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improbablecarny · 4 years

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Okay so here’s my Netflix Witcher Season 2 Predictions & Speculations

Don’t place any bets on these these. I’m rambling and asking questions more than answering them. But that’s the fun part, anyway.

Putting these behind a cut because of spoiler potential and because I don’t want to subject your eyes to my rambling any more than necessary

What we know:

Season 2 will have a more linear timeline

Eight episodes, again

It will cover content from Blood of Elves, Time of Contempt, The Last Wish and maybe Sword of Destiny?

There are four major threads to the plot of the books, here.

Who is Rience? Who is he working for?

What is going on with the Brotherhood?

What's Nilfgaard up to and how are the other kingdoms feeling about that whole thing?

What is Ciri’s deal and how does she fit into all of the above?

What the S2 opener will be, I’m not sure, but I have two ideas, with caveats:

Yen saves Jaskier from Rience. It’s a strong scene and sets up a lot of the season’s intrigue right away - the issue is that it skips over the aftermath of Sodden Hill, and I feel like we’re going to spend a bit more time with Yen before she gets back to the point where she’s stabbing dudes and saving bards.

Geralt visits Codringher and Fenn. I know, that scene is jumping WAY ahead, and by this point in the books Geralt has already encountered Rience -- however, I think it may work to establish C&F earlier, and have Geralt immediately employing them to spread misinfo about Ciri’s “death”. I think we could still set up Rience a little here -- ask if the name means anything to him, it doesn’t, they don’t know much either but they’ve Heard Rumours, etc. Also honestly I just REALLY love the atmosphere of that scene and think it would be a very eye-catching, moody opener.

In fact, both of these could conceivably happen in the same episode. The tricky part for me is not knowing how much of a timeskip they’ll add between seasons and how they’re going to handle Yen’s reappearance. Is she going to wake up in an infirmary somewhere and get an immediate exposition dump from Tissaia? Is she going to spend some time wandering through an interdimensional hell zone? Are we going to see that all in the present or will it be done through flashback?

How Season 2 will end, though, I have a much better sense of: all four major plotlines converge when it’s revealed that Vilgefortz is pulling the strings and Aretuza goes bananas in a strikingly obvious Season Finale sort of way. We get a lovely cliffhanger where Vilgefortz kicks Geralt’s ass before Triss saves him by shoving him through a portal, Ciri kicks Cahir’s ass and jumps through a shittier portal, Yen disappears again, and Jaskier is forced to leave on his own, again. I love pain and being in it! Of course the finer details there are all subject to change but the big picture climax is that Vilgefortz is naughty and oops, war.

So that’s the bread, where’s the rest of the sandwich?

With news that Nivellen and Vereena have been cast, we know we’re getting an adaptation A Grain of Truth from The Last Wish. I suspect Geralt and Ciri will be stumbling upon that spooky mansion on the way to Kaer Morhen, but that’s about as far as I can think on that one. But will any of the other shorts pop up?

A Shard of Ice and Sword of Destiny have been essentially nullified by choices made by the show so far, so I think they’re safely out of the game (though A Shard of Ice sets up the Wild Hunt so presumably that will still need to be worked in somewhere)

I would LOVE to see Eternal Flame adapted because it is my exact sense of humour, and A Little Sacrifice has a great mood and freaky fish people. Both of them would be very interesting places to deal with Geralt and Jaskier’s spat -- a conflict not present in the books, but its presence in the show casts some of the events of the book in an interesting light. The primary issue I’m having is trying to figure out how to get them to fit into the timeline/trajectory of the ongoing plot (and my secondary issue is that the stuff with Essa was weird as hell, though I think it could be smoothed over).

Speaking of Jaskier, I’m quite interested in where they’re going to take his character, since the books (up to this point) didn’t really give him much of an arc, but Lauren Hissrich has noted that we’ll see more of his serious side and his struggle with what he really wants. To me, that sounds suggestive of giving him more of a role in the espionage story, and through that, better establishing his fear and guilt over his perceived inability to adequately help Geralt and Ciri without putting them in jeopardy, all while still dealing with their falling out. He’s loyal, but he’s hurt, and he’s in a precarious position that he doesn’t really know how to handle.

The introduction of the falling out sets this storyline up into three nice beats. The first one was in the infamous episode 6, where Geralt tells him to hit the road, breaking hearts around the world. Jumping into the books, the second beat would be during the mage mash, where Geralt once again demands that Jaskier leaves -- this time, though, for his own safety. And then we get the third beat, in Brokilon forest (hopeful button for the end of S2 or moody opener to S3? Both work imo), when Geralt tries to get Jaskier to leave Brokilon, and Jaskier puts his foot down and says no. That seems like a place to aim for, and once again, make everyone cry.

The aforementioned shorts would be a great place to let that arc marinate, though the exact details are still something I’m mulling over. (Honestly I really just want big city shapeshifter shenanigans because LISTEN... listen. It’s good) More importantly, though... what kinda music is he gonna bring us next season?

Yen’s plotline is running through muddier waters for me on account of the books rarely dipping into her perspective, but she’ll no doubt be involved in trying to suss out what’s going on with the mages. She allegedly has a scene with Francesca somewhere, and Istredd and Stregobor are returning (despite being absent at this point in the books) so presumably they will also cause problems. There are a lot of different directions they can go with her here, as I touched on briefly earlier wrt the fallout from Sodden Hill, but a lot of it might have to be spun wholecloth in a way I’m not so sure I can make any truly educated assumptions about. How is Geralt going to find out she’s still alive? How is he going to re-initiate contact with her? We’ll surely get some ripe emotional conflict as her, Triss, Sabrina and Tissaia deal with the conspiracy in very different ways. Too many viable answers and none that I’m going to place any bets on but am still, of course, excited for.

Cahir is another complete wildcard for me. I haven’t seen enough of him in the books thus far to make super accurate predictions but “gets horsejacked and ass-kicked by Ciri and then yelled at by Geralt until he faints” is quite a ways away from “slaughters an entire tavern in a fit of paranoid rage” (I get the impression Show!Cahir is also much older than his book counterpart). I can’t imagine it’d make much sense in the long run for them to have actually combined he and Rience’s characters, but I almost wonder if that’s what’s going on. Presumably, Fringilla will play a part in whatever he’s up to.

The Temple is in an odd place. No mention or setup of it so far so I wonder if it’s been excised entirely for streamlining purposes. Ciri goes from studying the blade in Kaer Morhen to studying magic in Aretuza without the complication of a third location (also for magic study) in between?

Yarpen’s return more or less also confirms that the subplot with the dummy cargo from Blood of Elves will occur in some form or another, likely as a means of establishing the Squirrels.

And here’s some incomplete and assorted tentpole book scenes (that I haven’t already addressed) that we’ll likely get in some form:

Several Ciri training montages (insert Jaskier cover of Eye of the Tiger here)

Ciri parent trapping Geralt and Yennefer

Geralt vs the river monster vs Rience’s dudes

Geralt and Philippa vs Rience and more of his dudes

Basically any of the points where Ciri goes into a trance, plus the incident with the wyvern

Introductions for Emhyr, Dijkstra, and Philippa

It goes without saying but a lot of forethought has been put into the Netflix adaptation, despite some fanboy bellyaching. There were many points where, reading the books, I found myself reacting emotionally based on things that had only been set up in the show -- from Ciri and Yen’s relationship and their approach to magic, to Geralt and Jaskier’s reconciliation, to Vilgefortz’s turn, most of the changes made by the show are really there to further reinforce events from the books. And boy, are there events to be had.

In conclusion,

#the witcher #witcherposting #thoughts welcome

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essagandana · 6 years

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Down the Rabbit Hole

[OC-Insert] It almost seemed fitting that after a life spent reading, and later writing fiction, she'd end up reborn in one. Once-Evelyn, Now-Alice, plans to make it further than 25 years into her new life. Figuring out that her older brother is that James Bond… throws a bit of a wrench in her vague plans of recreating her Before-life. Dealing with (read: suppressing) the issues she has from Before-her's life, she sets herself up a life where she can keep an eye on her reckless brother, and make sure that the stories Before-her remembers didn't just take artistic licence with his improbable survivals. Her brother was going to live to see retirement, dammit!

Chapter 1

Setting The Scene, or, Pre-Canon Shenanigans

Alice Bond is born in the early hours of the morning, November 14th, 1972. She is the second child, and only daughter, of Monique and Andrew Bond. She is preceded by an older brother, James, born April 13th, 1968

Evelyn Lott was born late at night, December 21st, 1999. She was the first child of Jessamine and Hamish Lott. She was followed by two younger brothers; Meredith, born March 25th, 2002, and Lucian, born August 31st, 2010.

Monique and Andrew Bond die in a climbing accident whilst in the Aiguille de la Persévérance, 1979. Alice is 7 years old.

Evelyn Lott died in a plane crash, bought down mid-flight by three terrorists with smartphones, 2024. Evelyn was 25 years old.

---

Alice Greer Bond is seven when her new life shatters like so much spun glass.

She's with James, trying to focus on the conjugation sheet she's supposed to be doing whilst he tries to cajole her into sneaking out the window and exploring. Or going into the garage. Or building a pillow fort. Or sneaking through the priest hole to the chapel. Or- He stops abruptly as the door opens, but breathes a sigh of relief when it's revealed to be just Kincaid. He turns back to her, mischievous grin in place, but it slowly furrows into a frown at the look on her face. She's not taken her eyes off Kincaid since she looked up. Her face slowly gets more ashen, as he stands in the doorway, running the brim of his hat through his hands, face set, eyes achingly sad for them. James slowly looks between the two of them. For an endless moment, no-one says anything. Clutching her brother's arm with a death grip, she clears her throat.

"Kincaid. What… What happened?"

"I jus' got a call from the base camp on that mountain ya parents went ta climb." He halts, seemingly unwilling to continue. Her grip on James' arm tightens. She stares at the groundskeeper, unblinkingly, until he heaves a sigh and continues. She feels James jolt back beside her as he realises what coming.

"There… There was a storm. Abou' a week back. And… ya parents never checked back in. So. They sent a recovery team up after them, but. They didn't…"

He trails off again, gaze dropping. She feels her blood turn to ice, numbing her mind. Distantly, she realises she can feel James shaking. There's a frenzied, desperate thing in his voice as he speaks up.

"V-Very funny Kincaid. When are they coming back? If there was a storm… they have to come back. They have to."

Kincaid doesn't respond for a moment, desolately still. He looks up, passed her to him.

"Oh Lad…"

"NO! No, you're lying, you have to be lying! They can't be-"

She can almost feel how his voice cuts out, unable to finish the sentence. They can't be dead. Turning her gaze, she sees the wild, grieving thing that's taken control of him. Abruptly bursting into motion, he rips his arm from her grip, and sprints away. She can almost hear the wounded howl trying to tear out of his throat. She sits where he left her, numb with shock. Not again, is all she can think. Not again.

Kincaid's large hand on her shoulder jolts her back into herself. Looking up, she attempts a smile of gratitude, but knows it comes out as more of a grimace. Blinking, her mind catches up with current events. She bursts from her seat and tears after her brother, a cry of Jem! on her lips. Eventually, she catches up to him. He's in the priest hole, halfway between the house and the chapel. She can hear him almost as soon as she enters. Biting her lip, she climbs back out to get- Kincaid is in the entrance to the room. When she meets his gaze, he holds up a torch and a blanket. With a watery smile, she flings her arms around him in a brief hug, takes the offering and climbs back down to join her brother.

It hurts her soul to hear the almost keening noise he's releasing as she gets close. She scuffs a pebble to make sure he can hear her approach. He doesn't even look up, his pain almost subvocal. She drops down next to him, draping the blanket around the two of them. Reaching an arm out around him, she leans against his side. Waiting.

Not long after, he shifts, hauling her into a hug, burying his tears in her shoulder. She feels something fracture. Clinging just as tightly, she buries her face in the junction of his neck, twin trails of tears trickling down her face. Neither of the move for a long time.

It takes two days for them to return to the lodge.

---

When they resurface, grubby, exhausted, and emotionally drained, they've changed. James is more reckless, more devil-may-care in his antics. Harder than he was before. Colder. She's quieter than she'd been in a while. She throws herself into what she remembers from Before. Once is coincidence. Twice is happenstance. Three times is a conspiracy. Her brother's name. The lodge's name. Their parents' death. There is no more pretending that this is anything other than what it is.

She can't afford to slack off. This is her brother.

---

Athair had arranged for James to go to Eton when he was twelve. She had almost a year left of home-tutoring with him before he'd be gone for most of the year. She refuses to lose anyone else. She's lost enough people, she can't lose him as well. She has until she turns eleven to have near total say over what she's learning, so that can be put on the back-burner until she loses access to her brother.

The basic outline of a plan forming in her mind, she gently bullies Kincaid. He grudgingly lets them spend time with the guns, helping them learn how to shoot everything from hunting rifles to hand guns. She swallows thickly at the sharp reminder of Athair, who couldn't shoot very well with anything but a hunting rifle, yet collected guns of all shapes and sizes anyway. As well as small explosives. James takes to it with a grim determination, but quickly becomes a very good shot. He seems to take an almost savage pleasure in hitting all the targets with every gun he can get his hands on. She settles for being a good-enough shot with the rifles.

Kincaid won't let them learn to shoot without also learning how to maintain the guns, which leads nicely to her wheedling him into teaching them about cars and heavy machinery. James doesn't have as much interest in that yet, but she learns, with an almost religious fervour, how to fix engines. She knows James will pay more attention when he can get his hands on the parts of something fast, and intends to make sure she can keep him from crashing immediately when he does.

She'd worry a little more about how focused she was becoming on making sure that her brother stayed alive, stayed safe if she didn't have a fair idea what was coming in his life. Also, he was starting to display similar tendencies. Subverting authority, learning things he really probably shouldn't as an eleven-year-old, keeping track of her, of her safety as though she'll disappear when he loses sight of her.

---

Both of them are a little… upset when James leaves for Eton.

Whilst he's there, he stats to hone his ability to get out of, on top of, and around buildings without detection. He doesn't want to spend all night in his room, so he starts by climbing out of his window and shimmying down the drainpipe. He doesn't get very far the first few times, being unceremoniously returned to his room by staff. It isn't until he tries going up that he starts to get away with it. It isn't until he falls asleep on a flat portion of the roof and get seen by one of the professors that he really starts getting into trouble for it. He likes the freedom of it, so he doesn't stop. The staff are tearing their hair out over trying to get one twelve-year-old boy to behave. The rest of his class seem to find it irritating and amusing by turns. His letters to her reveal his smugness at their exasperation. Visits see details revealed, laughter shared, and plots made.

The maid thing was an accident. It was also the final straw.

He gets kicked out at the end of the year.

---

When James comes home from Eton after being kicked out, head held high, Kincaid just kind of… sighs heavily. He's started the application for Fettes. He also seems to think that he's been hiding the fact that custody issues are starting to rear their heads due to inheritance issues. Alice found some of the records, copies of Mueti and Athair's wills, the bills, things like that. She's glad that they planned well for their education. Aunt Charmain is their guardian in name, but that's not going enormously well. She's starting to resent being stuck in the country with a niece and nephew she barely knows, and doesn't seem to want to know. Kincaid might've though he kept the details of it, and how he's desperately trying to find them another legal guardian a secret, but Alice knows. She knows. And she will never forgive Charmain Bond for the words spoken when she didn't realise anyone could hear.

Alice is overjoyed to get to spend more time with her brother. As kind of a precocious nine-year-old, she drags James off to see what she'd been doing that he's missed. Presenting him with the engine she's fixed, he's suitably impressed. He's more confused than anything else when she shows him the partially deconstructed Apple II in what was Athair's office, surrounded by reams of notes and books and manuals. She'd been finding trying to understand variants on 70's tech much harder to do than she'd thought it'd be. She's been dreaming longingly of the smartphones, tablets, and touchscreen laptops she grew up with Before. She misses the internet.

---

She misses her Before-family like a missing limb, like a hole in her chest, even now. Even after dying, and being born, and gaining a new family, and losing half of it. She misses Merry, who was the grumpiest, snarkiest person ever, who'd've been able to make her laugh. She misses Luc, who'd start babbling on about technological advancements, and prototype AI, and how smartphones and internet worked, bright-eyed and exited. She misses her Before-parents, Madre who taught English to Diplomat's children and Papa who ranted and raved about physics. She misses Before-her, the aspiring author, working in records. She misses her Before-home, her Before-life, with its much simpler, easier times.

She misses it so much sometimes she can barely breathe.

Those are the times Kincaid offers rough affection and her favourite foods. The times James looks at her with ill-concealed worry in his eyes, and tries to tease her out of her funk, pull her into adventures, expeditions. The times he just sits with her, a solid, unobtrusive presence, not demanding anything, just there. She can't help but love him a little more for the fact he never trues to force her to explain it. She has no idea what she'd say if he did.

She decides, this time, that she's going to be productive about it. Before-her, Lynn, had had jewellery, and wall art, but also a couple of tattoos. So Alice sit down, and starts planning tattoos. She's pretty sure the law as it stands prohibits tattoos until 18, so she has 9 years to plan them out perfectly. As she stares down at the basics of a design for each part of her, everything she's lost, she feels… lighter. Like Before is letting her go - or at least, is letting her live her life.

With light heart, and lighter smile, she bounces off to go catch her brother. He's only going to be here five more weeks after all.

---

They go on a skiing/mountain climbing trip after James' first year at Fettes (which he definitely seems to prefer, she notes, pleased). The only thing that gets her on that plane is the knowledge that technology isn't sufficiently advanced enough for the same thing that killed Before-her to happen. They bump into the Oberhausers. James is pleased, remembering group trips with Mueti, Athair and them. Alice is… a little warier, recalling how the story goes. But, they meet up, and spend time together, and it's all actually quite pleasant. Hannes takes James under his wing again after three years of no contact. Franz is… not particularly happy. He hides it well, under jokes, but there is a flash of something when he sees his father acting around James in a manner usually reserved for him.

Alice wasn't expecting to like Franz at all, memories of the story filling her mind. But, actually… He was wonderfully sarcastic, and clever. He just had a bit of a mean streak. As Monique and Andrew had died when she was seven, and thus too young to have come on any of the trips, she'd only met the Oberhausers occasionally. Franz, being 8 years older than James, and thus 12 years older than her, had never really been someone she'd spent much time with. On this trip, however, she got to know him a bit better.

She also doesn't miss the considering looks Hannes occasionally gets when he thinks none of them can see him. She'd heard him talking to who she thinks was Kincaid about them, and custody, but she's not certain. As she spends more time with them, she starts to appreciate them.

Hannes is genuinely nice, some of the time. He might be a little condescending and misogynistic, but she's a nine-verging-on-ten-year-old girl in the 80's. It's kind of to be expected. And he listens, and tries to spend time with her, despite clearly floundering on how to treat a little girl. He gets on much better with James. And James is laughing, and smiling, and losing some of the brittlest edges to his eyes and grin, so she'd be willing to overlook a lot more than she is.

Franz… Franz is interesting. He's clever, so clever, and in training to become military, and has a degree in Psychology. He's also got quite the head for business, and is more than capable of charming the resort staff into giving him what he wants. But there's that flash of malice, when he looks at James and Hannes together. There's the cruel glee when he tricks the other people at the resort into doing something that's a bad idea. There's the way most of his emotions look just a little off, like he's wearing a painted face instead of his real one.

She teases him. It's all she can think to do. Poke at him, distract him, until he's more focused on (slightly cruel) banter with her than he is on the fact that Hannes spends a lot of time with James now, on what was supposed to be a trip with just the two of them. It sort of works. He seems to swing between looking through her, and looking at her as a curiosity. She needles him into teaching her chess. She wheedles him into sitting with her in the café area and judging people. She asks him for information about places he's been, things he's done. She tells him about reworking the Apple II, learning how to put the engine of the Rover back together. Sometimes it works, and the spark in his eye is interest, or (cruel) enjoyment. Sometimes it doesn't, and the spark is malice, or he's in a black mood, and presenting endless, empty charm.

She makes sure that Franz and James don't spend too long alone together. She gets a little of Hannes attention, gets him to help teach her how to ski. She grabs James and drags him off to learn snowboarding with her, giving the Oberhausers some uninterrupted time together. It's more of a rush than the basic skiing that she's been doing is. James seems to enjoy it too.

At the end of the holiday, he talks with James; Alice wasn't invited, but can guess what it was about. He looks thoughtful on the way back to Skyfall, and drags her with him to talk to Kincaid. By the time he returns for his next year at Fettes, it's organised. They're the legal wards of Hannes Oberhauser.

Charmain doesn't even wait two days to go off on a trip.

---

Life as Hannes ward is… odd. She's stayed at Skyfall Lodge, which she's thankful for, but he calls her at least every week to check up on her. She's been left mostly to her own devices. The film that seems to be here's version of Star Wars IV premiers; on a holiday, she goes to see it with James and Hannes on a home weekend. 'The Balance: Second Coming' seems to be similar idea to Star Wars. The overall ideas and story are roughly the same, even if the terms and designs are different. She wonders for a moment what that means for other fiction she remembers. Flicking through the television guide when she gets back to see if she can find a version of Doctor Who, she finds 'Master of Time'. Which… tales of wacky adventures from the Master's point of view? She decides that she's going to start watching it. Wonders if this means there'll be a book series about young Dumbledore or Tom Riddle. She resolves to keep an eye out for anything like it.

James told her he'd started boxing. She smiled and told him not to lose too many brain cells. He'd cuffed the back of her head in response, but they'd both laughed.

She'd asked for, and received a Commodore 64 personal computer for her birthday. She'd read the manual, gone over the notes from the frankenstein-ed Apple II and figured out how to take it apart and put it back together. Getting hold of information about the programming was harder, but far from impossible. She made sure she kept meticulous notes as she went along, to ensure that she could refer back to them later if need be. Her heart ached a little, thinking of Luc and how much he'd've enjoyed it. Shaking herself out of her Before-memories, she got back to work. She would never be in that situation again, and that meant she needed to stay on top of how the tech was developing and it's capabilities. She thought she didn't really need to start worrying until the late 90's to 2000's, but better to be over-prepared than under.

---

Attending Benenden after years of almost-isolation is jarring. It's busy, and loud, and she's not sure how she feels about it. She picks up Before-her's southern accent and hides her own Scottish one. It's not a large school, which she's thankful for. But it is an all-girls boarding school, which… presents its own idiosyncrasies. It's not intolerable, just different.

She joins the drama society, but refuses to set foot under a spotlight. She dresses sets, dresses faces, dresses actresses. The other girls are confused by her adamance, but deign to allow her assistance. She remembers Merry, and decides that she'll keep this role. Remembering Before is more of a dull ache now than a stabbing wound. She thinks maybe she's started to heal.

Chemistry is fascinating in a way it never was Before. Mathematics and the Sciences have far more of a hold on her than they did Before-her. She delights in the reactions, in the calculations. In the ability to turn small, seemingly unconnected things into something else entirely. The first thing she tries to make herself is the 'homebrew' liquid latex Merry got Before-her to help make, for use by small-time theatre groups. It came out perfectly. She grins widely and makes plans to reproduce as much of the cosmetics palette as she can remember.

It becomes the thing people associate her with, unusual cosmetics; slowly, she learns how to turn a person into somebody else.

---

Alice is 13, and surrounded by strangers in the South, far from what she's ever known. Her brother is 16, almost a legal adult. He's won boxing competitions, gone on mountaineering trips, taken part in as many dangerous, adrenaline junkie activities as he's come across. He has one more year at Fettes before he leaves. Before-her's memories whisper of a dangerous life. She knows in her bones that he's planning on a military career. She can't stop him, can't chain him down, clip his wings, force him to be some tame thing instead of what he is. Or. Well. She could. She knows that if she panics at him, weeps, speaks of her terror of his dying… But she won't. She'd never be able to live with herself for trying to break him like that. And she'd lose him if she tried.

---

When they returned to Skyfall that summer, it was to a surprise from Kincaid - a beat up Suzuki Katana motorcycle. James visibly fell in love once they got it up and moving. They spent a lot of time on the racing bike, learning how to ride it across the roads and moors surrounding the lodge. The same way they'd sat in the front of the Rover, learning first-hand how to drive it. They visit the nearby village more, on their own, this summer, than they have before. Both of them adore the rush.

This is the first time she witnesses her brother flirting. It's clearly light-hearted, only in the pub, chatting up the waitresses whilst they're having lunch. He's charming, but his lines are ridiculous. Yet still there are pretty girls fluttering and falling all over him. He even gets cooed at by the mothers and grandmothers for being such a charming young man, such a good big brother. Alice is mildly horrified. Slightly awed at the ease with which her brother can apparently wrap women around his finger, but horrified. It even works when it fails. He gets laughed at, but they still do what he was angling for. It's equal parts impressive and icky.

The less said about the nights he goes out by himself, returning the next morning in rumpled clothes, the better. She has no need to know about her brother's sex life.

She's almost thankful when they go back to the resort Hannes works at even if Franz still gives her slight chills when he looks at James.

---

Alice has finally started making use of the things Mueti talked about whilst she was sat in her dressing room as a little girl. How to use clothes and make-up as armour, reputation and rumour as weapons, read people and make them dismiss her. She blends this with the knowledge that Before-her had received from Madre about Diplomats, and had earned working in the government. She chooses her role, and hones it until the mask she wears is diamond hard and mirror bright, preventing anyone from seeing more of her than she shows, from ever seeing that there is more of her than is shown. She starts preparing for what is to come, knowing that she can't just sit back and let him die.

Faux-nonchalantly, she presents James with a belated 17th birthday gift - his official gift, joint from her and Kincaid, was the keys to the refurbished form of Athair's Aston Martin, with strict instructions that he gain his driver's licence before he even think to set foot in the car - a forged identity, proclaiming him to be a 21-year-old called Alex Rider with a gun permit, and pilot lessons. He accepts the pilot lessons (small planes and helicopters) before noticing the extra documentation. He flips through it slowly, before raising his gaze to her face. She is studiously looking at the wall behind him. He sighs long and low, before wrapping her in a hug.

"It's not something I need to worry about? The reason for this?"

She feels him waving the papers behind her. Face buried in his shoulder, she shakes her head, almost falling apart with how relieved she is that he isn't pushing it. She wouldn't be able to explain the reasons for her actions in a way that would satisfy him. She's pleased that she doesn't have to try; she doesn't think she could lie to him about something so important, but wouldn't know what else to do. Swallowing thickly, she responds.

"No, Jem. It isn't. Promise."

"Aight, luv. Thanks."

He squeezes her extra tight before releasing her, looking carefully at her face, before grinning and regaling her with hammed up accounts of his (mis)adventures. Neither of them speak of the fact that Alex Rider is an orphan and an only child.

---

James had been 18 for 3 days when he gets a call from the resort Hannes worked at. Both Oberhausers are missing, presumed dead in a sudden storm that whited out the whole resort. He gets another call three weeks later, proclaiming that the two bodies have been recovered.

Alice had been expecting and dreading this information in equal parts. She doesn't notice how James' eyes narrow at her slightly off response. (It's part of why, decades later, it's so easy for him to believe Franz is still alive. Her response was upset, but also conflicted. She'd gotten on fairly well with both of them, and was a 14-year-old girl. He thought she should've been more distraught over the whole thing.) She knows that there's nothing to be done for it now, and throws herself into her studies, focusing most on Chemistry, Computers and PE. She refuses to be unprepared for her future.

James, ever the master of witty quips and reading her from miles away, sends her letters about his training at the Britannia Royal Naval College that leave her in stitches. She just tells him either to be so careful he doesn't get caught, so charming others won't let him take the fall, or so ostentatious that no-one can actually believe it was done.

---

Once completing her schooling, Alice goes on to work for a cosmetics company. As a result of the factories and offices being spread multinationaly, she learns some new languages, as well as brushing up on old ones. Due to her learning by immersion, James starts to pick up bits and pieces of them almost by accident as she writes to him in the language of the country she's currently based in. He returns the favour; part of his training has included terms at top British Universities, gaining him a First in Oriental Languages. Their communications start jumping languages as they grow more comfortable with them.

On her 18th birthday, James took her out drinking, being on leave at the time. He nearly breaks the hand of the man who tries to aggressively (unsuccessfully) flirt with her. She slaps his arm, but shoots him a grateful look none-the-less. The next day, recovering from a truly obscene amount of alcohol, she drags him to a tattoo parlour with her, to start getting some of the designs she wanted. She starts with the blue withered rose, aware that she's only going to get the line-art of it today. At the raised eyebrows, she huffed but explained it.

"Honestly Jem, don't give me that look. I like flower language, aight? A withered rose means death before dishonour, and a blue rose means impossibility. I thought it fit… me, ya know?"

She lies face down on the tattoo chair, raising the bottom of her top. The rose is going to follow the line of her spine. James sits down next to her, still looking intrigued.

"Oh? So what am I then?"

Hissing lightly at the cold of the alcohol to clean her skin for the tattooing to begin, she turns her face to the side to face him, slight grin curling the side of her mouth up. She doesn't even pretend to think about it before responding.

"Laurel leaves and snapdragon. And possibly nasturium."

Smirking, she settles in to her chair, prepared to wait him out and make him ask. Huffing unimpressed, but with amusement dancing across his face, he asks her to elaborate. Grin fully-fledged, she proceeds to do so.

"Laurel leaves denote victory, Jem, and snapdragons mean strength and concealment. And you are very good at hiding precisely how strong you are. Nasturium… that's battles, and journeys, and patriotism. I'll be honest, the first two I've been planning to have for a while. The third is new as of you deciding to join Her Majesty's Service."

He lets loose a bark of laughter. "HA! And what's the flower for ambition, luv? I'll need a reminder of you whilst you're off galivanting around the world."

"Hmm, ambitious would be a violet or a calendula. If, however, you want ambitious woman-" Her eyes sparkling with suppressed mirth, her tone affectionate "-it would be a white hollyhock instead."

At her next appointment, to get the colour and detailing put in, he comes as well, flower design in hand. He gets a greyscale design on the back of his shoulder that he doesn't let her see. The next letter she gets from him includes a photograph - a healed tattoo consisting of snapdragons and white hollyhocks.

---

Over the next few years, Alice acquires a total of 12 tattoos.

Some are visible to pretty much everyone.

Nobody ever sees all of them.

---

Her brother starts making eyes at pretty people, chatting them up with cheesy lines and drinks. She loses track of the number of beautiful women he takes back to his hotel room, or follow home on a night out. She starts to see the pattern to his conquests - the ones he follows home are pretty, certainly, but they're not anything special. The ones he brings back to the hotel, the ones he spends more than just a night of sex with… they're clever. They're sharp-eyed, sharper-tongued, and quick-witted. He likes them better if they can keep up with him, or outclass him in some way. She still doesn't meet many of them, but she only ever gets introduced to the clever ones.

He picks up men as well. He's a lot subtler about it, and it happens far less frequently, but she sees how his eyes sometimes trail after men at the bar. She almost laughs - his taste in men is much the same as his taste in women. Good-looking, and intelligent. She doesn't get introduced to any of the men he brings back, until one morning she accidently comes into the shared part of their suite before his partner for the night has quite left. They both freeze, staring at each other for a moment, until James follows the man out of his room.

Blinking, she smiles at them both, before getting on with her morning routine, teasing her brother and his lover until they start moving. He's certainly a very good looking man, and she can appreciate the chiaroscuro when seeing them side by side. Tonio is all long, lean dark tan, and chocolate curls, compared to her brothers golden skin and hair. He's also a very cheerful person, light-hearted banter flying through the room. He's charming enough to match her brother, and is the conquest that stays the longest that trip. James stops being quite so paranoid about keeping his male lovers an unknown, treating them more like the women he brings back. His standards for men remain higher than his standards for women. At times she thinks that his only requirements for getting with women are willing, and in possession of a pulse.

---

In 1991, laptops and internet burst into being. Ever paranoid, and more aware of the damage that can be done with the developing technology than anybody alive, she ensures that she stays on top of the technological upswing. It's getting more difficult, as computers are getting far more complex, but also easier; this is closer to the type of tech Before-her remembers using.

With all of the travelling her job has her doing, she's made contacts in several countries. She's also saved enough money to make her comfortable with striking out on her own. She's learned enough tricks of the trade and formulations to be able to tweak standard forms into what she wants. She starts a small company, focused on making cosmetics that can be used either for vanity purposes, or costume.

She also notices a couple of the people she spends time with flinch at loud noises, and always seem to be bruised. Riding ahead of the curve on cyber security, and pulling on Before-her's memories of working in the records department for the government, she discreetly offers them a way out, if they need it. A new identity, with cheap and flexible repayment. Some of them smile blandly at her and pretend they have no idea what she's talking about. Some of them ignore her. But some. Some get in touch with her at odd times, hold hushed conversations with her. And she helps set them up with a false job transfer overseas, where they tragically die in an accident, whilst setting them up with a new identity somewhere else, with job prospects that match their experience. Some are male, some female. Some move alone, others with children in tow.

It's about this time she starts to make a bit of a name for herself as an identity maker. Promptly deciding that no-one can be allowed to link her actions to herself, she all but removes her legal identity, gets a reputation for being a bit eccentric, and sets up her own false identity who's only known as Chet, who sets up identities. A lot of the identity side of the business happens online or through proxies, so no-one knows who, precisely, Chet is.

'Chet' came from Cheshire Cat, chosen for the irony of having a disappearing person being the one to make others disappear. She also accidentally makes a bit of a name for herself as a small-time hacker. She starts signing that work Toothsome, for the Cheshire Cat's toothsome grin. The fact that the names come from one of her favourite stories is inconsequential, of course.

---

Whilst on leave in 1991, Alice and James visit Portugal. Through a series of events she doesn't fully understand, nor want to ask about, she meets Tracy, a battered widow, whom James saved from drowning. They spend a fair amount of time together, during which it comes out that she is the heiress of a crime syndicate. Alice and James exchange a few dubious looks, but, well… they've never exactly been stellar examples of legal good. They're chaotic good, at best. So they spend time with her, trying to help her start to move through her depression. Alice watches fondly, but guardedly, as James and Tracy get closer.

Eventually her father, Marc-Ange, catches wind of what's happening with his only daughter, and "invites" them to his villa in Corsica. He is an effusive host, pleased that 'His Teresa' is coming out of her funk. He privately asks James to continue courting his daughter, as she is now more cheerful, and offers him the full resources of the Draco Syndicate as incentive. James is unimpressed. He and Alice both start writing to her, however. Alice gradually sees both of the two's letters to her start to include more and more about the other. Affection clearly grows and shows between the two of them. All of James' leaves start being taken in Corsica, with the Dracos, rather than travelling as they had before. Alice and Marc-Ange bond over seeing their favourite people slowly falling in love, and joint frustration at neither of them making a move.

Alice and Marc-Ange end up spending a lot of time together to give the love-sick fools privacy, hoping to induce a confession. They went for meals, he showed her around the famous landmarks of the island, and they attended concerts in the Eglise de Saint Jean Baptiste. He also catered to her curiosity about weaponry, and encouraged her to consult with his Research and Development team. Both sides came out pleased with their new explosives and poisons. She also made an offhand offer to help set up any of his people that needed a legal identity in England.

---

James finally proposed to Tracy in 1994, after keeping everyone around them in frustrated anticipation for three years. Marc-Ange hosted a magnificent engagement party, allowing him to show off to all his syndicate and allies. He also organised the most lavish wedding possible for his daughter and his new son. Eglise de Saint Jean Baptise was covered in flowers, and filled with jubilation as the two married.

Marc-Ange presented the happy couple with a Jaguar XJ220C as a wedding present, and sent them off to enjoy their honeymoon. Tragedy struck not long after their departure. Gunshot clearly audible to the remaining wedding party, Alice, Marc-Ange, and his security drove towards the sound like hounds from hell. An unknown car was speeding towards them, and careened off the side of the cliff when it collided with the incoming vehicles. Scrambling down the cliffside saw Alice reach the flipped car. Breaking through the glass, she saw that the men inside were dead. Snarling, she reached about inside until she came up with a rifle. Throwing it behind her for the Draco security to collect when they caught up to her, she stilled as she found a ring on the driver's left middle finger. Removing and pocketing it, she checked the gunman for it as well. Finding him without one, she frowned, but managed to find a diary and cheap phone which she chucks behind her as well.

At this point, the security team have arrived, and start to drag her away from the car as it's started to leak smoke like it's going to burn. Being ushered back up to the cars, she freezes when she sees James. He's sitting, shell-shocked, gazing at nothing. There's a stretcher covered in a white sheet in front of him and to the side. She spies a familiar shoe poking out the bottom. Rearing back in shock, her gaze jumps, taking in the destroyed windscreen of the jaguar, Marc-Ange's broken-hearted face, James’ blank look. Moving forward slowly, she squeezes Marc-Ange's shoulder as she passes him. Crouching in front of her brother, she tilted his face up to meet his gaze. Her heart tightened even further at the look in his eyes. Sitting next to him she turned his face to her neck and wrapped her arms around him. Slowly, he seemed to come back to himself slightly, arms rising, then suddenly clinging to her in a crushing grip. She could feel the hot streaks running down her neck. She held her position, hiding his sorrow, his 'weakness' as he perceives it, until he was ready to put himself back together enough to face the others.

He shuddered gently, before straightening. As he pulled away from her embrace, she saw his face hardening, becoming flinty, hard and unforgiving as steel. She watched the beginnings of fire and bloodlust rise in him, tries to cut it off with the information that the assailants are already dead. She watches as he hides the feral thing behind his eyes away, but it's not gone. Just waiting. He and Marc-Ange work in what should've been mildly terrifying synchronicity as they track down and destroy the guild that hired out the gunman. They can't find anything on the driver. No name, no history, no employer, nothing. She watches them snarl and rage, but eventually give up, dissatisfied.

Later, in her room, she considers the ring she pulled from the driver. She swallows her rage, lets it flow through her, banked but not burnt out. Her eyes shine with impotent fury. Even with Before-her's knowledge of how the story goes, she is helpless to do anything. She can't find Franz, or his people. She can't do anything. In the end, she hides the ring in the lining of her shoulder bag, and decides not to tell James about it. All she has is a ring. She can't explain the rest.

---

She and James never go back to Corsica after that.

---

When James gets recruited to a branch of the SIS in 1998, he all but begs her to remove her legal identity completely. She acquiesces, leaving all records to show James Bond as an orphaned only child. No attachments. It takes a good three months after her changes for anyone to go looking for other family members. James never said who his mysterious penpal was, so when she takes a peek into his MI6 file, she nearly laughs herself sick when she sees that she's presumed to be a paramour. Then she cries as she remembers Tracy.

She sets her new life up as Alice Liddell.

---

On December 21st, 1999, she gets absolutely shit-faced drunk. She looks at the birth registry the next day to see if anyone called Evelyn Lott was born. She can't decide if she's pleased or not that no such person exists. James watches her worriedly for the rest of the holiday after that, even if she tries to pretend that it never happened. She's mostly thankful that he put up with being aggressively snuggled for the day after with no explanations.

As James leaves, he presses his dog tags into her hand. Something about the look on his face, the way she can't quite identify it, the intensity of it, halts any questions she might've asked. She nods solemnly, unsure what exactly she's agreed to. The dog tags get dropped around her neck, down her shirt. They're never taken off.

---

In 2002 she starts sneaking her way through the cyber-security of MI6 on a regular basis. She keeps track of her brother's file, and starts editing some of the more frivolous coding in an attempt to get them to up their firewalls. Disturbingly, no-one seems to notice. She finds traces of someone who started making a name for themselves about five years earlier, known as Rata. He's started making more waves since, but the coding she'd seeing would have to be older than that. She's too busy chasing the holes in security to pay much attention to the pieces of code, though she has a niggling feeling that there's something she's missing.

Horrified to discover that she's starting to lose track of the details of Before-her's stories, she writes the abridged form of them down. (She never does check the programming. She regrets it later.)

---

She's been paranoid about the security of her personal tech, but has managed to secure a pair of cheap phones and a headset. The headset she links with her phone, certain calls coming straight through to her. The other she gives to James, with instructions to call her on that phone if he ever needs anything, such as an identity, weaponry, her company, etc. Calls from that phone always come straight through to her. Remembering Before-her's stories, she also insists that he memorise the number for her phone so that he can still call her if anything happens to his.

Her small cosmetics company has started to expand, as has her more illicit business in new identities. She has 3 members of Marc-Ange's Syndicate hiding in the cover of her company whilst they check the legitimacy of some rumours. She and Marc-Ange have kept up contact somewhat through the years since Tracy's death. James couldn't bear to. From Marc-Ange she receives whispers of things coming, of a madman, of a shadowy organisation that no-one can pinpoint. She sends back rumours of people moving in on his territory, of American agents attempting to infiltrate his number, of a group she's only heard of as Quantum. Any information relevant to James' life that comes to her reaches him. The only thing she's kept from him for any length of time is the ring she pulled from the driver all those years ago. She mentions the unknown affiliation when talking about the shadowy organisation. James is… not very impressed, but accepts her reasoning for delaying the reveal.

There are two major outside events in her life during 2006. One is that her brother gains Double-Oh status. James Bond, 007. The other is a brilliant new programmer appearing, known only as Query.

---

Then she finds out he's being sent to a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro, held at Casino Royale.

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