#i really hoped we could do away with siege and storm because of the pacing but i think it could leave room for the characters and other plot

[therubyreader]

My Review of Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

See a full list of my book reviews here

*Disclaimer: there will be spoilers later on in the review*

Review Word Count, non-spoiler: 814 Review Word Count Total: 1,539

We're back for the last installment of the Shadow and Bone trilogy and my last review for this series, I will be moving on to the Six of Crows reviews sometime soon once I force myself to sit down and write the review. It doesn't help that I read all of the books in one go after Shadow and Bone instead of writing a review after each one, which is my normal process, so now I'm super behind. But we are getting there and I will finish up all of these reviews as fast as I can.

Enough about my executive dysfunction, on to the book.

Ruin and Rising brings us back to where we left off at the end of Siege and Storm with Alina escaping the Darkling with the last couple of Grisha that survived the attack on the palace and they find themselves in the White Cathedral, an underground church that's run by the Aparat where a lot of Alina's followers live. While there she essentially has to play the part of the saint they believe her to be while also not being able to summon after her fight at the end of book two. Of course she plans on leaving in order to find the firebird which is the last of the amplifiers she needs in order to stop the Darkling once and for all and tear down the fold which is a task that seems almost impossible but has to be done for the good of Ravka. She goes on the last leg of her adventure to find the firebird while also trying to be a beacon of hope for all of the citizens of Ravka, especially the surviving Grisha, in a time where it seems like hope is lost.

I did mention in my review of Siege and Storm (shameless plug) that I was going to be talking about how I didn't like that a lot of the time in the last book of a series there is a lot going on because the author is trying to tie up every single loose end in a neat bow and it does take away from the narrative. Though this book isn't as guilty of that as most others are there was a bit of a sense of rushing throughout the book but we we're moving at a quick pace. For example, there is a sense of urgency of Alina needing to leave the White Cathedral but we spend so much time there with her and then even more time with the whole crew leaving. Then we jump to them meeting up with the survivors which lasts very little before another quick jump to finding the firebird which I think drags on despite it not being a huge part of the plot, and so on. There were multiple times where I had to stop reading the book because of all of the everything going on was triggering my anxiety a bit which is something that happens when I read books sometimes but either way it's not a fun feeling. I think there was just a lot of plot that the book had to get through and in order to do that effectively there were a lot scenes that were rushed to make sure everything got included. This could also be because I was reading really fast because I was just so excited to finish the series and see what happened to the characters (once again, Nikolai beloved).

Another thing that this book did which probably caused some of the rushing of plot points was introducing new and unexpected plot lines instead of just being a way to end everything without any nuance. And I know I was just complaining about an overwhelming plot but listen, I would rather be overwhelmed with new and exciting things rather than just the same soup reheated for 300 pages. Despite my complaining I do think it was a nice mix of new plot to keep the reader entertained and also wrapping up the story from the first two books I just so happen to have anxiety and issues (love of complaining) so if you're built better than me I'm sure you'll agree on the positive aspect of this.

Without spoiling the ending I just wanted to mention that the ending was so good because it was completely unexpected especially in stories of this nature. We get an ending where the main character gets the life they've always wanted and it's accurate to her character which I think is lovely.

Overall I enjoyed this book and it was a lovely conclusion to the series but it left many doors open to continue on the universe but we get closure with Alina in a way that is enjoyable so I give it a main character gets the peaceful ending they deserve out of ten.

Spoilers Below!!

Ok, ok, you know I have to talk about the ending first because it was the most out of left field ending in terms of YA books. First of all, the whole thing were the third amplifier (which I will get to in just a second) would amplify Alina's power by a thousand ended up meaning that everyone in her vicinity who didn't have a power already would get hers, brilliant, chef's kiss. Honestly I love the turn the book took, normally we see the hero end up triumphant and powerful and they devote the rest of their life to using their new power for good and maintaining the world that they created but we don't get that in this book at all and it's actually so great. We spend the whole series hearing about how much Alina hates being the Sun Summoner and being treated as a saint and then in the end she's finally free, she fakes her death and loses her power but gains the ability to live a normal life with Mal, which is cute because I like Mal now. They buy the orphanage and raise their adopted son (because Misha is essentially their son now) and the other orphans and they get money and gifts from Nikolai and the Triumvirate which is lovely. And the fact that those four people come to visit Alina and Mal and they bring presents for the kids just shows how good of friends they are which made my heart happy. Also the line in the epilogue that goes something like "the kids were told to keep the young king in their prayers," almost made me cry and I'm tearing up writing this because aww.

Speaking of Nikolai he really took Alina's rejection like a champ and he respected her decision to chose to leave her life behind and he even offers to marry her for her and not as the Sun Summoner but when Alina tells him she loves Mal he respects her decision and doesn't try to pressure her to marry him. Also he gives her the Lantsov diamond either way and says she can either sell it or keep it which is really nice of him, like he gave her a lot of money on top of all of the everything he sends to Keramzin after Alina and Mal buy it. Like poor dude Nikolai cannot catch a break in this book he was constantly getting beat up by life left and right and then on top of that he got turned into a shadow monster which is rude asf. I do hope to read King of Scars soon so I can know what happens to him and I already got some spoilers (thanks TikTok) but I don't care I'm excited.

Moving on to Mal being the third amplifier, first of all, oh my god??? It was an insane plot twist that I never in a million years expected. Also the way that the Sun Summoner coincidentally ended up befriending (and then marrying) the last of Morozova's amplifiers was poetic and I respect it. I think the final sacrifice he made for Alina was because of his love for her and he fully accepted his fate of dying by her hand which is wonderful character development from the first two books where I hated him. He did redeem himself in the end and stopped being selfish and annoying which was lovely character growth.

The last thing that I wanted to talk about was the end where the Darkling managed to redeem himself in Alina's eyes and in his last moments she saw him as a boy who just wanted better for the Grisha, which like, cool motive, still murder. Did she forget literally all of the everything he did to her and her loved ones as soon as she killed him, because I didn't. I think that was my least favorite part of the whole thing because he was horrible and she chanted his name at their funeral kind of in way forgiving him?? Girl, get up, what the hell.

But, all in all, I did enjoy the conclusion to this series and it was a very nice way to give our main characters the closure they deserved while also opening new possibilities for other stories within the universe in the future.

[draggingthedregs]

as i said earlier, it is an ungodly length but i hope you can enjoy my late night, book-drunk opinions anyway!

***

guess who just finished “ruin and rising”?

i’m seriously not okay. someone send help. i got lots of thoughts, none of which you are obligated to read but this seems like the best place to share.

oh and spoilers, duh.

for starters. woah.

i can’t say it was what i expected but i had known that what my heart really wanted was kinda far out of reach. the ending felt real and feasible, complete with love and loss.

in terms of “ruin and rising” alone, i think it was possibly the strongest of the three books. the pacing was good, nothing felt like it dragged on too long or went too fast for its own good. i think that was really important as well, considering the fact that there was always something going on. literally,, always. no one ever got a damn break.

mal’s “death” hurt me more then i had expected. which honestly leads back to one of my main gripes with this story. the love square (which i elaborate on later in this post, just hold on a bit). i’m not going to lie. i hated mal. through the middle of “siege and storm” up to page 168 of “ruin and rising” (and even then it was a long road from hate to crying over him). he was an ass, i think we can all admit that. for awhile there, i even jumped on the “fuck mal” train and had no plans to stop at any station anytime soon. for the longest time, the relationship with alina felt so fragile and forced, like the only reason it existed was because leigh had written it into existence. though, as i read on, i saw why it was so strained and saw the eventual resolution, which i will admit i was happy with. mal and alina, however annoying and troupe filled their personalities were, did develop as characters. and their relationship made some semblance of sense in the grand scheme of things. does that mean i forgive the “on-again-off-again”, “cold-shoulder”, “we-cant-be-together-in-this-lifetime” bullshit? no. does that mean i suddenly love mal? also, no. does that mean i ship them? ugh slightly. does that mean in a magical dream world where i got to chose what happened, they’d still end up together? impossible to say. BUT i can say, that they deserved each other. and i am happy that they got their peace together like they both always wanted (no matter how out of place it felt at any point), especially considering the fact that she literally had to kill him.

my dear dear darkling... i knew what fate awaited you and yet, when the time came... it hurt just the same.

okay,, that was a bit dramatic. but come on. leigh wrote a damn good villain with aleksander morozova. i meAN, thE lAYERS. he was a horrible person and yet, so many of us still love him. he killed for fun, manipulated no matter the cost, preyed upon the weak because he could, literally blinded his own mother and still! i can’t help but love him. there was so much human woven into his darkness. the moments of simple longing, of exhaustion, of loneliness. in all honesty, if there had been a way to humanize him, to erase or explain away his atrocities and have him just be aleksander again, i feel like i would do it. but, in the context of the story i do understand why it wasn’t possible. redemption for the darkling was off the table, no matter how much humanity still remained. but that’s what makes him such a good character. you want him to be different because you can see the good and all the potential for things to change, for them to rule ravka side by side, but at the same time, he’s the same man who is still actively creating more shadow demon creatures to eat whoever he wishes. you can’t resist him and that’s why he’s so wonderful, yet horrifying at the exact same time. (though don’t worry i am still a trash can and the darklina ship is still superior in the love square. again, i promise i will get there).

i feel like i have to talk about how much i loved the “secondary characters” (i struggle to call them that because they actually run this shit). i will say, at first, i hated zoya. i am not a big fan of the “mean girl” troupe or the “i’m-prettier-than-you-and-i-know-it” thing but... she really grew on me. i looked forward to zoyas comments and constant bitchiness, as did the characters in the books. and when she left the note and the blue kefta with alina in the epilogue,, oh god my heart. and the ragtag crew of grisha making up the remainder of the second army were amazing. their banter and dialogue were some of my favorite scenes to read in “ruin and rising” and i want books just filled with them and only them. david and genya deserve the damn world, adrik was so great, nadia and tamar are so precious, and i will miss harshaw’s weird ass more then you’ll ever know. don’t even get me started on misha and oncat. they are the true stars of this series, you cannot convince me otherwise. god i love them all so much, what a brilliant cast of characters. except the apparat. fuck the stupid ass apparat.

i know what you’re thinking. “you forgot nikolai.” no. i promise you, i most certainly did not. i just love him so much he gets his own chunk.

i mean, how could he not? he’s one of those rare, genuinely perfect characters that are impossible to not love. and i don’t mean perfect because he has no flaws or he’s written unnaturally, i mean perfect because of all of his flaws. he is arrogant and calculating, brash and unapologetic in his ways, but he’s also kind and caring, witty and charming and way too clever for his own good. i rooted for him more then i have ever rooted for someone in my entire life. he made everything ten times better. you can always count on his ass to pop up in a flying ship with a shiny pair of boots, a witty remark, a new plan, and too many ideas.

now, the important business... the ominous love square.

i think the words i used were “one of my main gripes with the story” which is true, but i think leads to a bigger issue with some of the characterization in the story. the “love square” was a term i thought of in relation to the many overlapping and confusing ships that center around alina (obviously being mal, the darkling, and nikolai). all of the ships were so entertwined and written over top of one another that there was no other way for me to describe it and the square seemed like a nice enough analogy. it just felt like way too much on everybody’s plates.

i love nikolai and alinas friendship. i mean, LOVED it. because i loved it so much, i found the little nods to a ship odd and unnecessary. their story line was very focused on the fact that ravka would need a king and queen, hence the scene where he gives her the emerald and all but proposes right then and there. however, that scene would have made scene and carried the same weight had there not been the splashes of romance both before and after. now, i understand why people ship them. and honestly, if under different circumstances, i probably could’ve and would’ve shipped them myself. they would have had one of the best marriages in a society where you didn’t get to marry for love. but it just made everything more complicated. people would’ve speculated on a ship had there been no kisses or pining, soley based on the possibility of a marriage and because of their close friendship so, why was the canon addition of it necessary? i just couldn’t get behind it when i loved their platonic relationship so much and when there were two stronger and more developed ships, waging war in the background.

now, my final bone to be picked... let’s be real for a second, alina in “shadow and bone” sucked. she was annoying and had no personality beyond being a sad, lonely, orphan in the darklings sparkly new grisha world. though i will say, in the later two books, i grew to like her. her character development did its job and i actually think she grew to be a pretty good protagonist. she did her best with the cards she was dealt and i think she did really well. however, her inability to pick a boy constantly bothered me. after being in love with her best friend for literal years, she is really ready to be be the first lady of the second army. and yes. sure you could justify it. she wasn’t getting letters in return, she’d been away for months, she was adapting to her new life, the darkling made her feel seen and wanted which is all a very new feeling to her. but then she goes right back to mal after he makes a confession that he didn’t realize he loved or needed her until she was gone for months (this was one of my biggest problems with mal. my problem only grew when he spent the entirety of “siege and storm” being a dick. but like i said,, we have reconcilied. we are fine now). there were times throughout the series where i genuinely didn’t understand why they were together, why i liked them together, or why i even wanted them to end the series together. alina even asks mal at the end of “ruin and rising” if there entire relationship was based solely on the fact that mal was the last amplifier and the fact that she even had to ask really says something. was their entire romance because of the amplifier? was it because of the “we-are-just-meant-to-be-together” thing? or was there actual chemistry? i really couldn’t tell sometimes. and the darklina ship was even more twisty and winding. he went from telling her deep dark secrets because he wanted to hear the girl he loved say his name to literally threatening everyone she loves because he wants her weak and all to himself. like,, whAt? (again,, layers) and don’t even get me started on the darkling and alina apparition interactions. those were a wild fucking ride. i felt like i was getting manipulated along with the both of them in those. but maybe that was the point of the darkling and alinas relationship. it was supposed to be so horrible yet so electric that you couldn’t pull away. but i doubt the same was meant to be said for mal and alina.

now i feel like i may be coming off in the wrong way. i loved more about this series then i didn’t. but me gushing about every fine detail and conversation that made my heart melt wouldn’t make for the most interesting read, if it was even coherent. all in all, i think it’s safe to say the grisha trilogy is great. does that mean it doesn’t have flaws? of course not. does that mean the flaws outweigh the good and the actual point of the story? absolutely not. my small complaints about a few things really do not take always from the fact that i love this series. i would love anything written by leigh bardugo, especially in the grishaverse.

if you’ve made it this far, that’s commitment. thank you brave soldier. don’t take anything i’ve said with anything more than a grain of salt. seriously. if this is your favorite series, don’t let my lil complaints ruin your day. because really, the good outweighs the bad here tenfold. i’m just a girl with a lot of opinions and a platform to share them at four am... it’s a dangerous game.

but, goodbye grisha trilogy. you have served me well and i will return to reread you soon. but for now i will do a lot of writing (i already have so many fic ideas brewing) and read all the fan fiction and tumblr posts i’ve been avoiding for fear of spoilers.

[mdzsgildedfate]

Gilded Fate - Chapter 4

Reincarnation AU [Chapter 4/?] Characters: Xue Yang, Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan, Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi, Jin Ling, Original Characters. Pairings: Xue Yang/Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen, Lan Sizhui/Lan Jingyi

In all the world, there were very few cultivators that had achieved immortality. There was BaoShan SanRen, of course, who’d long since disappeared from the world after vowing to never take another disciple. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, too, found their home together away from other cultivators. Wen Ning and Song Lan were technically immortal as Fierce Corpses, but most people believed them to be nothing more than myth and legend.

The other immortals, the only ones who hadn’t secluded themselves away, were Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi, Jin Ling, and Ouyang Zizhen. As good friends since childhood, the four cultivators had come together to build a joint sect on the south face of a mountain between LanLing and Gusu. The small village at the base of the mountain was one the larger sects paid no attention to, so when the renowned four immortal cultivators established their school there, the villagers flocked to their doors in hopes of being taken on as disciples.

At almost five hundred years old, the boys had long forgotten thoughts of encountering souls from their lives before immortality. All their attention was funnelled into their school, working hard to combine the principles from each of their clans into a single cohesive curriculum. Despite the first generation of disciples being an embarrassing train wreck of trial and error, they managed to produce a handful of decent and respectable cultivators.

The second generation was well into their studies when a long forgotten ghost appeared at their doorstep. Wen Ning had travelled to their mountain, bringing along with him a girl no older than 8 or 9 years old. After a heartfelt reunion between Lan Sizhui and his estranged relative, Ning had explained that he suspected the little girl to be the reincarnation of his older sister, Wen Qing. He begged them to take her in and teach her cultivation, hoping to give her a better life than the one she’d led in Wen Ruohan’s debt.

They agreed and Wen Ning left, saying if he stayed he’d be too much of an influence, either by his own feelings or his existence as a fierce corpse. So Wen Qing became Li JiaYi and was indoctrinated into BaLanSu Shi. Sizhui watched over her studies personally, feeling his own memories of Qinq resurface as she grew into the spitting image of her past self. By the time she was fourteen, her skills were well known in the cultivation world. With JiaYi representing the BaLanSu sect, they grew to be a gentry clan alongside Jin, Lan, Nie, and Jiang.

The world seemed bright and the future seemed promising until JiaYi became plagued with insomnia. The other disciples could find her up at odd hours of the night, practicing with her sword in the courtyard or poring over books in the library. After she fell asleep on her feet during a night-hunt and nearly lost her head to a measuring snake, Sizhui began playing Clarity for her twice a week before bed. For a while, it seemed to help.

When her soul finally awakened, the four immortals were unprepared. Soul awakening was rare and usually only heard of in small, insignificant instances. A farmer remembering a life where he fought in a war and so his sword skills improved slightly. A handmaid remembering a life in a kitchen and suddenly preparing complex dishes with ease. Nothing to the degree of what happened with Li JiaYi.

On the day Ouyang Zizhen was meant to marry, JiaYi stormed into the banquet hall and went on a sleep-deprived tangent about the crimes the gentry clans had committed against the Wen clan. When Zizhen tried to calm her down, she snapped and killed half the wedding guests, including Zizhen’s bride, before disappearing. If the slaughter of prominent clan members, some of which were clan heirs, wasn’t enough to bring the BaLanSu clan to an end, Wen Qing continued her siege of revenge in the city below.

The entire population of Da Su was decimated indiscriminately and reanimated as an army of walking corpses. The destruction was enough to bring Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian out of seclusion to intervene. With their help, the walking corpses were destroyed, but in the end it was Wen Ning who subdued Qing long enough for Sizhui to finish her off. In the aftermath, the JinLan Yang sect was abolished and Zizhen removed himself from the cultivation world to a life of solitude.

Centuries could lessen the guilt and pain of what happened with Wen Qinq, but it was something Sizhui had never been able to dispel from his mind. He encountered more and more reincarnated souls; some he knew, most were strangers, but he dedicated himself to each and everyone in repentance for his failure to Li JiaYi.

~X~

When Jin Ling revealed the contents of his conversation with Xinyi the night before, Sizhui and Jingyi felt a wave of dread wash over them. Experiencing the symptoms of awakening for so long was utterly unheard of, and for someone like Xue Yang to persist for so long without losing his mind- It felt impossible to believe.

“A-Yuan. This is your area of expertise.” Jin Ling said, breaking the long silence that had fallen between them. “How do we proceed?”

Sizhui shook his head slowly. “I… I’m not sure…”

“He seems perfectly fine.” Jingyi said, eyes glued to the floor. “He shows no signs of awakening. He shows up for class on time, he does his work well, he has friends- I don’t.... I don’t see how this is possible.”

“Last semester.” Sizhui chewed his lip anxiously. “My class last semester was earlier than yours, A-Yi. He was almost always late, and missed class so frequently I had to fail him. I thought he just didn’t care about the class, since he’s only majoring in anthropology because of the Wang Collection.”

“The what?” Jin Ling interjected, getting brushed off immediately.

“I can’t believe I dismissed such an obvious sign.”

“That still doesn’t explain how he’s coping so well.” Jingyi was pacing around the room now, chewing on his thumbnail. “Do we even need to do anything right now?”

Sizhui was silent for a moment, considering their options and the position they were in before speaking. “Since he seems fine for now… let’s try to hold out until we leave Leng Shuang. We can’t seal him without arousing suspicion, and guiding his awakening would just be a burden on Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen.”

The others nodded in agreement and set the conversation to rest for now, heading out to rejoin the group of students Song Lan had led out to the clearing near the temple. While Jin Ling headed off on his own again, Sizhui and Jingyi were left alone to keep an eye on Xinyi, watching out for any symptoms they may have missed before. In their absence, the students had already constructed a dozen or so poorly-made kites and were getting ready to send them up as targets.

Song Lan guided the students to line up in groups of five, with everyone else waiting impatiently behind them, and showed them how to hold their bows. The first group fired off their first arrows and missed their kites completely. Going through four more arrows each, only two kites were brought down. The second group consisted of Xinyi, Chen, QianHua, and MingYue, which of course made their turn an unspoken competition. Chen shot all five arrows into the air with no luck. QianHua nicked his kite on his fourth try, but it stayed suspended in the air mockingly. MingYue brought her’s down on the second try, and Xinyi shot his down with the first arrow.

After retrieving their kites, MingYue turned to intercept Xinyi with a smile. “Nice shooting-”

“No.” Xinyi picked up his kite and turned away from her without so much as a sideways glance.

She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest, crumpling her kite slightly. “We’re here for four more days, are you really going to ignore me the whole time?”

“We?” He asked, back still turned to her. “Didn’t you come here with your twin? You’re not part of my class, I don’t have to pay attention to you.”

“He’s not my twin, he’s…”

“Oh, I’m sorry, are the matching robes a couple outfit? My bad.” Xinyi rolled his eyes, shooting Chen and QianHua an exasperated look as he rejoined them.

“Hardly!” MingYue’s grip on her kite tightened, tearing through the paper. She took a deep breath and loosened her grip, forcing a small smile. “Look. I may not be part of your class, but we’re here together regardless. Can’t we just be civil with each other?”

“I’ll be civil with you.” QianHua stepped in, waggling his eyebrows at her.

Her smile tightened, hiding an air of disgust. “A-Xin, I-”

Xinyi spun back to face her now, throwing his kite to the ground and stepping close to her. “First of all, don’t fucking call me that. Ever. Again. Second of all, there’s twenty other people here for you to bother. Just because your freak boyfriend keeps ditching you, doesn’t make you my fucking babysitting job. Just piss off!”

Without another word, he turned back and stormed off into the trees. Chen and QianHua exchanged startled looks and ran after him, ignoring Sizhui and Jingyi calling after them. Once they caught up to him, QianHua swung an arm around his neck, walking alongside him on the path back to the temple.

“Man. What fucked up shit did a girl that hot have to pull to make you blow her off like that?”

Xinyi pushed his arm off, but slowed his pace for the two to keep up with him. “She just gets under my skin. She’s irritating. And I don’t get why she’s suddenly trying to reconnect with me. I haven’t heard from her in two fucking years, and now suddenly she shows up here out of nowhere and wants to be my friend?”

QianHua nodded thoughtfully, humming obnoxiously. “Sounds like fate to me. You guys must have been lovers in a past life, destined to be together.”

Xinyi scoffed. “The only thing she’s in love with is my family’s artifacts. I’m certain that’s the only reason she dated me. I’d sooner marry Chen than consider giving her another chance.”

“Hmm… Chen’s pretty in these robes, but is he really wife material?”

“I’d make the best wife. Don’t be jealous A-Qian.” Chen replied, grabbing Xinyi’s hand. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m the only one of us that knows how to cook.”

Xinyi broke out in laughter and pulled Chen close. “See? Perfect! I never have to look at MingYue again.”

“Wait! I forgot about his cooking, I want Chen for my wife!” QianHua grabbed Chen’s other hand and tried to pull him away from Xinyi.

“Hey! Hands off my wife, how dare you disgrace her like that!” Xinyi pulled Chen behind him and snatched up a stick from the side of the trail, brandishing it at QianHua. “Your whole clan should pay for her dishonour!”

Chen broke down to his knees, laughing so hard tears welled up in his eyes. The two launched into a dramatic sword fight, chasing each other up and down the trail, jumping off of rocks and spinning around trees. QianHua got two good strikes in, which just urged Xinyi to fight harder. He found another stick and held them both up at his foe.

“Yin QianHua! I never like to exaggerate when I’m talking.” Xinyi smirked and lunged forward, swinging both swords down at QianHua. “If I say I’m gonna kill someone’s entire clan, I’ll actually kill their entire clan. I won’t even leave a dog behind!”

QianHua blocked the first two blows, but missed the third as he burst out laughing. “A-Xin!”

Xinyi pushed QianHua to his knees with his foot and pointed his sticks at him.

“A-Xin!” QianHua kept laughing, even with the ‘swords’ at his throat. “A-Xin, you should be careful wielding two swords like that.”

Xinyi paused, breaking character to toss a bemused glance at Chen, who only shrugged in return.

“You don’t know the term ‘Ryoutoutsukai’?” QianHua dropped his stick and wiped tears from his eyes with his sleeve. “I didn’t realize you were so serious about marrying Chen.”

Xinyi was about to question the man further, but their nonsense was finally cut short by a pointed throat-clearing. Three sets of eyes shot up to see Lan Jingyi and Song Lan staring them down disapprovingly. QianHua and Chen both bolted to their feet, brushing dust and leaves off their robes.

“If you three have no interest in participating with the group, I can find you a better activity.” Jingyi said sternly, holding a hand out to signal them back towards the temple.

Once they returned, the three were sat down in the courtyard and left to stew in their nerves while Jingyi disappeared inside the temple. When he returned, each of them were given thick, blank notebooks, a couple dozen scrolls, inkwells, and brushes.

“These scrolls contain the 3,000 principles of the Lan clan. Transcribe them.”

~X~

It was nearly ten in the morning by the time Jin Ling made his way back to the pond. Despite having spent hours the night before exploring every inch of the surrounding area, things looked different during the day and he was bound to notice something he hadn’t seen before. He circled the pond a few times, trying to see if there was any spot where the water was clearer. When nothing new revealed itself, he decided to pull the compass back out and turn his attention to the forest.

As he followed his previous route, Jin Ling checked the talismans and sigils he’d left. Everything was still in place, untouched and unchanged. It almost seemed like a waste of sigil papers. Heaving a sigh, he ripped them down to hang up elsewhere later on. Reaching his last set of papers, he took out the compass and watched as the needle spun and jerked around, finally stopping to point up the hill in front of him.

He packed the papers away in his sleeves and started the climb. After ten or fifteen minutes, Jin Ling found the remnants of an old beaten path and began to follow it, leaving a sigil behind on one of the trees. The spiritual energy in the air had increased, giving him a small feeling of hope that he was close to finding what he was looking for. With the sensation growing stronger, Jin Ling wondered how Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen hadn’t been able to pick up on this.

During his first night at the temple, Jin Ling had questioned the two about it, but neither one seemed aware and had reassured him that if anything malicious resided in their mountains, they would have slain it right away. Not wanting to insult their cultivation, he’d dropped the subject, but continued to investigate on his own. Having Sizhui and Jingyi’s students at the temple provided a distraction for the priests and an excuse to ditch MingYue, not wanting to endanger her unnecessarily until he knew what exactly he was tracking.

Having followed the path for half an hour, Jin Ling slumped down against a tree to rest, deciding to stop for lunch before deciding whether or not to turn around and follow the path the other way. He’d barely taken a sip of water before a rustling in the trees had him springing back to his feet. He drew his sword and froze, straining his ears at the sound. The woods were quiet for a moment, but then the rustling came again. A twig snapping, leaves being disturbed, the clumsy sound of footsteps. Jin Ling walked forward slowly, approaching the noise with his sword pointed out.

From behind a thicket of vines, an ambling figure stumbled forward. It’s skin was nearly black, leathery, and it’s movements were stiff and jerky. It’s clothes were dirty and ripped and it’s eyes had no pupils. Jin Ling recognized the thing immediately as a walking corpse. It’s spiritual energy was low and posed no threat to Jin Ling, but it’s presence brought an unbelievable sense of foreboding. How many millenia had passed since Jin Ling had last seen a walking corpse? How many millenia had passed since he’d last seen anything beyond low level restless spirits?

Jin Ling lunged forward and slayed the thing with ease. A quick search of the corpse revealed no clues as to how it had transformed. Something about the modern world had quelled corpse transformation- if there was one here now it could only mean someone with cultivation abilities had reanimated it intentionally. In the past, Jin Ling had only encountered a handful of situations like this. One turned out to be an immortal who’d turned to necromancy, driven mad by her long life in solitude. Most instances were descendants of forgotten cultivator families who’d tried practicing with incomplete lessons passed down through the generations.

Although there had also been a couple instances of reincarnated cultivators who’d lived traumatic lives, died gruesomely, and awakened too suddenly. Considering the current circumstances, Jin Ling had a hunch as to which scenario he was probably dealing with. Packing away the corpse inside a qiankun pouch, the cultivator carried on in the direction the thing had come from. He tracked it’s path for a few hundred yards before it seemed to disappear. No other corpses appeared, so he decided to finish for the day and head back to the temple. Having wasted most of the day backtracking all around the mountain, he was looking forward to eating dinner and having a drink with Sizhui and Jingyi.

When he got back, Jin Ling was surprised to find only three boys sitting in the courtyard, as opposed to the gaggle of twenty-or-so children he was bracing himself for. Song Lan, Sizhui, and Jingyi were nowhere to be found. At a loss for anything else, Jin Ling walked up behind one of the boys and looked down at the notebook that was slowly being filled. He quirked an eyebrow.

“How’d you piss Jingyi off that bad?” He asked, startling Chen so badly he practically leapt over his table, spilling his inkwell onto the ground.

“Wh-where’d you come from?” Chen scrambled back, pushing his glasses back into place, smudging one of the lenses in the process.

“From behind you. Obviously.” Jin Ling retorted, turning to Xinyi. “This was Jingyi, right? What’d you do?”

Xinyi shrugged indignantly. “That girl you brought with you was pissing me off and she wouldn’t leave me alone, so I left.”

“Hmph. Whatever. Where’s Jingyi now? And Sizhui? Where is everyone?”

“Eating inside.” QianHua replied, slumping over his table.

Jin Ling narrowed his eyes. “What, did they forget about you? Get up. Don’t transcribe anymore of that bullshit.”

The three boys shot up, chirping out thank you’s and trailed after Jin Ling like baby ducks, following him into the temple to where everyone else was eating. He shooed them in and directed them to sit down before joining Sizhui and Jingyi. The latter gave him an annoyed look, immediately berating him for bringing the three back in.

“Jin Ling! Don’t interfere with the way I discipline my students! Did they even finish transcribing the principles? How can you undermine me like this-?”

“A-Yi, eat your dinner.” Jin Ling cut him off, shoving a piece of lotus root into his mouth. “There’s 3,000 Lan principles and you had them using brushes. They wouldn’t have finished even if they worked nonstop for the next four days.”

Jingyi frowned, mumbling through the root. “That’s still not for you to decide…”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Jin Ling snapped back. “Song Daozhang. Why has Xiao Daozhang not joined us for a meal yet?”

Song Lan looked over, tearing his eyes from where Xinyi and his two friends sat in the corner. “He’s here tonight, he just left to make more tea.”

~X~

After seeming to only see Xiao Xingchen when he was alone, Xinyi was relieved to finally see the man at dinner, confirming he hadn’t hallucinated him. However, it didn’t make him any less of an enigma. Xiao Xingchen hadn’t spoken at all the entire meal. Even when one of the professors or Jin Ling addressed him directly, he’d only smile or nod. With how easily Xingchen spoke to Xinyi, it seemed strange that he wouldn’t speak to the men he actually knew. The curiosity ate at him, but there was no way to even get near him with Song Lan there, and at the end of dinner, Xingchen quickly disappeared again.

Xinyi shrugged and decided to worry about it later. After staring at those scrolls for over two hours, his brain was too fried to do anything but go to bed. Accompanied by Chen and QianHua, Xinyi dragged his feet back to their shared room. They stripped out of their robes in silence and slipped into their beds, too tired to even complain about Jingyi’s arcane punishment. The only break in silence came from QianHua just as they were dozing off.

“Hey….”

“What.”

“After that battle today... you’re not even going to sleep next to your wife?” QianHua whispered, stifling laughter.

Xinyi snorted and grabbed whatever piece of clothing was nearest to him and chucked it at him. “Go the fuck to sleep.”

Do not kill within Cloud Recesses.

Do not fight without permission.

Do not go out at night.

Do not make noise.

Do not walk too fast.

Do not laugh for no reason.

Do not sit with a disgraceful pose.

The words echoed over and over again. Ghostly white figures walked past him in a line, one after another. As the whispers grew distant and muddled, the figures faced him and moved in closer. The one directly in front of him was a middle-aged woman, her face lined with worries. Her soft eyes were upturned with sorrow and tears spilled over her cheeks.

“How could you kill me so easily?”

Her voice was filled with heavy sobs. Tears spilled out faster and stained her pale face.

“You didn’t even spare my daughter, who was only four years old.”

A man took her place, his features much harsher and filled with anger.

“How disgraceful you are, cutting up my corpse for him.”

A young boy around his age spoke next.

“My body was never found. I was read no burial rights. No one burned paper money for me at a shrine. Why do you get to live again while I’m trapped in restlessness?”

He turned away desperately, trying to escape the ghosts coming towards him.

“You were still laughing as you carved the flesh from my bones.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, covering his face with his hands.

“You turned me into a corpse and made me kill my own brother.”

“I was on my way to my wedding-”

“You killed my children in their beds-”

“You were still laughing-”

“Was it fun?”

The whispers disappeared and, slowly, he opened his eyes. Only one ghostly figure remained. A man who shined like moonlight, with pale skin like porcelain, who’s only flaw was white bandage wrapped around his eyes.

“Was it fun?”

Two red blotches appeared on the bandages where his eyes would be.

“Of course it was. It’s always fun for you.”

The red bled down his cheeks.

“Killing people… it’s just a game to you.”

His throat opened up and added to the red pouring from his eyes, blooming down the front his white robes.

“Was my death… fun?”

Xinyi opened his eyes. The room was still dark. Chen and QianHua were still asleep beside him. He sat up and kicked the blankets off of him, his weary gaze settling on the crouched silhouette in the corner. Was that Chen’s backpack and clothes piled up? He squinted, leaning forward into a kneeling position. The silhouette mirrored his actions and leaned forward. His heart lurched and he jumped to his feet, his fingers turning cold. The silhouette stood up and took a step forward.

It’s long, black hair was disheveled, the knot at the top half falling out of it’s ribbon. It’s clothes were loose and sloppily held together. It’s eyes were blank slates, no pupils to indicate what Xinyi already knew- that it was looking directly at him. He looked down at Chen and QianHua for a split second, and when he looked back, the man was gone. Not waiting for it to come back, he opened the door and slipped out into the hall.

“Xue Yang!”

The figure reappeared in the hallway, spitting the words out with one finger pointed up accusingly. Fear shot through Xinyi’s body like electricity and sent him flying down the corridor, paying no attention to which way he was going, not stopping until he nearly collided with the closed door of the artifact room. He yanked the door open, stepped into the room, and slammed it shut. On his hands and knees, Xinyi crawled across the floor and made himself as small as possible in the far corner of the room.

Just as his heart rate was finally returning to normal, the door began to slide open. He held his breath, hoping the ghost somehow wouldn’t find him if he didn’t move or make any noise. But the man that appeared in the doorway wasn’t disheveled or dressed in rags. He was dressed in a plain, white night robe and his hair was neatly combed down his back. Xiao Xingchen stood across from Xinyi, his eyes finding him in the dark immediately.

“Appreciating the art?”

Xinyi let out a heavy breath of relief. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Xingchen smiled. “I was already awake.”

The light from Xingchen’s lamp illuminated the room as he came inside and closed the door behind him. He crossed the room and knelt in front of Xinyi, placing the lamp on the floor beside them.

“Nightmare?”

Xinyi nodded slowly. “How’d you guess?”

“It’s the middle of the night.” Xingchen replied, his smile widening. “And you’re hiding in the only room in the temple full of swords.”

He looked over at the wall of swords beside him, having not even noticed them until now, and broke out laughing. Or crying. Or both. He covered his face with his hands, trying not to let the other man see.

“Xinyi?” Xingchen reached a hand out and placed it on Xinyi’s knee.

After a moment, he dropped his hands, meeting Xingchen’s gaze.

“Did something else happen?”

Xiao Xingchen’s face showed such genuine concern it hurt Xinyi’s heart. Something about it made him want to laugh again, but another part of him wanted to tell Xingchen what he saw, confide in him about all the horrible nightmares he’s been having and how now he seemed to be plagued by restless spirits.

“Xingchen…” His fingers rubbed together anxiously. “What does… Xue Yang mean?”

The man’s body went rigid. The smile disappeared from his face and his gaze hardened. Xinyi regretted his question immediately. He wasn’t sure which was worse; the way Xingchen was looking at him or the fact that he recognized the words the ghost had shouted at him.

“Why are you asking me that?” He asked planely.

Feeling his nerves building up, Xinyi laughed quietly and looked away. “It’s nothing. It’s just nonsense from my dream.”

“Don’t lie to me.��

He clenched his fists. “Would you believe me if I said I heard it from a ghost?”

Xingchen was silent and Xinyi couldn’t help but look back up. To his relief, the angered expression he wore before had dissipated and his features were soft again. The man looked down at the flame from the lamp, wrapping his fingertips on the floor, drumming out that same beat from the day at the river. After running through the beat several times, Xingchen looked back at Xinyi.

“Every artifact in this temple is thousands of years old. The tapestries, the fans, and porcelain dishware. They all have ghosts attached to them. Most people aren’t sensitive enough to hear them.” Xingchen took Xinyi’s hand and held it between his own. “These restless spirits think only of why they’re trapped here. Time is frozen for them, so they don’t understand things like forgiveness or change. Your nightmares have made you vulnerable to them- you can hear them now.”

Xinyi swallowed hard, unsure of whether or not he believed what the man was saying. He didn’t want to believe it- that the ghosts he saw were real and that he was going to keep seeing them. Was it just one more horrible reality that he’d have to adjust to, like he had to adjust to the nightmares?

“Xue Yang.”

He looked up, startled to see that Xingchen had leaned in closer to him.

“It’s a name.” He looked to the right where JiangZai stood in its case. “The name of the man who owned that sword.”

[shianhygge-imagines]

Middlemarch: Alternate Universe [Ravus/Reader] Finale

AN: This final chapter of Middlemarch was a long time coming. I’m so sorry for how long it took! 

There are purposely some stuff left unanswered and open ended, though if asked, I will elaborate on it :3

|Masterlist Link|

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After the Trial of the Archean

It was immensely awkward, you decided in that moment. Why? Because after that moment of affection and intimacy from the High Commander, it seemed as if the both of you had taken five enormous steps backwards in terms of your relationship. Despite your past together as playmates, and despite the fact that he had saved you, Ravus still seemed to resent you immensely. The morning after you recovered your memories of your connection to Ravus, you’d been greeted with the old stoic and borderline antagonistic attitude you’d seen briefly. When confronted, Ravus had simply huffed, stated that nothing good could come of any relationship with a Lucian, he’d taken his paperwork and all but stomped out of the room. Occasionally, you’d see Ravus come check on your recovery progress, but it had been the last that you had personally spoken with him.

His eyes are not the same. You observed during one of his visits to check on your health. A metal arm, and a different colored eye. Probably from the aftermath of trying to wear the Ring of the Lucii. There were so many questions that you wanted to ask him. Why did you stop writing to me?

Had I done something wrong?

Why are you so cold to me now?

It’s been three days since you’d last spoken with the broody man, and the bitterness was starting to build up again. Just like it did when Noctis abandoned you in favor of his love, Lunafreya, you felt the loneliness build. Except, unlike the last times, where you had Ravus and then Cor, this time you had no one. With Ravus seemingly abandoning you as well, you’d been left as prey for the one person you knew who liked to mess with people the most.

Yes, as of right now, you were being dragged around from location to location by the Chancellor of Niflheim himself, Ardyn Izunia. You’d protested heavily when the auburn headed man practically stormed your room and swept you off your feet, carrying you like a sack of potatoes as he seemed to teleport in the same manner of those blessed by the Crystal.

Once Ardyn seemed to touch back down onto solid ground, he let you squirm out of his hold, aiming a rather mischievous look at you. “So? How was my driving?”

What in the- Driving? You groaned as your stomach turned unpleasantly, “I think I’m gonna puke.” You’d used the King’s power to phase and teleport before, but never through such a long distance. At least, you gathered this from the sudden fact that you were outside the airship, in a military base. Though appreciating the fact that Ardyn had given you some time to regain your footing, you still gave him a stern glare. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Aww. You don’t want to see your beloved friends? I thought I told you that your beloved Prince was waiting.” Ardyn pouted heavily, and while you admitted that the look worked for him, it still didn’t seem right that a man his age would pout. 

The twitching in your cheek came out of nowhere as you opened your mouth to shoot out a snarky reply. You were interrupted by a loud thud when you tried to snark back, bringing a halt to your statement as Ardyn tsked, waving his hand for you to follow. “Come hither. Wouldn’t want anyone getting killed now.”

Ardyn walked off before you could answer, leaving you following behind at a slow pace. What the hell is wrong with this guy?

“I’d say that’s far enough.” you suddenly heard Ardyn chide, like an adult scolding children, though you snickered at the irony. “A hand, Highness?” Your eyes narrowed, Highness?

“Not from you.”

“Oh, but I’m here to help.”

“And how is that?”

The familiar voices had you sprinting at full speed, catching Ravus’s eye as you practically slid around the corner to see your friends.

“By first bringing back something you lost.” you heard Ardyn answer.

“What do you mean by-”

“NOCT!” You practically screeched, sprinting past Ravus and Ardyn to glomp your friend.

All around you, there were gasps of surprise. The man in your arms froze, unable to move in his disbelief, afraid that everything was a dream. That you weren’t really in his arms. “Y-Y/N?”

“I’m so glad you’re all okay!” You cried in relief at seeing your childhood friends and brother.

“We thought you died!” Gladio looked on the verge of tears as he ran to engulf you and Noctis in a great hug. Prompto and Ignis followed soon after, and you allowed yourself to grin in happiness at being reunited with those you had considered your family.

“Y/N… You shouldn’t be running around so soon.” Ravus protested, extending a hand, something resembling worry passing over his face for just the briefest of moments. When you only ignored the older man, his face hardened, schooled into another stoic mask as he turned his attention to Ardyn. “I told you not to bother them.”

“I could let dear Y/N die of boredom, now could I?” Ardyn argued with a tone that suggested a lack of seriousness. “To torture your Little Light by abandoning them in that cold metal prison… how cruel.” The Chancellor tsked, a knowing glint to his eyes as he started to walk away. “Come now, Commander. Make haste.” His sly gaze spoke volumes as he stared at Noctis, “When next we meet, it’ll be across the seas. Just so happens we have business of our own with the tutelary deity, don’t we?” 

Ravus refused to acknowledge Ardyn, his gaze set upon your form, still surrounded by your friends. There was an almost pleading sadness to his eyes when he stared after you, but you stubbornly refused to acknowledge him in return. Something about Ardyn was hauntingly familiar as he bid the group farewell and walked away with Ravus. You shook your head in confusion, forcing your mind away from the matter, simply happy to have been reunited with Noctis and Gladio.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

During the Trial of Leviathan

You missed being able to throw your weapon and teleport, especially now that the entirety of Altissia was under siege by the Hydraean and Niflheim forces. Noctis, Gladio, Prompto, and Ignis had all begged for you to stay with the evacuated civilians, but you couldn’t sit back and let your friends do all the fighting. The minute that the Hydraean appeared to answer Noctis’ call, you’d sprinted back into the city just before the waves rose to form a barrier. When the Niflheim airships encroached upon the city, seeming to head towards the Alter of the Tidemother, you sprinted faster, slipping the communications earpiece that Ignis had given you into your left ear. The floor rumbled as the waves shook the water bound city, and still you didn’t stumble. “Ignis? What’s going on?” “Y/N! Whatever you do, stay far away from the city!” It’s your brother’s voice that advises you from the earpiece, sounding like he was running somewhere.

“Uh…” You paused your sprint to look around for a higher vantage point, “Maybe too late for that.” There’s an exasperated groan from the other end of the comm link from your older brother. “Fine… just… play it safe, okay? I can’t lose you.”

You’re about to respond when an angry roar shakes the area. Stand on top of a building after having scaled the walkways and side tiles, you could see the Hydraean screech in anger from afar before attacking a flying speck… who you assumed to be Noctis. Remembering that you should have responded to Gladio, you spoke in a winded voice. “I’ll stay away from anything overwhelming, but it’s still my job to protect Noctis.” The tired sigh from Gladiolus brings a regretful frown to your face, knowing that your big brother only wanted you to be safe from harm. “I guess that’s all I can really ask for, huh… Love you, sis.” “Love you, too, big bro.” Was the response you gave before jumping towards another rooftop, making your way towards the Altar of the Tidemother.

You’re just about halfway to the altar when a bright beam lights up the sky, the ground shaking violently following. The Archenn rises from the water to challenge the Hydraean, and your comms piece crackles to life, Ignis’ voice filtering through. “Noct! Do you read me?” You could hear Ignis call over the comms unit before Titan slammed a fist into the water, creating a shockwave that knocked the approaching airships out of the sky and into the city. 

Too focused on keeping your balance on top of one of the Altissian buildings, you failed to notice that one of the airships had crashed into a towering piece of architecture, sending debris plummeting down around you.

“Ah! Damn!” You cursed, eyes darting around for a building that was still stable. When you didn’t see any to climb up towards, you sprinted over to the edge of the building, deciding that down into the water was better than getting crushed by pieces of building. “Let’s hope the water isn’t too turbulent.” You muttered before jumping off in a pencil dive.

Not even 15 minutes later

You coughed and sputtered as you tread water, once more having been knocked under the Altissian waters from the violent waves that crashed around the once beautiful city. The communication device fizzled in your ear, emitting only a few words from your brother, Prompto, and Ignis before dying from all the water damage.

“Great. Just great.” You muttered as you swam towards the closest ledge and pulled yourself out of the tepid water. Yanking the device out of your ear before it shocked you, you took a minute to rest your muscles, sea water dripping off your body as an exhausted groan left your lips. “Okay… Altar… that’s where I need to go.”

Climbing to your feet, you glanced around the street for any sign of enemies before allowing your gaze to drift upwards, wanting to get on top of another rooftop. Even among the rubble that littered the street, there wasn’t any easy way to climb up to the rooftops. “Okay then… I guess we’re doing this the old fashion way.” The sigh that escaped your lips was cut short by the distinct sound of a screeching Magitek soldier. “Astrals preserve me.” You cursed with a roll of your eyes, turning in place to summon your greatsword in a flash of crystalline light just as a large group of Niflheim puppet soldiers rounded the corner of the building towards you, surrounding you on all sides.

You’d seen the inhuman soldiers fight before, but had never personally fought one until now. As such, you remained a cautious distance away from the Niflheim puppets as they attacked with random patterns and seemingly zero team coordination. There was no technique for you to be weary of, no pattern for you to exploit. Just the overwhelming number of them. They were just mindless toys of the Niflheim Empire, but that was fine. You’d faced greater odds before. It took a little bit of time on your part, as well as the use of some thunder elemancy, but all the Magitek soldiers eventually fell at your feet.

“Waste of my time!” You growled, moving to scale the nearest wall in order to get a better vantage point of the city. Explosions and gunfire could be heard all around you, though you barely paid attention to anything besides the beam of light from the Altar. “Gotta get to Noct and Luna.” You muttered before sprint forward once more, doing your best to dodge the magitek armors that patrolled the ruins near the Altar.

The closer you came to the Altar, you began to notice the skies darken, rain falling as the Archaean and Hydraean departed. The beam of bright light that was once your waypoint dimmed and disappeared just as you rounded the corner and onto the path towards the altar. “No, no, no, no!” You pleaded under your breath, “Please don’t be too late to save them.”

For all the resentment you held towards Lunafreya, you didn’t hate the older woman. She had supported and protected Noctis during the darkest times of his childhood, and you swore to protect those that your King cared for.

But now, as your eyes took in the scene before you… of two tall familiar figures standing over the fallen lovers, you realized that you’d failed. The radiant glow from Lady Lunafreya dimmed until it was extinguished, though you still forced your tired feet to stumble forward, stopping to stand beside Ravus and Ignis, an expression of horror on your face.

“No…” the grief in Ravus’ voice gave you pause as he stumbled disbelieving towards Luna’s body. You could understand part of the grief, having lost your father only days before, but you couldn’t imagine losing your entire family. 

“Ravus…” you lifted a hand to reach out to him, but the Prince of Tenebrae continued forward, a growl to his tone.

“First, the Lucians stole from me my mother…” Your breathing paused as you scrambled through your memory for what little you remembered of the old reports on the attack. We didn’t… But we weren’t the ones that killed the Queen. Eyes darting to rest on Ravus’ back, your body tensed as he continued to speak, drawing his sword to strike down the unconscious Noctis. “And now they make a sacrifice of my sister!”

Ignis reacts just a split second faster than you do, stopping Ravus’ downward strike. Bewildered and still shocked from the lack of life in both Lunafreya and Noctis, you missed the two protectors’ exchange until Ignis roughly shoved Ravus back, taking the enraged and grief-stricken Prince on and pleading for him to return to his senses.

Trusting Ignis to handle calming Ravus down, you dashed forward and fell to your knees, checking both Oracle and King for heartbeats. “If I can do one thing right this day, please let it be to save them.” You pray, utilizing what little first aid you learned. As was expected of a King’s Sworn Shield, you confirmed that Noctis was okay first before moving onto Lady Lunafreya. The rain had long since washed away most of the evidence, but from the trail of blood from the altar proper to where the two lovers lay, you knew that Luna had lost too much blood for your meager first aid to be able to do anything about. Still, you worked to staunch the bleeding, using as much Curative Magic as your body could produce, hoping that you could at least prolong her life enough for proper aid to arrive.

Don’t die, You begged, pulling at all your magical reserves as you forced yourself to use the unnatural magic. Don’t die, Lunafreya. Don’t leave Noctis. Don’t leave Ravus. Please! Healing magic was never supposed to be used by a Lucian, only the Oracles of Tenebrae, and despite using everything you had in your body, the spell did nothing. Exhausted and without energy, you slouched forward with a miserable sob. “No! What good am I if I can’t even save one life?”

Before you knew it, a body sank heavily to the floor beside you, reaching out towards Luna’s body. “But… part of me always hoped… that I might see you happy one day. Your burdens lifted, free to live and love as you please.” Your eyes darted away from such a private moment between brother and sister, though it didn’t stop you from hearing, “You would have made a beautiful bride.”

Your eyes darted to stare at Noctis, silently agreeing that Luna would indeed have made a beautiful bride for Noctis. The Fates are cruel. You lamented as the darkness was briefly illuminated by Luna’s passing, her spirit appearing above the water… beautiful, benevolent, and lively as she smiled towards her brother, who begged for her not to go. And as you watched Ravus sob, something within you mourned with him.

Once upon a time, Ravus had been the light to coax you away from the darkness. As you shifted weakly to sit beside him, you knew that it was time you acted as his light.

Hesitantly, you extended a trembling hand to rest on his Magitek arm, drawing mournful heterochromatic eyes to your own. Nothing was said between the two of you, though Ravus raised his right hand to grasp your own. 

Please stay with me. His eyes plead, tears trailing downwards with the rain.

A squeeze of your hand was all the answer that the Prince needed, I won’t leave you.

After a small lot of time, the group of you could hear thudding footsteps approach. “Gladio!” You raised your head from where it rested on Ravus’ shoulder to stare at your older brother, only to furrow when he ignored Ignis’ follow up questions in favor of staring at the man beside you.

“Well, well.” Your brother muttered a little too elegantly as he approached. “What have we here?”

You rose, your greatsword summoned with the intention to block your brother’s attack upon Ravus, but even summoning your weapon proved too exhausting, and you slipped, slumping into Ravus’ firm back, which remained steady even as he blocked Gladio’s strike, “You… “ Ravus growled, staring up at your brother’s towering form. “Ardyn.”

“Ardyn?” Blinking in confusion, you watched in horror as the illusion dropped, and Ardyn Izunia stood before the lot of you, Niflheim soldiers surging forward to detain all of you.

Watching as they manhandled Ignis and Ravus ignited a fury within you. And despite how exhausted you already were, you called upon the power bestowed to you by the late King Regis. A powerful surge of electricity discharged from your body, shocking the troops around you and Ravus enough for the Prince to distract Ardyn. Weakened from reaching far over your limit, you reacted too late to block the descent of Ardyn’s arm to your neck, hearing only the cry of your name from Ignis and Ravus before your vision went black and you slumped forward into the Chancellor.

The next you woke, Noctis had sealed himself into the Crystal and eternal night had fallen over the world.

Y/N

I know if you were awake, you would have yelled at me for doing this. But I have a destiny to fulfill. I wanted to be there for you when you woke up, but the world couldn’t wait. While I take care of what I need to, I’m leaving everything to you, Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto. And do me a favor? Live for yourself. I know you spent your entire life training to protect me, but I don’t want your life to go to waste. Ravus promised me that you’d be safe in Tenebrae, and I hope that when I do return, you’ll have your own story to tell me.

With Love,

Noctis

You sighed as you read the letter in your hand for probably the fiftieth time since you woke up. The pristine room seemed to taunt you as you sat in the soft bed, mulling over Noctis’ request. “Live for myself, huh?” An anxious laugh escaped your lips, “How to even begin…”

“You could start by trying to leave the bed.” A voice suggested dryly from the room entrance.

The smile that rose to your lips didn’t go unnoticed as Ravus stepped further into the room, closing the door behind him as he balanced a tray of food you. “Good morning, Ravus.” You greeted your host… though caretaker seemed a more appropriate title for the Prince of Tenebrae at that point.

Setting the tray of food down onto the small tea table, Ravus strolled forward to extend a hand, urging you to your feet gently as he stood by you for support. “It is actually closer to the afternoon, but that is of no consequence.” With one arm supporting your waist, the ex-Commander extended his left arm to pull out a plush chair before guiding you to the seat. “You should eat to recover your strength.” The last of the Nox Fleurets suggested, buttering a slice of bread for you before handing it over.

Muttering a soft ‘thank you,’ you took the buttered croissant, noting with affection that Ravus had remembered your love of spreading a copious amount of butter onto your bread. “You remembered how I like my butter.”

The ex-High Commander allowed his lips to curl at the edges, “I don’t think I could ever forget your bad habits.”

“Hmph.” You stuck your nose up and pouted haughtily as you bit into the bread, chewing and swallowing before answering Ravus. “Butter makes everything better, Rae.” Ravus merely continued to smile, his only answer being a soft chuckle as he set about fixing you a cup of tea. 

Now that he wasn’t looking at you so closely, you could see the well hidden exhaustion on the twenty-eight year old. Having been trained to read people, you could tell that recent events had truly taken a toll on your childhood friend. “I can practically feel your stare burning a hole into me, Y/N.” Ravus’ blue and purple eyes suddenly meet yours, “I suspect you have some questions.” Unfortunately, you were never that subtle with your observations…

Licking your lips to get rid of the butter and crumbs, but also as a nervous habit, you set the croissant down. “I understand all that Ignis told me… about the Starscourge… about Ardyn’s true identity… and about Noctis’ role in all this. But what I don’t understand is why I’m here in Tenebrae. I appreciate what you’ve done for my friends and I… and I’m more grateful that you’ve allowed me to stay here but… Surely your contempt of Lucians has not magically disappeared.”

“You needed a safe place to rest and recover.”

“I could have done that in Lucis. My brother and sister would have looked after me.” You quickly refuted Ravus’ reasoning. “Ravus… I know you promised to protect me when we were children… but… in light of what happened… I don’t think you should feel obligated to protect me.”

Blue and purple eyes gazed upon you with hurt and outrage, “You think that I allowed your stay here out of some misplaced sense of obligation?”

Not letting his tone affect you, you merely stared back at the Tenebraen Prince calmly, “Ravus… What else am I supposed to think of this situation? You cut off all connection with me for over ten years, and when I see you again, you make it no mystery that you abhor Lucians. And now, for whatever reason, you’ve suddenly taken an interest in my well-being.” Ravus almost looked ashamed for a moment, “So, I’m asking you now, Ravus. Why am I here?”

The silence that descended upon the room was tense and awkward. And when Ravus wouldn’t meet your eyes, you just wanted to kick yourself. And why can’t I keep my fat mouth shut. He was being nice, Y/N. Nice after ten years of ignoring your existence. And now he’s lost his little sister, and you’re being ungrateful. Sighing heavily, you took a breath before speaking, an apology on the tip of your tongue.

“Ravus, I-”

“... Is it too much to not wish to be alone?” 

The heartbroken and stressed edge to Ravus’ voice brought a wince to your face. And there you go, Y/N. Congratulations on being the most insensitive a-hole on this side of the planet. “Rae…”

“My sister is dead, Y/N. The last of my family has been taken from me and I…” His voice caught as his head turned to look in your direction, tearful eyes meeting yours. “She was all I had left. And now I have nothing.” You weren’t entirely sure if Ravus had even allowed himself to mourn. “Would you fault me for wanting a friend?”

You were on your feet before your brain had time to think about it. It’s not too much to ask. You want to say, but what leaves your lips is, “I’m here.” Your legs fail the moment that you put weight on them, and while you don’t scream or emote, you cry on the inside when Ravus catches you. WHAT IS THIS HORRIBLE CLICHE. 

Hoping that the moment hadn’t been ruined as you’re gently guided to the floor, you continue to speak, sinking to your knees alongside Ravus. “I’ll be here for you, Ravus. Until you no longer need me.”

Something in Ravus’ expression cracks and he pulls you close, embracing you as his body trembles, “Oh, Little Light. I don’t think there will be a time where I won’t need you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[ren-c-leyn]

Hero’s Crown

My first fusion story in a while. This one is inspired by this prompt by @thewholekitandkabobble, this one by @humdrummoloch, these 1,2,3,4, by @givethispromptatry, and these 1,2,3 by @thependragonwritersguild.

Warnings: For a short story, it’s kind of long. Also, it mentions deaths both in passing and as the story progresses. No in depth description of the gore, no swearing.

  I still remembered the first time I had met the court mage face to face. Dark rings hanging heavily from ashen eyelids, hazel eyes bloodshot. I recalled recoiling at the sight of the stranger, pushing myself back against the heavy plate of my personal knight’s armor as I eyed him.

 Logically, I knew he must have been the mage, otherwise Eleanor would have drawn her blade, but I had a hard time believing it was that man. For as long as I remembered, sister always had him off doing errands for her. Sometimes, I’d pass his shrouded figure in a corridor or the gardens, but he was always in a rush, always hiding his face... but not on that day.

 “Hello. It’s good to meet you.” The elf patted my shoulder with a sad smile. “Though I wish it were due to something much different. My condolences for your home. Your people deserved better than what they got.”

 My people. The words echoed hollowly in my young mind for a moment as the snow and ash drifted down around us. I nodded numbly. He was right. It was more than just my sister, more than our guards, our servants, and the other residents of the castle that was lost. War is the ultimate thief, and it took all of them, my citizen’s lives, my family’s honor, my title, and my kingdom away.

 There was an upside, he mused after we caught him up with the events of the castle. I was declared dead and sent into exile. Maybe now I have a chance to live. Not bowing to nobles or their mind games, not worrying about alliances and betrayals, just living. The thing of it was, I didn’t know how.

 I looked him in the eyes, drawing in a deep breath while trying not to burst into tears again. But I couldn’t stop my eyes from watering, couldn’t stop welling tears from blurring his face into ambiguity once again.

 “But what am I to do with this so called freedom?”

 There was a thoughtful moment of silence before he squeezed my shoulder lightly, looking me right in the eye.

 “Be the hero that they took from you.”

 I held onto those words tightly in the coming years, demanding Eleanor train me in the ways of sword and battle, in untamed fields far from the palace grounds where she had learned. Strategy, combat, horsemanship, she drilled me through them all. When I started to get the hang of it, we started doing small quests for villages and such. Clearing out wolves, goblins, and other nuisances. It made me feel a bit like a hero, but nothing on so grand of a scale as my sister....

 The mage came and went, much as he had in my sister’s reign. He’d bring news of far away places, of the kingdom’s status in our fall, among other things. He’d also join us in our quests while he was around and quiz me on my old court etiquette and such.

 When I had gotten to where I was a decent match for Eleanor in most areas of our training, I approached him. The fireflies danced in the air around him as he stared up at the stars. A warm wind breathed quietly, waiting for me to speak the words I had been rehearsing in my mind for the last three weeks. But my tongue would not move. My lips would not part. My speech was as silent as the fireflies, dancing in aimless circles among the tall grasses of the pond.

 “How did she die, exactly? You’re sister.”

 I stared at him for a moment, stunned.

 “I only ask... because I’d like to believe her end was swift. A painless flash between being mortal and becoming a star.”

 I felt my heart clench as my eyes wandered to the mirror surface of the pond. All of the reflections of stars, supposedly beautiful souls preserved for eternity.

 “I didn’t see it for myself.... But I... I heard her challenge him. She died the way most heroes do, I suspect. At the end of a blade.”

 He nodded.

 “I want to... be a hero,” I pressed, “like her. I want to become what he took away from me.”

 There was more silence as I watched his silhouette in the light of the stars and the fireflies’ glow.

 “You want to reclaim the throne?”

 “I just want him off of it. If I take it or not... we’ll see when that happens.”

 A smile slowly pulled it’s way onto his face.

 “I had been hoping this day would come. I’ve been gathering allies for just such an occasion.”

 “What?”

 I got my answer at the boarders of my homeland. Rebels, angered allies of my sister’s, kingdoms under threat of invasion, mercenaries, they all stood together beneath a rainbow of banners. There were great speeches, mighty war cries, and then a march. We steadily rode forward for weeks longer until we sat outside of my old castle walls.

 It was a horrid sight, seeing the way he had twisted my ansesctor’s legacy. Twisted spikes sticking out of the stones, gnarled skulls and horns hanging from posts and blood-colored flags, among other gruesome details. I felt my eye twitch. This... this was almost as unforgivable as that monster sitting in my sister’s throne, and I would not stand for it.

 We camped outside the walls the night before the siege. That morning, as I fitted the gauntlet on my hand, I knew she would never be able to turn back to the way my life had been before. No more days of playful sparring on the fields. No more evenings of practicing strikes and strategies on wolves and goblins. Today, I would either carve my path with this blade, or join my sister. This was the end of my exile, one way or another.

 We laid into the walls with vicious assaults of war beast and machine. Archers and mages picked off the men on the tops, creating openings for ladders. I jumped onto one the first chance I got, giving not thought to anything but getting inside. I had to reach the throne room, I had to take back my sister’s crown, I had to get it back for her.

 My feet touched the stones at the top and my sword flew out of it’s sheath. I jumped into the fray immediately, taking a knight in dark armor by surprise while he tried in vain to fend off Eleanor’s relentless assault. I gave a nod to her and she gave a nod back. We both knew where we were headed, for better or worse.

 Teaming up, we cut down the enemies that came as we made our way to the inner stairs. Blood splattered across stones and slicked them. A few stumbled behind us, but we had no time to spare to watch the spectacle. The main event had yet to begin.

 We made it down into the courtyard and fought off groups of guards with the aid of our allies. Death cries and clattering metal filled my senses, but didn’t distract me from my goal. I just kept cutting, blocking, countering, whatever it took to move forward. This continued until we reached the heavy doors that led into the castle itself. I snarled and paced, waiting for the rams to come.

 Just before they did, enemy archers took up their positions. A mage and a few of the other fighters dropped before we even knew what happened. Eleanor and I brought out shields up and did out best to protect the survivors, but there was only so much that could be done. Mages threw fireballs and shot lightening, again and again, beside us until the arrows stopped coming and the rams arrived.

 We stood aside and listened to the sickening crack of old wood being broken apart. Thud, crack, thud, crack. It was even more menacing than rolling thunder, and twice as excruciating as waiting for a bad storm to pass. Seconds slipped into minutes, until my ancestor’s handiwork finally gave way, falling to pieces like the rest of this place.

 Eleanor and I joined the rush of soldiers, aimlessly storming the place. Most broke off from the pack to engage guards, but we stayed out of most of it. Our goal was the throne room, and we made it there far faster than I had expected. We stood side by side, staring at the ruined remnants of the once regal doors. Stained black with a crude dragon carved over the stag. My gauntlet creaked as I tightened my fist and drew a deep breath. Then, I shoved them open and strode inside.

 “It’s time to surrender. You’ve lost.”

 He laughed, cackled, really.

 “The dead have returned! And insist I’ve lost when they were the one that fled into the night without raising so much as a finger when I claimed this throne for myself.”

 I felt my stomach churn as he stroked the arm rest of my sister’s throne. There was nothing I wanted more than to run him through, like he undoubtedly did to her, but it was the memories that stopped me. I reminded myself that war was a thief, of what it took away. If I could make him surrender, maybe I could keep it from robbing more people of precious time.

 “I’m very much alive, thank you, and I would like to keep as many people as possible that way. Surrender, tell your soldiers to stand down, to cast aside their arms. Let’s not shed blood where it is not necessary. There’s been enough tragedy in these halls for an eternity.”

 “You’re free to say that. You’ve never had to get your hands dirty. You can hold onto your ideals and your innocence, but that luxury doesn’t belong to everyone.”

 “No, that’s your excuse. You threw away your morality the first chance you got. Don’t pretend it was life that did this to you. You chose it.”

 “Do you realize what you’re choosing now with those words?”

 “I am not so innocent as to think that you won’t try to kill me. I knew that before I came. My ideals didn’t change. I considered you a friend and came to offer you one last chance. If you’re so far gone that all you can do is kill me, you’re welcome to try.”

 He didn’t even grace me with words, just charged at me with his sword drawn. I danced around him and his attacked while Eleanor busied herself with the guards that rushed in. At one point, I was forced to draw my own blade to defend myself, but I didn’t strike back. Instead, I continued the dance, listening to the echoes of steel on steel, both in the present and in the depths of the past.

 “Fight back, you coward!”

 “It’s not cowardice that stills my blade.”

 He laughed mockingly.

 “Just like your sister, the compassion in your bleeding heart will-.”

 My gauntlet happily ended whatever nonsense he was about to shout. The crown clattered to the floor, rolling away from the both of us, but he didn’t go down the first blow. I punched him again in the stomach and once more in the face. He fell onto the floor, and I wasted no time. I pressed my boot down into his throat and looked him in the eyes.

 “If you want to live, if you want your comrades to live, then drop your weapons and give the orders to surrender to your allies!”

 He looked confused, between angry twitches of his face and wheezing gasps for breath, but he wasn’t the one to which I was speaking to. The clattering of steel on the marble lifted my heart. At least someone here had compassion.

 Eleanor put her foot on his gut, pressing down and inching her blade towards his throat.

 “Go, claim what was stolen.”

 I slowly tore my eyes off of the madman and let them wander to the crown. Silver glinted in the dim sunlight spilling through the windows. The jewels reflected my worn, bloodied appearance. I wandered over to it, trusting Eleanor to keep the false king in his place for the duration of the walk. But when it came to picking it up, I froze. I found myself wondering if I could be like my sister, if I could be a hero and a ruler.

 I could faintly hear words of encouragement being softly whispered from memories long since faded, her voice a mere echo of its former glory. But it was enough to get the crown in my hands. I glanced back over to the throne, and for a brief second I could see her sitting there, defiant and elegant as she stared me and my doubts down. Then, there was that smile, and she was gone. I looked down to the crown cupped in my hands. Eleanor held her breath as I slowly raised my arms and placed the crown on my head.

 Time passed in something of a chaotic blur since then. Coronation, cleaning up the castle, trying to salvage what was left of my land, it all went by so fast I don’t even recall which actually happened first. But the memories of the battles stayed with me. And on nights when I can barely keep my eyes open while reading correspondence, on days when I wonder if I’m fit to rule, on weeks when I question why I even try to get things done, I go out to the graveyard.

 It had weapons where headstones should be, but most of the soldiers who died couldn’t be named. So, we just used their swords, their spears, their bows, or whatever else they had been wielding as their grave markers. Perhaps it wouldn’t be meaningful to future generations, but it was everything to me. Each sword represented someone who believed a difference could be made, someone willing to die for that difference, and if I wasn’t willing to be that difference, what kind of hero would I be?

[alteredphoenix]

First Impressions Chapter 50: The Stables Incident (WIP)(Heroes of the Storm)

A/N: So, some context in a nutshell: First Impressions is an out-of-order anthology series that has Sylvanas as the MC in a more Looney Tunes-style Nexus, a central hub where all universes converge and diverge at a singular point due to the Powers That Be that may or may not have summoned them here for purposes that are unknown to them. Except anyone that is brought to the Nexus is infected with a condition called the transition, aka the in-universe term for Out of Character; even the native-born Nexians are not exempt from this, and those that are pulled from their timeline never age, and if they should die they are very shortly brought back aka respawn.

I haven’t touched First Impressions in a long while, mainly because of work, doing WoW fics, and a lot of family drama IRL from 2018 onwards that nearly made me quit writing altogether. But I have felt the itch to get back at it again, even though Heroes of the Storm got its e-sports sector gutted and is running in a slow, lumbering maintenance mode. I’m not really sure if HotS still maintans some semblance of popularity as it did in the past year; I’ve been out of the loop for a while, although I’m sure the minor leagues and community-driven events are still ongoing.

Regardless, I’m posting this preview for archival purposes. I’m also posting it because this marks the start of the legendary Stables Incident, an event in which Sylvanas is accused of slaughtering innocent farm animals (at a place where people store their mounts for matches) out of nowhere. This chapter, however, shows what really happened (spoiler alert: Sylvanas didn’t do it, it was actually an accident, Hammer pressed the button on her tank by mistake during a squabble and, as a result, caused an intergalactic news circus over it).

I’m also posting this because: I love writing smartass-give-no-fucks!Sylvanas, and there must be more of it in the fandom.

-

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!”

The music kicked up in a roar so loud it threw Sylvanas off the bench onto the ground as though an invisible hand scooped up her from underneath and bowled her over. She awoke with a painful groan, twisting round onto her stomach to sit up on her elbows. Her ears twitched and swiveled, searching for the source of the music.

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!”

They flattened down against the sides of her head, shaking more from the vibrations that were causing the ground to quake, the bench to jump, and the squirrels and birds on their respective tree branches to bounce off in chattering, chirping squeaks and squawks than the force driving a jackhammer into her brain. Sylvanas looked behind her, in the direction of the auto body shop with its garage doors opened all the way.

A large, single-barreled cannon was poking its head out, connected to a red plated chassis on massive treads.

Sylvanas snarled, pushed to her feet, and stormed toward the garage.

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!”

“HAMMER!” Sylvanas yelled, but she could only hear the word in her head; it was like walking into a nightclub on full blast while the mother of all earthquakes, the Even Bigger One (bigger than San Andreas!), was bringing about The End Of The World As They Knew It. The tools on the walls racks and on the benches were rattling. The overhead fluorescent lights and spotlights were flickering and swinging back and forth. Darkness, even the fuel tanks way in the back were shaking in their cages! And Hammer…

Hammer was standing up out of the manhole, swaying and bumping and grinding like a turkey on antihistamines.

“HAMMER!” Sylvanas yelled again, feeling her throat work to outdo the noise. But Hammer still kept on dancing, oblivious to the world. The Banshee Queen glanced around the area. She saw a boombox from the Twenty-First Renaissance Era (which looked like a pyramidal A-track player) on a workbench...but no, nothing was coming out of it. She’d seen and heard it play before; whatever was running at the time would sound like it was being phoned in from a tin can in another municipal district from across an ocean. Then her eyes flicked behind the tank where, some distance away, were the ‘administrative’ offices that were reserved for quiet paperwork, faxing, phone calls, Internet, and maybe a few Jet Briggs’ beer and Easy Green joints were drunk and rolled in private enlightenment (that definition seemed to wax and wane over the years, apparently, but it usually ranged from a blissful stoner’s high to confusion and then to an agoraphobic fear of unseen, probably imaginative eldritch horrors that ranged between pink elephants, hyperrealistic eyes on the walls, and crab people with the heads of famous celebrities dead, alive, and not yet born crawling all over the place). Her eyes went to the ceiling where the speakers were located...but they shook as well, and offered no indication to her addled ears that the music was coming from them.

That left only one other place. “HAMMER, TURN THAT DOWN!”

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!” were the words Sylvanas could read from Hammer’s lips. “WHAT! WHAT! Doo doo-doo doo doo! Nuh-nuh-nuh! Doo doo-doo doo doo, doo-doo-doo--”

“TURN DOWN FOR WHAT!”

Sylvanas clenched her fists, her body shaking in time with the music. She mimicked taking a breath, reared back, and, calling upon the dark magic inside her, focused the font of power to nestle in her lungs and up her throat. Then she leaned forward and screamed. “HAAAAAMEEEERRRRR! TURN THAT THING OFF!”

The last syllable finally knocked Hammer out of her dance-induced stupor, blowing her back (and, Sylvanas thought morosely, not ass over tea kettle off the tank) from the amplified force. She caught herself, looked around, and saw the Banshee Queen glaring death and mayhem below her. “AW SNAP! SORRY, SORRY! EH, UH, G-GIVE ME ONE SEC! HOLD ON! WHERE’S THAT DAMN...AHA!” She doubled over, rooting around for the stereo, and when she found it turned it off.

Sylvanas had never found complete, total silence to be such an aether-given blessing until today. Like nirvana for mind, body, and soul. The quintessential out-of-body experience where one became attuned to nature and all that is not industrial.

Until I leave and she starts up again, she concluded. “You’re welcome,” Sylvanas drawled sardonically.

“Girl, I’m so sorry! I didn’t even know you were down there!” said Hammer. “Y-You weren’t waitin’ long, were ya?”

“I was waiting for an hour.”

Hammer clapped her hands to her cheeks. “Holy shit! Damn, girl, I’m really sorry--”

“Yeah, you should be. I actually just got here.”

“Eh? What? Really?”

“Yes, really!” Sylvanas said. “I was having a nice, simple rest on the bench outside and your stupid music woke me up! I swear to Darkness, woman, are you trying to move the Anchors out of position? Do you want to get us all killed?”

“N-Nah, girl, not at all! It’s just”--and Hammer flailed--”It’s such a nice day out, ya know? And it’s Sunday, which means all the auto shops are closed. An’ that also means I can work to mah heart’s content! No disruptions! No phone calls! No Kaijo suddenly tearing through the fabric of the space-time continuum! I can actually get stuff on time now, and at my own pace!”

“So I guess if I brought a motorcycle in, I’ll be expecting it by next spring as a belated Winter Veil present.”

“What? No! Girl, I ain’t that slow!”

“A tortoise, a snail, and a sloth could compete against you and they’d still win the race.”

“Hell no they wouldn’t! I have a tank, they don’t. I would just run ‘em over!”

Sylvanas rolled her eyes. “You are such a humanitarian it makes my heart bleed.”

“Well that’s what they’d get for messin’ with a siege tank!”

“You do realize there’s a noise ordnance of seventy-five feet, right?”

Hammer grinned wolfishly. “Ain’t no such thing as a noise ordnance if there’s no one around to complain about it.”

“Except for me,” said Sylvanas.

“Are ya really gonna tell on me?”

“No, but I’ll have ten reasons to tell you where to go if you do that again.”

“Ten reasons?” Hammer quirked a brow.. “What are they?”

“I punch you in the face with my left fist and then punch you with my right fist. If I add onto that, I’ll have ninety-nine reasons and a headbutt to make you quiet. Let’s also not forget I can just kick when you’re down, and by that point I’ll have lost count.”

“That’s a helluva lot of reasons to have...and money! Lots of money to pay for medical bills!”

“I can think of ways to accrue the cash and avoid jail time. You think this lackadaisical government can stop me?”

“Well,” Hammer said, digging a pinkie finger into her ear, “they are a little slow on the uptake. They ain’t exactly unnatural like we are. They’re more...what’s the word...normal.”

“You’re far from normal,” Sylvanas muttered.

“Eh? What?” Hammer asked.

“I said, what the hell are you working on that’s made you put the music on full blast?” Sylvanas lied smoothly. “What about it is so important you haven’t had the cops called on you yet?”

Hammer laughed uproariously. “This? This! My good friend! Is the latest in Jeetilopolis technological warfare!”

Sylvanas appraised it with a slow, long sweep of her eyes. “A single shot cannon?”

“Not just any single shot cannon! It’s a single shot cannon bought straight from the auction block all the way in Jeetilopolis! I spent just about my entire checking account on getting this thing, and spent almost the entirety of my savings on shipping and handling!”

“You can’t be that stupid.”

“What people think is stupid is actually smart! Besides, how’s a woman gonna get by in life if she can’t dip a little?”

“Hammer, spending every copper, silver, and gold on a cannon that is more than likely going to be faulty is not dipping a little. That’s jumping headfirst out of a plane without a parachute and hoping you time your angle just right so you can land in a lake that’ll be deep enough to sustain your impact and not kill you on the spot.”

“And when I hit rock bottom, will it be filled with gold?”

“Whatever it is, I won’t be joining you to find out.”

Hammer made an annoyed sound by blowing her lips. “Aw, c’mon! It’ll be fun!”

“Maybe for you, but I have no intentions of going into bankruptcy.”

“That ain’t gonna happen! You know why?”

“No,” Sylvanas drawled dryly. “Tell me why.”

“Because there was one other thing I got while I was in Jeetilopolis. One little thing that’ll give this baby here one helluva big wallop that’ll scare the bejeesus out o’ people! You wanna know what that is?”

“Not really.”

“Guess!”

Sylvanas sighed. “Do I have to--”

“Yeah! Come on! Take a guess!”

“Fine. Let me think.” Sylvanas feigned contemplation, making a show of looking away and tapping her chin. Then she snapped her fingers. “I got it. A brain.”

“Nuh-uh! Already have one,” said Hammer, and rapped her fists on her helmet for emphasis.

“Two brains.”

“No!”

“Three.”

“Now what am I supposed ta do with that many brains, eh? Play tsukkome and bokke with one while the other plays the straight man...brain...thing? Actually, on second thought,” Hammer added, thoughtfully, “I could probably palaver with them and get some pretty neat ideas for the tank. Yeah.” She nodded approval. “Yeah, that ain’t such a bad idea! But, uh, that ain’t what’s in this thing! It’s somethin’ better than a brain!”

“And that would be…?”

“Aether,” Hammer breathed. “I got me some gods be damned aether in a bottle for fifteen thousand gold! That’s cheap!”

Sylvanas gave her a blank stare, then nodded complete and total understanding. “Okay. So you get blitzed off the life-energy of the universe. It all makes sense now.”

“Did you just call me stupid?”

“No.” Sylvanas shook her head slowly, and drawled dryly, “No. Why would I ever say that?”

“’Cause this ain’t just the life energy of the universe!” Hammer slapped a hand down hard on the base of the manhole. “This is the answer to all my problems! This baby right here can store so much oomph in here...why, I think I might have just become a god!”

“Aether-based weaponry is banned from the League.”

Hammer grinned wickedly. “Not if they don’t find out! All’s I have to do is get the energy output tuned to its usual optimized settings and those old bats and goats in the Houses will be none the wiser! Ahahahahahaha! I’m a genius, Sylvanas!” she cried, throwing her arms up in the air. “A bonafide, grade-A genius!”

“Joy to the world, God is good,” Sylvanas grumbled, shaking her head.

“Hey, I’m thinkin’ of taking the tank out for a test firin’ out in the Shadowskirts in a bit; don’t want the authorities to catch wind of this! You wanna check ‘er out before I go?” 

Sylvanas shrugged. “Why not. Not like I have anything better to do.”

[immalittlepandybear]

Am I?

Soooooo, I’m actually posting some angst, OhmToonz angst. This story was inspired by the song FRIENDS by Anne-Marie and Marshmello and the ever beautiful writer @crimsonbluemoon

So, babe don’t read this!

Ring Ring Ring Ring!

Luke blindly reached over to his alarm clock and unplugged it. When the ringing continued, he opened his eyes and saw that it was his phone. Someone was calling him.

Luke sat up and answered the call, not even caring to look at the caller I.D. He already knew who it was, Ryan. Ry was the only one with his number.

“Yes, Ry?”

“Open up. I forgot my key.”

“Ugh. Fine.”

*click*

Luke dragged his sore body out of bed and down the stairs to their front door, him and Ryan are college roommates, but probably not for long. Ryan has gotten his degree and is in the process of moving to Chicago. He shipped everything of his there, now he just needs to get on the plane tomorrow.

Luke opened the door to a drenched Ryan.

“God Ry! You’re gonna freeze! Or get hit by lightning!” Luke scolded as Ryan rushed inside and grabbed his bunny blanket to cuddle up in. Luke decided to go and make the poor man some hot cocoa. He is lucky if he doesn’t get hypothermia.

Once Luke made the hot cocoa for Ryan, he grabbed the container and the mug and took it over to Ryan.

“Don’t forget this thing when you go. It’s just gonna rot in the cupboard if you’re not drinking it.”

“I still can’t believe you don’t like hot chocolate. You’re an alien I swear. Everyone *loves* hot chocolate.” Ryan grumbled as he nonchalantly grabbed the container and set it to the side. He had a more important problem right now anyway. He was finally going to confess his feelings for Luke.

“Umm, Luke? Can I tell you something?”

“Yeah, sure.” Luke has a feeling he knows what it is, but Ryan needs to get it off his chest. Ryan will need to move on because Luke is straight. And he has no plans on changing his sexuality anytime soon.

“I-I like you…Like, love you.” Ryan can’t believe he just did that! He finally said it! After all this time! He hid his face in his blanket and waited for Luke’s response, face as red as a tomato.

…

After a moment of silence, Ryan looked up in confusion. “Luke?”

“I know.” Luke walked away, back to the kitchen and stayed there.

“Wha-

“I *know* you like me, more than just a friend. You told me when you were drunk a couple of months ago. That’s why I got a girlfriend and ignored that next week. That’s why I brought chicks home every weekend after she broke up with me. I’ve been trying to prove to you.” Luke paced up and down the kitchen while Ryan just watched, bewildered.

“You knew? And you didn’t say anything? Why not? And to prove what?”

“TO PROVE THAT I’M STRAIGHT! AND THAT I CAN’T AND WON’T EVER LOOK AT YOU LIKE THAT! I tried to let you down gently! But this is ridiculous! You can’t take a hint, can you? I thought I made it obvious for you! DO I HAVE TO SPELL IT OUT!!?? WE. ARE. FRIENDS.” Luke stormed away and into his bedroom. “I’m going back to bed! I can’t believe you woke me up at two in the morning for this shit!”

Ryan didn’t know where it went wrong! He knew he should’ve just kept his stupid mouth shut. Why does he have to be so stupid?

Crying, Ryan grabbed his last suitcases and headed to the airport, there was no way he was going to spend the night there and face Luke in the morning. In his haste and crying state, Ryan forgot his bunny blanket and his hot cocoa container.

~~~*~~~

Luke heard the door slam and sighed. He knew that what he said was harsh. But he has been trying to subtly tell Ryan for a whole month! His girlfriend even found out that Ryan loved Luke and she broke up with him because of it. Ugh, now he feels horrible for what he said. He was just tired of it. He was really harsh though, Ryan didn’t do anything *wrong* so, he decided to apologize.

“I’ll apologize tomorrow, I’m dead tired right now.”  Luke decided that calling him will be best. He will call Ryan before his 6 a.m. flight to Chicago. He set his alarm and tried to sleep.

*Tried* but failed.

Luke ended up laying there for the rest of the night, questioning everything. His stupid mind suddenly recalled his days in high school when he had a questionable drunk night and woke up in someone else’s bed. All that would have been fine and the normal for Luke except, it was a guy’s bed. A dude named Craig. Luke remembers waking up to him naked, with his clothes tossed everywhere and Craig mumbling in his sleep how much his ass hurt and ‘Why did he have to be so big?’ Luke also remembers rushing to put his clothes on and leaving that apartment as fast as he could to get away from whatever the hell happened that night.

With the battle going on in his head, Luke knew he wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight. Maybe I can wake up Ryan and we can finally finish ou--, oh wait, Ryan isn’t here to play monopoly with him anymore. He isn’t here to throw the dice at Luke when he knows Luke is being a gloating asshole. He won’t be here anymore to try and make Luke drink hot cocoa anymore, always waving it under his nose to try and get him to drink it. He won’t be here to stumble around and break things in the morning. Or to silently rage when they play Mario Cart together. He won’t be here to get excited over going to Starbucks together, or to enjoy Luke’s cooking.

Luke brought a smile to his face as he remembers all the little weird noises Ryan would make when he was happy, or excited. He specifically remembers when Ryan actually beat Luke and got MVP in Rainbow Six Siege, Ryan jumped all over the couch yelling in excitement as Luke watched on in amusement until Ryan tumbled off and hit his head against the wall. “Worth it!” was what he said amidst the groans of pain and mumbles of cursing. But all of that can’t happen anymore because he fucked up. He fucked up reaaaaaal bad. He can’t imagine his life without him. God, why is Luke sooo stupid! Why did he have to yell at Ryan! The poor man opened up to him about his feelings and all Luke did was yell.

“Goddammit! Why did you have to do that Luke? All because you are fucking insecure and confused.” Luke punched the couch and flopped down on it.

“Fucking shit!” He cried out when his knee hit something metallic. He angrily got up and yanked a blanket off the couch to look. It was…the hot cocoa powder? Why would Ryan leave this? He loves this stuff. Luke also realized that the blanket still in his hands was Ryan’s. The bunny one. Why would Ryan leave this? It’s his favorite. He and Luke went to an animal sanctuary and they were selling blankets of the animals that they saved. Ryan ended up begging Luke to get him the gray bunny blanket, after a while, Luke agreed. But what he didn’t find out until later is that Ryan, the sneaky bastard, already bought Luke a fox one and he wanted them to match. Luke unknowingly pulled the blanket around him and took a deep breath. Hmm, smells of chocolate and coffee. He stopped himself. What was he doing? Smelling his blanket? What the fuck is wrong with him? He’s acting…like a…lovesick…person. But Luke’s straight? Right?  No. He doesn’t know what he is, but he sure isn’t straight, not anymore.

“I gotta call Ry!”

Luke flew off the couch and to his bedroom, where his phone was still plugged in. He didn’t even look at the time as he quickly scrolled through his contacts and called Ryan. Oh, how he hoped he would have come to his realization sooner.

~~~*~~~

Brock looked around the room with tired eyes. Right now, he and his team are stationed at the local police station to somehow make sense of this chaotic mess. An airplane was struck by lighting and the instruments stopped working, including the autopilot system. No one really knows what happened, and most of the bodies are scorched beyond recognition, so his team was tasked with trying to match I.D.s up with bodies and contacting their families.

*Ring Ring!*

“Whose ever it is, shut it off. We are busy right now.”

*Ring Ring!*

“I said--!” I turned around to the boys looking around and putting their phones down. They all looked confused until Agent Jon Dennis spoke up.

“I think it’s coming from the evidence box.” At that, everyone searched through the boxes with baited breath. They all hate this part. A loved one calling up to check if a person was ok and then finding out that they’re in fact dead.

“I found it!” Jon held up the phone which was still ringing.

“Answer it and put it on speaker phone,” I said as he answered it. We immediately heard a male voice.

“Oh, thank god I was able to get to you before you left for Chicago. I’m sorry about what I said! Please come home! I love you and I can’t believe I didn’t say it before and that I waited until the complete last moment to tell you that. And I feel like such an ass about earlier and I understand if you are still angry with me, but please come home. I’m so so sorry for what I said…Ryan? Are you there?” I looked around the room and saw that Brian had tears running down his cheeks, Marcel wasn’t moving, and Mini had a hand over his mouth and was silently sobbing as they all realized that this man had no idea.

No idea that the man he loved, Ryan, wasn’t coming back home, and that one fight had seemed to lead Ryan to get on that flight, only to die in a storm moments later.

“This is Agent Brock of the FBI. It’s very unfortunate to tell you this, but Mr. Wrecker died in a plane crash this morning around 6:45.” Even Brock had tears running out of his eyes at this point. They have told so many people today that their loved ones are dead. That they will never be coming back home to them. This last one seemed to break them completely as they heard the poor man fall apart at hearing the news and then hang up.

“Nonononononoo! That can’t be true! I just talked to him a couple of hours ago! Oh no! He died hating me! He…he…died”

[doublehex]

Impressions of 7x02 “Stormborn”

So we got the second episode. Let’s have a chat.

Dragonstone:

We open up with a fierce storm raging outside Dragonstone, and I love this for several reasons. First off, the obvious allusions to the night that Daenerys was born, but most importantly I love the imagery of it. It is nearly black, save for the outlines of thunder strikes and the fire from within the Targaryen keep.

The scene opens with strife amongst Daenerys’ advisors. Elaria Martell has no shame over killing Tyrion’s niece Myrcella back in the final episode of Season 5, and I have to say I was disappointed by how it was played out. Tyrion seems to just casually accept what Elaria has done, a shrug off his shoulder. He should be pissed, and demanding from Daenerys some kind of retribution. I really do hope that something comes out from this, because otherwise it would just seem the showrunners are just waving off a critical relationship between characters.

Daenerys questions Varys about his loyalty, and I really do need to ask…why now? This is a conversation that needed to happen, but not after months of sailing together across the Narrow Sea. Why did Dany not speak with Varys in the final episode of season 6? It just seems awkwardly placed, although it is decently written.

Varys’ character suffers from cutting out the Golden Company plot from the books. Without Varys’ “perfect prince”, it doesn’t make much sense for him to have backed Viserys in the first season. He should have known that Viserys was the same kind of man that Aerys was, so why would he go for that? It feels like the writers are trying to salvage a ship that is made out of seaweed and is on fire.

I do however like Daenerys’ response – that if Varys felt she is doing a poor job as queen, he will say so to his face. And her threat of killing him if he should conspire against her shows she is not going to just accept his loyalty. Varys has jumped from monarch to monarch several times over now. He was essential for bringing Dorne and the Reach into the fold, and Daenerys is in need of a spymaster. But she does not trust him one bit, nor should see.

Then we get a Melisandre scene, where she reveals that perhaps Daenerys is the Prince(ss) That Was Promised. In the books, the revelation that the prophecy may have suffered a grammatical mistranslation came about as a sort of bitter moment…Aegon had been mistaken all along, and perhaps his error resulted in Rhaegar’s rash decision. Here it’s played as a mediocre female power moment.

Also, why is Melissandre in the throne room? Dany should be there on the stone throne, and Melissandre should be escorted in. Dany sees herself as queen – she should be showcasing that as much as possible.

When they plan for how Daenerys will retake the Seven Kingdoms, it is only her and Tyrion that vouches for the least amount of blood shed as possible. They realize that the Dothraki and Unsullied will only fan the xenophobic flames of the Westerosi. In order to establish Daenerys as a rightful ruler, it can’t be the Essosi that take King’s Landing. The Reachmen and Dornish will lay siege to King’s Landing.

This scene does a good job of showcasing what everyone wants out of Daenerys. Yara just wants the Iron Islands to be independent, she wants a quick end to the war. Ellaria and Olenna want Cersei to suffer, damn the consequences. Daenerys’ alliance is a fragile on at best. Besides the racial tensions between Dorne and the Reach, which have always been high, the alliance is split on how to proceed. It seems only the fact that Daenerys has dragons and a formidable army is what keeps the others from abandoning the cause.

At the end, Olenna tries to remind Dany that she is a dragon, so she must “be a dragon”. Olenna is trying to push Daenerys towards fire and blood, highest amount of casualties, giving the Lannisters as much misery as possible, and one can’t help but worry that this will be the show’s version of the “dragons plant no trees” from the books.

The Missandei and Grey Worm romance has finally come to it’s…blunt conclusion. Although it was good to hear Grey Worm speak of what the training of the Unsullied was like, the romance between these two characters have felt very contrived and forced. The sex scene is rather mild by the standards of the show, which comes as a relief, because the dialogue leading up to it was as awkward as one could get. One really has to ask just what this side plot added to the series, that couldn’t be better spent somewhere else.

Kings Landing:

Cersei seems to have taken Jaime’s advice to heart. She is doing her best to rallying the support of the Southern lords…and that seems to means just the Reach, if Randyll Tarly’s presence is anything to go by. The language she uses in her speech reminds me a great deal of Trump, where she is relying on an appeal of the Other and objectively false claims to secure a base.

It may have been unintentional or not, but I got several ISIS vibes when we had Qyburn defame Balerion’s skull with the ballista. They start off that scene with a bit of a history lesson, showcasing that Balerion is a big part of how the Seven Kingdoms were forged. It’s a priceless relic for all intents and purposes. Then we have Cersei deface it, and look pleased about it.

It seems to me that D&D are trying to create parallels between modern day and with Cersei. She has overturn the political system, going against the will of the people, to secure power. Now Trump did not perform a coup d’état like Cersei has. As far as we know, his election was legal. Influenced by outside forces, beyond a doubt, but legal. Most people did not want Trump as president, and almost nobody in Westeros wants Cersei to be their queen.

Another comparison between Team Lannister and the Alt-Right is the racist language Jaime has employed in recruiting Randyll Tarly to their side. Othering the Unsullied and the Dothraki in an appeal for Westerosi Nationalism (and luring the prospect of a new Paramount Lord of the Reach) seems to have worked on Lord Tarly.

One very keen thing to take away is that Jaime states that he no longer likes his sister. A rift is growing between the Lannister twins, and it will surely culminate in Jaime having to make a choice.

Winterfell:

Jon is finally starting to listen to Sansa. He speaks to her about the summon to Dragonstone, and she is wary. Despite her insistence that Tyrion is a good man, it is too risky. Sansa is still very much in bunker mode – after years of witnessing her family come under siege, she views anyone else but a Northman as a threat. She is not entirely wrong, but Sansa is also focused on the Southern threat, while Jon is focused on the Northern one.

In the end, Jon goes against the pleas of all his lords (including Lyanna Mormong) and accepts the invitation. Jon is getting flashbacks to his time as Lord Commander, when he is the sole voice for an unpopular action that must be taken. Even if it weren’t for Daenerys’ dragons, the North has been under siege for years. Food supplies are low, men are short. There’s a reason that boys and girls are being taught to fight. They need more manpower against the White Walkers, and Daenerys’ army is precisely what they need.

But once again, Sansa openly objects to Jon’s proposal in front of their lords. D&D continue to strike the same source of conflict between these two characters, in a way that seems artificial and forced. Especially when Jon rewards her with ruling the North in his absence. We just saw Jon seeking her counsel a scene earlier – why doesn’t he tell her his plans in private? The Starks look divided, and that won’t look good in front of the Northern nobility.

Petyr Balish also seems to be out of place this season. There is no clear understanding of just why, precisely, he is in the North, or what he is trying to accomplish. He may view chaos as a ladder, but the ladder doesn’t seem to be leading him anywhere. And the creep vibes he gives off does not seem to serve a purpose. In the earlier seasons, Petyr was very good at being everyone’s friend. That skill seemed to have evaporated by season 7 has rolled around.

Just what is Balish’s endgame plan? We are not getting much of a sense that he has one. Just like Varys, the changes to the narrative post season four has left Balish hanging.

Oldtown:

Sam’s arc is quickly becoming one of the best parts of the season. With an emphasis on being “hard rock Hogwarts”, the pacing of these scenes is stellar. They are glorified info dumps, but they are info dumps with style, and I am along for the ride. Maester Slughorn…err, Marwyn…no, Ebrose, sorry, is a darkly charming mentor for Sam.

The Grandmaesters actually had a good reason for hiding the greyscale cure – it tends to get the treater killed. But Samwell doesn’t have a say no attitude, and by golly he is going to save Ser Jorah. No matter what.

The cure for greyscale being entirely mundane instead of magical was a sigh of relief. And with the cure being to actually carve out the corrupted skin, one could not think of a better face for a character with morals are corrupted and dubious as Jorah Mormont. Next time, Ser Jorah, do not enslave people just to fulfill the debts of your wife. Also, don’t abuse the trust of a young woman and violate her privacy by kissing her without permission. No matter how sexily Ian Glen can growl “Khaleesi”, that is unforgivable.

And he does nothing for the narrative anyways, except slows it to a crawl.

Arya:

And the best scene transition goes to…pus soaked flesh into chicken pot pie! Mark Mylod had to be crackling as he directed that, and I wouldn’t blame him one bit. Grossing people out is a wonderful hobby to have.

Say one thing for season seven, and say that Arya’s arc has been on point, and her time in the inn is no exception. Watching her eat the pie surely made the entire audience hungering for something to stuff down their gut. You could hear every crunch, see the crumbs get stuck on Maisie Williams’ cheeks, and just get the sense that the pie was really damn good.

We also got a sense that the Hound had a profound impact on Arya. Her statement to having baked some pies is the kind of casual appeal to murder that sounds like it would come from Sandor Clegane’s mouth.

Arya also seems to have not realized that any of the Starks were alive, up until Hot Pie drops the fact that Jon took back Winterfell and was the King in the North. That changes her trajectory completely, from killing Cersei to reuniting with her family. Although that warms the heart, one has to wonder just what her last line to Jaqen H’ghar was supposed to mean. If she was “going home”, why was she not in Winterfell already?

The scene with Nymeria was, of course, wonderful, and D&D avoided the expected trap of having Nymeria rejoin with Arya. They haven’t been with each other for years, and Nymeria has long since found her own path in life. Nymeria has a pack, and Arya is on her way to reunite with hers.

Oh, of course this happens the moment Jon heads south for Dragonstone, but that’s plot convenience for you.

The Battle in the Narrow Sea:

So, we got one good scene and one bad one. The interaction between the Sand Snakes is almost…endearing. I actually found it a bit heart warming to see these three half-sisters are toying with each other. It almost makes one forget that they went and killed their nephew and joked about it.

But then we get the most awkward flirting with Yara and Elaria. “A foreign invasion is in progress”. Good god. They improvised most of those lines, and it really shows.

Once that nastiness is out of the way, we get a real sense of just what type of villain Euron Greyjoy is meant to be. The book version was an sorcerous pirate captain with delusions of eldritch power. Show Euron is the Mountain on the Sea. An absurd murderer with no desires to hold back his bloodlust. From the moment the Silence rams into the flagship of the Greyjoy fleet, Euron is an absurd villain.

And he rocks that role. Euron is utterly bloodthirsty that reflects the raised stakes of the series. Daenerys has brought dragons to Westeros, but Euron is showing us the true meaning “fire and blood”. Between the flaming ballista bolts and the Iron Islanders carving through each other, we get plenty of both.

The show does allude to how Euron from the novels would cut the tongue out of his crewmates. They are all silent, not speaking a single word, and one of the final shots is them cutting out the tongue out of the survivors.

The scene ends with Theon facing a new Ramsay. Seeing the way the Greyjoy loyalists are butchered by the crew of the Silence reminds Theon all too much of his abuser, and he can’t take it. Alfie Williams deserve an award for this scene alone. He utterly sells just the shame and fear in Theon.

When the episode draws to a close, Theon is left behind, just another bit of wreckage in Euron’s wake.

The episode opened with a storm of water, and it ended with one of blood.