#tdp fractures

[quodekash]

“Fractures” Keyart

I noticed a bunch of things about the fractures keyart on the dragon prince website before season 4 came out, and then after it came out the things made sense. And I’m only now posting it

so in case you haven’t seen it yet, this is the artwork:

Notice anything odd about it?

1- Rayla has a crack down the middle of her face. No one else has a crack so disruptive. She’s changed throughout her journeys to find Viren, different to the past seasons. She’s grown, changed, experienced things that we don’t know. She’s broken, split in two halves - her past self (energetic, alive, not optimistic but at least ready to help others if she can), and her new self (“we can’t save everyone, soren”, the girl who failed for two years, the girl who lost everyone and everything)

2- Everyone’s eyes are open but Viren’s are closed - Viren has also changed. His character has developed in ways none of us thought were possible. His eyes are closed- he can’t see where his path is going. He’s also dead so that could be why. It could also be that he’s blind to what’s right and wrong now - he spent two years dead, without dark magic amplifying his bad parts, without aaravos whispering in his ear and amplifying the amplified bad parts. Now he’s confused, in the dark, blinded.

3- Aaravos is the only one without any damage to his little section thingy - everyone else has cracks, big or small, sometimes interrupting their face and sometimes not. If they don’t have cracks, they have shards pointing at their face threateningly. But Aaravos’ is completely intact and whole. He’s the mastermind, the one behind everything that’s happened. The entire show so far has all gone according to his huge, sinister plan. Idk every step is of his plan, but it feels like every single thing that has happened is part of his plan. Even the good things. Like Rayla getting the coins back means they’ll be spending heaps of time trying to get them out of the coins, meaning they won’t be spending enough time trying to stop Aaravos. And because they were trapped with dark magic, they might need to use dark magic to free them, meaning they’re even more of a target to Aaravos. Or even Amaya and Janai getting married. Aaravos wants to be free and (I think) to rule all of Xadia. But a lot of feuds start to tear apart the sunfire elves and the humans, even tears apart some sunfire elves from each other and humans from each other. (Like Janai and Karim. And humans taking sides of elves in the feuds and fights, causing rifts between families and friends, and vice versa). If they’re all torn apart, that leaves Aaravos free to (presumably) rise up and make them unite somehow in some evil way and stop the fights by making them all follow him. Idk if that makes sense, it made sense in my head but then I forgot how words work. Just trust me here, everything is according to his plan. And bad things too, like the obvious: Claudia getting the map so she can free him. Other stuff too probably. (I’m really tired I can’t think. If you can think of any other examples tho, lemme know! I’m interested to hear everyone’s theories and stuff cos my own are pretty messy)

4- Like Rayla, Claudia has a crack in her face, but rather than in the middle, it’s only breaking off the part of her hair that’s still its natural colour. Or, in other words, it’s breaking off the parts of her that are yet to be touched by dark magic.

5- Terry is on the opposite side of the mirror (or whatever it is) to Claudia and Viren, despite being “on their team”. He travels with them. He’s with them all the time. He helps them and supports them. He’s dating Claudia. But honestly it feels like he’s on the wrong side. Presently the only exposure he’s had to Viren is what Claudia has told him (and Claudia reveres Viren, so he’d only hear good things), and Viren in a weird place both mentally and physically, so he’s never been exposed to the real bad evilness that everyone else saw in season 3. As for Claudia, they’re dating (Claudia might be using him or something, their relationship feels really weird but not in a fun way, but that’s a post for another day), so it’s hard for Terry to see her bad sides. But near the end, he starts to see some cruelty from her, so I’m hoping that over time he’ll finally realise. He’s like Soren - a good heart and a good person, but on the wrong side that he thought was the right side.

6- This one’s pretty small, but everyone is looking left or right, up or down, but aaravos is looking directly through the mirror, at the audience, at his freedom. 

just some things to think about

If there’s anything else about this you noticed that I missed, or anything to add to something I said, don’t hesitate to let me know! This is my favourite keyart of all of them and there’s so much I picked apart from just six things I noticed, so there’s no way I got it all

That’s all I have for you today. I’ve currently got seven more tdp rambles in the works, and they’ll be up at some point (expect the next one in the next couple of days probably). They should all be under the tag at the bottom of each of these posts, ‘tdp rambles with bj’, so if at some point you wanna read through all the ones currently there, uh, you can. 

I love you all, stay calm and ship sorvus. or whatever ship floats your boat.

Have a gay day! -BJ

[m4rs-ex3]

something about the fact that ghosting is "a unanimous community decision that has to be discussed by all members of the silvergrove and is not taken lightly." every single elf in the community committed to symbolically killing two loving parents for a supposed moment of shame. including rayla. every single elf in the community committed to symbolically killing a child, for making it out alive. for what they so momentously assumed was abandoning ship. they destroyed the life of a child for not being willing to die.

tiadrin and lain were--to reiterate--loving parents. they were brave enough to dedicate their lives to protecting the future of xadia. i'm sure everyone admired and honored them greatly. then, everyone (symbolically) ended their lives. their best friends, whom they trusted enough to leave their child with them. their own daughter, who loved them, and who spent years of her life looking up to them--revering them to the point where she could validate their decision.

rayla was 15. rayla was endlessly hardworking, achieving, mature, kind, heroic, brave, resilient, and noble. rayla went out of her way to become an assassin, a role in the silvergrove highly respected for their understanding and handling of life and death. rayla did everything she could to be as valiant as her parents. rayla betrayed her own parents, and did everything she could to be nothing like them. rayla was everything the silvergrove could ask for. and rayla made one presumed blunder, and she had the gall to live on.

rayla was 15 when her community, her entire world, abominated her for "cowardice." her honorary father. grief-stricken over the love of his life, but nonetheless having taken her in, shown her the utmost kindness and sensitivity, and raised her for half a decade, at the very least.

i am normal. wdym rayla has trauma? wdym rayla is incredible for having come this far? wdym rayla doesn't deserve to lose everything she has left for what she good-intentional-ly did when she was as fractured a person as you can be? wdym tdp is really good at building cultures with nuance? wdym

[bittrlys]

Season 4 ruined TDP for me and I haven't been able to drum up the interest to watch it since, so maybe this is an out of date take but...

Terry is kind of a pointless character. His role is sort of presented as being Claudia's last tether to her morality, but his actions are otherwise so ride-or-die it seems weird when he calls her out or gets upset about what's happening (especially since they've seemingly been together a while so he should be familiar with how Claudia operates). Plus there was already a character who could serve this role: Soren.

After season 3 I was excited to see their sibling bond evolve as their outlooks were beginning to diverge. And then with Viren resurrected I wanted to see how that affected things. I was deeply disappointed when the established familial relationships fell by the wayside in favor of a timeskip romantic one (and I usually LOVE romantic plotlines).

See, I get Soren leaving his family behind and hopping to Team Hero and thus becoming unavailable to Claudia as someone to bounce off of. I don't love the execution because I think he feels rootless and lacking in significant depth in his relationships with the main cast, but I think it works for his character. He's a prodigal young knight who swore vows to defend his king and his nation, and he's a very straightforward guy. He shares pragmatic qualities with his family, but at the same time, their pragmatism operates on an abstract level he doesn't exactly understand. Once he was forced to choose between family and what he's always known and how he's vowed to live his life, I can see him making the very hard choice to pull away from them. I think him staying as Claudia's morality pet would have been a disservice to his character, though he may have more interesting things to do just because Team Dark Magic are always doing interesting things ... but again, that's more to the execution than the conceit. I don't mind characters moving apart from people they were closest to at the start of the series, and like when they can bond with new people.

I think the limited number of episodes + breakneck pace of the plot does leave their lack of interactions more noticeable, but also more inevitable. Technically, we've seen all this: Soren and Claudia have met again and fought over their differences, and Soren and Viren got their chance to hash it out a little bit. We've been informed of the status of their relationships and their feelings for one another. For a nine episode twenty minute children's animated TV show, this is relatively decent screentime offered to their relationships considering they've been apart so long. I'm not necessarily defending it as 'good' because I'll gladly say this show has very weak screenwriting with my whole chest, but the Magefam would have to be proper protagonists and not just deuteragonists to the Main Three for the screentime to really shift in their favour. But they're not, and you can't even imagine stuff happening off screen because almost everything in the plot happens one after another barring the mid-season timeskip -- and not a whole lot of interesting things happened during that.

(Like, seriously, other than some romantic relationship statuses changing characters are basically the exact same post timeskip as they were before it. It's like ... okay!)

I hope this doesn't sound like I don't get your frustrations because I do; the Magefam are one of my favourite parts of the show and it's always better when some combination of them are on screen together. And it's like, sure Viren and Claudia were hanging out in the later seasons, but he was borderline comatose for most of that, so it doesn't feel like they were. The fracturing of a family is interesting, but you always hope for more of a resolution or at least a sense of poignancy this show is never quite going to master. I'll actually say that my feelings still hinge on season 7 or god forbid the final arc. If we see Soren and Claudia get more than one or two scenes as all our players move into place for the final confrontations -- if Soren were to learn what Viren wouldn't tell him -- if Claudia gets to have a properly satisfying confrontation with Aaravos about the death of her father if she learns the truth ... if Soren and Claudia get to mourn their father together, even if it's briefly -- if we have Claudia have complicated feelings if she were to learn about Soren asking Viren to do the spell -- of Soren offering his heart, but Viren sacrificing himself instead ... I mean, all of that could be really good, and for me it would serve as a kind of epilogue to tie together the seasons of separation and growing apart from each other.

How hopeful am I for any of this? Well, about as hopeful as I am for this show ever pleasing me. But hey! I do think it's possible, with the narrative they've already established.

Anyway, to get to the Terry of it all: I think he serves a purpose as not just Claudia's tether to morality but as someone to work off of, so I get why he's here. I also think Claudia getting a random elf boyfriend is still extremely funny and charmingly quirky of her. As I said in response to a previous ask I think Terry could use more personal development but I like his dynamic with Claudia. People call him an enabler but he does offer her some pushback, generally gently. He's just someone who loves Claudia enough to stick with her, and hey, I love Claudia too so that's nice to see. Honestly, even if Soren were around, you're obviously going to have a different relationship with a romantic partner than you would a sibling, so Terry could easily fit in the group that held Soren as well.

This season Karim (love him) was like "Janai is my sister! Of course I love her! But I'm still going to depose her violently!" and like that is great. That's siblingcore. That's I love you but I want to beat you up. That's no matter how far apart we drift you're still bound to me. Soren and Claudia are this. Meanwhile Terry and Claudia are your first serious relationship. They're young and passionate and desperate to make it work because who else would match their freak quite this way? But if they fall out there's nothing to keep them together anymore. They'll just be forced to move on. Soren can walk away from Claudia and know that on some level they are always close; if Terry walks away from Claudia he may end up meaning nothing to her. So, just like real life, there's a lot of stuff they're willing to overlook and rationalize because they WANT to keep wanting each other ... and Claudia can use someone like that on her side, as we see Soren and Viren both leave her in time.

I think Terry being down to clown but taking issues with some things is fine; he often frames his objections around the harm they will cause Claudia, and that's nice. The one thing I still don't get is his reaction to Claudia threatening the coins. I will preface this by saying I can believe he's more sensitive to elf death after he murked Ibis, and doesn't like reminders of the differences between him and Claudia when it feels very her, a human, against an elf. Yet whenever I rewatch it, I still find his censure unusually stern for him, and it's hard to shake the feeling that this is the writer's doing as they do best, that is not knowing how to write from their own established lore and character motivations.

Like, in-show it says, Claudia was cruel to mockingly threaten the lives of Rayla's loved ones, and trick her into thinking they nearly burned in agony, not offering her the real coins. Is that cruel? Sure, sure. What's the context? Oh? Rayla was THREATENING TO SLIT TERRY'S THROAT? Rayla, the Moonshadow elf ASSASSIN they have every reason to think would go through it, even if we the viewer know Rayla probably wouldn't? Hmm! If Claudia is cruel, Rayla is a monster. Rayla, who was offered the coins in fair trade as she THREATENED TO SLIT TERRY'S THROAT, but refused. Like, Terry? Are you this mad at Claudia because she did an actually extremely reasonable thing to save your life (+ her father's life) in as pacifist a way as possible, or are you mad because the writers need to tell the audience This Was Bad and ensure Rayla gets the real coins while not having to change that emotionally charged sequence they were probably really proud of writing? I still think this was Terry's characterization faltering just so they could get the outcome they wanted.

Ultimately, I see Terry as someone who is lacking in prejudice, maybe due to his own presumed desire to be taken at face value. He can date a human and not have a kneejerk reaction to dark magic, but he isn't amoral. Nothing he's really seen has been enough to push him away but he is cautious that Claudia may stop walking the knife's edge and fall off of it. He's realized even he can do terrible things out of love and this has bound him more tightly to Claudia. He's someone who is CHOOSING to join this life, and wasn't just pre-built loyal as a sibling would be. All of this does give him a role in the narrative that's pretty unique to him and their dynamic, and I like that. Again, I hope he gets more to do beyond just being Claudia's partner, but I really don't mind him existing.

Thank you very much for the ask! ♥ Really don't blame you for dropping the show post season 4 .... if I wasn't Virenpilled I would have dropped it after season 1 I think.

[raayllum]

TDP has always been a show with a lot of emphasis on strength vs weakness, supplemented by a theme of genuine strength together and limited strength in isolation, and how that falls along Human-Xadian relation lines, i.e. Xadia is far more isolationist and so are the villainous humans who have wanted to destroy them. There's exceptions of course (Viren's original and Kasef's legitimate plan was strong arming the Pentarchy to be allied forces) but that is generally where we see that divide fall (reinforced by Rayla and Amaya's scene later, as far as teaching/passing on lessons goes).

Which like okay, great - but why the fuck am I bringing up all that here? Well... Karim's views Togetherness as a sign of weakness, and we see isolationist fracturing more within our Xadian families than otherwise. We've seen far more elven families willingly tear themselves apart (Karim and Janai turning on each other, Lain and Tiadrin leaving Rayla, Rayla splitting off from Runaan and even Runaan fighting Rayla) with far less interpersonal angst displayed than say, compared to the Viren-Claudia-Soren mess, or how hard Callum works to keep him, Ez, and Rayla together in particular. This is reinforced by Karim ultimately thinking that Janai is weak and uncertain precisely because of her love of Amaya extending to other humans living in New Aurea as well, and of course, it's something that Finnegrin comments on as well: All that talk about how love makes you Stronger, but the second you see that elf girl in pain [and it makes you Weak]. (Which also informs the hostage deal Karim sets up later, because he knows Amaya as well as he knows Janai, which is basically not at all, anymore.) And adds another layer to Karim's statement that dark magic (evil) is tethered to weakness/powerlessness, and being driven to it was what led to their expulsion.

Which ties together Karim's second statement, that what Viren (who was the biggest believer in "weak choices" equalling "bad choices" in 1x06) wanted in terms of humans returning to Xadia has begun to happen, just due to the movement that opposed him and not by his own means.

So weakness led to dark magic - the expulsion of the humans in the past and the corruption of the sun forge in the more recent premise and then wrapped back around to reunification. (Looking meaningfully at Aaravos rn -- after all, what is Darkness/dark magic if not the absence of Light - Aaravos - and primal magic?)

[amalthea-fictions]

Hi there! I'm Amalthea and I like to write! Feel free to make a request!

WORKS

🔥 Kyojuro Rengoku X Reader [KNY] 🔥

Fractured Sunlight [Aftermath of Mugen Train]

Kankagari [Pregnancy]

Red Light District Under Cover [Request]

🍃Suzukaze X Kamui [Fire Emblem Fates] 🍃

Snow [Fluff]

Taking a Hit for the Other Person [Angst to Fluff]

Kamui's Kimono [Fluffy Drabble]

Fruit Salad [Fluff, only on A03]

An Important Question [Marriage Proposal, only on A03]

Epilogue [Angst to Fluff, only on A03]

Camilla [She Reacts to Kaze X Corrin, only on A03]

As King and Queen of Valla [only on A03]

🌌 Shepard X Garrus [ME] 🌌

Commander Shepard's Nickname [AKA Trolling James Vega]

Alternate Shakarian Reunion [ME2]

🐉 Charlie Weasley X Reader/Jacob’s Sibling [HPHM] 🐉

Small Moments [Fluffy Drabble]

Quidditch Rescue [Exactly what the title says LOL]

Charlie Learns You Can Speak to Dragons [Request]

Charlie Hurt to Comfort [Request]

Charlie Gushes About You [Fluffy Drabble]

🦅 Talbott Winger X Reader/Jacob's Sibling [HPHM] 🦅

Talbott's Surprise [Request]

Love Potion Mishap [Request]

🐍Sebastian Sallow X Reader/MC [HPHL]🐍

Don’t Mess with MC [Seb vs. Beasts Class Bully]

💫Aaravos X Reader [TDP] 💫

General HCs [Request]

Stuck in Mirror with Artsy Reader [Request]

Platonic: Aaravos being a big bro to a young reader [Request]

[nerdyenby]

I’m sure plenty of people have thought about it but I haven’t seen anyone dissect it so let’s talk about

Soren and Claudia as a reflection of Zuko and Azula

Obviously there’s the whole “kids of the big bad, son gets redeemed, daughter falls further into evil” thing but you can go so much deeper with it.

The Azula/Claudia parallels are pretty overt: villain’s prodigy daughter bases her whole identity around being good at what her father wanted her to be and becomes so desperate for approval she becomes functionally irredeemable (withholding the acknowledgment that she is a victim of manipulation and emotional abuse).

But we get to see in tdp what we never got in atla: the fall.

Azula was conniving and ready to do anything for her father’s approval long before we met her, and similar is true for Claudia, but we get to see a window into who Claudia could have been. We see her have friends and passions and interests and doubts. We see her looking for the best in people and believing what she’s doing is right. We see Claudia wrestle with the morality of her actions. We see her crossing the line and knowing it. We see her losing herself in desperation to get back a life long gone. We see her acknowledge that she has done unforgivable things and hating herself for her willingness to do them.

Claudia is Azula’s arc in reverse. Instead of getting this terrifying, perfect warrior fall apart at the seams when losing control, we get a girl who knows there is a line treading closer and closer until she’s crossed it so many times she doesn’t bother going back any more. We watch Azula’s prefect image fracture and break, we see Claudia collecting her broken pieces, reconstructing herself into something unrecognizable. We watch Azula’s fall from grace, we see Claudia’s rise to power.

Soren and Zuko’s parallels are almost more interesting to me, because they’re a bit more subtle. They are not each other, you could not slot them into each other’s stories like you could with their sisters. They are distinct but that’s what makes them such interesting foils.

Zuko’s arc is of him breaking out of who he was “supposed” to be and finding who he wants to be. Soren’s isn’t. He’s an adult, he’s already decided magic wasn’t for him. He knew he didn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps, but he still wanted to make him proud. Soren is a warrior but he doesn’t try to be anyone he’s not, he’s a fierce fighter but he’s also an absolute goofball. He’s not the smartest, but he enjoys exploring new ideas and he wants to make people happy, he knows who he is. Zuko, however, is heartbreakingly clueless to what kind of person he is outside of his father’s orders.

Soren has a more defined personality from the get-go, but Zuko has to figure himself out on how own starting halfway through the series. Zuko’s life had been governed by a desperation to earn his father’s love and years of rage, he never got the chance to explore himself beyond this until season three. Soren, on the other hand, knows himself, but has his identity challenged and chipped away at. He is a crown guard, a protector, but he finds himself causing more harm than good. He’s loyal, he wants to fight to make the world a better place, but when he becomes paralyzed he knows that this is better — that he doesn’t want to hurt anyone and that he doesn’t trust his orders to not lead him astray. He wants to do the right thing and make people happy, but standing up for what’s right breaks his sister’s heart and pushes her over the edge. He is determined to help make a better future, one of peace and forgiveness, but that means protecting the king, even against his own father. Soren believes goodwill and faith are the key to a better world, but he can no longer trust Claudia, his sister and closest friend. He believes in letting go of the hurt of the past, but he’s mourned his father twice and he’s still alive.

Soren is a good man who wants to do the right thing, but every step of the way is a personal challenge. While Zuko is struggling to find himself and who he wants to become, Soren is fighting not to lose the best parts of himself when his identity is constantly being challenged.

Zuko’s banishment is a key part of his story, he was thrown out, forcefully separated from his family and forced to find himself on his own while his father’s shadow loomed over him. Soren, however, had been his father’s right hand in a way. He was right there, watching his father and sister slip further and further into dark magic that gradually eclipsed who they once were. He was by Claudia’s side as she did increasingly horrible things to satisfy their father, he watched as she slowly became someone he didn’t recognize anymore. Soren himself was ordered to kill for his father and almost went through with it. Zuko was never asked to do anything like that, probably because Ozai didn’t think Zuko would be willing or able to go through with it, but Viren believed in Soren. He wanted his son by his side, and for most of his life that’s what Soren wanted, too. Viren’s a messed up dude but, in his own messed up ways, he did care for Soren.

That’s part of what makes these families such good foils: that there was love there. Viren loves his kids in a possessive and controlling way, but he does want them safe and close; Ozai only ever wanted his kids to be useful. Claudia loved her brother, and Soren continues to love her.

Zuko and Azula have resented each other for most of their lives. There is sadness there, a sense of loss of what they could’ve had, but they never got to have a proper relationship. We get to watch Claudia and Soren fall apart, while we only ever got to see Zuko and Azula hate and pity each other. That is what hurts.

Look at their goodbye in season three, look at their reunion in season four, look at how they care for each other and how terrified they are of what’s happening before them. Now imagine Zuko and Azula in their place.

That is how you do good foils.

[beautifulterriblequeen]

If your Runaan is King theory is true, do you think there might be any parallels between Runaan and Lain friendship and Harrow and Viren friendship (before Viren was taken over by dark magic)? And if Harrow died before he and Viren drew apart, would he have asked Viren to take care of his kids (same way Lain did with Runaan)?

Oh man, this is such a fun question! Gosh gosh gosh. I think there should be parallels there, yes! Lain is Runaan’s BFF, and Viren was Harrow’s. Like, that parallel is already there. The BFFs have/had a wife, and the leaders have had spouses too. There’s a group of four for each of them, two couples, with these pairs of men as the closest friends. 

Both sets of relationships are complicated, and though we know a bunch of the issues Viren and Harrow have dealt with, we really don’t know much about Lain and Runaan’s friendship or how it’s affected their friend group and marriages, aside from two things: Lain got Ruthari together by encouraging Runaan to tell Ethari how he felt, and Laindrin trusted Ruthari with Rayla’s upbringing. That’s kind of all we got so far.

But I would love to see a handful more really key mirrors and parallels in place. Some things that are the same, and some that are different. That’s really how this show’s characterization works, so I’m practically expecting it.

Viren and Lissa divorced because Viren was creeping her out with his dark magic, apparently. Lain and Tiadrin are still together, and they fight as a dedicated battle couple. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t face some kind of crisis moment too, where maybe Lain had a hard choice to make and Tiadrin decided to support him instead of pull away--or maybe Tiadrin was the one making the choice. 

Maybe it involved having Rayla? Or joining the Dragonguard? If Lain was the one invited, and he really wanted to go, Tiadrin would have to choose between staying with Rayla or staying with Lain. That’s a big echo of Claudia’s “Don’t make me choose!” right there, so maybe there’s something to that? (I have an angsty hc that Runaan, as the assassin leader, sent them both to the Storm Spire for many reasons. If one of them was to prevent Tiadrin having to choose, and if he chose to suffer the loss of both so they could remain together, gosh...) If they struggled with a decision and then left together, then Runaan and Ethari would have to support their friends’ departure while trusting that they’d be stronger together. Oh man, the feels.

Harrow and Viren are both men who will do things on their own if they must. We saw Sarai as more of a “I can go with you or leave you to your folly but clearly you need my help” kind of person when it came to the Magma Titan mission. And iirc there’s a tweet out there saying that Tiadrin and Sarai would be great friends if they met under peaceful circumstances. 

So maybe Tiadrin, with her tactical mind, has the same approach as Sarai, and Lain is more of a “Dude, bro, dude, let’s just do the thing, bro my dude my guy, I gotchu.” He’s very supportive, but that can also become enabling if it goes a little too far, so maybe Lain has gotten Runaan into some tight spots, or at least not talked him out of said spots, over the course of their friendship? And it was Tiadrin who saved their butts, which she does not let them forget. I can see Sarai teasing her boys about their follies and her needing to save the day, too, gosh I love that.

We don’t know what kind of societal role Lissa had. I’ve been assuming she didn’t fight like Sarai did, but I could be super wrong on that. If she isn’t a combatant, then she actually kinda parallels Ethari. Three fighters and someone who doesn’t fight, but with the pairings are swapped. That just adds more possibility to the paralleling options, though. 

And I’m wondering, maybe Runaan and Ethari had a moment like Lissa and Viren, where Ethari might’ve had to choose whether to stay with this stabby idiot after he saw something very unpleasant. Perhaps it was Runaan getting his scars? Viren sacrificed someone (presumably) to save Soren’s life. Perhaps Runaan nearly sacrificed his own on a mission. There’s a really dark parallel with these two about how little they value life--extra ironic and complicated for Runaan as a Moonshadow--and I can totally see a big scary moment happening where their spouses realize exactly how different their loved one’s philosophy is from their own. Except that Ethari stayed and Lissa left. and now Runaan has gone but Viren remains, aaaaa

I wonder how the other couples might’ve played out, there. When Viren and Lissa split, how did Harrow and Sarai handle it? What did Harrow try to do for his friend? Did they try to reconcile the couple? Probably. That could’ve felt like political pressure to Lissa. And I wonder if Harrow even knew what Viren had done to save Soren’s life, that he killed someone. I bet Viren wouldn’t tell him that part. Maybe he even lied, because his need to be Harrow’s friend, to be close to power and allowed to practice his magic, was so strong.

Lain and Tiadrin would’ve tried to talk to Runaan and Ethari too, I’m sure. They’re both assassins, just like Runaan, so they’d see his side, and Ethari might’ve felt very pressured as well, to just submit and go along. Not just as a freaked out spouse, but as the craftsman who made weapons for the assassin leader and for others, keeping them safe. If he left... who would keep Runaan safe? That’s kinda sus, bro. But I can see the Moonshadow logic in it.

Viren has attached himself to Harrow as friend and protector, and he’s dedicated years of his life to helping Harrow protect their people. Possibly Lain had the same motivation? “This guy’s important, so I wanna be his friend and help him out with that.” That’s not a bad thing at all. Viren’s motives were a little tainted by dark magic. Maybe Lain’s a stand-up guy. But maybe he also has some kind of self-interest involved in being Runaan’s best friend, too. Moonshadows be complicated.

tl;dr: Yes anon I am very here for an interwoven, complicated friendship between Lain and Runaan that involves spouses and plenty of good and bad history, similar to the long and complex relationship between Harrow and Viren. I am jonesing for more moonfam backstory so bad.

As to your other question, I do think that Harrow would’ve wanted to entrust his children to Viren before he and the dark mage drew apart. The question that arises for me is: when did that begin? 

I think it began with Sarai’s death. Harrow had his own plan, but he trusted Viren and did it his way, and he lost his wife in the process. Fifty thousand lives is a lot more than one life. But that one life was the most precious one to Harrow, and it made the sacrifice personal in a way that losing fifty thousand citizens never would be. 

Harrow might still have given his kids to Viren. But Amaya was also a choice. The general or the mage? Neither are super safe for a childhood environment.

Interestingly, in this parallel, Amaya is a lot more like Runaan: the fighter, who would’ve trained Callum and Ezran to fight because they grew up in such a dangerous environment. I wonder if there was another option for Laindrin to give Rayla to, one that was more magical, or more dubious? Lujanne comes to mind! Hah, can you imagine? Crikey!

I think that if Harrow and Sarai needed to give their boys to someone, Sarai would advocate for Amaya and win: “With troops like Gren and Corvus and the whole Standing Battalion to protect and raise them, there’s no safer place in all of Katolis!” It sounds like something Tiadrin would say about leaving Rayla with Runaan and Ethari, amidst the assassin corps. It’s not ideal by miles, but I can see why she, as a warrior herself, would see safety and a like-minded community as the strongest benefits.

If it was only Harrow, after Sarai died, it might still be Amaya, because his trust in Viren had begun to fracture, but it’s hard to say. I get the feeling that Harrow has never really seen Viren as dad material, even though he has kids. That hug thing in the S1 novelization was really weird, and I will never unsee Viren saying “familial clasp.” Viren, why are you like this. Anyway, Harrow might just decide that leaving his kids with a guy who literally doesn’t know what a hug is, might not be the best move for their emotional development.

He’s a good dad, an angry widower, an iffy king, a great jokester, a loving husband, and a loyal friend. He’s as complicated as Runaan is, kings or no. But I hope that he and Viren had many years of true friendship, just like I suspect Runaan and Lain have had. Positive, healthy relationships are good for everyone.

Please though, TDP, moonfam friendship stuff. This parallel is begging to happen and things don’t feel balanced without it. What’s that, there’s not enough time? 

*magically sprinkles five extra minutes onto each episode* Reality schmeality.

[creacherkeeper]

here until i’m nothing 

tdp post s3. soren and amaya go back for claudia. 7k 

-

Claudia decided she would never speak again. 

It was one of those decisions that came in a flash of understanding and insight—you weren’t even thinking of it before the reality hit you all at once. It was the perfect solution, Claudia decided, sitting in the damp and dark cave all by her lonesome, to a problem she didn’t know she had. Dark magic had gotten her into this mess. That hit her all of a sudden as she sat there, her back against the awkward cave wall, no longer feeling the cold (she could no longer feel her hunger, either, which was a problem for a different day—the kind of problem that built and built until it wasn’t a problem at all).

Dark magic. That’s where everything had gone wrong. 

She had wondered as a child if it was their family’s dark magic that had driven her mother away. Mothers liked little girls in dresses, girls who played princesses and who would squirm at the things that Claudia delighted in. Claudia got muddy and messy and squished bugs. She did spells just to turn her eyes black—all the better to scare Soren with. Claudia was loud, curious, and grim. She’d spent sleepless nights wondering if that had been the driving point, had wondered if her mother had a different family, a better one, wherever she was now. 

Her eyes drifted to the still form a ways from her in the cave. 

The form was crinkled and bruised and didn’t look much like a person at all—much less like her father. His organs had given out, that’s what did him in the second time. They didn’t cope with being brought back and they just gave up. Nothing to be done. In his last breaths he’d spat at her that she hadn’t done it right, hadn’t done enough, had brought him back for nothing—did you bring me back just to suffer? 

Maybe, she thought. Maybe I did.

Claudia no longer thought her mother left because of her. 

Mothers liked little princesses in dresses, yes, but they also, as far as Claudia knew, liked fathers who laughed, fathers who cared, fathers who smiled every once in a while and not just at their own successes. Daughters, she also knew, liked fathers who said sorry and meant it, but Claudia had never asked for that. She’d never asked so much of him, though he spent every waking moment asking more and more and more of her.

Nausea swirled in her stomach. It wasn’t a threat--there was nothing but acid in there anyway. 

Claudia realized, with a heavy sort of dread sitting on her chest, that she was going to miss her father terribly. 

But, right … Dark magic. That’s where the problem lay. It had turned her father into a man who could get anything for a price. He’d turned into a man who was willing to pay any price for the things that he wanted. Others would say he was hungry for power; Claudia thought he was hungry for satisfaction. He liked knowing he could get what he wanted, that his desires would be fulfilled, that others would bend to his will to see his goals through. He didn’t like being told no. It wasn’t the power she thought he wanted: it was the comfort that power gave him. Underneath it all, Claudia wondered if her father was just scared. 

Guess I’ll never get the chance to ask him.

Not that she would have. Not that he would’ve hesitated to punish her if she had. 

Not that he’d ever admit if he was.

She’d been staring so long that black spots had started to swirl her vision. She blinked, languid and slow, but they didn’t go away. She wondered if this was a price for her spell—for the ultimate spell, to bring back life—but she knew, some subconscious part of her, that she was hungry, thirsty, and oh so tired. Had she slept? She didn’t think so, but she couldn’t remember. She was worried that if she fell asleep, she wouldn’t wake back up.

Maybe that would be for the best, she thought. Maybe then I’d stop messing things up.

If she had tears, she might have cried about it. But she could hear in her father’s voice what a waste that would be. That was precious liquid, and, more than anything, crying wasn’t useful. If you wanted something, you used your wits, you used persuasion and perseverance. You didn’t cry about it. 

Why did I bring him back? 

She went to look at him again, and it was only after a sad few seconds that she realized her eyes were closed. She wasn’t sure when that had happened. Did she fall asleep? 

Her head tilted back against the cave wall, eyes still fastened shut. 

Because I love him, she thought sadly. She hoped, wished, prayed, that in his own way he had loved her too. She’d thought he did, before. But how much of it was just another of his ploys, she didn’t know. She would have bent Xadia in half to know he meant it. 

Her ears twitched. She swore she could hear that bug writhing around in its cocoon. 

Maybe she had brought him back to suffer—some unconscious part of her that wanted him to feel how she felt in that moment: terrified, aching, and lonely. Soren had already left, just like their mother, and Claudia had wanted nothing except not to be alone. She didn’t think she was that cruel, that vengeful … but the seed had been planted in her head and only wished to worry at her. It scratched like an itch at the back of her skull—your fault your fault your fault—and Claudia was too tired to fight with it. It had been her fault. All of it, the whole thing. It was because she used dark magic, she’d decided. 

Which brought her back to her original point. Dark magic required a verbal component, which meant if she just didn’t speak … well then, she couldn’t cast spells, could she? 

(she couldn’t do damage she couldn’t drive people away your fault your fault)

Maybe it was taking things to an extreme, but she was in an extreme situation. There was a war and they lost. They paid the price in destruction and death. Her father paid the price for her failures. 

(She paid the price with a family fractured to the marrow.) 

She would never do magic again. She wouldn’t even give herself the chance. 

She’d never done a spell that big before. What if the magic had seeped down into her—into her pores, into her blood, right down to the bone—and the next time she opened her mouth, it was dark magic that came out? What would stop it from taking right over? She heard scary stories of mages gone wrong, of spells gone sideways, when the magic took over until the person was just a vessel for whatever chaos it wished to unleash. It was called dark magic for a reason. Her father never assuaged her fears, never told her they were just stories to scare children straight. He said instead: it won’t get you if you’re strong. It won’t get you if you’re careful. You have to be better than them, Claudia, you have to be better. 

Claudia wondered if, in the end, she would be better. It was safer to never find out. 

The decision came to her with a flood of relief. She’d never get into another fight, would never say sorry (would she laugh? she hadn’t decided), she’d never say something she regretted that she ached and groaned over later. If she didn’t talk, all the less chance for her to muck things up. It would be better for everyone, really. Safer. 

Claudia thought, dully, that it might not matter anyway. She hadn’t even tried to leave the cave. Her father had wasted away, cursing all the while, and she … sat. She stared. She watched the last breath pass his lips, two days ago now, and still she sat and still she stared. 

A sigh drew in and out her nose. She really should get up. But the part of her that cared about self-preservation had withered with her hunger. Now, she was mostly tired. She wished for and feared sleep all the same. 

Her ear twitched.

Footsteps. 

At least, she thought they were footsteps. There was something like boots, something like clinking armor. She couldn’t be bothered to open her eyes and check. She was pretty sure hallucinations set in after a few days without water, and if it wasn’t, if the sounds were real … well, any soldier would just do away with her after seeing what she’d done. Better keep her eyes closed. She didn’t want the last thing she saw to be the glare of a sword. 

(The sounds reminded her of Soren’s heavy boots and Soren’s clinking armor, and that was almost enough to do her in by itself.) 

The footsteps stopped not far from her. 

Not the scariest hallucination to have, she thought. 

A sound like sliding clothing. 

Fingers touched her neck. 

Claudia jumped, and the hand pulled away. Blearily, she opened her eyes, and her vision came into focus too slow with a black haze around the edges. 

It didn’t make much sense for a hallucination. She was expecting her father, perhaps Soren, even her mother. A soldier with the head of that bug would have been more expected. But it was General Amaya’s face that her eyes finally focused on, a smile slowly spreading across the woman’s lips.

On reflex, Claudia almost spoke. She’d always been inquisitive, and a question had almost passed through her open mouth before she caught herself and held it back. She let her lips close, swallowing through a burning throat. Amaya’s gloveless hand came up, finding her jaw and moving Claudia’s head back and forth.

It felt … very real. She supposed that was the way with hallucinations, you didn’t know they were fake until you knew, but … The fingers against her jaw were warm and solid, calluses on each tip. Maybe this was her own dark magic playing a trick on her, or maybe … 

Her hand rose, shaking fingers closing around Amaya’s wrist. There was warm skin and the jut of bone under her fingers. 

As Amaya’s eyes trailed to the new streaks of white in her hair, the smile on her lips faltered. Her other hand rose to point at Claudia, then sign O-K, O-K? 

Was she? She supposed the honest answer to that was a resounding “no”, but that would only lead to more questions. On the other hand, if she nodded yes, her very first action after her resolution was to tell a lie. She wouldn’t be using her voice to do it, but … it counted, didn’t it? It had to. 

She didn’t realize her eyes had trailed away until fingers tapped her cheek. She looked back to Amaya, who was watching her with concern now evident on her face. 

She swallowed. Her throat protested the motion. 

Amaya’s eyebrows raised further to emphasize the question, and it took all Claudia’s effort to lift her shoulders in a shrug. 

“Okay,” Amaya signed. “Can you walk?” 

Another shrug. 

Amaya nodded, her face pinching in sympathy. She removed her wrist from Claudia’s grip, grabbed her sword, and smashed the pommel down on the cave floor. 

The sound echoed across the walls. 

More footsteps. 

“Did you find something?” 

The voice came from the mouth of the cave. It was worried and familiar, and it hit like a punch to Claudia’s chest. 

No use for tears, she heard in her father’s voice. Just a waste of liquid. 

Still, tears came.

It was dark in the cave—probably dusk outside, though Claudia had lost track of the sun a while ago—but the form was unmistakable as it made its way closer. Even with her blurry, tired eyes, even in the dark, Claudia would recognize that armor anywhere. She knew the sound of his footsteps (had memorized them as a child—she knew the footfalls of each member of her family, of the King, of Callum and Ezran) and could feel her heart beating in time. There was no one it could be but him. 

He’d actually come back for her. 

She couldn’t even see as he approached, flooded as her eyes were. Her heart, previously a weak staccato, was hammering in her ears. Suddenly, she was terrified this was a hallucination, or a dream, or a vision—she was terrified the world was going to take Soren from her again.

Amaya’s hands moved as she signed. Most of it was lost to Claudia, but she caught the point towards the body on the floor and the hands flipping over. 

Dead. 

Soren nudged the body with his foot. 

“Yeah,” he rasped. “Yeah, looks like.” 

Claudia raised her arm to wipe at her eyes, missing what Amaya said after. She sniffled and blinked away the last of the tears, finally able to see him clearly. 

Soren looked down at her, a worried smile set into his face. He looked on the edge of tears himself—smile wavering and pink around the eyes. 

“Hey, Clauds,” he said. His hand reached out. “Ready to go home?” 

 This time, Claudia knew she’d fallen asleep. 

She’d been having a nightmare. It hadn’t been coherent, really. She was in a desert, dying of thirst. She was in a great dining hall, the main dining hall of the royal family of Katolis, and she was starving; when she’d pulled the lid off the serving tray, it was her father’s head looking back at her. She was up in the sky, fighting to get back to the ground, each star burning and stinging at her. She was in a cocoon, trapped. 

Trapped. 

She woke with a start, expecting the dark, damp cave. But as she came to, her heart already hammering, she realized that wasn’t where she was. There was a horse beneath her and two armor-clad arms to her either side. 

Soldiers? Claudia didn’t remember being captured, but her head was so heavy and fuzzy that she could barely think straight. Maybe they’d taken her while she was sleeping. Who knows what they would do to her. She had to get back to the cave—her father would be waiting for her there—he needed her if he was going to get stronger—he couldn’t take care of himself like he was. If she left him alone, who could say what would befall him. (She didn’t trust that bug. She didn’t trust it one bit. Claudia had squashed scarier and less suspicious things, and she wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.) 

Claudia jumped from the horse. 

There was a shout as she toppled to the ground, her legs immediately giving out on her. Her knees ached from the impact, and tears sprang to her eyes. Run. She had to run. Get up get up. 

Claudia stood as the horse stuttered to a stop behind her. She didn’t think she would make it far, her legs felt like jelly and her stomach was so hollow, but she had to try. What would her father say if she didn’t try? 

She started to run. 

Her legs buckled. 

She fell. 

She hit the ground with what should have been a sound, hard as the impact was. Claudia realized she couldn’t hear, there was a ringing in her ears and the deep thrum of her heartbeat. She pulled in a gasping breath, and the sound returned. It was her own crying that she heard. 

“Claudia, hey, stop!” 

Suddenly, rough gloves against her arms. She tried to pull away, but the grip was far stronger than whatever fight she could muster. 

“Claudia, Clauds, look at me.” 

She gasped another breath, her arms burning where the gloves touched her. Some distant part of her whispered that she wasn’t in danger, that she just needed to pay attention, but panic had made a fearful animal of her. She tried to yank her arms away, tears hot against her cheeks. 

“Claudia, please.” 

A hand brushed the hair out of her face. Her lips pulled in a snarl, and part of her had the mind to bite. But the touch was so careful that it gave her pause. It broke through the trance for just a moment. 

She looked up. She blinked away the tears. 

Soren. 

Right. 

Right. 

He’d come back for her. 

Everything came flooding back in a rush of memory and dread. 

Her father was dead. She’d almost wasted away in that cave all on her lonesome, waiting for … something. She didn’t know what. She’d almost died there, just sitting in the cold with a corpse, a testament to her failures. She wasn’t speaking anymore, either. She’d sworn off it—had sworn off dark magic. 

“You with me?” Soren asked. 

She blinked, her eyes focusing on him again. Behind him was Amaya, concern etched into her face. Surrounding them was the quiet, star-lit night. 

She nodded. 

“Okay.” His hands dropped from her arms and pulled back hesitantly. He watched her. “This was part of your secret plan to give me a heart attack, right?” 

She thought it was a joke. One of her shaking fingers rose to tap her nose. 

Soren smiled. “I always knew it would come to this.”

Behind him, Amaya’s hands began to move. Through her teary eyes it was hard to catch, but Claudia understood the question the second time it was spelled for her. 

“Nightmare?” 

She swallowed. The answer was yes, but to what degree, Claudia didn’t know. She didn’t know if it was possible to sleep within sleep; maybe she’d wake up again and find this whole thing had been one terrible dream—she’d wake up in the castle and have breakfast with her family, she’d read her books and spend time with the princes and everything would just be normal. 

Claudia knew with a sunken heart that things would never be normal again. 

Amaya’s face pinched. She’d always been good at reading people. Her hand lowered and found the waterskin at her hip, detached it, and held it out. Claudia took it with shaking hands. She took a small sip at first, just to test; they’d given her water when they found her, but it hadn’t been enough to sate her thirst. The water was so cold and crisp on her tongue, it felt like coming alive again. 

Well. She didn’t know what that felt like, exactly. She’d seen it, though. 

She took another sip, then another. She tipped the waterskin back and squeezed. The water cascaded into her mouth as she took hungered gulps, only serving to feed the tears that still cut lines through her dusty face. It wasn’t enough. She was so thirsty. Claudia wondered if there would ever come a day where she wouldn’t be. 

The waterskin was yanked away. Claudia glared as Amaya pulled it away, her scolding signs quick and decisive. 

“Not too much. You’re going to get sick.”

I don’t care, Claudia thought. I’m just so thirsty. 

“Come on, Clauds,” Soren said, the smile now wiped from his face. “We’re almost there. Then you can rest.” 

Claudia sniffled and nodded, wiping away tears with her wrist. She let herself be helped to her feet, then onto the horse, and Soren was right, their camp wasn’t too much further. They came to it within the hour, just as the moon was making its home at the top of the sky. There was a fire pit with logs around it, as well as a tent pitched against a tree with supplies tucked safely beneath. 

It felt wrong. She couldn’t explain it. She was safe here, she was going home, but … some weird, twisted thorn in her heart longed for her cold and quiet little cave, where she didn’t have to worry about anyone or anything except finding her next breath. She’d scared Soren. Already she was causing problems. At least there, there was no one else for her to hurt. 

And … she missed her dad. She thought that she wasn’t supposed to, that he was bad man who had done bad things—had taken advantage of her and her magic and her love—but … she missed him. Maybe one day she wouldn’t, but now, it ate at her heart like poison. 

They just left him there. They just left him in that cave to rot.

“Home sweet home,” Soren said, helping her off the horse. “Home sweet … quickly thrown together campsite? Whatever, it’s … it’s something. Somewhere to rest.” 

Claudia held her feet under her for long enough to make it to a log. She sat down on it, her legs already shaking. 

Amaya dismounted and approached with the waterskin again. 

“Slow,” she said, really dragging the sign out. “Okay?” 

Claudia nodded. 

This time, her sips were slow and careful. Her frantic gulps earlier had quickly been regretted—the water twisted her stomach with nausea, and even still, she felt queasy. She wanted her hot brown morning potion. That always made her feel better, even when she felt so terrible after a spell like this. 

She took one final sip, then handed the waterskin back. Amaya nodded gratefully and reattached it to her belt. She was crouched before Claudia, watching her with careful eyes. 

“You need to eat,” she signed. 

Before her hands were even done with the motions, Claudia was shaking her head. 

Amaya’s brows furrowed, then raised in a question. “When was the last time you ate?” 

Claudia’s hand rose to wave over her shoulder. 

“That’s not an answer.” 

The truth was, Claudia didn’t know. It had been before the battle started, she was pretty sure. She’d just been so caught up in everything. But she didn’t know how long ago the battle was … the days in the cave had blurred together, her anguished spell making everything warp and fuzz. 

Before, Claudia signed again. 

The thing was, General Amaya was a blunt instrument. You could point her at a problem with the comfort that she would ram her way right through it and that she was too stubborn to give up until she was done. The other thing was, Claudia realized, that direction had never been her before. 

“You’re eating,” Amaya signed bluntly. She didn’t wait for a response, just moved to the sack with their rations in it. 

Soren watched on nervously. 

Soon, Amaya found what she was looking for. She ripped the roll of bread in half, slapped a slice of what looked like cured ham between it, and sandwiched the two pieces together. She approached again, holding the slapdash sandwich out for the taking. 

Stinging saliva filled Claudia’s mouth. Her stomach protested even the sight of it—groaning and twisting in her gut. 

She shook her head again. 

Amaya sighed through her nose, the sound almost silent. She bent her legs under her and sat on the ground in front of Claudia, and still, the sandwich was held between them. With one hand she signed, “One bite. I can wait.” 

The general did a good job of shielding her expression. The mask was patience and determination, but underneath … Claudia could see worry bleeding through the cracks. Amaya was a hardened soldier, had seen worse things than Claudia could imagine … but she was also Aunt Amaya. She’d watched them grow up. They were like family. 

And here Claudia was, making her worry. Another way she was failing them. 

Her hands reached out. 

She already knew it was a bad idea before she brought the food to her lips, she knew this was going to go very poorly, very quickly, but still, she ripped a chunk of bread and meat off with her teeth (a small chunk, admittedly), chewed, and swallowed. 

The two of them regarded each other. 

Amaya had deft hands. She had a ribbon in Claudia’s hair, tying everything back, before Claudia even knew she’d need it. But she did. Oh boy, she definitely did. The solitary bite had settled in her stomach for only moments before making its way back up.

Claudia dashed away from the camp with a sudden burst of strength and urgency—she leaned against a tree, made a grab at her now-tied hair, and didn’t try to fight it. 

Hands replaced her own around her hair, catching a few stray strands that threatened to fall in front of her face. Another settled on her back, rubbing up and down. 

“You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?” Soren asked. 

The hand on her back left, then resettled a moment later. 

It took Claudia a few moments to catch her breath as she coughed. Her throat burned. It felt like she’d swallowed magma, or maybe something minty, or rotten, or …? Whatever it was, it hurt. But was also …

Suddenly, she realized what had happened. The same thing had happened before, only once, after she healed Soren. It had been the same sensation—burning, tingling, stinging. 

“So that doesn’t look … great,” Soren supplied helpfully from behind her. 

Claudia was almost too afraid to open her eyes, but she did, blinking tears away from them. 

Yeah. 

That’s what she thought. 

It was the same charred, black ooze as before, something like the remnants the dark magic had left in her. She wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but if it turned out the mass of it was the damaged lining of her insides … well, you wouldn’t have to mark her down as surprised. Her body was worn and frayed. You could see it in the white stain of her hair, but she could feel it inside her. Dark magic was killing her, bit by bit. 

Part of her said, might as well. The other, stronger part said, it’s not going to take me like it took my father. 

She did feel better now, though. That was something. Whatever that thing was, she was glad not to have it in her body anymore. 

Huh …

If the weird tingly was magic … spent, used-up magic, but still magic … she wondered if someone could have done dark magic with her—used the magic within her like she used the magic of so many other creatures.

The thought made her laugh. It was a sad, desperate sort of laugh, but it was laughter all the same. The hands on her hair transferred to her arms, keeping her upright as she almost doubled over with the force of it. 

“Okay,” Soren said, sounding thoroughly weirded-out. “Let’s, uh … let’s sit you down, yeah?”

The two of them helped Claudia back to the camp and sat her on the log again, and after a minute, Claudia settled. Now that the laughter had stopped, Claudia’s body shivered and shook. As Amaya fussed around the camp, pitching a tent and rolling out the sleeping mats and blankets, starting a fire and securing all their supplies, Soren sat next to her. His arm was around her shoulders, just holding her to him. 

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Soren said, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself. “We’re going to go home, and then …” He paused. The fire crawled into life and began to flicker, starting to crack in the air. He sighed. “We’re going home.” 

Claudia didn’t respond. Even if she was speaking, she wouldn’t have anything to say. 

She tilted her head to rest on his shoulder, and closed her eyes. 

 Now that her eyes had adjusted to the dark, now that Soren was fast asleep, clad in soft pants and a short-sleeved shirt with his heavy armor cast to the side, Claudia could see the toll the battle had taken on him. 

Bruises lined his arms—deep purple covering various nicks and scratches, some already beginning mottle green and yellow. A cut tore from his bicep to just above his elbow. There was a burn on the inside of his wrist that Claudia thought with dawning horror was from one of her own spells. And besides that, bags hung under his eyes, dark even in sleep, that she hadn’t seen the likes of since he first started his Crown Guard training. 

Her side did that. Her father’s army did that. She did. 

To her brother. His son. Their friend. 

The rest of the sandwich sat like lead in Claudia’s stomach. 

She remembered holding the staff with the corrupted light high above her head, pulling magic for the spell and letting it loose on the opposing army. People had fallen. A lot of people. She hadn’t seen them get back up, but she hadn’t been worried about that at the time; they were the enemy, even Soren standing behind the front lines, even General Amaya, Callum, Ezran—they were the enemy. What she was doing was right. That’s what her father told her. 

She could comfort herself and say her father had brainwashed her, that he used his wits and her love and his magic to win her to his side, that she had no fault in any of this, really, was just another victim. 

But that wasn’t true. 

Soren had seen the truth. Soren left. He wanted her to come, he wanted both of them to leave, together, but she said no. She stayed behind for him. 

How many lives had been lost because of her decision? How many people were left wounded and suffering because of her? 

What if Soren had died? 

What if she’d killed Amaya, or Callum, or Ezran? What if she came out the other side of the battle—dirty, exhausted, starving, but unscathed—and they just … weren’t there anymore? 

Everyone else was paying the price for Claudia’s mistakes. So easily, it could have gone worse. So easily, their father wouldn’t be the only person dead. What would she have done, if one of her friends had died by her hand? Her brother? 

Her next breath came as a shallow rasp.

Nothing but luck had stopped that future. And what had she done to deserve that luck? Why was she alive when so many soldiers—good soldiers, good people, parents, siblings, friends, people—were gone now? How many of them had been turned into beasts while her father spared her? 

He wanted to do that to Soren. He was going to do that to Soren and I still stayed. 

What had Claudia ever done to deserve her luck? 

I don’t. I don’t deserve to be okay, alive, I don’t deserve to go back home, they shouldn’t have come back for me, they shouldn’t still care, so many people are dead, I could have killed Soren, they came back for me and they shouldn’t have, I don’t deserve anything, I don’t- I should just-

She couldn’t catch her breath. She hadn’t said any of it out loud, but she was winded, gasping for air like she’d taken a blow to the back. Beside her, Soren slept, one arm around ribs she knew hadn’t yet healed. She tried to focus on the pattern of his breathing, on his soft snores, but her gasps were getting more desperate and her skin itched, her vision was focusing too hard, too narrow, and she had to get out, she had to- She needed air- She needed- 

Claudia bolted up and tore from the tent. 

It was still dark out, though dawn would come soon. The stars in the sky were just beginning to disappear. The fire was going, but burned low in the pit, just enough that it still flickered and warmed the air around it. Amaya was poking at it with a stick, still awake. Keeping watch, she’d said. Just in case. 

Her head turned as Claudia stood, the flap of the tent falling shut behind her. Amaya’s eyes studied her shaking form. They lingered on where Claudia’s arms were wrapped around herself, something like a hug, just trying to hold herself together, then on her cheeks, which Claudia only now realized were damp.

Amaya inched over on the log. She patted the space next to her. 

Claudia sat. 

Her heart thudded like a war drum and her skin jumped with untamed shivers. She could hear a ringing in her head, just like before, that wouldn’t seem to go away. She tried to pull in a breath, one good breath, but it came too quick and too shallow. 

Amaya’s arm came up to wrap around her shoulders, free hand rubbing up and down Claudia’s arm as the other held the stick that prodded the fire. Whether it was an attempt to warm her or comfort her, Claudia didn’t know, but she appreciated the embrace all the same. She leaned closer, her shivers beginning to lessen. 

They sat for a few minutes, watching the fire. She found her breathing after a while, timing it with the movement of Amaya’s hand up and down her arm. The fire crackled with energy, moving and twisting with its own sort of life. 

Claudia stared. 

She saw the sunfire queen, fallen. How many soldiers fallen? Civilians. 

Claudia led them there. She led them over the breach. 

She began to shake again. 

Amaya sat down her stick and turned to her, eyebrows pinching in concern. She waved her hand, but Claudia wouldn’t look at her, just stared into the fire with welling eyes and a harsh bite on her bottom lip. 

She didn’t deserve Amaya’s concern. She didn’t deserve for them to come back for her. 

She closed her eyes as the tears rolled down her face, arms wrapping around her middle. She felt hands on her, trying to pull her into a hug. She yanked herself away. Her feet carried her away from the fire as she hugged herself tighter. 

Once again, Claudia came to a decision. 

She turned around, eyes finding Amaya’s cautious gaze. 

Her hands shook as she signed. 

I - not - want - go back - home.

Amaya stared, eyebrows furrowed, looking … Claudia didn’t know. Reading people had never been a strong suit of hers, and now, she couldn’t place what was on Amaya’s face. If she had to put a name to it, it might be determination, but that didn’t feel right. Maybe stubbornness, maybe anger, maybe mourning. 

“We’re going home.” 

Claudia shook her head. 

I - not-- 

Her hands stilled. 

I - can’t-- 

Her fingers shook. 

I - can’t, she signed, chin trembling. Can’t - can’t - can’t - can’t - can’t-- 

Amaya held out her hands, motioning for her to stop. She stood, but didn’t approach. “Why?” 

Claudia wracked her brain for the sign, for her reason. I don’t deserve it, she thought. I can’t face that, I can’t face everyone again knowing I was on the wrong side, I can’t bear for them to take me back, I don’t deserve it, please. Please. 

Claudia raised a finger to point at herself. There was supposed to be something that followed, some explanation. Her finger hovered, aimed at her heart. 

Me. 

That was it. That was all she signed. 

“Where will you go?” Amaya asked. 

Claudia didn’t know the answer. Back to the cave, maybe, she thought. Just rot with my father. 

“You’ll leave him?” Amaya asked, her finger holding in its point at the tent, which muffled the gentle sound of Soren’s snoring. “What will you tell him?” 

Stop, Claudia signed. 

“He’s scared. He needs you. He needs his sister.” 

Stop! Claudia signed more forcefully, her hands hitting together. 

Amaya’s hands fell. She sighed. 

“Okay.” She held up her hands for a moment, as if in surrender. “I won’t stop you. Go say goodbye.” 

Claudia’s heart lurched. 

Because it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair the sign she had used—it wasn’t just goodbye, just a farewell. It was a sign she had taught them when they were little, one Claudia and Soren had used on silent nights hiding from their parents’ fighting. That’s why they had learned sign in the first place, to use on nights like that, when they were too afraid to speak in fear that their father would overhear and come after them next. Their hands were young and clumsy, nothing like Amaya’s deft speech, but that was a sign they had grafted onto. It was one that, all these years later, Claudia still remembered. 

It wasn’t just a goodbye. The hand was waving in a farewell, but the fingers said something different. 

I-L-Y 

I love you. 

Claudia sunk to the ground. 

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t leave him again, not again, she couldn’t choose … choose what? What was she choosing over her brother this time, what was she choosing except to tear the remnants of her family further apart? She didn’t want to go home, she didn’t deserve it, but Soren didn’t deserve for her to leave. Soren didn’t deserve to lose the last member of his family. Amaya was right, she couldn’t do that to him. They had to stick together. All they had left was each other. 

“Claudia?” came a sleepy mumble from inside the tent. 

Claudia wrapped her arms around her knees. 

“Claudia!” 

The tent flaps burst open, and Soren came spilling out, one arm around his ribs, hair rumpled. It took a moment for his eyes to find her on the ground, peering up at him, but as soon as they did, his shoulders dropped and relief washed over his face. 

“I thought you …” He swallowed. 

Her chin trembled from where it was hidden behind her knees. She shook her head. 

“Okay.” He nodded, hand coming up to scratch through the stubble on his chin. He took a shaky breath and wiped at his eyes. “Did you get any sleep?” 

She didn’t answer. She stared up at him, tears hanging on the edges of her eyelashes, and wondered how she’d even let him leave in the first place. 

Sorry, she signed. 

His brows furrowed. He made his way towards her and gingerly lowered himself to the ground. 

“What for?” 

Her hands trembled. Everything. 

He watched her. He nodded. “Me too.” 

You - not - need - sorry. I - sorry. 

“I’m sorry that …” He sighed something shaky and swallowed again. “I’m sorry I left. I shouldn’t have made you choose.” 

Tears dripped down Claudia’s cheeks. She shook her head. 

“No, I- I am, I … It wasn’t fair. I’m your big brother, I’m supposed to protect you, and … I failed. I left you with him, and I shouldn’t have.” 

Claudia shook her head. She wanted to comfort him, to assure him that it was her fault, not his, never his, but she didn’t have the words. She reached out with one shaking hand, and he took it in his own. She used it to pull herself closer, shuffling until she was by his side. She laid her head on his shoulder and wrapped one careful arm around his middle. Between them, their hands were clasped. 

“But now, we can just … We can move on, right?” Soren asked. He didn’t sound convinced, like maybe he was searching, desperately, for the answer. “We can move on because he’s not here anymore to … to yell at us, or manipulate us, or make us feel stupid … I never wanted to leave you, Claudia, you have to believe that. I just … I couldn’t stand to be around him anymore. He made me feel like nothing- He- I couldn’t stand who he was turning me into. Both of us.” 

Claudia nodded. She was staining his shirt with her tears, she was sure. 

A blanket dropped around their shoulders. Claudia looked up, startled, but Amaya only rested a hand on her hair for a moment before going back to tend the fire. 

Soren tilted so his cheek was resting on top of her head. He sighed. 

“I’m sorry I chose him.” 

This, Claudia knew, was not about before the battle, or before they left to find the princes. This was, Claudia realized, something that went far deeper. It was something older, something she hadn’t realized until now might be eating away at him. 

Mom, she signed. 

“Yeah.” 

When their mother was leaving, it wasn’t Claudia who chose, and it wasn’t Claudia who chose their father. She’d been told then not to choose between her parents, but to choose her brother. 

“You need each other,” her mother had said. “Stay with him.” 

If she’d been right about anything, she was right about that. 

She was right about that.

Claudia was choosing Soren. Right here, right now, she was choosing him. She wasn’t choosing herself, or her own future, she wasn’t choosing to go back home, or be with the princes, or anyone. 

Just Soren.  

Claudia raised her hand. 

I-L-Y 

“Yeah,” Soren said, shifting in a chuckle. “You too, Clauds.” 

They sat, looking out at the trees as the sun slowly rose over them, chasing away the stars and the darkened night. The fire dimmed and sputtered out. It was a new day, one they would face together. 

Amaya shuffled dirt over the fire and gathered their supplies. She folded the tent, packed their bags, and readied the horses. Finally, she came to crouch in front of them. 

“It’s a long journey. Are you ready to go home?” 

Amaya looked at her, and Soren did too, both waiting for her answer. Claudia was tired—her body ached, her lips were cracked from days without water; she missed sleep, real sleep, desperately. But the sun heralded a fresh start, had dawned on a new world where Claudia maybe, finally, cautiously, had things figured out. 

Going back to the castle was something Claudia didn’t know if she was ready for. She would have days, maybe weeks of travel to prepare, to work herself up to greet those stone walls and familiar faces. But home ... that was something different. And she realized, sitting there, her back to the dying fire and her head tilted towards the sun, her cheek pillowed on her brother’s shoulder and hand clasped in his … 

Home. She already was. She’d made up her mind—where Soren went, she would follow. 

Claudia nodded. 

[eirianerisdar]

Sins of the Father, Part 1

Summary: What if Claudia hadn’t managed to heal Soren and brought him back to the castle, still paralysed? Viren hears the news from the depths of his cell, and comes to terms with what he has done to his son.

More TDP fanfic! This will probably be a four or five-parter!

>In the end, they didn’t even have the decency to tell him in person.

Viren was sitting perfectly still, head tilted back against the grimy wall with his chains pooling around his wrists and ankles, when he heard it: the careless, too-loud whisper of a guard come to relieve the previous shift. Guards lined the corridor every five paces, Viren knew.

“Did you hear? His children have returned.”

Viren’s next inhale caught in his chest, and he very nearly tilted too far forward in his haste to catch the next words; his chains clinked softly against each other, and he held his breath for one long moment, fearful that the sound might alert the guards that he was listening.

For a moment, the two helmeted shadows slanted along the faint candlelight outside the bars of his darkened cell were still.

Then, the sound of spittle hitting stone. “Pah! Weren’t they sent out to seek the princes? What use was that? King Ezran was found and safely returned by General Amaya’s soldier yesterday.”

Viren ground his teeth. The guards had fairly flung that latter piece of information in his face a day previous as they slammed down his tray of food.

One of the shadows leaned closer towards the other, conspiratorially. “That’s beside the point right now - scuttlebutt is fairly on fire up in the barracks. Rumour has it his lordship’s children didn’t come back...whole.”

And just like that, Viren forgot how to breathe.

Not whole.

Not whole like he was, drained with magic and without access to the creatures he used to rejuvenate his appearance, or not whole as in...

And even as his heart paused before its next beat as though considering whether to go on, as the chains around his wrists and ankles grew instantly heavier - the question appeared before him.

The only question that mattered.

Claudia or Soren?

And perhaps, at this moment, if Viren had been allowed time to think, he might have shamed himself by entertaining the fleetest idea of a preference - but the guard had not stopped speaking, and the answer to the question was there.

“They made quite the scene, apparently. I have it on the authority of the guard at the gate that the Lady Claudia galloped in like there were demons at her heels and didn’t even dismount before she started screaming for her father.”

The second guard snorted. “Fair chance of that coming to any use. What was she screaming for?”

The next words would remain carved into Viren’s memory forever - beyond the image of his wife’s straight-backed form as she rode away to her homeland, beyond the horror in his heart when Queen Sarai’s breath halted right before his helpless eyes.

“Her brother. He took a dragon-tail to the chest and fractured his spine four days ago. He’s paralysed. Can’t even raise his head to drink.”

Viren jerked.

His chains clattered in an echoing cacophony across the grime-stained floor; there was a flurry of motion outside.

Viren halted, chest rising and falling in rapid, uneven breaths.

A moment of silence.

“Do you think he-”

“Shh! Go, go. It’s my shift.”

In the half-shadow of his windowless cell, Viren began to shake.

There was a roaring in his ears that was louder than the memory of Thunder’s gaping maw descending on him and the late Queen; the grey-purple backs of his hands in the darkness, still blanched with the marks of dark magic, shivered in his gaze.

Soren was-

His son was-

Claudia’s lighthearted voice tumbled out of memory, a conversation in Viren’s study which had taken place only a fortnight previous but seemed an age ago now, here in the dank shadows of this solitary cell. “Let’s say we’re attacked by giant bumble-scorps and they’re all like bzzz! Bzzz! and flailing their scorps at us like bzzz! - and I’m forced to choose between saving the egg and saving Soren. What should I do?”

Then, Viren had found himself momentarily speechless - he had looked from Claudia’s dancing, joke-filled green eyes (his former wife’s eyes) and down to the carpeted floor, because she had, in the unassumingly brilliant way of hers, voiced the question he had refused to ask himself.

Claudia had laughed and poked fun at him for not recognising a joke when he heard it, but she had been only a dozen steps to the door when he spoke.

He had taken the guilt and the shame and compressed it into a sphere so tight beneath his sternum it burned, and made the decision for the good of Katolis.

Just as he had made the decision regarding Harrow’s life, and later, to abandon the princes.

For the good of Katolis, and for mankind.

“The egg,” he had said, with that firm, unyielding authority that he knew his daughter would understand. “If you have to choose, choose the egg.”

What horror and sorrow had now bred from his words then?

What had he done?

What had he done?

Viren’s blood flared to fire in his veins, and he scrambled forwards on his hands and knees even as a deep, warning hiss from the worm in his left ear whispered, “Be still!”

Four days ago he would have listened without question. Now, Viren raised his head and shouted with the barking, staccato voice of a throat completely dry:

“Guards!”

The clang of a spear against the bars of his cell. Contempt from the shadows of a guard’s helmet. “Quiet, prisoner.”

“Still yourself and listen to me!” Aaravos’s sly murmur hissed urgently in his ear. “If you do not-”

Viren wet his cracked lips with a tongue so dry it hurt. “Guards!” he snarled, voice snapping like his son’s back must have, out in the wilderness against a dragon he was not equipped to fight. “I need to speak to Opeli!”

A guard’s laugh reverberated down the half-light of the corridor. “Mere prisoners have no right to summon a member of the High Council at whim, no matter their station before their crimes, traitor.”

Of all the words the guards could have chosen, that was the worst.

Traitor. Traitor, he who loved Katolis best - had sacrificed anything for his country and his people, and now had even sacrificed the happiness of his firstborn son.

Viren’s snarl turned into a roar.

“BRING HER TO ME!”

He had no magic here with him, and the voice in his ear would not give it - but the words lashed out of him with such desperate power that for a moment he fancied that the walls shook and the flames of the torches wavered in the corridor.

A muffled curse outside the cell. The rasp of swords being drawn, steel-toed footsteps on the flagstones. A figure in the armour of the citadel guard, silhouetted before the bars of the cell.

“Lord Viren! This is your last warning! Quiet down or we will-”

Viren was straining at the very end of his chains now, and cared not that the taste of iron coated the back of his throat and that steel carved into his wrists and ankles.

“I NEED TO SEE MY SON!”

Whatever the guard did next Viren did not know. The world was spinning before his vision, and the drum of his heart in his head had drowned out all else.

Half-blind with desperation and shivering from unspeakable emotion, Viren laid down the last treasure he had reserved, even bound in the depths of the castle’s deepest dungeons - his pride.

His head lowered to press into his hands, fisted in the grime of the sawdust floor.

The worm was still and silent in his ear.

“I need to see my son,” Viren whispered, with none of the fire of moments previous. “Please. Let me see my son.”

Soren.

And there, curled in his uttermost fall from grace, Viren could only wait.

To be continued

This is part 1! I’m cross-posting this to FFN and I’ll continue with it when I have time. I’ve been pretty busy studying and I only started writing this an hour ago because I couldn’t study any more. For more TDP fic go to my masterlist on my blog, especially His Father’s Back, a look at Soren’s search for his father’s love since his youth.

Viren’s a very intriguing antagonist in the sense that he truly believes what he’s doing is right; I’m not defending him in any way, but I loved what tdp season 2 did for explaining the relationship between him and his children, and I couldn’t help but examine it. Credit to @wafflesrisa, my twin, for giving me the plot bunny in the first place.

I’ll also put some links in the replies since tumblr isn’t working with links so well! Thanks for reading and I welcome feedback!

[tcm-acupuncture-herbal-supplies]

TDP Lamp Therapy: Find out more about the Miracle Far-Infrared Lamps

The world of TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) is vast and varied. Heat therapy is an essential part of Chinese medicine that focuses on applying heat to specific points on the body. It aids in treating the patient and improving the energy flow in the body. It is ideal for treating problems related to the imbalance of yin.

Moxibustion technique is quite popular with TCM practitioners, leading to the wide availability of moxa products across the globe. However, the smoke that is emitted from the moxa products can become an issue if the room is not well-ventilated. Additionally, it may prove to be a discomfort for practitioners who have to administer the moxibustion treatment for several patients throughout the day.

The solution is simple: Buy infrared heat lamps to enjoy similar benefits as moxibustion without the smoke. They will generate heat to penetrate several layers of the skin, stimulate muscles, and offer deep relaxation at the same time. Nowadays, many physiotherapists and acupuncturists use a special type of miracle heat lamps, called TDP lamps, that offer additional benefits to the patients.

What’s so Special about TDP Lamps?

The acronym for TDP is “Teding Diancibo Pu” which means “special electromagnetic spectrum” in English. The lamps function on the principle that far-infrared lights emit wavelengths that can penetrate 2 to 3.5 inches into the body. They have the ability to loosen fascia and muscles. Hence, they are also called far-infrared heating lamps, magic lamps and miracle lamps.

What makes TDP heat lamps so unique is the presence of a mineral plate in the lamp head. The plate contains more than 30 unique minerals that are present in the human body in different ways. When the mineral plate is heated, the minerals are ionized and penetrate into the body. They help in regaining the balance of essential minerals in your body and accelerate the natural recovery process.

It allows the optimum circulation of blood. With proper blood circulation, your body receives all the essential nutrients and it detoxifies waste more efficiently. Thus, TDP lamps promise better health benefits to the patients. And, that’s why they are often called “miracle” lamps.

TDP Lamp Therapy can be used for Several Treatments

Chinese doctors have used TDP lamp therapy in hospitals for several decades. It is a popular choice of Chinese physiotherapists and physicians to treat the patients. Registered with FDA in the United States, TDP lamps have become quite popular in the last couple of years.

A TCM practitioner may use them for the following:

1. Improving the healing of fractured bones.

2. Reducing inflammation and pain caused by arthritis and paralysis.

3. Reducing pain in the neck, back, shoulders, knees, elbows, ankles, etc.

4. Helping with muscle stiffness, and muscle spasm.

5. Faster rehabilitation of muscles after injury/accident.

6. Elevating mood, reducing stress and improving sleep patterns.

7. Balancing the Chi/Qi/life force.

8. Improving metabolism and immunity levels.

9. Increasing blood circulation in the body.

10. Treating multiple skin conditions.

11. Helping patients with angina.

12. Treating irregular menstruation and menstrual pain/cramps.

13. Removing chest congestions and treating cold, flu, pneumonia, etc.

Multiple Types of TDP Lamps are available on the Market

As the demand for TDP lamps has grown exponentially in the developed countries, you will find many types of lamps sold on the market.

A. Manual vs. Digital

In the past manually-controlled TDP lamps were quite popular. Even today, a few professionals enjoy manual timers because they are sturdy. However, there is a large influx of digital TDP lamps featuring digital controls for time and power. There is a wheeled base, adjustable head for superior flexibility. Plus, when compared to manual TDP lamps, they are not very costly.

B. Multiple Heads

With the advent of technology, manufacturers have started introducing new features. Nowadays, instead of using multiple TDP lamps for a single patient, you can opt for dual-head digital TDP lamps and adjust both the heads and their power settings separately. It means you can treat multiple body parts at the same time, and offer a more efficient treatment. Dual head manual mineral lamps are also available.

Note: A relatively new concept is the 3 heads-in-1 digital TDP lamp that allows physiotherapists to expand the width of the far-infrared light spectrum and thus, permits them to treat the patient much more efficiently.

C. Portability

Although portable infrared heat wand is available for treating areas such as shoulder, neck, and back, if you are looking for a smaller, movable TDP lamp, you will have to be satisfied by desktop TDP lamps. The desk-models can be very useful in treating minor aches and offer immediate pain relief to the patients.

Often used with acupuncture and physical therapy, infrared TDP lamps can help you to treat your patients effectively and perform a miracle by restoring the energy balance in the body. As a physiotherapist/TCM practitioner, it will help you to deliver the benefits of heat therapy without the annoying smoke.

[tindogpodcast]

TDP 905: #Blakes7 Restration 2 from @BigFinish

@TinDogPodcast chats about

  This title was released in November 2019. It will be exclusively available to buy from the Big Finish website until December 31st 2019, and on general sale after this date.

Four more brand-new full-cast Blake's 7 adventures set during the TV series' third season, following directly on from events in Restoration Part 1. 

5.5 The New Age by Mark Wright

The dying Liberator arrives in orbit of Eloran, a world Avon believes could offer respite from their current trials. All that stands in the way is a primitive society, a charismatic leader and the fracture lines threatening to destroy the crew from within.

5.6 Happy Ever After by Steve Lyons

The people of Zareen have seen the future. Their queen will be married to a handsome stranger, and they will enjoy a blissful life together. So, how can Tarrant possibly refuse...?

5.7 Siren by Sophia McDougall

In the wreckage of a ruined world, Dayna and Cally encounter Mida and Veskar, who must escape the attention of those who once ruled them. Although defeated, the System still seeks to take control.

5.8 Hyperion by Trevor Baxendale

Avon must convince the mysterious Selene to reveal the secret of Hyperion and save the Liberator – but the Federation is closing in on the crew, and what Selene knows could change everything...

A new Tin Dog Podcast

[whittlebaggett8]

Repeat of 1996 in 2019 a real possibility: Naidu on a ‘Third Front’ forming govt

Machilipatnam: TDP chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu Tuesday said there is a “real possibility” of the region witnessing a repeat of 1996 in 2019 exactly where regional functions will occur jointly right after the Lok Sabha polls to evolve a ‘Third Front’ and kind a authorities.

Naidu also stated Congress will continue to be as an “anchor party” and that the final decision on a key ministerial candidate will be taken dependent on the number of seats received by the Front companions.

The assessment by Naidu arrived notwithstanding the unsuccessful attempts by Congress and other opposition parties to form a pre-poll ‘mahagathbandhan’ or a grand alliance to existing a united front from the BJP.

H D Deve Gowda, the present-day JD(S) supremo, became the key minister of a United Entrance(UF) authorities heading a group of regional functions backed by the Still left and Congress from outside immediately after the 1996 Lok Sabha polls threw a fractured verdict in which the BJP experienced emerged as the solitary premier party. Naidu was the convener of the Front then.

“A repeat of 1996 in 2019 is a real likelihood and this simply cannot be dominated out,” Naidu informed PTI in an interview.

Naidu also stated it is not likely the BJP will cross the 200 mark because of to what he called “growing adverse wave” towards the Modi federal government.

Naidu, who is searching for a 2nd time period as the main minister of the residual condition of Andhra Pradesh, said his Telugu Desam Get together (TDP) was self-confident of sweeping the two the assembly and Lok Sabha elections and defeat the YSR Congress Social gathering (YSRCP). Campaigning for the polls finished Tuesday.

Polling will be held in solitary period on April 11 in 175 assembly and 25 Lok Sabha constituencies that has an voters of 3.93 crore.

“Now just about every regional social gathering is slowly distancing from the BJP. That by itself is a downside for Primary Minister Narendra Modi. An calendar year again, can anyone dare to oppose Modi. The Modi wave has occur down substantially and the detrimental wave for him has began,” Naidu reported.

Requested if the saffron celebration will be capable to cross 200 seats, he stated, “It is challenging simply because there is sizeable negativity towards the BJP”.

On just one hand, the BJP has unsuccessful to produce on its guarantees produced in the 2014 poll manifesto, whilst on the other it has ruined the democratic material of India by threatening the CBI and other impartial companies, he additional.

Naidu, who broke absent from an alliance with the BJP at the Centre early 2018 about the demand from customers for unique position for Andhra Pradesh, said a probable solid overall performance of regional get-togethers could go in opposition to the BJP if the nearby functions unite with each other just after the polls.

Asked if there could be the repeat of 1996 in 2019, he reported, “Everything is feasible. We really should not speculate factors correct now. I do not want to vitiate the atmosphere ideal now. Publish elections, we will discuss.” 

“It will all count on numbers and article-poll consensus. There is a democratic compulsion and before there was a secular and political compulsion. Now, there is political compulsion for all get-togethers to appear with each other towards the BJP.” 

On Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and YSRCP, each of whom are perceived to be ‘B team’ of BJP, heading delicate on Congress, Naidu explained they are performing “drama” to keep their minority votes.

“Of system, it is all drama. All minorities have made the decision to vote against BJP. Now, they are in predicament and as a result talking all these items,” he claimed, adding they are “playing dirty online games.” 

Requested if TRS chief and Telangana Main Minister K Chandrashekar Rao could possibly sign up for any Congress-led alliance article poll, Naidu mentioned, “Let them occur. On what situation they want to appear and underneath what instances they will sign up for I are not able to say. Before, he mentioned there will be a federal entrance(of non-Congress, non-BJP get-togethers) and afterwards grew to become a Modi friend. He is a beneficiary from BJP and we are suffering.” 

On electoral potential clients for the TDP in the assembly polls, Naidu claimed there is a really positive sentiment in favour of his social gathering and there is no dilemma for profitable, but it is a problem of winning the constituencies with a significant greater part.

“We are aiming 150-as well as and permit us hope for the very best,” Naidu said, adding that the most important battle is from the YSRCP which, he alleged, is currently being funded by K Chandrashekar Rao, also known as KCR.

“YSRCP is contesting by yourself but has a hidden pact with BJP. Now, KCR is supporting him. Why KCR is funding Jagan’s election? Is it to seize Andhra Pradesh? We really don’t want your (KCR) rule here. Who are you?” he said.

In 2014, the TDP and the BJP had fought alongside one another in Andhra Pradesh. This time, the TDP is contesting elections by yourself to consider on the YSRCP. The Congress is on the sidelines when the BJP is preventing a shedding struggle. Actor-turned-politician Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena Occasion, which has tied up with Still left events and the BSP, is nonetheless to be tested as a formidable challenger.

In 2014, Naidu in alliance with the BJP scraped through with 106 of the 175 Assembly seats. For the 25 Lok Sabha seats, the TDP gained 16 and BJP 2. The YSRCP had 68 seats and 7 MPs.

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Et de meilleurs prix sur vos articles préférés sans oublier nos avis conso lampe chinoise voila pourquoi cdiscount est le numéro 1 pour vos achats lampe chinoise vous avez des…

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Lampe Chinoise Et de meilleurs prix sur vos articles préférés sans oublier nos avis conso lampe chinoise voila pourquoi cdiscount est le numéro 1 pour vos achats lampe chinoise vous avez des...

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Karnataka Elections 2018 : How Telugu vote may swing the ‘waveless’ election

About 15% of Karnataka’s population is estimated to be Telugu speaking and Telugu is the third most spoken language in Karnataka after Kannada and Urdu.

Karnataka Assembly Elections 2018 » With less than 10 days left before the Assembly elections in Karnataka, politicians are busy slugging it out and political pundits are coming up with varied predictions on an everyday basis. Almost all opinion polls have predicted the possibility of Karnataka giving a fractured mandate and throwing up a hung assembly.

Pollsters agree that Karnataka is an extremely tough state to predict because of the different voting patterns of different regions, the caste equations, local issues etc. In the end, a swing of 1 or 2% of the votes can make all the difference.

The significance of Telugu votes

In a waveless election, where every seat is seeing cut-throat competition, a few thousand votes can decide who can emerge victorious. And in the bitter battle for Karnataka, Telugu votes will play a significant role.

Telugus are the third largest ethnic group in Karnataka. About 15% of Karnataka’s population is estimated to be Telugu speaking and Telugu is the third most spoken language in Karnataka after Kannada and Urdu.

Several districts in Karnataka share connections with Andhra Pradesh. In Raichur and Ballari, many farmers from Andhra Pradesh have taken up farming while the Hyderabad Karnataka region, which has 40 seats, has a Telangana connection.

At least 12 districts of Karnataka have a sizeable Telugu population – Tumakuru, Chitradurga, Ballari, Koppal, Raichur, Kalaburagi, Yadgir, Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Bidar, Bengaluru City and Bengaluru Rural. The four districts of Bidar, Kalaburagi, Kolar and Ballari have a significant share of almost 30% Telugu voters. While Bangalore Urban and Rural, have 49% and 65% Telugu-speaking population respectively, the figures for Kolar, Bellary and Raichur are 76%, 63% and 64% respectively.

Hyderabad-Karnataka districts have a historical and cultural connection with neighboring state of Telangana too.

Bengaluru, which accounts for 28 seats has about 25 lakh Telugu voters. Many businessmen, real estate agents, hotel owners, labourers and software industry professionals from Chittoor, Kurnool, Hindupur and Anantpur districts of Andhra Pradesh have settled in the Garden City. The presence of these Telugu voters is bound to influence the poll verdict.

Estimates suggest that these Telugu voters may be an influential factor in at least 40 assembly constituencies across the state. In the aftermath of the TDP exiting the NDA and Chandrababu Naidu blaming Narendra Modi for being insensitive towards the demands and needs of Telugus, it will be very interesting to see how they vote in Karnataka.

Read More on  → Karnataka Elections 2018