#i need like one knowledgable person and not four people i have to handhold

[plantanarchy]

week 7 is almost over........ most stuff got done except for the stuff that didn't get done but that's none of my business... perennial week next week...... zzzz...

[early2000smovieimagines]

Meeting and Dating Hermione Granger

(Not my gif)(Requested by anonymous)

(I’m sorry but Hermione in her uniform is beautiful.)

- You and Hermione meet during your first year at Hogwarts. The two of you wound up being partners in potions class and we all know how Hermione is when it comes to her schoolwork.

- She’s very much so the “here let me do it” sort of person when she sees that you’re doing something wrong. Not that you mind; you aren’t exactly keen on getting on Snape’s bad side.

- She’s also very adamant on teaching you how to do things and having you try again; after she shows you the correct way to do them, which gives her the chance to look at you more closely and say to herself “wow she’s pretty”.

- Initially, she sort of just thinks that she’s envious of your good looks or that she finds herself looking at you merely because you’re pretty and people like looking at pretty things. It’s only after a bit of reflecting that she realizes she likes you more than a person likes flowers.

- The only logical conclusion is that she has a crush on you and …oh dear.

- Yeah, Hermione isn’t …the best with crushes. The minute she realizes that she likes you, she turns into a bit of an awkward mess.

- She’ll say somewhat strange things before nervously trying to correct herself. She’ll touch you for a bit too long or without meaning to before jumping away upon realizing what she’s doing. She’ll give you handshakes instead of hugs when you greet each other or do good on a joint project or what have you. Etc, etc, etc.

- She’ll do whatever she can to hang out with you one day while avoiding you like the plague the next; usually because she’s having a bad hair day or something similar. The boys are clueless as to why she’s acting strange but they agree to help her with whatever she asks; usually meaning that they help her hide from you.

- Once the two of you become friends; which is somewhat inevitable with Hermione and the people she likes since she’ll force herself into their lives, she’ll subtly hint at a relationship between the two of you and try to find out more about you and your type.

- There’s going to be a lot of mutual pining. Hermione’s obviously pretty so of course you’ll fall for the strong willed, activist girl who’s now your best friend. And she’s been in love with you since first year but it’ll take a while for her to admit her feelings.

- Viktor Krum probably found out Hermione liked you midway through fourth year and immediately began hyping her up, teasing and telling her to confess her feelings to you. He also probably got you a date to the Yule ball and you four hung out all night because he’s a sweetheart but I digress.

- The thing is, you’re now close friends and she doesn’t want to lose that, so she ends up spewing her feelings out in a fit of desperate frustration. She calls you an idiot, telling you that she loves you and has loved you for years, and if you’re too stupid to notice then nothing; not even her tutoring sessions, can help you, and you’re too stunned to even be offended.

- So there she is, standing there and trying to catch her breath, close to tears and embarrassed before you finally manage to find your words. You tell her that she’ll have to deal with your stupidity forever now because you like her too.

- She takes a deep breath, furrowing her eyebrows slightly and nervously saying “you …do.”, like she’s trying to quickly process what you’ve just said; as though she anticipated a wildly different response.

“Good.” She says after a moment, nodding as she does so. She says the words in a stunted, sort of relieved tone, like someone who didn’t expect an issue to be resolved as soon as it was.

- The two of you have your first date at Hogsmeade where you sort of just wander around the village and talk, trying to bond while enjoying a bit of privacy. Harry and Ron probably show up midway through and she tries her best to signal with her eyes that this “isn’t a good time” before she’s forced to give a pointed, whisper yelled “could you two please leave”. 

- Hermione tends to give a lot of cheek and head kisses to the people she’s close to and you would not be exempt from this. Just saying. 

- The two of you share your first kiss about a month or so after your first date. She’d been stressing over something and you’d laid a hand on her shoulder, reassuring her that everything was going to be alright until she finally managed to calm down. 

- Later on, as you were getting up to leave, she’d leaned over and planted a soft, somewhat chaste kiss on your lips before you both made your way out of the room. You had smiles on your faces for the rest of the day. 

- Congratulations, you’ve managed to score the brightest witch in all of Hogwarts. Consider yourself a very lucky girl; she certainly considers herself to be one.

- The wizarding world seems pretty progressive all things considered so pda isn’t a taboo when it comes to your relationship. She’s more than happy to engage in it though she keeps it polite and innocent out of pure preference. 

- Her slinging her arm around your shoulder. 

- Tight hugs; especially when you’re reunited after a long time or you come back from something dangerous. 

- Handholding. 

- Cheek and head kisses. 

- Sweet and soft kisses. 

- Abrupt and passionate kisses; usually after a surge of emotion courses through her. She’ll occasionally get flustered and apologize for getting ahead of herself, as though you’re not in a relationship. 

- She usually just calls you by your given name but occasionally she’ll call you something like honey or dear. 

- The two of you cuddle laying on your sides with your arms wrapped around each other. Sometimes Crookshanks will wiggle his way between your bodies and you’ll get a nose full of cat hair but you get used to it. 

- Speaking of the orange baby: plucking cat hair from each other’s clothing and taking turns snuggling the endearingly ugly creature.

- Helping her carry all the books she lugs around.

- Getting matching bracelets/necklaces.

- Helping her with her hair.

- Compliments; the two of you are constantly praising each other. She tends to comment on your schoolwork like how you’ve improved so much or congratulating you on doing so well on an exam.

- She’s “secretly” really fond of making you little cards and origami. She lives for Valentine’s Day and you can’t help but find it adorable.

- Supporting S.P.E.W. and wearing one of her badges; whether or not you agree with it.

- Quiet days spent inside. The two of you usually just sit in one of your dorms or the library, talking about whatever comes to mind or doing your own things.

- Study dates.

- Assuring her she’s going to do great on tests. She always gets really stressed and frazzled before a big exam so you always have to make sure she breathes and relaxes a bit.

- She’s always jumping to help you in any way she can, and she always has the knowledge to do so.

- Writing letters to each other over the summer.

- Sitting together in the courtyard.

- Going to The Three Broomsticks and getting a bit tipsy off butter beer. She’s a lightweight.

- Having a cute little book club. The two of you take turns reading to each other and discussing the different novels you’ve read.

- Playing the piano together.

- Baking together.

- Play fighting. The two of you do that cute, grabbing each other’s arms and trying to push each other while giggling sort of thing that couples do.

- Having your dates interrupted by the boys. The two of them are going to be completely clueless about your relationship for a while before finally catching on and giving you more space; unless something oh so important happens.

- Tagging along and helping the golden trio whenever you can. You’re a certified member of their clique by now.

- Cheering the boys on at Quidditch games together. The two of you are usually huddled close to keep warm. 

- Speaking of cheering: she's your biggest cheerleader. She’s always wishing you good luck and rooting for you and giving you an enthusiastic whoop; even if it makes people give her funny looks. 

- Breaking her out of her shell and getting her to let loose a little more. She feels the need to constantly be put together and perfect and you do your best to reassure her that, sometimes, she can just have fun. 

- Dancing together. 

- Whenever she’s really excited and/or really wants your attention for one reason or another and you have homework, she always ends up impatiently snatching it with a “give it here” before doing it for you and launching into whatever it is she wanted from you. 

- Being on the receiving end of her scolding looks. You always get one if you’ve done something or are doing something wrong. 

- Comforting her. She’s a bit sensitive and cries sort of easily; particularly when she’s angry which she gets embarrassed about, so you’re always there to make her feel better.

- She’s constantly checking you over and taking care of you when you’re hurt and/or sick. It helps to have a half blood girlfriend who knows nearly every spell like the back of her hand.

- She always just seems to understand you and know how you’re feeling. She’ll always be there to give advice and comfort you.

- Defending her from wizard racism. You might not stand up for yourself but you sure as hell are willing to hex a man half to death for saying something about her. 

- She has a habit of grabbing onto you when she’s scared so expect to have her wrapped around you or holding your hand in a death grip whenever anything spooky occurs.

- Hermione is smart enough to tell when something is entirely platonic so she doesn’t get jealous very often. It’s only when someone shows actual interest in you that she gets a bit self conscious. She can usually keep herself in check but she’ll occasionally tell you that they were flirting with you in an exasperated tone before you reassure her that you don’t want them.

- She’s more protective in the “I’m going to take care of you” sort of way but she has been known to throw a punch at or use a hex on someone who hurts you or your feelings. She worries over you a lot so rest assured, if you’re upset/hurt, she’ll be right by your side fussing over you.

- She hates being wrong so that’s where most of your arguments probably stem from. You really don’t have a lot of arguments though, all things considered. She’s perfectly capable of communicating her feelings so you rarely need to fight about anything; at least not for long.

- She has a habit of holding grudges and won’t want to admit she’s wrong so expect her to take a bit of time before she says she’s sorry. If she’s proven right then she’ll pointedly say that “well, someone owes someone an apology” but if she’s proven wrong she’ll admit that she owes you one.

- She’s a big softie so she tells you that she loves you quite a bit; mainly in private though she isn’t afraid to say it in public.

- She’s gonna go places and she’s taking you with her. After everything that happened, the two of you enjoy a peaceful, fulfilling life together and she couldn’t be happier.

[umbry-fic]

nurture

Summary:

But just as a seed knows nothing but darkness and the press of soil upon it, until it finally breaks through the first layer and learns of the world above and its wonders, she knew nothing more than her mission. Knew not of emotions, not of memories, not of herself.

And thus began her growth.

A look at the moments Martel spends with Lloyd and Colette and how that changes her.

Fandom: Tales of Symphonia Characters: Summon Spirit Martel, Colette Brunel, Lloyd Irving, Mentions of other characters Relationships: Martel & Colette Brunel, Martel & Lloyd Irving Rating: G Word Count: 9442 Mirror Link: AO3 Original Post Date: 13/08/2021

Notes: This was written as a treat for @likes-words-and-shrimp as part of the Tales of Sweet Soda 2021 event organised by @talesofexchanges!

For context, this is based on my interpretation that Summon Spirit Martel is just Tabatha, but with a new body, new powers plus the memories of every soul trapped in the Great Seed. This fic also goes into DOTNW events, but isn't canon-compliant as to Martel's appearance in that game.

The original fic makes use of font changes that can't be translated onto Tumblr, but it doesn't affect much. You should be able to read the fic just fine!

~~~

Martel wasn’t just a summon spirit that acted as the guardian of the Yggdrasill Tree, tied to it in a complicated bond of mana. She was the World Tree, in spirit and soul.

In the instant she was born, from the passionate wish of a boy who fought to change the world to prevent any more suffering; from the love of a sister who had been torn apart from her brother through nothing but the cruelness of fate, and the many, many needless deaths that had spiralled out from that one event; from the body of a lonely automaton who only desired to understand the world, Martel was akin to nothing more than the sapling by her feet, which inherently knew that its sole goal was to grow. Born with the knowledge of her role in this world: to protect the World Tree, so long as the world still needed it, still wanted it.

But just as a seed knows nothing but darkness and the press of soil upon it, until it finally breaks through the first layer and learns of the world above and its wonders, she knew nothing more than her mission. Knew not of emotions, not of memories, not of herself.

And thus began her growth.

~~~

Martel spent most of her days kneeling by the World Tree, which did not yet reach her waist. With her staff stabbed upright into the dirt next to her, her fingers would rub at the small collection of leaves that clung to the sapling’s tiny branches, not even the same length as her arm. Not tending to it, no, because it didn’t need tending in the traditional sense. It didn’t need refreshing rain to drink from, nor fertile soil to draw nutrients from, nor plentiful sunlight to fuel its growth.

What it needed to flourish was the love and adoration of the people. For them to stop fighting amongst themselves, for the hatred that had stretched on for an eternity to be resolved, for the different races to stop putting each other down in order to declare themselves victors in a bloody competition that ultimately held no meaning.

She would maintain this position for any period of time - hours, days, even weeks - patiently awaiting any change. Time was of no concern to her. Her eyelids did not get heavy, her limbs did not start to shake, her mind did not become fogged. She was not mortal - she did not need rest.

In the blink of an eye, an entire week would pass.

The remainder of the endless time available to her was spent wandering the fields that surrounded the World Tree. This place that was now her home, for she could not leave, was expansive compared to the four walls that Tabitha had known, but claustrophobic compared to the lands others roamed freely. Within the circular constraints of this space tucked away from the world and known only to a select few, were many unexplored nooks and crannies.

She memorised every detail. Every rock, no matter big or small; every fallen log, moss snaking over each inch; every tree, whether it be reaching up to the heavens or barely topping her head; all the colourful animals that ran amok.

Sometimes, coming across certain sights dragged up vivid memories that belonged to the woman with whom she shared a name, but not a spirit. And attached to it, colourful emotions.

A cliff with thick and sturdy roots threading out of its surface that could act as neat little footholds and handholds.

Mithos climbed up to the top, all the time. Whenever we visited. He would sit there kicking his legs, laughing and asking me to join him. And when I did, we’d share some food. Usually a sandwich or two.

A log with a circle of daisies blooming around it, all of their heads turned towards the log like a gaggle of school children attentively listening to a teacher conduct a lesson.

That was Ratatosk’s favourite perch, regardless of what form he took, whether it be a person, a squirrel, or a bird of prey. Kratos planted those flowers. He said that he wanted to make it more colourful for Ratatosk.

A trickling brook, bordered by wild berry bushes.

Yuan would gather the berries. They were always incredibly sweet, and juice would explode in our mouths with each bite. We’d feed them to each other, and then laugh at the mess we made.

Martel would simply shake her head, attempting to clear the voice that was both her own and not, that seemed to fill every corner of her mind, trumping every other thought. She would walk on, unsure what to do with the sudden emotion flooding her heart, enough to make her unsteady on her feet. Relentlessly haunting her were the many ghosts of Martel Yggdrasill, for she had inherited them. And while she held many sets of memories belonging to all who had been sacrificed to the Great Seed, Martel Yggdrasill’s were the most prominent, in this place that had been pivotal to her life, and that harboured the ruins of wishes once held dear.

She was used to holding an incredible amount of information, able to retrieve any of it at once, for Tabitha’s android form was perfectly suited to act as a database. Gone, however, was her ability to compartmentalise and block out certain pieces of information. She dearly missed it.

She was familiar only with three individuals. The first two came as a pair - Lloyd Irving and Colette Brunel, whose faces she already knew from Altessa’s house. People she knew as “kind”, even though she struggled to understand what exactly that meant.

Her first meeting with them as Martel, rather than Tabitha, was right here. She had given them the role of guardians to the fragile sapling, such that they could join her in safeguarding the world’s mana.

She could vividly remember the awed expressions on their faces - the shine in Colette’s eyes, Lloyd’s gaping mouth. Their fervent enthusiasm in protecting this world’s future. They had departed not soon after Lloyd had given the Tree its name, saying that they had to check in on their friends, but left her with a promise to return.

The third individual was Yuan Ka-Fai. A face she knew, once again, from memories that were not her own. He kept away, for the most part, in a little shack he’d built with the help of his Renegades. It was for the best - it didn’t seem like he wanted to see her, and looking upon his face brought a stinging pain which she couldn’t make heads-or-tails of. A field of contradictions from which there was no escape.

There was a fourth, one that she couldn’t physically see, and could only feel the traces of in the lingering mana particles in the air. The ghost of the previous guardian of the World Tree, who had been ruthlessly ripped apart by people who did not even know of his existence, his essence scattered to the wind.

Days passed, much the same as each other. There was an emptiness in her heart, a hole that grew wider with each day and could not be filled. Not by her aimless wandering, at least.

What was it that she yearned for?

She herself did not know the answer.

~~~

It was a day indistinguishable from any other when she first put down roots.

The sun was out of sight, hidden behind grey clouds, the land duller in colour for the lack of illumination. Martel was seated on a stump, the log having long rotted into nothingness, staff resting in her lap and eyes closed as she let herself sink into the peaceful embrace of nature. The wind caressing her skin, the sweet scent wafting from the nearby flower field. The rustling of the leaves above her head, the bubbling of the brook, the birdsong drifting into her ears.

The sudden crunch of branches pierced through her bubble of calm, too loud to be caused by a woodland critter. Her eyes snapped open, fingers wrapping around her staff tightly.

Only to spot, in the distance, the familiar figures of a golden-haired girl dressed in white robes and a brown-haired boy dressed entirely in red, making their way over to her across the flower fields. She released the breath she didn’t know she was holding.

There were no intruders. Not at the moment.

Still on guard, she stood, awaiting their arrival.

“Is something wrong?” she asked the moment they stopped before her, words sharp as a knife.

Was there a threat approaching the World Tree, was there a need to-

“Huh?” Just like that, her thought process was shattered by Lloyd, who rubbed the back of his head in confusion. “No, I… I don’t think anything’s wrong.”

“Then why are you here?” Her mind skidded to a halt completely, her grip on her staff loosening, though the tension remained in her raised shoulders.

“To visit. We were passing through the area, so we thought we might as well.” Colette said, cocking her head. “Does there need to be another reason for us to come here?”

To… Visit…?

“Yeah. We promised we’d be back, didn’t we?” Lloyd said, shrugging as he sat down by the stump, without a care for the wet grass, water droplets still clinging to the blades from the morning rain. Colette took a seat next to him, a wide smile on her face that brought the colour back - the green of the leaves, the brown of the bark.

Their promise…?

Martel had paid little heed to it. It was not an oath. They had no obligation to keep it, no penalty from breaking it, and she had thought it just a common courtesy that held no weight.

After all, why would they return here? There was no reason to. What could possibly be found here, other than the remnants of shattered dreams and the bitter taste of betrayal?

“Sit back down!” Colette gestured to the tree stump. “It’s uncomfortable to keep standing, right?”

“I… Alright…?” she muttered. In truth, she would not get tired, or feel physical discomfort. She couldn’t help but listen to Colette, though. Taking a hesitant step back, and then another, until her legs hit the stump and she sat down. Her back was ramrod straight and she maintained a grip on her staff.

She still didn’t understand why they had come, and it didn’t seem like they were planning to provide an answer.

And one didn’t come, in the few hours they spent here. Instead, the two of them broke out into conversation. Not just amongst themselves, but with her. Filling her in on what they had been up to in the months since the two worlds had become one.

Their journey across the reunited world to collect every Exsphere, to save the whispers and stories and souls contained within each tiny sphere, just as Tabitha had once told Lloyd to do within a cave of luminous green. The towns and sights they had come across, described with so much life behind their voices that Martel felt as if she was no longer sitting on a tree stump, but instead on a bench on a cobbled street, the smell of baking bread drifting through the air.

Lloyd waved his arms around wildly while Colette giggled into her hand - an outburst of energy, against which she was helpless to do anything but absorb every word. But they didn’t stop there. They went on to ask her questions, to ask her what she thought. She didn’t answer, apart from simple shakes or nods of the head, even to open-ended answers where “yes” and “no” were no longer sufficient. Lloyd and Colette didn’t linger on her awkward non-answers, or try to drag answers out of her. They just moved on.

They did not ask her if she’d like to go to these places one day, knowing that she never could.

Martel didn’t quite know how to act. She had never spent this much time with Lloyd and Colette before. They had talked to her back at Altessa’s, sure - they were the ones to seek her out the most, actually. But even then, they were always rushing to places, their plates full with everything that they had to do.

Not like this, where their boundless energy spilt forth without anything to curb it, washing over her.

By the time they left, waving goodbye as she remained still as a stone, Martel’s head was in a whirl from the influx of information she had received. She was exhausted, yet not tired at the same time. Another inexplicable contradiction.

There was a gentle warmth, like rays of sunlight cutting through gaps in the clouds and kissing her skin.

But the sun was still smothered in a layer of clouds, so from whence did this warmth come from?

~~~

Now that the sapling had put down more roots, little buds could start to form on the branches, not yet ready to open and show their flowery faces.

~~~

Colette and Lloyd continued to return every few weeks, to Martel’s utter surprise. They checked in on the World Tree, asking Martel each and every time if they were allowed to touch the fuzzy leaves and dangling branches. Martel would nod, and watch them with eagle eyes as they handled the sapling with the utmost care, muttering well-wishes and cheering over every inch it gained. Colette, on rare occasions, would squat next to the sapling, humming a song that was pleasant to the ears. Perhaps she believed the old wives’ tale that singing to a plant could make it grow faster. Even though it was utterly foolish, Martel couldn’t help but join Lloyd in smiling at the sight.

They continued to regale her with tales of their travels, the three of them sitting around different locations in the clearing - by the stump, on the log, beside the river - her staff never far from her. Eventually, Lloyd and Colette began to bring along tiny souvenirs that they pressed into her palm, which Martel would hesitantly curl her fingers around.

A tiny lantern charm. A statuette of some strange monster she didn’t recognise. Snacks, even - crispy chips in foil packets, fruit tarts wrapped in pretty packages, fruits which exploded with juice in the mouth. She did not require food to survive, but she still ate the gifts, letting Colette and Lloyd’s words wash over her as she tasted sweetness on her tongue and left sugar on her lips. She kept the souvenirs in a little box Lloyd had made for her, one that he claimed was blessed by the elemental Summon Spirits such that it could withstand the rain and sunshine. That seemed a tad impossible. Wasn’t that too much effort to go through? It was more likely that Lloyd was exaggerating. The box never succumbed to rot, however, so she had to take Lloyd at his improbable word.

Eventually, Martel mustered up the courage to answer one of their questions, even if she didn’t know if her answers were logically correct. The fact of the matter was, there probably weren’t correct answers, to begin with. Lloyd grinned, and then further roped her into the conversation. The nervousness had seemingly vacated, almost like it had never been there, as she found herself relaxing in Lloyd and Colette’s familiar company. She was still relatively quiet compared to the endless stream of words that came out of their mouths, but she was comfortable enough to talk, and sometimes even laugh a little at the funny stories they told. Listening no longer left her exhausted to the bone.

She learned to wave as the two children always did, an action she had observed from her days as Tabitha and knew was one of the many practices of “saying farewell”. The first time Martel had done so, barely catching their attention before they left, Colette’s eyes lit up, and she waved back enthusiastically, cupping her hands over her mouth and yelling “goodbye”, the word floating across the distance between them and catching in Martel’s heart.

Walking around yielded fewer shards reflecting the distant past that pricked her heart and made it bleed, but rather crystals of memory showing the two children who kept visiting despite there being no logical reason to do so.

They came here for the simple purpose of meeting her, and she couldn’t wrap her head around that. All she knew…

Was that the hole in her heart was slowly being filled, by the sunny warmth that she now knew was happiness.

An emotion that was almost foreign. For once upon a time, emotions had been nothing more than the result of a series of interwoven conditions, dull and without meaning. She had witnessed only glimpses of true emotions, arising due to errors in the code - or perhaps an evolution, for they were one and the same.

Still, she didn’t understand why a hole had arisen in the first place.

She looked forward to every visit, her ears primed to listen for any little noise, her head perking up every time she heard their footsteps.

Martel hoped Lloyd and Colette would keep making the nonsensical decision to return.

~~~

The World Tree now reached Martel’s waist, the leaves on each branch no longer alone. More buds had made their appearance, tiny spots of pale pink among the dense clusters of deep green.

The branches were a little sturdier now, and birds took to perching upon it, their talons resting on the bark as they chirped joyfully.

But growth always came entangled with challenges.

The change of seasons brought with it stronger winds, mercifully ripping leaves from their rightful places and leaving them to fall gracelessly to the ground, where they were trampled upon by animals without a second thought, noticed by none.

~~~

The Centurion Cores posed a threat not just to the World Tree, but to the world at large. If the wrong person got their hands on them, they could wreak havoc and destruction upon the world. And if they led to Ratatosk’s awakening… There would be no telling what would happen. Even here, Martel could feel the writhing hatred of the previous Summon Spirit, fighting to be unleashed upon the world.

The Cores needed to be gathered and dealt with before any of that could happen.

But no mere person could handle the Cores. Touching them would allow their power to crawl within one’s mind, flooding it with insidious whispers, easily driving anyone without sufficient protection insane.

Which meant Martel could leave the job to only one individual.

Lloyd came alone, without Colette in sight, having been called by Yuan. Martel delivered the news in a flat tone, keeping watch on Lloyd’s expression - the way it crumbled into pieces before her eyes, and then was carefully built back up again into a mask of neutrality. It was not something she’d thought Lloyd capable of, but here was a demonstration, right in front of her.

He did not voice any objection, did not try to shirk the heavy responsibility she was about to set on his shoulders. He simply accepted her words with a nod and chose to silently bear the consequences they brought. He understood that someone had to do it, and he was willing to do anything to protect this world and the people he loved.

Martel saw that. She saw his unbreakable will, and the all-encompassing love he held for this world and the people that meant everything to him. She knew that he was the right choice, perhaps the only choice.

So what was this ache in her heart, as she watched Lloyd leave alone, struggling to keep his head aloft?

~~~

A sapling required care to grow, whether it be by nature’s impartial hands or the gentle touch of a loving gardener.

Through the friendship that Lloyd and Colette had offered to her, Martel had experienced the sunlight that was happiness.

Now it was time to learn of the torrential storm that was grief and despair, and the intruding rot that was guilt.

~~~

Silence reigned supreme again, broken only by small pockets of noise when Lloyd and Colette returned, the atmosphere nowhere near as happy and relaxing as before. Never at the same time, of course, for that could not be allowed to happen. And at a much smaller frequency than before, irregular.

Lloyd was quiet most of the time, taking advantage of the safety provided by the boundaries of this space to take a quick nap, one that sometimes stretched into an hours-long sleep. He did not stir at all, thoroughly exhausted to the bone, except for nightmares which twisted his mouth into a grimace and furrowed his brow, unshed tears pooling beneath his eyelids. Even in sleep, he refused to cry.

Perhaps he was tired of putting up an act all the time, of hiding from and lying to his friends. Perhaps he was exhausted from being accused by the entire world and having fingers pointed at him no matter where he went. Perhaps he was sick of being on his guard at all times, even when he was in his most vulnerable position of sleep. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

There were so many reasons for his spirit to be at breaking point, so many reasons for him to want to curl up into a ball and never face the world again.

Martel would not disrupt his much-needed and much-deserved rest. She simply placed a blanket she’d squirrelled from Yuan’s shack (which she hoped Yuan wouldn’t miss) on Lloyd, tucking it in around his shoulders and watching over him until he woke up. After which, he would leave to continue his mission, back small and forlorn.

Did he, like her, now see ghosts here? All the times he’d come here with Colette… Were those happy memories being turned against him, making him yearn for the past and dread the future?

The silence was draining, closing in upon her heart and dragging it down into murky depths.

Colette, on the other hand, seemed much the same as before. She continued to talk non-stop, actions animated, a smile drawn on her face. If someone didn’t look closely, they would not see past the mask she had effortlessly painted on with a brush gripped in expert fingers. Would not see that the light in her eyes had dimmed, would not hear the occasional tremble in her voice.

Would not realise that she never brought up Lloyd.

Martel didn’t mind playing along, at least at first, talking about whatever topic Colette brought up and nothing more. The stranglehold around Martel’s heart tightened with each visit, however, as more storm clouds gathered above Colette’s head, her voice getting less and less enthusiastic. Until Martel couldn’t stand it anymore, opening her mouth to ask if Colette was alright.

And the dam broke under the insurmountable pressure, Colette sobbing profusely into her hands, sounding like her heart was being ripped into tiny shreds that could never be put back together. Martel desperately tried to pull on someone, anyone’s memories on how to comfort a crying child. Yet at this most vital of moments, the lives that had always tormented her remained frustratingly out of reach, leaving her to awkwardly rub Colette’s back.

At least a weight seemed to have left Colette’s shoulders after the tears dried up, leaving behind nothing but quiet acceptance. She returned to talking to Martel, her smile somehow more genuine, her voice no longer injected with false cheer, her vulnerability shining through. Colette let herself lapse into silence sometimes, and the two of them would simply listen to the sounds of nature around them instead of trying to fill it with fake noise.

There were moments when Martel thought she felt the burn of Colette’s gaze on her back. But the moment she whirled around to catch her, there would be nothing for her to see. Colette’s head would be bowed, nothing but a smile visible on her face.

But it happened so many times that it couldn’t be her imagination. Yet she didn’t know what to make of it.

And when completely alone, Martel did little things, like practice the manipulation of mana. Things the other Summon Spirits had had millennia to master, but that she was a complete beginner in. The mana bent to her will, but she wasn’t certain how exactly to direct it to accomplish the simple task of breaking down her staff and reconstructing it.

She wasn’t just trying to learn how to be a better Summon Spirit, to learn the practices of all the others. She was attempting to ignore the hole in her heart that she was all the more aware of now, for she had finally figured out why it existed.

The silence. The lonely, empty silence.

Even when she’d been Tabitha, there had never been a day when she was alone. Not even her first, for Altessa had already been there, bringing her to life. And he had never left - from the dark, oppressing halls of Cruxis, to the cosy, if slightly mildew-infested house in Tethe’alla. He was not the most talkative of persons, but the house had always been filled with the sounds of life: the hammering in the forge, the thunk of the knife on the chopping board, the creak of doors opening throughout the house.

Then Lloyd, Colette and their companions had arrived at the front door on their quest to reunite the two worlds. And that led to Mithos staying there, who brought a lot more noise by always engaging Altessa in conversation. It might have all been a front. Mithos may have been actively avoiding looking at her. But she still wanted to believe that somewhere under the trickery and deceit, there had been something genuine.

She now knew the answer to the question she’d been asking herself. What she yearned for was companionship.

And in the deafening silence, with nothing to occupy her, she was left to contemplate the many questions that rose to the surface. Questions that she could only consider now, having broken free of the box that her mind had once been constrained to by algorithms, and come to understand the complicated, illogical matters of the heart.

Martel would stare for hours into the brook, observing the features of her face, feeling them with careful fingers. This face that was hers, yet also belonged to another woman.

When others looked at her, who did they see? For Mithos, Kratos, if any of them were still here on this world, and especially Yuan, it must have been Martel Yggdrasill. And the rest of the world did not yet know of her existence and likely never would, hidden from prying eyes. Her existence held nothing but pain in the eyes of some.

Would Altessa still see Tabitha, an android who struggled with emotion but in the end loved this world, even if she did not know how to put that expression into words? Would her existence then hold a bittersweet love, but also the stinging reminder of failure and the typhoon of guilt that could easily carry someone away in its overwhelming power?

Would the other Summon Spirits recognise her as one? Would Ratatosk, if he was still here, recognise her as the guardian of the World Tree?

Or was she something else altogether?

~~~

Who am I?

The words were spinning around in Martel’s head once again, like a merry-go-round gone out of control. She was trying, and failing, to push it down, wanting to just soak in Colette’s company without any distraction.

Colette was leaning her head against the hard bark of a tree, legs stretched out before her and hands resting in her lap, gaze steadily trained on the sky and the birds that flew free within it. Martel, on the other hand, was standing, staff abandoned in the grass.

Martel didn’t pose the question, even though Colette might hold the key to unlocking the answer. The two of them were quite similar, after all - both failed vessels who had now been given a new purpose in a reconstructed world. Perhaps Colette would know the answer, or at least know where to start.

This was her problem to deal with. She had no right to ask anything of Colette. Not after the grievous wound she had dealt to the girl’s heart. To ask anything of her would be pure selfishness.

“Hm,” Colette said, breaking the silence. She drew her knees up to her chest, resting her chin upon them as her fingers grabbed at tufts of grass, uprooting them. “That’s an interesting question.”

“Oh.” The word slipped out of Martel’s mouth, just as the previous ones had, without her meaning to but unable to be stopped. The question had consumed her entire mind like a parasite until she failed to differentiate between thought and speech.

“No need to be sorry.”

Sorry? She hadn’t…

“I’ve been thinking about that question too,” Colette continued, moving past Martel’s scattered thoughts. “And it’s simple, really.”

How was it simple? How was she anything more than the memories she had inherited, and the face she presented? Yet she could never be Martel Yggdrasill, and she was no longer Tabitha.

So who was she?

“It’s just like Lloyd said, you know?” Colette whispered, pain dripping from her first mention of Lloyd’s name in weeks, her gaze shifting down. “You’re you. You’re Martel, so that’s who you are. Not Martel Yggdrasill, just Martel. And who that is is something you decide, and no one else.”

“I decide…?”

That confused Martel even more. Were people not the amalgamation of who others perceived them as? Was that not even more the case for Summon Spirits, who partly drew their power from the prayers of others, and was therefore most at the mercy of how others viewed them?

“I know it’s hard. Maybe it doesn’t make that much sense. Most things don’t, not really. But it’s what Lloyd said, and I believe him. I always will.” The corners of Colette’s lips lifted into a hopeful smile. “You are who you are. Take your time.”

Time was the one thing Martel had too much of, and the one thing she would never run out of.

“Okay, enough moping around!” Colette declared with gusto, nearly scaring Martel into dissipating into mana, a feat that she had not managed to accomplish on her own. Yet now, bright, tiny particles were flying from the tips of her fingers.

Colette scampered to her feet and grabbed Martel’s hand, not giving her the chance to retrieve her staff before she was dragged off in the direction of the flower fields.

“What are you doing?!” Martel asked, voice two pitches higher than usual, too shocked to do anything but go along, trying her very best to calm her racing heartbeat down. How ridiculous this must look, for her to be led by a girl an entire head shorter than her. Even more ridiculous if someone were to know that she was a Summon Spirit, and Colette was a human. The power disparity was rather silly.

“Bringing you to go make flower crowns.” Colette grinned mischievously, stepping into the thousands of flowers that bloomed, like a blanket of white that stretched beyond the horizon. Her eyes twinkled with that old shine Martel had not seen in a while. “You haven’t done it before, have you?”

“N - no, but -”

“Now's a great time to try! It’s something every child should do.”

“I’m not a child,” Martel whispered, hands shaking as she withdrew from Colette’s grasp. Petals rained down all around them, taken from the flowers and scattered into the sky by the wind.

She was still a weak Summon Spirit, for she drew her power from the World Tree, and it was not yet grown. She would be bested by any of the others, even the mischievous Sylphs. Yet power still crackled beneath her skin, which she could easily release from her fingertips. Even if she was resolved not to use it unless something directly threatened the World Tree, and only if absolutely necessary, it was still there.

No child was meant to wield that much power.

Perhaps she had been childlike as Tabitha, possessing more knowledge than any child should, yet unable to process the workings of the world in the way others did. But even then, she had not been a child.

She had never been a child.

“Neither am I,” Colette replied, turning back. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a futile effort as a gust of wind blew, catching the golden strands within. Stray white petals caught in their hair, getting lost within. White peeking out among green and yellow. “But… Everyone deserves to be a child at least once. And who says you aren’t allowed to?”

There was a sad tinge to Colette’s smile. And in her silhouette, Martel could see another child. And another, and another, and another, within the memories she safeguarded - the many children who never had the chance to be a child, that chance ripped away by the flames of war or the cruelty of others or the destructive power of grief.

“Come on. I promise, it’ll be fun!” Colette proclaimed, sitting down cross-legged and patting the flowers next to her.

Martel hesitantly sat down, accepting the handful of flowers Colette threw into her lap. A few were small when she picked them up, sitting in the centre of her palm, easily crushed into smithereens to leave not a trace behind. So fragile.

“It might be difficult at first, but just follow my instructions and you’ll eventually get the hang of it…”

She let Colette’s voice guide her, following her every word. And just as Colette said, she got the hang of it pretty quickly, until her first-ever flower crown lay in her hands.

She stared down at it, rubbing the rough stems that were, thankfully, devoid of any thorns. It had been surprisingly fun to lose herself in the monotony of threading stems together with her head bowed over her lap, letting time slip by. A completely unproductive activity meant only for children, that she would have never thought to try on her own…

Would it be as enjoyable without Colette by her side?

“Yours is great!” Colette congratulated her, the rapid movements of her hands coming to a halt as she scooted closer to peek at Martel’s flower crown.

“Oh, it’s nothing compared to yours…” Martel snuck a glance at Colette’s lap, where three completed flower crowns were stacked atop each other. Colette was in the process of making a fourth, her progress scarily fast. And all of her flower crowns were beautifully done, with intricate knots and twining stems, the petals undamaged and the flowers cheerfully open to the sun. Colette must be extremely experienced, something she could never hope to match. Hours of hours with Lloyd, most likely.

“No, no, I mean it! And you can only improve with time!” Colette grinned, picking up the topmost flower crown in her stack and reaching her arms up.

Frozen, Martel watched the journey of the crown, knowing what the final destination was - upon her head, where Colette set it down with careful hands. Still, she could not help but reach up and feel the soft petals of the crown, sitting lopsided such that one side fell over her right eyebrow. It was light, yet at the same time, she could feel its weight, and the slight scratch of the stems against her skin.

“Keep it,” Colette said, as if anticipating the objections that Martel was about to voice.

“I… Alright,” Martel replied, releasing her grip and lowering her hand. “But if you insist…”

She took her own flower crown and placed it gently on Colette’s curls, the white standing out among the gold. It did not measure up to Colette’s, but... “Have mine in return.”

This was all that she could do, even if it was just a small thing.

“Thank you.” Colette laughed, that familiar sound that seemed to bring in spring, the flowers around her turning their heads towards her to listen.

Colette continued to weave ever more flower crowns as Martel lay down upon the fields, hair spread below her as she shut her eyes, folding her hands over her heart. Colette hummed the familiar little tune that she hummed to the World Tree, almost like she was wishing for Martel’s growth, for her to put down roots where she lay and burst into glorious bloom.

With Colette’s melodious voice washing over her, she drifted off into sleep. And in the images that played out against her closed eyelids, the two of them were just normal girls, having fun in the fields without a care in the world, shoulders completely free of any burdens, hands clean of blood, and hearts still whole.

~~~

Whether it was a temporary moment of strange lucidity or a dream born of hovering in the state between wakefulness and sleep, Martel didn’t know. When she awoke, a strange memory floated to the surface, its contents shrouded in grey - Colette, staring at her with a knowing glint in her eyes. The girl did nothing more, only bent down and swiped away a petal on Martel’s cheek with a gentle finger. The petal rested in her hand for a moment before it was blown away by the wind, disappearing into nothingness in the sky.

Gone…

Yet when Martel sat up, colour rushing back into her vision, Colette was asleep on her side, the numerous flower crowns she had completed scattered by her side. Her fingers curled close to her chest, strands of hair moving slightly in the wind that had calmed to nothing more than a weak breeze that teased. She looked utterly at peace, furrows washed away.

And it was like nothing had ever transpired - both the strange vision, and the events of the past, dipped in misfortune.

~~~

After Colette left, Martel kept the flower crown, infusing it with a tiny bit of magic to ensure the flowers remained just as pristine as when Colette gave it to her.

It was a silly use of her power. Flower crowns were not meant to last. They fell apart with time, the petals curling as rot crawled up the stems, abandoned at the end of childhood. The flowers were long dead, after all.

She could call her actions childish, even.

So, why?

It was a gift. From a friend.

That was the only reason required. It was just that simple.

And as Colette had said… Who was stopping her from being childish?

~~~

On the World Tree, the first bud burst into bloom.

~~~

“He was so fluffy! I really hope I get to see Timmie again.”

Colette finished her latest passionate tirade about dogs, this time about a “positively adorable little one” she had met in Luin. She could spend a whole hour going on and on about her “exciting adventures”, which mostly amounted to running circles around town with the dog, all her worries seemingly forgotten. “A dog can make any day better!” she had exclaimed once, and Martel was truly starting to believe that.

With one final stroke in the soil, Colette completed her rough sketch of Timmie, dropping the stick she was using.

“Cute,” Martel agreed, trying to imagine Timmie in full colour from just the sketch. Despite the surprising amount of details Colette had managed to infuse into her drawing - such as the rounded snout, stubby legs and droopy ears - Martel was still having quite some trouble. Her imagination wasn’t that great, and she’d never seen a real-life dog before.

“So, I hope you enjoyed my adventures with Timmie! I know I’m not always the best storyteller,” Colette said, rifling through her rucksack and pulling out something wickedly sharp that glinted under the sunlight. “But now I need to run an idea past you.”

Martel squinted at the object in Colette’s hands, making it out to be...

A pair of scissors.

Instinctively, she took a step back, fingers reaching for her staff - only to come to the stark realisation that it was nowhere near her. She’d left it by the river, where Colette had taken a quick rest by dipping her feet in the soothing waters. And in her panic, she was unable to summon it.

Scissors were supposed to be a fairly innocent object, something used to cut fabric or paper. Yet the sight of anything remotely sharp brought back memories of desperate women caked in blood, wielding whatever they could get their hands on in a last-ditch effort to protect their children from being carted off by men in uniforms which sported the crest of an opposing kingdom, taken as liberty to commit whatever evils they desired. Memories of hugging a child close, praying that they would not be next.

And even more sinister, the thought of anything cutting into the World Tree, tiny and vulnerable.

For whatever purpose would Colette be carelessly wielding that for?

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Colette gasped, realising her mistake and quickly hiding the pair of scissors behind her back. She and Lloyd had always taken great care not to spook Martel with their weapons, ensuring that they were in plain sight, (for it would not be reasonable to leave them without any capability to protect themselves,) their hands never straying anywhere close to them. They knew how skittish Martel was around sharp objects. In Colette’s excitement to share, she had clearly forgotten.

“It’s… It’s alright. You didn’t mean anything by it,” Martel replied, wringing her hands together to try and overcome the feeling that they were too empty. Honestly, she was overreacting. Colette only meant well. Martel couldn’t see her ever doing something with malicious intent.

“Sorry,” Colette muttered, still guilty. “But, you see, I was thinking about how Summon Spirits can change their appearances. Like how Gnome takes on this giant animal that Dirk says is a mole? I don’t think you’ve learned to do that yet, so I was wondering if you’d like me to cut your hair for you.”

“My hair…?” Martel pondered, picking at one of the many green strands that ran down her shoulders. Despite her absolute lack of care and the sometimes volatile weather, her hair had remained lustrous, not a single knot within the long, flowing locks that reached her hips.

“Yep,” Colette said, her hand landing on Martel’s shoulders as she began to slowly push her towards a boulder that was of a suitable height and flatness to act as a comfortable seat. “I thought you might want to… Well, separate yourself from the other Martel. Only if you want me to, though! It’s your decision!”

They came to a stop by said boulder as Colette patiently awaited her answer, still studiously keeping the scissors out of sight.

“I’d like that,” Martel replied. She could not yet change her face, but perhaps changing the length of her hair would make staring into her own reflection less painful, make it feel less like she was looking at a ghost who should have long departed this world.

“Then, sit down!” Colette gently pressed Martel down onto the rock, disappearing from Martel’s view as she took her position behind Martel. “And relax. This might take a while, so sorry for that...”

The tension refused to leave Martel’s shoulders, a part of her still preparing for the cold of metal against her throat, for the coppery tang of blood to fill her nose. The panic of leaving herself fully vulnerable was crowding out all else, which she could recognise as extremely stupid in the one rational part of her mind that remained.

She wielded more than enough magic to protect herself from mortals, even without her staff to channel it properly.

Weapons that were not her own just seemed to overpower all rational thought, it seemed.

Martel felt Colette minutely shift behind her, bringing the scissors up to her hair.

“If you need me to stop at any time, just tell me, alright?”

Martel was about to nod, before realising that that was a bad idea. She should not be moving her head right now.

So she didn’t respond. Even amidst the panic, she trusted Colette not to hurt her.

Snip.

The sound of the first cut was impossibly loud in her ears.

I used to cut Mithos’ hair, sweeping the loose strands off his shoulders as I trimmed the ends.

But no one ever cut my hair…

“I actually gave Sheena a haircut a while back. She wanted to try out something new! Um, it didn’t turn out too well, so I hope this time goes better…”

Snip.

“Sorry if your hair turns out jagged. Practice makes perfect, but I’ve only been able to practice on Noishe, and he’s not the most eager participant. Don’t think he feels happy over being a guinea pig. He keeps running away, and that means his fur gets all messed up over being caught in the scissors! Silly Noishe.”

Snip.

Colette continued to blather on, until she ran out of topics related to hairdressing and had to scramble for the most mundane of things to talk about. The upbeat tone of her voice drowned out the sound of the blades snapping together, until it faded away altogether.

Martel’s eyes slipped close, fingers releasing from their interlocked state. The wind carried away her hair like it did petals, leaving no trace behind, like there had never been anything there in the first place.

“And we’re done!”

Martel’s eyes snapped open at the sudden clap of Colette’s hands. The sun had shifted into the apex of its arc, and Colette was now in front of her, bending down a little to observe Martel’s new haircut.

How much time had passed? She must have drifted away…

“How do you like it?” Colette asked, gesturing towards Martel’s hair.

Martel reached up a hand, finding nothing at her shoulders. She went up higher to grip the ends of her now much shorter hair, which reached only to her chin. The difference in weight was disorienting. She felt so much lighter, like whatever had been pressing on her chest had been lifted.

Perhaps it wasn’t just the loss of hair. Perhaps it was much, much more.

“I like it,” she replied, heart swelling. Both with happiness, and with the dark grip of guilt.

Colette had done so much to help her, and for nothing in return, even as Martel continued to hide the truth from her. A truth that had taken on a ghastly life of its own and cast its shadow upon the both of them.

“I’m glad, Martel!” Colette said, plopping down on the dirt. “Oh, would you still like to be called Martel? If you don’t like that name, I can call you something else.”

“No,” Martel replied immediately, and with much more surety than she herself had thought possible. “It’s like you said. The name is mine, and I am my own person. I don’t want to give it up.”

She may hold Martel Yggdrasill’s memories, but they would not define her existence, and neither would they restrain her from making new memories of her own. Neither would any of the other memories she held, though she would continue to protect them, for they were worth protecting.

“Alright!” Colette cocked her head, smile growing even sunnier, if that was possible. “Do you want to hear more about the dogs I met at Luin? There was another one that I named Clay, and he’s so cute! Oh, I’d like to pet him again!” she squealed.

“Sure. But before that…” Martel took a deep breath, preparing the next two, simple words. Words that she had not uttered before, but that she had heard countless times, both in memories and in life, and that was long overdue. “Thank you. For everything.”

There had never been a meaning behind “thank you” before. It was nothing more than an in-built command. And while she understood the purpose the words played, there was no significance behind them. Just hollow words spit out by an algorithm, the moments she truly meant them few and far between, slipping through her fingers just as quickly as it had come.

Why would they ever cross her mind, then? Not until now, at least, having broken through the once impenetrable wall of numbers.

A simple expression was not enough to convey the amount of gratitude she felt for Colette. It was not enough to repay everything Colette had done for her. It was certainly not enough to make amends for everything she had done to Colette. She was, after all, the one that was continuing to stab a poison-tipped dagger into Colette’s heart. This could do no more than put a pitiful bandaid on the wounds that were constantly being ripped open.

“You’re welcome,” Colette replied with no hesitation, not a shred of blame in her words, her actions, her entire self. “I’m glad to have helped.”

There was nothing but sincerity in her smile, and Martel couldn’t understand how.

But she did take comfort in it, as well as garner a single reminder.

There was another person she owed gratitude to and, more importantly, an apology.

~~~

From where she was standing, Martel couldn’t see much of Lloyd. All she could see was his back, leaning against the cool surface of a boulder some distance away, his head of brown hair bowed. He’d been sitting there ever since he finished giving an update on the latest Core he’d gathered, and the rather interesting people he had come across.

She sighed, padding up to Lloyd. Her mind had been made up days before he’d returned. Some things needed to be said, even if it was difficult. It would have been easier, before she understood the dizzying highs of joy and the seeping effects of sorrow. Then the words would not get stuck in her throat as they were now.

But if that were the case, those very same words would hold no meaning.

Lloyd was quietly whittling away at a piece of wood. He’d made quite a bit of progress in the time that had passed - it was starting to resemble a dog, easily recognisable by Martel after the many sketches Colette had shown her. Perhaps it was meant to be a heartfelt apology, a prayer that it might not be too late to mend the broken bonds that trailed behind him. His shaking hands and the tiny bead of blood seeping out of his thumb from a careless slip of the knife certainly supported that.

That only cemented the need to do this.

“I’m sorry,” Martel whispered, breaking the silence and alerting Lloyd to her presence. She didn’t want Lloyd to jump.

The movement of Lloyd’s hands paused as he craned his head up. The rough beginnings of stubble was on his chin, the shadows lurking beneath his eyes deep. This was a boy on the cusp of becoming a man, yet carrying a burden that would break most man’s shoulders. He was incredibly brave.

But even the strongest needed someone to give them a hand when they inevitably stumbled and fell, because everyone had moments of weakness where they needed acceptance. And Lloyd had no one.

She was not the best person for the job. She might not be remotely good at it - she didn’t hold the innate empathy Colette had, that expertise in comforting others that Colette wielded so effectively. She possessed only the complicated knot of emotions in her chest, which she had only just started to unravel.

She was still going to try.

“For everything I’ve put you through. And thank you, for being willing to do so much.”

The apology didn’t relieve the guilt that ate away at her heart. But that wasn’t the point, to begin with. There was no easy way out, and she was not seeking one. She would bear that which was hers to bear, instead of pushing that burden onto others.

It might be far too late, but she hoped it might bring Lloyd some comfort in the bleak landscape that must have been his life.

A small smile broke out on Lloyd’s face. Not the beacon of light he used to be, but it was something. And any shred of hope one could hold onto made a huge difference.

Someone had said that, once. A someone that was not her, but whose memories held much wisdom.

“It’s alright,” Lloyd said, voice rising above the dejected murmur he had used for months. “I knew what I was signing up for, and you hold no blame for that. Thank you, though. It does mean a lot.”

“Can I see…?” she asked hesitantly, sitting down next to Lloyd.

“Sure.”

Lloyd passed over the in-progress figurine, letting Martel take a closer look at it. It was most definitely a dog - the adorable snout, the lovingly crafted ears, the eyes that seemed soulful, even though it was carved from still wood.

“I hope she’ll like it,” Lloyd muttered, frowning as he noticed the cut on his finger. “If I can ever give it to her…”

“I’m sure you will.”

She had no doubt about that. That a time would come, where everything would be better, no matter how long it took.

~~~

That time came. Eventually, all was cleared as the truth came to light. Eventually, peace came to the lands again, as everyone chose to trust in the betrayed Summon Spirit and teach him to trust again. Eventually, Lloyd was finally able to rejoin his friends, to walk freely with them, laugh and talk with them again. But the scars he’d suffered from skulking around in the dark would likely never leave him.

Perhaps both he and Colette may not be able to forgive her for what she’d done. She could accept that, for that was her responsibility to bear. Maybe they would no longer return, or if they did due to the duty they felt they were obliged to, they would act detached instead of friendly.

She could not blame them.

Come what may, she would take it in stride. But still, she would wait for their reappearance, because of the simple wish that she would like to see them again.

In the peace that came after the draining events at Ginnungagap, Martel came to spend more time in Yuan’s company. He no longer acted like a feral cat, backing away whenever she appeared. Perhaps it was the change in appearance, or the new confidence in which she carried herself - she no longer defaulted to old postures passed down through memories. Perhaps her experiments in changing form were starting to show results, even though she didn’t notice any in her reflection.

No matter the reason, it appeared he could stand her presence now. And she was glad, to make another companion and to clear the air. She became familiar with the inside of his shack, taking to sitting at the table and swinging her legs idly. It felt quite similar to the atmosphere at Altessa’s, for Yuan didn’t seem to be in the mood to talk most of the time. She simply enjoyed the silence. And occasionally a cup of alcohol. The taste was certainly… interesting, burning the tip of her tongue and down her throat.

And it was new.

Martel no longer needed to bend down to observe the World Tree, for it now reached her head.

Outgrown a sapling, but not yet a tree. Stronger now, better able to give mana to the world. Many more leaves, who were larger and rough to the touch. A few flowers, peeking shyly out of buds to face the morning sun. An extensive network of roots that she couldn’t see, ensuring steadiness.

On a normal day like any other, wind whispering through her chin-length hair and the sun falling upon the World Tree, the familiar sounds of footsteps floated through the clearing. With a heart that was full of emotions and all the words she wished to say, Martel smiled, and turned to face her friends.

~~~

One day, the World Tree would be a truly massive structure that towered over all, its leaves so dense that sunlight would struggle to filter through the tiny gaps, flowers of every colour popping on branches, and sweet fruits ripening every spring. It would provide shade and life to all that lived in this world.

One day, far, far in the future.

But the important thing, was that it would grow. Slowly, and with time.

And so would she.

[changeling-rin]

Hi! I was wondering, what are your thoughts on the different Zelda games? Not a ranking or anything, just what did you like/dislike in each game/franchise as a whole? And how did you come up with the personalities of the characters for DL? Thank you!

Oof.  Oh, you’re gonna make me Longpost, aren’t you.  Yeah, okay.  You asked for it.

Skyward Sword/Gen 

-I both love, and hate, the motion controls.  On one hand, I have never felt more epic than when I personally stabbed my sword into Demise’s head.  On the other hand, I have never felt more frustrated when my wiimote would misinterpret my swings and I would subsequently die.  Contrary to popular opinion, I actually like Fi.  Her design is beautiful, her theme is gorgeous, and her goodbye to Link is one of the most beautiful yet heartbreaking moments in the entire franchise.  The origin of the Master Sword, in my opinion, might be one of the best things to come out of this game.

Gen’s personality came about mainly as the foil to Lore and Dusk’s pre-existing dynamic.  Lore is the spastic one, and while Dusk is definitely somewhat of the straight-man, he’s much more likely to roll with it unless it’s drastically damaging.  Gen, on the other hand, will avidly apply common sense to anything and everything, and since Lore very rarely follows common sense, Gen morphed into his ‘conscience’, so to speak.  His predilection for healing was a side-effect of me dying a lot in his game and spending more on Red Potion than probably anything else, and also because the group needed a medic and Gen was definitely the most take-charge character I had who would do that sort of thing.

Minish Cap/Speck

The Picori are the cutest things, oh my gosh.  I do, however, suspect their violent and painful end in BotW - if they’re the ones who put the Rupees and Bombs and stuff in the grass, and there’s no such things in BotW…  Aside from that!  I adored the concept of shrinking down and having the entire environment change on you.  It was such a unique way to make an old area new again.  On the flipside, I loathed the Kinstone sidequest with a passion.  I never did manage to match them all.

Speck was basically me saying to myself, ‘He’s a tiny person.  How do tiny people see the world?’  And then he turned into a quiet, shy kid who tries very hard not to be a bother and looks at problems from a completely different angle than most people.  This is why he always second guesses his words - he’s by far the most frequent user of ‘um’, ‘uh’, ‘ah’, ‘oh’, etc, and this is entirely on purpose.  Tiny people, by nature, will do whatever it takes to make sure the bigger people don’t get mad enough to smush them - a bit morbid, I know, but if you think about it…  This is also where his habit of stabbing the eardrum came from.  Where most people wouldn’t even think of it, Speck just saw a really good access point and a whole lot of convenient fabric handholds to get him there.  

Four Swords/The Four

I have actually never been able to get my hands on a copy of the original Four Swords game.  I know.  I’m a disgrace to the fandom.  However, I have done extensive research, and I can say that by far my favorite concept is being able to deploy a Bow-Wow in the direction of my enemies.  I literally cannot imagine it without cackling.  

The Four were the result of me having two sets of Four Sword Heroes and desperately needing some way to tell them apart.  It took a very long time for me to decide to play up the hive mind aspect, but once I did everything clicked for them.  Rather than being split individual aspects of the original Link, the Four are literally a copy-paste of OG Link’s personality with only tiny variations between them, which led to the decision to make them somewhat quiet and awkward about their synchronization.  People rarely accept what’s unfamiliar to them, and to be honest the Four probably have one of the more ‘tragic’ backstories.  They may or may not have been chased out of a town or two due to a couple misunderstandings about the source of their hive mind.  (My babies, I’m so sorry I did this to you I’m a terrible author whyyyyyyyy)

Ocarina of Time/Ocarina

By far, one of the most investing stories in a game.  Ganondorf is fabulously evil, 10/10 would thwart again.  Music, of course, is beautiful.  The travel mechanic, on the other hand, I am not a fan of.  Trying to get somewhere before getting the respective warping Song is tedious at best, and the sheer amount of time it takes for me to swap between Young and Adult Link is just… it’s a hassle, is what it is.  

Ocarina is a little kid in a Big Person’s body, and I write him accordingly.  He’s the wide-eyed boy in a brand-new world.  He’s naive to a lot of things and oblivious to several others.  He and Mask have a bit of an odd dynamic because of this - Ocarina will basically gravitate to wherever Mask is as a sort of unconscious instinct, under the unrealized assumption that Mask means protection.  The ‘Little Brother’ mentality, if you will.  

Majora’s Mask/Mask

THE MOON.  THE FREAKING MOON.  I will never be able to play this game without feeling vaguely stressed and unsettled the entire time and THAT FREAKING MOON is the reason why.  Very compelling plot, 10/10, but WHY.  Aside from that, the music is fantastic, Majora is Creepy To The Max and we so rarely get that in Zelda games so I am on board, the transformation masks are probably my favorite mechanic, and your heartstrings get yanked on several times with the Goron Lullaby quest and Mikau’s entire storyline.  

Mask evolved directly as the opposite to Ocarina, with the caveat that he is directly aware of Ocarina’s unconscious ‘Little Brother’ mindset - Mask just happens to be sincerely uncomfortable with the ‘Big Brother’ role.  He’s more knowledgable, more experienced, and this was done explicitly to be in direct contrast with the fact that he looks like a little kid.  He’s Ocarina’s opposite in every single way, and it’s fun to have them play off each other.

Twilight Princess/Dusk

Probably my favorite game, art-style-wise.  There’s some things that Twilight Princess does fantastically well artistically, not to mention that it contains one of my favorite characters of all time.  Midna is awesome and there’s nothing that will convince me otherwise.  I actually think the wolf mechanic is a really good way to make new problems within old areas - but I will admit, the bug hunts can be tedious.  And that one escort mission can go jump off a cliff. But I adore everything about the concept of a Twilight Realm, and even though Ganondorf comes in and kinda shafts Zant out of the way, he’s fabulous enough that I can accept it.  They are, after all, both marvelously evil.  

Dusk’s personality came from me thinking back on everything that happens in his game and promptly deciding that: he either went a little insane to deal with it all, or he had the lowest level of crap to give that I’d ever seen.  Obviously, I decided on the latter, and I’m very glad I did, because from there that allowed me to build the faux-duo-actually-triad leadership between him, Lore, and Gen that works so very well.  I kinda ended up putting a little of myself into Dusk, in that he’s very reserved and will think about what he says before saying it.  Of course, I had to incorporate the wolf somehow, and the way that was the most fun for me was to bring some of those traits over into his hylan form.  One of these was me interpreting the howling mechanic as Dusk being a naturally good singer, and we all know where that led.

Four Swords Adventures/Red, Blue, Green, and Vio

The loss of the Bow-Wow hits me deeply, but we do get horses so that helps a little.  Also, it surprised me a little how similar this game is to the predecessor, Four Swords.  There’s a couple plot differences, Shadow Link is a thing, but for the most part it follows a very similar pattern and I kinda wish something different had been done.  It’s fun having more than one weapon to swing around, but not quite as much without other people to play with.  The one thing I have to say about Zelda multiplayer games is that, without actual multiple players, it’s just… not as fun.

I freely admit that large parts of Green, Vio, Red, and Blue’s personalities came directly from the FSA manga - particularly, the subversion of color expectations by having Red be the timid one and Blue be the aggressive one.  You never see that nowadays, and I immediately pounced on it.  Vio and Green had slightly less large chunks of manga personality, but I basically ripped their inner-group dynamic wholesale.  Their individual interactions though, those are all me.  Blue and Vio just seemed like natural bicker partners.  Red’s Adorable Puppy face evolved out of the sheer amount of times the manga had him on the verge of, or shedding, actual tears.  And Green naturally needed to be the exasperated leader keeping them all in line.  It all just sorta flowed from there.

Link to the Past/Lore

The originator of such musical classics like Kakariko Village, the Dark World theme, and Zelda’s Lullaby, and I thank this game for making these songs so good.  I adore the way that the Dark World can take the entire freaking country of Hyrule and turn it into something completely new.  But there were some times where I wasn’t sure where to go?  I don’t know if it was me or not, and it could have been.  I might just be bad at inferring destinations.  

Lore is the direct result of being the target of four entire games, and me thinking to myself, ‘Now how does a normal person deal with something like that?’  The answer was, of course, that they throw normality out a window.  Lore is my way to have fun, and also to let out every random impulse I’ve ever had but never acted on.  In a way, Lore is me, but without all the inhibitions.  Sometimes he ends up being a direct conduit between my brain-thoughts and the page.  That aside, I also gladly seized the opportunity to bring something different to the group, which is how the different languages came in.  He’s the only Link who actively, within his games, visits other countries, and there was no way I could pass that up.  

Oracle of Ages/Oracle of Seasons

They remind me of Pokemon titles.  “Here’s these two games!  With the exception of some minor details, they’re exactly the same!  Combine them for a special surprise!”  I do think the Subrosians are adorable though.  And of course, shout-out to Veran, the only explicitly female villain the Zelda franchise has ever seen.  Maybe someday you’ll get a friend to help you out in that testosterone-filled mess.  Maybe someday. 

Link’s Awakening

Far sadder than I anticipated it being.  Also, the Bow-Wow returns!  Clearly the best thing in the game. On the bad side - I don’t remember which one it was - there was this one dungeon that just… for the life of me I could not get it to make sense in my brain.  I don’t know why.  I also don’t remember what the solution was.  Very engaging story though, the Windfish mystery kept me engaged right up to the Big Reveal.

A Link Between Worlds/Sketch

The painting mechanic is just.  It’s so clever.  The entire landscape is transformed with a single dimension shift and I loved it.  I was kinda skeptical about the same map as LttP, but then Lorule happened and I was pleased enough with that to accept it.  Ravio and Hilda are fine additions to the LoZ family and I wholeheartedly accept them - also, the Lorule Castle theme is one of the best songs in the franchise, fight me.  One thing I do remember is this one boss battle, I think with some sort of Manhandla plant?  It took me at least ten or so tries to get past that thing.  Really didn’t enjoy that one.

Everything intentional about Sketch evolved from his painting ability, this being his phobia of water, his tendency to use stealth in a confrontation, and his continued sidetracking with artistic ideas.  At some point though, he turned into one of the most sarcastic Links in the bunch, and I’m really not sure how it happened.  But it seemed to fit him for whatever reason.

The Legend of Zelda/Realm

I regrettably have not been able to get my hands on this one either, but I have watched a play-though.  My observations are as follows:                    Where is the map.  How did anyone figure out where they were going in this game.  I don’t understand how that wall was supposed to indicate it was bomb-able.  How did people play this game without getting too frustrated to continue.                                                                                       On the bright side, the dungeons seemed to be very well-laid-out, and the bosses, while repetitive, were pretty memorable.  I suspect I would get lost within the first ten minutes, though.

Realm is directly based off of my above observations.  I am firmly of the opinion that absolutely nobody can make it through the original LoZ game without getting lost at least once, and this resulted in Realm’s absolutely abysmal sense of direction.  Consequently, I made him hopelessly optimistic and cheerful enough to make the sun jealous, because the only person who could put up with those sorts of mishaps is the person who can just get right back up and keep going.  Also, the fact that I myself and severely directionally challenged means that writing Realm comes very easily.

The Adventure of Link

I have not played this one either.  I apologize.  That said, I dislike the switch from top-down to 2-D scroller.  In comparison with literally every other game in the franchise, AoL feels the least like a ‘Zelda’ title.  Though, for the invention of Shadow Link, I award at least few points.

Wind Waker/Wind

It’s adorable.  It’s somehow a very dark and serious game disguising everything behind a cute and cartoony art style and even though I can recognize it I don’t actually care.  The story is engaging, Tetra is the Best Pirate, and the ocean makes it feel so big.  I do think the sailing mechanic can be a bit time-consuming before the warp travel kicks in, and I actually feel like Ganondorf went down too easily, maybe?  

Wind is based off of sailing, basically.  I took the amount of time it takes him, in-game, to get places and decided that he has the patience of a saint.  Also the bafflingly ability to stay awake for three days straight, but that hasn’t come up in DL, so.  Because of this, he’s usually pretty content to let conversations evolve without much input from him, unless he’s got something important to say.  And of course, he’s got the Wind Waker, which resulted in me making up an entire magical classification system to explain why he’s so good at controlling the weather, accompanied by an entire chapter-length head canon about the relation between the weather and music.  Ironically enough, for all that Wind has no instrument of his own, the fact that he’s a conductor means he’s actually the most musically talented of the whole group.

Phantom Hourglass

I wouldn’t call it a worthy sequel to Wind Waker, but I honestly don’t think it’s too bad - with the exception of the Temple of the Ocean King.  First time, it was kinda fun.  Second time, less fun,  Third time, getting repetitive.  Fourth time, getting annoying.  Fifth time, and I was really done with that mechanic.  The remixed Sailing Theme was good though, and once I got past Linebeck’s surface personality I liked him pretty well too.

Spirit Tracks/Steam

I have never played this one, but the concept seems fun.  The riding-a-train song is amazing.  This Zelda is probably the most fleshed-out that the character has ever been, and I dearly hope she can take the position of ‘companion guide’ again someday.  Or maybe even ‘protagonist’, who knows?  I do dislike how vague Malladus is, because as the Final Bad Guy I feel like he should have been solidified more than just “Demon sealed a long time ago”.  And to be honest, why Trains?  It just seems so random.  

Steam, like several other Links, is based around his gameplay.  As an engineer, he’s a pretty hands-on type of person, which is why he frequently gets distracted with the inner workings of other Links’ items.  And due to the fact that Trains require very little input to control and a lot of travel time, he’s the least physical of all of them.  This basically means that he runs the slowest, hits the lightest, and will likely bring the least to the table in a fight.  This is one of the reasons I gave him the ‘I Like Trains’ summon, because even if he himself can’t hit very hard, his Train sure as heck can. 

Oh my gosh I think this took me a solid hour to type out, I hope you’re very happy with this response Anon ;)

[seeaddywrite]

stars, hide your fires: chapter four

this chapter wouldn’t exist without @soberqueerinthewild‘s cheerleading, handholding, willingness to let me rant at her about my plot holes, & assistance with the word ‘soldier,’ which really shouldn’t be this hard to avoid. also, big thanks to @lire-casander for her cheerleading, assistance with middle names, & general fabulousness. 

the plan is to upload chapter five by Thursday evening :) thanks for reading this crazy adventure of mine.

AO3 LINK

chapter index: 1 || 2 || 3 || 4

It’s frighteningly easy to get a meeting set up with the oldest of Alex’s brothers. Charlie responds almost instantly to the email he sends requesting a face-to-face, and surprises everyone by saying that he’s already in Roswell, and would love to see Alex the next day at 0900. His presence doesn’t bode well for the secrets they’re trying to keep; Charlie’s a sniper in the Air Force Special Operations Task Force. He’s rarely stateside, and for him to be in Roswell either signifies that he knows something, or that there’s something else going on that Alex doesn’t know. Neither option makes Alex particularly optimistic, but he can’t allow it to change anything.

Going in the next day isn’t ideal. Alex had been hoping for longer to research and develop his narrative, but there’s no stalling now. He’d been the one to request the meet -- it’ll look suspicious if he asks to postpone now, which is the last thing he needs. Charlie always had a soft spot for Alex when they were kids, but Alex knows better than to think that will matter if he gives the slightest reason for Charlie to doubt his sincerity. While Charlie may have smuggled him snacks when their father locked him in his room, and brought painkillers to the shed when Alex hid there after a beating, he’s still Jesse Manes’ son. There’s no such thing as the benefit of the doubt in that world.

And, well -- Kyle had said it best, the evening before, when they’d finally settled down to review files and put together a game plan. “Aren’t any of you Manes guys normal meatheads?” he’d demanded, thumbing through Charlie’s file with increasingly anxious fingers. “Look at this! Charles A. Manes. Air Force Silver Star Recipient three different times. Sniper. Special Operations Task Force. Best known for taking out thirteen armed terrorists in a shoot-out by himself -- this is the guy you think has a soft spot for you? Seriously? What if he’s already talked to Flint and decides to shoot you on sight?”

At the time, Alex had waved off the concern and pointed out that none of Jesse Manes’ sons could ever be average. Not if they wanted his approval. Charlie was Spec Ops, Hunter was an ace pilot, and Flint was head of Research and Development in several major projects. They were all brilliant in their fields -- but Alex had the distinct advantage of being the only one who’d given orders. The rest of them, as he’d once accused Flint, are sheep. They’re exceptional as long as there are directives in play; without them, they’ll fall like marionettes with their strings cut.

At least, that’s Alex’s hope. As he stands in the middle of the bunker he’d requisitioned from Jesse Manes all those months ago, face-to-face with a brother he hasn’t seen in close to a decade, he’s not so sure. Valenti may have had a point, after all. Charlie looks nothing like the young man Alex remembers from brief visits between deployments; where once there’d been a liveliness to his dark eyes, there’s now only a cool, calculating stare. Age seems to have wiped away all traces of similarity to their mother, and Alex feels an uncomfortable wave of deja vu. Staring Charlie down in this bunker bears way too much similarity to the day he’d played the same game with their father and come out on top.

Sandy colored hair, shorn in military style that hides the greys just beginning at the temples, posture so ramrod straight that it looks painful, and features that may as well be carved out of granite -- Charlie’s entire appearance screams ‘Jesse Manes’ son,’ and Alex can’t help but wonder if he’s made a mistake, expecting any measure of softness from this man.

Just as he’s psyching himself out, though, Charlie steps forward and slaps Alex’s back in greeting. It’s as close to real affection as any of the Manes boys get, and, paired with a cool smile, it signifies that things are going even better than Alex could have hoped for. “It’s good to see you, kid,” Charlie tells him, glancing around the underground headquarters as if he was reacquainting himself with a space he hadn’t seen in a while. “You’re looking pretty good for a guy who got on the wrong end of an IED not so long ago. I’m impressed.”

Alex can’t help but stand a little straighter as Charlie looks him over, the response as automatic and ingrained as jerking awake at the first ray of sun on his face or jumping to attention when he hears the order. He’s spent a lot of time on base acting as if he’s still got two legs -- pity isn’t something he can tolerate, and at first, there’d been no escaping it. It’s not pity that he’s worried about with Charlie, though; he just doesn’t want to give away any weaknesses. His missing leg is something that can’t be helped, nor can his brother’s knowledge of the injury, but he can damn well be sure that it’s made clear that the prosthetic doesn’t slow him down.

“Sorry I couldn’t get back Stateside when you lost the leg,” Charlie continues, still scrutinizing Alex from all sides. “I tried, but I got shipped overseas two days later. Did you get my letter?”

It’s so far from the suspicious welcome that Alex had been bracing for that he’s momentarily speechless.

“I -- uh, yeah, I did,” Alex says when he pulls himself back together, and nods jerkily. “I meant to write back, but -”

Charlie shakes his head, a bizarrely affable smile on his face. “Don’t worry about it. You had more important things to worry about.” He moves around one of the temporary tables Alex has set up in the bunker, his every step infused with the sort of deadly grace that Alex could never hope to emulate. Charlie glances at some of the carefully-selected files spread out on top of the table. He never pauses long, but the laser-focus of his gaze tells Alex that he’s cataloguing every detail for later perusal.

It’s part of the plan, for Charlie to see the work Alex has been doing, to believe he’s as dedicated to protecting the world from aliens as the rest of the men in their family, but he still has to clench his fists in the pockets of his jacket to stop from fidgeting. There’s nothing about Michael or the Evans’ twins in the contents of those pages; Alex refuses to endanger them further, even though Max and Guerin had both told him to use whatever he had to in order to get the information he needed. There are too many ways for that to backfire, though, and he refuses to risk it. There are other ways to earn his way into Project Shepherd than by throwing his people under the bus.

“So,” Charlie says, after another moment of rifling through the files. “Dad decided to read you in, huh?”

This is where it starts to get tricky, and Alex feels every muscle in his body tense. It’s an effort to maintain his nonchalant facade, but he manages it. “I had to hack into his databases first,” he tells the other man honestly. “But, yeah. Eventually.” He’s talked through his story with Kyle and Guerin at least twenty times the night before, and he’s prepared for anything Charlie might ask. Anxiety ebbs away as he slides into the well-rehearsed cover, and Alex feels himself becoming steadier, more dangerous -- more of the man who’d survived Baghdad and ten years of active duty service.

“You know Dad would never trust me voluntarily. That hasn’t changed.” It’s no use pretending that Jesse had a magic change of heart about Alex’s ‘weakness.’ No one would be fooled. So the narrative isn’t so different from the truth, at least to begin. “But since I figured out the truth, even he can’t deny how useful I can be. At the very least, I can shore up your cyber defenses, because it took me less than half an hour to break in and get all of the intel on the Project’s servers. His access password was ‘password,’ for Christ’s sake.” There’s no pride in his tone, just matter-of-fact honestly and scorn for Jesse’s computer illiteracy.

“And then I found out about Caulfield, and I wanted to see it for myself, you know? I thought Dad was crazy, but if there was proof …” Alex lets the thought trail off deliberately, knowing that sometimes less is more when it comes to this sort of story.

The mention of the off-books base makes Charlie’s expression darken, just enough that Alex notices. He leans back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest in a way that makes his muscles stand out in stark relief against his brown t-shirt, and Alex’s jaw tightens momentarily. If Charlie thinks things like overt displays of physical dominance are enough to scare him, he’s got another thing coming -- after growing up in a house with their father, Alex is pretty much desensitized to anything that Charlie could possibly try.

“And then you went to Caulfield,” he prompts expectantly, eyes narrowed shrewdly. It’s a standard interrogation tactic employed by the military: don’t give away any of the answer when the question is asked. Use prompts rather than specifics. Lets the detained person say what’s really on their mind, take the answer in the direction they want -- and usually, they’ll implicate themselves.

Alex isn’t that stupid. He blinks wide, guileless eyes, and nods slowly. “Yeah. Then I went to Caulfield.” He leaves Kyle out of the story for now. Flint knows, so it’ll come up at some point, but Alex isn’t eager to bring his friend into the tale, and it’s not really relevant at the moment, anyway. “I had to see them for myself, Charlie. I mean, aliens? It sounds like something out of a fucking Star Wars movie, not real life. I needed to see it. So I went.”

As he speaks, Alex is careful to maintain that careful air of naivete. The act balances on the knife’s edge between uselessness and innocence, and he needs to stay just on the side of innocence. If he takes it too far, Charlie will write him off as foolish and unhelpful, and that’s the last thing he wants -- but it’s important he play the awed younger brother just trying to follow in the family footsteps. That’s his ticket into the game.

Charlie nods, his expression no less guarded. “And?”

Christ, he’s not making this easy. Not that Alex had expected him to -- but it would have been nice.

“And it’s hard to deny the truth when you’re standing right in front of them,” Alex says bluntly, letting some of the incredulity and fear he’d felt in that place seep into his expression. It feels odd, to be so calculating of his every movement and facial tic around someone that’s supposed to be his family, but he doesn’t let that stop him from doing it anyway. “Dad’s right. You’re all right. There are fucking aliens invading our planet -- and I want to be part of trying to stop them.”

Silence echoes in the space between the two men, and Alex doesn’t look away from Charlie, doesn’t give him the chance to think that he might be lying. Instead, he lets that announcement sink in for a moment, then continues: “I know you’ve heard Dad saying that I’m weak for our entire lives, but I’ve served three tours on active duty, and did my time on the ground, just like the rest of you. I signed up to serve and protect my country, and I’ve done it. That’s part of who I am, now, and I can’t just ignore the alien threat. Dad may not like it, but I’m part of this family, too. Protecting people is in my DNA just as much as it is yours -- I want to be a part of Project Shepherd. I want to help.”

The lies taste like ash in his mouth, and everything integral to Alex’s being rebels against the idea of being just another Manes sheep with no free will of his own. He’s had literal nightmares about that, about what he could have been capable of if his father had been able to crush his will. But he knows what Charlie wants to hear -- it’s the same thing all of his brothers have wanted to hear for his entire life. They want him to be one of them, another nameless airman in the generational parade, want him to stop asking questions and fall in line. And, most importantly, Alex knows what Charlie will be willing to believe. He’s learned from experience that people remember their first encounters with a person more than anything else. And to Charlie, Alex is always going to be the little boy determined to follow in his big brother’s footsteps, desperate for approval and in need of protection and advice.

Charlie shifts his weight on his shiny, black boots, and looks at Alex steadily. “We’ve already got three people trying to run things here, Alex,” he says carefully, and the omission of ‘kid’ is either a sign of respect, or a signal that Charlie is trying to distance himself from Alex. Guessing which is dangerous, so Alex doesn’t try. “And even if I say yes, Dad’s not likely to be happy about it when he gets back. He’s been pretty clear about not wanting you onboard for a long time.”

He appreciates that Charlie doesn’t try to pretend that Jesse Manes gives two shits about Alex. It’s easier that way, with at least some honesty between them -- and Alex has always hated it when someone tried to tell him that his father does care about him. Fathers who love their sons don’t break their bones to show it. They don’t spend years attempting to reshape their souls with their fists, like it’s nothing more than clay on a potter’s wheel.

Alex snorts. “Dad’s never wanted me around, Charlie. That’s not news to me. But you said ‘when he gets back,’ right?” He’s walking the razor’s edge, now, and knows that if he over or under sells the act here, this is as far his mission will go. “If he’s not here, you’re running things.” It’s not a guess; Alex is no stranger to chain of command, and Charlie’s the highest ranking of the brothers by virtue of age, at the very least.

“I’ve been stateside for three days, Alex,” Charlie says with a sigh, running a hand over his shorn hair. It’s the first sign of stress that he’s shown since arrival, and it’s enough to tell Alex that he’s getting somewhere. Charlie wants the extra help, wants to have another person to depend on -- it’s a fair bet he’s got access to Alex’s personnel file, too, and knows that Alex has the skills to actually be helpful.

In other words, Alex has got an opening, and he’s going to exploit it.

“And I’ve only been in Roswell for less than twenty-four hours. Dad fucked off somewhere without any warning months ago, and Flint and Hunter have taken on most of the responsibility here. I can’t just read you in without talking to them first. It wouldn’t be right -- especially since Flint is pretty damned sure you purposefully blew up Caulfield with Kyle fucking Valenti.”

The words don’t particularly surprise Alex; of course Charlie and Flint would have been in contact in the last six months if they’ve been working together. To make matters worse, Flint likely would have contacted Jesse as soon as it happened. Alex can’t be certain, but he’d be willing to be that intel is why Jesse showed up in Roswell despite Alex’s warnings and tried to kill Kyle, around the same time Max brought Rosa back to life. So no, he’s not thrown off by the fact that Charlie knows more than he let on initially -- but it’s still irritating to have it thrown back in his face.

Alex narrows his eyes and crosses his own arms over his chest, keeping his weight perfectly centered on his legs to hide the ache that’s started in his bad knee from standing and posturing for so long. “Flint thinks I blew up a secure facility and nearly killed myself on purpose?” he asks, acid dripping from the words. “No wonder he’s been stuck in R&D for ten years. He’s clearly got no fucking common sense.”

Charlie quirks an eyebrow in an expression that Alex recognizes from looking in the mirror. “So you didn’t blow it up on purpose?”

“I didn’t blow it up at all!” Alex says, the anger in his exclamation genuine. He’s not willing to take all of those deaths on his conscience, not even in a lie. “Some security protocol went off and the whole damn base self-destructed before I could do much more than stare at an old woman through the glass door, and get some insane story about a cancer-causing alien that sent Valenti off the deep end.” He sits slowly at the computer desk and tapped out a short sequence on the keyboard. On the monitors, the security footage of Valenti Sr. being shoved into the alien’s containment unit and, presumably, contracting brain cancer. Alex watches steadily, refusing to waver now. “If I’d realized that Valenti was going to find out our father murdered his, I would’ve left him in Roswell.”

Talking about something that is still causing Kyle so much pain in such a cavalier fashion makes Alex hate himself. He wants to scream when Charlie just nods, his lips twisted in disdain, like Kyle’s reaction to realizing his father had been murdered was somehow pathetic instead of justified. Thankfully, Alex doesn’t have to work very hard to hide his reaction; both he and Charlie are looking at the screens. “My guess is that he cracked one of containment cells, trying to get at the one who gave Jim the tumor, and it sparked the self-destruct.”

Guerin hasn’t been mentioned thus far, and Alex knows Flint had no idea of his presence at Caulfield, so there’s no hesitation as Alex rewrites the truth to fit his needs. It would be stupid, if he didn’t know for a fact that Guerin’s not on any surveillance footage from that day -- Alex had been sure of that. He’d torn his way through the cyber defenses of whatever server the video had been backed-up on without any finesse and erased everything, practically daring them to trace the data trail back to him. It hadn’t been smart, but Alex hadn’t been in the right headspace to be smart, back then. Not after witnessing Michael losing his mother a moment after finding her. Not after their near-escape from a deadly explosion. Not after being shoved out of Michael’s life and losing the only sense of family he’d ever known for his best friend --

At the time, Alex had almost hoped they’d come for him.

But Guerin is safe, for now, because of that stupidity, so Alex can’t bring himself to regret it.

Charlie’s brows furrow as he digests that explanation, and Alex can see his certainty waver. In that moment, Alex goes for the throat -- figuratively, of course. “Charlie, please,” he says, closing the video on the server and spinning his chair back around to look at his brother head-on. “You and Flint and Hunter are the only family I’ve got left. And you know I can be useful. None of you have the tech skills that I do, or the inside knowledge of Roswell. I’ve been here for months. I still have roots and connections here that none of you do. I can help. All you have to do is let me. And when Dad gets back, I promise, he won’t be able to deny that I’ve done good work.”

As he speaks, Alex is eight and standing in the kitchen of the house they all grew up in, begging a twenty-year-old Charlie to stay home after their mother had finally had enough and left. Then it’s Charlie, coming back on leave and swinging a six-year-old Alex around while he laughs. Or Charlie, smirking as Alex proudly smashed a guitar over Flint’s head at twelve, or the man in uniform, boarding the plane to take him back to the Middle East with a small smile over his shoulder just for Alex, who’s fifteen and cradling a broken wrist against his chest. It’s almost easy to want Charlie to believe him, to want to truly be on his brother’s side -- because despite everything he knows about Project Shepherd and the horrible things his brothers have done, a small, childish part of Alex is always going to want their acceptance.

But as much as Alex cherishes the memories of Charlie’s kindness, he hates the feelings of helplessness and impotence they evoke more. Since enlisting, Alex has built his life on the pillars of control and logic, his own sort of power, to make up for the lack in his childhood, and stepping into this situation has cost him all that work.

But this is for Michael, for Liz and Kyle and everyone in that group who’d come to mean something to him, and for them, Alex will allow his foundations to crumble, if that’s what it takes. This is only shaking them a little -- and tonight, at least, Alex has the promise of returning home to the one person who always makes him feel safe and stable.

“I’ll talk to Flint and Hunter,” Charlie says after a long, fraught silence.

Alex can read the answer in his eyes, though -- he’s convinced the man that he can be trusted, and he’s done a good enough job that he can be sure Charlie will persuade the others one way or another. The calculating, ruthless part of his mind that Alex tries to keep locked down is pleased at the ease with which he manipulated Charlie -- the rest of him, the human parts, just feel cold.

“I can’t guarantee anything until I talk to them, and I’d be thinking of some specific ways to show them you’re worth the risk,” Charlie continues, and Alex’s stomach sinks. Proving his worth to an anti-alien task force is going to involve doing a lot of shit he doesn’t want to think about, he’s sure -- but that’s a problem for another day. He made it through today’s set, and Alex has every intention of taking the whole match. And he’ll have some time to plan, now -- if Hunter’s still in Afghanistan, as his records indicate, there’s no way Charlie will have a response for him in the next day or even two. Alex will make damn sure to take advantage of that time.

“Thanks, Charlie,” Alex says with a smile that rings false to himself, but would fool anyone who didn’t know him well -- which, ironically enough, described his brother perfectly.

“Don’t thank me yet,” the older man says with a grim twist of his lips, and for a moment, Alex wonders why he looks so unhappy. Is he really that worried about selling the idea to Flint and Hunter, who hang off of his every word? Or is this fear of their father -- reluctance to go against his will? Alex doesn’t know, but he wishes Charlie would stop looking at him with those pitying, worried eyes. It’s making it harder to keep the smile on his face.

To the younger brother’s unending surprise, Charlie pushes away from the wall he’s been leaning against and moves closer, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Take a couple of days of leave and think this over while I reach out, huh? This isn’t like the other ops you’ve been involved in. It’s not something you ever get to walk away from. Just -- remember that. Consider your options. You never wanted this life, kid, and you’ve already lost enough.” Dark eyes, so close in color to Alex’s own, sweep over his body to linger on his bad leg, and Alex shivers despite himself.

Shock jolts like electricity down Alex’s spine at the thinly-veiled warning, and he opens his mouth to ask why Charlie is suddenly so worried about his choices -- or maybe to deny that he wants anything but the mission? Alex isn’t even sure. But Charlie is already walking away by the time Alex pulls himself together enough to speak. “I’ll call when I’ve got an answer for you,” he says over his shoulder, deep voice echoing off of the cavernous walls of the bunker as he begins the ascent to the surface.

Alex stays seated in his desk chair long after Charlie disappears, staring at the blank wall in front of him. Doubt and insecurity encroaches on him, flickering like shadows in the corner of his mind, and for the first time, Alex allows himself to wonder if he’s gotten in over his head. For a long, dark hour, he lets his mind conjure one possible scenario after another, each one growing darker and darker, and all ending in the death of everyone he cares about. What if Charlie’s warning was a hint that they know his plan? What if his brothers are three steps ahead while Alex is lagging behind? What if they’re going after Guerin and the others as he sits here feeling sorry for himself? What if he loses the few parts of his soul that the war left him with?

Eventually, Alex can’t take it anymore. The walls of the bunker are closing in on him, and if he doesn’t leave this place soon, he’s not sure he’ll be able to pull himself out of the spiral Charlie’s warnings had started. It’s so stupid that he’s reacting this way -- but he’s been running on caffeine and adrenaline and sheer stubborn determination for the last thirty-six hours, and now that the immediate threat is past, everything else is crashing down on him at once. The burden he’d taken on. The responsibility he’s shouldering. The fact that to succeed in this mission, he’s going to have to send Charlie and the rest of his biological family to prison.

Usually, when he has moments like this, Alex finds himself sitting behind the bar at the Wild Pony, or in the middle of Liz’s living room, or even with Mimi DeLuca in her little apartment. Being alone had never been particularly good for Alex’s mental health, and he knows that none of them would turn him away.

But there’s only one other place he wants to be right now, and it’s not with any of them -- and for once, Alex is pretty sure that he won’t be turned away.

Drawing in a deep, determined breath, Alex stands slowly, finds his equilibrium, and points himself toward home.

[maxg-longform]

Outer Wilds

A new frontier for the interactive experience

Moments in gaming which are truly ground-breaking are rare, and they are only getting rarer. A dual axiom of diminishing technological returns achieved by the jumps between console generations and the rampant predatory monetisation of the games as a service modal have had many despairing and looking to games that denounce photorealism and market trends for inspiration , in much the same way those in the art world despaired at the first cameras. As they could no longer make art more detailed technically, meaning and artistry moved from technique to statement. Why is it not photorealistic? The question posed today is the same. You could make a game that is an accurate reflection of life – or a biased reflection of a certain kind of life (Military-industrial complex funded shooters I’m looking at you) – so why have you chosen to instead create something with a particular art style? What is the combination of your narrative and design choices trying to say? 

In the case of Far Cry 5, when particular attention is paid to the fact that the cultists are under the influence of drugs for the game’s entirety in addition to Obsidian’s claims that their new game concerning corporate exploitation of space colonies is written apolitically with empathetic and ‘good’ characters on both sides, the aim is all too often to actively stop you from drawing any meaningful conclusion at all, or at the very least to give the impression that there is nothing to draw.

What is the aim of this spiel then? In reality, you don’t need context to enjoy Outer Wilds, but only within the nexus of the modern games industry can you see why I’ve grown to love it so much. It also lets me talk about the game in more abstract terms without spoiling it – as it is very hard not to spoil it in talking about it, as knowledge is the only progression system within the game. The game itself, mechanically, is very stripped back. You have a spaceship to explore the solar system with, a spacesuit with thrusters for exploring each of the planets you can land on, and a translation device, which allows you to understand the language of an ancient alien race which inhabited the solar system many years prior. The story orients you as the first of your race to explore the stars with this new translation device. Explorers has previously visited each planet in the solar system, but contact with them has been lost, and they cannot translate the language there. Your objective, insofar as you are given one, is to find them and learn about the ancient aliens. In an age where open-world games have quest markers and some, such as Skyrim, have a spell which paints a trail on the ground in the direction of the next objective, the handhold-free nature of Outer Wilds is charming and arresting.

Whenever you discover anything important, it is stored in your ship’s log at the back of your small spaceship. In a way, it reminded me of Morrowind, one of Skyrim’s forebears, with the journal giving hints as to where you ought to look, but no real help beyond collating what you already know so that you can easily reference it in future. You are free to explore any of the planets at any point, and follow any lines of inquiry you see fit. In a lesser game, this would lead to a disjointed narrative experienced so out of order that it would give Tarantino a headache. However, this leads me into talking about the level design. I could not laud any higher the way in which the planets are designed. Every planet has a dynamic twist to it you need to learn in order to be able to understand how to access information on it and each planet has areas that require you to piece together learnings from around the solar system in order to access. In every sense, the game rewards exploration and understanding as a means of progress, rather than giving you new tools and telling you how to use them. This is evident in each of the planet designs – which I will briefly explain in the order I visited them (there is no ‘proper’ order).

 Giant’s Deep 

 A swirling, green water planet with four islands, which are continually tossed around by an endless stream of cyclones which make the planet hard to navigate. The pole is protected by a ferociously large cyclone and a strong current prevents underwater exploration of a porous, but fiercely electromagnetic core. The sheer size and oppressive atmosphere is compounded by the strong gravity making it almost impossible to jump, incentivising careful exploration.

 Brittle Hollow

A hollow planet built around a black hole and beset by fiery meteors from its volcanic moon. With an inhospitable surface, much of the challenge comes from discovering how others adapted to these conditions previously, and how to use the gravity of the black hole to navigate a planet that slowly falls apart and disintegrates as the game goes on due to the constant meteor bombardment.

 The Wanderer

A frozen comet with an elliptical orbit that takes it within a lethal range of the sun, and covered in mysterious ‘ghost matter.’

 The Hourglass Twins

Two planets orbiting each other as they orbit the sun. One starts as a bare rock with many caves to explore; the other as a perfectly round desert planet, with absolutely zero to explore. Then, a large column of sand starts flowing through space from the desert planet ‘Ash Twin’ to the bare one, ‘Ember Twin.’ This means areas of each planet are only accessible at certain times, and you need to beware of the sand level when exploring caves.

 Dark Bramble

A planet consisting purely of thorny branches wrapped around a core that pulses with white light. Enter the hole, and caverns that bend the laws of space and time fill massive areas within. A Tardis of horrors, this planet scared me like no jump scares could. A truly eerie vibe – a memorable and haunting level unlike anything I’d ever played before.

 While every one of these planets is in its own way unique and memorable, as are the moments when you discover how to access parts of them you couldn’t before – the best example of the game’s genius comes in the form of a location known as the Quantum moon. Before you go to this location, there are three pieces of key knowledge you need. Without them, you shouldn’t even be able to land on it. Nevertheless, I accidentally managed to land on it early in the game. However, because I hadn’t yet solved how to get into the tower of Quantum knowledge on Brittle Hollow, I didn’t understand how to access where I wanted to go. The moon has a secretive ‘Sixth Location’ you wish to explore, but every time I tried to leave the control room, the way was blocked by rocks until the moon moved back to one of the five locations in our solar system. It wasn’t until a few hours later, when I was following a different lead on another planet that I figured out how to avoid the rocks, and also where I needed to go once I had made it out.

The game is filled with eureka moments, and the lack of handholding makes you feel like you have genuinely accomplished something when you solve a puzzle. For example, I discovered a much quicker shortcut to a key area called the Black Hole Forge. The game doesn’t penalise you for this; much of the beauty of the game comes in the journey. Translating the alien scriptures in each area contains hints as to the overarching story – which I won’t in any way spoil, except that it is moving, inspiring and heart-breaking in equal measure – but also contains deeply personal stories about the people who made these structures, these homes, these technologies. The tension among the clan as they tried debated their plans to achieve what they came to our solar system for. The romance and feeling amongst those who worked on their projects. The jubilation of breakthroughs and the let-downs of defeat. The struggle for life and the joys of overcoming the hostile worlds of the system. The heart-wrenching story of the Quantum moon. All pieced together in bitesize chunks, out of sequence, displaced. Abstractions anthropomorphised because we don’t know enough about them to truly contextualise them. You never even find out what these aliens looked like. But you discover their hopes, their aims, their dreams and their death – as you, the traveller from an antique land, stare at the vast and trunkless legs of stone.

Rather purposefully, I have been abstract in my descriptions and generalised the experience. In a game where knowledge is the means of progression, and real detail would be a spoiler, and its best to come into this game blind. So, I’ve chosen to focus on the feeling the game instils in you. It has a charming art direction, understated yet distinctive music that complements every area perfectly and a real warmth and passion that oozes from every pixel. In a world where every new innovation is immediately copied and run into the ground by every game in the same genre – the camp clearing from Far Cry 3 is now a chore in every vaguely open world game- or climbing the conveniently placed towers to gain map vision a la Assassin’s Creed – or that very same game series doing its very best Witcher 3 impression in Origins and Odyssey – there is an incorruptible heart to Outer Wilds. There will be games inspired by it, no doubt, but there won’t be other games that weaponise knowledge in quite the same way, or use it to explore the same themes. It’s a game about futility, about facing death but choosing to explore and challenge yourself and improve and, most importantly, to enjoy the little things and cherish the detail, to find pieces of light in that endless, futile dark.  

Games like this have always been few and far between, and are becoming even rarer now. That’s why it’s essential we cherish games like Outer Wilds. There is no formula for creating a masterpiece but when a game really connects with you, you know it, you feel it. My list of favourite games I’d consider a masterpiece is quite incongruent – SSX 3, Tony Hawk’s Underground, Assassins Creed 2, Halo 4 to pick out a few of the rather different ones –  but Outer Wilds has topped all of them, and I only spent around 12 hours with it. It strips gaming back to its essentials, while bringing new ideas to the table and presenting them in charming and arresting ways. You will never have another 12 hours like it. Its heart, soul and message are inimitable, and I sincerely urge you to open up to it and give it a try.

10/10

Played on Xbox - the game is available through Xbox Game Pass

@CoreLineage on twitter

[cyb-by-lang]

Shell Game (14/?)

Kei and friends do some field work.

While wearing her ANBU outfit, Kei took the train to Hosu on Tuesday night. Not openly—once again, the Transformation jutsu was earning its keep—but she disappeared into back alleys and dark corners as soon as she could get away from the crowds. Skittering up brick or concrete walls like some kind of malformed frog honestly felt like a return to form. Almost like slipping on an old, well-loved sweater, though the armored uniform wasn’t acquainted with sleeves as such.

Still, standing on a roof, in the middle of a real city with real skyscrapers, kind of made her feel like Batman. Hosu was no art deco nightmare, but Kei hardly needed a gargoyle to dangle from. She had a whole skyline and plenty of air conditioning units.

The air split open on her lonely rooftop, and two similarly-uniformed shapes tumbled out in front of Kei.

It was kind of funny how much “tech” was being sneaked back into Konoha through Obito’s constant prowling. In much the same way as a tourist buying up crap for resale didn’t make waves, Obito’s half of the discretionary budget was mainly materials nobody in Tokyo cared much about. His penchant for disguises and vocal mimicry meant he could go anywhere, be anyone, and buy his own weight in kevlar.

Kei already saw the first results of that exploration when she took a look at Kakashi’s ANBU uniform. His armguards were different from Obito’s or Kei’s, even leaving aside how Kei had taken her personal pair from home. Lighter, somehow. Tight black material flattened his white hair to his head, leaving him nearly anonymous. His light gray vest settled differently against his body, betraying anti-stab armor under the cloth. Interlocking plates, apparently.

And no more open-toed shoes.

Konoha learned fast.

“Crane, Wolf, welcome to Hosu,” Kei said, while her teammates sorted themselves out.

“It stinks of smoke,” Kakashi commented almost immediately, and Kei didn’t blame him. City air was just weird after growing up in Konoha. Even the largest cities in the Land of Fire didn’t have fossil fuel dependency anything like this. His wolf mask and the skintight one underneath didn’t filter that much.

Obito patted his shoulder before quickly being brushed off. “You get used to it.”

Kakashi grunted, then his mask angled toward Kei. His left eye-slit gleamed red. “Any patrol rules, Turtle?”

“Avoid everyone.” Kei adjusted her Isobu-patterned mask for a second, just to fidget, then added, “Treat it like infiltrating Suna. The second an alarm goes up, ditch.”

“Easy enough,” Obito remarked, and Kei gave him a sharp look he ignored. The right eye-hole on his mask was also faintly glowing.

“Take the lead,” Kakashi prompted, and the three of them made their way through Hosu’s backstreets.

Though Kei hadn’t really explored this chunk of Tokyo with any intent last time, she’d been reading newspapers and checking maps in her spare time. She knew where major landmarks were, broadly speaking, and heading back to the apartment after this patrol exercise wouldn’t be difficult. If Hosu was known for anything, at the moment, it was a minor rise in violent crime.

Heroes were dying and that had everyone worried.

Kei wasn’t emotionally invested in the hero scene the way the locals were. Whenever caught up in a dangerous situation, Kei tended to rely on her own power first and only look to fellow shinobi after everything progressed past the point of no return. The idea that she could be saved by a hero, paid by the Japanese government to do good, was still a foreign one. Her experience at the USJ did show her the value of heroes as symbols of hope, at least once Obito and other people filled her in on how everyone reacted to All Might popping into the building. However, her concern about the Hero Killer had more to do with the fact that he was a serial killer than anything to do with who he was targeting.

Still, the principal had asked for a quick check-in, and here Kei was. Poking Hosu with reinforcements and a stick to see if the hornets were awake.

And we cannot even justify killing a multiple-murderer if he becomes too much of a threat to contain.

Kei slid down the outside wall of a nightclub, feeling heavy bass rumble up through her gloved fingertips. Law enforcement doesn’t work the same way here.

Of course it does not. Humans in this world depend so heavily on their technology and their heroes that they have made their world safe. Isobu growled in frustration, tails lashing around in the mindscape.

We’ve had this talk before, Isobu. Besides, from what the survivors have said? He’s not exactly in a jinchūriki’s weight class.

Barely anyone ever is.

Kei let him have the last word. Instead, she held a hand up as soon as she heard a sound around the corner of a roof, feeling her teammates freeze before making any extra noise. Kei crept closer to the edge, channeling chakra carefully toward her ears and concentrating on what she was hearing.

Across from her, Kakashi made several hand signals. Fire. Man. He paused for a second to listen to the same footsteps Kei heard, then added, Big.

Obito signed a question and Kakashi shook his head. Probably asking how big, but the angle wasn’t the best and Kei didn’t like splitting her attention.

“Nothing, again. Heading back now.”

Heroes patrolled, too. Just their bad luck that, when Kei poked her head up just before the man walked of easy view, she recognized Endeavor’s hulking frame. Of all the people who “Big, uses fire, and is a man” fit, the Number Two of all Japan’s heroes was a rather unfortunate find. His Quirk was called Hellfire, and Kei had seen footage of him channeling so much heat through his limbs that he could melt handholds into nominally-solid concrete.

Kei signalled a retreat. Her boys followed her for almost ten blocks before she stopped on a somewhat taller rooftop, crowded with ventilation units, ducts, and antennae.

“Endeavor’s not stationed here normally,” Kei said quietly, retrieving her phone from a pocket. She fiddled with it until she brought up Endeavor’s profile on some official site or other. Probably his. Then she handed her phone to Kakashi. “Stain really must be causing a panic.”

Obito hung back, Sharingan bright behind his mask as he kept alert, and Kakashi settled next to Kei’s left side.

“If a man with his face on fire wants to catch a killer,” Kakashi said after scanning the somewhat-dim screen, “he’s welcome to him. But for him to be here? Those unsuccessful hunts must really be burning him up inside.”

Obito muttered something uncharitable about puns.

Kei shoved Kakashi’s shoulder playfully and snatched her phone back. “We’ll poke around a little longer.”

Truthfully, the patrol didn’t turn up much despite GPS help and rumor-chasing. While Kakashi was primed to detect blood, city scents were overwhelming on a good day. The trio did find an old bloodstain outlined by police tape and blocked by a patrol car, but it appeared the Hero Killer didn’t actually hunt every night. He was an asshole, a murderer, and probably equipped with a dangerous Quirk if he’d managed to overpower so many pro heroes already. But he wasn’t, apparently, all that easy to find.

Besides, cigarette smoke got really bad around crime scenes. Kakashi had signed a No when asked if he could detect anything past that kind of interference. If he’d been a little less disciplined, Kei imagined he might’ve had more to say. Most of it rude.

“One more pass,” Kei said, and they hopped to it.

Between Kei’s phone and Obito’s, as well as Obito’s street-level knowledge of some of the familiar heroes who operated in the area, they managed to make a game out of spotting familiar faces. Fin-helmeted Manual, the Normal Hero, patrolled more during the daytime and seemed to be about in the same weight class as the bank robber from the weekend. Kei managed to find another hero, apparently called Native, whose costume and lack of any notable Quirk just made all three of them scratch their heads.

Well, Obito and Kei did. Kakashi didn’t know or care enough.

Most of the heroes who operated in Hosu, including famous Team Idaten—run by Ingenium and his sidekicks—seemed to be pretty secure in their positions. Maybe that was why Stain kept picking them off, because she couldn’t quite see someone higher on the hero lists getting axed by someone whose modus operandi relied heavily on ambushes. A lot of the higher-ranking heroes were there for power and skill, not just popularity.

“You know, I’m not really seeing anyone who could, like, go toe to toe with us.” Obito commented after they’d passed by a hero patrol. Moving across the city three stories up from ground level had a way of keeping them out of trouble. For now. “Maybe that Endeavor guy. But all of their Quirks are public. Does no one ever do thought exercises about that kind of thing? I mean, you fought Sensei and if you’d been anybody else he’d’ve flattened you inside of four seconds.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Kei replied. The fact that she, better than almost anyone bar Kushina or Jiraiya, knew all of Namikaze Minato’s jutsu and his preferred fighting styles meant she’d been probably in a unique position during their spar. The idea of anybody else getting that close was a disturbing one.

There was kind of a reason it was illegal to teach non-shinobi the majority of their techniques. Shinobi from other villages, too.

Maybe that lopsided information was also why underground heroes were a thing.

After a few more rooftops, Kakashi remarked, “Maybe that’s why the firebug is here.”

Obito cartwheeled instead of landing normally as they crossed another roof. “You think?”

“Probably. But he’s having the same trouble we are.” As all three of them slowed to a stop on top of what appeared to be a four-story apartment building, Kakashi went on, “I’m willing to assume that this person we’re looking for is notorious. Distinctive to the point of having a fanclub, apparently. But I don’t think that we’re the first ones with detection abilities who’ve been called in to try and find him. He might genuinely not be here at the moment.”

Kei glanced across the way, toward the nearest train station. She scratched under the edge of her mask, recalling the discussion she’d had with Hayate about technology. Mass transit was a curse sometimes. “You’re probably right. And if he took a train, he could be anywhere by now.”

“There’s probably a way to track him with local methods, but those aren’t workable from our positions.” Kakashi tilted his head back to check the angle of the moon, or perhaps just out of curiosity. Then, “This patrol is effectively over.”

A disappointing result for Team Minato’s first reunion patrol, but there it was.

“I wish we had other agents to hand this off to,” Obito complained, as they changed into more civilian-friendly clothes inside Kamui. The pocket dimension’s obsession with white, squared-off blocks and bizarre lighting meant finding their clothing stashes was a cinch even without Obito’s help. “It feels like we’re leaving a job half-finished.”

“That’s what heroes are for,” Kei told him. Then her head finally popped out of her sweater collar and she started fussing with the neckline and sleeves. Really, throwing on street clothes over her uniform was a bit lazy, but there wasn’t anyone around to criticise her fashion choices. “And a police department. Though I don’t know how much headway they’re gonna make.”

“Not our jurisdiction.” Kakashi reappeared from behind a distant pillar, sporting a cheap medical mask with ear loops. His black turtleneck and jeans were like Tokyo versions of his jōnin uniform. Perhaps not wanting to match Obito, he’d just styled his unruly hair down over his left eye and omitted the eyepatch. When he noticed the other two staring at him, he said, “I’m not due back for another eighteen hours.”

“Oh, oh!” Obito bounced over to his teammates, grinning. “Kakashi, this place has so much weird stuff. It’s great!”

Kakashi blinked slowly at him. There was a slight edge of dawning dread in what Kei could see of his expression. His chakra flickered slightly. Then he managed to say in an even voice, “Such as?”

Obito and Kei grinned at each other. Kakashi was the newbie here.

Kei said, “Well, I know you like the Icha-Icha series, but there are like a million more options here. And there’s about five thousand types of manga. We need to hit up a bookstore, now.”

“Akihabara?” Obito suggested, his Sharingan shifting to its Mangekyō form. He’d been around Tokyo a few times by now, since he didn’t need to actually attend school.

Kei gave him a Gai-style thumbs-up. “Definitely! It’s not past curfew yet.”

“This place has a curfew,” Kakashi repeated incredulously.

“Just transform into Raidō or something if it ends up being a problem,” Kei suggested as Obito held out a hand, swirling vortex in the middle of his palm. “Anybody older than eighteenish. Twenty, maybe?”

Kakashi waited until Obito had neatly deposited them in an abandoned side-street to answer, “I think I’m fine for now.”

“Good!” Kei ushered them out into the street. “Now, let’s go find the bookstore. There has to be one still open.”

In the end, Kakashi got a new three-part romance series from a writer who obviously published under a pseudonym and a pair of truly terrible joke books. Obito bought a tourist’s guide to Tokyo and a multipack of study aids (sticky notes, highlighters, and so on), just before spotting a novel about Yoshitsune and snatching it up, too.

Kei didn’t buy anything, but she did have both of them stay overnight.

While they were sleeping, Kakashi somehow stole the comforter he’d been sharing with Obito, Obito cuddled up to Kakashi like he was some kind of pillow, and Kei woke up with her head propped up on Kakashi’s side and a crick in her neck. And none of them got up before Kei’s alarm clock.

Some things never changed.

[marietraverse-blog]

Personal Narrative

Marie Traverse

English Comp 1

Prof. Edward McCulloch

20 September 2018

Trees, Terror, Guilt, Adventure

Hands sweating, sticky sap creating an uncomfortable numb feeling in my palms, I contemplated whether this would be my ultimate demise, being too ambitious. Unsure whether I was glad no one was around, I looked down at my destination and remembered how soon before I had foolishly made my current situation a “destination” which needed to be sought after. Suddenly my contemplation was distracted by panicked yelling.

“CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT!” was exclaimed so loudly I almost fell, which would negate the need for the fire department at all. FInally in my sight, my mother seemed to be skipping from my grandmother’s front door, she has a bad leg so “running” is not an accurate term for the way she was moving towards my position, not her usual slow walk, but a panicked gallop almost.

“I’m fine Mom, we don’t need anyone!” I yelled nervously, not wanting my thirst for adventure to cause any inconvenience. I was told time and time again not to climb the tree, “it’s too tall, you’ll get hurt, you’ll get stuck,” they said.

“Pish posh,” I said to that one day. “Seven is plenty old enough to climb trees, I can handle it!” I thought. It did not help that my brother, three years older than me teased me all the time about being tall enough to climb to the first branch, as I was not for, in my mind, a very long time. Shortly after my seventh birthday, feeling like an older kid for the first time, I realized I had grown tall enough to reach the first branch, which would allow me to easily climb to the highest peak of this ancient pine tree. The tree, similar to any other pine tree, stood quite tall compared to short, little me. The bark peeling back at some points revealed the sweet, sticky sap which wafted into my nostrils with each gust of the cool, brisk, autumn wind, making it that much more inviting. Considering no one was around and I really believed in myself, I figured I would climb up and back down with no problem. Then I would quietly and sneakily find my older brother and brag to him that I could finally climb the tree on my own.

The problem came when I arrived at the top. What I had not anticipated, was the climb down being so incredibly intimidating. Going up was easy, like climbing a ladder, each branch conveniently placed right above the next. But going down looked dangerous, branches were swaying in the wind, creaking and cracking with every gust. For some reason the swaying looked lovely from the bottom, like standing at the top of a mountain peak, able to see the whole world with the wind cinematically gusting through my long, brown hair. Now it seemed as if the slightest wrong move with my feet or hands, or a slip caused by shaky, sweaty hands, could send me tumbling down to the bottom, like a barrel plummeting down Niagra Falls. For the first time in my young mind, I had put myself into a dangerous situation even after I was warned not to climb the tree.

The longer I stood at the top the more I could feel the apprehension to make my way down increasing. It seemed like hours but was mere minutes before my mom came trodding down the driveway screaming for my grandma to call the Fire Department. Obviously overreacting, my grandma came out to see what the commotion was about. My grandmother, having raised a daughter and three sons, was slightly annoyed but didn’t panic and, lucky for me, the fire department was not called. Seeing my grandma come out of the house was all the motivation I needed to begin the terrifying descent.

I could not recall a time my hands shook so violently and involuntarily. The terror and guilt seemed to manifest itself right in my core, behind my stomach, directly into my soul, maybe. It was perhaps the first time I had felt such a strong feeling which I was not familiar with and was unsure how to deal with it. Being an overly emotional, confused, seven year old at the top of a fifty foot pine tree, it was probably not a great time to discover these new emotions and thoughts. With sensational lucidity, I recall advising myself to stop thinking and just start climbing.

The first branch was the worst as towards the top, the branches thinned, and as I stepped down, the branch nearly collapsed under my weight. Luckily I was grasping a thick handhold above me and was able to swing my legs to a different, more sturdy branch. At this point my mom was still screaming wildly, protesting my every move, and my brother was inside watching television, not even slightly interested in the feat I had put myself through to impress him. My grandmother, perhaps the only sane and rational party at the time, yelled that she would search for a ladder as my mom screamed and I continued shakily down the tree. My body was covered in sap and ticks, not really a concern in my mind, but my hair kept sticking to my face. Sap and sweat create an odd sensation that is both unforgettable and unforgiving; it took days to get all the sap off of me.

“Nick’s on his way with a ladder,” my small, red-headed, Polish grandma calmly walked over to my mother, and the tree, and I was able to see the disappointment on her face with startling clarity.

“Oh thank goodness,” my mom was finally able to take a breath and stop screaming obscenities. A sense of dread washed over me when I heard what was happening. Nearly halfway down the tree at this point, I screamed,

“NO TELL HIM TO GO BACK!” The last thing I wanted was to ruin someone else’s day for my dumb decision. However it was already too late. Just as I had reached the bottom branch and all I had to do was hop down about four feet, my uncle pulled up in his white pickup truck with his tall, metal, house painting ladder in the back. More guilt and terror washed over me with an unexplainable intensity with the thought of making my uncle leave in the middle of his job, only to find I had already made it down.

“Guess I won’t be needing that,” my Uncle Nick chuckled, pointing to the ladder as he walked over and evaluated the situation, “Your grandmother made it sound like you were at the top of a Redwood!” he said to me. Glad he wasn’t angry, I smiled and cheekily said,

“Yeah not yet!” as my uncle easily lifted me from the tree onto the ground.

“Rescue mission complete! Now I’ve gotta get back to work!” After a brief laugh and high-five, just as quickly as he had arrived, my uncle was off, back to finish a normal day.

Being only seven, this was probably my first experience of imminent danger and guilt. This fact was made worse with the knowledge that I had put myself here, this was my fault, I caused panic and inconvenience. I felt bad. Before this, I was a relatively safe child who did what I was told, did not do was I was told not to do, and watched my older brother do the complete opposite. He would do what he was told not to do and made fun of me for being boring and not adventurous. Finally a chance to prove myself courageous, I climbed the tree and ultimately screwed myself over and scared myself away from adventure for a few more years, until I was left completely unsupervised, with no chance of the fire department being called.

Adventure is something people crave from the time they are toddlers and everything around them is new and exciting, to adults who desire to experience something out of the ordinary. To this day, I love hiking in the woods and finding trees to climb, the higher the better. Nothing is more invigorating to me than standing at the top of a mountain peak or balancing on a tree stump leaning over a waterfall. Humans are naturally curious about the unknown or unseen world around them. As a seven-year-old I could not imagine what the world looked like from that little squirrel’s point of view at the top of the tree so I decided to see for myself. I believe curiosity of the unknown is what pushes people to discover their potential and live the best life possible. I know I will never stop climbing trees and I will never turn down an adventure because I will never stop being curious about the world around me.

[eremikadefensesquad]

Broken Down World - Chapter 16: Recognition

After losing his mother to a ghoul, Eren swore to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a top-ranking CCG agent. Unbeknownst to him, his girlfriend of five years is a ghoul – a species he vowed to exterminate. That is, until Eren is forced to see her world from a new point of view.

Broken Down World is an ongoing SNK/AOT crossover with Tokyo Ghoul, with Eremika as the main ship, and four other side ships, written in a way as to be completely comprehensible to someone with no knowledge whatsoever of Tokyo Ghoul.

Pairings: Eremika, Aruani, Levihan, Springles, future Yumikuri,

Words: 6,728

Rating: M for violence and language

Read it on Tumblr: Previous chapter Next chapter

FF.net AO3

In the last chapter: Headed for Trost, Eren, Armin and Mikasa learn the hard way that Eren’s diet has begun to change, and their plans to locate Krista and Ymir is interrupted when they are attacked by an incredibly territorial ghoul by the name of Annie.

Jean had no idea how long he'd been flying over the various cities and towns, but the events leading up to the strange position he was now in were still very fresh in his mind. The last thing Jean had expected coming to work the next morning was to immediately be called to an audience with Shinganshina's Division Commander. He had known that he had royally fucked up by letting Ackerman escape again the night before, but he certainly didn't expect that to be bad enough to warrant Kenny himself wanting to personally chew him out over it. If anything, it was really Armin's fault more than anyone's, but he was about as well off as she was at this point, considering that he had not only tried to hide Mikasa, but then fled with her. In a way, Jean had expected Armin to be a little more levelheaded about the situation than Eren had been, but his faith had apparently been misplaced and he was also manipulated by the damn ghoul.

The room Jean was summoned to was unassuming enough; just a small normally unoccupied office that Kenny worked from on the very rare occasion he paid Shinganshina a visit. However, when Jean walked past the door, there was one other figure he definitely did not recognize: a woman that looked a few years older than him, with short ash blonde hair, silver eyes and wire-framed glasses. She was dressed in a suit, identical to what most Ghoul Investigators wore. Her current expression took the form of a somewhat blank scowl as she leaned against one of the walls, arms folded across her chest.

"Kirstein?" Kenny grunted from the desk the second that Jean closed the door behind him. When Jean fully looked at him, he noticed that the commander was sitting on his desk rather that on a chair.

He nodded. "Yes, sir."

"I'll get right to this, then." he replied. "I'm sure you have questions, and I'm a busy man." He stood up and approached the younger Investigator. "I have a somewhat special job for you."

Jean's face betrayed his confusion. A job had certainly not been what he had been expecting when he had learned that he was to have a private meeting with Kenny, especially not after last night.

"You look like a deer caught in a headlight," Kenny snorted. "If you don't think you're worth my time, I  can always find someone a bit more confident in their abilities."

Jean quickly shook his head. "It's not that. I just wasn't expecting th-"

"Find a way to compose yourself. I don't have time to fuck around with someone who's pissing his pants before I even tell him what the hell I want." Jean remained silent, biting his tongue on the offended reply he almost gave the superior officer. Kenny looked toward the woman in the back of the room. "This is Rico. Rico Brzenska. She's a special-class Investigator from HQ and I've brought her here personally to deal with what has become a very urgent matter. You're going to assist her."

Jean just nodded, not daring to ask any of the questions buzzing around in his head. "Of course."

"Everything about this task is need-to-know, Kirstein, and normally we would never put someone as inexperienced as you are on a case like this, but there are...circumstances that make this a bit different." Kenny leaned onto his desk again. "We have two targets, both of who I know for a fact that you are familiar with. You're also aware that Mikasa Ackerman was among the ghouls who escaped from Karanes yesterday?"

Jean nodded, fairly certain he now knew exactly where the conversation was going. "You're sending us after her?" In a way, it didn't surprise him - normally, if a ghoul left a city's jurisdiction they didn't get involved, but Mikasa had proven herself to be an incredibly dangerous ghoul.

"Not just her. You're also being expected to deal with your former partner, Eren Jaeger. He's on the run with her."

Jean's brow furrowed. "Eren's alive? I thought Mikasa killed him."

"Don't ask too many questions," Rico muttered from the back of the room. "For your own sake, you want to go through this knowing as little as possible. I know all that we need to know about the assignment. You are only coming along to assist with dealing with Jaeger, since you know how he fights better than anyone else. Everything else is the business of people ranked far higher than you are."

Kenny stood up again, a smirk on his face. "That's about it. Rico can clearly take care of the rest of this."

And that's how he had ended up in a helicopter for hours with a new partner he only barely knew, on a mission he knew almost nothing about, flying to a city that he'd never visited before, to track down a former friend of his that the CCG had told everyone had died. Rico hardly spoke, and trying to get even the tiniest pieces of information from the stoic, cold woman was like beating a brick wall with a sponge. He had actually expressed that frustration at one point, and her response was to glance at him for but a second and say "If I told you that, I'd have to kill you" in one of the most sarcastic tones he'd ever heard. The only definitive answer Jean could get from her was that they were headed to the city of Trost, as they apparently had a method of tracking the two of them, but she wouldn't say what that was, exactly.

God, if he had known what he was getting himself into, he would have just stayed home today.

Jean bit back a sigh for what felt like the hundredth time. Eren would almost certainly be with Mikasa. Jean had no idea how the hell he was alive, but even with his lack of knowledge, it didn't take much more than basic common sense for him to come to the conclusion that Eren had played a part in Mikasa's escape. His behavior over the last few weeks had been indication enough, so perhaps it wasn't quite so surprising that the higher-ups had tried to cover it up. It really wouldn't look very good on them if word of a Ghoul Investigator turning on his own force to save a dangerous ghoul became general knowledge.

Just dealing with Mikasa on her own would be enough of a challenge, but having Eren there as well would just make things ten times more complicated. Jean knew that if it came down to it, killing Mikasa wasn't out of his comfort zone - she had hurt enough of his friends and comrades for him to understand that it had to be done, as unpleasant as it might be. But Eren? He wasn't so sure. By openly siding with a ghoul, Eren had sealed his own fate. There was no place in their law to protect humans who knowingly harbored ghouls, and Eren had done much, much worse than merely harboring one. He'd be sentenced to death right along with her and Armin when they were found.

The impending fight with Eren wasn't even the most pressing of the thoughts weighing on his mind, however, because he knew for a fact that he'd have to get through Mikasa well before he came anywhere near Eren. Jean would be lying to himself if he said he wasn't apprehensive about engaging her - she had proven how deadly she was far too many times. However, he apparently had a secret weapon, if what Grisha had given him proved as effective as the older man had claimed it would be. Jean's light brown eyes slowly rested on the two briefcases sitting on the floor at his feet. One, he recognized. The other quinque he'd never touched, and the form it would take was a complete mystery to him.

"I would have very willingly went after her myself." Grisha's face had contorted into a somewhat bitter glare at those words. He had stopped Jean only a few minutes before he and Rico were to set out on their case, after catching word of the assignment. "Unfortunately, I'm needed here, until our agents have recovered a bit from her massacre." He then shook his head. "I have no idea what Eren was thinking, just taking off with her, but I have a solution that will make combating Mikasa a lot easier." He held a quinque out toward Jean. "If you find yourself struggling against her with your own weapon, I can promise you that this one will render her helpless within seconds."

"Hey, Kirstien," Rico's words snapped Jean to the present, and he quickly looked up from the unfamiliar weapon. Her eyes then turned toward a handhold GPS that she'd been watching on and off for the hours they'd be in the helicopter. "It looks like they haven't moved for about an hour. It seems they might have found a place to settle down for the night." She looked up from the GPS again, to meet Jean's face. Her expression was as unreadable as ever, though not quite as cold as it had been when he was actively probing her for information. "We'll be landing soon, so I suppose that'll be a good place to start looking."

In the end, Jean decided to take the quinque Grisha gave him.

Shortly after landing, the two of them were greeted by another Ghoul Investigator by the name of Dot Pixis - a considerably older man that was completely bald and sported a bush mustache. He was the highest-ranking Ghoul Investigator in Trost that was currently on duty, so the two of them had to meet up with him before they began any digging around in the unfamiliar city.

"So Kenny sent you, eh?" he asked, leading them both down a hallway, his hands folded behind his back.

"Yes," Rico answered, "and it's confi—"

Pixis cut her off with a wave of his hand. "Oh, yes, I'm sure. Good old Kenny never tells anyone anything. I'm sure your mission is incredibly important, and I have no place to be asking. I'm just an old veteran that has been doing this since you were both in diapers. But what do I know?"

Despite his words, the old man cracked a smile at the two of them before allowing them into an office. "In any regard," he continued, "I'd be happy to provide the two of you with any assistance you may require." He sat down in a chair by a computer, and Jean and Rico mirrored his actions, sitting opposite him. As soon as he was seated, Pixis reached down to his waist to reveal a flask that was filled with something that he probably shouldn't have been drinking while on active duty. His eyes rested on the two younger Investigators, prompting them to speak.

"We're looking for three targets," Rico started. "A female ghoul and two humans who were formerly employed by the CCG in Shinganshina." She reached into a bag she had brought with her to reveal a folder. "The ghoul goes by the name Mikasa Ackerman, alias is the Fox Ghoul." She passed him the folder, which Jean then realized was Mikasa's case file."

"Ahh, yes," Pixis hummed as he looked over the documents in the folder. "I heard about the Fox Ghoul. Information about that one spread to numerous cities around Shinganshina. She's still giving you quite a run for your money, eh?"

"She's responsible for the deaths of nine Investigators in Shinganshina," Jean added. "We did have her detained for a time, but..." His voice trailed off as irritation toward Eren bubbled up in his chest once more.

"She escaped Karanes?" For the first time, the older man looked curious about what they were telling him.

"Unfortunately," Rico replied. "It was with assistance from an entry-level Investigator named Eren Jaeger and the head of the city's research wing, Armin Arlert. They are both most likely still traveling with her."

"It's important we find all three of them," Jean almost sighed. "Eren has a thing for her - they were one step off of being engaged before her identity was discovered. And Armin? To put it simply, the man's a damn genius. Armin's just as dangerous as Mikasa is, and Eren is super defensive toward her."

Pixis chuckled. "It sounds like you two have your work cut out for you." He took another drink. "And you think they're  here in Trost?"

Rico nodded. "We've actually tracked them here." She passed him her GPS.

When the older man looked at the address on the device, he smiled every so slightly. "Huh," he grunted, "that's fairly interesting."

"What is?" Jean asked.

"It seems your target is camping out at the home of someone we've long suspected of being a ghoul. Her name is Annie Leonhardt. We've been watching her for several months, and she has exhibited enough behaviors in line with that of a predatory ghoul that she's a person of interest, but we haven't had anything concrete enough to make a move against again her." He pulled up a file on the computer in front of him, showing a picture of a blonde woman in her early twenties with piecing blue eyes. "We requested medical records and blood tests, and they came back clean. We've searched her home, but found nothing substantial enough to be sure. I'm sure you two have experienced cases like that." The man chuckled again. "You know they're a ghoul, but we're not allowed to go around killing anyone without being sure, and they know how to fake documents and keep their home clean as a whistle. She's a crafty one, but I suppose that ends tonight. If you get an opportunity, bring her in. If we find she's not a ghoul by some miracle, we'll kill her for harboring your targets. I'm not getting myself involved with that bunch. I may be old, but I don't have a death wish just yet."

"You're out of your damn mind if you think I'm going out of my way to find food for that ghoul," Mikasa bristled in indignation, meeting the irritated glare Armin was giving her. "And you can give me that look all you want, Armin, but I've just about reached my limit with her." Mikasa's gaze flashed to the other room, where Annie was literally sulking on the couch, still bleeding through the towels Armin had wrapped around her torso. Her arms were folded cross her chest and she was glaring pointedly at a television playing some animated program.

"You know she's never going to heal properly if she doesn't eat something." Armin returned her harsh stare, refusing to step down.

"That's really not my problem," Mikasa snapped back. "It's not your problem either, for that matter. I didn't help escort her here to play nurse, I did it because we would have all been killed if someone didn't get you moving."

"For someone who claims to not be a killer, you seemed pretty eager to leave one of your bleeding in an alley to die." Armin's voice was flat.

"She impaled me, Armin. She literally ran a kagune the length of her arm through my gut." Her eyebrow arched. "And if I hadn't torn a piece of Eren's flesh off his shoulder to heal my own injury, she would have killed you and left me there to die." Her voice grew an edge to it. "I do prefer not to kill, but there's a limit to the mercy I can show ghouls like her."

"Oi," Eren suddenly spoke up, glaring toward Annie from where he was sitting at the kitchen table, "don't you have anything you can eat around here?"

"It's standing right in front of you," came the clipped response, and Eren just glared at her before standing up.

"Come on, Armin. We don't have time to deal with this. Her injuries will regenerate. She's a ghoul. They grow limbs back like salamanders."

"We don't even have a place to sleep tonight, Eren." Armin replied. "I don't see what your hurry is."

"I'm sure as hell not sleeping here, if that's what you're implying," Eren grumbled, shooting another glare toward Annie. "She'll gut all of us in our damn sleep."

"It won't be in your sleep," she deadpanned, eyes not leaving the TV.

"Come on, Mikasa," Armin pressed, snapping Mikasa's gaze from glaring at Annie to a truly exasperated look when her eyes fell on her blond friend again. "I know you're not that cruel."

"Oh, don't you start with that," she snapped back. "You're not going to guilt trip me into spending hours crawling through back alleys in this godforsaken city to find food for a ghoul that almost killed me an hour again."

Armin's gaze softened into a look that just made Mikasa more irritated, because she recognized that look. His eyes grew a pleading to them that was comparable to a puppy begging for food, and Armin knew that Mikasa could only rarely say no to that stupid look.

"Don't you dare give me that look," she growled, already know she was losing.

“Show a little humanity, I know you have some in you still.”

"How the hell do you expect me to drag an entire corpse back here, Armin?" she practically sighed. "And that's considering that I even find anything, because I'm not killing someone for her. That is where I draw the line. I'll have to get lucky enough to find a kill left behind by another ghoul in the first place."

"Can you at least look?" His sad frown remained in place. "That's all I'm asking, Mikasa. Just try."

A sound somewhere between a growl and a defeated sigh passed her mouth before she reached out and grabbed her coat off the back in one of the chairs.

Armin smiled at her. "Thanks, Mom. I can always count on you to help me out when I need it."

"You're grounded for a month."

Before leaving, Mikasa reached into a bag resting against a chair that she had brought with her before they left the car. All it contained was the red-and-white fox mask Mikasa always wore when she wandered around with her kagune out. Years of watching over Eren and Jean in such a state had given Mikasa a talent for remaining almost invisible in the dead of night. Before she stepped out the door, her eyes met Eren's, whose gaze quickly flashed upwards after staring at the mask in her hand for a couple brief seconds. His expression was largely unreadable, but Mikasa tried to ignore the feeling that he was scrutinizing her. "If she tries anything," Mikasa gestured toward the ghoul sitting in the other room, "knock Armin out and drag him back to the car by his ear."

"You don't have to tell me twice," Eren grumbled.

The second she stepped outside, Mikasa was assaulted by the bitter cold of the March evening air. Granted, it wasn't as bad as it would have been a month ago, but it was still enough to make her instantly want to step backwards into the the house she'd just left. Mikasa really hated the cold. She hated the cold even more when she was being guilt tripped by her pseudo-son friend into enduring said cold fetching food for a ghoul that was probably going to turn on them within seconds of regaining her energy. Biting back a sigh, Mikasa placed the mask on her face, lifted her black hood up and took to the air with the appearance of her wings.

She knew that it really wouldn't be that difficult to find something to eat in this city; the overwhelming number of ghouls that she'd noticed earlier almost guaranteed that there would be hunters out and about, and well-fed ghouls usually just left what they didn't eat behind rather than risk being caught toting the leftovers around. That had even been the case in Shinganshina, and Trost was significantly larger than their hometown had been, so Mikasa knew that if she was careful and persistent, the odds of finding something were in her favor.

As she carefully leapt between a pair of rooftops, using her wings to keep her airborne on the small gap, the scent of blood suddenly became very prominent, wafting from an alleyway about a block down the road. Silently dropping to the ground and allowing her wings to fade away,  Mikasa hesitated before turning the corner to see a brunette woman with her haired pulled back into a ponytail hunched over a body laying on the ground. Blood was pooling over the cement of the alley, slowly expanding the more the ghoul did whatever she was doing to it. Mikasa took a couple tentative steps closer to the ghoul, tensing herself to flee if she became hostile, but the ghoul seemed too occupied with the corpse to notice her. As she continued to watch, Mikasa noticed that the figure was doing something truly odd to the body: she was dismantling it, stuffing limbs and chunks of skin, bones and meat into a duffel bag. Suddenly, the brunette tensed up, giving the air a rather pointed sniff. Mikasa likewise froze as the ghoul turned to glare at her.

The ghoul stood up, her bored brown eyes staring Mikasa directly in the face. Her expression looked more put off than it did actually angry, but that did little to calm Mikasa down - she had no intention whatsoever of getting into a fight with another territorial ghoul and every muscle in her body was ready to turn on a dime if it became necessary.

"So what do you want, huh?" Her voice was gruff. When Mikasa didn't immediately reply, she arched an eyebrow before taking a few steps toward the newcomer and Mikasa noticed that her face was covered in freckles. "I'm clearly not a human, so I don't know why the hell you're bothering with that mask. It's not serving you much of a purpose right now." She stared at Mikasa for a few seconds longer, as if expecting her to take it off, and when Mikasa didn't react to her words, with a roll of her eyes, the ghoul went back to tearing the body apart.

"You must be new around here, eh?" she mused, her back still turned. "I don't recognize you. There's a lot of ghouls already hanging around Trost, so I question what brings you here. You'd be better off finding a rural village to terrorize."

As it became more apparent to Mikasa that the ghoul wasn't actually hostile over her presence in the dark alley, she could feel her own tension lessen slightly and she slowly lifted the mask up onto her forehead. "You sure are friendly in this city, aren't you?" A ghost of a smile turn Mikasa's lips upward. "I was already attacked within hours of arriving, and now you're telling me to get out."

The ghoul turned to look at her. "Oh, no, you can stay if your heart so desires it. If you're going to creep up my ass while I'm hunting, however, I think you may have a bit of a death wish."

"I think I can take care of myself, though the concern is appreciated."

The ghoul snorted. "I'm just giving you some friendly advice, pal. You can take it or leave it, but it's no wonder you were attacked if you behaved to that ghoul like you are right now. There's etiquette around here, and you seem stupidly oblivious to it."

"I'd feel simply privileged if you'd take the time to educate a barbarian like me." Mikasa's tone dripped with sarcasm.

"Oh, of course." The brunette's deadpan sarcasm matched Mikasa's almost flawlessly. "First, you trespass on hunting grounds in the dead of night. Second, you mouth off to the ghouls you encounter. Third, and most importantly, you smell. Go bathe yourself."

"Classy," Mikasa deadpanned back.

The ghoul turned to look at Mikasa out of the corner of her eye again. "So, Smellby, I help you with something?" Her voice was more irritated than anything . "I'm trying to do something, and you're doing nothing but pissing me off and invading my personal space."

Finally, Mikasa sighed. There was no point in trying to make small talk with her any longer. "I don't suppose you'd mind sharing some of that with me, would you?" she finally asked, which got a snort of laughter from the ghoul.

"So, what, are you too lazy to hunt, or are you another one of those charity cases? I keep telling her that if she insists on handing out table scraps to every damn ghoul that comes poking around, we're going to become as lazy as humans are." She shook her head, brown lockings waving back forth with the scornful gesture. "What is it with this city and attracting ghouls that can barely even use their kagunes?"

"It's not that," Mikasa replied, feeling herself becoming slightly irritated over the scornful look the ghoul was giving her. "I prefer to scavenge."

"Why the actual hell would you choose to live like that?"

Mikasa ignored the look the ghoul was giving her. "I have my reasons."

"Ah, you're one of those kinds, eh?" That time, she actually chuckled. "The ones who think they have a moral high ground because they can't be assed to kill themselves, right? The Edward Cullen of ghouls, essentially."

"I would appreciate not being compared to that." Mikasa tried to keep her tone flat, though being compared to Edward Cullen was making that incredibly difficult.

The ghoul threw her bloody hands up. "Hey, I'm not judging anybody, Alice. You do you." The ghoul bent over to stuff the last few pieces of flesh into the bag, before she tossed it in Mikasa's direction. "If it makes Little Ms. Cullen feel better, that guy was stalking a group of girls half his age. Eating him will be a service to the safety of stupid underages drinkers all over the city."

Mikasa looked a bit bewildered as only barely caught the duffel bag. "Aren't you hungry?"

"Me? No." The ghoul snorted again. "I was just running a few errands for my girlfriend. She'll be happy to know I gave that to a yet another one of the ever-pitiful charity cases that need her help so badly." As the ghoul walked past Mikasa, she ruffled her black hair with her blood-soaked hand, which earned her a pointed glare. "I'm sure I'll see you around, Alice. We know all the ghouls in this city."

Mikasa stood still, watching after the ghoul for a few seconds, before she lifted the heavy bag up by a strap and flew out of the alley, jumping between a few more buildings before she descended into another ally a short distance from the crime scene. She was also hungry - she hadn't eaten anything of real substance in well over a month, and she sure as hell wasn't going to do that in front of Eren. He might have been part ghoul, but Mikasa knew that his various mental and emotional wounds were still festering far too much for her to make a risk like that. She'd have to be careful with his perception of her for a while; even pulling that mask out had seemed to put him somewhat on edge. She needed him to see her mask and her kagune as a part of her, and not a part of the Fox Ghoul that he had hunted for months. Mikasa reached into the bag that ghoul had provided and pulled out something to eat, silently trying to convince herself that it would come in due time.

"Would you please just sit down?" Armin asked the blonde ghoul for what felt like the hundredth time since Mikasa had left, to which he got the same cold shoulder he got every single time. He wasn't exactly sure what was wrong with Annie, but despite the huge, very much unhealed wound in her chest, she insisted on being up and walking around, just pacing around whichever room he and Eren weren't in.

Eren rolled his eyes at the heavy sound of her strained breathing. "Give it a rest, Armin. She's not going to listen to you."

"I'm just worried about her," he replied, eyes not leaving Annie's direction.

Eren arched his eyebrow at his friend. "Why?"

"Because I have a conscience, Eren," Armin snapped back, finally giving his friend an irritated glare.

"I mean, so do I, but I don't waste that on ghouls who actively try to kill me." He looked up in boredom from where he was learning on her kitchen table.

"That excuse is getting really old," Armin grumbled back.

"Armin, what you're doing right now is like those clickbate articles on Google that show those cute little stories about the lion that befriends the baby antelope." He sat up. "You think that's the end of a happy relationship straight out of a Disney movie, then the second the photographer walks away, you know that thing was mauled to death and devoured as a midday snack."

"You're such an optimist, Eren," Armin answered. "Honestly, you must have been filled to the brim with childhood wonder."

"She wants to eat you," he deadpanned. "You're nothing to her but a chicken nugget."

Finally, Annie looked over toward the two of them. "Honestly, he's more like a grilled chicken salad. Very lean and healthy."

"As I said," Eren repeated, "she just wants to eat you."

"If she really wanted to eat me, she would have by now. There's nothing really stopping her."

"Except, you know, the fact that Mikasa injured her so badly that she can barely walk."

"That, and he's not properly seasoned," Annie muttered again, finally moving back toward the couch in the living room.

Suddenly, loud pounding could be heard from the door, and Annie's face morphed into something fairly irritated as her eyes rested on the entryway. "Your friend is just trying to get on my last nerves, isn't she?"

"God, will you shut up?" Eren snapped at her. "I've hacked limbs off ghouls who moan less than you do. She's trying to feed your ungrateful ass. You could at lea-"

"You're all unwanted home invaders," Annie deadpanned. "At this point, trying to find something for me to eat is reparations."

"We don't owe you shit," Eren snapped back. "We wouldn't even be in this situation in the first place if you weren't such a territorial bitch."

Annie said something in response to that, but Armin was no longer listening. His eyes were resting on the door as well, brow furrowed, almost positive that whoever was standing outside wasn't Mikasa. The knocking was aggressive, blunt, and if it had been Mikasa ,she wouldn't have even done that in the first place. She would have just walked in.

His pondering was answered in a second, however, as more knocks sounded, this time accompanied by a female voice. "Annie Leonhardt," she said clearly projecting her voice through the door, "this is Rico Brzenska and Jean Kirstein of the CCG." A pause. "We know that you are harboring a ghoul in your home. If you don't open the door, we will enter by force."

Once Eren heard Jean's name, he cursed under his breath and instantaneously, Eren and Armin could both feel  Annie's cold blue eyes cutting into them like daggers.

Annie stood up with an impressive amount of speed, considering her injuries. "You led them there, didn't you?" she deadpanned.

"We had no idea they were following us," Eren defended, returning her glare.

"Oh, you had no idea. How comforting." Her gaze shifted to Armin for a moment, making it very clear that she was equally as angry with him as Eren. "Truly, with my death I at least will be at peace knowing you were unaware of the obvious threat you were to me at a base level."

"I don't know what the hell you want us to do at this point," Eren snapped back, and Annie's glare returned to the brunet, except it was far more aggressive than it had been a moment ago.

"I just want you two to know what you did. I never asked for your help in the first place. In fact, I openly opposed it." She looked toward Armin again. "I now have to be a stranger in my own fucking home and make scarce of myself. This was the place I made for myself without anyone's help. Though you wouldn't understand that, would you, human?"

Armin sighed, cutting off another aggressive response  from Eren. "We're sorry, Annie. We didn't mean to get you caught up in anything, and I know apologies are useless right now. But I agree, we do owe you one. For now, let's focus on getting out of here alive, then we'll make it up to you somehow."

"If I survive this, I'll send your family roses as a thank-you for your unbridled generosity," she deadpanned.

The second those words left her mouth, the front door vanished in an explosion of splinters, as a gigantic sickle ripped the structure off it's hinges. Eren only recognized one of the Investigators who then stepped inside, but he outwardly cringed when he saw that it was in fact his former partner.

Jean's brown eyes very quickly skimmed the room, before resting on Eren, who made eye contact with him defiantly. "Alright, Eren," Jean started, giving his old friend the stern look he always used when addressing ghouls on the job, "where is Mikasa?"

"Just missed, her actually," Eren replied coolly. "She stepped outside for a minute, I think to disembowel a child somewhere? She didn't really say, but you know. She's gotta go do whatever it is bloodthirsty monsters like her do."

He was not amused by Eren's sarcasm. "Eren, this isn't a joke. If you don't cooperate with us now, there will be serious consequences."

"I already know you're going to kill us all, so believe me, pal, there's nothing you can say to me right now that will make me cooperate with you in the slightest."

"How about I just kill you all where you stand? Would that be preferable?" The threat came from Rico, who was still standing in front of the door, armed with a flexible weapon made from a sickle-shaped bikaku kagune. However, her threat quickly became very ineffectual because in the next instance, she was flung into a far wall by a well-placed kick to her head from the masked figure who had just rushed into the room.

Mikasa quickly crossed the small room to stand next to Eren, where she promptly dropped the duffel bag she'd been carrying on the couch near Annie.

Jean eyed the bag with a cold expression. "Groceries?" he deadpanned.

"If I told you that another ghoul killed him, you probably wouldn't believe me, would you?" Her voice was even.

"Maybe if I was a damn fool, sure," he replied, his tone clipped.

As he spoke, Rico pulled herself to her feet, approaching Jean, who now had all his attention on Mikasa, as she was clearly the biggest threat in the room in his mind. In a way, he was probably right - Annie was too injured to do anything, and even if she wasn't, Mikasa was certain she wouldn't get involved if it wasn't for her own self-preservation, and Eren didn't even know how to use his kagune.

Jean advanced on Mikasa as her own kagune appeared. The quinque unfolded, taking the form of four large, flat, tail-shaped white blades. They centered around a red cylinder in the middle, just above the weapon's handle. Shortly after the blades formed, they seemed to fuse together, creating something shaped like a canon. Thick red lines separated each segment and the nozzle of the newly created gun pointed directly at Mikasa, who was tensed up. Once her eyes fell on the shape the quinque formed, however, Mikasa froze. It was like she had instantaneously been paralyzed, like her entire body had been turned to lead. Her entire world had completely stopped; she no longer had any concept of the very real danger she was in as th Ghoul Investigator walked closer toward her, restricting her ability to move even more as she was backed into a corner. She felt like her soul was being sucked out of her body, like an incredible heaviness was crushing her, as Mikasa recognized the red-and-white blades that created the outside of the cannon-shaped quinque.

They were her father's.

She knew it for a fact - she had seen it hundreds of times, and it looked almost exactly like hers. The weapon that Jean was now brandishing at her was made from her father's kagune. Once her back finally touched the far wall she was being lead toward, Mikasa could feel tears form in her eyes, stinging her like tiny needles. She had thought that she'd never see her parents or anything about them again. She was sure that they had both been murdered and unceremoniously ripped apart for various uses by the CCG. It probably wasn't too surprising that they made her father's kagune into a quinque, as that  was usually standard with ghouls killed during investigations, but she never in a million years would have imagined that she'd one day be staring it in the face.

Slowly, Mikasa's eyes made contact with Jean's, only to notice that he looked somewhat surprised by her hesitation to fight back. The expression on his face was harsh, but not cold, like he was trying very hard to gauge what to do next. For half a second, Mikasa opened her mouth, as if to say something to him, to ask him a dreaded question, but the words simply wouldn't come out. Instead, she dropped her red-and-black eyes from his cold brown ones, her eyes slamming shut as the tears started to run down her face.

She couldn't do it.

She couldn't bring herself to fight and destroy the only thing that remained of her father.

That was how she always fought, especially when it came to Ghoul Investigators - she disarmed them, she destroyed their quinques so she wouldn't have to kill them. And Mikasa knew she'd never be able to bring herself to hurt Jean, not someone she knew personally, someone who had genuinely been her friend until only a couple months ago. For a second, Mikasa thought she heard her name being called, but the sound was distant and muffled, as if she was underwater.

"The old man wasn't joking about that quinque," Rico commented suddenly, looking over from where she was watching the others, her own weapon poised. "Go ahead and finish her off."

Jean looked over to his partner for just a second, then back to Mikasa, who was looking at him again. The tears streaming down her face were still very present, but she was  still too conflicted to even move - she had no idea what to do. Finally, he sighed, so softly that nobody else could hear him. "You knew whoever this was made from, don't you?" Mikasa didn't reply, but Jean apparently took her silence as answer enough, because he sighed once more. "I'm sorry. I didn't want it to be like this, but I have a job to do. Your life is the only thing that can make up for the ones you took."

The blond Investigator quickly freed two of the blades from their shape hugging the cannon and they dived toward Mikasa, as if controlled by his will. She was slow to react to the sudden attack, and both of them stuck fast in each of her shoulderblades, running through to the wall behind her and holding her in place. Jean hesitated for a few more seconds, but finally forced himself to activate the cannon on the quinque. As it began to charge up the blast that would easily kill her, Jean found himself looking away.

Everyone in the room became aware of a flash of light, and a vibrant, shining emerald green, as only one word could be heard:

"MIKASA!"

[mayardsale]

"I guess this is my retirement party," I laughed, understanding the extremity of my statement. "I had no idea at the age of 34 that my complete lack of motivation would allow me to enjoy life at this level," I'd finish. Each interview was a thorn in my side I needed to remove to get through the evening. My contract was simple and Van Hoy wanted the press to have full access. When I was the Director of Analytics all I had to do was keep my team focused and manage the interviews of the Beta1000. ByMySide hadn't launched and we were a rogue band of misfits on campus. Though I knew nothing about analytics, I knew how to keep folks out of our camp, so they made me their leader. When we shaved our bodies like the Beta1000 to make them feel comfortable in the lab, they knew we were special. Van Hoy knew we were an insane group, but we were the catalyst that was going to make his dream a reality. Van Hoy was obsessed with love and data. After his first wife passed away at 25, he wrapped himself in his work that was gaining noteriety. His fourth wife left him because his data became too famous. She also loved the pool guy. Apparently he initially agreed to put up with their extra-curricular activities until he found her straddling pool guy's face atop his desk of freshly printed divorce analytics. Data should not be forced to take part in such vulgarity. Van Hoy came up with the idea of ByMySide while building a data analytics framework for the Dutch government to find terrorists. "Make love, not war!" was his pitch to investors. Seed money went in to research for five years, but nothing struck a nerve until Elsa entered the picture. Elsa rewrote the testing protocol with a sensitivity toward human interaction that previous data sets were missing. Her cold demeanor was just the attitude necessary to believe that holding hands should be turned into numbers like everything else. Interview questions and DNA were foundational numbers, but lust was the signal of future compatibility. My team trusted Elsa, so we built the HoneyMoonSuite. HMS originally stood for HourMinuteSecond because of our data collection system. A reflective, recyclable, ingestible "paint" could be applied to our test subjects, the Beta1000, to be viewed in the absence of light. The subjects could not speak, but everything else was allowed in the dark. The subjects had to remain in the room for an hour, felt a vibration from the floor every minute, and had to be touching each other somewhere every second. Elsa was adamant about the touching. That physical contact defined long term compatibility. Some subjects simply held hands. Others took advantage of the anonymity and explored boundaries they hadn't prior to joining the Beta1000. Everyone had been tested for any infectious diseases and their diets were regulated for their first seven days in the program - their last four days being spent enjoying the HoneyMoonSuite. Our cameras would record their every movement, temperature, moisture content, oxygen intake, and whatever else you could think of. Our analytics team was obsessed with every nuance of that room and the data they could map. They wanted absolute control over the furniture specs - height, material, weight, firmness. Even though the room was completely dark, the color of the pillows lead to a 2 day offsite. Because I was brave enough to take that $25000 expense report to the finance department, they made me their leader. Though 'brave' may not have been the right word, considering the recent divorcé running the accounting department had a crush on me. Though our cameras couldn't reproduce visual images of the interactions, the graphed spectrums was mathematical pornography that had my analytics team constantly horny. Only our team could tell the difference between a 20 second French kiss and an 8 minute anal episode through the graphs. You'd think after the first week the team would be numb to the romantic interludes, of which only a small percentage were actually X-rated, but they were like two dozen horny teenagers, giggling at every graph that crossed their monitors. "I don't think 2457 was expecting cum in the face so soon, but she appears to have no problem with it," Sharon eagerly read from two red parabolas floating on her screen. "And . . . now . . . she . . . is . . . licking . . . it . . . off," she finished her play by play with the spirited enthusiasm of a varsity cheerleader. That said, the team was highly sensitive to our Beta1000. We all went through the interviews, DNA testing, and metric scans in order to know what each participant was going through. We wanted to feel their experience. After the first day tension in the HoneyMoonSuite, Elise tossed out the idea of our entire team going hairless to make the Beta1000 feel less like gerbils in a cage. The next morning all 24 of the engineers, nurses, and analyst showed up to work completely shaven. Apparently I didn't get the memo, so they forced me into the prep room, stripped me naked and shaved me head to toe. We were that kind of close. Elsa had predicted we would be that close and primitive, though Van Hoy ignored her warnings. "We need real people taking real data so they can see the emotion. Love is not 1's and 0's. Love is ecstasy and jealousy." But I'm not sure how much love Van Hoy would have appreciated our analytics team had he witnessed our full collaborative effort. While the coupling between the Beta1000 was rare, the diagnostics of our system was daily. In the beginning the sex simulations were all fabricated with gestures and sugar water. As the team grew closer and their knowledge of Elsa's equipment increased, the simulation became less simulated. We weren't certain what couple made the first jump from simulation to reality, but we know who we give credit to. Sarah and Elliot were calibrating muscular contraction numbers when Elliot couldn't regulate the frequency. The measurements weren't mathematical. They were random. They were human. When Sarah exited the HoneyMoonSuite Elliot casually asked Sarah to place the unused monitor back on the shelf, which she politely obliged. Their eyes both opened wide as she realized his deception and he realized hers. If she hadn't been using the monitor, she must have created those muscle contractions and moisture increases another way. Without missing a beat Elliot entered two real Beta numbers into the system, stripped naked, and handed Sarah the spray. She sprayed him head to toe and repeated his actions. The system would log their activities as Beta1000 participants, but they could place the data with anomaly readings that Elsa would ignore - essentially discarding the results. They would have gotten away with their diagnostics if they wanted to. Instead, they shared their data the next morning during our breakfast recap. Though quite common for a Beta Coupling - kissing, cunnilingus, rear entry, orgasm, orgasm, rest, reverse cowgirl, orgasm, backrub, kiss, rest - we all knew the data was bogus. Beta1355 & 5003 were both physically sickened by oral sex. We had to clean the Suite three times due to their lunch making a return visit. Elliot and Sarah used those numbers because they wanted us to know we could all get away with it. My entire team took advantage. Sometimes they'd act out what Betas would do if they were ever paired. Sometimes they would just be themselves. But they would always cum. Blue diamond. Red diamond. Hers and his. I was deathly afraid that Elsa would catch us, but she was too busy monitoring the full set of data to notice the extra pairings. In the end, 2538 Beta Couplings were all Elsa needed to develop an algorithm that predicted "TrueLove" for the ByMySide app - with an error of less than 1%. "Did you ever try the HoneyMoonSuite?" a lanky editor from the Post enquired. "I could not manage the team fairly if I was enjoying certain activities with some that others could not provide, could I?" was my soundbite. My team was never asked this question because they'd returned to their normal lives after testing was complete. Now that I was in marketing and preparing for the launch, Elsa and I were the only insiders who knew what had happened in the HoneyMoonSuite - on or off the record. So when we decided to bring back the 30 TrueLove Beta - those that were compatible based on ByMySide - I was the point person on catching the 30 individuals who'd left our campus one year ago. They'd all grown back their hair and were eager to return to campus. The original agreement they all signed kept them from attempting any communication with the other Beta1000. We had a few rule breakers, but nobody leaked the process. The world only knew that we were asking questions and taking blood. The HoneyMoonSuite was now part of the launch and that clearly drove people's interest. I interviewed each returning Beta to make sure they were comfortable being part of the launch. The data was anonymous so everyone would be questioned on holding hands and blowjobs with strangers. A few were nervous, but they were all just as game as the first day they shaved their eyebrows. They were unaware that they'd been selected for the reunion based on their compatibly scores. They simply were there to have a good time. "I'm pretty certain I fucked the guy waiting in the lobby," said 1264 as she entered the green room. "How can you tell?" I asked. "I don't know. We had lunch once before we were all separated. I wanted him so badly. And I only had sex once in the suite. I think it was him," she offered as her confidence shrank midsentence. Yes, she only had sex once in the HoneyMoonSuite, but 1264 (or Goldilocks, as she was knicknamed by Yali & Garesh) was notorious for her neverending handjobs. Aside from her activity with 9760, she never removed her standard uniform. If her partner were male - as all partners were not guaranteed to meet sexual preferences, leading to some long handholding or some awkward curiosity explorations - she'd immediately remove his shorts, examine his length and girth, then give him multiple handjobs until their hour was up. For some reason, 9760 was the length & girth she was hoping to find - not too big, not too small, not too skinny, not too wide. Oddly enough, no orgasm. From either Beta. "I can't tell you what happened a year ago, but I do hope you enjoy tonight's dance. You've seen the itinerary, but the last dance will give you the opportunity to find your soulmate," I explained. "Do I already know her?" 8796 asked during his interview prior to meeting the press. "You may. Your interview scores, physical testing, and additional activities helped us select your invitation this weekend. Before we let the press have hold of you, we wanted to make sure you have not already made contact with any of the other testers since leaving campus," I pushed. "I wish," 3365 laughed during her interview. "At first I wanted to, but I didn't want to jeopardize my stock options or weekends like this one here. I admittedly fucked every guy I could for 3 months trying to relive the HoneyMoonSuite, but it wasn't the same." This was an interesting answer considering she only held hands in the HoneyMoonSuite. "Are all of the Beta1000 here?" she asked. "Not everyone is here this weekend," I answered. "But we hope those of you who made the journey are willing to enjoy the fun. Any further questions?" "How will we know whether we found our true love?" asked 1065. "Only you will know that answer," I teased. "ByMySide does not offer guarantees. We let the data speak for itself. Now go have fun and I'll see you at the dinner." After that interview the Beta30 got their chance to mingle with the press and tell their stories. Some were eager to share every little detail, but they all held back a little because they believed that one of the other testers was their future mate. Even 2154, a man who very much satisfied 3 women and 2 men in the HoneyMoonSuite, dodged every question served to him with regard to the sexual exploits that were rumored. "I just remember that the lasagna was superb," he'd spout. At 6PM everyone was dismissed to ready for the dinner and the dance. I took the time to memorize the actual names of the Beta30 so we'd feel more human. Elsa was happy referring to them by number, but I wanted this visit to be more personal. They were no longer lab rats, they were our brand ambassadors. The dinner was too long. Van Hoy gave a toast and thanked his team profusely - especially Elsa and myself. But everyone wanted to get to the dance. They wanted answers. They wanted love! Finally we were escorted to the ballroom entrances. All personal belongings were taken and sorted. Men and women were separated and then given their pants, button up shirt and sandals. The Beta erupted in laughter when they saw this dressier version of the uniform they had to wear during their testing days. "Will we be shaving as well?" bellowed 4786. Dressed in their uniforms, everyone danced to the DJs mix of everything from country to dancehall. With 500 people on the dance floor, the press weren't sure who was who. Even the Beta weren't sure. And then the music slowed and the lights dimmed until it was completely dark. Except for Beta. Printed on their shirts near their heart was the ByMySide logo. "Those of you who came to find love, please enter the center of the dancefloor," the DJ announced. "The rest of you, move to the side and have a seat." While those of us without the logo spread out and sat on the floor, we watched 30 logos hover below the dimly glowing logo etched into the ceiling. The DJ announced, "Your hour begins now." Then he started a mix of their favorite love songs, the vibrations from the bass shaking the floor. We somewhat expected what happened next. The testers began to circle each other without speaking. Some danced, while others just paced. Then the first 2 logos fell to the floor. And then another pair. Soon most of the logos appeared to be seated, but the intensity of the glow-in-the-dark logo eventually faded to black. "I think they're making out," giggled a reporter. "Can we make out?" asked another reporter. "I think they're fucking!" another reporter shouted. "Can we fuck?" yet another. "This is one big HoneyMoonSuite!" was heard in every corner of the ballroom. And then you could sense all around you that many had discovered the condom stored in every pair of pants. The orgy had begun. The spirit of the weekend and the anonymity of the moment had given everyone the chance to experience a little free love, even if true love weren't in their cards. Just like the HoneyMoonSuite, there were no complaints. People found partners that were looking for a shared experience. Those that just wanted to hold hands, held hands. Those that wanted to suck someone's dick, found a suckable dick. I could hear some of the action, but Elsa could monitor the activity in the room given the tons of data we'd already collected and the HoneyMoonSuite spray that coated the insides of the clothes we placed them in. Always read the fine print. The DJ chimed in every ten minutes so everyone was ready to clean up at the last song. The lights began to slowly rise, enough to notice the old ladies walking around the room with wicker baskets collecting any items that needing to be disposed of. They also handed out new uniforms to those that found their current uniform unsuitable for the rest of the evening. Most reporters were in simple and relaxed positions on the floor, though most of them had a guilty smile on their face. There was plenty of chatter and conversation around the nearly 500 folks. There were a few that were still naked, half-naked, and one couple in midcopulation when the lights began to glow. Though they realized they were now giving a live sex show, they had no plans of ending early. Fortunately for us, the old ladies all huddled around them. Exhibitionism is one thing, but 'in front of 8 grandmothers' is no one's fantasy. The reporters were so occupied with their own exploits that the lights were fully lit before they realized that the Beta30 had only sit down and held hands. No sex. Not even a kiss. They had paired off in couples, sitting next to or across from each other. Some were smiling ear to ear. Some were crying. They were all matched. Well, almost all. As Elsa had predicted, 3425, 7650, and 1082 were not a couple, they were a threesome. Which left 1409 by herself. While the reporters tried to sort out the Beta30 and themselves, the old ladies were replaced with young men serving fresh glasses of water and assorted exotic fruit. The reporters found themselves focused on questioning the Beta30 while Van Hoy and I headed out to view Elsa's data. "Nobody's perfect, Elsa," Van Hoy shrugged as I laughingly read the data about the reporters activities. "Wife #5?" I said allowed as I glanced at the data. "I simply interviewed her pussy, my friend," Van Hoy responded. "Speaking of interviews," I explained as I returned to the dancefloor to retrieve our testers. The mass of reporters surrounded 1409, questioning how she felt about not finding TrueLove. I motioned to the DJ and he made the announcement regarding breakfast interviews the next day. Reporters happily took the hint and headed out to possibly continue the hour they'd just experienced. I interviewed 1409 first because I was as curious as the reporters about her current state of mind. We settled into my office overlooking the lake. "I'm okay, I guess. I didn't really think this process would amount to much, but seeing the others connect like they did makes me a little sad inside, I guess. Two of those guys were in my group and they were so pessimistic about the entire thing. They tried to fuck every girl they could in the HoneyMoonSuite. Maybe I should have, too?" she pondered. "You didn't?" I asked as though I didn't already know the answer to my question. "I made out with two and fucked one," she flatly stated, still confused by not finding love. "He felt familiar and it just happened." "If it makes you feel better, none of the people out there were in the HoneyMoonSuite together," I assured her. "That's just another set of data points we use." "But I also broke a rule," she quietly replied. "I told him my name." She began to melt in front of me. "Did I not find love because I cheated? That would really be fucked up." "Well, had you said your name during a session our mics would have picked it up and my staff would have gone through a protocol to have you removed," I coldly explained as her eyes met mine with disbelief. "You would have been immediately escorted from campus and legal action would have been taken. Your data would have eliminated from the servers and you would have had no chance to be here. None." "Fuck you," she cried, as though I had poured salt into her wound. "I know what I felt and I fucking know what I said. The fact that he's not fucking here is bad enough without being told that I'm making this shit up. I told him my fucking name and I hoped he'd tell me his or find me at lunch or . . ." "Risk his opportunity to find true love?" I interrupted. "Because you shared a moment that our system somehow missed? Because you thought your connection was more powerful than Elsa's algorithms? Because my team would have had to risk their jobs to cover your mistake? Because you couldn't control your heart?" She gathered herself and stopped the tears. "Besides," I continued, "your name isn't Smith." She froze with a mix of relief and fear. "You know I'm telling the truth, don't you?" she begged quietly. "Don't you?" "We could get into a shit load if trouble if . . ," I began to explain. 

"Where is he? You know who he is. You know how he touched me. You know that I touched him. You have to tell me. You have to give us a chance," she pleaded. "Why did you say your name was Smith, Ms Washington?" I asked as though her pleas were pointless. She changed her demeanor from forceful to defeated. "I lied my way into the Beta group to prove that it was bullshit. A scam to take advantage of people's hopes and dreams," she confessed. "Are you a reporter?" I asked with a ton of questions to follow. ByMySide wasn't a public conversation until this evening's orgy. How did she know it existed? "My father constantly talks about being in love, yet will fuck anything that moves. Now he's selling a fucking dream about love to every person out there," she explains, staring at the investor folder on my desk. "I didn't want to believe he had a clue. He said he loved Mom but then he keeps falling in and out of love every fucking year. He's a fraud. A fucking fraud." Now I was frozen. "Who is your father?" I slowly asked, hoping she would say he was an angel investor. "Dels Van Hoy," she humbly stated, "is my father. My mother was Angela Smith. And Washington, DC is the capital of the United States," she laughed. I was numb. I stared through her like I was reading her DNA. Searching for any resemblance I should have seen before now. She saw that I was terrified. "Please don't worry. I won't tell my father. I just want to meet the guy I fucked. I just want to know if it was real. If he was real," she calmly explained. "Wouldn't you want to know?" "I would want to know, too," I agreed. "I would want to know how Elsa could put together two people based on a bunch of numbers and know that they would connect. Most of her pairings were intentionally negative, because she needed more data to support her positive results. But she found a perfect match. A match that my team wanted to test in order to confirm that the work they were doing was worthwhile." I got up from my desk and sat next to her, staring out of the window. She stared at me hoping I was going to help. "So I agreed to take the risk and let you meet your TrueLove, skipping all of the protocol Elsa had initiated," I continued. "I wanted it to be true for my team, but I secretly thought it was bullshit, too." Now, we were both staring out of the window. "I thought it was bullshit when the HoneyMoonSuite contained two people fucking each other like there was no tomorrow," I continued. "The data was as pure as my team had ever seen before the hour, but it became perfect with every caress, lick, thrust, and shiver. That's all they needed. But none of that meant anything to me. I'm not a data geek." We sat silent for a minute, still staring at the tall evergreens opposite our modern building. "And then it happened," I added. With a tear I couldn't see, she asked, "What happened?" "You told me your name."