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neverwatchedonepiece · 5 years

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601-602: "Shaking up the New World! Caesar's Horrendous Experiment!" and "The Deadliest Weapon of Mass Destruction in History! Shinokuni"

Don’t think Law’s up for it, Caesar...

This may be a controversial opinion, but I think Caesar is great.

Not a great person, obviously. I mean, if you think Caesar is a wonderful person, you probably need therapy. But. As a character? As a villain in the crapsaccharine world of OP which is rammed with strong personalities? Yeah. Absolutely a good, fun-time villain.

So far, he is unrepentantly, unashamedly wicked. He is a business-minded, deceitful, manipulative snake with charisma through the roof, who also happens to be an excellent scientist. He has a flamboyant, dramatic, highly-strung personality, which is super entertaining. He has a memorable design and a hilariously expressive face. (YMMV, of course. I know a lot of people hate villains like Caesar, but I love them.)

It’s early days yet. I mean something could yet happen that might make me go off him (e.g. I hate it when villains are woobified). But right now, Caesar is stealing the show. I look forward to watching each episode because I wonder what that deranged monster is going to do next.

Now Luffy and Law’s fight back is about to begin, I await his screeching downfall with baited breath. (As much as I love villains, I also love watching their plans unravel.)

Last Christmas, a Clown Kept Your Heart

And the very next day, he gave it away.

Next year, to save himself tears,

Law allied with Strawhat Luffy.

I’ll bet that joke has been done to death, undeath, and back again, but come on! Who can resist such low-hanging fruit? Caesar Clown is the gift that keeps on giving.

He was on sparkling form again across episodes 601 and 602.

The action kicked in with Smoker’s Marines hammering at Caesar’s front door. One Marine began to notice they were the only ones left outside. Caesar’s minions had hoofed it round the back. Wasn’t that strange? He was ignored. (Don’t worry. We heard you, random fodder Marine.)

An airship passed overhead (they must be a thing in the OPverse as the Marines recognised it.) Caesar arrived with the Lab Kiddies in tow.

“Come on, children, you can get off now,” he sang. “And remember, this is your home. Don’t ever go out on your own. And of course you can have candy soon. Go straight back to the biscuit room. I’ve left plenty of candy in there for you. Now, I have to go back to my research room. Relax and enjoy the delicious, delicious candies.”

Trans: you kids are bugging me already. Beat it back to your room so I can get back to marketing my chemical weapons to dodgy brokers round the world.

The black-haired girl called Mocha had a flash of regret. She was lucid for just long enough to realise she’d just walked right back into hell again. “Nami and the others were very nice to me!” she screamed, banging on the door, “why is it so scary here? Is it because I’m not a good child?” (Caesar must have said stuff like that to them before. Bad things happen to you if you’re not a good child. I only give my crack-candy to the good children, etc.)

Back in Caesar’s lounge/bar whatever it is, Vergo got a fucking spoon stuck on his face while drinking coffee. That guy must have adhesive stubble, or something. He was wondering what was taking Caesar so long?

Speak of the devil and he shall appear, right?

The first thing Caesar did was apologise to Vergo for keeping him waiting. At this point I still had no idea why Vergo was there. To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure why Vergo showing up is a bad thing for Law. Like, of course Caesar would rat out a threat to his boss, but if Caesar had Law’s heart, he could have just squished it once Monet told him Law had been making arrangements with the Strawhats behind his back.)

Caesar bitched that Vergo didn’t have Smoker under better control (because when Smoker showed up, Caesar had a brief ohshit moment). Vergo admitted that Smoker is a wild card and that no one has control of him. Buuuuut.... now Smoker will be dead soon, so it was all cool.

Law Pushes Caesar’s Buttons

Caesar, who had missed the welcome party, took a moment to become acquainted his his new hostages and indulge in a spot of button pushing.

“Look at yourself, Law. I bet you were quite helpless against Vergo, hm? The deal I had with you worked in my favour.”

Now the heart-in-a-box squishing stuff makes much more sense. Turns out Law can also shamble his own heart into a box (not the best idea when dealing with a treacherous snake of a scientist, to be honest).

When Law first turned up, looking to stay on Punk Hazard, Caesar said: “In exchange for letting you stay, you’re going to give my people legs? Fine. But since you’re stronger than me and I’M the boss of this island, if you want to stay here, I need insurance. I want to entrust my dear secretary Monet’s heart to you. In return, I keep your heart and it’s a deal. As long as we have each other by the balls, you can’t do anything bad and I’ll feel safe.”

Interesting. Caesar sees Law as being stronger than him. Probably a known haki user? Caesar can’t be that strong then. He’s just tricky and/or has a strong fruit. Also, notice Caesar did not volunteer his own heart. He volunteered Monet’s.

For a moment I wondered why Caesar was blaming Law for the whole trust issue. Hadn’t Caesar called Vergo on Law for some random, unknown reason?

Nah, turns out Monet had overheard Law’s plan to kidnap him and forge an alliance with the Strawhats.

I mean, sure Caesar is pretty evil and all, but if I were him and my lodger was teaming up with some dude and planning to kidnap me, I’d call my boss for backup too. Why he gave the heart to Vergo is kind of a mystery, but whatever. I’ll find out soon enough if I need to know.

Law, being caught out, went straight for the roast.

“You’ve been saved by your diligent secretary, eh? I should’ve been more careful about Monet. Since the “Master” was so dumb, I didn’t care much.”

Ooooooooh, Caesar was maaaaaaad. He hates being called dumb. (I bet it’s that superiority complex. Vegapunk has always been the glorious, lauded genius while he has to work in the shadows for psychos.)

Just before Caesar took out his wounded ego on Smoker’s heart, Monet said the Smiley-cam video feed was ready.

No, You Didn’t, You Sentient Gas-Blob Murderer! How Could You?

So Caesar immediately switched his attention to his Big Marketing Campaign. A caged Marine could wait. Not a priority.

All over the OPverse, brokers and dodgy characters watched Caesar’s Big Moment (by the way, did I see Laffite in 602? I spied a tall top hat and a bottle of Jack Daniels-type booze on a table).

Caesar gleefully explained how Smiley worked. Smiley was the HS2 poison gas bomb that killed almost everything on Punk Hazard four years ago. However, there was a problem with Caesar’s experiment last time round. It killed *almost* everything. Despite being at death’s door, some inconvenient survivors insisted on surviving. How rude!

To counteract that, he has given Smiley a boost that will sort the whole survivors issue.

And, oh, the fake tears! The hilarity when Smiley would not do what the fuck Caesar said. “SMILEY, I MISSED YOU! THIS BRINGS BACK WONDERFUL MEMORIES OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION! I HAVE A DELICIOUS TREAT FOR YOU---- WAIT, DON’T EAT THAT NOW... well, um... I suppose it’s okay... YES, HAHAHAHA, EAT THE TREAT!”

You’re not fooling anyone, Caesar. xD

The giant candy Smiley munched fizzed like a seltzer. Smiley was not feeling so good. It was kind of a shame, actually. I’d grown to like Smiley. It was like a giant, deadly, disobedient dog who does not listen to a word its human says when food is involved.

And Caesar disguised Smiley’s death as a treat.

With a Slasher Smile Like That, You Probably Petrify People on a Daily Basis

Well, Caesar would say Smiley is reborn. “Good work, Smiley! I will see you again! Be reborn, Smiley!”

But Smiley is definitely dead. (The whole bit with the apples was kind of confusing but I think I’ve worked it out... Smiley must have eaten an animal DF to become the sentient gas blob he was. This explains why the shot kept panning to apples in a sack. Then, when Smiley died, one of them turned into a Devil Fruit. Smiley had given it up when he died.)

R.I.P, Smiley.

And welcome Shinokuni, the Land of Death: the latest and greatest weapon of mass destruction!

Caesar definitely must’ve fallen out the psycho tree and hit every branch on the way down when he was a kid, because, man, that guy was *way* too excited to watch his fodder goons come croppers to Shinokuni.

“Yes! It worked! No one can get away this time. The problem last time was survivors. They could still run even after being poisoned. This gas clings to their skin like ash, enters through the kind and paralyses the whole body! Yes, give us a good glimpse of hell!”

Now, I don’t know if any of you guys have ever watched a movie called Event Horizon, but there’s this messed up scene when the rescue crew discover the ship’s log of the crew who disappeared on a spaceship seven years before. The log is... yeah... it’s messed up. It’s like a glimpse of hell. (Don’t google it if you hate horror movies.)

(Something tells me Caesar would have been totally okay on the Event Horizon. Knowing him, it probably would have been his fault. He’d be in a room, absolutely fine, while literal hell is breaking loose outside on deck. xD)

That Moment When Everyone Really Hopes It’s Usopp

While Caesar is sacrificing pets to achieve an upgraded pet, the rest of the Strawhats were still outside while the Purple Mountain of Oh Shit What Is That? was thundering down the mountain and over the island.

Zoro, Sanji, Brook and Foxfire had a front row seat! They were smart and ran sideways. This bought them a bit of time while Caesar’s minions were Pompeii’d.

And that running scene was golden, by the way. I’m disappointed I limited myself to one screenshot of it. Loved it when Sanji tried to figure out what was going on and Foxfire yelled, “Shut up and run!”

Zoro was generally impressed by the all-round quality of running on show, but suggested if the assembled could run faster than the wind, that’d be great. Luckily, they caught up with a sled-pulling dragon (that Caesar deliberately set free so his minions would be stranded). I’m guessing the dragon will head home and that will be how Zoro and the others end up back in Caesar’s lab.

Nami and Usopp also managed to hitch a ride before the Purple Gas Cloud of Doom hit their patch of the mountain. Brownbeard hauled himself out from under a huge metal pipe. He gained the strength to do this from sheer hatred of Caesar Clown (lol). Brownbeard wants to save his crew from Caesar, which is kind of nice. He’s a good guy after all. Usopp suggested they join forces because they wanted to save the experiment kids from Caesar.

Brownbeard knows where the lab is and probably knows most of the entrances. He’ll smuggle Nami and Usopp inside no bother, I’ll bet.

Caesar’s Need To Show Off Will Be His Undoing

While most of the free Strawhats were hauling ass away from the Purple Cloud That Is No Longer Smiley (I’m still weirdly bitter about Smiley), Luffy, caged in the lab watched as Zoro and the others ran faster than the wind. Once Luffy established that, hey, the Samurai Guy getting his legs back was not a top priority right now, (lol, Robin!) he tried to shout advice to Zoro.

Unfortunately, Luffy, you can’t shout through a video feed. But Caesar hear him and floated over to gloat. “Are they your friends, Strawhat? Unsurprising. They’re strong. But soon they’ll run out of breath and be poisoned. And eventually, there will be only an uninhabitable land of death. No one outside this lab will survive. And neither will any of you! Now, prove it to the world! Before this weapon of mass destruction, a pirate with a 400 million bounty, a Vice-Admiral and even a Shichibukai are totally helpless against a tide of death.”

A lever was pulled.

And I think Caesar made his big mistake: letting the Strawhats out of his sight.

Law (I think it was him) chucked a rolled up message to Chopper, who fretted in the shadows about what to do. “Don’t do anything.”

This Face Does Not Bode Well for Caesar

Because now the Strawhats are out of Caesar’s line of sight, they can talk tactics, regroup and launch their fight back.

Can’t help but think if Caesar had not insisted on using the Strawhats as an example, he could have disposed of them quietly in the lab, or used them as test subjects forever. Of course, that would have been - bam! - end of manga. And we cannot have that.

Three cheers for Caesar’s need to show off! His arrogance and ego have prolonged the plot!

Thank you, Caesar, for that one dumb thing you did. xD

Chopper saw what you did that one time and is judging you.

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overwatchladieslover · 6 years

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First Kiss: Moira

When you were first assigned as Moira O’Deorain’s assistant, which was just a cover-up for being a supersized human guinea pig, you had to admit that you were quite scared. Well, scared doesn’t even begin to cover just how utterly terrified you were.

You rarely saw the scientist, she’d often grab a plate from the mess hall, and walk back to her lab, when she actually remembered to eat. She seemed to keep to herself most of the times, or at least, around your friends. Perhaps the upbeat Lùcio, the loud Reinhardt, the ever so overjoyed Lena, maybe they were not to her taste.

When you finally entered the lab, a fearful knot of your guts pulsing in your stomach, you were not so surprised of the cleanliness of it, everything was immaculate. Even the rabbits in their cages looked peaceful. Everything was neat, and orderly, folders stacked on two neat sides, which was quite the welcomed change, as you recalled Angela’s office, a turmoil of mess, papers on every available surface… You coughed, trying to attract the redhead’s attention.

Her head poked from behind a paravent, she stared at you with a slight smirk, and even though you were awfully good at reading people, the scientist was even more skilled in the art of hiding her own emotions.

“Y/N, I suppose?” She asked, walking towards you in her usual lab coat, with a black shirt underneath.

“Yes, Doctor O’Deorain.” You stood in a military posture. She circled around you, like a shark around its prey.

Her eyes were vibrant, azure blue, and blood red, that was a most magnificent combination, one that brought out the detail of her chiselled cheekbones, of her sharp jaw.

You did not see her in the mess hall yesterday, nor had you seen her there on the day of your first official meeting with O’Deorain, so after asking a couple of questions to Athena, you decided to bring some food to your new superior.

And as you felt her gaze upon your skin, you just panicked, and held up her lunch bag in front of you.

She stopped her examination, her eyebrow raised.

“Dare I ask what that is ?”

“I thought you might be hungry, I haven’t seen you in the mess hall in a long time, so I kinda thought that it’d be great to bring you something.” You babbled, under her scrutiny.

After a short moment of silence, contemplative on her behalf, absolutely mortified on yours.

You looked up sheepishly, to find quite a rare sight. Her silence was not contemplative, at all. She was red from holding up her laughter, which finally burst in a glorious chuckle, followed by many others, to your delight as you joined in.

You were definitely not thinking about sharing a bizarre burst of laughter with Moira O’Deorain, of all people, about something as trivial as your awkwardness.

She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.

“I’m sorry, Doctor O’Deorain…” You scratched the back of your head nervously.

“Call me Moira, after all, we shall spend a lot of time together, and were you to say my title each time you address me, we’d both die of old age before getting any kind of work done.” She grabbed the lunch bag, peeking inside.

You were hoping she’d appreciate your selection, you grabbed what she seemed to like the most.

She hummed appreciatively, fishing out a sandwich, as she detailed what you both had to do for the day.

And to say that your work was exhausting was no exaggeration, Moira was a perfectionist, everything had to be done just the right way, which just so happened to be her way. You learned that she appreciated literature, of any kind. When you asked for more details, she said that she was quite interested in Japanese, French, and Irish literature. You were quite puzzled, how could that woman find the time to read what you guessed were lengthy books, when she was making breakthrough after breakthrough.

At the end of the day, you were beyond tired, it felt as if your soul simply left your mortal coil to seek repose elsewhere.

Moira invited you over to the couch, hidden by the paravent, and you simply rested for a few minutes, before fetching dinner for you and the doctor.

The two of you ate together, while watching TV, some weird talk show about science, you didn’t exactly love it, but Moira occasionally chuckled, and that was enough for you, if your boss was happy, then so were you.

You both fell into an easy, simple routine. You had breakfast with your friends, while Moira was still asleep, tired after long nights of researching and testing, despite your disapproval. Then, you headed to the lab, three cups of coffee, two cups of tea, and started the machines and the computers.

You two would work till 1PM, before you went back to the mess hall, to grab whatever was available, your shift ended at 7PM, and you would bring dinner to your superior. You’d eat while binge watching whatever stupid talk show Moira was engrossed with at the moment.

It was Halloween. To your delight, you were quite fond of the holiday, you found it funny, carefree, it was a nice moment to have fun with your friends and colleagues. It was also a great opportunity to make friends, watch tons and tons of scary movies while rotting your teeth with candies, to Angela’s utmost despair, who tried giving out apples and other healthy snacks, the only ones really paying attention being Aleksandra and Fareeha. One caring for her waist line, the other for the doctor herself.

The agents took turns cooking. It was a really nice custom, it allowed the agents to have tasty, rich meals, from different countries. The agents often cooked in pairs, with their co-workers or friends. When your name came up, Lena, Reinhardt, Lùcio and Hana were pretty sure that you were going to pick one of them to help you out. But you didn’t.

It was quite hard for you to do. You didn’t want to ruin the comfortable relationship between you and your superior. But still, you felt like this was something that you would both enjoy.

She knew something was up with you the second you stepped into the lab. She twirled her chair around, a cigarette in her hands.

“Yes, dear?” Your poor heart wasn’t exactly ready for the pet names. She walked up to you, she had taken off her usual lab coat and shirt for a coal-black shirt with a red tie which complimented her eyes.

She tucked a stray hair behind your ear, and your felt your skin shiver with the touch of her nails.

Moira stepped into your personal space, her body almost pressed against yours, as she leaned down and whispered into your ear.

“Let’s start cooking now, shall we?” Her voice was low, husky.

Moira was an amazing scientist. She was extremely smart, ingenious and meticulous. When working on chemistry, she was precise, her science was exact, sharp as her scalpel. Or nails.

But cooking with Moira was… an experience. The initially well-spoken, well-behaved scientist was currently screaming in Gaelic at a burning plate, as you were frantically trying to extinguish the fire.

You thought putting some music on was a great idea, but your playlist was over, and Moira listening to the same songs on repeat over and over again might lead to your inevitable doom.

“I’ll take care of it, why don’t you put on some music?” You asked as you unplugged your phone.

She nodded, you felt yourself smile as David Bowie started to sing. You shook your head, that one was extremely predictable. But what was not predictable, was the next song. As soon as Starman was over, some guitar played wildly, as some people started to sing along in Japanese.

You heard more than saw Moira fumbling to her feet, as she had to crouch to pick up the ashes of her latest try.

“Wait, is that Naruto?” You asked. She turned her hear in your direction, you could see in her eyes and the tightness of her lips that she was absolutely mortified.

You decided to help her out. As she turned to change the music, you grabbed her hand, to hold her back, and with the other one, you grabbed the sponge with which you were trying to clean counter, and started singing along.

“We are fighting dreamers~” She looked at you as if you had gone mad, and you decided to really go over the top. If Moira was embarrassed of her own tastes of music, then she’ll go the extra mile to make her feel better about liking it.

“What? I love that song!” Without a second thought, you jumped on the counter. It was at that precise moment that Hana and Lùcio entered, convinced that you were going to pick one of them to be your partner. Then they saw you, dancing on the counter to a Naruto OP like there was no tomorrow, and Moira, covered in flour, ashes and various bits of meat.

Lùcio was ever so good at reading people, and he knew you better than you knew yourself, so he just jumped on the table with you, and started singing along with you, joined by Hana. You looked at Moira’s smiling face, and you grabbed her by the sleeve, and pulled her up with you, so that she could join.

The song finished too soon to your likings, but you were out of breath, your cheeks had turned a quite agreeable shade of red, but most importantly, you were smiling, and so were the rest of your friends, Moira included.

“I can’t believe we just did what we did.” Stated the bedazzled scientist.

“Nor can I, but it was totally worth it, wasn’t it?” You smirked, and you could read the slight surprise in her eyes.

She nodded, and you could almost see the hint of gratefulness on her face.

You went back to cooking, with Lùcio and Hana’s help, which was more than welcome, and avoided several disasters that could’ve potentially destroyed the mess hall.

At first, Moira was feeling uncomfortable, fidgeting with her long, long nails. But Lùcio and Hana had their way with people, by exchanging stories, and asking a few questions about her work, they were able to make her feel better.

Seeing Moira being social, chuckling to Hana’s wisecracks, made you feel a tad giddy. You knew that despite what she might say, she did not exactly excel in social matters. Sure, she was extremely polyvalent, knew how to manipulate people, and was a prodigious doctor, otherwise, she would’ve never been able to get her place in Oasis. She hardly saw anyone but you, and actively avoided the other agents. ‘Cannot afford any distraction’ She said. You felt like chuckling, as you saw her laughing with Lùcio at Hana’s expense.

She did talk to Gabriel, but those occasions were far-in between. You wondered if she missed Talon, perhaps she felt out of place in Overwatch, even though she used to work for the Blackwatch. Your thoughts were interrupted by the insistant beeping of the oven.

You pulled out the cookies, and smelled them.

“Hmm, you’re getting great at this, Moira.” You said without thinking.

You raised your head when you received no answer, no sarcastic quip, no noise of agreement. She looked at you as if she was seeing you for the first time. And then, a smile broke her lips. Not a smirk, not even a grin. A smile, huge enough for her to narrow her eyes slightly, and you couldn’t help but smile back.

You put the tray on the counter, walking over to your superior, and hugging her.

“Happy Halloween!” You could feel her freeze in your arms, and for a moment, you were afraid you had overstepped your boundaries. She raised her own arm, and held you back for just a few seconds, but those moments mattered to you. You heard what pretty much everyone said about her. When you got assigned with Moira, you were scared shitless. They called her a monster, a soulless scientist, willing to sacrifice anything and everything for knowledge.

But you knew that she was just a woman, perhaps she made some mistakes along the way, but that did not mean that she was a blood-thirsty madwoman.

That was until you had seen her fight.

The base got attacked. You didn’t know how, but it did. You were peacefully sleeping in your quarters when the alarms came to life. You did not possess any kind of power, you were not an exceedingly good shot, but you knew how to shoot a gun, and figured that some of your friends might require some help.

You hastily put on some basic combat armour over your old army uniform, grabbed your gun, a box of ammo, and you dashed for the labs.

The lab you shared with Moira was empty, so you ran for Mei-Ling’s door, afraid that harm might have come to the sweet Chinese girl.

You burst through the door, only to find a few bodies. Completely frozen. Mei appeared from behind one of the victims.

“Oh, hey Y/N! Nice to see you!” She waved, as if she had not murdered in cold blood half a dozen of men that could’ve crushed her.

“Mei, are you okay?” You asked, worried.

“Of course! Why wouldn’t I be?” She smiled, and at that moment, you were quite certain that no one is the great organisation that is Overwatch, was sane.

The deafening sound of an explosion echoed over your heads, some rubble falling from the ceiling.

“Shit, they’ve taken the fight to the courtyards, they’ll be on us soon.” You snarled, gun still in hand.

“They must’ve pierced our defences. Never thought I’d say this, but I hope Jamison made it out alive.” You both ran for the exit, bracing yourselves against the door, trying to catch your breath.

You counted your bullets, 12 rounds. You wished you had a rifle, but there wasn’t much to do.

Behind you, you heard the walls caving in. You looked at your friend.

“Mei, listen, they could really use your help to defend the ramparts.” She knew what you meant.

“That’s a death sentence!” She grabbed your hand, you didn’t dare to look at her. Before you were assigned to Moira, you used to work with Mei, you used to be a great team.

“If we lose any more ground, that’s a death sentence for the rest of us!” You yelled. You never yelled at Mei-Ling. She didn’t say anything, her eyes just filled with tears. She still had your hand in hers. She opened your palm, placing a weirdly shaped pen.

“When it will be too much, when you think you are done for, stab this into your arms, and press the button, okay?” She looked up, and you could see her trying her best not to cry.

“I will. Now, go!” You urged her on her way, so she could not see the tears forming in your eyes. You were no soldier, but you were ready to die like one.

You slid the pen in a little cavity on your bracer, before knocking the door open. There were many Talon soldiers in the courtyard, you freezed as they turned toward you.

You grit your teeth, raising your weapon, and shooting. Suddenly, you were extremely grateful for the times you agreed to accompany Hana on her shooting lessons with Morrison.

One down, the second barely had the time to raise his gun, his head already had a clean hole through.

You ran for cover, the sound of guns shooting was simply ear-splitting, you whimpered, feeling something warm dripping against your temple. You didn’t have to check to know that it was blood. You jumped over your cover, shooting straight for the head, but they were too many. You couldn’t take all of them down. You didn’t feel the bullets piercing your skin and your organs, but you felt the shock, you fell to your knees, weakly grabbing at Mei’s present. You put the needle against your skin, and pushed the button. Suddenly, the pain was gone, the taste of blood was all you could feel. Metallic, warm, and kind of cold at the same time, it was thick.

You rolled on the ground, you wanted to look at the sky, if it was the last thing you were to see.

Instead, your eyes were stuck on your enemies, they were laughing at your demise, at your failure, at your death. You were smart, you knew you just wouldn’t make it. One was coming, his step heavy, his gun raised to your head.

A blur of colour knocked him down. Sharp nails made quick work of him, his throat ripped open. The other soldiers raised their weapons to shoot at the intruder, at this… creature. But an orb, oozing deep purple came their way, and you witnessed horror. Their eyes started bleeding, they fell to the ground, coughing up blood, screaming in agony.

A sniper fell from his secluded spot, and aimed at the monster. A strange filament of the same colour of the orb erupted from its opened palm and the man shook, as his cries filled the now quiet courtyard.

Reaper appeared behind the monster. He pointed over at you, the monster turned around. It was Moira. Bloodied, covered in gore, but it was Moira O’Deorain. At that exact moment, you understood why they called her a harpy, a monster. And you also understood why she always wore gloves. Her nails were straight out of a horror movie, covered in blood and ripped skin.

She ran towards you, wiped the blood from her face with her sleeve, which only smudged some more blood.

“Y/N, hold on!” She held your hand, and when you looked into her eyes, she wasn’t such a monster, but nor was she just a woman.

In her eyes welled tears unshed, and upon your lips, words unsaid.

“Reyes, hold them back I’m taking her to our lab!” She carried you in her very own arms, and damn, she was strong.

She dropped you on the cold, cold table, the one you cleaned of blood so many times you had lost count, and you thought that this time, you wouldn’t have to clean it up.

You still had something to tell her. You had seen her monstrosity, her flaws.

There were so many things you could’ve focused on. The ceiling tiles were uneven, you thought that Satya will be less than pleased, or the regular drops of blood hitting the floor, in a melodious ‘flic-floc’. You could’ve also focused on the lights flashing in front of you, of the burst of angelic blonde hair, assisting a frantic, demonical redhead.

Yet, all you could focus on was Moira. Her face, her eyes, her hands, the way they worked, ticked, how deft they were, how soft they felt, despite the rough surfaces running across her palm. Her eyes, oh, how marvellous were they, when they were overcome with emotion.

You thought about those eyes, drowned in tears and sorrow, when the pain of today becomes the grief of tomorrow, when her hands will shake as they will take your name off the door, a final reminder of your tragic ending.

All you wanted to do was call for her, tell her how you felt, how delightful she was, how much you enjoyed her company, even if it was just her complaining about Angela making her lose her time with her ‘goddamn ethics’, or listening to music in the lab while sharing a ‘god-awful’ bottle of wine Moira bought. You looked it up on the internet, it was worth twice your salary.

Classis Moira. You chuckled fondly at the memory, the weak noise left your lips, attracting the redhead’s attention.

“Stay with me my dear, follow my voice, and you shan’t be lead astray.” She held your hand as Angela cut through your clothes with steel scissors.

“M-Moira…” You half-moaned, half-whimpered.

“I am sorry. I hope that you will find in your heart the strength to forgive me.” Angela grabbed your other hand.

“Y/N, I need you to know that I am not sorry for what is about to happen. You are not dying here, not today.” Her voice was raw with emotion, her jaw clenched impossibly tight.

The light from the ceiling grew brighter and brighter, until your sordid surroundings faded away from your vision, as you took a sip of eternity.

You woke up in a clean, small room. You coughed, you were plugged in to different I.Vs. You tried to move your fingers, it was perfect, you wiggled your toes against the soft sheet. You finally opened your eyes. The medbay. The aroma of cinnamon was Angela’s trademark, and so was the small box of swiss chocolate.

You reached out for the box, when you saw your hand. Red and black. As if your veins were lava, and your skin ebony.

You let out a shriek that could have shattered the windows, as you jumped out of bed. Your legs refused to obey, as you fell to the ground in a symphony of clatter, as your I.V fell to the ground. You unplugged it, carelessly. Angela burst through the door, gun in hand.

“Y/N, are you okay, schätz?” She asked, sympathetically.

You were hyperventilating, sucking in shaky breaths, tears running down your cheeks.

“What have you done to me?” You whispered faintly, your jaw trembling with every breath you took.

“I am sorry, I am so, so sorry, but we had no choice. You would’ve…” Angela didn’t dare to look at you, staring at the ground.

“What have you done to me!?” You screamed, the strength of your own voice surprising you. You could feel your new hand pulsing with a dreadful wave of pure rage, it was as if your heart was now in your hand, beating.

“There was no other way. You would’ve died, you are too young to-”

You interrupted her mid-sentence, shoving her against the door with a brutality and force that was not yours.

She fell to the ground, and in her eyes, you could read fear. Pure, unbridled terror.

Without a thought to spare for the medic, you looked at the window. You jumped through the window, without a single moment of hesitation.

Falling from the second floor should’ve killed you, but you felt the same energy in your hand flowing to your legs, and landed without a scratch. In front of a terrified Lùcio.

“Christ, Y/N, are you okay?” He asked, and you could read concern in his eyes.

He reached for a hug, but you dodged him, with a velocity that you had never had before.

“Who did this to me!?” You knew the answer. You knew of only one person who could do such a thing. Angela would’ve enhanced your capabilities with implants, with tech, and yet, you felt that this was in no way tech. Someone had fucked with your genes, with your body.

And there was only one person on this earth that was capable of such a feat.

“Moira O’Deorain.” You answered, as your friend looked at you with a touch of sadness.

“I’m sorry, if I had been faster, you wouldn’t have had to go there on your own.”

You paid no attention to his words, as you ran for the lab.

On your way to your- her laboratory, you literally ran into Mei. You made her fly against the corridor’s wall.

“Rein-… Y/N?” You didn’t have enough time to dodge her embrace. She teared up in your arms, visibly shaking.

“This was my fault, all my fault, you never should’ve gone there without me, I should have sent snowball, I shoul-” You stopped her self-loathed rant with a finger to her shaking lips.

“Where is she?” You didn’t even need to tell her name, Mei-Ling knew.

“On the roof, she’s on her smoking break.” Mei pulled back from the hug, scratching her neck, as if she somehow regretted sending you to the rooftops.

You jumped more than climbed the stairs, and what would have been a most strenuous exercise was a simple formality, you felt stronger than you ever did before.

You swung the door open, and found her, leaning on the edge, smoking a cigarette.

She didn’t wear her tie, you had never seen her without one, and her shirt looked dirty, with coffee stains on it.

“Took you long enough, dear.” The pet name made your blood boil, in a few long strides, you grabbed her by the collar, and your wrath turned to something else.

“Look at what you have done to me, Moira. Take a good hard look.” You gestured to your mutilated hand, to its awful colour, to your reddening irises.

“I did what had to be done. I could not just let you die.” She looked at you straight in the eye, not flinching.

“You’re not even sorry?”

“Not remotely. It was either this, or death.” She took a long drag, blowing smoke on your face.

“Why didn’t you let me die?” You asked, feeling tears prickling your eyes. You cursed at yourself, now was certainly not the time to show any kind of weakness.

“You know why.”

“Why would I be asking, if I knew?”

“You…” She marked a pause, you let her go, she braced her forearms on the edge, eyes set on the distance. Her pack of cigarettes was sitting right beside her arm. Her gloves were still torn and covered in blood.

You grabbed one, and lit it up with her lighter. The sight of the said lighter would’ve made you laugh, had you not been devastated over your recent predicament. It had a nice picture of a cat, with its paws stretched towards you. You could almost feel the kitty purr.

“You, you make me happy.” Her accent got thicker, as if a monster like her could feel any kind of emotion.

“Do I, now?” The smoke burned your throat, but the pain was a temporary relief, it ground you, the smoke that left your lips was like the wool that was pulled over your eyes.

This woman drove you insane.

Because for all the hatred she had brought, she had a very simple reason. And that reason, was you. You who listened to her rants about science, you, who had been daring enough to embarrass yourself to make her feel better, to make her have fun.

You, who had gone out of your way to make her feel welcomed, not ostracised anymore.

You, who now looked at her like at a monster.

“You probably think I am a monster, some kind of freak, of mad scientist who needs to be put down. Perhaps I am.” She stated. She stood, in her tall glory, smelling of cold coffee and smoke, with dishevelled hair and bags under her eyes.

“If you are a monster, then, so am I.” Your monstrous hand held hers. You could feel her tense up against your fingers, as you removed her glove. She saved you, after all.

“I will not thank you. I shan’t fall to my knees and let my head rest against your bosom, as nice at it may be.” She chuckled at that, a low, humourless chuckle.

“‘Shan’t’ ? I am a terrible influence.”

“Aren’t you though?” You smiled, for the first time since you woke up. It was not a full out blown smile, it was a pained, bittersweet smile.

Almost as bittersweet as the taste of her lips. She turned to you, to look at you better, perhaps to throw a quip, or to nag you, but you did not give her the time. You grabbed her by her collar, torn and worn, bloodied and dirtied, and put your lips on hers.

And Lord, did she kiss you back. Her hands flew around your waist, pulling you close, you buried your hand in her hair. This was no simple kiss. This was meaningful, it meant forgiveness, understanding.

Your tongues danced against each other, not in rivalry, but in harmony.

You both had to break for some air, but you dared not to part. You rested your forehead against one another, never breaking eye contact.

Lost in her eyes, you had never noticed how truly wonderful they were. They seemed to gaze into your very soul, they were weary, they had seen so much death and destruction, so much pain and grief.

Yet, you found yourself thinking that never in your whole entire existence, you had ever seen such beauty.

The solemn beauty of a flower on an old, broken grave, the twisted exquisiteness of a single drop of blood on an immaculate rose.

Yes, this kiss was meaningful. And as you rested your head against her shoulder, in the warmth of her embrace, you understood that this also meant home.

#moira ow #moira odeorain #overwatch imagines #overwatch ladies #f/f #readerxmoira

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dishonoredrpg · 4 years

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Congratulations, BECKY! You’ve been accepted for the role of THE EMPRESS with the faceclaim of ZHANG ZIYI. I cannot express to you how outright excited I was upon starting the app, and how much my adrenaline rose throughout. I could highlight everything in this app and it would be justified, but the resignation in being wed to Septimus and the distance she put between her daughter and herself and the repeated motif of sing me a song really just... floored me. I’m not even kidding when I say my jaw dropped a few times throughout the app. You have a true skill in weaving words, and I fully believe that Calliope will capture the hearts of her subjects as Queen-Consort on the dashboard with absolutely no reservations or hesitation in her. I’m thrilled!

Please review the CHECKLIST and send your blog in within 24 hours.

OUT OF CHARACTER.

NAME: Becky

PRONOUNS: she/her

AGE: 22

TIMEZONE, ACTIVITY LEVEL: PST, and I would rate my dash activity at about 4-6, meaning I’m more or less on dash around half the time. However, I’m applying to/preparing for graduate school, so my activity might take a hit from that (and also dealing with home renovation so twinsies??), but I’m definitely always on discord!

ANYTHING ELSE?: Thanks for reading and considering my application! I just want to say that you did a great job with Dishonored, so I seriously wish it the best of luck moving forward! Also, I took some liberties with NPC’s (amongst some other things, i.e. guessing at court politics, informed by different media and historical influences) for the background portion of the application, so if anything doesn’t line up with your vision please consider it canon adjacent and that I’d be happy to change anything accordingly if I were accepted!

IN CHARACTER.

SKELETON: THE EMPRESS.

NAME: CALLIOPE. From Greek kallos, meaning beauty, and ops, meaning voice. Chief of all muses, mother of sirens: a historied name heralds greatness, which is exactly what is expected of her, from birth to now — and who is she to deny her name? Strictly speaking, her name means beautiful-voiced, and never one to disappoint, singing is one of many things she spent her youth cultivating, though hardly a line of melody has been heard from her since she’s become queen consort; even so, her voice finds good use today in making hard to hear truths sound that much sweeter. Diplomacy by itself is hard, and even harder if one cannot even bear to listen.

EVELYN. Derived from Eve, meaning to live, to breathe. Left with the decision to live, eyes closed in intentional ignorance, to endure that which she’s lived with thus far, or take a bite of the forbidden fruit, unsure what might be wrought by it. Pose the question to anyone, and everyone’s answer shall differ, from their motivations to their goals.

VALMONT. Even after 26 years, the name feels ill-settled. Perhaps it’s a symptom of not loving the man the name comes with, not even liking him — but either way, it is hers now, as much as Altaire is not. It belongs to her, and she, it; a cruel reminder of how she is but equivalent to her husband in all the simple ways that matter to the majority of people.

(née ALTAIRE.) A call to the star altair, from the constellation of aquila. This is the name that she turns to, though she’s spent more years of her life a Valmont than she has an Altaire. ( Further elaboration kept in the extras section. )

FACECLAIM: I’d love to use (1) Zhang Ziyi or (2) Michelle Yeoh!

AGE: 46 years old.

DETAILS: I’m running out of time a little (was a tad overzealous in the background portion, oops), but I was drawn to the restraint and the duty that the Empress’ skeleton shows. It teems, a bit, with her raw power: she is regal and brilliant, but she is never consumed by it, always holding back, be it with her daughter, with her anger, or with herself.

She builds her own cage, stipulates her own conditions, calls that duty, and sees things through.

BACKGROUND: [ tw: blood mentions, violence ]

You are born with a tightly closed bud for a heart; you remember the feeling distinctly: how curiously stuffy and closed it felt in the cage of your chest as a child, roaming the echoing halls of the Altaire estate alone, with no equal. Nannies, maidservants, and tutors alike would chase you down those halls, all the way into the doorway of your father’s study, where they would skid to a halt, even as you brazenly pitter-pattered your way in.

Sometimes you’d turn your head around and watch them as they stumbled through a stammering apology to your father, and you wouldn’t feel a single thing, observing as blankly and uncannily as a doll on a shelf.

Your father is the eldest son of his father, and head of the family in his own right, and you are his first daughter.

There are certain dues and certain duties that come with such coveted title, and even as he scooped you into his arms and waved off the hesitant apology, he impressed the importance of it upon you.

He would stride to the window behind his desk, look out of it, over the grand view of your family’s ancestral estate.

“The hedges,” he would say. “They look nice, do they not?”

And they do.

“But they would fall into disarray if someone did not take care of them. Perhaps they would wither and die with no water, or grow too wild with no trimming, or maybe, they would get trampled by those who don’t care.”

You blink at him.

“Our groundskeeper must tend to that, and in turn, I, him. Do you understand, Calliope?” He asks, setting you back down.

You walk over to the window and set your hands on the sill, getting up on your tiptoes to peer out over the edge.

He smiles at this, running a fond hand over the crown of your head and smoothing it over your head. “Perhaps not,” he says, resting his heavy hand on your shoulder, and your knees lock with the effort to keep you standing firm for it to rest comfortably there. “But you will. You’ll understand what it is that we owe to each other.”

You don’t understand, because, really, how could you?

You eat from polished silver plates and with fine cutlery, wear silks woven from the sheerest threads; this all, you’ve never worked a day in your life for -- it’s simply something that just is, and no one seems to question it. So what could you possibly owe?

But the solemnity still weighs on you, your father’s expectant hand, as if still on your shoulder. The bud of your heart begins to bloom with the prospect of a future where you do understand.

The tutors work hard to impart their knowledge on you: as varied as recounts of historical battles, to fencing, and then painting; they work for you endlessly, and you realize, in turn, you must work tirelessly. Otherwise, what is the point?

You begin to excel, outstripping your cousins, companions, shattering the lofty ceiling of expectations over your head that, once upon a time, you mistook for shelter.

The bloom of your heart is nurtured to blossom through all this careful cultivation.

You always attend feasts and banquets and soirée’s, but you, rarely, if ever, host them. You pick at the food in front of you, loathe to take too much on your plate, unsettled by the idea of eating overmuch and owing thus in turn.

“Why don’t we host anything?” You ask your father one day.

“We don’t need to,” he says simply. “We do not buy anything we can make.”

“What are they buying?” You ask, frowning. “It’s a feast, not a market.”

“Loyalty, good will, perhaps love,” he answers. “These, daughter, are never wares that you can buy. You can have the initial illusion of them, but they will one day shimmer and fade. If you should speak, they should listen. If you should cry, they should mourn. And if you should bare all your fanged teeth and smile, they should tremble. These are not things that gold can ever buy.”

You practice a smile in the mirror that night.

You look a doll, and you go to sleep disappointed.

You sharpen your focus on your studies; your mind is made into a knife, your tongue honed to match, whet upon the leatherbound volumes tucked in the deepest crevices of the library. You hope these will show in the lines of your smile.

At the end of your 17th winter, you know three different instruments, from the zither to the lute, the quickest way to disarm and kill a man, and the battlefield strategies employed in three of Tyrholm’s greatest victories. But perhaps most importantly, you know how to hide all of this and play pacific diplomat.

You step into Septimus’ court for the first time when you’re 18, making your first, most notable debut, though most of Hightown knows you and your family already, but there are suitors to ensnare, traditions that must be followed. You flit and flitter between different people in the reception hall of the grand Castle Tyrholm, taking care to cover your laughs with a demure hand, to smile with your lips closed, neither teeth nor ambitions bared.

You catch the notice of many pleasingly well-matched prospectives, and you continue to nurture those fledglings into flights of fancy.

It takes time, of course, but after a full year, potentials, prospectives, all the likes turn into official declarations; to say you are pleased is to understate it.

You’ve worked hard for it.

Perhaps too hard.

You’re invited back to court while your family meets with all of those dedicated suitors, for reasons unspecified except that the King should wish to host you.

You make your way into the reception hall, make your rounds of formal greetings, all too wary of the way his eye follows your path, and the way his sixth wife tracks his venomously. Her family has never been too warmly disposed to yours.

He greets you in as grandiose a manner possible, his voice booming and carrying over the general noise of the gathering some ways away in the hall, jovial enough to almost make you forget the whispers of what he has done in the shadows.

“You’re from the Altaire family, correct, my dear girl?” He asks, clearing his throat. “Good family,” he says, as if to himself. “Always been good to the Valmonts.”

“We have only been the crown’s humble servants in the same way any other noble family has,” you say, dipping your head in acknowledgement and smiling.

“Nonsense,” he says, grinning and waving a grand, ringed hand. “Your father has held the south quite firm. Orderly. I have thought to reward him, but it is hard to find anything fitting. Except for one thing. How about you stay in the court?”

“Your majesty,” you start, mind racing, trying to find the most subtle way to bring up the matches your family is currently discussing.

“Your majesty,” his wife cuts in, looking at you. “As your wife, and out of the love I bear you, I think we should be careful of the dogs that we bring into court, to save ourselves the pain of being bit when we find out later that they are wolves.”

You dip your head again, trying your best to smile. “My queen,” you say, making yourself as soft and sweet as you can. “Family Altaire has always had the phoenix as our sigil. We are naught but the crown’s loyal songbird.”

“Phoenixes burn, do they not?” She insists, cold.

“They simply rise from the flames, my queen,” you respond.

“Songbird, you say,” Septimus cuts in, clearly having tuned out everything you and the queen consort has just said. “Do you sing?”

“If it pleases you,” you say, dismay sinking in your stomach, though you’re careful not to let it show on your face.

“It does,” he responds.

You return home soon after, and recount the happenings back to your father over dinner.

Neither of you are surprised when the queen consort dies a couple weeks later, in what is announced to be an unfortunate carriage accident, but your hands still tremble when you open the King’s gold stamped letter.

You wear a red veil in your wedding, a morbid carmine that you explain to be the olde colors of Altaire, and you steel yourself when he lifts it from your face.

Plans change, but duty does not.

You will do this well, as you have done everything, as you will do everything.

How Septimus can be twice your age but half as mature is beyond you.

“My darling songbird,” he often says when he calls on you. “Won’t you sing me a song?”

You bite the side of your tongue, meeting the eye of an advisor across the room, and refrain from saying, don’t you have court to hold? Things to do? “If it would please you,” you echo, bound to this role you must play.

“It would,” he responds, lounging back, contented.

“My little nightingale,” he says one day, sauntering into your quarters, once again before he must hold court, evidently putting it off. “I long to hear one of your melodies.”

You look up from the tome you are reading on Tyrholm’s laws.

“My king,” you say, injecting some amount of falsified surprise into your voice, though you have been preparing for this. “Is it not time for the court to meet?”

He grumbles and huffs and scoffs like a child told to do chores; you’ve upset him with this mention.

“How about I sing you a song after?” You offer gently. “I shall even keep you company through the whole thing.”

He thinks on this for a second, and acquiesces, sighing largely, as he turns to head out of your quarters, and you stand to follow. You grin, teeth flashing at his back.

It is an anomaly, at first, your presence. And then it is a pattern, and lastly, a habit.

He hardly pays attention, usually looking at odd corners of the room while people address him before an advisor prompts him with a suggestion, and he waves at them to carry it out, everything going in one ear and out the other.

You watch this happen several times before you start chiming in with your own quiet suggestions. The first time you do, he is stunned into being the most attentive he’s been all afternoon. But you simply tilt your head and widen your eyes and offer the mild upturn of your lips, as guileless as can be. But he seems to come to much the same conclusion he always does: as long as it is not something he has to do, it’s all fine.

And so it continues.

“I would like some peaches,” he says one day at breakfast, pushing his heaping plate away from him. “It is well into season, and we have not seen any. Where are they?”

“The harvest hasn’t been kind in the Norfolk region,” you remind him, cutting a bite sized portion off his abandoned plate, loathe for it to be squandered like such. “The duke told us as much two weeks back. They haven’t sent any as of yet.”

“They will not send us any?” he asks, now enraged.

You look up in alarm, wondering what exactly has set him off.

“Send summons to him,” he says, grimly. “We will see if he still does not have any to send.”

The poor duke looks rather more haggard as compared to when you last saw him, bleary-eyed, no doubt, from the hard ride from his region to the castle.

“Your majesty,” he says, bowing deep before waving people forward with a slipshod looking crate. “The few peaches we have from this year’s poor harvest.”

Septimus peers into it.

“They are bruised,” he notes.

“Yes, your majesty,” the duke responds. “From the ride. My most sincere apologies.”

“Just this crate?” He asks dubiously.

“We have no more to spare,” the duke responds, looking desperate and cornered.

You sit forward, your stomach churning, worried that this is taking a turn for the worse. “Those will go well in a pastry,” you say, as evenly as possible. “They need to be soft. My hopes for you to see a better harvest soon, right, my dear?” You rush out, looking over at your husband.

“If you had this now, then where were they two weeks ago?” Septimus presses on, red rising in his face.

“We must eat too, my king,” the duke yells.

Septimus turns to an advisor. “I want every peach seized from Norfolk,” he says. “Send men now!”

You realize fairly quickly that this is not headed in any good direction, but when you stand to try and appease Septimus, the speed at which you do leaves you lightheaded, and you stumble lightly, gripping onto your seat weakly. He looks to you, alerted by your movement in his peripheral, and concerned by the way you sway. The nearby guards are momentarily distracted by this as well.

In that moment, the duke springs forward, brandishing a small knife as he leaps toward Septimus, and your tongue feels glued to the roof of your mouth, a wave nausea forcing your mouth shut as you watch helplessly as everything begins to unfold.

“You can’t,” he snarls, as he comes in closer, fearful and wild. There’s a scuffle, and you stumble back, a hand pressed to your chest as you dodge the brunt of guards rushing in, and Septimus yelling, and the duke fighting.

When the din quiets down, you peer around the crowd of Kingsguards to the duke, where he kneels, knife slipping from his numb fingers, impaled several times by Septimus’ wary guards’ swords.

You struggle to catch your breath.

“I want every man’s head from the Norfolk region who is here today,” Septimus says, cold. “Bring them in.”

“Who’s blood is that?” You ask, looking at the front of his silks, where an accusatory patch of blood sits. “Are you hurt? You should rest before you bring the men in.” You amend.

“It’s just a stain,” he says, curling his lip in disgust as he looks down at the duke.

You clap a hand to your mouth, and stumble away, stomach heaving out its contents.

Everyone looks at you in concern.

“Are you hurt?” he asks.

You turn back, wide-eyed, mouth sour and still trying to catch your breath. “I’m pregnant,” you say quietly, and are quickly escorted out of the room before the Norfolk men are marched in.

He comes in your quarters that night, freshly changed. “A song, my dear?” he asks.

“My voice cannot,” you say, looking out your window, purposefully making it hoarser; it’s easy, bile-seared as it is. “Perhaps we should hire a bard.”

You’re not allowed to sit in on court anymore, for the sake of your safety and your unborn child’s safety, and you try not to harbor a seed of resentment towards it for this reason.

Your absence is both noted and felt, and you try to keep that from watering the anger that takes root in you.

You distract yourself with whatever you can, though your freedoms are more and more restricted the further along you are, and it eats away at your heart, shedding petals with every passing day.

You push your way out of your rooms one day, announcing that you intend to go see what is in the cards for your child to Septimus, so you can at least have a reason to step outside.

You survey the faces of everyone you pass by, wondering what they’re thinking as you brush through the echoing halls.

The mage rests a hand on your belly before she draws it back quickly, snatching it away as if burned.

“What is it?” You ask, eyes narrowing.

“The end of all things,” the mage answers as your breath stills in your lungs. “Or,” she amends, closing her eyes and turning her face to the sun. “The beginning of them.” She opens her eyes. “You are an Altaire, are you not?”

“I am a Valmont now,” you say, devoid of everything.

“With the sigil phoenix,” the mage continues. “It’s so beautiful. Cycles on cycles, life and death, ashes and embers.”

“Don’t,” you hiss, thinking about what your predecessor once said.

You try to ignore the mage’s words, but as more things begin to happen, you grow increasingly more worried about the kind of child that a man like Septimus can sire paired with your own ability to excel.

If he were more capable, would his reign truly be prosperous? Or would it simply be more effectively terrible?

Several things become clear in pain; as all with disasters, there is only striking clarity on how to move forward: one step at a time.

You writhe in your bed, hair plastered to your temples with sweat; you push and scream and tear at your silk sheets and your mind races.

First, your child can never see the throne.

Second, you must be bolstered where Septimus falters.

Third, you were queen to Tyrholm first, and a mother second, and your priorities must reflect that.

It is what you owe.

“It is a girl,” the midwife says. “Congratulations, your majesty. Would you like to hold her?”

“Not yet, thank you,” you say, looking at your reflection in mirror at the corner of your room and grinning slow and sure, watching as your teeth show themselves, pearly inch by pearly inch.

You look feral, and you tremble.

PLOT IDEAS: ⇢ I think that it almost goes without needing to be said, but I would be excited to see which way she turns, if she turns. In her skeleton, it felt like there was almost an undercurrent of ruthlessness that ran through it, from keeping her own daughter at arm’s length, to being just angry enough to consider what might become of her husband in that moment, and in deciding if there was a need to see one successor, ah, handled, shall we say, to ensure the other’s success — and that shows me that not only her options are open and flexible, she’s willing to see them through. She, in my opinion, is at a crossroads between the slow condemning certainty of stagnation versus the unknowable risks of advancement. One way or the other, the winds of change are blowing, and they are oftentimes a fatal breeze for those on the wrong side of it. And while I do think she would be content to have died for the betterment of Tyrholm as a whole, pointlessness is hardly on her bucket list. ↳ A small, secondary point to say I especially am curious about who may cultivate her, bend her ear, try to influence her. Whether that’s to convince her of the efficacy of someone else (her included, if perhaps Justice is swayed) taking power, to keep her convinced to consolidate behind her husband, or push another successor’s agenda — no doubt all of the back and forth as people try to figure out her stance will be interesting.

⇢ The flavor behind their 👏 family 👏 drama 👏! With Septimus more and more unfit to rule, and not getting any younger, the race for a proper successor (her own daughter exempted, of course, for the good of their people) is on, coup or no coup. I’d like to see how a family dinner - or any family event, really - goes, with all those complex relationships at play, every single relationship taut as the strings on a zither, and oh, how the tension must strum between them. Everyone must seem like children to her, playing at politics, each too caught up in their own wants and needs, forgetting about the big picture: the people of Tyrholm. Her interests and obligations lie in the betterment of Tyrholm’s general welfare, and who are her options? A fifty-fifty gamble with her own daughter, an heir apparent too desperate for admiration (which a steadfast ruler does not make), and a groomed successor too caught up with the ghosts in their own vision to see the bigger picture a monarch needs to see. I wonder who she’ll cast her lot behind, if at all any, and what ends she will go to if her own daughter decides the other two no more fit to rule than themself. After all, the people do love her - and if the World were to ask, would the people not follow?

⇢ There’s a core of loneliness in her that’s masked by layers of regalia and obligation: stuck with a husband she does not love, a daughter she cannot love, and a lover she has determined she must not love. But on that, she doesn’t dwell, cannot dwell — there’s always something to be done, after all. There’s always something to oversee, a city to govern, people to placate, and in the end, there is little of herself left for her. The thing about monarchs being peerless is, well, they’re peerless. Her husband finds ways around it: going through wives like wine, interesting people all brought to court, cast into the role of entertainment, balls and feasts and revelry galore; in which she always takes part but does not partake, and I wonder if there will be someone who sees the queen in her high tower, and if they’ll bother to knock - and if they do, what it might mean to her.

CHARACTER DEATH: I’m comfortable with it!

WRITING SAMPLE.

She wonders if the courtiers think her vain, with the amount of time she spends looking into the mirror. Certainly, she can understand that if one was simply to only look and not see, her behavior appears vain. But it’s with a profound lack of admiration that she looks at her reflection with, and more an examination of what others may see when they look at her. She has spent so much time studying the quirks of her husband’s quick changing moods: the way that it so obsequiously darkens in anger, upturns in joy, scrunches in pain, slants in mockery. As such, she needs to know: does her face tell of the anger that roots itself so insidiously in the hollows of her chest? Does it speak of the way she wishes to live, but lives to serve?

It does not.

At least, it does not when she goes looking for it, and she cannot say whether or not she is well pleased by this. It is, at the very least, a small victory in the way she tries to differentiate herself from her husband, entwined as they are through simple affiliation.

Calliope has found, recently, that she has a desolate sort of beauty. Time has been a kind master to her in a way that it hasn’t been to her husband; as he grows in width and wrinkles, only the subtle tells of lines are present in her. But with all things that are too passed by the ravages of time, it is, admittedly, a little eerie. Things too well preserved tend to tell of an absence of life; such is the only way it can stand untouched, a beautiful spectre of a testament.

She turns away from her vanity, walking over to the map she has splayed out over her desk, the rolled corners of it weighed down by various books. She traces the area she knows the troops are being led to with a careful finger; the parchment is wearing thin, and one wrong move may split the map in two. Victory is not what is in question, only the aftermath.

She’s torn from her thoughts rather abruptly, as a sharp knock sounds at her door, and it opens without her beckon.

“The Emperor is back,” comes the harried response, before she can even ask what’s wrong.

“And the troops?” She asks, striding to exit her room.

“Mostly unharmed, they say.”

“Good,” she says briskly, though her furrowed brow hardly mirrors the sentiment, and sweeps out of her room without another word. No one stops her on her way to the reception hall, though the halls buzz with movement and whispers. They conveniently quiet when she comes near; the silence is more worrying than anger could ever be, but she doesn’t slow until she reaches the entrance to the reception hall. The Emperor is not there, but Septimus is, and he looks at her before he turns from her, and she does the same.

It happens often these days, but she has spent years making herself indispensable, cultivating a small following in his inner circle, enough that she mostly need not worry for her own head yet.

The makeshift Koldam crown greets her from its display box when she finds her way to the entrance hall, the bark of its twined twigs flaking with week-old blood; the Emperor’s blank stare greets her as well.

He is not warmly disposed towards her, but it’s hardly about her now, both of them focused on that little nest they’ve taken to calling a crown.

“Well fought,” she says, but the slant of her tongue means what have you wrought upon us?

He doesn’t respond, still looking at the crown, and for the first time in years, she doesn’t see a petulant child when she looks at him. She leaves the hall, heart dry and withering, the petals of hope for any amount of normalcy shredding.

EXTRAS.

⇢ I drew the house banner for the Altaire family before I realized that there was a slight overlap (the color gold) with Valmont colors, but here it is! (x)

⇢ HEADCANONS. ↳ ALTAIRE. They were not always the wealthiest family in Hightown, as her father is wont to remind her. Never forget that, he says. But never let anyone else remember, either. It is hard for most families, preoccupied as they are with their own going-ons, to remember a time that the Altaire’s were not at the forefront of the noble houses. But trace the thread back far enough, and it will show that which their family has worked so hard to cover: that before they were everything, they were nothing.

It is a long story that no one dares tell; to tell it is to give life to it, and that is dangerous for a family that would sooner people forget it. Calliope only knows the gist of it: an old name hence forgotten, covered with a new one picked to match the place they chose to live in, a fortune amassed through taking advantage of circumstances not unlike what threatens on the horizon now, made unfathomably bigger still by cultivating the right people, and then proceeding to grow until their roots choked out the husks of their competition, so naturally integrated that one might mistake them for having always been there.

There are subtle changes one can spot if one looks closely. Much like the rings left behind by the years in tree trunks, they cannot hide growth completely. Old banners still have the color red instead of their more recently adopted secondary, even though new ones are emblazoned with their covetous phoenix in grand gold filigree, like it’s always been that way, with only hints of their old colors left as a subtle reminder to themselves. But it never does to forget oneself completely, and the house motto remains, as it has, an idiom in an old tongue: 一叶知秋. A single leaf heralds the coming of Autumn. Know that which will come from a single sign.

↳ BEHOLDEN. On her seventh birthday, her parents give her a finely worked bangle that resembles one she’s seen her mother wear constantly, and she puts it on immediately. It is too big for her at the time, and periodically it falls off, but her parents remind her without fail about it. Much of her youth is spent picking it up and putting it back on, until she needs no more reminders to put it back on, and it becomes a habit, a comfort, even, to wear. Eventually, almost without her notice through the years, she grows around it, its ever-presence; as it forms to the curve of her wrist, her hand grows enough that it stops falling off.

She tries pulling it off once, when she’s 16 and just noticed it never falls off anymore, but it catches on the bones of her hand painfully and leaves her with naught but a welt for her efforts. The bangle has a name, her parents tell her the next day, when they see the red around her knuckles, and it is duty. It will come off in two ways: if she breaks herself to rip herself free of it, or if she breaks it to escape. She does not try it again, and it glints and jangles on her wrist as she walks the halls of Castle Tyrholm now.

↳ LIKE MOTHER... like daughter. It was harder than she expected, sometimes, holding herself away from her daughter. Even now, there is an affability to the World, a multifaceted, unnameable quality that is inherently lovable. But she cannot love her like that, cannot be a mother to her first without forgetting her responsibilities. To love singularly is to favor above all else; to love consumingly is to declare you hate all other things. With a prophecy weighing on her daughter’s shoulders, it would be asking her to choose a single life over the lives of all people of Tyrholm.

She doesn’t know how to love them without having to eventually make that choice, and chooses to abstain from it completely. For all that they are similar, hasn’t it been nurtured to bloom by anyone but her?

↳ SILKS. Dresses are to a queen as armor is to a soldier. When she was younger, she wore the most current fashion, in usually Valmont colors; back then, she had been ushered in hastily to a court that had known six other queens, and she had to make some sort of statement. These days, her dresses are, more often than not, in her own family’s colors and adorned with more metallic accents, reminiscent of armor.

↳ I’m out of time but thank you for reading to this point!! I know it was long and A Lot In General, so take care and good luck with the rest of the applications and acceptances

#accepted #accepted: the empress

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trowelfrog4-blog · 5 years

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I'm From the Navajo Nation and I Want to Help My Community Get Healthy Food

In this op-ed, Parvannah Lee of Partners in Health explains the nutrition and health needs of the Diné people.

It may be hard for some people to imagine what hunger looks like, but I have a clear picture in my mind. It looks like my mother walking two miles through a snowstorm to the nearest grocery store. She was practically blind, having broken her new glasses, and didn’t have a car at the time, so she trudged through neighborhoods and across a busy street to buy food for her young family.

I consider us the lucky ones. My mother, who raised four of us by herself in the Navajo Nation, made sure we never went hungry. Even when food was short, she would make something out of nothing.

Unfortunately, not every family has a magical mother like mine. And that is what I want to talk about.

I am 24 and my mother’s eldest child, or, shall I say, the first to experience and test the abilities of my life as a Diné woman from a reservation. I have started on a path that has led me outside the reservation and back. Along the way, I learned more about myself, my heritage, and my desire to leave a mark on the world — first by helping to improve the health of my people.

As a young woman, I almost did not make it out of high school. I looked at my siblings’ moderate grades and thought, “What kind of influence am I going to be for them?” I picked up my books and graduated from high school, barely, then decided to attend our local institution, Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona. I graduated with an associate’s degree in social and behavioral sciences in 2015. I then went on to Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, where I graduated with honors in public health in April — the first in my family to earn a college degree.

It was at our local college where I discovered who I was as a Diné woman. I took silversmithing, lived in a huge dormitory shaped as a hogan, and was surrounded by like-minded students with different stories, songs, and prayers. Like many of my peers, I learned early on about my family lines. On my maternal side, I am Tsenabahitnii, the Sleep Rock People clan, who come from generations of weavers. On my paternal side, I am born for Naaneesht’ezhi Dine’é, an old Zuni clan, some of whom were sheepherders.

Currently my immediate family resides in my great grandparents’ home in Fort Defiance. Although well-loved, the house has seen some wear and tear; the floor in our bathroom is so bad that it could cave at any moment. Yet during hard times, our family still remembers to love, remain happy, and tell our grandparents’ stories.

My family’s day-to-day reality is embedded in a place with deep history. Fort Defiance was established in 1851 and was dedicated to controlling Native Americans before the Long Walk and assimilation thereafter. Our ancestors were forced into boarding schools and to abide by strict laws on land, language, and water rights. The 1868 treaty, signed by the surviving Diné from Fort Sumner, was a negotiation for release from incarceration and for the return of the Diné to their birthplace. Our ancestors made clear the terms upon which they would sign — access to health care and education, for the security of future generations.

Sadly, though, we are still struggling to attain these terms 150 years later. Healthy foods, such as indigenous grains, corn, herbs, beans, squash, and melons, are limited or expensive on the Navajo Nation, which is roughly the size of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont combined. Most of our people live in one of the largest food deserts in the United States, meaning they have to travel long distances to reach the nearest grocery store. There are only 13 supermarkets and 50 convenience stores available to roughly 200,000 Diné. Personally, I know many people who drive off the reservation to buy groceries, because prices are cheaper.

More than three-quarters of Navajo families don’t have enough food to eat, which is directly related to poverty and increasing health disparities. Too much of the food they do eat is highly processed, often filled with empty calories, fat, and sugar. In fact, the prevalence of obesity among children under 5 on government assistance is 19%, five points higher than the national average.

Growing up, I knew that it was hard to get fresh produce, but I hadn’t thought deeply about how that intersects with health. Only after beginning my internship as a data consultant with Community Outreach Patient Empowerment (COPE), in Gallup, New Mexico, did I realize the impact food insecurity has on the Navajo Nation. At COPE, a sister organization of the nonprofit Partners in Health, I collected and analyzed data on the Fruits and Vegetables Prescription Program, or FVRx, in which families receive a doctor’s prescription that they use to buy fresh produce at participating local convenience or grocery stores.

Part of my job included tracking the progress of participating FVRx convenience stores. Each receives an excellent, basic, or poor grade based on how many fresh fruits and vegetables they have available and the produce’s location in the store. The evaluations are sent to store managers to encourage excellent performance or inform those needing improvement. While much work remains, there has been positive progress over a short period of time. Prescriptions can now be filled in about 22 grocery stores, convenience stores, and trading posts. And 15 health clinics have adopted the FVRx program across the Navajo Nation.

My internship ends this month, and I plan to apply the skills I learned with COPE to a new position as a medical support assistant at an Indian Health Service in Eagle Butte, S.D. I look forward to this learning opportunity and chance to have a positive impact outside of my community. My siblings and I are part of a generation of change. The Navajo Nation was the first to pass a junk food tax within the continental United States, in direct response to high rates of diabetes. And we were among a rising tide of midterm voters who elected the first two Native American women to serve in Congress.

As young Diné, we must remember that we are our ancestors, and we are creating history every day. How that history is created is up to us, for the next generation. I hope some of my mother’s magic has rubbed off on me, as I grow into a leader in my own right.

Related: Food Boxes Have Already Failed for Native Communities, Why Would They Work for SNAP?

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Source: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/im-from-the-navajo-nation-and-i-want-to-help-my-community-get-healthy-food

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