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one-that-had-to · 6 years

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Orbis Non Sufficit (6/8)

The Elders have taken her world, taken her parents, and nearly taken all of her hope. All Cecily has left is a knife, a pistol, and an ethereal that she desperately does not want. With any luck, she will be able to find somewhere safe to hide out, in her own timeline or otherwise.

Also available on Ao3 here

Read from the beginning here

Reality Of Perception

The moment the world materializes around her again Cecily knows that something is terribly, terribly off. Her stomach churns at the taste of psionics in the air, though she has enough control to keep from vomiting. The ethereal vibrates almost eagerly at the psionics, but it does not try to take control back from her. Not yet, at least.

She gives the ethereal a nudge, but it can’t tell her anything useful. If there are any other ethereals nearby then the sheer amount of psionics in the area hides their presence. It’s a double edged sword; on one hand it will make herself harder to find, but on the other her pursuers can easily sneak up on her.

Still, she supposes she is safe for the moment, enough to explore at least. If she remembers anything from travelling around as a child it was that such a concentration of psionics was only possible in a few locations.

She closes her eyes to try and sense where the source of it was, then turns and starts hiking again.

It does not take her long to find the Templar base. For as secretive as the Templars could be, following the thrum of psionics made their base easy to find. And, if she looks around, she is fairly certain it looks to be in the same rough place as the Templar base she knows.

Cecily stays close to the edges, actually trying to keep hidden for once. She could use her own psionics to hide, but she wasn’t sure how easily anyone more versed in psionics could see through her facade. It was best to just not risk it.

Briefly, she wonders if she could sneak into one of the hot springs — psionics helping to mask her presence or not. It’s far from the smartest idea, but she deserves some time to relax after everything she’s been through.

She doesn’t get far around the base when chattering breaks her from her thoughts. She has just enough time to dive back into the treeline before she’s seen.

Geist walks by her hiding spot, talking exuberantly about his two most trusted followers. She doesn’t hear the rest of what he says as following just a step behind him is her father — looking too old and too tired once again.

Her heart becomes leaden in her chest.

Cecily doesn’t let it deter her and instead she follows after them, careful not to make a single noise as she does. Her focus on staying hidden means she can’t listen to a single word Geist says, despite him talking loud enough for the entire base to hear.

He leads them the rest of the way around to the hot spring. The sight she finds there makes the world disappear from under her even without hopping into a new timeline.

Billiam — or Will, as Sally had called him — sits on the edge of the pool, legs crossed so that he’s not touching the water. Across from him sits her mother, the pants of her Templar uniform pulled up so that her feet can dangle in the water freely. The two look up as Geist and her father approach. From her vantage point she can’t quite make out the expressions on their faces, but she does she her mother raise a beer bottle in greeting.

“Tanya and Billiam are far better strategists than I,” Geist says, turning towards her father and gesturing at the two of them. “Either of them is far better suited to helping you, supposing you’re willing to help us in return.”

“Let’s focus on the present for now. The Elders are enough to deal with,” her father retorts.

“Of course, of course,” Geist says. “Regardless, Bill, Tanya, this is John, XCOM’s former central offi—”

“XCOM?” Bill interrupts quickly. Both he and her mother visibly tense, and the psionics in the air become so sharp she thinks she could cut herself just by breathing. Even Geist reacts to the the change in atmosphere, visibly tensing. Her father is the only one that remains ignorant to the change, and she doesn’t know if she pities him for it or if she’s jealous.

“I can explain anything you want,” her father ties to assure.

“We aren’t going to work with XCOM,” her mother practically growls. She has an accent again, one thicker than she’s heard it in any of the other timelines.

Geist starts to try and reason with them, but she is in too much shock to hear whatever it is he says.

Cecily stumbles back into the debris of another building too destroyed to save, her steps staggered and uneven like the earth itself is shifting under her feet. If she makes any noises, she doesn’t care — she just wants to get away from the Templars as quickly as possible.

She turns — and nearly walks directly into someone’s chest. A pair of hands grab her shoulders, either to keep her from falling over and instantly alerting everyone to their location or to simply try and stop her from running away.

She steadies herself and looks up to see Bill, though not dressed in his Templar getup as she's used to. She looks over her shoulder towards the pool just to be sure that she wasn’t imagining things, but it is already far out of sight. “Bill?” she asks incredulously. “What? How are…?” She stops to shake her head, as though chiding herself for her shock. “No, who doesn’t have an ethereal at this point? I should know better.”

“You learn quick,” he says. The lack of Australian accent catches her off guard. He takes the surprise as an opening to let one hand drop from her shoulder and turns to start leading her away from the base. “Let’s go somewhere where we won’t alert every Templar in the base. And Will, please.”

Cecily follows him without hesitation, both eager to get away from the terrifyingly wrong version of her mother and her head still spinning too much at the knowledge that she even exists. She never voiced it, but it was always obvious to her that the Templars made her uneasy. The mother she knew would never have joined them willingly.

Will drops his other hand from her shoulder once they’re far enough away, far enough that the ambient psionics in the air is more akin the the rustling of leaves on a windy day than an overbearing, deafening presence.

“You’re just going to tell me to go home, like everyone else, aren’t you?” Cecily asks, looking up at him.

“Yes,” he says flatly. “Apparently whatever Sally and Lizzie told you wasn’t convincing enough.”

Cecily crosses her arms over her chest and tries to stand up taller. In comparison to Will’s height, it makes no difference. “I don’t want to go back,” she says firmly.

Will frowns at her. “You have to.”

She pauses for a moment, just long enough for her brief mask of confidence to crack. “I can’t,” she says, voice wavering as she fights back tears. “I don’t have anywhere to go there, and I can’t save them, and I can’t — I just can’t.”

Will rests a hand on her shoulder again, apparently trying to be comforting. It doesn’t do much other than prompt a few stray tears from her eyes, though.

“Cecily,” he says, quiet but firm. “You have to go back. Jumping from one dimension to the next is going to cause a lot more damage than you realize. If you keep this up, you will inevitably run into things far worse than you could ever imagine, and Tanya would kill me if I let that happen to you.”

“What does it matter — Lizzie already said she can’t mention me to her!” Her voice cracks and she takes a few steps back out of Will’s grip. Tears start sliding down her cheeks, but she ignores them. “I just want somewhere else I can go, somewhere else I exist.”

“It won’t work out like you want, so please, go home before you get hurt.”

Cecily shakes her head, neither willing nor able to believe Will’s words. He reaches out towards her, but she makes the jump before he can do or say anything else.

#xcom #orbis non sufficit #my writing #long fic #sendtoarchives #cecily #william weir

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clansnaphance · 3 years

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It’s been a good long while since these accents have been available, so I’m doing some reprinting of them now! All cost 500g/650kt or a mix of both; if you’re interested, you can find my accent shop in my sidebar or in the reblogs.

In order, the accents are:

Delenda est - red/gold

Vae victis - black/gold

Oderint dum metuant - white/gold

Arcana imperii - purple/gold

Orbis non sufficit - green/bronze

Mourn no more - brown/gold, Pearlcatcher

#flight rising #fr skins and accents #FR Accent Sales #FR Accents #snaphance rambles

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ultimate-007 · 4 years

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IAN LANCASTER FLEMING

28th May 1908 - 12th August 1964

Orbis non sufficit.

#ian fleming #james bond #007

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valinaraii · 5 years

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Also, I don't mind we sctuck with Charles V' s motto Plus Ultra, but one has to admit his son's Philip, Non sufficit Orbis, is even better.

Then you have that Bond guy and ruines it, meh.

#charles v #philip ii #spanish history

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chapmanrestoration · 5 years

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William and Mary Marquertry long case clock

One of the rarest marquetry clocks on the market today, Circa 1685. By Edward Bird, Londini Fecit (Exchange Alley)

Believed to have been commissioned by Sir Nathaniel Bond (Kings Serjeant) in 1683 (research still ongoing) less than a dozen clocks are known by Bird

The movement is one of the finest ever seen with SIX fully latched pillars, inside countwheel and original pierced polished bell.

I based my restoration on bird mainly but also used Joesph knibb for research as they work in the same area and were around the same time, with his movement showing signs of Joseph knibb design .

Joesph knibb is known of one of finest quality clock makers of his period . And it turns out that he worked in London but his family originate from calverton and moved to oxford then London before he tried to hanslope village from were he was buried in side the church . Which turns out isn’t far from The workshop .

clock was commissioned by Sir Nathaniel Bond, King Charles II and William III’s Sergeant.

commissioned and case designed in 1682 and was finished in 1684.... wasn’t far out with the dates... superb pedigree it turns out and it was handed down by Nathaniel Bond through generations to Major General Mark Bond

Edward Bird is an elusive maker; although there is no record of him in the Clockmakers Company archives, there are approximately 8 known longcase clocks dating from the last 20 years of the 17th century that bear his name

Nathaniel Bond KS (14 June 1634 – 31 August 1707), of Creech Grange in the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, was an English lawyer and Member of Parliament.

Creech Grange, Dorset

Bond was the fourth son of Denis Bond, a prominent politician during the Interregnum, succeeding to the family estates at Lutton after all his elder brothers died without male heirs, and also in 1686 buying the neighbouring estate of Grange which subsequently became the family seat.

He was educated at Oxford University, awarded a fellowship at All Souls College, matriculated from Wadham College in 1650,[graduating B.C.L. in 1654, and incorporated LL.B. at Cambridge University in 1659.He proceeded to the Inner Temple, where he was called to the bar in 1661.Making his career in the law, he was a barrister and King's Serjeant. He entered Parliament in 1679 as member for Corfe Castle, and subsequently also represented Dorchester in 1681.

On 21 December 1667 he married Elizabeth Churchill (b. 1648/9 d. 1674).His second marriage, on 3 August 1675, was to Mary Browne (d. 1728), widow of Thomas Browne of Frampton and daughter of Lewis Williams of Shitterton, and they had two sons:

The Bond family were displaced from Tyneham House, their home for over 250 years, in 1943. They made this sacrifice to enable the expansion of Lulworth tank ranges in preparation for D-Day landings. The Bond family moved permanently to Moigne Combe after they were informed Tyneham would not be returned to the family, a devastating realization.

It has been suggested that a Bond family ancestor, rumored to be an Elizabethan spy, may have inspired the titular character of Ian Fleming’s famous books. The Bond family motto is ‘non sufficit orbis’, which translates as “the world is not enough”. This is James Bond’s fictional family motto in The World Is Not Enough. Fleming attended Durnford Preparatory School in Langton Matravers, Dorset, close to the Bond family home.

The late Major General Mark Bond was the last member of the Bond family to live at Moigne Combe. General Bond had an illustrious military career; he enlisted as a rifleman in 1940 following the Blitz of London. Major-General Bond served at the Battle of El-Alamein and the capture of Tunis. In 1943 Mark Bond was taken as a POW but managed to pull off a daring escape from his transport train. He was only recaptured after trying to steal supplies from the Germans. Major-General Mark Bond also served as aide de camp to Field Marshal Montgomery, NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe 1950. A letter from Field Marshal Montgomery thanking Mark Bond for his service is present at Moigne Combe. During his fascinating life he had a distinguished military career,

Www.chapmanrestoration.co.uk

Www,chapmanrestoration.co.uk

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startrekships · 3 years

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Orbis Non Sufficit by jetfreak-7

#fan render #Galaxy #Akira #Intrepid #Danube #planetscape

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coloneljamesmoriarty · 6 years

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26) Which part of Orbis Non Sufficit was the hardest to write?

The conversation with ghost!Tanya, for two reasons! First, I had to have Tanya say something impactful enough to Cecily that it would finally convince her to go home while not implying that Tanya had already been using her newfound powers, since she isn’t supposed to know about those powers at that point in time. I literally changed one line the night before and was constantly worrying about it until it went live.

Second, I wrote the first half of that conversation on my way and at a hockey game back in February, so it was a bit all over the place since I was so distracted. Then I didn’t get to that part again until the end of June I think? so like. trying to smooth the line between what I wrote in February and what I wrote in June? A pain in the ass.

#orcinus wanderer #answers

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metalshockfinland · 3 years

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GODHEAD MACHINERY Unleash Fierce, New Video 'Orbis Non Sufficit' From Upcoming Album

GODHEAD MACHINERY Unleash Fierce, New Video ‘Orbis Non Sufficit’ From Upcoming Album

Following their much acclaimed predecessors, ”Ouroboros” and ”Aligned to the Grid”, November 26, 2021 will see Swedish black/death metal act GODHEAD MACHINERY release their brand new album, Monotheistic Enslavement, through Black Lion Records. Founded in 2014 by Kail Karlsson ( formerly in Swedish black metal band Misericordia ), Godhead Machinery’s forthcoming album will take a darker path…

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one-that-had-to · 6 years

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Orbis Non Sufficit (5/8)

Also available on Ao3 here

Read from the beginning here

To Live and Be Well

The landing is not quite as bad as the last. Cecily’s stomach still turns at the sensation of shifting through timelines, but it's not nearly as overwhelming — no need to sit on the ground gasping for air. She still does need just a few moments to reorient, though. She’s not so sure if she wants to know how Sally made it seem so easy.

Despite the jump being easier, she is still not sure where she's landed. She reaches out with the ethereal only to find — nothing. No ethereal following her, no oppressive sense that she was horribly out of place, just silence.

Something twists in her gut, but she cannot put a finger on just what is wrong.

Still, she tries to ignore it. She has been dumped in this timeline whether she likes it or not, she may as well explore. She is still not quite sure what here is, though. The only thing she had any sort of confidence in was that wherever they are, her parents here are similar to the ones she knows.

She picks a direction and starts walking.

It doesn’t take long before she runs into a pair of ADVENT troopers on patrol. She spots them before they spot her, allowing her to duck into a bush to remain unseen. Her heart pounds out of her chest, but nevertheless she reaches out with the ethereal again, just to be sure. She is met with nothing malicious still, but now she can sense another ethereal, weak and in the distance towards where the troopers are heading. There's something else odd about it, but she can't put her finger on what it is. All that really matters is that it's not one trying to hunt her down, so she pays it no mind.

Only when the troopers pass by her does she realize her mistake. They are not ADVENT troopers, but Skirmishers, given the bright colors haphazardly painted across their mismatched armor. She does not recognize either of them, but one of them mentions their headquarters as they pass by.

She lets them get a fair ways ahead of her before ducking out of cover. Cecily wills herself to be unseen and follows, more so out of curiosity than anything else. They likely would not lead her to her parents directly, but she’d never seen the main Skirmisher encampment. And with any hope, perhaps Betos could help her.

She follows in their footsteps without fear, and eventually they lead her to a small campus of once abandoned buildings now bustling with life from the Skirmishers. She stops at the edge to look around in wonder.

Skirmishers seemed to live so happily here, despite everything the world had wrought against them. She is glad that they could build some safe harbor. A thought crosses her mind, but she quickly pushes it away before it can bring her down. She wants to believe that the Skirmishers she knows and loves have a similar place in their own timeline. All the different timelines she’d been in so far have had their differences, yes, but there was nothing to indicate a larger change like this.

A Skirmisher nearly bumps into her and she only just manages to catch sight of them in time to step out of the way. She doesn’t know what might happen if someone runs into her while she is unseen, and she’s not keen on finding out while surrounded by Skirmishers. They had always been kind enough, but she’s well aware that they’re slow to trust. A human suddenly appearing would almost certainly get her shot at.

A human with an ethereal, even if the human didn’t want it herself? She doesn’t want to consider what might happen then.

She takes that as her cue to stop gawking and start wandering the base. She doubts she will find anything useful, but being surrounded by Skirmishers gives her a faint sense of normality.

She rounds the corner of one of the buildings only to be met with an oddly familiar sight — only adding to the strange normality of the place. She recognizes Bejj with her grey armor reaching down to gently pet an equally familiar looking calico cat.

“Come. Do you not want to see Orel?” Bejj asks.

Cecily’s heart leaps into her throat, pounding loud enough that she’s sure it can be heard. There is no way Bejj could have seen her, but there is no one else for her to be speaking too.

Bejj keeps looking down at the cat, who simply meows in response to the question. “So be it,” she says after a moment, shaking her head. She turns to start walking away. The cat does not follow.

Cecily tentatively steps around the corner to follow Bejj after breathing a silent sigh of relief. Almost immediately the cat’s attention snaps to her, making her freeze. She looks at Cecily as though she knows too much and is about to spill her secrets.

After too long a moment, the cat blinks and looks away from her, seemingly uninterested. Cecily relaxes again, then starts to follow Bejj into the building.

Bejj stops halfway in the doorway to look directly at Cecily. “So, you are coming,” she says. She opens the door a bit wider and steps aside. “Come in.”

Cecily's stomach drops again, almost making her miss the small mew from behind her. She turns to see the little calico had in fact followed them. She glares at the cat, then slips through the door while she still has the chance. The cat follows just behind her as though it was following her and not Bejj.

Bejj takes the lead once more, leading them down a hallway and through a few more doors, finally stopping at one in particular. She knocks gently before opening the door.

A conversation grinds to a stop as soon as she does. Cecily leans around Bejj, but she cannot see much into the room.

“Betos, Orel,” Bejj says, nodding to each of the figures in the room in turn. “I did not mean to interrupt. I can leave, if you’d like.”

“Stay, please,” she hears Betos say.

Bejj steps inside after a second, clearing the doorway and fortunately not closing the door behind her. Cecily gratefully steps forward to take her place and almost immediately wishes she hadn’t.

Her mother sits on the floor across the room from Betos, Skirmisher armor covering her chest and shoulders and disappearing below a blanket strewn across her lap. Her hands are clasped around her dog tags, as though she were muttering prayers into them.

Cecily bites her fist to keep from gasping aloud.

The cat runs past her and eagerly hops into her mother’s lap. She circles for a moment, then lays down and begins to purr happily.

“I brought a friend as well,” Bejj adds, a hint of amusement in her voice.

A smile twitches across her mother’s face and she frees one hand to gently pet the cat. After she’s given it a few scritches, she looks up at Bejj again. “Has there been any word from…?”

The words die in her mother’s throat, but they apparently do not need to be said. Bejj shakes her head gently in answer.

The hand still holding her dog tags tightens for a moment before she releases them, letting them fall and clatter against her armor. An extra flash of light catches her eye, and Cecily does not miss the ring nestled between the tags.

The sight of it gives her a fraction of hope. It proves that her intuition was right, that this timeline is close to her own in at least one way. Her parents were together here, and if her father could be found then maybe, just maybe, she had a shot at safety. Still, seeing the ring on her tags and not her hand leaves a few thorns of worry pressing at her heart.

She tells herself that everything will work itself out in the end. It had to.

“Mox told me you were having dreams again,” Bejj says once the awkward moment passes. “It sounds as though they were different than usual.”

Her mother sighs but without as much despair to it. She looks contemplatively at the cat, still napping without a care in the world in her lap.

It is not a look she has ever seen cross her face when directly asked about anything remotely traumatic. The confidence she’d had in this timeline being similar to her own deflates slightly.

Even more surprisingly, her mother begins to speak about her dreams, about the ethereal haunting her ever step. She does not look at either of the Skirmishers in the eye as she speaks, but all the same some of the tension leaves her shoulders. They listen without interruption, and when she finishes her mother looks almost relieved. Betos offers her some soft words of support and Bejj reaches out to rest a hand on her knee.

Cecily takes a stunned step back, not quite believing what she has just seen unfold. Her mother — the one that she’d always known — had been tight-lipped about anything that had hurt her, to the point that it was a gentle joke between her parents. Seeing her open up so willingly to the Skirmishers was almost unbelievable.

Still, it filled her chest with warmth. Her mother had finally gotten some help, at least in one timeline. Either from certainly horrific trauma or simply by being around the Skirmishers, she has finally had some of the weight taken off of her mind.

The cat opens her eyes to look directly at her again, and Cecily takes that as her sign to leave. She hurries back down the corridor, leaving her mother and the Skirmishers in peace. There is no sense of the other ethereals yet — save for the weak, non-hostile one nearby — but she wants to stay ahead of them and hopefully keep the Skirmishers safe.

It hurts something deep in her chest, but she keeps moving. This version of her mother almost certainly would be able to handle the knowledge of her existence, but she cannot place the burden of that on her. She rationalizes to herself that her mother must have been taken captive and tanked at the start of the invasion, denying her own existence in this timeline and thus making it so that she will never truly be comfortable staying here.

It’s an easier truth to swallow than the thought that perhaps this version of her mother was better off as she was.

Cecily finds an out of the way place and leaves this timeline behind.

#xcom #orbis non sufficit #my writing #long fic #sendtoarchives #cecily #bejj alatall

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