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penguinwithitsarseonfire · 4 years

Text

Comin' At My Friends Like a Missile

| Part 1 | Part 2 |

Paring: 12th Doctor x Reader

Word Count: 2,859

Warnings: a passive aggressive homophobic character (which plays a role in the plot)

Summary: The Doctor takes you, Bill, and Nardole to a fair on a distant planet to try what he says is "the best Candy Floss in the Universe". It’s incredibly busy, and it is almost impossible to find a seat, and Nardole uses it as an opportunity to set you and the Doctor up.

A/N: I just finished reading a duology recently (Crier’s War, amazing) so, inspired by that, this will be a duology too! The next and final part will be out same time next week. (this part hasn’t be edited due to technically difficulties).

The Doctor wasn’t kidding when he said this fair was home to the “best candy floss in the universe”. The area in front of the booth was packed, with people squished up against each other like it was a mosh pit, and not like it was a queue for candy floss.

You stood on your tiptoes, trying to reach the Doctor’s height as the pair of you scanned for somewhere the four of you could sit. It was no use, the Doctor was standing on a box.

“Which is cheating, by the way,” You told him when you petulantly brought up the box again. You had to shout to be heard, the crowd around you was deafening. “You’re tall enough as it is.”

Above you, the Doctor huffed. “I’ve got better eyesight than you, it’s schematics.”

“Uh huh,” you sighed under your breath, then gripped onto his arm so you could balance yourself.

The fair was lively, to say the least. The candy floss booth was in the centre of what seemed to be a food court - if that’s what you could even call it. There wasn’t any rhyme or reason to it, with different shacks set up in a hodgepodge collection, and a myriad of tents scattered behind, where, you assumed, people could eat and relax. It was loud, and you heard snatches of conversation from a family passing by, but you paid little attention to it.

You nudged the Doctor’s box with your shoe, belatedly wondering where the hell he’d found the thing. “So it’s not just your incessant need to be bigger, taller, and more important than everyone else then?”

The Doctor looked down at you. “Y/N,” he said, utterly aghast. “I don’t need to stand on a box for that.”

You rolled your eyes at that, trying not to grin. “So Doctor, what do your elven eyes see?”

The Doctor screwed up his face, his eyebrows hiding his eyelashes. “My what?” He groaned. “Really? Lord of the Rings?”

“The Uruks have turned northeast,” Bill cried out, running up beside you. You turned to see where Nardole was, who was slowly bumbling his way up to you all. “They are taking the hobbits to Isengard!”

You laughed in delight. “You’ve read Lord of the Rings?”

“Nah,” she said. “Saw the movies though.” Bill was bubbling, bouncing up and down on the spot. She must have been really excited to try this candy floss.

You didn’t blame her, apparently it changed colours.

Nardole came up beside you, giving Bill a slight look of disbelief. “The movies, only the movies?”

“Arwen,” Bill said. “Need I say more.”

You hummed in agreement, she was completely right, after all.

You put your feet back firmly on the ground. “So what did you guys find?”

“Well,” Nardole said. “There’s good news and annoying news.”

“That’s not really how the phrase works, but continue.”

“They’ve got tables for us,” Bill said. “The Doctor was right, we just waved the psychic paper at them and boom, instant tables.”

“Tables,” the Doctor said. “No, that won’t work.”

“That’s where the annoying news comes in,” Nardole said.

You gave Bill a look of bafflement, one that she returned. “Alright,” You turned to look up at the Doctor. “What’s wrong with tables?”

“Tables, as in plural,” The Doctor clarified. “Not what we want.”

“Yeah,” Nardole drew out the word. “They don’t have space for a group of four, they only have space for two groups of two.”

Bill shrugged. “I’m honestly fine with it, I just want to try this candy floss.”

“Yeah alright, I’m good with it too then,” You tugged the Doctor’s coat, getting his attention. “I don’t think it’s as big of a deal as you’re making it out to be. We can split up.”

The Doctor grumbled something, you caught snatches of it, something about it not being the experience he wanted, but the crowd was so loud that you couldn’t completely make it out.

“Well,” Nardole clapped his hands together. “Let’s go.”

You yanked the Doctor, causing him to stumble off the box, and the pair of you followed Nardole and Bill. You sidestepped people in the crowd, trying not to trip on the uneven dirt path, and soon arrived at the tent.

A security guard glanced over the four of you, nodded at Nardole, and pulled the flap of the tent back.

“Oh,” you gasped as you went inside. It was… well, it was beautiful. The inside of the tent was a rich mahogany, and was lined with golden embroidery which snaked its way into the roof. The great big pole holding the tent up was a dusty gold, which looked worn down by age.

There were dozens of voices that littered the area, but it wasn’t nearly as loud as it was outside, you could hear yourself think, you could hear yourself breathe.

The smell of sugar hit your nose as you spun around, trying to take in everything all at once, from the white tables, the myriad of rugs that littered the floor, and the floating candle trays that dotted the tent and lit up the room. The smell was sweet and slightly tangy, and was pretty foreign to you.

You loved it, you absolutely loved it.

You turned to the Doctor with a grin. “This is incredible,” you gushed. “Completely incredible.”

“Yeah,” Bill said, her face split into a wide, overjoyed smile of her own. “Thank you so much for this.”

The Doctors face broke out into a small smile at your reactions. “I’m pretty good at ideas, so I’ve been told.”

Nardole gave you a considered look, and you tried not to squirm under his gaze. “Hey Bill,” he said, still looking at you. “Wanna buddy up?”

You narrowed your eyes at Nardole. He did not just do that.

Bill shrugged. “Yeah sure, alright. You’re getting the candy floss for us though, yeah?”

“Could you get some for all of us?” The Doctor asked, his gaze focusing on you.

“Yeah of course,” Nardole winked at you, giving you a wry smirk, and you glared at him. “C’mon Bill,” he said, completely satisfied with the outcome. “Let’s find our table.”

You watched them walk off for a moment, trying to shake off whatever awkward tension had grown between you and the Doctor. It was in your head right? It had to be in your head. Then it dawned on you. “Oh my god we don’t know where our table is.”

You and the Doctor stared at each other for a moment before you burst into laughter. The Doctor chuckled with you, and stood to your side.

“If I had to guess,” he said. “I’d say it would be that table there,” he pointed at one of the only tables that was deserted, and it was pretty close to Nardole and Bills table.

You nudged his side. “It’s rude to point.”

“Ah yes, duly noted.”

You had barely sat down when you noticed it. You had been looking around the room, enthusing over just how breath-taking the embroidered detail was on the tent, or the wonder in the various different people were here, from their clothes, their alien antennae, and their odd cords that they used for communication.

Bill was ramrod straight in her chair. There was a stranger standing across from her, leaning against Nardole’s chair. Bill was giving the stranger an impossibly fake smile, the kind of smile you hadn't realised she was capable of.

Then again, Bill worked in the food service industry, so you really should have known better.

You felt the Doctor tense beside you, and in an instant he was suddenly standing, pulling you up with him. You were disorientated for a moment, finding your footing before you tried to work out why the hell you were both standing.

He was glaring at the stranger, his eyebrows screwed up into his patented (or, well, if they weren’t patented, they really should be) 'attack eyebrows'.

Oh no.

He took a step forward and you reached out to stop him. It had surprised you, lately, that he let you touch him as much as you now did. He let his hand fall over yours for a second, acknowledging your presence. "What are you doing?" You hissed, trying to stay silent so you didn't draw the attention of the mingling crowds that were around you.

He gestured to the stranger. "That woman-"

You slapped his hand. "No pointing."

He turned to face you, doing what you assumed he presumed was a glare but, honestly, was more like a pout. "-Is saying some incredibly harmful things, and I'm going to stop it."  

You cursed his timelord hearing and placed your hand on his chest, holding him back so you could gauge Bill’s body language, the last thing you wanted was to cause a scene.

Bills jaw was set and it looked as though her smile was plastered on. Beyond that, she looked like she had the situation well in hand.

You looked at the Doctor, mustering your best stern expression. "Bill’s capable, you know she is. You don’t need to rush in and play hero, that’s not what she always needs. Let’s just sit with her and provide support, have her back."

The Doctor’s face fell into a genuine pout as he weighed up your suggestion – it was actually pretty adorable. Then he rolled his eyes. “Yes, alright, fine. You’ve got a point.”

He stalked forward and you followed, heading to the table. He walked around the table so he was on the far side, and you slid in on the closest side. It meant that the pair of you were sitting either side of Bill, flanking her. Moral support.

You squeezed her leg under the table, and she looked to you in gratitude.   

"Hello, I don't think we've met," The Doctor said, sticking his hand out to the stranger. "I'm the Doctor."  

You frowned at his outstretched hand, since when did the Doctor shake hands? The stranger took his hand and immediately winced. You almost groaned as the stranger took her hand back, cradling it in the other.

Ah okay, so a power play. That was why the Doctor was suddenly shaking hands.

“And you are?” She asked, nodding to you.

“Hm?” You placed your elbow on the table, leaning your hand onto your fist. “Oh sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” you lied, and you felt Bill stifle a laugh beside you. “Could you repeat what you said?”

The stranger blinked a few times, straightened her smile, then cleared her throat. In that order. It was quite disconcerting. “I said my name is Karen, and you are?”

Karen. Huh, okay. So the stereotype transcended planets, apparently.

You introduced yourself, not offering your hand. “So” you continued, and you knew you had been behaving a bit rudely, so you aimed to be more polite. Bill didn’t need a hero. “What are you doing here?"

"Well," Karen sat down opposite the three of you, taking Nardole’s seat. Bill tensed beside you and it was clear to you that Karen had never been offered that seat. "We were discussing, oh, I'm sorry, I really have forgotten. What was it you called it?"

Bill stuck her chin out, her eyes going slightly manic as her smile grew. "The LGBTQ+ community."  

Karen chuckled, it sounded hollow and empty. "Ah that's right, the LGB, C, D, E, F G+ community," she laughed again and the sound crawled down your spine. Okay, so this is what the Doctor meant when he said 'incredibly harmful things'.

You reached your hand that was under the table across Bills lap and held the Doctor knee. You heard his chair squeak slightly, and you knew he was relaxing back into the chair.

No heroics.

"I was just asking your friend here earlier," Karen continued. "You do realise it's a sickness don't you?"

You blinked, pursing your lips slightly. You felt for Bills hand, which was clenched in a fist, and rested yours over it.

Right, so apparently alien planets had homophobes too.

You followed Bills lead, you could humour this woman.

"Are you sick?" You asked, and you forced yourself to sound curious, genuinely interested, like you had actually misunderstood what she had said. "Maybe you should go home then, rest up?"

Karen rolled her eyes and gave you a condescending smile. "No silly, I'm saying your friend is unnatural."

You took in a heavy breath, anger spiking in your chest. You squeezed Bill’s hand again, and nudged her shoulder lightly. Contact was the kind of thing that was important in times like this, it was grounding.

You heard the Doctor’s chair screech and you tapped his foot with yours. It squeaked again and in the corner of your eye you saw his fluffy head sit back.

Bill touched her face lightly, frowning slightly. "Hm, no, sorry," She put her hand onto the table. "I've never had work done, not that there's anything wrong with it of course-"

"See, you were doing this earlier,” Karen’s voice was completely patronising, sticky sweet and awful. “I thought your friends here would give you more sense," She was gripping the table cloth, her knuckles white. "I'm saying, as a woman, which you are – right, that you should be with a man."

You felt sick, it was as though her words were manifesting themselves into actual dirt and grime, then caking you in it. It was grotty.

"Like a bodyguard?" The Doctor asked, catching onto what Bill was doing, what she had probably been doing this whole time, before either you or the Doctor had arrived.

God she was wonderful, you were so proud of her.

Bill nudged your shoulder and you followed her lead, staring at the Doctor with her. "Do you mean him?" She stuck her thumb out to the Doctor, who blinked at the pair of you in confusion. "Because he's not really a bodyguard, he��s more like… a taxi driver."

"No," She spat, then visibly stopped herself. She was leaning into the table and you watched her sit back, fixing her posture and painting on that ridiculous fake smile. “I’m saying," she enunciated the words very slowly. "You should be with a man, for a partner."

"What would I need a partner for," Bill laughed but it was a bit forced "I'm not given any group assignments these days, just a lot of essays."  

"The essays I give you are great though," The Doctor defended, which bubbled out an actual laugh from both you and Bill.

Karen groaned so loudly that it almost sounded like a screech. "Oh you two are no better than her, are you?"  

Bill seemed exhausted, and it was then that you realised that this had probably gone on far enough. There was only so long you could go irritating a homophobe before it started to drain on your own mental health too.

"If you're looking for prejudice in this squad you're not going to find it, if that's what you mean." You said simply, plainly. It was a challenge though, she knew it was a challenge, everyone at the table knew it was a challenge.

The Doctor poked his head above Bills to look at you, screwed up his face in confusion, and a mouthed the word 'squad' at you.

You waved him off with the hand that had been supporting your head.

“The difference between you and I,” Bill said. “Is that I’ve got an actual understanding of what love is. And once you learn that, it’s freeing, it’s – it’s liberating.”

Bill leaned into the table slightly, looking at Karen with sincere remorse. “You’re never gonna have that, and I’m so sorry for you.

“As long as you stay trapped in your own prejudice, you’ll never get to learn or experience the full vastness and depth that love has to offer.

“And that’s gotta be the most awful thing someone could ever face. You’re gonna miss out on all these different amazing people, and all these different wonderful experiences – and you’re never even gonna know.

“And you know what the worst thing is; that’s on you. Not me or anyone else, just you.”

Karen swallowed, her bottom lip quivering. You didn’t blame her, Bill’s speech – just, wow, it had been something else. You were insanely impressed, Bill had such a brilliant way with words, and this innate sense of compassion inside her, you couldn’t imagine anyone else conceptualising and saying anything like she had.

“If you could please leave my friend alone now,” the Doctor said, trying to cut through the heavy blanket that was laid over you all. “That’d be appreciated.”

Karen huffed, standing abruptly and stalking off.

The Doctor popped his lips together and turned to you. “Wanna head back outside?”

Bill swallowed, nodding slightly. “Uh – yeah, um, that’s a good idea.”

You wrapped your arm around her, squeezing her against you. “Hey, you did really good there, freakin brilliant. That speech was something else.”

Bill leaned into you. “Yeah, uh, thanks.”

The Doctor pulled out his glasses, tapping away at the side of the rims. “I’ll let Nardole know.”

#the doctor x reader #twelfth doctor imagine #12th doctor x reader #twelfth doctor x reader #12th doctor #Bill Potts #Nardole #Doctor Who #DW

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veinereastath · 3 years

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hi there again (I'm the anon from the Eredin age ask, btw, thank you for the answer!! I like your theory). i wanted to ask one more thing - how did you play around with pairing aen elle with a human? not that I have something against it, hell naw, but I'm wondering whether making Rhan a human was somehow important for your plot, or did you just decide it for no bigger reason?

I like your questions, Nonny! I really do~

~ Also, sorry in advance - this is a long answer. I wanted to make it short, but.. I guess I usually go to far with asks, probably because I’m just too excited, duh.

Okay, first things first - pairing Aen Elle with a human is sick. :”) To some extent, I presume. I would never go for it if not for the canon Lara Dorren x Cregennan of Lod story, because that gives some mild suggestion that, technically, such a relationship is possible. Even more interesting, the romance between them was more bothering for humans than elves, so it’s also a little point for my evil little abomination that I created.

About how it started - I created Rhan (or, actually, loose concept of her) in late 2015 / early 2016 [I started my journey with this universe in September 2015 where I played Witcher 3, and after finishing it I swallowed the whole saga by Sapkowski in less than two weeks]. Fun fact - she was an elf at this point, Aen Elle, actually, with a totally different backstory than what we have now. But me, being me, always digging human x elf / demon / whatever the hell you can come out with relationships - it wouldn’t work, it was too boring for me, so I scrapped that early concept and started nibbling, slowly and lazily, at something new. I think that the first ideas that are actually what Rhan is today started appearing in my head during summer vacations in 2016 (gosh, why am I giving so many pointless details, sorry anon).

Let’s get back on the grid - the main problem I have with Eredin is that he’s one of that characters that doesn’t have much screenbooktime. The whole Tir na Lia plot takes about 40 pages I think, and Eredin has maybe 15 pages in total. It’s not much when we have 5 books + about a dozen or so smaller stories [and Season of Storms, but it came out much, much later]. But what I could pick up was that:

Aen Elle are a fucked up race, and that’s a fact, but, honestly - 90% of the Witcher universe is either genocidal, racist, or both, or worse,

Eredin is genocidal and racist, and, even more... complicating, the whole "Ciri in Tir na Lia” plot puts Eredin, Avallac’h and Auberon in position of rapists, because putting a woman in someone else’s bed without her permission is rape,

he’s that lovely, dark and highly intelligent manipulative type. :”)

It’s quite a feat, because everyday I get around 3-4 new little ideas for their story, but only 1 at best makes it to the “next step”, because there are many things I have to consider - first is, 98% of soft and fluffly things just won’t work with Eredin. They just won’t, but somehow I’m fine with that, I was never a fluffly-tropes kind of person. Second is, Rhan x Eredin relationship is difficult on every level: the race difference is obvious, but there is also age, for example, and all the time I have this little devil in the back of my head reminding me of the “the old, kinda supernatural being falls in love with a young woman” trope: *cough* Twilight *cough*. The worst thing that could happen is making Eredin OOC somehow. But that’s always the biggest fear when shipping OC x canon, I presume.

So, in order to make myself feel better, in nearly every piece of story with them I write I put that huge doubt, mostly on Rhan’s side, how the hell this could work and her little panic when after some time she realizes where her feelings are going, because while Aen Elle x human might have indeed a chance of happening again, even after Lara Dorren x Cregennan, it’s still wrong on nearly every level. When that Aen Elle is Eredin, it’s even worse.

The very definition of “falling in love” itself also kinda feels weird when Eredin is taken into consideration, imo, so that’s another thing I have to live with every day (but hey, I love suffering, so it’s all good, right).

Moving on - I decided that if this is supposed to work, Rhan should probably be as most non-human human as I can, while still somehow keeping that “humanity” in her, because... If I wanted to de-human her entirely, why not just make her an elf and be done with it? That’s why I decided that while yes, she was born on Skellige and is 100% human, I will put her in Brokilon, make her live and learn from the dryads, and then put her right in the middle of Scoia’tael to give her the deep understanding of elven culture and way of life. The final effect is that while Rhan is human in terms of how she looks like (no diamond-cutting cheekbones in her, baby~) and tends to show a more fiery side of her temperament here and there, she behaves like an elf in about 85% of the case - to make it more “real” I added small headcanon things that could potentially fit elves, at least Aen Seidhe, the way the greet each other, thank eatch other for help, share their emotions etc., so after just a few days Eredin realizes “well, she’s human, but she does not behave like one, and does not move or fight like one”. It’s barely a deal for him at this point, but it’s the first, microscopic step towards moving their relationship onto some normal ground.

Another thing - this relationship could not happen fast. While Rhan is a sorceress and, indeed, has an increased lifespan thanks to magic, she is still a human and the biggest human thing in her is that she perceives time like humans do - every minute, hour, week is important to her, while Aen Elle can wait decades and not be too much bothered by it. So something long and lazy from Rhan’s perspective would be a blink of an eye for Eredin, especially since I stick to that headcanon that he must be at least 300 years old - at this age elves are pretty much done with everything, they’ve seen nearly everything, and they just don’t care that much about time, and they get quite bored with each other (sex-wise, as Avallac'h said to Geralt in Tower of The Swallow).

Though, on the side note, the books heavily suggest that Eredin is, indeed, impatient; something that kinda costed the Aen Elle losing the Elder Blood and Auberon at the same time, because he would probably live if not for Eredin’s hasty attempt to speed things up.

Huh, what else could I say... Ah, right, time. I wanted to mention that I made their relationship take a long time to just go from “you’re just a trophy” to “you’re tolerable” to “alright, I consider you to be a living being and slightly appreciate what you’re doing to Aen Seidhe elves in your world” to “I respect you” to “I would not die for you, but I would kill for you”. I’m still not entirely sure how much time I want it to take, but one decade is an absolute bare fricking minimum. Recently I’m kind of going more into putting it into a span of 20-25 years, actually. And it’s still not that much for Aen Elle elf.

What else... Ah, to figure out how the hell would Eredin even consider taking her alive, instead of killing her on the spot after she got trapped in Tir na Lia for the second time (in case you don’t know - I gave Rhan a highly unstable magic; she can’t create portals, because they always throw her to the place that is full of powerful magic, and doesn’t care for worlds barriers - and Tir na Lia is literally full of it), I went with the very long and tiring chase sequence; Rhan was able to run away for 5 days before she got captured, with barely any sleep available at that time, to kinda give this whole thing a vibe of an exciting (for Eredin, that is) chase, that is something new and interesting after the routine that is unicorn hunting / raiding human villages. The Raven Haired Bastard managed to be slightly, just sliiightly impressed by how long she was able to play this game, slipping from his riders by mere inches. Slightly. But that’s already some kind of a start to make it at least somehow believable. At least for my mind and my imagination.

And yes, I know he chased Ciri as well, but in her case it was a matter of life and death, because Eredin needed her blood, it was a matter of survival of the whole race, not chase for fun. In case of Rhan, it's more of a free-time challenge, a hunt for a difficult, but not that important prey. Aaand I don't like Cirilla, but that's another thing, yikes

... God, it was not supposed to be this long, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t make it shorter. And there are still probably things that I would like to mention, but just can’t think about them right now.

Moral of the story is - I dig complicated, dark and difficult relationships. I always go for them. Well, in 99% of the case.

#long post alert #sorry in advance #but THANK you for this ask #I live for answering questions about my OCs #Rhan an Undvik #Rhan x Eredin #Anonymous

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kiivg · 4 years

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I was so obsessed with you’re art! It seemed like no one else did Dorian/Blackwall and Kruber/Saltzpyre stuff, artwork or otherwise. And then all the dedication you put into drawing and writing for No One was so amazing. Loved your stuff then, and still love it now! Happy you’re still around and kicking, King!

.Obsessed? Thank you, that’s so sweet. I can’t imagine someone else finding a passion for the things I make. I do rather like being the person who makes those tiny ships, and I can’t tell you how many people have tagged my Dorian/Blackwall things with “I should have thought of this ship years ago”. I’m reminded of my Alistair/Gaspard stuff, I made people ship that, I made people like that. Fantastic. There’s too much power in art.

.Enjoy No One on a horse, though, I’ve never actually been up close to a horse, so maybe my size ratio is bad, because I have heard too many horror stories from my father about them. I have heard too many stories of my parents being chased by large animals, and that’s… suspicious. No One, as he is now, on a horse of perhaps odd size?. (Ramblings below.)

.I mean, because you mentioned No One and my almost zealous writing of his story, I want to write a bit about Not That Kind of Man. Simply because I love it. It’s a thing that’s explorative for me, being able to delve into my own characters and figure out little things about them I wouldn’t have otherwise thought about.

.Like, an example, Andrastopher Cousland my Hero of Ferelden, and his relationship with his brother Fergus. Now Andrastopher has massive issues regarding what canonically happened at Castle Cousland, and because of this he fortified the castle, like to the point that other nobles think he’s mad for doing it, and he keeps Fergus in there when he can. Not like a prisoner or anything, but he has mercenaries patrolling the halls, he has people able to deliver him a message in mere moments if need be. All because he wants to keep Fergus safe. Hell, he even rides day and night to reach the castle in NTKoM because he thinks Fergus is danger.

.Andrastopher’s love for his brother is maddening. He won’t let anything happen to him, he knows that if Fergus is in peril, he will defend him, until he himself perishes first. But, it’s not reciprocated. Not in the same way. Fergus, I think, doesn’t realise what Andrastopher went through. They both lost family; they both count their dead together. But Andrastopher saw it, Andrastopher suffered it, and Andrastopher survived it, if only for that night.

.If I hadn’t written NTKoM, I would have just kept them friendly as brothers.

.But, I know, that Fergus does things to Andrastopher, and Andrastopher forgives him (unknowingly I think) because Fergus can do no wrong. Fergus is his brother, and Andrastopher loves him. One of the things he does it cut Andrastopher’s hair. Which seems silly, really, I mean you’d be annoyed about that if your sibling did that to you, but it’s nothing major. Except, if anyone can remember what Andrastopher looked like, he had extremely long hair; and in NTKoM it is described as “unsightly when the wet ends stick to his arse” more or less, I don’t have the exact quote. And he takes pride in his hair, and the reason why is revealed in the chapter I’m writing now.

.“[Annette, Andrastopher’s ex-wife] knew of haircare, and she had pampered [Andrastopher] in his youth, whence bathing himself was a difficult thing… It was one of the things that had kept him alive back then, something most would have laughed at, just one thing that made him feel less disfigured, less monstrous.”.

.And Fergus cuts it off because he wants Andrastopher to look more like a nobleman than the barbarian that he makes himself out to be, just so that he might impress Sophia, the woman that Fergus is currently courting. He doesn’t care for Andrastopher’s feelings over it, he just does it without thought of why his brother has kept his hair so ungodly long.

.And, again, I wouldn’t have known this without writing NTKoM.

.But, it isn’t the only thing. I know a whole bunch about my OCs that I wouldn’t otherwise have though of. Like, No One can’t swim and can’t actually walk in boots anymore, Goddard Trevelyan is afraid of pretty much every animal, Marcus Hawke has pretty much hidden an entire village with magic, Andrastopher doesn’t drink alcohol, Lei can’t remember names for shit. And there’s more, but I’m not one for revealing all my story factors before I’ve written them in.

.Anyway, if you’re still reading this, I want to explain more about NTKoM’s basics.

.On the surface it looks like 600k of sloppy Blackwall/OMC drivel that doesn’t sound appealing. I mean, strange stinky werewolf falls in love with strange stinky bear? Not the story I’d read realistically. And I know that my writing in the beginning is somewhat awful and vulgar (I was learning!) but it’s so much better now.

.And it’s so much more. Early on it’s mostly No One and Thom, and it’s written like that because No One doesn’t want anything to do with anyone else. Only, Goddard sees him, and he has his own questions, and he has an Inquisition to ask them. And what happens when a demon wolf ravages Skyhold? You request the only family in Thedas who have a heritage in hunting the things down, because they’ll be the best. So Andrastopher arrives, with new knowledge, and his eyes are sharp, and No One cannot hide from a man who has learnt how to recognise his enemies and allies in just a second. Perhaps Goddard asks one too many questions, finds out a history he didn’t know he had, finds out he fathered a child some twenty years ago. That’s Lei. Bastard born, half-elven, strong-willed and strong-jawed.

.There are a fair few storylines that run parallel to one another, actions that No One takes that affect Andrastopher’s story, Goddard’s decisions which alter Blackwall’s path. Many things just like that, throughout, and, right now, I’m at the point (almost) when everything converges back. The next chapter, I think, will be when everyone of my characters are back in Skyhold, and that is the beginning of the end. Amidst the stone walls there will be murder, triumph, revelations on a dozen tongues to a thousand ears. And everything will come together, to the final point of the story I began almost four years ago, when I thought of a repentant Chevalier named No One whilst I was in the shower.

.And, I think, honestly, it’s worth a read. I know it’s terribly long, and it’s only bound to get longer. In my notes I’ve written that there’s only three months left of this story, though I do tend to write day-by-day in NTKoM, there will be some drastic time passage for a certain reason. Granted those three months will take me a long time to write, and I won’t lie about that. But it’s just so brilliant, and it’s just fantastic.

.And. I’m certain it would be so much more popular if it was Solas or Cullen that I wrote about.

.Only, it’s not just No One/Blackwall that I write about explicitly, though they probably have the most amount of smutty scenes. I wrote about Goddard and his wife, Yetta, then Andrastopher and Zevran, No One and Caldwell, Blackwall and Raas, Goddard and Florent in the past, hell, I even mention The Iron Bull and that Orlesian dragon enthusiast that I cannot remember the name of. And background couples! The Iron Bull and Dorian become something, Quincy and Kina become a couple, and Lei has too many crushes! I am building up to something deliciously smutty, however, and I cannot wait to get to it.

.Plus, I have this big family tree I’m remaking because I’m adding more characters to it, I currently have 215 names on it, because I’m hellish. I’m two hours in and this is where I’m at.

.Ah! I just want to talk about it all day. I really wish people would read it. It’s difficult to explain the plotline to people in real life when you’ve got a dozen storylines with a dozen characters to each one, and you’ve knowledge of over half a century of this story wrapped up in your head.

.I wrote 7k words the other day, and about 4.5k of that was a smutty scene to begin the lovely chapter 60. Can you believe?.

.Thank you for the ask!.

#anonymous #answer #ntkom #no one #oc

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queen-scribbles · 5 years

Text

At All Costs

For @pillarspromptsweekly fill 98: Reputation. Broke out Josetta again and regret nothing. Title is the name of the quest, because I couldn’t think of anything better.

---

She was late. Josetta cursed under her breath as she hurried through the streets toward Ondra’s Gift. She hadn’t been late once yet the whole time working for Mestre Verzano. Tempted as she’d been a time or two--it had to be the most mind-numbingly dull job in all Defiance Bay--she had been raised to keep her word. And even if Mestre Verzano wouldn’t care, Liena almost definitely would, and Josetta had no desire for a black mark on her record.

She neatly dodged between people, silently thanking Hylea at least the Gift wasn’t as busy at this hour as Copperlane or Brackenbury. Despite her best efforts, however, Liena fixed her with a chastising look when she swept through the door.

“Oversleep, did we?” she asked blandly. “I warned you all the midnight oil you burn would catch up to you.”

Josetta rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I was awake in plenty of time. The delay came from spilling my breakfast all down my front because I tripped over a loose board. Had to change, ac? And then got caught by the bustle and crowds I’m usually early enough to avoid...” She ran one hand over her braids, even though she knew all seven were still firmly done from last night. Nedra had helped, and old as the woman was, her braids were still top-notch.

“Since it’s the first time in nine months, I won’t mark it down,” Liena conceded with a small smile. “You are a hard worker, Josetta, and more reliable than most.” She snorted and jerked her head toward the back room. “The old man’s so distracted today, he likely won’t even notice.”

“Agracima, Liena,” Josetta smiled in relief. She hung up her cloak and hurried to the warehouse stockroom, russet skirt swirling around her ankles.

Mestre Verzano was standing in the stockroom, calling out directions to the other workers as he played with his dinged up old pocket watch. He definitely seemed just as agitated as Liena hinted, and indeed didn’t even acknowledge Josetta as she passed on her way to the accounting stations. “...should be here by now....” he was muttering.

Bennet flashed a knowing look, and his lips curved in a smirk when he saw her. “I keep telling you South Alley’s faster, Jos.”

Josetta rolled her eyes. “Ac, because nothing would happen to a woman alone traveling that route.”

“Not during the day,” Bennet clarified, nudging his spectacles higher on the bridge of his nose. “I’m not saying it’s a good path home, just that during daylight hours there’s enough kith you should be safe, but not so many you’re late for work. Just keep it in mind for emergencies, is all I’m suggesting.”

“Suggestion noted,” Josetta said crisply, settling on her stool. “What are we working on this morning?”

“Bills of lading.” Bennet gave her an exaggerated smile as he passed over a thick sheaf of parchment. “Have fun.”

It could be worse, she reminded herself as she scanned the cramped or near-illegible rows of handwriting that covered the pages. You could still be at that tavern. Or working for the seamstress. At least here there’s sunlight and no one pinching your backside. It didn’t mean the morning’s work would be any more fun, but the perspective did help.

Josetta had been at work for a couple hours, carefully copying lists of goods received and their value to the company records, when Mestre Verzano had a visitor. There was only one reason--well, two--he would have visitors at the company office, and the tan, rough-clad elven woman definitely didn’t look like a Trading Company representative.

“Merla,” she hissed.

Bennet looked up from his ledgers at her quiet oath and groaned in disbelief. “Is he at it again?”

Josetta nodded, rubbing her eyes as Mestre Verzano made brief small talk with the elf before handing her a small bag. “Postenago’s going to get himself killed and we’ll be working for the Doemenels before the month is out.”

“With your dreams, I wouldn’t have figured you for such a pessimist, Jos,” Bennet said dryly as they watched the elf leave. Mestre Verzano approached one of the warehouse guards and murmured something to him.

“There’s nothing pessimistic about knowing how the world works, Bennet,” she sighed. “Side dealing around a crime family always catches up to you. And the Doemenels have already given him several warnings. Knowing what comes next is no more pessimistic than knowing what Nedra’s serving for dinner tonight.”

He shrugged and grunted a concession and they got back to work.

---

It was only an hour, maybe a little more, before the elf returned with friends at her back. “Care to explain why the Doemenels want you dead?” she asked, loudly and without preamble. “What the fuck did you have me do?”

Josetta and Bennet exchanged a look and slid off their stools, edging closer to the doorway so they could hear.

Just in time to see Mestre Verzano’s eyes widen as he tugged on his beard. “They were there? I was so careful. they shouldn’t have known, how did they know?”

The warehouse guards tensed at his agitation, a few laying hands on weapons as slow, measured footsteps approached.

“Maybe you were right,” Bennet muttered. Josetta tossed him an almost sarcastic smile in response.

The footsteps were not one of the Doemenels. They belongs to a tall, imposing woman Josetta vaguely recognized. She was a mes Rèi; god-touched, member of the Five Suns and the only connection the ducs bels deigned to keep with Mestre Verzano. usually bringing reprimands or warning. Today she paused in the doorway, arms crossed as a darkly humored smile tugged at her lips. “Ah, is this your last day among the living, Verzano?”

“Impeccable timing, Tella Pallegina,” Verzano managed, voice shaking as he turned from the elf. He wrung his hands and held them out pleadingly toward the paladin. “Please, please, the Doemenels, they are after me! You must stop them!”

She snorted, golden eyes flickering disdainfully. “I must? No, no, Verzano. The Republics only considered you an investment worth preserving based on your success.” She looked around the half-empty warehouse as if to underscore her point. “That success hinges on your cooperation with locals. Such as the Doemenels. As you have lost that...” She fixed him with a meaningful look that tied Josetta’s stomach in knots, “you have also lost the favor of the ducs.”

So much for this being a respectable job, Josetta groaned inwardly.

“Even assuming you got out of this alive, they are done with you,” Pallegina continued. “There are much more important issues in Defiance Bay than rescuing a man who threw himself overboard.”

“Per complanca, Pallegina!” Mestre Verzano cried, falling to his knees. “You can’t mean... Whatever shame I’ve brought on myself, I don’t stand a chance against the Doemenels, you know this! Surely you don’t intend to watch your countryman cut down like a dog!”

Pallegina simply stared at him, one brow arching in disdain. “A dog would die with more dignity, I think. You know where my orders come from, ac? Why waste your precious remaining breaths trying to change them instead of crying for mercy to the one person here who may grant it?”

Her gaze and Verzano’s--as well as Josetta and Bennet’s--went to the rough-looking elf, who had been watching the whole exchange with an expression Josetta couldn’t quite read on her face and arms crossed. With attention on her now, the elf shrugged and exchanged looks with a couple of her companions. “Sure, I can do that. Got no love for the fuckin’ Doemenels, an’ they don’t scare me.”

Pallegina snorted. “You have some saint looking out for you, Verzano. Just don’t come knocking at the embassy after she saves your sorry hide.” With a final dry smirk toward Mestre Verzano, she turned on her heel and strode out.

Josetta bit her lip. If the Doemenels were coming here, perhaps it would be wise for her and Bennet to hide. True, the scrapper elf and her motley collection of friends looked capable of handling anything thrown at them, but regardless of circumstance, the Doemenels were... not fond of witnesses. She turned to make the suggestion--

And found a gleaming dagger mere inches from her face, held by a dark clad thug standing over Bennet’s crumpled form.

“Scream an’ you’re dead,” the thug warned just above a whisper. “Keep quiet, maybe you an’ you friend here walk away alive.”

Josetta nodded, lips pressed together, relieved by the tacit confirmation Bennet was currently just unconscious. She backed against the wall to be out of the way as another thug followed the first one in. Both moved toward the doorway as a voice Josetta recognized as one of the Doemenel children rose in mock surprise.

“What a shock to see you here,” the Doemenel jibed, her tone dripping honey. “You hardly struck me as the type to run a charity, protecting weak old fools from the fate they’ve earned.”

Josetta hesitated briefly before peeking around the door frame, her curiosity getting the better of her. The elf’s group was half a dozen against twice as many Doemenel thugs, not to mention the daughter of the house.

“However,” the Doemenel said with a cavalier shrug as she drew her rapier, “if you want to die with Verzano, it makes no difference to me.”

The elf grinned and cracked her knuckles. “That assumes I’ll be the one fuckin’ dyin’, prissy-britches.”

The room erupted into violence after that. From where she cowered, Josetta didn’t see who moved first, or most of what followed. Except Mestre Verzano yelping and scuttling for cover behind a shelf. That she saw clear as day.

The fight didn’t last long; even outnumbered the elf and her compatriots ripped through the Doemenels. (It helped, Josetta was sure, that one of their number was a wizard.) After it was done, the elf wiped down and sheathed her sabres, raking hair out of her face with one hand as she gestured at the bodies with the other. “Make sure they’re actually fuckin’ dead an’ check on the warehouse staff while I settle things.” She turned toward the trembling Mestre Verzano as her friends carried out her instructions.

Josetta scurried back from the door, uncertain why the possibility of being caught there made her feel guilty. Maybe it was just her sisterly instincts chiding her for not staying with Bennet. Maybe she was just used to organizations that didn’t want witnesses. Whatever it was, she’d made it all the way back to her unconscious friend before a blonde-furred orlan popped her head in, teal braids swinging with the motion, and spotted them.

“Hey, you alright?” the orlan asked as she stepped into the room.

Josetta tried not to stare at the blood spattering her armor as she nodded.

“How ‘bout your friend?” the orlan pressed, raising an eyebrow toward Bennet. “What happened to him?”

“Knocked on the head,” Josetta said, voice only shaking a little as one hand fumbled to grasp her necklace for comfort.

“Ah. Well, I think I can help with that.” The orlan stepped closer. “I’m Keya, I helped the Watcher protect Verzano just now. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“I’m not afraid,” Josetta said, hating that the tremble picked that moment to get worse. “I’ve never... I just...”

“First time watching people die?” Keya said sympathetically.

Josetta just nodded, hand wrapped tight around her necklace. It was technically true.

Keya knelt next to Bennet and pulled off her gloves to start feeling for a bump. “That’s always hard. Hopefully, since you don’t seem intent on becomin’ a hardened warrior, it’ll also be the last.”

Josetta nodded again. She didn’t trust her voice, which Keya seemed to understand.

“Here we are. Niiice goose egg, but he’ll be fine,” Keya promised. One hand lingered on the bump behind Bennet’s right ear. “Shouldn’t be any lasting damage.”

“Thank you,” Josetta mumbled. She didn’t have many friends here, and the thought of losing one was... unappealing, to put it mildly. She spotted his spectacles and reached over to pick them up, wincing at the crack across one lens.

“Here.” Keya pulled a small bottle out of a belt pouch, full of a deep blue liquid. “Have him drink this when he wakes up, it’ll help. Especially if he’s out much longer.” With that, she pushed to her feet, pulled on her gloves, and headed back out to join her companions. Josetta heard muffled conversation for a few moments, then they left.

A couple heartbeats later, Liena leaned around the doorway. Though she was making an attempt to seem collected, Josetta could see in her eyes how rattled the other woman was. She paled, ever so slightly, when she saw Bennet. “I’m sure it comes as no surprise, but Mestre Verzano has decided to close early for the day. You are free to leave whenever you wish.”

Josetta glanced at Bennet, rested one hand protectively on his chest. “I’ll stay until he wakes.”

Liena shrugged and deposited her keys on Josetta’s desk. “Lock up when you go, and I will expect them back tomorrow. Corés.” She was gone before Josetta could echo her farewell.

Josetta could still hear people moving around in the main room; probably workers hauling off the dead. She was perfectly content to stay exactly where she was--though she did shift enough to rest Bennet’s head on her leg rather than the floor.

Eventually the sounds of clean-up faded and the others workers tramped out. Bennet finally stirred just as the last echoes of footsteps faded.

“Took you long enough,” Josetta tried to joke as he blinked hazily up at her, her fingers pausing in their repeated tracing of his spectacle frames..

“...Jos?” Bennet frowned, tried to sit up, but didn’t get very far. He relaxed back and pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes. “....owwwwww”

“Oh, here.” She helped him sit up--her leg was falling asleep, she needed him off of it--and handed him the potion Keya had given her. “Drink.”

Bennet frowned at it, as if trying to focus. “And this is...?”

She really didn’t like how groggy he sounded. “It’ll help your headache, do you really care?”

He snorted softly and popped the cork. “No.” After he’d downed it, he blinked again and looked around on the floor.

“Oh, here.” Josetta handed him his spectacles.

Bennet scowled at the cracked lens, and for a minute, she thought she might actually hear him curse. But he just sighed and slid them on, eyes almost crossing at the effect of the crack. “Thank you.”

It took a few minutes for the potion’s effects to kick in, but at that point, he was able to get to his feet. First leaning heavily on his desk, then trusting his own balance. Josetta insisted on walking him home.

“In case you have a dizzy spell, or lose your balance, or something, ac? You don’t need anymore hits to the head today, aimico,” she said as she locked the door behind them.

Bennet rolled his eyes but didn’t fight her. “I didn’t even need one.” He fell in step beside her.

Josetta laughed.”True.” She tugged his arm so they skirted a pothole. “If your head still aches come morning, stay home. I didn’t see how hard he hit you, but you were out quite a while. Injuries like that can be serious, from what I understand. You need rest.”

“And possibly a new job,” Bennet said dryly. “Excitement like this is liable to drive Mestre Verzano clean out of the Dyrwood.”

“Liena’s been angling to take over for months,” Josetta pointed out. “If he does leave, she’ll just step in.”

He made an ambivalent noise that was neither concession nor disagreement and they walked in silence after that until they reached Bennet’s house. Josetta fussed over him a little more--he’d tripped couple times as they drew closer--before taking her leave. She needed a nap herself after the day’s excitement. And that’s what she did, barely even taking time to kick off her boots before she dropped into bed.

If Bennet was right, her future might be likewise uncertain. Even if Liena did take over after this mess, there was no guarantee she could salvage the floundering outpost, or that she’d want to keep the current staff if she did. But uncertainty, like many things, was better faced when well rested, so Josetta pushed it away for now as she drifted off to sleep.

---

Apparently I need to flesh out Bennet now, since he just went from a name I stuck in as one of Josetta’s friends to an actual character. Oops. My love of male/female friendships strikes again. Seriously, this was pretty much ready to go on Thursday, but then I started debating with myself whether I should give him glasses. I delayed posting for a whole day. To decide if he should wear glasses. Clearly, he’d gonna wind up more developed. xD

#queens fic #pillars prompts weekly #pillars of eternity #it's all ocs this time #josetta di carro #bennet

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queertazsecretsanta · 5 years

Text

A gift for @lucretiastan, created by @magnus-mcelroy!

Happy Candlenights!!

(tw: alcohol ment)

It wasn't like Lucretia to not be studying hard the night before exam, especially a final, but on this particular night, she found her interest drawn elsewhere. The night had started like any other, her head deep in the rigorous notes she had taken during Mr. Jenkins class, but something changed; her Stone of Farspeech started to ring. Unusual, she thought, seeing as she had silenced it hours ago. Curious, she reached for it, but then pulled away. It was probably just Robbie asking to bum off her notes for the twelfth time that week. It wasn't her fault he had missed class and got detention for it.

No, she couldn't get distracted now. The ringing soon stopped and Lucretia went back to reading.

It wasn't long before it started to ring again. And again. And again.

Now Lucretia was annoyed. She picked up the stone and rejected the call, making sure not once, but three times that it for sure was on silent. For an added safe measure, she placed the stone under her pillow. Out of sight, out of mind. As she began to walk back to her study desk, a muffled noise made its way into her room.

“What the...” she said aloud, looking around for the source of the noises. No, not noise, music? It sounded like someone singing. There was no radio in the room, could she just be hearing a noisy neighbor? No, it sounded way too close. The singing became louder as she got closer and closer to her bed, sounding almost intelligible as she put her ear to her pillow.

When she lifted the pillow up, a swell of sound filled the room.

“Hey Lucy you so fine, you so fine you blow my mind. Hey Lucy! Hey hey! Hey Lucy! Hey hey!” The lines repeated over and over, the voice so very familiar.

“Um, Lup?” Lucretia finally squeaked, not wanting to interrupt Lup's flow.

Lup finished the last repetition before answering, “What's up?”

“What are you doing?”

“I'm serenading you, what does it sound like?”

Lup then picked up her singing again, this time Lucretia was inclined to interrupt.

“Did you need something?” Lucretia asked, her voice a little more stern this time, “I’m kinda in the middle of studying.”

“Oh, good, then I caught you at the perfect time,” Lup replied eagerly.

“Perfect time for wh--” Lucretia was interrupted by the sound of a knock at her dorm room's door. “Hold on,” picking up the stone and walking over, Lucretia hesitantly opened the door to find Lup stood there, holding her own stone and smiling her (literally) trademarked goofy smile.

“Heyyyy Lucy,” Lup said in a sing song voice, trying to be endearing, “Can I come in?”

Before Lucretia could answer, Lup skipped in, the bells on her festive Candlenights dress jingling as she moved. Lup firmly placed herself down on the other woman's bed, patting the spot beside her.

Lucretia was still stood at the open door, only turning to look toward Lup. She really didn't have time for Lup's antics, as much as she enjoyed the other woman's company.

“Look, Lup, I'd love to get involved with any of your crazy plans, but I have a final tomorrow,” she sighed, “and so do you!”

“Antics? Moi?” Lup feigned shock, batting her eyelashes for added dramatic measure, “I don't know who you take me for, Lucy.”

Lucretia couldn’t fight the smile that made its way to her cheeks as she begrudgingly shook her head, “Okay, then why are you here?”

“I’m here to save you!” Lup announced with a flourish, her arms open wide in a grand gesture, “Now, before you say “From what?”, let me answer that; I’m rescuing you from yourself.”

The elven woman stood, her dress tingling and bouncing with her excited movements. She walked over to Lucretia and grabbed her by the shoulders, driving her back towards the bed. She made a motion that meant for Lucretia to sit, and she obeyed.

“We all know damn well you’re gonna pass that final with flying colors tomorrow, you pay attention in class like it’s nobody's business and study pretty much every night anyway. You need a night off--”

It was here that Lucretia interrupted, “--Not taking a night off is what got me where I am. I don’t need saving from myself, Lup.”

“When was the last time you slept?”

“What’s that?”

Lup sighed, “Okay, it seems like things are a lot more dire than I thought. Do you trust me?”

Lucretia eyed the other woman wearily, “Normally, yes. When you actually feel like you need to ask me, no.”

Lup groaned, “Come onnnn. Do you trust me?”

“Ugh, fine.”

“Okay, close your eyes.”

Lucretia complied with Lup’s order, although uneasy about it, “What now?”

“Just wait a sec.”

A creaky sound echoed through the small room, and was followed by a cool breeze and a loud clattering thud. Lucretia’s eyes shot open at the sound, turning to the source. Lup was stood at the open window and smiling.

“What did you do?” Lucretia yelped as she got over to the window. Pushing past Lup, Lucretia ducked her head out the window and found her whole stack of books, notes and all, scattered on the snowy ground below. Pulling herself back inside, Lucretia quickly shot an incredulous look Lup’s way.

“You’ll thank me later, now come,” Lup spun on her heel, her long, wavy hair flying as she moved.

Lucretia stay stood at the window, mouth hung wide open and dumbstruck. She couldn’t believe what just happened. She wanted to be mad, but all she felt now was confused. She didn’t know what to do next.

Lup made up Lucretia’s mind for her, turning back to the other young woman. “Goofus, close your mouth and come on,” Lup shot her a teasing smile, grabbing her hand and leading the way.

Lucretia obediently followed. It took a moment before she even realized that she was following Lup, only getting it when she felt Lup squeeze her hand. Lup was holding her hand. Lup Taaco was holding her hand. Oh boy.

While the gesture was done in an attempt to get Lucretia moving and nothing else, Lucretia couldn’t help but blush.

Blush? Why was she blushing? She couldn’t let Lup see that, she’d call her lame or something. So, as the two made their way down the hall to wherever Lup was leading them, Lucretia hid her face, trying to regain composure.

It wasn’t long before they reached their destination, the dorm building’s common room. A small party of students had gathered there for a little get together, nothing crazy, just some chips and light music. Still holding Lucretia’s hand, Lup lead the pair to the comfiest couch in the room, which she had reserved with coats and bags, which very obviously weren’t hers.

“Sit here, I’ll be right back,” Lup explained, leaving Lucretia at the couch.

Lucretia sat and looked around, doe eyed and still in a semi-shocked state. She saw a lot of familiar faces. She was surprised, however, to see Lup’s brother, Taako, here. He was talking to that new guy, Kravitz she believed his name was, who was transferring in for next semester. She didn’t really think this kinda get together was his scene, he was more a party animal than this and there were more than enough Candlenights parties happening for him to be here. She watched as the two guys talked, Taako laughing a little too hard at some crack or another that Kravitz made. At one point, Kravitz leaned in and whispered something to Taako. Lucretia couldn’t hear what it was, but it must have been juicy by the way Taako reacted. His face went flush, the only color came from the dusting of red blush that made its way to his cheeks and pointed ears. Lucretia can only imagine the secret that was shared. Before she could contemplate that too long, the pair of men walked off and Lup returned, a drink in each hand.

“Here,” she said, offering Lucretia one of the drinks as she plopped down on the couch, “Before you say anything, it’s just punch.”

Lucretia took the drink and gave a silent thank you. “Why did you bring me here? Wouldn’t you much rather be at some big Candlenights party?” Lucretia hadn't thought about the words before she said them, but there they were. It's not like she could take them back.

Lup shrugged, taking a sip of her drink as her eyes scanned over the small gathering of people, “Those are a dime a dozen. I wanted a change of scenery.” She paused and looked over to Lucretia, “Plus, I knew parties aren’t really your scene and I wanted you to be happy.”

Lucretia fought back the blush she felt returning to her cheeks, “Oh, well, I appreciate that.” Lucretia could have very well have left it at that and things would have been all and well, but for some reason, her brain compelled her to say, “And why do you care that I’m happy?”

The words shocked Lup, but she didn’t let it show. Instead, she took another sip of her drink and leaned back heavily into the couch. She sat silent for a moment. “I care about you, Lucy. I’ve noticed you’ve been running yourself ragged lately and thought you needed a night off. I knew you weren’t gonna do that, so I took it upon myself. I thought this little shindig would do you good without overwhelming you.” She paused and looked directly into Lucretia’s eyes, letting out a slight scoffy laugh, “But maybe I was wrong about this not being overwhelming by that blush on your face.”

“Oh!” Lucretia squeaked, hiding her face in her hands, “Sorry, I uh… I don’t know.”

“Wow, that’s a first,” Lup laughed lightly, “Come on, Lucy, let’s relax and just enjoy ourselves tonight. Let’s unwind and celebrate the end of the semester and Candlenights. You deserve a little break, you’ve worked so damn hard.” It sounded like Lup was going to end her thought there, but then added, “I’m proud of you.”

At that Lucretia smiled, letting the smile show and not caring if Lup thought it goofy.

The rest of the night went by easier as Lucretia actually allowed herself to have some fun. For the most part, it consisted of her and Lup talking on the couch, talking about everything and nothing. They were joined by some friends, Carey even dropped by after wrestling practice to say hi and totally not to see if Killian was there (she was).

As the night dragged on, Lucretia felt herself feel more and more relaxed, not tense and worried like she had at the start. At just after midnight, she turned to Lup and smiled a big goofy grin.

“Whaaaaat?” Lup asked, feeling a slight buzz from her now slightly spiked punch, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because,” Lucretia replied, thinking she had said more. Perhaps she was also feeling the effects of her new drink as well. After a moment’s silence, she continued, “I’m very happy that you rescued me.”

“My pleasure, bubelah,” Lup replied, placing a warm hand on Lucretia’s knee.

The pair of women smiled, locking their gazes for just a brief moment.

“You are so beautiful.”

It took a moment for Lucretia to realize what she had just said, and when she did, she didn’t blush, she didn’t try to take it back, she just let it be. Perhaps the very small amounts of booze in her drink was acting as liquid courage, but she didn’t care.

This time, it was Lup’s turn to blush. Just as her brother had when Kravitz whispered into his ear, a faint pink decorated her full, soft brown cheeks. “Thank you,” Lup replied in a soft voice that Lucretia had never heard before. She wanted to hear that voice forever.

Lucretia was feeling better than she had in weeks, months even. She could have discounted it to actually relaxing, maybe even the alcohol, but no, she knew it was all Lup. Feeling another burst of confidence, Lucretia extended her hand and placed it on Lup’s cheek, her thumb gently rubbing circles on her jaw.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Lup said suddenly, “And I think you should wait.”

“What do you mean?” Lucretia was genuinely confused, she wasn’t really much thinking, just letting things happen from moment to moment for the first time in a long time.

“Just,” Lup paused, placing her hand on Lucretia’s and taking it off her cheek, “wait. A little while. I want you to be completely sober before you make any decisions.”

Lucretia nodded, her’s and Lup’s hands still intertwined in Lup’s lap. “Is this okay?”

“This is more than fine,” Lup replied softly, flashing a goofy, gap toothed smile.

The night stretched on a little longer, the pair of women remaining quiet for some time, but still perfectly content in each other’s company. It wasn’t long before they were on top of each other, but in the most serene way. Lup had casually melted into Lucretia, their two forms almost becoming one in the tangle. At just after 2am, Lup looked up at Lucretia.

“Hey,” she said, breaking the long, but comfortable, silence.

“Yeah?” Lucretia had her hand tangled into Lup’s hair, playing with it gently for who knows how long.

“Are you still thinking about it?”

“Yeah.”

“And are you sober?”

Lucretia took a moment to reply, “Yeah.”

“Then do it.”

No longer guided by liquid courage, Lucretia took a moment. She was prepared to contemplate every little thing, but something told her to just do it. Although the position was awkward, Lucretia leaned in and placed her lips on Lup’s. It had been a while since Lucretia had kissed anyone, but Lup made it feel so natural. This kiss wasn’t mind blowing or life changing, it was simple and sweet. It was perfect.

As the two broke apart, Lup smiled and replied, “I wanted you to be making that choice, not the alcohol. Aren’t you glad you waited?”

Lucretia nodded, placing her hand back in Lup’s hair.

The two quickly fell back into the comfortable silence they had shared moments ago. Periodically, one of them would initiate another kiss, peppering small, sweet moments throughout the night. It wasn’t long, however, before the girls felt sleepy, but neither wanted to move. They were comfortable enough where they were.

Morning came before anyone knew it. When Lucretia woke up, she felt a small tinge of panic as she realized she wasn’t in her dorm. The panic quickly subsided, however, when she looked down and saw Lup’s head in her lap.

Looking at her watch, she saw it was only 7:30. It was later than she normally woke up, but she didn’t really care. Looking around the room, she saw the remnants of last nights get together; stray beer cans, a leftover box of pizza, Merle faced down in the carpet. She was tempted to go check on him, but when she saw him twitch, she decided that he was fine.

She then looked down at Lup, so peaceful in her sleeping state. She was half tempted to wake her with a good morning kiss, but decided against it. She knew Lup liked to sleep in. Knowing she had some time to kill, Lucretia remained still, in hopes of not to disturb the guest using her legs as a pillow.

Just as she went to take out her stone of farspeech, which Lup had at one point in the night told Lucretia that she hacked, a familiar figure walked in with a paper cup of coffee in hand. It was Lup’s brother, wearing what he had been wearing the night before, only a little more disheveled.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt the fun,” Taako quipped as he spotted his sister and Lucretia on the couch.

“You’re not interrupting anything,” Lucretia replied softly.

“So, did you two get it on in here last night or something?”

Lucretia was shocked by Taako’s forwardness, but then remembered who she was talking to. “No, nothing of the sort. We just… kissed, a lot.” She paused, but then added softly, “It was so nice to finally kiss her.”

“Finally? What are you talking about? I thought you two have been boning for like a year,” Taako said nonchalantly as he sipped his coffee and left the room.

Lucretia was left dumbstruck, had her puppy dog crush really been that obvious? Well, it didn’t really matter now. She had her girl, that’s all that she cared about.

#lucretiastan #magnus-mcelroy #queercandlenights #taz #the adventure zone #lupcretia #fic

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dailybestiary · 6 years

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Patch Has Issues: Dungeon #1

Issue: Dungeon #1

Date: September/October 1986. (I was just entering 3rd grade—a dismal year for me—and hadn’t yet discovered D&D at this point. I had just watched Optimus Prime pass away on the operating table during The Transformers: The Movie, though.)

The Cover:

(Use of cover for review purposes only and should not be taken as a challenge to status. Credit and copyright remain with their respective holders.)

One of the notable things about Dungeon was that the covers were actually commissioned for the magazine, instead of just vaguely connected to the issue’s theme like Dragon’s were. The late Keith Parkinson’s “Into the Flame” shows off the star of the issue, the red dragon Flame. Its very humanoid posture recalls Parkinson’s time doing draconians for the Dragonlance line. I’m guessing he was very proud of being picked to launch the magazine—this image is the first that comes up on his website to this day. (If you’re curious, Parkinson’s work in general is great if you like knights in bad weather and big humanoids, but he definitely leans hard into the all-women-in-fantasy-are-bikini-wearing-sorceresses trope, a habit that—like many ex-TSR artists—only got more pronounced as his career progressed. It’s no wonder he moved into video games.)

The Adventures:

“The Dark Tower of Cabilar” by Michael Ashton & Lee Sperry, AD&D, Levels 4–7

Our very first Dungeon Adventure is...*drum roll*...a converted tournament module that is pretty rudimentary: Defeat the vampire in his stalagmite tower-and-dungeon combo (I’m already thinking a stalactite would have had more cinematic appeal), and retrieve the crown that can prove your employer’s godson’s noble lineage.

Right off the bat, this adventure features encounters with fire drakes and lava children! Yep, you read that right—lava children. (Pathfinder fans will remember them from Misfit Monsters Redeemed.) Clearly Dungeon is not afraid of Fiend Folio weirdness.

Beyond that, the module screams “I was written for a tournament” with the number of traps and cursed items and red herrings involved, and not in a good way. Once we get to to the dungeon levels, as a reader I’m just listlessly going room by room till we get to the Big Bad. Overall, a disappointing start.

“Assault on Eddistone Point” by Patricia Nead Elrod, AD&D, Levels 1–3

Our first adventure by a woman author is only our second adventure out of the gate! This bodes well for the rest of the series—wait. Hold on. Is that Patricia Nead as in P. N. Elrod? I’ve never read her work, but she’s helmed some anthologies that Jim Butcher’s short stories have appeared in. I’m guessing this is an early cut from her? And frankly the hand of an experienced author is all over these pages—a vast step up from the previous article (whose authors, to be fair, seem like they were still in college, according to their bios).

So first off, this is a tidy little adventure: Check out why the team sent to repair a signal tower hasn’t reported back. (Even Bryce likes it! We’ll talk about Bryce below.) The NPCs aren’t locked to one location (except the hostages), so once PCs get to the tower, it’s up to the GM to position them and assign reactions. But the cast is small enough this doesn’t seem daunting, even for new GMs, and you could run this thing in a single night.

But where it really shines, as I said, is the deft authorship. Elrod very quickly delivers a tight sketch of the location: two city-states vying for market advantage, dwarves under the mountain range in between minting the gold that moves said markets, some signal towers that exist as a compromise to keep the peace, and what the heck, also some elves in the valley between.

Now, this is basic stuff. And not even pumpkin-spice-latte basic...this is “I’ve only read The Hobbit” basic. Dwarves minting gold and elves in the woods and most of the villains are half-orcs? Even for 1986, this ought to be chucked in the bin as trite.

And yet...it’s not, because of Elrod’s deft pen. I suddenly want to find out more about these cities in the course of play—maybe one could be a good home base for the party? The interplay of politics and markets and signal fires and dwarf relations is just specific enough to feel real, while being sketchy enough it could be dropped into most game worlds. The clever chief antagonist is distinctive enough I don’t mind her stereotypical brute sidekicks, and trying to uncover her employer could lead to the next session’s adventure. It’s basic sure, but it’s Basic Rules-red-box basic. In other words, it feels classic. I wouldn’t put this in front of my grad school gaming group, necessarily, but if I got asked to run an afterschool session for some middle-schoolers wanting to learn the game? Hell yes!

At this point, I’ve probably oversold this adventure, so forgive me if you are underwhelmed by it. But I’m willing to risk a little overhyping to celebrate what can be constructed with such simple meat-and-potatoes ingredients.

And that’s not even counting the not-meat-and-potatoes elements, like the white raven who is already one of my favorite familiars ever, and the ticking clocking scenario the weather sets up (you need to beat the mercenaries before they can mess with the signals), and the names of the other watchtower peaks, each one slyly suggesting another adventure, and…yeah, I dig this.

“Grakhirt’s Lair” by John Nephew, AD&D, Levels 1–3

John Nephew wrote one of my favorite D&D supplements of all time, Tall Tales of the Wee Folk, which I won’t shut up about—I’ve even told him so on Twitter—so I don’t feel bad in saying that this entry is a total dud for me. Pretty much the only interesting thing about this adventure is that the humanoid antagonists are the Fiend Folio’s norkers, and they get the classic 1e AD&D humanoid treatment: that is, absolutely nothing sets them apart from any other humanoid out there aside from their stat blocks. You can skip this one without guilt.

(Admittedly, Nephew was also shockingly young when he did both this and TTotWF. Looking back, I really wish I’d made some different decisions re: my writing growing up—I was disengaging with the hobby just at the age when other people were hammering down the door to get published. Sigh. But hey, none of them held a Run-DMC concert or hung out with Rahzel at age 21, right? We all have our journeys.)

“The Elven Home,” by Anne Gray McReady, D&D, Levels 1–3

Our first D&D adventure! D&D, specifically BECMI D&D, was the neglected stepchild of the late ’80s and early ’90s, despite the earnest efforts of line champion Bruce Heard, Dungeon editors Roger Moore and Barbara Young, and a lot of talented freelancers. But I was a fierce D&D partisan, because it was what I was first introduced to and what I could afford, and because I loved the variety of classes and cultures the Known World allowed. For a line that often felt overlooked in terms of marketing and support, the love and talent put into the books that did exist were evident on almost every page.

So I wish I could find more to recommend “The Elven Home,” but it’s not even really an adventure or even a side trek—instead it’s a thoroughly fleshed-out NPC encounter that should lead to combat only if the PCs are particularly boorish. Like Bryce (again, see below) I could have used more whimsy and more weirdness to make these elves stand out just a bit more, though their twee personalities (more faerie than Tolkien) at least set them apart from most elves PCs run across these days. So your mileage may vary—some of you may be utterly charmed by this (I lean at least somewhat charmed), others of you very much not.

“Into the Fire,” by Grant & David Boucher, AD&D, Levels 6–10

I was expecting a lot out of this adventure—the cover dragon, Flame, was the closest thing Dungeon had to a mascot till the Adventure Path years under Paizo, and he wound up appearing in at least one or two more sequel adventures, if I recall correctly.

While I wasn’t blown away, I can see where the fondness comes from. The adventure isn’t particularly special at first. A necklace shows up that may hint at the fate of a lost prince, but following that lead means following the trail of a recently deceased knight, and—spoilers!—that trail leads back to a dragon. But then the combat with Flame is presented, and the brothers Boucher serve up a number of round-by-round tactics and dirty tricks for Flame to employ that wouldn’t feel out of place in 3.5...and I’m guessing were thrilling in 1986.

Remember, this is before dragons had varying power levels according to age—and were often asleep in their lairs to boot—so if DMs weren’t careful high-level characters would carve through them like butter. (Seriously, it was such an issue that every June Dragon Magazine would churn out articles about how to keep your dragons alive longer. They did this for decades.) It’s easy to ding the Bouchers—Bryce (see below) certainly does—for coming up with too many reasons why Flame is immune to PC powers and abilities throughout the adventure. But to me it just feels like an experienced red wyrm doing what an experienced red wyrm who wants to live would do. Flame is smart, more interested in survival than winning, and while he plans to ruin the PCs’ lives as thoroughly as possible, he’ll run if he has to. PCs who survive will be stoked to tell the tale, and that feeling will only be magnified by a massive treasure haul with a number of flavorful items and future adventure seeds of its own.

Other things to note: There’s a slanty tower that’s okay (I’m a sucker for slanty towers), but where it’s placed in the adventure, it will likely be an anticlimax. There are also some big wandering monster encounters—a score of ogres with an ogre magi, two dozen ghouls and ghasts, etc.—that I’d be interested to see how they rebalanced for Pathfinder/5e D&D. I think shows like Game of Thrones have put the fear back into random encounters with large groups of humanoids, so it would be fun to play that out even if the math says the PCs shouldn’t break a sweat.

Is this my favorite adventure? Not by a long shot. But I can see why readers were fond of it and why Flame’s legend persisted.

“Guardians of the Tomb,” by Carl Smith, AD&D, Levels 3–5

That...is some very boring architecture for a shrine. Also, why would a master thief even have a shrine? Especially in a swamp? And while I’m vague on the relative power levels of 3rd–5th-level characters in 1e AD&D, I feel like 2(x PCs+ y retainers) shadows+1d12 even more shadows = a whole damn lot of shadows to trap the PCs with behind an 18th-level wall of stone! Apparently Smith even worked for TSR at some point—did no one pull him aside and say, “Dude! Game balance!”?

I have questions.

Not only does this seem a bit extreme, at least for an unlucky 3rd-level party, it feels personal. This feels like Carl Smith had some players he wanted to teach a lesson. The bio says Carl Smith’s first love is Westerns; I’m guessing he likes the ones about the Alamo or Butch Cassidy or Unforgiven where pretty much everyone dies at the end.

Who hurt you, Carl Smith? Who hurt you?

Best Read: “Assault on Eddistone Point.”

Best Adventure I Could Actually Run with Minimal Prep: All but “Into the Fire” could probably be run after only a second read-through. But I actually want to run “Assault on Eddistone Point.”

Best Concept: As dungeon locations go, a leaning tower that’s leaning because a dragon decided the best way to kill the wizard inside was just to land on the dang thing and knock it over is a pretty good concept.

Best Monster: You always remember your first dragon. So of course, we have to give this accolade to the always-two-steps-ahead Flame.

Best NPC: I’m a fan of the crafty Vorona in “Assault on Eddistone Point,” but the tie goes to the titular elves of “The Elven Home,” who literally want to chat so badly that the party might get attacked by stirges for lingering too long. Don’t overlook the wolfwere in “Into the Flame” though— he sounds like a real a$$#ole.

Best Map: “Into the Flame”’s Lake Haven kinda-isometric hex map, though I also do like seeing the dragon’s volcano lair map with a boat right in the middle.

Best Thing Worth Stealing: A dragon’s volcano lair with a boat right in the middle.

Worst Aged: The magazine’s first adventure hadn’t even started yet and the text was reminding us to look up climbing rules and calculate the PCs’ weights. Yikes. I don’t miss 1e AD&D. Also, the term “magic-user.” Oy. So glad that’s gone. Oh, and alignment tongues! Ye gods, remember alignment tongues? No, you don’t, because they made no sense and no one over the age of 11 ever used one in their game.

What Bryce Thinks: “Wow. I had no idea that 1e adventures sucked ass so much.”

One of the only people who has done in-depth online reviews of old Dungeon issues is a dude named Bryce Lynch over at tenfootpole.org—which is hilarious, because Bryce hates old Dungeon adventures. An OSR (old-school renaissance) fan through and through, Bryce is super particular about what he considers an acceptable adventure. To his credit, he wants adventures able to be easily run at the table, but he also loathes boxed read-aloud text, long backstory, and pretty much anything he regards as fluff. Which means Dungeon, even at this primordial stage of the game, drives him around the twist (as our Brit readers might say)—and it’s only going to get worse. Even so, I’m going to check in on his reviews as we go along, because his laser focus on the GM’s experience at the table is a good yin to my all-about-the-fluff/inspiration yang.

But for what it’s worth...we pretty much line up on our faves for this issue. Go us! Ditto Adam Perdona, whose tastes also seem to line up with mine and who also liked “The Elven Home.”

So, Is It Worth It?: Okay so let’s say you play Pathfinder, 5e D&D, or some other contemporary system. Should you run out and try to find a physical copy of Dungeon #1?

Well...aside from the collector’s value (it is a #1 after all)...probably not. There’s nothing here that screams “Pull me off the shelf”—what pleasures are inside will also be in the PDF.

What this issue does offer is a back-to-basics approach to adventure construction and worldbuilding that I think we sometimes need. Sometimes all you need is some dwarves, some elves, and a dragon. Sometimes we need to forget secret societies and trade disputes and just help a king who’s lost his prince. Think of Dungeon #1—specifically “Assault on Eddistone Point” and “Into the Flame”—like one of those articles you sometimes see in GQ or Esquire: “How to Grill a Steak. No, put down the pesto, put down the chutney, put down the coffee dry rub and remoulade. You’re going to grab some salt and pepper and maaaybe some butter and We Are Going to Grill a Goddamn STEAK.”

If you want fusion sushi, look elsewhere. Are you in the mood for steak? Look for these two adventures.

Random Thoughts:

Editor Roger Moore’s voice in the intro is so stiff—he would be way more assured and relaxed in the ’90s.

It’s a huge nostalgia trip seeing maps in “1 square = 10’” after years of 5’ squares in 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder.

Speaking of maps, they’re still pretty rudimentary here—it is 1986, after all. But I’m pleased that we are immediately getting side or isometric views of some of these locations (especially the towers) to give us a better sense of what these structures look like. I’m a big fan of that.

One of the weird things about published D&D, AD&D, and Pathfinder settings is that, for an ostensibly Middle Ages-inspired hobby, most show surprisingly little interest in the standard medieval trappings. Kings and princes are rare, city-states are the norm rather than feudal kingdoms, and even knights and castles have largely given way to mercenaries and manor houses. I think there are tons of reasons for this—questing knight tropes feeling stale or immature, the gradual shift of the hobby’s default assumptions to early Renaissance and the Mediterranean rather than medieval England, more opportunities for political conflict but with more manageable stakes... (And let’s face it: high-level PCs just love regicide. Oligarchs don’t have targets on their backs the way kings do.) Anyway, I bring all this up because early Dungeon is clearly not afraid of kings, queens, princes, or knights. If your tastes are more King Arthur & Prince Hal than Diplomats & Doges, you might want to check these early issues out.

Comfy rooms that make you sleepy are an overdone trope in this era.

Leaning/slanty towers also get a lot of love in Dungeon—perhaps too much—but I will never not love them.

If a description, even if just meant for the GM, is going to use a simile that takes me out of the game world such as “like Spanish bayonet,” I’d prefer it walled off in parentheses.

A lot of the art inside this issue (especially James Holloway’s) would be reused again and again in the pages of Dragon, including for subscription cards, the No-SASE Ogre, and even “The Voyage of the Princess Ark.”

Notable Ads: An ad for Lankhmar, City of Adventure, for you classic sword & sorcery fans, and the Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide for AD&D.

(Any fans of the DSG out there? I’ve always heard it, like, laid the groundwork for what we think of as the Underdark. But every time I’ve seen a used copy on the shelf I’ve opened to pages and pages of rules about mining and smelting and I’ve closed it in horror.)

This Month in Dragon: Dragon #113 offers a cardboard dragon (assuming you have a physical copy or can get creative with the PDF), a tour of Hades, fiction by Harry Turtledove, and some nasty Gamma World robots. Dragon #114 serves up the witch NPC, the elven cavalier class, and Marvel’s Inhumans.

#daily bestiary #patch has issues #pathfinder #paizo #3.5 #dungeons & dragons #dungeons and dragons #d&d #dnd #dungeon #dungeon magazine #ad&d #becmi

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blankdblank · 6 years

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Crash Pt 2

Pt 1

Posting what I got so far, to focus on the date fully, cuz it’s probably gonna take the whole part to get awkward Thorin into the right light for posting. New knowledge for Durins on OC, first bump in the road with a dash of fluff.

Tags –

@himoverflowers, @theincaprincess, @aspiringtranslator, @sweeticedtea, @ggbbhehe4455, @thegreyberet, @patanghill17, @jesgisborne, @curvestrology, @abiwim, @jotink78, @evyiione, @deepestfirefun

…

Laying on your stomach your pen danced across the page causing you to once again repeat, “No peeking” to Bofur as he leaned over once again on his latest trip from the kitchen and back to the living room to claim the cushion beside yours.

He sighed and caught your eye with a soft chuckle after. “Where’s the fun in that? It’s been what, a year since your last book?”

“And my next one comes out in two weeks.”

His face lit up, “Really? Then why are you still writing?”

You smirked at him, “Ideas for the next few.” His smirk grew, “I get swarms of ideas, sometimes it takes a year to figure out which go where and together, sometimes I mix and match until I get the right ones to fit, so no sharing. My agent’s bad enough with that, poured through dozens of my notes once, went into a whole frenzy trying to make sense of them.” He chuckled again and turned his head to the front door as your bell rang.

In a glance to the clock on your wall you mumbled, “Took longer than I thought.”

Bofur glanced at you then to the door again on his path to answer it. Once opened his brow rose at the tall blonde at the door who smiled brighter when you walked over behind Bofur, “Bunny!”

Bofur stepped aside mouthing the nickname as you giggled and accepted his tight hug as he lifted you off the ground before setting you down and following you inside saying, “Great place, Bilbo has great taste.”

You giggled again spotting Bofur following you back into the living room, taking your spot as the blonde gently claimed your braced hand while you told Bofur, “Bofur, this is Glorfindel. One of my Cousins.” Bofur’s smile eased and you met Glorfindel’s eyes, “Bofur is King Thorin’s Cousin, slash, my guard for the day, or, however long your shift is.”

Bofur smiled, “Bifur will be here at nightfall.”

You nodded and looked to Glorfindel as he smirked, “Second day and making friends already. With a King no less.” He looked at your wrist again before sliding his fingers over your still swollen shoulder before lifting you and moving you to his other side, “You’re going to have to stretch that Bunny.” Easing his fingers over it and holding your arm across his chest before asking, “So, how’d you meet?”

“I dented his car.”

You smiled at him as he caught your eye with a stunned expression, “This happened in a car accident?”

“Technically, yes.”

“Technically?”

“I was walking and these guys on a scooter sort of slammed into me and I fell against his car.”

“Enough to dent it?” You nodded. “And the guards are for?”

“He asked me on a date.”

He raised his brow, “Impressive. You are adorable when you’re delirious.”

You giggled through your response, “Thank you for that compliment.”

Making him chuckle as he raised your arm behind your head earning a soft squeak from you, “I see you’re still protecting my sweater.” You giggled again, “You can keep it. It’s a bit too pale for my taste this year. Orange is my new power color.”

You giggled again, “Impressive. I see Lindir and his hobbies are rubbing off on you.”

Deepening his smile, “It makes his dimples come out.” After a low chuckle he asked, “So King Thorin, when’s the date?”

“Not sure yet. He’s checking his schedule.”

He nodded again, “Your Uncles will be glad to hear that he’s taking your protection seriously, especially with what Gwahir got up to.”

Your head turned to Bofur as he asked, “Gwahir?”

“My ex-fiance.” Bofur raised his brow, “It was arranged, he cheated.”

Bofur, “Oh.”

Glorfindel, “He’s been arrested.” Your eyes shot to him as your lips parted, “That woman he cheated with, he was drunk and went after her in a rage. You were nowhere to be found and they assumed you’d been done away with and made to appear you’d run off. But right away once they’d taken him in the swabs they took on him came back to more unsolved cases. No worries though, your message got through and we weren’t concerned at all, knew you’d be able to find a safe place little bunny.” You smiled again then gave a soft squeak at the soft squeak coming from your shoulder popping before he gave your shoulder a gentle massage after easing the sweater off your shoulder. “You always do.”

Bofur, “So, how long were you two together?”

“Officially, just over a month after the agreement was reached, but about a week of me in his guest room to try and learn each other.”

Glorfindel, “Even then either me or Haldir were there each day to ensure no lines were crossed.”

Bofur, “Lines?”

“Elven custom, consummation is marriage, license or not.”

Glorfindel, “Very important rule, especially for her as the last female descendant in her line, and it names the position of our next Prince Consort.”

Bofur’s brow rose before you said, “Ya, we haven’t gotten that far yet.”

Glorfindel snickered and lowered his eyes to your shoulder again as Bofur asked, “Prince Consort? You’re a Queen?”

“Technically.”

Bofur, “Technically? How is it, technically?!”

“Women in my line for centuries haven’t been allowed to rule without being married. They’ve never had the trouble of only having a Daughter to pass it off to. So since my Ada, passed, my Uncle has been ruling as my Regent.”

Bofur blinked a few times through his shock, “Which lands do you rule over?”

“Southern Greenwood, Grey Havens and Lindon.”

His lips parted, “Finwe’s line?!” You nodded. “Wow.”

“Yup.” You glanced at his hand moving to his pocket, “You’re going to text Thorin about it aren’t you?”

He nodded and left the room, “This, can’t wait.”

“Great. Can’t wait to hear the backlash from this one.”

Glorfindel, “What’s wrong with it?”

“His other Cousin’s probably told him about my breaking with Gwahir, now he’s going to hear one of his people injured a Queen and that he’s probably going to think that I’m using him for my crown.”

Bofur’s head popped around the corner and he added with a smirk, “Not what I’m passing on, Queen Jaqi.”

“Ya, you don’t have to call me that.”

With a chuckle he replied, “Yes I do.” You sighed leaning back against Glorfindel’s chest, “Technically Thorin’s got ten years left to wed before we count him as barren and Fili takes the throne. So Dis’ just as eager to marry Thorin off as well.” You nodded again as he stepped outside, “Dwalin! You are not going to guess what I learned about our Dear Queen.”

The door clicked and you stated, “Great.”

Glorfindel chuckled, “He’s what, still quite young right?” You nodded, “You’ve got at least twenty before yours is forfeit. Must be true about Dwarves and their low child count.”

“Can’t be much lower than ours. Well, not counting our line at least.”

“See, reason enough for him to pick you. Finwe had five children, Feanor had seven, had your parents lived longer you would have had countless siblings, and Maglor’s twins are growing nicely, both girls, so no worries on him having a challenger to you. Not that anyone would ever choose any of your Cousins over you. You’re the oldest and you’ve managed to keep our people in line even from across borders.”

“I’m not concerned about that.”

His smirk grew, “You like him?”

“He’s really sweet, and caring. Made sure I was taken care of, and he’s absurdly awkward at speaking to people without his crown it appears.” Making him chuckle again, “And you just swept in and dented your way into his heart.” You giggled as he pecked your cheek, “Well done little bunny. But your Uncles will be expecting to meet him at some point coming up.”

“I know.”

“At least with their watch Thranduil can relax on his offer to send a full set of guards to monitor you round clock.”

“Just what I need Elven guards peering over my shoulder trying to read my notes. At least the Dwarves should understand it’s a surprise.”

After a few hours of relaxing his alarm went off and he left for his flight back to Rivendell, stealing yet another peck on the cheek before stating he would pass on the news to your relatives leaving you back alone with Bofur who smirked at you and asked, “Aunt Diaa loves you already.”

“Aunt Diaa?”

“Thorin’s Amad.”

“Ah.”

He chuckled waving his hand, “Don’t be like that. She can’t be anything close to rude to you, you’re the first one to snap Thorin out of his scowl.”

“I doubt that.”

Bofur chuckled again, “You’ve met Gloin right?” You nodded, “Stern, stoic, quiet around you until he learned you were Thorin’s guest. Well that’s how he is, at least with everyone but kin and you, but that’s another Durin trait. Find the right smile or set of eyes, or even just a giggle and we’re a giant puddle of goo.”

“Well I’ll keep an eye on that.”

…

Deep under your covers your hand slipped free to grab your phone you pulled under the covers you refused to pull back just yet knowing the sun was up. Blinking through the blinding light of the screen your finger found the talk button and you raised the phone to your ear after eyeing the unknown number, “Good Morning stranger.”

A familiar chuckle sounded through your phone at your adorably drowsy voice, “Did I wake you?”

“Sort of.”

“Well I do apologize, I was just calling to see if you needed me to have any food sent over to your place.”

“No, I can always shop later. There were some chips I spotted I wanted to try.”

“You do know I can send a shopper out for you.”

“I know. Thank you, but I enjoy my browsing.”

He chuckled softly, “Of course Your Majesty.”

You sighed softly, “You got Bofur’s message?”

“Technically, he told Dwalin who was overheard by my Amad and Grandmother who told me. They love you already by the way, you have quite a reputation.”

“The hard to barter with part or the notoriously reclusive part. And does it always take that long to get messages to you?”

He chuckled again, “You have my private cell number now, so no. Your reclusive nature seems to have served your people well. Touché on the secret throne detail, you win this round.”

You playfully quipped back, “Oh don’t even. I am not the one who let you find out by stumbling across a giant portrait of me in my palace.”

“You fell asleep.”

“You could have gotten the address from the hospital papers in my bag.”

“That would be an invasion of your privacy.”

With parted lips you inhaled and fired back, “Don’t you dare go being adorably disciplined, we were having a disagreement and you being adorable right now is not playing fair.”

He chuckled again biting his lip, “I will remember that for next time. I simply wanted to make sure you’re eating and got enough sleep. Plus I was able to secure Wednesday for our date, is that good?”

“My schedule’s clear. Oh, but um I’m going to have to send you a few dates later to see if you can make it,” he shifted in his chair with curiously furrowed brows, “My Uncle’s want me to bring you by for a family get together.”

His finger rose to hold his Cousin Balin off for a few moments when he entered, before he would start his morning report reading, “You would like me to go to all of them?”

“Well, there’s quite a few, but the list is to see which you could go to, if any.”

A smirk eased on his mouth signaling Balin to smile softly knowing who his Cousin was speaking with, “I’m going to at least one of them. Just um, send the list over through, I believe Nori is on your watch this morning and I’ll have it gone through against my schedule to fit as many as we can in. You’ve met a few of my family, with more to meet soon enough I’m sure, only fitting I should meet yours.” After a quiet pause he asked in a slightly cautious tone, “Are they pleased? I know Bofur mentioned something about your brief arranged match ending badly.”

“My Cousin is, he said he’d let me know what the others think later today after lunch with his Partner. I will let you know about it. You’ve got someone waiting for you don’t you?”

He glanced at Balin curiously, “How’d you know that?”

“Someone’s clicking a pen lid, you should be working, don’t worry about me.”

“Oh but I will be, especially if I don’t get an answer to my next question.”

“And what would that be?”

“I’m headed out to the mines in the outer rings and I’ll be back to late for dinner but I was thinking I could pick up some ice cream or something and drop by?”

You chuckled weakly, “It just so happens I was planning on making a cake.”

“I will bring the ice cream. Send the list through Nori and, and I will see you tonight.”

“Ok, now get to work, and no scowling!”

He chuckled again, “Doubt I could, bye.”

“Bye.” A sigh left you after you hung up and got out of bed with a grumble, having a quick shower and drying off before you dressed and joined your latest guard in the kitchen for your breakfast. Once you’d rinsed off your dishes you followed Nori out to his car. A short drive later you led him through nearly every aisle as he peppered you with questions about your series claiming that you’d already had enough of your life delved into already by his various Cousins.

Soon enough it was nearing midnight and you caught Dwalin’s eye as he caught your eye after you’d finished unloading the dishwasher from your third round of cakes and cookies you’d made as your meatloaf you had been craving was nearly cooked in the oven. His face once again slipped into a remorseful gaze at his Cousin clearly not making it tonight that soon shifted at your asking, “How difficult would it be for you to sneak me into the palace?”

A smirk grew on his face as he answered, “Not difficult at all. Going to throw his things all over the floor?”

You shook your head, “Nope, I’m going to leave him dinner, and one of these cakes, I cannot keep them all or I’ll eat them all myself.”

His smirk deepened, “Trying to show him up?”

“Not at all. If I don’t do this then he’ll be so tightly wound he’ll end up trying to make up for it on Wednesday and just melt down trying to be perfect.” Dwalin raised a brow, “He’s a King, I get it, work runs late, he sent a message to warn me. If things go well and we end up together then he’s going to have to come home sometime, and I don’t want him believing I’m the sort to make him find somewhere else to sleep. Ice cream and cake are easily portable, same as dinner, he’ll most likely be hungry when he is finished.”

Dwalin chuckled again, “Oh Thorin is in for a surprise.”

“Clearly he’s spending so much time concerned about my safety and eating habits he’s forgotten about himself.”

“Even before you he was missing meals.”

“Not any more.” Dwalin chuckled again and helped you load everything up into the basket you pulled form your pantry and drove you over. Earning more than a few curious glances from the guards and maids on your path beside Dwalin who simply chuckled at their eager bows and bright smiles once they realized who you must be. Trailing your path straight to the King’s quarters with a mouthwatering meal stirring more than a few growing stomachs when you left the room.

An adoring smile and gaze poured from the Dwarf aiding you in setting the table and leaving the meal in the oven and the cake in the covered tray you’d transferred it there in the center of the table beside a set of notes you left for him only deepening Dwalin’s smile as he sat with you on the couch. For a whole ten minutes he held in his chuckles before your inevitable head droop against his shoulder.

Chuckling softly he raised you in his arms and carried you into Thorin’s spare room in his apartment. The same one you’d stayed in the other day and tucked you into bed, smiling at the fact you’d made the trip in your pajama bottoms under another tank top and cardigan at the clear bruise he knew you were trying to hide on your right leg. Leaving your sneakers at the foot of the bed he slipped out and reclaimed his spot on the couch to finish the movie you’d started.

Biting back yet another growl Thorin felt his face tighten as the concerned glances from Balin grew more worrisome as the time drug on. The outer rim stop had grown well past the original two hour mark, but these other counselors all drug their feet and just had to bring up each and every regulation to be rechecked in the King’s presence. Each point and law only stabbing deeper that he could have been curled up with you by now after tasting what he only imagined to be the best cake he’d ever tasted. Each form of cake he could imagine flashed in his mind as his scowl deepened through his inability to know just what you had chosen for him, leaving him with only one decision to make Wednesday the most incredible day after spending as much of the next day after the few hours he could manage groveling for another chance.

The ride to the Palace seemed to grow three times longer as he longingly eyed the exit for your home, only to turn his head away at the stab in his chest at his first failure in your still fragile courtship. Struggling against his urge to collapse from the pain of it all he strolled as casually as he could through the halls with furrowing brows at the hushed whispers growing around him between the few workers still on their rounds. Exhaling slowly he turned his head back to the familiar path, finding his door and entering, slowly unbuttoning his jacket buttons and those along his sleeve on his path to his bedroom that halted as he reached the living room. Turning his head he spotted his Cousin, now on his feet clearing his throat only to hear, “You’re supposed to be with Jaqi.”

Dwalin nodded, “That I am.” Thorin inhaled sharply and nearly let out a growl before he followed after his Cousin, “Try giving the dining room a glance before you start shouting.” A curious gaze split through his scowl only to melt away at the set up as Dwalin leaned in to whisper, “Oh and I’m telling her you were scowling.”

A smirk eased onto his face as he eyed the cake tray and snuck a peak under the lid melting his smirk to a smile at the impressively iced chocolate cake with white chocolate drizzled zigzags across the top. Lowering the lid again he raised the note and chuckled softly, “Ice cream and cake are shocking portable you know. Supper is in the oven. I know you haven’t eaten, and I know you’ve been scowling too.”

He chuckled and glanced at Dwalin asking, “She made me supper?”

Dwalin nodded, “Something about you not trying to be perfect, work is work, and she knew you’d forget to eat.” Thorin’s smile deepened through another chuckle, “She is a Queen you know, not some Duchess or Princess expecting to be pampered.” He patted Thorin on the back, “Found yourself a partner there. She’s in your guest bed, fell asleep bit after we got here. Keeps insisting she’s not sore but I swear she’s got a bruise hidden under those pjs.”

Thorin nodded, “I’ll have Oin drop by in the morning with some more herbs for her.”

Dwalin chuckled, “Better start eating, it’s in the oven.” Thorin nodded watching his Cousin return to the couch as he ate your meal and tried the piece of cake you’d already pre cut for him, putting everything up before making a quick stop into your room to leave a gentle peck on your forehead then went to his own bed to try and get some sleep.

When he woke he hoped to sneak another but you’d once again snuck out, but had left a breakfast for him at your need to meet with your agent with Bofur once again in tow. Leading the next few days of trading calls and messages between the flowers and small treats he’d had sent to your home to surprise you.

Pt 3

#Thorin x Reader OC #Hobbit #lotr

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roxannepolice · 6 years

Note

What would happen in the manicheic story version of the trilogy? Where would that go?

Short answer: read Reysabella’s soliloquy in the last fb scene in Jedi the Last.

Alright, now long answer.

First of all, here’s a thing: any epic story in which one can pinpoint (or it is handed on a silver platter) a difference between hero(es) and villain(s) is a story about that difference and not about struggle between good and evil, with all the nuances serving the purpose of further underlining how very important that one difference is. What I would say makes a story manicheic or not isn’t necessarily that it has or not moral relativism (as in, there’s no difference between good and evil/they’re only constructs meant to control the masses, basically go read Nietzsche only don’t forget syphilis affects the brain) but rather that instead of showing the reality of the heaviness of struggle taking place in each individual soul, it gives one side of a very worldly conflict some inherent difference from the other one.

Before delving into Star Wars, I would compare (without necessarily giving any esthetic/intelectual/dramatic judgments) The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter: LOTR is a story about struggle between good and evil, HP is a story about love being the difference between good and evil. Again, I don’t think anyone would say LOTR doesn’t clearly differentiate between heroes and villains - it does. But that being said, it also gives us noble people falling on our eyes

powerful sages acknowledging their tempation

characters in fact very similar to the hero failing

and finally, the hero’s eventual near failure.

LOTR acknowledges the reality of struggle, in fact it gives us a hint that characters that do not fall manage to do that either thanks to the wisdom they’ve achieved over the ages (this factor being the reason why Saruman is totally badass but not really sympathetic like Boromir or Smeagol, like - he should have known better) or… thanks to recognizing themselves in the ones that have fallen. Frodo and Aragorn feel genuine compassion towards Smeagol and Boromir - they can imagine themselves stumbling in their footsteps, in a way they can be grateful that they received such a firm warning at their expense. And still - LOTR isn’t even preaching that compassion is somehow inherently tied to good, we have very good characters (Sam) not being instinctively compassionate towards everyone and Frodo himself has to grow in order to find pity for Smeagol - the story acknowledes that compassion isn’t something people just have or not, it’s something we achieve through experience.

One could argue that LOTR is a story that juxtaposes power and civilization with simple life and nature but even that doesn’t really hold - simple, humble life may make the inner struggle easier, but a) it doesn’t make one immune to it (again, Frodo almost failed at desroying the ring), b) doesn’t make power something inherently evil, since even the three elven rings are rings of power and c) the same applies to civilization, as both dwarves and people are valued exacly for their achievements in this sphere - Treebeard isn’t there to tell us don’t cut not one tree or kill one animal, I dgaf about your need for a house and food only don’t treat nature as if it was nothing but a resource for you that you can exploit how much you like. Oh, an obviously it doesn’t say violence is always wrong and peace at all costs is always right, since two of the main characters are having a contest which one of them kills more orcs.

In summary, LOTR says yes, there is a very real difference between good and evil - but it is not in our power to pinpoint that difference; if we could the struggle wouldn’t be real. Maybe the difference exists in the realm in which our great but limited conceptual thinking is simply powerless. It’s in fact a very humble and unpleasant message we get from LOTR.

Now, let’s take a look at HP. First of all, for what is essentially a coming of age story with magic in it, HP is waaaay above average in terms of moral grayness. We have a mentor figure who f*cked up in life

a heartbreaking redemption arc

and characters who get plain lost

not to mention loads of ciritcal attitude towards authority. That being said, this story has, or actually hands on a silver platter, the difference between the main villain and the main hero - love. And it’s a beautiful, great and deep message. But compared to LOTR, it is a simplification. This is the story we want to hear, because we want to hear that so long as you don’t … you’ll end up fine.

So what about Star Wars? OT and, for what it can be judged considering we knew the outcome, PT are definitely closer to the LOTR-type story. We have mentors acknowledging how difficult the struggle is (even if they actually go overboard in the other direction - jedi of old would ban themselves from everything that could remotely lead them to the dark side, which was utterly stupid but it was acknowledging the reality of the struggle), political conflict that won’t get resolved through rightness of the cause itself (rebellion by the time we meet it is a 20 year old conspiratory organisation involving senators and high rank militants; oh and about visuals - Hux’s SKB scene reeks of Riefenstahl? yeah, the medal ceremony in ANH isn’t free of that esthetic either - which isn’t a way of saying rebels are actually more nazi than we thought? only Leni Riefenstahl was a damn good movie maker, like it or not) and the hero whose triumph lies in dramatically recognizing the real opponent is in himself, simultaneously rejecting everything that his mentors were telling him to do. Hell, RotS actually has a there are heroes on both sides line in the opening crawl.

And ST? Weeeeellll….. it could just go HP on us, in fact I’m pretty sure that’s what much of the audience wants, probably because many of us are the HP generation - and HP sends a much more flattering message. On the one hand we have a stormtrooper becoming one of the main heroes - but this only sounds gray but is actually much less morally challenging than it seems - bad guy becoming good (before he’s ever done anything that would actually make him a bad guy in the first place, I might add) reaffirms how right the right side is, as opposed to good guy becoming bad reminding us it is not so obvious. On the other hand we have a scavenger woman with no formal training (yeah, this trilogy is telling us we don’t need teachers, just be kind and necessary knowledge will be awarded to you!) who had any right to become evil but didn’t juxtaposed with a formally trained prince who had all the environment to be good but became evil; good, brave, guys we feel absolutely not worried about when there’s a few dozen of them left, with only like 3? having proper miliatry and political experience, but they’re in the right so they gonna win; an evil organization that became evil, rouse from the dark side, when everything was perfect; bad guys using overflowing amounts of violence while good guys only when absolutely necessary.

There’s one thing I’m pretty sure of at this point - this trilogy won’t have an individual redemption. That would basically make it dramatically redundant, with plot going from point A (destroyed empire, one guy redeemed) to point A (destroyed empire, one guy redeemed). The fact that they made FO direct heirs of the empire can mean two things - either OTrio didn’t deal with the empire as they should have or the writers are beyond lazy. Assuming it’s the former, we’re either heading for a reintegraton of many of fo members into the galaxy or setting an abslutely uncrossable difference between the two sides of the conflict with annihilation of the wrong side. Basically speaking - any story in which you can pinpoint an inherent differnce between Rey and Kylo Ben will be about that difference and not connection between them. So after 2 hours of pewpewpew Resistance will vanquish FO by the sheer power of how right they are and Rey, rousseanian wild child, will rebuild jedi that will just be better than the old ones because she’s incapable of making the same mistakes as old jedi and either kill Kylo Ben in a situation of absolute necessity stemming from his evilness or forgive him because that sends a more flattering better message.

boring, I know but making it interesting is absolutely unonceivable for a good deal of audience

Any last bit of analytical thinking is telling me we’re heading for coniunctio oppositorum. Tears in my childhood’s icon’s eyes as he talks of his perfect student saving immaculate good guys while opposing his evil nephew not killing him only because he’s too good for that badly want to tell my emotions otherwise. And I can’t stand it when my brain hemispheres are conflicted.

#episode ix speculation #star wars #reylo #cultural ramblings

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buddykins-blog · 6 years

Text

WiR Fanfiction

Summary:

A little short story about everyone's favorite female bad guy and the troubles she comes to face when Ralph's new life has an impact on the rest of bad-anon members. Mature and dramatic scenes entailed! This chapter focuses on Ralph and Vanellope at the bad annon meeting, next chapter is about Sorceress and her friend.

Dark Castle:

The bad anon meeting was starting in about thirty minutes, but this one was going to be different for the first time in a long time. It has been a little over a month since Sugar Rush was restored to the way it was supposed to be and Fix-it Felix Jr. had become a nicer and more welcoming environment for everyone. It was Ralph's idea that brought the game new life by making apartments for all the homeless characters by using the old building parts and they even made several buildings for anyone looking for a small getaway.

However at the previous meeting Ralph asked Clyde about hosting the meeting in one of the vacant buildings and that he could even provide snacks courtesy of Vanellope. And the group was more than happy to agree to the idea.

So now Ralph was setting up the penthouse for the meeting; hanging their sign and bringing chairs out from the closet. "Hey Stinkbrain, it's crooked." Vanellope called out as she looked up from the bar area where she was sitting eating some of the snacks they had just set up.

"Is not." the wrecker huffed looking up at the banner confused. The only reason he knew it wasn't crooked like she was saying was because he put the corners at the top of the wall; he didn't need a measure when it was against the ceiling. But not a moment later the little nail on the left side slipped from the wall and that half of the banner fell.

"Now it is." smirked the little troublemaker causing Ralph to grown. She glitched over to the sign looking for the missing nail and gave it to him.

Taking the nail Ralph jammed it back in place with his finger putting a small hole in the wall; but after giving the banner a test tug he was satisfied it didn't move an inch. "See kid, who needs Felix and his hammer?" he was more than smirking at his little joke. Just then there was a knock at the door before it opened to Sorceress and Clyde, "Oh hey guys, did you find it okay?"

"Yes, thanks to your guides." The blue villian smiled at the host. Ralph was worried about the other members getting lost on their way here since most of them had never even been in his game before, and any that have been would find it changed drastically. So to help with directions he had put up about a dozen signs leading his guests to the penthouse; and a little before the meeting started everyone was happily taking their seats along with some snacks and a drink.

Ever since the Cybug incident and after the word had spread around, slowly things were getting better for all the members; and Clyde had brought this up as a thought which the others all were feeling too. "It's like in Sugar Rush too." Vanellope chimed in from the bar where she had been sitting quietly listening in. "Opps. sorry." she shrunk in on herself when she saw everyone turn to her.

"No no, that's quite alright Vanellope, why don't you explain to us what you meant?" Clyde still being the lead for the most part prompted her to continue her thought.

"Well in my game there isn't any bad or good guy roles, it's just racing. Before I met Ralph everyone treated me like how you guys said." a glitch rolled through her features as some of the emotional memories can up. "But now they treat me better. Taffeta and a few others are still mean though, but not everyone is like them." a small frown crossed Ralph's face knowing that even though everything was fixed it still wasn't the way it should have been.

"See Ralph, I told you; Ralph is a good guy." Zangief reminded the group of his montra from before. And truth be told, the wrecker had felt better about himself since first hear that; even if he would never say it.

It wasn't long after that the meeting was coming to an end and the group joined together for the acclimation; this time Ralph speaking along with the others as he now believed in himself and those words. Sorceress was the last one to the door as Ralph and Vanellope were having some left over snacks. Looking back at the two she decided there was no reason for her to go back to her castle and be alone for another night. "Mind if I join you two?" she asked politely as she floated over to a bar stool.

"Come on, dive right in!" Vanellope was more than happy to slide over a plate piled with an assortment of snacks for the elven woman. "So… can I ask what your name is? I kinda forgot it." the little racer asked sheepishly.

A small smile crossed Sorceress' face, Vanellope didn't have to know her name to have conversation with her but here she was wanting to know regardless. "I am Sorceress, from Dark Castle." she introduced herself as she floated up and gave a curtsey, "It's a pleasure to meet you President Vanellope Von Schweetz."

"Well at least someone has some manners." the game leader glared at Ralph who only ever called her president sarcastically. "Oh what's your game like? You already know mines a racing game and Ralph here just has to climb the building, but what do you do?" Even Ralph was eager to hear as he never heard the whole story behind her game, only that the good guy hates her even if the other characters don't hold a grudge against her.

"Well in short I kill the princess." her blood red eyes look down at her hands sadly. She never wanted to kill her best friend, and now she had to kill her friends daughter every day too. But even so, it was fun to see their faces go from curious to shocked so fast, although it wasn't uncommon for the bad guys to kill someone in the event of the player losing.

"The game starts out with a cut scene of me trying to gain more power, but I need a worthy sacrifice during the full moon and so I kidnap the princess from the human kingdom." her telling wasn't very detailed but she didn't want them to know how much more she really did; even if it was just in her code. "Then the king, the strongest knight, fights through my army with his soldiers and raids my castle. If the player can defeat my champion then the king kills me, but if the king dies or time runs out the player losses." that was the basic and important parts of her game in all honesty, while she never really knew all the details of the player's adventure she had heard it is somewhat frightening and very dangerous.

Vanellope was beyond interested in the tale and wanted to know more about the mysterious woman. "And you kill the princess?!" her eyes as wide as her plate.

Sorceress nodded slightly. "That is what the program makes me do." her eyes had lost the lightness she had when telling her story. Truth was the sacrifice did not actually kill the princess, instead it left her bleeding in pain even after the game over and only after she died did the pain go away. It hurt to see the princess dying because over the years they had grown to be friends, but her father still resented the villain role for being the one to hurt his daughter.

Ralph could see the hurt in her eyes, it's a similar pain that he felt for the past thirty years. "Hey you know what you should do?" he asked giving her a nudge.

"What?"

"Why don't you take some of this stuff back and tomorrow you can share it with her as an apology?" Ralph had come up with the idea thinking about how at the end of each day Mary brought him a cake. So he figured if it worked on a bad guy why wouldn't it work on the princess.

That was actually a good idea. The thought came to Sorceress that her and the princess could become better friends this way. While the king would still hate her as he always had, even with the current change in the way bad guys were treated, it would make her game better knowing that she and the princess could have a better relationship. "Thank you Ralph! That is a wonderful idea!"

"Come on, we can help carry some stuff over for you." Ralph offered as he and Vanellope both got up from their stools at the counter.

And soon enough the three friends found themselves in Dark Castle putting the snacks on a table in a room that players didn't see. "Alright you all set then Sorceress?" sugary bits being dusted off his overalls when he asked her.

"Yes I think I will be just fine thanks to you two." The dark elf smiled fondly at the two of them before they left for their own games to prepare for the new day. And that night the spell caster went to bed thinking of how her new day might go and what she might do to make it new.

Author's Notes:

So I had inspiration for this and couldn't help myself. There is still more to this story already written. let me know what you thought and I'll be back soon!~ (thanks for reading!)

#wreck it ralph #sorceress #venellope von schweetz #ralph #bad annon #buddykins #fanfiction #Dark Castle

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tristanis-starweaver · 6 years

Text

Lessons

Lady Feles'andan just stared at the Sin'dorei child in front of her. Pretty much most of the race could be considered children to her standards and the time she had been alive. "You are playing with fire." Her voice didn't project any sort of critical tone, more of a statement of fact.

"I don't cast any sort of fire magics, I'm not able t–" Tristanis had not even once made eye contact since he arrived. This area was relatively safe, most of the forces that made Suramar a dangerous place had been driven away, but he still rubbed his hand over his chest. It was more reflexive remembering getting backhanded by one of those war constructs.

"I don't mean actual fire chi–," Her voice had a slight bit of irritation as she cut off his comment, her own ended as she didn't finish the word on her tongue. "Apologies. I know that you do not like to be called that."

"How much about me do you actually know?" For the first time he looked up, staring at her directly. "I still don't know why I am here exactly."

"I know enough; most likely far more than would make you comfortable. I know your mother is not well. The conflicted feelings you have with one you might be mated with. Even down to your more recent exploits with your missing House member." Tristanis cringed at that looking back off to the side as some of his more personal details were laid bare. "I know that you desperately seek knowledge, but find it difficult to be with other students half your age. That you learn every little scrap of information you can from whoever will teach you, even if their condescending tone makes you burn inside."

Tristanis started to object but nodded. He tried to find the right words to object to the Shal'dorei arcanist, but none came. She was drilling right down to things he didn't tell anyone.

"I also know how many times you snuck into our city. Stretching some errand given to you by a Magister, just to get a glimpse. I know all about the tomes you stole." He expression looked a bit stern as she turned back to the edge of the terrace to look over the still healing city. "Excuse me, 'Reappropriated'. You so do like to split hairs on definitions don't you."

"Everything I have learned was about precision. Saying the right thing not to offend someone in Silvermoon. When I first got there it was a painful lesson."

"A secret is that I have about as much love for court politics as you seem to hold. I however do not voice it nearly as openly." She looked over her shoulder studying him. She was wondered how hard she could push him before he bolted like a frightened little rabbit. "I must say that I am glad you followed the message that was sent for you. I am also glad that you were able to decipher it. We would not be here speaking if you had not the skill too."

"I had to go through half a dozen maps to try and find the right place, not to mention the only reason I could was all that time I put into translating the Shal'dorei texts." There was a bit more bravado that started to come out as he looked back at the days worth of work in deciphering the rune that had burnt itself into his work desk. "Oh and the fact that it was written in code, and I had to redraw it to unravel what it was trying to say."

"As I said if you did not have the skill or intellect to do so you would not be here. Let me tell you a few things more I know as well. You should dead right now." She turned away from the balcony and stared right at him. He started to flinch unnervingly at the stare, but at least stood his ground. She was a bit pleased at this as she continued on not giving him a chance to worry too much. "You were careful. Very, meticulously careful where you got your tomes from. Never once did you take one from one of the suffering few. While your targets were careful, the way you slipped into the more demon prone areas was reckless. Alone, you could have made a single mistake and ended up killed, or far worse. Serving them."

"I know it might have not been the smartest thing to do but still not worth dwelling on it now."

"Perhaps you should. You had assistance. Your nascent illusions should have been torn to shreds there. Yet they did not. While good, they were." She tried to find the right word without ripping into his skill, knowing much of it was learned on his own. "Imprecise. They were excellent for what you knew how to do but you walked into a den of rogues carrying a dagger by the wrong end."

Tristanis sighed and shook his head, the right side of his lip curled up, a bit disgusted but he tried to keep an impassive look. His pride taken a little beating, even if she was being kind. "I…"

"Don't form excuses. What you did was arrogant and foolish, but also rather daring. Not to mention, you selected targets that were, less than savory? I'm stepping all over your ego, but I do not intend to crush it, dear boy. Now then I am sure you have questions, do make sure to ask the right ones."

He winced at the words again, growing somewhat more suspicious as to why he had been drawn here to this woman. "I want to know why I am here. Your riddle lead me here, so here I am. What i want to know right now, is if I should be dead, why -am- I here."

Her face loosed a bit in a smile as she turned back away from the Sin'dorei and leaned forward to rest both hands on the ledge's railing. "I won't dance around the subject. I was watching you. I helped you bolster some of the illusions as well as created more than one distraction to keep you safe."

Tristanis's eyes darted back and forth as he thought about the implications of that and how close he really could have come to death there. He started to fidget with his messenger bag strap as the color drained a bit from his cheeks. "Now, many times you did this it was pure luck on your end. There were some times I let you get over your head to ensure you'd learn, but when I could I offered a bit of help. Granted part of it was to ensure as much chaos before the insurrection as I could manage. Yet there you were, far outside your home and skill, a little mana wyrm sliding between predators."

"I thought I was being sneaky and such. I mean, I thought I was safe, well. Not safe but doing as well as I could, and that was good enough." He moved up beside her looking down into the city below as well. "Blink out in an instant."

"You did not however. While you did have some help in some rather tight situations, you did still manage to do some on your own. Raw power you have, elegance, you do not." She raised her hand, conjuring up a small blue-white marble of arcane power. The small sphere twisting as a knot between her fingers before it gingerly started to hover over her fingertips. A small flicker of brightness before it collapsed back in on itself. "Tell me, why did you take those tomes."

"I wanted to learn something no one else had. I wanted to find out more about who you all were here. I wanted to understand more than anyone else did. Maybe even progress to be even more powerful myself with techniques that no one else knew."

"Elves and power. Never have two things been so complicatedly intertwined. Your own power, your own knowledge. Being first to something rarely is important, unless it is a race, still I can see that drive in you."

Tristanis stared at the city quietly. His fingers slowly curling up along the stone edge. He was furious and more than a bit terrified at this woman. She seemed to know him better than he did himself, and more than a few comments struck right down into his very being. If she was feeling anything, he could not tell it from the calm expression she wore. She was waiting, he knew it. He tried to think over all the questions in his mind. How did she help, was she expecting an apology, how did she know so much about him, what she wanted from him, and a dozen more.

His fingernails dug into the stone as he lowered his head down before asking again, "Why am I here with you?"

This was the first true smile she had as she answered directly. "You have great power, but lack the understanding to unleash it. You have great compassion, and take great care not to let your skill and training overtake it. You have great bravery, but like many young, do not now when your bravery is outmatched." She turned her head to the side after speaking to look at him. "You need someone to guide you in this. I will do so."

It took him a few heartbeats to realize what she had offered. Those heartbeats were nearly up into his throat towards the end. The near panic stricken Sin'dorei tried to keep from bolting at that. His voice trembled as he spoke up after that offer. "You wish to actually teach me?"

"I am not nearly as powerful as one of the grand Magistrates, or those that came to help, but teaching is what I do for my house. I ensure the younger ones are ready to understand the fire they hold in their hands and minds. How to respect that power so it does not destroy them. I will not lie. I have ulterior motives as well. You look at yourself as a bit of an outsider to even your own people, and I hope that will open your mind to other teachings. I hope this might foster the start of more doing the same thing to help bring tighter unity among the elven races. So much seething hatred among us, but look what we can do together."

"I-I will need some time to think about it. I don't want to jump in over my head with this." As he finished she started to laugh loudly a few times before smiling down to him.

"As opposed to getting over your head with demon and traitorous Shal'dorei? I can see where both things are of equal fear."

"B-but I only mean that I wanted to make sure I wasn't, I don't know." He expression went a bit awkward as he tried to say what he was thinking, just not able to get it out into words.

"I understand. I do. You're most likely afraid and excited at the same time. You will be tested and pushed more than you ever knew. Your title of Magister will not be given but you will claim it from every trial you face. You will want to quit, there will be times you will hate me but I will teach you, when you are ready."

#Sin'dorei #mage #shal'dorei #World of Warcraft #IC

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 7 years

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The worst part about having two Inquisitors is that they should be able to split them up, get twice as much done! Especially with nine party members they have more than enough people, but no, no, they refuse to split up and honestly they need constant supervision anyway.

You know in a modern AU they're just like "DON'T SPLIT THE PARTY" "You know what happens in horror movies when you split up!" and Cassandra makes a [disgusted noise]

But you know seriously that for the first several weeks, they were impossible to split up. They tell Cassandra and Leliana that they met each other at the Conclave, but Cassandra doesn’t see how that’s possible. What do a Trevelyan and a Dalish elf have in common to draw them together in such a short time? - But if they had known each other before, then how would they have met? They are still from very different walks of life.

- Similar enough, both young, maybe mid-twenties, and both clearly terrified. They have not strayed more than two feet apart from one another. The elf girl is lighter on her feet than the human boy, but as she nimbly picks her way up the snowy hills she stops each time and waits for him to catch up to her.

She did not let either of them lay hand to a weapon, and she thinks she may regret that when they tumble down to an icy expanse filled with demons. "Get behind me!" she shouts, raising her shield, praying that they will get to cover as she strikes. The demons fall, one by one, but one must have gone around her, as she hears Trevelyan yell. She turns in time to see him pulling a sword loose from the wreckage of a cart, but the elf has already bounded across the ice, past him, pushing him away so that she stands between him and the demon. From her hands she forms a giant fireball and she throws it. It explodes on the ice in front of the demon and the creature shrieks as the flames batter it. She waves a hand and they rise higher, and the second one she tosses catches the demon squarely, and when the flames pull apart, the demon does too, in a howling mass of blood and guts.

Oh, Cassandra thinks, far too belatedly for the fact that she already has her shield up again, between her and the survivors, this time, not the demons. A mage. She's a mage.

Chancellor Roderick glares at them with all of the force he can muster. “Murderers!” he snarls, and they stand there huddled together like two druffalo trying to shield each other from the wind. “Heathen -”

Trevelyan shifts forward slightly, as though to shield Esti from the accusations. (If she had a surname, or a clan name, she hasn’t given it.) He stares the chancellor down, the way Etsti stood between him and the demon, and finally with pressure from Leliana and Cassandra, he yields and lets them pass, still spitting curses after them though he does.

Brennan wakes first, confused for a while as to where this warm house with these warm quilts is, but he finds a scribbled note from a healer mentioning the Breach and the mark and everything comes rushing back. He dresses in clothes to leave but instead sits back down on his bed, reading and rereading the paper in his hands, trying to ignore the twinge in his left palm. Esti is just sitting up, blinking at the bright light filtering in through the windows, when an elven serving girl enters, squeaks, and rushes away as soon as she can, no matter how Esti tries to hurry after her, “Wait, there’s no reason to be afraid of me! Why are you-”

She stands there in the middle of the room in her undershirt and leggings and Brennan glances away, but she doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the issue of modesty - much less bothered than the many other matters plaguing them. He searches the room again for anything he can lay hands on as a weapon but finds nothing. He remembers demons buckling under flames that Esti summoned in her hands, no staff required. They’ll be fine, he thinks, and Esti looks at him as she pulls on her gloves. “Should we go find the chantry?” she asks.

"I don't want to make" - what is her name? - "Cassandra angry."

Esti's lips twitch into a smile. "I suppose I don't either."

He pushes the door open and stops dead. A crowd has gathered alongside the house, forming a gauntlet along the path that they will have to walk. They explode in a cacophony of noise and for a horrible paralyzing moment he is in Ostwick, in the Circle, a crowd of Templars gathered to lay a verdict on his head and throw him out; in the estate, in court, and dozens of eyes turning to him, again and again and never for a good reason. He can catch halves of phrases: "-that them?" "-closed the-" "-the Breach-" "-the Breach-" "-Andraste-" "-the Fade-" "-saved us-"

"Andraste saved them."

He blinks stupidly, not understanding.

“They saved us.”

"They saved us!"

He hears it again and still does not understand, but Esti has straightened up, breathing out a sharp puff of air. "Come on," she says, tugging on his arm. Then she steps forward and silence falls for half a second before the chatter renews. No one tries to touch her or speak to her and Brennan follows. She walks like a noble, like royalty, until they have woven their way in between the tents, away from the crowd, and she seems to fold back into herself, shoulders and head dropping and curling down. "You walk like you know what you're doing," he says.

She laughs shakily. "It's how Keeper does, and I'm supposed to be the next Keeper." She glances back over her shoulder to where the crowd was. "I can walk like it but as soon as I have to say something profound and...leader-ly, then it all..." She drags the statement out like she's searching for a word and then she shrugs and says, "You know."

He does, he thinks - the Trevelyan's shameful son.

Chancellor Roderick calls them "lying heathen murderers" again, but Cassandra chases him off with quiet fury and a confidence that Brennan admires. She and Leliana call in the other heads of their Inquisition, a former Templar - oh, this will be great, Brennan thinks, imagining that Cassandra must know his own sordid history with the Templars, and Esti a mage - and an Antivan noblelady who greets Esti in elvish. Her face lights up and Brennan tries to replay the words in his mind to learn them. He'll ask the ambassador later.

In the Hinterlands, it rains one day, and Esti raises a hand and the air around it shimmers and then Brennan no longer feels drops of water on his face. He looks up to see the air shimmering and rain splattering like it has hit an invisible force above their heads. "How - that's - that's magic," he says. "That's really useful."

Esti grins. "The way the Templars in Ostwick said it, there's nothing useful like this you can do with magic, just maim and murder and they are missing out."

He hears Solas snort quietly nearby.

The cleric, Mother Giselle, they find suggests a trip to Val Royeaux, to find the surviving Chantry clerics, and Brennan thinks that is a terrible idea. He looks at Esti. She is looking back at him. They look at Cassandra.-

The Lord Seeker punches a cleric and curses at Cassandra and Esti shrinks behind Brennan, trying to escape their notice. "I know the Lord Seeker," Cassandra says after. "He and the Seekers, and their Templars, are not like this."

Brennan looks all around, seeming confused, and Esti thinks he is looking for her and steps back up to his side. He catches her eye and then rolls his. "Sure they're not," he mutters.

Leliana marks on the war table map the location in the Hinterlands where a Grey Warden has been spotted. Josephine points out the Storm Coast where the mercenary company will be. "You could split up," Cullen suggests. Esti's head jerks up in alarm. She frantically shakes it as he continues on, "If Cassandra and Brennan and Solas went to the Hinterlands, and Esti and... Sera, and.... Varric..."He trails off, seeming to realize how unwise that combination would be. "If Leliana were to..."

"No," she says.

"You could," Esti says. She's heard Varric laugh about Curly. There is no way in all the abyss that Cullen would agree to a trek out to the Storm Coast with Varric.

He looks at her and she reminds herself that he is only a few years older than Brennan and she could probably kick his ass if she wanted to. She pictures him meeting Essa and any lingering fear of Templar fades into amusement. She thinks he is probably trying to decide if she is serious. "If," he says, "Cassandra and Brennan and Varric -"

"No," Cassandra says.

"You don't like our company, Seeker?" Brennan asks. Josephine holds her clipboard to her face but Esti can hear her giggle. "That hurts."

"You are both insufferable," Cassandra says, "and you make her" - she nods at Esti - "insufferable."

"Could we send delegations to both the rebel mages and the Templars?" Josephine asks.

"Cassandra and several others to Therinfall Redoubt, and Esti and I and whoever to Redcliffe?" Brennan suggests.

"The Templars likely will want to negotiate with one of the Heralds," Josephine says. Esti starts to repeat her and Brennan's frequent motto of, we are not the Heralds of anyone! but what is the use.

"So if Cassandra and..." Cullen looks at Esti. "You won't want to march into a fortress full of Templars, I'm sure." She nods. She appreciates the notice. "Brennan, Cassandra and Brennan go to Therinfall Redoubt with -"

"I, uh, don't really want to go to a fortress full of Templars, either," Brennan says. He fidgets and stares down at his hands. "I was a Templar recruit in Ostwick. And I got - thrown out of the Order." He winces as though bracing himself for an outburst. "Me and Templars don't get along very much."

Cullen sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "So neither of you are willing to negotiate with the Templars?"

"I would be plenty willing if I expected that they would be willing to work with me, but the Lord Seeker punched an old woman and told us to fuck off, in more formal terms, and I don't think they'll have suddenly changed. Or their opinion of me. If I was one of my siblings, now, maybe..."

"We're going to Redcliffe, together," Esti says, over Brennan's fumbling to find a way to end his ramble, nudging his arm with her shoulder. "Forget the Templars. We can sort them out when the Breach is closed."

Cullen had expectations of how the meeting with the rebel mages could go poorly. Tevinter being involved was not one of his predictions. The magister's son leaves a note in Brennan's hand, the chantry, and Esti knows instantly that it's a trap. So Brennan seems to, as well. They stare at each other and as she starts to speak, he is already saying the same words, unplanned, uncoordinated. "Spring the trap."

Brennan making doe eyes at another magister - altus, what-fuckin-ever, fenedhis, 'Vints are annoying! - is something that Cullen would also not have predicted in his nightmares. Esti wouldn't have, either. She digs her elbow into Brennan's side. "C'mon, Bren," she hisses, and when the 'Vint, Dorian, looks at Esti, she twists her mouth in a snarl. Go away, now.

There is a lot that Esti could not conjure up in her worst nightmares, but she knows that she will be seeing it again in her dreams for the rest of her life. Dorian works his magic and she and Brennan stand there, waiting, and she prays to each of the Creators in turn and then Fen'Harel for good measure, I'll give you my life or my cursed hand or my soul for this to never happen, and the castle shakes around them with another onslaught of demons.

She doesn't notice herself reaching for Brennan's hand until she is squeezing it in a death grip, but he doesn't seem to mind.

Dorian catches her alone, once, and flashes her a grin meant to be charming and says, "You're quite possessive of him, aren't you?"

"He's my friend and I don't like you or trust you," she snaps back.

She realizes what he probably meant about two hours later and spaces out in the middle of a conversation with Solas, which is admittedly not an infrequent occurrence. It takes her until the next day to find a moment when she is not with Brennan, but Brennan is not with Dorian. "It's not like that," she says. "Did you notice how he's hanging around you? Looking at you like you're not a - a snake!"

"That's a creative insult. Being from Tevinter, I certainly have never heard that before."

"Great," she says. "I don't have more energy to spare on unique insults for a magister. I -"

"Ah, hello there, Brennan," Dorian says over her head. "How are you this fine day?"

Brennan gives each of them a quizzical look, but he answers Dorian cheerfully enough. Esti remains planted there in silence, making sure that Dorian will catch her eye every few minutes to see her glaring.

"What happens after?" Esti asks, stopping for a moment to lean her hands on a boulder as they climb back up to the ruins of the temple. Brennan watches the Breach and the ever-shifting shades of green within. "Can we go home?"

His heart drops. "There'll probably be rifts to close," he says. He shouldn't want this madness to last. Tell him at the start of this, the last time he stood in the Temple beneath the Breach, that he would want to stay with the Inquisition, and he would call it madness. But Ostwick is no more home than Haven - it is less home.

"But after," Esti says. She scrambles up a loose patch of dirt and turns around in the path and looks back at him. "After, we'll be able to leave, right?" She looks at Cassandra.

"I wouldn't make plans yet," Cullen says. "Everything has a way of..."

"Destroying every hope we begin to have in our tiny mortal lives in a fit of great godly antipathy?" Esti offers.

"And people say I talk funny," Sera mutters.

"You could come meet my clan," Esti says to Brennan. "Close all the rifts along the road to Wycome and go visit them."

"They'd let me stay with them?" he asks.

"Yeah, I'd say you're okay and that'd be fine," she says, and for a few moments, his heart feels lighter. Then his hand twinges and he stares back up at the Breach. As long as this doesn't kill us.

It's okay, and then it isn't, and a thousand prayers to the Maker float past Brennan's ears, and right by his side, a string of curses at the Dread Wolf and the "shemlen's damned stupid gods." The chantry bells clang loudly over the crackling of the fires eating away at Haven and almost carelessly Esti tosses magically formed ice at each. They can't wait to see if it halts the spread of the flames at all, and they are down past the gates, where the Templars have regrouped, red crystals springing from their armor like that which filled Redcliffe Castle.

Dorian nearby is cursing in Tevene, while Blackwall, Cassandra, and Solas are quiet, speaking only to call out positions of the enemy. Varric is rambling something that he can't quite make out. Brennan reaches the controls of the second catapult and he feels at his back the variant heat of flames cast and thrown, fading in and out of existence, that Esti controls. She yells something and suddenly a wall of ice stretches up over them, toward the sky. "Hurry," she gasps. "Fenedhis, Cullen's signal better come soon -"

They're going to bury themselves and the thought rises with clarity in his mind and then shatters to make way for immediate matters as the ice fractures into a thousand glistening pieces that suddenly vanish. He lashes out at a nearby Templar with a dagger. It almost seems quieter, now, before a roar shakes the ground and the catapult and Brennan's very soul inside of him. He ducks his head and Esti shrinks back against him. "What is that!" he yells.

He lifts his head and sees the dragon.

They scatter, all of them, as it spits fire to the ground. Brennan is thrown from his feet and collides with the ground hard enough that for a moment the world goes quiet but for a ringing, and it spins as he starts to sit back up. He sees the dragon, and Esti, and some giant figure, perhaps another of the huge red lyrium beasts, but no sign of any of the others. He hopes they got away. He hopes a few of them will survive.

He doesn't know of any words to describe the creature that looms up out of the smoke. It has a few red crystals breaking through its skin but bears no further resemblance to the warped terrors that may once have been Templars. It speaks, with a voice that is smoother than it has any right to be, and it speaks of the Conclave and the Breach and the rifts and the marks on their hands. In its own hand it raises an orb that glows, two jagged strings of light like lightning reaching out from it and finding their way to his marked hand, and Esti's. It feels as though something has grabbed his hand and is dragging him across the ground. He digs his feet into the dirt and tries to stop the movement, but Esti is closer to the creature and it grabs her by the arm and holds her up, dangling ten feet above the ground.

"Put her down!" Brennan yells. He finds at his side only a small dagger left on his body, but he charges the creature - Corypheus, it named itself - anyway. Before he reaches it, it flings Esti down at him and she crashes into him and bowls him over.

"The anchor is permanent," it sneers. "You two foolish children have spoiled it with your stumbling."

They both yell angry questions at him, words Brennan doesn't even remember moments after speaking them, because the creature cannot speak a straight sentence and will not deign to offer them more of an explanation than its desire to be worshiped as a god. They are desperately stalling until the bright flare of Cullen's signal scrapes the dark winter sky.

"Go," Esti whispers and they spring up. Brennan lunges for the catapult controls and Esti throws a fireball up toward Corypheus' face. The catapult unwinds, the projectile flying off toward the mountains, and Corypheus stares at it. He slowly turns his head toward them as the rumbling of the coming avalanche shakes the ground.

"Time to go," Brennan says. He grabs Esti's arm and they run, diving for a hole in the ground as the snow swallows up the town. He hears the dragon roar.

"Well, shit," Brennan says. The mouth of the caverns opens into a raging snowstorm, masking the world in white and gray. The path the rest of the Inquisition took could be anywhere.

Esti laughs and winces, wrapping her arm around her ribs. "Well," she agrees, "shit."

Brennan leans on her to take the weight off of the burning through his leg. At least he isn’t alone. If he dies, he won’t be alone.

Carrying each other, they stumble out into the storm.

"We've lost contact with some Fereldan and Inquisition soldiers in the Fallow Mire," Cullen says. "There have also been rumors of darkspawn and red templar activity on the Storm Coast. If Brennan, Blackwall, and Cassandra were to investigate, Esti can take-"

"I am not going to anywhere named the 'Fallow Mire' unless Brennan is going to come suffer along with me," Esti says.

"Thanks," Brennan says.

#i hope the sequences i did from brennan's pov are good #it didn't feel right having it all be just esti #esti lavellan #brennan trevelyan #brotp: we are not the messiahs!#well i guess this is an oc tag #trash kid writing #runningwolf62

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kalgalen · 7 years

Text

Blood On My Name (1/?)

GUESS WHO WROTE A FIC

So I started that thing about two years ago, and i've only finished the first chapter (go me!). I do have big plans for that fic though, so please comment if you like it, it'll encourage me not to sit on my ass for two more years until the next chapter lmao

The first chapter contains mentions of abusive relationship.

(it’s also on ao3 but since tumblr isn’t allowing people to put links in posts anymore it’s all here. you can still come and give me a kudo if you want! my username is kalgalen there as well.)

The icy water felt like a slap on their face, stinging their skin unpleasantly but clearing up their mind from the alcoholic fog it had sunk in the previous night. They breathed in deeply, trying to get their upset stomach to settle. Reluctantly, they raised their eyes from the sink, their hands clutching tightly at the white porcelain to avoid simply falling over and cracking open their skull on the edge of the bathtub. Their gaze drifted up until it met their reflection in the mirror. As usual, it was a surprise to discover their own face - features that should have been familiar, but somehow always looked all wrong and out-of-place.

Hawke lifted a hand to their hair, futilely attempting to comb the messy bangs back in some sort of order. The shade was incorrect, but no matter how many times they tried to dye it, it never was the color Hawke felt it was supposed to be.

It was a very uncomfortable experience to see a stranger blinking back at you every morning.

Hawke grabbed the red toothbrush - unsuccessfully attempting to ignore the blue one next to it, purposefully forgotten by its owner as an absence painful reminder - and squeezed a bit of toothpaste on it before starting to brush their teeth. It would most likely fail at ridding their mouth of the taste of bile and cheap wine, but it was better than to bury themselves back under the covers and ignore the entire world until it stopped hurting.

When they were done, they thoroughly rinsed their mouth and splashed some more water on their face. The small efforts at self-care were comforting and much needed, and Hawke almost felt human again by the end of it. Recovering two small pills from a white and blue box - elfroot-based painkillers, strong enough to deal with the throbbing headache Hawke could feel pounding at the edge of their mind - they exited the bathroom.

Painful headaches often meant accidentally setting things on fire, and that wasn't a thing Hawke was willing to deal with this early in the morning - or, as they discovered when they took a look at the kitchen clock, at half two in the afternoon.

To be fair, they had passed out pretty late the previous night. This shouldn't have been a surprise.

Hawke retrieved a glass from a cupboard, noticing how empty it had started to look. They'd have to do the dishes in the near future. Why didn't they get a dishwasher sooner? It would have spared them countless arguments with their siblings about whose turn it was to do the chores - and it would have cleared some time for their mother to live her life instead of taking care of her three grown-up children.

Hawke set the glass on the table with a bit too much vivacity. There was no use crying over spilled milk. It was too late for regrets.

But even as they kept repeating themselves that what had passed had passed, sitting alone at a kitchen table designed for a much larger number of people, sipping their water to nurse their hangover, Hawke was becoming more and more aware of the silence around them. There was faint sounds of traffic coming from outside, echoes of Kirkwall living and moving around them, but in the Amell estate stillness filled every corner, laying dust and shadows down where laughs used to ring. The emptiness weighted hard on their shoulders, making it difficult for them to breathe. Guilt, loneliness, the indescribable fear of not having anybody to hold, to talk to, to acknowledge their existence - everything was being weaved into a knot Hawke could feel tightening against their throat.

Breathe in, breathe out. Don't think about the time you could have spend with Mother, if you hadn't been so selfish. Don't think about Carver enrolling in the army and leaving for Seheron, because risking his life there was preferable to putting up with your presence here. Don't think about Bethany who chose to accept that scholarship for Ostwick's University, when Kirkwall's offered exactly the same program. Don't think about how disappointed Father would be of his first born for failing at keeping the family together, and instead lamenting about their own fate while nursing a hangover.

Don't think.

Their breathing back under control, Hawke finished their drink in one gulp and got up, setting the glass in the stainless steel sink among the other dirty dishes. They’d have to take care of that later.

***

Merrill always found social conventions baffling. So little of it made sense, and "that's how things are" wasn't a good enough reason for her to follow absurd rules. Why should she leave a beaten animal at the hands of its abusive owner? How could an employer decide that more money for them outweighed a better living situation for the people below them? Why was she allowed to walk on this patch of grass, but not on the one just next to it?

Granted, that specific patch of grass had been situated on the other side of a fairly large wall, which usually meant strangers weren't welcome beyond that point.

Still, Merrill didn't do anything wrong. A garden was made to be visited, not locked behind iron gates and open only to a handful of rich important people. She had climbed the wall separating the backyard of the precinct from the rest of the town and walked the paved alleys drawn according to Orlesian patterns. She had touched the rough barks of the oaks, grazed the soft skin of the birch trees, smelled some of the delicate roses blooming on an ancient stone arch. There hadn't been anyone around at the time, and she had decided that she deserved a short nap near the quiet stream running across the garden. She had settled on the grass, breathing in the fresh smell of clean water and healthy flora, the cacophony of the city reduced to a dull and distant background noise.

This wasn't something she had the occasion to experience often back in the alienage, and she had drifted off pretty quickly - only to be woken up by a loud voice demanding to know what she was doing here, and a large hand descending on her to grab her arm.

She had been brought in Viscount's Keep itself and sat on a chair in front of a stern-looking woman. Merrill could feel her silently judging her too-sharp ears and the shape of her eyes, all the small details that betrayed the non-human blood in her veins. She had affected an innocent expression and batted her eyelashes.

That kind of person was always willing to believe she was too dumb to lie, and she wasn't about to overlook any points in her advantage.

Half an hour later, Merrill had given every first name she could think of but her own, invented a dozen family names from her surrounding, and she was pretty sure the lady behind the desk would have locked her up long ago hadn't she been convinced that Merrill was, in fact, incapable of remembering her own name. Merrill loved it when some people's bias against the elf-blooded population worked in her favor.

"Let me see her! You don't have the right to- Hey! Hands off!"

Merrill looked toward the sound of the commotion, catching sight of light blond hair. It confirmed what the yelling already told her: that Velanna was here, and ready to tear her way through half the precinct to get to Merrill. She smiled and raised her hand.

"I'm here, Vel," Merrill waved as her roommate shoved aside a policeman twice her size.

Velanna all but ran to her, catching her hands as if to make sure she was okay - in fact, Merrill could feel tendrils of magic reaching out to her, assessing her condition.

"Creators, you're okay," Velanna signed in relief, before glaring daggers at Merrill's interrogator: "Why is she being detained?"

"Trespassing," the woman answered. She had gotten even surlier at the sight of Velanna's facial tattoos.

“Oh, lethalin," Velanna sighed. "Again?"

The use of the elven word was mostly destined to keep Merrill's name hidden, but it also made the cop shift uncomfortably on her chair.

"Miss, your friend needs to stop doing that. Viscount's Keep gardens are an inestimable heritage. We can't simply open it to people-"

"People like us?" asked Velanna with a smile that showed all her teeth. "Knife-ears? Vermin? Go ahead, you can say it. It's nothing I haven't heard before."

"I wouldn't..." the woman stammered, looking horrified - and, Merrill noticed, slightly shameful. "I didn't mean to-"

"But you did," Velanna interrupted her, venomous. "You shemlen cops only care about your own, don't you?"

The woman's expression became stormy under the insult, and Merrill nervously pulled her coat tighter around her body. This was going too far. She opened her mouth to intervene, when a new voice rose.

"That's enough."

Velanna kept her eyes fixed on the person she seemed to consider as her new archnemesis while Merrill turned to the speaker. It was another policewoman, her red hair tied back and a disapproving expression on her face. For some reason, her straight posture and the fine line of her mouth looked familiar to Merrill, as if she was an echo of a blurry dream.

“I’ll take care of this,” the familiar woman said, and gestured for Merrill to get up.

Merrill did so, eager to get away from the battle of will occurring between Velanna and her interrogator - she literally could feel sparks crackling in the air. She had to take her friend’s hand to drag her away from the desk and toward the red-haired lady waiting in front of a door.

“Enter,” the woman said with a gesture in direction of the inside of the office. “It won’t take long."

Merrill squeezed Velanna's hand in a way she hoped was reassuring and stepped into the room.

It was small, but the window opened in the opposite wall made it look more spacious. The shelves aligned on the walls, neat and structured, implied that the office's occupant was an adept of order and organization, but the desk in the middle of the room suggested otherwise. Covered in uneven piles of paperwork, there was barely any space to write. A small place was cleared at the foot of the desk lamp for a frame the size of a hand and an empty mug. Merrill could discern a name on a copper plate half-buried under circulation forms: A. VALLEN.

The woman - Vallen, Merrill guessed - closed the door behind them and looked at her.

"I'll be quick. I can arrange for this incident to be forgotten-"

"Why would you do that?" Velanna questioned. She wasn't as aggressive as before, but she was still tense, and had placed herself a bit in front of Merrill. The message was clear: don't try anything funny.

Vallen looked slightly annoyed at the interruption. She barely glanced at Velanna before continuing, talking directly at Merrill:

"As far as I'm concerned, you didn't do anything wrong. You're free to go, on one condition."

Velanna mumbled "here it is". Merrill simply nodded.

"What is it?"

Vallen looked incredibly tired for a couple of second. She sighed.

"Just... Don't get into anymore trouble.”

"That's all?" Merrill exclaimed. She could feel Velanna holding her hand a little tighter, her manner of saying: don't trust her.

The woman shrugged.

"Those gardens have been made to be admired. Keeping people away from them is stupid, but it's the law."

Merrill nodded.

“Fine. I’ll be more careful.”

Vallen offered her a tight smile, as if she wanted to seem friendly without having the slightest idea of how to actually get to that result.

“Good.”

She walked to the door and pushed it open, waving for them to get out. When Merrill walked passed her, she added:

"Next time, don't get caught."

The door closed in their face, and Merrill opened her mouth, closed it again, and finally said:

"Well, she didn't exactly say I couldn't come back. Right?"

Velanna rolled her eyes.

***

Aveline exhaled in the relative privacy of her office, leaning against the door she just closed. Fishing her cellphone out of her pocket, she scrolled through her contacts until she found the one she was looking for, and pushed the dial button. While she waited for her interlocutor to answer, she approached the window. It gave directly over the stairs leading to Viscount's Keep and offered her a good view of every person coming and going around it.

Over the phone, a man picked up.

"Yeah?"

He sounded distracted. Aveline didn't bother with pleasantries and got directly to the point.

"I think I found one of the persons you are looking for."

On the other end of the line, she could hear the man brighten up.

"Really? Who, and how? Do I have to bail anybody out of jail?"

Aveline made a face. What kind of person knowingly searched for people for whom being in prison was an expected situation? She replied nonetheless:

"A woman. Small. Dark hair, green eyes. About... twenty years old? Might as well be in her early thirties, though."

This was the thing that confused her the most about elf-blooded people: they didn't seem to age.

"Sounds like Merrill," the man mumbled - more to himself than to Aveline, she suspected.

"She trespassed in the Keep's gardens. That's where we found her," she continued.

The man chuckled.

"Yeah, sounds like Merrill alright. She always loved that place."

"You have weird friends," Aveline remarked. The woman and her tattooed companion had exited the police station and were currently standing in the middle of the stairs. The blonde seemed upset and was making large movements with her arms. The brunette - Merrill - appeared to be trying to calm her down.

"Hey, Red. They are your friends too."

"You convinced me to help you - but I don't know those people. I don't consider them my friends." After a second, she added: "And it's Deputy Chief Vallen for you, serah Tethras."

This brought another laugh from him.

"In another life, you got angry at me for not giving you any nicknames."

"This is not-" She huffed in irritation. "Even if I believed in your reincarnation tale, this is not "another life". As far as I'm concerned, this is the only life I have."

"Oh, Aveline. Ever the skeptical. Good, we need people like that too."

Aveline ignored the provocation.

"What do you even want from her?"

"Same as always. I want to reform the old gang." He sounded almost nostalgic. "Actually, it's a good thing you found Merrill first."

On the outside, Merrill had taken her friend's hand between her own. Apologizing, maybe, for a reckless - if usual - behavior.

"And you're just going to... what, walk up to her and announce that your souls have been acquaintances since the Dragon Age and that it means you have to hang out until you die again? Do you really think she's going to believe you?"

But as soon as the words left her mouth, Aveline reconsidered them. If one person in Kirkwall was disposed to swallow that kind of fiction, it was probably that girl.

Obviously, Tethras knew it too. He emitted a short bark of laughter.

"See, that's the difference between you and Daisy. She's a believer. And she's smart. Perceptive. She'll know. Do you still have the pictures of the others?"

Aveline absently glanced over to her coat, knowing the drawings he had given her were stuffed in one of the pockets.

"Yes."

"Good. Keep me updated."

She produced a noncommittal grunt. She didn't appreciate being given orders by civilians. Tethras visibly took it as a solid "yes".

"Good," he repeated. There was a short pause before he said, almost shyly: "Aveline?"

"What?" she breathed out wearily.

"Thank you."

Then he hung up.

***

The sound of keys outside the apartment made Fenris raise his eyes from his book. He tensed up imperceptibly as the door latch unlocked and instantaneously admonished himself for still having this reaction - you are safe now, and he cannot hurt you.

Some things were hard to remember some days.

Fenris slipped an old receipt between the pages of the book and stood up just as Varania pushed the door open, struggling to bring in three groceries bags. Her cheeks were red and her breath was short, obvious result of having dragged heavy bags up four flight of stairs. She frowned as soon as she saw her brother standing in their kitchen.

"Help me with this, will you?" she groaned, straightening up and putting a hand against her painful back.

He immediately joined her and grabbed two of the bags, hauling them on the kitchen counter with a grunt, and started to sort the items in the cupboards.

“How was your day?” he asked, putting away a couple of cans of beans in the storage cabinet below the microwave.

“Good, good. The usual. A guy brought in a dog with a broken leg, another arrived with a snake that somehow managed to tie itself into a knot. There was that kitten - white, fluffy, pure Orlesian Longhair, a real beauty - who started puking everywhere as soon as the examination started. It took two hours for me to clean everything. Oh, and a woman wanted to know if she’d get a fennec by breeding a fox and a cat? Yeah, I know,” she said, noticing Fenris’ disbelieving expression. “Like, how do you intend on catching a fox, lady?”

“That’s the lesser part of the problem,” Fenris mumbled, storing away the last of the foodstuff and scrunching up the plastic bags to put them away with their collection of other plastic bags stuffed in a bigger plastic bag. Varania just shrugged.

“I’m glad I wasn’t the one who had to explain to her exactly how impossible it was. I wouldn’t have been able to be half as patient as Arianni was. Anyway, how was your day?”

Fenris emitted a non-committal grunt, leaning his back against the counter.

“It was fine,” he answered eventually. “Got some reading done.”

“Did you get out of the apartment at least? Get some fresh air?”

He huffed. Varania sighed.

“You know you should get out more. It’ll do you some good.”

“I already go out! I work!” he protested, annoyed and feeling guilty.

“I meant go out for fun, and you know it. Socialize a little. Make some friends.”

Fenris smiled sweetly at his sister.

“I don’t need any friends. I have you.”

Varania tutted, grinning despite herself.

“You won’t get away with it by acting charming. I know all your tricks, they won’t work on me.”

Fenris laughed.

“Maybe I do need some new friends, some who will fall for my tricks.”

There was a loud thump against the wall of the living room, and Fenris couldn’t help but jump, instantly tense. A series of muffled words came from the neighboring apartment, expletives screamed by a feminine voice the siblings knew too well.

“They’re fighting again,” Varania said, somber.

“You mean, Hadriana is angry and Orana is afraid,” Fenris growled, his heart still beating fast and hard from the scare. Really, he should have been used to it by now; it happened at least twice a week, more if Hadriana was feeling particularly cruel. She would yell at her girlfriend - probably for no particular reason, since Orana seemed to be an adorable person, always polite and agreeable when Fenris bumped into her on the landing, whereas Hadriana was cold and distant. No audible response would come from Orana when those outbursts happened, and Fenris could only imagine her trembling in front of her partner, unable to defend herself.

The whole situation hit too close from home, and he dug his nails into the palm of his hands to avoid doing something he’d regret - although driving his fist into Hadriana’s face seemed like an excellent idea at the present time.

“We can’t do anything,” Varania reminded him softly. “As long as she doesn’t hit Orana, we can’t call the police. They won’t believe us.”

“Why do we have to wait for Orana to get hurt? It didn’t work out that well for me, did it?”

Varania looked uncomfortable and shifted on her feet, avoiding his eyes.

“Look, maybe I could talk to Orana next time I see her. I might be able to convince her to do something. Maybe move away, or something.” She tentatively crossed his gaze. “I’m sorry, I can’t do more.”

He shrugged.

“Okay. I have to go get ready for work now. I’ll be coming back home at 3, so don’t wait up on me.”

He left the kitchen without a look behind him, feeling sick in his stomach.

***

Thrift-shops were the richest places on Thedas.

Not because of the monetary value of what was being sold, obviously - but because of the memories attached to them. Isabela had retrieved a massive amount of souvenirs wandering through piles of discarded belongings, echoes of ageless arguments or fleeting moments of happiness dancing at the tips of her fingers as she ran them through dusty old clothes, half-corroded jewelry and stained records of times long passed.

But Isabela wasn't interested in sweet family memento. What she was looking for was far more tangible - and lucrative.

She was riffling through crackled maps. Among those were some ancient enough to have belonged to her great-grandmother - not that she ever met her: Grandma Iria had died at sea long before Isabela herself was even born. Some were barely readable, the ink rubbed away by the brush of countless hands. Most were only pieces of paper, and Isabela pushed them aside, her brows furrowing as she waited for a sign, a familiar tug on her mind that would tell her there was an interesting secret trapped in one of the scrolls.

After fifteen minutes of fruitless research, Isabela sighed in frustration. Some days were not lucky. She straightened back up, leaving the box of maps, and stretched ostensibly. Her eyes ran distractedly on the shelves around her. Any of the objects exposed here could contain an information that might be worth selling: some long-buried scandal, the location of a forgotten treasure - or even better, of an antique dwarven thaig. Anything she could make a profit of, really. Isabela didn't count being picky among her character flaws.

She was going to inspect a bundle of delicate porcelain figurines when a glint on the far wall caught her eyes. Walking carefully around crates of cracked glasses, she approached the item that had attracted her attention.

It was a sword - or rather, a dagger. It was about as long as her thigh, the blade delicately curved and lines carved in the faded material of the guard. It looked rivaini in origin, and Isabela found it inexplicably familiar. Something in her looked upon that weapon and claimed: mine.

Throwing a glance around to check if anybody was in sight, Isabela got on the tip of her toes to unhook the dagger from the wall. It weighed nicely in her hand, her fingers a perfect match for the grooves in the wood. It was bigger than the knives she was used to, but it seemed like it had been made for her.

She gasped when the flash hit her, etching images into her mind with a stunning clarity.

She could see herself, a indigo kerchief keeping her hair out of her face and long black boots climbing high on her legs. She had the blade strapped in her back, along with its twin. She was walking on a beach, recalling a soft seashore wind caressing her skin. She could hear people talking, but their voices sounded distant, as if coming from behind a wall of water. Three people were with her - friends, her brain supplied. One of them was a woman with a heart-shaped face and huge, luminous eyes, clad in a green tunic and some sort of chainmail suit. She was holding a staff in her right hand and conversing with her companion, a man of small stature wearing a dark armor and bowing slightly under the weight of the monstrous sword sheathed in his back. He looked sour, and Isabela felt mocking words escaping her mouth, once again without being able to understand them. The man's lips twisted in annoyance, but the woman started to laugh. It was only then that Isabela noticed their pointed ears and the markings on their faces.

Elves.

Isabela knew a lot of people who had elven ancestors, but that was the first time she met the Real Deal. Those memories were old.

Suddenly, the elves quieted, and Isabela herself fell silent without knowing why. Then she noticed the last member of their group had stopped in front of them, a fist half-raised to signal them to wait. Isabela couldn't see the face of their leader, only the dusty fur pauldrons on their shoulders and the clawed gauntlets protecting their hands. They were talking, and whatever they said seemed to worry the elves who exchanged a glance and readied their weapon. Isabela felt her body shift into a fighting stance. There was a couple of seconds of anxious waiting.

And the undead started to rise from the ground.

The blade produced a loud clang when it hit the ground, startling Isabela. She breathed in deeply, trying to calm the beating of her heart as her eyes searched for terrifying zombies reaching for her. Of course, there was none.

"Hey! What was that?" the owner of the shop roared from beyond the racks, making chipped teacups and other random trinkets rattle on their shelves.

"Nothing, Xenon! Go back to sleep!" Isabela yelled back.

"Didn't sound to me like nothing! What you break, you pay for, ye pirate!"

"I didn't break anything, you old rag! Maker," she mumbled, leaning down to pick the dagger up. It was - thankfully - intact. She grazed the edge of the blade almost tenderly, fascinated, and whispered to herself: "I didn't break it, but I'll pay for it."

This was far more interesting than the location of any lost treasure.

***

The collar was painfully constricting his throat, making the simple action of breathing an act of rebellion. He tasted blood in his mouth, like copper and iron on his tongue. He wanted to scream, to fight, to break free from the chains and to tear the entire place down. They didn't have the right. They couldn't.

Except they very much could. They had all the power he didn't possess, the power to fill him with emptiness - or to lock him up and throw away the key.

The walls were close, too close. It seemed like he could touch two opposite sides of the room just by laying down, and the top of the room looked low enough to bump his head against, if he ever had the courage to stand up.

He was going to die here.

The realization hit him, and it felt as if the ceiling had cracked and dropped on his shoulders. He was going to die here, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Anger and despair filled his lungs like molten lead. The manacles were burning on his wrists, making something stir in him - something terrible, something that should have stayed asleep and that he couldn't let out again at any cost. Something that demanded

justice.

Anders woke up in a cold sweat, heart pounding fast in his chest. He sat up in a jump, mouth gaping and eyes wide, glance shooting from one darkened corner to the next, in search for an eventual threat - but he was alone, save for the little ball of fur nuzzling at his side.

"Hey, Purr," he mumbled, his voice hoarse and his tongue feeling like a piece of old parchment.

Purrcival meowed softly, pushing his nose against the man's hand. Anders obliged him and started petting the cat, distractedly rubbing at his own throat with his free hand. He couldn't remember the details of his dream, but the bits and pieces he did remember - the horror, the helplessness, the all-encompassing rage - made him glad he had woken up when he did; those were memories he wasn't eager to relieve.

Shooing the cat off the bed, Anders pushed away the covers and got on his feet. The sun was shining through the gaps in the blinds, inscribing rays of light on the old wood floor beneath the window. Given the spot on which they fell, it had to be about two in the afternoon - the previous night had been rough. Anders picked up his cellphone from the place he had dropped it beside the bed. He tapped the screen twice and squinted at the time it displayed: 02:43. Lirene wouldn't be needing him before five - for her official business, and for the less official one. In the meantime, he could definitely treat himself with some coffee.

Getting dressed rapidly in dark, nondescript clothes, he grabbed the woolen beanie on the kitchen table, stopped to check if Purr's bowls were still filled enough, and paused in front of the mirror by the door.

Anders ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the black strands. The blonde roots were starting to show. Dying his hair was a poor attempt at camouflage, but every precaution was worth taking.

Pulling the hat over his head and shrugging his coat on, he left.

***

Real Dwarves didn't dream.

Real Dwarves did business, stayed among themselves, hoarded old things. Real Dwarves remembered.

Real Dwarves didn't dream, and so Varric had no idea how to call the remnants of images and feelings that clouded his mind in the mornings.

It certainly couldn't be drunken hallucinations. Those were always nice, at least.

The stories in his head told tales of fighting and blood, of struggle and death. It was wreckage and thunder, treasons and old wars he only knew from what he had read in some dusty records kept in the vaults. But it was also a story of a family lost and found, only to be lost again, and composed of the most eclectic group of people Varric could ever dare to imagine, much less write about.

There was the pirate queen, all sharp smiles and sharper daggers. There was the fierce human warrior, cold-face and warm-heart. There were the two elves, similar only by the shape of their ears and the glint of their eyes. There was the spirit mage, with his shattered soul and gentle hands. And bringing them together, the Champion.

Varric’s idea of the Champion’s appearance was ever-changing. Some nights they would be a tall, broad-shouldered man with golden eyes and a booming laugh. Some other they would become a petite woman, milky skin clashing with raven hair, a whirlwind of blades and fire. Sometimes they would only be a blurry figure clothed in leather and iron, leading their mismatched group of strays into battles they always won, against all odds. Under every appearance, they inspired respect and loyalty. Under every appearance, they were his friend.

At first, Varric had discarded the dreams as a weird fantasy - having such strong bonds with a handful of companions seemed like such an incredible experience, and he hadn’t been able to replicate it with any of the other people he’d met during his life. When he had realized, through extensive researches in his family’s library, that the dreams were strangely close to events that had happened centuries ago, he had started to delve into the secret history of Thedas, the one the Chantry had managed to camouflage under the guise of myths and legends: the magic, the wars between races before humanity had conquered most of the known world, the slow decline of the elves until their blood was so watered down by human blood that their race was all but considered extinct. The dwarves had managed to survive by refusing to blend their genetics in the general mix, allowing them to preserve a large chunk of their culture, but even their heritage was fading as time went by.

The records were also talking about a mysterious figure that had saved Kirkwall countless times - a Champion, defeater of Arishok and slayer of demons. They were never described physically, instead defined by the people accompanying them. It had been quite a shock to see his own name scrawled on the brittle pages of the yellowing volume, as it had been to discover the names of the people he’d been seeing in his dreams: Isabela, Aveline, Fenris, Merrill, and Anders. It had somehow felt right, like relearning the names of his own family after far too long spent apart from them.

Since then, he hadn’t stopped looking for them, knowing that eventually, they’d all end up in Kirkwall again. That was, after all, where they belonged.

Aveline had been easy to track down. Varric was a very loveable person, and after making friends with some off-duty policemen at the Hanged Man, he’d quickly discovered that Deputy Vallen, a severe woman with red hair, was one of the persons he’d been looking for.

The others were proving harder to find. He wasn’t sure they even were in Kirkwall; after all, the world was a big place. He had asked around, giving physical descriptions to acquaintances that were most likely to see a lot of people and getting portraits drawn to allow Aveline to help him.

Despite his best efforts, his research was being unsuccessful, and he had been ready to give up, resolved to not meeting those persons he was linked to through life and death, when Aveline had found Merrill.

Seated at his desk, Varric smiled as he sorted through his papers. Merrill, the sweet elven blood mage. A part of his brain wanted to call her Daisy, and so he did. He was a bit disappointed he hadn’t been the one to discover her, but he was glad she had been found. Aveline had reacted with a lot of suspicion to his story of reincarnation and family bonds so tight they could last through the ages; he was sure Merrill wouldn’t be so hard to convince.

He got up from his chair, slipping his notes on the group in their folder and locking them up into a drawer. His family regarded his research on the subject as the result of his overactive imagination, and even though he didn’t think they’d ever try to interfere with his quest, he didn’t want to take the risk of finding his papers ruined and every clue he’d found so far destroyed.

Varric stretched, releasing the tension coming from several hours of being hunched over a desk. He put away his reading glasses and grabbed his coat off the back of his chair.

Time for some coffee.

#dragon age #dragon age 2 #da2 #fic tag

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asura22zoro · 5 years

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brienne may be the YMB woman in the prophecy. a queen wasnt mentioned

Briennes sobriquet seems directly inspired by Arwen from Tolkiens the Lord of the Rings. Arwen was the Evenstar long before Brienne. Stars and beauty were important themes to Tolkien, with Elbereth being the star queen. Luthien the most beautiful woman to have ever lived was the morning star, and great great grandmother to Arwen. As well as being beautiful, Arwen heralded the twilight of her people. Arwen gave hope and motivated Aragorn to fight and to claim his throne, which he did in large part simply as a dowry.

Unlike Brienne, Arwen isn't a fighter (I'm talking the books here, not the badly adapted movies in this respect) and she's not ungainly, huge, strong and ugly, like Shrek. They do seem to share the same sort of fighting spirit however. In JRRs works beauty and grace are less often impediments to noble spirits, unlike some of GRRMs. With JRR beautiful spirits tend to express or garb themselves with beautiful bodies, a bit like clothing, and vice versa, though there are some notable exceptions.

That was barely a sketch, it goes deeper. I probably don't do it justice, but he's a little more.

In Feast, we found out Lord Selwyn had tried to marry off his daughter for quite some time, no doubt concerned for their future, with at least three suitors, despite how disadvantageous her appearance and aptitudes were for a good match. Brienne fought off the last suitor herself. On it's own that's subverting the notion of an overprotective father restraining a more than willing daughter (think farmers daughters). Selwyn seems like he would wed her to anyone who would have her and make his daughter a respectable wife and give him grandchildren. She is the last of his line, a not uncommom theme in Martin. Brienne herself was mostly innocent and naive, a child of summer, probably up until the death of Renly, again a not uncommon uniting thread.

Arwen is much older, but unlike the fashion of her people did not marry young but remained unwed. In her case it's also possible there were no good matches to be made to one of her line. Kingdoms had been in decline for two ages of the world and few remained who could woo a lady of her stature, but she might also simply have been selective as well not unlike Brienne, though for different reasons. Her fathers says to a suitor

She is too far above you.

and

You shall neither have wife, nor bind any woman to you in troth, until your time comes and you are found worthy of it.

While for masculine Brienne, cursed with ugliness, it's about the opposite. Those who wooed her, do it largely despite her, and for virtually everything except her (dowry, lands and title, children), considering her unworthy and far below them.

They both have siblings though Brienne loses all hers young.

Arwens father, who also lost his wife like Selwyn, is perhaps the opposite of Selwyn and ultraprotective, but it's complicated. Arwen is a princess with an enemy who would stop at nothing to see her and all she loves either dead or enslaved. Brienne has no such dread nemesis, not even Stannis, though what George has in mind for R'hollor might surprise us.

For Elrond... all chances of the war of the ring were fraught with sorrow.

a sentiment Selwyn may share concerning the war of the five kings and then queens.

Arwens suitors mother says

... Your aim is high, even for the descendant of many kings. This lady is the noblest and fairest that now walks the earth.

while for most of Westeros, saying the same of Brienne would be a great jest, though it's at least half true.

Brienne tasted bitterness and sorrow early, most strongly with Renly, and later with Catelyn and her story isn't finished yet (I hope), while Arwens hopes were realized, and she enjoyed a full life of mortal happiness, though the last days of her doom were bitter, grey and hard. Arwens family had its share of sorrow, but we know few details of her early life.

Finally, if the blood of giants runs in Briennes veins, she also shares a noble inhumane heritage, like Arwen daughter of Elrond half elven, and she too may live to see the rest her kind fade from the world. What we don't know is if Brienne will end like Conan, wearing a crown on a troubled brow, and whether she'll have children (if Lollys can...), what mixed draught of sweet happiness and bitter sorrow she'll drink like Arwen.

I don't think it's a coincidence that she's called 'The Beauty' and it would be typically twisty of a prophecy for it not to be a literal physical beauty.

A bit of a stretch maybe, but in Cersei's mind at least, I also think she could also come to blame Brienne for losing Joff and Tommen to the clutches of the Tyrells. Brienne was there at Renly's death and failed to save him, thus freeing up Marg to marry. In the whole self-fulfilling vein, I don't think it matters that Brienne hasn't actually done anything to Cersei only that Cersei may come to view her as the source of all her woes.

asoiaf . westeros . org/index.php?/topic/146921-its-brienne/

Recall how we are introduced to Brienne...

The blue knight pulled a long dirk free and flicked open Tyrell's visor. The roar of the crowd was too loud for Catelyn to hear what Ser Loras said, but she saw the word form on his split, bloody lips. Yield.

The blue knight climbed unsteady to his feet, and raised his dirk in the direction of Renly Baratheon, the salute of a champion to his king. ...

"Approach," King Renly called to the champion.

... A few voices hailed him with cries of "Tarth!" and, oddly, "A Beauty! A Beauty!" but most were silent. ...

The press had begun to open up. "Ser Colen," Catelyn said to her escort, "who is this man, and why do they mislike him so?"

Ser Colen frowned. "Because he is no man, my lady. That's Brienne of Tarth, daughter to Lord Selwyn the Evenstar."

Catelyn II, Clash 22

In an appendix to the Lord of the Rings, Tolkein told the tale of Aragorn and Arwen. Arwen was called "Evenstar" since she was the most beautiful of the remaining High Elves. Evenstar, of course, was a term for the "evening star" of classical astronomy, the planet Venus. Venus, of course, was the goddess of love and beauty.

Brienne’s only beautiful physical feature was her eyes...

The Beauty raised her eyes, the only part of her that was truly beautiful.

Catelyn V, Clash 39

Brienne looked at her with those blue and beautiful eyes.

Catelyn VI, Clash 45

Jaime watched her eyes. Pretty eyes, he thought, and calm.

Jaime I, Storm 1

But the eyes are not only a physical feature; they are windows into the soul...

Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth,

Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array

He cheers the morn, and all the earth relieveth;

And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,

So is her face illumin'd with her eye.

Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare

And Jaime falls right through Brienne’s windows...

Harrenhal's bathhouse was a dim, steamy, low-ceilinged room filled with great stone tubs. When they led Jaime in, they found Brienne seated in one of them, scrubbing her arm almost angrily.

She jerked to her feet as if he'd struck her, sending a wash of hot water across the tub. Jaime caught a glimpse of the thick blonde bush at the juncture of her thighs as she climbed out. She was much hairier than his sister. Absurdly, he felt his cock stir beneath the bathwater. Now I know I have been too long away from Cersei. He averted his eyes, troubled by his body's response.

Jaime V, Storm 37

"A sword," Brienne begged, and there it was, scabbard, belt, and all. She buckled it around her thick waist. The light was so dim that Jaime could scarcely see her, though they stood a scant few feet apart. In this light she could almost be a beauty, he thought. In this light she could almost be a knight. Brienne's sword took flame as well, burning silvery blue. The darkness retreated a little more.

...

"Ser Jaime?" Even in soiled pink satin and torn lace, Brienne looked more like a man in a gown than a proper woman. "I am grateful, but . . . you were well away. Why come back?"

A dozen quips came to mind, each crueler than the one before, but Jaime only shrugged. "I dreamed of you," he said.

Jaime VI, Storm 44

The last of the northmen had dismounted, Jaime saw, and now Loras Tyrell had seen Brienne.

... Ser Loras drew his longsword.

...

"You have no honor. Draw your sword. I won't have it said that I slew you while your hand was empty."

Jaime stepped between them. "Put the sword away, ser."

SerLoras edged around him. "Are you a craven as well as a killer, Brienne? Is that why you ran, with his blood on your hands? Draw your sword, woman!"

"Best hope she doesn't." Jaime blocked his path again. "Or it's like to be your corpse we carry out. The wench is as strong as Gregor Clegane, though not so pretty."

"This is no concern of yours." Ser Loras shoved him aside.

Jaime grabbed the boy with his good hand and yanked him around. "I am the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, you arrogant pup. Your commander, so long as you wear that white cloak. Now sheathe your bloody sword, or I'll take it from you and shove it up some place even Renly never found."

...

"For what it's worth," said Jaime, "the wench does have honor. More than I have seen from you. And it may even be she's telling it true. I'll grant you, she's not what you'd call clever, but even my horse could come up with a better lie, if it was a lie she meant to tell. As you insist, however . . . Ser Balon, escort Lady Brienne to a tower cell and hold her there under guard. And find some suitable quarters for Steelshanks and his men, until such time as my father can see them."

"Yes, my lord."

Brienne's big blue eyes were full of hurt as Balon Swann and a dozen gold cloaks led her away. You ought to be blowing me kisses, wench, he wanted to tell her. Why must they misunderstand every bloody thing he did? Aerys. It all grows from Aerys. Jaime turned his back on the wench and strode across the yard.

Jaime VII, Storm 62

"Blue is a good color on you, my lady," Jaime observed. "It goes well with your eyes." She does have astonishing eyes.

Brienne glanced down at herself, flustered. "Septa Donyse padded out the bodice, to give it that shape. She said you sent her to me."

Jaime IX, Storm 72

"Ser Ronnet," he called, "have you lost your way? It is a large castle, I know."

Red Ronnet raised his lantern. "I wished to see where the bear danced with the maiden not-so-fair." His beard shone in the light as if it were afire. Jaime could smell wine on his breath. "Is it true the wench fought naked?"

"Naked? No." He wondered how that wrinkle had been added to the story. "The Mummers put her in a pink silk gown and shoved a tourney sword into her hand. The Goat wanted her death to be amuthing. Elsewise . . ."

". . . the sight of Brienne naked might have made the bear flee in terror." Connington laughed.

Jaime did not. "You speak as if you know the lady."

"I was betrothed to her."

That took him by surprise. Brienne had never mentioned a betrothal. "Her father made a match for her . . ."

"Thrice," said Connington. "I was the second. My father's notion. I had heard the wench was ugly, and I told him so, but he said all women were the same once you blew the candle out."

...

Ser Ronnet was a landed knight, no more. For any such, the Maid of Tarth would have been a sweet plum indeed. "How is it that you did not wed?" Jaime asked him.

"Why, I went to Tarth and saw her. I had six years on her, yet the wench could look me in the eye. She was a sow in silk, though most sows have bigger teats. When she tried to talk she almost choked on her own tongue. I gave her a rose and told her it was all that she would ever have from me." Connington glanced into the pit. "The bear was less hairy than that freak, I'll—"

Jaime's golden hand cracked him across the mouth so hard the other knight went stumbling down the steps. His lantern fell and smashed, and the oil spread out, burning. "You are speaking of a highborn lady, ser. Call her by her name. Call her Brienne."

Connington edged away from the spreading flames on his hands and knees. "Brienne. If it please my lord." He spat a glob of blood at Jaime's foot. "Brienne the Beauty."

Jaime III, Feast 27

He was grateful when the bath was deep enough to conceal his arousal. As he lowered himself into the steaming water, he recalled another bath, the one he'd shared with Brienne. He had been feverish and weak from loss of blood, and the heat had made him so dizzy he found himself saying things better left unsaid. This time he had no such excuse.

Jaime IV, Feast 30

Now, consider the prophecy...

"What a disappointment," Lady Olenna complained loudly. "I was hoping for ‘The Rains of Castamere.'"

Whenever Cersei looked at the old crone, the face of Maggy the Frog seemed to float before her eyes, wrinkled and terrible and wise. All old women look alike, she tried to tell herself, that's all it is. In truth, the bent-back sorceress had looked nothing like the Queen of Thorns, yet somehow the sight of Lady Olenna's nasty little smile was enough to put her back in Maggy's tent again. She could still remember the smell of it, redolent with queer eastern spices, and the softness of Maggy's gums as she sucked the blood from Cersei's finger. Queen you shall be, the old woman had promised, with her lips still wet and red and glistening, until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.

Cersei glanced past Tommen, to where Margaery sat laughing with her father. She is pretty enough, she had to admit, but most of that is youth. Even peasant girls are pretty at a certain age, when they are still fresh and innocent and unspoiled, and most of them have the same brown hair and brown eyes as she does. Only a fool would ever claim she was more beautiful than I.

Cersei III, Feast 12

Cersei thinks the prophecy refers to Margaery, but this is an in-universe red herring. Margaery is beautiful, but is she more beautiful than Cersei? The point is too debatable to be determinative. As the author tells the reader several times, Daenerys is the most beautiful woman in the world of ASOIAF, and she is coming, eventually, for the Iron Throne. But Daenerys is the red herring for the reader.

"I will be queen, though?" asked the younger her.

"Aye." Malice gleamed in Maggy's yellow eyes. "Queen you shall be . . . until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear."

Anger flashed across the child's face. "If she tries I will have my brother kill her."

...

It is just . . . the maegi knew how many children I would have, and she knew of Robert's bastards. Years before he'd sired even the first of them, she knew. She promised me I should be queen, but said another queen would come . . ." Younger and more beautiful, she said. ". . . another queen, who would take from me all I loved."

"And you wish to forestall this prophecy?"

More than anything, she thought. "Can it be forestalled?"

"Oh, yes. Never doubt that."

"How?"

"I think Your Grace knows how."

She did. I knew it all along, she thought. Even in the tent. "If she tries I will have my brother kill her."

Knowing what needed to be done was one thing, though; knowing how to do it was another. Jaime could no longer be relied on.

Cersei VIII, Feast 36

It was a pity that Maggy the Frog was dead. Piss on your prophecy, old woman. The little queen may be younger than I, but she has never been more beautiful, and soon she will be dead.

Cersei IX, Feast 39

Here, then, are the elements... “’Queen you shall be . . . until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.’” Many readers assume that the prophecy refers to another queen, but I do not see how that is an element. And although the prophecy could be gender neutral, the term beautiful suggests that it refers to a woman. So, I submit that the first element is a younger, more beautiful woman. We could line up all of the hottest women in ASOIAF, and we could argue about which description is more pleasing to our mind’s eye. As suggested above, from what the author tells us, only Daenerys could be found to be objectively more beautiful than Cersei. So, I submit that the George is misleading the reader just a bit to produce a surprise. The younger and more beautiful woman will be more beautiful on the inside, like Brienne.

While it is easy to see how Margaery or Daenerys might fit the remainder of the prophecy, since Margaery is embroiled in a power struggle with Cersei in King’s Landing, and Daenerys will eventually come to claim the throne, Brienne appears to be more of a square peg. She must cast Cersei down and take all that Cersei holds dear. Well, what does Cersei hold dear? Cersei loves her children, but she is a terrible mother, and it seems to me that what she really loves is the power she derives from her children. And then there is Jaime, whom she loves as much as, if not more than, her children. And Cersei needs Jaime...

Even in her exhausted, frightened state, the queen knew she dare not trust her fate to a court of sparrows. Nor could she count on Ser Kevan to intervene, after the words that had passed between them at their last meeting. It will have to be a trial by battle. There is no other way. "Qyburn, for the love you bear me, I beg you, send a message for me. A raven if you can. A rider, if not. You must send to Riverrun, to my brother. Tell him what has happened, and write . . . write . . ."

"Yes, Your Grace?"

She licked her lips, shivering. "Come at once. Help me. Save me. I need you now as I have never needed you before. I love you. I love you. I love you. Come at once."

"As you command. ‘I love you' thrice?"

"Thrice." She had to reach him. "He will come. I know he will. He must. Jaime is my only hope."

"My queen," said Qyburn, "have you . . . forgotten? Ser Jaime has no sword hand. If he should champion you and lose . . ."

We will leave this world together, as we once came into it. "He will not lose. Not Jaime. Not with my life at stake."

Cersei X, Feast 43

But Brienne takes Jaime from Cersei...

There was a rap upon his door. "See who that is, Peck."

It was Riverrun's old maester, with a message clutched in his lined and wrinkled hand. Vyman's face was as pale as the new-fallen snow. "I know," Jaime said, "there has been a white raven from the Citadel. Winter has come."

"No, my lord. The bird was from King's Landing. I took the liberty . . . I did not know . . ." He held the letter out.

Jaime read it in the window seat, bathed in the light of that cold white morning. Qyburn's words were terse and to the point, Cersei's fevered and fervent. Come at once, she said. Help me. Save me. I need you now as I have never needed you before. I love you. I love you. I love you. Come at once.

Vyman was hovering by the door, waiting, and Jaime sensed that Peck was watching too. "Does my lord wish to answer?" the maester asked, after a long silence.

A snowflake landed on the letter. As it melted, the ink began to blur. Jaime rolled the parchment up again, as tight as one hand would allow, and handed it to Peck. "No," he said. "Put this in the fire."

Jaime VII, Feast 44

He posted sentries to see that no one left the confines of the village. He sent out scouts as well, to make certain no enemy took them unawares. It was near midnight when two came riding back with a woman they had taken captive. "She rode up bold as you please, m'lord, demanding words with you."

Jaime scrambled to his feet. "My lady. I had not thought to see you again so soon." Gods be good, she looks ten years older than when I saw her last. And what' s happened to her face? "That bandage … you've been wounded …"

"A bite." She touched the hilt of her sword, the sword that he had given her. Oathkeeper. "My lord, you gave me a quest."

"The girl. Have you found her?"

"I have," said Brienne, Maid of Tarth. "Where is she?"

"A day's ride. I can take you to her, ser … but you will need to come alone. Elsewise, the Hound will kill her."

Jaime, Dance 48

"Jaime, then? Is it Jaime?"

"No. Jaime is still in the riverlands, somewhere."

"Somewhere?" She did not like the sound of that. "He took Raventree and accepted Lord Blackwood's surrender," said her uncle, "but on his way back to Riverrun he left his tail and went off with a woman."

"A woman?" Cersei stared at him, uncomprehending. "What woman? Why? Where did they go?"

"No one knows. We've had no further word of him. The woman may have been the Evenstar's daughter, Lady Brienne."

Her. The queen remembered the Maid of Tarth, a huge, ugly, shambling thing who dressed in man's mail. Jaime would never abandon me for such a creature. My raven never reached him, elsewise he would have come.

Cersei I, Dance 54

And Cersei is cast down...

"No harm will come to me today," Cersei said when the day's first light brushed her window. "Only my pride will suffer." The words rang hollow in her ears. Jaime may yet come. She pictured him riding through the morning mists, his golden armor bright in the light of the rising sun. Jaime, if you ever loved me …

...

Then it was the soap again, the warm water, and the razor. The hair beneath her arms went next, then her legs, and last of all the fine golden down that covered her mound. When the silent sister crept between her legs with the razor, Cersei found herself remembering all the times that Jaime had knelt where she was kneeling now, planting kisses on the inside of her thighs, making her wet. His kisses were always warm. The razor was ice-cold.

...

Part of her still yearned for Jaime to appear and rescue her from this humiliation, but her twin was nowhere to be seen.

...

Cersei had been a year old when her grandfather died. The first thing her father had done on his ascension was to expel his own father's grasping, lowborn mistress from Casterly Rock. The silks and velvets Lord Tytos had lavished on her and the jewelry she had taken for herself had been stripped from her, and she had been sent forth naked to walk through the streets of Lannisport, so the west could see her for what she was.

Though she had been too young to witness the spectacle herself, Cersei had heard the stories growing up from the mouths of washerwomen and guardsmen who had been there. They spoke of how the woman had wept and begged, of the desperate way she clung to her garments when she was commanded to disrobe, of her futile efforts to cover her breasts and her sex with her hands as she hobbled barefoot and naked through the streets to exile. "Vain and proud she was, before," she remembered one guard saying, "so haughty you'd think she'd forgot she come from dirt. Once we got her clothes off her, though, she was just another whore."

If Ser Kevan and the High Sparrow thought that it would be the same with her, they were very much mistaken. Lord Tywin's blood was in her. I am a lioness. I will not cringe for them.

...

I am beautiful, she reminded himself. How many times had Jaime told her that?

...

"Your Grace." The captain of her escort stepped up beside her. Cersei had forgotten his name. "You must continue. The crowd is growing unruly."

Yes, she thought. Unruly. "I am not afraid—"

"You should be." He yanked at her arm, pulling her along beside him. She staggered down the hill—downward, ever downward—wincing with every step, letting him support her. It should be Jaime beside me. He would draw his golden sword and slash a path right through the mob, carving the eyes out of the head of every man who dared to look at her.

...

I am beautiful, the most beautiful woman in all Westeros, Jaime says so, Jaime would never lie to me. ... I should not have done this. I was their queen, but now they' ve seen, they' ve seen, they've seen. I should never have let them see. Gowned and crowned, she was a queen. Naked, bloody, limping, she was only a woman, not so very different from their wives, more like their mothers than their pretty little maiden daughters. What have I done?

Cersei II, Dance 65

And then, at that precise moment, she recalls (actually, the author reminds the reader of) the prophecy...

There was something in her eyes, stinging, blurring her sight. She could not cry, she would not cry, the worms must never see her weep. Cersei rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. A gust of cold wind made her shiver violently.

And suddenly the hag was there, standing in the crowd with her pendulous teats and her warty greenish skin, leering with the rest, with malice shining from her crusty yellow eyes. "Queen you shall be, " she hissed, "until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all you hold most dear. "

And then there was no stopping the tears. They burned down the queen's cheeks like acid. Cersei gave a sharp cry, covered her nipples with one arm, slid her other hand down to hide her slit, and began to run, shoving her way past the line of Poor Fellows, crouching as she scrambled crab-legged up the hill. Partway up she stumbled and fell, rose, then fell again ten yards farther on. The next thing she knew she was crawling, scrambling uphill on all fours like a dog as the good folks of King's Landing made way for her, laughing and jeering and applauding her.

Cersei II, Dance 65

ETA

Around the middle of Game, we learned that Tyrion’s true love, Tysha, sang a song to him...

"Do you know this song?" he asked.

"You hear it here and there, in inns and whorehouses."

"Myrish. ‘The Seasons of My Love.' Sweet and sad, if you understand the words. The first girl I ever bedded used to sing it, and I've never been able to put it out of my head."

Tyrion VI, Game 42

As Tyrion lied near death after the Battle of the Blackwater, we learned a line from the song...

They would kiss for hours, and spend whole days doing no more than lolling in bed, listening to the waves, and touching each other. Her body was a wonder to him, and she seemed to find delight in his. Sometimes she would sing to him. I loved a maid as fair as summer, with sunlight in her hair. "I love you, Tyrion," she would whisper before they went to sleep at night. "I love your lips. I love your voice, and the words you say to me, and how you treat me gentle. I love your face."

Tyrion XV, Clash 67

This was reiterated early in Storm...

"No. If I've given offense, forgive me. I had my own love once, and we had a song as well." I loved a maid as fair as summer, with sunlight in her hair.

Tyrion II, Storm 12

And we recalled Lancel singing the song to Cersei...

Through the door came the soft sound of the high harp, mingled with a trilling of pipes. The singer's voice was muffled by the thick walls, yet Tyrion knew the verse. I loved a maid as fair as summer, he remembered, with sunlight in her hair . . .

Tyrion VI, Clash 25

Interestingly, Tyrion wonders whether Jaime thinks of Cersei with this first verse in mind...

Is this the Cersei that Jaime sees? When she smiled, you saw how beautiful she was, truly. I loved a maid as fair as summer, with sunlight in her hair.

Tyrion VI, Clash 25

We also recalled that he learned what must be the third line of the song...

Shae stood in the door behind him, dressed in the silvery robe he'd given her. I loved a maid as white as winter, with moonglow in her hair.

Tyrion X, Clash 44

Since winter is opposite to summer, Shae is opposite to Tysha. While that caught my eye, it was the second line that made my head turn...

After a time the candle guttered and went out. Moonlight slanted between the slats of the shutters, laying pale silvery bars across her father's face. She could hear the soft whisper of his labored breathing, the endless rush of waters, the faint chords of some love song drifting up from the yard, so sad and sweet. "I loved a maid as red as autumn," Rymund sang, "with sunset in her hair."

Catelyn VII, Clash 55

This was right before Catelyn played matchmaker with Jaime and Brienne the Beauty. So, we have Tyrion and Tysha followed by Tyrion and Shae, and we have Jaime and Cersei followed by Jaime and Brienne.

We can associate Brienne and Sansa to the maiden fair

https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/143267-the-maiden-fair-and-the-fair-maid-heigh-ho-hey-nonny-hey-sigh-no-more-ladies/ (I wont put it on the page because its too long

. What about the fair maid?

...

"I'll steal a sweet kiss with the point of my blade, heigh-ho, heigh-ho."

...

"I'll make her my love and we'll rest in the shade, heigh-ho, heigh-ho." The song swelled louder with every word.

Arya II, Storm 13

This sure sounds like a murder ballad. So, who gets whacked? Brienne, Sansa, or Arya?

The first time we hear about Off to Gulltown, is at the very beginning of The Hedge Knight...

Quote QuoteThe spring rains had softened the ground, so Dunk had no trouble digging the grave. He chose a spot on the western slope of a low hill, for the old man had always loved to watch the sunset. “Another day done,” he would sigh, “and who knows what the morrow will bring us, eh, Dunk?” Well, one morrow had brought rains that soaked them to the bones, and the one after had brought wet gusty winds, and the next a chill. By the fourth day the old man was too weak to ride. And now he was gone. Only a few days past, he had been singing as they rode, the old song about going to Gulltownto see a fair maid, but instead of Gulltown he’d sung of Ashford. Off to Ashford to see the fair maid, heigh-ho, heigh-ho, Dunk thought miserably as he dug.

When Ser Duncan the Tall arrived at Ashford, "it seemed as though every lordly house of the west and south had sent a knight or three to Ashford to see the fair maid and brave the lists in her honor." She was "a short girl with yellow hair and a round pink face." She did not seem so fair to Dunk, though. "The puppet girl was prettier."

Now, here's what I am digging...

The fair maid reigned as Queen of Love and Beauty. (imagine jaime crowning her as queen of love and beauty

A Beauty! A Beauty!

#asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #brienne of tarth #asoiaf theory

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cubedcoffeecake · 7 years

Text

Ek, Loki

Ek, Loki I, Loki

Chapter One

It wasn’t as warm as it should be. Loki frowned slightly and pushed an eyelid open, his curiosity the only reason he was able to do so. His body felt like molasses. He had tried molasses on Midgard once. Did not care for it at all. Still did not. Wait, was not he trying to do something?

This time Loki managed to actually open his eye enough to see out of it. There was—white. A lot of it, in fact. With greys and blues blurred in. He must be more exhausted than he originally supposed. Hmmm… And wasn’t Asgard gold? Not even the healing ward possessed this much white. It was a bit of white with a lot of gold. So was Moðir’s, actually. Thor’s were a bit of crimson with a lot of gold, and his were green with a lot of gold.

Yes, he was not doing terribly well. If Loki’s sporadic thought process was not information enough to reach that conclusion, the pounding in his head as he attempted to sit was. Certainly, he had had headaches before. Only Æsir he had ever met to have such a mortal condition, but he had them from time to time. Had his headaches ever ached so much, though?

Loki collapsed back onto the fluffy… fluffy, while not being uncomfortably fluffy. What was this? He wanted one.

Anyhow, he collapsed back onto the bed he had woken upon and froze. No, none of the Æsir he had known had ever had a headache. But he wasn’t an Æsir.

In seconds Loki was standing beside his cot, the aching of his body pushed aside and his mind sharply activated. It was no bed he had been placed on, but a simple ice-work frame filled with packed snow. Loki tried to forget that it was the most comfortable bed he had ever laid on, but his mind decided it had followed enough of his orders for the time being and promptly slowed again, leaving him to count up every type of substance he had ever slept on.

As an infant, he likely slept on a cot of phoenix feathers inside a lavish cradle. His childhood bed had been stuffed with fleece from Asgard’s finest flocks. As a youth, he began to travel. A yarn-stuffed cot on Vanaheim (my, had that been an experience), an Elven bed made of wood, and a Dwarven bed of metal. Once in the army, rocks, dirt, moss, tunics, and once, water he had magicked to hold his weight.

“Why are you sitting on the floor?”

Loki jerked his head up, eyes wide, and saw a small, very blue boy standing in a doorway he had not noticed. He was feeling quite foolish for that lapse of awareness until his head began to pound again and he recalled why he had been unaware.

“Helgi! That is no way to address a stranger!”

Blinking dazedly, Loki observed that a woman had come up behind the boy. Huh.

“And see, look at his eyes. He is clearly injured. Do you not recall what your Aunt showed you?” the woman asked, sounding quite distressed. Loki wondered why. Maybe he could help?

“I do remember, Moðir! When somebody’s eyes are all sleety, it means their head hurts and you should give them some meðal. Can I go get some from Aunt?”

The woman sighed. “Yes, Helgi. Remember your manners!” she finished as the boy darted off. “I do not believe I have ever heard unfocused eyes referred to as “sleety.” He certainly is a creative young boy.” The woman’s murmuring softened as she turned and approached him. Or maybe his hearing was departing? Loki thought that possible, though he could not recall why.

“Sir, would you like me to help you back onto the bed?” The woman sounded kind. Perhaps he should accept her aid. And she was quite attractive as well. Odd, that, considering she was blue. The blue was even odder. And the tribal markings were the oddest. Vanir marked their bodies similarly, but only for festivals. Was Loki on this Realm to attend a festival? Well, he would not mind so much if all the women were similar to this one. He could see intelligence in her red eyes—red? Huh—and would bet she could carry on an interesting conversation. Perhaps she could even tell Loki why his head hurt so.

She sighed. Again. Did she sigh as often as Thor shattered mugs, or more? Or perhaps she was simply in the mood to sigh.

“Mmp!” Loki exclaimed in surprise. When had the woman bent down? Why was she trying to pull him up? He liked the floor just fine. And why was she so cool? Normally Loki found others to be quite warm, but her touch was almost cold.

“Sir, I am not strong enough to lift you entirely by myself. You must help me as much as you are able. Sir? Sir, are you well? Ah, Helgi, thank you. I believe I underestimated his injuries—sir! Sir, do not fall asleep. It will be dangerous in your condition—sir! Helgi, hurry, fetch the most knowledgeable healer you can find. This man needs assistance beyond my capabilities. Sir, stay awake a moment longer. You must drink this. It will help your head. Sir? Can you hear me? Sir?”

Her voice registered, but Loki could not understand what it was she said. He was delightfully cool, his head did not hurt as much now, though there was a substantial amount more molasses, and… Oh. Drink. His throat was quite dry, now that he thought about it. And the liquid was just warm enough to be pleasant, and so very sweet…

“Aid! Hurry! He is falling asleep! I need aid!”

This time, Loki was far more aware when he woke. He had seen himself cast from Asgard a thousand times as he slept, and realized where he was and who had cared for him the moment he awoke.

Fortunately, the room he was in was empty when he woke up. Swiftly, Loki sat up and assessed his situation. The Jotunn must not realize who he was, or they would never have aided him. He was in hostile territory still, but that was an advantage. They would likely have placed him in a regular healing room rather than a cell.

Loki had had nothing with him when he was cast to Jotunheim, so he would be able to leave unburdened. Once he had escaped… Well, he would manage. It would be better than inside this compound, at the least.

Quietly, Loki stalked out the door of the room he had been placed in and began to creep in the shadows along the walls of the twisting passage he found. Every so often Loki would come upon a doorway or another passageway, but he resolutely continued to follow the passage he had first entered.

After a quarter hour, Loki finally heard voices. A negative thing, really, but he may be able to follow them to an exit. He called upon his magic and murmured a spell of invisibility. Moments later, he entered a cavernous room, just as empty as the rest of the compound but for a long table in the room’s center. Loki was unimpressed, to say the least. The table appeared to be fashioned out of rotting wood hastily tied together with string. It was hardly a table at all.

Clearly it was used as one, though, for a dozen Jotunn lined its sides, talking to one other in hushed tones. Well, mostly hushed.

One Jotun raised his voice to be heard by all at the table.

“I care not if it would be a cruelty! That creature inhabiting our healing room is a son of Laufey! There is no mistaking his marks! Bekkhild declared his origins before all of you, and yet you still allow her to tend to him! He is the son of a monster who would have us all fed to his beasts! And you allow his son into our nest? The monstrosity will run right to his father and disclose our location, and I, for one, have no interest in allowing Laufey’s army to hunt us down like the snow birds!”

The room was silent for many moments after the Jotun’s declaration, which Loki supposed was a positive thing. His mind was roaring so loudly he would not have heard a word said if they had been speaking.

They knew he was a son of Laufey, the ridges were apparently patriarchal symbols, which he could use to his advantage if he learned how to decode them, they did not know Laufey was dead, they apparently hated Laufey, they did not revere their army as the Æsir did, and they had shown him kindness despite believing him to be a no-good rat who may cause their deaths.

…Loki was not certain which piece of that information was the most difficult to wrap his head around.

He did not have the time to decide, because a softer, but far firmer, more noble voice spoke up.

“Atli, you know well we all share your concerns. However, you also know that if we killed the man, son of Laufey or son of Bekkhild, we would be committing murder all the same. He was severely wounded, and unable to tell us of his intentions. If we were to kill based off of assumptions, we would be no better than the Æsir, or even than Laufey. We have no cause to live for if not the cause of those such as him. Left by Laufey in the snow to die. Whether he was left as a sickness, to destroy us from the inside, or because Laufey assumed we would kill him is undeterminable simply by looking at the situation. Simply looking at the situation, he is a victim of Laufey’s cruelty, not a perpetrator of it, and in your heart you know that. You are letting your fear cloud your judgment, Atli.”

Once more, the room was quiet, and once more, Loki’s mind was not.

Left by Laufey in the snow to die. Left by Laufey in the snow to die. Left by Laufey in the snow to die. Left by Laufey in the snow to die.

Why did every barbed word have to hurt him like it did? Why could he not be Thor? Blissfully overconfident and immune to mere words?

Left by Laufey in the snow to die. Left by Laufey in the snow to die.

“I apologize, Helblindi. The resemblance of this man’s situation to your brother’s had not occurred to me.” Atli sighed and fixed his gaze on the table. “I suppose Byleist is the only one who will ever match up to your father’s expectations.”

Helblindi smiled slightly. Had Loki ever seen a Jotun smile? He did not think so.

It did not look as strange on the man’s blue skin as Loki had expected it to.

“Atli, no son will ever live up to his father’s expectations. That is why so many fathers leave for Laufey’s army.” The table started laughing. Loki did not see the joke in Helblindi’s statement, but did not care that he missed it.

Left by Laufey in the snow to die.

Loki did not have one brother, but four. Or three. Well, three biological. One was dead, another was likely evil, and the third standing before him had not caused Loki to dislike him yet, but likely would sooner or later.

“Helblindi, Atli, you have shown that we should not kill him before he is well—but what should we do with him then?” another Jotun asked. Loki snapped his gaze back to the Jotunn around the table. This answer would control a great deal of his short term future.

“Well,” Helblindi replied, “I would say we should speak to him and see how he came to be where we found him. From there, we can either chain him somewhere, or… I feel as if I am being too optimistic to suppose he would willingly help us, but perhaps we can coexist with him if he means us no ill will.”

The Jotunn murmured their agreement, and Loki’s breath caught.

He could sneak back to the room they had put him in, weave a story about himself, and earn their trust, and through their trust, their supplies. However, he did not know enough about Jotun culture to guarantee that his story would hold up to scrutiny….

He could flee this place and take care of himself….

Or he could reveal who he actually was. So far he had not felt a single tingle of magick. If the Jotunn had no mages with them, his magick would give him an advantage, and he could hold far more power over his situation than he would any other way….

Loki straightened his back and made a decision.

“I would be interested in knowing what precisely I would be helping you with before agreeing to do so. Coexisting, however, sounds quite lovely. I was not looking forward to living off of Jotunheim’s ‘land.’”

All of the eyes in the room were on Loki as he unwove his cloaking spell and made himself visible.

#story fragment #avengers #fanfiction

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everything-you-mist · 7 years

Text

Breaking Point

Let me get a few things straight here. If anyone ever tells you that loving someone is easy, kick them in the teeth because that is the worst lie I’ve ever been told. And I’ve heard it dozens of times. They don't know shit. It took years to even let the word exist and it only exists in one context. I love my dad. I do. He’s an asshole, and I get pissed at him constantly, but I don't want to deal with the idea that he’s not gonna be around someday. I don't want to be Thane if it means going on without him. But that’s the only place I’m using that word. I love him.

I really like Ricky, but I ain't touching much more than that for a while. Being close is hard, and I won't lie, when he kissed my cheek, I shut down. You ever been in a situation where your only thought is just screaming? Because that was me. I still have no friggin clue if it was awesome or horrifying.

I don't do touch. I don't like being hugged by most people, I don't like pats on the back or anything like that. Kinda goes along with having a hard time with affection. I have to fight, you got me? If my best friend wants to hug me, all my focus is on not freezing up. Somebody touches my shoulder, all my focus is on keeping still and not flying away. It’s hard, and it’s tiring, so I only fight for the people I like. Everyone else can piss right off.

Especially my mom. Israva is a pain in the ass. She’s tried dozens of time to sit down with me, have a heart-to-heart. And I’ll try, seriously, I will. A lot of people think I should give her a chance. She’ll drop down from whatever roof she’s perched on, ask about my life in some way or another. She’ll try to talk boys, or ask about me, or tell a story..

“Kaleala? Are you listening?” I’d been trying really hard not to, but damn woman is hard to tune out.

“It’s Aly.”

“Fine, so then..?”

“Then what?”

Israva threw her arms up in frustration. “So you weren't listening.”

“Nope.” Not that it stops her.

Israva sighed, almost a growl. “All I wanted to know was how you’re doing. With your father hurt and everything, it must be a lot.”

“You’re always on the roof, why don't you tell me?”

“Believe it or not, I do have to work occasionally. Moreso lately. You know very well I’ve let you be. Besides, I thought you disliked having me nearby?”

“I hate it.”

“So how else am I supposed to know how you’re doing besides asking?”

My hand twitched involuntarily as my temper rose. Nosy demon, always getting after me. Can't take a damn hint.

“I’m fine. Dad’s fine.”

“You don't seem fine. You’re even moodier than usual, you rarely leave the house, it’s not healthy.”

“Screw you, I’m looking after dad.”

“Even with healers already tending to him?”

“I thought you said you weren't on the roof.”

“I’m not, I only check in from time to time.”

“Piss off.”

“You know I won't.” Israva reached for my hand and I jolted it back. “Please Aly, all I want to do is talk. That’s all I ask. I want to be a part of this, even a little.”

Look, I admit it. I’m a violent person. I’ve gone after co-workers, friends, even took a few swipes at my dad. I’m working on it. My patience is getting way better, I'm getting a lot better at talking before taking a swing at someone. But all that progress means absolute shit when it comes to my demon mom. When she reached for me again, I made sure she regretted it. Shifting forms is second nature for me, I can go from my natural shape to a tiger or owlcat in moments. And once I’m wearing paws, I’m deadly. My claws were out and raking Israva’s arm in an instant, and she drew back just as fast, crying out. I could smell the fel in her blood, it burned my nose like an onion and just ticked me off more. As she blindly stared at me, I let out a warning growl rolling in the back of my throat.

Any other day, Israva was easy to predict. She’d try to talk, she’d piss me off, I’d take a swing and she’d run away. Then I’d get privacy for a few hours while she ran off to cry or some shit. But Israva sat there a little longer this time, lowering her head as though she even could stare at the wound I had inflicted. A little too long, even, why wasn't she running off? I gripped the log we’d been sitting on with my claws, turning to leave when she spoke, the sound as low and dangerous as my growls.

“Is that really the only response you have? You don't like what’s happening so you attack?”

I froze, and I felt my feathers bristling instinctually. She’d never talked like this before. She sounded too angry, like a completely different person. Each syllable was spit and didn’t sound quite right. I dared to look back at her.

“And you think I’m the monster..” Israva rose slowly, her teeth grit and bared. From where she’d left them on the frozen river below us, her shields or fist guards or whatever they were, sprung to her hands. “If that’s the only language you speak, then so be it.”

She leapt forward, shoving one of the large shields in my face and pushing me off the log. I tried to dig my claws in to stay put but felt nothing but air beneath them as I was thrown a good few yards. I slid when I landed, the thick ice of the frozen lake protesting the new weight on it. As Israva approached at a slow walk, the air around us grew dry and hot and before I could get to my feet, the shores around us ignited. With the heat just behind me, I could tell there was fire on all sides, an inferno arena keeping me in with the demon hunter.

“No more running, Kaleala, not for either of us.”

When did she grow a spine?! I kicked off hard, scratching against the ice as I sprinted full speed around to her back and leapt up toward it. If I could get my claws into her shoulders, she’d do damage for me. I’d done this a million times with the Watchers, it was my favorite technique. But I think Israva knew that. I was inches away from contact when I felt cold metal shoving into my side and cutting into it. She had turned on a dime and swatted me out of the air. I hit the ground on my shoulder, a sharp pain shooting through it as I landed, and the ice audibly cracking. Definitely was going to bruise.

“You’re my daughter, dammit! You were never supposed to be this way. You are so much more than this angry, bitter.. dwarf you’re growing into!” She charged forward again, but this time I was ready to leap clear, the whoosh of the metal right behind me. A smart Druid would stay on her paws, but she insulted my dad. I let myself slide a distance away as I stood, back at elven height and yelled in her face.

“You don't get to decide that! I am proud of being Wildhammer, you hear me asshat? Haldreth and the Watchers have done more for me than you’ll ever do!”

“But you’re not Wildhammer. You’re Kaldorei! You should be proud of your real heritage!”

“Oh yeah, this coming from the demon! You’re no Kaldorei, you don't get to tell me I am!”

With a rage-filled roar, Israva leapt at me again. I scampered to the right as I sprouted feathers again, this time taking to the sky in a wide swoop on stormcrow wings to get out of the way.

“I am Kaldorei! I made myself this way because I thought I could keep this world safe if I did. I thought I could keep you safe. I know I was wrong. I understand that! But I still love you, dammit! You’re still my world.. that never changed. I’m still me!”

I tilted my wings, twisting in a tight circle above her head. “Screw this,” I thought, “I’m out of here.” But as I beat my wings to fly over the flames they rose to meet me. Amid crackling fire, I could smell my feathers burning and I could hear Israva behind me.

“You’re not leaving until we’re done, Kaleala!” I felt her hand on me a split second before I was thrown to the ground. I could see her still floating where we’d been, violet leathery wings spread from her shoulders as she watched me fall. I hit the ice hard, the shock shoving me back into elf form. She landed nearby soon after me, and I felt cold water start to seep through all the cracks we’d made. I struggled to sit up, and could only watch as bluish-green runes carved themselves into the ground around me, forming some kind of circle. I started to shift back to owlcat, banking on speed to get out before anything happened, but before I could escape, the rune flashed. I felt myself revert to my normal form and without my claws to help, my hand slipped, sliced by the broken ice. I landed on my shoulder again and curled into a small ball, pain making me shudder involuntarily.

I felt a breeze, along with a distinct smell of fel and a low chiming noise as a whirl of light green began to swirl around me. Daring to look up, I found myself surrounded by rune stones, a strange ring floating above my head.

“What is this..?”

“A prison. I’d rather not hurt you worse than I already have, so hold still.” Israva threw her weapons aside, spikes I hadn’t noticed protruding from her back receded from wherever they’d come from, and she sat down. “I also dampened your magic. We are talking, whether you want to or not.”

I didn’t respond, though I did sit up, hugging my knees and hoping someone would come along and get me out.

“We’ve been at this for more than half a year.. I don’t know where the time went, but you’ve been angry the entire time. You’ve dismissed me, attacked me, insulted me.. I’ve given you space, I’ve answered every question you’ve ever asked me, and yet, every conversation is still a minefield. Only a matter of time before I say the wrong thing and I lose a chunk of my arm. Or my shoulder. Or my stomach. And I’ve put up with it. I’ve never fought back because the idea of hurting you was so repulsive to me. My heart has been in pieces for months over your treatment of me and the only reason I’m still here--” Israva made a weird choking sound, inhaling like she’d just said something terrible. “The only reason.. I’m still here is because I see Althallas in you. I see the loving man your father was when you’re with your friends and even with Haldreth sometimes. You could be just like him, you have every capability if you’d just try. And I want to see it happen so badly.”

I punched at the edges of my prison furiously. “I’m not changing for anyone, least of all you! I didn’t even know Althal-whatever, I don’t care that I’m like him!”

“No, you’re right.” Her tone darkened. “I was wrong to think you could be like him. You delight in cruelty, striking at any opportunity. You no longer recognize your kin for who they are. You have every opportunity to be more than you are, but you refuse to let people get close to you, refuse to let people comfort you.” My prison dropped, and so did the fire on the shores. “You are foul, Kaleala. In speech, in attitude, in action. I see now what you are.” She reached down and grabbed me by my shirt, lifting me far easier than I thought she could. I struggled in her grip, but without my abilities, I was useless, unable to get into a shape I could work with. I was forced to stay put and hear what she thought of me.

“You’re as demon as I am.”

((I rolled a pair of 1s today ;_; Got to try some more first person, but dammit... @crazyprophet-box-o-plots for Hald and Ricky~))

#Israva Farrunner #Allaea Stagthorn

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