#the lighting in this tower is my worst enemy

[clopinasworld]

| ELIMINATE GUARDS

[mvrtaiswriting]

So excited for the writing event!!! Can I please request drunk prompt #7 with Zoro or Kid? I think it would be super funny for either of them to be really awkward the next morning after drunkenly kissing someone. Or maybe the reader drunkenly kissed *them* and now they don't know if she actually likes them or not.

Eustass Kid x prompt 7 (drunk prompts) - “did i… did we kiss last night?"

HELLO HELLO! thanks for requesting this i love this psycho bitch so much. hope this meets your expectations eheh this was slightly longer than others cause you know i love my characters to overthink everything just like me <333 enjoy!!

gender neutral reader | 913 words.

reblogs, likes, and comments are appreciated ♡ if you enjoy my works, click here to read more or buy me a coffee. -> from this event.

The softness of the blankets was gentle against your skin as you woke up from one of the best nights of sleep you ever had. That, if only the terrible headache that held you hostage in your bed would disappear. Even the tiniest glimpse of light filtering through the curtains was too much to bear - it only made your headache worst. Yet, there wasn't the tiniest residue of energy in your body for you to get up and block out the sun - so you laid in bed, throwing your blanket over your head and waiting for the pain to go away.

Enjoying the quietness of the ship, you closed your eyes trying to remember what had happened the night before - memories of the party came to you in a blur. They flashed before your eyes in a confusing sequences, making it hard to distinguish what really happened from what might have been just a dream. You didn't even remember how you made it to bed - the last thing you remembered was laying against your captain's shoulder, probably too drunk to sit still in your own place.

Yet there was something more to it, a memory that you couldn't quite grasp - a memory that felt more like a feeling, a phantom sensation still washing all over your body. It wasn't the nausea, nor the terrible headache; it was different, it was better.

Grazing your fingers against your lips, memories from the night before became clearer - did you dream it like all those times before? Was it all on your head? Or did you really kiss Eustass Kidd? These questions pounded your head as a subtle anxiety settles into your heart - the room around you starts to spin again, but this time not because of the alcohol. The idea of confessing your feelings to Kidd, to your captain, sent you spiralling - it was only a crush, after all.

Right?

Wrong. It wasn't only a crush - it was shivers down your spine every time his strong hands laid on your shoulders, it was your heart running faster every time he'd fight against an enemy, it was you melting into a stupid puddle every time he'd call you brat or some other stupid nicknames that you really should have minded but never did.

Forcing yourself out of bed, you dragged your body to the kitchen. The insufferable headache you woke up to was now gone, and you definitely needed a good meal and some water. You almost forgot about the whole kiss thing when you heard familiar footsteps made their way to the kitchen. Your fight or flight response was activated immediately, quickly slamming the door of the fridge and ready to leave the room before he could catch you.

"Took your sweet time to get up, uh?"

Kid roared from behind you, making you jump, a small laugh leaving his mouth making him less intimidating. Yet, you could feel his body almost pressed against yours, his taller figure towering you and making you feel ridiculously small even without having to look at him. Nodding in response, you were quick to move away from his trap, taking a few steps back.

"Yes, I.." you stumbled on your words, scratching the back of your head, panic quickly settling into your chest as you try to come up with something.

"Drank too much. I know."

Kidd cut you off, an unusual reassuring smile forming on his lips as he took a bottle of water from the fridge, throwing it at you.

"Don't even know how I made it to bed."

"Anything else you don't remember?"

Kidd asked. What you heard, however, was more similar to the sound of a ticking bomb about to explode.

"Don't think so." You chuckled, praying you were right - that there was nothing else to remember from the night before, that you didn't stupidly spread on top of him and slurred god knows what to him. Kidd only nodded in response, looking somewhat disappointed - there were no jokes, no sarcastic remarks, no angsty comment. Just an uncomfortable silence and an expression that you couldn't quite decipher.

"Kidd?" you called, causing him to turn towards you once again. He only raised an eyebrow in response, waiting for you to continue

"Did I.. did we kiss last night?"

You finally blurted out, your words rolling off your tongue before you could think it all through. Kidd's features immediately softened, his usual cockiness coming back to surface.

"What if we did?", he barked back, staring up and down at you.

Crossing his arms across his chest, he laid against the doorframe of the kitchen as the most annoying smirk appeared on his face - this was fun, seeing you blushing like a teenager without being able to look at him.

"I don't know. Sorry, stupid question."

You tried to brush it off, faking a smile and waving him goodbye - you just wanted to run, wash off the horrible wave of embarrassment and just forget about the whole thing. Kidd, however, was not really thinking about letting you go. His hands were quick to grab your wrist, pulling you closer to him. In a fraction of seconds he had you trapped in his embrace, your body pressed against his muscular chest.

"Want to give it another try?" he whispered, one of his hands already cupping your cheek whilst the one lazily slid down to the small of your back.

"If it wasn't that memorable, I must make up for it."

[mako-neexu]

going insane over dantes and ordeal call chapter 2 post #234098 the way he says his flames burn hotter/more poisonous than in his normal Saint Graph and you literally remember he made a new Spirit Origin for guda and his NPs are literally ABOUT guda, the color choice in the 3rd ascension with blue accents on his stars and eyes said to be the color of guda's SOUL time and time again,　

and he also literally looks like goetia because "MY DESTINY" (istfg im going CRAZY. im going crazy!!! my desiny??? MY DESTINY!!?!?!?!?) and both him and dantes had that one on one to guda, goetia also made a hilariously BAD set up against himself so like dantes and guda became partners in crime in prison tower like goetia unintentionally played MATCHMAKER and created the worst duo ever im shitting tears. the probable reason as well why he looks like that in the 3rd ascension is because dantes viewed goetia as "an ultimate enemy guda overcame" which he positioned himself in as well so he could be defeated which was his goal in the first place i think im going to break from so much info bro. theres also the fact that prison tower and pseudo-tokyo are basically the same (that also required huge amount of mana) -> guda was dropped into prison tower, (directly/indirectly) helped by gankutsuou, stuck in chateau d'lf/becoming an Avenger by giving into temptation->bad end || overcoming the trials each floor/understanding the Avenger class, overcoming the flames-> return to chaldea. dantes positioning himself once more as both that tiny light of hope and that enemy who has guda fall into a trap likei am so. n.lromnal. I think i hauve covid

and thinking about. "my destiny" "my radiant one" "my one good thing" "my star" like- to be loved is to be changed. man. to be loved is to be!!!changed!!! and the blue and pink-purple flames that symbolize GUDA having been so special to him in this life that it changed him, BECAME SO SPECIAL TO HIM!!! (you can literally see it in his EYES??? his 4th aascension art where his flame is BLUE AS WELL??????????)

that he is still Avenger, Count of Monte Cristo, he who enacted vengeance and the greatest seeker of it, he who continues to hate and burn eternally yet chooses to love!!!!!!!!!!!!! becoming that tiny light of hope to an innocent soul and now here they stand, that tiny light he continued to protect now shines more radiant than anything else, and because of that love, his flames burn much much more fiercely than his previous saint graph and like he has you stay away bc you might evaporate to nothing and he explicitly says theyre stronger in his Monte Cristo alt!! while hes also trying to distance himself from you again bc he must still hold guilt in his heart for making you go through the Avenger ordeal and as well as the fact that you literally need to leave the flames/Avengers behind due to their conflicting nature with the wall bc being attached would be sooo hard to let go and especially considering what you and dantes went through together like what is this?? its like a giant slap of I LOVE YOU SO MUCH against my face????????? theres literally nothihg left of my remains????????????

dantes is also basically so stupidly even more overpowered here have you seen his skills??? Count of Monte Cristo Mythologie became a skill along with the fourteen relics/14 jewels and he can jUST cassually!???? activate that!?!?!?????? meanwhile WHAT HE CONSIDER AS HIS NOBLE PHANTASM IN THIS SAINT GRAPH IS O STAR/O YOU WHO, CONQUER THAT BRILLIANT PATH??? THAT VERY ONE ABOUT GUDA???? IS THIS REAL????? his NP dmg and effects are so crazy too???? LITERALLY POWERED BY LOVE AND BACKED UP BY AGE OF GODS LEVEL FUCK YOU ENERGY ?? im plagued by dantes and OC2 thoughts since last month someone free me ajdkfgk

[procrastinatingsoicanreadfanfics]

Of Traitors and Oathbreakers

Summary: A Black in Greens territory is never a good thing, especially if that means falling into the hands of Prince Aemond

Notes: Aemond and reader are childhood friends turned enemies (with benefits). Had to write something for my favorite war criminal. The reader is the child of the blacksmith of the Red Keep (bc why make Targaryen!readers when they can be ~different~)

Hobroti jās – Fuck off

Nyke pendagon avy jorrāelan – I think I love you

Warnings: rough/hate sex, dub-con (power imbalance), biting, scratching choking etc, mentions of starvation, war, imprisonment

Taglist: @levithestripper (hmu to be added!)

Ending 1 / Ending 2 | Masterlist | requests are OPEN!

You didn’t remember how you got here. In fact, you didn’t even remember where you had been wanting to go, or who had been with you.

All you knew was that you were stuck in a cold cell, water dripping from the ceiling between short pauses of silence and driving you close to madness. When you looked out of the small crack in the wall of your cell, you’d seen molten towers you only recognized from childhood tales.

Harrenhal.

Currently territory of the Greens, and you were a Black. The name Targaryen could neither protect nor endanger you here, and for that you were grateful, but for everything else…

They didn’t let you out, whoever your jailers were. If your standing allowed it, you would have thrown the bread they gave you back into their faces and called them cowards.

But your mother had taught you to be resourceful, and your father had never let you leave scraps on your plate.

The only way for you to gauge how much time had passed was from the crack in the wall, watching the sun rise and set, but even like that you lost count after a while. You would’ve gone insane from the cold in your bones or the slow drips from the ceiling, or maybe even the loneliness, if it hadn’t been for the expression of wrath you had seen on the face of your Queen.

Your Queen. Rhaenyra. And yet, she would not risk her life, or that of any of her dragonriders to save you. You knew that when you kneeled for her in Dragonstone, and you had remembered it ever since. Yet you couldn’t help but wish that the situation was different.

Dying like this wasn’t what you wanted. It was everything you despised – the cold, the loneliness, the harsh walls around you. Worst of all was the darkness though.

You’d grown up in your father’s workshop, surrounded by fire as the Targaryens were with their dragons. Light and heat was your childhood, your comfort, and though learning the craft had gone to your brothers, you hadn’t let that keep you from picking up every weapon your father had crafted.

A gift that had cursed you later in life, bringing you into this cell.

The first time they opened the cell door completely could’ve been days or decades after your initial imprisonment. You didn’t demand answers, didn’t fight them yet, letting them drag you out and through empty hallways.

Once, you caught the smell of soot and ash, wondering whether it was from a smithy or a dragon. Were they taking you to your execution?

You doubted it. No one but the Targaryens were executed by the Targaryens themselves.

Instead, they brought you to the tubs that were in the cellars of Harrenhal. The water was hot, steam rising up from the water of the pools, and you could swear that there had never been a lovelier sight.

The guards did not bother turning their backs, so you turned yours. You had no weapon to defend yourself, and you weren’t ready to give all of your dignity just yet. Quickly, you sank into the steaming water, beginning to scrub the smell of dirt, blood and piss from your skin.

Death clung to your skin like a scared child to her mother. You hated it.

The cell had given you more than enough time to remember, but it seemed that you could not. All you knew was that you had been sent to find the host of the Northmen, making your way through the Riverlands.

Somewhere between Dragonstone and Harrenhal, someone had killed your crew and taken you prisoner, leaving you to wake up with their blood on your hands, literally.

Your bath was cut short by a young woman shooing the guards out, before helping you out of it. She was the first one to show you a semblance of respect, handing you clean clothes and a cloth to dry yourself, but she wasn’t willing to talk to you.

Perhaps they were all mute here, terrified into silence by their Lord, the Lord Confessor of the Greens. Perhaps it was yet another way to torture you.

She was somewhat gentle when she helped you lace your dress, before she left you to your own devices again. It was strange to be clean again after such a long time. The dance had left you permanently disheveled in some way.

Even before, Daemon had been drilling you in the yard, making impossible demands at you. You were the only one who made it through his snide remarks that brought grown men to tears and desperation. You would have never admitted the rewarding smirk he gave you after a long sparring session reminded you of a Green.

The woman had you follow her into a small chamber, only equipped with a small cot and a chamberpot. It was barbaric, but infinitely more than the cell you’d been forced to call home.

Here, where you were all alone, you could take in the changes of your body for the first time. Wearing a dress made the loss of weight noticeable. You’d exchanged a part of your femininity for the harshness of battle a long time ago, it was the price female fighters paid in Westeros.

The time in the cells had made the rest of that softness fall off your bones, and all that was left was sinew and muscles. You knew it wasn’t healthy, but you hadn’t had your moon’s blood since the beginning of the war, and a truly delicious meal since even longer.

Luxury was a faraway dream, a whisper of the days in the Red Keep, where the worst punishment had been your mother chasing you through the stables to give you an earful about sparring with princes and forgoing your chores in favor of riding. Where your friends had comforted you after your brother became collateral in a fire in just this castle. Where you’d witnessed Vaemond’s bluntness be his death, and where Daemon spotted your talent as you trained in the yard.

Daemon had taken you and your father from the Red Keep, under the pretense of needing a smith and the truth of wanting a warrior that would always be underestimated. A girl who could slip through the cracks in the expectations of men and then slit their throats.

That was what you were to him. And for a while, you hadn’t noticed that he’d taken your childhood, for he had raised you to glory and given you a taste of battle. But where battle was, war followed, and it quickly reared its ugly head.

A knock ripped you from the myriad of thoughts in your mind. Who would knock at your door? You were a prisoner. If anything, you should be the one knocking, begging for their freedom.

You didn’t answer, and they paused for so long you thought they actually wanted a reply from you. But then, the door swung open.

“She told me you would be here.” He said.

“Who?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Aemond replied. He stared at you silently, taking in the tightness of the gown, the slim shape your body had never had before. “Hmm.”

And then, he left, leaving alone again.

Aemond. What was Aemond doing here? He was Aegon’s brother, wasn’t this below him? Shouldn’t he be commanding great hosts, slaying his enemies from above?

He returned with food. A steaming bowl of stew, the smell of which made your stomach growl audibly, and a tankard of ale. It was making you forget that he was your enemy.

“It’s not poisoned.” He said.

“You’ve had enough opportunity to execute me.” You shrugged, hungrily digging into the meal. Aemond only hummed, a habit familiar to you.

He did it the few times you beat him in a spar, trying to assess what went wrong. When he heard you complain about the stench around the smith, only for the noble lord who pissed onto the walls of your home to disappear from court a day later. When Aegon taunted you for being a girl that would never amount to anything, lowborn and worth nothing, only to receive his brother’s punches seconds later.

“I’ve missed you.” He said quietly. You supposed that that was the way Aemond was: quiet in everything. Protecting, fighting, respecting. You wondered if that applied to-

No. Just because he was practically the first man you’d seen since your confinement did not mean you had to fall at his feet. He’d been your friend, and now he was your enemy. Both weren’t what people should pursue.

“You killed Prince Lucerys.” You replied.

“Just as much as his mother did.” Aemond snarled, but he didn’t sound so sure.

“She is the queen. You are responsible.”

“She has put Helaena into agony! Do you know what the war does to her? Days, spent in tears, fearing her own dreams and what may come! Helaena knows what will happen to her, and it is too atrocious for her to speak of, even to mother!”

It felt like a blow to the stomach. Helaena was strange to the ladies of the court, but she was always kind to you. There was an unspoken agreement between you and Aemond as children, that when you played hide and seek in the Godswood with Jace and found Helaena playing with the bugs in the bushes, you’d leave her alone.

“The mother that started all of this.”

“I didn’t know war made you into a frigid bitch.” Aemond spat.

“No, traitors do.” You said, throwing the insult back. His hand shot at your neck, and you wondered if he would kill you.

Days past flashed through your mind, afternoons spent swimming in Blackwater Bay and hiding from septas, mothers and knights. Sneaking Aemond into the city to buy him food from the street vendors in Flea Bottom. Teasing him for his royal stomach as he felt queasy afterwards, assuring him that you weren’t afraid when he returned from Dragonstone, a patch covering his eye. The awkward kiss you shared as teens, neither of you wanting to be unprepared for your great love you were so sure was to come.

His hand was still there, cold to the touch. Jaw set and fury blazing in his remaining eye.

“I lost control of Vhagar.” He confessed. A whisper so hushed it almost carried away into silence. “And it was me who killed your men and took you to Harrenhal.”

“They were good men. They had families, and you killed them.”

“This is war. You’re their bloody commander!” Aemond snorted.

“You could’ve killed them when they made it to battle, to let them die with honor.”

“They wouldn’t have lasted much longer.”

“You don’t know that.” You spat.

“No, but you do. Who made you into a commander? You could barely put a scratch on Aegon when you left for Dragonstone.”

“Daemon did. And I’ve been better than Aegon a long time. I just happened to be lowborn.”

“Think you can beat me?” Aemond laughed, cold and arrogant.

“Why don’t we take this to the yard and find out? It would be a pleasure to kill you.”

“Vhagar would devour you, if you managed.”

“As she did with Luke?”

Just for a moment, Aemond’s façade crumbled, and he grew pale, before he regained his composure, but you already regretted your words.

“Did you eat your heart when you grew hungry in your cell? Or was that Daemon too?”

“And when did you grow into the arrogant prick your brother and grandfather envisioned you to be?” you spat, trying to even your tone.

You felt the frustration and anger of the last few months becoming a knot in your stomach already and watching your childhood friend throw insults at you hurt more than any blade could have.

“Cunt.” He replied, his anger evident in his tone as well.

“Traitor.”

“Bitch.”

“Kinslayer.” You said, letting go of all reservations.

“You’re still a dumb little girl.” He spat. Somehow, this was worse than anything else. Aegon had always called you that, and after one particularly bad day, Aemond had come to apologize for his brother, promising to never say that to you.

The tears spilled quicker than you could stop them, but even through the blurry vision they created, you slapped Aemond as hard as you could.

You wiped your eyes just in time to see his expression, mouth hanging open as his hand touched his cheek gingerly. Before he could regain his composure, you ran into him, throwing him onto the ground. You didn’t care as you heard his body hit the ground, only trying to hurt him somehow, to show him what he had done to you.

But Aemond was at full health, and a man that was taller than you by a bit while you hadn’t eaten properly in weeks. It didn’t take him long until he had flipped you around, holding your wrists down to the stone floor.

You struggled against him, trying to kick him or knee him in the balls, but Aemond was quicker than you, pinning your legs as well.

“Fuck you! You promised me!” you shouted at him, still trying to get your wrists out of his grip.

“You want me to apologize?”

“Yes, I do.” You snapped. “You broke a promise.”

“Hobroti jās.” He replied.

“Your Valyrian bullshit doesn’t scare me.” You laughed, but you were lying. It did. He could be threatening to kill you for all you knew, and you would be none the wiser.

“Is that so, my love?” he taunted.

“Don’t call me that.” You replied.

“Why? Have a lover waiting for you at Dragonstone? Prince Daemon himself perhaps?”

“I don’t. And the King consort would not dishonor his queen like that.”

“I suppose you’re not much to look at anyway. Especially not after a stay in the cells.” Aemond cruelly spat.

Your snarl fell from your face, your mask cracking quicker than you wanted it to. Not being as desirable and pretty as the ladies at court had hurt for as long as you could remember, but it was worse coming from Aemond somehow.

“Never took you for the vain type.” Aemond continued relentlessly, driving the knife in deeper.

“As if you’re a looker.” You replied, trying to push the tears he had cried over his face for years into the background. You knew it was mean, your choice of words especially, but he was just as horrible. Yet, when you said those words, Aemond recoiled from you for a moment, giving you the opportunity to free yourself from his grasp.

You crawled backwards, trying to create space between the two of you, but Aemond grabbed your ankle, pulling you back towards him. You crashed against him, causing him to let go of you to catch himself.

Trying to take advantage of the moment, you pushed him down by the shoulders, trying to ignore the fact that he was staring at you.

“Nyke pendagon avy jorrāelan.” He said. His eye was wide, staring at you with anger and… was that awe?

“Stop with the Valyrian!” you said, punching against his chest in a futile attempt to regain control.

He smirked at you, satisfied that he was getting a rise out of you like this, and you hated him for it. You’d spent a lot of your time around Daemon, for fuck’s sake! This shouldn’t be having any kind of effect on you!

You should get up now. You could get up, your brain was screaming at you, but instead, you stayed where you were, your hands on his shoulders in a futile attempt to subdue a Targaryen.

You stayed where you were when Aemond leaned forward, until your faces were only centimeters apart.

“Go on.” he whispered. You weren’t sure what he wanted, only that, in that moment, closing the space between you felt right.

It took you about two seconds to break the kiss, biting Aemond’s lip. “I hate you.” You tried, but you heard your own voice, and it didn’t sound too convinced.

“Are you?” he asked, wiping the blood from his lower lip with a small smile.

“We’re enemies! At war. We should be killing each other, not doing… this.”

“I took too long. I tried to convince myself that letting you rot would be a good punishment.” He said.

“It is! Look at what I’m doing.” You replied.

“You drew first blood. Hate to admit it.”

“You are insufferable.” You said.

“Am I? You haunt my dreams, taunting me with what I’ve done, and now that I let you speak to me, you make my nightmares reality! I want you dead, and yet I can’t help but want you all to myself.”

“Oathbreakers are the highest of traitors, and I swear, one day your head will be on a spike in the Red Keep, and I for one will be glad for it.” You replied, but it sounded weak against his words, refined with years of study you didn’t have.

“Then why did you kiss me?”

You hated that you didn’t have a witty response on your tongue as Aemond would have.

“Give in.” he said, and by the Gods, was there ever a sweeter temptation?

“So all the blood spilled under my command will be ridiculed?” you asked.

“I am a Targaryen, blood is in my nature. What better way to honor them?”

“Than kissing you? I can think of more than a few.” You laughed.

“I don’t give a shit about kisses.” Aemond replied. When he crossed the room, you didn’t dare back away. They called Aemond a One-Eyed devil, but you had taken off that eyepatch to care for what remained far too many times not to see him for what he was.

All the violence, the fire, the insecurities. His inability to look at his reflection, the pride and guilt of being Vhagar’s rider. The love for Helaena and hate for Aegon. His lust and distaste for the crown, the never-ending spiral of paradox that he was.

But you had been made violence and fire as well, to hide your weaknesses and make you lethal.

Before his lips could crash onto yours again, you felt the horrible realization of what had happened hit you. Your hands caught his chest, and Aemond froze.

“Daemon sent me.” You said. “He knew, didn’t he? He knew you’d spare me; he knew that you’d try to kill me, and that you’d fail because I am your friend.”

Slowly, you watched as Aemond walked to the door, grabbing something from behind a loose stone. You thought he’d hidden the dagger to kill you, until he flipped the handle towards you.

“Do it then.” He whispered. Your hand shaking, you tried to take the blade. You could end this war. You could kill the biggest asset the Greens had. He was practically offering himself to you.

Yet you couldn’t level the knife to his neck. Slowly, you let it sink again, hand trembling until the dagger fell. It clattered on the ground loudly, reminding you of your guilt. The traitor you had just become.

But Aemond was already on you, hands cupping your face as if you were fragile, thumbs stroking your cheeks like a lover to be cradled, soothing the unsurety that confused your thoughts.

“I still hate you.” You whispered between kisses, but Aemond barely bothered to smirk at you.

Instead, your hands betrayed your instincts, wandering to unlace his leather doublet, still shaking from the dagger.

“I hate you too.” He replied, ripping at your gown until it tore from shoulder to hip.

“That was the only one I had.” You complained.

“I’ll buy you another.”

“You’re such an ass.” You snapped. Aemond didn’t reply, his hands wandering to the curve of your hips instead.

The cot made an audibly creak as he lowered you down onto it, and you caught the blush on his cheeks.

“Don’t like being heard?” you asked.

“Not particularly. Didn’t know you did.”

“I don’t. I just happen to be poor.”

“Who?” Aemond demanded.

“What?”

“Who fucked you?”

“You thought I was a virgin?” you taunted.

“Their names.” Aemond managed through gritted teeth.

“Let’s see. There was Alyn, the city watch guard. He was my first. Then your mother’s maid, and a barkeep in Flea Bottom. A former septon at Dragonstone, he was go-“

“Shut up.” Aemond commanded, his hand on your neck again. His other hand was tearing at your dress, and the fact that he was desperate to have you made you feel powerful.

A prince of the Seven Kingdoms, subdued by the daughter of a blacksmith.

What a song that would make. In truth, you were desperate to kiss him again, to bite his shoulder while he fucked you languishly and have him pull your hair while he took you from behind. To dig your nails into his shoulders and watch his eye grow wide as he took his pleasure from you.

“Take it off.” You said.

“What?”

“The eye patch.”

“No.” Aemond refused.

“I’ve seen you without a thousand times. I want you.” You said.

He let you remove it, and your smile grew as you saw the dark, glittering sapphire filling his empty socket.

“Do you like it?” he asked carefully, sounding like the young boy that had reluctantly shown you his angry, red wound the first time he returned from Dragonstone.

“Would you wake if I stole it in the middle of the night?”

“Don’t try it.” He warned, finally unlacing his breeches. Without warning, he lowered himself to your cunt, before he thrust into you slowly. You screwed your eyes shut, trying to adjust to the stretch of it, but the pain felt just right.

“Alright?” he asked.

“Just been a while.”

He nodded, before he thrusted a few more times. And then, without warning, his hips snapped forward, burying himself in you to the hilt.

Your hands clawed at his shoulders, desperate for something to hold on to, and Aemond lowered his face to your breasts, taking his time with marring the already bruised skin on your chest further.

His thrusts were harsh, reflecting the anger that was still marring his features. If there was a truly gentle side to Aemond, it wasn’t here now.

Instead, he was all rough and messy, pressing his lips to yours in a desperate attempt to soften its gestures, but all it did was make you gasp into his mouth, only encouraging him to drive further into you.

It took your breath away, leaving you biting his shoulder and neck as you had imagined, fighting him tooth and nail for control.

There was an edge to him, one you’d seen before in Daemon and Rhaenyra, and even Helaena at times. Power and magic that made the Targaryens untouchable, and it clouded his senses just like yours.

His hands were everywhere, grabbing whatever he can take hold on. Bruising, marking your flesh and you know that it’s to claim you over and over again.

Tears prick at the corners of your eyes again, but of pleasure laced with pain this time, the stretch of his cock so unbearably good it makes you wonder why. Why hadn’t you done this sooner?

Had this lust been there before? Would this have happened without a war?

Was that really what it took?

“I need…” Aemond began, trailing off into nothing as he nipped your lip, mirroring your gesture from earlier. He pushed your knees towards your shoulders, driving even deeper. It makes you a mess, fall apart in just the way he wants you too.

“Don’t stop.” You begged. “Don’t ever stop.”

“I won’t.” Aemond promised, and his words spoke of the things neither of you dared to say.

“Take me. Make me yours.” A part of you said, one that you did not know you possessed.

“My fierce girl.” He praised. “My fighter, my darling. My love. Mine, mine, mine.”

His words became a mantra, thrumming with the racing beat of your heart.

Yours.

Betrayal shouldn’t feel this good, and yet, Aemond made the guilt disappear into background noise with soft praises soothing earlier insults. He flipped you around after a while, hands grabbing your hips as you tried to steady yourself on the cot, hands tangling with bedsheets.

They bruised you again, lilac and purple blooming on your skin, bones stretching against it. You were hungry for something you didn’t know you wanted, and Aemond’s hands promised sweet release.

His chest flattened against your back, jaw finding your neck again and biting more marks into it, as if there weren’t already enough there. Hands tangling into your hair, he turned your head to kiss you harshly, more teeth and bite than soft kisses, but in that moment it felt right.

“Gods.” He gasped, thrusting into you with a frenzy. His hands found your sweet spot, rubbing until you found yourself painfully close to the edge. You could feel his breath on your back, the desperate savageness that accompanied his person now.

Heat bloomed in your stomach as you felt him continue, observant to your reactions. He studied you as he studied his swordplay, a skill he wanted to master. He already had, and yet, you couldn’t help but arch your back and meet his cock.

“So desperate?” he teased, and you ignored him, even as he taunted you for fucking yourself on his cock.

“You’re the one rutting into me.” You tried. Trading insults didn’t feel necessary, you were both desperate enough for each other to betray the cause you were so loyal to, and that was proof enough of your desperation.

“Give in.” he demanded. “Give yourself to me.”

“You’re mine,” you managed instead. “You’ll always be mine; I don’t care about the rest.”

He bit back his witty comeback, you knew it. It felt like a heartwarming gesture, if his hands and cock hadn’t made your spine go soft and your legs shake. He was desperate to make you cum, and that was how you knew he was close as well.

You wanted him to cum first, to lose if only in this, but with a few more sloppy thrusts, he had pushed you over the edge, your arms failing you as he followed after you seconds later.

As soon as it was done, he tried to move away from you. He let you pull him back in. You kissed him softly, slowly, as you had longed to do for a long time.

Now that his anger had dissipated, his lips melted against yours, his grip gentle and soft again, soothing over the love bites he had just made.

Carefully, he dressed you, a proud expression on his face as he noticed his seed between your legs.

“You’ll get me moontea for that.” You said.

“Or a septon.” He smirked, tying his breeches.

“What gave you the impression?”

Wordlessly, Aemond scooped you up into his arms, carrying you to the door.

“’You’ll always be mine’ was quite indicative.” He said, mimicking your gasps. Aemond carried you all the way to his chambers, setting you down on a bed that felt like a cloud.

“We can’t marry.” You reminded him quietly.

“Yes, we can. I’m the prince.”

“Precisely. I am a blacksmith’s daughter for the enemy of your faction.”

“Perhaps I shall make my own faction then.” Aemond replied.

“And make a peasant your queen? I do believe the nobles would rather have a woman then.”

“My mother would love you.”

“Since when? No doubt she knows I fucked her maid as a parting gift by now.” You said.

“That was your last act in the Red Keep?” Aemond asked. “I do admit, it might be a little difficult to make up for it.”

“I mean it, Aemond. ‘Tis no joking matter. You must either let me go, or kill me now, for I know I cannot do that to you.” You replied.

“You can leave tomorrow morning.” He agreed. “And I shall have no mercy if I see you on the battlefield. Or you can stay, and marry me at noon. The choice is yours to make.”

[vandnana]

Hello! I'd love to see some lo'ak fics! I love your writing

Hope you are having a good holiday xx

hello! thank you so much for loving my writing, i really appreciate you! i hope you’ve had a good holiday as well! 

i’ve been working on a new lo’ak  x reader series and below is a preview of it!

**if you would like to be added to the tag list for this fic, please comment on this post or if you’re more comfortable, send me a dm or an ask!  

In Love With the Enemy (Preview Below) 

Prologue Is Here!

pairing: lo’ak x female human turned na’vi reader

summary: during the time when jake became toruk makto, you were quaritch’s youngest and most valued soldier, the daughter he never had. but, pandora changed you and you died fighting with the na’vi, betraying quaritch and wishing that you had been able to do more. now, you have been reborn again, as a na’vi, tasked with quaritch’s new military avatar crew to kill Jake Sully. taking advantage of this second chance at life, you help the Sullys and fall in love along the way

genre: fluff, angst (wip, more themes to come)

word count (wip): 839

The prologue is now up! You can read it here!

You were the youngest in the regiment back then, too young for war and far too young for what was in store for you in Pandora. But, Quaritch took you in when you were a child. You had no family, no home, and no promise of a real future. He had seen himself in you: cunning, willing, strong, unafraid. You were everything he could have hoped for in a daughter, but you were real. His prodigy. And not a day went by when you didn’t live up to those expectations. You loved being with Quaritch. He had become your father and he always thought that nothing could ever change that. 

But, the more time you spent in Pandora, the more you began to see past the façade you let yourself believe. The mission was never about finding diplomatic solutions or building alliances. It was about destruction, money, and humanity’s wretched twist on glory, a misguided glory that Quaritch was more than happy to fulfill. It was Grace who helped you see that first. She always used to tell you that you were smart and far more capable than any of the trigger-happy morons you were with.

But even you couldn’t prevent Hometree from being destroyed, and although you did what you could to help Jake, Grace, and Norm escape with Trudy, the damage was done. You were an offender of the highest treason by helping Quaritch’s worst enemy, and you knew that you could never go back.

You feigned your innocence until the end, fooling everyone. You watched Quaritch shoot Grace and you cried alone when you heard about her passing. It wasn’t until you joined Trudy in her helicopter that you revealed whose side you were really on. Only for a moment did Quaritch hesitate to shoot you down, but his duty was above all. When he had dealt the final blow, the glass around you breaking with every explosion, you looked at Trudy with a smile. You were happy to be alongside her, dying with her as the sight of the Hallelujah Mountains became the last thing you ever saw, your vision fading into darkness as you descended downward into nothingness.

Then, came light again, invading your shut eyes as you heard voices around you, the sounds distant at first, but slowly heightening as you came to. When you opened your eyes, the fluorescent lights stunned you, your hand instinctively finding its way to the front of your face. Your eyes widened, and you figured you were in hell, punished to be what you failed to protect.

You were blue, a Na’vi, and everyone around you towered with their own blue figures, cooing you awake.

“Colonel, the baby’s awake.” One of them yelled, and you propped yourself up, taking in the appearance of those who had an air of familiarity, but still seemed to be strangers. 

There was Wainfleet, Warren, Zdinarsk, and Zhang looking at you, patting you on the back with satisfied smiles.

Then you saw him. Quaritch, the man you once owed your life to. But it wasn’t really him. He had become his worst nightmare and in seeing him, you were convinced that you really had been damned to hell. He was Na’vi too and a real sight for sore eyes as he looked like he wanted to jump out of his own skin, his movements awkward as he made his way over to you. The only comfort that he seemed to take refuge in was seeing you, his eyes still glimmering in fondness over you, the daughter he never had. 

He hugged you and for the first time, he smiled. “It’s nice to see you kid.”

You had all the memories from your old life, the old y/n that loved Quaritch and saw him as a father, the old y/n who trained endlessly to become that prodigy he loved so much. But you also remembered Grace, the only person you felt really saw you for who you were and who you could be, and it was her memory that really revived you. That was who you wanted to be now, not the monster that Quaritch had conditioned you to become.

Nothing felt real until that point, his embrace making your skin crawl, but it was a comfort nonetheless. you wrapped your arms around his shoulders, a lopsided smile on your face, “Nice to see you too, Q.”

It seemed that you had been given a second chance at life, given the video log that you had filmed so long ago. Among Quaritch and the rest of your team, you were granted an avatar too, stowed away in case the supposed small chance of failing ever came to fruition. Seemingly, it had, and you smiled. Yet, no one else remembered Grace or the scientists, or rather they didn’t really want to remember. It was as if this new team of recombinants were a hive mind with only one mission left to complete, a mission that churned your insides.

Eliminating Jake Sully.

~

Author’s Note:

i hope you enjoyed this preview! i’m so excited to write some more! again, if you would like to be added to the tag list, please don’t hesitate to reach out through this post or through a dm or an ask! 

[taurusreads]

what do they want you to know?

masterlist || paid services || ko-fi

messages from spirit, a significant other,

passed loved one, etc.

pile one

overall energy: king of swords

im sending masculine energy straight off the bat here. that doesn’t mean that the person is male per say, just that they give off more masculine energy than feminine. i think this could be someone that you used to talk to, and are possibly talking to again, or someone that you’ve just been having more contact with as of late. this person could have heavy air placements.

i think that there could have been a falling out at some point, and the blame is more so coming from their part. they feel guilty, and want you to let them back into your life. i think they could want a second chance if they get close enough, whether this be platonic or romantic. i think at some point during your separation you had a leveling up, and they definitely noticed that.

i think this is more of a message to say call back your power. if there was a choice that your gut has been forcing you to make, or an idea that won’t leave your head, then go for it. trust the voice in the back of your head when it tells you something. the only opinion about you that should be important to you is your own. the only person who you should need to be happy for you and routing for you is yourself. your own thoughts and opinions will make you feel more than anything anyone else says.

channeled messages: purple, black, self help, self sabotage, relationships, 555, masculine, karmic, meditate, reading, educate, progress, air signs, air placements, family, reliance, love, hugs,

pile two

overall energy: the tower

i think that you might have just come out of a hard period of your life. whether that be coming of age, heartbreak, grieving, etc. you’ve been through it for a while now, but you’ve finally come out of the worst end of it. i feel light, like a weight was taken off of my shoulders finally.

i think you should take some time to take care of yourself right now. stay in this unbothered phase for as long as you can. take note of how you feel, how your body feels, your emotions, etc. how do you feel day to day when you feel this good? enjoy it because i feel like there was a period when you wanted something so bad that you couldn’t let go of it. not being able to let go is going to be your worst enemy. the outcome you want will come so long as you affirm it. if you believe it will happen, then it will happen. don’t cry over spilled milk, there’s better things in store. step into you masculine energy. we all have it in us, there should be an equal amount of masculine and feminine. you have to balance out yours now. you may have gotten what you wanted, but thankfully, the work doesn’t stop here. start figuring out what it is you want out of life next.

you’re starting to take the time to figure out what it is that you want out of life exactly. you’re leveling up in a new way because you’re starting to learn what it is that life means to you. this beautiful energy needs to be accompanied by hard work though. it’s time to put in the extra work to get the things you really want.

channeled messages: yellow, release, 999, “leave the past in the past and start anew”, empath, meditation, manifestations, “you ask and you shall receive”, friends, self love

pile three

overall energy: the hierophant

i think you’re a very patient person. your someone who values their work and education heavily, you may even be interested in teaching as a profession. i feel like you’ve been in a beautiful time of your life for a while now, and you’re happier than you’ve ever been. there’s a certain relationship that could use some work possibly, as far as communication goes. im getting masculine energy from this but of course, that does not mean they are a male.

i think you’re protective over your energy in a very healthy way. it’s very hard to get into your inner circle but that’s because your energy is so special that you can’t afford to give it away that easily. i think someone around you really admires that. they love the way that you can stay unbothered and keep pushing forward towards your goals. you just seem to keep going up up up and they’re soooo proud of you. i honestly think you’re a little surprised by yourself as well. but soak in this feeling. enjoy the fruits of your labor. treat yourself, have fun. you DESERVE IT.

you don’t have to be so humble. you did something that many aspire to do, and many don’t have the courage to. you faced your demons and used the newfound strength to build yourself up into a new person. you didn’t change who you were, you just became assured in who you were. but i’ve never said that it was wrong to be a little vain sometimes. we all get to have our moments, you included. it doesn’t make you mean, it doesn’t make you stuck up, it just makes you confident. now im not saying flaunt it all the time, but do things out of the ordinary that are tailored to YOU and what YOU need. have a whole day dedicated to the things you want to do and how you want to take care of yourself. you deserve to enjoy the rewards you reaped from working so hard.

>>:((((( SPOIL YOURSELF!!!!!

channeled messages: green, 111, princess, lighting, mother yourself, follow your heart, you’ve made it, believe it, spoiled, im seeing the pinterest core with the sparkly dresses and designer handbags but it’s blurry and shit, solo dates, find inspiration, we’re all routing for you :(

[cerastes]

As someone who hasn't touched it yet- how does IS4 stack up? How's first impressions been?

Ok, let me give my thoughts on IS4, now that it's been a week!

TL;DR -> This Rocks, I love it.

IS4 is far, far more polished than IS3. I feel a bit bad blasting and slamming IS3 so much, but the bottom line with it is that it's just very very flawed in ways that really make it hard to revisit it in the same way IS2 is always a fun romp.

If I had to point out flaws with IS4, it'd be that, on a personal level, I wish it had a few more Normal Arknights Maps. The vast majority of maps in IS4 are pranks and checks of some sort. This isn't necessarily a negative, but I do like playing some Tower Defense more frequently than what IS4 allows, since it's always got me worried about "oh god my team lacks X, Floor Y's Map Z checks X, if I get it, I'll D I E " so I try to go for my super tried and true team instead of daring to experiment all that much. This will eventually pass, but it's been a Thing for me.

Besides that, though? I just have a lot of good things to say about it. The systems feel like they were thought out this time: The Fordartals (sp?) system allows for a lot of player expression, agency, and just in general fun in a way the Light system of IS3 can simply never hope to compare to. About the only thing the Light system did right was the way it worked thematically: If you wish to confront The Corrupting Heart, you really, really gotta go in the dark, and for the best possible chance against, Izumik, Mizuki must find the Light again and be filled with hope. Yeah ok sure, thematically, these work, but the gameplay component sucks ass, because Light exists almost exclusively as a form of punishment and in basically no way as something you can use. It opens some roads, sure, but that Rogue Trader and Wish Fulfilled node are not worth having 9 out of you 11 Operators with Metastatic. Speaking of Metastatic, the single worst thing Arknights has done, even if you are maxed out on Collapse in IS4 and are packing four fully upgraded maluses, THAT STILL DOESN'T COMPARE to how bad Metastatic was. Let that sink in.

The endings are no longer RNG! Absolutely wonderful!

Eik is the first IS 2nd Boss I can say I think is good! Frozen Monstrosity was just annoying, Big Sad Lock is incredibly static, and The Last Knight, in my opinion, is the single worst and most boring boss in the entire game, not even just the game mode. Eik is like if The Last Knight didn't suck: Same principle, but done in a way that is actually not snooze-inducing. Mind you, the principle of the fight is still not something I enjoy, but unlike The Last Knight, that's wholly a me thing, as opposed to being an objectively awful and boring fight (like The Last Knight, the worst and most boring boss in Arknights).

Even though I said I'd like some more normal maps, the maps are good, to be honest! I can't think of any Fire and Water Unions or Out of Controls.

IS4 is the Smash of Arknights: (Almost) Everyone Is Here! Brush up on your gimmicks from various events, because they WILL appear.

The Midboss philosophy in IS4 is lovely, in my opinion: It's low HP bosses who can quickly fuck you up in their own way, be it stun, immense conditional damage, or simply supporting their team so well that you get overwhelmed. The Variant stages for the bosses are entire new maps, so that's also cool.

Collapsal enemies are congruent with the map design: Collapsals can be very quick, with a caveat: Normal Collapsal mobs speed up after they get hit, Casters speed up after not attacking for a bit, Aerials are fast but always have many loops and never directly go to the point until after a while. Shattered Champions are the exception, and they can either loop a while or just go straight for the jugular, making them apt Elite units for the faction.

There's much more I could say more concisely, but really, just try the game mode, get your ass kicked a bit, learn it, and then you'll see how coherent the design of IS4 is in terms of systems, maps, enemies, and features. Sorry, IS3, but you got your ass absolutely kicked like I did on my Waves 15 runs when you'd give my 2 main DPS units Metastatic on Floor 5.

[blueicequeen19]

Locked Out

Warnings: dub-con, unprotected sex, mentions of sloppy seconds, unhinged JJ

I quickly slip into my apartment and flip the light on before locking the door behind me and toeing my shoes off. I drop my purse and keys on the entry table before getting a bottle of water from the fridge and heading to my bedroom. My thighs and pussy were still sore from all the activities tonight. Rafe hadn’t been easy on me. He was never satisfied until I was a fucked out mess. And I currently looked like one. I grimaced at my reflection in the mirror as I started to strip down to just my panties.

“Where have you been?” I jump, biting back a scream when I see JJ standing behind me in the doorway.

“How did you get in here?” I demanded, my heart threatening to burst in my chest.

“I had another key made.” JJ says, his expression hard as his eyes raked over my naked body. He no doubt saw the numerous hickies, the flush to my cheeks, and my ratty hair.

“You can’t be here.” I growl, looking around and quickly realizing my phone was in my purse.

“How was Rafe?” JJ asks, ignoring what I’d just said. I narrow my eyes at him.

“Are you following me now?” I grabbed a shirt from the bed but he snatches it from me, causing me to stumble back with a gasp. He advances on me, throwing the shirt behind him.

“I saw you. I saw you fucking him in his truck.” JJ snarls, reaching out and pinching my nipple hard. I cry out as I slap his hands away, my back meeting the wall.

“JJ—.” I whimper when he firmly grips my chin.

“You loved me. How could you do this to me? Screwing my worst enemy? That’s low even for you.” Tears fill my eyes as I look up at him, his expression unwavering even with his own tears threatening to fall.

“And despite the fact that I saw you ride him like some desperate whore.. I still want you. I still love you. I still need you.” My heart crumbles in my chest and a sob breaks free as the first tears start to fall down my cheeks.

“JJ, please.” I wrap my hand around his wrist, trying to loosen his hold on my chin but he doesn’t budge. He lets out a shaky breath, his thumb wiping away my tears.

“I don’t know what I have to do to prove to you that I’m the one for you.” His hand slips from my chin and into the back of my hair, jerking my head back. I push at his chest but he closes the space between us, his eyes raking down my naked body.

“I guess I’ll have to get rid of Cameron. It’s so easy to cut break lines. You ever tried to stop at the bottom of Tannyhill with no breaks? You’d end up in the ocean if no one hit you first.” His voice is low in warning and I sob, panic consuming me.

“JJ, please don’t. Please. I’ll do anything.” His hand finds my breast, squeezing and rolling my nipple between his fingers while he seems deep in thought.

“I might enjoy actually getting my hands on him more.” JJ licks his lips, pinching me harder.

“Bad muggings happen all the time.” I gasp, my body trembling in terror as he leans in and presses a kiss to my cheek.

“They’d never know it was me. Rafe Cameron has no shortage of enemies.”

“JJ—.”

“What about an OD? That would be the least surprising giving his history. Do you know how easy it is to score around here?” He turns my head again so I’m facing him, the tears flowing freely.

“I’ll do whatever you want.” I sob, leaning up on my toes and sealing my fate as I kiss him. He kisses me tenderly, like it’s the first time all over again, the grip in my hair finally loosening. My nipples ache from his torment and I whimper as he caresses them gently.

“This doesn’t work unless you want this too.” JJ rasps, turning me so my back is to the bed. I take a few tentative steps back until my calves brush the frame. I look up at him as he towers over me, taking a moment to appreciate how genuinely handsome he was. As if sensing where my mind is, he pulls off his ball cap and tosses it onto the floor then pulls his shirt over his head.

“Tell me you want this too.” JJ says, kicking his boots off then discarding his shorts. I gulp, trying to find the best way to sound convincing. I couldn’t let Rafe get hurt because of me. He was nice and a good lay but JJ had my heart. He was just a little broken sometimes.

“I do want this.” I whisper as his boxers come off next. He kneels before me, not tearing his gaze away as he pulls my panties down my legs. I shiver as his hands slide up and down my legs until he stands, palming my ass.

“Say it like you mean it.” JJ cups my face, waiting for me to answer.

“I want this with you. I want you, J.” I nod and he smile, leaning down to kiss me. We don’t break apart as he lowers us to the bed, his body coming down on top of mine. It’s not until his hand slips between my thighs that I freeze.

“What’s wrong?” He demands, sliding his hand up and down my slit. His fingers move lower until they find what I was afraid of. JJ’s eyes widen for a moment before his voice morphs with anger.

“He came inside you?” JJ bites out, taking his hand and sitting up while looking down at me.

“I’m sorry, J.” I mumble, clamping my legs shut. He shakes his head, his jaw clenched.

“You never let me do that. I never got to finish inside you.” JJ sneers, his jealousy getting the best of him. I take his arm pulling him back down onto his back.

“JJ, we were broken up. We’re not now.” I whisper, trying to sound more convincing than I felt. I really didn’t know this was going to happen. I straddle his waist and kiss him, trying to dissolve his anger.

“There’s only you, J. Just you.” I rasp against his lips, his hands tight on my hips as I guide him to my entrance. I sink down slowly, so slowly. His face twists in pleasure before he clenches his jaw, hands tightening on my hips.

“Make me believe that. Show me.”

[anastasiaskarsgard]

So I had an ask that disappeared that asked about Roman Godfrey has an ex gf that he wants back but she is sick of his shit.

Why on earth had you agreed to see your crazy ex boyfriend again? You were having a fucking panic attack. Why did you agree to this? You were entirely too nice. Boredom was always your worst enemy, and for a moment this seemed like it could be fun.

Plus it’s early morning and light out. This could hardly be considered a booty call. It was too early for Romans antics, right? Oh boy.

Peering out the window, you tried to decide where you were heading. You’d originally assumed the White Tower, but you’d long ago passed that turn off.

The driver had the partition up, so you attempted to lower it. After pressing the button several ways, it became clear it was broken or disengaged. This was looking like a worse and worse idea as the minutes ticked on.

Scooting down the long leather bench, so you were right behind the driver, you knocked on the partition and waited a couple beats.

“Hello? Excuse me sir? My button is broken.” You called out. Knocking a few more times and still getting no response, you told yourself you were fine and you weren’t going to overreact. Roman probably had some rule about no contact with his whores.

Not that you were a whore, but in the mind of his driver, you all probably blurred into one.

Maybe your outfit selection had been a bit hasty. In an effort to show Roman you were not going to be ordered around, you decided to wear your Hello Kitty pajamas. The red booty shorts with the famous cats face all over them, and the form fitting tank top, paired with your shiny white Uggs could possibly give the wrong impression.

You had been going for playful adult woman that didn’t take herself too seriously, but maybe an older gentleman wearing a suit would think otherwise. Add to that, you had a full face of make up, and had done your hair because you refused to look anything less than perfect in front of your ex... oh well.

As the car came to a halt in front of the nicest restaurant in town, famous for their exclusive invite only brunch they held on occasion, you couldn’t help but laugh at your current situation. With the restaurant having an open indoor/outdoor seating arrangement, everyone would be seeing you exit the limo.

Even though everyone dining here was well off, very few people took limousines anywhere, and just in case they were curious who’s limo this was, the big golden G on the window made it pretty clear.

Steeling yourself for the looks and hushed comments you were sure you deserved, you put on your brightest smile and thanked the driver politely when he opened your door. Holding your head high, you followed him into the restaurant, back towards the private rooms. Focusing on the mans jacket, you ignored the snickers and buzzing spreading through the patrons as you passed by. Finally coming to a stop in front of a set of gorgeously carved doors, he opened them to reveal a generously sized private room with Roman seated looking like he was shooting a photo spread for Vogue. Dark top and slacks, tailored to fit him perfectly, and the subdued lighting made his stunning good looks and inhuman beauty all the more obvious. In spite of all that, you couldn’t help but feel flattered at how his face lit up when he saw you.

“You are such a fucking brat. The one time I try to treat you like an adult you show up in Hello Kitty.” Roman chuckled, smiling happily at you.

You couldn’t help but laugh too. You felt pretty ridiculous, but you’d be damned if you’d admit it, “well thanks for trying to be an adult. And thanks for finally bringing me to the place I’ve been begging to go to for our entire doomed relationship. Glad to see you care. Now where’s the server? I’m going to need some vodka for my orange juice.”

Romans face fell into a frown and he glared at you for a moment before raising his hand in the air. Not a moment later, a server arrived to take their orders, and hurried off.

Silence settled over the table and you sat staring at a large landscape piece, refusing to make conversation or attempt to make him comfortable. You didn’t want to be here, and he wasn’t making much of an effort. You don’t know what you expected, but maybe him getting up and trying to hug you or shake your hand. Something!

You refused to cry. You would not allow it. You would not give him the satisfaction. You-

“I’m sorry.”

You turned to look at Roman, shock written across your features. Taking that as encouraging, he continued on.

“I love you and it scares me. When you went back to the room, they all started to give me shit about you owning me, and I reacted...” he knit his brows together and seemed to be searching for the right words, “wrong. Like an asshole. I wanted to prove I could do whatever I wanted. When I returned to the room and you were gone, I lost my mind. I searched everywhere and then Bianca found me and took me to her room.”

Your heart shattered. And here it had started out so perfectly. You’d been elated to find out he’d searched for you, and his apology nearly made you fall from your chair, but it all crashed down with the last part.

You nodded your head and looked away as the server dropped off your items, and you tried to keep it together. It’d always be like this. There’d always be a Bianca. The thought was devastating.

“Can you say something or at least look at me?” He snapped. His famous temper was surfacing, and you really didn’t think you could handle a tantrum.

“There’s always going to be a Bianca, or an Ashley or a Susan,” you said sadly.

“I don’t even know a Susan.” He stated incredulously. “What does that have to do with me being sorry? Who is this Susan? Where did you meet her?”

“Roman!” You snapped at him, pinning him with your fiercest glare. “There’s no Susan!”

“But you just said-“

Slamming your hand on the table, you were pleased to see he jumped. “Do not interrupt me Roman. You will listen since you forced me to come.”

He let out a long sigh and lit a cigarette, cocking an eyebrow at you as you took your time, eating some of the delicious dishes and sipping your cocktail. When he lit the second cigarette, you decided to begin.

“Roman I love you but so does every other woman that meets you. I don’t trust you and I don’t trust any of them. I’m constantly a wreck and worried someone will steal you, when you really should just belong to someone greater than I am. I’m not putting myself down, I’m just not so full of myself to believe I am better than everyone else, and you deserve an unbearable gorgeous Bianca that puts herself above all others, and doesn’t even consider your flaws to be flaws. You’re not a very nice person, and it’s exhausting constantly apologizing, and I need someone that loves me and feels I’m the best thing that happened to them. The competition is simply too stiff with you.” You finished and were surprised to see that Roman was not only listening but seemed to be considering your words.

“Any thoughts?” You asked after he put out his cigarette and continued to stare thoughtfully at you.

His lip quirked up into a smirk, and you pushed down the urge to touch him. He was still gorgeous, and as mad as you were with him, you had missed him. You wondered if it would be counterproductive to have one more romp, but you swiftly shut that idea down. You weren’t sure that you could have the self-control to just have one more time, and that would just lead to you being another one of those girls for him. Another good time and as appealing as that sounded... your heart couldn’t bear it.

Plus you really were tired. Curling up in your warm bed seemed like the most exciting prospect, and you wondered if he’d be terribly mad if you left right now. As your eyelids dropped and grew too heavy to keep open, you barely heard his reply;

“I knew you’d be difficult and I love you too much to let you ruin it.”

You tried to fight against the darkness closing in on you, but it was no use. As you felt your consciousness slip away, you couldn’t help but think that maybe all those good time girls had the right idea in letting Roman throw them away...

[butterflydm]

wot reread: a memory of light (ch 11-16)

spoilers through the final book, a memory of light

Yeah, I am falling solidly on the side of hoping that the show makes one of the Green Ajah Sisters in Salidar the general/captain for Egwene's forces. It would just feel so much better than it being Bryne. Thoughts brought to you by this scene between Egwene & Adelorna.

2. Remember how I've said that I would try to restrain my Mat plotline-related thoughts until we actually had a Mat PoV? Okay, I didn't quite manage that but we've finally arrived to one!

Our first Mat PoV in AMoL begins with Mat just outside Ebou Dar, which is... an odd choice.

What opening in Ebou Dar means is that Mat’s big ‘moment of decision’ when he abandons his friends, the Band of the Red Hand, Olver, and the Last Battle itself to go chasing after his slaver bride... happens off-screen. I wonder if Sanderson tried to write it, couldn’t make it believable, so decided to make it past-tense so that he could just pretend there was a way for it to make sense and not actually have to deal with justifying it ‘on page’. Because Mat is a deserter from the Last Battle at this point. And it happened off the page. He was still planning to go back to Caemlyn at the end of ToM, so what on earth happened? The actual moment of Mat making the choice that will define his behavior for the entire rest of this book (and thus the ending of his character as a whole) happened off-screen.

Stop having important emotional moments happen off-screen! This is the worst one yet!

It’s so weird, because this was not really a problem in the first two books that Sanderson co-wrote but, in AMoL, so many important character moments are being left on the cutting room floor (or were never written at all, I guess; can’t know for sure either way for most of them). Like, this happened a time or two in ToM (Elayne and Gawyn not getting a proper reunion) but nowhere near as much as has been happening in AMoL.

2. ...also, how did Mat get to Ebou Dar? Grady was already in Merrilor (went there with Perrin at the end of ToM) and that's where he was making Gateways from; and so Mat would have needed to come to Merrilor to collect Pips, because he left his horse with Perrin's people (they walked through the Gateway to the Tower of Ghenjei). I can’t imagine that Jur Grady would be willing to send Mat down into Ebou Dar when they are on the eve of the Last Battle and everyone knows that the Seanchan are in charge of Ebou Dar and Grady explicitly disapproves of slavery and the Seanchan. Jur Grady is not going to help one of the Lord Dragon’s generals defect to the Seanchan (and, whether or not Mat chooses to see it that way... defecting to the Seanchan is what he's done, given that the Seanchan are still Rand's enemy at this point). And Moiraine has been trapped in amber since before Egwene rediscovered Traveling, so Moiraine couldn’t have done it for him.

Plus, the timelines were pretty tight, and Moiraine and Thom arrive at Merrilor AFTER the assault on Caemlyn happened so... how did Mat miss that, when we know that he was planning to return to Caemlyn before doing anything else? And we know that he doesn’t return to Caemlyn to take care of business BEFORE the attack on the city and THEN leave for Ebou Dar, because Olver and Talmanes are impatiently waiting for his return in the epilogue of ToM, which is when the attack happens.

So Mat has, apparently, developed teleportation skills? Ebou Dar is not physically close to the Tower of Ghenjei or to Merrilor. Did Sanderson originally write Mat as being at Merrilor with Moiraine but then abruptly changed his mind midway through the writing process (perhaps moving Mat’s post-reunion scenes with Rand over to Perrin as a result?), maybe because he realized that Mat & Fortuona still needed to, ah, consummate their marriage, and then he never got around to the logistics of how a non-channeler managed to travel the distance of several weeks overnight? Narratively, emotionally, and geographically, it makes no sense that Mat is in Ebou Dar. Mat can’t Travel.

Has anyone ever asked Sanderson about this? I did a quick search online but haven’t found anyone else questioning how weird this is. The closest I've come to finding anything like that was finding a pre-release post where people were speculating on an early released teaser version of chapter 11 and pretty much everyone in that thread did assume that Mat was in Ebou Dar after going to Merrilor with Moiraine first, because... yeah, that's what makes sense. It's really baffling that it didn't happen.

Unless I missed a throwaway sentence somewhere, there is just straight-up no explanation anywhere in this chapter about how Mat got to Ebou Dar so quickly.

3. I am having vivid memories of how jarring reading CoT!Mat was after having spent time with WH!Mat, going from someone who freed slaves to someone who enabled slavers. When I was wondering if AMoL!Mat would get the CoT!Mat treatment, I still expected there to be some kind of transition scene. This is wild.

I mean... maybe the narrative is going to... explain all this somehow? Maybe we’ll get a flashback? But right now, I am full of questions marks before I even get to the actual content of the chapter.

Anyway, we are pretty clearly now doing Mat from CoT & KoD, so I will adjust my Mat expectations accordingly: Mat will likely have dampened empathy, not be as intelligent as he normally is, and coddle Fortuona like she’s a hangry toddler constantly on the verge of a tantrum (well, he's not really wrong about her in that regard, tbh; she's basically that kid from that Twilight Zone episode where everyone walks around on eggshells around an extremely powerful and temperamental child because he can destroy them with a thought).

4. Hmm. The weird thing. Okay, one of the MANY weird things is that in TGS and ToM, it felt like Sanderson was working really hard to reconcile what Mat needed to do in the plot with the characterization that we’d been left with from CoT & KoD plus Mat’s original characterization pre-CoT. He didn’t always hit it on the head but mostly, while Mat could be frustrating at times, it was usually in ways that were inherited from Jordan. This chapter is just... out of nowhere. Who is this guy? What the hell happened?

I’m almost more confused than I am offended because almost everything in this section felt like it just... appeared from the ether with no logic behind it. I don’t even know how to react to the content of the chapter because it was just... completely nonsensical.

Like, Mat goes back to Ebou Dar, which he has decided feels like... home? Because of all fond memories he has of being sexually assaulted and how much he misses the duels that he put a lot of effort into avoiding when he was actually there last time? Okay. Apparently, that’s a thing for this version of Mat.

But once he’s there, he doesn’t actually go to find ~his wife~ until he finds out that she has people who potentially want to kill her. So he rushes to Ebou Dar (abandoning his friends, his semi-adopted child, and the fate of the world) but then proceeds to bum around in a tavern for a few hours, so he wasn’t really in that much of a hurry to see Fortuona until her life was potentially being threatened, so... eh? Was this supposed to convince me that he loves her?

I mean, he doesn’t want her to die, but if that counts as love, then I guess he was also desperately in love with Renna the sul’dam, since he was so upset over HER death back in KoD. Canonically, Mat (like all the Two Rivers' boys) has issues with women getting killed, so literally any threat to any woman’s life seems like it would motivate him here. I’m just... this whole section is so bizarre. Sanderson just... didn’t bother to explain why Mat didn’t go back to Caemlyn or how he got here. 

5. You know, for all this time, my memory has said “oh Mat ran back to Ebou Dar to save Tuon’s life from assassins” (and I’ve been trying to work out when that happened and who could have possibly sent along that rumor, given where Mat was located at the end of ToM) and I was annoyed that Sanderson had decided to have Mat prioritize his slaver wife over the end of the world, but was ready to roll my eyes at it, call him Perrin 2.0, and then move on.

But Mat doesn’t even suspect assassins might be after Fortuona until he realizes that someone in this Ebou Dari tavern suspects that HE might be an assassin (even though “other Seanchan are sending assassins after Tuon” was literally a thing in KoD too -- lots of people hate your wife, Mat. Get used to it). So Mat deserted from the Last Battle for... no reason at all? Talmanes almost died because of Mat’s failures and Mat didn’t even have a reason to walk away from him and the Band and Olver?

6. When we left off in ToM, Mat was planning to go back to Caemlyn. Instead, he’s managed to teleport to Ebou Dar (with his horse) and completely change his motivations and none of it happened on the page. He doesn’t give a single thought to Rand or Elayne or Talmanes or Olver during this entire section. He thinks about his eye without ever thinking about how it got injured (because if he thinks about Moiraine, then Sanderson might have to explain how Mat separated from Moiraine & Thom).

Instead, the narration just acts like it makes sense for Mat to be in Ebou Dar even though it completely contradicts his last PoV chapter. We also get zero sense here of how long it's been since Mat's final scene in ToM -- he notes that his eye is missing, but he doesn't seem to be in pain. That seems unlikely, given both the initial physical trauma involved in the injury and also that Mat did nothing to care for the injury after it happened.

I’m just... no wonder my brain made shit up to make this make sense! This makes no sense! What on earth happened between the writing of TGS/ToM and the writing of AMoL to make Mat’s plotline change so abruptly? This is so bizarre! Why was so much more effort and page time put into showing us Galad's choices than have been put into Mat's? Why did we waste time on Slayer in the prologue but didn't bother explaining why Mat completely flipped his life upside down for no apparent reason?

7. I mean, on the plus side, that makes it extremely easy for fic writers (or the show adaptators) to rewrite or retcon, because Sanderson did not even bother to give Mat a reason to do any of this. Talmanes thinks so fondly of Mat during the prologue and Mat abandoned him! He abandoned the Band of the Red Hand right before the Last Battle! And the decision to do it wasn’t even on the page! Holy shit, what the fuck! the entire conceit of Mat’s character is “protests the idea of doing the right thing but then does the right thing anyway” and now he’s a deserter right before the end of the world.

and the worst part is that this fraction of his plotline ends up completely outweighing everything else he’s ever done when it comes to his ~fandom reputation~. He’s the unreliable one (despite always keeping his word and being incredibly reliable in earlier books); he’s the Bad Friend (despite clearly being a much closer friend to Rand than Perrin was in earlier books); he’s the one without a moral code who is willing to throw away hundreds of commoners/slaves for the sake of a single ~noble~ life (*cough* Perrin in Malden *cough*).

It is just so so ridiculous that after books and books of Mat accepting and knowing that he needs to be with Rand for the Last Battle and actively driving towards that goal (including in all of TGS & ToM!), that he fucked off at the last minute to hang out in slaver-town for shits and giggles?

8. I'm sorry, I can't let this go: he was planning to return to Caemlyn at the end of ToM!

Literally, here is the quote: “You find [Rand], Moiraine, but I’ve got things to do in Caemlyn. Don’t mean to argue and all, but that’s the fact of it. You should come there too. Elayne’s more likely than anyone else to be able to help you with Rand.”

Not long after that, this appears in Mat's internal narration: "[Mat] decided to make himself scarce, leaving [Moiraine and Thom] alone. He went to scout the area where their gateway was supposed to appear. It had better. They had no supplies, and Mat did not fancy flagging down a ship and riding the long way back to Caemlyn."

Clearly, the original plan was to have Mat return to Caemlyn* or at least to attempt to do so. And then the plan abruptly changed behind the scenes and we’re left with... this weird mess of a scene here in Ebou Dar that just feels utterly detached from reality.

(* as it is, it does seem likely that Mat will never even learn that he could have prevented Caemlyn from being attacked, might never even find out that Caemlyn was attacked at all. Which means that, in order to 'become' Seanchan, Mat has acquired one of the most annoying traits that Jordan gave to the Seanchan (especially Fortuona) -- a complete lack of narrative accountability for their choices and behaviors, and other people and the narrative itself not holding them to account for failures and choices that anyone else would be held to account for. Narratively, Mat should face the consequences of his decision not to read Verin's letter and to abandon the field before the Last Battle but... Fortuona is always coddled and sheltered from getting the natural narrative consequences for being an asshole, and now, perhaps, so is Mat)

9. Question - which is a messier and worse choice for the writer to make: Jordan abruptly turning down the dial on how much Mat cared about slavery in-between WH and CoT (presumably so that it would be believable that he would court & kiss an unrepentant slaver), or Sanderson abruptly having Mat desert right before the Last Battle, abandoning the Band of the Red Hand and Olver in the process?

I mean, they’re both awful, so I don’t know if I can pick, personally. Also, why is it always Mat who has the best parts of himself carved away while the narrative tries to pretend that nothing has changed?

This is now the fourth time that Mat has been harshly pulled away from his natural narrative progression, btw. The first two changes happen due to events in the story and so I find them... somewhat forgivable... but the last two involve ripping out actual parts of Mat’s characterization between books, and I’m much less forgiving of that.

In LoC, Mat stops being Rand’s general when Rand tells him to go to Salidar to help Elayne get to Caemlyn. Understandable story beat. No issue with this one except that it made me miss Mat & Rand’s interactions.

In ACoS, Mat is unable to go with Elayne to Caemlyn, instead being trapped in Ebou Dar. While I find the actual ‘getting trapped’ in Ebou Dar to be understandable plot nonsense, I do not find the contrivances to keep Rand from knowing that Mat has been left behind to be believable (but, of course, if Rand were allowed to know that Mat was in Ebou Dar, he would have saved Mat before ‘prophecy’ could have had its way with him). The creaky Hand of the Author is very apparent in this storyline.

In WH, Mat frees slaves, and pretty much everything in that book sets up Tuon’s circus journey to be a transformative experience for her (I went over this in detail in one of my last reread posts about WH, because it honestly blew my mind how many threads that WH laid out that CoT completely failed to follow up on)... but then in-between WH & CoT, Mat’s empathy is swapped so that instead of sympathizing with the former slaves (the Aes Sedai) as he did in WH, he instead sympathizes with the former and current slavers (the sul’dam and Tuon). We are not given any reason on the page for why Mat's sympathies have been swapped around.

In the last chapter of ToM, Mat plans to return to Caemlyn; in AMoL, he is abruptly in Ebou Dar, hundreds of miles to the south, a deserter from the Last Battle and a defector to the Seanchan. We do not see the moment when he decided to abandon Team Light and the Band.

Of course, every single one of these narrative swerves was in the service of pushing Mat into the arms of the Seanchan -- first physically, and then mentally. It’s telling how much force had to be applied to Mat to lock him into the role of being Fortuona’s Prince of Ravens. Left to his own natural narrative devices, Mat appears to have flowed back towards the Last Battle and towards Rand. On four different occasions, he has to be forcibly yanked towards his ‘destined’ role.

10. This PoV leaves me with two big questions:

Why is Mat in Ebou Dar?

How is Mat in Ebou Dar?

No, seriously, check out the map:

Make it make sense how Mat rode from the Tower of Ghenjei, all the way down to Ebou Dar, in the same amount of time that it took Moiraine and Thom to Travel to meet with Rand in Merrilor (which is instantaneous). Now, if this were Rand or Elayne or Aviendha or... you know, any other strong channeler who knew how to Travel... no big deal! Pop down to Ebou Dar and then back by lunchtime. But Mat is on a horse.

11. Most importantly, why wasn’t Mat changing his mind about the entire course of his life actually on the page? How on earth could us learning about Androl's twenty different past careers be more important than us actually getting Mat's change of heart on the page?

This chapter is like a weird fever dream about Mat, where distances don’t matter and characterizations change at the drop of a hat.

This would all make so much more sense if Mat actually did go to Merrilor and volunteered to go speak to Fortuona on behalf of the Westlands -- then someone sending him here by Gateway would make a lot of sense and it wouldn't matter that Mat traveled hundreds of miles in an instant because, well, Traveling will do that. As it is... the why and the how of Mat going to Ebou Dar are both left as complete mysteries.

12. It kinda feels like Sanderson skipped forward in Mat's storyline specifically so that he wouldn't have to explain how ToM!Mat changed into AMoL!Mat, two characterizations of Mat who appear to have very different motivations and loyalties. ToM's Mat had a very complicated relationship in the text with Fortuona -- he felt an obligation to protect her Because Wife, but also was very clearly trying to shear off "Tuon" from "the Seanchan" in his brain, and he was wildly (almost on overdrive) attracted to other women; yet he was also incredibly dedicated to his friends and to the Last Battle. ToM!Mat was a very complicated character, with a lot of contradictory thoughts and impulses to dig into and analyze. This Mat feels much less emotionally complex, at least so far, and we don't get any of the shadings of his torn loyalties between Prophecy Wife and everything else that he cares about -- he's just been cut off from his past life entirely, with very little signs of remorse or regret or grief over it. That's a huge change from where he was at the end of ToM!

The best comparison I can think of is if Sanderson had decided to leave Rand's epiphany off the page at the end of TGS -- if the last we saw of Rand in TGS was him leaving after almost killing his dad, and then the next we saw of him was in the ToM "Apples" chapter where he's making grass grow around him, completely skipping over the scene on Dragonmount (and never even referencing it; just acting like it makes sense that Rand is zen!Rand now and not ruthless!Rand anymore). That's what feels like happened with Mat -- he experienced a near-reversal of his established characterization and motivations off-screen between the books.

13. Though that's kinda the issue with Mat's "corruption arc" in general (if you want to call it that; it doesn't really have enough substance to it to deserve the name imo) -- we never actually see him change on-screen; he just conveniently changes his feelings about slavery between WH & CoT so that he'll be willing to kiss Fortuona even though she remains an unrepentant slaver; and then he conveniently changes his motivations between ToM & AMoL so that his next destination is Ebou Dar instead of Caemlyn/Merrilor. The moment of decision doesn't happen on the page. I have enjoyed and watched many corruption arcs but... it's gotta actually happen on the page, not in between books.

Um. Yeah. Will the next Mat PoV section be just as confusing as this one? Or will we get an explanation of some kind? I guess I will... find out?

14. Side note: the Tuatha'an have utterly screwed themselves over as a people for the foreseeable future. Literally walked themselves into the lion's mouth. Any teenager shows the spark? Damane. Grow up a little too pretty? Da'covale. But I guess they may consider feeding their children into the machinery of the empire to be a ~worthwhile price~ for them to pay in order to not personally engage in violence, even though said empire definitely does engage in massive amounts of violence (and will do so even under any kind of peace treaty that might be signed because: slavery is violence). This is not a Sanderson thing, though, because Jordan is the one who decided that the Tuatha'an culture of pacifism was aligned with slavery and invasion, back in Knife of Dreams, when he had the Tuatha'an flock to Altara.

15. Any other thoughts on this section before I move on to the next PoV? Ah, I guess I should actually engage with the content of the chapter, lol. I'll do my best.

It is kinda funny, in a ??? way, how Mat goes "yeah, wasn't Tylin Good Times?", "Oh, I hope that I get lots of women... just like her", "haha, oh no, Tuon is Just Like Her", "Um, maybe only one more of them is okay after all". It's bizarre and illogical and completely detached from reality but somewhat funny, in a "please stop talking yourself into a toxic situation" kind of way.

The main problem is that Mat doesn't have any given narrative reason to be here, talking himself into wanting to spend time with the slavers & with the empress slaver. If Mat had an external reason to be here -- or even an internal one that had been articulated in some way in the text -- then this entire PoV would have some kind of grounding in narrative reality. As it is, just like with refusing to get his eye injury treated, it feels like Mat is punishing himself for no reason (and punishing readers, or at least me, along with him).

16. "The Ebou Dari won't riot at something as unimportant as being conquered."

...

...

...

????????????????????

God, the whitewashing of the Seanchan invasion is such a bizarre thing to witness. Your city being invaded and terrorized is no big deal, apparently! The Wise Women (who were their healers & local herbalists) completely vanishing from the city... no big deal! Not important, y'all!

It's been maybe four months* (maximum) since Ebou Dar was invaded, but I guess everyone is over that now? Setalle Anan was making a big deal out of nothing when she decided she wanted to leave the city, I guess.

(* Mat was healing from his injuries taken by the invasion for roughly a month; then I believe that the circus was on the road for... like a month?; and then it would have taken a month or so for Fortuona to be escorted back to Ebou Dar; plus whatever Mat's travel time was to get back to Ebou Dar -- apparently we're supposed to believe that it's been at least six months, per Elayne's pregnancy symptoms but... where is that extra time coming from? Was Mat trapped in the circus plot for three whole months? (which would mean that Rand was chilling in a mansion in Tear doing nothing but having sex with Min and talking to Loial about his book for those same three months, which is recklessly negligent of him, if I'm supposed to believe it) I find that really hard to believe)

17. Hmm. If we take into account that Sanderson was trying to keep in mind that "what Mat thinks and says doesn't always reflect how he genuinely feels" (something Sanderson mentions knowing was a key part of Mat's characterization in his retrospective) then I expect we're supposed to take all his weird mental blather about how ~great!~ Ebou Dar was and how ~fun times!~ his rapist Tylin was with more than a few grains of salt.

But I really am thrown by how it makes no sense for Mat to be here in this context. Mat not being able to channel is a pretty significant part of his characterization, and it's also a limiting factor that means that he cannot travel hundreds of miles in a single day without significant help from someone who (a) can channel fairly strongly, (b) knows the Traveling weave, and (c) is inclined to help Mat get to where he's going.

So, let's do a little reworking before we move on. What if Mat had actually followed the path that was set out for him at the end of ToM?

His plan was to go to Caemlyn, but he was waiting for Grady's gateway in order to leave the Tower of Ghenjei area at all, which means that he would go with Moiraine and Thom to Merrilor (because that's where Grady is). Once at Merrilor, upon requesting to be sent to Caemlyn, he would learn that Caemlyn was attacked, that Talmanes nearly died (and that Olver is missing? idk, the text has said nothing about Olver's location as of this point in the story). But then he goes to the big meeting and learns how precarious things are with the Seanchan. So, Mat is on the horns of a dilemma, where he has two obligations (his failure in Caemlyn vs his failure with Fortuona) and no way he can fulfill both obligations at the same time. He has to choose.

He chooses to go to Ebou Dar, which is tactically the better choice. This does take him out of the running for leading the armies at this time (so Elayne would still be doing that) but Mat is the only person who can meet with Fortuona as something other than an enemy. He is gateway'd in to just outside the city and then we pick up with this chapter here. Most of this chapter could even stay roughly the same -- Mat trying to get the feel of the city before he goes in to talk with Fortuona, and then him finding out she potentially has assassins after her jumpstarting him into high gear.

If that were the case, then Mat's brain-breaking justifications for why Ebou Dar is just ~the greatest~ and Tylin was just ~the best~ and so Tuon will just be an extension of the ~awesome times~ that Mat had in Ebou Dar with Tylin and how the Seanchan's culture of slavery definitely isn't any more extreme than any of the other cultures he knows!... all of that [footage not found] stuff that Mat is claiming is true would come across much better as Mat frantically trying to make himself feel less panicked over his worries about Fortuona enslaving him as da'covale, a fear that has been haunting him for books. Especially if Mat presents himself as very confident about his ability to win Fortuona over, and then we see in his internal narration that he has no clue how she feels about him and wonders if his task is even possible.

This would also solve two other weird situations -- it would have given Mat and Min a chance to meet (while Mat is in his right mind and not dagger-addled) which would also have given Min something to do while Rand was spending all time with Elayne and Aviendha instead of Min just being a silent lurking presence in this section of the book; and it would explain why Rand still hasn't gone to visit the Seanchan.

Because that was Rand's plan after the big meeting but it's been at least two or three days in Rand's timeline and we still haven't done it (per Perrin's narration, Mat is already in Ebou Dar after the meeting that he and Elayne have with the generals, which is immediately after the pavilion meeting; makes zero sense but that's what the narrative tells us happened). But if Mat was sent on purpose to try to win Fortuona over to a reasonable truce, then it would make sense for Rand to give him some space and time to do that. Instead, Rand just... hangs out and does nothing for a couple of days while everyone else fights?

And the thing is... it would not significantly increase the page time to do things this way. That's the most baffling part. Give Mat & Min maybe one scene to show that they're bonding. Give those Perrin & Rand scenes that felt out of place to Mat & Rand. And the rest of the Mat-related stuff can be somewhat in the background, with chapter 11 still being his first PoV chapter if you like. It would add maybe five pages to the early parts of the book, which could easily be found by cutting down some of the Androl & Pevara scenes.

So clearly this was an active choice by Sanderson & Team Jordan but... why? Was it just too difficult for them to believe that Mat would condemn himself to marriage with Fortuona if we actually saw the moment when he decided to go to her? Was it to add to the feeling that Mat's story is unfinished by withholding the conclusions of Mat's character arcs from him? Was it a case of 'writing to the epilogue', even if that meant ignoring what had previously been established at the end of ToM?

I'm assuming that they assumed that the chaos of the Last Battle would mean that no one would ever question the logistics of this and that does seem mostly true -- I certainly didn't catch it on my first read of this book (pretty sure I was too busy hating that Mat was in Ebou Dar at all to question how Mat was in Ebou Dar).

18. Speaking of Rand! Let's find out what he has been doing the last couple of days instead of going to try to make a peace treaty with the Seanchan.

Moiraine is also wondering why Rand is just standing around, doing nothing. Hey, you know what's really weird, Moiraine? That you and Rand aren't talking about whatever happened that made Mat change his mind from going to Caemlyn to instead decide to go to Ebou Dar (and how he got there so quickly). Mat saved you from the 'finn! Mat was the whole reason that you got out! And then he just straight-up deserted from the Last Battle. This isn't worth a conversation or two with Rand? It's so bizarre that absolutely no one is talking to Moiraine (or Thom?) about Mat, especially Perrin, who knows that Mat specifically went off to save Moiraine (with Thom and with another guy who Perrin certainly doesn't care about, or care to notice also didn't return).

It also feels bizarre that Perrin was content to just go "oh, I guess Mat decided to sit out the Last Battle, la-di-da" when he got that Ebou Dar vision in his head, because there's absolutely no hint or indication that he even considered asking Moiraine or Thom what made Mat decide to desert the armies right before the Last Battle. At least Rand has no clue that Mat went off on a secret mission to save Moiraine, so he doesn't have any idea that he should ask Moiraine or Thom anything. Perrin does know but just doesn't feel like sharing any of that information with anyone, either because he likes Knowing Secrets or because he is a useless person.

Also, Rand is now in Shienar, hanging out with Lan's section of the army, so Perrin is, uh, doing a great job of sticking by his side, lol, all the way over in Caemlyn as he is.

19. Haha, Rand thinks here that he'd forgotten how annoying Moiraine could be. That does kinda feel like it touches on an (unintentional, maybe) theme of making saints out of the dead -- we had sainted dead Fortuona in Aviendha's future vision (a "woman of honor"), we have Mat making a saint out of dead Tylin (good ol' Fun Times Tylin), and we have Rand realizing that he'd forgotten all the parts of Moiraine that actually kinda rubbed him the wrong way, because he made a saint out of her once she was 'dead'. Again, I don't know if that's an intentional theme, but I do find it interesting.

20. The distance between Lan and Moiraine here is sad but understandable. Moiraine did the best she could to burn that relationship down before she went into the doorway (and right after, by giving away his bond to someone else, someone who took advantage of the bond and abused him). Lan still respects her -- he tells Rand that it's wise to listen to her -- but it'll be a long long time before he can bring himself to trust her emotionally again, if he ever manages it.

21. One little thing that Rand did was have his smiths make crowns for Lan and Nynaeve, based on old drawings of the Malkieri royalty. Aww. So that's another extremely sentimental gift that Rand has handed out, drawing on his personal knowledge of the person(s) in question.

22. *gasp* Rand went back to Dumai's Wells to search out the little fat man angreal. Ah! Emotions! So he uses that angreal here, as he fights on behalf of Lan's section of the army to take out the enemy's channelers. I'm also glad that he's not literally standing around doing nothing, lol.

And we do see in this chapter that all of Rand's emotions from pre-epiphany -- his anger and frustration and his dislike of Taim -- are all still there; he just has better control now (like he said to Perrin). After having such little access to Rand in ToM and being iced out, it really is a relief to be inside his head again and to see that there's a lot more going on than what Min was able to glean from the bond.

23. Birgitte is leading a squad of Aiel, for... reasons. But the focus of this chapter is more on Birgitte's agonizing sense of loss over her fading memories and her fear that it means she is no longer bound to the Wheel as a Hero of the Horn. Birgitte is definitely more likable when she's focusing on her own shit rather than trying to micromanage Elayne's life. They pass a group of Trollocs who are "several days" dead, so time is definitely passing on the battlefield.

24. Rand is in the dream, wearing Two Rivers clothes and sturdy boots. Sturdy boots, you say? This feels like an interesting companion to Mat's thoughts on boots -- how nobles have too many, for every type of occasion, but all you really need are three pairs of boots, with sturdy working boots being your 'best' pair.

25. This is a dreamshard, and Rand learned the crafting of it from Lews Therin's memories. It's a place that mingles memory with fantasy, and this specific one, Rand thinks of as his 'valley of peace'. AMoL tries to shatter my "Rand as potential Dreamer" vibes by telling us that LTT wasn't a Dreamer and I say, "too late, I've already integrated that into my Rand worldview" (tbh I think that Jordan considered the idea of making LTT a dreamer (in TDR) and decided against it (in TSR) because he already had both Egwene & Perrin involved in all that and he didn't want Rand to be able to Do Everything).

26. There's a cavern in his dreamshard that Rand didn't put there. He wonders if it was put there by Moridin and tries to avoid it, but he finds himself encountering it again and again, so he enters. And there, in a pool of water, is Lanfear/Mierin/Cyndane. Okay, glad we're going back to this, but let's see where it takes us.

27. "Yes, her face was different, but faces were no longer of much matter to him. She was still the same person." Okay, yes, more of this. Rand reflecting on how the face is not the thing that matters! Very interesting results of him embracing the memories from Lews Therin. Rand remembers how Lanfear was the only one who'd sought out and chosen her new name when she became Forsaken. And he remembers their relationship from Lews Therin's youth, mingled with the way that he'd felt about her when he'd encountered "Lady Selene". Lanfear tries to convince him that she needs him to save her from the Dark One, but when he doesn't fall for it, the pool she was pretending to be drowning in vanishes.

28. There's a moment when Rand wonders if she might genuinely be willing to turn back to the Light, but she falters, tells him that she cannot make that choice. I feel somewhat "eh" about Rand telling her that LTT never loved her and never understood what love was before he met "her" (aka Ilyena). Lews Therin genuinely loving Mierin first wouldn't make his love for Ilyena lesser. I mean, I can go either way on it, but... there are different types of love (also, it's implied here that LTT & M were in a relationship for literal centuries which is definitely way longer than it was in my head lol). Anyway, Rand thinks here that he lets her go "as Lews Therin was never able to", because even after he stopped caring for her, he "held on to hatred and scorn". And Lanfear also sees here that "the core" of Rand is Rand and not Lews Therin, including his love for Elayne, Aviendha, & Min.

29. Hey, hey Perrin. Any thoughts about how Mat ran away from the Last Battle? Any considerations about asking Moiraine or Thom or Grady about Mat bouncing and defecting to his slaver wife?

No? No thoughts about any of that. Well, thanks for nothing, Perrin!

It does feel so ridiculous that literally everyone is engaged in the Last Battle right now except for Mat, who took a (two month? instantaneous? who knows!) detour to drink with slavers. Especially since they all believe that Mat is supposed to blow the Horn of Valere! How is hunting him down and yanking him to the battle to put his mouth on that horn not priority #1? We are not given any reason in the text why Perrin is so chill with Mat running away to "do something with the Seanchan" in Ebou Dar. Perrin knows that Mat is supposed to blow the Horn but... no big deal, I guess. For Perrin, Mat taking a vacation is more important than saving the world (*).

This complete lack of "we gotta get Mat to Merrilor" urgency is another reason why everything would make so much more sense if Mat had been deliberately sent from Merrilor to talk to Fortuona. Mat is genuinely important to the Last Battle -- as far as everyone in charge is concerned, he's irreplaceable, because of the Horn of Valere! But absolutely no one seems invested in actually locating him and bringing him to Merrilor. Even Elayne treats it more as a "oh what an annoyance" when she brings it up.

I assume that the reason Sanderson is doing his best not to bring it to the readers' attention is so that no one notices what a massive plot hole we have going on here but, man, it's so weird how little the characters care about not being able to use one of the key artifacts of the Last Battle.

30. I gotta say, Egwene using a sa’angreal and feeling like she vibes with it the way some fighters vibe with their swords feels like it makes a lot more sense than Elayne waving an actual sword around in her last PoV (I’m still not even sure where she got the sword).

31. We find out in Elayne’s next PoV that Rand is dropping by for visits sometimes. Any of those visits happen to include having dinners with Tam, Rand’s father and the grandfather of your future children, Elayne? If they do, we don’t find out about it. It’s so weird that Elayne is apparently interacting with Tam regularly but just as a captain in Perrin’s section of the army. So bizarre! Also, it sounds like quite a bit of time has passed and Rand still hasn’t gone down to visit the Seanchan like he said he was planning on doing after the big meeting. That choice would make so much more sense if Mat had been sent there deliberately to negotiate with Fortuona! As it is, there doesn’t seem to be any reason why Rand would wait around on making contact with them again. We know that they’re worried that the Seanchan will attack their back lines while they’re fighting the Shadowspawn, so why isn’t Rand trying to deal with that!

We get a timestamp for how long Elayne has been working on the battle: a week.

32. Talmanes is working directly under Elayne. I wonder if he’s ever tempted to tell her about the letter. Hundreds of thousands dead, because Mat is scared of Aes Sedai strings.

And it sounds like forces are needing to retreat on the majority of the fronts.

33. Can someone smack Perrin for me? Tam gives Elayne a compliment (which I will give a mild ‘aww’ to, even if the narrative refuses to allow them to actually talk about the fact that he’s the grandfather to the kids she’s carrying) and Perrin immediately puts her down and essentially says that her only actual talent is shutting up and listening to the good advice of men. What an asshole! Someone is still sore that Elayne tried to give him a job that he didn’t want, I guess.

(I say that as if Perrin has ever shown any respect to any woman outside of Faile and sometimes Moiraine; he spent, like, four solid books ignoring the multitude of smart women trying to give him advice during the Slog period because he was so laser-focused on Sacrificing Anything For Faile -- “listens well to those who know their tactics” is certainly not something that Perrin could ever be accused of. He’s too busy poisoning water supplies and selling women into slavery)

34. Perrin feels the tug of Rand calling him, ta’veren to ta’veren. Does not describe it in any kind of poetic way, as Mat sometimes would. So he gives the command to Tam. ...he could have just as easily done that from the position that Elayne had given him -- handled it until he felt himself being yanked to Rand.

35. ...Bornhald tells Perrin that Fain killed his parents, not the Trollocs. Why would you pick at an old scab in the middle of the Last Battle? What awful timing! Tell him afterwards! Put it in a letter if you think you might die! Seriously, is Bornhald trying to throw Perrin off his game and make him vulnerable? Also, I’m pretty sure that Perrin isn’t even the one who deals with Fain in the end, so that makes this exchange feel extra pointless. Would 100% trade it for a scene where Elayne and Tam actually acknowledge their relationship to each other.

(why is Bornhald getting closure by revealing this lie considered more narratively important than seeing the moment when Mat decided to desert from the Last Battle??? Mat is a main character! Bornhald is a tertiary character! It is more important to show Mat’s character beats than Bornhald’s. I should not have to say this!)

36. Apparently Aviendha and Rand have been getting some personal time near where Rand is making his plans to go into Shayol Ghul. Not that we actually get told that, mind you, we just find out when Perrin arrives that she’s one of the advisers who has been here at his camp the whole time. Anyway, Perrin gets to reunite with Rand again, because of course he does. A special two-page goodbye for Perrin Aybara! Rand and Perrin get to share an ‘embrace’. Uh-huh. Hey, Perrin, your Author’s Pet is showing.

37. Rand tells Perrin to “watch out for Mat”, because he’s worried that he’ll do something “highly dangerous”. This would all make so much more sense if Mat had been deliberately sent to Ebou Dar! It is just so wildly frustrating how Mat has been vanished from all these Last Battle plotlines.

Why doesn’t Perrin tell Rand right now that Mat is in Ebou Dar, dealing with the Seanchan, the way that he told Elayne? Rand tells him that he thinks Mat may do something dangerous but that he’s not sure what it is and Perrin is just like “aw shucks that’s above my paygrade, boss” despite having so much more knowledge in this situation than Rand has. How is it possible that Rand is still on an information diet from his allies during the Last Battle? Perrin knows that Mat ran off to Ebou Dar and doesn’t bother to tell Rand! Even after Rand has directly said that he’s worrying about Mat!

38. I am going to hope very hard that show!Perrin never becomes the person that book!Perrin becomes. Show!Perrin is a darling and I love him. Book!Perrin is an asshole.

39. Chapter fourteen is entirely Perrin (& Gaul) in TAR & Androl in the Black Tower. Things of note:

Perrin turns off the dreamspike that was covering the Black Tower

Lanfear has to settle for chasing & attempting to get through to Perrin, now that Rand has thoroughly rejected her

Gaul does a really good job in TAR because he has a solid sense of self. Yay, Gaul! Perrin really underestimates him here

big fight at the Black Tower after the dreamspike is disabled

40. So, the thing with Mat in AMoL is... because his arrival in Ebou Dar defies simple geographical logistics, it’s difficult for me to take anything he does here seriously, because there’s not really any way that he could be here, doing these things.

First, he has to go all the way to Whitebridge, all alone, where I will charitably assume that Perrin decided to abandon Pips when he moved the rest of his camp to Merrilor. That’s at least a week (it took ten days when they were traveling by boat in EotW. I will, again, be charitable and assume Mat was able to flag down a boat even as the Last Battle is starting). Luckily, Pips is still alive, despite being abandoned. Yay! Mat has decided to aim Pips south instead of towards Caemlyn, because he wants to defect to the Seanchan because... he wants to eat Seanchan weevils instead of Andoran weevils while he waits for the Dark One to destroy the world, I guess. We never actually got a reason. It’s still gonna take him at least a month, and probably more like two months, to get down to Ebou Dar. And he’ll need to be dodging Seanchan patrols all the way south (he is actively trying to avoid notice), which is gonna add time to his trip.

It is not possible for this timeline to make sense. Events in Merrilor are moving much more quickly than that, even if you try to use time dilation as an excuse.

So, yeah, it’s hard for me to engage with “Mat is climbing up the palace walls in Ebou Dar” when, logically, he should still be around Whitebridge collecting Pips at this point in the narrative.

But I will do my best.

41. Mat thinks about how he knew every escape route from the palace... and also, haha, oh how he jested with Fun Times Tylin about how she needed to fix them so that he... couldn’t escape her any more? Yikes, bro. Also, that is 100% not a conversation that ever actually happened with Tylin. Mat wasn’t chatting with her about his potential escape routes. He was attempting to use them and getting dragged back and locked in and starved until he submitted.

Thinking about Tylin does make Mat feel for a moment that his scarf “felt like a ribbon that felt like a chain” (Ah. Alluding to how Tylin tied him up to rape him; notably, the time with the pink ribbons was the time that she raped him after Tuon had offered to buy him), though he immediately turns his thoughts to something else, so he doesn’t want to focus on the thought.

So I do think we aren’t supposed to take Fun Times Tylin seriously (she’s a dead saint and not a living abuser anymore) -- I think we’re supposed to realize that Mat is frantically lying to himself but, again, the problem is that there’s nothing to ground Mat here in Ebou Dar. We aren’t being given a reason. Mat is displaced in time and space, and we are displaced along with him. When is this moment happening in relation to what’s happening in Merrilor? It was a week ago for Perrin that he said that Mat was “in Ebou Dar, doing something with the Seanchan” but only a few hours has passed for Mat since he arrived in Ebou Dar. I’m pretty sure we’re not actually going to spend a whole week alone with Mat here in Ebou Dar, either.

Maybe this time weirdness is on purpose -- maybe Mat is meant to be essentially unstuck in time, unmoored from reality. Maybe that’s supposed to be another sign of how close the Dark One is but... it just doesn’t feel like there’s any consistency. Weeks apparently pass in a single night as Mat rides to Merrilor but then time slows down to a crawl where a week passes in Merrilor but it’s only been a few hours for Mat? That makes no sense. If there was a time dilation that strong going on already, people would have noticed it by now, because Mayene is the staging ground for the Yellow Ajah hospital and that’s roughly as far away as Ebou Dar is from Shayol Ghul. 

I have so many unanswered questions.

Where did Pips come from? We don’t know. Why did Mat decide to go to Ebou Dar instead of Caemlyn? We don’t know. How long has it been since his eye was ripped out? We don’t know. Why wouldn’t Perrin say something more substantial to Rand when Rand reveals that he’s worrying over Mat?

Again, we just don't know.

Though I guess there’s some (frustrating) narrative symmetry in no one ever being willing to tell Rand anything useful ever. You know, Light forbid the savior of the world get any actionable information without needing to dig it out himself or bully people into telling him. Even at the Last Battle, no one tells Rand anything.

42. Still, we have established that Tylin’s ribbons remind Mat of chains. I’ll remember that. Ribbons = chains = forcing himself to submit to a relationship because he doesn’t think he has the option to say ‘no’? I do believe that a ribbon is going to come up again. Mat reminding himself that Tuon and Tylin are the same kind of person? We’ll see when we get there.

And he also directly compared Tuon to Tylin in his previous chapter as well. Tuon is the new Tylin (he hopes that she will be his last Tylin, in the previous chapter -- something that can definitely be read in two very different ways). So, for Mat, Tuon=Tylin and a ribbon=a chain.

(wow, this would be so tragic and painful if... Mat actually had a reason to be forcing himself through all this. The narrative symmetry is THERE but the connecting tissue has been ripped away. Why wasn’t Mat at Merrilor to learn about Caemlyn and the Seanchan danger? We just don’t know. But “Mat doesn’t have a good reason to be forcing himself to do this” was also the mood in all of CoT & KoD, lol)

43. Mat thinking about his dad’s advice -- “always know which way you’re going to ride” -- feels especially weird here because Mat has never given the readers a reason for why he ‘turned his horse around’ and went to Ebou Dar instead of Caemlyn. The context for the advice appears to be “because sometimes the other side in the horse-trading negotiation will try to steal your horses and you need to hurry out of there” which is... interesting. That Mat is thinking about the right way to handle people who can’t be trusted and volatile situations. Underneath the surface, maybe he’s aware that Fortuona is always ready to cheat the other side. Another way to put the advice Mat thinks about here is “always know your exit strategy”. Do you already know your exit strategy and you just aren’t sharing it with the readers, Mat?

44. Here, Mat thinks about Rand but hastily suppresses the color swirls and, once again, we do not get any kind of insight into the moment between books that made Mat decide to turn deserter, except for a weird sort of cowardice that Mat has never had before -- Mat has talked a big game (out loud and in his head) about leaving but then never actually does it, because he’s always there when he’s needed. The moment when Mat fails to "go into the fire” for his friends seems like a significant enough deviation from the norm that it needed to be on the page.

Also, interesting to note that Mat still doesn’t plan to actually live a married life with Fortuona here? He thinks that he can save her life and then go off gambling and drinking in the city on his own, which is an incredibly optimistic case of wishful thinking. 

45. Only a page or so later, Mat again has to suppress thoughts of Rand and Perrin. See, the problem is the time. Because it takes so long to get to Ebou Dar, even if you take the “there literally isn’t time in the narrative for Mat to have gotten there” out of the equation, you also go back to “and there was all the time in the world for him to change his mind”. He’s now had to suppress thoughts of Rand (& Perrin) twice in less than a handful of minutes, and I’m supposed to believe that he just spent weeks doing that while riding down to Ebou Dar? And, once again, he also doesn’t think here about how he abandoned Olver & the Band of the Red Hand. It really is baffling that Sanderson & Team Jordan decided to go with “Mat is genuinely a deserter and a defector” rather than “Mat leverages his marriage as negotiation” when we literally just had Mat learning, in the Tower of Ghenjei, that he had the ability to use prophecy and the technical letter of the prophetic law to his own advantage. When Mat was planning, in the final chapter of ToM, to return to Caemlyn because he has obligations there. How did that turn into “Mat teleports to Ebou Dar with his horse, because he really is a coward at heart”?

Is the idea supposed to be that Mat got a color swirl that confirmed that the Last Battle had truly started, and it made him freak out and rabbit down south instead of going back to protect Olver and work with the Band, figuring that if there was any place to avoid the Last Battle, it was among the people who were Rand’s enemies and who definitely wouldn’t be among those fighting the Dark One? If so, then that moment needed to be on the page.

That really is what this all boils down to -- leaving essential character moments off the page, thus making the Last Battle itself feel much more hollow and pointless than it should, because we are not being emotionally connected to the people involved in the Battle. When you do that, they end up just being figures to move around a game board rather than characters that we’re invested in.

Things we left off the page (so far):

The moment Mat turns coward and decides to run from TLB

Mat’s separation from Moiraine & Thom

How Moiraine & Thom got to Merrilor

How Mat got to Ebou Dar

How Mat got his horse back

Rand realizing that Elayne is pregnant

Egwene & Gawyn’s wedding

Rand & Tam’s dinner at Merrilor

The conversation between Aviendha, Elayne & Min before Aviendha goes to Rand

Tam and Elayne’s first conversation with Tam knowing that Elayne is pregnant with Rand’s kids

how everyone knows now that Rand has three girlfriends

Any of those things would have been a better use of our limited page time than the Androl PoVs that we’ve gotten. And I say this as someone who does not dislike or hate Androl.

46. Hmm, this scene with Selucia seems to re-affirm the subtext that we just established -- the only way out of his relationship with Tuon, she says, is death. “Your neck in a cord” (also the title of the chapter, which would have been chosen by Harriet, who we know was aware that what Tylin was doing to Mat was rape). No more choice here than he had with Tylin. The metaphor expands. Mat always has something around his neck, leashing him. The scarf he uses to cover his scar is a hanging cord is a pink ribbon is a chain of ownership... death or slavery as the only options; to be hanged again or to be owned. But instead of being sold by Tylin to Tuon, he was sold to Tuon by the Pattern (or by the Aelfinn). The actual vibe with which the Fortuona relationship is being approached is... not actually something I’m having a problem with at the moment (at least not from Mat’s side), but the big issue is how abruptly Mat has cut himself off from his other obligations (broken record but: Mat’s behavior would make so much more sense if he’d come here deliberately to make a truce with the Seanchan, because he’s trying to make up for his failure with Caemlyn).

Also, we get a repetition of Tuon=Tylin here -- Mat has a flashback to the pink ribbons tied to the headboard when he catches a glimpse of the bedroom that is now Fortuona’s official suite. It’s also clearly framed as a bad memory (like a PTSD flashback) which contrast very strongly with how he’s trying to pretend that he and Fun Times Tylin were just engaging in a game all those times that she trapped and raped him. The pink ribbons really do feel like they’ve been established as a connecting thread between Tylin & Tuon at this point, in the subtext.

It almost makes me feel silly that I went to so much effort to point out all the Tylin & Tuon parallels in an earlier post, because at this point the book is basically straight-up saying “Yeah, Tuon is just Tylin with a new coat of paint”. The ribbon is a chain! Brace yourself for your trading partner to betray you! Make sure to prepare an exit strategy! Your only choices with the Seanchan are being a slave or dying!

47. Oh, we’re getting one of Rand’s visitations to Elayne’s. Considering how much compare-and-contrasting Sanderson did in ToM between Elayne and Fortuona, placing this scene right before Mat reunites with Fortuona is an interesting choice.

 Eh, nevermind. He visited Elayne earlier (off the page) and this is a visit to his dad instead. lol. I mean, I guess it’s an okay scene, but I’d rather have had the dinner between Rand & Tam earlier in the book, or have Rand and Tam actually acknowledge here that Tam is going to be having grandkids and that he’s literally now directly underneath Elayne’s command and one of her seconds now that he’s taken over Perrin’s command.

Another missed emotional moment: Rand talking to HIS father about his own regret over potentially dying and not being a father to his own kids. I feel like that would have been way more touching than this sword business. That being said, this is another moment of Rand giving a sentimental gift that speaks to his relationship with the people involved. So we now have:

Elayne: the Seed to create angreal

Lan & Nynaeve: replicas of the old Malkieri crowns

Tam: a sword to replace the one that Rand took back in EotW

And instead of talking about the future kids/grandkids or anything about Elayne, Rand and Tam duel. Honestly that just feels like a waste of page time to me. It’s not a bad scene but... eh, there are other things that it feels like Tam and Rand needed to talk about more. They had an entire scene without Rand or Tam ever mentioning the whole “So, Elayne is pregnant with your children” thing; despite literally the entire army knowing about it. What a strange choice!

48. Anyway, back to Mat, where he watches Fortuona do some fighting stances and tries his best to talk himself into being in love with her Because Wife. I guess it’s up to subjective judgement on whether or not you find his reasoning convincing. Was this specific moment maybe the reason that Sanderson vanished away Mat’s obligations and affections to the Westlands (that were all still so present in ToM)? Because it would be harder to do the “force yourself into love” tango if Mat appeared to realize that he had literally any other option available to him?

The reasons that Mat gives here for potentially loving her:

she’s hot enough that he’s willing to have sex with her

he married her so he might as well do his best to love her

trying to get her to marry him back was a challenge and he enjoys beating challenges

Literally nothing about her personality, lol. I mean, her personality is pretty rancid, so I understand why Mat would have had a hard time finding anything positive but, lol. What a list!

We’re told that Mat has been pondering this ‘for weeks’ and yet this is all he’s able to come up with: we’re already married and she’s attractive enough and if I’m able to get her to like me then I’ll Win The Game. Weeks of this question “scratching like an itch” at the back of his mind and this is all he’s been able to scrape up. lol and yikes. #AreTheStraightsOkay? (no, they are not)

Also, Mat setting up the situation with Fortuona as a game and he “plays to win” brings me back to how he’s been trying to play off Tylin raping him as the two of them playing a game as well. So that’s another fairly ugly Tylin-Tuon parallel.

49. He saves Fortuona’s life (oddly, not from Seanchan assassins, but from a Gray Man, which makes zero sense -- the Shadow should be cheering Fortuona on, not trying to kill her. She’s currently helping them out a lot). This is a genuine point of confusion for me, because Mat’s last chapter literally set up Fortuona as being targeted by assassins from fellow Seanchan and that... makes a lot of sense. Why can’t Mat just save her from a normal assassin? But I guess the readers need to be hit over the head with “SEE, she’s An Official Good Guy Now! You can tell because the Bad Guys are trying to kill her”. As opposed to, you know, actually writing her as capable of being a good person at any point in the series. (is she supposed to be capable of being a good person? or is it supposed to be clear that this is not something she has any ability or interest in?)

Though he does save her life, the Gray Man gets away and I’m currently assuming that’s to give Mat a reason to stick around even as Fortuona makes him more uncomfortable -- because he believes that he is obligated to protect her Because Wife.

50. This chapter does make me think about how ‘good writing’ is somewhat subjective, though, because Fortuona is a character that I’ve seen people say they like more for the ‘good writing’ than actually liking her as a person but... out of all of her scenes, I only really feel like three are particularly ‘well written’ in terms of her as a character (her introduction scene on the ship; the conversation with Mat in the damane kennels in WH, and her confrontation with Rand in TGS) and other than that, she tends to feel like a very flat and non-dynamic character to me, which makes her boring in addition to being annoying. That doesn’t mean that the people who feel that she’s well-written are wrong (as I mentioned above, I do think there’s an element of subjectivity at play); but I do find it an interesting point of disagreement.

51. Anyway, I am less interested in the play-by-play details of the ‘marriage’ between Mat and Fortuona and more interested in looking at two specific questions: 1) how much is Mat willfully deluding himself about Tuon? and 2) Does Fortuona show any interest in Mat as an actual person or does she only show interest in him as an objectified tool that she can use for her benefit? So I am going to see if Fortuona shows any interest in the parts of Mat that are not useful to her or the Empire -- does she care about his favorite color? (lol no) Does she ask after Olver? (lol no) Does she care that he was recently brutally injured? (this one is... subjective? she basically tells him that she likes him better now that he’s visibly wounded, but it’s up to the reader whether or not that goes beyond her thinking that him being “less pretty” makes him a more effective enforcer for her) Etc.

Before we even get to this chapter, Mat already has one willful delusion racked up from ToM: He believes that Tuon will ‘surprise’ the rest of the Seanchan Empire with the choices that she makes. We have demonstrably seen in her scenes so far that this is not true; and Mat was given zero reason in his scenes together with Tuon in WH-KoD to believe it would be true. This is something that Mat made up out of whole cloth because he wanted to believe it.

He added another delusion earlier in this chapter: Mat was operating under the illusion that if he went to Tuon to save her life, she would allow him to leave again, and he could go back out into the city to do his own thing rather than occupy the position of ‘Prince of Ravens’ under her ownership command.

52. He does learn one useful thing here, and maybe this is the reason why Sanderson cut off Mat’s other relationships -- Mat learns that Fortuona trusts him not to kill her (which does remind me of her wistful fantasy back in ToM about “unwavering loyalty” from the Prince of Ravens). If Mat had been sent here to negotiate with Fortuona, instead of being a deserter and a defector, then him learning this info about her would place him in a one-up position over her and give him an essential bit of knowledge-power as he entered negotiations.

But one key aspect of how the Mat & Fortuona relationship has developed in the series is that Mat is never allowed to have any kind of advantage over Tuon that isn’t immediately neutralized by the narrative. Jordan went to extreme lengths in CoT to ensure that Fortuona was always the one in the position of power (despite her having been kidnapped and removed from her power base) in the form of giving her inexplicable allies (Setalle Anan going from anti-slavery to buddying up with slavers in-between WH & CoT) who fought against Mat on her behalf. At the time, I attributed that to his decision to punt off any character growth for Tuon to the outriggers, but what it means is that that’s the precedent that was set for the Mat & Tuon relationship as a whole -- no matter how much it requires you to mangle and twist narrative logic, Mat is never allowed to have an advantage over Fortuona. He has to remain the underdog, even when that makes no sense in how the events of the story are playing out.

But that’s also part of what ruins it as a good enemies-to-lovers romance imo. Because there’s never allowed to be any give-and-take of the power balance between Mat and Fortuona. Instead, the relationship is all ‘give’ on Mat’s side and all ‘take’ on Fortuona’s.

53. Mat chooses to believe that Fortuona’s trust here is a sign that she potentially cares about him, choosing to ignore the fact that everyone else she ‘trusts’ is a slave she owns. Willful delusion number three.

And willful delusion number two gets immediately burst here -- when Mat implies that he’s only here to warn her and not to ‘return’ to her, she makes it clear that that’s not an option, not in her mind, anyway. And Sanderson & Team Jordan put Mat into a position where he really doesn’t have much choice about that, by tearing away his connections to the Westlands in-between books.

54. We do get another ~lovely~ reminder that Fortuona is a person who is incapable of admitting that she has ever been wrong about anything in her life when she pretends that she always believed that Trollocs were real and definitely didn’t mock Mat for telling her the truth about them. Living with people like that is genuinely hellish so, yeah. Mat has that to look forward to (again, it blows my mind how fans get on Elayne & the Wondergirls’ cases for their ‘ingratitude’ towards Mat, but Fortuona doesn’t get that same flack for behaving much worse).

lol, Fortuona telling him that she has ~decided~ not to be jealous about him spending time near another woman (she has magically intuited that he was rescuing a woman from a troublesome situation recently? since she had absolutely zero clues to put that together, I’m just going to assume that she thinks that’s how he spends all his free time, given what happened in WH and that she was kidnapped by him while he was rescuing other women).

Given how she acted around Joline, Fortuona ‘not being jealous’ every time he spends time with another woman is going to be another thing that will make Mat’s life with her extremely hellish. Of course, I’m sure she’ll manage the situation by trying to make sure that the only women Mat ever spends time with are her slaves, since she knows from WH that Mat finds the idea of having sex with slaves to be distasteful (though I doubt she has any clue why, even now -- her own objection was “damane are animals and I don’t want a pervert for a husband” and had nothing to do with consent). But I do wonder if Fortuona pointedly telling Mat that she’s ~decided~ not to be jealous about him rescuing another woman will have an impact on how he interacts with other women once he’s actually allowed to be around non-slaves again.

55. “He could not have lost her already.” Willful delusion number four? When have you ever ‘had’ her, Mat? But, yeah, Mat is doing his best to flirt with Fortuona and she’s giving absolutely nothing back. There’s something kind of sad/funny about Mat thinking that her being ‘cold’ is something that is “different now that she’s Empress” when that’s how she acted in all of CoT & KoD whenever she wasn’t throwing tantrums. It’s how she acted in WH too. This is not a new thing.

Mat really has made up a whole-ass completely different woman in his head and Fortuona is already failing to live up to her. I feel like I remember Mat being disappointed by Actual Fortuona at least one more time in the book, and I’m curious to see if it happens more often than that. But, yeah, Mat made up a girl in his head and now he has to compare that dreamed-up version of Tuon to the reality of Fortuona.

Qualities of Fictional Tuon:

Not Like The Other Seanchan

Not Cold

Not Possessive

Qualities of Actual Fortuona:

Pretty much the archtypical Seanchan High Blood

Formal even in private

Literally owns people, and has been possessive of Mat in the past (she was incredibly jealous over Joline, which was kinda hilarious because Aludra was the one that Mat had a genuine romantic history with and Tuon never clocked it)

56. Note that when Mat objects to being called “Highness” and being put in charge of training Seanchan forces (which does make him officially a defector, if he wasn’t before -- I guess before he was ‘only’ a deserter and now he’s a defector), Fortuona just straight-up ignores him and talks to Karede instead.

*whispers to Mat* it’s because she doesn’t respect you as a person *flutters away*

Instead of addressing Mat’s issues with how she’s treating him, she starts undressing and uses sex as a way to reward him for saving her life, to encourage him to continue to protect her, I would assume. And probably because she does want to have sex with him, and likely has wanted to have sex with him since she was first introduced to him in his role as Tylin’s (sex) Toy -- ex. Mat thought that she didn’t get anything out of him kissing her back in KoD but in her own PoV, she was shaken by his skills at kissing. And also because she needs her heir, as she mentions a little later in the conversation. But she is also explicitly using sex as a reward for good behavior (”Tonight, you have saved my life. That will earn you special privilege”).

57. Mat tries to figure out if she’ll ever care for him the way he would want a romantic partner to care for him, and she basically says “sorry, bub, that’s a ‘no’; I’m in it for the omens and the baby-making” and he has a ‘sinking feeling’ at her response but tries to convince himself that what she’s willing to offer him is enough or that he’ll be able to win her over eventually.

Notably, Fortuona only tells him that she will treat him as more than a toy when he flat-out tells her that he’ll leave if she can’t give him that much, which will probably not be a fun pattern for either of them to keep playing out in the future.

I also note here, again, how much importance Fortuona places on appearances -- Mat had already been experienced in battle before, but the lack of the eye makes him visibly affected by battle. And that really feels like it goes back to how Fortuona is actually much worse at reading people than she believes she is -- she’s great at reading the obvious surface cues, but if she’s dealing with anyone who is deeper than the surface, she’s at a complete loss. So now the first thing about Mat that she found admirable* is on the surface, where she can point it out to the other Blood if needed.

(* it’s not until she sees Mat being respected by the soldiers of the Band of the Red Hand in KoD that she sees him as more than a “buffoon”, to use her own word -- she wasn’t capable of seeing under Mat’s surface on her own)

And so they have sex in front of her guards, which is... hmm. We know that Mat wanted to have their first kiss in private, back in KoD, and Tuon insisted on making it a big public affair in front of everyone and probably especially Joline. So is he screwing her in public because he assumes that’s how she wants it?

58. But, yeah, literally all of that still could have happened if Mat had gone to Merrilor. The only difference, as far as I can see, is that we got cheated out of Mat reuniting with the rest of the Emond’s Field Five (and especially Rand), with everything implied along with that. At least half of Mat’s emotional complexity gets sheared away when you shear away his Westlands emotional connections. Off the page. In-between books. So all we have now is his tense and toxic situation with Tuon, and nothing healthier. So maybe it was done as a way of boxing Mat into his ‘destiny’ and not allowing him any glimpse of sunlight. (I’m reminded of how he compared traveling with Tuon to being trapped in a tunnel, without any sight of the outside world, and then I get depressed again, lol).

59. Aww, this Loial PoV is sweet. “Loial, son of Arent son of Halan, had secretly always wanted to be hasty.” I mean, then it becomes a battle, because the Ogier are engaging with the Trollocs in Andor, but the beginning is very sweet!

I’m guessing this objectification of enemies as “weeds” to be rooted out is probably the mindset of the Seanchan Ogier 'Gardeners' all the time.

Galad is also continuing to get a taste of disliking the extremity of the group that he’s joined/is leading -- when some of the other Whitecloaks call the Ogier ‘Darkfriends’ for their willingness to fight and their fierce determination, he points out that they are fighting Shadowspawn.

60. Rand says now that it’s “time to go” to “Mat, in Ebou Dar”. God, this would make so much more sense if Mat had been sent there deliberately. As it is, this is the first time we’ve gotten any sense that Rand was ‘waiting on Mat’ (also... um, not sure if Sanderson realized this, but the implication here is that Rand just watched Mat having sex with Tuon -- guess that counts as payback for all the times that Mat accidentally watched Rand having sex with Min).

Ah-ha! Thom told Rand about the situation with Mat!!!! This is HUGE INFORMATION! Thom coming in clutch with actually sharing information with Rand in a way that no one else has ever been willing to do. But this is fascinating because there’s so much information that Thom could have given Rand here: he knows that Mat married Tuon ‘accidentally’; he knows that she’s capable of channeling (confirmed in that conversation at the end of ToM) though I’m not sure if he knows that all sul’dam can channel, he witnessed the vast majority of the ‘relationship’ that developed between Mat and Tuon.

And Thom is the one person we know who has been willing to freely share information with Rand because he believes that more information is actually a good thing for a ruler to have (he was essentially Rand’s spymaster in Tear, before Moiraine bribed him to leave). Oh, but that is a WEALTH of information that Rand potentially has now. Thom is back and now someone is finally giving Rand actionable information. Rand potentially got both stories from Thom -- the heroic story that Thom told to Elayne and the ‘Mat married a slaver’ story that he told to Perrin, plus the information that he could have gleaned from that final conversation with Mat in ToM.

Of course, we don’t actually get to see the conversation between Thom and Rand to know exactly what he was told but! Rand going into this situation potentially knowing that Mat’s marriage to Fortuona was an accident on Mat’s part that Moiraine sees as a ta’veren move by the Pattern actually helps explain several things about his choices in that upcoming scene, I think, and why he doesn’t seem to have any concern or fear about what Mat marrying a slaver might mean about Mat as a person. He’s trusting the Wheel and the Pattern, and his own belief in Mat's nature (whether or not Mat still deserves it).

After so many books of Rand needing to claw and bully his way into getting even a tiny scrap of information, it’s such a relief that he has Thom back in his life, if only for this little while, to be a person who freely shares info with Rand.

61. Perrin managed to successfully trick Rand into thinking that he’s ‘grown up’ when honestly I feel like Perrin is the least mature out of the three ta’veren. But it’s cute how Rand aligns himself with Mat here, as the two who are only ‘pretending’ to be grown up.

I do think this conversation with Moiraine and Rand is sweet. <3 We also add another sentimental gift to the list: the silver Tar Valon coin for Moiraine.

Haha, at Moiraine getting to learn here that she’s one-up on Cadsuane -- Cadsaune fell for Rand’s “I have four hundred years of memories” play, but Moiraine pushes back on it.

Anyway, if I managed to miss the line that explained How Mat Got To Ebou Dar So Quickly, please point it out to me, because wtf.

(some late book spoilers below)

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(*) ...it's almost like they already know that they don't really need Mat for the Horn. A bit of the Author whispering in everyone's ears to tell them that Mat isn't needed yet, so no need to worry about his absence. Reminds me of how all the characters took a vow of silence about Mat getting left behind in Ebou Dar back during the Jordan run so that Rand wouldn't find out.

Why does this keep happening to Mat specifically?

P.S. I know there’s some time dilation at play, especially as we go deeper into the Last Battle, but if Mat really had spent weeks riding down to Ebou Dar (while only a night passed in Merrilor), then the Seanchan would have launched a second strike on the White Tower by now (with Traveling).

Plus, Perrin clearly says that Mat is already in Ebou Dar a few hours after that big meeting in the tent, which means if we're dealing with that massive of a time dilation, then by the time Rand (eventually) goes to Ebou Dar to meet with Fortuona, it should be several months later, if "hours" in Merrilor was "weeks" for Mat as he rode down to Ebou Dar. And from what I recall, Mat does not spend several months lounging around in Ebou Dar before Rand shows up. iirc, Rand shows up soon after Mat's arrival in Ebou Dar.

And Mat still would have needed to go to Merrilor to get Pips in the first place, which really throws this entire scenario into incoherent nonsense, because Mat did not bring his horse to the Tower of Ghenjei. They walked through the gateway, no horses with them. The text in ToM is very clear on that point*. So where did Pips come from in this chapter?

(* "The small group stood on the Traveling ground outside Perrin's camp."

"[Mat] took a breath and stepped through the gateway. Quiet Noal followed, smelling of determination. That one was a lot tougher than he looked. Thom nodded to Perrin, mustaches wagging, then hopped through. He was spry, though he still bore the stiff leg from fighting the Fade two years ago.

Light guide you, Perrin prayed, raising a hand to the three as they trudged along the river's bank."

No horses. No Pips. Where did Pips come from in AMoL? How did Mat reunite with him, when the only way to do so would be to go with Grady to Perrin's camp... which is now in Merrilor?)

Pips being in Mat's opening chapter really does feel like another glaring indicator that Mat's plotline originally took him to Merrilor before he went to Ebou Dar, and it's baffling that it got changed into Mat being a deserter -- was this perhaps an example of Jordan leaving behind contradictory notes for Mat's storyline and Team Jordan deciding to go with both sets of notes even though they didn't gel with each other? Sanderson does mention in his retrospective that some of the notes that were left behind just straight-up contradicted each other (likely because Jordan hadn't made his mind up on which direction to take that section of the story).

Maybe Sanderson is just really bad at first chapters with Mat? Mat in his first PoV chapter in The Gathering Storm was also pretty rancid but then got much better as the book continued on.

Anyway, in future Mat-related chapters, I'll do my best not to focus on the brain-breaking and impossible logistics given to us by this plotline, though I will probably point out moments that I think would be more effective if Mat's storyline had followed what was set out in the final chapter of ToM.

[flowers-of-io]

The Tower is scintillant, so much that Ór has to squint as she walks out onto the Courtyard. Whites and golds blind her with reflected sunlight. Eva Levante is obscured entirely by the mass of Guardians surrounding her, but Ór squeezes through them, and when the tailoress finally notices her, her face lights up.

"My dear!" She extends both hands to Ór--reconsiders--whirs around and produces a pile of neatly folded ceremonial armour seemingly out of thin air and pushes it towards her. Ór doesn't even manage to cough out a greeting before her arms are full of clothing. "I heard you've been to Titan."

"I... Yes." Ór fumbles with the mass of fabrics abruptly bestowed upon her. It is beautiful, like everything coming from under Eva's hand: ashen fabric threaded with bronze, soft but sturdy under her touch. Runi flickers into being over her shoulder to have a look.

With one hand she manages to unfold the cloak; it spills towards the floor, ornaments flickering in the sunlight. The hood is wide, just as she likes it, and it has a double feather attached at the temples.

"My first Solstice cloak had a feather," she doesn't know why she says it out loud. Her voice quivers a little.

"Try it on," Eva encourages. For a half-second Ór fears to look up and see grief in her eyes, but there is only warmth in them, her face shining as if she herself were reflecting the sunlight. "It is a fine attire to conquer the EAZ, I reckon."

Something cold drops in Ór's stomach.

"I don't want to go to the arena this year," she says. She doesn't need Xivu Arath's taunting in her head to think about violence-paths and rituals of war. There is no tangible shift in her perception, but the colours and lights of the Courtyard suddenly seem washed out.

"This is perfectly fine, my dear." Eva doesn't look at her with pity, and Ór is grateful for that. "If you'd like, you can help with gathering the leaves for the bonfire Commander Zavala will light up this evening down in the City.

"Wasn't that Amanda's job?" She can't help herself. She is surprised Eva would arrange something like that--it feels cruel.

Now there is sorrow in Eva's eyes, but it is gentle and dim, like a dying candle.

"He asked himself," she says, and gives Ór a small smile.

Keeping her emotions in check has been tricky lately. She doesn't want to cry out here, in full view of everyone.

"I..." She fumbles with the words and with the clothing. Eva just shakes her head, and the hand she places over Ór's is so warm, making the fight to keep the tears at bay ever the harder.

"Happy Solstice, Guardian."

Ór should turn around and take her leave right then, but another development as of late is that she has become her own worst enemy.

"How can we celebrate the Light now, without the Traveler?" She blurts out. What is up with her today?

Eva smiles at her again, and makes a motion with her chin at something behind Ór's back. The Hunter follows her gaze.

"Take a look." Next to the landing pad, on the way to the Hangar, a Dreg clad in green is talking to a Cabal two and a half times his size. They seem to be communicating mostly through signs rather than in either language, but the Cabal's rumbling laughter makes it all the way to Eva's post. "Isn't this the Light?"

The Ketches and Galliots and Interceptors filling the Traveler's empty space above the City are all blurry as Eva hugs her tight. Over her shoulder, Ór stares at them for a long time.

[jate-kara]

The vanguard and "can you pretend I didn't say that?"

“As far as welcome-back parties go, not the worst I’ve seen. Not the best. But you know what? Not the worst, so I’ll call it a win.”

‘Party’ was a generous term. Zavala’s office could hardly be called cheery on its best day, but cluttered as it was now with relics, weaponry, reports, and what looked suspiciously like a collection of half-full coffee mugs in the bookshelf’s corner, it barely passed for a workspace, let alone a party venue.

Besides that, there were no streamers, no balloons, and no fingertips sparking fireworks. No cheering guests, either. The room was lit by the single lamp set on the desk, casting shadows across Zavala and Ikora and absolutely nobody else. The combined weight of their stares was enough to give a guy nightmares.

Felt like just last week he’d been in here, meeting their scowls with a quick quip and a flash of charm. ‘Lame’ is what Cayde might have called the whole thing, under better circumstances. But these weren’t better circumstances. Might even call ‘em ‘apocalyptic’, actually. So he kept his mouth shut, leaned forward, and let his hands come to rest on the edge of the desk. Well within their sight. Not like he had Ace on him; he’d handed it off to Ikora after his resurrection. Return. Whatever. But maybe it helped.

Or maybe not. Ikora’s stare was unwavering.

“I told you,” Cayde tried, for the fifteenth time. “I can’t explain it to you. I don’t know how I’m back. Who brought me back. Why I’m back. I just know I’m glad I am. Sounds like you could use the help.”

Zavala gave an audible sigh. His elbows were propped up on the desk, so his hands were folded in front of his face, obscuring half his scowl. For a moment, he was silent, contemplating Cayde like an enemy and not an ally the Light had found fit to return from a death beyond death.

“We don’t expect you to explain,” Zavala offered at last.

“Great! Then stop looking at me like I’m going to blow the Tower up.”

Ikora winced. Cayde stopped short. “Wait. Nobody did that, right? Wasn’t one of my Hunters?”

Zavala dropped his head to his hands and left it there, scrubbing at his face like that would erase whatever headache was now blooming in the back of his skull. Could almost call it like the good old days, if his eyes weren’t shot through with haunted grief when he looked back up. “No,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. His gaze met Cayde’s, and held. He opened his mouth like he was going to say more, but all that came out was a hoarse croak.

Ikora rested a hand on Zavala’s shoulder, then took a measured breath. “The circumstances are…different, but you're not the first to return to us. Last time, we failed to see our enemy, and we almost paid dearly for it.”

Vague as vague can be. Someone got a foothold in the Tower, close enough to spook the Vanguard, or outright infiltrate them. Cayde looked between them.

“It wasn’t one of us,” Ikora supplied. Her voice was softer, this time.

Cayde wondered what he must have looked like to prompt that response, and pushed the thought away just as quickly. “All right, so tell me how I’m supposed to prove I’m me. You wanna hear about the Dare? Where I got the cloak? Best bet I ever lost?”

Zavala’s breath hitched. Ikora’s hand shot across the table and closed around Cayde’s wrist. Too late, Cayde remembered the crushing pain in his chest, and the Young Wolf, beside him, as the light faded, and he fought for a final word.

Cayde coughed. “Can you pretend I didn’t say that?”

Ikora’s hand didn’t move. For a beat that felt like whatever eternity he’d spent beyond, no one spoke.

“I don’t know how to prove that you aren’t an agent of our enemy,” Zavala said at last. His voice was soft, softer than Cayde could ever remember hearing it. “But I want to believe that you aren’t. I want to believe that you are truly returned to us.”

Cayde waited for a however, we can’t just- or an I’m sorry, but that’s not enough. It didn’t come. From either of them. He looked at them, and he felt the weight of Ikora’s hold on his wrist and the suffocating hope in Zavala’s eyes, and his chest ached. And he wondered what had happened while he was dead, and whether ‘apocalyptic’ could even begin to cover where they were now.

And for a second, he didn’t give a damn.

“All right, now don’t shoot me,” Cayde said. “But I’m gonna hug you. Both of you.”

And they let him.

—

[wouldyoustilllovemeifiwasawyrm]

Cleaning Up

Linktober 2023 Day 26: Overgrown This room, this castle, all of Hyrule, was her responsibility. She would dig through her own trash and find any treasures that remained. As for everything else, she would have it removed.

He’d been in this place dozens of times in this life. He blushed to imagine how often he had been here, standing on this floor, in his previous one. He wanted to imagine this room as it once was. Scraps of fabric hung from a broken bedframe, caved in by roofstones that fell through the canopy, crushing the mattress and scattering the feathers inside. He’d found little of value in this room before, other than a respite from the guidance sights of enemy Guardians. The books had long since deteriorated, only a handful of pages salvageable among the rot and decay. Animals had snuck in during the short peace following the last battle with the Calamity. Rats left chewings of fabric and paper all over the floor.

Link ran his hand across the old duvet, dulled in color and damp from morning dew. The embroidery and silken fabrics must have cost a fortune, not to mention the thick stuffing inside, which stuck to his skin through the rips in the cover. He wondered if he had felt it when it was clean, when the blues and reds were vibrant, when it was whole and dry and not so gray. He had some difficulty reconciling it—the decay with the beauty. Zelda’s bedroom must have once been beautiful.

His princess knelt on the floor, sifting through scraps of paper that had fallen. A lantern sat beside her, the flickering light making her task a little easier. Some legible writing remained on the sheets, though not much. She sorted them into piles. Those in the worst state, the most chewed, stained, or ink-bled, piled the highest.

When Zelda suggested that she return to her childhood home, Purah cautioned her against it. The damage was severe. Likely, little of what remained in her room would be salvageable. She would have to face the things that she loved falling into decay, and that might trouble her greatly. ”Send someone else to dig through all that, Your Highness.” Purah urged. ”Robbie and I could do it. I know where you kept your research notes.”

But Zelda wouldn’t have it. This room, this castle, all of Hyrule, was her responsibility. She would dig through her own trash and find any treasures that remained. As for everything else, she would have it removed.

Vines and moss crept up the sides of her tower, nature growing over what Hyrule had once claimed as her own. A drizzle of rain crept in through the gaping hole in the roof, sprinkling Link’s hood. Zelda, for now, remained on the dry side of the room. She muttered something under her breath, setting another scrap into the garbage pile.

Link didn’t know what he was here for, if he was being honest. He knew nothing about Sheikah tech. He would be no help in determining what was worthwhile to keep and what could be tossed away. If nothing else, he could set to work on clearing the space, sorting through furniture, and compiling that which could be carried out and burned. He picked up an armchair, the once-pink fabric stained with mold. Zelda might get sick from being too close to it.

“That belonged to my grandmother.” Zelda stated, not looking up from her sorting.

Link set the chair back down. “I was going to toss it. There’s mold in the cushion.”

“Hm.” Zelda hummed. She glanced up at the chair, then dropped her gaze to the papers. “Toss it then.”

As instructed, Link chucked it onto the remains of the bed. It sank the soaked mattress even further into the floor. Link winced when he heard a slat crack.

Next was the vanity. The mirror had seen better days, spotted with oxidation and partially warped across the glass. A few glass bottles rested on the surface, in various shapes and sizes. Glass bottles of many colors, shaped to resemble birds, flowers, or abstract twists of a glassblower’s prowess, were filled with some sort of liquid. Link picked up a bottle out of curiosity and unstopped it. A wave of sour scent assaulted his nose. He coughed, stopping the bottle back before his stomach inverted itself at the stench.

“Those perfumes are over a hundred years old, Link.” Zelda chided. “I don’t know what you expected.”

Link coughed again, fighting back a wretch. “Not sour milk! I thought maybe they would have, I don’t know, stopped smelling at all.”

Zelda shrugged, setting a scrap of paper into the keep pile. “Some probably have. I don’t remember what that one was made with. My father gave it to me when I turned fifteen.”

The king commissioned this? Link turned the bottle over in his hands. Based on the swirling, braided design of the green glass, he thought it might have once been a floral. Certainly not now. Those flowers had long since rotted. “It’s a pretty bottle.”

Zelda heaved a sigh (easy enough on the non-stinky side of the room). “I suppose.”

It reminded him a bit of the way some women braided dried herbs together. He’d tried that once. Clavia told him that tied herb bundles made soup better. He must not have done a very good job of tying them as the leaves quickly scattered in his soup. He pulled out as many wet, limp leaves as he could, and even still, they ended up in his final bowl. “It’s in pretty good condition. We could dump it and reuse the bottle.”

Zelda glanced up, her emerald eyes resting on the glass in his hand for a moment. Some emotion he couldn’t identify flashed across her face. She went back to sorting. “If you’d like. I’m sure it will make someone else happy.”

With her permission, Link gathered up all the bottles. He’d give them to Purah later. She could repurpose them into something nice again, if she wanted. Or she could make a stink bomb horrid enough to level a village. All good options. He set the perfume bottles in a trunk that they’d emptied out earlier that day. The handles of this one hadn’t rotted off yet, so it would be good for transporting anything valuable.

He tugged at the first of the drawers on the vanity. It refused to budge. He tugged again. “It’s jammed.”

“It’s locked, Link.” Zelda corrected.

Sure enough, the drawer had a keyhole toward one side. He frowned. “Do you have a key?”

Zelda thought for a moment, looking around the room. “Check that end table.”

What Link was sure was once a lovely cherry wood end table beside Zelda’s bed now leaned against the wall, the drawer hanging lopsided and off its track. He wrenched that drawer free, pulling it out. Inside were folded pieces of paper, most in good condition, and a few silk handkerchiefs. Link brought the drawer over to Zelda, showing her the contents.

Zelda ceased her sorting for a moment, her eyes widening when she saw the folded papers within. She picked up the first, handling it gently, as if it might crumble away in her hands. As she unfolded it to read the contents, her face paled, her expression set like stone.

“Princess?” Link asked. He peeked over her shoulder at the paper but found the penmanship too close to read. “What is it?”

Zelda took a shaky breath, folding the paper back up. She set it in the keep pile. “A note. These are all notes, from various people. This one,” She tapped a finger on the small scrap. “Was written by my lady’s maid, Henrietta. It’s nothing of any importance, really. She wrote to inform me that her mother was ill and she had to go home for a week to tend to her.” Zelda shook her head. “It’s of no importance. I should probably toss it.”

“Wait.” Link sat down beside her, stopping her hand from moving the note to the trash pile. “Tell me about her.”

Zelda blinked, surprised. “About a servant?”

“About your friend.” He said. “I remember that you were friends with your maid.”

The rain drizzled on. Zelda fiddled with the note in her hands, tracing the folds with her fingertips. “She…she was very nice. She would sing a little song every morning as she helped me dress. I don’t remember all the words anymore. It’s been so long…” She trailed off. Link remained silent, sitting with her in the quiet. “Something about bluebirds, I believe. Bluebirds chirping sweetly in the trees.” She took a slow breath. “She poured my tea, too. She always set a lump of sugar in the cup and poured the tea over it. No one else did it that way. She said it dissolved faster. And she would brush my hair and braid it into a crown.” She pointed to the vanity. “There used to be a little stool that matched that. I haven’t seen it yet. I sat on that and took my tea while she brushed my hair.”

Link followed her gaze, imagining the scene. He could see it so clearly. She liked her tea first thing in the morning. He could see her setting a cup on a delicate saucer, a smiling maid combing through Zelda’s golden hair, them laughing together at a song about bluebirds. He could see it. It was beautiful.

Zelda let out a small, bitter laugh beside him. “You probably think I’m spoiled rotten, having someone else do everything for me.”

“No.” Link said quickly, directing his attention back to her. “You’re a princess. That’s just how you grew up.”

“Hm.” Zelda hummed, her lips pressed into a thin line. She let the note fall into her lap, digging into the drawer for the next. “Let’s see, this one…” She unfolded the next note. “Ah. This one is from the high priestess. It’s a letter summoning me to the temple to try some new style of prayer that she’d found in the annals.” She flipped the note over, showing Link a very unflattering drawing of a woman in a long dress with ears and fangs like a bokoblin. “This is what I thought of her after she made me pray on that hard stone floor for hours. Awful woman.”

The lines of the drawing were faded, the ink bleeding out just a little, making the priestess appear almost bloody. “How old were you?”

“The first time?” Zelda asked. She chewed her lower lip, thinking. “Eight, I think.”

”Eight?!” Link gasped. “You were eight years old, and this crabby lady made you pray for hours?!”

Zelda shrugged. This note, too, fell into her lap. “Lot of good it did, too. Hand me another.”

“Wait,” Link pushed her hand away. “Why did you keep that one?”

“Hm?” Zelda blushed, a hint of a smile on her lips. “Oh. Because Henrietta found it later, among a bunch of other stuff. She said, ‘When you do unlock your powers, you’re going to look back on this drawing and laugh. You’ll laugh at how they doubted you.’” Her smile wavered, the corners of her mouth twitching downward again. “I…I’m waiting to laugh.”

Link didn’t stop her from taking the next note. As she unfolded it, her previous downcast vanished, replaced with a laugh and a blush that reached the tips of her ears. “Oh, this one is from you!”

“What?” Link asked, taking the offered note. “From me?”

Sure enough, his own handwriting, though slightly neater, stared back at him. His writing strung together a poem, so clumsy, so raunchy, that he immediately folded it again and handed it back, his face burning. “You can trash that one.”

“Oh no, I’m keeping this one!” Zelda giggled. She stood up, unfolded the note, and, to his mortification, began to read aloud. “Princess of my waking dreams, your smile in my night does gleam.” She darted to the other side of the room as Link got up, trying to grab the paper back. “As we lay alone in bed, I wish that we may one day wed!” She squeaked as Link got closer, twirling away from him as she read on. “As pillows lay my head to rest, I dream of your soft and supple- eek!” Zelda yelped as Link grabbed her around the waist, finally catching up and pinning her against the wall between the broken bed frame and the bookshelf. She let him take the note, not trying to fight again. “You know, I recall something similar happening the first time I read that poem, too.”

Heat burned all the way up Link’s ears and down to his neck. And though he tried to keep his composure, Zelda’s body pinned against his made forming any coherent thoughts extremely difficult. He tried to glare at her, to feign annoyance and disdain, but found his resolve crumbling with every moment that Zelda stared up at him with those lovely emerald eyes. “Don’t you dare show it to anyone else.”

“I would never.” Zelda teased. She pecked a kiss to his nose, grinning broadly. “That my thighs are soft as Rito down will remain our secret.”

Just when he thought his mortification would never end, Zelda slipped under his arm, returning to the abandoned drawer. She riffled through the remainder of the notes. “All of these I’ll keep. They were all written by those who are long dead.” She nodded to Link. “Excepting you, of course.” She picked up one of the handkerchiefs and unwrapped it, revealing a brass key.

Click.

The drawer on the vanity slid open. Zelda’s hand hovered over the knob, her smile disappearing once again.

“What’s in there?” Link asked, joining her side. Inside the drawer laid a necklace, carefully set on red silk. The golden chain, thin as a spider’s silk, looped through a triangle pendant. Three golden triangles joined together formed a larger structure, each with a gem set in the center. At the top point of this triangle laid a small ruby, barely bigger than the nail on Zelda’s pinky, cut into a diamond. To the left, three sapphires. And to the right, an emerald, round as a pea. Link stared at the necklace, finer than anything he’d ever seen in this lifetime, and so well-preserved that he wondered whether the decay of malice had ever reached the walls of that box. “It’s beautiful.”

Zelda swallowed hard, her voice barely a whisper. “It was my mother’s.” She took a shaky breath, steeling herself as she reached into the drawer and took hold of the chain. As she lifted it up, the gleam of the gold and gems seemed to glow in the firelight. “Not that I remember her ever wearing it. Father said it was hers.”

The pendant spun as she held it aloft. It spun toward Zelda, then away, and back again, catching the glint of the lantern’s glow as it turned. To say that the stones and the pendant were beautiful would be the understatement of a lifetime. It almost looked…magical. Like it called to his spirit.

Zelda set it back in the silk, wrapping it up and tucking it into her pocket. “Whether she wore it or not, it’s too fine a piece to leave here in all this decay.” She picked up small keep pile, tapping the papers until they were straight and laying them into the trunk they’d designated for transport earlier. “We’d better get these back to Purah before sundown. I don’t want to know what sort of creatures have made their home here.” She shuddered, giving her room one final look-over before she picked up her end of the trunk. “They can have it.”

[gwaedhannen]

Ten first lines

Did I get tagged? No. Do I care? No. Also not gonna tag anyone because pretty much every author I follow has already posted at least one set of these.

Most of these are from WIPs, since I only have four published works so far (two of which are just one part of future larger works).

Kill the flame

Once per year, on the night of a holiday only she still celebrates, Galadriel lights fourteen candles.

The Myth Hanging Heavy Over You

"Do you remember...?"

Shall we look at the moon, my little loon?

Hitheth brings her own wedding dress from the closet, buried deep beneath two decades of Aerin’s outworn clothes, too precious to be repurposed when thread was plentiful.

Excerpts from Sorrow Beyond Words: Collected Testimony of the War of Wrath, 3rd Edition, ed. Elrond Peredhel. Kortirion Public Library, copy received SA 2449

“The worst thing I saw during the War?

Unwritten

Dior Eluchil, son of a Fairy Tale, arrives in the Halls of Mandos and simply walks out through the ceiling.

May you rise to find the sun

Celebrían's first steps into the foam of Tol Eressëa are halting and unsteady, for she still cannot bear to be touched.

Lament for Sirion

It was seven in the morning on a perfectly sunny day in paradise when Elwing opened the front door of her tower and found a nightmare kneeling in the sand.

Rest in my arms, sleep in my bed

Elves are so weird about their hair, Pippin had decided in Rivendell.

My adaneth girlfriend could beat up your adaneth girlfriend

The solitary spirit once known as Ambaráto Aikanáro Arafinwion Eärwenion was sulking. 

A Million Dead and I?

High King Arafinwë of the Noldor returned in triumph to Valinor, with his enemy humbled and cast into nonexistence, with scattered handfuls of the haggard and homeless elves of Beleriand-that-was looking for new homes in the West, with none of the family he thought to save.

[allaganexarch]

WIP Whenever! ♥

Absolutely blest by the tag from @myreia !!

As some of you may have noticed i have been in the TRENCHES with schoolwork the last few weeks LOL so all I have that is not just barely-coherent 4 am hallucinations is this jkdsfkjnfk. I've been holed up in my room being insane + I'm very eager to share so it's a longish snippet, hopefully tumblr dot website does not DESTROY the formatting.

I was thinking aaahhhh i can't tag ppl again I JUST tagged them in a thing but even if that were a thing it is not true I have been eaten by school for so long LOL @thepapernautilus @yourlocaldisneyvillain @delirious-comfort @eemamminy-art and anyone else who would like to pls feel free to tag me!

Wheel of Time, Liandrin x Reader 🤪🥰

--

The first time you meet Liandrin Sedai, it is not in your proudest moment.

You are a lady of perfectly average talents.  And although you work hard and perform your weaves well, yours is not the sort of power that gets noticed.  One must be noticed in order to be offered the trial of the Arches.  And so it is that each of your classmates, each of your friends, each of your enemies, becomes Accepted one by one, and leaves you behind.

You have been a novice for nine years when your best and last friend goes through the Arches.  And Light help you, you cry.  You go out into the abandoned courtyard, you shamble down onto a stone bench, and you cry.

This is how Liandrin Sedai finds you.

“Oh,” says an unfamiliar voice, high and clear, surely put off by your discomposure.

You wipe furiously at your face, but you hadn’t expected to be interrupted.  You cannot stop crying.

You feel her approach.  “Oh, there now—“ she says awkwardly.  You think you feel her hand hovering just shy of your shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” you sniffle.  “I’m sorry, I’m just—“ but you have no words for what you are.  You are a lady of perfectly average talents.  You are a Novice.  You are all alone.

In your periphery, you see the red skirts of the Aes Sedai trying to comfort you.  This is, to your mind, even worse.  At last you get the attention of one of the Red Ajah, and it is for this!

“There now, little sister,” says the Aes Sedai, and she sounds more confident now, as though she has steeled herself against your onslaught.  “What’s all this?  Surely nothing we can’t fix, yes?”

This is, somehow, the worst thing she could have said.  You cover your face with both hands in a poor attempt to stifle a sob.  “No!” you wail miserably.  “No, it can’t be fixed!  I try so hard, but it doesn’t matter!  The problem is me!  I’m—“

You are a lady of perfectly average talents.  A Novice.  Alone.  Abandoned.

“I’m weak!” you cry, your hands falling uselessly into your lap.  “I’m weak, and I always will be!” 

Once more you scrub your white sleeve across your face, but the tears won’t stop flowing.  The mysterious Aes Sedai sits at your side.  “Weak?” she wonders after a long silence.  “Weak in the One Power, you mean?”

“Mhm,” you sniffle horribly.  “Everyone’s gone through the Arches without me.”

“Ah.”  She draws out the syllable, low and rich, knowing.  “I see.  And you’ve been a Novice for how long?”

“A little over nine years,” you say.  Somehow, recounting this information calms you, rather than making you more upset.  At last you manage to dry your eyes enough to see.

“And you work hard, yes?  You’re sure it’s not your form that’s lacking?”  She asks the question without accusation.

You look up, meaning to nod your affirmation, but you are wholly unprepared for the sight.  The Aes Sedai sitting next to you has an unearthly beauty about her, something indescribable that you don’t see every day.  It’s not any one feature—her honey-blonde hair, her doll’s lips, her prominent cheekbones, or her wild, piercing eyes—but rather something more than the sum of her parts.  Awe and apprehension course through you in equal measure, and you almost forget to respond at all.

“It’s true,” says the mystery woman, “this Tower often values raw power over actual skill.  And I expect it’s also true that you’ve reached the limits of your raw power for the time being.  And so I suggest—“  Without warning, she reaches up and wipes the tears from your cheeks.  “—you stop wasting your energy on the things you cannot change.”

You are too stunned to speak.  She inclines her head, as though studying something, but there is something off about the gesture.  “After all,” she says.  “There are so very many things that you can change.”

There is something unsettling about her, a distinctive undercurrent of unrest you don’t see in most Aes Sedai.  You are reminded of a cat poised to spring upon an unsuspecting mouse.

“You know your weaves well?” she asks you.  “If I were to test you, I would not find myself disappointed?”

“Yes,” you nod, perhaps a little frantically.  “I mean—I know them well.”

The mystery woman nods, as though to say, exactly as I thought.  She stands and brushes her hands over her bright red skirt.  “Take a few days to collect yourself, little sister.  Come and find me when you’re ready to make a change.”

You stammer.  “Oh, but I—“

“Liandrin Sedai,” she clarifies.  Then, just shy of turning to leave, she amends, “Oh, and keep this between us, hm?”

You nod, dumbfounded.  And then she is gone.

You take Liandrin Sedai’s advice, and you spend the next few days in deep contemplation.  You know you have not overstated your familiarity with the weaves, but you worry she will still be disappointed.  In your heart, you yearn to move forward, but you worry that you are being prideful, that being a Novice still has something to teach you, and that you are ignoring it.  You write to your mother, a letter that reveals little but says much, if one reads between the lines.  You are profoundly lonely, deeply self-conscious, and yet you know you cannot possibly refuse Liandrin Sedai’s invitation.

Liandrin does test you, hard.  In a way it feels good to finally show the full breadth of your dedicated practice.  But you are unused to such rapt attention.  Yours is not the kind of power that draws a teacher’s eye.  You weave what you can with practiced precision, but what you can weave is not impressive, and it takes hard work every single time.

But Liandrin watches you anyway, her gaze piercing, her stance not a little unsettling as she prowls about the small room like a hunting animal.  She doesn’t say much, just tells you what to weave and then watches, again and again and again, until you’re sure you just simply don’t know anything else you could possibly show her.

“Good,” she says, with a curt nod.

You drop your weave and stagger a little, out of breath and reaching for something to lean on.  Your hand finds the hard stone wall behind you, and you take in a gasping breath.  You’ve worked yourself to exhaustion before, but never quite like this.

“I think I see what you mean,” says Liandrin contemplatively.  “You perform the weaves well, but it’s not the kind of thing that catches the eye.  Pity, really.  Raw power is all fine and well, but it’s nothing next to perseverance.  One would think the Teacher of Novices at least could appreciate that.”

Your vision refocuses, but your mind is slow.  You’re still stuck on ‘you perform the weaves well.’  You smile foolishly.

Liandrin regards you with an unreadable emotion.  She squints as though studying you, but again there is something off about it, just like before.  Half-consciously, you think that she is only affecting the mannerism of studying you, pretending to contemplate something even though she’s already made up her mind.

“No matter,” she says at last.  “Run along and rest up.”

You hold a moment, baffled, waiting for something else that will explain what she is thinking.

She raises her eyebrows.  “Go.”

You do not need to be told again.

[siremasterlawrence]

Payback Is A Bitch (Literally)

Revenge is best served cold where that ne family, friends or foes then there is the Hart Von Al family my worst enemies through out my history.

Who knew exactly eighteen years and three months exactly since they ruined my life back in collage him and his stupid horde of children.

Of course I had I known they would book my illustrious hotel on the sandy Florida resort of my creation which I did by the way the plan is perfect.

The moment I saw them walking onto the the fiery hot sandy beach radiating down on me when I came across them meeting my eye lines.

All I can do is take a deep breath before in order to calm myself down at the sights of the two of them being bitches as per usual to the core.

They enter back into the hotel to utter lack of function everything is in disarray It is in particular when the father Jack steps up to press the elevator panel.

The button lights up racing down the cart hit the first floor opening up with a lard whoosh sound something is off as his feet tilt falling forward.

His body hits the cart with the door closing on him enclosing him in a safe line spot that surrounds him in darkness the lights begin to flicker.

His two kids start to pound on the steel door screaming for him to escape but he could not hear them as a piece of classical music airy and mysterious burst through the speaker.

“The hotel is completely in dysfunction”

“The elevator shaft is in ruins “

“Five star hotel my ass”

“SET ME FREE”

“NOW”

“PLEASE “

“Fuck!”

“I am going mad in here “

“Shit! I am stuck in this shit hole of a hotel”

In the pent house suite miles above in the gigantic floor a young man watches his first major nemesis literally going insane trapped in plan he concocted.

If he had half a brain he while he slid by way of the wall onto the floor he might attempt to remember when he did that to me with Ill intent.

“Revenge is sweet is it not?”

“Who the fuck are you “

“Oh! The bitter taste of your demise “

“I will find you and”

“You will find me and then what?”

“Mwahahahahaha “

“Don’t worry you won’t go insane in fact you will be like brand new”

“A factor reset after all you are a bastard “

“FUCK YOU!”

Andrew Lyle is his eldest shifty son a twisted two time face brat with model physique built like a hanger, pretty smirk and clothes that match.

The helicopter lands on the roof top tower in a tier of gold, white and silver spanning the area and the door slides as he walks off and on to the helicopter pad.

There is state idiot smile plastered on to his face he removes his sunshades he closes one end of glasses brim and leaves it on his lapel.

One of my many hotel employees arrives to greet him taking his bags as they descend the staircase and exit the roof top area he thinks he is going to his room.

It is really quite impressive how he manages

to trick the world into believing he is some sort of God among men and I am about to put him in place.

The hallway empties leaving him in a naked white wall hallway the lights fade to black he starts to panic calling for help when he can hear foot steps approaching.

“Hello? Anybody here? HELP ME!”

“Answer me”

“Speak”

“Say something “

“This is creepy”

“Turn on the lights”

“I said quit it”

“What is going on?”

“How can this be happening?”

“I tell you mwahahaha “

“You are scaring me”

“Oh Well!”

“This is some strange shit”

“Asshole “

The man laughs happily snapping his finger the hallway spins in circular fashion sending Andrew into a tale spin of lust, fare and his inner desire.

The bitch thinks he has his way jumps from the top of the staircase he leaps on to the stairs below making his way attempting to escape.

“Where are you going?”

“I am about to break this place apart “

“How so? You don’t want to vacate this hall”

“I don’t “

“It’s is lush, comfortable and safe “

“So pretty”

“Why would you leave?”

“I don’t want to”

“It’s impossible to even ignore me”

Tom Harry Parker races up to the hotel room

in a passionate moment he slams the door placing his back on it in a panic pounding his fist on the door. His heart beat hitting

his chest he cries loudly sliding to the floor he resumes his dramatic fit then proceeds to shut the window and pulling done the shade.

“He can’t find me “

“I am safe here “

“Right? Right?”

“I am going crazy “

“Not as much as you think “

“In panic mode right?”

“I hate you all “

“So you think”

“You might want to kneel”

“Give up and obey “

“You will fall pretty to me eventually “

“You wish “

“Don’t worry soon you will”

“I will what?”

“Eating from my ass”

“Disgusting”

“So you say come to me”

“What do you want?

“Your total submission “

“Fat chance in hell that will happen “

“Why don’t you shut up and see?”

“Why I oughta “

“Kiss me then you alright destroyed me”

“Succumb to me”

“Inside you already have “

“Like a moth to a flame “

The end