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#Cold Justice: The Negotiators
zaldritzosrose · 5 days
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To Tame a Wolf: Part One
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Summary: The battle for alliance had begun. The Greens and the Blacks. The North was a desired ally. And a marriage would be the way to secure it.
TW: She/Her Pronouns, use of OC (Lyanna Stark), mentions of character death, arranged marriage.
Words: 1,939
Thank you to @lady-phasma for betaing this for me!
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Negotiations and Betrothals
Lyanna waited outside, her brother having received word that Prince Aemond and his dragon were on the horizon. And Lyanna had been sent out to greet him.
Aemond flew on Vhagar, mentally preparing himself for what was to come. He knew, in theory, what he needed to do in negotiations: offer what the council had instructed him to, and not leave without an answer, or even better, an acceptance. But it was what was to be offered that bothered him.
He had never pictured himself as a husband. Not that he considered himself undesirable, it had simply never been something that had crossed his mind. But duty was duty, and if anything could be said about Aemond, it was that he would always do his duty. And right now, his duty was war.
The distant roar of a dragon was enough to signal the prince’s impending arrival, the looming shadow of the mighty she-dragon eclipsing Winterfell’s courtyard. There was, most likely, not a single Northerner who had truly seen a dragon up close. Even in the sky, Vhagar was a sight to see. As the shadow dipped, Lyanna readied herself and the nearby servants for Aemond’s arrival.
Aemond dismounted quickly. If it was his choice, he would have this entire situation done within a day. Politics, or should he say that patience was not his strongest suit. And patience was surely something he would need for this.
“My prince,” Lyanna dropped smoothly into a curtsy, as did the servants around her. Aemond inclined his head in respect, his movements stiff - both from riding and his wish to be anywhere else.
“My lady, I appreciate the welcome,” Aemond responded, the need to remain polite warring with the need to move on to the true reason for his visit.
But he did allow himself a moment to pause and look at Lyanna. If this was the woman to whom he was intended to offer his hand, surely, he should take the time to assess her as she was. While it might seem cold, Aemond knew this arrangement was not intended to be based on his desires. This arrangement was simply that. An arrangement. Feelings were of no consequence.
Though he had to admit, the stories of her beauty did not do her justice. She was a true beauty, he realised. The dark hair and grey eyes, so synonymous with the Starks. The soft rosiness of her cheeks, that had bloomed from standing out in the cold Northern air. He suppressed a chuckle realising that either way, on the surface, he would benefit from this arrangement with a beautiful wife.
“My brother awaits you in our Hall, my prince.” Lyanna gestured towards the large doors behind her, before leading Aemond out of the cold and into the warmth of Winterfell’s walls.
The halls of Winterfell had a beauty of their own. Heavy stone walls, built to withstand the cold and likely more sinister foes. Like the halls, he stood in reflected the people that lived there. Hardy. Stubborn. And hard to defeat. It was this notion that made him realise why the North was such a desired ally. Aemond had little interest in the décor and architecture. He had one focus, and he would see that through without distraction.
Lyanna walked quickly, the only sound to be heard was the swishing of the heavy fabrics of her gown and the soft clacking of their boots against the stone floor. There was no small talk, which if he had to admit, Aemond quite appreciated. The doors to the hall were opened and Lyanna only glanced back momentarily before entering.
“Brother, Prince Aemond has arrived,” she announced to whom, Aemond assumed, was Lord Cregan.
The resemblance was notable. The dark hair, grey eyes. But where Lyanna was soft, Cregan was harsh - ever fitting the Wolf in the North moniker. Aemond inclined his head, to which Cregan returned the same gesture before gesturing for Aemond to sit.
What surprised Aemond, however, was when Lyanna took a seat at Cregan’s side. He knew things were a little different in the North. But he had not expected Lyanna to be present in the negotiations. If she noticed his surprise, she said nothing. She simply waited for her brother to begin.
"Lord Cregan, it is an honour to meet you. I have come on behalf of King Aegon and the Green Council to discuss an alliance between our houses." Aemond spoke confidently, reciting the words that his grandsire had drilled into him upon his departure.
The negotiations were long, but in Aemond’s eye, they were fruitful. Cregan was receptive, more than expected, to Aegon’s offers as King. But Aemond knew that it was only a matter of time before the secondary motive for his arrival was to be revealed.
“And for the North’s alliance, what does the Crown offer us?” Cregan asked, the faintest of smiles on his bearded face as he glanced over at Lyanna.
Marriages and betrothals were common bargaining tools, so it was no surprise that this was the expected next step. Aemond still felt the faintest unease settling in his gut at the prospect.
“The Crown offers marriage, my lord. Between Lady Lyanna and myself.” Aemond said the words simply, there was no need for flowery proposals.
But the look on Lyanna’s face was not what he expected. Surely a lady would feel honoured to be chosen to marry a prince. Lyanna looked anything but honoured. While she did not look angry, she did not look happy either. She was simply…indifferent.
“A generous proposal, my prince. And one that I will duly consider.”
And with Lord Stark’s words, the negotiations were ended. Aemond hoped, deep down, that the decision would be reached before the day’s end. But he felt he was hoping for too much. The prince looked to Lyanna once more, hoping for some sort of reaction. Joy, disgust, anger. Anything would be better than the blank look that currently coloured her features.
Only time would tell.
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Aemond left the hall, knowing his part was done. For now. But he could already hear the words being exchanged between the siblings. The words were not angry, but they were not kind either. And it seemed that most of the ire was coming for Lyanna.
“I am not a prize to be exchanged for victory, brother!” Lyanna snapped, “And especially not to a Kinslayer!”
Lyanna’s voice just carried through the heavy wooden doors. Aemond could not help but feel a sting at her words. Was it him as a man she took issue with, or being married off itself? The word Kinslayer also carried a sting of its own. it seemed the title had carried itself all the way up North. Aemond knew he should not let it hurt him, but to know even a stranger saw him like that, was a slice to his usual stoic heart.
He did not stay to hear the rest. Their conversation was not for his ears. He took himself down the halls, seeking refuge in what he hoped would be a library. With the help of a nearby guard, he soon found himself seated in a heavy armchair surrounded by books. A sole comfort no matter where he found himself.
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Lyanna was furious. Though at who, she was not sure. She did not know Aemond well enough to dislike him, but she knew enough to feel a sense of trepidation at being his wife. Stories of Aemond Targaryen had not taken long to make their way North.
Infamous for losing his eye to his nephew, the self-same nephew he killed on dragon back not so long ago and claiming the largest living dragon at only ten years of age.
The stories painted him as a man of little emotion, focused solely on the duty of being a prince and dragon rider. Not a man Lyanna had ever envisioned herself marrying, that was for sure. Though if she were honest, she had never truly imagined marrying anyone. She had been lucky in that regard; most ladies of Lyanna’s age would likely have been married off by now.
But she was not just a lady. She was a Stark. Just as much a prize as the North itself. Even if she despised the notion.
She knew Cregan would accept the proposal. He had decided to support Aegon before Aemond had even arrived. Her brother was a smart man, smarter than most gave him credit. Despite his young age as a Northern Warden, Cregan knew well enough to side where the benefit would fall greater on their house.
And right now? It was to side with Aegon as King.
By marrying Lyanna to Aemond, Cregan believed that he was putting Stark blood closer to the throne. And that was more than worth the price of his sister’s disdain.
The betrothal was official. And Lyanna was set to leave with Aemond for King’s Landing as soon as possible. War did not allow them the gift of time. Lyanna had at least hoped for time to prepare to leave, but Cregan assured her that her belongings would follow on behind her.
And then she realised the Crown’s intention. The sooner the wedding was held, the sooner war would begin. War was the focus, that was obvious.
Aemond left first, assuring Cregan and Lyanna that everything would be prepared for her arrival. A letter had been sent when Cregan accepted, informing Aegon and the Council that the marriage was to go ahead.
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The ride was long for Lyanna, and the time did nothing to bolster her feelings towards this marriage. She didn’t hate Aemond, she had assured him of that before he left atop Vhagar. And he has assured her in kind, he had no reason to hate her either. But they both knew that there was little between them.
They would barely even be considered friends, for they knew nothing of each other. There was likely to be little time to learn such things.
Six days passed and Lyanna was at the gates of the Red Keep. She had never visited the South herself, but her brother had told her stories. Nothing would ever compare to the beauty of Winterfell in her eyes, but she could appreciate the Keep, nonetheless. For it was to become her home, whether she liked it or not. She assumed people knew of her arrival. It wasn’t often that Starks, or Northerners, came to the capital and to come on the arrangement of marriage would be more than a novelty.
As the carriage came to a stop, Lyanna took a deep breath, hoping to somehow calm herself. She knew nothing of what to expect the moment she stepped from the safety of her carriage. A voice outside could be heard instructing the horseman to open the doors.
Suddenly,  the flash of sunlight hit her eyes. Different from what she used to in the North. As her sight adjusted, she felt a hand reach out and offer to assist her exit, which she gladly took. Thankfully, her welcome was quiet. War did that to cities, most people were likely safely inside their homes. And she was glad of it, a crowd was not what she needed at this moment.
She could see a handful of people, she assumed were royal servants and as she looked further, she saw the figure of Aemond. Standing tall and regal in the small group of servants. Strangely, she was relieved to see a face she at least recognised.
Even if that face belonged to that of a stranger.
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a/n thank you so much to everyone who gave the confidence to do this! feedback is always appreciated!
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lunascalamity · 1 year
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Hello, hello, can I have a sub Zhongli with a gnonis play? Afab reader.
Something like, the gnonis are connected to the Archons, so you can use that against them, right? But what about using it to please them? It intrigues me.
I believe she would be very sensitive to the Archon's partner, as a "gift" from Celestia for when the Archons have intimate moments.
I think Zhongli would have known about this "gift", but he wouldn't have known how potent and sensitive it was because he never used it. I think it would be cute to overstimulate him with that.
Can I be the 🐰 anon?
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Warnings: dom! reader (no gendered pronouns used), sub zhongli, overstimulation (m), established relationship, gnosis play (???), clothes on clothes (forgot what it’s called), thigh riding, coming in pants, nipple play (m), hand job, and I think that’s it
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A/n: 🐰 anon your brain is magnificent, hope I do him justice ^^ horrible set up but shh…
Today was the day Zhongli would give away his gnosis. And though you’ve been dating for quite some time, you’ve never actually seen it up close. So before it goes, why not ask him if you can see it?
“I don’t see why not.” He handed you the gnosis, a bit reluctant but he trusted you.
“It’s smaller than I thought it would be.” You said, inspecting the yellow figure. Holding it up to the light and tracing your fingers along the design. It was simple yet intriguing.
“H-has your curiosity been satisfied?” Zhongli coughs awkwardly.
“Yeah, here-“ you look up, snapping out of your trance to see Zhongli shifting around a bit uncomfortably. You quirk a brow at him, perhaps he was uncomfortable with you holding the gnosis for too long?
You hand it to him, “Have I made you uncomfortable?”
“No, of course not my love.” He said, which did little to ease your confusion, especially with the slight change in his expression which you’ve learned to read. Perhaps he was just needy? His negotiations and contract signing had taken up some of your time together after all.
You smile and place a small kiss on his lips, intending for it to be short until his arms wrap around your waist to pull you closer and deepen the kiss. You quickly adapt to the change in pase, easily leading as you always do and pull him closer.
You move his arm off your waist to hold his hand, unintentionally rubbing up against the gnosis he was still holding onto. A whine left his lips and he tightened the grip he had of your hand.
You part from his lips, much to his dismay. “You’re more sensitive today, whys that?”
Zhongli glances down at your intertwined hands before looking back into your eyes, attempting to come up with an explanation for his behavior.
You interrupt his thoughts, bringing your hand up and unclasping from his hold, “Maybe it’s this?” You point to the gnosis, picking it up and holding it between you and him.
“The gnosis has many uses, including… intimate situations as well. I never thought to tell you because I didn’t deem it as important.” He confesses.
Amused by the situation, you hummed, giving an experimental lick onto the gnosis. Zhongli’s knees buckled in surprise, a tent in his pants beginning to form. You place a knee in between his legs, supporting his body weight so he would not fall. Staring into his eyes, you push the gnosis deeper into your mouth, moving your tongue around and sucking on the cold casing.
The archon groaned at the feeling, leaning back against the door and rubbing up against your thigh. You move your other hand up his shirt, toying with his nipple as you continued the onslaught of pleasure.
“How does it feel?”
“It feels good hah- keeping going…please.”
Sucking on the gnosis again, it was only natural that Zhongli was having troubles holding out with all the places you were pleasuring him. The way you looked at him like he was everything, the feeling of your hand on his chest, the riding of your thigh, the new feeling of his gnosis being sucked, it was all so much and so good.
Zhongli came in no time, hips stuttering on your thigh, a silent scream coming from his lips. Panting, he said “Sorry, I didn’t think I would come that fast.”
“It’s alright, you can make it up to me.” Unzipping his pants, you remove his half hard length and place the gnosis against it causing a whine to slip from Zhongli’s lips. Using his previous orgasm as lube, you beginning moving your hand, the gnosis rubbing up against him. His body shivered as overstimulation had began to set in, hips bucking away from your hand as he leaned into your shoulder. “You can give me another one, right?”
“Yes, yes, yes, please.”
You smile at his response, speeding your hands up and placing soft kisses on his head. He moved up to catch your lips, struggling to keep up with your pace as moans constantly escaped from him. “You look so beautiful like this, it’s a shame you’re giving the gnosis away.”
“Cannot hah- go back on contracts mmm~.”
You chuckle, even during sex he talks about contracts. “Do not laugh.” He reacts, making you laugh even more.
“Sorry, sorry. Are you close?”
“Y-yes, just a bit more.”
After a minute or two, Zhongli came again, much harder and much louder than before. Coming down from his high, he collapses onto you, his weight almost knocking both of you down.
You try angling your head a bit to the side to get a look at Zhongli’s face, a bit concerned. “Are you alright?”
After a couple seconds of heavy breathing, he hummed a response. “I’m fine, thank you.”
You kiss his cheek, sitting him down on a near by chair. “Rest here for a bit while I clean this off for you, I’m sure they can wait a bit longer.”
Ah, yes, the meeting… which he is now late to…
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I wrote this as soon as I woke up from a nap, hope this was to your standards 🐰
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acoraxia · 1 year
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[ TALK WITH YOUR BROTHER ] 
The lower area of the heavenly grounds is surprisingly cold, a light mist covering the area despite the bright glow of gold and white seeping through.
There’s already rumors spreading through the Guard of undisciplined trainees running amok through the stables and freeloading in the gardens — though, it’s certain that the sole protagonist of said rumors is the one guffawing wickedly at the bottom of the stairs, orange fur and golden eyes easily standing out even in the dark uniform the yaoguai wears. A hard sniff is heard as the final step is done and the two men stare at each other, unblinking.
[Doc version]
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SWK: Yang Jian, you would not believe what the horses just told me about Laozi SWK: It’s wickedly cool SWK: Like, “oh my god i never would’ve guessed”, kind of cool ELS: Hm. SWK: Seriously! SWK: You should definitely not go and check the stables, by the way, I think someone left one of the stalls open and one of the horses got out in the middle of the epic quest of: “Where’s the Bimawen?” ELS: You don’t say. SWK: I do say! Overly saying it, actually, I’m saying it right now SWK: Point is, the dude’s crafting some sort of “immortality pill” and keeping it all to himself in his lab and I’m thinking of making him extra sweet tarts tomorrow to try and get him to share some SWK: Okay, well, Imma try to get Jiejie to teach me to bake tarts and then I can sweeten him up SWK: All that skilled planning will get me closer to expanding my immortal lifespan by ten so I can gloat to those guards about who’s actually the strongest in training SWK: Hah! Even my old master knew that I was the strongest— ELS: Yes, who was that again? SWK: Hm? ELS: Your master. Who was he? SWK: What master? ELS: The master you just spoke of. SWK: I’ve only had one master and that’s you, bro
There’s a pause in the very-important-must-read-dialogue to remind the reader than if you’re unaware of the motions, Erlang Shen, the Jade Emperor’s nephew and renown God of Justice, is regretting his decision in coming down to try and negotiate with his brother about leaving behind trickery for the sake of his migraine-induced rage bursts. The Ivory Lady says it’s bad for his age.
SWK: Can I be honest? ELS: I don’t think you were born or designed to be honest. But by all means, go right ahead. SWK: I’m thinking about the clouds that form around here ELS: … ELS: Clouds? SWK: ‘Cause you have all the nice neat lil’ shapes back on the mortal realm that are fun to crash into! They fill up with water vapor and turn into shapes and you can try and guess what kind of shape they turn into like a very normal kind of game a fifty-year-old demon like me would play ELS: Clearly. SWK: But the clouds here never change! Not once! They don’t even disappear — is it like a time thing? That’s the exact same cloud I saw yesterday when I was chasing down Xiaotian ELS: Why were you chasing my dog? SWK: And that is the same cloud I saw when I broke into the Emperor’s closet and put on one of his fancy gowns to play ‘Emperor For the Day’ until someone noticed and ended up getting kicked out for ‘ruining the Jade Emperor’s regalia’ ELS: That was you?  SWK: Not the point ELS: Stop chasing Xiaotian. SWK: I don’t think you’re focusing enough on the clouds and their freaky patterns and stupid ideas of never changing once when I turn way to ask for it ELS: Did you also dye his fur? SWK: Actually he just ran straight into my study desk and got ink all over himself ELS: Where did you get the colored ink? SWK: You can make it by mixing flower petals or leaves together to change its color ELS: Oh. SWK: Smart huh? ELS: I have found the one daily thing you’ve done to impress me. Congratulations.  ELS: You’re grounded. SWK: No, I’m not ELS: You are. SWK: You always say I’m grounded but then you turn around and let me stay with the horses before training SWK: Come on Yang Jian it’s nothin’! Besides it’s just you and me, now, you can drop the ‘almighty justice god’ routine ELS: It’s not a routine! 
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ELS: Come on, Shi Hou. You’re the smartest trainee I have— SWK: Ever had ELS: You trained with me for like, what? A couple of weeks? It’s incredible how quickly you picked up on everything. You should be using that brain of yours for something other than cheap pranks, brother. ELS: You won’t be taken seriously if you don’t act serious. SWK: Says the gege who helped me prank your sworn brothers SWK: Didn’t know chickens could be so violent ELS: Of course they’re violent. The smaller they are the more violence is stored inside them. ELS: You’d know that if you learned about the— SWK: Yeah, I got it SWK: But can you blame me? Fifteen days of being here after finding out Heaven was lying to me? I could’ve gone back to Azure and told them about how stupid the whole ‘Taking Back Heaven’ plan is to try something else ELS: And you believe Azure would listen? SWK: Of course he would! SWK: You listen to me ELS: Because we’re brothers. SWK: He said he was my brother. How’s that any different? ELS: I, personally, don’t have any delusions of grandeur when it comes to wanting to overthrow the most powerful royal line out there. ELS: But I am willing to teach you how to control that magic of yours and learn to— SWK: Blast things! ELS: Heal, little brother. It will come in handy when you’re out in the battlefield all alone. You may be all powerful but your body’s still growing. Changing. You may even encounter stronger yaoguai on your adventures when you finally leave my temple. SWK: Really? You think someone is capable of hurting me? ELS: Apart from me? Yes. SWK: Psh, sure. You beat me, what? Three times? I still won the other fights. ELS: Yes, and I kept training to counter you. We’re tied.  ELS: Now, go wash up. We’re traveling East tomorrow to meet with an old friend of mine. You’d do best to learn proper decorum before meeting him. SWK: If he’s anything like your right-hand then I’ll probably be able to manage ELS: Wukong… SWK: Yeah, yeah SWK: Bah, you worry too much Erlang. I’ll be right with you first thing in the morning ELS: I’ll believe you.  ELS: Don’t be late!
There’s a bright flash of light, the same orange and yellows that seep from the sunset. It grows brighter and brighter and gray eyes stare up at the bird that circles around the god before diving towards the temple. There’s a few seconds before Erlang hears a loud cackle of laughter, amused and delighted, and he can’t help the small smile that spreads on his face.
He sighs and stares up at the sky, watching it change into night. 
-----
MASTERPOST | REST OF THE AU
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introvert-celeste · 5 months
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It's absolutely sickening seeing what new atrocities Israel is committing every day in Palestine, as well as all the disgusting people who support it. Their response is always "Hamas started it" and "October 7th," but:
1) Using Hamas as a way to justify the murder of Palestinian civilians is essentially islamophobic bullshit
2) Israel has been carrying out this blood feud for decades (since 1948 and even before), long before the Hamas existed (founded in 1987). Hamas did not start this.
3) Attacking hospitals and medical vehicles is literally a war crime, regardless of whether you suspect terrorists are occupying it.
4) I feel like it should be widely known that the way to deal with a hostage situation is to establish communication with the terrorist, de-escalate the situation, and negotiate for the hostages' safe return. Not bombing indiscriminately at where they think the terrorists are.
5) I am morally against killing anyone, save for the most heinous (cold blooded serial killers, serial rapists, etc.), but I'm especially against killing children. Killing children is never, ever justified, not even in retaliation. Last I heard, Israel has killed well over 4000 children in the last month. Absolutely sickening.
6) People are starting to deny that any of this is happening, which is exactly what happened during the Holocaust. We are witnessing a genocide is real time and people are denying its existence, or labeling all the deaths as terrorist kills.
Also, just to clarify, criticism of Israel doesn't mean criticism of all Jewish people, but of the Zionist extremists in power, just as Islamic terrorist groups don't represent all followers of Islam. I also feel for the Israeli hostages in this situation, of course, as well as the Israeli citizens who are stuck under this leadership. They don't deserve any of this. I just hope that all of this will end soon and that real justice--not indiscriminate killing--will be served.
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rockislandadultreads · 5 months
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Read-Alike Friday: Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.
In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes such as Al Spencer, “the Phantom Terror,” roamed – virtually anyone who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. But the bureau was then notoriously corrupt and initially bungled the case. Eventually the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau. They infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest modern techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history.
Covered with Night by Nicole Eustace
The Pulitzer Prize-winning history that transforms a single event in 1722 into an unparalleled portrait of early America.
In the winter of 1722, on the eve of a major conference between the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee (also known as the Iroquois) and Anglo-American colonists, a pair of colonial fur traders brutally assaulted a Seneca hunter near Conestoga, Pennsylvania. Though virtually forgotten today, the crime ignited a contest between Native American forms of justice―rooted in community, forgiveness, and reparations―and the colonial ideology of harsh reprisal that called for the accused killers to be executed if found guilty.
In Covered with Night, historian Nicole Eustace reconstructs the attack and its aftermath, introducing a group of unforgettable individuals―from the slain man’s resilient widow to an Indigenous diplomat known as “Captain Civility” to the scheming governor of Pennsylvania―as she narrates a remarkable series of criminal investigations and cross-cultural negotiations. Taking its title from a Haudenosaunee metaphor for mourning, Covered with Night ultimately urges us to consider Indigenous approaches to grief and condolence, rupture and repair, as we seek new avenues of justice in our own era.
Return to Uluru by Mark McKenna
A killing. A hidden history. A story that goes to the heart of the nation.
When Mark McKenna set out to write a history of the centre of Australia, he had no idea what he would discover. One event in 1934 – the shooting at Uluru of Aboriginal man Yokununna by white policeman Bill McKinnon, and subsequent Commonwealth inquiry – stood out as a mirror of racial politics in the Northern Territory at the time.
But then, through speaking with the families of both killer and victim, McKenna unearthed new evidence that transformed the historical record and the meaning of the event for today. As he explains, ‘Every thread of the story connected to the present in surprising ways.’ In a sequence of powerful revelations, McKenna explores what truth-telling and reconciliation look like in practice.
Return to Uluru brings a cold case to life. It speaks directly to the Black Lives Matter movement, but is completely Australian. Recalling Chloe Hooper’s The Tall Man, it is superbly written, moving, and full of astonishing, unexpected twists. Ultimately it is a story of recognition and return, which goes to the very heart of the country. At the centre of it all is Uluru, the sacred site where paths fatefully converged.
Yellow Bird by Sierra Crane Murdoch
When Lissa Yellow Bird was released from prison in 2009, she found her home, the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, transformed by the Bakken oil boom. In her absence, the landscape had been altered beyond recognition, her tribal government swayed by corporate interests, and her community burdened by a surge in violence and addiction. Three years later, when Lissa learned that a young white oil worker, Kristopher "KC" Clarke, had disappeared from his reservation worksite, she became particularly concerned. No one knew where Clarke had gone, and few people were actively looking for him.
Yellow Bird traces Lissa's steps as she obsessively hunts for clues to Clarke's disappearance. She navigates two worlds - that of her own tribe, changed by its newfound wealth, and that of the non-Native oilmen, down on their luck, who have come to find work on the heels of the economic recession. Her pursuit of Clarke is also a pursuit of redemption, as Lissa atones for her own crimes and reckons with generations of trauma.
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Welcome to my shop!
We have a lot of trinkets, tools, and pets! We can also have some things custom-made for you, if you'd like. Our door is always open, and we welcome anyone. Even if you don't buy anything.
The currency is coins, but we are willing to negotiate. We will often take items needed for crafting and such as payment.
Items:
We have cloaks of camouflage, which shift color to blend in to your surroundings.
We've got the lighthearted potions. A powder to make a person rhyme for a few hours, a candy that gives them a high voice for a day or two, and the kaleidoscope glasses cleaner. Makes em see everything like a kaleidoscope, obviously.
We've got the ones that alter emotions. Buy 2, get one free! Or you can mix and match to your heart's desire.
How about the soaps? One makes it so you never have to bathe again, it'll keep you clean. Another one makes mosquitoes terrified of you. Permanently.
Or there's the arm-band that gives you an outfit that morphs into whatever you deem fitting for the occasion.
As for the armband, I recommend wearing clothes underneath, just in case it malfunctions. Just leggings and a t-shirt. I've had angry customers wanting refunds and they were a pain in the knuckles.
Also, a pill that makes you not a loser. I take it daily. I don't think it's too effective.
There's the leaf crown that gives you the ability to photosynthesize... but your eyes will turn green while you're wearing it. Which isn't the worst of things. Green eyes are pretty.
There's a thermometer, it measures figurative warmth and cold.
We've got the magnet from the Shaggy Man in the Wizard of Oz. Makes people love you. Honestly, I think all the love potions are overrated.
We've also got bracelets with attachable charms including but not limited to: charisma, intelligence, stamina, strength, speed, stealth, wit, etc.
There is also a pocketknife that can never be lost, a notepad that takes notes for you, and a book that changes its story every time you finish it.
A pair of hair-pieces. You exchange it with a person, and it allows controlled, consensual telepathic communication. The simple ones are a button apeice. The multi-dimensional ones cost a seashell for a pair, but if you get the multiple dimension ones, I can offer you a discount.
We have nail polish that can turn your fingernails into claws that can cut through metal.
We've also got earrings that give you controlled selective hearing. And yes, we also carry the magnetic kind.
Pets:
Some new items!
Bags, that when you put something into it, it does not have any weight. Great for traveling.
Little metal beetles that can be programmed to detect almost anything you'd like; such as water, warmth, certain types of plants, or even tracking animals.
Mirrors that show not physical appearance, but personality.
Hourglasses that measure the time until your next sneeze.
Candles. You can put a memory you want to forget into them, and then when it burns out, the memory will be gone.
Fish eggs. They're for fish about the size of a minnow, but you can use them to relay messages. They whisper in your ear. And all of the species have a hive mind, so you could use them to spy.
Well, the fish, we've also got birds. The parakeets will pretty much do what you tell them to. They're smarter than most. We've got the axolotls, they basically just look cute and question everything you do. Our crabs are crabby, our frogs can make it rain, toads will selectively eat the bugs you don't like, and turtles are pretty wise. The squirrels are excellent trackers, and can find almost anything. But they'll never shut up.
We're not supposed to sell the hawks because they have an extremely keen sense of justice, and have injured their owners for being prejudiced or unjust. If I made an exception, you'd have to raise it from a fledgling, to raise it loyal to you.
We are currently working on getting larger animals. Ferrets coming soon!
You'd have to sigh a waiver for that though.
Some new pets!
Monkeys! They're pretty awesome. No magical abilities, but quite well behaved and very fun to spend time with. But they need a lot of enrichment.
Glow worms that can read books to you.
Caribou. Very friendly and great emotional support.
Hummingbirds. They bring better luck.
Sloths. They sleep so you don't have to. This is literal. If you let them sleep, you will not need sleep.
Employees:
If you're interested in buying something from my shop, feel welcome to come in! Speak to one of these people if you want to buy something, or have something custom made.
Firefly: Troubled past, silly, easy to please, cares deeply about people and is a fierce fighter. Gone most of the time on quests and such.
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Ohtacaro: Quiet, smart, stereotypical ninja, has a cat named Randir. He and Otsi'stia have a sign language that they came up with for private conversations.
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Otsi'stia: She is clever, practical, and the twin sister of Ohtacaro. She is less withdrawn than he is, but usually won't start a conversation for no reason. Hates small talk. Will get straight to the point.
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Hotaru: Cheerful, hyper, enthusiastic. She's innocent and loves everyone. She just wants to help people. She is easily fascinated by little things. Especially koi fish.
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Jon: Has a sense of humor, charming, and loves books. He is good at planning and dealing with people. He won't take abuse, and won't let you abuse his friends, either. He hates it when things get awkward.
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Rena: A little bit bossy. She can be a grouch. You do NOT want to get on her bad side. But the number one way to get on her bad side is to be mean to Hotaru. She goes on runs to clear her head, and is currently taking anger management courses, because Jon and Lilian made her do it.
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Lilian: The comforting, motherly one. She'll probably invite you in for a cup of tea, or babysit your pets or children or irresponsible friends. She wants you to be okay. She usually has calming music playing in the background, and she can be really poetic when she wants to be.
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Soraya: The mechanic/scientist/inventor. Not a great fan of eye contact. Shy, as in, almost never speaks to anyone. Has her own space to work in, and stays there most of the time, but often goes to the library, or to the abandoned lot to test things out. She is extremely intelligent and a problem solver.
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evita-shelby · 4 months
Text
Incantatrice
Chapter 19
Cw: offscreen murder
*Spoilers* rip Arthur
Taglist: @thegreatdragonfruta @wandawiccan60 @zablife @call-sign-shark @cljordan-imperium
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The negotiations with Polly Gray had gone well.
For letting them live and move to Boston with Ada or Australia with Polly, all she had to do was hand over Tommy Shelby. They’d give up their life of crime and never bother again.
Tommy had damned them all, it was only right that he gives up his life for them. It wasn’t like he lived anymore, he merely existed.
One man in exchange for many.
Well, two actually.
Polly didn’t know about Arthur, but Edward Ross needed to be avenged. It was the least they could do for Mrs. Ross and the other mothers of the other boys he’s maimed and killed in the boxing ring.
But that wouldn’t be traced back to them, after all, was it Changretta’s fault that Mrs. Ross had bought a gun for the occasion? Was it her fault that Arthur killed her Edward?
“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?” Ada Thorne asks as they meet each other for a third time in the library.
“Yes, I was one of your investors, and a guest at a charity gala my family invited you to. Don’t worry, your company will be in good hands, we Rileys got a Midas Touch when it comes to business.” Eva kept her back to her and perused the shelf some more.
Shelby had spies everywhere, Eva had rooted most of them out and now there were several here watching them. Good, she thinks as she sows seeds of suspicion between Tommy and his only sister.
Especially after it’s just them and Finn left.
“I’d ask why you are doing this to us, but I already know the answer.” The woman took the book next to hers and wisely didn’t ask for what she already knew. “What do you gain from this?”
“Justice for my husband’s father and brother, a kingdom ripe for the taking.” Eva answered honestly, no need to lie about it now. It was all going to end soon, very soon.
February 3, or near that date.
Tommy would be dead, every Shelby scattered to the wind and the Changrettas building an empire from Tommy Shelby’s ashes.
All because the man didn’t verify if the shooter had even been Italian.
“The Spiniettas fear you, don’t they?” Ada asks something even her brother and aunt didn’t seem to piece together. “They know you are the reason Luca is on a whole other level, and they know he isn’t satisfied with following orders anymore. So the two of you took your chance to leave and carve out your own place here.”
“Even your brother didn’t put two and two together, Mrs. Thorne, color me impressed.” The witch comments and yet refused to turn around. “My husband will stop once Tommy is dead. As long as you keep away from this you and your son and your little brother will live. You can even keep your share of the company.”
“I won’t betray him, if that’s what you’re asking.” The communist turned businesswoman caught her drift very well. No wonder the legal part of Shelby Company was doing so well.
But Tommy won’t trust her word either, not when Polly is betraying him and Arthur dying in an hour.
“Not asking you to, just asking you to focus on other things.” Eva smiled and gestured to Benjamin Younger waiting to meet with her just on the other side of the aisle. “You could be happy again, Ada, happy with your son and perhaps a daughter. All you have to do is step aside.”
Ada doesn’t speak, but Eva hears her agree to it anyways.
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“I didn’t think the woman had it in her.” Matteo laughs in surprise when the decoys deliver the news.
It had not been planned by this, but Luca knew better than to deny a mother long overdue justice.
Arthur Shelby had been dead the moment he came into her parlor and sat there while the boy in the photograph was cold in the ground. Mrs. Ross had been told how he hurt his wife, how her sweet Edward wasn’t his last victim and given the push needed to buy herself a gun.
Only Thomas was left and soon enough he’d be joining his brothers in hell.
“No one knows rage like a mother,” Luca said taking a new matchstick into his mouth. He’d been warned of this chance in plans, of the wagon in his path and how this helped seal the deal with Polly.
A nephew is not a son, the witch had said as she kissed him goodbye this morning. You will have your enemies at your feet before the first flowers even bloom, my love.
“What makes you think your old whore will keep her word, Luca?” his right hand asked knowing Arthur was part of Polly Gray’s deal.
“She won’t want me to kill her little boy. I didn’t run out of bullets by accident, you know.” The capo couldn’t wait for Polly to know just who she was dancing with.
She’d thought herself safe believing they didn’t know she was spying for her nephew, but after today, she’ll know better.
Polly Gray overestimates herself, he knows that very well. After all, she’d thought he’d never find out about her dalliances with Gray while he was in America. Luca had to teach her a lesson, teach him a lesson too.
Perhaps after this is over Luca will tell her how he killed her husband and had her children taken away for cheating on him all those years ago.
She could hold a grudge, just not as good as he did.
“Salvatore, take us to London. I have a meeting with Sabini.” Luca ordered as he made plans to take over London even if little Aurora Sabini lives long enough to marry his son.
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tiredflowercrown · 3 months
Text
good for you (does it cross your mind to be slightly sorry?)
More people deserve to be angry, and rightfully so at that. Sooo, here yall go!
A deal had finally been struck. After years of negotiations, they finally had a way to bring every VK off the Isle. Not just VKs as well, they had managed to get non-magical villains off as well. It wasn’t justice. Not yet. But it was reparations.
Now, they just had to deal with the little details. Deals were struck between gangs. Temporary alliances were made. Secrets were kept. Children were hidden. Everything was being prepared to leave. They just needed a way.
The easiest of which was the pirate ships, however that came with the problem of the Jolly Roger. Both Harriet and Uma agreed that VKs shouldn’t be on the boat and most Villains also couldn’t be on it either due to safety concerns, but they needed the room. That wasn’t even addressing the small issue of the Lost Revenge not exactly being the most seaworthy ship. Luckily, the Shattered Hope had agreed to tow the Lost Revenge, at least to the barrier where an Auradon ship could then take over towing until they made port.
“Hey! Watch the rigging!”
The deck was filled with hustle and bustle. Everyone rushed around to prepare the ship, both for the voyage and for the mass of people that would be on board. Good spirits were in abundance, well mostly in abundance.
Uma went to grab a list of supplies from her cabin, knowing Gil’s tendencies of forgetfulness and his need for direct instructions. Quickly grabbing the list from her desk she turns to find two figures in the doorway. Jonas and Desiree. Arms crossed and blocking any exit for escape.
Her cousin's faces were stony. Despite Jonas’s nonchalant lean on the wall and Desiree leaning in the doorway, she knew a fight was coming. Uma had seen the two through a lot, but she had never seen them this serious.
“Uma, so glad we could catch you. I think we need to have a little talk.”
His cheerful tone matched with his glare mean she had fucked up. Big time.
“Oh yes, I agree. Hey Uma, have you ever thought about how six months is kinda a long period of time.”
“Especially over winter. There’s just something about the cold that makes time seem even longer.”
Her blood ran cold. Most of the crew had been content or even excited when she had returned with supplies and news of minor freedoms. No one had dared to bring up the elephant in the room of her disappearance. Until now it seemed.
“It had to be done. The dragon’s weren’t fighting for us, someone had to.” She stated, almost a plea in her voice.
“That doesn’t make up for it. We had survived this long. We would have kept going as always.” Jonas snarled, pushing off the wall and growing closer to her.
“It was November. The first freeze had already happened. Did that mean nothing? Did we mean nothing?”
Desiree’s accusations cut deep. They had been the very same things that haunted Uma when she left. But it was worth it. It had to be worth it
“I had faith in your and Harry’s abilities. You said it yourself, you’ve survived this long.”
“Oh so that makes it okay? You had faith that your cousins, who you had never put in positions of power, and the boys who love you so much that they would stop breathing if you asked them to, would be able to care for an entire crew! Harry shut down when he realized you had left! You think Harriet is an alcoholic, you should’ve seen Harry!” Desiree screamed, growing closer to Uma. Only Jonas’s hand on her arm seemed to calm her.
“You abandoned us. There are no other words for it. You abandoned us in what became the harshest winter the Isle has seen yet. You left. Yes, for noble reasons, but we are- we were your crew. Shouldn’t we have come first? As both crew and as family?” His words took a pleading tone, eyes searching for an ounce of regret in her face.
“I-”
“What’s going on here?” Harry’s voice called out. Appearing outside her door, staring at the two who stood in front of her.
“We were just leaving, weren’t we Desiree?” Jonas said, tightening his grip on his sister and beginning to pull her away.
“Just remember dear cousin. Just because they forgive you doesn’t mean we do. And we all won’t forget what happened. Not anytime soon.” Desiree spit out before leaving, shoving Jonas off her in the process.
Uma took a shaky breath, steading herself. Harry moved forward and looked over her, checking for any marks or harm that they could have laid upon her.
“What did they do? I’ll kill them. How dare they?”
“It’s okay, Harry. It’s nothing I didn’t deserve.” She comforted him.
“No. No one gets to talk to you that way. I’ll-”
“Harry. It. Is. Fine.” She grabbed his hands, running her thumb over his knuckles, “It’s fine. Everything is fine.”
His eyes softened.
“If you say so.”
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kichous · 9 months
Text
✧・゚:*   by the cold entrance
summary. fushiguro. so you hadn’t been the only one who moved on. series. how should i greet thee ? part one . part two . part three . part four . part five you’re here ! pairing. past fushiguro toji x f!reader. warnings. canon-typical misogyny. word count. 2092.
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The elders never called upon you.
You are no longer a member of the main branch, the tenuous matrimonial tie severed after Toji absconded with your firstborn, destroyed entirely after it was clear he would not be returning—on account of his being dead and all. But even during your marriage, you went overlooked because of your husband. At most, you were tolerated for your technique’s vague similarity to the Ten Shadows.
The Zen’in clan at large is more fond of your second husband, Saiichi. But seeing as your only real point of reference was the nigh omnipresent derision towards Toji, the bar may as well be below the earth’s mantle. Regardless, you’ve been treated more kindly as the years pass. The cruelest among you will mock you for being abandoned by the lowest of the low. The rest see that you’ve redeemed yourself by serving as the perfect wife. You’ve even managed to gain a couple of sycophants after your secondborn, a strong and healthy son, began manifesting your technique, claiming Toji was an ungrateful fool for ever daring to leave you. 
It’s easier to accept these words than to admit the truth, that you had driven him away, and so you do.
But these were bottom feeders who would never be anything more in their lives. The true authoritative heads of the clan paid you little heed, and you were glad for it. Once they learned that Megumi had in fact inherited the desired technique, a bright red target was painted on your back for letting him slip from your grasp. Thus, when Naobito demanded (not requested, for that would imply he gave you the option to refuse) your presence, you were rightfully wary.
Little did you know that you’d been brought into discussions regarding the fate of your eldest son. Not that you were given permission to participate, instead made to sit in silence with your daughter on your hip as Naobito argued with a child.
The Gojo boy had asked, at one point, if you were ever going to speak. If you even could.
“She is not here to negotiate,” interceded Naobito on your behalf. You had been a little preoccupied with the girl using your torso as a makeshift jungle gym to respond, but you know he would’ve spoken for you even if you hadn’t. “She will be the boy’s guardian and tutor if he’s going to the clan.”
I’m his MOTHER, you want to scream. You hold your tongue instead.
It isn’t until they call a break in the talks that you get the chance to use your voice. Whilst the Zen’in elders talk among themselves, you slip away to corner the Gojo boy. He smiles as you approach, more at Nobue as she tugs at your ear with all the strength of a two year-old. Both of her brothers were far more docile, and you grab her tiny hands in a vice grip and pin them to her front.
“How old are you?” you ask the boy, in lieu of a proper greeting.
He purses his lips. “That’s rude,” says Gojo Satoru. “You wouldn’t like it if I asked how old you were, would you, baa-san?”
A vein throbs in your forehead. You know better than to rise to the bait. “You’re still in high school?”
“Does it matter?”
“I just find it hard to believe that my ex-husband would entrust our child to another child.” Comprehension dawns in his blue eyes, just barely visible over the rims of his glasses, and you allow your lips to curve just a bit. Shifting your grip on Nobue, you shrug. “Although, based on what I’ve heard about you, calling you a child wouldn't be doing you justice.”
“It just makes me look haughty to agree with you,” hums Gojo, a shrewd tilt to his head. He’s sizing you up just as much as you are him. You’re reminded of his much more guileless uncle, a prospective husband you’d written off because of the young man in front of you.
What had become of him? The Gojo clan is powerful, but their dominance rested solely on the shoulders of this brat and no one else. The Zen’in clan, by comparison, had a small town’s worth of capable sorcerers. You and your husband are considered part of the Akashi, just below the elites.
The boy grins, and you’re envious of his lack of crows feet. “But you’re right. Your ex never mentioned you, you know. Just the clan.”
Ruefully, you chuckle. “Knowing Toji, we’re probably one and the same in his eyes. Were, I suppose.” You still find yourself correcting tenses, even after all this time.
“Yeah, he kinda gave me the impression that Megumi’s mom was dead.”
An amateurish attempt at getting under your skin. You plaster a smile on your face. “Yeah, that sounds like him.” Leaning closer, you drop your voice to a whisper and impress upon him all the wistfulness you can muster. It isn’t entirely insincere. You are curious about the boy you’d once thought forever lost to you. “Megumi… what is he like? The last time I saw him, he was just a baby, not even a year old.”
Gojo takes a moment to ponder his response. He’s opting for honesty, then. “He’s stern for his age,” he says eventually. “Serious, even though he’s so little. I reckon he had to grow up quick after being abandoned by all three of his parents. He’s so unimpressed by everything around him that that in itself is a little impressive. Is that his little sister?”
You blink as he jerks his chin at Nobue, switching tacks so quickly you don’t pivot in time. “I’m not exactly a babysitter,” you snark, harsher than you had intended. So maybe he had ticked you off just a bit, implying that you’d left Megumi when in reality he’d been taken from you.
Holding his hands up in surrender, Gojo laughs. It’s an annoying sound. It suits him. “It’s just that he has an older sister,” he says. “They’re sort of a package deal, stuck together at the hip. She practically raised him, and he loves her a lot. But I’m not sure if the clan would take her in, since she’s just an ordinary person.”
Dismissively, you click your tongue. “What becomes of his stepsister is of no concern to the clan. There’s nothing for her here.” And you have your hands full as it is without having to care for someone else’s daughter. What was your replacement like, you wonder. Did Toji ever look at her the way he used to look at you? Did this brat also call him Dad? Jealousy is an ugly thing, and you are no stranger to it.
You don’t realize just how full of motion Gojo is until he stills at your words. “No,” he agrees. “I guess there isn’t.”
“Thank you for talking to me.” You pay his honesty in kind—with earnestness, if nothing else. You reach out to pat his shoulder lightly. He remains tense, and your hand never makes contact with him. His technique, it looks like. Being outfoxed by a boy is embarrassing. “You’re… different than how I imagined you.”
That breathes life back into him. Any chance for him to preen, you suppose. “Oh? And what exactly does that mean?”
“It means that I was expecting a snot-nosed, self-absorbed, greedy, and entitled little brat.” Nobue kicks you in the ribs, perhaps a warning that you’re laying it on a little too thick. “But you're just an ordinary kid.”
“Oh, I’m all of those things,” Gojo snickers. “But thanks. You’re different, too. I was the one who asked you to be here, or at least whoever they were going to pawn poor Megumi off to. Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.” Wouldn’t that have been a surprise, if Naobito had simply dropped him into your lap one day without any warning?
No, the truth was that he’d used you as leverage today. Parade the birth mother around, make it seem like the boy was going to be in good hands, with his immediate family, when in actuality, you’d be lucky to even get a glimpse of him. Your hypothesis had been proven correct all these years later, and now the elders are chomping at the bit to have him. It’s highly likely you won’t even get scraps. Were they banking on Gojo to just wipe his hands clean of the entire thing? Or were they going to dress you both up as a loving mother-son duo if he so happened to stop by to see how things were going?
“I suppose I should thank you, then—though I’ll save that for after I hear your opinion of me. I may end up cursing you instead,” you tell him.
Gojo snorts, a noise curtailed by Naobito’s re-entry into the room. They lock gazes, and then Gojo turns to look at you. You think there may be a flash of understanding there.
More than anything, you want your baby back in your arms, even if he’s not actually a baby anymore. But as long as the man behind you still lives, you’ll never get your son back. Toji wouldn’t have wanted this, for the boy to be used as a puppet, corrupted by the vile brood that had once cast him out. Now that he’s gone, as is Megumi’s step-mother, you and the boy in front of you are all he has left by way of parents.
“If this were to fall through, who would be taking care of my son?” You speak carefully and quietly, all too aware of the needle-sharp daggers sent your way by your clansman.
“He’d be a ward of the school,” answers Gojo. “But I’d act as his primary guardian.”
“Ah. I see.” Good enough. The strongest sorcerer alive, the scion of a prestigious family. You smile at him, leaning closer and lowering your voice to convey shyness more so than conspiracy. “Do you… do you think he’d like me?”
Gojo’s spectacles slip down the bridge of his nose, and you’re met with the full ferocity of his blue eyes. They’re piercing, searching, and circumspect as he scrutinizes your face. Is this really what you want? As you dip your head, a wicked sneer spreads across his features, tempered slightly by the grudging respect in his gaze. It’s not noticeable from afar, and Naobito is distant enough that he won’t pick up on it.
Brows curved low, a brief flash of teeth, and a vicious curve of his lips punctuate Gojo’s too-loud  (or rather, loud enough) words: “Nah, you’re too much of an evil step-mom.”
It stings, but it’s for the best. They’ll blame you for this, for speaking out of turn and botching the deal. Your reputation will suffer. Your husband will be angry, for once, instead of merely indifferent. You lay your cheek on top of Nobue’s head as she whines and nuzzles into your neck.
This is the world she will grow up in, your sweet, feisty little girl. She will be made to be docile, to obey and never question, to serve her father and brother and someday her husband. The world will take and take and take from her, this clan nothing but a ravenous black hole that will never have its fill. Her brother Morinaga’s life will be a thousand times easier by virtue of his sex, though it can’t be said that the Zen’in clan was ever kind to its sons either. They will break him in his training, and if he winds up in the Akashi along with his family, the disappointment may crush him. And yet all you can do is hold your children a little tighter and teach them to endure and survive what’s to come.
But if you have to let one of go far away from you to spare him of this fate, of course you will. He is all that you have left of the love of your life—but you know that it will be better this way. Megumi will be safe, and with any luck, he will be happier than he would ever be with you.
Gojo is still talking, now over your head, playful and impish where Naobito is livid.
You press quick kisses to Nobue’s crown, then temple, then cheek, as you squeeze your eyes shut to try and drown out the image of a little boy with wild raven spikes for hair and his father’s jade eyes in shadow.
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zombiedumbie · 4 months
Note
Idk, but this is living free on my head and i just thought about it. I don't know if this request or not. Or maybe HC. But, Law as Howl from Howl moving castle. Like, maybe he got his surgeon power from magic or something, and decide to take his heart out because it's have heavy burden? Maybe he doesn't wanna feel anything and already hurt himself too bad since Corazon died. And he grew up as handsome man but also cold.
Idk, you can continue the headcanon XD
I love this movie with all my heart!! And this HC made me rewatch this movie, thank you so much. I'm not so good with HCs, this one turned out quite long, but I think I expressed my ideas well. ugh i really want to write more about it later
Law would definitely have a feud with Doflamingo (who is a very powerful and sadistic wizard) precisely because of Rosinante, maybe Doflamingo is even the cause of a war. Rumors of the Surgeon of the Death would spread throughout the country, people would say, "Law will take you to his castle and steal your heart!" and I imagine Law's castle to be an earthly version of the Polar Tang, yellow and full of gadgets on the outside, but empty and dusty on the inside.
I was thinking of Law living alone, but I'm really tempted by the idea of Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin playing the role of Markl and being Law's assistants (or maybe just Bepo? but I imagine Law saving all 3 somewhat as he did in his Light Novel).
Unlike Howl, Law doesn't make a deal with a demon; he just used his powers to remove his heart in exchange for not feeling the pain of losing Rosinante anymore. However, since he could easily die if his heart were attacked, he keeps it constantly moving in his castle, which uses his heart to move.
Since wizards without their own hearts slowly become monsters, Law thought he could use this to get stronger and fight Doflamingo, without thinking much about how he would slowly lose his humanity and never return to who he was since his feelings had practically been torn away with his own heart.
Until he meets you. I would change Law's powers a bit just to recreate that iconic scene when they walk in the air (and he's a wizard!! His powers are not limited to surgeries, but definitely focused). He would be running away from Doflamingo's magical henchmen and find you being harassed by soldiers. He definitely only helps you thinking he can use you to escape (we're talking about a man without a heart here!), but it doesn't work out so well, and he uses magic to escape with you walking in the air (he still has a bit of a sense of justice)
"Don't be dramatic", if you're scared. "Just look ahead and walk as if you're on the ground, or I'll drop you", this shouldn't be a threat; he just didn't have enough energy to carry both of you in the air, but his tone of voice certainly sounded rude.
He suspects when he finds you again in his castle, scared for being attacked by Doflamingo (that damn guy thought you were challenging him, you know, sadistic stuff), but only believes you when he sees the paper in your pocket, with that cheeky and cut grin, but he's still suspicious.
He denies your request for help, you try to negotiate and say you'll help with the cleaning, but he denies that too. Then you just sigh and say that with this curse, you can't go back to your normal life.
Tired, Law just accepts that you can stay if you really keep your promise to help with the cleaning.
You end up making friends with his assistants, who are more than happy to have someone to help clean, as the 4 of them were not at all organized, and the place is a complete mess.
Law cries when he realizes you cleaned the small room that hid his heart and even removed the thick layer of dust covering the blue film that protected it; the place became brighter and easier to enter without all that dirt. He doesn't even understand why he's crying; everyone gets confused and worried when he starts melting into a puddle of yellow goo, but you just ask them to fill the bathtub with hot water.
After that, Law becomes a bit more present during meals, and even talks more with you. The change in his mood, always so down, is obvious, but you prefer not to comment on anything to avoid making him uncomfortable.
Slowly, he began to feel more comfortable with the idea of having feelings when joy filled his castle, but still too scared to take back his heart.
The turning point comes when Law realizes that it's becoming increasingly difficult to return to his human form, and at some point in the next few days, he probably won't be able to return anymore. The fear of feeling that weight on his chest again is too much, but Law still wants to be human; he wants… to love.
He would probably postpone as much as possible to put his heart back in his chest, thinking that he would be too weak to fight Doflamingo this way. He still wants to protect you all; that's why he doesn't want to tell you what's happening to avoid worrying you.
This selfish little shitty brat would only get his heart back at a very critical moment (probably when he's near death lol) and when he realizes that he doesn't have to fight alone to protect everyone, especially when Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin are his wizard apprentices, and when he also realizes that you wouldn't be happy to see him die for you when he could save himself and save his own humanity.
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Rereading the chapter in RB where Adam confronts Whelk and Neeve in Cabeswater is such an interesting thing.
1. When Adam says, "Why Noah? Why not someone horrible", it shows how much he understands both of them. All three of them want to awaken the ley line, and murder's not off the table for any of them.
2. Whelk points out to Neeve that if his murder is justice for Noah's death, by rights Neeve should eventually die on the ley line for his death. This is something Neeve ignores, but eventually does happen to her in TRK. This means that from Cabeswater's POV, a human life is a human life, and the distinction Adam made between "good" and "horrible" humans is irrelevant. Possibly because sacrificing another human is impossible because you can only truly sacrifice something that is legitimately yours. Unless the person sacrifices themselves willingly, its just murder.
3. Also, intentions must count. In the end, it was Cabeswater that killed Whelk, but Neeve still dies in Cabeswater. Probably because she set about to perform premeditated murder on Whelk.
4. Also, Neeve tells Whelk that the sacrifice must be something that means something to the person performing the sacrifice. That's why sacrificing Noah did have some effect: Noah's murder was just that, a murder. But Whelk did sacrifice a friendship. Which is sad because there's no indication that Noah would have turned on Whelk just because he'd lost his money or his family was disgraced. And Whelk valued the friendship as is shown by his grief seven years later.
5. But Neeve says she is sacrificing her innocence, which is very important to her, even though Whelk himself is not. And yet this sounds a bit disingenuous. Being so ready to commit premeditated murder as Neeve, does not sound like she really values her innocence all that much. So how much of a sacrifice was it really?
6. Adam, who has overheard much of this conversation, probably thinks both Whelk and Neeve are horrible. Adam's priority is stopping both of them from waking the ley line. As he says, everything else ("disabling Whelk, saving Neeve, avenging Noah") was negotiable. Because he wants to be the one to wake the ley line.
7. And yet, murdering either Whelk or Neeve is something Adam would be willing to consider since they're both "horrible", if it would help him wake the ley line. But it won't. He's learned from their conversation that a worthy sacrifice must be both something you value and something that is legitimately yours to give.
8. So Adam sacrifices his personal control to Cabeswater, by becoming Cabeswater's eyes and hands, and awakens the ley line. The entire book had established that personal control is very important to Adam, and is also the only valuable thing he possessed. It also didn't compromise his innocence or intentions in a way that would compromise his life later, although it did give him access to power he sorely wanted. A worthy sacrifice indeed.
9. In conclusion, Adam succeeded in waking the ley line instead of Neeve or Whelk, not because he's necessarily a better person, but because he is better at following directions and reading the fine print than either Whelk or Neeve. It must be all those Aglionby assignments giving him practice. The dude's cold, man.
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lightwise · 11 months
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Character ask game: Commander Cody, because I love him my honor.
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Look at his knife.
Greetings Cody's tired wife.
Cody
One aspect about them I love - His gentleness and kindness. He is SO obviously Obi-Wan’s Commander (whether you ship Codywan or not). The fact that even when his chip is activated (I assume) when we see him in TBB season 2, and he is still working with the Empire not bc he wants some kind of power but bc he genuinely wants to believe that they are making the galaxy a better place…and slowly realizing they are not. The way he wants to promise peace to Tawni Ames and lays down his weapon in the hopes of negotiating some sort of treaty. The way he hesitates to obey a direct order from a “commanding” officer (don’t get me started on Grotton and whether or not that was really an order…he’s infuriating to me), and Crosshair covers his back by executing said order bc Cody couldn’t bring himself to do it. I think it’s been so many years since the last of Cody’s story was told in Revenge of the Sith, that when The Solitary Clone aired I expected to see a man who had fully accepted the brainwashing from the Empire and was just doing his job. But to see his desire for real justice and peace come through…it was just beautiful. He’s a good man. 
one aspect i wish more people understood about them - I’m later to the Cody appreciation table so I doubt that there’s anything I have to add here that other people haven’t already figured out. I just really loved seeing the depth of his character we got to see in The Solitary Clone - as a soldier, as a leader, as a fighter, as a brother to Crosshair, his inner turmoil, and his morality all shining through. 
one (or more) headcanon(s) i have about this character - at some point the chip’s hold must have loosened on him and I wonder if he woke up in a cold sweat one night all of a sudden realizing what he did (or thinks he did) to Obi-Wan. Since they almost had him written into the Kenobi show, I definitely think he spent a lot of time wondering if Obi-Wan survived, where he might be if he was still alive, blaming himself for what he thinks was his decision to try and kill him. It must have haunted him in the back of his mind. 
one character i love seeing them interact with - Rex. Their brotherly bond and bantering is so much fun to see when they’re on missions together. I love how surprised Cody is when Rex starts going into crazy problem solving mode a la Anakin, and Cody will at first be shocked but then be like welp okay I guess we’re going with this, hope it works! 
one character i wish they would interact with/interact with more - Hunter. I would love to know exactly how Cody met the Bad Batch, which of the members he got to know first, if he kept an eye on them when they were cadets or if he heard of them once they were out doing missions for the first time. Maybe he knew between Kenobi and Skywalker that he or Rex may someday need to have a chaotic, “get things done however they can” squad on hand in case their generals needed an extraction team available 😂
one (or more) headcanon(s) i have that involve them and one other character - He always took care of Rex when they were cadets and forming friendships with Wolffe, Bly, etc. He had to have been in a somewhat lonely position as a marshal commander…there are few other clones at that rank with him, and other than Obi-Wan, Rex, and the other leaders that would have been considered his “peers”, it must have been difficult to always be in a position of authority over almost everyone he knew. And yet he always seems to be kind and generous to those around him. 
I hope I did your clone husband justice 😉 ☀️
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timeofjuly · 4 months
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I have. So many WIPs I should be working on and none of them are Wishbone. So what am I writing right now?
Another snippet of Wishbone, the swapfell bros/reader reluctant soulmate fic I’ve been chipping away at, below the cut.
Anger writhes in Sans’ chest. Of all the people, all the humans, all the mages, why does it have to be you?
You, the reviled Second Mage, soul shining yellow and cracked almost clean down the middle. You, vicious and grasping and choking on your own bitterness, ready to cleave the world in two if it’ll give you a scrap of the justice you think you deserve.
You, who spends your days cold-faced and callous in negotiations with monsters, only to distort into the young, attractive face of the mage’s at night. You sit in front of late-night talk show hosts, trotted out to smile and giggle and perform little parlour tricks. Blazing rings of fire, dazzling displays of gravity magic. You are always made-up prettily and always dressed in yellow. Golden. Resplendent. You say the right things and laugh sweetly and humans all around the world can pretend that mages are harmless. Benign.
They don’t see the decay hangs around you, the rot of something already dead.
Back Underground, it was the look of a monster on the cusp of falling down. The humans don’t see it, of course, but when you’d shambled in to the very first meeting after your twin’s death, every single monster in the room had looked at you and seen a walking corpse.
Your magic is the only thing alive about you. It burns like living fire. When you get angry, your expression stays impassive, but the room always heats up a degree or two. Sans has taken to wearing less layers on the days he knows he’ll be unfortunate enough to be in your presence.
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red-ropes-of-avalon · 11 months
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They Can Live In My New World Or Die In Their Old One- Chapter 2: A Queen's Justice
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Summary: You are known among the kingdom as The Mad Queen, a ruthless woman with a large military. Seeking to take your rightful throne, nobody who has ever seen you has returned before, all thought to presumably be dead. Your strength is unequal. Ser Leon Kennedy is a knight sent by King Graham to ask for a temporary truce. Hordes of monsters and the undead rising, the kingdom couldn't fight two wars. But how does one reason with a Mad Queen?
Riding back to the Kingdom felt almost boring, compared to the adrenaline that the Queen had brought with her. The blade sat uselessly by his side as he rode through the countryside. No happy towns with kids playing, the homes were boarded up, and the fields destroyed. Leon spurred the horse forward, trying to get the woman out of his head. 
“Welcome back Ser Leon!” The capital guards merrily greeted. Leon waved briefly before continuing on toward the castle. The common people went about their lives, unaware of the troubles beyond the capital. The last trouble these people had was when Albert Wesker, a renowned knight that Ser Redfield had fought beside when was uncovered he was aiding a foreign invasion forces. He had disappeared shortly after, and his title of Knight was removed. At the plaza, a blonde girl ran up to his horse. 
“Leon! You’re back!” Sherry sounded so happy. Leon smiled at her. 
“Of course, not even the Mad Queen could take me down.” He joked. “Now where’s Claire? Aren’t you meant to be with her when I’m gone?” Sherry looked down at her feet. Leon quickly picked the girl up and settled her on the horse. The horse took off on a trot once the riders were settled, returning its route towards the castle. Leon and Claire had been taking care of Sherry since her home was destroyed by the monster hordes. They were lucky to find the girl before the monsters did.
“Pretty boy’s back,” of course it was Leon’s luck to come back at the moment Chris Redfield was in the stables tending to his own steed. Leon dismounted from his own horse, before picking Sherry up and setting her down, sending her off to find Claire. “How did it go? Did you get her to agree?” 
“She…She’s giving us a single man. And in exchange, she wants the man who killed her family.” Chris clapped him on the back.
“Getting even one man from her is a successful negotiation. As for getting rid of that man, well good riddance. Now what was she like, is she really that terrifying? That your heart would run cold, from just meeting her eyes.” 
“She’s, I can’t quite explain. She’s gorgeous in this terrifying way. She inspires strength in her men for sure. Setanta wouldn’t follow her if she didn’t.”
“Hah The Mutt himself, swears himself to a woman! That’s truly a sight, I’d love to see that myself. Enough talk for now you should tell King Graham,” and with that, Chris ushered him off. 
As was promised, Leon returned to the Mad Queen’s castle the week following. The guards allowed him to pass easily once stating his name. The Queen’s Guard didn’t even bother wrangling. It was quiet, almost too much so. Standing before the doors, Setanta was nowhere to be seen. Servants still bustled around, one woman carrying a large basket of linens. “Pardon but where exactly is the Queen?”
“Oh, there’s a council meeting currently. Please wait, is that man beside you a prisoner sir?” Leon looked at the chained man. 
“Yes, I am to deliver him to the Queen directly. He is the Kingslayer,” Leon kicked the man slightly. The fool was out of it but his grin was full of gums and missing teeth. It frightened the poor woman. She scuttled back, clinging the basket closer. 
“Oh well if you’ll excuse me, I must deliver these to a room. He’s such an extravagant man,” the woman shuffled away hurriedly. The sound of boots and clacking armor alerted him to more individuals coming his way. He lowered his head, to kick the feet out from under the Kingslayer. The poor serving girl didn’t need the man to scare her. 
“Ah Ser Leon, I see you’ve kept your end of the deal,” a warm smile graced your face. “Setanta, bring the prisoner to the dungeons to await my justice. While you’re at it go retrieve our esteemed guest, if he’s given my girls any more troubles I’ll wring him out myself.” You pushed open the great doors to the throne room as Setanta grabbed the man off the floor, and hauled him over his shoulder. Leon followed close behind, noticing details he hadn’t previously, the floor was made of a black smoothed stone. 
“I never did get your name m’lady,” he decided to test his luck. The dragons weren’t upon the wall he quickly noted. “A rather impressive castle, to match an impressive woman.” He added. 
“Hmm, my name is public knowledge though I suppose your False King may have erased it. I am (Y/N) of the Great House (L/N), the rightful Queen of the United Sovereignty,” your lips turned upwards. “I have many names the common people use, but I believe that is the most suitable for our interactions,” you did appreciate his boldness.  He enthralled you, nobody ever spoke back to you, and here comes this knight openly challenging you on your fairness. “Since you’ve been so interesting I’ll give you this opportunity. If at any point in this journey, you are to partake in, you feel you need my help, if you can convince me I will aid you with the dragon fire I bring. All I ask in return is that you bend the knee, not everyone just you.”
“I doubt I will need this offer, but it is noted m’lady.” Before Leon could make a smart retort, the doors were once more pushed open, Setanta striding in. A second set of footsteps followed behind the large man. 
“He was causing problems for Addi again, but nothing she couldn’t handle,” Setanta’s low and rough voice was enough to shake most people. A true Southern man popped out from behind Setanta’s broad back and opened his mouth to retort, but once met with your icy gaze closed his mouth once more. 
“This is the man I promised you, Ser Leon, his name is Luis Serra, though he is more commonly referred to in our camps as ‘El Escorpion’ he’s from the Southern Isles. He can be a handful, but he’s incredibly intelligent, and a more than worthy fighter.” 
“Gracias mi reina, a compliment from you is truly the highest of compliments,” Luis knelt before you, kissing your hand. 
“It’s getting late, I cannot in good conscience let you leave now. El Escorpion you are free to return to your room or may stay and ask Ser Leon any questions you have.” You released the Southern man, who instead decided to stay.
“I have one question for you Leon, who else will be in this merry little band of misfits?”
“You and me, Ser Chris Redfield, Ada Wong a hired hand, Piers Nivans, and Ethan Winters. A crack team if I do say so myself,” Leon grinned. As Luis and Leon spoke, Setanta walked before your throne. You raised an eyebrow at the wolfish man.
“The prisoner is ready for your justice, all of the maids have already spread that a show of justice will be occurring tonight. Whoever told Ellie that we’d have the Kingslayer really did all the work for us,” Setanata’s grin was ever-present. 
“Very well, once it’s dark I will reign down my justice. In the meantime let us prepare.” Your eyes turned cold at the very thought. The man who slayed your family finally answering before you, it was finally time for retribution.
As the cold and dark settled in, the castle emptied out. The villages emptied, and a gathering around the scorched area of land. The prisoner was set in the center, with Setanta standing beside you. The commoners kept clear, not crowding their queen. To her sides were the large dragons. Luis and Leon were close to the front of the crowd. “You’ve never seen her justice before, you’re in for a treat,” Luis nudged Leon. Leon just looked at the Mad Queen. A hush fell as you straightened out your cape. 
“My loyal subjects! Before us, we finally have the man who killed my father and your King! He will answer for the injustice he perpetrated! You all choose to follow me, you all agreed to give me this Kingdom! For that, I will ensure justice is always seen through! All men will die, but I am no man! I walked into the storm, I walked into the darkness, and emerged a true queen! My dreams come true! You’re happiness and my reign, that is my dream! Now and forever!” You spun on your heel, turning to face the scorched ground. You raised your hand, and the two dragons fixed their eyes on you. “For the crime of treason against the crown, I sentence you to die.” You closed your fingers down and the two dragons snapped their head back to the man, and from their maws, great flames burst forth. The white dragon’s blue flames contrasted with the black and red dragon’s standard orange fire. When their jaws snapped shut nothing was left in the grounds. 
The crowd erupted in cheers, joy over their queen’s justice. But Leon felt his blood freeze, this wasn’t how justice should work. The white dragon lowered its head and you climbed onto the back. The two dragons let out a great roar, and the people erupted in another cheer. The beasts took off in the air to return to the great castle.
“I don’t know what that was but that wasn’t justice!” Leon burst into the throne room. You raised your eyebrow before the knight. “Now I see why you’re called the Mad Queen, killing someone who wronged you! Burning them to nothing but ashes, that’s murder, not justice.”
“He murdered my family. I assure you, Kennedy, I do not wish to be Queen of the Ashes. My show of strength will ensure peace, however, it is my justice and all who defy justice and perpetrate injustice will answer for it. Now I suggest you go to the room my girls prepared for you. You have an arduous journey before you. If I must be your final villain, return so you may enact your own justice on me. But do not fall before returning to me boy.”
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galacticwildfire · 1 year
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found.
Twenty Four
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Pairing: Kenobi!oc x Din Djarin
Summary: Satine and Obi-wan’s daughter fought in the war against the Empire and lost her faith when she lost Mandalore. Until she found him. A lone Mandalorian searching for a Jedi.
Warnings: TW for torture, severe ptsd, mention of past miscarriage, brief discussion of abortion. No fluff, only angst. Boba time. Missiles. Head injuries, burns, near death
Word Count: 7.4k
A/N: it gets worse before it gets better but I made a new moodboard
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Time itself comes to a standstill as we look upon one another but despite the years, despite going to Tatooine to hunt him down... nothing could have prepared me for this.
"You know why I have come," he tells me, his voice the only thing about him I recognise.
"You should be dead," I say, hand wrapped around the hilt of my saber.
"I should be after you left me for dead," he replies and I feel it, the anger, the betrayal that he should have seen coming. "But you never could do it could you?"
"Neither could you," I remind him, and despite every piece of reason in my head screaming otherwise, I feel safe in that security that he could never bring himself to ever truly hurt me, he just stood by as others did. "You don't scare me Boba."
Something in him almost softens, but only for a moment. "It is not fear I want to provoke, not anymore."
His words catch me off guard and leave me almost confused by the change of heart I feel in him, but I ignore it for the sake of self preservation.
"You look older," he says, as if we were meeting under normal circumstances.
"You look like shit," I tell him, trying to bite back the true horror at what I did to him.
"Getting struck down and devoured by a sarlaac does that," he says and gets to business as if we're negotiating in a messy divorce but there is little else that could be used to describe Boba and I. "I want my armour back."
"I want lots of things back, things you took from me," I tell him, Din emerging from cover with his blaster drawn since negotiations have been established. "But life isn't fair, is it?"
I eye the carved wooden weapons he has at his back, weapons I recognise as belonging to the sand people of Tatooine but it is surprisingly not violence he negotiates with.
"I have brought you a peace offering."
"A peace offering?" I repeat and actually laugh, feeling Din's alarm at the sound. "The only peace offering I would accept is Vader's head and unfortunately that is ashes on Endor."
Looking at him now I wonder what he knows if he's lived in isolation on Tatooine because he looks surprised by my revelation. "So you killed the bastard then?"
Now I'm the one in surprise as I scoff "Don't act like you wanted him dead."
"Of course I wanted him dead," he says and takes a step closer, a step that makes Din raise his blaster. "I'm not after you Mandalorian."
"You left me for dead," Din says and I see a look of satisfaction in Boba's eyes that stirs a new type of rage in me.
"Fair is fair," Boba says, ignoring him to speak to me. "I'd call it justice."
"Revenge you mean?"
"One and the same," he says, determined to hit every nerve he knows how. "That's what you said, isn't it princess?"
If this is how he wants to play, I'll play along perfectly.
"Yes." I take a step closer now, looking him dead in the eyes as I tell him. "It was both when I left you for dead."
"I could take revenge," he tells me, but fails to intimidate. "I certainly have enough reason to, but fortunately for you I am a changed man."
I laugh again, the type of unhinged only Boba Fett can make me after he put that madness in my brain and twisted it into what it is now. "Boba Fett? A changed man?"
He isn't amused and looks back towards his ship "I thought you may say that, so here is my peace offering. My armour for yours."
My face falls and I blink at him "What?"
He doesn't repeat himself. "You heard me."
I shake my head "My armour is on-"
"Was on Kalevala," he says and I go cold. "I'm the one who brought you there after Mandalore was destroyed remember? You took my armour from Tatooine, so I returned the favour. Still covered in blood and ashes on board my ship for the taking. You order the Mandalorian to get mine, and Fennec will get yours."
"Fennec?" Din exclaims and I look back at him in confusion until I sense an unfamiliar presence.
"You have a keen ear Mando," a woman says from up on the ridge armed with a rifle, a woman that Din certainly seems to know and I look at him, raising an eyebrow at the panic I feel from him.
"You were dead," he says and my eye goes back to Boba, able to read him in one glance and I should have known he'd never come to face me without an extra gun.
"I believe it is time for introductions," Boba says while I shake my head at him in warning. "Meet Fennec Shand, a sharpshooter I've brought to ensure this transaction goes smoothly."
"Fuck you," I say and order "Din if she moves kill her."
"So it's going to be that way then," Boba says, almost disappointed. "Alright then, your lover pulls that trigger and she'll unload onto that kid she's locked onto."
And there he is, the Boba Fett I know.
"You wouldn't dare," I breathe.
"I think we both know I would," he says but I know the kid is quite safe. "There does not have to be violence."
"Say the word and he's dead," Din says from behind me, both of us knowing the kid is safe behind that shield. 
"This is between her and I Mandalorian," Boba says, he knows his targets, he would know damn well the reputation Din has. "You shoot, Fennec shoots." He looks back at me now. "Your little green friend as quite the bounty on his head."
With those words, all decency is off the table.
"If you think you're going to come here to take my son away-"
"He's a little green to be yours," he says and a chill runs through my bones as he dares to say "But a son for a son seems fair to me."
Din reaches for me as I march forward but holds his position with his blaster trained on Fennec as I slap Boba hard, tears of rage burning in my eyes as I whisper "I hate you."
"I know you do princess," he says, his face may be barely recognisable but his eyes... the same damn eyes. "I'm not here to hurt you."
But I know him better than that.
"I don't believe you," I breathe and the moment my saber is at his neck his finger is on the trigger of his blaster. My match. My perfect adversary. "I will never believe a word you say again."
Still he insists "All I want is my armour."
"Liar," I say, searching his eyes. "You've followed me halfway across the galaxy for one thing only."
He entertains me. "And what's that princess?"
I can't bring myself to say it with Din standing so close but Boba knows. He always knows.
"Revenge," I say, if only to stir something else in his heart that is more bearable for me to feel. "For me."
I'm trembling as he touches my cheek with the barrel of his blaster, but not from fear, anything but fear, and I feel pure horror from Din that I haven't killed him for that simple touch alone.
"I did come for you," he tells me and I don't inch away from him as he leans closer as if nobody else is standing here. "On Tatooine I came for you, but not to harm you."
"Liar," I say again, fighting what I know is the truth. "Why else would you come if not for revenge?"
"I came to help you," he says, the coldness of his blaster on my cheek keeping me still as he asks "Do you really think I'd let you face an Imperial attack alone?"
I feel Din watching with a primal anger I've never felt from him and remind Boba "I wasn't alone and you left him there to die."
"If I didn't kill him he would have killed me," he argues, as if leaving him bleeding out for me to find was only a minor complication. "And I wasn't the one with the shiny beskar."
"No, you aren't," I say, finding a sick pleasure in taking from him the one thing he loves. "Because I have yours and once I put you back in the ground where you belong I'll melt it down and add it to my collection of trophies. Right beside Maul's saber on Kalevala." 
He ignores my threat to tell me "You're the only one who wants violence little one."
"I don't believe you."
"Kill me then," he says, calling my bluff. "We both know you can't do it."
A darkness settles over me, the same darkness that led to me being charged as a war criminal. "You have no idea what I am capable of."
"Then do it. Kill me. Do what you couldn't do on Tatooine." The heat of my saber at his neck does little to scare him as he taunts "Or have you started calling yourself a Jedi again?" My hand grips the hilt of my saber tight knowing one flick of my wrist is all it would take. "I remember when your daddy came to kill mine, but he couldn't do it either."
I blink at him in bewilderment "What?"
"I remember shooting at your father myself," he tells me, words he never has before, and I go cold as his own memories flash before my eyes. Cold rain and shots fired upon my father only to end in the flash of a purple saber and a beskar helmet rolling on coarse ground. "He was no match for a Mandalorian."
"Then how come he lived while yours lost his head," I hiss and he grabs me by my hair, holding me by the scalp with his blaster to my head. "Too soon?"
"Let her go!" Din orders, firing a warning shot only for Fennec to fire one back at Din and I smirk at the look of unbridled rage in Boba's eyes, living for the thrill of hitting him where it hurts. "Let her go or I drop you and Fennec!"
"This is between us," I tell Din, smiling as I taunt "I should have aimed for your neck, let your head roll in the sand just like your donors."
With those words he bares my throat, my hair in his fist as he brings his blaster from my head down to my stomach, knowing just where to hit me, but nothing can ever hurt me more than he already has. "You've become a cruel woman."
"Do you think I'm still that nineteen year old girl who cried and begged for you Boba?" I ask him and laugh again at the pain shooting through him, wanting him to suffer as I have. "You killed her that day on Cloud City. There's nothing left you can do to hurt me now."
"I can kill the kid," he threatens. "Like you killed our son."
"Our son?" I repeat numbly and feel Din's own horror as I tell him. "You mean the bloody tissue that was left on the floor of that cell after Vader tortured it out of me?" Boba's eyes go utterly cold now, finally realising it was not my doing. "It's for the better because I was never going to have any child of yours after what you did to me."
"Kyra," he begins, the emotion in his voice making me wince but I'm past apologies.
"It's too late for remorse Boba," I tell him, having no pity left for him and dig the knife deeper. "Everything you blamed me for is your own doing. Every betrayal you believed, none of it was ever real. It was all Vader screwing with your head like he did mine."
Finally after all these years I find myself absolved of my own guilt and see the horror in his eyes as he realises I never betrayed him and that the death of our love is his blood to bear.
His voice is uneven now "If I knew-"
"You would have what? Struck Vader down?" I ask as I push him off me and he doesn't try to push me back. "You were too weak."
"Says the one who's too weak to strike me down now," he says, but the fight is gone from his voice and filled with a quiet ache before he resorts to the one thing he can still hate me for. "Just like your father was."
I raise an eyebrow "You think I'm weak because I'm a Jedi?"
"I know you are."
I give a nod and turn my back on him, walking back towards Din as I raise my hand to choke the sniper up on the ridge and watch her reach for her throat as Boba finally panics. 
"Stop that!"
"No," I answer before channelling the strength of the force here and throwing her off the ledge into a nearby rockface. Din and Boba both jump back as she groans on the ground and I use the force to pull her rifle to me, handing it to Din as I return to his side. 
"Kyra," Din says quietly as he takes the rifle. "I owe Fennec, she is not our enemy." 
"Well he is," I reply and turn back to Boba. "I don't care what you've become, I don't care if you're sorry, not when I have to live with the consequences of what you did."
Boba looks at Fennec, finally realising just what his betrayal led me to become. "I thought you were above that."
"I was, but not after what Vader did to me," I say and I see the look of disbelief in his eye before his hand goes to his throat and that cold rage burns as I hold it tight. "Do you think I'm not capable of the things he was?"
"Then do it," he says, my fist closing around his throat. "If it's revenge you want take it, I won't stop you."
"Only one of us is leaving this planet alive," I tell him, even if every moral my father instilled in me screams against killing a man who is not fighting.
"Then why haven't you killed me yet?" he asks but just as I step forward with my saber in hand I feel it and realise the true enemy that's followed me isn't Boba Fett.
It's the Empire.
Slowly I turn my head back towards Boba, the memory of betrayal haunting me now and my saber hand's shaking as he puts his hands up "I didn't-"
Without warning I throw him to the ground and my saber is at his neck as I curse "You fucking traitor."
He knows there is nothing he could say for me to believe him and instead tells me "It's time to put your armour back on princess, we're in for a fight."
I look up at Din who stands there watching the Imperial ships entering the atmosphere "Kyra the kid-"
"The kid is safe," I promise Din and withdraw my saber and abandon Boba on the ground to go to him. "If it's Gideon we have the advantage you hear me?" 
"How?" he asks me. "It's the two of us against the Empire."
I look back at Boba on the ground and Fennec getting to her feet, if they didn't bring them here then they'll have no hesitation killing them. "No, it's not." I take his helmet in my hands as I tell him "We fight, the child is as safe as he can be up on that stone. Get your weapons, we aren't running."
"This is the way," he says and a shadow of a smile plays at my lips.
"This is the way."
I let him go with a press of my lips to his beskar cheek knowing damn well Boba's watching and march to his ship to get my armour. I navigate the familiar interior quickly to get to the storage compartment and much to my equal surprise and satisfaction find my biometric fingerprint still logged and draw a sharp breath as the compartment opens.
My armour as promised sits there, painted blood red and still coated in the ashes of Mandalore. 
For just a moment I still feel the rubble crushing me, I can still see the bodies of my people turned to dust after the bombing. I can still feel the ash in my lungs as my hand reached out through the rubble, red with radiation burns. I wanted to die and yet I couldn't help but fight for my life as the darkness closed in on me.
I can still feel Boba taking my hand and pulling me out. 
The sound of gunshots pulls me back and I take the painted beskar forged for my body, a lightweight unconventional design perfect for a Jedi. It's all muscle memory as I arm myself with it, the slimline armoured top that wraps around my collarbones leaving my arms bare, the red arm bands in substitute of pauldrons for the sake of mobility, my left bearing the symbol of the Jedi and the right my family's crest. The gauntlets attached to my fingerless red sleeves more lightweight than the typical Mandalorian's, the same with the rest of my armour. Boba brought all of it, not just the beskar but the rest of it I couldn't bear to touch after I'd stripped it from my body and so I make quick work of it, discarding my of Jedi styled clothes in favour of my complete armour since I doubt I'll get another chance to retake it.
Finally I hold the helmet in my hand and for the first time since the purge put it on and ready myself, transferring my saber to my armours utility belt that's still armed with my old blaster and make sure to put the kids ball in one of the pockets.
It feels right as I step out of the ship looking through a visor and raise my blaster to take out the nearby stormtroopers and feel Din's head snaps towards me at the sound of the shots and I can feel it, awe, and then I feel the fear of the stormtroopers as I ignite my saber.
They all come to a halt with their guns raised at me, shaking in their armour as I tilt my head to the side and the moment I raise my hand they're running back to their ship, the landing platform still lowered as they try to retreat and with a single hand, feeling the strength of the force more than I have in years, I bring the ship to a halt as they try to lift off. It's as I tap into the true richness of the force here on Tython I realise indeed the stories are true and I throw the ship into a nearby cliff face with a strength I've never wielded before.
The wreckage hits the ground with injured troopers straining for their weapons and I look back to see Boba and Din both standing there in a state of awe.
"Kill them!" I order and they quickly jump into action, gunning down the troopers on board the wreckage and I move past the bodies to get to the remains of the cockpit, still intact enough for me to make contact with their commander and know in my gut who it is. 
"This is Kyra Kryze," I say, ready to take him out. "You're troopers are dead Gideon."
"That may be, but not even you and your bounty hunters can save the child from me," he says and I hear Din yelling for me.
"Kyra!"
I emerge to see three more ships lowering onto the planet and just as I raise my hand I hear rockets, but not from the ship. I look back to see Boba standing there in his own armour now and watch as his rocket hits one of the ships which crashes down into the other, both burning wreckage now in the sky.
I feel Din's hand on my arm, tasting the bitterness in my mouth as I look at Boba and know he didn't bring the Empire here. 
"See princess, I did tell you," Boba says and I could kill him for the I told you so alone. 
"And like I told you, I'm not weak," I spit at him and then realise that was his intention all along, to rile me up. 
"You never were," he says and frustrated I look away from him back to Din who stands behind me with a gentle hand holding me in place, maker knows the only thing giving me peace right now.
"What's the plan general?" Din asks me, Boba and Fennec listening as I look at the final ship landing, but my gut tells me there are far more where it came from and we need to take them out.
"Kill them, no matter how many waves come we eliminate them," I decide, knowing the child is safe up on that rock. "If we don't Gideon will just send them after us again."
"Gideon?" Boba repeats, having missed that part when he was attacking Din. "Moff Gideon? I thought he was dead."
"So did we but you'd know that if you were actually helping me on Tatooine instead of stabbing someone," I retort and feel Din squeeze my arm to bring my back, knowing I need to be focused right now, and ask him "On Navarro what type of strength did he have?"
"Enough that he almost killed all of us," he answers and tells me "We aren't making it out unscathed."
"Retreatings no good if he can take us out with his ship, we're better to hold defensive positions until an opportunity presents itself," I say as Fennec reloads her rifle, remembering the Hoth situation. "We don't know what type of resources he's got and I'm not risking putting the kid in his sights."
"Call for backup?" Din asks knowing the connections I've got but none that can get here in time.
"We are the backup," Boba says and reminds me "We've faced worse than a few stormtroopers princess."
"This isn't right," I say, my gut screaming it at me. "It's too easy, if Gideon knows you're here he'd be sending more firepower than this."
It would be why Gideon waited so long to attack, Boba Fett would be one of the few people in this galaxy he would fear and rightfully so, which makes no sense he's sending mere ships of troopers against two of the most capable killers in the galaxy.
"Then let's take them out," Boba says as the ship lands and the four of us stand there ready to fight as the landing platform lowers and I tilt my head at the black of their armour.
Death troopers.
And there it is.
"Take cover," I order before they open fire and each and every movement of my saber is muscle memory led by the force, my father having been relentless in this particular training after the Clones wiped out most of the Jedi in order 66. He wasn't going to let me fall to a group of troopers with blasters.
Their armour is resistant enough the blasts reflected back don't kill them and hear their commander order "Kill the Jedi!"
And so I use the force to leap over head just as they roll grenades my way and cut through three troopers from behind as Din, Boba and Fennec fire on them from defensive positions but it's then as I look up to the stone my blood runs cold realising this is just a distraction.
Troopers unlike any I've ever seen descend towards the stone and just as I run forward I'm thrown to the ground by a missile that blows the Razor Crest to ashes. 
My ears ring as I take in the burning wreckage and feel Din pulling me to my feet, covering me from the Death Troopers fire as he pulls me back behind cover, checking me over to make sure I'm alright before quaking "The kid-"
"I've got him, cover me," I tell him and use my jetpack for the first time in years as I take off dodging the heavy fire from the Death Troopers to get to the stone only to begin losing altitude halfway as the broken down fuel runs out and I hit the ground running, reaching the stone at the same moment they do and I'm met with an onslaught from blaster cannons that I fight through only for the force shield to come down.
"No!" I yell out as I'm thrown into one of the pillars with a force I've never felt before by one of the troopers and get to my feet only to be faced with six of them, big hulking forces of metal standing between me and the child who looks at me with fear in his eyes.
They fire upon me, no doubt with programmed orders from Gideon to eliminate me personally. Reflecting the heavy fire I cut through the chest of the one who threw me and cut down the next through the middle only to be grabbed by the throat with a crushing pressure by another and raised up to see the child being taken and kick my feet against the troopers face, severing the hand holding my throat before cutting through its neck along with anothers before driving my saber through the chest of the fifth.
I rebound off the ground as the final trooper lifts off with the child and I swear I can hear Din calling my name, but just as I go to jump from the stone to take down the final trooper I see it far too late, the burning missile locked right onto me, and in the second before it impacts I raise my saber in a pure final instinct and there's a flash of blue.
Then nothing.
~
Din
The moment the missile enters the atmosphere I've abandoned my defensive position to run to her as if I have a chance in hell of making it there, there's flashes of yellow as she cuts through the troopers and I'm screaming her name into an empty void and she looks up the moment before it impacts. There's a flash of blue as the forceshield ignites only for the missile to blow the stone temple to nothing not even a second later.
The explosion causes me to fall back and I'm on my knees as I look up at the smouldering ruins, the world itself coming to a standstill as I grasp my blaster between my fingers, in one single moment my entire world gone.
So many moments I'd accepted my own death and I was never afraid, but that was until her and the child came along and suddenly I had everything to lose.
And now I've lost just that, my child, my riduur, my everything.
That is until I feel Boba Fett pulling me to my feet telling me "She's hard to kill, get up there and I'll follow the bastards."
"Come on," Fennec says pulling me along as if there would even be anything left of her after what that same missile did to the Razor Crest. "He'll follow the trooper, she's a Jedi isn't she?" Numbly I nod as she forces me to walk. "Then there's a chance."
"The kid-"
"He's following the kid," she repeats as we make our way up the mountain. "You can't save him but there's still a chance for her."
I'm sick to my stomach at the thought of what I'll find, her body blown to pieces or nothing at all, but as my weak knees take me up the hill they all but give out at the sight of her red figure face down in the ruins and I run forward, dropping to my knees as I take her in my arms.
"Kyra?" I quake as I hold her limp body, armour blackened from the impact and skin scorched but it's as I pull her helmet off and find blood running from her ears and nose I can't breathe. "Cyar'ika?"
Despite the heat radiating from the burns her body's cold, my thermal imaging unable to get a clear reading with the injuries and I'm cradling her head in my hand as I check her vital signs,  finding a pulse, drawing a shaking breath as I feel it beneath my fingers. She should be ashes, but I've seen the child perform even greater miracles than this.
"Boba's on their tail," Fennec tells me. "He's locked onto the trooper."
"No!" I panic, stammering. "I don't want the child hurt!"
They're both alive, but they won't be for long.
"Abort pursuit, disengage!" Fennec orders. "Do not harm the child."
"Copy, I'll do a loose follow, see where they're headed." There's a pause before he asks "Is she alive?"
"Mando," Fennec says, unable to quite look at us as she asks "Is she alive?" I give a single weak nod and she confirms "She's alive but barely. Burns covering her body from the blast and severe head trauma, unconscious."
I'd never been truly afraid until right now as I hold her limp body in my arms, appearing dead in every way except for the slight pulse beneath my fingers and the slow rise and fall of her chest beneath the beskar but it's not strong enough.
The child is gone, I can't lose her with him.
"I can't do this alone," I tell her in Mando'a. I'd promised that I'd never let the Empire hurt her again and I broke that promise. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I failed you. I failed both of you."
Her red hair is between my fingers, warmth seeping from her skull as I clutch her body to mine, trying to convince myself she's still alive, that she still has a chance.
"They're back," I hear Fett say over the com as I listen for her breath but can barely find it.
"Who?" Fennec asks as she comes over, kneeling down to take a look at her.
"The Empire," he answers, telling her what I already know. "They're back."
"That can't be, the Empire is under the jurisdiction of the New Republic."
"This isn't a spice dream, I can see the Imperial cruiser with my own eyes."
The issue of a few rogue warlords is entirely different to an armed and operational Imperial Cruiser. For a moment I hope that revelation would be enough to wake her up, but she's still out cold in my arms. 
"Fennec she needs help," I say quickly, unable to keep my voice from breaking.
"Boba doesn't have any plans on letting her die," Fennec says and I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse as she speaks into the com. "Get back down here, she needs medical treatment."
"I'm coming down."
"Come on," Fennec says and I lift her up, taking care to keep her head still and Fennec takes her helmet as we descend back down the mountain with only one way off this planet.
Despite the desperation I've heard enough to not trust him, knowing he turned her over to the Empire once before and I'll die before letting it happen again and when we approach his ship and he takes a step towards her I draw my blaster on him from beneath her legs "Touch her and you're dead."
"She isn't dead yet but she will be and if you kill me and try to steal my ship you won't get very far without my biometrics," he says, having anticipated this. "Do you want her to die?"
"She'd rather die before being given to the Empire," I say, knowing she'd never forgive me if I let Gideon get his hands on her. "And I'll die before letting them harm her."
"I didn't dig her out of the damn rubble on Mandalore to watch her die now," he mutters and my blaster hand shakes as he marches forward and puts a hand on her head, I only allow it when I see how his shakes as much as mine. "She needs a bacta tank."
"It's the outer rims," Fennec says. "Where-"
"I know a place," Fett says and speaks to me. "Something tells me neither of us are getting past the outer rims without being arrested by the New Republic. I can take her somewhere she'll be safe."
"Where?"
"Cloud city," he says, the name only vague to me. "Run by one of her rebel friends, Calrissian."
I look down at her knowing we don't have any time for questions but I still can't trust Boba Fett "You try anything-"
"Oh trust me she'll beat you to killing me when she wakes up when she realises where I've taken her," he assures me. "But neither of us are letting her die."
"Mando, if you want her to live you have to trust us," Fennec says and with no choice I head on board the ship, hardly even registering as Boba Fett enters with the beskar spear, all that's left of the Razor Crest.
The landing dock closes and they head into the cockpit without another word, leaving me there in the hold alone with her and it's then the chill truly settles into my bones. 
Only an hour ago we were in the cockpit of the Razorcrest, watching her holding Grogu as she told us the words we'd never heard before her, that she loves us. Words I'd never heard until she came into my life and made me realise I was something that could be loved. The light of my life, the only thing that truly mattered, her and the child, I had my entire future in the palm of my hand and now it's all gone.
I feel the tears in my eyes as I cradle her head and feel the dry blood in her hair, remembering in horror that she has a family outside of the child and I, that I'll have to tell them how she died while I stood helpless. 
"Come on cyar'ika," I plead with her, without her and the child there is nothing left to live for. I don't know how I ever lived without their love, a love that made me feel human for the first time since I was a child, a love I can never live without again. "Wake up, please."
But her body only grows colder, her skin blackened from the blast of the missile, wounds that a bacta tank can heal but I remember too well the head trauma that would have killed me if not for IG-11. My hand rests over her pulse, feeling it only growing weaker, her breathing slowing.
"Stay with me," I whisper, shaking as I hold her body and realise her chest is hardly rising. "Kyra?" The colour is gone from her cheeks, her skin turning a shade of grey and I'm yelling out "How long do we have left!"
Boba Fett comes down, helmetless now and looks upon her with an unreadable face "Less than an hour."
"We don't have that long," I insist. "Is there bacta-"
"The Hutts raided it for medicine and credits while I was in the Sarlacc," he answers and gives what could almost be called an attempt at assurance. "I've seen her in worse shape than this, she's tough, too stubborn to die like this that's for certain."
"Well she is dying!" I snap, slowly losing it with every missed beat of her pulse. "Isn't there anywhere closer?"
"If the Empires back then Cloud City is the only place I know for certain won't be doing business with them," he says and I look down at her. "Calrissian is a good enough man he wouldn't turn her away."
"Can you get a transmission to Leia?" I ask him knowing that she'd want her family to be there if she doesn't make it and he seems surprised by my request.
He scoffs "She's told you about that lot?"
"They're her family," I say and he just shakes his head. "They deserve to be there if she doesn't make it." It's then I remember where I'd heard of Cloud City from, Solo's transmission after we were attacked on Tatooine. "Can you contact Solo on the Millenium Falcon, he should be at Cloud City."
He looks at me more carefully now "You've met Solo and all the rest?"
"I know her family and she'd want them there," I say, unable to understand the questions and having no patience for them. "Can you contact them or not?"
He's silent for a moment in contemplation before saying "It's best I don't or they'll try to shoot me down."
I stare at him now incredulously at how he can be thinking about himself right now "Not if they know she's on board."
"Let's just say Solo and I have some history and they won't believe she let me live long enough to be in this situation," he says and despite my desperation I can't blame them if they know what I do. "We'll be there soon, I don't know what she's told you-"
"She'd told me enough," I say sharply, not caring for conversation right now.
He nods to himself before saying "We both love her Mandalorian, she isn't dying on my watch." He steps forward and I pull her closer to me, not wanting a man who hurt her and is comfortable enough laying hands on her how I just saw to touch her. "She's survived worse than this, if you've spent even a night with her you'd know that." 
The mention of her nightmares has me shaking at the thoughts of just what she's endured and the revelation I learned on that damned planet, that she was pregnant with this man's child and lost it in torture due to his betrayal.
"If you loved her you wouldn't have betrayed her," I say knowing the man he is, that we aren't so dissimilar. Knowing the lives men like him and I lead and just what she is in comparison to all that bloodshed. "If you loved her you would have died before letting the Empire lay one hand on her."
"Vader promised me if I got her to become his apprentice he would spare her," he reveals to me. "The moment she landed on that planet she'd sealed her fate, I'd tried to keep her away but the moment her ship was reported I went there to protect her and struck the deal. Her precious family were about to die and I wasn't going to let her suffer the same fate."
"And so you turned her over for torture with a blaster at her back," I say remembering the words she told me and feel my own blaster beside me on the floor within reach, checking her pulse and finding it even weaker.
"I did," he says and eyes me as he says "It's clear you haven't known her very long so let me enlighten you. I'd been by her side since she was nineteen, I watched her take back Mandalore from the Empire and I watched her lose it because she was too damn stubborn to realise her precious rebellion would spit her right back out the moment they were finished with her." I'm silent now, remembering Chandrila. "And from what I've heard that's exactly what they did, charged her as a war criminal and left her to Moff Gideon on Tatooine."
My head snaps back towards him at the mention of that night "You left me for dead after beating Cobb Vanth within an inch of his life trying to find us."
"You would have done the same if you'd seen me first," he dismisses and goes on. "I've been dealing with the aftermath of her decisions for almost a decade now. She's as tough as they come but she's got a weak heart. She's pretty enough to make any man forget themselves but there's only so many times you can stop her from ruining herself in the name of being a hero. Hell I pulled her out of the ruins of Mandalore after she tried killing herself when she had to live with the consequences of her decisions. She's her own worst enemy and I'm warning you now Mandalorian no man escapes from her unscathed."
The length of their history makes me still and I begin to realise there's a reason she didn't kill him on sight and with her dying in her arms the last thing I want is to doubt where her heart lies. 
"I know her past," I say stiffly, but it's never scared me until now. 
"Do you?" he questions. "Are you aware you've been shacking up with a suicidal sadist who's spent her enter life pretending to be something she's not? Don't let her pretty face fool you, she's a cruel woman who let me spend five years believing she'd rid herself of our child out of pure spite before leaving me for dead."
His words do nothing but make me want to reach for my blaster "Do you love her or hate her, make up your mind." 
"Love and hate, it's all the same to her as you'll come to learn," he says and I look down at her face, unable to see anything but the woman I love. "She'll want to kill me when she eventually wakes up but she won't do it. She can't. The last night together before she left me for dead she spent beating me until she turned to words to try to provoke me into hurting her to fulfil whatever sick satisfaction it gave her before pushing me into bed. She's a twisted woman, always has been. Whatever she's told you I did to her it was nothing she didn't allow, hell you saw it. She has a way of bringing out the worst in a man, forcing it to the surface."
"Why are you telling me this?" I stammer, panicking the weaker her breathing grows while he stands there like she's not dying.
"So you can run before it's too late."
I scoff now, realising what his play is "So you can have her?"
"I've loved her through all of these years, and no matter what we always found our way back to one another," he tells me and stops before heading back to the cockpit. "You seem like a good man, you love her, but she isn't the woman you think she is."
With her dying in my arms his words change nothing. "We'll see."
He's almost amused "You will see."
He leaves us and I look down at her, the woman I love, a woman who in so many ways is still as much of a mystery to me as she was when I first laid eyes on her. Whoever she was, I saw glimpses of her today that left me shocked, glimpses I'd never seen before that leave me wondering how much of the truth this man is telling me.
But it doesn't matter, not now, not when I could lose her. I trust her with my life, with the child's life, and that is more important than anything that he could ever tell me, not when I have my own past I try to forget. Not when our child is gone and I need her with me to take him back.
True desperation takes hold of me as her lips turn a shade of blue and I hold her face, afraid to move her without knowing the extent of her head injury, clinging to the faint beat of her pulse that is the only thing keeping the last shred of my sanity from breaking.
"Wake up," I plead with her, if there is one thing Fett is right about it's that she's too stubborn to die like this at the Empire's hands. "We need to protect Grogu, he needs us." Still she lays unconscious and my voice breaks "I need you."
When I was dying I had her and the child by my side, I would have died in peace having felt her lips on mine knowing there was someone to mourn me, to raise the child. I may be here, but she would not die in peace knowing the child is in danger, knowing he was taken by the Empire as she was when she was just a child. 
As I died the only regret I had was that I had not had more time with her, I would have died a happy man if she opened her eyes to look upon my face when she kissed me and so with shaking hands I lift my helmet now and put it aside to look upon her with my own eyes. If she were to wake now I would have no regrets if only to feel her warm and alive in my arms.
"I love you," I tell her, knowing I might never get to say them again. "I can't- I can't go back to how it was before you and the kid. I can't." I'm choking back a sob as I fight tears, something I didn't realise I was still capable of. "Please, stay with me. Stay with me cyar'ika."
I kiss her cold head, feeling my tears wet her skin as I once felt hers wet mine. I thought I was gone, but she saved me.
I might not be able to wield the force to bring her back from the brink of death, I may be just a man begging the woman he loves to stay with him but that is enough. It has to be.
I'm not letting her die.
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celira · 7 months
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rambling from an Internet Old on fandom engagement, or a brief argument for not centering your fandom on public social media platforms:
1. when your engagement is always public, it often loses nuance. people change how they act around different audiences: this is a fact of life. different people bring out different facets of you; you might have different work and home personas; you take different roles in different social circles. when your audience could be, plausibly, Anyone On Tumblr or even Anyone On The Internet, suddenly the question "what is their perception of me?" or "how am i showing up here?" takes center stage - so you may feel the need to Stand Your Ground or boil down your stances to simple takes that leave less room for misinterpretation by some faceless rando.
... which is how you not only get rigid adherence to identities (and policing that in others) but also passive virtue/discourse signalling that can quickly turn into fandom-wide dogpiling as people are desperate to avoid criticism.
2. on social media, you have limited means of control (you're subject to the whims of whatever functionality the platform has), but you also have a greater illusion of power (you can talk to or reach anyone!). so maybe you try to control what happens to you & your content by other means. maybe you're trying to go viral. maybe you're preemptively attacking other users. maybe you try to tell people what they can/can't tag your posts as!
it's very easy to lean into the defensiveness of the fear described in #1 above. it is never possible to be beyond misinterpretation (see also: it is never possible to please everyone!), but if you beat someone else to the punch in the court of internet justice, maybe you'll be safer! /s
this can make for a miserable race to the bottom.
3. on the other hand, self-contained communities foster more mutual support. people can default to taking actions out of fear on a public platform, which is easier to project outward on the faceless masses; call it vigilance, carefulness, paranoia, whatever you want - your performance on the internet changes when it takes "could be seen by anyone" into account.
smaller spaces give folks the chance to, instead, act out of care, which is similarly harder to impart to some abstract, unspecific entity, but easier to do when you know the person. you're more likely go to bat for the sake of your community; you're more likely to trust they'll show up for you.
& being in a more consistent environment gives you the chance to assume good faith in other people. you can get direct positive reinforcement from them! which is amazing, in the cold void of harsh takes & unspecific hate that's easy to take personally in the public internet.
4. smaller communities enable mindful conflict resolution. bluntly, it's easier to sling shit around on a public platform, and yell at faceless people who you can feel superior to, without thinking about the person behind the keyboard. it's harder to shit where you eat. you have a vested interest in working things out with people when you share a community space.
there's a whole spectrum of conflict that's good to navigate! polite disagreement is healthy, & exploring differences of opinion can help people learn! & above all, feeling okay potentially saying the "wrong" thing means feeling safer being vulnerable, and vulnerability is mandatory for deeper, longer-lasting connection.
THIS IS AN IMPORTANT FUCKING THING TO PRACTICE. life would be very grim indeed if your relationships with people didn't have room for awkwardness & growth. if it's "my way or the highway" all the time, with no in between, you're going to be walking a lonely fucking road.
---
(for that matter, on the subject of nuance - here's my ironic disclaimer out of awareness that this is posted publicly: all of these are generalizations. of course there are black-or-white circumstances where something shouldn't be debated or negotiated.
this isn't about that. this, my friends, was prompted by fandom "discourse", or as we called it back in the day, fandom wank.
because that's what it is: masturbatory shit-slinging masquerading under an academic theory term.)
i didn't feel the urge to look into a fandom until over a decade later (thank you TLT brainrot), this summer. by this point, Discord servers had become more common, and are a format that works with my brain: enclosed social spaces that have more individual community structure. so i've jumped back in. they've been amazing! a lot of those folks are on Tumblr, so i'm starting to wade back in here, too.
some self-indulgent backstory:
i fell out of fandom culture in the early 2010s when fandoms did an almost wholesale shift from LiveJournal to Tumblr. at first, at its most basic level, it was because the format felt impersonal to me: at the time, there was much less two-way interaction. it was a slightly longer-form Twitter, where you interacted with folks by flinging things into the void and hoping someone would engage with you. but plenty of people still found the format engaging, so i chalked it up to a me problem and left it at that.
but getting filled in on the volume of TLT Fandom Drama that's managed to drive Tamsyn Muir herself, who came up through similar eras of fandom as i did, off the internet through its toxicity, made me realize that it's not just a close-knitness that got lost in the format shift from self-contained fandom communities (forums, LiveJournal, individual websites) to public, open-feed social media networks - it's a wholesale approach to respectful, healthy engagement.
(& of course there was always fandom wank & shipping wars & goofy bullshit, but it was more the exception than the rule - & it didn't zing all the way up parasocial channels to slam into the author!)
somewhere along the way, becoming a fan started to get treated as a reflection of identity politics. one of the most-repeated phrases among my friends is "thank god I got to be a dipshit on the Internet before everything was dissected & immortalized forever", because we got to learn and grow and play and enjoy ourselves - & that last bit is something some people have seriously lost sight of.
we had spaces in which to be unlovely and awkward! we got to be idiots together! it was definitely not perfect but it was forgiving, and truly, we owe it to one another to have room for soft landings in a very harsh world. fandom is often an escapist release. applying everything from the real world to it all the time is both unnecessary & unreasonable.
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