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frmartinshomiliesandreflections · 10 months

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13th July >> Fr. Martin's Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Matthew 10:7-15 for Thursday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time: ‘You received without charge; give without charge’.

Thursday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA) Matthew 10:7-15 You received without charge: give without charge.

Jesus instructed the Twelve as follows: ‘As you go, proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is close at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils. You received without charge, give without charge. Provide yourselves with no gold or silver, not even with a few coppers for your purses, with no haversack for the journey or spare tunic or footwear or a staff, for the workman deserves his keep.

‘Whatever town or village you go into, ask for someone trustworthy and stay with him until you leave. As you enter his house, salute it, and if the house deserves it, let your peace descend upon it; if it does not, let your peace come back to you. And if anyone does not welcome you or listen to what you have to say, as you walk out of the house or town shake the dust from your feet. I tell you solemnly, on the day of Judgement it will not go as hard with the land of Sodom and Gomorrah as with that town.’

Gospel (USA) Matthew 10:7-15 Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.

Jesus said to his Apostles: “As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give. Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts; no sack for the journey, or a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick. The laborer deserves his keep. Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it, and stay there until you leave. As you enter a house, wish it peace. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you.

Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words – go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet. Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.”

Reflections (5)

(i) Thursday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

There is a very emotional scene in today’s first reading. Joseph learns from his brothers that his father Jacob, whom he had presumed to be dead, was in fact alive. When Joseph then revealed his true identity to his brothers, they were speechless when they discovered that the brother whom they had presumed dead, because they had thrown him into a pit, was alive and standing before them. Joseph’s brothers had good reason to think that he would now turn against them, as they had turned against him. However, Joseph realized that God had kept him alive for this very purpose, to preserve the lives of his brothers who were facing famine in Israel, ‘God sent me before you to preserve your lives’. Joseph recognized the purpose of God in all that had happened to him, including the terrifying experience of being left for dead by his brothers some years earlier. In retrospect he came to see that the Lord had been working through him all along. In the gospel reading, Jesus sends out the twelve on mission so that he can work through them for the benefit of others. They are to proclaim the same message Jesus proclaimed, ‘the kingdom of heaven is at hand’, and he empowered them to do the same life-giving work he had been doing. The Lord wants to work through all of our lives. Sometimes, as in the case of Joseph, it is only looking back that we can see how the Lord was present in our lives, how he was working through our lives, even in those moments when, at the time, we thought he had abandoned us because life was so difficult. The Lord is with us always, working for our good and the good of others, even in those times when he seems to be absent. As Paul says in his letter to the Romans, ‘all things work together for good for those who love God’.

And/Or

(ii) Thursday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus is the fullest revelation possible in a human life of God’s tender love. Yet, he experienced the turning away of people from this love, their refusal to respond to it in any meaningful way. When Jesus sends out his disciples in this morning’s gospel reading he warns them to expect the same. They are to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of God is at hand, that the reign of God’s life-giving love is present, but they will encounter those who will not welcome them and will not listen to what they have to say. Jesus insists that this negative response is not to deter them from their mission of proclaiming God’s loving presence by what they say and do. It certainly did not deter Jesus. Even as he suffered the ultimate rejection on the cross, he continued to proclaim the same good news of God’s unconditional love for all, even for those who were responsible for his crucifixion. We too are to reveal the loving presence of God, regardless of how we are received by others. As Jesus reminds us in today’s gospel reading, we have received without charge. God has graciously loved us in Christ even while we are sinners. In response, we are to give without charge; we are to pass on the love we have received without asking for anything in return.

And/Or

(iii) Thursday, Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time

In my earlier years as a priest I used to go along regularly to a charismatic renewal prayer meeting that took place every Tuesday night in the parish hall. The opening lines of one of the hymns that was regularly sung went, ‘Freely, freely, you have received; freely, freely give’. It was clearly inspired by a verse in today’s gospel reading, ‘You received without charge, give without charge’. These words were originally spoken to the twelve, as Jesus sent them out on mission. Yet, it is a saying of Jesus that continues to speak to believers today. The sequence of the sentence is important. Jesus’ statement, ‘you received’, comes before his call, ‘give’. There are times when we can reduce the gospel to the moral call to ‘give’. However, the call to give ceases to be gospel if isolated from the core of the gospel, ‘you received without charge’. God in Jesus has loved us and continues to love us unconditionally. God has bestowed his grace and favour upon us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and the sending of the Spirit, without looking for some payment from us in advance. The only response God asks us to make initially to this gift of his gracious love is to receive it. We open our hearts in our poverty to receive God’s unmerited love. Such receiving does not always come easy to us. We wonder ‘what have I done to deserve this?’ and we can struggle to live with the answer ‘nothing’. It is only in responding to the Lord’s call to receive than we can then go on to give as we have received, ‘without charge’.

And/Or

(iv) Thursday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

When Jesus sends out the Twelve to share in his mission in today’s gospel reading, it seems as if he is sending them out in a general state of unpreparedness. The usual resources that people would take with them for a long and demanding journey are being denied to them. From a human point of view, Jesus sending out his disciples almost devoid of the usual resources seems foolhardy. Jesus had a habit of speaking or behaving in an exaggerated way to make his point strongly. In sending out his disciples in such a vulnerable state, Jesus was teaching them not to be over reliant on their own human resources, but to rely on the Lord to provide for them. The value of self-reliance is an even stronger one today than it would have been in the much more communal culture of Jesus. We have been taught to leave nothing to chance. We must plan for every eventuality. Yet, when it comes to the work of the Lord in our time, we need to have a light hold on all possible resources and to allow room for the Lord himself to work. We can be so absorbed in the work of the Lord that we can side-line the Lord of the work. If we excessively provide for ourselves, including our work in the Lord’s service, we can forget that the Lord is the ultimate provider. Poverty of resources can sometimes allow the Lord to work more powerfully than he could if we had every eventuality covered in advance. The Lord is always inviting us to step out of the boat, trusting that he will not let us sink.

And/Or

(v) Thursday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

There is a very motherly image of God in today’s first reading from the prophet Hosea. Speaking through the prophet, God says to Israel, ‘I was like someone who lifts an infant close against his cheek; stooping down to him I have him his food’. It is language suggestive of a mother’s care for her infant child. The quality of God’s love is such that it needs to be expressed in the imagery of both motherly and fatherly love. The best of a father’s love and the best of a mother’s love gives us a glimpse into the nature of God’s love. Jesus was the fullest revelation of God’s love possible. He speak of his searching love as like that of a shepherd searching for his lost sheep and a woman searching for her lost coin. He speaks of the kingdom of God as like a farmer who sows a mustard seed in the soil and a woman who took yeast and mixed it in with three measures of flour. There is a male and female dimension to the kingdom of God. In the gospel reading, Jesus sends out the twelve to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God is close at hand. They are to give expression in their ministry to both dimensions of the kingdom of God; they are to reveal both God’s motherly and fatherly love. Such love will show itself especially in their care for the sick and vulnerable. The church needs to find new ways of expressing the male and female character of God and of God’s kingdom. It is only men and women working together in ministry who can begin to give adequate expression to the love of God spoken of by Hosea in our first reading.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

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yakumtsaki · 3 years

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Welcome, dear readers, to part 1 of the finale to the BackupKingdom2 saga! We’re in our final ambition now, let’s check how Liz’s post-divorce-bloodbath is going..

Oh yes, excellent. Our path to death-achievement-glory has been paved with so many executions that wherever I look I see npcs crying..

..comforting each other..

..and in Agnes' case, coming straight to Liz to.. ask for mercy for the populace I guess?? Bruh. I can't believe we even brought down AGNES, truly this is the saddest kingdom on earth. Amazing job, Liz, you've definitely earned your place in the tyrant hall of fame!

Now a lesser player would be like "oh, maybe we should chill a little on the insane tyrant thing, finish the Pirate/Noble arc cause we've been dragging this war out so the pirates/guildsmen would keep spawning and it should have ended like 20 quests ago" and true, we could just end it, we ran a very effective operation around here, shoutout to MVPs Donius and Bellinda and their 'seductive' legendary traits:

They bedded them and Liz beheaded them, the power of teamwork! So one could say that we should consider raising kingdom morale now because everyone is so depressed but I think, if anything, now is the time to ramp it up and go for some of the other morally questionable achievements! Like Machiavelli said, you should commit all your atrocities at once! What do you think, Liz? Ready to get atrocious?

-OH FUCK YEA, I’M ENRAGED, I DROPPED MY FIDDLE IN THE PIT AND NOW I HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE SERVANT TO GET ME A NEW ONE!! WHY DOES EVERYTHING ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME >:(

Aw I’m sorry Liz, but I’m sure you the upcoming suffering of your subjects will cheer you up!

-Ok motherfuckers, by order of the Crown aka ME -you hear that Rae?? ME, NOT YOU. God I want to execute you so bad, fucking ingrate, do you remember what rags you were wearing when I hired you??

Let’s get this back on track, Liz.

-Right, so by order of the Crown, Magus Olivia and Spymaster Spainot are given COMPLETE LEGAL IMMUNITY to do whatever the fuck they want in the interest of earning achievements, so don’t you people come crying to me cause I don’t give one tiny chinchilla crap about your health and livelihoods. If you need me for something actually important, I'll be at the gates, executing anyone who doesn't like my fiddle playing.

-Oh man, this folksy peasant hat isn’t protecting my ears enough.

-THOUGHT I WOULDN’T HEAR YOUR LITTLE MURMUR, DID YOU -YOUR MAJESTY NO I ONLY MEANT MY EARS WERE COLD -WELL ALL OF YOUR BODY’S ABOUT TO BE COLD NOW! CONSTABLE, THROW THIS PEASANT IN THE PIT

-Death marker? I hardly know 'er!

So the Constable npc has this little Billy Elliot subplot going, I'm pretty sure he has the 'drunkard' fatal flaw because he was always at the tavern so I had Bellinda try to hire him to perform in one of her plays just to see what would happen and it actually worked, and now he moonlights as an actor! It's cute but it also takes forever for him to come arrest people.

-THEY LOVE ME ❤️😁 -CONSTABLE WHATSYOURNAME, COME OVER HERE AND DO YOUR FUCKING JOB OR YOU'RE NEXT FOR THE PIT

-No one knows what it's like to be the bad man, to be the sad man, when someone dies😢

In the background you can see that Bellinda just got a pregnancy bump, it’s her lovechild with Donius, I for real can’t keep these two apart. Anyway, the time has come..

..to unleash Magus Olivia onto the populace.

-You know what, I'd rather not, this book is finally getting good and I'm sick of cursing peasants, it doesn't even drop their mood that much..

Oh no, Olivia my beloved, we're not cursing them, we're going for the 'Well Done' achievement!

-NO WAY.

WAY.

-Won't I be executed??

You have immunity! You can do whatever you want!! And, AND, once you complete it, because I know it's tiring, I'll give you a magic skeletal parrot as a gift!! Edward got all the materials for it while treasure-hunting, you'd think I'd let him keep it but that's not the kind of shop I'm running here.

-This is my face of pure, childlike happiness!

Good lord, it’s terrifying, please don’t look at me like that.

-Alright, time to roll down my sleeves so they look more sinister and do this thing.

You can do it, Olivia!

-Of course I can, save your reassurance for the flops that need it.

-I.. cast.. INFERNO!

...

-What?

I mean really, those are the words, "I cast inferno"? Can't you say something with more evil magical flair?

-Not when I have to cast it 80 fucking times I can't.

-IT BURNS, IT BURNSSSSS

Oh how the tables have turned, usually it's the witch that gets burned, huhu! Did you hear that, Olivia? Did you like my joke??

-Oh, it's beautiful!

Well it wasn't one of my best-

-Not you, you needy moron, the sight of burning flesh! I can't wait to do this 79 more times!

Alright, so everyone in the tavern has been turned into a chicken nugget, time to get some rest and check in with Spainot!

-Amazing news, Rodolfo, I just got royal permission to unlawfully lock up and interrogate whoever I want for the achievements!!!

-Darling, no offense, but aren't you a bit too shit at your job for that? -WHAT????

-FUCK YOU RODOLFO YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS OF MY SUCCESS -I WISH I WAS JEALOUS OF YOUR SUCCESS, THEN YOU'D BE SUCCESSFUL AND I WOULDN'T BE MARRIED TO A BROKE LOSER

-And then he says the only reason he hasn't dumped me is he doesn't wanna be a rando npc while Batshit Liz is on an execution spree, can you believe this bullshit? How can anyone be so hurtful??

-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA NO NO PLEASE DON'T HAVE THIS CHINCHILLA MAUL ME I'LL GIVE YOU WHATEVER YOU WANT

-How about you give me some marital advice, are you even listening?! Ugh.

That's right, while Olivia is inferno-ing the peasants, I've sicced Spainot on the nobility, specifically all those foreign diplomats that are always hanging in the reception hall, lagging up the place. We're going for the 100 interrogations achievement and we’ve installed a nice spiky torture chair right in the middle of the hall to save time! Now this is how we keep every stratum of society terrified enough to not realize that the person in charge is.. uh.. well you know:

-DANCE TO MY FIDDLE, PIRATE, DANCE!

-I AM!!!!!

-DANCE MORE ENTHUSIASTICALLY. ALL THE WAY TO THE PIT

After a couple days and several locations I feel we’re pretty close to 80 infernos!

I’d say we’ve burned a good 50-60% of the population at this point, everywhere I look I see singed townies-

-so we take this little barbecue to the palace because we’ve ran out of peasants and it’s time to start burning the foreign dignitaries. And it’s a good thing we do, because Olivia meets Nyrexis the Dragon!!!!

Nyrexis is the human form of the dragon from a hilar quest where there’s a dragon in the kingdom and you can either befriend it or slay it, I had Bellinda befriend it:

So if you complete the befriend route of the quest, the human form of the dragon appears in town and is in love with whoever did the quest, in this case Bellinda. I am of course not about to waste Dragonfu on Bellinda’s basic ass, plus I feel Olivia is kind of a dragon with all the people she’s been burning so they have a lot in common!

We dazzle Dragonfu with a coin trick! True magic at work.

-OMG IT WAS BEHIND MY EAR THE WHOLE TIME -I KNOW!

Good God, all of Olivia’s ‘happy’ expressions are terrifying, just don’t smile ever again, you’re too evil for it, you’re gonna scare the dragon away!

Or not!!!!

AWWWWW 🐲❤️🔮

You know what, fuck it, let’s lock it down, when it’s right it’s right!

-Burn stuff with me forever?? -I WILL!!!!

-We are gathered here today, under threat of fiery death, to join two unholy abominations in holy matrimony. Yes, the irony is not lost on me.

AW CONGRATS GUYS <3333 The wizard tower is so small and family un-friendly and Olivia is so unmaternal but come on, like I’m not gonna have her reproduce with a fucking dragon.

Back to Spainot, we’ve hit a slight bump, mainly that this Snordwich lord is proving fucking impossible to torture.

-Um.. Are you enjoying this??? -Sure am, bad boy, but why don’t we take this somewhere more private already?

Wtf, stop sexually harassing the innocent person who’s torturing you! Does no one around here have any sense of humanity anymore??

-Come on, Spainot, throw some flesh-eating rodents at him! -I’M BUILDING UP TO IT, RAE, GAWD. No one likes a back-seat torturer!

-HA, who’s the loser now, Rodolfo? Rodolfo?? RODOLFO

Ya Spai I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m pretty sure he left while you were interrogating, I haven’t seen him in like 3 days.

-WHAT. So Olivia completes one achievement and gets a dragon wife and a magic skeletal bird and I complete three and get dumped?!

Well what do you want from me, I don’t make the rules!

-YES YOU DO

Can we move on, please? And Olivia had a very rough go of it-

-she got burned in some rando quest and looked positively karma-stricken after, inferno-ing left and right while sporting this look! She deserves a magic bird!

Congrats on your success and 4 kids, Olivia!

-I love this skeleton bird more than I thought it possible to ever love something.

-Gee, thanks mom.

We had leftover bones so here, Spainot, you get a magic bird too.

-A bone parrot is little comfort when you’ve lost the only bone that matters! Why Rodolfo, whyyyyy!!!!!!!!!

Oh I don’t know, probably because you challenged him to duels 3 times a day?

-No, that can’t be it.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but you look like a man who has nothing to live for?

-Yea, I certainly don’t.

So you wouldn’t mind like, jumping into the pit multiple times so you can get the parts we need for the hardest achievement in game aka Legendary Doomsword?

-Rodolfo had one of those too, it was legendary and now that it’s gone I’m doomed!!!

Ok ya ENOUGH metaphors about Rodolfo’s absent penis, although they really are writing themselves. We’ll get him back! If you survive all the pit jumping that is. Join us next time for part 2: Legendary Doomsword!

#tsm

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astriefer · 3 years

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Just Let Me Breath With You

Pairing: Thomastair

Word count: 3033

Warning: CHAIN OF IRON SPOILERS, injury, blood, mentions of trauma

It all happened in a swift blink of an eye. The demon attack, the fighting, it all passed in a great swipe of Thomas's boleadoras.

The attack was surprising - not because it was an attack, but because it was close to the stronghold of London's enclave- the London institute. Demons lurked in the road, near Fleet street. A get-together at the institute was held that gray, hazy day in London. What precisely they celebrated was beyond Thomas; what mattered was that old and young Shadowhunters as one joined the battle against the horde of Achaieral demons. Their numbers were the larger he has seen ever since the Mandikhor. It didn't pass smoothly - some injured, although Thomas hadn't registered who. During the fight, Henry or Christopher threw at the demons one of their newest innovation. He noticed only a blur, a small grenade-like object, thrown close to where he was fighting one of the demons. He tried to stop the nasty-looking Achaieral demon from flying - with Thomas himself- when smoke swirled from the thrown grenade. There was a hollow thud of metal hitting something, an explosion followed afterward, and the demon disappeared. Maybe it was better not to inhale, but he was surrendered by the weird, thick smoke. He wasn't blown up from his inside out, so he considered it safe enough. As for now, the gates of the institute were behind him, hanging open to carry wounded and hurtling carriages.

Thomas's hands were sore and calloused as he rubbed them against his neck. He swayed slightly, an expression of a fool sprawled over his face. He surveyed his surroundings in bewilderment. Soon enough, worried and relieved faces gathered around him. His friends and family crowded him, mumbling altogether to make no sense at all. It felt utmost importance to note to himself not all of his friends and family truly were there. Matthew wasn't, and so was Cordelia. He heard the word "overwhelmed" in all the havoc. He didn't understand what they were talking about - surely they had been fine if they were running around the way they did.

He kept his eyes on them, trying his best to decipher what they were saying, but his gaze inevitably slipped away from them. He caught a brown blur of torn red jacket, grey pants, and tousled dark hair. That instant, the world turned down, and all left was him and this man in another corner of the institute. Even the voices surrounding him ceased to exist.

On the spur of the moment, he briskly departed from his family and friends and walked to him, barely restraining himself from storming toward him. A hand rested on his forearm - an attempt to stop him - but he shook it off without glancing at whomever it was. Sensing his intensive look, Alastair stared at him with a puzzled countenance. The short man was sitting against a wall, letting another Shadowhunter draw an iratze on his left arm. Thomas remembered Alastair charging to battle, now and in other battles they fought side by side, and relief I've washed him because he didn't seem to be wounded. By the time he reached them, It didn't matter who the other person was. The moment he captured Alastair's forearm, he broke into a run, not bothering to look at anyone as they hastily evaporated from the forecourt. Bad-mannered indeed, but Thomas was sure whoever that was would've understood urgent matter to talk with Alastair if he had known.

The tall man led the other through hurrying servants and leery eyes. Thomas almost knocked over a few people, but he did not find himself to care much more than mumble a half-hearted 'sorry'. He hadn't let go of Alastair, just loosened his grip slightly so he could slip his hand into Alastair's. His hold was firm nonetheless.

"Thomas!'" Alastair called out and caused him to turn his head over his shoulder. By the look of annoyance on his face, Thomas assumed the other man called his name a few times. Or perhaps, it was a result of being publicly dragged by Thomas for no apparent reason. Then he understood. Alastair had to run in order to follow him at this pace. For the first in entirety, Thomas cursed Alastair's shorter legs; but he quickly took it back because Alastair was, of course, the most beautiful the way he is. e slowed down his pace enough for Alastair to walk beside him, still dragging him after him. He felt a jolt of surprise Alastair didn't fight him about that, that he just let him take him to wherever he had in mind. Perhaps he was too stunned to really do anything else but stare at Thomas.

Thomas hadn't stopped to ponder over his good luck and no fuss from Alastair's side. He navigated through the maze of rooms and corridors, guiding Alastair to a casual unused guest room. He thrust the door open, let Alastair and himself enter before releasing his hand and shutting it close. He couldn't quite catch his breath.

He spun around to confront Alastair. Beautiful, he thought. The man in front of him was beautiful. Alastair - with torn clothes and dirt on his face - looked as charming as ever. In the last rays of the London sun, Alastair's eyelashes cast shadows upon his face. His cheeks seemed a bit red - was it because of Thomas or because of the previous fight? - and he chewed his lower lip. Thomas had the sudden urge to raise his hand and separate his lip from his teeth, pass his thumb on the soft mouth of Alastair Carstairs. The older man clearly tried to look expressionless, but he could see he studied him with concerned eyes. Thomas saw the question in them as well. Out of self-awareness, he looked down at his own clothes; they were rumpled and he lost his waistcoat in the fight, leaving him with trousers, a jacket, and a white shirt. All stained Ichor. He peered at Alastair, his clothes, and Alastair again. He must have looked like a corpse. Alastair, however, kept his captivating eyes on him, endearing-looking with his normal composed facade slightly off.

Alastair's stopped biting his lip and opened his mouth to talk, yet before he could voice a word, Thomas stepped closer and buried his face in the soft hair of Alastair Carstairs. He relished the feeling of Alastair close to him, of his smell and heartbeat and warmth. "You're here. You're fine."

His voice was just above a whisper, but it filled the quiet room. "I wanted to talk with you for days now." Alastair's breath hitched. He hadn't pulled away. He hadn't tried to push Thomas aside. It was Thomas who backed away from their position. Alastair tilted his head up to look at his face and gasped loudly when Thomas crushed him in a hug. He groaned in pain, and it struck him Alastair had been injured.

"You are hurt." Thomas's voice was almost offended. He loosened his grip on Alastair, whose hand came to rest protectively on his side, where his bruise must have been. Thomas recalled all of sudden he had been given an iratze. Was his wound worse than just a bruise?

"It's nothing," Alastair wheezed and took a careful breath.

Their gazes met for a long moment. Alastair didn't squirm. Thomas leaned forward leisurely, testing his boundaries. When his lips collided with Alastair's forehead, he let out a sigh against the soft skin. Alastair stood strained at first, then slowly relaxed. it had not even been a week since the sanctuary, since Belial and his schemes, since Cordelia and Matthew disappeared to Paris. Alastair was avoiding him like the plague, and Thomas couldn't blame him much. He wished he could. It hurt seeing Alastair and knowing he could not be with him the way he craved to be. He suspected Alastair would back away soon, leave him alone in this room, disappear without a second glance. Come and leave like in a dream. Like in their time in Paris.

Then, "I am glad you are okay as well."

Thomas's heart skipped a beat. Or a few. He abruptly ducked his head into Alastair's neck, close to his pulse. His body lost its tense as he devoted all his heed to the marvelous sound of Alastair's heart, beating strong and fast, addicting to Thomas's mind. Not a minute later he felt small palms pushing against him gently. He drew away begrudgingly.

His eyes were unclear, while Alastair's were shining brightly. Too brightly. He lifted his arm to touch the side of the fair hair on Thomas's head. When he lightly caressed it, Thomas winced. Letting his arm fall to his side, Alastair said, "You are hurt too. You need treatment."

Alastair dismissed his injury because he didn't want to worry Thomas and make it about him; Thomas dismissed it because he didn't want to be away from Alastair. His head was throbbing; it didn't matter. "It's nothing." he tried to enfold the small figure in his arms once again, but Alastair didn't let him. Thomas didn't try again, just silently observed Alastair. The dark man's eyes were conflicted as to if debating over himself what to do now. He sighed. "We can't, Tom. Please."

It was like a heated knife to his heart. He swallowed tightly. "I know," he forced himself to speak. "I am - I keep remembering all you are. All I love about you. Your hair," he counted and planted a kiss on his damp hair. Alastair looked at him, surprise written over all his face. "Your haughty smile, your dark colors, your eyes-" sparks of gray in a pool of black that reminded him of a starry sky. "Your lips," He closed his eyes. "your heart, so wide and loving, despite how much you try to conceal it. Your stubbornness, kindness, and selflessness. Your love for mundane movies and history and art. All of it. The feeling I can twirl around you for hours without getting a tad bit tired."

"Thomas," Alastair whispered.

"You deserve to be happy. I wish you would let me show you some of it," he continued tentatively. The man in front of him stood rigid, and it made sprouts of doubt rise in Thomas's chest.

"Thomas. No. No. We cannot. Don't act like we- as we could ever happen. Don't say those things to try and convince me we can be more than heartbreak for each other."

The knife twisted. Thomas blinked. "I am not telling this to try and win you over, Alastair," he said slowly. "I am telling you this because you deserve to know. Because I want you to know how much you mean to me," he inhaled, feeling a bit lightheaded, and went on. "With my friends, I always hide this part of me. The part you take in my life, in my heart. I can be all I am with you. You understand me so easily, that it takes my breath away. I- I am not as good at words as James is. I am not as wild or charming as Matthew. I am not as talented as Kit. I am me, and with you, I feel it's enough."

"Tom, it always has been enough."

Thomas sucked in a breath. How could he say this and expect Thomas to keep his face straight and his heart in control? He tried to push Thomas away but didn't let him think less of himself. He didn't let himself what he deserved, what they both did, because he believed they would both end up hurt. "I know so many things are - complicated," Alastair snorted at that. "But right now, everything is lucid, with you here."

He gazed deeply into those dark eyes. They held depths inside them he wanted to learn off by heart. Depths he wished to explore but could not reach.

Alastair shook his head and stubbornly kept his gaze at his dusted shoes. "You think we have reason by our side, but all we have is the burning yearning and stolen time." He knew if he let himself fall this time, he could not stand back. He would lose himself those kind hazel eyes, his deep voice, his brave heart, in everything that is Thomas Lightwood.

"We have more than this," Thomas declared. "I trust you."

Alastair piped his head up, "What?"

"I trust you," he repeated."And I want you, Alastair. I know you do too. But I want you to trust me as well. Trust me when I say I will never say those things just to make you give in and be with me. I am saying them because they are the mere truth and because I care for you."

Alastair glanced away hastily, eluding his eyes. "You are in no condition to make this decision. You- We can't -"

"But do you want us to be? Do you wish us to be together? "

Electricity filled the room, and both couldn't take their eyes off the other. Thomas knew it wasn't fair of Alastair to ask such a question. He knew on his flesh what it is to admit- even simply to oneself - you want something and believe you would never have it. That is how Alastair seemed to perceive them - a false fantasy, a feverish dream that would never come true. Thomas knew as well that Alastair had made it clear he didn't think they had a future, and making him fumble with those pieces of broken fantasy could hurt worse than words could. Yet, a part of Thomas couldn't help but wonder what the other had been through to be so hesitant to let himself be happy.

Do not say it's not possible on my behalf, he wanted to shout. If you wish to break my heart, do it because what you want is not a future with me in it.

"Yes."

Relief came so fast he felt abashed. His heart pounded ear-piercingly through his body. "Tell me," he asked gingerly. " Will you allow me to kiss you?"

Alastair drew in a sharp breath. Color flooded his cheeks. "Thomas..."

Thomas searched his face, which for so long was emotionless when he saw him the past week. He saw the hurt - how much it must be for Alastair? he pondered - and the fear. The dark-eyed gentleman wouldn't believe Thomas's words. He wasn't sure he could trust him with his heart. For now, he shall have the certitude for both of them. There was a voice telling him he wouldn't have come to Alastair after the fight if he could think clearly. He pushed that part away, locked it in a cage, and threw away the key.

He swallowed down the odd, stinging feeling of being rejected. "Will you allow me to embrace you, then? " Just let me breathe with you. Let me hold you in my arms, to reassure us both, to know you are here. "You don't have to. I swear to it." He took a step back to prove his statement.

The judicious decision was to ignore the offer. To turn away from Thomas and all the comfort he had to give. Alastair was on the verge of tears. Thomas hated those tears were because of him. Because of them. Alastair opened his eyes and hummed acquiescently, soft and low.

The shreds of resistance left Alastair's body as Thomas swooped him into a hug. His big hand passed his head on Alastair's back, between his shoulder blades, and to his lumbar. He absentmindedly caressed Alastairs's side, touching Alastair's wound lightly. The smaller man shied away from the contact but immediately calmed back into the hug. He stifled a whine, and in the back of Thomas's mind, he knew they both had to get checked on. Thomas put his cheek on the other man's forehead. He closed his eyes and let out a pleased noise. Alastair's arms slowly cloaked Thomas's waist, holding him close.

"We should return," Alastair whispered. A few minutes had passed. They were alone, far away from anyone who might hear, but the moment was so dreamlike and tender both were afraid to break the air around them. That alternate reality they formed in this godforsaken room, for a glimpse of a moment.

"I find it so tremendously difficult to do," his breath felt heavy; so did his heart. "Because I don't want to ever let go of you."

He heard Alastair gasp, and Thomas's own breath was quivering. The pulse beating deep in Alastair's chest raced, and Thomas was sure he could listen to it forevermore. The hug felt more private than a kiss, more overwhelming and welcoming and warm and protecting and trusting. "I missed you."

"Tom," Alastair's voice was suffocated, and thick from emotion, as if he was a boat that slowly sank because it's full of water. Thomas tried to retreat, suddenly fearing he passed the line. He must have passed it long ago, and yet Alastair let him, despite his own warnings. Thomas was about to apologize when he felt Alastair's hands tightening around him, and then the blazing understanding hit Thomas that It was Alastair's way of telling it was fine. Haltingly, he returned to their previous position.

They were hugging, nothing more. But the proximity made Thomas feel a sense of internal peace, like a calm wave hitting the sand lightly. It made his lungs protest because he was out of breath. How could he ever let go? It was better than nothing at all, better than air and staring long at the wall of his room. It was Alastair, and he was ready to take every drop given to him. Yet, because it was Alastair, he could never get enough. It was hard to capture it - the soft looks, the thumping hearts, the yearning and the hurt. Thomas's cheek was still pressed against Alastair's forehead. He shifted to hide his face in his strands, dark like the night, soft as a feather. Alastair's smell was intoxicating. The words slipped his tongue before he knew it. "I am glad I am here with you."

There was a beat of silence. The voice of the man he loved - Thomas almost startled himself by the heedless use of the word love - barely reached his ears.

"I am, too."

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pricemarshfield · 3 years

Text

for candia

Written for Day 1 of @acocweek: Fluff + Theobald. Read on AO3 here.

Theobald, as always, is the first awake.

Things are different than they used to be, of course. He wakes up with a marauder curled into his side murmuring violent nothings in her sleep and a licorice snake biting his hand affectionately, rather than alone. The guards are made up of a mix of Tartguard and North-Gumbian Knights and Saccharina's collection of nobodies that Theo has yet to corral into training. Saccharina lets him sit at her side during every meeting--encourages it, actually, wonders aloud about round tables and councils and more democratic processes of enacting law in front of visiting dignitaries who stare at her staff with wonderment and fear.

There's also still a tangible air of mourning around the place, too. One of the Tartguard started wailing when he saw Princess for the first time, and they'll be repairing the damage to the castle for years.

But what a job to supervise all of this!

"Limey," Theo says with a nod to his new second-in-command, who salutes. "What news do we have for the day?"

"Nothing much, sir," says Limey. "Her Majesty the Queen Saccharina continues to insist we don't need to salute her, but we've maintained proper etiquette anyway."

"Fantastic," Theo says. "Continue on."

"There is one thing," Limey says, and his tone is more confused than nervous, so he doesn't reach for the battle pop. "All of the left shoes in the barracks disappeared overnight."

"...what?"

"All of the left shoes in the barracks disappeared overnight, sir," Limey says. "No one saw anything, and while that's not an especially expensive thing to replace, it is worrying that someone was able to slip past our defenses."

Ordinarily, Theo would be incredibly worried about someone who could sneak into the barracks and out without being spotted, especially carrying what must have been dozens of shoes. But he hears a familiar snort from somewhere above him. When he looks up, no one's there, but that's to be expected. She's good.

"I'll retrieve those shoes posthaste, Limey," Theobald says. "Tell the men not to worry."

"They're not, mostly," Limey says, but Theo's already wandered off, holding his arm out so Princess can keep an eye out, too. She doesn't seem to be especially invested, snoozing on his arm and hissing when he tries to lower it.

"Ruby," Theo calls. "I know you're nearby. Come on."

No response, no sound of footsteps, no flickering shadows. This'll take the big guns.

---

"Ruby did what?" Saccharina says, lounging on her throne, and bursts into a fit of giggles.

"My Queen," Theo says, a familiar headache already forming behind his eyes. "This is serious."

"Sure, yeah," Saccharina says. "All the left shoes in the barracks? Even Jon Bon's? Oh, that's gross. Wait, is everyone just hopping around? Also, just call me Saccharina."

"My Queen Saccharina," he says, and she frowns at him, fiddling with a small magical trinket she'd found somewhere in the castle. "The morale of the men is important. We were able to take the castle without heavy losses, but not without losses entirely."

"Hm." The Queen stands up, shakes her head when he automatically moves to kneel. "She is the Imperial Princess now, and I don't think pranks are gonna hurt morale. Tell whoever's in charge of it that I authorize new shoes to be bought. I've got this whole treasury now, anyway, what else would I do with it?"

Theo takes a deep breath. "I think--" Saccharina waits, raising a brow at Theo's pause. He doesn't normally get this far. "I think that Ruby should probably apologize. And return the shoes."

Saccharina's mischievous smile looks a lot like her sister's. "Sure. And you can tell her that if you can find her."

There's a sudden laugh from behind him, and when Theo swings his head around, he sees only the back of the throne room.

He sighs. In for a long day, apparently.

---

The Imperial Princess Ruby of House Rocks doesn't have tutors here. She's on vacation, officially and in practice. Well-deserved after the war, of course, even if Theo doesn't understand the appeal of a week or month or two without structure. He'd have thought, after everything, that pranks were beneath her, that perhaps she'd even take an active role in governance!

Instead, Ruby seems to have decided Saccharina's challenge for Theo to find her cannot go unmet.

He hasn't seen her all day, even though the Bulb is high in the sky, but the impact of her actions is everywhere. Frosting along the floors that he slipped on, causing a Tartguard pile-up. Little bursts of sparks set to trigger when he opens doors and windows that startle him enough that Princess bites him. The worst offender is when he turns down a hallway only to see piles and piles of shoes, because when he gets back, they're all gone. The other Knights of North-Gumbia, to their credit, are completely understanding.

"The princesses were always fond of japes, weren't they, sir?" Limey asks. Princess hisses and curls around his neck in what he thinks is an affectionate gesture.

"They were," Theo says. Once, he'd woken up, sat up, and stretched only to get a tray of whipped cream directly to the face. Jet and Ruby hadn't been half as good at stealthing away as Ruby is now, but it'd taken him long enough to wipe it off his face that he'd only seen Jet glance back and snort with laughter.

Nothing had happened. Caramelinda had been visiting House Meringue for a family wedding and Amethar had found it hysterical. They had apologized in their own way, after--no escape attempts for an entire fortnight.

He shakes himself of his nostalgia with the help of Princess biting his ear, and as he gently untangles her from his helmet, he says, "Right. Well, keep the search up. She can't hide from us forever."

---

Two days, six hours, and roughly thirty minutes after he makes that statement, he's not so sure. No one's admitted to seeing Ruby, though Saccharina's eyes had sparkled with mirth and kept glancing up to a corner behind him as if daring him to break court etiquette and check. He's checked the secret passages he knows, he's enlisted the help of the marauders (Swifty had only threatened to stab him once during the conversation, so he thinks they're genuinely looking), he's used every spell he knows and considered looking up new ones.

New pranks pop up around the castle, of course. A few meeps let loose in the hallways, frightening a visiting dignitary. Flooding one of the kitchens with cola. Cushions that make it sound like you're farting on every chair except the throne.

"Ruby seems to be sparing you from her onslaught," Theo says to the Queen, watching as Annabelle Cheddar stares at herself in one of the room's mirrors, hair turned a bright Candian purple.

"Yeah," Saccharina says with a wide smile. "She is! It's really cool! I've never had anyone comfortable enough around me who cared me enough to do pranks without me being the target!"

Theo, not knowing how to respond to that, is incredibly thankful for the sixth prank of the day: an explosion of scraps of paper that covers every inch of the room. The paper seems to be mostly made up of old letters from the other nations. They're important, and them being destroyed is terrible, and they will have words about it later, but he can't bring himself to mind too much right now.

Because with all the paper everywhere, he sees the little breeze she makes in her escape, and the direction she runs in after.

---

If he chases after her now, he'll lose her, and who knows if he'll ever get another lucky break like that again. So he waits. Endures waking up covered in Fructeran vino, deals with diplomats' outrage at not being greeted by the Imperial Princess herself, keeps checking secret passages in entirely different parts of the castle just to throw her off the trail. He doesn't say anything to anyone about it, because he's not especially good at deception.

The final prank: a veritable army of chocolate frogs released while Saccharina holds court. It explains why she's been holding back laughter the entire time, but that's a problem for later. For now, he sprints across the room, vaulting over one of the Tartguard, and heads in the direction he'd seen her run before.

There's a few secret passageways this way, but he's checked those. When he reaches a dead end, he looks around, thinks--casts knock on the wall. Sure enough, it pushes open, and on the other side is Ruby Rocks, mouth open in shock.

"Ruby!" Theo calls.

"Damn it," she says. "How'd you even--it doesn't matter."

"You have many things to apologize for, your Imperial Highness," Theo says, walking over to try and pick her up and carry her back to the throne room. She could escape, probably, but it's at least a start.

"That's not true!" Ruby says. "I've been helping a ton of people."

"What, people who needed specifically left shoes? Annabelle secretly asked you to dye her hair purple?" Ruby snorts. "See! Come on, Princess."

"No, seriously," Ruby says. "Look, I did this because it's funny, but it's bringing the mood up around here! Morale!"

Theo blinks at her. "What? Stealing people's things? Ruining their day?"

"Pranks," Ruby says with a nod. "Look. Pay attention to the way people are acting and talking about all of it. I'll be back here in a few hours if you still wanna try and get me grounded."

"Your sister's not going to ground you," Theo says, and Ruby grins up at him.

It's definitely a trick. He's fallen for similar tricks before. He shouldn't this time.

"If you're not back here," Theo says, and Ruby laughs, half-tackles him in a hug, runs past him, and jumps out a window. He doesn't hear a thud or yelp of pain, so he assumes it's probably fine.

He hadn't even thought to check outside, had he? Hopefully, she'll keep her word and he won't have to. Not much else to do now that she's already escaped.

---

When he walks back to the throne room, Saccharina's holding a chocolate frog with a look of fascination and disgust, Primsy's already got one in a box that she's attempting to feed sugar-grass, and Liam is visibly holding himself back from target practice, hands twitching towards his crossbow.

"I must say," he overhears one of the Tartguard say as he takes his place by Saccharina's left side. (Gooey's at the right, still. Had very, very easily won that argument.) "While these pranks are quite improper, you can't deny they're incredibly humorous!"

"Good sir!" says another Tartguard, and one of the marauders behind him rolls her eyes, but has a smile on her face too. "I have to say, I agree. It was nice to have a bit of liveliness around here!"

One of the Fructeran diplomats is upset, but soothed easily after his partner reminds him that he can tell this story before the Imperial Court, always so focused on adventures. The Dairy Islanders seem more excited to avoid courtly talk than anything. One Meatlander is holding a chocolate frog with a look that can only be described as adoring, even as it shits in his hand.

All-in-all, the atmosphere of the room is rather...jovial. Not at all like the quiet mournfulness of the first week of their reign. There's still the holes in some of the walls from their siege, and there's still the palpable loss of the chancellor and the princess, but people seem happy. People are laughing.

When he goes back to the secret passageway--opened apparently by twisting a statue of Sapphria so that she's facing the window--Ruby's there, shifting on her feet.

"You do have to return the shoes," Theo says, and Ruby's shoulders slump. "But--"

"Yes!" Ruby says. "I knew you'd get it. Well, I hoped you'd get it. Gooey's mellowed you out."

"I--that's--we're not talking about Gooey," Theo blusters. "The shoes need to go back."

Ruby snorts. "I did that so we'd get new shoes. Dad told me all about trench foot."

"What?" Theo says. "That's not even a little bit of an appropriate topic for conversation. Especially at court. If you'd just go to your lessons--"

"I don't even have lessons here," Ruby says, and he's so distracted by responding to that with an emphatic 'you should' that he doesn't notice the tray of whipped cream until it's already in his face.

"Bye, Theo!" Ruby calls, already dashing away from him.

He sighs. "Bye, Ruby."

#acocweek #theobald gumbar #ruby rocks #a crown of candy #dimension 20 #my fics

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

Text

Three Gates - on ao3 (for content warnings check Ao3) - on tumblr: pt 1, pt 2, pt 3, pt 4, pt 5, pt 6, pt 7, pt 8, pt 9, pt 10

- Chapter 11 -

Nie Mingjue was fond of saying that all plans ended when the battle began, and all things left to chance would immediately default to the worst possible option, and Meng Yao found the statement to be true: it went from bad to worse almost immediately.

They received an invitation, if one could call it that, demanding that they send a direct disciple of the junior generation to the Nightless City for what was euphemistically called ‘education’ – and of course the only direct disciples of any generation were Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang, respectively, Meng Yao having become a regular disciple the way all the cousins were. And since obviously Nie Mingjue couldn’t go, that meant –

They were going to have to send Nie Huaisang.

Nie Mingjue, of course, was of the view that the only choices for a response were between “fuck you�� and “fuck you and your mother”, but even he knew they weren’t actually ready for a full-fledged war with the Wen sect. For all their careful years of preparation, a war machine took time to get going; they would need to buy time to consolidate their efforts and to build a wall that the Wen sect would not be able to breach.

“They probably won’t slaughter us all at once, all of us from all the sects,” Nie Huaisang said, his fingers nervously running up and down his fan. “Right?”

Meng Yao nodded, and Nie Huaisang’s shoulders relaxed a little. “Well at least they won’t make me practice saber too much,” he offered, trying to lighten the mood.

“You’re not taking your saber,” Nie Mingjue snapped, and even Meng Yao turned to stare at him at that. “They’ll seize every sword and saber the second you walk in, claiming to keep it until you’ve done well enough to earn them back – that’s fine for the other clans, since their swords aren’t spiritual weapons the way our sabers are, but as far as I’m concerned no Nie saber will ever voluntarily enter the hands of the Wen sect. Go to the forges and have them remake a practice saber to look like Aituan; you can take that instead, and if they ask questions about why you don’t wield it right, pretend it’s your weak cultivation.”

It was a good idea, actually, albeit one that Meng Yao wished hadn’t been said in front of Wu Bixian, but luckily there wasn’t much of a window between receiving the Wen sect’s demand and receiving the Lan sect’s urgent cry for help – as anyone might have expected, Nie Mingjue immediately abandoned all reason and insisted on going there personally to help.

“If you must go, take only a small force; we can do the most good where we can be most helpful, while still fooling the Wen sect into thinking we are weak and unprepared,” Wu Bixian advised, and Nie Mingjue scowled at him, dislike of the idea written all over his face, but then Meng Yao spoke up in favor of that approach as well, and Nie Mingjue listened to him as he always did.

Sometimes Meng Yao wished he wouldn’t.

By the time they arrived, the Library Pavilion was alight, as were any number of other buildings; Meng Yao only hoped that Lan Wangji had managed to get the rest of his sect to believe his message in time to do some good.

He hoped Lan Xichen was nowhere nearby – that he had escaped.

That he didn’t have to see this happen to his beloved home.

Nie Mingjue was barking out orders left and right, Meng Yao darting around to try to make himself useful – Chiwen could be used to fight, of course, and often was, but Meng Yao knew his strengths; he was better off flying around to help direct or rescue people, especially since he could always pick up an extra sword lying around to fight with, utilizing Wen or Jin or even Jiang and Lan styles that he’d picked up over time.

He killed some, commanded others…he hated it.

He hated war.

How had Nie Mingjue dealt with this? While Meng Yao sat at home, devising logistics with a cold and unfeeling eye, Nie Mingjue put himself in each battlefield, Baxia at his side, wading through the blood and muck to win victory for them…

When Meng Yao got home, he would have to do something very nice for him to show his appreciation.

Meng Yao figured that would be it, that they’d get out as many people as they could before being forced to retreat – the Wen sect forces were even larger than he’d anticipated, and he’d anticipated being vastly overwhelmed – but somewhere in the smoke and ash and screams Wu Bixian found him and grabbed him by the elbow.

“Come with me,” he said. “We have a limited amount of time.”

“To do what?” Meng Yao demanded, sick and tired of Wu Bixian and figuring that the heat of battle would serve as an explanation for his uncharacteristic vehemence. “What’s left to do? The Wen sect will be victorious beyond telling: the Lan sect has largely fled where they can, Lan Wangji has already been captured – they broke his leg –”

No Lan Xichen in sight, though, and Meng Yao could only hope that he was safe, wherever he was.

“The second young master Lan is a worthy prize, but there are even better ones,” Wu Bixian said. “How long can Qinghe refuse to bow before Qishan Wen if it has no master to lead it?”

Meng Yao’s back went cold. “Now? You must be mad; you can’t capture Nie Mingjue here. There are a million pathways in and out of the Cloud Recesses, now that the wards have come down – even if you did catch him, he’d only escape, and then where would you be? Your cover blown, with nothing to show for it –”

“I’m the one in charge of this task,” Wu Bixian snapped, his voice taut with tension. “Your role is just to listen and obey –”

“You mean you’re messing up this task. If Sect Leader Wen wanted him captured here, he would have come up with a better plan –”

Wu Bixian laughed. It was an ugly sound, sneering, and Meng Yao stopped at once, hearing it. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to,” Wu Bixian said. “You want to save him up so that you can use him later, don’t you? You want to trade him in for a reward. You know what Sect Leader Wen wants…”

And so do you, Meng Yao thought, and everything took on a tint of red in a way that suggested that Chiwen’s rage was starting to seep back the wrong way through their bond, their rage becoming one in a way that was highly dangerous. You know – no. You knew. You’ve always known.

Somehow Meng Yao had deceived himself into thinking that Wu Bixian must not have known about Wen Ruohan’s abnormal interest in Nie Mingjue, that he had been corrupted by a desire for power or riches or something like that, but that he hadn’t really known.

Wu Bixian was one of the previous generation, one of Lao Nie’s contemporaries; he married in before Nie Mingjue was even born. He would have seen him grow up, known him as the child he had been and the man he’d grown up into, and despite all of that he knew what Wen Ruohan wanted, knew and didn’t care, and maybe he had even aided and abetted some of the incidents that Meng Yao had had to so strain himself to interrupt or misdirect or stop.

“Well, I won’t have it,” Wu Bixian said, and bared his teeth. “You won’t get the chance to sell him. Qinghe Nie won’t be disgraced like that! It deserves better than that – better than that abomination that has been taking up the seat of sect leader. I told Lao Nie when he was born to put him aside, strangle him in his crib before he had a chance to bring shame upon us, but he wouldn’t listen –”

Meng Yao actually took a step backwards from sheer shock. “What are you talking about?”

He’d always known there were nasty things said about Nie Mingjue behind his back, mostly comments about him having been raised without a mother or just the usual cruel things that people say about children they have reason to dislike, but he’d never heard anyone call Nie Mingjue an abomination.

That was a word for people like him, sons of whores too poor to command their own fate, not for true-born sons of the gentry –

Not for Nie Mingjue.

Wu Bixian sneered at him. “They covered up the horoscope as best as they could, but they couldn’t hide his face, that ridiculous height or that even more ridiculous talent – look at you, you’re surprised. You thought Sect Leader Wen wanted him for something as simple as lust?”

“What does his height have to do with anything?” Meng Yao asked, utterly at sea. He could see jealousy over his talent, even envy for his features, but Wu Bixian wasn’t jealous. He was – he was protective, he saw Nie Mingjue as a threat to the Nie sect, the fervor of the converted burning in his eyes. “I don’t –”

“He’s a furnace,” Wu Bixian said, and Meng Yao took another step backwards, the shock expelling the breath from him as effectively as a hit to the stomach. “A yang furnace, as opposed to the more common yin furnace you find in women, but a furnace is a furnace, in the end; he was born for dual cultivation, and that’s all he’ll ever be good for. All of that talent, all of that cultivation, what’s the point? It won’t do him any good; it’ll all belong to the man or men that claim him – why do you think Sect Leader Wen has been so patient all these years? The occasional impatience aside, he’s been waiting for him to grow ripe like a farmer waiting for the harvest.”

He laughed, his voice harsh. “Well, I won’t have it. I won’t see my Nie sect disgraced like that, with the whole world knowing that our ‘leader’ will be eking out the rest of his miserable existence on his knees or his back for whoever’s come to take advantage – it was one thing when he was younger, when he would have only been disgraced and cast aside for a new son, but now…? No. Sect Leader Wen will get his victory over the cultivation world, which is what he really wants, and he’ll get Nie Mingjue’s head on a pike, but that’s all. That’s all he’s ever going to get.”

The fervor of the converted indeed. Lao Nie hadn’t cared about his son’s unusual constitution – he’d cared too little, even, thinking that he’d hidden the truth when in fact he was sold out by one he trusted – but Wu Bixian cared; he didn’t want the Nie clan to lose face, he didn’t want to risk the disgrace. He had betrayed the Nie sect to the Wen sect to avoid it –

He would kill Nie Mingjue to ensure it.

Meng Yao knew what he had to do.

“And you, you miserable leech, are not going to stop me just because you want the gain for yourself,” Wu Bixian said, and turned to lead the way towards Nie Mingjue’s last known location. “Of course someone like you’d think it’d be better to sell him than to kill him; you don’t understand honor at all, don’t understand face – you’re only part of our Nie sect through by your mother’s tricks. Of course you think that everything comes down to a deal to be made, something to be sold, you’re just what your blood says you are, a fatherless son of a whore –”

Meng Yao drove Chiwen into his back.

“Meng Yao!”

Meng Yao turned and saw Nie Mingjue, who must have realized he’d lost sight of Meng Yao and come to find him to make sure he hadn’t gotten hurt.

Nie Mingjue’s eyes travelled from Wu Bixian, choking out blood as he died, down the length of Chiwen and to Meng Yao’s hand that held him: his eyes were wide and horrified, confused, even betrayed –

Meng Yao had never told him what he was planning with Wen Ruohan. He hadn’t wanted him to worry. He’d known how much even the mention of the man disrupted Nie Mingjue’s sleep; he’d known that he would reject any plan that involved putting Meng Yao in danger.

He’d thought he’d have time to explain.

He’d thought – well. He hadn’t thought that Nie Mingjue would find him with his saber in the back of his own commanding officer in the middle of a battle, one of the few crimes that Nie sect law called to be met with immediate execution or else at absolute minimum immediate expulsion from the sect.

“Trust me,” Meng Yao said, a plea more than an order, and then he turned and fled.

#mdzs #meng yao #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #my fic #my fics #three gates

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spell-cleaver · 4 years

Note

„Will you tell me what happened?” Sabé asked gently. Luke swallowed a sob that blocked his throat. “It... it all got worse after you left.”

Part 0.5, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Masterpost here!

“Will you tell me what happened?” Sabé asked gently. Luke swallowed a sob that blocked his throat. “It… it all got worse after you left.”

Nova gave the faintest frown of concern, hand still hovering on his knee, but she didn’t pressure him as he took a moment of silence to gather his thoughts. He stared around the office they were sitting in—the office he’d shown her to, adjacent to her quarters, for her personal use—and shifted on the armchair he’d picked out for her, with the fleur de lis pattern she’d always loved. She said it reminded her of Naboo.

"I…” he began, then shut his mouth again. “Father was… angry that you’d left"—escaped, more like, but Luke didn’t want to think in too much detail about the stressful night in which the only person who loved him had been accused of being a Rebel spy—"and he… he thought I’d helped.”

Nova sucked in a breath.

“He didn’t hurt me,” Luke rushed to assure her. His voice trembled with the half-lie: his father hadn’t, not physically, but Vader had. And the agony of having his mind ripped apart until his father had been satisfied that he hadn’t helped her escape was an entirely different sort of pain. “But… after that, things were a lot more intense. More lessons, more guards, and a lot more training.”

Nova stiffened. “What training?” she asked slowly. “The… dark side?”

He shook his head. He didn’t know where she’d heard that phrase, but Nova was smart, well-connected, and she’d raised a Force-sensitive child for eleven years, so he figured she’d done her research. “No. He said I wasn’t worth that much training. Just the basics: how to sort of shield my mind"—just enough that no one but Vader or his father could breach it, and it was excruciating when they did—"how to levitate objects"—from hours and hours in a room with Vader, sending furniture and knives and sometimes active thermal detonators flying at him that he had to stop, or pay the price in scars—"and lightsaber skills.”

And that had been the worst of it. Seeing Vader come at him with a lit saber while he trembled like a leaf…

He swallowed a sob. “It got worse,” he summarised. “Eventually, when I turned fourteen, I was allowed to leave the Palace, go travelling on a Star Destroyer and learn military tactics from Tarkin or Tagge or Thrawn, but even then he sent red guards with me everywhere, to keep up my training.”

Nova was quiet for a moment, then asked, “And that was where you were during the attack?”

“Yes.” Luke lowered his head. “O—over Sullust, when Tagge’s ship was attacked and nearly everyone was killed. I barely survived, and then when I woke up…”

“Vader’s in charge,” she said softly, “and you’re trapped in the Palace again.”

He nodded.

When Nova wrapped her arms around him tightly, he flinched for a moment, then melted into her embrace. She pulled his head down to bury it in her shoulder; tears dampened her tunic.

“I’m sorry I left,” she whispered. Luke made a crying, keening sound, low in his throat, and was mortified when he heard it with his own ears. She just held him more tightly. “I’m so, so sorry I left—I should’ve stayed, no matter what, but I had things I needed to do. And I’m here now.” She stroked Luke’s hair back from his face. “I won’t ever let anyone hurt you again. You’re the Emperor, Luke. I can teach you what that means, since your father never did.”

Luke pulled back, feeling compelled to defend, “My father—”

“Was a kriffing terrible man and father, and you know it, Luke,” Nova said sternly. He actively flinched, but she cupped his cheek in her hand. “You are nothing like him, and I know you feel like a disappointment for that, but it means that you are worth so much more than he ever was.”

Luke grimaced.

“Do you…” Nova hesitated, then, gaze flickering to the doorway, before she asked, “Do you know how he died?”

Luke shook his head. “Vader said it was an illness, heart failure, something,” he said hoarsely.

Nova snorted.

Luke smiled a little through his tears. “I know.”

“Suspicious, to say the least,” she commented. She squeezed his hand. “I’ll see what I can dig up about it—whoever did it…”

The implication was clear.

Palpatine’s murderer would not suffer his son to live, after all.

“They won’t want the second coming of my father,” he muttered.

Nova’s gaze steeled. “As I just said, you are not your father.” She knocked the back of his head lightly to get her point across; he didn’t know whether to laugh, or cry, or curl up into a ball and hibernate until all this madness had passed. “You will not be an emperor like he was.”

“I—”

“And you shouldn’t be an emperor like he was,” she continued sternly. “Yes, I will continue to disrespect the dead, and good riddance to him: he deserved all he got. He was a terrible man, a terrible ruler—you know it as well as I do—”

“I know,” Luke cried. He ripped his hands out of her grip and paced the study, bashing his hip against the corner of the desk. The pain reverberated throughout his entire body, aggravating his old wounds. He went down, hard, but someone caught him before he hit the floor.

Nova gently guided him back into the seat, and knelt in front of him.

“You need to be more careful, little emperor,” she murmured.

He held her gaze. “He was my father.”

She pursed her lips. “No,” she said shortly, “he wasn’t. He was a power hungry emperor who wanted a powerful child to mould into his successor, to adore him and continue his legacy of terror even long after he was gone. He wanted someone to act the sweet little prince the galaxy could latch onto while he pursued his wicked acts, and he cast you aside when you fulfilled that desire too well. He was not your father. Not by blood, and not in heart.”

She sounded… defensive.

She did.

And suddenly, Luke remembered that Vader had said Nova knew his birth mother.

Had, perhaps, known both his birth parents.

“Nova?” he asked suddenly. “Can I ask you something?”

Nova hesitated at that, frowned, but nodded.

Send me the first sentence of a scene for this AU an I’ll continue it!

Beginning | Previous | Next

#luke palpatine #luke skywalker #sabé #my writing #random words on a page

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alesbiancowboy · 4 years

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It’s time for the Easter Episode!!!!!

1. let us all say a big thank you to the costume and hair departments for giving us some very very quality Patsy Mount looks this episode. Delia even looks great, and that’s saying something because they normally have her looking like an adorable cabbage patch doll (I say this with the utmost love for the girl).

2. I love how relieved Patsy looked after she saw Delia. There’s something just so soft about it. I have a feeling she was worried and checking her watch because she was ready for Delia to be late with bad news. The one thing they truly needed to justify to Delia’s family that she could move back was Delia’s job, and now that they have Delia hired back on at the London, they can actually be together again — for real this time.

Patsy and her cheeky looks are just too good. that’s all I have to say. We see her doing this little flirty look to Delia a lot, but this was the one that was really really there and not hidden from others or happening in the background of something and I love it.

(Also Delia calling Patsy out on a lie is perfect. I love them and their relationship. show me another relationship out of the Nurses that is this natural and charged...I dare you)

If you know me and my breakdowns you know what’s coming. THIS IS SUCH A BIG FUCKING DEAL Y’ALL. Last time we saw them together was in the Christmas episode where they did hold hands, but it was under the table and honestly more of a comforting gesture. this is IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, ON TOP OF THE TABLE, AND ISN’T COMFORTING. These women are in love, are comfortable and are happy and I am crying in the club.

OKAY BACK ON TOPIC

Mama Busby coming in like the tornado of a person she is. God, it’s hard because you know she cares so much about her daughter, but Delia’s also a full-grown adult who went to medical school and has an entire posh ginger fiancée (I will stand by that ring she had on the necklace until the day I die). But we see Patsy shutting down as her mother keeps being very anti-London and Delia’s freedom, but she perks up and we see her give a small smile to Patsy who is trying to stick up for the love of her life, and it’s just perfect.

But also, Patsy knows how much Delia’s family means to her, so she ends up staying quiet as Mama Busby puts her foot down. She doesn’t want to make things worse for Delia, and she’s trying hard to respect the love that Delia has for her mother.

We do see the moment where she rolls her eyes at waits for Delia to stand up for herself — Patsy knows this isn’t her fight, but she was expecting Delia to be strong and assertive like her Deels always is, but when Delia stays quiet and deflates under her mother’s disapproval, it’s shocking for Patsy.

I think this is the same phone booth that they had their moment in during the Christmas episode and oof it hurts. Last time in this booth Delia was saying she was going to fight so that they could be together again, and now that fight is lost for Delia. She loves her mother and she’s put her family through so so so much with her accident that I honestly think she owes them to do what they ask, even if it makes her miserable.

The fact that we can see tears in Patsy’s eyes as she’s hearing this is just heartbreaking. She lost Delia once before, now she’s going to lose her again and she can’t stop it. I think this is her going through the beginning stages of grief here. Trying to see Delia one last time is her bargaining, she’s trying desperately to find a way to see her and hopefully manage to convince her to stay — even if the last time she gets to see Delia is in front of everyone. (Remember when Delia came back in the Xmas Episode and said she didn’t want her first time to see Patsy again be surrounded by everyone at Nonnatus? this is Patsy saying she’d rather be able to see the love of her life one last time, even if it’s surrounded by nuns and her colleagues.)

Also, having the little animal ears on Patsy is just such a great visual reminder. She has to go back out there and get these ears fixed and help with the Easter Bonnets and pretend like everything’s okay. She doesn’t have the luxury of being upset in front of her friends because they could 1. figure out exactly why she’s torn up about Delia not being able to come back or 2. downplay her feelings which isn’t fun for anyone.

Delia’s shaky “I can’t leave Mum” is oof. The way she says Mum with such disdain and hurt is painful. After all, her mother is being this way to protect her, but she still doesn’t like it and now has to see Patsy for what could be the last time ever with her helicopter of a mother there the entire time.

Whoever did Patsy’s hair and makeup for this scene deserves a raise. LOOK AT THAT CUT CREASE! THOSE LASHES! Iconic.

Anyway, we see Patsy looking sad and sighing when Sister Winnifred brings up Delia taking up her job again. It seems like she and Delia have both come to terms with it, but for once in their relationship, Delia is the one who has this amazing emotional control while Patsy is wearing her heart on her sleeve in public.

Just the exasperated eye roll that Delia does here is perfect. Also, the casting between the Busby’s is honestly amazing. Bravo casting department.

This little look they give each other before their separate reactions are just so great. The last person they both expected to be their biggest ally was most likely Sister Julienne or one of the nuns (let’s remember that conversation over lunch during the Rose Queen episode). But here they are, the nuns are the ones advocating for them to be under the same roof (without knowing exactly why that is such a big deal for Patsy and Delia) and Mrs. Busby not being able to say no and being peer-pressured is just perfect.

Delia has spent time with literally everyone at that table in some way and they all like her (because, I mean, who wouldn’t?) so Mrs. Busby was going to be fighting a losing battle no matter what, and if we think back to when Fred brought Violet for their engagement party — it’s a big deal to be invited to lunch with the Nonnatons (Nonnatuns?) and arguing with them over Easter lunch would not be appropriate. So, Huzzah!! We have our little lesbians in the same roof, able to easily lie about why they’re always hanging out so much, able to shut the door at night (I see you “card games”) and able to be together.

Anywho,

thanks for reading if you made it this far, if not and you just scrolled through, that’s fine too, I still love and appreciate ya. Make sure you drink some water and get some sleep. Let me know what scenes you wanna see next!

#Call The Midwife #patsy mount #delia busby #patsy x delia #Easter Episode #Scene Breakdowns

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roman-catholic-mass-readings · 4 years

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6th June >> Mass Readings (USA)

Saturday, Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Saint Norbert, Bishop

Saturday memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Saturday, Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

(Liturgical Colour: Green)

First Reading

2 Timothy 4:1-8

I am already being poured out and the crown of righteousness awaits me which the Lord will award to me.

Beloved: I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingly power: proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths. But you, be self-possessed in all circumstances; put up with hardship; perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill your ministry.

For I am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearance.

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 71:8-9, 14-15ab, 16-17, 22

R/ I will sing of your salvation.

My mouth shall be filled with your praise,

with your glory day by day.

Cast me not off in my old age;

as my strength fails, forsake me not.

R/ I will sing of your salvation.

But I will always hope

and praise you ever more and more.

My mouth shall declare your justice,

day by day your salvation.

R/ I will sing of your salvation.

I will treat of the mighty works of the Lord;

O God, I will tell of your singular justice.

O God, you have taught me from my youth,

and till the present I proclaim your wondrous deeds.

R/ I will sing of your salvation.

So will I give you thanks with music on the lyre,

for your faithfulness, O my God!

I will sing your praises with the harp,

O Holy One of Israel!

R/ I will sing of your salvation.

Gospel Acclamation

Matthew 5:3

Alleluia, alleluia.

Blessed are the poor in spirit;

for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Mark 12:38-44

This poor widow has given more than all others.

In the course of his teaching Jesus said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and accept greetings in the marketplaces, seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor at banquets. They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext, recite lengthy prayers. They will receive a very severe condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

—————————

Saint Norbert, Bishop

(Liturgical Colour: White)

(Readings for the memorial)

(There is a choice today between the readings for the ferial day (Saturday) and those for the memorial. The ferial readings are recommended unless pastoral reasons suggest otherwise)

First Reading

Ezekiel 34:11-16

As a shepherd tends his flock so will I tend my sheep.

Thus says the Lord God: I myself will look after and tend my sheep. As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark. I will lead them out from among the peoples and gather them from the foreign lands; I will bring them back to their own country and pasture them upon the mountains of Israel in the land’s ravines and all its inhabited places. In good pastures will I pasture them, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing ground. There they shall lie down on good grazing ground, and in rich pastures shall they be pastured on the mountains of Israel. I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest, says the Lord God. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy, shepherding them rightly.

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 23:1-3a, 4, 5, 6

R/ The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

In verdant pastures he gives me repose;

Beside restful waters he leads me;

he refreshes my soul.

R/ The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.

Even though I walk in the dark valley

I fear no evil; for you are at my side

With your rod and your staff

that give me courage.

R/ The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.

You spread the table before me

in the sight of my foes;

You anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

R/ The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.

Only goodness and kindness follow me

all the days of my life;

And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

for years to come.

R/ The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.

Gospel Acclamation

Matthew 5:3

Alleluia, alleluia.

Blessed are the poor in spirit;

for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Luke 14:25-33

Everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.

Great crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and addressed them, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’ Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops? But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms. In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

———————————

Saturday memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary

(Liturgical Colour: White)

(Readings for the memorial)

(There is a choice today between the readings for the ferial day (Saturday) and those for the memorial. The ferial readings are recommended unless pastoral reasons suggest otherwise)

First Reading

Genesis 3:9-15, 20

I will put enmity between your offspring and the offspring of the woman.

After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree, the Lord God called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!” The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me– she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.” The Lord God then asked the woman, “Why did you do such a thing?” The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.”

Then the Lord God said to the serpent:

“Because you have done this, you shall be banned

from all the animals

and from all the wild creatures;

On your belly shall you crawl,

and dirt shall you eat

all the days of your life.

I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and hers;

He will strike at your head,

while you strike at his heel.”

The man called his wife Eve, because she became the mother of all the living.

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm

1 Samuel 2:1, 4-5, 6-7, 8abcd

R/ My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.

“My heart exults in the Lord,

my horn is exalted in my God.

I have swallowed up my enemies;

I rejoice in my victory.”

R/ My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.

“The bows of the mighty are broken,

while the tottering gird on strength.

The well-fed hire themselves out for bread,

while the hungry batten on spoil.

The barren wife bears seven sons,

while the mother of many languishes.”

R/ My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.

“The Lord puts to death and gives life;

he casts down to the nether world;

he raises up again.

The Lord makes poor and makes rich,

he humbles, he also exalts.”

R/ My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.

“He raises the needy from the dust;

from the dung heap he lifts up the poor,

To seat them with nobles

and make a glorious throne their heritage.”

R/ My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior.

Gospel Acclamation

cf. Luke 1:28

Alleluia, alleluia.

Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you;

blessed are you among women.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Or:

cf. Luke 1:45

Alleluia, alleluia.

Blessed are you, O Virgin Mary, who believed

that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Or:

cf. Luke 2:19

Alleluia, alleluia.

Blessed is the Virgin Mary who kept the word of God

and pondered it in her heart.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Or:

Luke 11:28

Alleluia, alleluia.

Blessed are those who hear the word of God

and observe it.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Or:

Alleluia, alleluia.

Blessed are you, holy Virgin Mary, deserving of all praise;

from you rose the sun of justice, Christ our God.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Or:

Alleluia, alleluia.

Blessed are you, O Virgin Mary;

without dying you won the martyr’s crown

beneath the Cross of the Lord.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Either:

Gospel

Matthew 1:1-16, 18-23

For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Abraham became the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah became the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar. Perez became the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab. Amminadab became the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. Boaz became the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth. Obed became the father of Jesse, Jesse the father of David the king.

David became the father of Solomon, whose mother had been the wife of Uriah. Solomon became the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asaph. Asaph became the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, Joram the father of Uzziah. Uzziah became the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah. Hezekiah became the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amos, Amos the father of Josiah. Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the Babylonian exile.

After the Babylonian exile, Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel the father of Abiud. Abiud became the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, Azor the father of Zadok. Zadok became the father of Achim, Achim the father of Eliud, Eliud the father of Eleazar. Eleazar became the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ.

Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit. Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:

Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son,

and they shall name him Emmanuel,

which means “God is with us.”

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

or:

Gospel

Matthew 1:18-23

For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit. Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:

Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son,

and they shall name him Emmanuel,

which means “God is with us.”

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

or:

Gospel

Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt.

When the magi had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled, Out of Egypt I called my son.

When Herod had died, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” He rose, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go back there. And because he had been warned in a dream, he departed for the region of Galilee. He went and dwelt in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, He shall be called a Nazorean.

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

or:

Gospel

Matthew 12:46-50

Stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my brothers.

While Jesus was speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers appeared outside, wishing to speak with him. Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.” But he said in reply to the one who told him, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

or:

Gospel

Luke 1:26-38

Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son.

The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.” But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

or:

Gospel

Luke 1:39-47

Blessed is she who believed.

Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

And Mary said:

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

or:

Gospel

Luke 2:1-14

She gave birth to her firstborn son.

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town. And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock. The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear. The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying:

“Glory to God in the highest

and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

or:

Gospel

Luke 2:15b-19

Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.

The shepherds said to one another, “Let us go, then, to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

or:

Gospel

Luke 2:27-35

You yourself a sword will pierce.

Simeon came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him, he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying:

“Lord, now let your servant go in peace;

your word has been fulfilled;

my own eyes have seen the salvation

which you prepared in the sight of every people:

a light to reveal you to the nations

and the glory of your people Israel.”

The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted and you yourself a sword will pierce so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

or:

Gospel

Luke 2:41-52

Your father and I have been looking for you.

Each year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

or:

Gospel

Luke 11:27-28

Blessed is the womb that carried you.

While Jesus was speaking, a woman from the crowd called out and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” He replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

or:

Gospel

John 2:1-11

The mother of Jesus was there.

There was a wedding in Cana at Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told them, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it. And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from although the servers who had drawn the water knew, the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs in Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him.

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

or:

Gospel

John 19:25-27

Behold, your son. Behold, your mother.

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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scarlettlawyer · 4 years

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A little something that I’ve already put up on AO3, and I’ll also post here.

Gen Words: 1451 Summary: An AU where something, or - someone important is missing. Title: $38

---

“My life is over…”

“Mr Butz, I don’t understand. All charges have been dropped. You’re free to go.”

“But… But my Cindy is gone, man! Gone forever!” Larry exclaimed miserably.

“I won you your innocence; your freedom. I would think that is at least something worthy of celebration,” the other man said wearily, raising his hand to his head which was covered in soft red hair.

“I s’pose, I guess. Thanks for that. That probably means… you’re my hero now or something, doesn’t it?” Larry wondered, misery clearing up abruptly. No doubt he was ready to go back to said misery in an instant if so inclined, though.

“…Let’s not get carried away. As your court-appointed lawyer, I was only doing my job,” the other man pointed out, giving a vague shrug.

“Well, anyway, it was really something. I don’t know how you managed to pull it off!” Larry said, putting on his most convincing grin. Then again, if Larry was being honest with himself, he hadn’t been paying attention for most of the trial and barely knew what had actually happened anyway. It was not only due to being distracted by his gloom over Cindy’s death and his own predicament; the trial had just been so very boring, as anything involving lawyers and courtrooms and what have you always were.

“The case was pretty easy to solve, so it’s not all that impressive. It doesn’t take an ace attorney to see all the things that were suspicious about it. All I did was point out the obvious, and that was enough,” the other man told him, voice much quieter and less enthusiastic than Larry’s own.

That was the other thing: the trial had been so hard to listen to, it was a wonder to Larry how anyone managed to focus on what was being said by his lawyer. He was so very soft-spoken as it was - he just didn’t have any flair at all. Not that the prosecutor had been especially exciting either (what had his name been? Pan?), but at least the guy knew how to make himself heard when it mattered. Then again, he’d received a Not Guilty verdict, so he couldn’t exactly complain too much, right?

“Thanks anyway though, you wanna get some food or something? I could use a friend right now.” Larry’s voice had started to tremble towards the end of saying that. How was it so easy for him to have had so many girlfriends but no real friends? There was no one he’d been able to turn to upon being arrested; it wasn’t like he knew anyone who would be able to offer him any sort of legal advice anyway. Or…

Except…

A vague memory tugged at him.

There had been someone, once. A real friend AND someone who could give great legal advice.

But that had been so long ago. It felt like he hadn’t even thought about that guy in years now. It took his brain a moment to dust off some old memories and conjure up a name – sharp, like an edge… Edgey! That kid he knew back in grade school, when he was a kid too.

But who knew where that guy was these days? At least one thing was for certain: he was surely out there somewhere being the amazing defense attorney he’d always wanted to be. Larry wished him all the best, wherever he was.

“Ah, I do make a note of not befriending my clients, or… former clients,” the defense attorney standing before Larry had told him apologetically, but by that point Larry was far beyond listening, lost in his own little world, reflecting on childhood memories.

The redhead stood there awkwardly, awaiting some kind of reply or acknowledgement that wasn’t forthcoming. “Well… I will leave you to it then, Mr Butz. I believe you have my card, and I will contact you if anything further is required. Have a good day.”

And with that, the man strode off, and Larry only snapped out of his thoughts just in time to see him walking away.

***

He and Edgey, now they’d been quite the unlikely pair. Whoever thought that the smartest kid in class with the best grades and the kid with the lowest grades would forge their own unique and distinctive friendship? It was always just the two of them. They’d never been particularly close, but they’d been close enough. Edgeworth had always had a bit of trouble fitting in and socialising with the others, and Larry, well, Larry was the odd one out too. The two of them got along with the other kids at times, but more often than not Larry always felt like he got shunned as the “loser” of the class. When looked at this way, it made sense that they should hang out with each other, if the rest of the class wasn’t so receptive.

Although, Edgey hadn’t been so interested in hanging out with anyone initially. He’d just warmed up over time, is all.

Larry still remembered stealing Edgey’s lunch money. Some people in class had grown a little suspicious, as Larry had been the only one to take that day off, but no one had ever been able to prove anything. Proof. That was something old Edgey had always droned on about.

“Even if someone seems incredibly guilty… you can’t convict them without any concrete evidence. You can’t just say they’re guilty just because you think they’re guilty. You need to prove it with evidence. That’s why defense attorneys like my dad are so important. Everyone deserves the right to a fair and just trial.”

Larry scratched the bridge of his nose. “So… If you thought I was guilty of something, but there was no proof I did it, would you defend me?”

And then Edgeworth, in all his youth, had smiled ever-so-slightly. “A lawyer is supposed to remain impartial when it comes to his client. His own feelings don’t matter. It’s still his job to defend his client, no matter what he thinks.”

“Imp-arshal? Do you even know what any of those kinda fancy words mean, or do you just remember by heart the stuff you read in those thick boring books of yours to repeat to others?”

But after that fateful day when Edgeworth’s money was stolen, something had become increasingly clear, but always left unspoken: Edgeworth knew. Or, at the very least, he suspected. He knew that Larry had taken the money meant for his lunches, and yet he had never confronted him about it, not once. If anything, he would insist that anyone else who would wish to cast aspersions on Larry required evidence to do so and that until such evidence came to light, further discussion on the matter was useless.

And after that, Larry couldn’t help but respect him.

It was clear that Edgeworth wasn’t happy about being robbed; he’d been far from pleased about the situation, so Larry just couldn’t understand it. Edgey had just been so steadfast in his principles – the idea that absolutely everyone should be held to the same standard, and could not be “convicted” without something concrete to back it up.

Larry had wronged this boy, and then he’d wanted to spend more time with him. Edgey had been so very cold and distant towards him at first. He kinda seemed a little bit like that with everyone, though, but Larry kept making an effort and it paid off in the end. Both boys were overall glad to have a real friend to call their own, someone who was not just a mere classmate. And he never did own up to stealing the money… But ultimately he probably didn’t need to. It would have only been confirming what Edgey already thought.

He felt bad, but something always held him back. What if the other students or the teacher found out? A bunch of little things like that nagged at him, and the matter was able to be mostly forgotten to everyone.

Their friendship had always been so very dysfunctional, too. It worked well enough, but it always felt like something was missing. Just the two of them.

They had a great few months, and then Edgey seemed to vanish just like that. He moved away. Larry didn’t know why. There was no way of knowing where he’d gone and no way of contacting him.

He was such a unique person that always stood out to him, however briefly he’d been in Larry’s life. He never could quite forget about him. He didn’t want to.

…If he ever did run into Edgey again, he’d have to finally return that stolen money, Larry decided.

He never did see Edgeworth again.

#Ace Attorney #Larry Butz #Miles Edgeworth #I wanted to do so much more with this AU but then ran into a bit of a problem with it #Although I HAVE written another short chapter for it which I may also probably put up here :)#Perhaps not on AO3 though because unless I'm gonna do lots more this might be better as stand-alone

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frmartinshomiliesandreflections · 2 years

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7th July >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Matthew 10:7-15 for Thursday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time: ‘The kingdom of heaven is close at hand’.

Thursday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA)

Matthew 10:7-15

You received without charge: give without charge.

Gospel (USA)

Matthew 10:7-15

Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.

Reflections (5)

(i) Thursday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

There is a very motherly image of God in today’s first reading from the prophet Hosea. Speaking through the prophet, God says to Israel, ‘I was like someone who lifts an infant close against his cheek; stooping down to him I have him his food’. It is language suggestive of a mother’s care for her infant child. The quality of God’s love is such that it needs to be expressed in the imagery of both motherly and fatherly love. The best of a father’s love and the best of a mother’s love gives us a glimpse into the nature of God’s love. Jesus was the fullest revelation of God’s love possible. He speak of his searching love as like that of a shepherd searching for his lost sheep and a woman searching for her lost coin. He speaks of the kingdom of God as like a farmer who sows a mustard seed in the soil and a woman who took yeast and mixed it in with three measures of flour. There is a male and female dimension to the kingdom of God. In the gospel reading, Jesus sends out the twelve to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God is close at hand. They are to give expression in their ministry to both dimensions of the kingdom of God; they are to reveal both God’s motherly and fatherly love. Such love will show itself especially in their care for the sick and vulnerable. The church needs to find new ways of expressing the male and female character of God and of God’s kingdom. It is only women and men working together in ministry who can begin to give adequate expression to the love of God spoken of by Hosea in our first reading.

And/Or

(ii) Thursday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

This morning’s first reading from the prophet Hosea is surely one of the most beautiful readings in all of the Jewish Scriptures. God speaks of his relationship with his people Israel as loving parents would speak of their relationship with their child, indeed as a mother would. ‘I myself taught Ephraim to walk, I took them in my arms… I was like someone who lifts an infant close against his cheek; stooping down to him I gave him food’. Yet, in spite of such tender love, Israel turned away from God and went after other gods. Jesus is the fullest revelation possible in a human life of this tender love of God. He too experienced the turning away of people from this love, their refusal to respond to it in any meaningful way. When Jesus sends out his disciples in this morning’s gospel reading he warns them to expect the same. They are to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of God is at hand, the reign of God’s life-giving love, but they will encounter those who will not welcome them and will not listen to what they have to say. This negative response is not to deter them from their mission of proclaiming God’s loving presence by what they say and do. It certainly did not deter Jesus. When he suffered the ultimate rejection on the cross, he proclaimed the same good news as risen Lord to those who had turned away from him and rejected him. We are to reveal the loving presence of God, regardless of how we are received by others.

And/Or

(iii) Thursday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

And/Or

(iv) Thursday, Fourteenth week in Ordinary Time

And/Or

(v) Thursday, Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Fr. Martin Hogan.

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urfavmurtad · 5 years

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Well folx it’s that time of year again: the Starving For Allah festival begins shortly. (I’m only gonna be fasting in public this year and will be stuffing my mouth the second I get into my room, for the record.) As a Special Ramadan Series, I’ve dug through my asks to find the most common question that I get, and the resounding answer is: sectarianism!!! People raised Sunni, people raised Shia, and non-Muslims whose knowledge of this part of history is “some people think the fourth guy should have been first” all wanna know Shaikha Urfavmurtad’s hot take on the mess that unfolded following the death of our beloved prophet (PUBG). And I will give the ppl what they want!

Let me give you a brief rundown of the sources for everything that follows. Written Islamic history began in the mid-8th century, over a hundred years after these events unfolded, though it built upon a systematized oral learning tradition. By that point, the first two dynasties of Islam had faded away, and the third, called the Abbasid dynasty, was freshly in control of the majority (but not all) of the territory conquered by the first generation of Muslims. The Abbasids were descended from a member of Mohammed’s extended family, and this fact was essentially their sole claim to rulership. They engaged in constant propaganda against their predecessors, called the Umayyad dynasty, who by this point had been reduced to a tiny stub of their former territory. The Umayyads were descended from the same tribe as Mohammed, but were not specifically descended from his family within that tribe.

For reasons that will eventually become obvious, this means that all accounts of the complete political clusterfuck that was the caliphate in the 50 years following Mohammed’s death have to be looked at with some degree of skepticism. There were reasons why authors writing in this period would feel compelled to characterize certain individuals as evil or at least misguided and others as pure souls, and they doubtlessly exaggerated and embellished some reports. And even the reports that truly do seem to go all the way back to the first generations of Islam can’t be fully trusted--these people were talking about their own lives, defending their own actions and criticizing those of their political enemies. Despite that, we have enough solid reports from enough people on different sides of each divide to put most of the story together. The main events of the story actually don’t differ that much between sources--the differences are mostly in the ways people are depicted during those parts.

Full disclosure: I was raised Sunni. I do not have the emotional attachment to certain historical figures that Shia people do. Even non-religious Shia people have a tendency to cry when they hear some of the stories that we’ll talk about, whereas I just think “lol that’s a biT much tbh”. However, given my current belief that all of these guys were dumb assholes, I feel that I can offer my fairly unbiased take on which dumb asshole deserved to be King of the Dumb Assholes.

After reading this, I believe you’ll come to agree with my thesis statement, namely that the true hero of Islam is the one who probably didn’t even believe in the damn religion.

And so I present my pre-Ramadan gift: part one of The Death of Crazy Mo.

THE CAST OF CHARACTERS

THE QURAYSH: The tribe in charge of Mecca and essentially the only relevant people in the story. Prior to this whole fiasco, they made a living primarily as merchants, traveling along caravan routes to other lands. They also catered to polytheistic pilgrims visiting their shrine, called the Kaaba. Most of Mohammed’s early followers (including Mohammed himself) were from clans of the Quraysh. Though most of the Quraysh originally strongly opposed Mohammed, they were worn down by years of conflict and “embraced Islam” following the conquest of Mecca. The leader of the Quraysh’s military prior to Mecca’s conquest was Abu Sufyan, a member of the Banu Umayya clan. Abu Sufyan is the father of one of Mohammed’s wives (Ramla) and several other children, including a son named Muawiya. He and his sons “converted” the day Mecca was conquered and have served Mohammed ever since. Muawiya currently works as one of Mohammed’s scribes.

MOHAMMED: Some old guy from the Banu Hashim clan of the Quraysh. Spends most of his time in a state of fever-induced delirium while ranting about religious minorities. Had several children, but all but one--his youngest daughter Fatima--have died of disease.

ABU BAKR: A wealthy, well-connected merchant of the Quraysh who converted to Islam early on and brought a bunch of people into the religion. He knew his fellow merchant Mohammed before Islam’s creation and grew to become his best friend. Mohammed bestowed the title of “as-Siddiq” or “the Truthful” upon him when Abu Bakr affirmed his belief that Mohammed took a round trip to Jerusalem on a magic horse/donkey in the middle of the night. As the years went on, he established himself as Mo’s closest confidante and has been vested with a great deal of political and military authority in the Muslim community as a result. His daughter Aisha was married off to Mohammed as a child and has been his favorite wife ever since.

UMAR: A belligerent asshole from a well-known family of the Quraysh who was also an early convert. He is another one of Mohammed’s fathers-in-law via his daughter Hafsa. Everyone knows that Umar is unpleasant, but they are forced to tolerate his existence because Mohammed and Abu Bakr are his buddies. Serves as The Big Guy and is good at yelling at people to whip them into shape.

UTHMAN: A wealthy merchant and old friend of Abu Bakr’s, who converted at the latter’s insistence. Went on to marry two of Mohammed’s daughters, Roqaya and Umm Kulthum, both deceased at this point in time. As such, he is also a member of Mohammed’s inner circle. He is from the Banu Umayya clan, meaning that Abu Sufyan & Sons are his relatives. This will cause drama later on.

ALI: Mohammed’s cousin (the son of his father’s brother) and son-in-law via Fatima, with whom he has two young daughters and two young sons, Hasan and Hussein. Mohammed was raised by his uncle, Ali’s father Abu Talib, after his own parents died. As an adult he returned the favor and helped raise Ali when Abu Talib was in a tough financial situation. Ali converted essentially right away as a teenager due to the fact that he lived with Mohammed and his family. He has been one of the Muslim army’s most notable soldiers since his early twenties and is one of the most prominent members of the community despite his relative youth. Like his father and cousin, he is a member of the Banu Hashim clan.

ABBAS: One of Mohammed’s uncles (his father’s brother), though the two are actually very close in age. Originally a successful spice merchant, he converted to Islam shortly before the conquest of Mecca and served in his nephew’s army. His son Abdullah ibn Abbas is only a teenager at the moment, but he will be relevant in the future. From the Banu Hashim.

THE ANSAR: The Muslims from Medina, mostly from the Aws and Khazraj sister tribes. After getting kicked out of Mecca (because the Ansar pledged to assist him in battle and the Quraysh learned of this stunt), Mohammed moved to Medina and brought a couple hundred of his followers from Mecca with him. Medina became the Muslim base of power, and the heads of the two tribes were made essentially subservient to him. Anyone who opposed him was gradually “dealt with”, and now the Ansar are more or less 100% Muslim. Whether their loyalty extends to Mohammed’s entire tribe is an open question.

MUSLIMS WHO ARE UNRELATED TO THE ANSAR OR QURAYSH AND NON-MUSLIMS IN GENERAL:

PROLOGUE: IN WHICH THE JEWS AND/OR COCCOBACILLI BACTERIA ARE AT IT AGAIN

Mohammed falls sick with a sudden, debilitating illness. We don’t know exactly what it was, and it’s blamed on The Devious Jews in many sources, but it was clearly one of the many infectious diseases that battered the Middle East throughout the sixth and seventh centuries. Islamic sources state that Medina in particular endured some sort of plague around that the time. He’s described as becoming shaky and fever-ridden essentially overnight, and so his companions put him on bed rest.

His condition is not improving, and it soon becomes obvious to everyone, including himself, that he is probably going to die. His followers move him into the home of his youngest and favorite wife Aisha, and he is given around-the-clock care. Mohammed’s fever worsens, though he remains lucid for most of his illness. He spends most of his time in bed, but sometimes he gets up and is sort of dragged around with the help of a couple of guys.

A few things happen around this time that will be relevant later. First of all, due to Mohammed’s illness, he can no longer perform his role as the imam (leader of prayers). So he appoints Abu Bakr to fill in for him. Abu Bakr has been Mo’s bestie and a member of his inner circle for decades, so this doesn’t surprise anyone. But appointing someone the leader of Medina’s prayers has certain implications.

The immediate issue is that Mohammed serves as the head of his state’s government, military, and legal system in addition to serving as the head of its official religion, Islam. Whoever succeeds him as the leader of this state--which is in a constant state of warfare in order to extend its borders--will likewise have to serve a triple role as a religious, military, and political authority figure. This will not be easy, as the new Islamic nation includes a number of people who are not particularly happy about living under its rule, and their numbers grow every month as the attacks continue. Ibn Ishaq’s sira states that before he fell ill, Mohammed had ordered raids both south and north, into Yemeni and Syrian territory. His nation is still almost entirely located in Arabia in this era, but it is getting quite large and complex, and there isn’t really any appropriate bureaucracy to deal with it. Whoever takes over will have to come up with that on his own, and will need everyone to go along with his decisions. Mohammed’s own claim to rulership comes “from Allah”, and it looks like Allah isn’t interested in conferring the same honor on anyone else.

That brings us to the second thing, which is something that did not happen: Mohammed never actually stated who he wanted to succeed him. In hindsight, this is a puzzling decision. By this point in the story, Mohammed knows he is seriously ill and probably going to die. He is pretty old (a grandfather in his sixties). He is very sick, but he’s still able to communicate with people in a clear manner, until, like, the very last day of his life. And he’s always been more than happy to issue orders for how his followers should eat, shit, and breathe, in addition to a litany of other religious, social, and political rules. Why he not only neglected to name a successor but even a process by which that successor could be named by others is a mystery. He just evidentially made virtually no preparations for what would happen after his death. Maybe he was in denial--he obviously wasn’t planning on dying at that point, and had unfinished business related to conquest and/or ethnic cleansing. Maybe he thought he had a little more time. Maybe he believed it was obvious that he wanted Abu Bakr to succeed him. In any case, he never named his “heir”.

There is one hadith narrated by Abdullah ibn Abbas that is sometimes believed to be related to this topic:

When [Mohammed] was on his deathbed and there were some men in the house, he said, 'Come near, I will write for you something after which you will not go astray.' Some of them said, 'Allah's Messenger is seriously ill and you have the Qur'an. Allah's Book is sufficient for us.' So the people in the house differed and started disputing. Some of them said, 'Give him writing material so that he may write for you something after which you will not go astray,' while the others said the other way round. So when their talk and differences increased, Allah's Apostle said, "[Get out]." Ibn `Abbas used to say, "No doubt, it was very unfortunate (a great disaster) that Allah's Messenger was prevented from writing for them that writing because of their differences and noise."

What was he going to write? (“Wait, I thought he was illiterate!” was he tho) Another hadith says one of his last orders related to the state was just a “remember to FUCK UP the polytheists, lads” thing, and Ibn Ishaq’s sira says that his last command was to "let not two religions be left in the Arabian peninsula". But that can’t be what we’re talking about, because everyone already knew that Operation Bring Everyone Into The Loving Embrace Of Islam was the plan. They didn’t need it written out for them. A third hadith informs us that Umar was one of the people who refused to give Mohammed something to write with, believing him to be delirious and declaring that the Quran contained all the instructions they needed anyway (lolololol). So because of goddamn Umar, we really don’t know for sure what Mohammed meant to do there.

A story involving Ibn Abbas’ father, Abbas, provides a hint as to what some people wanted him to write:

[Abbas said to Ali:] “By Allah, I think that [Mohammed] will die of this illness. I recognise death in the faces of the Banu Abdu'l-Muttalib when they are dying. Let us go to [Mo] and ask him who will have this authority. If it is for us, then we will know that, and if it is for other than us, we will know it and he can advise him to look after us." Ali replied, "By Allah, if we ask him for it and he refuses us, then the people would never give it to us afterwards. By Allah, I will not ask it from the Messenger of Allah."

Abbas and Ali here are both from Mohammed’s clan, the Banu Hashim. (Abdul-Muttalib was Mo’s grandpa.) When Abbas says that he wants to know if Mohammed’s empire “is for us”, he means for their clan. So while Mohammed is dying, it’s clear that at least some people believe that he might keep the leadership of the state/theocracy/whatever within the family. If Mo did opt for that, Ali was a reasonable choice. He was young--like 30 years younger than Abu Bakr & Pals--but he had been vested with a great deal of military authority already, he had been given the honor of carrying Mohammed’s banner in battle, and he was the closest thing Mohammed had to a son (besides Zayd the Ignominiously Un-Adopted, but he’s dead by now so whatever). Mo was very protective of his almost-son/cousin, as evidenced in this adorable hadith involving slave rape, and described him as the Aaron to his Moses. He told everyone that they must view Ali as their ally (some of Ali’s followers would later interpret this as Ali being declared Mohammed’s heir, though it was obviously not viewed as such at the time).

But again: at this point, Mohammed’s days are numbered, and he hasn’t indicated he wants Ali or anyone else to succeed him. And Abu Bakr is the one leading the prayers. It’s easy to dismiss the whole account above as some dumb Abbasid story--the Abbasids are so named because they are descended from Abbas--but it seems like it either actually happened or was strongly believed to have actually happened by the early Muslims. That’s because there is a sort of competing hadith to the one about the would-be letter declaring Ali the rightful caliph, this one narrated by Aisha and involving a would-be letter declaring Abu Bakr the rightful caliph:

A'isha reported that Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) in his (last) illness asked [her] to call [her father] and her brother too, so that he might write a document, for he feared that someone else might be desirous (of succeeding him) and that some claimant may say: “I have better claim to it”, whereas Allah and the Faithful do not substantiate the claim of anyone but that of Abu Bakr.

So the idea that Mohammed was going to write something related to the succession seems to have truly been A Thing in the first generation of Islam, with different camps offering different spins on what he wanted to write. Obviously, no letter was ever actually written, thus the problem. But there were plenty of reasons why Abu Bakr also made sense as Mohammed’s successor, apart from his high standing in the community and his appointment as the designated imam. He was fanatically loyal to Mohammed and had joined him in holy broship, so he was viewed as unlikely to “betray” Mo’s final wishes. Mohammed had entrusted him with increasing religious authority even prior to his illness, and in the year following the conquest of Mecca, Abu Bakr had been put in charge of the pilgrimage to the Kaaba. He had also led platoons of Muslim soldiers (more slave rape in that one jsyk!) and was treated as essentially a substitute teacher at times:

A woman came to the Prophet (ﷺ) who ordered her to return to him again. She said, "What if I came and did not find you?" as if she wanted to say, "If I found you dead?" [Mohammed] said, "If you should not find me, go to Abu Bakr."

Plus, the guy was old. Around Mohammed’s age, actually, in a society that prized the wisdom of elders. So Abu Bakr had quite a bit going for him at this juncture. The one thing he permanently lacked was Ali’s close blood relationship to Mohammed--and Ali held multiple advantages here. It wasn’t just that he and Mo were cousins, it was also that Ali was the husband of Mohammed’s daughter and the father of Mohammed’s only grandsons. Abu Bakr’s daughter was Mohammed’s wife, but neither she nor any of Mohammed’s other wives from his polygamous days had any surviving children. Fatima’s boys were the only males around with his blood. (Mo had granddaughters too, from both Fatima and one of his other daughters; the latter granddaughter also ended up marrying Ali.)

A final note is that not all Muslims were eager for either Abu Bakr or Ali to succeed Mohammed. Some weren’t interested in living under permanent Qurayshi rule. In particular, the Ansar of Medina wondered why exactly the Quraysh were seemingly destined to rule them just for being related to Mohammed, when the Ansar were the ones who sheltered Mohammed and his followers for years after the Quraysh kicked him out of town.

As people ponder all of this and the power struggles start to heat up, Mohammed is still in his bed, dying of disease. Oh, and just a teensy problem: some people have gotten word of his illness and think that now is a great time to try their luck and break away from the proto-caliphate. Some are in open revolt and refusing to pay tribute to the state, while others have even declared competing religious movements and have started building up their own armies. Mohammed’s successor, whoever he is, will have a lot to deal with. As all of these people will learn within the next two decades, it turns out running an enormous expansionist state is actually a shitty job with a lot of headaches, many of which involve being stabbed to death.

CHAPTER 1: PRESS ﷺ TO PAY RESPECTS

Despite his followers’ best attempts to cure him by using the “methods” he’d taught them, Crazy Mo dies in Medina around noon on a hot June day in the year 632. He was 62 years old, and had served as the self-declared prophet of Islam for the last two decades of his life.

The Muslims are, naturally, distraught by their leader’s death. Mohammed’s wives immediately begin hitting themselves (uhh... it was a custom) in mourning when his heart stops in Aisha’s room. The news slowly spreads. Some wail; others are frozen in fear. Some like Umar take a more denial-of-reality approach to hearing the rumors. He addresses a crowd of people and begins rambling:

When the apostle was dead, Umar got up and said: "Some of the disaffected will allege that the apostle is dead, but by God he is not dead; he has gone to his Lord as Moses went [for] forty days, returning to them after it was said that he had died. By God, the apostle will return as Moses returned and will cut off the hands and feet of men who allege that the apostle is dead."

“SO THIS MOUNTAIN, SEE?!”, exclaims Umar, who is in a state of mania. “THE MOUNTAIN IS JUST, LIKE, IN AISHA’S APARTMENT. ALLAH MOVED IT THERE, THEN SHRANK IT, THEN MADE IT BIG AGAIN, BUT YOU CAN’T SEE IT FROM HERE--LIKE THE MAP OF NI NO KUNI, YOU KNOW?--AND THE PROPHET CLIMBED IT TO GET SOME TABLETS LIKE MOSES. HE’LL BE BACK WITH THOSE TABLETS, WHICH WILL SAY ‘FUCK Y’ALL’, AND THEN HE’LL MURDER EVERYONE WHO SAID HE WAS DEAD. YOU’LL SEE!!!”

“That sounds incorrect, but I don’t know enough about mountains to say it is false,” decides an onlooker, thoughtfully.

Abu Bakr pushes through the crowd that has gathered to gawk at Umar. He visits Aisha’s room to observe Mohammed’s corpse and confirm his death. Satisfied with the deadness of the body, he returns to Medina’s center to put a stop to his buddy’s maniacal ranting:

Umar was still speaking and he said gently, "Umar, be quiet." But Umar refused and went on talking, and when Abu Bakr saw [this] he said: "O men, if anyone worships Mohammed, Mohammed is dead, but if anyone worships Allah, Allah is alive". Then he recited this verse: "Mohammed is nothing but an apostle. Apostles have passed away before him." By God, it was as though the people did not know that this verse had come down until Abu Bakr recited it that day.

(Hmmm at that last part.)

“Umar,” says Abu Bakr, gently.

“BRO! YOU’RE WITH ME, RIGHT? EVERYONE’S SAYING ‘THAT’S THE DUMBEST FUCKING THING I’VE EVER HEARD’, BUT THEY SAID THE SAME THING ABOUT THE FLYING DONKEY, YOU WERE THE ONLY ONE WHO BELIEVED!! NOW YOU’VE GOT MY BACK, RIGHT?”

“Of course,” Abu Bakr replies, sweetly. He then slaps Umar across the face.

Stunned, Umar shuts up for a moment and everyone accepts that Mohammed is, in fact, dead and had not somehow gone missing inside his wife’s bedroom.

Mohammed’s only surviving child, his daughter Fatima, is obviously among the most devastated by his passing. Fatima’s mother Khadija had died when she was still a young girl, her sisters all died of disease within the previous five years, and none of her brothers survived their childhoods. Even Zayd the Ignominiously Un-Adopted is gone. So she is the last of her nuclear family at the age of, like, 25 or younger. Her husband Ali is presumably equally distraught, but as one of Mohammed’s closest surviving male relatives, he has to deal with the burial arrangements. Abbas helps Ali wash Mohammed’s corpse, in keeping with Islamic custom. They respect Mohammed’s never-nude wishes and keep his privates covered during the process.

Meanwhile, the news that Mohammed is dead has spread throughout the entire city. The issues that people had previously been grumbling about, related to the succession to Mohammed, immediately start spilling out into the open. The Islamic empire is engaging in constant, ongoing battles--if a new leader is going to be chosen, it has to happen now. There isn’t any time to waste.

But not everyone is convinced that there needs to be a singular leader. Some of the Muslims believe that Mohammed was irreplaceable in terms of being one single authority figure to whom all Muslims were required to pledge their absolute loyalty. He “earned” that loyalty by being The Prophet, and he was The Last Prophet. He couldn’t have a real successor. People who followed this line of thinking began seriously considering the possibility of de-centralizing the new empire, so that different Muslim tribal confederations would be more or less self-governing, as they had been prior to Islam. After all, Arabs were accustomed to living in tribes, not bureaucratic nations. Why not just return to the way things were, with slightly more attacks on polytheistic shrines?

The Ansar are intrigued by this possible outcome. They know that if there is one single ruler, he is doubtlessly going to come from the Quraysh tribe, and they’ll be relegated to the back seat forever. In the interest of preserving their autonomy (or rather renewing it, now that Mo’s dead), they quietly arrange a meeting to discuss this problem. The goal of the gathering is to agree upon a leader for their community, with Saad, a chief from one of their tribes, being the current frontrunner. They invite the senior members of their tribes to the meeting and pointedly do not invite any of the Quraysh. But some of the latter get word of the gathering, and they move to crash the party immediately.

I (Umar) said to Abu Bakr, 'Let's go to these Ansari brothers of ours.' .... we reached them at the shed of (a clan of the Ansar, the) Bani Sa`da.

After we sat for a while, the Ansar's speaker said, ‘...To proceed, we are Allah's Ansar (helpers) and the majority of the Muslim army, while you, the emigrants, are a small group and some people among you came with the intention of preventing us from practicing this matter (of caliphate) and depriving us of it.'

When the speaker had finished, I intended to speak as I had prepared a speech which I liked ... Abu Bakr said, 'Wait a while.' I disliked to make him angry. So Abu Bakr himself gave a speech ... he said, 'O Ansar! You deserve all (the qualities that you have attributed to yourselves), but this question (of Caliphate) is only for the Quraish as they are the best of the Arabs as regards descent and home, and I am pleased to suggest that you choose either of these two men, so take the oath of allegiance to either of them as you wish.’ And then Abu Bakr held my hand and Abu Ubaida bin al-Jarrah's hand

“Hello friends,” Abu Bakr begins. “Y’all are great. Truly. Thanks for opening your homes to us, surrendering control of your city to our cult leader, and sacrificing your money and lives in battle on his behalf. But here’s the thing, folks: we’re better than you are. I’m sorry but these are the facts. We’re richer. We’re from a more well-developed city. Our tribe is more respected. Abraham himself built a mosque where we live. Mohammed was one of us. Frankly, we’re also better-looking. That’s very important for good PR.”

The Ansar stare blankly at him.

Undeterred, Abu Bakr continues: “Now, we’re not going to force you to follow anyone. There is no compulsion in religion. You have a choice here--between two of our tribe’s most famed assholes!” He grabs two individuals from the crowd and presents them. “On your left: Umar ibn al-Khattab, who many of you know as a short-tempered and over-emotional manchild. On your right: this other guy named Abu Ubaida, who honestly hasn’t done much beyond fight in some battles at this point in the story. I guess there was that time he killed his own father while we were trying to raid one of our tribe’s caravans.... anyway. What are y’alls thoughts?”

[Crickets.]

And then one of the Ansar said, 'I am the pillar on which the camel with a skin disease (eczema) rubs itself to satisfy the itching (i.e., I am a noble), and I am as a high class palm tree! O Quraish. There should be one ruler from us and one from you.'

“OK... first of all, what in the name of Christ is that metaphor,” Abu Bakr replies. “We’re also better at poetic imagery than you are. Forgot to add that, so thanks for reminding me. Second of all, as I just told you, we’re above you. Who the fuck lied to y’all and said you were on our level? Lmao losers”

“We’re not better than fucking UMAR?”, the Ansar retort. “Or this other guy who will remain B-tier in relevancy throughout this entire story?! YOU WOULDN’T EVEN HAVE THIS EMPIRE WITHOUT US, YOU UNGRATEFUL CLOWNS!”

Chaos erupts in the hall. People are five seconds away from throwing hands. Suddenly...!

Then there was a hue and cry among the gathering and their voices rose so that I was afraid there might be great disagreement, so I said, 'O Abu Bakr! Hold your hand out.' He held his hand out and I pledged allegiance to him, and then all the emigrants gave the Pledge of allegiance and so did the Ansar afterwards. And so we became victorious

Umar dramatically declares his loyalty to Abu Bakr in the chaos, recognizing him as the new leader of the Islamic empire, henceforth known as the caliph. Frankly speaking, it probably wasn’t that much of a shock to Abu Bakr himself, as he knew that Umar (and... basically everyone else) wanted him to be the first caliph. The whole offering Umar and Abu Ubaida as options thing was just false modesty he knew would be shot down in favor of himself, imo. But that’s my hot take, not something the sources say.

Anyway, everyone pauses for a moment to consider this. It probably seems clear to the Ansar at this point that the Quraysh aren’t gonna just leave them alone and let them do what they want; they will have to pledge loyalty to one of these guys eventually. Given that their previous options were Umar and Irrelevant Guy, Abu Bakr likely appears pretty good in comparison. So perhaps it’s not surprising that most of the Ansar present at this gathering decide: “if we gotta serve one of these assholes, might as well be this one”. They sigh and agree to recognize Abu Bakr as the caliph. (Poor Saad gets roughed up afterwards, something Umar considers punishment for daring to even consider himself for the position of caliph.)

So now the whole succession issue is behind us, right? Well... no. We have a slight problem here: Abu Bakr, Umar, and Abu Ubaida may have crashed the Ansar’s party, but zero members of the Banu Hashim were present at the impromptu coronation of their kinsman’s successor. Because they’re busy preparing his corpse for burial. Oh well!

Team Abu Bakr has a more pressing concern, namely telling everyone else in Medina (and those hundreds of thousands of other people living in the caliphate, but who gives a shit about them?) that they have a new ruler. So the next day, Umar and Abu Bakr direct a general assembly to gather in Medina’s mosque, where the people are told to give Abu Bakr their allegiance. First, Umar gives a brief speech in which he basically says that this decision hadn’t come from Mohammed, but is nonetheless the evident “will of Allah”:

O men, yesterday I said something based on my own opinion and which I do not find in God's book, nor was it something which the apostle entrusted to me; but I thought that the apostle would order our affairs until he was the last of us alive. ... God has placed your affairs in the hands of the best one among you ... so arise and swear fealty to him.

The residents of Medina do so, and then Abu Bakr gives his own speech in which he asks the people to “obey me as long as I obey God and His apostle”. Then he leads them in prayer, acting as the caliph for the first time. The commoners apparently don’t have much of a problem with any of this, or at least none are bold enough to disagree with the leaders of their tribes after the latter swore loyalty to Abu Bakr in the hall. So that takes care of that situation.

But the larger issue, namely the fact that the Banu Hashim and their sympathizers have had basically no say in this process, is still unresolved. Mohammed’s burial occurs the day after the general oath of fealty to Abu Bakr, with the men of his extended family lowering him into his grave. They’re now ready to catch up on everything they’ve missed in the past couple of days. It probably isn’t anything important, since the people of Medina have no doubt been so preoccupied with mourning Mohammed’s death that they’ve hardly had time to do anything else.

(On to part 2!!)

#long post #history #adventures in sectarianism #ramadan

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ticklikeabomb · 5 years

Text

The Language of Limbo - Part 2

Pairing : Chris Evans x Plus Size Reader ; Marvel Cast x Plus Size Reader

Warnings : Language

Word Count : 2.3k

You've been preparing yourself for the past two months, each day getting more and more at ease with the movements of your fighting scenes. One of the highlights of one of your rehearsal session was the day where you met Evans for the first time.

You were currently finishing up the first half of the session and Mason granted you a break. You sat down, took a gulp of your water and noticed your shoelaces untied. You leaned down and were in the middle of tying them when a deep but calm voice spoke up beside you. "Hi there." You looked up and felt your heart beat faster than ever, due the fact that your celebrity crush stood in front of you. "Hein?", you breathed out, mesmerized by his handsome face and blue eyes. He chuckled and you looked elsewhere, your face flushed in embarrassment. You stood up and finally replied back with a shy smile, "Hi". "It was some cool moves you did back there", he commented.

"Thank you but the credit really goes to Mason, he's the real pro here", you chuckled and pointed towards your coach. "Perhaps but you did good, you deserve some credit too", he told you and slightly pumped his right shoulder against yours, which surprised you. A wide smile appeared on your face and thanked him again. "Are you casually training here or …", he asked intrigued. "I'm actually Marvel's new…", you started but then realized your mistake. "Oh shit", you covered your mouth. His eyes widened and his mouth opened in a 'oh' motion. "You're Y/C/N, aren't you?" You switched from leg to leg, uncomfortably for spoiling your arrival into the production. "Nope, don't know what you're talking about", you faked, heat invading your whole body. He laughed loudly before comforting you, "Hey don't worry I won't tell anybody. Your secret is safe with me."

"Oh God, I'm fucking it up already", you chuckled nervously. He laughed again but eventually calmed down. "Well nice to meet you. I'm Chris but something tells me you know that already", he whispered with a smug smile. You nodded and replied, "Yeah, nice to meet you too. I'm Y/N." He was called from the other end of the room and turned back at you to tell you goodbye. "I guess we'll see each other soon Y/N", winked and jogged towards his own coach. You face-palmed and cursed yourself for ruining your contract's confidentiality closure. "Y/N, are you ready?", asked Mason at your left. You jumped a little, not expecting him standing next to you and he laughed at the gesture, "Sorry". You shook your head, hand resting on your heart and affirmed him you were ready for the rest of the training.

It was now the day before the first table read and you were beyond nervous. You were unable to eat properly during the day, had trouble to focus on your lines and when you decided to go to bed early, you couldn't sleep. "Goddammit", you breathed out in frustration, your eyes glossy because of the stress that was invading you. "Deep breath, inhale, exhale", you repeated in the darkness of the room. Silent tears cascaded your face, the pressure too much to bear. You finally got a grip on your emotions and eventually fell asleep.

A couple of hours later and you definitely didn't woke up like this. You grumpily marched towards your bathroom and hopped in the shower, the warm water splash on your sore body. Half an hour later, you were showered and dressed. You took your script and grabbed your car keys, settling for the Studio's direction. You had 3 hours in front of you until the table read but because you couldn't sleep well, you decided to head early and grab a coffee on your way. You parked your car and walked to a close park, settled down with your script and looked at the sunrise shining in front of you, the small breeze refreshing you. You went over the script, reading it one more time and hoped for the best. Even if you were cast for the movie, the table read was a crucial step. If you didn't show professionalism right away, it wasn't uncommon for directors and producers to let go the person and recast someone else.

"Y/N?", you heard beside you. You turned around and saw Elizabeth Olson stand in front of you, confused on seeing you after so long. "Hey, Elizabeth how are you?", you stood up with a wide smile and hugged her. "I..I'm fine, what about you? What are you doing here?", she asked happily. You chuckled and simply replied you had a work meeting without revealing that it was for Marvel. "That's amazing. I'm so happy to see you again after what, 5 years?", she continued. You nodded, "Yeah sorry I know we were supposed to stay in contact after 'Godzilla' but life just got so crazy", you apologized to which she shook her head. "Tell me about it. When it's not filming, it's press touring. I know how that feels but I'm really glad I got to see you again. We'll have to go for lunch one time."

"I'm happy too and yes, we definitely have", you smiled widely. She checked on her watch and frowned, "I'm sorry but I have to go." "Of course, no problem", you reassured her. She hugged you goodbye and you smirked in anticipation, the surprise being totally unexpected. You checked your watch too and slowly made your way to the meeting point. When you arrived, you saw a line of A-list actors standing in front of you, their backs turned at you. You felt your body slowly begin to tremble in excitement and fear and took a deep breath to calm your nerves down. You bowed your head so that no one would pay attention to you and waited at the end of the group. No one seemed to notice you, each one of them focused on their respective conversation. There was laughter, friends happily chatting and reconnecting after months apart. "I know you missed me", giggled Robert Downey Junior. "How couldn't I", replied someone who's voice wasn't familiar to you.

"Who got to read the whole script this time?", asked Anthony Mackie. "I did", replied the original 6 Avengers (Evans, Scarlet, RDJ, Hemsworth, Ruffalo and Renner) simultaneously. "Lucky bastards", someone else joked. You chuckled slowly but was cut short when you heard someone mention your character's name. "We have no idea who it is", commented Mark Ruffalo to the rest of the audience. Your lifted your head cautiously to try to get their facial expressions when you made eye contact with Evans who was already looking at you. Your eyes widened and you immediately bowed down your head. The next thing heard among the blabbering was Chris' loud laugh. "What's so funny?", asked Scarlet in amusement. "Oh nothing, I'm sure whoever will play Y/C/N isn't very far."

It was at that precise moment when Kevin Feige, the Russo Brothers and the casting director entered the room, "Hello everybody and welcome back", greeted the Marvel Studios' president. "Here we go again for another 4 intense months", he continued to which everyone hollered in agreement. "As per usual only a few selected among you got the opportunity to read the whole script, such as the ones part of the original 6, Benedict Cumberbatch and Marvel's new addition." Your eyes almost popped out of your skull when you heard you actually had the true and whole script in your hands. You quickly figured out that they were testing you, seeing if your were trustworthy and what Feige mentioned next confirmed your suspicions. "Since there's no spoiler out there, I think we did the right choice in choosing Y/N Y/L/N to join the production." You heard someone gasp and recognized her voice. "No way?", exclaimed Elizabeth ecstatic. "Who?", asked RDJ confused. You had to chuckle at his puzzled face, being well aware that they had no idea who you were besides Elizabeth or maybe the ones who saw you as an extra or small role in a movie. "Where is she? Y/N?", called out Kevin Feige. You took a deep breath and raised your arm. "There she is. Will you step out of the shadows and come here, please?",he asked amused. You did as he said, crossing the assembly that had split in two just like the Red See, allowing you to step closer to the men in charge. "Hello, it's an honor to meet you", you said shyly towards them since you hadn't had the chance to meet them yet. They greeted you in return and you positioned yourself next to the casting director Mr Stewart who smiled widely and side hugged you eagerly, happy to see you again.

Everyone sat down and the table read began. You weren't really sure if you had to recite your lines with a neutral voice or already get into character. You already had done a table read before but never such an important one. You watched as the others actors around you sounded far more as their characters than themselves and decided to act along, your voice resonating the way you wanted for the character and your facial expressions matching the situations occurring in the script. You knew you had to prove that you were the right choice and felt everyones eyes burn your skin, whether in evaluating you, in concentration following the lines in front of them or just because they were intrigued by what you could bring to the dynamic already set in place.

"We're going to stop here people because the rest are quiet the spoilers for the rest of the cast and we wouldn't want that, would we", said Kevin Feige while ogling Tom Holland, making the young men shake his head in amusement. "Yeah, yeah I know, the Spoil-Machine right here", he joked. You chuckled along the rest of them and your eyes met Elizabeth's, who smiled while lifting her thumbs up and you smiled brightly at the gesture, happy to have at least an acquaintance on set. The Marvel Studios' president exited the room, leaving the Russo brothers and the actors behind. You felt a little tap on your shoulder and turned on your left side, coming face to face with Mark Ruffalo. "Hello there, I'm Mark", he said and you chuckled. "Hi, I'm Y/N, it's nice to meet you." You caught Robert Downey Jr jog behind Mark until he stood beside him. He looked at you with a wide smirk and commented, "What do you think about the original science bros? Not bad right?" Your eyes widened and giggled nervously but before you could say anything, Elizabeth and Scarlet were beside you. "Don't scare the poor woman already, Downey", said Scarlet. Lizzie grabbed your attention by hugging you. "You sneaky little thing. I can't believe you didn't tell me when I saw you outside that you were casted. Wait does Aaron know?", she blabbered. You laughed at her enthusiasm, "I'm not allowed to say anything I'm sure you know what it is like and regarding Aaron, no not yet."

"Who's Aaron?", asked suddenly Chris Evans out of nowhere. Elizabeth rolled her eyes before telling him it was Aaron-Taylor Johnson, who's also part of Marvel's family and your best friend. Evans nodded attentively while you tried to calm your nerves down, feeling heat creep your body noticing that he was coming closer to where you stood. When his blue eyes locked with yours you were done. It took you a few seconds to realize that he was talking to you. "Excuse me, what?", you mumbled. He chuckled and replied while presenting his hand, "I'm happy to officially meet you Y/N". You shook his hand and had to control yourself to not smile, because he knew you were casted before anyone else, thanks to your clumsiness. "Nice to meet you too." "I'm looking forward to work with you", he commented and winked, before joining another group of actors. You swallowed harshly, took a deep breath and turned towards the people in front of you, who were smirking. "Hmm I can't wait to start the shooting", implied RDJ, mischief shinning in his eyes and voice. You nodded shyly, not able to look at him or the others in the eyes, still impressed to be standing next to so many talented people. "Do you have any ride for tonight?", asked Jeremy Renner. You frowned not really understanding his question. "Ride?"

"Yeah, all the actors are invited for dinner at the Russo's Restaurant", commented Hemsworth. "Oh I didn't know, I'm probably just gonna grab something and eat at home", you responded. "Nonsense, you're part of the team now, you're invited too", quickly said Joe Russo who caught the conversation. "Alright, thank you then’’, you said with a wide smile. "So, the ride?", said Renner again. "I came here with my car so if anyone needs a ride and besides I don't really know where the restaurant is", you blabbered. "Let's just split then, if that's ok with you", mentioned Scarlet. "No no problem at all." They gathered everyone and started to form small groups. You ended up taking Chris (Evans), Elizabeth, Scarlet and Jeremy in your car. You were marching towards the parking when you remembered that your car was garbage compared to the hot wheels they were used to drive. You chuckled nervously and declared, "Sorry it's not a Royce Rolls but it rolls". Sensing your nervous and cracking voice, Elizabeth calmed you down, "Don't worry Y/N." You clenched your jaw and gave her a small smile, not convinced and slightly ashamed. Having Chris sitting next to you wasn't helping you calm your nerves down. You connected your phone to the radio and decided to put on your favorite artist of the moment. You pressed play on and Lizzo's song Juice came on. You immediately felt the pressure release and began to mumble the words to yourself while focusing on the road. "This song is awesome, who is it?", asked Chris besides you. You told him more about Lizzo's music and saw glimpses of him attentively following you talking so passionately about the artist in question.

You soon arrived at your destination and entered the fancy place. During the evening the actors insisted on you switching places at every meal served, so that you could chat a little with everyone. "So anyone in your life, Y/N?", asked Mackie with a smug smirk. You almost chocked on your drink not expecting it and cleared your voice, "Nope not at the moment." "Hmm interesting", he feigned and looked at the others. You frowned but eventually shook your head in amusement. It was starting to get late and you decided to cut the night short, everyone getting where they were standing. You dropped the actors at the Studios where they had their cars but noticed that Chris had just a tab to much to drink. "Hey where do I drop you?", you asked him this time concerned. "What?" You chuckled and told him that you would give him a ride because you didn't want him to drive in his state. "Ohh I can hold my liquor", he arguments. "Come on, I won't be able to sleep peacefully knowing that you drove all the way and not knowing if you arrived safely. Let me take you." He raised one of his eyebrows, smirking when you realized how that may have sounded. "I mean…let me take you in like drop you at your place." He cracked up seeing you try to justify yourself before telling you the hotel he was staying. It wasn't far away from the Studios and told him goodnight. "You seem like a cool person. Goodnight Y/N, see you soon." You smiled and replied, "Thanks, you seem like a cool person yourself." You saw him walking inside the building and chuckled to yourself, "This man will be the death of me."

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caraidean · 5 years

Text

Captive [Rigelian Raised AU]

Participant(s): Clair, Albein Rudolf II

Words: 5,707

Type: Introductory Cutscene

Summary: Clair finds her ‘diplomatic’ trip to Rigel was an attempt to provoke a war, and her alleged planned arranged courtship with their future emperor was a complete fabrication on her King’s part.

Dame Clair Soutr was not having a good day.

She had never really troubled to learn much of politics, particularly at the kind of level she was now wishing she had learned. Her family may have been important, but they weren’t ‘dealing with Rigel’ important. That should have been her first clue. But not for the first time she found herself cursing her own optimism, blind faith in authority, and the fact that her entire damned family had listened to what the King had said without pausing to think that, perhaps, such a renowned hedonist with such a noted asshole of a vizier wasn’t telling the entire truth.

Clair had found out that the Rigelian guards had expected the Princess and not a nobleman’s son at the border. Then she found out that this wasn’t to be some kind of official courtship, but if Lima - or Desiax, she supposed, the manipulative creep - had their way she was just to be pawned off to the Rigelian prince.

Not even as a wife. A consort. Her! Ye goddess, did nobody have any shame! And her treatment upon arrival hadn’t been much greater either met with derision and glares before being shoved in an empty waiting room and snidely told that she would learn what they would do with her!

Well. She could hardly give Lima or Desaix a piece of her mind, but whoever the Rigelians sent through that damned door she could deal with. A few minutes were wasted trying to pull one of the ornamental swords off the display above the fireplace until she embarrassingly realized they were welded onto the shield, at which point she settled for the candlesticks. Except those were screwed down.

Did nobody in this country read any books? There was always suppose to be something the heroine could arm herself with to fend off fiends! …or perhaps they’d read too many, she supposed. Grumbling she settled with trying to pry one of them off anyway, which was unfortunately the sight that the Rigelians would be met with when they opened the door - Clair growling in frustration, hands wrapped around the heavy cast-iron candlestick and trying to yank it from the coffee table so she could hit them with it.

At least she regained her composure fairly swiftly when she heard the door open. Hands moved to her side, brushing against the light blue of the dress she’d been forced into by the Zofian royals - she supposed the cleavage and slits for her thighs should have been warning signs in hindsight, now that she thought about it - before one moved to toy with her hair in her normal, nervous fashion while she marched straight up to the green-haired man in the center.

His armor and headpiece had the most spikes on it. Knowing this place, that likely meant he was either in charge, or the Prince himself.

“Is this any way to treat a lady?” She said sharply, resisting the urge to slap him for the moment. “I tell you I have had a very trying day - sold off like some common hound to the alleged prince of this nation after being decieved, and then shoved into this room with no food nor drink for the last few hours!”

She felt a guard step up to try and pull her away from the man she now knew had to be the prince from the sheer number of armed guards around her, but she batted him away with an elbow and jabbed a finger into the taller man’s collar in the most actively outraged fashion she could muster. For Clair, that was an awful lot of indignant fury to be on display.

“What do you have to say for yourself?!”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

Albein Alm Rudolf II was, himself, not having quite the best of days. There had been trouble brewing with Zofia (again) due to King Lima IV’s blatant disregard for a fragment of respect, and of course the man tries to smooth things over by sending a daughter off to be married to him. Of all things, using his daughters as bargaining coin! It had been insulting enough to receive such news, more so to learn the convoy was already on its way, especially when his father decided to let the convoy arrive so they could then discuss with whomever they got before sending an answer to such a vulgar gift— but to then find some Zofian noble unrelated to the crown when it reached the border?

An insult to the injury! They should have turned it back around then and there instead of allowing it to cross! And now, she was here, and without knowing if the woman was party to this plot, she was promptly sent to a room while questioning ensued of everyone else involved. Not so gentle questioning.

Were it up to him, they’d send back the carriage with the corpse of one of those responsible inside and a clear message of war. Enough was enough, and Albein would personally bear this insult no longer.

However, it did not take long to find that every manservant who had come from their southern neighbor had been told something different than what King Lima IV’s missive contained; and it all matched, to boot.

It was clearly an insult from the king himself, and these were just lambs to the slaughter to his sickening game. Perhaps Zofia didn’t deserve to burn, but that man and his so called chancellor sure did — as well as everyone else involved. Maybe they ought to kill two birds with one stone and—

…

Finding himself walking to the quarters where that woman was being kept (some ‘Clair’ girl from a noble house with a history of knighthoods, far as he was concerned), he tries to smooth over his temper. Time to find out her own motives to see if punishment should be dealt upon her too; his father had trusted him with this task, and so he would perform to the best of his ability. Nodding to Ezekiel so he’d open the doors to the waiting room, walking in with a small sample of his troops to see…

… What was she doing? His head cants slightly to the left as he notices she had been trying to, funnily enough, edge a candlestick off its base to… do what? Use it as a weapon? Cute, feisty, a little daring — was this actually a Zofian girl? He could almost laugh at her audacity as she marched forward to him, eyes trained upon her with amusement now instead of his previous anger. What was she going to do?

And off she goes, prattling off and… doing all his work for him. The outrage, the actions before he let himself in, how she quite confidently shoved off a guard… hah, if he didn’t know any better, he’d think her Rigelian (well, and the rather obvious Zofian garb she wore… did they know no shame?).

He can’t help it— Albein bursts out laughing at her jab, swatting her hand away with his usual careless confidence, although the motion is quite controlled and gentle, rather than forced. “Well, that tells me everything I’ve come to hear, does it not, gentlemen?” He addresses his men first, who seem baffled at his amusement, but otherwise nod stiffly. “Report to the Emperor at once.” He tells the man at his left, a good man by the family name Meyer, who salutes and leaves the room after being let out by Ezekiel. His last three men remain.

“After all, that was my exact question, little lady.” And with that, his amusement dwindles down, making way for the ire within that he still held, just not directed towards herself. “We are sent a rather insulting missive by your King, have the courtesy to accept his disgusting gift, only to find it’s not even what he’s stated.” Albein steps forward confidently, getting into her space while glaring down, expression turning stiff and serious. “So I do hope you are as un-involved as I think you now, lest this room be the last comfort you’re allowed before your life ends.”

“Start talking.”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

Clair always did take a few moments to catch onto something when it was happening in front of her. It wasn’t that she was stupid, just…preoccupied with herself more than anything else. She was on the verge of launching into another tirade at the prince’s expense - really, who responded to such an obvious plight with laughter? He must have been cruel as well as a pervert, why, she wouldn’t be surprised if she was dressed like this on his commands–

Her brain caught up and her words stopped. For a second her mouth opened and closed aimlessly, eyes widening before narrowing dangerously. “What did you say–”

For a moment, she wasn’t sure where to begin. A not insignificant part of her mind caught on the word ‘disgusting’ and she looked down at herself with a frown, looking up again a moment later as the rest caught up. Not even what he’s stated. Not even what he–

The coach had the royal sigil on the side, not her own family’s.

“Oh, the arrogant, cox-comb, hedge-born, churlish, dew-beating perverted drunken creepy SOT!”

Clair spun away from the prince, still raving as she worked her way through as much of her vocabulary as possible. Her brother and sister-in-law would both have chided her for hearing such things coming from her mouth, but perhaps they’d make an exception had they realized exactly what her ‘royal journey’ had been intended to do.

“Last comfort? Last comfort?!” She redirected her ire moments after plucking an empty fruit bowl off the table and hurling it against the wall, the thin metal clanging audibly as it bounced to the floor. She turned around again, seething as she stepped up to Albein and glared. Then she stopped, stepped back a few paces and tried to subtly rise up on her tip-toes so that the eye contact was at least on a somewhat equal footing.

“I’ll last comfort you, you ass.” Clair regretted running through all her best insult material now, well aware that repeating any of them would look bad. She gave up on the tip toes, storming around the room with a growl. She wished she had something else to throw, anything, as she stared up into his stiff and serious expression. “And for the record I hardly appreciate being labeled as disgusting. If anyone here is coming off badly from the deal that - that pig has made it would be you for accepting it.”

That said, the seriousness of her situation was starting to sink in a little, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of noticing she was scared. “I am a damned noblewoman and will not stand for being labeled and treated like some common street-walking – blast, what’s the word.”

She frowned and shook her head, one hand shaking a little as it moved to play with her hair.

“It hardly matters. But, fine. No. I knew nothing. I was under the impression that Rigel had made the first ouvertures in exploring diplomatic marriages. Not that I was being sold off like, at the risk of repeating myself, a hound.” She huffed. “Once I get my hand on that blasted vizier…”

For lack of anything else, she throttled the air for a few moments to get some of the tension out of her hands before sighing. “My name is Dame Clair Soutr. Not little lady.”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

It’s a little amusing to be able to physically witness as the pieces slide into place upon her expression, more so when her anger turns, a brand new tirade coming with it. She’s like a child throwing a tantrum, and he’s content to watch and listen as more and more insults pour out of her mouth.

And then, her rage takes a turn, back to him, and he can’t help but watch as she grasps the fruit bowl and tosses it like it’d… do anything. The clatter as it hits the wall and falls to the floor is sad, almost, like a little cry amidst a storm. His gaze returns to her, trying for all that she’s worth to look intimidating and… it’s not quite working. In fact, it only serves to turn his scowl into a grin of amusement. Ah, how precious.

But, truly, were all Zofians so self-centered? He is silent as she continues, and finally sings like a canary. This is all he needed, and perhaps she is lucky in being so loose-lipped… and so amusing to watch. He would not have taken kindly to her string of insults otherwise, even if he’s sure he can simply break her in half, should she actually anger him enough. It’d be an example, if anything… Zofian nobility was expandable— a lot of pigs as far as he was concerned.

“Yes, last comfort, Dame Clair Soutr.” He starts off, another step forward, a menacing one at that. He once more intends to invade her personal space, test her mettle and see what she’s worth. “You are fortunate we did not throw you into the dungeon with the rest of your company, and that we saw it fit to listen to testimony, willing or not, before seeing to your side of the tale. Yes, quite lucky indeed.” It’s not a threat, it’s a statement, as he wants her to know exactly where she stands. Perhaps this is not the best of places to be in, quite a boring waiting room with little comfort a Zofian would like, but in comparison to her companions, she was within the lap of luxury. “After all, you’ve come in deceit to further incite Rigel, further insult the crown and our people with this useless little plot. Would you have preferred the original treatment I had in mind? Being strung from your innards is not quite so comfortable.”

Yet he’s not angry, not quite, merely… setting the record. And, well, perhaps to see… would her will break at the knowledge of her brush with death, or would she merely bristle once more as she had been? Perhaps he’d get to hear more creative insults; there was a wealth of new ones already fully ready for future use. “But, I believe you are being quite honest in your word, as is most of your party.” And just like that, the pressure is off, and he takes a step back to simply nod to the men at his right. It is the one furthest back whom retreats to further inform the Emperor of the proceedings, and only once Lorenz is gone that he continues.

“But must you Zofians be so self-centered as you are boorish? Odd as it may be, I was not referring to you as the disgusting one. And, let it be known… this was not a deal.” He pauses. “And you’ve only made it this far out of the Emperor’s wish to see to it all before coming to a choice on what to do with this ‘offering’ your King has decided to lay upon our feet. It is an insult, through and through, that’s what it is; your amusing string of words is, by comparison, music.”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

This conversation seemed dedicated to driving Clair through the emotional ringer. She’d gone from concerned, to angry, to upset, to angrier - and for a brief second, now, terrified. She didn’t flinch at his threats to her, but hearing that everyone else had been captured and placed in the cells–

Her face paled for a moment as he stepped into her personal space, the flush of anger fading from her cheeks. The description of their plight - and, yes, fine, the surprisingly graphic details of what would have been done to her - made her hand shift from her lock of hair to over her heart for a second, eyes flinching and looking aside. But as he stepped back and sneered - sneered, almost, yes. Perhaps that was her own way of reading into the situation, but the body language he was using, the words and dismissive tone both of her and Zofians as a whole, perhaps it wasn’t any wonder that the indignant anger found itself replaced by a very focused, ice-hot rage.

“Let. Them. Go.”

Clair didn’t really process what she was doing as she stepped forward into the space he had just vacated. Her right arm suddenly swung about in a great arc, open palm smacking against the prince’s cheek with an audible, stinging impact that left her own hand throbbing slightly. In an instant guards stepped forwards, pushing her away from the prince and to the ground-

Such a shame for the guards that one of the first things any Pegasus Knight worth their salt learned was how to fall properly. She managed to kick her way out of these godawful shoes as she rolled back to her feet, crouching for a split second, long enough to wonder if she was doing something even remotely sensible. Then, deciding that clearly words were not working here, Clair launched herself forwards. A shoulder impacted against the plate covering his stomach and she felt something crack in her collar, but hands tugged him around the knees and dragged Albein to the floor with her as they crashed down.

In that brief moment of shock, with the guards audibly getting closer and Albein himself starting to react again, Clair ran a quick adjustment of the setting through her head. Her collar was likely cracked from deciding to try and tackle a man in near on full plate, her hand throbbed from a poorly delivered slap - although, goddess, she hoped it at least bruised him as well - and she had no weapon and was drastically outnumbered.

Perhaps she’d just signed her own execution note. At the moment, she was perfectly fine with that if it meant adjusting the prince’s perceptions of Zofians as ‘self-centered’ and ‘boorish’.

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

“You’re in no position to make demands,” Albein begins in a haughty tone, glaring down at the foolish twig of a girl who did not seem to grasp her place, nor the weight of her actions and the sheer insult they bore to Rigel. He, however, does not get to finish, for one moment he’s bearing down on the fool, and the next he’s staring at a mantelpiece to his right, a sting on his cheek.

Normally, he’d have reacted with a punch of his own, with perhaps a headbutt or choking the culprit, but he felt himself a little out of sorts from surprise. Well, she certainly had guts even now, he’d give her that. So he turns, now ready to enact upon his usual violence, when he notes there’s guards in front of him now (Gods, must they act like his nannies? She’s a Zofian noble girl!), girl nowhere in his line of sight, and—

Now he’s staring at the ceiling, an audible crack sounding near his torso, arms gripping at him, and Gods, he hit his back hard on the ground. Still, he’s no longer surprised, and thus his reaction is now far more appropriate of a Rigelian soldier. For this fool of a girl was messing with warriors from birth.

He’s quick to shove her off him and deliver a punch to her torso from his right (a mercy, really, considering his real force was at his left, known for causing ruptures on delicate innards), instead using his left to grasp at her neck and shove her upon the ground despite the throb at the back of his head. Failing that, he’d instead restrain her onto the ground.

And should his hand find itself around her neck, he would squeeze, just enough to make her realize her life was in his hands, but not enough to leave a bruise just yet. It wouldn’t be the first time he crushed a windpipe.

“You are in no position to make demands.” He repeats with a snarl, glaring down upon the foolish fighter, ignoring the brandished weapons at her. And it is mere respect for her fighting spirit that does not make him crush her then and there, amusement at her will to fight odds that she could not possibly surmount.

Perhaps not all Zofians are of the same make, but this is not about that. “Know your place, and know your crime.” Maybe, this time, she would understand what precarious position she was in by having undertaken this journey… knowledge or not. “Perhaps you were not party to its plot, but it is you who is here now under the insignia of the King… and the burden of being the example. We will tolerate his insults to our nation no longer.”

Still, much as he wanted to get back to her in full for her imprudence, he’d rather not fight a woman not in battle armor when he himself finds himself wearing some. It’s not quite right. “… I will have a healer see to your injuries, and then you will wait very patiently for His Imperial Majesty to come to a choice regarding you and your ilk. Do I make myself clear?”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

Clair never swore. In fact, she expected that her brother would be somewhat upset if he found out that she could. That being said, considering the pain she was suddenly in, just a gentle whimper or muttered phrase didn’t seem appropriate.

“Fuc-.” She hissed under her breath, the word cut off when his fist slammed into her chest. Gods be good, how many bones did this lunatic need to crack before he was satisfied? She let out a whimper as his hand closed around her neck, eyes squeezed shut from the pain as she tried to compose herself-

Successfully. When she opened them again she was glaring, tears in the corners of her eyes the only real indication of how much pain she was in. “Think f’r a secon.”

She couldn’t damned talk like this. Right now her mind was racing, unable to decide if she should just shut up and play the meek noble like he clearly expected her to, or if she should say anything. Because with every passing instance she spent with the Prince, she started to realize what Lima and mostly Desaix had been planning.

Screw waiting. Screw sitting around like a delicate flower in one country and a prisoner the next. Maybe it was the pain talking but Clair’s hands moved to grip Albein’s, prying two of the fingers off her throat and gasping for air before she spoke as quickly as possible.

“W-why would the king send anyone if it was just f’r an insult…” Damn, her throat hurt. “…’f he knew you’d kill us? Desaix has to be up to something…”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

“Gods, you really can’t quite listen, can you?” Albein snarls out, yet instead of lashing out again, he releases her throat entirely upon her prompting rather than keep trying to hold her in place with what he considered was a light squeeze.

Still, he remains upon her, and instead moves his left hand to grasp her right shoulder, then his right to hold her left, keeping her in place against the ground. It’s a more optimal solution, he feels, if she wants to keep parroting. Any information he’ll take.

“You make demands as a criminal and prisoner, act like detaining you here is the worst you could have gotten with the sheer insult you and yours’ audacity was to us as a nation, then ask me to think? I’m afraid you’re the last person I’d take advice from when it comes to the brains department.” It’s tempting to break the collarbone, do something, and prove a point, but instead he holds back the idea. Certainly, with a healer along the way, it wouldn’t be like it’d matter (to him), but practicing restraint seemed like the better option. For now.

Besides, she was unarmed and unable to fight — it did not feel right, not even holding her down like this did.

“I suppose the bastard of a Chancellor your King has would definitely not care enough for the lives of the people he’s sent — and neither would King Lima IV himself. But what he’d use your hypothetical death for is irrelevant for me.” The pressure is off, and he stands, but does not expect her to. In fact. “Stay down if you want to keep your head.” The unfurled spears from both guards point to her neck then, and he instead walks back to knock on the door again, requesting a healer from Ezekiel quietly before he continues, as if the pause did not exist.

“Again, it is none of my concern — after all, none of you are dead, nor permanently harmed. Considering the great dishonor this entire ordeal has brought to Rigel, perhaps you can consider yourselves lucky.” But only just, after all… “I am uncertain if I can say the same of your nation. This is not the first of insults — and it came under the guise of an apology for another.”

Perhaps, now, she would understand; what she had been roped into was not a standalone incident, nor the first. It had just not been… of this scale.

“Ah… perhaps you are trice as lucky, for much of what you’ve done would earn you an execution, not just the mission you were unknowingly tasked with. But, well, I happen to like that spark of yours.” With a wave of his hand, the weapons are removed from near her neck, instead pointing to either shoulder… and then off entirely. “You’ve the mettle and bravado of a warrior, perhaps there’s hope for your people yet.”

And with a shy knock, a cleric is allowed inside, who stands and waits to be ordered to heal.

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

“You can’t quite think, either.” Clair mumbled under her breath, although she gasped for air as soon as he let go of her throat. She winced as he gripped her shoulder, whimpering as the pressure on her cracked collarbone made itself known - but there wasn’t anything she could do about that. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off every injury she’d taken in the last few moments throbbed painfully, cracked bones, throbbing wrist, bruised throat…terrified soul.

“Not every noble likes the King, and the commoners don’t either.” She followed the order to stay down, though, part of that being unsure if she could even stand straight properly anyway - and part of it fear that he would finally follow through with his threats. “They like my family, though. And the servants are all commoners. Kill them, and Desaix…”

A cough wracked her body and she shuddered in pain instants after it, the jarring motion making her chest throb as she whimpered again. This was far too much for her, gods forbid, she hadn’t even finished her training. “K-kill us, he gets a scapegoat to get them on his side too. Ugh, I should have seen this when no other nobles came…”

She trailed off, sinking into a silent, almost sulk-like stare as he kept talking. So…was Zofia going to be attacked now, then? Would she be used as an excuse for a war either way? And who the hell did he think he was to talk about ‘sparks’ and ‘bravado of a warrior’?

“I am a warrior.” In training, she added silently onto the end, but one last barb couldn’t help but escape Clair’s lips as the healer arrived. “Give me a lance and the skies, Your Majesty. We’ll-”

Some kind of self-preserving instinct kicked in and she didn’t finish that sentence, instead just glaring at him from the ground as the healer worked. One of these days, she vowed to herself, it’d be her wearing a gauntlet as it smashed into his stupidly perfect face. And she wouldn’t be wearing this poor excuse for a dress, either. Never mind the fact it was clearly meant to be used for seductions, the color clashed with her hair horribly.

Did Desaix have anyone competent working for him?

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

“Kill them and make a statement to denounce the King of his deeds, and they earn no one’s favor as the masses are split between believing a King they don’t like or the foreign nation they sent a carriage with the Royal crest to.” Albein adds to her speculations with a wave of his hand. “Still… if that was their goal, it is all the better.” His expression turns pensive, turning her words in his head as he tries to ignore her barbs and not bristle at them… too much. He had half the mind to have her skewered to the floor, but… no.

She had her uses yet, rather than just as hostage for their demands. … Not that she wouldn’t fulfill that role anyway. The healer steps forward with a wave of his hand, kneeling beside the Zofian and chanting softy under his breath as wounds mended with a cost. Magic had always interested him in this aspect — it was a shame he never quite could get a hold of it.

He wanted to make fun of her, however, for proclaiming herself a warrior, but it is when he mulls on her name again that he realizes he’s heard it before. Yes, there was a… Clive, was it? A renown knight in Zofia, he was impressive enough for words to reach even the capital of Rigel. His lips tug into a smile instead.

“Hmph. ‘Warrior’, huh? Exploits of your brother have been spoken of even in Rigel, but I’ve yet to hear a whisper of your own.” He taunts, playfully almost, before offering a shrug. “But, well, you’re young. Perhaps, once this is over, you will make a name of yourself yet.” Yes, if this was Clive’s sister, she definitely had the blood of warriors running through her veins — the feisty display could simply be a sample of what was to come. The healer retreats once he finishes, offering a bow before coming to stand behind him, as he should. Just in case…

“Now take a seat, I will have the rest of your party brought up shortly, and perhaps better clothes than those disgusting rags. You simply will not survive the night in that.” Albein pauses, then decides to add something else as an afterthought. “Keep your foolish tendencies under control this time, or you may find yourself pinned to the floor with two very handsome spears on your shoulders.”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

“Don’t just dismiss us like that.” Clair bristled in turn when he seemed to reject her words out of hand, The magic let her take a few breaths, trying to control her own emotions over everything else as the pain in her chest finally went away…for the most part.

“If my brother was here the lot of you would never have been able to walk through the door before you were felled.” She said, confidently. Of course her brother’s reputation had spread here - that was something she could use. A moment later his harsher words again caused her to flinch back, even as she stood up.

Then she glanced down at her ‘dress’ and let out a small sigh of relief.

“Oh, good. Thank you. I feel like some painted-up floozy. Once I get my hands on whichever perverted dolt decided to dress me up like this he shan’t be able to walk straight for a month.” She swore vindictively, sitting on the church and feeling her hands slowly tug what passed for her clothes in a desperate attempt to cover up some more skin.

“Yes, yes. You’re going to torture me if I don’t behave.” She said heavily. “I got that part earlier, thank you, you hardly need to repeat the point so frequently.”

-w--w- -w--w- -w--w-

There’s an amusement in his eyes at her indignation, even if he truly felt indifferent at the thought of the demise of Zofians— something he was dimly aware was not ‘kind’, but the concept and execution for him were confusing enough as it was, so he decided not to contemplate it for long. Instead, his amusement grows as she confidently makes claim of her brother’s prowess.

“I’d have loved to see him try.” Albein says in response, eyes brimming with fire and a lust for battle. He’d have wanted it to happen— he’d have wanted to have a legitimate shot at this Sir Clive himself, see if the talk of his prowess had any truth within. It is, unfortunately, nothing short of fantasy, and so he shakes the thought away with a tinge of disappointment. Ah… it truly was a shame. Perhaps facing his sister armed would be satisfaction enough? He’d give it thought, depending on his Father’s judgement.

Speaking of judgement… at the very least, they were in agreement for her clothes; something he had already assumed based on her amusing rants, yet still an encouraging confirmation none the less. He nods to her words, thoughts of violence upon the pervert responsible for her state of dress amusing enough as it was. “I’d be willing to provide the weapon for such demonstration of violence.” He adds. It seems just about everything she says is something he finds… amusing. Almost everything. In any case.

“… But I’ve dawdled long enough. You are aware of your position, and your people will be brought to you. All of you shall be provided with food and drink, as well as proper clothes… and then we shall see what the next day brings.” With a wave, he gestures his men to him, then turns to leave, the two soldiers standing guard until he’s past them and out the door, healer sleeping past him and to the halls. “Ah, yes, sleeping arrangements… it will be done.”

It is the last he says to her before all file out after him and the door is shut… leaving her alone once more.

#History Had Its Eyes On You;Thread Archive #Forwards!;In Character #Salutation Knight;Clair #jasperlion #way overdue lol #Manners Maketh Woman;Clair Thread Archive

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strechanadi · 5 years

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Swan Lake Wolfgang/Siegfried overthinking no. I-refuse-to-count-how-many-times-this-stupid-ballet-and-this-even-more-stupid-characters-did-not-let-me-sleep!

Dear @spinmelikeyoumeanit ... this is yet again yours and yours fault only.

(And yes, once I start I physically cannot stop myself, which leads to... err. THIS!)

(I sincerely apologize. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Truly.)

Well, I promised, didn’t I? And it literally took me just about a lifetime! (On the other hand – academic life happened. Don’t do postgrad, kids, it’s just not worth it…) (Or maybe just dont try to write a dissertation in a MONTH! FFS!)

One would think I would be over it. That after so many Swan Lakes nothing would have the ability to shake me. That after so many sleepless nights spent thinking over every little think here and there, I would know almost everything, therefore would be prepared for anything thrown at me. And yet here we are! Once again, blown away by Swan Lake of all ballets. I mean… could there be anything more cliché?

However, I already made peace with one thing (and you should probably too, saves lives and all that) and that’s the genius of Nureyev, of his Swan Lake and of the duality of Wolfgang/Rothbart.

As many of you remember, I’m sure (and slightly horrified), even recording of Nureyev’s SL is more than able to put me out of service, to prevent me from living what even the tiniest group of people would call a normal life. Or something. So, what the hell was I thinking when buying the ticket to see the ballet in question live, I have literally no idea. (Well. I have, actually. He may even have a name…) But yes, I did saw Swan Lake with POB live on stage. From the first fucking row, because that’s how extra I have to be. (Yes, my diet consists solely of bread and water since… seems like forever now.) I saw it, I died and that’s about it. However, my being dead is not something anyone would be particularly interested in, so let’s just move to the only thing you (the whole lot of exactly one person) are here for.

I did write a review on said performance. And usually I’m trying to translate them (even though I’m not exactly sure why, because it causes me almost physical pain and at the end I feel endlessly stupid, since I have to search every second word in dictionary, which is slightly pathetic, also I love my Czech sentences too much and with my pitiful knowledge of English I simply cannot make them justice, so they look utterly weird in the end and they deserve better than that), however unlike with my first POB SL review 3 years back this time I’ve decided to just don’t give a shit and dive into the story head first consequences be damned, so I think with writing this thing here I would have everything important covered (i.e. no need for the actual review) (the first half was basically just me showing off my endless knowledge on SL music score, which is plain boring, let’s be real, plus I wrote all that in my first review).

/AN - This is actually longer than the review itself. I think I feel a little bit sick…/

So. Right. Swan Lake.

I’m not gonna pretend there’s anyone else in whom I am more interested than Siegfried. And it’s not just because Nureyev made him a main character of the story. It’s because it makes sense. Who is on stage from start to finish? Through whose eyes we are watching the whole story? We should be able to sympathize with Siegfried, we should be able to see his point, to understand him, to get what he’s doing and why – sort of at least. And that’s probably why I am so annoyed with traditional SLs where it mostly looks like the choreographers/dancers/ballet masters/whoever don’t even try and go with some bland hero, because whatever, we are all waiting for the 2nd act and the Swan anyway.

So, it’s clear I love Nureyev’s story with passion (you wouldn’t tell, would you!) and the moment the curtain raises I’m drawn to Siegfried no matter who’s the dancer. And, OK, if it’s Mathieu Ganio, I’m kind of helpless, I admit (it would be cute, I guess, were I not be way over 13 yo).

I will try to stay as reasonable as I could and not to embarrass myself. Too much. So I would not write about the stupid little things that nobody in their right mind would (or could!) notice (or at least not at the first sight), because, dear god, literally no one gives a damn about the way his fingers twitched during his Prologue‘s nightmare in perfect synchrony with the music and action on stage… Can I get to the point?! Preferably on this day!

Normal person would be probably unable to talk about Siegfried without Odette/Odile. But I think we have already established I’m by no means a normal person. So, I am not able to talk about Siegfried without Wolfgang. (Yes, we are finally getting somewhere!)

I love their relationship in any shape and form and I would gladly watch every single cast and every possible combination of dancers in those two roles as I’m sure each time I would get something new (you cannot stop my brain, believe me, I tried). There was the oddly depending, blurred, yet intense José/Karl take. The terrifyingly creepy, what-the-fuck-happened-or-is-still-happening-behind-the-close-doors Mathieu/Francois one (that still makes my hair stand whenever I think about it, because… holy shit, that one moment between 1st and 2nd act!). The clueless puppy/slightly perverted, obsessed mastermind vibes from Germain/Francois. So what about Mathieu/Jérémy this time, hm?

/AN – I’m gonna probably end up mixing dancers‘ names with their characters‘, so… Yeah. I have no excuses, it’s just going to happen anyway, no matter how hard I would try to prevent it./

It was clear from the very first moment, Siegfried was much more mature this time, much more the young adult than barely 18yo adolescent. He looked reasonably confident, sure of himself, a true aristocrat, a crown prince ready to be a king (almost to the point where I was thinking – oh, where’s my lost, Asperger’s child? I want my lost, Asperger’s child! Spoiler alert – I got my lost, Asperger’s child eventually, do not worry. Just wait for it). However, watching him during the opening dance scene it was becoming more and more clear everything’s not so smooth as it may seem. He grew impatient, the whole situation slowly but surely becoming unbearable, and he was fighting against it with all he had, trying to stay calm, trying to play the role he was expecting to, his nervous, involuntary fingers tapping against his throne the only thing out of place. But there was always Wolfgang for him in those moments. Wolfgang, who was the constant, never-changing presence. Wolfgang, who could be standing on the other side of the room and the connection between him and his prince almost palpable, magnetic, electrifying. Always there. Always sure.

They look like best friends, no matter their different social status. Wolfgang casually showing Siegfried one girl or another (funny how he didn’t need to bring Siegfried’s attention to men, since he was happily watching them on his own accord), whispering something to his ear (A court rumour? An inside joke? A reassurance to keep Siegfried in his right mind?), hand casually on his shoulder. When they were walking together, Wolfgang was positively hugging Siegfried with his arm around prince’s shoulders. And then you saw him standing side stage, watching Siegfried being crowned, watching him dance, watching his inner struggle started by queen’s mention of marriage, watching him trying to act all casual and „oh, it’s nothing, I’m all right“ while knowing his autism and insecurities and all the good stuff is kicking, trying to break free and took over his mind and soul again. Because Siegfried may be more in charge now, but once autistic, always autistic… The mental issues were there. Waiting. As well as Wolfgang. Watching, waiting, calculating, manipulating without anybody knowing, using the Machiavellianism to the point.

And I wanted to scream, because hell, Siegfried, you look like a reasonable, mature human being. You are not the lost child with puppy eyes, you have to know something’s off! Tell me, what do you know! But then they were together and it was painfully clear he simply believed they were at the same page, he had no reason not to think so, they were in this together. Take the moment at the end of the „dance lesson.“ José himself leant towards Karl, believing him implicitly, automatically, without question and on top of that he actually looked him in the eye, and there was the brilliant moment where Karl looked away like – “oh no, stop, this is too much, that’s not right” and also “I’m not affected by this at all.” Francois just grabbed Mathieu’s arm and pulled. The gesture strong, harsh, leaving no doubts and literally no space between the two of them, because “oh no no, my prince, you have no personal space, no free will, I am the one who will tell you what to do, I am the one in charge, don’t forget that, I certainly not let you forget, ever.” With Mathieu and Jérémy the movement towards each other was mutual. Mathieu leaned back, Jérémy went slightly forward whispering into his ear.

However just a few seconds earlier, during the actual dance lesson, was a moment that couldn’t be more out of the realm of things OK even if it tried. I remember someone did something similar in one of the older videos I saw through the years of my healthy social life, I, however, do not remember it being quite like this time. I’m talking about the moment nearly at the end with Siegfried kneeling on the floor with Wolfgang walking around him. Some Wolfgangs simply put their hand on prince’s shoulder and squeeze, some let their hand stay there for a bit (too) long, some doesn’t touch Siegfried at all for one reason or another. And then came Jérémy. He did touch Mathieu’s shoulder. Let his hand there. Heavy, grounding. And then, slowly, intentionally, almost proprietary traced his chest from one collar bone to the other. Touching the bare skin. Not in some delicate, subtle, almost-not-there motion with fingertips barely touching. This was open. Possessive. Claiming. I inhaled so sharply people on the balcony must have heard it. I almost gave myself a brain concussion. Or got high on oxygen overdose. Or something. Being at home alone (or maybe even with my family around) I would be screaming myself hoarse and/or swearing profusely. But since I was sitting in a theatre with 2,5 thousands other people completely clueless of my inner battle, I had to… just keep breathing and acting cool. Not that I was particularly successful or anything.

How the 1st Act was going, it was more and more clear Siegfried depended on Wolfgang. And what was even more painful, it was his own decision. Surely, he was manipulated into it to some extent and at some point, but with this prince I believe if one asked him, he would say he believes Wolfgang. “Because he’s a friend. Because he’s helping. He’s good. Stop asking stupid questions, I’m not an idiot!” You had to admit this Wolfgang did a fucking good job without actually showing it (and showing off, looking at you, Francois). Because at the end of Act 1 all he had to do to stop Siegfried from following the running boys was turn his head. He didn’t step to stay in his way, he didn’t cross his arms or shake his head disapprovingly. He just stood there, then looked slightly over his shoulder and Siegfried stopped. Like that. And then, just before he was about to start his andante sostenuto variation (during which I most definitely died, because there was simply no other option, since this monster of a man, while doing his manege of jetés entrelacé, decided to turn the palm of his front arm up to make the landing pose in arabesque a cry, with his arm desperately reaching towards something, to fill every fucking detail of his movement with intention and meaning and who the hell asked this from you?! I can scarcely cope even while you are just dancing and feeling the music in ways that are too close to mine, could you please tell me, why you had to even do THIS to me?! Am I not dead enough?), he looked back at Wolfgang. Like if I could forget about their connection…!

But what was between the two of them exactly? I don’t have a clue. I know what I see in José/Karl interpretation. I know how I understand Mathieu/Francois relationship (because I am a bad person, my mind is poisoned and my brain is sick!). But Mathieu/Jérémy? There’s so much going on but I for the love of all that is holy cannot put a finger on it. (And that’s probably one of the reasons I almost went to the stage door to tell them I love them. I didn’t. I am an adult. I do not fangirl. I just go home and deal with all the feelings like the emotionally repressed person I am. I would make an excellent posh Englishman.) Let’s just say it was for the first time that Wolfgang was taller than Siegfried. Significantly taller. So whenever Siegfried wanted to looked him in the eyes, he had to look UP. And this stupid, tiny, little detail made me feel so many things, it’s not even funny anymore (which falsely indicated it WAS funny once, which most definitely was NOT). But just imagine the Siegfried/Wolfgang duet between act 1 and 2 with Siegfried coming to Wolfgang, to looking up to his eyes, and try not to see the vulnerability in it. Try not to see all the cards changing. Because it should have been Siegfried over Wolfgang because of their social status. During act one they were at the same level – because Siegfried wanted so. And now, suddenly, it was Wolfgang over Siegfried. And when he put the prince on the ground in the end, Siegfried looked yet again completely lost, devastated and abused… You just didn’t know how exactly this time. Or you did, but it was still just a wild guess, you couldn’t be completely, absolutely, 100% sure.

What was sure – Siegfried was broken. He took the offered crossbow as if not knowing what he is doing, as if not knowing it’s his hands that is holding it. And then he stood up, turned and wanted to go to Wolfgang, because obviously. He made two steps, and Wolfgang was just standing there, centre stage, looking (not with the arms dismissively crossed as Francois, mind you) and Siegfried stopped, tripped over his feet, looked and promptly turned back. And there was something so unbelievably hurt in him. Because he knew what the crossbow means, figuratively. And that’s what hurt him most. Seeing Wolfgang with it. Seeing Wolfgang pushing him towards the edge, knowing he’s helpless, knowing that it would be him who would jump, he himself, nobody would actually push him, just bring him so near the edge, there would be no other choice. It was like an accusation. Because “I believed you. I trusted you. I thought we were friends. I thought you would help me. And you pushed me back towards my illness, pushed me into those dreams that we both know will be the end of me.” You could almost touch the moment, the last flicker of consciousness, the hurt creeping from the deep of Siegfried’s soul but it was too late already. It was late the moment he took the crossbow. And you were watching him losing the somewhat sane part of his mind, the part that knows, and falling to his dreams, to his forbidden world. Because giving the poor Asperger’s little prince a bit of schizophrenia is a way to go. Hello, this is me, nice to meet you.

Yes, partly this whole mess of a situation was the Queen’s fault. Her mentioning marriage and crowning and you know, the adult stuff, made Siegfried quiver in his so painfully hard-won stable mental state of sorts, that seemed more stable than in other SLs, but was still too fragile. But Wolfgang was the one who made it happened, who was the vital help, who was the final cause. Because who else could have been more successful? Who would have been better for such job? Who could have managed such thing if not him…?

I’ll give you a break and am gonna talk about 3rd act for a bit. Because Mathieu Ganio’s Siegfried in act 3 is a fucking piece of art and someone give the man an award for it!

There was an achingly apparent difference between Act 1 Siegfried and Act 3 Siegfried. While during the 1st Act he was able to hold himself together to the point one would not tell he had any mental issues, in 3rd Act he was loosing his contact with reality from the start. And of course he was, with no Wolfgang behind his back whispering to his ear, keeping him in check, distracting him while things become too tedious and tiring, calming him by his mere presence. So his standing up and leaving the stage during character dances made so much sense. He refused the princesses with pleasure and right then he threw everything, his control, his mind, his consciousness out of window, and just jumped, leaving his illness in charge and Odile with Rothbart appeared. And if Odette and the lake was a dream, this was much more a fantasy. I’m going to repeat myself, but I stop when there would be more than one Siegfried like this in 3rd Act. Because this Siegfried was not dragged across stage by Odile, he was not simply following her with heart eyes, smiling and thinking rather stupidly she’s Odette, the pure, fragile girl from the lake even though she’s acting almost completely different. This Siegfried was confident, self-assured, constantly trying to convince Odile of his power and to prove himself. He grew impatient with her constant escaping, there was anger and sharpness in some of his movements. We all know the moment when Siegfried is standing behind Odile and she’s taking his arms to hug herself, right? So Mathieu Ganio leaned in and kissed. Her. On. The. Neck.

(I let that information sink.) (And while it would be sinking, I take a little walk to ease some of the tension and calm my inner voice that is screaming profanities, cause HOLYFUCKINGSHIT, can you imagine the dreamy, pure, innocent prince from previous act to do such thing?!)

I would also like to mention the black adagio. You know, the one where Siegfried is supposed to be fascinated by Odile who is seducing him? The one, during which this time was not quite clear if the prince was watching the enchanting black swan or Rothbart with the same intent, with the same intensity in his eyes and tension between the two of them…? Yeah.

(Also – Jérémy before his Rothbart variation, sitting on Siegfried’s throne like it belongs to him. Good grief!)

The end of act 3 wasn’t as much of a mad scene as it was in 2016. However Siegfried fell down on the floor completely unceremoniously, lying on his back and while the curtain opened and we were in the 4th Act he lied there in the exact same position and it looked almost like he’s in his bed. Like he completely lost it during the ball (and lost it he did) and was escorted to his chambers, put to his bed and now his poor, tortured mind sent him yet again to the woods, to the lake side.

Odette in act 2 was a complete figment of Siegfried’s imagination, appearing suddenly from nowhere, made from thin air, sharing Siegfried’s pain and deep grief. (Yes, even in act 2, because this time there were no heartfelt love confessions, no big romance, no sunny smiles and promises of happily ever after. But there was a bond. Strong and deeply felt.) In 4th Act she was resigned. She knew she’s about to die and there’s nothing she could do about it. Because Odette is Siegfried. In this performance and interpretation more than ever. She was his innocence that was somehow betrayed and violated by the act 3 fantasy. She was his integral part, she was his childhood, she was his hope, she was the last piece of his sanity, she was him. And Siegfried came to her guiltily, ashamed of himself, afraid to look herself in the eyes and see what became of him. Because he was dying. And he knew it.

And then Rothbart appeared and took Odette from Siegfried. Took his hope, his mind, his soul - like the mental illnesses, Siegfried’s ultimate bane and his final doom. And then came the last moment. When Siegfried turned around and there, in the middle of the mists stood someone. With arm held forward, palm up as in an invitation. And then… magnificent, ethereal Wolfgang spread his arms wide. Opened them for his prince, to let him jump into. And Siegfried run and jumped with his last breath and last desperate cry of arched back to the arms of death. That is nor evil, nor kind. That simply is.

And it makes you wonder – what if this was in the end the best option for Siegfried after all? What if Wolfgang was doing what he was doing having his prince’s good in mind? Was it something he himself believed in? That he was helping? Or was it just something he would say, if anybody asked? And was he ever even real?

Hello. This is Nureyev’s Swan Lake for you. Causes many questions. Answers none. Gives you bunch of other instead.

Please, do feel free to tell me I should find a professional help.

#ballet #swan lake #le lac des cygnes #this is just me #not being able to shut up #and get over wolfgang and siegfried #for nearly 4000 words #it's not healthy #but whatever #wolfgang #siegfried #rothbart #overthinking #like a pro #make it an olympic sport #thank you #LOOK IT'S ALMOST 4 IN THE MORNING!

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