#visit the imprisoned

[the-mercy-workers]

I think of those who are locked up in prison. Jesus has not forgotten them either. By including the act of visiting of those in prison among the works of mercy, he wanted first and foremost to invite us to judge no one. Of course, if someone is in prison it is because he has done wrong, and did not respect the law or civil harmony. Therefore, in prison, he is serving his sentence. However, whatever a detainee may have done, he remains always beloved by God. Who is able to enter the depths of [an inmate’s] conscience to understand what he is experiencing? Who can understand his suffering and remorse? It is too easy to wash our hands, declaring that he has done wrong.

Pope Francis

[vamprisms]

sandman season 2 confirmed....... can't wait to see that horrible freak suffer some more. reflect a bit. learn his actions have consequences or whatever.

[thedreadvampy]

legitimately insane how to some people, "we should wipe out this ethnic group that we've violently constrained to a ghetto because they're just genetically more violent and dangerous" is a reasonable and justifiable statement but it's Nazi Rhetoric to say something like, "it's bad that Israeli civilians are being killed but acknowledging that as tragic includes acknowledging that the almost daily state-sanctioned murder of civilians by the Israeli government is also tragic and unacceptable"

btw guys speaking of Nazi shit - can we check in, alongside what's been done to Palestinians in the last 75 years, what's the Israeli government's take on the Azerbaijani government's newest round of ethnic cleansing of Armenians? oh are the Israeli government's actions maybe not determined by Jewish identity, but by a commitment to colonial supremacy which puts them on the same page as other violently genocidal states like Azerbaijan, the US, and the UK? god can you Even Imagine?

(framing speaking against Israeli war crimes as inherently antisemitic requires understanding the Israeli state as representing all Jewish people, when it doesn't even represent all Israelis.

framing Israeli war crimes as synonymous with Jewish identity is pretty fucked up if we're being honest. I don't think that controlling water and power and movement for a captive population and shooting children dead for throwing stones is an inherent value of Judaism, any more than I think the torture carried out at Guantanamo Bay is an inherent value of Christianity - in both cases they're atrocities carried out by a far right genocidal government using religious identity as a shield.

Calling statements like "Israel is committing genocide against the people it's displaced" inherently antisemitic is doing more to further the idea that all Jewish people are associated with Israel than saying "the Israeli government is doing war crimes," which is a statement of fact about a country that exists and does war crimes. Is criticism of Israel as a nation often used as cover for antisemitism? Absolutely. Does that mean the Israeli government isn't doing literal war crimes repeatedly, on record, while talking publicly about scrubbing an ethnic group off the map? Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh well in the last 48 hours they've definitely cut off water and power to almost 600,000 civilians and allegedly used white phosphorus against civilians so in an extremely factual and unambiguous way yeah man those are Literal War Crimes whoever does them.)

[queenlucythevaliant]

Clad in Justice and Worth

Written for the Inklings Challenge 2023 (@inklings-challenge). Inspired by the lives of Jeanne d'Albret and Marguerite de Navarre, although numerous liberties have been taken with the history in the name of introducing fantastical elements and telling a good story. The anglicization of names (Jeanne to Joan and Marguerite to Margaret) is meant to reflect the fictionalization of these figures.

The heat was unbearable, and it would grow only hotter as they descended into the lowlands. It was fortunate, Joan decided, that Navarre was a mountain country. It was temperate, even cold there in September. It would be sweltering by the sea.

The greater issue ought to have been the presence of Monluc, who would cut Joan’s party off at the Garonne River most like. The soldiers with whom she traveled were fierce, but Monluc had an entire division at the Garrone. Joan would be a prisoner of war if Providence did not see her through. Henry, perhaps, might suffer worse. He might be married to a Catholic princess.

Yet Joan was accustomed to peril. She had cut her teeth on it. Her first act as queen, some twenty years ago, had been to orchestrate the defense of her kingdom, and she was accustomed to slipping through nets and past assassins. The same could not be said of the infernal heat, which assaulted her without respite. Joan wore sensible travel clothing, but the layers of her skirts were always heavy with sweat. A perpetual tightness sat in her chest, the remnant of an old bout with consumption, and however much she coughed it would not leave.

All the same, it would not do to seem less than strong, so she hid the coughing whenever she could. The hovering of her aides was an irritant and she often wished she could just dismiss them all.

“How fare you in the heat, Majesty?”

“I have war in my gut, Clemont,” Joan snapped. “Worry not for me. If you must pester someone, pester Henry.”

He nodded, chastened. “A messenger is here from Navarre. Sent, I suspect, to induce you to return hence.”

“I would not listen to his birdcalls.”

“Young Henry said much the same.”

Joan stuffed down her irritation that Clemont had gone to Henry before he’d come to her. She was still queen, even if her son was rapidly nearing his majority. “Tell him that if the Huguenot leaders are to be plucked, I think it better that we all go together. Tell him that I would rather my son and I stand with our brothers than await soldiers and assassins in our little kingdom.”

Her aide gave a stiff nod. “At once, your Majesty.”

She would breathe easier when they reached the host at La Rochelle. Yet then, there would be more and greater work to do. There would be war, and Joan would be at the head of it.

*

When she awoke in the night, Joan knew at once that something was awry. It was cool. Gone was the blistering heat that had plagued them all day. Perhaps one of the kidnapping plots had finally succeeded.

Certainly, it seemed that way. She was in a cell, cool and dank and no more than six paces square. And yet—how strange! —the door was open.

Rising unsteadily to her feet, Joan crept towards the shaft of moonlight that fell through it. She glanced about for guards, but saw only a single prisoner in dirty clothes standing just beyond the threshold. He was blinking rapidly, as though the very existence of light bewildered him. Then, as Joan watched, he crept forward towards the gate of the jailhouse and out into the free air beyond. Joan listened for a long moment, trying to hear if there was any commotion at the prisoner’s emergence. When she could perceive none, she followed him out into the cool night air.

A lantern blazed. “Come quickly,” a voice hissed. “Our friend the Princess is waiting.”

The prisoner answered in a voice too quiet for Joan to hear. Then, quite suddenly, she heard his companion say, “Who is it that there behind you?”

The prisoner turned round, and Joan’s fingers itched towards her hidden knife. But much to her astonishment, he exclaimed, “Why, it is the lady herself! Margaret!”

But Joan had no opportunity to reply. Voices sounded outside her pavilion and she awoke to the oppressive heat of the day before. Coughing hard, Joan rolled ungracefully from her bed and tried to put away the grasping tendrils of her dream.

“The river is dry, Majesty” her attendant informed her as soon as she emerged from her pavilion, arrayed once again in sensible riding clothes. “The heat has devoured it. We can bypass Monluc without trouble, I deem.”

“Well then,” Joan replied, stifling another cough. “Glory to God for the heat.”

*

They did indeed pass Monluc the next day, within three fingers of his nose. Joan celebrated with Henry and the rest, yet all the while her mind was half taken up with her dream from the night before. Never, in all her life, had her mind conjured so vivid a sensory illusion. It had really felt cool in that jail cell, and the moonlight beyond it had been silver and true. Stranger still, the prisoner and his accomplice had called Joan by her mother’s name.

Joan had known her mother only a little. At the age of five, she had been detained at the French court while her mother returned to Navarre. This was largely on account of her mother’s religious convictions. Margaret of Angoulême had meddled too closely with Protestantism, so her brother the king had seen fit to deprive her of her daughter and raise her a Catholic princess.

His successor had likewise stolen Henry from Joan, for despite the king’s best efforts she was as Protestant as her mother. Yet unlike Margaret, Joan had gone back for her child. Two years ago, she had secretly swept Henry away from Paris on horseback. She’d galloped the horses nearly to death, but she’d gotten him to the armed force waiting at the border, and then at last home to Navarre. Sometimes, Joan wondered why her own mother had not gone to such lengths to rescue her. But Margaret’s best weapons had been tears, it was said, and tears could not do the work of sharp swords.

The Navarre party arrived at La Rochelle just before dusk on the twenty-eighth of September. The heat had faltered a little, to everyone’s great relief, but the air by the sea was still heavy with moisture. The tightness in Joan’s chest persisted.

“There will be much celebration now that you have come, Your Majesty,” said the boy seeing to her accommodations. “There’s talk of giving you the key to the city, and more besides.”

Sure enough, Joan was greeted with applause when she entered the Huguenot council. “I and my son are here to promote the success of our great cause or to share in its disaster,” she said when the council quieted. “I have been reproached for leaving my lands open to invasion by Spain, but I put my confidence in God who will not suffer a hair of our heads to perish. How could I stay while my fellow believers were being massacred? To let a man drown is to commit murder.”

*

Sometimes it seemed that the men only played at war. The Duke of Conde, who led the Huguenot forces, treated it as a game of chivalry between gentlemen. Others, like Monluc, regarded it as a business; the mercenaries he hired robbed and raped and brutalized, and though be bemoaned the cruelty he did nothing to curtail it.

There were sixty-thousand refugees pouring into the city. Joan was not playing at war. When she rose in the mornings, she put poultices on her chest, then went to her office after breaking her fast. There was much to do. She administered the city, attended councils of war, and advised the synod. In addition, she was still queen of Navarre, and was required to govern her own kingdom from afar.

In the afternoons, she often met with Beza to discuss matters of the church, or else with Conde, to discuss military matters. Joan worked on the city’s fortifications, and in the evenings she would ride out to observe them. Henry often joined her on these rides; he was learning the art of war, and he seemed to have a knack for it.

“A knack is not sufficient,” Joan told him. “Anyone can learn to fortify a port. I have learned, and I am a woman.”

“I know it is not sufficient,” the boy replied. “I must commit myself entirely to the cause of our people, and of Our Lord. Is that not what you were going to tell me?”   

“Ah, Henry, you know me too well. I am glad of it. I am glad to see you bear with strength the great and terrible charge which sits upon your shoulders.”

“How can I help being strong? I have you for a mother.”

At night, Joan fell into bed too exhausted for dreams.

*

Yet one night, she woke once again to find her chest loose and her breathing comfortable. She stood in a hallway which she recognized at once. She was at the Château de Fontainebleau, the place of her birth, just beyond the door to the king’s private chambers.

“Oh please, Francis, please. You cannot really mean to send him to the stake!” The voice on the other side of the door was female, and it did not belong to the queen.

A heavy sigh answered it. “I mean to do just that, ma mignonne. He is a damned heretic, and a rabble-rouser besides. Now, sister, don’t cry. If there’s one thing I cannot bear, it is your weeping.”

At those words, a surge of giddiness, like lightning, came over Joan’s whole body. It was her own mother speaking to the king. She was but a few steps away and they were separated only by a single wooden door.

“He is my friend, Francis. Do you say I should not weep for my friends?”

A loud harumph. “A strange thing, Margaret. Your own companions told me that you have never met the man.”

“Does such a triviality preclude friendship? He is my brother in Our Lord.”  

“And I am your true brother, and your king besides.”

“And as you are my brother—” here, Margaret’s voice cracked with overburdening emotion. She was crying again, Joan was certain. “As you are my brother, you must grant me this boon. Do not harm those I love, Francis.”

The king did not respond, so Joan drew nearer to the door. A minute later, she leapt backwards when it opened. There stood her mother, not old and sick as Joan had last seen her twenty years before, but younger even than Joan herself.

“If you’ve time to stand about listening at doors, then you are not otherwise employed,” Margaret said, wiping her tears from her face with the back of her hand. “I am going to visit a friend. You shall accompany me.”

Looking down at herself, Joan realized that her mother must have mistaken her for one of Fountainbleu’s many ladies-in-waiting. She was in her night clothes, which was really a simple day dress such as a woman might wear to a provincial market. Joan did not sleep in anything which would hinder her from acting immediately, should the city be attacked in the middle of the night. 

“As you wish, Majesty,” Joan replied with a curtsey. Margaret raised an eyebrow, and instantly Joan corrected herself: “Your Highness.”

Margaret stopped at her own rooms to wrap herself in a plain, hooded cloak. “What is your name?” she asked.

“Joan, your Highness.”

“Well, Joan. As penance for eavesdropping, you shall keep your own counsel with regards to our errand. Is that clear?”

“Yes, your Highness,” Joan replied stiffly. Any fool could see what friend Margaret intended to visit, and Joan wished she could think of a way to cut through the pretense.

When Margaret arrived at the jail with Joan in tow, the warden greeted her almost like a friend. “You are here to see the heretic, Princess? Shall I fetch you a chair?”

“Yes, Phillip. And a lantern, if you would.”

The cell was nearly identical to the one which Joan had dreamed on the road to La Rochelle. Inside sat a man with sparse gray hair covering his chin. Margaret’s chair was placed just outside the cell, but she brushed past it. She handed the lantern to Joan and knelt down in the cell beside the prisoner.

“I was told that I had a secret friend in the court,” he said. “I see now that she is an angel.”

“No angel, monsieur Faber. I am Margaret, and this is my lady, Joan. I have come to see to your welfare, as best I am able.”

Now, Margaret’s hood fell back, and all at once she looked every inch the Princess of France. Yet her voice was small and choked when she said, “Will you do me the honor of praying with me?”

Margaret was already on her knees, but she lowered herself further. She rested one hand lightly on Faber’s knee, and after a moment, he took it. Her eyes fluttered closed. In the dim light, Joan thought she saw tears starting down her mother’s cheek.

When she woke in the morning, Joan could still remember her mother’s face. There were tears in her hazelnut eyes, and a weeping quiver in her voice.

*

Winter came, and Joan’s coughing grew worse. There was blood in it now, and occasionally bits of feathery flesh that got caught in her throat and made her gag. She hid it in her handkerchief.

“Winter battles are ugly,” Conde remarked one morning as Christmas was drawing near. “If the enemy is anything like gentlemen, they will not attack until spring. And yet, I think, we must stand at readiness.”

“By all means,” Joan replied. “Anything less than readiness would be negligence.”

Conde chuckled, not unkindly. “For all your strength and skill, madame, it is obvious that you were not bred for command. No force can be always at readiness. It would kill the men as surely as the sword. ‘Tis not negligence to celebrate the birth of Our Lord, for instance.”

Joan nodded curtly, but did not reply.

As the new year began, the city was increasingly on edge. There was frequent unrest among the refugees, and the soldiers Joan met when she rode the fortifications nearly always remarked that an attack would come soon.

Then, as February melted into March, word came from Admiral Coligny that his position along the Guirlande Stream had been compromised. The Catholic vanguard was swift approaching, and more Huguenot forces were needed. By the time word reached Joan in the form of a breathless young page outside her office, Conde was already assembling the cavalry. Joan made for the Navarre quarter at once, as fast as her lungs and her skirts would let her.

The battle was an unmitigated disaster. The Huguenots arrived late, and in insufficient numbers. Their horses were scattered and their infantry routed, and the bulk of their force was forced back to Cognac to regroup. As wounded came pouring in, Joan went to the surgical tents to make herself useful.

The commander La Noue’s left arm had been shattered and required amputation. Steeling herself, Joan thought of Margaret’s tearstained cheeks as she knelt beside Faber. “Commander La Noue,” she murmured, “Would it comfort you if I held your other hand?”

“That it would, Your Majesty,” the commander replied. So, as the surgeon brandished his saw, Joan gripped the commander’s hand tight and began to pray. She let go only once, to cover her mouth as she hacked blood into her palm. It blended in easily with the carnage of the field hospital.

Yet it was not till after the battle was over that Joan learned the worst of it. “His Grace, General Conde is dead,” her captain told her in her tent that evening. “He was unseated in the battle. They took him captive, and then they shot him. Unarmed and under guard! Why, as I speak these words, they are parading his corpse through the streets of Jarnac.”

“So much for chivalry,” murmured Joan, trying to ignore the memories of Conde’s pleasant face chuckling, calling her skilled and strong.

“We will need to find another Prince of the Blood to champion our cause,” her captain continued. “Else the army will crumble. If there’s to be any hope for Protestantism in France, we had better produce one with haste. Admiral Coligny will not serve. He’s tried to rally the men, to no avail. In fact, he has bid me request that you make an attempt on the morn.”

“Henry will lead.”

“Henry? Why, he’s only a boy!”

Joan shook her head. “He is nearly a man, Captain, and he’s a keen knack for military matters. He trained with Conde himself, and he saw to the fortification of La Rochelle at my side. He is strong, which matters most of all. If it’s a Prince of the Blood the army requires, Henry will serve.”

“As you say, Majesty,” said her captain with a bow. “But it’s not me you will have to convince.”

*

Joan settled in for a sleepless night. Her captain was correct that she would need to persuade the Huguenot forces well, if they were to swear themselves to Henry. So, she would speak. Joan would rally their courage, and then she would present them with her son and see if they would follow him.

Page after page she wrote, none of it any good. Eloquence alone would not suffice; Joan’s words had to burn in men’s chests. She needed such words as she had never spoken before, and she needed them by morning.  

By three o’clock, Joan’s pages were painted with blood. Her lungs were tearing themselves to shreds in her chest, and the proof was there on the paper beside all her insufficient words. She almost hated herself then. Now, when circumstance required of her greater strength than ever before, all Joan’s frame was weakness and frailty.

An hour later, she fell asleep.

When Joan’s eyes fluttered open, she knew at once where she was. Why, these were her own rooms at home in Navarre! Sunlight flooded through her own open windows and drew ladders of light across Joan’s very own floor. Her bed sat in the corner, curtains open. Her dressing room and closet were just there, and her own writing desk—

There was a figure at Joan’s writing desk. Margaret. She looked up.

“My Joan,” she said. It started as a sigh, but it turned into a sob by the end. “My very own Joan, all grown up. How tired you look.” 

The words seemed larger than themselves somehow. They were Truth and Beauty in capital letters, illuminated red and gold. Something in Joan’s chest seized; something other than her lungs. 

“How do you know me, mother?”

“How could I not? I have been parted from you of late, yet your face is more precious to me than all the kingdoms of the earth.”

“Oh.” And then, because she could not think of anything else to say, Joan asked, “What were you writing, before I came in?”’

“Poetry.” Joan made a noise in her throat. “You disapprove?” asked her mother.

“No, not at all. Would that I had time for such sweet pursuits. I have worn myself out this night writing a war speech. It cannot be poetry, mother. It must be wine. It must–” then, without preamble, Joan collapsed into a fit of coughing. At once, her mother was on her feet, handkerchief in hand. She pressed it to Joan’s mouth, all the while rubbing circles on her back as she coughed and gagged. When the handkerchief came away at last, it was stained red.

“What a courageous woman you are,” Margaret whispered into her hair. “Words like wine for the soldiers, and yourself spitting blood. Will you wear pearls or armor when you address them?”

“I will address them on horseback in the field,” answered Joan with a rasp. “I would have them see my strength.”

Her mother’s dark eyes flickered then. Margaret looked at her daughter, come miraculously home to her against the will of the king and the very flow of time itself. She was not a large woman, but she held herself well. She stood brave and tall, though no one had asked it of her. 

Her own dear daughter did not have time for poetry. Margaret regretted that small fact so much that it came welling up in her eyes.  “And what of your weakness, child? Will you let anyone see that?”

Joan reached out and caught her mother’s tears. Her fingertips were harder than Margaret’s were. They scratched across the sensitive skin below her eyes.

“Did I not meet you like this once before? You are the same Joan who came with me to the jail in Paris once. I did not know you then. I had not yet borne you.”

“Yes, the very same. We visited a Monsieur Faber, I believe. What became of that poor man?”

Margaret sighed. She crossed back over to the desk to fall back into her seat, and in a smaller voice she said, “My brother released him, for a time. And then, when I was next absent from Paris, he was arrested again and sent to the stake before I could return.”

“I saw you save another man, once. I do not know his name. How many prisoners did you save, mother?”

“Many. Not near enough. Not as many as those with whom I wept by lantern light.”

“Did the weeping do any good, I wonder.”

“Those who lived were saved by weeping. Those who died may have been comforted by it. It was the only thing I could give them, and so I must believe that Our Lord made good use of it.”

Joan shook her head. She almost wanted to cry too, then. The feeling surprised her. Joan detested crying.

“All those men freed from prison, yet you never came for me. Why?”

“Francis was determined. A choice between following Christ and keeping you near was no choice at all, though it broke my heart to make it.” 

If Joan shut her eyes, she could still remember the terror of the night she had rescued Henry. “You could have come with soldiers. You could have stolen me away in the night.” 

Margaret did not answer. The tears came faster now and her fair, queenly skin blossomed red. So many years would pass between the dear little girl she’d left in Paris and the stalwart woman now before her. She did not have time for poetry, but if Margaret had been allowed to keep her that would have been different. Joan should have had every poem under the sun. 

“Will you read it?” she asked, taking the parchment from her desk and pressing it into her daughter’s hands. “Will you grant me that boon?”

Slowly, almost numbly, Joan nodded. To Margaret’s surprise, she read aloud. 

“God has predestined His own

That they should be sons and heirs.

Drawn by gentle constraint

A zeal consuming is theirs.

They shall inherit the earth

Clad in justice and worth.”

“Clad in justice and worth,” she repeated, handing back the parchment. “It’s a good poem.”

“It isn’t finished,” replied her mother.

Joan laughed. “Neither is my speech. It must be almost morning now.”

As loving arms closed around her again, Joan wished to God that she could remain in Navarre with her mother. She knew that she and Margaret did not share a heart: her mother was tender like Joan could never be. Yet all the same, she wanted to believe that they had been forged by the same Christian hope and conviction. She wanted to believe that she, Joan, could free the prisoners too. 

She shut her eyes against her mother’s shoulder. When she opened them, she was back in her tent, with morning sun streaming in. 

*

She came before the army mounted on a horse with Henry beside her. Her words were like wine when she spoke. 

“When I, the queen, hope still, is it for you to fear? Because Conde is dead, is all therefore lost? Does our cause cease to be just and holy? No; God, who has already rescued you from perils innumerable, has raised up brothers-in-arms to succeed Conde.

Soldiers, I offer you everything in my power to bestow–my dominions, my treasures, my life, and that which is dearer to me than all, my son. I make here a solemn oath before you all, and you know me too well to doubt my word: I swear to defend to my last sigh the holy cause which now unites us, which is that of honor and truth.”

When she finished speaking, Joan coughed red into her hands. There was quiet for a long moment, and then a loud hurrah! went up along the lines. Joan looked out at the soldiers, and from the front she saw her mother standing there, with tears in her eyes. 

[sailor-rowling]

[sashakielman]

Between Justice and Mercy

My very belated short story for this year's @inklings-challenge! Thank you so much to the mods for a lovely event and the opportunity to get my brain back in gear for writing!

The Imperator’s dungeons were mostly emptied ahead of his attempt at war. Though a cruel man, he was also practical. Selenara’s population was small, and most had never left its borders, by the Imperator’s decree. Political prisoners and the few who had actually committed crimes would serve for his war effort as another form of punishment. 

One prisoner yet remained, however, with whom Kazmera needed to discuss her grandfather’s twisted governance. This prisoner was too old to fight, and even if he were in the prime of his life, the Imperator would not have allowed him to go free. 

And so Selenara’s newly crowned queen made her way into the depths of the dungeons, where no trace of the weak sunlight penetrated. It was cold as winter, damp, and rumored to be haunted by the ghosts of those who died there. Kazmera repressed a shudder and walked quickly, grateful for her heavy, fur lined cloak.

It was not hard to find the prisoner she sought; he was the only one remaining on that level. It was so quiet Kazmera could hear her own heart beating as she approached his cell. 

“My lord?” she asked as she stepped forward. Her torch cast shadows into the small cell, with only enough room for a rough cot, table for eating and a candle, and a toilet in the corner. The lord sat on his cot, hunched over, the shadows making his profile appear even more aged. She placed the torch into a holder next to the cell. 

“My queen,” he said, looking up at her. “The guards warned me you might pay me a visit.”

“I am glad they did,” she replied. “So you know why I have come?”

“I can imagine,” he answered. “You want to know the truth of my crimes against your grandfather.”

“Yes,” she said quietly, and waited for him to go on. 

“It is true, my lady. I was a leader in your father’s rebellion against him.”

“That, I did not doubt,” she replied. “Did you plan to assassinate my grandfather in the midst of the coup?”

“Would your opinion of the rebellion change if I had?” For a moment, there was fire in his eyes, and Kazmera could understand why her grandfather feared this man even from his prison cell, feared his leadership skills and passion for his cause.

She paused for a moment to say a prayer for her parents’ memory. “My opinion of my father’s rebellion would not change, no. I am still grateful he tried to give us all a better life, even if my parents were murdered as a result.”  

She swallowed. “But my opinion of you would change, my lord. My father did not intend to kill his own father, of that I am certain.” She took a breath before asking her next question. “And is it true we are blood relations, my lord?” 

He did not look back up at her, his earlier defiance lost to the shadows of the past. He merely held up his left arm, and a cloud of inky black darkness appeared in his hand, contrasted even with the cell’s gloom. “Is my magic enough answer for you, dear cousin?”

“It is,” she replied. “I would honor that relationship, lord cousin, and welcome you back to my family’s table.”

“Would you?” he replied, looking back up at her this time. “I never answered your question, Queen Kazmera.”

She met his gaze. “I was merely curious. The answer, I find, matters not to my heart. My grandfather slaughtered most of our family, including my parents. I grew up alone with him. I knew his heart, and there was no kindness within it.”

She attempted to swallow the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. “I think there is still kindness left in your heart, my lord. My grandfather and his enablers may have tried to destroy it, and you with it, but I do not believe they succeeded.”

He nodded stiffly. “Your father was a good man, despite your grandfather. He would have been a good king. And if you’re half the good person he was, Selenara is in good hands for the future.”

“Thank you,” she replied. 

“Don’t thank me,” he answered. “Have you shown mercy to your grandfather’s other prisoners?”

“Yes,” she answered. “As I will show mercy to you.” 

She drew a set of keys out of her pocket--a set of keys which had been difficult to obtain, and caused more bloodshed in the palace. She unlocked the door, and gestured for him to come forward.    

“What may I call you?” she asked, offering him her arm as they began their journey back upward into the light.

“Your father called me Uncle Feliks,” he replied, still gruffly but a measure less than before. 

“It suits you, Uncle,” Kazmera replied with a small smile. “Come, I’ll show you to your rooms, and we can become acquainted after you have a hot meal.” 

“Very well,” he replied. “I hope the food’s better, at least.”

She laughed. 

Each cell they passed on their way back to the palace was empty.

[inklings-challenge]

2023 Inklings Challenge Stories By Theme

Feed the hungry

Give drink to the thirsty

Clothe the naked

Shelter the homeless

Visit the sick

Visit the imprisoned

Bury the dead

[bleue-flora]

As of last Friday, I turned 23 and I can’t help thinking about how that makes be older than approximately 75% of the dsmp members when they first joined the server. But most importantly, it makes me older than when Dream escaped prison and that is wild to think about.

Oh and weirdly, 23 is also the number of Quackity and Dream torture scenes I’ve posted. That’s like roughly 28% of Quackity’s visits. Wtf…

[teabooksandsweets]

A short – but finished – entry for this year's Inklings Challenge. These are ten drabbles serving as glimpses into the story I have planned, and of which I have begun (and intend to finish, and post later on) two different versions. Everything went a little different from my original expectations and plans, but a challenge is a challenge and I decided to make the best of it. So I finished a "miniature" version of sorts, rather than nothing. Some elements are alluded to that will appear in the longer stories.

Team Tolkien // Secondary World Fantasy // Visit the Imprisoned – Shelter the Homeless – Clothe the Naked // Finished – 1000 Words @inklings-challenge

This is not the story as told by the girl who was said to be dark-leaved; that will be a longer story, penned by said girl in her study in the tower.

She has fire and shoes — she knows what these things are now. She is warm, she is at home.

She knows many other things and will tell her tale in time.

This is also not the shorter story, as told not from too far away, which will follow in due time.

This is a glimpse into a faraway world and two lands, both not too far away.

Come along into this world.

Oh, do not ask “What is it?” — let us go and make or visit.

Let us go now, you and I —

and the bird (large, dark, a friend) will show the way, to meet a boar (Great and brown), a doe, a hare, a (strong, brown) bear, the moon, lamp and woman, wolf and man, and another man, who has a beard, and a princess or a prisoner (from what I have heard).

Her first friend in October — the girl's friend, in that land — will show the way.

Let us go.

The Princess in the Tower has shoes and fire, is not warm, is not at home.

The Prisoner in the Tower has no comfort but her conscience. (A clean conscience is no comfort in this place. Contrition is.)

If imprisonment is not undeserved, can liberation be deserved?

Her greatest grief is loneliness. The doe (water-coloured) knows, the woman (by the lamp-post) knows.

The bird (large, dark, the girl's first friend in October) knows snd leads the way, to make a visit, if a visit is her need.

(The damsel in the tower doesn't know; the girl will soon find out.)

For a girl (dark-leaved, they say) who knows neither shoes nor fire, a cuppa is a strange thing, especially if there's tea in it (— especially if there's brandy in the tea).

Pickled walnuts are another surprise if you grew up in a warm, wet forest with only fresh fruit and ripe nuts to eat.

But the greatest surprise is how a fire's warmth feels on cold skin in October air, in a stable, in strange company. Company that looks neither up to you (though you come from the forest) nor down on you (for you are dark-leaved).

Strange comfort.

The Great boar makes no promises, but he speaks the truth. He said the girl would see her tree again.

(Not yet, not yet!)

Said the girl would meet her friends again (vixen, and robin and pale blue eggs).

Said the girl ought to follow him, out of the forest, into the land beyond.

(“The wasteland!” said the girl. The boar accepted this term as hers. The bird called this place “the middle of October.”)

But what was the girl to do?

What could a (dark-leaved) girl do?

Good deeds? Great deeds? (A “naked child” in the middle of October?)

Ground like water, only dry — cold ground, that's what shoes are for. (Are there shoes for breasts? For hands? Ears? the girl wonders. A cape, perhaps, as winter-women wear. No such things in a green-leaved forest.)

The Great boar had brought the fallen leaves — sunlit leaves, golden leaves. Change scares the people of the forest. The dark-leaved children scare them, too, for they are not scared of change.

Following a hot cuppa in the stable, the girl received a cape against the cold. Out of plain kindness — and of good use for a later kindness, also plain.

The doe is the colour of water, and the moon is the colour of milk. (The hare is of the moon, but the girl doesn't know.)

A friend of the bird (her friend!) is the doe. Never seen from the forest, is the moon.

To the tower they lead — to visit the Prisoner.

(“Is she dark-leaved, too?”

“Is that what you call those who have dine horrid things?”

“It's what my people call those who might yet do that.”

“Then we are all dark-leaved except for the Princess, for she already has.”)

But leaves turn dark before they fall.

Every spring come green leaves, unless it is always spring. (So if it is always spring, it can never be spring again.)

The girl wears a crown of dark leaves, but the Princess' head is bare.

The doe leads the way up the moonlit stairs, leads them to the Prisoner.

“Who's there?” a light voice asks (an aged voice of a young throat).

“A friend — and me.”

“Come what for?”

“To see a tree in winter.”

“Oh — is it winter again? No wonder I'm so cold!”

(It's the middle of October, but for the Princess comes another spring.)

In her forest she was dark-leaved.

“But really, it's the middle of October,” she says to her friends. “My spring will come again.”

“You will want to go home.”

“I wish I knew how!”

“What — how?”

“Where!”

“Oh.”

“The forest is not my home. I will go there again (for the Great boar always tells the truth) but it will not be my home, for spring will never come in a forest that is always green.”

Spring comes after winter, after fall.

And yet, one woman's prison is another woman's castle, and one woman's desolation is another woman's solitude.

“Take my cape, for it is cold outside.”

“It's cold in here and you wear but a few leaves around your hips.”

“The fire is warm, you are cold now from within. (I know someone who can warm you with a cuppa tea.) I your woollen dress you are more naked than I am in my leaves. Take the cape and bring it back to the man in the stable, and thank him from me.”

“And then?” asks the Princess.

“Go into the forest, and find out how to turn dark leaves green again.”

And so the women parted ways.

[the-mercy-workers]

What are prison pen-pals? Prison pen-pals are inmates who exchange letters with non-incarcerated pen-pals. Inmates have been turning to our WriteAPrisoner.com program since its inception in 2000 to find mentors, legal aid, educational opportunities, employment upon release, counseling, housing options, and so much more. We post profiles, photos, and contact information of inmates. You, the viewer, can then select which prisoners you would like to correspond with, both men and women, after viewing personal (interests, goals, etc.) and public (crime, release date, etc.) information. Once you have selected a prison pen-pal to correspond with, you have the option of sending your first message free of charge. Contact with prison pen-pals is then maintained via postal mail or programs like CorrLinks and JPay. Inmates cannot access their WriteAPrisoner.com profiles online in any capacity. We are a pen-pal website only. Inmates pay for pen-pal profiles. That income is used for operating costs as well as our Scholarships, Welcome Home Kits, Reintegration Profiles, and other community programs targeted at reducing recidivism. Research shared on our Why WriteAPrisoner page and the Federal Bureau of Prisons shows that both male and female prison pen-pals who establish and maintain positive contacts outside of prison walls, pursue educational opportunities, and seek normalization through friendship, are less likely to re-offend. Inmates from county jails, state prisons, federal prisons, on death row, and in rehabilitation centers across the country have posted profiles. We also have prisoners listed from outside of the United States. You can conduct an inmate search of inmates not listed on our website by using our Inmate Locator. We also encourage you to visit our Prison Forum to engage with other members about related topics, such as what to expect when you meet an inmate, death row, correspondence, visitation, different departments of corrections, and more.

[fragmentedblade]

I thought "Forest of Swords" was just a pretty name, but now knowing it's a punishment given by the Ten-Lords Commission I wonder how it links to Blade

[muse-write]

The Starsail

Here's my Inklings Challenge (@inklings-challenge) for 2023! It's not exactly what I hoped it would be, but I don't see myself having much time to work on it over the next couple of days. I expect to be able to give it a more natural ending sometime soon, just not before the 21st, so look out for that.

Lieutenant Pekka met him at the atmospheric lock at the top of the gangway, saluting him sharply with the flat of his shimmering blade. “Welcome aboard, sir.”

“My ship in one piece, Thom?” Captain Vadya clapped him on the shoulder, the clang of his gauntlet star-hard against the links of the lieutenant’s mailshirt. Lieutenant Thom Pekka hurried after him as he moved up the deck toward his office, filtering through the list of data hovering in front of them at a practiced speed.

“Mostly, sir. The sails are fixed and replaced with new synthweave, the hull has been modified with  facet-steel, and the kitchen has been restocked with…” He made a face. “…The best ration-packs the Center has to offer. Quite a treat to look forward to, I’m sure. That nebula-rip tore through some roping, but we’ve got men working on it.” When the Starsail had limped into Sula’s main war-port in front of the Center of Administrative Warfare, they had feared the repairs might take weeks. Captain Vadya blew out a sigh of relief and turned a quick grin onto his first lieutenant.

“If some roping is all we lost, Thom, I’m a happy star-knight.” He continued to his office, the data visualization scattering away from the interference of his passage through it, and Pekka, with fond exasperation, swiped it back together again and pocketed the projector. 

“Where are we off to now, Captain?”

Nem Vadya paused in front of his door. “That’s a good question, Lieutenant. It’s one I won’t answer until we’re well on our way. Just trust me, huh?”

Pekka was quiet for a moment. He’d been friends with Vadya since they were children. His trust was hardly in doubt. “Another disagreement with the Admiral, sir?” This came out tentatively, with just a hint of distaste.

Vadya’s grin this time was a bit more strained, but no one could have noticed except Pekka. “Believe that if you want. Let’s just say…clear the records of our ship’s departure, and mask our trajectory. This mission is…perhaps not advised.”

Pekka’s knuckles whitened. “Heading for danger, sir?”

Vadya laughed now. “Danger finds me, Thom, I promise you!”

“Yes, of course, sir,” Pekka agreed, knowing when to pick his battles with Captain Nem Vadya and already mentally reviewing their medical inventory.

Nem Vadya shut the door to his office and leaned against it with a sigh. He was back on his ship, the familiar blue waves of his wallpaper greeting him, and the vastness of space stretching out past his window beyond the lights of the war-port. Still, he was full of nervous energy that wouldn't be relieved by the wonder of space.

He reached into the pocket of his synthweave cape and took out his mother’s note. 

My dearest Nem, it read,

I and your father are proud of your accomplishments in Sula District 3974, and wish we could have been there to greet your return in Sula proper, but unfortunately we were called away by your grandfather’s most recent crisis of health. I shall send another note concerning his state as soon as I can.

Of more pressing concern is the second letter included in this envelope. It has been four years since Zyn was taken into custody of the King’s Police, and in all that time I have not been able to gain entrance to see or speak to him. In the included letter is what I and your father wish him to know. With your advanced stature in the King’s Armed Forces, I have hopes that you will be able to give this letter to him. I know your opinion of your brother, but have pity on the grief of a parent, and do what you can.

Vadya pursed his lips. Thus had been the purpose of his meeting with Admiral Jent, which had come to naught; visiting with Zyn Vadya, traitor of the Galactic King, was firmly prohibited. “You know the rules, dear boy,” the Admiral had said, softening a bit. “Traitors, especially to the extent of your poor brother, are sentenced to a solitary life. That is their punishment.”

Vadya knew the rules quite well; he had never once wished to break them, much less for the sake of his murderous younger brother. But this letter from his mother, while restrained and pleasant, carried her unique brand of desperation; he could practically see her composure cracking. 

His father had added a short post-script:

Nem, all of the above. I love you. I trust you to do what is right.

Which was about as wordy as his father got. It made Vadya’s heart warm; his father likely had written those words with hands aching from pulling sheets of facet-steel from the compressor for ten hours, and he’d probably had his customary glass of takka immediately afterward. 

Vadya sighed and brushed his hair behind his shoulders, staring out at the void of space they’d soon be setting off into. 400 lightyears away the prison planet of Wintral slowly burned itself up beside the ever-expanded sun of the same name. And on that planet sat his younger brother, one-time failed assassin and revolutionary. And since there was no way to legally get their parents’ letter to him through the right channels, well…

Vadya would be leading his crew in an attempted prison break.

~~~~~~

By 21:00, the small mess hall was full, even with only the 14 crew members he’d chosen to accompany him out of the usual 35. They had gathered for dinner and celebratory drinks, cheering finished repairs and a fine cast-off. The depths of space were too dangerous to have real alcohol on-board, but the War Center had provided the standard limited amount of ferment-packets, which provided an extremely short-lived buzz that felt nowhere near the same. 

Vadya watched as men and women laughed and clanged metal cups together, staring through the atmospheric shields at the stars passing by at a sedate pace. Whether they knew where they were going, or what they were in for, they were pleased to be off-planet after a week of inactivity.

Vadya had spent that week meticulously planning.

The mess hall was small and hot, and his flight uniform was stifling, even with his hair pulled back. He fidgeted. On Wintral, the prison had to be ten times this uncomfortable. 

The thought made him still. His appetite, already small to begin with, was gone completely. He picked at the freshest of the ration-packets, and he had been doing so for half an hour without making much of a dent when there was an outcry on the other side of the mess hall. Vadya sighed, already moving to rise as Pekka hurried over to him, his eyes wide and his face contorted in that expression that meant he was apologetic but too duty-bound not to go through with the action.

“Captain, sir, midshipman Temner has captured a stowaway, sir.” 

Vadya paused. “A stowaway? How did they get past the sensor beacons on the gangway?”

Pekka shrugged helplessly. “You’ll have to ask her, sir.”

Her. That made a bit more sense; Sula was not a planet known for its kindness to women and girls. After a short hesitation, he unbelted his sword and blaster-holster and set them on his chair. Pekka paled. “Sir…”

“Leave it to me, Lieutenant,” Vadya said gently but firmly, and moved past him to join the huddle of bodies that had formed on the far wall. When they noticed their Captain approaching, his crew swiftly made room. It was enough to let him see the ‘her’ they were all so curious about.

She was a young woman, barely more than a teenager, perhaps 20, if that. She crouched by the wall, hands wrapped defensively around a small roll, one that had already been micro-risen. Her clothing was odd, not at all what someone should be wearing when the radiation of an atmospheric shield was all that separated them from the vacuum of space—a white blouse, plaid skirt, and sensible shoes were all well and good, but not on a starship.

This was all somewhat unimportant against the obscenities she was yelling at them. She directed these first at the largest of the men standing nearby, then more fiercely at Vadya as he approached. He stopped, belatedly realizing just how this might look to her, then after some deliberation he knelt a few feet in front of her. She went pale and her mouth snapped shut, teeth grinding together. Her glare remained as fierce as before.

Now that she was quiet, he took the opportunity to speak. “I’m Captain Nem Vadya. You’re on the starship Starsail. I hear you’re a stowaway?”

Her hands clenched around the roll she gripped. “I’m not supposed to be here,” she bit out. “You won’t believe me, but I’m not supposed to be in this world.” She bit her lip. “I swear, I’m only on this stupid ship so I can get home.”

“The Starsail’s not stupid,” Vadya corrected absently, turning her claim over in his mind. He’d heard stories in the far reaches of the system, tales of portals and wormholes, and after everything he’d experienced, someone coming from another world wasn’t the oddest thing out there. But was she telling the truth?

He observed her for a moment—her curly hair slipping out of its bow, her cheeks flushed with anger and panic, the tear-tracks almost hidden on her face—and abruptly decided it didn’t matter. She was here, after all, and he had his own mission, and they wouldn’t be going toward a portal in the far reaches of space any time soon. If she wanted to get home, she’d have to find another way. For now, she was stuck here.

“Why did you choose this ship?” he asked as gently as he could. No doubt Pekka was already tallying up the amount of rations one extra woman would use. 

She gulped. “I don’t know, it was just…the closest one. I would only have one chance.” She glanced at the group behind him. “And there were women, so I thought…” She trailed off, but he saw her point. 

“Well, unfortunately, you chose wrong. We aren’t headed toward a portal, or a wormhole, or anything that will allow you to get back home.” He met her dark eyes, noting the fear and anger and utter, utter bewilderment there, and wished he could comfort her. “I cannot tell you anything else. My crew trusts me. Will you?”

Tense silence.

It was broken in only a few seconds as Litt, the navigator shouldered his slight frame through the crowd. “And what business do we have with her, a stowaway who doesn’t even dress for a spaceflight?” Vadya observed Litt for a second. Belligerent and hotheaded he was, but not merciless, even as he glared at the girl. And Vadya saw his point. Taking stowaways on a dangerous journey into the edge of known space was not ideal, but there was nothing else to be done.

Turning from the girl, he addressed the crew. “Our business, Litt, is to take care of people who come running to us for help. We can’t take her back now, anyway.” The obvious reason his crew would come to was the time wasted, and he didn’t say the unspoken part out loud–that this spaceflight was completely off the record. “Ruka.” He singled out one of the female crewmembers, one he knew would be a stern companion but not an unkind one. “Take the girl and find her a suit and some real food. She’ll bunk with you in the womens’ cabins. She says from another world; please explain anything she needs to know, using your own discretion. And keep her safe; she chose perhaps the worst ship possible to make her escape in.”

The girl lifted her chin and met Vadya’s eyes. “And a weapon? Could I be permitted one of those?”

He surveyed her: slim, almost delicately weak. But only almost. 

He liked to think he had an honorable crew, but he knew what young men were wont to do for long voyages away from their home planets. And this girl was terrified, of him not least. The least he could do to gain her trust was to show some back.

“Ruka, give her one of your knives.”

The knife Ruka offered was a sensible pocketknife, a cheap one of Prithane make but imminently serviceable. One Ruka and her interminable sense of duty wouldn’t feel badly about dying at the blade of. The girl took it, looking relieved.

Ruka started for the door, but before she followed her, the girl turned to Vadya. “My name is Cassia. And…thank you.”

~~~~~~

It would take them time to get to Wintral, as well as many stops to refuel. Though Pekka didn’t know their exact destination, Vadya had given him information enough to allow him to make an accurate list of fueling stations and their general trajectory. Those fueling stations would only get more infrequent as they reached the edges of known space. Pekka was flitting about here and there stamping out the myriad of crises that came with crewing a warship with a skeleton crew of 14.

In general, the first few days passed in a peace so uncharacteristic that it was almost boring, and the crew was getting restless. There had been entirely too much time to think about the state of their mission and the mysterious stowaway from another world quietly keeping to herself in the women’s dormitories. 

Vadya himself was not exempt from this, and sometimes wished that Thom was a little less capable just so that he had something to do other than sit in his office and stew over his mother’s letter. A week into their mission, he summoned Cassia to his office. She appeared at his door dressed in the standard silver armored flight suit—not entirely necessary inside the pressurized cabins, but a useful precaution to take.

He had prepared a carafe of coffee and poured her some. “Cream?”

She hesitated, but she seemed less suspicious than she had the last time they’d met. “Please.”

“I guess Ruka has put in a good word for me,” he chuckled.

Cassia sipped the coffee in lieu of an answer. “Why have you called me here?”

Vadya sipped his own mug of coffee and gathered his thoughts. “How did you get to Sula?” he asked first.

Cassia’s fingers went white at the knuckles. “Please don’t answer my question with a question, Captain.”

Vadya observed her—the meticulously combed hair, the brown eyes set in a round, pretty face. There was nothing at all, beyond her dark hair and relative short stature, to set her apart from the Sulian people. “I and my crew are setting out on a particularly dangerous journey,” he relented finally. “I wonder if perhaps you’ve been sent to help us with it.”

She scoffed. “Help you? I was walking home from work looking forward to seeing my sister when a wind swept up around me and dumped me in the middle of a back alleyway. I thought I was still at home until I saw…one of your kind, whatever you are.” Her voice trembled a bit. “It was autumn at home. My favorite season.”

He didn’t know what that meant, but he put it aside for now. “So it wasn’t a portal or wormhole which brought you here.” Not one he’d ever seen, anyway.

Her eyes flashed. “Well, what else could have? I’ve read Lovecraft! Lewis!” 

He had opened his mouth to respond when a horn sounded through the speakers in his office, followed by the sound of running footsteps and Thom bursting through the door to pant out, “A sonar-dragon, sir, to port!”

Vadya tensed and rose, coffee and Cassia forgotten. “How large?” 

Thom turned grim. “Large enough. Drij shot it in the eye as soon as it turned up but it’s stubborn.”

“Well, thank the stars for Drij’s aim,” Vadya muttered, heading for his armor and assembling it. “The shields?”

“Weak but holding.”

“Recharge them to full power.” Atmospheric shields wouldn’t keep out a physical obstacle larger than a small asteroid, but if they tuned them right it might affect the sonar-dragon’s hearing. “Cassia, stay here.”

“Don’t worry,” he heard her mutter under her breath, “do you think I’d go out there?” He grabbed two pairs of deafeners on his way out and threw one to Thom, who paled but clipped them onto his ears. Vadya kept his in his hand until he’d strode out on deck and faced the chaos that awaited.

A skeleton crew was little match for a sonar-dragon, but they were putting up a fine struggle. Blasters and starswords combined made up a formidable armory, but the sonar-dragon, as stated, was large enough that a crew of 35 would have been hard-pressed to keep it at bay. Starry mist streamed from the hole Drij had gouged in its eye, but the other was bright and golden and stared down Vadya as soon as he exited the cabin. 

Vadya ignored it for now, taking a glance over his ship. The main-mast was in one piece and the synthweave sails were intact, though that hastily-repaired roping was showing signs of strain and fraying. Through the deafeners, he couldn’t hear the chaos, but he could certainly see it—and Litt’s body lying still against the navigation center in the middle, a wound in his head bleeding freely.

Vadya’s anger burned cold. He had chosen these knights for a reason—they would be the least likely to have something to lose in the event they didn’t return. But he hadn’t intended to get any of them killed, and by a sonar-dragon, at that.

The atmospheric shields glimmered above them, visible now that they’d been recharged to full power. The effect on the dragon’s hearing he’d hoped for didn’t seem forthcoming. His heart sank: there was only one tried-and-true method to slaying a sonar-dragon. With another burst of sharp anger Vadya threw the deafeners onto the deck and met the dragon’s gaze.

The sonar call of the dragon, though just on the edge of hearing, resonated through him and the ship’s hull, a pitch scientists had fought to explain for years. Immediately, the dragon’s mind—if it could be called that, for it was a mind as much as a sonar-dragon was really a dragon—touched his, sliding and slithering through his emotions and pulling on them one by one. The anger was the first to go numb, and then the concern for his crew, and the burning curiosity about Cassia, and his concerns for the quest ahead.

Vadya stood there silently struggling not to protest throughout.

Then the dragon found his memories of his brother and pounced eagerly. There went the hatred, gone cold and fizzling in his chest, and then the confused anger, and then the despair, and then the small bit of worry Vadya hadn’t even realized had been there until it went dark. The dragon stumbled over the tiny burning flicker of love still remaining and grasped at it, a bit lethargically, sluggishly, to swallow up.

No, Vadya willed as strongly as he could, no, you will not have that. 

And now that the dragon was thoroughly sated, finally full, had gotten its meal, it relented. It backed away from the ship. Before it could go, Vadya wrenched on that mental line connecting them, bound together with the sonar hum, dragged the dragon’s form close enough to him that he could see the galaxy that swirled in its one remaining eye, and stabbed his starsword through its temple.

The emotions the dragon had just swallowed up were released as it died, filled Vadya until his legs were weak with all of them at once, like someone had wrung out a sopping sponge straight into his nerves, and someone shoved Vadya’s discarded defeaners over his ears just in time, as the dragon let out an angry bellow, its pitch—reputedly—enough to knock an entire crew unconscious. 

The form of the dragon fell still and silent, and after a few minutes Vadya took off his defeaners. The crew followed suit, and the next thing Vadya heard was the cheering. Drij slapped his shoulder, Ruka saluted him sharply, Pekka hovered anxiously. 

Vadya took a couple of steps away, feeling more worn-out than he could remember even after his most hard-won battle. His legs threatened to collapse under him, and seeing it Pekka threw an arm around his shoulders to support him. Just before he let himself be led into his quarters, Vadya threw a look at the dragon’s corpse. “Get that thing off my ship.” His voice was a little monotone, but he couldn’t muster up anything beyond the weariness and jittery nerves that had overtaken him.

Pekka took him to his office, but moved past it into his actual room. Vadya groaned as he lowered himself gingerly down onto his bed. “That was more difficult than the Admiral’s stories made it sound,” he admitted, grateful to be sitting.

Pekka looked him in the eye. “You killed a sonar-dragon. A big one, too.”

Vadya shrugged uneasily. “Don’t mention it.”

“Oh, we will.”

Vadya realized belatedly that he was shuddering and that Pekka’s arm was still wrapped around his shoulders. “Do you need anything, Captain?” he asked quietly.

“Just…time,” Vadya replied, equally as quiet. At least he was able to put a little bit of inflection into that one. “Thom, don’t ever get your emotions dragged out of you and then pushed back in all at once.”

“I’d sleep it off if I were you,” came a voice from the doorway connected to his office. Cassia, true to her word, must have stayed back. She held out a cup of coffee. “Here. I can’t see how drinking something warm won’t help. Wish it was tea, but then, I’m British through and through.”

He pushed past all the extra confusion everything she said seemed to cause him and took the coffee. All told, it probably hadn’t been thirty minutes since he’d made the carafe, and it was still warm and pleasantly bitter. It energized him just a little bit. He turned to Pekka. “Go and make sure they’ve gotten that quantum-warped dragon off this ship. And, Thom…Litt?”

Pekka gave him a sad smile. “Dead on impact, sir. The dragon got him over the head.”

“Tonight, cryofreeze, then. I’m sure he went out fighting. His family deserves a real body to mourn when we get back.”

“Aye, sir.” Then Pekka, with a courteous nod at Cassia, went out into the hall, leaving the two of them alone.

Cassia tapped the hilt of her knife nervously, shifting her weight back and forth. For his part, Vadya sat still, sipping his coffee while he waited for her to speak and feeling his emotions resettle themselves gradually, each slipping back into its spot one by one. “What was that thing?” she asked finally.

Vadya tried to stand, but his legs were still shaky, so he lowered himself back onto the bed with as much dignity as he could. “Sonar-dragon. They’re hungry all the time. They feed on emotions. Hence…” His gesture encompassed the whole of him, sitting there shuddering in his room instead of commanding his ship. “They aren’t actually dragons,” he thought to add. “Just appear that way. They need a form, you see.”

“And…will we come across another one?” she asked.

“We didn’t think we’d come across that one,” he pointed out. “Wintral is just on the edge of explored space, as distant from civilization as you can get without shoving it into the unknown galaxies. After the next refuel, we’ll enter warpspeed and it should take us three years. Warpspeed will protect us a bit. I don’t know what’s going to happen beyond that.”

Cassia shook her head. “Warpspeed? What’s…no, you said we’ll be on this quest for three years? And you told no one?” Her voice sharpened. “I really did choose exactly the wrong ship to board, didn’t I?” 

“Don’t get angry at me,” Vadya snapped back. “This is a Royal Sulian Warship, you should have gone for a merchant vessel if you wanted a nice relaxing ride to the next wormhole to throw yourself into.”

Cassia looked as though she had a response to that, but she bit her cheek. “What’s the real reason you’re doing this? Going to Wintral?”

Vadya closed his eyes. “It’s complicated.”

“And I’m stuck here for the next three years,” Cassia reminded him, “so I’d like to know what the plan is. And I think your crew would probably like to know why they won’t see their families for six years, and why they're down one.”

Vadya gritted his teeth, already regretting his decision to take in this strange girl. “I’ll tell you, because you deserve to know. But you won’t say a thing to my crew.”

He explained his mother’s letter, and went—briefly, because his emotions about it still hadn’t settled—into his brother’s history, and his intentions to bring him the letter, since the proper channels didn’t seem to be an option. Any other intentions he had he kept to himself. 

The coffee was long since gone, and Cassia fiddled with her empty mug. “It’s not much of a plan,” she commented finally.

“I know how I’m going to get in and how I’m going to get out, and what I’m there to do. That’s all I need.”

Cassia brushed her hair behind her ear, her dark eyes serious. “Back at home, I was studying statistics. If I had the numbers I could tell you the odds of this working to a decimal point. Right now I'll at least hazard a guess that they wouldn’t be high.”

Vadya stared at nothing. “I don’t need the exit plan to work. It’s just going to be me in there, anyway. The crew will be able to escape.”

“And when it’s reported that Captain Nem Vadya of the Starsail has been arrested for a security breach?” 

Vadya met her eyes. “I’ll be thrown in jail to be forgotten, my brother will have heard from his parents for the first time in seven years, and all 13 crewmembers on board this ship will be able to plead complete and utter innocence. If you tell anyone, you’re endangering their lives.”

[allisonreader]

The Mysterious Mansion

I promise that this is my last story I’m posting. It’s only the third one and the first one that I started…

@inklings-challenge

In the middle of the old city, there lies a mysterious plot of land that few dare to try to tread. Nary a more ominous place have you or I have ever seen, dear reader.

The plot is surrounded by high red brick walls, topped with gleaming rod iron spikes covered with gold leaf or something similar, that are as sharp as butcher's knife, and look to be as shiny as if polished every night. There are stories of people trying to climb the wall only to be stopped by being cut by the spikes.

Otherwise there is only one entrance. A gate that appears to be an impassable pile of rubble, which is deceptive. The gate gives the best glimpse of what is within the walled plot. Thick forest surrounding a long, surprisingly clear gravel driveway, leading to a grim looking three story tall, red brick mansion with a large dry stone fountain in front. With boarded up windows on the lower level, white columns on either side of the front entrance, holding up an overhang.

You would think such a place like that would be ripe with people wanting to explore it, film their explorations of it, and pretend to be ghost hunters in such a place. You wouldn’t be wrong to think so; if it weren’t for the pesky little fact that no one who has been known to enter the property has ever returned.

It’s become a well known fact that those who dare try their hand at exploring the place, have a nasty habit of disappearing. As do any search parties.

No one knows what happens to those who enter. There are many speculations as to what happens, from the mundane to the supernatural.

Those who do not believe in the supernatural tend to lean to the idea that people get lost in the forest and can’t find their way back out. Others claim that a mass murderer lives in the mansion and kills anyone who enters the grounds à la H. H. Holmes and his murder hotel.

Those who lean more towards the supernatural- like to claim aliens, vampires, werewolves or other such creatures are the culprits of stealing, killing, and keeping those who enter. Others yet claim a portal to another world lies within.

All of the different theories have combined into a plethora of urban legends about the plot of land and the mansion within. But the most outrageous conspiracy might be the theory that no one actually goes missing. That once people go in and see that there’s nothing special about the overgrown, run down plot; they leave and claim that they either never went or make themselves scarce to keep the mystique of the place.

I don’t believe that last one; due to my own experiences. Let me set the scene for you. My partner and I were given the task to go into the mansion and learn as much as possible about the place. Mostly so the place could be torn down and in filled with stores and houses.

We questioned our superior if he knew what he was asking us. If he understood the implications of sending us somewhere where it wasn’t known what happened to people who entered.

He did, but said it needed to be done anyway. The place was becoming an eyesore, and the land could be used for those other purposes. There had to be some way to learn about what the truth of the place was.

So my partner, and I said goodbye to our families and met up at the front gate.

We both stood there and just stared at the mess of the gate. We were going to have to try and figure out a way through. Did we dare try climbing over the tangled mess?

I’m not sure which of us noticed it at first; the poem on the bronze plaque. On the pillar beside the gate.

You’ll have to forgive me; I don’t quite remember how it went anymore, but it was something like this.

To enter by my gate, and to change the fate of those who wait. Come close and state; Silver gate, Silver gate, open wide to let us enter and choose our fate, for those who wait, but don’t be late to find the right state because if you don’t the make that state before it’s too late, the gate will close and you remain.

An ominous warning without much guidance to explain what that meant. Or what we were intended to do.

My partner, and I shrugged it off at the time and decided to see what would happen if we recited the poem.

We were both shocked to watch the mess of the metal sort of glow silvery as it formed a proper gate. Ornate and seemingly locked; at least, until my partner walked forward, and put her hand on the gate; which one open slowly at her touch.

She looked at me in shock before we both entered together.

Nothing seem too otherworldly along the gravel driveway. It just seemed like an overgrown plot of land. The brush and trees were thick, though we could see the mansion covered in ivy at the end of the driveway.

The walk to the front door felt longer than it likely was. Both of us were silent on the way. I was wondering if we would have to recite another poem to get into the mansion. And if we did, if this one would give us more information.

Once we got to the door, it open for us, like it had been expecting us. Which was hardly comforting.

The inside was surprising. The inside of the mansion, in that space was a bright white room with tall, white marble pillars. Columns might be more accurate description. There were at least four of them along the outside wall with the door we enter through. Between each pillar on the same wall were peachy, coral coloured velveteen curtains, which match the veining in the marble columns. There being no clear sign of where the light might be coming from to make the room so bright.

[sparrowsworkshop]

"Over the Edge" by OneWingedSparrow; Prologue: Is There Anyone? Oh, it Has Begun....

Next Chapter (coming soon) >> @inklings-challenge This was written for the Inklings Challenge 2023! This is but the prologue; more is to come. (I hope it was okay to tag all the themes in my story, though this prologue only touches on a few.) Main Tags: Telteas (OC) & Léloh (OC), Original Work, Original Characters, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fairytale Style, Dark Fairytale Elements, Secondary World Fantasy DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT: Angst, Blood, Broken Bones, Loss of Limbs (in a sense), Pain, Hurt...there's a lot of hurt. Summary: This is the tale of an illustrious creature residing in a high tower—and the secret of the broken, bloodied bones scattered about the dungeon floor. Read on AO3 Reblogs are appreciated! ~ Most people in Thereal had two wings; Prince Telteas had eight, until the day befell that he should have seven, and he dropped to the courtyard writhing and wailing amidst a pool of feathers and blood. Alarmed, his brother called the guards, who alerted the king and queen, who summoned the physicians, who ran their instruments over temple and neck, over shoulder and alula, over coverts and tertials, and still could find no damning evidence that would explain the sudden snap of the bone from his back.

“What happened?” fretted his mother, tearing at her own down.

“It is true I threw a snowball,” confessed his brother, biting his nails, “but the snow was soft, and scattered before it even hit his back. I do not understand how it could have damaged the wing.”

“Indeed,” griped his father, wings pinned together, “why was it so fragile, that it loosed like a leaf?"

Upon his bed, seven lonesome wings outspread wearily around him, the prince avoided all their worried eyes, and set his face instead towards the great bay window. The snowfall outside was slow but steady, each flake growing in diameter by the second. “I do not know,” said the prince, with a distant frown. “I scarcely felt the cold from the snowball. I remember, I was only singing. And then…I felt the pain.”

His mother shook her head, and his brother nodded; and his father sighed, and drew the drapes so that the room fell dark. “Let us pray it does not happen again.”

Such a request was in vain, for again did Prince Telteas lose a wing. This time, the dreaded event occurred in the ballroom, before a crowd of screaming guests and beside the startled musicians whose fingers froze to their instruments. From the platform Telteas toppled, choking on a chorus forever unfinished.

On prickling hands and aching knees, the prince quavered alone. The red and black carpet swirled before his vision like a devilish whirlpool, craving to suck him into oblivion. He bit his lip, and drew blood. Again came the fright. Again struck the pain. A stab bit his shoulder. A lurch gripped his side. A scream without sound, deafeningly silent, lapped against the vomit refusing to escape his throat. In this endless insanity, even while kind souls came rushing to aid, Telteas’ ears were open only to the echoing voices of bitterest disdain. “What is wrong with him?” “We always knew there was something wrong with him. No one was meant to have eight wings.” “It’s unnatural. Uncanny." “He was always odd, wasn’t he?” “The only one with such a quirk.” “Perhaps now he’ll fit in with the rest of us." He staggered then, and fell on his face, unawares.

Beside his prone form collapsed a great, white wing, barbs now bright red and askew—and the noise that it made when it hit the floor sounded not unalike to a heart’s frightened beat.

When Telteas awakened, his fate was sealed—though the wax had yet to harden from the weight of the signet. Once was unlucky, but twice was unforgivable. His family feared that he had fallen ill, and knew not what to do. Seeking the best for the kingdom, and thereby assuming the worst of his dire condition, in the end, they judged that he should recover in a secluded location, removed from the populace, until the oddities ceased and he should feel well again. After all, they knew not whether his wing dropping was contagious.

Thus, so it was that Telteas found himself watching the snowfall from a far different window, the height of which would have dwarfed the stately wintergreens, had any been left standing near enough to stretch longing branches towards his outstretched fingers. The ancient tower of Queen Ellay, rooftop dark and slanted to melt and drop any wayward drifts, speared the ground like a stern scepter thrusting its will over the quiet valley. Long ago, the tower had been a private sanctuary; now, Telteas wondered if the bygone queen would approve of his criminal trespass of her peaceful estate.

He was not alone in this place; a plucky entourage of servants, physicians, guards and others willingly subjected themselves to his temporary banishment, braving the possibility that they too might catch his unknown illness. Though the somberest part of him wished himself to be abandoned in true solitude, forgotten to the ages, the prince searched the debris of his crumbling heart and saw that he indeed was grateful for their company. In the good times, when laughter twirled around the spiraling stairwells and traipsed under the kitchen chairs, when steaming mugs of tea and cider were passed around in good cheer, when stories were dealt like cards round the fire and banter was traded for sly smirks and rolling eyes, Telteas could even muster the faintest of smiles, and pretend that everything was only as it seemed.

Yet, in the bad times, when his screams rent the air with a terrible force—when the servants leapt into flight and scrambled for rags and dustpans to mop the lost blood and sweep the stray feathers, and the physicians clapped their wings and clicked their tongues and scratched their notebooks till the pencil lead snapped for lack of answers, and the guards tensed their pinions and stood at attention for want of clearer orders and by their very presence made the locked, barred, bolted doors of the tower seem all the more impregnable, all the more eternal—

Then, in his heart torn asunder, the fantasy shattered, and Telteas wept all the harder for sight of the truth.

Despite all around him, he was alone. ~ Next Chapter >> (Coming Soon)

[shen-daozhang]

Ok but like real talk tho.

The pure, untapped potential of Taxian Jun’s “dumb mutt” that’s mentioned once on like page 2 and then never again.

Fellow fic writers where is the dumb chubby puppy??

[inklings-challenge]

Rough Count of 2023 Inklings Challenge Stories by Theme

Feed the hungry: 22

Give drink to the thirsty: 12

Clothe the naked: 18

Shelter the homeless: 24

Visit the sick: 11

Visit the imprisoned: 8

Bury the dead: 18

Obviously, a lot of these are inflated by stories doing several or all genres.

I thought "burial" would be higher based on what I saw when compiling the archives. A quick glance suggests that while it may not have the highest number of stories, it's probably the theme where the most authors chose it as the only theme.