#not present but INJURED APPRENTLY

[andiinaraethtash]

*slides into your mailbox with lightsabers and blue cookies* I have this idea of Paul getting Percy a lightsaber as a wedding present because not only is he marrying Sally, he’s also stepping up as a father and for the family moon, they go to Montauk and have a lightsaber duel while Sally roasts marshmallows watching her two boys get along and is happy because Percy gets to be a kid

I love the idea of Paul stepping up, he is the best, I love him so much.

Also I'm taking this as permission to rant about @itsybitsybatsyspider and my au, which just. Buckle in, it's a long one.

So it's very much a "Percy Jackson in the star wars universe," type thing, but like. Non-specific in terms of when in the timeline it takes place? I've kinda got it in my head that it's after KOTOR/SWTOR, but before the high republic.

So the idea is that the twelve Olympian gods are the twelve Counselors, with Zeus being the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order. All the rest of the gods have their different rolls related to their areas of power. Eg, Demeter is the Gardenmaster, Hestia is like. Jocasta Nu in terms of her role? She maintains things, though she's not on the Counsel. Similarly, Hades is the Head of the Jedi Shadows, and he sat in on a lot of the meetings when he was on planet.

Percy is a young (ie, like. 14) Force-sensitive who gets brought to the temple. He eventually gets apprenticed to the Nautoluan Jedi Master Po'Seiden (I should mention that in this au, Percy is half-Nautolaun. For absolutely no reason. Totally has nothing to do with the fact that Master Po'Seiden visited his home planet 15 years ago AND met Sally, no sir, not at all).

Anyway, he meets and immediately irritates young initiate Annabeth Chase, who's been trying to get Master Athena's attention so she'll be her Master. Percy's impertinence is getting in her way of being chosen as Master Athena's Padawan.

So naturally they get pulled into an adventure, and end up becoming fast friends, and share a friend in the (possibly part-Deveronian? Tdb) Grover Underwood, who's Master is a Seeker, finding young Force-sensitives and bringing them to the Temple.

I'm not sure how the Lightning Theif works exactly? But the basics stay the same: Zeus's weapon--a beautiful golden-white duel-bladed lightsaber--has been stolen, Zeus suspects Percy (reasons unknown) who then has to try to track down Jedi Master Hades, who's suspected to have had a hand in it. Only they find out that HIS weapon has been stolen as well, and both end up in the hands of Master Ares, a Zabrak who held the dubious honor of being the most aggressive practitioner of Djem So in the Order. He gets put on probation, especially once it's learned that he has been influenced through his dreams by the long-thought-dead Sith Lord Kronos.

As has the recently-knighted Luke Castellan, though by the time they realize that, it's too late. He's completely Fallen. It had been a long time coming; one of his crechemates and longest-time friends had been critically injured during a mission, and had been left behind on Zeus's (her own Master!) orders. Thalia had been rescued by Grover and his Master, but it was too little, too late. Thalia was so close to dead no one really had any hope.

We haven't quite decided whether Annabeth does get apprenticed to Athena, or to Chiron (who might be a Wookie, might be one of Yoda's species. Again, tbd). But she does get a Master by the end of it!

So Percy is half-Nautolan, and has a sea-green lightsaber. Itsy has art of him, but I don't wanna share it without their consent. (Also i want to let them share their thoughts.) But like. He has gills, which aren't readily visible, so Annabeth freaks out the first time she sees them in action, because they look like his throat has been slit in multiple places. Percy mostly uses the Force to manipulate his environment, eventually learning to make earthquakes.

Annabeth, meanwhile, is at least mostly human, who uses a shorter, bronze lightsaber, made mostly from components Luke had gifted her. The crystal, I think, is hers, just by nature of how kyber crystals work. She's very agile, using the Force to leap around and move quickly enough to get close enough to end her enemies before they can react.

We have a whole thing planned for SoM, sorta a plan for BotL, and some idea of how TTC would go. But if I keep going I'm gonna make myself so worked up I'm gonna be awake all night. Lemme know if you have questions! Also bug Itsy if you wanna.

[phloxclan]

Wisteriaheart, Carnation, and their kits.

Wisteriaheart and Carnation * They were seeing each other for a few moons before Carnation was injured. When Wisteriaheart couldn't find her one day, he assumed she'd moved on. He was very surprised to see Halfsnap bringing her to camp. He was worried about her injuries, but fully believed she would recover. * Carnation, for her part, had been considering joining the clan, but really valued her freedom as a loner. Her plan was to wait until she was expecting kits, then join the clan. The fact that it happened in reverse was pretty ironic, and she would've been amused if she hadn't been injured. By that point, she was pretty sure she wasn't going to survive.

Carnation and the kits * Carnation was in and out of consciousness by the time the kits were born, and she was really only present for Fruitstreak's birth. * Carnation named Fruitstreak after the pear tree she used to live under. * If she'd been able to name the others, they would have been - Emberkit (Fluffyrustle), Flowerkit (Sorrelbloom), Moonkit (Ratstalk), Frostkit (Carnationpaw). * As it stands, she likes Sorrelbloom's name and is neutral on Fluffyrustle's. * She did not like Carnationpaw being named after her, but understood why it happened. * She was furious over Ratstalk's name. Rat is a respectable name, but Wisteriaheart did not mean it in a respectable way. * She was heartbroken to meet Carnationpaw so soon, but they are enjoying their bonding time. * Both of them were watching closely and proudly at the other's warrior ceremonies.

Wisteriaheart and the kits * Wisteriaheart was fully convinced Carnation would survive, and did not brace himself to be a single parent. He hadn't really planned on being a parent at all, to be honest. * When Coppersight asked if he wanted to name the other kits, he almost refused. Moons later, he wishes he had. * He didn't name Fluffyrustle or Sorrelbloom because his head was simply empty when he looked at them. There was nothing there. Later, he attributes this to them looking too much like him, but that may or may not have been the cause. * Carnationpaw's name was easy. She looked exactly like Carnation. * When he saw Ratstalk, he said they looked like a tiny rat, all shriveled and weird. Coppersight assured him that all kits looked like that, especially ones with white fur, but he still named them Rat after that first impulse. * When the kits were young, he mostly ignored Fluffyrustle and Sorrelbloom. Sorrelbloom took this hard, while Fluffyrustle ignored him in return. * Fruitstreak was treated more like a friend's kit than his own. He was distant, but nice. * He took more of an interest in Carnationpaw and Ratstalk. Unfortunately, he created a golden child - scapegoat dynamic with them. The rest of the clan stepped in to try to compensate for this, with middling results. By the time they were apprenticed, Ratstalk wanted nothing to do with their father and wasn't very close with their siblings. * Carnationpaw's relationship with her siblings also suffered as a result, particularly her relationships with Ratstalk and Sorrelbloom. She and Sorrelbloom were able to bond some as apprentices, but were never as close as they could've been. * Carnationpaw's death changed a lot for Wisteriaheart. It wasn't a sudden 180, but it did open his eyes. He regretted his previous behavior and made an effort to be a better parent. This worked well enough for Fruitstreak and Sorrelbloom, but was too little too late for Fluffyrustle and Ratstalk. * Despite their repeated refusal to bond with him, Wisteriaheart wants desperately to be closer with Ratstalk. He claims this is both from a desire to be close to all his kits and a deep regret for the way he treated them. Ratstalk doubts this, secretly believing it has more to do with them looking the most like Carnation and Carnationpaw of the remaining kits. Regardless of the motive, Ratstalk has no interest in bonding, and most of the clan is on their side.

[elementclangen]

Moon 140-Leaf-fall

Chasingskip (52) and Caterpillarmallow’s (90) kits have been made apprentices!  When it’s time for her ceremony, Burrowkit (6) runs up to the front of the crowd in excitement, eager to get her name.  She’s apprenticed to Amethystdapple (67), as it’s long past time for the senior warrior to get her first apprentice.  Cypresspaw (6), despite having a medium powerful wind blessing, has been apprenticed to the powerless Cressfreckle (56).  She’s not sure how she feels about that.  Does he even know how to train her to use her powers to fight?  Cressfreckle assures her that he does.  He has experience working with wind-blessed cats.  Sleepypaw (6) is given to Steppemimic (23) as an apprentice and is excited to learn how to be a Healer and fill out ElementClan’s complement of them.  Caterpillarmallow is a little nervous about having one of her kits in the healer's den with her, and she confesses as much to her sister-in-law, Frostheart (43).  The other she-cat reassures her that she’ll do great.  Moorleg (52) is a little frustrated to be stuck in camp again after getting injured.  She’s been telling jokes about Burrowpaw and wonders how easy it would be to attack Yuccastar from where she’s laying. . .not that she would ever do that.  Strawberrytrail (128) notices that Gladepatch (16) has been a little distracted lately and convinces him to play a game.  Cressfreckle watches and thinks about how Yellowcreek used to love hanging out with the elders.  There’s so much of the father in the son.  It helps ease the ever present ache in Cressfreckle’s heart.

[blorboclaw]

what do you think would‘ve happened if Tigerkit died and his sisters lived?

OK so here it goes:

Pinestar is about to make his great announcement that he's leaving when his two daughters, Nightkit and Mistkit, catch his eye. Bluefur is playing with them while Leopardfoot gets better.

"Where's the tom-kit?" Pinestar asks, feeling like there's something weird going on.

"He's dead" Bluefur answers plainly, because she's mad that he missed the birth by a whole 24 hours.

Pinestar realizes that Tigerkit won't bring destruction or whatever, and he's not forced to leave. He misses Shanty, and he doesn't want to stop going to speak with Jake, Crystal and the others, but he doesn't have to leave in order to protect the clan.

"What did you gather us for?" someone asks.

"Nothing" is the most reasonnable answer, but he cannot say that because it would be suspicious. So he says "we're taking back the sunning rocks right now", because he let Riverclan have it a few days earlier and everyone was giving him the stink eye for it.

Thunderclan patrol to Sunning Rocks. Take it without a fight because there's no riverclan patrol around.

The first time Bluefur and Oakheart meet in a “romantic” way was because Oakheart was trespassing because Riverclan had Sunning Rocks

Ergo if Thunderclan has the sunning rocks, Bluefur doesn’t meet Oakheart in any kind of romance-inducing setting. No BlueOak romance.

Mistkit and Nightkit grow up. They are apprenticed to Thistleclaw and Bluefur under the name Mistpaw and Nightpaw. Although their father is distant, he is present in their lives. Mistpaw refuses to attack Tiny/Scourge because her sister is present and one of the adults is saying she shouldn’t, etc. She then tells Pinestar and Leopardfoot about what happened and Pinestar punishes Thistleclaw and gives Mistpaw to Sunfall. Pinestar later dies of illness and Sunfall becomes Sunstar. Bluefur becomes his deputy right away because she has had an apprentice.

Pinestar losing one life for his clan, then Sunstar having nine, mean a delay of two lives before Bluestar becomes leader. That means she won’t have one but three left by Forest of Secrets.

But back to Mistkit and Nightkit. They become Mistcloud and Nightfall. Mistcloud later becomes mate with Darkstripe and they become Sandstorm’s parents. Mistcloud becomes Dustpelt’s mentor while Nightfall is Ravenpaw’s.

Tigerclaw not being alive means Redpaw/tail is killed by a bird of prey. Bluestar choses Nightfall as her deputy. Nightfall accidentally kills Oakheart. Ravenpaw has a pretty normal apprenticeship. He becomes Ravenclaw around the time Graystripe and Fireheart become warriors, after having toppled Shadowclan’s political system.

Darkstripe and Longtail are totally normal warriors, mildly xenophobic maybe, but nothing to do with their canon characters.

No Bloodclan because no Scourge and no Tigerstar bringing them into the forest.

Anyway in Rising Storm, Bluestar loses a life to the fire because she’s not paranoid and she stays behind to save Yellowfang. No Bramblekit either since no Tigerclaw. Yellowfang in turn drags Bluestar’s lifeless body out of the fire and dies of smoke inhalation. Bluestar is down to two lives. During a Dangerous Path she makes Swiftpaw, Brightpaw and Thornpaw warriors at the same time as Cloudpaw: Swiftheart, Brightfang and Thornclaw. Brightfang is not injured.

Darkstripe and Mistcloud give birth to Tigerkit and Bramblekit. No Tigerclan, no big battle. Actually they accepted the rogues back and Blackfoot became leader with Russetfur as his deputy.

Skyclan is reunited. At the expense of Fireheart’s life, because he only has one. When Sandstorm returns, she discovers that Bluestar died of old age or something and was replaced by Nightfall (Nightstar II)

Mistcloud’s kit Brambleflower (female), Cedarheart, Feathertail (+Stormfur) and Crowpaw are sent to find Midnight. Everything is like before except Squirrelpaw didn’t follow Brambleflower because she was never born.

Nightstar II made Dustpelt her deputy. She dies a few times here and there, Great Journey, no Firestar to be called upon Tallstar’s death bed so no Windclan succession war because no thunderclan meddling, Onestar becomes leader and Mudclaw is his deputy. No Hawkfrost either, which contributes. The bridge to go to the gatherings doesn’t kill anyone when falling.

No Dark Forest actually, or only Brokenstar, Mapleshade and Thistleclaw in it. Nightfall receives a prophecy talking about the kin of Fireheart, who died long ago and only had Cloudtail as his kin. She suggests Brambleflower to get cozy with Cloudtail in order for CLoudtail’s kin to be also hers, and since in all my aus where Swiftpaw survives, Brightheart goes with him, here Brambleflower tries to get with him. However, here comes Daisy, who gets with Cloudtail instead.

Rosepetal and Toadstep have great senses and fighting abilities. There’s no third yet... When Berrynose has his kits (Cherryfall and Molewhisker) it is revealed to Nightstar II that Cherryfall is the niece of Toadstep and Rosepetal, so their kin, and that Toad and Rose are kin to Fireheart through Cloudtail. The “kin of your kin” was not a poetic formula but a way to say they were not directly related to Fireheart.

The Dark Forest is way less powerful than before. Dovewing ends up with Bumblestripe because she doesn’t meet Tigerheart through the Beavers Patrol because no great senses.

Dustpelt dies in the Storm while Nightstar still has three lives (the life taken by scourge wasn’t, the life taken by rats wasn’t, and the tree at the end of the battle wasn’t because it was a narrative ploy which has no reason to happen if she still has two lives left after.

Bumblestripe becomes Nightstar II’s deputy. Nightstar loses a life to greencough, one to the flood probably, and one in a battle against the Kin. Bumblestar ascends to leadership with Ivypool as his deputy. Twigbranch was found by a patrol led by Stormcloud and Cherryfall’s kit Alderheart who becomes medicine cat. Before him, since there was no Leafpool nor Jayfeather after Cinderpelt’s death, it was Ashfur who got volunteered despite himself to become medicine cat, mentored by Mothwing in a hurry.

TL;DR: If Mistkit and Nightkit had survived instead of Tigerkit, Cherryfall would have been the Third of the Prophecy and Bumblestripe would have become leader.

[warriors-rewritten-chaos]

Rewrite’s Warrior Code

This is the original list of rules in the Warrior Code at the beginning of my rewrite. Most of these have been copy-pasted from the original, with some new ones added

1. Defend your Clan, even with your life. You may have friendships with cats from other Clans, but your loyalty must remain to your Clan, as one day you may meet them in battle

2. Do not hunt or trespass on another Clan's territory. The only exceptions to this rule are cats who are on their way to the Moonstone, have a message from their Clan’s Leader to give to that Clan, or need to ask the other Clan for help

3. Elders, monarchs, sick or injured cats, and kits must be fed before the apprentices and warriors. Unless they have permission, apprentices may not eat until they have hunted to feed the elders

4. Prey is killed only to be eaten. Give thanks to StarClan for its life

5. A cat must be at least six moons old to become an apprentice

6. Newly appointed warriors will keep a silent vigil for one night after receiving their warrior name

7. The current Deputy of the Clan will become Clan Leader when the leader dies, retires, or is exiled; however, if certain circumstances are present this will not be the case

8. After the death, retirement, promotion (to a Leader status), or exile of the Deputy, the new Deputy must be chosen before moonhigh

9. A Gathering of all the Clans is held at the full moon during a truce that lasts for the night. There shall be no fighting among Clans at this time

10. Boundaries must be checked and marked daily. Challenge all trespassing cats

11. No warrior can neglect a kit in pain or danger, even if the kit is from a different Clan

12. The word of the Clan Leader is the Warrior Code. However, cats may challenge a weak or cruel Leader if their Clan is in danger, and if their leadership threatens the Clan, the Code expects a warrior to challenge their Leader

13. An honorable warrior does not need to kill other cats to win their battles, unless they are outside the warrior code or if it is necessary for self-defense

14. A warrior rejects the soft life of a kittypet

15. Medicine cats may not have a mate or kits, as they must be able to heal all cats equally

16. Kits must stay in camp until they are apprenticed, and are not allowed to hunt

17. The safety of the Clan as a whole is more important than the safety of one cat

18. Clans must not unite together to drive out another Clan

19. Clans must not force another Clan to share territory

20. Enemy patrols must not attack cats if they are on a mission that all four Clans have agreed upon

21. Cats cannot eat when going to the Moonstone or Moonpool to speak with StarClan

22. Attacking or otherwise harming a Medicine Cat for any reason barring self-defense, even in battle, will result in punishment as the Medicine Cat’s own Clan sees fit ranging from chores and hunting for them to exile or even execution

23. Likewise, harming any cat under the protection and care of a Medicine Cat, even in battle, is to be punished as the cats’ own Clan sees fit

24. Each Clan has the right to be proud and independent, but in times of trouble they must forget their boundaries and fight side by side to protect the collective. Each Clan must help the others so that no Clan will fall

[nabesthetics]

[a-silver-dragoness]

I made some very minor edits to the Warrior Code from ASC River. I've been wanting to put the Code on my art wall, but I also wanted something that I'd be comfortable following. I might eventually get around to posting my art here, but as it stands, I am in a serious art block and my brain is numb and mushy.

Warrior Code :

1. Defend all the Clans, even with your life. Your first loyalty is to your Clan, but all cats who follow the warrior code are your allies. Each Clan must ensure that no other Clan falls.

2. Nevertheless, each Clan is proud and independent, with traditions that must always be respected.

3. An honorable warrior does not need to kill other cats to win their battles, killing is permitted only in self-defense.

4. Elders, queens, sick or injured cats and kits must be fed before apprentices and warriors. Unless they have permission, apprentices may not eat until they have hunted to feed the elders.

5. A Gathering of all five Clans is held at the full moon during a truce that lasts for the night.

6. No warrior can neglect a kit in pain or danger.

7. A kit must be at least six moons old to become an apprentice.

8. The deputy will become Clan leader when the leader dies, retires, or is exiled.

9. After the death, retirement, promotion, or exile of the deputy, the new deputy must be chosen before moonhigh.

10. If a Clan member believes that their leader is no longer leading with honor and integrity, they can challenge them. Three-quarters of the Clan members, including their medicine cats, must agree. Their objections will then be presented to the leaders of the other Clans. If the other leaders agree, all medicine cats will request that StarClan remove the leader's remaining lives and give them to the deputy. These objections cannot be raised by the deputy.

11. A warrior or medicine cat may switch their allegiance from one Clan to another but must meet a set of conditions. The cat wishing to change Clans must perform a task of their intended Clan’s choosing. If they succeed, it will be deemed StarClan’s will that they change Clans, and their request will be granted.

12. Prey is killed only to be eaten. Give thanks to StarClan for its life.

13. Newly appointed warriors will keep a silent vigil for one night after receiving their warrior name.

14. A cat cannot be made deputy without having mentored at least one apprentice.

15. A warrior rejects the soft life of a kittypet, but cannot be cruel or harsh to cats outside the Clans.

16. Boundaries must be checked and marked daily. Challenge all trespassing cats—but a warrior must always remember that all cats follow the warrior code.

Additional Rules:

1. Medicine cats are discouraged from having a mate or kits, but it is not forbidden, as long as they are still able to heal all cats equally.

2. Kits must stay in camp until they are apprenticed, and are not allowed to hunt.

3. The safety of the Clan as a whole is more important than the safety of one cat.

4. Clans must not unite together to drive out another Clan.

5. Clans must not force another Clan to share territory.

6. Enemy patrols must not attack cats if they are on a mission that all four Clans have agreed upon.

7. Cats cannot eat when going to the Moonstone or Moonpool to speak with StarClan.

[live-the-fangirl-life]

Rowaelin Month Collection 2021/2022/2023

Main Masterlist | Collections Masterlist

*All fics listed within a collection are also on my masterlist for their particular fandom. I am just a slut for organization, so I've categorized certain fics for easier navigation*

Rowaelin Month 2021

D1 - Drug-Induced Declarations

Prompt: "I just realized I'm desperately in love with you." After getting her wisdom teeth out, Aelin makes a profound realization.

D2 - Computer Screens and Love Scenes

Prompt: College/University. "You caught me reading hardcore smut during class and you're wondering how I can read this with a straight face."

D4 - My Library, My Love

Prompt: Librarian/Library. After moving into their new home, Rowan helps Aelin organize her new library and gifts her a very special present.

D5 - Objects in Mirror are Closer than they Appear

Prompt: "I accidentally hit you with my car." Aelin will be the first to admit that parallel parking is not her forte.

D8 - An Unintentional Encounter

Prompt: Blind Date. A blind date gone wrong...or very right?

D11 - The Taste of Your Lips

Prompt: Surprise Kisses. Who enjoys kissing Rowan more? Aelin, or Fleetfoot?

D12 - The Court: The Last One

Prompt: Delayed Love Confession. The Court. Rowan, after realizing he's still in love with Aelin, chases her down, refusing to let her go. Meanwhile, Eldie and Lorcan welcome their baby...or babies, into the world.

D13 - Tattoos and Tulips

Prompt: Flower Shop/Tattoo Parlour. Part 2 of Parlors and Petals. Aelin, while apprenticing at Elide's Tattoo Parlor, meets a very handsome, very charismatic Florist's Assistant

D14 - A Starlit Swim

Prompt: Skinny Dipping. Aelin shows Rowan to a lovely, secluded spot.

D17 - Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Prompt: Bodyguard. With Rowan injured, Aelin steps up to be his faithful protector.

D28 - When a Book Beckons

Prompt: Bookshop. When Aelin finds a flyer advertising a strange bookshop, she can't help but follow its cryptic directions. Why does she feel called to it? And why does the mysterious, silver-haired bookkeeper feel so familiar?

Rowaelin Month 2022

✨Sept 12-25, 2022✨

D1 - Twist of Fate

Prompt: SongFic. Aelin and Rowan find second chances at love in each other. SongFic based on “Twist of Fate” by Olivia Newton-John.

D3 - To the Ends of the Earth

Prompt: Travel/Vacation. An A World Away Companion. Aelin and Rowan decide their next adventure. Be it fate or bad aim, it'll be somewhere neither have ever been before.

D5 - Incriminating Questions

Prompt: A Trip to the Hospital. Malicious closet doors and broken bones.

D6 - Study Specs

Prompt: College/University AU. Aelin may have finally found her weakness, not that she'd admit to having one in the first place. She was not prepared for what seeing Rowan in a pair of glasses would do to her.

D7 - Divine Intervention

Prompt: Holiday Celebration. "The Ouiia board says you're a little shit." / "Oh, my gods, I think the crystal ball is working. The spirits are telling me you're a dumbass?

D10 - Drive, Just Drive

Prompt: An Unconventional Way to Get a Date. When someone runs towards you screaming "Run", you run. When someone throws themselves in your car and screams "Drive", you drive.

Rowaelin Month 2023

D1 - Timeless [Immortals]

Prompt: SongFic. Inspired in part by Timeless by Taylor Swift, Immortals by Fall Out Boy, and by my own historical research fixations. Also a tiny bit of Istanbul by They Might be Giants

[alarawriting]

52 Project #41: The Blood Mage

Based on the prompt here.

***

Ailurin was five when she learned what she was.

Her older brother, a lanky eight, had just run away with her favorite doll, laughing. Ailurin ran after him, screaming “Give her back!”, but the boy was too entertained by his sister’s impotent rage to heed her. He ran straight up to the pond, grinned malevolently at his shrieking sister, and tossed the doll into the pond.

And then swayed on his feet, dizzily, his skin – ruddy from exercise – turning pale as snow. Ailurin stood in front of him, her little fists clenched, her eyes lit from inside like any magic user’s would be, her face a mask of fury as her brother toppled to the ground, narrowly avoiding falling into the pond himself.

In another town, there might have been a very different outcome. A child summoning magic that nearly kills another child? Somewhere less sophisticated than Ailurin’s town might have burned her as a witch. But she lived only an hour’s ride from the capital of their homeland Paozo, her father an experienced merchant who went to the city all the time, her mother a nurse in the Healers’ Guild, and so she had a far more auspicious fate than that.

It was the next day, after her brother had been fed with bloody meat and wine so watered down it was barely even alcoholic, and she’d been fed leafy greens, mushrooms and trout to help her avoid the muscle cramps that came with magic overuse, that her father put her on the back of his horse, and they rode together to the capital, where the Queen’s Academy of Magicks stood.

***

All magic was based in an element, but there were focused specializations.

A general earth mage could perform workings with dirt and rocks. A metal mage could do nothing with dirt and rocks, but had a level of precision control over metal that a more general earth mage couldn’t match. Likewise, there were general water mages who could change the flow of a river, and then specialized ice mages who could manipulate water only when it was frozen.

There were combination specialists as well. A weather mage fell under water, air and fire, but couldn’t affect a river or put out a blaze, directly – by bringing rain, perhaps, but the magic that could call lightning couldn’t affect a fire. A lodestone mage specialized in iron and other lodestone metals, but could call lightning just like a weather mage.

But one thing was true of all elemental mages. None could directly affect living things. The water and air within an animal’s body, the green growing things on the earth – those were subject to no magic anyone had ever heard of.

Ailurin broke that mold. Her specialization fell under water, but she could do what no water mage had ever been able to do in all recorded history… and control blood.

There were many tests to find the limits of her power – tests that were presented to her as games. She could not cause a body to move by pulling on the blood inside it (and how she cried for the rat she accidentally exsanguinated while they were testing that. Pulling on the blood inside a body only pulled it out of the body.) She could not work with the “blood” of plants or animals without spines; a heart and circulatory system were needed. She could cause blood to clot, but once it was a clot, the only magic she could perform on it was to dissolve it.

What could she do then? Well, her mother was a nurse, and had many suggestions for her teachers in magic. She had already proven she could slow the flow of blood to different parts of the body… her brother had fainted because she’d interrupted the flow of blood to his brain. She could also speed the flow of blood, to aid the recovery of a person who’d fainted for more natural reasons. When people suffered the sickness of terrible pain within their veins, Ailurin was able to find clots inside their bodies, blocking the flow, and she could dissolve those. People with the bleeding disease, whose blood would never clot and seal their wounds… she could close those wounds.

And when a person’s heart seized and stopped, she could usually get it moving again by taking over its function, using her magic to push the blood through the body until whatever had blocked the heart was gone, and it could beat naturally again.

For a child with such magics, there were only two possible choices: the soldiers’ corps, or the Healers’ Guild. But a girl who cried for the rat she’d accidentally killed had no temperament for using her control over blood to kill, and her mother had many contacts within the Healers’ Guild.

Ailurin spent three years studying her own magic, learning its limits. Then she was apprenticed to the Healers’ Guild, learning how to care for the injured and sick, so she could discover how best to use her magic to heal.

And what a healer she was! With Ailurin’s magic, the healers learned many new things about bodies. For instance, in many of the cases where a person was felled by a sudden stopping of their heart, it was because their veins had narrowed and it was too difficult for blood to find its way through. Some of these people could be helped by leech treatment. People who suddenly lost the use of limbs on one side of their body, and the proper working of their tongue, often had a clot inside their brains, and if it was dissolved immediately, they could sometimes make a full recovery. Tinctures of cinnamon and turmeric could make it harder for the blood to clot, and when Ailurin dissolved a clot in the body, the patients treated with such tinctures were less likely to relapse.

By the time she was declared Doctor – the title for a person fully trained to diagnose and treat a patient within the Healers’ Guild, as opposed to a Master Doctor who could take an apprentice, or an Intern who was an advanced apprentice – Ailurin and her magic had been responsible for the discovery of many new secrets of human and animal bodies that no healer had known before, and the discovery of treatments to help against things that had previously killed or maimed without warning or cure.

***

Most of the nation’s guilds were in fact the nation’s guilds. Ailurin’s nation had a leatherworkers’ guild, and the nation to the north had a leatherworker’s guild, and the two to the south both had their own leatherworkers’ guilds, and so forth.

Not so the Healers’ Guild. There was only one Healers’ Guild, spanning the known world. All healers swore their primary allegiance to the Healer’s Creed:

·         I will treat any patient in need, regardless of their creed, their nation, or their customs.

·         I will cause no harm to any, save in the preservation of life and health for those who come before me.

·         Though I may charge a fair and reasonable fee for my services, as set by the Healers’ Guild, I will never charge more than such a fee.

·         I shall have no sexual or romantic relations with one who comes before me to be healed. Should my own husband or wife fall ill, or one with whom I am courting or engaged, I will refer them to one of my colleagues, unless the situation should be so dire that that is not possible.

·         Likewise, I will not treat my family members, but refer them to a colleague, unless life or health should fail immediately if I do not.

·         In conflicts between nations, I will not take sides. I will swear again on my own life that I will treat any who come before me, even soldiers engaged in warfare on my nation.

Every company of soldiers traveled with Healers’ Guild members, and there was a Healers’ Tent at the site of every battle… often a tent that contained the healers of both the armies meeting in combat. It was an ironclad rule that no soldier could keep their weapon within the Healers’ Tent, and that soldiers or civilians from either side of the conflict were welcome in the tent if they were injured.

Ailurin began her career treating elderly city dwellers with pains in their chest, but she thought that her magic might be more needed on a battlefield, so she began to travel with military companies.

She saved many, many lives. Men who would have bled to death survived, because Ailurin was able to keep their blood inside their bodies until the wound could be cauterized or stitched. At times, she could even restore a severed limb; if the limb and the place it was severed from were both washed in the strongest of spirits, to drown any of the evil spirits that caused illness, she could cause the blood to flow between the limb and the place it was severed from, as her colleagues sewed the limb back on. The arms and legs that were so restored were never as strong as they had been, and those soldiers usually returned home as war-wounded with their pensions… but the limbs that had been severed cleanly by swords were back on their bodies, weaker but still of use.

Ailurin found as well that her magic could transfer the blood from a dead man, if he was freshly dead, to a dying man who’d lost too much blood to live otherwise. She learned to detect the spirit of the blood, to match it with a soldier of similar spirit… and, knowing of these spirits through her magic, she was able to devise a test that other healers could use to tell if the spirits would be friendly to each other, or hostile. Healers’ assistants who went out on the battlefield to retrieve the injured now retrieved the dead as well, in hopes that their blood was still fresh enough to save other soldiers. Often, ice mages, whose talents had been traditionally used in the Healers’ Guild to make poultices to reduce swelling and to preserve potions that would otherwise go bad, found themselves keeping dead bodies cold. Ailurin was still the only blood mage, but what she could do with magic, other healers found ways to do with potions or devices.

Within the Healers’ Guild Ailurin was remembered for the many discoveries she made or helped to make, and the many lives she saved directly. But there is another thing they remember her for as well.

***

She was traveling with a company from Paozo when their battalion met one from Shemora, and a fierce battle broke out. A Healers’ Tent was stood up between the camps of both battalions, and within that tent, Ailurin and her colleagues were very busy.

In the evening, when the battle was done for the day and both sides had retreated to lick their wounds, and the Healers’ Tent was especially busy, the general of Paozo’s forces came to the tent in person.

His soldiers who were conscious and could move their limbs saluted him. The soldiers of Shemora watched him. The healers mostly ignored him, with the exception of the Master Doctor in charge of the tent, who didn’t really have that option. She finished setting a soldier’s leg bone where he’d been trampled by a horse, and then went to speak to the general.

“What can I do for you, General?” she asked.

“You can get these Shemoran scum off these beds,” the general said. “We’re not wasting our resources healing the enemy.”

“Excuse me?” The Master Doctor was shocked. “Our creed is to care for anyone who needs healing.”

“I don’t give a shit about your creed,” the general said. Soldiers of his battalion filed into the Healers’ Tent. “We’re taking this Shemoran trash as prisoners of war to free up these beds for our injured.”

“No. You’re not,” the Master Doctor said. “The Healers have no specific allegiance. We treat both sides equally.”

“Yes, that’s part of your creed,” the general said. “And the other part is to do no harm.” His soldiers drew their swords. “You have no weapons. You have nothing to stop us but your bare hands.” He turned back to his soldiers. “Kill any of them that are too badly injured to walk. The rest can march to the prison or die.”

“No,” Ailurin said, turning away from the man she had been treating. “I have a weapon.”

The general laughed. “Oh, yes, I can see you’re a great warrior!”

Most mages were bone-thin, unable to keep on any weight, for magic was fueled by life force. Ailurin was beautifully plump, looking more like a pampered noblewoman than a powerful mage. Her face was soft, her belly round, with voluptuous breasts and hips. Her blood magic had allowed her to learn how to slow her metabolism when she wasn’t using magic, to keep her weight on… not because she was vain and sought beauty, though beautiful she was, but because she needed the fuel for stamina. When your magic is the only thing keeping a person’s blood moving through their body, because they were stabbed in the heart, endurance in your magic becomes the most important trait you can have.

With her soft skin and rounded curves, Ailurin looked like a wealthy woman who was waited on hand and foot, not someone who’d ever lifted a sword in her life. But when she faced the general, her expression was hard and her eyes were cold. “I need no weapon,” she said. Her eyes glowed like any mage's would, and the general reached for his sword, gesturing with his other hand  to his men to be ready.

It didn’t help them. His men dropped like stones, their eyes rolling back.

“What have you done?” he shouted,  drawing his sword.

Ailurin stood her ground with no sign of fear, her eyes still glowing.  “I am Ailurin the Blood Mage, first of my kind, and my creed – the Healers' Creed  - is to do no harm except when needed to preserve the life and health of my patients. You threatened my patients. “

“So you killed my men?” the general raged.

“They’re merely unconscious. I am sworn to preserve life; I don’t kill if I can avoid it.”

“Ah. Well, then.” With no warning, the general lunged forward buried his sword in Ailurin ‘s heart.

She stumbled back slightly from the force of the thrust, but didn’t scream, or fall down… or bleed. As the general pulled his sword back, he stared in shock at her chest, and the complete absence of blood staining her healer’s robes. “What…?”

“Blood Mage,” Ailurin said impatiently, her eyes still glowing, showing the world that she was still using magic. “That was a very bad idea, general.”

And then the general began to bleed profusely from every pore of his body. He looked down at himself, at the blood trickling out of him everywhere, turning his uniform dark red. “What—what are you—you can’t—”

As he fell to his knees, dizzy from blood loss, Ailurin said, repeating the words of the Creed, “I will cause no harm to any, save in the preservation of life and health for those who come before me.” She looked down at the general. “You threatened to kill my patients. This is preserving their lives. You are no patient of mine, or anyone here.”

The general fell all the way to the floor then, lying in a pool of his own blood, dead. Ailurin looked up. “I’m sorry, Master Doctor. I’ll need to clean this up.”

“Doctor Ailurin!” One of the nurses ran to her. “Are you—”

“Doctor Ailurin, I saw you were stabbed!”

“How are you--?”

“I’ll live until I sleep,” Ailurin said. “He pierced my heart. I can keep the flow of blood going with my magic, but when I sleep, I’ll die.”

The Master Doctor called orders to the nurses. “Take the men who fainted, confiscate their weapons and keep them sedated for now. Orderlies, please remove the general.” As the healers’ assistants jumped into motion, she said to Ailurin, “Doctor, we can argue later about whether your actions were justified. For now… how well can you endure pain and use your magic?”

***

It required potions that dulled the pain without removing her ability to focus, but Ailurin was able to keep her own blood under control while her colleagues opened her ribs up and stitched the hole in her heart.

The soldiers who’d fainted were kept sedated with potions while Ailurin was recovering. The fact that their general was dead was something the healers considered best for them to find out after the Blood Mage was back to, if not her original strength, at least enough of her strength to defend the healers again. The ones who’d already been in the tent, being treated, knew – because the healers had told them – that if the general had succeeded, the healers would have withdrawn from the Paozon army entirely. If the neutrality of the healers could not be respected, they could not afford to give their services at all.

After the battle, the Master Doctors convened to determine whether Ailurin had broken the Creed. They determined that, because she had acted in defense of her patients’ lives, she would not be banished from the Guild, but that five years would be added to the time before she could become a Master Doctor, and take apprentices of her own. This didn’t bother her; no Blood Mages had been born after her. She had no one to train.

***

It was understood after that day that the Healers’ Creed allowed the healers to defend their patients with deadly force, if necessary. No other general attempted to force the healers to violate their creed. There was only one Blood Mage… but many mages of other specialties were healers, especially mages of Water and Air.

Many years later, after Ailurin had had her Master Doctor status for several years, the Guild sent her an apprentice… a girl whose magic let her see and manipulate the invisible spirits that cause disease, or good health, in people and animals. She was the first mage to have powers over what lay within living things since Ailurin herself. No one was certain what her magic was a branch of; eventually they’d guessed Air, because she commanded tiny invisible spirits, but the truth that Ailurin was beginning to suspect was that life itself was a fifth element.

Eventually, her brother – the one who’d stolen her doll, so long ago – had a grandson who had blood magic, the same as Ailurin had. And others appeared, slowly – mages who could make flesh heal, mages who could grow crops, mages who could ease the minds of the mad. She had been the first of the life mages, but she was not the last.

[northern-clans]

Firmoss Dynasty Warrior Code

Firmoss Dynasy is not set in the exact same universe as Warrior Cats, and thus there are some core differences in expected behaviours of Warriors. This outstretches into the Warrior Code having some stark differences while sharing a lot of the same. The code goes as follows:

1. Defend your Dynasty, even with your life. You may have friendships with cats from other Dynasties, but your loyalty must remain to your Dynasty, as one day you may meet them in battle.

2. Do not hunt or trespass on another Dynasty's territory

3. Elders, queens, sick or injured cats and kits must be fed before apprentices and warriors. Unless they have permission, apprentices may not eat until they have hunted to feed the elders.

This rule is often flux when it comes to high prey situations.

4. Prey is killed only to be eaten. Give thanks to The Sky Dynasty for its life.

5. A kit must be at least six moons old to become an apprentice. If the kit is not ready to be apprenticed at six moons, they may be apprenticed later.

A kit between being a kit and an apprentice is allowed to participate to in-camp apprentice activities but holds no responsibilities that apprentices do. Pre-apprentices are often affectionately referred to as “Fledglings.” There are many reason for a kit to become a Fledgling temporarily. Shinepaw, for example, was going through being a Fledgling because of needing time to heal from an injury. Windpaw was a Fledgling while she decided what path she wished to walk.

6. Newly appointed warriors will keep a silent vigil for one night after receiving their warrior name.

The rule about a deputy needing to have had an apprentice is not present in this universe.

7. The remaining King or Queen will become Dynasty leader when the acting King or Queen dies, retires, or is exiled.

While not common, Leaders may also retire their duties early. In this case, The Sky Dynasty will invite both the leader and deputy to a ceremony to switch over the old leader’s lives to the deputy.

8. After the death, retirement, promotion (to a leader status), or exile of the deputy, the new deputy must be chosen before moonhigh.

9. A Gathering of all four Dynasties is held at the full moon during a truce that lasts for the night. There shall be no fighting among dynastiess at this time.

Gatherings are cherished and looked forward to by most dynasty cats. Sometimes the dynastiess hold little games for their enjoyement!

10. Boundaries must be checked and marked daily. 

Part about challenging all trespassing cats has been removed. The dynastiess in this universe are much more tolerant of loners, rogues and kittypets.

11. No warrior can neglect a kit in pain or danger, even if the kit is from a different dynasties.

12. The word of the King and Queen is the warrior code.

However, the King and Queen serve their dynasty. The dynasty may overthrow the leader as a group decision if the leader is abusing of their power. In this case, either the remaining King or Queen or Menders will take the leading position, depending on the situation.

13. An honorable warrior does not need to kill other cats to win their battles, unless they are outside the warrior code or if it is necessary for self-defense.

14. A warrior rejects the soft life of a kittypet.

The dynasties are known to recruit willing kittypets, however.

15. Each Dynasty has the right to be proud and independent, but in times of trouble they must forget their boundaries and fight side by side to protect the four. Each Dynasty must help the others so that no Dynasty will fall.

Additional rules:

The Moon Cave is a sacred ground, travelling there to meet with The Sky Dynasty is a sacred journey that cannot be disturbed. Even if it means crossing borders.

There must always be at least one serving Mender in each dynasty. If one Dynasty suffers an accident and loses all their menders, the other dynasties are to help them regain their footing.

Menders are held in high regard in this universe. There is no rules against Menders having kits of their own, as long as there is another serving mender that can uphold their duties. The entire dynasty is the family of the mender, they must not hold favourites regardless of blood familiarity.

Extra notes:

These rules are ancient and decades old. You may Ask Silverpelt about the creation of the four dynasties, if you are curious. She may have things to say regarding the warrior code.

Since the Code is ancient, it is followed but can be lenient if a new and difficult situation is to arise. Certain rules do not apply during crisis’. 

[alovesongshewrote]

Almost A Thousand Years - 1300 | Hisirdoux Casperan

Plot:  You’ve known Hisirdoux Casperan for almost a thousand years.  You’ve hated him for almost a thousand years.  And for almost a thousand years, you’ve been cursed to feel each others pain.  But somewhere in that time, things changed.  [Hisirdoux Casperan x Mostly Gender Neutral but Probably Female Presenting Based on How Historical Men Treat Them!Reader]

Word Count: 2,543

Warnings:  THIS ONE IS BIG SAD GUYS, minor character death, plague, fighting, blood, injury, enemies to lovers emphasis on enemies, reader gets called a wench by Douxie :(

A/N:  Two in one night because the last chapter was short, lol

Tag List: @furblrwurblr

Back | Next​

Before the plague, a few things happened.

You were in Italy, learning all you could during the renaissance.  It was a very exciting time for you, everything you were passionate about was reborn, and it felt like you were starting a new life with them.  Maybe, in this life, you wouldn’t have to hide as much.  You wouldn’t have to be a spy or a soldier to survive, you could just be as you were.  You could walk in the dark without fear.  You were full of hope for a brief and shining moment.

And then Hisirdoux Casperan found you.

You’d been in the market, purchasing a few things that you needed, as you do, when you caught a glimpse of a familiar familiar.  

So, you ran.  Again.

It definitely wasn’t the best plan, seeing as you brought a lot of unwanted attention to yourself.  That didn’t matter though, you just had to keep going.  You made it all the way out of town before the first spell was cast.  Blue magic, from him, hit you in the back, tripping you.

The unforgiving ground scratched up your hands, drawing blood and stinging your palms.  Quickly, you got to your feet.  Turning to face the apprentice, you saw him glaring at his own hands.  You smirked, knowing that whatever he did to you, he’d feel himself.  You took his distraction as an opportunity, casting a spell of your own, throwing him into a tree.

Then you winced, feeling the impact, and remembered that you'd feel whatever you did to him.

The wizard stood, raising his hands to attack you again, but a small black mass interrupted him, “Douxie!  Stop this!”

“Aww, your cat knows I’ll kill you!  How protective, how cute,”

“Shut up, wench!”

“Ooooh, emotional.  Love that,”

Hisirdoux looked like he’d attack you again any second, but Archie stopped him again, not even allowing him to speak this time, “You were a spy for the Gumm-Gumm army, (Y/N), why?”

You felt a little bad at that.  The familiar actually sounded hurt, which was a bit of a surprise for you.  You'd assumed that everyone in Camelot jumped to hating you, you never considered that you'd hurt anyone, “I-I didn’t-”

“It doesn’t matter!  The witch betrayed us, she betrayed Merlin!”  

“Douxie, please.  Whatever you do, remember, you will also feel it,”

The wizard scowled and put down his fists, deciding that you weren't worth the pain.  You did the same, glaring at them both.

“You should leave,” you told them, “The people around here aren’t crazy about strangers,”

And with that, you walked away.

You didn’t wait to see if the wizard stuck around.  You had to get home, pack up, and leave again.  It wasn’t safe here anymore.

--

A few years later, you were in France.  It was a beautiful country, really, full of rolling hills and stunning fields, breath-taking coasts, and awe-inspiring mountains.  It was lovely, really.

Unfortunately, it was also the Hundred Years War, so literally everyone was fighting literally all the time, and you, of course, got caught up in it.

You had tried to avoid it, you really did.  You'd wandered the countryside, trying your best to mind your own business, picking your way through a war-torn land and trying to admire the beauty in it at the same time

And then one afternoon, miles away from France, Douxie felt a sharp, intense pain in his arm.  He stared down at his limbs, concerned that he'd hurt himself somehow, but there was nothing on his skin.  He was fine.  Which meant you weren’t.

And you were not, in fact, fine.  You’d been stabbed.  Fortunately, not anywhere too important, but it was still enough to kill you if you didn’t get help.

And you assumed no one would help.  If Casperan felt this he was too far away to do anything, and he’d never help you, even if he could.  No one else knew you existed, and it wasn't like helping strangers was something everyone did.  Even if it were popular, the people around you were too busy fighting.  You had to face facts.  You were going to die here.

It wasn't pleasant, but the very least this was better than whatever Gunmar had planned for you.

You accepted your fate and stared at the sky, watching clouds float in and out of view.  And then they got closer.  You were confused for a moment before you realized that someone had picked you up.  You tried to see the face of your savior, but all you could see was a metal helmet.  The helmet of your savior faded away as you quickly lost consciousness.

You woke in a dim tent, lit only by lanterns and candles.  The space smelled of herbs and old blood.  In the corner of the tent was an older man, crouched over a wooden table, reading something.  You sat up and looked down at your arm.  It was well bandaged, sore still, but you would survive this wound.

“Good to see you’re awake,”  the man said, not looking up from his book.

“What?  Who are you?”  

“I am no one of consequence.  But you?  A youth such as yourself, unarmed in a battle?  There is something peculiar about you, no doubt about that,”

You paused for a moment.  He was right, you were peculiar, but hopefully, he hadn’t figured out just what was off about you.

“Why did you help me?”

“You’re a person, are you not?  You were in trouble, were you not?  It is my belief that every person who needs help should receive it,”

You could have laughed at that.  This man was himself peculiar in his beliefs.  You hadn’t met many humans with that particular mindset.

“How many people agree with that?”

“Enough of them to make the philosophy worth it,”

The man continued to shuffle around the tent, looking at books and messing with herbs.  You did your best to stand.  He turned to you.

“Good, you can stand,” he handed you a stack of books, which almost dropped immediately after receiving them, “Come!  We have injured men to attend to and little time to do it!”

The doctor left the tent, and you followed.

And you kept following.

For the next few years, you apprenticed under the good doctor, not only learning more about medicine but about humans themselves.  The more you worked with the doctor, the more people you met and healed, the more your admiration for man-kind grew.  You had seen the worst of humanity, but now you saw its other side.

The doctor was an amazing mentor.  He was strict, but not unkind, teaching you everything he knew.  You still had your secrets.  He never knew about your magic, and you never learned his name, but despite that, you made quite the team.  The doctor was always there through the frustration of a tough patient, or the grief of losing someone you couldn’t save.  He helped you navigate the world, something no one else had ever bothered to teach.  The man was quite like a father to you.

And the both of you enjoyed that bond.

One day, after assisting a woman in the birth of her child, the doctor told you something you doubted he’d told anyone else.

“Have I ever told you about my wife young (Y/N)?”

“I don’t believe so, master,”

“She was so beautiful.  Fearless and full of life.  She was the one who believed in people.  For years, I had my doubts about humanity.  I healed for coin and profit.  But she saw the world for what it really was, and she wanted to make it better.  She made me want to make it better,”

“She sounds incredible,”

“She was,”

“If I may, where is your wife now, master?”

“She passed some years ago, child.  I continue my practice in her name.  One day I hope-” he looked out on the horizon, gazing at the rising sun, “I hope I can see her again,”

You raised a hand to his shoulder, “One day master, but not too soon.  This world needs you a while longer,”

He placed a hand over yours, “I know.  I hope she does too,”

“I’m sure she’s alright with waiting for you master,”

It inspired you, how their love lasted.  How it inspired your mentor to be better.  How he hoped to see her in the life after this one, and how she waited for him.  You hoped that, maybe, you’d find a love like that for yourself one day.

--

Then the plague hit.

You and the doctor did everything in your power, but it wasn’t enough.  The pandemic would be a pandemic no matter what you did.

You traveled from town to town, trying your best to ease people's pain, but there was no cure.  You also had to avoid contracting the plague yourself.  Immortal or otherwise, the black death would still hurt, and might actually kill you.  You were even more concerned for your mentor, a mortal,  who was going on in years, becoming more fragile as the days went on.  It didn’t stop him from trying to help the public, for their own benefit and in the name of his wife.  You admired that.

And then he became infected.

You held him in your arms as he died, trying to hide your tears from the old man.  Instead of crying, you did your best to make small talk with the doctor, a tactic he taught you to keep the patient's mind from the pain.  You never thought that he’d be the patient.

“Do you remember that woman, Master?  The one without eyes?  She had such humor about her.  I hope she’s alright,”  

He only nodded.  But there was a curiosity in his eyes.  He had questions, and he wanted them answered before he left this world.  He did not want small talk.

“My dear (Y/N),” he’d rasped, “Tell me, how have you stayed so young?  It’s been years since I saved you from the battlefield, how do you retain your youth?”  

“It’s a story for another day, master,”

He sighed, “You should go, child.  You could become infected if you stay here,”

“No, no, I can’t leave you,”

“I don’t want you to go through this,” he coughed, “Please, (Y/N),”

“No, no, no, there has to be something else I can do, I-”

“(Y/N)-”

“No,” the tears came harder as you let go of the man and lifted your hands, “I’m sorry I hid this from you,”

You began to chant softly, something you hadn’t done in years.  Magic flew from your fingertips, a soft glow surrounded the doctor.  You ignored his wide eyes and kept going, using every healing spell you could think of, praying that it would work.

It didn’t.

Your mentor grabbed your hand, “Thank you, my child.  You’ve allowed me the chance to be your guide, your teacher, and now you’ve shown me magic.  I will see my wife soon.  Maybe someday, we will meet again, and I could introduce you to her”

“I’d love to meet her someday,” you whispered.

And then he was gone.

You buried him in a field of flowers.

And then you let yourself cry.

You wept for days, crying over a burning in your chest that you hadn’t felt since Morgana’s passing all those years ago.  This was a loss unlike anything you’d ever known, and it hurt.  You would gladly face a thousand more stab wounds, scratches, bruises, beatings, whatever before you felt this pain again.  

--

Across the country, Douxie your pain.  

It was odd, because Archie was fine, and apart from that he’d isolated himself.  When people were dying left and right, it was better to live without attachments.  The wizard suffered through the confusion for a few days before he realized; there was nothing wrong with him, something had happened to you.

Now don’t misunderstand, he didn’t actually care about you, but if you were hurt he would feel it, and he wasn’t in the mood to experience unnecessary pain.  Oh god, what if you had the plague?  He didn’t care, but if you had the plague, you’d probably die, and if you died you might take him with you.  That, or he’d lose one of his few remaining attachments to Camelot.  Not that he cared about you or anything, just himself, Archie, and the last of Camelot.  Not you.  Totally not.

He didn’t care so much, that he tracked you down to make sure you weren’t dead.

But that might have been a bad decision considering the two of you were enemies and you were mourning the loss of your father figure.

When he found you, you were sitting alone in a field of flowers, staring into space, looking out at the horizon.  He cleared his throat to get your attention.

“What are you doing here!?”  You barked, moving to face the wizard.  He took note of the black you wore, of your voice, sharp with anger and rough from crying.  Maybe you weren’t physically hurt after all.

“I felt something on your end, I wanted to make sure you hadn't done anything stupid,”

“Well, I’m fine, so why don’t you just leave me alone?”

Hisirdoux turned to leave when he noticed Archie pawing at something at the edge of the field.  A doctor's mask.

“(Y/N)?”

“What!?”

“You haven’t been treating plague patients, have you?”

“Why does it matter to you,”

He picked up the mask and spun around to face you, “If you get the plague, I feel it!  If you die I feel it!  I don’t want to-”

“Oh what, so I’m supposed to stop helping people because you’re afraid of a little pain?  You’re a coward Casperan!”

“And you’re a fool!  Since when do you care about helping people, anyway?  You were happy to betray Camelot!”

“I’ve cared for a long time now, apprentice,” you spat, “And betrayal wasn’t my choice!”

“Wasn’t it?”

You grit your teeth.  Glaring at the ground, you wondered what your master would think of Casperan.  It didn’t matter.  He was gone.

“Get away from me,”

“What?”

“I said GET AWAY!”  You screamed, flinging a spell at your opponent.

He hit the ground hard.  Both of you cried out in pain.

“This is pointless,” you said, tears falling again.  A fight with Casperan was not what you needed right now.

“What aren’t you understanding,” Hisirdoux said, getting to his feet, “If you die from the plague, you could kill us both!”

“I would die gladly if it killed you,”

Those words hurt like nothing else.  Douxie didn’t even like you and yet it still stung.  

Your vicious words hurt you too.  You knew, deep down, you hadn’t really meant that.  You were beginning to realize that everything and everyone you loved would fade with time, and at the end of it, Hisirdoux would be the only thing left.  You still hated him though.

Behind him, Archie hissed, “Douxie, we should go,”

“Fine,”  the wizard said, dropping the mask, “Good luck staying alive,”

You both burned with rage as Casperan left with his familiar, not caring that he hadn’t learned what caused you such pain.

And when they were gone, you cried.

[aureolusfirewrites]

So I finally got around to writing a possessed Ben Zs'Skayr story surprised to find I'm actually motivated for once so here it is

Warnings: Brooken, PTSD

This takes place in October even though I'm writing it in February

Veined in Black

Chapter 1

Present Oct. 29/

Ben sat on his bed at plumber headquarters. Groaning and wincing in pain as his crush fussily wrapped bandages around his wounds. 

Once Rook finished patching him up Ben flopped over face first on his bed and moaned. 

"I hate October." The statement was enough to get Rook to look up at him.

"Do humans not generally enjoy this time of year?"

"Well yeah kinda but it's just so freaky to me. People walk around purposely looking like they're hurt and bleeding plus there's a Halloween eclipse which makes it twice as creepy... Not to mention everyone thinks it's an excuse to cause even more crime then normal." Ben ranted.

Rook grunted "I agree with you on that it seems as though the number of emergencies we get called out for have spiked to almost twice the normal amount..." Rook smirked. "However I would've thought you would be more than overjoyed at the aspect of receiving free candy."

Ben smiled at that "yeah free candy is pretty rad..." 

"Ben... Is something the matter?" Rook asked apparently picking up on Ben's distant additude. 

"Did... did anything about that fight earlier seem odd to you?" He thought back to it.

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

Earlier

He was walking through the mall with Rook and a kid dressed up as a killer clown had gotten a little to close to him and Rook. The anxiety attack was minor so Rook was able to talk him down relatively easy. He could still feel his heart racing a little to fast and Ben started feeling tired. 

Rook shook him lightly to snap him out of his post-anxiety attack daze. Ben look up at him and rubbed his head. "Ben it is alright everyone is still here safe and alive." Rook said gently. "Y-yeah yeah I know I'm good now Rook just... Just tired all of a sudden. 

Rook nodded and they continued their patrol. Well it wasn't so much patrol, as it was walking around the mall looking at Halloween ideas and hoping a bad guy would run into them so they'd have an excuse for doing nothing all day. Wish granted apprently. 

There was a loud commotion below them. Ben immediately jumped off the balcony fully prepared to transform before he hit the ground but Rook had other plans apparently. He felt warm hands wrap around his waist as Rook grabbed hold of him lowering him down on his proto tool's grappling function. Ben blushed glad his partner hadn't been looking at him.

Rook had seen him but that wasn't something Ben was ever going to know. 

He looked around for the danger. There were three humans wearing masks and another three aliens. They seemed relatively younger probably near teenagers by human standards. One was a Thep Khufan another was a loboan and then there was... He froze slightly. Enough for Rook to notice his tension. "It is not him Ben." Rook whispered the small reminder in his ear as he looked at a small ectonurite girl. 

He knew he shouldn't be afraid, he knew that just because one was bad didn't mean they all had similar plans but still. Whenever he was around ectonurites he couldn't help but see him. Pictures flashed through his head, gwen at the edge of a roof, a fight in space on a satellite, running through a city of monsters, Rook attacking him, a chill going through him and then a horrible pain as his body was taken over. 

Rook shook him again and he focused. "Right. Rook you take the humans I'll get the others." His partner nodded and ran for the three humans who immediately bolted in the other direction. Ben stood his ground hand over the omnitrix ready to activate at any moment. They all stood like that for a bit before they made a move. 

There was a long drawn out screech that threw him backwards. He flew back and his head hit something hard. He rubbed the back of his neck "y'know I might've had a concussion from that but at this point I've been hit on the head so much I think I might be immune." He joked to no one in particular. They was some pressure on him middle and he looked down at the bandages that had wrapped around his middle. He smiled up at the mummy sheepishly "oh boy," there was a tug and he got thrown out of the... Fountain? That's what he slammed into? ...That'd work.

He was being whirled through the air uselessly waiting for the right moment and then quickly grabbed onto a pillar as he flew by. 

The whiplash and inurscia from his sudden stop threw the mummy forward. It released it's grip as it was launched into the fountain. Water seeped into the alien's bandages and it began to unravel, water weighing it down. Ben was ready to go help it out of there, he didn't want him getting melted like some paper mache sculpture in the rain but the ectonurite beat him to it. 

The loboan was still an issue though. It lunged at him with sharp claws ready stab him. There was a lucky swipe and Ben staggered away clutching his bleeding arm. 

The loboan smirked and the ectonurite was still helping dry off her friend. Ben slammed his hand down on the omnitrix. 

He felt the familiar pain and tension he always felt when he transformed. Like he told Young One that one time it was like a stretch, except it was your muscles stretching out and changing into something new entirely just fast enough for your body to not go into instant shock. If it was any slower he would've guessed that he would immediately have some kind of seziure or something. 

Something was odd about it this time though like there was something else shifting with him. He shrugged it off.

He felt heavier and stronger but in a more solid way. "Alright! Diamondhead is gonna kick your butts!" He said excitedly. 

The loboan howled and he was less excited as he felt a crack run down his face. "That's enough of that." He said fed up. He sent a few sharp crystals at the sides of the alien and a few blunt ones to his stomach. The sharp ones scraped it's arms and trimmed off the fur where they connected. The blunt projectiles collided with his midsection and sent the loboan to the ground gasping for air. 

Ben winced he knew the blunts were the equivalent to getting a punch to the chest at high speed but it was better than using a shard. 

He brought crystal walls up around the wolf alien to keep him in place until Rook got back but he doubted the loboan was getting up anytime soon. Then there were the other two...

The Thep Khufan was down for now so he wouldn't bother with him so that left... The ectonurite. 

The ectonurite girl was smaller, around his size actually. She had metal bands all around her sort of like clothes so she looked like a kindergartner covered in a ton of slap bracelets. 

The omnitrix suddenly started flashing and toning the timeout sequence. "No no no c'mon!" There was a flash and he was back to being a human. 

The ectonurite turned towards him. He felt wobbly 'run' kept going through his head but his body wasn't responding. Then at lighting speed she launched towards him. A logical part of his mind knew that even if she did get inside him she wouldn't be able to take him over, but that wasn't the part controlling him at the moment. 

Ben let out a surprised yelp and covered himself with his arms as a last ditch block effort. But what he was waiting for never came. 

The ghost alien stopped in front of Ben and silently looked him over. She let out a hum of frustration and flew back over to the Thep Khufan. 

Ben stayed staring at her. "BEN!" He heard Rook call and he ran to Ben's side. Ben raised his arm up to motion that he was okay to Rook but a pain shot across and he looked down at his still bleeding still injured arm. "Oh... Right... That-" and then Ben had passed out and Rook carried him back to the proto-truk.

Ben had woken up about 10 minutes later in the passenger seat slightly dizzy and tired but he hadn't lost enough blood for it to be serious so Rook was taking him back to his dorm room to patch him up.

Ben couldn't help but feel like something was off though...

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

/Present, Oct. 29/

Then it struck Ben what was so odd about that fight. "Rook what were they doing there?" Rook looked away in thought. "We are unsure. The ectonurite refuses to talk and the other two act as if they have no memory of the event." 

Ben mumbled a little.

"So three anur system aliens attack with no motive and didn't speak once while fighting..." He said quietly. 

"What are you thinking Ben-dude?" Rook smiled trying to cheer Ben up. 

Slight pink flushed across Ben's smiling face but the expression faded fast into his 'Im connecting the dots' face. "I dunno Rook just a hunch." His partner nodded. 

Ben felt like his eyelids were made of lead suddenly and he yawned wide. "Why do you not get some rest for right now Ben" Rook smiled at the tired hero. "Mmm'kay" Ben slurred before letting black wash over his mind.

[navigatrixnarrations]

The Same Constellations

Word Count: 1922

Warnings: Some profanity, mentions of violence. They’re pirates.

Set between Parts 4 and 5 of @whenimaunicorn’s epic The Heart of Admiration series, we’ve got angsty Vane, voice of reason Jack, and firmly in denial Hope. Are these disaster pirates learning to talk to one another?

Jack Rackham shakes his head in disappointment at the fresh cuts and bruises on Charles Vane’s face. “At this rate, by week’s end it will be a minor miracle if you have any skin left at all. I suppose I should just be grateful you’re leaving the opium alone.”

Instead of answering verbally, or even sitting up, Vane lobs an empty rum bottle past his quartermaster’s head. Both men are well aware that he missed on purpose.

Unperturbed, Jack continues. “If you need to work off some, shall we say, frustration, the men have glowing things to say about the local brothels.”

Vane just glowers at Jack. He already tried that back in Nassau. Whores who bore any physical resemblance whatsoever to Hope. Whores who looked as dissimilar to Hope as possible. Somehow he felt even worse afterwards. Emptier.

“That motherfucker said Hope needs to be taken down a peg.”

“So you felt a need to take on him and several of his men all at once. Was she even present when he said whatever he said?”

Vane drags himself upright. “No.”

“Then maybe a better use of your energies would be spending time with her.”

Vane acts as though he didn’t hear a word of it.

Jack lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Chaz, Hope isn’t Eleanor. She isn’t going to betray you because she wants to get ahead or because she’s bored or because it’s Thursday.”

“Fuck you, Jack.”

Jack throws up his hands. “By all means, continue to get in brawls with all of Tortuga. That is certainly more sensible than, oh, as a brief example, talking to her. I’m sure she’ll be very grateful that she lost her old crew only for you to get yourself killed in some idiotic fight.”

Vane’s chin juts out dangerously. Jack doesn’t know what it was like when he was a child and the overseers made sure to take away anything they even thought he and the other slaves wanted. How Eleanor did more of the same, used everything he even hinted at wanting against him, just to prove she could. But Vane has to begrudgingly admit that Jack, damn the man, is right about one thing: Hope isn’t at all like Eleanor. “Seems likely she’d be relieved.”

“I highly doubt that.” Jack pauses, and though Vane’s thin lips curl in a silent snarl, he’s listening. “The night we backed up Mackinaw on the beach, she stood with you.”

“She told me I was foolish.”

“Yet she stood with you anyway. You didn’t see her face when she lost sight of you in the scrum, or when she saw you were still standing. I did.”

And she caught him when he stumbled on his wounded leg. The memory of her body tucked warm under his arm as she steadied him, her hand over his heart, was something that kept him awake, made him restless. Her voice, telling him he had been foolish, but noble...“And?”

“And she’s currently at the Cat’s Head eating her supper and assisting me in hunting up leads. Perhaps you would like to clean yourself up and join her.”

----------

Tortuga hadn’t changed much while she was in Nassau, and Hope feels no small relief to be back in its familiar surroundings, where she isn’t a newcomer yet to learn the major players and where, she thinks dryly as she finishes her meal, she hasn’t made enemies of the tavern owner or fence. Out of the corner of her eye, Hope glimpses a blond man in the clothes of a working pirate strolling toward her. She turns her head to meet a pair of green eyes and a broad grin and oh, son of a bitch, what are the odds that Liam O'Malley would be here with some of his crew.

"Hope Wickham! I didn’t know you were back in Tortuga!”

"Temporarily. Are you still on the Shrike?"

"Aye, got elected Captain a couple of months ago. You don't happen to be looking for a position, by any chance?"

“I appreciate the offer, but I've got one."

"That's a shame. I could use a good navigator. You're not still with Fisher's crew?"

“No, Charles Vane’s.”

O’Malley lets out a low whistle. “Look at you, then. Well, if you change your mind, you know how to find me.” She gives him a friendly hug and promises to have a proper catch-up soon.

She turns around to see Vane standing several paces away, watching, body stiff and his face a thundercloud. He gives her a hard stare then turns on his heel and storms off.

Hope excuses herself to follow her captain, hurrying after his long strides, wondering what set him off. She’s relieved to see that he’s no longer favoring his injured leg; when she asked if he needed help getting the stitches out, he grumbled at her to stop fussing. She later learned that he made a temporary truce with Doctor Mills, the ship’s surgeon, to assist him with that task, though immediately thereafter the two men each returned to pretending that the other did not exist.

She catches up with him on the jetty, where he’s leaning his forearms on the railing and staring out to sea. Hope senses a kind of bleakness radiating from him. He turns his head at her approach, then goes back to watching the tide roll in.

Hope comes to a halt beside him and furrows her brows as she examines the new injuries to his face. “Who did this to you?”

He grunts. “Does it matter?”

She rolls her eyes heavenward, refusing to dignify that with a response. “If you were planning on getting in fights, you could have told me.”

“So you could try to talk me out of it?”

“And so I could have your back if that didn’t work.”

Vane turns toward her with guarded eyes and his jaw clenched tight. “The men I fought insulted you.”

“Captain Vane, I didn’t go to sea because I wanted an easy life or a safe one. I know there are men who will always resent me and talk shit about me because of my sex. If you try to fight them all, you’ll never have time to eat or piss.” She never considered Charles Vane the type to defend a woman’s honor like that, and she most certainly does not need him to defend hers, but she’s surprised by how touched she is that he felt a need to stand up for her when she wasn’t there.

“Are you going to sign your friend’s articles?”

Hope doesn’t try to hide her shock. He thought she accepted O’Malley’s offer? "I told him I’m not looking for another position."

“Do you think he’ll leave it at that?”

“It’s not at all up to him, but yes, he will. We go way back.”

Vane merely raises his scarred brow.

She takes a deep breath and attempts to summon her patience. "If you're wondering whether I used to be with O'Malley, the answer is no. He's a friend, and we used to sail together when we were both apprenticing, but things were never...like that between us." She isn’t sure why she needs Vane to know this. It’s none of his business that she has never been with O’Malley, or for that matter, with any other man, just as it would not be his business if she had bedded every man on Tortuga.

He looks at her coolly. “It isn’t that.”

Hope feels her heart jump, but she refuses to back down. "What then?" She meets his blue eyes squarely.

"I’m concerned for you."

It’s Hope’s turn to arch a brow.

"I know some of his men from Nassau. They're shits, and you would be a woman alone with them."

She lets out an exasperated sigh. "I can look after myself." How is the man so consistently irritating? And why does she feel a pang in her chest when she recalls the look of hurt that flickered across his face, fleeting as it was, when he saw her hugging O’Malley?

Vane's scowl lessens. "I know you can. But you shouldn't have to, not amongst your own."

"It's a moot point anyway. Unless you're firing me, I have no intention of leaving your crew."

She swears she sees some of the tension go out of his shoulders.

"You always have a place with me." His voice is quiet, as gentle as that scraping rasp allows.

Hope wasn’t worried that her position was in any danger to begin with, so why does she feel so...warmed by his words? It makes no sense. There is no calculation she can run or measurement she can take to solve this puzzle. The words tumble from her mouth before she can think to stop them. “Then that is exactly where I’ll be.”

A smile crosses his face, bright as a flash of sunlight on the water and just as brief, before his expression turns grave once more. “So long as you recall that you have a choice.” He needs her to know she isn’t trapped. He needs to know that she knows she isn’t trapped.

"That you give me the choice is exactly why I stay on with you." She pauses, trying to figure out how to explain. “The moment you realized you had not given me free choice to be on your crew, you made it right. You listened to me, and you made it right. That means a great deal.”

Vane nods. Exhales slowly. They stand side by side in companionable silence. After a time, she speaks again. "When I first went on the account, I sailed with a man from Timbuktu. He told wondrous stories about his homeland, of vast ever-shifting seas of burning sand where the only way to navigate is by the stars, same as we do at sea. He'd speak to me at night while I was working, because he had a daughter about my age who he missed terribly. We used the same stars to find the way, he and I, but we called them by different names. We used the same constellations but saw in them different creatures. Neither of us were wrong, and we got to the same answers, but if asked to explain how we did it, we would say very different things." Hope turns her head so she can look him in the eye, not in challenge, but trying to will him to understand.

“You think when we disagree, we’re sometimes looking at the same thing in different ways.”

“Just so.”

Vane’s hand reaches over to cover hers. He starts to step closer, ever so slightly, when a breathless, sweaty-faced Jack comes running down the jetty towards them. “I’ve got it, Charles! I’ve got the lead we were seeking. But there are people...” His eyes slide over to Vane’s hand, which is still wrapped firmly around Hope’s. He startles and nearly jumps backwards a pace when he realizes that he interrupted them.

“Then we’d best go talk to those people,” Vane growls. He glances down at Hope with the faintest shadow of a grin. “Luckily we’ve got a skilled negotiator who isn’t afraid to knife a man.”

Hope snorts and makes a wry face. He has never before mentioned the corpse she’d left in his cabin during the first raid she went on with him.

As she walks beside her captain, his words keep ringing in her ears. You always have a place with me.

[dwellordream]

“...To many youths, the nuclear bond was of immense value in their first steps as servants or apprentices outside the parental home, and this bond continued to provide a great deal of assistance in the course of the period of service. We saw in Chapter 2 that parental guidance and advice in deciding what occupation to choose were important, not least because a youth relied on his parents' financial means in arranging some types of apprenticeship. In the case of youths who desired to become apprentices in major towns in the large distributive trades or one of the more lucrative crafts, entry without the financial assistance of parents was unthinkable; not only was the premium for these trades costly, but bonds of high amounts were sometimes required as well. 

Even in the smaller crafts and trades, any assistance to cover the costs of at least a part of the premium, or the costs of travel to a large town, could be of critical value. When Edward Barlow became an apprentice in Manchester it was his father who 'made up the bargain'; and about a year later, when he decided to leave for London, he financed his trip partly with his own savings, but partly also with the little money he had been able to obtain from his father. Parents also provided the social contacts necessary for service and apprenticeship, in the countryside as well as in towns. 

Although Edward Barlow lived only four miles away from Manchester, where he became an apprentice, and although he had before then been employed outside his home in nearby villages, nevertheless it was his father 'hearing of a man of a reasonably good trade', who provided Edward's initial contacts with his master. Of prime importance in these parental networks were ties based on occupations and on trade. George Bewley's apprenticeship in Dublin was arranged by two people who came from Ireland and lodged at his father's house in Cumberland, and Edward Barlow was also apprenticed, for a short while, with a Kentish vintner who was a guest at his uncle's inn in London." 

Inns, ale-houses and local markets and fairs were foci of information networks through which parents found or assisted their sons and daughters in finding a master. Among apprentices in large urban centres, the preponderance of youths who had originally come from market towns was marked. In mid-sixteenth century London about a third of migrant apprentices were from market towns; and in early seventeenth-century Bristol the proportion was even higher, particularly among those who travelled longer distances to the town, among whom nearly half had arrived from market towns.

Urban apprentices tended to come from places and areas that had distinct trading connections with an urban centre: industrial regions in which cloth or metal was produced; coastal trade and coal routes which linked the countryside with large towns; or simply agricultural centres from whence the grain consumed in the town came. Patterns of apprenticeship as recorded in registers of apprenticeship reflect these parental occupational ties too, for nearly half the apprentices in all major industries and trades in a town like Bristol chose masters who had an occupation similar or closely related to that of their fathers.

Networks of adult friendships which extended beyond the village or town where they lived also facilitated the arrangement of service or apprenticeships for daughters and sons. Edward Barlow recalled that his uncle, a London innkeeper, had 'a friend, living in the country.. . who had a son which he was willing to send to London for to be prentice'. Soon after, the youth arrived and was bound an apprentice. As Steve Rappaport has suggested, since so many Londoners were themselves migrants, their links with the countryside are likely to have been strong. Jane Martindale left her home in Lancashire to become a servant in London through contacts she made with Londoners who came to stay with their friends in Lancashire during the plague of 1625.

In large towns themselves, parental links with fellow craftsmen, guildsmen, neighbours and other friends also helped a youth obtain an apprenticeship or a service placement. Bristol's shoemakers, coopers and other craftsmen often sent their sons to become apprentices with other shoemakers or coopers: friends, neighbours and fellow craftsmen of the same guild with whom the parents probably had more than a fleeting acquaintance. Next to parents, the assistance of older brothers or sisters in arranging service or an apprenticeship was often quite important. Sometimes brothers and sisters who had already left home and migrated to a large town assisted their younger brothers or sisters to find lodging or employment, or simply provided advice and first connections in and around a new place. 

…Sometimes parents themselves went to visit their daughters or sons. John Gratton mentioned coming back from the field to his grandfather's home where he was apprenticed, 'and finding my father and mother were come over to see us'. Ralph Josselin and his wife both went to see their sons and daughters who served as apprentices and domestics in London, some 40 miles away from where they lived. Even the father of Edward Barlow, who was poor and must have found the trip to London a great financial burden, managed to make the long journey from his home in Lancashire to London, where he met young Barlow, then already an apprentice at sea.

When a master went into the countryside, he might go to see his apprentice's or servant's parents; and many parents, through the same social ties that had enabled them to arrange the service in the first place, were well informed about their sons and daughters. Parents themselves sometimes moved nearer to a son or daughter, and so the contacts with them were resumed; and letters were occasionally sent by parents, brothers, sisters, or their neighbours. For their part, some apprentices who had had to go to more distant towns kept their parents informed by writing letters. Not all youths could write, but among London apprentices, who were likely to be the furthest away from their parents, literacy rates were sometimes quite high.

This does not mean that they all sent letters home regularly, but it indicates that they could write letters if they so desired, or if they were in some sort of need. Richard Norwood wrote his father a very long letter at least once when he was an apprentice at sea; and John Woodhouse, a London apprentice whose parents were dead, wrote his uncle a long letter in which he asked for assistance. By the eighteenth century, manuals of letter-writing contained a substantial number of model letters which were exchanged between youths who were servants and apprentices, and their parents.

Some parents also provided direct financial assistance to their sons and daughters. The evidence on this is very sparse, but what there is suggests that there was nothing unusual about such financial provision. …More important was the assistance parents provided when an apprentice became ill or injured during service. As we have already seen in Chapter 4 and will emphasize shortly, masters were both obliged and expected to take care of their servants and apprentices when they became ill. Nevertheless difficulties could arise, and parents were sometimes called upon to assist. Adolescent illnesses and injuries while at work were common, and recovery was a painfully slow process. 

Some masters were too poor and simply could not continue to provide for a youth until he recovered; sometimes the apprentice was incapacitated - soreness of leg, a limb injury, mental illness are mentioned in a number of petitions presented at the local court in Bristol - and it was decided by mutual consent that parents would take upon themselves the responsibility for the recovery of their child. Sometimes there was little hope of recovery, and parents took their sons back; sometimes it was decided that a youth should go back to the countryside to recover; and at other times parents themselves called their sons back, as when plague broke out in the town where their sons were apprenticed.

Occasionally youths themselves appear to have desired to return to the parental home: for example, when they had the smallpox, or when they contracted other diseases which threatened their lives. Benjamin Bangs headed towards his mother's home when he was not well; Ralph Josselin's daughter, Ann, returned home in the midst of her service in London, and shortly afterwards she died and was buried in Earle Colne. Adam Martindale's daughter, Elizabeth, was likewise 'desirous to come home' when she became ill during her service, so she was brought back; but although her parents took great care of her, she died soon afterward.”

- Ilana Krausman Ben-Amos, “The Widening Circle: The Social Ties of Youth.” in Adolescence and Youth in Early Modern England.

[rcsewatrs]

―MEET 𝙏𝙃𝙀𝙊

&&. cauldron above, ( théo cinna ) was just spotted in the fae lands — word has it ( he ) is/are affiliated with ( spring court ). ( he ) is a(n) ( 322 ; appears 25 ) year old ( high fae ). it’s been said that ( he ) resembles ( alex høgh anderson ). ( he ) has been said to be ( gentle & compassionate ) but also quite ( passive & stubborn ). ( he ) is currently serving as ( the royal healer ).

              ― ❝ they say the honey of his eyes is a blessing of its own. ❞

𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 .

full name ;  théo namira cinna age ; 322 years birthdate ; june 14 allegiance ; spring court species ; high fae occupation ; royal healer sexuality ; pansexual

𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭 .

had the sun any say in the actions of its people? pompous, preening, and hardly practical, such a court of fae was anything if not confident. fields of endless green, the scent of pine and shimmering dew on one’s tongue — perhaps this was the heaven many had been denied, and yet théo was lucky enough to live? many had conflicting opinions on the ambassadors of spring, but one thing was certain — they took care of their own, and he was hardly an exception.

for someone of his stature, théo was an anomaly; with an appearance akin to someone hailing from the wild hunt, it was an intriguing surprise as to the gentleness of his touch and unwillingness to pick up a sword. he had never been a fighter, both out of choice and disposition — and while many of his friends opted to begin training, théo’s preference was for something else. he often found himself spending evenings by streams, observing the wildlife and natural order of things that surrounded him. the spring court was beautiful to behold, and he was not alone in such realization — while his people tended to hold rather high-minded views of themselves, théo did not often share in such intensity; after all, he had a heart of gold and did not wish to see it tainted.

it is during these times of self-reflection that théo discovers a natural affinity for an alternative to violence — healing magic. he had had never held a forte when it came to being a warrior, but had always wished to serve his court in whatever way otherwise possible. young and curious, théo jumped at the first chance he could to explore such abilities — the clumsiness of his younger sister offered the perfect chance for him to expand on that particular type of talent; naturally close and fairly protective over her, it did not come as a surprise when they grew even more so as he practically doted on her injuries whenever possible. his strength for it rapidly developed to bigger and much more particular cases, and eventually théo began even looking for a teacher of sorts — he was entirely convinced at that point that his path had been set in stone, and that to be a healer was as much of his destiny as being a warrior was to some others.

he just never realized exactly how right he was.

apprenticed to a local healer, between théo’s dedication to learn and personal skill, it did not come as a surprise to see him succeed where many others had failed. patient and kind almost to a fault, théo learned the in’s and out’s of such an art and became a favorite of many who crossed his path — no matter the severity of the injury, he worked tirelessly to be sure that those who came to him were comfortable as much as they possibly could. it did not come as a surprise, therefore, when the apprentice became the master — though he was eternally grateful, there was nothing more to teach him that he hadn’t already found on his own, and so he set his sights on bringing his services fully to others. more often than not, théo refused any sort of payment — to see his patients healthy and happy was enough of a reward as is, and it didn’t sit well on his conscious to take away from what people needed. such generosity did not go unnoticed, and when he wasn’t taking care of those injured, he was being treated to food and company and gifted trinkets begrudgingly. 

with the majority of the court’s common folk as well as nobility now hailing his abilities, it still came as a hefty surprise when théo received a letter— no, an invitation —to the court castle. a personal summoning by the high lord himself no less, he isn’t sure what to think at that point; had he done something wrong? hurt someone on accident? thoughts raced through his mind and théo was both equally intimidated as he was curious — thus, it only seemed right to heed such a call and face the mystery with courage rather than feebleness. 

he never thought it’d turn out to be as it had.

albeit the son of nobility, he’d never intermingled with the deerling’s aside from rumors and fleeting glances — still, as he kneeled before ares to answer his summons, the solution to his wonderances presents itself not in the form of words, but as a little girl; one with bright and curious eyes that reminded théo of himself, peering from beside the high lord with a curiosity mirrored by the healer in his fairly younger days. arielle.

and in that moment the reality dawned on him as did a smile to rival the very sun in its warmth — he had not come here to heed any sort of crime, but to teach.

[curechocolattymilk]

TES DRAWTOBER DAY 3 - Draw your character in different stages of life

Another one where I just went simple instead. Eh, at least it’s drawing something!

Focused on Tei before their Skyrim adventure (tm) started, below the read more is me rambling bout these stages lol

From left to right:

Newborn-Toddler: It’s unknown how their egg ended up alone in Hammerfell, but his adoptive parents weren’t going to leave them to fend for themselves against who knows what. Tei was given two names on his hatchday, Jahttal & Jeer-Tei, the latter in respect to his adoptive father’s late friend whom he served alongside during the Great War. Tei really only goes by Jahttal around close friends/family. He has an elder brother who was heading off to join the Hammerfell military & an elder sister who traveled to Cyrodiil for academic purposes. I need to give them all names soon lol

Adolescent-Early Teens: Tei full on adopts Redguard culture & familial beliefs as they grow, save for the disinterest in magic (They don’t actively practice it until reaching Skyrim, however). He spends his childhood apprenticing under their father for smithing, helping his mother tend to their horses, or learning about the stars above. He definitely absorbed the bitter attitudes towards the Empire & Thalmor at this stage, which are still present, if not as strong.

Teens-Young Adult: Tei loses both parents around their mid teens. His elder brother had no time to care for the young Argonian, so his sister took them with her to Cyrodiil, where Tei was soon enrolled in courses. While he isn’t ungrateful for the education & opportunities his elder sister had provided, Tei hated being in Cyrodiil. They found it too uppity & stuffy, & had no idea how his sibling was comfortable with such notable Thalmor presence. Around his 20th birthday, he up n’ left towards the call of adventure, landing some odd jobs as a merc

Mid 20s: Tei didn’t arrive in Skyrim until his mid to late 20s, & it was there when his amnesia had kicked in. The Argonian can recall his past until the moment he reached the snowy continent, from then on everything is extremely fuzzy or unclear up until wandering to the DB sanctuary in Falkreath to join them, with one eye injured & nearly blind, & a deep rumbling deep in their soul. Any attempts to recollect this lost chunk of years tend to fail, the most that Tei remembers being the smell of a damp, abandoned cell, a warm voice, & the feeling of many, many watching eyes.*

*Tei’s amnesia didn’t stem from Inigo in my canon, despite what the two friends believe. The awakening of their dragon soul upon reaching Skyrim had a strong effect on them that ended up muddling their memory, muddling even moreso after Mara chooses their new life in the abandoned prison (Alternate Start/Lives mod). As for Tei’s eye? That was caused by a Khajiit in the small group he was adventuring with shortly before they all split/broke up.

Also I feel that even if the LDB & Miraak didn’t know of eachother, the arrival/awakening of the last dragonborn would probably stir some interest of a certain Daedric prince. *shrugs*