#drifting through life without any direction or purpose beyond survival.

[straydogged]

a lot of my high school "friends" are getting married to each other and other people I knew and it's... making me really fucking bitter ngl. like, I'm engaged, I have been for years. it's not that. I guess it's more like bitterness that they're all still friends. I know I didn't make much effort to keep up with them after dropping out, but the truth is I don't think I was ever part of that group the way I thought I was. I remember them planning a party I wasn't invited to in front of me, pretty vividly. I remember that they never seemed to really care about my presence one way or another... I was on the fringes. always on the fringes, tolerated at best. I was too autistic to pick up on that at the time, I think. sure, I had classes with them and we shared a lot of extracurriculars. and a lot of us had gone to the same middle school. thinking back, I think most of them had gone to the same elementary school, too.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I guess I just feel lonely. untethered. when I'm gone, who will remember me? not my classmates. not the people I thought I was friends with. it's like my life before 19 just never happened. there's only one tie left from my childhood.

[love-and-monsters]

Harpy Rescue

M monster X F reader, 7,143 words

You wash up on an island after a shipwreck. The harpy natives take you in and you find companionship with a certain healer who’s been caring for you. 

I stared blankly at the sky above me. I was lying back on a beach. The tide was coming in underneath me. The salt water stung at the raw scrapes on my back.

It was struggle to breathe. My lungs spasmed and heaved with every breath. All my energy went into keeping my lungs heaving.

It was ironic. The only person who survived the shipwreck was the one who would die anyway.

None of my limbs would move. I knew I wasn’t paralyzed, if only because that would have dulled sensation and I could feel every scrape and bruise over the surface of my body. I just couldn’t move under my own power.

 It took all my energy to keep breathing. It hurt just to breathe. My lungs stuttered over the air, threatening to stop altogether every time. Even with all my effort going into it, I still felt faintly dizzy from lack of air.

There were birds, enormous birds, circling overhead. Carrion birds, probably. They could see me lying on the beach and probably assumed they were getting a nice lunch.

The water was getting higher. It was a race, I thought morbidly. Would the water drown me before the birds managed to eat my entrails?

They were coming down more rapidly now. They were huge. Perhaps I would get lucky and they would fight one another for long enough that the waves would come in. I would take drowning over being torn apart hungry birds.

The tide was coming in faster. I could feel it lapping around my ears. A particularly strong wave made me sputter and I spent nearly a minute coughing and gasping. It was harder than ever to breathe. Perhaps drowning wouldn’t be substantially more pleasant than being eaten alive.

One of the birds plunged into a dive, spurring the others to follow. They drifted out of my sight and no matter how far I rolled my eyes back, I couldn’t see them. Great. I just had to wait in anticipation.

There was a crunching behind me, the sound of something approaching. Another wave struck me and I choked, coughing on the water. Black spots popped in front of my eyes and I felt my entire body heave, water trickling from my mouth.

A hand caught my shoulder. With a heave, I was dragged out of the shallow water and up onto the firmer beach. Tilting my head back, I managed to catch sight of my rescuers.

They hadn’t been birds, I realized. They had just looked like birds from a distance. My rescuers were a group of concerned-looking harpies.

If I had any sense of dramatic timing, I likely would have passed out then. It would have made the situation much less awkward, at least. But I remained stubbornly awake, staring up at the small throng of harpies.

Their heads and torsos were humanoid, but they seemed to have a combination between arms and wings. Their arms were feathered and there was a split at the wrists between hands and the final joint of the wing. Their legs were scaled and ended in large, heavy talons. All of them had deeply tanned skin and dark brown hair and feathers.

They spoke to one another for a moment, in a language I couldn’t understand. Then, the one that had dragged me up the beach bent over and hauled me into his arms.

The group headed off the beach and into the tropical jungle beyond. It was getting harder and harder to remain conscious. I faded in and out, struggling to keep my consciousness together. The blackouts grew longer and longer and the tightening pain in my chest was growing sharper. Breathing was almost painfully difficult.

Another bit of irony for me. I had been saved from drowning only for my condition to kill me right away.

The last thing I was aware of was the man carrying me speaking rapidly before I was deposited on solid ground with a jolt.

When I opened my eyes again, there was a ceiling above me. It was thatched, and there were several bundles of herbs hanging from the rafters. The pain of my body had eased, and though my chest burned, it had loosened significantly. After a few breaths, I had gained enough energy to sit up.

“Here.” Someone to my right pushed a bowl into my hands. It was full of a strong-smelling liquid that made my nose run and my sinuses clear almost instantly. “It’ll help with your breathing.”

The person next to me was the same man who had carried me off the beach. I hadn’t gotten the best look at him, but he had the same golden-brown feathers and his long, braided hair was done up in the same style. I dipped my head and took a few swallows from the bowl.

It burned worse than any whiskey I’d ever tried. I sputtered, eyes watering, but the tension in my chest did fade. The bands that had always restricted my breathing loosened ever so slightly and I gulped air gratefully.

The man outstretched his hands and took the bowl back. I sputtered a few more times before my breathing calmed. “What is that?”

“An old remedy for chest trouble. It’s steeped out of different herbs.” As he set the bowl on a nearby table, I realized something.

“You speak English?” I asked.

“Some. My aunt met with travelers many years ago. She taught me. Just in case.” He leaned back in his seat, stretching his legs out in front of him. Something behind him shifted and I noticed his tail, made of the same brown feathers as his wings. “You must have inhaled a lot of salt water. Your breathing was bad.” He tapped his chest demonstratively. “You were wheezing.”

“It does that anyway. But the almost drowning didn’t help.” I pushed yourself up in bed. “Where am I?”

“Healer’s house,” he said. “In Namori Village. You were brought here by the storm, yes?”

“Not on purpose,” I said. “I was sailing to Larmark. They have a good hospital there. I was going for an examination.” I rubbed at my chest. “I don’t suppose you have any ships heading in that direction?”

“We are not a sailing people,” the man said with an apologetic smile. I slouched back into the bed. I wasn’t as upset about it as I should have been. The treatment was supposed to find a way to cure my condition. Without it, I could be beset by a sudden bought of chest tightness that could kill me at any moment. It had nearly done so several times in my childhood. But I had lived my life with it so far. I was just back where I’d started.

“She’s up!” I looked up to see an older woman harpy leaning over me. “Thought I told you to call for me, boy.” The male harpy ducked his head, looking properly ashamed. “Took quite a beating from that storm. Lucky you made it to shore.” She flicked her wings. “We saw the ship go down last night. Didn’t expect anyone would survive. You’re lucky we noticed you.”

“There’s something wrong with her chest,” the male harpy said. “She wheezes.”

“Noticed that.” The woman looked me over. Her eyes were a piercing yellow. “Thought it was from the seawater. It’s usually like that?”

“Yes. Since I was a child. I had some sort of illness that damaged it. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I’ve never allowed it to bother me.” I’m sure my voice would have been much more reassuring, but my chest contracted in a cough and I heaved a few times.

“Perhaps you should let it bother you more. Give her more of that infusion, Nor. And recheck her ribs, just to be safe.”

“Yes, Aunt Aerath,” Nor said. She turned on her heels and strode off. We were in a back room, I noticed, small and full of warm light. Nor turned back to me. “Sit up. Drink.” I sipped more of the brew he’d given me while he prodded at my ribs. It was a little ticklish and I had to work not to squirm.

“Your ribs are fine,” Nor said eventually. “But your chest is weak.”

“Well, nothing I didn’t already know.” I rolled over, ignoring the sharp pains that came to me. “Can I move around?”

Nor nodded and I got up. He hovered close by as I shuffled around. I’d been stripped down to my shift, which would have been embarrassing if both of them hadn’t been wearing something similar. They both seemed to be wearing something like togas, though Nor’s skirt was long enough to trail on the ground. Both their outfits were a deep navy blue.

There was a partially ajar door and I stepped through it, onto the forest floor outside. The trees were enormous, towering over everything. Up in the branches, harpies darted back and forth, flitting between the branches. I could see nest-like houses nestled in the crooks of the trees.

“We’re on the ground,” I said. Nor nodded.

“Healers live on the ground. In case flightless ones come to us,” he explained.

 “Ah. That’s sensible.” I stared up, looking into the trees with some interest. At least if I was going to be staying there for a while, it was a beautiful, fascinating place.

Nor took me back inside and fed me a chunk of meat along with a few fruits. I needed to heat the meat over the fire for a little longer- apparently harpies liked their meat fairly rare. Aerath returned after that and forced a few more herbal brews down my throat, which she said would help with the pain.

“I expect I’ll be here for a while,” I said as I handed one of her cups back to her. My mouth tasted like I’d licked the underside of a stone. The brews were unpleasant at best, though I could already feel a numbness creeping into my injuries.

“Humans come by only rarely,” Aerath said. “And there isn’t much of a pattern. Our species is not water faring and we can’t fly to the next mainland. Ocean flight is not easy.”

“Which is a taciturn way of saying I am stuck here.”

“No more than us,” Nor said.

“Be kind. She has lost her home,” Aerath said sternly. I shrugged, leaning back in bed.

“It’s not as awful as you may think. I was sailing to a hospital, you see. It was likely I would spend the rest of my life there, which, even with all that care, may not have been very long.” I shrugged. “At least this place is better for the soul.”

Nor turned his head and spoke to his aunt rapidly in his own language. She frowned, but responded in the same way. I ignored the pair of them and moved back to bed. Despite not having been awake for very long, I was already exhausted. My chest stuttered as I tried to lie flat on my back and I paused for a moment, wheezing.

Nor darted over and adjusted my pillow behind me. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you.” Nor nodded, then slipped out of the room. Aerath lingered for a moment, looking at me.

“We’ll be upstairs if you require us. If you can’t walk, knock heavy things over until we come for you.” With that, she exited the room. The door closed behind her and I slumped back into the pillow, eyes closing.

I slept fitfully, especially after the pain medication wore off. By the time Nor brought breakfast, I was already up and walking around. There were several journals with detailed drawings of plants in them. I couldn’t read the writing, but I could see what the plants were and I spent some time matching them to the herbs hanging around the room.

“Quite an interesting journal,” I told Nor as he sat down to eat with me. “Did your aunt write it?”

He shook his head. “She is…” He struggled with the word for a moment. “Practical? A… practice? She remembers by senses, not words. But I need reminders.”

“You’re quite good at drawing,” I said. “I kept similar journals, though they sank with the ship.” He looked at me with clear surprise. “I had little else to do. I could rarely go out, so I spent much time in the gardens, drawing and remarking upon the plants. These remind me of my own journals.”

“When I am collecting herbs, I enjoy drawing them. Seeing nature. It is soothing.” He seemed to grow more excited, then composed himself. “I could show you garden, if you’d like?”

“I would,” I said. He grinned, then hopped to his taloned feet as his aunt entered the room.

I did not end up seeing the garden that day, principally because I spent much of it in bed. Nor stopped by every now and then, sometimes with food, more often with a new bundle of plants to tie up and hang from the ceiling. He seemed to go into a sort of trance when he was sorting the herbs, a sort of peaceful state.

It took a few days before I was approved to walk into town. “Don’t stress yourself too much. You’re still recovering,” Aerath said.

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Nor said. He fluttered his wings at his aunt, shooing her away. “We’ll be fine.”

Being without wings earned me a great deal of stares. I was viewed with some general suspicion, as far as I could tell. I was allowed to stay because there seemed to be a consensus that throwing me into the wilderness would absolutely kill me, and they had decided not to be that cruel. Not wanting me to die, however, did not necessarily mean that I was accepted by the community. Having Nor with me seemed to help, at least somewhat. He was at least well respected, and being in his presence absorbed you into his aura of decency.

The village seemed to have been built into the enormous trees of the forest. Several houses had been formed out of several trees carefully grown together through cultivation, and the living pavilion, formed out of ten trees carefully coaxed into growing around each other, was the great centerpiece of the town.

Getting to see the town as a group also drew your eye to the cultural similarities between them. A majority of adults had short hair, while children seemed to exclusively have long hair. There didn’t seem to be a clear age delineation between them. Based on appearances, Nor was older than a few of those with short hair, though no one under a certain age had their hair cut.

“Is there a reason for the hair styling?” I asked. “You wear your hair long, but most adults seem to keep theirs short.”

“Oh,” Nor said, with a tiny, dismissive flick of his feathers. “They are… erm. I am not certain of the word. Paired?”

“Married,” I guessed, and Nor’s expression brightened.

“Yes. Married. Part of the ceremony includes cutting hair. Most couples keep their hair short, to show they are with someone. Long hair can be difficult to fly with. To keep your hair short means you have someone who makes it easy to fly.” He frowned for a moment. “It is a pun in my language. It does not work as well in yours.”

“I think I get it,” I said. “But your aunt is unmarried and her hair is short.”

“She is…” There was a long pause. Nor seemed to be struggling to think of the proper words. “Bound to work? Committed to healing? Something along those lines, I believe. She is joined to her job as one is bound to a lover.”

I frowned. “Healers are like nuns, then?”

Nor frowned too. “Like… nones? Healers are not nothing.”

“No, like nuns. It’s spelled differently.” Nor looked entirely blank. I suspected he couldn’t write English. “Nuns are people who take vows not to marry so they can become closer to God, as I understand it. Healers do something similar.”

Nor still seemed confused. “Not all healers. Only Aunt Aerath.” He reached up and touched the long braid that was coiled on the back of his head. “I have… not decided.”

“Well, you’ve got time.” We were quite close to the healing house again, but I paused and leaned against a tree. My chest was squeezing again and I needed a break. “I never planned on marrying, really.”

“Why not?” Nor asked.

“I didn’t expect to live terribly long,” I said frankly. “I have spent much of my life expecting to die from a sudden attack. And then my parents suggested that I go to a hospital for treatment, and it’s rare to marry once you end up in those sort of places.” I smoothed my new robes idly. “I never expected to have a husband  who would be okay with his wife dropping dead at any moment.”

Nor fluttered his wings. “You are not going to die,” he said. 

“It’s all right. I’m content with it. I have been this way all my life. I value every moment now. It’s nothing new to me.” Nor still looked discomfited, so I patted his shoulder reassuringly. “Truly, I’m fine. We should head back now.”

Nor plied me with the strange, spicy concoction for my chest when we returned home. I drank the lot of it, at his insistence. It did seem to help. There was something about the warmth of it that relaxed my lungs and brought air in easier.

As my recovery finalized, I began to look for ways to serve my new community. It was not something terribly easy. I could not fly, or truly do any sort of intense physical activity, which limited my options. Sewing and weaving, actions that had often been suggested to me, held no more interest for me in the village than they had in my own home. Trying to manipulate tiny threads that tangled at the slightest glance was infuriating, and my frustration often ended in chest-heaving coughing fits. I tried to go back to writing my journals, examining nature and writing about it, but there seemed to be little actual use for it.

Eventually, I began tagging along with Nor when he went to collect herbs in the forest. He’d been going out more and more often, looking for new plants and writing furiously in his notebooks. I could read them more easily now, having spent a few weeks immersed in a crash course of his language.

“Just make sure you watch out for snakes,” Nor said as we trekked through the thick foliage.

“Look out for what?” I said. I was at the awkward stage of learning a language where I knew most common words, but words that were used infrequently were still lost.

“Snakes? Er. <Snakes!>” Nor said in English.

“Snakes,” I repeated. “Are there a lot of them?” I looked cautiously at the ground.

“No. Not a lot. But there are some venomous ones that bite if you step on them.” Unsettled, I lifted up the hem of my robe, peering cautiously at the leaf litter. The clothes harpies wore were not well-designed for people without tails or wings. I had needed to do some rudimentary tailoring to fix it into something I could walk around in. Shoes had been another problem entirely, mostly because harpies had tough, scaled feet and wore no shoes. I had eventually just decided to layer several thick fabrics together and essentially tied them to my feet. They were neither comfortable nor easy to wear, but they were practical and had stopped your soles from being shredded.

We made our way slowly through the woods. I ended up holding onto Nor’s arm wing for much of it. Never having worked out for long periods of time had left me fairly uncoordinated and leaning on Nor made it much easier for me to move about.

“Look. Norell,” he said, picking up a bunch of sharp-smelling, pink flowered herbs from the ground. “My namesake.”

“What are they used for?” I asked.

“Chest conditions, actually. They’re a big part of the infusion I’ve been giving you.” Nor had been giving me a regular doses of that infusion. Taking some in the morning seemed to loosen my chest for the rest of the day. “I’ve been trying to make a stronger infusion, so we’ll need a lot of it.”

“Are you predicting a spike in chest conditions?” I asked. Winter was on its way, and apparently, due to their large, powerful lungs, harpies were quite susceptible to issues like pneumonia and bronchitis. But that seemed to be counterbalanced by the fact that winter was mild on the island, more of a tepidly cool wet season than a proper snowy winter.

Nor shifted on the ground. His wings twitched a little. It was hard to tell, thanks to his deeply brown skin, but I thought I could see a hint of red creeping into his cheeks. “It’s for you, actually.”

I lifted my brows. “For me?”

“It’s been helping you recently,” Nor said, a little defensively. “I thought that a stronger infusion would help even more.” He frowned critically at the plants. “I want to get it as concentrated as possible. But there’s not enough in the gardens right now, so I need more.” He straightened up, tucking a bundle of plants away into his bag. “Also, infusions will keep a little better than the herbs themselves, so I can keep them for longer. You’ll need some when the growing season ends.”

“You’ll need some for others as well,” I said. “Keep some in reserve.”

“If you need it, you need it,” Nor said. “I’d rather give herbs to someone who definitely needs them than reserve some in case someone else might need them.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to fully heal someone who can be fully healed than to keep giving supplements to someone who will always be sick?” I said. Nor’s feathers bristled, shifting in agitation.

“All people deserve healing. Whether or not their condition is curable. I want you to be well.” His tone was so severe that I could do nothing but stare at him. After a moment, he seemed to realize what he’d said and he broke eye contact, staring at the ground. “We should, ah. Head back.”

He started trekking through the woods rapidly. Harpies were notably better at balance on uneven terrain, thanks to their long, gripping talons. I struggled to keep up with him.

We were getting quite close to the village when I felt the unfortunately familiar seizing sensation in my chest. I stopped dead, enormously regretting my walking speed that had left me a little breathless. It was growing harder by the moment to inhale.

Nor paused, realized I was no longer with him, and hurried back to my side. “Are you okay?” he asked. One of his hands moved along my back, kneading my tightening muscles. “Breathe. Breathe!” If I had the air for it, I would have informed him I was trying, and was well aware that I needed to be breathing. Unfortunately, all my energy was going into not allowing my body to suffocate me.

Nor abruptly decided that simply telling me to breathe was ineffective and changed tact. “Hold on!” This turned out to be quite literal because he seized me around the waist and hefted me against his chest.

It was impossible for a harpy to fly while carrying something, because their arms and wings were one and the same, but I could have been fooled considering how fast Nor was moving. He plunged through the forest as fast as the wind. I would have been more impressed if I wasn’t struggling to breathe at the moment. As it was, I was aware that we were moving at quite a speed.

Nor was back in the healing house within minutes. I was unceremoniously dumped on the bed and Nor darted off, rummaging through a cabinet with a noise of wood rattling and glass clinking.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said. He knelt next to me, turning my head toward him. “You just need to drink this. Okay?”

I tried to inhale enough to speak and it stuck in my chest, sparking a coughing fit. Nor looked panicked and thrust the little bottle he was holding into my mouth. I sputtered, but some of the liquid spilled down my throat. There was a mild tingling and my chest loosened.

With my breathing abruptly eased, I could keep taking small sips from the bottle. The tightness loosened with every swallow. Nor slumped next to the bed, wings sagging with relief. I put down the bottle, still coughing, but breathing easier.

“Are you okay?” Nor asked. I nodded.

“You can move quick,” I said. My voice was raspy and a little strangled. I swallowed, trying to fully clear my throat.

“I was worried,” he said. “You should try carrying a bottle of this with you from now on.” He walked over to the cabinet and fetched a small bottle full of the infusion. “If you’re going to be going out more often, you’ll want something to prevent more attacks.”

I took the bottle. “That’s a good idea.” I set it down onto the table next to the bed. “Are you inviting me on more herb gathering missions, then?”

A slightly shy smile crept up Nor’s face. “If you’d like to come. You’ve been pretty good at spotting plants. And you’ve been pretty good in the gardens lately.”

“I was never really able to do a lot of gardening before,” I said. “So, I tended to overfocus on the little minute details, like soil quality and the amount of water you give the plants.”

“You’ve improved the garden a lot,” Nor said. “Oh, which reminds me. Hold on.”

He stood up and trotted over to the cabinet again. After looking through it for a few moments, he pulled out a small notebook and walked back over. “Here,” he said, presenting it to me. It looked like the notebooks he used for his own notes, a smooth black cover and soft, slightly off-white pages. “I haven’t taken many notes on the gardening aspects of herbs. I just… haven’t been very good at it. But I thought you could start taking notes on how you care for the plants. It might be useful.”

I took the notebook from his hands. Our fingers brushed as I did so. His skin was warm and calloused, the sort of skin that only came around after long, hard work. The notebook was heavy in my hands, strangely dense for such a small item. “Thank you,” I said. “I would love to do that.”

Nor stood, shifting on his talons. “Good. Um. You should probably get some rest. I’ll be back in a bit.” He hurried out of the room. I watched him go until his tail had completely vanished around the doorway.

Working in the garden only brought me closer to Nor. We spent time together every day, either going out to gather herbs or helping him with the garden. He was enthusiastic to learn and good company even when we weren’t talking about plants.

His ease with me spread to the rest of the village. By the time winter was over, I had been completely accepted as a part of the community. To them, I was not as much an outsider human as a strange, wingless harpy. Even Aerath trusted me enough to allow me to learn how to make herbal remedies, while Nor took on more of her duties, like diagnosing illnesses and dressing wounds.

During early spring, when the rains began to ease, a change set in around the village. There was a new current of excitement, the younger adults spending more time showing off and engaging in stunts. Even Nor, who had been fairly even tempered in the time I’d known him, seemed to get caught up in the excitement.

It was during my usual work in the garden that I noticed the changes were not confined to emotional. There was a physical change too. Nor’s tail feathers, usually a deep golden-brown, had taken on a rusty color. The color only brightened over the next week, going from a dull, sort of reddish orange to a bright crimson. The colors showed up on the male population of the rest of the village as well, to varying degrees. Some, especially the younger males, never got past a reddish orange, while others got to the same brilliant crimson hue as Nor’s.

While it garnered some sort of notice and people seemed pleased about it, no one was talking about what it actually meant. It clearly meant something, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why it was so important.

Eventually, after some time of trying to figure out what it meant on my own, I broke down and decided to ask Nor. “Your tail changed color,” I said as we headed back into the house from the garden.

“You noticed,” Nor said. His tone was utterly unreadable.

“Well, it’s a bit hard to miss. It’s a very bright color.” Nor’s unreadable expression shifted into one of clear embarrassment. “Is it something I shouldn’t mention? It seems to signal something, but I wasn’t sure what it was-”

“No, no. I mean, I guess I should have expected you to ask about it. You’re not a harpy, so you never would have been told.” He set the herbs he’d collected down on the table and turned to me, giving me his full attention. “It’s almost spring, which means that we’re approaching our mating season.”

I felt sort of stupid for not hitting upon that idea earlier. Of course. The red was to attract a mate. Was commenting on it some kind of social faux pas? As I tried to come up with that to say next, Nor continued. “We’ll have a mating ceremony soon, with the other local villages. It’s a big event, so everyone’s getting rather excited about it.”

“A… mating ceremony?” I repeated. How carnal were we talking? Was I going to have to make myself scarce for… how long did the mating ceremony last, anyway?

“It’s not as bad as you’re thinking,” Nor added hurriedly. “It’s more of a competition? Or a show, really. It lasts about a week, and the first six days are more of a festival than anything. Lots of feasting, games, shows. It’s more about getting to know the other villages and the people from them. It’s quite fun. The festival ends with the mating ceremony. It used to be a more literal interpretation of that, a long time ago. But now it’s really more of a show. Men fly around and show off, but it’s less to attract a mate and more to show off to someone you already have an attraction to. Or to get someone to ask you out, sometimes. It’s more for the fun of it and the tradition.”

“It sounds interesting,” I said.

“It should start in a couple of weeks. That’s the peak of the season,” Nor said. “I can show you around a bit, if you’d like.”

“Sure. If you’re not going to be too busy trying to find a soulmate,” I said, nudging him playfully in the side. He shrugged, glancing away.

“I’ve never actually participated all that much in it,” he said. “I’ve been kind of focused on my studies with my aunt. I spent most of my time at the last few festivals working with the other healers.”

“You should get out more, then. I can help your aunt out, if you want. Then you can go off and see the sights.”

“I already told you I’d show you around,” Nor protested. “And it’ll be your first festival.”

“Look, at least get a little time to yourself,” I said. “I can help out, you know.”

“We’ll see,” Nor said, which was as close to agreeing as I thought he was going to get.

The weeks passed slowly, with excitement ramping up as the festival got closer. I could almost feel the tension buzzing in the air, getting ready to overflow. By the time it had arrived, I was almost swept up in the rising excitement.

The fairground for the festival was a large clearing in the center of the island. It had an impressive view of the sky, and the ground was almost entirely covered in tents and attractions. Nor and I were toward the edge of the grounds, in a sort of makeshift medical tent. “We probably won’t be called on for a little bit,” he said once we’d finished setting everything up. “I can show you around.”

“Sure,” I agreed. Nor trotted off, and I followed after, looking around the festival with interest.

Most of it seemed like the sort of festivals I’d seen once or twice when I’d been young. Ever since my chest troubles had set in fully, I’d rarely gone far from my house. It looked mostly like a very fancy market. People showed off their most interesting wares, their most brightly colored or intricately designed trinkets. There were several people slightly younger than Nor picking up things that I assumed were for potential sweethearts. There were also several games, most of them for children, but a few clearly styled for adults. The food was the usual hearty fare that I’d seen at other festivals, enormously delicious and decadent.

“And this all lasts a whole week?” I asked as we made our way back to the healer’s tent. We had gotten sidetracked a few times- there were several musical performances and talent shows, and even a few classes that I’d been interested in taking.

“Well, the first and last days are the biggest ones. But yes, the whole week. For the most part.”

“Then you can take a day or two off and enjoy all this, can’t you?” I said. Nor hesitated for a moment. “I can handle things at the tent. Why don’t you take tomorrow off? It’ll be good for you to get a break.”

Nor hesitated. “I’ll have to ask my aunt.”

“I’ll make sure she says yes,” I said. “You deserve it. Especially after having to take care of me for so long.”

Nor shrugged and mumbled something about it not being a big deal. I laughed clapping him on the shoulder.

“Just take some time off. Okay?”

He agreed, finally, and we returned to the tent. There were a few injuries, of course, mostly young people trying to show off for their potential lovers, but nothing we were overwhelmed with. It took only a bit of persuading for Aerath to give Nor the next day off.

Nor went out only after making sure I kept my infusion on me. “Just be careful,” he said.

“I’m always careful,” I told him. “Now, go. And stop worrying so much.” He made a face, but left for the rest of the fairgrounds, leaving me with Aerath and the other healers.

I only spotted him a few times during the day. He seemed to have attracted a small group of friends by noon. It seemed he could get along well with others, as long as he managed to get out. Well, I reflected, he was a sweetheart. It wasn’t hard to believe that he was able to get along with others.

I’d been breathing relatively easy for so long that I hadn’t really been expecting another attack. So, when the bout of tightness came on with no warning, I was so shocked I couldn’t think of what to do for several panicked moments.

My wheezing attracted Aerath’s attention. She grabbed my shoulder and shoved me down onto a cot. I fumbled for the infusion, and Aerath helped me unstopper it and press it to my lips.

The infusion helped, but my chest still felt tight. I could draw in air, but it wasn’t enough. Black spots started to pop in front of my vision. My chest screamed with pain. I was dying. That thought sat clear and calm in my brain, rising above all the panic like foam over a tide. I’d known it was going to happen. I’d hoped it would take longer. But at least… at least the last few months of my life had been nice. My mind drifted to Nor. Hopefully he wouldn’t blame himself. He didn’t deserve that. He’d been wonderful.

Nor’s face was suddenly over mine. I blinked up at him. Ha. A nice hallucination before everything ended.

“Breathe!” Distantly, I could feel a hand on my chest, another at my mouth. Something sharp and bitter flowed past my lips and I choked, sputtering. My chest loosened abruptly and I sucked in a great breath, coughing and choking.

Nor, who I was gradually realizing was actually there and not just a hallucination, rolled me onto my side. Some of the solution drained from my mouth as I coughed it up. Nor rubbed my back vigorously, prompting another round of coughing.

Gradually, the tightness eased to just a faint raspiness and a raw pain. I sat up as Nor sank into a seat, weak with relief. “I thought you were going to die,” he said faintly.

“I did too.” My voice was gravely and everything felt raw. “The infusion wasn’t working. What did you use?”

“It was experimental,” Nor said a little sheepishly. “I’ve been trying to make it stronger, something that works better.”

“Thank goodness it did,” I said. I got slowly off the cot where I’d collapsed. Nor stood as well, staying close by like he was preparing to catch me.

“Maybe we should fine somewhere to rest,” Nor said. “The attack probably took it out of you.”

Despite your protests, Nor followed you back home and insisted on staying with you. “Just in case,” he kept repeating.

Nor kept near my side for the next few days, even when I tried to gently push him to spend time elsewhere and enjoy the event. The only times he seemed willing to leave was when I was going with him, at which point he took great enthusiasm in showing me around the various games and events that were being held. Being near him allowed even me to make some new friends- those who would have been unsettled by the sight of some strange, wingless creature seemed reassured enough by Nor’s friendly presence to approach.

Despite his insistence on sticking with me, I did convince him to take another day off for the last day of the festival. It was the day of the mating ceremony, and, given that Nor was of proper age, possibly even a little old, to participate in it, I wanted to give him time to do so.

The showing started at noon sharp, when the sun was at its zenith. Most of the people flying were male, though a few women had painted their tails red and were flying as well. A few would take off at a time and move in carefully coordinated dances. Some were conservative and simple, others were aggressive and risk-taking. Eventually, they would land back in the throng of people staring at the sky. Some of them landed and slipped off with a single partner. Others landed and seemed to attract a group, each of the admirers vying for attention.

After about an hour, I meandered off to the bank of a nearby river. Watching harpies fly was interesting, but it did get old after a while and I was getting a crick in my neck from looking up.

I had only been soaking my feet in the river for a few minutes when Nor walked up to me and sat down next to me. “Wondered where you’d gone,” he said. “Doing all right?”

“Fine. You don’t need to be so worried.”

Nor dipped his talons into the water. “Mm. I guess. But I do anyway.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” I said. “You spent half of the festival trailing after me like I would collapse the instant you took your eyes off me. And now you’re missing out on the flight ceremony.”

It was hard to tell with his deeply tanned skin, but I thought Nor went a little pink. “I wasn’t really planning to fly anyway,” he said.

“No one caught your eye?” I asked. There was a long pause. “Nor?”

“Not as such,” he said. “I mean… Sort of.”

“And you’ve been spending all your time trying to look after me instead of enjoying the festival with her,” I said. “You know, I don’t need you to hover around me. You don’t need to feel guilty if anything happens to me. I’ve known I’m probably not going to live that long.”

Nor’s expression twisted a little bit. “I’ve been trying to fix that. I think I’ve got a concoction right. If you take it daily, it should help you-”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Hey. You don’t need to spend all your time on me, you know? You can have a life. You’re not responsible for me.”

“It’s not about that,” Nor said. “I wasn’t worried about you. Well, not just that. I…” He stopped for a moment. “I wanted to spend time with you.”

Oh. That created a runny sensation in my chest, like my heart flipped over. “You wanted to-”

“Don’t be that surprised. I haven’t really been subtle about it,” Nor said. “Yes. I like being around you. Why did you think I kept inviting you to do stuff with me and stayed with you instead of going to the festival?”

“I thought you just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to suffocate in your absence,” I said.

“A little bit. But mostly because I like you,” he said. He peered into my face, a tentative smile on his lips. “You don’t seem upset?”

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m pleased, actually.”

“Really?” Nor’s face was quite close to mine. His lips were parted. I could feel the soft warmth of his breath.

“Really.” Our lips were quite close to touching. Just before making contact, Nor seemed to stall, hesitation overcoming desire. I smiled and leaned in, pressing our lips together in a gentle moment of contact.

Neither of us had much experience kissing, so it was a bit clumsy and we clacked teeth more than once. Still, when we broke apart, I felt breathless in the most positive way I’d ever experienced.

“We should go back,” Nor said, still staring at me. “I… I think I want to participate in the ceremony after all.”

I smiled. “I’ll be watching.”

[luminess-brightcoil]

No Matter What You Do

All instruments recording the ongoing spread of the scourge pandemic indicated a rapid increase in risk of safety, up to and including the roaming dead in the very streets of Stormwind. What was once recommended to simply be a matter of staying off the streets and increasing security measures has changed with similar rapidity, up to and including the recommendation of immediate evacuation for all citizens of Stormwind, leaving only the Stormwind Patrol, the Argent Crusade, the Ebon Blade, and any of Azeroth’s Champions that were so moved to contribute to containing the absolute carnage at hand.

As the topic was broached for what this means for the great underground metropolis of Mechagon, Luminess Brightcoil balked at the data, though she Observed it in totality and took it upon her processing parameters to integrate this new data into her daily routine. To say the outlook was grim would be an understatement. To say that she was growing exhausted of grim outlooks would be even more of one.

Even a Beacon is prone to bouts of personal dismay. It was quickly becoming one Titans-damned thing after another for her. Starting and ending a revolution. Joining and ending the Fourth of Four Wars. Defeating the encroachment of the Old Gods. The Return of the San’layn. And now, this: Death itself, and whatever forces direct it upon Azeroth. And all of this within a single year. 

On days like these, a Beacon would wonder why she ever left the island in the first place... 

Luminess sat amongst her peers in the Think Tank that was assembled for the purpose of analyzing and developing an expedient solution to the matter of the scourge invasion with the Gnomish population at its focus. The scent of recirculated air through coppered ducts intertwined with the effervescent presence of warm, freshly applied toner as gnome and mechagnome alike scanned through document after document. Every finer point addressed, every corollary counter-examined, every contingency remodeled and re-assessed… And yet it was the general consensus of those present that not much headway was made just yet. 

Except for Walton Cogfrenzy, Chief Architect of Mechagon, who maintained that he had a very simple and direct plan of response, that in any other context would have been seen as antithetical to their current societal trajectory, and now perhaps its only chance for survival: 

Complete Lockdown.

“We will establish a temporary teleportation network between here and Tinker Town,” Walton explained. “Citizens of Gnomeregan can be funneled into our now half-vacant halls along with all our Gnomadic kin. Following that, remaining available space and resource accommodation can be afforded to our Dwarven cousins, though it is projected very few would be willing to retreat from their own beloved city. Still, we must press them to do so, and once we have evacuated all that we may hold and accommodate safely, access to the network will be severed from all entry points.”

The King shifted his weight from one side of his seat to the other. By far, the once High Tinker but now King Gelbin Mekkatorque would be the least Kingly King you could meet. He was conscientious to others. He yielded space and listened more than spoke. He sought counsel for all decisions, tall or small. Betraying the good will of his people was unthinkable, just as he would strive against working against their humbler wishes. And more often than not, you had to remind him of his now-regal station. A station, it is said, he has been working to reform away from the obsolete protocol known as the 'Divine Right of Kings.' Perhaps such topics could be addressed more directly when things were Quieter. But in either regard… Luminess, for one, was grateful to have someone so unlike the Mad Tyrant that, for now, she was willing to give the whole Monarchy thing one more chance.

“It will be difficult to convince the Gnomereganians to take refuge,” sighed King Mekkatorque wearily. “Many believe they’re perfectly safe within the walls of Ironforge, despite the surrounding snowy climate being far more tactically advantageous for the Scourge than even the tranquil forests of Elwynn or the unimpeding flats of Durotar. And even so, their pride is at stake to some extent. They won’t take easily to being confined to another underground kingdom, even if it is ostensibly theirs. Over time, we of Gnomeregan have become more and more like our Gnomadic cousins than not as the impossibly high toll taken by Thermaplugg continues to plague our once-hallowed halls, figuratively AND literally.”

“And so I would hope they would be difficult to convince, your highness.” Intamin Diveroll, renowned prosthetist and out-speaker, swiveled his chair towards Mekkatorque just slightly as he respectfully interjected, but kept his gaze upon the Chief Architect. “Your plan puts our now-combined kingdom at risk of recreating the exact same scenarios for destruction that had befallen either of them. Suppose we are all holed up here and one of our vaunted city’s life preservation systems should fail, or worse: sabotaged by ne’er-do-wells known or unknown. Suppose the invasion never ends, and to quell a dissatisfied populace, a new Mad Tyrant emerges to place them back into order under the guise of Public Safety. And should neither fate befall us, and we merely survive through the ordeal to a ruined Azeroth or… continued indefinite life underground, even in prosperity… that would make cowards of us all.”

“It is not… Cowardice to prioritize survival! It is the only acceptable option,” pressed Cogfrenzy with just as much proud conviction on display as he hid his secret guilts. His servos whined under his weight as he leaned forward against the conference table with the coiled-bulb lamps glowing above his exhausted, perspiring brow. “And the only safe one. Our Kingdom is the most secure against external threats of any on Azeroth. Our doors open and close only to us, and our walls are impenetrable against all alien threats. Anyone who enters without the aid of our own kind is instantaneously vaporized by our unparalleled city defenses. For five hundred years, a full-length default gnomish lifetime... our security was so assured that the rest of the planet knew not even of our existence. We were effectively anonymous. Fel, we even have the capability of sealing off all access to the Azeroth’s vast network of Arcane Leylines, guaranteeing that not a single soul enters or leaves through the mightiest of mage portals!”

As the King ran his fingers through his whiskers, Luminess’s face belied only a hint of bemusement as her gaze slide sideways to one of her closest companions to examine his face for a reaction to that last sentence. Indy would offer none. But she knew. They both knew.

“My King,” Indy gently prodded, turning his trademark winning smile towards his liege. “The Rustbolt Revolution demonstrated to us that the answer to our prosperity lies not here exclusively in Mechagon. It lies in Greater Azeroth. And to that end it is not only such that we should not run away, but we should fight to defend it alongside everyone else.”

King Mekkatorque smiled at Indy gently, reassuringly. “On that, we are in total agreement, Good Doctor. We are no longer two kingdoms of Gnomes. We are one, and beyond that, we belong to the mighty Alliance as well. And defending our world from imminent threats within and without is the Alliance’s primary function, after all.”

The Beacon stirred in her seat, squeaking it at the hinge as she leaned forward onto her elbows, fingers tented before her face. She refused to comment on the political trajectory of the Gnomish populace, for now. Instead, she turned to another of her companions that she insisted be included on this Think Tank for the sake of the wealth of information he contains as a single entity. “Cornelius,” she addressed him from across the table.

“Hello, User!” came the chipper response from Mister Tribulatus, self-aware as ever, and the Beacon remained quite proud of him for achieving that.

“Known methods of Scourge Incursion, please, listed."

“Query accepted! Running diagnostics…”

The room fell silent, save the soft stirring of seats in anticipation, and the soft ting-ting of a spoon inside a cup of coffee, one of a great many that were filled and spilled on this auspicious day. 

“Results compiled. Scourge are known to make entry into populated areas through the following means, alphabetically: Aerial Delivery. Burrowing. Contagion. Localized Necromancy.”

All eyes in the room, save Cornelius’, slowly drifted over to a mechagnome seated at the end of the table, brow bedecked with ostentatious horn modifications. His focus was trained on an asymmetrical paper football formed out of one of the documents on the table, and his attempts to ‘kick’ it through a ‘goal post’ made from used coffee creamer cups and stirring rods. His clamps fail to provide the manual dexterity needed to perform the maneuver, but after eighty-seven attempts so far, the man was not about to back down now. However, he felt the familiar sensation of an entire room of his alleged peers judging him all at once, and so he looked up.

“... What?! Titans Testes, I’m not a Necromancer, I resurrect myself with CLONES,” protested one Doctor Theodorp Wimblewomble the Sixth. Or was it Seventh, now? The people of Mechagon had only his word for the answer. 

“The Fel practices are adjacent to Necromancy are they not?” the Beacon inquired, with earnest sincerity. “Perhaps in this way you can offer us insight?” 

“You’re asking an electrician to fix your toilet,” chided Theodorp as he unceremoniously failed his eighty-eighth attempt to score a field goal. “Fortunately for you I am learned of a multitude of means of delivering Doom.” 

The King rubbed his eyes with a gloved hand before flipping open the box of donuts on the table, deciding which of the remaining flavors might quell the madness he felt in this moment for including a pseudo war criminal on this Think Tank. Take him away, Blueberry Glazed.

“For certain, this Kingdom is advantageously impervious to outside threats, as the Chief Architect asserts. Titans know I’ve tried and nearly succeeded countless times to perviate it myself. Yes, that is a real word.”

All of the eyes that were cast upon Theodorp quickly volleyed to Cornelius. Instinctively, he clicked and whirred in place before speaking: “Perviate. Transitive Verb. To enter, bore into, or run through. Would you like me to search for more information regarding Perviation?"

Professor Theodorp Wimblewomble the Sixth silently threw his clamps into the air, victorious over all who dared to doubt him, once again. As the gnomes around him (save Cornelius) collectively stifled their groans, he permitted them immediate reprieve of a well-deserved gloating, and continued...

“As my criminal record shows, I’ve only had so much luck attempting to bring various forms of Fel into our kingdom. The Titan-Energy Interference from the Engine that we’ve made our home into is a natural repellent to both the Fel and Necromantic efforts from exterior sources. Our Previous King spared no effort or expense at seeing such impure practices all but eradicated or imprisoned.”

He takes a moment to feel very smug about being the only practitioner of either who isn’t currently technically imprisoned before continuing: “Ultimately, our greatest concern, second only to simply allowing the plague to enter our halls through contamination of persons or produce… would be someone like me infiltrating Mechagon and finding a way to succeed. For the Fel, we have no particular need of concern as ever. But in the case of Necromancy, they would not need to open a portal, they would simply need to locally source some corpses right here. Which could be remarkably easy, considering the whole proposition to keep the walls closed and sealed that no one could possibly enter or leave.”

The Think Tank of gnomes, already silent, somehow fell even more deathly quiet. No one liked that.

“Then it would not be enough to simply close the doors and shutter our windows,” the Beacon spoke wielding a voice laden equally with certainty as hesitance. “It would require a near-constant monitor of every individual’s vital signs, and restricted movement for all throughout the densely populated areas. We would effectively not be merely bunkering in for our physical safety, but we would need to place the population under a functional quarantine for the first few weeks simply to ensure there is no undetected viral agent is able to spread. We would require anyone taking refuge here to comply with these regulations, or…”

She gulped as she choked on her words in this moment. Indy peered at her searchingly. Cornelius smiled at the wall. Theodorp was on the edge of his seat, waiting for her to finish her thought. King Gelbin Mekkatorque simply listened, chin upon thumb, cheek against finger, elbow against armrest. 

“... Or be placed under secure, supervised quarantine. Just for the duration. And ethically, of course. This is for… public safety.”

Theodorp clinked his clamps excitedly under the table with a wide, toothy grin while Luminess attempted to meet Intamin’s gaze. But when her optics searched for his, he had already turned away. She sank in her seat just slightly as her lips tightened and her face drooped just a bit. 

The King nodded slowly as his own eyes searched in the far distance, into the invisible thinkspace we all have for flaw in this reasoning. And whether he found zero flaws to be had, or he simply accepted the known flaws as they were, it was not made clear in his exhausted sigh that set his moustache billowing in the wind blown forth from his lips.

“You speak the Truth as ever, Beacon,” decreed the King. “If we are going to do this then it would be folly to employ any half-measures. BUT... we will make sure that all who are so quarantined for the duration will have the inconvenience of their sacrificed time compensated, their needs of survival and personal comfort fully provided for. They are our people, our family and friends, and we will make their stay at home a veritable paradise until the situation is under control. To do any less would call into question the foundations and integrity of our very society’s principles in a manner we simply do not have time for right now, or possibly ever. Have we reached consensus?”

The assembled members of the Think Tank all offered their agreement in unison in low grunts of affirmation and/or raised hands. Even Intamin, after a moment. Luminess quietly sighed in relief, allowing her jaw to finally un-clench itself.

“Then the matter is settled upon. Beacon Brightcoil, I am counting on you to ensure that the quarantine efforts are carried out in a safe and ethical manner the people will find agreeable. Spare no expense. The rest of us will reconvene after a one hour biological break to discuss our efforts abroad aiding the campaign in Icecrown and the Eastern Kingdoms. Titans Observe that it will be Gnomish Ingenuity and Determination that brings a swift resolution to this crisis!”

The King’s counsel and subjects before him all responded with an assured nod and an equally assured utterance of “Titans Observe,” even Doctor Theodorp Wimblewomble the Sixth or Seventh.

With that, King Gelbin Mekkatorque bowed his head with a soft chuckle and made haste towards the door, eager to get out of being in a meeting for however long he can manage it today. Luminess, making similar speed, exited behind him as the others shuffled their belongings in order. 

Intamin gave chase.

“Beacon? Oh, Beacon?” cried the man playfully behind his companion, who laughed as she slowed her pace to allow them to walk on parallel paths. “I was simply wondering which personal liberties I would still be afforded while imprisoned in my own private paradise prison.”

Luminess rolled her eyes and nudged him with her elbow, shaking her head as she chuckled softly. “Really, Indy, the situation is dire enough without you nagging at my personal principles over my duties as a Beacon.”

The prosthetist cackled quietly beside her, grinning all too wide as he satisfied himself with her acknowledgement of such a Truth. “I am teasing, of course, my dear… Nothing about this is easy, and though it burns at my very soul to admit it… this is a necessary action to take. So long as it remains a stopgap, and not a solution. And Titans Observe that I may rest easy knowing you are at the lead of such a project.” 

“Titans may Observe it so… but they shan’t,” Luminess responded softly.

Intamin jogged in front of her to impede her movement, narrowing his ocular sensors to thin lines as he looked over her features for any sign that she might be joking. She was not.

“... You will not be staying? But you said--”

“I know that I spoke in favor of quarantine and I stand by that. It is what is right for our people, both of them, all of them… But it is not my place. For certain, This Unit could perform the task and do it well, but I am by no means the only one capable of doing so."

Intamin looked her over curiously. "Did not the King ask you to do it yourself?"

Luminess allowed a sly smirk. "He merely asked me to ensure it will be done. I will reach out Wenzli Cogsalvage to manage this in my stead. She is the finest community organizer I have seen since the end of the Revolution. And though I am beloved by many, as a Beacon I am still mistrusted by the same amount or more for our ties to the Mad Tyrant’s Orthodoxy and the work that remains in our reform thereof… By contrast, she is of the people in a way I can never truly be ever again, and will therefore be more efficient in inspiring trust in this time. In addition, since it is Wenzli... I will have the added bonus of most people simply mistaking her for being me anyway, as normal."

The prosthetist clicked his teeth. She certainly had a point, if not several, but he was not letting her off the hook so easily. "And so if your place is not here, Miss Brightcoil… Then where is it?" 

A brief question inspires an eternity in a split second of consideration. Where, indeed? Was her place in Stormwind, with the Embassy as an Ambassador? Was her place with Prince Erazmin and the Rustbolt Resistance, now expanding their field of operation to fight back against the emergent Scourge threat? Was it with the other medical professionals of the Azeroth Medical Association, searching for a long term solution against the contagion and the short term efforts of caring for those currently afflicted? Was it with her mercenary allies in the Dragon Corps or the Fence Macabre, beating back the hordes with them and other Champions? Was it by the side of those she held dear, one small clutch of beloved friends or another? 

Luminess smirked just for a moment before lifting her gaze to Intamin. Her eyes flickered Gold with the Light before she answered him with a warm tone.

“Uncertain. But what you said earlier rings true again: Wherever my place might be… it is quite clear that the answer is not here, in Mechagon. It is out there… in Azeroth.”

Intamin couldn’t help but allow a smugly satisfied grin plaster his face, flashing that perfect one-millimeter gap in his front teeth as they bit lightly upon his tongue to stifle a boisterous guffaw that would otherwise spoil what could be looked back upon as a tender moment.

“Titans Observe,” he said simply, and embraced his friend tightly with both arms, squeezing as hard as he can, as he always did, knowing that once again, this could be the final opportunity to do so. “But I shall not allow you to continue your adventures abroad unaided. Your previously requested modifications are complete and awaiting installation back at my workshop over a splendid Torcolato I’ve been saving for just such an occasion.” 

“Mister Diveroll, there is absolutely nothing that I would enjoy more at this precise moment,” said Luminess, as she sniffled once and dabbed at the corners of her eyes with the collar of her ceremonial garb after returning the embrace of a beloved friend and confidant. She then grabbed hold of his arm for escort down the winding path from the High Tinkertory, down to into the city which she held so dear, the city which until only still so recently was all she had known.

And as she walked, audibly promising the matter was settled to her companion, she continued to silently deliberate within herself over it all... whether she was making the right or wrong choice, whether there was an optimization to their plans she failed to find, whether or not it was hopeless to even try, endlessly as she would, as she does, and as she has, every single day of her life.

And as such... she prayed to the Titans, as she did, every single day of her life, that they may Observe her following the ideal path.

Tell me what your spirit says Show me what you pray Teach me every single part I'll be your guide You are a prisoner Looking for to be You can change your face But can't change your mind No matter what do you do No matter what do you do No matter what do you do No matter what do you do

[lonelyopinions]

A Story of Healing, Forgiveness, Adversity, Wisdom, and Improvement

This is the story of a young man who needed to find where he belonged. A man who felt out of place everywhere he was until he realized what his life was missing. He had to reinvent himself several times before he got it right, but he eventually *did* find his peace. His story is as true as it needs to be for others to benefit and learn from his experience.

It’s also the story, to one degree or another, of everyone who has found themselves in a similar situation.

I hope this helps all of them. Hold on. Things will work out for you.

His name is not important. What his story can teach others is.

Although he did not at first realize it, he was born into a broken and abusive household. His parents never really meant to harm him -- but, as is so often the case, well-intentioned people often hurt the ones closest to them not out of malice, but simply because they are flawed. His mother, to be precise, was the product of a severely abusive home, herself. She also had had a major head injury and, probably, a variety of mental illnesses. Thus, although quite clearly very well-intentioned, his mother often was an extremely anxious, alarmist, and controlling woman. After the young man had become more mature, he would realize that his mother’s behavior was caused not by her being evil, but simply by the fact that she had been quite damaged.

Her husband, the young man’s father, was almost completely dominated by his mother. This was not because the young man’s father lacked a spine or courage or sense (in later years, the man would recognize that his father had all of these virtues and many more in abundance), but rather because his father was not terribly wealthy, and his mother, for the most part, owned most of his family’s money. Throughout their troubled and often horrid marriage, the young man’s parents were constantly fighting, mostly about money. Beyond that, though, his mother was actually fighting for stability and control -- something that, for a person with serious mental health issues, was ultimately very important.

This domination by his mother led to some very unhealthy dynamics in his household.

The young man had an elder brother and a younger sister.

His brother went on to become very ambitious, headstrong, tough, and dedicated. Despite this, his brother had some serious flaws. Perhaps because of this brother’s good qualities, his brother was also often very judgmental, arrogant, and, on occasion, cruel. The young man had, through the stupidities and insecurities of youth, done serious harm to this brother on occasion, and he and this brother fought often and bitterly. Although there was often intense hostility and sibling rivalry between the young man and this brother, this brother would also go on to do quite well, eventually being accepted into a prestigious college after a superb high school career. When he thought back on his early life, the young man would later realize that his brother’s toughness and drive probably came from the severe adversity his brother had had to go through in the absence of caring and attentive parents. The young man would thus eventually come to view his brother with a combination of respect and admiration, and would beg forgiveness from this brother.

The young man’s younger sister did not have the elder brother’s drive and ambition, but had also gone on to make a life for himself. The young man was glad that his siblings had made lives for themselves.

The young man’s own life turned out to be far more troubled.

Although there was never much point in rebelling against the authority and power of his two parents, the young man would spend most of his adolescence fighting a hopeless battle against their unfair rules and restrictions. Not only were these rules and restrictions damaging and dangerous, but they were also so extremely unfair.

Even as a youth, the young man knew that rebellion was ultimately futile. His parents simply had all the power and money, and he had no legal right to insist that they behave fairly or to request that they justify their behavior. Still, he rebelled anyway, if only because his parents’ behavior was so outrageous that it almost demanded rebellion. In the end, he defied his parents simply because not doing so would have made him submissive psychologically.

Perhaps because of this, the young man had a very troubled adolescence. He would often skip classes, run away from home for significant periods of time, and neglect his homework. He was also diagnosed with clinical depression around age 15, and his life at home quickly deteriorated into chaos. As his behavior and mental health declined, his mother’s behavior became more and more histrionic, intense, controlling, domineering, and bullying. These problems led him to do very poorly in school, and he would spend the later years of his adolescence just surviving one crisis or another. Although he would eventually graduate from high school, his performance had been very mediocre, and he had lost a lot of potential to these problems.

Due to these and related issues, the young man would spend most of this adolescence and 20′s simply coasting through life, jumping from one menial job to the next while taking a very light load of college courses. Far too much of his life was spent “just getting by”, without a clear idea of what a meaningful or happy life would be like or a clear idea of how to create such a life.

As it turned out, in addition to his troubled childhood, the young man also had another, insidious problem that prevented him from gaining a strong sense of meaning or purpose from any particular career path or area of study.

Perhaps because of his unusually troubled childhood and life, the young man had, very unfortunately and unwisely, become a “deep thinker”. Although he recognized that this had certain great advantages in helping him think clearly and carefully, he also had a certain odd indifference and apathy towards many of the things his peers and friends found interesting. It wasn’t that he could claim that the things his peers wanted in life were bad -- they just were missing something. It wasn't as though status, money, sex, fun, and prestige were bad -- it was just that the young man was searching for something else.

This would cause the young man a great degree of trouble during his adolescence and early adulthood. Not only would he never feel a strong attraction to any particular area of study, but he would often avoid socializing and interacting with his peers due to this odd feeling that something was profoundly missing from these social events.

It was due to this and similar problems that the young man would ultimately waste his 20's. Before he knew it, he was on the cusp of his 32nd birthday, with few accomplishments to show for it and very few interests. The man often wondered why he was so indifferent toward most of the world and the people and things in it. His life had become a pathetic, apathetic, grey shell of an existence. Would this be the rest of his life, drifting aimlessly from one distraction to the next without any real profound sense of meaning or direction? He hoped not, and because there was still hope that this would not always be the case, he continued surviving -- but never living. In a fit of desperation, he turned toward contemplation of his problems and philosophy as both a consolation and a self-diagnosis.

And that's when it happened. He suddenly had an epiphany. That's when everything changed.

He realized in a sudden flash of insight what his life had been missing. Finally, after so many years of aimless searching, he had his answers. Things finally made sense.

He had been contemplating the many problems he had gone through in his life when it struck him. Without quite knowing what had prompted him to this realization, he slowly came to a conclusion about what his life had been missing -- the something missing that he had never found.

It was simply faith in humanity.

This point needs to be clarified. For most of his life, the young man had been a die-hard pessimist. This was not because he considered pessimism to be edgy or intellectual or cool, but rather because so much of what others deemed so deserving of worship was, ultimately, not what they thought it was. For some people in the young man's life, they had preached the value of their religious beliefs and devotion to God. For others, patriotism and nationalism were their bedrock. Still others simply tried to live as happy and pleasurable a life as possible, thinking these goals were the main reasons for the majority of human civilization and progress. And yet others claimed that he should help his fellow man.

But the young man had seen through each of these. When it came to religion, the young man felt he had very strong reasons to be an atheist. When it came to patriotism, he knew that, while serving other individual people might be worthwhile, his country had done horrible things in the name of national pride, prestige, and power. And, oddly enough, even living life for the pleasure and happiness that one could get from it rang hollow. Happiness, he had realized, was not a result of pleasurable, exciting, or comfortable surroundings. Happiness, instead, was a byproduct of living a good life that one was content with. Perhaps some people could live life happily with only creature comforts, fun, and hedonistic pleasures. However, the young man and most of the human race required something more -- a sense of meaning. He realized that all the luxury, fun, and free time in the world would not satisfy him. At least, not by themselves.

It was service to humanity that appealed to the young man the most -- but eventually it, too, was promptly dismissed. The young man had, once upon a time, been idealistic. He had earnestly believed that the world could be saved -- if only enough people combine their efforts behind a common cause and work toward furthering that cause.

Pessimism and experience would eventually leave the young man disillusioned from this dream. Although many people in the world had shown him the potential for good in human behavior, it had always seemed to him that humanity's potential for immorality was far greater. Furthermore, when people were charitable or generous toward strangers, it was often due to an underlying assumption that the stranger was, in general, someone fundamentally good and worth helping – which, the young man reflected, was not necessarily true, by many people’s standards of the word “good”. Add to this the fact that people had a right to their own opinions and very frequently chose to believe senseless or irrational things or make senseless or irrational choices. Bettering the world was, the young man reflected, a very hard thing to do on any notable scale.

However, in a sudden moment of clarity, the young man saw the flaw in his previous beliefs. Although large scale change might be too hard of a thing to hope for (large scale changes were usually caused by large numbers of people mobilizing), the young man saw a quite different and far more reliable and compelling reason for morality. On the level of individuals¸ a great deal of good could be done. As the young man thought about this more and more, he realized that his biggest regrets in life were the times where he had hurt others out of his own insecurities, and that the proudest moments of his life were the instances where he had encouraged or helped others. Helping other individuals on a day-by-day basis, the young man realized, was worth the effort. For some strange reason, the young man had gotten the foolish and pessimistic idea into his head that only large scale changes in humanity mattered – that, since society at large wasn’t going anywhere, it was ultimately pointless to try to change things.

Now, though, the young man saw the error of his ways. He had a new purpose in life, and a new reason to be the best person he could be, and it had nothing to do with believing that human beings were all God’s special snowflakes, or with denying the hard truths of this world. Going forward, the young man would pay attention to the good that could be done in the world, from the daily decencies and kindnesses toward the people in his life, to the small acts of humanity and generosity he could accomplish. He felt, for the first time in a long time, like he was moving forward and like he had a purpose worth working toward and fighting for.

It was true that he had lost a lot of time.

But he would catch up, he realized.

[xathia-89]

Chandeliers Part 1

It was a ball beyond anything that Japan had seen in recent years. Chandeliers had been bought in especially for the evening, the best champagne and sake had been sourced, and they had hired only the best in terms of waiters, chefs and security.

It made Shingen smirk to himself as he nursed the cognac in his hand. The Emperor had gone all out for this one as his friend, Kenshin was stood next to him and watching the room with a keener eye than the Duke of Kai could manage while knocking back enough sake that would tranquilise an elephant. He secretly suspected that the man had several livers, or he was a robot running on sake.

His date for the evening was a perky little girl who spent her life at these parties, she was all looks and no brains, but it was an easy date who didn’t complain at Shingen for his lack of commitment. Kenshin would often scoff at the man, but the two would never turn each other down for some gambling or drinking together. She was about to drag him onto the dance floor, amongst the spinning masses and allow him to possibly read the room some more. There had been no formal reasoning for the ball, but there were so many rumours flying around that it was nearly impossible to pin it down.

Then he spotted one of his contacts also on the floor. A daughter of a Lord, and as knowledgeable as they can. She inclined her head to the Duke as they caught each other’s eye. She would be his next dance partner, as he purposely spun off his date to meet up with Chiyome.

“Apparently there’s a princess present, from one of those little known places,” she smiled, performing her part in the dance perfectly as they breezed past several other nobles. “She’s meant to be a pretty face, but I’m not sure what nation she comes from or how far up in the line to the throne she is.”

“You’re slipping,” Shingen teased, spinning the woman away with grace.

“They’re playing this one close to the chest, she may even be looking for a husband,” Chiyome replied, ignoring the comment. “Would you even want to be considered as a potential husband?”

“I like what I do,” Shingen began, but a pointed look from the woman made him falter. Technically there was the expectation of continuing the line with a wife, but it was always something that he had put off, saying he wasn’t ready.

The song promptly ended, and then the room just seemed to turn to the platform at the far end of the ballroom.

“His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Naruhito!” The speaker announced, giving way to a room bursting into applause.

Shingen had already laid eyes on a few individuals who he had never gotten on with, including the Duke of Azuchi and the Duke of Mikawa. Both of whom were standing with the Earl of Osaka and looking equally disinterested in being present. He could assume safely that the Duke of Oshu would be around somewhere, probably within the range of the food and kitchens, and it was often that the Earl of Tanba would be about as well.

The Emperor’s speech was full of riddles, entrapping Chiyome’s attention as she stayed with her arm hooked in his.

Until she sharply pulled him down to meet her hissing voice.

“My rumour was true. A princess is looking for a husband!”

Shingen was trying to hold in his smirk until he locked eyes with the Earl of Tanba, who was also probably sharing that tidbit of information with the three men.

“-and I am delighted to introduce Princess Sienna of Rutwaki to Japan,” the Emperor was smiling like a man introducing his daughter at her debut.

The building shook with a force that hadn’t been experienced before. Shingen was keeping Chiyome upright, but the walls weren’t sounding so secure.

“Fire!” A staff member yelled and plunged the room into a panic.

Everyone was rushing now for the exit, expelled from their stupor and stunned status and in the need to survive. Shingen was being dragged by the woman on his arm, screams of terror and shouts of direction filled the air as the telltale noise of the structure failing was now the soundtrack to the event.

Names were being shouted through the air, and indistinguishable from each other.

“Shingen!” One of his longtime friends ran up to him, physically checking him over as Chiyoma waved her goodbye to go and find her father.

“I’m fine, Yuki,” he promised, trying to catch his breath on the grand lawn. It was a chaotic storm of staff and guests, not that anyone was in charge truly while trying to work out just what to do.

“You can thank Princess Sienna for this!” A mad cackle attracted the focus of the madness, and another explosion wrecked the building, sending up more debris, shaking the floor and plunging the whole place into further disarray.

The following morning showed the extent of the damage. Thankfully, no one had been killed, just a few people with broken bones and smoke inhalation who were treated at the local hospital on the Emperor’s insistence and expense. It was all over the news, and the focus was on the fact that the idiots had blamed Princess Sienna for their actions. A lot of the newsreaders were calling for her to go home, but it soon became apparent on the internet that things obviously weren’t that simple.

Shingen was staying with Kenshin, it didn’t feel normal at all to go home and sleep, instead, they were both glued to the news.

A knock to the door surprised them both, before Kenshin’s head butler let himself into the lounge area.

“Terribly sorry sir, there’s a rather insistent messenger who claims to be from the Royal Palace with a message for you and Duke Takeda,” his accent was clipped and precise, as to be expected from someone with his level of experience.

“Send him in then, I haven’t tried my swords out in some time,” Kenshin’s smile was haunting, and the other men knew he spoke the truth in not hesitating to strike a man down if he was in the mood.

The messenger was dressed in the royal crest and colours, a formal outfit that was seen on the inside of the palace only before he bowed swiftly to the two Dukes in front of him, before pulling out two letters. Both of them were stamped with the Emperor’s personal wax seal. Something that neither of the men had seen before, it was something that was only mentioned in the circles they drifted in. This was obviously something valuable from their Emperor before the messenger disappeared as quickly as he arrived.

“I get the feeling we’re about to find out more about the ball,” Shingen spoke with an uncertainty, weighing the envelope up with a great distaste.

***

Sienna was shaken to the core.

She hadn’t taken those threats seriously, everyone on her security detail had declared them to be trivial and merely to stir up fear. Now she had brought danger to another nation, and she didn’t blame the news reports one bit.

Her security was fired the second the Emperor had to take her in under his protection.

Now he was under arrest for giving the incumbents an opening to kill people.

Sienna was truly alone in a foreign country, though it wasn’t for the first time. It was the first time she was facing such a backlash for being herself though.

She had grown up in the British education system under the best private schooling that money could buy. Her mother had sent her away until she was eighteen to learn, without her father’s permission. She had been jailed for that action, but it was refused to return the princess on the basis that there was no need for a forceful extraction after she had voiced at the age of twelve that she wished to finish her education. Her friendship with two princes had always stirred international headlines, but there was never any romantic attachment between any of them, and she was just glad for the company and to have people who understood.

Her country was very set in its ways. Men were the rulers and were always in charge. Women were there to make house and children, and it was said the best way a woman could ‘repay her husband’ was to bear him a son to carry on his lineage. The education was clearly split between the genders, with women trained to do the housework and how to look after children, while men were educated for a career. Domestic violence was rife, and the bigamy laws were never enforced. If a man wanted a woman, and she wasn’t married, then the woman had no defence. Her only way to escape it would be to marry another man before she could be wed to him.

Sienna was also the King’s only child. She was the legitimate and sole heir to the throne, much to the disgust of the aristocracy. Even any mistress had failed to bear an heir, her father was impotent by all means, but it was only the woman’s fault, of course. It was disgusting to know what was expected of women in this era in her country.

They had tried marriages of all sorts between Sienna and the various Lords and their sons of Rutwaki. All failures of the highest degree. There was even a rumour that her father was reportedly going to bed her in order to produce a valid heir for the throne. Something that Sienna had previously dismissed as a fallacy, but now she was scared to return home without at least a fiancé.  

The Emperor had taken her in out of sheer kindness, and their discussions were long ongoing. With repeated interruptions from staff members until it was confirmed that Civil War was brewing at her home. It left her with a difficult situation before she loathed to ask the Emperor if there was any way that Japan could help her.

His falter told her everything, and she smiled.

“I take no offence, you have gone out of your way as is, I can appreciate that this is a delicate matter,” Sienna had been all grace last night, but the Emperor had told her should she marry someone of significance from Japan then they could definitely argue intervention in the parliament.

The Emperor had called a morning tea with some of the bachelors of the aristocracy. Not that she was expecting this to be anything beyond a marriage of convenience. Saving her country was her priority right now, and this was the only way to do it that would cease the impending civil war.

A knock at the door brought her out of her trance, and the maids came in with a new outfit for her to wear for the event. A pale pink skirt with heavy netting that made it fluff out, and fell to just below her knees, and a simple shirt with sleeves to the elbow, and a faux cross front in just off white. She would look the soft wife to be in this combination, nothing like her true self that would be hidden until she could ensure that things were going smoothly.

Shingen was more than a little suspicious on his arrival with Kenshin to the Royal Palace in the mid-morning chaos. They weren’t the only ones who had been invited as Yukimura and Sasuke were also present, and then a string of other men.

A middle-aged man and woman were stood in front of the giant doors to the private tea rooms. Neither of them had spoken or even moved since anyone had arrived until a loud ring sounded out for silence was in the hand of the man, and the entrance was bolted shut.

“You have all been summoned here as a preliminary for meeting Princess Sienna,” the man opened. Shingen swore he looked so stiff that he was expecting to need some oil in his joints, but there was a seriousness that couldn’t be laughed off.

“You will go through several tests to whittle your numbers down and ensure the best chances for the Princess,” the woman stated. “Please stand around the edge of the dance floor and you will be called forward by name to show your etiquette.”

The tests were simple. It was ensuring that the man could actually dance, had the appropriate level of manners, could eat correctly at such events, how they presented themselves and their knowledge on Japan as a country. It surprised Shingen more how many of the fellow aristocrats couldn’t do it all. There were eleven of them in the end, and the tension was palpable.

“I see these are the gentlemen who could stand up to the global view then,” the Emperor spoke from behind them, startling the room as the staff then appeared exasperated. The Princess was on his arm, looking demure and feminine before she glanced over the candidates. “There was no point in allowing for those unable to uphold the scrutiny of the world to be put forward. This is a marriage which could define Japan of course,” he stated and caught several of them off-guard.

Then the Emperor’s gaze was on Shingen, before switching to Masamune. The two of them were known womanisers. If marriage was the end goal, then it was likely to not be him.

“I can tell from your gaze who to avoid,” the Princess spoke sharply and demanded the attention of the room. “Duke Shingen Takeda of Kai, and Duke Masamune Date of Oshu. Both of whom are not going to shine the best light on Japan, and will dig up more gossip than I could already cope with aside from ceasing a brewing civil war in my own country.”

Nobunaga Oda was captivated by the woman’s voice and defiance. She was everything that she didn’t look like. She knew why she was doing this before the princess was shown to a seat by the Emperor, and she was going to make them all work to impress her for sure.

[robertfrobisherslover]

The Depths of the Ocean 

...

Jaime smiled at her, and though it was all but an echo of the ones he had gifted her in the past, it warmed her better than any fire.

“I wanted to die in the arms of the woman I loved,” he said softly, and Brienne pursed her lips together to stop herself from breaking in front of him. His hand loosened its grip on hers, and traversed up her body to her face. She thought she could see the reflection of her tears in his eyes before realising they were his own. “And I thought that after… after everything I’ve done… or everything I’ve done to make amends for everything I did, that I deserved to.”

He didn’t say it like a fact, instead like he was asking her permission. The man who had killed a king, who had betrayed the throne many times over, who had fought the dead by her side, asking her permission to die in her arms. And it was more than that, she realised – it was a plea for her to tell him, to finally let him go knowing that he had redeemed himself. The look on his face betrayed his fear that she would reject it.

She breathed in heavily.

“You do deserve it. You deserve more.”

He closed his eyes and inched across the sand, pressing his lips against her forehead. In a brief moment of madness, she laughed a little at the thought that had they been standing, she would’ve had to have ducked for him to reach. But the laughter died in her throat when she realised that Jaime Lannister would never stand on his own two feet again.

He couldn’t die lying down.

Brienne pulled herself up into a sitting position, and, with all the delicacy and grace that she had never mastered, she managed to get Jaime up from the sand too. He immediately slumped onto her shoulder, pressing all of his weight against her side, and Brienne knew she would’ve carried every pound of it for the rest of her days if it meant he would survive this.

But the gods were not that forgiving. Nor were they that cruel.

(From the top - that bit was just an excerpt, not the beginning!!)

“Ser Brienne. It’s him.”

Two words. Two words that she had both longed and dreaded to hear. Her hands did not shake – she had trained herself out of that a long time ago (it was no good to be a knight whose sword-hand shook at the first sign of danger) – but she could not stop the tremble in her lips, nor the sudden pain in her chest as if Oathkeeper itself had been forced through her heart.

The days since he had ridden away from her at Winterfell had become unbearably long. The sun dragged across the sky as if it did not wish to pass, and the night settled in almost begrudgingly, the moon and her stars uncomfortable and hesitant in the sky. It felt as if her whole life had come to a grinding halt; her mission complete, the war over, no battles left to fight. The righteous light she had followed ever since she first picked up a sword at six and put it down thirty years later… it had been extinguished. Directionless and lost she had returned home, hopeful to find some semblance of a purpose. And perhaps to leave the memories of what had been – and what could’ve been – behind her, locked away in another land where she could not touch them anymore. Where they couldn’t hurt.

“Where?”

The words snapped like icicles falling from a branch, and she regretted them, seeing Podrick’s blanched reaction. He stared down at the floor of Evenfall hall and directed his answer towards the stone there instead.

“By the beach, Ser,” Podrick replied, “He ran aground but a few minutes ago.”

Brienne dropped her head into her open palm, her elbow propped up on the armrest of her throne. Not quite one made of a thousand broken swords, but one that gave her rule over this land all the same. She was sure this one was just as cold as the one in King’s Landing.

She anticipated Podrick’s next words before the squire even had the time to put them into a sentence, and she blinked away tears that she could not afford to shed in this hall. Not that she would deign to waste any more on this man. Even if he had broken her heart. Even if he had left her in the snow. She clenched a fist. No more.

“He’s asking for you.”

She rose from her makeshift throne and stood high above all the noblemen left to serve her house. She towered above them, ants beneath her, men who had scurried away during the Great War and hidden on the isle. She hated keeping company with them, hated that they had abandoned their oaths at the time for which those oaths were written, but it would not do to banish subjects. Not when there was so much to be repaired. And it was not as if she were not used to the company of men who had broken their promises.

She had heard some of them talking about her. When she was a child, they had called her naïve. Now, still carrying the weight of all that she had done to keep herself and the people she was sworn to alive, they had the gall to call her bitter. And it wasn’t bitterness. It wasn’t. It was that she finally understood the pain of losing: not of being defeated in a joust, or the constant rejection she had faced her entire life. The pain of having something so beautiful in the palm of her hand, and it falling from her grasp. She understood the pain of having gold, and having to give it away.

She gave Pod a tight-lipped smile.

“Of course he is.”

Jaime Lannister was not in good shape. She hadn’t expected him to be, but even so it was clear. This was not a man returning to her begging for forgiveness. He was here to die.

She was accompanied down to the beach by a few members of Tarth’s council – men eager to get a look at the man who had bedded the first female knight in the history of the Seven Kingdoms (which was perhaps a kinder consideration than she had expected, though still not one that she cherished) – and her loyal companion Podrick Payne, who had refused to stay in Winterfell without her. But the moment she caught sigh of dirt-blonde hair set against the wet sand and the deep blue sea, she banished them all. This was not a moment she wished to share with anyone else than him.

If the contrast of his hair against the shore was noticeable, then the carmine streaks of dried blood up the sides of his boat, moored nearby, were moreso. There were wounds in his sides, both infected beyond the skills of any master living or dead. His face was pallid, bearded and thinner than she remembered: the face of a man who had been drifting out at sea for far too long.

If he had been half a god before, then surely now he was Icarus, brought down from the heavens to her feet.

And yet, as he turned to look at her – with visible effort, and a deep groan that seemed to resonate through the sand to rattle her bones – the mere sight of him, of the green eyes that had consumed her on so many nights in the North, began to stitch together the mess in her chest that had festered for too long.

She lied down in the sand next to him, too close to the ocean so that every wave that made its way inland soaked through her boots. She barely noticed.

His voice was a rasp. It hearkened her back to the last time she had seen him so ill, to that bathtub in Harrenhal all those lifetimes ago, the first time she had looked at him and saw a man worthy of her respect. He had fallen so much further since then. And yet he was still the most beautiful thing Brienne had ever seen in her life.

“I’m sorry,” he said, quiet enough that she could have mistaken it for the breeze. They were coming to the end of winter now, but Tarth always caught the end of the season worse than the rest of Westeros. The sky above them was clear and brilliantly blue, but there was a chill in the air that should’ve made her shiver. And yet…

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated, reaching for her hand and bringing it to his cracked lips.

She knew then. She understood. He had not left for love – or rather he had, but not love for his twisted sister. Love for her. And at the end of it all, he had come back to her.

“It’s okay,” Brienne murmured back to him, shifting on her side to look at him. They latched onto one another’s gaze and the rest of the world fell away from them for a few moments at least. It felt as if they had dropped off the edge of existence. And she wished with all of her heart that they could stay that way, just for a little longer.

Jaime was struggling with his breathing, so Brienne took the reins of the conversation.

“It’s okay,” she said again, even though it wasn’t, even though nothing about this was okay, “You came back. It’s okay.”

He gripped her hand as tightly as he could in his left. She noticed his golden hand was nowhere to be seen. It was probably destroyed in the dragonfire that had left King’s Landing nothing more than a burnt out crisp, a hollow shell of a kingdom that had once been the envy of all the world.

Jaime smiled at her, and though it was all but an echo of the ones he had gifted her in the past, it warmed her better than any fire.

“I wanted to die in the arms of the woman I loved,” he said softly, and Brienne pursed her lips together to stop herself from breaking in front of him. His hand loosened its grip on hers, and traversed up her body to her face. She thought she could see the reflection of her tears in his eyes before realising they were his own. “And I thought that after… after everything I’ve done… or everything I’ve done to make amends for everything I did, that I deserved to.”

He didn’t say it like a fact, instead like he was asking her permission. The man who had killed a king, who had betrayed the throne many times over, who had fought the dead by her side, asking her permission to die in her arms. And it was more than that, she realised – it was a plea for her to tell him, to finally let him go knowing that he had redeemed himself. The look on his face betrayed his fear that she would reject it.

She breathed in heavily.

“You do deserve it. You deserve more.”

He closed his eyes and inched across the sand, pressing his lips against her forehead. In a brief moment of madness, she laughed a little at the thought that had they been standing, she would’ve had to have ducked for him to reach. But the laughter died in her throat when she realised that Jaime Lannister would never stand on his own two feet again.

He couldn’t die lying down.

Brienne pulled herself up into a sitting position, and, with all the delicacy and grace that she had never mastered, she managed to get Jaime up from the sand too. He immediately slumped onto her shoulder, pressing all of his weight against her side, and Brienne knew she would’ve carried every pound of it for the rest of her days if it meant he would survive this.

But the gods were not that forgiving. Nor were they that cruel.

They sat in silence for a small time, clutching onto each other, both aware of how little time they had left.

He was so close that she felt his voice on her neck.

“This is a nice island you’ve got here wench. I saw it once, from a distance, a long time ago.” He stopped for a moment, reminiscing, stuck in a memory of the past. “Back when I thought I was never going to see you again.”

The pain laced through his voice in that exclamation lanced through her like poison. It wasn’t like them to be so sincere with one another. It hurt more than if he were insulting her.

“Well unfortunately for you…” Brienne murmured into his ear, trying to lighten the mood, despite knowing it would do little.

Jaime bit back almost immediately, “Never unfortunately. Never. I had the luck and grace of all the gods to have met you.”

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she held him closer.

“Well now I know that you’re dying,” she said, her voice rattled, the words coming out in a broken fashion, like she had forgotten how to speak, “You’ve never been so complimentary of me in all of your life.”

“Not out loud, anyway.”

She couldn’t listen to this. It was a war inside her head. She knew… she knew this was where Jaime would draw his last breaths, and she couldn’t deny him the chance to tell her what he felt. But hearing him say all of these things – had he told her that he loved her? How was she supposed to ever come to terms with that? – confirmed that he knew his time was up too.

She couldn’t listen to it, so Brienne changed the subject.

“I heard from Lady Sansa that the Red Keep was all but destroyed. You didn’t have to go there. You didn’t have to do this to yourself.”

She tried to keep the anger out of her voice, not wanting their last conversation to become an argument. Although it maybe would’ve suited them both – maybe it would’ve been the perfect ending for them. Or even better, a way to keep him alive – Brienne knew Jaime would never allow himself to die before he had bested her in a fight.

“I did,” he replied, and the conviction in his voice was enough to convince her there and then. “I caught up to her as she was clambering into that sailing boat, with some of the finest Lannister jewels in a satchel alongside her. Enough for a whole new life across the Narrow Sea, where they would never know the evil passing through their midst. Euron Greyjoy was accompanying her – she could never go anywhere without a suitable bedfellow, I suppose. And it wasn’t going to be me.”

The deep wounds penetrating his torso were then explained. At least his being here meant that there was one less tyrant unaccounted for. After the devastation wreaked in King’s Landing, the statuses of many people was just unknown.

Brienne bit her lip to keep herself from cursing Cersei Lannister. After everything she had done, she had the gall, the nerve, to try and just run away from it all. And yet, her brother was here in her arms – which could only mean than the Kingslayer had added another count of regicide to his name.

She looked at him and decided Queenslayer suited him rather well.

“You could’ve let her go,” Brienne said softly.

Jaime turned as well as he was able and looked her in the eyes, and shook his head like she was a young child.

“You and I both know that I couldn’t.”

Brienne felt tears falling down her cheeks, and this time she made no attempts to stop them. She couldn’t stop the desperation in her voice when she choked out, “She wasn’t worth your life.”

Jaime kissed her then, and she found the salt and blood on his mouth, and decided it was the best thing she had ever tasted. His breaths were laboured now, and it was not a long embrace, but she took it. She would’ve taken anything he was willing to give her in these moments.

“Maybe not. But the lives of all the people she hurt… when she destroyed the Sept of Baelor, the hundreds of Lannister men sent to die in her stead,” Jaime said, and now his voice was strong, almost as strong as it had been in Harrenhal, and the devastation and rage he surely felt overcame the pain his body was in, “My own son. Giving them justice… for what she did to them. That was worth it.”

Brienne could never forget how much Jaime had truly lost. For all of his teasing and jokes and comradery, there was a veil she had hardly dared to touch, a part of him she knew could never be fixed. Behind it was the agony of a man who had learned that he did not belong to his own family, and the unbearable pain of losing them a hundred times over, in a hundred different ways. The last of the Lannisters, one of the most noble houses in the Seven Kingdoms, and here he was, in her arms instead.

“I couldn’t have lived the rest of my life knowing she was out there, alive, unpunished,” he carried on, but the anger dissipated, and the next words were soft, “Not even if it meant I got to live it out with you.”

“I… Ser Jaime…” Brienne protested, but he cut her off, as he was so prone to doing.

“If it had been another way… I think you and I could have been happy for many great years.”

In his mind, he had seen them on Tarth, far away from the feuding and bickering and obsession with ruling. A quiet life. A peaceful one. A life where they would spar in the courtyard and then later in their chambers too. Maybe they would’ve had a babe or two. He knew he would’ve liked that – to have had the chance to truly be a father.

Brienne smiled at him then, despite it all. “We had many great days,” she said to him, and he mirrored her smile, knowing that she was right.

One day there would be stories of the two of them, and songs and ballads written too. There would be literature in all the realms of the Kingslayer and the Fair Maid, of the Golden and Sapphire Knights, of Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth.

“And perhaps even years would not have been enough,” he murmured.

And despite knowing that they would both live on long past their deaths, the weight of what could’ve been hung over them, a heavy shadow cast by nought but the destruction of a dream they had both been chasing all of these years.

“Jaime,” was all she managed to say before he cut her off again.

“it’s a shame wench,” he whispered, “I should’ve quite liked to have grown old with you.”

If leaving her at Winterfell had broken her heart, then that speared her soul.

“Stop it,” she gasped through tears, pleading with him. He kissed her neck, or maybe he just rested there, unable to move anywhere else. “Please don’t,” she said, and her words must’ve hurt him too for he closed his mouth and said nothing for some time.

Brienne could feel his breathing slow further next to her, and she knew that the hour was coming. It wasn’t fair. They had slew the dead during the darkest hour of history and lived to tell the tale. They had fought bears and dragons and all the shit that this life had thrown at them. Did they not deserve a happier ending? Did they not deserve some peace?

But she knew that for Jaime, perhaps this was his peace. For a man who had survived so much, maybe it was his time. It wasn’t for her to decide. She would plead to the gods but she knew they would not listen. Maybe she just had to let him go.

His coughed loudly and specks of blood landed in his beard. He slumped down from her shoulder back onto the sand, laying down on the beach where she had played as a child.

She had never seen this coming then. She had never even imagined that all these years later, she would be here with him, watching the world end.

“Brienne,” he managed to say, though the air was escaping from his lungs, the infection and rot and sepsis sprinting to finish him, “Please look at me. Look at me.”

She acquiesced, and to her surprise, his face was the very image of serenity. She lied back down next to him, knowing that this was the last time she would hold him. He closed his eyes, exhausted at the price of still breathing

“I love you,” she told him, quietly, gently, like it was a balm that would soothe all of his ills, “After everything that we went through, everything that we had to do. I love you.”

She stroked his cheek, held him in her hands the way she had when she had begged him not to leave her. She wouldn’t beg him now. There was nothing she could do. She kissed his hand, his forehead and wrapped him in her arms.

“You made me a good man. You saved me. You are the most wondrous creature I have ever encountered. My life… would’ve amounted to nothing without you,” he murmured, finally overtaken, the words taking a lifetime to come together into a sentence.

He felt his body slowing to a halt. It was indescribable. He had always expected he would die on the battlefield, and that it would be quick. He had never imagined he would take weeks to slip away. When he had clambered into that boat – having disposed of its two greedy occupants – he had set a course for Tarth, despite realising that he might never get there. But he had known that he had to try. If there was even a chance he could see her again, it was worth it. And maybe the gods were merciful then, that they had given him this last hour with her.

Jaime opened his eyes for the final time, and looked to Brienne, to the woman he had made a knight, the woman he had loved for the best part of his life, the woman who had given him back his honour and made him whole. If the gods offered him the chance to live until his ninetieth nameday if he gave her up, he would spit at their feet. All his life was worth it, for the joy of having known and loved her.

“And your eyes…,” he mumbled, staring up just as his last breaths escaped from his lips, “Like all the depths of the ocean brought to the surface, in your eyes…”.

Read here on AO3. 

[artisticvicu]

Every day, a little bit closer

The group hit the edge of the Moonwoods as the bright morning sun greeted the new day, their tail already long gone somewhere to the east. Even now there was hesitation on whether to push forward or to follow after the elves.

His boots hit the earth with a solid thud even as the other human ranger called out, "So we just letting them go?"

"It's not like there's anything else we can do," ground out the halfling checking the donkeys. "They're out of range to be of any bother anyways."

"I could try catching up," the young dragonborn spoke up. A number of the company reacted with sedated hostility but hostility nonetheless. He didn't like it and it seemed the third ranger of the company agreed, quickly interjecting, "I can go with."

"Are you sure, Dooooo?"

He looked from the third ranger to the older of the two dwarves in terms of being with the company who was also one of the leaders of the Rough and Tough Bunch, Opal. He looked back to see a determined expression on the other ranger's face. "It's best if we don't let each other wander off without a partner." Dooooo looked to the second dwarf, the second newest company member followed only by the dragonborn. "The dragonborn is your friend. Do you want to join us?"

Sam watched as even the newest dwarf distanced himself from the dragonborn. Guilt and regret churned in his gut, a sharp reminder that he wasn't doing anything to help the dragonborn feel more welcomed.

Before the dragonborn joined the company at the edge of their last city, and before the dwarf stuck with them after they had helped free a dragon from storm giants, Sam had been the newest member of the Rough and Tough Bunch. Despite the awkwardness of being half forced into the company due to the circumstances at the time, everyone had been rather welcoming, if not tolerant of his presence. In turn, he had come to enjoy all their company; even the odd half orc that worshiped yams and her feline friend who - from the brief words others had shared and the many things he had witnessed since - had a tongue that regularly got more than just the feline in trouble were decent folk. Odd, but decent. And after all the battles since, he had thought he had gained the group's trust, the three that led the company even listening to his words at times recently.

For whatever reason, this dragonborn gained ire from the majority and while the dragonborn was crude and clearly inexperienced, he didn't think it warranted so much hatred.

It was hard to tell if the dragonborn was even affected by it.

Dooooo shrugged. Before the pair could leave, the half orc walked over. Sam looked away as she touched Dooooo shoulder and assumed she was giving the ranger well wishes in her own way. He turned to the other human ranger who was currently staring at the cart.

"I don't think that's going to go far if we're not using a road," Jun voiced, stepping away from the donkeys.

Falcor shrugged. "I say it's worth a try, if nothing else."

"We will pull the cart into the treeline to keep it out of site but I agree with Jun," Opal spoke up. "The cart will only slow us down. Besides, we have four donkeys. They will be able to carry everything that we cannot. It will be fine."

Falcor made a face but ceded. Despite the three being the leaders, it was generally Opal's word that led them on. If Opal wasn't there, then it was Jun. Only once had it been left to Falcor to lead the company when both Jun and Opal were unavailable to lead.

It hadn't gone overly well but no one had died so there was that.

The two groups parted ways, the duo heading east along the treeline and the remaining company continuing north into the forest.

"Do you want us to lead?" Falcor spoke up over the noise of emptying the cart, unhitching the donkeys, and securing packs and items to the beasts' backs. Sam looked up first to Falcor before glancing around. It seemed odd he was startled by the thought that Falcor was talking about him. It hadn't been hard to figure out what and why the other ranger was offering. They were both familiar and quite comfortable traveling through forests. It would be easiest to keep them all on track.

Opal's gaze flickered to Sam and he found himself straightening. "If you are comfortable with it."

"Of course."

The company shifted around the donkeys, situating into a line even though they weren't quite ready to start moving again. Falcor had moved a few steps away and Sam approached carefully. He knew that look.

"Feel anything?" he inquired softly, not wanting to interrupt before Falcor was finished searching.

Falcor let out a sharp breath. "If there's an elemental out there, it's beyond my range." Falcor shot him a cocky grin. "Wanna give it a go?"

Sam smiled but shook his head. "If you can't sense anything, I doubt I'll have any luck. That skill isn't something one can get better than others at."

Falcor laughed. "Fair. Want to take point, then?"

Sam blinked at him. "You don't want to?"

Falcor shrugged. "I know you keep to yourself because you don't feel like one of the group but we trust you to hold your own." Falcor's gaze went over the group, specifically to the new dwarf and the feline. "More so than others." Falcor grinned at him. "Don't worry. I'll join back up with you when the trees get denser. I just want to help make sure the line keeps moving in the right direction."

Sam let out a huff of a laugh. "Have fun babysitting, then."

"Don't pity me quite yet," Falcor retorted, pointing a finger at Sam even as the other Ranger was already starting towards the back of the line. "You'll be next on babysitting duty soon enough."

Sam grinned in return. "I look forward to it."

Falcor laughed even as he threw his hand in the air as he left. Sam watched the other's progress for a while before turning his attention back to the forest and letting it wander around them. There was an edge to it that he didn't trust but he wanted to bet that had more to do with the unnamed threat they were going up against. Or, well, as unnamed as a zaratan was.

Sam couldn't help but feel like he was out of his element in this, pun notwithstanding. He could handle a fight with any sort of beast. Heck, he had just managed to survive going up against a number of storm and cloud giants, not to mention any other assortment of creature. But the only elemental he had ever had to attend with were the wind ones that had attacked them previously and he had only been so useful with that. Even the bow and arrows currently strapped to his back felt like a weight he was slowly collapsing under. What kind of Ranger couldn't hit a target to save a life?

Opal nodded at him and he turned, leading the way.

The trees took some time thickening that by the time Falcor joined him, it was already almost midday. Sam looked to the other as he stepped over a massive root. "You try seeing if there was anything around us again?"

"There's....something out there. An elemental, I think, but it's just at the edge of my range."

Sam nodded. "And the others? They holding up well enough?"

Falcor chuckled. "There's a few complaints from a few but, beyond that, they're doing just fine." Falcor fell silent for a moment. "How deep do you think we'll manage to get before we find any sort of sign of our target?"

Sam looked north. "If we're lucky, soon. But it's more likely we'll not find anything even if we make it to the heart of the forest."

"You don't trust the Princes?"

Sam shrugged. "I wasn't there for your last bet and I don't know if they were lying or not. For all I know, they could be, but it seems silly to stake that much money on a....a legend. There's something out here, sure, but I don't think they told us what it was on purpose."

Falcor opened his mouth but didn't get the chance to say anything. Sam caught sight of it the same time Falcor did and they both lept back as an arrow embedded itself into the earth before the footprints they had just vacated. A warning shot as the trees around them came alive with elves.

He didn't recognize the type of elves.

He really ought to have.

"You are trespassing," one of the leading elves decreed.

"We weren't meaning to," Falcor tried.

"We are simply passing through," Opal quickly added.

Jun spoke up as well. "We'll be on our way if you can-"

"You say you are not trespassing yet you stray far from the road," a different elf chastised.

"Turn around," another warned. "You won't live if you fight us."

That sent up an uproar first from the company quickly followed by the elves. Sam lost track of any of the words that were being spoken but the sudden desire to try and get the elves to understand before the entire company up and got itself killed drove him forward.

He grabbed Falcor's shoulder but it was a reflex driven on by something he couldn't pick apart. Had he wanted to ground himself or calm Falcor down? He took a step forward as the fleeting question left. "Please," he spoke out, his voice heavy with sincerity and concern. "We did not mean to trespass. If you would just guide us around your border, we will happily be on our way in search for a creature that may be doing more harm than good in this forest."

His words hung in the air and it was all he could do to suck in the shaky breath that filled his body. His gaze flickered over the elves but not a one of them moved.

A body fell from the trees above and landed beside him with a solid thud on sure feet. He jumped, taking a startled few steps back. He felt Falcor jump under his touch but seemed far more solid than Sam felt. The elf straightened and Sam watched as she gestured towards the east. He turned his head towards the direction but did not remove his gaze from her face. She turned and started walking.

The company fell into step behind her. Falcor's shoulder slipped from his touch and he focused back on those that had stopped them. He dipped his head in a brief gesture of thanks before following after the elf himself.

"So, you have a name?" drifted back towards him in Falcor's voice.

"Yevanith."

Sam found her gaze on him when he settled a few paces behind her left shoulder. Her footfall slowed and he soon found himself level with her. "You said you were not intending to trespass." Her gaze moved to Falcor before drifting to Opal and Jun not far behind. "That you are looking for the zaratan."

"We are," Sam assured her.

Falcor took over. "We had heard it was causing trouble in the surrounding area and decided to see if there was anything we could do to help."

"Have you heard of such a creature causing havoc?" Opal asked. Sam couldn't tell if the way the dwarf's words rolled were a show of mere caution or distrust.

"Yes. And I can take you to it."

"What?" Sam blurted at the same time Falcor nearly cheered, "Seriously?"

Yevanith gave Falcor a rather flat look. "It is not hard to find when one has been tracking it for some time."

"You specifically, or your people?" Sam clarified cautiously. The sharpness to her words made him hesitant, as if he could cause all their murders if he did not tread carefully here.

But when she looked at him, there was no such severity and it eased some of his hesitation. "A combination." Her gaze snapped forward. "I have a vendetta against the creature and the village watches to make sure what has happened before does not happen again."

"It attacked your village."

Her gaze - sharp, hunting - slid his way but he didn't back down. He met her gaze head on and waited. "It has destroyed many a village out in this forest. It is best if we keep it from doing more damage."

She put distance between them. Sam let her, catching Falcor's sleeve to keep the other ranger from stirring a pot that needed to be left alone.

"We need to know more," Falcor hissed.

"And we'll get the information we need," Sam countered just as hushed, "but right now we need to not piss off the only lead we have if you want to win your stupid bet."

"I do not know how much of this is still because of that bet," Opal offered gruffly, lowly. "With the way those warriors had reacted, I would not say that had been a normal elven greeting."

Jun swayed his way up to Opal's other side, asking, "So we take the thing out, one way or the other?"

Opal's gaze hardened. "There is no real knowledge around the zaratan - if that is what this is - that we were able to find. If it magic like we are assuming it is…"

"Then we'll need to take out the caster," Falcor finished. Sam met his gaze. "We have to ask her."

Sam nodded. "I agree, but it can wait a few minutes."

"Just not too long, Sam," Opal warned. "We need to know before we go jumping in."

That stole a chuckle out of Sam's chest. "When has the Rough and Tough Bunch not dived in without knowing? I thought that was how we ended up on that floating fortress."

Falcor pointed an accusing finger at him. "Hey, I did my best to be cordial. They shot first."

Sam threw his hands up, grinning despite the earnest gesture. "I wasn't there, remember? I was in the bowels of the ship when the first attack ripped through the balloon. And after watching you fail at setting up a bet we really didn't need to get into, I can't help but feel justified in my thoughts."

Falcor made a swing at him and he ducked laughing. Jun's roaring laughter filled the air just as well as Opal's low rumble of a chuckle.

Whether intentional or not, Falcor's actions had separated the majority of the group from Yevanith and had forced Sam closer. Amused, Sam fell back into step just a few paces behind the elf's left shoulder.

The group's chatter paces back rolled with the sounds of the forest creating a soothing atmosphere despite the severity of the situation the company was in.

"Are they always this boisterous in such serious situations?"

He looked up at Yevanith to find her giving the company a displeased look. "The overall situation may be serious but is this moment?" Her eyes were on him again. "Isn't it far healthier for them to pass the time loose and happy before they push themselves beyond their limits going up against a creature we know nothing about taking out?"

There was a moment where she just stared at him like he had spoken gibberish and maybe he had. Maybe they all were far too relaxed in the face of reality but there was a part of him determined to give them this moment of joy before they all faced Death again. They all knew that Death was waiting for someone going in. It was the risk they all took doing this.

"You all are strange," Yevanith finally stated, focusing back on the woods ahead.

Sam couldn't help the chuckle that belayed his words. "Never said we weren't."

There was brief burst of noise from the back of the group but it hadn't sounded worrisome. More like the troublemakers being true to their nature.

"You do not have to walk behind me, ranger. The path is not that narrow."

His gaze flickered towards her expecting her eyes on him again but she was focused on the route ahead. He hoped 'path' was being used loosely because he couldn't see whatever path she did. Still, he did make an effort to get closer to her side as she slowed a breath. "I don't mind following behind you, Yevanith."

This time her gaze did find him but there seemed to be amusement at the edge of the sharp look. "You are far more tolerable than the others seem to be."

Sam chuckled softly at that. "Falcor means well. The other ranger," he clarified. "The other two leaders of the group, Opal and Jun, have better people skills."

"You are not one of the leaders?" He shook his head in answer and she turned her gaze back to the trees ahead. "Strange. With how you had spoken, many thought you led them."

Sam beamed at that. "As flattering as that is, I'm not actually officially part of the company, though they would say otherwise, probably, at this point."

"What do you mean?"

He let his gaze wander over the surrounding trees. "I got swept up in their adventure because I didn't have much of a choice. A mix-up with some race and I ended up in the same cell they had been and it had only been because I had agreed to go with them to complete a favor for our captors was I able to walk away with my life and my freedom."

"Why didn't you walk away?"

That pulled a smile to his lips. "Where else would I have gone? I have no home to return to and my ending up in that cell had not been my choice. At least, not completely."

Silence stretched between them.

"Yevanith, why are you helping us?"

Yevanith's expression twisted but he couldn't decipher it. "I have my own reasons."

"Your vendetta."

It wasn't a question and she gave no answer.

"Family specifically?" he asked cautiously.

"My whole village."

Sam felt that weigh on his heart and the words were on his tongue before he could think otherwise. "I can't guarantee you'll come back alive from this but you are welcome to join us in this battle."

She scoffed but a glance her way revealed the smirk pulling at her lips. "As if you have any say on whether I do or don't."

He gave a huff of a laugh.

It wasn't till most of the hour had passed before the terrain abruptly changed. The group spilled out into a path somewhere around twenty feet wide full of felled trees. It was clear to see what direction the destruction was heading and it was even easier to find the footprints in among the wreckage.

Falcor hissed. "This thing is massive."

Sam gave a hum in agreement. There was no telling how powerful this creature was going to be and the implication by its size was daunting.

"Do we keep going?" the half-orc asked, wandering in the direction the creature had gone.

"We'll keep going till night falls," Opal stated. The dwarf looked at Falcor. "Unless you think it'll outstrip us in the night."

Falcor shook his head. "Whatever elemental of sorts I'm sensing, it's not moving very quickly. Even if we did rest through the night, I don't think it would be impossible to catch up."

Opal nodded. "Then let us keep moving."

Evening came faster than Sam had expected and the call to camp rang out from Opal. The group scattered a bit in a given area at the left edge of the trail. Sam hovered near Falcor as the other took note of the creature's place, watching as the half-orc went about starting a fire.

The look Yevanith sent her was certainly a dark one. Their confrontation was too muted for Sam to make out what had transpired but, by the looks of the half-orc grudgingly wandering over to the feline and the newest dwarf, Sam would bet it had been about not starting a fire in the woods.

"Seems the thing's settled for the night as well," Falcor commented, letting out a heavy sigh.

Sam focused back on him. "I'm assuming that's a good thing," he teased.

Falcor huffed a laugh. "I'm going to bed. You coming with?"

Sam shook his head. "I'll take first watch."

"Suit yourself."

Sam stayed where Falcor had left him taking in the others settling in to rest. At the other edge of the group, Opal had settled in but it looked as if the dwarf was going to be joining him on first watch. He dipped his head towards the other when the dwarf looked his way and Opal returned the gesture in acknowledgment.

He had seen her go up the tree but it was hard to pick out where she had gone in among the branches. He sat against its trunk anyways, settling in for the first few hours of watch.

It was probably a half hour later before he was certain those that were resting were sound asleep. The elf, though, he had picked out in among the branches finally. She was just as alert as he and Opal were and there was some comfort knowing she was on watch too.

"Are you truly avenging just your village?" he asked, letting the gentle wind carry his soft words to her. "Or did it take someone dear to you."

She moved in the tree before dropping down with a soft thump, settling into the squat she had landed in. Her expression was not kind. "You can be a nosy one."

Sam shrugged. "I just want to be prepared for you losing your composure because this is more than just avenging your village and the others it has taken. As personal as that can be, or justified, doing it because the creature took a loved one is far more dangerous."

The elf studied him; for what, he didn't know. Whether or not she had found what she had been looking for, though, seemed to be enough for her to plop down on the dirt beside him, leaning against the large tree.

"You said that you had no home to go back to. Why?"

Sam leaned his head back against the trunk searching for stars through the swaying branches. "It's a long story," he warned, though a smile pulled at his lips. "And a rather personal one. You sure you want to hear the woes of a lowly human stranger?"

"I have found that you humans are all too eager to spill your secrets," the elf drawled, waving a hand dismissively. He chuckled at that, agreeing with her. A comfortable silence settled between them for a moment before she broke it with, "We have nothing but time."

He hummed.

"I grew up in a small farming town. There was probably only 60 people within a good five miles of the center of town and the only exciting things that ever happened while I was growing up were the trades carts that would come through and the occasional adventurer. We weren't on any major routes so the fewer adventurers we saw we believed was for the better. Outside of that, the only other thing that ever stirred up any excitement was the Guard.

"They're trained how to be rangers but some will cross specialize in other areas of knowledge and others are encourage to. The Guard was stretched in among the towns like mine where we had no warriors or trained civilians that knew how to deal with the more fowl of adventurers or beasts that come knocking. Farmers know how to keep wolves and the like that will kill our livestock and eat our harvest, but when those things come in numbers we can no longer handle on our own, or become things too big for a simple farmer to take down, the Guard come to aid us."

A smile, warm and content, pulled at his lips. "For me, I enjoyed farm life. I hadn't had any real desire to join the Guard like my older brother did. He hated farm work and constantly talked about going on grand quests with the Guard to protect the town and others like ours. He talked about seeing the world and going where no one in our small little town had ever gone." He laughed. "He would practice sword fighting - with no training, mind you – against a bale of hay and a stick that would always end up breaking when he got too aggressive with it.

"So when the Guard came through recruiting, my brother's name was at the top of the list." Something heavy tainted the joy in his expression and he let his gaze fall from the leaves above. "I had entertained the idea of joining the Guard myself. Heck, every boy and a number of the girls under the age of 10 did at some point, but I had been the one more down to earth compared to my brother. I knew that I would be in charge of taking over the farm when our dad got too old to do the work anymore and I would have to take care of our sisters should anything happen to our parents or the farm itself. I was content with that."

The words stalled out. The weight of it all pressed against his chest and weighed down his tongue.

"But that wasn't what you got to do," Yevanith prompted, her words brushing up against that weight and easing a part of it.

"Yeah," he sighed. He shifted against the trunk, bringing a knee up. "My parents had signed me up as a sort of birthday gift. My mom had talked about all the great opportunities this would open up for me, how I would be able to do so much more, but I had fought them. I wanted to stay home, to take care of the farm. I didn’t understand why they had gone and done that."

His tongue fell still against the press of the memories that still stung years later despite how much he cherished them. "My dad finally pulled me aside, sat me down, and had a long talk with me. He told me how he didn't want me tied to the farm despite my desire to stay behind and take over. He spoke of how I could always come back once I was trained and ranked, how the town would welcome me with open arms and I could take over the farm then. My sisters were all willing to take over till I got back. Besides, he had said as a last attempt, it will only be a few years and before you know it, you'll be back here tilling the earth like you've done since the day you could walk.

"A part of me still wishes I had continued to fight them on the matter, that I had convinced them to let me stay."

"Why?" He glanced over even as her words did not stop there. "What happened?"

A sad smile tugged at his lips. "The town was attacked while I was in training." He turned his gaze back to the trampled forest before them. "We were maybe three months away from graduating the Guard's training academy when one of the higher ups came in and told us the news. They sent us after the relief efforts, whether to help or just to check in on our family, I can't remember."

He caught her moving out of the corner of his eye but whatever she was doing stopped as his words continued. "It was devastating coming back to a town I had grown up in, remembered seeing whole and healthy, be completely ravaged by some unknown entity leaving nothing but ash and smoke in its wake. Our dad had died in the initial attack and our littlest sister succumbed to the wounds she had sustained, but the others had lived. Mom and our two remaining sisters were scarred mentally and physically but they were alive and as healthy as they could be after all that. I was relieved - happy, even - but my brother grew angry, grew brash. I tried talking him down but he was having none of it. It was at the request of our mom that I stayed with him keeping an eye on him as he went head first seeking revenge.

"He ditched the Guard as soon as we had graduated. I'm not sure why he waited those few months. He never told me much of what was going on inside his head, simply giving me enough information to know he was planning something stupid. So I followed him to the ends of the earth honing my skills as a ranger, keeping him alive till I couldn't, and giving up my freedom so that others could walk away scot-free. My brother's death was probably a relief to him after the letter we had gotten a week prior." He glanced at her, finding her gaze honed in on him. It was rather unsettling.  "We had gotten word that our sisters and mom had died in a raid. My brother didn't let me read the note but he had told me roughly what it had said."

"Will you go looking for them at some point?" Yevanith inquired. "You're mom and sisters?"

He hummed. "Probably. If for nothing else than to know where they were buried. My brother died on the battlefield and I don't know if someone got to his body to bury him. I'll have to check when my time with this company ends."

Silence settled over them again. It dragged at him, coaxing him to sleep but he fought against it determined to make it through the shift before succumbing to sleep.

"Are you not going to try and get me to speak?"

He opened his eyes, unaware he had closed them. "No," he offered truthfully. "If you want to share, you will in due time. I may be willing to spill everything to a stranger but that doesn't mean you are." He shrugged, grinning in jest. "We humans be weird like that." The grin turned to a soft smile. "Just know I'll be keeping an eye on you. Just because I can't guarantee you making it through this alive doesn't mean I can't have your back should you need the help." He smiled again, tired. "And if we're being honest here, we'll all probably be needing your help by the end of this."

She watched him for a moment before looking back out on the forest. "You are a strange one."

"Eh, I like to think I'm being realistic." She gave him a flat look and he laughed. "Not so much?"

"Not with that. You talk as if we are friends."

"Aren't we?"

She frowned. "How could we be friends when I know your life history but not your name?"

He sat up and turned to face her, offering his hand. "Hi. I'm Sam Nish. Pleasure to meet you."

He wondered if the look that flickered across her face was surprise. She took his hand, her hold firm but hesitant. "Pleasant greetings, Sam Nish. I am Yevanith Guildenhoth."

He smiled again. "Not sure how much you know of human culture but you don't have to be formal with my name. Sam is fine." Distaste was clear in her expression and he quickly added, "I do not mind calling you whatever you wish to be called and I don't mind being called by my full name. It's your choice. You introduced yourself as Yevanith to the rest of the group but if you want me addressing you a different way, all you have to do is say so."

"Yevanith is enough." She settled back against the tree and he followed suit. He expected that to be the last of their conversation till he heard her speak again. "Why are you so friendly with me with no ulterior motives like other humans?"

He lowered his hands from behind his head so that he could see her. "What do you mean?"

"Most male of your race flaunt themselves in the hopes of carnal embrace."

He mouthed 'carnal embrace' to himself piecing together what it meant. Sure enough, he had indeed heard it before and wasn't overly surprised that had been many a man's ulterior motives. "Ah," he responded. "Carnal embrace has never really been a drive for me."

"Truly?"

He shrugged. "I was too busy either working on the farm, studying, or trying to keep my brother alive. After that," he gestured to the company, "I was watching their backs."

"No desire at all?"

He shrugged. "I'm sure it's a beautiful experience but, to me, it doesn't seem like something I want to do with just anyone. Now, that could be my parents' teachings. Highest know there was enough talk about it in the academy and a number enjoying it among each other but I just never felt any drive to pursue it."

"Odd indeed, for a human."

He chuckled. "Just so you know, I'm taking that as a compliment."

A smile pulled the corner of her lips upward and it wasn't hard to piece together why men – and probably a good number of women – would try and bed an elf. He could pick out the features that many claimed to be beauty and sexy but, for him, Yevanith wasn't the epitome of beauty as she was for others. To him, she was just another person struggling with demons only she could see and rather than bed her like others would, he wanted to help her with her demons, even if he was only able to help with the smallest, tiniest one. "As ill iterated as it was, it had been such." She looked at him. "You are far more elven than you are human in your mannerisms, Sam Nish. It is refreshing after having seen so many behave so differently."

He tipped his head forward in a sort of bow. "Glad to be of service."

There was the sound of people stirring behind him and he looked over to see Opal waking the next watch.

"Rest, Sam Nish. The next watch is starting and you are in need of rest."

"Will you be returning to the branches for the next watch or will you be resting as well?" he inquired as he shimmied into a more comfortable position against the tree.

"I have not decided if I will remain awake, however, I have found a good enough position to remain in for the rest of the night, if that is your concern."

He gave a huff of a laugh as he closed his eyes. "No, no concern. Just curious."

There was a stretch of silence that nearly put him to sleep but her words cut through the haze of rest. "You are certainly a strange one, Sam Nish."

He waited for more words to leave her tongue but it never did. There was shifting and a strange presence pressed against his arm. Not physically, just enough for him to wonder if she had shifted closer.

Something warm and soft draped over him and he heard her mutter, "Idiot human not using his own blanket. And you said you would be watching my back but instead I am making sure you will not freeze in the forest's night."

More shifting and this time her arm brushed against his. Her warmth seeped through the space between them and he realized without having to look that she was sharing the blanket. Said blanket smelt more of earth than his normally did and he was stunned that she had used her own blanket to cover them both.

"May Fate be kind to us tomorrow," she softly muttered. "Sleep well, Sam."

He jerked awake at the sound of someone shouting. Yevanith was already on her feet, blanket thrown from them both and bow in hand with an arrow notched. He rolled over and unsheathed both swords. As much as he wanted to draw his own bow, he didn't trust the streak of luck he was currently having with the damned thing.

Man, he really missed being a decent archer.

He frowned at the figure trying to piece together what he was seeing but he didn't get the chance to move closer. The initial figure that had drawn everyone's attention had company and had Yevanith not grabbed at the fabric on his back and pulled, he would have been a pin cushion.

"Thanks," he breathed, re-positioning himself at her side.

"Of course." She let loose several arrows. Two took out their targets with ease. Third hit its mark but it didn't seem to fell the target. "You cannot watch my back if you are dead."

"True," he agreed with a grin. He turned having sense the same thing she had. He used the momentum of the turn to bring both swords across in the same upwards sweep. The assailant fell to the ground. He kicked it for good measure.

It didn't get back up.

He rolled the wrist holding the short sword, gaze going across the felled part of the forest. "Friends of yours, Yevanith?"

An arrow shot past his right ear, taking down one of the incoming whatever they were. "Please tell me that was your strange human humor."

He laughed. "It was." One got close enough for him to take out. He wondered if Yevanith had let it. She was taking them out rather efficiently. "How full of a quiver do you have?"

"I will run out if they keep coming at this rate."

He pressed close to her and moved around her, taking out the closest one before taking out its buddy with the second sword. "Then you may want to just switch to a different weapon. These things aren't stopping."

He felt her press against his back briefly as he took another one down. Stupid thing had the audacity to jump at him. It seemed others thought that one had a brilliant idea because a lot of them started throwing themselves at him.

She pressed against his back again but this time did not move away. "We have to put distance between us and your friends."

He had ended up facing the path of felled forest through the brawl and he took a brief moment to glance towards the company, asking, "What? Why?"

And he saw why. For whatever reason, the little - he settled on gremlin things despite them not actually being gremlins - were swarming towards them, focused intently on them. The company was holding its own against the figure and what gremlin things were attacking them but it was clear they were only preventing the figure to come at them and the gremlin things were happy to have at whatever was closest.

"Opal!" he shouted, gaining the dwarf's attention. He noticed Jun coming up and covering the dwarf just as Yevanith provided him what cover she could. "We're going north! Head towards the zaratan! We'll catch up when we get the chance!"

He waited long enough for a brisk nod in acknowledgement before turning and following Yevanith towards the opposite treeline.

"Stop them!" the figure bellowed.

There was a brief surge of the gremlin things before them but they managed to cut through them and hit the trees before the figure broke through the company and chased after them.

He stowed his long sword but kept his short sword in hand as they ran. The gremlin things were quick but they were losing them just as quickly.

By the time he couldn't go anymore, there wasn't a gremlin thing in sight. He crashed to his knees, gasping for breath. The short sword hilt pressed into his palm as he put some of his weight on his hands in the dirt. He glanced over at Yevanith. A part of him was glad to see that he wasn't the only one affected by the sudden long distance sprint.

"We," he gasped, "we have to keep moving."

"As if I am the one in the dirt trying not to pass out," she retorted sharply. He watched as she swayed a bit when she stepped away from the tree she had been leaning against. Her gaze was far more steady, though, as it roamed over him, settling on his thigh. "Are you sure you can?"

He frowned. "Can what?" he asked, turning to look at what she was looking at.

He stared at the nasty cut on his thigh.

"Oh." He wondered briefly why he couldn't feel it. "Guess I took a hit."

"That is an understatement, Sam Nish." He shifted to sit and hissed as it felt like his entire leg suddenly felt like it was on fire. Her grip was painful but the lack of weight on the limb as she helped him sit was appreciated. "You know Cure Wounds, correct?"

"Y-yeah," he croaked. "Just, ah..." He swallowed. "Just give me a moment."

Her hands went to his thigh, one hand at either end of the wound. He hissed when her magic flared around his thigh and started working on healing the damage done. The magic ebbed till it ceased and he blinked his eyes open, feeling far more tired than he had before. The wound had stopped bleeding and looked like it was mostly healed but it was still raw.

Yevanith pulled back. "Use Cure Wounds on your other injuries."

"What of yourself?" he inquired even as he gathered the necessary magic to cast. He could see blood trickling down her neck from some wound hidden by her hair and there were a number of cuts he could see. She hadn't made it through the battle unscathed.

"I will be fine. I have enough magic still for my own Cure Wounds. Cast your own on yourself."

He did as she said and sighed in relief when the ache and some of the exhaustion faded. He opened his eyes again – he really needed to quit closing them in the first place – and saw that a number of her more superficial injuries had vanished. The rest looked a bit raw or a few weeks old but they were healed enough to hopefully not bother her. His own were in a similar state, though it looked like he had taken far heavier damage than she did if the twinges of mild pain were anything to go by.

He clambered to his feet uneasily. Despite her assist, his thigh was not willing to behave fully. It wasn't till he was straightening that he realized her hands had been hovering near him as she withdrew them. "Ready?" he verified.

She nodded as one of the gremlin things stumbled into sight. She took it out just as it spotted them with a well-aimed arrow but there was no knowing how far behind the others were. He grabbed up his short sword and followed her deeper into the forest.

They only made it a few minutes before a swarm of the gremlin things cut them off. Their chittering suddenly filled the trees and he hissed in frustration.

"It is impressive how slippery you can be," a voice curled in from behind them. He turned enough to keep the swarm in sight while looking at the approaching figure. He hoped the company hadn't sustained any deaths before the figure had slipped through their line of defense as he prepared to keep Yevanith out of the figure's grip. "I've hunted you from one end of the map to the other without being able to get my hands on you and yet I gained ground; every day, a little bit closer. Now, though..." The figure sighed in relief, removing a massive double-bladed battle ax from their back and twirling it. "Now you are within my grasp."

To his bewilderment, Yevanith stepped in between them. "You're not taking him."

"What?" he croaked, confused.

The figure laughed. "You think you can stop me, puny elf woman?" The figure pointed the battle ax at her. "I have cleaved plenty of your kind to know your tricks. You will not keep my prey from me. None have. Not that farm family, not the warriors he had traveled with."

It felt like someone had filled his veins with ice and fire all at once and he took a step forward, demanding, "What do you mean by 'that farm family'? You attacked Havestfield?"

The figure laughed. "Are you thick? Of course it was me. I was under the impression you knew you were being hunted. After all, that boy from that farm family seemed to know my movements and you stayed several steps out of reach since then."

He shook his head, snapping, "I'm nothing more than a farm boy myself. And that 'boy', as you so called him, was my brother. We grew up together."

The smile the spread across the figure's face sent alarms sounding through his brain as he felt the magic rise around them at the same time. "You really are thick, aren't you? Are you truly blind to what you are?"

"I'm human," he retorted with all the confidence in that knowledge he could muster.

The figure laughed. "No, you're not, boy." The figure's grin grew even more.

"You're an Everlast."

[jawsandbones]

Into The Fray - Part Two of Three

Rating: M (Violence)

Summary: Hawke was left behind in the Fade. Fenris, Merrill and Anders will not let that stand. Together, they breach the Fade and go to rescue her.

Pairing: Fenris x Female Hawke

Playlist: Click Here

AO3 Link: Click here

Part Two: And Deeper Still

It is of little wonder to Fenris that this place is oft called the land of the dead. If souls did wander, this place seems where they would go. The air itself is as lifeless as the ground underfoot, and it burns in his throat, acrid in his lungs. A strange and burning sensation, so in contrast to the prickling on his skin, as though he lies buried in snow. Stepping forward, tilting his gaze to what he thinks is upwards. An unnatural green sky, rocks in place of clouds. Merrill steps beside him, her mouth agape, holding her staff tightly.

She looks in so much amazement, eyes wide and studying. She’s walking past him, to reach out and touch a nearby rock. Rubbing her fingers together at the sensation, and moving to the candle that sits upon a broken table, half embedded in a cliff. Running her hands over the flame, a flickering blue thing, and as far as Fenris can tell, it’s only light with no warmth to be found. His fingers twitch, and he aches to be holding his sword in his grasp. There’s no reason, not yet, but he hears the shout behind him and his hand instantly raises to the hilt.

Turning to see Anders hunched over, bent in two on shaking legs, his hands pressed over his ears and fingers digging into his skull. Fenris races forward, hesitant to reach out and touch him, but Merrill holds no reservations. Putting her hands on his shoulder, trying to straighten him, bending over to look at him when she can’t. “Anders! What is it?” Sweat beads on his forehead, drops down his temple. Eyes squeezed closed and when he isn’t shouting, he’s grinding his teeth together, jaw clenched. Fenris steps back when he notices the back of his robes moving.

Bunching, gathering, as though the very spine of him seeks to escape. Instead, something else does. Fog, in the shape of a hand. Reaching upwards, and another. Bracing themselves on Anders’s ribs, pushing itself upwards. Anders staggers forward under the weight, and both Fenris and Merrill catch him. A body struggles to separate itself, a back layered over a back, covered in what must be armor. There’s something off about this fog. Parts of it are blue, almost clear, but others are darkened grey, malevolent. A helm emerges, and it is as though this other being weeps tears of ink.

Blackened and slick, it drops from under the helm, onto the chest plate, over shoulders. It drips down and fades in Anders’s clothes, and Justice steps forward. Anders collapses into Merrill’s waiting arms. Fenris draws his sword and faces the spirit that now stands in their mist. The corruption of it is evident. Justice spreads his arms wide, breathes in the Fade. Through thin slits, his eyes glow. “I am home, at last. Free,” he says, in that churning voice, raking flame over coal. Ink drops, sizzles on the ground.

Anders, breathing hard and heavy, pushes himself away from Merrill’s grasp. His hands briefly clench into fists before he dives for his fallen staff. “You.” Spoken low, dangerously. “I’m finally free of your fucking voice in my head,” Anders shouts, and casts an accusatory finger. Fenris draws his sword, puts a hand on his chest, and holds him back. A pointed edge in the direction of the spirit, who makes no reaction to it.

“Such ingratitude, after all I have done for you,” Justice says.

“Done? For me? No. For you. All of it was for fucking you. You made me lie to my friends. You turned me into someone else,” Anders says, pushing against Fenris’s hand. Merrill steps past them both, stands in front of Justice. Reaching out, her hand sifting through the fog of him, a finger dipping into the ink.

“You’re corrupted,” she says. Justice seems rankled at that, standing at full height, towering with fury. Merrill doesn’t move, even as he stares her down.

“Impossible. I am Justice. Honorable. Moral. Unyielding,” he booms.

“You’re a demon,” Merrill says sweetly. His fog rolls black. Reaching for her, and gold glints in green light. A flick of the claw against her palm, and the roots burst from the ground. Wrapping around him and the helm is twisting, turning, dripping sizzling black ink.

“Wait,” Anders says, “what are you doing?” Justice is clawing at the roots. Shining gauntlets twisting into claws as he struggles in Merrill’s grasp. Fenris keeps Anders back, and although he makes a show of questioning it, he could have easily stepped around Fenris’s meagre defense. He doesn’t. He simply watches as roots bind themselves around the corrupted spirit, and drag him under cold, dead, rock. Merrill looks over her shoulder at them, that last drop of blood from her palm rolling down her finger. Roots twist and wither, turn to dust.

“I’ve sent him away, to another part of the Fade, in case he wanted to hurt us,” she says.

“Justice wasn’t a demon!” Anders shouts. Another hard press of his hand against his chest, and Fenris sheaths his sword. The fury in his face, the despair, and this is the most alive Fenris has seen him in years.

“Spirits are only spirits when they’re selfless,” Merrill says. “The moment he chose to possess a living host to extend his own life beyond the veil, he became selfish. His purpose was no longer clear, and that was that. I’m very sorry Anders.”

“I know how spirits and demons work!” Anders says. “I know. I know.” Rubbing his face with his hands, squeezing the space between his brows.

“He was your friend,” Fenris says. He knows what it is to love a dangerous thing. To long for its happiness, its affection, and not see the cost. Not until it’s too late. It’s in the dark circles under his eyes, the grey in his hair and unkempt beard. Loving for so long without reprieve, and receiving only pain in return.

“Yes,” he says, raw hurt in his voice. He puts a hand on his shoulder.

“I am sorry.” Anders turns and looks at him and for a moment – “please do not hug me,” Fenris says, stepping back. His eyebrows shoot sky high and Anders breaks into a startled laugh.

“I’ll hug you!” Merrill says, hopping forward, her arms extended wide. Anders shakes his head, denies her offer with a simple wave of his hand. Fenris is pleased to see him straighten his stance, roll his shoulders. A deep breath, and Anders lets out a sigh.

“I’m only sorry for delaying us with… this. We shouldn’t waste any more time. Let’s go get Hawke,” Anders says, and his gaze turns to him. The friend he knows he can save. A nod, and Fenris gives him one in return. They both look to Merrill.

“We’ve come out in the realm of the demon who holds her. We shouldn’t be far. The Fade wants to do what we want, so just as long as we keep focused on finding Hawke then we will,” she says.

“How did you know that she was even alive in here?” Anders asks Fenris as they begin to walk, down the only path open to them. Merrill leads the way, sure and confident in her every step. Out of the corner of his eyes, Fenris can see the creatures that follow them. Drawn there by their very breath, and their shouting, no doubt. Eyes that blink over rock and stone, stare down at them from above. Shadowy figures that disappear the moment he turns his attention towards them. They are surrounded, that he knows. He doesn’t know why they don’t attack.

His gaze still upon a far off cliff, watching hands disappear from the edge, Fenris distantly answers. “I dreamed of her.” In a place very much like this, arms wrapped around herself. Armor discarded at her feet, staff in pieces. Hair drifting over her eyes, shivering with cold. Standing in front of him, and she had spoken. Words that sounded as though they were drowning in water, unintelligible, unknowable. All except for a single please, and her, reaching out, wrapping a hand around his arm. He had woken in a sweat, and a bruise in the shape of her hand on his arm.

Merrill had woken to find him on her doorstep. They had moved the eluvian to the Hawke estate that night. It had always been some distant hope, that she was still alive. After all, how could someone survive in the Fade for that long? He knew, in his heart, that Hawke could. The dream was only confirmation of it. Only Merrill knew of his fevered speech that night, his desperate pleading, his great need to rescue her from the clutches of whatever held her. He promised once, he would never leave her side. He wouldn’t leave her to this.

Anders looks at him in disbelief. “That’s an awful lot of faith you’re putting into one dream,” he says. Fenris shakes his head.

“She is alive,” he says. A knot forming between his brows, but Anders doesn’t press the question any further. The moment they had approached him, he was willing. Of course he was. A chance to enter the Fade and maybe save Hawke while they were at it? Justice, that voice ever present, telling him that he must do this. Pushing him and pushing him, and now to finally know why he was so insistent. All he was, after all those years, was a simple pack mule to deliver him here.

They reach a clearing, where a waterfall rains endlessly from nothing, into a dark pool that seems bottomless. Very near the shore, what is clearly an eluvian. They make their way carefully towards it. Merrill runs her hand along the edges of it, fingertips over gilded gold, curled flowers. Anders circles it, looks behind it. Fenris stands in front of it. It’s dusty, rusted over. He wipes his hand at the glass, and the eluvian sparks at his touch. Electricity that runs up his veins, and his markings instantly ignite at the feeling. He pulls back his hand as though burned.

“It shouldn’t be active,” Merrill murmurs, “how is it active?” The lyrium in him seems to have done something. An image flickers. More of the Fade, and his heart stops in his throat. He recognizes the armor strewn upon the ground. The figure in the distance turns, and her eyes widen at the sight of him. Walking towards him, on the other side of somewhere, and Fenris feels his very pulse drum against his bones.

“Marian.” He almost cries her name, and he reaches out his hand once again. Pushing against the glass, and it gives way to his whims. It’s the same as stepping through any other eluvian. He barely hears Merrill shouting. His arm is still outstretched towards her. Hawke.

“You’re late,” she says as she takes her hand in his. Pulling him forward, giving him a mischievous smile as she looks at him over his shoulder. “Mother would’ve been furious if you missed this.” A dress of the finest quality, ocean deep blues and swirling black and lined with gold. The staff in her other hand is much the same, ornately carved and deftly crafted. There are pearls around her neck, and in her hair. Red locks, pulled back neatly and beautifully. Varania gives his hand a small squeeze as she pulls him into the circle of people.

“Leto’s here,” she says, putting a hand on Mother’s back. She instantly steps away from her conversation to go to him, and her hands replace Varania’s. Long grey hair, braided about in a crown, earrings dangling from pointed ears. She looks up at him, her thumbs drifting over his knuckles, crows feet at her eyes, smiling lines around her mouth.

“Finally,” she says. It isn’t scolding. Far from it. He can see that Varania has taken her for a new dress. It suits her. No doubt he’ll be hearing from Varania later about how Mother had insisted she could have made one for herself.

“Sorry Mother,” he tells her, “it won’t happen again.” A chuckle under her breath, and she shakes her head.

“You and I both know that’s a lie.” A small wink. She reaches up, brushes back stray raven-black hair from his eyes. Patting his cheek and, “really, why you keep it this long is beyond me.”

“Marian likes it this way,” he says. Varania steals his hands back, to place a glass of champagne into it. With a nod of gratitude, they click their glasses together, take a sip at the same time. He doesn’t favor it quite as much as he does red wine, but it will do. Conversation mills all about them, and the band plays in the corner. Magisters and nobles of every caliber, packed into one gorgeous castle. Mother looks over the crowd, as if she could ever hope to spot only one among them. With Marian, she might be able to.

“Where is that wife of yours anyway?” She asks, turning back to him.

“No doubt persuading more Magisters to support our bill. That woman could talk a cow into becoming steak,” Varania says. Leto nearly chokes on his champagne. She isn’t wrong. Trouble incarnate, with a charisma to match. He looks over at the touch at his back, the arm that slips into his. Dark hair, like his, woven through with gold lace. Bright blue eyes, a slash of red about her lips.

“There you are!” Mother says, going to greet her. Marian greets her cheerfully, with a laugh and a smile, a kiss to both cheeks. She keeps her arm tight around Leto’s.

“I swear this crowd is going to swallow me up,” she says as she turns to look at Leto. For some reason, he feels as though he might cry from the sight of her.

He walks down the stairs, a hand on the railing. It’s far quieter than it should be. His steps echo in the hallways of the Circle. There’s dust on the shelves in the library. He takes a book in his hands, opens the cover. The pages are yellow with age, crinkle at his touch. Anders closes it, places it down on the table. He knows every carving, every bit of vandalism that’s worn into the wood. His name is here, under the second table. Where are the others?

He feels it creeping. The chill up his spine, spreading over him. Downwards ever still, another empty staircase. Beds are made, rooms impeccably kept. He pushes open the doors to the great hall. All of them, standing there in silence. Shoulders hunched, staring at the ground. They do not react to the sound of the doors opening, to his footsteps. They stand in the dark, and he can barely tell if they’re breathing. Moonlight flooding in from the windows, casting their shadows upon the floor, on each other.

He walks through them. Afraid to touch, not wanting to push, he makes himself small as he wanders through the crowd. They do not look up. They do not make a sound. Out of the corner of his eye, a face he recognizes. Moving to stand in front of her, Anders puts a hand on her shoulder. “Velanna? Can you hear me?” Her head slowly raises, her gaze meeting his.

“Anders,” she says flatly, “how may I help you?” No. No, no. no. Reaching upwards, parting bangs, and there it sits. Burned over vallaslin, a sunburst brand. Stepping backwards, his hand over his mouth, and going to the next. Turning Merrill around, raising her head to look at him.

“Anders. How may I help you?” Again, another cursed star. The sign that all that was once her, is now gone. One after the other, after the other. Moving through the hall, and he finds her in the center. Shaking Hawke, and she looks at him dully. Moving that slip of hair, and the brands on her are botched, thrice burned. They pepper her forehead, as if one were not enough for her. His fingertips dig into her shoulders, his legs threatening to give.

“Anders,” she says, “how may I help you?” He half collapses against her, arms around her, head buried in the crook of her neck as he weeps. She doesn’t move. Neither to comfort him, or to push him away. In the silence, his cries echo. Against stone walls and unmoving figures. The Circle is no more than a mausoleum, a monument to house the living dead.

“Who did this to you? Who did this to you?” Repeating the question, over and over again, knowing the answer. The Templars would pay. They would all pay –

“You have done this.” He freezes in place. His breath chokes in his throat. Moving to look at her, his hands clasped on her shoulders once again.

“What did you say?” He asks it in a hoarse whisper.

“You did this to us,” she says. “After you caused the explosion at the Chantry, no one could trust a mage. They turned us in. Rounded us up. We could not fight back. There were too many of them, and no safe places. They made us all tranquil. There are no mages left. Except for you. Where were you Anders? Why didn’t you protect us?” She accuses him in a voice with no life. She presents it as fact.

“I tried,” he says, “I did it for us.”

“You failed,” she says. “You did not free us. You killed us all.”

She keeps her distance, ducks behind a tree as an arrow whizzes past her face. Merrill holds her staff to her breast, back against bark, and looks behind her. Pulling back as another arrow flies. She can hear her getting closer. Footsteps in the brush, breaking branches underneath her feet. She strides forward with purpose, and that purpose is Merrill. Tamlen follows after her, the bow in his hands, drawing another arrow from his quiver. They are hunting. Merrill is the prey.  

She breaks forward, turning the staff in her hands. Branches that twist, vines that grow, but it doesn’t stop Mahariel from moving ever forward. Turning the spear in her hands, shield in the other. Leaping over all that Merrill puts in her way, and Tamlen, ever close. “This isn’t very nice!” Merrill calls out to them.

“You let it taint us,” Mahariel tells her. Purple veins on Tamlen’s neck, discoloration in his face. “You let the Wardens take me.” She wears their armor, bears their insignia. The griffon emblazoned on her chest plate is twisted, malevolent. Not true to the real thing.

“What happened to them wasn’t my fault,” Merrill says, shaking her head. She knows exactly what this is. She throws up the barrier in time to catch the arrow, shatter it into pieces. Mahariel surges forward, and Merrill knocks the spear out of the way. Flames follow the path of her hand, send Mahariel darting back.

“For you, I wasn’t worth it. My death didn’t matter to you. You only fixed the eluvian for Hawke,” Tamlen says.

“What happened to it being for the good of our people?” Mahariel asks as she raises her shield, stops the lightning that Merrill casts her way. “You were meant to save us. To remember our history. To make us more than we were. Instead, you allowed yourself to be distracted. We weren’t enough.”

“Well, that isn’t right,” Merrill says as she moves on the offensive. A little bit of blood. “It’s not that simple. You can’t say anything to me that I haven’t thought of before. Really, you’re being quite unoriginal.” Leaning back as Mahariel strikes forward, and the spear nearly catches her. She calls forth the roots from the earth. No, not quite roots. Branches, spears of their own, strike up fast and quick. They catch Tamlen, piercing him completely, and he collapses into formless fog.

Mahariel skirts around them, shield out. Merrill takes a few quick steps back, feels the wind of it passing, watching as the tree very near her practically shatters. “I will die, surrounded by darkspawn. Abandoned by you, my people and the Wardens,” Mahariel tells her.

“No,” Merrill shakes her head, “you’ll die here, demon.” Such rage in this dream. The air around them cools, her breath visible in the air. Snow settling in her hair, on her skin, and Merrill makes her own arrows. Mahariel catches some of the ice with her shield. The rest of it slices through her throat, that twisted armor, again and again, until the demon roars, breaks, drowning flame into the dirt. It happens in a blink.

The forest is replaced by trees made of stone. The same green sky, no grass underneath her feet. An empty place, the looming Fade. Merrill whirls, and looks for the others. Fear has sunk its claws into Anders. Sloth wraps Fenris in its embrace.

A hand fisting into the back of his robes, and Merrill pulls Anders back. “Hello,” she says, rubbing at the brand on her forehead as though it’s a mere stain to be washed away. His eyes widen when it disappears. “You’ve just gotten out of the hold of one demon, it would be a shame to get another so soon.” At her words, the Tranquil snap to life. Hissing anger, halted steps, fingernails sharpened into claws. They advance forward, and Merrill spills forth flame. Anders’s eyes widen.

“It got me! It fucking got me!” He says, wagging a scolding figure at the demon disguised as Hawke. The laughter soon follows from his lips. Shaking his head, and his flames join hers.

Anders steps beside Leto, takes the drink from his hand. Downing it completely before the throwing the glass over his shoulder, pushing Varania away from him. “It’s time to wake up Fenris,” he says, “We have to save Hawke.” Marian, at his side, strides forward. Merrill catches her, wrenches her back. Struggling with her and Leto moves forward to take Marian from Merrill’s grasp.

“She said please,” Merrill says. Fenris stops instantly.

“She came to you because she needed you. Don’t let an illusion fool you,” Anders says.

Fenris steps back, moving from marble floor to faded clarity. Why is it so hard to breathe in this place? “It felt… real,” he says, looking at the other two. Stone hangs in the distance, the clouds that aren’t clouds. A worm like creature near his feet, and Anders casts it into dust.

“They always do,” Merrill says.

“Don’t feel too bad. She had to save me too,” Anders says, clapping a hand to his back.

“Where are we?” Fenris asks, turning as he looks around. Surrounded by tall cliffs, a patch of stone trees. Different from the low valleys and beaches of the Fade they had been wandering before.

“I think we need to go there,” Merrill says, pointing in a single direction. An archway, covered by a shimmering veil. What’s behind it is obscured, by the veil and by distance. Water seeps underneath it, pools in the runes carved before it. It doesn’t become any clearer even as they stand before it. Some ghostly wind shifts the veil slightly, and the water continues to poor. It’s Fenris who reaches forward, to that slip.

Pulling back the veil, looking to what’s behind it. A clearing, that leads to finely carved stone steps. Pillars that might have been made of marble, and an altar between them. A figure lies motionless on the altar. Another weeps over it. There’s armor scattered on the steps. A staff, splintered in pieces. Fenris steps through the veil. The weeping suddenly stops. It wears a veil of its own, and tears still fall through the fingers pressed against its face. Misshapen, unnatural hands, almost a mockery of what they should be. It wears a mourning dress, a hood pulled over its head.

Its arms drop to its side, and they see the pointed teeth inside its mouth. Through its veil made of lace, there are no eyes. Only tears. It floats forward, feet not touching the floor. “You were supposed to stay in your dreams,” it says. Fenris barely hears it speak. All he sees is that body on the altar.

Hawke.

[Click Here for Part 3]

[creightonbeatrice1994]

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[kootenaygoon]

So,

There was a pretty young blond woman dancing naked in the Salmo River.

Hundreds of Shambhala enthusiasts were luxuriating along the rocky shorelines, while others drifted lazily in flamboyantly decorated inner tubes and neon-coloured flamingos. Music from the Living Room stage filled the afternoon with an electric ambience, and the sky was transitioning back and forth from baby blue to cherry pink. I laid on my back in my wet boxer shorts, analyzing the energy currently coursing through my body, until my eyes fell on the woman in the water. She was purposeful with her movements, languid, and had an empowered stance that betrayed no hint of fear or embarrassment. It amazed me. This was my second time attending the festival, and I was intent on engaging with the whole culture of it on a deeper level.

“You see this right here? This is a demonstration of safety,” I said to my friend Astra, who was dressed as a space dragon. “Everyone always talks like Shambhala is this scary, wretched place where you’re going to get assaulted and raped but the truth is the opposite. Where else in the world can a woman dance naked in public without fear or shame?”

She shrugged. “Maybe she’s just really fucked up.”

“But don’t you think that speaks to the environment they’re creating here? This is like the only place a lot of people can safely be themselves.”

“Shambhala is like my religion. It’s the happiest I ever am, is here on this ranch.”

I shook my head. “I never understood it before, the appeal. Mostly because I don’t like the music. But it’s not about the music, it’s about the culture.”

“You’re over-thinking it,” she said.

Astra and I had dated briefly while I was in university, long before I ever met Paisley, but we’d successfully transitioned into a long-term platonic relationship that was a little on the grey side at times. She was one of the only people I’d ever met over the years who I could really show my dark side to without judgment. Anything I did, she’d done something worse. She’d been briefly homeless as a teenager, had dated drug dealers and survived assaults, so she made my life feel G-rated. When I heard she was coming out to Shambhala I connected with her on Facebook, arranging to connect on the second day. After smoking a joint and doing a small amount of ketamine, we decided to take up a salesman’s offer of acid popsicles.

“I actually have never done acid before,” I said. “I always thought it would be crazier than this.”

“It can be hit or miss. I can’t believe you’ve never done acid before.”

“You always forget how virginal I am. I fucking grew up Christian, right?”

“Well, you’re going to have fun.”

One thing Astra and I always connected over was my writing. Specifically my writing about her. At UVic I’d written a poem about drinking beer with her at Mile Zero, and then during my MFA I was constantly re-working an experimental creative non-fiction piece called “This is what I look like naked”. During the short time we were together I produced a bunch of little stories and vignettes that didn’t end up having any other purpose, and she was always showing up in my fiction. She wasn’t a strong writer, or much of a reader, but she loved stories.

“You know Bianca’s a writer too, right?” Astra said, leaning against her fellow space dragon. “She’s at UVic.”

“No way. I just graduated from there like three years ago. What teachers do you have?”

Bianca shrugged, named a few I didn’t recognize. “My favourite teacher by far, though, is Lee Henderson. Like he’s beyond typical teacher level, I just fucking love that guy.”

“Lee? Yeah, I know Lee. I never had him as a teacher, but his friend Steven Galloway was my thesis advisor.”

“You know Steven Galloway?” Bianca gasped, seemingly in the know about the current scandal. “I didn’t know he was friends with Lee.”

“Oh yeah, they worked together at UBC before he swapped over.”

I knew it was potentially a sketchy idea to keep my phone on me while I was high, but making this Lee Henderson connection with Bianca felt like something worthy of acknowledging on social media. I went rifling through my shorts until I found my phone, then sent him a tweet from the both of us.

“So do you think he’s guilty?” Bianca asked. “Like do you know what’s going on with all that?”

I shook my head. “That’s the frustrating thing. Nobody even knows exactly what he’s being accused of. And you should see the way people are acting online. It’s fucking bonkers. Lee’s out there trying to defend him and it’s just this vicious doggy-pile, you know?”

Astra was confused. “So everyone’s pissed at him but they don’t know what he did?”

“Everyone assumes it’s rape.”

She frowned. “Well, if he’s guilty then fuck ‘im.”

I could feel myself getting worked up. I cared deeply about sexual violence, and whenever it came up as a topic my heart would beat a little faster. The trees across the way were beginning to sway unnaturally, but I re-averted my gaze in Bianca’s direction. She was passionately decrying rape culture and explaining to Astra the ways institutions silence victims. I was feeling like if we talked about this any longer I might vomit, and maybe this pleasant trip would pivot somewhere dark, like last year. Eventually I stood up and went down to the water for a swim. The woman was still dancing in the shallows, shin-deep. Eventually Astra came down to sit beside me, letting me know the posse was planning to head to the next venue. She saw my pensive look.

“What’s going on in your head?”

I shrugged. “Honestly, I was just mentally composing my column for the newspaper. You’re going to be in it, just so you know.”

“You’re not going to talk about drugs or anything, are you?”

“No, no. It’s like sanitized coverage that’s appropriate for a larger audience. But the column I can be a little more creative, I don’t have to go for the straight-up journalism thing.”

“What are you going to write about me?” she asked, her voice soft. I looked over and met her gaze.

“I’m going to write about your beautiful purple wings.”

The Kootenay Goon

[calcinators-blog]

Two Irons (Part 2.)

In a progressive gradient of pale yellow to pink, a single wave of spark broke through into your peripheral vision. Hundreds of tiny flashes, bursting and burning like micro-fireworks, washed over you. The sparks, falling through the air and creating fragile ribbons of light, had escaped the antechamber that Matt had only just disappeared into while in pursuit of Nines, with the matched enthusiasm of a flame chasing a fuse. FN-2199 had indiscreetly been the cause of antagonism, fully oblivious to what his antics set in motion and the impossibility of being followed by the crimson plasma blade.

To the best of your understanding, prior to ignition, there had been confrontational voices and a short, heated exchange. You had picked out the sound of both Nines and Matt, as the two likely had a word with each other. Although, as you went to move your head, to tilt your ear in the direction of the employee common room out of equal parts curiosity and panic, you found it remained stationary against your will. Blinking, unnerved for a good moment or two at the alien sensation, you tried once again. It was only then in testing your range of motion were you aware that your entire being had become unresponsive. After a number of other failed trials, you established that the extent of control you still retained had been in your capacity to blink, otherwise, your limbs had felt present but your muscles nonexistent.

For no discernible purpose or reason, Matt had had immobilized you. Simply because your body, hardwired to either fight or flee, was frozen solid, you began to feel all the unpleasant manifestations of fear. Matt— Kylo Ren— was living up to his legend.

No one could deny what the Commander was capable of. How he was able to bend the very air around his opposition, without so much as lifting a finger. For what rare information the First Order would disclose, it was made abundantly clear to you to stay out of his way. On no circumstances were you do something as heinous as purposely provoking his senseless temper, as there was no guarantee that any salvageable part of you would be left for a proper burial. Likewise, if you were to ever find him, already caught in a fit of rage, you were conditioned to immediately retreat and inform your superior officer. The broken equipment, as expensive as it was, could be shredded as easily as a body, regardless of stormtrooper fortifications. You tried to eschew and discard the notion of Matt completely and publicly gutting Nines, only through denial that he would blazon his identity.

And while you pushed the visual of carnage to the back of your brain, the appropriate rationale to absolve yourself of guilt began to work its way through you. Of course, from the warnings you had accumulated, there was no curiosity or existing capacity for you to test the Commander’s patience. You didn't need to see or feel his might to believe he could live up to his allegory. If anything, you were happy to avoid him completely; a quiet relief fell upon all of Starkiller when he had left the premise.

Nines had been the one to provoke him, sure, but even then it was unintentional and therefore the blame you wanted to place on him fell through the cracks of reasoning. You couldn't look at your friend and find responsibility for your current situation; Nines was a lot of things, but he wasn't stupid. He, nor the collective population or the Order, had enough backbone to knowingly haze the Commander.

Well— there was only a singular instance of someone intentionally trying to get a rise out of Kylo Ren. The incident was one that you hadn't been witness to, but didn't need to be in order to understand the impact of it all. Each person who offered a retelling to you would inflate the story with different details, yet, all ended in the same gruesome fashion. You understood that subsequently there had been a turbulent disagreement between what the General and Captain believed, versus Commander Ren. It seemed that both General Hux and Captain Phasma still placed value on human lives, whereas Kylo Ren saw nothing. Lieutenant Colonel Zack, arguably affected the most in the matter, was still struggling with the loss of his son and would become difficult to locate when the Commander would make a routine patrol through the winding complex.

Though you had been told countless times, none had hinted what you should do if ever faced with his pure, unfiltered rage. None had explained the helplessness, vulnerability, or even hinted the way your mind would inevitably spiral once he had you. And here you were now, despite having followed each instruction as you had been given, you were unable to tear your eyes away from staring down the barrel of a loaded blaster. Faced with it all, the surprising impact of imagining the red plasma blade colliding with soft skin, you began to bleed with suspicion to your commitment regarding the First Order. And not just a slow bleed out, like a harmless or accidental cut or scrape- it was a loss of swift and lethal proportions.

Never had you once questioned their methods. And this was your first indication of chaos inside the First Order. Kylo Ren was held in such esteem, such terrible reverence, that it only managed to poison your faith in the entire system. He was one of the very triumvirate that you worked so diligently to satisfy— what was his purpose, to dress up and terrorize his subordinates? It felt beyond hypocritical, a reflexively bitter on your tongue, at the though of "Matt" occupying himself by stirring up trouble. You believed you had left that taste behind in the dust of your home planet. In the still-budding fear of your subjection to his ability, there also came a burgeoning anger that you had become his mark. In this, a friction existed between the two, the fear and anger. You grit your teeth and began trying to pull yourself free.

Kylo Ren works against the enemy, so, what does that make me?

Your consciousness, to the point of wavering at best, warned you of your home planet. Savage and sudden reminders of those dying in the streets, paralyzed by the government. You thought of a group of people you had seen as you left home for the last time, lazing in the sun, with rosy faces and dry cracking lips from dehydrated and hunger. For the sake of them, you had to set aside your internal panic. You would be no good to the cause, or yourself, if you let Kylo Ren's game rule you. You thought back to the face of the officer who had inspired your confidence in the First Order to restore political power to your home planet. They would end needless casualties, as you had witnessed time and time again, with the lives of your people shuffled around as the senate argued and argued but never budged.

Bandaging up the skepticism, creating a mental tourniquet, you had to allow that the actions of this one could not reflect the choices of the others. The gleaming base as it shuttered with life and hopefulness was the First Order. The Finalizer, drifting and skimming the skies above, was the First Order. The metallic trooper, the captain of many, was the First Order. You and Nines were the First Order.

Kylo Ren was a splinter; you decided there and then that he was not, and could never be, the First Order. Not to you.

Matt, now standing parallel to where you were frozen, dipped his face in close to yours. Too close. You noticed a bead of sweat drip down his temple as tension fixed across his forehead. The wrath in his glare would burn into your memory. This was the face of the Commander of the First Order. Even with the disheveled blond, cupid-curled wig, he was an epithet of consequence and power. The eyes staring into you, fully bypassing the glasses as if they hadn't been there at all, had been spectator to awfulness so far beyond your understanding of the galaxy you would have felt holes in your very heart to recognize.

He appeared to be holding himself back, trapping his primal nature under twitching skin and muscle. His bridle was rapidly deteriorating, if any of it had ever existed at all. With the way that his eyes fixed upon you in such sickening concentration, you considered praying.

Widening his eyes at the supposition, his clenched jaw relaxed just enough to growl, “I see his death.”

There was no debating who he had meant, being that there had only been one other person who had wandered into his domain of influence.

Nines.

The words had the equivalent blow of a shock-wave; one great sting, washing through your nerves and bones, followed by a complete lack of sensation. Everything went numb at the sound of his voice, be it that there was truth behind his claim or not. You had become paralyzed both inside and out, with grief quietly causing certain devastation. It didn’t make sense for you to feel so intensely to hear it; perhaps it was the tone or who the mouth was attached to, rather than what was truly being said. You were sorely aware of the stormtrooper's rate of survival, being that it was a measurement required for your to complete your assigned duties.

Unblinking, Matt watched your pupils dilate, the physical response of the weight of his words. The corner of his mouth twitched, over and over in confinement of a malicious smile. Maybe he found compensation in seeing you wince.

You can hear me?

The tension on his forehead released. His face relaxed enough for you to understand that he was shifting through your head as you thought. As you made the connections and realizations, he was right there watching you figure it out. Bringing a hand up, it hovered over the side of your face, shy of your hair. “Yes,” he brought his palm forward, as if about to stroke you, but refused to make contact.

You still would have recoiled provided you were able to move.

"I hear them too... Should I tell you what they're hiding?” He sounded blithe. You knew there was certain madness there. He was playing with you.

None of this is real. You can't be in my head, that isn't possible.

But he answered your thoughts, "It isn't? I'll show you."

Your heart lurched into your throat as each following beat became excruciating to bear like a caged animal trapped in your ribs, beating itself against the wall your chest built around it. Blood rushed around your system, hot to cold to hot again. Searing then freezing. Everything you had meant to burry in your mind, condemn and forget, began scratching its way to the surface. Your gaze darted about his face as the abstract feeling of panic filled your lungs at each increasingly broken inhale, expecting for something less-than-human to have replaced him. The singular bead of sweat on his face fell down his cheek, much like a tear which only served to feign a look of strain that did not exist. His evil gold-flecked eyes, burning, released a further cursive pain down your spinal cord, flowing without stinting. A moment more of his torture and your mind would collapse into itself.

But liberation can look like various things to various people. At that moment, relief was speckled with muffin crumbs from her lunch break. Your rescuer, the floor supervisor, called out from the end of the hallway with her demand entirely puncturing his concentration. “HAVE YOU RE- WIRED THE CALCINATOR YET, MATT?” She hadn't realized your distress as you had been completely, helplessly motionless through it all; her annoyance to find that Matt had not completed his duty had saved you.

He waved his outstretched hand in a wiping motion all as he turned away from you to return to his original task. No further words or glares, the pain had instantly dissolved. And even as your movements were restored, fully able to pilot your own body again, your mind however needed more time to recuperate. Before Matt would be left unsupervised, once again, you would be the first to move.

You spent most of your free time, meager as it was, in the common area of your sector. You volunteered to unofficially supervise, which included breaking up the occasional argument between hungry troopers and making sure meals came out on time; anything to keep the schedule running optimally. Although your allotted responsibility had been concerning data entry, the requirements had tapered down to a minimal, shifted to automatic means. You busied yourself with supervising, primarily to keep your superiors from retraining you for other duties. You had become particularly wary of the increasing demand and associated horrors of the financial sector.

Returning to your regular haunt, you found FN-2199 with his helmet removed, howling with laughter. Bright eyes, gleaming teeth, and hair redder than red. He was the first you could recognize as you entered the room, finding him with his head tipped back and both hands splayed over his ivory chest plate. Others encircled him in a mishmash of helmets, on and off, with their exposed faces matching his expression. Once the handful of others dispersed, he bounded over to you, bright eyes impossibly turning brighter. There was unspoken appreciation for your presence, he had a story for you he knew you wanted to hear and was excited to share.

Amusement was still present in his voice, pulling back loose strands of grenadine hair from out of his face as he whirled about to face you, “You should have seen it... If I didn't see it for myself, I don't think I would believe it... This new guy is— a total nerve burner!" Speaking as if he had just ran laps around the perimeter of the room, he dissolved into a snort which was closely followed by a look of partial embarrassment.

Kylo Ren: the nerve burner.

A juvenile comment, true, but no less valid. You knew your friend was about to grace you with a retelling of all that you had missed, while being held by invisible hands, in the way his commentary was practically bursting out of him.

“He really is,” you quickly agreed. Your reasons for approving were emphatically different, but shared a conclusion all the same. Remembering the rage in his eyes, you were suddenly overcome with the suspicion that you were being watched. Peering over your shoulder to confirm Matt’s absence, you breathed a sigh of relief.

“He threw Ren’s light sword thing– right at the wall... Right there,” he pointed, “I mean, look at that shit... Now, I'm no scientist but that's solid durasteel. Durasteel. This new technician is a new level of crazy, really.” As mentioned, there was a clearly identifiable dent in the wall next to the workplace incident counter, which seemed to be permanently set at 0 days. Typically, the irony of the visual would have inspired a smile or laugh on your part, but under the circumstances, comedy was unable to get through to you.

A knot formed in your stomach at the recognition that the deactivated lightsaber, the cause of commotion, had been seized by your friend and was wrapped up in his glove. "Who's idea was it to give the galaxy's most temperamental butcher a thing like this?"

"Matt?"

His voice sharpened, given the impression you hadn't been listening, "What? No, I was talking about Kylo Ren."

"Same thing."

He scrunched up his nose at you before he carried on speaking, still enchanted by the previous moment and buzzing, "It's kind of hard to believe this thing can cause so much damage, especially when you see it up close like this. It looks poorly made, right? When it's activated, I mean. It's like a little kid built it."

He held it up to his eye for closer inspection. The emitter fell perfectly in line with his brow. One wrong move or any pressure on the switch and he would have rendered himself blind.

Nines. Really?

“Why are you holding that thing?” You took a step back as if the lightsaber was cognizant and opportunistic, able to switch itself on.

He spoke on top of you, not with the intention of being rude but only carried away by his access to the fabled weapon, “I wonder how Matt got a hold of it in the first place. I can't believe anyone would test his patience after—” His voice faded out, receding into a swallow.

“—Then think about it, Nines! What is the only reasonable explanation?” Not that Occam's razor would help, seeing that Kylo Ren pretending to be a radar technician was certainly not the simpler explanation. However, unknowing how Matt would react if you revealed his identity, you felt it necessary to least express caution to your friend given that the radar technician had a penchant for hurling his defective glow stick at walls and force-freezing innocent bystanders. Of course, you still considered yourself innocent. Even if on a technicality of ignorance.

FN-2199 ignored your warning, passing his eyes across it as he turned it over in his hands. You were almost nervous at his uncharacteristic fixation upon it. Was it that he could feel the power? Could he imagine how many had perished, ripped apart or otherwise, human flesh being tremendously softer than durasteel? Could he imagine all the devastation?

A shrug followed, allowing for it to drop to his side with a slow rattle of his head. Nines was ambivalent to the Commander’s prop. And it was so like him to have moments, of obvious weight and magnitude, fly over his head. “We should put it in the trash compactor...” His voice broke into a snort again.

Apparently way, way over his head.

His expression made it shockingly difficult to deny, being all teeth and dimples and flaring nostrils. Shaking your head for a definite no, he shook a yes back before continuing, “Imagine the Commander looking all over this frippin' base for this thing..."

In a scolding tone, you tried to allude to the serious nature he couldn't pick up on, "Nines."

"No, wait... Imagine him eventually finding it in the garbage.” Disintegration into snickering, pressing his free hand to his face. There was no one he could make laugh harder than himself.

FN-2199’s taste for hue and cry had only intensified with FN-2187 going AWOL. They were a tight-knit group and his divorce from the Order had changed everyone, but no one more than Nines. The sheer fact that he was entertaining the lightsaber-in-the-trash-compactor scheme was evidence enough. As the saying goes, there’s a first and last for everything. You understood this was not the case for practical jokes on Matt; no first or last anything for it would be a death wish. And you did not want to imagine a day without Nines on Starkiller, as much as he could be cause for nervous tension. Bold and loyal, the ideal companion, he would risk his hide to save yours. It was unspoken, mostly as you avoided letting conversations spike in that direction, but he would make sure that you were okay; he would put your life before his own— and not because he was programed to.

"You will definitely not be throwing Kylo Ren's lightsaber in the trash."

Nines, your recklessness is going to be the end of us both.

Your scolding, the impossible arrangement of words that rolled off your nervous tongue, only made him laugh louder.

The Lieutenant Colonel was a good-natured man, if not melancholic recently. He had a young face which had begun showing signs of aging since the devastation of his son. Sadness hollowed out his expression, tethered with sleeplessness and heartache. Still, he kept his uniform without creases and wore an approachable look at all times. He was always affably composed, even in the days within the shadow of the incident. You were positive that he kept his good nature about him for the great number of troopers that looked up to him as a surrogate parent. So many leaned on him for support and stability that even the most thorough psytech would fail to discern. His were qualities that could not be taught or replicated.

You wondered how truly exhausted he was underneath it all.

And as stillness overtook the room, the Lieutenant Colonel Zack was first to notice the approaching authority. He just about doubled over himself all to properly salute whoever it was that had approached the common area. The Lieutenant Colonel's sudden marvel caused all eyes in the room to pull towards the figure, whose very presence had swept through into the chamber like a cold, arctic Starkiller wind.

“Ah! General Hux. What brings you to our sector?”

[startrek-z]

STZ IV: Part 2

“Entering orbit around Sira-8,” Saavik announced. “Thank you lieutenant. Mr. Spock, fetch Doctor McCoy and meet me in the transporter room,” Kirk ordered. He had a sinking feeling about this.

*** Sand was horribly thick in the air. Even with his hat pressed against his mouth, Link could still taste the dry grains sticking to the inside of his cheeks. He had left the lab only an hour ago. Several days had passed since he’d tried to contact Pavel, and still no answer had come. The water was running terribly low; it wouldn’t last another night, and Zelda had grown too ill to travel. He’d had to wrestle himself away from her side, knowing he needed to try to find water for them if they had any hope at all of surviving. But he knew in his heart that the chances were high that he’d probably never see her again. Things only got worse from there as the wind picked up. With barely any vegetation left, he soon found himself at the mercy of a dust storm. Coughs shook his dangerously thin frame, leaving him feeling giddy and weak. He pushed on, though. If there was a chance, he didn’t want to fail Zelda, like he’d failed the rest of Hyrule. It was so hot…but he wasn’t sweating. His breath came in short, strained gasps. If only he could find some shade…maybe some water. He hadn’t allowed himself a drink in nearly two days… and the food had run out nearly a week ago. Link groaned, pausing to rub his temples as a persistent headache worsened. ‘gotta keep going…’ he thought to himself, before struggling on. The sun, though hidden in the airborne grime, beat mercilessly down on him. Hours seemed like days–step after step after step. Dizziness started to wash over him, and he found himself fighting to keep his balance. Everything looked the same. The Hero of a Hyrule that no longer existed found himself wondering if he’d gotten anywhere–had he been walking in circles? There was no way to know for certain. Link paused and squinted. Was that a person, standing in the distance? A fuzzy dark shape seemed to be looming ahead of him. Thinking that maybe it was another survivor, he started to walk as quickly as his dizziness would allow towards them. Suddenly, he lurched forward; the ground seemed to disappear completely. Wind was whistling shrilly in his ears. His sluggish mind groped helplessly for an explanation; his vision was clouded with swirling vortexes of brown and tan in every direction. What was up? Where was down? What had he been doing? Why was there so much wind? There was a crack as he slammed into the first protruding ledge. His breath hitched in his throat as pain flooded his senses. He couldn’t even manage a scream as the world continued to spin dizzily around him. For a moment, he saw blue eyes and red hair. She was saying something; he couldn’t make it out. 'Malon…wait, I don’t understand…’ The last thing he remembered was a sickening thud as the world went black and still. Wind was whistling shrilly in his ears as he came to. A harsh cough ripped through him, resulting in sharp gasps of pain. Fire consumed his ribs when he tried to breath. He tried to push himself upright, but the movement was too painful to bare. Nausea clawed ruthlessly at his insides, and his body convulsed violently as he heaved. Nothing came up. The endless expanse of brown swirled dizzily around him. The sensation of floating came and went as he rested his forehead on the sandy earth. Sand tickled his dry, scratchy throat with every breath, threatening to make him cough again. The pain…if only it’d go away so he could move. It seized him up again as he coughed, sending him into a whirlpool of agony like nothing he’d ever experienced. 'Hold on…’ The voice seemed to drift its way into his ears. Link fought to pick up his head, dim blue eyes wearily searching the sandy clouds for its source. No one was there… 'Help is coming, just hold on.’ “Pav…” he whispered weakly. The gritty taste of sand was thick in his mouth. Everything was fading; darkness crept anxiously into the sides of his vision, waiting to engulf him. “I’m sorry…I..i can’t.” *** “Good lord, what happened?” Bones muttered in disbelief. Kirk was too stunned to form a response. They had beamed down onto Sira-8, and the sight that greeted them was anything but pleasant. The once lush, green planet now looked little more than a dust bowl, void of life. While the two humans gaped at the condition of the planet, Spock consulted his tricorder, his expression as emotionless as ever. “The closest life form is approximately 30 metres ahead of us,” the Vulcan stated, looking up into the endless clouds of dust. “It is very faint.” “Well don’t just stand there, let’s go!” McCoy grumbled with concern, starting ahead without waiting for a response. Kirk and Spock followed in silence. It wasn’t long before they spotted the crumpled form. McCoy broke into a clumsy jog, hindered slightly by the bulky yellow bio suit he was wearing. All three had decided to wear the gaudy equipment, not knowing what would await them planetside. Kirk and Spock approached in time to hear Bones curse with worry. Kirk soon understood why. He barely recognized the motionless, dust-covered boy as Link–angry red cuts and scrapes crisscrossed on what skin they could see, suggesting a fall of some sort. He was dangerously thin; it was far too easy to spot ribs beneath the his tattered green garment. His cheeks were shallow and unnaturally pale, and dark shadows had settled under his eyes. McCoy was holding his tricorder over the boy, watching the screen with furrowed brows. “This is not good,” he finally murmured. “He’s severly dehydrated, on top of heat stroke and a pretty bad concussion. Some broken bones, too…must’ve gotten caught in a dust storm and fell off this cliff here. And it doesn’t take a damned doctor to know he’s severely underweight,” he looked gravely back at the other two officers. “Pavel was right. The Reliant wouldn’t have made it in time. How he’s alive even now is beyond me.” Kirk nodded, biting his lip. “Spock, are there any others?” “Yes, one other. It is not far from here, and not nearly as faint.” “Well I’m taking Link back to the ship,” McCoy announced. “You two go claim the other one.” Bones called for a beam up, and soon he and Link had disappeared. “Alright Mr. Spock. Lead the way.” Spock did not reply, but strode purposely toward the nearest dwelling: the laboratory. *** “Admiral,” Saavik said, turning in her seat. “The Reliant has just dropped out of warp near the edge of the system.” “Right on time,” was Kirk’s reply. “Actually sir, they are five point three minutes late,” She smoothly informed him. Mr. Spock nodded in approval. Kirk shrugged, deciding it best not to explain his reasoning. “Lieutenant Saavik, please send Mr. Chekov straight to sickbay when he arrives. Mr. Spock and I will meet him there,” Kirk ordered, raising from his chair. “Aye sir,” Saavik replied crisply as she took the conn. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Link knew he should be in pain, but there wasn’t any; Only heavy darkness. He thought he heard voices, but they sounded so far away, he couldn’t recognize or understand them. His mind was sluggishly coming back. His entire body felt leaden and weighted down, but the feel of cloth at his fingertips suggested he was lying in a bed. A bed…? Memories started to filter back into his weary mind. The fall, the sand, the heat, the pain, everything. 'Where am I?’ He cautiously opened his eyes, wincing faintly as light seared into cracked eyelids. As the room slowly came into focus, he saw three blurry faces looking down on him. “Welcome back,” said a familiar, gruff voice. It wasn’t Pavel. Link blinked a few times, his vision clearing only slightly. “This…this isn’t the Reliant,” he murmured, dazed. “No,” another voice told him, “you’re on the Enterprise.” The Enterprise. Finally, he could see again. The familiar, yet somewhat aged faces of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were gazing down at him from above. “Captain?” he managed softly, focusing on Kirk. “Jim is no longer a captain,” Spock corrected him, “he is an admiral, and I am Captain.” The Hylian was too drained to be annoyed by the correction. He couldn’t even be sure that he wasn’t imagining all of this. “Well Jim, the worst is past,” Dr. McCoy stated. He had been scanning Link’s vitals. “A few more days of bed rest and a few good meals, he’ll be good as new.”

An urgent thought pressed its way into his sluggish head. Real or not, he needed to know. “Did you…did you get Zelda? Is she–” “She’s alright,” McCoy reassured him, recognizing the effort it was taking for him to talk. “She’s in the next room.” “Was there anyone else…?” McCoy and Kirk exchanged regretful looks, before McCoy responded with a small shake of his head. “Our scanners didn’t pick up any other signs of life. I’m sorry, Link.” He hadn’t even realized how tightly he’d been clinging to the hope that others had survived. The confirmation that he and Zelda had really been the only ones out of an entire world full of living things and people left a heavy ache in his chest. “…where’s Pavel?” “He’s on his way,” Kirk reassured him, his tone gentle and fatherly in the wake of news that had clearly wounded the young man. “They were a little too far away to help. We happened to be passing by, and he asked us to come and help you in his stead. He should be here in just a few minutes.”

[sincerelyajar]

The Atheist Perspective:

Introduction:   Discussion and open dialogue are a wonderful aspect of a free society.  To that end, a friend and I have gotten together to address the topic of worldview.  Two worldviews will be examined, the Atheist perspective and the Christian perspective. What makes up a worldview?  The prompt I suggested was on four central topics, the four qualifiers of a worldview made popular by Dr. Ravi Zacharias, a Christian philosopher and writer.   The four areas were: Origin - How does your worldview explain the origins of humanity? Meaning - How is meaning described within your worldview? Morality - What is the moral basis of your worldview? Destiny - What is the future of your worldview? A good friend of mine by the name of Jennifer Sternitzky was kind and gracious enough to step out and explain her worldview by these qualifiers, upon my request.  Jennifer is a graduate of the University of Green Bay, with two degrees in Psychology and English.  Jennifer is a feminist and a well read atheist.  We've been friends for several years. We decided upon approximately 750 words, one page, to describe the four points of worldview in a concise, direct manner.  Enjoy.  

The Atheist Perspective:

Jennifer Sternitzky, University of Green Bay

Origin:

I believe in evolution, human and social. I believe humans evolved from apes, and apes evolved from…whatever they evolved from. I don’t pretend to understand everything in science or how evolution works, but I don’t believe there is a God (Christian or otherwise) or in any higher power. I believe we are the product of a series of mutations, enabling the ‘fittest’ to survive, though I do not believe humans are the ultimate beings. I believe we are part of a larger ecosystem and no living creature is above the other, though people certainly act like humans are the dominant creature. I suspect that somewhere along the way we’ll find a way to destroy ourselves—maybe even our planet. If we destroy ourselves, I suspect vegetation and animal life will repopulate the earth; whether humans ever re-emerge again, who knows.

Meaning:

Plenty of people tell me that without God there is no meaning to life, and I disagree. Humanity is special, not because God created us all with a special purpose, but because we didn’t have to be. Through a series of mutations, humans evolved into what we are today, proving that we were better fit to navigate the world than previous humanlike primates. Still others ask if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys. And those people clearly don’t know how evolution works. It happens over millions of years, very slowly, mutating and branching off into new species. Other primates were equally good at surviving and so their species was sustained. The same with humans. But I digress. I believe humanity is special because we are sort of ‘happy accidents’; mortality makes it special too. We’re born with a certain, undesignated, amount of time to live and to create our own meaning. We find what means the most to us and strive to create a life around it. Most humans want to help others in some way—be it art, science, philosophy, psychology, civil service, etc. I believe humanity’s purpose is to look out for each other and to love each other and ensure the species’ survival. In the evolutionary sense at least. We find our own reasons to live and to make our difference in the world.

Morality:

I’ve also been told that without God there can be no morals, or that, as an atheist, I must have no morals. And I again disagree. I believe in love, hope, honor, loyalty, honesty, trust, respect, etc. Those things don’t come from God. They come from within and from human interaction. They are not imposed on us by some invisible spirit. To me, if you need God to tell you what’s wrong or right, and you can’t figure it out on your own, then you may be part of the problem. Also, I find that excessively religious people try to pass off their own opinions of morality as God’s will or God’s word or God speaking through them. It seems as if they’re trying to justify their own hatefulness. Also, basing morality off of an ancient text written by superstitious people who had vastly different values (slavery, women as reproductive beings only, myths about how crops appeared or weather changed, etc) seems absurd, as does picking and choosing the parts we agree with and want to practice. Do we still follow the Malleus Maleficarum? Of course not.  Because that’s of a time when people believed different things, superstitious, irrational things. They condemned things out of fear, because they didn’t understand it. I’m a firm believer in “Just because you can’t explain it, doesn’t mean God did it.”

Destiny:

To be honest, I don’t know that I believe in destiny. It’s a nice thought to believe that everything happens for a reason and we all have some special purpose, but that also defeats the idea of free will. It may be comforting to believe that there’s a special plan for each of us, but it’s illogical and superstitious, and doesn’t allow for people to take responsibility for their own lives.

The Christian Perspective:

Justin Steckbauer, Liberty University

Origin:

The question of origin has puzzled man kind for centuries.  How did we get here?  Where did we come from?  How did life come to be?  For the Christian, the action and the process by which life came about, the length of years it took, the exact biological functions that brought about the complex human life form are less important than the first cause.  Micro evolution, small changes in species that provide for adaptation, is beyond dispute.  That is something science can measure and observe.  In fact, I love science.  However, macro evolution seems highly speculative, and the processes by which a puddle of amino acids could become a highly complex life form like a human are not observable.  Given chance, matter, and time, a puddle of amino acids will never, ever become a human being.  It is simply impossible, statistically.  For the atheist, the first cause is a vacuum, an unanswered question: Where did energy come from?  For the Christian, the first cause is a loving architect of the universe, a necessary first cause who over 10,000 years or 7 billion years, crafted the universe into existence.

Meaning:

The question of meaning in Christianity is simple: We are children of the loving biologist, chemist, artist, writer, and architect, the designer of the human soul, who we call Father God.  In that context, every human being has value, incredible value, so much that God would come, Jesus Christ, to offer himself as a path of redemption for his wayward people.  In addition meaning, for the Christian, is a stark reality: The Earth is a very troubled place, and the problem is not outside ourselves, but within ourselves, and the only treatment is the indwelling presence of Jesus.  In the context of meaning, we find a treasure trove in the Bible of meaning, and inherent worth.  

Morality:

What is the perfect moral code?  Who had it?  What does each moral code look like when put it into practical application?  For atheism, we see Nazi Germany, with Nietzsche's idea of the superman put into practice.  Genocide.  Again in Russia, Stalin a former seminary student turned atheist, what do we find?  The writing of Karl Marx used for the purpose of subjugation.  Genocide.  And what about the Christian worldview?  The most prosperous countries on planet Earth, in contrast: Europe, and the United States.  Now we see in the 21st century as Europe and the United States drift into post-modernism and naturalism, corruption begins to grow like a cancer.  

The teaching of Jesus Christ is the perfection of morality described in powerfully simple terms: Love God and love others, as you love yourself.  Jesus Christ provides the model for a life of humble service to others, that will always bring about the most peaceable and prosperous paradise, when practiced in truth.

Destiny:

What future does an atheist have, after 100 years have passed?  After 1000 years have gone by?  The atheist passes out of existence into the natural and biological cycles of the environment.  What future does the Christian have?  Unending life, in community with a loving God and fellow believers who have chosen to fly in the face of everything the world says, and do it the way God says.  Jesus Christ provides the way, he is the road, a personal savior present, willing to show you the hard truth about yourself, and offer a way of total redemption and a future unimaginably wonderful.

Conclusion: Thank you for reading.  An open and respectful dialogue is vital to the ongoing discussions and debates between Christians and atheists as we attempt to navigate and make sense of things in a difficult world.  Respect, love, and mutual admiration can go a long way to healing wounds and bringing otherwise diverse groups into reasonable social harmony.  Take care and God bless.