#the whole orphans thing feels like it is mostly to explain why they're still in high school

[degrees-of-lili]

Y'know if PC wasn't an orphan; it'd make Bailey's story less weird. They could have been someone from another [country] who came to DoLland to go to university (to keep the school aspect), maybe you needed a visa and couldn't get one so you go to Bailey but now Bailey expects you to work for them or they'll ship you off (but not back home obvs.). Except Bailey's "work" is running around town fucking, stealing, and maybe working a semi-normal job. Like some aspects are questionable like Whitney, but Whitney is a parody of an actual bully. Like, the shit Whitney does (and to the level they do it) isn't something that'd anyone would reasonably get away with. Also, how the school works from a gameplay point of view because college you usually pick and choose your classes are.

[wordsandrobots]

For the writer asks: 7, 27, 40! Thank you!

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

The same joy I get from any creative act: that of seeing something come into existence.

There's something incredible about taking an idea, fleshing it out and giving it a presence in the world. Be it writing, drawing, baking, building, whatever -- it's just wonderfully satisfying. I tend to do a lot of stuff in my head before I go to the keyboard (planning, scripting, feeling out the words) so it's always exciting to get to the point of actually doing. Because then it's there, on the page, more than just an image in my head.

And that's magic.

27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why?

Heh.

When I was starting on my Iron-Blooded Orphans fan-fic spree (is it still a spree at this point?), I decided I needed a new villain, on account of the previous lower-level villains in the show meeting various ignoble fates and also because no one really filled the niche I was creating. I wanted someone who appeared nice, reasonable and even sympathetic on the surface (that is, showed sympathy to others) but who, not very deeply underneath, only ultimately cared about seeing their work completed.

(I explain this straight-up two chapters into them appearing in the story; it's not remotely a spoiler as I never intended to portray them *as* what they appeared to be on the surface.)

Additionally, I drew on ideas around assimilation and integration as a key part of their deal. They deliberately cultivated an 'acceptable' persona in the face of institutional elitism to get the power required to achieve their goals. There's a whole mass of reasons that plays on my mind generally (short version: I'm English) but I thought that, in context of this show, it would be an interesting thing to explore.

And you'd think they'd stress me out because I decided to make them non-binary and emphasise how deliberately appearing exactly androgynous was part a deeply performative and manipulative personality, as a means of stressing the way hierarchical organisations both allow space for people to game the system by playing into the signifiers of 'properness' and enforce those signifiers as the barrier to entry, and oh gods and muses I hope I haven't accidentally dropped into bad tropes about queer people, they can be bastards too, argh, argh, doubt, doubt, look they're not the only NB in my story, their gender isn't why they're like this I swear!

Except then I decided to write an entire fic from their point of view.

Writing close third person for a character whose view of the world is extremely cynical and selfish while also trying to convey to the reader that it is wrong is, when you do it for 10,000 words straight, rather exhausting! It's not just that they're a nasty piece of work. I *like* writing villains, especially the horrible ones; it's fun to show why the villainy makes sense from the other side. But *this* villain and this specific brand of 'I am always right, my goal is all that matters, anyone who disagrees is an idiot' was actively taxing to write.

Maybe it was the length, maybe it was the ways it struck closer to home in the middle of the giant robot fiction, maybe it was simply that their brand of betrayal and self-aggrandisement is ultimately kind of miserable. All I can say is, by the time I finished Of Obsessions and Erotemes, I was kind of burnt out. Constructing their headspace took a toll like nobody else I've ever written.

I'd do it all over again, obviously.

40. Please share a poem with me, I need it.

Argh, no, poetry, my one weakness!!!

OK, one of my weaknesses!!!

But in seriousness, me and poetry are ships in the night. I have known some lovely poets and been awed by their ability with words, but I've never really sought it out, so what I do know is mostly thunderingly obvious snatches of my ambient culture.

However, and though I suspect it's not entirely in the spirit of the question, for a poem about which I can say, this matters to me, Sassoon's The General sits somewhere near the heart of the great swell of anger I feel whenever we get to Poppy Fanaticism Season over here in Blighty. The fecklessness and callousness of our leaders during World War One has a through-line to the present that my own writing is likely always going to be in conversation with.

"Good-morning, good-morning!" the General said When we met him last week on our way to the line Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead, And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine. “He's a cheery old card,” grunted Harry to Jack As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack. But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

The General [Siegfried Sassoon]

For an ask game

[elia-de-silentio]

Recap on The Decay of Angels

Above, our introduction to the villains that have dominated the Bungou Stray Dogs manga for a few years as of now. It tells us two main things: that they are terrorist, and that they are five. Of them, two are known: Dostoevsky, already introduced in the previous arc, and Gogol, who debuts in this chapter.

As of chapter 88, all of the five members are known, and a few of these identities have been puzzling for the public at large. So, I want to try and recap what we know of them, and maybe make a little sense of it (spoiler, I didn't, but I found a few interesting facts).

We already met Fyodor in the Cannibalism arc, and gained an idea of who he is, how he operates, and what he wants. He's the leader of his own organization, but fights his battles mostly indirectly, by manipulating others into fighting for him.

He aims at destroying Yokohama to find the famed Book, the one to rewrite reality, for the purported reason if creating a better world, one without the 'sin' of ability users. Why he does think like that, or exactly what kind of different world he does envision, is unknown to this day.

Later, in chapter 56, we are shown the Decay of Angel's deeds, four in one week, which our resident nerd Kunikida explains are related to four of the five signs of the imminent death of an angel (or 'deva' in the Buddhist conception):

They skinned a legislator's torso, made a shirt with the result, and put it back on him, all in five minutes = the angel's robes are soiled.

They melted off the face of a deputy commander in the coast guard with a corrosive poison = the angel's garland melts away.

They stuck an air compressor in the mouth of the secretary of a general in the ministry of defense, causing his blood vessels to pop out = the angel's radiance fades.

Lastly, an official for the military police was injected a drug that caused him to kill himself = the angel's armpits start to sweat.

Moreover, they're suspected to have ties in the government; turns out, Gogol was cosplaying as a secretary in there.

He takes hostage a bunch of government officials, and threatens to saw them in two ("losing delight in their heavenly thrones")

The next chapters are dedicated to introducing Nikolai Gogol: an eccentric individual with a powerful ability and the most likely perpetrator of all the aforementioned crimes (since Fyodor was in jail at the time and, as we'll see shortly, the other members aren't particularly suited to these kinds of jobs).

However, he admits that he does feel guilt for what he does, and it's the reason he keeps doing it: he wants to free himself from the concept of morality, from his own conscience.

While this is a rather interesting philosophy, it doesn't expand much on why and how he joined the Decay of Angels. Was he a 'normal' person with particular ideas on morality that were brought to the extreme by the other members in order to make him useful, or was he already a murderer, and joined the Decay to have a wider choice of targets?

Boh. We'll only know quando Asagiri si decide a recuperare il suo arco porca pupazza with time. Still, the important part is that he doesn't seem to share Fyodor's objectives, nor does he say anything about the greater plan and his ideas on it. This is the first indicator that the Decay is a rather fragmented group, everyone is in for his own goals.

However, the last interesting thing is that the plan involved his own death: those in the Decay have no problems sacrificing their own members (even if I have a little theory that Fyodor might have planned for his survival, but I'll talk about it in another post).

Next, a wounded Taneda adds an information about the Decay of Angels: of the three members still in the dark, one has the ability to exchange knowledge he wants for information the person he touches wants. Namely, they're looking for a book, one that makes so that what is written on it becomes the truth - something already hinted by Fyodor. They managed to locate one page of it, and used it to frame the Armed Detective Agency to create a chaos and instigate a sort of Ability Civil War to destroy the city.

Their 'knowledge broker' is revealed to be Sigma; a reveal that is quite a surprise for the reader, since the manager of the Sky Casino has been introduced rigging a game to allow a person desperately in need of money to win; a very positive introduction, for a member of a 'murder association'. Later, it's revealed that he didn't even want to stab Taneda, only scare him off.

In fact, he hasn't even joined them because of some ideal: Fyodor found him when he had no past nor family nor anywhere to go, and offered him a place to belong in exchange for his services. When it turns out that his colleagues in the Decay have planned his demise (and two!) and Atsushi shows him kindness, he promptly cooperates with the Agency; or tries to, before one of Fyodor's lackeys shoots him.

It's also revealed that the group has created some explosive coins, released to the population at large to make some other acts of terrorism.

After some other shenanigans, we are introduced to their boss: Ouchi Fukuchi, officially the war hero who wants to save the world from the 'terrorists' known as the Armed Detective Agency by instituting an international police force.

Unofficially, a former torturer sanctioned by the government, traumatized by what he found himself doing. He wants to take down every nation, throwing the world into anarchy, because he believes countries and governments responsible for wars; and he also wants to stick it to his childhood friend who wasn't with him on the battlefield and got a found family he didn't have, and so framed him as the leader of the terrorists.

His actual plan was to terrorize the population and the government enough that they would gladly let him create an international armed force at his commands, which he would actually have used to break down the concept of 'State'.

Lastly, the fifth member: Bram Stoker. Another interesting case: like Sigma, he doesn't have any particular ideal that brought him to the group; on the contrary, he dislikes them. He used to be known as a calamity for his ability to turn others into vampires, and swore to never do such a thing again. He breaks this promise because Fukuchi threatened to kill him otherwise, and already keeps him in a state of prisony; personally, he has no interest in destroying the world, and thinks Fukuchi should do it himself. Considering that he interacts only with him, and doesn't keep track of the time well, I wonder if he even knows the other people in the organization.

Another interesting thing, is that he is the first British author to get introduced, except for Agatha Christie, who is hinted to be the leader of an organization of European Ability Users, but hasn't made an appearence since chapter 12/Dead Apple, and insofar hasn't had any impact on the plot. Maybe Stoker will be the element that brings the 'Order of the Clocktower' in?

Anyways, here they are: a group of people with vastly different goals and mindsets, ready to send each other to death and put dents into the others' plan (Sigma being ready to tell everything to Atsushi, Fyodor likely putting intentional mistakes in the Page he redacted to undermine Fukuchi).

Honestly ... it's amazing such a branco di disagiati group of people that want so wildly different things managed to last so long, let alone do this much damage. I mean ... how and why these people came together? What do they have in common?

To try and find answers, I did a little research.

First of all, the name 'Decay of Angels' comes, surprise surprise, from a book.

'The Decay of the Angel' by Yukio Mishima is the last novel in a tetralogy that follows the story of Shigekuni Honda, law student in the first novel and retired judge in the last, as he spends his whole life looking for the reincarnation of his deceased schoolfriend, finding them in people that seem to inevitably meet an early death, and ultimately destroys himself.

In the last installment, Honda decides that the reincarnation is an orphan, Toru, that behind a nice and normal facade hides antisocial tendencies. The interesting thing is that Honda notices them, but dismisses them as 'guile': what makes him decide that Toru isn't the reincarnation of his friend is the fact that he doesn't die on a certain date. And after all he had decided that he could be his friend after noticing a similar mole pattern; both very superficial things to originate and conclude such a fixation.

So what? I don't know.

Is a reference on how Fukuchi envied his childhood friend Fukuzawa for never dirtying his hands the way he had to do, and for having a found family, or a 'path in life', and decided to do a distorted version of such, with a few criminals and a plan to destroy the current order? Not sure.

Let's move to the artist, then!

Yukio Mishima was something of a conservative, and he strongly opposed the westernization of Japan, arguing that it left its people rootless. By this, I mean that he founded a private militia, the Tatenokai, composed of a bunch of students recruited with the newspaper, who until the 1970 did not much more than physical exercise and worship of the Emperor.

On the 25th of November 1970, however, Mishima plus four (!) of them briefly seized control of the Self Defense Force headquarters and tried to encourage the soldiers in a coup d'etat. They failed; Mishima and Masakatsu Morita, one of said four followers, committed suicide by seppuku, the latter despite his commander's wishes. The other three ended up in prison.

So, we have a strong believer in the traditional values of the State; quite the opposite of the 'anarchist' Fukuchi.

However, Mishima does not appear as a character, even if, since he was a writer, he could very well have. Instead, a bunch of appearently unrelated figures compose the terrorist group.

Fukuchi Genichirou was a translator, journalist, and playwriter. He, too, was a conservative: in his youth, he wrote an article criticizing the government and was subsequently arrested; he was released for the intercession of an influent friend, but this is remembered as the first episode of suppression of free speech in the Meiji Restauration.

He later founded a very short-lived political party that pursued the sovereignity of the Emperor, enforcement of a Constitution established by the Emperor and election among limited people. This party disbanded after one year.

Fyodor Dostoevsky is best known as a novelist, short story writer and journalist. He was also involved in politics: initially, he was interested in socialism, fluctuating among several groups due to an interest in social reforms in favor of destitute people.

The last group he joined (despite having been described by Bakunin as essentially a bunch of posers) got him convicted for reading papers that criticized the Russian government and religion, and nearly sentenced to death; the letter by the Tsar that commuted the sentence in prison and hard labour arrived just as the convicts were right in front of the firing squad, leaving them all free to enjoy this deeply traumatizing experience. He was considered one of the most dangerous prisoners (he read some books). Later in life, he moved towards more conservative beliefs (conservative for Russian standards: he criticized both socialism and capitalism, idealized the monarchy, and asserted that every social problem could be solved with Orthodox Christianity); but he didn't try to take an active role in politics.

Nikolai Gogol was a novelist, short story writer, and playwriter of Ukrainian origins. Despite costantly satirizing the government in his works, he was a strong supporter of the tsarist monarchy and criticized those who wanted a costitutional monarchy.

Fittingly for 'a character with no past', researching Sigma was a real pain. Shoutout to @gravitycantstop for pointing me in what is probably the right direction.

Sigma was a pseudonym of Russian journalist and writer Sergey Nikolaevich Syromyatnikov. Appearently, decent information about him is available only in Russian. Now, one day I'll speak every language in the world, but insofar my knowledge of Russian is limited to 'vodka' and 'syrniki', so I can't say much about him. If anyone who reads this speaks Russian and can provide information, please do so!

[Edit: thanks to @heydeliah , now we know about RL Sigma's political inclinations: he was a conservative who supported an authocratic monarchy, just like the above two]

Lastly, Bram Stoker: he had a keen interest in Irish Affairs, was a strong supporter of the Liberal Party, which favoured social reforms, personal liberty, and reducing the powers of both the Crown and the Church of England. He supported Home Rule brought about by pacifist means, was an ardent monarchist, and believed Ireland should stay in the British Empire, which he saw as a force for good.

So? I'm not sure what to make of all of this. The only thing I can say is that a bunch of real-life right-wingers has been turned into essentially a bunch of far left extremists? Sure, Stoker has been around for too little to express any ideology besides 'fanculo 'sta merda I want to sleep', and the lack of information on Sigma means that I can't make theories on him. But still, it's the closest thing I could find that binded them all together.

I admit I'm still unsure about what this could mean. Surely they weren't the only boomers ante litteram strongly conservative authors Asagiri could find, so ... I guess we have to wait and see? I literally made this post as I went, trying to find a common denominator, and this was all I could manage.

Anyways, I hope this can be somehow interesting.

Thanks to anyone who bothered to read my ramblings!

[wolftraps]

"They’ve got one single person who is Desolation + the End (an orphan Daisy found in the burned out shell of a house that they all sort of co-raised...)" Oh I'd love to hear more about them. Both in the Institute family accidentally an entire baby sense and in the WOW is this the wrong person to have mad at you sense. Give them a touch of the Hunt and they're deadlier than any Slaughter. (Course, thats what mum's for.)

Right, so, uh, I didn’t mean to write so much. But I guess that’s the story of Reverb. So, here’s 2500 words of Daisy and Jon raising a monster, I guess?

Basira finds the lead. There have been rumors that the Lightless Flame is trying to create a new Agnes. Jon thinks they may already have. He doesn’t Know, but his attempts to do so gave him a nasty sunburn for a couple hours, so he passed it off to them instead. Almost everyone involved in Agnes’s birth and childhood are gone, but there are still a couple known contacts, and at this point, Daisy can usually just follow the smell of burning.

It’s Basira who finds the lead, though, and takes them up to a tiny town about 100km north of Glasgow.

To what was a tiny town north of Glasgow. Most of it isn’t even smoking anymore by the time they get there. If anyone survived, they’ve already fled. All except for one. There’s no sound that gives them away. No crying or screams. Daisy just follows the scent of smoke to the epicenter of the destruction, and huddled in the middle of the burned out shell of a house, with their head buried in their knees, is a child.

Her first step into the building disturbs some rubble, just enough to get the child’s attention without immediately prompting an attack. Their head snaps up, and they may not be crying now, but the redness of their eyes says they have been.

“Daisy,” Basira warns as she takes a step closer, and Daisy motions for her to keep back.

Another step, the child tenses. Another, they still don’t attack. Another. Another. When she’s finally only a couple meters away, the kid makes ready to run. So that’s where Daisy stops, and sits down amid the rubble and ash.

“Hi,” she says softly. “I’m not here to hurt you. My name is Daisy.”

No response.

“Can you tell me your name?”

Nothing.

“That’s alright. You can tell me when you’re ready.” Daisy slowly gestures at the destruction around them. “I’m going to take a guess and say you did this.” The child tenses. “Also going to guess you didn’t mean to.” They stare at her suspiciously for another few seconds and then jerkily shake their head.

“That’s okay,” Daisy reassures them. “I understand. I’m going to sit here as long as you need to feel comfortable, okay? You can talk when you’re ready, but I’m only here to help.” Their eyes flick briefly to Basira, still standing just outside the demolished wall. “That’s my partner, Basira. She’s not going to hurt you either. She’ll stay right there unless you say she can come in.”

And so they stay for another twenty minutes, sitting in silence.

“D-Daisy?” the child says eventually, their voice cracking and hoarse from smoke.

“I’m here.”

“You… don’t really look like a Daisy.” Daisy laughs.

“My real name is Alice.”

“You don’t look like an Alice, either.”

“Yeah. I didn’t really like it. Daisy’s better.” They nod.

“I’m… I’m Shay.”

“Hi, Shay. Good to meet you.”

“I… I really didn’t mean to,” they say, and their shoulders shake, but there are no tears. Daisy suspects they may be too dehydrated. “I just… I just wanted to see. And- and then I couldn’t stop it. And everyone was screaming! And- and-”

“Shh-shh. It’s okay, Shay. Can I come closer?” Shay nods and Daisy moves slowly, no sudden movements, until she sits again at Shay’s side. “I’d like to hug you, if that’s okay.”

“I- I don’t-”

“That’s fine too. I’m right here. However you need me.” Shay studies her for a long moment, barely breathing, and then a sob wracks through them and they’re buried in her side.

“I didn’t mean to!”

“I know. It’s okay. I know.” She rocks them gently until the shaking stops.

“What’s going to happen to me now?”

“If it’s alright with you, I’d like to take you home now.”

“Your home?”

“My home.”

“With you and Basira.”

“With us, and my friend Jon. And Martin and Sasha. Our whole little family. And yours if you want it.”

-

“A child,” Georgie says incredulously. “Someone gave you a child?”

“Technically, Daisy acquired a child. I thought it best they learn in a more stable environment. Also they’re almost eleven. It’s not like we’re trying to raise a toddler in the Archives.”

“I’m not sure that’s better, Jon.” The child in question side-eyes them, but says nothing, just continues to sort papers. “They’re very quiet.”

“Now,” Jon scoffs a bit. “There was a bit of a row earlier, and a yell that may have spawned a small tornado. Shay is cleaning up the mess they created, in silence, or they won’t be going out with Sasha tomorrow to witness Hurricane Gabrielle hit Florida.” He meets Shay’s glare with a flat stare of his own. Stubborn ten-year-olds have a remarkable ability to not be intimidated by staring, though they still break first, with a touch of an embarrassed blush.

“Jon! They’re a child.”

“Georgie! They’re not human. And I’m certainly not going to push them to pick a second patron at this age, so I would rather they participate in events that will occur anyway than for them to start blowing things up near our home.”

“So if they don’t behave, you’ll starve them.” The glare Jon aims at her has her taking a step back. It’s not often Jon aims any of his powers at Georgie, but it’s abundantly clear that that isn’t something she should have said.

“If they don’t behave, they will be taken to northern Georgia, where the hurricane will likely cause serious flooding, but little irreparable damage. They’re already Desolation, Georgie, and I am not going to punish them for living.”

-

“Shay.”

“Oh, uh, hey, mum! W-what’s up?”

“Explain.”

“I’m just… protesting? Oh, come on! We’ve been careful. Minor injuries and some lingering trauma only. And you can’t tell me some of these assholes don’t deserve it!”

Daisy looks at them sternly for a good half minute, just enough to let them squirm.

“You’re targeting the wrong pressure points. And his lordship is over there,” she points to the building currently behind Shay, right on the edge of the localized earthquake they have going.

“Oh. Oops.”

“If you want to level the building three down from that, I won’t complain. Got a Stranger I’ve been after for a while squatting there.”

“Aww.”

“Don’t.”

“What? I think it’s sweet you still bring him Strangers for their anniversary!”

“You want pointers or not?”

“Not saying another word. What’s the secret to efficiently destroying a building?”

-

Jon finds them in the tunnels, sitting against a wall, wrapped around Patrząc. He sits beside them, just close enough to brush arms. Even then, he can feel the heat coming off them. Not burning, but feverish at least, if they were capable of having fevers.

Neither of them say a word for several minutes.

“I keep trying to cry,” Shay says, soft and flat. “I want to. I- I really fucked up this time, but I just… can’t. I can feel them, their terror, and… I can feel when it stops. Every single one, it feels like i’m being dropped into ice water, but I’ve been burning so hot, it feels more like a balm. I… I know we’re not human, but shouldn’t- shouldn’t I be sad? Or… something?”

Jon leans his head back against the wall and considers. “I- spent a lot of my youth blaming myself for… everything, really. It took me a long time to accept that ‘you always have a choice’ and ‘some things are beyond your control’ aren’t mutually exclusive. Just because there is a choice, doesn’t mean it could’ve gone any other way than how it did.”

“Didn’t you literally go back in time to change everything?”

“Yes. And I changed… a lot. It was hard to think of it that way at the time. Back then, it seemed like no matter what I did, everything was still going to go wrong. Some people probably would’ve been… No, no one would’ve been better off. Not in the end. That’s what I still have trouble remembering. We told you I came back because the world ended.”

“Yeah? Because of Jonah Magnus. You came back to kill him, so it didn’t happen.”

“I’m the one who ended it.”

“Wh- wait, what? But you…”

“We tried to run away, but I was too much the Archivist to go without statements. Basira sent us some, but Jonah slipped one in, and it held the words to perform the ritual. By the time I realized what it was, I couldn’t stop reading. It wasn’t a choice I deliberately made, but I ended the world.”

“Oh… fuck.”

“Heh. Yeah. And still, I wouldn’t have come back- I wouldn’t have been able to come back- if Martin hadn’t been killed.”

“I don’t-”

“Do you know about Agnes?”

“Agnes… Montague? I read some of the statements, why?”

“If Daisy never found you. If you were raised by the Lightless Flame. You were meant to be her replacement. Your birth was orchestrated to bring about the apocalypse in the image of Desolation.”

“… Oh.”

“Agnes was conflicted. She had doubts. Eventually, she decided she couldn’t do it. She told them to hang her, so her spark would return to the fires of Desolation and they could try again.”

“… Oh.”

“Do you know the difference between you and her?”

“She chose not to destroy the world and I’m going to do it by accident?”

“No. It’s the same as the difference between timelines for me. The people around Agnes made her choose between dying and ending the world. The difference is that your family would never want you to do either.”

“I… Jon- Dad- There- there are still so many lives being lost. Because of me. And-”

“And you can feel them. Yes. You said it doesn’t feel bad. Does it feel good?”

“Wh- Um… Not- not especially? Mostly it just… is. It’s almost like… part of me wants to be satisfied, but instead I’m just numb.”

“That’s probably the best we could hope for.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. I’ll do my best to explain. We should go back up, though. Your mother is being gruff, but it’s because she’s worried about you.” Jon starts to lever himself up but is stopped by a warm grip on his arm.

“Could- could we stay down here, just a bit longer? The- the cold feels nice.” Jon smiles softly and sits and lets them lean in to rest their head on his shoulder, even though they’ve got enough height on him it can’t be comfortable. The two of them won’t be able to sit here forever. A fretting Daisy is already wearing a hole in the floor of the Archives with her pacing. And it’s unlikely the forest fire is going to go out without some supernatural intervention. He remembers this feeling, though, and how much he depended on Martin’s support.

He can give them this, for a little while longer, and then he’ll call Oliver Banks.

-

Ethan has been at the Institute for half a year when he finally meets Jon’s kid. They’re… a lot livelier than he expected. They blow through the Archives like a whirlwind (and, in fact, may spawn a small one, though it only disturbs some of the discredited statements, so it’s not like it matters), and almost slide into a seat across from Jon.

“Mum says you have something for me,” they say, practically bouncing. “What is it? What is it?”

“Hello, Shay. Lovely to see you too. I’m doing just swell, thanks for asking. How are you?”

“Oh please, you know exactly how i’m doing. But… yes, hi Jon, I missed you too.” Ethan has never once had any cause to doubt his mother’s love, but he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her look at him with half as much fondness as Jon looks at Shay. Though, in fairness, that’s probably because he’s a bit too close to the situation with his own mum.  “Soooo?”

“The Vast.”

“Oooh, that’s a new one. I thought Martin still had a pretty good hold on the Fairchilds.”

“Simon is trying his hand at space exploration again and won’t answer our calls. Helena says this new avatar isn’t a Fairchild and has no stake in our alliance.”

“Is she telling the truth?”

“Unfortunately. Kinsey Harris is a former RAF pilot. In 2031, there was a malfunction and his plane went down. He did not. In August of 2032, he came to the Blackwood Institute and made a statement. Ethan?”

Jon has been doing this more and more lately, quizzing Ethan on case numbers. Sometimes he remembers from his searches through old statements, sometimes he doesn’t. On at least two occasions, though, he’s known without ever seeing it.

“Umm… 07.2031.2032/08/14… I/L/R?” Jon nods, and Ethan tries not to look too proud of himself.

“New guy?” Shay asks, looking him over. They had clearly missed him in their sprint to Jon’s office.

“Not that new,” Jon scoffs.

“Jon.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t need to! Martin and Mum and even Sasha did it for you! I’m pretty sure Sasha doesn’t know what year it is half the time, let alone how long it’s been since I last visited the Institute.”

“Sasha knows what year it is at least 86% of the time, and she knows when it’s been too long since you came home.”

“Can’t we go back to you asking me to kill a guy? That conversation was a lot more fun.” Jon stares at them until they start to squirm, just a little, and Ethan’s spent enough time with him that he’s pretty sure he can see Jon fighting a smirk.

“Kinsey took one of our HR employees, Buried-aligned. She was missing for a week before she crash-landed in the front hall. Now one of our library staff, Len, Pitch, is gone.” All of Shay’s fidgeting has stopped, and there’s a sense of… something in the Archives. Static tension. The calm before a storm.

“Right. Give me everything you have on him.”

“Ethan has been collecting it all. He can fill you in while you grab something from the canteen.”

Shay doesn’t so much roll their eyes as their whole head. “You cannot judge me for skipping a couple meals. I was busy.”

“I can and I will. Go. Eat lunch. And we will see you for dinner later.”

For a second it looks like there’s going to be an argument, but Shay stops before saying anything. “Who’s cooking?” they ask. Jon really does smirk now.

“Georgie and I are making curry.”

“Yessss. Okay. I’ll see you later. Love you!” They drop a kiss on Jon’s cheek and then Ethan is being pulled up the stairs by someone with Jon’s intensity and Ms. Tonner’s feral energy and he wonders if maybe he should be worried, but doubts he’s going to have much time for that.