#pov: you just destroyed ancient ruins

[arsmentae]

Robin cowboy hat enjoyers rise up

[literary-illuminati]

An Arbitrary Collection of Book Recommendations

(put together for a friend out of SFF I've read over the last couple of years)

Cli-Fi

Tusks of Extinction and/or The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. They’re pretty different books in a lot of ways – one is a novel about discovering a certain species of squid in the Pacific might have developed symbolic language and writing, the other a novella about a de-extinction initiative to restore mammoths to the Siberian taiga – but they share a pretty huge overlap in setting, tone and themes. Specifically, a deep and passionate preoccupation with animal conservation (and a rather despairing perspective on it), as well as a fascination with transhumanism and how technology can affect the nature of consciousness. Mountain is his first work, and far more substantial, but I’d call it a bit of a noble failure in achieving what it tries for. Tusks is much more limited and contained, but manages what it’s going for.

A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys. In a post-post-apocalyptic world that’s just about figured out how to rebuild itself from the climate disasters of the 21st century (but that’s still very much a work in progress), aliens descend from the sky and make First Contact. They’re a symbiotic civilization, and they’re overjoyed at the chance to welcome a third species into their little interstellar community – and consider it a mission of mercy besides, since every other species they’ve ever encountered destroyed themselves and their planet before escaping it. Awkwardly, our heroine and her whole society are actually pretty invested in Earth and the restoration thereof – and worried that a) the alien’s rescue effort might not care about their opinions and b) that other interest groups on earth might be more willing to give the hyper-advanced space-dwelling aliens the answers they want to hear. Basically 100% sociological worldbuilding and political intrigue, so take that as you will.

Throwback Sci Fi

Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky is possibly the only thing I’ve read published in decades to take the old cliche of ‘this generic-seeming fantasy world is actually the wreckage of a ruined space age civilization, and ‘magic’ and ‘monsters’ are the remnants of the technology’ and play it entirely straight. Specifically, it’s a two-POV novella, where half the story is told from the perspective of a runaway princess beseeching the ancient wizard who helped found her dynasty for help against a magical threat, and half is from the perspective form the last surviving member of a xeno-anthropology mission woken out of stasis by the consequences of the last time he broke the Prime Directive knocking on his ship tower door and asking for help. Generally just incredible fun.

Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh is, I think, the only thing on this list written before the turn of the millennium. It’s proper space opera, about a habitat orbiting an immensely valuable living world that’s the lynchpin of logistics for the functionally rogue Earth Fleet’s attempt to hold off or defeat rebelling and somewhat alien colonies further out. The plot is honestly hard to summarize, except that it captures the feel of being history better than very nearly any other spec fic I’ve ever read – a massive cast, none of them with a clear idea of what’s going on, clashing and contradictory agendas, random chance and communications delays playing key roles, lots of messy ending, not a single world-shaking heroes or satanic masterminds deforming the shape of things with their narrative gravity to be seen. Somewhat dated, but it all very impressively well done.

Pulpy Gay Urban Fantasy Period Piece Detective Stories Where Angels Play a Prominent Role

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark stars Fatma el-Sha’arawi, the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities in Cairo, a couple of decades after magic returned to the world and entirely derailed the course of Victorian imperialism. There’s djinn and angels and crocodile gods, and also an impossible murder that needs solving! The mystery isn’t exactly intellectually taxing, but this is a very fun tropey whodunnit whose finale involves a giant robot.

Even Though I Knew The End by C. L. Polk is significantly more restrained and grounded in its urban fantasy. It’s early 20th century Chicago, and a PI is doing one last job to top off the nest egg she’s leaving her girlfriend before the debt on her deal with the devil comes due. By what may or may not be coincidence, she stumbles across a particularly gruesome crime scene – and is offered a deal to earn back her soul by solving the mystery behind it. Very noir detective, with a setting that just oozes care and research and a satisfyingly tight plot.

High Concept Stuff That Loves Playing around With Format and the Idea of Narratives

Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente is a story about a famous documentarian vanishing on shoot amid mysterious and suspicious circumstances, as told by the recovered scraps of the footage she was filming, and different drafts of her (famous director) father’s attempt to dramatize the events as a memorial to her. It’s set in a solar system where every planet is habitable and most were colonized in the 19th century, and culturally humanity coasts on in an eternal Belle Epoque and (more importantly) Golden Age of Hollywood. Something like half the book is written as scripts and transcripts. This description should by now either have sold you or put you off entirely.

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez is the only classic-style epic fantasy on this list, I believe? The emperor and his three demigod sons hold subjugated in terror, but things are changing. The emperor, terrified of death, has ordered a great fleet assembled to carry him across the sea in pursuit of immortality. The day before he sets out on his grand pilgrimage to the coast, a guilt-ridden guard helps the goddess of the moon escape her binding beneath the palace. From there, things spiral rapidly out of anyone’s control. The story’s told through two or three (depending( different layers of narrative framing devices, and has immense amounts of fun playing with perspective and format and ideas about storytelling and legacy.

I Couldn’t Think of Any Categories That Included More Than One of These

All The Names They Used For God by Anjali Sachdeva is a collection of short stories, and probably the most literary thing on this list? The stories range wildly across setting and genre, but are each more or less about the intrusion of the numinous or transcendent or divine into a world that cracks and breaks trying to contain it. It is very easily the most artistically coherent short story collection I’ve ever read, which I found pretty fascinating to read – but honestly I’m mostly just including this on the strength of Killer of Kings, a story about an angel sent down to be John Milton’s muse as he writes Paradise Lost which is probably one of the best things I read last year period.

Last Exit by Max Gladstone – the Three Parts Dead and How You Lose the Time War guy – could be described as a deconstruction of ‘a bunch of teenagers/college kids discover magic and quest to save the world!’ stories, but honestly I’d say that obscures more than it reveals. Still, the story is set with that having happened a decade in the past, and the kids in question have thoroughly fucked up. Zelda, the protagonist, is kept from suicide by survivor’s guilt as much as anything, and now travels across America working poverty jobs and sleeping in her car as she hunts the monsters leaking in through the edges of a country rotting at the seams. Then there’s a monster growing in the cracks of the liberty bell, an in putting it down she gets a vision of someone she thought was dead is just trapped – or maybe changed. So it’s time to get the gang together again and save the world! This one’s hard to rec without spoiling a lot, but the prose and characterization are all just sublime. Oddly in conversation with the whole Delta Green cosmic horror monster hunting subgenre for a story with nothing to do with Lovecraft.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh is a story about aliens destroying the earth, and growing up in the pseudo-fascist asteroid survivalist compound of the last bits of the human military that never surrendered. It stars a heroine whose genuinely indoctrinated for the first chunk of the book and just deeply endearing terrible and awful to interact with, and also has a plot that’s effectively impossible to describe without spoiling the big twist at the end of the first act. Possibly the only book I read last year which I actively wish was longer – which is both compliment and genuine complaint, for the record, the ending’s a bit messy. Still, genuinely meaty Big Ideas space opera with very well-done characterization and a plot that does hold together. 

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Why do you like Skyward Sword? What do you love about it? (I just came back to it after a long time and am obsessed.)

AH there are SO many reasons I like Skyward Sword!

The aesthetic! This is such a cute game, and the pastels are so pleasant to the eye. It makes the world so magical too, like botw is breathtakingly beautiful but skyward sword is like going to a real fantasy land. Kind of adds to the whole idea that this game is so far in the past it's in mythology era too, which makes it extra fun!

Speaking of which, the lore! Like, I know some people might not like the Hylia addition but let's be real, Nintendo destroys their own lore with every new game, so I just really liked this one lol. The idea that this game is so far back in the past that it's the original Hero, the original Zelda, it's such a fascinating and fun thing! This isn't just another iteration of the pair, this is the pair. It makes it fitting that they're the Zelink couple that I adore too haha.

With it being so far back in the past, it makes the magic feel so much more alive! The goddess is within reach, the dragons talk, everything feels so alive. You know how in stories it's always like "time passes and people grow distant from the magic and can no longer hear it/experience it" and that kind of feels like the rest of the Zelda games - like there's obviously still magic and beauty in all the games, but it never quite feels as... idk, fantastical as Skyward Sword's world does. Part of that is probably also because it's from Link's POV and this is all new to him

Which is another fun thing! All the other Zelda games, Link lives in an established world. Here, Link's exploring one that's been untouched since the entire world was nearly destroyed in a devastating war and nearly everyone had died. Like it's kind of akin to botw (I remember reading somewhere that botw was designed to be like a really improved skyward sword, like sksw paved the way for it) in that regard, but Link's in a foreign land and knows nothing about it. Rather like OoT Link, but there's very little established here, you know? There's no kingdom, you run into one (1) settlement with the mogmas and that's it. The rest is ruins and wilderness.

The characters! My gosh, they're so fun! Link is the most expressive here, he's absolutely delightful and I adore his personality (the only Link who comes close to being my favorite aside from Sky is Twilight). Groose is fantastic and rightfully a fan favorite. Zelda's a freaking knight! And she has her own journey! And she's got a fantastic personality, and her story is so interesting! Ghirahim is hilarious and a fun recurring villain! Even Impa is fairly interesting as a character. Fi certainly isn't my favorite companion but she isn't terrible, and it's quite fun learning about her lore and watching her develop.

LOFTWINGS. That is all.

LIVING IN THE SKY. Their settlement is so different from anything else in any other game and I love it. Also a nice little thing because like so many Zelda games herald an ancient race coming from the skies, and it differs between the games but the fact that this time it was the Hylians is really neat and solidifies the whole "this takes place before literally everything else" idea.

The music! I love the music so much, they're all bangers. Fi's theme, especially Follow Fi, is absolutely magical, Groose's them is bombastic and fun, freaking Koloktos theme, the Ancient Cistern!! The Sand Sea!!!

SILENT REALMS MY BELOVED. Everybody else hates them, I freaking adore them, they're my favorite part of the game. I love the challenge of them and the music for them absolutely took my breath away.

The sword mechanics! I know with bad programming/buggy controllers it can be a pain, but it's so fun being able to swing Link's sword around with such control, whether it's motion control or joystick. Like, it's not just hitting a button, you gotta wait and watch and observe to figure out how you're going to attack, and it makes it pretty fun!

[bahbahhh]

begin again

a lot of change happens in between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. let’s fill in the gaps. zelda pov | zelink | totk spoilers | rated T zelinkweek2023 | @zelinkcommunity [first] [previous]

also on ao3

chapter 6

for the prompt "in another life"

Without the Sheikah Slate, it will take them almost a month to travel all the way to Hateno Village. Zelda promises to write when Riju asks before they depart, and it inspires Zelda to request the same of Tauro when they reconnect with his team passing through Kara Kara Bazaar. He responds enthusiastically and offers to send her copies of all his findings. 

“Where do you port?” Tauro unclicks his notepad from his belt.

“I’m sorry, what?” 

“Oh, my apologies. It’s an expression from home. I do that when I’m excited. The thought of sharing my research justfills my sails! Ha! See, there it is again.” He chuckles, and then takes a slow, calculated breath, rolling his shoulders back into place like he’s resetting something internally. “I mean to ask, where should I send it all? Where is your home?”

She hasn’t been back to Hyrule Castle since they defeated Calamity Ganon. Akkala Citadel stands hollow like a skeleton on a hill. Gerudo Town is familiar and welcoming, but her roots remain detached. She sees flashes of the various cots she’s slept on over the past two years and the familiar lost and lonely feeling begins to pour back into the space newly created with the haircut. 

Zelda tries to fight it, reminding herself she’s lighter and that she deserves to be, and that explorers don’t need homes, even though Tauro’s just told her even he has one, but her voice gets trapped. She just stands there, silently choking, like there is a stone lodged in her throat. 

“Hateno.” Link rescues her from herself. Saves her, again.

Zelda leaves the Gerudo Desert picturing her feet dangling over the end of a too-short cot for eternity. 

—

A Rito messenger finds them just before the Dueling Peaks and delivers an update from Teba. The skies of Rito Village are finally clear. Vah Medoh rests at the bottom of Lake Totori. 

“Interesting,” Zelda says after the messenger takes off back in the direction of Tabantha. Link looks at her and tilts his head. “That they decided to use the lake, you know?” When his expression doesn’t change, she continues. “It’s just, I remember reading that the Rito were once thought to be water dwelling.”

Link raises his eyebrows. 

“Yeah, like the Zora.” Zelda nods. “Maybe the Rito and the Zora are connected? Who knows. The Royal Library contained records mostly to do with the Royal Family. Rito lifetimes are shorter than Hylian’s and their history is almost entirely passed down through oral tradition. I supposed I could ask Kaneli or Kass…” 

“What about us? Hylians? Anything curious about our ancient ancestors?” He signs. 

She feels a tug. He’s asking her for information. Wisdom. Hylia’s outstretched hands. The Zonai owl’s wide eyes. Notebooks carried like a weapon. “Not much survived from the time before the first Calamity. There was a great purging of information by the King who banished the Sheikah Technology, largely because it was all recorded bySheikah Technology. There are some clues, though, beyond what the Royal Family at the time decided to record or destroy.”

“Clues?”

“Sure. In the ancient ruins, what was passed down in secret like the Calamity Ganon tapestry. In other places, too. Like…well, here, show me the sign for ‘Hylian’, again.” Zelda nods eagerly. Link complies, framing either side of his face with his hands. He moves his hands away from his face, pointer finger and thumb gradually coming together to pinch the air several inches beyond his ears. 

“Notice anything?”

Link shakes his head. Zelda repeats the sign for him and then gestures to the space between her ear and the point where her fingers meet. His face is blank. She laughs and drops her arms. So much for being a good teacher. 

“Our ears. They used to be longer.”

—

“As you can see, my experiment was a complete success!” Purah squeals, spinning around twice before she loses her balance and topples over onto her desk. Link lunges forward to help her, but Symin is already there with both hands and a slightly exacerbated look.

“Perhaps you should wait until you’ve adjusted a bit more to wear the high heels, Ms. Director,” Symin pleads. 

“Nonsense!” Purah bats his hands away and sets her glasses back into place on her face. “The fastest way to learn is to do. And besides, you’re just saying that to keep me short and away from your honey candies! I will find them. Mark my words.”

With the heels, Purah is taller than Zelda and almost a full head taller than Link. Any trace of adolescence is gone from her face. Snow white hair curls attractively along her jawline in a way Zelda’s shorter cut has yet to discover. 

Zelda is immediately curious why Purah picked this age specifically, looking a bit older than she remembers her, but she resists the urge to fire off a dozen questions. They all pertain to technology she won’t have access to much longer. Why waste her energy stoking a dying fire? 

“It’s incredible, Purah. Congratulations.” Zelda settles on praise.

“Just in the nick of time, too. SNAP! Oh, hm, I suppose I should ditch the kiddy catchphrase. Speaking of ditching, here’s the Sheikah Slate back, Linky.” Purah tosses the Slate at him. His hands hesitate until the last second before opening to catch it.

If Purah’s chucking the Slate, she must truly be ready to move on from the Sheikah Technology. Zelda glances over her shoulder, blinking furiously to ease the sting in her eyes. In the corner of the room, the Guidance Stone is dark. 

Zelda clears her throat and forces herself to turn back. “Have you thought at all about what you’ll tell everyone?” 

“Growth spurt?” Link grunts.

“Jealous?” Purah sticks her tongue out at Link, He laughs. She hobbles around the side of the desk, wincing every few steps, and then plops into her chair. “I told Impa and Robbie of my intentions to use the Sheikah Slate before I left Kakariko.”

“Really?” Zelda blinks. “So, no asking for forgiveness?”

“I wanted to offer them the opportunity to reverse their aging as well.”

Zelda becomes aware of her heart beating. She pictures Impa, all of twenty-five again, traveling alongside her across Hyrule. “What did they say?”

“Robbie was tempted, but he has a family he loves and he does not wish to outlive them. Impa,” Purah looks at Zelda over the top of her glasses. “said she’s lived long enough and is looking forward to, and I quote, ‘the obscurity of retirement’.” She rolls her eyes and starts sorting through the papers in front of her. Zelda deflates but her disappointment diminishes quickly. She understands the appeal, having wished for the same thing upon her return from stasis. Only she wasn’t afforded the option to resign. 

And how can she forsake a duty literally in her blood?

“Think they’ll change their minds once they see you?” Link asks.

“No. Impa told me to give you the Slate once you returned so you could continue clearing the shrines. You only have Akkala and part of Central Hyrule left, right? I suppose you could stop by Robbie’s while you are up there, Linky, but they both seemed pretty confident in their answers.” Purah stands abruptly, the chair toppling over behind her. She ignores it and starts marching toward the kitchen. “Symin! Write this down: ‘Subject’s appetite remains voracious one week post re-aging.’ I suspect this will dissipate with time, but the nutritional needs following a rapid physical growth are important to document! Come Symin! Teach me how to scramble an egg. No, two eggs! I require protein!” She disappears beyond the wall and Symin follows after, shaking his head. 

Zelda glances at Link. He’s looking down at the Sheikah Slate still in his hands. The map is displayed on the screen. Only a few constellations of blue remain. She half expects him to disappear in shards of light right then, but he looks up at her with those luminous stones, and just waits. 

“Are you going to leave today?" Her mouth is dry. 

He nods and then with his free hand, ‘I’m ready.’

He’ll make quick work of what is left. His body is strong again. She’s seen to this on the journey back, advocating for rest and hot meals, trying to model what he will need to do when she’s gone, all the while recording notes about the terrain she’ll soon cross on her own. Obscurity feels like too much of a stretch in this lifetime, but who knows, with this haircut and some travelers clothes, maybe she could aim for inconspicuousness.   

“I would like to go with you…at least to Hyrule Castle, if that’s alright? To review the surviving historical archives? Please?”

He holds out his hand. The only person who is reaching for her is the one she needs to let go. She flexes her hand at her side. It’s almost time to, like sand through her fingers. And yet–

One last time, she tells herself and then she takes it. 

—

The lone shrine within Hyrule Castle is conveniently located beneath the library. Link clears the shrine and starts in the direction of the passage up to the castle main. Although she wasn’t permitted to walk them herself, she knows the castle is filled with many secret pathways, including an underground one that leads all the way out to Castle Town. They were all built as a means of evacuating members of the Royal Family during a siege, but none considered the possibility the greatest threat to Hyrule could emerge from within the castle itself. 

The air is damp and heavy. It smells – she thinks about Link and the cave shrine – funnier than it should. Musty and mineral and sickly sweet, like something is rotting behind the bedrock. She opens her mouth, a joke about not drinking cave water on her tongue, but parts of the cavern suddenly look too dark for her liking. She’s aware that there are things hidden under Hyrule Castle, her father told her as much a century ago when he was still entertaining her questions. And like most of the castle above, she was forbidden from going anywhere near the tunnels. The only difference was the rule wasn’t unique to her. The entrance to whatever lies beneath the castle was completely sealed off to everyone. Even the King. 

Zelda turns and hurries away from the smell and the dark up into the safety of the library. 

They spend most of the day there. She wants to lose herself in information, have something of value to offer back to Tauro but as she suspected, the vast majority of the texts are beyond saving. Deprived of proper preservation efforts and exposed to the elements for a century, many disintegrate in her hands. She finds a few history books in her father’s hidden study, which remained sealed and undisturbed until Link discovered it toward the end of his journey. She recognizes her father’s handwriting and surmises he was copying older texts. Perhaps a quiet duty of the King or a hobby he never shared with her? She sits in his study for a long time, reading through recorded history of the Royal Family. Ancient wars and evil Kings and legends of gods descending from massive islands in the sky. Eventually, her brain stops absorbing information and she just traces the slant of her father’s impeccable penmanship. 

Link leaves her be, disappearing into the castle to hunt down and take care of any monsters that wandered back within the walls.

He isn’t back when she finally emerges. Beams of dying sunlight stretch toward her through the gaps in the ceiling. Shadows begin to fill the sanctuary of her library, so she starts chasing the light throughout the castle. She wanders the battered hallways and lets her memory fill in the broken pieces. Her family’s colors are barely distinguishable behind the grime clinging to the rugs and torn banners along the walls. 

She realizes where her grief has been taking her right before she enters the Sanctum.  The main entrance to her chamber collapsed during the initial siege, but there is an additional entryway here, built so the Goddess-blood princess would always have access to the Sanctum for prayer. She follows the staircase up into her room and uses furniture to scale the wall up onto the upper level so she can access the bridge. 

The ceiling to her study has been blown open. Miraculously, her desk is still standing, along with a few glass vials containing remnants of century-old elixirs and dehydrated plant specimens. She drags her finger along the dust on her microscope and pushes around pages of notes. The contents have been claimed by mildew and weather and time. 

Her old diary lies open. There is a phantom pit in her stomach. The bitter aftertaste of mortification. She had been helpless to stop him when he found it in her room and brought it here to flip through it.

It was the only time she heard the Calamity laugh.

She pushes it aside and starts pulling open the drawers. Quills, dried up wells of ink, and charcoal for sketching. She retrieves the handful of ancient screws and gears she hid in the back from her father. Beneath them, her secret journal. Not her private feelings and unfiltered thoughts, but her notes on the Sheikah Technology. Pages upon pages of research, theories, and data. 

Of course, it’s completely intact. 

“Hey,” Link speaks up from behind her. She doesn’t jump. She knew he would appear eventually. “We should make a fire. It’s getting dark. We can leave in the morning, unless you want to–”

“No, I’m good,” Zelda grabs the notebook and a few other loose documents and pushes it all into his hands. “Here. For the fire.”

He frowns at her. She pulls open her adventure pouch, fishes out her Restoration Summit proposal, folds it, and adds that to the pile, too. 

“Just burn it.” She hears her father in the harshness of her tone. There is ink on her fingers. 

—

Her mood continues to sour as they clear the rest of the shrines in Central Hyrule. The guardian team has been busy consolidating all the guardian parts the Gorons don’t want, so when Link returns from clearing the shrines in the Lost Woods and Hyrule Ridge, all he has to do is point and click. She’s quiet and reserved, but no one seems to notice. There is an excitement building, a collective sense of accomplishment as they near the end of the clean up. A group cheers them on when they depart from the main camp. Link leads the horses in the general direction of the road. It will either take them back to Akkala or the Great Plateau. 

They board the horses at the Riverside Stable. The golden horse pushes his nose into Zelda’s shoulder and she smiles, scratching the spot behind his ears he likes. She has yet to name him, but it’s getting hard to imagine herself traveling without him. It would make obscurity impossible, inconspicuousness a challenge, but he’s a strong horse and loyal, following her command over Link’s now.

Link looks southwest. In the distance, she can see the rise of the Great Plateau on the horizon. He reaches for her hand. They are going to fast travel right into the Shrine. Into the maw of the magic that healed his broken body. Trapped his soul.

You don’t have to do this alone.

She can’t go back on her word. Not now.

“Last time,” she promises herself and reaches for his hand.

He must think she’s offering comfort, because he smiles.  

—

They make camp outside the cave when it's all said and done. Tomorrow, they will fast travel to Akkala and part ways. He’ll head north to clear the rest of the shrines and meet up with the guardian team there, and she’ll reconnect with Hudson in Tarrey Town to talk through his formal proposal for the next phase of the reconstruction.  

Link’s cooking one of her favorite dishes: a simple meat and rice bowl. She glares at the cooking pot and watches the water start to boil. He pulls out the ingredients, carefully drops them in, and starts absentmindedly humming a cheerful, light melody as he stirs. She’s noticed he does this whenever he cooks. They are all wordless songs she knows she’s never heard before, and yet somehow, she instantly recognizes them. Could hum along if she would only let herself. 

“What’s the song?” She asks.

He looks up at her through the curtain of his bangs. In the stillness, shadows dance across his skin in the firelight and he briefly wears different versions of the same face. 

Just like the songs she’s never heard, somehow, she recognizes each one.

“The song you are humming,” She fails to keep the edge out of her tone. “What is it called?”

He shrugs, sets down the spoon, and signs, ‘I hear them in my head. Sometimes when I come upon a new place, or in my dreams. I’ve asked Kass and he says he never heard any of them from his teacher.’

Zelda softens a little. She pulls her knees up into her chest and wraps her arms around them. “Kondo. The court poet’s name was Kondo. He was a Sheikah.”

Zelda waits for Link to continue, but he’s fallen silent and still. Likely to allow her a moment with the memory of her former friend. It only makes her anger swell. She hugs her legs tighter, trying to steel herself against his kindness. It will only make it harder to let him go when it’s time to. “Does Kass have any theories? About where these songs come from?”

‘He thinks I was a musician in another life. Who knows, maybe I’ll take up an instrument when this is all done.’ He takes up the spoon and resumes his stirring.

She narrows her eyes and looks up at the clouds forming overhead. Storm clouds. In the distance, a ribbon of gray scales and lightning weaves across the sky toward them. Farosh. Perhaps summoned like the clouds by Link’s innocent humming, or, more likely, completely unaware of them or Hyrule’s restoration, or the passing of time itself. 

Zelda thinks about Link’s final letter. About how seeing a dragon, this dragon, is what gave him the strength to meet his destiny; restored his faith in this land and the people living in it. She wishes the sight of Farosh could do the same for her. Or perhaps the memory of Naydra swirling free over her head on Mount Lanayru, or Dinraal’s fire blazing over the Spring of Power visible from the window of her room in Tarrey Town. 

But the dragons don’t bring her comfort. They don’t inspire her. All she sees are symbols. Misery like lightning. Icy blue loneliness. Fiery rage. 

“You should go,” she blurts. 

Link looks up at her. 

“I can make my way back on my own.” 

He laughs. 

“I’m…I’m serious.” Zelda lowers her legs and curls her fingers into fists at her sides.

He’s not even looking at her. His attention is back on the food. He signs with one hand in her direction. ‘I’m not leaving you.’

“Why not?” Every word stings pouring from her lips, but the pain is liberating. It fuels her determination to keep going. She raises her voice, practically shouting. “You should!”  

Link drops the spoon into the pot and glares at her. Finally. 

“What? What’s the difference? Tomorrow, in a week, in a month? You-your–” Zelda waves her hands, trying to catch the perfect word in the air in front of her, like a firefly in the dark. She growls impatiently and continues, “you are freefrom your appointment.”

‘Appointment?’

She throws her hands up. “I have no intentions of taking the throne once Hyrule is restored, therefore, I am no longer in need of a knight.” 

“I’m not a knight,” he says.

“No. You’re not.” Pain rips at her stomach, threatening to tear her wide open. 

He stares at her. 

“Stop looking at me! Go.”

He doesn’t move.

“Fine. Fine! I’ll go.” She rises to her feet and dusts herself off. He stands with her. Unbearable heat builds in the back of her throat. She lifts her hand to push him away and immediately notices the scar. 

It’s glowing. 

Zelda erupts like molten rock from Death Mountain. Like the Calamity did into the sky that day all those years ago and ten thousand years before that. Something unchecked and vengeful and ugly rises up the darkest parts of her. 

If a dragon is required for him to realize what’s needed of him, then, so be it, she’ll become one.

“The Master Sword is gone. You have not worn the Champion’s tunic since Calamity Ganon’s defeat. You recommended the destruction of the only source of value I had to offer Hyrule.” She aims her finger at him and jabs. “You did that to me.” She heaves the last word at him and takes a few steps back, circling, and then gets right back in his beautiful face. “I will help rebuild Hyrule in penance for my failures, I’ll play Princess again, since it’s a title I am unable to retire from. That I can’t just put back, like a sword.  I-I will commit myself to research and uncover the secrets of the past and record them better so future generations can actually know what is important, instead of wasting time…wasting time…”

Tears stream down her face and collect under her chin. “You’re free, Link. You can let me go, too.” She mimics the gesture he showed her over a year ago. Invisible sand passing through her trembling fingers. “You have to do it. I’m not powerful or courageous. I am cursed with knowing and I know this about myself. It’s the last thing I’ll ever–” Her voice hitches.”I’ll ever ask-ask of you. Please, because if you keep looking at me like this I might—I can’t do it myself. Just let me go.”

Link stands there in the aftermath of her diatribe, like one of the tattered flags in Hyrule Field that somehow survived Calamity Ganon’s attack and the lonely century that followed. He’s wearing a rare expression of shock, probably processing the completeness of his freedom now that she’s violently discharged him. 

He opens his mouth and then closes it. Lifts his hands and drops them. He does this a few more times. She wants to grab him, but she has no right to reach for him now. She starts wiping her face, trying to make herself look less pathetic, less in need of rescue, so he’ll turn and go. 

“I won’t do that,” Link says it out loud, but he’s signing at the same time. His hands shake with urgency as he does. He signs the same words over and over again until she stops wiping her face and counters.  

“W-why not?” 

Link drops his hands. His voice sinks into a whisper. She has to lean forward to catch it. “I want to be with you.”

Without the rain, she can’t tell if she’s manipulating time again. She feels like she’s suspended in the air. Like she’s trapped in stasis again. “You what?” 

“I put the Master Sword back to heal it so I could protect you. I don’t wear the Champion’s Tunic because it is precious to me and I’m afraid I’ll ruin it more than I already have. I recommended we destroy the Sheikah Technology to freeyou from the past. I will not let you go. If I wanted to do that, I would have left after we first got to Kakariko. I chose to stay.” He takes a step toward her. His entire body is trembling. He palms his throat when his voice won’t come any more no matter how hard he tries to summon it. He looks her directly in the eyes, tears swimming in his own, and moves his hands slowly, clearly. ‘I choose you. Do you choose me?’

“Y…you choose me?”

He nods. 

“Why-why did you say anything? Do anything? All this time, I thought–” She shakes her head in disbelief. He reaches out and grabs her hands. His current explodes across her skin until every inch of her is buzzing. He’s Farosh climbing out of the spring, a candle in the dark, the taste of magic on her tongue. 

“Important things take time.” He gave her the answer months ago. “I was waiting until you were ready. Everyone is. Hyrule sees all you’ve sacrificed, all you’ve done. We all see you and we are willing to wait for you.”

Her ears are ringing. Farosh glides across the sky above their heads. She’s never known the beauty of time granted, only the agony of it passing too quickly or the suffocation when it stops completely. All she’s ever known is pressure, so governed by it, she’s created it all herself in the vacuum that was left inside her when it was taken away. 

Hyrule hasn’t been trying to bury her with the Sheikah Technology. It’s been making room for her. All of her.

“Are you ready?” Link asks. 

Zelda looks at him. He waits. The electricity she feels between their hands is visible for a moment across his skin, and his eyes, those luminous stones, they don’t shine. They burn.  

“I am,” she says. 

Link lets out a single, cathartic sob. It’s heavy with breath, like he’s been holding it in for a hundred years. Like he was actually worried she might need even more time.

He releases her hands and starts to sign something, but then stops himself.  He pauses, scanning her face, and then steps into her–impossibly, extraordinarily close. He grabs her face with both hands, fingers sliding insistently into her hair under her braids, and kisses her.

[sun-spice]

After all the events of the past day: being hijacked, the inexplicable crash, and absolutely everything to do with this 'Ben', Jango was at his wits' end. While the adult jetti was a good actor, his ad was not.

"I know you are hiding something from me." He demanded, breaking the tense silence that had smothered the cockpit. "Where are we? What planet was that?" A wiser man would probably shut up and not shoot the rescue, but Jango was not about to play ignorant to the glaring red flags for potentially a tenday stuck aboard this ship.

(Jango POV on Sithspawn!Obi-Wan drabble with some headcanons below.)

The preteen to Jango's left tensed with a scowl, he opened his mouth to speak but was quickly interrupted by his baji.

"Set. Please go to your bunk." He said with a jett'la mildness.

His ad whirled on him. "Master!" Jango stifled a twitch at that address.

"Please." 'Ben' repeated. Something unspoken passed between them, before 'Set' relented, storming out of the compartment with an angry huff to poorly conceal his nervousness.

Once the door to the cockpit closed, 'Ben' turned and gave Jango a stony look that made his hackles raise further. It was only the presence of the jett'ad--the padawan--outside, and Jango's own precarious transport situation that stayed his blaster.

"Bac aliik, gar haat'mando'ad, ni tion'serim?" The jetti demanded.

Jango startled, narrowing his eyes at the sudden switch from Basic. "Gar jorhaa mando'a." He growled. Where was a jetti that spoke his language and recognised his symbol during his last encounters with the jettise, he thought bitterly.

The jetti ignored his statement and continued in his oddly accented Mando'a. "I have heard that True Mandalorians have honour, so I will be true with you." Kalevala, an uncommon accent nowadays, but with hints of his foreign Coruscanti and... a slight Keldabe twang? "If you tell anyone of the coordinates of that planet, it will not end well for you."

"You're threatening me." Jango laid out bluntly. Ballsy of this jetti.

"I am stating a fact. It won't just be me that follows after you, in the case that happens". He spoke fluently but with the occasional phrasing that sounded off to a native speaker like Jango. He idly wondered how long he had been studying, but there were more pressing matters at hand.

"What was that planet?" He demanded once again.

The jetti pursed his lips and sighed through his nose. He was reluctant, but he already seemed to know that he could not get around this. "We're in the condemned space of the former Sith Empire right now. That planet is called Stewjon, but you might know of it as Halasar."

Jango stilled. Condemned Space was a relatively small region consisting mostly of abandoned Sith planets and their neighbourhoods. While the original no-fly-zones around death-traps like Moraband and Ziost weren't enforced anymore, not for centuries, they were still known to be treacherous. As the seat of the dar'jettise Empire's abominations, the entire area was an old minefield of traps, dark magics, scorged lands, and even bioweapons: pathogens and monsters alike. After the fall of the Empire and the Sith Space Exodus, the hyperspace beacons had been destroyed, and many debris and obstacles had been scattered to order to essentially baracade the region from the rest of known space. Of course that didn't stop the clandestine, the arrogant, and the desperate from attempting to navigate it using old starmaps, but everyone knew that one risked simply disappearing, and becoming yet another cautionary tale.

There was a reason that the dar'jettise were still infamous even a millennium after their extinction, those ancient demagolkase truly scorched everywhere they once walked.

While Condemned Space was a well-documented no-one's-land, Halasar was a myth. An ancient Sith outpost full of old labs and cursed ruins, absolutely infested by sithspawn abominations left to reproduce unchecked. It was clearly a myth, because if it had existed, it would have been glassed long ago.

Jango thought of the grass and the lichen of the mystery planet, the fresh rain, and laughed. He would buy that they were near, or possibly somewhere within Condemned Space, given the large patches of devastation and scarring on the various continents when viewed from orbit. But the jetti trying to sell him that the planet was Halasar? How gullible did he believe Jango to be? He would be offended, if the whole lie wasn't so ridiculous.

The jetti smiled ruefully, called out on his banthashit. "You don't believe me." Jango snorted and gave him an incredulous stare through his visor. 'Ben' must have sensed it through his force, because he had the gall to look ever so slightly amused. "Very well."

And then his form distorted.

Jango was emptying blaster charges on battle-hardened instinct before his rational mind could catch up, but it was useless. Pale pink Human skin hardened into deep crimson-brown chitin. Legs cracked and reformed, and creature's body elongated and sharpened. Spines, tail, teeth, claws. Were those mandables?!

His eyes roamed, cataloguing the threats the creature posed. He needed to get out of this enclosed space to have a fighting chance, and to preserve the ship's controls from damage. But outside the cockpit he potentially had a stubborn jett'ad to manhandle out of harm's way. Osik.

Jango was about to launch at the thing with a vibroblade before the creature held up a long fingered hand and an unseen force froze him in place.

Peace. No harm. Jango reeled. "Stay out of my kriffing head!"

Just as suddenly as it had appeared, the creature collapsed in on itself, process reversing until the pale Human jetti stood before him once more. Jango strained against the magics, carefully regulating his breathing. A Clawdite? No, Clawdites weren't capable of such transformation.

His brain already had the answer for him, planted by the jetti's words. The insectoid exoskeleton and mandables, the mammalian teeth and tail, the crown of warped montrals, the long horns, (the jewellery? His brain whispered). The jetti had just mutated into a sithspawn and back again. Me'sik'ven.

The jetti(?) still looked amused. "While there are many wild rumours about my species, our shapeshifting abilities are, ironically, understated." He spoke again, still in Jango's native tongue. "I will let you go and explain if you agree not to stab me. I still wish to be narudar, if you are amenable."

"Fine." He gritted out, and the pressure slowly eased. He didn't sheave his blade, but gestured for Ben to continue.

Ben's face turned grim. "Stewjon is my homeplanet. During the time of Empire, the Sith used it as a base for their organic engineering. Their favourite subjects were the people they enslaved, and when the population became smaller, they stole from further to bolster it. Those people were my ancestors."

He let his words soak in before he continued. "The Sith enslaved both our bodies and our minds. To the point where we are remembered as monsters born from the corpses of sapient people. The perfect predator of ambush to invade and suppress worlds, able to change shape and hide within their prey.

However, the Sith are no longer, and those that the galaxy remember as sithspawn were able to fade into obscurity, to choose again, to heal, to be people again.

I don't wish to harm you, but I cannot let you endanger their security. I need your vow, haat, ijaat, haa'it, that you will not share this information."

Jango shook off the heaviness of his shoulders as the adrenaline come-down started to hit. He wasn't faced with a beast, he realised with some resignation, but a person with something, someone, to protect. Was the ad the same as him?

Fighting now seemed even less of an option. This day was so kriffed. "If my knowing this is so dangerous to your people, why am still alive?"

Ben hummed. "Honestly? The only reason I brought you with us is because the Force whispered so."

Mando'a sentences:

"Bac aliik, gar haat'mando'ad, ni tion'serim?" That symbol, you're a True Mandalorian, am I right?"

"Gar jorhaa mando'a." You speak Mando'a.

Vocabulary:

aliik - symbol (usually of allegiance)

ad - child

baji - teacher

dar'jettise - Sith plu.

demagolkase (plural of demagolka) - someone who commits atrocities, a real-life monster, a war criminal. From the notorious Mandalorian scientist of the Old Republic, Demagol, known for his experiments on children, and a figure of hate and dread in the Mandalorian psyche.

jetti - Jedi sing.

jettise - Jedi plu.

jett'la - Jedi adj. (e.g. "How very Jedi of you.")

jett'ad - Jedi child

haat, ijaat, haa'it - truth, honour, vision. Words said to seal a solemn pact.

me'sik'ven - what the shit

narudar - temporary allies

Hi! Thank you for reading all the way to the end of the post. This wee thing snuck up on me at midnight last night and I shockingly managed to finish it. I'm not a writer so this won't be going anyway, sorry! But if anyone wants to expand on it in any way, you have blanket permission and my eternal love and delight. Also I purposely wrote Obi-Wan less eloquently in this because he's speaking in Mando'a for most of it. If some of the phrasing was weird to you that's on purpose, because it's weird to Jango too. Obi-Wan is very good as Mando'a but not totally fluent/native.

Some worldbuilding rambling:

In this AU in my brain I've based Sithspawn!Stewjoni off of xenomorphs in the sense that that's how the galaxy views them. I do also love the idea of eusocial societies in worldbuilding. I tried to see if anyone had done anything for Geonosian worldbuilding but no dice :( In my headcanon Stewjoni don't actually have parasitic reproduction (if anyone does parasitic!Stewjoni though I would be excited and impressed) like people think they do, but they are eusocial apex predators who could theoretically reproduce quickly enough to be an invasive species. Of course they don't do that, because they collectively have a very long generational trauma around bodily and reproductive autonomy, and would never force a fertile member of the colony to bear children.

Obi-Wan in this was given to the Jedi by his colony (small at around a hundred members, and from a temperate island because I'm Scottish and must have some space-Scotland in this) because he was a strong enough force-sensitive that he was being negatively affected by the lingering darkness of the planet's Force presence, and his shapeshifting was enough that he was able to pass as non-Stewjoni (Human in his case). How does this work? Anything is possible with the Force is my excuse.

The Stewjoni have maintained an amicable relationship with the Jedi after the Order helped them get back on their feet once they were freed, and this is common practice. However, some force-sensitive Stewjoni children are not able to pass and thus are not able to spend extended periods off-planet around other sapients. The Jedi aid them where they can but they often become sickly in some way.

The disabled and elderly are usually well supported by their colonies and Stewjon's medical infrastructure. Some disabilities are widespread due to the Sith fucking up their bodies so much. No one even remembers what their ancestors were like before the Sith. Were they insectoid? Mammalian? Carnivores? Omnivores? A colony of another known species? There are some theories but that information has long been lost.

Stewjoni colonies in this can range from under a hundred to thousands. Megacolonies of hundreds of thousands to millions like the capital tend to be made up of lots of smaller colonies. Stewjoni!Scotland in this is has a few hundred different colonies. There are other regions with different biomes and different cultures as well. Stewjoni Jedi aren't numerous or structured enough to truly be a colony within themselves, but many consider their Jedi temple or Corps to be their colony. They are often also still considered 'outmembers' of their birth colony, and part of their regional culture and of course greater Stewjoni culture, but of course how connected they are varies between the individual person.

Body modifications of various forms are popular. Jewellery and decorations are also more common for everyone than not.

Anakin in my mind is also considered an outmember of Obi-Wan's birth colony as Obi-Wan's apprentice because that sparks joy. There's a generation of the colony around his age (around 10-ish kids) who essentially adopt him when Obi-Wan takes him to visit for the first time. They're absolutely smug and excited to have the cool Human Jedi kid as a sibling/cousin and laud it over everyone else. Obi-Wan's generation (the Wan generation) are less than impressed. Anakin may not have a crèche clan but he does have a bunch of Stewjoni kids who will holocall him on an encrypted line regularly to bug him for news and anecdotes about the rest of the galaxy.

Anyway that's all my rambling for now. I welcome comments and tags if anyone wants to throw stuff at the wall with me :)

[mysticstarlightduck]

21 for the writer’s ask game?

Thank you so much for the Ask, @mk-writes-stuff!!!

21. Who is/are your favorite character(s) to write?

This is such a great question! Since I have quite a lot of WIPs, I have a lot of favorite characters I love to write about as well - so, for the sake of making this answer easier for me, I'll choose some characters from Enchanted Illusions and Of Starlight and Beasts to narrow down the list (and because these two WIPs are my "Words Into Potions" project this March!)

While I like almost all of my main characters and POV characters some of them just take the cake when it comes to being the ones I have the most fun writing and creating!

I'll give a quick summary to each of the characters I mention here (:

Of Starlight and Beasts

Leora Tallin - a young warrior from the former kingdom of Idrevan, which was conquered and annexed by the Crimson Queen's army generations ago. Leora was once a terrified orphan child whose magic caught the attention of Meira's army, who intended to have her trained as a soldier for their wars - a fate she narrowly escaped thanks to her older sister rescuing her. Now, Leora is the leader of a growing faction in Idrevan's underworld, seeking to offer the oppressed a chance of freedom away from the Crimson Queen's hold on their land. She's very much a brash, "strike first, ask questions later" type of character, and is also highly intelligent - while she yearns for her revenge on the General who ruined her childhood - a General who also nearly killed her adoptive brother - Leora also knows that openly standing up to Queen Meira without a plan would be a disaster waiting to happen, and so she waits and grows her power for the perfect opportunity to take a stand.

Arammys Lochlain (also this book's certified cinnamon roll!): Arammys is a young man whose memories of his past were stolen from him, for a reason he does not know. He is also the Starlit Guardian - (someone who has the most ancient and powerful magic their world can possess, a power said to be remnants of the power that created the realms, a magic which his family line have been the carriers of for millennia now). I love writing Arammys because, he's just the sweetest, kindest, most pure-of-heart character in this whole series - and despite his normally pacifist manner, he is also someone people really, really shouldn't mess with. I guess I just really love the "cinnamon roll that could kill you" type of characters lmao! He is the love interest of Corah, one of the main characters, and their story is one of my all-time favorite subplots this book has to offer!

Eidan Delythen - A formerly bright-eyed inventor, ward of a noble family, Eidan's world was destroyed and torn upside down by his treasonous uncle. Blaming himself for the fate of those he once called family, who died at the hands of his uncle, Eidan resigned himself to a life of solitude, whilst he sought a way to put an end to the evils and beasts that the corrupted magic of the Crimson Queen's magic brought to the land, as a way to redeem himself. He's very much a morally grey, scheming character when he is first introduced to the story, which I think is part of the reason why I love writing him so much - at first, he finds himself joining the MCs in their quest because he believes it will advance his goals, but as the story progresses and their bond starts to grow he genuinely starts caring about his newfound friends and participating on the quest for the right reasons while remaining quite the schemer when it comes to plotting the villains' downfalls. I guess it is just so cool to write the character whom he becomes later on in the book - still a morally grey, scheming character who manipulates situations for his gain, but who now does it with a noble goal in mind, to help his friends.

Tomasa Flammyr - She lives in the kingdom's coastal city, and is hopelessly in love with her girlfriend, Nadya. Tomasa also has high hopes of one day joining the royal Navy - her whole reason for helping the main cast, other than stopping the Crimson Queen will save thousands of innocents, is that she believes this is her chance to become the hero she dreamed of, just like the ones in the tales she was told growing up, and that it'll also be her chance to impress her future in-laws. She also happens to be a very (literally, physically and mentally, she's unbelievably strong) strong female character - she could carry most of the main characters with one arm and be unfazed - which, for me, is one of the reasons I love writing her so much. Other than that, she is just a really sweet person who also is a brave and honorable fighter, who loves puppies and all things cute in the world, but who also could defeat a giant in a five-minute brawl. Her secret shapeshifting ability is also a part of one of the greatest plot twists of the book! (:

Enchanted Illusions

Augustus Grimmure - One of the book's protagonists, Augustus is an all-powerful necromancer who made a deal with the deamon Deathbringer (an ancient entity of their world) for more power after being betrayed by his peers. He dreams of creating a world where innocent people are safe from harm, and where progress can really flourish - and being an "anti-hero" type of character, he believes that this can only achieved by purging all those who are pointlessly cruel and abusive from the city, eliminating the worst criminals, the kind of people who would create more injustices like the ones he faced. I just love how, while he is a morally grey character who often does questionable things for a noble/good goal (and is not above killing his enemies), he is also a kind and caring young scholar who wants to keep his friends and loved ones safe and happy. The dichotomy of someone who can go "I'll devour your soul" to criminals/his sworn enemies, and then do a 180° and go back home to his friends and family like nothing happened, straight up "Do you want hot chocolate, my dear?", is very fun and compelling for me to write!

Marcus Kallihan - The most dangerous assassin Ansburke has ever seen, Marcus Kallihan rose from street urchin to king of one of the most powerful mobs in the city. He runs the city's criminal underworld with an iron fist, ensuring that while his business is booming, innocent and honest folk can have a better and brighter future than the one he had. He runs The Fair - a giant underworld city-like landscape underneath the city of Ansburke, where he welcomes the outcasts and misfits from all around the region, and where he conducts most of his underworld business as well. He is a mobster with a strict moral compass, much different than his fellow mob bosses in other gangs, and due to him being a very much "Robin Hood" like figure, is adored by the people. He is also known as the Phoenix. I just love how his character is a badass with a heart of gold who took "the cards he was dealt with" and used them as a chance to give people like him a different fate than his, so that no other street kid had to resort to crimes to get by, like he had to.

(Most characters in Enchanted Illusions are antiheroes, which is really due to the world they live in, and that's very interesting dynamic as a whole for me)

Evangeline Daemitya - Daughter of the richest and most powerful man in the city (Damien Daemitya, heir of the most influential family in Ansburke, and also a member of the city's High Council of Sorcerers), Evie is a very sweet, studious, and opinionated lady, despite her sheltered existence. She has the means to make this city a better place, and when she discovers a conspiracy involving the nobility of the city, Evie takes it upon herself to change the way things are about to go. She's determined, madcap, and stubborn, a daredevil at heart who is not afraid of taking risks and leaps of faith if it means getting things done, while also being one of the most polite and pure characters in the book. She's very feminine and very strong at the same time! She wants to be a good person - unlike her callous, abusive ex-step-mother, who made a great part of her past a living hell - and use her extensive monetary means, as well as her knowledge, to give the city a chance at progress.

[semi-imaginary-place]

ffxvi

Congrats on 13 years on T Clive, pop off king.

hrreeklwnnfdddddcchhhhh so many names. ok ok so iron and dhalmek are fighting. and woeld(??) got asked to help dhalmek and they said lol no. and empire?? (which empire???) sent assasins after iron's shiva. i'm having to pause every 10 seconds. shiva's ice and cape and stuff could have been more translucent.

I do think its interesting how the entire backdrop of this game is resource scarcity driven political conflict. like rosaria is invading iron for resources because it itself is in threat of collapse. also nice to see that the "good" king isn't all that good.

wait wait the crusaders and empire are different factions?? ugggg im so confused. i heard crusaders and holy kingdom and put those together but the crusaders are from iron kingdom? wait if iron hates dominants how'd they get shiva.

did rosaria invade and annex jill's kingdom too?

wow they family dinners these people must have. brother's love and admire each other and are also a little jealous of each other. mom hates clive and dotes on joshua but is also trying to appeal to dad. dad is tired.

sanbrequois? they're french??? ah so this is the empire

oh shit. clive is ifrit? so the one he wants revenge on is himself??? thats juicy. so those indestructible ancient ruins can be destroyed by eikons. hmm i cant tell there was definitely something up with clive and the hooded figure and ifrit but then we got a 3rd person pov of ifrit killing pheonix.

yikes

i was wondering how he ended up an imperial slave. given he was the archduke's son he could have been a political prisoner and he's important enough for his name and face to be known, but nah anabella sent him to the frontlines.

one tattoo is for the magic people, what the other for? clive still has his pheonix abilities even though joshua is dead is he actually a bearer or did people just think he was because of the pheonix abilities.

kill those soldiers or we'll kill these children. sounds like a terrible deal

for supposidly being his dog we don't see enough of clive interacting with togul. its always jill carrying him around or that old woman petting him.

this si starting to remind me of smt neutral/genocide route where you kill everyone from every faction. factions are still confusing me are royalists sabrque or waleod

i lost the plot. we're searching for some dominant in a village in imperial territory and getting attacked by... waleod? iron? thank you ign so royalist are waloed

ooooh i was getting branded and bearer confused which is easy to do

why's cid after the dominant? recruitment? counter to clive's revenge. stir up a bit of trouble for the bigger nations? well benedrikta has been harassing this one village and kidnapping the bearers

cid's going to die isn't he. he's too good. and he has mysterious japanese coughing blood disease aka fantasy tuberculosis

ok the titan dude. the woe.. woelda?? king dude. cid. damn girl keep them wanting. this game is just benedrikta and every man she's had sex with. i never even watched game of thrones and im starting to get why everyone is comparing this game to it. gotta milk that M rating.

i have ... reservations about benedrikta's character writing. also cid's right why do you have to go and fight garuda clive. leave her be. you start hearing voices and your instinct it to listen to them. bruh.

the environments are really pretty I'd totally mod out combat and have a nice walking simulator

ok damn clive did you have to kill her for the crime of being in your way

ok yeah i was starting to wonder if the hooded flame man clive was seeing and the one benedrikta captured were different people

the devs didn't hold back huh sex scenes. clive bare ass naked in a dungeon. why is he naked you found him with clothes on.

cids into men. thats 2 comments now one from a villager who thought clive was warming cid's bed and now cid calling clive pretty but not his type.

on one hand before ifrit killed pheonix i was thinking oh maybe the brothers reunite after 13 years. and then ifirit stuck his hand through phoenix and beat him to a bloody pulp and i was like yup dead. it would make some narrative sense if joshua was the hooded man but eh i dont know if i like it but i also dont know if i like having joshua just die like that.

it is joshua. joshua main character moment. evil cursed brother with the potential to destroy the world. well phoenix did revive his entire health bar once during the battle.

either testing for bearers at birth is an imperial tradition. or clive wasn't a bearer when he was born. both interesting implications. 3rd option is anabella decided to make clive's life even more miserable.

martha reminded me does clive look hella like his dad. people in ros...e...lin? might actually recognize him.

cid how old are you that you're calling clive lad and boy or was clive originally scripted to be younger?

squeenix... its ok for a woman to look middle aged. she's still beautiful.

wait wait wait. normal people cast cast magic in the deadlands but i thought the whole thing with bearers was that their powers weren't tied to the mothercrystals. also ... jill and clive are both dominants. are all those powers dependent on the land's aether?

xiv pulls a kingdom hearts. this i wasn't quite sure but now im pretty sure. clive seems to think the hooded man he's seeing is the same as the one everyone else is seeing (joshua) but theres really two of them. the one he saw 13 years ago speaking a strange language is not joshua.

the writers make jill's entire character motivation for 13 years protecting the women taken from rosaria by the ironmen but then drop that on the ground the moment she meets clive?? Those Women didn't stop being captive just because they stopped being on screen.

cid took credit for benedrikta's death? ooh politics!

joshua phoenix fire, jill shiva ice, benedika garuda wind, forgot that guys name titan earth, cid ramuh lightning, prince dude bahamut light, eastern king guy odin dark. who is the 8th? no water leviathan?

[ficrecsbybu]

WinterIron fic rec 2021: Part I

Note: this fic rec consists only of Bucky Barnes/Tony Stark fics. the only Stucky & Stony you might see is as past relationships but that’s it. it’s also complete works ONLY. also - no underage stuff 🔪.  if you have any requests for Winteriron fic recs (for e.g non-superpower au, only one shots, series, hardcore smut, post-tws, college au, not team cap friendly fics, bodyguard au etc.) you can send me requests ^^. anyway... enjoy 😉 

✨ The Guiding of Death by RayShippouUchiha

“That whole Merchant of Death thing,” someone off to the side faux whispers, “makes a lot more sense now.”

It echoes across the bridge like a gunshot. 

Rated M, Hades & Persephone AU, Canon Divergence, always female Tony Stark, not Team Cap friendly. word count: 41391

(note: listen... I know het pairings and/or gender bend is not popular and I never really read those in general BUT this is straight up one of the best fics I have ever read so I NEEDED to share this with y’all...✌️)

✨ Forms of Love by bear_bell

Tony's the bad guy, after all. He's used to it. He's fine with it. He's good at it.

Only now, there's something far worse loitering around the tower - The Winter Soldier. No one notices the guy at first, but when they do, Tony figures that he should have the soldier's back.

Birds of a feather should flock together, and the bad guys should start a book club.

Rated E, Post-CW, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Different Personalities, Team Iron Man. word count: 33591

✨ Looking at You by NotEvenCloseToStraight

Bucky looks for so long that now all he wants to do is touch and hold and fix everything. But Tony can barely be in the same room as Bucky, cant even look him in the eye. So Bucky doesn't know what to do about Tony, but he is determined to do something. Because all he wants is to look at Tony, and see Tony looking back with a smile.

Rated E, Post-CW, PTSD, team heals, mental healing, forgiveness, angst with a happy ending. word count: 28,168

✨ I'll Be Your Bodyguard (If You'll Be My Security Blanket) by NarutoRox

When one of Loki's pranks gone wrong leaves the team with a young Winter Soldier in their care, they know they're going to have their hands full. Especially since this newer, tinier version of Bucky seems to have a bodyguard complex - and a particular attachment to Tony.

Rated T, kid fic, age regression/de-aging, de-aged Bucky, tiny bodyguard Bucky. word count: 4,993. 

(note: finally something CUTE. Im so sorry for being such a slut for angst and heavy stuff 😅)

✨ Fate Strings Not Required by Akira_of_the_Twilight

Tony took the hint.

Tony wrapped his hand around the new guy’s elbow. He kept his touch light and breakable in case he’d misread the cue.

“Just some guy claiming to be my soul mate, babe.”

The new guy’s eyebrows rose to his hairline in surprise. He chuckled and gave the first guy a smirk. “Strange. Last time I checked we were soul mates.”

Rated T, AU - no superpowers, AU - soulmates, Bodyguard Bucky Barnes, age difference. word count: 7,032.

✨ Shameless  by Finely Honed (jaqen_hgar)

Tony isn’t actually sure which of them starts it—he’d like to take credit, but if he’s learned anything it’s that Barnes is by no means a wilting flower. Besides, the start doesn’t matter as much as figuring out who’s going to actually finish it.

rated M, flirting, dirty talk, sexual tension. word count: 2,560

✨ Winter Wooer by salytierra

Winter may not be the most pleasant guy to live or share your body with, but he isn't nearly as destructive as everybody expected him to be either. He likes to brood in the corners, watch British TV, and freak people out. And Tony. He really, really likes Tony Stark. There's just one problem – Bucky's pretty sure he doesn't feel the same way about the guy.

Rated M, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Different Personalities, team as family. word count: 8,726

✨ Even Darkness Must Pass by Finely Honed (jaqen_hgar)

“Fake it till you make it,” Bucky whispered to himself, swallowing around his panic. Sam had drilled the idea into him, and it had become a mantra of sorts, something to hold onto when all he wanted to do was blend into the shadows and disappear.

“You’ll be fine.”

Steve placed a warm, strong hand on Bucky’s shoulder and squeezed, his super soldier ears having picked up Bucky uttering the now familiar saying.

Bucky nodded, tried to believe his own words, and followed Steve onto the common floor, a wall of sound hitting them as they entered.

rated M (but mild sexual content), parent Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes recovering, team as family, of love and hobbits 🧝🏻‍♂️. word count: 15,289

✨ Paths Are Made by Walking by Potrix 

The road to recovery is long, winding and a different one for every person walking it. Bucky chooses to help himself the only way he knows how; by doing what he does best.

Or, alternatively; the one in which Tony is a mess and accidentally kick-starts Bucky’s protective mother hen instincts.

rated T, post-TWS, fluff, humour, getting together, idiots in love. word count: 4,744.

✨ Rise In Perfect Light (Be Not Fearful Of The Night) by RayShippouUchiha

At first, the new element singing in his chest, Tony doesn’t understand what he’s done.

Doesn’t understand the full consequences of his actions.

But, to be fair, there’s no way he really could have.

Not even a futurist like him could have ever seen this coming.

rated G, post-CW, past Stony, angst with a happy ending. word count: 3,589.

(note: this fic is SO BEAUTIFUL. lemme just asjkdjnsjkdm)

✨ and amidst the ruins, there was you by TheKitteh

With everything resolved - post the Berlin conflict, Siberia and the rogue Avengers' return - Tony relishes in the clarity of what the team is now. He can finally see the well-defined lines, he can rely on solid rules and the chain of command. He's settled into his life like never before.

That is, until one day, an unhinged sorcerer with no grasp on his magic shatters that new-found balance.

As a result, half of Tony's soul is now gone, but he's willing to do anything to get it back.

rated T, post-CW, canon divergence, au - Dystopia, Dimension Travel, magical accidents, slow burn, getting together. word count: 36,976

✨ and so we unfold by TheKitteh

Senbazuru. Thousand Cranes.

An ancient Japanese legend that promises anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the gods. Some stories believe you are granted happiness and eternal good luck, instead of just one wish, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury.

Bucky’s not big on believing in any legends, not after all that has happened. He just wants to create something for a change, not destroy.

He needs to prove himself that he can be trusted to handle something delicate. He doesn’t need a promise of a wish come true. He just,- needs to do this for himself.

He doesn’t need noticing how sad, tired Stark looks. Doesn’t need to want to do something for the man, when he can barely do anything for himself.

rated T, CACW canon divergence, getting together, reconciliation, POV alternating, Bucky Barnes recovering. word count: 14,449

✨ Spilt on the Ground like Water by tisfan

Tony has been black-bagged and illegally held at the Raft. Steve has no intentions of going to rescue him.

But the Winter Soldier isn't going to leave him behind.

rated E, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, implied/referenced torture, frottage, dub-con, mention of part non-con (HYDRA trash party), not Steve friendly, suicidal thoughts, touch-starved. word count: 10,853

✨ Norns, Save Us (From Ourselves) by phlintandsteel

It’s been ten years since half the universe was dusted.

rated E, post-IW au, A/B/O verse, Omega Tony, Alpha Bucky, Soulmates, Peter & Harley playing matchmaker, still recovering Bucky Barnes, not Steve Rogers Friendly, angst with a happy ending. word count: 37,324.

✨ Change You Like A Remix by ficlicious 

No one ever said Avenging would be easy, but Bucky could have really used a memo about the weeks where the hits just didn’t stop coming. He’d probably still have signed his soul away to the gods of spandex and paperwork, but a heads up woulda been nice before he nodded and smiled and took up residence in the house sanity fled when the Avengers moved in.

---- Soulmates, misunderstandings, snark, genderswap and sleep-deprived Avengers abound. Tony's a woman. Must be Friday.

rated E, AU - soulmates, established relationship, temporary gender swap, jealous Bucky Barnes, misunderstanding, miscommunication. word count: 10,494.

✨ Getting to Know You by orbingarrow

It had been an adventure, navigating the sweetly apologetic Bucky Barnes, who haunted the tower most days, and the the Winter Soldier, who occasionally inhabited Barnes’s body. The Winter Soldier was not apologetic; he was scary. And he was currently chilling out, uninvited, in Tony's lab.

“Leave,” Tony said, because Tony was either a dead man or not, and there wasn’t much he could do about it before coffee.

“Or you could give me permission to be here,” the Winter Soldier suggested.

“I don’t let strangers poke around my stuff,” Tony grumbled, as he walked past the Soldier to take a seat at his workbench.

“Easily solved,” the Soldier deflected. “Get to know me.”

-This is what happens when Tony does.

rated G, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are different personalities, fluff, Clint Barton is a good bro. word count: 9,470

✨ Safe House by ali_aliska

For years, Tony had successfully kept his secret. Neither the world nor his team knew he was Iron Man and as far as he was concerned, everyone was better off that way. On his best days, Tony Stark was not someone people liked and trusted, so the last thing Tony wanted was to tarnish Iron Man’s good reputation by revealing the truth.

But then SHIELD falls, the Avengers face disarray, and a stray Hydra assassin forces Tony to go into hiding—and where better than the safe house he had just crafted for the Avengers and their own ex-assassin ready to come in from the cold?

Tony plans to hide away from everyone in his makeshift workshop until the coast is clear and he’s safe to go home. No one would care to spend any time with the reclusive, arrogant billionaire anyways, right? Iron Man is the one everyone wants around.

Bucky Barnes, on his own journey to reclaim his life and identity, seems to disagree with that sentiment.

rated T, post TWS, canon divergence, au - Secret Identity, mutual pining, team as family, slow burn, misunderstandings. word count: 89,533

✨ Versace on the floor by withered

The modern man’s armor is his clothing, and Bucky wants Tony out of his.

rated T,  post CW, Bucky Barnes & Winter Soldier are Separate Personalities, Barnes & Soldier & their hard-on for Tony, not team cap friendly. word count: 2,127 

[fanfic-collection]

Loki x Reader: Apocalypse ch 2

Loki's POV chapter, I'll do 2 cus it's so short. Oh I'm gonna regret this. I'll do the next one tomorrow

rebel4fandom

-

Loki knelt before Odin, his teeth grit angrily, his thoughts racing. He risked a glance up at the throne, his eyes flickering from his so-called father to Frigga. His jaw clenched tighter.

They would pull him from the dregs of space, revive him, nurse him back to health, and now call upon him once more for punishment.

Finally unable to take the silence anymore Loki stood up, removing his crossed arm from his heart. “What?” Loki snarled. “What charade am I playing this time?”

Odin blinked.

Frigga tilted her head softly and touched her hand to her mouth. “Loki, my son.”

Loki shot her an angry look, though it did not hold. He quickly turned from her and looked back to Odin.

“We have all been given a second chance it seems, even Asgard, thanks to the working of Thor and his mortal friends, through the power of the Infinity stones. A source of power older than the universe itself.”

“Yes, the Aether, the reality stone, something you spoke about so many times.”

“Hold your tongue!”

Loki rolled his eyes, “You rescue me from the dredges of space, you nurse me back to health, and now you call me before you as a judge for some sort of charade, why?” Loki spat venomously.

“To teach you humility, boy!” Odin roared.

Loki blinked, though he held his ground, instead tilting his head. “I know humility.” He whispered.

Odin ignored him, “Thor learned humility when I banished him to Midgard. Perhaps you will learn the same.”

Loki groaned. “Honestly, is this necessary? After everything I’ve been through, even Thor. He’s going to think I faked my death somehow if he sees me.”

“Well that will be for you to explain. I wanted to have you locked away in the dungeons. I meant as I said, you bring ruin and death where you go, I will have that no more, I will strip you of your powers.”

“How can you do that? Mother taught me what I know.” Loki crossed his arms.

“Hah!” Odin barked pointing to two of the guards to grip Loki’s wrists.

Loki tugged loosely at their grips, but they held fast. Unsurprising. There was a noise behind him and he twisted his neck and upper body around, shifting the guards with him. It was just another guard. Then something cold and sharp was being pressed into his neck from the front and Loki winced, hissing in pain as he turned once more to the front.

Now he began to really struggle.

A metal cage like collar with vicious spikes digging into his collar bones clasped onto his neck, the other spikes digging into his jaw. It seemed to be made of blue metal and made the process of turning one’s head difficult. It dug into Loki’s leather and metal armor, which offered just enough protection to prevent it from piercing his skin.

Loki tugged wildly, viciously, much like a caged animal, thrashing about at the guards as he kicked and lashed out, fear rampant in his eyes as he tried to free himself. The guards did not even shift. Loki could feel a part of him being locked away, shifted within him into this blue metal lock, both to inflict pain on the wearer, to inhibit the wearer, and to weaken the wearer.

“Release him.” Odin ordered.

Loki fell to his knees, scrambling to step upright. His armor weighed him down and he was grateful that he wore the lighter gear that he wore now than he had when he visited Midgard. Gasping for breath, he reached for his throat. Loki waved his hand, a dagger should appear, fireworks, a flower, anything.

Nothing.

“What have you done to me?” Loki hissed.

“Just as I took the hammer of Thor from your brother, I have done what I can to take your seidr away. When you prove yourself worthy, it will be returned to you.” Odin replied.

Loki tried to touch his throat. “Worthy by your standards.” He snarled.

“Loki…” Frigga began softly, “I did not want you to go mad in the prisons again.”

A single tear fell down Loki’s cheek.

“Asgard is weak, we have no standing army, we have no soldiers. We have no bifrost. The humans need our help. The frost giants have found something to increase their power tenfold, and they have the Casket of Ancient Winters.” Odin explained.

“My rightful kingdom.” Loki spat, still reaching for his throat but barely able to graze it despite his long fingers.

“You are an enemy to them as any Asgardian, you killed their king. They are attacking Midgard, another eternal winter. We cannot assist as we did in the past. Go. You must save the mortals.”

“You wouldn’t even ask Thor to do that unarmed.” Loki muttered.

“You will have your daggers.”

“Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.” Loki shook his head bitterly, then stopped when the spikes dug into his skin. He grit his teeth.

“Thor told the mortals of your heroic sacrifice, you are not an enemy to them. In fact, if you may recall, some of your recovery took place on Midgard.”

“I recall.”

“Then good. Find the source of these frost giants’ power, destroy them, restore your honor, and regain your powers, just as Thor did. Return to us in glory.”

Loki exhaled a soft and sardonic laugh. “I live to serve.”

There was a blast of darkness, and he was flying through the cosmos.

[bard-llama]

Cedric being drinking buddies with Roche.

Roche asking Cedric about elven culture and history.

Cedric sending him to the elven baths to appreciate them. That's how he found Geralt and Triss there.

Iorveth, excellently hidden, saw him very clearly admiring the roses in awe but not dare touch them, heard him very clearly trash talk Lorredo because why would someone destroy such a beautiful, historical site like this?

And when he starts having second thoughts about his nemesis... BOOM! He brings down an ancient wall to get to Geralt. So much about d'hoine respecting elven history...

Ooooh, anon, I love this!!! I feel like I don't have much to add, but the idea is like galaxy brain shit. Hell yeah Roche and Cedric are drinking buddies! Why wouldn't they be? Cedric doesn't exactly hang out around the nicest parts of town and there's really only 1 place to buy liquor, so... idk, they run into each other at the Flotsam tavern? (does Cedric ever actually go into Flotsam?)

Maybe it's not long after Cedric has left Iorveth and the Scoia'tael and he's nursing a broken heart and a bruised sense of morality. And idk, it's busy that day and the only free place is next to this Temerian noble-but-gruffy guy? And at some point they get to talking, maybe play some cards? which probably means Cedric doesn't know who Roche is, so maybe it's early in Roche's career as Commander of the Stripes too. And Roche knows some about elves, sure - he's been around them in the gutters of society all his life (no matter how much he tries to pretend he's noble with his chaperon and court manners and shit). But if he's gonna be hunting them now... well, all the intel says that most of the Scoia'tael commanders are very old elves, which means that 1) they've probably been fighting longer than he's been alive; and 2) if he can understand what they're thinking, then he might actually have a chance.

So he asks. Not just Cedric, but all the elves in his life. (Some of them have mixed feelings about this, but also, it's nice that a dh'oine is actually asking to learn about their culture).

But for now, he asks Cedric about the history of the area and such. Obviously this leads to a drunken expedition to the garden where the roses of remembrance grow.

But now we change POV. We know what Cedric and Roche's motivations are, but you know who doesn't? The guy who Cedric just dumped pretty recently who hasn't met Roche yet, but who has heard of him, heard of the ways he serves his king, torturing and murdering elves for the crime of demanding equality.

So when he sees his ex not only bring a dh'oine to the sacred garden, but it's a human who matches all the descriptions of his enemy!? Yeah, he stalks them. He's torn between wanting an excuse to kill the dh'oine and very, very much NOT wanting to deal with the guy who considered him so monstrous that not only did they break up, but the guy fucking left their entire community!

But when Iorveth stops fuming enough to actually listen, he's surprised by what he's hearing. Because the dh'oine is admiring the beauty and history of the place and asking respectful questions and keeping his hands to himself.

Iorveth starts to consider that maybe there's more to this dh'oine than meets the eye. And such starts a totally healthy obsession with his enemy.

But then Witcher 2 happens and Cedric dies right after Roche destroyed part of the elven ruins. So from Roche's perspective, he can't even ask his friend's forgiveness, and from Iorveth's, Roche is worse than ever, because even after all that interest and respect, Roche still destroyed part of the bathhouse.

Could probably go a few ways from here.

1. They meet again during Reasons of State and Iorveth is piiiiiiissed at Roche, but Roche is just kinda tired. Which means he's actually honest about WHY he did what he did. (i.e. save Geralt and Triss, who were trapped.)

2. They meet again after Vergen, when Roche shows up on the side of the Vergenis (or, more accurately, the anti-Kaedwen side). This leads Iorveth confronting Roche. And I guess it's dealer's choice on what happens to the Stripes. If it's the bad ending, Roche is obviously pretty broken at this point.

Oooh, maybe what helps him grieve and recover (either in Vergen or in Reasons of State) is being invited to participate in elven rituals about death? Which probably means we need to do some worldbuilding about what that looks like for a species that (in my canon) lives thousands of years.

But like, as Iorveth teaches him and they go through the rituals together, he finds a way to actually give his grief an outlet. And he could never have done that if it weren't for Iorveth's willingness to share his culture. Even after all of their history.

Maybe they talk about Cedric sometime? I think Iorveth and Cedric were friends for most of their lives and kinda did an on again off afain thing with sex and romance both. So like, Cedric was pretty damn important to Iorveth, and he was Roche's friend! Even dead, he would continue to be a presence in their lives.

[fae-fucker]

Zenith: Chapter 72-75

Chapter 72

We’re in Nor’s POV. She’s moping around in her ruined palace. We find out she ordered the attack on Adhira on a whim after learning Valen was there. Cool.

This entire chapter is about how Nor is doubting herself and how she feels shitty even though this should be a triumph, and Zahn, her boytoy who’s literally described as being “too good” and “too pure” for her, telling that she’s a girlboss. Then they make out and “lust tumbles through her” and the chapter ends on them fucking.

Chapter 73

Last we left her, Andi had angsted herself out of the room after an argument with her dad. She walks the gardens for a bit, thinking about the creation myth of this world. It involves Light Bringers and Night Spirits, and two of them fall in love and from their union a black hole is born, but around it a galaxy forms, and it also creates the Godstars, which are described as “all-knowing beings with the power to give and take, the perfect mixture of darkness and light.”

So with all this wank about light and dark, you bet your ass Andi’s gonna start rambling about how dark and/or light her soul is, which she promptly does.

The creation myth is ... fine? In theory? But something light and something dark falling in love and creating the world is a bit trite, innit? Baby’s first creation myth.

Arcardius was the first planet inhabited by the Ancients hundreds of thousands of years ago, and many believed that the Godstars must have given the settlers this gift to welcome them to their new home. But whatever the reason, Andi was grateful for it. She didn’t want to be in the presence of darkness after everything that had happened. She needed to clear her mind of all that had been clogging it since the beginning of the rescue job.

I think “clogging” is a more apt description than Shinsay realized.

Andi angsts herself to a new place with a floating rock waterfall fountain thing, where Valen is, equipped with his painting gear. We get a description of how hot he is despite having been beaten and starved for two years, because of course.

His brown hair was cropped short and, skinny as he was, it made his strong jaw more pronounced. Everything about his once-soft face was now hard edges. No doubt, with some more meat on his bones, he would be striking.

The boy she remembered from years ago had now become a man.

Damaged as he must be on the inside, at least his physical wounds would heal. The awful things he had experienced at the hands of Xen Ptera would hopefully become a distant memory, as well, and more bearable with time.

The way the “hope he’ll heal emotionally as well, I guess” is tacked on right after “at least he’ll be hot” is wildly hilarious.

Valen asks if he can paint Andi. For some reason he immediately starts putting paint on canvas, because fuck sketching, he’s too fucking good for that. Also what’s the lighting situation like? He’s waxing poetic about the way the light hits Andi’s cheek plates and purple streaks (with red tips that reaches her mid-back), but seemingly doesn’t need any light on his canvas to see what the fuck he’s doing, in the middle of the night? Ok.

Later Valen, with a paint-stained face because Artiste, asks Andi if they can go somewhere else because he needs a break. They go somewhere with a view of the Magical Purple Pinterest Garden, and it’s very breathtaking and shit.

“We’ve been through darkness, Andi,” Valen said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t still live in the light.”

He closed his eyes, and Andi was left to ponder how much his words echoed her own thoughts from earlier, about the balance between the light and the dark.

Thank you for pointing out the thematic connection from THREE PAGES AGO IN THE SAME CHAPTER, Shinsay. I couldn’t have figured it out myself if you hadn’t held my hand like the imbecile I am. Seriously, I can’t figure out whether this is supposed to be helpful, or if Shinsay really thought they were geniuses and just had to point it out so we wouldn’t miss how cool and deep their writing is.

Anyway, Valen asks Andi to the obligatory ball portion of the story, saying he’ll have to dance as the future ruler of the planet (???) and he wants to dance with a friend rather than a romantic interest.

A friend.

He said the word as if he really meant it. As if, somehow, despite what they’d been through, the horrors they’d shared, Valen had begun to think of Andi as a friend.

Wow ... When he said friend, he meant friend, as in friend? Amazing. What a shocker.

Also, yeah, they did go through some horrors together. Like that time Dex tossed him down a flight of stairs while Andi was somewhere else. Or that time Valen was tortured for two years and Andi wasn’t.

Truly, a friendship of the ages.

I guess this is supposed to be a misdirect, but given how blatantly unrealistic this is and how easily Andi falls for it, it just makes her look a bit like an idiot, doesn’t it?

Chapter 74

This chapter is just Andi heading back to bed but taking a detour to the library, discovering that Alfie has been destroyed while some servants throw his body in the garbage on the way.

Oh no! Not Alfie, who’s only the most annoying character! Anyone but Alfie!

We get this:

As she turned to leave, a small, shiny object on the floor caught her eye. Quickly, Andi reached down and palmed it while the maid wasn’t looking. She didn’t know much about AIs, but the object in her grasp looked like a memory chip.

[...]

It could be nothing, a useless memento, but her gut told her something different. She’d look into it later.

I-is this supposed to be foreshadowing? You literally already told us what it was, why would Andi’s “gut” be telling her something she already suspects according to her narration?

Henlo? Editors? Anyone? Hello?

Hewwo? Mistew Pwesident?

Chapter 75

Dex has been following Andi around like a whole creep and watches her enter the library. He follows her inside and then we get the obligatory “shitty writer praises the magic of literature” bit.

“The general scoured the galaxy for this collection,” Andi said suddenly.

Dex turned. She stood near him in the dark room, softly lit by a beam of moonlight. The sadness in her eyes could almost be felt, like a tangible thing.

“You said Kalee was a reader,” Dex said. He laughed softly. “I didn’t know she was this much of a reader.”

“She loved exploring,” Andi said. “The general loved keeping her close. And so she turned to books for her adventures.”

“The sadness in her eyes was almost tangible.” There, I fixed it. Now shut the fuck up.

“What is it about memories,” Andi said suddenly, walking back toward him, “that gives them the ability to hurt us so badly?”

Dex shook his head. “The past is powerful. I think you and I both know that.”

She finally looked into his eyes. “I’m tired of letting the past control me, Dextro,” she whispered. “Aren’t you?”

I’m tired of letting this book control me, that’s for sure. What is this fucking dialogue? They keep talking in clichés without really saying anything, wasting our goddamn time instead of having an actual conversation.

Anyway, they finally get everything over with, apologize to each other, then make out but decide that uwu they can’t be together because they’re so hurt and damaged and whatnot. And honestly this wouldn’t be so cringeworthy if we didn’t know it’s all just a fucking ploy to drag out the will-they-won’t they subplot that I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seats over.

The main reason this doesn’t work is that we don’t really get any sense of why this can’t work out? They just mutually agree, after having a hot makeout sesh, that they’re not meant to be for ... reasons? Even though they’re clearly attracted to each other, have no other attachments, romantic or otherwise, and have forgiven one another. Dex thinks they both “ruined” their future together in their own ways, but we don’t get any explanation for why they can’t just ... try to build a new one. Not even a “the memories hurt too much” or “I can’t afford the mental and emotional effort right now” or “there’s no time for it with the galaxy in chaos” or even a simple “I don’t want to.”

Instead it’s “I know we’re not meant to be because we both screwed the pooch last time we tried” and you’re just there like yes and? What’s stopping you from trying again? Give me a reason. IRL that would’ve been fine, but here it just feels like the authors are trying to convince US that they won’t get together, trust me, I promise, don’t even think about it and let it blow you away when they do.

I think, weirdly enough, the reason this doesn’t work for me is the perspective. Andi has actual valid reasons for rejecting Dex and seems like she’s still conflicted about her feelings for him, which would give her plenty of justification to not jump back into the relationship. But instead, we’re stuck with Dex, who’s been desperate to talk to Andi, be around Andi, who thinks about Andi constantly, but now, when a new beginning is within his reach, he decides without reason to not go for it because what, he feels like it’s not right and assumes it’s mutual? It doesn’t track with his previous behavior, which has been constantly focused on Andi up until this point. His sudden and inexplicable decision to not pursue this anymore goes against his behavior and motivations so far, which is why it strikes me as hollow and manipulative writing.

Had he maybe wanted to offer a new start but then Andi said something or he saw how unsure and hurt she still was and decided against it, then it would’ve made sense. Had we been in Andi’s POV and she just straight up rejected him, it would’ve made sense. But here, we get:

“We can’t... This won’t ever...”

“I know,” he said.

And in his heart, he knew that it was true. Their two worlds were never meant to become one. That even through the forgiveness, even with the unavoidable feelings that echoed between them, they could never share a future. They had already had their chance, long ago. They’d both ruined it in their own ways.

Andi doesn’t even give him a proper reason, he just assumes what she’s saying because apparently he’s been thinking the same thing? His “heart” just tells him it won’t work, when all this time, he’s seemingly done everything in his power to fix what he always knew wasn’t fixable? Huh???

I’m not saying this to say that Dex should’ve pestered Andi, he can very well accept her rejection but still pine for her silently. What I am saying is that this doesn’t track with his previous behavior, and just shows the authors’ hands in this as being a cop-out for the sake of melodrama and to keep the romance subplot going through cheap conflict.

Anyway, Dex asks Andi to the ball and she’s like “lmao too late” and then the chapter ends on this note:

When they parted ways, Dex couldn’t help but feel as if he were seeing Androma Racella for the very last time.

God, I wish that were me.

[twitchesandstitches]

okay so today’s quick Original Verse setting thought is that the setting is, more or less, thousands or millions of individual worlds that are each potentially infinite in scope, many of them with their own odd rules or magical twists that make them distinctive settings in their own rights, and that there’s ruins of a far older land in all these worlds, and in the depths of the magical realms that sort of appeared AROUND them

so you might wonder; ‘how did THAT happen?’

there’s two reasons. The first one is that the magical realms are heavily influenced by the idea that certain ideas get powerful, even from the POVs of completely different and unrelated cultures, so the more these related ideas spread, the more it effects the magical realms. isolated ‘bubbles’ of semi-reality, where ideas from mortal lands propagate and give the magical lands something to work with, will manifest around concepts like this. So you might see seemingly ancient ruins, filled with magical technology and telling strange histories with murals in the walls, but they weren’t made by mortal hands; they just turned up. They’re not ‘real’ in a technical sense, but they still have information; these ruins can convey lost history or forgotten lore, and are worth examining even if they have no real historical value.

The second reason is that the oldest worlds were once a single place.

In the ancient times of history, long before any living culture yet existed, the multiverse was a single vast world of immense scope and bounded by many moving landscapes that embodied an element concept, pinning the shaped world into place. Many cultures lived here, thousands of societies of every kind and populated by beings of immensely varied form: to present day characters, no one knows if these were all one people who had learned to freely alter their shapes, or if these cultures had transcended species-as-identity and regarded all beings as one.

their mastery of technology and magic had developed into a transcendent understanding of the powers over reality; they possessed unmatched magitech that is still unequaled, and they individually all held the magical power equivalent to a god, so that all beings had limitless power and absolute freedom to do with it what they pleased. It is believed that they derived some form of power from thought and belief itself, and shaped that into limitless potential to do whatever they could imagine.

And their entire empire completely was destroyed, splintering into trillions of shards; when their world came undone, the magical realms came flooding in, and carried those splinters upon their empyrean tides. Over the course of eons, those splinters became new worlds, and forgot the old ones, with only the remnants of the ancient societies’ technology and cities as a testament to what they were.

The exact nature of the event that destroyed this omni-society are unclear. It could have been a battle with eldritch forces and unspeakable monsters that poses a threat in the modern day, and it might be that nothing is meant to last forever, and this society’s death was only forestalled, and when it finally came, it did so with a bang. It might also be a key to the metaplot of the setting as a whole.

Note that while there many characters that ARE old enough to remember this society, none of them remember it clearly for various reasons. Tia’s memory is spotty past about a few mortal lifetimes ago, and while she has vague memories stirred by the ruins, and there’s some suggestions that her appearance HEAVILY resembles the general look of some of those ruin’s long gone inhabitants, she doesn’t know the significance of any of that and certainly doesn’t remember this era, though she believes that its the clue towards working out her origins.

In any event, this era provides a convenient source for plot hooks and ideas; its mysterious technology can do whatever might be desired for a good story (from several artifacts that, when gathered, can grant any wish, to infinite power-inducing batteries) and any adventurer would love to study the ruins that have been preserved.

[beybladefanfictions]

L-Drago’s Return - Chapter 1

(Description: Sequel to Ryuga's Return. Read that first or you're going to be extremely confused. Five months have passed since L-Drago’s disappearance and Ryuga has gotten used to his new life without his Beyblade. However, he discovers that there might be a way to get L-Drago back after all…)

(Thank you to Wattpad User *insert name here* for giving me many of the ideas for this fic. It wouldn't have been possible without them. Go check out their Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryugasama20/)

Ryuga's POV

“Oh, too bad.” Kenta placed a familiar card on the floor. “Two new cards for you, Ryuga.” He cast a glance at his friend, smirking triumphantly.

Ryuga glared at him. “Why you little…”

Beside him, Madoka and Gingka giggled, hiding their own cards behind their hands. Ryuga let out a sigh, drawing two new cards. That made five total. With his turn skipped over, it was Madoka’s turn.

“Oh, what do you know?” She placed her final card down on top of the pile. “I win again!”

Kenta and Gingka groaned in unison. Madoka just chuckled and stood up, going to grab her laptop from nearby.

“You always win,” Gingka muttered, shuffling his hand of cards.

“Either her or Kenta,” Ryuga added, rolling his eyes.

Kenta chuckled into his hand. “It’s not our fault we’re so good.”

“Play for second place?” Gingka asked, casting a glance at Ryuga and Kenta.

“Sure.” Kenta nodded.

Madoka sat back on the floor with the rest of them, gazing at her laptop. Her attention seemed to be fixed on it all day. Ryuga gazed at everyone's cards. Gingka had about a dozen, Kenta had three cards, and Ryuga himself had five cards. He gazed at his deck, smiling. Gingka and Kenta played two normal cards, keeping the colour green. *Perfect for my plan.* Ryuga placed a reverse card down.

“Your turn again,” he nodded to Kenta.

“Uh… thanks, Ryuga.” Kenta put down a yellow card, the same number as the past card.

“Uno!” Kenta and Gingka shouted in unison.

“Ha! You draw six!” Gingka exclaimed, pointing at Kenta accusingly.

“No!” Kenta snapped back. “We said it at the exact same time! That doesn’t count.”

“I agree,” Madoka replied with a nod. “Carry on as normal.”

“Humph." Gingka placed another card down on the pile.

Ryuga smirked, “Activate trap card.” He placed a ‘plus four’ card down on top of the pile.

Kenta let out a gasp. “How could you use my own catchphrase against me?!” he exclaimed, placing his hand on his forehead.

“It’s not even your catchphrase,” Gingka chuckled as Kenta drew his cards.

“Whose catchphrase is it?” Madoka asked, tilting her head to the side.

Ryuga, Gingka, and Kenta all glanced at her then turned to each other with wide eyes. Gingka smiled and shrugged.

“What colour?” he asked, glancing at Ryuga.

Ryuga glanced at his cards. “Red.”

Kenta let out a groan, sinking to the ground. “Dangit! That’s the one colour I don’t have!”

“I’d say ‘sorry,’ but I’m not,” Ryuga smirked as he spoke. “You had that coming.”

Kenta sat up, glaring at him. “Oh, I am so getting back at you!”

Ryuga just smiled. Uno was like Beyblade in a way: you showed no mercy, even to your friends. The three of them continued the game for a while before Ryuga placed his final card on the pile.

“Dangit,” Kenta grunted, glaring at the ground.

“Well, at least I beat you two,” Ryuga replied with a shrug.

“Yeah, yeah.” Gingka turned to Kenta. “Well, Kenta, looks like it’s just us. Wanna keep going?”

Kenta had a dangerous look on his face. His smirk was wider than a valley and he was struggling to hold back his giggles.

“Kenta, wha-”

Kenta slapped a card onto the pile. “Skip your turn!” He began slamming more cards down on the ground in rapid succession. “Skip again, skip, reverse to me, oh, draw two cards. UNO!” He held up his final card in two fingers. “DRAW! MONSTER CARD!” He slammed the final card onto the pile: a seven.

Gingka was shivering, staring at Kenta with eyes the size of dinner plates.

“Wha- what just happened?” Madoka asked, her wide eyes fixed on the scene.

Ryuga snorted with laughter. “Good job getting destroyed, Gingka.”

“Ah- ah-” Gingka’s eye twitched. He shook his head clear, shivering as he swept the cards into a stack. “I think that’s enough Uno for today,” he replied with a nervous chuckle.

“What's next for game night?” Kenta asked, his gaze shifting between the others.

Gingka looked through his stack of games. “Well, I brought Jenga, Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly…"

“Monopoly?! Kenta gasped, shuddering. “Why would you bring Monopoly?"

“Yeah, that sounds dangerous,” Madoka muttered, her eyes glued to her laptop screen.

Ryuga tilted his head to the side. “What's wrong with Monopoly?"

“That game is the worst," Kenta answered, his eyes narrowed at the game box. “I'm pretty sure people have killed each other over it.”

“Humans kill each other over everything,” Ryuga replied, rolling his eyes.

“Ha! True,” Madoka remarked, still not looking up from her screen.

“Hey, what's got you so interested in your laptop today?” Kenta asked, scooting toward her.

“Oh, uh…” Madoka pulled her laptop into her chest. “I've just been researching something. You guys might be interested, especially you, Ryuga.”

Ryuga bit his lip. *Why am I getting singled out?*

“What is it?” he asked.

“Yeah, show us.” Gingka scooted closer.

Madoka placed the screen on the ground where they could all see it. Kenta and Gingka leaned forward. Ryuga looked over Kenta’s small head to see the screen. On Madoka’s screen, was a symbol in the shape of a dragon’s head, an Asian dragon by the look of it. It looked a bit like L-Drago.

“It’s the symbol of an ancient civilization called the ‘Dragon Clan,’” Madoka explained, gesturing to the image.

“Dragon Clan?” Kenta and Gingka both turned to Ryuga.

“Yeah, that’s why the name caught my eye,” Madoka replied, scrolling down the page.

“Is this ‘Dragon Clan’ where you’re from Ryuga?” Gingka asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Ancient civilization,” Ryuga emphasized Madoka’s words, rolling his eyes. “I’m seventeen, not five thousand.”

Kenta smirked. “Could've fooled me.”

Ryuga lightly pushed Kenta over, who just giggled.

“Actually, Ryuga,” Madoka cut in sternly. “It's possible you could be a descendant of this Dragon Clan.” She pointed at her screen. “It says here that they specialized in dragon-type beys.”

“So?" Ryuga raised an eyebrow.

“Well, there are only a few Dragon beys,” Gingka cut in. He rested his finger on his chin. “L-Drago, Omega Dragonis, and the Jet Black Dragon, which the WBBA made.”

“Omega Dragonis?” Ryuga and Kenta asked in unison.

“Oh, that's Ryuto’s bey,” Gingka answered, “We met him on Mist Mountain.”

“Right! Ryuto! He looked a lot like you, Ryuga. It’s possible you’re both descendants of this ancient clan.” Madoka’s eyes were glowing. “That’s so cool!”

Ryuga shrugged. “It’s possible, I guess.”

“Still not convinced? Their leader was called a Dragon Emperor.”

“WHAT?!” Everyone gasped in unison.

Ryuga stiffened. *You are the Dragon Emperor, Ryuga.* Doji’s words echoed in his mind, making him shiver. *The Dragon Emperor is the only one who can control the forbidden bey, L-Drago.* Ryuga’s heart pounded a million kilometres an hour. He grunted, shaking his head in a vain attempt to escape his memories.

“All this time, I thought he made it up…” Ryuga murmured, struggling to keep his voice from trembling. “That must be why he sought me out. He knew somehow.”

*Doji never would have been able to use me to get to L-Drago if I weren’t the descendant of some ancient clan?! Is that what I’m hearing?!*

“What are you talking about?” Madoka asked, tilting her head to the side.

Gingka looked away, his eyes narrowed. “Doji…”

Ryuga stiffened. “I don't care about my past!” he snapped, glaring at his friends. “Madoka, why did you bring this up?!”

“You mean you don't see the connection?” Madoka asked, seemingly unfazed by his outburst. “Dragon Clan? L-Drago? They could be the original creators of L-Drago. They definitely had it at one point and it’s rumoured here that they may have created a backup of it.”

Ryuga’s eyes widened. “A backup of L-Drago?”

Over the past few months, Ryuga had grown accustomed to his life without L-Drago, and his longing for his bey had finally started to ease. Now, with those words, it came back like a boomerang to the heart. This was hope, genuine hope, that L-Drago could return after all, and Ryuga could return to his old life.

“Then you could get it back!” Kenta gasped, somehow speaking Ryuga’s thoughts aloud.

“It wouldn’t be exactly the same,” Madoka explained, casting a glance at Gingka. “It would probably be like how Gingka got Galaxy Pegasus.”

*So it would be the same in spirit, just built differently?!* Excitement continued to grow in his heart.

“Where can we find this ‘backup for L-Drago’?” Ryuga asked.

“I’m not sure,” Madoka admitted, gazing at her screen. “The Dragon Clan lived in very remote locations, far from civilization. I could do some digging, but it might take a while.”

“Please do!” Gingka cut in, putting an arm around Ryuga. “I want another chance to battle Ryuga!” Ryuga pushed Gingka off.

“Me too!” Kenta added, gazing at Ryuga with a determined smile. “We have a score to settle now!”

Ryuga couldn’t help but smile as well. *I could get back at him for the loss I suffered when I had the Jet Black Dragon!*

“Guys, don’t get your hopes up!” Madoka insisted, “It’s not for sure yet! I don’t know if I can even find any ruins of this city or if this backup for sure exists. It could just be a rumour.”

“Then let me know if you find anything,” Ryuga replied, dipping his head.

“I’ll do my best,” Madoka assured him.

There was a loud ringing sound out of nowhere. Gingka glanced at his phone.

“Oh, uh, my dad wants me home,” he informed, pulling the games he brought into a stack.

“Guess that’s the end of game night then…” Madoka replied, standing up.

“Same time next week?" Kenta gazed at the others with a hopeful smile.

“Yes!" Gingka exclaimed, nodding eagerly.

“Sure,” Madoka replied, dipping her head. The three of them gazed at Ryuga expectantly.

He shrugged. “Okay.”

“Great!” Kenta beamed. “Let’s go home! I bet dinner's ready by now.”

Ryuga dipped his head, following Gingka and Kenta out of the shop. Gingka however split from them quickly. *A new L-Drago?!* Ryuga couldn’t get the idea out of his mind. He thought he had accepted months ago that he couldn’t get L-Drago back. It seemed so final and impossible. Now, however, there was a real chance he could get it back. The void Beyblade had left behind in his life, while of course not fully gone, had begun to shrink. He enjoyed his new life, including his new home and friends. However, one thing constantly plagued his mind: *I've gone soft.* Ryuga didn't need friends or a place to stay in his old life, he was able to survive on his own. Not to mention, he had been the strongest blader.

Ryuga longed to prove that he was still as tough as he once was but he felt he had no way to prove that and his attachment to his friends kept him here indefinitely. Part of him found that humiliating. No one else seemed to care that he had been tamed like an animal in a zoo. *If I get L-Drago back, I can prove I'm not weak.* The idea inevitably got his hopes up. *Don't get your hopes up.* Madoka’s words seemed to taunt him. *Why would you tell me that if you didn’t want me to get my hopes up?!*

Kenta pushed the door to the house open. Ryuga followed him inside. Kenta's parents were both in the kitchen, cooking something Ryuga had never had by the smell of it.

“Hey, kiddos!” Kenta's dad greeted with a wave.

“How was your game night?” Kenta's mom asked.

“It was fun,” Kenta smirked triumphantly. “I beat everyone at Uno.”

“Yeah!” Kenta's dad held a hand up. “That's my boy!”

Kenta jumped up to high five him, the two of them cheering. *I won a few times too,* Ryuga thought, rolling his eyes. He sat on the couch with his phone. *I suppose I could do some research of my own on this 'Dragon Clan.'*

“Alright, food's ready!" Kenta's mother called, before Ryuga could look at much of anything.

*Guess I'll do it later,* he thought, placing his phone aside. On the table Kenta's mother placed yet another weird new food; Ryuga thought he would be used to seeing those by now. This time it was a bunch of misshapen fried… things.

“What are those?” Ryuga asked, sitting in his usual spot beside Kenta.

“It's pakora,” Kenta's mother answered. “An Indian food. Here, try it.” She handed him a piece.

Ryuga took it and ate it in one bite.

“Oh, I love these!” Kenta exclaimed, taking a handful from the tray.

“Well?” Kenta’s mom prompted, gazing hopefully at Ryuga. “Do you like it?”

Ryuga shrugged. “It's okay.” *A little bland.* He kept the second part to himself.

“Here. We made two batches.” Kenta's dad sat down, sliding a second tray onto the table. “These are spicier.”

Ryuga perked up at the word “spicier,” immediately taking one. He licked his lips.

“Thanks,” Ryuga replied, grabbing more.

Kenta's dad chuckled, turning to his wife. “Told you he'd like the spicy ones more,” he remarked, holding a hand up.

Kenta's mom let out a sigh, handing him a piece of yen. He took it with a smirk.

“Guess we should try cooking more Indian food,” Kenta’s dad remarked, pocketing the yen.

“Why is it always spicy food with you?” Kenta asked, raising an eyebrow. Ryuga shrugged, placing about ten pieces of pakora on a plate. Kenta smirked. “Is it because you’re Dragon Clan?”

Ryuga let out a sigh. “Kenta, it’s not funny.”

“Well, if you’re gonna make fun of me for being short, I might as well make fun of you for something too!” Kenta exclaimed, bristling with annoyance.

“What is Dragon Clan?” Kenta’s mom cut in.

Kenta turned to her with a smile. “Oh, it’s this ancient civilization Madoka’s researching. Ryuga’s totally one of their descendants.”

“How do you know?” Kenta’s dad asked, suddenly curious.

“We don’t,” Ryuga argued, turning to Kenta. “It’s just a theory.”

*I’m not telling the history enthusiast that I accidentally appropriated a title from some ancient civilization,* he thought, glaring at Kenta and hoping he would get the message.

“A theory with evidence!” Kenta insisted, his eyes narrowed as well.

“To be honest…" Kenta's dad spoke up, prompting them to turn to him. “I've never heard of this 'Dragon Clan' but I'm sure you could figure out for sure if you're one of their descendants with a DNA test and maybe a background check.”

Ryuga stiffened. “No thanks.”

Kenta's mom rolled her eyes. “Honey, he does not need to do a background check on himself.”

“Hey, you never know,” Kenta's dad replied with a shrug.

Ryuga shifted in place. Kenta's dad was silly sometimes but in this case, he was actually right. Ryuga didn't know a thing about his past and what he did know, he tried his best not to remember.

“Where are you from, Ryuga?” Kenta’s dad asked.

“Japan.”

“Ah- well, yeah bu- o-o-okay.” Kenta’s dad looked down at the table, looking somewhat ashamed.

Kenta’s mother chuckled. “Oh gosh, you broke him, Ryuga,” she remarked, resting a hand on her husband's shoulder.

Kenta giggled into his hand. Ryuga smiled. As everyone finished their dinner, they slowly began to go their separate ways. Kenta and his dad stayed at the table. Ryuga went to get his phone while Kenta’s mother went straight toward the fridge.

She let out a sigh. “Tamaki, Kenta, whichever one of you is stealing my chocolate, will you please come forward already? This is getting ridiculous.”

She held up the nearly empty box of chocolates, in which there were only two left. Ryuga tried not to smile.

“Honey, I'm telling you it's not me,” Kenta’s dad insisted, gently, “You would know.”

“And I swear I didn't either!” Kenta exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

“It has to be one of you…” Kenta's mom cast a glance at Ryuga.

“Don't look at me,” Ryuga replied, unplugging his phone. “I don't eat stuff that sweet.”

*Or at least I wouldn't have in my old life,* he added bitterly to himself.

“Yeah,” Kenta agreed, casting a glance at his dad. “It's probably dad.”

“Or it's no one,” Kenta's dad suggested, tilting his head to the side.

“I swear they're disappearing faster… Ugh, I must be going crazy.” Kenta's mom grabbed one of the two chocolates. “Well, I know for sure there's only one left so if it disappears, then I'll know for a fact someone's stealing them.” Her eyes narrowed at her husband. “I've got my eye on you, love.”

“Don't you always?” Kenta’s dad asked, with a smirk.

“Oh, ha, ha.” Kenta's mom rolled her eyes before the two of them shared a quick kiss.

“Ugh!” Kenta exclaimed.

Ryuga rolled his eyes, making his way toward the basement.

“Ryuga.” He stopped at the sounds of Kenta’s voice. “Wanna finish Yugioh?” he asked.

“Not tonight,” Ryuga replied, “I wanted to do some research.”

“Oh…” Kenta seemed a bit disappointed before smiling again. “Okay.”

“Research…” Kenta’s dad nodded, muttering to himself. “Yes, that sounds good…”

Everyone turned to him.

“What? I want to know about that ‘Dragon Clan’ Ryuga mentioned. So much new history to learn…” Kenta’s dad’s eyes were glowing.

Ryuga rolled his eyes. He made his way downstairs to his room, otherwise known as the basement. It still had plenty of space to walk around but along with a bed, there was also a bean bag and a dresser with a mirror on it. Ryuga sat on the bean bag with his phone. *Finally, I can research this…*

'The Dragon Clan, formerly known as the Highlanders, lived in the wild untamed regions of Japan. They specialized in Dragon-type beys, including the forbidden bey, L-Drago. It is rumoured they created this infamous bey, along with a backup, though this has yet to be confirmed. Their group slowly decreased over time, scattering to the far reaches of the globe far from civilization. A few of their descendants may still be around, using the dragon type beys of their ancestors.'

Ryuga rolled his eyes. *Great, a bunch of stuff I already knew. Real helpful.* He went through several different websites, not finding where specifically the Dragon Clan lived or anything about the backup of L-Drago. *Perhaps it is just a rumour…* Ryuga shook his head. *I have to keep trying. If there’s any way I can bring back L-Drago, any at all…* Ryuga let out a sigh. *Oh, who am I kidding? This is ridiculous. I thought I accepted months ago that I'm always just going to be a shadow of my former self!*

Ryuga glanced at the time on his phone. 7:43 pm. *This is going nowhere…* He stared at the twelve tabs of nothing he had open for a few moments. *Yeah, forget this. I’m getting that chocolate.*

Placing his phone aside, Ryuga made his way upstairs, making sure to keep his steps light. He slowly pushed the door open. All the lights in the main room were off, drowning the room in a still darkness. Ryuga stepped lightly into the kitchen. Making sure nothing moved in the dark, he grabbed the last chocolate out of the fridge.

“Aha!”

A light shone in Ryuga's face. He staggered back, dropping the chocolate as he shielded his eyes.

“Wait, Ryuga?!” It was Kenta's mother. She lowered the flashlight, flicking the light switch on. “You're the one who's been eating my chocolate?!”

Ryuga froze, just now registering the situation.

“No…” He picked the chocolate up off the floor.

“Woooow.” Kenta's mother covered her mouth as she chuckled. “You could've just asked instead of lying, you know.”

Ryuga looked away, his shame practically spearing him open. *This is almost as bad as that chopsticks fiasco!*

“Can I still have it then?” he muttered.

“Sure, sweetie. Guess I'll have to buy some for you too, then.”

“Mhm… thanks…” Ryuga started to walk away, eating the chocolate.

“Hey.” Ryuga froze, glancing back at Kenta’s mom as she spoke. “Next time just tell the truth. You should know better than to lie.” Her tone was stern, but still, she didn’t raise her voice.

Ryuga dipped his head. “Okay.” He turned and walked away.

[eri-blogs-life]

Tales of Vesperia is a game about how bitcoin is bad

Okay, not really. But kind of. Hear me out

Now, this write-up is gonna be full of spoilers, I just love the Tales of series and always feel a lot when I finish playing one, so I wanna get my thoughts down on “paper”. If you wanna know my overall thoughts on the game in a spoiler-free way, here they are: It’s really good and I liked it a lot

So, the Tales of series has always held a special place in my heart. I played Tales of Symphonia when I was in middle school and high school, and I played Tales of Symphonia a LOT during that time. Eventually I found Tales of the Abyss on the 3ds, and I also played Zestiria on PC. When I heard Tales of Vesperia was getting an enhanced port to the switch, I was so excited!! When it came out, I picked it up right away and played it... But after about the first major story arc, I set it aside to play something else and didn’t return to it for awhile. But, finally, a couple weeks ago I got back into a kick of playing big RPGs again, and Tales of Vesperia was a perfect candidate! So I marathoned it over the last like 2 weeks.

Story: Story is usually the core of a Tales of game. They’re big, they’re grand, and they usually have some kind of stance to take on an issue with society as a whole. Plus they’re called Tales. That’s literally just story.

Tales of Vesperia’s story was good. But, at least to me, it fell a little flat later on. Act 1 felt really strong as a standalone piece, but then it felt like the game’s theming started falling apart a little as it progressed, switching from an individual story about our protagonists to a grander story about the world. I don’t think the latter parts were bad, necessarily, but from Act 1 I felt the game was going to have a much more personal story when it ended up becoming a much more worldly story.

The game doesn’t break itself into “Acts”, this is just a way I’ve been thinking of the game myself. That breaks down into this sort of story summary:

Act 1, Introduction: Yuri leaves his home because their aque blastia got stolen and they need to get it back. Along the way, he has to make the decision that in order to deal with those who the law cannot touch, he has to become a vigilante, killing corupt politicians and other figures himself rather than letting the law attempt (and usually fail) to reach them. Act 1 ends with Yuri accepting that he can’t necessarily do all the vigilante work on his own and he joins up with Karol and Judith to form the guild Brave Vesperia.

Act 2, The Buildup: With Princess Estellise as their first client, Brave Vesperia is dragged all over the world on a quest to learn more about Estelle’s family history. Eventually, we learn that the ancient people awoke a dangerous monster called the Adephagos, and it has the potential to be reawoken if the world continues to use blastia (a technology in the Vesperia setting). As Act 2 wraps up, Commandant Alexei and his swarms of unquestioning soldiers activate an ancient weapon so Alexei can rule the world. But oops! It’s not a weapon, it was a barrier meant to keep the Adephagos out of the world. Alexei is killed.

Act 3, The FInale: With the Adephagos threatening the world, Brave Vesperia has to find some way for the people of the world to get by without access to blastia, as even if the Adephagos is killed, continued use of blastia will cause the world’s aer to go out of control and create a new Adephagos. The party finds a solution in the ability to turn ancient creatures known as Entelexaia into Spirits, elemental creatures that have the ability to manipulate and preserve the world’s aer, keeping it from going out of control. Meanwhile, a figure called Duke has determined that the best solution is actual to kill all humanity, because they will always find a way to pollute the world’s aer or in some way ruin the natural world. In the end, the party defeats Duke, and Duke decides to actually help the party stop the Adephagos in the end, allowing for humanity to live on and find new ways of surviving without the blastia technology they have relied on for so long.

So... I felt like the game really neatly fit into this three act structure, but each Act feels like its own distinct story, with different themes throughout, rather than a single unified story. Act 1 focused on trying to answer the question of “How do you deal with people who the law can’t touch?”. Act 2 focused on the question of Is it okay to blindly follow a charismatic imperialist leader? And Act 3 focused a lot on the question of How do we deal with our own technology causing problems with the natural world? So, it felt disconnected to me

The game’s “Characteristic Genre Name” is “Enforcing One’s ‘Justice’ RPG”. So presumably the game’s story should have a theme of enforcing one’s justice. And Act 1 focuses heavily on that with our main protagonist Yuri. I think an argument could be made that Act 3 focuses on that with the duel between Brave Vesperia and Duke showing the two sides trying to fight for their own “justice” in their view of how the world should be. Act 2 then feels a little disconnected, but I think an argument could be made that a lot of its focus is on Estelle learning to make decisions for herself rather than just be pulled along with whatever it is that other people put in her way, so she is learning to enforce her ‘justice’.

So, back to my catcher line at the top, no, Tales of Vesperia is not directly about bitcoin being bad. But it has a heavy focus in the latter parts about technology causing problems with the environment, in much the same way that our own technologies like bitcoin mining create pollution that causes our own air to be polluted. The Adephagos, being a creature that breaks through a barrier in the atmosphere when Terca Lumeiris’s aer is polluted, feels like a pretty dang good metaphor for global warming becoming a problem once our ozone barrier layer depleted as air pollution has increased on Earth. 

Characters: Tales games may be big on their stories, but the thing that really sells how good Tales of games are... it’s the characters. Tales games have really strong casts, and do a lot of optional characterization for the characters in ways that you really don’t see in any other JRPGs. Tales games give you the ability to watch Skits, which are just little dialogues the characters do, sometimes about some kind of story beat that just happened, but a lot of the time the Skits just focus on the characters interacting in some mundane way, and it really helps give you a stronger sense of who these characters are. And honestly, when it comes to a lot of Tales casts, there’s usually someone I feel pretty meh about. While I liked her story, Presea in Symphonia wasn’t very interested as a character to me, for example. But the main Vesperia cast is really strong and I really liked them all. So I just wanna talk briefly about each of them:

Yuri. The main character, the POV character for most of the game. Yuri starts out searching for a blastia and trying to bring a thief to justice, then becomes a vigilante killing corrupt politicians, then eventually becomes the leader of a guild whose stated goal is to enact justice and help people. Yuri was a really fun character to explore, even if I felt like a lot of his character development didn’t feel very strong after Act 1. 

Repede. The second character we’re introduced to, Repede is Yuri’s friend who also happens to be a dog. Or at least look like a dog. Repede doesn’t have much of a story going on, but god damn is he a dog. And has an alternate costume in the definitive edition that’s a 「J O J O   R E F E R E N C E」

Estelle. Princess Estellise is the driving point of a lot of the plot. She’s part of an ancient race of people who have magical powers without the need of blastia. But her people were mostly wiped out stopping the Adephagos a long time ago. She starts out as just this quiet little princess who’s trying to warn Flynn that people are hunting after him, but she really starts to grow to be her own person by the end.

Flynn. He is a knight, and struggles a lot with how to deal with those the law can’t touch, much like Yuri. Flynn and Yuri are very much foils of each other throughout the story. They’re old friends, and both tried to join the knights in order to change a corrupt system from within. But Yuri left the knights when they weren’t producing any results, becoming his vigilante self we know and love. But Flynn stayed in the knights, and between both of their opposite approaches to the world, they’re able to eventually change the world

Karol. The leader of Brave Vesperia, Karol is just a child. He starts out trying so, so hard to do cool things so he can impress people, but by the end he learns to work together with others to help people. And hey, that’s the coolest thing you can do.

Rita. A genius blastia researcher, Rita is integral to the plot, especially later on as it focuses more on the dangers of blastia. Rita has to come to terms with how the thing she loves above all else, blastia, might actually be hurting the world and shouldn’t be used.

Raven. Raven’s a neat character. He’s the classic Tales trope of the character who betrays you halfway through. In Act 2, it’s revealed that Raven is also the knight Schwann, and he’s been working both with your party, but also as a member of Alexei’s army. He has to deal with how he is just a pawn of Alexei, blindly following a characteristic imperial leader, and eventually he throws away his old identity as Schwann and becomes just Raven, a member of Brave Vesperia’s crew.

Judith. I love Judith. She’s all about destroying blastia. She knows they’re a problem, but doesn’t know why until joining up with Brave Vesperia and adventuring together for awhile. Like Rita, she’s gotta deal with a lack of purpose later on in the game, as once blastia are no longer used, her life goal of destroying blastia becomes pointless. She’s a really fun character, but I don’t know that I have the words to describe in what way.

Patty. She’s an interesting case. She’s the new character added in later updates to Vesperia, and wasn’t there in the original game. She starts out as an amnesiac who believes herself to be the granddaughter of the legendary pirate and outlaw, Aifread. But eventually it’s revealed that she is Aifread. And that brings up a lot of questions about why is she so young if she was a legendary and feared pirate captain? The optional late-game dungeon provides one explanation for this, in her having taking a sort of drug that allows one to extend their life, and the effects on humanity may be more drastic than just extending life. Patty’s a weird character. But, overall I’d say that I think they did a great job of incorporating her story into the overall Vesperia story, I think. Though oftentimes she feels very gimmicky and one-note, being all about pirate-y things and the sea. 

Gameplay: So how’s the game stack up, mechanically, to other games? Well, it’s got that great Tales style gameplay, a mix of RPG mechanics and a sort of 2.5-D fighter in its combat. And it’s noticable, being an evolution of the mechanics I loved in Symphonia that were expanded on in Abyss. Vesperia really feels good to play. 

One of my favorite things in the Tales series is how there’s usually this big cast of characters and you can have any of them be your player-controlled character. There’s usually like, your default character, Yuri in this case, that the game normally gives you control of. And Yuri was very fun to play as! But I also enjoyed trying out everyone else, and I put together a team that had me playing as Judith which was my treasure-hunting/gald-grinding team. I really liked Judith’s acrobatic high-flying combat style.

My Final Thoughts: Tales of Vesperia is really good. I think I’d rank it as my third-favorite Tales game that I’ve played so far, out of 5. So in terms of the Tales series, it’s middle of the road from my experiences so far I guess? But the Tales series is consistently above-average in my experience, so... Tldr it was a really fun experience and I’m glad I put the time into playing it.

[writeroutoftime]

bring her home - part 1

pairing: harry potter x reader / young!james potter x reader 

summary: when a time traveling journey goes wrong you find yourself in a time that’s not your own. now you must find your way back home, that is if you truly wish to go back. 

warnings: none 

words: 1439

a/n: this idea is based on @neurobeing‘s post, which is linked here. as soon as I read this imagine, I wanted to turn it into a series, which you can see I have done so here. I am not exactly sure how long this series will be, but please bear with me because I've never made a series before. enjoy the first part and have a fabulous day!

Your POV 

The beginning of your sixth year at Hogwarts brought forth mountains of stress that you were not prepared for. Not only were you overwhelmed by classes designed to prepare you for your N.E.W.T.S the following year, but the constant threat of darkness from Voldemort’s return and the destruction brought upon by his followers weighed heavily on your mind. However, distractions came easily at Hogwarts from not only your fellow housemates, but your close friends and boyfriend. 

One such, November, afternoon you flipped through hastily scribbled out Charms notes, attempting to commit to memory as much as possible for exam the following day. The Gryffindor Common Room was less than half empty, due to most students being in Hogsmede, which made for a quiet studying space. 

As you did so, you laid comfortably against your boyfriend, Harry, who was absorbed within his tattered Potions book. It was hard to hold back the sigh that longed to escape your lips. Ever since the start of the school term, Harry had been so caught up in both his Potions book and his secret lessons with Dumbledore that it felt as though you never saw him. At first, you understood, but soon Harry had almost completely withdrawn himself from his support system. 

It had started out slowly. There were a few missed study dates when he had evening lessons with Dumbledore, which were easy to forgive. Then came missing actual dates because of that damn Potions book, which no one else was allowed to glance at, let alone touch. Finally, Harry begun to miss meals, homework assignments, classes, and you could tell his sleep was also affected. 

With a final thought, you pushed away your Charms notes and looked up at your boyfriend who was so absorbed in what he was reading. His glasses had slid slightly down his nose, and his green eyes so concentrated, wishing to take in every word that he read. However, you, once again, noticed the bags under his eyes and let out an audible sigh, and decided to do something about it. 

“Harry?” you spoke, but didn’t catch his attention. “Harry!” you playfully whined and pushed the book away from his face, causing him to look down at you. 

“What, (y/n)?” he asked, sharply. 

The tone in his voice caused your heart to ache; how close you were to the boy you loved, but you never felt further from him. “Well, I was thinking, why waste this perfectly good Saturday? Let’s put everything away and go down to Hogsmede.” you proposed, hopefully. 

It was obvious that Harry wanted to decline, but he put a smile on his face anyways and silently nodded his agreement. Not ten minutes later were both of you ready to go, and silently walked hand in hand towards the local village. 

At first it seemed that all was going well. Harry had finally loosened up, and you noticed the gleam in both his eyes and smile come back to him; something you hadn’t seen in what felt like weeks. Then, once the local bell rung, signaling that it was already six in the evening, Harry stiffened. He took one last swig of butterbeer, then stood up, ready to leave. 

“Where are you going?” you questioned, not really believing that Harry was about to abandon you during your date. 

Although it was rushed, Harry had a guilty look in his eyes. “I’m sorry, but I have another lesson with Dumbledore. You can walk up with me if you want.” he offered, already on his way to the door. 

“Gee, thanks.” you scoffed and crossed your arms, angerly. 

Harry froze in his spot and turned to look at you. “Is there a problem?” 

Although your brain willed you to keep your mouth shut, your heart had had enough of Harry’s behavior, and everything came to front. “Actually there is, Harry.” you said and tried to keep your voice down, not wanting to have a screaming match in the middle of the Three Broomsticks. 

“I tried to excuse the behavior at the beginning of the year, but I can’t stand it anymore. You are never around, and if you are, you’re absorbed by that damn Potions book! Not only are you neglecting your friends and me, but also your real classes and your health. This can’t go on anymore, Harry.” you exclaimed. 

Harry’s hands clenched together before he spoke. “Do you hear yourself right now, (y/n)? You are being so bloody selfish. I’m here trying to learn how to defeat Voldemort and you’re worried that I’m not paying enough attention to you?” he countered, his voice steadily rising in volume. 

“I’m worried about you for Merlin’s sake!” you shouted back, not caring who in the establishment heard your argument. “I’m watching you destroy yourself for a professor who is pushing you past your limits and doesn’t even care. I know this is important to you, but if you let us in, we can help you Harry.” you pleaded, your hands placed overtop his, desperately. 

“I don’t need your help!” Harry yelled and ripped his hands away from yours, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “In fact, I don’t need you in my life at all, so just stay away from me from now on!” he shouted and stormed out, leaving you behind shocked, yet fuming silently with anger. 

oOoOo

The following morning, you had still yet to speak, or even look at Harry, since he stormed away from you at the Three Broomsticks. Once he had left, you waited about ten minutes to make your own way make to the castle and locked yourself within your four-poster bed. The rest of the night, Harry’s words had hung heavy on your heart. 

A part of you had hoped that in the morning, he would be waiting to walk you to Charms like always with an apology ready on both of your parts. Unfortunately, you were only greeted with Hermione who smiled at your sympathetically while the two of you walked in silence to Charms, ready for your exam. 

Once in the classroom, you decided you couldn’t stand the sight of Harry and chose to sit at a separate table with Neville, Seamus, and Dean, who seemed to know not to ask how you were doing. As you made your way to their table, you bumped into Malfoy who mumbled something under his breath when you collided, then scurried off to his own seat. Before you could think about it too much, Professor Flitwick had passed out the exam papers. 

Towards the end of the exam, you felt a strange sensation on the necklace that was tucked into your uniform. A quick glance down at it showed nothing out of the ordinary, and you returned to the question you had been on. A few minutes later and the sensation was back, but stronger, and you let out a quiet gasp. Quickly, you looked to see if anyone had noticed, but only saw Malfoy staring at you, before he quickly looked back down at his parchment. 

Once class had finished, you turned in your exam and hurried out of the classroom and found an empty corridor, where you pulled the necklace from underneath your uniform. Upon closer inspection, you couldn’t find anything wrong with the timeturner necklace and sighed in relief that you hadn’t broken a piece of Ministry property. 

Though many of your teachers had argued against it, you had taken a leaf out of Hermione’s book from three years ago and loaded up on classes to prepare for your N.E.W.T.S. However, the amount of classes you wished to take did not all fit into one schedule, so with Dumbledore’s permission you were gifted the only other timeturner you knew existed in order to take all your classes. 

Not worrying about the sensation you had previously felt with the timeturner, you quickly spun the hourglass three times to go back in time to take your Ancient Ruins class. However, instead of the normal drop of your stomach you got when traveling back in time, you instantly felt sick and as though you would pass out at any moment as time wound back and the room spun. 

oOoOo

When the spinning ceased, you found yourself on the floor of a busy corridor, with a person standing above you. Relief flooded through your veins when you looked up at the familiar face. “Harry!” 

“Are you alright?” 

The pounding in your head signaled you were not alright and you rubbed the source of the headache, confused. “Harry, uh, what happened?” you asked. 

“Sorry, love, but I’m not Harry. I’m James, James Potter. Why have I never seen your face around here?” 

[copiesofme-archive]

A POV DRABBLE, OF THE FIRST TIME LELIANA ENCOUNTERS LAVELLAN. FOR @sicsemper​​

       There was a time when Leliana had looked upon Haven for the first time. When the life of the Arl of Redcliffe had hung in the balance of a plea made to search for a temple that had been lost for a millennia. It was a fight no matter where their party had landed, what with the blades of the Crown at their heels, the darkspawn in front of their shields, and bandits around every corner. Finding the Sacred Temple once had felt like they were firing at the moon with both eyes closed in the dead of morning, and landing upon Haven’s entry way was the first step of a miracle. Short of running head first into the cult that had taken spawn here, Leliana can remember her own intrigue piquing at her thoughts with every new find that they had. 

        Nothing had prepared her to come face to face with the Guardian. Yes, she still recalls the echo of his voice that seemed to reflect into their very souls. When your brothers and sisters of the cloister criticized you for what you professed. You were hurt, but you also reveled in it. She remembers the pang in her chest even now, as he spoke. It made you special, you enjoyed the attention, even if it was negative. And then there was the anger, the humbleness and fear soon replaced with a flame of rage when her own heals dug into the snow. And the rebuttal was on Leliana’s tongue faster than she could even think of trying to catch her own words: You’re saying that I made it up for... for the attention? I did not! I know what I believe! And before she could get anything else out, his eye turns away from her leaving her with nothing but unfinished apprehension on her lips.

          There is a different sort of pain in her chest now, a hurt that tasted like vile poison on her tongue. A part of grief that she hadn’t felt in such a long time - a whole age when her beloved was taken away from her for the sake saving a world that would damn her very existence. For being born with a gift given by the Maker himself, and thus a curse it was being a mere mage thrown into the Circle of Magi. Such an atrocious malevolent world it was, and now it would only seem that the Maker himself would act no better. That he would see his children suffer, would see the Divine - the best of them all, struck down in the one place that should have been the pinnacle of safety for a devout such as she. That he would allow such an atrocity to befall them and plunge their world into absolute chaos. Was that what he wanted of them? To die? Was that his ultimate wish to meet their end at his hand?

         Was Death his only true blessing? 

        And it was in such heavy silence, passing the guard after guard, that a Left Hand walked side by side by the Right Hand - a true escort to the one awaiting them. Both true to the given titles by the Divine, who acted as the head of their dynamic - she who once had struck so precisely with her left hand and shield with her right. Leliana, the dagger in the shadows, and Cassandra who would be her shield through the flame. Titles bestowed upon them by Justinia, in a service to her Divine word. Only now she was gone, decimated within the Ancient Temple of Sacred Ashes along with so many others who would have in turn, found a way for peace for the world of Mages. She should have known that something would go wrong, curse it all. She was her eyes in the shadows after all, the ear pressed to the door, blade under a cloak, Leliana should have been the first to see it coming. And yet here she was, answering the report given by Cassandra’s men when they had heard of a survivor. An elvhen man who’s guilt is immeasurable, a soul who would have information on what he’s done - or what he’s seen.

          A soul with an anchor on his arm, sparking to life like the child of both lightning and green flame in tandem with the pulse of the tear in the sky. He would answer for his crime soon, if he is as guilty as they say, but if the word of the men were folly .. There were still so many questions, where some had him damned, reports also mentioned that there was holy intervention by Andraste herself. But how could this be? They would have to deduce more in time, but first- they must get this one back to the other - Solas.

         It would be Cassandra who threw the door open first, and Leliana who would follow in after to closely observe every nuance in his face visible in the dim light. Following the clatter of sure steps with quiet strides as the guards around the Dalish elf sheathed their swords. They would not need protection here, not from him. Not from the one who might have killed their Divine Justinia. Leliana sees the confusion register in his features as the other slows her pace in favor of circling around him, making her own approach through the shadows. The seething anger stewing in her chest closing her fists tightly as she allows herself to come into the light to show the stranger that she were here too. Cassandra would not be the only one he would have to deal with should his guilt be proven here. And after a brief meeting of their eye, between the Left Hand and the Right, does Cassandra lean down to speak.

        “Tell me, why we shouldn’t kill you now.” The Seeker straightens with a step to circle around him with an arm outstretch in a gesture toward him. “The Conclave is destroyed, everyone who attended is dead.” Her hand settles on the hilt of her sword as she settles in front of him, “Except for you.”

         It takes a moment before the almost horror flickers across his face, the very notion inspiring his brows to twitch. “You think I’m responsible?”

         “Explain this-!” She is quick to rebuttal reaching down to lift up his arm, and just in time for another surge of the bright green to flicker to lift in a violent shock that illuminated the entire room. And just as it fades away she shoves it back down and turns on her heel, and this time Leliana follows her path in circling him from the other angle. Observing still with the pinch of her own thoughtful brow.

         “I-..I can’t.” He starts.

         “What do you mean you can’t!?” Her voice booms outward just as Leliana’s own stride settles at his back. Mulling the known details over, judging him with her blade to his throat in every sense of the word save for physical. Yet there wasn’t enough yet to deduce just fully of his worth, his innocence, or guilt. Not yet anyhow.

          “I don’t know what that is or- how it got there.” The elf stammered, almost tripping over his own words. There wasn’t any hesitation in his words, or any indication that he might be lying. He was either telling the truth, or too practiced at a game that only the finest of Orlesians have mastered. And there wasn’t a soul who could best Leliana herself. There is still too much unanswered questions..

          “You’re lying!” Cassandra snaps, the roar of her voice reflected in the very advance she made with the grab of his shoulders. She is mere seconds away from lifting him up to his feet, mere seconds away from drawing her sword. And it’s now that Leliana must step in.

           And step in she does, with the quick side step to grasp into Cassandra’s shoulder. Lifting her up, forcing her to up and then backward with her own advancing step. it would do them no good to kill him, not with so much at stake and so many unknown variables. If it wasn’t for that, she might let her have him for Justinia’s honor alone. “We need him Cassandra.” She states, further walking up against her to force retreating steps out of the Seeker. And with the assuring press of her lips she turns her chin to give her a look, a gesture beckoning patience before the Spymaster turns back to the Elf. Leliana remains reserved with the settle of her step back to him.

             “I can’t believe it... " And it was there as he spoke, it was there as horror seemed to reflect in violet eyes that she wondered if he just might be telling the truth. “All those people... dead.”

            Alright. She will give him the favor of doubt, a voice to say his side of the story for her to weigh on.  “Do you remember what happened? How this began?” She asks feeling Cassandra advance behind her yet again.

           “I remember..” He answers, seeming to search his own memory. Search.. or fabricate a lie. They would have to see with his response. “..Running. Things were chasing me. And a woman.” His eyes lit up with the memory, putting words the recollection.

           “A woman?!” Leliana parrots, taken aback by the confirmation in all of the reports that were given about what was seen when he had appeared at the ruins of the Conclave. Of what was standing at his back, of who was standing behind him just as the Fade closed seconds before he collapsed. Could it really have been her? Andraste herself?

           “She- reached out to me.. but then..” His brow pinched, and she could see that he was searching his memory for an answer - and it was an answer that she is fully intending to hear. But then his shoulders only deflate with a short exasperation. And she was almost pressed to push it, pressed to find out who it was that he saw - to get a name, or confirmation? Until Cassandra was in turn stepping in between them to try and break her line of sight.

            “Go to the forward camp, Leliana.” She spoke, stepping toward her - forcing her own steps to retreat back toward the door. Yes, she was right. Someone had to be there, someone had to make sure that their forces were just as they were left them. But there was still too many questions, still too many things left unanswered - and a name left unspoken. And a reasoning as to why she would show himself to someone like him. To someone who wasn’t of the faith, to someone who likely did not even believe in the Maker. Looking to him now, she knows that this is not his way.. so why.. She felt her own brow pinch, frustration, anger, grief, what else could there be now but confusion? “I will take him to the rift.” Cassandra finishes with one last final prompt.

              And there is only a moment that passes before she gives her a nod, a silent approval of the command before she turns on her heel. This is clearly a matter for another time...