#the way she defaulted to him for advice and continued to follow his lead even when her team didn’t belive him

[phatcatphergus]

I’m so so serious when I say that Bagi and tubbo are siblings that are bonded after being born from blood and not bonded for sharing blood.

They shared blood in the way that they bled together and shared it when their bloody hands clasped together. They chose loyalty to each other instead of feeling they had to be loyal from birth.

Bagi would go to hell for tubbo and tubbo would take out armies for Bagi.

[swordsandarms]

Sometimes people make too much a fuss of what Robb Stark was and what he could have been, because I feel the point of him is he was always doomed: he was THE Ned 2.0 some sometimes try to write Jon as (which HE isn't) and Ned Stark's fate only heads one way. 

But there's also an opposite obnoxious kind of posting about "capable know-it-all Catelyn and her dumb teenage son" or "lol who let this highschooler put his mother in jail" etc etc. Because that's a whole other bad reading. 

Catelyn was not the remarkable advisor Robb should have always listened to (though she does have her moments, of course), nor was anyone better off if she was THE man. 

Catelyn and Robb are a doomed duo. She wants to be seen by him as a just as respectable King's advisor, but she puts even more pressure on him with motherly scolding about being a bad brother. She wants to be seen as much as one of his advisors by Robb's men, too. But she takes fully advantage of being "just a woman and mother" and hence being treated with double standards about messing around with important Lannister by hostages, although the Karstarks also act out of grief - but THEY receive the capital punishment for treason. 

Robb is a young, inexperienced King AND Catelyn is not a rational, capable pillar of an advisor for a King. Although Robb is also too young, there's really a common factor here for both of them. In this very patriarchal world, the wife/mother and the heir are both subservient to the patriarch of the family for as long as the patriarch lives. No matter how many years Catelyn stood or would have still stayed by her husband's side, even privately giving her advice to him, she has not the real deal experience of (or) competent capacity of calling the shots or leading negotiations. The results of the negotiations with Walder Frey are almost mocking, and she herself walks out a kind of defeat - the position she'd led in life is of having to capitulate after battling without success against male self righteousness and confidence in what they're due. She also never got over her estrangement in the North and doesn't fully understand the people she's meant to be working with, and in that quarter Robb does a better job by default. And had Ned lived into old(er) age, Robb would have continued into this 40s or 50s still never in a position to speak or act over his father. Stepping into the position of the patriarch after a long time of obeying would still be shaky, unknown grounds. 

All in all, it can be argued that they were doomed either way, of course, whether they were THE King or THE advisor. Walder doesn't exactly respect women - to be promised a son of his as being handed Riverrun (and the head of the Riverlands) beats having a daughter married to a powerful man only any day. The Boltons have retained their old spite over being subjugated by the Starks  (from being Kings) and even having also failed in in raising in Rebellion against them in the past - the temptation was there. But Catelyn and Robb were, again, also a failed duo working together, with double sided lackings. But by all means, this is not something as straightforward and one-dimensional as the extremely capable and ever wise mother who has real experience to lead (especially the North) better following this completely fool of a child around. 

[fatefulfaerie]

Honesty

Hi, again. Here is more content for all you lovely people because you deserve it and also because I need my distractions. Unless, of course, my downward spiral into mental unhealthiness is making my writing and quality complete strangers. Let me know if that’s the case and I’ll stop.

Anyways, here’s a one-shot that’s kind of long. Pre-calamity fluff is always fluffy until I remember that Link loses his memories and then it’s sad. I make everything sad, don’t I?

Zelda’s fingers were interlaced where she sat at her vanity, watching as her thumb brushed up and down the opposite finger. She tried to focus on the small tickle it produced, not the unsettling feeling in her chest, her flighty and unrestrained heart, her thoughts and feelings she couldn’t get a hold of.

“Your Highness,” Urbosa said with a few casual knocks on the open door. Zelda looked up as she came in. “You requested me.”

“Yes, yes,” Zelda said, turning in her chair. “I...need some advice.”

Urbosa’s eyebrows twinged upwards in surprise.

“It must be important,” Urbosa said. “Your father’s banquet starts soon.”

“This won’t take long,” Zelda insisted. “I…”

She exhaled a shaky sigh.

“I have a friend,” Zelda said. “She likes someone, but...she doesn’t know what to do. He’s below her station by quite the amount and although she doesn’t care...she knows everyone else will.”

Urbosa smiled warmly and knowingly.

“Sounds like your friend is in quite the situation,” Urbosa said.

Zelda forced a small smile.

Urbosa sat down in a nearby chair.

“Do you know how courting works in Gerudo culture?” Urbosa asked.

Zelda nodded.

“Once a Gerudo comes of age, she leaves the town in hopes of finding love,” Zelda started. “She explores Hyrule, gets to know herself, and finds someone who matches her.”

“When she finds that person,” Urbosa added, “someone she likes. She doesn’t delay anything. We as Gerudo are accustomed to be very outright with our feelings. A Gerudo interested in someone, whether they are male or female, comes right out and tells them.”

“Seems rather direct,” Zelda said.

“Gets the job done,” Urbosa said. “And it’s what I recommend to your...friend.”

Zelda peered at Urbosa’s expression. She knew. She absolutely and completely knew.

“Is it that easy to tell?” Zelda asked.

“You are blushing profusely, Your Highness,” Urbosa said with that hearty Gerudo laugh. “Come on, who is it?”

Zelda hesitated before her head bowed.

“The knight,” she said quietly, “the one with the sword that seals the darkness...Link.”

She wished she could dampen the way her heart swelled at the utterance of his name, the heat in her cheeks.

Zelda looked up to Urbosa to see her reaction, and she was smiling from ear to ear.

“You have a crush on your knight attendant?” She asked rhetorically. “That’s adorable.”

“I can’t stop thinking about him,” Zelda explained. “And I don’t want to stop, but I must have to. He is far from acceptable as a member of the court. My father would never approve.”

“You don’t know that,” Urbosa said.

“And with this whole calamity thing...I already can’t access my sealing power. He calls my studies frivolous, but an affair with my knight attendant really would be frivolous. Link has his own duties as well, not to mention the public already has marked me as a failure. I can’t add anything to their arguments.”

Urbosa nodded along.

“But…” Zelda continued. “Sometimes...sometimes when I see him...his blue eyes, his smile...sometimes all I want to do is forget everything and just sink my lips into his.”

“You and half of Hyrule,” Urbosa jived, a small mumble.

“Urbosa…” Zelda said despite the joke. “I don’t know what to do.”

Urbosa took a pause with pursed lips.

“You already know what I suggest,” she said. “Be upfront. Maybe after Calamity Ganon appears and is defeated, Link’s commendation will be enough to officially court you.”

Zelda looked down at her hands. Her hands that lacked the sealing power of the goddesses, her hands that were necessary to defeat Calamity Ganon. Until then, the prudent option would be for her to bury her feelings and focus solely on the power.

“Good call, though, little bird,” Urbosa said, Zelda tilting her head back up. “You two would make an adorable couple.”

Zelda inhaled to tell her to stop, knowing her heart could only take so much, but she was interrupted.

“Reporting for duty, Your Highness,” they heard outside. Urbosa stifled a laugh at how much Zelda blushed, the panic in her expression like a doe that had spotted its hunter.

“She’s decent,” Urbosa replied, completely amused by the way Zelda composed herself, standing up, smoothing out her dress, brushing away strands of hair that escaped from her updo.

Link, in contrast, was the complete opposite as he entered the room, the very picture of a royal guard. Not only was he in the uniform, but he was standing straight as a log, expressionless and waiting to be an escort to the banquet and nothing more.

At first it really was nothing more, the King worried of Yiga assassination so much that Zelda walking from her quarters to the dining hall was a worrisome affair. It was only after Zelda reminded the King that Link was a champion along with Mipha, Daruk, Revali, and Urbosa that Link was invited to the banquet. It also helped that Zelda acted like she was worried about assissination at the banquet as well, telling her father that it couldn’t hurt to have Link around and reminding him of the incident with the pot lid. Her father praised her wisdom but behind all the farce, she just wanted to spend time with Link.

“Hi,” she said with a nervous chuckle.

“Hello, Your Highness, Lady Urbosa”

His greeting was much more formal.

“Don’t worry, Link,” Urbosa said as she stood up. “You won’t have to escort me tonight. The Yiga know to stay away by now or else their numbers would decrease exponentially.”

She stopped before the exit.

“I do have a question for you though,” she said, Link turning his head.

“If someone had a crush on you,” Urbosa asked, Zelda’s eyes widening. “What would you want them to do?”

Link scratched the back of his head.

“Uhm.”

“Thank you, Urbosa,” Zelda said as she pushed her out the door. “I’ll see you at the banquet.”

Zelda returned to Link, averting her glance as she walked to meet him.

“What was that about?” He asked.

“Nothing,” Zelda replied.

She imagined telling him, him smiling or laughing with that chuckle, or hugging her, or kissing her. But he may very well show no reaction, his lips straight and unmoving, his expression warping to express confusion or, worse, disdain or disgust.

But for now he offered his arm with a small smile, something she wagered was the only thing that could pull her out of her flustered state. She remembered them talking at length at how he no longer shows his emotions outwardly. Zelda questioned why that was starting to change when it was just them alone before she realized she was staring into his eyes.

She latched her arm into his, them taking a stroll along the hallway as she looked anywhere else but at him. It proved pointless though, a blush adorning her cheeks at the mere thought of whose arm was linked with hers, his eyes, his smile, the way his blonde hair was messy under the cap, the thought of running her fingers through it…

Goddesses have mercy on her heart. Someday it may swell right out of her chest.

“It is customary for me to offer my compliments on your appearance,” Link said. “Escorting royalty to formal gatherings is an honor paid with those compliments. They told me so yesterday, briefing me on all sorts of things to say like ‘I hold envy towards the man who steals your heart’ or ‘No creature but you could take my breath in such a manner’.”

“Those sound familiar,” Zelda stated.

“And a bit outdated, don’t you think?”

Zelda laughed.

“You’re telling me,” she said. “Did they tell you about ‘In just one glance I know the meaning of lust’?”

“Yikes,” Link said with a similar laugh. “They must have left that one out.”

“The entire practice is outdated,” she said. “The whole thing is a precursor to courting. Most of my escorts are esteemed knights that are later suitors. It doesn’t seem so bad but when I have men twice my age doting upon me...it unsettles me to the core.”

“Also, like,” Link started. “Why is it only your appearance that matters? Why not your character or your intelligence?”

“Exactly!” She said excitedly. “Goddesses, I’m so glad you agree.”

“I’m just glad you finally got someone who isn’t going to say that stuff,” Link said. “And I’ll beat up anyone who has in the past. I’m serious, give me names and provinces.”

Zelda laughed again. It was so easy with him.

“That’s not necessary, Link,” she said. “But I appreciate the offer.”

The conversation lagged as they continued along the hallway.

“I hope you don’t mind that I give my own version,” Link said. “That you are gorgeous, inside and out.”

Zelda smiled. It wasn’t rehearsed. They were his words. He didn’t have to say them.

“No, I don’t mind,” she said.

They stopped, facing the large doors that would lead to the dining hall.

Zelda could already hear the bustle of straggling conversations, the clatter of plates and silverware, the shuffle of maids and kitchen staff as they prepared for the banquet to follow. Just one push, one crack of the towering doors and their time would become everyone else’s.

“When we go through these doors,” Zelda said quietly. “You’re going to go silent and stoic again, aren’t you?”

“I told you it’s my default,” Link replied.

Zelda shook her head, looking to him.

“Not always,” she argued. “With me it...it’s like you come alive.”

“You understand the pressure I’m under,” Link said, turning his head as well and Zelda praying to any goddess that her impulsiveness remains curbed. “It’s easy to just talk to you. When I’m with you...I feel like maybe everything is going to be okay. I feel my stoicism fading quickly when I’m around you, even though I know it should increase, you being royalty. Perhaps I should apologize.”

“No, no,” she implored. “Please don’t apologize. Your candidacy makes me so happy. I like you a lot when you become yourself.”

Link tipped his head with a smile.

“Really?”

“Well, yes,” she said. “All those emotions and thoughts you hide, of course you’re not yourself when you hide them. After all, haven’t we established that it’s what is on the inside that really counts?”

Link looked to the doors, Zelda tracking the movement with her eyes.

“Not to them,” Link stated. “You know the stories better than I, of all the heroes before...their unflinching bravery and how because of that, they overcame so much. I must be that image, for the public, for the King, for the champions, for me. Hyrule can’t afford for me to be anything else, especially now.”

“How do you do it?” Zelda asked. “Restrain your actions that act on empathy? Hide the deepest parts of you and show nothing? I used to think you were void of emotions, thoughts and feelings you had to have but simply didn’t. You convinced me so well that my frustration overcame me. How...how did you do it so well?”

“You wish to emulate it,” he stated. His voice was sharp and dark.

Before Zelda could voice her affirmation Link voiced a,

“Don’t.”

Zelda didn’t know what to say before they heard her father’s voice shout something from the inside. Authoritative, the muffled exclamation surely signaled the start of the banquet.

In silence, the Princess and her escort pushed upon the doors, pulling the eyes of all in attendance. Murmured conversations ensued as the guests took their chairs. Link tried not to listen and so did Zelda, the knight guiding her to a pair of empty chairs close to the head of the table.

Zelda was closest to her father, who was the head, with Link next to his charge. Link knew the champions were on his other side, but paid them no mind. The only thought that occurred to him was that he was glad to see smooth red skin closest to him instead of prickly blue feathers.

“You shine too bright,” Link said, whispering in Zelda’s ear. The volume and closeness made her blush. She listened intently, but watched her father, ensuring he didn’t see the overwhelming evidence of her infatuation. “To dim yourself would be a sin. Silence is a lonely and dangerous road to take. As your knight attendant, I must protect you from it.”

“So you value honesty, then?”

“I’m unaccustomed to the practice myself,” he said. “But I appreciate yours, how you go on about this or that. It’s an enthusiasm that fascinates me. If this burden stopped you from the happiness you find in that, I would be very sad for you.”

Zelda smirked, anticipating words in her head of teasing her knight attendant for that comment.

“Greetings, all!” the King boomed, Zelda’s focus going from Link’s stoic profile to her standing father. “We celebrate another year of prosperity in our kingdom. We are stronger than ever and with my daughter on the cusp of a great breakthrough, the goddess Hylia will strengthen us further.”

His words were laced with a commanding tone, a subtle reprimand and demand of Zelda that only Link seemed to catch. The King shot Zelda a distinct glare of discipline, to which Zelda bowed her head and Link furrowed his brow.

If it weren’t against his sworn duty, Link would have protected Zelda from her father.

“Tonight,” the King continued as Link took Zelda’s hand under the table. From the point of view of any of the other guests, Link and Zelda showed no change, even as their grip tightened. “We welcome you all to celebrate Hyrule together. Enjoy!”

“I’m sorry I can’t protect you from him,” Link said as the food was served. “His words.”

“No one can,” Zelda said. She didn’t look at Link, but her voice was hushed and her focus was on the food. Link similarly reacted, or rather, lacked reaction, his hands going through the same motions of handing to the next person a plate of food. Any more obvious conversation and hushed whispers into each other’s ears and they knew onlookers and gossip-mongers would cry affair.

“I want to,” explained Link. “But it’s hard for me to be honest about some things, given the situation. Not honesty in the strictest sense of the word, but...it’s more a problem with speaking openly and frankly than actually flat-out lying. As much as I want to, I can’t defy the King. Hylia knows what will happen to my commission and I doubt he’ll let me protect you anymore. I’m sure you understand.”

“I do,” Zelda said. “You have a duty, like me. Speaking where it isn’t our place is something else we can’t afford. We must focus on defeating the calamity first. Nothing else matters.”

Link took her hand again, the connection hidden under the wood of the table, away from the eyes of those who look to scorn.

They spoke no more words to each other that night. Their hands stayed connected until the sweat made Link withdraw, not wanting to disgust his charge when in reality Zelda missed his touch.

Link exchanged a conversation with Mipha and one with the King where his voice wavered a bit, but otherwise he was a man of few words. He was praised for his heroism and resisted speaking once again at the King’s comment that Link specifically has done everything he can to fulfill his destiny. King Rhoam went on to hope with a fervent heart that the calamity will be defeated. Link always knew he intended well with his words but that didn’t mean they stung Zelda any less.

But as far as formal gatherings went, there was only really one good thing about them. The attire was thick and scratchy, always a size too big. The eyes were numerous and weighed heavily on them. The way he felt closed off, the silence he was accustomed to made him feel trapped. Every time he opened his mouth, he felt as if he would be better off closing it, that the wrong words would escape it.

So Link was glad when the one good thing about these kinds of gatherings fell asleep on his shoulder.

He looked down and smiled at the way she breathed, cooed with a peaceful sleep. It was more than an excuse to get him out of there. It was something that warmed his heart.

The King acknowledged that it was getting late and told him to take her to her chambers. Link nodded and gently picked her up so that her bent knees drooped over one of his arms, the other supporting her back.

With a soft concern he handed her over to her waiting handmaidens and the door to her chamber was closed before him.

Something rose within him, something hot and cold and good and bad. He stood, staring at the intricately carved doors as he realized, for better or worse.

He was in love with her.

[terreisa]

Love Down the Line: Chapter 3

The last thing Indie musician Emma Swan needs is a gigantic wrench thrown in the workings of her biggest tour to date weeks before its launch.  When her backing guitarist that caused the problem says she has the perfect solution Emma is skeptical but left with little choice but to accept.  Unfortunately she isn't really prepared for said solution to be former Rock Star and leading man of Emma's teenage fantasies, Killian Jones.  With no other options and a month of performing across the country ahead of her Emma just hopes she doesn't come to regret letting Killian onto her stage and into her life. 

Ch 1, Ch 2, AO3 ~*CS*~

 Portland, Maine- April 17th

Emma was lost in thought as she idly tapped at the rehearsal room’s piano keys, filling the space with a jumble of unmelodic notes.  She knew she needed to take a break and eat something, like everyone else was but she couldn’t.  There was something off about their last few run throughs and she was determined to figure it out.

One thing that wasn’t off was how well Killian Jones had enmeshed himself into the group in just one week.  He had bonded with Will over growing up in England leading to inside jokes and references that had the two of them snickering away between songs.  With Tink all he’d had to do was make one praising comment about the book she was reading and it looked like he was going to be in her good graces for the rest of time.  As for her, well, the never ending verbal sparring matches were almost as fun as playing her music with him was.

They sounded good.  Of course, there were still little idiosyncrasies and timing issues that needed to be worked out but Emma knew that by the time they hit the road everything would be running smoothly.  What had been a pleasant surprise was how Killian seemed totally at ease playing second fiddle, as it were.  She had seen him play live multiple times and knew exactly what a talent he was, and also how grand a showman.

The first couple of rehearsals after he’d joined them she’d waited warily for his ego to make an appearance.  She had been certain that he would have been like too many of the men she’d met: unable to help making suggestions on how to play her own songs or offering advice she hadn’t asked for or needed.  It had happened so often in her early days of playing paid gigs that Will had taken it upon himself to run interference after she’d had enough one night and given a guy a black eye.  As the week had gone on without a single belittling comment from him in their emails, texts, or during rehearsals she’d reluctantly accepted that he actually seemed content to follow her lead and let her shine, despite her admittedly more limited skills

She idly let herself fall into the familiar chords of her song Snowdrops and Buttercups as she tried to suss out what was bothering her.  It was the ballad that she’d picked to play towards the middle of her set, meant to give the others a little rest mid-show and her the chance to highlight her piano playing.  The song was good, they were planning on releasing it mid-tour as the third single from the album but there was something a little off about it that had her coming back to it, trying to figure out why it wasn’t sounding how she wanted.  She closed her eyes and played through the chorus again and then again, trying to hear what it was she was feeling.

“Did you have lessons?”

She smiled to herself at Killian’s question, only mildly startled by his voice.  The answer was in the bio of her official website and on her Wikipedia page but it was nice to know he hadn’t researched her.  Or at least was pretending that he hadn’t.

“On and off depending on the family I was with,” she said, not pausing in her playing though she moved on from the chorus, “Didn’t exactly make me a great player but a lot of practice and YouTube helped with that.  I’ll never play Beethoven, that's for sure.  Do you play?”

“Strictly guitar for me,” he said with a chuckle. “Though I do know Chopsticks and that one song from Big.”

She laughed, stopping her playing and turned towards him, “Your party trick I’m guessing?”

“Nah, my party trick involves a pair of handcuffs and my sparkling wit.”

He waggled his brows at her causing her to snort and shake her head.  He was a flirt, it oozed out of his every pore, and the worst part was it seemed to be a default setting with him.  It only made her feel off kilter and more resolved to not let herself get caught up in it, no matter how much her teenage self was obsessing over every syllable he uttered.

“The party usually ends when the cops show up Jones, but then again I’ve never been to the same kind of parties you have,” she said with a grin.

It faded as Killian grew somber.

“Aye, I suppose you’re right.  Frightful things they are.”

With horror Emma remembered that the accident that had shattered his life into pieces had been after one of those kinds of parties.  She turned back to the piano, embarrassed and a little ashamed of herself.  After a moment’s thought she began playing what she hoped was a sufficient enough apology.

It was Killian’s turn to snort, “I’m Still Standing, love?  Bit on the nose wouldn’t you say?”

“Figured it couldn’t hurt,” she said quietly, letting her hands fall still.

Silence settled over the room like an itchy blanket.  She tried to keep from fidgeting, still feeling like she’d upset him despite his genial smile.  Unable to take the quiet even though it had only been less than a minute she began playing again, deciding to speak through the music.

“I’ve noticed you’ve got quite the repertoire of classic rock in that head of yours,” he said, seemingly impressed. “First eighties Elton John, then seventies Billy Joel?  Plus all those songs you tortured me with during my audition.  Are you an audiophile as well?  Do you have multiple copies of your favorite albums in their various forms?”

“Seems to me you’re the audiophile,” she pointed out, continuing to play. “I just happened to have worked at the diner that Ruby’s grandma owns and she refuses to put anything on the jukebox that was released later than nineteen seventy nine.  The songs are considered classics for a reason, you know.”

“I’m well aware, seeing as I’ve learned to play my fair share of them.  May I?” He motioned to the piano bench.  She nodded and slid over, “And the eighties Elton John?”

“An attempt at saying sorry for putting my foot in my mouth,” she said, giving him an apologetic look. “It’s easier to do it with a song than actually saying the words.  I am sorry though.  Didn’t think.”

“There’s no need to apologize when I took no offense, lo- er, lass-” he reached up and scratched behind his ear, “Truth is, I’d rather endure the teasing than having people continue to tiptoe around me.  Playing with a steady group of people has helped with that.”

“Well if you were expecting tact and manners from Will you were going to be disappointed from the start,” she said sardonically as she seamlessly transitioned from Billy Joel back to the song she’d been playing when he’d shown up. “And Tink isn’t much better, just a little more… cheery about it.  Plus you’re friends with Ruby so you’ve kinda hit the jackpot with people not going to coddle you or whatever.”

“And you?”

“Pft, the nicest thing anyone’s said about getting to know me is that I’m prickly but in a good way.  Ask Ruby about how long it took me to agree to go to one of the bonfire parties the popular kids at school threw.”

Killian hummed, “I wouldn’t say you’re prickly, Swan, just a bit guarded.  No fault in that.”

She stopped playing, stunned by his comment.  Truth was she didn’t have many friends outside her bandmates and a select few people back in Storybrooke.  None of them had understood her so completely or so easily.  With a little jolt of surprise she realized she already thought of him as a friend.

“So is that how you met Ruby, at her grandmother’s diner?” he continued, somehow not noticing she was having a revelation beside him.

“Uh, sort of,” she said with a little shake of her head, turning to face him, “I needed money and Granny’s was the only place willing to hire me.  It’s not exactly easy to get a job in a small town when you’re already pinned as the school troublemaker even though you’ve only been there for a month.  Ruby was in a couple of my classes and put in a good word for me.”

“Have you been playing together all this time?”  He asked, genuine curiosity lighting up his eyes.

“No-” she winced, not used to telling her life story when most people she’d met lately were already aware of it from interviews or reading it online, “I hadn’t been playing much when I got moved to Storybrooke.”

“Got moved?”

She tilted her head at him, narrowing her eyes, “Really?  You haven’t already read all this?”

His shoulders slumped and when he looked at her his gaze was troubled but clear, “Swan, I, more so than most, know what it’s like when people think they know everything about you because of what they’ve seen or read.  I try to avoid the fodder as much for my own sake as for others.  I’d rather learn about someone the old fashioned way: through conversation.”

“Oh-” she relaxed before tensing up again in embarrassment, “I, uh, should probably tell you that I know a lot about you from the, uh, fodder.”

To her surprise he laughed, “Not to flaunt the size of my ego but I’m not surprised.  I don’t think there’s anyone, especially in our line of business, that doesn’t know my life’s story.  Made for quite a few headlines for a while there.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, apologizing for so much more than what she already knew about his life.

“Bah-” he waved his hand in dismissal, “No need for that.  It is what it is.  So, you hadn’t been playing…”

“So, if uh, it wasn’t clear before I was a foster kid.  I was moved around a lot, mostly in Boston, a few years in the midwest.  Some of the families had pianos or a neighbor that did and a lot of times they gave lessons for extra income.  A couple of them taught me because I wanted to learn and I was considered part of the family, at least for a little while.  It was nice, learning that way, but it never lasted,” she said with a sigh, giving him a half-hearted shrug.

“Best way to learn is from someone who loves doing it,” he murmured, his gaze intent.

“Yeah, well by the time I got to Storybrooke I was sixteen and hadn’t lived somewhere with a piano for almost five years.  So, of course, the group home I was placed in was run by big believers in the arts and creativity in keeping kids out of trouble.  They had all kinds of art supplies, ran a little community theater, and, surprise surprise, owned almost every instrument you could think of-” she felt herself frown and gave him a shrug, “I still don’t know how they knew but the Nolans showed me their piano the second I stepped into their house.  I thought I was only going to be there temporarily, I’d already been at three other homes in the six months before I landed there, and thought I would jinx it if I let myself get attached to playing piano again. Unfortunately while the Nolans weren’t strict about much you had to do something creative, even if it was just drawing stick figures in a composition notebook.  Which I did, by the way, for almost six months.”

Killian laughed, a rich sound that carried into his words, “Those I’d love to see.”

“Never,” she grinned, “That notebook will never see the light of day since it also has my first attempts at songwriting in it.”

“Ah,” he nodded wisely, “So after six months you finally ended up back behind the piano then?”

“Nope.  I picked up a guitar.  David, Mr. Nolan, would play almost every night after dinner and it seemed easy enough to learn.”

Emma could feel the heat rising in her cheeks.  That was only a small part of the reason she’d decided to learn how to play the guitar.  The real reason was sitting next to her, listening to her talk with rapt attention.

“It was months before Ruby found out I played and then a few more before I finally caved and started bringing a guitar to the bonfires.  By then I was back at the piano and had a few attempts at songs in that notebook.  I, uh, stopped again for a while-” she paused, not wanting to get into why exactly she’d stopped, not when it was the worst thing that had happened to her and while she had only reluctantly realized that he was becoming a friend.  She took a breath and gave him what she hoped was a convincing smile, “Ruby had picked it up by then too.  We’d play together at bonfires and picnics but she never got as serious about it as I did.  She’s the one that convinced me to try out some open mic nights.”

“And the rest is history?” He asked gently.

“More or less,” she answered, feeling much steadier. “When I finally got to the point of needing a backing band she was the first one I called.”

“And then Will and Tink?”

“Tink was brought in by the label and I’d met Will at an open mic night where he drunkenly read terrible poems about his ex and tried to steal my wallet,” she said nonchalantly, though she was glad to move onto safer topics. “I broke his nose and he found me the next day wondering if I was interested in a drum player.”

“In a personal or a professional manner?” Killian asked with a raised brow.

“Ew, as if I’d ever want to sleep with Will.  Gross,” she said with a scrunched nose. “He’d seen me at other mic nights and figured I’d be going places and wanted to get in on it.  He was the second person I called.  From there the rest is history.”

“Not much different from my own beginnings, though we were discovered at a pub we’d been playing at for a few months and already had a few EPs recorded,” he smiled wistfully, “We were also called the Jolly Rogers then.”

“Why did the name get changed?  I mean, you guys didn’t change your sound or anyone in the band or anything.”

“Aha, Ruby said you were a fan but didn’t say how much!” Killian crowed, as if he’d discovered a cache of hidden treasure. “Those EP’s weren’t even released stateside and I’ve never authorized them for streaming.  You’ve got a little pirate in you, don’t you Swan?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She quipped back despite her complete and utter embarrassment at having seemingly given away how big of a fan of his she was.

“Perhaps I would,” he said softly, his gaze somehow just as soft.

She was saved from having to come up with some kind of reply as Will burst into the room practically yelling into his phone with Tink trailing behind rolling her eyes at him.  Killian smoothly rose from the piano bench but paused, pressing his finger down on one of the higher keys.  When she looked up at him he was watching her carefully.

“What?” She asked, beginning to feel self conscious.

“You should move Snowdrops and Buttercups to later in the show.  It’s a good song but drags down the show where it’s placed now.  Bite of Iron is a better fit for the lineup as it stands.  Granted, it is a bit older but I believe it’s a fan favorite?  Something to consider, anyway.”

He gave her a hesitant smile, hitting the note one more time before moving towards his guitar.  She sat unmoving, wanting to be mad that he felt he could mess around with the lineup she’d spent weeks perfecting but she couldn’t.  Not when he’d figured out what had been bothering her and offered up a pretty good solution without being condescending.  She only wished the song that he had suggested hadn’t been the one that was the hardest for her to play.

Unfortunately she also knew it would absolutely fit in perfectly with the flow of sound and feeling of that section of the show.  It would also get a huge response from the crowd because as much as it was a fan favorite she’d never played it live before.  Looking at Killian, where he was absently picking at his guitar as Will talked a mile a minute at him, she thought that if he could get back to playing in front of an audience after what he’d been through then she could get through one measly song.

Taking a deep breath she spun around on the bench and addressed the room, “Hey, guys, I’ve got some changes I want to make to the lineup.”

[roominthecastle]

Thank you for taking the time and typing up your reply, @alma37.

Now I get where you were coming from. You are def much more attached to Zoe than I am. You don’t need to produce any other arguments and “I like it better this way” is a perfectly acceptable answer. And while I don’t believe Agatha’s return is completely at Zoe’s expense -- given that she would have died anyway --, I understand the pain of watching a favorite character used as fodder for another one’s story.

You’ve also raised some interesting points and the exact questions I’ve been pondering myself, so I’m gonna take this opportunity to just unload my thoughts here. Please don’t take this as me trying to talk you out of your opinion or preferences bc I don’t wanna do that.

This is mostly just me trying to explain my preferences to myself.

"after Blood Vessel, as much as Dracula liked her, I could not see him and Agatha together”

oh yes, theirs is an infinitely fucked up dynamic, there is no debating that. they are enemies, so murder attempts come w/ the territory, which is not every shipper’s cup of tea and that’s understandable. However, every relationship involving Dracula is fucked up this way by default since he automatically brings his "inclinations” into it. I guess one could write him already “tamed” and w/ less issues but then it wouldn’t really be him. This is a major thing I love about this show, how they are not afraid to portray him as a full-fledged monster who just keeps coming at you w/ a razor smile -- partly bc he literally can’t help himself. He is a predator who -- to once again quote the commentary -- operates w/ a “torturous sense of fairness” that, to me, echoes the amorality you can observe in the animal kingdom: there is no reasoning with a hungry lion once it’s spotted a zebra; it’s in its nature to hunt prey in order to survive. Empathy or morals don’t factor into this basic conduct.

Dracula has this hard-wired primal drive, too. And Agatha points it out early on when she calls him a beast who doesn’t understand the rules governing its behavior but simply follows them. Of course, he has a point, as well, when he claims he’s more than that. He is. Otherwise, he would just be absolved of all the killing he does, which would feel cheap and unjust and would rob his character of all the fun complexities. Underneath the veneer of a sophisticated nobleman there is a beast, and underneath that grotesque (protective) display are human remains and loads of festering mental health issues. But the only person who bothers to look at these layers and how they inform each other is Agatha. Her equally unyielding drive for knowledge & understanding is the power that allows her to counter him, exert control over him, and tap into his deformed human core in a way nobody else has ever been able to. She does this to save others from him but also to satisfy her own dark fascination, and in the process I think she also comes to feel for him. They reach a level of intimacy that makes this outcome inevitable, imo.

This, in my eyes, makes her pretty much the only person who has any chance at having a more meaningful relationship w/ him that lasts longer than his feeding time. This is also what comes across in Dracula’s indirect advice to Zoe: if she hopes to match him, she will need to conjure Agatha from his blood. He essentially gives her the key to his own destruction (which is also his way out), then retreats and waits. This has the same self-regulating vibe as him convincing himself that his immense supernatural power has ordinary loopholes like needing an invitation to enter or the sunlight. Shame is a control tactic and self-shaming is a form of self-control, albeit a very problematic one. He puts in checks and balances which you wouldn’t do unless deep down you knew you needed to be “checked and balanced” by someone who’s willing to take on the thankless task. He cannot do it, he can’t face himself (he literally smashes mirrors and turns from every reflective surface), but Agatha is willing and able to drag him back into the light.

This is why the parallel to Petruvio & his wife works so well. The design to Dracula’s mind (and therefore the way out) is scattered across time and many myths. Agatha collects these and uses them to lead him out of the prison he’s made for himself, which has its visual parallel in the maps being hidden inside the wife’s portrait.

In other words, I cannot see Dracula with anyone else long term since he sees everyone else as a toy and/or a prey -- a means to an end. That’s how he sees Agatha at first, too, and it takes some time for him to realize that he made a mistake. This delayed realization can also be attributed to his bestial drive that has subdued the rest of him for so long, he really cannot cut through its wiring on his own; he came to exist to continue his existence, and the pointless circularity of this is the biggest trap: despite leaving loopholes, he’s still a prisoner of his own hunger & shame. Feeling for others would make it infinitely more painful but shedding empathy only provides a temporary release. Still, life lived solely for oneself is never fulfilling no matter how long it stretches forward, and the insatiable hunger Dracula feels gels nicely w/ this.

It’s Agatha who breaks the circle when she makes him confront the human origin of all this mess. Once she gets through to him, once she makes him remember, we can witness what Mofftiss call the “beginning of morality” and empathy seeping back into Dracula, and his existence takes on meaning when he chooses to sacrifice his immortality to take away her mortal pain. To me this feels like a direct call-back to the scene where he asks her if she is willing to die to save that terrified child and she tells him she would die to save any terrified child bc “there is a nobler purpose to my life than simply prolonging it.” But Dracula only comes to feel this nobler purpose where Agatha is concerned (baby steps :). He still doesn’t care about anyone else but that could be a juicy problem to tackle next season if there is one. *crosses fingers*

“they needed Agatha to stay human until the end of TDC - but, in that case, why bring her so late in the episode?”

I’m afraid only the writers can answer this one. But my best guess is that there are other characters from the novel -- Lucy especially -- they wanted to play with a little. Since I like them, too, and like how they planted them into this modern setting, I have no problem w/ Agatha taking her sweet time resurrecting. This was also a nice way to show just how bored & lost Dracula is in her absence (side note: him using Tinder as a takeout menu + complaining that he has to exercise now that everything is delivered and doesn’t have to be hunted down will never not be hilarious AF). I have seen a few fans complain about the pacing of ep 3 but I think it provides a nice, strategic contrast to the more dynamic previous episode, again highlighting why Agatha’s presence in his life was so invigorating and how her absence is the opposite -- he is a 500-year old warlord yet his life is now somehow... banal bc he has no worthy match.

“If he really want Agatha so badly, and since Zoe doesn’t come after him (she has other things in mind, understandably), why does he not? To see if his little ply worked? If his dear Agatha is back? The only time Renfield talks about Zoe, Dracula doesn’t seem remotely interested.”

I think he is interested (his suggestion to use bats as surveillance cracks me up every time) and he is waiting. He keeps tabs on the Harker Foundation from a safe distance and, to me, looks rather crestfallen when Renfield tells him that his lady friend (aka Van Helsing aka his “Agatha incubator”) left and seems to have lost all interest in Dracula. I think he expected a different outcome. It’s speculation but I think he expected Zoe to drink his blood (bc it doesn’t come as a surprise later when he notices the changes in her) and expected it to have an effect sooner and time is running out since Zoe is dying. Zoe was supposed to act similarly to the bed of his own native soil (she is a “bed” of Agatha’s DNA) and regenerate Agatha even if it’s temporary. So he is both staying away (survival is still key) and wants her to come after him again -- a delicious contradiction he can’t untangle by himself.

Lack of (threatening) interest, however, is a clear sign that Agatha is not back. If she were, he def wouldn’t have to go and check. She would waste no time seeking him (and indeed she wants to go after him the second she manifests and, as Zoe remarks, Dracula isn’t surprised to find her at his doorstep -- another parallel to ep 1 where it’s Agatha who anticipated him coming for his bride). I think he was waiting for her return just like Agatha was waiting for his in ep 2 (another parallel). It’s Renfield‘s remarks that drive this point home for me as he has a front row seat to what Dracula is like during these 3 months: “I wonder what it is you actually want,” and “What are you doing with your time?” I think it’s no coincidence that both of these questions get answered only w/ Agatha’s return. Dracula basically idles in the meantime. And the fact that it takes Agatha 3 months to properly manifest, when Zoe is the weakest, is def a testament to Zoe’s strength of character. She is a Van Helsing, after all. And they vanquish the monster in the smartest, most elegant way: by making him feel something other than blinding hunger for the first time in centuries.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Witches, Chapter 25: back at Themis and like, everything about this place is increasingly awful and Professor Means is a shady motherfucker but we knew that already.

Thank you all for your patience as I took a month off from updates to try and build up a buffer that’s less than I like because Ch 27 is still being a bastard to me. These things happen. I’ll figure it out. 

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

Blackquill skips the damn opening statement, as though he intends to see how much he can get away with before he’s held in contempt of court, which he won’t ever be because the judge is terrified of him. Fulbright’s explanation of the crime is a list of indisputable facts, with nothing to even cross-examine. Myriam Scuttlebutt testifies from beneath her cardboard box and had a tape recorder hidden in the art room that allegedly picked up audio from the murder. Robin Newman is secretly a girl; her parents come from a tiny superstitious village that believes girl children are more likely to be stolen and replaced by changelings, so to fool the fae they raised Robin as a boy in her early years and then decided they’d rather have a son and didn’t end the charade. Hugh O’Conner had a private meeting with the victim that evening, but Juniper was with her after. 

The day ends with the judge about to name Juniper guilty, Apollo desperately wracking his brain for anything he can take issue with to stall for more time, and Robin and Hugh rushing up to the stand and both announcing themselves to be the actual killer, before Juniper tries to counter-confess over their confessions. And because no verdict is possible with this mess, the judge tells everyone to get out investigating and ends this session of court with Blackquill looking ready to earn his murder conviction another three times over. 

Dumb high schoolers committing perjury saved the case today, and this feels even worse than the time Apollo’s case was saved by Trucy faking her own kidnapping by the mafia. 

Athena is still shaking when they get out to the car. Understandable - they had a narrow escape, and as she was the lead defense, she was the one that Blackquill was going after with everything he had. Barb after barb flew off the samurai’s sharp tongue, finding every way to hit her that would hurt. For her age, her inexperience, with every new fact he saved to present until the defense thought they had the upper hand. He sat on damning evidence the entire trial, like it wasn’t even about proving Juniper’s guilt as much as it was tormenting Athena, letting her run up a case only to turn all her efforts futile with a single photograph he could have presented an hour ago. He told Athena as much, that this is futile, that she’ll never change the truth no matter how much she wants to save someone; he told her that he was sure anyone she wants to save so badly wouldn’t even want her defense, that she’d better give up and go home, and grow up, before the failure breaks her.

There’s the way that Blackquill mocked Apollo, and tore into Phoenix, and then there’s the way he strikes at Athena. Wasn’t it her, and not Apollo, that he directed that same advice of give up at during Mayor Tenma’s trial? And today, Apollo would swear, by the cruel gleam in Blackquill’s eyes, and the certain edge that his smirk held, that the man has some kind of personal vendetta against Athena. But that’s also an absurd thought - why her? What’s so twisted up inside the Twisted Samurai that it’s Athena he’s sunk his claws into? The simple fact that it’s this kid who has always been at the opposite bench on these cases he’s lost? Apollo and Phoenix there and not, but Athena, the constant, and for the first time, the lead.

The only silver lining Apollo sees for Athena - and he’s not about to actually say this to her when she looks this miserable - is that she didn’t ever get Taka’s talons in her face. The murderbird took pity on her, even if its owner didn’t. Small mercies.

Phoenix told them he would be going to the office and might be headed back to Themis at some point, don’t wait up, but Athena wanted to go to the detention center to talk immediately with Juniper. Odds are that she won’t be in interrogation yet, especially with Hugh and Robin’s confessions that Blackquill will also have to question. 

But even with how quickly they make it to see Juniper, when they are escorted in, Professor Means is already there, speaking with her. “I’m sorry, Athena,” she says, sounding colder and more standoffish than she did yesterday. “But I was thinking of asking Professor Means to defend me, instead.”

“B-but—” Athena looks helplessly between Juniper and the professor. “But why?”

She’s sure her friends are innocent, is why, and she’s afraid that, because Athena won’t rule out one of them being the killer, that either Hugh or Robin is going to be indicted tomorrow. Or she claims she’s sure; she doesn’t meet their eyes, and she’s shy, certainly, but she keeps toying with the edge of her sleeve and her eyes dart back and forth looking at nothing, and Apollo’s eyes tag each of those fidgets red. 

She’s lying. She doesn’t wholly believe her friends are innocent.  

And if - if that’s the truth, that one of them killed Courte, then that’s what has to happen, doesn’t it? Someone has to be convicted. Professor Means can’t promise acquittals for all three of them at this time, when nobody knows who the killer is because there’s no one piece of irrefutable evidence - unless he either is the killer and thus knows by default that Robin, Hugh, and Juniper are all innocent, or is planning on creating a piece of irrefutable evidence to exonerate the trio.

Neither of those are good, but they also can’t force Juniper to keep them as her defense, so Apollo elbows Athena and says, “If that’s how you feel, Juniper, then we’ll respect that” - Athena opens her mouth, probably about to say, no, she fucking won’t, she intends to defend Juniper come hell or high water, and Apollo elbows her again - “but we’d like to continue our investigation anyway, and ask you a few questions. Is that all right?”

Means remains present during their conversation, so they can’t explain to Juniper about Athena’s misgivings (and Apollo can’t tell Athena that he agrees, doesn’t want to tip their hand like this in front of Means, and now he feels like Phoenix surely does). Of course, Athena being Athena, she blurts out at the end of their meeting that she - and Apollo - are going to find the truth, with solid evidence of it, by sundown, and if they bring that to Juniper then she should accept Athena’s defense. Whether Athena’s force of will convinces Juniper, or just leaves her weary enough to agree, Apollo doesn’t know. All he knows is that they have a deadline now, and a far closer one than the trial tomorrow morning. 

And one where Means has set the stakes, blithely telling them that he has “considerable preparations” to make. His deliberate phrasing, his tone, everything: he’s telling them what he is and he doesn’t care if they know. And Juniper is desperate enough to not care what he is. 

-

“I don’t know what to do.” Back on the road, Athena lets Widget yell at the other drivers for her and launches straight into one of the many, many problems that have stacked up today. “I mean, I know what to do! We have to prove Junie innocent and find out who really murdered Professor Courte! But I don’t want to save her at the cost of her friends - but what if one of them really did it? They’re the only likely suspects. If it’s not Hugh or Robin then it’s something really complicated.”

“Which is also possible,” Apollo says. “Likely, even, considering past cases.”

“Yeah,” Athena agrees glumly, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. Widget yelps at someone to “Hey buddy, signal before you turn!”, and Athena continues, “But the thing is, I understand completely where Junie’s coming from. She said that! That she’s believing in her friends the way I believe in her! And I believe in her because she’s my friend, not because I’m a defense attorney and she’s my client and it’s my job to believe her! But - I can’t believe in Hugh and Robin the same way, because I’m a defense attorney. But I don’t want to break Junie’s heart either. I know, I know” - she holds up a finger, forestalling a response - “that we need to find the truth, and whatever the real truth is, that’s the truth. We can’t cover it up. But I don’t - can I be both Junie’s defense attorney, and her friend who wants to believe in her friends because I believe in her and she believes in them?”

Apollo takes a moment to follow that winding thread. “I don’t necessarily think you can’t be both,” he says. “It’s - of course Juniper doesn’t want to consider it, but when the evidence points that way, you have to at least consider it. You might think you know someone, but you also can’t just write off—”

“But evidence can be faked!” Athena interrupts. “And people framed, and false confessions pressured out of them. And—” She glances up in the rearview mirror, loses her train of thought for a moment as she pulls into another lane, and then she adds, “We’re defense attorneys! We have to believe in our clients to the bitter end.”

“We’re defense attorneys,” Apollo repeats. “If a friend of yours, or mine, is accused of murder, we’re probably going to be defending them. So of course we’re believing in them to the end. But Juniper’s friends aren’t our clients.”

“But what if you were my client but then the only other person around at the time was Trucy,” Athena says. “It’s like Sasha and Orla! Sasha believed it wasn’t Orla, and Mr Wright saved them both, so aren’t we - shouldn’t we believe in what our client believes?”

“I—” Should they? Is that part of the job too? “I don’t think there’s one answer. I think you’ve gotta take it on a case-by-case, every time. What the evidence is, what it seems to be saying.” His first case saw him proving his client’s innocence by indicting his boss on murder charges. After that - what the hell is he supposed to say after that? Putting faith in his client means that suspicion might fall instead on someone else he thinks he knows, and he has to follow it to the end, because who ever really knows someone? 

If he told Athena about Kristoph, she would understand much better where he’s coming from, what he actually means, but there is so much packed into that one surface-level simple story, and they need to focus on Juniper’s case, and the Themis investigation, instead. 

“And,” he adds, as something else occurs to him, “if you really do believe in someone, even if the evidence looks really bad - you have to keep pulling at it, and digging deeper, and if your client really is innocent then the truth that you finally dig up should exonerate them, right? You can’t say you believe in someone and then try to cover up the truth.”

“That makes a lot of sense, actually!” Athena chirps. (Apollo thinks he should protest that. Actually? He makes sense most of the time! Why does she sound so surprised?) “If Professor Means forges evidence to get them all off the hook, then that means that he doesn’t believe that there’s real evidence that will - which means he believes one of them did it. But then - then that almost sounds like Junie doesn’t fully believe that Hugh or Robin didn’t do it, either.” She glances at Apollo for confirmation.

“Yeah,” he says. “She doesn’t. But they’re her friends, so she’s trying to be in denial and insist she believes in them, and I understand the impulse, but at some point - even no matter how well you know someone, you never know.” 

Athena lifts one of her hands to Widget, like she’s about to start psychoanalyzing Apollo’s speech right now, in a moving vehicle that she is driving. Then she grabs the steering wheel again, forcing aside that unconscious gesture, and Apollo is glad that she doesn’t have the time to interrogate him on all the emotions that must be in his statement. To figure out that while he’s thinking mostly of Klavier, and Kristoph and Daryan, murder isn’t the only crime, and there was a time that no matter what the Bar Association said and did, Apollo still believed, truly, wholly, that Phoenix Wright never in his life would forge evidence.

-

Despite the yellow sun beaming down from a cloudless blue sky, a chill has taken hold through the air when they arrive at Themis. Apollo shudders against the bitterly cold wind that passes, seemingly unobstructed, through him, funneled around the buildings in an inadvertent wind tunnel. “Come on, Apollo!” Athena calls, her voice and hair carried about by the wind as she rushes headlong into it without a seeming care, too fixated on her case and her defense to let anything distract her. “Fretta!”

Their conversation led Apollo to some other thoughts that he hasn’t mentioned. They nearly lost the case this morning, Athena’s first time leading the defense, the defendant a dear friend, and the sun arcing its way across the sky is a deadline sinking closer and closer toward them. She’s stressed enough, and she doesn’t need to be burdened with Apollo’s suppositions. 

(That Professor Means has already begun to prepare his defense, and who’s to say he’ll abandon all those preparations should Juniper keep Athena on as her defense attorney? That they can’t discount the possibility that he might try to feed falsified evidence to them, pass it to someone else to pass to Apollo and Athena, to trick them into coming to the wrong conclusion. That he might try and rig it so that even if he doesn’t stand as defense tomorrow, all three suspected students will be exonerated, rightly or not.)

(Or worse, what if he is angry if Juniper asks Athena and Apollo to remain her defense team? He might be angry that he loses out on the defense, angry that his preparations came to nothing - he might be angry and turn his falsified preparations into tools for revenge. What if he decides to bury them, trick them into presenting evidence he falsified, trick them into being caught with it, trick them into losing everything they have, badges and reputations and Juniper’s freedom?)

He doesn’t need to mention this. Not now, not unless someone tries to hand them new evidence of uncertain origin. Like a page of Courte’s planner, or another possible murder weapon, or something else with blood on it that points to a different original crime scene. But otherwise, Athena already knows Means is a threat to the truth, and she’s already concerned about what will happen if she can’t find enough decisive evidence this afternoon. There’s no reason to get her more worked up over hypothetical problems that Means could cause, when she already knows the problems he certainly has admitted he intends to cause. 

“Oi! Apollo! Allons-y! Vamanos!”

On the way in through campus, they don’t run into anyone else or see any police presence. Non-essential personnel and everyone unrelated to the case were told to stay away and remarkably, seem to have abided by such. Klavier mentioned once that some students dorm on campus, and Apollo wonders if they’ve been forcibly turned into shut-ins by officers planting themselves at the doors. 

Though, despite the emptiness of campus and the fact that no one should have been around, along the main path to the quad, beneath a tree, someone set up a framed photo of Professor Courte. Tributes have already begun to gather. A few flowers lie at the base of the picture, while some shrine amulets hang from the tree’s lowest branches, and both the frame and the tree bear a number of scribbled sticky note messages that the wind doesn’t seem to touch. They stop before it, and while Apollo doesn’t know what Athena is thinking, he imagines it might be something similar: I swear, Professor, we will find the truth of who did this and won’t allow it to be covered up.

The scaffolding in front of the stage that holds up several large speakers sways slightly in the wind. Apollo shudders at the thought of it all crashing down. What a horrible mess that would all be, and dangerous for anyone in the vicinity. Like him and Athena, intending to investigate the stage again. He didn’t get a chance to get a good look at anything but the body, before the police arrived and ushered everyone away, but there’s any number of clues that might still lie here if they take some time.

If we have time to take, he thinks, glancing up at the sky. He has difficulty forcing himself to look at the stage for long, though he can’t say why. He’s dealt with a lot of tape outlines in the past; he’s stood in the same places as several people have died. There’s no reason for this to be the one that trips him up.

Unless - unless - there is someone making that a problem. 

No sooner has Apollo thought this than he watches the hunched white form of Vongole slink out from around the side of the stage. She sits down right beside the partition meant to rope off the crowd, nose pointed straight at Apollo. If he needed to know for sure that Athena can’t see her, now he does.

“Afternoon, you two.”

And even knowing that Klavier is here, lurking the same as his hellhound, Apollo still flinches when the man appears in front of him. “Uh, hiya. What are you doing, sneaking around here?” Investigating, no doubt. Apollo doesn’t know why he asked that question. To be polite, maybe. “Aren’t you worried that someone’s going to think it’s a little suspicious that you just keep creeping back onto campus like this?”

“And who’s going to catch me here, Herr Forehead?” Klavier winks. He looks as radiant as ever today, perfectly composed and golden, with the sun glinting off of all of his silver accessories. And yet, Apollo knows the cracks beneath the surface, knows that he and Klavier are both waiting for Klavier to slip and pieces of the facade to momentarily collapse to reveal what’s truly going on. “You? Or perhaps the slithering sneak reporter clothed in cardboard I have reached both understanding and impasse with.”

Ignoring the stairs just a few feet over to the left, around the side of the stage, Klavier hoists himself up over the edge of the stage, his shirt riding up his stomach as he does, and he sits there for a moment before he swings his legs up. This is the opposite of when he’s using glamour to hide - Apollo has to forcibly turn his eyes away. Is it consciously showing off that Klavier’s trying to do, or has he taken the path of most resistance that looks coolest for so long that he just does without thinking? “I’ve no doubt she’s hardly used to anyone seeing through her, but for the moment, I would watch what you say, ja? Nothing that you don’t want known by an unscrupulous paparazzi with no understanding of the terms ‘journalistic integrity’ or ‘off the record’.”

And even if that wasn’t the game plan by necessity of Myriam’s presence, Apollo still wouldn’t ask the questions he has. About what Klavier meant by saying “seeing through her”, if it’s about

the way that Myriam’s eyes glow, and the way Klavier’s own dart around wide and wild enough that not even glamour masks it. Apollo knows Klavier well enough not to bring it up. And to hope that if something like this were directly relevant to the case, to Professor Courte, then he would say it. That the fear and paranoia the Court left him with would come second to seeking justice for his old professor.

Athena follows Klavier’s lead by taking the shortcut of hopping right up onto the stage. “So that weird box there,” she says, gesturing to the one conspicuously out of place on the stage, by one of the white model benches. Apollo passes right next to it as he comes up the stairs. “That’s—”

“Sss! Sss, sss!” The hissing voice that emerges from beneath the cardboard is a familiar one from the trial today, but the actual box itself differs from the one they saw yesterday, and in court today. Blackquill had threatened her by way of threating to chop up her box when she was up on the witness stand - maybe he made good on that. “But I’ll bet they can’t see through me!”

“Boxes don’t usually talk, Myriam,” Athena says. “And by ‘usually’ I kind of mean, ever?”

“Oh.” She doesn’t, as Apollo had hoped she would, beat a hasty retreat after saying something as silly as that. But she does go quiet, even though the conversation - Athena now imploring Klavier for help investigating, and him assuring her that he was ready to before she ever asked - is something - a prosecutor helping out Juniper’s defense - that she would have remarks on. Maybe Athena gave enough punches to her pride this morning that it still leaves her subdued now.

The German Language Social Club - if Apollo ever has to defend a case against Gavin with Athena has co-counsel, he’s going to break his nose beating his face into the bench because of the way these two have hit it off - are discussing the stage plans and the broken statues. Apollo joins their conversation too late to stop Athena from telling Klavier that the Gavinner’s logo looks like the number six if it was contorted in pain.

-

The police investigation is centered in the art room, Fulbright still in charge. A wire running down from the art room across the back of the stage would have hoisted two banners for the school festival concert, and at Athena’s request, Fulbright sends down the one banner still attached to the wire, and then he tosses her some kind of cement sculpture glue. 

In the mock-up stage plans that Klavier still has, there should have been statues of both him and Phoenix, that Robin made, that both were destroyed some time around when the body was found. Athena determined that reassembling the large purple plaster-of-paris chunks that once made up Prosecutor Gavin might yield them case information. They don’t have time to kill, certainly, with their deadline, but Robin and Hugh, if they’re planning to come back to campus, are probably still in questioning, Fulbright is busy, the art room off-limits, and Myriam reticent. What else would they be investigating now, anyway?

Apollo unravels the knotted school banner sent down along the wire, listening to the pidgin German-English chatter happening over the statue. Funny, he didn’t know that either of them actually knew more than a few scant phrases in the language, but maybe that’s by virtue of having no one to speak with, because together they’re sounding like a semi-fluent conversation is happening. A strange loneliness wells up inside Apollo’s chest - not for feeling left out from the discussion happening right next to him, but something he can’t quite place.

The school banner, made of dark red fabric, shows an even darker stain. Blood, from being up at the scene of the murder? Apollo calls the fake Germans over to examine this new evidence, and the scrap of paper that was crumpled up with it, and then like a lightning bolt from a cloudless blue sky he remembers being seven years old, learning to speak English, and chittering with Nahyuta in a mishmash of languages that would have sounded a lot like that. Like these two doofuses here with Apollo now sound. He steps away from the banner, wishing to return to being confused about why exactly this feeling of isolation just struck him. He wishes it was just something stupid, like envy that Athena and Klavier hit it off so well, so quick, or fear that they’re talking about him behind his back.

“There’s still a lot of these white plaster chunks around,” Athena says, holding up one, and squinting one eye shut to hold it up in front of the pedestal where the statue of Phoenix should have been. “Mr Wright’s statue was supposed to be blue, so this can’t be it.” She sets the piece down on the nearby imitation prosecutor’s bench. “I bet I can put these back together, too!”

“Is that - important?” Apollo asks. “For our investigation?”

“Can’t know until we try!” Athena says. “I’ve learned from you and Mr Wright that nothing is too irrelevant that we can’t use it!”

“The Fräuelin seems like a quick learner,” Klavier says. “It must not have taken her long to be able to imitate all your frantic bluffs and mad last-minute grasping at any desperate and stupid possibility as a ploy for more time.”

“I am going,” Apollo says, “to pick up that statue there” - he points at the purple bust of Klavier, some of the inner white showing through the cracks where it didn’t all fit perfectly back together - “and smash it over your head.”

“Don’t you dare!” Athena shouts from the other side of the stage. 

“And ruin all of the hard work she just put into fixing it?” Klavier asks. “This Fräulein has learned so much from you and you would treat her this way?”

Apollo rolls his eyes. When he glances over his shoulder he sees Athena back at work with plaster and glue, having apparently decided she can trust that Apollo won’t wreck her handiwork. She looks like she has her next puzzle well enough under control, and he turns back to examine this other statue. He’s more surprised that Klavier’s vanity didn’t make an appeal. You would really destroy this beautiful face, Herr Forehead, ja?

And it is - frustrating, really, that the statue is so genuinely well-done. None of the lumpy uncanniness that he expects from a high schooler’s work in plaster, not just a surface-level resemblance where they know it’s Klavier because they know it’s supposed to be Klavier. It looks like Klavier, down to the curve of his jaw and shape of his nose and casual, devil-may-care posture. And the frustration stemming from this, Apollo thinks, is that there’s no glamour to a statue, no charm of the real person, and assessing it he’s still forced to realize that yes, Klavier has a beautiful face, and there’s no magic bedazzling Apollo into thinking so. That’s just his stupid, pretty face. Infuriating. 

“Admiring the view?” Klavier asks. “You know the real thing is right here.” He grins, a forced, hollow one, and moves to prop an arm up on the pedestal that holds the statue, but his elbow knocks it off-balance and it wobbles dangerously. Both he and Apollo lunge, in unison, to grab it and steady it. “Ach, you threatened too but it then turns out the only one out to destroy me is me, ja?” He laughs. Apollo doesn’t like the sound of it. He releases the statue now that it’s still - Klavier’s eyes linger on Apollo’s hand, on the ring there, that Klavier gave him more than a year ago - and steps back, to look to Athena. With her hands on half of a white plaster statue already assembled, she has frozen, head cocked, like she heard Klavier’s laugh, too, and wanted to figure it out. Thought it notable enough to contemplate.

“I was admiring,” Apollo says, because he has nothing to say to Klavier’s last statement, nothing he’s going to risk saying with nosy Myriam right across the stage, “that Ms Newman is a hell of an artist.”

“That she is,” Klavier says darkly. Motion at the edge of Apollo’s vision catches his attention; Athena snapped her head around to stare at him. She might not have the background knowledge to understand it, but Apollo knows that he and Klavier are on the same page.

“I keep thinking,” Apollo says, lowering his voice, hoping to at least keep this out of Myriam’s ears even if now Athena will surely be listening more intently. “About what she said during the trial today, and her parents went about it the wrong way but they would’ve had plenty of reason to be afraid that she’d be stolen.”

“I suppose it’s an argument that destiny exists, in some form,” Klavier says quietly, “that they always seem to know who’s going to grow up with a talent and passion for the arts, to manage to snatch away the artist types when we’re only infants.” Him, and Vera or the original human who was supposed to be Vera, and he said once that he knew someone else too. Artists. And the most creative thinking Apollo ever does is keeping up with the twists and turns of a case, and he can only bring himself to sing in the shower if he knows for certain that no one else is home. He asked Klavier once if Apollo is anything like him and of course he isn’t, he knows now, because the fae steal artists so Apollo’s childhood was weird but wholly human. 

(Right. Of course it was. Case closed, end of story, no reason to think about it ever again.)

“Hey, Prosecutor Gavin!” Athena calls, hefting another large hunk of plaster over her head. The white statue has almost come together, a roughly as-tall-as-life, though the other proportions seem rather stylized, figure of a woman in an ancient Greek-looking dress, one arm at her side with a sword. Athena has another white statue arm in her hands, along with a head that was originally at least three pieces, and a white plastic scale and chains lying at her feet. “Can you help me finish this?”

“Why can’t I help?” Apollo asks. 

“Because you’re not any taller than me! I need someone who can get the head on straight!”

“I’m not good at doing things ‘straight’, Fräulein,” Klavier says, and Athena cackles, and Apollo chokes on an inhale and doubles over in a coughing fit. 

-

A chalk outline in the center of the stage marks where Courte’s body was. As they’ve traversed the area, they’ve all avoided stepping not just in the lines but near them, either. And while Athena’s got no way of knowing such a fact, another reason Apollo has skirted the lines is Vongole. She lies next to the imprint of Courte’s body, her head resting on the ground between two clearly-defined paws, but the back half of her body dissolves into a vaguely dog-shaped block of smoke. Every time Apollo has looked at her - and it hasn’t been often, she repels his eyes almost the way that Klavier can - her eyes have been closed.

He wonders if she would always be so drawn to the dead, or if it’s Courte, specifically, and Klavier’s own emotions influencing her.

Klavier doesn’t come with them when they leave the stage to continue investigating. Apollo almost doesn’t want to leave him, not when he sounds the way he does, but Juniper is their first priority. They’ve got to save her first, and then they’ll figure out how to help Klavier. 

Finding the truth of who killed Courte will help Klavier.

Myriam, who rushed off as soon as Klavier mentioned the other missing banner meant for stage decoration, is surprisingly helpful despite her mess of a testimony in court this morning. She gives them a few photos of festival setup from the night of the crime and a scrap of fabric from the incinerator out behind the dumpsters - a regular public high school could never have an incinerator anywhere within access of the student body, Apollo thinks - that definitely used to be a Gavineers-branded banner. Athena in return psychoanalyzes her to guess that she’s jealous of Juniper, Robin, and Hugh’s friendship, and bullies her into promising that she’ll swear to ask Juniper to hang out when this is over. 

Maybe that will balance the scales for the fact that Hugh claims he doesn’t care about Juniper at all anymore. As he speaks, he pops a book out from under his arm and sticks his nose in it, and the whole motion - his hand, his face, his eyes - thrums with red, the highlighted motions of a man trying with everything he has to lie, to them and maybe even to himself. If it’s the truth that they want, they’ll have to force it out of him tomorrow when he’s on the witness stand. 

(And Apollo still has no idea what Myriam’s deal is. Would the fae be able to write highly exaggerated not-reality-based gossipy tabloid-esque newspaper articles? Do those count as lies?)

Fulbright lets them examine the art room, with the police’s investigation finally completed. Athena sticks her head out the window and Apollo nearly grabs her to be certain that she isn’t going to try and jump or climb down the wire to try and attempt the corpse-moving possibilities herself. When she finally moves aside, feet still planted firmly on the art room floor, Apollo glances out after her, but for all the relevance this location has to the crime, his attention is drawn, more than anything, to the brown striped feather lying on the windowsill. 

The color and pattern of a certain hawk.

All the while, the sun sinks lower in the sky, its light bleeding across the horizon. 

Robin lurks about the main lecture hall, with a recording of the mock trial she begged off the cops at the crime scene. “Wanna watch?” she asks, and Athena, eager to see Juniper’s performance as the defendant, eagerly flings herself down into a seat next to Robin. “We’re def skipping Professor Means’ speech, though. All of his are so boooooring!” Apollo may have been physically present in this lecture hall at the time of Means’ speech, but he couldn’t say any more than Athena, who was not there, what it was about. “Let’s skip the opening statement too. It gets good when we all start yelling!”

In the video, Robin and Hugh both are understandably heated; this is a battle for prestige in front of all of their classmates, pride on the line, and they act like it. Juniper’s the one with least at stake, but the meek girl they’ve met can put on a hell of an acting performance when she wants. Athena in their mock mock trial was the litmus, in Apollo’s mind, and she had cheesier delivery than the worst made-for-tv sci-fi flicks that Clay likes to suffer through. But Juniper actually has some emotional delivery, and he’s not surprised that she’s a singer, given the way she projects her voice when she starts yelling. 

“Wait,” Athena says, jabbing not at the computer screen to pause it but instinctively at Widget’s screen, where she had drawn a floor plan of the lecture hall. “Stop, go back to that last bit.”

“Yeah, I’d kind of lost it at the time,” says the Juniper on screen, “and I shouted ‘You’re a goner!’ at her, but I didn’t mean it! I didn’t do it!”

He’s not quite convinced by her portrayal of a defendant in those lines - they might be worked up, sure, but they’d still probably say “you’re a goner” in the same tone as the rest of their protestations. Juniper screams it like she would have at the crime scene, with sudden desperate anger that doesn’t match the rest. But he’ll respect her for hamming it up, and more important—

“What?” Robin asks. “What are you both so excited about?”

“You remember the audio recording the prosecution had today?” Apollo asks. “The one from the art room, where we argued about what female voice was yelling?” And who was yelling, and they’d tried to implicate Robin then. 

“And about whether the voice was saying ‘you’re a goner’ or ‘Hugh O’Conner,” Athena adds. “Here, I’ve got it saved on Widget, I’ll play it—!”

The recording played in the trial today is distant and fuzzier, of course, they couldn’t have spent so long arguing about it otherwise, but having heard Juniper’s mock trial performance right before, the cadence and the voice sound alarmingly alike. “Then that evidence could be fabricated,” Athena says. “We’ve got to get that tape analyzed as soon as we can!”

“Perhaps I can help with that.”

Athena and Robin both yelp. Apollo flinches, evening knowing that this was likely to happen again today. “At least let us know you’re there!” Athena chides. “Do we have to put a cat bell collar on you?”

The chain necklace should be jangly enough, but it isn’t. “What’s a rock star without their dramatic entrances?” Klavier leans on the back of Apollo’s chair. “Go big or go home, Fräulein. But I can have that tape from today’s trial analyzed and get you the results as soon as I can. Catch you tomorrow morning at the latest.”

“That would be amazing!” Athena claps her hands together and twists around in her seat to face him. “But you’re not the prosecutor on this case. Are you sure you’ll be able to have someone take a look at it?”

“Never fear, Fräulein, I’ve got fans in Criminal Affairs who will take a strictly-above-board look at this if I ask.” He smiles with his lips pressed tightly together, a bit of a grim expression, like he thinks leveraging his fame and reputation to be a bit distasteful. It’s a bit ends-justifying, in a way, and he doesn’t doubt that Klavier is aware of it. What would Professor Courte think? They’ll never know, because she’s dead, and Klavier’s using what he has to solve her murder. “Nothing suspicious, through the proper channels only, should Herr Samurai want to verify the results.”

Blackquill. He’s tried to insinuate that defense attorneys can’t be trusted, and honed in on Phoenix specifically for it, and maybe Klavier feels safe crossing him because he’s not technically a coworker, certainly doesn’t have an office in the building with all the other prosecutors. “Does Prosecutor Blackquill know you’re helping us?” Apollo asks, and that abruptly shuts up both Athena and Robin.

Klavier, back on the stairs and heading for the doors at the top of the hall, stops. He brushes his hair back behind his shoulder. “Ja, we spoke about it this morning, before the trial. It will not surprise me if tomorrow he has another snide remark for me.”

“Snide?” Robin asks. “Nah man, he’s not snide! He’s S-C-A-R-Y. Even when I was just a witness, before my big confession.”

“Perjury, Fräulein,” Klavier calls back, snidely, the door closing on him a moment after, and Robin beams, either proud of it or just happy that people know she’s a girl now and doesn’t care what Klavier has to say to her besides the all-important “Fräulein”.

Fulbright has to know who Klavier is, right? Does he tell Blackquill that there’s another prosecutor back on the scene today? Or is it Taka? That’s a witch thing, right, the familiar at their shoulder, a black cat or a crow or a toad who can report back on goings-ons where the witch isn’t present. Could Blackquill be something as simple as a witch, unbothered by iron cuffs or bars because he’s merely a human? What of his uncanny ability to obstruct anyone else’s vision? Is that an ability unique to the creature he is, or is it unique to him, to the who rather than what. 

Either one makes Apollo uncomfortable - realizing that he can’t even rely on his eyes to tell him the Truth, because what if there’s someone or something else out there fooling him without his knowing? Without making as big of a show of it as Blackquill did that first time? He has to stay vigilant the old-fashioned way, the mundane way of an ordinary poker player watching for his opponent’s tells. 

“—then he pulled me in and grilled me until I recanted.” Robin is recounting the tale of her interrogation by Blackquill earlier in the afternoon. “And he didn’t even charge me with perjury yet! Said that his first priority was the professor’s murder, and once he solved that he’d take all the time he wanted on me and Hugh! He said he’d have all three of us convicted, man!”

“Ugh!” Widget cries, while Athena folds her arms and frowns and stares off absently. “Why’s he so mean?”

“Hey, Athena?” Apollo asks. The last time they were outside, he hadn’t liked how much colder it had gotten, and how long the shadows loomed. “If we’re still set on sundown for meeting with Juniper and Professor Means, we should probably get going, and tell her everything we’ve learned.”

-

“I don’t want to hear any more.” Juniper presses her hands over her ears. Her skin is bad again today, less green and more yellow, and probably accentuated by the sour fluorescent light. The only good thing about the speed with which trials occur is that it means less time Juniper has to spend in here, withering away. As long as they win, and if there wasn’t enough pressure in trying to save an innocent person, now Apollo wonders if Juniper, in her condition, could even survive prison. “I know what you’re going to say, Athena. I know that you’re—”

“Please listen to me!” Athena smacks the glass. “Please! Junie, you promised that you would hear out the truth!”

Professor Means stands silently along the wall, listening to their report to Juniper. He had come in about ten minutes after Apollo and Athena arrived. “The voice in the tape recording from the trial today is yours for sure, Junie,” Athena continues. “As Fulbright said. But we think it’s the same as something you said in the mock trial, and the only suspect who would benefit from faking a female voice as the culprit would be Hugh.” Juniper lets out a small sob, covering her mouth with her hand. “Since it would take all the suspicion off of him. We’re having the tape analyzed to know for sure if it’s fabricated or not.”

“Prosecutor Gavin was doing that, was he not?” Professor Means asks. “I ran into him as we were leaving campus.”

“Yeah,” Athena says. “He’s been amazing.”

“B-but Hugh confessed to protect me at the trial today!” Juniper argues, sounding perilously close to tears despite it. “Why would he—”

“You and Robin were already confessign and arguing that you’d done it,” Athena says. “Wouldn’t it look a bit weird if Hugh hadn’t also tried to confess to the murder? If you’re all as good of friends as you say.” Tension there is aside, and Hugh trying to claim that he doesn’t care about Juniper also aside - this is why Apollo only had one friend in high school. This kind of drama didn’t happen. Also neither he nor Clay ever got accused of murder in high school.

“I know what you think, Athena, but I don’t care.” Juniper’s voice trembles. She clutches her wrist. “None of us would kill anyone - not me, not Robin, not Hugh.” She closes her mouth on a cough, and her cheeks puff out and her nostrils flare with the air exhaled. “Hugh’s a great student and he gets good grades and he doesn’t cause trouble.” Her throat bobs as she swallows a second cough, and bright red blinks out on her skin. 

“Juniper,” Apollo says. Her eyes snap open wide. “Look me in the eyes and repeat what you just said.”

“Huh?” Athena asks. “Apollo, you saw something?”

“Hugh’s a - a—” She can’t hide her coughing now, can’t stifle it. “A gifted student and h-he never causes trouble—” The red flickers in and out, ceasing when she’s coughing too hard to speak, and resuming when she resumes her words.

“Juniper,” Apollo repeats firmly, and she seems to sense what’s coming, ducking her head and turning her eyes away. “You seem to cough a lot when you’re stressed, and you’re stressed because you’re lying.”

He wishes she hadn’t tried lying to them. It feels cruel to force it out of her, and she sounds pathetic, her coughing growing ever-weaker. “Robin told us that there was a rumor that someone in your class was spying and snitching on other students back to a professor,” Athena says. “I think that was Professor Courte. She had a note in her planner to receive a ‘routine report’, and then the next day she scheduled a meeting with Hugh. I think it’s you who was the snitch, and I think you found out something about Hugh. And you wish you hadn’t.”

Juniper’s body still shakes like she’s coughing, and she has a fist up to her mouth, but no sound comes out. “Forgive me, Thena, forgive me, but I - I suspected Hugh from the start!” Her final cough turns into a loud sob. She isn’t trying to hold anything in, now, and tears roll unfettered down her cheeks. “And I’ve talked so much about friendship when I’ve been a terrible friend and I - I—” Shuddering, sobbing gasps stop her from being able to say any more.

Poor girl. Not only is she accused of murder, and not only is the professor she was so close with dead, but she has to suspect one of her closest friends of doing the deed that put her here. “I can’t imagine how you must feel right now, Juniper, I’m sorry,” Apollo says. “But I don’t think you’re a bad friend. You must care about your friends a lot to be this upset.”

He thinks about her yesterday, sobbing that she wanted to tell Hugh and Robin about her fae ancestry, but she didn’t know how. He thinks about Klavier, telling him that he’d always meant to tell Daryan, and then he ran out of time. 

(He thinks about the time, a few weeks after Sasha Buckler’s trial, when Phoenix was organizing the files associated with it and said that sometimes being a lawyer felt like watching the same tragedies play out over and over. Apollo had glanced over at him, assessed the expression on his face, and decided not to ask what this reminded him of, and whether it was a fae thing in particular, the kinds of tragedies he saw repeated. Here’s one that is.)

Juniper rubs tears from her eyes but more well up a moment later. She does remind him some of Vera, the Vera they first met who barely spoke, when he was afraid that the world itself would break her. They saved Vera, and Vera saved herself, and they’re going to save Juniper too. For her sake, and for Athena’s sake. 

“Please, can you tell us why?” Athena asks. “That could be very important to the case.”

“It was Professor Courte who I reported too,” Juniper says. “She was - she told me that the Academy, and its alumni, haven’t always upheld the ideals of justice they’re supposed to.” She takes a deep breath and sits up straighter, squaring her shoulders. “That the corruption in our legal system gets to our students even before they graduate. She was worried that more of my classmates would be going astray, and she wanted to stop it if she could.”

“I’ve long admired the way she held to her ideals,” Means says. “If even, at times, I found it beautifully sad and unrealistic of her.”

Unrealistic to expect attorneys to not forge evidence? Is that what he means? The awkward conversation they had with him on first meeting, and the strange praise he had for Phoenix, returns to mind. Maybe that is exactly what he’s trying to say. 

 “I was supposed to talk with her once a month and report any wrongdoings I’d heard about. The other day, I went and told her about Hugh. I heard him talking on the phone, to his parents maybe, about paying money for good test scores.”

“What?” Athena yelps. “That’s bribery! Who was getting the money?”

“I don’t know,” Juniper says. “I could only hear half the conversation and he never said—”

“Wait!” Athena smacks her hand on the sill beneath the glass. “Hold it! That one weird sheet of paper we found, the—” She begins digging in her pockets, and when that proves unsuccessful, she, grumbling, activates Widget and brings up an image of the scrap of paper they found earlier in the afternoon on the stage. It’s a small sheet torn out of a notebook, with the faint print of a sword on the center of the page, like all the pages in Courte’s planner. Written on it are three words: October Hugh 120. “This! We couldn’t figure out what the number meant earlier, but now, it’s got to be—”

“—about the bribe,” Apollo finishes. “Like, a hundred-twenty grand for October.” It couldn’t be simply a hundred and twenty dollars for the month - no one would risk being caught for so little - but also damn is that a lot of money to throw away every month. What could Apollo do with a hundred-twenty grand in a year - in a lifetime. 

“And the marking on the paper!” Athena continues, jabbing her finger through Widget’s projection in an attempt to emphasize what’s there. “It’s the same as Courte’s planner!”

Which Apollo knew - Athena showed him pictures she took of Courte’s planner - but the actual meaning of it didn’t sink in as quickly as it did for her. “B-but how would Professor Courte have th - that information?” She sniffs and then coughs. “You can’t - can’t think she was the one who was - was…” Her unsteady words trail off into a stammer and then silence. The tears she managed to halt start flowing from her reddening eyes again - and her eyes are reddening in both the way of going bloodshot from sobbing, and the fae way of a vivid, unnatural red welling up around her pupils. 

“We can’t know for sure yet, but it’s a definite possibility,” Athena answers.

“That’s absurd!” Professor Means says. “I would think that Professor Courte would be the last person who would ever do such a thing!”

“Like I said, it’s a possibility.” Athena sounds a little irritated, like she’s confident in her own assessment of the situation and has no idea why no one else is with her on it. 

The paper it’s written on is solid evidence, but the logic of it doesn’t follow through. Professor Courte taught in and managed the course for aspiring judges. Hugh is a student of a different department, for defense attorneys. Sure, he doesn’t know exactly how Themis’ administration works, but how could a professor change the grades for a student they didn’t have? Someone else would have to have their eye on those grades to notice and realize what went in the computers was different than what was marked on the tests. It would make more sense to bribe the professor in charge of the student’s particular course, which in this case is—

“Professor Means?”

Apollo jumps. When did the door behind them open? There’s Phoenix, who he’s barely seen at all today, poking his head into the visiting room. “Can we talk for a moment?”

“Certainly,” Means says. “We’re in the midst of discussing our evidence and strategy for tomorrow, but any input you have would be most welcome.”

“Ah - no.” Phoenix straightens up and props the door open with his foot. “What I mean is, you” He points at Means with his forefinger, and then points over his shoulder, out the door, with his —thumb. “We need to talk.” Athena gasps, softly; Apollo doesn’t understand why. Phoenix sounds as level and polite as he ever does, casually tossing all his words out even though those actual words mean the statements could sound that much more dire. It’s his eyes that worry Apollo, cold and flinty and piercing, almost giving the impression he can See through people even when they aren’t blue. What’s he found out, and why won’t he share it with Apollo and Athena first?

“Of course,” Means says. “Ms Cykes, Mr Justice. I will be in the gallery tomorrow, and I look forward to seeing what your methods will result in. My greatest concern is that prosecutor. But I leave this task of Juniper’s defense to you. Good luck.”

He follows Phoenix out the door. Silence hangs on both side of the glass for several moments after they leave, until Apollo realizes that with Means gone he can voice the thought he had a minute ago. “I really doubt it was Professor Courte taking bribes,” he says.

Athena whirls on him. “You too?” she demands. “We know Courte had the planner with the paper like this!”

And it wouldn’t make sense for someone to have made this as evidence to frame her. The only definitive way to prove it came from her notebook, unless it’s a unique custom-made one with that sword marking, would be to look through the whole thing to find if there was a page torn out and see if it matched. And someone if framing her couldn’t count on her having ripped a page out herself, that they could then make their forged page’s torn edge match with. And it would be a difficult and risky venture to get a hold of a planner that she carried around with her. And the actual paper was found in a non-obvious spot. Someone with a forged notebook page would try to more obviously present it to get it circulating among the evidence, not count on the defense poking around in enough corners to stumble upon it.

Nothing about this matches how that other page played out.

“Hugh isn’t even one of her students,” Apollo says, and he quickly outlines the rest of his thoughts, including that Professor Means would be just as likely a suspect.

Juniper gasps. “Professor Means is - I know you don’t like his philosophies, but he’s a teacher who really cares about having his students being as smart and as skilled as they can be! He - he wouldn’t just let someone not - not properly learn and reach their full capacity for - for money! He wouldn’t, and Professor Courte wouldn’t either!”

Athena takes a much softer tone with Juniper than she does with Apollo. (Fair enough; Apollo also does that.) “I can hear how hard this is for you. But we have to consider the possibilities, even if it’s hard ot hear, because we can’t let the truth get away.” Juniper nods. “And there’s the evidence, and it would make a lot of sense with Hugh as the culprit.”

“I still don’t think it’s that likely to be her,” Apollo says. “Isn’t that the one thing everyone’s said about her when we’ve asked around? That she’s fair and honest?”

“We had that conversation in the car today!” Athena says. “You said it, that you can’t ever really know someone. Maybe we didn’t know Professor Courte. It’s sad, but it might be true.” She squints at him, leaning in a little, like he’s a particularly interesting specimen beneath some museum glass. “I understand Junie, but you shouldn’t have any real emotional investment in whether or not Courte was who people said she was. You didn’t know her. We’re just trying to solve her murder.”

“I—” It’s like she gave his head a light little push, but it’s started spinning wildly despite that. “Do I? Have emotional investment?” He glances at Juniper out of the corner of his eyes. She looks as confused as he feels. Maybe it’s better she be confused right now than upset about Courte, at least. 

“Uh-huh,” Athena says. “A lot of it. Hey, Widget’s ready to go” - “Sure am!” the machine chirps - “so if we want to—”

“No.” Emotional investment - Apollo doesn’t know what the hell those emotions are. But he knows the thought that’s birthed them. Klavier loved Courte; it was apparent and obvious, and didn’t take Athena’s ears to realize. Klavier loved his brother, Klavier loved his best friend. Apollo doesn’t want to again watch him find out that someone else he loved isn’t who he thought they were. Not for a third time. “We should probably just focus on Juniper’s case. What were you saying about motive?”

“Oh - well, Courte obviously wanted to meet with him about Junie’s report, one way or another, and whatever happened in their talk got out of hand.” Athena absently toys with her earring. 

“That would be reason for anyone to suspect Hugh,” Apollo says. “Of course you did, Juniper, knowing that.”

Juniper shakes her head. “No. I don’t think that alone - there was another reason I thought, that - that he—”

“Even more?” Widget exclaims, and Athena slaps her hand over it.

“The night before the mock trial, I went home around seven. And I saw Hugh in the hall and he - he--” Juniper tries to take a deep breath in and she chokes on the inhale and starts coughing like she’s going to hack up an entire lung. “He—”

“Take a sec, Junie.” Athena presses a hand up against the glass and leans in so that her forehead is nearly touching it, like she can force herself through to the other side and somehow help her friend from there. “Just try to relax and tell us what you saw.”

Juniper’s hands tremble even as she splays them out on the sill beneath the glass. Her whole body is trembling, actually, from the tips of her fingers - her fingernails look chalk-white and the rest of the skin on her hands sick pale yellow - to her head and her hair falling down around her face. “I didn’t want to see! But I can’t get it out of my head, that I - that he - he - his hands - h-his - hands were covered in blood!”

She pulls her arms back in around her, hugging herself tightly around the middle and buckling over, wracked with coughs and sobbing hiccups. Every sound from her lips comes out stuttered. “Wh-what do I do, Thena? He - I know - he can’t—” It’s a horrible, pitiful sound, to listen to her struggle to speak. “I know he c-can’t be the killer but my mind keeps t-telling me—!” Her voice hitches. She lifts her head to stare at them with bloodshot eyes. The pink hallmarks of heavy crying have begun to appear on her skin beneath her eyes and around her nose, the only human colors stark against sunless yellow-green and bone white. “No matter how hard I try to convince myself he i-isn’t. I don’t know what to do.”

The same thing that Athena said in the car this morning. About nearly the same subject. A friend suspected - what do you do?

“Junie, I’m so sorry,” Athena says. “I hope you feel even a little better now that you’re letting it all out. And I swear I’ll figure it out. As your friend, I promise you!”

“I should’ve trusted you from the start today.” Juniper’s voice sounds fainter than ever. “I know you’ll find the truth, Thena.”

It isn’t as though Athena wants to hurry them out of the detention center away from Juniper - she doesn’t, not by the way all of her body language has her tilting toward the glass, closer to her friend. But when there’s nothing else to say, she doesn’t linger. She tells Juniper that she needs to get some rest, to try her best to and gear up for the battle tomorrow, and then just like that the officer on the other side is taking Juniper back to her holding cell and Apollo is hurrying out into the hall after Athena.

“Did you hear how angry Mr Wright was?” She rounds on Apollo in the dim detention center hallway, Widget beaming the bright yellow of surprise. “When he was asking after Professor Means? Where did they go, maybe we can still eavesdrop—” She spins about in a circle, seeking an answer from anything nearby.

“No, I didn’t hear it,” Apollo says, “but I did see that he didn’t look—”

Athena scuttles down the corridor, waving for Apollo to follow her, stopping outside one of the other visitor rooms that has the door closed and light pouring out from under it. He expects that he’ll have to ask for a summary later, but then when the voices resume, he realizes it was just a lull, and this argument is audible to even Apollo’s normal ears. 

“—threaten him in an attempt to stop him from pursuing this investigation any further.” That’s Phoenix’s voice, level but clipped at the edges. He doesn’t sound angry, but he doesn’t sound angry in a very deliberate way that makes it clear he’s angry but forcing the casual tone. Apollo would think that to take more energy than just yelling.

“Threatened? My, that’s a bold accusation.” And that’s Professor Means, lacking all of his usual jovial nature. Apollo knew that the two of them were talking, knew Phoenix was bothered by something, and while he can’t quite understand what he’s hearing he barely believes it, either. Who are they talking about? What did Means do? “I did no such thing. I simply said—”

“—something irrelevant to the matter at hand—”

“It was hardly irrelevant to a murder case, you know.” 

“But it is to an investigation, and however relevant it helps nothing and is pointlessly cruel to bring up at all—”

“It was not a threat.” Means sounds unconcerned with anything Phoenix levels at him, his every word slowly and evenly enunciated, like he thinks he wins this argument by staying detached. 

“You tried to dishearten and manipulate him into giving up his investigation by bringing it up. Maybe that’s not a threat, I don’t care about the semantics - I’m curious about what you’re so concerned with hiding, and so afraid someone will find out.”

“You have a very creative kind of logic, Mr Wright, and I’ve always found that admirable, and your clients would not have survived without it either. But now I find myself confused. Perhaps you will explain to me how you came to this conclusion?”

“Fuck you.”

Athena gasps. Both of her hands lay clasped over Widget, to preemptively muffle any exclamations it might make, but for once in its electronic life it doesn’t yell out what Athena’s thinking. Maybe because she already expressed what she’s feeling with that gasp. 

“I didn’t come to talk to you to convince you to have a conscience.” Despite his words, Phoenix still doesn’t sound angry - curt, dry, and bitter, all layered over the anger that must be there. “You know what you did and I came here to tell you that I know what you did.”

“Your accusations and creative leaps of logic would be better put to use in helping your students win Ms Woods her acquittal, would they not? Good night, Mr Wright.”

The door opens. Apollo and Athena retreat into one of the unused rooms, ducking behind the open door. Athena leans her ear against the crack to listen; with her taking up all of the space next to the wall and the hinges, Apollo can’t see into the hall and simply has to wait, holding his breath, willing Means to pass by and leave. They remain there in the dark visiting room, with the big empty window behind them, for a minute that crawls past, every second a silent lifetime, until Athena steps back and lifts her hand off of Widget, which has returned to its neutral glow. “Clear,” she whispers.

Phoenix stands there in the hall, rubbing his eyes. “Hey, Boss,” Athena says. He jumps, clapping a hand over his chest to steady his breathing. “I - sorry. Did we scare you?”

“No shit you did,” Phoenix says, dropping his hand to his side. “So you’re done meeting with Juniper? What’ve you got? What’s the case look like?”

“What were you arguing with Professor Means about?” Athena asks. “That sounded important.”

Phoenix’s face darkens. He glances around; at this late hour, with visiting hours about to end, no one is left around but the guards, but that doesn’t seem to ease Phoenix’s concern. “How much did you hear?” he asks.

“He tried to threaten someone?” The trouble is that while they did hear a substantial amount, it was all a debate of minutiae, leaving none of the broader details for Apollo to understand. “To keep something a secret.”

“You don’t think he’s the murderer, do you?” Athena asks. “Our evidence points pretty substantially to it being Hugh.”

“How about this,” Phoenix says. “You—” He stops, staring a moment at Athena’s car, and that Apollo has already fallen into taking the front passenger’s side, as he has all day already, and Phoenix gives the back seat a judgmental look for several more seconds before he accepts it. “You catch me up on your investigation, and then I’ll tell you what I think is relevant.”

Not a promise to tell them everything - of course he isn’t suggesting that he would tell them everything. Just what he thinks is need-to-know. Always what he thinks is best for everyone else. Unsurprising - still disappointing.

-

“And that’s what we’ve got, and why we think it’s Hugh.” Athena’s eyes dart toward Apollo, waiting to see if he’ll put a qualifier on her suspect. He doesn’t. It was the bribery, not the murder, that he objected to, and he’s not going to keep making that objection as vehemently as he was. Athena is right - they can’t know for sure. 

“Hm.” Phoenix nods slowly. “All your evidence does point that way.”

Apollo sits forward. He’s been content to let Athena handle the explaining: this is, after all, her case, so he’s only interjected a few times when she thought she didn’t elaborate enough on a certain bit. But now that she’s finished their side of the story, it’s Phoenix’s turn to explain, and that’s the part Apollo needs to more carefully observe. 

“So what was it that Professor Means did?” Athena asks. “Who did he threaten? Wouldn’t trying to threaten the officers just get him into way more trouble than if he stayed quiet?”

“It wasn’t anything to do with the police,” Phoenix says. “He’s not stupid. The evidence you have about the bribes, the paper, can you show me that again?”

Athena swipes through a few different screens - a map of the lecture hall, a map of Themis campus, a photo of the extremely fat squirrel they saw running off with half a sandwich - to bring up the page in question. “It looks like Courte’s planner, see.” She pushes that projection off to the side and presents a scan of the planner in question. “I asked Junie, and she hasn’t seen any of the students have these.”

“What of other faculty, though?” Phoenix asks. “Maybe there’s some particular stationaries that are printed just for the professors, or the administration. Yes, it certainly looks like it could be a page that came out of Courte’s diary - planner.” He folds his hands together tightly and rests his forehead against them. “Her planner. Don’t know why I said—” It’s a little red lie. Athena glances to Apollo for confirmation that she isn’t the only one picking up weirdness off that aborted statement. “But we don’t even know if Hugh took any classes from Courte, and I mean, it’s certainly possible that there would be a way for an administrator in a different department to change his grades, but that - god, no matter what, I just keep thinking that they should’ve figured out a protocol to prevent this the last time it happened, and that we shouldn’t be here at all.”

“The last time?” Apollo echoes. “Themis has had problems with students buying grades before?”

Phoenix nods. “Yeah. They kept it hushed up despite firing just about every professor who taught the prosecutor students. Cleaned house and then scrubbed that stain off their name, and the fact that this wasn’t a huge scandal was - well, that should’ve been a scandal, that it wasn’t a big public scandal. Does that make sense?” Athena nods. “Anyway, with this evidence likely to come out in court tomorrow, on the record, I don’t think they’ll have as much luck burying it a second time.” He tilts his head to the side, resting his chin against his hands. “You didn’t know this? I figured Prosecutor Gavin would’ve mentioned it.”

“No,” Apollo says. “He didn’t - but we didn’t talk about our suspicions with him. It was just Juniper who told us when we were at the detention center.” He wonders what would have happened if Athena had theorized in front of him that Courte took bribes - if Klavier would have fought her like Juniper did, or if he would have looked at precedent and given in and accepted it as possible.

“Still,” Phoenix says, “I’m a little surprised he didn’t mention it, just as a fact about Themis. And he should know it happened - I mean, maybe no one at the Prosecutors Office is friends with each other but that seems unlikely, don’t you think?”

Athena coughs. “Does - does this have any relevance to Junie’s case, do you think?” 

Her very polite way of telling Phoenix that she only cares about one thing, which is Juniper, and this incident which happened years ago seems to have no relevance to Juniper and thus, as a conversational tangent, should have ended a minute ago.

“The actual technical process of changing grades!” Phoenix snaps his fingers. “This is why you keep paper records - bribing Courte would make much less sense than bribing the professor in charge of Hugh’s course, unless that person proved unbribable, but this is Professor End Justify surname Means we’re talking about, and he’d probably be impressed by the diabolical ruthlessness it takes to try and bribe someone for better grades.”

“You think that could be his and not Courte’s,” Athena says, pointing at the scrap of paper and the Hugh 120 scrawled on it. “If Hugh killed Professor Courte because she found out about the bribes, but then Means is also worried about hiding his role in the bribes, and that’s led to your argument with him - that would clarify everyone’s roles in the case, then!” She shifts so that she’s facing more toward Apollo, on the couch next to her, and Phoenix across the coffee table from them. “And then everyone believing that Professor Courte isn’t someone who could be corrupt like that isn’t wrong, either.”

Phoenix lifts his eyebrows questioningly. Apollo shrugs. If he doesn’t say anything, Athena can’t try to cross-examine or psychoanalyze him. And Phoenix won’t be able to either.

“Augh, I should’ve listened better to Means when he said that he couldn’t imagine Professor Courte taking bribes!” Athena puts her face in her hands and her next words come out muffled. “There’s too much going on!”

“Yeah,” Phoenix agrees. “That unfortunately tends to happen. Nobody’s going to blame you for missing something in hindsight like this. But you’ll have Hugh on the stand tomorrow, and that’s your chance. But don’t try and go in too hard on the bribery matter unless it’s relevant. Focus on the murder case - get Juniper exonerated, first.”

“Right!” Athena smacks her palms down decisively on her knees. “We’ve got a plan! And I think we should get home and get food and rest.” She springs to her feet and directs an imperious finger in Apollo’s face. “I need you in top shape for tomorrow! Protein tonight, carb-load in the morning.”

“If you’re bringing pasta to eat for breakfast tomorrow, please remember a fork this time,” Apollo says. “Whoever says appearances don’t matter has never watched you eat plain pasta with your bare hands.”

“The things I do in the private of this office are not the same things as I would do in a courthouse, thank you very much!”

Phoenix watches with bemusement; Apollo doesn’t recall him having been there that morning. “Save your energy for arguing with the other side tomorrow,” he says, and Athena’s face falls. 

“Right. See you both in the morning.” She stops short at the door. “Wait, Apollo, do you want a lift home?”

“No thanks. I’ve got a couple things to get done here before I leave.”

Apollo waits for a minute after she leaves before he says anything. Phoenix was reading some notes he took after they arrived back at the office, and after another few seconds, he glances up. “I guess by ‘something to get done’, you don’t mean cleaning up your desk.”

“I haven’t been at my desk for two days,” Apollo says. 

“Well, Trucy has, so there’s that.” Phoenix is doodling something in the top corner of the page. “Forgive me then for making this about me and assuming that you have something to ask me.”

Something to ask him. Yes, and that - there’s a lot of questions he could have. He starts broad. See if he can get Phoenix to confess first. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re hiding something?” 

“Maybe—” Phoenix taps the side of his face, next to his eye.

“Or maybe because the other times you’ve said something like, ‘I told you what was relevant to the case’, there was a whole lot of other important stuff that you didn’t tell me.” Like Kristoph. I didn’t want to scare you. Damn him, if he’s doing this again, to Athena now. “Who’s not human here? Myriam Scuttlebutt? Professor Means? Who was he trying to stop from investigating - you said it wasn’t the police, and you said ‘him’, so it’s not Robin or Myriam - considering Hugh was trying to insist that he doesn’t care at all about Juniper anymore, even if he was lying, I’m not sure that he would be going around obviously investigating.”

He watches Phoenix’s face, searching for a reaction, waiting for a tic that isn’t going to come. This is Phoenix, the man who started teaching him these tricks, who’s always been impossibly, frustratingly obtuse, dodging carefully around the truth to avoid tripping Apollo’s eyes. He’s not going to say anything until Apollo asks him directly, and even then he might not answer. “So then was it Hugh - he and Means had a falling out over bribery, maybe? Or the only other person independently investigating the case - were you and Means talking about Prosecutor Gavin?”

He hoped for even the barest response, a slight alertness in Phoenix’s eye on Klavier’s name, but Phoenix doesn’t grant him even that. His eyes are half-open, lazily fluttering, one lid drooped lower than the other. “Apollo,” he says. “You want to stay focused on the murder, not the bribery, but if anywhere in your cross-examination of Mr O’Conner, you see a good opportunity to get Professor Means on the stand - take it.”

“What?” Apollo asks. If he’s focused on the murder, then why does Means come into it - unless Phoenix thinks— “Do you - do you think that Professor Means is the killer, not Hugh?”

“All your evidence points to Hugh,” Phoenix says. “Even were I both leading this case and convinced that Means is the killer, my only strategy tomorrow would be to go in on Hugh as though I still suspected him to be the murderer, and hope that somewhere in the cross-examination he would give me the right piece of testimony to create an alibi for himself and some reasonable suspicion against Means.” He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “You know,” he adds bitterly, “much like that old strategy of mine that Means professed to so admire yesterday - making accusations you don’t believe to buy yourself more time.”

“So you do believe Means is the killer?”

“Apollo.” Phoenix lifts his head, folding his fingers together in front of his mouth. “I just said it. It literally doesn’t matter what I believe. The strategy doesn’t change. All that would change would be your, and Athena’s, perception of it - whether when you accuse Hugh O’Conner, you believe you’re accusing a guilty man or an innocent one. And there’s no room in tomorrow’s case for pulling punches.”

“And you don’t think Athena’s capable.”

“I think she’s very capable,” Phoenix says. “But there will be plenty of time and reasons for her to confront the moral quandaries of being a defense attorney without me putting her into the position of having to make an accusation that she’ll think is false. I’d rather not watch her have a crisis of faith this early in her career.”

It’s October. She joined the Agency in April. It’s been six months. A year and a half for Apollo. At six months, that early in his career, he was—

Bitter. Bitter at Phoenix, then and now and always.

“I made a mess of the first trial you stood as lead defense on,” Phoenix adds. He’s thinking of it too, of the differences then and now, of the first new young lawyer he brought to this office, and the second one. “I won’t do it again.”

“This all seriously implies that you believe Professor Means is Courte’s killer,” Apollo says. And that Phoenix doesn’t care if Apollo has to grapple with the morality of accusing Hugh. 

“Make of what I’ve said what you will,” Phoenix says. “Just remember that this trial is, ultimately, about Juniper, and her life on the line.”

Juniper - poor Juniper, half between worlds, accused of murder and shut away behind iron. If she has to stay in prison any longer she might not survive it. She’ll shrivel up and wither to dust like a plant never watered, locked in the dark. Whether or not Hugh is the killer, the only path for Juniper’s freedom goes through him. To save her, there’s no other strategy, and they have to save her. 

“I know,” Apollo says. “Though I’m not sure why you don’t just explain what went down with Means and whoever else. I’m capable of holding two thoughts in my head at the same time, you know, whether it’s directly relevant to Juniper’s trial or not.” Phoenix blinks, and his eyes don’t fully open after. His poker face, back again in full. “How are you to know it isn’t relevant? Lots of seemingly unimportant facts become relevant.”

“Good night, Apollo.”

Apollo grits his teeth and turns on his heel. If there was a falling out between Hugh and Means, if Means said or did something nasty enough that Phoenix was as pissed as he was, then how would that not be something case-relevant? Which leaves the possibility that Phoenix snarling, furious, fuck you, was in defense of Klavier, the man who disbarred him.

Last October, Phoenix kept asking Apollo how Klavier was doing. Worried after him, really. Couldn’t ever deflect his inquiries with a convincing facade of not actually caring. What could Means have said? Some jab about Kristoph or Daryan - or Courte? Could he know about Klavier’s glamours or history, try to throw those back in his face in a way meant to break him down, into giving up? Why would Means risk doing something that makes him look so much more suspicious, and do it obviously enough that Phoenix noticed? Klavier would have to be the only possibility; he’s the only person involved in this case, besides Juniper, who Apollo thinks would be so obviously easy to break, to push over the edge with some words.

Apollo leans his bike against his hip and fires off a text.

How’s that tape looking?

He doesn’t check his phone again until he gets home, shoes off and wandering towards the kitchen and walking into the doorframe instead. 

-Aren’t you impatient ;) -I barely dropped it off and it should take some time -I’ll come find you and Fräuelin before you hit the stage in the morning

“Earth to Apollo, hello, I repeat, ground control to Apollo One, do you copy? That wall has been here the whole time we’ve lived here, you know.”

Apollo corrects his course and on a second attempt makes it into the kitchen without running into anything. “Cut me a break. I’ve spent the day dealing with a perjurious high school love triangle.” Actually, is it still a love triangle? The trio clearly had some secrets that Myriam could have mistaken for the much-more-normal secret of having crushes on one another. But Robin could still be interested in Juniper - or Athena could be. And god only knows what’s going on with Hugh toward Juniper, to the point that it will probably come up in cross-examination. 

“I can’t decide if that’s something I want to hear about or not,” Clay says.

“Better not,” Apollo says, “and tomorrow I can tell you if it’s worth it.”

“I can’t imagine that Mr Prosecutor Samurai Birdman from hell and-or faeryland is very happy with it either.”

“He’ll be doing his best to get them all convicted of something,” Apollo says. And he’d go with and rather than or: Hell and the Twilight Realm are probably the same thing.

You’re certain there will be some results by then?

-Ja -I won’t leave you hanging :) -I said that I need some kind of result by 9:50 tomorrow morning -leaving myself just enough time to find and talk to you -so long as you haven’t gone in early to the courtroom, which you have never done, so I am not worried

Shut up.  I’m always early. I just always have to wait for Trucy or Athena or the defendant or whatever. 

“Who’re you texting?” Clay tried to lean his head in front of Apollo’s phone screen. Apollo shoves him away. “You’ve got that look on your face like you’re trying to decipher calculus. But fortunately for you, I’m good at math.”

“That’s a terrible metaphor to say you’re nosy and like micromanaging my texting.”

“Only with Gavin, but since you bring it up I presume then that this is him?”

“Ah.” Damn. Clay’s better at logical trial-type reasoning than Apollo gives him credit for. Usually because he’s being deliberately obtuse and annoying. 

“Ha! Self-incrimination! What kind of lawyer are you?”

“One who’s spent the day dealing with a perjurious high school love triangle,” Apollo repeats. “Again, cut me a break.”

“So. Klavier Gavin. What’s he say?”

“He’s helping with the investigation,” Apollo says. “We’re talking about evidence.”

Clay raises his eyebrows and lowers his chin. “Uh-huh,” he says. “You look worryingly confused about evidence for your own case, if that’s it.”

“It’s not about the evidence,” Apollo says. “It’s about, I know there’s something that Mr Wright definitely and Prosecutor Gavin maybe isn’t saying, and there’s no formula for you to help me figure that out.”

“The Fair Folk’s bullshit,” Clay says. “Very broad category, but that’s your answer.”

“I hope not,” Apollo says, knowing as he says it that it’s the only likely answer. Professor Means - is he lying? Is he human? “But you’re probably right.”

-oh blame the Fräuleins, very sweet of you - ;)

All of Klavier’s texting sounds - normal, unlike other occasions that gave him cause not to be. But without seeing him in-person, it’s impossible for Apollo to tell how forced the mask of normalcy is. He’ll have to wait for that answer the same as he’ll wait for the results of the audio tape analysis.

They know what they’ve done

No, he’s got to focus. Juniper is his first priority. There’s the deadline on her, an hourglass running down, running them out of time to save her. And he can’t help Klavier if he lets Professor Courte murder goes unsolved. No point to anything else if that wound is still bleeding.

He just has to trust that Phoenix is right when he says something isn’t case-relevant.

(As if he could easily give that trust on the best of days, let alone a case this important to this many people he knows.)

[weerd1]

Star Trek DS9 Rewatch Log, Stardate 1909.19: Missions Reviewed, “Time’s Orphan,” “The Sound of Her Voice,” and “Tears of the Prophets.”

Keiko O’Brien has brought the kids back to DS9 finally, and they plan a long overdue family outing. Traveling to a small Bajoran colony world, they are having a delightful picnic when eight year old Molly finds herself inside a cave and in danger. Miles tries to save her, but she falls into a portal leftover from an extinct civilization and they realize she’s been thrown back in time.  The station sends help and they manage to send a transporter beam locked on to her DNA through the portal, but when they beam her back, ten years have passed for her, and Molly is now a feral 18 year old.  Back on the station, Bashir prescribes a series of methods to try to reconnect to her, but even her language skills have atrophied after a decade alone. Worf volunteers to help keep an eye on Kiarayoshi (the O’Brien’s son whom of course Kira delivered) as he wants to prove to Jadzia he can be a good father (meeting Alexander certainly has not helped with that). 

Molly starts to make some progress, and asks to go home. They take her back to her quarters, but she reacts badly until she sees a picture of them on the colony planet, and they realize she wants back into nature. They take her to a holosuite, which goes well until their time expires, and Molly becomes angry, assaulting several of Quark’s patrons. Starfleet orders the girl to a treatment facility where she won’t be a danger, but O’Brien instead decides to take her and steal a Runabout, returning her to the time portal and destroying it behind her. Odo initially catches them, but lets them go.

 They put older Molly back, but she arrives at the same time as her earlier self, and sends the eight-year-old version of herself back through the time portal, erasing her existence, but restoring her family. Worf meanwhile has decided he likes Yoshi despite some problems, and he and Jadzia decide he could be a father.

We waited until late in the season for our “Screw with O’Brien” episode, but indeed here it is. There are a few echoes of the fifth season “Children of Time” here (and in the next episode honestly) but overall this is an effective science fiction plot that serves as an nice analogy for families dealing with sick children, and what it takes to be a parent with the Worf story line. Worf coming at babysitting like it is a Warrior’s task is amusing, and all the more poignant very soon.  I am interested in where this time portal came from, as much of it seems a little reminiscent of the Guardian of Forever, though the control interface looks rather pointedly like the TARDIS console from Doctor Who.  

“The Sound of Her Voice” starts with Odo citing Quark for installing unsafe barstools and Quark deciding he has to come up with something to distract Odo so he can sell some elicit merchandise. 

 With Jake watching for “research” purposes, he pushes Odo to celebrate his one month “anniversary” with Kira to provide a distraction allowing him to move his goods.  Meanwhile the Defiant is tracking a Starfleet distress signal to a lone survivor, Captain Lisa Cusak, of the USS Olympia (PNW, Represent!) who is on a class J planet, trying to stay alive.  As they track her, the establish two way communications and to keep her company, each officer takes a turn talking to her. In their own way she begins to talk them each through problems they have experienced in their personal lives.  On DS9, Odo shifts the day of his “anniversary” date, and that means Quark’s client will be there while Odo is on patrol. Without Quark and Jake knowing Odo overhears Quark lament how bad the war has been on him, and how he would like some recognition for helping bring Odo and Kira together.  Odo abruptly goes back to his original plan, allowing Quark to operate. Odo tells Kira that he owes Quark one…but just one. The Defiant makes it to the planet and finds that the strange energy field that caused the Olympia to crash in the first place has acted as a time dilation effect, and Captain Cusak actually crashed three years ago, and her oxygen ran out then. Sisko brings her body back to DS9 and they throw an “Irish Wake” for her (which Worf comments seems like a very Klingon ritual) to remember the time they got to know her, and the advice she gave. 

O’Brien toasts the fact that one day, it will be one of them not standing in the circle, and they should enjoy each others’ company while they can. The camera flashes to Jadzia Dax.

Holy foreshadowing, Batman.  They do, they cut RIGHT to Jadzia when O’Brien laments one of them may die.  Dammit, what are you people trying to do to me? Beyond that, I was struck by the similar circumstances between this episode and “Children of Time:” a planet with an strange energy field around it which displaces things in time. Being caught up with season 2 of “Star Trek: Discovery” I am struck how much the character of Captain Cusak (whom we see only as a body, three years deceased) has a personality and wit that reminds me of Tig Notaro’s character of Jett Reno. I just kept imagining her on the planet, similar actually to the situation which the Discovery crew WILL end up saving Reno from following the Klingon War in 2257 (about 117 years before this episode). I am not sure though why NO ONE tried to look up records on the Olympia, even just to see what her crew compliment was to aid in the rescue, and don’t notice the three year discrepancy in timelines.  As a bit of reference, since Cusak discusses the Olympia being on an eight year mission and the ship crashed three years earlier, they Oly’s mission would have started roughly the same time the 1701D launched under Jean-Luc Picard, and she would have crashed roughly the same time the Voyager ended up in the Delta Quadrant.

“Tears of the Prophets” opens with Sisko receiving the Christopher Pike medal of valor and with Admiral Ross deciding Starfleet, Qo’Nos, and Romulus will invade Cardassian space, specifically to knock out a new type of weapon platform in the Chin’Toka system.  The Romulan senator on scene is initially resistant, but becomes convinced. 

Meanwhile Dax and Worf become public about deciding to have a child, and Dukat returns to the Dominion.  He has recovered the Pah-Wraith Kosst Amojan (last seen possessing Jake Sisko in the apocalypse Kai Winn cancelled in “The Reckoning”) and will use it to attack the wormhole. When Sisko prepares to leave to invade Cardassia, he receives a vision from the Prophets warning him not to go, but he defaults to his Starfleet duty. While the battle is being hard fought (with the weapons platforms coming online mid-fight) Dukat infiltrates DS9 with the Pah-Wraith to deliver it into the Orb on the station. 

In the sanctuary he finds Jadzia Dax, having a rare moment of religious curiosity, and blasts her with the Wraith’s power. The ancient being enters the orb, and the wormhole collapses. When the Defiant returns, Dukat is gone, and Worf arrives just in time to say goodbye to Jadzia; Bashir saved the symbiont, but could not save the host. The Celestial Temple collapsed, his friend dead, and Bajor looking to an Emissary who has suffered such major blows, Sisko decides to return to Earth for a time to clear his head.  Kira assumes command of DS9, and when she enters Sisko’s office, is heartbroken to see that Sisko does not know if he will return: Benjamin has taken his baseball with him.

The death of Dax is almost arbitrary and just a senseless tragedy, which I think makes it all the more affecting. You would have expected her warrior’s death, but the almost meaningless happenstance of being in the wrong place when Dukat appears just hurts.  Dramatically it is effective; the behind the scenes story about how Rick Berman treated Terry Farrell leading to this death is infuriating. I know Berman kept Trek alive a long time, but damn, am I glad he’s no longer affiliated, and Terry gets to be married to Leonard Nimoy’s son (no, seriously) and appear at conventions alongside Nicole De Boer whom we will meet next season as the new Dax host Ezri. Jadzia was an amazing character, and I will miss her as the show continues, but it is effective and visceral storytelling that brings us Ezri Dax. At least something good came out of Berman’s abuse, and Jadzia, as I rewatch, re-meet, and re-lose her 20 years later will ALWAYS be one of the best things about DS9 and Star Trek in general.  And SCREW YOU  Kai Winn! This Pah-Wraith  being on the lose is YOUR fault. Also, I really like David Birney as the Romulan here, wish we'd seen a little more of him!

NEXT VOYAGE: A broken Sisko receives a distant mysterious vision, and an old friend with a new face appears to help find the “Image in the Sand.”

[artyblogs]

Across the Frozen Sea ch4

Star Wars the Clone Wars, Ahsoka/Barriss/Riyo

Across the Frozen Sea summary: Ahsoka, Barriss, and Riyo find themselves stranded in the Pantoran Taiga. They must get back to civilization, but the wilds are more dangerous than they realize. If the cold doesn’t get them, the locals will.

First Chapter : Previous Chapter : Next Chapter : Last Chapter

Chapter 4: Bravado Wharf

WARNING: If you are sensitive to the butchering of animals, then it might be best for you to skip this chapter.

Riyo wakes up to a blackened sky. She’s lying in the bed of the pickup speeder, pressed against Ahsoka’s side and covered in a shaggy, fur blanket. Pillowed under her head is a soft duffel bag.

“Hey,” Ahsoka says in a low voice. She turns her head to talk into Riyo’s ear and tells her what happened with the tea. While she talks, the roads become paved, so the ride is smoother. The road becomes lined with streetlights hanging from wires held aloft by wood posts.

Ahsoka’s voice is soothing and despite her initial panic at waking up in a strange place, Riyo finds herself relaxing against her. Her fingers catch in the folds of Ahsoka’s dress and she snuggles closer.

“Barriss hasn’t woken up yet, but I think she’s okay,” Ahsoka says. The both of them look at Barriss and find her almost covered entirely by the furs save for her pale green forehead.

Riyo slowly reaches across Ahsoka to Barriss, towards her face, and soon she feels a deep, gentle breath against her hand.

“Yes, she’s asleep.” Riyo withdraws her hand. Ahsoka’s arm snakes around her waist and pulls her in closer, and Riyo presses her cheek to Ahsoka’s lek. It’s toasty under the furs. Cozy. Ahsoka is a solid and safe presence next to her.

Riyo sighs. “Thank you for saving my life. Our lives. I should have taken my own advice and not drunk the tea.”

“You didn’t know Mrs. Kortzeer would be like that,” Ahsoka says.

The dark tree line whizzes past as they zoom down the highway. Now and then, they pass by a homestead, and the beams from the houselights cut across the pickup bed. It’s quiet and peaceful, but Riyo is too wired to sleep. Ahsoka might feel similar, for she’s still wide awake. Her hand lifts from Riyo’s waist and goes to her back, where her touch is light and fleeting, and Riyo realizes that she’s playing with her hair. Riyo turns her face in to Ahsoka’s lek to hide her smile.

“Sorry, I should have asked. Should I stop?” Ahsoka asks. Her face is so very close to hers. If Riyo turned her head….

If she turned, what might happen?

A pit of longing opens up in Riyo’s chest.

“No.” Riyo doesn’t know if Ahsoka’s doing this on purpose, but at any rate, she probably should have figured before now that Ahsoka would be fascinated by hair. Ahsoka grins and continues, testing the weight, how it falls. It’s oddly comforting.

Ahsoka has always been rather uncharacteristically free with physical contact for a Jedi. She holds Riyo’s hand, or touches her arm or her shoulder. She’d stand close and even place a hand on the small of Riyo’s back to usher her through places. And while it’s easy for Riyo to explain it away as platonic, sometimes she’ll catch Ahsoka’s eye and find a tenderness in her gaze that can’t be dismissed so easily.

To read too much into it would be too dangerous, however. That path would only lead to pain. Best not to dwell on it.

“Ahsoka?”

“Yeah?”

“When we woke up in the forest, before we got away from our abductors, Barriss suggested that she sacrifice herself to give us a chance to escape.”

Ahsoka’s hand stills, her fingers curled around a lock of Riyo’s hair. “Oh? She did that?”

“You don’t sound as surprised as I thought you’d be.”

“She’s done that before. I don’t know why she defaults to that when things go bad.”

“She defaults to sacrificing herself,” Riyo repeats, astonished. Never mind going gray, these Jedi are going to steal years off her life. She might as well save time and walk into the ocean right now, or go back to Reindeer Ridge. One of her fellow senators, Padmé Amidala of Naboo, is notorious for being close friends with two Jedi. Is this how she feels all the time? Is this what it’s like? How does she do it? How? How?

Perhaps they can convince Barriss to stop doing that.

Ahsoka snorts. “I don’t think it’s something we can change about Barriss.”

“You having fun reading my mind, Master Jedi?”

Ahsoka has the impudence to chuckle. “I don’t have to read your mind, Riyo. Your anger radiates through the Force.”

“Eish!” Riyo swears under her breath and playfully swats Ahsoka’s shoulder.

For those heading to the coast, Bravado is the last major city before one reaches the Pantoran taiga. It’s the last chance Snow Walkers would have before they head out into the wild, and there are many temporary Snow Walking tents set up along the street. At this time of night, there are only a few people out and about, all bundled up and hurrying home. The shop fronts are empty and dark.

“Everything’s closed,” Riyo says. She knocks on the cabin window and it slides open again. Sanele sticks her head out.

“What’s up, Senator?”

“Is there a comlink around here we could use? Or a holo-cafe?”

Sanele gives her an apologetic look. “No comlinks, and no holonet access. Not open to the public anyway. The college is the only place where all that tech is held.”

“What about a public archive? Archives have datapads.”

“The archive used to have datapads, but they kept getting stolen, so they stopped replacing them. They’re all gone now.”

“How about a space port?”

Sanele shakes her head. “No moon-wide or galactic port either. There’s a terminal with one ship, will that do?”

“You’re the Senator of Pantora. They’d let you get on that ship. They’ll let you use that comlink,” Ahsoka says.

Barriss stirs, and the hem of the blanket drops from her face. She blinks.

“I’m alive?” She asks, her voice thick with sleep.

“Of course,” Ahsoka says. “I’m not going to abandon you like that. I care about you too much.”

“Oh.” Barriss sounds genuinely surprised and touched, and Riyo is both appalled and somewhat offended. Did she really believe that they would just leave her? How could she expect that?

“Do you have your identichips?” Sanele asks.

“Unfortunately, no. Why do you ask?” Barriss asks.

Ahsoka explains their predicament.

“No one would believe Riyo is the senator without her identichip, and no one in their right mind wouldn’t ask to see it,” Barriss says. She stretches luxuriously, and Riyo’s eye traces the arc of her lithe body even through the furs. When Barriss settles back down, she pulls the furs back up over the bottom half of her face.

It’s the closest thing to relaxed that they’ve ever seen her.

“Good point,” Ahsoka says, strangely subdued. Too nonchalant. Riyo wonders if it might be because she felt Barriss stretch, instead of just watching her, and isn’t that a fascinating observation to make.

“At least Bravado is relatively close to Defiance,” Riyo says.

“Yeah, if by ‘close’ you mean like a two-hour drive by speeder. We could drive you to Defiance, right Vuyo?” Sanele asks.

“No, no, no. You need to enroll in classes,” Riyo says. “You need to make new lives here and you need to start tonight. It’ll be harder for you two to find a place to live if we travel with you.”

“But….”

“We will be fine. We’ll figure it out.” While the speeder is stopped at a traffic light, Riyo wriggles out from beneath the blanket and takes Sanele’s hand in hers. “Thank you for helping us. We’ll never forget it.”

Sanele and Vuyo share a look, then Sanele smiles at Riyo. “No, thank you. You’ve given us a second chance at this. We won’t let you down.”

Ahsoka and Barriss take their parka and cloak and hop out of the pickup bed. Riyo follows them, and she lets Ahsoka pick her up ‘round the waist and lowers her onto the ground. The three of them wave as the speeder takes off and turns the corner out of sight. Barriss pulls her winter cloak around her shoulders and does the buckles across her chest. Ahsoka shimmies her parka on and pulls her lekku though the hood.

“Their mom is a kriffing piece of work,” Ahsoka mutters.

“Yes, well, tell me about it.” Riyo walks across the street to reach the curb and continues down towards a kiosk. The map is made of faded, water-stained flimsi, and Riyo gets up on tip-toe to see better. They’re in the touristy part of town, in the middle of restaurants, tapcafes and many souvenir shops.

A young man walks down the street towards them, and he comes to a stop a few meters out. He’s nervous, and shifty.

Barriss steps closer to Riyo, her hands hidden in her cloak. “Can we help you?”

“Are you…my friends?” He asks, still nervous. He doesn’t make eye contact with any of them.

Ahsoka frowns. “What?”

“Oh, sorry. I thought I knew you.” He hurries around them and walks off, his hand hiding his face. The three of them watch him go until he disappears into the night.

“I don’t understand. Wouldn’t he know if he knew us? He wasn’t under the influence of anything,” Barriss says.

“He’s probably looking for his dealer. You wouldn’t happen to have death sticks on you, would you, Master Jedi? We could turn a quick credit.” Riyo turns back to the kiosk as Barriss’s jaw drops.

“Do we look like spice dealers?” She shrieks. Off in the distance, a couple akk dogs start barking. Riyo laughs, then gives Barriss an apologetic look. Before she can answer, a growling, gurgling noise comes from Ahsoka.

Ahsoka’s lekku stripes darken as she tugs her hood further down over her face. “I’m hungry.”

Barriss worries her lip. “No identichips, no credits, and no credit chips…What are we going to do? Where are we going to stay? What will we eat?”

Riyo hums and taps a fingertip against the northern part of the map, where the wharf is located. She turns this way and that, looking around to get her bearings, then beckons to the Jedi and leads the way. Eventually, the duracrete and asphalt give way to aged wood planks, but the shops are more or less the same, albeit with more of a seafood and shipyard focus. Even in the yellow light of the street lamps, they can make out the colorful monikers: Seals, whales, and sharks carved out of wood, huge, stylistic anchors jutting from the roofs, and more purple and yellow sigils painted across the walls and the thick posts. All of it eerie for being so silent and still. No one else is around. No sign of life at all. The three of them make their way through the narrow wharf and a few decks full of picnic benches until they reach the end of the dock, where they’re stopped by a guard.

The guard is dressed in a dark, fur cloak, and only has an oil lamp for company. He stands up from his folding chair and hefts a rifle against his shoulder, then raises a hand to stop them. His face is cast in shadow.

“Please stop and return to your homes. The piers are closed until further notice,” the guard says in Pantoran.

“Sir, all we want to do is fish,” Riyo says, but the guard raises his hand a little higher.

“These piers have been closed, and they will stay closed for the rest of the week according to Count Mafoo’s wishes. I’m sorry, Snow Walker, but you’ll have to scrounge for food elsewhere.” The guard gestures out, and they all look to find more piers, all laid out in a row. At the end of each of them is yet another guard with another oil lamp. The guard glances at Barriss and Ahsoka.

“Do you understand what I said?” He asks.

Barriss frowns. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Basic then. If you have a permit from Count Mafoo, I can let you fish and hunt.”

“A permit? Local hunters shouldn’t need permits to feed their families. Why has the Count closed the piers?” Riyo asks.

“The Count is gearing up for a feast, and has ordered his hunters to catch a hundred seals.”

“A hundred! Whatever for? Is it for the upcoming Blizzard God feast?”

“The Count doesn’t need a reason, nor does he need to justify himself to you, Snow Walker.”

“But….”

“The pier is closed! Please leave,” the guard says. Riyo finds herself being gently pulled away by Ahsoka and Barriss until they’re out of earshot of the guard.

“We can find something else, Riyo,” Barriss whispers.

“Yeah, I can hold out for a few more hours,” Ahsoka says.

Usually, that would be acceptable, but this is Pantora, and there are rules here. Riyo pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs. “Pantoran oceans are not a privilege, Master Jedi, they are a right. Many Pantorans depend on the sea for their livelihood.

“And yes, Ahsoka, you may be tough enough to go hungry for a while, but there are many in this town who cannot; the very young, the elderly, the pregnant, the sick. Bravado in general needs food now; the people here don’t deal with proper credits and don’t purchase most of their food, they hunt and fish. They will not last long without the piers.

“Also, I’m hungry too,” Riyo finishes lamely. She hopes it doesn’t sound as whiny as she suspects, but judging by how Barriss’ nose scrunches up, she must have sounded very whiny indeed. But she can’t help it! Ever since Ahsoka’s stomach growled, Riyo’s own stomach has started gnawing on itself. If this goes on for much longer, she’s going to find herself irritable as well.

Ahsoka chuckles. “Okay, come on.” She walks back to the guard, who grips his rifle.

“Listen, I said….”

“Yeah, I know what you said, but we don’t need a permit to hunt.” Ahsoka slowly waves her hand on front of the guard’s face. The guard pauses, his face growing slack.

“You…don’t need a permit to hunt,” the guard says in monotone.

“No one needs a permit to hunt. You’re here to keep the peace.”

“I’m here to keep the peace.”

“We can pass.”

“You may pass.” The guard takes a few steps to the side as if nothing is amiss. “Sorry about that, ladies.”

Ahsoka, Barriss, and Riyo all file past him, smiling. The guard smiles back, then sits back down in his folding chair.

“Follow me,” Riyo says, and she goes to a ladder bolted to the side of the dock. She makes her way down until she reaches the thick, slippery surface of the frozen sea. She holds her arms out for balance and slowly walks across the ice beyond the range of the light from the guard’s oil lamp, then keeps going. The lights give way to the aurora and to the stars. It’s chillier out here somehow. A few logs have been frozen in the ice, along with half of a rowboat.

“Is this safe?” Barriss asks from behind her.

“Yes.” Riyo points out to a few other hunters spread out across the ice. Each of them are bundled up and have their foldable stools and thermoses. Some sit near their ice holes with a club, and others have set up fishing poles. Riyo comes to a stop and crouches down, smoothing a hand over the ice.

“Here, there’s a breathing hole already. All we need to do is widen it.” Riyo steps aside as Ahsoka crouches down and brings both of her fists down in the spot she just indicated.

CRACK. The ice splinters into chunks. Barriss takes Riyo’s hand and pulls her further away. Ahsoka growls and raises her fists again.

CRACK. The ice breaks cleanly, and Ahsoka digs her fingers in and pries the chunks out, effortlessly tossing them away. She reaches seawater about a third of a meter down, and she keeps working until the hole is wide enough for something to poke its head through. She sits back on her heels, breathing lightly.

“Is that big enough?”

“Yes.” Riyo was going to use her knife, but this is much better. “By the Gods, Ahsoka, what do the Jedi feed you?”

Ahsoka grins up at them, her sharp teeth gleaming in the moonlight. “I wasn’t even using the Force either. It’s all muscle.”

“Well done. You’ve just expanded a seal breathing hole, so something should come up soon.”

“Got it.” Ahsoka draws her lightsaber hilt and squats down next to the jagged hole. She doesn’t move.

“Let’s go.” Barriss tugs on Riyo’s hand, and the both of them go to a log that’s been half frozen in the ice and sit down.

“We could keep her company,” Riyo says, but Barriss shakes her head.

“You won’t get much out of her which she’s in her hunting headspace. I remember on Geonosis: the Separatists kept shooting down our supply ships, so food was scarce. It got so dire that some of us hadn’t eaten in a couple days. Then one day, Ahsoka covered herself in red clay—clay that she dug up herself, from under the sand—and went by herself into the desert. She didn’t tell anyone where she went; we thought she had finally lost it. Master Skywalker and Master Kenobi were considering combing the planet for her.”

“What happened next?”

“After a few hours, Ahsoka coms us. She said that she needed Rex to take a squad of men to her current coordinates so that they could clean up her mess. When they got there, she was gone, but they found a freshly-killed camel. And then while they’re dressing the camel, Ahsoka commed again, with different coordinates. Master Skywalker went with another squad to that location and he found a dead antelope. This happened a few more times before everyone got…frustrated.

“While it’s a big help, everyone’s worried to death, so I decided to bring her back to camp. I noticed that these coordinates form a pattern, and I packed some supplies and go out to where I thought she’ll go next.”

“Did you find her?” Riyo asks. Barriss nods, then shrugs.

“She found me. She looked rather feral because by then she was covered in blood too. I tried to convince her to come back with me, but she told me that she was tracking something. But she might have felt guilty about being so much trouble, so she said that she would come back after one last kill. I waited in a cave while she stalked something.

“I waited for two hours before she brought back a goat.” Barriss pauses as she glances at Ahsoka, who still sits motionless next to the ice hole, as focused as a tooka on a songbird. “I have never seen her so patient, and I doubt we will ever see her as patient apart of a hunt.”

Barriss looks down at their clasped hands. She hasn’t pulled away after all this time, and while Riyo might like it for her own selfish reasons, she also guiltily wonders if Barriss dislikes it after all.

Maybe it’s because they were almost abducted again a few hours ago and they need some reassurance. Maybe it’s because of some other reason that Riyo doesn’t dare figure out to keep from getting her hopes up, but Barriss doesn’t let go. She doesn’t let go, and even though it’s inconvenient, she reaches across herself into her belt pouch and pulls out a heavy padlock.

“Did you take that from the garage?” Riyo asks.

“Sanele gave two to me after I asked to borrow one.” Barriss turns it over in her palm and falls silent for a moment.

CLICK. The lock pops open. Barriss smiles and pushes it closed again. She reaches into her pouch again and pulls out the second padlock.

“Are you practicing, Master Jedi?” Riyo asks, fascinated.

“I won’t be caught off guard again. Your risky plan paid off last time, but the idea of gambling with your life…it doesn’t sit well with me. You matter too much, Riyo. To the Galaxy, to Pantora. And Ahsoka too. She has a master to return to, and she has the command of her men. If we lost either of you, we’d be poorer for it.”

That’s the nicest thing Barriss has ever said to her, and it’s by far the nicest thing she’s heard her say about Ahsoka. Riyo find herself softening at that.

“Thank you, Barriss. I must admit that I feel very similar about you.”

Barriss straightens up and turns to Riyo. It’s difficult to make out her face in the darkness, but to Riyo’s dismay, she’s bewildered. “Me?”

“You! Is that so surprising to learn that I care about you? That the thought of you getting hurt upsets me?” Riyo asks. If Barriss thought that her death was so insignificant, then it explains quite a bit.

Barriss doesn’t answer.

Gods, Riyo hopes she isn’t going to wreck everything by saying this next bit. While she respects how Jedi shy away from any sign of sentimentality, she couldn’t quite forgive herself if she didn’t say anything now.

“I always feel so relieved when you and Ahsoka come back from your tours, or when Ahsoka sends me letters. When we all have dinner together at some hole-in-the-wall restaurant. If I had to mourn either of you, it would destroy me.”

Barriss covers her face with her hand and gives a breathy chuckle. She doesn’t laugh often, so Riyo’s not sure if it usually sound so strained, but she waits all the same.

“Then—then I suppose I’d better be more careful with myself, shouldn’t I?” Barriss asks.

“That would be great,” Riyo says. It comes out more sarcastic than she intended, and Barriss snorts and chuckles. This time, it’s light and infectious and, emboldened, Riyo joins her. Soon, the both of them are laughing together loud enough that some of the neighboring hunters shout at them to quiet down.

An hour passes. Riyo removes her button-up shirt again and ties it around her head, and Barriss gathers her cloak tighter around herself. They huddle together, with Barriss’s head resting on Riyo’s shoulder. Around them, a couple hunters come and go, taking their gear and their food with them. In the distance, the piers and the guard oil lamps burn bright. Riyo keeps her eyes trained on Ahsoka, who still hasn’t moved. She does this despite her encroaching exhaustion, because her gnawing stomach won’t let her sleep otherwise.

“Why do they call you ‘Snow Walker?’” Barriss asks in a soft, sleepy voice. She turns the locks over in her hands. “Sanele called you that, and you told Mrs. Kortzeer you were snow-walking too. It’s not a slur, is it?”

“It’s not. Snow Walkers go out into the wilderness to survive on their wits in order to worship and curry favor with the Blizzard God.”

“The Blizzard God?”

“One of the gods of the major pantheon. He was the first Pantoran to murder another, and that is why He is the God of War. He did it to get back one of his stolen elk, and that is why He is also the god of Justice and elk. When Pantorans Snow Walk, they can stay in the woods, or they can travel down to the site of the first murder, like a pilgrimage of some sort.”

“So you look like one of these Snow Walkers?”

“I suppose I do. I don’t think I can truly call myself that though. There’s a proper way to Snow Walk, and what we’re doing isn’t it.”

“What would make it proper, then?”

“We’d need to be drugged out of our minds.” Riyo bites her lip to keep from laughing as Barriss stares.

“You’re not serious.”

“I very much am.” But Riyo’s laughter dies on her lips as she spies a flash of green in the distance. Barriss gasps and scrambles upright.

“She did it!” Barriss grabs Riyo’s hand and together, they make their way back to Ahsoka, moving as fast as the ice will allow.

Ahsoka stands up and uses the Force to levitate the seal out of the hole and onto the ice, then unceremoniously throws her arms out as she slips on the ice and threatens to fall.

“Whoa!” Ahsoka plants her feet firmly on the ice, then reaches up under her parka to clip her lightsaber back onto her belt. “Hey, guys.”

“Eish! Come here, you big bruiser.” Elated, Riyo reaches up and kisses Ahsoka’s cheek, then turns to the seal. Ahsoka puts a hand over her face as her lekku stripes darken.

Riyo rolls the seal over onto its back and stands with one foot on either side of it. It’s not the biggest she’s seen; it’s only about a meter long and maybe twenty-two kilograms, but it’s still a pretty good catch. There’s a thin, charred line running through the back of the neck where Ahsoka killed it, but it’s otherwise intact.

“We could drag it back to shore and cook it,” Barriss says, but she trails off when Riyo takes out her knife. “Er…Riyo?”

Riyo got this knife when she turned twenty last year. It belonged to her father, and her grandfather before him. Usually, knives like this are passed down to sons, but Riyo has no brothers, so she got it. Riyo  places the blade of knife against the throat of the seal and pauses. If she’s not careful, she’s going to cut herself something awful.

KSHOOM. Ahsoka ignites her lightsaber again, washing everything in bright green light. She holds it aloft so that Riyo can see what she’s doing.

“Thanks.” Riyo smiles at her before focusing on the seal. It took many camping trips and many seals before she committed the entire dressing process to memory, and while she’s spent the last three years on Coruscant, she still remembers it all.

Cut around where the flippers join the body of the seal, both front and back. Don’t chop them off completely—that will come later—but just deep enough to cut through the pelt and the blubber. After that, cut across the neck to make room for the knife, then make one slice down the length of the belly.

The seal will open like a purse, revealing a thick layer of blubber. If the cut is deep enough, then it will also reveal the red meat underneath.

“That is a really sharp knife,” Barriss says.

“Yes, it is,” Riyo says.

“Have you cut yourself before? Like accidentally?” Ahsoka asks.

“I have gotten many gnarly cuts from this knife,” Riyo says. But it was inevitable while she was learning how to do all this. Everyone who learns the art become familiar with emergency care wards, and if one were to look carefully at her hands and forearms now, they would see thin, light blue scars crossing through the net of her tattoos.

The three of them fall silent as Riyo renders the seal further down. There is a natural seam between the layer of blubber and the red meat. Cut the blubber away, one side at a time. Slits will need to be made through the pelt to free the flippers, but after that, the pelt will fall away. Roll the carcass from side to side to cut the rest of the seal free from the pelt, and when the seal is free, drag it away from the pelt and blubber to a fresh patch of ice.

The night is filled with the hum of Ahsoka’s lightsaber and the creak of tendons and sinew as Riyo manipulates the seal carcass. Ahsoka watches with hungry eyes, and Barriss is entranced too, probably from a medical point of view. One of Riyo’s friends studied to be a surgeon, and he once mentioned watching butcher holo-vids to better understand the spatial working of the body.

Steam rises from the seal into the cold air as Riyo chops through the cartilage of the ribcage. Her hands and arms are stained with dark purple blood, and while she’s being careful not to be too messy, there are already some spatter stains on her clothes.

The blubber and pelt are a relatively clean place to place the harvested meat. Manipulate the front flippers to locate the shoulder sockets, then slice through until the entire limb, including the shoulder blade, is separated form the rest of the carcass. Chop off the flippers. Keep them if there is a way to further process them later, but discard otherwise. The back flippers can be harvested in a similar method.

There’s a respectable amount of ready meat on the pad of blubber by now. Riyo straightens up to catch her breath. “Have at it, Ahsoka! You get first choice.”

“Yes! Riyo, you’re the best!” Ahsoka jams the hilt of her lightsaber into a crack in the ice, freeing her hands. She picks up a rack of ribs and bites down, tearing the meat from the bone. Barriss politely faces away from the spectacle.

“Won’t this make it harder to transport it?”

Riyo looks up from the seal carcass. “Huh?”

“I mean, we could gather the pelt and the fat around the meat like a sack, but it’d still be messy.”

“Oh! Between the three of us, we’ll demolish a seal this size. There won’t be any leftovers. Well, wait.” Riyo gestures towards the flippers that have been carelessly tossed to the side. “The wolves can have that.”

“I think you’re missing my point.”

“No, I understand. How thorough was your research into Pantoran cuisine?”

“Non-existent. I focused on politics instead, because of the nature of our mission.”

“So this must be enlightening. I was going to take us hunting like this anyway, after the third day of the Summit ended, so we’re actually ahead of schedule.”

Riyo returns to the carcass and cuts away a couple bite-sized pieces of red meat and offers one to Barriss. Barriss gingerly takes the piece between her forefinger and thumb, her lip curling in disgust.

“Am I supposed to sear this with my lightsaber?”

Riyo pops the raw meat into her mouth and chews with gusto. Throughout her travels to the corners of the galaxy, and despite all the things she’s eaten (it is astounding what rare dishes some people will offer a Republic senator to impress them) nothing has come remotely close. Fresh seal meat is gamey, but is otherwise indistinguishable in texture from raw fish.

Ahsoka shrieks with delight as Barriss gasps.

“I didn’t know Pantorans could eat raw meat too!” Ahsoka says.

“Only fresh seal and fish, as is tradition.” Riyo cuts another small chunk and eats that too. She groans, then continues her work. “Come on, Barriss, it’s good!”

“It really is good, Barriss.” Ahsoka gathers the cleaned rib bones into a pile and picks up another portion from the blubber. The bottom half of her face is purple with blood.

Barriss sighs. “Yes, but you’re Togruta, and Togruta are equipped to eat raw meat!”

“Try one bite, and if you don’t like it, you can just cook it with your lightsaber,” Riyo says.

Riyo tosses the remaining bits of meat onto the blubber and leaves the spent carcass. She kneels down next to the blubber and begins slicing the cuts down to a more manageable size.

Barriss looks at the meat in her hand, then puts it into her mouth. She chews slowly, her eyebrows knitted together.

“Well? Is it good?” Riyo asks.

“Decidedly so,” Barriss reluctantly admits.

“Kief! Have some liver.” Riyo slaps a third of the dark liver into Barriss’s hand. Barriss stares down at it in disgust, but Riyo turns to Ahsoka.

“Do you want some too?”

“Ooh! Yes, please.” Ahsoka makes a grabby motion with her hands.

“Here.” Riyo gives her a third and leaves the last bit for herself. The three of them sit around the seal pelt, taking whatever they wish. Out of the darkness comes a white Pantoran fox, making its rounds through all the fishing holes and begging the hunters and fishermen for scraps. It’s fluffy, with stubby ears and a bushy tail almost as big as its body. It keeps its distance when Ahsoka growls at it, but it doesn’t leave.

“I wonder who put the bounty on your head,” Ahsoka says. “It could be that Rommeruk guy.”

“The late Chairman’s son? I don’t think so,” Riyo says.

“This isn’t an insult against your moon, Riyo, but aren’t there powerful crime families here? Maybe one of them put the bounty on you,” Barriss says.

“Hah, no. No, that’s impossible. If one of the Families was behind it, it would start a war,” Riyo says.

“Why would that start a war?” Barriss asks.

Riyo is silent for a few moments, torn as to what she should say.

“Oh kriff, okay. You don’t have to answer that,” Ahsoka says with a sudden air of understanding.

Barriss frowns. “But….”

“She doesn’t have to answer that,” Ahsoka says again, more pointed this time.

Barriss sighs. “Very well.”

Perhaps she shouldn’t say, as it’d color their opinion of her so terribly, but Riyo tells herself that they are her dear friends. They should know and they wouldn’t judge her so harshly.

“I’m one of the youngest senators in the history of the Republic, let alone in Pantoran history. It shouldn’t have been possible for me to get elected, but it happened anyway, because I had help.” Riyo says this as carefully as she can.

“So that’s how you did it. I always wondered,” Barriss whispers.

They fall silent again. Riyo picks up the discarded intestines and tosses it further away, and the Pantoran fox scampers off to get it.

“What are we going to do about the blockaded waterfront? We can’t possibly hunt and fish enough for everyone in Bravado. Nor could we smuggle that much food into the town,” Barriss says.

“Not to mention the quota of a hundred seal. What could the Count possibly do with that much seal? It’s incredibly wasteful,” Riyo says.

“We’re gonna do something about it, right?” Ahsoka asks.

“We must! We cannot allow an entire town to starve. Although.” Barriss falters. “It isn’t within the mission parameters.”

“The mission parameters are to escort me, correct?” Riyo asks.

“Yes. And to protect you.”

“Then escort and protect me when I go see the Count,” Riyo says.

Amazingly, Barriss laughs again, the rare sound sweet and full. “Very well.”

Riyo kneels next to the ice hole and dips her hands in, cleaning the blood from them. She cups her hands and brings up some water to wash her face. “Ugh. I know the count responsible for this area; Count Anathi Mafoo. It’s not like him to be so cruel, but you never know with aristocracy. We’ll just have to pay him a visit.”

“Awesome!” Ahsoka finishes her bite of meat and goes to the ice hole to wash up too. “What do we do with the pelt?”

“One of the locals will take it. Waste not and such. May I?” Riyo points at the lightsaber.

“Sure.”

Riyo plucks the lightsaber from the ice and waves it over her head, using it as a signal flare of some kind. About fifty yards out, one of the neighboring fishermen picks up his lantern and swings it from side to side several times. Riyo waves again, then returns Ahsoka’s lightsaber to her.

Want to read this on Ao3 or on FF.net? Click here for the links. 

[lethe-distillery-blog]

Remember Everything

I smoothed my hands over the front of my dress as I examined myself in the mirror. I turned this way and that, smoothing out wrinkles, tucking an errant lock of hair behind my hair and blew out a breath. It was impossible. I couldn't shake the nerves no matter how hard I tried. I looked to the time, five-thirty, well, at least now I only had a half hour to go, twenty minutes in fact. As I had to drive still. I pulled my lips back from my teeth before reapplying makeup. I had to stop worrying my lip or it wasn't going to last the night. "You need to relax girl," I spoke to myself in the mirror, trying to give myself some sort of confidence boosting pep talk, "You were the one that asked him out, and besides, it isn't like this is your first date."

Memories surged, gripping the counter I battled them for a long moment, trying to keep them from overwhelming me. They had always been bad, but now that we had reconnected they had been a mental flogging that had ripped me apart for the last week. It had gotten so bad that last night I had been about ready to hit send on a text that would have told him that I was canceling our date. Why hadn't I? Honestly, I didn't have an answer for myself, part of me was looking forward to this with the unnerving giddy excitement of a teen going for a date with her football quarterback crush, and the other was knowing the outcome. Pain. Except, I couldn't blame him. This particular nerdy girl had gotten her date with her crush, and proceeded to butcher him.

"It may be the best thing that ever happened to you, but it something I regret."

I flinched at the sound of my own voice that split the ether of time. Maybe it had been true at the time, though I doubted it. It had been made by a stupid girl, scared of what she had unleashed, and had been trying to get out of it no matter what it took, up to and including hurting him enough to just leave her alone and let her deal with the misery alone. If there was ever a soul that was bound for hell, it was me, there was no salvation for someone as cruel and heartless as I, and deep down, I knew I didn't deserve this second chance that I had asked for.

I felt like I was in the wrong place, I glanced to the text again; no, this was the right street. As per the unusual dictates I had not looked up where our date was going to happen beforehand. But I really felt like I was in the wrong place, I was in the middle of a residential neighborhood, there was not a restaurant in sight. Still I had no choice but to trust him as I counted house numbers. "4146, 4148, 4150." I pulled into the driveway next to a Buick, the sleek curves catching the last of the afternoon sun and making the grey gleam like steel. It was a beautiful vehicle, likely pushing a fifty thousand price tag or more but I couldn't bring myself to appreciate it as my nerves had me shaking.

I felt like a moron. Here I was, sitting in some driveway, looking like a fool. Dressed up, my dress was partially see-through, not to mention my rust bucket looking sad and pathetic next to the pristine thing that I was parked beside. I was such an idiot. He had played me. I could at least congratulate him on his tactics, I had walked right into it without a second thought. My phone buzzed, I was half tempted on ignoring it, I could do without the mocking text. But curiosity got the better of me, 'Are you coming in or going to sit out there? I can tell the neighbors so they don't call the police on you.' I frowned and looked to the doorway to where a large silhouette stood, looking like he had his arms crossed over a massive chest.

Slowly, I shut the car off and worked my way up the sidewalk. Features came into view, the eyes the gleamed beneath a pair of glasses. A well trimmed and styled beard, the glint of stud earrings. The full lips, the exposed length of throat and chest that was exposed from a button down shirt with the collar undone. So little had changed, and yet, he was virtually a stranger. I saw streaks of silver at the temple, his eyes were more distant, haunted. His knuckles were swollen from a hard youth, And still, I had forgotten how massive he was.

"Hello there."

I faltered for words as I looked up into eyes that had haunted me many a night, things that tore me apart when the memories came back. "Hi," I said lamely before adding quickly, "It's been awhile."

I regretted it the moment it came out of my mouth and I saw the flash of pain that haunted his eyes, though the features remained stoic. I knew that it was my fault. It was all my fault, and here I was, causing more with my callous words. I looked away, my own pain making my breath catch as I heard a very quiet, "Sorry." Why in the world was he apologizing? I was the one that had used him, that had hurt him, ruined him, and here he was apologizing for the discomfort his fully justified pain caused me? Gods. If I was to take my own advice now. If I truly loved him, if I truly wanted the best for him in this life, I would leave. I would leave him to the life he had created for himself, go back to my own, and forget I had ever seen him online, forget that I had reached out. Better yet, I would block him, entirely. He didn't know where I lived, and so far he hadn't seen my license plate number. I could run again, and stop hurting him so much. But this time, this time was different. I finally understood what he had meant so many years ago when I had begged him to leave, that if he cared he would leave me alone. And he had told me he couldn't.

He stepped back and lead me into a beautiful living room. The lights were turned down creating a beautifully romantic and moody atmosphere. "Please," he indicated a small table that had candles on it and two perfectly, and precisely laid settings on it, "let me serve you." I sat, feeling a little awkward if I was honest, this was not at all what I had in mind of what he would do. I remembered his exquisite tastes. He had wanted to go to musicals, and theater, to take me to orchestral performances, to restaurants with foods I could barely pronounce and could never afford. He hadn't cared that I couldn't understand what was going on well, or that we would make a scene as he whispered what was going on in my ear, he had just wanted me to go with him. But I had never been one for the rich and expensive things. And as he brought a rolling buffet table over, I blinked hard a few times.

The table glowed beneath more candles, some purely for light, revealing the handsome display beneath and others to warm fondue pots that held shimmering oil, deep and rich molten chocolates, or bright savory cheeses. The foods had been displayed in a beautiful floral pattern. It was all beautifully extravagant, and yet, basic and simple. "I'm surprised you remembered mangos are my favorite." I looked to the beautiful red display that held my two favorite fruits in a display that spread out like a rose. Mango chunks and strawberry slices lay intersecting to form the petals.

His voice was soft, a bit of pain making the words come out gruff, "there isn't a thing about you I forget."

I looked away, there was nothing I could say to that really. Not without conjuring painful memories that I really was doing my best to spare him. I waited until he broke the elegant display first, taking a cube of dark bread with his fondue fork I watched as he dipped it into a pale pot that had beneath it, Swiss, written on a small card. I followed suit and noticed the smile that toyed at his lips as I, of course, went for a strawberry and chocolate. "Could have figured that was going to happen."

"It's tasty." I said defensively but smiled at his."

He held his hands up, "Definitely wouldn't argue on that point." This time he took a piece of what looked to be a thin strip of seasoned beef and let it roast on a raclette as he took another piece of bread and found a different cheese, dipped it, and then offered it to me. I hesitated only a heartbeat before opening my mouth to let him feed me. He had the most delectable of tastes, the rich sweet bread was set off beautifully by the rich buttery and nutty flavor of the swiss cheese. "Good right?" I nodded as I savored the flavors. He found himself something else, a bell pepper.

"So what have you been doing?" I asked after I swallowed and took a sip of the wine he had provided which of course, was perfect.

He shrugged his massive shoulders. "Surviving." It was his default answer but after he found himself a cherry tomato and ate it he continued, "I decided to get a job closer to home, worked hard, and now I have about five employees under me."

"That's fantastic," I was proud of where he had gotten, especially given his rather reclusive nature, I was surprised he had switched jobs given how much he had liked his previous one.

Another shrug in response, he still didn't accept compliments well, still thought people were lying to him. My heart broke for him, he was truly an isolated creature. 'Yes,' my inner dialogue broke in, 'and you hurt him just as much as anyone, if not worse.' I could deny that I knew how completely isolated he was when we had first encountered each other. But that was my trying to argue semantics and make myself feel better. I had known he was alone, that others had hurt him, used him. And I had stepped in, someone to provide comfort, to show him he wasn't so bad. And he had fallen for me. Hard.

I flinched at the memories that that brought up, my own cruelty knew no bounds where he was concerned as I had taken his love for me and told him it wasn't good enough. I felt a pressure on my hand and looked up to see a pair of soft eyes gazing down at me. "Don't go back there," his voice was comforting, "it back in the past, it doesn't belong here." Far easier said that done when I had hurt him so badly that even now, years later, he felt it. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that what I said still hurt him, still ripped apart a kind soul that never deserved what I had done to him out of fear.

"How can you still want to see me?" After I had shredded him for a love that I had instigated, and been unable to cope with, and proceeded to stab him, repeatedly, trying to hurt him enough to have him hate me and stop talking to me. I had stupidly thought that would make me feel better. But no, he hadn't given in. He had still loved me, despite the cruelty, because he didn't know any differently. He didn't know that love wasn't supposed to hurt, that those that loved him truly weren't supposed to regret him, or his affections. And I, I of all creatures, who knew how valuable love was, how rare, had scorned him for his affection, and spat on him for it.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Another shrug, and a look that spoke volumes. 'I told you, before we started, that I don't stop loving once I start.' The truth of that slapped me hard, even though there was no judgement there. "Why did you reach out?" The look hardened and I found myself at a cross roads, a chance to pick the right path this time.

The deja vu was painful, the knowledge that I could pick the easy path, to say goodbye to him, to tell him I had just wanted to reconnect, to walk away, and put him from my mind. But he would be shattered. I knew that. And honestly, so would I. Or I could pick the hard way, to open myself up to him. To accept the beast he was. The man that loved too much, that threw himself into his emotions because he didn't know how else to experience them. To open myself up to a sort of love that no one else had ever given me, a thing that was as precious as it was terrifying. I could walk away, and have a life that was safe, maybe find a man that was safe, have two and a half kids and one and three quarter pets. Be the traditional statistic. Or I could love him. Love a man that didn't understand the word, because no one had ever given him the chance. I didn't deserve him.

I looked into his eyes; flat, emotionless, but even so, I saw the flicker there. The wall that was expecting pain, that knew it was coming. After all, I hadn't taught him otherwise. I reached out and stroked his cheek, my heart tightening as he unconciously turned and kissed my palm. "I reached out," my words faltered as he looked back and I saw the feral animal that flickered beneath the surface, "because I couldn't take not talking to you anymore." Even though I was the one that had caused that too.

He didn't move. Part of me thought I had said something wrong, and then something horrible came to mind. He didn't know how to react, because no one had ever told him that. My heart shattering, I leaned in, closing the space between us and let our lips connect. It took a long, tense, couple of seconds, for him to kiss me back. And then he devoured me.

I was wholly unprepared for his kiss, the way he pressed me against the wall with a low rumbling growl, the hot wetness that teased my cheeks as he pinned me in place. His breathing was ragged as he pulled back to look down at me, my whole body was shaking. "Don't run from me again."

"Never." I was so grateful for him, this, the way he couldn't stop loving, and this time, I would cherish him, cherish the heart that I should have so many years ago. I squealed as he picked me up. I wrapped my arms and legs around him as I laughed breathlessly, "Where are we going?" I didn't really need to ask, and he didn't answer, the swollen bulge in his pants spoke volumes of his desires, and intent.

He threw me down onto his bed and I laughed before getting to my knees like some eager teen, clambering back up to kiss him, to catch his hair in my fingers and savor him. I ripped his shirt off and ran my fingers over his skin desperately, eagerly. I needed him, I wanted this. His growl was exotic and tantelizing, his hands slid over my own dress, ripping it to shreds and I couldn't bring myself to care. I attacked him hungrily, showering kisses, licks, and nips over his skin in a way that I never had when we were younger, showing my beast exactly what love, truly, and really, meant. I dragged my fingers across his skin, leaving long red lines and savoring his growls of desire as he pinned me down. "Do you know that I respect you?" I nodded hungrily, "good."

Ever the gentleman he put on a condom, though it was unnecessary I was too turned on to stop him. Especially as he flipped me over onto all fours and positioned himself behind me. I was already soaked, and when he simply ripped my panties aside instead of removing them, I knew how desperate he was. I looked back and watched his eyes gleam, as though alight from within. I shivered and couldn't stop myself. "Please."

He didn't disappoint, without hesitation he drove into me, I whimpered. Fuck, I had forgotten the power of him. His hips slammed into me and shoved me forward. I braced myself as the next came and I shoved back against him for the third. I cried out as he drove into me, harder and harder, his hand wrapping up in my hair, just like I liked, and when his hand smacked my ass just like I needed him to do I screamed for him. He truly hadn't forgotten a single detail about me. It was as humbling as it was heartbreaking, and I promised myself that I would do better, be better, for him.

"Cum for me," his voice was a ragged soun in my ear, a slur of words that my body understood more than I did as my orgasm flodded me with white hot pleasure. My climax was raw, intense, powerful, in a way that no one, besides him, had ever managed to do. He drove me over the edge in a way that was maddening, he pleasured me in a way that was intoxicating. Even now, he drove on, harder, his teeth grazing my shoulder and neck, my head to one side to give him acess. My next climax was fast approaching when I heard him. "Where do you want me?" It came out a snarl, an oddity about him that I had found charming before I shut him out.

I answered him honestly, and not just in terms of right here and now. I wanted him, "inside me!" It came out a scream that I'm sure the neighbors heard but I couldn't bring myself to care as I felt him shudder and howl out. His entire body stiffening and shaking around me.

He collapsed onto me, crushing me into the mattress. His scent surrounded me, sweat, man, and the spicy scent of his aftershave, his heart beat a stacatto beat against my back, and his voice came out hesitant, shaking, and with a slight sensual slur, "I love you," and after a slight hesitation came a faint whisper, "I always have, and always will."

I would never waste this second chance as I reached and took his hand, kissing his knuckles lightly, feeling him surrounding me, just like he promised he would. "I love you too."

[woodworkingpastor]

Bible Study Deuteronomy 6:5-9 Hebrews 5:11-6:3

Metaphors of Bible Study

During our worship last Sunday, we did something that is typical in Church of the Brethren congregations (and likely in others, too): we gave Bibles to our children entering the 3rd grade.  Carol brought the Bible that had been given to her when she was about that age; you may remember I’ve done that in other years and done the same thing.  We give Bibles—along with a replacement guarantee that if the kids wear them out, we’ll give them another—because we want to impress upon them that reading the Bible is important.  I know of one congregation that takes note of how many people bring their Bibles to worship each Sunday and posts that number along with the attendance and offering. They say that the things you measure are really the things most important to you!

Church of the Brethren theologian Dale Brown’s talks about the importance Brethren have placed on Bible study in his book Another Way of Believing.  He describes the ways people view the Bible with the metaphor of a nicely wrapped package, and how sometimes people miss the gift of Scriptures because of they are focused more on the wrapping than the gift.

Some people are put off by the wrapping the Bible comes in. They don’t approve of some of the stories that are, quite frankly, X-rated. Others have been taught such a watered-down version of Scripture that their Biblical worldview begins to unravel as they start to realize the complexities of life and faith. I’ve known quite a number of people whose commitment to peace causes them to want to throw out the entire Old Testament.

Others are more in love with the wrapping that the gift.  They honor the idea of the Bible more than they wrestle with the way the Bible is intended to change our lives. Often people focus so intently on a few favorite stories that they miss—or ignore—those stories that offer an even more challenging view. I’ve heard a lot of evangelistic invitations based on Jesus’ words to Nicodemus, “You must be born again.” I’ve never heard an evangelistic invitation based on Jesus’ words to the rich young ruler, “sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”  

Why is that? We use the language of being “born again” so frequently that even non-believers know what it refers to.  But sell your possessions?  That seems too personal a thing.  It’s odd, that as a pastor I might be seen as having the right to ask you to give your life to Jesus but not your car!  Rich Mullins one said that this is “why God invented highlighters... so we can highlight the parts we like.”

But if my illustrations are becoming a bit uncomfortable, then, “good!” I certainly need you to have some uncomfortable questions for me, too.  A Brethren view of Scripture recognizes that you don’t build a spiritual foundation simply by accumulating favorite Bible stories while ignoring others. We seek to be transformed by all of Scripture.  

As we consider the Scripture this morning, we might wonder if something like this was happening in the congregation of Hebrews.  Maybe they had fallen into a kind of spiritual lethargy, content with just the parts of God’s story they knew, comfortable in their knowledge of their salvation, not bothered by growing into a faith that challenged the status quo of the day.

But this is not the way we are to be.

Eugene Peterson gives us a different metaphor for Bible study, one that should be helpful to our congregation, because as a group we seem to prefer dogs to cats.  Peterson describes the ideal method of Bible Study in the same way he used to watch his dog chew on a bone.

Living in Montana, their dog would often find the remains of a deer that coyotes had killed and would bring a bone back into the yard.  The dog was proud of its find and would dance around with it and show it off for a while.  But after a while the show was over; the dog would take the bone over to a shady spot in the corner of the yard and go to work on the bone: gnawing, turning it over and over, licking it.  The dog would even growl a bit, perhaps not unlike a cat purring. There was only one thing in the universe important to the dog in those moments: getting as much out of the bone as was possible.

Peterson’s quote is a reminder that the purpose of Bible Study is not to pass a test, it is to assimilate all of God’s word into our lives so that our lives leads to behavior that conforms to Christ.  Brethren church leader Dan West once said of the Bible and Bible Study,

“For me, the New Testament is a gambler’s handbook giving rules for betting our lives that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life” (Another way of believing, 107).

In the sixteenth century, Franz Agricola was a Catholic priest opposed to the Anabaptist movement. In his criticism of them, he said,

As concerns their outward way of life they are irreproachable. No lying, deception, swearing, strife, harsh language, no intemperate eating and drinking, no outward personal display, is found among them, but humility, patience, uprightness, neatness, honesty, temperance, straightforwardness in such measure that one would suppose that they had the Holy Spirit of God! (The Naked Anabaptist, 58).

These believers were members of a marginalized faith community with no political or economic power to speak of. They had set all of their hopes on the transformation the Holy Spirit would bring in their lives as they met together to study Scripture and lovingly hold one another accountable for what they were learning through the text, and the biggest insult one of their opponents could level against them was that their lives gave every evidence of the Spirit’s presence.

The importance of Bible study in community

This, sisters and brothers, is the direction our life in Christ should be heading. This is the Bible study we should create margin for in our lives.

It is what the Deuteronomy text is pointing too.  The last several sermons have included Scripture from this part of Israel’s history.  They are crucial texts because when Moses has the people in front of him, they do not yet have much of an identity.  They hadn’t yet worked out in their lives what it meant to live as God’s people when there were other people and other options all around them.

How many of you remember a conversation either with your parents or your kids that went something like, “Why can’t we do this?  All our friends are!”  The answer (sometimes) is, “This is the way we think life works best for our family. One day you’ll have your own children, and you’ll get to work these things out the way you deem best.”  

Something like that is going on in Deuteronomy 6.  God knows that these people need to get God’s ways deep into their lives, so God gives them what boils down to very practical advice: memorize these laws; talk about them with your family; make signs of them so the physical presence of this teaching calls them to mind as you come and go.

I’m impressed at how practical this advice is.  It’s the equivalent of taping a note onto the front door in the evening so you don’t forget to take something important with you the next morning.

God wants to impress upon us the importance of taking personal responsibility for spiritual growth.  It will not happen by default.  It’s why our stewardship series this fall is a bit different: there’s more to our life together than just our money.

We Brethren have long understood that spiritual growth has a significant community component to it. Brethren have typically been suspicious of personal interpretations of Scripture because we know that our hearts are biased in our own favor.  Studying Scripture together brings a few benefits:

We each have different gifts and experiences that shape what we bring. In seminary, some of the most insightful Bible lessons I learned came from our Counseling professor. His insight into how people related with one another was invaluable for our study.

We can correct one another’s error.  Culturally, we place great importance on “personal” or “private” truth.  But the Bible is interested in our conforming our lives to God’s truth.  We’re not always right.

The priority of Bible study is one reason why this is a theme in our Margin study series. How do we need to create space in our lives to study Scripture with one another?   While there are many ways this can be done, our primary method is through Sunday School. As you consider your commitment to the church in 2020, will you continue in Sunday School?  If you don’t have a class, will you find one?  I urge you to pray about this.

[simplymakkari]

closer to the fire - pt 7

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 3,405

Chapter Warnings: Murder (off screen); Drug Addiction/Use (referenced); Abuse (referenced)

Pairing: Grace/Chato Santana Summary: Grace Santana knew what she was getting into when she first laid eyes on the tattooed man they called El Diablo. Temptation’s hard to resist and after all, who can say they fell in love with and married the Devil?

[Teaser Trailer #1 - Fanmade]

__

viii.

CHATO

He ends up staying longer than he originally intends.

It begins to feel like home in a way that his never was since the death of his Abuela eight years ago. He's not sure whether he should be proud of that or not, because when he passes by his house within the next couple of days after Jorge's little stunt, it's been vandalized and ransacked with the word “DEVIL” spray-painted in red in the front. Like one of those warning signs from those zombie apocalypse movies and he has to laugh.

But Grace, bless her heart, tells him to fuck them and forget them, that karma’s going to come to them sooner and later, helping him patch things up, washing away their pathetic attempt at scaring him into the shadows. And karma does  come after the men who did it. The police, on an advice from an anonymous tip, arrive to find their bodies charred out from the inside with nobody at the scene of the crime in an abandoned warehouse. (He never tells Grace what he's done, because he knows she wouldn't approve.)

They know he did it, of course. But there's no evidence and they can't charge him because they fear him and besides, who’s going to charge a dead man? He's supposed to be dead and here he is, living and breathing, defying the odds, a literal dead man walking.

He finds an artistic bone in his body, using a blank sketchbook given to him from Justine. Chato hopes she won't get in trouble if her mother finds out. He draws Grace; her eyes, her smile, her dimples. He draws her dancing, the way she looks so carefree in the dreams they share, the way she bites her lip when she's in deep concentration. He draws every part of her from memory, and then finds himself imagining deep down what she would look like naked; her hands on him, their legs tangling in each other's when they climax. He wonders what it would be like to have her, to take her as his own as his cock twitches guiltily in his pants in response. The pages and sharpened graphite do her no justice, he knows, but he'll wait. He tells himself that he doesn't care even though a part of him secretly does.

He never acts on his urges though because he knows Grace's been through a traumatic experience with her ex-fiancé of hers, the one who abused her, put his hands on her and made her bleed and destroyed her innocence; he's not sure if she's ready for that yet and he wants her to be comfortable with him before, if  that happens. (God knows the last time he had an actual relationship with someone so he's taking this slow and because he doesn't want to lose her.)

Love.

Do I love her?

He thinks he does.

(but he's made so many mistakes in his life, they might as well be his default setting.

    But she   --

            was never a mistake.

All this -- the before he's left behind in the world of living -- was never a mistake.

He still loves her.

He always will.)

She's  his old lady, he likes to think her as -- a term Miguel used once upon a time before he went and got himself shot in the head during a police standoff he had no prior knowledge of.

Losing a member of his gang feels like an limb being ripped off. They're family -- or at least the closest thing to a family that they have. His boys treat him with respect and give him loyalty (and he thinks, more power) and he does the same for them but if anyone crosses him, he's not afraid to show them what he can do. He remembers the last time it happened and it was when he'd recruited the young man and he talked smack about Grace and wouldn't stop when Chato told him to, ignoring the boys’ warning of provoking him. The bubbling squelching of flesh is imprinted forever in his memory and the cries of his agonizing screams echo through the building his gang rallies in, fat sizzling under the char. The young man never dares to talk to him again and follows in line with the others and chooses to stay on his own accord.

(but even he can't mute the wrongs he's done, jerking awake with gritted teeth in the place called a beautiful dream, rasping his hands over nonexistent blankets to scrape off the feeling.)

Grace is learning his language more everyday and it makes him happier than he could think. He has someone else to share the language with beside Nicola, Justine, and Robbie. He notices that when she gets frustrated or angry, she rants in Spanish and he loves the way it fluently rolls off her tongue after weeks of practicing with him.

Chato's not exactly a man of self control.

But he's been a goner since the day he'd met her and he doesn't regret it one day of it so far, enjoying each minute he's spending with her. It's a nice contrast compared to the harsh nightlife of the Hillsiders, the way the world burns and erupts into chaos underneath his rule, his fire in the streets of East L.A. Nightmares plague him like ghosts and there are some days when his hands reach for hers, only to change his mind at the last second, jerking them away. He reminds himself not to get too close to Grace.

Because eventually, she'll leave.

Like his mother.

Abuela.

Veronica.

But she doesn't.

He wakes up every morning and she's still there.

(And then she isn't.)

_oOo_

GRACE

Tonight is Chato's birthday.

He'd let it slip nonchalantly right after her shift off at work and she's surprised to find he's a year older than her at the moment. She tries to ask what he wants for his birthday and he claims he doesn't want anything but she can tell he wants something .

He finally relents by jokingly telling her snow as his reply (even though he looks like he's totally serious) to which she gives him a knowing look of amusement and then asks her to come with him to Diá de los Muertos. “I can show you my world,” he tells her and she happily agrees.

He's sitting with her in their usual spot at The Inferno, her legs tucked underneath her jeans, his fingers absentmindedly playing with her curls as he listens to the music. He shifts his body weight on the couch and then next thing she knows, she's being pulled up and is being led to the dance floor.

Grace sways her body to the beat, letting it overtake her. Her hips swing and she throws her head back, hair flying back, her hand gripping against the back of Chato's neck as he looks on mesmerized and completely smitten. He licks his lips and he's looking almost hungry. Chato's fingers latch onto her belt loops, pulling her closer in an almost possessive, aggressive way and she finds herself being turned on by this show of display. Their eyes lock, their bodies rolling together to the rapid beat of the music, his hands on her hips as they practically grind against each other. And then it clicks.

All the lingering glances toward her, the way his eyes dart to her lips from time to time. He's been wanting to kiss her. So she'll let him, if that's what he wants.

Besides, she's been wanting to kiss him too. There's no way she's going to let this slip through her fingers. But first, maybe it's time to freshen up.

CHATO

The beat of music soon fades into a softer contrast and Grace laughs, pushing her hair back as exhaustion hits them both. Small sweat beads around her shoulders and trails down her arms and Chato finds himself wrapping her in his arms again, her back pressed against his chest as they both sway slowly to each thump reverberating from the floor and the walls straight into their bones.

Finally, she pulls away, a smile still etched on her face. She tells him that she'll be right back, and he watches her leave, her hands pulling away from his, their eyes never leaving each other's. He watches her disappear into the restroom with one last look toward him and heads back to his seat.

He's sitting there, smirking to himself, thinking about how lucky he is and thinking about how if he can't have snow tonight for his birthday, he's glad to have her with him.

But it's not until several minutes pass that he realizes that Grace hasn't returned.

It's not like her to take this long, even to freshen up and he finds himself worrying about her.

He's hesitant about barging into the women's restroom just to check on her, because then it occurs to him that it might be that  time of month. But Grace's nowhere to be found when he pushes through the empty stalls, ignoring several cries of protests when she doesn't reply. He searches for her, asking several of her coworkers if they'd seen where she went to which they give out hesitant echoes of “no.”

He finds her walking barefoot on an empty street after stealing another car, her eyes glazed over like she's high and she practically throws herself onto him when she sees him, hands running up and down his chest with this  look  in her eyes as she peers up at him and he knows that something's so terribly, terribly wrong with her. He takes a step back, hands gently curling around her wrists to stop her advances as he tries to make sense of what the fuck is going on.

She tries to dance, twirling as she trips over own feet and he catches her as she continues to slur her sentences together, promising him that she's okay and that she feels amazing and that “I really want to fuck you right now.” He notices that when she waves over his shoulder with one free hand, that the road he's on, they're  on, the road she'd been walking on, leads toward his house. She twists out of his encircled arms and starts stumbling backward, a mischievous grin on her face. “Catch me if you can.”

She runs, daring him to chase her. “ Shit! ”

The door’s already open when he arrives and the spare key’s still in the lock. He pulls it out and sets it on the table, shutting the door behind him as he flicks on the light. Grace's dress is on the floor along with her bra and panties as he steps further down the hallway, hearing the shower run in the distance. A glint of silver catches his eye. It's a gum wrapper labeled Vertigo.

Vertigo.

Vertigo.

Vertigo.

Why does that sound so familiar to him?

He doesn't go too far even though he's hesitant to leave her all by herself and goes to sit on the couch, waiting for her to finish and trying to figure out where he's heard of Vertigo before. He remembers that she's only had one drink, just one drink, not particularly strong enough to get her buzzed and wonders why she's acting like this.

Next thing he knows, he's shutting his eyes briefly for a moment, exhausted from all the adrenaline and running around when he finds Grace standing in front of him, hair wet, wearing one of his shirts that almost leaves nothing to his imagination. Her nipples push against the grey fabric shaping her curves and he finds himself growing hard and then she's straddling him. Her hands overlap his and she moves them closer to squeeze her ass and he's thinking about his sexual fantasies about her and how much he's wanting to take her here and now (and God, she's so fucking beautiful) and it doesn't help that she's beginning to grind on him and --

No. This is wrong.

(but oh God yes)

He stands up abruptly, gently pushing her back as much as it pains him when her hands start to reach for his face, leaning in to kiss him. She looks upset and hurt when she realizes that he's rejected her and he feels bad about it, but he knows if he lets it go any further, he'll end up becoming like her ex-fiancé and he doesn't want that.

“I'm not good enough for you?” She contorts her face into a mixture of hurt, betrayal and anger as she twists her body on the couch to face him, not understanding why he's doing this.

“No, no. That's not it,” he tells her because she's been so good, so good  to him and he knows he doesn't deserve her at all. But he has to make her understand. “Look, you're not yourself right now. I--”

“You don't want me?”

He pauses, because oh God yes, he wants her, he wants to run his tongue over her nipples, her breasts and make her wet until she cums and moans his name, but he doesn't say that. She's not herself right now and he's determined to get to the bottom of this once and for all.

“You want this,” she snaps in an accusing tone, cutting off whatever he's about to say. She closes the distance between them, poking his chest. “I've seen the way you've looked at me. You want this.”

“I do,” he admits. “But not like this, Grace.”

A scoff of outrage releases between her lips and a flash of hurt  crosses over her face once again. “I can make you feel good,” she insists, but it's said in a way like she's reciting something off a script. Like she's done this before. And it's so tempting, so fucking tempting and his cock wants to make the decision for him. But he resists and tells her that he “can't do that.”

Her mood changes almost instantly. She's hitting him with balled fists as hard as she can and he lets her and then she's crying. She's crying and clutching onto his shirt as she lets her body weight overwhelm her, mumbling softly as she meets the floor.

She's tapping her temples with her fingers as she looks at him with wide eyes. “He's in my head. And he won't leave. He's always gonna be there. He won't leave me alone.”

“He's not here,” he promises.

Her eyes dart around nervously though and her hands tighten around his. Her voice drops to a whisper. “But he's right there .”

No one’s behind him. He swallows when he turns back to her, her dark brown eyes glistening. Her eyes drift in and out of focus, fluttering. “I'm so tired,” she murmurs sleepily.

Chato doesn't know what to do. But he gently lifts her up and carries her to the couch, laying her down while her eyes turn vacant, rolling up in her head before she drifts off to sleep.

He calls Justine, asking her if he can talk to Nicola, because he'll never admit that he needs her help right now. She’s in a panic when he mentions the gum wrapper and Vertigo and he hears her yelling at Justine in the background. She tells him to stay where they are and that they’ll be over as soon as they can. She hangs up before he can tell her where they're at. She somehow finds him anyway, pushing her way in when he opens the door and normally, he would be mad and would tell her to get the fuck out of his house but this is for Grace. Justine gives him a small smile and a nod when she follows closely behind her mother.

He overhears Grace admitting that she thinks she crashed the car somewhere but Nicola brushes it aside, telling her that that's not important right now and  “you hated that piece of shit anyway.” Grace eventually calms down a bit, although later in the evening, she becomes feverish and even more delusional, shivering and mumbling in her sleep. He wants to help her. But his powers can't heal her, can't cleanse away whatever's attacking her body from the inside, destroying her brain as it makes her relive her worst memories. Vertigo, Nicola explains to him, sparking his memory, makes you see your worst fear as it sends you down on a downward spiral, and for some users, can eventually lead to your death -- all trademarked and illegally brought to you by Count Vertigo from Starling City.

“Before . . . when she was with him , she used to take it small doses,” Nicola spills out hesitantly as she studies him warily, her tone venomous, “Just made her high enough for him to get it in her head that she liked  it. God, that son of a bitch really fucked her up.”

Chato's quiet as he listens to Nicola. He turns his head to watch Justine place a cool washcloth on Grace's forehead.

“Not that that's going to change what he did to her,” Nicola continues, tipping the beer bottle she'd grabbed from his refrigerator in her hand, finishing it in one gulp, “It’s a miracle she even woke up in the first place. You know, she would disappear for days at a time and then show up again out of the blue like nothing happened? There were just days when she would just . . . not move for hours  in my room and I would think she was dead. And then she would be gone in the morning. Like clockwork. Live. Die. Repeat. Over and over again.”

“What happened to him?” he asks after they sit in silence for a moment. He knows  what happened but it would be nice to have confirmation that the son of a bitch’s still not kicking around. He's never seen the aftermath of what's happened besides in Grace's soul and nightmares. He hasn't wanted to punch anyone this hard since his father and that's an understatement to say the least.

“Oh, he's dead,” she tells him, meeting his eyes. There's hatred firing up in her eyes and the way her face turns impassive. “She killed him. I say good riddance. God knows how many times he put his hands on her without her permission.”

Nicola grabs another beer of the table and opens it, taking a gulp. Her face softens for a moment as she watches him. “You know . . . Maybe you're not so bad after all. I mean, I still don't like you and I don't have  to but I think I can kinda see why Grace likes you . . . For some reason.”

Another head toss. Chato finds himself subconsciously searching through Nicola’s soul before he realizes what he's doing and pulls away. He understands now why  Nicola doesn't like him. He's terrorized the streets, sowed fear into the hearts and minds of her neighbors and burned down their homes and stolen some possessions of theirs. She hates him for doing that and hates the day he had led his gang around the streets in a violent rampage which lead to the destruction of her own house when she was younger.

But he's a leader. He leads for an example and that is what he's doing even though she doesn't necessarily agree with it. It's just business. He feels bad about burning her house down and sees the accusing look in her eyes deep down as if they're saying, why couldn't you have waited one more day? But if he hadn't, she would've never ran into Grace again. It's funny how their lives intersected without them knowing about it.

But since the fallout from her birthday party, Nicola and Grace haven't really talked in the past few weeks and he's noticed how it's affected them. They're both too stubborn to admit it though: that they need each other. But they're waiting on the other to sprout apologizes first.

He begins to open his mouth to ask if they're still friends but all of a sudden he's interrupted by Justine rushing in a panic, looking scared, a kitchen knife brandished in her right hand. She quickly rushes toward an nearby window, peeking out past the blinds to where an unearthly light illuminates her face.

“Uh, not to ruin the moment here, but I think there's an angry mob outside your house.”

_oOo_

CLIFFHANGER!!! *evil laughter here* And I think this is probably the first cliffhanger in this story so far so yahhh. Happy Valentine’s Day!

NEXT UP: “We Need To Talk About Grace” Part 2 - Grace reflects on her feelings on Chato and an old face returns to wreck havoc.

NOTES:

So, hi. It's been a while, everyone --

“FOUR MONTHS TO BE EXACT!”

-- yup. it's been fou-- holy shit, really?!?! Well, excuse you but I've been trapped in the Upside Down for that long. Nah, I'm kidding (if you didn't get that, it's a Stranger Things reference . . . )

Anyway, I feel really, really super  awful about leaving you all hanging for four months -- and I know you're probably thinking, why haven't you been updating? Well, life and work, mostly work -- but I hope you enjoy this chapter and this update (even though it's super depressing as fuck. Roofies are so not cool guys. Don't do it.). I rewrote this like five freaking times because it wasn't where I wanted it but whatever. I know you're probably confused but don't worry, it'll be cleared up in the next chapter. And then moving on to the Halloween-centric chapter (which is like four months too late from the time I originally wrote it. So whoops?)! But it'll be more lighthearted and happy!!!

But enough about that now because I've also been working on a movie trailer for this story, which you can see on my Tumblr (under the #closer to the fire tag) and my YouTube Channel (TheRisingAlleria[1997]) or by clicking the link above at the beginning of this chapter. I hope you enjoy that too because I tried very hard on it (even though it didn't reach my expectations.)

AND I'm looking for some more beta-readers!! So if anybody is interested, hit me up on Tumblr or PM me on here or on FF.net or Wattpad. I'm looking for someone who knows more about the DC Universe and has read a majority of the Suicide Squad comics (because I've only watched the movie and Chato's storyline in Most Wanted.)

Don't hesitate to leave your thoughts in the comments below! Whether it's a typo or just to say hello! :)

This chapter was beta-proofed by sirgnomethegiant. Thank you for your reader’s perspective on this story! :D you're an amazing person!

Follow TheRisingAlleria and thegracesantana on Tumblr for more updates! until we meet again

- Alleria

[cjvazmovielife]

Kids and Film Making.

Children can be a lot of fun on set. You tend to play more games and have better-tasting food when they are there. You try more options to see what looks better. The scenes become more natural and less rigid. It makes you go back to that time when you were making a student film with friends and family.

Depending on what you are filming you can also save money on the set and set pieces. In some cases, props can be smaller. A word of advice, if you ever get a chance to film a food fight just stay out of the way. Wear a poncho, stand behind the camera and stay out of the way. I've learned that kids may need choreography on a lot of things but not for a food fight.

Dealing with children that are not actors can be a different experience altogether. For example, you can't tell them what they just did wasn't right and to start from the top. Because they will just stare at you like you are nuts. You can't really lead them to walk a certain way into a room or down the stairs. You can't control what they are going to say or with how much emotion. You definitely cannot fix it in post-production later.

As a filmmaker throughout the years, on set was when I was around children primarily and that's fun. With the occasional time, I spend with my nieces when I'm not traveling which is also spent playing and singing. I have actually put on shows singing, Let it go. But that was mainly my interaction with kids. By default, you are keeping them safe and fed. But your primary is playing. It's nothing serious like their health or education or which Jonas brother is the cutest. So when you get brought into that, it's a bit of a culture shock.

When I met my girlfriend, it was through a children's charity. I was lucky enough to meet her family rather quickly, and I bonded with them rather quickly. Being the fun, funny and full of wisdom uncle was always my groove. I could give great advice, say lame dad jokes, and still kick your ass in Mario Kart. I always assumed I'd be the same kind of father to my own children. Adding in, of course, the education, health and hopefully not the cutest Jonas brother part.

I know that no one is really prepared to be a father, you mainly learn as you go. But I thought I was close to being ready, and if I wasn't I was ready to learn. Kids do have a habit of throwing you curves as well. My girlfriend has two nieces and one nephew I spent a lot of time with. Ages ranging from high school to elementary. They are great kids. I mean really great without being bias.

Kaley (not her real name) is the oldest of that bunch, and she's the epitome of a true character. She's the type that you automatically feel her presence in a room. If was to cast an actress to play her in something, a young Rooney Mara would instantly come to mind. She can be both a princess and edgy. It's really her choice, and no one can make it for her. I could see her doing anything with her life, even being president one day. She's that strong-willed. I have told her many times that nothing in this world is ever beyond her as long as she puts her mind to it.

Carly (not her real name and no they aren't twins) is the middle one of the bunch, and she's the epitome of a sweetie. She's the nicest girl in the world, and her smile can light up a room. If I were to cast her, it'd be a young Amanda Seyfried specifically her character from Mama Mia. She's that happy, that smiley and you just imagine a continuous musical following her all the time. She's the type that takes care of people. The type that would become a nurse just to focus more on patient care, even though she's smarter than most doctors. She's a character out of the Heartland, and I could see her owning a ranch someday as well.

Hunter (not his real name) is the youngest of the bunch, and he's the epitome of a boy. That's really the best way to describe him. He likes to go outside, play sports, play video games, eat, watch tv and get into trouble. He's a good kid, headstrong and smart when he allows himself to be. He's very creative too, and I imagine the world will see great things from him. He talked about being a baseball player or maybe an actor. While both are good, I hope he uses more of his mind than physical talents. I could see him being the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. If I were to cast him, it'd be a young Freddie Highmore (Peter in Finding Neverland).

Spending time with them was a real treasure for me. It's not what I'm used to, and I felt completely out of my element. Video games was an easy go to but not so much when you are getting your butt kicked in Super Smash Brothers.

Eating with them became another interesting journey I was able to dive into. Remember most of my time is spent on set so crafty is everywhere. When we break for meals, usually people congregate based on their jobs and conversations matched to that. Here I was eating with my girlfriend and 3 kids. I certainly couldn't spend the entire time telling her how beautiful she looks and making googly eyes. I tried once and Kaley, as the character she is, immediately threw out the "you guys are so gross." Followed by Carly giggling and Hunter laughing.

So the conversations with my girlfriend took a shift at dinner time. Instead of talking about the future, making plans, career, travel and more adult things, we focused on the kids. Video games, shows, movies, what the kids did today and vacation plans with them. In all my years I never felt more like an adult than when we were having those conversations. Suddenly I knew what I wanted my life to be about and the family that I wanted. I wanted to be their father and have more just like them.

I was ready to give up the control of a film set for the uncontrollable life of a family man. Blocking rehearsals would shift to little league practice. Wardrobe tests would be clothes shopping. Tech days would be making sure the smoke detectors worked, and the power was on. I couldn't find an analogy for visual effects that didn't involve myself, and my girlfriend so not going there. :)  Crafty may take a hit, but I'm sure Tasty video recipes will solve that problem for me. I would shift more towards producing, and writing versus actual production work. I was ready to make that change, and it surprised me. The reason being that I never thought I would want it.

Don't get me wrong kids are great, but to be fair once you are done playing you tend to hand them off to their parents. That's what I do with nieces, and what I do on set. Playtime is going we are good, kid cries maybe I can help, the kid needs a change, and I send the PA to locate their parents quick. Even with my own nieces, I promised to do one diaper change per child. Non-transferable, I get to choose when and if you lose it that's it. Luckily for me, I never had to pay up. But I was ready with her to take that leap.

Obviously, her nieces and her nephew were older, so things were easier to deal with overall. "You hungry? ... Let's get a pizza." "You bored? ... Let's play Super Mash Brothers ... Wii U." "You want to watch a movie? ... How about Nightmare on Elm Street?" "You want ice cream? ... Jeremiahs it is." Sometimes I'd be the one asking them, after all, I like Pizza. Kaley would use me to test out her makeup. I was constantly catching Carly talking to a boy, which would make her laugh. Hunter and I would play Wii sports. I don't really get why parents are always complaining about older kids because, for me, life couldn't get better. I have the most amazing woman in the world in love with me, and the family I always wanted.

I was Charlie from Two and a Half Men transforming into Mr. Mathews from Boy Meets World. Life was great. But then a little reality sets in. As I grew attached to the kids, naturally I wanted them to succeed in life. I wanted the best for them. So as a potential future uncle, already emotionally attached, I start acting like one. Telling the girls boys suck and they should never date before they are 35. Yeah lame and they didn't go for it but worth a try. I wanted to help Hunter with his school work, which wasn't overly productive considering 5 minutes of school work turned into an hour of Wii baseball. Frustration began to set in, these kids weren't the actors I was used to. I couldn't script a better scene or edit it in post. I couldn't reshoot the scenes as I would do on set. My life of make-believe didn't really prepare me for the real-life challenges of a parent.

I wasn't their father. No matter how much I wanted to be, I wasn't their father. They would need to make a choice to see me that way before I could be. At that time that choice wasn't possible for them, so all I could have hoped for was being their fun uncle. They would have to make a choice to see me like that as well. Some days they did and others they didn't. I learned to roll with the punches and unpredictability.

You can't really plan with kids. I've learned they will throw you curves they in and day out. How you deal with those curves is what makes all the difference in the world. You may not deal with them perfectly all the time, but what's more important is to try.

Cut.

[emptymanuscript]

So, let’s tackle openings a little. Openings are hard. And the advice for them is kind of an annoying mishmash. “Open with a bang” And how do you make a bang in a leisurly historical epic? “Start as close to the action as possible” Well how close is that? “Grab your readers with the first sentence and never let them go.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.  

The first thing you’re going to have to understand about openings is that you will almost certainly rewrite it. I changed extremely little in my opening scene for H&M and still rewrote it maybe 6 or 7 times. So, don’t sweat it too much at the beginning. You can come back and fix it when you know what it has to do better. 

So what does an opening have to do? It has to set up questions that will be relevant to the rest of the story. It has to engage the reader (Don’t worry I’ll come back to that). It has to set up how the universe of the story stands at default and suggest how that is malignant. Ideally, but by no means always, it should set up part of how we will judge success or failure at the end. Often, but definitely not always, it introduces us to the characters we’ll be following. And if you get through all of that, the problems with your particular opening probably can’t be answered by general advice. Which is where you want to be. Every halfway decent story is a unique problem. 

Ok, Questions: what questions do you need to set up? Some of the what if questions of your story. You can think of it like dominoes, the questions put at the start of the story are the ones whose answers will lead to the next set of questions in the book. Think of it like a funnel. At the beginning there are many possible answers but you’ll be narrowing it down to one answer that will kick off the next question. However before you even start the opening, prior questions have already funneled down to this moment. What genre is this story? What are the main stakes (life v death, love v lonliness, success v insignificance, etc)? And I would strongly recommend your MICE quotient, will the point of the story be to primarily illustrate a place, an idea, a character, or the events? Now why those three? Because those are the three things your reader should be the least in the dark about and things you can put on the cover before a reader ever starts reading. But they can also be reflected in the questions that you have in your opening. You can set up those choices to set up new questions. 

An example. In 11/22/63 Stephen King opens with the line “I have never been what you’d call a crying man.” Before reading that line I knew that this was a book about time travel, so sci-fi-ish; that the stakes are going to be arranged around the assassination of JFK, since the papers from two outcomes are all over the cover and JFK was assassinated on 11/22/63. The MICE Quotient, no way for me as a reader to know yet. But I got a good inkling I’m reading a character story from that first line. Because it sets up who? is the MC and the very first question is why? isn’t he a crying man. What’s the difference between the crying and the non crying man? What possibility for exception to this ‘rule’ am I going to run into? Note that these are mostly character based questions, so that’s how it is molding my expectations. And there is the implied connection. What does being a crying man have to do with 11/22/63? All these questions are implied after having read only one line. And you can see how they are already narrowing what the story can be about, setting up the tumblers of new questions to be about this person and their emotions rather than about time travel, even though we know time travel is coming. Which gives the next question, how? will time travel illuminate his emotional inner world. 

Stephen King is very good at this. JJ Abrams is very good at this. But it all comes down to setting the stage in such a way as to provoke some subconcious curiousity. Which is one of the ways you engage a reader. Set up some questions, give some answers, and hopefully you’ve got the reader willing to ride along for a little while.

Moving on. What else engages the reader? Tension. Tension is the engine that drives story. And it is incredibly hard to rev up to even a decent speed, let alone full speed, from word one. It’s very easy to make it all seem too melodramatic if you go right for it. Myself, I say go for the melodrama better too much than too little but that’s kind of a fringe opinion. Instead, think about getting up to speed or just shifting the momentum of a large object. It takes time but you’ve got to start. You need, even at the beginning, some amount of tension between the possibilities of the story. These can be implied like with the 11/22/63 opening, don’t cry, should cry. Which immediately grows into a sort of professionalism vs humanity when he is grading the paper of someone who clearly isn’t up to snuff but who evokes his sympathy. These are small stakes and low tensions but you can already see it growing. This is why you’ll see advice about mirroring the the main conflict in some kind of miniature in your opening. By having the small stakes, small tension, moments and then building them up you give the illusion of the story accelerating, and accelerating in one chosen direction. 

Ok, I admit, it isn’t just tension that engages readers but it is the easiest thing to control. Beyond curiosity which I already mentioned there is the “cool” factor. This is whatever sense of wonder or fascination you can give to a story. It seems to me that audiences actually have profoundly little patience for the “cool” factor. Especially in the beginning. You’ve got about a paragraph to be “cool.” And it’s one of those things that holds a lot more power deeper in the story than it does at the opening. This is one of those things we can’t steal very well from movies. You can steal it a little, if you’re sure your audience is going to find it ultra cool. But not very much. So use with caution. 

There are two types of the hero’s journey. They are deeply related. They  are obnoxiously referred to as the Male and Female journey. Which I just have to let go of. This is me living with it even though it is wrong to classify them that way. One of the things that both types have in common is that there is an ordinary world, the way the universe has defaulted to being for them, and there is a flaw in that ordinary world. In some way the ordinary world is incapable of continuing to nourish the hero. In the male journey this is often pretty simplistic, the ordinary world isn’t capable of protecting itself and the hero has to take on that role. In the female journey this is usually more toxic, the ordinary world is a (gilded) cage designed to keep the hero in and the hero must escape. Neither of these events happen in the beginning but the shadow of those truths are in the beginning. They’re part of the tension by illuminating how the ordinary world is malignant and presenting that in contrast to the wellbeing of the main character. You’re hinting at why this state of affairs can’t last. And this is really the hint to where you begin. You begin in the ordinary world as the flaw in it starts to reveal itself. This gives you enough time to establish what the ordinary world is like while setting it up to break in the immediate future. My favorite bit in movies that does this is in the original Star Wars (the definitional male journey for our age) where Luke and his uncle argue about Luke going to the academy and Luke whines that he’s going nowhere and goes out to watch the twin suns set. It’s visually striking and you can see that he isn’t content to stay in his normal world, he is so discontent that something is going to have to give. But that’s not the first time we see that conflict. We have the shadow of it when Luke whines about going to Tosche Station, luke wants to do one thing and his uncle says later, after important things. Even in the very first scene where we meet Luke, his desire to be elsewhere from the dull world of moisture farming is right out in the open. It’s a small tension, a small flaw, but it’s there from his first scene. 

Finally (I can hear you cheering) there is helping with the victory condition itself. This is a lot of how the satisfaction of openings and endings happen, when you can feel the long arm of the opening at the end. If we start with someone not being a crying man and end with him either a deeply emotional man, an emotional wreck, or someone so walled off from his emotions that he’ll never cry again, it will ring completest. Even if crying isn’t mentioned in the end. What it shows is that the conflict of the tale was present from the beginning and we have passed from the shadow of it, to the struggle of it, to its final disposition. “We’re doomed. There’ll be no escape from the Princess this time.” is something like the fourth line in Star Wars. And Leia is front and center in the alternating shots between the rebels and Tarkin who is trying to blow her up. So Luke is in many ways the answer to this early question: how will the Princess escape? How will doom be averted? In the middle of the movie, Luke helps save Leia from the Death Star but it’s only a temporary reprieve, she’s not really spared from that doom until the Death Star explodes. It’s gone through a lot of iterations and motivations but part of what makes the ending feel right is this line in the opening. So think about how you want your story to resolve, or just the final conflict, and put a shadow of that in your opening. 

And I will shut up now. 

[lametime-dnd]

[Character] Aya Luneto

Player: Zam

Race: Half-Elf Age: 20 (F) Height: 5′3″ Weight: 104 lb

Class: Flying Blade / Dervish Dancer Tradeskills: Dance, Brewing

Deity: Desna Alignment: Chaotic Good Homeland: - Affiliations: "Free Spirits" Brewing Co.

A swashbuckling dancer whom was abandoned to orcish slavers at a young age, where she lived in captivity for the majority of her life. Possessing an unusual power for dance - her orcish captors would force her to perform endlessly to their enjoyment and to her torment alike.

In her later years, she was freed by an abolitionist crusade, and she found herself inspired by her liberators to become an adventurer. She learned to fight with starknives - utilizing a dexterous, graceful style that adapted the skills and conditioning she developed as a slave dancer.

Despite possessing a strong innate charisma, she subconsciously suppresses it due to her upbringing - defaulting to a shy and servile personality in most social situations. However, her magical dance sheds her inhibitions, allowing her true force of character and will to well forth. In this state, she exudes incredible boldness and charm, letting her captivate audiences and perform daring deeds in combat.

Extended Bio

"This dance of mine springs from my heart now - my own free will! Each step, every twirl I make on the stage of my journey is the future I carve for myself! Just try and hold me down - if you don't mind waltzing with death!" 

In a story familiar to many half-elves, Aya was born out of wedlock to a human girl from a remote village and an adventuring elf of charm and suave. The elf fled town shortly after she was conceived, and her mother neglected her before she was even born - not only because Aya was a reminder of her tryst, but also simply due to the negative disposition towards half-elves in general.

And so it was, that when orc slavers raided her village while she was still barely a child, she was abandoned to the flames and pillage as her mother and the other villagers fled with their lives. She was taken away to be future merchandise, but then an odder fate befell her - one of the camp shamans perceived a mysterious innate potential within her, and she was instead delegated to be raised along with the other slaves they deigned to keep in the orc settlement for one reason or another, at least until they could ascertain how much she was worth.

Shortly after, what the shaman saw in her was brought to light. As she was taught to perform and serve for the orc warriors, she displayed a peculiar aptitude for dancing - as if possessed by some divine grace, her moves as she danced were enchanting enough to captivate even the brutish warriors among her captors. So much so that she caught the eye of the camp's leader, and thus he declared that she would remain with them rather than be sold off - if only to sate his desires to make her a mistress in the near future.

Fortunately for Aya, such a cruel fate would not come to pass. At the age of 13, fortune smiled upon her, and a crusade of holy warriors representing deities of Freedom besieged the orcish encampment, and would eventually emerge victorious. In the fighting, Aya herself was rescued by a particular follower of Cayden Cailean - a young half-orc cleric in-training. While she initially mistreated him on account of race, she quickly softened up to his compassion and charisma, unable to maintain her spite in the face of his genuinely good aura.

Following the battle, she was taken in by the freedom camp, where she spent the night conversing with the young Cailean cleric and his master. Impressed with her strong sense of character despite her past, they encouraged her to use her will and her experience as her strength - advice she would take to heart for the rest of her life.

The next day, the Cailean cleric and the other warriors departed to continue on their crusade to liberate more of the slavery camps in the region - and Aya, with home to be returned to, was adopted by a compassionate priestess of Desna who was among the crusade's numbers. The priestess would return to the city to raise the still-young Aya, and Aya would spend the rest of her pre-adult years growing under the wing of Desna's faithful - now bearing the family name of Luneto.

She quickly found herself enamored with the ideals of Desna's faith - a life of goodness, travel, and freedom. And from these ideals, she was inspired to become an adventurer, and took every opportunity she could to prepare for it. Between pestering swashbucklers in town to teach her techniques, reading monk writings, and reflecting on lore of Desna, she developed not only an affinity in combat with Starknives, but also how to channel her charisma and dancing into strength in battle. By the time she came of age to begin adventuring, she had cobbled together enough knowledge from these different sources to fight in a way none other could.

With the support of her adoptive mother and the community around her, Aya departed from town on her 18th birthday. With Desna's blessing guiding her blade and her dance, she endeavored to travel the world and experience it as she never got to in her youth. Secretly, she hoped that some little luck or divine intervention would allow her to cross paths with the young Cailean cleric once again - that she might be able to thank him once more for leading her to a life of freedom. But until then, she would content herself by paying that kindness forward; resolving to save others in need as she came across them on her journey, as she herself was saved.

And thus, Aya danced on to the world's stage - a woman who resolved to evolve her subservient past into her strength for the future.