#she has only contempt and yet it's not contempt that moves her but the empire

[noxianwilled]

— under the banner of noxus.

[kapyushonchan]

My (not so) short review that nobody needs hear for this update - KFOS and SOCN

*sighs* Boy, where do I start?

TLDR: KFOS and SOCN turned out disappointing. This is my personal impression, reasons below, warning - lots of letters.

KFOS - first, my minor pet peeve - I don't like that they stopped giving cutscenes with the favorites except Christian. Ram, Kamal and Sara have much fewer of them with Devi compared to him. I also noticed that the cutscenes have lost quality? Just close-ups? I've had the impression before that stories that drop in the rankings get less resources.

Second - I think Stasya doesn't "feel" the story yet, because the only emotions I experienced while reading were my disgust and tension during the dinner scene.

Well also Doran turned out well, his not-so-passive agression with wishing a long life to the queen (especially in the context that he can't express his displeasure with Englishmen directly and he can't kill them all, so he turns to caustic sarcasm) is just slay king energy.

Third - and here starts my rant - a lot of interactions feel artificial and underwhelming. Devi's confrontation with Clara in the street seemed just like that - artificial and not really well thought out. The concept of the scene itself is good - Devi sees how Indian servants are bullied in Britain and lashes out. But the tone, the consequences that author chose to portray is just.... Devi just pulls Guy Richi and shuts the racist arrogant lady up. Yayslay, but… was it me or it was underwhelming?

RANT

Come to think about it, you didn't have to go to Britain to see that behavior (or all those Indian movies I watched and a few books I read kind of misled me). AFAIK this attitude was common in occupied India, as some of the British upper and not so upper class moved there to occupy and make easy money there. They built districts to their taste and style - all those clubs and establishments where Indian servants worked and where Indians were not allowed to enter. The police, too, were subject to the British. This apartheid and humiliation could be seen in India at every step, but Devi notices it only in England? And, bear with me, but I really think she couldn't just go to a high society lady and berate her for the way she treats her servants without some consequences to her and to Christian reputation. Devi has not changed Clara's mind with this argument, and she certainly will not change the mind of the whole of English society, which stands on the opinion of the exclusivity and superiority of the British Empire over all nations that have not risen to the level of their greatness. That's how empires work. Devi's act was from the good heart, but impulsive, and she would be spoken of not with respect but with contempt, saying that Christian had chosen “a rude savage” as his bride. Because Devi is not at home. She is in the land of her enemies. Because the whole thing was truly none of her business and it's not her servant, and also doing that she could have made things much worse for the servant-girl and for Christian's reputation (breach of etiquette! that Devi likes to bring up when someone's rude to her). And in this situation it doesn’t matter how angry Devi and we as readers would have felt, because we are in a different world and we’re not making the rules there. We should be uncomfortable with this scene, we should feel anger and frustration in this scene.My point is that the scene would have been more realistic if at its outcome Devi was faced with indifference, condescension and judgment, as if Devi had done something wrong (she hadn't, she just ended up in a world where such attitudes were the norm). Devi should have felt like she was in the Looking Glass, she should have been thrown off balance by the situation. Girl power slay in the style of "I'm Basu and who are you?" doesn’t work here. Or rather it doesn't give you a nuanced outcome of the situation. Even if Devi had come out of the verbal confrontation victorious in her own eyes, society would have gaslighted her. And because of that sence of powerlessness, her anger would have gotten even greater, and she would have actually cursed Clara with the help of the Dark Mother. And Devi would realize that she can't behave in England the way she did at home. It must be infuriating, annoying, but it's something she and we as players have to put up with. It resonates with us, we have to feel these emotions. I would read, of course, how the heroine deals with injustice, but if we have a story about colonialism and the Dozen trying to throw off that yoke, why aren't we shown such scenes in all their colors? Because mere words and knowledge of the etiquette are not enough. I also think Devi's connection to the Dark Mother's anger could have played out as a sort of Death Note, where Devi curses someone and then misfortunes happen to those cursed people.

I think the artificial tone of the story is my main problem with season two in general. Devi finds herself in a foreign hostile country, but now she's acting like Amala in India and by simple demands she shuts up the lords and ladies left and right just by demanding respect and they just listen to her and shut up. And it looks like a safe route, like there are no stakes there. And with change of the “location” we have to feel discomfort - but not with food, weather and new clothes, but with a feeling like we’re walking on eggshells. Devi, in a conversation with lord What's His Face, intimidates him with Christian, and he stops harassing her. But then the same lord makes a shapito show of provocation at dinner, showing that he doesn't give a damn about Christian's opinion and doesn't give a damn about him in general. I'm not saying there shouldn't be provocation, it shouldn't have been so brazen and direct in words. After all, English high society can masterfully insult in a veiled manner, and the author's skill in writing such dialogues was clearly lacking here. Imho (just my imho) storywise here, in England, Devi should realize how lucky she is to be a member of high Bengali society where she is respected, valued and listened to, when in England she should feel that she is looked down upon, trapped and treated worse, like a second-class person, no matter what her background is. Here, if you are on a route with Christian, there should be a test of his and Devi's feelings in the context of the contempt of the entire upper class society for the "second class people" as they see Indian people to be. Christian has to experience that he has become a pariah in some way by choosing to marry a Devi.

I may have a misconception of how things worked back then, but my thoughts are that it's like all the tension is gone from the story. And there should be - it's a story essentially about two factions who hate each other, who don't want to make contact and settle because it's a story built on a colonial takeover. It's toned down here, yes, it's not historically accurate and all, BUT: if this base of historical events gives you an opportunity to use a great source of conflict, disagreement, and drama - you use it (that's why the provocation with beef at the dinner resonated with me -  I was fuming!). And alas, I'm feeling less and less of all that. Especially after the first season that SLAYED.

Also, Devi's offer to Doran to team up with Christian, to use him, would have looked different and even more tense if those political and social nuances worked, and their interaction wasn't just some game of "who knows more". What kind of games are these anyway, they're on the same side, behind enemy lines. Devi could have shared her frustration with her experience in England with Doran and then open some cards to him and admit that they need Christian's resources to determine who's sowing turmoil in the Dozen. There could have been some great GOT-style dialogue here, not just the "The Executioner despises the Englishmen and therefore won't even consider it, he needs to be persuaded", but "The Executioner has been through enough in his life to know that if there's a chance, you have to take it, politics is always played dirty". Doran is described as intelligent after all, not just angry walking muscles.

Well, that's just my thoughts and impressions, you're free to disagree with me here. I'm probably asking too much from a visual novel, I never read them with a magnifying glass to look for nitpicks, but…. But I really liked KFOS S1 ._. And I'm sad for the untapped potential.

SOCN - I was disappointed too. I think Remy's original idea to write that Agnia and Amen attack Livius and Eva but were saved by Seth worked better.

Now, it's friendship and magic, no conflict and drama. The two sides of the conflict resolve everything man-to-man, blow off steam and agree on everything.

And I have the feeling that all the seriousness of the situation has gone somewhere and everything has descended into some kind of farce.

Okay, Amen using Livius and Eva to achive his goals still works fine. But Seth, who fights Amen for fun and then agrees to cooperate with him - no. Just no. It's seems OOC. It doesn't work. Even if he's weakened like a God. Even if he needs Hemseth so much. Seth is a god, he has pride and principles, and there's no way I believe he'd choose to work with someone who kills his followers and weakens him. Neither will Amen agree to work with Seth who he thinks is some kind of Supreme shezmu. He hates the Supreme. He wouldn't go for an alliance either.

Has the writes watched too much of House of the Dragon? WHERE ARE MY CONFLICTS I'M ASKING YOU I'M GOING TO START A SCANDAL

I thought that Remy's decision that Amen and Seth couldn't be friendsto MC like the other favorites had to do with this intransigence, but no, some other reason.

What's the point of not being friends with the favorites if everyone's drinking beer and making truces with each other???

[vampire-sugar]

Reading QOTD post! I’ve only got two chapters left to finish this thing… the story has picked back up again and I’ll probably finish today but had some things I wanted to post about. In sum it’s gotten interesting again but also Anne says some very wild things about the global south that takes me out of the story.

Thoughts and spoilers under the cut.

Cw: mentions of rape

Finished the story of the twins conclusion chapter…

The story picked back up again!! Khayman keeps proving himself a horrible character!! And Anne should never write about non-Western countries ever!! Let the book speak for itself…

Quotes that made me write ??? in the margins:

Lestat, reading the mind of one of the men he’s about to kill.

“And a savage hatred of the women rose out of him, replete with images of rape and retribution that made me smile, and yet I understood. Rather completely I understood. So easy to feel that contempt for them, to be outraged that they had dared to become the enemy, (…) they, the women!”

Khayman when the King and Queen are getting attacked by villagers + spirits, who at this point supposedly hates them for making him rape the twins:

“It was Khayman, loyal steward to the King and Queen, who snatched up a torch and went to the aid of his master and mistress.”

Lestat, about the indigenous Haitians meeting European colonizers:

“Not a single blood descendant remains of those peaceful beings who had breathed this balmy air, (…), and thought their visitors gods perhaps, who could not but return their kindness.”

Lestat, talking about how Akasha would need the help of other vamps to fulfill her vision:

“How can you begin without them? I mean really begin, not with these backward villages, I mean in the cities where the people will fight.”

And again:

“…those poor villages we’ve conquered, they are the same as they’ve been for thousands of years.”

Those poor villages are hopeless and unimportant, got it, thanks Lestat/Anne.

Maharet talking about Mekare being in South America:

“Centuries perhaps before man had penetrated the southern reaches of the jungle continent, Mekare had come ashore there (…). How long had she wandered among birds and beasts before she’d seen a human face? Had it been centuries, or millennia, this inconceivable isolation? Or had she found mortals at once to comfort her, or run from her in terror?”

Included that last part in the quote bc it’s as if Maharet hadn’t just said that first part of how, according to her, South America was uninhabited for centuries after the time of the twins.

Anyway, I did like the part where Maharet tells them all about The Great Family, and all the vamps are moved. It is moving, to see that after all the Twins and their people have been through, their family survived. (Let us forget about the marrying within the families part).

The Story of the Twins Conclusion chapter ends with Lestat arriving at the house, meaning that the Queen is probably also there.

They are going to try and reason with the Queen to convince her that what she’s doing is bad or whatever (which obviously it is, she’s bringing more death and destruction to places already riddled with it in order to create an empire of her own) in a way that Lestat was unable to articulate. Obviously it is clear at this point that she doesn’t actually care about ridding the world of oppression etc but I don’t like how the “moral of the story” for lack of better term is going to be like “this is why we should not interfere with human problems” or what Lestat pretty much said already, that the poor and war torn countries have always been that way and there’s nothing to do to change it, it’s just how the world works. When actually what Akasha says is so true —>

Lestat thinks that all the tragedies that Haiti has faced is “their destiny; their world; they who are human”. And Akasha replies:

“And what are we? Are we useless? How do we justify what we are! How do we stand back and watch what we are unwilling to alter?”

But Akasha is evil and a liar so… I doubt there will be a VC character who thinks this and actually believes it unfortunately…

Anyway, very excited to be done with this one and move on to the next. I am so determined to get to at least TVA before May 12th but given the pace at which I have read this book… i might be delusional lol.

Bonus prediction:

This might be like obvious at this point but I think the way they are going to kill Akasha without killing themselves is by having Amel transfer to Lestat. Is this why he’s like for real called the prince later? Probably.



[theqhreator42]

On first watch, I think the most striking part of Madoka is its abiding contempt for the social forces arrayed against teenage girls. For an anime marketed to teenagers about teenage superheroines, I honestly did not expect a feminist reading to make itself so clear.

[spoilers ahead]

On one level, the notion of teenage girl suffering is the premise: some unknown galactic empire has discovered a way to convert suffering into free energy, and the most powerful source of suffering they have found is the despair of human girls. The empire's representatives (e.g. Kyubey) offer pacts to girls to serve as "magical girl" heroines, in exchange for the granting of a wish — which always result in the girl's violent death, transforming her into a monster (a "witch") which other magical girls must destroy in order to protect the world.

Yet the means in which the girls' suffering is extracted seem so particularly personal: instead of harvesting girls at random, Kyubey manipulates each girl's devotion to her loved ones (Sayaka's friend, Kyouko's father, and Madoka herself for Homura) in order to entice her into the contract, and then fulfills her wish in a sadistically ironic way before discarding her to die and moving on. The empire seems to sustain itself specifically on girls' desire to help others, to put themselves last.

The most illustrative moment of the show for me is the point at which Sayaka turns into a witch. She had accepted the contract to cure the paralyzed hand of her friend, a violinist, so that he would fall in love with her — and when he starts a relationship with another girl instead, Sayaka is heartbroken. However, she only succumbs later that evening, when she overhears two men on the train talking contemptuously about one of their wives, mocking her for spending money and calling her subhuman and a "bitch." Sayaka seems to tolerate endless personal setbacks and the extreme demands of her new role, but when she encounters the true depth of the world's misogyny, then she falls into despair.

To me, the magical girl dynamic represents the dependence of society on the subjugation of girls, beginning in their childhood. Within the story, Kyubey justifies his people's actions as serving a greater good, but should a system sustained on such vicious, misogynistic exploitation, whether its beneficiaries are space aliens or human men, be permitted to continue?

[witcher-lore-enjoyer]

Viper Witchers

Cat | Griffin | Bear

Gorthur Gvaed

The Witcher School of the Viper made their home in the stronghold of Gorthur Gvaed. Guarded by a remarkable tower adorned by a frighteningly ominous spiral coiled around its contours. Yet it held not a candle to the terrifying moat that surrounded it—deep by several hundred feet and truly… breathtaking. No one could tell if what was filling it should still be called water. The smells above the moat were, to put it mildly, hard to forget. Viper witchers, who survived the fall of the stronghold, later joked that it was the stench that led the Usurper’s army to find Gorthur Gvaed. Countless soldiers died in this gutter. According to legends, so many perished that one could have made their way to the other side of the moat on a bridge composed entirely of their corpses. And the odour grew even worse

Located in Tir Tochair (a scarcely inhabited mountain range that divides the Korath desert from the modern-day northern and central provinces of the Nilfgaardian Empire. It is known as the largest lasting enclave of gnomes.)

There were many scrolls and manuscripts about the legend of the Wild Hunt.

Founder

Ivar Evil-Eye

There’s a terrible tale behind each and every scar⁠—you’d be surprised just how many are true.

Ivar was one of the unfortunate few who endured the mutations extremely well, and so was selected for further, more complicated experiments. Of those subjected to these enhancements, only he survived—perhaps due to the mages only managing to partially complete the trial.

As a result of these experiments, Ivar gained his moniker, as well as a new sight. His so-called “Evil Eye” saw a different world. Many other worlds, really. With his eye, he watched as ghostly riders dashed along the Spiral, and observed how they’d kidnap, kill, and conquer. Forever haunting Ivar’s special vision, these spectres became his obsession. 

Training

Each student is given a pet to raise during their stay at Gorthur Gvaed, in order to form a strong emotional bond throughout their training. Years later, before becoming a fully-fledged witcher, they are ordered to slaughter their companion in cold blood.

Viper Witcher Mentor

Viper mentors are especially cold and ruthless in order to prepare their students for the harsh life that awaits them.

Some Lore from Gwent

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Or weaker. It depends, really.

It is often said that witchers took on the characteristics of their schools' namesake creatures. Without a doubt, this was true of the Viper School. They were agile, quick, and frequently made use of deadly poisons.

As with the other witcher schools – the Wolves' Kaer Morhen as sole exception – none were aware of the Viper School's location. Only one detail ever became widely known... That it stood somewhere south of the Yaruga. In Nilfgaard.

Perhaps it's no wonder then that Vipers were less inclined to neutrality than other witchers. The Empire would never recognize such a stance. There is only obedient servant... Or mortal enemy.

Emperor Emhyr var Emreis gave them a choice they could not refuse: assassinate a few kings in the Northern Realms in exchange for rebuilding the school to its former glory.

The emperor, however, did not keep his promise and instead of rebuilding the school, he sent bounty hunters after its few remaining members to remove any loose ends.

Armor and Equipment

Viper Witchers are trained to fight with twin blades, often referred to as “fangs”. This style focuses on fast and furious strikes aimed to overwhelm their target, be it monster or man.

These blades would often be coated with poison as the school made great use of its knowledge of alchemy.

No need to strike deep when but a scratch will prove fatal.

Five More Witchers

Letho of Gulet

Witchers never die in their beds. - Letho

Some friends you see after many years apart and you immediately develop a headache. Not out of antipathy, but as a somatic premonition of the hangover sure to follow your drunken reunion. Seeing others, however, gives you an itching pain in your back and a desire to reach for your blade. For Geralt, Letho of Gulet had a foot in both of these camps.

Letho, if Geralt doesn’t ask him to go to Kaer Morhen, says, that he will be heading to Zerrikania citing a possible reason that it's a matriarchy and he's always had a deep belief "that it's women who should rule the world."

Serrit and Auckles

He seems different, but in reality is so similar. Our paths have been the same: we survived the Trials, endured the same training and have slain so many monsters that we no longer keep count. So many men, also. The difference is in the details – when I see him moving in combat, I want to laugh, but I also see that he is just as effective, if not more so. There is, however, one critical difference I cannot describe adequately. He has a goal, he is committed to something. He doesn't wander the world as if blown about by the wind. I believe he feels emotions at a level I cannot attain, yet these emotions are not typically human. Is it an illness of some kind? I think he teeters on the brink of instinct and emotion, and that he uses up a lot of energy to maintain his mental health. I hope I get a chance to know him better and learn from him. Nothing specific – just life. - Serrit about Geralt

Serrit was a lot more hot-headed than his brother, complaining about the lack of action they had in the past days.

Letho's got a plan… what could go wrong? - Auckles

Auckes seemed to be the less serious of the brothers, being sarcastic at times while being very confident of his skills.

He appeared to regard Geralt as a friend, which is reflected when he asked if Geralt wasn't hanged for Foltest murder and Letho asked him if he wanted to see him hanged, he lowered his head and just answered "no".

Along with his brother, Auckes was fond of using bear traps.

Kolgrim

Fate seemed to take pleasure in torturing Kolgrim. Fortune only smiled upon him if it was accompanied by a stroke of very bad luck. It was always thus, even before Kolgrim became a witcher. When he was still a young harmless brat...

On the eve of Saovine small Kolgrim was kidnapped by a weeper, which replaced him with its own cursed offspring. Fortunately, the monster was slaughtered by a witcher that very same night. The boy's savior, having taken pity on him, decided to escort him back home. Kolgrim was relieved to be returning to the warmth and safety of his mother, unaware of his impending misfortune.

The woman greeted the witcher with hatred in her eyes, not believing a single word that came out of his mouth. Blinded by her contempt, she refused to even look twice at her own crying son, utterly convinced that the weeper's baby was her real child. With the door slammed shut in their face, the witcher had no other choice than to take Kolgrim with him – straight to the Viper School.

Over many future years, fate mocked Kolgrim many times – both during his murderous training and the later travels around the Continent. His life ended most ironically. For he, who was once stolen and then rejected from his mother, was accused of kidnapping a child.

Warritt The All-Seeing

By slightly modifying the Supirre sign, Warritt gained the ability to see... everything.

Supirre is a Sign enhancing the auditory perception of the user. Drawn on a solid surface, it allows the people near the Sign to hear sounds which would be normally inaudible due to the distance or background noise. As such, it is often used for eavesdropping.

It compensated the monster hunter's lack of sight by giving him the ability of echolocation.

[jimlingss]

Moirai [1]

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2

➜ Words: 5.8k

➜ Genres: 60% Fluff, 40% Angst, Isekai!AU

➜ Summary: Death is supposed to be the end. Or at least that's what you assumed when you're hit by a TRUCK. But the moment you open your eyes again, instead of being sent to the afterlife, you've become a baby. And not just any baby. You're the female villain of a video game.

➜ Notes: Isekai is a popular manga and light novel genre in which characters from Earth are transported into a new world.

This is the end.   “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”   The Prince stands tall, the very furrow of his brows jarring against the cold, cordial expression he maintains — the one she had always tried to shatter. All she desired was something other than courtesy. If not affection then frustration or misery. But she supposes that anger suffices.   Anger. The first time he’s ever looked at her with an ounce of any true feeling.   His shadow looms over her, his status powerful as the countless eyes are narrowed in around her — he is as powerful as the people who stand behind him. Every word he speaks booms through the ballroom, a grand timbre that has long replaced the mellifluous violins.    The Prince is as noble as he is righteous. He is the hero of this story.   “You choose to answer your crimes with silence?!”   The corner of her lips curl and cackles rasp from her throat. The noise is discordant and shrill, a mocking irony when it causes him to pull the woman in his arms closer. Even when she’s in this position, downcast head, knees burnt on the carpet, all she does is drive them closer together.   “The only sins I have ever committed was loving you until my last breath.”   “Guards!”   Murmurs spark across the room and the knights armour clank as they approach in heavy steps. She knows these are the last moments. “The only crime I have is looking out for the empire! But you chose her.” She looks upon the girl he holds, the one who has the same contempt on her visage. And as the knights rip her away from her place, she spits venom-laced words, “A lowly baron’s adopted daughter to make your wife. I am the duke’s daughter. I am educated. I am your fiancée—”   “No longer.” He condemns, “You have committed treason. Conspiracy against the crown. Attempted murder. Forgery. Harassment. Using your status to oppress the vulnerable—”   “Let go of me!” she shrieks as the guards drag her down the room. It’s undignified. Degrading.   “—Daring to entangle yourself with the dark arts. And you will answer to these crimes whether you choose to confess or not.”    “Let go of me!” she struggles, yet no one chooses to hear.    Their eyes have pierced into her, those who aren’t scandalized are snickering behind their feathered fans. But in the last seconds, status has no place. She looks to the person who matters most, the one she had spent her childhood idolizing. Her beliefs hold true. He will make a great ruler.   But she will never be the one to stand beside him. She knows now.   That position has long been stolen away from her.   “Everything I did,” she cries, “I did for yo—”   The grand doors slam shut with her pitched screams resounding.    Moments later, the lively music continues, violins and trumpets crescendoing to life once more. As if her life had just not been taken away from her. As if the denunciation was merely an intermission of tonight’s festivities.   Her heinous exterior is shattered by tears that no one would have sympathy for. She is limp when she is thrown into the stone jail cell within the depths of the castle. The knights twist on their heel and she is surrounded in pitch darkness with the sound of a scurrying rat echoing beside her.   The only time there is light is by the dim flame of the torch, a guard accompanying a frightened servant who carries a bowl of spoiled oats. It’s not enough to satisfy the grumble of her stomach, but enough to keep her alive for the execution day. Without a silver fork or spoon in hand, a handkerchief placed in her lap, seated by a candlelit table, she resorts to using her fingers to scoop the food into her mouth.   Sometimes, she thinks they forget about her.   Or perhaps time is simply drawn in darkness. A second made into a minute. A minute is an hour. She is merely left leaning against the molded stone, wasted away and drunk on memories of better places.   Punishment does not come in the form of her stripped title or even her head rolling away from her neck. Punishment arrives in the darkened loneliness. That loss of sanity that whisper she has failed to capture the attention of the only person she ever loved. That she failed to make him love her.   Everything she did, it drove him away.   Every act of love placed distance between them.   Everything.   Liberation comes back with the music of trumpets muffled by the stone walls. “What’s going on?” her voice is hoarse through her parched throat. The servant screams when her arm reaches past the bars to tug on the girl’s dress. Her eyes are bleary as she looks up at the girl. “Why is it so noisy?”   “T-The civil war’s over.” The girl backs away and the celebrations become more distinct with the realization. “The villain is dead.”   The girl withdraws into the cell and cackles rip through her lungs, resounding across the empty chambers. The servant scurries away as the knight huffs out through his nose and shakes his head. But it’s the best news she’s received since she’s been stowed away.    And a smile still graces her features when she is dragged out and jostled by the knights, taken up to where the sun blinds her vision.   “On the eve of the Solar Festival, we rid our empire of yet another villain and free it from treachery!”   There are cacophonous cheers in the crowd. Her eyes are hurt by the sunlight and she shuts them tight. Her legs are kicked and she’s knocked onto her knees, head being shoved against wood. She wishes she didn’t have to face the sun rays. There’s no decency to give her shade.   But the discomfort is over by the blade slicing through the air. She lives and both dies as the villainess — an inevitable legacy.            ❇ End of Royal Romances Chapter 7 -Prince Route- ❇

Headbeams.   Fuck.   You never thought it would be like all those cheesy movies — the third Batman film, Grey’s Anatomy, the Simpsons, hell even Attack on Titan. But nope. They’re right. Time really does slow and your life really does flash by your eyes when you’re in the moment of your death.    But instead of feeling grief for yourself, all you can think about is what an absolute idiot you are.   You really shouldn’t have jaywalked at night. That cheesecake in the fridge was supposed to be yours! And holy shit, your parents are going to be really fucking mad that you died at only twenty—   The truck slams into you before you can finish your thought.   …………... ……….. ……. ….. ... .. .   Strangely, it doesn’t hurt. Maybe because it happened so fast. Maybe the initial impact was already enough to end your life. But you’re left feeling an empty void inside of yourself. An overwhelming agony that this is the end. That you never got the chance to fulfill your dreams, enjoy the fruits of your labour, that you never got to reach the happiness you wanted.   You have regrets.   Not for the things that you did. But for the things that you didn’t do.   But well….you suppose there’s no use in lingering in it.   Death is the end.   This is the end.   ……. ….. ... .. .   “—ook...t ...er...!”   “..hush!”   What?   Why are you hearing noises? Why does your face feel warm?   Are you in...heaven? Some sort of afterlife?! Oh man, you knew you deserved this! Fuck yes! You might have kicked that kid’s shin in the fourth grade and totally lied to your manager that one time that you cleaned the ice-cream machine when you didn’t, but your wrongdoings aren’t that bad.   You open your eyes.   Unusually, your vision is blurred. All you can make out is a fuzzy figure looming over you.   Your mouth opens—   “Waah!”   What the fuck. You can’t speak. Each time your lips part, drool dripples onto your chin.   In a panic, you try to move your body, but quickly find yourself heavy and practically stuck. You cry out and swing your arm, and that’s when your hand flashes before your eyes.   Your pupils focus and you realize that your hand is tiny. That you can barely curl and uncurl your fingers together. Holy shit. Holy fuck—   You’re a baby.   Wailing sobs burst out of your tiny lungs.    You don’t know where you are or how this happened. Your last memory is being hit by a truck!   The figure looming above you comes closer. “What is wrong with her?!”   The woman sounds annoyed, but it’s not like it's your fault. This is just a lot to take in.   Your mouth is blocked by a pacifier being shoved in. Immediately, you spit it out and the woman sighs. “Why is she being so fussy?”   That’s not the issue, lady! Christ, you wish you could communicate with her.   You feel yourself being picked up and she angrily mutters, “If the Devereux household wasn’t paying me so much, I would’ve just thrown you out the window.”   Wait. Say what now? Devereux?    Why does that sound so familiar?   You hear another woman’s voice, one that’s higher pitched and softer. “What’s wrong with little Anastasia?”   “Have you finished hanging the laundry yet?”   “Yes, I have.” You’re being passed on and your sobs subside in favour of a frown. Anastasia?   Anastasia Devereux.   You remember cursing that name out loud before, but where was—   Oh my god. Oh my god! It’s impossible, but the truth is right in front of your eyes. You’re living through it right now. This isn’t a dream. No. It’s your game, Royal Romances.    You’ve been reincarnated into the fictional country of Ashea. And of all people, you’ve been reborn as the villainess, Anastasia Devereux.   You burst out crying again.   //   A man in a coat and frilly shirt enters the room. Your head adjusts to see through the wooden bars of your bassinet, vision becoming clearer by the day. You know who he is without an announcement.   Your father. At least he’s supposed to be.   “How is the child?” he asks the maid.   “She is healthy, your grace. She may be a bit fussy at times, but she sleeps and eats well.”   He hums and leaves shortly after, never once coming to personally see or even hug you.    What an asshole. This entire world is fucked. You’re fucked.   Royal Romances is a love story game between a heroine and several potential matches depending on the route you take. Yet in every route, the main protagonist's rival, the Marquess and the Crown Prince’s fiancée, ends up co-conspiring with the villain and dies because of his crimes. Or exiled. Two options.   And you’ve taken her place.   But now that you think about it, that’s so unfair! You didn’t care much about Anastasia while playing, other than wanting her to get the fuck out of the picture for your OTP ship to sail. But why should the villainess shoulder the villain’s crimes?! If anything, it was him who coerced her! All Anastasia wanted was to be with the Crown Prince! He was the only person who ever showed her an ounce of kindness!   Oh god.   All you know now is that you don’t want to die.   You died too early in your past life.   “Anastasia.” You’re shaken awake from your thick slumber by soft cooing. A quiet woman’s voice calls and when you open your eyes, you’re able to focus on a woman you’ve never seen before but is familiar at the same time. She smiles and picks you up. “Good afternoon.”    Instead of fussing around like you usually would, a triumphant smile spreads into your face.   Fucking finally. It’s the first time you’ve seen your ‘mother’. Maybe she’s just been recovering from the birth these past few months. After all, there’s no way the family would actually just abandon you to a bunch of maids—   “Oh my goodness, Elanor!” A shrill voice has your senses tingling. There’s another woman sitting at the rounded table fanning herself with an orange, feathered fan. “What a lovely daughter!”   “Yes, she really is. She hardly cries.”   Now that’s a big fat lie.   You’ve probably cried a thousand times since you got here. It’s not your fault the maids don’t know how to put you in anything other than scratchy dresses and forget to change your underwear after you’ve shit yourself.   Another stranger approaches you and practically digs their nose into your face. Her floral perfume almost has you retching and spewing out an entire bottle of milk in her face. “She is simply too delightful! She has Herrick’s eyes and your nose.”   “Really now? I think she’s growing up to look more and more like the Duke each day.”   “Oh she’ll grow up to be a beauty. You are truly blessed, Elenor.”   Cordial laughter fills the room.   Motherfucker. She’s just using you as a decor! You’re a prop for her to show off at her tea party! She doesn’t care about you whatsoever.    But fine. You can play along with her. It’s not like you have any choice.   You muster an enormous gooey smile, channeling all the cuteness you know you must have and instantly, several of the ladies swoon. It’s an overwhelming victory! But one that requires a lot of energy when you were just awakened from your nap — and squeezing your butt cheeks results in the grumble of your stomach.   Being a few months old, you have poor control of your digestive system. So it’s no surprise that smiling so hard makes you shit your pants.    Oops.   The lump falls into your cloth diaper and instantly, your mother’s brow twitches.   The stench reaches her nose and the nostrils of the lady intruding into your space who immediately draws back in disgust. But what the hell are they expecting?! You’re a baby! All you do is eat, sleep and shit!   “Edith!”    Your mother’s shrill cry has the maid coming into the room. “Yes, your grace?”   “Take Anastasia.”   She passes you off without even looking and you’re swiftly taken away from the room, hearing the laughter and conversations resume the moment the doors close. So cruel!    “Ugh. I’ve never seen a baby who cries so much,” Edith complains and plops you into the bassinet instead of comforting you. If you had limb strength and mobility, you’d slap her for being so rude.   The younger maid with the higher-pitched voice looms over you. “Maybe it’s because she knows the Duke and Duchess never come to visit. She’s missing the comfort of a mother and father.”   Thank god someone can sympathize with you! As incompetent as Joan is — to the point where she’s checking your pants for the tenth time when you’re really just crying because you’re starving — at least she’s not a Karen.   Clearly, the bar is quite low.   “Well, it’s expected.” Edith steps away to fold the basket of your dresses. “The Duke and Duchess tried having children for years and the only child they have is a daughter who can’t even carry the family name. If it was a son, it would be different.”   “I don’t understand.” Joan rushes to the head maid’s side. “Usually daughters are treasured in noble families.”   Edith looks around and lowers her volume. “Don’t you know?”   “Know what?”   “Keep your voice down! If you say this outside, even I won’t be able to help you.” There’s a pause. “The Duke and Duchess aren’t real nobles, they don’t have any noble blood. The Duke’s late father, Arnold, fought heroically in the war and that’s why the King granted his family the title.”   “Oh…but...what does that have to do with anything?”   “Noble society is different from how we know it, you naive girl. No matter what you do, hundreds of eyes are constantly on you. It’s full of scrutiny and someone in power today might be exiled tomorrow. Having a son would’ve made it easier for the Devereux household to maintain their title and prestige.”   Joan sighs, finally realizing why things are the way they are. She comes to you and leans over the bassinet. “Poor thing. It’s not even her fault.”   She gives you her finger and you happily wrap your entire hand around it. Hell yeah! Finally someone’s feeling bad for your shitty situation.   But the older woman with wrinkles around her eyes scoffs. “There’s no use worrying about her. You should be more worried about yourself. If the House of Devereux fails to keep their power and wealth, we’ll be out of a job.”   Joan hums and pries her finger away from your grasps.   You frown and the next time the head maid feeds you, you puke all over her.    But you know what she said is true. It’s the reason why the real Anastasia felt like she needed to become the crown princess, why she tried so hard to make everyone around her approve of her. Aside from loving the Prince, she was desperate for recognition, desperate to fulfill her family’s wishes, and to maintain her family’s lineage without slipping from the status quo.   But you’re different.   You don’t care about those things. You’ll prove yourself on your own and do whatever it takes to survive.   Quickly. Quickly! You want to grow up and walk on your own two feet so you can protect yourself.   After all, no one else in this house will.   You stretch your arm in the air, curling your fingers together, staring up at the starry mobile.    But it’s hard in the body of a mere infant and you fall asleep in the midst of your exercise session, succumbing to the temptation of slumber with heavy lids.

Four years later.   “Are you colouring, my lady?”   “Nooo.”   You’re writing. And it’s not just anything — it’s battle plans.    To anyone, it’s merely incoherent scribbles, a result of poor motor skills you have yet to refine. But it’s actually your life or death.   You don’t need status or power. Living in the countryside and living fruitfully is good enough. All you want is to live a long, peaceful life.   In the original story, after Anastasia’s eighteenth birthday, she was condemned for countless crimes, thrown in prison and then executed within the matter of weeks. All because of three people: the heroine, the Crown Prince, and the villain.   To avoid the effect, you should avoid the cause. Therefore, you need to do whatever you can to avoid these three!   It’s genius! Truly, if anyone knew how your four year old brain operated, you would be hailed as the next prophe—   “Get ready.” Edith interrupts your train of thought, coming into the room and swiftly shutting the door behind her.   “Why?”   “You’re having lunch with the Duke and Duchess.”   “But I don’t wanna,” you whine, especially when Joan starts collecting the crayons. You stand up before Edith can drag you and you stomp your feet. Why would you want to go have lunch with them when the amount of times you’ve seen them in four years can be counted on both hands.   “Don’t be spoiled. Come here.”   You stick out your tongue instead and the moment Edith’s fingers come to snag you, you swiftly dart and run as giggles squeak out of your body.   “My lady,” Joan sighs, at a loss as well.    The two of them try to corner you, but you dive to the left when there’s a chance.   The original villainess was always quite upright and strict, especially with herself. It’s reasonable considering the way she was raised and the massive burden placed upon her. But kids can get away with a lot more than adults and you’d prefer to take advantage of that while you still can.   “Stop playing around!” Edith finally snags the back of your nightgown and you laugh, still thrashing against her hold until she plops you down on the vanity chair. “You’re such an unruly troublemaker,” she mutters as she grabs the frilly dress you’re about to be changed into.   And just for that comment, you undo the pins she puts into your hair when she’s not looking.   It drives her crazy.   But your little antics are stopped the moment you’re sitting at the dinner table. The height of said table reaches your collarbone and the chair you’re sitting in overwhelms your form. The atmosphere is stiff and tense, your father sitting at the head of the table and slicing into his meat while your mom’s posture is upright and she chews gingerly.    Unlike the maids, you won’t test your luck with the Duke and Duchess. God knows they might send you to some kid ranch for the next ten years to reform yourself.    But you also know you can’t get any cuter than this.   You’ve seen yourself in the mirror — soft skin, big eyes, a button nose and chubby cheeks.   Who knows what puberty might do to you someday, but for now, you’re as cute as a four year old can get. And why not use that as a weapon in your arsenal?   “Momma.” You interrupt the silence and your mother across from you looks up. You give a full smile with teeth, quirking your head to your shoulder and open your arms as wide as they can go. “I like you this much!”   Oh. Hell. Yeah!   You can feel it. You’re totally gonna win them over—   Her head swivels over to the Duke. “Don’t you think it’s time to teach her manners?”   Wow. That’s cold.    Stone cold.   “Edith.” Your father glances over his shoulder and the head maid steps forward. “How’s Anastasia’s development?”   The older woman clears her throat. “She’s a bit wild, your grace.” You glare at her for exposing you like this. “However, she can write the alphabet and read through storybooks on her own. She seems to be a bright child.”   Damn straight. Of course, you’d be able to pick up the language of Ashea quickly. You still have the memories of your past life.   The Duke hums. “Then she can start training to be the crown princess.”   You nearly choke on your broccoli.    But you hastily compose yourself and look up at your father. “What’s that?”   “Don’t ask questions,” your mother quips and the room simmers down to the uncomfortable silence again.   It’s so ridiculous — the very definition of jumping the gun. You aren’t the Crown Prince’s fiancée, but they’re already considering you a candidate before you’ve even lost your baby teeth.   Not to mention, it’s all useless anyway. The original Anastasia never became the princess and you have no plans of even meeting the Prince.    “Do you know what happened in the year 921, my lady?” the tutor asks later on, pushing up his rounded spectacles up the slope of his nose.   You’re slumped over the table, one arm rested with your cheek squished in your hand, focused on twirling the quill with two fingers. God forbid Edith or your mother witnesses your awful posture, but no one’s ever interested enough to sit in on these dumb tutor sessions. They’d fall asleep instantly.   “The war of Winter,” you mumble and the tutor’s eyes light up and he enthusiastically nods.   “Yes! The most momentous moment in the history of Ashea. A great dragon rose from the mountains and in the war of Winter, great King Baek, the light priestess and fierce knights of the royal palace came down the lazy brook from Stoughsby Peaks next to the then Canary district which sold fabrics and spices up until the year 914 when the famine of 914 came—”   The tutor drones on and on.   But one thing grabs your attention. You forgot there was magic in this world.   “Ummm,” you interrupt him in the middle of his tangent. “Did King Baek kill the dragon by magic?”   “Great question. King Baek in the summer of 896, seven years after he was born, started to learn the art of swordsmanship through rigorous training with the fierce knights of the royal place who was then under the rule of King Ennik—”   You don’t know why you asked.   “How do you start doing magic?” you interject again.   “Well, magic is part of everyone and it’s everywhere. But some are more attuned to it than others. It requires vigorous training, the most talented magician was Ruffus Dolores who dedicated his life living in the Magician’s Tower and wrote most of the magical texts we have today.”   You look at him, curiosity finally alight in your eyes. “Can I do magic?”   There was never magic on Earth in the twenty-first century aside from Harry Potter or Twilight, if Edward’s sparkling constitutes as magic. But if it’s anything like those movies, then you’re psyched! You can wingardium leviosa yourself and yeet out of here.   Unfortunately, your excitement is short lived.   “The House of Devereux isn’t very magically inclined,” the tutor says and your eyes dim again. You’re not completely surprised considering Anastasia was never much of a fighter in the game. She just splashed water on the main character’s face a lot and made players like you curse her out. “However, while magic is an inborn talent and comes naturally, skills always have to be honed. There’s still a chance you may have magical abilities. We’ll just have to see as you get older.”   You hum to yourself.   //   Edith pulls the curtains together haphazardly, the moonlight crisp where the gap is and sheds a silver sliver onto the carpet. Joan takes the tray with your finished glass of milk, nearly toppling it over and shattering the glass, but finding balance in the nick of time.   “Goodnight, my lady.”   “Night night.” Your hand peeks out from the covers and you wave.   “Don’t get out of bed or else,” Edith warns in a low tone. “The Duke won’t be happy to hear if you’re found wandering in the halls or sneaking into the kitchen again.”   You giggle. “Bye bye.”   The door shuts, darkness engulfs your bedroom and you count to ten within your head. The moment the seconds are up, you throw the covers off of you and slide off the high mattress.   You come to your desk, grasp the heavy duty textbook off of it and lug it over to the windows.    The enormous book sits on your lap as you lean against your bedpost. The moonlight illuminates the cover and you flip to the magic section at the back, the noise of the pages soothing in the quiet space. Magic — not only is it interesting to you but it could be a great defense mechanism if worse comes to worse. Who knows. It might just add to your battle plans and help you survive.   Your pointer finger underlines the sentences and traces the words as you read the introduction slowly.   After reading, you learn that magic is more intuitive, rather than a particular procedure.    You push the textbook aside and hold your hands out. Shutting your eyes, you try your best to envision light. You try to imagine light engulfing your figure and form, causing your skin to glow.   Peeking with one eye open, there’s—   Absolutely nothing.   Well shit. Maybe the tutor was right. Maybe there is no real magical talent in your bloodline. But there’s no harm in trying to dabble in it a little more.   You conceptualize fire in your brain. And when you look in your hand, you’re ecstatic to see a tiny flame actually flickering in mid-air. Oh shit! It worked!   But it smothers out a blink later.   You try to visualize water next to see if your magical expertise lays within the element. When you open your eyes, your breath hitches at the water droplets floating in your palm. And for once, it doesn’t completely vanish within a second. A grin spreads into your face. But as if Lady Luck wants to slap you, the moment you get hyped, the water splashes into your lap.   It looks like you peed yourself.   “Really?!”   You sigh, ready to give up.   Maybe you don’t have a knack for magic after all.    You turn to grab the textbook, but the heftiness is awkward in your grasps and your thumb slips, accidentally flipping over the next page. The page’s heading makes you stop.    Oh yeah. Dark magic exists.   Might as well give it a shot while you’re at it.   Like all the times before, you shut your eyes and hold your hands upwards. You try to imagine darkness — the similar kind that’s already filled your bedroom, or like the empty void that you were plunged in after being hit by that truck. That abyss of nothing, of pitch black.   Suddenly, you feel a pressure on your shoulders. It’s heavy. Comforting. Eerie. All at the same time.   Your lashes flutter open and your breath is plugged in your nose. Darkness has overwhelmed the room. It bleeds out of you, consuming your form like smoke, the hue of ink spilt on oil. It covers the silver moonlight, erasing the sliver casted on your carpet and what was translucent through the curtains. Exactly like the empty void, the abyss of nothing.    It’s trying to consume you.   There’s a shriek from outside your room. “All the candles just blew out!”   Panic drains blood from your face and you drop your hands, flailing your arms as if you can dispel the black before it wraps its hands around your throat and submerges you completely.   It fades, the moonlight traveling back onto you again and you shove the book underneath your bed.   You’re still shaking as you climb back into bed.   God knows you’re never going to try that again.   //   So you might not have an aptitude for magic after all. But the grief is short-lived after the realization that it’s not a toy or something that comes out of a magical wand for you to fight Dementors with. But there’s still a lot of ways you can protect yourself. You just have to get creative.   “I wanna do that!”    Your nose, forehead and palms are pushed against the glass window as you peer outside.   Joan frowns and peeks out. “You want to go flower picking, my lady?”   “No!”   The useless maid finally looks to the two guards sparring with one another out by the field. “You want to sword fight?”   “Uh-huh.”   She bursts out laughing and you whirl around in irritation.    “I wanna! Pretty please?” How else are you going to protect yourself? If you can’t use magic, then you need to go the melee route and pick up a sword or at least a bow and arrow.   “You would have to ask permission from the Duke himself, my lady.” Joan turns away to make your bed, expecting you to give up. When it comes to asking your parents, it’s too much of a hassle to get involved with them. But this time, you don’t concede.   She’s surprised when you tug on her dress. “Okay.”   The Duke’s study doors are imposing on their own. Without needing to open them, the twisting ornate patterns on the wooden surface are enough to eerily remind you of exposed arteries. It feels like you’re approaching the principal’s office — a nervousness of the impending doom.   You’ve always been careful to steer clear any place your mother or father might be. The study on the third floor, the gardens, their bedroom. And any time you passed, your steps would quiet.   It’s not like you’re scared of them. Frankly, you’re just annoyed at how nit-picky they are.   But you remind yourself you’ve been through worse — you once spent an entire summer in customer service serving food in the twenty first century for god’s sakes!   With that in mind, you throw open the doors.   Joan, behind you, practically flinches.   Your father’s sitting behind his oak desk, quill and parchment in hand, and he looks above his rounded spectacles. You give your most charming smile. “Hi, papa!”   He looks to the older girl and deadpans, “What’s the matter.”   The maid clears her throat, clearly distressed that she’s been dragged into this. “Uh, well, your grace, my lady, uh, she…..well…”   “I wanna do sword!” You tottle towards him and round the desk to come eye to eye with his knees. C’mon, as uncaring as they are, they gotta at least care a little for their daughter, right? You’re too cute to ignore all the time. You flutter your lashes for good measure. “Pretty please?”   The Duke’s brow quirks. “You want to learn swordsmanship?”   You enthusiastically nod. “Uh-huh!”   He stares at you. You stare at him.   The older man sits back in his chair. “It wouldn’t hurt to learn an interesting skill or two. It might make you stand out.” Those two lifelessly said statements alone are enough to make you happy. Even when he resumes his paperwork. “I heard from your tutor that you’re a fast learner.”   You’re surprised the old fart said something good about you, but of course you are! You’re technically twenty four now. Mathematics is truly universal when you can recall the basics and the language is easy to pick up. You’re already dumbing down everything to not make it weird.   “Maybe you’re not so useless after all,” he mutters from the corner of his mouth, no longer sparing you a glance.    You hold back a scoff. Instead, you force a smile and a sweet giggle. “Thank you, papa! I like you too!”   You wonder if this is why Anastasia tried so hard. The only time she gains recognition in her family is when she’s focusing her time and energy into studying and proving her worth. If so, it’s depressing. You wish you had more sympathy for her when you were playing from the heroine’s perspective. But you’re beginning to understand her better and better.    Why she did what she did.   How she became the female villain.   “Fight me!” You point your wooden sword at the knight whose eyes are wide. You bet he didn’t expect to be sparing with a four year old when he was assigned to protect the Devereux house, but this is a matter of life and death for you. “Hurry!”   “Y-Yes, my lady.”   You smile, gripping the handle tighter. He comes up and weakly slashes you and you’re able to root your feet into the ground and keep yourself from stumbling back. He’s obviously not trying very hard, but it’s good enough for now. Slowly but surely, you’re finding a rhythm into things.    In your spare time, you learn the history of Ashea, read books and plan the next steps in your battle plan of avoiding all main characters of the game at all costs. You’ll protect yourself no matter what it takes.   And you’ll survive no matter what happens.

[paragonrobits]

in trying to come up with some kind of clarifying meta to explore how I think Iroh and Azula actually DO feel about each other (and broadly speaking, I think its probably somewhere between ‘they DON’T particularly think about the other one unless it comes up’ and ‘their polar opposite view points on the politics of the Fire Nation make them ideological opposites, and yet once Iroh was the same as Azula in terms of outlook’ and also ‘the Fire Nation royal court Sozin created is not a situation where the sentimental notions of family survive for particularly long’) a thing that comes to mind is that Azula does seem to... well, I don’t know if the right word is antagonize him; at the very least, challenge him?

Specifically, I’m thinking in terms not of, say, young Azula burning a doll he sent her (which is dismissive and a gesture of contempt, and therefore probably pretty typical of a young kid who doesn’t much care for a specific person and can’t be punished because they’re far way or something; it borders on being a power move), but of her crushing the seasells Iroh was gathering, eliciting a brief break in Iroh’s serene persona that’s pretty notable since whenever we see him getting angry, it’s rare and PROBABLY IMPORTANT.

Perhaps imagine two dragons, not exactly fighting for territory, but constantly testing the waters and seeing the ferocity and power of the other, daring them to make a move all the time. It’s not hard to imagine that’s the dynamic between the two of them. It’s not unlikely that Azula is deliberately probing him for weakness all the time, or trying to get a reaction out of him, or that its part of the sort of court intrigue and political fighting that is likely a part of how the modern Fire Nation works at their particular level.

It’s easy to imagine Azula as being the sort of person whom, even after a hypothetical character arc where she becomes wiser and more enlightened, still pokes and prods and snaps to get a reaction out of people; perhaps for her amusement, perhaps because she wants to see how people react, and scoff at the ones who just back down, and find her esteem rising at the people who snap back even if they have no power.

In which case, it could be that a big part of their apparent dislike, or at least mutual disinterest in each other (in the same way that, with a lot of families with tension in them, you get people who REALLY don’t like each other and only interact because they don’t have any choice otherwise) is that their philosophes are completely contradictory. Azula sincerely believes in power and will, in the Fire Nation’s right to colonize and conquer the entire world because no one is strong enough to stop them (and if there are any moral questions for her, it’s probably answered in the same way of any colonizing empire throughout history, and Ozai’s own apparent belief that the only moral factor is power). Iroh, conversely, comes off as someone who has abandoned the Fire Nation’s ways in the broad scope, even if he still views his military actions with pride (or at least comes off that way), and concluded a long time ago that wealtth, power, and other temporal concerns are pointless; that it is better to occupy your life with enjoyment and small pleasures. All things end, and all empires die, and it is correct that they do so.

So you have someone who believes in the divine right of kings, versus someone who believes that the notion of empire is a futile childish errand. Friction is inevitable, even if their personalities would gel very well, and Iroh was considered amiable and goofy even when he was a bloodthirsty general. (The implication being that from the outside, Iroh didn’t change that much, which may be interesting or alarming depending on one’s perspective.)

And also, while a lot of people bring up family in this context, I still think that the Fire Nation’s upper courts are a very nasty den of intrigue and conflict that leaves little room for sentimentality like that, and perhaps assuming that family should always love each other or support another says much about the person saying those things. I guess in some ways I envy people like that, or at least acknowledge their good fortune, that their assumptions of family aren’t something nastier like families where everyone hates each other and only stick together because they have no other option to survive, or families where you were betrayed or backstabbed and you have to suck it up and smile and pretend you don’t still hurt from that, because you have no other choice and nowhere to go

the ideas that family will always love and nurture each other is a sentimental one, and like a lot of ideas coached in sentimentality, I don’t think it has a lot of support in real life or personal experience, and its not hard to see how that might apply towards the dynamic of Iroh and Azula.

[ktheist]

the emperor.

knj / myg / jhs / ksj / pjm / kth / jjk

x

the first time kim seokjin met the queen of the dragons was five years after he ascended the throne and united the whole continent under his empire.

all, except the kingdom of the free.

beasts with wings and fire in their breaths hover over the kingdom’s skies day and night.

always on the look out for the smallest of threats.

the day the queen visited with her delegates, the skies turn dark. the silver wyvern - the last of its kind and the queen’s loyal friend - perched itself on the clock tower of the palace.

hair as white as the silver scales of her guardian, she stared at him with striking blue eyes.

“greetings, kim seokjin,” she didn’t lower her head like the other kings and queens who ceded to him.

if she had been one of his people, she would have been executed for contempt to the crown.

but she wasn’t his person.

she was free.

x

kim seokjin got used to her cystal-like eyes that seem to pierce through his heart each time they gaze at him.

“we don’t control them. we’re simply grateful for the protection they swore to give to our ancestors and our ancestors’ descendants,” she says with the softest huff when he proposed an alliance to have the dragons guard the capital where the palace is.

“i apologize... for getting ahead of myself,” he bows, smile as sweet as honey on his lips.

he doesn’t know why he even bothers with the courtesy and feigned pleasantries.

for her eyes are as clear as the sky and she sees through him like he’s made of glass.

x

the next time he sees her, he’s the one that rode to the free kingdom under the guise of eradicating a crime syndicate that’s been plaguing the continent.

this is no job for an emperor yet here he is, standing in the open meadow past the snow valley where he watches the silver wyvern land gracefully, talons scraping against the blades of grass.

“seokjin, i trust your stay has been well?” it’s the first time she’s smiling at him, hand on the beast’s head as if she’s petting a kitten.

“quite,” is all he says, mesmerized by the glaring contrast of her midnight skin and snowy hair.

“come,” she holds out her hand and he foolishly takes it.

if she were to feed him to her beastly pet, seokjin thought, he would willingly let himself be eaten.

but she doesn’t do that.

no, she would never do such a barbarous thing.

instead, she takes him on a ride, on its scaled back with wind brushing against his skin and his hands on her waist.

seokjin realizes why her kingdom is free.

x

six months later, the continent is shaken by the news of the emperor’s proposal to the dragon queen.

he struts into the white walled palace and gets on his knees as if he’s fully submitted to the realization that she has him shackled by the wrists.

and he wants nothing more than to be hers. to be treated as one of those mindless beasts that come running with a single call.

she dismisses the servants and he waves his off.

“i’ve known of your greed the moment i met you,” her voice is sharp but there’s a kind of warmth in it - seokjin likes to think it’s reserved only for him.

“but to make this... this grand proposal just to get the dra-”

he swallows her words and she freezes under his touch.

her fingers begin to tug on his shirt. she kisses him back with just as much desperation.

seokjin thinks he’s about to die from how fast his heart is beating.

x

“i can’t leave the kingdom,” she says, stroking his hair as they sit on the marble floor of the throne room, surrounded by the jewels and riches he brought from the spoils of war.

“you don’t have to,” he assures, “you had the emperor bowing at your feet - he’s ready to give orders to prepare to move the capital of the empire here.”

he knows he sounds half-crazy for saying this. for plainly handing over the empire to be governed under the tiniest kingdom in the continent.

yet if it means being able to feel her touch for the rest of his life, he wouldn’t mind.

[funkymbtifiction]

4

I know places like Enneagrammer are very strict about their definition of 4 as someone who deliberately self-differentiates and creates an elitist identity out of their suffering. But I'm not sure they're right anymore. Given that the Enneagram is all theorising without scientific proof, this is all up to subjective interpetations anyway. Enneagrammer can't claim to be definitively right unless they go out and do the hard work to empirically validate their claims with academic research across a large, representative sample using the scientific method, which online typology communities don't do lol. It's more 'Yah I have 5 friends like this and my aunt is like this and I browse Reddit and PersonalityCafe a lot and I like this theory, so I'M RIGHT!' So, since this is mostly up to subjective interpretation and personal experience, here's my take:

For 4s, I lean towards Enneagram writers like Richard Rohr's interpretation. The 4 is someone who wants to live deeply and authentically and seeks beauty and meaning as a driving goal. I don't think it's necessary that elitism/superiority to others needs to be a defining part of the 4. Maybe this is common in 4s, but I don't think it HAS to be a definitive trait as this definition is too narrow. We need to have a broad definition of the 4 because, in my experience, there are people whose core motivation is to live with depth and meaning, and whose core fear is to live a shallow life. A lot of people (particularly philosophical, thoughtful and creative people) fall into this core motivation and fear but without the 'I create an identity around my suffering and am elitist') aspect. So you need a type that accommodates that kind of orientation towards depth, meaning and beauty, and imo no other type really covers that. Your thoughts?

“I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.” ― Anais Nin.

I think the truth about 4s is somewhere in-between all the descriptions of 4s. As regards Enneagrammer, there are a few things that have always bothered me about them. One is that they ignore the emotionalism of 4 and focus primarily on it being elitist. I notice they talk an awful lot about being separate, and painting oneself into a corner, and this is highly true in a lot of ways, BUT... 4 is also "I need to experience every emotion to its last drop," and they avoid talking about that. Maybe it's something they don't like to admit to themselves? (It also makes me a little suspicious when 4 is apparently such a rare fix and yet every mod over there still has it.)

I know 4 fixers who over-inflate everything and yes, pick back over conversations looking for a good reason to feel insulted. So Rohr is accurate in how he talks about how 4s aren't satisfied with an ORDINARY life, they are searching for a much, much BIGGER emotion. There are 4s like Anne Shirley, who display ALL the traits of a 4, from over-emotions and emotional magnifying (making everything SUCH a big deal) AND the crippled / rejected bird syndrome (no one wants me, I'm an ugly redhead!). The only core 4 I've ever known felt that way. Unwanted, prematurely rejected, surprised to be desired or included for her own sake, but also -- you milk every feeling for what it's worth. You don't "get over it," you sit in it and make a big deal out of it, because this is what I am FEELING. That's what you have to remember about 4. It's not just I love this, or I am deep, it's I will drink every last drop of my feelings. I will not move on from this intensity. (Bright Star, Shakespeare, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Emily Bronte, etc).

If you define 4 as merely someone who wants a deep life, you will have a lot of people mistyping as 4s because honestly, who wants to be thought of as shallow? The 4 = depth thing (and the woman who invented tritype uses that description, basically, for 4, which is how I mistyped as a 4 fixer for several years) has made a lot of people assume they are 4s, because they want life to have meaning, they want their movies and books and things to be deep, they love deep conversations, they need BEAUTY like they need air (this is me) but... they don't have the elitism that goes with 4. You must have both to be a 4 core, IMO.

I can spot a 4 anywhere; some of them actually get mad if you love what they love, because it's not theirs and it's not unique and it's not "special" anymore, it's not a "niche" interest that makes them special because they know about it and you don't. They love to dress "weird" and stand out, because as an image type, they are "displaying themselves" -- Enneagrammer has that spot on. The girl who works at a checker at the local store who is forever wearing 16 different necklaces, buttons, and earrings and when you ask her about them, she will smile a little and assure you that you don't know who any of these bands are (and she's delighted to be proven right) ... is a 4. ;)

In my opinion, NF orients itself toward "depth and beauty" anyway as a core desire, and NFP in particular does this because high Ne and Fi hates reality and wants a fantasy. It's idealistic, and not interested in the mundane. And you don't have to have 4 in your stack to feel that way. But you do need some of that "I love what I don't have, and I hate what I have" behavior to be 4, like Rohr said -- the woman who hated her husband until he left her, and then she loved him again, because 4 is always longing for something it doesn't have.

ETA: I wanted to add something here. It's very easy to latch onto superficial descriptions of 4 as an NF type especially and assume you are one, which is why I was so torn about 4 for a long time. Do I want everything in life to be meaningful and beautiful? Yes. Do I need everything to be deep? Yes. Do I search for deeper emotions than the one I am having and feel remorse if I am not feeling them? Yes. Do I have a condescending attitude about people loving things I deem as shallow? Yes. Do I have yo-yo relationships where familiarity breeds contempt? Yes. And yet, I am still not a 4. I am just an ENFP. Your personality type, the things your dominant function wants and needs, factors into these things as much as your Enneagram fixes. All of the above is me being a Ne and a Fi type. So if you exclude the negative, darker aspects of 4 and don't look at them (elitism, painting yourself into a corner, over-identifying with your broken image), you will mistype, in the same way you have to look at the core motivations and what that looks like of every other type. People really want to be 8s, also, but what about the crap being an 8 brings into your life? The ruined relationships? the aggression issues? being disliked and alienating people? You have to see it all, the good and the bad. The good of having a 2 fix - helpful, generous. The bad? - you owe me. Lots of people want beauty and depth, but lots of them also do not struggle with specifically 4 problems of self-sabotage.

[strafethesesinners]

Tagged by @blissfulalchemist to post a fic from a year or more ago (? I think that’s how it goes). None of my Far Cry 5 is a year old yet, but I’ll take this opportunity to post this Dishonored oneshot I did back in 2016. 

(I’ll tag some people if you want to do it or just want to read @risenlucifer @nightwingshero @chazz-anova @smithandrogers @madsismad @amistrio @chyrstis @consumedkings @faithchel @shallow-gravy)

Spoilers for the Knife of Dunwall Dishonored DLC Warnings for violence and gore Words: 2392  also on AO3

Daud was drowning. The icy, stinking water of the Wrenhaven River grew darker and darker above his head as he sank further into its depths. Daud was a strong swimmer, but something had a hold of his legs, pulling him down. He looked below him and screamed. Hundreds, thousands of corpses clogged the riverbed, clinging to his legs, his arms, and tearing at his clothes with rotting claws. Water rushed into his throat, but he could not close his mouth or his eyes. The more he struggled, the harder the bodies gripped him. They were screaming, moaning, begging for mercy. The water became blood: the blood of every person he had ever killed. It was choking him, yet he could not die. The pleading eyes of the corpses turned black and Daud understood: he was already dead and this was his hell. Still he fought against it, trying in vain to break free and reach the surface, but the ghosts clung on, all of them wailing as one.

“Mommy!”

Daud woke up shaking, his stomach curdling. He sat up and dry heaved over his blankets, but nothing came up. He tore off his sweat soaked shirt and tried to stand. It took him several minutes to regulate his breathing and bring his mind back to reality. It was barely after sunset, judging by the faint light coming through the glass-less windows. Daud lit a cigarette and walked out onto his small balcony on the top floor of the Chamber of Commerce building. He took a deep breath, welcoming the cool air on his sweaty face. The Flooded District smelled of Weepers, dead rats, and whale oil, but it was a familiar smell, and lately, Daud had been latching onto anything even vaguely comforting. He was starting to think his assassins were right, and he was losing it. He could sense them losing confidence in him day by day, and he was grateful none of them were here right now to see him trembling, and sweating, wearing only his trousers: terrified of a dream. But as his mind grew clearer, it seemed odd that no one was around. Daud’s eyes scanned the rooftops carefully. There were no Whalers in sight. A different sort of unease pricked at the back of his mind, as he tossed his cigarette butt away. Instantly, he was alert: listening, watching. He tensed. His scarred hands gripped the iron railing, the Outsider’s Mark glowing faintly on the back of his left hand. Daud was about to turn back into his room when he heard a click behind him, and the cold metal of a pistol pressed against the base of his skull. 

He froze. There were only two people in the world that could sneak up on him undetected. Not sure which one he was dreading more, he spoke.

“Billie?”

“Yes.”

The shock of hearing her voice was colder than the hands of the nightmare ghosts. Daud now knew he would have gladly taken the Royal Protector over this; he would have taken anything over this. Daud’s mind was reeling, but he kept himself absolutely still, and his voice calm.

“You’re here to kill me.”

“Yes,” she said again, although it had not been a question. His dream came rushing back to him, and he was suddenly afraid. All these years he had often longed to die, but now a terrible thought occurred to him. What if these dreams were glimpses of what was to come? He never asked the Outsider, but he assumed that his spirit would go to the Void after his death. What if his fate was an eternity drowning in blood in the Void; tormented forever by those he had slain? 

I don’t want to die, he thought, almost frantically, I can’t die. His heart was beating hard, but still he remained outwardly calm. Billie kept her pistol at his head, but had not moved to pull the trigger. Daud took her hesitation as a good sign. This would not be an easy thing for her. Daud had not become the most feared man in the Empire through violence alone; he was as cunning as he was ruthless, and he had talked himself out of sticky situations almost as much as he had fought his way out. If he could somehow convince her to spare him…..

“Billie…” he began.

“Don’t try to talk your way out of this one, Daud,” Billie said. Her voice was clear; she wasn’t wearing her mask.

“You know me too well, Lurk,” he said wryly.

“Shut up, I know what I’m doing and you’re not going to change my mind.” The slightest tremor ran up her arm; Daud could feel it through the pistol point. 

“Kill me then,” Daud said. She did nothing. Daud took a chance, and turned slowly around to face her. She did not lower the pistol, but neither did she fire. Billie’s eyes were wide, but there was a determined set to her jaw. It was an expression he knew well. She had the same look when they had first met, and she had dared to face him: clearly frightened and yet too stubborn to back down. 

“Can at least ask why I’m about to die?” He looked her in the eye.

“You’re weak,” she replied coldly, “and old. This outfit needs a new leader. Someone to get us through this plague, and the chaos you caused by killing the Empress. I don’t want to do this, but it has to be done.”

“Does it now?” Daud snapped. There was an awful pain in his chest. Worse than any physical wound he’d ever had. It was a pain he hadn’t felt since he realized he would never see his mother again. “I always assumed one of you would kill me and take my place,” he said more softly, “ I just never thought…” He couldn’t finish his sentence. He knew he was too compromised to get out of this one by talking, Billie was much too close to him and had learned all his tricks over the years; the realization made him sick. He had never felt so vulnerable. 

“You’re right, Billie,” he said, “I always thought of myself as clever, but clearly I was a fool for ever trusting you.”

Billie smiled her little apologetic smile; the one she would wear when he scolded her for killing one guard too many, and she knew he didn’t really mean it.

“There’s more to it,” she said, “you deserve to know the truth. The woman you’ve been seeking, Delilah,”

“What about her?”

“She…..came to me, a while back. She offered me so much…...showed me a new way to see; she gave me so much more than you ever did. More than you could ever hope to give.”

Daud could hear the contempt in her speech and it hurt. But now anger was starting to burn in his veins. Of course it all came back to her. Delilah. She had taken his best fighter, his best friend even, certainly the only person he cared about in the world, and turned her against him. A familiar itch clawed it’s way down his arms, making his fingers twitch and ache for a blade. The sun went down behind the buildings, and the Flooded District was doused in the cool grey glow of twilight.

“The power she has, Daud,” Billie was saying, “you can’t even imagine. She’s stronger than you, stronger than anyone I’ve ever known. And all I have to do to be at her side is…..get rid of you.”

She stared at him and her eyes were sad. Daud’s head was pounding.

“I’m sorry, Daud,” Billie said. 

“Me too,” he said. 

Daud’s hand flashed up and grabbed Billie’s arm, forcing it to the side. Her shot went wide, and he twisted her arm hard. She gave a gasp of pain, and the pistol fell over the railing into the muddy water far below. Daud transversed past her back into his room. He snatched his sword up from beside his bed, there was no time to grab anything else. Billie drew her sword. The metal floor was cold on Daud’s bare feet as they circled each other for a moment; the Outsider’s Mark burned hot. Billie sent a wristbow bolt at his head, and he dodged, then drove forward with a quick thrust at her midriff. She blocked it just in time, and pushed back against his blade. She stomped down on the top of his right foot with her boot, the pain made him falter and she beat his sword aside and punched him in the face. Daud hopped backward, ducking as another bolt flew over his head. He spat out a mouthful of blood with a curse, and then transversed behind her and struck. She turned and parried, and he blocked her retaliatory slash. They battled back and forth across the metal walkway that served as Daud’s bedroom for what seemed like an hour. It was hard to measure time during a fight. But Daud was the better swordsman, and he was closing on Billie when she crouched, opened her mouth, and screamed. 

The sound was like a physical force. It lifted Daud up off his feet and sent him tumbling over the railing into his office below. He landed hard on his desk. For a brief moment he lay stunned; the air knocked out of him. Then her heard the sound of Billie blinking down next to him and jumped up as quickly as he could. He wasn’t quite fast enough. Her sword missed its target of his neck, but cut his shoulder to the bone. The pain of it spurred his desperation, and he attacked with everything he had left. Billie was never taken off guard, but his fury did seem to rattle her some. He managed to get in a few cuts of his own in as her first few blocks came too slow. But against her padded leather whaler suit, the damage was nowhere near as bad as when she hit him. Soon he was bleeding heavily from wounds to his forearms and chest, in addition to his shoulder,and his strength was starting to fade. He could barely lift his sword arm high enough to parry her strikes. He curled his Marked hand into a fist and sent a call out through the Void, but no assassins appeared. Billie must’ve told them ahead of time what she planned, and killed anyone who objected. Daud wondered if Thomas was dead, or if he had also turned against him. He retreated across the room. He tried one of the doors, thinking of escape, but they were barred from the other side.

Of course he thought grimly. He spied the open window behind his desk, and blinked over to it, using the last of his energy. He turned to locate her before he jumped. Billie was standing in the middle of the office. She raised her hand, and sent a shower of several shadowy darts flying at him. He blocked some with his sword, and covered his face with his other arm. But there were too many. One went through his thigh, three into his unprotected guts, and one into his chest. It had missed his heart he know, or he would already be dead, but he could tell it had punctured his lung. He fell to one knee, struggling to breathe. Billie came towards him, but stopped at his desk, just out of reach. Daud still gripped his sword tightly. She approached him slowly. He attempted one last weak slash, but she grabbed his wrist and wrenched the sword from his hand. Gently, she set it down on his desk. 

“It’s over, Daud,” she said quietly. 

“Looks like it, huh? I taught you too well,” he laughed, and blood came bubbling up his throat. He choked and coughed, the blood spattering down his bare chest and onto the wooden floorboards. He slumped back against his bookshelf. Billie stood watching him. When he looked up at her again, her eyes were wet. Daud had never once seen her cry. And yet, staring into her eyes, Daud knew she was still going to go through with it. He wasn’t ready to face the Void, but, now that it seemed inevitable, he wasn’t so afraid as before. There was no point. The best he could hope for was that he was wrong, and that there was nothing after death. And the worst…..Daud wondered if it was possible to fight ghosts in hell. He wanted to laugh again, but it hurt too much. Blood leaked steadily from the holes in his gut. 

“It was always going to end this way, Daud,” she said, “You and me. It’s our nature. But you’re not as weak as I thought.”

“Thanks,” Daud coughed again. The pain was agonizing. “Could you find it in you to end it quickly?” he gasped out. Billie continued to stare at him, unmoving. Daud didn’t know how long it was going to take to die, maybe up to an hour depending on how bad the wound in his chest was, maybe even longer.  But maybe that was all part of it. He never thought Billie hated him so much. He tried to reach up to her and she flinched back, still wary.

“I’m not going to fight you anymore, Billie, I just need you to do it now. If you ever had any….feeling for me at all, don’t let me die like this, make it a clean death.” She still did nothing, looking at him almost in disbelief now, as if she didn’t quite trust what she was seeing. “Billie, please,” Daud said, “don’t make me beg.”

Without a word, Billie took his sword from the desk and knelt down so she was level with him. She reached out and cupped his face in her gloved hand, and then drove his sword into his heart with all her strength. He convulsed once as his life bled away.

“Sorry, Daud,” Billie whispered. 

Her whisper went on and on and turned into the haunting hiss of runesong, which became the mournful cry of whales. The pale blue light of the Void crept over his sight, obliterating everything else, and the Knife of Dunwall was dead.

[doorsclosingslowly]

Hell is just a beat away (4/9)

Despite early promise, young Maul has turned out to be a disappointment, willfully delaying his training with secret attempts to make himself friends from scrap metal. He must be properly motivated, and so Darth Sidious sends him to a slave market on an impossible mission. It backfires. Star Wars: Darth Maul (2017) comic AU | 4.9k | warning for slavery, sexual assault of a teenager (non-graphic), body horror (implanted bombs)

Closedown

“Jedi. Move.” Maul bites his lip before the please slips out, and he is grateful for the mask that hides that sign of his pathetic inexperience. Master wouldn’t have been tempted to say please. Master wouldn’t have been this nervous, either.

Master would have felt at home in this place. He would have charmed everyone.

Luckily, the padawan obediently speeds up a bit when he tugs the heavy chain running from her manacles to a loop in his belt. She even bumps into Maul at times, each kick and jostle a fleeting rush of connection. It makes him flinch. It makes him angry. After the first accidental touch, she mumbled an apology at least and stayed out of his space for a few seconds, but with each time he recoils from unfamiliar sensation the fear she’s broadcasting abates. She keeps jostling him. She looms. She’s more than a head taller than him, and the length of her legs means each of her strides—unfairly—cover more ground than Maul’s, unless Maul starts jogging, and then he’ll really look like he is in a hurry to get away from the slaver palace. Which he is, admittedly. He is very eager to complete this mission. That’s all. But he is also too clever to let anyone see.

He is almost tempted to inquire about her lightsaber, because finding and corrupting a Jedi lightsaber on top of his mission would surely impress his Master, but… As great as the opportunity is, the air here is too putrid.

It’s hot enough in the bursting-full domed giant room to make him sweat-sticky and lightheaded by now, under his vocoder-holding jaw-mask that lets in too little air and the heavy shirts and the sunglasses that threaten to slip off his nose and need to be pushed back too often, but he cannot take anything off. He would rather faint than be looked at. He needs the insulation. Being touched without layers and layers of fabric would be—and anyway, in here, in this palace, he cannot be seen for what he is. Every bob and ebb of the force against his mind screams it. He remembers the zabrak. He cannot be seen, even though he doesn’t quite understand why his species should matter beyond the deep-hidden loneliness of being unmirrored.

There is something crawling in the air, something foul, and it’s not the fact that he is in the company of a Jedi. She’s terrified, anyway, as she should be—though not yet because of him, sticking far too close-by—and that does not make him uneasy. It doesn’t. He’s meant to bask in his enemy’s fear. He’ll bask in it soon, he promises himself.

As soon as they’re out of here.

The bright light and loud peripheral awful conversations mingle with the gross aftertaste of last night’s stupid drinks. The air is thin. Maul’s head pounds.

The crowd has swollen in the short time he fetched the padawan. To get to the exit he must pass through a fleshy mass that covers every single tile on the expansive floor. And once he steps forward—all around him, hands waving tiny bites of food. Maul’s entrails squirm. Delicate glass flutes of ill-smelling fluid, too, held loosely against bellies covered in diamond-encrusted dresses and crisp suits. Everything is too close and much too tall for him to see any face, even if he wanted to. He doesn’t even crane his neck to try. He doesn’t need faces to know that he hates them. Carefully, he weaves through the thick crowd of giants, or normal-sized people anyway, because without stilts he is the strange one in here; the crowd of expensively-dressed adults who are standing around and chatting idly and looking at the other people. The many new people standing rigid and being touched. The people who are on sale. Just like the pretend-fighter zabrak. There is no honor here; no fair battle, no chance of freedom, no death and no glory, only handcuffs and guards bearing shock-prongs to keep one side from grabbing for victory or power or strength or even passion. From doing anything at all. The slavers are looking at the padawan, too, eyeing her hungrily but not approaching, and she shudders and bumps into Maul again.

He hurries. A tug in his belly tells him: he must get out now, or have his life irreparably changed. He must escape.

Maul’s eyes dart around, in search for the least peopled path to the exit, and then they get stuck.

The zabrak’s still here.

He hasn’t even moved, or just barely. Maul remembers his posture from before, even though he shouldn’t. Even though he thought so desperately that he immediately forgot. He remembers the cold swirling around him, refreshing and hard. He shouldn’t have cared enough to remember. He shouldn’t even have noticed him back then. It’s irrelevant to the mission, after all. Superfluous. It’s only a zabrak slave. (It’s only the one other person in the entire galaxy who is like Maul.) Maul remembers him, remembers filling up at the sight of his yellow-black swirled face and his dead eyes with judgment and joy, guilt-ridden and furtive and bright. It’s the exact same stance. Legs a shoulder-width apart, arms raised, face downturned as if he wasn’t there. As if he was a shut-off droid.

The same empty expression, even though a human woman is currently touching his biceps. The woman is new. She must be looking to buy him.

Maul approaches them slowly, only distantly aware that the padawan is dragging her feet in confusion. With every step, the feelings that draw him get stronger: there is still no expression on the big zabrak’s face, but he hates the woman. There’s no cold in the area anymore. No ice shales of controlled aversion. Instead, the force around him is a sea of boiling anger and disgust. (It’s not contempt—and why does Maul so desperately want it to be contempt—it’s not, but something eerily familiar and hidden deep deep inside: it’s the hatred that comes when you are small and cannot leave. It makes no sense. The zabrak isn’t small, just as Maul has grown so much that he moved on to better, stronger loathings, and he can almost pretend he doesn’t remember it.)

The force around him is a bottomless well of the dark side, and the other zabrak is strong in the force. Maul’s hearts pitter quickly. He’s not just a zabrak. He’s a darksider! He’s like me!

It’s incredible, beyond inexcusable, that Maul overlooked such a foundational trait when he looked at the zabrak before. A darksider, and Maul was preoccupied with judging his stance and his grooming!

There is confusion, but it doesn’t douse the excitement. It’s hard for Maul to keep up his nonchalantly slow speed. Thoughts cartwheel inside his brain: Why does the zabrak just stand there? Why pretend to be a fake fighter? He’s force-sensitive. He could kill them all. Cold, heat: they are his emotions leaking into the living force, reshaping it, perverting it, strong enough to be picked up from many meters away. He’s a darksider. He’s powerful. He could have killed them all hours ago. He controlled himself, though. Is he, too, on a mission? What kind of mission would be this humiliating? Why is he posing as a slave? Why doesn’t he fight? He should fight. Chains and electric shock wouldn’t be enough to keep Maul down. The zabrak is like Maul. He’s like Maul. He’s… Did he come to take the padawan? The one Master wants? Will I have to fight him? That’s... a thrilling idea. A tiny bit worrying, too. The zabrak is very tall. As incredible a fighter as Maul is, he might not be able to take him down. The zabrak is a darksider. His useless appearance is only pretense. He’ll… I won’t win quickly, Maul corrects himself. I am Darth Maul. I am the apprentice of Lord Sidious. I won’t be able to take him down quickly. I’ll win, eventually, but it’ll be an impressive fight.

Is he another Sith? No, there are only two, but… there was a whole Sith Empire once, Master said, when he took Maul to the ruins and the ghosts. Maybe the Jedi did not kill all of Maul’s people but one; maybe, another branch has survived. Or maybe—Maul’s read of acolytes. Of Masters taking more than one than one apprentice. He doesn’t really believe that Lord Sidious would betray him like that, and if he did… why did he not tell me about the other zabrak? Maul would have loved to meet another zabrak, even if he was competition. Maul has always been so alone.

Master would have told him. He would, at least, have wanted to witness Maul’s pain at being replaced, and his subsequent death. He would have wanted to laugh at Maul. It can’t be that.

Maybe… maybe the zabrak is untrained. Undiscovered. Unclaimed by a Master.

Maybe Maul was meant to find him.

This mission was too easy. Lord Sidious sent Maul to find a Jedi padawan for him, but He has hidden meanings in all He does. Maybe that was only a pretext. Or… is it possible that… that Lord Sidious Himself was led by the force, to send Maul here today, where he could discover this other zabrak who is strong in the dark side? Maul’s hearts claw against his ribcage, trying to fight their way out with excitement. He has felt the force pushing and flowing and tugging at him for years, but this is so much bigger.

This is destiny.

Maul was meant to find him.

It makes sense. It makes so much sense. Why else would there just happen to be another zabrak in this room, where Maul can see him? Another person just like Maul? A potential apprentice?

Now that he’s decided the zabrak is probably not a trained Sith, he can taste the truth of it in the other’s force presence. Anger, but unharnessed. Helpless. Impotent.

Ready to be stoked.

(Nonsense, another voice argues. Stop now. This is just a coincidence. Master will be so angry if you—and then Maul cuts it off. He already knows the conclusion he wants. It’s only a matter of thinking the right thoughts to get there. He refuses to get side-tracked.)

Maul was meant to find this zabrak. They were meant to meet.

Just one more look. I’ll get up close, but I just want one more look.This is just a dream. He can convince himself he just wants to look at the other zabrak, one more look before he is alone in the galaxy again, bargaining with his shivering sense of self-preservation, because deep in Maul’s galloping hearts he knows that this is the jump off a cliff-edge. He isn’t dreaming. He’s moving. Acting. He’s making the mistake he refused to know he would, the second he saw that face. He’s contravening orders, even if they’re orders his Master hasn’t spoken aloud. Why would He? He never expected this to happen. Master never expected Maul to want to talk to anyone here on Nar Shaddaa. He never expected anything but success. Anything but utter devotion. He especially never expected Maul to want to bring anyone from this slave market, apart from the padawan He sent off for. He doesn’t know Maul has thoughts like that. He doesn’t know the dreams. Master wants Maul to be alone. He has always forced Maul to be alone.

But the force sent Maul to this zabrak.

Just one look. That’s all it is. That’s safe, right?

He mustn’t draw anyone’s attention, though. Slowly, he walks closer. He drags his feet against the floor, even though they want to fly.

Just one more look—and then what?Now that he’s allowed himself to come again within mere meters of the zabrak who is the only other person in the entire galaxy who is like Maul and nothing immediately disastrous has happened, it feels insufficient. Just one look will never be enough. Maul is greedy, and out here disobedience hurts less than he expected. It’s even… exhilarating. He is in freefall, and the air is rushing against his skin. He is weightless. He is not alone anymore. He looks at the zabrak—what’s his name? will he be surprised? will he like me?—and for the first time, he can see a future that isn’t just longing. He doesn’t want it to stop.

I could take him with me. That’s what he’s here for. What the force wants. He would follow me then, Maul thinks giddily. It’s only a dream, he knows, but it’s warm and new and hope. Maul wraps himself deep inside. He’d stay and be grateful and I’d teach him everything I know. I wouldn’t even lock him up in the training complex, or if I did—I’d be there too. He wouldn’t be alone. I would give him everything I have, and he would help me. I would…

How much does a slave cost, anyway?

The zabrak is strong in the force. He’s like Maul, like someone who Lord Sidious himself chose to carry the legacy of the Sith. He must be incredibly expensive.

It doesn’t really matter, Maul decides. It’s like when he had to slice the computer in order to make everyone think he bought the padawan. He doesn’t have any credits. The stolen ones are spent, and Master never gave him any money.

That was because Lord Sidious wanted to test Maul, just as He wanted to test Maul by sending him to the wrong location. It’s why he told Maul the wrong date, too. So many tests, and Maul proved his worth. He failed none of them.

He didn’t fail yet.

Ice pools inside Maul’s veins. Is this zabrak another test? Will Master know? Will he be angry if—and then Maul bites his cheek until there is blood and the voice shuts up. Maul just wants to look at the zabrak. He wants to stay inside the dream for a little longer. That’s all it is. That’s safe. He will not get distracted. (He’ll be alone again soon.)

I could take him with me.

Maul doesn’t have any money. He could repeat the computer trick, though. Quickly sneak into the server room.

(Is this a test?)

He could just steal credits from the well-dressed buyers standing around.

(Is this—focus.)

Maul could just wait until the human woman buys the zabrak and leaves with him, or someone else does. He could follow them. He could challenge her. She doesn’t look like she has many blasters or an entourage of bodyguards, and even if she does… Maul is a Sith. He is powerful. He is fast. He is deadly. He—

A shudder. This is a test. It must be.

The zabrak is here in this room where Maul can see him. He is here in the place that Master sent Maul to, or didn’t, but that was just a test. Master must have known he would be here. Master must have wanted him to be here. There’s only one reason why he’d want that.

What Master is looking to ascertain here, Maul doesn’t know. Arrogance to weed out, maybe. Temptation. Obedience. The joy of dangling the one thing Maul’s always wanted in his face. But it must be a test. Master knows everything. Master has to have planned it.

Maul must leave. He must leave now. He really, really should, if he wants to survive. He should turn back. Master knows everything. Master would kill him for—

No don’t not this please not again don’t don’t—

Wet oil on Maul’s skin. Inside his mouth it wells and flows into his nose and he tries to sick it up until it dribbles down to the floor but—

Don’t please—

The air, sucked out of the room. No oxygen, not anymore, only a wave of revulsion and boneless terror to replace it, completely unexpected and so physical it almost makes Maul fall over. It makes him retch and gasp. Something stings his cheek. A slap, and he goes rigid. He isn’t allowed to hide from punishment. He waits, but the next hit doesn’t come.

Slowly, eventually, he rubs the burning spot. He tries to, anyway: his glove catches on the thick mask and bumps the sunglasses. His face is covered. He is far from Mustafar. He is safe.

He blinks furiously to make the black streaks in his eyes go away.

Then, he looks up. Back at the zabrak.

He sees: the human woman buyer is between them now, reaching up. She has moved on from the arms to touching the zabrak’s muscular bare shiny stomach. She’s lingering on it.

The zabrak is breathing heavily now, like Maul is; he’s retreated a single step backwards and is looking straight ahead and there is no air and then the slave seller is gripping a horn and forcing his head down and his back into a hunch and then the woman touches the face too and the mouth opens obediently and Maul’s skin crawls and everything feels too tight, a thousand times worse than it did when the man in the convenience store looked at him, even though it’s only secondhand.

Probably.

It must be only secondhand, he decides once he’s caught his bearing again. Once he’s turned oil slick and hyperventilation and panic back into anger, the way he was taught. Into power.

It feels like it’s everywhere, like it’s his, the terror and humiliation, but that must be because the zabrak is very strong in the force. Maul’s not the one being touched. He’s not even afraidof being touched. It’s the opposite. He lives on an empty base, and at night he often wishes he had a pet to cuddle close to, or someone to hold his hand. Useless dreams.

She does something to the zabrak then that Maul cannot see, and the force whimpers. Maul tastes bile.

“You will give me the zabrak,” he shouts, putting all his Will into it. He doesn’t think about what he’s doing. He doesn’t remember the order about staying hidden, about under no circumstances using the force. He doesn’t remember his Master’s laughter. He doesn’t remember punishment. This is not the time to think. Maul feels sick and like he wants to cry—can’t, Master will hurt me—and he needs everything to stop. Taking the zabrak away from here will stop it.

He feels the truth of it: the zabrak will be safewhen Maul’s taken him away. He will not be afraid anymore. That’s the only thing that matters.

“I will give you the zabrak,” the woman says, caught in the mind trick.

“I will give you the zabrak,” promises a gamorrean waiter.

“I will give you the zabrak,” chorus three muuns holding champagne flutes a few meters away, and Maul’s probably overdone it. He couldn’t help it: he is filled with fear and disgust and compassion, and the dark side eats it greedily. Right now, he could move mountains. He could smother all these minds, wrapped up and subdued by his Will, and he wants to. He hates them all. He wants to stop the connection, to stop touching them, wants their slimy thoughts and their pleasures gone. He can’t, though. He started this, and he needs to see it through. He needs to save the zabrak.

More people join in, a discordant canon of blank-voiced slavers, and those who don’t because they were too far away to be caught in the mind trick turn their heads curiously.

The zabrak himself doesn’t say anything, or even look at Maul. Being force-sensitive, he is not bespelled, and the only reaction is a slight up-flicker of his eyes. A different flavor of fear in the force, but just as strong. It hurts.

Why is he still afraid? Why doesn’t he like me? Maul was so happy to see another zabrak.

Then, Maul sucks in stale air through the mask and remembers: he’s in disguise. The zabrak cannot actually know that it’s Maul who has saved him. This is not a rejection. For a second, Maul wants to reassure him, but then he catches a glimpse of an advertisement poster that hangs behind them—twi’leks! wookiees! zabraks! freshly caught or gently used—and shivers deeply into the heavy layers of his cloaks.

“I will give you the zabrak,” says the human man who owns the zabrak, finally. Mercifully, he does not appraise his assets again. He rummages around in a suitcase for seconds that feel too long and pulls out a small datapad and two remotes. Proffering the switched-on pad, he says, face still distant, “This contains a list of his past owners, and a buyer’s contract, which I have presently called up. Please read carefully and then sign—”

“You see that I have signed,” Maul says. Then, in case it’ll help, he parrots phrases he’s heard other slave buyers use. “You know I have paid in full. Take my business card. Everything’s in order. Congratulations on a great first quarter at the stock exchange. How is your wife? Have you tried the salmon sliders? Pleasure doing business with you.”

“I see that you have signed,” the slaver replies. “I know you have paid in full. I take your business card. Everything is… in order?” He blinks. “Yes, it is. His name is Savage, by the way.” He pats the zabrak’s slack face and smirks, as if he just made a funny joke and wants Maul to join in, but Maul doesn’t understand. It’s a good name.

Savage. That’s not a name like the ones the people who owned the ships had. It’s better. It’s like the names Maul gives his droids. It’s like Maul’s name.

The force led Maul to this zabrak.

And Maul shall free him.

“Don’t lose these remotes,” the slaver adds. “This one contains a proximity sensor. The safe radius for your slave is one hundred meters. The datapad will let you change the settings as needed, though. To protect your investment, we have placed four explosive charges within your zabrak, set to go off at staggered distances. The first one will slow him down if he runs. It will not mar the looks. Merely very painful. The replacement charge only costs a few thousand credits, so if you want to test it… The next one will tear off a leg, although to prevent bleed-out we have placed blood-clotting agents inside. The slaves we sell are well-trained, so this is merely a—”

“Shut up,” Maul whimpers. Mumbles. Begs, and the faithful vocoder turns it into an order.

“I will shut up.”

Maul stuffs the datapad and the horrible remotes into his satchel, and then he tries to find something to say that will sound completely normal to the slavers who are watching them curiously, while also saying to the zabrak, don’t worry and I am totally prepared for this it wasn’t an accident and I didn’t know I wasn’t alone in the whole universe and, hoarse-voiced and small,please like me. That will say, join me, apprentice. That will impress the full glory of the promise of the Sith. He fails. What comes out is, “Hello. I am Darth Maul. We will leave now.”

The zabrak doesn’t move.

That’s… not good. Maybe he’s deaf. He is old, after all—he is so tall—and Maul’s read that old people lose their hearing and that sounds plausible even if his Master shows no sign of it at all. Maybe the zabrak does hate Maul. Maybe he’s paralyzed with fear. Maybe he’s just taking a chance on petty disobedience again, the way Maul learned long ago accomplishes nothing but pain. It’s not unreasonable to suspect that the zabrak doesn’t know that yet though. He doesn’t have a teacher like Lord Sidious, after all. He won’t be able to control or harness his panic.

In any case, the why doesn’t matter as much as the ways to work around it. The zabrak is safe now. He’ll get away from here. Maul will take him away, needs to drag him out, and they really need to get going now.

The people who weren’t mind-tricked are approaching curiously. They are building an impenetrable circle.

Maul walks up to the zabrak—to his new friend, his future apprentice, to his dream, not-dream, angry and shuddering and real. To Savage. He’s even more massive up close, Maul’s head at the same height as the elbows, and Maul reaches up to take his hand. It dwarfs Maul’s own so much he can only get a good strong grip on two fingers. He imagines, though he can’t really feel it through his gloves, that they are very warm and soft. The small startled jerk, though, he feels even through leather, and he rubs his thumb against the index finger in what he hopes is a gentle, reassuring way.

Savage is very tall and old, but it’s probably at least slightly understandable, maybe, that he is scared. He will learn better, once he knows of the path of the Sith. To be honest—and it hurts, to admit to his failure even in the confines of his own head—to be honest, Maul might be scared too, if he was made to stand around and be looked at and touched like a thing, with bombs put inside his body. Not allowed to fight. No honor or death or glory. Maul doesn’t have bombs in him and he is a Sith apprentice, is much more powerful than all these slavers, and still, he is very, very nervous.

I am Darth Maul, Maul reminds himself, and then he notices he’s forgotten again. Not his title yet. I will be Darth Maul. I’m not afraid. I am fear. Lord Sidious himself chose Maul to succeed Him, to aid in bringing down the entire Order of the Jedi, and this dressed-up gaggle of slavers is nothing. They don’t even have the force guiding them. Maul is so much better than them. He has been training, alone, for so many years.

He will be strong now. He will prove his worth as an apprentice. He will concentrate. He is Sith.

The slavers won’t touch him. He will get out alive.

He will get himself, and Savage, and the padawan too out of here alive.

Alive.

He repeats it with every shaking breath, with every tremble of his hand: alive, alive, alive. They’ll make it. He is strong. Master wouldn’t have sent Maul if He hadn’t known that—

Master. They won’t survive.Maul shudders. Alive? They’ll live for a few weeks, if they’re lucky. A day and twenty hours is realistic. That’s how long the journey to Mustafar takes. That’s all they have.

They’ll live, until Master sees.

This was a mistake. Maul was distracted by the emotions floating in the force, he let himself be distracted—he wanted it—and he made a terrible mistake. This was a test. One of Master’s tricks. The yellow zabrak was a test, and Maul chose wrong, and it’s too late to stop now.

Maul used the force—he risked discovery, he disobeyed—and it won’t matter now whether he brings the zabrak with him or not. He can’t do anything to hide his failure. Not even killing—no—not even killing the zabrak will hide Maul’s actions. Master knows everything. Sometimes it feels like he is in Maul’s head, which he can’t be, because Maul still has dreams and Maul still lives, but it doesn’t matter. Maul will tell Him. One way or the other, Maul will tell Him. Master might only punish Maul, because Maul’s succeeded in finding the padawan after all. Maybe. Hopefully.

But Savage… Savage is superfluous. Master already has an apprentice. He already owns Maul.

Master will be so angry.

Thinking won’t help, Maul knows that. He’s never found any way to think his way out of punishment. Master is too wise. Maul’s already disobeyed. He was stupid and rash and he failed. Once, twice… it doesn’t matter. The lightning will bite the same. He will be punished. Savage will die. (Maul will be alone again.) Or Maul will, Maul who disobeyed and brought his Master another force-sensitive zabrak, another possible apprentice, one who is old and tall and hates and is probably much better than Maul. There is no way out. There is no way but forward. No way but Mustafar.

“We need to go. Please,” Maul whispers.

Finally, Savage allows himself to be tugged towards the exit.

⁂

Eldra puts one foot before the other, but that’s all she is capable of still. Walking. Looking calm. Biting her lip to keep from crying. Following the short black-cloaked being who bought her, and the zabrak they bought too. Shivering self-disgust for the way she clung to them, before; the way she hoped it might be all-right. The walls fall away, and soon the slaver palace is out of sight. No consolation. Nothing is, anymore. Not since the title the slaver revealed, talking to the zabrak with incongruous tenderness. The title that confirmed what she knew the moment of the mind trick. Nothing since the slaver had touched the force.

There is nothing left in her but movement and terror.

“You will give me the zabrak,” Eldra’s slaver had ordered, throwing off all shielding, and in the force she had felt, faintly and distant but unmistakable: corruption. Sickness.

Sith.

[cecilspeaks]

171 - Go to the Mirror?

What makes you, you? Welcome to Night Vale.

[Updated version with most of the backwards speech added - huge thanks to kurofae!]

[particularly scary version of the theme song]

Do you ever stare at yourself for so long in the mirror that you no longer understand what you look like? [Are you losing consciousness?] Is this the same effect as thinking about someone you miss so much that you forget the shape of their face? Why would you do that? Why would you refuse to maintain order? [Why would you refuse to maintain order?] Are you refusing? Or are you a victim of your own mind?

Do brain cells dictate souls? Is thought matter? Does thought matter? Can the person looking back at you from the mirror tell you the answer? Just because you can see a person, does it mean that person exists? Is it you you are looking at? Or is it someone else? [(backwards) Does inscrutability scare you?]

How many hairs do I have? How many did I have yesterday? Are they the same color, the same length? Are these the same hairs I had when I was a child? [(backwards) Their eyes expressing nothing]

Should I be high if I’m going to ask myself these questions? Can you get high by behaving high?

Are you a good person because you do good things? Does a qualitative assessment mandate empirical evidence to support its truth? If I point at something and declare it –good-, will I be cross-examined? And if so, am I to be held in contempt for refusing to answer? Narrative is everything, right? [(backwards) Are you? Are you? Are you?]

Has anyone else been feeling this way, that you don’t recognize yourself? Have you told anyone? Does it help? Is it helping now, hearing me talk about it? Basically, why do I know I am me?

How many times have I seen myself in the mirror? [How many times have I seen myself in the mirror?] Is it bad that the answer is “rarely”? Shouldn’t we all be afraid of mirrors, or is it just me? [(backwards) Strange… and scary] How many times in a fit of disassociation do we see someone else- [Or someone else?] -behind us?

Are you, too, too afraid to turn around? Do you really want to challenge the veracity of your eyes? Do you think disbelief in death will make it disappear?

Are awareness and manifestation one and the same? [(backwards) But isn’t it strange?]

So, what did I see in the mirror today? [(backwards) If you look into the mirror that you just smashed do you see that the creature is gone?] Don’t we all see the same thing, isn’t it a person who looks exactly like ourselves? [(backwards) Mirror] And weren’t they making the same physical gestures and behind that person in the reflection, [(backwards) Are you?] did you not also see just over your shoulder a pair of eyes, the curve of a head, and did you notice how that head was human in shape – but maybe only a third of the size?

And did you make the same mistake as I? Thinking that because the head was so small, it must have been some distance away? [(backwards) Are you? Are you? Are you?] But you stared so long into those tiny eyes, didn’t you? And then you saw it. [And then you saw it.] Right? Did you see little spiny fingers reach up in front of its miniature, this passionate face, and [whispering] touch your shoulders? [(backwards) Are you losing consciousness?]

Did you scream inside, when you understood? Did you really truly understand that it was climbing, right there, on your back? [(backwards) What do you want from me?]

Are you still screaming, like I’m still screaming? How can you know how I feel? What - do you want - from meee?

[long pause, music] Where was I? Who is behind you in the mirror? [(backwards) What do you want from me?] Or what is behind you? Should I speak in present or past tense?

Is there a face there or is the face gone now? Are you no longer at the mirror? Do you feel safer? Why do you assume that because you aren’t looking in the mirror right now, that the tiny face and spiny digits – are not still behind you?

Do you feel it? [(backwards) Is this like when-] Are you, reflexively, touching your shoulder right now? [(backwards) Are you scared?] Or are you too scared? [(backwards) Are you, reflexively, touching your shoulder right now?]

Is this like when the ATM asks if you want to check your balance before withdrawing money and you decline, because you just don’t want to know? It doesn’t change the fact of your bank balance, does it?

Again. You think awareness and manifestation are one and the same, don’t you? Don’t we all?

So what of that little face with its inexpressive eyes and flat, lipless mouth? Didn’t it look like… Didn’t it look oh so familiar? Where have you seen that face before? Is it a ghost, a monster Or your own imagination? Are you starting to forget exactly what it looks like? Do you want to go to the mirror again?

Do you want to stare and stare at it, until you can comprehend what it is? [(backwards) Do you want to go to the mirror again? Do you want to stare? And stare at it? Until you can comprehend what it is?] Why? What will that accomplish? Are you being honest what yourself? Isn’t the real danger your won face? Could it be inferred that you invented the creature to distract yourself from the real horror? And what if we went to the mirror together? If we don’t feel alone in our feelings, could we conquer our fears? Are we in agreement, you and I?

What are you even looking at? Is your focus drifting to your shoulder? Can you not do that? Can you resist the urge? What will staring directly into your terror accomplish?

You see the face again, don’t you? Are you as scared as before, or have you steeled yourself for this? Is your mind more free to think critically about what it is and what it – wants? Is it attacking, or defending? Is it friend or foe or – indifferent?

Why is it so familiar? Is it something from childhood? [Were you sad?] Or was it a dream you once had? If you think about a memory long enough, doesn’t that mutate the truth? Isn’t every act of remembering another log on the fire of lies? When was the last time you saw your mother?

It’s been since childhood, hasn’t it? Didn’t she warn you – about mirrors? Didn’t she tell you they would be your demise? [(backwards) Didn’t she warn you – about mirrors? Didn’t she tell you they would be your demise?]

Or was that just a popular bedtime story? Do you see a flickering behind the tiny face? Is that sunlight oscillating behind swiftly moving clouds, or is that the creature creating that effect? Is it getting closer? Is the flickering less like a strobe effect and more like a hand-drawn flip book? Now that we’re looking with clearer eyes, is it just me or does the creature look like – a drawing?

Do you suddenly remember a swing set? Why swing set? You were on the swing set, weren’t you? How high did you go? Was it possible to do a full loop? Would you have fallen out at the top of the circle, or did you understand centripetal force without knowing the term? And when you let go at the apex of your arc, did you predict correctly the pain of a broken leg when you landed? Do you still remember the sound of the snap? [backwards) Do you still remember the sound of the snap?] Do you still shudder when ice cracks in warm water, or when someone pops a knuckle?

What did your mother tell you about swing sets? What did she say to you when you yelled to her for help? Did you lean over your sobbing face and ask you: “Why are you crying when you don’t even exist?” Did she tell you again about the mirror?

[Sad.] Do you still see the flickering creature climbing up your back? Is the little hand reaching up again? Do you notice it wears black rings? Are those talons? And what is it opening its mouth to say? Do you see how it rises up behind you, how long is its torso? Is it some kind of snake, but with human skin? Why does it have so many teeth? How long can a tongue be? What is it doing, why is it crying, is it a child? What unholy monster cries like a child, what does it want, Why won’t it stop?!

[music stops, eerie noises]

Is it gone for you too? [whispers] Why did I not look away? [Did I not look away?] Did you? How were you able to do that?

[long pause, music]

Did you figure it out? Could you see past your own mental inventions? [Who out there-]

Who out there looked beyond the long gape-jawed figure and its inexplicable whinesss? Did you see the table? There, in the mirror image- [mirror image of your hou-] -of your house, did you see the table?

You hadn’t noticed the table before, had you? What of the table, of its chipped corners? What of the mismatched wood stain on the tiny drawer at its center? What of its tarnished, yet ornate brass bulb knob? Did you turn around to see if the table was in your home too? Were you sad when you realized it was not? Or were you relieved? Why was the table only in the mirror, why isn’t it real? But isn’t it, though? You didn’t ask for any of this, did you? But what have you ever asked from the universe that you could not get yourself, and when has the universe ever obliged? What’s inside the drawer of the rickety table in the mirror? What other uncanny discoveries await you if you could just break through? Is it as simple as breaking through?

Do you find that the simplest problems require the biggest efforts?

Have you ever decided you wanted a lightweight wool button-up coat, all black? Did you go shopping for it and did you find one? How disappointed were you to learn that this design was not available in any of the five stores you went to? Did you ponder the idea that such a coat was so basic, [angrily] so unassuming, so without frill or feature that no one had ever thought to create it? [angrily, scarily] Do you want to know what’s in the drawer below the table? Shouldn’t it be as easy to obtain as a lightweight wool button-up coat all black? But nothing, nothing easy ever is, is it? How do you get to a table that’s right in front of you but only visible innn a mirror?

Shouldn’t you take a break from this? Wouldn’t some – fresh air – be good for you? What’s the weather like outside?

[“Flower Lane” by Funbearable https://funbearable.bandcamp.com/]

[anxiously] What are you not getting? Besides the creature and the table, what are you not noticing? Do you see yourself? [very fast] What is different about the you you are and the you you see before you? Are you paying close attention to the color of your eyes? Are you watching for any deviation in the movement of your reaction? [(backwards) Now that we’re looking with clearer eyes-] Are you able to ignore the creature over your shoulder? Now that it has revealed itself, do you find it less frightening? [(backwards) -ignore the creature over your shoulder? Now that it has revealed itself do you find it less frightening?] Do-do-does it, does its cry kind of sound now like the high-pitched howl of a Siberian Husky puppy vocalizing its hunger, isn’t it less scary and – more just weird?

Did you see the movie “Signs”? Did you feel less creeped out once the aliens were shown on screen? [(backwards) Are you? Are you?] Isn’t all fear fear of the unknown? Are you concentrating on the table now? And you’re sure it only exists in the mirror? Double checked? Do you want to know what’s inside the drawer of the front of the table? [softly] Are you willing to break something? [Are you-] Are you willing to break the mirror, yes but so much more? [(backwards) Do you feel the pain? -your flesh - is that why you’re screaming?] Are you willing to go- [Are you?] -to a place from which you cannot return? Are you willing to learn things you cannot unlearn? Do you have a hammer? Or if not, can you find something heavy that you can lift? [(backwards) What is different about the you you are?] Will you smash the mirror? Will you do it quickly? Why are you hesitating? Have you let your comfortability lapse into carelessness? Why did you take your eyes off the creature on your neck? Did you see the blood, or feel the pain first? Is it tearing into your flesh, is that why you’re screaming?

Can you still break the mirror? [(backwards) Are you?] Are you losing consciousness? Are you?

[(backwards) Are you willing to break something?] Are you? Are you?

[Scary]

Are you OK? Did you do it? Huh. If you look into the mirror you just smashed, Do you see that the creature is gone? [quietly] Cool, right?

But isn’t it strange that all about you on the floor are shards of the mirror you shattered, yet in front of you, the mirror remains, fully intact? [Scary] Strange. [echoes] Or scary. [swallows, echoes] Wouldn’t you think that the mirror being simultaneously broken- [broken and unbroken is strange while the fact that you have no reflection-] broken and unbroken is strange while the fact that you have no reflection is scary?

Is that true though? Do you have a reflection? Do you see yourself on the floor of the mirror’s world? [Are you losing consciousness? Are you?]

Is your body crumpled on the floor like a wet towel? Is your lower jaw hanging open because you died screaming? Or because of gravity?

Do you have a blanket of some sort? Why don’t you cover that mirror up? Why don’t you cover all the mirrors, in fact? While you are walking about your home, do you notice the antique table by the door with its tarnished, yet ornate brass bulb knob? Was that table always there? Did you – Enter the mirror world?

Or were you always in the mirror world? What else is different around you?

Do you remember why you never opened that door? You do, don’t you? What was it about the book inside that frightened you so? Was it – the handwriting that matched no known language? Was it the drawings of serpents with human faces, but innn-numerable teeth? Was it the disorientation you felt from seeing these faces contorted into a scream, yet their eyes expressing nothing? Does inscrutability scare you?

What was it your mother said before she left home when you were a teenager? Did she tell you she was an oracle? Did she tell you to read the book til you understood its alphabet? Did she make you promise to never tell another soul, and did you keep that promise by burying it so deep, so so deep?

Now what? Will you cover the mirrors and sweep the floor and pretend it never happened? Will this prevent it from happening again?

Are awareness and manifestation one and the same? Who can say? Will you stay tuned next for sound of a muffled… crack! Presented without context or commercial interruption. Could that be an egg, or a twig, or a leg?

Narrative is everything, isn’t it?

Won’t you Have a good night, Night Vale? Won’t you have a good – night?

Today’s proverb: Call me old fashioned, but I believe dance is the only true language.

[victorxproducer]

Chasing Illusions

Pairing: Victor/MC

Warnings: angst (a little), anxiety, hallucinations, self-contempt, spoilers about Victor’s past

Word Count: 1,548 words

Summary: Victor spent seventeen years searching for the young girl. And every passing year, at the same time that his hope slowly fades, the ghost of her existence haunts him much more.

A/N: My first time trying to write a fanfiction for MLQC, because this idea is haunting me so badly. Forgive me for the grammatical errors. But otherwise, I hope you enjoy it~ Probably it’ll encourage me to write more? 🙈

Where is she?

Those were the first words that he had said since he managed to escape and was asked by the adults how he is.

He had been insistent. He had asked a question first, and so they better answer him. He repeated his question, “Where is she?”

The adults asked him, “Who?”

“The girl,” he answered. The girl with shoulder-length brown hair. The one wearing a white dress. The dummy who has a beautiful smile like the sun.

The adults told him that there was no such girl, and assumed that he was just imagining things.

But he was sure that he was not a fool just to create an imaginary girl. Was he?

He was sure that the girl exists. After all, there were memories to remember her by.

The girl who’ve cried on their first meeting at the park because he and his playmates had wrecked her sand castle. The same girl who’ve smiled and waited for him the following day as he brought her a pudding he had made as an apology. The very same girl who’ve, since then, tagged along with him. The same dummy who’ve saved a kitten in the middle of the road, and he was forced to use his Evol in public for the first time by suspending time in order to avoid the car accident and save her from the potential danger.

He couldn’t accept that those fragments of his memories were just all imagines that his mind had made. He was sure that she is real, despite the adults’ insistence that it was just the product of the trauma due to the kidnapping.

But even after being checked, treated and observed by the doctors, he remained firm with his intention of finding her. Because he knew too well that the girl was not just some ghost, but a real, living person to whom he owes his life.

And so, his search begun.

Yet, what could an eleven-year-old boy do? Every question he has about her whereabouts; he’ll always be told either that she doesn’t exist or that she was already dead. Both answers that he couldn’t accept. Since the previous was impossible since there were too many memories to make her real; and the latter, though probable, was unacceptable. Another thing, even though he’d liked to push his parents to help him with the search, they’re surely not willing.

Since… who is she?

She may be the one that their son was worried and cared about. But he was just a kid. He’ll move on. If he does like her, there will be another one to like as well. And even if he’ll say that she is his destiny, perhaps the wheels of time are wrong and there is someone else.

In short, if he wanted to find her, he’ll need to do it on his own. His own means, his own resources, and his own time. Someday, he’ll have those on his grasp and he’ll find the answers that stayed with him since that question of where is she was asked.

But the days turned to weeks and to months, and the hope he has slowly fades by roughly 0.058 every year. At the same time that the mark of his sanity also suffers with the drop. And he started dreaming that she was there.

He started having the dreams of those old memories. The good and the bad. There were days that he dreamed of the happy days, and there were those that had been the worst ones. There were also dreams that he knows never happened, but just ‘what-if’ scenarios.

What if they both make it out together? What if he didn’t leave her there and they were taken again? What if she saved herself instead of him?

Those what-if situations within the seconds of the accident that could’ve changed everything.

He felt like he was losing his mind. As always, he’ll be waking every day holding nothing but the idea that she might be truly dead… or that she is just part of his wide imagination.

“One day, you’ll find love,” his mother told him before she died just some years later. “And when you do find her, tell her that you do. Before it is too late.”

If there was someone who believed him about the girl’s existence, it had been his mother. She’ll play the piano whenever he was woken by his dreams of that girl. She’ll listen attentively to every detail he’ll say about those fond memories. She’ll help and teach him how to cook every possible food. She’ll always assure him that if they’re meant for one another, he’ll cross path with that same girl in his dreams again. And she, just like that girl who continued to plunge him deeper away from warmth, had gone too soon.

His heart hardened as the years passed. His hope and sanity almost half to the enthusiasm that he had when it all started, like the sand in an hourglass, and his dreams worsen that they were better called as nightmares. They became too much… for it to even haunt him in his waking days.

There were those fresh moments that as he focused on his studies to keep his grades at the top, he’ll be hearing the sweet laughter of the girl or even her scolding him to rest and smile. Or he’ll be feeling her in the air as if she was to cheer him up. Or he’ll be seeing the flow of her hair, or the ghostly white of her dress, or the lingering bright smile. Though all no longer of that small girl from before, but his visions of how she’ll be if the years continued to turn for her.

He tried to escape them. The very reason why he worked harder. Why he’d built such a company as LFG. Because he couldn’t take it anymore. He has the means to an end, as always; and now, he has his resources. On his own hands, he could finally bring back the events to start the wide search for her.

But even LFG didn’t gave him the results he wanted. It didn’t bring him anywhere near to finding that girl. Instead, it only opened loophole after loophole, as his own methods couldn’t even find her.

His hope almost a droplet. His sanity a teardrop. And his guilt came coursing like a broken dam, manipulating his nightmares much more. Regrets and remorse of what-ifs only extinguish every light that she is indeed gone.

What if they were never kidnapped at all? What if they were never found? What if they never met? Would that one be better?

No, he would scold himself. If we never met, perhaps she’s truly gone when she stupidly put her life in danger of that car accident.

Perhaps, it was just that his efforts weren’t enough. That might be the real reason why. Perhaps, if he made himself be the one on top, things could change. Things could finally work out in his favor.

With a fresh mind, everything that made him human resembling a sword hanging above his head by a string, he thought that the reason that he couldn’t find her was because he was looking at the wrong side. He better recreates those memories to find her, but there was no way that he was going to find her by wrecking every person sand castle this time around.

Probably with cooking, in hopes of finding her, they could meet. Maybe pudding could be the great lead.

But seasons passed, and still none. He cooked and waited for every customer’s reaction if it will trigger something, but none. He pushed himself to his limits, creating then an empire, but still none. And all he had done ended up for nothing, as the last straw of him burned to ashes, his hallucinations uncontrollable, and his nightmares paired with brandy as constant companions to every sleepless nights of moonless skies.

He could no longer differentiate reality to sleep. Dreams were too dreadful that it turned him bitter and cold with the world. Since his dreams didn’t only haunt him at night, better yet turn a cold shoulder to everything. The same way that the world had failed him in making peace with his eleven-year-old self who’ve been searching far and wide just for a girl.

What is the use of all those waiting years if even the man as him, who sits on the top of the world, couldn’t achieve the very thing that he wished to accomplish? It is a living hell.

But fate indeed works in a different way. Because, all of a sudden, everything turned upside down. One day, the ghost of the girl is gone. One night, the dreams of his own torment cease to exist.

All because of the parallelism of the past to what happened earlier that day.

Someone forced him to use his Evol in public for the second time around by suspending time in order to avoid the car accident and save her from the potential danger.

Just like that time back then. And after seventeen years, he realizes that there’s no more point chasing after the illusions.

After all, yours and Victor’s paths crossed once again.

For more of my works, see masterlist.

[mystiika]

   i mean you can read if you want? but it’s mainly for my own notes to refer back to.    hades in ovid metamorphoses book v & the orphic hymns

Bk V:332-384

Calliope sings: Cupid makes Dis fall in love

 ‘This much she played on her lute, with singing voice. Then called on us, - but perhaps you are not at leisure, or free to listen to a repetition of our music?’ ‘Do not stop’ said Pallas, ‘but sing your song again as you arranged it!’ and she sat amongst the light shadows of the grove. The Muse renewed her tale ‘We gave our best singer to the contest. Calliope, who rose, with her loose hair bound with ivy, tried out the plaintive strings with her fingers, then accompanied the wandering notes with this song.

 ‘“Ceres first turned the soil with curving plough, first ripened the crops and produce of the earth, first gave us laws: all things are Ceres’s gift. My song is of her. If only I could create a song in any way worthy of the goddess! This goddess is truly a worthy subject for my song.

 ‘“Trinacris, the vast isle of Sicily, had been heaped over the giant’s limbs, and with its great mass oppressed buried Typhoeus, he who had dared to aspire to a place in heaven. He struggles it’s true and often tries to rise, but his right hand is held by the promontory of Ausonian Pelorus, and his left hand by you, Pachynus. Lilybaeum presses on his legs, Etna weighs down his head, supine beneath it, Typhoeus throws ash from his mouth, and spits out flame. Often, a wrestler, he throws back the weight of earth, and tries to roll the high mountains and the cities from his body, and then the ground trembles, and even the lord of the silent kingdom is afraid lest he be exposed, and the soil split open in wide fissures, and the light admitted to scare the anxious dead.

 ‘“Fearing this disaster, the king of the dark had left his shadowy realm, and, drawn in his chariot by black horses, carefully circled the foundations of the Sicilian land. When he had checked and was satisfied that nothing was collapsing, he relinquished his fears. Then Venus, at Eryx, saw him moving, as she sat on the hillside, and embraced her winged son, Cupid, and said ‘My child, my hands and weapons, my power, seize those arrows, that overcome all, and devise a path for your swift arrows, to the heart of that god to whom the final share of the triple kingdom fell. You conquer the gods and Jupiter himself, the lords of the sea, and their very king, who controls the lords of the sea. Why is Tartarus excepted? Why not extend your mother’s kingdom and your own? We are talking of a third part of the world. And yet, as is evident to me, I am scorned in heaven, and Love’s power diminishes with mine.

 ‘“‘Don’t you see how Pallas, and the huntress Diana, forsake me? And Ceres’s daughter too, Proserpine, will be a virgin if we allow it, since she hopes to be like them. But you, if you delight in our shared kingdom, can mate the goddess to her uncle.’ So Venus spoke: he undid his quiver, and at his mother’s bidding took an arrow, one from a thousand, and none was sharper, more certain, or better obeyed the bow. Then he bent the pliant tips against his knee, and with his barbed arrow struck Dis in the heart.”’

“Venus of Eryx, from her mountain throne, Saw Hades and clasped her swift-winged son, and said: ‘Cupid, my child, my warrior, my power, Take those sure shafts with which you conquer all, And shoot your speedy arrows to the heart Of the great god to whom the last lot fell When the three realms were drawn. Your mastery Subdues the gods of heaven and even Jove, Subdues the ocean’s deities and him, Even him, who rules the ocean’s deities. Why should Hell lag behind? Why not there too Extend your mother’s empire and your own….? Then Cupid, guided by his mother, opened His quiver of all his thousand arrows Selected one, the sharpest and the surest, The arrow most obedient to the bow, And bent the pliant horn against his knee And shot the barbed shaft deep in Pluto’s heart.” ― Ovid, Metamorphoses

Bk V:385-424

Calliope sings: Dis and the abduction of Proserpine

 ‘“Not far from the walls of Enna, there is a deep pool. Pergus is its name. Caÿster does not hear more songs than rise from the swans on its gliding waves. A wood encircles the waters, surrounds them on every side, and its leaves act as a veil, dispelling Phoebus’s shafts. The branches give it coolness, and the moist soil, Tyrian purple flowers: there, it is everlasting Spring. While Proserpine was playing in this glade, and gathering violets or radiant lilies, while with girlish fondness she filled the folds of her gown, and her basket, trying to outdo her companions in her picking, Dis, almost in a moment, saw her, prized her, took her: so swift as this, is love. The frightened goddess cries out to her mother, to her friends, most of all to her mother, with piteous mouth. Since she had torn her dress at the opening, the flowers she had collected fell from her loosened tunic, and even their scattering caused her virgin tears. The ravisher whipped up his chariot, and urged on the horses, calling them by name, shaking out the shadowy, dark-dyed, reins, over their necks and manes, through deep pools, they say, and the sulphurous reeking swamps of the Palici, vented from a crevice of the earth, to Syracuse where the Bacchiadae, a people born of Corinth between two seas, laid out their city between unequal harbours.

 ‘“Between Cyane and Pisaean Arethusa, there is a bay enclosed by narrow arms. Here lived Cyane, best known of the Sicilian nymphs, from whom the name of the spring was also taken. She showed herself from the pool as far as her waist, and recognising the goddess, cried out to Dis, ‘No’, and ‘Go no further!’ ‘You cannot be Ceres’s son against her will: the girl should have been asked, and not abused. If it is right for me to compare small things with great, Anapis prized me and I wedded him, but I was persuaded by talk and not by terror.’ Speaking, she stretched her arms out at her sides, obstructing him. The son of Saturn could scarcely contain his wrath, and urging on the dread horses, he turned his royal sceptre with powerful arm, and plunged it through the bottom of the pool. The earth, pierced, made a road to Tartarus, and swallowed the headlong chariot, into the midst of the abyss.

Bk V:425-486

Calliope sings: Ceres searches for Proserpine

 ‘“Cyane, mourning the abduction of the goddess, and the contempt for the sanctities of her fountain, nursed an inconsolable grief in her silent heart, and pined away wholly with sorrow. She melted into those waters whose great goddess she had previously been. You might see her limbs becoming softened, her bones seeming pliant, her nails losing their hardness. First of all the slenderest parts dissolve: her dusky hair, her fingers and toes, her feet and ankles (since it is no great transformation from fragile limbs to cool waters). Next her breast and back, shoulders and flanks slip away, vanishing into tenuous streams. At last the water runs in her ruined veins, and nothing remains that you could touch.

 ‘“Meanwhile the mother, fearing, searches in vain for the maid, through all the earth and sea. Neither the coming of dewy-haired Aurora, nor Hesperus, finds her resting. Lighting pine torches with both hands at Etna’s fires, she wanders, unquiet, through the bitter darkness, and when the kindly light has dimmed the stars, she still seeks her child, from the rising of the sun till the setting of the sun.

 ‘“She found herself thirsty and weary from her efforts, and had not moistened her lips at any of the springs, when by chance she saw a hut with a roof of straw, and she knocked on its humble door. At that sound, an old woman emerged, and saw the goddess, and, when she asked for water, gave her something sweet made with malted barley. While she drank what she had been given a rash, foul-mouthed boy stood watching, and taunted her, and called her greedy. The goddess was offended, and threw the liquid she had not yet drunk, mixed with the grains of barley, in his face. His skin, absorbing it, became spotted, and where he had once had arms, he now had legs. A tail was added to his altered limbs, and he shrank to a little shape, so that he has no great power to harm. He is like a lesser lizard, a newt, of tiny size. The old woman wondered and wept, and, trying to touch the creature, it ran from her and searched out a place to hide. It has a name fitting for its offence, stellio, its body starred with various spots.

 ‘“It would take too long to tell through what lands and seas the goddess wandered. Searching the whole earth, she failed to find her daughter: she returned to Sicily, and while crossing it from end to end, she came to Cyane, who if she had not been changed would have told all. But though she wished to, she had neither mouth nor tongue, nor anything with which to speak. Still she revealed clear evidence, known to the mother, and showed Persephone’s ribbon, fallen, by chance, into the sacred pool. As soon as she recognised it, the goddess tore her dishevelled hair, and beat her breast again and again with her hands, as if she at last comprehended the abduction. She did not know yet where Persephone was, but condemned all the lands, and called them thankless and unworthy of her gift of corn, Sicily, that Trinacria, above all, where she had discovered the traces of her loss.

 ‘“So, in that place, with cruel hands, she broke the ploughs that turned up the soil, and, in her anger, dealt destruction to farmers, and the cattle in their fields, alike, and ordered the ever-faithful land to fail, and spoiled the sowing. The fertility of that country, acclaimed throughout the world, was spoken of as a fiction: the crops died as young shoots, destroyed by too much sun, and then by too much rain. Wind and weather harmed them, and hungry birds gathered the scattered seed. Thistles and darnel and stubborn grasses ruined the wheat harvest.

Bk V:487-532

Calliope sings: Ceres asks Jupiter’s help

 ‘“Then Arethusa, once of Elis, whom Alpheus loved, lifted her head from her pool, and brushed the wet hair from her forehead, saying ‘O great goddess of the crops, mother of that virgin sought through all the earth, end your fruitless efforts, and do not anger yourself so deeply against the faithful land. The land does not deserve it: it opened to the abduction against its will. It is not my country, I pray for: I came here as a stranger. Pisa is my country, and Elis is my source. I am a foreigner in Sicily, but its soil is more to me than other lands. Here is my home: here are my household gods. Most gentle one, preserve it. A fitting time will come for me to tell you, how I moved from my country, and came to Ortygia, over such a great expanse of sea, when you are free of care, and of happier countenance. The fissured earth showed me a way, and slipping below the deepest caverns, here, I lifted up my head, and saw the unfamiliar stars.

 ‘“‘So, while I glided underground down there, among Stygian streams, with these very eyes, I saw your Proserpine. She was sad indeed, but, though her face was fearful still, she was nevertheless a queen, the greatest one among the world of shadows, the powerful consort, nevertheless, of the king of hell!’ The mother was stunned to hear these words, as if petrified, and was, for a long time, like someone thunderstruck, until the blow of deep amazement became deep indignation. She rose, in her chariot, to the realms of heaven. There, her whole face clouded with hate, she appeared before Jove with dishevelled hair.

 ‘“‘Jupiter I have come to you in entreaty for my child and for your own’ she cried. ‘If the mother finds no favour with you, let the daughter move you, and do not let your concern for her be less, I beg you, because I gave her birth. See, the daughter I have searched for so long, has been found, if you call it finding to lose her more surely, if you call it finding merely to know where she is. I can bear the fact that she has been abducted, if he will only return her! A spoiler is not worthy to be the husband of your daughter, even if she is no longer my daughter.’ Jupiter replied ‘Our child is a pledge and a charge, between us, you and I. But if only we are willing to give things their right names, the thing is not an insult in itself: the truth is it is love. He would not be a shameful son-in-law for us, if only you would wish it, goddess. How great a thing it is to be Jupiter’s brother, even if all the rest is lacking! Why, what if there is nothing lacking at all, except what he yielded to me by lot? But if you have such a great desire to separate them, Proserpine shall return to heaven, but on only one condition, that no food has touched her lips, since that is the law, decreed by the Fates.’

Bk V:533-571

Calliope sings: Persephone’s fate    

 ‘“He spoke, and Ceres felt sure of regaining her daughter. But the Fates would not allow it, for the girl had broken her fast, and wandering, innocently, in a well-tended garden, she had pulled down a reddish-purple pomegranate fruit, hanging from a tree, and, taking seven seeds from its yellow rind, squeezed them in her mouth. Ascalaphus was the only one to see it, whom, it is said, Orphne bore, to her Acheron, in the dark woods, she not the least known of the nymphs of Avernus. He saw, and by his cruel disclosure, prevented Proserpine’s return.              Then the queen of Erebus grieved, and changed the informant into a bird of ill omen: she sprinkled his head with water from the Phlegethon, and changed him to a beak, plumage, and a pair of huge eyes. Losing his own form he is covered by his tawny wings, and looks like a head, and long, curving claws. He scarcely stirs the feathers growing on his idle wings. He has become an odious bird, a messenger of future disaster, the screech owl, torpid by day, a fearful omen to mortal creatures.

 ‘“He indeed can be seen to have deserved his punishment, because of his disclosure and his words. But why have you, Sirens, skilled in song, daughters of Acheloüs, the feathers and claws of birds, while still bearing human faces? Is it because you were numbered among the companions, when Proserpine gathered the flowers of Spring? When you had searched in vain for her on land, you wanted, then, to cross the waves on beating wings, so that the waters would also know of your trouble. The gods were willing, and suddenly you saw your limbs covered with golden plumage. But, so that your song, born, sweetly, in our ears, and your rich vocal gift, might not be lost with your tongues, each virgin face and human voice remained.

 ‘“Now Jupiter, intervening, between his brother and grieving sister, divides the turning year, equally. And now the goddess, Persephone, shared divinity of the two kingdoms, spends so many months with her mother, so many months with her husband. The aspect of her face and mind alters in a moment. Now the goddess’s looks are glad that even Dis could see were sad, a moment ago. Just as the sun, hidden, before, by clouds of rain, wins through and leaves the clouds.

Orphic Hymn 17 to Pluton

Pluto, magnanimous, whose realms profound are fix’d beneath the firm and solid ground, In the Tartarian plains remote from fight, and wrapt forever in the depths of night; Terrestrial Jove [Zeus Khthonios], thy sacred ear incline, and, pleas’d, accept thy mystic’s hymn divine. Earth’s keys to thee, illustrious king belong, its secret gates unlocking, deep and strong. ‘Tis thine, abundant annual fruits to bear, for needy mortals are thy constant care. To thee, great king, Avernus is assign’d, the seat of Gods, and basis of mankind. Thy throne is fix’d in Hade’s dismal plains, distant, unknown to rest, where darkness reigns; Where, destitute of breath, pale spectres dwell, in endless, dire, inexorable hell; And in dread Acheron, whose depths obscure, earth’s stable roots eternally secure. O mighty dæmon, whose decision dread, the future fate determines of the dead, With captive Proserpine [Kore], thro’ grassy plains, drawn in a four-yok’d car with loosen’d reins, Rapt o'er the deep, impell’d by love, you flew 'till Eleusina’s city rose to view; There, in a wond'rous cave obscure and deep, the sacred maid secure from search you keep, The cave of Atthis, whose wide gates display an entrance to the kingdoms void of day. Of unapparent works, thou art alone the dispensator, visible and known. O pow'r all-ruling, holy, honor’d light, thee sacred poets and their hymns delight: Propitious to thy mystic’s works incline, rejoicing come, for holy rites are thine.

Orphic Hymn 28 to Pluton

Daughter of Jove [Zeus], almighty and divine, come, blessed queen, and to these rites incline: Only-begotten, Pluto’s [Plouton’s] honor’d wife, O venerable Goddess, source of life: 'Tis thine in earth’s profundities to dwell, fast by the wide and dismal gates of hell: Jove’s [Zeus’] holy offspring, of a beauteous mien, fatal [Praxidike], with lovely locks, infernal queen: Source of the furies [Eumenides], whose blest frame proceeds from Jove’s [Zeus’] ineffable and secret seeds: Mother of Bacchus [Eubouleos], Sonorous, divine, and many-form’d, the parent of the vine: The dancing Hours [Horai] attend thee, essence bright, all-ruling virgin, bearing heav'nly light: Illustrious, horned, of a bounteous mind, alone desir’d by those of mortal kind. O, vernal queen, whom grassy plains delight, sweet to the smell, and pleasing to the sight: Whose holy form in budding fruits we view, Earth’s vig'rous offspring of a various hue: Espous’d in Autumn: life and death alone to wretched mortals from thy power is known: For thine the task according to thy will, life to produce, and all that lives to kill. Hear, blessed Goddess, send a rich increase of various fruits from earth, with lovely Peace; Send Health with gentle hand, and crown my life with blest abundance, free from noisy strife; Last in extreme old age the prey of Death, dismiss we willing to the realms beneath, To thy fair palace, and the blissful plains where happy spirits dwell, and Pluto [Plouton] reigns.

[dweemeister]

2020 Movie Odyssey Award for Best Original Song (final round)

(Yet again, tumblr has not fixed bullet indentations. So this post doesn’t look as clean on your dashboards.)

TAGGING (among others): @addaellis, @cokwong, @emilylime5, @halfwaythruthedark, @idontknowmuchaboutmovies, @introspectivemeltdown, @maximiliani, @memetoilet, @monkeysmadeofcheese, @myluckyerror, @plus-low-overthrow, @shootingstarvenator, @themusicmoviesportsguy, @theybecomestories, @umgeschrieben, @underblackwings, @voicetalentbrendan​, @thewolfofelectricavenue, and @yellanimal.

I would also like to tag some followers/previous participants as well who I also would welcome to participate in this final round: @birdsongvelvet​, @bitch-genius​, @dog-of-ulthar​, @loveless422​, @lvl9gay​, @mehetibel​, @phendranaedge​, @poncho-honcho​, @sayaf​, @shadesofhappy​, @thethirdman8​, @uncoolforelimb​, and @wehadfacesthen​. Regardless of whether you were tagged or not, all of my followers can participate if they wish.

Happy Holidays to all! After a fascinating preliminary round, now begins the final round to 2020's Movie Odyssey Award for Best Original Song (MOABOS). This is the eighth time it has been contested and the seventh year it has been open to involvement from family, friends, and tumblr followers. I begin every new year not knowing whether I will be able to share with all of you these songs and the movies they come from around November/December. So on the day that MOABOS becomes viable (usually around mid-year), it's a long stretch of anticipation to this point.

For those who have never participated in this before, my classic movie blog traditionally ends the year by honoring some of the best achievements from movies that I saw for the first time this calendar year (the "Movie Odyssey"; rewatches do not count) with an Oscar-like ceremony. I choose all the nominees and winners from each category, save one: Best Original Song. It is the only category I can think of that does not require you to watch several movies in their entirety. I know some of you wonder why I bother with this quixotic social experiment. But I have always considered it a sort of cinematic-musical thank-you for your moral support in various ways - in the hopes of introducing to all of you films and music you may not have otherwise encountered or sought. A small slice of the 2020 Movie Odyssey, so to speak.

This final will be contested by sixteen songs. As I've mentioned before, for the first time ever, there are no MOABOS entries originating from this year that made the competition - a MOABOS first. I have seen one 2020 film since the prelim (Wolfwalkers... at a drive-in mind you), but this entire final is one of yesteryear. Even without any 1930s songs, this year's final is probably the oldest on average. There are some very recognizable songs that made it straight to the final, bypassing the preliminary; those songs are contained within. Among them, a city anthem and a song that should be a city's anthem. Elsewhere, this is the first final to ever feature two classic Bollywood songs - but no classic Bollywood song has ever cracked the top ten. Elvis has three songs in this final, a MOABOS joint record along with Prince and the Bee Gees (both in 2016). But also appearing in multiple entries are Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli, Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday. With five non-English-language songs in the final, this year’s final ties 2017 with the largest contingent of finalists not in the English language.

INSTRUCTIONS Please rank (#1-16) your choices in order. The top ten songs will receive nominations. The tabulation method used in the preliminary round is being used for the final only as the second tiebreaker (the tabulation method that will be used principally for the final - aka "single transferable vote" - is described in the “read more” at the bottom). There is no minimum or maximum amount of songs you can rank, but because of the nature of single transferable vote, it is highly recommended to rank as many songs as possible, rather than only one or two. Those who rank fewer songs run a greater risk of their ballots being discarded in the later rounds of tabulation. Again, this is all described in the “read more”.

Please consider to the best of your ability: how musically interesting the song is (incl. and not limited to musical phrasing and orchestration); its lyrics; context within the film (contextual blurbs provided for every entry for those who haven't seen the films); choreography/dance direction (if applicable); and the song's cultural impact/life outside the film (if applicable, and, in my opinion, least important factor). Imperfections in audio and video quality may not be used against any song. I encourage you to send in comments and reactions with your rankings - it makes the process more enjoyable for you and myself!

The deadline for submission is Thursday, December 31 at 8 PM Pacific Time. That is 6 PM Hawaii/Aleutian Time / 10 PM Central / 11 PM Eastern. That deadline is also Friday, January 1 at 2 AM GMT / 3 AM CET / 4 AM EET. This deadline has been pushed back two consecutive times due to a sizable non-response rate - but I very much do not want to do so again.

I have compiled most of this final round's songs into this YouTube playlist. Please note that neither of Kaagaz Ke Phool’s two songs are contained in the playlist. You will need to access them using their respective links.

Enjoy the music! Feel free to listen as many times as you need, and I hope you discover music and movies you may have never otherwise heard of that you find fascinating. The following is formatted... ("Song title", composer and lyricist, film title):

2020 MOVIE ODYSSEY AWARD FOR BEST ORIGINAL SONG – FINAL ROUND

“Angela”, music and lyrics by José Feliciano and Janna Merlyn Feliciano, Aaron Loves Angela (1975)

Performed by José Feliciano

(English-language version) / (Spanish single version)

Played over the opening credits to this teenage drama that is partly a blaxploitation film, partly an interracial coming-of-age romance. The movie wasn't a hit, but the Spanish-language version of this song was received well in Latin America.

“Blue Shadows on the Trail”, music and lyrics by Eliot Daniel and Johnny Lange, Melody Time (1948)

Performed by Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers

This is the introductory song to the final segment of Melody Time. That segment is dedicated to the legend of Pecos Bill, and this atmospheric song leads into the telling of that story.

“Can’t Help Falling in Love”, music and lyrics by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, and George David Weiss, Blue Hawaii (1961)

Performed by Elvis Presley

(film version) / (single version)

Chadwick "Chad" Gates (Elvis) has just returned to his home state of Hawai'i after a stint in the Army. Not wanting to work on his father's pineapple plantation (seriously), he rekindles his relationship with his girlfriend, Maile (Joan Blackman). This song is sung as an accompaniment to a music box he gives to Maile's grandmother (Flora Kaai Hayes, a former Hawaiian Territorial Representative to the U.S. House). This song is among Elvis' best-known and most widely-covered.

“Dekhi Zamaane Ki Yaari / Bichhde Sabhi Baari Baari”, music by S.D. Burman, lyrics by Kaifi Azmi, Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959, India)

Performed by Mohammad Rafi (dubbing Guru Dutt)

Lyrics in Hindi - roughly, "I Have Seen How Deeply Friendship Lies / I Have Seen People Abandon Me One by One"

Part 1 (3:44-8:27) / Part 2 (2:16:29-2:20:42)

Make sure to turn on the video’s English captions

In this romantic tragedy, Suresh Sinha (Dutt) is a washed-up director looking back on his life. In the first part, the song leads into the rest of the film - which is almost entirely a flashback. In brief, Suresh is unhappily married to a woman whose in-laws look down on him because, to them, working in films is contemptible to their social class. Suresh meets a woman, Shanti (Waheeda Rehman), on accident and she is soon cast as the lead for his next film. They fall in love, but it is never consummated for various reasons. Eventually, his career crashes after a box office bomb and her career is ascendant. Leading into the second part of the song, Suresh is penniless and working as an extra at the movie studio. Shanti recognizes him, wants to help, but he refuses to revive his career on the back of her success. Kaagaz Ke Phool has elements of autobiography, and Suresh's fate has parallels with what happened to Dutt after this film was released.

“(Do You Know What It Means to Miss) New Orleans”, music by Louis Alter, lyrics by Edgar De Lange, New Orleans (1947)

Initially performed by Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong and his band; reprised by various

(initial film performance) / (Louis Armstrong single version)

Endie (Holiday in her only appearance in a feature film) is a maid to the affluent Smith family, whose matriarch looks down on jazz as a disreputable genre of music. In secret, Endie frequents a gambling and jazz establishment in the historic Storyville district of New Orleans and performs here with Louis Armstrong (playing himself) and others when she gets the chance. The matriarch's daughter (Dorothy Patrick), an classical operatic soprano, is transfixed by this new music she has never heard before.

“ Exsultate Justi”, music and lyrics by John Williams, Empire of the Sun (1987)

Performed by orchestra and chorus under the direction of Williams

Lyrics in Latin

In this historical epic, affluent British school boy Jamie Graham (a young Christian Bale) is living with his parents in Shanghai when the Japanese invade. Jamie is separated from his parents and placed in an internment camp. Soon before the end of WWII, the prisoners are moved elsewhere, but Jamie hides and stays put. This song plays as Jamie bikes around the empty camp and continues to play as he encounters liberating U.S. troops. Jamie is dirty and malnourished when found; one can argue that this song is used ironically. It plays once more over the end credits. "Exsultate Justi" is a variation on a theme John Williams develops over the course of the film and harkens back to Jamie's past, attending Anglican services with parents.

“Farewell to Storyville",  music by Louis Alter, lyrics by Edgar De Lange, New Orleans (1947)

Performed by Louis Armstrong and his band, Billie Holiday, and company

In New Orleans, the Storyville district was a den of drinking, gambling, jazz, and prostitution. The district was the home to a heavily black populace. The U.S. military, about to establish a Naval base nearby, forces the city to close the district for good. This song is a swinging dirge to a center of jazz - a musical genre looked down upon by many of the city's upper-class whites due to its ties (real and imagined) to crime.

“Happy Endings", music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, New York, New York (1977)

Performed by Liza Minnelli and company (that's Jack Haley - who played the Tin Man and was, at the time, Minnelli's father-in-law - roughly seven minutes in)

(use in film) / (soundtrack version)

It is highly recommended one sees how this song is used in the film. Bear with me: this song is part of a movie within a movie. Within that movie within a movie, there is another movie. "Happy Endings" is the title end song to a film called Happy Endings within New York, New York. Singer Francine Evans (Liza Minnelli) has made it big as a recording artist and caps off her hit film, Happy Endings, with this song. We see Francine's ex, played by Robert De Niro, in the audience as the film ends. "Happy Endings" is a homage/deconstruction to midcentury Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) musicals. It serves the film as "The Broadway Melody" does to Singin' in the Rain (1952) or the 17-minute ballet does to conclude An American in Paris (1951).

“Here They Come (From All Over the World)", music and lyrics by P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, The T.A.M.I. Show (1964)

Performed by Jan and Dean

The link above provides the entire film. You only need to watch from 0:00-4:11. If you like music from this era or want to hear more, this film is highly, highly recommended.

This is the opening credits song to a concert film recorded over two days in Santa Monica, California on October 28 and 29, 1964. The Teenage Awards Music International (T.A.M.I. - yes, I know it's an awkward name) Show included many of the most popular musical stars of that time - almost all of them name-dropped in this song. Jan and Dean, a surf music duo, served as hosts (and performed during) the show. You folks are lucky that this is the only original song from this film!

“Is There Still Anything That Love Can Do?", music and lyrics by Yôjirô Noda, Weathering with You (2019, Japan)

Performed by RADWIMPS

Lyrics in Japanese (translation)

Weathering with You is a romantic fantasy anime about a high school boy who runs away from his rural home to Tokyo, where he meets a girl who can manipulate the weather. It has been inexplicably raining for weeks without interruption in Tokyo, so they form a business to help clear the inclement weather for special events. The melody of this song is heard throughout the film's score. It does not appear with lyrics until late in the film. The song is played under the boy's seemingly impossible attempt to save her from an unwilling human sacrifice.

There is so much plot in this damn film (it's all Makoto Shinkai's fault) - I can't explain the context of the song or this movie in a reasonable amount of space.

“Moonlight Swim”, music by Ben Weisman, lyrics by Sylvia Dee, Blue Hawaii (1961)

Performed by Elvis Presley

In a musical packed end-to-end with songs, Chadwick "Chad" Gates (Elvis) has taken a job with a tour guide agency. On his first day, he drives his first clients - a school teacher (who not so secretly is attracted to Chad) and four teenagers (one of whom becomes smitten) - to their destination.

“Personality”, music by Jimmy Van Heusen, lyrics by Johnny Burke, Road to Utopia (1946)

Performed by Dorothy Lamour

(in-film performance) / (live radio performance)

In the fourth film of the Road to... comedy series, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby's characters have just overpowered two Alaskan thugs with a history of murderous violence. As they enter a saloon dressed up as those two thugs, all of the patrons - in a town that only knows the thugs by reputation - shut up in terror. They are treated to a performance by Sal (Lamour), who is trying to find a map of a gold mine that the real outlaws supposedly have. A visual narrator (Robert Benchley) interrupts the scene before the song briefly.

“Please Don’t Stop Loving Me”, music and lyrics by Joy Byers, Frankie and Johnny (1966)

Performed by Elvis Presley

(in-film performance) / (single version)

Johnny (Elvis) and girlfriend Frankie (Donna Douglas) work on a Mississippi River riverboat as performers. Johnny is addicted to gambling and believes that another woman is spurring on his recent run of good luck. During a fit of jealousy-as-acting, Frankie accidentally shoots Johnny during a bit of musical theater (someone switched out the blanks for real bullets). This song occurs after Johnny has recovered from the accident.

“Theme from New York, New York”, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, New York, New York (1977)

Performed by Liza Minnelli

(in-film performance) / (Frank Sinatra single)

For most of the film, saxophone player Jimmy Doyle (Robert De Niro) is trying to compose a song but cannot figure out the lyrics (this plays out as a subplot). His eventual girlfriend/later ex, Francine Evans (Minnelli) provides said lyrics. Some time well after they have broken up, he finds her singing this song - which he previously brought to the top of the jazz charts - in the nightclub where they first met. This film flopped (musical movies were out of fashion by the mid-'70s, and a musical didn't seem "on brand" for director Martin Scorsese). But the Frank Sinatra single popularized this song, and it has been used in many venues of popular culture.

“Waqt Ne Kiya Kya Haseen Sitam”, music and lyrics by S.D. Burman, Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959, India)

Performed by Geeta Dutt (dubbing Waheeda Rehman)

Lyrics in Hindi - roughly, "Time Has Inflicted Such Sweet Cruelty On Us"

Song begins at 1:03:31 and ends at 1:07:51

Make sure to turn on the video’s English captions

In this romantic tragedy told in flashback, Suresh Sinha (Guru Dutt) is a director looking back on his life. Suresh is unhappily married to a woman whose in-laws look down on him because, to them, working in films is contemptible to their social class. Suresh meets a woman, Shanti (Waheeda Rehman), on accident and she is soon cast as the lead for his next film. They fall in love, but it is never consummated for various reasons. This song is the most explicit statement of that love in this film. How much of the scene's set-up is observable by the characters is up to the viewer's interpretation.

“You Make Me Feel So Young”, music by Josef Myrow, lyrics by Mack Gordon, Three Little Girls in Blue (1946)

Performed by Del Porter (dubbing Charles Smith) and Carol Stewart (dubbing Vera-Ellen)

(use in film) / (Frank Sinatra cover)

In this rarely-seen musical (*insert plea to Disney to restore the massive 20th Century Fox catalogue they now own and are almost certainly neglecting*), three chicken farmer sisters decide to travel to Atlantic City in hopes of marrying a rich husband when they learn their aunt's inheritance is not nearly as much as they want. There, youngest sister Myra (Vera-Ellen) - despite the sisters' original intentions of marrying men of wealth - becomes involved with a waiter named Mike (Charles Smith). They go on a date, and they sing this song. A somewhat overly-literal fantastical dancing sequence ensues, complete with Vera-Ellen's dancing skills. This song was popularized by Frank Sinatra years later and has long enjoyed status as a big band/jazz standard.

Contact me however you wish if you have questions or comments regarding MOABOS' processes or something specific about a song or a few. Please let me know as soon as possible if you are having difficulty accessing one of the songs (especially if it is region-locked) or if there is an error in the playlist.

Once more, I thank you all for your support for the Movie Odyssey, the blog, and for me personally - no matter how long I’ve known you or in what capacity. There are no hard feelings if you cannot get to this, although I will be checking in as the deadlines get close. Please wear a mask. Practice social distancing. We'll see each other again on the other side of this pandemic.

TABULATION The winner is determined by a process distinct from the preliminary round. For the final, the winner is chosen by the process known as single transferable vote (the Academy Awards uses this method to choose a Best Picture winner, visually represented here - you should really watch this video if the below doesn’t make sense… which it probably won’t):

All #1 picks from all voters are tabulated. A song needs more than half of all aggregate votes to win (50% of all votes plus one… i.e. if there are thirty respondents, sixteen #1 votes are needed to win on the first count).

If there is no winner after the first count (as is most likely), the song(s) with the fewest #1 votes or points is/are eliminated. Placement will be determined by the tiebreakers described below. Then, we look at the ballots of those who voted for the most recently-eliminated song(s). Their votes then go to the highest-remaining and non-eliminated song on their ballot.

The process described in step #2 repeats until one song has secured 50% plus one of all votes. We keep eliminating nominees and transfer votes to the highest-ranked, non-eliminated song on each ballot. NOTE: It is possible after several rounds of counting that respondents who did not entirely fill in their ballots will have wasted their votes at the end of the process. For example, if a person voted the second-to-last place song as their #1, ranked no other songs, and the count has exceeded two rounds, their ballot is discarded (lowering the vote threshold needed to win), and they have no say in which song ultimately is the winner.

A song wins when it reaches more than fifty percent of all #1 and re-distributed votes.

Tiebreakers: 1) first song to receive 50% plus one of all #1 and transferred votes; 2) total points earned (this was the first tiebreaker in the preliminary round); 3) total #1 votes; 4) average placement on my ballot and my sister’s ballot; 5) tie declared

Previous years’ results for reference: 2013 final 2014 final (input from family and friends began this year) 2015 final 2016 prelim / final 2017 prelim / final 2018 prelim / final 2019 prelim / final

[seafleece]

essek keeps it in the back of his head— caleb’s strong, even if he’s the only one that sees it. caleb tells him about growing up, about being an only child, about how work was work and studies were studies, and he blinks and thinks dreamily of retiring to somewhere in whatever the empire will be after all of this— empty fields, under the sun, perhaps— and growing something, in the earth. creating something, plain and uncorrupted.

something to hold onto, he tells himself, even if the others don’t quite trust him yet. even if the end of a war might mean nothing at all.

he and caleb go to meet the mage in nicodranas, once between excursions. the others run off immediately, fjord and caduceus to their mother’s lighthouse, beau and jester to see jester’s mother and veth tagging along to see her family. yasha stays for a moment, says something quiet to caleb, and ducks out again— after jester and beau, he thinks.

and they do talk business, for a while, talk of the tenuous nature of peace. the end to the war has not tipped the balance into the positive, you see. trust is tangible, a positive, and war a negative. but this? this halt of combat, it’s just. nothingness. so easily tipped to either side.

caleb has been missing a teacher, essek thinks. not just since— well, since before all of this— but his whole life, someone who believed in him properly, not just belief in what he could do for them. it makes him sad, to think he can’t quite be that for caleb, but, well, he can do other things for caleb. he can see the spark in caleb’s eyes, speaking to yussa about what he’s learned since last they spoke, and, not wanting to interrupt, retires to the corner.

essek watches yussa for a long time— he shows his age in ways caleb likely does not recognize. it’s hard for anyone to know, and yussa is not kryn, but essek knows he was the teacher of oremid hass, and spends a time trying to guess how old he is.

he gets nowhere.

the information seems to be conflicting— he doesn’t have many wrinkles, slight as they would appear, to his face, only a few around the eyes. nothing there.

from his ears, though, essek would guess older than that— they’re especially long, and curl back against his head.

and yussa’s eyes, well— they seem ancient. it’s rare essek would call something truly golden, but it seems appropriate, here. he regards essek almost the way that leylas does, that his mother did. as someone who, until further notice, finds him so comparatively small, so young, that they expect nothing new of him, nothing of magnitude. yussa hides it well, at least, better than an umavi. at the very least, essek thinks, he feels a reason to hide contempt. it still makes his skin crawl.

what has yussa errenis done, he wonders, to warrant such a look to his eyes? how long has he lived?— and is about to ask him this, tunes in to the conversation again.

“—ja, well, i got a late start, i suppose. blumenthal is not exactly a place of higher learning. i grew up tending fields.”

“caleb’s very strong,” he says, surprising himself. “stronger than you, i’m sure. it wasn’t a waste.”

caleb flushes immediately, bright pink down to his open collar. “um— i—”

he expects yussa to be nonplussed, to seem scandalized. to admit it, at best. this, he can gauge.

but yussa errenis tips back his head and laughs, loud and sudden. he looks over at essek with those ancient eyes, and then to caleb, and rolls up the sleeve of his robe, the arm beneath thin and unassuming. a caster’s arm, not a worker’s. perhaps that of an old man.

“well, then, shadowhand. care to make a wager?”

there are things that do not fade with age— not until the very end, at least, or when otherwise stolen. the mind, the tongue.

strength, though. strength leaves you years, decades, centuries early. especially if one is not— and he looks at yussa for another moment— in constant upkeep.

“a secret,” he says. “if caleb wins, i may ask you a question you must answer truthfully. if you win, the same from caleb. or me.”

“deal,” says yussa. “dangerous, don’t you think?”

“only dangerous if i believe caleb will lose. i do not, though.”

caleb has said nothing this entire time, but the color drains from his cheeks again. this, too, is some guard in this matter— caleb knows what he has to lose, and will do almost anything to keep him from losing it. his eyebrows pull even lower over his eyes as he looks at essek, and essek just nods.

caleb takes a breath, and then flattens the fingers of his right hand into his palm until the knuckles pop. it is intensely alluring.

yussa has a smaller table, and they take either side of it, hands clasped in the middle. essek needs to be sure— he takes a moment and casts, expands his sight, sees the careful nothingness of caleb that originates from the amulet. it had been his bane, in previous months, trying to ascertain where they were, less directly, trying to look in on these people he wished to know so badly, but now, knowing the danger caleb has always been in, that he is in even in this peaceful moment, he finds it comforting.

yussa, though, glows entirely with a thin sheen of transmutative magic. he racks his brain— it seems innate, somehow, certainly not put on for this moment. he decides to save it for his question, when caleb wins.

essek reaches out to hold both of theirs, steady them in the middle. they’re both holding loosely, for the moment, but he finds himself more focused on where his fingers meet caleb’s than on who seems to be stronger, in this moment.

“ready?”

they both nod. yussa’s posture is relaxed, but caleb is all tension, all fear, some confusion as to why this has happened.

“begin,” essek says, smoothly, and releases their hands.

he almost doesn’t see it, it is so quick. there’s a momentary— truly momentary— motion to his side from caleb, and then caleb’s hand is flat against the table, forearm twisted back, with a loud thunk.

there’s a moment of silence. caleb looks absolutely horrified, and yussa just smiles, a lazy thing. it feels as though the floor has fallen from under essek.

“well, that’s that,” yussa says breezily, and releases caleb. “my question, shadowhand—“

the moment feels sluggish, suspended— not warm, or friendly, anymore, more like the time essek’s first advanced tutor had used time stop in their room and spent his created eternity flicking essek’s forehead with a grin while essek tried to blink.

“—how are you enjoying the city? i have never truly grown accustomed to the majesty of the sea when she balances the sun, not in my many years here.”

he knows, essek thinks. first, what essek had meant to ask, and everything he had wagered to try and ask it.

then, everything clears in his head.

the robes, the tower, the eyes, the strength, the magic covering him like a second skin— it had looked for all the world like scales. that phrase— ‘the sea when she balances the sun’— it’s from a book. a fable, well-written enough to be considered a classic, about a kingdom of islands, and the great gold dragon that ruled it.

he looks at caleb, who is young enough to still show confusion the moment he feels it, and thinks that caleb has perhaps stumbled upon the best teacher there may be anywhere. he has never met a gold dragon, but one this reserved is old indeed, old enough to have outgrown his greed, his ostentatiousness. he wonders if he and leylas have met, him only slightly younger and leylas someone else entirely. he wonders if his mother has met this dragon.

“i love it here,” essek says, and moves to press his side against caleb’s shoulder. “and yes, the sun in the morning. it turns the entire ocean gold.”

yussa’s grin widens. the glint to his eyes, it changes in that moment, from politely hidden contempt to genuine, muted surprise. delight. essek wonders if anyone in this city knows. if anyone in the world knows.

he must be lonely, essek thinks. a loneliness he at once feels in his bones and cannot fathom. yussa asks them to stay for dinner, and caleb says he needs to check on the others, wants to see how veth is doing, and kisses essek in the foyer before he goes, brief— “we’ll talk, later,” he says, and essek knows he will not tell him. he might lend him the fable book, though, the worn copy he keeps in his vault.

“i’d be glad to stay,” he says, and yussa’s face breaks, for a moment, into something fragile, something genuine. something mortal.

there is much to talk about.

(for the shadowgast discord server, love y’all)