going off of that twitter post about how Nandor is fucking giddy when talking w the Baron about how Guillermo killed all the vamps in the theatre and how he doesn't want Guillermo to change:

Nandor is happiest, or at least proudest, when recalling his own days as a fearsome warrior — his acts in conquering, slaughtering, and pillaging. He talks so highly of himself from that point in his life. And it begs the question if he considers vampirism a curse, at least in part, because he is no longer that once ruthless leader and fighter. In terms of overall vampires, he's honestly just kind of average it seems. And when it comes to Guillermo he's downright soft, to the point that multiple other vampires have pointed out that his feelings towards Guillermo and the way he treats him are odd, to say the least, for a vampire/familiar relationship.

But the thing is, I think the thing he respects the most about Guillermo is those same qualities he once had. He sees Guillermo as someone who is powerful and strong and fully capable of holding his own (and tbf he's very right). Him wholeheartedly vouching to the others to spare Guillermo in the name of the "warrior's code"? Yeah, that. And he knows vampirism changed that about him. I think, deep in that emotionally constipated little brain of his, he's so scared of Guillermo getting turned and no longer having those qualities he loves and respects, and instead turning out just like Nandor. We as a fandom talk a lot about how Nandor is scared Guillermo would leave him — and Nandor's said as much — and I do think that's a very good chunk of his hesitation to turn Guillermo, but I think a lot of it, too, is that he's scared of Guillermo turning out just like he has.

Yet, when Nandor sought out a wife last season, he wanted someone devoid of those exact qualities he seems to relish and uphold. He wanted someone that basically just lifted him up rather than be his equal, his counterpart. Nandor got rid of people who bested him in a fight, who were too pretty or alluring, who were funnier than him, etc. And he found, seemingly, the perfect person for him within those tight guidelines....and then proceeded to change every single thing about her. Until finally changing her to be an exact copy of Guillermo's boyfriend. Aka: he desires what Guillermo desires.

Which leads to the question of what does Guillermo desire? Well, that's not nearly as hard to piece together since he's much more open about his feelings. Guillermo desires and values the qualities that, he thinks, come with being a vampire — being ruthless, powerful, and attractive. It's the whole reason he finally said fuck it and went to Derek, because he was so tired of being him. He never realized that he already held all of those qualities he valued ("I don't feel powerful. I don't feel sexy" that's because you already were those things, love). It's just that he discovered the hard way that those qualities weren't really intrinsic to being a vampire. But, back to the point I was trying to make; basically, he values all the qualities Nandor had/has. Former fearless ruler and warrior of a nation, who had 37 wives, and is now a bloodthirsty and terrifyingly strong vampire who fucks around with anyone he wants? Check, check, and check.

So, if Guillermo desires Nandor and Nandor desires what Guillermo does, then Nandor is realistically looking for someone that compliments him and is equivalent to him. Someone who he recognizes to have all of the qualities that are fundamental to who he is and was. Man, I wonder who that could be.... And honestly? I think Nandor is finally starting to connect all these dots himself. Which is just adding to his fear of Guillermo changing in any way. Because he likes and respects who Guillermo has become over these past seasons. And I'm so scared and excited to see how he takes Guillermo being turned, both now and after he sits with the information for a while, because, realistically, Guillermo hasn't changed, not really. But will Nandor realize that?

Cold winter: More about the Saturnalia

More about Saturnalia

Category: Roman mythology

To expand a bit on the topic of Saturnalia, I decided to offer you another post based from the info contained in my Great Atlas of Mythology, on the entry for “Saturn” in the Roman gods category.

If we have to start Saturn’s story somewhere, we should start it with the myth of its Greek equivalent, Kronos, that the Romans took back and re-adapted to fit their own pantheon. As such Saturn, just like Kronos, was considered to be one of the first gods, born of the male Sky and the female Earth. Like Kronos he was the first king of the gods but received a prophecy that he would be dethroned by one of his children and to avoid that started swallowing the babies his wife Ops (the Roman equivalent of the Greek Rhea) gave birth to. However, as per the Greek legend, Ops/Rhea hid the last one who was Zeus – sorry, Jupiter – and once adult set free his immortal siblings from his father’s belly, leading to a war that Saturn lost. And so the old king was dethroned and replaced by his youngest son, Jupiter.

But then… this is where the legend takes a sharp turn, as the rest of the story becomes purely and entirely Roman. In the Greek myth, Kronos was imprisoned into the Underworld, banished into Tartaros, the deepest pit of the cosmos and the prison of immortals. In the Roman myth, Saturn was merely banished from the Heavens (aka, the realm of the gods) – Jupiter condemning him to an exile on Earth, the realm of the mortals. Saturn became a dethroned, fleeing, diminished, earthbound god… but he wasn’t like Kronos an imprisoned criminal bound for all eternity. Saturn, in his exile, ended up in a region of Italy known as the Latium (whose name was explained as coming from “latuit”, “he hid there”). Now the Latium was ruled by a mortal king, a man named Janus, and this ruler welcomed with open arms this newcomer and former cosmic ruler – in fact, Saturn ended up sharing the power of Janus and both co-ruled over the Latium. Plus, to reward the mortal king for his generosity and hospitality, Saturn offered him great powers, such as the abilities to know all of the past AND to see the future. The Latium might have been a kingdom, it wasn’t however a civilized land – it was inhabited by humans, yes, but almost savage humans, who mingled with the wild nature spirits known as “fauns” and “nymphs”. Under Saturn’s care and Janus’ wise and cautious rule, the first manifestations of civilization placed some order in this primitive region (for example Saturn gave the Latium its first laws), and this era was known as the “Golden Age”, a time of prosperity and happiness that no other civilization could ever reach.

This story might surprise people who are used to the Greek myths, but one has to understand that while Kronos was a tyrannical brute and bloodthirsty monster, Saturn was a much more generous and benevolent deity, and this different characterization explains how the Romans changed the Greek myth – changing the threat that had to be locked away into an exile who “made up” for his crimes in Heavens by regenerating and organizing Earth. In fact, alongside Janus (who was a Roman god, or “numina” as they called them) and Ops, Saturn was one of the “primordial” Roman gods, present for a long time in Italy before the Hellenization of their religion. Saturn was an agricultural god – to be more precise he was a god of sowing and grains, while his wife Ops, the spirit of abundance and fertility, presided over the harvest. As the spirit of prosperity, Saturn was given a temple near the Capitol in 497 BCE, where the national treasury, the state archives and the standards of the Roman legions were kept. It was also where a statue of Saturn made out of gold was kept, wrapped up in chains that were only taken of for the gods’ great festival, the Saturnalia. According to the legend it was either Hercules or Aeneas who built this temple.

The Saturnalia was a winter solstice celebration that served two purposes: one, it offered a well-deserved rest after all the field work was done; two, it was a celebration in memory of the lost Golden Age. During this festival, all the inhabitants of Rome, from the noblemen to the slaves, mingled with each other to celebrate Saturn. Originally the Saturnalia was just one day, the 16th of December, but under the Emperor Augustus it was extended to three days. Caligula then made it five days, and then it turned into a whole seven days, the Saturnalia going from the 17th of December to the 24th. During the Saturnalia no commerce was allowed, schools were closed, tribunals were not active – it was so that everybody could partake in this festival. There was a great carnival-like procession that went up on the Aventine, and then people exchanged with each other small gifts (as well as jokes and gag gifts). Originally it was just a question of public feasts and celebrations, but starting in 216 BCE there was also private banquets during which each family organized a sumptuous meal. A feast where the master of the house served the food, and where the slaves were allowed to freely express themselves! This brief “social unity”, where everybody ended up on the same level, was supposed to be a memory of the Golden Age during which all humans were equal. In the temple of Saturn, the golden statue of the god was freed from its chains – both because during the festival “lost innocence returned” (and so Saturn was “pardoned” for his crimes) but also because it was believed that no theft could be committed. It wasn’t just theft that was prevented: no war could be declared during the Saturnalia, and if someone was sentenced to death they couldn’t be executed during the festival. Only one art was allowed during the celebration: the art of cooking. Saturnalia was a time for happiness as much as a time for excesses – because freedom usually turned into debauchery. But despite bordering on chaos, the Saturnalia was a symbol of hope and rebirth/renewal, that was often used by the emperors of Rome to ensure a social and political cohesion among the Roman nation.

- - - - - -

The article about Saturn also has a short passage talking about the god Janus. Janus was one of the earlier Roman gods, one of the “archaic deities”. God of all beginnings and passageways, he ruled over thresholds, doors and roads. Thanks to having two faces instead of one, he can look forward and backward, in the past and in the future. He is the one who “opened” the year on January – in fact January, first of the Roman months, was HIS month (January, Janus’ month). According to the legend he used to be the kind and peaceful king of the Latium, who thanks to his excellent rule and friendship with Saturn, was elevated to the title of god. Th doors of his temple in Rome were kept open during wars, to mean that the god was out of the city to defend its people; but they were close in times of peace, to mean the god was back in his home.

The article also briefly mentions how Saturn and Cronos were both depicted as an old man, due to the deity being assimilated with time. It was originally a Greek confusion as the name for the Titan king, “Kronos”, was very similar to “chronos”, the Greek word for time – and so people started to compare Kronos, the father who devoured his own children, with the “all-devouring time” with an appetite that nothing could satisfy. By extension Saturn was also affected by this confusion and was also seen as a god of time – some statues of him depicted his face veiled, to manifest the “mystery of time” that people could never truly see.

And of course, Saturday is actually “Saturn’s Day”.

royalty au headcanons [xiao, ningguang, keqing, childe]

prompt: royalty au headcanons for my most recent follower event characters: xiao, ningguang, keqing, childe a/n: this type of stuff makes me wish i had pretty graphics to give you all for each character haha

NINGGUANG

her opponents would describe her as “cold and ruthless, a bloodthirsty woman who desires nothing but power”, “a bedeviling witch who preys upon the sins of man”, and a “fearsome enemy both upon the battlefield and within the game of politics”.

to anyone with half a brain, however, ningguang only strikes fear into the hearts of the vile and repugnant elites who take advantage of their status in order to prey upon beautiful women of lower societal status.

enter stage left: ningguang, a political outsider to the monarchy of liyue and arguably one of its most well-respected members. she heads the qixing, the emperor’s most trusted royal council, despite being of noble birth.

ningguang frowns upon those who think of themselves as being at a higher level than her and believes that status in society should be achieved through passion and determination and not through the genes which flimsily tie you to the great heroes of the past.

if you think of yourself as above the qixing’s tianquan, she’ll use her geo vision to assert herself to your level. she desires not to go above you, deciding that fear can best be struck into the hearts of the corrupt through an even-keeled gaze, especially with irises as piercing as her crimson ones.

her economic stances are harsh, yet carefully cultivated with the wellbeing of liyue in mind, even if they might raise eyebrows as yearly taxes continue to increase.

with no current blood heir to the throne, rumor has it that ningguang has been designated as the next empress, should the current ruler of liyue fall. ask her about such gossip and the tianquan will simply wave your concerns off with a flick of her hand and a sharpening of her gaze. 

i’m here to discuss business, not unfounded rumors, she’ll declare dismissively, yet one can’t help but notice the way her eyes gleam like precious rubies and the way no declination of the news ever falls from her lips upon their inquiries.

KEQING

a woman born of noble blood, a perfect lineage to set her on a path destined for greatness, keqing has never been satisfied with what has been given to her.

why settle with the meagre lot the world gives you when you can lurch forward and seize the universe yourself?

keqing desires not for power, but for reformation. to change the world, you must become one with the world, or in keqing’s case, the liyuean government.

since her first day in politics, keqing has been concerned with one thing: abolishing the monarchy in place of a democracy, in which the people of liyue pick their own leaders, in which nobility is decimated and everyone can decide their country’s fate, not just a select few.

she’s never been one to settle for silence, even as those around her nervously told her to keep her mouth shut in fear of the emperor. an electro vision was quickly awarded to her in response to her ostracization amongst other nobles, one in which she does not wear out of pride, but only necessity.

making waves in the tides of liyue’s political realm had always been keqing’s goal, yet the purple-haired woman had been utterly shocked to be invited to tea by the emperor himself, someone who should view keqing as a political rival, a threat.

despite shaking knees and haywire nerves, keqing accepted the invitation and entered the tea room with her head held high, only to be greeted with the presence of both the tianquan and the emperor.

rather than admonishing keqing for her actions, the emperor praised her for her visions of liyue being guided by those who cared and not those who were merely born into it. fascinated with her ideas, the emperor offered her the title of the qixing’s yuheng.

if one asks why keqing became a member of the government she once loathed, she’ll simply smile and tell you what she’s said a hundred times over.

the world cannot be shaped to your desires if you are not willing to adapt to its whims as well.

XIAO

once one of the five heirs to the liyuean throne, xiao is the sole survivor of the legendary esteemed group of the guardian yakshas who assisted the emperor

now, the unofficial prince of liyue looks not to protect liyue by being its next leader, but to defend those who can’t defend themselves.

the elusive prince resides at wangshu inn and his residence is a well-kept secret, both amongst the staff and wangshu inn’s typical residents. he cares not for the life of a castle, having thrown away his metal crown in favor of a jade spear.

he cares not for mortals and finds them foolish, yet respects the emperor’s decision for the next heir to the throne to be a mortal, even if he does not necessarily agree with it.

after all, should xiao ever demand of it, he knows that the emperor who once freed him from the chains that bound him would also gift him the ability to lead liyue in the event of the emperor’s death.

the prince much prefers to eat almond tofu in peace on the roof of wangshu inn. if he’s feeling zesty, he might kill a few hilichurls in the process.

he’s wary to the presence of others, deciding that those who want to get close to him only desire him for his power. after years of torment, xiao isn’t too keen on getting close to anyone who might hurt him further, whether it be through political means or through their deaths.

if you’re determined to earn his friendship, bring the angsty prince a note from the emperor himself and a perfectly crafted bowl of almond tofu and even he will cave to your demand of just a few minutes of his time.

i am not disrespectful enough to shut out those the emperor deems worthy, especially in tandem with such a well selected gift.

CHILDE

eleventh and last in the direct line for the tsaritsa’s throne, childe has always been a genuinely kind individual. the downside to him? he has a penchant for fighting and a bloodlust that nearly consumes him whole.

he’ll greet you like the perfect gentleman and is usually straightforward about his intentions, no matter how nefarious. he’s always preferred to meet his opponents head on, ignoring the art of deception.

described by his fellow heirs as “more trouble than he’s worth”, childe often finds himself thrust outside of snezhnaya and into the affairs of other nations, his charm often overshadowing is blatant deceit.

the prince has close ties with liyue’s northland bank, a pseudo-embassy established by the tsaritsa herself to assert snezhnaya’s international dominance as the world superpower within liyue.

this means that the prince is consistently meddling within the affairs of the elite. for the smart ones, they avoid anything with even the smallest hint of fatui involvement, but for the dumb ones, which is an astonishing amount of nobles, they fall prey to childe’s saccharine smile and alluring personality.

this control over the financials of others allows childe to obtain political power -- specifically access to high class liyuean galas and parties, in which he can toy with those who evade his financial grasp through false platitudes and promises of a better future for liyue-snezhnayan unity.

the prince flaunts his political relationships and liyuean interactions with glee, such as the time he duped even the judicious ningguang (who insists that the snezhnayan is most certainly lying) and the way he funded keqing’s flamboyant, revolutionary ideas, only for her to turn on him and become a member of the qixing.

the only relationship the prince fails to flaunt is his enigmatic connections to the liyuean emperor. at any event, the two are never seen talking, yet the glances the two exchange leave everyone baffled. some say that they are illicit lovers, while others claim that they are sworn enemies who only avoid fighting due to the political downsides it would bring their nations.

if confronted about the situation with the emperor, childe’s carefree smirk will drop and he’ll meet your eyes with narrowed ones devoid of their previous happiness.

my relationship with the emperor is no more and no less than a professional one. are you implying i should feel a different way?

Binge-Watching: Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Episodes 63-66

In which the galaxy continues to evolve, and Reinhard’s ambition is really starting to scare me.

Shifting Tides

Time is a fickle thing in Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Sometimes a single event sprawls across multiple episodes, sometimes months pass in the span of a few minutes as the status quo shifts within them. This set of episodes is firmly in the latter camp; after the chaos of Yang’s departure from the Alliance, the galaxy takes its sweet time reacting to the fallout. Mostly, it serves to shift around a few key pieces on the playing field, setting up for future developments one piece at a time. The one spark of Real Shit Going Down is the destruction of the Church of Terra’s base, and Jesus Christ was it brutal. Even in a show that’s never shied away from the horrors of war before, something about how casually and callously the church sacrificed its own followers- and how eager those followers were to be crushed and gassed to death for the cause- was disturbing on a level I wasn’t prepared for. So much death, so much violence, and all for what? To trap just a few more people in an earthen tomb? To make the world that much darker? As one of Julian’s allies puts it, it’s not unexpected, but that doesn’t make it any less despicable.

Aside from that, though, what we’re got here is a good old-fashioned table-setting arc. Julian’s picked up by the Empire’s forces in disguise and granted safe passage to the capital planet Odin, so now our golden boy’s got a chance to put his skills to the test right in the heart of enemy territory. That should be pretty damn interesting. Sadly, he won’t get much time to appreciate the capital because Reinhard’s moving the damn capital off the planet and relocating the Empire’s base of power to Fezzan, to be closer to the Alliance. Meanwhile, Yang and his fellow runaways are planning to make contact with El Facil, a planet that’s broken away from Alliance and Empire alike to try and stand on its own two feet. And the Alliance itself is starting to fracture from the aftershocks of losing Yang and the people’s trust in their government plummeting. The galaxy is changing slowly but surely, and as always, everyone is irreparably caught up in the sweep of history. Once things spring back into action, the results are sure to be explosive.

Toward Ambition

But let’s take a closer look at Reinhard for a second, because hoo boy, I am really nervous about him now. On the surface, he’s still as confident and magnanimous as ever, fair with his subordinates and constantly thinking about how to best secure the nation’s future (”A nation is deficient if it relies on the skills of one individual.”) But it’s clear that his increasingly long hair isn’t the only thing weighing heavily on his shoulders. Deep down, he still feels cheated out of a proper victory after Yang’s surrender at Vermillion. His incredible ambition pushes him to keep going higher, farther, faster, stronger, to achieve greater and greater feats befitting the ruler of a galaxy. He’s not a bloodthirsty man, but he craves glory, especially glory obtained from testing his will against someone as towering a figure as him. That incredible drive is what let him to such heights in the war against the Alliance. But now that he’s won that war, and there’s no real enemy left to fight (as least, not yet)? It makes it nearly impossible for him to settle for peace. In his eyes, peace equals stagnation, and his life is defined by constantly one-upping himself with great achievements. The same passion that led him to victory is now preventing him from accepting that victory, and instead of simply working to make life better for the countless people under his rule, he can’t stop wanting to disrupt things and start the cycle of violence and instability all over again.

And to his credit, Reinhard recognizes the danger here. The last thing he wants to do is become another Rudolph, mindlessly fighting and destroying for the sake of his own glory and sacrificing innocent lives on the monument to his greatness. But when his ambition and self-reflection battle inside his head, it’s ambition that wins out. Despite all his very justified fears, he can no longer escape the call to expand his greatness to the very edges of reality. Unlike Yang, who was thrust into greatness against his will and refuses to let pride sweep him away, Reinhard must reach ever higher if he is to survive. He must try and twist fate to his will, to be the man who dictates the history of the galaxy. And no amount of self-reflection can stop him from doing so. I just hope that self-awareness stops him from becoming the very monster he’s afraid of turning into. Otherwise, the galaxy may be heading for a dark night indeed.

Odds and Ends

-”I’m practically a walking museum of adolescent dilemmas.” I like Poplin.

-”Men’s clothes are so much harder to undress.” pfft

-”A nation cannot run on conspiracy! A nation must run on moral integrity!” Mittenmeyer’s right as always. If you don’t lead justly, you’re no better than the Goldenbaums.

-”Sorry, I borrowed it from Mrs. Cazerne.” skjdfhsdf Frederica please

-”I’m talking about what the soldiers believe, not what you believe.” Daaaamn, called out.

-Hm. Not sure how I feel about Reuenthal getting a murder girlfriend.

-Interesting how Mittenmeyer kinda defends democracy at least in the abstract. I really like him.

Onward we go. See you next time!

Make sure he never comes back.

Rated: T

Pairings: I’m not spoiling that in this first edition, so if anyone is interested in more from this story, I’ll give that away ;)

I got inspired from a writting prompt, and this was born:

The Land of the Uchihas imposed itself disgustingly throughout the entire Fire Nation, dominating and conquering with force and terror. Small kingdoms and peoples who tried to rise up against their power were subdued, humiliated, stripped of everything they ever possessed. Those who accepted the inevitable with peace and without a fight, found a more relaxed destiny, without being treated like animals for the rest of their lives.

At the beginning of their reign, the Uchihas had been a stable clan, which showed no interest in expanding beyond the lands they owned. Owners of great luxury, they lived in harmony with their exuberant wealth. Reserved, secretive and stoic, no one knew that mysteries were unveiled within the great gates of their village. They did not admit foreigners or people from outside their clan, but neither did they attack anyone who dared to approach them. They were peaceful.

Everything had changed when another clan of the Fire country, the Senju, decided to dominate all the lands around them. Ruthlessly, they murdered all their opponents without a hitch until they encountered an imposing and unexpected enemy, the Uchihas. They would not allow their legacy to fall so easily into the cruel hands of those barbarians. These two groups shared more pain, agony and history than just the dispute over ground; they were related.

With passion and vigour, both families fought their way through a heated struggle that lasted three sunsets and four moon deaths. By the end of the war, the leader of the Uchiha, Indra, all powerful and praised by his followers, had fallen to the sword of his brother, Ashura, leader of the enemy clan. Before receiving reprisals from the surviving Uchihas, he himself fled, ordering a hasty retreat, rejoicing in the victory he was taking from the encounter. The death of his older brother, his only brother, meant nothing to him, and pleasure ran through his veins in the knowledge that he had fallen before the grace of his weapon.

However, Indra’s son, Uchiha Madara, heir to the leadership that his father’s death brought, had seen his progenitor’s death from the front line, and had been unable to act to save him. At only sixteen, the dark-haired teenager had been paralysed by the terror of the scene. His uncle, cold and disheartened, pierced his father with his sword, from his chest to the other end.

When the Senju retreated, panic crept into his system, and Madara ran to the dejected body of his only direct family. He knew he had a younger brother, but he never knew what had become of him. He had not had the pleasure of meeting him, but he had always fantasized about the situation. For some reason, the clan was forbidden to talk about it, and the information was not accessible. He withdrew the blade from the man’s chest, and tried to cover the bleeding wound. It was a clean, side-to-side incision. The amber liquid ran down the torso, soaking the hands of the young man, who was frantically trying to save his father from eternal darkness.

“Son, cease your action. My departure is inevitable.”

Squinting, Indra watched his eager offspring, who struggled to keep him alive. His time was not long, but he was proud to have instilled such passion in the child he had raised. If only he could have saved his other son…

“Father! Don’t abandon me! I beg you…”

“…Child, perpetuate your walk on the path of compassion…justice…evoke the love that I profess to you when the road becomes difficult…do not follow in the footsteps of Ashura…and find him…find your brother…Izuna…”

His last breath left his lungs, as his eyes closed for the last time.

“FATHER! NO!”

After Madara took power, darkness rained down on Uchiha’s land. No one understood what had changed inside the boy, who was once a sweet and gentle kid with the entire clan. Now, he showed himself to be an archaic person and refused to receive contact with anyone. He had inaugurated his first act as a leader by commanding a fierce invasion of the Senju Lands. Not only had they been victorious, but he had cut off Ashura’s head himself and impaled it on the doors of their village as a warning.

Whoever messed with Madara would meet the same fate.

For years, this leader’s empire just grew and grew. His tyranny soon flooded every corner of the nation, forcing, coercing and subduing anyone who crossed his path. The characteristic symbol of this bloodthirsty family, the malevolent red and white fan, spread out gloriously and infamously in the form of flags, plaguing every place where a town or village once resided.

At the age of 23, Madara was staying in the capital of his kingdom, coordinating from the comfort of the main palace the few remaining invasions to completely dominate the entire region. But his mind found little interest in conquest. In fact, establishing himself as the supreme king of the area had never mattered to him. Since his inevitable assumption of power, his only goal had fallen on his father’s last words.

‘Izuna…’ was the only word that resonated in the back of his mind. That name, that beautiful name, meant hope.

“Lord… Are you here with us?” One of his advisors brought him out of his absence, and forced him back into reality. He was meeting with the honorable members of his personal council. Also present was the captain of the military troops belonging to the capital, who directed orders to the barracks located throughout the country in the smaller Uchiha villages that had been founded after each conquest.

Madara observed other unknown faces, but he played down their importance. The last time he had been able to recognize all the members of his clan was when his father was still the leader. Walking the length of the long table where the meeting was taking place, all eyes were on him, waiting for an answer that he was unaware of. He had been fantasizing throughout the discussion. With his arms folded over his chest, one leg crossed over the other, his head held high in front of him, he responded monosyllabically, a sound that always saved him when he was caught off guard.

“Hm.” Nervous glances met each other over their teacups as the murmur echoed again from the meeting room. Easily, he was absent again in the freedom of his imagination, fascinated by the ease with which he could enter that world of fantasy. A world that usually belongs only to children. But his childhood had been corrupted by a lost brother… Izuna.

When the session was over, Madara was motionless in his seat. Imitating his action, the captain of the military forces, remained unmoving in his position, accustomed to that routine. Both waited for the room to empty before speaking.

"My lord, I am afraid to announce the lack of progress in the mission you have given me. My fittest men and I have ridden without ceasing for weeks and…”

“Are you telling me there’s no sign of him?”

“My lord… my convictions… I dare to declare that your brother must have died by now…”

He could not finish speaking, for from where Madara sat, a knife flew without warning, and was mercilessly thrust into the man’s eye. He was an expert in cutting weapons, and never missed a chance to practice on live targets. No one could talk about his brother in that way. Ever since he became a leader, Izuna’s quest was an ever-present mission. The entire Fire Nation had been scoured, searched for in every corner by that young Uchiha that no one knew about and had never been seen.

But Madara was no fool. He knew what his clan thought. He knew that they thought him insane for searching so hard for a person who resembled a ghost. The resources devoted to tracking down his brother were incalculable, to the extent that the Uchiha were at a financial low, never before reached by his predecessors, thanks to him.

He could hear the servants rumouring about how he had lost his mind. He could hear his men doubting his ability to carry them through. His family, the legacy his father had given him at the cost of his blood, was now beginning to turn its back on him. All they wanted was the total conquest of the region. To receive the unpleasant title of supreme leader. None of that mattered in his life, for what he wanted most was to regain what he had never been able to have.

Despite the differences he had with the people he was leading, as he no longer considered it right to call them relatives, he was aware that he needed his position as a ruler to get the help of the clan, and thus find the whereabouts of Izuna. His brother’s story was still a mystery. No one knew what had become of him after his birth, no one had seen him, no one could describe his appearance. A needle in a haystack. And although in the back of his mind the word ‘dead’ flickered with dazzling lights, he refused to pay attention to it. He would spend his whole life searching for him if necessary.

—————————————-

Facing a new dawn, Madara’s horse rode bravely before his commands, guiding the military formation that followed behind him. The Uchiha travelled at great speed from the capital to one of the newly opened villages, located almost on the border of the land of fire and wind. Carrying swords, bows and arrows, shields with the clan’s emblem, they hurried through the rising heat, wearing gleaming black armor. They covered the entire torso, shoulders, and the front and back of the legs. Combat sandals, suitable for the need for skill, could be seen on the warriors’ feet.

The leader of the troop, distinguishing himself from the others, wore a long black cape attached to the shoulders of his armor, identifying him as the head of the squadron. After coldly annihilating the former commander in the meeting room, Madara had decided to personally take charge of the military section. His long dark hair cascaded down his back, dancing uncontrollably in the face of the horse’s revolutions and the wind. The urgent hurry was due to the announcement of a runway that had arrived in the capital that morning, carried by a messenger hawk. The leader of the location to which they were travelling, reported having found conclusive information about the famous “Izuna” and demanded the immediate presence of Madara to verify the veracity of the facts.

When they woke him up and he personally read the message that the pale and breathless maid had brought him, his heart beat as fast as when he saw his father die in front of his eyes. Putting together a team and having them travel that distance from one moment to the next was risky and extremely rushed, but the expectation consumed him and the urge to find out what that clue was was too much to hope for.

When he was forced to rest because the night was falling on them, anger took hold of him in such a pure way that he had to get away from the whole group so as not to kill them on the forest floor. He made up his personal sleeping space at a great distance from his men, knowing that it was unlikely that he would encounter any thieves or outsiders in the area as it was under his power. He stripped off his armor and did not even bother to set up a proper shelter for the early morning hours. Wearing the black clothes, he always wore under his war protection, he placed the shield of his torso on the grass and laid his head on it, using it as a pillow.

He relaxed by looking at the green leaves on the trees, feeling the breeze playing with his loose hair. Before he knew it, he was fantasizing. He thought of arriving in that village and meeting a young Uchiha, his brother. His only remaining relative, who would accompany him for the rest of his life. He would not have to be alone anymore. Eventually, amidst emotions, happiness and dreams, darkness lulled him to the land of rest, and he managed to sleep.

But he had made a mistake in thinking that he was alone.

———————————–

When he woke up, he felt happily renewed, ready to reach that blissful place and discover that mystery. But unfortunately, he was not in the forest. The sounds of nature did not reach his ears, the morning breeze did not blow on his senses. Something was wrong. Reluctantly, he wanted to open his eyes, only to realize that, even if he tried, the world was still dark around him.

He did not allow despair to grow inside him, years of war, fighting and training had shaped him into a warrior fit to face any scenario. He tried to move his hands, to bring them to his face to confirm that his eyesight was covered by something, but discovered that he was chained. Handcuffs were tight and constricting, hugging his wrists. He tested the range of motion, and noticed that he could move his arms at least a little forward. He was not totally restricted.

He lifted one leg, confirming the theory that he also had shackles on his ankles. Again, a small range of motion was granted to him. He was sitting against a cold, solid wall with all his limbs tied off and deprived of his sight.

He could only hear, smell at the very least. The rage of being held against his will one step away from finding information about the man he had sought for so many years consumed him in an inexplicable way, but he could not afford to act recklessly and ruin his chances of escape because of his impulses.

He waited, waited and waited, still in the cold, secret place, unanswered and boiling inside. He had no idea how much time had passed, what time of day it was, what had become of his troop. The unknowns overwhelmed his head when a sound took him out of his anxiety. Without conveying any emotion to the outside world and determined to be indecipherable to his captors, he heard footsteps coming down a long staircase. Then the person walked down what he thought was a corridor, until it got closer and closer to him. The footsteps stopped, and the rumble of a heavy titanium door being opened was heard throughout the room where he was being held.

“I apologize, my King, for the lack of decorum on the occasion… unbecoming of our usual action. But… before one such as you, Lord Uchiha, we cannot take risks, I hope you understand.”

A female voice spoke from somewhere in the room. He could tell that the woman was standing in front of him by the direction of the sound, and from the information provided, she was some kind of thief; probably, a group of them. He would remain silent, and would not offer compromising information to his enemy. Not because he cared about his clan, but because of the custom of wartime. Once again, he felt like a teenager, where he was targeted because he was the leader’s son. Today, however, he was the leader.

“Did the cat eat your tongue, My Lord?”

Internally he found it amusing to think that this should be taken as an insult. The woman he was dealing with seemed to have no desire to mistreat or torture.

��…Man of few words… Blessed. The payment for your ransom should be coming any minute, Lord Uchiha. You will be free then.”

With that said, the woman’s footsteps were heard again, moving away from him calmly. The door resounded thunderously after a few seconds, and as it closed, the footsteps continued down the corridor that he sensed following. The footsteps disappeared behind the many steps a moment later.

Abduction for profit’ had been delayed by something as banal as materials. He felt insulted, anger threatened to show itself, to glow through his strength and to tear off the chains that kept him confined to that place. But that, he had to admit, as incredibly tempting as it was, was also incredibly stupid. When the Uchiha paid the ransom, he would be released peacefully and could finish the journey to the village quietly, assuming that the group holding him was large enough to rule over that area.

He.Just.Had.To.Wait.

And so, it was. He ate the ration of food that was given to him some time later, and felt the hours go by inside him, until eventually sleep overcame him. He was startled when he was awakened by a slight kick in his calf. His body was asleep and cramped, thanks to the lack of movement due to the restriction of the chains. He needed to move, his energy and his mood were deep within him.

Reluctantly, he came back to life when he heard the voice of the same woman speaking to him again. Without warning, he felt a delicate touch over his eyes, and the blindfold that deprived him of his sight was removed. By reflection, he held his eyelids tight to the sudden invasion of light. It was not very strong, for the room where he was imprisoned was dreary and poorly lit, but after being in the darkness for an indefinite time, even the smallest illumination felt enormous.

When he managed to focus his eyes again, he could appreciate the woman in front of him. She was short, with long, long pink hair, reaching down to her lower back. Emerald eyes looked at him intently, and a purple jewel in the shape of a rhombus adorned her forehead. A long black cape with strange red details covered her body, but it opened at the front of her figure to reveal the tight black shirt and dark trousers she wore underneath. The sleeves were so long that Madara could not see her hands, which made him uneasy as he could not see if she was carrying weapons.

“…O my King… My Lord… I have news…”

Slowly, the pink-haired woman moved one of her arms. Alerted, the Uchiha looked intently at her hand, anticipating an attack or an assassination attempt. To his surprise, when the sleek limb was revealed under the long sleeve of her cloak, the only thing that appeared was an envelope. Specifically, marked with the symbol of the Uchiha clan.

Confused and amazed, Madara held the object in the hand where the woman had placed it, as he could not deliberately move them. It was a letter, and it was open.

“I suppose it is a pity for you… My Lord… but we, on the other hand, are wonderfully rich.”

On the paper, it read as follows:

“To whomever this statute has the pleasure of addressing

We cannot ignore the assistance given by you in the removal of Lord Madara

As a token of our gratitude, we sent twice the amount you requested, in exchange for one last favor

Please

Make sure he never comes back to us.

                                                                       -The Honorable Uchiha Council”

The words his eyes saw broke the last barrier of self-control he had left, and he couldn’t help but explode at that very moment. His family had taken the opportunity of his abduction to get rid of him. They were using this group of thugs to see that his presence was eradicated. It was an insult to his father, to him. To his brother.

The chains on his wrists came off the wall when, with a battle cry, the Uchiha used all his strength to free himself. Finally, being able to move his arms, he allowed his anger and contained ferocity to run through his veins, without any restrictions. Outside of himself, he lunged at the woman in front of him, and straddling her, he placed his hands around her neck. The force he exerted was too much, and the pink-haired woman soon began to lose the color in her skin and the air in her airways.

“I JUST WANT MY BROTHER!”

Coriolanus is a strangely neglected and infrequently performed play, one without the speechifying and introspection that offer psychological insight into Shakespeare’s most popular protagonists. Yet, with its focus on the delusion of leadership, the importance of the mob and the brittle basis of populism, Coriolanus is truly a play for our times. A recent production starring Tom Bateman at the Sheffield Playhouse was truncated by the pandemic, so this is the perfect time to revisit the Donmar Warehouse’s extraordinary 2014 production showing this week via National Theatre at Home and starring Tom Hiddleston.

Six years on, this remains one of the most viscerally impressive productions of the last decade, a fascinating dissection of power, class and the enduring battle between military conquest and political protectionism that characterise Shakespeare’s Roman plays. Wars and conflicts occur across Shakespeare’s plays and, within the Histories especially, this involves many characters whose motivations and purpose in the story vary considerably as families, regions and nations contend for tangible forms of power.

In these plays, Shakespeare is particularly interested in the formation and decline of the warrior as an archetype, charting the dehumanisation process that rids the individual of personal weaknesses and emotion, transforming them into great and celebrated military leaders. The Henriad trilogy is the best example of this, following the reformation of Prince Hal from tavern-dwelling layabout to the principled and invincible monarch-conqueror. There are plenty of moments of hesitation, uncertainty and fragility along the way, but the steel that Henry V displays on the battlefield and in the rejection of his former companions denote the completion of his metamorphoses from fallible human prince to an idealised personification of glorious war.

Equally interesting is the post-war process in which the feted Hero-Warrior, unable to sustain their god-like form, must return to society – something Henry V escapes by dying unceremoniously in Shakespeare’s afterword. Now irreversibly changed or damaged by combat, the Hero-Warrior sets in motion a train of events that lead disastrously to their own destruction. Caius Martius who earns the moniker Coriolanus from his bloodthirsty endeavours takes this path through the play, the self-destruction of a hero unwilling to accept the confines of a society that built him and this becomes the major driver of Josie Rourke’s outstanding production.

Characteristics of the Hero-Warrior

Heroism is an intangible characteristic in many ways, requiring personality traits including decency, fairness, courage and bravery as well as deeds to demonstrate the hero’s prowess. There are several characters who begin one of Shakespeare’s plays already in the position of celebrated military hero – Coriolanus, Macbeth and Antony – all of whom return from garlanded battle with honours and political recognition, the discussion of which dominates the early section of these plays. Yet the very characteristic that made them also becomes their fatal flaw and pursuing it in peacetime takes them on a path to inevitable destruction and death.

In the Donmar’s Coriolanus, the audience is given a vivid picture of the protagonist’s battlefield strengths in an opening section where he descries the cowardice of his compatriots hiding in trenches rather than running into battle. He goes on to take the city of Corioli singlehanded, returning drenched in blood that runs into his eyes, covering his face and upper body entirely – a beautifully staged moment from Rourke and designer Lucy Osborne. Instantly we know that this is a man apart from others, one with superior fighting skills, incredible audacity and, crucially, an excess of bloodlust that make him part hero part madman.

What unfolds in the rest of the play suggests how fatally flawed this Hero-Warrior is, bred for the simplicity of soldiering, the life and death fundamentality of it all, and entirely unfitted for the grey, oleaginous world of politics. In Hiddleston’s remarkable performance, we see the effect of hubris and how clearly the very thing that made Coriolanus also breaks him – the love of his mother Volumnia. The intensity of their relationship, visible on his return to Rome is given physical form in the tenderness of the greeting between Hiddleston and Deborah Findlay, exceeding that for his wife and son. His reliance on her guidance is vital to understanding the path Coriolanus takes, his unyielding refusal to be other than what she made him even when the great prize of political office and power are offered. By the same extension, when he does finally succumb to her entreaties in the penultimate scene of this production and shows mercy to his former home, he places his mother above himself – it proves his undoing.

Shakespeare’s other Hero-Warriors experience a similar trajectory and while their motivation and downfall is conceived differently, both Macbeth and Antony suffer a rapid fall from grace, tumbling from invincible military hero supporting the dynastic sustenance of the state to its most pressing enemy. Macbeth’s ambitious belief in fate  becomes his fatal flaw which in the early part of the play summons his courage to take the Kingship he craves, while that self-same fate becomes a poisoned chalice as he tries to outmanoeuvre the destiny earmarked for him at the start of the play.

Antony, likewise, is in a solid position at the start of Antony and Cleopatra holding a third of the Roman Empire in his grasp while living with the woman he adores. Antony’s fatal flaw – lust – helps to build his powerbase before the play begins uniting two countries in mutual support, but as his strategic abilities are increasingly clouded by his attachment to Egypt, he foreshadows the series of military disasters that lead to his his military capitulation and death. All of these men experience the decline of the Hero-Warrior image during the course of the play, a status and easiness of mind held at the start which they will never know again.

The Military-Political Clash

One of the core themes of Coriolanus is the uneasy alliance between military action and the democratic process, an idea that recurs in Shakespeare’s Roman plays. States are reliant on the bravado of commanders to conquer territories and occupy land, but attempts to translate battlefield honours into consolidated political roles in peacetime society often in the role of Consul or Tribune, are treated with suspicion by the career politicians that pack the Senate. Julius Caesar is the best example of this as the predominantly civilian conspirators plot to destroy their overmighty colleague, the unspoken threat of the violence his legions could unleash on the city a driving force in his assassination and the recruitment of veteran Brutus to their cause.

In Coriolanus the sniping role of Tribunes Sicinia and Brutus played by Helen Schlesinger and Elliot Levy starkly exemplifies that division, adding a class angle between the rulers and the ruled as they both represent and manipulate the voice of the people, using political tactics to dispense with the military man they personal despise. The status of Hero-Warrior counts for remarkably little in the political arena, and Coriolanus struggles to accept the legitimacy of a government that requires the frequent sacrifice of his blood to protect it but not his person. And while the Hydra-like work of the Tribunes (a reference Shakespeare returns to throughout the play) makes them and their reasoning entirely unsympathetic, Coriolanus’s own disdain for democratic process and the people become equally problematic for him.

Dismissive of the facile rituals of political conduct, Hiddleston’s sneering warrior mocks the ceremony of installation into the Consular office, pulling at the robe and laurel crown and refusing to parade his war wounds in order to beg for ‘voices’. Encouraged by his mother to comply with conventions, Hiddleston shows the frustration of the solider forced to debase himself as he courts a popularity he believes should be his by right and contends with his own straightforward honesty (brutal though it is). The result is a bristling tension in this production as Coriolanus struggles to flatter the citizens he can barely hide his contempt for as the audience anticipates confrontation. Within the play there is a fundamental clash between the two mutually dependent arms of the state that find each other’s rituals and personnel distasteful, a conflict, Shakespeare suggests in the plays set later that is never entirely resolved.

A Hard-Edged Vulnerability

The early scenes of the play are full of machismo as battles are fought and the posturing of victory informs the audience’s image of Coriolanus as an unyielding and statuesque figure. Hiddleston’s entrance sets the tone entirely as he captures both the commanding figure and personal charisma of a solider whose exploits are widely admired.  It is a very physical performance, his posture set in rigid military bearing with shoulders back and head held high even when lurking at the back of the stage when’s he out of the scene, creating a fearsome impression, using his posture and surety of step to dominate the stage. There is real danger in Hiddleston’s Coriolanus, a no man’s land between rational, strategic thinking and a psychotic madness that erupts into violence as he fights the Volscian’s led by Hadley Fraser. The menace and physical strength Hiddleston exudes ideally situates the fears of the political class as his return to Rome provokes suspicion and jeopardy for the city.

And while it would be easy to play him as a blustering bully or maniac, what made Hiddleston’s performance so memorable is the thread of vulnerability that runs throughout his characterisation, generating a degree of compassion for the ill-fated general. It is an interpretation that gets between the lines of Shakespeare’s text and colours-in some of the emotional and psychological substance absent from a play with no great speeches or underlying lyricism – at least Macbeth and Antony had soliloquies in which they could unpack their minds to the viewer and themselves.

Hiddleston is a very subtle actor on stage, eschewing expansive expressions or gestures in favour of almost imperceptible flickers of feeling that provide a far richer and deeper experience, particularly well suited to the supposed impassivity of Coriolanus. The emotion exudes from within the character, registering largely in the actor’s eyes as they convey the effect of betrayal to the audience. We see a light die in him as the hurts and taunts dispel any ideas he may have had of his homecoming, while the painful process of dressing-up to beg for votes is clearly an embarrassing affront to the Hero-Warrior ego.

But it is the penultimate scene where these vulnerabilities are so movingly represented, broken down by his mother’s appeal for mercy, Hiddleston brings great clarity to the struggle within Coriolanus between the right tactical response to ensure his victory over Rome as well as ensuring the faith of his new-found comrades, and surrendering the advantage to guarantee the life of his own family. Coriolanus must choose between the two sides of himself, Caius Martius and Coriolanus, the soldier and the politician, knowing the latter ensures his own death, a dilemma that is full of agony in this meaningful performance.

The Donmar’s production of Coriolanus is one of the great NT Live recordings, capturing the intimacy of the space and the intensity of the production. The play may lack the grand tragedy of Macbeth or Antony and Cleopatra but this production makes a fine case for its value as a study of the declining Hero-Warrior and its relevance to our current political climate. The impasse between deluded politicians shoring up their own span of power and those who lack the temperament for government but can accomplish great deeds is the essence of Coriolanus – Shakespeare shows us it was ever thus.

Coriolanus is freely available on the National Theatre at Home Youtube channel until 12 June along with a separate audio commentary version provided by Josie Rourke and Tom Hiddleston. Follow this blog on Twitter @culturalcap1 or Facebook: Cultural Capital Theatre Blog

Unbridled

You can also read the full setting intro HERE.

“We live at the turning of an age. New empires rise from the embers of war. The fairy tales of yesteryear lay dead and buried, and yet beneath the clamor of time’s passing, older forces stir. This is an age of glory. Of power for any with the will to seize it, by steel, or spell, or stranger craft. An unfettered age. An unbridled age.

Who would be strong enough to steer the fate of Arius?”

Hierarch Pios VII Enkrates

Less than a century has passed since the end of the Great War of Liberation, when the peoples of the world arose to throw off the yoke of the Old Vasileia. The end of that vast revolution did not spell an end to the bloodshed, however. Across the lands, cold war festers unceasing. Empires, kingdoms, rebels – from the lowliest wildling barbarian to the mightiest mage-king, all must contend with a new dawning age. The world is changing. Machines and magics of unthinkable power become ever more commonplace. Dark and ancient knowledge is forgotten, swept beneath the passing of history like stones before a river. Chaos reigns despite all who attempt to stop it, and the world’s peoples look towards tomorrow wondering what great upheaval is to be next. It is a time of opportunity – of wonder as well as terror – and great heroes have arisen from the most unlikely places to try and shape the future. For fame, or destiny, or desperation, all must answer the call.

Ninety-five years ago, the mainland of Arius was dominated by a single great empire – the Second Vasileia. Also known as the Old Empire, the Vasileia had once been a grand alliance founded by heroes and legends which had since devolved into a hive of tyranny and corruption over the course of its millennia-spanning reign. Mercantile ambitions, once the driving factor in Vasileian diplomacy, had since turned towards something darker. Near all the Empire was dominated by colossal Trade Houses, whose greed knew no bounds. These in turn were held under the thrall of the Holy Imperial Church and the iron fist of the Kaishan – the Emperor. Any lands not subject to Vasileian rule were targeted to be drained of resources and conquered. With the rise of House Auceptor, last of the Second Empire’s Kaishans, the final pretenses of Imperial nobility were thrown off in favor of an era of brutal oppression.

From a minor noble hold in the Imperial heartland, there came an unlooked-for salvation. A young Kynaz by the name of Leon Isidore was driven into exile after his family and people were destroyed by the Trade Houses for their refusal to sacrifice precious resources which had been discovered on their lands. Leon fled into the wilds, living as a wanderer and a mercenary, a raider and an outlaw, subsisting off of what talents for magic, combat, and persuasion he had gained from his noble upbringing. It was in the wastelands that he met a group of nomadic mystics – the Ardentite Schismatics. The Asur – the celestial-kin – were an ancient race who had given rise to the religion of Ardentism, which has first been adopted by the Ava seafolk in the west, before becoming the theology of the First and Second Vasileias, evolving over time into the corrupt modern form of the Holy Imperial Church. To the Schismatics, the Empire had lost its way, and there was soon to come a great reckoning with the very powers of Heaven.

Leon was taught secret arts by these mystics, and through his quick mastery the Asur saw the promise of a Chosen One. Isidore was taught secrets long thought forgotten by the civilized rulers of the Vasileia, and in time he was named Romasa – the Lamb and the Shepherd.

Romasa would go on to spearhead a great rebellion, assembling the Army of Liberation. He beseeched the elder Ava and Verg peoples in the west and drew up great support from within the Imperial heartlands in the east. Sovereignty was promised to all those myriad folk and nations who chafed under the rule of the Auceptor Kaishan, and the Great War commenced. The power and ingenuity of the rebels was not to be understated, but the legions of the Vasileia were like a sea. It became clear that, in their lust for power, the high commanders of the Vasileia had heeded the temptations of daemons and leveled dark and terrible powers against their upstart foes. Black magics and hordes of monsters threatened to engulf all of Arius, and Romasa was pressed to defeat the Kaishan before the entire world could be given over to the predations of daemonkind. At great cost was the Liberation achieved, however, and by Romasa’s word was the corrupt Old Empire overthrown at last.

Yet peace was not to follow, despite the victory of the Liberation. Romasa, in his ongoing mastery of numerous magical arts, and scarred from his service in the War, had changed from the young man he once was. All were shocked when, at the victory of the rebellion, he declared the founding of a new Vasileia, and crowned himself as Kaishan. In the name of order and stability, it was Kaishan Romasa’s command that all need submit to the new authority of his Prime Eternal Vasileia, forgetting the promises of sovereignty and drastic change he’d offered in exchange for a single-minded dedication to reconstruction. Romasa’s former allies were incensed. In the west, the Ava seafolk of Lindath were primed to declare their succession from his new Vasileia, having been among the foremost supporters of Romasa at his promise of Lindathi independence as in the ancient days. With them came several human nations, as well as the bulk of the Delvers, the Verg; and the Myaatu beastfolk of the northern Auroran Desert.

Following in the wake of the Liberation there was a new conflict which was known as the Winter War – the first seed of the later Long War which would plague the continent for near a century after. Dueling for territory and power, the Accord and the Third Empire spread across the lands, forcing every independent nation to choose one side or another in the vicious battle. The Accord promised freedom, common purpose, and a heroic return to the mythic and glorious elder days, while the Empire offered power, order, and the opportunities of a new industrial age. Insurgencies and rebellions flourished during the Winter War as numerous lands defied the offers of both factions. Most prominent among these groups were the Kaynists – populist armies of laborers and peasants united in a spiritual revival based on the writings of the Asur philosopher Anaxagoras Kayne. The Kaynists caused massive losses to both sides of the Winter War, drafting up great populations of refugees and disaffected folk from out of the debris of conflict.

The Accord dominated the west – the Verg underhomes, the Ava ancestral riverlands of Lindath, and the Bastions of the Myaatu north of the Auroran Desert first of all. To their banner came the kingdoms of Theod and Tiber – confederations of westron humans who had long been allies of the Ava and Verg and had been at the core of the First Empire. The desert sultanate of Afqar came as well, following their Myaatu neighbors in declaring holy war against the treacherous Empire. As the Accord grew, so did their ambitions, keen on bringing the light of freedom to all countries in defiance of the Kaishan. Diplomats found headway in the distant land of Yang, whose Dynast was besieged on all sides by Imperial forces. Likewise, to their south, there lay the Serpent Kingdoms – an offshoot of the Ngara scaledfolk of Cretah who preferred the tradecraft and civilization of the mainland over the more bloodthirsty ways of their cousins. Neighboring Lindath and Theod, the Accord set about in the colonization of the lands of Broadleaf and Stormcleft. These were the homes of the Hyldun – the smallfolk; and the Emim giantkin. The Accord offered protection to the ancestral lands of these peoples if they would join their alliance and contribute their resources and power to the cause. Both Broadleaf and Stormcleft were annexed regardless, but many of their natives chose exile, forming a longstanding grudge against the Accord in the process.

In the east, the Third Empire of the Kaishan Romasa retained much of the former Vasileian heartlands. These were centered about the holy city of Dameseka, seat of the Holy Imperial Church which had been reformed under the Ardentite Schismatics, who placed themselves as the new spiritual leaders of the overall fractious Asur people. The lands neighboring Dameseka – the Tsardom of Kleos, and the Khanates of Tular and Midnah – also fell under the Imperial banner, refusing to follow any power weaker than the mighty Kaishan. Seeking dominion over the Dynast of Yang, the Kaishan at last sought a treaty with the reclusive Genke Shogun of Azakuni, succeeding in assembling a new and diverse Empire for the modern era. Last of all, there were the Jia. Also known as “fiends” or “batfolk”, the Jia were a monstrous race not over two centuries old. They had appeared in the latter days of the Old Vasileia, under the rule of the Auceptor Kaishans, and their origins were unknown. Some claimed they descended from daemons, and they had been brought into the world to serve as foot-soldiers for the dark Auceptor legions. After the Great War, most of the disparate Jia tribes and gangs had fled into the steppe and beyond, persisting as pests and battling all they encountered. Yet the Kaishan saw promise in this folk and a chance for salvation, perceiving how they had begun to form their own societies and cultures in the absence of their former overlords. Romasa elevated the mightiest of the Jia clans above all others, and proclaimed their chieftain the first Overlord, securing the Jia hordes to the service of the Empire. Last among the new core of the Vasileia were the Ngara of Cretah, a minor continent off the southeastern shores. Scaled, bestial creatures who nonetheless had a great dynastic civilization going back beyond all human histories, the Ngara Dynasts were zealous, xenophobic, and enduring, thriving in the jungles and deserts of their inhospitable homeland, raising great cities built on rigid caste systems and bloody theocracy. The Ngara refused to submit to any outside power, but the Kaishan’s spies were able to identify fractures in their defences. With Imperial backing, a coup lead by the great Ngara warrior Jayak Courthand overthrew the last Dynast and installed himself as dictator in preparation of a new Dynasty allied to the Third Vasileia. Following this coalition, the Empire managed to also secure the might of the Three Chosen Tribes of the Emim, warlike outliers of the otherwise peaceful giantkin; the Flamespire Verg, who shared the Empire’s vision of a new era; and the Ava of Antilhia in the west, who were a fearsome offshoot of the peaceful Lindathi Ava keen on vengeance against their traditional foes.

As for the rebels caught between the two bulkheads of the Winter War, prospects became bleaker and bleaker as both the Accord and the Empire grew in power. A once successful guerilla war on a hundred fronts was dismantled piece by piece, with the Kaynists taking the brunt of the assault. Their leaders were killed, their bases destroyed, and the Kaynists – most organized of all the insurgent groups – were in time forced into the cold desolation of the northern mountains. Yet in that unforgiving land there came a second rebirth. In the mountain clefts, the exiled rebels came into contact with the Emim giantkin, whose nomadic numbers had grown since the displacement of the Stormcleft tribes. There were also the Hyldun of Broadleaf. Those of the smallfolk who had not stayed under the Accord, nor fled to the Empire-dominated Hyldun country of Nuri, had chosen to move north. All three of these banished peoples feared and distrusted each other, until the chill of winter began to set in once again. To the surprise of all, a common culture of cooperation existed amongst all three groups. Kaynist diplomats reached out to the clan elders of the Hyldun and the tribal shamans of the Emim and learned of the history of oppression they all shared. The Hyldun and Emim learned of the greater world from the humans, while forgotten secrets of nature were imparted on the Kaynists in turn. A new coalition was formed – known as the Crimson Compact, which was signed in the blood of the disaffected and would spread their revolution across the world. The Compact resurged, bolstered by mighty barbarian warriors and elder magics. Uprisings once again began to fester within the Vasileian heartland, while emissaries of the Compact sought out any and all fringe groups which shared a common animosity for both the Accord and the Empire. On the northeastern continent of Wildland, the forest-dwelling Ruadh Confederacy pledged in the name of their fire-keepers to repel Accord colonialism in exchange for Compact trade. South of the Auroran Desert, the wilder Myaatu joined the cause, along with the human coalition known as the Union of Mwene. To the far east, deep in the jungles of the Ngara homeland, and among the islands of the Great Eastern Sea, there were discovered the tribal warriors of Mazakara, and the Shiplords who followed great Aliki admiral-chieftains. Casteless Ngara unsworn to the Serpent Kingdoms or the Dynast, fringe Verg houses, Greenwater Ava of the inland who shirked the high civilization of their cousins, and even Jia who sought to leave their bloody pasts behind. Pirates, rebels, scum, and heroes. From a thousand fractured sources, from the cities and deep wilds, the Compact was formed – disorganized but still united by a common purpose, and now powerful enough to stand against their foes on equal ground.

The Winter War raged on, and few can say when it ended. For over ninety years since the fall of the Old Vasileia, the Long War has plagued the lands of Arius. Outstripping even the great reach of the empires of old, no stretch of the world has been free from the ambitions of these three sprawling factions. Yet change has been ever present. After just shy of two decades of rule, the Kaishan Romasa disappeared. None know what became of him, even to this day, but for a time it appeared to the forces of the Accord that victory was assured. The vying powers of the Imperial Trade Houses threatened to tear the New Vasileia apart, until the Church reestablished itself as a force of arbitration. Under the direction of Hierarch Pios VII Enkrates, a new order was established within Imperial dogma. The figure of the Vanished Kaishan was created as a synthesis of Ardentite theology and the former Kaishan’s own philosophy. It was this unity that saw the Empire endure in the coming Long War, proving to be the ongoing bane of both the Accord and the Compact.

Yet despite the conflicts of mere mortals, forces of grander and more ancient power continue to roil behind the veil. Within the Unseen, daemons whisper and spirits reach into the material plane. Gods and devils vie for supremacy, and the promises of unfathomable knowledge evermore tempt the peoples of a world wracked by strife. The time may soon come when the world would face total annihilation, made all the surer by the schisms and chaos the Long War has birthed. Unless new heroes and wise leaders could stand against the tide.

Villains of All Nations

     I'm reading a really interesting book about pirates, Villains of All Nations, by Marcus Rediker, and I just want to share some excerpts because it's extremely good. It explains that the terror of piracy was born from a different kind of terror, "practiced by … ministers, royal officials, wealthy men; in short, rulers – as they sought to eliminate piracy as a crime against mercantile property … in truth, the keepers of the state in this era were themselves terrorists of a sort, decades before the word terrorist would acquire its modern meaning … they have become, over the years, cultural heroes, even founding fathers of a sort. Theirs was a terror of the strong against the weak." Pirates, in response, "consciously used terror to accomplish their aims … This they did in the name of a different social order … In truth, pirates were terrorists of a sort. And yet we do not think of them in this way. They have become, over the years, cultural heroes, perhaps antiheroes, and at the very least romantic and powerful figures in an American and increasingly global popular culture. Theirs was a terror of the weak against the strong. It formed one essential part of a dialectic of terror, which was summarized in the decision of the authorities to raise the Jolly Roger above the gallows when hanging pirates: one terror trumped the other." Long post about pirates ahead. Henceforth all bolded text is mine, the rest is from the book:

On the hanging of the pirate William Fly in 1726: Fly, however, did not ask for forgiveness, did not praise the authorities, and did not affirm the values of Christianity, as he was supposed to do, but he did issue a warning … he proclaimed his final, fondest wish: that "all Masters of Vessels might take Warning by the Fate of the Captain (meaning Captain Green) the he had murder'd, and to pay Sailors their Wages when due, and to treat them better; saying, that their Barbarity to them made so many turn Pyrates." Fly thus used his last breath to protest the conditions of work at sea, what he called "Bad Usage." He would be launched into eternity with the brash threat of mutiny on his lips.

 As we will see, poor seamen who turned pirate dramatized concerns of class. Formerly enslaved Africans or African Americans who turned pirate posed questions of race. Women who turned pirate called attention to the conventions of gender. And all people who turned pirate and sailed under "their own dark flag," the Jolly Roger, enacted a highly political play about the nation … When pirates stitched together the black flag, the antinational symbol of a gang of proletarian outlaws, they "declared war against the world."

 The multiethnic freebooters of 1716-26 numbered around four thousand over the decade. They wreaked havoc in the Atlantic system by capturing hundreds of merchant ships, many of which they burned or sank, and all  of which they plundered of valuable cargo. They disrupted trade in strategic zones of capital accumulation – the West Indies, North America, and West Africa – at a time when the recently stabilized and expanding Atlantic economy was the source of enormous profits and renewed imperial power. Usually sailors joined pirate ships after working on merchant and naval ships, where they suffered cramped quarters, poor victuals, brutal discipline, low wages, devastating diseases, disabling accidents, and premature death. Piracy, as we will see, offered the prospect of plunder and "ready money," abundant food and drink, the election of officers, the equal distribution of resources, care for the injured, and joyous camaraderie, all as expressions of an ethic of justice … Piracy may have held out hope for a good life, but it was not to be a long one.

 Many pirates, like Fly ... used the occasion for one last act of subversion. An endless train of pirates walked defiantly to the gallows and taunted the higher powers when they got there. Facing the steps and the rope in the Bahamas in 1718, pirate Thomas Morris expressed a simple wish: to have been "a greater plague to these islands." John Gow, who was a very strong man, broke the gallows rope at his hanging in 1726. He went to "ascend the ladder a second time, which he did with very little concern, dying with the same brutal ferocity which animated all his actions while alive."

 In 1720, when eight members of the crew of Bartholomew Roberts were captured and tried in Virginia, they were rowdy and outrageous ...They went to their deaths bidding defiance to mercy … "When they came to the Place of Execution one of them called for a bottle of wine, and taking a glass of it, he drank Damnation to the Governour and Confusion to the Colony, which the rest pledged."

 The drama played out again and again. When the fifty-two members of Roberts's crew were hanged at Cape Coast Castle in 1722 before a concourse of Europeans and Africans, a group of pirates explained: "They were poor rogues, and so must be hanged while others, no less guilty in another way, escaped." They referred to the wealthy rogues who bilked sailors of their rightful wages and proper food and thereby turned many of them toward piracy.

 When Bartholomew Roberts and his men learned that the governor and council of Nevis had executed some pirates in 1720, they were so outraged that they sailed into Basseterre's harbor, set several vessels on fire, and offered a big bounty to anyone who would deliver the responsible officials to their clutches so that justice could be served … They made good on such bluster when they happened to take a French vessel carrying the governor of Martinique, who had also hanged some members of "the brotherhood." Roberts took revenge by hanging the poor governor from his own yardarm. Thus did the pirates practice terror against the state terrorists. It was a war of nerves – one hanging for another – and constituted a cycle of violence.

On the use of terror by pirates:

Pirates used terror for several reasons: to avoid fighting; to force disclosure of information about where booty was hidden; and to punish ship captains. The first point to be emphasized is that pirates did not want to fight, no matter how bloodthirsty their image was in their own day and in ours. As Stanley Richards has written, "It was their ambition to acquire plunder and live to enjoy the pleasures that it brought them. A battle might deprive them of that ease of life. Hence on the chance occasion when they had to go into action against another ship, it was looked upon by them as almost a repulsive necessity. They were after booty, not blood." … Harsh treatment of those who resist, announced the Boston News-Letter in June 1718, "so intimidates the sailors that they refuse to fight when the pirates attack them." After all, the pirates would ask: why are you risking your life to protect the property of merchants and ship captains who treat you so poorly? … In this practice of violence, pirates were no different from naval or privateering ships, who practiced the same methods. Indeed, a portion of pirate terror was the standard issue of war making, which pirates undertook without the approval of any nation-state … Pirates also practiced violence against the prize ship's cargo, destroying massive amounts of property in the most furious and wanton ways … They descended into the holds of ships like "a Parcel of Furies," slashing boxes and bales of goods with their cutlasses, throwing valuable goods overboard, and laughing uproariously as they did so. They also destroyed a large number of ships … They practiced indirect terror against the owners of mercantile property.

On the pirate social order:

We will see that the early-eighteenth-century pirate ship was a world turned upside down, made so by the articles of agreement that established the rules and customs of the pirates' alternative social order. Pirates "distributed justice," elected their officers, divided their loot equally, and established a different discipline. They limited the authority of the captain, resisted many of the practices of capitalist merchant shipping industry, and maintained a multicultural, multiracial, and multinational social order. They demonstrated quite clearly – and subversively – that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal Navy.

 For, as it happened, there were not merely two kinds of terror, the terror of the gallows and the terror of the Jolly Roger, but three. To understand William Fly and his dispute with the ministers of Boston, to understand the gallows drama repeated in one Atlantic port after another, and, most important, to understand the very explosion of piracy in the eighteenth century, we must attend to what Fly said of “Bad Usage,” of how his captain and mate used and abused him and his brother tars, treating them “barbarously,” as if they were “dogs.” He was talking about the violent disciplinary regime of the eighteenth-century deep-sea sailing ship, the ordinary and pervasive violence of labor discipline as practiced by the ship captain as he moved the commodities that were the lifeblood of the capitalist world economy. Even though there is no surviving evidence to show exactly what Captain Green did to Fly and the other sailors aboard the Elizabeth to produce the rage, the mutiny, the murder, and the decision to turn pirate, it is not hard to imagine. The High Court of Admiralty records for this period are replete with bloody accounts of lashings, tortures, and killings. Fly was talking about the ship captain as terrorist.

 On the necessity of labor for imperial designs:

The sailor knew that thousands of people were moving and laboring around the Atlantic, some willingly, some unwillingly, with many of them, like himself, subjected to violence. By 1716 a worldwide process of expropriation, called primitive accumulation, had already torn millions of people from their ancestral lands in Europe, Africa, and the Americas. … The enclosure movement and other mechanisms of dispossession had set thousands in motion on the roads and ways of England in particular and Europe in general. Masses of people flocked to the cities, where they found work, frequently as waged laborers, in manufacturing and especially in armies and navies, as war required vast amounts of labor. Hundreds of thousands more would embark for colonial plantations as laborers, whether free or unfree. Expropriation had “freed” millions of workers for redeployment to the far-flung edges of empire, often as indentured servants or slaves, on plantations that would produce what may have been the largest planned accumulation of wealth the world had yet seen. It was said that sugar, the leading and most lucrative Atlantic commodity of the eighteenth century, was made with blood. By 1716 big planters drove armies of servants and slaves as they expanded their power from their own lands to colonial and finally national legislatures. Atlantic empires mobilized labor power on a new and unprecedented scale, largely through the strategic use of violence—the violence of land seizure, of expropriating agrarian workers, of the Middle Passage, of exploitation through labor discipline, and of punishment (often in the form of death) against those who dared to resist the colonial order of things. By all accounts, by 1713 the Atlantic economy had reached a new stage of maturity, stability, and profitability. The growing riches of the few depended on the growing misery of the many.

On the shift in attitude toward pirates:

The sailor knew that the rulers of the Atlantic empires had taken a harsh new view of pirates as the enemies of imperial designs rather than as allies who might help to accomplish them. For much of the seventeenth century, pirates had been indirectly employed by the Netherlands, France, and England to harass Portugal and especially Spain in the New World, as well as to capture a portion of their glittering wealth. Operating largely from Caribbean islands, especially Jamaica, the sea rovers sacked Spanish American ports such as Veracruz and Panama City, repeatedly trashing Catholic churches and in many instances toting back to their ships as much silver plate as they could carry. But by the 1680s ruling-class attitudes had changed. Jamaica’s bigwigs could make more money, more predictable money, by cultivating sugar, and members of Parliament in England sought a more stable and reliable system of international trade. Pirates, who disrupted both projects, began to be hanged in significant numbers in the 1690s. According to historian Max Savelle, the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 “was thought of, both in Europe and in America, as a settlement that would establish a lasting peace in America, based on the principle of the balance of colonial power.” Britain in particular hoped so because its traders, at home and in the colonies (especially Jamaica), had won the Asiento, an agreement with the Spanish government that allowed them officially to import 4,800 slaves per year and to smuggle a huge number more. The “Returns of the Assiento and private Slave-Trade” proved a more dependable way to exploit Spanish wealth. Pirates now stood squarely in the way of the hoped-for stability and profits.

 On sailors' methods of resistance:

The sailor who embraced the Jolly Roger after 1716 came from a potent experience of life and labor in a wooden world. The sailor’s workplace, the deep-sea sailing ship, was something of a factory in those days, a place where “hands”—those who owned no property and who therefore sold their labor for a money wage—cooperated to make the machine go. Sailing these small, brittle wooden vessels over the forbidding oceans of the globe, the seaman took part in a profoundly collective work experience, one that required carefully synchronized cooperation with other maritime workers for the sake of survival. Facing a ship captain of almost unlimited disciplinary power and an ever readiness to use the cat-o’-nine-tails, the sailor developed an array of resistances against such concentrated authority that featured desertion, work stoppages, mutinies, and strikes. Indeed, the sailor would invent the strike during a wage dispute in London in 1768 when he and his mates went from ship to ship, striking—lowering—the sails in an effort to make merchants grant their demands. Facing such natural and man-made dangers, which included a chronic scarcity of food and drink and a galling system of hierarchy and privilege, the sailor learned the importance of equality: his painfully acquired experience told him that a fair distribution of risks would improve everyone’s chances for survival. Separated from loved ones and the rest of society for extended periods, the sailor developed a distinctive work culture with its own language, songs, rituals, and sense of brotherhood. Its core values were collectivism, anti-authoritarianism, and egalitarianism, all of which were summarized in the sentence frequently uttered by rebellious sailors: “they were one & all resolved to stand by one another.” All of these cultural traits flowed from the work experience, and all would influence both the decision to turn pirate and how pirates would conduct themselves thereafter, as we will see in subsequent chapters.

Humans are weird: We fight way too much

“Are you going to ask him or chicken out again?” Manti sighed.“Will you shut up already. I’m asking him about it at lunch today.” Her friends giggled and said they’d join her. She wasn’t entirely sure why they would be joining her but she imagined they were tagging along just to get fresh gossip about their new human crew mate. Manti’s people, a humanoid alien species much like Humanity with the exception of ocean blue skin and pitch black eyes, had agreed on a cultural exchange program and had exchange volunteers so they could better understand one another. The human that was now on board Manti’s ship was named Jacob Flint, a friendly soft spoken person who had quickly become a close friend. Despite seeing him first hand her friends warned her to stay away from the human, saying things like they were all murderous bloodthirsty killers. She found that description somewhat hard to believe after seeing Jacob spend some twenty minutes attempting to kill a fly that had been flying around his cabin all the while swearing at the top of his lungs and knocking over his belongings in his frantic attempt to squish the buzzing fiend. That changed however when they shared with her some reading material they had gathered from the information web. They were documents recording horrific events of humans known as the “French Revolution” and “World War I”. She read the provided material and was shocked at the sheer brutality. Heads mounted on pikes, people murdered with poisonous gasses, millions dying all for what Manti saw as pointless reasons. Manti’s people abhorred violence and in their entire history as a species had never gone to war with members of her own species.  After knowing Jacob for so long, with his warm smile and caring nature, she couldn’t believe that these were real and had worked up the courage to ask him about them. Surely they were fake events made by her friends to scare her away from Jacob. --------------------------

She found Jacob in the mess hall sitting at a table alone reading from a data pad between fork filled bites of his food.  Her friends were already there and upon seeing her went over to join her.  “Go on then.” “We believe in you!” They said, giggling.  Manti sighed again and together all three of them went to Jacob’s table. As they approached Jacob looked up and saw Manti and waved to her.  “Hell- *cough*” Jacob tried to speak but choked on the food still in his mouth. He smacked his chest for a few seconds before catching his breath. “Death by potatoes, not how I pictured going out.” Manti smiled, “You should probably know then that those aren’t potatoes.” Jacbo stopped and looked down at his food. “Then what the hell are they?” Manti shrugged, “They can’t be pronounced in your tongue I’m afraid.” Jacob put his fork down and gently shoved his plate to the side as if it had suddenly become toxic. “If I can’t say it right then it has no place in my mouth.”  Manti started to laugh but her friend nudged her in the side. “Would you all like to join me then?” Jacob said motioning to the empty seats across from him. “Thanks, we’d be happy to.” The three of them sat down across from him. “There’s actually something we’d like to ask you.” Jacob sighed loudly. “For the last time, no, I do not know Justin Bieber or that guy from Twilight. They’re both very much dead and trying to get something of theirs for you is considered grave robbing on my planet.”  Manti was puzzled for a moment. “No, we wanted to ask you about something else.” “Oh thank bloody god. One care package from another human gets shared and suddenly they’re a cultural hit with your people.” Jacob said as he threw his hands up in the air, “They’re not even great at what they do.” One of Manti’s friends slammed her hand down on the table. “Justin Bieber is an icon, don’t you go talking smack about him.” she said with a dead serious stare. Jacob just stuck out his tongue and made a “Phbbbt” sound.  Trying to regain control of this runaway conversation, Manti continued with her question. “My friends seem to think your people are blood thirst murders after they read some documents online about events called the “French Revolution” and a “World War I”.” Jacob nodded his head and shifted in his seat. “Clearly these events are false but I wanted you to tell them that so the air could be cl-” “No those events are real Manti.”  Jacobs words stopped Manti’s train of thought. “This....this is some of your human humor yes? You’re just “messing” with us, right?” Manti asked, a sudden tingling sensation running down her spine. Jacob shook his head. “No, those events are real and did happen.” “I...” Manti couldn’t find the words to describe how shocked she was, but her friends didn’t seem to suffer such a setback. “So it’s true your people had a world war?” “Oh yeah. In fact, we like it so much that in roughly 21 years after the first one ended we had and even bigger second one which we called “World War II”.” Jacob was being slightly sarcastic with the statement but that was lost on the group of women. “Some would argue that we had a third world war as well, but since there weren’t any big battles on the scale of the previous two it got changed to the “Cold War”.” “So your people fought the weather this time?” Manti’s friend asked mockingly. Jacob cocked his head to the side and smirked. “Nah, it was more spy warfare. So instead of giant battles on beaches and in cities you had people being strangled with piano wire in their homes or being fed cyanide capsules in their food.” The mocking expression on Manti’s friend vanished replaced with one of utter disgust.  “And...and these were the only conflicts your people had?” Manti’s question a vain last hope to maintain the image she had painted of humanity with her friend Jacob as the starting point. To her surprise Jacob laughed. “Hell no. We’ve had countless wars beside the ones mentioned.” Before Manti could respond Jacob brought up his data pad and ran a quick search. “Let’s see here. The Football War, the 6 Day War, the War of Spanish Succession, the 100 Years War, the American Revolution, the Chinese Civil War, the Punic Wars,” Jacob continued reading off wars fought between humans while Manti looked on in horror, “the Russian Civil War, the Mongolian conquests, the Crusades, The Nika Riots, The War of the Stray Dog, the Trojan War, War of the Three Kingdoms, the Opium Wars, the-”  “Stop it, stop it, stop it!” Manti cried out.  The surrounding people all looked at from her sudden outburst for a moment before returning to their previous task. One of her friends tried to place a hand on her shoulder but Manti shrugged it off at once. “It’s all true, isn’t it?” Manti’s voice soft as she directed the question at Jacob, “You really are all murders...”  “Well,” Jacob began saying, “we’re not totally terrible people.” “Did you not just hear yourself as you listed off all those wars your people have had!?!?” Manti’s voice now slightly angered thinking Jacob was truly ignorant to his peoples horrific deeds. “And at times for such stupid reasons! A war fought over a stray dog??!!”  Jacob calmly looked at his data pad. “A Greek soldier was shot and killed by Bulgarian soldier after crossing the border between the countries while chasing after their dog. So probably more about a soldier being murdered then about the dog itself.” Manti was shocked and outraged with how easily Jacob could state the reason. “And the Football War?!?” He looked down at his pad again. “The football game was the tipping point for years of tension that had been building between two nations. One being heavily overpopulated and its people illegally immigrating over the border into the neighboring country that would then sometimes violently deport them back.” “The 100 Year War?!?” “A series of battles fought over a century to determine the rightful ruler of two nations.” “The Nika Riots!?!?” Jacob paused to read again and laughed slightly. “Well, this one is kinda stupid but it started after the Emperor Justinian refused to let two sports team members free because they were sentenced to death so the team’s fans banded together and started a massive riot while fighting the royal guard and attempting to crown a new Empe-” “ENOUGH!” Manti slammed her hands down to silence Jacob. “Your people will find any reason or excuse to fight with each other for the sake of your blood lust then afterwards had the audacity to laugh at the reasons you made up as foolish in the first place!” Manti’s hands were trembling, tears welling up in her eyes as she realized her friend wasn’t whom she thought he was. “Humans are all monsters...murdering monsters....”  For a long time the room went silent, not only at the table but with everyone around them as they had begun listening in on the conversation themselves. Many thought Jacob would have some outburst and attempt to attack Manti for her accusations and readied themselves to step in and stop the barbaric human.  Jacob said nothing as he gently put down his data pad and pulled his plate of food back over again. He took the fork and played with the seemingly potatoes, shoving it from one side of his plate to the other as if waiting for it to suddenly attack him.  “Yes.” He began, his voice calm and collected. “My people do tend to fight a lot.” He continued playing with his food. “We have countless years spilling each others blood on our planet that some say that our Africa’s soil is red because of how much blood has been soaked into the soil.” His fork scooping up a bit and bringing it to eye level for a moment before going into his mouth. “But,” he spoke while chewing, “sometimes fighting is all we can do to move forward as a species.”  Manti looked up at him. “That is a lie. Violence is not an answer, just look at my people! We have lived just as long as you and have never had reason for conflict.” “And there in lies your problem.” Jacob said while swallowing and pointing his fork at Manti. “Your people have lived on a single continent that has always been abundant with resources for easily a thousand times your current population.” He spun his data pad around to Manti to take a look at. “My people were spread out and divided with vastly different situations.Who are you to compare the two of us and still judge me?”  Manti looked at the data pad and saw the planet Earth. It’s landscapes alien to her and wildly different from what she had grown up surrounded by on her planet. She shook her head. “You could have come together.” She stated. “You could have banded together and resolved your differences.” Jacob nodded. “But what if some people didn’t want to resolve their differences?”  The very idea was as alien to Manti as Jacob was. He tapped the data pad. “The French Revolution you brought up, was the result of an ever increasing gap between the poorest and the richest in the nation of France. The poor were struggling for decades to make ends meet despite wars, famines, and ever increasing taxes; while the rich lived it up without a care in the world. Every time the poor and rich would come together to try and resolve the crisis poor found that the rich didn’t want anything changed because it would threaten their way of life, even though the rich were maybe 300,000 in population and the poor were some 27 million.” He opened a file for her showing depictions of the poor french tending to dead fields while the rich lived in luxurious manors. “Realizing that change would never happen peacefully, the poor rose up and revolted across the entire nation in the hope that through their actions their lives would be bettered.” “And the heads on pikes?” She retorted. “How did that make their lives better?” Jacob became solemn for a moment, his carefree expression gone. “Picture for me that your holding your starving child, their tiny bodies nothing but skin and bone as you’d been unable to buy or find any food. Imagine looking at them as they gazed up at you with pleading eyes, begging eyes, eyes that tell you that they don’t want to die, that they want to live and spend a life together with you. Then imagine those eyes suddenly glazing over and the warmth fading from their tiny frail bodies as they leave their mortal coil; and as you lay their cradling your dead child, picture that just down the road is your landlord so fat and plump from the feasts he’s held every night because he doesn’t have to pay taxes like you do and can buy all the food they need and them some.”  The picture was too vivid for Manti and even more so for her friends who began wrapping their arms around themselves, eyes on the verge of crying. She looked up at Jacob who was staring at her directly. “Would you not want to carve up that landlord and all his ilk for murdering your precious child?” His gaze shifted around the room at the onlookers. “Wouldn’t any of you want to see them dead?” he asked a bit louder. The listeners all shifted their eyes away, unable to meet his gaze.  He reached out for the data pad and Manti slowly returned it to him. “I’m not saying the wars my people have fought are sensible, nor am I saying that all of them began for legitimate reasons. Some were fought on the beliefs of madmen and monsters. War is not a subject that can always be labeled with black and white, good and evil. Everyone believes they are the good guys, everyone believes their cause is just.” He began to rise and walk over to Manti.  “What I take away from it all is that when humans are backed up against a wall and their only course left for them is to put their life on the line they will run head first into the fires of war to protect what matters most. A nation, a flag, a plot of land, a loved one, a religion, a belief, and even at times a friend.”  She looked up at him and saw his smile back on his face. He gently placed his hand on her head and ruffled her hair the way he knew she liked causing her to let out a soft giggle.   “So, you would go to war over me then?” she asked without even realizing it before blushing in embarrassment. He laughed and ruffled her hair some more. “Manti, if someone hurt you what I would do to them would have me hauled off to court for war crimes.” She felt the sentiment was sweet, but after what she had read she didn’t know how to respond so just smiled instead.  “Now if you ladies will excuse me, I need to have a word with your cook and see if I can get some real potatoes.” He waved goodbye and left the cafeteria, the on lookers parting as he past by. Manti watched him leave before turning back to her friends. “So did you get enough gossip then?” They just looked at each other and smiled. “Oh yeah, plenty of juicy bits.” The other nodded. “It started off way darker than I thought it would go, but near the end it almost got touching and honestly I think that was Jacob’s attempt of hitting on you.”  Manti looked on in surprise. “What?!?! How did you two get that????” Both of them just nodded. “He said he’d go to war over you.” “Sounds pretty up there for human romance if you ask me.” “So wait, was this actually about warning me about human war making, or were you just trying to hook us up together?”  Both smiled and stood to leave. “Little of both honestly.” “Wheels within wheels Manti. Wheels within wheels...” 

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (134/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[14 November, 233 Before Age. Interstellar Space.]

King Rehval would die, very soon. As Luffa led her fleet of warships to his new home, there were a multitude other thoughts running through her mind, but she made sure to focus on her sole objective. Rehval. Must. Die.

Her grudge against him went back to the beginning. Her mother was an anti-monarchist who left the Saiyan Kingdom before Luffa was born. Eventually, Luffa's mother entered into a mercenary partnership with Orij, Luffa's father, and the young family roamed the stars in search of adventure. When Luffa was ten years old, Orij betrayed her mother. He was jealous of his wife's power, and planned to exploit her, until he realized that their daughter had inherited the same potential.

Orij's plan went into effect when Luffa was nineteen. By then, Luffa had taken a mate of her own, Kandai, and Orij conspired with him to betray Luffa to the alien Tikosi. Their ghastly experiments would seek to reverse-engineer the secrets of Luffa's hidden power, and then they would share their findings with Orij. When the Tikosi learned Luffa was pregnant with Kandai's child, they simply removed the fetus, as it impeded their research.

The horrors Luffa experienced during that awful nineteenth year pushed her body through a harrowing transformation. Eventually, Luffa would recognize herself as the Legendary Super Saiyan, a once-in-a-millennium warrior. At the time, she thought she had become a monster, too horrible for even herself to contemplate. The power was satisfying while she took bloody revenge against her tormentors, but it never really went away. Even when she transformed back into her "normal" self, it was still there, that ever-present thing lurking just beneath her skin, eager to shine its terrible light on the universe once again.

Super Luffa was great for slaughtering Tikosi, and for making easy money in the mercenary business, but the power wasn't very helpful for tracking down her treacherous husband, who had gone into hiding when he learned that she had survived. One of the main reasons Luffa founded the interstellar Federation was to expand her contacts through the galaxy. The Federation's member worlds were happy to have her on their side; in return, their spies gave Kandai fewer places to hide. But when she finally caught up to him, he revealed that when the Tikosi removed their unborn child from her body, they had given it over to him. He had sold the remains to King Rehval, who apparently had his own interests in the Tikosi's research.

And Super Luffa wasn't much use in unraveling that mystery either. It only made sense that the King of the Saiyans would see her as a threat to his rule. It also made sense that he might hope to find some weakness by studying Luffa's offspring. What Luffa hadn't expected was the sheer depth of Rehval's treachery. She had never respected the man. Any Saiyan who called himself "king" was a fool in her book, but even setting that aside, he was a statesman, desperate to turn their people into some nation-state with a place among the galactic powers. He wanted the Saiyans to assimilate with the rest of the universe: lop off their tails, dress in alien finery, and pass themselves off as well-behaved citizens of a wider community. The thought of it sickened Luffa, but it was even worse than that. Rehval was an alchemist too. Instead of testing his might in combat, he relied on magical drugs and secret potions to enhance his power. "Rehval" wasn't even his real name. He simply assumed the identity of his older brother, then usurped his father's throne when it suited his purposes.

Rather than face Luffa directly, Rehval tried to seduce and deceive her, leading her into a trap that would strand her on an uninhabitable planet. To keep her occupied until the trap was sprung, Rehval revealed that the fetus he had purchased from Kandai had survived. Rehval was a proponent of gestating Saiyan infants in life support machines, and somehow he had managed to bring her son to term. He then aged the boy to adolescence, and trained him to be his staunchest defender and Luffa's sworn enemy. But the gravest insult, in Luffa's eyes, was that he dared to give the boy a name-- "Xibuyas". It was sacrilige. By Saiyan custom, the right to name a child belonged to the mother alone.

But what did King Rehval care for Saiyan custom? To him, it was just another tool, to be manipulated or discarded when it no longer served his purposes. Xibuyas was uncommonly strong, though Luffa had no way to tell if he had inherited her Super Saiyan strength, or if he was given alchemical enhancements to make him a better enforcer. Rehval wasn't satisfied with merely ruling over the Saiyans, he wanted to control their destiny, their culture, even their very genome. He envisioned a world where Saiyans would be bred like livestock, mated to produce hardier offspring, and her son was simply the stud he had chosen to sire his grandchildren. The very thought of it made her blood boil.

She had escaped his trap, and so he evacuated his throneworld of Saiya, fearing (rightfully) that she would return and destroy everything he had built. Luffa expected to find him cowering in some remote hideaway, but instead he launched a new plan, the Jindan Cult. Assuming the name of Trismegistus now, Rehval recruited Saiyans from all over the galaxy, promising them a potion that would magnify their powers. All he asked in return was absolute control over every aspect of their lives. Really, it wasn't all that different from the plans he had as the ruler of Planet Saiya, only now he wasn't bothering with diplomatic niceties or expensive suits.

The only thing standing in his way was still Luffa, so he launched a series of invasions into her Federation, designed to exploit her compassion for its people and to wear her down. It might have worked, too, except she had help from the fortuneteller Dotz, who predicted his strikes before they took place, and from Rehval's own daughter, the Princess Seltiss. Disillusioned with her father's misrule, the young Princess formed her own Saiyan alliance to serve as an alternative to Rehval's government. Luffa didn't trust her, but they had a common enemy, and Xibuyas was loyal to Seltiss, so at least they had the power they needed to fend off the attacks.

Just when it seemed that there would be no end to the war, Guwar arrived at her doorstep, offering to lead her to Rehval's new base on Nagaoka. A Saiyan mathematician, Guwar had joined his cult, only to realize that Rehval's "leadership" would only get them all killed, or at best, reduce them to a slave species. His defection only proved that Rehval was truly mad, and that his plans were rotten enough that even his own henchmen couldn't accept them.

And so, very soon, Luffa would destroy him, utterly and finally, for the defense of the Federation, for the freedom of her own species, and for herself.

"Five minutes before we drop out of superluminous," she said from the captain's chair of her yacht's bridge. "No one's reported any unusual sensor activity. What about you, Katem?"

"Nothing," Xibuyas said, visibly irritated by the name she used to address him. Luffa would have preferred to have him aboard her own ship, if only to keep a closer eye on the boy, but the Saiyan Free Company had its own fleet, and her attack plan would require him to take up position on the opposite side of the planet. Spending time with her son would have to wait for another day. For now, she would have to settle for the image of his face on the viewscreen.

"Rehval raised you, boy," she said. "Any idea what this means? Guwar told us there wouldn't be much in the way of advance defenses, but I thought we'd see more than this."

"Rehval's servants raised me," he said with a sneer. "And he expects secrecy to be his greatest defense. He believes that no one knows where to find him, so he probably has no idea that we're on our way to kill him."

"Or he's got some escape route set up on the planet," Luffa said. "All right, we'll stick to the original plan. Group A takes the northern hemisphere, Group B takes the south, Group C covers our backs. Carpet bomb the whole thing, and we'll see what they can do about it."

"Pointless," Xibuyas grumbled. "Destroy the entire planet, and they all die in one stroke. I could do it easily, and so could you."

"Too easy," Luffa said. "He'll be prepared for that. I want to see what his preparations are. Let him think he's dealing with a conventional attack before we reveal our true strength."

"If you're so afraid that he'll flee--"

"He seems to be convinced that this planet he's on holds some sort of special power for him," Luffa explained. "If that's true, then he won't give it up without a fight. I want to lure him into thinking he has a chance. We might even be able to get a siege going."

He sighed and sank into his chair. "Fine, have it your way," he said. "There's no arguing with you. We'll send word once Group B is in position."

He signed off, and Luffa made a bloodthirsty smile as she switched the viewscreen to display the Nagaoka system, which was rapidly coming into view. Her son hated her, but he was alive, and soon she would repay the bastard who tried to take him from her. Her wife, Zatte, was in the engine room, making last-minute preparations for the battle. Zatte had elaborate dreams that this battle would mark the beginning of a new era for Saiyan-kind, and maybe she was right, though Luffa never cared for the idea of herself as a Saiyan messiah. It didn't matter. For once in her life, everything was going perfectly.

She gripped the armrests of her seat and leaned forward in anticipation.

*******

[14 November, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Planet Nagaoka was devoid of intelligent life, save for the Jindan compound, a mostly subterranean facility. Aside from the shipyard and a few other surrounding structures, the planet would have seemed deserted. A thick cloud cover concealed the surface completely, but Guwar had provided the coordinates of the compound. As Zatte escorted him to the bridge, he saw part of the planet on the viewscreen, and he knew the compound lay directly below.

"I thought you'd want to see this," Luffa said as the doorway closed behind him. She never took her eyes off the planet. "They're about to strafe the surface."

"You're just going to blow it up from orbit?" he asked.

"For starters," Luffa said. "If anything survives, we'll go from there. Something wrong with that?"

"I just... I thought you were going to send in ground troops on the far side," he said. "Advance on the compound from the surface, and fight them all hand-to-hand."

Luffa looked at him curiously. "I've had my fill of fighting with these clowns," she said. "There's enough of them down there that even I would have trouble, and I'm not going to send troops down there to die for no reason. If you wanted suicide missions, maybe you shouldn't have switched sides. Rehval would have sent you to your death soon enough."

"I... I had friends down there," he said. "Rehval's the only one you're after, right?"

Luffa turned and spit on the deck. At last, Guwar had her full attention, and he instantly regretted it. He had seen her transform in front of him earlier, when he was first brought aboard her ship. That had been frightening enough, watching black Saiyan hair glowing like molten iron. But she was in her normal form now, or at least as normal as she ever could be, and as she glared at him, he felt that the grim look in her eyes would haunt him for the rest of his life.

"Now you listen to me," she said. "I don't give a damn about your 'friends'. The moment they joined forces with that bastard, their fates were sealed. Don't pretend you thought this was going to turn out any other way."

Guwar's throat went dry. "You're right," he said. "Just get it over with."

Luffa returned to her work, as if he hadn't spoken at all. He looked over to Zatte, the blue-skinned woman who seemed to serve as Luffa's entire crew for this ship. It was ironic to look to an alien for empathy, but he had hoped that she, at least, might appreciate his mixed emotions about this moment. If nothing else, he expected her to be somewhat horrified at the idea of bombing an entire planet to wipe out a single installation. But instead, Zatte had a curious sort of glow in her expression, not unlike the warriors in the Jindan Cult just before they were sent off to their deaths. Guwar had no idea what sort of hold Luffa had on Zatte, but she was fully committed to this action, come what may.

Luffa pressed a button on the console mounted near her left arm. "All ships, fire at will," she said.

A moment later, they did. Gawar watched as hundreds of orange streaks emerged from the edges of the viewscreen and converged on the planet below. It looked like most of the fire was concentrated in a single spot, which he assumed was the compound. But that was only part of it. There energy blasts raining down across every part of the planet that he could see. He could only guess that there were ships positioned on the opposite side covering that hemisphere too.

"There's... there's only the one complex," he said looking back at Luffa. "You're just wasting ammunition, shooting at nothing."

"And you really think I would trust you that far?" Luffa said with a snort. "Even if you have been honest with me, Rehval could still have other bases set up that he never told you about. It all burns. Today. And don't worry your pretty little head about our ammunition, Guwar. I made sure we brought plenty."

Guwar swallowed hard and turned back to face the viewscreen. He could sense the ki energy from the planet dropping as the bombardment continued. Were the cultists unable to fight back? Had Luffa taken them completely by surprise? Or was this Rehval's endgame all along? Maybe he knew all along that it would end this way, and he had led his flock to their doom. For a moment, he wondered if Rehval had been waiting for Guwar to betray him, if perhaps he had wanted Luffa to come to this place and rain fire upon him.

And then he noticed that the ki from the planet wasn't dropping anymore, and that the planet itself didn't look any different than it had before the attack began. Glancing back at the captain's chair, he saw that Luffa had noticed too.

"Scan the planet," Luffa said to Zatte. "Something's wrong down there."

"Life sign readings haven't changed since we started attacking," Zatte said.

"I told you about that," Guwar said. "They have a device to scramble sensors so you can't tell there's any humanoid biopatterns. That way if a ship drops by, they'll think Nagaoka's uninhabited and move on."

"Yeah, I know," Zatte said. "I'm not scanning for humanoids. I'm talking about trees, grass, everything. Nothing's dying down there. It's like we haven't put a dent in it..."

"You didn't say anything about a force field," Luffa said to Guwar. The look on her face was one of accusation, but not surprise.

"As far as I know, they didn't have one," Guwar protested.

"They don't have one," Zatte said. "I don't know what's going on here, but it can't be a force field generator. To cover the entire planet, you'd need an enormous power source, way too big to hide with a cloaking device. I should be able to detect a power signature for something that big, and there's nothing like that on the surface! I don't know what this is... I...!"

She continued tapping keys on the tactical console, and Luffa rose from her seat. "I'm going to the cargo bay," she said. "Get ready to open the bay door for me."

"You're going to attack them yourself?" Zatte asked. "But what if--?"

"Hail the rest of the fleet," Luffa said. "If I'm right, I can punch a hole in... whatever this is... then maybe we can land some ships, play it the way Guwar had in mind. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Guwar?"

He didn't answer, as he really didn't know what to say. Luffa grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the lift.

"Come on," she said, "you can watch."

*******

The cargo hold was mostly empty. Luffa and Zatte had moved most of the supplies to other parts of the ship, leaving only a small, one-person craft.

"Like it?" Luffa asked. She patted the hull of the craft with her gloved hand as they crossed the bay. "My wife captured it from some felinoid raider who tried to impersonate a Saiyan. He thought he could bluff his way to an easy plunder--" She pointed at the bridge of her nose and bared her teeth-- "but all he got was a plasma bolt between his eyes. She's a crack shot."

"Y-your wife?" Guwar asked. "You mean that blue lady on the bridge--?"

"Felinoid!" Luffa growled, ignoring his question. The brown fur on her tail was standing on end, and Guwar suddenly became very aware of his own tail being missing.

"I see that crap all the time, you know? People mistake any humanoid with a tail for one of us," she said. "So weaklings and cowards try to use that to their advantage. Trade on our reputation as a fearsome warrior race. Except we're not so fearsome, are we, Guwar?"

She went to a cabinet mounted to the wall and removed a pair of masks. "Put this on," she said as she shoved one into his hands. He strapped it to his face, letting the flexible hose attached to it dangle from his chin.

"The Saiyans are afraid," she said. "My mother was afraid of the kings, and my father was afraid of my mother, and I was afraid of my father for a while. You and your cult buddies were afraid of me, so what did you do? Run to the biggest coward you could find and beg him for some snake oil. And now he's hiding under his rock, and they're all hiding with him. Makes you wonder what they're so afraid of."

She pulled out a gas cylinder and handed it to him, then found a second and started connecting it to her own mask. As she worked on the fittings, she transformed, suddenly illuminating the bay with a preternatural golden glow. Startled, Guwar took a step back, but Luffa barely reacted at all, as if she hadn't even noticed what she had done.

"I think we're afraid of ourselves," Luffa said. "I know I am. I turned into this thing for the first time and it scared the hell out of me. It still does sometimes. But all I am is stronger. Angrier. More eager for battle. I'm just like you Guwar, only more. Why'd you cut your tail off? Was it because he told you to? So you could fit in better with polite society? Or was it because you were afraid of what the tail means? Of who you really are. Inside?"

She paused her work long enough to tap her fist against her chest, and gave him a knowing look. "Felinoids try to impersonate us Saiyans, and meanwhile we Saiyans are doing our best to disguise ourselves as anything else. We're ashamed of ourselves for being ashamed of ourselves. That's how I see it. I started hanging out with aliens, and I started to notice how crummy Saiyans can really be to people. I never gave it much thought before, but we're all pretty rotten, aren't we?"

"What are you talking about?" Guwar mumbled, but not loud enough to be heard over the steady pulse of Luffa's golden aura.

She pointed at her gleaming yellow hair. "So does this mean I've risen above all that rotten stuff?" she asked. "Or does it make me the worst of us all?"

She didn't wait for him to reply. Instead, she put the mask over her face and tapped the communicator on the nearest wall panel to call the bridge. "We're ready down here," she said, her voice muffled by the mask. After she shut off the channel, she looked back at Guwar and shrugged.

"I can't talk to my wife about this sort of thing, you know. She thinks I can save the Saiyans, but me? I think I'm just part of the problem."

Guwar could hear her voice even more clearly now than he could before they put the masks on. Then he finally realized she was speaking to him telepathically. Most Saiyans had the ability to communicate this way, but they rarely used it. They couldn't read minds-- only Luffa seemed to know how to do that, and only then by making physical contact-- but they could talk to other people with their thoughts. So why didn't Saiyans use that ability more often? Was it fear? Was Luffa right about them? Maybe every Saiyan could read minds like she could, and no one else had the courage to try.

As he pondered this, the cargo bay door opened, revealing the grey clouds of Nagaoka below. Guwar was suddenly reminded of Salziff, the Saiyan who had led him to the Jindan Cult. Salziff had been kicked out of the order, and his Jindan power had been withdrawn, leaving him weaker than he had been before he joined. In his desperate attempt to regain what he had lost, Salziff had turned to performance enhancing drugs, and ravaged what was left of his health. He begged Guwar not to search for Jindan, and said that Guwar would rue the day Salziff told him how to find it. The gloom over Nagaoka looked very much like the pallid complexion of Salziff's face. Guwar wondered if the poor wretch was still alive. Guwar wondered about his own life expectancy, now that the Jindan power had been withdrawn from him as well.

There was an invisible force field that kept the air inside the bay while the door was open. It flickered beautifully for a moment as it deactivated, and Guwar felt the air rushing out into space. Weakened as he was, he still had more than enough strength to keep his footing, but he still grabbed hold of a handrail to be safe. The temperature dropped rapidly inside the bay, but his ki was strong enough to protect him from the cold as well. The great irony of his life was that he was considered a weakling by the standards of his own species, and yet he had so much power compared to most beings in the universe. He felt completely helpless as he watched Luffa stand at the edge of the bay, raising her hands to attack an entire planet.

He could hear her screaming, in spite of the wind, the sound of her aura, even the muffling effect of her mask. Her hands glowed so brightly that it hurt to look at them, so he focused on the air tank she had slung over her shoulder. For a brief moment, he wondered if he could burst the tank and knock her out of the ship quickly enough for her to asphyxiate, but decided that this would be suicidal to attempt. Even if it worked, he would still have to contend with her wife on the bridge, and her fleet around the planet, and the cult on the planet itself. Guwar didn't know about other Saiyans, but Luffa was right about him. He was afraid, because it seemed like no matter what he did, what side he chose, he would always be under someone else's power. At least Luffa's side could save the universe from Rehval's madness, but that wouldn't improve Guwar's prospects much.

At last, she brought her hands together and launched a spectacular beam of golden energy from her hands. Guwar watched it shoot down to the planet like some impossibly straight bolt of lightning. He had never sensed such an amazing power before. It was beyond anything he had ever imagined. It was enough to destroy a dozen planets. And then, when the beam of irresistable light reached the dismal clouds of Nagaoka...

...it dispersed. The energy spread across the clouds and vanished, like so much milk spilling onto a napkin. The clouds parted, revealing a tiny section of Nagaoka's surface, but there was no explosion, no damage. Soon enough, the clouds drifted back together, and the surface was hidden once again.

Luffa stared out of the bay in disbelief, and then after a few seconds, Guwar noticed a yellow glow on the edge of Nagaoka's disk. A second later, he could sense it, too.

"What... what's happening?" he asked. He hoped that this was somehow part of her technique, but the way she moved her tail told him that she was just as confused as he was.

Finally, beams of yellow light started shooting out from the clouds from every direction. It seemed to Guwar that the planet had somehow absorbed her attack, divided it, and fired it back out into space. For a moment, he worried that this was a counterattack from the cult, except the beams didn't seem to be aimed anywhere in particular. He reached out with his ki senses and quickly determined that most of the fleet was nowhere near the paths of these beams. Even so, he did sense a few power levels that winked out of existence as the deadly energy connected with their ships.

Angrily, Luffa stormed to the bay door controls and restored the force field. Air rushed in to repressurize the hold, and she moved on to the wall panel to call the bridge. "What's going on?" she shouted over the thrum of the ventilation system.

"Six ships are reporting heavy damage!" Zatte's voice called back. "One completely destroyed! I... Luffa, that was your energy it shot back at us!"

"I know that!" Luffa snapped. "How does a force field reflect that kind of power?!"

"I told you, it's not a force field!" Zatte said. "It's too big for that, and too... It's more like when I... oh no. Oh, Providence, no."

"What's wrong?" Luffa asked. For every second that passed without a reply, she grew more agitated. Finally, she dug her fingers into the wall and ripped the comm panel out entirely.

"We're going back to the bridge!" she shouted as she tossed the torn panel to the deck. But Guwar didn't move. He was too busy looking at the planet.

"Well? What are you gawking at?" Luffa demanded as she shrugged off her air canister and mask.

"I think you need to see this," Guwar said ominously. A mathematician by trade, he preferred not to give such vague answers, but in this case, he simply couldn't find the words.

"See what?!" Luffa said impatiently as she shrugged off her mask and air cylinder. And then she finally turned to face the bay door, and saw it immediately. The clouds on Nagaoka had shifted, swirling into an unnatural pattern. They were still moving, but it was clear that they were forming an image of a face, and even before that image had come into focus, there was no mistaking whose face it was.

"Hello, Luffa," said the voice of King Rehval.

He was speaking into their minds, just as Luffa had done before. What made it even stranger, Guwar thought, was that the lips on the cloud-image moved as though it were speaking the words.

"I'm so glad that you've finally arrived," the cloud-Rehval seemed to say. "Now, at last, we can put all of this to an end."

NEXT: The Thrice Blessed Who Will Transform the Universe.

24 hours to go.

Surely we must be dreaming. Can the election really be tomorrow? I write with full awareness of how absurd it is to try to say anything about what is about to happen. In less than 48 hours, anything I write here will look either obvious or stupid. The closer the election gets, the harder it is to imagine what the world will look like the day after Tuesday. Donald Trump's presence in politics is like a distorting mirror at a carnival; he makes it impossible to see reality for what it is. Once a garishly strange anomaly in our politics, he has made it nearly impossible to imagine our politics without him. 

Half the people I know don't believe the polls. They believe, without wanting to, that Trump will somehow pull off the impossible and land a second four years in the White House. They worry, not unreasonably, that Trump's loyal goons will simply steal the election for him. They rightly dread the outcome if any disputed results wind up before the Supreme Court, now dominated by right-wing fanatics. Perhaps the most crushing possible outcome is the one nobody even wants to think about: The polls turn out to be horribly wrong and Trump simply wins, without any need to cheat. 

I don't think this will happen. I dread the thought of enduring Tuesday night as much as anyone, but I dread it in the sense that you might feel your stomach lurch walking through a dark, deserted house at midnight, even when you don't believe that there are any phantoms waiting to jump you. I think that Joe Biden will win. I think he will take the country in a different direction, one that will eventually make the last four years seem like an evil dream. If a Biden presidency is currently unimaginable, it is because Trump has made the normal world of American politics, good and bad, seem as remote as the Russia of the Czars. 

Trump's total dominance over every aspect of our public life—wherever you look, there he is—has made it harder to perceive that his political hopes are becoming more diminished every day. FiveThirtyEight now reckons that Trump has a 10 percent chance of winning the election; on the eve of the 2016 election, they gave him a 28.6 percent chance of winning. The difference here is more drastic than it might look at first glance. Last time, Trump had better than a 1 in 4 chance of winning; now, he has a 1 in 10 chance of winning. This is "roughly the same as the odds that it’s raining in downtown Los Angeles," the site charmingly notes. To put it more bluntly, if the polls turn out to be exactly as wrong as they were last time, Biden would still win the election. 

We shouldn't forget that Trump's victory in 2016, as shocking as it was, was always less inexplicable than we wanted to believe. Remembering this makes it easier to understand the difference between then and now. In the summer of 2016, Trump pulled ahead of Hillary Clinton in the polls. In 2020, Trump has never, even once, pulled ahead of Joe Biden. Clinton's candidacy was fatally damaged in the final two weeks of the race by FBI Director James Comey's letter to Congress, which caused several key states to flip to Trump. With 48 hours to go until Tuesday, no comparable scandal has appeared to beset Biden. Trump in 2016 was a political unknown with a blank record; Trump in 2020 is a sickeningly familiar quantity whose latest year in office has consisted of one national emergency after another, all of them handled with singular incompetence. People hate him as they have hated no other president in my lifetime. The only people I know who genuinely hate Joe Biden are left-wingers who plan to vote for him anyway. 

But the most important thing is this: As false as they were, Trump’s attacks on Hillary Clinton worked. People believed them. The attacks on Biden haven't worked. No reasonable person believes that Biden is "senile." And nothing will ever persuade any intelligent person that Biden, a man with a 46-year career of moderate politics, is a bloodthirsty socialist who has spent half a century dreaming of the day when he can abolish private property and send his enemies to the gulag. Even Trump's nickname for Biden, "Sleepy Joe," is one of the weakest in his arsenal. Has anyone in the last 200,000 years ever disliked another person for being “sleepy”? 

A number of observers have insisted that we shouldn't believe the polls, that many people will simply lie to pollsters about whether or not they plan to vote for Trump. In my experience, Trump supporters are more outspoken about their love of their candidate than any other supporters of any candidate I have ever encountered. If any candidate gets the benefit of anyone’s secret support, I suspect it will be Biden, whom much of the political left regards as beneath contempt, just as they despised Clinton, Kerry, Gore, and—though some of them wouldn't admit it—Obama before him. This phenomenon ought to be familiar to anyone who has lived through more than one election. We are always hearing how this year's candidate is the worst one we've had since the candidate we had four years ago, who was even more awful than the previous one, who was a real comedown from the guy who ran before him, who wasn't any good to begin with. 

As Robert Kennedy once lamented to a reporter in private, there are a disturbing number of liberals who would rather lose than win, as long as they can lose with their ideals intact. So let us never forget the single most important thing to know about politics in this country: the point of elections is to win. Without political power, we cannot accomplish anything. When Republicans get a candidate they don't really like, they grit their teeth and vote for them anyway. For once, we should emulate them. 

If Biden wins, he will take office in a country that is broken in every sense of the word. The damage runs far deeper than a ruined economy or a pandemic with no end in sight. Most Americans no longer trust their government; if a vaccine were magically developed tomorrow, one in every three people would refuse to take it. Most Americans no longer trust the press, the courts, or any other political institution. Worst of all, we distrust each other—a situation that leaves us vulnerable to the mercies of the first clever demagogue who hits upon the right formula for setting us at each other's throats. In 2016, it was Donald Trump; next time, it might be someone worse. 

With lack of trust comes cynicism, and with cynicism comes indifference. Why pay attention to something you can’t do anything about? I know people who refuse to discuss what they call "politics" at all. None of my business, they say. Doesn’t make any sense. Too controversial. I listen to these conversations with something close to despair. If politics is none of our business, then our rulers really do rule us with impunity, and the most we can hope for from our government is to be left alone. If this is the case, then democracy is nothing but a pleasant fantasy that we use to ease the burden of living in an authoritarian state. If the public no longer cares about having a democracy, then we will not have a democracy for long. 

I can imagine scenarios where we climb our way out of this morass, where we restore some semblance of public spirit to this deeply damaged country. But all of those scenarios rest on the disappearance of Donald Trump from our public life. So let us wait and see. 

Anyway, would you imagine the madness that would be the Civil War (2006) Event if it was released today?

Like...

1- There is a major explosion wiping out a suburban, white picked american town in the midwest, explosion started right next to a school, caused by a team of C List superheroes literally attacking a group of B list Supervillains, who were having a barbecue there for some reason, just to get more ratings on their reality show rather than any heroic duty. Many people die, mostly kids due to the school, and we see the bloody aftermath. Even the Sentinels, compared to burning crosses in terms of racial sensitivity by Wolverine, help out to fish out people from the debris.

2- Because of this, major Anti Superhero Sentiments start sprouting up in the country. One of the victims’ mother (A major player in the event believe it or not) spits on Tony Stark’s face. The Human Torch gets lynched by some black stereotypes because he was allowed to go into a exclusive nightclub with a white girl due to his celebrity status and they weren’t, major protests start going trough the nation, all demanding SOMETHING to be done against those pesky superheroes, As monuments are being torn down and what not, as ALL superheroes, as a social class, at fault for what has happened there during the explosion.

3- This brings us to the Government Regulation Thing, THE Superhero Registration Program. Maria Hill, who wasn’t a Skrull Chaos Agent and has never been (It’s important you remember this), announces to Captain America that the... senate? chamber? Anyway, someone is going to approve this new law (Which, you know, isn’t law yet btw) that will require all superheroes to have their Identity revealed to the public and become paid government workers. They get a pension and health insurance and insurance for any collateral damage they cause as long as they do what they are told and do not step out of line.

You know, Normal, TOTALLY not fascist shit.

4- Anyway, Cap obviously is outraged by this, for “How Long until it will be Washington that tells us who the real villain is” (Which is, you know, SUPER RELEVANT), and claims will never sign up for any of this, which Maria Hill, who, again, is not a Undercover Skrull Chaos Agent, knew he was going to say so she tries to arrest him for breaking a law that isn’t a law yet, unleashing plenty of armed guards and a couple of attack helicopters on him. She fails, he runs away, and the other superheroes are presented with a choice.

CONFORM OR BE HUNTED DOWN LIKE DOGS.

5- If you think this was bad prepare for the real bad shit to start now, because you have to keep in mind this:

The registration side are the supposed good guys here. They are what the narrative consider to be the one who win at the end, whose ideals were better than Captain Fucking America’s. Keep this in mind as you read this:

6- The Major 3 players of the Registration Side are Tony Stark, Mister Fantastic and Hank Pym.

6A- Tony Stark is a war criminal. He tries to stage a terrorist attack on Independent Nation Atlantis, using a “Mind Controlled” Norman Osborn (More on this later) to pull the trigger, so he could both kill Namor and start war with the underwater kingdom, whose Non Namor Rulers will surely try to get revenge against the surface for such happenings, sell weapons during the ensuing war, AND unite the divided superhero community against a common enemy, in this case, Atlantis.

Tony Stark is also responsible for the Supervillain Rehabilitation Program, which is taking willing and unwilling supervillains alike and putting bombs in their brains, ready to blow up at a sign of disobedience, so to use as enforcers for the registration side. Many of those villains have a kill count on the double digits. Many of those villains where later deployed in hunt down and capture missions of Superheroes who had defected, superheroes they all had a hate boner for and loved nothing more but to beat up and potentially kill/maim. One of the fucking Hobgoblins was among them. BULLSEYE WAS FUCKING AMONG THEM.

He manipulated Spider-Man into revealing his identity to the world, something that caused major Bullshit to everyone involved, for, once Spider-Man realized what kind of bullshit he had signed up for and decided to go rogue, Tony first hacks the stark patented supersuit he gave him as a gift so it malfunctions, then sends 2 bloodthirsty supervillains armed to the teeth with explosives and with bombs in their brain to capture him and rough him up a little, then removes peter’s wife and aunt from the family protection/hostage program, which forces them to hide out in a crappy motel in fear that one day a supervillain discovers where they are and bombs them, which guess what is what fucking happens in the end since a sniper finds out they are there and shoots Aunt May, which is what ultimately leads to the worst story in comic book history ONE MORE (FUCKING) DAY.

6B- Reed “Mister Fantastic” Richards is presented by the narrative as emotionally distant and abusive to his wife. He will, with the help of Tony Stark and Hank Pym, create a mechanical clone of Thor, who was absent from earth at the time, with the sole purpose of crowd control and dispersion in the event of a superhero vs superhero fight.

Lethal Force is apparently authorized and approved, for The first mission he is deployed in, Clone-Thor, the clone of a bloody Norse god, ends up Killing Black Goliath, a black superhero, something not contested, in fact almost condoned by the narrative and the registration side, and both the reason why Spider-Man defects and a Hydra Scientist (Oh, yeah, they also conscript Hydra Scientists in the thing so tho create more bio weapons and shit) finds the reason why he considers those three his favorite superheroes.

Also Reed Richards is a McCarthy apologist. He talks about this one uncle of his, a artist, who was considered a communist and was put on trials for having left leaning, liberal views/just being a plain weird artist (I think he was also gay coded?), and he says how he mocked the question and the absurdity of the whole situation in particular and McCarthyism in general, which ultimately blacklists him from work and makes him die alone and without money, so Reed Fucking Richards of course said that the moral of that story is that “My uncle was wrong, If there is a law that might seem unjust, you shouldn’t be down to clown but you should just shut your mouth and keep going.”

The Fucker.

6C- Hank Pym starts a fucking child soldiers conscription program. Teen Superheroes discovered by shield will be captured and separated from their families, Identical Robotic Decoys put in their place to prevent the families from finding out, and will be conscripted into the registration program as child soldiers.

They will be given a usa army approved regiment of training, and will be soon deployed on real, life or death missions, either involving the capture of rogue superheroes or fighting “enemy” forces such as AIM or HYDRA, what the government seems more fit to fight at the time.

The Kids, for ages seemed to vary from 15 to 19, will be trained and encouraged to kill, especially if faced with faceless hydra goons as they blast down their aircraft in a dog fight in the skies. This will of course scar and traumatize the, again, 15 years old government sanctioned child FUCKING soldiers, but not as much as the alternative to this.

For, as it is shown, failure to comply with orders, as well as emotional instability due to being, you know, a 16 years old girl in stressful situations such as, you know, a guy turning into a giant spider in front of you, will cause the government to “terminate” your employment under them, which will result in them forcibly taking away your powers, most of whom you were born with, with invasive, unwilling, non sedated surgery on you, as it happens to a girl whose arm is a literal magic gun who had her, you know, magic arm cut off after she accidentally misfired and kills another of the kids watching from the, you know, not that safe watching room not even a glass mirror away from the training room.

No wonder the girl whose superpower is literally just “can make pretty clouds with her mind” is so eager to kill as many people the government as her to after being conscripted while she was just flying around on her cloud and has to witness... you know, all of this shit.

6C- Maria Hill, Director of Shield and, again, not a fucking Skrull Chaos Agent, starts hunting down unregistered superheroes. Any superhero that didn’t sign up the registration list at least on the exact midnight of the day the law is made law, will be hunted down and forcibly imprisoned without a due process.

This happens to Luke Cage, who, again, on the exact midnight the law is enforced, not a minute more, had his apartment swarmed up with cops in tactical gear ready to “arrest him” despite him doing nothing yet, all the while shooting around the, you know, predominantly black neighbor like they are the Simpsons’ Texan guy. His wife and newborn daughter are also hunted down, the two fleeing to Canada, a safe heaven for superheroes and their families in this time of crisis, for undefended families of superheroes become leverage the registration side can use against them to make them sign up, for at some point a superhero must have revealed his identity to another superhero, another superhero that will statistically be either on the registration side snitching on you, or, you know, a Undercover Skrull Chaos Agent, if not both.

Captured heroes are shipped off to a private prison owned by Tony Stark and his goons in the Negative Zone (Think hell, but more depressing), where they will be interned without, again, any semblance of due process, and will be fucking kept in torture pod of virtual reality for the entirety of their stay. They will not be allowed any contact with the other inmates, or even to feed, relieve or just wash themselves, everything will be done by the pods, so that they will be in eternal, perfect imprisonment until they “see the error of their ways”.

Somewhat worse than the Barry Allen’s private prison in the Flash, if only by just a little.

Some brain washing was also implied to happen.

7- Cap’s Side is, of course, against all of this, yet it will be Cap’s side to lose the civil war, for , when Captain America is pummeling Tony to the ground for everything that has been going on in the middle of a devastated time square, some REAL WORLD HEROES (You know, a cop, a nurse, a fireman, and so on), tackle Steve to the ground, blame HIM for everything wrong that has happened, and ask him to stop in his futile resistance.

Statistically Speaking, at least 2 of those people were a Skrull Chaos Agents BTW.

Steve “sees the error of his ways,” surrenders to the police, is about to be given a sham process (He gets one but fucking daredevil, a lawyer, doesn’t as he’s shipped off to Tony’s Hell Prison? I guess there is a upside on getting arrested by the program in front of witnesses that you cannot all silence) until Sharon Carter shoots him on the steps to the courtroom because he was being mind controlled by a undercover hydra hypnotist that might or might have not been conscripted by the “let’s conscript supervillain scientists in the registration program, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?” thing.

8- Also Hawkeye comes back to life for a bit and is immediately almost manipulated by Tony into taking the Captain America’s role after Steve's death, except this time working for the registration side against his friends, which he ALMOST accepts because he doesn't know what the fuck is going on yet but he trusts tony until he meets Hawkeye (The girl one) and Patriot during his first mission as Registration Cap who tell him “Duuuuude, Steve’s body isn’t even cold yet, what the fuck” which makes him go “Holy shit Tony, what the fuck?” and make him decide to abandon the shield and shit and lay low for a while.

9- Oh, yeah, also this happens:

(Recognize that journalist? Is the same journalist that gives Hydra Cap a interview about how inhumane Hydra was during their regime, the one he sends to the labor camps and mocks with “I’m sure you can complain about it on Twitter later.” That wasn’t just a dig at the (Justified, oh so justified) detractors of Hydra Cap on social medias, but also a dig at THIS. FUCKING. SCENE. THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY FOR ALL DAY TO COME, FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA IS OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE REAL AMERICA BECAUSE HE DOESN'T USE MY FUCKING SPACE).

10- What else what else... Oh, yeah, everyone favorite absolute monarch T’challa, King of Wakanda and Black Panther, married with X-Men’s Storm at the time, X-Man that, btw, have been pretty much neutral during this whole shitstorm due to, you know, the “genocide” they recently suffered by the hands and mystical powers of one Wanda Maximoff, both of whom have diplomatic immunity due to the, you know, status as the rulers of a hyper advanced nation who holds the cure for cancer among other things, has his wife taken hostage by the united states. They go to the united states on a joint diplomatic mission, and are promptly ambushed and kept grounded in the states, separated from each other, until at least Ororo signs the registration program, T’challa having to follow closely behind, and then they will be allowed to be let go.

Again, I can’t stress this enough, The United States try to strong arm 2 foreign rulers, one of whom a mutant, into signing up a domestic policy about domestic internal affairs of public security.

Because of course they do.

10- I think I forgot some minor shit happening like speedball’s entire arc or Wolverine’s revenge plan or the Latverian Caper, but I think the gist of WHY this bullshit would have blown up today is all here.

For you see, now, imagine all this shit all the implications, the crimes, the horrors and stuff...

Just Imagine, all this shit is going on... with a Secret Invasion of Skrull Chaos Agent coming soon to shake thing even more...

And the president of the united states, the one that, again, ultimately will decide who the REAL enemy is, where the real supervillain to fight is...

Is Donald Fucking Trump.

How long until the superhero child soldiers are tasked to guard the border I wonder...

Of Rust and Gold: Ardunese Peace, Religious Royalty,  the Dtieri, and The Red Wolf

Wow that’s a mouthful. And I haven’t done one of these in a while! Links to the other world building posts  1 2 3  4 5 6 7 8 9

Of Rust and Gold is the first book in what I call The Saints Song Series. It’s a multi-pov low fantasy, court intrigue drama with romance and adventure elements.  It follows the stories of Argus and Leo. Prince and pirate respectfully, brought together by the plot of a stolen ship holding dangerous cargo and a secret that shakes what they know about their world.

main wip intro here.

One of the main things King Frederick of Escan is famous for is bringing peace to the continent. He is praised for it, so much so that it silences most criticism against him. Before him (and during his reign but people often justify it) there was war between the nations, land switched hands, and conflict was everywhere. It stopped when King Frederick built his empire and emerged as a leading power in the world.

But no such peace exists among the city-states and territories of Codua. It’s often been said, among the Ardunese, Codua would have nothing holding them together as a country if it wasn’t for a few things. Sharing a language, swearing (some more than others) ultimate loyalty to the Justice, and their stance in guarding the shore of the Laniora against those from the Rhine looking to cross into the north. 

They stand together reluctantly. The concept of peace in Codua constantly changes definitions. There is rarely a time where someone isn’t fighting or blood isn’t being shed. There is so much murder in Codua and so few stepping forward as witnesses or confessing to crimes that most Ardunese Knights have taken to sweeping it under the rug if the victim was popularly disliked enough or replaced by someone reasonably lawful. 

Commonly, most wars in Codua start over land and who owns it or old family rivalries. Often a mix of both. But recent Ardunese conflict also revolves around a few groups of people and a unique mix of scheming and climbing social ladders that could only occur in Codua. 

While all of Codua does not fall under the direct rule of the Justice as the city-state Mignola (the holy capital of the Santivian church) does, since every ruler who follows the religion has to swear their loyalty to the one who speaks for the Saints, they all follow under indirect rule. More so than other countries whose sovereigns only swear their loyalty and pay and their dues. In Codua, a Justice is given certain privileges over the surrounding territories. This is often because of the Conclave, the group directly below the Justice. 

This is where old family rivalries and alliances come into play. Mignola is smack in the middle of the Sandotta states, formally republics but often under the aristocratic thumb of the powerful families living there. These families being the Carulli, the Zisa, the Licari, the Fratella, and the Giachetti. Historically, they’ve had the most sitting members on the Conclave and reigning Justices. Beyond picking the most qualified candidate, Justices have often been chosen based on which of these powerful families weren’t in the middle of killing each other when a vote was required, or which family currently dominated the killing and thus shouldn’t be messed with. Rarely, Justices outside this group have been chosen in periods where the constant conflict is tiring, like the vote that placed Justice Dursten (a Kellish man) in the holy chair. His predecessor was a Licari and so much strife was around during his disastrous reign choosing someone unrelated to the inner conflict seemed the safest choice. 

But the five families have already risen high above other Ardunese nobility and cannot be touched. While not quite on the stage of the royal families or important names outside of Codua, they’re not far behind and a few have gone on to make good marriage matches outside of Codua.  However, it’s the marriages they make here that are often the most important. 

In the years leading up to 1782 and the beginning of Of Rust and Gold, a class of contracted soldiers have risen well beyond their means and when the decision is made to marry the most powerful to a sister of a Chancellor (a sitting member on the Conclave), things change forever. 

There’s the Order of the Knights. Fates, soldiers of the Saints’ and the Justice’s army, and the Dtieri. In plain terms, they are a class of contracted soldiers. They started out as anyone, simply men signing away their services to anyone who would hire them and sometime around the 1500s they changed into families built around this purpose and closed off into exclusivity. One is born a Dtieri. 

This does not always make them the best soldiers although when a war is fought in Codua they often make up the majority of the armies. The best example of how effective they are comes from the story of the Albuvo Conflict, where two lords fought over the right to a small port city and their armies both were made from men of the Bottino family. Cousin viciously fought cousin until Neopolo Bottino chose to slay both lords and claim the city for himself. 

Not all of them are treacherous or backstabbing but the stereotype lends to them all being bloodthirsty and mad. 

In 1762, there was war in Codua as there always is. But this one was different. One Dtieri family, the Astorino, had been born from a branch of the Acocella family who held a shaky hold on the duchy of Pontegrono. When the last Acocella died childless, his elderly wife moved to install her nephew as her heir. Benedetto Astorino stepped forward, then one of the most infamous Dtieri generals and feared among many, and claimed Pontegrono as rightfully his. Despite Astorino’s prowess, the fight for Pontegrono lasted years as others kept putting themselves forward as possible new dukes. Only in 1768, did the reigning Justice step forward after pressure landed on his shoulders to choose who had the most legitimate claim to the duchy. To choose Astorino would set the stage for other Dtieri to climb the social ladder, and to choose one among the squabbling nobles might further inspire war and conflict. At least Astorino’s reputation quelled more from trying their hand at taking the duchy. Most of the fighting had taken place away from him after he cruelly slew his first batch of opponents, and he’d been living unofficially as duke in Pontegrono’s palace since 1763. 

Two decisions were made. Benedetto Astorino would be crowned but he would have a bride from a family of the Conclave to ensure his path was righteous. And so, he married Ermenegarda Anna Venessa di ava Zisa, sister to Chancellor Ercolano Zisa. A year later, they had a daughter. She was granted the rights of Dtieri, wrapped in the colors of her father’s men, but given the birth ceremony and name of a princess of the Sandotta states. 

When her father died some months after her birth, no one batted an eyelash. Benedetto Astorino had many enemies and Dtieri leaders are often the victim of murder. There was some talk this was planned by the Zisa and the Justice, but again with no proof, the knights did not step in and at 5 months old, Benedetta Onesta Cassiopeia de ave Astorino became Duchess of Pontegrono. Those who felt slighted a year before when Astorino took the duchy quickly made plans to usurp the throne from the squealing baby, but Astorino’s men had sworn their loyalty to his bloodline and would not let anyone near Benedetta, sometimes not even her own mother. Her cousins protected her fiercely and while the Sandotta thought of her as a Zisa, she was raised like a Dtieri. 

 Most careers in the Dtieri start young, with some children becoming soldiers at the age of ten. Much to her mother’s displeasure, things proved no differently for Benedetta. She took quickly to the blend of her two worlds. She minded her manner lessons, charmed her tutors, could sing and play an instrument, and dressed in the stunning gowns afforded to her by the esteem of her mother’s family and being a duchess in her own right. But under the watchful guise of her oldest cousin, Bertolfo Astorino, she also became adept in the art of war. She studied strategy and by nine had recreated the maps for each of her father’s battles and even began to criticize his decisions. 

She had a great love for hunting and drew first blood when she was seven, which is where her nickname came from. Red for the bloody stain of her father’s reputation. 

Before her tenth birthday, Bentolfo began encouraging her to set in motion her first war campaign. Pontegrono was surrounded by profitable city-states, and while it was rich from its position on Laniora’s coast it all suffered from attacks from Rhine pirates and smugglers.  Her mother greatly disagreed and went to Mignola to call on her brother in hopes holy interference would convince her daughter and the meddlesome cousins. Chancellor Zisa must have seen the benefits in having his family take over more land, and what it would mean for him as Justice Dursten got older and the holy chair was empty again, and his letters to his niece lacked the forceful discouragements Lady Ermenegarda was hoping for. 

Benedetta’s first war campaign began. She played a small part, riding beside Bertolfo and staying away from the main action. She sat in on plans for battle strategy and made her first decisions, but the Red Wolf was unknown outside of Pontegrono and her successful decision making was assumed to be Bertolfo’s genius. In truth, Bertolfo was not as smart as his much younger cousin. He was ambitious but had not learned to read until his twenties when Benedetto raised their family. He was a career soldier and knew the ins and outs of battle. Benedetta trusted him greatly. When was eleven and began riding into battle on her own, it was him who was by her side during her first siege where she kidnapped a rival lord’s wife and only heir to persuade him into submission.  As Pontegrono’s land began to expand, people heard more and more about Zisa’s niece and who was really behind the series of terrors. 

Justice Dursten was getting older and unpopular as he continued to not die and remain as a non-Ardunese authority. Zisa began imposing his niece on people, knowing her reputation and that of her father served as an unspoken promise of what could happen if he was not the next candidate for Justice. 

Benedetta approached twelve. Thoughts turned towards marriage. Lady Ermenegarda chose some likely suitors and sent a list to her daughter. All boys from the Sandotta states, most of them Zisas. It was at this point when Benedetta was holding council and in the middle of tearing up the list her mother sent her, that Bertolfo stood up and announced his intentions to marry her. 

Perhaps he was hoping for her to weep from joy, or be relieved the duchy would stay in her father’s family, or that her fondness for her cousin was likely the cause of a childhood crush. But stories tell that Benedetta recoiled in disgust and had her adviser and right hand stripped off all his titles and benefits for such an insult. Riding into her next battle, she demanded Bertolfo mount his horse naked and without a weapon. He was said to have gotten down on his knees and begged. Whether or not that is true is debatable, but what is true is that he at first refused and when he did, Benedetta had her men strip him against his will and yank his weapon and pride from him. Bertolfo was shot and killed during the battle.

 Another close cousin asked why Benedetta did not weep when they heard the news and were shown the dead body, and Benedetta, still flush from the pride of successfully swallowing another port city into Pontegrono, exclaimed that a few causalities were to be expected and that she did not “cry over fools”.

With the death of Bertolfo, Lady Ermenegarda returned to Pontegrono in hopes of assuming his role and becoming close to her daughter. As of 1782 and with her daughter’s thirteenth birthday behind her, she has not been successful. 

While Benedetta is young, she falls into a long line of power-hungry and bloodthirsty Dtieri, but also comes from blessed religious royalty and might be set to become the most powerful if not famous princess to come out of Codua. 

Anime for Halloween

I should have posted this before my movies list. But hell, It’s here now and Y’all can binge-watch over the next month. But little disclaimer. These are anime I have seen and ones I associate with Halloween because they have to do with something from the holiday. So anything with Vampires, witches, demons, etc. Anything I got a Halloween-y vibe from. This list is gonna be kind of long. Now time for me to suffer typing it and yall to get an idea from reading it. 

<<<<>>>>

Title

Synopsis

My thoughts on the Anime

Everything in bold is strictly my opinion. Agree to disagree with me, and put down your own opinion in repost or in the comments but be respectful. Rude or anything of the sort will be deleted or reported depending on the severity.

<<<<>>>>

07-Ghost

Teito Klein, a student at the academy, is one of the most promising soldiers produced. Although ridiculed by everyone for being a sklave (German for slave) with no memories of his past, he is befriended by a fellow student called Mikage. While preparing for the final exam, Teito uncovers a dark secret related to his past. When an attempt to assassinate Ayanami, a high-ranking official who killed his father, fails, Teito is locked away awaiting punishment.

This one is religious, HOWEVER, Demons and the Gods of Death kinda make it more Halloween-y so :p Also as a side note; It’s only subbed so all y’all who prefer dub are gonna be disappointed.

Ancient Magus Bride

Chise Hatori, a 15-year-old Japanese girl, was sold for five million pounds at an auction to a tall masked gentleman. Abandoned at a young age and ridiculed by her peers for her unconventional behavior, she was ready to give herself to any buyer if it meant having a place to go home to. In chains and on her way to an unknown fate, she hears whispers from robed men along her path, gossiping and complaining that such a buyer got his hands on a rare "Sleigh Beggy." Ignoring the murmurs, the mysterious man leads the girl to a study, where he reveals himself to be Elias Ainsworth—a magus. After a brief confrontation and a bit of teleportation magic, the two open their eyes to Elias' picturesque cottage in rural England. Greeted by fairies and surrounded by weird and wonderful beings upon her arrival, these events mark the beginning of Chise's story as the apprentice and supposed bride of the ancient magus.

I love this one so much. My only issue is what would have made it more Halloween inspired would have been if they’s gone through Samhain and not skipped straight to Yule. BUT monsters, mages, witches, alchemists, and fae make this anime perfect for magic inspire Halloween watch.

Another

In 1972, a popular student in Yomiyama North Middle School's class 3-3 named Misaki passed away during the school year. Since then, the town of Yomiyama has been shrouded by a fearful atmosphere, from the dark secrets hidden deep within.

Horror, horror, horror and gore. Enjoy this with friends and family who have a strong stomach and are old enough to not get scared. The deaths are absolutely horrific and it takes place all around a middle school class. (Read the novel, of the same name, it’s based off if you dare)

Ao no Exorcist

Humans and demons are two sides of the same coin, as are Assiah and Gehenna, their respective worlds. The only way to travel between the realms is by the means of possession, like in ghost stories. However, Satan, the ruler of Gehenna, cannot find a suitable host to possess and therefore, remains imprisoned in his world. In a desperate attempt to conquer Assiah, he sends his son instead, intending for him to eventually grow into a vessel capable of possession by the demon king.

Anyone who’s been around anime long enough knows or knows of this anime. Who wouldn’t have added this into their Halloween Anime list? It has to do with Demons and the Son of Satan.

Black Butler  

Young Ciel Phantomhive is known as "the Queen's Guard Dog," taking care of the many unsettling events that occur in Victorian England for Her Majesty. Aided by Sebastian Michaelis, his loyal butler with seemingly inhuman abilities, Ciel uses whatever means necessary to get the job done. But is there more to this black-clad butler than meets the eye?

Classic as well. Don’t forget the movies and season 3. We don’t speak of season 2 0.0″ Also the manga has taken a VERY dark turn as of recent so if you’re looking for reading material, there you go.

Blood-C 

Peaceful schoolgirl by day, fearsome monster slayer by night, Saya Kisaragi is leading a split life. Equipped with a ceremonial sword given to her by her father for sacred tasks, she vanquishes every monster who dares threaten her quiet little village. But all too soon, Saya's reality and everything she believes to be true is tested, when she overhears the monsters speak of a broken covenant—something she knows nothing about. And then, unexpectedly, a strange dog appears; it asks her to whom she promised to protect the village, curious as to what would happen if she were to break that promise. Tormented by unexplainable visions and her world unraveling around her, we travel with Saya through her struggle to find a way to the truth in a village where nothing is as it seems.

Another very gory anime. Children, please do avoid.

Bloodivores

60 years ago, a strange case of insomnia struck the population, forcing them to stay awake for more than a full week. The victims, completely sleep deprived, all went mad. To cure this illness, a new medicine was produced, but the side effects turned the patients into vampires. Humanity went to war against this new species and triumphed, but some of the vampires managed to survive. Born from a Human and a Vampire, the main character Mi Liu, "The Child of Hope," is to represent the new hope that will connect the two species. Ringleader of a bank robbery, Mi Liu is arrested and transferred to a special prison of the National Defense Agency that monitors Vampires.

Genetically created vampires. Need I say more?

Blood Lad

Staz Charlie Blood is a powerful vampire who rules the Eastern district of Demon World. According to rumors, he is a bloodthirsty and merciless monster, but in reality, Staz is just an otaku obsessed with Japanese culture and completely uninterested in human blood. Leaving the management of his territory to his underlings, Staz spends his days lazing around, indulging in anime, manga, and games.

A vampire otaku... Thank you, this is exactly what I needed. 

D.Gray-Man

Losing a loved one is so painful that one may sometimes wish to be able to resurrect them—a weakness that the enigmatic Millennium Earl exploits. To make his mechanical weapons known as "Akuma," he uses the souls of the dead that are called back. Once a soul is placed in an Akuma, it is trapped forever, and the only way to save them is to exorcise them from their vessel using the Anti-Akuma weapon, "Innocence."

*Piece of advice. D. Gray-Man the first series was not finished in Dub if you’re one who prefers Dub. So heading into D. Gray-Man Hollow, you’ll be confused as hell. It’s best to just watch Sub so you don’t have to worry about missing a huge chunk of info. 

But if you like anime about demons and exorcists there’s more than just Blue Exorcist. This one I suggest because it’s phenomenal, but that’s personal opinion XD

Dance with Devils

Ritsuka Tachibana has always been a good student, so she is completely shocked when she is suddenly summoned by the student council. Even more, they seem to think of Ritsuka as a troublemaker. Led by the handsome Rem Kaginuki, the student council—also consisting of Urie Sogami, Shiki Natsumizaka, and Mage Nanashiro—tries to question her, but it soon becomes clear that they have ulterior motives.

This is one based off an Otome (Dating game) so try YT for gameplay if you wanna see the whole story. Yet another about demons and exorcists, but this time there are vampires and Cerberus added to the mix. Plus for those who know-how Otome heroines are basically pushovers, this one has a strong-willed girl as our protagonist. Thank you, Ritsuka for breaking the mold T/\T

Diabolik Lovers

At the behest of her father, Yui Komori goes to live in a secluded mansion, home to the six Sakamaki brothers—Shuu, Reiji, Ayato, Kanato, Laito, and Subaru—a family of vampires. Though at first the siblings are confused as to why the girl has arrived, they soon realize that she is to be their new "sacrificial bride," not to mention their other, more carnal intentions for her. After meeting the brothers, Yui quickly begins to question why her father would have sent her here and why she feels a strange, new pain in her chest. With each brother more sadistic than the last, Yui's life as a captive takes a harrowing turn in her new home. As her days turn into endless nights, and each brother vows to make her his own, Yui falls deeper and deeper into madness and ecstasy.

Otome with like 4? games, try YT for gameplay. I’m a little sad that it only has two seasons and the episodes are like 13-15 minutes long. Still, if you like Otome based games, you’ve most likely seen this. DO NOT EXPECT VANILLA ROMANCE. THIS IS NOT A FUN RIDE IF YOU EXPECT THAT.

Death Note

A shinigami, as a god of death, can kill any person—provided they see their victim's face and write their victim's name in a notebook called a Death Note. One day, Ryuk, bored by the shinigami lifestyle and interested in seeing how a human would use a Death Note, drops one into the human realm.

Classic... But not my personal cup of tea. I added it because it’s a salute to one of my dear friends.

Little Witch Academia

"A believing heart is your magic!"—these were the words that Atsuko "Akko" Kagari's idol, the renowned witch Shiny Chariot, said to her during a magic performance years ago. Since then, Akko has lived by these words and aspired to be a witch just like Shiny Chariot, one that can make people smile. Hence, even her non-magical background does not stop her from enrolling in Luna Nova Magical Academy.

This one is just cute and intense. Witches are starting to die out but one girl wants desperately to be a witch like her idol was. I love how this brings in witchy elements and some fairy tale elements.

Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist

The story revolves around William, an aristocratic family's progeny with rare intellect. One day, his uncle lost his possessions after his business failed. Fearing that his family's name has been tarnished, William returns home and searches with his family's butler for anything that can be converted into cash. A search of the premises yields an underground room left by an ancestor. In the room is a magical seal, and William unintentionally summons a devil. The summoned devil tells William his name Dantalion and reveals that William is the designator who can choose the acting ruler of the demon world.

If realists were like William, I think the world would be on fire. The poor people that have to deal with him. At least most of them are demons, maybe that will knock his head into gear... right?

Miira No Kaikata 

High school student Sora Kashiwagi is accustomed to receiving bizarre presents from his father, who is on an expedition around the world. Unfortunately, these gifts have been nothing but nightmares. As a result, when his father sends him a huge package from Egypt, Sora prepares himself for the worst, only to be greeted by Mii-kun—a cute, pint-sized mummy! While initially wary, Sora soon learns that Mii-kun is harmless, a delicate creature yearning for attention.

I can understand people who don’t like horror or gore. I was there once. So here’s a cute anime about a boy and his pet mummy. Sanrio really did a great job turning the manga, which was darker than the anime, into something so cute and so wholesome.

Mirai Nikki

Lonely high school student, Yukiteru Amano, spends his days writing a diary on his cellphone while conversing with his two seemingly imaginary friends Deus Ex Machina, who is the god of time and space, and Murmur, the god's servant. Revealing himself to be an actual entity, Deus grants Yukiteru a "Random Diary," which shows highly descriptive entries based on the future and forces him into a bloody battle royale with 11 other holders of similarly powerful future diaries.

I have no word on this.

Owari no Seraph

With the appearance of a mysterious virus that kills everyone above the age of 13, mankind becomes enslaved by previously hidden, power-hungry vampires who emerge in order to subjugate society with the promise of protecting the survivors, in exchange for donations of their blood.

The Apocolypse starts and vampires rule the world. I dunno if that sounds like heaven or hell for me? But in this world, it would certainly be hell. Vampires rule the world but that doesn't mean the humans are gone. An army rises to protect what’s left from the bloodsuckers. And did I mention demons? Along with the concept of corrupt angels? Oh yeah, that’s gotta be hell on earth.

Pandora Hearts

To young Oz Vessalius, heir to the Vessalius Duke House, the perilous world called the Abyss is nothing more than a folktale used to scare misbehaving children. However, when Oz's coming-of-age ceremony is interrupted by the malicious Baskerville Clan intent on banishing him into the depths of the Abyss, the Vessalius heir realizes that his peaceful life of luxury is at its end. Now, he must confront the world of the Abyss and its dwellers, the monstrous "Chains," which are both not quite as fake as he once believed.

I couldn't have found a better gif for this anime. It’s Alice in Wonderland inspired but with a much darker twist than what Disney gave us (and yes I do mean both the original and the Tim Burton version). Enjoy this one because it’s not all dark there is humor to break up the heart-wrenching. But don’t expect it to always be comical. 

Phantom in the Twilight

Set in modern-day London, the story takes place in a world where "Shadows" are born from human fear and anxiety. A young girl arrives to study abroad, only to be caught in a bizarre incident as she enters university. In a city with no acquaintances, the helpless girl wanders into "Café Forbidden," a mysterious café that exclusively opens at midnight. She meets an assortment of handsome men employed at the café, where guardians who protect the boundary between humans and shadow convene

Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and even demons; this one would be great for Halloween. I will admit though, it’s lackluster considering these guys are supposed to be Dracula, the Wolfman, and so on. It might be someone’s cup of tea, just not everyone’s 

Rosario to Vampire

Youkai Academy is a seemingly normal boarding school, except that its pupils are monsters learning to coexist with humans. All students attend in human form and take normal academic subjects, such as literature, gym, foreign language, and mathematics. However, there is one golden rule at Youkai Academy—all humans found on school grounds are to be executed immediately!

I couldn’t get through this one. I’m not gonna lie. It was basically light hentai and I’m not into that kinda stuff, but I feel like someone would have called me out for it not being here so T-T

Servamp 

Mahiru Shirota firmly believes that simple is best and troublesome things should be avoided at all costs. It is troublesome to do nothing and regret it later—and this ideology has led the 15-year-old to pick up a stray cat on his way home from school. As he affectionately names the feline Kuro, little does he know that this chance meeting will spark an extraordinary change in his everyday life.

I’m gonna be completely honest, the manga was better. I love the anime don’t get me wrong. I’ve rewatched it many times. But it cut out so much from the manga. So as an anime, watch it first before reading the manga, then go back and nitpick. If you do it the other way around you may be more disappointed.

Soul Eater

Death City is home to the famous Death Weapon Meister Academy, a technical academy headed by the Shinigami—Lord Death himself. Its mission: to raise "Death Scythes" for the Shinigami to wield against the many evils of their fantastical world. These Death Scythes, however, are not made from physical weapons; rather, they are born from human hybrids who have the ability to transform their bodies into Demon Weapons, and only after they have consumed the souls of 99 evil beings and one witch's soul. This one is perfect for Halloween with it’s dark but funny themes. If you prefer the cutesier stuff like I do sometimes try Soul Eater NOT! The concept of soul-eating monsters and a school that teaches teens to fight and destroy them, A+ content. Plus some of those teens turn into actual weapons. Where is my sign up sheet? I would gladly take that over normal boring high school. Also add the grim reaper into the mix then give him a funny voice and disposition. Gold I tell ya.

Togainu no Chi

In the wake of a third world war that left Japan in ruins, an organization known as Vischio seized control of Tokyo and renamed it Toshima. Taking place in its back alleys are battle games known as Igura, overseen by the Vischio, in which contestants battle and bathe in each other's blood to earn the chance to go up against its tournament's king, Il-re.

This one is for all my lovely fujoshi/fudanshi peoples. It’s a dark anime and based off a rated M, BL Otome. Sinners welcome.

Tokyo Ghoul

Tokyo has become a cruel and merciless city—a place where vicious creatures called “ghouls” exist alongside humans. The citizens of this once great metropolis live in constant fear of these bloodthirsty savages and their thirst for human flesh. However, the greatest threat these ghouls pose is their dangerous ability to masquerade as humans and blend in with society.

This one is mainstream for a reason. It’s a good story, anime or manga. Mainly manga. Anyway, I haven’t seen Re yet, but I’ve heard it’s sheit. Still gonna watch it though cause why the hell not.

Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru

Growing up as an orphan, Yuki Sakurai questions his reason for living and the ability to see a person's painful memory by simply touching them. After receiving anonymous notes telling him to die, Yuki is unable to shake off the nagging feeling forming inside of him. Unbeknownst to him, he is being watched, both by people who want to harm him and those who want to protect him.

Reincarnation from a girl to a boy and the girl had a hot lover that is now with her male reincarnation. And the lover is a vampire. Man, that’s confusing but the story is good. I have yet to read the manga. The anime was great from what I can remember, so give it a shot. It’s another BL anime, so proceed with caution.

Vampire Knight

Cross Academy is an elite boarding school with two separate, isolated classes: the Day Class and the Night Class. On the surface, Yuuki Cross and Zero Kiryuu are prefects of the academy and attempt to keep order between the students as classes rotate in the evenings. As the Night Class is full of utterly gorgeous elites, this can sometimes prove to be a bit difficult. It is completely necessary, however, as those "elites" are actually vampires. Yuuki and Zero act as guardians, protecting the secrets of the Night Class and the safety of their ignorant morning counterparts.

If twilight was an anime, but Bella and Edward were siblings and Jacob was another vampire. This is not a great anime but let's face it, some of us watched it as preteens, enjoyed it, and were head over heels for Zero and/or Kaname. It’s a trash anime, but great for those who are 21 and over. Do I hear drinking games, anyone?

All synopsis came from My Anime List (where the links take you). Also, I’m sorry it’s a lot to read, I just didn’t want to cut them down. Feel free to add what you think should have been on here, or what you think is a Halloween favorite on reposts. Comments are welcome and have a happy spooky season!

The Life of The Prophet Muhammad: The Miracles of The Prophet Muhammad

His Information related to the Future Turn out True (Part.3)

We reported only the miracles of Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) related to the future out of his thousands of miracles. Some unbelievers might associate those miracles about the future to his intelligence. A person who predicts about so many incidents related to the future should be not only an intelligent person but also a genius. He is a genius and a very intelligent person; whatever he said turned out to be true. He never told a lie. Then, it is necessary to believe what he said about the unknown. A person who finds out that all of his predictions and news about the unseen came out true has to believe what he says about the life after death; otherwise, he will be regarded as mad.

We will resume to narrate the miracles:

Allah's Messenger told to Fatima about his death and that she would be the first one to die and to join him from his family; six months later, what he said took place.

He also told Abu Dharr, "You will be expelled from here (Madinah), will live alone, and will die alone." Indeed, he went to Damascus first and then to Madinah; then, he went to the desert, lived there alone and died there, proving the prediction of the Prophet (pbuh).

Once, as he was sleeping in the house of Anas b. Malik's aunt, Umm Haram, he woke up smilingly and said he had seen Muslims getting on ships and going on expeditions. Umm Haram said, "O Messenger of Allah! Pray that I too will be with them." The Prophet said, 'You shall be." Forty years later, she accompanied her husband, Ubada b. Samit, in the expedition of Cyprus under the command of Hazrat Muawiyah during the Caliphate of Hazrat Uthman. They landed on the island. She fell off the mule she was riding and died there. Her grave has been one of the most frequently visited places in Cyprus.

The Prophet said, "From the tribe of Thaqif, a liar will claim prophethood, and a bloodthirsty tyrant will appear." Mukhtar, who claimed prophethood, and Hajjaj az-Zalim, who killed more than a hundred thousand people were from the tribe of Thaqif, as the Prophet stated.

He also said, "Istanbul will be conquered, and blessed are the ruler and the troops that will conquer it." He thus gave tidings that Istanbul would be conquered and that Mehmed the Conqueror would attain a high spiritual rank. His prediction again proved to be true.

He also said, according to an authentic narration "Were religion to be hung on the Pleiades, men from Persia would reach and lay hold of it," indicating that many scholars like Abu Hanifa would emerge from Iran. It took place as he said.

In addition, he said, "A scholar from Quraish will fill all regions of the earth with learning." Thus, informed us about Imam Shafii, who was born in Ghazza and settled in Makkah, where the relatives of the Prophet, the Qurayshis lived, and studied there. Indeed, the people who followed Imam Shafii spread all over the world, proving that what the Prophet said was a miracle.

He said "My nation will be divided into seventy-three sects, and only one among them will attain salvation He was asked, "Who are they?" He replied, "Those who follow me and my Companions,"; thus, he mentioned the sects of bid’ah that would emerge afterwards and stated that the group called the People of the Sunnah and Community would be saved. Soon after his death, those sects started to emerge.

He also said, "The Qadariyya are the Magians of this nation", foretelling the emergence of the Qadariyya sect that rejected Destiny; and what he said occurred.

He stated that some people would transgress the limits in loving Ali just as Christians transgress the limits in loving Jesus and that those people would be called Rafizis. He stated that Shiites, who would produce various offshoots, would emerge many years before they emerged

The Prophet said,"When Persian and Roman girls serve you, then calamity and misfortune will be with you, and your struggles will be among each other, with the wicked preying on the virtuous."; thus, he informed us about the secularization in the period of the Umayyads and their evil leaders.Thirty years later, his predictions came true.

He stated that the fortress of Khaybar would be conquered by Hazrat Ali. As a miracle of his prophethood, the following day Ali ripped off the gate of the fortress of Khaybar, used it as a shield, and fought. When he threw it aside, eight strong men-or, according to another narration, forty tried to lift it, but could not do so.

Before becoming a Muslim, Sahl b. Amr, who was one of the notables of the Qurayshi polytheists and one of the leading figures of Hudaybiya, had been captured in the Battle of Badr. Umar asked the Prophet (pbuh) to allow him to torture Sahl. The Prophet (pbuh)  said, "O Umar! It may be that he will assume a stance pleasing to you." and did not allow him. In fact, when the Prophet died and when Muslims had hard times, Sahl, with his well-known eloquence, calmed and comforted the Companions in Mecca with an address, proving the statement of the Prophet  just as Abu Bakr comforted and warned the Companions in Madinah. Surprisingly, the wordings of the two addresses show similarity to one another.

The Prophet told Suraqa that he would wear the bracelets of the Chosroes."  Many years after that statement of the (pbuh), Iran was conquered during the caliphate of Hazrat Umar. When the jewelry of the Chosroes arrived, Umar put the bracelets on Suraqa, saying. "Praise be to Allah Who took these of the Chosroes and put them on Suraqa." Thus, he reminded them the statement of the Prophet.

Allah's Messenger also said that once the Chosroes died, there would be no other Chosroes; and what he said was right.

He once told to the envoy of the Chosroes, who was appointed by the Chosroes to capture the Prophet and bring to him, that the Chosroes had then been killed by his son Parviz." The envoy, who did not believe him at first, found out that what the Prophet had said was true when he went to his country; then, he returned and accepted Islam.

Before the conquest of Makkah, when the Prophet (pbuh) was about to walk against Makkah, Hatib b. Abi Balta’a, one of the Companions, wrote a letter to the polytheists to inform them about the situation. The Prophet was informed by Allah about it; he assigned Ali and Miqdad to stop the envoy carrying the letter: "Set off quickly! When you arrive the grove of Hah, you will see a woman riding an animal and carrying a letter. Take the letter from her and bring it to me." Hazrat Ali and Miqdad caught the envoy in the place that the Prophet described and took the letter from her. The Prophet asked Hatib and he admitted that he had sent the letter. When he was asked why he had done it, Hatib said he did not want his family and his goods that were in Makkah to be harmed; and the Prophet (pbuh) pardoned him.

The Prophet said about Abu Lahab’s son Abu Utayba, who had been the son-in-law of the Prophet, who divorced the daughter of the Prophet due to his parents’ sedition and who insulted the Prophet, “A dog (a wild animal) of Allah will eat him.”[69] Then, Utayba set off with a caravan of the Qurayshis. They spent the night at a place called Zarqa. When a lion came and started to walk around the caravan, Utayba said, "O my God! I swear by Allah that it will eat me as Muhammad said. My murderer is Ibn Abi Kabsha, even if he is in Makkah and I am in Damascus!" The lion left after walking around them that night. His friends placed Utbayba in the middle and slept around him. The lion returned. He walked among them. He approached Utayba by sniffing everybody and killed him. In the throes of death, Utayba said, "Did I not tell you that Muhammad is the most truthful person among human beings?"; then, he died. WhenAbu Lahab heard that his son had been killed by a lion, he said, " Did I not tell you that I was worried about the prayer of Muhammad regarding my son?"

After the conquest of Makkah, the Prophet (pbuh) told Bilal Habashi to go up on the roof of the Kaa'ba and call the adhan. When Bilal started to call the adhan, Abu Sufyan, Attab b. Asid and Harith b. Hisham from the leaders of the Quraysh started to talk. Attab said, "My father Asid was fortunate enough not to witness this moment." Harith said, "Could Muhammad not have found someone other than this black crow to make the muadhdhin?" Abu Sufyan who had accepted Islam beforehand was nervous due to those talks and said. "I am afraid to say anything. I will not utter a word. Even if nobody were around, the rocks of this Batha (Makkah) would inform him." Indeed, a little later the Prophet approached them and told them exactly what they had said. Attab and Harith became Muslims when they observed that miracle.

Hazrat Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet (pbuh), had stayed in Makkah after the Migration and concealed that he was a Muslim. He took part in the Battle of Badr due to the insistence of the polytheists. He was captured by the Companions in the battle of Badr and was asked for ransom; he said, “I do not have any money.” The Prophet (pbuh) said to him, "You left such and such amount of money with your wife Umm Fadl in such and such a place." Abbas confirmed what the Prophet stated by saying, "This was a secret that only I and my wife knew." After that, his belief became stronger. 

A Jewish sorcerer named Labid once concocted a strong and effective spell to harm the Prophet and threw it into a well. The Prophet (pbuh) got ill. He told some of his Companions including Ali to go and bring the spell in the well. When the Companions went to the well, they found a comb wrapped by some hair and took it to the Prophet. The Prophet (pbuh) ordered them to unwrap the hair; the Companions started to unwrap it. As they unwrapped it, the Prophet's discomfort lessened.

Once the Prophet (pbuh) said when he was among a group of Companions, “One tooth of one of you will be bigger than Mount Uhud in Hell.” After a long time passed, Abu Hurayra saw that only he and another person from that group were alive; and he became worried about himself. However, he saw that the other person was captured while he was fighting against Muslims in the army of Musaylama afterwards; he approved the miraculous statement of the Prophet (pbuh).

Umayr bin Wahb and Safwan bin Umayya made a plan to kill Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh). According to their plan, Umayr bin Wahb would go to Madinah and say that he had come for his son among the captives, and would kill the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) with his sword on which he would spread some poison. On the other hand, Safwan bin Umayya would undertake his debts if anything happened to him and provide sustenance for his family.  Umayr sharpened his sword and set off. When he arrived in Madinah, they took him to the mosque. When Umayr entered the mosque, the Messenger of Allah asked him why he had come. Umayr told several lies but he could not convince the Prophet. Eventually, the Prophet (pbuh) said, "Since you are not telling the truth, I will tell you: You talked to Safwan in such and such a place and came here to kill me. Safwan was going to pay your debt and provide sustenance for your family." Umayr was convinced that the person who knew about the conversation between Safwan and him was not an ordinary person. Then, the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) put his hand on his chest; the hatred in his heart was replaced by love and he became a Muslim.

At this point, we want to remind something taking into account those who could say, “Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) made so many correct predictions because he was a clever man”: There can be two cases in question for the person who made so many correct predictions. Either, he is a genius with a sharp intelligence; he can see the past and the future, the east and the west, which is impossible for a normal man. It can only be a special ability given by Allah, which is a miracle on its own. Or, he is the messenger of Allah, who controls the time (past, present and future) and the universe. Whenever he needs something, he learns from his Lord, and shows and teaches it to people. Yes, Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) learns from his Lord, whose knowledge is pre-eternal, and informs people accordingly.

When the Prophet (pbuh) sent Khalid b. Walid to fight against Ukaydir, the chief of Dawmat al-Jandal, he informed Khalid that he would find Ukaydir hunting wild oxen, and that he would be captured without resistance; it took place exactly as the Prophet had stated.

The Prophet (pbuh) said to Abu Talib, his uncle, about the paper on which the boycott carried out against Muslims by Qurayshis was written, "My Lord sent a woodworm so that it would eat the paper of the Qurayshis. It ate everything written on it including the words of oppression, cutting off relationship with relatives, slander; only the name of Allah was not eaten!" Thereupon, Abu Talib went over to the notables of Quraysh and said, “O people of Quraysh! My brother’s son, who has never lied, told me that Allah sent a woodworm so that it would eat your paper; it ate all of the words regarding tyranny, oppression and cutting off relationship with relatives; only the name of Allah was not eaten. Come on! Bring me the paper you wrote on. If my nephew has told the truth, we will never surrender him to you unless the last one of us dies. In that case, you need to give up your cause. If what he has said is not true, I will surrender him to you. Then, you can kill him or set him free.” Then the polytheists sent for the paper; they saw that what the Prophet had said was true. Thereupon, some polytheists repented; however, others said it was magic and continued their obstinacy. 

Allah's Messenger (pbuh) informed people that a widespread epidemic would break out during the conquest of Jerusalem. As he said, such an epidemic broke out that seventy thousand people died in three days during the conquest of Jerusalem.

The Prophet predicted that the cities of Basra and Baghdad would be established, that the treasures of the world would enter Baghdad[80], and that Arabs would fight against Turks and the people living on the shores of the Caspian Sea, many of whom would embrace Islam. He said, "Soon, non-Arabs will increase among you, consuming your income and goods; they will hit you on the neck." He said that those new Muslims would dominate them; in fact, his prediction came true because Turkish states like the Ottoman State ruled Arabs with justice for centuries.

He also said, "The ruin of my nation will be by the hands of a few young ones from Quraysh," suggesting the mischief of Walid and Yazid, who originated from the tribe of Quraysh and who shed the blood of many Muslims.

During the battle of Khandaq, he said, "From now on, I will make assaults on the Quraysh, not they on me." This was also verified later.

After the Battle of Uhud, he said, “The polytheists will not be able to inflict another misfortune like this (Uhud) on us until Allah makes the conquest of Makkah easy for us!”  In fact, the only battle that Muslims were defeated in was the Battle of Uhud.

When the Companions that were the students of the school of Suffa that he had sent to a tribe to teach Islam were trapped and martyred, he told his Companions about their martyrdom at the same moment they were martyred.[86] It took place in the same way as he informed his Companions. Hazrat Anas said the following about this event, which depressed the Prophet (pbuh) a lot: “I have never seen the Messenger of Allah be as sad and grievous as he felt sorry for the Companions that were martyred in Bi’r al-Mauna.”

A few months prior to his death, he said, “Allah let his slave chooseand he chose that which is with Allah”, informing people about his death; in fact, he died two months later.

About Hazrat Zayd, he said, "One of his limbs will precede him to Paradise." In the battle of Nihawand, one of Zayd's hands was cut off, reaching Paradise before him.

He said about Quzman, who was famous for his heroism in wars, “He is definitely one of the people of Hell!” In fact, while he was fighting in the first rank and killing many polytheists during the Battle of Badr, some Companions said to him, “O Quzman! Glad tidings to you! You will enter Paradise.” He said, “I fought for the honor of my tribe; I would not fight for what you are talking about.” He committed suicide when his pains became severe, confirming the statement of the Prophet about him: “He is one of the people of Hell!”

He also said, "There will shortly come a time when a caravan will go to Makkah without any guard. And regarding poverty, The Day of Judgment will not be established till one of you wanders about with his object of charity and will not find anybody to accept it!" In fact, in a very short time, the whole Arabian Peninsula was dominated by Muslims. Then, with the conquests that started during the time of Hazrat Umar, the Islamic land expanded and prospered. In some periods, Muslims could not find any people to give zakah.

We end the narrations regarding the future here. However, it should be known that the truthfulness of the information given by the Quran regarding the future and the similar miraculous news mentioned in the sound hadith books and biographies of the Prophet emphasize the truthfulness of the prophethood of Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh). The truthfulness of his information about the future is only one kind of his tens of different kinds of miracles. A person who reads about those miracles will definitely believe that Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) is the messenger of the Lord of Majesty, who is the Creator of everything and who knows all of the unknown things, if he has a sound heart and mind. 

Deep Blue

Species: Zora

Subspecies: Koreiop Zora

Breed: Chrome Koreoip

Nationality: Labrynna

Gender: Dame

Age: 120 years

Era: Adult Timeline

In my interpretation, Deep Blue is a special breed of Koreoip Zora, the Chrome Koreoip, which can only be rarely observe in the local waters of Labrynna and on rarer occasions stalking the shores of Hyrulian coastlines. They are also found cruising in Terminian seas but in limited quantities. It has not been officially documented whether they exist outside of Hyrulian and sometimes Terminian Realms, but eyewitness accounts reports that the creatures are supposedly abundant in the World of the Ocean King, where few humans intervene with their lives. This variant of the Zoras are consider members of the 100 holy sea guardians of the Zora, consisting of special species or breeds that are in direct alliance with Nayru herself. This gives Zoras of these particular groups an almost holy presence within their community that earns them the utmost respect and are sometimes regarded as mortal gods in some cultures.

Having been born of such a special and honorable breed of white shark Zoras, Deep Blue's family had develop a nomadic lifesytle to patrol the seas under the cover of the abyss. They function as mortal agents to Nayru, constantly relaying information to her of their progress, actively contacting and speaking with her on special nights, and exploiting her divine powers via ancient relics to ward off all the evil that plague the area. As such, Deep Blue, who eagerly likes tagging along her older relatives' mission to learn the ways of her people, is taught to earn an understanding of her spiritually and the morals of judging and punishing those who breaks the laws of Nayru.

One gloomy night during their stay at one of the secret Chrome Koreoips' cities, Deep Blue's mother, the leader of the elite forces, received a distress call via a telepathic message that spoke of an outbreak of rouge assassins trying to eliminate the Zoran Queen of the region. The massive, white-gold dame order an emergency unit of her best spies to dispatch for the capital from which the ruler dwells. Deep Blue, too young to understand the danger of the situation, thought this was another exciting advanture of "guards and bandits". She pleaded to go, but her parents informed her that the mission this time around is a matter of life or death for those involved. They then took her to her room and tuck her in for the night, promising they'll take her out over the weekend to play with the baby porpoises, which is her favorite activity.

But Deep Blue is a restless little thing, dreaming of saving the queen from the "meanies" who currently torments her. She fantasize name calling the culprits, and watch them run away like big babies and earning a medal from the ruler! Maybe even become a knight! The first Chrome knight among the common variants. Deep Blue, full of innocence, wants to help badly, and that she will do. She swam out the window and swim in the direction of the capital, having been there once. She soon arrives and makes her way into the palace where the queen resides.

But something seems off about the residence. As she entered the silent palace, Deep Blue suddenly became doubtful of her little mission. She instinctively knew that turning back would be a wise choice, right before spotting the carnage of dead Koreoips scattered further down the hallways, their blood mingling with the water into tainted mixture. There was suddenly an explosion of action as powerful Chrome Koreoips burst from the halls tangoing with sleek, fin-bladed assassins that resemble a prettier version of their cousin kind, the Makiiekdo Zoras. The little Zora watch, mystified, as two species of the same race battle it out an almost ballad like fashion as the assassins seem to dance in their fluid movements. The battle intensifies greatly, and soon more Zoras, fangs flashing and claws swinging, joined the deadly dance that spread to all corners of the room.

In the confusion, Deep Blue was snatch up and taken to the deeper ends of the palace. It was the Queen herself, removing her from the bloodbath that now drench her waters. Or so it seems. The ruler, who smugly introduce herself as Bletch (of all names) took her to one of the many rooms and locked her in. Deep Blue became immensely frighten of her predicament, and remain cowering in the corner for next several hours as the chaos of the fight slowly ebbs away. She heard nothing but silence for a while, but heard the murmurs of the guards being spoken of the Queen's success of acquiring a sacred beast. Then all had faded.

Queen Bletch was elated to see her the next day as she opens the door, stating boldly that she is her mother now. Even at a young age, Deep Blue suspected the queen was probably hit rather hard on her noggin during the raid. When the guppy decline and demanded to be returned to her real mom, Bletch suddenly emitted a psychotic snarl, lunge, and nearly bit the little pup's tiny fin off, startling Deep Blue badly. The crazed Queen ordered her to see her as her new mother, least she wants her true parent to get executed. This had Deep Blue in a panicked fit of hysteria, begging her not to hurt her beloved relative, and Bletch sneered victoriously. The queen sweeten her tone, and took her to the dining hall where she will eat breakfast. Along the way, Deep Blue noted the Queen fancying herself on the reflective blue marbles that made up the palace, revealing her vain attitude.

The petty queen soon order the temporary exile of the Chrome Koreoips to avoid confrontations with what she knew will be the bloodthirsty wrath of a very angry mother. She falsely accused Deep Blue to have been killed and eaten by the Terminian assassins during the raid. Cannibalism can happen occasionally within the predatory Zora people, and Bletch wanted to paint the Terminian Zoras in a barbaric light. Deep Blue was kept in her possession, growing up as the unofficial princess of the Koreoip Royal Family as soon as the holy Chrome Koreoips were chased out of Labrynna. Anyone who dares mentions Deep Blue's named outside of the Empire were immediately executed to prevent gossip from reaching the ears of her former family.

Deep Blue, unhappy with her outcome, came to ultimately accept her new life, regretting not heeding the warnings of her parents. As a Chrome variant of the anthropomorphic white sharks, she was an extremely valuable asset to her people, and the Queen, faking her delusions, plots to exploit her to her fullest potential. Bletch had her undergo training everyday, forced her to manipulate the divine magic of her kind at an early age, and had her trade fighting moves with her at the Queen's personal training room. Although Bletch's words was encouraging, she will quickly beat her down whenever Deep Blue miscalculated her moveset. As such, the pup at such a tender age, was mercilessly force the steel herself and herself emotions for the daily exhausting and painful process.

Deep Blue slowly lost her innocence as the brutal art of warfare became ingrained in her mindset. They beat her down and force her to kill random prisoners to nullified her emotion. She became stotic and shut herself off from the world. Her deep sapphire scales dulled in response to her environment. Deep Blue had been force to battle in the arena every weekend to gain superior skills and to learn to draw blood without feeling sick. It did work, for her training had nullified her empathy to freely express remorse over the fallen.

Decades of training ensued. Deep Blue grew up strong as she willed herself to pull through and prove her worth to her deranged step-mother. She grew up raw, raw with immerse power. But it was a power the Queen nor normal Zoras couldn't understand. For unlike most Zoran magic that can be manipulated with false "elemental water", this was a wild power, indomitable, pure, that only special Zoras like Chrome Koreoips can harness.

The essence of the Kingdom of the Moon, the nightly heaven in which Nayru resides in her palace, made up this alluring energy, and permits the chosen Zoras to preform incredible feats. Deep Blue can breach higher then other Koreoips to the point of flying, as if she can catch the moon in her great jaws and pluck it right out of the sky. She can swim faster then a marlin, her large structure shredding the waters like a torpedo. Even without training, her senses are heighten and precise. And she can endure fights better then all the Zoras in the kingdom, her blows breaking spines and tearing flesh from bone with little effort. She felt a great connection with the Goddess of Wisdom through this special magic that enchant her. The desire to serve under her holy mother grew with each year, her duty awakening from each passing moons. For a long time she believed the Chrome Koreoips were the only blessed breed among the Zoras. That the whole Ocean world depended on her and her people alone to protect it. She felt truly empowered.

One evening, as she swims toward the throne room to report back from a scouting expedition, Deep Blue overheard Bletch's future plans from the meeting room halfway to her destination, its ugliness revealing itself to her. In truth, the Queen had felt threaten by the ways of Terminian life, and sought to eliminate the problem before they become too powerful should they ever decide to invade Labrynna. This is in due to their neighbors having a more advance nation with magic based machinery that can easily give them an advantage in war should they ever decide to invade other less develop countries. The fear of an attack drove the Queen insane, and in her paranoia orginally began soughting after the highly regarded guardians that are the Chrome Koreoips to build a massive army to withstand the coming battle.

The Terminian Zoras had caught wind of her plot, because they keep sending those mako assassins to finish her reign. And now with the tension rising between the two power nations, the Queen declares war. Deep Blue was to be use as a secret weapon to combat their respective guardians, that way they can then take out their leaders and take over Terminian waters.

As much as the notion of impending war terrified her, Deep Blue knew that reasoning with her sergeant mother is futile. Bletch is irrational, more bloodthirsty then an average Zora, and refuse to listen to reason. And her fear of foreigners like Terminian Zoras clouds her judgements, making her cruel and unjust towards all outsiders.

But the Chrome Koreiop refuse to submit to the notion of the Empire's fate and vow to kill the Queen herself to prevent the impending war. She refuse to permit the needless suffering of countless innocents to go underway, and if she has to kill the xenophobic ruler to protect these poor souls, then she will take full responsibility to do so. After all, she was trained to kill when necessary.

Deep Blue carry on her duties as normal until night fell. As Queen Bletch fell into a deep slumber, Deep Blue carefully crept in with her outstretched claws ready to slit her target's throat. That was until she sensed the sudden presence of another Zora in the room, and she whirl around to be face to face with one of those Terminian Assassin Zora piercing her with his luminous eyes. His bladed fins were glazed in the filtering moonlight.

The haunting posture nearly cause Deep Blue to scream in surprised terror, but she held her tongue as the sleeker Zora slowly approached. In a dangerously soft tone the Mako Zora demanded an answer to her bizarre actions. Feeling threaten, the female Zora flare her fins and announced her authority as a member of the revered Chrome Koreoips, one of the elite species of the 100 Holy Guardian Zora. This didn't faze the killer at all, for he merely cocked his head with fascination. She wondered why until he stated his affliction as a mythical Sylovaakien Zora, another member of the divine legion of blessed Zoras. His kind serves as the primary guardians Zora of Termina, and that their task in killing the Queen is a necessity to ensure thr protection of Termina's oceans.

No amount of training prepare her for this.

Deep Blue was stunned to discover that her supposed mortal enemies are also chosen ones of Nayru. The Zora points to Bletch and questions if she will proceed her assassination attempt, willing to take the blame if it ment Termina's safety. He also inform her that he can take her to his species's hidden city to protect her, away from the rigid codes of the empire. He also revealed that he had been observing her struggles over his years as a spy and was waiting for this opportunity to personally meet help. His offers became too tempting for her to resist, yearning to be free from her "mother's" control.

Then the Queen began to stir.

In her panic, Deep Blue swam for the window, but the Zora grabbed her hand and escorted her out of the room in a flash. He rush her out of the palace and into a small portal to the Terminian world. Finally, as they materialize in the crystalline capital of the Zoran Heroes, Deep Blue saw the wise, bewildered faces observing her arrival. Many were deeply suspicious of her, while others welcomed her warmly, calling her their "dear cousin". Her escort, (who's she's becoming quite fond of, maybe even smitten considering his sophisticated mannerisms) directed her along and took an opportunity to tour her along his beautiful city, where the legendary Makos thrives in prosperity. As she marvel at the majestic architects, she even notice a few Chrome Koreoips as they engage in trades and close alliances to the Sylovaakiens.

The Zoran Heroes were mostly polite to Deep Blue, but of coarse her alliance with Bletch made them question whether she is worthy of being trusted. The Head Alpha wasn't impressed with her new friend's rash decision of bringing an outsider to their hidden kingdom, but ultimately accepted her in Termina so long as she serves their country instead. Deep Blue wasn't keen on turning her back on Labrynna, but being homeless and having no future, she ultimately agrees. She was soon sent away with the Terminian Chrome Koreoips to begin her new life in their realm, residing in a small undersea townhouse. She became a part of their elite military, once again force to fight a battle she didn't ask for. And yet, for the first time in decades, she is living among Chrome Koreoips once again. And with this, she was content.