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goddessofeternity · 26 days

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Chronicles of the Supernovas: Chosen

Chapter 24: Decisive Brawl

Nim

There was still something that we needed to do.

The others were busy with moving Altair and getting the ship together and ready. Lady Serafina had drawn the Darkness away to give us our chance. The threat from that Atrocity was still too fresh though for Masami. Watching her now, she was fooling everyone else with her smiles and apologies, but the lies were deep in her eyes. She was ready to burst at the seams and her eyes held such bloodthirst that I was surprised that she could smile like that. The peaceful woman that we had all come to know was gone, or maybe she was never really there. I exhaled deeply glancing at Callum, because he seemed happy to have his wife back by his side. He was the one that was going to lose something if she kept it up, but the poor fool was too blind right now.

“Hey…time to go…” Nerissa walked over and looked at me curiously. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing important…” I looked down and made a fist, feeling my energy coming back to me quickly. I never thought that I would be powerless like that. These weapons were a deadly foe. “Have your powers come back quicker?”

“Yeah actually…I feel pretty good right now.” To show her meaning, she drew the water out of the various plants and formed daggers made of water. Turning towards a tree…she sliced it and several others cleanly in half. “See? Not my best work, but still good enough.”

“Hmm yes…” I flexed my fingers and smirked at the electricity that flowed over them. I had to be almost at sixty-five percent right now. That would be enough to get us the rest of the way home. “I only worry about this Morlo…”

“Yeah…you would think that he would have shown up by now…” She scratched her head as we walked over to the ship. “He sends us all of these lackeys to face, but the big man himself just doesn't show up.”

“If he’s smart, he’ll stay away as long as he can. After the stunt that he pulled, he should stay in hiding for the rest of his life.”

“Heh…I want to get my hands on him before you do big guy…”

“Trust me little one…you won’t want to see what I do to him.” I smirked down at her as the woman finished healing Altair. It seemed that his captors took some turns roughing him up. He seemed better than he was when we first found him, but that was probably because the woman was babying him so damn much.

“Hey cyclops! Hurry up, you old fart!” Nerissa snickered as a vein formed on my forehead and the child was lucky the woman was standing next to him and glaring at me. I picked up the pace as he chuckled behind her. “Surprised you could move that fast…”

“Listen you little fuc-” The smurf stepped into my view and I glared right back at her, but seeing the former hole in her clothes made me brush past her. She should have been more careful and not so damn reckless because of this kid. He was a walking red flag even more than Nerissa was at the time of her birth. There was always something about a star child that made the Darkness more jumpy than ever. Glanching at Nerissa, I could see why they wanted Altair so bad. Her untapped potential and power was staggering at times, and losing her was devastating to the Darkness. I could see the need to not want to fail again.

The other star children were safely hidden and protected by some of my best soldiers and Regan and Tove go on a rotation to guard them every few centuries. The Darkness was incredibly bitter about the whole thing, and I was quite smug about it. Although, being cocky about it was never in my mind for long, there was no telling what could happen when it concerned them.

“Get on the damn ship brat…” I frowned at him over the woman’s shoulder and he laughed and strutted in with her close behind him. The others soon followed and it was finally time to head back to the temple. The woman was eager to pick up the rest of the children, but we had to secure Altair first. She thankfully didn’t fight it, but she also gave me a nasty look too. I let her have it though, she wouldn’t get the nice version of myself for long…just…just until I was sure that she was fully recovered. Callum gave me a look so that definitely meant that I had to let it go.

“Hehe…” That giggle meant that Ka’seem was once again flirting with Masami’s sister. After everything that happened and what he saw Masami do. I was surprised that he thought it was a good idea to keep pursuing that. Speaking of regrets, he was facing them now as Masami stomped over and grabbed him by the back of his throat. He let out the most unmanly squeak from his mouth as she dragged him away. Her sister was a pretty little thing, so I could see why he would attempt such a thing.

Nerissa started up the ship and Celica made her rounds to check up on everyone and I took the chance to sit back on a chair and close my eye and rest. The journey back would be enough for me to get an adequate amount of sleep. The sounds of everyone's quiet chatter lulled me into an easy enough sleep. My mind did what it always did when it was at rest…think about her. I wondered if she was alright and healing after her fight. Or perhaps she was still fighting against them.

Perhaps I should take Lady Serafina’s advice and check on Kay. No…I was just being sentimental right now because of Cel-

“Ow…” I opened my eye when I felt someone stand over me. I glanced out to see that she had reached her hand out to touch my shoulder. The grip I had on her wrist was turning it red. She didn’t seem fazed by it though.

“Mmm…sorry…” I released her and she sighed before placing her hand on her hip. She looked well enough…the color was back on her face, and her eyes sparkled with intrigue. She had found some fresh clothes to wear, but I could still see the bandages that wrapped across her waist peeking under the small shirt. It is always painfully ironic that a goddess of health could heal so slowly. It was leagues better than most and was still fast, but serious injuries took her at most a week or two.

Not that she ever got this hurt often.

“I just want to make sure that any injuries you have are healing properly.”

“My powers have been coming back quick enough.” I leaned back further in the chair to stare out the window. “You don’t need to waste your healing abilities on me.”

“....” She sighed and I closed my eye again, figuring that she had walked away. “I’m alright…”

I released a breath through my nose at her tone. So small…so quiet…vulnerable. I opened my eye once more to see her standing over me with a frown. “Listen…you need to rest…stop worrying about everyone else and-”

“I’m fine-”

“You almost died Celica!” I hissed through my teeth at her, quiet enough that I didn’t disturb everyone else, but just enough frustration for her to know I was pissed off about it. She looked surprised at my tone as I sat up and rubbed a hand down my face. She had to be the most infuriating woman I had ever met! I’ve been around a long time and she was still the worst person to be around.

“Nim…I had to keep him safe and I did that…I won’t apologize for that…”

“You’re a selfish one, you know that?” My fist tightened on the arm of the chair. Her care for children was commendable, but she made such a foolish mistake that almost cost her her life, and she felt nothing for it. “Have you thought about how everyone else would have felt with you being gone?! How would the rest of us would deal with that? Hell…do you think that is a conversation I want to have with your father?”

“I can’t help that I want to keep him safe! It’s my job! He is just a little boy who has his whole life ahead of him! I will not let the Darkness take his childhood away from him when he has already lost so much of his innocence! You can’t be mad at me! Not for this!”

“Goddamn it woman! You-”

She huffed out a breath before she grabbed my hand and squeezed it…tight. Tight enough that I could feel that her strength was definitely back, but not enough to break it. She didn’t stop there before she placed my hand against her chest. I furrowed my brow at the action and was about to move it, but she held firm.

“You feel that right?” I was gonna ask what she meant, but the steady beating of her heart silenced me. “I’m alive and I’m not going anywhere. I know that everyone was worried and I’m not displacing any feelings here. If my time comes…then I would hope that I’ve done that fighting and saving someone, especially a child.”

She placed her hand on my shoulder and her eyes held my gaze hard with determination and strength radiating through her. “I’m sorry.”

“...fine…” She released me and I crossed my arms as I leaned back in the chair once more. “Just don’t let it happen again…bitch…”

“Yes of course stupid mutt.” She smiled at me before walking back to the others. The rest that I got was much needed and I only hoped that we were closer to finishing this mission so I could relax and get a damn drink, but we weren’t out of the woods yet, because the next thing I knew…I was thrown from my seat as the ship started spiraling through space. Once it began to right itself, I rushed to the front as everyone looked at a ship that was approaching us quickly.

“What the hell is going on now?!”

“I think something is coming at us!”

“Kid! Get further back in the ship!”

“Why?! I want to know what’s going on!”

“You fucking brat-”

Crack!

“Get him off the glass!” Ka’seem yelled from the pilot seat and I took notice of a man outside the window. The glass was already cracked from his earlier strike, and he raised his fist to strike it again, but I moved to intercept him. I didn’t make it far as he jumped away from the glass and the ship that fired at us decided to become a battering ram. Ka’seem tried to turn the ship as best as he could, but it still slammed into us hard. It took me off my feet as I slammed into a wall. The side of the ship burst into flames and the force from space went quickly to work trying to drag us out. The woman had a grip on the child and Masami and her sister were holding onto other frames in the ship. The man from earlier burst from the flames right at Altair. A weapon raised and ready to kill him, but I charged at him with an angered cry.

I caught the blade in my bare hands before I punched him in the jaw. He didn’t even flinch before he headbutted me. It surprised me that I reeled from it, but I suppose my abilities still weren’t fully restored. It would not matter because I would break this fool with only my bare minimum regardless. I gave him an even stronger headbutt before we spiraled through the air. I managed to get the weapon out of his hands before I slammed my fist into his face again. He retaliated in kind with his own flurry of blows. He gripped my shirt as we went through the air, and he planted his feet against a pillar before he pushed off, sending us flying across the ship and through a wall.

“Nim!” Callum charged into the room and knocked the man off me before we all finally fell to the floor. I glanced at the other room for a quick second and saw that the woman managed to freeze the wall up, but the ship was still plummeting. Callum and the man wrestled each other for a bit before Callum kicked him across the room, remnants of his strength becoming clearer. The shaking of the ship was starting to make me sick to my stomach.

“Ka’seem! Get the ship steady!”

“I’m fucking trying up here!”

The man roared like a beast as he fought Callum before I joined his side to combat the man as well. His rage washed over us like a plague as the force of his strikes became stronger and stronger. The only reason that this would be is if the Darkness gave him some of its power. I caught his fist before it collided with my face just as the kid shouted over all the chaos.

“That’s him! That’s Morlo!”

This was him?! I had to admit that I expected much more from this man and Callum shared a look with me. The room took on a sinister chill as the woman burst into the room and slammed Morlo onto the ground. He instantly coughed up blood before she slammed her heel into his nose, sending him through the floor. She blew out a chilled breath before she charged after him with a shrill cry. Callum and I were quick to follow her.

“You son of a bitch!” She delivered a swift punch to his ribs, but he stood strong despite staggering back. “He’s just a child! All of them are!”

“Children are easily exploitable! That brat is no different bitch!” Withdrawing a gun, he shot at the woman but I jumped in front of her and cut the bullets with my sword. “I will not fail my mission again!”

“I will rip you apart for what you have done!” I held her back as she clawed at him. “Nim move!”

“We have to at least bring him back alive. Lady Serafina will want to question him…we need any information that he might have.”

“Fuck that!”

“I agree with Nim Celica…we have to take him back-” I flinched back as the man shot at us and we ducked behind various objects. I hated feeling defenseless like some mortal. My abilities needed to come back in full soon. I was ready to take him back, but if he kept this up I actually would kill him instead. The ship suddenly grinded to a halt, but the sudden force made us launch into the air. That bastard took the opportunity to launch himself at the smurf. She turned just as he grabbed her by the throat.

I flung myself over as the zero gravity activated and punched him once more in the jaw. The woman kneed him in the stomach before Callum came over and slammed his elbow into his nose. He roared and took a hidden blade from his leg and stabbed Callum in the shoulder. Spinning through the air, the four of us finally settled on the ceiling, and we were once again in a brutal fight.

This mortal would have never stood a chance if the three of us had our full abilities. I could feel my electricity slowly breaking through, but I could not risk it on this ship. The old fashioned way was perfectly fine with me. Morlo struck out at me, but I threw his arm down and two tapped him in the face before Callum followed up with his own punches. Morlo took a few but so did we as he proved to be a competent fighter despite our strange area of combat. The woman advanced on him too with her own blows and kicks. Her abilities seemed to be coming back as she wielded an ice dagger in her hands. I gave her a quick look before she tossed a pair to myself and Callum, and I blocked a strike to my face from Morlo.

“The Light will taste defeat at the hands of my master! First however, I will break her spirit with the deaths of her precious Supernovas!”

The man was a crazed lunatic as his strikes became more and more powerful by the second. His eyes were wide and crazed and saliva was spewing from his mouth. There was something in his eyes as Callum and the woman both charged at him. There was more than a growing sense of hatred, his pupils seemed to be changing. It would not be strange if he was changing in more ways than one. The Darkness seemed to be keen on making new creations. I would have to handle this quick if my suspicions were right.

The zero gravity suddenly stopped and the four of us plummeted to the floor, but on the way down the three of us attacked Morlo as one. It was amazing how we could always be in sync when the chips were down. Callum struck towards his stomach, while the woman aimed for his heart and I went for his head. Morlo pivoted in the air and twisted just as Callum almost made contact with him. The quick turn almost made him collide his blade with smurfette, but she was quick to react and caught the blade and slammed it into his chest. I growled as he managed to dodge my swing to his head, but I continued my momentum and slashed his throat.

He choked out some blood as we slammed through the ground and that is when he finally awakened. I didn’t react fast enough as a black mass consumed my face. I heard the others struggle next to me as we continued to crash through the ship. I was sure that I heard the others yell out for us before a harsh chill consumed my body and I realized that we were out in space now. My arms felt heavy and my sight came back and I saw the creature that Morlo became.

The man was long gone and there was nothing but an amalgamation of various parts of different creatures mixed into the man. Most of the mass was a dark ball of liquid that was slimy to the touch and frankly I didn’t like that I could taste some it either as it wiggled across my face. Morlo or what was left of him was in the center of it. Only his head was visible, but his eyes had sunken deep into his skull and a shrill scream emerged from his mouth every few seconds. The thing that worried me the most was the fact that the mass seemed to be heading back to the ship and I could barely move. Glancing to my left, I could see Callum struggling to break me from its grasp. The woman was completely covered but she was fighting back against it.

“Hey fucker!” I looked up as Nerissa was falling towards us with her ax raised over her head. Ka’seem was close behind her as they both collided with the mass, sending us further into space. Nerissa managed to sever Callum away from the beast and Ka’seem managed to dig me out. I spit out some of its disgusting gunk before moving towards the woman, but she didn’t need any help as the mass that had her started to freeze over.

I flinched back as she shatter the mass around her and shards of ice flew out around us. Her face was red with anger as she willed her spear to her side. It was at this moment that I felt the familiar feeling of electricity coursing over me. Morlo’s face disappeared into the mass and that told me all I needed to know about finishing him off.

Nerissa charged at the beast once more and we were all quick to follow her. The blue one managed to freeze its limbs as they swung at us with sharpened blades. Conjuring up some lightning, I managed to make a sword from it before I charged for the center of the mass. Morlo didn’t make it easy as one of the tendrils snaked out and caught me in the ribs. I coughed out a bit of blood as a chunk of my flesh stung from the wound. Such a wound would not bother me now or ever. I ducked and dodged as he shot out more tentacles at me, but Nerissa and Ka’seem came to my side and cut them away.

The mass that was Morlo began to vomit out smaller masses that soon attacked us. Smurfette sprang into action alongside Callum and I, and the three of us made quick work of them. Although we seemed to be having the upper hand, Morlo seemed to grow larger and larger. His attacks became more targeted as well. Although our abilities were coming back at a good pace, we still needed to be cautious about the whole thing, but I wanted to finish this bastard because he had caused far too much pain. I stole a glance at the woman as she fought off the smaller enemies that were surrounding us.

I hated feeling that this lesser being, this disgusting mortal had almost taken her away. She might piss me off, but that didn’t mean that some low life and his gaggle of imbeciles could finish her off. I roared as my sword blazed with raw power. Callum blasted the creature with his pure light and he recoiled in pain and agony and his core revealed itself. The woman floated above the mass and blasted it with her ice and his face twisted in pain as the entire thing began to freeze. I was so close to finishing this, but he was an annoying bastard. With a piercing roar, I was thrown back from him as my ears bled and my head began to spin. The others also flinched away from it, but Nerissa and Ka’seem recovered quickly. Nerissa gathered water into the air above her head before she formed a water snare for the creature, but he broke one of his tendrils free and pierced her through her chest.

“NIM! HURRY THE FUCK UP!”

It was easier said than done since I hated to fly and my ears were ringing, but feeling something around my waist, I looked down to see a vine. Ka’seem was almost as strong as me, so when he nodded at me and swung me towards Morlo. I knew that I had the force to knock this fucker into the next few galaxies. The others parted the way for me as Ka’seem slammed me into the mass. Callum’s light had still managed to weaken it, and it was still immobile from the ice and water from the girls.

“N-No! I-I…the…the LIGHT!!!”

“You aren’t worthy to speak her name!” I cut through all of his disgusting body as my lightning consumed and broke him apart. The blade striking the top of his head, before I split him down the middle. Lightning crackled and sparks flew as we both roared, one of pain and one of determination and victory. His body cracked apart and exploded when I managed to cut all the way through him. We all were thrown away from him and I grunted as I managed to slam into the ship. My head was spinning as I looked over at the former mass.

The others gathered around him and I held my head as I did as well. The only thing left of him was his split head, but the bastard still found the strength to talk.

“My…my master will…avenge me…destroy the…Light…” A broken chuckle escaped him as he began to disintegrate. “This is not…my end…you bast-”

“The Darkness has no need for weakness.” I rolled my neck as I looked down at his pathetic attempts to warn us. “They made you a monster because you were no longer needed. A brainless and weak creature that in the end still couldn’t finish the job.”

“F-Fuck you all!”

“No Morlo…you don’t get to have the last word for what you have done.” The woman moved up as her eyes glowed dangerously. Reaching a hand out, she grasped his skull and slammed it together once more. “Hell will not be your final resting place…no…I have something in mind for men like you…something far far worse than Hell…”

He yelled out more curses before the woman crushed his head into delicate shards of ice. With a final sigh, we watched as his pieces scattered away before returning to the ship, and at last we returned back to Lady Serafina’s temple to finally complete our mission.

~~~

“You’re making this such a big deal…”

“I won’t have the brat in her home looking like…this…”

“Hey!”

“Shut up and move it…little shit…” Altair grumbled as I shoved him along through the halls of the temple. The trip back to the temple was mostly spent sleeping and feeling our energy come back, and thankfully nothing else. Now, we just had to make a final introduction.

Opening the doors of her throne room, I inhaled deeply as I saw her looking up at the moon. She was covered in some bandages, but she looked fine from here…she always did honestly. Hearing the doors open, she turned to dazzle us with her smile. Altair even paused when she laid her eyes on him, but I just pushed him further in while the woman glared at me.

“Altair…”

“You…you were the other voice that I heard…”

“Yes…I’m sorry if I was confusing you…” She crossed the room with slow steps and I frowned at that. She really needed to be resting and not worried about the brat, but I suppose that would be asking too much. “I just want to stress the point to you that you are safe.”

“I…I know…I feel…safe…”

“Good…” She smiled once more before she kneeled to his height and held her hand out to him. He hesitated for only a second before he took it. His face was a bright crimson as she brushed his hair back and held his cheek. “I will make sure that you never have to be scared and worried ever again. You deserve to live a life of peace and security, and I would like to give you that…for you and your grandfather.”

“W-What?! He’s alive?!” I glanced to the right of the room as a man walked into the room. He was quite young to be a grandfather. The pair ran at each other and embraced and I couldn’t help but smile at their joyous reunion. I guess the little brat did deserve a win after everything that he had been through, we all did honestly.

“I trust that you all will get some rest?”

“I think we should be saying that to you instead, my lady.” I frowned at her before she laughed and patted my shoulder. “Seriously…”

“Oh my wolf…you worry far too much…all of you do…”

“With good reason, my lady.” Callum stepped up beside me before he looked over at Masami and her sister. “There is a lot that we have to discuss once we rest, my lady.”

“Yes I know Callum, but I want to thank all of you for protecting another one of my precious star children. You all fought valiantly and for that you have my eternal gratitude. Rest my Supernovas you have earned it. Until we meet again…”

I sighed as everyone began to break away and head home. I’d give Nerissa and Ka’seem a day before I show up to their temples and kick their asses. I needed to rest, but I didn’t want to leave her side yet. The woman smirked at me and I couldn’t help but send her one myself. I could admit that I was worried that we had almost lost her. It only meant that we still needed to train and grow ever stronger to make sure something like that didn’t happen again.

This particular mission was over for now, but the Darkness always had more things up their sleeve. I knew that this was only the beginning and things were changing at a rapid pace. We would have to be more ready than ever, because now having the time to rest and think. Something in the air was making my hair stand on end. Something was happening and the feeling in the pit of my stomach was one that I hadn’t felt in…well it had been some time. I glanced at Lady Serafina to see if she felt what I felt, and the worry on her face confirmed it as she led Altair and his grandfather away. Ka’seem barely was out of the temple but his face changed as he stopped talking to Nerissa. I hadn’t seen him this pale in years, but the speed in which he left the temple and the raw energy that I felt suddenly shook my core.

I ran outside the temple as I felt a familiar surge of power. Lady Serafina appeared at my side as we looked into the vastness of space. The battle…no…the war was far from over. Something had awaken and been unleashed into the cosmos again, something that should have stayed buried. This fight with the Darkness would now only get harder, fiercer, and more deadlier from this point on.

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#Callum #Nim #Celica #Ka'seem #Nerissa #Altair #Masami #Chiharu #Serafina #fighting #writers #writing #my writing #original story #original work #one down...nine to go #this is only the beginning

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measuringbliss · 1 year

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Reading through His Dark Materials (Book 2) 1/2 (Chapters 1 to 9)

Let's keep reading vol 2 of His Dark Materials (the books and saga have completely different names in France lmao)

I read the 1st book in a day, during my first year at university, during classes. It was, like, 3-4 years ago. I read a bit of the first chapter of Book 2 back in September but didn't continue. I'm doing this right now.

So Will meets "Lyra", whose Daemon is named "Pantalaimon"... like Book 1 Lyra. But she can't be Lyra, right? OG Lyra? I remember she followed her father back at the end of Book 1, but... Hmm... I didn't remember Lyra being so wild and like, not knowing how to cook. Huh. *grumbles* But she doesn't have the same surname...

...Is she Lyra's evil twin?

(don't answer questions by the way, it's mostly for myself)

...AND SHE HAS THE ALITHIOMETER.

And she thinks about Iorek (aka the cute big bear). I guess she's Lyra. Huh. Hmm.

(I have to say the town description made me think of Lurelin Village in BOTW, I had the music in my head reading those parts)

CH2

Serafina Pekkala is a lesbian. I feel like she is. She's part of the Lobby. *sees mention of big snuggly ferocious polar bears* god i need a bear... Fra Pavel was mentioned in the first book, right? I remember that name. Mrs Coulter says that Lyra was "conceived in sin and born in shame", what does that mean exactly...

Is the thing with the tree branch something that happened before? Doesn't ring a bell. Huh. (Edit: Yep. It's mentioned at the council later in the chapter. Nice.)

Anyway, Mrs Coulter obviously sucks but I always forget how cruel she is. It was a violent scene. Philip Pullman didn't seem to pull many punches, writing these books.

Lord Asriel's butler "knows him better than any woman ever could"... They fucked. Lord Asriel is an god-killing bicon. We stan! We stan so much! He's done nothing wrong ever.

(Serafina Pekkala is definitely not straight)

So Lord Asriel really fucks, huh? Mrs Coulter, Ruta Skadi, Thorold... Okay, so Lyra's other surname was given to her by Iorik. I guess I can definitely conclude both Lyras are the same characters. Yay!

Ruta mentions circumcision and wow, Pullman really has *beef* with some people... Love it for him.

CH3

It's actually fascinating seeing Will and Lyra interact. Of course she'd look at him weird for suggesting she'd wear jeans...

CH4 (this is the moment I switched from The Matrix score to The Fast and the Furious, it's just a fun tidbit, don't question it)

Quick question/theory: Is John Parry (Will's dad) Lord Asriel? Maybe he found a window to change world and couldn't get back, but that would have certainly motivated him to find a way back, and it would have inspired him to seek other words, and thus question the Church, etc. It would create an interesting parralel between Asriel and Will. I hope Lyra gets to see a picture of the dude and exclaim "Wait a minute...". WAIT, ACTUALLY, THAT WOULD EXPLAIN WHY PEOPLE WERE MEDDLING WITH WILL'S LIFE. Omg. I should reread the first chapter... *does exactly that* Hmm. Intriguing.

I wonder if those "ha those things are exactly the same in both worlds" (the initials engraved in the stones, what Lyra sees at the museum) are supposed to be hints, or just coincidences, as in, "some things find a way to happen regardless of obstacles" or if I'm supposed to imagine that both worlds resonate so much that they corrupt each other in some way.

(side note: the first F&F score is surprisingly good?)

I was hoping the old guy spying on Lyra would be an ally, but he's described as having penetrating eyes, a pointy tongue, and the word "rot/putrefaction" is mentioned. (I'm reading in French so when I cite the text, it might not be accurate, but if you've read the book you'll know what I mean.)

I'm starting to wonder what's the goal of the alithiometer. Obviously, it has some sort of conscience; is it truly trying to help Lyra? It seems, you know, magical. Godly. Are we going to meet its creator? I mean, if it's G-man, probably at some point, right? Anyway, Lyra, please read the old guy's card. I'm curious to know his name and stuff. Anyway, if the alitiomether is guiding Lyra to help her find John Parry, aka Will's dad, aka possibly Lord Asriel, does that mean the alithiometer is on his side? Well, maybe not. Huh.

I find it interesting that Lyra adopted the name given to her by Iorik. Anyway, Pullman throwing shade at the underfunding of researchers, we love to see it.

I wonder if the Dr. Malone will stay Lyra's ally for long, I got a bad feeling...

The archeologist is raising my "WILL'S DAD IS LORD ASRIEL" flag even higher. Or maybe "the physician". In both cases, I'm convinced John is linked to Lord Asriel. Okay, maybe this is more likely. I'll keep both theories. Was the reporter the old guy that Lyra met at the museum? ...Or one of Will's agressors. That works too.

At this point, I'm begging Will and Lyra to use the documents they have in their possession; Will his father's writing case, and Lyra the old man's card. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the attorney is about to die.

CH5 (we're now listening to Norn9's videogame score)

Lyra and Will's methods of being discreet both have merits.

(I'm annoyed that Norn9's main theme only appears on the main menu; it lasts almost 6 minutes, is pretty great, but you only hear 10 5 seconds of it if you play normally. But I much prefer the next track.)

The cat can't lick its own ear now, can it? ...Can it? Anyway, Will's finally reading the letters!!!!!

After reading them (and finishing the chapter)... Hmm. This man does not sound like Lord Asriel. Huh. I hope Will and John get to be reunited.

CH6

Oh. That's where I'm realizing I kind of don't care about Lee Scoresby but... sure.

A witch wanted to be the dude's wife? She must have been pretty horny.

I was pretty uninterested at first, but the Magisterium planting men in research stations? Now, that's juicy! AND HE ATTACKS LEE?! OH MY GOD OK.

Maybe Grummann's a zombie. I saw that word-drop earlier!! I noticed it!!!!!

Anyway. This infodump is so interesting. Side note: While in English, Book 2 is called The Subtle Knife, in French it's called La Tour des Anges--the tower of angels. So we got a namedrop. Huh. Maybe what the philosophers used to open worlds was said subtle knife?

So Lord Asriel creating a passage between worlds fucked over Citagazze and its world. Huh.

I feel like Ruta is gonna die. Please don't die, I like you.

CH7 (Now listening to La La Land Records's release of the Spider-Man 1 score)

Nooooo give me Ruta back, I need to see her encounter with Lord Asriel...!

Omg. Shifty people are investigating Lyra and Dr Malone? Oof. WHITE EYEBROWS? OMG. LYRA RUN. (This feels like a horror novel.) OH MY GOD THEY NAMEDROPPED WILL AAAAAAAAH LYRA GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE. AAAAAEFJZEDIOHJZEOEDPDZKOZEPDZEKOPZDEJZIZEOZEI

oH dear this is terriyfing OH GOD NO LYRA DON'T STEP INTO THE CAR NOOOOOOOO

OKAY THEORY TIME: THE OLD GUY IS GOD. IT'S FUCKING GOD PLAYING WITH LYRA. UGH.

OG MY GOD HE STOLE IT?! HE STOLE IT?! OH MY GOD. OH MY GOOOOOOD. OMG. OH. I CAN'T. I WASN'T READY FOR SUCH INTENSITY. WHAT THE FUCK.

Narratively speaking, removing the alitiomether from Lyra's hands is great because it was starting to become a bit of a cheat code (though I wasn't complaining about it).

Is the book going to end with Will finding his dad? Would be a nice parallel.

So the card... wasn't especially enlightening to me. Oh well. According to Google Reviews, Limefield House has very comfortable beds! Oh but wait, it's situated in Livingston. The one in Headington is strictly fictional. Google Maps does indicate roughly an hour to go from the center of Oxford to Headington so I guess Pullman knew the area pretty well.

GOD. I was planning to stop this reading session but this got so interesting.

CH8

You know what this reminds me of? Ulysse Moore. *nobody reacts because nobody has read those books* Well I have! The first 9 books, I believe. Began with volume 6, then read them all in order. It got really aimless with 7, if you ever decide to read them, stop after 6, it offers a nice conclusion. ANYWAY. DOORS TO OTHER WORLDS. KEYS. SECRETS. PEOPLE WITH FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE. SECRET CLUBS. I'm just now getting why I was thinking of this series this whole time.

Pantalaimon turns into a bear and I swoon <3 Bears <3 <3 <3

I didn't expect such violence, but I remember Iorik's fight in the first book being pretty harsh too. Anyway, Dancing with the Bears just turned into friggin' Saw.

This book is gonna end with Will creating a passage to the land of God or whatever with the knife after having found his father. I'm not sure yet on whether Will's dad will die or not.

Oh, Pullman is shipping Lyra and Will. Okay. Sure.

I feel like the Specters are an allegory for the climate change.

CH9, can't stop, won't stop

OMG MRS COULTER. OMG LORD BOREAL. OMG. CITAGAZZE WAS THE CROSSROADS?!

It's so funny seeing this asshole dump the whole plot to ~Marisa~. "Spectres? We don't have time for this. But I'm still gonna tell you!"

anyway I HATE THIS FUCKING MONKEY OH MY GOOOOOD and OMG IT'S THE CAT!!!! OH NO IT'S GONNA DIE ISN'T IT?! ;-;

Okay I've almost reached 2/3 of the book in one sitting, it's almost 2am, I should eat and sleep for a bit

I hope y'all enjoyed this ridiculous post

#his dark materials #the subtle knife #books #literature

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tailsrevane · 1 year

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[book review] northern lights by philip pullman (1995)

i first read this in college around when the ill-fated movie adaptation was coming out. i had seen the trailers and was thirsty for more fantasy type stuff, which it turns out was literally the entire cynical motivation for making the movie because they totally lotr-ed it up. the book is actually much more a response to narnia (which itself received the lotr-ification treatment in its film adaptations), but has a much different aesthetic/genre that the movie largely ignores, but we’re not here to talk about the movie rn i’m just setting the context of my first reading.

i was in the middle of reading it when the catholic church & others started calling for boycotts, and that was back during my misguided religious phase so at that point i was like “well, fuck.” but i was already in the middle of the book and i was really enjoying it so i kinda shrugged it off & decided that i enjoyed it but i didn't like that the church was the bad guys, and it was ok to enjoy something i disagreed with.

obviously now the anti-church stuff is a feature for me rather than a bug, so i was interested to see how i would feel about the book now with that in mind. and uh yeah, i do love that aspect of the book, very much so, yes. but it’s also so far in the background that a reader could be forgiven for it not being one of their biggest takeaways if they’re not paying close attention? like, by the end of the book it’s pretty fucking obvious that that was the entire point, but that turn happens in literally a line of dialogue at the end of the book (which i fucking love), but it’s not difficult to see in retrospect why even at my most brainwashed (not the fun/kinky kind, the boring religious kind) i was able to shrug it off and enjoy this as a silly little adventure yarn. which btw makes it pretty fucking hilarious that the church was so fragile about it, but whatevs!

but yeah, even though i don’t think it’s actually going to change anyone’s mind, that last interaction between lyra & pantalaimon that i alluded to earlier was everything to me this time. when pan says, “if they [the church] think dust is bad, it must be good!” and i forgot that that point was made that explicit in this book. it’s possible to miss its import if you’re just caught up in the breezy adventure the rest of the book has been, but it just absolutely turns the world upside down. i fucking love it.

also, another thing that hit me on a completely different level this time was this passage:

his hands, still clasping her head, tensed suddenly and drew her toward him in a passionate kiss. lyra thought it seemed more like cruelty than love, and looked at their dæmons, to see a strange sight: the snow leopard tense, crouching with her claws just pressing in the golden monkey’s flesh, and the monkey relaxed, blissful, swooning on the snow.

“strange sight”? idk man, sounds pretty normal to me.

other things i loved included serafina talking about feeling the starlight & moonlight on her skin. even though it wasn’t particularly foregrounded, all the witchy stuff was wonderful. i also loved iorek byrnison. as if having a magical little animal spirit that was part of yourself & you could talk to & cuddle wasn’t enough, lyra also gets a fucking armored bear king protecting her! what a lucky girl!!

and of course lyra herself was a wonderful protagonist. she’s just so fucking good. strong desire to protecc.

in the category of things i didn’t so much love was all the casual, careless racism. like, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t as bad of an offender as the aforementioned lewis or tolkien books, or a lot of its more direct influences like say the works of jules verne, but it still is rather frustrating all the same.

kinda par for the course for stuffy british adventure stories tbh, but again it’s not like outlandishly racist or anything, just… there’s an undercurrent throughout that i wouldn’t feel right not mentioning.

i also think it’s worth noting that while these books are marketed as y.a., they’re probably, uh, a bit heavy for the average kid? like, some genuinely traumatizing stuff happens!! but also idk kids are a lot more resilient than people give them credit for, i know this wouldn’t have phased me if i had read it when i was 12, just feels worth mentioning that it gets pretty dang dark.

so yeah, if you can shrug off the fairly commonplace racism of someone who seems like he’s trying his best but is too british not to be casually racist, this is a pretty great read. i find it very easy to get sucked in. lyra is such a great protagonist who you genuinely want to be safe, and the writing style hits that really nice sweet spot where it has a lot of inherent personality that leaps off the page, but it’s also still extremely approachable, which is just the perfect recipe to make something compulsively readable.

a-rank

#his dark materials #hdm #northern lights #the golden compass #book review #reviews #books

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xviruserrorx · 1 year

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Title: "When The New Shadows The Old"

Yes I know late as usual but I fell behind on these prompts because of life and so now I'm trying to play catch-up while doing a thousand other things, but here is my fill for @flashfictionfridayofficial but it's *checks calender* Tuesday the 28th 👍😃 enjoy!!

Flash Fiction Friday - Tumblr | Ao3 - [Prev <- • -> Next]

Fandom: Supernatural

Prompt(s): "Filled with clarity"

Relationship(s): Michael (Archangel) & Serafina

Character(s): Michael (Archangel), Serafina

Important Tag(s): Canon Divergence, Good Older Sibling Michael, Sibling Affection, Family Feels, Angel Family, Parental Michael (I WILL make that a tag just you guys watch me)

Rating: Gen

Warning(s): Archive Warnings Don't Apply, None

Word Count: 1,488 (yes I know it's a lot over, i tried trust me)

He knew it was the right place thanks to his siblings gossip, but also because the all too familiar name of his little sister was printed by the shop's name. As if that did anything to calm his nerves, nerves that he would otherwise not admit to having. He'd had raised all of them, connecting with everyone again couldn't be that hard…

Michael in his efforts of repairing his relationship with his siblings stops by a none too familiar new age shop and pays Serafina a visit...

Continue reading below or over on Ao3

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Michael stood outside the shop with windows advertised with Tarot cards, crystals, candles, and the like, looking for one of the many few reasons he had to be on Earth. Very few humans held that reasoning but even fewer of his siblings held such reasoning too.

He shook his head, took one last look around before he stepped forward and pushed open the door. The soft bell rang out, letting his presence be known as he looked around the shop. The window display advertisement reflected exactly what covered every shelf and laid in every case, though just not what—or rather who Michael was looking for.

"Serafina?" He called, looking around as he made his way towards the front desk. "Little sister?" He called a bit louder. He waited a second, stepping back, ready to turn on his heels and out of there, but the rustle of beads caught his attention.

He turned towards the person who appeared from the curtain of beads, a box in front of their face but if the hanging colorful clothing was anything to go by, Michael knew who it was.

Serafina put the box down on the counter and turned to him with a bright grin. "Michael!" She threw her arms around him and pressed a kiss to his cheek before pulling back. "Perfect time for you to stop by."

"Actually, I was—" decks of cards were shoved into his arms before he had further time to protest.

"Help me stock these." She turned sharp on her heals.

"Sera—"

"And there's plenty more in those boxes where this came from."

"Sister—"

"Adam—my Adam," she noted, "went to pick up some things so I'm here alone and shop opens up in an hour."

"I was—"

"And this shipment came in late, it was supposed to come in yesterday but they decided to drop it off this morning so—"

"Serafina," he interrupted.

She turned back towards him. "Yes?"

He sighed. "Where do I…?" He gestured to the items that had been shoved in his arms.

"Just there." She pointed to a shelf. "And while you do that." She disappeared behind the wall of beads before reappearing with a circle of keys in her hand. "Joshua had stopped by, he uh… he left something here. Said he didn't have any use for it anymore but wanted it in safe hands." She rounded the front desk, the turning and jingling of keys heard before she lifted up a necklace. Quickly, she closed the gap between them as she laid it in his hand.

He cocked his head at the familiar design. "The Winchester's?"

She shook her head and hopped up on the counter. "This was one Joshua had made during the fall, and of course after everything, he just… yeah."

He looked down at the wielded metal that despite its simple appearance, he could feel the power radiating off of it.

"Thought you might want it," she continued. "I know it's useless but sentimental value and all that. I mean Chuck was never really anything to us angels but I know you guys have some memories, good or bad, but still memories."

"Thank you…" he took a breath. "But," he handed the charm back, "I don't have much use for it, I'll ask the other three, but… we've all mostly moved on."

"Best to make positive memories out of something new right?" She said, but looked down at the charm and ran her thumb over it, cherishing it almost as if longing for something it could have been.

"What're you going to do with it?" He softened his voice.

She shrugged. "What do you want me to do with it?"

"Well—" he eased his weight back against the counter next to her "—a part of me wants to get rid of it for good."

"Hear hear."

He lightly chuckled. "But considering events and how things usually go, I think it might be best to give it to the Winchesters, let them put it away in some box in that bunker of theirs."

"I don't visit them too often, only to see that adorable nephew of ours, so," she handed it back to him, "give it to them when you see your Adam."

He smiled as she hopped off the counter and went back to unpacking the boxes. "You know," she started, grabbing multiple things in hand and starting to shelve them, "I know we all finally got to meet Dad during that whole disaster…. I just kinda wish we could have kept that bed story image of him that you used to tell us. The one where The Darkness was just some made up bad guy that Dad locked away to keep us safe."

Michael kept his agreeance to himself and continued to stay quiet.

She rounded back to the boxes, repeating the process. "To you, he loved us; you knew he didn't, but we would never know that as long as you kept telling us that he did." She stopped what she was doing for a second before continuing. "It's probably stupid but during everything I had thought it might have been nice if we had gotten to know him before everything. I mean I see Adam—"

"Your Adam," he supplied before she had the chance to.

She smiled and let it fade with her words. "He created him—humans—and then us." She took a breath and shook her head. "It's sad when the creations are better than their creator."

"Serafina, I'm sorry that…" he struggled for words.

"What? Sorry that he didn't care about his own children?" She scoffed. "Nothing you could have done, big brother. You did everything you could do and more; probably more than we all deserved honestly."

He grimaced. "Little sister—"

"I mean, gosh… what we put you through when we were all kids. If we were human, you would probably have white hair just from raising all of us," she laughed. "From Lucifer to Anna and her Garrison to me picking on little Sammie—"

He chuckled inwardly at the memory.

"—and then the first time with The Garden." She looked towards him with a sly grin.

For the first time in a long while, Michael smiled at a fond memory of the Garden. "You discovered the Garden, or more importantly that you could interact with the humans inside The Garden."

"You were so mad." She dropped the box off the counter and kicked it to the side. "All the little ones thought I was a goner. Even some of the older ones did too, teased me about it, made me think you were gonna end me right then and there."

"Well you knew the outcome." He for one knew that her knowing of Jack wasn't just some trick of a psychedelic.

She tilted her head. "They help, but it's not like anybody ever listened to me anyways."

"Why do I feel like I should have known?"

"We'll be glad you didn't because then, Babylon, Adam, Jack." She named things off. "All the cards fell into place and well…" She stacked the last deck into place and stepped back, a content smile on her face as she exhaled. She clasped her hands and turned towards him with a flourish. "Adam should be back any minute and the shop is gonna open soon, and I know you didn't come here to buy crystals or tarot cards."

He shook his head. "It's not important, It can wait."

"Well," she said and closed the distance between them with another hug. Delicateness being much different from their first one as Michael was left not in surprise but the time to wrap his arms around her and hold her tight.

Seconds passed till they both pulled back, hands still on one another.

"I might pop home for a little," She noted. "Pick on Samandriel a bit just for old times sake."

He scoffed a laugh. "I'll see you then, Sera."

"You too, Mikey." Her hand came down his arm as she grabbed his hand and gave it a tight squeeze. The action, short lasted, as the ring of the bell above the door gave Michael the signal to take his leave.

Though as he returned to the familiar white corridors, he felt something in his hand where Serafina's previously was. He uncurled his fingers to reveal a rigid cut crystal with a thin leather strap bound around it, much the same as the other charm that was in his pocket.

Something new…

He smiled down at it and gripped it tight.

#flash fiction friday #supernatural #fanfiction #supernatural fanfiction #michael spn #serafina spn #spn angels #spn angel family #virusfanfic #this has a audience of me and maybe two other people XD #also yes its over the word count i know i know the first draft was 1350 then the second draft was down to 1170 around there #but then i ended up going to a third draft and well.... yeah 😅#enjoy!

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lomappreciationblog · 2 years

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Thoughts on Episode 6: No Heartbreak Yet!

Asdfhhjkjhj

I think Episode 6 might be my new most favorite episode! Episode 1 is still perfect, but episode 6 has just so many things that warm my heart and among them is Esmeralda and Serafina's friendship!

I've been forgetting to note this in my reviews, but note that all these thoughts are full of spoilers for the episode in question! And also spoilers for the involved quest.

In this case, spoilers ahead for Episode 6: Emerald and the Lucky Clover quest in the game of Legend of Mana!

I am super glad they decided to make it so that it was Serafina who became friends with Esmeralda and not Shiloh. And it makes good narrative sense too, since Shiloh is already looking out for Elazul and Pearl.

Okay, getting ahead of myself, I'll talk over the episode from the beginning. Here we get a cute sequence of Serafina's ordinary life, much like Shiloh's in the first episode. I have to say though…I did sigh a little seeing the bit of fanservice with them keeping Serafina on screen as she's about to change. It's not anything too bad, but I find it noticeable because if you compare it to Shiloh's home life sequence, they just show frames of him putting on his clothes, whereas for Serafina, they just had to show her taking off her shirt. It's just a tad distasteful for me seeing that female characters have to be eye candy when male characters aren't as subjected to it.

Anyway. Rant over, thankfully this sequence was short, and we see Serafina eating breakfast and reading a book too. Super cute, and then Esmeralda calls to her from outside, since they still have to help arrange the books at the library, and off they go.

It's a really cozy, ordinary life scene and they do it while smoothly explaining how Serafina in in Geo and why she's friends with Esmeralda - Serafina moved to Geo two months prior, to study magic it would seem, since she's also taking classes. Esmeralda helped her settle in and they've been friends since then. It's cute and sweet, and I'm glad you can tell what good friends they are.

And it also makes a bit more sense than Shiloh calling Elazul and Pearl friends after spending one day with them lol.

They also show Kathinja in this episode teaching magic class! And they even showed the classic illustrations of the Mana spirits on her board, how neat. Kathinja is on screen for only a short while, but you can really tell she's a great teacher, explaining things, encouraging her students to practice and being strict with Esmeralda when her frustration got the best of her. Makes sense now why the game notes she's the most popular teacher. Oh, and it is also cool they made the students actually look different from each other, since they're all just palette swaps of each other in the game, which unintentionally made them creepy, lol. A bunch of same-faced kids in the same uniforms running amok in Geo, heh.

Moving onto the use of magic, the way they visualized it here was fantastic! Similar to how it is explained in game, to use magic one has to call on magic in the air and then ask for the spirit's help to perform the feat you want (in the game, it's more of you have to channel the mana energy in the air of Fa'Diel, but it's pretty close). The way Salamander was drawn in this episode really resembles the illustrations for the spirits I saw in my Mana art book, which is awesome. I love it when they take time to note details like that.

Anyway, as expected Serafina is good at magic and makes friends with Salamander, but Esmeralda has trouble doing so and is scolded by Kathinja. She is upset about it even after class, and Serafina cheers her up by bringing her to a place where they can eat together…

…where we run into a familiar red-capped guy also asking information about Jumi! Shiloh and Serafina meet in the inn of Geo, by the way, the one run by a Teapo. Serafina recognizes Shiloh and asks for his health - which is great since the last she saw of him he had been beaten to a pulp lol. In return, Shiloh tells her he's fine and thanks her for her care, which I just adore. They've become pretty close!

And this is how Esmeralda meets Pearl and Elazul, too - since Shiloh came to to Geo with them. Elazul recognizes Esmeralda being a Jumi and the three of them are happy to find that out. Esmeralda tells Pearl and Elazul about what happened during the Jumi hunts, where she lost her sisters. This also explains a bit more about Jumi history, one that Elazul and Pearl aren't aware of. Which is pretty good, since it shows in an indirect way that Elazul is among the younger Jumi, born in a later generation, and Pearl…has her own special circumstances.

In the game, they never really explained how three of the Lucky Clover sisters died, only that their cores are left. In this episode, we get to see it in all its painful detail. Esmeralda and her sisters fled the Bejeweled City because of people who were hunting Jumi for their cores - and here, it's explicitly shown to be Deathbringer's army doing the hunting.

One of Esmeralda's sisters sacrifices herself first, and then the other two do so when more soldiers appear. The Twintails sister of the Lucky Clover quartet even takes a sword through her chest, sheesh. Even though they have fairly short scenes, you can tell a lot of personality and strength from these sisters - it's heartbreaking to see just how they lost their lives.

There is a bit of dissonance between the events of the anime and the game - in the game, it seems to be that in the time before the Bejeweled City had to be abandoned, while Rubens and Diana were waiting for Blackpearl to come back with the Mana Stone or Sword of Mana, Esmeralda herself came to Rubens to say she was going to train in Geo to learn magic. Though, it's still possible she did see her sisters die in the game. What is certain is she knew her sisters are dead by the time the Lucky Clover rolls around and she intended to regain their cores.

In the anime, Esmeralda was also about to be killed by the soldiers when Nunuzac sent her pursuers to the freaking shadow realm lol. So we get to see that Nunuzac did directly save Esmeralda's life, in the game it sounds more like Nunuzac took Esmeralda in and sheltered her until the present time. Either way, Esmeralda came to Geo and is stuck there until she learns enough magic to be able to defend herself, which frustrates her to no end. Poor Esmeralda frets too much over becoming a master immediately so she can find her sisters, but precisely because she's so anxious when performing magic, she's unable to master magic skills, so she's stuck in that loop.

Being the sweethearts they are, Shiloh and Serafina offer to help Esmeralda reason with Nunuzac and let her find her sisters. Unlike in the game, Nunuzac refuses Shiloh and Serafina's offers to be a knight and forbids Esmeralda from leaving Geo until she learns to be knight.

They cut out Nunuzac's comment about Elazul offering to be a knight to be like two-timing lol.

Of course, Esmeralda gets depressed because of Nunuzac's refusal, but being the spirited gal she is, she instead plans to sneak out of Geo with Serafina and the others. Which sounds great and all…but Nunuzac keeps warping her back to his side. Which actually does happen in the game in the beginning of the Lucky Clover quest, come to think of it!

Esmeralda keeps trying anyway, and Nunuzac keeps zapping her back. Poor Shiloh, Pearl and Elazul must have been so confused. Eventually, Serafina comes up with a pretty good plan - she swaps clothes with Esmeralda and covers their heads with cloaks, so Nunuzac ends up warping her and not Esmeralda. Serafina then uses the chance to plead Esmeralda's case again, and she explains that Esmeralda couldn't study magic in peace seeing that she's still too worried about finding her sisters. It goes to show, Serafina really does understand Esmeralda well and I just love their friendship to bits.

Nunuzac is finally convinced and lets them go, and so…

I'm super over the moon that my suspicion was right - Esmeralda ended up joining the main character cast! I was hoping so hard for it because that's what the ending of the opening hints at. I was a bit worried it was red herring since I was hoping Rubens also gets some justice but got offed in his episode. But I'm glad that's not the case for Esmeralda, and we get to see more of her! The Lucky Clover was such a gut punch for killing Esmeralda at the end of it, so I'm glad that's not what happened here!

…yet. I'm nervous as to what happens when Shiloh and Co. help her find her three sisters…but in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the fact that we now have Shiloh, Elazul, Pearl, Serafina and Esmeralda together and being good friends!

I wonder what next episode will be, though? Will they write an entirely new scenario for the Lucky Clover, or will they weave Esmeralda into the story of the next quests? I think it's going to be Two Pearls after the Lucky Clover. I'll be waiting as to what happens next - excited to see everyone's adventures continue!

#legend of mana anime #ESMERALDAAAA #love my cinnamon roll so much

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secretly-a-catamount · 1 month

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Rowenas If I fall . . .?

Waysa: I’ll be there to catch you.

Serafina: *looks at Braeden* What if I fall?

Braeden: Then I’ll fall with you, never leaving your side.

Jess: *watches these two interactions*

Jess, to Essie: And if I fall . . .?

Essie: I’ll be the one who pushed you.

—————————————-

Serafina: Braeden is too tall for me to kiss them on the lips. What should I do?

Jess: Punch them in the stomach. Then, when he doubles over in pain, kiss him.

Rowena: Tackle him.

Essie: Dump him.

Waysa: Kick him in the shin!

Braeden: No to all of those! Just ask me to lean down!

—————————————

*The Squad's reaction to being told they're the chosen one*

Serafina: I will not let you down.

Braeden, mustering enthusiasm: Sounds fun.

Waysa: No, I'm not.

Jess: Please god, I am so tired.

Essie: Do I have to be?

Rowena: I’m the villain.

———————————————

*The Squad when asked about their earlier confession of love*

Jess: Yeah, you're lucky. I like you.

Essie: I'd understand if you didn't feel the same way . . .

Braeden: *has a panic attack* What confession?

Serafina: *winks* I know, babe. You like me too.

Waysa: So what? Are you going to date me or not?

Rowena: It was a dare.

——————————

Jess: Stressed.

Waysa: Depressed.

Rowena: Possessed.

Essie: Obsessed.

Braeden: Impressed.

Serafina: Chicken breast.

Everyone: ...What?

Serafina: I just wanted to join in.

————————————-

Jess: If you put 'violently' in front of anything to describe your action, it becomes funnier.

Jess: Violently practices.

Rowena: Violently studies.

Waysa: Violently sleeps.

Waysa: Violently shoots pictures.

Essie: Violently boxes.

Serafina: Violently murders people.

Braeden: Violently worries about the previous statement.

——————————-

*after the Squad has been separated for a few years*

Waysa: So what have you been up to recently? Braeden: Leading a revolution with Serafina.

Waysa: Good for you two! Me, I've joined the mob.

Braeden: *nods* Oh, how cool! That's awesome!

Waysa: I know! Anyway, have you heard from the others? Rowena?

Braeden: Happily living as a hermit in the woods. Essie?

Waysa: Wrongfully locked up in an asylum, which reminds me, we need to break them out later. Jess?

Braeden: Cult leader.

Waysa: Yeah, that sounds about right.

——————————-

Jess: Imagine if someone handed you a box full of all the things you lost throughout your life.

Serafina: It would be nice to have my sense of purpose back . . .

Braeden: Oh wow, my childhood innocence! Thank you for finding this.

Waysa: My will to live! I haven't seen this in years.

Essie: I knew I lost that potential somewhere.

Rowena: Mental stability, my old friend!

Jess: Goodness, could you guys lighten up a little?

——————————-

Serafina, to the Squad: I’d die for you.

Jess: Then perish.

Rowena: You will.

Waysa: Please don’t.

Essie: Cool.

Braeden: I’d die for you first, Serafina.

#serafina series #the serafina series #serafina and the black cloak #serafina and the twisted staff #serafina and the splintered heart #serafina and the seven stars #serafina #braeden vanderbilt #rowena fox pemberton #lady rowena fox-pemberton #waysa #essie walker #jess braddick #braedafina #serafaeden #rowaysa #jessie #incorrect quotes #good ol’ homegrown memes

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bigskydreaming · 1 year

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x-men comic finished the vault arc synch/laura and darwin went through

darwin's suffering sucked, but wow his evolution was clever.

dissapointed they didn't go god mode with him, and let him go through all that shit int he first place.

Yeah, their continued refusal to categorize Darwin and Synch as omegas is glaring and not cute. Like, bullshit is bullshit. But I do agree that at least Armando's glow-up seems particularly plot relevant....can't help but think his dataform is going to be key to defeating Nimrod, Karima and/or the Phalanx.

I have no strong feelings about Synchverine as a pairing, though I kinda hate it just on the basis of the shit being flung at Ev by racist Laura stans....its like umm you guys are fine shipping her with HELLION but Everett Thomas, you object to? Okay, that's a Choice, alright. (And I say that as someone who LIKES Julian, lmfao, but like. Let's be fucking real here, can we?)

Personally I've always shipped Ev with Monet and I'm always gonna be annoyed the two of them haven't gotten a single scene together since his resurrection, but oh well. And idk if you're familiar with her, but given Ev's age because of the Vault, alternatively if older Laura doesn't stick around (we know this X-office isn't a fan of duplicates so part of my wariness about this ship is I feel like its headed for Angstville in a way that won't do either character any favors), I would loooooove for them to bring back Gaia. She was a reality warping mutant from Gen-X that had a will they/won't they pseudo relationship with Ev back in the day....

Ironically, the reason they never got together was because Gaia left to travel the world because due to comic book typical Shenanigans, she was several centuries old and yet had barely any life experience....and hmmm, who is now also several centuries old and yet limited to a very narrow parameter of life experiences? I'm just saying. HERE'S HOW GAIA/EVERETT CAN STILL WIN!!!

But yeah, I'm kinda tired of the whole Vault thing because it continues to be just a wasted opportunity that they seem to have no interest in using to its fullest narrative potential and just keep coming back to anyway, and its not exactly making any characters look good. Was not a fan of Forge's storyline here, though at least he didn't go full Hank McCoy with Caliban and pulled back before he crossed too many moral thresholds there. I did like Caliban's dynamic with Serafina though, and I'm a big fan of Forge's vision for a future Krakoa.....like.....one of the weakest aspects of Krakoa as a paradigm has been the lazy efforts at nation-building, there's no real infrastructure to it, and I'm not really talking physical infrastructure so much as social, but making Krakoa look more along the lines of what Forge is picturing could go a long way towards breaking writers out of the rut they seem to be in with seeing it as fully formed as-is, when its like.....really, really, not.

But also I just love Cassara's art and worldbuilding so I'm just kinda like....any chance for him to do backgrounds is a Yes Please from me. I think he and Reis have done the best renditions of Krakoa to date, and with Caselli coming over from X-Men Red to do the tie-in Brood storyline issues when the book crosses over with Captain Marvel in a couple months, I would looooooove it if Cassara goes over to X-Men Red for a couple issues too. I wanna see his take on Arakko.

Anyway - the BS with Darwin and Synch remains my biggest pet peeve, tbh. The omega list is waaaaay too white, and there are so many options for omega characters of color. The two of them, Laura Dean aka Pathway from Alpha Flight, Willie Evans Jr., Joseph Calhoun, etc, etc. And with several Great Ring seats up for grabs on Arakko, they're introducing more omegas there, which is good because I don't think there should be any more Krakoans on the Great Ring, Ororo and Roberto are enough as is. But one of the new Arakkii omegas is the old white guy with a beard from the Sins of Sinister promo, his name is Jon Ironfire I think and that's just his design from Year 1000, when we meet him in the present X-Men Red he'll of course be much younger. Still, the point is, they keep making new white omega mutants when......seriously. There are so many characters of color they could be upgrading instead.

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thesleepyproducer · 2 years

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The Case that Crushed the A.D.A

Chapter 1

Sonny Carisi had had enough. Enough of his job, enough of the people in his life, and enough of life itself. He stood on the G.W. Bridge with a bottle in his hand. His Fordham Law t-shirt was soaking wet, his hair unkempt. He looked out across the water and took a swig from the bottle.

‘No one is going to miss me.’ Sonny thought.

He climbed over the railing of the bridge. He tried not to fall. If he was going to fall into the water he wanted it to be on his own terms. It took a bit to gain the courage. Just as he was about to jump, he hears his phone ring. He shakes his head and tries to concentrate.

‘I have to do this.’ Sonny thinks.

His phone dings. He knows he now has a text message. Frustrated he climbs back over the railing. He can at least answer the person one last time. He looks at the message and all the feelings he was trying to suppress comes back. He takes the bottle and smashes it on the bridge, cutting his hand. He collapses onto the bridge and sobs.

3 WEEKS BEFORE

Sonny stood on the sidewalk checking his phone. Amanda had messaged a few times wanting to know if he would be over that night. He loved Amanda with everything in him. But tonight he had to meet someone else. A cab pulled up in front of him. He opened the door and a beautiful Italian women stepped out. She had dark hair with blue streaks that matched her blue eyes.

“It’s about time you showed up.” Sonny said.

The woman wraps her arms around Sonny’s waist.

“The traffic was brutal all the way in.” Gina Carisi answered.

Sonny was nervous to see his little sister. She had tried to stay away from the family. Serafina and Gina didn’t see eye to eye and the last time they were together, there was a huge blow up.

“So did you bring it?” Sonny nervously asked.

“Of course, I did. But you must buy me a drink first.” Gina grinned.

Sonny was never one to drink tequila but his little sister insisted on doing shots with him. Gina could drink him under the table.

“So how did the dinner go?” Gina asked, trying to make small talk.

“Good, good.” Sonny answered before smiling “Ma is excited to meet Jessie and Billie, but only after asking if their fathers were in the picture.”

“That sounds about like Ma.” Gina scoffed.

“Of course, she wanted to know if we would be giving her any more grandchildren.” Sonny shook his head.

“And will you? You know I won’t be giving her any.” Gina smirked.

“I don’t know. Amanda already has her two girls. I don’t know if she would be open to having more kids.” Sonny answered.

Gina’s eyes went wide. “But you think she’s going to be open to marriage?”

“It’s a chance I’m willing to take. I’m in love with her. Have been for a while.” Gina could see the stupid lovesick puppy look on Sonny’s face.

She smiled and pulled a ring box out from her jacket pocket.

“I always thought I was going to be the one to wear Great-Grandmother Carisi’s ring, but I have such a bad track record with guys I don’t think I will ever get married.” Gina rolled her eyes.

Gina slid the ring over to Sonny. He opened the box and smiled. Inside was a beautiful big diamond ring.

“I think she’s going to love it.” Sonny smiled.

“Just don’t forget to invite me to the wedding.” Gina said as she punched Sonny’s arm.

“You know I would never forget about my little sister.” Sonny said putting his arm around Gina.

Gina looked at her phone and stood up quickly.

“I hate to cut our little family reunion short, but I’m supposed to meet someone tonight.” Gina said grabbing her purse and putting it across her shoulder.

“Another ‘hot date’” Sonny said with air quotes.

“I’ve been talking to someone on a dating app.” Gina defended.

“Just be careful on those things. I’ve worked too many cases of women getting raped after meeting someone on those apps.” Sonny warned.

“Dom, you’re paranoid. I’ll be fine.” Gina defended.

Sonny pulled his sister in close and placed a tender kiss on the top of her head. He towered over the woman who was the shortest of the Carisi siblings, only standing at 5’3.

“At least come to Ma’s tomorrow for brunch. I’m bringing Amanda with me. I would love for you to finally meet her.” Sonny begged.

“Only for you Dominick. You know Ma and I don’t get along.” Gina smirked.

“I know, but can you guys please be civil, for Amanda’s sake?” Sonny asked.

“So, take out my nose ring to keep Ma from making comment got it.” Sonny rolled his eyes at her. “I promise I will be there tomorrow.”

#law and order svu #sonny carisi #Gina Carisi

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theheartchoice · 3 years

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post-15.19 coda | dean/cas | dean + sam | 1.3k | ao3

"We're all set here."

Dean hums as Sam brushes his hands together in his periphery. He didn't even realise they were so close to finishing the set up.

"Now it's just a matter of timing."

Timing. Cas had the worst timing. Saying something like that at a time like that, leaving Dean with more questions than answers.

"Dean?"

"..Huh?"

"You okay? You spaced-out, for a minute there."

"Yeah, I'm just—" he waves a hand around, trying and failing to capture what he's feeling.

"Look, about Jack," Sam steps closer, voice dipping to a tone that means sympathy and support, the kind that gets a work out on a case. "I know things with you two have always been kind of complicated, and I can imagine that him not bringing Cas back has only made things harder—"

"—Woah, Sam. No. I get it—really. He's hands off, y'know? Probably for the best. Meddling was Chuck's problem, it's how everything got so screwed up in the first place." Not that he's palming all his mistakes off on bad writing, but still. Jack not intervening is a good thing, in a way.

"Yeah, I guess. Makes you wonder if he might not condone what we're doing here, you know?"

Dean hums again. "But you'd think if he let anyone have one more get-out-of-jail-free card it'd be Cas. Who knows, maybe Jack's rootin' for us."

"Yeah, maybe," Sam chuckles. "Don't worry. It's gonna work."

That's sort of what Dean's worried about.

"You seem nervous."

Maybe Sam could help.

"You sure you're okay?"

"I just—" how does he even phrase it? "When Cas was—I mean, before he saved me, he.. said some stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Big stuff. Deathbed confession, type-stuff."

"Confession? What did he—" and realisation dawns on Sam, because of-fucking-course it does. "Oh."

No use hiding it now. "Yeah, 'oh'."

"So. He finally told you."

Wait what? "What d'you mean finally?"

"Dean." And there's so much in just that one word. "Cas has been in love with you for.. well, I don't know how long, exactly. A while, I think. Years."

Dean's lungs empty in a rush. "Okay, see, that's the thing: he's an Angel, Sam."

"Yeah, I kinda picked up on that."

Dean sends him a bitch face but Sam just smiles. "Tha—it's a human emotion. Angels don'—they can't feel that way." Right?

"Serafina did."

"Pretty sure she and Adam from the freakin' Garden of Eden knew each other for more than a few years. More like eons."

"Since when does time determine love?" Sam gets a look Dean remembers from when he'd talk about the past, about Jess. Probably not something he wants to bring up right now, seeing as how Eileen's right outside.

"Cas is my best friend, but he's literally older than the world."

"So it's an age-thing?"

"Wh—? No!" Dean takes a deep breath, to steady himself, steady his train of thought. "I know Cas is an Angel, okay? I mean, there's the mojo, and the not-sleeping, and he saw the first fish crawl outta the ocean—the whole nine. That's not what's botherin' me." Sam waits patiently. "I know he cares. I just don't know if.." If he feels the same way I do. "If he really feels the way he thinks he does. About me, about love, an'.." Dean swallows. "Love."

For all his tact in handling witnesses during a case (people who're at their most vulnerable), Sam fucking snickers.

Dean glares daggers; half-hurt, half not surprised because isn't that how little brothers are supposed to act? They laugh at their sibling's relationship troubles? But Sam gets it, because his face softens.

"Dean. Maybe Angels do feel things differently from Humans. In fact, it's pretty much guaranteed. But Cas has always been different from the rest of them. And I've been here over the years, you know. I've seen it."

"Seen what?"

"The way he looks at you. And I never thought it was some big secret, I mean—you saw it too! And you looked at him the same way."

"Did not!" Sam gives him that: c'mon Dean you can't fool me here face, and he let's it go. Sam's probably not wrong.

"What did you say? After he told you."

"I.." Nothing. He told Cas—begged him not to do it that way—but everything was happening so fast, and there was a decade's worth of doubt stopping Cas' words—those three huge words—from sinking in. Even after, as everything finally hit him and he curled up on the dungeon floor and cried his freakin' eyes out, even then, even now, he still doesn't know what he would've said if he had the moment again. "There was no time."

Sam nods. "Well, now there is. You guys can talk—"

"—What if I'm right?" Sam's brow crinkles at that. "I mean, no offence Sam, but I know him better than you do. What if.. what Cas feels, is.." he trails off, unable to get the words out.

"..Are you worried he's not in love with you, or that he is?"

One sounds better than the other. Both sound kinda terrifying.

Sam sighs, and it's almost pitiful.

"I don't wanna lose him." As a friend, most of all. Because if Cas misunderstood the whole love-confession thing being for non-brotherly love then Dean won't say anything, obviously, but it'll hurt. Cas will be back but things will be different—worse actually, because that whole thing with The Empty made him confront his own feelings (or stop suppressing them, at least). Cas isn't just a friend to him, and it's not familial either. But can they go back to being 'just friends' after everything? Can Dean?

"Dean, no matter what happens you're not going to lose him. Just look at everything the two of you have already been through."

Now there's a distracting and somewhat depressing train of thought. Apocalyptic times can't tear them apart, not for good, and even death is nothing new. It would be a painful joke of cosmic proportions if the thing that actually ruins their friendship is love.

"Do you love him?" Dean's head snaps up to meet Sam's eyes. "Are you in love with Cas?"

Eileen returns before he can think of a way to deflect, cutting off anymore talk about it.

She gestures to Sam and he tells Dean, "It's time. You ready?"

Dean's not sure what he would've said but the truth is best kept for Cas' ears anyway. And Sam's right. They have time. They can talk, and hopefully they'll figure things out and where they stand with as little heartache as possible. There's no avoiding it, not now, not after everything. He nods, steeling his resolve. "Yeah. I'm ready."

At least he knows Chuck is no longer pulling their strings and that whatever happens from here on out it really is just him and Cas. The thought never even crossed his mind that Cas' confession might be Chuck's doing. Chuck didn't care enough about him to bother, and besides: Cas was always the rebel against God's story.

Dean steps over the threshold of painted sigils, taking his place in the centre of the circle. As Sam starts chanting he feels his worry over the truth of Cas' words ebb away and hope flow in to supplant it. The phantom scar of a handprint on his shoulder from when Cas rescued from Hell seems to flare to life and brand itself back into Dean's flesh, and the only thing going through his mind is: what if Cas really is in love with me? He smiles at the thought.

As the glowing portal tears into existence before him he remembers something else Cas said to him, back when Dean was questioning his whole reality. Cas was steadfast and sincere as ever as he held Dean's eye and told him that they were real. And for the first time Dean knows that to be true. He feels it in his very soul.

With his hand raised he moves towards the portal and braces for some kind of inter-dimensional shift, but he's not scared. This is the right thing to do, for both of them.

Time to grip an Angel tight and raise him from perdition.

#spn 15x19 #coda 15x19 #destiel ficlet #s15 spec #profoundnet #myficlets #s15 codas

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gaybarbiegirl · 3 years

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00s Barbie rewatch - The Princess and The Pauper (2004)

Two God tier movies in a row, I feel blessed

This is the first movie without a proper Storyteller Barbie, though 💔

I swear to god, Preminger isn't even trying to hide that he's evil, why would you trust a guy who poses for his portrait like that?

He is an icon though

Free is the best musical opening number in history

And how can I refuse is the best villain song in the BCU

I'm still upset that the whole fool's gold thing never lead to anything

Anneliese and Julian really just ran off and left the ambassador waiting like that

This first verse of written in your heart is so pretty, why didn't they sing it in the final version?

Their first meeting ❤

Here comes the best song of the movie

Look at the two of them bonding over their struggles and laughing at their own misfortunes together, truly a special scene

Wolfie to the rescue, hell yeah!

Hervé deserved better, he was the biggest sweetheart

Preminger CANNOT contain his excitement to show the queen his fake letter

He's practically laughing in her face, iconic

Julian's sense of smell is really something else

Erika is such a good girlfriend friend, she's known Anneliese for like, 5 minutes, and she's already commiting crimes for her

Baby Wolfie jumping on the bed ❤

Why did Julian just have an Anneliese wig lying around? What does this man get up to in his free time?

I feel like people undermine Anneliese's problems a lot when talking about this movie. Like, obviously Erika had it worse than her, that's not even a debate, but that doesn't mean Anneliese had it easy

Once again, Preminger is not even trying to hide how mad he is that the princess is back

There goes Julian solving problems by smell again

Thank god Preminger isn't dumb and realised that even if Anneliese did escape, something about the whole thing was off

This whole movie is just a bunch of smart characters making genuinely good plans that cancel each other out

How did the wig not fall off while Erika was asleep?

I changed my mind, the cat's meow is the best song in the movie. Wolfie absolutely deserves a whole musical number about how great he is

LOOK AT THIS BABY PLAYING WITH THE BUBBLES

I can really relate to Dominick in this scene. If I was just walking around somewhere and I overheard a girl singing to cheer up her cat, I'd instantly fall in love too

A canon off screen kiss, you don't see a lot of those

Look at Preminger being smart again, truly an iconic villain

Sad Hervé 💔

You DO NOT know your own daughter, ma'am

She almost introduced herself by the wrong name yesterday and you didn't suspect anything

Look at his evil laughter, Genevieve WHY did you trust him, just be smart one time in your life please

WOLFIE AND HERVÉ SCENE, WOLFIE AND HERVÉ SCENE

"Are you Wolfie, Serafina's friend?" "I'd like to think so 😊"

Come on Genevieve, use your brain, I know it's there somewhere

Who crowned this woman?

And in the end, Hervé saved the day, just as he should

"Thanks to Anneliese... 💕"

I know everyone already praised the ending of this movie for having Erika prioritise her dreams over her romance, but I'm gonna go ahead and do it again. This is a really amazing thing to be showing young girls, and it's still very unique to see this type of thing in children's movies. Also, it fits the character really well. Erika is a well rounded protagonist, and this is a logical conclusion to her arc that feels true to who she is

And we sign off with a poly wedding, what more could I ask for?

Final thoughts:

You probably don't need me to tell you that this movie is a masterpiece. It's the most well praised Barbie movie, and I can totally see why. It has two well rounded, strong, and compelling protagonists, an interesting plot, amazing music, a memorable villain, and Wolfie and Hervé. What is there to not love?

Something I really like about this movie is how Erika and Anneliese aren't the dumbass protagonist you usually see in these switching places type of movies. Like, they don't meet for 5 minutes and then decide they want to abandon their own lives and let a stranger impersonate them (which is, you know, a really dumb decision to make). They're just kind of thrown into each other's lives against their wishes, Erika to help out Anneliese, and Anneliese as an actual accident. They also don't idealize each other's lives and have a lot of respect for each other's struggles, which is a nice change from the "look at them, their life is so perfect, I wish I could be in their place" mentality that we see in the protagonists of most of the movies in this genre.

Overall, this movie is great. It's no wonder mattel keeps trying to remake it every time they run out of ideas, and it's no wonder all of those remakes fail in comparison to the original. They have big shoes to fill.

#sorry this one took a while #i've just been busy with uni #but i'm back at it #barbie #barbie movies #barbie liveblogs #barbie princess and the pauper

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facelessxchurch · 3 years

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Can we talk about how Mevolent, despite being the supreme bad guy, is one of the most educated and sophisticated characters in the whole series?

I mean .... he always thanks, even to people inferior to him (Assegai, Destier in SoW). he offers words of comfort to Valkyrie and allows her to die as she wishes. He does not appear to be misogynistic, despite being a man over 400 years old, he does not appear to see women as inferior. In the war years he admitted China and Abyssinia in the high ranks of his army. Which I don't think was very normal at that time, for women to occupy positions of power. We also see how he respects Valkyrie as an equal despite being a woman and much younger than him. He has more self-control than other characters like Skulduggery, we see how he never loses his calm and speaks calmly and neutrally to his enemies. even when Creed was about to kill Serafina, he remained calm. which we know that other characters like skulduggery, would not have been able to do that.

I think one of the few things Derek has done well is that ... The irony of giving Mevolent the personality of a good and intelligent ruler. instead of a violent dictator only focused on himself

Mevolent literally be like:

Don’t make the mistake of confusing the way Mevolent behaves with his true nature. He might be polite and acts respectful, but he’s still a villain that tortures and murders, and loves every second of it.

Him not being misogynistic actually seems to be pretty normal for mages the way Landy writes them. Probably due to magic putting men and women on the same level of strength. We see him lose his calm literally in the first scene with him lol. He instantly gets angry and doesn’t believe Val when she tells him that she isn’t part of the Resistance. The nice façade falls real quick when he doesn’t get his way. I agree that he has an insane amount of self-control. Shown both through his suicide ritual and when he remains calm while Creed threatens Serafina, tho I’m sure on the inside he wanted nothing more than to tear Creed limb from limb.

I think the reason Mevolent acts nice and Val and Skul do not is bc they wallow in their self-hate and self-pity and Mev does not. Through out the series we see Val going on about what a monster she is and Skul seems to feel the same about himself. Meanwhile Mevolent sees himself as a hero, a messiah. At first he saved the world of the Unnamed, then he fought for the religious freedom of the church and for sorcerers to stop being oppressed by mortals and instead take their rightful place as their rulers. After all, how could he be the bad guy here when the mortals were having witch hunts, literally trying to kill each and every one of them. They can’t just sit down and take it, not when they are so much stronger, so much better than them. He is even merciful enough to only enslave them instead of eradicating them as Creed suggested.

While he presents himself as calm and kind, his actions betray his true nature. His fighting style is extremely violent, he gets annoyed the instant Val doesn’t play along in KotW, he is quick to hand out cruel punishments, every time the good guys get captured by him he instantly has them tortured, he allows the conduction of unethical experiments, he has public executions, he displays his fallen foes and humiliates them even post-mortem... ect.

And if we include phase 2 he has also shown himself to be very intolerant towards other cultures by banning the native languages. His walled mage cities have not been described in detail, but I’m assuming it’s bc they all look similar to Dublin-Within-The-Wall. He views his culture and tastes are superiors, so he forced them on everybody else. If you want to find traces of the native cultures in the Leibniz Dimension you’ll only find them in some mortal villages far away from the mages and on the outskirts of Mev’s influence. The arts and music he described as flourishing in SoW? I strongly suspect it’s the art and music styles he deems valuable while all others were suppressed. Tho I rather not include the phase 2 stuff bc I hate almost all of it since it makes Mev look like an stupid fool.

Yet still he’s a saint in his own eyes. He justifies the violence and cruelty through his religion. Within the Faceless Church harsh, corporal punishments are normal. Cruelty towards blasphemers isn’t only allowed but encouraged. If that’s what he grew up with, why would he think his violence is wrong? He’s just fulfilling his duty of punishing the the wicked and to guide his flock with a firm hand.

Mevolent might act like a good and intelligent ruler, but his actions are that of a violent dictator. Tho I do believe he actually does care about HIS people and wants them to flourish. He is extremely charismatic, highly intelligent and a brilliant leader, but also manipulative, violent, sadistic, cunning and cruel. And quite frankly? I’m pretty sure he is also delusional, a control-freak and has a God-Complex with him calling himself the ‘Voice of the Faceless Ones’ being as close as he can get to god-hood without it being heresy.

TL;DR: Mevolent sees himself as a hero/saviour and thus presents himself in that manner, tho his actions betray his violent, cruel and sadistic nature.

#Mevolent #answered #anonymous #meta #I love Mev for being a villain #don't de-villain-fy him #he is my nasty garbage man <3

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goddessofeternity · 1 month

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Chronicles of the Supernovas: Chosen

Chapter 19: Feeding Time

Ka’seem

My burning flesh woke me up before the animal chewing on my arm did, and it was a good thing because the damn creature had most of my leg in its mouth already. I stabbed my dagger deep into its face and it scurried away howling in pain. Sitting up, the ship was nowhere in sight and I patted the fire from my skin before I turned into some creature's dinner once again. I had hoped the others would be near me when we crashed, but it looks like I would have to find them instead. Looking up at the sky, I could still feel the presence of Lady Serafina fighting against the Darkness. With the two of them fighting, it meant that we were once again stuck. If she could manage to distract it enough, we might be able to slip away. The only problem is the damn ship was destroyed and we had to transport the kid.

Callum and Nerissa were the only ones who could teleport to other planets whenever they wished, except Callum didn’t practice with it enough. Nerissa’s abilities relied on the bracelet that she seemed to have left behind. Hopefully, someone else landed with the kid and was keeping him safe. Losing him would make this whole thing pointless. Wiping my daggers off, I moved through the mud and swiped away the drooping leaves in my path. The air was thick and it was almost too hard to breathe. I did not care if I was the damn God of Nature, swamps fucking suck.

Once the mud started to reach my knees, I called a vine forward and jumped across the treetops to travel. With a higher vantage point, I could see the swamp better. Hopefully, if the ship was still burning somewhere, the others would be near it too. As I traveled on, I couldn’t help but keep glancing at the sky. The fight raging above me was so tangible and terrifying. Even through the murky clouds, I could see bolts of energy and power sparking up every few minutes, it almost looked like fireworks.

If only they were right?

I flinched as a bug the size of a small dog almost nailed me in the face. Its multiple eyes zeroed in on me for a second and I thought I would have to fight the damn thing, but it just flew off.

“Good I would hate to-”

A pressure in my back sent me back into the mud and I couldn’t look up as something held my face into the dirt. I could hear the brief sound of wings beating, and a sharp pain in my spine. Gathering my power, I swatted the damn thing off my back. Wiping the mud from my eyes, I almost lost my lunch at the thing before me. It was definitely an insect of some sort, but it had some type of fungal growth forming on its face. Its exoskeleton was so transparent that I could see its internal organs. Four large wings were beating on its back, but the razor sharp talons had my attention. Its four eyes sat on four stalks above its head and they all twisted and turned when I started to reach for my daggers.

The moment it unhinged its jaws at me, I leapt forward to slice its eyes off. It shrieked and started to swing wildly and one of its talons caught me across the waist. I hissed as it dug a bit deep, but I grabbed one of the talons and drove it into its stomach. Its other talons kept swinging about crazily before the fungus on its head started to move. I watched in disgust as it separated from the body and scurried off in tiny legs.

“What the fuck?”

Annoyed with the damn thing, I dropped a nearby tree on it and winced at its dying shriek before the swamp grew quiet once more. Looking at my waist, I cursed to myself as I tore my sleeve and wrapped it across my waist. Hopefully, it would heal at a decent pace until I could find Celica. Honestly, thinking about it now, I hoped that she was alright. She barely looked like she could stand before, and I could only imagine that the crash made it worse.

“Where are you guys at?”

After securing my wounds, I traveled further through the swamp and thankfully I could see some smoke. That ship made some distance in the crash, but it also meant that someone might be there waiting to group up. As I started to get closer, something wet touched my cheek. Pausing on a branch, I wiped it off. It seemed to be water, which wouldn’t be strange in a swamp. I was going to turn and leave, but when it hit my face again, I finally noticed that it was snowing. I snapped my head up and sure enough, high up in the trees was Celica.

She was unconscious and bent backwards over a tree branch that looked ready to snap under her weight. Her head was bleeding, but I really didn’t care about that, because the branch snapped. I jumped up towards her and caught her. I held her close as I hit several branches before I hit the ground, the wind completely knocked out of my lungs. I could still feel her breathing which was good for her, but I fucking couldn’t. Once I gathered my breath back, I sat up and held her head up to better inspect her. Besides the head wound, she seemed to be fine. She managed to form her ice armor, and that was probably what hit me in the face.

“Celica…hey…can you hear me?” The only response that I got from her was a groan and a few mumbled words that I couldn’t make out. Well, we were almost at the wreckage so I could leave her there and see if anything survived the crash. I hope that someone packed up some water, although if I could find a water goddess that could work too. “Alright…lovely…let’s go.”

Making it to the ship, unfortunately there was nothing else here. Adjusting Celica in my arms once more, I laid her down in the broken part of the cockpit. Some supplies were sprawled out around the ground so I would have to take some quick inventory on it. Lady Serafina and the Darkness would probably still be fighting for a while, so we would have to make something of this place for now.

Looking through the things I managed to gather, we only had a few rations, so we would have to hunt anything that was here. The first aid kit barely had anything in it, but hopefully no one was hurt too bad. Relying on Celica was not gonna happen for the rest of this mission, our natural healing would have to tide us over. There were a few pairs of clothes that I was about to change into since the weather was so damn humid and sticky here. The sun looked like it was about to set soon, and I would have liked to look for the others before it set. Leaving Celica behind was not an option though, so I hoped for the best.

Once I changed and started a small fire, I cleaned the blood and dirt from Celica’s face and visible parts of her body. It wasn’t until I touched her back that I saw she had a wound on her shoulder. It didn’t look too deep, but I would have to look over it.

“Excuse me for a sec…” Tearing her shirt off, I carefully turned her over and used the energy of the trees around us to heal her wound. The only response I got from her was a small groan. I hoped that she would wake up soon, because this was not my specialty. Her wound closed up well enough and that would have to do for now. I had to make a note to ask her to show me some more healing techniques. I bandaged her up as best as I could and dressed her in another shirt before I sat next to her and tried to figure out what to do next.

“I have to contact the others and find the kid soon.” Placing my hand against the ground, I felt the planet pulse under my palm. Every inch of the fauna and flora made its way into my mind. I could even see every animal that ran across the ground. Pushing it forward, I tried to see if I could sense the others, and thankfully I found them. Callum was waking up a few miles away from us to our north, Nim was cursing to himself as he smacked some trees down about a mile away from Callum. Nerissa, of course, managed to find a river to clean herself off, not even more than 300 meters from us. If she turned and walked to her west, she would walk right into us. Now to find the kid-

“What happened?!” I looked up as the kid emerged from the swamp looking like a wreck. He rushed over to Celica and looked over her with wide eyes. Someone is in love. Looking over at him, there was still some snow on his head. I guess Celica must have shielded him before they crashed. Lucky kid indeed. “How…w-what happened to her?”

“The same thing that happened to all of us kid. Someone didn’t like us taking you and crashed our ship on Zosmuna.”

“Zosmuna?”

“Yup…a real crappy place to land if you ask me.” In my search for the others, I noticed what planet we had crashed on. It would be the planet that has a habit of eating the living organisms of it every so often. If we were lucky, it had already gone through its feeding process.

“Will she be ok?” I looked back at the kid and smirked as he held Celica’s hand in his. Yeah, he was completely smitten with her. I mean I couldn’t blame him really, she was gorgeous.

“Yeah…I believe so. She was already struggling before so she needs some extra rest. It would be best if she is as comfortable as possible. You think you could look after her for me real quick?”

“Yeah! Of course I can!” I rolled my eyes at his sudden chivalrous need to protect Celica. If it kept him calm and in my sights, I didn’t care. Pulsing my power through my body once more, I sent a few leaves to direct the others towards us. The kid and I sat in silence for a while as he ate some of the rations I managed to scrape together. Nerissa was taking her time to get here…maybe she might have stopped to hunt something. I did also pass the message along that we would need some things.

“So…you have a grandfather waiting for you at home?” It would be best to feel the kid out even though he was being a little brat back on Zhikar. The tough act he kept trying to pull was not fooling me at all. This was a kid who was terrified and desperate for it to be over.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

Dickhead.

“Look…I know that you might not want to admit how afraid you are, but I get it Altair. I really do. This is a lot for a kid your age to be dealing with. We meant it when we said that we want to take you home so you can be safe. It would ease our hearts a bit if we knew that you had some family to go back to.”

“He might be dead.” I tossed some rocks into the brush as he sat beside me and drew his legs up to his chin. He was a tiny kid for his age, although he might hit a growth spurt soon enough. Looking over his frame, he could be quite the fighter. If he practiced his abilities and took some lessons he could be a force to be reckoned with. That blast he caused on Zhikar was enough to show how powerful the kid was, and also how dangerous it would be if someone else had their grip on him. “When they took me away…they beat him up….there was a lot of blood.”

“I see…”

“I might not have any family left anymore.”

“You can’t think like that…he could still be alive. Hell, he might even be trying to find you. I think he’d be pretty happy to see you.”

“Yeah…maybe…” He buried his face between his legs and now I started to feel really bad. It had been some time since I had to deal with kids this young. I was probably losing my damn touch when it came to dealing with them.

“I see what you’re trying to do…I’m not stupid.”

“Yeah? What am I trying to do?”

“Distract me so that I’m not scared. It doesn’t really matter what you do. This whole thing is always going to be scary. All the things that I’ve seen…all the kids that were killed. I just want it to be over.”

“It will be over Altair. Hey look up there…” I moved closer to him and placed a hand on his shoulder as we looked up at the sky. “You see those lights sparking up there?”

“Yeah…what is that?”

“That…is a magnificent woman fighting against evil incarnate to make sure that you are safe and back home where you belong. We weren’t lying when we said that we wanted you safe. We’ll put our lives on the line to defend you and make sure nothing happens to you. As you can see…” I looked back at Celica as she seemed to finally relax in her sleep. “We are willing to do whatever it takes….”

“....”

“Keep your chin up for just a bit longer…once the others make it here…we’ll come up with a plan to get out of here.”

“I…” I raised a brow as he looked down at his hands and squeezed them tight. “I really do have…powers…don’t I?”

“Oh yeah you do. A boundless amount of it too. That is why once we get you home, we can start to show you how to control it.”

“What am I? I thought that I was just a normal kid.”

“That…is a tough question to answer.” I leaned back on my hands as the fighting above our heads grew fiercer. “There is not much that we know about star children. The few in existence have chosen to live their lives from all of this conflict. We respect their decision and haven’t pestered them about studying their abilities. We only really swing around to check up on them every now and then. We have Nerissa who is also a star child, but she barely even relies or practices her abilities. All we know is that their power is so immense that even Lady Serafina doesn’t know its limits. They are…you…are capable of some pretty incredible things.”

“...” I chuckled as he looked down at his hands in wonder. I guess he could act like the child he actually was. “Will you guys ever figure out what…a star child can do?”

“Well…with Nerissa being so damn difficult and not caring for her other abilities…probably not. I’d like to document it in the records and I’m sure a few members of my pantheon would love to know more about them.”

“Records? Your…pantheon?”

“Heh…I guess I could give you a quick rundown. We won’t be going anywhere for a while…”

I couldn’t help but chuckle again as the kid got comfortable so he could listen to me. If I could ease his worries for a bit I would do it. Really didn’t need his powers to freak out again and blow us to smithereens.

“So…the short story is my pantheon specifically handles the research and study of the wide universe. We study the various plant life, civilizations, creatures and monsters, and just the general aspects of it. We keep it all in my temple in the biggest library in the cosmos-”

“You have a massive library!” I was taken completely aback as the kid almost jumped out of his shoes at me. He coughed awkwardly as his cheeks got red, but I didn’t miss that sparkle in his eyes. Seems the kid had a love for books. I could totally get that though, my gorgeous looks weren’t the only thing I was packing after all.

“Yeah…the Celestial Athenaeum…all the texts that have ever existed and will ever exist. We have it all there.”

“You…you think I could see it?”

“Yeah I do.” I ruffled his hair which he did not appreciate as he frowned. “When I can…I tend to spend hours there.”

“Do you have an observatory?”

“....” Huh.

“Wait…so you study everything in the universe and you don’t have an observatory? You don’t have someone to study the stars and planets?”

“Hmm….that…well…” It was something that Tori and the others had been pestering me about. We were just so consumed with looking over everything else.

“That seems to be pretty irresponsible for a God…seems like you’re just being lazy.”

“Hey!” I pulled on his ear and he yelped in pain as he whined and tried to hit me. “I just haven’t had the time! I’m gonna get a dedicated team to do that eventually. The universe is a big place and I have to find someone qualified. I don’t see you volunteering for it!”

“Who would want to work with you?!” He rubbed his ear when I released it, before he stuck his tongue at me. I couldn’t help but do the same to him. Little brat.

“I’ll have you know that I’m a great boss and an even better God.”

“You seem really irresponsible.”

“Shut it.” He smiled like he won a damn prize as we watched the sky continue to spark up. Where the hell were the others? This was taking them way too long. When I sent that message…it should have led them right to us.

“Thanks.”

“Hmm? For what?”

“Distracting me.” His ears turned red as he rubbed his head. “I…I don’t feel as nervous as I did before.”

“No problem Altair.”

“Do you have siblings?”

“...yeah…”

“You just seem to know how to talk to kids is all. Most adults talk to me like I don’t understand anything. I’m not that young.”

“Heh…well it’s been a while. I’m surprised that I still know how.”

“I wish that I had siblings. It would be fun to have someone to play with all the time. Are you guys really close?”

No. “Yeah.”

“Well…they must be excited to know their brother is a God. I know I would be.”

They aren’t. In fact…they…despise me for it.

“The family get-togethers must be really crazy then.”

If they would come, that is.

“Hey…how would you like to get a recommendation to that academy that Celica was telling you about? A smart kid like you should get the very best education.”

“Really?! I’ve never been to school before. My grandfather always taught me at home.”

“Yeah…it would be my pleasure.” I would say anything to get him to stop talking about my family. The relatively short attention span of a child was my saving grace. Just thinking about them made my stomach turn. It wasn’t as bad as the twists and turns it made of my heart though. Altair was trying to stay up, but he was swaying and about to fall asleep. The sun was basically done and a shadow of a cloud passed over our heads. These clouds would make seeing Lady Serafina and the Darkness fighting hard.

Looking up at it, bright red eyes leered into my soul. I couldn’t even release a sound as the damn thing scared the shit out of me. It was massive, how didn’t I hear or notice it? I couldn’t even make out its figure because the size of its jaws almost took up most of my body. Its jaws that were open and about to snap over me if I didn’t finally snap out of my stupor. I only had time to grab its upper jaw and dig my other foot into its lower one to keep it open. Its teeth stabbed right through the center of my palms and it propelled us both through the broken cockpit. I could hear Altair scream and I prayed that it didn’t hit him or Celica.

I grunted as it slammed me into the ground several times. Keeping its jaw open with one hand, I reached for my dagger, but a light consumed my vision. Its jaws closed on me tighter and the fucking thing was strong as hell. I called some plants to pry the things mouth open but it would not budge!

Realizing it now, I couldn’t move my legs even if I wanted to. Whatever this thing was, its gums wrapped around my ankles and held me in place. Before I could figure out how to get out, my vision was consumed by a blinding red light.

I could feel my bones in my body quake and rattle as the energy blast rocked my core. My flesh was burning and the smell of my skin consumed the dank air. A scream ripped from deep in my lungs as it held me against the ground. The assault continued for several more seconds before it stopped. My vision was shot and I grimaced as it started back up again. That shit would really tear me apart another time. Reaching out of its mouth, I slammed my hand against the ground, tearing open a fissure in the ground. It was enough to cause it to lose its footing, and with it its grip on me. Rolling out between its massive teeth, I ducked as a tail almost hit me.

The creature itself was massive, which made sense considering how big its teeth and jaws were. Looking at it more, it was obvious now that it was not some creature native to Zosmuna. No, the Darkness had sent some of its creations to track us down and get the kid. Speaking of, I could see him trying to hide in the wreckage of the ship. Good, it meant that he wasn’t hurt too much and Celica was also alright. The Darkness and its little lackeys were far too creative with the beasts that they made. It was not the time to dwell on it, because it advanced on me with a hideous roar.

I slashed at its claws as it attacked me with ferocious strikes. The thing was fast, but I kept pace with it easily enough, despite how much my body was screaming at me. Stomping a foot down, jagged rocks erupted from the ground and impaled it in its sides. The beast didn’t even flinch as it just continued to snap its jaws at me. Summoning more jagged rocks over its head, I slammed them down deep into its cranium. This seemed to stun it long enough for me to jump on its back and drag my daggers across its throat. A dark smoke emerged from it but the smoke seemed to have a mind of its own.

The smoke rose into the air and seemed to turn solid before several blasts of energy rushed at me. I sliced and weaved away from them. A few blasts nicked my side, but I could shrug it off easily enough. The creature began to stir under me and before I could move, it tossed me off and tried to chomp down on me. Grabbing its jaw, I flexed my strength and snapped its jaw and it finally dropped.

“Fuck…” My body felt like it was on fire. My wounds were starting to bleed more heavily. Moving back towards the ship, I sighed in relief as Altair peeked around to look at me. Celica was also sitting up and although she still looked pale, she seemed relaxed. “Hey…”

“Ka’seem…” I sank down next to Celica as she started to slowly heal my wounds. Releasing a relieved sigh, I leaned my head against her shoulder as she got to work. Her healing touch was always so comforting. It was like a gentle caress from a mother and I really needed that right now. “The others?”

“I…sent the message…they honestly should be here soon.”

“This is the most that I can do. You’ll have to heal on your own for now. You shouldn’t feel much pain though.”

“Thanks…as long as I can still stand and wield my daggers…it's better than nothing.” Altair looked like a deer caught in a hunter's snare. “Hey…I’m alright…this is far from the worst that I’ve ever felt. Once the others get here we can figure out a plan of attack.”

“O-Ok…”

“Altair…we will get you back home. I promise you.” Celica rubbed his cheek and he lit up like a Christmas tree. “Help me stand up love…I need to stretch a bit. I won’t get better sitting and sleeping all the time.”

“Ok…” I shared a glance with Celica at his solemn tone. Poor kid had just been through way too much. He didn’t deserve it, hell none of those kids did really. It was just another unfortunate thing that we couldn’t prevent in time. Sometimes doing this job really did suck. With so much power you would think there would be more things we could stop, but even the Gods had their limits.

Sitting back further in the cockpit, I pulled my hair loose before leaning my head back. The fight raging above our heads didn’t seem like it was losing steam. If that was the case, we would have to figure out a way to sneak out of here. How could we do that? I had no damn idea. The others were better at planning this sort of thing. I was more than content with leaving it to them. I did my fair share of work.

The damn planet was also making some movements that I did not like in the slightest. It would not be long before it started its eating process. I would have to ask Celica about this headache that was forming. This whole mission was turning into a shit show.

“Altair…be careful of the debris around here…I don’t want you to cut yourself on something.”

“Ok…”

Looking back at the pair, I smiled as the kid started to open up more. Peace was never a thing that seemed to last though. Moments had to be appreciated when we got them. I just wished that the fucking creature had stayed dead.

“Ka’seem!” I could barely react as the creature crashed down on top of the ship. It almost managed to crush me, but I held some of it away from my frame. The parts almost crunched down on my face if the thing kept stepping on it, but it had other plans.

Hearing the kid scream,I could see them both just a bit through the parts of the ship. Celica was fending it off well enough in her condition, but her focus kept drifting back to Altair. Grabbing the metal, I pulled it apart just to catch a horrifying scene unfold. The kid made a break for it as Celica faced it, but it didn’t care about her. Setting its eyes on the kid, it lunged forward, mouth agape about to tear the kid apart.

Celica moved faster than she had been moving since Zhikar. Her weapon was completely discarded as she threw the kid out of the war. A sickening crunch echoed through the air, only being overshadowed by the piercing scream from Celica. The creatures teeth sank into her midsection, tearing right through her. A fountain of her blood erupted and dripped down from its jaws. This woman was tough because despite its jaws sinking deeper into her frame, she gripped its teeth and tried to break free.

“CELICA!” The forest erupted around us through my anger and the beast soon found that it had bigger problems at hand. Still biting Celica, it turned just as my fists collided with its face. The trees and ground beneath us shook as I rocked it to the core. Jagged rocks pierced it long enough to make it lose grip on Celica. I didn’t have the time to tell her to brace herself as I yanked her off its teeth. I gave her credit for not crying out anymore.

Setting her down, the beast rushed us again, but now I was pissed the fuck off. Forming a spiked gauntlet, I uppercutted right through its lower jaw. The creature swiped me across my chest, but the adrenaline pumping through me barely made me register it. Reaching into the open wound under its jaw, I tore it open right down the middle. When it began to twitch and try to reform itself, I created a cage of rocks and enclosed it within it. It was fighting against it, but I had enough. I exhaled deeply as I crushed the ball into the size of a marble.

Catching it in my hands, I looked it over for a bit, before I turned and threw it back into the atmosphere. It could report its failure to its fucking master. I rushed back over to Celica as the kid cried over her. I held my face together as I looked at her wound, because if I didn’t the kid would cry worse than he already was. The wound had to be almost six or seven inches wide. The tooth that ripped through her caught most of her midsection and some of her left side was completely gone. It was turning her skin black and the blood that leaked from her was also a deep black.

“You…a-a-al…right?” I looked over as she brushed the kid’s hair back from his eyes. He just cried harder as he held her hand. “It…it’s not…that bad…”

She glanced at me to confirm it, but I could only give the faintest shake of my head. Her brow furrowed, but that was the only emotion she could really show without scaring the kid. Her bright eyes were even starting to look dull. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

“Come on lovely…we should get you inside.” I moved as slowly as I could to not make it painful for her, but her screams told me otherwise. Just as I placed her in the ship, Callum and Nim both emerged from the forest. Rushing to the ship, they both stepped back in horror as they looked over Celica. “Guys…we have to talk.”

The tone of my voice made them both flinch. They nodded but didn’t once take their eyes off of her as her breathing grew more and more shallow. It was tough to see, but I knew it was worse for them. The three of them had been together forever, and despite their relationship, Nim still cared for Celica alot, anyone could see that. Callum was whispering some comforting words to her, and she tried to smile through her pain.

“What the hell is all the noise around here?” I couldn’t look at Nerissa as she stumbled through the forest towards us. “I heard all this damn screaming and thought there was a-what happened?!”

She almost knocked me over as she dropped down next to Celica. I think I deserved to be pushed around a bit. If I would have properly killed that thing she wouldn't have gotten like this. She was even starting to get better from her earlier use of her abilities, now she was further back in a danger zone I wasn’t sure any of us could get her back from. I could barely hold onto my emotions as I recounted to them what happened to her.

Nerissa kept her eyes trained on me as I recounted my story. Her hand in mine was the only thing keeping me from choking up through it. Nim and Callum still had their eyes fiercely trained on her as she passed out. Altair held her other hand tight, despite her powers acting up and starting to freeze the area around us.

“We have to keep moving.”

“What?” I looked at Nim as I wrapped up and he finally took his eyes off her to glare at me. “She is in no condition to be moved.”

“That creature knows that we are over here. If we stay, the Darkness will just send more to attack us and she’ll be in more danger. We have to move now.”

“Moving her will just cause her more pain!”

“She’ll just have to deal with it.”

“Listen you heartless bastard! Have some compassion for once in your life! We have no idea how much worse it could get if we move her!”

“Sitting here will just make us easier targets Ka’seem! We have to go now!”

“There is nowhere to go if you haven’t noticed! Lady Serafina and the Darkness are fighting above us, the planet is about to start eating! This has to be our base of operations for now!”

“I said we are leaving!”

“Fuck that! I’m not moving her!”

“Maybe if you weren’t such an idiot she wouldn’t be dying!”

“NIM!” I gritted my teeth and Nim looked away as Callum and Nerissa yelled at him. It took all of my strength to not knock him the fuck out. He just huffed and looked away from me back to Celica.

“Listen you fucking mutt…” His eye snapped over to my face as the ground started to tremble. “Unless we need to…we are not moving her. So make yourself useful and find something to ease her pain until we can leave. I’d suggest you do that now…before I have to put you on a leash again.”

His eyes slitted as lightning crackled above us. It was a low blow, but honestly I was sick and tired of everything right now. We had to do something right on this mission, and I didn’t want to listen to him order me around right now. I’d apologize later if I felt like it.

“Hey!” Nerissa got between us and shoved us away from each other. “Ka’seem knock it off! Nim please…just take a lap or something. At the end of the day, we are stuck here and we…we have to make Celica comfortable.”

Nim didn’t say anything more as he stormed away and I looked away from Callum as he gave me a look. I realized the situation was dire, but everytime Nim gets riled up it leads to more problems. Something that we didn’t need right now.

The next few hours had to be the tensest hours of my life. Celica was in a constant state of delirium. She would wake up and mumble to herself, before passing out again. We had managed to find some things to eat, but she couldn’t hold any of it down. Her wound was also getting more concerning as it continued to slowly move across her body. I was terrified of what would happen if it reached her heart. When the others noticed, they tried to ignore it and hope for the best, but we were all nervous. We had to get off this planet.

Nerissa and the kid didn’t leave Celica’s side for a second. Nim and Callum had gone off to look for more food, but I was too focused on this planet. It should have started its feeding process already. It would be a disaster when it finally starts up. Lady Serafina and the Darkness were still fighting and it was starting to dawn on me that they could do this for a while. One of them would have to back off, and Lady Serafina would never leave us alone. They could fight each other over this planet for the next hundred years if they wanted.

Celica…she didn’t have that kind of time. Lady Serafina was the only one who could heal her at this point. She was getting weaker and weaker and her body was not healing itself anymore. We cleaned and managed her wounds as best we could, but it definitely wasn’t enough. I closed my eyes once more as I dug my fingers into the dirt. The planet was shifting again and it seemed that it was almost time.

“Ka’seem…” I kept my focus on my task, even though I probably should talk to him. With a frustrated breath, I stood up to face him, brushing the dirt from my clothes as I did. It really didn’t matter since I was covered in dirt and dried blood. My own injuries were screaming at me, but I just ignored it. “I know that you are worried about her…”

“Are you not worried about her?’

“....”

“Seriously?” I rolled my eyes as he frowned. “I know that you two have this love-hate thing going on, but I’m gonna need you to dip into the love part.”

“I don’t-”

“Yes you do, Nim. Despite how much the both of you fight, you care about her in some capacity. The way you looked at her said everything. It’s ok to be worried about her right now without professing an emotion that clearly isn’t there between you two.”

“....”

“Also…I’m sorry about earlier. It was out of line…I’m just really annoyed and nothing seems to be going right for us. I just want Celica to recover and the kid somewhere safe.”

“Agreed.” Closing my eyes, I rolled my neck to get an annoying knot out. I flinched as I opened them and Nim was in my face. “Y-Yeah?”

“You know that when we get home that I’m gonna kick your ass right?”

“Mmm…yeah yeah…” He smirked and I couldn’t help but chuckle. As much as he could be an ass, he was still one of my best friends. It was hard to be mad at the bastard for too long. “Also…I think the planet is about to start feeding-”

The ground suddenly started to shift and we both lost our footing. It seemed that the planet was going to start feeding. I had no idea how it started, but we had to move. Nim and I rushed back to the others and Callum had already picked Celica up. Nerissa had a hold on Altair and with a quick nod we all rushed off into the treetops. The trees were starting to bend and twist under the movements of the planet. Creatures of all sizes were running and flying away but most of them were being crushed by falling trees and sinking under the dirt.

It wasn’t long before we reached some flat land and booked it across. The ground was starting to open up under our feet and I could briefly see what looked like several rows of mouths. When I said the planet had a feeding process, I didn’t expect to see that. The mouths were leaking with something that looked like acid, probably making it easier to digest things. It would be fascinating to study, but I would have to do that later. Nerissa pulled some water from the air, and made us a bridge to run over.

Unfortunately, the mouths did more than just leak acid. It started to spit it out into large fountains. Some of it caught Nerissa on the shoulder and our water bridge wavered and dissolved. I quickly pulled some of the dirt up to keep our momentum. I looked back at Callum and Celica and they seemed fine and so did the kid. We continued to run until we were under a cliffside, and finally caught our breaths as the planet shifted and changed around us. The mountains and ground rose and shifted and more and more creatures were falling prey to it. I felt kind of bad for them having to die like that.

That was nature at its finest I suppose.

As Celica continued to weaken and with it the temperature dropped. We all huddled together as we waited out the planet’s feast. The worst thing about it all was the wait, and we had no idea what would come first. The end of the fighting between the Light and Darkness, or the end of our dear friends’ life…

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#Ka'seem #Celica #Altair #Nerissa #Nim #Callum #creatures #writing #my writing #original story #original work #angst #fighting

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