#“He who conquers himself conquers doubly”

[abtl]

Hello! I’m the one who made the hollow knight redraw art and I wanted to read the reblogs a bit, saw that you were one of the people inspired by my progress

So I just wanted to say, don’t give up. I believe in you, you can do this. Even if it takes a while, even a little improvement is everything :)

Thank you very, very much for the inspiration and motivation. I shall continue to grind the blade against the whetstone.

#beetle answers #thanks for the ask! #BIS VINCIT QVI SE VINCIT IN VICTORIA #“He who conquers himself conquers doubly” #art #art inspo #inspiration #motivation #especially as someone who always agonizes a bit because they can't draw their own ocs #this will serve as a very very welcome catalyst for me to continue #and directly tackle the parts in drawing that I find most difficult #just like how I did for my exams #thank you again o kind stranger

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Princess Azula

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

This is one of those characters I should’ve done a long time ago, but just never got around to because I felt it was just way too obvious. I mean, come on, Avatar: The Last Airbender is considered one of the greatest works of western animation. Everyone and their mother has talked about this show at some point, so what could I even add?

Well, as it turns out, the way people talk about Azula is exactly what inspired me to write this! I have never seen a character so completely and critically misunderstood! Hell, this is a character that people like to disregard the core themes of the story to talk about! Discussion of her online made me so genuinely angry that I decided fuck it, it’s Azulain’ time! So here we go, my 200% anger-fueled analysis and review of the mentally-unstable Fire Nation princess who terrorized the Gaang!

Motivation/Goals: Azula has basically made it her life’s mission to be the ultimate tool of the Fire Nation, and specifically her father Fire Lord Ozai. To that end, she does basically whatveer he tells her to do? Kill the Avatar, conquer Ba Sing Se, take out her brother and uncle… So long as what she does has a net benefit for the imperialistic goals of her country, she’s down for it, and doubly so if she thinks it will get her even a little crumb of daddy’s attention.

Performance: Superstar voice actress Grey DeLisle of Literally Every Fucking Cartoon Ever Made fame lends her voice to the crown princess of the Fire Nation, and her smug, condescending delivery really sells Azula as a manipulative schemer who is constantly playing 4D chess to outmaneuver her opponents. I think I might even go so far as to call this one of DeLisle’s finest performances ever, for reasons pertaining to her delivery of lines in certain parts of the story that will be described below.

Final Fate: Azula’s fate is a perfect example of the show’s excellent writing because it robs us of catharsis in an extremely narratively satisfying way.

Throughout the finale, we watch as Azula’s mental health rapidly declines as literally everything in her life spirals out of her control for the first time. This is a girl who has defined herself as always being two steps ahead, always having everything firmly in her grasp, and yet her brother has run off with the heroes, her two best friends “betrayed” her, her father gives her the throne but only because he is crowning himself the Ultra Super Cool King Deluxe, and she is constantly grappling with feeling as if her mother viewed her as a monster while also subconsciously knowing that Ursa did truly love her. Keep in mind, all of this is happening to a teenage girl, so is it any wonder she completely and totally snaps?

Her final Agni Kai with Zuko during the height of Sozin’s Comet is epic, but it’s the conclusion where she is defeated by Katara and left as a sobbing, flailing mess that really knocks Azula’s character arc out of the park and cements her as the ultimate antithesis of Zuko. He had the guidance of a good, kind father figure, while she was stuck with Fire Hitler; he had a group of friends to love and support him, while she only had companions who put up with her out of fear and turned on her when they finally had enough; he was able to come to terms with his past traumas and grow to be better because of his numerous support systems, while all she had were toxic influences that led to her essentially collapsing under the weight of her internal conflict. She is what Zuko could have been if no one lent him a helping hand… and it is soul-crushingly tragic. The last we see her, she is a broken mess of a person, someone who has literally lost everything in their life, had the sole purpose of their existence stripped from them, and has just been reminded that she lost because she is a lonely, miserable, pathetic individual without any friends.

After her being on top for almost the entire show, this should feel like a triumph! But it’s not. It’s sad. It’s tragic. There’s no joy to be found. And boy oh boy, is it fucking powerful.

I’m just going to ignore what happens to her in the comics. It’s better that way.

Evilness: So here’s where things get really interesting, because while Azula does some truly evil things throughout the show, there is a tendency to exaggerate just how awful she is because most of her evil actions are just things she says she wants to do/has done. Combined with her smug, arrogant demeanor and it’s easy to believe she would do these things, but we don’t actually witness them. To wit, while she taunts Sokka about torturing Suki to the breaking point, when he finally reunites with her she sure doesn’t seem as cripplingly broken as Azula implied. I think it’s important to note that, as Azula is a massive liar, if we don’t actually see her do something (even something she’s threatening to do), it’s not really a mark against her. She’s a cunning manipulator, after all, conquering an entire city without lifting a finger.

On that note, though, she does have plenty of wicked moments under her belt. She conquered Ba Sing Se for the Fire Nation, she constantly tried to kill Aang and her brother while they were on the run in the Earth Kingdom, she had her friends locked up for defying her… Like she’s one messed up daddy’s girl. Even taking into account the inherent tragedy of her character and the fact she’s a teenage girl, she still kind of steps up to crossing the moral event horizon. She’s very much the product of grooming in an environment meant to espouse the joys of fascism and imperialism, and since she never had a strong guide like Iroh her moral compass is busted.

With all that being said, I think she’s a solid 5/10. She does some really nasty things, but at the same time a lot of what colors the perception of her is stuff she only implies. Also I’m not considering any of her pre-breakdown fights with Zuko as truly evil; this is just how siblings are. You bet your ass sibling squabbles would look just like that if they could shoot fireballs from their hands.

Best Episode: For all her badass moments, awesome schemes, incredible fights, and powerful moments… “The Beach” might be her best episode. This might sound crazy, but I stand by it; I think showing us an awkward, human side of her really helps to sell that Azula isn’t actually some unstoppable force. She’s just a teenager who has no social skills and can’t exist outside of the confines of being a royal or a warrior without looking like an absolute weirdo.

Best Quote: After outmaneuvering season 2’s arc villain Long Feng, who concedes to he rand says she’s beaten him at his own game, she flippantly replies, “Don't flatter yourself. You were never even a player.” I don’t think even Jet got so brutally murdered. It’s the sickest burn in the series aside from Zuko’s scar.

Final Thoughts & Score: The whole reason I even wrote this Psycho Analysis is because the constant and critical misunderstandings of Azula I see online constantly piss me the fuck off.

There is a subset of Avatar fans who completely and steadfastly believe that Azula is in fact an irredeemable monster, a complete sociopath with no redeeming qualities who needs to suffer and die. They reject any attempts at assessing the character in a more nuanced light, because “why can’t villains just be evil?” They treat her as if she’s some sort of pure evil being instead of an emotionally stunted child.“She’s crazy and she needs to go down” might as well be the mantra of these media illeterate Avatar fans, parroting opinions that mirror the words of Iroh after Azula almost killed him but ignoring that crucial context as well as Iroh’s entire character. Like, do these people actually pay attention to the core themes of the entire show? You know, mercy, redemption, humanity, the importance of all life? Did they miss the part of the finale where these core themes were cemented by Aang removing Ozai’s firebending with energybending, or were they too busy bitching about it being a deus ex machina to realize it’s thematically appropriate?

Like they want Azula to just be this evil, unredeemable cartoonish villain in a show that explicitly says no one is like this. There’s even a point in the final episodes where it’s pointed out that genocidal colonizer tyrant Ozai was once a sweet, cute little baby, and didn’t just spring forth as a fully formed Red-Hot Hitler. Azula is a person groomed by an unrepentantly evil father to be the Fire Nation ubermensch, the ideal tool for the conquest of the rest of the world. She was never allowed to have a normal childhood, as evident by her awkward behavior and social ineptitude when she’s actually allowed to cut loose and be around people her own age in a relaxed setting. Everything that she is—a liar, a manipulator, an attempted murderer, an egomaniac—are all the result of Ozai’s upbringing, being entrenched in the propaganda of her nation, and a lack of authority figures with a moral compass in her life. She didn’t have an Iroh to guide her, all she had was Ozai. In this sense, Azula is as much a victim as she is a victimizer.

But she is a victimizer. She is still consciously making bad decisions, she is still doing evil and sometimes appearing to enjoy it. There’s no reason to believe she couldn’t turn things around if given a helping hand like her brother was (though there would need to be a lot more effort due to her being in Ozai’s company unimpeded for way longer than Zuko), but she’s not some innocent little bean who’s being persecuted by others. Azula is still a villain, and viewing her as just a mere victim is a disservice to the character just as much as painting her as an inhuman monster. She is a very nuanced character, but she never gets the sort of POV work Zuko does to fully flesh out what’s on her mind and let us see the world through her eyes so the work done for her is more subtle, at least until her final breakdown. At that point, the show is literally beating you over the head with the fact she is an incredibly tragic character whose entire existence is pitiful and broken, and who lives as a mirror to Zuko, showing him a dark path he could have walked down if he didn’t receive love, support, and compassion.

Ultimately, Iroh wasn’t wrong when he said “She’s crazy and she needs to go down,” but I take it with emphasis on and. Azula is, in fact, crazy. She is incredibly mentally disturbed, her mind warped and molded by her father to the point she breaks if she starts to lose control even a tiny bit. And, as an antagonistic force working against the heroes, she does indeed need to go down. I’m sure he wasn’t too happy with his near-death experience, but you will not convince me that the sweet old Iroh, who himself changed and redeemed himself after being a fucking war criminal who nearly conquered Ba Sing Se, could not see the nuance in the Azula situation and genuinely saw his niece as some beast to be slaughtered.

But that’s enough with the ranting, let’s get to the actual final thoughts and score for Azula. She is one of the most engaging and magnificent villains in animation, a real firebrand (heh) whose numerous schemes are gripping to watch, building her up as someone you want to see finally get defeated only for the writers to pull the rug out from under you and remind you just what Azula really is. Avatar had no shortage of brilliant and subversive writing, but I think Azula’s ultimate arc is an unsung masterpiece among it. The character is so mired in discourse these days it’s easy to forget it, but she genuinely is a grand character.

For her score, I’m gonna say she gets a 9/10. She’s easily the best villain on the show, far outshining her rather generic father, the deliciously hammy but ultimately rather shallow Zhao, and the scheming but relatively minor Long Feng (to say nothing of the numerous minor villains that range in quality from wastes of time like Combustion Man to genuinely amazing and horrifying like Hama). I think the only thing holding her back from a perfect score is that sometimes it feels like things fall into place a little too perfectly for her, and she doesn’t face setbacks too much until the very end, but considering the immensely powerful culmination it’s nothing that ruins her. Azula is a character just as rich and deep as anyone else from the show, and I really wish more people looked at her with nuance.

I also wish the fucking comics didn’t exist. Maybe I’m asking for too much.

#Psycho Analysis #Princess Azula #Avatar #Avatar: The Last Airbender #ATLA #Grey DeLisle

[thegreenlizard]

Not Obi-Wan’s first slave uprising (II)

This is a drabble for“Not Obi-Wan’s first slave uprising” AU. It’s three disjointed pieces of tell don’t show in a trench coat, but I was trying to organise my (and Obi-Wan’s) thoughts, so it served a purpose. It’s not quite the path that that would take Obi-Wan to the conclusion at the end yet, but it might be pieces of it.

“All a jedi must do, padawan, is follow the Light. The rest is window dressing.”

—patron saint by spqr

What would have happened if the republic hadn’t miraculously been given an army just when they needed one, Obi-Wan thought. Would the republic have been overrun? No, the separatists wanted to secede, not conquer. More likely, the senate would have been forced to issue a draft, which would have been immensely unpopular—as the Military Creation Act had been, before the discovery of the clone army—both among the wealthy and influential core worlds who feared their populations would not accept it, and the Rim worlds who feared the draft would draw from their populations disproportionately. It would have made war less popular, less supported, and protracted war doubly so. It would have lead to seceding worlds facing less opposition, and the republic having less brute strength to force them to stay. It… would have meant the republic would have had to make concessions, reforms even. It would have meant diplomacy and negotiations would have to be attempted if all our war wasn’t an option. It, in fact, was exactly what the Jedi were meant to do.

Not this: commanding an army of slave soldiers to fight a war to force worlds to stay in a republic they no longer felt served their needs. To keep power in the hands of those who already had it, but weren’t willing to compromise to keep it.

*

In the days following the Military Creation Act and the draft of the Jedi Order, Obi-Wan had kept thinking back to something he had been told years ago, while he was still a padawan. Obi-Wan had been some months out from Melidaan, still on a probation, still trying to reconcile his experiences with the expectations of the Jedi. He had been trying to repair his frayed relationship with his newly reinstated master and had been hesitant to bring up any of his doubts. They had taken an easy diplomatic mission to Alderaan where Obi-Wan had met Bail, then still Prestor.

Bail had been a few years older than Obi-Wan, still growing into himself, but already he had had that core of duty and integrity that Obi-Wan had never ceased to admire. And he had told Obi-Wan something then, that had stayed with him all these years. That it was the duty of any leader, to serve the people whom they lead.

It was not the teaching of the Jedi. The Jedi taught that their duty was to serve the entire galaxy, and all sentient life therein. The Jedi were not leaders, but diplomats and arbitrators, facilitators of a different kind. But service and duty were baked into them in the crèche all the same. And there was something about Bail’s wisdom, that had resonated with Obi-Wan as he kept getting missions that turned into firefights and sometimes all out wars.

Obi-Wan already lost his argument with the Jedi Council then. He had only been a lowly knight and had been in the position to argue in the first place due to his mission debrief after Kamino and his lineage relationship with his great-grandmaster Yoda. But in the end, he had been told in no uncertain terms that the Order was not in a position to refuse the draft or to fight the Military Creation Act.

It had been a bitter pill to swallow. To go from Kamino, where the lights of the clones had shone so brightly in the force, as unique and riotously colourful as any city despite the outward appearances, to Geonosis where the lights of both Jedi and clones had been snuffed out in troves. He had been feeling sore in the force, from all those deaths. As far as he knew, the campaign was still ongoing, but he had been recalled to Coruscant to give his mission report in person—and to accept his assignment as a general of the army.

Only to then realise that the newly passed Military Creation Act afforded the clones no civil rights, not even sentient status. To realise that the Jedi were just… going to accept it, because of politics and of the greater duty they could apparently serve.

Frankly, if the Jedi’s duty to all sentient life did not extend equally to the men under their command, then Obi-Wan no longer cared about following the Order’s rules. He would never stop being a Jedi, but as Qui-Gon had once put it, being a Jedi was about following the light—the rest was window dressing.

But now, his duties as a Jedi were to include direct command of soldiers. Men, whose wellbeing relied on his decisions. Men, who would live or die on his word. That was not the case with other sentients of the galaxy, who were free to make their own decisions. Didn’t that make his duty to his men greater, not lesser? Didn’t that make it primary?

Obi-Wan had always struggled with attachments. But he did not know how to fight with divided loyalties, how to split his heart and portion pieces of it carefully, calculatingly. There was no room in war for it. He had always given all of himself to the fights he chose. To Melidaan. To Mandalore. To their people. He did not know how to do any less now.

He felt like he was at the precipice of something, at a fork in the road before him where he could only choose to walk one path but not another. He had a choice: his men, the order, or the senate.

He had, he realised, had to make the same choice before: to be a Jedi, or a general. To serve the people, or his mission brief. He had already made his decision and had kept making it over the years. And he found that it was not so hard to make again, after all.

*

“It is the duty of any leader, to serve the people whom they lead,” Obi-Wan starts haltingly.

“My primary responsibility—my primary loyalty—is no longer to the Jedi Order, the senate, or even the republic and its people. It is to the men under my command.”

“If these duties conflict, I will put our men first.” Obi-Wan willed his commander to understand. “We will fight, and we will die. But only as long as it is in the pursuit of the common goal our men choose to make those sacrifices for.”

“Any man who wants out of the fight, I swear I will find them a way.” He would. It would be difficult to smuggle deserters out, but he would personally falsify death certificates for everyone who’d rather take their chances outside GAR.

“I will not force you to fight. I will not be your slave master. If you would rather strike out at the unknown regions, just give the word. If you’d rather dump my ass before you go, just give the word. If you’d rather I step down from the command and start fighting for your rights in the courts, I swear I will pull every favour and piece of blackmail I have accrued during my diplomatic career. And if you’d rather break your chains—Cody, it wouldn’t be my first slave rebellion.”

Obi-Wan rises from his chair and drops on a knee in front of his silent commander. He pulls his lightsaber from his belt and offers it to Cody.

“So you see, it is not you who are at my service. It is I who am at yours.”

*

Cody doesn’t know what to say to his general offering to commit treason for him and his men. The man has literally gone down on his knee to, what? Swear loyalty to Cody, a clone? This is so far outside the parameters of his training that Cody might just as well have been transported to another dimension entirely. And he does not know what to say.

The general, still kneeling at Cody’s feet, tries for a smile though it comes out more as a grimace.

“You don’t have to say anything, commander. We can pretend this conversation never happened. I know I haven’t earned your trust yet. You don’t have to decide anything now.”

Kenobi gets up, sits back in his chair and scrubs his face, looking a little lost. Then, to Cody’s horror, he starts undoing the plates of his armour and pulling open the body glove underneath.

“Did you know that there’s a word for a freed slave who enslaves others?” Kenobi asks conversationally and tilts his head until Cody can see his bared neck. It’s pale, like the rest of him, and there’s a band of twisting scar tissue around it. Cody must react somehow, because Kenobi nods and starts putting his armour back to rights.

“Depukrekta,” he says with disgust. “I wasn’t a slave for very long, in the grand scheme of things, but I…”

“I—to be frank, I considered resigning from the Order and refusing the draft entirely in protest. But I thought you and the men at least deserved a choice in how you wanted your battles fought.” Kenobi shrugs and adds ruefully “And the option of resigning publicly is still open, should you wish to be rid of me.”

Kenobi, having said his piece, slips quietly out. Cody states after him for a long time, thoughts whirling. Then he comms Fox.

#drabble #plot bunny #tcw au #blanket permission #codywan #or gen #space bunnies

[pinkpruneclodwolf]

Guardian Wolf

Summary: Jack is bedridden so Grim and Yuu visit him with a present.

Notes: Reader reffered to as Yuu and Yuu uses they/them pronouns in this.

Happy Belated Birthday Jack!!

Jack, Yuu thinks, is an awkward kid. Like a baby bull trying to walk on hooves meant for the great pastures and hills beyond but finding itself in a China shop, where every mistaken move could end with porcelain scattering across the floor and an uproar that leads to more shards scattering.

Gentle like an elephant yet still fearsome in his own right. He walks with an assuredness that strikes envy into Yuu's heart, the type of envy born out of wanting to improve themselves, wanting to be better than the mopey mess they've been reduced to.

And yet, when Yuu squints all the more closer, they see someone who is awkward. Not in the sense that he fumbles over his words or his stride suddenly breaks in the face of those he deems better than him but rather... in the sense that Jack guards himself more than Yuu ever realized.

That Jack, despite being one of the tallest teenagers they've seen, at the end of the day he's still a teenager—susceptible to the highs and lows of a transitional period that feels like a nightmare to some and a paradise to others. Where people flourish or remain stunted.

Yuu guessed it was no wonder why Jack liked raising cacti so much—for they weathered and conquered in one the toughest biomes, for they remained steadfast even when the sweltering heat seemed nigh impossible to survive through.

For they displayed tenacity that Savanaclaw valued as a trait amongst all members.

But, you can't be tenacious all the time.

"It's just the common cold," Jack grumbles from under the covers as Yuu steps into his Dorm room, noting the various get well cards and flowers and presents. A smile curls onto Yuu's lips as they ease over, Grim prancing towards a particularly nice bouquet.

"See, Henchman, worried for nothing!" The cat monster then procures a can of tuna, making room on the already overcrowded desk that makes Yuu cringe and reach over. Fortunately for the two of them, the tuna fits snug against the gifts.

Though Yuu still waits at attention. They squint at Grim, unamused. "Weren't you the one begging for me to hurry up?"

"Of course, I don't want anyone showing me up."

"You... two were worried about me?" It's quiet, a question meant only for Jack's ears and Jack's ears alone but Yuu picks up on the contemplative look on his face, the frown of confusion and furrowed brow.

"Duh," Yuu settles at the foot of Jack's bed, fiddling with the handmade gift. It was a simple—doubly so compared to all the gifts that lined the side of his room— it'd been a wolf teddy, small and beady eyed, clearly handmade judging by the unsteady patterns of different fabrics being Frankensteined together and stuffing procured from old pillows.

It was rushed. Embarrassing in the grand scheme of things and Yuu wondered if they could sneak away before Grim said a word about it.

"All these gifts and well wishes are because everyone's worried about you." Then comes the lump in Yuu's throat. They'd never considered that if they fell sick who would care and who wouldn't, hadn't thought about how much they'd yearn for their family in the delirium of a fever.

They wondered, in that moment, they wondered if... Anyone would ever care if they got sick—for all they do for others, in a school like this where only extraordinary thrive would they slip through the cracks?

"Yuu," Jack leans up. "Are... Thank you."

Yuu smiles despite themself, despite the mounting fears that seem to tip the scales of rational and irrational. They know that it's probably not as serious as they're making it out to be but... Yuu can't help but wonder.

"You're welcome."

"Funaa!" Grim hops onto the bed, batting at Jack. "What about me! I came here to!"

Jack tenses before chuckling. "Thank you, Grim."

"Yeah, yeah." The cat monster moves on to his lap. "Yuu made you a gift and I helped, so be grateful!"

"You did?" Something akin to fear, ice cold and electrifying, spears through Yuu's heart as nervous hands fiddle with the gift. They hadn't expected Grim to mention it so soon, but knowing him and his tendency for praise—especially if he contributed the bare minimum—they shouldn't have been so surprised.

"I... um—yeah." It's an awkward bend, clammy—near shaky hands removing the gift from their lap and offering it to Jack who is practically glowing, the tell tale thump of his tail a dead give away.

They just hope he likes it.

The wrapping crinkled under the weight of Jack's hands, claws already bursting through. He peels it slowly and Yuu looks away. Near ashamed at the idea of a present.

They'd wanted to recreate the feeling of home. How, whenever they were sick their mother would slip through with soup and their favorite wolf teddy before ushering off to bed with a kiss on the forehead and a promise that they'd get better soon.

They wanted to recreate all the things they knew they wouldn't have now that they were stuck in Twisted Wonderland with effectively no way to return home.

Yuu wanted to give the same comfort they ached for on cold nights, where their bones felt hollow but their chest was full of something that felt so close watching their memories die.

"I love it."

"Huh?" Yuu perks, widened eyes flitting to Jack's mesmerized face—as if they'd dropped a star into his hands.

"Of course you do, we made it!" Grim exclaims, though one look at his wagging tail tells them all they need to know. Eager for praise even at the smallest expense.

"Thank you."

"I..." Yuu struggles to make sense of it, how Jack could find such a juvenile teddy nice enough that his whole face is glowing. "No problem."

Settling the teddy near his pillow, Jack falls back under the covers. And they take it as a sign to leave, Grim hopping from the bed and Yuu peeling themselves from their spot on the bed.

"Yuu," Jack calls from.the bed just as they flick off the lights. The undertone of pleading not lost on them, they peer back into the darkness of the room, the light of Savanaclaws hallway pouring in.

"Yeah?"

"C...could you stay with me?"

"Really?" Grim cheers, hopping from his perch on their shoulder. "It'll be like a sleep over we have! Yuu come 'ere!"

"Yea—yeah, of course. Yuu snickers as they settle on Jack's right. They'd remembered doing the same, calling out for their mother to watch them while they slept, remembered getting forehead kisses and an extra tucking into the bed.

"You..."

"Hm?"

"...You can lay down."

Jolting at the invitation, they squint into the dark before a smile curls onto their face. Because for all the times Jack is designated the role of protector, he's just as awkward as the rest of them.

Bending down, Yuu presses a kiss to Jack's forehead—hot from the fever. They can feel the boy tense under them before relaxing, the furrow of his brow melting away.

The kiss lingers on their lips as Yuu curls into Jack's side, a strange wash of contentment settling under their skin as the watch him settle into bed.

Because, for all Jack's bluster, Yuu's sure he misses home just as they do, even under the pile of gifts.

"Goodnight, Yuu."

"Goodnight, Jack."

Taglist: @noir-drabbles @edgymoonstone @hiraya-manwari @twst-drabbles

#twst #twisted wonderland #jack howl #jack howl x reader #jack howl x yuu #male yuu #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland x yuu

[littlesparklight]

In Achilles' book nine speech about how he's totally going to go home and get a just as good - no, better! - life through his father's wealth and connections than what he can get at Troy fighting for wealth and glory etc - where is Briseis? Hell, where is Deidamia?

Despite "the Atreidai aren't the only men to love their wives", Briseis Agamemnon can now keep! Achilles even says he can keep her right before he then says that he loved Briseis, though spear-won Despite this proclamation of personal sentiment, he apparently doesn't care enough about her, as a person, or his so-supposed feelings about and for her, to bend.

She is not worth it, in herself. And not even as the symbolic worth of geras is she worth what Agamemnon is now offering Achilles to take her back!

Instead, though Achilles calls her his "wife", he also apparently doesn't consider himself married (and neither can Agamemnon, having made offer of one of his own daughters, after all). His father can arrange a marriage for him, better than Agamemnon's offer of one of his own daughters.

Briseis, who he's claimed to love as his wife, is clearly not in play or important enough to be his wife back in Phthia. Patroklos' promises to her seem rather empty, now. (And as an aside, does Patroklos know about Achilles' double-fate? Does he know what Achilles has chosen? If he does, in that case his promises to convince Achilles to properly marry her are doubly empty and frankly cruel. But maybe he doesn't know.)

But it's not just Briseis.

The Iliad (and Achilles) knows about his son existing. He mentions Neoptolemos himself. And while his son's mother goes equally unnamed, she, too, is clearly not a proper wife, nor a candidate important enough to shame Agamemnon's offer of one of his own daughters, for she, too, is conspicuously absent.

Is she no different than Briseis, then, though both of them are of noble birth? Conquered, if left behind, and not worthy enough to actually be a wife? Or, going by the perhaps later variants, whatever marriage he might have entered clearly he isn't intending to keep, going by this speech.

Of course, one can always question how serious Achilles is in anything he's stating in his embassy speech (aside from his desire to get proper repayment for the insult dealt him). But even if he's inconsistently serious or truthful, the lack of importance put on Briseis (or Deidamia) as a person is still perfectly clear.

Agamemnon can keep her, as Achilles says.

#greek myth thoughts

[dolphin1812]

“This entire chapter is conceptually hilarious, but some of the moments in it are so bizarre. Take this, for instance:

“ To make that reply and then perish, what could be grander? For being willing to die is the same as to die; and it was not this man’s fault if he survived after he was shot.”

Hugo what

Anyway, the themes of this chapter are fascinating as well. This paragraph encapsulates most of them:

“Cambronne’s reply produces the effect of a violent break. ’Tis like the breaking of a heart under a weight of scorn. ’Tis the overflow of agony bursting forth. Who conquered? Wellington? No! Had it not been for Blücher, he was lost. Was it Blücher? No! If Wellington had not begun, Blücher could not have finished. This Cambronne, this man spending his last hour, this unknown soldier, this infinitesimal of war, realizes that here is a falsehood, a falsehood in a catastrophe, and so doubly agonizing; and at the moment when his rage is bursting forth because of it, he is offered this mockery,—life! How could he restrain himself? Yonder are all the kings of Europe, the general’s flushed with victory, the Jupiter’s darting thunderbolts; they have a hundred thousand victorious soldiers, and back of the hundred thousand a million; their cannon stand with yawning mouths, the match is lighted; they grind down under their heels the Imperial guards, and the grand army; they have just crushed Napoleon, and only Cambronne remains,—only this earthworm is left to protest. He will protest. Then he seeks for the appropriate word as one seeks for a sword. His mouth froths, and the froth is the word. In face of this mean and mighty victory, in face of this victory which counts none victorious, this desperate soldier stands erect. He grants its overwhelming immensity, but he establishes its triviality; and he does more than spit upon it. Borne down by numbers, by superior force, by brute matter, he finds in his soul an expression: “Excrément!” We repeat it,—to use that word, to do thus, to invent such an expression, is to be the conqueror!”

Hugo aims to focus on the people over the famed generals, and here, he does so by asserting that even if there was no victor at Waterloo (”this victory which counts none victorious”), Cambronne was the “conqueror” for recognizing the horrible situation he’d been put in by these men, then expressing his frustration and mocking the whole thing in one word. “Life,” for him, is a “mockery;” while his life is in danger, kings sit in safety, generals command and have honors bestowed upon them, and the man he’s been told is “great” - Napoleon - has been defeated while he remains standing. Hugo compares the curse to a “sword,” underscoring its force, but it’s also notable that it isn’t automatically accompanied by violence on Cambronne’s part. Through its humor and anger, this swear rejects the system that has put Cambronne in this place; by not fighting at that moment (and thus participating in the system of battle) and instead expressing himself, Cambronne (at least in this instance) rejects these harmful systems. The “conqueror” at Waterloo, then, is the common man who spurns the systems oppressing him.

Hugo furthers this comparison by saying that this swear was not only divinely inspired, but channeled the French Revolution (”he hurls it at the past in the name of the Revolution. It is heard, and Cambronne is recognized as possessed by the ancient spirit of the Titans. Danton seems to be speaking! Kléber seems to be bellowing!”). The curse contains within it, then, a spirit of rebellion.

I also think Hugo’s thoughts on what this swear mean speak to why this book, even with a title like Les Misérables, isn’t actually sad overall? There are definitely moments of great sadness (Fantine’s death still hurts), but the booj contains two other key emotions: rage (at the systems that caused this suffering, leading to a desire for change) and, most importantly here, humor. Cambronne’s frustration led to the swear, but it’s also funny to read a full chapter justifying the use of this word. Similarly, many of the characters hold themselves together in the face of the cruelty and despair they witness through humor. We see this with the bishop, who, after losing many friends and relatives to the Revolution and then witnessing the poverty of those he aims to help, constantly mocks himself and the expectations for someone of his status. Even when the characters themselves are less prone to joking (like Valjean and Javert), Hugo either includes jokes in his narration or makes them comical through their absurdities (Valjean’s reverse robberies as mayor, Javert basically all the time). The events the book describes are tragic, but this humor offers hope.

This is a minor addition, but it’s also hilarious that Hugo has somehow made a Frenchman the conqueror of Waterloo. I can really see how someone would come out of reading this and think, “wow, this is great for the French government, one of France’s most notorious losses is now a victory!” without seeing all of the criticism of the political system woven into it.

#les mis letters #lm 2.1.15 #cambronne #waterloo

[a-libra-writes]

hello butterfly, I was wondering how roose bolton and/or tywin lannister (not poly) would react if a lover of S/O fell in love with her and tried to conquer and woo her at the cost even though they know of her marriage to him?

Take care of yourself, kisses.👄

this will be a quickie!!! because we know how these men are :^)

Roose watches this unfold with mild amusement. This is a very bold and stupid person to attempt to sway a Lady Bolton away - and it certainly makes for interesting gossip, doesn't it?

Regardless if you're close to Roose or not, he makes a game of it. If your suitor is speaking with you discreetly at a feast, Roose walks in just at the right moment, inquiring what you two could be speaking about. "How considerate of you to keep my wife company," He'll say, peering down at them with those colorlees eyes. He'll stand far closer than he usual does in public, holding your arm or touching the small of your back.

Sometimes Roose speaks a little louder than usual, earning interested and suspicious glances of those around. Who is that person? Why are they speaking to Lady Bolton so frankly?

It's important to have eyes on you, to keep the courtiers interested. It's harder to sneak around that way; though, obviously, he has servants in the Dreadfort that report back to him. It's just a matter of being patient, and waiting for his moment. Thoroughout this pitiful courtship he'll be increasingly more possessive in the bedroom, purposefully leaving marks that you'll struggle to cover up with your usual gowns and makeup. At least Northern fashion is predisposed to high collars...

What Roose does next depends on both your relationship with him, and the social status of this doomed suitor. If you're truly devoted to Roose and trying to discourage the suitor, they mysteriously wind up dead in an accident, far from you. If you aren't fond of Roose and/or kept entertaining the suitors, well ... if they're common, their body will end up on spikes in the Dreadfort for some fabricated crime. Roose won't even mention it. He'll wait for the fearful rumors and whispers to reach you, and let you discover it for yourself. For a highborn, the 'accident' will be far more bloody and he'll inform you of it directly.

And if this is during the War of the Five Kings, it is even easier to arrange a death on the battlefield, or 'expose' the suitor as a traitor.

Hopefully this person's demise will serve as a message, and this won't be repeated.

For Tywin, attempting to sway his wife that openly (as in, he figures it out and there's already rumors) is a fast-track to a sudden death. He does not tolerate infidelity of any kind, and he'll remind you of that fact. He sees it as an insult both to himself and his House. This is a prideful man we're speaking about... and no, it doesn't occur to Tywin that if you're indulging the suitor, it's because you're lonely or unhappy with him. Quite frankly, he doesn't care, or he'll take it as a grevious wound you caused on purpose.

This person will no longer be permitted in Casterly Rock. If this is in the Red Keep, it's even easier for Tywin to fabricate a reason. This "suitor" (Tywin won't even entertain that thought) will be swiftly shamed and possibly killed if highborn. If they're common? Dead. And Tywin won't say anything, you'll just note his temper has lessened.

If you're close to Tywin, his possessive and more passionate side will come out, regardless of your assurances that this person means nothing to you. You'll get many nightly reminders about how you're The Lady Lannister and you belong to him now. Eyes are constantly on the both of you, there can be no false rumors, doubly so if this is during the War of the Five Kings. If he doesn't do something about this, it'll be seen as absolute weakness.

#tywin lannister x reader #roose bolton x reader #libra headcanons

[kali-writes-meta]

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Blogpost #5 Episodes 17-19: The Cold War

The remainder of the first season is mostly taken up with two story arcs. In-story they deal with the theme of strengthening relationships, and tangentially refer to Valdora. Metaphorically they deal with events that happened in Japan in the 1950s, and tangentially refer to nuclear weapons. But there are big operational changes that happen in each story, so we'll take them one at a time. The first story is a Cold War analogy.

In some ways the Cold War was a disorienting time in Japan. The three major players, all superpowers, were China, the Soviet Union, and America. China formed Japan's western border across the sea, while the Soviet Union formed Japan's northern border, occupying what Japan considered it's northern territories, the Kuril Islands. America held large tracts of Japan's southern island of Okinawa. If overt hostilities had broken out between any two of the three Japan would have been crushed.

But this was the Cold War, and overt hostilities were a small part of the picture. Japan had previously fought and won wars with both China and Russia, and had lingering issues with those countries (Japan never signed a peace treaty with the Soviet Union because of the Kuril Islands.) During the Cold War Japan found itself relegated to a secondary status as China and the Soviet Union used it as a pawn in their jostling with America instead of dealing with Japan's own issues with them. (Which is largely why Japan never signed a peace treaty with the Soviet Union because of the Kuril Islands.) Japan found the tendency of the superpowers to overlook Japan's own legitimate concerns in favor of scoring points against each other -- annoying.

On to the story. Like almost every Cold War tale it has elements of the cups and ball trick, so keep your eye on the ball.

We start with Rimuru getting a progress report from Vesta the Tech Dwarf. Vesta is able to synthesize Rimuru's healing potions better than Dwargo's techies can. He wants to mass-produce and sell low-quality healing potions after working out a deal with Dwarf King. Dwarves would supply raw materials to be assembled in Rimuru Town's local factories. (This is similar to the arrangement Japanese factories formed internationally after Reconstruction. Japan is low in raw materials, but high in skilled workers. Japan became a leader in manufactured goods, starting with low-quality items and working their way up to high-quality items.) I am amused to note that Vesta has in his lab every early 20th century boy's favorite DIY project, a crystal radio kit, although this set apparently has a magic crystal. Either way, it's the first item we've seen of post-Industrial, even 20th Century tech. Rimuru starts thinking about a deal for Dwargo, presumably to be worked out over said radio.

Meanwhile back at the plot, everyone else wants to check out the new neighbors, including the two of the three Demon Lords we met with Milim (who promised neutrality) and at least two neighboring human kingdoms. Demon Lord Carrion sends a scouting party to claim the territory for himself. I feel doubly insulted on Milim's behalf. First, because Carrion went back on his word to her. Second, because he chose a scouting party not much more powerful than the human scouting parties with an idiot leader named Phobio who thinks he can personally conquer what both an Orc Army and Milim couldn't conquer. (Although since this is a Cold War story we can't be sure that Carrion didn't set Phobio up as a useful idiot.)

As a scout Phobio is a miserable failure. He should be quietly gathering intelligence to report back, and let his superiors decide what to do with the information. Instead he comes across an advanced town in the middle of nowhere whose inhabitants are powerful enough to hold off an Orc Army and tries to intimidate them into submission. It doesn't work. He disfigures Rigurd and Milim pounds him into submission. Rimuru catches up to them, heals Rigurd, and tries to punish Milim be denying her lunch. That doesn't work either. Milim is very much the 300 pound gorilla of Rimuru Town. She's going to do what she wants to do, and all anyone else can do is encourage her to want to cooperate.

Back at Rimuru's office Phobio refuses to believe what his eyes are telling him. He refuses to believe a slime is asking him questions or running the town. He belittles the monsters who serve Rimuru, and by extension Lady Milim for being a friend to a "lowly slime". Phobio doesn't know what to make of the fact that Lady Milim will obey a "lowly slime" even on little issues. Rimuru tells Phobio that his poor behavior could start a war for his boss with the forest alliance, but Phobio blows him off. He tells Rimuru that he's looking for potential recruits for Lord Carrion. Rimuru tells Phobio that Carrion can make an appointment if he wants to talk, but privately doubts Phobio will deliver the message.

Milim is quietly pissed at Carrion for breaking his word. Phobio is quietly pissed with Milim for humiliating him. He can't bring himself to take responsibility for his own foolishness or to blame a "lowly slime" for his comeuppance. Rimuru gets the details on the Demon Lords' original plan to create a puppet state in Jura from Milim in exchange for promising her a new weapon.

Remember those two human kingdoms who are investigating the goings-on in the Jura Forest? The nearest kingdom sends in the (less than stellar) Adventurer's Guild squad we've already met under the watchful eye of their boss. The kingdom further away sends a crackerjack mercenary team. On top of that Demon Lord Clayman sends in the clowns, aka a clown-based squad of "independent operatives" who coincidentally appear to only work for him.

Both human parties run into a very nasty monster, which doesn't last long after it runs into a very hungry Gobta. Everyone ends up at the Chancellor's table in Rimuru Town (including the monster, who is lunch). The humans are a bit freaked over the fighting, tech levels, the connections to the Dwarves they've seen, and that a slime is running the joint,. Rimuru is a bit freaked that tales about his prowess might attract the wrong kind of attention. He impulsively hires both groups of humans -- the mercs to pretend to be the heroes who took out the Orc Army, and the head of the Adventurer's Guild to train them to up to the point where they look somewhat convincing. Turns out the mercs have a few too many people mad at them back home, so they're eager for a chance to make a fresh start somewhere else, especially in a place where diverse peoples are working together in peace and harmony. It's a crazy plan that just might work -- at least until someone with two brain cells to rub together comes along to verify it, or gets access to Clayman's video of the battle.

Guild boss Fuze sets the mercs up with a fake reputation as heroes, and Rimuru offers to build a road to Fuze's kingdom of Blumund to facilitate trade, in exchange for a contact with marketing savvy to get them some international commerce going.

All the scouting parties have one thing in common. Their initial reaction is disbelief that a slime could be that powerful or that the town could have grown so strong so fast. This is similar to the reaction other countries had to Japan's rapid recovery after practically being bombed back to the Stone Age in WWII. Even with all the help, many observers thought it would take over a century for Japan to recover, not around a decade as they went through the fastest period of sustained progress in human history.

(This was hardly the first time the West found Japan confusing. My daughter the historian was once shown archival military footage of one of the first US landings on a Pacific island held by the Japanese. The American soldiers saw Japanese soldiers in the flesh for the first time, stopped in confusion and asked each other loudly enough for the microphones to catch it, "Why are those little guys firing at us?" At that time the cultural taboo that proper American men didn't beat up on "little guys" was so deeply ingrained they had trouble believing they were supposed to fight them.)

Turns out Clayman's hired clowns are the best scouts. They've been quietly taking notes the whole time. Their boss is intrigued. He also wants to know why Demon Lord Frey is the only one NOT breaking their promise to Milim, but Frey is apparently more concerned about the awakening of someone or something called "Charybdis". It's said to be a monster with the power to rival a Demon Lord, but in typical Cold War fashion all Clayman wants to know is if this great power can be turned into an asset.

That's all the cups on the table. Now watch the ball.

By nightfall Phobio has had time to -- well not calm down, but at least realize how badly he has messed things up. The townspeople have skills even his people lack. They would have made useful contacts, but he blew it. Instead of blaming himself for attacking the headman, he blames himself for not being able to take out the much more powerful Milim all on his lonesome. Either that or he blames Milim for being in the way. I'm not sure exactly which prejudice he's using to deflect the blame from himself to her, but he's got more than enough to do the job. He wants revenge on those who kicked his ass so he won't have to tell Lord Carrion about his failure. (Damn son, that amount of hubris always leads to a dirt bath.) Phobio is aware that he's not being rational, but he's not ready to man up and accept responsibility for his mistake.

And that foolishness makes him entirely too tempting to the fools.

The clowns reveal themselves and offer him the power of Charybdis, power to rival a Demon Lord -- if he isn't too cowardly to brave the associated risk. His squadron tries to talk him out of it, but the chance to reach Demon Lord level and take out the woman who humiliated him is too tempting. He resigns Carrion's service to devote himself to revenge. (Good grief, the lengths some young men will go to to avoid saying, "I screwed up.")

The clowns take their mark to the cave where Charybdis is sealed, and tell him that in order to control the beast he must allow it to posses his body. And suddenly we're in the middle of a 1950s Universal Pictures monster movie, complete with an idiot wanting more power than he can control. Turns out the clowns were planning to revive it by sacrificing a bunch of dragons to it, but the chance to use a sucker with more muscles than brains as a living sacrifice was too good to pass up.

The Dryads send word to Rimuru Town that Charybdis is coming, and suggest an air assault. Their rep explains that it's an incredibly powerful mindless monster capable of dying and being reborn, originally generated by a cloud of magic from the storm dragon Veldora -- okay, so not an Universal Pictures monster after all. This is Godzilla.

There's an ancient trope about the Mediterranean gods smiting humans in retaliation for them making too much progress, either from multiculturalism (the Tower of Babel) or the conquest of fire (Prometheus). It simmered away on the back burner of human consciousness until the Industrial Revolution, when progress hit the accelerator. Coal-hungry humans dug more and deeper mines than ever before, and found the fossils of huge dinosaurs. The trope mutated to become the myth of a primeval monster awakened from the deep to smite humanity for its progress, either from multiculturalism (Cthulhu) or the conquest of nuclear power (Godzilla). So which is Charybdis complaining about, multiculturalism or technology? Looking at all the diverse peoples working together in Rimuru Town I'm going with multiculturalism. We can't have folks living together in peace and harmony: it makes them so much harder to manipulate!

And this particular Godzilla brought his homies with him. The 13 excess dragon corpses have been repurposed to house evil flying armored shark spirits called Medalodons, just to make the day even more special.

Hearing that Charybdis is Veldora's spawn, Rimuru quietly panics, just as he panicked at the battle with the Dire Wolves. He frets that Charybdis knows what he did to Veldora and wants revenge. In his panic Rimuru breaks his battle pattern and makes a critical error. He assumes he knows why the monster is attacking, that it's after him, and he doesn't investigate to find out for sure as he's done with every other battle since the first one.

Milim offers to take care of the problem in no time, but the ogres persuade Rimuru that propriety insists that he, as the host, take the literal first stab at it. This arrangement hurts Milim's feelings, and doesn't please Rimuru either, but he can't afford to appear weak in front of his people or their new allies. Fuze finds his thinking very human, and Rimuru confesses to being a reincarnated human Otherworlder.

The next day in the forest outside town Charybdis and his Old School mates show up, doing a remarkable impression of a B-52 Stratofortress leading a support squadron of fighter planes. They square off against Rimuru and every fighter he could round up, including a battalion of Dwargo's flying knights. The battle goes as can be expected. The flying sharks are quickly but with a great deal of effort turned into sushi. Milim wants to play but gets benched. An all-out assault on Charybdis that lasts all day and takes out 30% of their forces barely makes a dent in the monster, and that damages quickly repairs itself. It doesn't look good for our side.

Finally an exhausted Rimuru does what he should have done in the first place. He stops assuming he knows what Charybdis wants and finds out for himself. Turns out his assumption was wrong. Charybdis, as powered by Phobio, is only interested in Milim. He could care less about Rimuru or the rest of them. Just like with superpowers, in the grand scheme of Demon Lord vs. Demon Lord contests, their little country is only a pawn.

So Rimuru explains the situation to Milim, asks her to take out Charybdis but spare Phobio for his intelligence and political value, and recalls every other fighter. One minute later, the battle ends with one blow from Milim. Had Rimuru checked his facts before starting the fight as he should have done, they could have all been home in time for brunch. That was poor leadership on his part.

Rimuru removes Charybdis from Phobio and isolates it for analysis. The Dwarf Captain wants to meet Rimuru's superweapon, but refuses to believe it's really Demon Lord Milim (we have a pattern here.)

Phobio wakes up contrite and tell them all he knows. Notes are compared, and people realize that clowns have been behind a lot of the trouble recently. Milim says she doesn't know anything about them, but suggests they may work for Clayman, who indulges in that sort of scheming.

Phobio offers his life in payment, gets forgiven, and Milim calls forth Demon Lord Carrion, who has been lurking in the shadows. Carrion physically reprimands Phobio, and tries to paint himself as a reliable neighbor they can come to for help. Rimuru presses him for a non-aggression pact. Carrion agrees -- as the Lord of his kingdom, but NOT as a Demon Lord. How much wriggle room this grants him remains to be seen.

And where does that leave Rimuru? With a lot more foreign officials having met him, including a few potential allies. As for Carrion and Clayman, I'm tempted to say that the more bestial Carrion is a stand-in for Russia/the Soviet Union, while the scheming Clayman subs for China, but I don't know enough to say for sure. I definitely trust Carrion about as far as I could throw Charybdis.

That's as much Cold War skullduggery as most people can take. Next story we visit Japan's entry for the Cold War's greatest tragedy.

#anime #rimuru tempest #that time i got reincarnated as a slime #tensura #tensei shitara slime datta ken

[otomes-world]

Love Letter (Rook ver.)

@chikas-posts​ said: Is it okay if you write a love letter that is from Rook Hunt,please 🥺 also I’ve already missed you so much ever since you take your break Ten Shi.

Thank you! You give me more chances to write about Rook~ Also you can call me Tenshi if you want, it`s much easier  ( ˙▿˙ )

Rook was a true hunter in every sense of the word. Running through the woods with a bow  is the meaning of his life. However, winning someone else’s heart is no less fun. After all, Hunt was also the self-proclaimed Chasseur d'amour (Love Hunter).

A visitor from another world who was promoted to Prefect on the day of enrollment, became a celebrity whose fame momentarily eclipsed Schoenheit’s popularity. However, the blonde, who has always been known for his mysterious, had enough of that.

Only a ridiculous dilettante will immediately attack the prey, because the vice-leader of Pomefiore, guided by his habits, began to observe the subject of adoration in the wings.

One omission - Roi de Leon, whose instincts were on a completely different level, after the overblot story began to appear more often in the prefect’s company. True, this didn`t upset the hunter in the least, but rather inflamed. Find a good rival, how to find a diamond in the mud, and Hunt wouldn’t be himself if he missed the opportunity to compete with one of his idols.

Kingscholar didn`t like to be indebted to anyone, therefore, noticing that the irrepressible blond turned his attention, he tried in his manner to warn one herbivore. However, no one likes rumors, so although Leona scared off most of the insects by his presence, the lion could not constantly be in the prefect’s company, and wasn`t going to. Rook understood this too, so he should only wait for a suitable opportunity to reveal his cards and deliver the decisive blow.

Once in this world, every now and then you were drawn into various events, pleasant and not. Studying at a magic school, or college, although you didn`t have a talent for magic. But who cares, though, and the kind director in the first place? Endless skirmishes between the duo Adeuce and a separate story with overblots.

It seemed to you that nothing would surprise you in this life, until an arrow flew a millimeter from your face, which with a characteristic sound stuck into the ground. Moving your frightened gaze down, you notice that a letter was tied to the arrow.

*** Ma fleur fragile (My fragile flower),

From the very first day when the magic mirror placed you in the Onboro Dorm, my gaze was fixed on you. You are the most perfect being that I have ever seen in my life.

I swear by my faithful bow and arrow on the sincerity of my intentions and eternal loyalty. Je t'aime de tout mon coeur (I love you with all my heart). Believe it or not, in any case, I am sure that I can play a charming symphony on the strings of your soul, which will conquer all life in this world.

Our union with you was formed by heaven itself! Angels will sing praises at our wedding, no, we will do it ourselves. Let’s sing our love to the whole world! There will be no one left who will doubt that we are meant for each other.

S'il y a un tel idiot, je vais personnellement le dissuader de son contraire. (If there is such a fool, I personally will dissuade him).

Fighting for your hand with Roi de Leon is all I could have dreamed of! It is almost impossible to find a good opponent, so we can say that the humble hunter is doubly lucky! The king of beasts himself challenged me, and the embodiment of the ideal will soon vow eternal love and loyalty. Spending with you the rest of eternity... I will looking forward to this day, Ma fleur fragile.

Absolutely yours, Rook Hunt

***

Having read the last line, you turn around abruptly, hearing approaching footsteps, but you don’t have time to see who exactly was behind you. It darkens in the eyes earlier.

#tw #twst #Twisted wonderland #yandere twisted wonderland #Twisted Wonderland x reader #twst rook #twst rook hunt #yandere rook hunt #twst oneshot #twst fic #i do it!!!!!!! #leona kingscholar #Pomefiore #rook x reader #yandere rook x reader #yandere rook x mc #love letter

[dwellordream]

On the other side of Daenerys IV, we get a ton more info on the Dothraki now that Dany and company have reached Vaes Dothrak, a strange city with no walls and no buildings. Viserys was riding in the carts, a source of shame according to Dothraki culture, as almost everyone is expected to stay on horseback until they physically cannot sit up in a saddle anymore, due to age, childbirth, injury, etc. However, Dany went to bat for him, and managed to convince Drogo to let Viserys get a new horse and ride in the front of the column once again.

The Dothraki are proud of whatever wealth they plunder, and display statues and figurines from other cultures and cities they have either raided or been paid tribute by. Viserys keeps shitting on the Dothraki, like a significant portion of the fandom, who I guess missed the memo that Viserys’ attitude of ‘See, the savages lack the wit to understand the speech of civilized men.’ is not really one to emulate. They are at Vaes Dothrak so that Dany can be presented to the dosh khaleen, the honored elderly women of the Dothraki, who are expected to make a prophecy about her pregnancy. Despite the Dothraki’s fearsome reputation, traders come from all over to sell their wares in their city, judging it safe enough so long as they pay their taxes, presumably. Jorah explains to Dany that the Dothraki do not view trade the same way as Westerosi do, and that Khal Drogo feels no pressure to immediately ‘repay’ Viserys for Daenerys, viewing her as a ‘gift’ instead, one he will reciprocate eventually. Dany tries to defend Viserys but admits to herself she doesn’t even know why she’s bothering to. She asks Jorah seriously if the Dothraki could conquer Westeros under strong leadership, and he admits that the Dothraki are better riders and bowmen, and that Drogo has forty thousand men, as much as Rhaegar had at the Trident fighting for him. At the same time, he does not think the Dothraki could or would have any desire to siege castles. Dany asks directly about Robert’s personality, and Jorah tells her that Robert is strong and brave, not one to hide behind castle walls, while expressing his hatred for Ned, who he blames for his exile, describing his slave-trading as “a few lice-ridden poachers” and believing that Ned went after him for his own honor, not out of a sense of justice. The Dothraki do not build their own homes, and so all the manses and halls look different because they were built by varying groups of slaves, some made of stone, others of grass, others of wood, marble, or logs. Vaes Dothrak is not the permanent home of any of the Dothraki save for the dosh khaleen, we learn, since the khalasars prefer to be on the move, never all ‘home’ at once. Blades are forbidden here in order to show that the Dothraki are all one blood and a united group within Vaes Dothrak, even though they regularly do war with and enslave one another outside it. Dany does not like Drogo’s bloodriders, judging them to mostly be cruel, especially to Irri, Jhiqui, and Doreah, who are regularly abused by them. Still, she acknowledges they would die for Drogo and could never be convinced to betray him, unlike her father’s Kingsguard. She also seems to believe that her son by Drogo will be Viserys’ heir, assuming Viserys himself never marries. Dany is on more amiable terms with Drogo now, referring to him as her ‘sun-and-stars’, though she herself seems unclear on how much this is feigned to get him to treat her more gently, and how much of it is genuine affection on her part, since Drogo is still demanding sex from her regularly, despite her exhaustion from her pregnancy, which is probably doubly hard on her body due to her still being in the middle of puberty. Daenerys decides to invite Viserys to dine with her so she can give him the gifts she’s thoughtfully picked out for him, deciding she should help him adjust better to Dothraki culture, and hoping he will let go of his grudge against her for taking his horse from him after he attacked her in the grass. Predictably, Viserys blows up again at this, hitting Doreah and lashing out at Dany yet again. Daenerys tries to calm him by clarifying that she didn’t mean to order him to dine with her, only invite, but Viserys hates her gifts and threatens her, grabbing her by the arm. Dany is terrified, then reflexively swings the belt at him, summoning up her anger and telling him to get out. Viserys warns her she will pay when he is crowned, but leaves, bleeding. Despite this moment of triumph, Dany feels no satisfaction about this, and sits with her dragon eggs instead of eating dinner, giving her dinner to Jhiqui, Irri, Doreah, and Jorah instead. She’s overjoyed when she feels the fetus move for the first time inside her, and falls asleep dreaming of ‘home’, whether that is still the house in Braavos, or Westeros.

#daenerys targaryen #a game of thrones #asoiaf reread

[spell-cleaver]

Swords & Starflower, Day 17

DAY 17: ANGSTOBER: Smoke @angstober​

DAY 17: FLUFFTOBER: Always @flufftober​

Okay so this is not very fluffy at all in any sense of the word but I was running out of time so I used the fluff prompt and called it a day.

Swords and Starflowers AU

⚔💮⚔

Vader climbed breathlessly, bitterly, out of the makeshift tent he was staying in overnight and peering up at the sky again. It was overcast, but he could still clearly see the smoke rising from the burning Death Star base, nicknamed for a cruel figure in the Alderaanian constellations. He ground his teeth when he saw it, but just clenched his jaw and dragged himself further to his feet.

He would kill that rat.

The Death Star, admittedly, had not been his to command. It had been insulting that his Lord Father, his Emperor, had given control of the most imperative military offensive they were running to Tarkin, of all people, rather than his loyal apprentice. It had been doubly insulting when Palpatine had assigned him to serve under Tarkin, to protect the base that would assure the conquering of Alderaan. The Governor, while effective in his control of Eriadu, and how he had obliterated the Rebels operating there, was arrogant, uptight; he could respect his policies but he could not respect the way he treated Vader, the highest lord in the Empire, like some attack dog—

But now he was dead.

The Death Star base had burned. The Alderaanian soldiers—volunteers, mercenaries, since they were hardly a military worthy nation; that made it all the more insulting—had driven out the Imperial forces to beyond the mountains, re-establishing old, old mountain guards that had held the Empire at bay for fifteen years already.

Tarkin had broken through the blockade they held around their kingdom once.

Once.

He had built the fort immediately. Used it to coordinate attacks against the Alderaanian locals, farmers, low-level lords…

It had taken a month before he was threatening the capital.

It had taken a month before the base had finally been swatted.

After fifteen years, that pompous fool had cost them that front in the war—

No.

Tarkin was a fool. That much was true. Vader had frequently advised him against his reckless actions, against letting that impertinent princess escape so she could lead her forces into a final battle again them to be destroyed, once and for all. The gleaming spires of the city of Aldera had been visible on the horizon, from horseback, for a few precious days.

That had been a bloody battle. A brutal battle. But they were winning.

And then some insignificant, half-trained runt and wretch of a mage had snuck into the Death Star base, sabotaged the sewage system and filled it with gunpowder. Then he had set it all alight.

That was the worst part: that rat had been a mage. A powerful mage, if the misdirection spells he’d been casting to keep Vader from sensing his presence were so effective. He was powerful enough to have cloaked himself and his compatriots, to have got them inside the walls, to have laid the trap and to have escaped with his life.

But when he had destroyed that base, it was not with magic.

It was just with plain, ordinary fire.

Vader knew fire. He knew what it was to be trapped in a burning building—though admittedly not a half-exploding building—with what seemed like no way out. He was particularly irritated that some of the burns he’d sustained had caused old injuries to flare up again like this.

He did not appreciate this reminder.

He growled as he limped through the camp of survivors, glaring at any of the men already awake. In the watery grey dawn they were utterly still, boneless; they were afraid of him, but the fight in them had been blown to kingdom come along with Tarkin. They feared Vader, but they loathed and despised him too.

This was always the way. Always.

Vader was rebuffed by his father, made clear after he’d lost the duel to Obi-Wan and lost his wife and child that Palpatine had use for him only as an apprentice, now; he was no longer welcome to wear the sigil of the chimaera. He was subordinate to Tarkin, feared and scorned in equal measure. He was the demon of the Empire, the monster, the villain.

So be it. He didn’t care.

And he didn’t care that his leg was in agony as he dragged it through mud to get to his horse so he could pull out fresh supplies from the pack. His leg felt like it was on fire—it was. Vader was trapped in that manor for the rest of his life; he would always be burning. Always remember the way Padmé had looked at him, at the end, when she’d said she was leaving him, and taking their child with—

It was a wonder his teeth weren’t already dust with how hard he was grinding them.

But no matter. This was a minor setback, and did not affect Vader at all. Except for one thing:

He had a new enemy.

An old enemy, too: he knew that Obi-Wan was one of the mages working with Alderaan’s leaders in rebelling. That was why he had been so intent on breaking through, why he had served Tarkin so dutifully even if he hated the man. If there was nothing else meaningful that he could do with his wretched life it was this: find, and slaughter, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

That man had taken everything from him.

It was time that Vader returned the favour.

And there was someone else involved in that now, because…

He would start slow. Obi-Wan had a new apprentice, it seemed: that boy in the Death Star. He was a powerful child, and he reeked of Jedi influence; it must be Kenobi.

He would find that boy. He would scour the continent for him just so he could tear him apart piece by piece, enact his revenge on the boy who had destroyed so much, had escaped against odds, had usurped him as that man’s apprentice, and—most importantly—held him back from his ultimate revenge.

The boy would die. Perhaps he would be captured, tortured, and then he would die, in front of Kenobi’s very eyes. There would be no safe place he could hide, no haven for the Rebel scum, no one left to mourn him when he was finished.

When the final blow came—for the master and the boy—nothing would stay his hand.

Nothing.

As he limped back into camp, the sun rising proper, destiny’s blade carved a line in the fates. But Vader was too blind and deaf to notice.

#darth vader #for darkness shows the stars #my writing #random words on a page #swords and starflowers #flash fiction #flash fiction: star wars #angstober #angstober2020

[crackinglamb]

Afraid

From this prompt list.

Read it here on AO3. ~1500 words, rated T.

Summary: La’vise isn’t afraid of the big, bad wolf.

---

La'vise rolled the amulet back and forth in her hands, looking over the etchings on its surface, the stylized wolf head and marks of hard wear along the edges.  She had conquered a fear without realizing it until this moment and it was somewhat bemusing.

“Copper for your thoughts?” Varric asked across the fire, watching her.  They were settled into camp, a good hot meal in their bellies, their armor tended to, the long day done.  

“I was always afraid of wolves, you know,” she said, still looking at the amulet.

“Any particular reason why, other than the obvious slavering and rending teeth reason?” Varric rejoined with a bit of a laugh.  She smiled at the description before rubbing her thumb across the carved wolf's head.  

It was hard to tell just how old the amulet was, but it appeared to be quite.  Its power was diminished, but still present.  Once she'd put it on, none of the remaining wolves had attacked her.  She knew she would keep it.  Even if it was just as a thread of a connection to her roots. The way the head was carved was too reminiscent of the old statue her clan used.  It was like carrying a piece of home with her.

“The Dalish are taught to be wary.  Because of the Dread Wolf.”  From the corner of her eye she saw Solas turn his head slightly from his journal.  He was listening, but didn't appear to be ready to interrupt with another one of his caustic opinions of the Dalish for once.  “Never let him catch your scent, never let him hear your footsteps.”

“Ahh, yeah, I know a bit of those legends.  Daisy used to tell us stories.”

“Daisy?”

“Merrill.  She was from a Dalish clan.”

“Sabrae?  I know of Merrill.”

“No shit?”

“Yes.  I was a child the last time I saw her.  The last Arlathvan she attended.  I must have been...oh, seven or eight.  She wasn't at the one a few years ago.”  She huffed.  “No surprise, there.  There isn't a Clan Sabrae left now.”

“So, tell me why you're bringing this up now?”

“Those wolves we fought, for the horsemaster's wife.  They weren't...I wasn't afraid of them.”

“Why not?” Cassandra entered into the conversation.

“I'm not sure, really.  Maybe because I'm older.  Or maybe because at this point I've seen far greater terrors than some legend from before the Dales fell.  Even if I can't remember the details.”

“You do not fear that he is real?” Solas asked, drawing her attention away from the amulet to his face.  There was something there, some dark hidden emotion in his eyes made more obscured by the firelight.  Then it was gone, and she wasn't sure she hadn't just imagined it.

“The Creators have never heeded the Dalish's prayers.  Why should Fen'Harel be any different?” she scoffed.

“And that necessarily means none of them exist, da'len?  Those that follow the Andrastian faith have no proof of the Maker, but that does not mean he is not out there, somewhere.”

La'vise made a face at him, equal parts exasperation and ridicule.  “Really, Solas, is that the best argument you can come up with?  The last few months have shown us all that we don't know half of what we think we do of this world.  I'm willing to bet that all our religions are wrong. Surely no hand of the Maker, nor work of the Creators, would bring this chaos upon Thedas.  Hahren.”

“A fair point,” he agreed with a tilt of his head.  “There are certainly more mysteries on this earth than answers.”

“I mean, by that logic, one might even accuse the Dread Wolf of being behind the Breach,” she said lightly.  She wasn't really expecting him to agree, it was fairly preposterous when she thought about it.  But she certainly wasn't expecting the startled laughter that came out high pitched and was abruptly cut off before it got too loud.  He shook his head and went back to his journal.

“If what Daisy said is true,” Varric said before she could examine Solas's reaction, “I wouldn't be a bit surprised.  Sounds like his thing.”

“I am unfamiliar with these legends,” Cassandra said.  “Who is the Dread Wolf?”

“The great Betrayer,” La'vise answered before Solas could so much as open his mouth.  “He locked away the Creators in the Fade, cutting the Dalish off from our gods.  No one knows why, whether it was pure malice, jealousy or just because he is known to be a trickster.  He is...”

“Reviled, I believe is the word you are looking for,” Solas said dryly.

“No.  Not reviled.  We have respect for him among the pantheon, just as we have respect for Elgar'nan's fire and Dirthamen's secrets.  But it's true that we have no great love for him.  His is a figure of terrible deeds, and many of our curses invoke his name because of it.”  She shrugged.  “It doesn't matter.  He's probably about as real as any other supposed deity.”

“Perhaps,” Solas said dismissively.  He closed his journal as the light faded, leaving only the fire for them to see each other by.  He stood and stretched and wandered away from the camp, as he often did in the evenings.  She had yet to ask him what he did when he left, why he always walked for an hour or two before settling down to sleep.

“Well, Wolfs-bane, I'm glad to see you aren't afraid of them anymore.  It makes one of us.”  He poked the fire around a little bit more and stood up, brushing off his backside.  “I'm gonna turn in.  It was a long day and some of us were much more up close and personal with dread beasts than others.”

“Goodnight, Varric,” she laughed.

Cassandra watched him go and shook her head for a moment.  Then she came and sat down with La'vise at the fire.  “He is going to keep calling you that now, you realize.”

“Probably.  It's all right.  It beats anything he might choose.”

“I suppose I had not thought much of your heritage and how it differs.  I have not known many Dalish.”

“We don't travel much through Nevarra, I would guess.”

“No.  Your clan, they are in the Free Marches, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“You do not speak of it often.”

“No, I suppose I don't.  I don't know how my Keeper would feel about me being the Herald of another religion.”

“Is that why you will not say whether or not you believe Andraste saved you in the Fade?”

“There's that, and honestly?  I don't know who the woman was.  It's too...bright.”

“I must remind myself that you have a history all your own.  That you have your own beliefs and that I should not force mine upon you.  This was a good reminder.  I won't forget again.”

Cassandra stood and squeezed La'vise's shoulder before disappearing into the tent they would share.  La'vise put another log onto the fire to catch and climbed the rock that formed one of the boundaries of this little camp, well within sight of Dennet's farm as well as the road that led back toward Redcliffe.  From there she could see Solas.  He looked like he was casting.

She waited until he began to come back before she uncurled from her compact position and he could see her in the dark.  “What were you doing?”

“Placing wards, as I do each night.”

“Is that what you do when you wander off?  You could have just said something.”

His mouth ticked up on one side, a half smile.  “It is not something I wished you to be concerned about.”

In another, that might have sounded insulting, but she thought she understood.  There was no peace to be had, here or anywhere else in the Hinterlands.  It was a small gesture and quite possibly eased the burden on the Inquisition soldiers who stood guard over her while she slept.  And he didn't like drawing too much attention to himself.  She grinned at him.

“Will they keep Fen'Harel away?” she joked.

Solas offered her a hand to get down from the rock and chuckled.  It sounded a little forced but warmed to genuine by the time her feet hit the ground.  “I rather doubt anything anyone could do would keep him at bay if he did not wish to be, da'len.”

She held up the amulet and grinned again.  “I guess I should be glad I'm doubly protected, then.”

“Ma nuvenin,” he replied with a small smile.  If his eyes glittered in the darkness, it was only because of the way the firelight was hitting him, she was sure.  She let go of his hand and banked the fire, made sure the guards were posted and finally turned back to him where he still stood at the edges of camp.

“I'm going to bed.  Don't stay up too late.”

“Of course not, Herald.  On era'vun.”

“On era'vun, Solas.”

#Lamb writes #dragon age inquisition #solavellan #series tag Just Like Fire #the Dread Wolf gets some irony thrown at his head by Dalish lore

[saipng]

Love Conquers All

Fandom: Good Omens

Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley

Rating: E

Word Count: 8661

"You can stay at my place, if you like."

Aziraphale and Crowley spend the night after the Apocalypse-That-Never-Was at the demon's flat. It's all quite well and lovely.

According to a meticulous and accurate research conducted by a group of unnamed and unimportant scientists, a typical human being generally has three possible responses to the onset of an inevitable Apocalypse.

The first one is spending the rest of their quite limited time with their loved ones - a fairly common, if boring answer. Second, doing something they’d never done before but always told themselves they would, one day, perhaps when they’ve got the time, or the weather was just right. And third one - getting drunk. There were statistical outliers, of course, there always were in these kinds of research, but ultimately the third option proved to be the most popular response by a long stretch.

Therefore, it was safe to draw the conclusion that in the event of a hypothetical Apocalypse people here and there all around the globe would, as they say, “party like there is no tomorrow”.

Because, indeed, there wouldn’t be.

It just so happened that the inevitable Apocalypse proved to be quite evitable, and the moment Adam Young decided that he did not want to be rid of this world quite yet, the tension that was sizzling in the very atoms of all creation had dissipated. Things have returned to normal, as normal as they could have possibly been and always were for humanity.

The planet resumed its course, leaving its many residents in blind wonder at what in Heaven’s or Hell’s name had transpired in the last couple of days of their existence.

(News networks will inevitably call it mass hysteria. Conspiracy channels will rightly call it the End Times, though those people who listen to the News would only scoff and roll their eyes.)

Aziraphale and Crowley did not have the luxury of ignorance. They were there, in the corporeal flesh, at the very epicenter of Armageddon, watching the fabric of reality tear apart at the seams as four children faced off against Four Horsemen, nuclear weapons were preparing to launch all around the world, and the ground cracked under their feet to reveal Satan incarnate.

Frankly speaking, a bottle of wine to share was the least they could allow themselves to indulge in after all that.

“Oh. There it is,”- Aziraphale murmured, watching as their ride home slowly traversed the quiet streets of exhausted Tadfield.

They were sitting on a weary bench at the far end of the town, having said their awkward goodbyes to all the odd humans they’ve met in their race against the End Times, being more than certain that future would bring them together yet again.

They now had a future to look forward to, after all.

The angel furrowed his brows.

“It says “Oxford” on the front.”

“Yeah, but he’ll drive to London anyway,”- The demon sniffed, taking a sip from the bottle, - “He just won’t know why.”

The air around them hung unnaturally still, deafeningly quiet even with the gentle whirr of the bus engine. Tadfield never was a particularly bustling village, per se, but after last week tonight was like the ringing after an explosion had finely tuned down.

Aziraphale looked down at his hands.  

“I suppose I should get him to drop me off at the bookshop,”- He declared, not exactly sure of why he even bothered declaring it. He wasn’t exactly sure of quite a number of things these days, actually.

The silence stretched on between them, Crowley pursing his lips, eyebrows knitted together in worry.

He swallowed hard.

“It burned down, remember?”

Aziraphale blinked.

Ah. Of course.

There were, admittedly, a few things going on today, but he still felt quite foolish forgetting this one prominent detail.

It burned down.

Indeed.

“…You can stay at my place, if you like.”

At that, the angel snapped his head towards the other being.

Crowley’s voice was soft, bordering on a whisper, and was it not for the silence of the night Aziraphale would have missed it entirely.

Something heavy settled in his stomach just then - something so desperately familiar.

Something desperately frightening.

“I don’t- I don’t think my side would like that,”- He stammered out as a last resort.

Resort against what, again, he wasn’t exactly sure.

“You don’t have a side anymore. Neither of us do,”- The demon assured him, soft, so eternally soft, that Aziraphale couldn’t help the breath that got caught in his chest. A breath that he hardly needed, -“We’re on our side.”

The lone bus neared, its lights disturbing the perfect darkness of the night. Crowley raised his hand to catch its attention.

“Like Agnes said, we’ll have to choose our faces wisely.”

The ride to London was long, longer than it had any right to be and then some.

Neither of them complained.

It was enough, for the time being, to move along through the English roads in silence, the creaking of the well-worn seats and the occasional yawn of the tired driver merging into a sort of an odd ballad sung in honor of the End that never was.

There was something mesmerizing about the shine of the street lights, the glint of the moon, the imposing structure of the corporate buildings, as though being trapped inside of a realistically abstract painting.

The World was as infinitely beautiful as it was mundane.

Crowley silently passed their bottle of wine on to Aziraphale, who took it without a word. Neither missed the significance of them sitting side by side on this empty old bus, lowering their inhibitions by drinking thrice the amount a regular human would be able to intake. Neither made a comment about it.

Aziraphale shifted closer.

They got out several blocks too early, and while the angel was certain it was because they were well beyond intoxicated to remember where they were going, Crowley insisted he just wanted to take a walk and ‘admire the magnificent sights created by human ingenuity, which were nearly annihilated in the impeding world-ending catastrophe’.

In not as many words, of course.

They sauntered around dimly lit streets, yellow and orange under flickering lights, gentle late August breeze wafting the smells of the night through the air – those of exotic foods and stale alcohol, of expensive perfume, of gasoline, and of rain that just recently passed. Crowley revealed yet another bottle from underneath his jacket. Aziraphale couldn’t say he wasn’t glad to have it.

Their walk back to the demon’s flat wasn’t necessarily a long one, but it was all too tempting to take detours to stare at a particularly old bookshop or look inside a floristry to assess their selection of succulents. Both of them enjoyed narrow side streets - there were more secrets to be found where no one would normally look, more little quirks of humanity to discover in between commercial buildings.

Crowley lived on the other side of Westminster Bridge, past the river bank of Waterloo, normally filled to the brim with tourists taking in the sights and non-tourists rushing through while grumbling about the tourists. Right now, though, it was completely empty, miraculously so, save for a few stray creatures of the night.

Aziraphale stared at the ground, deep in thought. The air was still, the commotion of the city a ways behind them. The only sounds accompanying their walk were the resolute clicking of Crowley’s Oxfords on the hard concrete pavement, and the quiet swishing of the leftover wine in the bottle. The angel blinked to focus his bleary vision, finally lifting his eyes to meet their reflection in the tinted sunglasses.

“The- The sound of footsteps,”- He nodded, taking a satisfied sip, -“I’d miss it. If the- What’s it called- Apoco- Alpaca- If it ended. The world. I’d miss. Footsteps.”

Crowley hummed, tilting his head in what appeared to be a questioning manner.

“Think- No, really, think about it. There’re no shoes in Heaven. Or- or in Hell. None. Not even, not even socks. There’s hardly any, any ground at all Up There.”

He pointed up, and Crowley instinctively looked. “Huh.”

“So that’s- That’s what I’d miss. If. End. Your turn, dear.”

Crowley furrowed his eyebrows, concentrating doubly hard after that speech. He reached for the bottle in Aziraphale’s hand, taking a large gulp. Thought harder.

He focused on the angel’s loafers and the soft, barely audible sound they gave off as he padded along. He decided he quite liked it. Took another sip.

“Mm, drinkin’,”- He finally mustered, taking yet another swig and finishing off the bottle. It disappeared from his hand immediately after, -“‘d miss that.”

“Now, now,”- Aziraphale shook his head, wagging a finger for emphasis, -“That’s chant- cheating, Crowley. Everyone would miss drinking. Be more creative.”

“But ‘d bloody miss it,”- Crowley persisted, scrunching up his nose in disdain, -“They don’ have booze like this Down There.”

“Up There they don’t have any at all.”

“Oh. Ouch,”- The demon winced, just as Aziraphale stepped into a pothole, stumbling forward in the most ungraceful manner. Crowley threw an arm around his shoulders, surprising even himself with his dexterity in spite of all the alcohol, and Aziraphale took a hold around the other’s waist to steady himself.

“Ah. Exc-Excuse- Um, thank you.”

Crowley tightened the hand around his shoulders.

“I’d miss drinkin’ with you.”

Aziraphale raised his infinitely wide blue eyes to stare, blinking in surprise, before offering the most brilliant smile that would put the sun itself to shame.

“Likewise, dear boy. Likewise.”

They continued on, leaning heavily against one another, dragging along their all too heavy feet. A comfortable silence settled in, and Crowley kept counting windows on the passing houses because that suddenly seemed like the most important task in the world. He kept forgetting what number came after four.

And windows really were incredible, weren’t they? Houses in general were quite the invention. Not to mention street benches and fences. Trees weren’t exactly an invention, but he was glad to see them planted alongside the road anyway. A perfect balance of urban and natural.

He threw his head up to the sky, watching as the last of grey clouds gave way to surprisingly bright stars, shining on through air pollution and city lights. Really, so much creativity and beauty could have been erased within moments. And how come he’s never noticed how the sky at night was not entirely black but rather a soft gradient of blues and purples? Or how the street lights elongated weirdly when you squinted your eyes and looked at them at different angles? Or how warm and soft Aziraphale’s hand felt on his hip?

The world was so different at night, so precious. Other creatures had to realize it too, as one jumped from a low window sill and padded across the road to settle on an empty bench.

Crowley stared at the cat that began to groom itself, an almost manic smile spreading across his face.

“Cats!”- He exclaimed, triumphant, -“‘d miss those. Miss those quite bit. I like cats.”

He really did. They had a mind of their own, those creatures. He could respect that.

Aziraphale stared at him like he had no clue what was going on - indeed, he forgot about the game they were playing in favor of watching the far off lights glint off of the still waters of the Thames.

“Hey, Azera- Aphaz-,”- The demon concentrated, forcing his brain to say it right, -“Hey, Aziraphale.”

He always made the effort to say it right.

“What you say we get a cat of our own, mm? A lil’ creature might be nice.”

Aziraphale blinked in thought, -“Cat, you say?”

It just so happened he quite liked cats too. They were graceful. Elegant. And they knew how to clean themselves. Even the prospect of shedding fur didn’t distract Aziraphale from their pristine.

“Mm, yeah, ‘was just thinkin’,”- Crowley continued, waving his free arm around way too much, -“‘d have it one week, you’d have it the other. That way it won’t turn too good or too evil-“

“We’d be its Godfathers.”

“Yeah, exactly,”- The demon laughed, shaking his head, -“Firs’ time kinda failed.”

“I think we’ve done a marvo- a bloody good job with ol’ Warlock.”

“We’re great.”

“We are.”

“Should check up on him sometime.”

“Mhm.” Aziraphale readjusted his grip on Crowley’s side, moving his long fingers to rest under his jacket as they made their way onto the desolate bridge.

“We- We could name her Cerberus,”- Said Crowley, his voice cracking uncharacteristically.

“Pardon?”

“The creature. Cat. We can call her Cerberus.”

Aziraphale looked, for a lack of a better word, scandalized. “No. Absolutely not- No way in Heaven, I say!”

“You never appreciated my sense of humor.”

“It’s hardly amusing- it’s vile.”

“Well, what’s your suggestion then?”- Crowley leveled him with a cold stare.

The angel flustered, dragging his eyes away. “Oh, erm- Well, I haven’t… Whiskers, perhaps?”

“An’ you said I wasn’t creative.”

“Well, pardon me for-“- Aziraphale interrupted himself halfway through, mouth hanging agape as he gawked out towards the Thames. And before Crowley could register what happened, he was being dragged along by an overtly enthusiastic angel, the sky and ground mixing into a colorful kaleidoscope of drunken haze.

“My word, Crowley, would you look at that view! Those lights!”- Aziraphale shouted, surging forward across the street to the other side. Crowley felt sick.

It was his turn to stumble, then, as he tripped over the curb which separated the sidewalk from the road (and was placed there, he suspected, to spite him specifically). The hard metal fence bore into his back as he turned to break his fall, Aziraphale stumbling in right after and landing square onto the demon’s chest.

Crowley shut his eyes to keep the world from spinning.

“It truly is remarc- bloody pretty, that’s what it is!”

It took a few steady breaths that he didn’t actually need before Crowley could open his eyes again – and he couldn’t help but stare.

“Yeah. Yeah ‘s beautiful.”

Aziraphale turned to look at him, shaking his head. “No, no, Crowley- You’re not looking! The view- The lights!”

Crowley blinked lazily behind his sunglasses, continuing to stare at Aziraphale’s face, his soft golden curls practically surrounded in a shining halo of stars. “’m lookin’ at the brightest light of all, angel.”

“How can you be looking if it’s behind- Oh.”

They stared at each other in silence for a long moment, Crowley brought up his hand to the angel’s face, gingerly stroking a thumb under his bottom lip.

“Are you trying to tempt me, demon?”

He barked out a laugh.

“Who, me? Can’t imagine.”

Aziraphale smiled, pulling back, letting his fingers brush against Crowley’s chest. “Come now. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I believe we’ve got a bottle of bourbon waiting for us at your place?”

It just so happened that his place was suddenly that much closer than it should have been. The London Eye’s lights shimmered brilliantly behind them, but Crowley wouldn’t see that. He hardly bothered turning back.

Crowley’s flat was about as luxurious as it got, located on the twentieth floor with a view to the House of Parliament. Not that a demon necessarily needed a flat, but he did like to indulge in finer things humanity came up with.

Plus, it provided a place for his plants.

“Say, Crowley, what is it that you do again?”- Aziraphale asked as they were making their way up in the fully-mirrored elevator. Crowley quirked an eyebrow.

“Torture lost souls for all eternity?”

“No, I meant, here. In the human world-“

Before the demon could interject with another half-witted jab about his wicked activities, Aziraphale quickly continued.

“What is your profession?”

“My p- Profession?”

“I mean, you’ve got- You’ve got a flat in the middle of London! You drive a Bentley- Er, well, used to- Wh-What I mean to say is, don’t people ever worry- wonder where you’ve got the money from?”

“You know as well as I do where I get the ‘money’ from,”- The demon scoffed, feeling all that much more sober already, -“Where do you get your money from?”

“At least I run a legitimate business-“- Aziraphale protested as he made his way down the ever-stretching hallway, only to be interrupted by a ludicrously loud moan resonating throughout.

He snapped his mouth shut with a click, eyes growing wide as he turned around to stare at Crowley. The other shrugged.

“Wasn’t me.”

The first moan quickly followed by another, and then another, and then a string of curse words so revolting, it would make Satan himself blush furiously. It certainly did Aziraphale.

“Looks like my neighbors are having a party,”- Crowley mused all too delightedly, staring at the jumping knocker on the door opposing his own.

(Here it should be noted that the scientists conducting the end of the world research found that ‘having sex’ was just as popular of an answer as ‘getting drunk’. At that point they turned to look at one another, shrugged, and proceeded to attribute those responses to either the first or second categories.)

“Well this is- That is quite- That is to say-“- Aziraphale fiddled with the hem of his vest, as he always fiddled in worrying or uncomfortable situations.

“You’d think a place as expensive as this would have better soundproofing, eh?”

It wasn’t that angels were necessarily ashamed of or condemning all acts sexual – Aziraphale prided himself on having a healthy and reasonable relationship with that aspect of humanity in spite of never actually participating in it himself. However, knowing of something and experiencing it, albeit somewhat second hand, were completely different concepts. Perhaps if he was sober enough he’d react differently, but as it were, desperately avoiding eye contact with the door or Crowley was all he was capable of doing in this situation.

Crowley sighed. “Let’s get inside, angel. I’ll make sure all of… that stays out here.”

As much as it would have delighted him to taunt Aziraphale further, he really wasn’t certain he wasn’t going to discorporate on the spot.

“Y-Yes, yes, that would be good. Quite good, really.”

Just a few moments later the angel found himself in an unfamiliar room, sitting on an unfamiliar couch, watching a familiar figure pour all-too familiar liquid into a couple of glasses.

Crowley’s flat was the very opposite of what Aziraphale would call ‘good taste’ – all grey and concrete, with huge windows and large rooms containing barely anything in them but a few pieces of overtly shiny furniture. He was certain there had to be some kind of a sin for having all the chairs in one’s home resemble thrones. He couldn’t quite recall what it was.

“Real- Really, how long’s it been since you’ve last visited?”- Crowley slurred, missing the glass he was holding entirely and spilling bourbon onto the counter. It ended up full anyway.

“Oh, I don’t quite- I don’t believe- Why, I-I don’t think I recall, dear- The 80s, was it?”

However, sitting on this extravagant red leather sofa, surrounded by lavish exuberant green plants and enormous windows looking out towards Big Ben, he couldn’t say he wasn’t enjoying it – and maybe, somewhere deep down, even finding a new appreciation for what he always imagined to be wasteful excess.

The demon sneered, making his was over to the couch with the glasses and the bottle, -“You’ve got to do better than that, angel! You ‘aven’t even seen my- my TV! I’ve cable ‘n everythin’.”

Aziraphale wasn’t quite listening anymore, paying more attention to the steady onset of London traffic than anything his counterpart was saying. He was, as they say, rather drunk.

It really was rare that he would seek out Crowley’s company first, and when he did it was always on business. Admittedly, business more often than not turned into either drinking or dining, but the point stood that he wouldn’t allow himself to indulge in the demon’s presence for longer than strictly necessary.

Not even when he desperately wanted to.

His eyes trailed over to scan Crowley’s form, sitting in that familiar spread out pose that Aziraphale could hardly imagine was comfortable, watching TV that he didn’t realize was now turned on to one of the News networks. The host was saying something about mass hysteria, but the angel was focused on something else entirely.

How queer was it, he thought as he watched the reflection of London traffic in Crowley’s sunglasses, that he always had such a wonderful time in his company. They were never anything more than work associates, he would always tell himself, and if he was being drunk or particularly honest, he would even go as far as to call them friends. But now his eyes kept trailing back to Crowley’s hand lying idly next to his, and his mind to the reckless couple next door. He wondered if Crowley has ever done anything like it – though, he must have. It was practically his job. Aziraphale poured himself another glass of bourbon. He stared at Crowley’s hand again.

Surely it would be alright to hold it, wouldn’t it? They held hands multiple times before. There was nothing special about it. Then again, now he’s made it weird by thinking about it too long. But, of course, Crowley wouldn’t have any idea how long he’s thought about it, so it would hardly be weirder than any other time. And what if all those other times were weird too?

He downed his glass in one go and firmly slid his hand across the couch before he could change his mind yet again. His fingers slipped into spaces between Crowley’s, surprisingly cold in the summer warmth.

The demon slowly lolled his head to the side to throw a questioning look at Aziraphale, who was firmly avoiding his eyes. Then he blinked down to stare at their locked hands.

And in another stunningly lively move, Crowley was suddenly toppling over Aziraphale, pinning his wrists over his head and staring down at him from behind his sunglasses.

The angel gasped in surprise.

“Why, darling, could it be that you’re trying to tempt me?”- He grinned, leaning in just that much closer.

Darling, Aziraphale noted mentally. That was a new one.

“Hardly able to, my dear.”

He wriggled one hand free and reached out to pinch the sunglasses off of the demon’s nose. Crowley swallowed hard.

“You might want to check up on that,”- He whispered, blinking languidly, bringing up a hand to stroke Aziraphale’s cheek. It was burning.

Aziraphale always found his eyes fascinating. Even after all this time he still wasn’t quite certain if it was okay to bring it up, how sensitive of a subject it was – but they always seemed to hypnotize him right in place. Very on the nose, he had to admit.

“Do you- Is this- Um, do you really-“- He tried to no avail, licking at his dry lips, his drunk mind trying to tie together a single sentence in spite of the sudden dizziness, -“Um, is this- Do you really think that this is- That this is wise, Crowley?”

He was unable to tear his eyes away from the demon’s piercing gaze. His throat was suddenly too tight.

“I ‘aven’t got the faintest what you’re referring to,”- Crowley lazily smirked down, his hand still pressed against Aziraphale’s cheekbone, thumb stroking gently.

The angel furrowed his brows, his own free hand finding its way to Crowley’s wrist. He licked at his lips again, the air surrounding the two of them suddenly that much warmer. He was practically burning.

“I believe you do.”

Crowley was burning.

“…How long, Aziraphale.”

The angel didn’t dare pretend he didn’t understand the question, finally found the strength to avert his eyes and stare at House of Parliament instead. The lights really were so beautiful…

That all too familiar heavy feeling settled in his stomach again; that feeling that he desperately tried to suppress. Run away from. A feeling that was rejected by his very nature, yet lingered like a lasting aftertaste.

The TV was now turned off.

“Far too long, dear. Far too long…”- He muttered, barely audible if not for the all-encompassing silence of the flat.

“How. Long.”

Aziraphale shut his eyes, wrinkling up his nose as the alcohol left his system practically against his will. He needed to be drunker- so, so much drunker.

“Why, decades, dearest,”- He swallowed down, feeling as though if he had a heart it would surely stop beating right then and there, -“Eight of them, if I’m not mistaken. Give or take a few, that is.”

Crowley didn’t respond, and Aziraphale dared to turn only to see a ghost of a smile trace his lips. There was something… almost tortured about it.

The angel exhaled hard, feeling as though he might just catch on fire.

“How-“

“Centuries, angel,”- His voice was quiet, gentle, so incredibly, unfairly gentle.

Aziraphale blinked, eyes growing wide- “No-“

“Six of them, if I’m not mistaken-“

“No-! No, I would have-“- He leaned up on his elbows, mouth dry, hands suddenly shaking.  No, it couldn’t have been- He would have known, he would have felt it!

He was an angel, it was in his very nature! But looking at Crowley then, in that moment, he couldn’t- He didn’t feel any different.

Crowley always felt just like Crowley.

“Would I lie to you?”

Of course, Aziraphale hardly could account for the fact that once something was there long enough, one simply stops noticing it, no matter how prominent it was.

That’s why you don’t exactly notice the beating of your heart or the rush of blood through your veins; why you don’t exactly stop to take note of the air around you and how easy it is to breathe. It is simply there – a fact of life that always has been, and, if you’re lucky, always will be.

The demon smirked, tilting his head.

They were close now, ever so closer. Closer than they have ever been.

Aziraphale didn’t have any organs, of course, not any physical ones, but something in his chest still ached. His soul, perhaps. His very being.

“Crowley, I-“- He began, gently tracing a thumb under his jaw, the heat almost painful to his fingers, eyes darting to his lips if only for a moment, -“…May I?”

And Crowley was leaning in in seconds, lips hovering just inches away. They didn’t need to breathe, but both hungrily swallowed each other’s air, heavier than the weight of the world combined in that small space between their existences.

“Of course. Of course you may, angel,”- Crowley murmured, not quite touching, so close and so far, his own hands trembling terribly.

Aziraphale exhaled hard, leaning forward while everything in his angelic being screamed at him, scorched at his core. His hand traveled back, getting lost in the demon’s hair, the other holding onto his neck, moving almost as though through heavy water, something in the very air resisting, pushing him away.

“Well… This is… An unprecedented outcome, now isn’t it?”- Crowley tried to smile, poorly masking the crack in his voice with a cough.

The angel couldn’t help the nervous laugh that bubbled out of his throat, -“Yes, it- it really is. Ineffable, you might say-”

Crowley kissed him.

And when they finally connected, it was as though inferno itself broke out inside Aziraphale’s chest, as though he was fully submerged in a bucket of ice cold water – as though he could finally breathe again. His eyes fell shut instantly, the contact almost physically painful, his hands grasping at Crowley’s hair, the collar of his shirt, whatever force pushing him away was now gone entirely, replaced with a desperate need to pull him closer, closer, so much closer-

He didn’t know whether this was because Crowley was a demon or because he was just Crowley, had no point of reference to compare this to, but it felt as though hellfire was licking at Aziraphale’s lips, his skin, his very existence. That familiar dark feeling returned, twofold, threefold, overwhelming him whole to the point of drunkenness yet again, and in the next moment the angel was opening his mouth in pure lustrous desperation.

Crowley welcomed him entirely, sliding his tongue over, releasing a low, rumbling moan which resonated throughout the angel’s chest. Aziraphale tasted of honey, of clouds, of lemongrass, of angel cake, and something so very remarkably fresh. Every touch was sending him over the edge, his shaky hands barely managing to support his weight, overwhelmed by the burn, the pain, the sweetness, the need.

That new cologne made his head spin.

And in the next moment they really were spinning, turning over as Aziraphale roughly flipped him onto his back, towering above him without stopping to break contact, kissing him as though his very life depended on it. Crowley released a surprised gasp into his mouth, threading his fingers into the angel’s feather-like hair before reciprocating, soft, tender, pulling away only when he felt he couldn’t take it much longer without completely discorporating.

It could have lasted a month. It could have lasted ten seconds. He wasn’t sure anymore.

The room was swimming, detached from reality, a vague assimilation of shapes and colors.

Aziraphale breathed hard above him, eyes half-lidded, expression darker than anything Crowley has ever seen before. His gut twisted painfully.

“Angel…”- He began, voice raspy and hardly his own. He forgot what he was going to say entirely, as Aziraphale was now taking off his coat, shrugging it off to the floor, leaning back in and gently biting down at his bottom lip. Crowley couldn’t help the mewl that escaped his throat, the breath that got caught somewhere in his chest.

Six thousand years - six thousand goddamn years – and every second was worth the wait just to have Aziraphale lightly press his lips to his jaw like that, to feel that heavenly tongue run down the side of his neck, making him squirm in place, desperately swallow in the air he never needed until now.

There was something scratchy in his stomach then, something sending sparks all throughout his body, making his hips buckle forward against his will, his limbs no longer listening as he threw a leg over Aziraphale’s back, bringing him closer.

The angel paused in leaving a trail of particularly wet kisses down Crowley’s throat, changing his direction upwards to press his lips against his ear instead, whispering, -“Are you alright, dearest?”

And Crowley barely found it in him to turn his head, stare Aziraphale into those forever blue eyes, now nearly all the way black with the pupils diluted. He exhaled a shaky breath, pressing his nose into the angel’s cheek, inhaling hard.

“I am better than I ever was. The best I’ve been since I fell, Aziraphale,”- He felt the angel’s hand travel further south, his fingers now stroking at his hip, -“And- And what about you? Are we going too fast again, angel?”

He grasped at Aziraphale’s shoulders, closing his eyes as he waited for the answer. It was nothing new – it took centuries for them to sit on the bus side by side. Crowley was prepared to wait several more if he had to.

They had all the time in the world now, after all.

Aziraphale brought his hands back up to cup Crowley’s jaw, before catching his lips in another slow kiss.  

“On the contrary, dear,”- He smiled against his skin, sweet, tender, and so eternally burning, -“I believe it is long overdue.”

And as though to prove his point, the angel shifted and now Crowley could feel a resolute hardness prodding at his thigh. He stopped breathing for good this time, eyes blown wide as he turned to face Aziraphale.

“Bedroom. Now.”

“Oh- You- You have a bedroom?”

“Now I do.”

The angel blinked as he was suddenly being tugged from the couch towards a door he could swear wasn’t there before, stumbling ever so slightly on the way in.

The room was as large as any other in Crowley’s flat, all greys and plants, with those giant windows facing out towards Big Ben. It didn’t seem to matter that with the door placement it should have technically been in the middle of the outside hallway. In fact, reality didn’t seem to matter at all just then.

“Wh- I don’t remember adding these,”- Crowley paused in his tracks, taking a moment to feel the silk canopy bed curtains between his fingers. Aziraphale couldn’t help the blush that formed on his cheeks.

“O-Oh, that was me. I just- I, um, thought it might be a bit more… Intimate, this way?”

The demon turned back with a delighted smirk, one that was practically bordering on a grin.

“Is that so?’

It struck Aziraphale quite prominently just then that Crowley was, indeed, really incredibly beautiful. With those striking yellow eyes, that lean pose, the fiery ginger hair and the constant bemusement that seemed to never leave his thin lips – the angel blinked in surprise at his own realization, taking a few definitive steps forward to let his fingers undo the first button on Crowley’s shirt. He bit his bottom lip, tugging back the fabric to reveal a slender collar bone.  

“Aziraph-?”

“I think I understand it now, the whole ‘devilishly handsome’ business,”- He smiled, allowing his fingers to continue undoing the buttons.

Crowley’s hands were now firmly grasping him by the elbows as he was leaning against the canopy, looking as though his legs might just give out if not for the support. Aziraphale leaned in, tasting more of that painfully hot skin, toppling them both over onto the bed as the demon underneath him released another loud whimper.

He hardly bothered to resist that dark overwhelming feeling, letting it encompass him whole as though someone switched off the very sun, allowing it to take control completely, following its every whim and desire, his hands travelling over Crowley’s ribs, his back, his slender hips, his mouth moving down the exposed chest. His fingers felt as though they were continuously stung by innumerable needles, the pain sending electric jolts throughout his body and right into his abdomen. He bit down hard at the side of Crowley’s navel, licking at the teeth marks when he heard the demon underneath him let out a low hiss.

Crowley could only do so much not to completely dissolve on the spot, digging his fingers into Aziraphale’s hair which he could swear was glowing, his other hand tangled up in the bed sheets. The angel’s mouth reached the hem of his trousers and didn’t stop there, continuing on to leave wet kisses down the front of his pelvis, making Crowley’s hips buckle forward violently and his eyes roll back in his head.

“Fuuuuck, angel- Oh holy- Oh, fuck-“- He swore loudly, tugging Aziraphale upwards, capturing his lips in his own, desperately licking at the inside of his mouth.

And in the next moment their clothes were gone entirely, flesh against flesh, Aziraphale gasping in shock and Crowley lulling his head back as electricity coursed throughout his body.

“Crowley!”- The angel complained loudly, the tone of his voice having some weight if not for the brilliantly red blush spread throughout his ethereal face, -“That’s cheating!”

Crowley panted hard, hands thrown over Aziraphale’s back as he held on for dear life, -“No- No, angel- You were the one cheating- With your teasing and your- I- I simply made it more fair.”

And how could Aziraphale possibly argue with that when he was now looking at him from underneath those hooded eyelids, his erection prodding at his hip, his fingers practically burning a hole in his skin. He breathed out hard, moving ever so slightly as Crowley’s fingers found their way to his chest, brushing over his nipples, that resolute pressure building up in his stomach with every stroke.

“Al- Alright. That is to say, um- Quite- Quite well, indeed-“

Aziraphale released a shaky breath, his hands suddenly too cold despite the astounding heat between their bodies.

If there was one thing he admired about Crowley it was that he was completely unpredictable – brash in all his decisions and ideas, always bold and straightforward and so unlike Aziraphale. Unlike any angel, in fact.

Unlike anything Heaven.

And looking at him now, suddenly completely and utterly naked, putting a definitive damper onto the angel’s hard work of undressing, taking it to himself to strive forward and simultaneously wait for Aziraphale to catch up – well, he couldn’t help but lose his composure for a minute or two.

This was Crowley. His Crowley.

Right here, right now, underneath him, completely naked and unashamed - and so obviously desperately, thoroughly, so overwhelmingly in lo-

“Please don’t tell me you’ve suddenly remembered the Old Testament,”- Crowley quirked an unimpressed eyebrow, interrupting the long moment of frozen silence.  

Aziraphale, in turn, didn’t hesitate to scoff, perhaps even having the gull to look slightly offended.

“Excuse me, this has nothing to do with the Testaments- Not that the Old one should matter anyway, it has been outdated for quite some time- “

“Then are you going to do something? Or should we just go for tea and crumpets instead?”

The angel blinked.

“Oh, crumpets-?”

“Aziraphale.”

“Sorry, sorry-!”- The angel sighed, the minuscule movement sending a jolt of pleasure up his back as their bodies brushed against one another, having him cough to mask a moan building up in the back of his throat, -“Th-Th-This is all too new to me, all too human-“

“Then let’s figure it out together, yeah?”- Offered Crowley, voice suddenly much gentler, his hips slowly bucking upwards, making Aziraphale exhale sharply.

“W-Wait- You mean to tell me... You’ve never-?”

“Of course not,“- The demon replied immediately, looking everywhere but the angel’s face

“Never-!?”

“Nope.”

“In six thousand years-?”

“Yup.”

“Not even once-?”

“And why would I.”

“But weren’t you ever curious? Didn’t you ever want to-?”

“Oh, I wanted to...”- Crowley suddenly leaned up, his lips pressing against Aziraphale’s throat, taking a moment to leave a wet mark on his skin, -“But you weren’t ready.”

Aziraphale swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up against the demon’s lips, his jaw dropping slightly. He wanted to say something else, something entirely unnecessary, perhaps, or maybe something that needed saying all along - but then Crowley was capturing his lips again and all he could do in that moment was reciprocate with as much force as he could muster, kissing him deep, needing, wanting-

He closed his eyes, letting his instincts take over once again, letting that feeling that he would now forever associate with Crowley lead him to new, never before considered places – and in the next moment, Crowley was crying out, throwing his head backwards as Aziraphale’s suddenly slick fingers found their way to his backside.

“What are you- Fuck, angel, what are you doing!?”- He hissed out, voice hoarse and trembling, fingernails digging into the angel’s shoulders.

“Erm, preparing you? I believe that is the standard custom-“

“Shit, just get it over with- I’m a demon, for heaven’s sake, I can-“

Whatever it was Crowley could do was lost in a particularly loud moan that resonated throughout the room once he felt Aziraphale’s middle finger prodding at his entrance, his back arching out as his eyes rolled back in his head.

He was practically falling apart in his arms at the smallest movement, and the angel could not look away. He’s known Crowley for six thousand year – six thousand goddamn years – and in all this time he has never, not once, have come even close to seeing him so utterly and purely destroyed. Aziraphale pressed his lips to his chest, letting his tongue taste the spice and the bitter sweetness of his sweat, watching his every move, every pant, every squirm as he added in another finger.

He could not look away.

Crowley looked beautiful. Crowley was beautiful.

And in that moment Aziraphale felt it yet again, that something that tugged at his chest ever so often – that time in the Garden when they first met, that time in Rome when they dined together for the very first time, that time in France when they had crepes, that time in the church when the bombs fells, and all and each and every other time after and in between – he felt it now once more, and he suddenly knew exactly what it was.

Indeed, maybe, he always knew.

The demon bit down the back of his hand to stifle his moan, and Aziraphale knew that he wanted to know him – know him in a very biblical way. He needed it.

He wanted it.

“I want you, Crowley,”- He whispered against his chest, voice low and rumbling, resonating throughout every electron of the charged air between them. Aziraphale pulled his fingers out, adjusting his also suddenly slick erection to the demon’s entrance, that dark feeling becoming him entirely.

“You have me, angel,”- Crowley whispered back, and Aziraphale realized all too clearly that whoever said that angels weren’t capable of sin were absolute liars.

In that moment, this one angel felt pure lust, and there was nothing in the entirety of the whole damn Creation that could have prevented him from following through with this temptation.

He slowly pushed his hips forward, biting down on Crowley’s shoulder hard, filling him up and feeling absolutely whole himself.

“Fuck,”- He swore, loud, unapologetic, feeling as though the entirety of Heaven and Hell combined could not have possibly separated them in that moment. He felt Crowley’s hips jerk wildly, a ludicrously lewd moan escaping his lips as he barely whispered “Say that again”.

And so Aziraphale did, swearing loudly, wantonly, over and over and over again as he moved his hips in rhythm with Crowley’s, his head suddenly clouded over with sparks and flashes of absolute pure bliss, the heat between them rivaling that of Armageddon itself. Pure fire was coursing through his veins as his lips somehow managed to find Crowley’s, perhaps pulled together by a force stronger than that of any magnet, their kiss slow and chaste in spite of the absolute fireworks going off in the angel’s stomach.

Crowley’s legs locked behind Aziraphale’s back, his hands digging into his shoulders hard enough to leave deep bruises, fingernails tearing at the fragile skin, as the angel’s own hands desperately held onto his sides, moving deeper, harder, more urgent with each passing second, their bone marrows mixing into one as their existences transcended human, Heavenly, or Hellish understanding - becoming something else entirely.

Aziraphale was suddenly looking at his own face from underneath himself, knowing full well Crowley was above him, there, still with him, still moving, rocking, gasping for air as one, and as their lips connected once again, he opened his eyes only to see the demon back where he belonged, his eyes staring intently into his own, a new understanding written into them. The angel bit at the side of his neck, feeling a pulsing vein with his tongue, Crowley’s heat around his hardness overwhelming.

The universe itself stopped existing just then. All of Creation was gone, save for the two of them.

That was what it felt like, at least – and who’s to say that in that one short, insignificant moment, one falling angel and one rising demon really weren’t the only ones in being.

Aziraphale came with a soft cry, something in between Crowley’s name and a swear, hot sweat rolling off of his back as he took a moment to let his vision adjust and his breathing steady. He didn’t dare move again as his consciousness settled in and realization of what they’ve done took over. He pulled out slowly, exhaling hard, feeling exhausted, dirty, weak, manic.

Feeling so remarkarbly, utterly human.

“Aziraphale…”- A voice dearer than any other quietly resonated throughout the room.

And when Aziraphale cautiously opened his eyes again, the angel couldn’t breathe.

It was a good thing that he was already half-lying down, or he would have surely fallen over in that moment. Crowley was looking at him – really, truly, sincerely looking, his eyes lost, diluted, exhausted, and so, devastatingly, purely, frantically full of love Aziraphale couldn’t help his arms giving out from underneath him, having him fall flat onto the demon's chest.

The drunk feeling returned with the force of being hit by a speeding truck, that feeling of absolute love knocking the very wind out of the angel’s soul, having him take a moment to even remember to exist. Never has he felt anything quite like it, not even in Tadfield, and certainly neverdirected towards himself.

That unadulterated, whole, ethereal, mesmerizing, eternal feeling of complete and utter love.

Crowley loved him.

The thought alone was enough to ascend him into Heaven - if he didn’t know what the place was like.

It coursed throughout his entire body, that pure ecstasy that swelled within his corporeal form and overflowed into the universe; that pulsing, shrieking sensation of love, love, love, love that made the past, the present, and the future bleed together into one beautiful, disastrous mess that washed over him in waves like a warm tide at a sunny beach on a tired afternoon.

It was love, he was loved, he was loved by Crowley and-

Aziraphale snapped his eyes open.

There was now something very tangible burning at his fingers, something beyond the realm of abstract feeling, and he turned his head only to realize the entirety of the canopy curtains were on fire. Actual, literal fire.

Their bed was burning.

“Oh, dear-!“- The angel mumbled as he shot upright, waving a hand to make the raging flames disappear. The damage was done, of course – most of the bed sheets were gone, and the canopy was now slowly but surely falling apart piece by piece. The floor and the walls were a blackened mess of scorch marks.

One of the bed legs cracked under their weight.

“Oh, my- Oh- Oh, I-I’m… I’m so sorry, Crowley, let me just-“- Aziraphale tried to stand up, to move and fix the damage that was no doubt a result of their recklessness- but in the next moment, Crowley was suddenly laughing, hard, bubbling, throwing his head back in pure delight as he pulled the fidgeting angel close to his chest, dropping back down on the mostly destroyed mattress.

The leg gave out then, and one corner of the bed dropped down to the floor with a resolute thud.

Crowley laughed harder.

Aziraphale failed to see the humor in the situation, but after a moment of stunned silence he chuckled along anyway, too dazed and utterly exhausted to even bother thinking about doing anything other than tucking himself into the crook of his demon’s neck.

He suddenly remembered that he was loved.

“Well that was... Something. Ineffable, even,”- Said Crowley and Aziraphale didn’t even need to look to hear the smile in his voice, -“…Didn’t know my plants could bloom like that.”

The angel exerted a fraction of an effort to look around just then – and indeed, the various plant life Crowley had placed around the room was now sprouting numerous flowers the names of which Aziraphale could hardly recall. He was certain there were quite a few of them that weren't supposed to actually exist.

“I don’t believe they can, dear,”- He mumbled, feeling a blush creep up his neck. Yes, this was definitely the result of their little exercise as well, -“I quite like it, though. Our very own little Eden.”

It really was. A bit more constricted space-wise, but lovely nevertheless.

Crowley tensed underneath him.

“A-Ah, but it doesn’t have to be!”- Aziraphale was quick to correct himself, sitting up again, ready to miracle it all away, -“Let me just fix this for you, yes-?”

“Don’t you dare, angel,”- Crowley suddenly snapped, roughly pulling him back into an all-encompassing embrace. Aziraphale gasped at the contact.

“R-Right, sorry, I’m just- Let me at least fix the bed-“

“No. Leave it.”

“But-“

“I said leave it, Aziraphale,”- The demon burrowed his nose in the angel's hair then, inhaling sharply as his thumb gently stroked down his arm, -“It’s perfect the way it is. I don’t want you changing a single damn thing.”

Aziraphale couldn’t help the smile that formed on his lips. Lying there, on pieces of destroyed rubble that could hardly be called a bed anymore, surrounded by a multitude of plants the likes of which could not be found anywhere else on this Earth, he could not possibly be happier. Heaven had nothing on being held like this in Crowley’s arms, knowing that he is loved. By Crowley.

Crowley, who was now reaching for the pair of sunglasses that suddenly appeared on the side of the mattress.

The angel caught him by the wrist, stopping him halfway.

“Why bother? It’s just us here,"- And then, when he didn’t reply, -“I really do love your eyes, Crowley. They’re wonderful.”

The demon took a long, long moment to stare at him then, slowly bringing up a warm hand to cup his jaw and leave a soft, quick kiss at his lips. His eyes were practically glowing, as bright as the lights of London.

“Aziraphale… I…”

“I know, Crowley,”- Aziraphale replied immediately, his chest clenching painfully. Delightfully, -“I felt it. I know.”

Crowley had always felt like Crowley, and that much hasn't changed. What the angel has come to learn in the span of these several hours, is that Crowley always felt like love.

The demon exhaled then, blinking slowly, and that was perhaps the very first time in six thousand years that Aziraphale saw him blush.

He promptly turned away, scoffing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even like you.”

The angel arched his eyebrows in surprise – before bursting into a fit of giggles, scooting up closer to bury his face in Crowley’s neck.

“You do.”

The demon smiled softly, holding onto Aziraphale tight, as though if he let go this all just might disappear. He was so angry for the past six thousand years. So thoroughly annoyed and pissed off and disgusted – with the angel, with the world, with himself.

He thought it was because that was just the way he was – it was in his very nature to feel nothing but the very worst. But now… Well, maybe it wasn’t all so bad. Maybe he didn’t need to be so angry after all.

Maybe, this was… Okay.

“I love you, Aziraphale-”- Crowley finally admitted, out loud and out there for the entirety of all Creation to hear, -“-More than you could ever know.”

“I love you, Crowley-“- Aziraphale replied right back without missing a single beat, turning his face to stare Crowley right into his eyes with those unbearably vibrant blues, -“-More than you have ever realized.”

Whether it was the tone of his voice, the look in his eyes or the touch of his flesh against his own, for the first time since he could remember, Crowley was certain that he could actually feel it. He felt love.

He was loved.

Aziraphale made him feel holy.

Holier than Heaven ever could.

There would be a lot of things yet to come – in the morning there would be strange new sensations and awkward conversations, strained limbs and tender kisses. There would be a realization of what happened this night, a recollection of an experience shared, and a coming up with a brilliant plan that would fool Heaven and Hell itself. There would be punishment avoided and life preserved. There would be St. James Park and cold metal benches. There would be jokes and laughter, and dinner at the Ritz.

There would be a nightingale singing in Berkley Square.

But all of that would come later.

In this one, eternal moment, an angel and a demon lay together as one, holding each other in their arms. Love, blooming in between.

For humanity. For the world. For each other.

There would be many things to come – but most of all, there would be love.

And love, as we know it, does conquer all.

#this is very long and im sorry #long post #good omens #ineffable husbands #fanfiction #sai.fic

[ivanrahal]

date: february 3rd, 2019 time: midnight location: the dark lady closed to: @ofrallis

Ivan watches through half-mast eyes as Alexander prowls through the confines of the Dark Lady like an estranged prince come to claim his long-neglected throne at last, welcomed with open arms by wide-eyed acolytes eager to bask in the attentions and affections of their pseudo-god. Alexander Rallis, patron saint of whores and drunkards; how fitting. Ivan wonders, idly, how Alexander has managed to conquer nearly every heart in Verona, how he’s managed to amass such profound feelings of love from his entourage of lovelorn apostles, each more determined to please him than the last. The crowd parts as he weaves through Mona Chen’s temple of vice, and it’s not lust that pools in his admirers’ eyes (not lust alone, at least); it’s...respect. Respect. Adoration. Love. More than one Sparrow bows her head reverently as Alex passes—an homage to the hard-won esteem he’s earned here, an ode to his kingship in this snake pit. They admire him here, love him, respect him, and Ivan wrinkles his nose at the prospect of it—can’t quite make sense of it. He knows how to incur terror, to be sure, and he knows how to incur desire, too. People fear Ivan Rahal, and people lust after Ivan Rahal, but none love him, not like this. Ivan’s disciples, though equally as devout as Alex’s, and perhaps doubly obedient, have never looked at him with that holy reverence that Alexander seems to invoke so easily. He’s not quite sure how Alexander summons feelings of such profound depth with naught but the foibles of lies and charades, well-crafted smiles and well-versed lies. He admires it, frankly—Alexander’s talent for forging genuine love where there’s none to be found. Perhaps Alexander Rallis can teach him a thing or two yet.  

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a long-legged, raven-haired woman approaching him in slow, slinking steps, hips swaying and lips pursed. One of Mona’s Sparrows come to try to make the elusive Ivan Rahal sing, no doubt. On any other night, he would’ve indulged her, would’ve been glad to play the cat to her canary. On any other night, he would’ve let her sing her sweet songs and preen her pretty feathers, and when he eventually grew bored of her antics, he’d open his maw wide and trap her between his teeth, and then she’d sing him a very different song, and perhaps he wouldn’t be so bored anymore. But he’s not here to hunt birds tonight, no—he’s here to hunt wolves; one particular wolf, actually—the biggest and baddest of them all. His eyes remain fixed intently on Alexander as he holds up two fingers to the Sparrow and says flatly, “Not tonight.” In his peripheral, he sees her eyes go round with confusion (he suspects rejection is something she’s not accustomed to) and her mouth flounders open and shut like a fresh-hooked fish. Tsk, tsk. Such a terribly reactive little thing. She must be one of Mona’s newer girls, because the madame of the Dark Lady, Ivan knows, goes to great lengths to teach her pupils the art of apathy, of swallowing emotion and schooling faces into blank slates that reveal nothing and can mirror anything. It’s what makes Mona and her Sparrows so dangerous, and it's why Ivan has come here in search of Alexander: because Mona Chen is dangerous, and because Alexander Rallis appears to be immune to her dangers. And so with a languid, catlike gait, he approaches the chaise that Alexander lounges on, limbs sprawled like a Dionysian god perched on his dais, and—oh, look, he’s got an acolyte to boot. There’s a Sparrow curled around him, whispering something into his ear, looking at Alex with that idyllic marvel only divine creatures can summon. 

“My dear Rallis,” Ivan hums by way of greeting, sinking into the loveseat opposite Alexander’s chaise. “King of the whorehouse, I see,” he coos, shrugging off his overcoat, discarding his silver-plated cuff links, and rolling the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows as he splays his arms outward and drapes them over the loveseat’s frame—a mirror image to Alexander’s cool arrogance. “What a grand title to behold. Your parents would be proud, I’m sure.” And he says it not because he himself harbors any real contempt for Alex’s baser inclinations (quite the opposite, actually)—but because he knows that the wound of having failed to measure up to familial expectations yet festers within the black sheep of the Rallis dynasty. Wounds inflicted by family, he’s learned, seldom ever scab, seldom ever truly heal, and Ivan can’t help but poke and prod at a gaping wound—it’s instinct.

“I’m not opposed to ménages à trois, as you well know, but I don’t think this little bird”—he curls his upper lip with thinly veiled distaste and jerks his chin at the Sparrow nestled beneath the drape of Alex’s outstretched arm—“would survive the likes of us wolves,” he purrs. It’s an implicit request dressed up in pretty words so that only Alex, well-versed in undressing Ivan’s many tongues, will understand: We need to talk. Privately. “Tell your little dove to fly away, won’t you?” He could very well shoo the girl away himself, for Ivan Rahal has accrued a great deal of notoriety in Verona, and even Sparrows know to flap their wings and fly far, far away when Verona’s black-scaled viper bares his teeth and coils. But he beseeches Alex to do it instead, and he does so for the simple pleasure of reminding him of this gnarled, foul thing that exists between them—a gossamer string of cobwebs linked from one black heart to the other, binding them, granting each wolf some sort of lunar autonomy over the other. Such is the way of beasts, he supposes. He asks Alexander to banish the Sparrow to remind him of this, and, more importantly, to remind Mona of this. Let Mona’s spies report back to her that in her own birdcage, her Sparrows were spurned by Alexander Rallis in favor of Ivan Rahal. 

Let her know that she’s not the only one who knows how to play this game. 

#c: alexander #l: the dark lady #d: february 3rd of 2019 #i already hate this thread

[sly2o]

The Abandoned Aegon/Blackfyre story line would have fixed nearly everything

This is a GOT post.

In the books there is a character you never meet in the show who goes by the name of Aegon. He is allegedly the son of Rhegar Targaryen and Ellia Martell. The popular fan theory is that he is actually a Blackfyre descendant, which is an offshoot branch of the Targaryens from a civil war between the Targs from a while back in Westeros history.

Either way - in the books this character named Aegon (nickname: Little Griff) who was raised in Essos in secret, amassed an army there, and has now shown up near Storm’s End with a host of followers and is rapidly picking up steam on his way to conquer King’s Landing at the end of Book 5. Lord Varys has been helping Aegon on his journey to King’s Landing to claim the throne.

Aegon believes - like Daenerys believes - that he is the last of the Targaryen’s and that he is coming home to Westeros, and plans to take back what is his birthright.

The show decided to include nothing to do with this Aegon.

But what if they had?

Imagine the story goes like this instead:

Cersei blows up the Sept of Baelor and there are consequences. Aegon shows up outside King’s Landing with a host of followers from the disenfranchised houses to take down Cersei because of her sacrilegious mad act. It is an overwhelming battle and Cersei loses.

This would prompt the Valonqar storyline earlier in the narrative. One way or another in this battle Jaime could end up fulfilling the destiny of that prophecy and kill Cersei. Maybe it’s a mercy kill because he knows Cersei will not be treated kindly by these invaders. Maybe it’s a vengeful kill because of what she has turned into without her children. Either way she dies, and in order to save his own life Jaime takes the black, sending him up North. For the remainder of the series we have Jaime reconciling what he has done, and learning to accept the heroic things he has done even at their cost with his character arc intact.

Meanwhile, we have Daenerys show up on the scene and she’s like “what the fuck - this guy MASSIVELY stole my thunder”. Daenerys was supposed to be the one to save the people of Westeros from the madness of Cersei - not this guy. Not this pretender.

And it starts to get under her skin.

So she is advised to win over the hearts of the people of Westeros by heading North to help with the issue at the Wall. We have the same story line probably around getting the North to bend the knee with Jon and Daenerys. The Jon and Daenerys romance probably still happens. Maybe it’s a bit more political - because she did make herself single so she could marry her way into a political alliance. We can also probably have some similar politicking around Aegon staying in King’s Landing and deciding to fight “whoever is left” when they come south of the Trident.

So Dany goes North. In the fight she loses a huge chunk of her host. They win. And then she finds out that this act of sacrifice has gained her almost nothing in her quest for Westeros.

This gets under her skin even more.

Maybe there is even more politicing. Maybe Aegon offers his hand in marriage to Sansa as a way to undermine Daenerys relationship with the North.

This also gets under her skin because The North was supposed to be her one big alliance through her relationship with Jon

And then the big reveal of Jon’s lineage comes up.

Now all of a sudden Jon’s parentage actually means something. Because it means he is a real contender versus Aegon the Pretender.

And this news will now really set Dany over the edge

Because after growing up and spending her entire life being the last Targaryen there are all of a sudden so many other Targaryens.

Because now the person she loves is also a Targaryen.

Because he has a better claim to the throne than her too.

And while yes these were all reasons before that we saw in the show - they suddenly mean so much more when Dany has lost so much fighting one person who alleges to be from her family, to find out another person from her family is standing right in front of her.

So now we have Dany with so much more motive to jealously torch the people of King’s Landing because those smallfolk have aligned themselves with a different Targayen who she thinks is not as good as her. She has motive to think that those smallfolk are committing treason by standing behind that Aegon. And the drama is so much more poetic, sad, and more within the spirit of the entire show.

If all of this had happened...

The writers wouldn’t have needed to spend a season just killing off and capturing the leaders of high houses (think Olenna Tyrell, Ellaria Sand, Yara Greyjoy) to justify sending Dany to the North. Those houses would have already either been aligned with Aegon to cause conflict.

Tyrion wouldn’t have had what seems like the world’s worst lobotomy because almost every single one of his plans resulted in someone from a high house getting captured or killed. He hasn’t been smart since around Season 4 and it’s deeply frustrating.

Did I mention Jaime’s character arc would be left intact? Well let me say it again because yeah that’s important to me.

Lord Varys actions would have made sense. This season has driven me bonkers with some of the lines he has been saying. Stuff like “maybe a leader who doesn’t want to rule should be King”. If Varys believed that was true he would have never conspired to remove Robert Baratheon in Season 1. If that was true he would have helped Ned Stark escape the dungeons in Season 1. If that was true he would have poisoned Joffrey, like how we just saw him try to poison Dany. The purpose of his character the entire way has been to pave the way for Aegon to take over (there are fan theories on his motives for this too) and with that purpose removed from the show, they had to take his lies about caring for the realm at face value. It came off as weird and frustrating.

It would have given more purpose to Jon Snow’s reveal for himself as an individual. Right now we’ve just had a season of him going “Ok but I don’t want any of this” and deferring to Dany. Having Dany versus another Targaryen, while himself also being a Targaryen would have forced himself to answer a lot of questions about his allegiances. He may have been convinced to fight for Dany and promise he would then abdicate to allow her to rule - and then when she torched the city we see conflict arise between them. Or maybe Jon would side with Aegon for the sake of peace and protecting the smallfolk and that would have broken Dany. Either way he would have been forced to make a more meaningful and public choice.

So why didn’t it happen?

First off, GRRM has made some comments in the past about characters sticking around for a while longer than they should because they rate well. I’m thinking in particular that they kept Cersei and Jorah longer than intended, and gave them storylines not meant for them so that they would have something to do. (We know Jorah’s greyscale storyline was taken from the Aegon storyline from the books).

Second, D&D have been hired on to do a future set of Star Wars films and are keen to move on from the GoT project. Adding the Aegon storyline would have taken at least another season to do it right.

Third, it seems that D&D saw an easy out with just saying “hey Dany is crazy!” and cutting the Aegon storyline that way.

In closing...

It’s so frustrating that what we currently see on screen could have been so much more compelling, and it’s doubly frustrating considering that D&D had the pieces to make it happen and chose not to use them.

#game of thrones #game of thrones meta #asoiaf #daenerys targaryen #Jaime Lannister #anyways I am frustrated because it had so much potential and then just... poop

[diveronarpg]

In fair Verona, our tale begins with BRIELLE KING, who is TWENTY-TWO years old. She is often called BEATRICE by the MONTAGUES and works as their SOLDIER. She uses SHE/HER pronouns.

The first time she laughed, the world paused to listen, and it hasn’t stopped since. It was almost as if she knew her surname was a MOCKERY from the moment her mother whispered it behind her first; fate’s own cruel reminder that she was the farthest thing from a princess, and her father the farthest thing from a KING. Born the first daughter of a man who ate of the crumbs from a rich man’s table, she was raised not in the lap of luxury, but at the feet of it, always close enough to touch it but never enough to take it. Such a life might’ve driven a lesser girl crazy, but the curse of wanting more fit her far better than any sweater her dear mother could’ve made her, and instead of buckling under the weight of everything she hadn’t been given, she THRIVED under the pressure of helping her father put food on the table, of climbing—rung by rung—out of the gutter. People often speak of losing one’s innocence young, but she didn’t lose it; she shed it like a winter coat in the first days of spring—out of necessity. With dark eyes keen enough to see the world for the ridiculous thing it is and an elastic heart tough enough to wake up and face it every day with a smile, Brielle King is a woman under no ILLUSIONS about the world and the people in it—aware but not bitter, kind but not soft.

For the first eighteen years of her life, everything began and ended with a prestigious Thoroughbred farm on the outskirts of St. Petersburg; it was at once a prison and a HOME, the very place that had shaped her into the young woman she’d become and the very place she longed to leave, and it was for this reason that her departure was as delayed as it was premature—before her mother was ready to let her go, certainly, but not soon enough.OPPORTUNITY made itself at home in the curve of her wrist, did its bidding in the form of a stable hand too spoiled to do his own work and too arrogant to believe she could do it better, but she did, and the consequences they were dealt when she was discovered doing his job were nearly as surprising as the fact that—for a poor groom’s daughter—she excelled at it. Within months, she’d been hired to ride in low-profile races, had begun to help her family out of the gentle hell they’d fallen into every time she chased the wire. She was FEARLESS in a way few others her age were, because she’d seen what happened to those who weren’t—people like her mother, who cringed every time she raised her voice, people like her sister, afraid to say too much lest a boy think she had a mind of her own, people like her father, who had been on the ground for so long he’d forgotten how to pick himself up.

The only thing harder than catching her was reining her in. Fiercely independent and doubly driven, she spent long hours at the track perfecting her rugged art; she OUTRAN every doubt risen against her, laughed up at those who looked down on her. There’s something to be admired about girls like her, girls utterly unafraid of calling the world on its bluff and bold enough to demand a response—girls who revel in the stability of having both feet on the ground and the freedom of flying in equal measure, for that was what she was: a woman rooted in the burden of having NOTHING who allowed herself to dream of the high of having it all. She was hungrier than she’d ever been in her life when she raced, the type of HUNGER no feast could satisfy, and even a blind man could’ve seen it. And see it her benefactor did, though he was the farthest thing from blind as there ever was. He’d confronted her in the stables long after the other patrons and even the owners had left and made her an offer she’d have been a fool to refuse, and a fool was the one thing she’d resolved herself to never be—an opportunity to ride in the west, in the city of love. She left for Verona the following week, having said her goodbyes and readied herself for the next great hello, for the only thing more tragic than leaving the city that had built her was choosing to stay.

If the city and the people in it seek to swallow her whole, to make a meal of her as most wolves do to girls who strayed too far from the path, they would do well to stick to victims that have never known hunger themselves, that wouldn’t know a trap if it dragged them straight to hell, for her suffering did not make her cruel or hard or vicious; it made her WISE—wise to a city far tamer than the one she came from and all that it holds dear, and wise to the inclinations of people enslaved by greed and other false deities. And perhaps it made her hopeful, too, for unlike most cynics, she wouldn’t mind being proved wrong. Thus, here she stands, and here she’ll stay: a woman who wanted the WORLD and dared it to deny her, a woman who conquered with neither pen nor sword. There’s a reason they never told you that the hardest hearts shatter the easiest and that wanting doesn’t make you cruel: the world can’t bear the thought of being held in the palms of hands that have shed no blood for the privilege. Only time will tell whether she’s earned her chance.

HUGO KIM: Indebted to. Heaven and hell are at war within her, a holy crusade brought about by a man intimately familiar with both. Her pride—one of the deadliest sins, she’s heard, but a keepsake from home all the same—insists that she has no reason to associate with the servant of a God who let her family damn near starve; to pretend she’s made her peace with it all seems its own form of blasphemy. But her humility—a product of her simple upbringing, surely—counters that the God he worships might be making up for lost time in him, or at the very least, that he deserves to be seen for who he is instead of what. She knows the weight of a judgmental gaze better, perhaps, than anyone, and for all her reservations about him, he’s been kind, something of a rarity in Verona. Far be it for him to make a disciple of her, but he might one day call her friend.

BERNADETTE DU PONT: Caution. If the time she’s spent in the mob thus far taught her anything, it’s that Verona is a city of gluttony; of overindulgence; of greed in all of its maleficent forms. But as she got more and more submerged in the muddy waters of Verona’s underworld, Brielle has come to realize that perhaps it might not have been the city itself that has taught her as such but rather, the symbol of rot that it harbored; the renowned Bunny Du Pont. She can’t put her finger on it but something about them screams excess and not the kind that she stubbornly abstains from but the kind that breeds chaos. It’s an unfounded perception because outwardly, Bunny is merely an image of elegance; of saccharine frailty and blunt edges but Brielle can’t help how her gut knots with distaste and her shoulders tense with discomfort when she’s around them. She has never known fear but she imagines that sensation to be as close as she’ll ever get.

CATHERINE DALY: Interest. The Daly girl reminds her of her sister sometimes, all well-mannered intelligence and edges on the cusp of being sharp. She’s bolder than her little sister was—far less concerned with offending than she is telling what she feels is the truth, and over the course of several weeks and a handful of chance meetings, Brielle has come to admire her for it, to wonder at the steel nerve of a wrongly underestimated girl (perhaps they’re kindred spirits in that respect). Her presence conjures up the warmth of a hearth fire long abandoned, a sort of familiarity she hadn’t realized she’s longed for. It hit her like a freight train one morning as she listened to the younger girl talk about her father that she just might like it here; if Catherine Daly can make a corner booth feel like home, surely she can make something of an entire city.

FARON VASILIEV: Mentor. He is a pinnacle of pride and prestige; a flesh-and-blood testament to the sheer power that a family name can hold and it was for that reason that Brielle’s initial reaction to him was nothing short of wariness. Yet despite the distance she was careful to maintain, her keen eyes were able to spot the cracks in his flawless veneer and before she even realized it, distrust became a long-forgotten notion and only admiration was left in its wake for not even their differing lineages could overshadow the threads of commonality that bound them together time and time again. She sees her righteousness reflected in him and knows that it is what wills her to remain steadfast, to remain in this place. Indeed, those traits were rooted in selfishness and ambition for Brielle but for Faron, they were tethered to the principles of loyalty and justice. As such, he is pure in all the ways she is not and all the ways that she could be. Even when he seemed to drown in the shadow of the vengeance he so desperately sought, he was still pure in her eyes. A kindred spirit in every sense of the term.

Brielle is portrayed by COURTNEY EATON and was written by BREE. She is currently TAKEN by ROGUE.

#rp #rpg #bio rp #lsrp #lsrpg #courtney eaton fc #w #tw #mont #brielle king