#this is a modified version of a much bigger piece that i couldn’t get to eork

[nichecollection]

theyre very strange

[lostbutterflyutau]

In Memories and Dances

Note: Written for the EoA Discord’s Weekly Challenge prompt, “Dancing.” It was meant to be a small drabble, but became something a little bigger with dancing as a small element rather than the centre focus.

***

She knew the routine, could see each and every step in her mind. Her new talent dress fit and flowed perfectly. The makeup Abuela helped her choose was beautifully blended with just enough sparkle. And, once her father was done brushing it out, her hair would be set, every strand in place. Everything was going exactly as planned.

So, then, why couldn’t she stop pulling at her bracelet?

She flicked her eyes up to her reflection, met first her own gaze and then Victor’s when he looked up. She quickly glanced over his face, turned her eyes back down when she caught the concern in his.

Victor set the brush aside, pulled a thick purple ribbon from where he’d stored it in his pocket. He didn’t say anything at first, decided to concentrate on making sure her hair was just right before asking, “What’s wrong, Mija?”

“Hm?” Carla looked back up, separated her hands, “Oh! Nothing! I’m just – ” She stopped, tried to rack her brain for some kind of excuse.

Her father smiled, brought his hands down to comfortingly rub her shoulders, “Nervous?”

“What? No!” Carla shook her head. “Why would I be nervous? It’s not like I haven’t done this dance before.”

Though he wanted to contest her, he didn’t. Instead, he gave her a small smile and stepped away without a word.

Watching him go, she felt a strange mix of emotions. She wanted to be relieved he wasn’t asking more questions but knew that he didn’t buy her claims. He knew her too well to just brush her off when she was lying, even when it was mostly to herself. She sighed, reached over for her favourite shade of lipgloss, dropping the vial when she heard giggling behind her.

“Aw, how cute,” A taller girl said, making it a point to pull at the end of Carla’s perfectly tied hairbow.

“Please don’t touch me,” Carla ordered as she grabbed the tube again, trying her best to be cordial. If there was one thing her diplomacy lessons had been good for, it was teaching her when to disengage from certain conversation. She’d had more than enough trouble from this girl – whose name was Rosalea – her mother and their gaggle of acquaintances during her ventures into pageantry, trouble that had escalated tenfold since the day she came to register for this pageant.

She’d heard it all at this point about how unfair it was that the director had let her enter a Mother and Daughter pageant with her father. They seemed to think that, because he was a man, Victor didn’t have to work as hard to look good and that, if Carla did well, it would just be because the judges felt sorry for her. All things that were far from true.

Victor had spent the past two weeks rehearsing with her and Esteban through every step of the pageant. He learned how to properly walk alongside her and which marks to hit. Of course, his routine was adjusted to an extent, as it would look remarkably silly if he was smiling and turning in the same rehearsed, feminine way Carla was. But, they worked it out and managed to come up with a routine that worked for both of them.

Then there were the hours of talent practice. Dancing together was nothing new for them, but the addition of the magic elements was for Victor. They’d not only had to learn a modified version of one of their favourite dances, but how and when to cast the right spells at the right time and move around the illusions and lights in a way that showed them off but also didn’t distract from their steps.

But, they’d gotten through it all together and she was eager to show off their hard work. Mostly. Because of what she’d heard whispered around, there was a small part of her that did worry about the judges’ perception. She didn’t want to win anything because they felt bad. She wanted to win because she worked for it. Just because he wasn’t a “mom” didn’t make her Papa any less capable. Heck, he’d even started to learn how to help with pageant preparations and makeup, something he rarely ever did before. Okay, so maybe all he had learned thus far was how to pick out the right colours and swatch shades before settling on any product, but he was trying.

“As if it will make a difference,” Rosalea said, her voice breaking Carla’s train of thought. She smirked, placed her hand on Carla’s shoulders. “You’re already getting points off for breaking the rules, what’s a few more?”

Carla cut her eyes over to her left shoulder, carefully pushed the other girl’s hand off. “I asked you not to touch me.”

Though her claims weren’t true, they also weren’t worth the argument.

Rosalea frowned at the lack of reaction. Why wasn’t she yelling? Or even glaring? She paused, watched as Carla adjusted her ribbon, the smirk returning as an idea came to mind. “You can act like you’re okay, but we all know you’re not. Who can be when their mom is a deadbeat who won’t even show up for a pageant?”

That did it.

Carla whipped around, eyes narrowed with all of the anger and sadness she’d been forcing down. What happened to Valeria was no one’s business, but she also wasn’t going to let this girl go on believing that her Mama never cared.

“Oops, looks like I pricked a nerve.”

Carla took in a breath, tried to force back the urge to shove her back into the clothing rack behind them. “You don’t know anything about my mother, so I would appreciate it if you would stop badmouthing her.”  

“Or what?” The girl sneered, leaned against the vanity table. “You’ll cry so hard I’ll drown in a river of tears?”

Carla sighed, pushed the chair back and moved to stand. “It takes a lot more than a few empty threats to make me cry. Threats you wouldn’t have to make if you actually had talent.”

Rosalea gasped, snapped, “What do you know about talent?”

Carla shrugged, turned, “Just that I heard your mother carrying the whole song. Guess the music skipped a generation.”  

The taller girl opened her mouth to retaliate and immediately snapped it shut again. For once in her life, she didn’t know what to say. At this point she’d tried pretty much every insult she could about the situation, still, she searched her brain for a retort, eyes widening when Carla started to walk away. “Hey! Don’t walk away from me!”

“Too late!” Carla called, biting back a laugh when she heard a huff followed by the hard stamp of a heel. For some reason, despite the nastiness Rosalea was trying to invoke, Carla felt a little better. Likely because it gave her somewhere else to focus her feelings. However, the feeling was fleeting. As she approached the stage steps, her nerves tightened again. Would they really be able to pull this off? She sighed to herself, startled when she felt a hand come down on her shoulder.  

“There you are,” Victor said. “We have something for you.”

‘We?’ Carla thought and turned, finding both Papa and Abuela behind her. She looked from one to the other, raised an eyebrow at the hand behind her father’s back.

He chuckled at her expression and brought his hand around, his smile widening slightly at the way her eyes lit up.  

“Cleo!” She said, eagerly taking the stuffie from him and hugging the kitten against her chest. She nuzzled her face against her fur, the familiar sensation immediately sending a wave of warmth through her.

“I thought she’d make you feel better,” He said, his heart melting at how she cuddled her friend close. Even at twenty, she was still adorable. And now, more than that, she was a scared little girl who just needed a little bit of comfort.

Carla took a step forward, wrapped an arm around her father. “Thanks, Papa.”

Luisa gave a fake scoff, “And where’s mine? I’m the one who told Esteban to let you bring her this morning.”

Carla giggled, moved to hug her as well. “Thank you, Abuela.”

When Carla pulled back, Luisa took her free hand, squeezed it. “I know you’re nervous, Mi Querida, but you’ll be fine. I’ve seen you two dance.”  

“It’s not the dance,” Carla admitted, gently swinging Cleo back and forth in her arms, her little bell softly jingling with each movement.

“Then what, Mija?” Victor asked, coming around to put his hand on her shoulder.  

Carla sighed, brought Cleo back up to her face. “It’s just… What will everyone else think about it? I know it shouldn’t matter and that they’re just being petty, but ever since registration people have been looking at us funny and making snide comments, even people I’ve never had a problem with before.”

He gave her a sympathetic look, rubbed her shoulder. “If it’s bothering you, we can leave. I won’t hold it against you if you want to stop.” He said nothing else, his eyes speaking for how much he meant those words. If Carla truly felt that this was the wrong choice for her, he wouldn’t hold her back.  

She looked down, ran a careful hand over Cleo’s back. While she appreciated her father’s willingness to stand by her, she also knew that she couldn’t quit. She didn’t want to. It would be a waste to throw away all that time spent practicing and being fitted and refitted for the performance outfits they were wearing. And, beyond that, she wanted to finish what she started. She’d made such a big fuss about even getting into the pageant that it would look terrible on her if she gave up, especially after Papa was so willing to do it with her.

Finally, she looked up at him, said, “No. I want to finish it.”

Victor brushed a piece of hair behind her ear. “Are you sure?”

Carla nodded. “We can’t back out now. Not when we’ve made it this far.”

Victor opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by the stage manager announcing his and Carla’s number as the next one. He then watched as Carla gave Cleo one last hug before handing her back to Luisa, who placed her gently in the bag around her shoulder.

She gave Carla’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll be watching.”

“Ready?” Victor asked, offered his arm.

Without saying a word, Carla took it and they headed up the stage’s steps together, waiting and watching as the pair before them finished off their own dance routine.

“They’re good,” She muttered and gripped the curtain as she leaned over slightly, taking note of how they hit every step perfectly, shoes tapping in time to the music.

He leaned over with her, set a gentle hand on her back. “Let’s just have fun with our routine, okay?”

“Right,” Carla murmured and took in a deep breath. She could do this. They could do this. They’d been dancing together so long it was as natural as breathing. All she had to do was focus on the steps and spells and the spirit she knew was watching over them.

After what seemed like forever, the music stopped. The audience clapped and the duo left the stage, the announcer repeating their names and number before calling Carla and Victor up.

As they waited for Marlena to start playing, Carla took a moment to glance over the audience, saw both Gabe and Esteban – whom she’d pushed out shortly after arriving – in their spots near the front, along with several other people who exchanged looks at the scene, looks that only made her more determined to keep going. Then, the tune started and she turned to her father, her attention focused on only him and the steps that they knew so well.

Suddenly, nothing mattered. Not the audience or the judges or the people backstage. In her mind, she wasn’t on stage anymore. She was back in one of those little apartments they floated between when she was a child, dancing with her father for no reason other than it making them both happy. The only difference was that this time, they had magic.

On cue with the melody, they separated, and pulled their tamboritas. Hers was a shadow spell that mustered up a series of shapes that swirled and swayed in time with the music, and his provided a series of little, grape-sized floating lights that settled around the stage. With a twirl of her wand, Carla holstered it again, twirled to meet Victor back in the centre of the floor. Together, they moved around the illusions, their steps in perfect sync with the music.

For as nervous as she claimed to be, Carla hit her cues perfectly. Victor expected nothing less. Of course, if she did misstep, he wouldn’t scold her. But he knew that she wouldn’t. This was a dance they knew by heart, usually danced without music. Sure, it had been modified slightly, but the changes were small and when it came to dancing, Carla picked up new things quickly. She was so much like her mother in that regard.

When it came to dancing, Valeria had a natural inclination to it. She could pick up any step fairly quickly and had a way of putting her own little spin on traditional dances. Each move was calculated, yet natural. And Carla was the exact same way. Once she decided she wanted to learn to dance, Victor was happy to teach her, even more so when he realised that she seemed to possess the same drive and determination as her mother. They’d spent hours practicing and perfecting their craft, making it a point to learn new dances as they travelled, and Carla loved every second of it. Dancing was more than a fun hobby, it was part of her.

He twirled her again when Marlena strummed a stronger note, drew her back into his arms as the song slowed, her dress floating with every movement. As much as she treasured her hand-me-down dance dress, he knew that they were both grateful she had foregone wearing it for the pageant. She still loved it and would wear it to festivals, but with it being over twenty years old and more subdued than pageant culture called for, it wasn’t the right choice. Instead, Carla worked with the royal seamstress to create something that was both new and a fitting homage.

The outfit was the same shade of purple, but with a beaded bodice and a touch of sparkle around the layered skirt that, instead of blue and yellow, made use of pink and white accents. Cute, girly and pageant perfect, just as Carla described it during their final fitting.

He smiled at the memory, at the way the fabric seemed to move in time with the music as the last series of notes began. She gave a subtle nod as they faded off, a silent indicator that she was ready for the final piece. He turned his smile to her, placed his hands on her waist, lifted and twirled, her hair spinning as he spun her, the memories combined with the present moment filling them both with a sense of joy and triumph.

They twirled into the last step of the performance, the only sound when they stopped being the faint click of Carla’s heels against the wood. At first, everything seemed to stop, then, one by one, the members of the crowd started to clap as Victor wrapped an arm around Carla and pulled her in close. However, as much as they appreciated the reaction, they knew that it was the hard-to-read judges they really had to please.

Because she treated pageants as a hobby, it was rare that Carla got caught up in winning, but this time she was set on getting something for both her and her Papa. She knew it was wrong, but after all of the snide comments and sideways looks they had endured, seeing the looks on the other pairs’ faces when they swept up several awards

would be the perfect revenge.

Luckily, they didn’t have to wait too long, having the second-to-last number in the lineup. Of course, there was still a decent amount of time between them leaving the stage and crowning to allow the judges time to deliberate. Time that allowed Carla and the other girls to change out of their talent costumes and into crowning outfits.

“How do you always end up with such cutesy outfits?” Rosalea hissed when she settled next to Carla at the vanity station.

Carla cut her eyes, but said nothing, kept her concentration on the section of hair she was brushing out.

Rosalea frowned, tried again. “Can’t find anything appropriate that’ll fit?”

“Papa!” Carla called, ignoring the remark as she turned around in her chair, found her father caught in a conversation with one of the mothers. “Where’s my headband?”

She then laughed at the relieved look on Victor’s face as he headed over, the purple accessory in hand.

“Who’s your friend?” She teased, handed over the bejewelled hair brush.

He shook his head, separated out a section of hair. “I have no idea. She just came up and wouldn’t stop talking.”

Carla tilted her head slightly, the hair her father was holding slipping between his fingers with the movement. “Was she at least nice?” She asked as Victor re-separated the hair. “If she was, you should give her a chance. When’s the last time you went on a date?”

“Carla,” Victor said in a tone that let her know he didn’t want to entertain her.

‘Fine,’ She thought with a pout as she sat back in her chair and her father turned his focus back to her hair, carefully brushing it out while, on the side, Rosalea glared.

He flicked his eyes over to her, said as he set Carla’s headband, “You keep doing that and your face will get stuck that way.”

Unable to help herself, Carla laughed at both the comment and the way the other girl’s eyes widened before she huffed and stalked off, probably to complain to her mother, who neither Carla nor Victor saw until right before the crowning line up. She had the same ‘high and mighty’ air that her daughter did, standing behind her and looking proud, as if they had already swept the whole pageant. She’d been obnoxious all throughout the event, ordering stagehands around and throwing catty remarks at the other mothers and daughters all while bragging about her own and how much money they’d spend on the pageant. It was as if she expected to win based on her money and fake smile alone.  

Unfortunately for her, the judges had different ideas of what made a winner. Money couldn’t buy poise or grace.

Carla toyed with her bracelet as they finished the division awards for the age group below hers, glanced up when she felt the brush in her hair as Victor finished a last-minute touch up, adjusting her headband one final time just before they and the others in  the group were called for lineup.

He put the brush in his back pocket, gave his daughter a gentle push towards the stairs and out to where they knew there were people waiting to give them praise and proud smiles whether they won anything or not.

Though, the look on Rosalea and her mother’s faces when Carla won both Prettiest Eyes and Prettiest Hair along with the talent award – which she shared with her father – was a pretty good reward too, one that only got better when they put that division queen sash around her shoulders and handed her the rose that meant she and Victor pulled for a higher title, as those were given to them as teams, not individuals.

Rosalea and her mother pulled too and gave Carla and Victor smug looks as the younger women filed off stage and the parents of the younger girls came back up for their own division crowning.

Carla tried not to expect much but couldn’t help the nagging feeling of wanting her father to get something. He had worked so hard to do this with her and she hated the idea of him going unrewarded. He’d said that her putting up such a fuss about wanting to do it with him was more than enough and she knew he meant that, but still, some kind of recognition would be nice.

She waited with bated breath as the announcer read off the cards for each special award, fingers gently twirling around a piece of her hair while, next to her, Rosalea tapped her foot impatiently, the pace picking up every time they called a name that wasn’t her mother’s. Carla glanced over briefly, swore that the taller woman’s foot was going to go straight through the floor if they didn’t call the right name. For once, she understood her. But it didn’t stop the immense joy she felt at watching the shock cross everyone’s faces when they named Victor as Best Dressed, a feeling that continued to grow when she and the other high titles returned to the stage and Rosalea was only the second runner up.

After hearing that, Carla almost expected to win, but also wasn’t disappointed at them being the first runners-up, though the woman handing out the awards was more than a little confused as she looked from Carla to Victor with two crowns in hand.  

“We didn’t plan for a man to enter, so I don’t…” She started and Carla cut her off by gently taking one of the tiaras.

“It’s fine,” Carla said and turned to her father. She leaned up on her toes, giggled as she set the rhinestone tiara crookedly on his head.

“Papa pretty,” She teased with a laugh, using the line she so often did when she was a little girl making and colouring paper crowns.

He smiled, shook his head as she backed down and a series of scattered, good-natured laughs rose from the crowd. He then gestured to the woman.

She handed him the second tiara, put the sash around Carla before stepping away and letting him set the crown on her head, any nervousness he had melting into pride when he caught the look of pure joy in his daughter’s eyes as she glanced back at him. She grabbed his hand, gently pulled him forward as the audience erupted into an applause started by their own group of close friends. They bowed together with the same synchrony they had shared during their dance, spurred on by an audience who was happy to praise such a clear and true bond.

[retphienix]

Ah. What a game this has been so far.

Now I had a million thoughts I wanted to share as this played out, lord knows I’ll forget a good portion of them but that’s the nature of my own ineptitude- plenty of things I’ll remember MILES after this post or only if prompted in a specific way and that’s just how it is.

To start- this isn’t the end of DQ11 for the blog just yet. I usually don’t dive into post game unless it feels right or people ask and I’m convinced- and more or less both happened this time. It does feel right- I have definite goals I want to tackle before saying I’m happy with what I did here- and more than one person has mentioned that the post game is worth touching so I’ll be doing that.

Also, for those unfamiliar with my long winded utter mess of a finale post style I go for- this is a lot of rambling as I try my best to touch on my thoughts on the game overall because I like to share. Feel free to just press “J” on your keyboard and skip right passed this- I know **I** struggle to focus my eyes to read long winded posts so I won’t blame you.

Also also, in order to try and spark some of those thoughts I had during this recording the first bit is gonna be me re-watching it as I wait on the video to finish processing and saying what comes up.

To start- really wish there was a save point there lol. I get that it’s a painfully easy backtrack to the save point at the start of the castle- but still, I like convenience.

The Dark Lord’s first form is a huge step up from his form before absorbing Yggdrasil and this first form fight was fun and had me itching to say some good things about it but honestly? I want to save praise for the fight that deserves it- phase 2.

PHASE TWO THOUGH!? GOD TIER RPG FIGHT.

I’ve seen better, sure, but come on, we’ve ALL seen better at all times on all things especially considering preferences coming into it- this was a 10/10 boss fight, top to bottom.

Design? Beautiful. Even continued the DQ obsession with puns with his tail being Mordragon, that is so PERFECT so ‘chef kiss’ flawless and it’s just a name. I LOVE how he looks. I LOVE how he moves around the arena changing which head you’re facing.

I love how each had different strengths to contend with (which I abruptly fucked up, don’t call me out, I’ll prove I know what was going on right here and right now-). The dragon had strong melee and breath attacks while the dark lord himself had magic aplenty.

I even utilized swapping out for the first time ever not because I hadn’t seen the value beforehand (I’ve spoken on how interesting a strategic option it was seeing as every unit has unique moves to bring to the table and it costs nothing but ATB for that unit to do).

Now, I fucked that up, but I did it purely because this is the first fight up to this point that felt right to do so. It’s the first time the tactical value of switching out to buff defenses with Hendrik outvalued ignoring that option and maintaining my ATB on whomever I would switch out. THAT FELT SO GOOD! And then I let my braindead fingers buff defense on a magic phase and you see the point. It was brilliant but I was not!

I did end up ignoring the option after a few turns not because the value wasn’t there, but because he ALSO spams stat neutralizing moves which made me reconsider focusing so heavily on buffs and instead focusing on maintaining steady heals (mostly with Hustle dance).

This fight? Beautiful. I loved every second of it. I loved adjusting my playstyle on the fly, I loved finding my footing. I just loved it.

Beyond that- the ending. I got a chuckle out of how abrupt the credits come in. It seems to wind up for an end sequence only for Erik to say “Well, let’s go home” and it cuts to the credits- but THEN the credits ARE the end sequence so it wasn’t ACTUALLY as abrupt as it seemed, but it got a laugh out of me.

Now those credit scenes? I’m a sucker for games that make you fall in love with the characters and this was an ending catering to those characters. Not too much to say outside of “I was smiling the entire time” which is true.

There were a couple moments in that sequence that I said aloud “JUST HUG HIM YOU COWARD” to various characters, like Hero and Rab, or the two dorks (hero and Gemma), etc.

And they played on the mystique of the post game’s content well enough to pull people in I’d say- certainly more than what I recall DQ8 doing with the dragon trials.

I am probably wrong, but I recall the game drawing next to no attention to that post game content aside from a few moments in the game dragging you to the location only to not let you access it (hinting at more being there).

Anyway.

Honestly, after rambling about the video itself I feel a lot of what I wanted to say about DQ11 was said during the playthrough just fine. I rarely feel that way.

DQ11 was fun.

As a DQ fan, you can best believe I had fun.

As a stick in the mud who is disillusioned toward the game industry and doesn’t like a lot of the filth that accumulates within it- I obviously have a few negative thoughts on the game, but there really aren’t perfect games so much as perfect experiences based on how it affected you.

And I’ve voiced those annoyances plenty I think. For completion sake there are cut corners on animations that seem off when other places have a ton of attention to detail, that’s like bottom rung “I don’t actually give a shit” stuff though.

The bigger problems were Sugiyama is a horrible piece of human garbage and the game is lesser because of his influence on it. There are plenty of reasons behind that both big and small. Big- it feels gross having a human shitsack touching this game after having been so vocal for years- there are replacements at the ready and we still have his LGBT hating, war crime denying fingers handling the music? Shameful.

Small (but man did it fucking suck) being that every five minutes I was annoyed at the music in this game. It sounds Bad. And I mean both orchestral and midi, it’s not great compared to anything he made before for DQ, but the fact that it’s midi in this is EAR BLISTERING.

I’m not one to listen close to most music while playing for whatever reason- and I admit that knowing who’s responsible is half of why my ears tuned it in instead of tuning it out, but man I couldn’t help it and it sucks.

The same 3 second ear rattling loops are ALL OVER THE PLACE. Grandiose moments are cut short by bland midi tunes. MAIN STORY MOMENTS ARE LACKING MUSIC ALTOGETHER FOR SOME REASON? When the hero gets the flute and plays it for the first time it just DIDN’T MAKE A NOISE? Subsequent uses of the flute made a noise, but not the main first cutscene?

It’s a whole thing.

And don’t make me get that dirty capitalist pain in my chest over the fact the S version was released 2 months after this and includes so much content that SCREAMS “This already existed and we diced and quartered it specifically to create the illusion of ‘value’ for this release”. Disgusting, man. :/

Gameplay wise, the biggest complaint I have is so loaded and half hearted but I have to say it anyway.

DQ is good because it’s simple.

DQ can also be a little lacking because it’s simple.

This was the second most fun I’ve had playing a main series DQ game (DQIII just hits right), and it definitely has better gameplay (so my opinion is subjective) than the one I prefer to this. But it was also a bit too simple... But you can’t change that and be DQ, it’s complicated.

To just say it- other than the final boss every encounter was a bit too easy. And I know I overlevel, I know that’s the point, I know there’s a hard mode modifier- I KNOW, but the final boss was REALLY GOOD AND still not too hard, so the fact that most every other encounter did the minimum or the minimum +1 is a little tiny (just a bit) disappointing because the gameplay could have been that much better.

But. That could just be my head spinning tales and being a biased asshole especially since I’m not offering any solution here and I’m admitting it’s both “better than my favorite gameplay in the main series” and “probably can’t be made more involved without losing DQ simplicity”.

But I’d kill for some different or new systems on top of this- dual and triple techs from Chrono instead of RNG pep, bosses with more varied strategies instead of “stun 2-3 and do raid wide attack”.

A reason to care about elemental damage (both incoming and outgoing), plenty of little things that would just make the already solid as hell combat more interesting to participate in.

Story was honestly fantastic. I didn’t know how I was going to end that until I just let it come. It was. This is the best DQ story thus far, and not to limit it to that scope- this was a GOOD DAMNED STORY overall and I’ve played a fuckload of games with good stories.

Before this I was a sucker for the original trilogy’s overarching story, which is unfair because that’s 3 games and that’s an old story and it’s only “good” because it’s unprecedented. But this is just plain great.

It writes such beautiful characters- it tackles a variety of conflicts both big and small- you have Sylv and his dad, you have a possessed king declaring his daughter Jade dead and Jade knowingly betraying him without knowing he’s possessed, you have Erik giving up on life and only putting himself so deeply into this adventure as a means of escape, you have Hendrik’s loyalty being- I can’t pretend Hendrik fits in he’s fucking stupid and needs to ask questions because loyalty for the sake of loyalty isn’t interesting at all lol.

You have Rab believing the world is doomed and doing all he can with Jade up until they find you are alive. You have the INCREDIBLE story of Veronica and Serena- you have all these intensely lovable and understandable characters (and Hendrik) and the story is so much more about them than just about the dark lord and the hero.

It’s so much more about each of their conflicts and growth because all of that is HOW the hero will defeat the dark lord.

It’s just so much more... investing than any of the stories I’ve had in DQ before and strong as hell amongst stories beyond just DQ.

I loved this. It was emotional at times, it was downright depressing at times which I wouldn’t expect DQ to successfully hit, it was downright rewarding getting to know these characters and I feel fantastic having beaten this.

This game is fucking good. I finally understand why some people have told me this is their favorite DQ now. It... yeah I think it might be mine too.

I’d be much more likely to revisit DQ3 than this because it’s shorter and has a specific kind of RPG (class based with freely recruited partners instead of named party members) I find more fun to revisit, but yeah, I think I agree.

I think for main-series DQs this is it, this is my favorite. It has to be, right? It’s got so many INCREDIBLE story moments and it’s pretty and it plays great- yeah. Hell, Sylvando as a character and Serena and Veronica’s arc BY THEMSELVES convince me of that.

Still got nothing on DWM and DWM 2 on the GBC, WOOOOT! Didn’t expect this post to divert from a serious closing thoughts (despite there being a few more posts to come) topic to posting this did you?

Behold the true faces of DQ perfection.

[jadekitty777]

Chapter 3: Land Home

Time to end the little drabble series! This one is full of sugar and fluff.

Day 6: Rekindling @taiqrowweek

Rating: K

Words: 1400

Summary: On the cusp of his departure, Qrow has one last thing to do.

Ao3 Link: Path to the Sun

~

He finds Tai out on the porch, lounging with his feet up on the railing and a mug of tea in his hands. The night is surprisingly brisk for August, but despite the crispness in the air, the fireflies were out and dancing around the yard. Zwei, their new puppy, was racing back and forth, trying to catch the bugs between his teeth.

Tai turned from that show to smile at him. “Girls give you any trouble?”

“Well, Ruby tried to speed wash the dishes. Again.” Qrow said as he settled down beside him. “Didn’t work. So I had to make her start over.”

A snort. “Of course she did.”

It had only been a few weeks ago that Ruby had discovered her semblance was super speed, but naturally that had opened a curiosity in what she could accomplish with it. Particularly any chores that could be considered time consuming (which meant, all of them). They were getting kind of familiar with haphazardly folded clothes and water spots still left on the windows or the car.

Tai said she was being reckless – how would she learn discipline if they didn’t set some rules down? Qrow said she was being experimental – how would she know her limits if she didn’t test them?

They hadn’t yet come to agreement and today, Tai certainly didn’t seem inclined to start the conversation, merely resting further back in the cushions of the porch seat. “Thanks, for doing everything tonight.”

“Don’t get too comfortable with it. This is a birthday exclusive.” He slid closer, resting against his shoulder. “Tomorrow it’s back to the status quo.”

A kiss, featherlight, was pressed against his head. “I know, I know.”

They stayed like that for some time, enjoying the rare bit of calm provided under the light of the broken moon. Nestled together like this, Qrow could almost pretend that things were normal. That next week they’d be starting their classes at Signal together just like they had the past six years now. He could already picture the first day: He’d be improvising his lesson plans, Tai would be sticking to his down to the very letter, and they’d definitely be rushing to the breakroom at lunchtime to sign up for the yearly field trips together (No way they’d let Alma and Stoat get “Grimm Sea Life Studies Down at the Beach” again!).

But this time around, there would be none of that. Because Qrow had finally put in his resignation at Signal and returned his Huntsman status on the mission board back to “On Duty”.

He wouldn’t say he hated his profession as a teacher, but there was no denying he’d begun to feel like he had stagnated in life. Become a useless set piece at the school and even in the house; a decoration that was nice to look at but ultimately unneeded for the day-to-day. Of course, Tai vehemently disagreed with those notions, thinking perhaps he was letting his insecurities get the best of him.

Qrow had no idea how to verbalize to him that he had to be a part of something in which he felt like he was doing the most good. It was the only way he felt right. He needed something bigger, grander, more fulfilling and he certainly wasn’t fulfilling that as an eighth-grade professor.

But his desires had made things a bit rickety between him and Tai. Every time the topic came up, his lover struggled to respect his need to leave while combating the want to keep him close. Safe. Here. Battled against his inhibitions. His fears. Things that had laid in his heart like scars on the skin from previous losses.

In a way, it was comforting, to know he meant that much to Tai. That these four years they’d been together had as great an impact on him as it had for Qrow himself. It was something else, something rich and undefinable, being loved and wanted. To know this would always be his home and the people within would always welcome him.

Which was what led him to say, “I got something for you.”

“Oh?” Tai’s laugh rumbled against his ear. “So you didn’t forget my birthday for the 12th year in a row?”

“I was trying to go for an unlucky 13, thank you very much.” Qrow joked, pulling back to give them space. “Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”

A brow was arched suspiciously, but he straightened up, twisting his body to face him more fully. “I swear, if you put slime in my hands or something…” He murmured as he cupped his hands out and let his eyes fall shut.

“Don’t tempt me.” Qrow joked, aware how tight his voice sounded as his nerves started to get the better of him. He pulled out the trinket from his pocket, where it had been burning a hole all evening, and dropped it in his grasp. Ignored the way his hands started to shake. No turning back now. “Okay, you can look.”

Tai’s eyes opened and he looked down.

A second later, his gaze snapped back to him, shocked. “Qrow, is this-?” He trailed off, staring back down like he couldn’t believe what he was holding.

Laying in the palm of his hand was a necklace. The handmade pendant was the same shape as Tai’s emblem, but, to hold the halves of the heart together, Qrow had crafted a sun in the middle. Embedded in the face of that sun was a piece of the turquoise gemstone that had been sitting on his shelf for so many years now.

Yet, it wasn’t the flare and glitz of the design that captivated Tai so completely.

No, it was the silk blue cord that acted as the chain his eyes were locked onto, his fingers brushing along it like it was delicate as glass.

Delicate, like the question Qrow was truly asking him.

There was an old yet simple legend in Anima, one as ancient as Remnant itself, that told the tale of how the Sky and Sea created the world. It was said that before everything, the planet was nothing but a black husk. There was no light and no color. The dark Sea, growing lonely in its isolation, eventually called into the nothingness. A voice from far, far away, replied. It was the Sky.

Knowing they weren’t alone, they went on a blind journey together, trying to find one another. There were a lot of versions of what followed, tales modified from the story being orated for so long, but it all ended the same way: Eventually, the Sky and Sea fell in love with each other and that powerful emotion drew them together. The moment they touched, they turned blue and the horizon and the continents came to be.

Though centuries had passed and science and understanding of the world had proven such ideas ridiculous, Anima still held tight to their oldest fairytale in ways that could still be felt today. Like having their capital’s signature color be blue and bestowing children with aeronautical and marine-based names.

But the one tradition that stood out above all the rest was the Gift of Blue Thread. It was the act of presenting a lover with an item, typically jewelry, on a piece of blue ribbon. Because, as the saying went:

Give them something of cerulean thread, like sky and sea you’ll be forever wed.

Qrow felt his throat knot up, and the speech he had practiced got caught in the snare, only a few words from it escaping. “I was thinking, uh, maybe you might want something a bit more permanent, between us.” He paused, dipping his head. Felt his cheeks flare up as he managed to get the sappy sentiment out between his teeth, “So that you know, no matter how dark things get, I’ll always try to find my way back to you.”

A beat.

Then, predictably, Tai was laughing.

He ruffled up instantly. “What’s so funny? I’m being serious!”

“I know.” Arms wound around him, pulling him in until he was practically spilling along his lap. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m just really happy.”

“Then…” Qrow murmured where his face was buried against his neck, “It’s a yes?”

With as much gentleness as he had the necklace, Tai caressed his fingers along his face, down along his cheek and his jawline, before cupping his chin and pulling him free of his hiding spot.

He stared into blue, blue eyes as Tai lent close, whispering, “I can’t think of anything I’d want more than you.”

When their lips finally touched, Qrow swore he felt the start of their own world together.

[kariachi]

I have had the idea of Azmuth brushing reboot!Kevin off for too long, and have finally written something in relation to it.

~~

It sort’ve started with Azmuth waving Kevin’s watch off as a shoddy knockoff. But it really started with Argit and Susi getting in his face about it. Even Ben had to admit it was a thing of beauty to watch the two of them snap and snarl verbal circles around the older alien and his daemon, tearing down everything from their intelligence to their sense of basic decency, all because they’d had the audacity to act like their best friends weren’t absolutely brilliant.

In the end Azmuth presented a challenge, a chance to prove Kevin wasn’t (was) as smart as Argit claimed. He would provide the proper blueprints to the Omnitrix- the version Ben had, not anything he was working on right now- and Kevin would have the opportunity to try to build his own using them. Properly this time, with no materials he couldn’t get himself, without scavenging off his existing watch or using it to boost his own abilities.

Kevin, having never backed down from even an imaginary challenge in his life nonetheless one dropped right in his lap, accepted.

~~

Three days in and Kevin had drawn out about twelve different copies of the blueprints, each modified to account for materials available on Earth. Argit and Susi were on ‘steal us this’ duty and loving it, while Annelie had been a bird ever since they got their hands on the first blueprint.

Ben and Cassie thought the whole thing was very boring, watching Kevin and Annelie chatter amongst themselves as they made changes and worked out problems and otherwise did nothing but sit at a table paying no attention to anybody that didn’t have fur. At least, until they finally got up and headed their way at a purposeful march.

Kevin at a purposeful march was never a good thing for Ben.

“What do you want,” he asked slowly, cautiously.

“I need to check some things,” Kevin replied in a distracted tone, eyes focused on the Omnitrix. Before Ben knew it Annelie was a water buffalo, pinning Cassie to the ground even as she shifted repeatedly, and his arm was caught up under Kevin’s while the older boy took a set of tools to it.

“What the- Let go!”

“Nope, gotta check this.”

“If you break the Omnitrix-!”

“I’m not gonna break it, loser, just hold still.”

Glaring, Ben did as he was told. Kevin was bigger than him, and Annelie seemed to always be able to outdo Cassie, so without being able to use his own watch there really wasn’t much choice. Piece by piece, Kevin dismantled the Omnitrix, carefully arranging everything he removed in an order Ben didn’t understand. He grumbled back and forth with Annelie as he did so.

“I was right, it is bigger on the inside, see?”

“That explains what those bits do and why they’re placed like that. What about the power source?”

“Looks like exactly the mess on the blueprints.”

“Ugh.”

“I know, and the storage system? We’re going to have to do a complete overhaul, Annie.”

“No, no, just enough to work with for this one.”

“This is a disaster.”

“It’s a prototype, we get it working then we’ll fix it in the next iteration. Watch two-point-oh.” With an aggravated sigh Kevin gave into his daemon’s logic and began putting the watch back together.

“Still gonna make it better than this mess,” he grumbled, Annelie simply nodding.

“Well yeah, we have some pride.”

As soon as the Omnitrix was back in one piece Ben and Cassie were released and the older pair returned to their work. Ben spent the rest of the day testing to make sure the Omnitrix was working right.

He could’ve gone to Azmuth but, it didn’t feel right.

~~

Kevin and Annelie spent another four days just surfing the ethernet and internet, doing far too much research. They hadn’t even known the two of them could research. Thought they’d just, gone by ear in everything they did. But then, Gwen and Llyr had pointed out, they did study magic for a while, and they had to have learned tech stuff in the first place somehow.

Nobody but Argit and Susi knew exactly what they were researching, but they were doing a lot of grumbling, and at one point Annelie went and tore out a chunk of Jennett’s fur.

~~

It was ten days in total before they chose an abandoned building, dragged a buttload of stolen tools and materials to it, and handed off Kevin’s watch to Argit for safekeeping. After that? Nobody saw them but Argit and Susi. Occasionally the alien pair would come out and return with things like materials, food, water, threats to quill Kevin if that’s what to took for them to fucking sleep, and so on and so forth. This went on for three weeks. Three weeks! Before Kevin strode back out into the open air, Annelie a proud and preening crow on his shoulder, with a new watch strapped to his wrist.

It looked a whole lot like the old one, on purpose they were all certain. Enough so that they might have mistaken the two had Argit not been right behind them, holding the original loosely in his hand. The same reds and blacks and browns, if anything looking more edgy. Because that was apparently possible.

“Ladies, gentlemen, amazing people of all ages,” Annelie called, “we present to you the new, and very improved, Omnitrix.” With a dramatic flourish, Kevin dialed up and transformed into Dark Matter, seemingly just to be a brat. “Seriously, what even is that power system, we were able to find four better options just surfing the ethernet for a few days.”

“None that would power it as efficiently in the space available.”

“Dude you are wasting so much space,” Kevin countered, “I have to assume it was a powerplay.”

“Very inefficient.”

“So what are you two doing then,” Gwen asked, stepping forward to get a better look as Kevin transformed back- making a point to do so purposefully, so they’d probably made some adjustments there, again. This was clearly the right question, because the two of them brightened like the sun.

“We could only use stuff on Earth, so we stole some of the latest in solar tech- you’ll see that here- as well as applying kinetics, along with a few other things, since we had the space for all of them. Even then we made the interior smaller than it was.”

“We redid the dna storage system too,” Annelie added, “we had to rework it for smaller size to work within our energy constraints. We’ll do another rework when we can get better power supplies going.”

“See, the biggest power drain is actually the transformations themselves, so we-”

~~

Two hours. Kevin and Annelie spent two hours discussing just how they’d made the power work, starting in layman’s terms and working their way up to language that went over everyone but Azmuth and Jennett’s heads. It had to make sense though, because once they stopped talking Azmuth inspected their work and described it begrudgingly as ‘acceptable’.

None of them would see Argit and Susi that proud again until children started happening.

[nymphl]

Lie to Me – Hux x Reader - Ch.8 - Right & Wrong

A/N: Hello! I know I promised to update every Friday, but things got a bit crazy here with my Masters and real life and everything, so you know... I couldn’t exactly update. But I do promise to do my best to update every Friday from now on. I hope you enjoy this chapter xD It’s one of my fav ^^  

Story Summary: Falling for the enemy… That’s probably the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. Letting him live… for he should be dead. And you should’ve been the one to kill him. You had him, right there… and you let it escape through yours fingers. He lived. And now only the time could tell if you made the right decision — more likely wrong — by saving the amnesiac General of the First Order and telling him he was your husband. [Hux x Reader - Hux x You]

Warnings for the entire story: Will contain at times; graphic violence, sex, drugs and manipulation, coarse language and OOCness.

AO3 Tags: from enemies to lovers; eventual romance; memory loss; fake marriage; fake marriage becomes real marriage; rebellion; married couple; canon divergence; slow burn romance; politics; rebel alliance; resistance; first order; OOCness; eventual smut; eventual sex; power play; power dynamics; syndicate; lies; you lie; Hux lies; Hux backstory; manipulation; political alliances; political betrayals; secret organizations.

Wordcount: 5243

PREVIOUS CHAPTER *** NEXT CHAPTER

KRIFFS!

You should not have said that. You should have kept your words to yourself; your thoughts should have stayed deeply buried in your mind.

Yet, you had to voice them.

You had to say what should have never left your lips.

He froze in your embrace; his arms sort of slackening around you. In response, you tightened your hold around him and inhaled his scent. He smelled nice. And it was not just because he had showered. There was something else…

As if on cue, the streetlamp near the two of you flickered in again and this time the light shone upon you. You took a step back and caressed the fabric of his shirt. A frown marred your features.

You even opened your mouth to ask where he got them, but he held your hand and, in silence — because he never explained himself, you quickly noticed this —, pulled you out of the alley.

He guided you in the streets northwards, tracing the way back to the Hospital. If possible, your frown deepened. What was he doing? You knew that given your current physical state, it would be useless to make him stop with your hands; even his pace — which was not that fast — left you utterly exhausted.  

“My house is on the other way,” you pointed out, voice a bit higher, so he could hear you over the sound and sight of people parading on the streets as if some sort of festival was taking place.

You shook your head and planted your feet firmly on the ground. Still holding his hand, you pulled him more forcefully than necessary, forcing him to look at you over his shoulder. His light eyebrows were raised. It was clear he did not understand your actions.

“Please don’t take me to the Festival,” you whispered. Your felt all blood drained of your face. The mere thought of taking part — even seeing it — made your stomach churn. You trembled. “Please, I—

He shifted his attention to you, holding your face between his fingers. He eased his thumb over your bottom lip, preventing you from punishing it further. When he was sure you would not bite yourself any longer, he removed his black coat and placed it over your shoulders.

“Which Festival?”

Relief flooded you; some warmth returned to your body — and certainly not because of his coat.  

“You aren’t taking me to the Festival?”

His lack of answer was answer enough. A sigh left you as you closed your lids and breathed deeply through your nose. Your nostrils flared; the smell of food was so strong it was almost nauseating. The sound of drums was getting louder and louder as the passersby walked past the two of you singing and playing their instruments.

The General held you closer — and you begrudgingly admitted he was getting good at this, even if it still seemed awkward to him —, not letting you go even after it was just the two of you in the darkened streets again.    

“Thank you,” you whispered and broke away from his grasp.

He held your shoulders, giving them a slightly squeeze, “I was taking you to the speeder bike.”

Speeder bike? You did not recall having one. Well, you once had a landspeeder when Aquilla was still an Emissary to the Senate, but that was so long ago, you even thought the model probably had been dismantled and its parts used power-up other speeders.

As expected, he gave you no further explanations as he guided you to a shiny speeder bike and handed you a helmet. You accepted it willingly — the first question on your tongue was whether he had stolen the vehicle and whom he had killed to have it, because apparently the words ‘murder’ and ‘General Armitage Hux’ walked hand in hand.

A shiver ran down your spine as you mounted it and embraced him by the waist firmly. You had lots of questions, but for now, you would have to wait. It is, at least until you got home. What mattered the most now was to stay away from that damned Festival and the fanatic people who usually attended it.

The way back home was silent and almost peaceful. After almost five years walking by yourself everyday — you had no vehicle, so you had to walk if you wanted to go anywhere —, the velocity of the speeder bike left you a bit dizzy. However, he was a smooth driver and although you would rather have your feet firmly placed on the ground you could not complain after getting home in record time.

He was the first to disembark, offering his hand to you shortly after. As soon as you slipped the helmet out of your head, the first words came to life in your mouth.

“You left home.”

It was no question. You knew it for a fact, but you wanted his confirmation. He had barely nodded before you open your mouth to assault him with all the questions that were bombarding your mind.

He silenced you with a gesture. It made you bit your bottom lip, in anger. Even if you lived alone for five years — in which you took care of yourself and became your own rightful owner —, it was difficult not to go back to some old habits your father had taught you. If a man — any man, but mainly your husband — is speaking, you should not interrupt him and if he wants to speak, you should be silent and pay attention to him.

That… Or the General indeed knew how to command every attention…

…which he did.

It did not mean your own actions left you less upset with yourself than you were right now with him.

Shaking your head, you trailed your way to the door with him right behind you. As soon as you opened it, you were assaulted with the smell of food and the sight of lights all turned on.

You furrowed your brows, but before you could shift your attention to ask him what had happened, a protocol droid bowed dutifully in front of you.   

“General Hux and Lady Hux, welcome back.”   

The entire situation left you agape.

You closed and opened your mouth once and twice, not really sure what you should say. The General was right behind you, mere inches apart, but his warmth enveloped all of you. He said nothing — as you expected — so you forced yourself to ask, “Do we have a protocol droid now?”

“I am D-Five, at your disposal, my Lady.”

“Where did you get him?”

You were not sure if he did not want to respond or if the protocol droid — a modified version of the popular 3PO series — was too nosy, but he never had the time to come up with a reply. The shiny droid took your bag from Hux’s hand and started making his way towards the bedroom.

Needless to say, you were left speechless at the state of the entire house. Instead of the messy living space you were used to, there was a tidy, welcoming home.

“Did you do it all by yourself? Did you have any help?” you asked, running a finger over the headboard of your bed. The wood was so clean and lustrous it seemed it was new.

You looked around and was shocked to realize how much space you had. The house seemed much bigger than it actually was. You shifted your attention back to the protocol droid and accepted the towel he was offering you.

“I took the liberty of preparing you a relaxing bath, my Lady. General Hux said you would be tired when you arrived.”

He did not give you any time to come up with any sort of thanks.

“Dinner is also ready, and I fixed the electricity problem.”   

You furrowed your brows.

It made no sense whatsoever.

“You’re a protocol droid, not a domestic droid.”

“A protocol droid is created to serve its owners in any way they see fit, my Lady. It’s a pleasure serving you and General Hux.”

That lead you to another question.

As you heard no signal of your husband around, you approached the protocol droid and whispered to him, “And where did the General get you?”

If D-Five thought of a reply, you did not know, because at the same time your husband entered the room, his bluish eyes narrowed.

“You are dismissed, D-Five.”

“General.” The droid bowed dutifully. “My Lady.”

You watched the whole scene with arched brows. It simply made no sense. The entire day seemed like a ridiculous dream — nightmare? You started the day by being trained — tortured, you had no other word to his training sessions — by the General and then you felt watched your entire shift at the Hospital, and when you left you were ambushed by the General himself, only to find out he was not the one following and watching you throughout the day. Then he kissed you — leaving you wanting more — and you realized that you were not as immune to him as you wanted to be.

As you believed yourself to be.

As if that was not enough, the two of you almost entered a Festival whose meaning and importance you did not want to acknowledge right now. He brought you back home in a speeder bike that came out of nowhere and when you got home there was a protocol droid waiting for you with the house in one piece — in fact, it was in better shape than you had left it when you went to the Hospital that morning — and with the necessary repairs you have been postponing for what felt like your entire life now.

Could this day get any weirder?

The first words to leave your mouth were not to question him about any of this, but instead to chastise him on his impolite behavior.

“You should have thanked him.”

He looked at you as if he had never heard anything stupider — and that was a habit of him that you more than hated. He stared at you as if you were a very different alien almost twice a day. It was insulting! — and started unbottoning his shirt.

“It is a protocol droid. It exists to serve. It doesn’t need thanks or compliments for doing what it has been programed to.”

You simply hated how he stressed the word it every kriffing time. You felt like saying you thought that D-Five was courteous — even if a bit creepy —, but stopped when he pulled his undershirt over his head.

“What are you doing?” you asked while turning around. The quick movement made your vision go blurry for a moment. You realized you really needed to feed and get some sleep. Your body would not go far if you kept that insane routine.

There was no need to look at him to know he had that impossibly blue eyes of his narrowed — the thought in his head was certainly of how stupid your complaint was. You heard his steps before you felt him touching your shoulders. It was with some difficulty that you did not jump startled.

“You should bathe before the water grows cold.”

From your part there was only a nod.

Albeit unwilling and unsure — mostly unsure —, you let him help you removing your own shirt. You wore a black tank top beneath it, which you would remove yourself in the fresher. And would was a rather good word to define it, for he did not wait for you to move and merely hooked his fingers under the article of clothing and pulled it over your head.

A sharp intake of breath left you as he traced his fingers over your nude shoulder-blades and then placed a small kiss on your nape. You trembled in his arms and subconsciously leaned against his warmth.

Your back was met with his chest. You closed your eyes as a shiver went through your entire body. It seemed as if thousands of butterflies danced in your stomach as he leisurely traced your forearms, till he reached your hands and brought them to his neck, forcing your fingers to entwine in his ginger hair. All the while he never stopped showering your shoulder and scapula with small kisses.

Part of you — the rational and sane you — screamed at you to put a stop to this madness. Another part — guided by the deep craving you felt —, begged you to let him continue with his assault to your senses. It had been so long since you last felt this relaxed in a man’s embrace… besides you were too tired to put up a fight right now — and you were not really sure you wanted to.

Not when he used his fingers to lift your chin — and put his hand on your throat — and guided you in a soft, even if lustful, kiss. You should — and would — feel ashamed later when you realized you were the first to deepen the kiss and slip your tongue inside his mouth, tasting him — the first to let out a moan.  

The sensory overload made you gasp inside his mouth when he left your throat — such a pity, you were getting used to his show of absolute power over you — brought both hands to the front of your breasts and touched the opening of your bra. They did not remain there though, slithering through your skin to your hips, pulling the strings of your breeches to let them pool around your feet.

It was as if you had not realized you were almost naked — you had never gone that far! Last time, when you demanded him to kiss you, you were mostly clothed — in front of him. He was still kissing you — fiercely this time — and you still had your fingers entwined in his hair. He left you no choice but to follow his lead. He was demanding and thoroughly dominated your mouth, leaving it — leaving you — at his mercy.

He positioned his hands on your hips brought you against him, causing you to brush against his erection — Maker, he was hard! —; and groaned in your mouth. He bit your bottom lip lightly before drawing apart. His breath tickled your neck as he whispered against your ear,

“You should bathe. Now.”

Craving his attention — his lips, his warmth, his body pressed against yours; his cock deep inside you —, you ground against him again, eliciting a quiet moan from him. He bit your earlobe and planted a small kiss behind your ear.

“Unless you want me to bathe you later.”

His husky — needy even, you were not sure which of you had fallen deeper for the baser instincts — voice coupled with how his fingers found your clit and expertly handled it had you snapping out of it.

You nailed him and shook your head.

It took you a while — and a moan; he was thoroughly good at it and it was with some regret that you had to stop him — to find your voice.

“S-Stop.”

He did not need to be told twice. He removed his fingers from your undergarments and stepped away.

You looked at him over your shoulder, avoiding his eyes. You kept your attention on his chin and lips, which was a terrible mistake — you realized quite soon — for he brought his fingers to his mouth and licked them clean. Eyes widened, you looked at the entirety of his face, only to find his bluish orbs focused on you. They were of a darker shade of blue and hid nothing of his lust.

It was obvious he was grimly struggling, but he kept away from you nonetheless. He respected your space as you asked him to.

“I am sorry,” you whispered. “I am so sorry. I-I can’t.” You backed away towards the refresher; your eyes on your feet. You doubted you would be able to look at him in the face without blushing for a while now.

You could barely believe you had let it go that far!

“I think it’s best if I…” It was struggle not to place both hands on your face and shake your head in shame. “Alone… I mean…”

You stopped making a fool of yourself and closed the door behind yourself. You hit your head against the wooden once and twice. Your thundering heart almost made it impossible to hear him approaching the refresher. He did not open it, which brought you some relief, but his whispered words left your heartbeats in a mess all over again.   

“Of course you do.”

You were not sure what he meant with those words and even less sure if you wanted to figure it out.

Dinner was a quiet, awkward event.

You did not raise your eyes from your plate, afraid to find his impossibly blue eyes focused on you — to find the wrong judgment of your actions. You knew, however, he was staring at you and that at some moment you would have to face him. If not now, you would have to do it when the two of you retired.

It was obvious he would not relinquish his place in the bed tonight.

The mere thought made you gulp.

Part of you was also afraid of the questions he would start asking soon. Last time had him asking if he was impotent, and after finding that such assumption was not the case — in a very scandalous fashion that had you blushing now at the remembrance —, he inquired you about his ability to create life — and yours too.

What followed that was a heart wrenching moment that you had no desire to remember in its entirety.

You shook such thoughts away and finally — with some internal struggle and a heart beating madly against your ribcages — cast a glance at him. To your surprise, although he was looking at you, he did not seem focused on you. Instead, he seemed lost in his own little world.

A sigh escaped you.

If you did not question him, he would question you. And you did not even want to think what he would ask you this time.

“Where did you…” you started, your voice small and very low. The words came out almost as whispers. They were enough to make him shift his attention to you and focus those blue eyes of his on you. You bit your bottom lip. You hated how he always seemed able to read your very soul with a mere stare. “Where did you get the droid? And the clothes? And the speeder bike?”

He did not give you an immediate reply.

As kriffing expected.

Instead, he gestured towards your plate in a silent question whether you had finished your meal. You nodded, and he removed the tableware, placing it inside the sink. You expected him to either wash it or start talking. He did neither.

“My Lord?”

He turned to face you. His eyes on your face as he started, “I have some credits in accounts that are unknown to the First Order”.

You gasped.

That could mean…

Did he already expect to be betrayed by his kin?

Or nothing… That could mean nothing. And you were just aiming high.

You bit your bottom lip and waited for him to continue.

He did not.

“You bought them with those credits,” you finished for him.

Well, that was… less than what you were expecting. But you were relieved that was the case. It was as if a heavy weight had been lifted off your shoulders. Walking towards the sink, you were ready to wash the tableware when he chained your wrists with his hands.

You looked up at him, brows furrowed. You knew there was more to come, and you could only hope for the best.

“I found the site where the battle took place.”

You looked up at him, surprised because he opened up to you and because he let immediately go of your wrists. He took two steps away, but if you were to have this conversation, you had to look at his face.

Biting your bottom lip, you did your best to control both your facial expressions and your messy heartbeats.

It was impossible to know what scared you the most: if the idea of him finding that you were not his wife or the possibility of him taking a life while you were away.  

“Did you find anything?”

“Wreckage and destruction,” he replied curtly.

You approached him, invading his personal space. You found yourself entwining your fingers together. Your thumb slightly brushing his pulse. It did not go unnoticed by you how you were at easy whenever you touched him and how you always did it when you were talking.  

“What more?” you whispered to him, looking at him in the eye.

His blue, icy orbs never seemed so distant nor more impossible to read than in that moment. Even if his warmth encircled and involved you, he was never so cold. It was if Dantooine suddenly became Hoth.

“My Lord?”

He disentangled the fingers of his right hand and brought it to your face. This time he did not brush against your throat, and merely brushed his thumb against your lower lip. It was a little swollen, a courtesy of your early kisses.

“These clothes belong to the First Order,” he replied nonchalantly. “There was no information whatsoever concerning the attack.”

That made you let out a relieved sigh.

It did not go unnoticed by him, but he did not say anything. Instead, he smoothed a strand of your hair between his fingers and placed it behind your ear. His eyes were thoroughly focused on your lips, which made your heart beat faster.

He was seriously not considering the possibility of…

…Again…

Right?

“The speeder bike…” you offered, not willing to stay a moment in silence. “Where did you get it?”

“The Syndicate.” That was another emotionless reply. One that had you widening your eyes and your breath coming out in a gasp. It took you a moment to realize he had left your side and was heading towards the bedroom.

“No.”

This time you did not turn away when he removed his shirt and folded it. You walked to him and touched his elbow. He immediately turned to face you.

You lost no time to trace the recent scar across his chest. He tried to remove your hands from him, but you waved him away and continued what you were doing. It was a terrible wound and whomever gifted him with it knew what to do. If you did not find him in time, General Armitage Hux would be just yet another story now.

It covered most of his chest. Starting right below his clavicle and ending after his last ribcage. If you had any bacta left, or could take it from the hospital without arousing suspicion, it would be less noticeable.  

“If you deal with them, they will do worse than this,” you whispered, against his warm skin. Your hand stopped right over his heart. It beat in a calm rhythm and your words did not seem to affect it in the least.

“Are you implying I cannot take care of myself, (Y/N)?”

The coldness in his tone made you look up. His eyes were as frosty as his voice.

You tried not to get intimidated by this and continued with your inquiry, “Seeing that you came back unscathed… Did…” You bit your bottom lip lightly. “Did you kill anyone?”

“You were not there to see.”

A slap could not have been any harsher.

You opened your mouth to say something — anything, he had to understand your concerns! —, but he beat you to it and added, “You can be at ease. I did not kill anyone.”

A sigh of utter relief left you.

He did not know how heavy your heart was right now. His admission had it feeling so much lighter now. You knew that whoever he killed — whoever lives he reaped from now on — it would be all on you.

It did not matter he was the one to pull the trigger, you had your share of guilty as well.

“Thank you,” you whispered again and broke apart. Part of you was apprehensive with his whole story and some piece, deep inside of you, did not trust his words completely. He was hiding something.

But so were you.

Perhaps you should let him have his secrets as well. Perhaps you should not worry before the time came… Perhaps you should… give him the benefit of doubt? If he said he did not kill anyone, then, maybe, he did not.

And why would he hide it from you?

It was not like he was shy about taking lives.

Contrary to you, he did not hesitate to pull the trigger.

Did he ever?   

A yawn left your lips. You were so tired you doubted that his company — his body next to yours — would be much of a hindrance tonight. You would sleep like a sated baby.

He did not allow you to go far, though. Holding onto your wrist, he brought you back to the comfort and warmth of his arms. You placed both of your hands on his shoulders, ready to keep him at bay in case he tried something else. It did not seem to faze him, for he buried his nose in your hair all the same.  

“Why were you so tense at the thought of the Festival?” His voice was no more than a soft murmur as he placed a small kiss to your neck.

This time there was no shiver, no butterflies dancing in your stomach.

There was nothing.

You froze in his arms.

That was certainly a topic you did not feel like revisiting.

Not tonight.

Not now.

Not with him.

And possibly not ever.

He seemed to have understood your reaction, for he did not press you further. Instead, he took you by your hand and lead you to the bed. You watched in silence as he pulled the blankets aside.

It was not comfortable. It was not awkward either. It was merely eerie and depressing — at least for you it was.

The fact that his bluish eyes were not on you — accessing you, judging you as you kind of expected and was already used to — made it even harder.  

You thought about apologizing — that was definitely not how you intended on finishing your day, but that was simply unavoidable — but stopped yourself. If he were in your place, he would not give you the same curtesy and, besides, that was probably an admission that would drive him further apart from you.

As if you had just awakened from a dream, you started helping him with the bed. The two of you moved in sync, adjusting the pillows and sliding under the blankets at the same time.

You turned your back to him and closed your eyes when he turned off the lights. Sharing the bed after so many years was no easy task, not when you were used to have all the space to yourself, but you knew you would manage. You expected him to shift to his side as well, but he did not.

Seconds in silence become minutes and you found yourself turning to face him. You supported your weight in one arm and outstretched your finger to poke him in the chest, but retreated shortly after.

It was obvious he was not sleeping yet. However, touching him and invading his personal space was maybe not the most recommended course of action to take.

“My Lord,” you whispered.

“You never say my name,” he observed. Once again, there was no trace of judgment in his voice and you could not see his eyes, which left you conflicted. Part of you thought it was for the best, he could read easily read you with those blue orbs of his and another part was not sure you wanted to keep a conversation where you could not face him and guess — because you never knew for sure — his thoughts.

The silence was sepulchral. That was a topic you did not want to discuss. If it depended on you, it would stay untouched; a big bantha in the room looming over you.

You shifted, adjusting your weight in order not to hurt your arm. He did the same and lay facing you. Both of you had your heads in the same pillow, sharing the same space and the same air. You could feel his breath on your face and a knot took place in your stomach.

“A-Armi… Armitage…” you tried. The word felt foreign in your lips. You had said it out loud only once… or twice before and neither had that same intimate connotation. You brought your hands to his face. It felt even foreign touching him and feeling no traces of his growing beard. You smoothed your fingers on the planes of his cheeks, tracing the contour of his nose and moving back to his jaw. “Armitage,” you repeated, your voice firm, even if lower this time.

He lost no time to crash his lips against yours, taking you by surprise. Your hands moved back to his chest — to keep him apart, to pull him closer, you did not know for sure. His made their way to under your shirt, tracing patterns on the small of your back.

Unlike earlier, they did not move higher, they caressed you innocently. His knee parted your legs as he settled between them. Your foot traced his calves and moved higher, bringing both of your hips closer together. He did not take your silent — and subconscious — invitation to grind against you.

He kept his distance, kissing you almost chastely. As if you were something precious he ought to worship. It made you feel worse than you felt when the two of you had that steamy, lusty moment earlier.   

You even opened your mouth to beg him to stop, but your throat was already closed with the need to cry. And cry you did. You buried your face against his chest and he ran his fingers through your hair in another awkward attempt of calming you down.

This seemed to throw a bucket of cold water over his head.  

“Sorry, I can’t…” you whispered against his skin.

His heart was beating faster this time as he moved away from you; his lips kissing your tears away in a soothing manner.

“It’s just… It’s not right.”

He remained silent for a moment, holding you while you cried even desperately. For each tear he kissed away, more came to take its place.   

Twice or thrice, or even more times, you repeated that it was not right. That it — the two of you — could not be.

Could never be.

He never said anything. He held you close and ran his fingers on your back, comforting you. He had moved away from you, sitting with his back against the headboard and you in the comfort of his arms.   

You dossed off in his embrace, no tears tainting your face anymore, when you heard his voice against your forehead.

“No, it’s not wrong.”

And when he thought you were not listening, he added, as if he had solved one of greatest mysteries of the galaxy,   

“You’re not afraid of intimacy, (Y/N). You’re afraid of enjoying it… With me.”

A/N - Well, that will be all for today. I’ll come back this Friday or next Friday, let’s see with chapter 9. See you xD

[suchastart]

Just Another Sleepy Sunday

Stranger Things, Eleven/Mike and the whole party. For @artemisrae​ who has been holding my hand, and for @juxtaposie​ ♥

Game night, a few years into the future.

AO3

*

She arrives under cover of darkness, the way she used to when they were younger—after sunset, wearing an oversized coat with the hood pulled up, and accompanied by the growling of Hopper’s truck. They’re already late. She would’ve been here half an hour ago if he had let her drive herself, which she’s told him several times already tonight in her eternal, ongoing quest for her license. At this rate, she’s going to graduate high school first.

Hopper pulls up to the curb. There’s no more time to waste. El flings the door open and runs for the house in the space of a breath.

“You’re gonna give me a heart attack,” Hopper yells through the open window.

She’s heard that time and again. It’s been years, and he hasn’t had a heart attack yet. In seconds, she crosses the yard and knocks on the front door—three one two, habit now, solid and safe—and smiles when Mrs. Wheeler opens the door. She looks beautiful, as always, hair curled and perfect, in a long corduroy skirt and a pink blouse. She looks tired, too.

“Hi,” El says, slightly out of breath.

“Hello, Jane.” Mrs. Wheeler looks over El’s shoulder, at the prints she’s made in the clean, dewy grass, and at Hopper, tromping slowly down the same path. She smiles. “Nice to see you both.”

“You, too, Karen,” Hopper says.

A beat of silence passes. El rocks forward and back on the balls of her feet. Awkward, she thinks. It’s a good word, made for something uncomfortable, strange, itchy underneath her skin.

“Would you like to come in for dinner, Jim?” Mrs. Wheeler asks, stepping back. “We have enough pizza to feed the neighborhood.”

“Ah, no thanks, just dropping the kid off.”

“Date night?”

Hopper scratches at his beard. “Me and an empty house. Gotta enjoy the quiet while you can. You know how it is.”

Mrs. Wheeler laughs, a pleasant, sad sound that pulls at the corners of her lips but not her eyes, and then, like Hopper grumbles at El sometimes, it is good timing—there is muffled yelling from the house, and thumping from downstairs, and then Mike is there, just like that.

“El!”

It’s like magic, even after so long. Her shoulders relax. “Mike.”

“Hi,” he says, smiling, freckles crinkling across his nose. It occurs to her, sometimes, how tall he is now; he leans down to reach for her hand, and when he tries to take her bookbag from Hopper, they’re at eye-level now. There’s a second of tension—Hopper keeps hold of the strap, and Mike tugs—but finally one of them wins, relents or prevails, it’s hard to tell, the way they’re frowning at one another.

“It’s cold,” El says.

“Well, let’s get you inside,” Mrs. Wheeler says, and guides her into the house. Mike shoulders her bag, and Hopper presses a gruff kiss to her head, and then she’s free. She’s got a clear path to the basement, to Will and Max and Lucas and Dustin, to their tent and walls and table that feel like home. It’s been a few weekends since the whole party has been able to get together like this; they’ve all been so busy with family and finals that tonight feels almost like a reunion, even though she sees her friends almost every day.

She’s halfway there when Mike squeezes her hand. She’d almost forgotten he’d been holding it.

“Hold on a sec,” he says, dropping her bag by the basement door. He tugs her toward the kitchen. “I have to show you something.”

She follows, a trail after a comet, and feels just as brilliantly warm when they pass the refrigerator and he turns on his heel, pushes his fingers through her hair, and kisses her.

El hums, pleased. It’s easier to get to his face when she’s up on her toes, and more comfortable for him, too, though he’s always said he doesn’t mind travelling down so, so far if she’s the one he’s reaching for. She holds onto his waist, the thin cloth of his t-shirt, and tries not to let her grin ruin their kiss. He’s unhurried, though—happy enough to laugh, and to nudge her nose with his, and to kiss her again, and again, and again.

Someone clears their throat.

Mike pulls away first. El touches a hand to her racing heart, startled, and exhilarated.

Mr. Wheeler stands at the sink, looking down at a book of crosswords. He sips lazily at whatever’s in his ceramic mug. “Not in the kitchen, Michael.”

“Is there a room you’d like to designate—”

“Enough of that, too. Go on downstairs. Your friends are yelling loud enough to wake the dead.”

Mike huffs. He’s still standing close enough that El can feel his shoulders stiffen, like a dog raising his hackles; she’s close enough to hook a finger in his belt loop and pull.

“Come on,” she says quietly. They say it to one another often enough that it makes her feel a little smug: “Pick your battles.”

Mr. Wheeler, probably overhearing, snorts.

"You pick your battles,” Mike grumbles, putting an arm around her shoulders and guiding them both safely from the kitchen.

Whatever. She knows well enough now who the bad guys are, and how to handle them.

They turn the corner, out of sight. El sniffs. In the kitchen, Mr. Wheeler shouts in surprise, and his mug shatters on the floor. “What in the hell— ”

Mike snickers. “Enough of that. Come on, the party’s been waiting for you all night.”

*

Their basement set-up survived their transition to high school. The same worn couch rests against the wall. A few new posters have been hung. Their table has gotten a little bigger, a little better—it’s an old fold-up job that Mike and Will found at Mrs. Nelson’s estate sale last summer, and sits their whole party comfortably with more space for Mike’s maps and screens. There’s enough room, too, for everybody to write and carve and draw things all over it. DUSTIN + MS MARISSA 4EVR. Mike Sux. What’s spell casting modifier?? Why am I here????

The fort remains, too. Different blankets every month or two. Sometimes taller, wider, depending on its varied guests; sometimes smaller when the cold sets in, when nightmares crawl a little too close for any of them to manage alone.

El comes down the stairs first, and Will and Dustin cheer. Max throws popcorn kernels at her.

“And our ringer arrives!” Lucas says, tossing El’s mage figurine at her.

She catches it, looks at the little miniature, magic version of herself. The more magic version, anyway. She sat with Mike when he painted it--watched his slow, careful fingers on the paintbrush, watched him take his time with the brown hair, the dark robes, the hint of a pink dress beneath.

Mike nudges her shoulder. She continues down the stairs, places her mage gently on the map, right between the cleric and the ranger, where she knew she’d ended up the last game.

“Thought you weren’t going to show,” Max says as El finds her seat. “Hopper change his mind?”

“Drove too slow.”

“Just like a cop.”

El steals the slice of pizza on Max’s plate, chews happily as the party gets settled around her.

Across the table, Will has his face in his player’s handbook, and Lucas hovers over his shoulder, talking about prepared spells and emergency healing and the colder climate they’ve been preparing to venture into for this arc. Dustin, muttering obscenities, is in the corner, trying to find a clear radio station, while Mike sits behind his screens, scribbling intently into one of his many notebooks.

Max takes her slice of pizza back. She wrinkles her nose at a stray olive, picks it off, tosses it at Dustin’s back. He doesn’t notice. There’s a little smear of tomato sauce on his sweatshirt.

“Can we just, like, skip gym on Monday?” Max sighs. “I’m already dreading it.”

El nods. She holds her hand out for Max’s pizza. Max hands it over, and El takes a bite. She wouldn’t say no to skipping class—particularly the literal hurdles they’ll have to jump on the track right after lunch, and the awful woman that relentlessly blows her whistle at them.

Maybe they can spend the hour walking the railroad tracks instead. That’d be a much more fun use of their time.

“Okay,” El says.

Max grins. “Yeah?”

It’s enough to make El laugh, almost instantly ebullient—a word for the well of feeling, of happiness that almost bubbles free from her heart. She leans into Max’s shoulder, holds up the pizza slice so Max can bite into it. They share the crust, and El tosses the last bite at Dustin. It hits the back of his head, and he almost falls over, he spins around so fast.

“One of you,” he says, picking up the crust piece from the floor and eating it, “changed this damn radio in the past week, and you know how temperamental it is!”

“You did,” El says.

“I absolutely did not—”

“Yes, you did,” Will says.

Lucas nods. “You were waiting for Roger Lowe’s stupid new show.”

“That wasn’t—and it isn’t stupid, it’s transcendent—”

“I saw you change it!”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t on 96.3 when I got down here—”

“Dustin—”

“—I haven’t been down here since Mike’s dumb one-off campaign that we bombed!”

“You mean that you bombed?”

“You changed it to that awful AM talk radio woman before you went to bed, because you said her voice helps you sleep better,” Mike says finally, brushing eraser debris from his papers. He looks at all of them expectantly. Dustin sits, and Will puts his book down. A strange, solemn silence settles around the table. “Everybody ready?”

El likes this part of the night the best, right after kissing Mike hello, and right before their game begins. A little shiver of anticipation runs down her spine. This is their story, the story they’ve built together over months and years of fighting and teamwork and failures, after countless hours of eating pizza and conquering all odds and doing it together.

Much like real life, but slightly less dangerous. She looks around at her friends, her party, and couldn’t imagine feeling any more full.

“Alright,” Mike says, narrowing his eyes, slipping easily into his storytelling voice. “You’re all deep in the twisting, gnarled innards of the underground titan, and you’re struggling to find your way in the dark. Your zoomer has left you in the small tunnel to scout ahead…”

*

They’re completely engrossed in the story. Things are dire. They are down half their health, and even less their stock of potions. Their most dear, wild-haired NPC has just fallen. The night is growing late, and they’re all full of soda and pizza and sadness, and Dustin is wiping tears from his face, while El—

El is cheating. She sits close enough to Mike that she can just see over his screens, and happens to catch sight of the little figurine that he’s hiding being a pencil sharpener and a few other miscellaneous monsters. It bodes ill for the fate of their party, but she can’t help it—

She’s ready when Mike amps up the tension, when he lets his words build and twist and snap, when he paints a huge cavern and terrible, shifting shadows and something that snarls in the dark—

“You blink,” Mike says, “and before you appears the Mega Demogorgon!”

He slams the figurine on the table. The floor shakes. The lights flicker. A bulb in the corner lamp bursts.

Lucas screams.

Somewhere upstairs, there’s a loud crash, and Mrs. Wheeler says, frantically, “Is that an earthquake?”

Mr. Wheeler’s voice is slow, almost inaudible. “There aren’t earthquakes in Indiana, Karen.”

“El,” Dustin says, clutching at his chest. His hat’s fallen off. His hair is in a smushed disarray. “That was not cool.”

“Not me.” El points at the figurine. “Demogorgon.”

Will exhales a shaky little laugh, and Max punches her shoulder, and Mike—he smiles at her, soft and gentle and maybe sort of awestruck, too. He tucks a curl of hair behind her ear, and thumbs his finger underneath her nose, pulls it away clean.

“Told you,” she tells him.

If anything, he looks a little more in love.

*

El holds Max’s hand underneath the table. Max, for all she cares not to care about the story, is doing a terrible job of it—she squeezes El’s fingers hard enough to hurt, and curses as their cleric falls prone beneath the Mega Demogorgon’s relentless attack.

“Can I do anything?” Max says. “Can I reach him?”

“You’ve already taken your action—”

“But can’t I dash , what’s the point of being a zoomer if I can’t fuckin’ run —”

“I’ll be fine,” Will says. He taps his pencil rapidly on his binder—taptaptaptaptaptaptap, and his other knee is bouncing against the leg of the table, and shaking everything, and El can feel his anxiety from so far away, knows he’s lying, always knows when he’s lying. He’s two death saves down, and El is every day learning the ins and outs of this complicated game, but she knows that’s bad.

Will looks unafraid. “It’s fine, Max.”

“We’ll get you up,” Lucas says, flipping frantically through the back of the manual. He’s about to bite through his lip. “We’ll do something. It’s gonna be fine.”

Dustin nods. He doesn’t look like it’s gonna be fine, but he nods anyway.

“It’s not gonna be fine, ” Max says, but there’s nothing else she can do, and they all know it.

For his part, Mike looks like he’s sorry. Not sorry enough to keep the Mega Demogorgon from moving forward, though, ever closer toward their cleric, lying broken and bleeding on the cavern floor. His steps are thunderous. His arms stretch wide. The Mega Demogorgon takes a legendary action, and El holds her breath, looks across the table at Will—

—who clenches his jaw, and closes his eyes.

It’s a little too close to home, but they’re okay. They’re all okay, and this is a game. Will reaches sightlessly for his die. Lucas and Dustin hold on to one another. Max leans onto the table. El cannot take her eyes from Will’s steady fingers, the fist he makes around his die, the way he pauses, and waits, and lets go—

When the die settles, they all look.

“Natural twenty,” Will breathes.

“Natural twenty,” they all yell, grabbing onto one another in celebration, a mess of arms and hands and elbows, upsetting the map and the figurines and a half-full can of soda. Will’s got an arm hooked around El’s neck, and she’s falling forward onto the table, laughing, reaching for them all, for Max, immediately at her side, and for Dustin and Lucas and Mike, who’s not even upset, who’s yelling in celebration alongside them—

Small victories, she thinks, taking it.

*

They give up on the campaign immediately after the exhausting defeat of the Mega Demogorgon. It’s at a steep cost, but their enemy is dead while their party is mostly alive, and that’s enough for the night.

They change into their pajamas. Mike and Will move the table and chairs, while everybody else arranges the piles of blankets and pillows and sleeping bags on the floor. It takes ten minutes to play a heated six-player round of rock-paper-scissors for the coveted couch—it’s only after extensive debate, and a quick wrestling match, that El is decided the champion.

She doesn’t feel too bad. The couch is unreasonably comfortable after so many years of it being worn down, and it gives her a good view of the television. There’s a less violent argument about what movie to watch, and she’s happy to see the opening of Ghostbusters on the screen as she gets settled with her pillow and blankets.

“El,” Mike whispers, sitting beside her. “Scoot over.”

And it’s as easy as opening her arms—he slips beneath her blankets, arranges himself instead between her back and the couch, and hugs her to his chest.

She feels safe here. Safest. Three one two, the slow-quick beat of her pulse, the press of Mike’s palm to her stomach, warm over her shirt. Sleepy and safe, in the circle of his arms and the circle of their friends.

She tries to pay attention to the movie, to Venkman and Winston and Spengler, to Stantz and Dana Barrett, to Lucas and Dustin and Max and Will all fighting for space and blankets on the floor, to the sound of their voices, annoyed and familiar and affectionate as they quote their favorite characters, the best lines.

Through the hazy threat of sleep, El listens, too, to the dim creak of the basement stairs.

She groans, shifts around, turns her back to the television and presses her face to Mike’s shirt. He’s warm, almost too hot beneath their blanket, but she noses at his collarbone anyway.

“Holly,” she says into his chest, pulling her hands free from the blankets.

And there’s a beat, a second of confused silence, before Holly Wheeler bursts from the basement stairs, her arms splayed, her voice loud: “Hand check!”

She’s just in time to find everybody’s hands raised expectantly in the air.

Her brother’s weird friends are settled comfortably in their nest on the floor, while Mike and his weird girlfriend are closely intertwined on the couch, hands raised in the air, still pressed into one another.

“Well, shit,” Holly grumbles.

“Mouth,” Lucas and Mike warn, even as Holly continues down the stairs, makes herself at home in the pile of teenagers in front of the television.

“Mom’s still worried about your sleepovers,” Holly says, yanking a pillow from beneath Dustin’s head. She wriggles herself into a spot between Will and Lucas. “Since you losers actually know girls now. But, like--how do you guys always know? Do you have some stupid camera rigged or something?”

“You’re not even supposed to be down here,” Mike murmurs against El’s head.

“You’re not even supposed to be in arm's reach of Jane,” Holly says.

Dustin pulls a spare throw pillow from underneath the game table. He hugs it close, glares at Holly: “And you’re not supposed to be up after seven.”

“Uh, my bedtime was moved to ten,” she says, and then colors. “And I don’t listen to curfews, anyway, especially on a Saturday!”

Max sighs. “Shut up and watch Ghostbusters, kid.”

So Holly does—she shuts up, and watches Ghostbusters, and makes them all just a little proud when she joins them in quoting, seriously and without hesitation, “Total protonic reversal.”

*

The TV is cold. A stretch of moonlight filters in through the narrow basement window. Holly has shuffled herself back to bed, and Mrs. Wheeler has come to make sure everybody’s safe and in one piece and not doing anything too inappropriate, Michael Wheeler, do you ever listen, we’re going to talk about this in the morning, and the basement has finally fallen quiet. Someone shifts in their blankets, or rearranges their pillow. Will bumps into the table, whispers, “Sorry.”

It feels not quite like sleeping, this drifting, so comfortable that she doesn’t really feel her body. It’s opposite of the water tank, from so long ago—that water had been frigid, and she’d been weightless and cold and all too aware of her skin, her bones, the endless gazes upon her from the other side of the glass.

This is—better. She doesn’t have one good word for it. Warm. Easy. Serene, maybe. She listens to Mike’s breathing, and blinks in and out of sleep, and isn’t sure she’s ever felt such heavy silence between them all—

“Do you guys believe in aliens?”

“Dustin, man—”

Someone shifts. Dustin cries, “Ow!”

“Go to sleep!”

“I was sleeping, but like, what if we’re not alone out here?”

“It’s pretty obvious we’re not? Interdimensional shadow monsters ate your cat and tried to take over the town?”

“Okay, Lucas, but—”

“But universally speaking, right?”

“Yes! Right? Will, my main man—”

“Please, can we not.”

“I hate you all.”

Mike chimes in. “Theoretically and mathematically speaking? There’s gotta be life out there somewhere.”

“Practically speaking?” Lucas sighs.

“Interdimensional shadow monsters.”

Their conversation lulls. A cricket outside sings. In the distance, thunder rolls quietly along the sky.

“El, you think you could see if there’s aliens out there?”

“She’s not phoning in for aliens, ” Max snaps before Mike can chime in to defend her, and his shoulders relax. “Shut up, please, I’m only asking nicely once.”

“She could! I’m just saying that she could, theoretically and mathematically. ”

El closes her eyes.

The silence lasts for all of ten seconds. Will asks, almost hesitantly, “Is she doing it?”

Dustin sighs. “She fell asleep.”

Mike feels her huff of laughter against his chest; she can sense his amusement, the smile in his voice. “She’s not sleeping. Shut up and let her concentrate.”

So she humors them—she phones it in, as Max says, and thinks of E.T. phoning home and finding home, and steps into the void. For a moment, there’s the terrifying sweep of nothing, and El thinks she’s gone too far, that she reached out into space and got sucked right into the stars.

But Mike pinches her arm, and El takes a breath.

“I saw them,” she says. “On Mars. I was surrounded by millions of little squashy guys.”

It takes but a second. Lucas and Will burst into laughter, while Max groans loudly. Dustin simply sighs. “An E.T. quote? Eleven Jane Hopper, I am disappointed in you. So much of space to discover, and you with a tool that you refuse to utilize for this noble quest for knowledge and connection—”

“Go to sleep, Dustin!”

*

Dreams are tricky, terrible things.

El has nightmares, sometimes, of all that nothing—just her and that empty slip-stream world, that empty void, endless and aching, stretching as far and as infinite and as painful as the universe. She is alone there. Her body floats, and she screams, and there’s nothing, nobody to hear her.

It feels terribly like home.

And sometimes her nightmares are of blood and bodies and broken bones, of sightless eyes of people she knows, of the faces most dear to her drowning in their own blood, gasping for air, begging for help. Sometimes they blame her, and sometimes they ask her why, and she is never able to find any words. Sometimes the faces belong to Mama, and to Kali, and to Papa.

Sometimes they belong to herself.

And sometimes—

Sometimes she has good dreams, too. Gentle snowfall, and messy snowmen, and old tripwires dripping with icicles. A cabin lit in fairy lights. A flickering fire in a plain hearth, and a single picture on the mantle in a crude wooden frame. It always changes, the picture: her and Hopper, and her and Mike, and her and Will and Max and Dustin and Lucas, and her and Joyce and Nancy and Holly. Her and Mama, sitting together on a sunlit porch. Her and Kali, holding hands.

Sometimes her dreams are good, and she wakes up breathing, blinking, slow and even.

Sometimes her dreams are good, and she wakes up to another kind of dream.

A soft dawn light filters in through the narrow basement windows. The world is pink, and brown, and dark.

Mike’s face is so near, and slack in sleep.

Rarely do they have the opportunity to lie together like this, during the frenetic pace of high school; peaceful and at rest, twined at the ankles and legs, arms holding one another close.

She takes her time. She looks at the curl of his dark hair. She watches the pulse at his neck, the lines of his wide lips, the quick steps of the freckles across the bridge of his nose. There’s a tangle of them at his eyebrow, too, and two spots at his jaw. A tiny white scar at his jaw, and another on his chin.

Eventually she is driven by nature to pull herself carefully from him and their couch, to go to the bathroom, to sneak upstairs to the kitchen, where she grabs a glass of water and an apple, which she takes a halfhearted bite of. She returns quietly to the basement and unlocks the side door, makes herself comfortable on the small concrete stoop in the dim morning.

It’s raining.

El likes the rain. There’s enough of an overhang off the second story roof to keep her dry. She’s wearing soft sweatpants that Nancy gave her, and a hugely oversized t-shirt from Hopper. It’s the best set of pajamas she owns—hand-me-downed, and holey, and worn, and comfortable. She rolls the hems of her sweatpants higher, and scoots her feet forward, relishing the feel of the cool rain on her bare feet.

Her toes get muddy. A piece of grass sticks stubbornly to the side of her foot. She rescues a worm from the hard concrete of the patio.

The sun peeks through the nearby trees.

“El,” Mike says, eventually, opening the back door and sticking his head through. He sounds a little panicked, and a little amused, and a little like he can’t quite tell which one he wants to be. “There you are.”

She nods.

He steps fully outside and shuts the door. He nudges her over, and sits down next to her, and they lean into one another like magnets. He’s still wrinkly from sleep--there’s a pink line on his cheek, and his shirt is twisted, and one sock is almost falling off.

It takes her a moment to realize that he’s holding something.

He digs a spoon into the bowl on his lap. “Hungry?”

El peers into the bowl. It’s a waffle sandwich, with three healthy scoops of ice cream in the middle. Neapolitan, so there’s a little bit of everything. There are sprinkles, too, rainbow ones, and it’s topped with a healthy layer of syrup.

“Erica says it counts as breakfast food if there’s syrup on it,” Mike says, holding a spoonful out to her.

And El doesn’t cry—she almost cries, and there’s another word that she knows, overwhelmed, and also enamored, and maybe just happy.

They share ice cream and waffles for breakfast. It starts to rain hard enough that it sneaks into Mike’s socks, even though he’s got his legs tucked up safely under the protection of the roof.

“Ugh,” he says.

“I like it, the rain,” El says. “I found you in the rain.”

“I found you in the rain. All muddy and scared and weird.”

She bumps his shoulder into hers. “Mouth breather.”

He blows her hair back from her face. He smells like chocolate, like morning breath. It surprises her, how some things still feel novel, even after so much time. A cold bowl of sickeningly sweet ice cream and syrup for breakfast. The rain on her skin. A friend, and a shoulder to lean on.

Mike kisses her temple, and grumbles about his socks, and El thinks, yeah, happy is just the right word.

[nazrigar]

AT LAST! After a looooooong month, I FINALLY managed to complete “Deities of Dark Souls Part 2″. Sequel to my first image, and done in the same style, but modified slightly.

Part 1

WARNING! Long post below.

Now, onto the gods themselves. These gods are the less famous deities, and have less images to represent them (except for Zandroe and Zinder, they have rings dedicated to them), so thinking of suitable designs for them was tough, but I tried my best, by instead using bits and pieces of lore that they could have a hand in. From top to bottom, left to right, are:

Flame God Flann: Gwynevere’s husband, and the titular flame god. With how important the First Flame is to the lore, and the importance of fire as a whole during the Age of Gods, I always wondered why he didn’t take up a bigger role besides being just background flavor for Gwynevere’s lore.

For his design, pretty simple really, I literally just mixed Laurentius’ gettup with that of the Desert Sorceresses of Dark Souls II! xD He’s an arrogant, vainglorious dude who has a hawt bawd and knows it... But also a master pyromancer, and perhaps was one of the first gods to actively spread pyromancy beyond the realm of Anor Londo

Funilly enough, he also has some bits of Izalith in him, design wise.

Old McLoyf, God of Drink and Medicine:  This guy was fun! It was difficult to discern how he liked based on the coin, but I could tell he had a beard and hair. Aside from that? Nothing, and this is where the FUN happened.

So for my design, I thought he’d be neat if he’s the patron of both Catarina of DS and DSIII AND the Gyrm of DSII. Like our favorite NPCs from Catarina and Gavlan, he’s a jovial and boisterous god full of mirth, and an avid drinker.

Similar to the function of Siegbrau, he heals himself by... Drinking! And he heals others by offering drink as well, though he too dabbles in traditional medicine as well.

The Nameless Smith God: The basis of this guy is pretty easy, as the Prowling demons were born from the Titanite slabs that scattered once the guy died.

For his design, he is literally made of Titanite, with a gigantic slab lodged into his chest, perhaps actually growing out of his body, and like his spawn, he has two massive “wings” growing out of his back.

For his general outfit, his helmet was inspired by the Gyrm, specifically Gavlan. I imagined that, since he IS the smith god of DS, other cultures that focus on smithing, like the Gyrm do, venerated him in some way even after he kicked the bucket.

Kremmel, God of Struggle: Essentially Kirk before Kirk, his design was inspired by how The Ring of Thorns looked suspiciously like something Kirk would wear. In fact, you get it by killing Pate, and you get better versions of it by constantly invading others in-game. Much like how Kirk invades you in the first game. (Or you can just buy a +1 version from grave warden Agdayne)

For Kremmel, life sucks, with his body being so beaten up, his armor worn and torn and even melted into his skin in some areas during the war against the dragons. He is also however, ridiculously tough and strong.

Galib, God of Disease: The First Fenito (hence his bluish skin), instead of watching the Undead Crypt however, he instead offered himself to spread the Gravelord’s “gifts” by any means necessary. He wears a modified version of the Leydia witches garb, with more tapestry and a “fur” coat that evokes Nito himself.

I thought it’d be a great idea to connect him with Nito, since the Gravelord himself was responsible for the “Miasma of Death and Disease” upon the dragons, it would make sense some being would take the “disease” part and spread more death once Nito took a nap in his neat little tomb.

Since the Leydia Witches were said to be manipulating disease (and cures), I also imagine that, unlike the Gravelord, he is able to cure diseases and ailments. In the end however, he is still loyal to the cause of “The First One to Give us Death”

The Covetous Serpents: One of the most interesting lore tidbits from both rings in Dark Souls III was this:

A silver ring depicting a snake that could have been, but never was, a dragon. Fallen foes yield more souls.

Snakes are known as creatures of great avarice, devouring prey even larger than themselves by swallowing them whole.

If one's shackles are cause for discontent, perhaps it is time for some old-fashioned greed.

When combining with the lore of DSII where they were venerated as gods, it now makes sense why Zandroe and Zinder are gods of greed and desire respectively. They’re self aware that they can never be dragons, but despised the fact they couldn’t. They would always want to be real deal dragons, and all things associated with it. 

And now for the snakes themselves.

Zandroe, God of Greed: Based off the Covetous Silver Serpent Ring, he’s fashioned after a Cobra. Whatever he wants, he only needs to bite once, and takes the possessions of the fallen once they’re dead.

Zinder, God of Desire: Based of the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring, he’s fashioned after a Python; Whatever he wants, he takes it by brute, crushing force.

[thesteveyates]

The second part of my new anchoring arrangements on WABI”’

Many of my regular visitors will have ploughed through (sorry…deliberate anchor pun) the long post about my new anchoring experiments with WABI”’ . Astute observers will have noted that the boat looks a bit different from the photographs i used in that post and, as with the Friday 5 minute blog, now sports a little bowsprit out front.

As i write, and once again i am writing a couple of weeks ahead of post scheduling, the little bowsprit : Le Petit Prod, is on but will have come off for it’s second or third stage modifications but it has been built, fitted and used.

The bowsprit itself.

I realised today that the photograph above is just about the best one of the bowsprit itself because the overall shape and concept is visible.  It looks very odd to the eye because the working (outboard) end is to the left and the inboard end to the right.  That makes it almost the complete opposite of a standard bowsprit, most of which is outside the boat. In this case the long ‘tail’ attaches to the mast in this little fitting below which i had fabricated recently.  My plywood pattern is on the right here and the complete piece on the left.  Just for reference this was fabricated by Pheonix 316 in Plymouth and they have done a nice job with it.  Just as an aside they also modified the lid of my charcoal heater such that i can use it to boil a kettle on the stove.

The purpose and function of the bowsprit is twofold : to mount the anchoring and mooring rollers/fairleads and secondly at some time to carry a small free-flying jib for light upwind sailing.  I have been advised via the owners association that the Liberty can be improved upwind in light weather by flying a small jib…..it sounds as though the jib off a National 18 racing dinghy will do the job……however.

The actual timber sprit i made from a useful looking length of very close grained pine that i heaved out of the timber rack down at Stax reclamation yard just outside Saltash. At first i thought the piece i found was way too big and it was pretty old and nasty looking with some serious iron nails poking out of it.  I initially bought the piece for just a few pounds with a different project in mind but when i got it on the bench i realised that what i had would work very well once planed down a lot and shaped.

The iron nails/spikes took a lot of time and ingenuity to hoik out of the pine but the wood itself is much higher quality than modern, commercially available timber.  It’s dense and close grained and of course significantly lighter now that iv’e had at it with the power planer.  Below….that’s my first attempt at making mounting chocks to sit on the floor of the bow well, clunky and way too heavy, the stainless steel mast bracket is so much neater and lighter…..even Al might pass that one !

The working end,

I have always liked the idea of taking an anchor warp down through the bowsprit itself rather than having cheek mounted anchor rollers.  On the Liberty the bowsprit will sit in the broad groove/channel through the bow molding and if i kept the bowsprit base at maximum dimension there i would have enough ‘meat’ on the timber to bore out a slot to take a couple of sheaves within the bowsprit itself.  I roughed-out sketches of different sheave arrangements and therefore the slot shape and size and what looked best was a pair of wide but small diameter sheaves rather than one large diameter sheave which would have meant taking a lot more timber away.

In the final build iv’e actually ended up experimenting with 3 different sheave sizes so far and currently just a wide stainless steel bush acting as the bottom roller….that’s got at least one more stage to go as i narrow down on the exact sheave size and get them made locally as well.   The actual arrangement for anchoring is that the warp will run over the 2 sheaves through the bowsprit and will then run to, and along the side deck to the anchoring cleat just ahead of the cockpit.  This is similar to the old closed fairlead except that there should be much less friction in the system.

The sheaves and sheave slot should reasonably take a 12mm dia rope which is still over-spec for the job.  I think that because i come from much bigger boats that i still look at some gear for the Liberty and think of it as being too light.  Most information points to 10mm line as being perfectly adequate mainly because WABI”’ is actually a very light boat…only about a ton and a half fully loaded.  The 6 kg Rocna is completely adequate for my everyday needs and the 7 kg Manson is over-spec although it was a very good anchor for the similar length but twice as heavy Inanda. 

The current sticking point in the job is the fastening at the bow.  My original plan was to cut an access hole in the narrow forward face of the bow well, drill and pass a bolt up through the bow channel molding and fasten the bowsprit down using an eye nut over the bolt head ….obviously on the top face of the sprit.  I cut an access hole as planned but it’s small size and the angle of the actual bow didn’t then allow me to pass the long (160mm) bolt up through the molding.  The temporary solution was to pass the bolt down through the bowsprit and through the deck groove and attach a nut from below…..with extreme difficulty i may add.

That means i would currently have the warp running over the flats of the bolt head so i have temporarily lashed a large , low friction eye there as a smooth fairlead.  The next stage will be to take the bowsprit off again, enlarge the access hole and get the bolt in from below if it is at all possible.  The access hole will then need a little cover making for it.  The other part of the job will be to drop the stick again and do the modifications on the mast itself to get rid of the 2 lazy-jack fittings and add a jib attachment point.

The other kit on the bowsprit is an eyebolt/eye-nut combination that act as fairlead/keepers for the mooring lines or strops that i tend to use.  While Chris’s moorings (and many others round here) have a heavy pick-up and mooring warp that is too large to go through an eye, they also have a top swivel and shackle so i carry a custom made mooring strop for long term mooring and a simple plain line for everyday use when i ‘borrow’ a mooring in the river…..i .don’t do that often but it’s useful once in a while.

Marilyn…..set up for Inanda

So : line and sinker.

I know this keeps changing but my current version of ‘anchor for the use of’ is Rocky Rocna, 10 metres of 7mm chain and temporarily on a length of 10mm polyester line as the warp although that’s about to change when the new line arrives this week hopefully so lets talk about anchor warps.

As with most sailors i have nearly always used nylon warp for my rode as is standard, except that for most of the time that iv’e had WABI”’ i haven’t done that at all, in fact for  years i have been anchoring on weighted polyester braid and it’s been completely successful.  Only recently did i briefly use my old 14mm spare anchor warp from my  Frances 26 simply because i still had it.  I have always kept the 75 metre warp on board because i firmly believe in having one very long warp on board and it has served that purpose.  It’s only been used once when i walked the spare anchor out on it that one time in St Aubyn bay when i set a haul-off kedge anchor out to seaward of the boat.

The 14mm octoplait is very over-spec for WABI”’ as is the similar 14mm weighted polyester line that i have been using this last 3 years.  The weighted warp is the commercially available one that comes with , i guess, a line of small weights inside the last part of the core.  They are advertised as RIB/small boat anchoring lines, the idea being, i believe, is that the weighted warp acts more like chain than rope but is much nicer to handle.  My one came as a useful 40 metre length in a neat bag and as i say has been in continuous use for  years.  That line still looks to be in perfect condition so it’s now stowed below with ‘Marilyn’ (Manson) and 15 metres of chain…..all shackled up and ready to use.

My temporary anchor warp is a length (about 30 metres) of 10mm mid-quality polyester braid that has seen frequent use as my camping tarp ridge-line but that is all it’s ever been used for : i think it was a fairly cheap reel end from the local chandler when they were selling off rope ends one time.   Anchoring on polyester isn’t standard approved practice but to be honest it makes damn-all difference in everyday use and perhaps only comes into a problem in severe anchoring conditions and to be honest i just don’t anchor in exposed situations in my little boat.  Just for reference the polyester line is rated at around 2900 lbs or more correctly 12.9 Kn (kilo-Newtons)

Now, this is going to get a bit rope-geek but as an ex climber and rigger i have to know my way around ropes a bit so i just want to add a bit of rope geekery here.

Right now, aboard WABI”’ i have several different types of modern rope in use which come directly from the riggers shop and they would be instantly recognised as everyday sailing rope.  Mainly i use bog standard but better quality braid on braid polyester….i happen to like Marlowbraid as i have always found it reliable although other manufacturers make equally good line.               For halyards i am currently on ‘cruising’ Dyneema which has a Dyneema core with a braided polyester sheath although i do have some pure Dyneema hanging up in the workshop.  I couldn’t tell you today which version of Dyneema it is although it was eye-watering expensive so it’s a good one.  That line will replace the cruising Dyneema as and when i get around to the job.

Some readers will know that i like to lash and lace rather than using shackles to mount blocks so i use loads of small diameter and very high quality Dyneema line for that task and i keep plenty spare on the boat.

Where i differ with most sailors is that i look to climbing and caving/arborists rope for other uses.  The rope i have just sourced, new but old stock, is what is called semi-static line which is commonly used for abseiling, caving and rope access work. It is similar to climbers ‘dynamic’ line except that it has much lower stretch and as a climber you wouldn’t want to take a high factor leader fall on it as it wouldn’t ‘give’ (stretch) enough .

Semi-static rope is a lower stretch version of climbers ‘Kernmantel’ and as i say above is more commonly used as a descent and ascent line, often in caving and abseiling.   If you see ‘LSK’ mentioned then that i believe is low stretch kernmantel.  It often has a very high strength rating : the one i have sourced is rated at over 6,000 lbs and near to 30 kn force rating.   There is no way that i could apply that much force manually or i think during normal anchoring.   If  anything like that force was somehow applied on the gear i suspect all the fittings and cleats would just rip out of the deck !.   I think that it might be a surprisingly good rope to use as small boat anchor warp and at 10 mm will be small in volume and large enough to handle.

I will give a link below to one website that sets out some of the basic information on static, semi-static and dynamic rope as used by climbers, cavers, arborists and rope access techs.*

Handling and stowage.

Aft, i am working on the anchor stowage and the anchor recovery aspect.  At sea the anchor shown below.   When motoring it will move to just forward of the motor.  Here, what’s happening is that i’m about to fit the teak deck slats that will allow the anchor stowage box to drain properly….except that i’m not because i have completely run out of Sikaflex and can’t be bothered to drive the 40 mile round trip just to buy one tube.

The retrieval roller is fitted but it will make a lot more sense to do a quick video when everything is complete and working…..then i’ll capture some footage of just anchoring and retrieving/stowing the anchor.   By then i’ll have probably changed my mind again and Marilyn will be back in the number one spot…..i rather like Marilyn.

Fitting the drainage slats and the temporary rope/chain bin.

*Rope talk.

I realised when i was writing the rope-talk section above that not everyone here will be familiar with rope techniques and rope technology from other disciplines outside of sailing.

So, climbing first.  I’m most familiar with climbing practice having done that myself for several years.    Rock climbing as i knew it is now referred to as ‘trad‘ or traditional climbing and today there are other specialties, for example ‘sport’, big wall and of course ‘free‘ or unroped climbing.

In trad climbing what happens is something like this : the leader, ties one end of the rope into his or her climbing harness and their ‘second’ ties into the other end.  Nowadays it can be a bit more complex as what iv’e just said refers to the use of a single rope…even in my later climbing years we often climbed on ‘double’ ropes….2 ropes but thinner which allowed ‘protection’ placement to the side of the actual ‘line’.

As the leader proceeds elegantly, or not in my case, up the route, he or she places ‘pro’ (protection) in the form of chocks, nuts and cams, into features in the rock. The climbing rope or one of the ropes is then clipped in to that with a ‘crab’ (carabiner).

The idea being that if the leader takes a fall they only fall twice the distance they are above their last piece of protection and assuming that the second is awake enough to arrest the fall.   A long leader fall puts an enormous shock load on the rope and ultimately on the climber…..which is why a climbers rope is designed and made to be ‘dynamic’ ie stretchy.   A climbing rope is only rated for a number of falls with a high load (fall) factor and even one very long fall can result in the rope being binned afterwards.  Old climbing ropes make very good mooring lines by the way.

The second use of a climbing rope is to initially access the route when the climbers first have to abseil to the start of the climb.  That is typical of many routes that i did on sea cliffs : places like the Holyhead stacks and many places on the Gower peninsular. For my best ever day on the rock we had to abseil some 55 metres into Wen Zawn at Holyhead’s south stack onto a block of rock about the size as my garden bench…..some 50 metres below us and just awash at that state of the tide……the punch line here is that we then had to pull our ropes down on top of us to start the climb.

‘A dream of white horses’  (Gogarth) Ed Drummond photograph i think.     Me and 2 mates did this route way back when i lived just down the road in ……wait for it…….Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch…..yes, i actually lived there.                 After i had led off on the first pitch i noticed that my 2 mates were chatting with another couple of climbers that had roped down as well.   That only turned out to be none other than THE Joe Brown himself .

Static and semi-static ropes.

Having never been a caver or arborist i don’t have any practical experience with static and semi-static ropes (LSK).  Static ropes, by the way usually aren’t nylon at all but often polyester for arborists and cavers and then aramid for military ‘fast-roping’ techniques.  I did at one time have several friends working in the rope access world : doing abseil inspections off tall  block of flats mainly, and i got some knowledge from them.  It seems that in caving, tree work and rope access work a less stretchy rope is desirable and that ‘leader’ falls are much less likely.                  Where a ‘dynamic’ rope is designed to have considerable stretch or bounce a semi-static rope isn’t….they will still have much more stretch than say Dyneema or Aramid lines though.  I had to take a quick look around the world of semi-static ropes for this project and managed to source some unsold but old stock line.

The rope i have bought does feel very dense so it should be high modulus….it seems to handle nicely although it is stiffer than ‘floppy’ nylon 8 plait but then it is higher rated. In it’s uncut state (about 50 metres) it does look a bit over-long for the job as i rarely have run out much more than 20 metres of warp after the chain…..i might back up a bit on this one and keep the long length of semi-static line as my kedge warp in place of the 14mm octoplait.

  For information on static and semi-static ropes take a look at this link as it lays out current practice far better than i can .

http://www.abacus-ise.co.uk/semi_static_low_stretch_abseil_rope.htm

Hook, line and sinker. The second part of my new anchoring arrangements on WABI''' Many of my regular visitors will have ploughed through (sorry...deliberate anchor pun) the long post about my new anchoring experiments with…

[themoneybuff-blog]

The pros and cons of Personal Capital

If you've read money blogs over the past five years, you've heard about Personal Capital. Personal Capital is a free money-tracking tool with a beautiful interface and gasp no advertising. (One of my big complains about Mint is that it shoves ads in your face.) Many of my friends and colleagues promote the hell out of Personal Capital because the company pays good money when people sign up. (And yes, links to Personal Capital in this review absolutely put money in my pocket. But any Personal Capital link you see anywhere on the web puts money in somebody's pocket.) I sometimes wonder, though, if any of my pals actually uses Personal Capital, you know? All of their reviews are glowing. While I like Personal Capital, I've been frustrated by the app in the past. Even today, I find that it's not as useful as I'd like. What are my issues with Personal Capital? For a long time, I was frustrated trying to get Personal Capital to connect to my accounts. It still won't connect to my credit union, but that's fine. I can enter my balance manually. It was frustrating, though, that for years I couldn't get Personal Capital to connect to my Fidelity investment accounts. They work nowbut I'm always worried that they won't. The app still won't connect to my Capital One credit card and hasn't for over a year, which I find mind-blowing.

Personal Capital, as an app, isn't robust enough to replace something like Quicken or You Need a Budget. The latter tools allow you to track and manage your money on a transaction by transaction level. Okay, maybe you can track your transactions, but you can't do anything meaningful with them, the same way you could with Quicken or YNAB.The phone calls! My god, the phone calls! Here's a not-so-secret secret: The Personal Capital app while beautiful and useful is actually bait. It's a lure. Its aim is to attract high net-worth users to connect their accounts. When they do, Personal Capital (the company) begins a phone campaign in an attempt to recruit the users as clients. Personal Capital isn't actually an app company; it's a wealth-management company. They want people with lots of money to sign up. (I can't comment on whether this is a good deal or not. I don't want a financial advisor. I ignore all of the calls from Personal Capital.)

Personal Capital has pretty reports, but there aren't enough of them. My copy of Quicken 2007 ugly as it is has 23 different reports and 10 different graphs. (Plus, you can customize many more.) Personal Capital has maybenine ways to look at your money? (I can't tell for sure.)The security is over the top. I suppose I should be happy about this, but I'm not. It feels like I'm constantly having to verify my identity via email or text message. Some of my other accounts make me do this occasionally, but it feels like Personal Capital does this multiple times per week. That's crazy! Now, these complaints aside, here's a confession: I've been using the Personal Capital app for 5+ years. For real. I can't remember when I started, but I do remember being cranky because a Personal Capital rep didn't know who I was at Fincon 2013 in St. Louis. I use your app, I told him. And I have a big blog. (I wince now at the thought of my arrogance.) Despite the drawbacks, there must be something to it. Right? Today using my current financial situation let's look at the pros and cons of Personal Capital. Quicken 2007 vs. Personal Capital As regular readers know, I'm an old fogey. My money management tool of choice is an antiquated copy of Quicken for Mac 2007. This tool is so important to me, in fact, that I'm currently refusing to update my system software to the latest version (Mac OS Mojave) because I'm afraid it'll break Quicken. (Other user experiences are mixed.) How important is Quicken 2007 to me? No joke: I would buy a used Mac laptop just to run that software. As much as I love Quicken, it has its drawbacks. One of those is that it's a pre-mobile app. Quicken 2007 is almost as old as this blog. It came out roughly one year before the first iPhone. (Get Rich Slowly launched on 15 April 2006. I can't find a release date for Quicken 2007, but it was available by at least 30 August 2006. The iPhone launched on 29 June 2007.) If I want to interact with Quicken, I have to sit down at my desktop computer. Because I'm a nerd, I'm attached to my mobile devices. I have an iPad. And an iPhone. And an Apple Watch. (Why isn't it an iWatch? I don't know. Apple doesn't give a fig about consistency.) I want to be able to track my money from my mobile devices. Trust me: I've tried tons of other mobile apps. I don't really like any of them. I do, however, like Personal Capitalwarts and all. I would never ever use it as my only money management tool, but as one piece of a bigger package, it'a actually kind of awesome. Personal Capital is the only mobile money management app that I use. There are others out there, sure, but for my needs, Personal Capital fills a nicheand fills it well. Personal Capital as Daily Money Tracker I use Personal Capital as a daily tracker. Quicken 2007 is my actual go-to tool for entering and analyzing my data, but Personal Capital is what I've used for the past five years to check on my accounts to make sure everything is okay. Believe it or not, Personal Capital has saved my bacon several times. What? My credit card payment is due today? Whoops! I'd better go pay it. Wait! What's this strange charge on my account? That's not me. Let me call my bank. Whoa! I forgot to pay my garbage bill. I'd better handle that when I get home. Because Personal Capital connects to (most of) my accounts, I'm able to look at everything from a unified dashboard. I don't have to log in to each credit card and bank account to verify everything. I can do it from one place. (Okay, not my credit union. I still have to go check that separately.) Here, for instance, is a look at my recent transactions. (I have no idea what the graph is tracking. I'm not sure I care.)

When I shared my financial situation recently, a few readers wondered why I don't count my business finances when tracking my entire money picture. Well, in Personal Capital I do. Because I can connect the app to both personal and business accounts, I can get an idea of the Big Picture. Here you can see that most of my expenses for January so far have been blog related.

I'll admit, it's very nice to have a single app where I can view all of my recent transactions, both personal and business. Although I only take action on this info maybe twice per year, it sets my mind at ease. It takes thirty seconds of my time each day, but that's thirty seconds I'm happy to spend. Personal Capital as Investment Tracker Honestly, though, Personal Capital isn't meant to be a daily money-management tool. For that, I'd use something like You Need a Budget. Personal Capital is specifically designed to monitor your investments. Because of this, the Personal Capital app has a variety of tools to help investors. First up, there's the plain ol' portfolio view:

Nothing special here, right? You get a list of your investments and a graph of their performance over the past 90 days. Nothing special, but still easier for me than logging into the Fidelity website (or app). (As a passive investor, though, I don't actually look at investment performance that often. I might check it once per weekbut a couple of times per month is more likely.) You can also get a breakdown of your asset allocation:

The Personal Capital app also offers something interesting something I think Vanguard and Fidelity should offer. They have a tool that analyzes the fees on your investment accounts. As you probably know, fees are one of the top drags on the average investor's performance. Too many suckers pay 1% or 2% per year (or more!) in mutual fund costs. Index funds have risen to prominence because they promise management fees of 0.20% or 0.10% (or lower). Personal Capital makes it clear just how much you're paying in fees.

In my case, I'm doing fairly well except in my rollover IRA. But I'm okay with that. That rollover IRA is 100% invested in a real-estate investment trust (or REIT), and those carry higher expense ratios. (True story: That REIT is actually my highest performing investment over the past decade!) Personal Capital's Retirement Calculator All of these other features are great, but there's one main reason I continue to use Personal Capital: its retirement calculator. As I mentioned the other day, I hate most retirement calculators. They're overly simplistic. Their assumptions are bogus. They're designed to get users to save more than they need. The Personal Capital retirement calculator isn't the best tool on the market we'll look at two better tools during the next week but it's pretty damn good for something that's free and built into an otherwise useful app. This section is going to be the biggest part of this review, and it's going to contain plenty of screenshots. You've been warned. First up, here's a look at my own personal financial situation as of this morning. (Sorry for the mute notification in the middle of the screenshot. My bad. Not sure why I was muting my iPad, but I can't fix it now.)

Based on my current situation $736,170 in liquid investments and roughly $60,000 of annual expenses Personal Capital says I'll run out of money at 62. This doesn't differ much from other retirement calculators I've looked at. But here is where Personal Capital gets fun (and the reason I'm obsessed with it). Do you see those + signs across from Investment Events and Spending Goals? If you click on those, you can add new events. (And if you click on existing events, you can modify those.) This means you can tweak your parameters over and over and over again. What if, for instance, I decreased my spending from $60,000 per year to $42,000 per year? (This is my aim for 2019.)

Well, look at that. If I re-embrace frugality, my money will likely last until I'm 72 instead of 62. Nice! And now that I'm back to work at the box factory, what if I stay there for ten years and earn $20,000 annually?

Holy cats! As you can see, working part-time makes a ginormous difference. If I reduce my spending to $3500 per month while earning $20,000 per year, I'm golden. I shouldn't run out of money before my projected age of demise. (Even in a worst-case scenario, my money would last until age 67.) And if I end up with an inheritance? Party time!

Okay, maybe I'm getting a little too out of control there. Let's dial things back. Let's get rid of the inheritance and bring my spending back to current levels. If I work part-time for ten years, what then?

Hm. Not enough to get me to where I want to go, is it? (Plus, I was muting the sound again. What the heck?) Okay, what if I decide to sell this house at some point in the next ten years. What then?

Okay, not bad. That makes me wonder, though, what if I did not decide to go back to work for the family business. What then?

Well, I guess that's not bad, but it's not nearly as good as if I'm bringing in some sort of income. Okay, let's look at the ultimate optimistic scenario. Let's say I trim my spending from $60,000 per year to $42,000 per year. Let's assume I spend the next decade at the box factory earning $20,000 per year. Let's assume that my mother dies in ten years or so and leaves me an inheritance. Let's assume that Kim and I sell this place after increasing frustration with the never-ending repairs, then move into a rented apartment. After all those assumptions, what does my future look like?

But that's a future that's far too rosy than the one I think lies ahead. You get the point, though. Even without the app's other features, I'd love Personal Capital just for its retirement calculator. It's more fun and flexible than 95% of the other retirement calculators on the market. (As I mentioned, we'll take a peek at the 5% that are better over the next few days.) The Bottom Line I have been using Personal Capital for five years now. It's nowhere near a complete money-management tool, and I know that. But I don't care. I don't expect it to be the biggest and bestest. I accept it for what it is. Personal Capital is great at a few things: Monitoring your money on a daily basis.Tracking (and analyzing) your investment portfolio.Playing with various retirement scenarios. If you're not interested in these three tasks, Personal Capital probably isn't right for you. If you want a lot of detail and analysis, Personal Capital probably isn't right for you. If you have a lot of money invested and don't want people to pester you with phone calls, Personal Capital probably isn't right for you. For everyone else, though, Personal Capital is a useful (if imperfect) tool. If you decide to use it, just be aware of its limitations. As I say, I've been using it for five years. It's not my top tool, but it's the one I access most often. That's worth something, I guess. I'm curious, though. Many GRS readers must also be using Personal Capital. What are your experiences like? Do you recommend it? What are your favorite features? What do you not like? Would you recommend Personal Capital to a friend?

Author: J.D. Roth In 2006, J.D. founded Get Rich Slowly to document his quest to get out of debt. Over time, he learned how to save and how to invest. Today, he's managed to reach early retirement! He wants to help you master your money and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you reach your goals. https://www.getrichslowly.org/personal-capital/

[archiveofolives]

Ring of Keys and Other Stories IV

A/N/SUMMARY theme says bodyswap/role reversal and i, as should no longer be any surprise to everyone, am an amateur with no experience with this challenge whatsoever  SO i decided to take things literally and twist it like hell. i give you: rogue one: a star wars story with umm…serious role reversals, i guess. (i should also note and stress that alexander freed’s novelization is a huge, huge, huge help for this fic and that this is a non-profit fan work)

RATING/WARNINGS g/n/a for a change (everyone breathe a sigh of relief, liv is sticking to her comfort zone)

WORD COUNT 7,767

AO3 here

—

“I’m one with the Force and the Force is with me, I’m one with the Force and the Force is with me, I’m one with the Force and the Force is with me, I’m one with the Force and the Force is with me…”

He heard the shrouded walls chant it back to him more than he heard himself speak it. It came in rapid successions of words and breath, barely a pause between inflections, commas and periods. The sad part was that it had become nothing more than a tick. A bastardized version of a prayer of the faithful, no matter that he whispered it to clenched fists as he sat hunched over the table. Because no matter how many times he recited it—“I’m one with the Force and the Force is with me,”—he would never forget the soft neck between his fingers, and the snap of a bone a heartbeat later. He hadn’t even given the muscles time to tense but that was a shallow consolation. Poor Tivik may have outlived his…value…but he was no animal. The Force reminded him of it, swirling darkly like shadows in his eyes, a persistent weight in his chest—but nothing more than that. A nagger, a silly warning that went away as soon as the deed was done but leaving him with regret. When was the last time he heeded it? He couldn’t remember. It used to be that he reconsidered on account of its message but now he just…killed swiftly. To get it done and over with.

But he killed for a purpose—another familiar chant. He may not do it according to the lessons of his childhood but if one looked at the bigger picture, it could still be said that he took away life to preserve the Force of others. He was never raised as a Jedi, who anyway killed without regret. He never killed if it could be avoided.

It just tended to happen more and more this late…

He silenced himself when he recognized his visitor. She felt light, subtle but powerful at the same time. With his eyepiece off, he couldn’t very well see her—or this small room he took refuge in anyway, but he knew who she was even before he caught her footfalls.

She had the grace to tap him lightly on the right shoulder before she greeted him with a quiet, “Captain Imwe.”

Turning to her, he responded equally with, “Senator Mothma.” She was a white blur moving against a dark background in his tired sight, as if he looked at her from a filter of tears. He followed her all the same to the seat to his left where she braced her forearms on the tabletop.

“You look worried, Captain,” she observed.

“Maybe you’re finally rubbing off on me, Senator. That’s good.” He laughed a little as Mothma shared her own shier, more polite version. It was times like this that Chirrut was reminded of how much younger she was than he was, even though she acted like a mother even towards him. Or maybe he really was just more childlike than he gave himself credit for. He pressed his fingers lightly on his eyes as he added, “A follower must be more like his leader to walk in her path.”

“It’s a hard path to follow, Captain,” Mothma replied with her characteristic gentleness. “But all the same, I’m grateful for your loyalty. You’ve done valuable work, as always.”

He remembered the sound of Tivik’s boots frantically pacing the ground, his harrowed breathing, the weight of his body as he dropped it, broken and lifeless. The echoes of his last words resonating in his head as he escaped.

“You think it’s true, Senator? What the Empire is building?” Chirrut asked her all of a sudden, keen to get away from his latest crime. “A Planet Killer. It sounds crazier than anything I can come up with. I can’t imagine how they’ll make it possible.”

Mothma was quiet, considering the question in deep silence. He couldn’t see her expressions, and could only make guesses based on what he felt around her. “It’s nothing out of the ordinary,” she conceded long after. “We’ve already been warned by the message the pilot brought to us when he defected, and this certainly falls under that category. If this is true,” she paused to realign her head. Chirrut couldn’t say for sure but he imagined she was looking at him now, “then we may have a good guess…about why they took over your home planet. And your Temple.”

The Temple of the Kyber was the first thing the Empire had taken from Chirrut. Ever since then, he’d been slowly losing everything that he knew and loved. The teachings of his Faith, his life, his old life, his friends…

His…brother…

“The good news is that we’ve taken the steps to confirm this.” Mothma moved back to rest her shoulders on her seat. “Operation Fracture is officially signed off. General Draven and I worked on it while you were en route from the Ring of Kafrene and our asset was being extracted from the Wobani Prison Camp…” It wasn’t like Mothma to trail off even though her temperament seemed to point to the contrary. After all, like all leaders, like all politicians, she had her own mischievous techniques. But these slivers of honesty were reserved for tiny rooms, the few moments she had between one executive decision and the next. So when it came, Chirrut heard it. “I’m sure you’re aware by now, Captain, that the extraction was successful.”

Chirrut smiled, something that came easily and with complete honesty. For all that he went through—alone—it was bright and ready, not a mask he showed to Mothma. He really was glad for the news. He’d never heard of anyone who could escape Wobani in one piece, and he was relieved he could make this one possible. “I am,” he said. “I’m here because of that, aren’t I? I had hoped it would be a success even before I sent the message from the ship. I really ought to thank you and General Draven for making it possible.”

Mothma’s blob nodded. “You’ll be leading this operation, Captain. You have your team, and your course is set for Jedha. Report all updates to General Draven, your instructions moving forward will be coming from him.”

“Understood.”

“Do you have any questions?”

He always thought it was generous of Mothma to be opening this opportunity for him. It was not a part of her obligations, and yet he couldn’t help but feel as if she did it in deference to his age—or perhaps because when he came in, no one could really tell the difference between a Jedi and a Guardian of the Whills. So everyone treated him like a Jedi.

Well, he wasn’t one for wasting chances. Chirrut began to ask, “If I can’t convince him to join us—”

“You have to, Captain,” Mothma insisted gently. “Without him, we lose our chance to gain support for the rebellion.”

And that was that.

She rose, the folds of her simple gown dropping all around her. She laid another hand on his shoulder to tell him, “Whenever you’re ready, Captain.” Then she left.

He would never be ready. And no passing of years would help. He knew this as he sat in the humming silence of the private room. But there was a task to be done and he never shirked from his responsibilities.

He took his eyepiece from the tabletop—nothing more than a slender strip of metal that bridged one ear to the other, conservative nose pads and a thin device that spanned the top of his right eye to the start of his ear—put it on and with a weary dread, switched it on. The washed up details of the room came slowly into sharp clarity. It was there to help him see better but he couldn’t help but feel like the strain it was putting on his already-ruined eyes was more trouble than was worth it. But what could he do? His job required him to see.

He bought more time for himself to pull at his jacket, as if it needed straightening, take his walking stick from where it leaned by the table and tuck its wooden joints into itself, until all that was left was the metal stub at the top of it. It was an old thing he’d brought with him from the Temple, made from flame-hardened uneti wood, modified to be concealed for whenever he could see and needed a secret weapon. It was one of the only things he kept with him from his previous life.

One other was a necklace he wore under his shirt: an old starbird symbol made out of reforged gold, hung down from a black cord.

He tugged on it self-consciously, tucking and retucking it and smoothing down his shirt. Unlike his collapsible staff, it bore no purpose really other than to be a part of his neck and his life. With no more excuses to grasp on, he finally started towards the bunker.

General Draven was conducting the interview when he stepped into the connecting bridge, already so short-tempered five minutes in. He marched carefully lest he draw attention to himself; he knew who he was up against, knew what this person could do by heart. It was the same skills he’d learned, the same skills he was raised in. The walls were high and dark, the shadows thick but he knew that when it came to him…to the both of them, those walls may as well be made out of glass. He couldn’t believe he could even hear him saying it in his voice in his head. And his chuckle…

Chirrut had always understood that memories could get so invasive at times, but he never realized until then that that was only because he allowed these thoughts to invade him so easily. Now he couldn’t get him out of his head. How smart of him to let this happen now, of all the times he needed to concentrate on his mission, and not his past.

“Possession of unsanctioned weapons, forgery of Imperial documents, aggravated assault, escape from custody, resisting arrest…”

General Draven sounded off his list of trespasses. In a better world, he might have burst out laughing at the utter lack of respect and damn this man gave to the law. How entirely like him that was. But then, this was also a brief history of what he’d done, what he’d been through since they separated—and it was no laughing matter. Decades of running, hiding and fighting, wondering if the day you woke up in would also be the day you finally closed your eyes permanently. It was…romantic, perhaps. The danger, the risks, the adventure.

He knew the taste of that life, and it was too bitter to sustain a man. If his life was a soil to sow seeds on, it would be like Jedha now: barren, dry and wasted. The only reason why he could still stand this sort of life, decades past his prime was…

His steps slowed down, but he could not stop. Decades have passed since their last day together. Could their separation really end just like this? It wasn’t that Chirrut held onto an ideal reunion that could be ruined by any single moment but he had learned how to live this life, an entirely different one from the old days. Could he still do it? They say you couldn’t teach an old animal new tricks.

“Imagine if the Imperial authorities had found out who you really were, Baze Malbus? That’s your given name, is it not?”

Chirrut stopped finally. He couldn’t believe it, he really was there! But so different, he could hardly recognize him from the man who left him but he knew in his veins that it was him. He was dressed in a plain, old-fashioned flight suit, arms crossed, weight against the back of his seat. He’d grown bigger from the lithe, trimmed version he could remember but looking at the size of those knuckles under his fingerless gloves, Chirrut had no doubts he could still kill a man without breaking a bone or a sweat. No, they weren’t built for such frailties. His hair, once shaven so closely to his head, was now long and wild. He had a beard and a mustache, and his days traveling in different parts of the galaxy had burnt his skin to an even brownness.

Baze Malbus. He couldn’t believe it. They’d gotten the right man out of Wobani!

He went no further lest Baze spied him off the shadows of the bunker. If the Force moved darkly around a killer, then maybe it could do him a favor of shrouding him from a reunion he wasn’t prepared for. He folded his own arms and leaned his weight against one of the glass screens illuminating the bunker, practically as tall and wide as a wall. He stood somewhere to the back, watching the proceedings like a hunter stalking for dinner. Baze looked bored behind the conference table that parted him from the red-haired General Draven with his permanent scowl, white-haired General Dodonna who looked with soft eyes and Senator Mothma, standing right there, front and center where Baze could see her.

“You top the Empire’s most wanted list, do you know that?” General Draven continued, referring to his datapad again. “Wanted for murder, espionage and treason. You’ve been on the run ever since you fell out of their graces.”

Baze’s eyes rolled from Draven, to Dodonna, to Mothma in turn and then back to Draven. And then he laughed—not loud or vulgar at all, something wheezy that came with a white smile. This was the Baze that Chirrut knew. The complete lack of ceremony, the easy confidence.

“Okay,” Baze finally spoke, with a voice that felt like it came from within his chest. It was much too deeper than what Chirrut last remembered but if he’d heard it from a busy marketplace, he could have picked it out easily. “What’s all this?” Humor me, he might as well have said.

“It’s a chance for you to make a fresh start,” Mothma answered, her gentle tone carrying easily across the board. “We think you might be able to help us.”

Baze nodded towards her, one brow raised. “And you are?”

“You know who she is,” Draven hissed and might have spat out more poison if Mothma hadn’t waved for him to stand down.

“My name is Mon Mothma,” she went on as if she hadn’t been interrupted to begin with. “I sit on the council of Alliance High Command, and I approved your extraction from Wobani.”

Baze’s brows curled, the face of a man doing some quick calculations. “There’s a bounty on your head,” he said when he remembered it. Chirrut had no doubts he would know that, considering the circles he rubbed shoulders in. Baze celebrated his triumph of having uncovered this detail with a huff and a handsome smile as he looked again at Draven, then Dodonna, then…

That smile fell like melting wax, those eyes staring back at him in recognition. Now there was no escape. Chirrut had to swallow down his nerves when he met Baze’s gape with a nervous, stoic gaze.

Mothma turned in time to see this exchange. Raising a hand to him, she finally made the necessary introductions. If it could even be called that. “This is Captain Chirrut Imwe,” she said. “Rebel Alliance Intelligence. We believe…” She looked at Chirrut’s watching eyes. “That you’ve met,” she finished.

Now he was called on to play; there was no escape. He moved easily into the bunker, greeting the two generals and the senator with a nod of respect each. Mothma and Dodonna returned the gesture but Draven scoffed, shook his head and rolled his eyes.

He approached Baze carefully with quiet steps, barely making his heels tap the surface. Baze was still staring in utter disbelief. Chirrut felt as if he could hear him gasping, You’re alive. Well, yes. For his information, he was still very much alive after all those years that he was gone. Maybe if he’d stuck around instead of running off to wherever there was money to be had, he wouldn’t be so surprised.

In spite of that, Chirrut drew much closer than he ought to—because he couldn’t help it. They’d been friends in the past, they’d been more. And after all this time, he was still there in his mind—like the necklace was still around his neck. Was Baze okay? He had to make sure. Wobani was not for the faint at heart, barely even for the strong-hearted. And his curriculum vitae did not exactly promote a healthy lifestyle. He could spare his old friend that much concern. He looked at his face and noted two scars. Neither of his hands were robotic. The rest was under the flight suit.

Chirrut could only hope for the best for now. He placed his weight on the side of the table, arms still crossed. It was time to forget the past and remember the mission. “When was the last time you were in contact with Director Orson Krennic?” he asked.

The shock flickered out of Baze’s expression, his eyebrows furrowing in its place. This was not the kind of hello he was expecting from an old friend, which only bolstered Chirrut to darken his glare. “Fifteen years ago,” he said after a moment, tone careful all of a sudden. He was testing the waters, a predator at work.

Chirrut doubled his guard; he bounced off the table and walked around his friend. “Any idea where he’s been all that time?” he asked, tone a little sharper now.

“Not that I can recall,” Baze answered, following him with his eyes. “Have you tried looking under Coruscant?”

Chirrut whirled to eye him with a warning but this time, Baze fought back, pulling down his own features to a tighter knot. What are you doing? it seemed like he was asking. Don’t you remember me? In fact, Chirrut did. Worse, he never forgot about him. But Baze left him. After everything they’d been through and all for money! If the man thought that was a mistake easily forgivable, then he knew now that he was wrong. Decades of surviving by the skin of his teeth were no joke. Even a former Guardian like Chirrut had his limits.

“Look,” Baze sighed, twisting in his seat to better look at his old friend. “When I last heard from him, I was in Wadi Raffa in one of his smuggling routes. After that, I escaped. That’s my last contact with him.”

“Really?” Chirrut parked himself closer to Draven now. “He was your employer, wasn’t he?”

Baze flinched at the accusation. It was true, though. This was information discovered and confirmed when Chirrut finally joined the Alliance, after years of waiting and worrying and praying for his friend who’d disappeared so suddenly, without even so much as a goodbye. Ever since then…he’d lost faith in everything. If Baze could trade him for greener pastures, then there wasn’t much else to believe in anymore.

“I don’t make it a point to track down someone I’m hiding from,” Baze growled with a slow acid.

Chirrut felt surprisingly at ease when he responded coldly, “No, I didn’t think so.”

Baze’s jaw fell open. Shock drained his colors and broke his eyes wide open. He might have spat out something less than helpful to the already tensed interview if Draven hadn’t decided to step in with a threat.

“We’re up against the clock here, Malbus,” he snarled, rubbing his fingers on his wide forehead. “So if there’s nothing to talk about, we’ll just put you back where we found you.”

No.

Chirrut turned to him urgently. “General, let me take care of this,” he whispered quickly, meeting the frown bravely. “Please. Baze Malbus is my friend, I know how to do this.”

Draven glared at him closely. “Then stop beating around the bush and get to it, Captain.” He stood back once more, shuffling a little farther. “The galaxy is waiting.”

Chirrut breathed and muttered a word of thanks. He turned to Mothma and Dodonna each and received from them the tiniest quirk of a smile and a generous nod respectively. He couldn’t believe he’d let his personal matters get in the way in front of these leaders he respected.

He nodded back, then turned again finally to Baze who wore the eyes of an observer. Chirrut flared a little. Damn if he would let this man read him so easily like that! If anything, that at least put him right back to business.

“When was your last contact with Saw Gerrera?” he asked.

“You know, if you’re studying to be a lawyer, I’m here to tell you that you’re doing a great job, Chirrut.”

“I’ve learned many things since we last spoke,” Chirrut snapped. No namedrops for him, they hadn’t even started rebuilding the bridge Baze had burned yet. And he wasn’t going to admit that hearing his name spoken in that familiar voice had caused his heart to jump.

Baze responded with a chuckle and a shake of his head. He was getting comfortable again and Chirrut hated it. Whatever gave him the right when he was on his toes here! “I know Saw but I only met him a handful of times. The last was maybe,” he shrugged, “ten or twelve years ago.”

“He’d remember you, though, wouldn’t he?” Chirrut stepped closer to Baze. “He might agree to meet you, if you came as a friend of Liana Hallik.”

Baze’s brows met again, weighed down by questions, the first of which was: “Why Liana?” He detected an edge in his voice, cleverly coated by a healthy dose of confusion. Chirrut felt sorry that he felt a tiny flare of triumph in it. He wouldn’t just drop Liana’s name like that without reason, after all—he knew they were close. He didn’t know how they met, only suspected that an association with Saw may be behind it but the records never lied. As it turned out, they clicked, even going so far as to do a couple of missions together. It wasn’t that he derived a sick sort of delight for finding and picking on Baze’s weakness but information was his playing field now. And information was an asset.

Was this revenge?

He got Baze where he wanted him. “Look,” the man said, shifting in his seat again, “if you just need someone to find Saw, I can do that.” Leave Liana out of this.

“We know how to find him,” Chirrut told him, instinct softening his tone to ease Baze’s alarm without his noticing. “That’s not our problem. What we need is someone who gets us through the door without being killed.”

Baze didn’t seem to understand that. “Huh,” he said, dropping back to his chair. “But you’re all rebels, aren’t you?” he asked after a pause.

“Yes, but Saw Gerrera’s an extremist.” This time, Mothma rejoined the conversation. “He’s been fighting his own war for quite some time. We have no choice but to try to mend that broken trust.”

“And you think,” Baze pointed to himself, “I can help you mend that trust? I’m not even a part of Saw’s rebellion and I don’t think he cares how many Imperials I’ve killed.” He slumped a little lower in his seat, arms snug across his chest.

Mothma and Chirrut turned to each other. She gave him a little nod. With a slight exhalation, Chirrut faced his old friend again, resting his weight against the table. “We recently received intel from an Imperial defector—a pilot—that the Emperor could be creating a weapon with the power to destroy entire planets.”

Baze stared at him. And this time, it was not shock or plain disbelief printed in his face. Quite simply, he must have taken it as…a joke. A bad joke, too half-baked to be hilarious.

“That’s a terrible lie,” was all he could say in the end.

“I believe it’s the truth,” Mothma said. “I may be wrong, and I pray that I am—but I believe a weapon that murders worlds is the natural culmination of everything the Emperor has done. You’re right, though.” The senator paused to let out a little sigh. “If this were just about Saw Gerrera, we would have other approaches.”

“If this weapon exists, we have enough reason to believe that it should fall under the jurisdiction of your former employer Orson Krennic, director of the Imperial Military’s Advanced Weapons Research,” Chirrut picked up from where Mothma left off. “But since it isn’t possible to locate him at this short a time, we need a different angle to work from.” He stopped then and breathed, like a man building a reservoir of courage.

“So we decided to look for a man called Galen Erso, father of Jyn Erso,” Chirrut said and he saw it, then. The stiffening of Baze’s jaw, the hardness of his eyes. “Otherwise known presently as, Liana Hallik.” As if Baze needed telling because he knew. He’d known of it before any of them had stumbled upon that information.

Now he was using her as a bait. Again. Because this was his mission and he knew that Baze would protect her to the best that he could. From what, he didn’t know, but it was clear he wanted her out of Imperial business. Because this was Baze, after all, and he knew him. He knew all about his dreams and promises, and the little of those that came true.

“We need to stop this weapon before it is finished,” Mothma said as an appeal.

“Captain Imwe’s mission is to authenticate the intel and then, if possible, find Galen Erso,” Draven added.

Chirrut wondered if Baze heard any of those. He watched him closely. His old friend looked troubled, lost in thought, unable to look at anyone or any one thing. Could he break another promise? Could he live through that trauma again?

Baze, he whispered in his head as Baze’s eyes fell to his crossed arms. Please.

“It would appear Galen Erso is critical to the development of this superweapon,” Mothma explained, eyes on Baze. “Given the gravity of the situation and your relationship with Saw and Liana, we’re hoping that you could convince them to help us locate Galen Erso and return him to the Senate for testimony.”

“We know Saw treats Liana like his own daughter,” Chirrut interjected quickly. He didn’t actually know for sure but he knew enough to assume this was the case. “And we won’t be able to get to Saw if we don’t get through Liana first. And she won’t be able to help us if Saw gets in the way.” He looked for a reaction in Baze’s crumpled face but found nothing but warring thoughts. And then he knew he had to do something before he lost Baze to them completely.

He stepped towards his old friend and leaned close enough that Baze had to turn to look in surprise. There was no way he could have missed that. Chirrut reproached himself for taking advantage of Baze just like this but he was out of ideas, and they were running out of time. “Please, Baze,” he whispered. “We need your help. I need your help.” What was the penalty for manipulation?

Baze considered his words in pain but it wasn’t much longer when he asked, “And if I do it?” They were almost there!

Chirrut turned to Mothma.

With a smile and a nod, she said, “We’ll make sure you go free.”

It didn’t take much longer for the Empire’s most wanted man in the list to finally accept the mission.

⚭

As soon as he and Chirrut were alone in the bunker, Baze struck before the opportunity was lost.

“Chirrut!” He reached for his wrist and grasped air, but he knew all about his moves and first instincts and the man moved like an overplayed hologram in his head. What first started as a series of evasions became a quick exchange of blocked blows until Baze finally enclosed both his hands around both Chirrut’s wrists. Chirrut glared at him and tried to break the trap but Baze refused.

“How long have you been a part of the Alliance?” he spat out in one breath.

“Since you never returned, you bastard!” Chirrut directed a kick to his shin which Baze dodged with a quick shift in his leg but that was all Chirrut needed to regain his hands. He aimed the heel of a palm to Baze’s nose but met the side of his hand instead as he swung back for space.

They danced again, a well-rehearsed sparring track that went nowhere. Chirrut was the first to break out of the loop when he wove his fingers between Baze’s grasping ones and twisted their connected forearms only to be stopped mid-way by Baze catching him at a pressure point. Chirrut aimed a punch with his free hand but missed. Before the next breath, he pulled and pushed Chirrut through their joint limbs until he’d switched their places and flung his old friend to a mean corner with a solid slam. He received the business end of a harsh word for that.

“I came back to Jedha,” Baze explained quickly. “I tried to look for you but I couldn’t find you!”

“Then you should have tried harder,” Chirrut snarled. “Or you could have stayed!”

“I did it to protect you!”

“Leaving a blind man alone in the streets is protecting him?” Chirrut scowled. “Baze, I was becoming blind! I can hardly see now without these glasses!”

Unfortunately, Baze had no excuses. Only that he’d hoped he would be faster than Chirrut’s condition.

Now they marched down the tarmac together in hostile silence. Baze still nursed the bruise forming at his side after Chirrut marked it with his heel. He could practically see the smoke rising off Chirrut’s back, one shoulder weighed down by a well-worn duffel bag, the other a complicated mechanized hybrid of a bow and a cannon he knew was called a lightbow—because he’d made one himself in his youth. The lightbow was a weapon any self-respecting Guardian of the Whills carried with them.

He was surprised to see that Chirrut still had his and it looked like it was in perfect working condition, too. He’d lost any right to speak about it now, though—or about anything, actually. Chirrut really was mad—and should he even be surprised? He left him, there was no going around that fact.

He just hoped that Chirrut could maybe hear him out, assuming he still deserved the chance. He really had left him because he wanted to protect him. In those days, and as it always had, the Empire was growing stronger and stronger and they were getting hungrier and weaker. Baze felt that he had to do something about it so he became an Imperial mercenary hired on constant occasions by Orson Krennic. But he wasn’t in it for the money, although he liked to think that he’d used it to build himself up for his eventual betrayal. He wanted to be inside because he thought he could destroy the Empire from there, and that would stop the injustice and the cruelty. It was a sound plan but he was only one man bolstered only by two things: his righteous anger, and Chirrut Imwe.

In the end, he lost—he realized too late that in his vengefulness, he’d become too blind to see that he was willingly aiding the destruction of Legacy worlds, that he may as well have destroyed Jedha itself. After an assignment in Wadi Raffa, he left the Empire’s employment and hurried back to Jedha. He wanted to find Chirrut and go into hiding with him.

But he came too late; there was an Imperial attack against a separatist insurrection cell hiding out in the smaller corners of NiJedha—and that was the last anyone had seen of Chirrut Imwe. The only conclusion he could come to was that his friend, the man he had dedicated all his sacrifices to, had been killed then. He never realized that this was because Chirrut had already joined the Alliance.

Ever since, he felt like a lost soul, a shadow unanchored to a pair of feet. He grabbed every opportunity he could to kill any Imperial in sight. He became an assassin for redemption, to avenge his friend. He became acquainted to the unlikeliest people and hid his past to all except one—a young woman named Liana Hallik who later revealed herself to him as Jyn Erso, daughter of Galen Erso. She was a star in the midst of the darkness of the war-torn galaxy. She was Saw’s rebel, throwing herself at the line of fire if it meant one more day of defying the Empire that had destroyed her life. But more importantly, she was his little sister.

He promised her he would protect her, the same way he once promised Chirrut he would keep him safe. Figures that he would fail Jyn, too, the same way he’d failed Chirrut. Baze felt ugly—he felt like he was trading one for the other in his thirst for redemption. If all things went to pot, he had no one to blame but himself. He was here in the middle of a crossroads because of his own stupid decisions.

“Captain Imwe!”

Baze turned with Chirrut to see the red-haired general striding up to them and half-wondered if he had more bitterness to spew. Baze didn’t mind, he understood it was like peeing and you couldn’t hold it back, but he thought they were under the clock here?

“Wait in the U-wing,” Chirrut muttered as he dumped his things on him. Baze grunted in surprise and almost fell with the combined weight of Chirrut’s fat pack, his lightbow, his slightly more emaciated pack and the heavy set of his armor, ammo tank and cannon. It was all he could do not to fall apart or die of hernia when he finally climbed aboard the dinghy little freighter—which was all gray and mismatched, modified machinery plugged onto wherever there was space, leaving enough for a small crew’s legroom. It wasn’t much. At all. If this was the best that the rebellion had to offer—which he hoped to doubt because that would be depressing—it was…well, depressing anyway.

Baze found that he liked it, though. There was a warmth in there that was probably only reserved for people like them, people like him who made do with whatever, customizing and reinventing something that would soon be a part of him. His red armor, his bulky ammo tank, the hundred-in-one cannon that had saved his life more than once, he didn’t buy them off somewhere or much less stole them. He made them—started from scratch and built them up into the monster that he loved.

He caught himself smiling slightly in appreciation of this patched up ship when someone called his attention with: “Hey. You’re Baze Malbus, aren’t you?”

“Hm?” Baze directed his attention to a slight man working on one of the communication panels to his right. He was definitely dressed to be a member of this crew: long hair tied up, goggles on his head, a dark green-gray Imperial flight suit with a black band wrapped haphazardly over the insignia (he couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t just pull it off. If he was an Imperial spy—which Baze highly doubted—he was surprised he made it this far) and a fat, sagging utility vest. He looked like he was born straight out of the U-wing.

“Baze Malbus, Captain Imwe’s friend,” he added. His voice had a slight husk in it, and his eyes were too large and friendly for Baze’s comfort. He was instantly on his guard even though the man was smiling and he could break him in three if he wanted. “The captain told me I’d be meeting you.”

“Huh,” Baze said. Suddenly aware of himself, he put down Chirrut’s stuff, letting them lean against the wall.

The U-wing’s son took this as an opportunity to come forward with a hand out, even though Baze was in the middle of unslinging his own baggage. “Bodhi Rook,” he introduced himself. “I’m the pilot.”

In that one moment, Baze remembered three things: Bodhi was the pilot who came to pick him up from Wobani and told him happily, “Congratulations! You’re being rescued.” He was also the pilot for this mission, and he was also the Imperial defector. The pilot who provided the Alliance intel on the Empire’s superweapon.

“I remember you,” Baze said.

Bodhi smiled again, then looked at his unshaken hand consciously and wiped it in his suit. Baze wondered if he should apologize for completely forgetting about that part in their conversation. With a hesitant cheerfulness, the pilot added, “The captain also has me working on strategic analysis now.”

Baze nodded. With nothing left to say, Bodhi went back hastily to the panel he was working on. While he did that, Baze found himself a place on the U-wing’s central bench. His pack met the floor, and then carefully, his ammo tank.

Seated this way gave him a good view of the bay beyond, an empty plot of land save for a few fighters and pilots in the background and smack dab in the middle, General Draven and Chirrut Imwe, standing in quiet discussion. Chirrut had changed so much, he noticed belatedly. It wasn’t just in his bomber jacket, his combat pants or his hair, which was still short but too long and unruly for a respectable Guardian. He saw it more vividly in his stance—that weary, business-like form of a true rebel. Ever since they were young, he always stood with the gracefulness of a bird, spine straight, chin high, shoulders low. Now his figure was twisted with impatience, his chin deep and his shoulders skewed while he carried his weight on one leg, his hands on his sides.

“I uhh…heard that you defected, too.”

“Uhh,” Baze couldn’t pull away his eyes from the general and the captain until the last minute. He looked to Bodhi who looked back at him, a harris wrench in hand. “What?”

Bodhi used his tool to indicate him, then twirled it like a magic trick in his hand, a habit borne out of practice. “The captain said you defected from the Empire, too.”

He was looking for kinship, that much was obvious. Fellow defectors like him. Baze shrugged. “In a manner of speaking. I wasn’t really a part of the Empire, though.”

“Why not?”

“I was a mercenary, and an assassin.” Baze tossed his hand slightly. “I get hired to do their dirty work.”

“Oh,” Bodhi said, because what else was there to say? He held on to his harris wrench, which suddenly looked like a weapon in his hand.

And then he turned to the ammo tank sitting idly by Baze’s feet, and said again, “Ohhh…”

⚭

“Galen Erso is vital to the Empire’s weapons program,” General Draven reminded him as they stood outside the U-wing. “There will be no extraction. You find him, you kill him. Then and there.”

Easier said than done, as all expectations from General Draven were but this particular order came with a special set of complications—namely Baze Malbus and Bodhi Rook.

Two men inadvertently connected to two Ersos. Chirrut might as well find a rock in the vast forest of Yavin IV and smack himself up the head with it. This was not a problem he would have fun solving at all, assuming he could come up with a win-win situation for everyone involved. He was going to use an old friend—who he manipulated through his guilt—to help him murder his friend’s father, and he was going to betray another friend whose defection was encouraged by none other than the victim himself, Galen Erso. The man who held Bodhi’s greatest respect.

How would he even begin to lie? How would Chirrut begin to destroy everything that was important to him? His reason for living?

For what it was worth, his mission did at least tell him one thing: Baze Malbus was still important to him. That much was clearer than crystal now. He could direct all the anger, all the hatred this galaxy and this Dark Side of the Force could spare to this man who abandoned him as easily as one would dump old clothes, but it would still break his heart if Baze ever severed their relationship. He had been the one who recommended his extraction, after all, hadn’t he? He had been the one to throw all caution to the wind when he sent that message from hyperspace.

He could barely look at his hunched form when he finally climbed aboard the U-wing and went for his pack. Baze didn’t bother with him either, too interested with the clicks and slides of the cannon he was breaking open and sealing again. Bodhi was doing flight preps in the cockpit.

This was a good neutral topic to cover his guilt, Chirrut decided. He nodded towards the youngest man among them and asked, “You met Bodhi?”

Baze, his cannon split in half, stopped to regard the smaller man hidden behind the pilot’s chair. “Nice kid,” he said. “Where’d you pick him up?”

“I didn’t pick him up, he defected,” Chirrut spat in a hurry, carrying his belongings to the back of the co-pilot’s seat where he would be spending the duration of the journey in. Not exactly a smart place to put them but he had to look busy, like they were running late. The more movement he made, the less he would remember his guilt.

He chanced upon Baze’s backpack next to his feet. That overcompensating piece of metal that baffled everyone in the Alliance when they saw it in the holding room. He doubted that there was any rock in the entire galaxy where it was considered even borderline legal.

He decided to pick on that, too. “You couldn’t find a bigger gun, could you?”

Baze paused from his inspection again and responded to Chirrut’s needless criticism with a high brow. He looked at his hip and nodded to it. “You have a lightsaber.” Okay, Chirrut didn’t expect that.

He grabbed the metallic stub of his folded stick and scowled. He climbed into his seat and started to do his own flight preps.

“Seal the doors. Pull away in five,” Chirrut instructed mechanically.

“Copy that,” Bodhi responded flatly.

That was enough to throw Chirrut off his rhythm. Bodhi was never so lackluster on his assignments, not when he’d practically had to walk on burning embers to be inducted into the Alliance Fleet. And that opened Chirrut up to the noisy buzz that surrounded Bodhi’s form which sat hunched and tensed over his settings. The buzz was non-existent, of course, at least in the normal sense of the word. It belonged to a layer much deeper than the one most everyone perceived, a layer that connected everyone to each other. Something that he could read in spite of all the violations he’d committed against his faith. Well, it didn’t take a weapons engineer to find out, really. Leaning slightly to the stoic pilot, Chirrut whispered kindly, “Bodhi? I sense fear in you.”

Bodhi jumped and whirled to stare at him. He would be the recipient of a smile stubbornly refused of Baze who had probably expected it from a long overdue reunion. Well, if he’d waited that long for it, he could probably afford to wait a little more. For now.

The pilot threw a nervous glance over his shoulder towards Baze’s shape. He shifted closer to the rebel spy who quirked his brows up in amusement. “Your friend, Baze Malbus,” he whispered. He directed another furtive look at the man, as if all these theatrics could keep their conversation a secret from the assassin. Chirrut almost wanted to laugh, a strange feeling to be felt in relation to the man he hadn’t seen in ages. “He really did defect from the Empire, right?”

“Did he give you any reason to doubt that?” Chirrut turned to Baze to catch him polishing his cannon, a far quieter task than fiddling with his machinery although he didn’t have to work so hard to eavesdrop when it came to Bodhi.

“It’s just…” Bodhi hissed, flicking his tongue across his lips nervously. “Well. He said he was an assassin hired by the Empire…to do the dirty job. So. I’m just thinking.”

“What if this was all a setup and he was hired to silence us?”

“Yes!” Bodhi said, who himself carried a hefty bounty for betraying the Empire and committing theft. Excited now, he spoke quickly. “I just think that the probability of him using his weapon against us is high—very high!” he amended quickly.

Well. If Bodhi found out the truth behind his mission, the probability of him using Baze’s cannon against him would also be very high. At least Bodhi didn’t know how to shoot. Which may or may not be a good thing, depending on the context.

This was going to have to be one of those things without the right answers. It was times like this that Chirrut missed the past, when things used to be so simple, and everything was just the will of the Force.

The radio came on with an officer from the control room. They were cleared for take off. Chirrut heard the engines rising and what sounded like Baze securing himself lest he fall off. It almost felt like he was saying goodbye to yet another life. When this mission was over, there was no saying whose corpse would be flying back in the U-wing.

I am one with the Force, Chirrut found himself chanting, and the Force is with me.

Facing Bodhi again, he smiled at him and patted him on the shoulder. “Trust in the Force,” he said to him.

He could use a little reminder of the Force’s power himself.

[anoldwound]

Strictly Business - Tony Stark/Bruce Wayne [Crossover]

Title: Strictly Business Fandoms: Iron Man/The Dark Knight Characters/Pairings: Tony/Bruce, Lucius, Alfred Rating: R Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for TDK; sexual content. Word Count: 2983 Summary: Tony Stark builds a new suit for the Batman. A/N: Written for the Sekrit Cabal Porn Battle at cerebel_fics. Tony Stark was only vaguely aware of Bruce Wayne -- he was always someone on the periphery of his vision, but they did not run in the same social circles, and so the man never really crossed his mind too much. And, in any case, Tony usually had bigger fish to fry. Today, however, was an exception. Lucius Fox, a partner at Wayne Enterprises, had contacted him a few weeks ago to express interest in a possible collaboration with Stark Industries. Tony was aware of the kind of work Lucius did, and was begrudgingly impressed with him, so he agreed to a quick meeting scheduled for the first of the next month. He was not entirely sure, however, what exactly this collaboration entailed, but he figured he’d find out when he got there. After Pepper had arranged for a jet to take him to Gotham City, he decided at the last second to fly there in the suit instead. He never could resist showing off, after all, and in any case it would probably be a good reminder for Lucius to know exactly who he was dealing with. “You can’t travel all the way across the country in your suit,” Pepper had protested. “I traveled to the Middle East in this thing, remember?” Tony said, raising an eyebrow. “I think I can handle it.” Pepper was pissed off, of course, but Tony couldn’t be assed to care too much. He took off early the morning of the meeting, arriving just in time to sit down with Lucius at an outdoor café, still dressed in the suit. Lucius’ eyebrows shot up as Tony flew down onto his seat and took the mask off with some difficulty. “Impressive, Mr. Stark,” he said. “Thank you,” Tony said, humbly, of course. Everyone was staring at him, and some were pointing. He smirked faintly. “You built it yourself, yes?” “That’s correct.” “With scrap metal, I seem to recall reading in the newspaper.” “Right-o.” “You’re clearly a brilliant man.” “Thank you.” “Has your ego been stroked thoroughly now?” He considered. “Yeah, it has.” “Good. Let’s cut the theatrics and get down to business.” Lucius spread out a piece of graph paper. “I was wondering if you could help us with this. There seem to be a few kinks that need to be worked out…” Tony stared at the paper. “Is this…?” Lucius said nothing, just gazed at him expectantly. His eyes squinted as he leaned in for a closer inspection. “This is the design for the Batman costume,” he murmured, low enough so only Lucius could hear. He had heard stories about the Batman, of course, and seen several shadow-y pictures, but he’d never thought… “It is.” Tony looked up. “Why are you showing me this?” “The owner of this suit has complained of limited movement in the defensive design, while the more light-weight and mobile version is more susceptible to attack,” he explained. He looked at Tony’s armor. “You seemed like the man to hire to find the middle ground.” Tony swallowed, his eyes poring over the sketches. “And you trust me with this information?” For there was only one logical conclusion that could be reached, considering who Lucius Fox worked for. “An old friend of mine said you could be trusted.” He didn’t bother asking who this “old friend” was, and rolled the paper up quickly before someone could see. “I’ll see what I can do.” “Please do.” He extended his arm across the table. “Thank you, Mr. Stark.” Tony went to shake his hand, then remembered he was still in the suit and decided against it. “Sorry. Don’t want to crush your fingers accidentally.” Lucius smiled and pulled back his arm. “That wouldn’t be very good, no.” They exchanged goodbyes, and Tony set off for Malibu, pondering all the while. Bruce Wayne, the Batman… --- It didn’t take too long for Tony to come up with a better design for the bat-suit (only a couple days), and he flew back to Gotham as soon as he was finished -- this time in the jet, unfortunately, at the insistence of Pepper. Tony didn’t really have the heart to refuse her a second time. Lucius was waiting for him at the landing deck, with a sleek, black Lamborghini behind him. “You have the new design?” he asked as Tony approached. “Yep,” Tony said, the new, rolled-up plans in his hand. “You know, there wasn’t much to improve on, really. Your design was good.” Lucius seemed pleased. “Thank you.” He took the paper and unrolled it, inspecting it carefully. Tony rocked on his heels impatiently for several minutes as Lucius carefully looked over the new design, until finally he looked up and grinned. “This is marvelous,” Lucius declared. “It’ll solve all of our problems.” “Glad I could be of service.” He was still rocking impatiently, peering over Lucius’ shoulder, trying to see inside the tinted windows. Lucius noticed what he was doing, and looked as well, a deep smirk on his face. “I’m sure you know who’s in that car, Mr. Stark.” “I’d like to think my deductive skills are relatively good, yeah.” Lucius looked back at him. “Would you like to meet him?” “That would be --” His voice cracked slightly; he adjusted his tie as though it were hanging too tight around his neck. “--okay, I guess,” he finished. “All right. Mr. Wayne?” He opened the car door slightly and peeked inside. “Mr. Stark’s ready to see you.” Tony heard a small chortle from inside, and as Lucius opened the car door completely, the figure of Bruce Wayne emerged from the shadow of the driver’s seat. Somehow, he was shorter than Tony was expecting, although still taller than him. He was incredibly handsome, and there was a strange, sort of dark air about him that Tony was finding rather… appealing. Bruce looked Tony up and down appreciatively, and slowly smiled. “So you’re Iron Man,” he said. --- “We’re prepared to give you a substantial amount of money for your work on this project,” Bruce was saying as the three of them sat around a dining table in his restaurant. Tony couldn’t help but feel a little envious; he didn’t have his own restaurant. Tony waved his hand carelessly. “The last thing I need is money,” he said. “I’m sure you can appreciate that.” Bruce smirked. “I can. But we can’t let your help go unrewarded. Especially with the improvements you’ve made.” “You wanna reward me?” He grinned. “Why don’t you take me on a tour of the penthouse?” “Tour -- tour of the penthouse?” He was flustered; confused. “Why would you want to go there?” “To see the work you’re doing, obviously.” Tony narrowed his eyes slightly and raised an eyebrow. “Oh -- well, none of the technology is built in the penthouse. Too many questions, you understand,” said Bruce, clearly not getting it. “Plus, there’s not enough room. No, all of… that is stored somewhere else.” Tony resisted the urge to sigh and instead nodded. “Let’s go there, then.” This was going to be difficult, he could see. --- “Cool entrance,” Tony said as the elevator came to a stop. “Thanks,” said Bruce, grinning. Tony looked around as Bruce turned on the lights; the infamous Batmobile was sitting in the corner, all big and impressive and hulky. The Bat-suit was locked safely inside a cage, and a medical station was at the far end of the room. The ceiling was low and made entirely out of the rectangular lights, which gave the room a nice effect, Tony thought. He pulled his lips down and nodded. “Nice.” “Yeah, I like to think so.” Bruce smiled again. “Alfred should be joining us in a while.” “Uh, I’m sorry -- Alfred?” “He’s my butler. Been with the family for years.” Bruce laid his blazer on a chair. “Anything in particular you want to see?” Yeah, I’d like to see that shirt off of you, thanks. He didn’t say that, though; he figured taking this nice and slow would be the best way to go about it. His impatient and horny side did not like this plan one bit. “What’ve you got?” “Well…” He walked over to the suit; Tony followed. “Here’s the suit in person.” He un-locked the cage, and the suit stood before them in all of its glory -- black as the night, as the stories went. “You must be pretty terrifying in this,” Tony said, running his fingers down the stomach. “Some people think so.” “Wonder what it looks like on you.” Tony looked meaningfully over at him, fingers still on the suit. Bruce shrugged. “All you need to do is picture my chin under the mask and you get the basic idea.” Man, this guy was clueless. “Right.” He stopped touching the suit and put his hands in his pockets. “Just curious -- do you disguise your voice at all or anything?” He remembered hearing from a couple people that the Batman had a deep voice, and while Bruce’s voice wasn’t high and squeaky or anything, it certainly wasn’t especially deep. Bruce looked a little suspicious. “Why?” “I heard from a couple people that your voice was really deep.” Geez, it was just a question. “Well, yes, I do disguise it. It also makes me sound more frightening than if I’d use my regular voice.” He cleared his throat and said, in what was clearly the Batman voice, “Tell your friends about me --” (he said something Tony couldn’t understand) “---the Batman.” There was a silence for a few seconds… until Tony burst out laughing. “What? What is it?” Bruce asked in his normal voice. “I’m sorry -- that was just ridiculous,” Tony said, still laughing. “I couldn’t understand half of what you were saying! You need to get a new ‘terrifying’ voice, pal.” Bruce glared at him, but didn’t say anything. “I’ve got a couple of voice modifiers you can borrow, if you want.” “No thanks.” “C’mon! I can make you sound like James Earl Jones. It’ll be fun.” “What I do isn’t fun, Stark.” “Really? You go around at night dressed as a giant bat and terrorize criminals -- how is that not fun?” Bruce rolled his eyes and walked off. “What? What’d I say?” Tony asked, arms raised in confusion. --- Bruce had shown him several more gadgets -- nothing Tony thought terribly fascinating or even inventive -- when an old man suddenly appeared behind them. “Hello,” the old man said, making Tony jump, “who’s this?” “Oh, hi, Alfred! I wasn’t expecting you here so soon,” said Bruce. “This is Tony Stark -- he designed the new suit. Tony, this is Alfred.” Tony extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Al.” “Likewise.” He shook his hand. “But don’t call me Al.” “Gotcha.” “I was just showing Tony the grappler,” Bruce said, picking it up from the table. “I’m sure the grappler will not impress the famous Tony Stark very much, Mr. Wayne,” Alfred said, looking slyly at Tony. “You should show him the bat beacon.” “Ah, yes, the bat beacon!” Bruce said, beaming at Tony. “What’s the bat beacon?” Tony asked. “It’s a sonic trigger that calls in a swarm of bats,” he explained. “It creates complete chaos and scares my enemies.” “Hmm. I’d imagine it’d be very effective for dramatic entrances at parties,” Tony said dryly. Bruce laughed, and Alfred looked at Bruce with a brow furrowed. “Well, enough of this crap,” Tony said, casting a disinterested eye at the gadgets spread out on the table. “Let’s ride the Batmobile!” “Er -- I’m sorry, what?” “Let’s ride in the Batmobile! I wanna be able to say I rode in the Batmobile.” He loosened his tie. “Um… I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Bruce said slowly. “You see, Batman doesn’t come out during the day.” “And…?” “So, the Batmobile can’t come out during the day either.” Tony sighed. “All right. But can we go somewhere else now? Not a whole lot to do in here. There’s not even a soda machine.” “I’ve been begging him to install one in here for ages,” Alfred commented. “I get very thirsty here in the middle of the night.” Bruce shook his head, although he was clearly amused. “Why don’t we go to the penthouse?” Tony asked, smirking at Bruce. “Didn’t you ask me that earlier? Why do you want to go there so bad?” Tony saw Alfred roll his eyes to the ceiling. Good to know that not everyone in this city was completely obtuse. “No reason. Just curious.” “Well, okay. Just let me put everything back,” said Bruce, gathering the gadgets in his arms. As Bruce walked back to the suit to reattach the gadgets, Alfred said to Tony in a low voice, “For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen him so cheerful since Rachel died.” He then gave him a knowing look and followed Bruce to the Batsuit. Feeling much more confident about his evil plan to fuck Bruce Wayne, Tony rocked on his heels and whistled. --- Bruce’s penthouse was very nice, Tony thought to himself as the private elevator doors opened. Great view of the city. But now that he was actually here, in the penthouse, every inch of his being was screaming with want. It took an incredible amount of self-control to not jump Bruce right then and there. Good things come to those who wait, he tried to remind himself, but his libido was not listening. Bruce was pouring him a drink over at the bar. “I don’t usually drink too much,” he said, handing Tony a glass of scotch. “But I guess I can make an exception.” Tony bit back the question he longed to ask (“What do you mean, you don’t usually drink?!”), and instead swung back the scotch. Bruce sipped his. “You gonna stand behind the counter the whole time or what?” Tony asked, grinning wickedly. Bruce grinned back. “Guess not.” He leapt over the counter right onto the seat next to Tony. “You’re very agile,” Tony remarked, his skin becoming warm at Bruce’s close proximity. Or maybe it was the scotch. Either way. “Thanks.” Bruce knocked the rest of the scotch back. “I’ve had a lot of training.” “I’ll bet you have.” Tony reached for the bottle of whiskey that was next to the bottle of scotch, and poured it liberally into his glass. “Probably comes in handy a lot, huh?” “Oh, yeah,” Bruce said, chuckling. Tony poured some whiskey into his glass. “I wouldn’t be able to do what I do if I wasn’t as skilled as I am.” “Exactly how skilled would you say you are? On a scale from one to ten.” Bruce looked bemused. “Uh… I don’t know. An eight, I guess? Maybe a nine.” Tony felt the blood rush down there as he imagined the possibilities. “Could you give a demonstration?” “I guess I --” Bruce knocked over his drink, spilling it all over Tony’s lap. “Oh, I’m sorry…” “It’s fine,” said Tony, but did nothing. “Aren’t you going to clean it up?” “Nah. Why don’t you do it?” A blush crept up Bruce’s cheek, and it was so hot that Tony could barely contain himself. “But it’s on your --” A look of comprehension suddenly dawned on his face. “Oh.” He looked down and saw Tony’s erection. “Oh. Uh…” Tony didn’t bother waiting for an actual response, and simply leaned over and kissed Bruce roughly on the mouth, his stubble scratching against Bruce’s smooth skin. Bruce’s mouth opened tentatively, and Tony growled, shoving his tongue inside. Bruce responded, his tongue running slowly along Tony’s, making them both groan and clutch at each other, hands running through hair and along arms, Tony’s finger running down Bruce’s leg, which twitched at the contact. There was several more minutes of this, until Tony broke away and softly said: “You gonna clean up the mess you made or not?” Tony was barely done with the sentence before Bruce was rubbing his erection through his pants; Tony leaned his head back and moaned. “Bed,” he panted. “Or the floor, something --” Bruce paid no attention to him; he got on his knees and un-zipped Tony’s pants, pulling a condom out of his wallet at the same time. Tony felt the exhilaration, the relinquishment of control as Bruce pinned his arms down on the stool with surprising strength and rolled the condom on with his mouth, expertly, as though he had done this a million times before. Tony shuddered with an incredible hunger. Bruce wrapped his lips around him, and it was all Tony could do to keep from crying out. He was so hard it hurt -- And he was also remarkably glad that he had decided to come back to Gotham when Bruce did something especially… creative. --- An hour or so later, and Bruce and Tony were lying naked on the ground, Tony’s leg wrapped haphazardly around Bruce’s. “That was the best business meeting I’ve ever had, I think,” Bruce said. Tony smirked. “I would hope so. Although, I can’t help but wonder…” “Can’t help but wonder what?” “Just, you know.” Tony looked at him. “What it would’ve been like if you were dressed as Batman.” “I don’t think you’re Batman’s type,” Bruce said playfully. “Oh, that’s rich. You know, Batman could do a lot worse than me.” “He could. But he could do a lot better. He’s the goddamn Batman, after all.” “Yeah, well, you’re goddamn Bruce Wayne, and I’m goddamn Tony Stark, and we are also the goddamn Batman and the goddamn Iron Man. So, everyone wins.” “A lot of blasphemy, between the both of us.” “Blasphemy’s fun.” “Can’t argue with that.” Tony suddenly reached for Bruce’s dick, and reveled in the gasp that came out of Bruce’s mouth. He was clearly going to have to schedule more of these “business meetings”.

[sorrowsflower]

And Four To Go...

Adlock, set during ‘The Final Problem’

Four people sat in the living room of 221B Baker Street, like pieces on each corner of a chessboard. 

Sherlock Holmes was in his usual chair, fingers steepled under his chin as they were whenever he was deep in thought. John Watson sat across from him, in his old chair, but there was in his stance, a certain discomfit -- as if the seat he was filling had somehow outgrown him, or perhaps he had outgrown it -- and yet, still, he remained there.

In the client's chair, the unwilling participant, Mycroft Holmes found himself in a position he rarely, and in fact, had never occupied -- that of victim and supplicant. Supplication was for lesser mortals, not gods in marble halls such as him -- and yet, here he was, his hands empty save for his weapon that he clung to needlessly like a child clutching a security object. 

His vulnerability, his inferiority thrown in his face like a wet rag.

It seemed fitting that the person who sat across from him be another who had conquered him and had nearly destroyed him and his brother. Yet another example of his inadequacy. 

The Woman sat in a chair in front of the fireplace between the detective and the doctor.

Of course. Trust Irene Adler to choose the position in which she could be at the head of the room, across from Mycroft so that she could see his shame and vulnerability straight in the face. 

As undeniably grave as their situation was, he knew she had to be enjoying her triumph over him immensely. Five years, and yet here she was across from him, still the dark queen in black silk and Louboutins, instead of the hostage in the hijab that he had seen in the video of her "execution".

Irene Adler, alive. And his own brother, a traitor -- not just to the country for knowingly aiding and abetting a known terrorist, but to Mycroft himself.

But then again, neither he nor his brother were the honest type, were they?

He really should have known.

"Why is she here?" Mycroft turned to his brother, his tone lofty, an annoyed drawl that only thinly concealed his shock and fury. He twirled his umbrella in his hand even as he itched to draw the gun from it, trying to decide which of them he wanted to shoot more --- The Woman or his fool of a brother.

"She is here at my request," Sherlock murmured, looking at neither of them. It didn't fool Mycroft. The slight tension in his facial muscles, the way he responded, minutely and seemingly unconsiously, to the Woman's every shift in posture. Sherlock and his damned sentiment... "And she's here as a favor to me --- well, actually to you, since this was your fault to begin with --- so do shut up, Mycroft.”

"This is family!" Mycroft had hissed at him in an attempt to exclude not only The Woman, but also John Watson. He had worked too long and too hard all these years to ensure, not only the safety of the country but that of his family, to trumpet their secrets to two outsiders --- least of all to Irene Adler, for God's sakes, who had dealt with secrets and blackmail for a living when she was living. Or legally living.

"THAT'S WHY SHE STAYS!" Sherlock had turned on him with such ferocity that Mycroft actually drew back for fear of a physical attack. "That's why they both stay!"

He, Mycroft, had no choice but to acquiesce. 

... And so, the story unfolded itself from his lips.

"Heaven may be a fantasy for the credulous and the afraid," Mycroft mused as he neared the end of his story -- his confession -- his tone chilling and sober as a wry, grim smile crossed his face. "But I can give you a map reference to Hell."

He let the words sink in for the other three people in the room. 

"That's where our sister has been since early childhood. She hasn't left, not for a single day." Mycroft continued, addressing both his brother and John Watson. His tone turned wry and dismissive. "Whoever you both met... it can't have been her."

Both men were shocked and silent, but surprisingly, it was the Woman who interrupted him.  She had a phone in her lap, similar to the one that had given Mycroft and everyone else so much trouble, except he knew Sherlock had kept that one. This was a newer model, and she kept it close, even as her cold eyes bore into Mycroft's, as though trying to see the lie in his.

"I met her."

Sherlock's head snapped toward her and his voice was low and dangerous when he spoke. "What?"

If she picked up on the change in his tone, she didn't show it, instead she directed her answer to Mycroft. "Three days ago. At Eaton Square. I passed her on the street. I... dropped something, and she picked it up. I didn't think anything of it, but as she was handing it to me, she leaned close and said, 'I'd be careful if I were you. The East Wind is here’."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at her. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

One perfectly shaped eyebrow rose as she returned his glare. "Why do you think I came here?"

John's gaze flicked between the two, but it was Mycroft who cut them off. "How can you be sure it was her? You don't even know what she looks like, that could have been anybody."

"It was her."

John's brow furrowed in confusion. "Yeah, but how could you possibly know that?"

Instead of explaining herself, the Woman turned to Sherlock, her gaze unreadable. They stared at each other for several seconds, as if they could read the other's thoughts. Mycroft tried to deduce anything he could from whatever internal conversation they were having, but couldn't and he was just about to interrupt out of frustration when Sherlock seemed to interpret something in the Woman's gaze, and his face darkened considerably. 

His fingers gripped the arms of his chair so tight, his knuckles whitened.

"Because she wasn't talking to you."

Both John and Mycroft exchanged a look, brows furrowed in confusion. Mycroft spoke first. "What do you mean? Who else would she---?"

The rest of his sentence fizzled out as they heard the tinkling crash of glass breaking from somewhere in the kitchen. All four of them turned toward the source of the sound, immediately on alert. The crash was immediately followed by a soft, droll voice crooning those dreaded words:

"I that am lost, oh, who will find me?

Deep down below, the old beech tree."

All at once, the four of them were on their feet. John Watson, ever the soldier, stiffened as though readying himself for an attack. The Woman's eyes were narrowed at the doorway, and Mycroft could see Sherlock instinctively reach for her hand, the one that held her new phone. 

A chill went down Mycroft's spine at the sound of that voice, and he reached for his umbrella.

“Help succor me now, the east winds blow. 

Sixteen by six, brother, and under we go..."

He was the closest to the door, and he was the first to see the small drone flying slowly  their way. At first, he couldn't make out its irregular shape, then he realized what was perched on top of the drone and his blood turned into ice water in his veins.

"Keep back!" Mycroft warned the others sharply as the drone came into the sitting room. "Keep as still as you can!"

The doctor was the first to speak. "What is it?"

Sherlock spoke first. "It's a drone."

"Yeah, I can see that," It was John Watson who replied even as he began to retreat slowly, trying to get as far away from the drone as possible within the confines of the sitting room. "What's it carrying?"

"What's that silver thing on top of it, Mycroft?"

"It's a DX-707. Colloquially, it is known as the 'Patience Grenade'." Mycroft explained inanely as the drone began to lower itself. At the word 'grenade', he saw Sherlock inch forward subtly so that the Woman was behind him.

Vaguely, he had a sense of how absurd this whole situation was: his brother, his brother's lover, his brother's best friend and himself playing statues in a room with a bomb sent by his sister in it. And yet, here he was speaking in a calm voice that was not his own. "I've authorized the purchase of quite a number of these." 

The Woman gave a short laugh from her side of the room. "I know. So did I."

Mycroft resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Why couldn't Sherlock have chosen a normal woman to develop sentiment for? One who wasn't a terrorist and a dominatrix? Between the Woman, their sister and their mother, they had caused enough trouble for Sherlock Holmes to last Mycroft a lifetime.

The drone landed on the floor, and a small red light, no bigger than a dot, came on.

"The blinking red light on top of it, that wasn't in the prototype." The Woman was still speaking. She had moved to a spot closer to the window --- closer to Sherlock, who still held her hand --- but she had stopped moving as soon the drone landed on the floor and the motion sensors activated. 

"Ah... this isn't the original prototype," Mycroft explained, a note of dread and anxiety creeping into his voice even as he tried not to move. "This is a modified version of the grenade with the motion sensors adjusted to be much more sensitive and more powerful than the prototype. If any of us move, the grenade will detonate."

The Woman fixed him with a level look. "How much more sensitive?"

"The slightest movement could kill us all."

Sherlock glared at him. "How powerful?"

"It will certainly destroy this flat and kill anyone in it." Mycroft heard Sherlock release a long, slow breath, and the Woman's mouth tightened. John Watson muttered a curse under his breath.

"Assuming walls of reasonable strength, your neighbors should be safe. But as it's landed on the floor, I am moved to wonder if the cafe below is open."

It was the Woman who replied, with a slight smile on her face, slanting a look at Sherlock. "Sunday morning. It's closed."

Mycroft pursed his lips. If this bomb didn't kill them all, he would strangle his brother with his bare hands. Or perhaps he'd better save that for the head of his surveillance team. God only knew how many times Irene Adler had managed to get past them into Baker Street without them realizing it. Incompetent goldfish...

John Watson's voice interrupted his murderous thoughts. "What about Mrs. Hudson?"

Ah, yes. Sherlock's beloved landlady. He could hear the sound of the vacuum cleaner running underneath them.

"Going by her routine," Sherlock muttered. "I estimate she has another eight minutes left."

"She keeps the vacuum cleaner at the back of the flat." John mused.

"So?"

"So... Safer there when she's putting it away." John Watson replied, angling a look at him. "But we have to move eventually, and we should do it when she's safest."

True. Besides after the kitchen, Mrs. Hudson usually moved up to the second floor to clean, putting her much closer to the blast radius. The same thought apparently occurred to Sherlock. "When the vacuum stops, we give her eight seconds to get to the back of the flat. She's fast when she's cleaning... Then we move. What's the trigger response time?"

"The prototype had seven seconds." The Woman replied, her clever, glacial eyes scanning the room before flicking to Mycroft's. "Unless you enhanced your lovely 'modified' version to kill us all faster?"

Mycroft glared at her. How was he to know Eurus would use this against him? Then he backtracked immediately on that train of thought : if he didn't anticipate this, who would have? "We have a maximum of three seconds to vacate the blast radius."

He saw his brother's eyes flick from the grenade to the Woman, then to the window, and he could almost see Sherlock making calculations -- the distance between her and the grenade, the distance between the Woman and the window -- but before either Holmes could speak, the Woman did.

"Don't even think about it."

Sherlock smiled wryly. "It was just a thought."

The Woman glared at him icily. "Remember the last time you tried to 'save' me? How did that work out for you again?"

Sherlock's smile turned into a full grin. "Well, you did break me out."

Mycroft frowned at them both, but thankfully, it was John who interrupted. "Uh, hello? Hate to interrupt your reminiscing, but we do have a grenade in here that will explode and kill us all if we don't come up with a plan soon."

"Right." Sherlock looked back at the grenade, then scanned the room. "The Woman and I will take this window. John, you take the window closest to you. Mycroft, you take the stairs. Help get Mrs. Hudson out too."

Mycroft frowned at him. "Me?"

Sherlock's eyes flicked to the stairs. "You're closer."

"But you're faster."

"Speed differential won't be as critical as the distance." Sherlock muttered, looking up at him.

Mycroft exhaled slowly and steeled himself. "Yes, agreed."

The Woman interrupted them, but this time when she spoke, they heard an urgency in her tone that was unfamiliar and unexpected. "Is a phone call possible?"

All three men looked at her, and Mycroft could see that her eyes were cold still, but a look of fear had infused itself into her glacial gaze. Actual fear... and this was the Woman who had brought the nation to its knees without batting an eyelash. Mycroft only recognized the emotion because he had seen it there five years ago when Sherlock had deduced her sentiment for him.

"What--?"

"Is a phone call possible?" She repeated, carefully enunciating each word with impatience and her familiar brand of imperiousness.

Mycroft frowned incredulously at her. "You must be joking! You know what this bomb can do! What could possibly be so important that you---!"

"Shut up, Mycroft." Sherlock cut him off. 

He was staring at the Woman, his pale eyes unreadable, and Mycroft had to wonder, yet again, what went on between the two of them. It was as if they could truly read each other's minds. Not even Mycroft could deduce Sherlock's thinking process most of the time. He may be the smart one, but Sherlock was remarkable in a way that not even Mycroft, his brother and self-appointed keeper for most of his life, could understand.

And yet here was this Woman --- this deceptive storm who had swept into their lives and uprooted everything in her path with ease --- who seemed not only able to understand his brother, but also shared the same thoughts, the same brilliance.

Sherlock was slowly, inch by inch, adjusting his grip on her hand, the one that held her phone, and Mycroft cried out in alarm. "What are you doing?! Have you gone mad??"

His brother ignored him and carefully, with minute movements, adjusted his hands with the Woman's so that he held the phone. Since he had been holding her hand anyway, there was very little movement involved, but still Mycroft watched with trepidation. The other three in the room waited with bated breath as the phone switched hands, but by some miracle, the grenade remained intact and so did they. 

The Woman's grip on the phone loosened, and Sherlock slid his fingers over the screen to dial a number Mycroft didn't recognize.

The sound of the phone ringing as it waited for a response from the other line seemed almost violently loud in the room. It seemed interminable, the ringing of the phone, but when the other line picked up, Mycroft released a long, shocked breath.

"Hello?"

A child's voice --- male, possibly no older than three, with an undeniably British accent, though with just the slightest hint of Manhattan in its pronunciation of the 'e', and the smallest lisp. 

Dear God... he would know that lisp anywhere. He had grown up hearing it, until the day Redbeard disappeared and his baby brother had changed completely.

"Oh, Sherlock... you didn't..."

Sherlock didn't answer, but the Woman did, and there was in her cool voice, a slight hitch, a tremor that betrayed her to the other people in the room, but not to the voice on the other line. "Hello, darling."

"Mummy!" The happiness in the child's tone was clear and genuine. Mycroft's chest squeezed painfully as he listened to the child. From his peripheral vision, he saw John Watson's eyes widen and flick back and forth between the Woman and Sherlock. 

"Mummy, when are you coming home?"

The Woman's cool composure seemed to crack a little and she closed her eyes. "Not tonight, darling."

The disappointment was apparent in the child's voice when he spoke. "Oh. Is Daddy with you?"

Sherlock's grip on the phone tightened. "Yes."

John Watson's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as he stared at Sherlock, but before he could do or say anything more, Mycroft hissed at him, "For God's sake, Dr. Watson, don't move!"

The doctor settled for glaring at Sherlock murderously and muttering a curse under his breath, but Mycroft had the distinct impression that he would be trying to punch Sherlock again if the bomb didn't have motion sensors. Mycroft couldn't blame him, as it was, he was already planning his brother's murder if they got out of this alive. "Jesus, Sherlock...! A kid... a fucking kid!"

"Nero..." Sherlock began, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the phone. So that was the boy's name... "Nero. Your mother and I are working on a case."

"A case?!" The child's excited voice thrilled through the phone. Sherlock breathing hitched a little, and his eyes flicked to the Woman's. "Can I help? I wanna help! Mummy said I could help in the next one!"

"Of course you can, darling." The tremor in the Woman's voice was more difficult to conceal now, but Mycroft could see her gathering her composure to avoid alarming the boy. 

It made Mycroft wonder about the boy's intellectual capabilities. With parents like his, there was no doubt he would be extraordinary... He wished he could meet him. Nero. If not to assess his brilliance, then just to see his nephew. Dear God in Heaven, his nephew...

"Do you remember what we taught you before?" Sherlock, too, kept his tone light, but Mycroft could hear the urgency beginning to creep into it. "What I told you the best detectives do?"

"The best detectives 'Look for clues'! I'll look for clues and deduce them!" Nero's tremendous excitement and his lisp made the exclamation almost incomprehensible, and Sherlock huffed a short laugh.

"That's right. I'll even give you a hint. It's in the fireplace."

"The fireplace!" For a moment, the sounds from the other line disintegrated into shuffling and bumping as the child headed to the fireplace in his location. 

The child must have set the phone down, because the audio cleared and Mycroft could hear a woman speaking Serbian in the background with the smallest hint of an English accent. He recognized the region the dialect was from and he noted the voice as that of the Woman's former assistant, Katherine "Kate" Malone. So they were in Montenegro, then, and this Kate was his nephew's only guardian present.

"I've got it!" Nero's voice crowed into the phone. "Mummy, Daddy! I've got it! I know what to do!"

"Well done!" The Woman laughed into the phone, but Mycroft was surprised to see the sheen of tears on her cheeks. "We have to go now, my darling. Stay with Kate, and be good. We'll see you when you find all the clues."

"Bye, Mummy. Bye, Daddy." Nero's voice began to grow faint as the child no doubt pored over whatever "clues" he had found. "Love you!"

The Woman's eyes closed and her composure cracked enough so that Mycroft saw her face tighten with pain. She seemed unable to speak. Sherlock, however, spoke for her.

"I love you, too." His eyes were grave, but Mycroft could tell, having known his brother all his life, that Sherlock meant these words. No lie. No deception. "We both do."

Instead of clicking off, they heard the sound of pounding over the other line, followed by the sounds of yelling. Mycroft's Serbian had been developed well enough with his stint at Baron Maupertuis' compound that he could decipher what the gruff male voices were demanding. They wanted the boy.

"Nero?"

There was no hiding the alarm in the Woman's voice now. Her entire body seemed to stiffen as she called for her son. The voices grew louder and more aggressive, and the pounding of many footsteps on wood followed it. Dear God, they must have entered the house... 

"Nero?? Darling, answer me! What's going on?"

There was a loud thud and a woman's scream. The Woman's eyes widened and he knew it was only the threat of the motion sensors that stopped her from reaching out for the phone again. "Kate! Oh, God... Nero, baby, answer me please...!"

But the child's voice could not be heard over the sounds of people storming the house. Mycroft strained to hear the small, high childish voice with its lisp amid the gruff yelling and the commotion, but he couldn't hear it.

Sherlock had gone as still as stone, but his eyes were wild with fear. "Nero??"

For a moment, the commotion stopped. As though Sherlock's voice over the phone had made them freeze.

Then it came.

The sound of a bomb exploding, its blast echoing from the other line in Montenegro through the small phone held in Sherlock Holmes's hands in 221B Baker Street.

And the line went dead.

Vaguely, Mycroft heard the Woman gasp and cry out, he heard John Watson yelling, but it was Sherlock's reaction that triggered the chain of events that Mycroft would never forget in his life.

Sherlock’s death grip on the phone loosened as though someone had cut off all his muscles completely. The phone slid out of his hand and dropped to the floor.

Immediately, the beeping from the grenade started and Mycroft moved out of sheer instinct. He launched himself out of the room and dove for the stairs just as the bomb exploded. The force of the explosion propelled him much further than he had expected, and Mycroft was thrown against the wall opposite the stairs.

God, it hurt...!

He had known it would, but nothing in his life prepared him for the pain as his body collided with the wall and dropped onto the bottom of the stairs. It felt as if every bone in his body was broken, his ears were ringing and he felt the hot sting of burns on his arms and legs where the heat from the fire had singed through his suit and into his skin. He was bleeding in at least half a dozen places where the shrapnel and debris had cut him, copiously from at least two of them,

He wanted nothing more than to lie there and recover, but there was Mrs. Hudson to think of.

Mrs. Hudson who was screeching in shock and terror in the supply closet where she had no doubt hid herself as an instinctive reaction. Thank God the woman still had the presence of mind for that.

"What's going on?? What was that? I was just cleaning, and --- Where are the boys??"

He couldn't think about what had happened to the others upstairs, he had to get them both out first. The others were far more used to these things than he, with his disdain for leg work, was, and he had to believe they were alright.

Mycroft struggled to his feet and lurched toward her as smoke began to fill the kitchen and the flames began to spread down the stairs. Thankfully, there were no shrapnel or debris here. He grabbed Mrs. Hudson by the back of her dress and pulled her out  the back door to the relative safety of the street.

He dropped to the concrete as soon as he knew they were both safe. Mrs. Hudson was still dithering on the sidewalk, looking up at her house, whimpering over and over again. The proprietor of the nearby bakery who had rushed out at the sound of the explosion took pity on her and led her in for tea while he called the fire department.

The doctor was the first to find him, trying to get his wits back in line and his cuts to stop bleeding. John leaned over him, asking "Are you alright?"

"Sherlock?" Mycroft asked, his voice hoarse and choked by smoke and fear. "And Irene Adler?"

"Alive," The doctor reassured him, pointing over to the other end of the street. "Here they come."

Mycroft barely heard him. It was disconcerting, to say the least, being on the receiving end of such an explosion, when these were things he ordered on a daily basis behind the safety and security of his desk  "Dear God... I can't believe I almost killed us all, almost orphaned my nephew, with that bomb..."

John Watson dropped down beside him on the sidewalk. "I can't believe you have a nephew..."

Mycroft exhaled unsteadily.

"Wait, your nephew...!" John straightened up with a jolt, as though electrocuted, and Mycroft felt a sense of immense dread swooping his stomach, and his blood turned to ice. 

Nero! God in Heaven, the child could not be dead. He could not... And yet who could survive that blast they heard over the phone? Mycroft was barely alive as it was, and he had a good few decades on the boy.

"Oh, God. Nero..."

"Relax," Sherlock's voice floated over them as he and the Woman approached. "He's fine."

Mycroft sputtered, looking incredulously at them both. "But --- But that phone call...! And Montenegro??"

"Recorded." The Woman answered, with a serene smile on her face. She brushed debris off her dress and unpinned her hair. "Three days ago, when I met your lovely sister. Or rather, when she met Nero. I thought it was strange when she mentioned the East Wind, because I knew I'd heard it before."

She turned to Sherlock. "Then I remembered you sang that song to Nero when he was born, and then again when we were in Madrid. It just took me a while to understand its significance. And then Eurus decided to introduce herself."

John gaped at her. "And you just... knew that she was Sherlock's sister? How, telepathically?"

"No, Dr. Watson." The Woman spared him a condescending glare. "I didn't know who she was. But I'm a practical woman, I knew that if someone could figure out who I was and where I'd lived in my past life, despite my extensive precautions, eventually, they would find my connection to Sherlock. She seemed to know who Nero was, and when it comes to my son, I don't take chances." 

Her eyes were steely and Mycroft had to admit, begrudgingly and privately, he knew now what Sherlock had seen in her. There was a reason why she was The Woman. 

"We always had a plan, if something like this were to happen, Nero knows what to do, a code Sherlock taught him. I made the recording, just in case, and sent Kate and Nero to one of my safehouses. I left the bomb and the recording in the cabin in Montenegro for Eurus's people to find and set perimeter alarms. I figured whoever wanted my son would eventually make the connection to Montenegro and try to extract him. I just had to wait for the right moment to make the phone call, and that was when your sister decided to fly that frankly ridiculous contraption with its hidden camera into the room."

Mycroft snapped his astounded gaze from the Woman to Sherlock. "And you knew about this the entire time?"

Sherlock opened his mouth to reply. "Of course, I ---"

"Of course nothing," She rolled her eyes. "He had no idea. He only figured it out halfway into the phone call."

Sherlock's mouth snapped shut and he glared at her out of the corner of his eye. "I would have known if you had answered any of my texts."

The Woman shrugged, taking off her stilettos, which had been damaged by the explosion. "I couldn't take the chance. Eurus clearly knows intimate details about your life, she clearly knows who Nero is and where he was born. I refuse to risk my son's life for your bruised ego."

Sherlock continued to glare at her, but said nothing. Mycroft had to admit, it was slightly gratifying to see his brother at a loss for a witty retort.

John Watson had been gaping at the two, but he seemed to find his voice. "So... what now?"

"Now," Sherlock grinned, dusting off his suit. "It's time to plan a family reunion."

___________

By SorrowsFlower

God, this was a pain in the neck to write, but that scene had to be fixed. I don’t know if I did, but since @elinorx asked me when I told her my headcanon for this scene, I couldn’t refuse her. Thanks for your invaluable help in this!

Title taken from the 1958 Nero Wolfe stories “And Four to Go”.

[newyorktheater]

Director Danya Taymor

Julia McDermott as Emily at a climactic moment

Playwright Will Arbery, accepting his Obie earlier this month

John Zdrojeski as Kevin

Heroes of the Fourth Turning on stage at Playwrights Horizons

At Playwrights Horizons: John-Zdrojeski-Zoë-Winters-Jeb-Kreager-Michele-Pawk-Julia-McDermott.j

“Heroes of the Fourth Turning,” Will Arbury’s much-acclaimed play about a gathering of former classmates at a conservative Catholic college in Wyoming, not only  worked amazingly well as a Zoom play last week; in some ways, it improved on the production at Playwrights Horizons last October.

This is a crazy thing to say, for two reasons. First, the stage production could not have been more highly praised: It swept local awards, including two Obies (one for Arbery, one for the entire team; the citation was for “five brilliant performances, four remarkable designs, and a powerfully focused vision guiding them all.”) The playwright was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

And second: Plays presented on Zoom as “readings” are generally tolerated rather than savored – an adjustment we’ve grudgingly made to an imperfect technology because of shut theaters and social distancing.

When I saw the play on stage,  however, I found it terrifically acted, intellectually stimulating, at times wondrously eerie — and also too long and too dark. And by too dark, I meant it literally; the play takes place late at night in a dimly lit backyard. Arbery has told interviewers that more theatergoers walked out of the play because of the low lighting than because they disagreed with the characters’ politics (Arbery disgrees with their politics too, by the way, which is one reason why his respectful treatment of the characters is so impressive.)

The Play-PerView’s one-time streaming of the play eliminated both issues for me, the darkness, and somehow also the length. The characters seemed to be communicating with one another together under the stars, rather than from their disparate homes. (We saw black, not their furniture.) And even some of the long philosophical rants kept me spellbound.

The playwright himself was impressed: “It has the spirit of theater — liveness, risk, access to the hidden….a vision right now of what theater can be. Danya Taymor is my hero.”

So I asked Danya Taymor, director of “Heroes of the Fourth Turning,”  for an interview. She agreed to a remote encounter; she happens to be on a ranch in Wyoming (the state where “Heroes of the Fourth Turning” takes place!)

Taymor, “The Lion King” director Julie Taymor’s 31-year-old niece, has made a name for herself in the theater over the couple of years – helming such fine and disparate works as Martyna Majok’s “Queens,”  Antoinette Nwandu’s “Pass Over” and Jeremy O. Harris’s “Daddy.” During the pandemic, she has directed short plays for Viral Monologues and one by Arbery for  The Homebound Project # 2   She also helmed a benefit reading of “Uncle Vanya,” which will be presented online soon on behalf of the Broadway Advocacy Coalition and the Actors Fund, with the starry cast Samira Wiley, Constance Wu, Mia Katigbak, Manik Choksi, Alan Cumming, Anson Mount, K. Todd Freeman, Ellen Burstyn and Taymor’s boyfriend, the Tony-winning actor (for Matilda) Gabriel Ebert. “Heroes was my first experience directing a live show, ” Taymor says, “and I think that liveness is a big part of why it felt so electric on Saturday night.”

In the interview, which has been edited, Taymor talks about what livestream can do that theater can’t, and vice-versa, how they translated the stage to screen, and how she and the playwright have a Wyoming connection, or at least a “Wyoming” one.

How did you react to the idea of mounting “Heroes of The Fourth Turning” online?

I have to admit, part of me had a gut reaction of “no.” How could we possibly deliver even close to one tenth of what we were able to deliver in the theater? Would this be a watered down version? Would we even be able to get the play across?

Then Will, the cast, the designers and I started to talk about darkness, about liveness, about how to best deliver Will’s words and expose the world of the play in a new medium. Honoring the medium of the livestream really helped us figure out what it can do that theater can’t do,

How did you honor the medium of livestream?  What could it do that theater can’t? 

I think that what we were able to do with the live broadcast of Heroes was the closest thing I’ve felt to “theater” since the pandemic started and we’ve all been isolated, and that’s in some part because we committed to making it ephemeral. It existed in this way one time, on July 18th at 8pm EST, and now it will live on in the memories and imaginations of those who saw it, and nowhere else. That gave the performance itself an exciting danger and buzz and required total fearlessness from the actors.

The biggest tool we had that we don’t have in the theater is the close-up. Access to every tiny miniscule facial movement, every whisper and sigh, every glance. I think that in some ways, the text made a bigger impact at times over the livestream because of the intimacy of the camera and the incredible expressiveness of the human face. Will and I found that this version of Heroes was most compelling when the actors played for each other. We adapted the acting styles and of course modified the staging to play into what Zoom can deliver that a stage cannot. It allowed for subtlety that is sometimes absent in the theater simply because you want to reach the folks sitting at the back of the house.

And what couldn’t it do that theater can?

The biggest difference is the absence of a live, vocal audience. In live theater, the audience is absolutely another player in the piece. Theater brings bodies together in space. It was a thrill to know that 2,200 people were simultaneously watching this as Jeb, Zoe, Julia, Michele and John performed it live, but it isn’t quite the same as sharing space and breathing in the same air. You can’t go for a drink with a stranger that you sat next to and talk about the play afterwards. You lose the physical intensity of live theater, though I do feel that this company brought the ferociousness of their physical performances to the livestream as well.

What’s the most tangible difference between what it took to put together this play, and what it took to put together the Viral Monologue and the Homebound Project monologue?

A huge advantage we had on Heroes is that we all got to spend time in space together rehearsing and performing this play for four months in 2019. These actors fused with their characters, and they brought all that cellular memory to this process. I think it would be much more challenging to achieve something like Heroes when you are building it from day one. Not impossible, but we had the advantage of all that work and time together, a collective memory of the thing and what it felt like. The Viral Monologues were more like gesture drawings to me, quick sketches from the gut that are beautiful and powerful in their simplicity. And those were 5 minutes long maximum. Heroes is 2 hours and 20 minutes, so finding and nailing that rhythm was so important, and we worked hard to achieve it.

Can you walk me through the process of translation from stage to screen?

We did our first read through and it was clear we had to shake off the version we were doing for the live audience at Playwrights Horizons. But we also discovered gems, like the fact that the darkest, quietest scenes could be more themselves in this new medium than was perhaps even possible in the theater.  That first read was such a good diagnostic test for us to see how the camera and the performance were functioning together.

The biggest change was embracing a physical stillness, not playing everything dead on to the camera, and letting the space still feel like it was in 360 instead of flat forward. The Playwrights production had so much embodiment, so much physicality and that just didn’t translate. The end for instance, there was an incredible physicality to that moment in the production, and Julia was able to harness that deep knowing of what the monologue needs to do, and lean entirely on the text to achieve the same effect.

The prologue was another thing that needed to be adapted. In the live theatrical version, you encounter the stage in total darkness,  live with shadow and light. We knew we couldn’t have a curtain speech, and tried to adapt the prologue as best we could: When the audience entered the zoom, there was Justin (Jeb Kreager), meditative and near invisible in the darkness, pre show birdsong playing. I think we were able to translate that blinking-through-darkness-into-light thing that was so effective in the production.

Each actor also had a costume consultation with our incredible costume designer Sarafina Bush, who went into the actors closets with them on FaceTime, picking out each article of clothing and working with Isabella and myself to get the perfect visual aesthetic of these folks. Justin Ellington, our tremendous sound designer, actually ran sound live on Saturday night because only he had the equipment to make it sound good. Normally a stage manager would run these cues, and it is a real art, and Justin stepped up in a brilliant way. Another distinction was that when characters left the stage, they left their cameras rolling so that their squares could become the dark night.

One distinct difference from a regular Zoom play that anybody who watched the show would notice is that, rather than seeing the actors’ homes in the background, the backgrounds were all black. How did you come up with that, was it difficult to accomplish, is this what Will Arbery was talking about when he Tweeted about “makeshift caves” and “moonlight rigs”?

When we first began talking about doing the presentation in the first place, we knew we needed to preserve the feeling of that expansive Wyoming night. Isabella [Byrd, the lighting  designer] had some incredible ideas about how to achieve that darkness, and we scheduled lighting fittings with each member of the cast.

These actors performed that magic in their bathrooms, bedrooms, tiny spare rooms, and each of them created their own lighting setup that allowed for the unified sense of darkness. This was no easy feat, and truly amazing that they could deliver the performances they did standing alone in rooms with their laptops piled up on stacks of books, with black duvateen draped behind them.

If you don’t mind my asking, how did you wind up in Wyoming now? Is it just a coincidence that “Heroes of the Fourth Turning” is set in the state?

Great question! My pull to Wyoming began when I was directing a play by Brian Watkins for Lesser America back in 2015 called “Wyoming.” Actually that play was the first time Will Arbery saw my work too; I think that’s how I first landed on Will’s radar  I fell in love with the world of “Wyoming,” and knew that I needed to get out here and see this mystic land in person.

I think I’ve been here five times, including one trip I made the winter before we began rehearsals for [the Playwrights Horizons production of] Heroes. That trip was so important. [Boyfriend] Gabe and I drove from Jackson to Dubois, Wyoming, where good friends of ours run a ranch called three spear ranch. The time I spent at three spear directly inspired so many of the design choices we made in the Playwrights production of Heroes….that darkness, that expanse, the house with the single porch light, the charge of that land, the history of the land and the silent scream you can hear if you are listening hard enough. One night we hiked up a hill near the ranch. It was close to midnight and there was a full moon. When we got to the top of the hill I gasped because all the horses on the ranch, and there are 1500 acres here, were all together on the top of the hill together, lit only with moonlight. That was when I felt the feeling of Heroes and began trying to figure out how to translate that for our production.

The weekend before we began rehearsal [for the livestream), I drove from Dubois to Lander, Wyoming, where Will’s family lives and where Wyoming Catholic College is located. WCC is the basis for Transfiguration college of Wyoming in the play. I was able to spend a few hours with Will’s parents and two of his sisters and their kids. We spent a few invaluable hours talking about the play, about the state of the world, the future and the past. It was an incredible afternoon and it definitely inspired me in a new way right before returning to the play.

Did the Wyoming part of Brian Watkins’ play “Wyoming” have anything to do with why you and Will Argery clicked? 

The Wyoming part is definitely a part, but only one of many many things I love and admire about Will and what I think brought us together.

How Heroes of the Fourth Turning became a vision of what theater can be online. Director Danya Taymor Q and A “Heroes of the Fourth Turning,” Will Arbury’s much-acclaimed play about a gathering of former classmates at a conservative Catholic college in Wyoming, not only  worked amazingly well as a Zoom play last week; in some ways, it improved on the production at Playwrights Horizons last October.

[anneedmonds]

Bandit Crab

After twelve weeks of complete isolation I decided to go to the post office to do some urgent returns. (I actually had to send back some clothes I had ordered and never unboxed. Because who needs clothes in a lockdown? Not I, apparently. Apart from a few special occasions, I’ve almost worn the same two outfits on rotation; the first a dress that looks like a sack, the second a pair of shorts that have taken on the actual shape of my arse, so that when I remove them they stand up proud upon the rug, and an old t-shirt that has holes in the armpits. For chillier moments, both outfits have been worn beneath the world’s ugliest cardigan.)

So I went to the post office, which is buried deep within a village shop so tiny, and so crammed full with shelves and carousels and whatnot, that it’s almost impossible to walk through it without touching anything. Which doesn’t bode well for social distancing compliance. And I have to admit I was concerned about my visit, having heard tales of people completely ignoring all distancing guidelines now that we’re allowed to fire up the BBQ and – er – play golf; what would I be confronted with? In my mind, the world had gone rogue whilst I was locked inside – it would be a Mad Max scenario, with modified sand buggies revving around the country lanes, rams’ horns stuck to the bumpers and post-apocalyptic flesh-eating zombies hanging out of the open windows.

It was fine though. At the start, at least. There was a “queueing system” outside of the shop door, so I casually merged myself into it, trying desperately to look like someone who had been outside of their house before. For some reason my legs didn’t quite work properly – they felt like cotton reels threaded onto pieces of elastic, which I think was nerves, but nevertheless made me look like a newly-born Pinocchio.

Unfortunately, abiding by the two metres rule meant that I had to position myself almost in the middle of the road, for there was no place to stand to the left or right of the queue that was prominent or obvious enough to signal my presence to queue newcomers. Queuecomers. And that’s important, isn’t it? In a country where we are borderline obsessed with queue etiquette, it’s essential that everybody – everybody – knows that you are, in fact, in said queue. This is usually conveyed with a nod and a smile and a small, pointless, forwards or backwards movement, just a very slight one, to draw attention to your presence.

In this case, there was nobody in line after me – yet! – but still, I had to stand my ground. There’s an art to queuing, after all, and one of the finest skills is ensuring that everyone who joins the queue after you knows exactly where you rank. But here was my first testing quandary/moral dilemma: to stand in the road, or risk weakening my queue presence by tucking myself into the nook-in-the-wall where the drainpipe runs down? To lose queue-face, or to be flattened by a DPD van?

The choice is yours!

In the end I opted for a bit of a compromise, darting in and out of the road like a demented badger. It was confusing for the drivers. I had more than one beep. A few motorists tried to wave me across, which meant I had to do the universal sign language for “NO! I’M NOT CROSSING!”

One mimed exchange was so painful that I just gave in and crossed the road, only to almost be hit by a fast-moving bike when I did an about to turn and crossed back again, such was my haste not to lose my earned place in the queue.

I lived to tell the tale, thankfully: it was inside the shop that everything went to pieces. I just didn’t have any experience in this social distancing thing – quite literally no experience at all. I hadn’t built up any etiquette, I hadn’t seen social distancing techniques in action: it was all entirely foreign to me. A new language. And so I entered the shop almost apologetically, creeping in an exaggerated, comedy burglar knee-lift knee-lift toe-point hop! kind of way. Bear in mind I was wearing a silk kerchief as a face mask and eyeshadow on only one eye and that I hadn’t properly arranged my nipples beneath my top so that one was about four inches higher than the other: I was quite the picture.

(Does anyone else now have to arrange their nipples to ensure levelness? It’s a right faff! If I just juggle them into position, you can guarantee that one nip will be far higher than the other, looking like a peanut has been stowed away for safe keeping. Gone are the days when they both just fell into place, like delicately-balanced teardrops.)

So in I went, my tote containing the parcels slung over my back like a swag bag, trying to greet the shopkeeper and post office man with just the joy in my eyes. Difficult to do. And then I got to the counter and it was as though a giant stopper had been removed from my brain, because the talking started. It started and I just couldn’t stop.

“I have some parcel returns! How are you? This is weird isn’t it? What happens to the protective screen once you don’t need it anymore, it would make great secondary glazing hahaha! So how many people a day come in do you think, I just need proof of postage for that one, thankfully they pay for the returns otherwise I’d be bankrupt because I pretty much do all my shopping online now, I expect most people do, which is good in some ways but not great in others. Alexa Chung was in here the other day wasn’t she? Did you serve her or do you know who she is, what is she doing here, everyone says you’re the man to ask because you know all the gossip!”

Honestly. The phrase verbal diarrhoea doesn’t even cover it. It was dysentery. Thank God for the protective screens, that’s all I can say. Even with the perspex barrier in place the shop volunteers (yes, they volunteer to serve morons like me, the mind boggles) were ducking beneath the counter, such was the ferocity of my stream of absolute crap.

…

“Please pop the parcel on the scales,” said the post office volunteer, which put an end to my impromptu monologue. There was a moment of awkward silence as he printed out the labels and busied himself with sticking them to the jiffy bag but then, scandal, a second customer entered the shop! Ignoring the queueing system and the one-in-one-out rule! They just marched straight up to the counter beside me and plonked down a loaf of bread.

How could I have been prepared for such a flouting of the guidelines? I’d prepared myself so well. Tied a silken scarf around my face like a luxury goods version of Butch Cassidy, queued outside on the road, to my absolute peril, and now – just as casual as you like – I was faced with a potential super-spreader. What’s the protocol for that then?

My parcel-returning finished, I was presented with the challenge of exiting the shop without going closer to the perpetrator than the prescribed two metres. Seeing as though the entire shop is around four metres square, I saw that it was impossible. It was like one of those Mensa puzzles they give to particularly bright children at primary school (just me? Oh lol! Sorry!) where you have to move the pieces about to get the square to the exit. Or something.

Anyway, the woman with the bread wasn’t bothered about distancing herself whatsoever and had started a conversation about deer hounds, so I was forced to plan my escape around her. But then the worst thing of all happened: she decided to use the post office counter! WHERE I WAS ALREADY STANDING!

“Excuse me,” she smiled. “If you’ve finished, I’ll just slide on over.”

Well this was a conundrum. The sliding over part sounded vaguely terrifying, but the bigger problem was where to put my body. I couldn’t very well disappear myself and there was no clear path past the super-sliding spreader – even without social distancing the passing of the two ships would have been tight.

She began her slide. What to do? Crash backwards through the bank of freshly baked goods? Send the Bakewells scattering, the sausage rolls tumbling from their pastry pyramid? Or should I Klinsmann-dive sideways over the tower of eggs and the boxes of potatoes? Neither option was favourable – it was the sort of evasive action you’d take if you were about to be steamrollered by an out of control lorry. Overkill, it could be labelled.

I settled, instead, for panic. I manically sidestepped one way and then the other, waving my hands in the air, looking for all the world like a crab on amphetamines. A bandit crab, complete with face mask, absolutely off its shellfishy tits, dancing to a song only it could hear.

The slider-spreader pressed herself closer to the counter, possibly out of sheer terror and I managed to side-crab my way past the baked goods and out towards the door. Another customer was about to enter, again flagrant disregard for the rules, but backed out with a look of surprise and horror as they saw the human bandit-crab side-lunging towards the exit. One eyeshadow’d, wonky-nipped, neckerchief slipping to reveal a mean, anxious mouth: small children wept, a border terrier whimpered, a man parking his bicycle stealthily hooked his leg back over the saddle and pedalled away to safety.

Haven’t been in to the shops again, obviously. You? How’s your lockdown going?

Photo by Felipe Portella on Unsplash

The post Bandit Crab appeared first on A Model Recommends.

©2020 " Bandit Crab published first on https://medium.com/@SkinAlley

[apkrich-blog]

Shadow Fight 3 Mod Apk Download + Unlimited Everything + Frozen Enemy

New Post has been published on https://www.apkrich.com/shadow-fight-3-mod-apk-download-unlimited-everything-frozen-enemy/

Shadow Fight 3 Mod Apk Download + Unlimited Everything + Frozen Enemy

Shadow Fight 3 Apk Mod is a popular Role Playing game which has the incomprehensible force that came out of the Gates of Shadows many years ago is now an ordinary source of power. You can play this update version in online or offline mod. Just download the latest version and PLAY!

Shadow Fight 3 Latest Version Features

1. Mighty Military Tribe

Shadow Fight 3 provides you a mighty military tribe, the Legion, has its primary purpose the elimination of hazardous energy.

2. HD Graphics

Now you can enjoy modern 3D-graphics, realistic physics and animation.

3. Different Fighting Styles

It is Combined with 3 different fighting styles into your own unique way of playing and Collection tons of different weapons and equipment.

4. Special Shadow Effects

You can Use special shadow abilities, perks, upgrades and Travel across a big world map full of spectacular places and stories. Here are some user reviews

Bidyut Kapri: I am playing this for a few months…Already I have understood that it is a very suitable game for me…Also, it is a high-quality graphics game…Moreover, it has become the world’s best to me game while I have updated it…I will not tell more words than it…Finally, I will advise all of brothers, sisters, and also my senior ones to play and enjoy such a beautiful game…

Madhav Ramini: Hello. Chapter 7 is really good and awesome. It has new types of weapons and armors. Please also add new weapon in Dynasty faction. But one flaw – the game does not open after closing it the first time. It remains stuck in the “Nekki” loading screen. Please fix so that everyone can enjoy the game. Thank You.

Harsh Jindal: Hey there, First of all, I really love the game… I have been facing an issue in the game. I am on Chapter VI, Last Level, i.e The Shadow Mind I can’t wait to proceed to the new Chapter VII. But I have beaten the Shadow Mind several times and then their itself the game freezes or hangs. It is happening after the recent update, I have tried clearing the cache, and have cleared all the data once and reinstalled the game but all in vain, the problem still persists. Please do help soon…

Nafis Morshed: The storyline is LEGENDARY. The story makes me play the game. The game mechanics are kinda complex but once you get used to it, it’s easy to understand and control everything, it’s definitely good. The graphics, gameplay, and controls are very decent. The online Duel Mode is a joke by the way. The matchmaking is a joke although they keep improving it it’s still rigged. And obviously, cool gears as always. Finish Shadow Fight 2 first to get the complete taste of the story of Shadow Fight 3.

Dennis Felton: This game is a very fun experience so far. Just reached level 2. I am currently hoping that the weapons and armor do not get “godly”. A basic truly practical deadly weapon and believable armor are what make a really good game. Keep up the good work!

Jaroslaw K: It’s a real pleasure to play the game. Well developed and good graphics:) But at some point, you have no chance to progress if you don’t pay. Normal difficulty, in fact, is impassable and all chests give you everything but not what is needed. So you are stuck with PvP challenges and hope that one day you’ll pass the mission:) Business is business but that has actually put me off a bit.

Kshitiz Gupta: Excellent game… Have played all the chapters and looking forward to completing chapter 7. But there is a thing that needs to be fixed here before that happens. With the recent update, the in-menu navigation has become really slow and the game freezes for a few seconds while switching between the screens. This has never been the case with the previous versions of the game and it really makes the game unplayable. Please fix this quickly so that I can enjoy the game again as ever.

Jhazzy Music: It’s one of the best ancient fighting game. I love it more than mortal kombat for mobile. The graphics are superb.. The only thing I want that’ll make me rate it 5 star is local Multi-player!! Pls, add that in the update.. If I can play against my friend online. It’s very okay or via WiFi locally… Please I know there are a lot of people that want this too… Please work on it.. We’re waiting.

Glen Allison: Beautiful graphics, lots of equipment/fighting style choices, lots to do and the monetization is not in your face. There is a story campaign but having not played parts 1&2 I couldn’t follow it very well. One of the most impressive games on mobile ever, the animation, style, detail, and size is spectacular.

Chef Jeffrey A Kaufman: Always a classic. The Shadow Fight legend continues. This one is even better than the previous installments. Great piece of gaming from a great developer. Love it. Still paying SF2 along with this newest edition. Great games both. The only issues I have are the following. Matches are often very poorly matched. Many times you’re matched against players 500 to 900 points above you. Making it impossible. Gems are sometimes lost while picking free items. The storyline doesn’t keep up with abilities

Felix Romanov: So, the graphics are amazing and the moves are pretty good as well, though, overall, my experience was pretty much horrible. I immediately had to download a large file before I could even open the game, then I had to download ANOTHER large file, the game lagged extremely hard between fight rounds, after the third fight, I had to download something ELSE. I eventually just gave up and uninstalled. My recommendation for the devs is to maybe make all this stuff one large packet, just like Shadow fight 2, so there would be more time between downloads. Yes, this would significantly increase the base download time and update time, but altogether it would provide more streamlined gameplay. Also, maybe add a “Low Graphics” setting at the very beginning for people on devices that aren’t so good?

prasanna spidy: I love the game…. everything about it… except you cannot challenge your friends from facebook… or you know online friends… that would be really great if you could work on it. thank you.

A Google user: Shadow Fight’s evolution is going so good. At first, it came Shadow Fight in 2001. Then Shadow Fight 1 in 2011 in only Facebook. Then the Shadow Fight 2 in 2013. After that Shadow Fight 2, Special Edition came in 2017. After all, in the same year, it came the Shadow Fight 3. The most modern, beautiful game. Its gameplay is so good. Hope that the next Shadow Fight game which is Shadow Fight 4 will be more existing, more gorgeous, more in form. I can’t wait until NEKKI publishes it.

Dylan Mantell: Awesome Update, It is great to see that legendary equipment is getting a much-needed buff. On the downside, there have been a few glitches where I am fighting an opponent AI in the gold event and it freezes where both the AI and myself stand there staring at each other, as amusing as this is it makes me have to restart the progress every time it happens by surrendering.

Karlis Pupols: Thanks for updating most of the pain points. Though this update does require still a bit of tuning. Some animations feel a bit too fast to be accurate. Also fights experienced freeze with the new Qatar item. Would like to see some bigger update information, seems as many things updated aren’t documented to the players (like items in the store). Also, still really hoping we could upgrade item tiers in future so you can equip 3 abilities on a common armor. thanks, bonomi mike:

Great gameplay, awesome graphics n tonnes of weapons pretty cool but I’d have to give 3 stars due to d ascension event update literally messed my game up can’t do many duels get stuck lost lots of tickets, can’t get past chapter v sip of war coz apparently it doesn’t load d final baddie same as side quest so basically all m doing is fighting online #lame# kinda gets boring. Pls, can this b rectify m tired of downloading large update files n still having the same issue? Pls fix this nid change my rating

Mack Tariang: A 5-star game no doubt!! good graphics gameplay and storyline compared with the previous shadow fight… sadly there are still a number of bugs glitches and a duel match can sometimes be really ridiculous.. matching against opponents who are soooooo over equipped with a rating of 500..600 above your own character!! still a highly recommended game!! enjoy

Yvanny Kadima: I loved this game. it was good quality and fast loading. Until… the update. all of my armor just disappeared after tried on a new one. I’ve tried uninstalling, reloading, and even logged out but it still won’t work. Please fix it, this was my favorite game now it’s too laggy.

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Additional Information

App Download Version Varies with device Last Updated April 20, 2019 Apk Size Varies with device Offered By NEKKI Category Role Playing Content Rating Rated for 12+ Support Android Version Android 4.1 and up Installs 10,000,000+ Play Store Available

Shadow Fight 3 App Permissions

This app has access to:

read phone status and identity

Photos/Media/Files

read the contents of your USB storage

modify or delete the contents of your USB storage

read the contents of your USB storage

modify or delete the contents of your USB storage

Wi-Fi connection information

read phone status and identity

receive data from Internet

view network connections

full network access

run at startup

use accounts on the device

control vibration

prevent device from sleeping

Google Play license check