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thesevro · 4 months

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[cassius bellona] us, and now

[HEAVY LIGHTBRINGER SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT] Cassius Bellona/Male Reader Word count: 3.8K words

A depiction of what it would be like to be Cassius's husband. What it would mean to go through what happens to him as the man who married him. Explicitly MLM. In part, you can imagine that Darrow is the husband in reference here.

Hermes: A spinal implant enabled by the technology of the Greens and Yellows of the Rising, empowering the user with the capacity to move at 2 trillion times the speed of light.

—

YOU GRAB HIM before he can leave, the metal in your spine triggering the muscles in your body fast. You reach for him, his arm in your grasp. He turns as you tug at him. Cassius meets your eyes with a nonplussed smile already coming to his face, always your man of golden smiles though utterly confused. His teeth end up meeting yours as you lean forward. The muscles and bones in your jaw clack together with his. You cannot hide your desperation, your fear. Your mouth is harsh as it touches his. Needy. For a moment he only stands there as if he can sense all that you wish to say to keep him here, with you. But you are loyal to him and will let him be loyal to himself in making this choice.

You feel the breath he steals from the air, from you as he inhales sharply in surprise. Then his hands clasp your body and bruise your waist as he drags you in close. You tip backward on your heels as his other hand comes to the middle of the muscles in your back and drag you from your center of gravity. You shiver at the feel of the tips of his fingers digging into the nape of your neck. He anchors you on your feet, because without the hold of his hands and the strength of his arms around you you would already be on the floor with him. You are not afraid to cling to him. You know you will have to let him go.

Your lips part to take a breath but Cassius does not let you. He searches for your mouth in those nanoseconds and catches the open part of your lips. His breathing is yours. Your fingers find his curls, rough now with oil and dust but still you will remember that this is him, that this is the man the universe let return to you after a childhood and ten years of wishing to be a man who could bask in his love. A war had come in between. Your blade has touched his throat before. His hands have flowed through movements made to kill you in the past. But those minutes of hatred, all that emptiness, are nothing for the moments that have been before this, and the full ache of love that you have for him now.

His bottom lip is insistent. He drives his mouth into yours as if it would let him take more of you in, let your breaths replace the oxygen he needs. His head tilts. Mouth moves over yours. You let yourself be weak. Let yourself indulge in sharing this love.

This is the only time Cassius has allowed himself to be greedy in asking for your love. With his chest to yours his heartbeat encompasses every other sense. The pounding rhythm of his heart matches all else in this moment—the desperation of your mouth on his, the fingers you dig into his shoulders.

You allow yourself one last nudge of your bottom lip to his. Every inch of your mouth meets every nanometer of his, raw from the kiss and chapped from the blistering dust outside. For one final breath, you bask in and fall deeply into the scent of him, the raw musk of his perspiring skin, the tones of lavender in his hair and the heady scent of sandalwood in the shirt beneath his armor. You send out a promise to the worlds. Let this just be another time you get to breathe him in. There will be more.

You pull away from him. Your eyes remain closed, but already you hear his lashes flutter as he opens his eyes.

“Why are you crying?” he murmurs in a throaty voice. “Is the man I love so disgusted by my kisses?”

Your laughter is pained. Cut short as the fear grips you again.

The fear you rip away from you like a physical thing. You will savor Cassius as he is in this moment, not as what he could be in the future that follows. Here, now, you are his, and he is yours.

Your eyes open as his forehead comes to yours. You drink him in. You have no wishes, no words, no protests—only so much love for the man you’ve hidden and held love for all your life.

With his gaze bearing yours, he makes a promise to you. “I will return to you, my love. My lover. My (Name). Do not be afraid for me, for I am only a man of love for you.”

Your heartbeat echoes against his chest. You feel a whisper coming through as your words and strengthen your voice. There can only be strength in the truth you will give him. “I love you, Cassius.”

He makes a noise of pain. As if he can sense that there will be too much coming between the next time he and you get to share these words. “And I, you, (Name). I love you.”

Your hands linger, linked together, as he leaves. The look you share shows a promise.

And even with all the years you had full of love for him, all the time in between, all the words shared, the burdens passed between you, the wounds stitched by the hands of the other, the hours spent trading stories and living the parts you failed to wander through together in each other’s lives, the worlds move on, move forward, and shatter his promise. The worlds continue without him.

Even with your eyes closed against the glow of the holo, the image burns across your retinas, and you know that you are more a ghost than he is now. You trigger Hermes and leap backward.

—

LYRIA, an outsider's perspective on how Cassius's husband reacted to his death

“Lyria, twelve spidervenom rounds,” Sevro orders then takes off after (Name). “Volga!”

Volga looks at me. I don’t understand Sevro’s panic. Then the clatter of armor shatters our confusion. Volga bolts from her chair.

“Volga!” Sevro calls again. Something slams into the wall in the adjacent hallway. I rush to the weapons room. Can’t see for the tears. Instinct guides me. All the things Cassius taught me through, helped me learn, maneuver my hands and lead my eyes.

He can’t be dead. The Lune would never be able to manage. But there he hung, limp and lifeless on our screen. The warmth of him has left the worlds.

A scream from the hangar grips me. I sprint down the halls, following the noise. Grunts and desperate shouts bounce off the wall of Cassius’s ship.

“Let me go! I need to get him back!” (Name) screams, metal boots slamming into the floor. “I need to get him back!”

Sevro jerks against his friend as (Name) pulls and strains. The veins in Sevro’s neck pop from his skin. Volga’s eyes are wide with focus, desperation. She understands, as I only just did, what it would mean to let (Name) leave this ship. He’d get himself killed trying to reach the Lune’s moonbreaker, if not mowed down by Lunese soldiers who’d cry with laughter at the chance to have the Marooner’s head.

He has been a friend to Volga and me from the start. Golden goodness, his heart worse in its purity even compared to Cassius’s. We won’t let him go. I don’t think he knows it yet. For (Name), the logic in his actions clicks perfectly like pieces in a puzzle.

“You need to let me go. Sevro!” His face is wet. Tear tracks slide from (Name)’s cheeks to his chin. “Please! You need to let me get him back. We can’t leave him there!”

Sevro and (Name) lock eyes. (Name) reels away from him, almost shocked by the grim set to his best friend’s expression. He pants with exertion worth fighting against a warlord of the Rising and a battle-hardened Obsidian. He pulls again. Sevro and Volga are lifted clean off their feet, but Sevro hauls him down with a hard grunt. (Name)’s knees buckle. His eyes fall on the floor. Then he turns and meets Volga’s gaze. I hear Volga gasp.

“Volga! Volga, you need to let me go,” he says, screaming again as he begins to recognize that they won’t let him leave. “They killed my husband, Volga, please! Let me get him back!”

Volga breaks open, and whether she knows it or not her grip on him loosens. (Name) launches forward, leaving Volga at the entrance to the hall. Sevro hangs on, yelling at (Name).

“Stop it (Name)!” he yells. “You’ll get yourself killed up there, you bloodydamn bastard!”

Sevro plants his feet, heels practically slamming into the floor. (Name) strains against him. A broken cry claws through the air, leaving (Name) as he pulls and pulls against Sevro. He drags Sevro forward three meters at a time, practically glitching before my eyes as he activates Hermes again and again. Volga sprints. I move faster than her, for once. Finally at the hall, I leap towards them, momentum carrying me past Volga.

I drive the syringe into the back of (Name)’s neck. Holding the needle pushing enough poison to knock four griffins unconscious into his bloodstream. He barely even seems to feel it, still swimming against mine and Sevro’s tide as he lurches toward the exit of the Archimedes.

Then his arm goes limp in Sevro’s hold. Sevro clings tighter to him, arms around the front of his torso. (Name)’s eyes flutter. Sevro watches the floor as his best friend slowly slumps into his arms. Then he falls to the floor with (Name)’s body.

Sevro cradles (Name)’s head, his forehead coming to the back of his neck. He holds the man to his body. They’re so close, in mind and soul, that I know Sevro feels just as much of (Name)’s pain as he feels his own for Cassius’s death. Sevro clears his throat.

“Set coordinates for Sungrave. We need to get Darrow,” he says, taking charge. His eyes are dead. We say nothing of the man who just died in the skies above us.

I head to the cockpit to pilot Cassius’s ship.

—

There are cracks in you that grow further fissured on the day his ship passes through your scanners. The three in your party are men of silence. You more than the two standing next to you as you await boarding permission. There is nothing to share in words. Only in grief.

Your body remains in another time, in other moments, with each step you take through the ship. You smell the coffee Cassius likes from the percolator in the sparse kitchen area. The machine has been dead for days. All you can remember are his hands turning the knobs, grinding coffee, guiding you through a technique you cannot for the life of you remember. You brace yourself on the counter as you approach the coffeemaker, nearly driven to your knees at the pull of memory and in knowing that you will never share another morning, another smile, another breath with him. He is but a memory, even if he was everything to you.

His fingerprints remain on the percolator. Your own fingers trace over them, sharing a final touch that will be lost to the eternities ahead because he is dead.

Darrow and Sevro let you take your time. In reality, you are simply too familiar with yourself. You cannot handle the other body that lies aboard the ship.

The Lune had mangled him. Torn your golden boy to pieces. Hanged him from a rope and let his body sway. You cannot imagine the heavy flop of his corpse as they cut the body from the rope to bring it here.

You do not want to remember him as that dead body. He was Cassius Bellona for his soul. His body has left the worlds, but the man he was will remain with you.

For an hour, you sit in his bedroom. You don’t visit the holos saved on the ship. Those recordings are only digital, borderline fakes of the actual memory of being with him. You will only be an outsider watching those moments in the bedroom, looking in through holographic glass as you kiss your husband, write a story for him while he rests with his head on your chest. You will have to bear witness to a life you will never live again because your husband is dead.

There are photos on the wall. Printed versions, not holographic renditions. Slowly, you take your eyes off the floor and bring your gaze to the pictures. A broken sob leaves you.

He is so young in the picture. The golden boy you became brother and best friend to and wholeheartedly bloom with love for. And so are you. The weight of war and broken planets does not hang in your laughing eyes. In his, you are his planet, his universe. The affection in his bright eyes leaves you breathless, as if he were standing before you now, gazing at you with that same love. Across time, across the worlds, past his death, his love remains.

You remember asking about this picture. Cassius told you this was one of his favorites.

“I can’t believe you couldn’t tell then,” he said. “You were much like a brother to me, sure. But I loved you for more than that.” He gesticulated wildly at the photo. “Bloodydamn, imagine that! I was looking at you this way for an entire year!”

You also recall the lovely jest he’d made after to let you slip his hand in your underwear. “My most favorite is the one where I have you reaching climax as I ride you.”

Your body leads where your mind cannot. You come close to the pictures, brushing your fingers over the image of your beautiful husband in his youth. It comes to you as instinct, not as a memory. Your fingers move from his chin to his cheek. If he were here now, he would tilt his head into your palm as you reached to cradle his cheek. And for him, that too would be instinct.

“We were supposed to grow old together,” you murmur to the boys in the picture. “We’re only thirty-four, Cassius.” The sob in your chest punches through your throat. Warmth floods down your cheeks as you begin to cry. “I wanted to have you until a hundred. You promised me a hundred and forty three. Impossible bastard.

“Gods, you promised.” Your knees give out and you hit the ground, hard. And in his bedroom, where he and you once shared love with one another as married men, you unleash your grief. Your sobs leave you as screams.

—

Your best friend sits with his arms propped on his knees at the door to the room Cassius’s body is held in. He leans on the wall, eyes opening as your footsteps fill the room. There is more weight to him now, more even than when he received news of Pax’s kidnapping or Virginia’s capture. You cannot imagine his burden, what the weight of all of his combined grief would feel like. He stands as you enter.

Darrow doesn’t move towards you. He knows that to touch you would invite hell upon himself. But he is wrong. You reach for him, and he must see something on your face, something more than the grief, something that only he and you share. He moves to you and grips you in a hard embrace. And the tears leave you to stain the home of your lone beloved with your pain once again.

“I—” There is no sense to you. Could there ever even be now, when your husband is gone? “I shouldn’t have let him go. I was right there. I let him go. I let him leave. It's all my fault.”

Darrow stops you before you can continue to blame yourself. He holds you tight against him.

“(Name),” your best friend, your brother in everything but blood; ArchImperator of the Republic you have given your life to; the man whose son you are third-in-line as godfather to speaks, more solemn than you have ever seen him, “This is not your fault.”

You hope he can promise you that.

—

He lies there on the cold metal. His eyes are closed. And he is dead. Reds like Lyria or your regular Gray would not be able to smell it. But you know Cassius’s smell, and you know what rot tastes like in your nostrils. It is faint. But it comes from him. You swallow the vomit that races up your throat.

“I’ll leave you two be,” Darrow murmurs from behind you, speaking as if Cassius is still alive. He squeezes your hip, hand lingering. You do not ask him to stay. And he understands there are conversations only you and Cassius should share.

Even when he has left, you do not break. Seeing Cassius again, even in death, has brought you clarity, though you cannot comprehend it.

You approach him. Part of you expects him to bolt upright on the table and greet you with a smile. You lurch forward, expectant. But his lips are blue now. Being sent straight into the sun to burn would hurt so much less than this.

“Cassius,” you murmur. Your voice reaches only your ears. A dead body does not hear.

The feel of him is the same, just a little bit heavier as you grip his hand. He is cold. Limp. Still his fingers are as rough as you remember, hardened by years of wielding the blade he was born to be and manipulate. But to you, these hands held nothing but all the love you’ve felt in your life as his husband.

“You wouldn’t let me apologize, wouldn’t you?” If you were here. “So… so I won’t. In fact, this choice you made let you be loyal to who you are. Isn’t that it, Cassius? You’ve always been true to yourself. We called you a turncloak, two-faced, but everything you did, everything you said, was always honest. You’ve never lied to us. I’ll always be grateful for that.” When he helped kill Octavia, the Sovereign he swore his life to, he did it not because of Darrow’s influence or Virginia’s, but because he felt that it was right—that he would not only be avenging those in his family of Bellona who had been murdered by that Sovereign, but that he would be owning up to becoming a part of what is right. To most, he is the Betrayer. He destroyed figureheads of the Society and the Rising and knocked both off their feet. Though what most cannot comprehend is that Cassius was simply following what he thought was right. He believed Octavia could provide stability to the people, so he killed Ares. She did not, and so he killed her. All Cassius has ever done, he did in the name of honor. Through the grief in your eyes, you look at him with utter pride.

“My love. I wish you didn’t have to leave. You haven’t even met Pax or Sevro’s daughters yet.” You brush a thumb over the angular apple of his cheek. He is cold beneath your fingers. “We haven’t had our own children. There are so many things we weren’t able to do. We had so much ahead of us, and I can’t help but think that you abandoned me for the rest of it.”

Cassius lived a life of honor. Though he could not honor you and your dreams, the life you could see for the two of you as husbands, he died in the name of being true to what is right. That is why he spoke with Lysander. That is why he died for it.

In life and in death, you could not love him more.

“What did you say to him before you died?” you murmur, more to yourself. Maybe part of you has begun to accept that he is dead, and that none of your questions will be answered until you meet him again, somewhere else, at some other time. “I wonder. What did he tell you? What made Lysander feel that hanging the man who raised him for half his life would be right?

“Can I kill him, Cassius?” Would that avenge Cassius? Would it make losing your husband right? If it would, and if you knew for concrete fact it would, you’d put your blade in Lysander in a heartbeat. “He killed you. His brother. My husband. Would he even be able to work with us? Would he be able to see reason, as you did?

“Gods, I hate you. You gave your life to honor. I wish you could have given it to me.” You look away from him for the first time. “I imagined a quieter death for us, Cassius. Our children and Sevro’s and Victra’s and Darrow’s and Virginia’s would stand before Uncle Cassius’s bedside someplace in the woods on Mars, crying because they know that the best man they’ll ever know needs to go. Darrow would cry the hardest and I would have to be the one to pull him away from you. Then I and our children would carry you to our ship and send you to the sun in your last act of honor. Somehow, I would follow soon after.” You wish you could have lived the fullness of that life. Of being a father alongside Cassius and an uncle to the children of your best friends. You wish you could cherish mornings finally off a ship, finally sharing his favorite coffee with him amongst tall trees with grass between your toes, not the metal floor of a warship. To hear his jokes come sincerely as part of this scenery of peace, not with the tense edge of a man afraid of the death that would come for him aboard a ship heading to war or in a cell or on the field amongst soldiers desperate for a kill. You wonder what it would be like to laugh with him in peace, without his jests being a balm to your fear of losing one another in the war.

“I’ve never known peace with you, Cassius.” You nearly break all over again at the thought. But there is gratitude to be found in the life you had with him, a life rife with war yet made full by him. “And yet I’ve known you afraid, hateful, desperate, joyful, happy, content, peaceful. Hah. Honorable." You let yourself laugh for one last time with him. “I’ve known every side of you in war. Though we were never married in a time of peace, I still got to love every part of you.

“Thank you for that.” You press a kiss to his lips. To his cheek. To both his closed eyes. Then to his forehead, where the crest of everything that made him your beautiful husband used to reside. You kiss the golden band on his finger, the one thing that connected you to him as he died. It is your last act of love before you honor him with a Sundeath on your return to Mars. There will be no grave for you to visit. But a light to look up to, until the end of your own days. “I love you, Cassius.”

Fin.

Comment to mourn with me bro AKAKJAKJA I've been mourning since August... Thoughts and prayers for Cassius as well as your own thoughts on how I wrote this are very important to me les go bro 💌 Been rereading Light Bringer to pregame for Red God. Might we see Darrow ask Lysander about Cassius's last words while they fight yada yada? I even hashed out an entire playlist for that scene so I can play all these sad songs while he dies as such listen to "Skyfall" by Adele or the orchestral cover of "Salvatore" by Lana del Ray when you read that scene. This series has been with me since I was 10. I'm shittin' tears bro now your boy is in uni... Ronan out

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helldiver-of-florida · 3 months

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Everything is Alright au where Cassius, Darrow, & Mustang are a happy lil polycule and Julian. Just Julian. I miss him. :(

#fuck cassius x darrow wheres Dassiang #Carrang??#Mussiow #fuck if i know #Julian #JULIANNNN #i miss him #i miss him so bad #red rising #red rising series #darrow of lykos #darrow au andromedus #virginia au augustus #cassius au bellona #also i got the poly idea from Shakadolin #they kinda remind me of them #ok.

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rangersbecket · 8 months

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umm. i could recognize him by touch alone, i would know him blind, etc etc...

#darrow of lykos #cassius au bellona #darrow x cassius #light bringer #red rising #unfortunately i am exhibiting behaviors #and i'm supposed to work? under these conditions??#i'm sooo distracted i need blunt force trauma applied directly to my head #but it's either this or i go back to wailing like a war widow so! cope

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insignificant457 · 9 months

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Pierce Brown Light Bringer Q&A

I went to pierces book signing tonight and I will attempt to regurgitate everything I can remember since I didn’t take notes

When asked if there’s any characters he regrets killing off, he said Trigg. But he also said he has a different answer every time someone asks that

He talked about how he writes two different types of deaths—deaths that feel like the end of an arc, and deaths that feel like they cut off in the middle. He said the latter are more like life, and that’s why they hurt more, and why he’s more likely to regret killing them. Trigg is one of these, as is Fitchner

Speaking of Trigg, his aborted arc factored into the decision to add ephraim as a pov character—it allowed him to explore Trigg and his backstory even after he was gone

The other povs in iron gold were specifically chosen because each had a bone to pick with Darrow, and also because he wanted a high, mid, and low color pov

He was complimented multiple times on how he writes female characters, and his response basically boiled down to “I subscribe to the radical idea that women are people”. He said it’s funny that no one ever compliments him on his ability to write complex male characters

Related to the above, both victra and Aja were originally conceived as male characters, but he couldn’t quite make them work until he flipped the gender. He said that after making victra a woman, he immediately knew exactly who she was and she became incredibly easy to write

Speaking of victra (she got a lot of love, as she deserves), someone asked for a random fact about her, and he said she plays Karachi, which is a gambling game, but she doesn’t want anyone to know because she doesn’t want people to think she’s reckless. Everyone knows.

When asked how he feels about Lysander, pierce said “he’s doing his job,” both in universe and as a vehicle for the story. He also said this was always the path he’d imagined for Lysander

Some of his favorite lines are “do not fear for me, pity them” and “worthy”

He called Darrow a drama queen, and said that he often talks out loud while writing, and darrows internal monologues get weird reactions from friends who overhear (“who’s the motherfucking consequence?!?”)

Darrows experience in light bringer (in particular his reading of the path to the vale) was very much inspired by pierces own struggle trying to write light bringer. He said they both had to learn that the right path is not always forward, sometimes you have to go back

Light bringer was by far the hardest book for him to write (he said “if you ever want to know what the hardest book for an author to write was, just look at how long it took to do it) but he said it’s also possibly his favorite

When asked if any characters or relationships surprised him, he said yes absolutely. Sevro was apparently supposed to be a tertiary character, but basically hopped off the page, and victra was another surprise. He also said (light bringer spoilers) the relationship between Cassius and Lyria was also a huge surprise, but he realized on writing their first interaction that they would absolutely love each other

He also said that the snark between Darrow Cassius and sevro just flowed really easily, and that Darrow and Cassius understand each other, but that Cassius simply Does Not Get sevro

When asked about bringing the jackal back as a clone, he said it was an effort to explore cloning in a way that, in his opinion, has not been done particularly well in many other media. He also said it came about because there was more to explore with virginias relationship with her brother

Tongueless was a hat of death kill, but he told us the original backstory he had planned for him. Apparently tongueless was a high up leader of the syndicate, who was deposed by Lilath when she came in and instigated a coup

He said he tries to write using “South Park writing rules”, meaning instead of saying x and y and z happen, he always uses x happens but y happens or y happens therefore z happens. He said this helps keep things from feeling predictable or trite

When asked what he hopes people take away from the series, he said he doesn’t want to say, because he fears that would be showing his hand for red god. But he did say that what he hopes people take away from light bringer is the same thing darrow tells sevro in morning star “we keep looking for the light, but we’re it”

And lastly, in the signing line, I asked him when sevro found out his father was ares, and he told me it was “probably around the same time darrow found out”, and said a lot of that is because sevro had spent a long time hating his father, because he could always sense he was being shut out. He mentioned that children can tell when there are walls there, and it can actually have a very damaging impact on their mental stability (mental instability? I said. sevro? Never.) anyway rip to my sevro joined the sons pre series theory, you will be missed, but it’s nice to have an answer thanks Pierce

Anyway it was a very fun time, if I remember more later I will add it

#red rising #pierce brown #light bringer #$36 plus I got a signed copy of light bringer and he signed my copy of morning star #well worth the cost

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vices-aand-virtues · 8 months

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Cassius and Darrow interactions in Light Bringer

#the way they love each other can be ~so personal~#can’t believe what they gave me then ripped it away #absolutely would have been living for Cassius Darrow Virginia ot3 #Cassius bellona #darrow of lykos #darrow au andromedus #Cassius x Darrow #red rising series #red rising #light bringer #personal #cassius au bellona

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chatte-noire · 8 months

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Light bringer x scheming

an appreciation and condemnation of the schemes, moves and manouvers in light bringer. who served them the coldest, and who was bamboozled? This is only about stunts, not about morals or likability.

Lysander:

Lysander's scheming took a whole new level and I was really surprised at the little coup he staged with atalantia in the collosseum. In the first half of the book he really had the monopoly on well placed and daring maneuvering.

I think his best stunt was the compromise on the dockyard of venus, managing to keep apollonius, and win the carthii and julias block while simultaneously showing up atalantia, reinforcing the alliance with the rim and starting the attack on mars.

I wouldn't have expected him to be able to hold the alliance with applelonius for even a few weeks, now its been a whole book, I'm exited to see if Darrow can use the minotaur against lysander in red god.

yes in the attack on phobos he wasted ships and men and money and copied darrows helldiver strategy.. but he also surprised virginia with his strategies and finally took enough of phobos to have the upper hand in negotiations, something I wouldn't have expected him to be able to do. esp. after atlas called phobos impregnable.

Darrow:

in the first half darrow honestly took the scheming L. when I read the excerpt 2 weeks before buying the book I was CONVINCED that they didnt just land in apollonius obviouss trap, like pls let this be a trick. Darrow is such an experienced schemer, he must have expected a trap? but no he was like, tattoos look right, must be my bestie in this easily accessible prison. Its especially naive because he broke apollonius out of deep grave and so knows that apollonius knows how he would plan a prison break. and that backup plan was also flimsy, I expected better from him haha

on Europa Darrow had a nice scheming comeback, like recreating the Dead Horse strategy and beating Fa? Iconicc. bringing both obsidians (with a vote) and rim (with diomedes' oath) closer to democratic values? inspiring. Brokering collaboration between Rim, Daughters and Obsidians? A strong feat. that speech with the daughters was nice too.

but.. (and I'm not saying it didn't cost him a lot and will probably keep costing him dearly in red god) lysander still kept his scheming level established in the first half of the book. so much trickery, let's see how long he can keep it up before he drowns in it. He was backed into a corner by atlas but managed to trick both Atlas and Cassius, defeat the rim and gain a horrible weapon with one move.

It cost him the Rim Alliance and his humanity, but we already know his morals and ideology are a feeble construct held up by delusion and wanking off on silenius. and the rim armadas were destroyed by atlas so to lysander it probably only seems like a temporary loss until they come crawling back to society when hunger defeats them.

Sevro's stunts were refreshingly constant and awesome. Like.. escaping apollonius and fighting him in his own house?? rescuing his bumbling saviours? and the most bestest move: convincing the Daughters of Ares to work together with them by holding such an iconic speech like.. wish we would have gotten to see that in first person. just like Volgas ascension as obsidian queen. They both had such iconic and smart moments off screen. pierce doesnt want them to steel the stunt limelight me feels.

Aurae was able to follow her goals throughout the book, while managing the boys, the daughters of ares and diomedes. she had an emotional and moral bond to each one of them, but managed to stay true to her own values even as the parties were conflicting.

honorary mentions:

Lyria smuggling herself unto the archie, she knows how to take advantage of her size, even more impressive because darrow had the same experience with rhonna and still didn't realise (or didnt care?)

Apollonius snatching up Darrow and Cassius

Virginia having an informant in the Society (her clone bro?) and her making a pact with and freeing the obsidians. I would have loved to see more of her, she always delivers top tier schemes (except for when she is outschemed by society rats).

they were outschemed, honorary mentions:

Volga following Fa: even if he wasn't Atlas puppet,,, he's still such an obvious upholder of Gold values and tyranny, but volga didnt want to see any of it. this makes her following him so horrible, I hope it doesn't all get blamed on Atlas, I mean Volga was fine with everything except for atlas' involvment. I don't know if she was naive or blind or ignorant or greedy but that was some top tier delusion.

Lysander bedazzling himself: this is the most hilarious and complete trickery. That guy just believes every fucking excuse he can give himself, he just gobbles them up. He might have freed himself from his AA Puppetduo, but the real puppeteer in his life is his delusional ideology and hybris.

Atalantia: she had such a good and safe plan, she just didn't realize that lysander doesn't care for his friends enough. now she is some ships and influence poorer, lost her watchdog, her nephew/lover (ew) and the grip on Lune's heir

Diomedes: Lysander had him wrapped around his lying finger and he did nott see that dishonorrr coming. Cassius didn't see it either, but I think he would have tried to save lysander anyway. The himbo bamboozlement lost them the garter and Cassius was murdered, at least he could kill Fear on the way.

#this is not a measurement of merit #just of trickery #lysander obviously won the scheming contest #he tricked everyone and then himself #but darrows comeback was iconic #he entered with nothing but his name and his bros and left with a fleet and two new alliances #but my favorite stunter was sevro #I didnt expect it after his lack of screentime and they tied so well to his character development #in red god I wanna see some more tricks from the shes and the gays #light bringer spoilers #light bringer #red rising #darrow of lykos

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sad-endings-suck · 9 months

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Mustang x Darrow x Cassius may never be a canon throuple, but they are canon in my heart. 💗💗

#denial is a river in egypt #i am delulu #there are so few fics of them all as a throuple i need recs #red rising #mustang x darrow x cassius #darrow x mustang #darrow x cassius #mustang x cassius #golden son #morning star #iron gold #dark age #lightbringer #red god #red rising fanfic #darrow au andromedus #darrow of lykos #virginia au augustus #cassius au bellona

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vesperpharsalius · 4 months

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I read the quote you posted from golden son and I didn’t immediately read the tags so I was going crazy because I remembered the scene differently, but since I have only read GS translated in my language I thought it was a translation change. But now I feel dumb because what are the RR snippets I need more of whatever that was because that was beautiful, the lancelot part got me screaming crying and throwing up. please help😭

Thanks for the ask!

My copy of Red Rising (which is just a standard American mass–market paperback I bought back in 2016) has a teaser for Golden Son at the end, excerpts from Ch. 11–12, which cover the Gala. It is mostly consistent with the corresponding parts of GS, with less dialogue and detail and overall polishing than the actual book, but there’s the occasional thing that got cut or changed in the final version. Strangely, the teaser at the end of my GS is identical to its corresponding scene in Morning Star—it’s the prologue—so I’m not sure whether this was deliberate.

Here’s the official version of THAT scene:

He of the bloodydamn golden curls is with the girl who nursed me to health in the winter, who helped me remember Eo's dream. His hand on her waist. His lips whispering into her ear. As surely as Cassius au Bellona put a sword in my stomach, he now sticks a dagger in my heart.

His hair thick and lustrous. His chin cleft, hands steady. Shoulders powerful, made for war. Face made for the hearts of court. And he wears the rising sun of the Morning Knight. The rumors are true. It rips through the party. The Sovereign has made him one of the twelve. Despite the fact that I won the Institute, he's risen higher, tearing through the Dueling Circuit on Luna like an ancestor possessed. I've watched him on the HC, watched him stalk around the Bleeding Place as another Gold lies near death.

But here, now, he dazzles, charms. Face split with a white smile. In his Golden body he has all I have and more. He is faster on his feet than I. As tall. More handsome. Wealthier. He has a better laugh and people think him kinder. Yet he has none of my burdens.

And this is the teaser from RR:

He of the bloodydamn golden curls is with the girl who nursed me to health in the winter, who helped me remember Eo's dream. His hand on her waist. His lips whispering into her ear. As surely Cassius au Bellona put a sword in my stomach, he now sticks a dagger in my heart.

His hair thick and lustrous. His chin cleft. His hands steady. Form powerful. Shoulders made for war. Face made for the women of court. And he wears a crown badge. The Sovereign has taken him for one of her lancers. Despite the fact that I won at the Institute, he's risen higher, tearing through the Dueling Circuit on Luna like an ancestor possessed. I've watched him on the HC, watched him stalk around the Bleeding Place as another Gold lies near death. He stalks like a famished beast as if one life cannot sate the hunger that roils inside him.

Here, now, he dazzles, charms. Face split with a white smile, he is the man fit for stories of romance, a Lancelot galloping from myth to steal a woman who could have been, but never was, my Guinevere. His is a charmed birth. He has all I have in his Golden body and more. He is faster on his feet than I. As tall. He is more handsome. Wealthier. A golden knight. He has a better laugh and people think him kinder. He does not have my burdens.

As you can see, the final version is a little more eloquent and better–worded. The teaser is rawer and a little clumsier. But… whoever cut the Lancelot and insatiable beast bits out should go to Deepgrave, fr, because they’re just 🤌🏽

With the exception of THAT scene, the differences are minor, the Final Cut being obviously superior and often opulent by comparison. Still, there are some notable omissions that didn’t make it, like—

A brief but important conversation between Darrow and Karnus (where he guzzles like, four glasses of wine in less than a minute; Eagle Rest needs an AA chapter, apparently) about butter, in which they establish that A) Lunese food has too much butter and not enough salt and that B) butter is disgusting and makes them feel like pigs.

Karnus also mentions that Julian loved butter so much he ate it by the stick, alone. Wtf, Julian.

Darrow also remarks at one point that A) Martians pride punctuality and always arrive on time, that B) Venusians disdain it and are always fashionably late, and that C) Lunese either come first or last, to keep people guessing and mess with their heads, ofc.

(I like to imagine the Raa being equally punctual and Dido coming to dinner two hours late wearing a diaphanous dress and body glitter, getting criminally offensive side–eye.)

Secret canon facts! Reblog for Lancelot Cassius and Carny Julian.

#dassius #darrow x cassius #i said what i said #the Gala was fueled by Dassius UST #and rampant Bellona alcoholism #red rising #red rising saga #golden son #darrow of lykos #cassius au bellona #karnus au bellona #julian au bellona #Gala appreciation post #alternate version #weird little inconsistencies

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