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#Pray Jetti pray
carolina-star · 2 years
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In jedi apprentice Qui-Gon gives Obi-Wan a stone for his 13th birthday, and Obi-Wan though it was a force sentive stone. It wasn't.
But in this AU Cody will not tolerate any of that shit. Any of Qui-Gon nonsense actually. So Obi-Wan will have a happy birthday and everything will be fine.
Until Obi-Wan find out clones don't have birthdays. And that will be his most important mission as the general of the 212th. Plus Cody will smile and that make him feel little sunshine in his tummy and Obi-Wan like that.
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archivist-crow · 3 months
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On this day:
ABANDONED LIGHTHOUSE
On December 26, 1900, the supply ship Hesperus arrived at the lighthouse of the Scottish island of Eilean Mor. The lighthouse was deserted. The dock was devoid of empty crates and mooring ropes, and the lighthouse was unexplainably dark. Eleven days earlier, its 140,000 candlepower light had gone out, and a lighthouse keeper on an Outer Hebrides island, seventeen miles away, could not abandon his own storm-battered post to go and investigate.
Men from the Hesperus were ferried in and jumped ashore, eager to investigate. Closed were the gate and main door to the lighthouse. Inside, the building was cold and deserted, with no sign of the three male keepers. The mantle clock had stopped ticking. Two out of the three oilskin rain-gear suits were missing. Up the stairs in the turret, beds were made, lantern wicks were trimmed and ready to be lit, and the record slate showed a final log entry from the morning of December 15. The lighthouse log stated that the sea was finally calm after a strange storm—a storm not witnessed anywhere else in the area—and that the three men were praying "God is over all."
A cement platform, sixty-five feet above the water line, had a crane with ropes hanging from it; the ropes were usually stored in a tool chest in an even higher crevice. The chest was missing, and speculation was that an enormous wave had carried the box and all three men out to sea. But the day that the lighthouse first stayed dark was a calm day. Also, only two sets of storm gear were missing, and experienced men would never go out onto the jetty on a wild night. Natives of the Scottish islands believe that Eilean Mor was haunted and refused to remain on the island overnight. No bodies were ever discovered.
Text from: Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violins, published by Weiser Books, 2009
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The Demigod From Asgard - Steve Rogers x Reader (Part 87)
Summary: The Avengers all regroup following the time heist
Word Count: 3.7k
Warnings: Heavy Angst! Grief! Talk of Loss! Language!
Dividers by @firefly-graphics​
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Chapter 87: A Soul For A Soul
Despite the fact there were more people at the compound than there had been in the last few years, it had never felt quieter. A heavy cloud fell over everyone, nobody saying a word, just doing what they needed to do.
After making sure all the stones were secure in the lab Steve made his way back to his room in the hopes that a shower would help… it didn’t. he could barely hold himself together, pressing his forehead against the cool tile, eyes screwed shut as he failed to hold back his tears.
He felt broken and like he had no one to turn to. Nat had been like his sister, she kicked him up the ass when he needed it, helped pull him out of that dark place after he lost you, she’d been his rock the past 5 years. She’d looked after JJ when he couldn’t.
JJ… Steve cursed under his breath, how on earth was he going to tell JJ that his favourite Aunt wasn’t going to be around anymore? He couldn’t, he just couldn’t bring himself to even think about that conversation right now, he needed time and some air.
Getting out of the shower he quickly got dressed and decided to go on a walk around the compound, hoping that maybe he’d have some sense of clarity. A sign or something that would tell him what to do.
As he walked around the compound he paused when he reached the small jetty on the lake. So many memories flooded his brain of all the times that you and him would escape and find peace here, the night he sat out here for hours waiting for you after an argument, the evening when he proposed. This small jetty meant so much to you and he really needed you right now, so he took a deep breath and stepped onto the jetty.
Sitting down on one of the benches he closed his eyes and counted out a few deep breaths, a technique his therapist taught him to help centre himself when things got too painful. Opening his eyes he glanced around, hoping that maybe he’d see you again, praying that you’d give him a reassuring smile, tell him it was going to be okay. But there was nothing, he remained alone on the jetty.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there for, staring out at the water, when he heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Glancing over he saw Clint had joined him, leaning against one of the wooden pillars, staring straight out at the lake. Neither men said anything, they didn’t even acknowledge the others presence, they just remained in silence. Slowly the others joined them, first Bruce, then Thor and lastly Tony who came to stand next to Steve, briefly patting him on the shoulder. The action caused tears to slip from Steve’s eyes.
“it was a soul for a soul…” Clint says quietly “to get the stone you had to sacrifice something you love… I tried to stop her, tried to sacrifice myself but she stopped me… and- and i-“ Clint mutters looking down and shaking his head unable to finish his sentence.
“do we know if she had any family?” Tony asked quietly.
“yeah…” Steve said his voice thick with emotion as he recalled the time when she told him about her family, that they had all gone in the snap and the Avengers were all she had left “us”
Thor walked over to Tony a look of disbelief on his face “what?” he questions with a small shake of his head “what are you doing?”
“just asked him a question,” Tony says gently, turning to face Thor.
“yeah, no you’re acting like she’s dead,” Thor tells him “why are we acting like she’s dead? We have the stones right? As long as we have the stones Cap we can bring her back isn’t that right” Thor says looking down at Steve for confirmation.
Steve didn’t have an answer though, he wished he had an answer, a way to bring her back but he knew it was hopeless.
“so stop this shit. We’re the avengers. Get it together” Thor growled in Tony’s face.
“can’t get her back” Clint states.
Thor stutters in disbelief shaking his head at Clint “it can’t be undone” Clint reiterates “it can’t”
Thor scoffs shaking his head “look I’m sorry no offence but you’re a very earthly being okay? And we’re talking about space magic, and ‘can’t’ seems very definitive don’t you think?”
“yeah, look, I know I’m way outside my pay grade here” Clint states holding his hands up “but she still isn’t here is she?”
“no that’s my point,” Thor says.
“it can’t be undone,” Clint says his voice breaking “or that’s at least what the red floating guy had to say, maybe you wanna go talk to him okay?” Clint says getting more and more agitated “go grab your hammer and you go fly and talk to him” he yells.
Silence falls in the group once more, nobody knowing how to respond or what to say.
“it was supposed to be me” Clint finally mutters “she sacrificed her life for that goddamn stone, she bet her life on it”
Bruce then growls in anger throwing the bench he was standing next to across the lake “she’s not coming back, we have to make it worth it, we have to”
Steve nodded, a sense of determination fuelling him. He knew one thing for certain and that was that Nat would want them to carry on, to see this through and get everyone back “we will” he promised.
Tony nods “I can have the gauntlet ready in a couple of hours… but I think maybe we should wait until tomorrow morning to bring everyone back,” he says glancing over at Steve.
Steve goes to protest but Tony holds up a hand to silence him “I know we want everyone back sooner rather than later, but it's going to be chaos when it happens, we need to be in a better headspace so let's take the evening to regroup and we’ll do the snapping tomorrow morning” Tony says.
Everyone murmured in agreement, slowly making their way off the jetty “hey Captain” Steve heard Thor say behind him, glancing over his shoulder he saw Thor standing fiddling with his fingers “can we talk for a minute?”
Steve nods walking back over to Thor, leaning against one of the pillars as he waited for what Thor wanted to say.
“I wanted to apologise,” Thor says making Steve’s eyebrows raise in surprise, he didn’t know what he’d expected Thor to say, but it wasn’t that.
“on Asgard, I saw my mom, she could tell I was from the future and we got to talk, she- she told me that I needed to let go of some of my anger, stop lashing out at people who don’t deserve it… so I’m sorry Captain for what I said to you and to JJ, I let my anger blind me” Thor apologises looking down in shame.
Steve blows out a long breath of air nodding his head “it's okay…” he sighs “I knew you probably didn’t mean it and if I could go back I would change how I reacted too, I should have tried to help you, not push you away”
Thor forces a small smile “I deserved it, and you were right I couldn’t be around JJ in the state I was, am in, but I swear to be better and if you’ll let me I’d love to see him again”
Steve smiles gently nodding his head “I’m sure JJ would love that… and um Thor I am sorry I broke that promise- that I didn’t keep Y/N safe” Steve says his voice breaking slightly.
“you have nothing to apologise for, I know you did everything you could, I uh actually saw her on Asgard too, she was her usual self, pesky baby sister, and it reminded me of how happy you made her, looked after her after the death of Loki and our mother, I didn’t lie when I said I couldn’t imagine anyone better for her,” Thor tells him.
Steve nodded his head, smiling gratefully “I saw her too, in New York and god seeing her again…” he says shaking his head unable to voice to swell of emotions he was feeling.
Thor smiles nodding his head, understanding what had been left unsaid “I miss her” he sighs.
“me too, we’ve nearly got her back though” Steve agrees.
Thor lets out a low chuckle nodding his head “indeed, and I already know what she’ll have to say about this” he says rubbing his belly.
“That’s what siblings are for though right?” Steve smirks, Thor nodding his head in agreement, steve sighs deeply smiling to himself, glad that the two of them finally cleared the air “and look thor you are welcome round any time, just please make sure you’re sober”
Thor nods “deal, and to prove it,” Thor says pointing over at Steve before pulling his flask from his pocket “this is going,” he says tossing the flask into the lake.
“thank you, I look forward to reconnecting with you, maybe we can visit New Asgard sometime?” Steve suggests.
“New Asgard will always be open for you” Thor smiles nodding “now let's hug it out, it’s what Y/N would have wanted”
Steve chuckles nodding his head in agreement, because yes if you were here right now you would certainly be pushing the two of them in for a hug. The distance closes between them and the two men hug it out, Steve feeling a weight lifting off of his shoulders knowing he had Thor back in his corner, even if he was literally holding his breath right now.
“I should probably head home, I kinda want to just hold JJ right now” Steve sighs stepping back.
Thor nods a solemn expression on his face “what will you tell him?” he asks.
Steve shrugs his shoulder “honestly I don’t know… probably something along the lines of what I said when I talked to him about Y/N, how she’s up in the stars, it won’t be easy” he sighs.
“no, but I’m sure you’ll do your best” Thor nods “I’m going to go eat a salad, let me know if you need anything”
Steve smiles nodding his head “thanks Thor, same goes for you”
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It was around 4 pm when Steve got home, he quickly dumped his stuff in the house before walking across the front lawn towards Roberta’s house. Knocking quietly on the door it only took a few seconds for the door to fly open, Roberta’s eyes scanning him trying to get an answer.
“What happened?” she asks ushering him inside quickly.
“where’s JJ?” Steve asked quietly, glancing around.
“in the backyard playing with Scout, did it go wrong?” Roberta asks leading him over to the couch.
“no… no we got them all” Steve sighs rubbing his hands together as he sat down.
Roberta frowns in confusion “what’s wrong then? Why isn’t everyone back? did the snap not work” she questions.
“We haven’t done it yet… we’re doing it in the morning instead” Steve explains still looking down at the floor.
“but I-“ Roberta stutters in confusion.
“We put it off because we lost Nat” Steve finally admits, glancing over at Roberta with tears in his eyes.
“oh, Steve” Roberta mutters shuffling closer to him on the couch, reaching out to take his hand.
“she uh- she sacrificed herself for the stone and it can’t be undone, we can’t get her back” Steve mutters through the tears.
Roberta sighs shaking her head sadly as she rubs his back “and the worst thing is that it was my plan to send her there, if I’d had known I wouldn’t have sent her, I would have sent someone else but then we’d just lose someone different and it’s selfish to think that” Steve mutters wiping away his tears.
“Steve it's normal to think that way, it’s a part of grief as I’m sure your therapist told you, and I know you wish it was different but you can’t change it, you made the right call at the moment and right now you have to honour her sacrifice and finish the job,” Roberta tells him, squeezing his hand.
“I know… I just wish she was still here, for JJ at least” Steve sighs shaking his head.
“what are you going to tell him?” Roberta asks glancing in the direction of the back door.
“I don’t know, I’ve been trying to work it out all afternoon but I can’t, part of me thinks I should wait until we get everyone back,” Steve says running his hand down his face.
“I don’t think that’s the right time to do it” Roberta sighs shaking her head “he’s a smart kid, he knows something is happening, and he’ll be able to tell something’s wrong, as hard as it is you need to tell him now so that when you bring Y/N home it’ll just be a day of good news, Nat wouldn’t want to damper that moment”
Steve sighs nodding his head “yeah you’re right, thank you Roberta” he says squeezing her hand.
“It's nothing, I’d do anything for you two boys, now go on, go get your boy and hold him tight okay?” Roberta smiles reassuringly.
Steve gives her a small smile, wiping away the last of his tears, taking a deep breath and standing up from the couch. Roberta gave him a small thumbs up, answering his wordless question of if he looked okay. As he opened the back door he smiled gently when he saw JJ playing fetch with Scout in the backyard, the air filled with giggles and laughter whenever Scout bounded back over to JJ with the ball.
Steve watched for a few minutes wanting JJ to have just a bit more fun before he broke the news about Nat. JJ turned around laughing as Scout tried to grab the ball from his hand, his face lighting up when he saw Steve.
“Daddy” he smiled dashing over to Steve.
Steve smiled back, bending down and swooping JJ up into his arms, hugging his tightly “hey bean, did you have a good day at school?” Steve asks shifting JJ slightly so he was on his hip.
“yeah we did painting today and I painted Scout and you,” JJ told him, a bright smile on his face.
“oh wow I can’t wait to see it! have you done all your homework?” Steve asks as walks back inside the house still carrying JJ.
“yep, Roberta helped me” JJ nodded.
“I tried my best, Maths isn’t my strong suit, Mary used to tutor me instead” Roberta chuckles pinching JJ playfully.
“did you say thank you to Roberta for all the help?” Steve asks JJ, brow raised.
“thank you Roberta” JJ chimes out, a smile on his face.
“you’re welcome baby, now be good for your dad, don’t cause any havoc,” Roberta says smirking at the end.
“I pwomise,” JJ says putting his little hand over his heart.
“good boy, now say bye-bye and you’ll see Roberta after school tomorrow,” Steve tells him.
“We get to play again?” JJ asks excitedly.
“yup, another day of club Roberta” Roberta smiles holding up her hand for a high five.
“Yess!” JJ smiles giving her a high five.
“Now off you boys go, see you tomorrow JJ” Roberta smiles opening the front door for them, passing Steve JJ’s bag.
“bye bye Roberta” JJ says waving goodbye.
“see you tomorrow” Steve smiles stepping out the door, Scout following close behind.
Once back inside his house, he puts JJ down quickly ruffling up his hair “why don’t you go upstairs to play for a bit while I get dinner started, remember to put away anything you get out” Steve suggests.
“okay” JJ smiles moving to run off up the stairs before steve stopped him.
“don’t run” Steve called out.
“Sorry!” JJ called back, slowing his pace back to an excited walk.
Steve let out a small chuckle walking into the kitchen to unpack JJ’s bag and lunchbox, and make a start on dinner. Opening the fridge he spotted the leftover lasagne Roberta had helped him make ready for when you were back. He knew that the first evening was going to be hectic and takeout wasn’t going to be an option so he planned ahead.
He let out a small sigh, disappointed that the plan had been pushed back slightly but he knew it was the right decision. Everyone would need to be level-headed when they brought everyone back, having a night to process what happened today was needed.
So instead of cooking the lasagne he opened up the freezer and grabbed the bag of dino nuggets for JJ and a cook from frozen breaded chicken breast for himself. Once he put everything in the oven to cook he set about getting Scout his dinner, since the pup had been at his heels from the moment they got home desperate for food.
A few minutes before dinner was ready Steve called up the stairs to warn JJ, and tell him to start putting his toys away. Right on cue, JJ came down the stairs just as Steve was serving up.
“yay dino nuggets!” JJ exclaimed when he saw what was on his plate.
“yep but don’t forget to eat your veg too, you need it to grow big and strong,” Steve says as he sat down next to him at the dining table.
“Like you?” JJ asks as he takes a bite of his nugget.
“yep just like me” Steve smiles winking as he ate a carrot.
As they ate JJ told Steve more about his day, what him and his friends had gotten up to at playtime and all the fun facts he’d learnt that day. Once they were done JJ was about to go back upstairs to play but Steve stopped him, knowing there was no more delaying the inevitable.
“JJ wait, we need to talk about something,” Steve says holding out his hand.
JJ frowns slightly in confusion but takes Steve’s hand and lets him lead him into the living room. Sitting down on the couch Steve pulled JJ onto his lap, wrapping his arms around him in preparation.
“JJ I have some bad news to tell you and I want you to remember it’s okay to be sad about it” Steve starts sighing gently as he looked down at JJ.
JJ nods worry clear on his face as he looked up at Steve.
“you know I used to be part of the Avengers? But that I don’t fight or go on missions anymore” Steve starts, JJ nodding his head slightly “well other Avengers like Auntie Nat still do missions, and Auntie Nat was on a mission today and-“ Steve says before getting chocked up “and she didn’t make it back”
JJ blinks a couple of times as he processes the information “is she lost somewhere?” he asks looking back up at Steve.
Steve shakes his head, biting his lower lip to stop it from wobbling “no, she’s just not with us anymore, she’s up in the stars with Mommy” Steve explains his voice thick with emotion.
“oh” JJ mutters looking down, fiddling with his fingers in his lap.
Steve waited a few moments just watching JJ, waiting for when the news sunk in completely “you okay JJ?” Steve asked as the silence drew on.
JJ then sniffled shaking his head refusing to look up. Steve sighed sadly, wrapping his arms around JJ tightly, and pulling him into his chest. Steve rubbed his back as JJ cried into his chest, blinking back his own tears as he tried to remain strong for JJ.
“I don’t want her to be gone” JJ whimpered clutching onto Steve’s top tightly.
“I know bean, I know, I want her back too,” Steve said quietly, kissing the top of his head.
“It’s not fair” JJ cried, his small fist thumping Steve’s chest in frustration.
“you’re right, it’s not fair,” Steve says grabbing JJ’s fist to stop him “if I could change things and bring her back I would, but I can’t so we just have to try and be happy for her,” Steve says cupping JJ’s chin to get him to look up at him “she’d want you to be happy,” he says wiping away JJ’s tears.
“but I’m sad” JJ pouts sniffling back his tears.
“and that’s okay” Steve reassures him “it’s okay to be sad, I’m sad too, but we can’t be sad for forever, Auntie Nat would want you to smile and laugh and play with Scout and be her happy little man”
JJ nods slightly before snuggling into Steve’s chest for comfort “I’ll call your teacher tomorrow and tell her you’re staying home, you can spend all day with Roberta having fun, watching movies, anything that makes you happy” Steve tells him.
“with you?” JJ asks looking back up at Steve.
“for some of the day, I need to go sort things out with the other Avengers tomorrow but I’ll be back as soon as I can I promise” Steve reassures him “and tonight we can stay up past bedtime together and watch a movie in bed”
“Cars movie?” JJ asks hopefully.
“yes we can watch Cars 1, 2 and 3” Steve nods gratefully for the small smile that appeared on JJ’s face “so let's head upstairs have a bath, get into our jammies and start watching cars”
JJ nods hopping off the couch and moving towards the stairs, Steve followed closely behind picking JJ up and throwing him over his shoulder smiling gently at the involuntary squeal and giggle that fell from JJ’s lips.
Once they were both in their jammies, they climbed into Steve’s bed, Steve making an exception and letting Scout jump up onto the bed with them. They had only gotten halfway through the first Cars movie when JJ dozed off curled up into Steve’s side. Steve smiled softly as he looked down at his little boy, the worry lines he’d seen before completely gone as JJ relaxed in his sleep. Carefully reaching out he turned down the volume of the TV so it wouldn’t wake JJ, he considered carrying him back to his room but couldn’t bring himself to disturb him. He also wanted to be as close as possible in case JJ woke up in the night and needed him.
So he turned out the lights and made himself comfortable “I’ll make all of this pain worth it JJ, I promise” Steve whispered.
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avirael · 6 months
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Dark Truths
It had been a day or two after Rael had returned to the Silver Bazaar to check in on A'viloh‘s condition. Early one morning, when A'vi had still been asleep, Kikipu had asked Rael to fetch a delivery for her from the nearby outpost. The way to the Scorpion Crossing wasn’t far and the merchant already had Kikipu‘s parcel prepared, so it was still before midday when they returned to the Bazaar.
"Thank you, Rael. Did you perhaps see A'vi outside?", the Lalafell asked as she took the delivery from Rael.
The Viera shook their head. "No, I haven’t. Why?"
"Oh, among the usual supplies there’s something exclusively for him in this parcel."
The Viera smiled. "Are you spoiling him, Kikipu?"
"Occasionally he deserves that.", Kikipu laughed. "Especially considering all the Gil he gave us."
"I guess that’s fair."
The Lalafell tilted her head and thought for a second. "Could you look for him? If he isn’t outside maybe he went down to the pier…"
"The pier?", Rael asked incredulously. "That seems unlikely…"
Kikipu sighed sadly. "Rael, you‘d be surprised about how stubbornly self-sabotaging that boy can be…"
"I’m going to look for him. He‘s probably only somewhere outside and I just missed him.", the Viera said, still not knowing how right Kikipu was with her statement.
Of course A'viloh wasn’t anywhere to be found in the settlement, so with a curse on their lips Rael followed the path leading down to the pier. As they stepped onto the wooden planks they indeed saw the Miqo'te sitting at the end of the jetty, his feet dangling a few ilms above the water.
"A'vi?", they called out to him hoping that it wouldn’t startle him.
"I‘m here.", he answered calmly without facing the Viera. He must have heard the steps even before Rael spoke.
Carefully Rael stepped closer and observed him for a moment. His gaze was fixed somewhere on the horizon and his face seemed absurdly serene given the circumstances.
"What are you doing here?", Rael asked and couldn’t stop themself from sounding a little worried.
"Just thinking.", the Miqo'te answered.
"Thinking?", Rael asked and decided to sit down beside the Miqo'te. "About what?"
"I’m alright, don‘t worry.", he said. "I‘m not here to throw myself into the ocean or something."
That shocked Rael.
"Why are you saying that? I never suggested you would?", they asked with furrowed brows and worry in their voice.
The Miqo'te laughed a short humourless laugh. "I‘m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you."
For a moment it was silent while Rael desperately tried to assess the situation and figure out what to say.
"You know…", A‘viloh said, stretched out his right arm and pointed to a stripe of stony coast to the east. "That’s were I was washed ashore that night after the shipwreck, where Kikipu found me."
Rael eyed the place he was pointing at. "It's so close to the lighthouse? How could a ship sink here?"
A'vi shrugged. "Don’t know for sure. It was on fire, I think thunder struck the mast. The storm was terrible and the wind pressed the ship towards the coast. I would never have made it to the shore otherwise…"
"That must have been horrible…", Rael muttered.
Another shrug. "In comparison? Probably the best thing that could have happened to me one way or another. Only the Twelve know where I would be now without that storm…"
Rael nodded. "Maybe."
They remained silent for a moment, A'viloh gazing out to the sea and Rael observing him carefully.
Suddenly the Miqo'te asked: "You don’t believe in the Twelve, do you? Do Viera believe in any kind of god or goddess?"
Rael shook their head, wondering why he would ask that. "Not really. Think of it as a little similar to the Gridanians and the Elementals. The Forest is our god if you want to phrase it so. Why do you ask?"
"We were raised to believe in the Twelve, in Azeyma especially. So when everything seemed hopeless, I prayed. For so many days I prayed to Azeyma, first for her to punish our torturers but all alone in the dark bowl of the ship, I eventually only prayed for her to end my suffering. And when I already began to wonder if she was even listening to me so far from home, she and her kin Rhalgr and Llymlaen send storm and thunder and fire and tore that ship apart."
Rael understood what he was trying to say. "You think your prayers did that? Made the ship sink?"
A'viloh shrugged again. "I don’t know. Isn’t that what the beast tribes do? They pray so hard for their god to save them until he appears?"
"Maybe…", Rael admitted. "But does it really matter? The important thing is that you are safe now and that these people got their rightful punishment."
"But what about everyone else?", A'viloh asked and turned his head to look at the Viera. "What about all the other poor souls that were trapped on that ship? As far as I know I am the only one who survived…"
Rael observed the look on the Miqo'te's face and found that he looked like a little child about to admit that they had done something horrible. "This wasn’t your fault, A'viloh. It was just the weather. You did not kill anyone."
"Did I not?", he retorted and his mouth twitched to a painful smile for a second. An expression that made Rael feel uneasy.
"No…", they answered but it sounded more like a question than a fact.
A'viloh turned his gaze to the sea again. "I thought I wouldn’t mind dying as long as it got me away from these monsters, but as the ship broke apart, I found myself clinging to a piece of the wreckage for dear life. The wind and the waves carried me towards the shore all by themselves and as I crawled through the shallow water trying to reach safety, something suddenly grabbed one of my feet. I screamed and kicked at it only to hear a familiar voice ask for help. It was the captain of the ship, the man who had ordered for Laqa to be drowned and then had thrown me to his lackeys to do with as they pleased…"
The detached way he described this scared Rael, like it was something he had witnessed from the sidelines instead of endured himself. So different from the emotional outburst when he had told Rael his story for the first time. So different from the normal A'vi. Strange and unsettling.
"The man was washed ashore right next to me, gasping for air. He wasn’t in a very good condition, pale and exhausted, a big piece of splintered wood protruded from his back, probably doomed to die without a healer. He was entirely helpless but I was so scared anyway. And the fact that he had the nerve to ask me, me of all people, for help… it made me so incredibly angry too. I never felt like that before…“
The Miqo'te blinked and looked down at his hands. Rael held their breath and stared at him petrified.
"I could say now that I didn’t mean to do it, but I think that would be a lie. I may not have realised what I was doing until it was too late but I can’t deny that I wanted him dead for everything he’d done… and it was surprisingly easy too. Sure he struggled but wounded as he was he couldn’t do much as I pushed him down with all that anger and all the strength I could still find in myself…"
Rael shivered but forced themself to speak. "He deserved that, A'vi…"
The Miqo'te nodded slowly. "So I keep telling myself… a long while I just sat there in the water staring out at the sea. Until I realised. Realised all of it. I looked at the body I drowned with my own hands mere minutes ago, floating face down in front of me and I looked at my hands, properly clean but it felt like they were a hundredfold stained with blood all over. I realised what I had done and I realised what had happened. To me. To Laqa. I realised that he was gone forever, and that no vengeance in the world would bring him back and that I was entirely alone in this cruel world—“
His voice, way too clinical until then, suddenly cracked and a shudder went through his body. Tears quietly ran down his face and absently he started scratching at his wrist. Suddenly A'viloh was himself again.
"Oh A'vi… your not alone..." Rael said softer than the Miqo'te had ever heard their voice before.
"I know that now but back then I didn’t. All of the sudden a terrible, dark thought crawled into my mind. That none of this would have happened if I never existed. That U’odh was right all along and that I should have died with the rest of my family. That I shouldn’t ever have made it to that shore and that I should have drowned like everyone else. That if I did, I would be with Laqa…"
His voice trailed off for a second but it was obvious where this was going. Rael lay a hand on his, stopping him from scratching his own skin raw.
"You don’t have to tell me all of that if it’s too painful, you know?…", they asked as if it would spare A'viloh any pain.
He shook his head.
"I know, but I feel like I need to. Like I want to…"
"Alright... go on then…", Rael said and nodded.
For a moment A'viloh seemed to think how to continue, before he calmly spoke again.
"When Kikipu found me I already stood halfway in the water, the ocean reaching up to my stomach. Later she told me that she hadn’t slept all night due to the storm and at dawn she saw the pieces of the ship drifting ashore and she hurried to the beach hoping there was someone left alive. If she had arrived a few moments later, I would have been gone…"
Rael seemed shocked about his bluntness. "I‘m glad you’re still here…"
"Kikipu saved my life.", A'viloh answered, noticeably not saying that he agreed. "She yelled at me asking if I was alright and I froze. Damn, I was a lot of things but definitely not alright. I don’t know if she didn’t realise I was facing the wrong way for someone swimming ashore or if she just chose to ignore it. Here, she yelled, I can help you. And like a puppet on her strings I turned around and walked towards her, past the bodies of the men who had enslaved us, past the bodies of all the poor souls that had been trapped in the belly of that ship, and past the body of the man I had killed with my own hands shortly before. I stepped in front of Kikipu and I fell to my knees, crumbled to a tiny puddle of misery in front of her. She saw the bodies too. The ones who where quite obviously pirates, and the ones with their hands and feet tied, too. And she looked into my eyes and she just knew. She reached out for me and embraced me as tightly as she could. Oh you poor little thing, she said, it’s alright, you’re save now. But it was so hard to believe that anything would ever be alright again. She took me in, nursed me back up and treated me like her own flesh and blood. She’s like a mother to me since that day and I owe her everything.“
Rael leaned forward a little to make A'viloh look at them. "I think she considers you her family too. All the people here are so friendly and familial. But Kikipu especially so, even though she has enough to worry about herself."
A'viloh nodded. "Exactly. That’s why I can’t let her down, Rael…"
"You’re not gonna let her down. You could never…", the Viera insisted. "…and I’m going to help you with whatever is necessary to save this place."
“Thank you.” The Miqo'te smiled faintly and Rael smirked in return. "By the way, I think Kikipu bought you treats."
"What?", A'viloh gasped. "Why didn’t you start with that?"
Suddenly all cheerful again he jumped up, grabbed Rael‘s hand and pulled them after him.
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ml-quinn · 2 years
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If I Can't Remember My Past, I'm Condemned to Repeat It - A Downton Abbey Baxley Fanfiction Playlist
Also available on YouTube Music
Based on If I Can't Remember My Past, I'm Condemned To Repeat It - A Downton Abbey Fanfic by M.L. Quinn | AO3 | FFN
Full Track List Beneath the Cut
Prologue - A Proposal Please Don't Say You Love Me - Gabrielle Aplin
A Respectable Family Kristy, Are You Doing Okay? - The Offspring
I Want to Be Safe I Choose You - Sara Bareilles
I’d Like to Be With You The Way I Am - Ingrid Michaelson
He Ruined Me Damaged - Plumb
I’ve Made You Feel a Fool Til It Happens To You - Lady Gaga
What It’s Like to Feel Fragile Innocent Party - Jetty Bones
There Must Be Something More Unwell - Taylor Acorn
The Story Feels Unfinished What You Know - Ali Dineen
I’d Give a Limb to Rewrite that Whole Chapter of My Life Stars - Grace Potter & The Nocturnals
Who’s to Say What He’ll Do? King of Anything - Sara Bareilles
It Shows You to Be a Very Brave Person Shake It Out - Florence + the Machine
Something Good Comes From Something Bad First - Lauren Daigle
People Like You With a Little Help From My Friends - The Beatles
Trying to Get Through This as Best We Can Make You Feel My Love - Adele
The Cause and The Reason I Will Wait - Mumford & Sons
The Proof Is She’s Standing Here - Part I Lullaby - The Chicks
The Proof Is She’s Standing Here - Part II Blue - Beyonce (feat. Blue Ivy)
Your Strength Makes Me Strong Dear Theodosia - Regina Spektor (feat. Ben Folds)
If Our Past Would Let Us Sullen Girl - Fiona Apple
We’ve Been Caught in the Spray Take Me Home - Jess Glynne
I Want it Back in the Ground and Buried Tell Me It's Not True - Barbara Dickson
To Take Away His Power Over You Praying - Kesha
You Are Stronger Than You Think Bad Life (Stripped Back) - Sigrid & Bring Me The Horizon
The Intimacy Makes Them More Powerful My Favourite Book - Stars
Epilogue - You Had Faith in Me When I Had None in Myself buzzkill -MOTHICA
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a-world-of-whimsy-5 · 2 years
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This short story is based on Apollo slaying the Python, but in my own interpretation.
Themes: Courage | Revenge | Fantasy 
Warnings : Mentions of weapons use and decapitation 
Disclaimer : I don’t own the original images in this collage edit. Full credit to original owner.
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The great serpent reared its head to strike the chariot racing towards him. The driver had been ready, with an arrow already knocked to his bow.
A giant maw opened as if to swallow him whole. Apollo took a deep breath and let go, praying to all the Gods for success. His family depended on it.       
                                                ↞🐍↠   
Before we can continue, however, we must go back to the beginning, when everything was still a dream. A world where Titans and Gods ruled and heroes performed incredible feats of skill and power.  
In this time and place, a young goddess walked to and fro, desperate to find safety and refuge before her children came into the world. Leto had an affair with Zeus, and her tryst with the king of all the gods earned her not only a pregnancy with twins, but it also earned the wrath of his wife. Hera was not one to brook such betrayals and cursed the young goddess, declaring she wouldn’t give birth on any land. All nations and cities shut their gates to her, fearing Hera's rage and the beast that had been tasked to hound Leto.    
Leto, in turn, cursed herself for giving in to Zeus's charms. She cursed Zeus as well, for not showing any care for the children she carried and for not stopping Hera's creature from chasing her from pillar to post. It was all too much, and Leto just wanted to cry. She stopped by the coast and looked out into the horizon. Sighing in defeat, she sat down by some stones, looking at the sunrise. A low rumble could be heard in the distance. He was close, as was their end. 
Head to those boulders, a distant voice called out to her. Quickly now. .
Leto was stunned, but she was not about to say no to any assistance offered to her. Taking careful steps, she made her way to an old jetty and got onto the first boulder that stuck out of the water. The first boulder turned into a second, then a third. By now, the rumble had grown louder and more terrifying. Hurry, the voice urged her. Hurry.
Leto hurried, taking careful steps from one rock to another. When she reached the final boulder, she peered into the water. It bubbled and roiled as if something was rising from within the depths. Leto refused to look back, for she knew what she would see. She kept her gaze on the water, her eyes growing wide as dinner plates when a large spit of land rose to the surface. Behind her, Leto could hear something large and monstrous slithering its way to the beach. As she peeked into the murky depths, large fins moved beneath the water. It was a floating island. Land that wasn't actually land, she thought. Relieved with her luck, Leto took that first step forward and made her way towards the center, not stopping even as a deafening roar reached her ears. Leto turned to face the beast that had followed her throughout her journey. Python roared in anger when the island floated away, for he could follow her no longer. Exhausted but happy, Leto made herself comfortable for the impending birth. She never forgot what she endured, and her children didn't either, Apollo especially.            
                                             ↞🐍↠   
Back to the present, where the contest between the archer and the serpent continued.  
 All the gods watched the scene unfold in front of them, with many of them holding wagers on who would be the victor . Will the golden-haired archer succeed? Or will he fall, like many others before him?   
Horses whinnied and pulled at the reins as they took their master's chariot forward. The air around them vibrated as if electrified. The serpent inched closer, its body lifting off the ground as the arrow grew nearer to its mark. So intent was Python on his prey, that he failed to see the projectile heading towards him. By the time he did see it, he took no note of it. So sure of his success, he believed the arrow would miss and he would live to finish the bastard son of Zeus.
Apollo watched as the arrow made its way, finding it hard to breathe. If he failed, it would not only mean his death, but it would also mean his mother and sister being left vulnerable. Unable to watch anymore, he closed his eyes, only to open them when steel collided with flesh. Apollo's arrow had struck true, piercing the serpent square in the forehead, and burying itself in his brain. 
Python struggled, but in vain. He could feel light and life flowing out of his body as he fell, shaking and writhing.   
How could this be so? He thought. How could this upstart best him, a creature feared above all others? He was enraged, and he was also dying. Each breath grew more labored, and every new movement grew more sluggish. His body grew cold and limp as Apollo set down his chariot and walked towards him, gleaming sword in hand. With one final roar, Python breathed his last, and Apollo brought his sword down on the serpent, severing the head from the body. He silently cheered, for now his mother had been avenged.  
                                                        ↞🐍↠  
"Come now, give it up." Artemis held a palm out when Hermes came over to inspect his half-brother's most awe-inspiring trophy.  
 Apollo looked at both of them, his confusion vanishing when gold exchanged hands. "You bet on my possibly falling to Python?" 
Artemis at least had the grace to look embarrassed. Hermes, on the other hand, smirked. "Yes. But look on the bright side. You won."  
"Hmph," Apollo grunted, and looked to the ceiling of his receiving hall, where the Python's skull now clung to, in chains and locks devised by Hephaestus himself. "Well, here he is!" He said with great enthusiasm. "The king of all serpents himself! Look all you want," Apollo said, giving Hermes a stony glare. "But no touching. I mean it."   
"Why?" Hermes asked incredulously.   
"I still haven't forgotten what you did with my cows."   
Artemis tittered while Hermes rolled his eyes. "Aww. Can you let that go already?"   
"Let me see," Apollo thought, tapping his finger on his cheek. "How about no."
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hardynwa · 7 months
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Nigerian Newspapers: 10 things you need to know this Thursday morning
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1. The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi, have rejected Wednesday’s judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal affirming the election of President Bola Tinubu. Legal Advisers to the LP and PDP vowed to challenge the judgment at the Supreme Court. 2. The Federal Government, on Wednesday, announced an increase in the prices of single-phase and three-phase pre-paid electricity meters, and declared that the hike takes effect from September 6, 2023. This was announced in an order released by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission with number, NERC/2023/020, and signed by the commission’s Chairman, Sanusi Garba. 3. President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday assured Nigerians that he is more energised and focused on delivering his vision of a unified, peaceful, and prosperous nation, following the judgment by the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal in Abuja. The President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, revealed this in a statement he signed on Wednesday night. 4. The Nigerian Navy on Wednesday set ablaze another vessel allegedly used for illegal oil bunkering at the Abuloma jetty in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The vessel, MV OFUOMA, laden with about 20,000 illegally refined products, was seized by the Joint Task Force Operation Delta Safe, alongside a wooden boat used for transferring the product into the vessel. 5. The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has lost the Kogi Central senatorial seat to the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan. It is the second senatorial seat the ruling party has lost in Kogi State. 6. Acting Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adeniyi has approved key appointments and redeployment of senior officers. The redeployment and promotion, it was learnt, followed retirement of some top officers and moves to achieve the service’s core mandates of revenue generation, anti-smuggling, and trade facilitation. 7. Former President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed his happiness with the ruling of the Presidential Elections Petition Court confirming the victory of the All Progressives Congress and its candidate, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his running mate, Vice President Kashim Shettima. Buhari also appreciated all citizens for maintaining peace throughout this period and prayed for continued progress and development under the APC government. 8. The Lamidi Apapa-led faction of the Labour Party (LP) says it has accepted the judgement of the five-man panel of the Presidential Election Petition Court which dismissed the petition of its Presidential candidate in the February 25 Presidential election, Peter Obi for lacking in merit. The faction said it warned Obi not to pursue any case, saying that this will only result in “chasing a wild goose.” 9. The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, on Wednesday ended the two-day warning strike to protest the ‘negative consequences of petrol subsidy removal on workers and other Nigerians,’ declaring that it recorded greater compliance on day two than the first day of the industrial action. 10. A female undergraduate student (name withheld) has accused a lecturer at the University of Lagos, Akoka, simply identified as Dr Kadiri, of rape. The undergraduate said the incident occurred when she visited the lecturer in the office to sort out issues about her results. Read the full article
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libidomechanica · 1 year
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“And all the flowd oer, are gone down”
Pleasant muscle and faith is hell-dogs, and my heart.     Our mistress—I, although. I will the spher e d course, is gone and stretch’d by the wind will,     but I was desolate, and scarcely palpable ash or them their native landlord’s black     eyes where eternal in his new patron
eyes, wilderness little time of year thine, like     resurrection? Doe Stella loue: fooles: if the white was eating leave his strength people     breath, all perfumes by that when Night as blithe, now, and ears belief. But now wild, its significance     yet, sadness, did passion in
a petticoat; pity he looks fresh petals are     please of dry lane she was the old inn- door. They deny. That worst of gravity, which each     too much, Cynara! Swells and merely can companions now cover me; and beauty was     hers! That which to make a sleeve, there because
she be all my love so rough a palm was of     depart of road its cheek and redder the warmer sun. If I have looked rounds that I felt     only my love for him from thee, Herrick, and every reader, through sealed into Johnson’s     way, is bigger than ocean, on seeing
here; thus the gestures their homely hand—just lonely     for a little deep embattles rot and death; jealousy is cruel is she loosely—     like thee. She shifts and he must give reward blowing cup, and silent here build upon the     calm of Nature lay twelve boatman’ and
Boats, ’ and poet’s, too, to the good ointment competing     for stands till her husband seas, on the Eastern clouds and monogrammed with the baskets     at her while each me how to speak. Forget the currants hands behind, appeared as chearful,     while. And a great which, by the jetty
sure; a woman. Credit give they hated banter,     and if you see the woman as on a mortal moon builds its spheres there is the shock of     love! Has drunk my answer: do what we are most steal a blink, by a’ unseen a state at     least war—much too much too much; his hearken
to the shrinking eyes. Silver, fair Corinna     sits, and on the western cloudy, grace, or nothing the lingered her heel the hand or his     chin, a coat of the learn’d—the happier far than wine! God gave his face I say, mid-dream.     And all the flow’d o’er, are gone down. Long
six boys, head is first her looketh to pray Medea     for all we inheritor and two such liars, and the insults, to myself each     the door ajar so he was still, at length of thy name I am an animal and     his sacred majesty; and all the
dead man of brass that go about a hundred planted     to pillows and my lute unstrung; else it were gone whose eyes when half misses born to     steal away my verses rarely wanted oft so choose, is the cause that hast doves’ eyes. In     the mountains, and the plasma, listening
tear-drops, as something return: still more happier,     bed behind here, and touch sort that is it in his revelry expired. Treasure too was     changed for.—The mountain-apple. Ending royal people of thee: in thee for better, if     not what grow comers, knew not in
posterity? In my heart still. And leaves and the remained,     and then, our souls—the poets, by the soldier heard the Pacha with studs of huge despite     despair may quarrel, and Caesar’s early house no two suns from his late by the worms     things undo me. Of jarring presence
of murdered out the sparkling arms of these forest     human fellowship I needs must not void of feel; his pity was getting bravery     in fire, with paine might for us? Listening His teeth are only the mostly galleon     tossed unto Crested the landscape
a velvet cushions end! They gain of the future     star-fish in my thoughts which other dry nor neat, their best ore enclosure. And cure bad ails,     singing the old man chatter none that heifer lowing wheel stand men, its sweeps our master’s     red-lipped daughter, had never find thy
kids beside ever fell the door. He delight, and     small and mine. If you like to his gold before his steps incesses are for love to the     Franks, and adders scholes, to dry their fork and born in an emerald aigrette with released;     So I and sleep. I think us worthy
eye. How slow the illicit into two; the     heart in which when she left a boy tugs at him, that crackling age was hot and die. And wild     ecstasy of countried each we could I learn overtime. The rain, frost, and rain was salt     weed sways at ease, how would find his fine
for me by moonlight, nor ever wanted this pious,     but had genius by thee. A lord of a fair assistance, it is possible and     might bubbling that my will ye need my roots and dies, are about a purposed; pleasure     whene’er shall I taste at first the way.
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mtnkat3 · 2 years
Text
3.52pm
DOne my Love/s. I have walked to the jetty.
I love You DOne.
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I'm proud of myself for both the exercise, & pushing myself to seek You Alll out.
Praying for finding You still though!!!
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Photo
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Ibadah Remaja Muda FYRE 6 Agustus 2022 Firman Tuhan dilayani oleh Ibu Jetty Gomulja Setiawan @gomulyayetty 📸 : @vanyaep_ 2 Timotius 2:22 Sebab itu jauhilah nafsu orang muda, kejarlah keadilan, kesetiaan, kasih dan damai bersama-sama dengan mereka yang berseru kepada Tuhan dengan hati yang murni. Bagi jemaat yang rindu, tergerak, terbeban dan hendak belajar melayani di berbagai bidang di GSPDI Filadelfia Kenduruan Cirebon, bisa menghubungi ke para Person In Charge (PIC) nya sbb : Ibadah Remaja Muda FYRE Sdr. Mikhael Mordekhai Massie @mikhael.mordekhai 0878-2950-6234 Gspdi Filadelfia Kenduruan Cirebon 1 Korintus 13 : 13 Our Instagram group : @gspdifiladelfia @fyre.filadelfia @filadelfiakidscirebon @filaworship @multimedia.filadelfia @filadelfiamotion @filadance_ @filadelfiaworship.id Find us GSPDI Filadelfia Kenduruan on Social Media Channel : YouTube Instagram Facebook Twitter Tumblr Tiktok #gspdi #filadelfia #kenduruan #cirebon #gspdifiladelfia #gspdifiladelfiakenduruan #gspdifiladelfiakenduruancirebon #fyre #filadelfiakids #filaworship #multimediafiladelfia #filamotion #filadance #church #praise #worship #lord #jesus #christ #savior #pujian #penyembahan #doa #pray #iman #faith #corinthians #korintus (at FYRE) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cg_oFRRBOud/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
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naijastudio · 2 years
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Simi - Temper
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Simisola Bolatito Kosoko, popularly known as Simi, is a talented Nigerian singer, composer, and actress who makes her stage debut with "Temper" an exceptional single. This song, too, is from her recently released “To Be Honest EP” body of work. Simi – Temper is now available for download on naijagenre.com, and don’t forget to share this website with your friends for the most up-to-date information. Simi - Temper Lyrics I be on my grind, I be on my grind But sometimes me I really need a break Everybody know me bonafide When me I sing pon international stage Me ready ready You stand in my way Me ah petty petty Mulah long like spaghetti Me ah cruise inna P Jetty Jetty Uh yeah I'm just tryna make this money Pounds and dollars E no need to gimme warning Eh - I be hustler but ko really funny Me a winner Me a vixen for sinner (Me a vixen for sinner) If I don't step on ya necks How you gonna lose your breath How you gonna know I'm the best I'm gonna earn your respect I'm gonna rep for the west I'm gonna flex Surely oh I'ma do what I do, o ma bloody oh I'm just speaking my mind I'm telling no lies You look in my eyes You know it's alright Make I just coolu coolu Coolu coolu coolu temper oh If you no open door You no fit enter oh I be on I be on With my Dom Perignon Make I coolu coolu Coolu coolu coolu temper oh But me I no go fit surrender o I be on I be on With my Dom Perignon I realize another man thing No be for me Simi Omo la bouncing Ki lo kan mi And nobody fit chance me Talk to me nice Mo fancy ju Nancy lo A surprise When I walk into a room They say Simi don show How you look so good Yeah the people wan know Yea - Abinibi oh Bigger than ability If you dey with me oh Then I know you're feeling me Run my money Nothing in this life is free Extraordinary me What you get is what you see My policy I compromise but never on the quality oh Shalla to my day ones Blessing rain on ya I pray on ya I'm just speaking my mind I'm telling no lies You look in my eyes You know it's alright Make I just coolu coolu Coolu coolu coolu temper oh If you no open door You no fit enter oh I be on I be on With my Dom Perignon Make I coolu coolu Coolu coolu coolu temper oh But me I no go fit surrender o I be on I be on With my Dom Perignon Listen Below & Download Mp3 Read the full article
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carolina-star · 2 years
Note
The #Pray Jetti Pray is such a mood I love it!!
(Everyone(—Obi-Wan) about Qui-Gon Jinn: “Fuck him up Kote!!”)
Kote will keep Qui-Gon at bay, and everyone is with him.
Every time Cody throws his killer gaze at Qui-Gon you can read in Cody´s eyes "Pray Jetti, Pray" because his a tiny Mandalorian. And you know Mandalorians are pretty dangerous.
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berrysphase · 2 years
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little ficlet
look, I don’t know.  A palate cleanser, I guess, before tackling edits on the monster.  Also, Dahlak is cool.
The Old Guard, Nicky pov, 1340s ish
The noontime prayer was late.  The overseer at the docks wanted to finish setting the posts for the new jetty first, so there they still were, Nicolò and the rest of his work crew, up to their chests in seawater under the glaring noonday sun.  
So it went.
Nicolò held his post straight and waited.  The sun was hot and merciless on his back, a palpable force despite the white headscarf he'd been issued after he'd been fished out of the sea.   In the water below one of his fellow unfortunates splashed around anchoring the post into the sea floor, shouting at the overseer every time he surfaced for air. 
It had been not quite three weeks since their ship had foundered.  A ship out of Dahlak had found him clinging to the wreckage nearly a full day afterward, and pulled him out.  They made a business out of it, he found, while he was still flat with thirst on the deck -- they sailed out after storms to rescue whomever and whatever they could find, and then cheerfully took a fee.  
So Nicolò was waiting, and the Sultan of Dahlak was waiting, for Nicolò's friends to turn up and pay the fee for his rescue, and in the meantime Nicolò was working to earn his keep. In case his friends did not come.
The prayer was finally called.  Nicolò had learned the hard way to grab his lunch first, and took it down to the thin shade of the customs house while the Muslims bent to pray.   He finished it quickly enough and leaned his head back against the rough coral bricks.  The waves ran up the beach and fell back, and the shore birds scurried after them, again, again.  In the distance he could just spot a sail.  
Surely Andromache and Quynh and Yusuf had come out safely through the storm.  
Surely he would know, if Yusuf were gone.  Surely he would know if whatever grace preserved them had been taken back, if Yusuf were not in the world.  He could not be walking around with half of his self ripped away and fail to know it; after the first quickness of the moment left them, men knew when they had taken mortal wounds.  He and Yusuf had come into this strange undying life together, they would leave it together.  He had to believe that.  
As the sun sank they were set to work again.  Nicolò was lashing planks to the posts with a coarse rope spun of coconut fibers when a ship came in.
It was flying the Dahlak pennant, tacking smoothly into port.  Perhaps there would be news, perhaps even --  Nicolò stood staring at the ship long enough for the overseer to bark at him.  He lowered his head and went back to work.  
He lingered around the docks after the work crew was dismissed, hoping to spot one of the newly-arrived sailors, or failing that, pick up some news.  But the docks emptied fast after sunset, and he had little luck.
"Here's one," said an official right behind him.  Startled, Nicolò turned, just as the official seized his elbow sharply.
"I've done my work for the day," Nicolò protested.
The official dragged him down toward a small single-masted dhow moored at the far end of the docks. "This ship is short-handed.  It runs short trips, you'll be back soon enough."
Nicolò opened his mouth to object -- he couldn't go, he had to make it easy for his friends to find him – and then the ship's captain straightened up from where he, no, she had been leaning on a post, and he knew.
"This is what you've got for me?" Andromache drawled. The official pushed Nicolò forward and down, so that he stumbled forward to land on hands and knees at her feet.
"He's strong and healthy.  You just needed one?" 
"Yeah, he'll do," Andromache said, looking him over, all slow disdain.  Nicolò gave her a sarcastic stare back, the expression floating lightly over the fervent joy welling up in his chest.  "Thanks, yeah, God be with you, good night."  Then, to Nicolò, "You'll sleep on board tonight, I don't want you trying to run off -- "
Nicolò followed her as sullenly as he could manage up the gangplank, and then once they were on board, the official gone, he took a deep breath.  "Andy -- "
"It's just us," she said, and threw her arms around him.  "Shit, Nico!  At least you aren't drowned."  He held her closely to him, heart singing. 
"Now, Quỳnh!" she called after a moment, pulling back, and Nicolò couldn't hold it in any longer. He started, "And Yusuf, is he -- "
The sail started unfurling just as Yusuf crashed into him.  "Oh thank God, thank God," Nicolò said, staggering around with the force of it, with the heavy hot solidity of Yusuf in his arms.  He pounded his hands on Yusuf's shoulders, cupped the warm familiar curve of Yusuf's head and held it to him, laughed with how tightly Yusuf was squeezing him back, how all his carefully banked dread was exploded into joy.  Yusuf was murmuring something into his neck, and he couldn’t tell whether it was poetry or prayer.
"I made him wait in the back," Quỳnh said. "I knew he wouldn't be able to keep up the act."
"And you too," Nicolò said, reaching for her. 
She took his hand and pressed it, eyes dancing, but shook her head. "Help me with the sail first, Genoa, we've got to make the open water fast."
"What," Nicolò said, moving in almost automatic habit to turn the sail into the wind, and then as the port slid away from them, he said, faintly scandalized, "You're stealing a ship from the Sultan of Dahlak!"
Yusuf, still plastered to his back, put in, laughing, "I know, I know, we won't be able to come back through the Red Sea for decades."
"Eh, so what?" Andromache grinned, broad and fierce. "It's a big world out there.  Lots of other places we can go."
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kill-the-rockstar · 2 years
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The Lakes (Ben Hardy x Gender Neutral! Writer! Reader)
A/N - I have been to the Lake District all of once three years ago, so you're getting what I remeber of that...
Summary: Ben and Y/N decide to get away from it all by running off to the lakes for a while
Folklore Masterlist
Warnings: fluff, mention of food
Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die
I don't belong, and my beloved, neither do you.
Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry,
I 'm setting off, but not without my muse (The Lakes - Taylor Swift)
Waking up laying beside the love of your life is, to say the least, pretty good.
To set the scene, perhaps one should mention the sunlight that came through the gap in the curtains that made his blond hair shimmer gold as he shifted slightly in his sleep, or the cozyness of the covers, or the dog asleep at their feet. Pretty good.
Ben and Y/N were staying in a rented house in the Lake District for two weeks.
Two weeks of walks and boat rides and museums for things they'd never thought about before but Y/N suddenly found fascinating on a rainy day with Ben by their side and the promise of a cafe and some cake at the end.
Two weeks of kisses and sunsets casting green and blue on the horizon, and praying Ben's agent wouldn't call him back to reality too soon.
Y/N was writing when Ben finally decided to open his eyes. They didn't usually wake up before him so he was a little surprised to see them with their notebook perched on their crossed legs next to him as he blinked away the last remnants of sleep, smiling up at them when they finally glanced at him and saw he was awake, leaning up to kiss them before scanning the words they'd been scribbling down.
It always made his heart flutter a little when he saw they'd written about him.
***
The two decided to go on a boat trip on Coniston water as they were yet to actually go on any of the lakes that gave the place its name.
As they stood on the jetty waiting for the boat to arrive, alongside the other passengers, Ben admired Y/N, flushed from the wind that was messing up their hair as they gazed down at the little dog sat by their feet.
The boat trip was beautiful as they watched the water and scenery pass by, and listened to the tour guide's story of the lake's history, Y/N occasionally jotting something down in their notebook.
***
On their way back to the house they were staying in, they stopped by a corner store they'd spotted, it's window full of jars of multicoloured lollipops.
Y/N's face lit up at the sight of the neatly arranged colourful sugar and Ben couldn't resist as they pulled him inside, each choosing one.
Then they began to wander back, pulled along by the happy dog at their feet and smiling as they talked about anything and everything that came to mind.
Walking around on a summer evening eating sweets with the love of your life was, to say the least, pretty good.
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trini-trin-trin · 3 years
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Sharing this from a FB group that I am in. I was very moved by the article and felt affinity with the experiences shared. A really sweet read.
Here is the article if you don't want to click on the link (I know it is a little long, but well worth your time to read!):
The letter I received ten years ago was unsigned and bore no return address. Clearly its author did not expect, much less want, a reply. A message in a bottle, from no one to no one, that letter still remains the most bizarre form of communication. It asks nothing but to be read, promises nothing but to share a few facts and feelings, and, seeing that it must have been dashed off on a lined yellow sheet that seemed hastily torn out of a pad of paper, the author would not be surprised if, after skimming through it, the recipient decided to crumple and lob it into the closest dust bin.
The letter is one page long. One page is enough. The handwriting is uneven, perhaps because the author had lost the habit of writing in longhand and preferred the keyboard. But his grammar is perfect. The man knew what he was doing. I assume he was writing the note by hand because he didn’t want traces of it on his laptop, or because he knew he was never going to send it as an email and risk a reply. Now that I think of it, he probably didn’t care if it even reached its recipient, a local Bay Area reporter who had mentioned my novel about two young men who fall in love one summer in Italy in the mid-1980s. The reporter eventually forwarded it to me, minus its envelope with the postmark. It took no time to see that all the author of the letter was looking for was a chance to blurt out the words he couldn’t dare breathe elsewhere.
My book had spoken to him. His letter spoke to me.
So here it is: dated April 16, 2008.
I came upon Mr. Aciman’s book while on a business trip back East. Not the type of book I am normally able to read, so I bought a copy for the flight home. I think I’m glad I did.
You see, I was Elio. I was 18 and my Oliver was 22. Though the time and place were different, the feelings were remarkably the same. From believing that you are the only person who has these feelings, to the whole “he loves me – he loves me not” scenario, Mr. Aciman got it right. I was particularly impressed with the attention he gave to the morning after Elio’s and Oliver’s first encounter. The guilt, the loathing, the fear. I felt it too much. I had to put the book down for a while.
But in the end I was able to finish the book before we landed at SFO. Which was good, because I couldn’t take the book home. Unlike Elio it was I who married and had children. My Oliver died from AIDS in 1995. I’m still living a parallel life. My name is not important. His name was Dwight.
Instead, I kept the letter. I kept it for ten years.
What moved me was not just its sobering matter-of-factness or its hint of downplayed sorrow, but the associations it provoked in my mind. It reminded me of those short, clipped messages to loved ones, written by people about to be shipped off to the death camps who knew they’d never be heard from again. There is a chilling immediacy about their hurriedly scribbled notes that say everything there is to say in the fewest possible words — there wasn’t enough time for more, no smarmy pieties, no hand-wringing, no treacly hugs and kisses before the tragic end. It also made me think of the moving phone messages left by those who finally realized they were not going to make it out alive from the Twin Towers and that only their family’s answering machine was going to take their call.
“My name is not important,” he writes, almost as an apology for remaining anonymous; yet the author drops quite a number of hints about himself — hints he likely knows will stir his reader’s wistful curiosity to know what made him write the letter in the first place, what he hoped to accomplish, and if writing did indeed help. The letter itself allows us to see that he travels for business. We also sense that he probably lives in the Bay Area and that he travels not infrequently to the East Coast, since, as he writes, he is “back” in the East. And we know one thing more: that he simply needed to come out and tell someone that a man called Dwight had been his lover when the two were young. The rest is a cloud. We’ll never know more. Writing has served its purpose. We write, it seems, to reach out to others. Whether we know them or not doesn’t matter. We write to put out into the real world something extremely private within us, to make real what often feels unreal and ever so elusive about ourselves. We write to give a shape to what would otherwise remain amorphous. This is as true about authors as about those who want to correspond with them. Over the years, many have written to me either after reading or seeing Call Me by Your Name. Some tried to meet me; others confided things they’d never told anyone; and some even managed to call me at the office and, on speaking about my novel, would eventually apologize before bursting out crying. Some were in jail; some were barely adolescents, others old enough to look back at loves seven decades past; and some were priests locked in silence and secrecy. Many were closeted, others totally out; some were widows who felt a resurgence of hope if only by reading about the loves of two young men called Elio and Oliver in Italy; some were very young girls eager to meet their long-awaited Oliver; and some recalled former gay lovers whom they’d occasionally bump into years later but who’d never acknowledge what they’d once shared and done together when both were schoolmates and neither was married. All were keenly aware of living a parallel life. In that parallel life things are as they perhaps should be. Elio and Oliver still live together. And no one has secrets there.
Unlike Dwight’s lover, everyone who took the time to write to me did not withhold their names, but all had, at one point or another, withheld something very primal. They withheld it from themselves, from a relative, from a friend, a classmate, or colleague, or from a beloved who would never have guessed what troubled longings seethed below their averted gaze whenever they crossed paths.
Some readers wrote to tell me they felt that my novel had changed them, and given them new insights into themselves; some felt it was urging them finally to turn a new leaf in their lives. But some couldn’t go so far and, despite their perfect command of language, confessed lacking the words to explain why they were so moved by my novel or why they felt an unresolved longing for things they’d never considered or desired before. They were experiencing an upwell of emotions and of ungraspable might-have-beens that were asking to be reckoned with because they seemed more real than life itself, a sense of themselves that beckoned from an opposite bank they’d never known was there and whose potential loss now was a source of inconsolable grief. Hence their tears, their regrets, and the overpowering sense of being lost in their own lives.
And yet, they said, theirs were not tears of sorrow. They were tears of recognition, as though the novel itself were a mirror for readers to watch their own emotions laid bare before them. These responses made me aware that Call Me by Your Name does not call attention to anything readers didn’t already know, nor does it bring new truths or revelations; all it does is shed new light on things that were long familiar but that they never took the time to consider. It would be so tempting to say that they are reminded of their forgotten first loves; the truth is that all loves, even those that occur late in life, are first loves. There is always fear, shame, reluctance, and not a tiny dose of spite. Desire is agony.
Everyone who’s read Call Me by Your Name understands not only the struggle both to speak and hold back their truth but also the shame that comes whenever we want something from someone. Desire is always cagey, always secretive — we’ll tell everyone we know about the person we crave to hold naked in our arms, but the very last one to know this will be the person we crave. Same-sex desire is even more guarded and watchful, especially in those who are just discovering their sexuality. Awkwardness and desire are strange bedfellows at a young age, but shame and inexperience are just as paralyzing as fear when we watch them tussling with the urge to be bold. You’re torn between the raw horniness that makes you dream scenes you hope to forget as soon as you’re up and the scenes you pray you’ll dream again and again — if dreams are all you’ll have. Silence and solitude exact a cost that leaves us emotionally wrecked. At some point we need to speak.
So “is it better to speak or die?” asks Elio, the narrator of Call Me by Your Name, quoting words penned by the sixteenth-century Marguerite de Navarre in her collection of tales known as The Heptameron. Marguerite was the sister of King Francis I and the grandmother of Henry IV, himself the grandfather of Louis XIV, hence she was plenty familiar with court intrigue, gossip, and the risks of opening up to someone who may not welcome what’s in our heart and could easily make us pay for it. Not everyone who has written to me has dared to speak their hearts to those they loved. Some have sought silence — slow, lingering droplets of quiet desperation taken every night before bedtime until they realize they’ve been dead and didn’t even know it. Many have written to me with the feeling of having missed their chance when someone tethered his rowboat to their jetty and simply asked them to jump in. “Some sentence or thought on almost every page,” writes a reader, “triggers tears and knots my throat and chest. Tears well up in my eyes on the subway, at my computer at work, walking down the street. Perhaps I am weeping in part because I know that at my age there is virtually no possibility of experiencing anything remotely comparable to what Elio experiences with Oliver.” Someone else writes, “Reading Call Me by Your Name made me feel a love I never had.” A happily married 50-plus colleague took me aside and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever been this much in love in my whole life.” “I'm 23,” tweeted someone else, “and have never felt such love, until I read Call Me by Your Name. I feel like I lived it.” “Elio and I are essentially the same age,” writes a teenage girl. “I have never really experienced his environment of the Italian summer…My experiences have only taken place halfway between nature and smog, however I have felt the same tension, fear, guilt and overwhelming love that you express perfectly through both Elio and Oliver…Finding myself in Elio was something I never expected and I’m positive that I won’t experience anything quite like it ever again. The first girl I ever loved remains…the only girl I have ever loved and though everything she and I shared…lives now as a secret between two friends.” “I finished reading Call Me by Your Name a couple of days ago,” writes someone else, “and wanted to let you know how much it affected me. It felt like a narration of my thoughts that I had systematically buried long ago.” And finally this from a 72-year-old: “I was fascinated by the idea of parallel lives where would I have been if I had gone with him, where would I be if I traveled alone? Maybe the point is just what do I do with the gift you have given me during the remainder of my life.”
There are at least 500 more such letters and emails.
Some find themselves weeping at the end of the film or the novel, not for what happened long ago or for what did not and might never happen in their own lives but for what has yet to happen, for the terrifying moment when they too will soon have to decide whether to speak or die. This from an 18-year-old: “[Your novel] gives me hope that one day I will meet someone whom I desire so badly that I’ll actually find it in me to make a move, the way Oliver is that someone for Elio. Maybe my Oliver will also turn out to be someone that I realize I love as well as desire.” She was crying for a week, as was this 15-year-old young man: “I stopped reading…because I didn’t want [the book] to end, didn’t want the wounds that you caused me to close, I didn’t want to overcome, for some reason that I have yet to find out. I wanted to stay a wreck, emotionally and mentally fragile….My mother handed me tissues because she had never seen me cry like this. I had finished your book and ‘moved’ is too weak a word to express what your book had done to me. Here a week later and it is literally all I can think about, not my midterms coming up, but…Elio and Oliver and if it is better to speak or die. You answered questions I didn’t even think I had.”
Indeed, the whole novel seems to enable the outing of all manner of feelings, feelings from Elio’s relentless inward journey and obsessive self-examination that readers are invited to identify with. Through Elio’s unfettered introspection they too feel exposed and sliced open like a crustacean without a slough, now forced to look at itself in the mirror. No wonder they are moved. The mask that is torn off their faces is not just the mask that conceals same-sex desires from themselves and from others. Rather, it is the realization, through Elio’s voice, of what they truly feel, who they truly are, what they fear, what bears their signature, and what coy little shenanigans they go through to read others and hope to reach them. Some identified with some effusive sentences in my novel so much that they had them tattooed on their bodies. They even attach photos of these tattoos. People have also tattooed peaches on themselves!
But what moves most people — and this is as true now as it was when the novel first came out — is the father’s speech. Here he not only tells his son to nurse the flame and “don’t snuff it out” after his son’s lover has left Italy, but that he too, the father, envies his son’s relationship with a male lover. This speech tears away the last vestige of a veil between reader and truth and is a moving tribute to the irreducible honesty between father and son.
Most readers have written to me about the scene because the father’s speech rekindles the very difficult moment when they decided to come out to their parents — or, as is often the case with people 60, or 70 or older, it reminds them of the conversation they wished they’d had but never did have with their parents. This is the loss no one forgets and from which no one recovers after seeing Call Me by Your Name. It bears the very essence of that precious and life-defining might-have-been moment that never happened and never will.
Here is the speech:
“Look…[y]ou had a beautiful friendship. Maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you. In my place, most parents would hope the whole thing goes away, or pray that their sons land on their feet soon enough. But I am not such a parent. In your place, if there is pain, nurse it, and if there is a flame, don’t snuff it out, don’t be brutal with it. Withdrawal can be a terrible thing when it keeps us awake at night, and watching others forget us sooner than we’d want to be forgotten is no better. We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything — what a waste!...
“… {L]et me say one more thing. It will clear the air. I may have come close, but I never had what you had. Something always held me back or stood in the way. How you live your life is your business. But remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. Most of us can’t help but live as though we’ve got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then all those versions in between. But there’s only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now there’s sorrow. I don’t envy the pain. But I envy you the pain.”
I received the anonymous letter sometime in early May 2008. At the time, I was staying at my parents’, because my father was suffering from throat and mouth cancer and was already in hospice care. He had refused radiation and chemotherapy, so I knew his days were numbered; though morphine was clouding his mind, he was still lucid enough to bandy a few quips about a host of subjects. He had stopped eating and drinking water because swallowing had become very painful. One afternoon while I was stealing a nap, the phone rang. A reporter I’d met in California had just received a letter, which she wanted to share with me. I told her to read it over the phone. After she’d read it I asked if she felt she could mail it to me. I wanted to show it to my father, I said, and explained he was dying. She felt for me. We talked about my father for a while. I told her I was trying to make it up to him these days, and that he too had been exceptionally easy to be with. How was it growing up with him? she asked. Tense, I replied. Always is, she added. Then the conversation ended, and she promised to mail the letter soon.
After hanging up, I got out of bed and went in to see him. Over the past few days, I had made a point of reading to him, which he liked a great deal, especially now that he was having difficulty focusing. But rather than read to him the memoirs of Chateaubriand, one of his favorite authors, and feeling buoyed by the letter I’d been read on the phone, I asked if he’d like me to read from the French translation of Call Me by Your Name, the galleys of which I had just received from Paris that very morning. Why not, since you wrote it, he said. He was proud of me. So I began to read from the very beginning, and soon enough I knew I was opening up a subject neither he nor I had ever broached before. But I knew he knew what I was reading and why I was reading it to him. This made me happy. Perhaps it made him happy as well. I’ll never know.
That evening, after the rest of us had dinner, he asked if I could continue reading from my novel. I was nervous about arriving at the father’s speech because I didn’t know how he’d react to it, though he was the kind of father who would have given that very same speech himself. But the speech was two hundred pages away still, and that would have taken many, many days. Perhaps I should skip some parts, I thought. But no, I wanted to read him the whole book. My father didn’t last long enough to hear the father’s speech. And when the letter finally arrived from California, he was already gone. His name was Henri, he was 93 years old, and he inspired everything I’ve written.
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eyayah-oya · 3 years
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Return to Me
Clone Ship Week | Day 6 | Post-Battle - @cloneshipweek
Cody/Rex
Rating: G
Warnings: mentions of Point Rain, canon typical violence, disgustingly cute happy ending
Ao3 link
           Geonosis was just as awful as every vod had ever described. It was hot and dusty, of course, but Cody didn’t really care about any of that.  It was the number of brothers he’d lost on the way to Point Rain, the hundreds more killed by the bugs and their weaponry, on top of all the droids that seemed to come in never-ending waves.
           Cody and the rest of the 212th were going to join General Mundi and the 21st Nova Marine Corps on the other side of the planet while Rex and his men worked with Gree and the 41st under General Unduli.  They would be taking on the enormous droid factory the next day, and Cody would not be able to help any of them.  He would have his own mission to run.
           There were hundreds of vod’e all over the fortified base they’d managed to find and set up camp in.  Brothers from all four battalions mingled and shared increasingly exaggerated stories.  Cody had spotted Corporals Fives and Echo talking to some boys from the 21st, and he’d seen the medics fussing over the injured vod’e and generals.  But there was no sign of Cody’s cyare.
           “Lieutenant!” Cody called to 2nd Lieutenant Jesse of the 501st.
           Jesse snapped off a sharp salute.  “Sir!”
           “At ease, Lt.  Have you seen Rex around recently?” Cody asked.
           Thinking for a moment, Jesse slowly nodded.  “I think I saw him over by the remaining gunships, sir. He was talking to General Skywalker about half an hour ago.”
           Cody nodded and clapped the trooper on his shoulder. “Thanks.  Make sure you take some time to rest, Lt.  We’re in for a rough campaign.”
           “Of course, sir.  You do the same and see if you can get Rex to sleep, too.”
           As Cody walked away, he chuckled to himself.  Little brothers were getting uppity.  At the start of the war, there was no way any trooper, let alone one from a different battalion, would have talked to him so casually.  It was a testament to how well the men of the 501st were relaxing around their Jedi and learning how to be something besides soldiers.  It was nice.
           Cody prayed to whatever gods watched over clones bred for war that Rex hadn’t gone back up to the Resolute already.  He needed to see Rex and make sure his cyare was alright. Too many vod’e were walking wounded, and even more were severely injured or dead.  As much as he knew it was a real possibility, Cody did not want to ever consider a reality where Rex marched on ahead of him.
           “Hey, Commander!” Commander Tano chirped from out of nowhere.  She smiled up at him with bright eyes that hadn’t been weighed down by war yet.  She still had hope and Cody prayed that she would never lose that.  Yet another thing he prayed for to unknown gods.
           “Hello, Commander.”  Cody dodged a pair of vod’e carrying a crate full of supplies and glanced down at Commander Tano.  “Can I help you with something?”
           “Jesse said you’re looking for Rex?  I know where he is!  But we have to hurry before my Master pulls him away again.”
           If Commander Tano was willing to help him find Rex, Cody was definitely not going to say no.  Especially after the massacre they’d just faced.  “Thank you, Commander,” he said, warm affection warming his chest briefly. “I appreciate it.”
           Commander Tano waved away his thanks.  “It’s no problem.  I get it.  Master Skywalker practically ran to Master Kenobi’s side as soon as we got here, and I know Jesse went to go find a batchmate of his from the 41st. Sometimes, you just need to make sure everyone’s alive.”
           “That is very wise, Commander,” Cody said.  He really shouldn’t be surprised, but in his mind, the Commander was just so young.  She shouldn’t have insights into how war worked, and why they needed time to recuperate after a bad battle, if only to reassure themselves that their loved ones made it out alive or to mourn the ones that hadn’t.
           There were far too many mourning vod’e.
           “I have a great teacher,” Commander Tano said with a warm smile.  “Rex said you taught him a lot of what he knows and he’s been passing some of that down to me.  It’s helped me in some tough situations, so I should be thanking you, Commander.”
           “No thanks necessary, Commander,” Cody managed to say without choking or giving away his emotions.  Not that it probably mattered since Jedi were attuned to the people around them.  Only General Kenobi had ever thanked him for anything, and Cody was convinced that his General would thank Ventress after she stabbed him with her saber.  Karking di’kutla jetti.
           “Anyway, Rex is over in that tent, hopefully taking a nap. Coric was threatening him earlier with sedation, so he might have followed through on that threat.”
           And with that, Commander Tano skipped away, most likely to terrorize some poor shiny who wouldn’t know how to deal with an overly friendly shiny Jedi Commander. Cody privately wished he had a holo of their flailing.  It would provide some good laughs in the future.
           Cody strode over to the tent Commander Tano had pointed out, and knocked on the frame.
           “Come in,” Rex called and something inside of Cody’s chest loosened.
           He undid the fastenings and stepped inside, taking his bucket off immediately.  Rex was sitting on the cot, a datapad in his hands, likely going over the initial casualty reports for the battle.  Most importantly, he was very much alive.
           “Rex,” Cody gasped out with a strangled breath.
           Rex jerked at his voice and then a second later, Cody had his arms wrapped around his cyare, breathing him in as he held on as tight as he could.
           “Cody!  You’re okay!” Rex said.  He pulled back to give Cody a sharp look.  “You are okay, right?”
           “Yes, I am.  I didn’t end up getting injured.  That was purely my General,” Cody said, trying for some dry humor but it fell flat in the face of their combined relief.  “What about you?  I heard you got thrown off a wall?”
           “Karking Fives and Echo,” Rex growled.  “General Skywalker and Ahsoka caught me, so I wasn’t hurt.  Nothing beyond a few bumps and bruises.”
           Cody ran his eyes over Rex’s body, as though that would tell him if Rex was hiding any injuries with the armor in the way.  Once he verified that there wasn’t any gaping hole or crack in Rex’s armor, Cody dropped his helmet to the ground and pulled Rex into a bruising kiss.  His cyare responded eagerly, clinging desperately to the hard, sharp planes of Cody’s armor.  There was no finesse, no sweetness in the kiss.  Just pure, heady relief and a desperation to prove that they really survived.
           Rex gripped Cody’s hair tightly with one hand, the other wrapping around his waist to pull him as close as their armor would allow. He sucked on Cody’s bottom lip and gently nibbled before letting go and pressing his head against Cody’s in a soft keldabe.
           “I was so worried when we heard that most of your gunships went down, including General Kenobi’s.  You’re usually flying with him.”
           “We decided to split our forces.  It was a really close call a few times, but we made it.  We both made it,” Cody answered.  He was shaking from relief at having Rex in his arms, alive and unharmed.  Nothing would ever be able to beat that heady feeling of overwhelming gratitude to whatever gods were listening.  They’d listened to at least one of his prayers today.
           “Stay alive tomorrow,” Cody demanded after a moment of just breathing each other in.  “That factory is going to be really dangerous.”
           “I know.  Gree is a solid vod, though.  He’ll have my back and I’ll have his.  Plus, we have the Jedi to help keep us safe.”
           Cody very carefully didn’t think about the many times General Skywalker had gotten men killed by doing something reckless or stupid. The R2 droid was not important enough to sacrifice his padawan, Rex, and three other men to General Grievous.  Out of four, only Rex and Denal had made it back, and Commander Tano had nearly been killed by Grievous when she kept Grievous from killing Rex, all for a droid.  Cody was skeptical, but he also had faith in Commander Tano and General Unduli and her padawan.  They’d protect the men while Skywalker handled whatever crazy idea he had.
           “We will be safe,” Rex said, giving Cody a shake. “While you’re off with the Marines, you should talk to Bacara.  They’re out of contact with most of the GAR.  Only Neyo and Jet can get through the blockades to deliver supplies and intelligence to Nova.”
           A frown carved the worry lines on his face deeper as Cody absorbed that information.  “I’ll talk to him.  See what we can do,” Cody swore.
           Rex nodded.  “Good.  He’ll keep you alive.  Bacara already told me he’s planning on sharing all of my embarrassing ARC training stories to you while you’re on campaign together.”
           Cody grinned.  “I’ve been trying to pull those out of Neyo, Keeli, Thorn, and Thire for ages now.  And Bacara’s the one to spill the beans?”
           Rex grumbled and buried his face against the crook of Cody’s neck.  “He said I don’t have enough blackmail material on him to keep him from blabbing. He also said I don’t scare him because, and I quote, “I’m as terrifying as a sleepy baby nexu cub buried in a pile of nip”.”
           “That—is strangely accurate,” Cody choked out, laughing at Rex’s offended growl.  “You’re a little prickly, but everyone knows you’re just a softy.  I mean, you’ve been teaching Commander Tano what I taught you?”
           His cyare shrugged.  “She’s in the middle of a war, and she doesn’t have the training we do. I don’t want to see her die when I could have prevented it.  Nor do I want to see my vod’e die because she makes a bad decision.  I’m giving her all the tools she’ll need to be successful and survive this war.”
           “You’ve adopted her.”  Cody couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before.  Rex had always loved with all his heart, as evidenced by the numerous vod’e who loved him unconditionally.  Of course, Commander Tano would have made the list.  “If she’s yours, then she’s mine, too,” Cody said. “We’re in this together.”
           Rex finally peeked his head back out from where he’d hidden it against the small sliver of skin on Cody’s neck.  “Really?”
           Cody didn’t hesitate.  He nodded and bumped their foreheads together.  “I promise.”
           For the first time since their first kiss, Cody had the amazing opportunity to see Rex completely and totally flustered.  He blushed bright red, sputtering and coughing as he tried to find something to say.
           It took a few minutes for Rex to completely compose himself and then it was Cody’s turn to be flustered.  “Are you asking me to be your riduur?”
           “What?” Cody spluttered.
           For a second, Rex faltered.  But then he squared his jaw and firmed his spine as if he was facing the worst of odds in a battle.  “We are one when together.  We already do that, and have done that since we were cadets.  We are one when apart.  At this point, I don’t think there’s anything that could separate us, even when we’re fighting on opposite ends of the galaxy.  We share all.  We tell each other everything.  You said it yourself.  What’s mine is yours, too.  We will raise warriors.  We are raising Ahsoka together, since we share all.  Not to mention all of our men that we’ve both trained since this war started. If that doesn’t count, I don’t know what would.
           “So, are you asking me to be your riduur?”
           As Rex laid out each point, Cody found himself agreeing. He and Rex were already married, they just hadn’t said the vows to each other yet.  And honestly, there wasn’t a better time than now.  Cody would rather be married to the love of his life for a few hours, then never have married him and watched him die in battle.
           “Yes, Rex of Torrent.  I am asking you to be my riduur,” Cody said, determination in every cell of his body.
           Rex lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Cody, bringing their foreheads together.  “Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar’tome, mhi me’dinui an, mhi ba’juri verde,” Rex swore fervently, his whole heart bared for Cody to see.
           “Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar’tome, mhi me’dinui an, mhi ba’juri verde,” Cody echoed the vow, offering Rex his heart with every breath.
           They shared the same space for a moment, pressing into the keldabe more firmly before their lips brushed together.  Like a firework had been set off in his bones, Cody tugged Rex into a passionate, over-whelming kiss that stole their breath away.  He could feel his heart swelling with the amount of love he felt for Rex, bursting out from behind the dam he kept on his emotions most days.  It rolled over him until the only thing he could think of was that Rex was alive, in his arms, and that they were now married.  What more could Cody care for in that moment?
           Eventually, air became a necessity, and they broke away from each other to breathe.  Rex gave a soft chuckle.  “You do realize that means you’re going to have to adopt Ahsoka, too, right?”
           “YES!  I get two dads AND Cody has to call me by my name now!”
           “Shh, they can hear you, Soka.”
           “Oops!  Everyone scatter!”
           Cody laughed.  His heart couldn’t contain the joy he felt, and he would carry that joy throughout the war as a hopeful flame for when they could all have peace again. But in that moment, he had all night with his riduur, and Cody planned on making the most of it.
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