#hell i only willed myself to read past the final empire because i was told that kelsier comes back wrong

[to-shards-you-say]

does anyone actually get into cosmere without spoilers nowadays? or were all of us peons goaded into reading by being asked "wanna find out what happens to the universe when sixteen people kill god and each take a piece for themselves"?

[airlock]

so, while I believe I’ve made my stance reasonably clear wrt defending edelgard, I also rapidly find myself annoyed by the slice of the Fire Emblem Three Houses fandom which is bent on swinging that pendulum the other way and accrediting her character far below all proper merits. perhaps it’s high time I dedicate that concentrated manic/spiteful energy to another long analytical text post

thus, the topic of today’s blathering on this blog shall be this: the ending of Crimson Flower, the frequent interpretations on the ways it’d secretly suck for everyone, and, without claiming that it wouldn’t suck (because it would), which of these interpretations simply don’t hold up to less motivated scrutinity

-Thesis: Edelgard can’t/won’t actually purge Such Individuals Who Carry A Snakelike Stride To Negotiate Spaces That Are Void Of Light

one of Edelgard’s most notorious points of discussion is her alliance with Fódlan’s baddest, flattest dudes. more charitable readings register it as either a means of playing her enemies against each other, or as a matter she initially has little say over, but can overturn by building up her power base. less charitable readings may register all of Edelgard’s reservations about the alliance as mere theatre -- includingly when she’s not addressing anyone other than them, apparently -- or cast suspicion on the idea that she really did sever her ties with them in the postgame, being that this crucial event is relegated to offscreen and acknowledged only in the epilogue text, which, on all routes, is notoriously difficult to take at face value

the matter with the former is that, just because Edelgard isn’t always honest with her allies, some of the fandom has gotten obssessed with this idea that anything that comes out of her mouth is passible of decanonization, as though one can only ever be 100% honest all the time or a pathological liar. sometimes Hubert also gets hit with some of it, including colorful theories that he’s secretly working with agartha on a deeper level than Edelgard and ultimately intends to usurp her for the ultimate evulz. it’s almost as if one’s not engaging with the same characters at all anymore. but hey, if we must deal in characterization absolutes, let’s go with this: Edelgard and Hubert are both very pragmatic characters -- why, then, produce so much blatantly unecessary theatre? like, there’s an entire paralogue dedicated to Hubert sowing the seeds of a future St. Patrickening; going through so much more trouble than they’re getting worth isn’t how these two operate

the latter issue will give us a little more to chew on, though, because there have been a variety of arguments made to sustain the idea that, despite the epilogue text, Edelgard cannot or will not hunt down the Dudes Who Do The Worm At The Club once the chips are down. a popular one is that Edelgard wouldn’t have enough resources at her disposal to pursue that purge due to having a fucktonne of fresh annexations to deal with; another frequent customer roots itself in archetypal allusions, arguing that, as Edelgard is a blatant second coming of Arvis from Genealogy of the Holy War, her regime should be expected to be headed for the same ignobile end

on the matter of whether Edelgard can wipe out agartha, I’m moved to ask: are the people who push this angle forgetting everything we do see onscreen of agartha? in VM and SS, one month is all it takes between realizing they exist and ending them; in AM, they’re smothered into dust as unintentionally as Dimitri destroys every sewing needle he picks up, largely because Thales somehow figured it was a good idea to stand squarely between the two factions he’d been trying to play against each other.

these guys are jobbers. they’re some of the most weaksauce major villains in the history of Fire Emblem. furthermore, CF concludes with them down several key members and stuck on the endlag of their nukes, which also tipped Hubert off to the location of Shambhala, because I guess it was that important to throw a nuclear tantrum over Cornelia. why would Edelgard be the only one of the three lords who supposedly can’t vamoose these dudes with a sneeze? is it just because she’s the only one who didn’t do it onscreen? and because offscreening it alerts us more readily to what a risible anticlimax the whole thing is, I guess?

as for archetypes -- it’s entirely correct to claim that Edelgard draws heavily from Arvis, and her tentative allies, from the less completely incompetent (but still really poorly written) loptyrous cultists. it’s also correct to claim that the secret spotlight-stealing squad of doom outplayed Arvis and took over his government. still, what sort of logic is this, where an archetypal resonance means everything will play out the exact same way? Perceval is heavily based on Camus and his other imitators, but you can recruit that dude. Jill is heavily based on Minerva and her other imitators, but she can defect back to nation she’d left, if the player is sufficiently incautious. there’s absolutely nothing to obligate Edelgard to follow the same script as her predecessor, least of all to such a point it’d contradict existing canon

(sometimes the ending tapestry also plays into this, because it features a dark bishop behind the crowd, carrying a dagger behind his back. supposedly, he’s threatening the crowd to stay in line. with the dagger that he’s not holding to them. please, rub those last two brain cells together and figure out who that guy is probably trying to kill in that tapestry.)

-Thesis: Dimitri has a secret unidentified heir who’s going to become the new Seliph and make Edelgard his Arvis properly

in a cutscene in ch17, Dimitri tells Rhea that he’s not too worried about getting himself into a straight deathmatch with Edelgard, because even if that ends poorly for him (as it does), there’s another who will carry on the Blaiddyd bloodline in his stead. the fandom has been scrambling for a while now to figure out just who the hell he’s referring to when he says as much

playing off the whole thing with how Edelgard surely must be a carbon copy of Arvis on all aspects, an ascending theory is that Dimitri went and spawned a secret offscreen baby, who will grow up to become Seliph 2.0, and thus, the blade on which Edelgard’s empire ends

the thing is, Dimitri did not spawn a secret offscreen baby. lo, by the combined forces of occam’s razor and conservation of detail, I give you the true identity of the secret remaining Blaidyyd: it’s just Rufus

remember Rufus? Lambert’s brother, was regent when Dimitri wasn’t old enough to be king, wasn’t much of any good at it? you may have written him off because he was murdered in AM, VW, and SS. you know who else was murdered in AM, VW and SS, but not CF? one of Dimitri’s eyes. and that’s not just a crack at Dimitri, either! the reason why he gets to keep both eyes in CF is because the coup d’etat that nearly killed him -- and did fully kill Rufus -- never came to be.

(sidebar -- canon implies that this difference occours because Byleth cast the elusive Summon Conscience spell on Edelgard; I’d say there’s a much more reasonable reading in that, with Rhea alive and relocated to the Kingdom, wiping out the royal family is a lot of trouble just to give her a pretext with which to rule the roost herself. still, see, we can interpret that reasonably without creating another stupid ass Edelgard Totally Lied spot!)

now, I do have to concede that Rufus isn’t explicitly confirmed to be the remaining Blaidyyd that Dimitri was referring to, and it’s also not totally impossible for Seliph 2.0 to be the product of Rufus’s grand royal womanizing. it’s just, at this point, the supposedly clear-cut archetypal resonance is now nothing more than unsubstantiated fanon direly clinging to that last cliff of technically being possible

-Thesis: Almyra will sweep into the wartorn Empire and crush it like a bug

maybe, if they did, we’d finally learn anything canon about them at all-

but see, that throwaway joke is a fantastic starting point. whenever almyra gets brought up in terms of FE16 endings, it seems to be under this unspoken agreement that they’re able, willing, and intent on unleashing a colossal invasion of Fódlan, effective soon enough to take advantage of the depleted and unstable society left in the continent at the game’s end.

why should we start from that assumption, though? it’s not rooted on anything other than the fact that Almyra at one point in the past was all of able, willing and intent on unleashing an invasion of Fódlan that was fierce enough to force international cooperation. what little we’re told of Almyra at the time of the game consistently indicates that this is no longer the case.

in CF alone, Almyra does attack, twice: once as Claude’s reinforcements, and then again when the usual noncomittal border raid meets the new leadership. Edelgard’s forces trounces them both times. note how that’s just Edelgard’s forces, too, and not the continental coalition that was previously required. but that should figure, shouldn’t it? after all, after the Locket was built, Leicester alone kept any new Almyran offensives from getting that serious. and Claude himself points out to Lorenz, in their supports, that Almyran raids dropped a lot in frequency around the time of the game; that may be just pre-timeskip, but all in all, the increasingly clear picture is that, even if Fódlan stirs itself for a bunch of years, Almyra doesn’t seem to be able, willing, and intent on squeezing that opportunity for another major invasion.

sometimes, the centerpin of this theorama is Claude, and specifically, his fate in Deirdriu. supposedly, there’s a catch-22: if he survives, he’s taking his ambitions and schemes back to Almyra in order to come back to Fódlan a few years later with a vengeance, and if he dies, the vengeance will instead come from his grieving parents. now, I know that correctly interpreting Claude’s character isn’t really in vogue yet, but both of those scenarios fundamentally misunderstand him, his development, and his circumstances.

let’s say he survives -- would he be eager to come back with an army behind his back? he might have all of his ambitions, but he’s a guy who rarely holds grudges, loves being alive, and just found out he doesn’t like war very much at all. and let’s say he dies -- sure, his parents aren’t going to like it, but is that all it takes? think back to Claude’s backstory, and to the amount of people who tried to kill him; didn’t these people just finally get what they wanted?

in fact, if Edelgard wants Claude -- and/or his parents -- off her back, accomplishing such is possibly just as simple as entreating with their enemies inside the country. remember, the paralogue where she fights off an Almyran charge also ends with her expressing a desire to reach across the Throat diplomatically, where previous authorities of Fódlan failed to do so because of their strict adherence to xenophobic dogmas. chalk that up to Edelgard’s naïveté or overconfidence all you might want; the long and narrow of it is that the possibility of exploiting inner Almyran politics to Fódlan’s favor is new ground that she breaks by herself.

of course, when it comes down to it, she might not even have to do any such heavy lifting, because it’s just not a given that Claude and/or his parents would be able to enact this vengeance that’s being expected of them, or would even want such a thing. this is, in fact, the breaking point of a lot of other smaller theses about someone who would hypothetically raise the flag of revenge against Edelgard’s regime. y’see...

-Thesis: any number of polities in Fódlan will never accept being violently subjugated by Edelgard

over the course of Edelgard’s march, a bunch of people die, and a bunch of territories get conquered. any number of the families that lose something in the process will then be assumed by fans to be plotting to retaliate against Edelgard for it. this, despite that the exact opposite of it happens over and over again in canon.

and do note, I’m not even just talking about CF. on all of the other routes, you spend a significant amount of the post-timeskip fighting your own country-of-choice’s forces, because a whole bunch of Fódlan folded to Edelgard without a second thought and another whole bunch is just going to stay on the fence unless you demonstrate enough force to draw them to your side.

in the Alliance, about half of all the most influential families side with Edelgard immediately, to the point of being willing to fight the other families over it. furthermore, it seems that Goneril, one of the families that isn’t a part of this pro-imperial bloc, often gets cast as as a focus of post-CF imperial opposition, because they’re very protective of their baby girl who probably died in the war -- nevermind that they don’t seem to be at all uncomfortable with asking for their dutiful new overlords to take care of the Locket while Holst is having another sick/poisoned fit. as it turns out, Hilda can keep her responsibility for choosing to give her life in that battle (against explicit orders, even), and warrior families can get over the fact that war gets people killed sometimes

the Kingdom is the same story; an entire territorial half of it will fold to the Empire on all routes. outside of CF, this requires a little coup, but if none of the western lords ever stood up to Cornelia, what would make them any sort of eager to stand up to Edelgard? hell, AM shows us Annette’s uncle having to give up his own life just so Cornelia doesn’t so much as get the impression that he’s colluding with Dimitri. and then, in CF, there’s no coup, but that same half of the Kingdom flips like a yugioh card as soon as Edelgard gets past Arianrhod, despite that the Kingdom, with the church’s help, is still exhibiting roughly enough military strength to keep pushing the Empire back.

in case you missed it, that’s Edelgard’s whole strategy: she tries to take the fight straight to the people who would never surrender to her -- because once she’s dealt with those, then everyone else surrenders. most of the authority in Fódlan is held by scattered people who put their own individual interests first, and happily base the side of the war that they support only on where they see the best odds of not getting killed, as opposed to any manner of loyalty or loftier value. this aspect of Fódlan gets called out a lot in the game, too

regardless, though, it sounds like there’s a lot of the fandom that’s still constantly projecting a specific type of loyalty onto these people. some sort of devotion to king and country, an appeal to a sovereignity which none of these countries, not even the Empire, probably really have. most of the nobles in Fódlan don’t actually give a flying shit what government they’re currently operating under, and haven’t given one since Adrestia was whole. even the ostensibly tidy three little country arrangement that we’re presented at the onset of the game is actually historically recent.

(fun fact: did you know that, when Leicester first became its own thing, Faerghus was also two separate countries? those two got back together, but Leicester decided not to get back together with them and they made a whole war about it. I feel like that’s a little less than the stark sense of nationality that folks keep projecting on these territories)

so yeah -- there are still lots of fair accusations to make of whether Edelgard’s regime would be a good thing, and whether it would survive. but here’s some that ought to be discarded, at least for those of us who aren’t in the edelhating bubble

[kiliosthestarmaker]

Nyehehe 1-49 >.> all of dem 😏😉

I EXPECTED THIS BUT YOU’RE GOING TO K I L L M E

The Basics1.     Do you listen to music when you write?

YES, Gods yes! The inspiration! The characterizations! The playlists I listen to when dealing with a particular character I love it I crave it!

2.     Are you a pantser or a plotter?

Plotter, most things have already been decided on within my stories.

3.     Computer or pen and paper?

Computer, I’ll use a pencil and paper only when I have no tech on me. 

4.     Have you ever been published, or do you want to be published?

I’d like to be published

5.     How much writing do you get done on an average day?

Interesting question, I have no clue

6.     Single or multiple POV?

Kind of multiple? It’s all in third POV but we follow around different characters

7.     Standalone or series?

*cackles* SERIES

8.     Oldest WIP

A whole series called Ratio Cor that I finally got back too

9.     Current WIP

Worlds Rejoined

10.  Do you set yourself deadlines?

No. Gods no, I’d stress myself out.

The Specifics11.  Books and/or authors who influenced you the most

Lord of The Rings

J.R.R. Tolkien

George Martin

Harry Potter

Rick Riordan

C.S. Lewis

My two writer friends Wolfe and Jacks

12.  Describe your perfect writing space

My room, blasting with music in the morning when I have no school

13.  Describe your writing process from idea to polished

Sure

A) Wake up at 2 AM with an idea

B) write it down 

C) go back to sleep until you have to wake up properly

D) Write out a decent plot

E) Characters

F) World Building (My fav part)

G) Write and Feel your book

H) Make others suffer with you

14.  How do you deal with self-doubts?

Music and talking to Wolfe

15.  How do you deal with writer’s block?

Music, scrolling through Tumblr, talking to Wolfe and Jacks

16.  How many drafts do you need until you’re satisfied with a project?

Who the heckity heck knows

17.  What writing habits or rituals do you have?

Grab some food and a drink

18.  If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be, and what would you write about?

I WOULD COLLABORATE WITH @princess-east AND @stressedwolfe and it would probably either be about the gods or some action/adventure/fantasy thing and we’ve done it before AND ALSO @koalajake CAUSE THE IDEAS HE HAS 

I

ADORE

19.  How do you keep yourself motivated?

My dad expresses interest in my plots (the only family member that do), he tells me about showing it to other people at work or while he’s busy with something and the person just so happen to be there. My loves also encourage me.

there is also music

20.  How many WIPs and story ideas do you have?

........ ehe well there is 1 collection, 4 series within that collection and about 3-4 books within each series sans one which will probably have more than that. Other than that...I have many, many ideas

The Favourites21.  Who is/are your favorite character(s) to write?

I absolutely love writing Kilios, not only is he my favorite character, he’s just purely iconic.

22.  Who is/are your favorite pairing(s) to write?

Most of my pairings are platonic as most characters are teens or children. There’s also those who have been married and are widowed now so-

OH THERE IS KOLFE I ABSOLUTELY LOVE WRITING THOSE TWO

23.  Favorite author

Wait I have to choose??

24.  Favorite genre to write and read

Fantasy

25.  Favorite part of writing

WORLD BUILDING!!!! I SWEAR ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS BE LIKE “Hey Kilios you wanna help me build a world for this AU?” or “Hey Kilios can you help me build the world for my story?” AND I WILL BE ALL OVER THAT

26.  Favorite writing program

Lmao does google docs count?

27.  Favorite line/scene

From...from my book?

(Ratio Cor)

“Okay...” She hums softly as she screws on her arm. She flexes the mechanical fingers slowly before twisting her wrist. She grimaces slightly at the creaking of the joint. “Grandfather where’s the thing?”

“What thing?”

“The...the thing...uh...whot yz yt collud… THE OIL!” Kala exclaims after figuring it out. She hears her grandfather laugh. Kala huffs softly at the laughter. Her grandfather taught her the surface language at a young age. He told her it might come in handy one day, but she doesn’t understand why it would. The Markian language was harder to learn afterward.

(Working Title: Caelum Enterprise)

“That's a child.” Kai whispers. Kilios nods his head in agreement. “That’s a child.” 

“Thirteen years old.” Kilios offers with a small grin. Kai’s face turns blank, and he stares at Kilios. A cold rage settles in his soul.

“So, I have to kill Zeus?” Shadow chokes on his laughter as he wraps his arms around Kai’s waist. Kilios snorts in amusement even though he knew his friend could kill the Lightning God if he wanted to.

“Now, now. Revenge is best served cold as you may know.” Kilios hums softly as they smirk at each other. Shadow and Oketh look at each other before shaking their heads in exasperation. “Zeus seems to want this kid somewhat broken down, so we’ll give the child the best childhood.”28.  Favorite side character

Kai and Shadow, purely for their dynamic

29.  Favorite villain

K,,,kilios

30.  Favorite idea you haven’t started on yet?

Three siblings were reborn as siblings in the modern world. One problem, the ex-youngest sibling is the only that remembers their past and the evil that caused them to die before has followed them. So now, the sibling has to reawaken their siblings' past selves and strive off the evil force all alone. What will happen if the evil, instead of harming the ex-youngest sibling, takes them away to where they are treated as they should be and are loved. What happens when their siblings do reawaken and come after them? What happens if the ex-younger sibling doesn’t want to go? After all, they found love in the darkness. They found light within it as well insert King Keir who isn’t willing to let his consort be taken without a fight.

The Dark31.  Least favorite part of writing

The,,, the writing part

32.  Most difficult character to write

Alim??? I guess cause he’s like grandfatherly and most characters I’ve done in the past never met their grandparents?? 

33.  Have you ever killed a main character?

Yes, even better! I’m going to kill one in one of my books!!

34.  What was the hardest scene you ever had to write?

Kilios’,,,, death I’m-35.  What scene/story are you least looking forward to writing?

KILIOS’ ORIGIN STORY

The Fun36.  Last sentence you wrote

“Yeah, I’m alright.” She assures her grandfather after he gives her a look showing that he didn’t believe her. “So, what’s for breakfast?” She quickly changes the subject.

37.  The first sentence or your current WIP

“Three creators, each lost in their own right. Their names were taken from books and erased from history. The first to come back will be the one who breathes the anger of volcanoes. Next will be the one who freezes the stars. Finally, the one with powers that are forbidden will come to light. Once together united as one. All will hail the Cold Sun.”

38.  Weirdest story idea you’ve ever had

All of them

39.  Weirdest character concept you’ve ever had

A manipulative character that ends up saving the world due to having the ability to see at least ten steps of ahead and calculating an infinite amount of possibilities for options due to having who is literally the concept of the creation of stars and demihumans/hybrids as a bearer (Aka Kilios)

40.  Share some backstory for one of your characters

AHAHAHAHA

Kyle Evren was born from a phoenix and the Primordial God Khaos. The toddler was neither male nor female. Ze was an outlier much like the being known as Udushunamir, who was a being created by the Egyptian Great God Ea. Kyle was born to die for the Gods.

Kavya Esther was created with the body of Saiph and life was breathed into her by Astraea. Her mother was a phoenix and the Star Goddess Astraea. Kavya was very radiant and creatures of all sizes tended to flock to her. The child was kind and lovely. Kavya was born to die for the Gods.

Kit Keir was born from a phoenix and the Hindu Celestial Deity known as Rahu. Kit was both male and female. Due to cer odd parentage, Kit gained both sexes from cer parents. Kit was a very elusive and dreamish teen. Ce would often be found drifting off into cer own little world without a care of anyone around cem. Kit was born to die for the Gods.

Kilios Caelum was born from the ashes of who he used to be. He was ruthless and tired. He was angry at what he’s been through. He swore to rise far above what he attempted to accomplish beforehand. He would build an empire, he would rise to the sky. Kilios refused to die for the Gods.

The Rest of It41.  Any advice for new/beginning/young writers?

Jot down any idea you have, no matter how vague or bizarre it is, write it down.Research, for the love of the gods, research whatever you need for your book and please please use multiple sites.Talk to other writers and ask for input, it’s alright to be nervous so just message them privately. Hell, you can ask me I’m always up for learning about new writers.

42.  How do you feel about love triangles?

As long as it makes sense and doesn’t cause the main plot to be pushed as a subplot I’m good with it fam

43.  What do you do if/when characters don’t follow the outline?

Mutter dark threats under my breath and curse my characters for putting me in the backseat of my own damn writing.

44.  How much research do you do?

Literally, a third of my whole writing process is contributed to pure research.

45.  How much world building do you do?

By the time I’m done, if someone finds it they’d think I just found the world and wrote down what the people told me.

46.  Do you reread your own stories?

Yes and it’s physically painful

47.  Best way to procrastinate

Youtube and Drawing

48.  What’s the most self-insert character/scene you’ve ever written?

KILIOS IS LITERALLY ME THEN HE WENT OFF AND GOT HIS OWN STORY THE BASTARD

49.  Which character would you most want to be friends with, if they were real?

All of them because they are my children and I love them.

[davidjjohnston3]

I am mad at my biological father... People in Milwaukee have strong spirits but they don't test or discern from whence these spirits come (Satan); they have a kind of 'anti-a'ga'pe' that wants to send people to Hell.  I finally got fed up and started cursing or at least confuting in my head and heart, wishing there would be terrorized for messing with me / my soul.  I want them to be chastened.  In what universe is it OK to antagonize someone's soul rather than build them up / edify?  It's Babylon America: commerce is king, pornography is the supreme teacher(?), media is religion, movie-theaters are temples.  All this time my 'father-in-law' was trying to teach me the American way of lying to the civil authority and medical professionals... A while back I took stock of 'our' old family home and realized in some ways my biological parents are not that bad.  I told my biological father as much and he got even more mad / contemptuous of me. Do I not assess the man properly? Reddit got mad at me for saying 'social form' and some Christian on Twitter tried to 'nope(?!..=|)' me for saying I prayed Sec. Pompeo will be President.  'No room in the Kingdom for phony Christians.'  What's phony about defending the faith worldwide?   Paul Washer of HeartCry Ministries extols the authority of the African father and the son kneeling before him but Caucasian American dad-son relationships are not that way in my experience.  Once I bowed to my dad but it didn't mean much.  Once he bowed to me after my (near)-suicide-attempt in Korea and that did mean.. Anti-racism seemed like an important concept to me but then I thought there are so many people who just wanna get stuff and if I met Ibrim X. Kendi in real life he's probably be cordial enough but not hesitate to unlease looters and rioters against me for his vision of the greater good not to say communist-disintegrationist-chaoticist utopia.   Everyone in Milwaukee seemed to be mad at me a while back since the story of me in Korea at the high school was not 100% storybook.  'Oh David James Johnston he fell in love with his 16-17-year-old student, but realized they are being left behind or the Korean War is really terrible and they're all in danger up there then some things happened with the faculty and he tried to kill himself.'  That is not totally inaccurate but I wasn't 100% the depressive melancholy young prince over the last 9 years.  I had some ambitions and I studied a lot and I also had bad habits like smoking. I got a short-sleeved white polo shirt at the department store and lost a bit more weight.  I am around 5'11 165 I would guess.  I really have to make sense of my cardiac condition although hopefully it was acute / idiopathic from the Pfizer vaccine.  What scares me is that I had a foreaugury or prophecy(?) of it in 2016 when I felt something like a powdery liquid running down behind my breastbone at the same time as when I was walking around Lake Park in terror of Koreans from the past coming to kill me, angel soldiers, 'the stars throwing down their tears,' the tiger of wrath, and also, feeling like God was feeding me something without having to eat. I still haven't read all of Blake's 'America: A Prophecy.'

* The psychiatrist whom I respect offered or 'ordered' me Prozac last week and it made me think.  I feel almost like the Boomers saw Millennial children as having no souls.  My parents wanted to send me to Hell.  My mother always used to speak about 'Rosemary's Baby' and when I was young I ran around with a red cape in a strawberry patch.  My mother told me this when I was in the mental hospital in 2013, afraid of the color red and not wanting to tear my chicken sandwich since I thought that it was metonymic(?) for tearing the Scripture rather than swallowing / appreciating it whole.   'We Boomers worked hard, stopped the ['totally causeless not trying to help anyone'] Vietnam War, Civil Rights, moreover weathered the traumas of JFK, MLK, RFK assassinations; ergo we earned the right to treat our daughters as sex-slaves and fire out our sons in order the better to take advantage of our neighbors' daughters whilst also amusing ourselves by medicating and psychologizing our kids rather than loving them and tending / nurturing / ministering to their souls.'   I didn't take the Prozac but I did think of (Ms. / Artist / [Singer]) Kim Taeyeon - 'Love in Color' is my favorite song of hers which makes me think about abortion-culture in a way and how 'too many choices' can destroy or over-modulate the distance or scuff and wear down the love in a relationship - and bipolar disorder.  I was diagnosed with bipolar in 2012 and suffered manic symptoms for most of my childhood.  I felt in the hospital that one possible 'aetiology' or origin / backstory of bipolar is knowing that people out there want to kill you; or even, damn your soul to perdition / Hell / everlasting eternal conscious torment for displeasing them or going against their norms / expectations. My diagnosis was later jacked up to schizoaffective / bipolar schizoaffective, then nearly 'crossed the ionosphere' into schizophrenia, and is now back to schizoaffective thanks to the wonderful, integrity- and probity-filled psychiatrist, who was also the only person telling the truth and not being a corporatist tank-driving-vehicular-manslaughterer at my commitment hearing where Father in Law lied to a district judge and the justice system treated me like a second-class system.  The ONLY person whose yes was yes and no was no. I still think sometimes about 'the condition of fiction.'  I wish I could develop my more scholarly ideals sometimes rather than writing in this 'free' style as I don't really like freedom I like formality and rules. I miss [].  I used to see so many colors and I saw this person in my mind's eye / Spirit when I met her online; but yesterday I felt like I just saw 'dark red.'

*

My brother is really rich (from Data Science)... I need to mend fences with him... I feel as if over the years I might've had mixed motives in 'taking him under my wing.'  We had a bad relationship when I was young and I even stole money from him a couple of times.  I also tried to catch him looking at pornography online rather than rebuke or chastise or plead with him not to, for courting death and failure.  I just wanted to embarrass / shame him. I helped him get a job shortly after the Great Recession and I guess some part of me falsely believed he owed me a favor for that. I sent him many books over the years. After my initial diagnosis of a possibly disabling mental disorder my mother told me he had said that I could live with him if I needed help but that no longer seems a possibility - in fact he said, 'I never said that.'  I was worried since I'm weak.  Hopefully God willing I can get back to where I was a couple of months ago and actually execute sth like the description of the educational administrative job that I was offered. I came to a point in my life lately where I no longer know whether something is destiny.  When I took the HS job in Korea - maybe the biggest decision of my life - I was confident.  But in the last couple of months has been a tempest or fog of war or I simply made so many decisions I don't recognize myself completely.   I want to work on 'Leaving Babylon' or 'Leaving Milwaukee' or 'Leaving America.'  There are or seem to be good Christians in Milwaukee but why live in Babylon - commercial empire worshipping all kinds of false prophetesses, porneia, objects, death, child-rape, abortion, post-partum abortion, automobiles, meals, brands, money / Mammon and other 'stuff' Pastor Timothy Keller calls 'Counterfeit Gods' (to say too little since they're actually often demons from Hell)... I'm not sure how to write it without penning distracting trash that would give wannabe writers bad habits and make naive readers think they know more than they do. My net worth is about 2,000 dollars but I want to give it away just because I'm mad.  I thought about selling my Lenovo X-1 laptop since it's Chinese Communist poison / curse, I know it's hacked by Huawei or whoever through a nano(?)chip, Father in Law tracks with AI... I heard the new Samsung smaller notebooks have around a 17-hour battery-life.

Milwaukee's Child Protective Services appear to be some kind of CCP-derived 'metaphor-joke.'  Amber Alert a child has been kidnapped in either a silver Kia or a Chevy Impala.  You can mount a plate-reading AI-camera on a 50-dollar drone easily...

I'm applying to a job in Korea.  I have no idea if I'll get in.  It is in my favorite neighborhood, and I liked the video of their staff. This would be a 'redemption-arc' for me.  'I am so exciting.'   I don't know if it can be. I listened to a few minutes of 'Inferno' by C. Cho.  Masterpiece.   Did I ever pay dues like a BigLaw junior associate?  Was I ever fast-tracked?   Career-decisions are difficult.  I have literal rejection-demons, I think, or uncertainty-demons.  Maybe it is Belial himself: sensuality plus intellectual abnegation.  Like I want to pretend the Spirit isn't there.   Other people also suffer disappointment-demons, I feel.  Loss-demons.   Understanding others can be challenging, and the fun of it, moreover, is overrated for some people.  IDK if I can ever. And too, some people, once you understand them - when they realize you understand them - become shameless.  They get more seared-conscience than ever, like the only reason they were ever acting good was to save / maintain face.  'Buyaolian.'   In past I tried to be all things to all men but lately I ended up trying to be 'Chinese mistress' to someone in a bad way.  I had already tried 'Japanese daughter, daughter-in-a-box.'  I don't know why I don't try 'son' except it makes him fake more than usual, that I know of. I felt praised like a daughter when I got praised; although maybe it is just me. 'Hello Kitty is a girl,' Said the Sanrio person. I looked at our family cat Ariel the other day and thought, 'my adult daughter Yves from LOONA.'   He used to look like a manly lion, like Jesus even, the Lion of Judah. Cats are feminine. I would get a cat but I just want to teach and write. This cat seems at peace; he no longer overeats nor conversely is hyperthyroidal and thin / 'dried out.' I miss the cat Pukah from down the way, who was fat and 'crepitant' in her voice-sound.  I took care of her for pay and bought some Audiobooks with the 'loot' or 'lucre.'

I honestly have a theory about Koreanness I don't like to share called 'Han Death Runes' that says some people see Koreans - women and girls - and just want to rape and beat and kill them.  They just do.  Japanese soldiers / officers / the entire government did.  Doubtless Chinese did before that.  Korean men did too.  Caucasian men do now.  Other people look at babies and want to kill them - not a joke, empirical Science has recorded it; Saint Augustine some 1600 years ago developed the category of Original Sin.

For a time I was convinced that ShowerThoughts on Tumblr was the Korean girl whom I attempted to save from attempted sex-trafficking by implying she should work hard in tenth grade and learn about [AI, IT]... 

I am interested in helping orphans and other young people; today in lieu of the Lead Teacher offer I missed out on I applied to some Assistant jobs at Christian private and charter schools and was impressed with the humaneness of the management-questions on the online hiring-assessment.  Nonetheless, ‘Blessed Are the Peacemakers,’ and the world will need I think / believe for somebody to prove that it is possible to take care of young people who don’t have good parents such as through a better orphanage-system someday.  At least, this is kind of what I dream and daydream about.  I think Saint Paul would talk more about older women helping younger women to be good mothers, however, or ‘teaching’ them, whatever that means.  

The pro-life cause as this political cartoon long ago pointed out is supposed to be in favor of life far beyond the emergence in to this world as a defenseless eight-pound baby.  

*

I feel lately as if I ‘waged a war for peace’ and ended up as the only casualty.  I don’t mean to aggrandize myself.  I strengthened my enemies and all I got out of it was a clarified love.  I hope / wish that this constitutes suffering and not just punishment before Moses for being a bad teacher with abominable taste in student clientele, and also forget to send off graduates with a graceful hail and blessing, maybe a final exhortation and prayer, and let them be they.

[storytellerknight]

King Arthur Star Wars Style

Chapter Eighteen: A Smuggler’s Ship

Reaching the cockpit, Lynette paused as she stared at the vast darkness of space just outside the window.  Slowly she dropped into the pilot’s seat and started tapping at the console, taking a sensor reading.  Maybe they had simply overshot when they dropped out of hyperspace?  After all, they’d been forced to override the nav computer before making the jump and there were much worse possibilities out there than traveling a little too far.  But if that was the case, why hadn’t Ax turned them around?  Why was he so engrossed in a readout from the navigation computer?

The sensor readings came back without picking up any planets in their immediate vicinity.  There was a small moon with a high output of electromagnetic radiation.  But no planet.

“Ax?” Lynette asked.

“Yeah?” he grunted, all of his attention still on the nav computer.

“Where are we?” Lynette asked.  

Ax shook his head as he finally looked up from the computer.  “Right where we’re supposed to be.”

“No,” Lynette said.  “No, because where we’re supposed to be is at a planet.  There’s no planet here Ax!”

“I don’t know what to tell you!” he snapped back.  “Our course checks out as do the surrounding systems.  By every reading I’ve taken, we are in the Lothian system.  The planet’s just gone.”

“Planets don’t just disappear,” Lynette said.  Ax gave her a look that said he was well aware of this fact but otherwise didn’t have a solution for her.  

"Hey,” Mordred said as he entered the cockpit.  He leaned against the back of Lynette's chair and she looked back to see him staring through the windows of the cockpit.  “What’s going on?  I thought you said we were on approach?  Where’s Lothian?”

“That’s the question,” Lynette muttered, flipping a switch to engage the speaker system throughout the ship.  “Hey, old lady.  Hate to interrupt your nap, but you’re going to want to get up here.”

“It’s gone,” Ax told Mordred as the kid settled into the chair behind Lynette.

“What’s gone?”

“Lothian,” Ax said.  “We’re where it’s supposed to be but it’s not.  It’s gone.”

“How—”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Lynette snapped as Morgan entered the cockpit.  “Oh, good. You’re here.  Slight complication.  We can’t find Lothian.”

Morgan’s face went white as she slowly sat down in the seat behind Ax. “I understand now,” she whispered. “What I felt earlier.”

“What?” Lynette asked, swinging her chair around so she could face the old woman.

“The Empire, they…” Morgan trailed off as she leaned forward and buried her face in her hands.  Lynette shook her head, having gotten the gist of what Morgan was suggesting.

“That’s impossible,” Lynette said.  “Even if the Empire brought in every ship they command, they still wouldn’t have enough fire power to completely destroy a planet.”

“Gaheris said something about a new weapon,” Mordred said softly.  “Do you think this is it?”

“I fear it must be,” Morgan said and silence settled over the cockpit.

“What now?” Lynette finally asked.  

“I’m afraid that depends on your generosity, captain,” Morgan said.  “With Lothian gone, we have no means to pay you.”

“Is there a system near here where I could drop you?” Lynette asked. “Somewhere with friends so you don’t have to rely on another smuggler to get you where you need to go?  Who have money?”

“Strathclyde,” Morgan said after a moment.  “We have friends on Strathclyde.”

“Alright,” Lynette said, turning her chair around to face her console.  “Ax, you want to put in coordinates for Strathclyde. Run the calculations.”

“Aye, lass,” Ax said softly.  

An alarm on the main console sounded.  Lynette looked down, not at all surprised to find a new sensor read out awaiting her.  

“Belay that order, Ax,” Lynette said, bringing the main laser cannons online. She would have preferred the quad cannons, but that would have required either her or Ax going down to the gunnery and Lynette wasn’t willing to pull either of them from the cockpit.  Next to her, Ax booted up the signal jammer so. Nothing was getting out of the Lothian system without the Damsel’s say so.  

“What is it?” Mordred asked.  

“Small fighter,” Lynette said as the ship flew over and past them.  “Ax.”  

“Sublight engines online,” Ax said as he shifted the piloting controls. The Damsel moved forward, chasing after the fighter.  “You flying?”

“No, I’ll shoot it down.”  

“Did it follow us?” Morgan asked.

Lynette shook her head.  “Too small to have its own hyperdrive and I would have known if anything had piggybacked on our lightspeed jump.”

“Likely got lost from its convoy,” Ax said.  

“Or stuck around to see what came looking for Lothian,” Mordred said.  “If they identify us—”

“They won’t,” Lynette said.  “We’ve jammed all transmissions and now we’re going to destroy it.”

“Don’t bother,” Morgan said.  “It’s far out on its own, it’s not going to be getting a transmission through to the Empire anytime soon.  Signal jammer or not.  Our best course of action is to move on to Strathclyde.”

“No,” Lynette said.  “The moon it’s heading for has a high output of electromagnetic radiation.  If it gets in range, it can use that to boost its signal enough to get a transmission out.  Even with our jamming technology.  We have to stop it.”

“High output?” Ax asked after a moment.  “There’s no moon with those characteristics on the navigation chart.”

“What do you mean?” Lynette asked.  “The sensor readings are clear—look.  You can see it up ahead.”

“Lothian had two moons,” Mordred said.  “Why would only one survive the destruction of the planet?”

“It didn’t,” Ax said.  “That's still in orbiting range and anything that was should have been blown out into space when Lothian was destroyed.  That’s not a moon.”

“What else could it possibly be?” Lynette snapped.  

“A space station,” Morgan said.  

“No,” Lynette said with a shake of her head.  “No…that’s too big to be a space station.  It’s—”

“Large enough to house a weapon that could destroy a planet?” Morgan asked.      

Lynette gasped, her eyes widening.  She could see it now.  The distinctly metal frame of the orb in front of them.  In her mind, Lynette imagined the destructive power of a weapon that was comparable in size to the massive behemoth before her.  For the first time in her life, she was actually terrified of the Empire.  Not the type of fear a crook has for the government when they’re going out of their way to break the law.  No, this was a much more primal fear.  The Empire now had the power to destroy her as an afterthought.  If what had happened to Lothian was any indication, it was an action they wouldn’t hesitate to make.

“Ax, get us out of here,” Lynette said.  

The dwarf nodded, fumbling with the piloting controls.  The Damsel started to turn, then jerked back so she was once again in line with the space station.  

“What was that?” Morgan asked.

“Tractor beam,” Lynette said, putting her hands on the piloting controls. “Ax, give her to me.”

Ax flipped the switch that returned control of the ship to Lynette’s console. She could immediately feel the pull of the tractor beam.  The Damsel wanted to go straight and Lynette's attempts to change direction were met with a fierce resistance.”

“Reversing thrusters,” Lynette said, pressing a button.  

“Initiating dispersal pulse…now!” Ax said, pressing a button on his control panel.

The Damsel shot backwards for a second before jerking to a stop.  Then she began to shake as she was one again dragged towards the space station by the tractor beam.

“What happened?” Lynette demanded.  She’d beaten more than enough star destroyers with that trick in the past. It should have gotten them clear.

“Beam’s too big and too wide and we’re in too deep,” Ax said.  “I’m sorry, lass.  We’re not going to be able to pull free of it.”

Lynette cursed and slammed her hands down the console, disengaging the thrusters and powering down the engines.  The shaking stop and the Damsel continued on a slow and steady glide towards the space station.

“You’re giving up?” Mordred asked as Lynette got to her feet.

“Hell no,” Lynette said.  “I’m going down to the quad cannon’s gunnery and I’m going to shoot until I hit something. If we’re lucky it will be the tractor beam.”

Morgan grabbed her hand before she could leave the cockpit.  “You won’t help anyone that way.  At best you’ll get the ship destroyed.  At worst you’ll just make them angry.”

“Well what do you suggest?” Lynette asked.

“This is a smuggler’s ship, is it not?” Morgan asked.  “Why don’t we start there?”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------  

The door to the war room whooshed open and Ursus stepped inside.  Tiberius was sitting at the head of the table, looking positively giddy.  Ursus forced down a wave of annoyance at being interrupted by the Grand Moff’s latest fancy.  The guards in the detention wing had just injected Prince Gaheris with a cocktail that would hopefully make him more malleable to the mind probe.  He should have been up in the detention wing now, not listening to Tiberius blather on about nothing.

“You’ll never guess what’s happened,” Tiberius said, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hands.

Ursus reached out with the force and did a sweep of the Death Star and the surrounding system.  What he saw he wasn’t quite able to bring himself to believe.  “You caught the ship.”

“Yes!” Tiberius said, clapping his hands together.  “Matches the exact description of the one that left Cornwall three days ago.  We’ve caught it in a tractor beam and it should be brought aboard our fair Death Star within the next few minutes.”

“Why would they come here?”

Tiberius shrugged.  “I’m allowing myself to hope that we were right on the nose when we decided to destroy Lothian.  Prince Gaheris was supposed to return there, after all.  Maybe he was rejoining the rebellion and didn’t even know it.”

“Doubtful,” Ursus said.  

“No, you’re right,” Tiberius said.  “More than likely the rebellion thought the plans would be safer hiding in plain sight on a non-militarized planet like Lothian.  That or it was a transfer point on the way to the rebellion. If Prince Gaheris had made it back to Lothian, no doubt the royal family wouldn’t have wanted for him to stay there long.  Eventually we would have tracked the plans back to him.”

Tiberius glanced at Ursus and laughed.  “Don’t look so glum, my friend.  We retrieved the plans with no real effort on our part.  This is a moment worth celebrating.”

“I’ll wait until we have the plans in hand, if it’s all the same,” Ursus said.

“Oh, I suppose,” Tiberius said, getting to his feet.  “Come along, then.  We might as well greet our guests.  Find out just who has been eluding us these past few days.”

Once in the hanger, they were forced to wait with a battalion of Stormtroopers as the ship was pulled into the Death Star and carefully landed.  Once it was safely on the ground, a company of troopers rushed it.  They pulled open the gangplank and disappeared inside.  Minutes later, the leader stepped off the ship an approached Tiberius and Ursus.

“It’s empty, sir,” the trooper said and Tiberius groaned.  “Ship’s log indicate it was abandoned immediately after takeoff.”

“Escape pods?” Ursus asked.

“All jettisoned,” the trooper said.      

“Droids?” Tiberius asked.  He sounded desperate.

The trooper shook his head.  “We suspect this is a decoy, sir.”

“When I find the person behind these games and misdirects,” Tiberius growled.

“That may be sooner than you think,” Ursus said.  He felt…something.  He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.  Memories stirred in the dark crevices of his mind but couldn’t quite pull themselves together into a coherent thought.  Whatever this was, he was intimately familiar with it.  It had just been so long since it had crossed his path that it had faded from memory.

“Bring a scanning crew aboard,” Ursus said.  “Leave no panel unopened.  Break it down if you have to.”

“You think they’re still onboard?” Tiberius asked.  

“I think it’s worth investigating,” Ursus said.  “Giving up and casting the ship back out into space gets us nowhere. At the very least, there may be a clue to their next move or the rebel hideout…”  He trailed off, his focus drawn back to the Stormtroopers before him. “Now!”

“You heard him,” Tiberius said cheerfully.

“Yes, sir,” the Stormtroopers said, saluting Ursus and Tiberius before jogging off to do the job that was asked of him.  

“Come now, Ursus,” Tiberius said, grabbing his arm and guiding him away from the ship.  Away from the feeling of familiarity.  “Let’s leave them to do their jobs.  Our talents are best served elsewhere.”

“Prince Gaheris,” Ursus rumbled.  He had an interrogation to get back to.

“Eventually,” Tiberius said.  “But first, the Emperor wants a live report on the weapon’s test and I need you with me for that.”

“Is now really the best time?” Ursus asked, thinking about the cocktail that had been administered to Prince Gaheris.  He was losing his window for an effective session with the mind probe.

“Yes, now,” Tiberius said.  “We can slip in the news about the decoy ship in around our report and hopefully he’ll be so pleased with the progress of the weapon he won’t care that the plans have slipped completely out of our hands.  And if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to tell me we have a new lead.  Either way, Ursus.  It’s a win for us.”

“I see,” Ursus said, pausing outside the lift to glance back at the ship. That feeling of familiarity continued to tickle at his mind.  He wanted to stay in the hanger so he would know what the scanner found the moment they found it.  He wanted this feeling explained away as soon as possible.

Tiberius cleared his throat and Ursus obediently stepped into the lift with him.      

[squirenonny]

Five Times Zethrid Flirted With a Cat (and one time it flirted back)

Rating: T (language and brief but graphic depictions of violence) Words: 5392 Summary: Zethrid has a problem, and that problem is a cat.

(Or, Zethrid might be crushing on Narti. She might be too much of a coward to talk to Narti. Not that she'd ever admit it out loud.)

Written for @queen-gr​ as part of the @vldlunarladies​ exchange!

[Read on AO3]

1. Accidental

It was a slow day in the Galra Empire. No rebellions to put down, no threats to confront, no large game on nearby planets to hunt as a gods-damned break from the monotony.

“I hate this assignment,” Zethrid said to no one in particular. It was just her in the officer’s lounge on the space station in the middle of literal nowhere that had been her home for the last… how many decaphoebes? Hell, she’d given up counting ages ago. Not like she was going anywhere anytime soon. All the interesting posts were reserved for the pure Galra. The ones with respectable parentage. The real soldiers.

Yeah. She’d like to see one of them step into the ring with her. Then they’d see who the real Galra was.

The lounge remained disappointingly quiet, and when she drove a fist into the couch cushion in frustration, it gave a rather anticlimactic huff and then, slowly, sagged beneath her knuckles.

Groaning, Zethrid flopped backward and pulled a pillow over her face. She could only imaging the lecture Lotor would give her if he saw her moping like this—let alone Acxa . But she couldn’t help it. She was bored. There was nothing to do except go down a few decks and pick a fight with one of the enlisted men, and it had already been made clear that that was not an option befitting one of Lotor’s generals.

The door hissed as it opened, and Zethrid groaned into the pillow. “I swear to fuck if you’re here to tell me there’s some dumb-ass meeting I should be at right now--”

Something small, light, and poky landed on her gut, forcing the breath out of her in a rush.

“What the--? Kova?” Zethrid lifted the pillow from her face and glared at the cat as he began kneading at her stomach. He didn’t purr—he never did—just stared her in the eye as he jabbed his tiny, sharp-clawed paws into her again and again. She swung the pillow at him and he scuttled back, hissing at her. Zethrid hissed back.

They glared at each other for a long moment, a silent battle of wills that dragged on longer than it should have. Once Zethrid realized she was having a staring contest with a cat, she flopped back down and cursed at the ceiling.

“That’s just perfect,” she grumbled. “I’ve stooped to getting territorial with an animal. Great job there, Zethrid. Really striking fear into the men’s hearts with this one.”

It was only a matter of seconds before Kova forgot his indignation and ventured forward once more, stubbornly ignoring the hand Zethrid shoved in his face and squeezing himself into the space between her hip and the back of the couch. He did this, sometimes. Found the warmest, softest body in the room to use as a bed. It was only luck that had spared Zethrid that fate so far—well, luck and the fact that she usually tried to keep herself moving. Sitting still never got anything done.

So it was usually Acxa who wound up with a sleeping Kova sprawled across her lap, or sometimes Lotor. The cat was a common fixture at their strategy meetings and Acxa’s research sprees, when he wasn’t curled up on Narti’s shoulders. But Zethrid’s core temperature ran higher than the other generals’, thanks to her father’s heritage. She supposed all this fur made her a softer bed than most, too.

Damn this cat.

Zethrid’s hand hovered over Kova’s back for a long moment, slitted eyes staring back at her beneath heavy lids. Kova didn’t blink, didn’t even stir at the irritated growl that built in Zethrid’s throat.

But she couldn’t keep her hand in the air forever, and there were only so many comfortable ways to lay on a sofa, so with no small degree of reluctance, she lowered her hand down onto Kova’s back. “You want to smother me?” she growled. “Then you can deal with me returning the favor.”

A long, taut silence followed, during which Zethrid was sure the cat was going to tear her hands to shreds.

Instead, he started purring.

It was a strange sound, gravelly and uneven. Sounded more like he was snoring than purring, but it vibrated in the ridges of his spine where they pressed against Zethrid’s fingertips, pulsing in time with his breathing. On the inhale, the sound faded, only to return in force when Kova huffed an exhale.

“You can’t possibly like this,” Zethrid muttered. Her fingers found the hollow where Kova’s ear met his skull, and the first scratch had the cat melting into her touch, purrs coming more insistently. Zethrid shook her head. “Well, shit. You’re as much of a surprise as--”

The door opened again, and Zethrid’s body went rigid as Narti stepped into the room. With her mask on, as always, it was impossible to read her expression, but the flick of her tail didn’t seem particularly pleased. Zethrid felt too hot, her mind grinding to a halt.

“Uh...”

Zethrid snatched her hand away from Kova, who stretched and lifted his head to peer toward Narti, still purring away. That was the thing about familiars—they weren’t just pets. Kova was Narti’s second pair of eyes, and though she didn’t need to look through him to get around, she could peer into their bond, no matter how far apart they were, and there was no way to tell from the outside whether or not Kova had someone else in his head.

Narti crossed her arms, cocking her head to the side in a question. She lifted one hand, running her fingers across her chest in the sign for, Really?

“It was his idea!” Zethrid cried, sitting up so fast she dislodged Kova, who dug his claws in in an attempt to hold on. It hurt like a xinthosian rivvu’s bite, and Zethrid bit down on her tongue to stifle a cry of pain. Like hell was she going to complain about it. She wouldn’t give Narti the satisfaction.

Kova resisted a moment longer, then hissed again and sprang up onto the arm of the couch. Narti lowered her hand, and Kova climbed nimbly to her shoulders, where he sat staring at Zethrid, tail lashing from side to side. Zethrid got the distinct impression Narti’s tail wanted to do the same.

The damn cat was still purring.

After another, painfully long silence, Narti finally turned and walked out, and Zethrid moaned into a pillow. She should have picked a fight with one of the soldiers.

2. Experimental

“You need to do something about that crush of yours,” Acxa said, not looking up from her display screen. “It’s going to get you into trouble one of these days.”

Zethrid squeezed her water pouch so tight it split at the seam, contents running down her arm in little rivulets of shame as she choked on her cry of, “What?!”

Acxa lifted her head, eyebrow arching. “Don’t play dumb with me, Zethrid. You can act the meathead in the field all you want, but you and I both know Lotor never would have promoted you if you didn’t show at least a modicum of situational awareness.”

A shiver of restless energy slithered up Zethrid’s spine, taking up residence in her ears. (Curse her ears. No one else on this team had to worry about body parts projecting every damn thought to cross her mind.) “Who told you?”

“Told me?” Acxa snorted. “Please. All anyone has to do is spend five minutes alone in a room with the two of you. All that unresolved tension in the air is enough to power a teludav.” She swiped at her screen with two slender fingers, seeming for all the world like she was telling Zethrid to add soap to their next requisition list. “It was one thing when we were stationed at the fringes of the Empire and Prince Lotor didn’t have anything better to keep him entertained. But we’re at war now, Zethrid. If you give the paladins an opening, they’re going to take it.”

Zethrid scoffed. “Were we watching the same battle? I could pulverize those wimps with one hand tied behind my back—even if I am distracted by whatever crush you think I have.”

Acxa sighed, switched off her screen, and stood. “If you’re afraid Narti doesn’t feel the same way, then why don’t you just ask her?”

“Uh, I don’t know, because I’m not generally in the habit of making an idiot out of myself?”

Holding up her hands, Acxa backed toward the door. “I’m not getting dragged into this, Zethrid, okay? Just… figure it out? For your own sake. It’s painful watching you pine over her.”

Zethrid scowled at her back as she left, abandoning Zethrid to her watch. It just figured. They finally got called back to the heart of the Empire, finally got to see some real action, and now suddenly Acxa got on her case about Narti. (So Zethrid had come to watch Narti train once or twice in the past few weeks. It wasn’t a crime to take an interest in a comrade’s progress.)

Anyway, it was entirely Acxa’s fault that, a varga later, when Lotor brought them all together to talk about the paladins and the fight and blah, blah, blah—Zethrid couldn’t concentrate on what Lotor was saying.

Now, obviously Zethrid couldn’t take Acxa’s first bit of advice, the part about “just” asking how Narti felt about her. But she could try to follow the second suggestion and “figure it out.” Experiment. It seemed like something Acxa would be proud of, in all honesty.

She had a piece of raw seppabeast meat wrapped in plastic in her pocket, and she spent the first five minutes of the briefing fiddling with the loose edge of the wrap. Narti stood beside her, fully focused on Lotor, as were Acxa and Ezor. Kova, though… Kova was staring right at Zethrid, watching . Which meant Narti was watching.

Fine then.

Shooting a look at Lotor to be sure he wasn’t paying attention (he wasn’t; he was too focused on whatever Acxa was saying to care about Zethrid), she pulled the meat out of her pocket and held it up in front of Kova’s nose. The cat perked up at once, following the meat as Zethrid waved it back and forth in front of his face.

Narti didn’t react.

Zethrid smiled, inching the meat closer so that Kova started to bat at it. There was always a question of whether or not Narti wanted you interacting with her familiar, and when he was on her shoulder, sprawled against the curve of her pauldron, which had been designed specifically to give Kova a perch, it was safest to keep away.

But Narti wasn’t telling Zethrid to back off, as she did when someone crossed a line, a certain sharpness to her signs that hit with the same force as a shout. She hadn’t yet moved to position one of the others between her and Zethrid, either, and neither her tail nor her hands were twitching with murderous intent. Which was a bit of a disappointment, really. Narti was damn hot when she was primed for a fight.

Narti turned her head a fraction—just far enough that their eyes would have met, if not for the smooth, opaque helmet in the way. Which was ridiculous, of course. If Narti wanted to keep an eye on Zethrid, she’d do it through the cat, and if she wanted to listen to what Zethrid was doing, her ear was already pointed in a perfectly useful direction.

No, she wanted Zethrid to know she’d taken note of the—was this flirting? Zethrid wasn’t sure if this could be called flirting, feeding raw meat to a cat.

But it was something , and the fact that Narti was watching her, was openly acknowledging the exchange, sent a thrill through Zethrid. She grinned wider, staring deliberately back at Narti. Not at the cat; at Narti. If Narti wanted Zethrid to know she’d noticed, then Zethrid wanted Narti to know she’d noticed she’d noticed.

You’re not stopping me, Zethrid thought. That knowledge brought with it the rush of battle, adrenaline and a primal hunger coursing through her blood. She wanted to push the limits of this contest, though she hadn’t yet figured out the rules.

She didn’t care. She always lived on the edge, and if the danger here wasn’t the bloody, fatal sort she was used to, it still made her feel alive.

Kova’s next swat caught Zethrid’s fingers, claws sinking right through the fabric of her gloves and drawing blood. She yelped, cursing as she snatched her fingers back, and Acxa’s voice trailed off. She, Ezor, and Lotor were all staring at Zethrid now, exasperation plain on Acxa’s face, while Lotor looked merely surprised. Ezor glanced from Zethrid to Kova, who now had the chunk of meat trapped between his paws and was tearing into it with a bloothirsty sort of glee—probably because there was actual blood on his treat—to Narti.

Zethrid could have done without the delighted smile that suddenly lit Ezor’s face.

She growled, ready to tear into whoever made the first comment, but it was Narti who broke first, lifting one hand to her face as though to hide a smile. Zethrid’s anger and embarrassment faded to something softer around the edges, something that left her feeling like someone had bashed her on the head.

When they all finally split off to their various tasks, and Ezor hip-checked Zethrid a coo of, “You two are adorable,” Zethrid was still too flustered to defend herself.

3. Sentimental

Ezor wasn’t allowed to give romantic advice anymore.

Zethrid wasn’t honestly sure what had possessed her to take said advice, especially considering Ezor had given it entirely unpromtped, and Zethrid didn’t know what counted as a “cute romantic gesture” when you were dealing with a magical, psychic, nigh-immortal cat, but…

Yeah. She was regretting this already.

Narti wasn’t here, which was some small mercy. Not because it spared Zethrid the embarrassment of knowing the other woman had seen her bringing half a robeast’s worth of kitchy toys to the command ship for Kova—because Narti was most certainly watching this entire awkward display. But at least Zethrid didn’t have to face the laughter.

Kova, himself, was having a great time… with the wrappings. He ignored the hollow balls and stuffed mice and tassels and even the climbing tree (evidently Zethrid herself was far more fun to climb, and she had the scratch marks to prove it). The officer’s lounge was an explosion of cheap plastic, fuzz, and embarrassment.

And Kova?

Kova was curled up, asleep in an empty box with shreds of brown paper for a blanket.

4. Coincidental

Battle.

It was a nice change of pace, as far as Zethrid was concerned. Too much of the fight with the paladins was confined to space, where Lotor insisted on holding back and leaving Voltron in one piece if you can, girls.

Zethrid didn’t do restraint.

That was probably why Lotor kept her out of the new ship, the one he’d made from the meteoric ore. That ship was a beauty, faster than anything in the universe except the Red Lion itself, more powerful than a hundred ion cannons compacted into one. The havoc Zethrid could have wrought from behind the controls of that beauty…

But of course havoc was bad . Havoc was counter-productive . Havoc was off the table, Zethrid, and until you learn to keep your destructive impulses in check, you’re not allowed to touch the new ship.

Lotor and his frickin’ schemes.

It had been a few weeks since they’d last faced the paladins of Voltron, and things had been quiet. A few minor shows of force, a whole hell of a lot of parlaying with planetary leaders. That silver tongue of Lotor’s was getting quite a workout these days as he folded would-be dissidents back into the empire.

So it was a gigantic relief when they came across Hakkadia, a world that would not be enticed. The local leaders had outright refused to meet with Lotor, the people hid when Lotor tried to appeal to them directly, and then this morning, they’d actually dared to launch an attack on Lotor’s vessel with their cute little home-built ships.

The orders to put down the rebellion put Zethrid in a good enough mood that she could be generous and say the locals had spunk. They were kind of adorable, actually.

Especially when they screamed.

Blood seeped between Zethrid’s fingers as she impaled a rebel on a length of rebar, the heat a pleasant contrast to the chill Hakkadian wind. A trail of carnage traced her path across the city, rebels lying where they fell. They were all as good as dead, though many of them still breathed. Their moans made a nice score to accompany her fury.

Two more Hakkades charged her, polearms crackling with electricity. Zethrid smacked one away, leaped, and came down on the haft of the second weapon, crushing it beneath her. Its wielder dropped it at once, pulling out a knife as he backed away, while his companion stumbled, fumbling her weapon. The force of Zethrid’s backhand could have flung it two blocks away, and the rebel’s hands had to be smarting from holding on.

A flicker of movement on the rooftop beside her caught Zethrid’s eye. Kova sat there, tail curled around himself, eyes unblinking as he watched her fight. Zethrid looked around, but Narti was deep in her own fight, a stolen polearm glinting as she twirled it. Her tail tripped up her enemies, and their own blade cut them down, and when she was done she stopped, her back toward Zethrid.

Kova meowed, a question and a challenge, and Zethrid grinned. Her blood already sang in her ears, but this—this was even better. She charged in, roaring as she went, and though the looks of terror on the rebels’ faces were no less satisfying than normal, her mind remained transfixed by the cat on the roof, looking quietly on.

And, well, if Zethrid fought with just a touch more… flair… than usual, no one ever had to know.

5. Temperamental

Things finally came to a head as they left another newly-loyal world behind. All five of them were in the cockpit, waiting for Lotor to step in with the usual debriefing and handing out of assignments for the long vargas before they reached their next target—not a planet, this time, Zethrid suspected. It had been too long since they’d made progress on their real goal.

Not that she particularly cared at the moment. Narti was sitting at her station, Kova curled up on her shoulders and watching Zethrid—always watching. He hadn’t approached her once since that first day, before the summons from Haggar arrived, and Narti seemed to be going out of her way to avoid being caught alone with Zethrid.

She’d seen it as a challenge. Of all the generals, Narti was the most reserved—not because she couldn’t speak, but simply because she preferred the company of her familiar to any other. Even Acxa was reasonably social. She spent a lot of time with Lotor, and she let Ezor tempt her into having a drink every now and again. She was always there whenever Ezor or Lotor decided it was time to have a “girl’s night”--be that drunken duels, holovids, a spa day, or some good old-fashioned hunting of massive, ancient beasts. Narti was more of a toss-up. Sometimes she showed, sometimes she didn’t.

But it was different now. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t show up to group activities as that she didn’t show up other places she could normally be found. That, and Kova sometimes seemed to be patrolling the halls. He vanished as soon as he caught sight of Zethrid—off to warn Narti, no doubt. The only place Zethrid could talk to her anymore was in company.

Fine, then.

She waited until Ezor went to grab something from the cargo hold. Something to boost the scanners, maybe? Zethrid hadn’t been listening. All she cared was that the seat next to Narti was open now, and Zethrid wasted no time in claiming it. She reached out as she passed and gave Kova a quick scratch behind the ears.

The cat’s eyes snapped open, pupils dilating as he focused on her, and his tail gave a single, violent lash. That gave Zethrid pause, but she didn’t back down. She sat, kicking her legs up onto the seat back and leaning backwards over the armrest, her ear quivering as it brushed against Narti’s arm.

Narti stilled.

“You’ve got some blood in your whiskers,” Zethrid observed, reaching up to scratch Kova under the chin. His ears went back, but he didn’t resist the touch, which she figured was good. There was blood in his whiskers—all over his snout, really. He’d gotten deep into it during the last battle, latching onto the face of a much larger beast while Acxa lined up her shot. Kova wasn’t hurt—he, like Narti, was much too slippery for that—but he seemed to have missed a spot in his grooming. Maybe he was just too tired.

He let her scratch him for a few more seconds, but when she traded scritches for pets, he let out a low, unhappy growl and retreated to Narti’s other shoulder. She reached up and laid a hand on his back. Neither of them looked at Zethrid.

Stunned, she sat upright, her feet dropping to the floor. “What’s your problem?” she hissed, keenly aware of the others in the room. “You’re giving me the cold shoulder now? What gives?”

“Aw, come on you two. Don’t fight.” Ezor leaned suddenly over the back of Zethrid’s chair—Ezor’s chair, technically. Her eyes, bright with interest, darted from Zethrid to Narti and back. “Did… something happen?”

Zethrid looked at Narti, waiting for an explanation. She said nothing, though, just continued to scroll through scan data and pet Kova, whose tail was flicking harder than the Altean princess’s whip.

Pressing her lips together, Zethrid stood, feeling an uncomfortable tightness gathering in her chest. “Nothing happened,” she growled. “Apparently, nothing has been happening for the last few weeks, and I’m just too dense to get the memo.”

Still she waited, just a few seconds longer, silently begging Narti to contradict her. A gesture, a single sign, a glance from Kova—anything.

All she got was frosty silence and the sense that somehow, Zethrid had crossed a line.

“Well,” Lotor said, leaning his cheek on his hand. “If we’re done with the drama for today, could we move on to actual business?”

Zethrid balled her hands into fists. Shame and hurt were battering at her—neither one an emotion she had much experience with. She felt like an idiot. She’d let herself be strung along like a lovesick Altean, tripping at Narti’s heels—and for what? For a laugh? Was Narti just bored ? Was this all a game to her?

With a roar, Zethrid slammed her fist down on the console beside Narti, who flinched, snatching her hands back from the sparking remains of her station. Kova arched his back, hissing at Zethrid. She bared her teeth in return and then, ignoring Lotor’s budding lecture, she stalked out of the room.

(+1: Transcendental)

Kova dropped a dead rat in Zethrid’s lap.

She jerked back, staring at the mess of blood and sinew in disgust as Kova tucked his paws underneath himself and stared.

Zethrid stared back, baring her teeth. “What are you expecting me to do with this, eat it? ” She picked it up by the tail— she normally wasn’t bothered by a messy kill, but it was different when she was trying to relax and someone came along and dropped it in her lap. “For fuck’s sake, Kova, where did you even find this?”

Narti sat quietly beside Zethrid, their knees brushing together. He went hunting, she signed, gesturing toward the forest visible beyond the ruins they’d claimed as their base on this gods-forsaken planet. There were no people here, no rebel outposts, not even any dangerous predators. Just a weird energy signature Lotor and Acxa wanted to check out.

Zethrid craned her head to search for Ezor, who was supposed to be helping her watch the ship, but of course she was nowhere to be found. Probably planned it that way.

After a moment, Narti started signing again, and however mad Zethrid was, she couldn’t keep herself from turning to catch the words. It’s a gift. To apologize.

Zethrid turned to the cat, who arched his back, rubbing up against her leg. He was… honestly, he was irresistibly cute when he did that, and his warmth made Zethrid keenly aware of the relative coolness of Narti’s body. They’d never been close enough for Zethrid to notice that before.

“Apologize for what?” Zethrid asked, ignoring the painful bubble of hope building in her chest. “I’m the one who was too stupid to realize I was making you uncomfortable.”

Kova meowed once, mournfully, and butted his head against Zethrid’s hand. Seeing that she wasn’t resisting, he climbed onto her lap, curled up, and started purring. Zethrid stared at him, utterly baffled.

You didn’t make me uncomfortable, Narti signed. Not… Her hands stalled, and her shoulder rose and fell with a sigh. Not like you’re thinking. Can I? She peeled off her glove and held her hand out, fingers ghosting over Zethrid’s bracer.

Zethrid knew a few things about Narti. Not a lot, mind. She didn’t talk much, and very rarely about herself. This conversation was already the longest they’d had. But Narti had served under Lotor for a long time—almost as long as Acxa herself. What Lotor hadn’t deemed relevant knowledge for the rest of them, Acxa had passed along at Narti’s request, and Ezor had pried most of the rest of it out of Acxa before sharing it with Zethrid late at night in hushed tones.

So Zethrid did know the basics. Narti’s father was Galra, and her mother had belonged to a race that shared a distant ancestor with Balmerans. They were a subterranean species, used to living in darkness. Narti had eyes, and she could see, poorly, but she didn’t depend on sight to navigate. She wore her mask to filter out the bright lights her eyes weren’t equipped to handle.

They were also a psychic species—but where Balmerans’ minds were linked to the Balmera on which they were born in a symbiotic relationship, Narti and her mother’s people were psychic parasites. They took hosts and controlled them.

It was this ability, presumably, that had drawn Narti’s father to her mother, though Zethrid wasn’t clear on which had been the hunter and which the prey. And it was this ability that had made Narti so valuable, first to her father and then, later, to Lotor.

Zethrid didn’t know how all that psychic shit worked, but she knew it involved physical contact, ideally skin-on-skin.

She hesitated only a moment before yanking off her gauntlet and holding out her hand, palm up, for Narti to take. She felt the instant Narti slid into her mind with a brief chill, followed by an unfocused moment, and then a peculiar calm settled over her.

Sorry, said a voice in her head. It sounded like wind through trees, like water dripping in a cave, echoing and indistinct. It shifted, and Zethrid settled back into her own skin. Narti’s mind no longer hovered over her, but rested beside her, in the space between them. I never learned how to do this without overshadowing someone first.

“This?” The word echoed oddly, rebounding off Narti’s psychic presence a split second before the sound reached Zethrid’s ears.

Communication, she said. My mother used to speak to me in this way. My father… did not approve. This was not useful to him. I had to rediscover how to do this after Lotor and Acxa gave me a place on their ship. It is still not perfect.

“Huh.” Zethrid’s fingers traced the ridges on Kova’s back, and his purrs burrowed into her. They didn’t quite attain the level of words, as Narti’s touch did, but there was more to it than what Zethrid could sense without Narti inside her. “So… You’re really okay with… you know...” Zethrid barely had to think about her mediocre attempts at flirting before they appeared before her, layering over the view of the ruined city like a holodisplay. She flushed, trying to force the memories down.

Amusement radiated up her arm—a strange sensation, but not unpleasant. Like someone running a feather against the grain of her fur. I am more than okay with it. I am… sorry. Your advances made me uncomfortable, but not because they were unwelcome. I’m just not used to… that. To receiving that sort of attention. To being desired as anything other than a weapon.

Zethrid couldn’t help but snort. “A weapon? Please, Narti, at least give yourself enough credit. If anything, you’re an entire armada.”

The link stilled for a moment, Narti shifting in surprise and confusion. Zethrid sensed she’d said something wrong. Vague impressions drifted toward her, filling in the pieces she’d missed.

“Oh. I thought—” Zethrid fell silent for a long moment, absorbing the nebulous communication drifting through her. “When you said weapon, you didn’t mean soldier, did you?”

No, said Narti. I was a tool, nothing more.

“Aw, hells, Narti. I’m sorry. I didn’t--”

You do not think of me that way. I know. Kova purred, the sound swelling along with Narti’s affection. You prefer to fight with your own two hands.

“And I prefer not to treat people like things,” Zethrid growled. “I mean, shit! Who are these people? Do I need to go bash some heads in, or would you like to--”

They are dead. A single image crystallized in Zethrid’s mind: a Galra in an officer’s uniform, dead in a puddle of his own blood. A younger Galra, diamond-patterned scales punctuating her thin fur in a line from the crown of her head down to the base of her long, reptilian tail, stood over him, her face unreadable for the familiar, expressionless mask.

Zethrid grunted. “Good for you,” she said, hoping Narti felt the full weight of the words.

From the way she squeezed Zethrid’s hand, the meaning came through all right.

I’m sorry for ignoring you, Narti said. I’m afraid Kova may have rubbed off on me.

Zethrid barked out a laugh that startled both Kova and Narti, and she winced as the cat sank his claws into her leg. Gods, I want to kiss her.

She didn’t realize Narti would be able to hear the thought until the cool hand on hers flushed hot with the same embarrassment that turned the psychic link to jittering fuzz.

Oh, Narti said.

“Shit.” Zethrid leaned her head back, groaning frustration at the sky. “Sorry. Again.”

No, it’s all right. It’s just—the sun--

“Yeah. Right. Listen, we can just pretend this never--”

We could go inside.

Zethrid froze. “Inside? Like--?”

There’s too much light out here for me to take off my mask, but if we go inside, turn down the lights…

“Make out in the dark, huh?” Zethrid smiled her best, most predatory smile. “I could be into that.”

Laughter rang in Zethrid’s head for a moment before Narti withdrew, the absence of her hand leaving a cavity in Zethrid’s mind. She stood, backing away, and even without the mental link, Zethrid could read her intent in the sway of her hips. She was way better at this than she gave herself credit for.

Come, she signed.

Zethrid stood without thinking, completely forgetting the cat in her lap. Kova yowled, sinking in claws as he scrambled upward, and before Zethrid could decide whether to throw him off or shield her face, he’d reached her shoulders, where he caught his balance, flicked his tail once against her nose, and settled in, curled up atop her pauldron.

He likes you. Narti’s hands hesitated for a moment, then flashed through one last, hasty sentence. So do I.

Zethrid was grinning as she followed Narti inside.

[domhovasse]

Ya tu sabes!

Since I was a child, I’ve always dreamt of going to Mexico City. I’m not too sure why, but it’s just always been a place that seemed so rich in culture, history, and full of food and Spanish-speaking people. I was always waiting for the right opportunity to go, and since my friend April from UBCO, who has been living in Mexico City for the last year and a half with her husband .

I arrived safely at the Cancun Airport after my overnight bus, but much to my surprise, I had been dropped off at the wrong terminal. It was the bus company’s only drop-off point at the airport, and luckily I had ample time to figure out how to get to my terminal. It was about a 20 minute walk away, but walking suddenly becomes much more difficult in 30 degree heat, while carrying 20 pounds on your back. After being followed, outright lied to by several people, and almost scammed into paying 30 USD for a 5 minute taxi ride, I finally figured out that there was a free shuttle bus, and that it left approximately every 10 minutes. I was SO irritated about how I was being treated, but very proud of myself for figuring it out myself and not letting myself be taken advantage of.   

After a short flight, I arrived safely in Oaxaca, where I met my friend April. She had never been to the city of Oaxaca, so when I suggested we spend a few days there before showing me Mexico City, she was more than willing to join me. Oaxaca’s known for it's indigenous cultures, it’s delicious food and mezcal! We spent our first day mostly walking around the city, browsing various market stalls, visiting the textile museum, and enjoying a rooftop drink before dinner. April wasn’t feeling well after dinner, so we went back to the hostel so she could rest a little before hopefully heading back out to walk around the city at night. Apparently I was exhausted, because I ended up passing out with all my clothes on, on a chair in our hostel room, only waking up a few hours later just to move to my top bunk. 

The following day, we woke up super early, to visit Hierve el Agua, a set of natural rock formations in the middle of the mountains, that resemble cascades of water, some of which are filled with water to create swimming pools. Most people go as part of a tour, but we decided to save money and attempt a more authentic experience by taking a public bus, and then a pickup truck/shuttle. After spending a couple of hours enjoying the beautiful scenery and taking a dip in the “pools,” we took a shuttle back to the town of Mitla where we were supposed to catch a bus that would bring us back to Oaxaca. Just our luck, the buses stopped running and all taxis were refusing passengers heading to Oaxaca because the highway was blocked in several locations due to a protest. We were being told it could take up to several hours for the protest to end/the road to be unblocked. April and I were laughing at the fact that only in Mexico and in France would this kind of thing happen; we sure know how to pick where to live! We ended up finding a restaurant in Mitla town and sat for drinks and food while waiting for the roads to hopefully clear. 

After about 3 hours had passed, we ended up convincing a taxi driver to drive us an hour back into Oaxaca. He was so hesitant because he was afraid of not being able to make it back home, but luckily the road blocks were clearing right as we were driving past them! We arrived back at our hostel 3 hours later than originally intended, which definitely threw a wrench in our afternoon plans, since we weren’t able to do anything that evening except eat dinner and grab some beers and mezcal.

The next morning, we woke up at a decent hour to make sure we could walk around and take pictures before the streets were too crowded, as well as spend so time perusing through the food market. I’ve been to my fare share of food markets but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much meat. Ever. It was a giant maze of fresh meat, cheese, spices, alcohol and salsa, and all the Mexican food you could ever wish for. We were there quite early on in the day and honestly, it already was pretty overwhelming. For lunch, I got a delicious Tlayuda (a crunchy, toasted tortilla, covered with refried beans, meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato and avocado), and then we were on our way to the airport to catch our flight to Mexico City. We didn’t have time to visit the Museum of Oaxacan Cultures or the Botanical Gardens, which I was pretty bummed about, but hopefully I’ll be back one day! 

After a delayed flight, we were graciously picked up at the airport by April’s mother-in-law and dropped off at home. After quickly freshening up, we headed into town for some churros at Churreria el Moro, before treating ourselves to a boujee dinner at a nice restaurant/cocktail bar called Gin Gin. It ended being way out budget, but at least our food, gin cocktails and service were all subpar! 

Early the next morning, we headed to the main bus station, where we took a bus to the Teotihuacán pyramids. We arrived right as it was opening, so we were able to take full advantage of the grounds without having to share with many other tourists. After a few hours, we took the bus back into the city, got tacos for lunch in the financial district, and spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Chapultapec Park, Chapultapec Castle and the Anthropology museum. We had done a hell of a lot of walking, reading, and picture taking, and were quite exhausted at this point, so we made our way over to the swanky & hip neighbourhood of Polanco for dinner, before checking out a few bars and having a few too many beers and cocktails. 

We started off my second day by wandering around Coyoacan, a now neighbourhood of Mexico City that used to be its own city. We spent some time visiting the main square, the Coyoacan market, and the Frida Kahlo museum, before taking an Uber to Xochimilco, another ‘borough’ of Mexico City, where we rode along canals on a traditional ‘trajinera’ boat while being serenaded by mariachis. It was a very ‘touristy’ thing to do, but was a fun experience nonetheless! That evening we also attended a Lucha Libre (Mexican wrestling match), which was quite the experience. Mexicans get so invested in these matches and ‘luchas’, or fighters, even though everyone knows it’s not real fighting! After the match, April and I wanted to checkout some of the Mexico City’s nightlife, so we hit up a place called Patrick Miller, which had been recommended to us as a “must” by several people. It was one of the absolute weirdest places clubs I’ve ever been to - an old warehouse-type building, filled with people of all ages and demographics, high-energy dance music, and dance-off circles happening all over the room.

The following day was spent doing lots and lots of walking. We started in la Condesa and wandered around through Roma, before taking an Uber to the city center. April wasn’t feeling too well so she went to get some food while I went on a walking tour. She eventually joined the group and was able to finish half of the tour with us! After 3 hours of walking around and listening to an overload of information, April and I spent the rest of the evening wandering around more of the city center, going up the Torre Latinoamericana (the world’s first major skyscraper successfully built on highly active seismic zone) for a breathtaking 360 view of the city, and grabbing a cerveza at a rooftop overlooking Templo Mayor (remains of Mexico’s old Capital city, Tenochtitlan, built in the 14th century). We ended our day off with a delicious and dirt cheap dinner at La Casa de Toño, a Mexican chain restaurant.

On my very last day, we went on a day trip to Taxco with Arturo, April’s husband. Deemed an official pueblo magico (magical town) for its rich culture and architecture and great legacy of the old Spanish Empire, and preservation of traditions and historical site, Taxco is a quaint, picturesque town, located on the slopes of the Taxco Mountains, in the state of Guerrero, about 2.5 hours away from Mexico City. In pre-Colombian times it was a mining center and to this day it remains well-known for its silver work and jewelry shops. We spent the day wandering around the cute, narrow streets, browsing some shops and visiting Museo Casa Figueroa, an old "cursed house" featuring secret rooms, hidden vaults, and dark escape tunnels that were built incase a war broke out. We also took a tour of the Prehispanic Mine of Taxco, where we descended 45 meters below the ground, to learn the mine’s history and how gold, silver and quartz are extracted from the mine. A few years ago my high school friend Katrina got married to her Mexican husband in Taxco but I unfortunately wasn’t able to attend. It was so nice to be able to visit the town anyways and imagine what that day must have been like. I understand why her and her husband love it so much there! 

My alarm went off at 4:30 the next morning and I caught my Uber to the airport. My return trip from Mexico City to Paris was one of the longest travel days of my life, with 2 layovers (Houston and Toronto) of over 3 hours each. By the time I made it back to Paris, I had been travelling for over 20 hours.

My time in Mexico was everything I could have asked for and more! The weather was perfect, the food was incredible, and I got to spend time with a good friend of mine. I was able to practice speaking Spanish, learn a ton of new things, and improve my spice tolerance! Mexico is such a vast, beautiful country, with such rich culture and kind people, and Mexico City is a massive melting pot of people of different cultures and an incredible mix of an old, historical and modern, progressive city. There is so much more of Mexico (and Mexico City) to discover, and I'm already looking forward to going back and exploring more one day!

[rxbxlcaptain]

#26? :) xxx {roguewrath}

26: “I think I’ve been holding myself from falling in love with you all over again.”

Wow, I am so sorry about how long it took me to write this. I just went down a fairly sentimental path for this one, and it turns out that’s how I get really stuck on a piece of writing. I’m still not sure this is exactly how I want it to be, but it needed to be published.

I’ve decided to do a throwback for this prompt! A long, long time ago (like, April) I wrote Logos and Pathos, based off the prompt “Temptation”, where Draven just shy of orders Cassian to make his relationship with Jyn official and stop creating drama around the Rebellion because of it. I had several people ask me for a continuation from Jyn’s POV and I swore I was going to do it, but I just… never got around to it, I suppose? My writing brain is weird sometimes my apologies really.

But, now, I DID IT. Have Jyn’s perspective on a proposal that, well, may or mat not go the direction Cassian was hoping. 

Warning: You’ll likely want to read Logos and Pathos first!

AO3

“What did you want to talk about?” Jyn asked as sheand Cassian slid into seats in the mess hall. Cassian had met her as her shippulled into Echo base’s hanger – nothing unusual there – with his face lit up byan overeager smile – again, nothing unusual. What had been unusual was hisreason why. Cassian wasn’t one for overly sappy sentiments, or at least inpublic places, but she’d expected the reason for his smile to be different than“something Draven said a few weeks ago.”

And now, with Cassian recoiling (not physically,perhaps, but Jyn watched him retreat within his mental shell, hiding his openemotion from the hanger behind the practiced “spy face”) she had absolutely noguess what that statement meant. It’s not like she and Draven were famousaround base for getting along. In fact, most of the rebels would be lesssurprised by Jyn and Draven falling into an all-out snowball fight than by her willinglyfollowing his advice.

Cassian looked as if he were going to begin but,after opening and closing his mouth twice, averted his eyes to the table.Rather than answering her question, he instead asked, “How was your flight?”

“Uneventful,” she responded, “But now you’re makingme nervous.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Cassian assured her. “Nothing’swrong.”

“In the hanger—” Jyn pointed a finger back in thedirection they’d came “—I believed that. Now you’re acting weird.”

Silence overcame the table for a few moments beforeCassian peeked up at her from under the fringes of his hair. He cleared histhroat lightly before beginning. “Draven’s a bit concerned about ourrelationship.”

Jyn’s eyebrows rose high on her forehead inresponse, though Cassian missed the expression by dropping his eyes back to thetable. “Did you tell him to go to hell?”

“No,” Cassian said with a slight smile (Jyn couldn’tdecide if that calmed the livid thumping of her heart or if it angered her more),“That would be your job. And it’s not what you think.”

“Draven didn’t give you an ultimatum about howbeing romantically involved with a known rogue and ex-Partisan was going tomake you more vulnerable and if you knew what was good for you you’d neverspeak to me again?” Jyn didn’t bother to disguise the sarcastic anger drippingfrom her voice.

“No.” Cassian shook his head, entirely too calm forJyn’s liking. His fingers traced aimless patterns along the tabletop, nervousin a way that Jyn never saw him. Part of her wanted to grab his fidgetingfingers. She stayed still instead. “He didn’t say anything like that at all.”

“Then what could General Davits Draven have to sayabout our relationship, if it’s not ‘Get one of my best agents away from JynErso’?”

Cassian finally dared looking up at her again. “He …suggested that we make it official.”

Jyn stared at him. “Marriage?” Her voice taintedthe word with disdain. Cassian hid it well, but, for a moment, Jyn was certainshe saw him flinch at the tone of her voice. “Draven suggested we get married?”

“He made some logical points, Jyn, and…”

Jyn didn’t let Cassian finish. Too many emotions –nothing like the cool logical Cassian was speaking of – coiled in her gut; finishingthis discussion with him right now would be disastrous for both of them. With ashake of her head, Jyn pushed back from the table, despite Cassian’s protestsand attempt to grab her arm.

She stormed out of the mess hall with no cleardestination in mind, shoulder checking several pilots in her path on the wayout.

Cassian didn’t attempt to call her back.

Jyn found her way to the training room. Since she’djust returned from a mission, no other members of her squadron were in theroom. They, likely, were taking the rest of the day to sleep and eat and shower– all the things she should be doing right now, if only her heartbeat weren’trunning so high and her hands itching to punch something. 

Hemade some logical points, Jyn…

General Draven could keep his logical points, Jynthought as she jabbed at a punching bag. If Jyn had been looking for logic,Cassian wouldn’t be in her life. Hell, the Alliance itself – her rank, herposition within it, the missions she ran at the risk of her own life – wouldn’tbe in her life at all if logic dictated her actions. She would have boltedbefore the Scarif mission, the second her obligation to the Alliance for savingher from Wobani was fulfilled.

Instead, she’d led a suicide mission to Scarif. She’djoined its ranks once she escaped the bacta tanks, and she’d allowed herself togrow close to the members of her team. More than the magnetic pull Cassian hadon her – and she on him – Jyn found herself relying on Bodhi’s easy company andthe optimistic presence of Chirrut. Baze’s sure aim and K-2SO’s statisticalsupport (or was annoyance the right word?) kept her back safe, and, forthe first time in years, Jyn didn’t need to check over her shoulder constantly.

She’d followed her heart for the first time inyears and life gave her the satisfaction of the destruction of her father’sweapon, the rank of sergeant, and a man who waited on the tarmac of whereverthe Alliance called home with a smile and a “Welcome home.”

The last thing she wanted now was logicalreclaiming that relationship, not when she’d needed to work past that in thebeginning.

Marriage. Jyn hadn’t considered marriage since she’d seenher parents’ marriage end with a blaster bolt to her mother’s chest. But whenshe considered it – considered the smile her father saved exclusively for hermother or the way her mother laughed as her father told a joke that really wasn’tfunny at all – it seemed more like a fairy tale told to children. Somethingdoomed to fail from the start.

Minutes faded into an hour and the limited crowd inthe room thinned until Jyn was one of the last remaining in the training room. Hermuscles ached and her knuckles showed early signs of bruising, but Jyn wasstill reluctant to leave. Leaving meant returning to the room she and Cassianshared and it meant they’d need to finish their conversation.

With a sigh, Jyn straightened her shoulders andtook a deep breath. She battled Stormtroopers and the entire force of theEmpire on a regular basis; handling a terrifying conversation with Cassianshould she tame in comparison.

“Jyn,” Cassian said as the door to their quartersslid open. He sat up quickly from where he’d been lounging on the bed, hisvoice caught between relief and surprise. “I … wasn’t sure you’d come backtonight.” 

“I always come back,” Jyn replied with a shrug,heading to the wardrobe to get a change of clothes, refusing to meet his eyes. “I’llalways come back home.”

You’remy home, she hoped heunderstood. Even if we fight, even if we’re both idiots, even if I’m stillangry. This is where I belong.

Her words must have given him hope, because Cassianapproached her as she grabbed a set of sleep clothes. When he grabbed her armthis time, Jyn didn’t pull away, only gave him an intense look, trusting hewould understand the implied You have five seconds to speak before you losethis hand. His voice was pleading as he spoke. “Just… hear me out.”

“I’m listening,” she informed him coolly, her armscrossed in front of her chest. “But if you’re going to start talking aboutlogic again…”

“I’m not,” Cassian assured her, shaking his head. “Iwouldn’t.” His hands ran through his hair anxiously, tossing it this way andthat. Combined with his nervous ticks this afternoon, Jyn had never seen Cassiangive so many obvious tells about his emotions.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” He smiled, shy with ahint of self-depreciation, and shook his head. “Earlier proves that. But I’dlike to figure it out, with you by my side, if you’re willing.

“I opened this wrong,” he continued. “Because itisn’t about logic for me. If it was about logic, I would have told you thisplan when Draven first mentioned it a month ago. But you and me, this feelingbetween us—” Cassian reached up to cradle her face in his hands and she didn’tpull away, couldn’t pull away, not with how intently his eyes were boring intohers “—nothing about it is logical. And, for once in my life, I want to followmy heart instead of my head.”

Cassian took a deep breath as if to settle himself,“When I first met you, you were nothing more than a tool in the mission. But bythe time we left for Scarif…” Cassian trailed off with a laugh. “By the time weleft for Scarif, I was content to die by your side.”

His thumb stroked her cheekbone tenderly, his eyesnever leaving hers. “I worried that you wouldn’t feel the same, or I couldn’thandle a relationship like this but with each day I’ve served alongside you, I think I’ve been holding myself fromfalling in love with you all over again.

“I recoiled from the idea of marrying you whenDraven first mentioned it, but it had nothing to do with you. I’ve lived mylife through orders, but this… this is different. I don’t want it to be anorder, and I don’t want it to be logical.” He swallowed again and a nervouslook creeped back into his eyes. His next words were rushed, as if he had spentall afternoon practicing them and needed to get them out before he forgot them.“And if you don’t want to involve legal documentation, that’s fine, but, Jyn, Ineed you to know that I’m going to be right by your side for as long as youwant me.”

Cassian had never declared anything so sentimentalbefore, not even hidden within the walls of their quarters and under the coverof darkness. She’d known – how could she not, when she felt the same way? – butshe’d never heard it expressed in so many words. She wanted to surge up andkiss him, to silence him in the best way, but her knees wobbled, her mind spun,her throat dried up. She should be speaking, should be reassuring him, but shewasn’t sure she could speak if she wanted to.

“I don’t want anything dramatic,” she finallymanaged, her voice sounding as hoarse as her throat felt. “But I’ve learned tolike the official path over the last few years.”

Cassian’s eyes lit up and Jyn’s suspicions that, nomatter how he assured her he was fine either way, he wanted this to be official.

“We can be as quiet as you want,” he assured her. “Noone outside of the crew would have to know.”

Considering how gossip spread around the Rebellion,Jyn doubted that would be true, but, as she pulled Cassian down for a kiss, shedecided it wouldn’t matter.

[kylealexanderlexington]

Missiles

I’m drinking that new Molten Chocolate Valentine’s coffee from Starbucks. It’s February. The month of love. I’ve hated it all my life. It’s the worst month. It’s the month of my sister Valentina’s birthday. It’s also the month where shit always goes down. It’s the month where there’s a reckoning in our little group of crazy idiots who can’t stand still. 

Why am I drinking this coffee? Probably because it’s supposed to represent romance. It’s rich, lush, decadent, sweet... it tastes like energy and roasted sugar and frothy cream in my mouth. And lately that’s all I want. I’m addicted to it. You can’t pull me away from this right now. 

It’s February, and I fucking hate this month and I’m drinking the Valentine’s Special because it reminds me of her. I don’t care what this month represented in the past, I’m building it from scratch now. Boom.

Can’t avoid some of the debris I might encounter though. I’m still human.

I know what I’m made of. I know the bars in my bones. 

They’re right. I’m jealous. 

Everything else though? That I’m blind? That I’m stupid? That I’m a rebound?

I’m tired of getting told I am what people think I am. I also tend to not listen and it has served me well. I watch, I let actions speak for people. I know the difference between what comes out of someone’s mouth and what’s actually happening in their mind. 

I’m a gambler. Reading people is my thing.

Do they honestly think I don’t know how to read the face of the woman I’ve been looking at since 2001? Please. I made my master’s  in the art of bluffing. 

I made my entire empire based on my ability to know what’s going on underneath the surface. And I wouldn’t even be here, right now, savoring this cream, if I hadn’t paid attention to my instincts. 

Right now, I’m living with a woman who was afraid of sharks, but in love with snakes. She’s always played with snakes, and she’s wanted a particular snake for 10 years. Hell, in another iteration, she even gave birth to a snake. 

But let me not go so meta, though shoutout to Zack. 

She’s afraid of what’s under the water, that monster lurking in the deep that she can’t see swimming under her feet, but she’s never been afraid of the ones slithering around her. Those she can handle, those she can see. She thinks herself a Indian charmer, with the right flute and melody, she could convince that cobra to sway for her, to fall for her. 

But don’t step into the water.

Keep it on dry land. 

Heh. No pun intended.

I know a constant in her life, there is no such thing as me being out of it.

I also knew one constant in my life. She would never lie to me.

But that one day... she did.

That’s when our entire relationship changed. That’s when I started keeping my distance. That trip to London.

That day she came to me and acted like she was recovered and happy, and in touch with her fabulous self. She called me “darling”. She suggested we wreck havoc as we always did. But I didn’t have my mask on that day, I had a question burning in the tip of my tongue. 

Did she have a crush on Giovanni?

She denied it of course. Vehemently. She said it was actually more about Leo. That she could never look at Giovanni that way. 

L-i-a-r.

And she could tell I wasn’t buying it. And she tried to wrangle me like a bull. She wanted me to be her fucking stand-in. And she needed me to keep that status quo, she needed me to not confirm her own fear, that she was actually interested in someone she could never have, and that knowledge at the time, did not fit the Caroline Richardson narrative. She was the best, she was the most beautiful, she was the smartest and she was a prize and her confidence was built on the knowledge of her self-worth so how could there possibly be a man out there who couldn't see the value of the woman standing right in front of him asking him to, well, heh, try something new. 

Hell, any time she wanted to, she could have Kyle McVegas. Tammy? Who was Tammy? Tell Tammy to take a hike because Caroline’s in town and Kyle will always, always, prefer Caroline if she invites him into her bed than any of the other boring pieces of conquest he hunts.

She’s so subtle.

But she was avoiding her own pain. That she had tested Giovanni to see if he could want her. To step out of his comfort zone and give it a go to someone who was obviously, sexier, more fabulous, who could give him more than he ever thought.

Again. Subtle.

 I know how she works. I know the bars in her bones. I know the lies she tells others and herself. And I know she has tunnel vision... now. 

Because Caroline wasn’t confused. She was just waiting it out and picking stand-ins for Giovanni, until he finally chose to get out of the hole. Like me.

Same bark. 

She wants love, and family, and commitment, and a knight in shining armor, and a house on the prairie, and world domination... and wealth beyond compare, and the ability to crush the skulls of her enemies with martial arts, and... wait... see? That’s where you really start seeing the complex fabric that is Caroline Richardson. 

A quilt with patches and designs and colors that don’t necessarily match, but still manage to look amazing. A piece de resistance I’ve pictured in my room since I saw it. It goes with my decor. 

I sometimes like to listen to her talk to herself though, because it reminds me of how far down the rabbit hole she can go in the pursuit of her own version of reality.

Caroline says she’s the most loyal person in the world. She’s been loyal to only one bloody fucking thing. The idea that any man who isn’t Giovanni is just taking the place of Giovanni until he finally shows up. 

Until now.

But loyal to Leonardo? She cheated on him.

Loyal to Nathaniel? In her mind. Because when I asked her about it, what she would’ve done if Giovanni had shown up at her doorstep, wanting her, vulnerable, ready to try something that he had been too afraid to experience, that love she knew she had for him, to offer. 

Her pupils practically overtook her iris. She had the faintest tint of pink on her cheeks. She said, “well, I don’t know what I would do. I think that’s probably the only person that would seriously threaten my marriage.”

Ha.

No kidding Poison Ivy.

Right now, she’s convinced herself she’s the most tunnel-vision loyal person ever. Down the rabbit hole she goes. And yes, everyone’s right. I choose to use that lie. Yeah. Because if that’s where her head space is right now, then she’ll never pull herself away from me. 

And that’s what I want.

I want to be the thread on that quilt. So if she pulls me from her, she’ll unravel.

I’m clear.

Giovanni almost unraveled her, but I grabbed that fine thread and I stopped it. 

She doesn’t get to take away what I value, just because she lost the ability to value it herself. 

Am I going too fast with her right now? Yes. I’m taking advantage of the fact that she’s letting me. Because when things are uncomfortable, Caroline fast-tracks. She needs speed, that way she can avoid the pain of time. That’s her whole fucking thing right there.

Hell yeah. Awesome. We’re remodeling. I’m invading her. Zack’s apartment is mine now, along with the penthouse above, and the level below.

I’m giving it to her, hard and fast. Just as she wants it. Because she was thirsty, and she’s not on dry land anymore and I own these waters.

And I’m going to keep building on this, until I am so cemented in her space, until I obliterate every doubt she has in her to think, about what she’s really feeling, about her emptiness, about her pain, her loss, and the annihilation of her self-esteem that went down when she buried herself in the Sahara. 

Or at least, that’s what I want. But I won't lie to myself. That’s not how it’s going to happen. It doesn’t all just go away, the way she tries to force it to go away. You don’t just extract the sand from your lungs in surgery, you keep coughing it up for years. And in the case of snakes? It’s poison.

And because she’s that committed to getting what she wants, because she’s that ambitious and determined, for ten years she was pumping herself with poison, even when she knew she shouldn’t, from that snake, under the impression that she could build enough immunity to withstand anything he might throw at her. When he finally did show up on her doorstep, she was primed and ready to go.

She was prepared. She could handle anything. Anything.

I did not need to re-read her blog, to remember that.

I know that.

I watched that.

I will never get over that. To see Caroline finally risk everything and live on scraps and crawl through sand and survive on drops of cactus water. Look at how far she was willing to go... not for any man. Him.

Him.

She had a wall with the world, but there was one wall she had completely open and ready for him. And she couldn’t wait for him to step in, so she could finally prove everything she was and had to offer, with him. Nobody had earned her, but him.

Well. Earned is a strong word.

He never did a motherfucking thing, right? What. He was her friend? He was there when she needed him. 

And what the fuck was I?

L-i-a-r.

It’s just that when you felt vulnerable, he was the one you reached out to. It wasn’t me you called when you were lonely and crying. I’m the one you called for dial-a-fuck, fun, or pretending everything was ok. 

It was him. 

I know that.

I’m ok with that.

Fuck.

I took a break from writing now, because I needed a glass of wine. Yes. Red. Still my color. Even when red puts me as the protagonist of the narrative I hate with every fiber in my being, the one her little cousin believed right up until she deigned to talk to me that day in Halloween.

That I’m Kyle McVegas, fuckboy and destroyer of women, and yes, Caroline’s loyal dog. 

At least she knew that much, that the one woman I could never possibly mistreat or destroy or ignore was Caroline. Caroline has always been untouchable. Yes I would follow her orders. Yes I let her come into my office and sit on my chair, like she’s the boss, like she owns Lexington Enterprises. The empire I build from nothing.

And yes, Marie was the only one who ever wondered why.

Smart girl. Psycho but smart.

But back to the wall which, was effectively shutting back down. As it reached the floor I put my foot on the ground before it sealed off completely, and I let her know I was available. Me. Her best friend, who for some reason was never there for her when it mattered. The one person she could trust because there was no world without me in it, to the point that when we promised to stay apart she invaded my own personal story with an alternate version of herself.

Does that mean something?

Oh it does. 

So I gave her the offer, and she finally gave it a shot and opened the door and I came in like a steam train. And I haven’t stopped and I won't stop. 

And I know everyone judges me for it. I do.

But do you know the definition of not giving two flying rats of a fuck?

So what if I’m only in because I sneaked in, so what if she never actually looked at me, so what if I was plan B, or C, or plan never please?

I want to get her to a point where she can’t untie her identity from mine. As it is, she couldn’t even do it as friends. Imagine as lovers.

I know she has all that poison in her, I just have to suck it out.

And suck it out I will. With pleasure.

We are not pure innocent beings with the future looking bright and beautiful ahead of us. I know that’s what she tells herself to survive. I know she needs sunlight to live. 

But I don’t. So I’ll happily watch her go through her process, and the fog she wants to avoid, and disentangle herself from her heartbreak, and remove splinters from every area of her body that got attacked by the porcupine she let into her pandorica. 

I’m glad it happened.

This is why we’re here now.

I am satisfied. It’s cruel. It’s harsh. But it’s right. 

Why didn’t I try before? Why did I wait until she was with Giovanni?

...

Because call me a doberman all you want, but at least I’m not a pussy.

I did not run away and hide from what I am or what I wanted.

I stayed. I watched.

I just wouldn’t let her put me in that position. 

I would not be the Nathaniel she could replace, or the Leo she could toss, where I was with her, giving her everything, and all Giovanni had to do was waltz the fuck in and she’d reconsider, because he was the sun and the stars and the sky she wanted to fly in for the past decade.

I know fucking better.

Now I’m in. And I’m not a stand-in. There is no way she could ever confuse me for Giovanni. 

He broke her heart.

He’s history.

Sky imploded and she faced the music and her pride is injured and her soul is shattered and her heart is frail and when her worst fears were being realized she still felt the need to call her alternative universe husband so he could remind her what it was like to be loved. That snake who cheated on her. Not me. Never me.

This is my time only because she was brought to her knees.

I don’t need anyone to bloody remind me.

I take another drink.

So now that she finally gave herself a chance to entertain the mere possibility of me, I’m striking.

Yes. Fast.

Yes. Hard.

I’ve been hitting her like a bomb raid until she has nowhere to hide. 

Until I drive her so deep into her camp she uncovers the vault where she hid her own weapons and we go fucking nuclear on each other. Preferably on a bed, for decades.

Because I know what I’m made of and I know what she needs. She’s always wanted him. But she’s always needed me.

Now excuse me while I swallow my jealousy in this bottle and get drunk with the envy and give it a few hours to recover from the hangover. 

I’ll still wake up, fix my hair, and drink my fucking Valentine’s Special coffee.