#i started this morning with Baron and I got to just absorb all of the rest of the everything at once

[slumbering-shadows]

Hi everyone I'm finally fully caught up judt in time for tonight's (?) fucking episode so.

Adaine's Furious Fists on Oision yeah? This motherfucker? Like forget everyone else he specifically is the problem in this moment methinks

[anxious-allie-ren]

I couldn't help myself from posting the next chapter already. I'm just too excited about this story and sharing it with you all! I hope you all enjoy this next chapter as well! It's probably my favorite thing I've written so far.

A few trigger warnings for this chapter: Violence, death, and childhood trauma.

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Erota

Your majesty.

The invitation had arrived at his castle months ago. It sat open on his desk with no response for three weeks. He stares down at it as he finishes putting on his attire for the evening. It was a last minute decision to go. He still wasn't confident in such a decision, but it was too late to go back on it now. His aunt and uncle would be expecting him.

Ben had been a quiet boy. Growing up on the palace grounds was very secluded. High society members visited the King and Queen of Chandrila often. Balls, banquets, and glamorous events took place nearly every fortnight. But it was rare a child would accompany their parents. It was even rarer that Ben was allowed to attend such events.

His father was a strict man. He had married into power, Queen Leia taking control of the kingdom after her father had passed. He was anointed king soon after their marriage and took on numerous responsibilities. Most notable being the military and war plans. He was a courageous soldier, fighting in many of Chandrila's most notable wars. This tough exterior and pride carried into his parenting. Han pushed Ben to be just like him. He was to be strong, both physically and mentally. Any sign of emotion was seen as a weakness.

When Ben was just a boy, no older than four years of age, he had attended a hunting trip with his father and a few other noblemen. He kept to himself as he followed the men deep into the woods. He struggled to carry his bow and arrow, the weapon still larger than him. He observed the men bantering and preparing weapons of their own. He was much too young to understand what was to happen on this trip. But he would soon find out.

The group was stopped for a break within a small clearing. The men chugged bitter wine from their flasks and exchanged raunchy jokes. Ben was too busy watching a brilliantly blue butterfly floating about to absorb their words. He is ripped from his peaceful moment as his father quickly grabs his own weapon near his feet.

"Look across the clearing there, men. We've got a large one!"

Ben follows his fathers line of sight to a marvelous buck grazing the meadow in the distance. He was immediately taken with the animal. He had wooden toys of woodland animals just like it. A smile spread across his face as he watched the buck chew on blades of grass, its long antlers sat on his head like a crown. It reminded him of the crown his father was wearing now. Ben turns to look upon it just as his father pulls back the arrow and releases it. The buck is speared in the chest, just inches from its heart. It collapses in the grass, too stunned to take off. Han yells out in frustration.

"Motherfucker! That was a clear fucking shot!"

Ben's eyes water as he watches the buck writhed in pain, releasing wails that cut through the calm woods. Han looks to Ben and sees the tears trail down his chubby little cheeks. He rips his dagger from his boot and grabs Ben by the back of his collar, dragging him towards the wounded animal. Ben cries out in protest, trying to wriggle from his father's grasp.

"No father! I don't want to go near it!"

Han stops in front of the animal, shoving Ben in front of him and forcing the dagger into his tiny hands.

"Finish him off, boy. End his suffering."

Ben shakes his head, tears still falling from his eyes. He looks from the buck and back to the dagger. Blood is flowing from where it was punctured, creating a pool near his feet.

Ben sniffles and starts to back away. He lets out a small whimper and cries out, "I can't father! It was good! It did nothing wrong!"

Han growls in anger and pushes Ben closer to the animal.

"Do it, Ben! You need to stop being so fucking weak! Good or bad doesn't matter when you're facing another man's sword. All that matters is who comes out of the battle alive."

"But this isn't a battle! It's just an animal!"

Han's anger finally boils over. He grabs Ben's hand, forcing the dagger into his little fist and shoves it through the buck's heart. Ben screams in horror and fear as blood splatters onto his arms and chest. Han releases his grip on his hand, yanking out the dagger and wiping it on his pant leg.

"This kingdom has no use for a sensitive, spineless king. Toughen up, Benjamin or you will fail."

That moment had traumatized him. His father's words sunk into his soul, like a rock sinking to the bottom of the sea. He came back from that trip a bit hardened. As he grew, he continued to collect bricks of trauma, adding them slowly to the wall he hides behind. His fortress was solidified the day his parents passed.

He never got along with his father. His relationship with his mother wasn't good either. When he was an infant, Leia doted on him. She took on the responsibility of caring for him by herself, leaving her other duties to her advisors. She spent as much time with him as possible. But when Ben was about the age of three, she seemed to abandon him. Leia brought on nannies and wet nurses to care for him.

Leia was brought up as an independent, able lady. During her time in the ton, she was one of the most desired debutantes. But by the end of the season, she had chosen Lord Han Solo, the son of a Baron in Chandra. He was below her in status, but she was so enamored with him that they married quickly after meeting. Ben was born just ten months into their marriage. He provided Chandrila with its sought after heir. But a spare would still be needed in the event that tragedy were to strike. Leia tried desperately for another child, but nothing seemed to stick. She went as far as to bring in witch doctors and herbalists in hopes of success. The spare never came and the stress weighed on her greatly. The pain became too much to bear.

Leia returned to her duties and never spoke of children again. She distanced herself from the one she had as some way to cope with her failure. Seeing her living child grow only reminded her what she was lacking. They would remain separated for the rest of her life, only seeing each other at events.

Ben was only fifteen years old when his parents died. The king and queen were travelling to Chandrakant for a meeting with the Earl to discuss funding when they were attacked. Soldiers from a neighboring kingdom ambushed their carriage during the night. They were found in the morning by merchants traveling along that path. When their bodies were brought back to Chandrila and laid to rest, Ben was crowned as king.

During his coronation, he was given the choice to take on a reign name or keep his own. Both his parents had kept their names during their rule. His grandparents had as well. But he made the decision that day to let his past die along with his family. He would take on a new name and bring on a new era for Chandrila. From that day on he was formally known as His Majesty, King Kylo Ren of Chandrila.

Kylo had been living a secluded life for many years at this point. He preferred to stay introverted, doing what he had to for his kingdom and nothing more. The ballroom that was once filled with balls and galas had been retired. An event had not been held at the palace since his parents were alive. Meetings with nobility took place in the throne room. He did not travel. He did not leave the palace grounds.

But Kylo has now come of age, surpassed it by a few years even. His advisors were now beginning to push the idea of marriage on him. A heir and spare would be needed for the succession. Kylo simply brushed off their pestering questions during court. He would take a wife when he was good and ready.

But finding a wife meant leaving the grounds to search. This meant he must attend the events of the ton. Kylo had absolutely no interest in stepping foot in such frivolous festivities. When he decided it was time, he would simply have his advisor pick a lady for him. It's not as if the marriage would ever be anything more than a societal alliance. A way for both notable families to gain from the prospect. The notion of love was not even on Kylo's mind. He had lacked it all his life, never experiencing it to know what he was missing. A marriage and creating an heir would become another royal duty for him to fulfill.

He couldn't deny that he was shocked when the invitation was brought to him in his den. The King and Queen of Corellia had invited him to the first banquet of the season. It was to be held at their summer estate in the countryside of Corellia. He hadn't been there since he was a small boy.

During the nice summer months when the air was humid and the sun stayed in the sky long past his bedtime, his family went to visit the King and Queen. Uncle Luke was his mother's twin brother. They had both been raised in Chandrila and had been very close most of their lives. When they both came of age, it was decided that Chandrila would divide into two kingdoms. One for Princess Leia to rule, and one for Prince Luke. This is how the kingdom of Corellia was created. Ever since, Uncle Luke has ruled those territories.

Kylo had been fond of him when he was young. But when his parents passed and the responsibility of Chandrila was thrusted upon him, Uncle Luke never came to help. He didn't attend their burials. He didn't assist the young boy in the transition. He too, had abandoned him.

He realized on one late night, weeks after the invitation had arrived, that this was some sort of olive branch. A way from Luke to worm his way into Kylo's good graces. But this would not be enough for him. He wanted answers. He wanted justice. Overall, he wanted revenge. So he decided then to accept the invitation. Kylo would attend this banquet and get what he deserved.

But all those plans were put on hold the moment your name was announced to the ton.

Kylo had arrived about an hour ago. He entered through a back passage he remembered as a child, so as to not draw attention to his arrival. He had taken a glass of champagne off a passing tray and stood on the outskirts of the crowd. Young ladies gawked and whispered about him, giggling amongst one another. He paid them no mind, he was on a mission and he intended on completing it.

He was slowly making his way towards the back of the ballroom where his uncle sat when your arrival had been announced. He took no notice of it initially. But he stopped in his tracks as he got a glimpse of you through the crowd. Your deep red dress stood out against the pastels surrounding him. You were delicate in your motions, curtsying before your king and waiting for his command. He watched as Luke approached you, his uncle clearly as enamored with you as he was. Everyone in the room could hear his words as he spoke to you. Singing praises and compliments that undoubtedly made you beam with pride.

Your father had led you away after your interaction with the king. Kylo lost track of you as a group of gentlemen approached him to exchange pleasantries. He did his best to be polite, not wanting to draw more attention to himself than he clearly already had. He again tried to make his way through the crowd, only this time he was in search of you.

A petite young woman appeared in front of him before he could get his eyes on you.

She had shiny black hair, pinned up with elegant pins. Her dress was a nauseating pastel green and her jewelry constantly caught the light, nearly making him squint to look at her. She presented her hand to him and gave him a toothy smile.

"Hello, your grace. My name is Charlotte Ventress, the daughter of Lord and Lady Ventress. I saw you standing here all alone and felt so compelled to introduce myself."

Kylo nearly cringes from her introduction. Debutantes we're never meant to approach gentlemen. In fact it was the other way around. Her forwardness was immediately a turn off. It's unlikely he would have been interested in her, if he hadn't already been so taken by you. Kylo clears his throat and takes her hand, giving it a gentle shake.

"Hello, Miss Ventress. I'm humbled by your need for introduction, but I'm afraid you're using the wrong titles."

Charlotte looks at him confused, an eyebrow raising at his statement.

"Is that so? Well, then what title should I be using exactly?"

Her words were laced with attitude and sarcasm. Kylo smirked to himself, looking down at his pristine, shiny dress shoes. Did he look anything less than a king? He figured his attire would have given his status away, that's why he chose not to wear his crown. By her tone, he can only assume she thinks he's below her.

"The correct title would be your majesty, miss."

At this she tries to hold back a chuckle, placing her hand over her mouth to hide her amusement. Charlotte places a hand on her hip, her posture becoming more relaxed now. She thinks he's joking.

"Your majesty? Sir, I'm pretty sure the only royalty in this room is sitting over there."

She nods her head towards the back of the room, motioning to the thrones where his aunt and uncle are sat. Oh this poor girl has no clue.

"I believe you're referring to my aunt and uncle. I'm King Kylo of Chandrila, King Luke's nephew."

He watches as the recognition flies across her features. Eyes going wide and eyebrows raising in surprise. Charlotte immediately stands back up, making a poor attempt at presenting herself as dignified. It was much too late for that now.

"Oh, you're majesty! I'm so sorry for my lapse in judgement. How silly of me."

Kylo holds back his eye roll. Just another young woman fluttering her lashes at him for his titles. He nods to her and finishes off his champagne.

"Right, of course. You must excuse me, it seems my glass is empty."

With that he walks away from her, back on his pursuit to find where you'd gone. He comes to the outskirts of the dance floor, watching as lords and ladies waltz around in circles. A waiter begins to pass by and he is quick to place his empty flute on their tray.

Kylo stands in a relaxed position, hands clasped behind his back, as he watches the couples in front of him. He raises his eyes from the dance floor for a moment, hoping to spot your crimson colored dress amongst the crowd. That's when Kylo locks eyes with you from across the room. He takes in your features, admiring your beauty. He admittedly had very little experience with women. It was a rare occasion for him to speak with them. His interaction mostly took place with the ladies in court. All of them married and much older than him.

Kylo finally understood his uncle's words to you earlier. You held his intense gaze, allowing him to see the secrets held within your eyes. He felt like he was stuck in place, frozen in time with just your look. The moment ended abruptly as a ginger haired man stepped in front of you, blocking his view of you and cutting off your eye contact.

He instantly felt possessive. Kylo could see your discomfort through your body language. He kept watch from the side of the dance floor as you took the man's arm and joined him for the next song. He wanted your full attention.

Kylo decided then that he needed more of you. He wanted to know you, needed to know you. If joining the ton and surviving this season was what he had to do to make that happen, then so be it.

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Poor baby Kylo! How are we feeling about Kylo's perspective? I'm hoping to include his view of things very often in this story. Please let me know what you think!

Love,

Allie

[forasecondtherewedwon]

They’re Sayin’ (You’re Gonna Be My Man)

Fandom: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Pairing: Sam Wilson/Bucky Barnes Rating: T Word Count: 2217

Summary: Sam calls Bucky too soon after he's left Louisiana, looking for advice he doesn’t really need and getting a conversation he didn’t really expect.

Sam’s supposed to wait until news of the Flag-Smashers’ movements comes down the line to get in touch with Bucky. He doesn’t. It’s sooner. It’s almost right away.

He’s sure Bucky’s gotta be out of the state, but he doesn’t know whether he’s made it back to this alleged apartment in Brooklyn (on some level, Sam’s aware that he keeps making jokes about the conspiracy of the apartment’s existence because it’s his way of daring Bucky to invite him over sometime). When he calls Bucky up, he knows he might catch him on a plane, in a cab, with a buzz of voices around him as he scowls at strangers in an airport or stomps down a sidewalk. But, other than Bucky’s voice on the other end, Sam just hears quiet, so he figures the guy made it home.

“You never told me if you had any tips,” Sam accuses straight off.

Shifting his feet, he tamps down more of the grass he’s been practicing on, squinting when sweat rolls into his eye. He just finished a brisk mile with the shield on his arm, getting used to the weight and the bulk of it, and he’s ready to start throwing again.

“Tips for what?” Bucky asks. “Fixing the boat? General life stuff? I know we had a good talk, but I think I take advice better than I give it.”

“Which is not saying much,” Sam points out with a laugh. “You suck at taking advice.”

“Until recently.”

“Until recently,” Sam allows. He takes a deep breath and leans over to the side, stretching from his run and tapping his hand on the Vibranium disc currently propped against his leg. “Nah, man, for the shield. How to throw it, how to catch it, how to pull off some of Steve’s fuckin’ boomerang tricks.”

“I thought you were gettin’ the hang of it,” Bucky says in his ear.

“I am. I just realized that, when I had you here, you did a lot of standing around and catching the shield on that cyborg arm of yours. Not a lot of active advice-giving.”

“You really want me telling you how to do your job?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, nobody said that. I am simply aware of the fact that you’re one of very few people alive who’ve handled this thing, and maybe the only one who did it with any actual competence.”

“The level of flattery is astounding,” Bucky says dryly.

“You want more, you gotta help me out,” Sam jokes back.

“Well, show me what you’re doin’.”

Sam glances around himself. Flat lawn. Waning daylight. Tall trees wrapped in the pads he’s been ricocheting the shield off of. No place good to prop his phone.

“I gotta get somebody to film me,” he realizes. “Lemme call you back.”

“Everybody’s gonna be filming you with the shield pretty soon. Only question is whether you’re doing something impressive in news footage or looking like a jackass in some kind of Avengers’ Greatest Fuckups reel.”

“Shut the hell up. I thought we were gettin’ along now.”

“Just trying to be motivational. Am I not doing it right?”

“I think you better look up the word ‘motivational’ in the dictionary while you wait for my call,” Sam suggests.

He disconnects and hangs his head, shaking it even as he smiles.

His legs are screaming for a thorough, post-workout stretch and maybe some ice on his shins—they’ve been taking the brunt every time he digs his feet into the ground and braces to snatch the returning shield from the air—but what’s another quarter mile? Sam runs to Sarah’s, arms pumping, stride a little different now that he has to accommodate the shape of the shield.

When he gets there, the boys are playing soccer on the lawn and he calls through the screen window to the kitchen to get his sister’s ok to borrow them as his training assistants. They get even more excited by the bestowing of this title and its implied responsibility than by the sight of the shield. That’s pretty incredible. Sarah caves to a temporary borrowing (supper’s almost ready) and they’re off.

On the way back, Sam lets AJ carry the shield. Seems like a nice break for himself until Cass requests a piggyback.

“Alright,” Sam agrees with a sigh, crouching in front of his nephew. “Hop on.”

Captain America’s benevolence is limitless. At least, it is this evening. When his back’s killing him tomorrow from absorbing the shock of a hundred shield throws, he will not be so easily persuaded into giving piggybacks.

In the clearing, Sam pulls his phone from the zipped pocket of his shorts and videocalls Bucky, who picks up on the first ring. His face is too close to the camera, but it’s good to see those blue eyes and the crinkles that are either there because he’s smiling in greeting or he’s confused about how a videocall works. In a few seconds, Bucky figures out for himself that he needs to hold the phone farther away. It makes Sam miss him. Also makes him a little worried because he can see the blank, white wall of Bucky’s apartment around his head. No paint, no art. Sam can’t even hear a TV or anything in the background.

“You’re not busy,” he observes.

“Not really, no,” Bucky admits.

“You coulda stayed here longer.”

“Nah, you needed time with everything, not me constantly looking over your shoulder. Shield’s yours now, Sam. I’m gonna be at your side, but you and the shield… I got no say in what that relationship is. I understand that now and I’m trying to respect it.”

“So when you’re actually doing the right thing, let you back off?”

“That’s right,” Bucky agrees.

“I’ll try to remember in case it ever happens again.”

Before Bucky can defend himself against Sam’s teasing jab, Sam passes the phone to AJ, camera turned so Bucky will still be focused on him when he starts throwing the shield again.

“Got you propped up on my human tripod,” he informs Bucky, reaching above the phone to playfully shove the side of AJ’s head. “So watch your mouth.”

“Can I say hi?”

“Don’t be a smartass,” Sam warns.

And, of course, Bucky eggs the kids into a long ooooh, like they’ve caught him breaking his own rule. Which they have. But Bucky was being a smartass and the opportunity to let him know is not something Sam likes to pass up.

He’s stretching now—maybe for himself, maybe for the camera pointed his way—gripping his ankles in turn and holding his heels to his ass until he feels the pull in his thighs. Bucky’s not wrong about having this time to himself. Just him and this legendary object that’s feeling more right on his arm every time he slips it through the straps. Still, he misses what they had going the last two days. Not him and the shield, but him and Bucky. Having him here like that… It was different from every other experience Sam’s had with him. Bucky was still, in turns, a grouch and a showoff and a staring machine and a shithead (flirting with Sarah, come ON), but he was also more convincingly a person than Sam’s had the pleasure of seeing him before. At ease and multi-faceted by nature instead of the necessity of adapting in the face of a threat.

Bucky smiled.

They didn’t always bicker.

He looked damn good in the morning when they leaned against the kitchen counter, not talking, sipping their coffee.

Sam wants those minutes back so bad. Living with Bucky here was incomparable to living with him overseas. Lotta reasons for that, including not having to share the space with Baron Zemo. Mostly because this is home and Sam liked pretending, while Sarah did some well-deserved sleeping in and the boys got the hems of their pajama pants wet in the dew in the backyard, that it was real. That this breath between their fights (no longer with each other) could last and that this is where they’d hold it. It could be their kitchen, their mugs, their tousled sheets Bucky’d climbed out of, looking all rumpled and lovely and shit.

But Bucky doesn’t know what Sam pretends and Sam sure as hell isn’t going to tell him. He’s just going to keep faithful to their usual dynamic, trying for less glaring. Not a word to unsettle things, as much as he’s curious how they might handle things being unsettled. As much as his mind plays back the blinding glint off the water as they rolled up their sleeves and went to work together in a way more meaningful, more personal, than they ever have before. Plays it back all the time.

No. Quiet. Sam needs to figure himself out first and knows Bucky’s working on doing the same. Maybe sometime—but probably never—they can see how those selves overlap. All they need to make fly right now is being Captain America and… what’d that moron call himself? The White Wolf? Son of a biscuit…

“Let me see him!” Cass says excitedly, recapturing Sam’s focus.

It’s his brother he’s talking to and Sam watches fondly as AJ turns the phone to show Bucky a grinning Cass, being careful to keep it steady. Pretty damn sweet. Cass even waves while Sam stands there, watching and doing shoulder rolls.

“Hi, Uncle Bucky!”

Sam feels like he just whipped the shield out and caught the return in his stomach. He strides over to the boys and AJ passes the phone back without being asked. He’s stifling giggles despite or because he senses that his little brother shouldn’t have said that.

“One minute,” Sam tells Bucky, hardly glancing at him because he just can’t. He tilts the camera towards the ground and raises expectant eyebrows at his grinning nephews. “Did somebody tell you to call him that?”

In unison, the boys go, “No, Uncle Sam,” which is suspiciously adorable. But they aren’t liars.

“Did you hear somebody call him that?”

AJ and Cass glance at each other and that’s enough for Sam. They won’t answer, so he knows it’s Sarah who’s made this joke, put this idea in the kids’ heads. They won’t give her up though, because they’re Wilsons and they’re loyal to their mother.

Sam turns the camera back on himself, unprepared for the upward tick at the corner of Bucky’s lips that make them even harder to look away from than usual.

“My sister must’ve—”

“I know,” Bucky interrupts.

“You know?”

“Yeah. Sarah called me that to my face.”

“She did what?”

Sarah having her joke is one thing, but saying it to Bucky takes things a little far, in Sam’s opinion. Bucky could think Sarah’s serious. He could think she’s saying that because Sam’s said something to her. Something about coffee and bedsheets and the sweet ache he felt in his chest when he saw Bucky’s smile in the golden light of dawn.

“Last night, before she put the boys to bed. You were in the shower, I think.” Bucky reaches up absentmindedly to run a hand over the top of his head; the flex of his bicep in the long-sleeved shirt he’s wearing and waiting for the end of this recollection are both torture for Sam. “They wanted to hang out with me, but Sarah said, ‘Uncle Bucky’s gotta get some sleep. You’ll see him tomorrow.’ Something like that.”

Now, when Sam’s truly learning the meaning of flabbergasted, Bucky’s mouth cracks into a wide, self-satisfied smile.

“You made that up,” Sam guesses helplessly.

“Nope.”

Sam knows that, with his nephews’ inability to lie and Sarah’s lifelong history of messing with him as evidence, but it would’ve been a convenient escape from the reality of his sister (and possibly the boys too) addressing Bucky as if he and Sam are together.

“Tell me you told my sister to drop the ‘Uncle.’”

Another thing Sam knows: that Bucky didn’t do that. Bucky seems happy to prove his fears correct; he shrugs.

“Sounded kinda nice,” Bucky defends. That makes Sam soften. He knows Bucky doesn’t have any living family, that he’s been struggling to allow himself to make friends. Maybe he just likes being told he belongs to them and that Sarah’s joke makes it effortless for him. Then, Bucky adds, “Pass me back to my nephews.”

Sam points a warning finger at him.

“Watch it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The crease between Bucky’s eyebrows deepens as Sam watches the pain in the ass pretend to be stern with him. “Just throw the damn shield. I thought you asked for my help.”

“I did.”

Releasing a cautious sigh, Sam hands the phone to AJ once more. The boy’s got his silliness under control and he accepts the job solemnly.

Sam’s two steps away, hefting the shield onto his arm, when he hears Bucky shout, “And my hand in marriage!”

The boys’ laughter has them rolling on the cool grass, the phone clutched in AJ’s grip, and by the time Sam wrestles it away from his nephew, the camera’s swung all over the place. Showing Bucky the sky, the dirt, some quality footage up AJ’s nose, and probably—almost definitely—the way his words made Sam smile.

[emmerrald]

Opposites Attracts (part 1) chilumi fanfic

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Part 2

(A/N: Hey guys! This fanfic is a highschool version of genshin impact! Hope you like it!)

Lumine was a transferee of Teyvat University and other nations in Teyvat attends this University. In order to find her brother because their mother took him unexpectedly, she promised her father to take Aether back and she starts to travel alone and if Aether is here with Lumine they always travel a lot. 

“Wow! Teyvat University is so big!” Lumine stop on her tracks and a sweat drops on her forehead “No... I said that wrong... Teyvat University is an island?!” 

Lumine starts to walk to the bridge connected to the Teyvat University Island. Lumine sweat furiously because it’s a long way to get to Teyvat University. As she walking peacefully, someone bumps to her and they fall into the ground with a loud thud. 

“Hey! Watch were you going!” Lumine said as she stands up and brush off the dust on her skirt. She looks behind her and saw a bunny-eared headband girl.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to bump int-” The bunny girl stop talking and look to Lumine up and down. She smiled happily to her and held her hands. “Your the transferee! Lumine right?!” 

Lumine was startled and nod. “My name is Amber! It’s really nice to meet you! The principal entrusted you to me.” Amber said and Lumine smiled at her.

“Really?! Thank goodness, I thought I will be alone and be lost in the University because it’s so enormous.” Lumine said.

‘Don’t worry! I got your back!” Amber said energetically.  

They started to walk side by side until they reach a waypoint at the end of the bridge. “What’s this?” Lumine asked.

“Oh! This is a teleport waypoint! It can lead you to anywhere in Teyvat University.” Amber show to Lumine some kind of device beside the waypoint. “You just click here wherever you want to go and it will lead you there! Try it out.” Amber said and step aside so Lumine can see. 

Lumine put her finger to her chin and look at the device confused. “Should we go here?” Lumine asked Amber. Amber nod.

Lumine pushed the device and the two of them teleport in a blink of an eye. Lumine and Amber stand in front in the University. Lumine look so surprised and look at Amber with sparkling eyes. Amber smiled at her.

“Your reaction is so funny.” Amber said. “Well, I can’t blame you, that’s my first reaction too when I first transferred here.” 

Lumine and Amber start to walk up to the stairs to reach the gigantic doors, “The doors are huge too?!” Lumine said and Amber starts to laugh.

“Open the door Lumine!” Amber said excitedly. Lumine push the wooden doors and stared at awe. 

“Wow! the outside is beautiful but the inside is really magnificent.” Lumine said in awe. Lumine looks up and saw a 7 stained glass windows in different colors. “That’s the 7 archons, right?” Lumine asked.

“That’s right and they rule the 7 nations in Teyvat, and Celestia is the realm of the gods and they grant us visions.” Amber said as she show Lumine an ornament with a red color. “My vision is pyro, what about you?” Amber ask

Lumine starts to sweat furiously and avoid eye contacts with Amber “Shit! She can’t learn that I’m not from Teyvat!” Lumine thought. “And what the hell is a vision?!”

“I- umm... I-” Lumine was cut off when a man with an eyepatch interrupts her.

“Amber, the principal is looking for the transferee.” 

“Oh my Archons! That was a close one!” Lumine wipes the sweat on her forehead and sigh heavily.

“Oh Kaeya-sensei! Here she is!” Amber pointed at Lumine. Kaeya look at Lumine up and down, and smile.

“Not bad, not bad at all.” Kaeya smirks and hold out his hands. “The name’s Kaeya Alberich, I’m a Cavalry Captain in the Knights of Favonious on Mondstadt, currently working on Teyvat University as a Research Coordinator.”

Lumine accept the hand and they shake it. “Now that the introductions is finished, let’s go to the principal office shall we?” Kaeya said and starts to walk.

“The principal? Do you know who is the principal?” Lumine asked Amber and Amber just sigh.

“The truth is, no.” Amber said and crossed arms, “all the students here actually doesn’t know who the principal is. Lucky for you, you could meet the principal.” Amber said and pout. “Go on now, Kaeya-sensei just literally left you.” 

“Oh right! See you later Amber!” Lumine said and started to catch up with Kaeya. 

“What a weird one that Lumine is.” Amber said as she look at Lumine running up to Kaeya. “And she didn’t answer what her vision is! I’ll ask her next time. That’s right! I need to get my precious Baron Bunny!” Amber said and she run off to who knows where.

At the corner somewhere that no one can see, a tall figured man with a mask on his head was leaning at the pillar, and a smirk was shown in his face, “A transferee eh? looking forward to it.”  

. 

.

.

“Here we are.” Kaeya said and look at Lumine, “I’ll leave you here now.” Kaeya said and started to walk but Lumine stop her.

“Umm Kaeya-sensei, do you know who is the principal?” Lumine once again asked. Kaeya started to laugh and pats Lumine’s shoulder.

“No, I don’t and I heard that the Principal is huge and it’s not a size of a human and has a monstrous eyes that eats you up.” Kaeya said and tried to scared the poor Lumine, but Lumine shown no fear in her eyes. Kaeya frown at the sight, not expecting for the reaction, “Huh, you’re not the least bit frightened, I see.” 

“Are there suppose to be frightened of?” Lumine ask. Kaeya look at Lumine strangely, “What an odd girl you are...” Kaeya smile at Lumine and starts to walk away. 

As for Lumine, she was left dumbfounded. She knocked at the door and hear a tiny voice “Come in.” 

Lumine opens the door and a big office was shown and full of documents and books. In front of Lumine there’s a long table and a swivel chair facing at the big window that show the University grounds. 

“Good morning Principal. You called for me?” Lumine ask. The swivel chair turn around to face Lumine, and she was shock to see a small figure sitting in front of her. “It’s exactly the opposite of what Kaeya-sensei said.” Lumine sigh.

“Nice to meet you Lumine! Paimon’s name is..... umm Paimon ehe. Paimon’s your principal. You’re the first one to see Paimon, be grateful.” Paimon said.

Lumine walk up to Paimon and touch her cheeks, “What are you? a toy? or a food?” Lumine said.

“Hey! Paimon’s not a food nor a toy! Paimon’s your principal!” Paimon said angrily. Lumine starts to chuckle and deeply apologize for her actions. “Anyway! Paimon wants to congratulate you for passing the exam and can Paimon ask you one thing?” 

Lumine swallow her saliva and her heart starts to beat fast because of the nervousness she’s feeling right now. “Have I been found out?” 

“You’re not from here, right?” Paimon asked Lumine. Lumine’s eyes widened and constantly stopped breathing. “Don’t worry, Paimon won’t do anything to you. Your secret is safe with Paimon.” Paimon said and smile at Lumine. Lumine sigh at relief. 

“Thank you Principal Paimon.” Lumine said and bow to her, and Paimon get’s flustered.

“Drop down the formalities when were alone together,” Paimon said and start to scratch her head, “Paimon’s not used to it.” Lumine nods at her.

“And you don’t posses a vision right?” Paimon asked 

“Yes, that’s right! What am I supposed to do in able to acquire it?” Lumine asked Paimon, Paimon starts to think deeply and a light bulb pop out on top of her head. 

Paimon starts to float up in the air and go to the farthest top of the shelves and bring out a wooden box, she goes down and put it on top of the table and open it and revealed a 7 vision ornaments.

“Right now, you have Gyro that means it is possible that this ability allows you to absorb other elemental powers without the need for a vision. That’s why right now your emblem has a lack of light, and why is that?” Paimon asked Lumine

Lumine looks at her hands and start to play with it and some memories starts to show up, “Well, my mother cast a seal upon me, and I lose my powers. But I’ll work hard to unseal it so I can find my big brother and bring him home.” Lumine said with full of determination.

“You’re so hardworking, Paimon’s admires your determination, but right now you need to have a vision because once you left this room, it will become more dangerous and without a vision it will be more dangerous.” Paimon said and lay a contract in front of Lumine, “This school is kind of... has it’s own ways and as a principal, Paimon can’t control it as the way Paimon’s wanted to.” Paimon sigh and tap the contract in front of Lumine. 

“This contract was made Rex Lapis himself, the god of contracts. This contract is the approval of the Archons that you can use this vision and the rules is just don’t selfishly use them, and use them correctly and blah blah, just sign it.” Paimon said as she gave Lumine a quill. 

“Is it alright for me to use this? Won’t other people need this?” Lumine asked, Paimon smiled at her and sit down on her swivel chair, and looks satisfied. “Thinking about other people before yourself huh? Just as the Archons likes it.”

“Yes, it’s fine and Paimon think that they will approve to you too.” Paimon said and Lumine smiles at her, “and after you sign it, one of these vision will solely select you and you can use however you please.” 

Lumine signs the contract and the paper started to glow and floats in the air and disappear like a bubble, and after that all the 7 vision started to glow. This made Paimon and Lumine shock. 

“H-How is this possible?!” Paimon stated and surprisingly look at the vision. “One vision suppose to glow only!” Paimon said as the 7 vision started to fly into the air to Lumine’s chest. Lumine feel the pain burning inside of her and she falls down to the floor and grunt painfully. “Lumine! Are you okay?!” Paimon shouted worriedly.

Lumine hold her chest tightly and pants heavily, “P-Paimon *pant* is this *pant* n-normal?” Lumine asked with a shaky voice and look at Paimon whose face is full of worry. 

“This is abnormal! Paimon does not expect this to be happen! It’s suppose to be one vision only but the 7 vision chose you abruptly... Paimon needs to report this and go to Celestia tomorrow.” Paimon said and help Lumine to stand up and sit on the couch. 

“Is it because I’m not from Teyvat?” Lumine asked Paimon, Paimon put her hand on her chin and start to think, “Maybe...”

“Then, what should I do now? This a super rare case here in Teyvat University.” Lumine said as she try to calm down,

“You’re right... For now, Paimon allows you to use the Anemo and Geo vision right now, you can attune any of the 2 of them and look at the emblem that sticks to your dress, it’s teal colored, that means you had the anemo vision if you attune it to geo the color will be yellow and Paimon wants you to keep this as a secret.” Paimon said as she fly to the cabinet and let out a document, key, and a small pouch.

“Then how do I attune it?” Lumine ask. Paimon gave the things that she brought out to the cabinet to Lumine. 

“Just go to the statue of the seven. The anemo statue locates at Mondstadt and the geo statue locates at Liyue, since the anemo vison is with you right now, Paimon suggest you go to Liyue first.” Paimon said as she go to her table and started to write something.

“Okay... then what are these?” Lumine asked as she pointed out the things that Paimon gave to her.

“Oh that’s your time schedule, a pouch full of mora and  your dorm keys, your things is already in your dorm, and you have a dormmate there, waiting for you.” Paimon said 

Lumine nod and smile at Paimon, “Thank you Principal.” Lumine said and go out to the office. Paimon stop writing and stares at the door. 

“Oh shoot, Paimon forgot to warn Lumine about her dormmate... Paimon thinks that it will be okay!” Paimon said as she disappears to thin air.

.

.

.

“So this is where the dorm locates?” Lumine asked Amber and she nod.

“Mhm, It said here in the paper, your dorm is in East Building, mine is in North. If you have any trouble just call me.” Amber said and wink at Lumine, Lumine chuckle. 

“Thank you so much for everything Amber.” Lumine said and held Amber hands.

“No problem. Oh! That’s right! You didn’t tell me what’s your vision is.” Amber said and look at Lumine innocently, Lumine avoid her gaze to Amber and sweat drops 

“Umm m-my vision is a-anemo.” Lumine stuttered and show the emblem to Amber. 

Amber smiled at Lumine and they said their goodbyes. As Amber was walking away she stopped in her tracks, “Strange... I thought I saw earlier that her emblem has no color... Hmm probably just my imagination. Right now, I have a tea with my Baron Bunny and Barbara.” Amber said as she skipped happily.

As for Lumine, she was now inside the elevator waiting for her floor. “Wow this dorm is really luxurious, good thing I have enough mora to transfer here.” Lumine said to herself.

The elevator made a sound and opens the door. Lumine walk out and now is searching for her room, “316... 316 where are you... Oh here she is.” Lumine take a deep breath and shyly opens the door. and take a look inside. 

“Wow... this dorm is massive!” Lumine goes inside and take a look around. There’s a balcony, a living room, and a kitchen fit for two and 3 doors inside, Lumine thinks, maybe it’s the bathroom and the other two is the bedroom.

Lumine was surprised that the middle door was suddenly opened and a tall ginger haired man came out from the bathroom, half naked. The man noticed Lumine and smiled at her.

“Hey girlie.” The man said. 

Lumine’s face looks like a tomato right now and she covered her eyes and scream. 

“WAAAAAHHHH!!!!!! A pervert!!!!!!!!” Lumine shout as she tried to reach the doorknob but instead she’s been wall slammed by the man at the door entranced, still half naked. 

The two of them look at each other, eye to eye. And the tall man smirks, “Now, that’s not the way to greet someone you just met, girlie.” 

Lumine glare at the man and push him away, “W-Who are you anyway?” 

“Feisty one aren't you?”  The man said and his smirk grew wider, and Lumine just gave him a death stare, “Okay, okay, I’ll tell you, why won’t we take a seat first, no?” The man said and go to the couch and sit, and Lumine just followed him and sit on the other side. 

“The names Tartaglia, you can call me Childe. I’m your dormmate, nice to meet you girlie.” Childe said and smile at Lumine.

“Dormmate? The University allowed the opposite sex to live each other?” Lumine asked, Childe just shrugged. Lumine just sigh, “My name is Lumine.” Lumine said and avoid gaze at Childe.

“Why won’t you consult to the principal?” Childe suggest to Lumine. 

“Your right... but the principal is in the Celestia...” Lumine said, and Childe looked at Lumine with a suspicious eyes.

“Celestia? Why would the principal be there?” Childe asked getting curious about the subject.

“ Oh, its because-” Lumine stop herself as she remember Paimon’s words.

“Paimon wants you to keep this as a secret.” 

Lumine shuts her eyes and inhale deeply, “It’s nothing... I just met the principal earlier because she ask my attendance.” Lumine said as she stands up. 

Childe put his hand on his cheeks for support and crossed his legs, observing Lumine above her head to her toes. And his eyes became dark.

“Oh, can you tell me where’s my room?” Lumine ask Childe that made his expression change and show her a happy face. 

“Oh yes,” Childe stands up and led Lumine to where her room is. “This is it.” 

Her room is next to the balcony and Lumine look at Childe and gave him a lovely smile, “Thank you so much.” Lumine said and go inside her room. 

As for Childe, he still stands in front of her room and was surprise of what Lumine did earlier, a blush was shown on his face, he put his right hand on his face to cover the blush, “Damn, that girl, what is she?...” Childe mumbled to himself and go inside to his room.

After Lumine close the door, her knees suddenly felt weak and sit down across the floor, and start to roll side to side at the corners of her room, her face is so red like her blood is boiling inside. “Oh my Archons! That Childe! Why won’t he dress up like a normal person?! And my eyes are betraying me... looking at those beautiful 6 pack toned abs~” Lumine was shock when she said that and slap herself. 

“Get yourself together Lumine! That man is dangerous!” Lumine said and pinch her cheeks and look at her room and sigh, “It’s gonna be a long day to unpack my things...” Lumine stand up on her floor and start to organize her room. 

.

.

.

After many hours has passed Lumine decided to call Amber.

“Hi Lumine! What’s up?” Amber said at the other side of the phone.

Lumine decided to tell Amber about her dormmate, “Hi Amber, I have a question.” 

“Sure! What is it?” Amber ask, Lumine sigh and lay down on her bed.

“About your dormmate, is it a girl? or a boy?” Lumine ask

“Of course its a girl! Her name is Barbara. Why? Is there something wrong?”

“Yes! There is something wrong!” Lumine shout and sits up on her bed and hug her pillow, “My dormmate is a boy! His name is Childe! Do you know who he is?!” 

There’s a moment of silence until Amber ruin Lumine’s ear. “WHAAAAAAATT???!!!” Lumine put her phone away to her ear and start to rub it.

“You mean Tartaglia?! That Tartaglia?!!!” Amber exclaimed. 

“Mhm, is he popular?” Lumine ask.

“More than popular! he’s a Casanova! and he’s also part of the student council! That council named themselves as the 11 Fatui Harbingers, they are powerful here in Teyvat University. Tartaglia also named Childe is the youngest among them but one of the most dangerous among their number. That said, Childe doesn't seem to fit in well with the others.” Amber explained. 

Lumine stop breathing, and her eyes are spinning around trying to process of what Amber said, “Lumine! Your still there?!” 

“Y-yeah, I’m still here.” Lumine said as she lean on the wall and tries to calm her heart down.

“A-anyway, I’m worried about you!” Amber said in full of worry.

“Yeah, I’m worried about myself too...” Lumine said and the both girls sigh at the same time.

“What is the principal thinking?! Allowing you to live with a boy.” Amber said irritated.

“I’m sure there must be a good explanation.” Lumine said and scratch her head. “Anyway, I need to go to sleep.” 

“Yeah me too, Be careful. You will never know what Childe will do to you.” Amber said warning Lumine.

“I’ll lock my doors.” Lumine said and hang up the call. 

Lumine sigh once again and cover herself up in the covers and started to sleep but disturbed by a knock. Lumine gets up and open the door revealing Childe with a grin plastered on his face.

“Hey girlie, want to celebrate us being dormmates?” Childe said and smile at Lumine.

“But I need to sleep-” Lumine was cut off by Childe holding her hand and Lumine was startled.

“Aw come on, you don’t want to celebrate with me? It will be my treat.” Childe said with a puppy dog eyes.

Lumine on the other hand can’t resist the look of Childe. She sigh and finally give up, “Fine... But let me change my clothes first.” Childe sheepishly smiled and nod.

To be continued...

[castellankurze]

A Completely Normal Team-Up

So you know how oftentimes an anime gets an OVA or a movie that takes place...somewhere in its continuity, but nobody’s quite sure where, it probably messes with continuity but someone had an idea for a standalone story so by god they wedged in in there somehow? Well, consider this to be Completely Normal RPG getting its own OVA release.

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

Miyumi was the first one taken by the creature.

Later on, Shouko, attempting to lighten the mood, joked that it did so because it was smart.  While there might have been a kernel of truth in the statement, when everything came out in the end it also inadvertently hid the thing's true motivation.

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

In truth there had been others attacked beforehand, but they had been left at the site of their assault, all of them bone-weary and exhausted, none able to describe whatever the thing was that had come after them.  Whatever it was, it struck at twilight three days in a row.  The school put out a warning of a flu going around, reacting to the aftereffects, but when the four of them got together the idea wasn't even dignified with a single repetition.

"A vampire of some kind?" Kanako proposed.

"Whatever it is, it's definitely draining its victims," Miyumi agreed with a stroke of her chin.

"But it's not drinking their blood or anything, just sapping their energy," Erika said from the counter where she was fixing a sandwich.  "Are there any beasts that just sort of...make people tired and move on?"

A quick call to Saika was no help.  "She says there's too many possibilities," Shouko said, waggling an unlit cigarette between her lips and ignoring a dirty look from Miyumi.  "She says to do the usual - just buddy up and never be alone and keep your eyes open."

So they did, and Miyumi was in the company of her boyfriend Shoji when dusk came at the end of the next day, but all told, the advice didn't seem to be much help.

"I barely saw it," Shoji murmured from his bed.  He was bruised and cut in a few places, but otherwise unharmed but for the same strange exhaustion that had overtaken the previous victims.  "There was a flash of headlights behind us, and then I thought someone was coming off the road to try and hit us.  After that I just saw stars."  Kanako tried to coax more information out of him, gently asking questions, but that seemed to be the limit of what he could remember.  Apart from that, Erika had to step in when he tried to rise from his bed as if to start looking for Miyumi then and there, easily keeping the boy down with a hand to his chest.

"You just focus on getting better," she said firmly.  "We'll find Miyumi."

The next morning, Shouko crossed paths with Shizuka when the latter stepped off the bus before class.  "You are on time for school today," the red-eyed girl noted quietly.

"You're a riot," Shouko replied, shrugging her motorcycle jacket over her shoulder and falling into step beside Shizuka.  "For real though, why would this thing take Miyumi when it just leaves everyone else all tired out?"

Shizuka shot the delinquent a sidelong glower, the kind she often employed on those who ought to know better.  "What distinguishes Miymui from the rest of them?" she asked curtly, and then walked on, ignoring Shouko's faltering steps behind her.

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

Erika and Kanako never made it home that night, but because it was a friday and Kana lived alone but for her cat Tsukiko, nobody realized what had happened until Shouko (in flagrant violation of Saika's warning not to travel alone) dropped by the house late the next afternoon to ask after the math homework they'd been assigned.  The door was unlocked, and she found nobody but a pitifully meowing Tsukiko who pointedly went to sit by her bowl.  After offering the cat a reassuring stroke and some food from the bag under the counter, Shouko sent a few queries by text, careful to sound innocuous.  When the inseparable pair didn't turn up anywhere, Shouko hurried out, and in the end she was almost fast enough.

Saika's phone buzzed and she picked it up with a chirp of "hi Shouko!"

"Don't talk just listen!  It's got Kana and Erika!" Shouko shouted back, sounding out of breath.  There was some kind of rhythmic pounding like a series of sledgehammers behind her voice.

"Shouko?!" Saika yelped, immediately disregarding her girlfriend's instruction standing with such haste she knocked her desk chair over.

"It's some kind of a machine!  It's got all kinds of random parts!  It's got...it's got a core shaped like a diamond made of mirrors!  It's got wings and they glow really bright!  I don't-"

Where was a sound of screeching metal and a moment later the line disconnected.  Saika stared at the little rectangle in disbelief for a moment before mashing redial and begging "pick up...please pick up..." but it was not to be.  The normally-bubbly blonde stood wide-eyed in the center of her room, staring past her phone at the far wall, paralyzed for a long moment with indecision.  Then, with trembling fingers, she dialed another number.

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

"Hmmm," he mused after she relayed her description.  "'A diamond-shaped mirror' has sometimes been mentioned in the description of a creature called the mirrorknight."  The Baron of the Radiant Court paused, marshaling his thoughts.  "It is a type of golem which repairs and rebuilds itself with whatever materials may be present, but its heart is a single piece of silver polished to a mirror shine.  A long time ago there used to be quite a number of them, but they were unstable creations and would eventually go renegade."

"This one seems to be pretty renegade," Saika agreed, her voice shaky.  "Why would this one be kidnapping hunters?"

"Individuals have attacked members of the Court before, thought always in isolated incidents.  I'll look into the archives, and I will send someone to reinforce you as soon as possible.  I want you to be very careful, is that clear?"

"Yessir," Saika replied, and the call ended.  Saika looked out her window at the night sky and the lights of other houses across the street and beyond.  Then she looked back to her phone and, with a trembling thumb, scrolled through her contacts to a certain name whose number she had never dialed.

She took a deep breath.  She'd always tried to...be helpful.  Back up her friends.  Be there when they needed her - when Shouko needed her.  Be the guiding light.  She'd never...taken point, so to speak.  And certainly not like this.  This could get her into a lot of trouble.  A lot.  But the night was coming on, and it was getting cold, and Miyumi had been gone for over two whole days at this point, and it could be...some time before another member of the Radiant Court could be pulled from their current duty and sent to help.  And every passing moment meant all four of them were out there, somewhere, in trouble...

"Hey, by the way, you should add this to your contacts."

"Shouko, she'll me really angry you gave me her number."

"Nah, she said it was okay."

"Did she really?"

"Well, you know, I sort of ran it by her and she kind of grunted the way she does.  Look, just save it for a major emergency, okay?"

Her phone's screen started to grey out, and Saika swallowed hard, raised her thumb high, brought it down on the dial icon.

One ring.

Two.

"Hello," answered Shizuka's deadpan voice.

"We need to talk," Saika said.

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

They met at the sports field by the school, a wide-open place not far from the building's lights.  The representative of the Eventide Vanguard came armed, of course, her katana belted at her side, and Saika tried to keep her fingers from twitching, fighting the urge to summon her bow, just to have it ready.

It was a long moment before either of them spoke - Shizuka stood with her arms crossed, her red-eyed gaze unwavering, while Saika chewed her lip, searching for the right words.  Finally she gave up and just repeated everything that had happened, relaying everything Shouko had had time to tell her over the phone and the resulting information given to her by the Baron.

When she was done, Shizuka lowered her gaze and closed her eyes for a moment.  "You could face severe consequences for this, Oishi," she commented dryly.  "It could be seen as consorting with the enemy."

Saika spread her arms and shrugged.  "I can't...just wait," she said, hearing the plaintive tone in her own voice.

Shizuka uncrossed her arms and rested one hand at her sword's sheath, idly popping the katana's hilt with her thumb and holding it for a moment before clicking it back into place, her lips pursed, her gaze directed past Saika's shoulder rather than on her face.  "The Vanguard's knowledge of the mirrorknight states that it's core is designed as a mirror because it was intended to be a reactive force," she suddenly stated.  "It absorbs energy for fuel, and when it drinks power from a certain element it alters its own base nature to turn that energy against its foes."

"So when Shouko described its wings as glowing-" Saika realized with growing horror.

"It has likely absorbed magic from both Kanako and Erika, which would give it a strong light aspect," Shizuka confirmed.

"We can't wait for backup," Saika blurted, and as Shizuka raised an eyebrow she balled her fists and stamped a foot.  "Either of us.  You know I'm right, Miyasato.  Every minute they're out there that thing is draining more and more from them.  What if it doesn't stop like it did with the other people it attacked.  What if it drains everything?"

"You are willing to put everything on the line in the event of that possibility," Shizuka said, her red-eyed gaze once more pinned to Saika's own green pair.

"Aren't you?" Saika rejoined, and Shizuka lowered her eyes, thumb toying with the hilt of her katana again.  Saika took a bracing breath and then turned on the ball of one foot, thrusting out a hand towards her opposite number.  "Night's fallen," she said, her voice low and firm.  "Day and twilight are both behind us.  And they'll come again in the morning.  But for tonight there are people who need saving.  Our friends.  And I'm...I'm not asking you to like me, Miyasato.  But...just for one night.  For our friends."

Shizuka eyed the proffered hand for a long moment.  "A two-person band," she mused.  Then she reached out and clasped Saika's hand.  The pair squeezed.

"So...um, now we just need to find it," Saika realized lamely.

Shizuka favored her with one of her barely-there smirks.  "Shouko said it was made of random parts. Where else do machines go to die and be reborn, Oishi?"

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

Kanako's screaming filled the junkyard, but nobody had come running in the last day, and nobody came running now.

She thrashed in her restraints as their captor leaned close and opened its maw which, not already enough of a science-fiction nightmare made as it was of mashing metal parts, was full of discarded sawblades that whirled and struck sparks from one another when the bottom set glanced off the ones on the top.  But instead of biting into the hapless girl, the machine seemed to inhale, and from Kanako's body a haze of glimmering light took form only to be drawn away as if by some manner of whirlpool, pulled inexorably into the machine-beast's mouth.  It arched, like a predator swallowing a particularly juicy morsel, its wings twitching and glimmering as the hope it drained from its captive suffused its body.

The thing that had taken them was the size of a bear, and walked on a pair of legs made from pistons and car axles, its arms cobbled together from cast-offs from the construction equipment manufacturing plant and spliced into grabbing claws.  Its posture was hunched and predatory, its eyes a set of headlights stolen from the hulk of a bus, which explained why Shoji had thought some nutcase was about to run him and Miyumi down.  

The wings that jutted from its body were the only thing that didn't seem to have come from the scrapyard - a set of blade-like triple-pointed razor-sharp limbs that extended almost ten feet in either direction and which, for the last day, had been glowing with an ever more intense light as it sucked the energy from its captives.

Kanako struggled to catch her breath as the thing finally seemed to take its fill and stepped away, rumbling, shaking her head and coughing.  "I knew this war between hunters and the twilight was going to crazy when I signed up, but I didn't think every other monster out there was going to try and eat us!" she wailed, sobbing a bit though by now her cheeks were try, with only the tracks left by the tears from earlier in the day.

"It...it's going to be okay," Miyumi murmured from her position sat against the wall.  The sorceress could barely keep her head up, deep bags under both eyes after fully two days with little more than a few drops of water.  The machine-creature had fashioned crude manacles from rebar and steel beams, driving them into the concrete wall against the back of the junkyard to pin the foursome's legs and hands in place.  Even Erika's fearsome strength had managed little more than to earn a bit of wiggle room.  "We will...figure something..out."

"Keep your eyes open, Miyumi!" Erika cried out.  "Don't fall asleep on us!  Um...what's forty times twenty-three?"

"Nnn...nine hundred and twenty," Miymui replied after a few moments' hesitation.

"Shouko are you sure you got through?" Erika asked for what had to be the hundredth time.

For the last hour Shouko had been trying to use the toe of her boot to grab purchase on an iron bar that rested by her feet, hoping she would be able to somehow lever open the rebar that held her pinned.  "Uh huh," she replied.  "I heard her answer.  C'mon...c'monnnnnn..."  With a soft squeak of triumph she managed to get her toe underneath the end of the bar and worked it up a couple inches, just enough to maneuver her feet to pin the bar between her insteps, drawing it from the ground towards her.

"Shouko, watch-" Kanako started to warn her, but a steel claw shot forwards to grab the bar and yanked it violently away from the would-be escapee.  Shouko yelped, having been so utterly focused on her task she hadn't noticed the golem turning back around towards them.  It leaned close, opening up its sawblade mouth and hissing steam in warning.  Shouko screamed back.

"Get away from her you...you b-jerk!" a voice cried out, and the golem reared, turning with awkward grace to find whatever interloper had called it out.

[...]

The pair stood side-by-side.  Shizuka's katana was already drawn and laid across her shoulders, its eldritch glow alight.  Beside her, Saika had her bow summoned and a gleaming golden arrow put to the shimmering string.

"Machines are meant to make lives easier and take the weight from the backs of working people," Shizuka growled.  "A malfunctioning beast like you has no right to turn such devices to the purpose of inflicting harm upon innocents."

"We won't let you hurt anyone else," Saika echoed.  "We might be like night and day ourselves, but even at the bottom of the night people deserve to dream of tomorrow, and when a new day breaks, that's all that'll be left of you - a bad dream!"  With that she drew her bow and fired her arrow, her aim dead-on between the mirrorknight's eyes.  But when the magical projectile struck the golem, it merely shattered and vanished, and the creature's wings only seemed to glow even brighter than before as it gnashed its sawblade teeth.

"Saika no, it's tuned itself to light energy!" Kanako cried out.  "You won't be able to hurt it like that!"

"So if it's full of light energy," Saika mused, glancing to her side even as the mirrorknight shook itself and began to pound towards the pair.  "Do you...?"

"Don't mind if I do," the Eventide representative growled and leapt forward, long skirts billowing about her legs as she ran to meet the beast halfway, her katana striking sparks from its claws as they met and she parried, dodged, and struck.  The energised blade cut into the morass of scrap that composed the mirrorknight's body, and it flashed in a brief, sudden coruscation of wild magic and drew back, snapping in bestial rage.  It lunged and bit, swiping with its claws, and dealt Shizuka a glancing blow with one hand, making her cry out and drop back.

Saika was at her back a moment later, her hand reaching out for Shizuka's shoulder, and in the space of a heartbeat the wound closed as if it had never been.  "I can still back you up like this," she assured the other girl, and squeezed, imparting a measure of energy.

Shizuka lifted a hand and, with a sudden burst of inhuman speed, threw out her arm and from the air exploded a set of chains as black as night that lashed out and tangled around the mirrorknight's limbs.  Splaying her fingers, the Eventide warrior threw a hail of thorns equally black that sank into the golem's armored hide with no more resistance than pins through a sheet of paper.  The renegade creation thrashed and lifted up into the air, letting loose an unearthly howling noise, and the glow of its wings intensified with a suddenness that left Saika with barely enough time to shout "watch out!" before searing beams of light erupted in every direction, carving through the air and leaving scorch marks where they passed.

Shizuka's chains failed and burst, but even so as the mirrorknight dropped back to the ground she was there, rushing forward with another reckless cut of her blade, carving deep into its flank, and again setting off the shudder of pain and the flashing, wild release of energy.  Then the thing kicked out and caught her in the midsection, lifting her from her feet and sending her flying through the air.  Saika rushed to her side when she came down, healing her once more, but rather than take advantage of the moment, the mirrorknight shuddered, and without warning its belly parted, affording them a glimpse of the diamond-shaped core housed within its torso, a perfect octohedron poised to a mirror shine.

Then the light that had sprayed forth from the golem's wings faded, replaced by a mounting inky blackness, dotted with distant pinpricks of light as if a void had opened into the night sky.  Helping Shizuka to her feet, Saika leveled her bow and summoned another arrow, firing at the creature once more and this time achieving the desired result, forcing it back a step as it howled injury.  "That's why you took Miyumi first," Saika realized.  "Because if you'd tried to fight both her and Kanako at the same time they could have just alternated what energy they hit you with.  She summoned another arrow, held it until it blazed with light, and fired, driving the berserk machine back another step.

Then, without warning, it charged, but in a heartbeat Shizuka was in front of her once more, the glow gone from her sword as she ceased to channel its enchantment, blocking steel with steel as the golem's claws screeched against the killing edge with no magical power to draw upon.  Together the unlikely pair faced down the cruel machine, Shizuka's protective blade turning aside the whirling sawblades and killing claws as Saika flexed her fingers and summoned up a triad of arrows, firing all three at once into the thing and making it reel, falling to its knees.

"That's right!  You’ve got nothing!" Saika cheered, pumping a fist.  "You never expected a pair like us to team up, did you?  Always striking at one or the other; you've got nothing when we work together!"

"Oishi," Shizuka warned.

The golem had managed to clamber up to one knee, its torso once mroe opening to display the pristine mirror of its core as the darkness faded from its wings, leaving perfectly-polished steel in its wake.

Then it closed a claw, and a long blade of fire erupted into the air.

"......o-oh," Saika whined, belatedly remembering not everyone had powers neatly categorized into light and dark.

The machine lashed out with what power it had managed to steal from Shouko, but with a snap-hiss of energy Shizuka had stepped in to block the blow, driven a foot back from the sheer strength behind it.  The machine lashed out again and the pair separated as the blade came down between them.

"What do we do now?  I don't know any ice spells!" Saika cried out, firing another pair of arrows that thunked into the golem's armored hide.

"We do things the old-fashioned way," Shizuka said grimly, with a cut of her blade that sliced into the mirrorknight's other flank.

"Get 'em Saika!  I believe in you!" Shouko shouted.

"Take him down!" Erika chimed in.

"You can do it," Miyumi husked.

"We're all counting on you!" Kanako added her voice to the chorus.

Saika conjured one arrow after the other, putting them into the hulking brute's torso with determination, but seemed to accomplish little even as Shizuka chipped away at its limbs with her blade.  This was going to take all night, and Saika didn't have the energy to keep them healed if they took more injuries.  Then, as the golem twisted to try and hit Shizuka, Saika realized that its torso was still open, its core naked.  It had to be nearly out of energy, she realized.

"Miyasato!  Are you willing to trust me?" she cried out, hurrying once more to Shizuka's side.

"It's a little late for that question," Shizuka growled.

"The core," Saika said, and her opposite nubmer thinned her lips and nodded, setting herself.

The mirrorknight stamped its piston-legs, shook itself in animalistic fashion, and stepped forward, beginning to raise its flaming sword.

Saika shut her eyes as she summoned up every bit of energy she could conjure, her bow trembling in her hand as she fed everything into it, leaving herself utterly unguarded, but summoning up an arrow that seemingly glowed with the intensity of a risen sun.  Then, as the mirrorknight's sword reached the highest point of its arc, ready to crash down in a devastating blow, she dropped one foot back, braced, and pulled, firing towards the exposed core.

Shizuka threw her hand out and one of her ink-black chains short forth, latching onto the arrow in mid-flight and trailing behind it as it soared, sinking deep into the polished mirror surface of the golem's core, spidering cracks flowing out in every direction.  

The mirrorknight stumbled, frozen in the middle of its deathblow.

Shizuka closed her hand around the conjured chain, and Saika reached out to likewise grasp it, her own fingers closing on the blackened links just above Shizuka's own grip.  Ice flooded her all the way up the shoulder as she touched the shadowed conjuring, but she held on tight, teeth bared.

"Twilight marks the end of day," Shizuka murmured.

"But dawn always comes again!" Saika replied, and together they focused, sending a spiraling wave of alternating light and dark energy twisting down the length of the chain that sank into the cracks created by the arrow's strike and exploded forth, shattering the golem's core into hundreds of mirrored shards.  

The renegade machine let out a final howl and slowly toppled backwards, the flaming sword fading from its clawed grip as it struck the ground and shattered into its many constituent pieces, the spark of animation that had bound them into a hungering whole dispelled forevermore. As smoke rose from the hulking remnants, Shizuka straightened to lay her katana across her shoulders once more, eyes closed, and Saika couldn’t resist making a ‘v’ with the first two fingers of her freed hand, fingertips framing one eye. ------------------------

Erika had to carry Miyumi from the junkyard, Kanako patting her head and summoning what healing magics she could still call forth to stabilize her, promising food as soon as they could get home.  For her part, Shouko reached for a cigarette, but in deference to Miymui's condition she slid it away again and settled for hugging Saika tightly.

Still, as they exited the place Saika found a spare moment to drag her feet, slowing to walk alongside Shizuka and offering an awkward, but heartfelt smile.  "Thanks for trusting me," she said softly.

"Likewise, Oishi," Shizuka replied after a few moments, offering a faint smile in return.

"Maybe sometimes light and darkness don't always have to be in opposition, huh?" she asked softly.

"Perhaps," Shizuka allowed.  A moment of silence passed between them, then, "you may keep my phone number in your contacts.  In case another night should come in which neither the Court nor the Vanguard need know...quite everything."

Saika nodded.  "You can add mine to yours, too.  Just in case, like you say."

"Oishi."

"Miyasato."

"Hey, are you coming or what?" Shouko called from up ahead.

"Yes, just wait up!" Saika said, hustling after the others, and after a moment, Shizuka deigned to lengthen her stride as well so that she need not fall behind.

[forged-through-trials]

The Imperial City was pretty quiet after that. With the guard-corruption squashed, and the grave-robbing halted, the city settled into something approaching peaceful. Which left nothing for me to really do besides hang out in my room at the Merchant’s Inn, and just drink the days away. Ruin insisted we get out from time to time. Yes, we did end up trying out the Tiber Septim Hotel for a dinner together. Ow, my poor coin-purse. Food was pretty tight, though.

Finally a whole week had passed. Seven days of me nearly going stir-crazy in my room, like I was on lock-down with the Peryite Flu. It was at last time to head back to the Arcane University to check on Boderi Farano and her progress. Boderi: “Some--” She teleported into the room, and stepped off the pad. “--BODY once asked “Me to translate books real fast “They had to get more evidence for their case “I said ‘yep, gimmie a week’ “’I’ll have all the answers that you seek’ “Now you can get back to the chase!” Trials: “...” Deadpan. “If you don’t stop singing, I will punch you.” Boderi: She frowned and reeled back a pace. “By Azura, you’re a grumpy one.” Ruin: “I assume you’ve made progress with the books we gave you?” Boderi: “Well, good news and bad news on that front. The bad news is that we can’t give them back to you. They contain forbidden knowledge comparable to necromancy and as such, we can’t let them out of the Arcane University. “The good news, however, is that we’ve copied an excerpt of the journal with all the important entries related to your case.” Ruin: “Was there anything in the other books related to our case?” Boderi: “Indeed there was. The Spell and Alchemy book contained various shamanic spells, most we’d already seen ogres use, but there were a few surprises to be had. “The other one was a gross cookbook, with recipes involving human meat and goblin brains.” Trials: “Eww.” Boderi: “All these books form the proof that the person you know as ‘Lord Baldor Varian’ is, in fact, an ogre who consumed the real Lord Varian’s flesh to take his form, and his brain to absorb his memories.” Trials: “Ugh, startin’ to wish I’d skipped breakfast, today.” Boderi: “Along with the journal entries, I’ve included an official letter bearing the seals of the Mages Guild and Arcane University to the authorities of Skingrad. It should be sufficient to have the guards arrest Lord Varian.” Trials: “Nice! Here’s hopin’ we don’t need two witnesses to the sun shining out of a dog’s arse to get the Skingrad City Guard to get their butts in gear.” Ruin: “You’re really not going to let that go, are you?” Trials: “It’s just so infuriatingly dumb!”

I took a look at the notes Boderi provided. They were exactly what Boderi described; excerpts from an ogre’s journal, and an official-sounding letter for the Skingrad City Watch. The journal described the slow progression of the ogre mage. How he’d discovered the recipe to steal memories from cooking and eating the brains of his victims, and similarly learned the recipe for stealing the form of a victim from consuming their flesh. A gross, grim tome, as the ogre mage progressed from experimenting on rats and imps, to goblins, and finally to people. It was when the mage started hitting people that he vastly increased his knowledge and ingenuity. After a few victims, he was able to perfect the recipes through experimentation, growing his intellect and increasing the duration of the effects. Eventually, he schemed to enter the “human city,” presumably Skingrad, to have a steady supply of human flesh. By luck, he happened to capture the real Baldor Varian, and proceeded to kill, cook, and eat him, obtaining his form and memories. He then proceeded to take Baldor’s place as a nobleman of Skingrad, and one by one, consume Baldor’s servants. Eventually, he had to travel to another province to finalized his arranged marriage with Lucy, and take her back to Skingrad. That’s where the abuse began, just as Lucy described, and it seemed that the ogre’s need to keep up appearances was the only thing that saved Lucy from being eaten. Shortly after getting her back to Skingrad, Lucy fell ill. This is likely where Baron von Zarov got involved. The fake Baldor called Doctor Helsong, again, trying to keep up appearances, but Lucy ‘died’ of her illness shortly there after. The fake Baldor then left the cave to his brother--I guess that was the ogre Ruin and I found in Grayrock Cave--and that was the end of the journal. With these in hand, it was time to return to Skingrad. While this isn’t quite bringing Baron von Zarov to justice, this is the next best thing. The Ogre-Varian needed to be stopped before he killed again.

It took a few hours, but we hiked it quickly from the Arcane University directly to Skingrad. Once there, I found the nearest guard, and presented them with the Arcane University’s writ. Trials: “I have proof that Lord Varian--” Private Janora: “Stop right there, criminal scum! I mean, citizen! If it concerns the nobility, this is way above my pay-grade. Captain Dion is the one you want to see about this.” Trials: “Why can’t you just take the writ to him? Do I look like a courier to you?” Private Janora: “Yes! I’ve seen you delivering packages around town.” Trials: Deadpan. “...well, very astute of you.” So our next stop was to seek out Captain Dion. We found him near the chapel. Trials: “Ho, Captain. Remember me?” Captain Dion: “Yes, I do; you riled up the town-eccentric into a murderous frenzy until I had to put him down.” Trials: I tugged at my collar awkwardly. “Ooph, yeah, those were crazy times... two months ago... “Anyway, today I come to you with proof that Lord Baldor Varian is an impostor!” I passed him the writ from the Arcane University, and he took a few moments to read it. Captain Dion: “These are serious charges. Your evidence is in order, but concerning a noble of Skingrad, I cannot act without approval of the Count. I’ll need you to go to the castle and seek his confirmation right away.” Trials: I rolled my eyes. “Oh for Hist’s Sake, am I just going to get bounced around all day? Next, I’ll go to see the Count and he’ll be like; ‘Oh, sorry, I can’t help you. Go run your tail back to the Imperial City and get word from the Emperor.’ “And then I do it, and the Emperor will say: ‘Sorry, can’t help you. Instead, I’m going to refer you to Talos.’ “And then I meet Tiber-gods-damned-Septim, and even he tells me; ‘I’ll help, but first, you gotta get permission from my friend, Todd’.” Captain Dion: “...who the hell is ‘Todd’?” Well, there was nothing else for it. Ruin and I schlepped it over to Skingrad Castle, and spoke with the steward, Mercator Hosidus. Hey, I wonder if he knows Mercator Saccus from A Fighting Chance in the Imperial City? Mercator Hosidus: “The Count will not see you now. Not now, not ever. He sees no one. I’m Mercator Hosidus, his steward. I believe that’s all you need to know.” Trials: “...” I rolled my eyes. “Tell him a ‘No Soliciting’ sign would be both cheaper, and just as effective. “Anyway, we have evidence that Lord Baldor Varian is an impostor. So tell the Count to get his shoes on and get down here to see it.” Mercator Hosidus: “These are serious charges. May I see your evidence?” Trials: I presented him with the Arcane University’s writ. “Right here! Signed and sealed by the Council of Mages.” Mercator Hosidus: He examined the writ, and gave a solemn nod. “Ah, excellent work. Accusing a Lord of Skingrad without any backup evidence would have led you nowhere. Thanks for taking the precautions of making this all official. The Count will be pleased that you handled this like you did.” Trials: Deadpan. “...gee, thanks. How fortunate for me that I did ninety-percent of the work for you.” Mercator Hosidus: “Stow the sass, lizard. I’ll talk to the Count as soon as possible, and I expect there’ll be an arrest tomorrow morning. You’re welcome to watch it but you mustn’t intervene. This is a matter for the guards.” Trials: I shrugged and rolled my eyes. “Are you sure? Wouldn’t you rather I finish up that last ten percent for you?” Mercator Hosidus: He grit his teeth and sneered. “Look, I don’t need your cheek. I’m already busy ghost-writing the Count’s book where he teaches children to count bats. I’ve got to figure out a way to transliterate his ‘Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah.’ laugh by this afternoon!” Trials: “He’s writing a children’s book? Aww, that’s sweet of him. Does he need anyone to write the forward for it?” Mercator Hosidus: “Nah, it’s already presented by the letter ‘þ’.” Trials: Confused. “...the hell is that?? The bastard-child of a ‘b’ and ‘p’? Mercator Hosidus: “I think it looks like a pregnant ‘I’.”

Oh goodie, more waiting! Well, we had a few hours to kill before Hosidus had everything in order and we could arrest Varian, so I hit the shops. It was in “Hammer And Tongs” that I spoke with Agnete The Pickled. Agnete: “I’m PICKLED AGNETE!” Trials: “...” I burst into laughter, huffing and wheezing. “...by the gods, funny stuff!” Ruin: “...I don’t get it.” Trials: “But Ruin, she’s Agnete the Pickled! It’s the funniest name I’ve ever heard!” Ruin: “I still don’t get it.” Agnete: “Welcome to Hammer and Tongs. What can I do ya for?” Trials: “Browsing, mostly. Oh, also, before I forget, I’m representing a ‘Thalonias, late of Balmora,’ currently residing in Weye. He’s looking for someone to supply his shop, and I’d like to ask if you’d be willing to cut a deal?” Agnete: “This sounds like a very good deal -- I could expand all over Cyrodiil like this! I’d just need a little capital to cover the first shipment. Say, two-hundred and fifty Septims.” Trials: “Ow, that’s like a whole dinner at the Tiber Septim Hotel!” I groaned and slumped. “Fiiiiine! But only because you made me laugh with that ‘Pickled Agnete’ bit. I sure hope Thalonias appreciates the sacrifices I’m making for him.”

With that done, Ruin and I retired to the Fighters Guild to rest up for the following morning. We rose with the sun, and eagerly raced down the street to Baldor’s estate, spying a battle-mage accompanying two members of the Skingrad City Watch. The battle-mage approached Ruin and I, and spoke to us. Albeci Calleius: “So, you’re the one who gathered the evidence, is this right? Well, this is a job for the local city guards now, so you stay out of the way, alright?” Trials: “Sure I can’t just pop in and finish what I’d started? I’ve been on this case for a month.” Albeci Calleius: “Commendable, but I can’t allow that. Only city guards and legion soldiers are authorized to make arrests.” He directed his men to move in, and the two guards slipped into the manor. I could hear shouting from within the building, then crashing, as the obvious noises of struggle could be heard coming from within the manor. A guard exited after a moment, and spoke up to the battle-mage in command. Skingrad Guard: “Sir, he’s changed into an ogre, and he’s using magic! I don’t think we can handle this on our own.” Albeci Calleius: He gave a firm nod to his subordinate, then turned to Ruin and I. “It seems we have the final piece of evidence to back up your accusations. My men need assistance. I’d better go in so my magic can support them. Unless...” Trials: “...” I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Oh, here we go.” Albeci Calleius: “Do you still want to help?” Trials: I shrugged. “Last ten percent it is, then!” Albeci Calleius: “Alright, in you go! I had wanted to take this imposter alive, but it seems that is no longer an option.” Ruin: “We’ll try to leave him as intact as possible.” Trials: “Oooh, someone is confident today!”

We rushed into the manor, and spied “Baldor” on the second floor. He came rushing down the stairs at us, but I came prepared. I’d been carrying Poisons of Silence to deal with Vampire Mages, and thought this an opportune time to pour one out over Light of Dawn. That took care of his spell-casting, and from there, the ogre only had his fists to rely on against us. The last time I fought an ogre head on, I was pummeled to a pulp and barely survived, and all I had to show for that instance was a few broken ribs and a basket of bread! This time, I was stronger, faster, and smarter than before. I dodged those huge, meaty fists like a pro, and moved in, even as the Ogre leaped up, looking to axe-handle slam me from above. I pointed Light of Dawn up, and the ogre came down onto the blade, his own weight forcing the blade through his tough hide, impaling him on the sword. The ogre roared, flailing those huge limbs, as I quickly drew Light of Dawn out of his gut, and with a quick slash, took out his throat, finally putting an end to the false Balor once and for all. Once we’d dealt with the ogre, Ruin and I exited, and met with Albeci Calleius once more. Albeci Calleius: “I take it you were victorious, then? A pity we couldn’t arrest the ogre mage, but you did what you had to do.” Ruin: “Congratulations, Trials. You can finally close the book on this case.” Trials: I paused, contemplatively. “Well... almost... not quite...” Albeci Calleius: “Well, my part is done, here. The castle steward may offer you a reward for your part. You should come up there and see them when you’re able to.”

We retreated back over to Castle Skingrad, but the whole walk there, I had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind. Sure, we’d stop the Fake Baldor, but Baron von Zarov was still at large. Once we arrived back at Castle Skingrad, we were met by Steward Hosidus. Mercator Hosidus: “Word of your deeds have proceeded you. Congratulations! It is my great honor to give you this reward for all your efforts in this dramatic case.” He passed me a large purse of gold coins. “It is especially the way you handled the situation that you are to be commended for. You went to great lengths to gather evidence to prove the case, and stopped a monster from preying upon the people of Skingrad. For that, you have the gratitude of the whole city.” Trials: I sighed, unable to appreciate the gratitude. “Well, thank you, but... but this case isn’t quite ‘closed’ yet. There’s another wrinkle to iron out.” Mercator Hosidus: “Oh? And what ‘wrinkle’ is that?” Trials: “It’s about Baron von Zarov. I have reason to believe that is a vampire.” Mercator Hosidus: He gave pause for a moment, then broke into laughter. “Ah hah hah! That’s funny! Lord Varian is an ogre, and Baron von Zarov is a vampire? I guess the other lords are werewolves and the ladies are liches! Ah hah hah hah hah!” Trials: I grit my teeth, wilting under his mocking laughter. “But it’s true! I’ve been working this case for a month, ever since the body of Lucy Varian disappeared! He’s a vampire!” Mercator Hosidus: “This isn’t funny anymore, kiddo. I know you’ve done a service to the city, but I can’t just act on your word alone. Especially not after we were duped by the last ‘Vampire Hunter’ to come waltzing into town. You’ll need proof.” Trials: I flailed my arms in frustration. “Then let me get the proof you need. You know I can do it. I just need the key to Zarov’s manor.” Mercator Hosidus: “Fine.” He took a moment to search through his keychain, before producing the key to Zarov’s manor. “Here’s the key. You’re free to enter the Baron’s house for the time being. You mustn’t steal anything, but only take the poof of his culpability. And report to me directly.” Trials: I offered him a salute. “Righto. I’ll be back in two shakes of my tail!” We rushed back into town. You know, Gentle Reader, it is such a shame that the Fake Baldor took the evidence I’d found the last time I broke into lawfully entered the Baron’s manor. Who knows what the ogre likely did with them? But there’s bound to be more evidence to be found at Zarov’s manor. Ruin and I entered, and began the search. I immediately rushed to the second floor, where I tugged upon the candelabra... only to find it wouldn’t budge. I tried again, and again, but the damn thing was stuck fast. Trials: “Th-the secret door won’t open!” Ruin: “It seems it is no longer possible to prove there was a secret entrance from the Baron’s house into the sewers.” Trials: “Nnngh!” I fumed, but calmed myself and wiped the sweat from my brow. “It’s okay. We can still salvage this situation. We just need to get into the city sewers.” Ruin: “What about that skull on the shelf? Is that not evidence?” Trials: “Nah, that’s only proof that he shares a crap-sense of interior decoration with most of Cyrodiil.” Ruin: “If grave-robbing carries the death-penalty, why is it legal to just display a skull on one’s bookshelf?” Trials: “Because Cyrodiil is a clown-province full of lazy guards and nonsense-laws.”

We rushed back through town, heading to the south tip, where an old abandoned house lie. A month ago, when I scrambled, screaming and damp with sweat--and other fluids--from the city sewers, I popped up in this run down hovel, so I knew there was an entrance back into the sewers from here. We just needed to get in, and get down there. We were down there once more, and the stench of those sewers was a familiar, if unwelcome, hit. The odor was enough to sting the eyes and nose, and I groaned as I struggled through the sewers, pacing ever forward. Eventually, I led Ruin through the sewers. With a combination of memory, and the knowledge that the Baron’s home was vaguely north of the abandoned house, I found the tunnel that led under the Baron’s manor, and we strode forward. I crossed the bridge over the pit, and found the wrack that once contained the Baron’s bottles of spare blood. ...and was currently empty. Dammit! I turned back toward the pit, and climbed down into it... only to find it, too was empty. Unlike the vampires of Fort Carmala, the Baron didn’t believe in leaving rotting corpses lying around as decoration. Trials: “Dammit! The evidence is gone!” Ruin: “Zarov was one step ahead of us.” Trials: I grit my teeth, and shook. “It’s... it’s okay! We can still salvage this!” Ruin: “...how?” Trials: “I... Miaren Girendas! Over at Magh-Gra’s Tack and Supplies. She could at least confirm that the Baron left here with Lucy Varian.”

We rushed out of the sewers, and darted as quickly as we could over toward Magh-Gra’s, whereupon we found the Dark Elf in the corner of the shop, tending to her duties. Miaren: “Good day to you. Can I help with something?” She sniffed the air around us, and then covered her nose. “Ugh, perhaps by pointing you to the nearest bath?” Trials: “Yeah, sorry, we just got out of the sewers. Anyway, we need to talk about Baron von Zarov.” Miaren: “...what? What is it you’re saying?” Trials: “...” I grew increasingly irate. “Baron. Von. Zarov!” Miaren: “Never heard that name before. Who is he? Your master? Does he have an order in our shop?” Trials: “...” The hope audibly drained out of my voice. “You... really don’t remember, do you?” Miaren: “Sorry, remember what?” Trials: Defeated. “You don’t remember at all.” Miaren: “Let me check for his name in our ledgers. I’m sure that if we have an impending order it will be in the books.” Trials: Defeated. “It won’t.” Miaren: “Oh really?” Trials: Defeated. “Do you... not remember me, at all?” Miaren: “Not at all. Should I? When did we meet?” Trials: Defeated. “...never mind.” Ruin and I stepped out of the shop, and I hung my head, dejected. Ruin: “All of the evidence has vanished. The Baron must’ve known you were onto him and cleared everything. Even Miaren very memories!” Trials: I slammed a fist into the near wall. “It’s... we can still salvage this! I just need to find a way to time-travel back to two-months ago and--” Ruin: “My friend, let it go. The Baron outwitted us, this time.” Trials: Defeated. “Ugh... you’re right.” We carried back over to Skingrad Castle to report in. Hosidus was about as helpful as you might imagine; with no proof, he could not take action against Zarov, so we were effectively stonewalled. The Baron won this one, it seems. Well, at least I nicked his rare wine bottles!

[carlsonjonathan92]

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Grow Taller Qigong

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[jillmckenzie1]

Interview with Colorado Book Award Finalist, Adam Houle

As I read Stray, I noticed that region plays a significant role in the work. How do the collective settings of Stray influence its thematic undercurrents? How did these various places influence you as a person and in turn as a writer?

I like things grounded. Region gives a shape to our lives; our rhythms and patterns are, partially, governed by where we are. I don’t want to put too big an emphasis here, but I think that where we are carves out who we are. Maybe that’s too much. Put another way: place shapes vision. All places has contours, physical, emotional, spiritual. And we can connect with that, we can interrogate it, we can hold up those patterns for comparison with our own patterns, our own impressions on just what the heck is going on. Maybe that’s happiness: finding that your contours align with the contours of your physical place — your mind works alongside the orders and disorders of a place, and you find a richness, a distinctiveness that resonates. And when I try to give that voice, I find my way into a poem.

For me, Stray tries to order and shape those places, both physical and psychological. To give shape to the experiences — mine or otherwise — means I’m trying to locate something quite swift and fleeting. It slows me down and lets the associations rise and fade. What’s left is the poem. What’s left is a voice that catches the song, and in the song the place is memorialized, the players, too, and in the making of the poems, I’m working toward that intersection between the things of the world and the way they perfume and shape our mental space.

Place for me is always about alignment and experience. Growing up, I felt Eastern Pennsylvania was so busy, so future-oriented, I couldn’t catch my breathe. So, I moved to Colorado. Then to Utah. It was in Colorado that I felt different rhythms were possible, and that I could build a life around that. There were good people who had found that too, and they helped me a lot. Ultimately, I went back to Wisconsin for college. And I liked it. In college, once I opted for an English degree, really smart, kind professors and writers gave me the permission I needed to sit with experience and work to get it shaped on the page. That’s a roundabout way of saying that I carry it all with me, and, in my poems, try to give it a manageable shape, a structure that resonates and might last.

Stray offers remarkably lucid glimpses into the inner-workings of your life and thoughts. How do you choose your subject matter? When do you know an experience or thought is the seed for a poem?

I think poems are an offshoot, a lucky but necessary byproduct, of paying attention. So, I hope that I foster an aesthetics of attentiveness, of allowing the phrase, the line, the grammatical sentence shape the thought and to let the thought follow those contours. I sensed running in the background, though. Snippets of poems I’ve read, lines I’m working on, and the like. And something I’m coming to realize is that I was always measuring and shaping and letting language take up a lot of mental space. So, for me, getting serious about writing poems let me have a place to put all the work that was going on anyway. It was a such a jolt when I realized that I could do that — that I was allowed to shape language in all its strangeness and elegance and griminess, and try to give all that a structure. I take time in the morning — sometimes a lot of time, sometimes a little — to write. I don’t have to have a draft every day. I don’t worry if I don’t transfer work from the notebook to the screen. I trust my experience and my response. And when poems begin taking shape, I’m ready. So that process has given me allowance to sit quietly, to feel my way through experience, and to avoid trying to rationalize my responses to the world.

Those small snippets of an image, of a bit of phrase I like, or when something holds my focus and blurs out the rest, that’s the start of something. So, the subject matter is plucked from this and that. I don’t really know why something catches my eye and ear. I like things, though. I’m always inspecting small stuff I find throughout the day, and I’m an indiscriminate absorber of information. I listen to almost anyone talk about stuff that matters to them; I’ll also give just about anything a few minutes read and a lot more time if I like it. All those ideas, responses, and experiences have their worth. They’re valuable to me, and if they end up in a draft, I’ll know they grafted onto something in me that needs to be explored and held up to let breathe and mingle with the rest.

Though much of the work seems autobiographical, several poems, such as “THE FUTURE TIMBER BARON WRITES HIS NEW WIFE” and “YELLOWKNIFE GIRL AT THE TIMBER CAMP” inhabit other perspectives. How do you go about researching and assuming those voices of “otherness”?

Those two in particular were part of a much longer concept that I abandoned along the way. I hope that respect and love gird those poems. Thinking of the timber trade historically, it was a rough go for everything involved. With “The Future Timber Baron Writes His New Wife,” I was interested in bad hope. He’s a dodgy guy, feeling himself deprived but driven and single-minded, despite the intrusions of the world outside what he sees as the necessary work at hand. “Yellowknife Girl at the Timber Camp” is a poem about a different type of hope. Right or wrong, by the poem’s close, she’s identified the dangers she believes will ruin us. “Cook Takes Stock after the Ice Road Fails” offers a response to both the Future Baron and the Yellowknife Girl: when everything is lost, we have to look elsewhere, beyond our striving and what we think is ours. Those are very human dramas. They are painful and hopeful and endlessly playing out. As I worked on that sequence, I wasn’t looking for the sweep of large events. I wanted the small moments, the little despairs and hopes. Those are the ones I identify with. When I assume those voices, I want to be mindful that I’m working from a place of respect and love, and that what they say echoes within my own experiences.

As a poet and fiction writer, how do you feel your poetry informs your prose, and vice versa? How would you describe the different mediums of expression and the different messages that result?

I’m a poet first. I’m more suited for the measures of a line than those of a paragraph. Something about the emptiness after a line, between the line, hits right for me. I think of it as the space where the words continue casting themselves. That said, working on fiction or nonfiction is both terrifying and exhilarating. I love the mind at work in really good essays; Thomas Lynch’s work comes to mind — there’s a smoothness and rightness to the language, a sensibility that gives expanse to tinker and rethink. I live with a fiction writer, and the way Landon explains story is far smarter and insightful than I could ever hope to be. And something she said about character and desire fired me up to get some stories in the hopper. In “Pitch Man” I wanted to explore what I felt about Billy Mays, the OxyClean (among other products) infomercial guy. I always really liked him for some reason. I liked the carnival barker, the sturdiness of his pitch. That short story, for example, let me inhabit that world, and it felt better, more accurate in prose. I read as much fiction as I can. And I find that the expanse of a prose gives me permission to think about the movements of a life on a larger stage. Poems teach me about precision. When I see prose that isn’t working for me, it’s often because I feel like the architect has forgotten the grace of a beautiful doorway’s finial work, like the work never got past a damn good blueprint. But a blueprint’s not the thing or even a committed rendering of the thing populated with human heat and small edging details that stick with us. So, I try to keep these lessons in mind during the revision process — what does prose teach me about poetry? How can poems help prose?

“Poetry” can, at times, seem to be a rather ambiguous, umbrella term. Thus, oftentimes poets and readers must forage and forge for their own identifiers. How would you describe your own aesthetic?

I’m not worried about schools of thought very much. I want to get the poem into a shape that feels authentic, though crafted, to me, that sticks around in my mind like a little incantation or prayer. That’s what attracts me to the poems I like reading — they are immediate, they are aware that they’re shaped in some way, and in that awareness they shape the reader. Maybe they just bend us temporarily, but I don’t think we ever bounce fully back after a poem works on us. We accrue poems and parts of poems, and it helps inform the work we try to write. I think of my aesthetic as one of attentiveness, of taking up disparate impulses, thoughts, reactions, and trying to give them a field of expression.

Tell us the story behind the story: how did Stray get published? Do you have any other projects in the works?

So, when I moved to South Carolina to start my teaching gig, I thought it’d be a good idea to get serious about sending Stray into the world. I went the contest submission route. After the manuscript was a finalist or semi-finalist at a number of contests, I revised and rewrote. I had the book in a shape I liked. The sections felt good. The individual poems felt good. I had some really great friends and colleagues from grad school to exchange manuscripts with, and I’m grateful to them and to my mentors at Texas Tech, Northern Michigan University, and the University of Wisconsin — Green Bay for their support and their sharp eyes as they helped me shape the work over the years. So, there it was, what felt like a real-live book. A friend told me about Juan Morales’ The Siren World with Lithic Press. I read Juan’s book and loved it. The poems are fantastic, the design was thoughtful, and the layout was committed to showcasing the poems in their space. So, I sent the manuscript to Danny Rosen, the publisher at Lithic Press. I think he was suspicious at first, but the poems won him over, and that was that. To have Stray named a finalist for the Colorado Book Awards meant a lot to me. If I trace the poems back to their earliest whispers, they owe a lot to my time living in Colorado and the space that my life their let me work in. Right now, I’m working on some new poems and revisiting some earlier stuff that didn’t fit with Stray but are still on my mind. I don’t know if they’ll shape up and cohere, but I’m trying to be spacious with my expectations, taking more risks, letting these drafts be tentative and incomplete and not forcing the issue.

What poets inspire and/or influence you? What are you reading right now?

Right now, I’m reading Jessica Cuello’s Hunt and Moby-Dick. Cuello takes chapters from Moby-Dick and re-envisions them into sharply considered poems. It’s so good, but I’m taking my time with it. When I revisit works that meant a lot to me, I come back to Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop. I reread Yusef Komunyakaa’s work. Jimmy Santiago Baca’s Black Mesa Poems is another. I reread Erica Dawson’s Big-Eyed Afraid recently and was deeply moved by the sharpness. Jack Gilbert’s work meant a lot to me during my undergraduate years. There are sections of Paradise Lost that I’ll reread every day for stretches. I’ve also been really interested in the work that’s going on in Columbia — it’s about an hour’s drive for me, and I’ve got to hear some really good stuff. I’m always open to work that’s being done with integrity. I don’t love it all, but I’m glad it’s being written and shared.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/interview-with-colorado-book-award-finalist-adam-houle/

[ahzrenbooks-blog]

The Alves: Chapter 1

Marek was a child who did not sleep easily.  Others exhausted their energy playing and learning during the day, to slip gently into dream once the torches were doused.  They didn’t need to linger awake in the dark, the soft cloth of night lying weightless over their eyes, drowsiness lengthening the scary shadows, the hours dripping by with exaggerated slowness.  It was easier to believe in things the daylight mind scoffed at; easier for tired eyes to see the shadows move in terrifying living shapes.  Ever since he could remember, the ghost would creep near and stand by the headboard.  Its woeful gestures carried no sound and stirred no air, yet were so real that Marek couldn’t convince himself it was only a nightmare figure.  Because it came only to him, he assumed it was his ghost.

“Is anyone else’s ghost this troublesome?” he asked himself nearly every night of his young life.  He wondered how others dealt with such a thing, and whether his parents had any advice.  Although it had never hurt him, it was more terrifying because of the lack of explanation.

He asked his father, the Baron, but Baron Beorn merely scolded his teacher, warning her not to indulge in fantasy during the boy’s lessons.  Then, Marek asked the taciturn court mage and received some chilling news.  She not only believed in ghosts that lingered after death, but had encountered evidence of their presence during her study at the Collegium.  The mage’s school acknowledged such an existence and had been aware of that type of being for a long time.  Then she tried to comfort him.  There was no reason for Marek to have seen one, as the mage had not found any proof of ghosts on the premises before, despite all the battles that had been fought on their land in the past.

“That means I am the only one,” he realized.  No one saw as he did, and no one believed that he could see what he saw every night.  He steeled himself, because this thing was after all not a ghost, according to the court mage.  He could either fear it because it was an unknown, or decide not to fear it.  Was there really any cause to, being that the shadow who wasn’t really there might not even be real?

At night, lost in fear and loneliness, Marek curled up and pretended to sleep.  Night after night, the little shadow who wasn’t there hovered around his room and wept soundlessly before fading away with dawn.

Marek was very young yet when he decided he was too lonely to bear it any longer.  “Maybe I am the only one,” he thought, “but could it be that… you’re also the only one?”  Their situations were different, but perhaps more similar than he had ever given credit to.  Perhaps they were both lonely because no one understood or believed them, and might better be alone together.

Marek hid under a pile of blankets with his eyes screwed tightly shut.  His heart raced faster than ever before as he reached out his hand into the dark-

-And became the first lonely child to have something reach back.

“I am a friend.”

The words were so close it was as though he’d thought them himself.  They lit something warm and needy inside, something delicious and forbidden.

“It’s because I’m a secret.”

Yes, that was it, exactly!  A secret friend no one else could see.  How fortunate!  All of a sudden he was the most lucky little boy!  But he couldn’t see his new friend clearly.  The ghost was but a shadow without visible details, mostly Marek’s size and shape, and vaguely human looking.

“I don’t know what my face would’ve been.  That’s why.  But we’re obviously linked, so I think I’ll borrow yours.”

What delectable fun!  An imaginary friend that looked just like him.  Marek believed, and started to talk.  It didn’t matter what they talked about.  His new friend absorbed everything he said, rabid for information.  All this time he’d just wanted attention.  But where had he come from?  Or did it even matter?

“If you’re going to be my friend, I’ll need something to call you.  You need a name,” Marek suggested.

“A name.  I have a name.  Doesn’t everyone?”

“Who gave it to you?”

“I don’t know, but it’s branded on my heart.  My name is Dayn Ater Beorn.”

Marek let fly more questions.  “Then you’re family?  How old are you?  Are you my ancestor, or yet to be born?”

“Does it matter?  It makes sense that we’re blood if you’re the only one that can see me.  We have a bond.  I don’t need more than that.  I don’t need to understand.”

So they were bonded, the boy and his ever present shadow.

***

“Things were so much easier with my first son,” Hallon Beorn muttered through his gnarled fingers.  His head was heavy against his hand, his elbow on the table, his shoulders unaccustomed to their current slouch.  “Jurick is so much like I was as a boy.  It makes him easier to understand.”

Instead of sitting in the chair Hallon had provided her, the court mage Jona stood behind it.  “Whoever told you that having sons should be easy?”  That wasn’t quite what she’d meant to say, but three decades of magic had done nothing to improve her ability to comfort others.  Even had those sorts of books been written, she wouldn’t have been interested in them.

“Of course not.  I couldn’t have asked for better sons,” the Baron replied tersely.  He shifted, lowering his hand heavily.  “But that little dreamer of mine…  He must need some kind of encouragement that’s new to me.   Lady Yuuna coddles him, her maids coddle him, his sister dotes on him.  He spends far too much time around skirts and not enough time being a bratty boy with his brother.  I fear that the wrong kind of attention is turning him into less than a man.”

“Why not forbid him from spending so much time with them?” Jona suggested.

“And force a wedge between he and his mother?  No, I’m afraid not.”  Hallon rose and began to pace around his stateroom, dragging one foot more than the other.  Jona listened to the uneven footfalls caused by his old knee injury.  “I hate talking like this, but if I were to deprive her of time with any of her children, the Goddess would never forgive me.  Who knows how long she has left?  By the Bleak, I’d never forgive myself.  There’ll be time enough to turn the little goblin into a man… after.  Ah, part of me is eager to help him find his place, and part would rather let him just be a child like any other.”

Jona twisted her quill between her fingers.  Anything to keep her purposeless hands busy.  “Goddess forefend.  Surely My Lady will have years left, yet.”  She knew they both understood how empty a statement that was, but silence could only be more awkward.  “It’s a pity that a Baron’s son doesn’t have that choice.  He must learn to be fit to lead in case he is needed.  For the good of our people.”

“Well, what else do we need to cover?  I believe I’ve side-tracked the original intent of our talk yet again,” Hallon mused.  “You have news of the King’s son?”

“Yes, Baron.  A letter from a colleague arrived this morning confirming the rumors that had circulated to us earlier this month.  The young prince did indeed sustain a grave injury, and though the capital won’t admit it in any meaningful way, it seems he has the worst complications that could be expected.  If the infection were to take him, it would leave the throne in contest, of course,” Jona explained.

“Hm.  The King has the girl child, though.  I wonder if he’s expecting something of that?”

“The Alves haven’t had a female ruler in generations.  Not since Gevruitha Astrazaltr.  It’s been three hundred years since rule turned into a patriarchal monarchy,” Jona said.  “Everyone is used to the tradition of a female goddess and a male king now.  If those other whispers about the king’s impotence are true, we can’t expect any more male children from that line either.  More likely the rule will pass laterally, to the next uncle or cousin in line.  Could you imagine a Queen of the Alves?  None of the southern territories would abide that.”

“Of course not,” Hallon replied, “but they may have no choice.  I’d like to see what kind of mettle the girl has.  We’ve gained more independence in the past ten or so years, but that’s the ailing power of the capital for you.  A weak King whose reach can only extend as far as his army and his big mouth allows.  Incompetence causes the whole country to suffer.  Whether he can sire more children or not, or whether the problem is with the Queen’s womb or not, nothing he does alone will restore the people’s faith in him now.  The core northwestern territories support him because he’s their direct supplier.  The rest of us have been eager for a power shift for years.”

“He’s always been rather more eager to send a warrior where a scribe or healer would do,” Jona agreed.  “That shows lack of character.  He doesn’t understand what his people need, and now he’s drained financially.”

“What it shows is a lack of balls,” Hallon replied, grimacing.

Jona did as well, and arched her eyebrow meaningfully.  “I’d rather a lateral power shift.  Think of how much work needs to be done now, with such a power void in the capital?  Someone like a brother close to power would have the experience and wisdom to lead.  A brand new child on the throne, much less a girl, would simply have too much to contest.  Not to mention, she’s being raised by the same people whose rule we’re currently demeaning.  How could she be any better if she’s got the same education?  How could such a person step first thing into a civil war and hope to succeed?”

“I couldn’t say,” Hallon argued.  “I’m as much an old man as the king is, and I’d just like to see something new for my children.  Whomever rules at the Capital has no great impact on us, other than what they ask as tribute, and how much we pay them in taxes.  They leave our Barony alone and forgotten until they have desperate need of manpower, and it suits us just fine.”

“Hm.  Speaking of which, the letters I received this month weren’t requesting that.”

“Good.”  Hallon’s brows lowered with scorn.  “They’ve taken enough of my men to fortify themselves.  Goddess knows what they do with them.  What they need is more sense, not walls and soldiers to guard the Alvan Capital from itself.  The territories haven’t been this fractured since the last war.  I fear whoever comes to power next will be the dividing line between north and south once and for all.”

“The only way to avoid that would be to marry the next ruler to a leader in the opposing faction,” Jona suggested.  “But the girl isn’t nearly old enough for that, either.  They could promise engagement, but no one would trust the King - not with his reputation.”

“What a fine mess,” Hallon sighed.  “Hopefully the young prince will recover and grow up fine and strong.  But then, that’s never a certainty.  That’s why a good ruler ought to have as many children as he’s able.  One of the batch ought to be able to carry the weight of tradition and wisdom.”

“Yes, Baron.”  Jona watched Hallon’s expression as he grew quiet.  After a moment, the Baron startled in place, and nodded reflexively.  Jona bowed herself out, recognizing his distant dismissal.  Probably worrying about his own wayward son again.

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