“Psalm 107:1”

They examine the calligraphy.

“Steward is dead. Who knows who’s next? And I’ll die. But actions speak louder than words. This forever lasts. I remember once Elias was told that he was an impersonator through Philadelphia and he said to leave him be. We never learnt what came of him.”

“Thanks. You’re free to go.”

Kemmy says as they walk to their last man “we didn’t need a lot from him, are you planning on reading later?”

Kenny didn’t like reading. But the written word had powers. Kenny needed power.

They walk silently to John’s room. Kemmy says that life is absurd. Kenny lights up and rolls his eyes.

“John Eagle? I see you have had a name change.” Kemmy says.

“Is that what we’re talking about?”

“No, I can understand the need for a new name. I can’t imagine the type of stress that puts a person under. To be honest, we’ve asked as much questions as we needed to the rest of you.”

“...so I’m free to go?”

“Woooah there. Slow down. You can tell us one thing they never could, as his brother.”

“And that’s?- ?”

“What’s to come?”

“Who’s to say? Prepare for everyone.”

“What?”

“I don’t know what’s to come. What I can advise to you is prepare for everyone.”

“Who’s everyone?” Kemmy asks.

“They’ll show you. You’ll find everyone. And Socialism will always have the voice of criticism.”

Kenny laughs. He’s had enough of this.

“So chaos?

“Chaos.”

He walks out silently, and his brother is forced to leave after him.

“What?” Kemmy asks.

“Wait out here.” Kenny goes back into the room for a minute.

“He’ll be leaving with us.”

“What?”

“I’m taking John back to America. And you’re coming with me. And my family.”

Kemmy was happy to resign.

“Tonight.”

They both smile and clear their offices before leaving the building.

[redabiz2]

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