#and as a result none of them FEEL like their book counterparts

[morphlingunderscore]

hey I can send you morituro with the bridge again :) Please don't queue this one your URL is long

morituro - of someone who is next or destined to die

The Bridge, being what they were, had been privy to the highs and lows of civilization. All gods had, they are sure, but their case is not so... Complete. Often, the two do not even notice the time passing, until called upon- simply existing in the End, watching its people flutter about, change, spread out. It embarrasses the louder half, the brighter half, that sometimes they forget the other dimensions exist.

And yet, they do see snippets.

Many mundane- a farmer offering a portion of his harvest in exchange for an equal weight of shadowberries, which he had seen in an herbology book and become quite curious about. A girl attempting to barter loose coin for a mostly harmless weapon to beat her little brother senseless with for sticking gum in her hair. A piglin requesting safe passage from his conquests to his home, where another piglin and two young piglets await him.

these, the bridge enjoys. small things, quiet trades. a gift from a friend, not a trade from a god. it lifts their spirits so they are not so lonely.

Some, quite enthralling. A whole village coming together, pooling trinkets with emotional sentiment to trade for a single wither rose, needed to cure one of their own, a small boy that had been cursed cruelly to rot in his bed. A battalion offering the head of slain beast that could bring them many riches, in exchange for the head of a hated enemy.

THESE, THE BRIDGE ENJOYS. IT ROBS THEM OF THEIR BOREDOM. IT BOILS INKY BLOOD IN THEIR VEINS. IT MAKES GODHOOD FEEL RIGHT, FEEL TRUE. IT EXCITES.

And some, too... Horrible. They need not describe the lengths humanity and its brethren will go when desperate- they experience the results more often than not. And yet everytime they are offered an infant, a child, a hated outcast, a necessary sacrifice-- they find themselves appalled that they could be so disrespected, so misunderstood.

A life is intangible. A life holds infinite value, and yet none. A life can be snuffed out, and the world will keep turning. A life can be snuffed out, and many worlds fall.

Somehow, though, they find themselves... Surprised.

A desperate plea for medicine. A family, a village rotting from the inside out. Their elder, half-dead on his feet, and yet standing, staring them down. Arms held wide. Faces stricken around him, but not him.

This, this happens much less frequently.

"Hardly a fair exchange," the old man laughs, and then coughs, rot expelled from his lungs. He doesn't have long. They can see the path before him, and it is very short. "And yet you- cough- you accepted it." He stares at them, eyes sunken and yet bright. He is smiling. "My son said you wouldn't."

"why did he believe we would deny such a request?" the bridge wonders, quiet confusion.

"WHY DID YOU BELIEVE WE WOULD ACCEPT?" THE BRIDGE sneers, loud condescension.

The old man laughs again, weaker still. His breathing is labored, heart hammering faintly in his chest. That he had stood for their appraisal was a miracle. That, or perhaps it was the final nail in his coffin. "I was a priest, you know. Not like all them new-age types, who spend more money on gilded chandeliers than comfortable pews." He stops to breathe, pale, arms struggling to hold his weight. The Bridge does not hesitate to adjust their embrace, shifting to brace his back, letting his tired arms rest.

If anything, it makes his smile grow wider. More knowing.

"So many believe you're neutral in the face of conflict. That whoever offers the highest bid's gonna win the war--"

"THEY ARE CORRECT."

"Hush, no they ain't," he admonishes, amused when their quieter side swats their louder counterpart in retaliation for interrupting. "You're a god, sure, but gods come from people, and people come from gods. If y'all were so simple, none of us down there be so damn complicated."

"that has merit," the bridge concedes, before adding liltingly, "though you may create a schism with that talk."

The old man grins, teeth dark with old blood. Too tired to laugh.

"Yeah, yeah. I say the more the merrier," he dismisses easily. "Point is, I knew it'd work because you hate sacrifices."

"We Do Not Hate," The Bridge retorts in unison.

"You got opinions up in there, no need to deny it to a... To a dead man." Winded, now. His voice grows thick. "Y'hate em. But I'm not a sacrifice, am I?"

"NO."

"you came willingly."

"YOU ARE A GIFT."

"and we, to you."

The old man's grin softens into a smile. It's small and vulnerable on his pale, gaunt face. He looks so terribly kind.

"See?" He rasps, and then coughs. It exhausts him greatly, until he's barely able to hold his head up to watch them. His path is a scant few millimeters, edging like lace. Silhouetting him in gold.

"Tell Sammy... I was right. ...'nd that it's okay th't he was wrong."

"Of Course," they promise solemnly, offering two twin, terrible smiles of their own. "Safe travels lead you to distant shores, old friend. Be seeing you."

"Be..."

But he is already gone.

Time sticks, and stays, and hardens to stone.

The Bridge has seen the highs and lows of civilization.

It would be easier if they did not.

#The Bridge Tag #my writing #ocs #sauce smp #hoooly shit . Ooos . wrote a goddamn short story up in here this ai t a drablle #got possessed

[marciabrady]

explain to me the heteronormative angle of tngled in particular, sounds fascinating. i thought by their narrative structure most disney films were hetnorm in nature due to the inclusion of a love story, sometimes unneeded. you see it most in movies where the romance plays secondary like fox and the hound or jungle book.

While I have a different take, I can definitely see where you're coming from! From my perspective though, none of the original four princess movies had forced "obligatory" straight side-ships or main ships (I think they all develop in a way that makes so much sense) and the models of all the characters- from the Princesses to Sebastian to the fairies to the Dwarfs and beyond- offer so many different perspectives and methods of expression and identification. I think the relationships all the characters have regarding their gender is healthy and varied. They're all nuanced individuals that are distinct and different from one another, with some productions even having gay coed characters (Triton and Ursula are the main ones that come to mind- I'm not including the remake btw because that's been so straight washed it's sad). The women in all these films can be themselves openly and freely (more on this in the next reply I'm about to post to another question, because it's pertinent to my opinion on Tangled).

Tangled, to me, reads differently and just reeks of an all straight writer room and such a lack of diversity of thought. With the earlier princesses, they all had something different to offer and were unique flavors, for lack of a better word. By the time we got to Tangled, Disney had been so self-conscious of how to portray a Princess and had essentially reduced their leading ladies to women that held their own against contemporary, live action counterparts to...baby sitters for children and creating, explicitly, what they thought would be a good role model for children and aging the prime demographic drastically done? ALSO I think, by this point, they only knew how to portray a female character in one way because they were so weighed down with the overwhelming criticisms against Disney Princesses. (Which, btw I think it's fine that they're taking into account how children are going to perceive the character but like when the character is mostly only written to appease straight suburban moms who find anything to complain about, it's creatively stifling and results in a lack of art and more of a commercial product in my opinion; it robbed these characters of being natural in their depictions, in my opinion). And I think, also, the way the characters of Rapunzel and Flynn are treated, even Mother Gothel, it just. Yeah it feels like a straight person's fantasy lol

I'm sure you've heard of the "hot guy meeting" where straight women were asked to come in and pitch the most desirable features, in their eyes, of what a man should look like and how that ultimately resulted in Flynn? One of the features mentioned was thin upper lip...yeah lol and also just like. I think Rapunzel is so limited in her portrayal. She's meek and submissive and feminine enough to appeal to the traditional quotient of the audience, and doesn't really do anything to move the needle one way or the other, but she has specific things stated in the narrative to appease the angry mothers ready to condemn Disney (she's turning 18 so she's legal!!! if Flynn met her a day prior she won't be, but they intentionally made her right at the legal age of being an adult. Not 19, not 20, not 25, but 18) while also still giving her attributes that would check off the "feminist approved list" that every female character is subjected to now (she runs! she's barefoot and active! she has hobbies, as evidenced in her opening number, though not many of them ever really get brought up later in the film). And it just rubs me the wrong way that she has to quantify all of her character traits that are "flaws" or "negative"- if she's emotional, she has to look silly so it's funny to the audience because nothing's off-putting like a woman just candidly showing emotion from what we've seen regarding the reaction to Snow White! (like I've seen people try to say that her whole monologue between "I am the worst daughter ever" and "THIS THE BEST DAY EVER" is coded in itself and super realistic but please be honest with yourselves and acknowledge that it's showcased in the film as part of her being zany and we're meant to laugh at her, especially when you take into account the way Flynn is responding to her). She's naive and sheltered and innocent, but guess what! She can save Flynn from the ruffians and thugs who were ready to stab them because they'll listen to her!! Yeah, she's the same Princess who's been trapped in a tower but GUESS WHAT. She can do karate with her hair! She can fling it around like a lasso and toss herself around huge landscapes and breathe under water for periods of time even though she's never left her tower! It's so funny to me that people are so openly misogynistic in their critiques of the classic princesses, when they were human characters. I think the princesses, starting with Rapunzel on, show us how ridiculous our society has gotten with the expectations they've placed on women. Princesses went from being realistic women whose stories were allegories for finding your place in the world and they took these characters and turned them into superheros? Rapunzel's magic hair and healing incantation, Elsa's ice powers, Moana's connection with the ocean. It's not enough for women to just be themselves anymore- in order to have any value, they literally have to be superhuman. And if you doubt this point at all, just look at the difference in reception and popularity between how the public and children perceive the character of Elsa (magical) and Anna (more human).

Back to what I was saying though, where Rapunzel has to be Jesus incarnate and all things to all people, Flynn is allowed to be a bad person. Imagine if the story was reversed and she was the thief that lied and stole and he was the sheltered good boy whose tower she snuck into and he was the one that beat her with a frying pan. It would never work and that shows how straight it is imo? Because honestly, say what you want about the original princesses, but their stories work if you flip the roles. Cinderella being a Princess whose Mother put on a ball so she could meet a suitor? Snow White searching through the forest for her lost love? Aurora working with the fairies to escape being entrapped by a fairy, to awaken her love with true love's kiss? Ariel and Eric essentially have the same storyline, but in reverse. Meanwhile with Rapunzel and Flynn, it's so uncomfortable...the way she hits him with a pan and threatens to keep doing it if he doesn't listen to her gives me the ick. BUT IT'S CUTE WHEN SHE DOES IT! Because she's a short petite straight woman! It's so annoying to me too to see straight ships, or even straight couples, where the men are essentially programmed to believe their wives always know better than them and they have to listen to them and, in order to keep peace in the household, they have to just agree with whatever their wife is saying because it just feels SO disingenuous on the men's part (the whole happy wife, happy life principal). This would never work in a non-straight dynamic because it's so unequal. And just like...again, the fact that a naive, sheltered, short woman is hitting a man- a dangerous criminal who never strikes back and just takes it and seems afraid of her is just soooo unrealistic and lowkey dangerous to depict to me? And the whole, how she's good and responsible and he's suave and charming and he's the bad boy that she turns good just UGH I hate everything about it, get me out of here!! Ultimately their compulsory hetero dynamic is "the cute quirky responsible good petite girl who's the embodiment of the "x3" face turns a bad guy good and she wears the pants in the relationship!!! being too much for me. Even the ending where he's joking that she asked him to marry her and she has to correct him from lying...no.

#ask #anonymous #honestly even look at the way they look #flynn is relatively normal looking while rapunzel has eyes the size of a tennis ball #like the smallest torso i've ever seen #just oof i can't talk about this movie or this ship

[sunnixsunshine]

Just image meowth learning some of the conspiracy theories about him.

Him Arceus? Some sort of desguised legendary Pokémon? Puffffftttt

Although some butterfly effect certainly could be interesting… what if more wild Pokémon got interested in learning to speak or write? Like to tell humans not to destroy their habitat or to not capture them? Some could see how Meowth technically stands as an equal with his human counterparts and become interested

Just food for thought especially since you mentioned that Meowth stayed 5 years in the past and was a key player on historical events. That can cause some serious butterfly effect

Oh he hears them! He, being a cat, tends to find spaces to hide/sleep on lazy days so he's overheard tons of ridiculous theories. His favorite is probably him being a time traveler from a future where pokemon have taken over and humans no longer exist— its only 25% true, the rest he'll break a rib from laughing so hard.

When he gets home and hears of the internet bred theories, that's when he feels a bit lightheaded. There's too many of them and none of them even make much sense!

Oh there's consequences from him staying! Most of the events after the games' events were small, but still important enough to be acknowledged in books and schools all the way to the current year. Maybe Laventon published a Meowth centric book all about the species, many many years before it was supposed to be published, especially by a different author/scientist. Things about Meowth were discovered before they were supposed to be.

I wouldn't really say many pokemon have learned from him and tried learning to talk/write like him, however. Perhaps some pokemon have tried through the years, but not many were successful in becoming fluent in human speak. They got close, but they didn't have the drive, real reason, or wide resources Meowth had.

But the biggest affect Meowth had on the past, and by extension, future was the opinion on Meowth as a species;

Maybe there was an attempt to bring Meowth over to Sinnoh and domesticate them there, but Glameow and Purgly were too aggressive with their territory and killed the Meowth people tried to bring over? But regardless, Meowth became a big figure in Sinnoh, which brought a lot of tourism to Kanto, which made Kanto flourish, so to further capitalize on Meowth's image, Kantonians would come over with their pet Meowth and make profit over that— so now, in modern times, Meowth is a really big craze in Sinnoh, from figures of good luck(the maneki neko) to a whole festival in Jubilife celebrating not just the species, but Meowth himself and his endeavors. So then maybe Dawn would be more enamored by Meowth at the start???

Possibly due to the attention to the pokemon, Meowth is also sought out by pokemon hunters. More people know about the amount of good luck the Kantonian variant brings compared to the Galarian and Alolan. So maybe as a result, Meowth is rarely seen anymore. They're either hiding or so many of them are caught that the number of wild Meowth have gone down. Meowth's influence and historical fame have caused dangerous repercussions to his species.

Or there's an overpopulation of Meowth in Kanto and maybe they were even successfully domesticated in Sinnoh and soon they were bred, released, and overpopulated. They've become somewhat of an invasive species, but they're so celebrated, no one is willing to do anything about it. Oh oh!!!! A Sinnoh variant Meowth maybe???????? An ice type because it's in Snowpoint!

This is actually really fun to think about 👀

#ask #pokemon #pokemon au #pokemon meowth #meowth in hisui au

[spider-man-2o99]

any 2099 retelling that’s stuffed to burst with uninteresting clones of modern characters marketable new superheroes is doomed to fail from the start because one of the keystones for the whole premise of the original 2099 imprint was that this world doesn’t have any vigilantes after the swift and brutal end to the “normal” contemporary world decades ago.

in earlier books especially, one of the most interesting concepts that the 2099 books tackled was that of people diametric to their modern counterparts but still choosing to fight for societal change whilst living up to the mantle of a long-dead idol. obviously, a good number of the books... weren’t able to really pull that off, in the end, but. the books that did, did it real damn well.

nowadays, it seems like every attempted reboot of marvel 2099 is made solely for the purpose of introducing as many New Characters as possible, instead of trying to further explore or flesh out the world we were given in the original imprint. as a result, they overwhelmingly end up feeling flat, rushed, and undercooked, and people inevitably forget about them within a month or two. hell, when spider-man 2099 got two whole volumes in the present (ca. the mid 2010s), he spent almost none of it actually in the year 2099. spider-man 2099, and they didn’t even let him exist in his own setting. it’s disappointing at best and enough to make me want to rip my fucking hair out at worst.

#talking tag #ramble ramble ramble #marvel 2099 #2099 #marvel #spider-man 2099 #spider-man 2099: exodus #yes i AM tagging exodus #because guess what . Exodus Sucks Ass #god bless the artist(s) for trying to carry this miniseries but the writing just Is Not Good and it blatantly reads like the author just-- #--skimmed a wiki page or two abt marvel 2099 and then called it a day #TWO ISSUES IN A ROW HAD (if we are being generous) TWO PANELS OF MIG AT MOST EVEN THOUGH HIS NAME IS ON THE COVER!!! #sorry if this is incoherent im in a deal of Pain and also stoned #(to deal with the physical pain from chrnonic illness)

[professorhayforbreath]

me, watching the movie for the millionth time: i acknowledge that he is supposed to be percy but something about it doesn’t click. it doesn’t quite feel like the character

me, listening to good kid for the first time, sobbing: THAT’S HIM. THAT’S MY SON

#the lightning thief musical #time to write an analysis no one cares about here we go #logan didn't really play percy #he was playing a Main Character Boy archetype #he had all the basics of percy's character type without actually going into the details and intricacies of the character #none of which is his fault #it's the people behind the scenes that should've done their research into the source material #in fact every character in the movie is a 2 dimensional archetype #annabeth? Love Interest™ #grover? Black Best Friend™ #there's no depth #and as a result none of them FEEL like their book counterparts #there are a few short moments or lines that some of them say where they feel like their character but those moments are flukes #if they had just condensed the quest a little more and not made the pearls such a big deal #they could've included some really meaningful character development moments #and focused more on themes #but nooooooo #compare that to musical where they said oh character depth? not a problem we can do that :) #i could rant about the movie vs the musical literally all day my analytical brain just finds it so fascinating ahsfgksadjfj #pjo #percy jackson

[fermented-writers-block]

Lus and the Human Portal Clone Theory

Even before Keeping Up A-fear-ances aired, I have been working for almost a year now on running through all the possible various suspects with wonderful folks like @sepublic​ , @anistarrose​ , and @elementalist-kdj​ . Like the post title indicates, from sheer process of elimination, the only conclusion that made sense to me was a clone made of Luz by the portal door, and I’ve been working on refining and reworking said conclusion up to the version I will lay out here.

Now, as @safetayy​ , @theowlhouseheadcanons , and @50shades-of-blue have heard from me before, the portal I've long suspected was not made to go from the Demon Realm to the Human Realm, but rather to go from the Human Realm to the Demon Realm by humans, for humans. This is because it then could tie into the hypothetical existence of a Luz clone without having the issue of asking where Eda, Lilith, and King's clones are, as the clone in this case is the result of a function of the door to create a basic level duplicate of any human that passes through it rather than it happening for just anyone that passes through.

With this, it's because the suitcase form of the portal looks as thought it indicates it was used for temporary trips to the Demon Realm, much like how suitcases were used when railways and international boats made travel more accessible for the middle and lower classes. For example:

Going by the way the door “faces” and the way it swings open, the ergonomics of the portal makes it look an awful lot like a right handed out swing door, with the Human Realm on the “inside” and the Demon Realm on the “outside.” And the arrow in the diagram depicts the general direction of traffic that such right handed, out swing doors are typically design with in mind - ergo, showing what way the portal appears to facilitate travel in.

Now, before you ask, the reason why I think the portal could have been created in the human realm in the first place is that it might require an extra component/bit of help or two from the Owl Deity which I’ve discussed before in the past as hinted by these connected designs:

I’ll explore how I feel the revelation that such a twist about the portal’s origins could play into the themes and narrative of the show under the cut, but overall, I feel these are potential significant details to keep in mind for the rest of this arc of building a new door and handling the idea of Lus having initially been made as a temporary-duration clone, hence how "Luz" comes off so uncannily in the letters as she wasn't meant for long term impersonations.

That, and why I named this the Human Portal Clone theory, for those wondering about the name.

Alongside this, my thought has been that walking back through the portal to the Human Realm basically makes the portal send a recall signal to tell the clone to return to it, where the clone would be reabsorbed into the portal and its memories are given to the original. However, with Luz going back into the Demon Realm for a brief time in YBOS, I am of the mind that it doesn’t just make another clone, but rather that doing so merely made the door turn off the recall signal and allowed "Lus" to resume the impersonation.

And as for the clone itself and why they’re writing letters to Camila, well, imagine it from Lus' perspective. To her at the time of creation, the last thing she probably knew was that she had been chasing the cute little owl that took her Azura book into the woods, and right when the bus to Reality Check Camp was about to arrive.

Also, if you think about it, Lus being the work of someone we/don’t know yet raises way more plot threads/questions than answers compared to being the work of the portal, as outlined below:

TLDR at end of post for those wondering

Belos? How and why before YBOS where he actually started paying attention to Luz for the first time and actually got his hands on a portal? 

Eda? Why would she do all this and not tell Luz she can goof around without needing to worry about her mom or the camp/in time to fool the camp, especially when it took a good amount of time for Eda to even start feeling that close to Luz? 

Hooty got ruled out from the getgo since he can’t hold pencils, King just isn’t that subtle, and everyone else that Luz knows has the major issues of just straight up not knowing about the camp in the first place. Well, that and a lack of another known method of getting to the Human Realm in the first place.

The camp? Why would they worry about a missing camper whose disappearance is all HER fault and thus would more logically result in a call to her parent than some convoluted clone conspiracy? 

And finally, some currently completely unknown third party?

If we’re talking a Changeling, A) it’d be easy for Luz to dismiss them and B) that just makes all the ominous portrayal of Lus super straightforward instead of a subversion like is the show’s shtick.

If we’re talking dimensional counterparts, A) they have to REALLY have led a very similar life to Luz’s in order for there to be enough common ground for Luz to listen, and B) dimensional counterparts aren’t even a confirmed or likely thing that people cooked up from Episode 1 side characters influenced by Amity’s concept art.

And if we’re talking some complete surprise third party group or another, it doesn’t make sense to introduce a third party and their motives and plans to the show this late in when Belos is already taking up the bulk of it all.

Hell, if anything, the continued existence of the duplicate in of itself would indicate that the target of the conspiracy is none other than Camila Noceda than anything to do with Luz or Eda, especially with the complete lack of anyone taking advantage of Luz and or Eda. 

From the getgo, Witches Before Wizards already hard-baked into the show the idea that Luz is NOT inherently special or anything into the foundations of the show from the getgo - ergo, Camila likely just is an absolutely regular human being, someone who has no justification for such a convoluted conspiracy to surround them.

That said, I believe that the idea of the portal having originated from the Human Realm could potentially play into some interesting stories to be had with Camila and Lus here, especially as the conspiracy board shot from the promo was confirmed by Dana to apparently be from S2A, not from the episodes past Yesterday’s Lie:

After all, with Luz searching the library for a way home this coming episodes, perhaps she might figure out something the next couple of episodes that allows her texts to send through, which would logically lead to the above picture. That, and Camila and Lus being confused by and trying to figure out what’s going on there.

I mean, the cabin in the woods likely has a very close connection to the portal and it’s origins given how closely tied the two structures seem to be, and as far as we can tell, Luz never mentioned the cabin in her videos to Camila, but if Lus tries to retrace her steps, that would be a natural vector to lead Camila to the cabin and thus allow us a chance to actually investigate it.

That said, all following the trail would do is lead her and Lus to a dead end at the abandoned cabin, where they would have nothing else to do except discuss their complicated relationship concerning Luz and twiddle their thumbs while waiting for Luz to finish things on her end - which while something I think would be interesting to see, I just don’t see how much of a way to keep them in the greater picture of the show without some kind of project or activity that the two of them could work together on on screen. 

And that’s what leads me to a particular train of thought here, starting with the question of what if Luz FAILS to make a working portal over the course of S2A and such?

With the possible in-universe mystery over what the heck is going on with Lus, perhaps the cabin might hold some notes from the original last human owner - if not potentially the creator - of Eda’s portal as well as potentially some of the same materials and such from previous trips.

Cue CAMILA building a working portal, following in the footsteps of the original creator and such and thus finding a reason to stay on screen, all the while potentially demonstrating both why Belos wanted the portal instead of making his own, as well as diving into the Owl Deity’s connection with the original portal. Heck, maybe the Owl Deity is only accessible in the Human Realm and that plays a part in Belos wanting to get to the Human Realm, which would bring Camila directly into contact with the magic her daughter has been interacting with.

Also, just imagine the internal conflict going on here with Lus. After all, helping Camila build a portal to get the original Luz -and hoo boy would that be a tough thing to grapple with- would most definitely do that and make both Lus AND Camila question how much the latter likes Lus vs Luz.

Like, just imagine it. There would be major chances for Lus and Camila to discuss what would happen if and when they’re finished with the portal, and what will happen to Lus’ relationship with Camila if and when Luz gets back.

Does Camila really prefer her daughter to be all more “normal” like Lus, or does she prefer the old, “weird” daughter from before the summer with Luz?

Perhaps she might be able to figure out how to strike a nuanced balance between the two, and all on a metaphorical journey to truly build a better connection between her and her daughter(s?). 

TLDR: Or in short, I can’t help but feel it would be fitting to see Camila building a bridge WITH Lus TO Luz. 

Particularly, by being the one to craft an actual working portal in the Human Realm instead of Luz in the Demon Realm, showing a parent putting in an active effort to get down to their child’s level rather than waiting for said child to try to get up to their parent’s level even if they can’t or find it incredibly hard to do so.

#the owl house #the owl house theory #owl house theory #toh theory #toh #owl deity hooty theory #camila noceda #lus #lus noceda #luz noceda #toh speculation #the owl house speculation

[dontcallmecarrie]

continuation of this, because why not:

.

“Oh, this is fun,” Loki hadn’t realized just how irritating his voice could get until now, was this why the Soldier kept throwing knives at him? 

“I am only dragging you along because our interests align for now, do not expect this to continue.” He snapped over his shoulder, keeping an eye out for any potential attack even as the alarms continued to blare. He was lucky his counterpart was in such poor shape; had he even had a fraction of his usual power available, this entire enterprise would be much, much more difficult. 

As it was, Loki was faintly impressed his counterpart had accomplished as much as he had when he was running on fumes. When he wasn’t sneering at the sloppiness of his plans, anyway. Magical compulsion or no, what kind of idiot went and paraded about proclaiming their intentions for subjugation?

“Come now. Do you honestly expect me to believe this isn’t to your advantage? Unleashing double the chaos.” 

It was a pity breaking the magical compulsion had done nothing for his counterpart’s mental state. On a number of levels— he was a stone’s throw away from madness, all jagged pieces aimed outwards and it was uncomfortable to look at for too long for reasons Loki preferred not to dwell upon. 

Well. At least he could use it to his advantage. 

.

Victor was not a happy camper. 

First had been the discovery that, as he’d suspected, that damn gun had landed him in another universe. 

Second, said universe was quite possibly his worst nightmare.

Because his country didn’t exist, hadn’t existed for decades now: the Latverian civil war in this world had decimated its people in more ways than could be named, neighboring countries had snapped up just about every scrap of territory his men had fought and died for and goddamn HYDRA was using war orphans for their experiments.

...had he been a bit hasty when he’d taken out the first base he’d encountered? Sure. Sorting out the logistics for taking care of all the victims he’d encountered was a major pain in the neck, and this accelerated his plans for establishing himself in ways he hadn’t entirely expected. Klaue was as annoying as ever, and, if possible, even more of an arrogant bastard to deal with in this strange world.

Did Victor regret it? Absolutely not.

Especially when it resulted in his encountering his first ally in this hellscape. 

...though this ‘involuntary twin’ thing would get old fast, he just knew it.

“Hello, Winter.” Victor greeted with a smile. “Looks like you’ve been busy, too.”

.

The Winter Soldier could not believe that Justin’s stupid self-help books had been good for something, but here they were.

Him, and the poor bastard who shared his face and was now stuck in that incredibly awkward stage between ‘living weapon approximately three seconds from Murder’ and ‘going through deprogramming’, smack-dab in the middle of what had used to be a HYDRA stronghold but was now a bloodbath because somewhere in between fighting himself, and everyone else coming at them, the other Winter Soldier had started breaking through his programming.

He hadn’t realized just how much progress he’d made, until now. 

“What do you want me to call you?” He asked again with a tired sigh.

“The Asset does not nee—”

“Oh, fuck no. Pick something else, you’re a human being, you have value.” ...goddamn it, he sounded just like Justin. 

Ugh. Justin could never, ever know, he’d never let him live it down...okay, the worst part is that he would, not that the idiot with a death wish needed any encouraging when it came to this sort of thing.

The man’d had a knife to the neck, and still offered him food, offered him help. The Winter Soldier gave his counterpart a dubious glance, and fought back a shudder. 

As much as he sympathized with the guy— he’d been there, literally— the idea gave him chills.

Though...he could almost see it, now. If he squinted, he could see the tiniest speck of self-determination that HYDRA had tried its best to crush into oblivion, the ghost of a hint of personality in the twitch of his right hand, the way his left hand curled. 

“Right, okay.” He sighed. Again. He probably sounded like a goddamn teakettle, but fuck it, he was at the end of his rope here, dealing with people was Justin’s thing, he was much better at punching people. “If you’re anything like me, you’re going to have some serious migraines in the next few months, and no, aspirin doesn’t do shit. You have questions, means your personality’s coming back up which is good... oh, you’ll probably want to stick around for answers because I’m about as confused as you are.” 

Because this is what happened the one (1) time he tried to be nice and check up on Justin’s friend group. He could’ve been chasing down that lead in Argentina, but no, he was stuck here instead. 

Ugh. 

.

Ivan was running on spite, caffeine, and not much else. 

Living on the streets was a pain in the ass, exacerbated by the fact that he was apparently supposed to be dead and...buried? Cremated? He wasn’t entirely sure, none of the sources he’d found had been able to specify and to be completely honest, he hadn’t tried too hard to look.

Just seeing his own name in the articles had been disturbing enough, the realization that a version of him had apparently gone through with his suicidal plot was...something. Not great. His vodka stash back home was going to take a hit as soon as he got back. 

As disturbing as reading his own death had been, it’d still been no match for what he’d been able to find on the man who’d given him another reason to live. 

Because this world’s Justin Hammer was still alive and well, and locked up in an unspecified supermax for the foreseeable future, and...

An incompetent idiot with far more money than brains, apparently.

Which was so far from the man he knew it was hilarious, because Justin’s charisma had been enough to get a dictator of a sovereign nation wrapped around his finger without even trying, had the boogeyman of the intelligence world on speed-dial and an alien god as his bodyguard-slash-PA. He was untouchable on a number of levels, so when Ivan had first read that article?

He hadn’t believed it, at first. 

Had been certain it was an imposter, and while he probably should’ve spent that time researching how to get back home, he’d instead ended up down a rabbit hole of what kind of man Justin Hammer was in this world.

Call it morbid curiosity, or whatever— but Ivan had to know.

It wasn’t like he was making much progress on his own, anyway, not when his resources were staggeringly limited.

And then. 

A sleek car pulled up by the overpass where he’d been sleeping, and the window rolled down to reveal a face Ivan was inordinately glad to see. 

“Get in loser, we’re going shopping.” Loki called, and Ivan didn’t even question why there were two of him. Or why his twin looked like a grad student during finals week.

“Mean Girls? Really?”

“He was correct in calling it a classic.” Loki replied with a haughty sniff as he pulled away from the curb. “Besides— from what I’ve seen, I also know more about this world’s culture than their Captain.”

His twin looked lost, as he stared between them both and whoops, that was probably a terrible first impression. “Is this one of your allies?”

“Yes.” Ivan said, even as Loki spoke.

“When he’s not blasting us all to other dimensions, certainly.” 

“It was an accident!”

It was a good thing Loki had so much practice driving, because he would have gotten very nervous by the way their eyes met in the rearview mirror otherwise. “Oh, I know. I’ve told you—”

“There is no innovation without risk—” Ivan defended, only for Loki to snort.

“Have fun explaining that to Victor.” 

Ivan froze for a moment, breath stilling in his throat. On a good day, Victor was the epitome of a type-A personality...

“He’s here too?”

“Oh, yes. Not sure where exactly, but how do you think we found you?”

“If you say magic—”

“Are all your allies mortals?” Loki’s twin asked with just the slightest hint of a sneer, and just like that all levity was gone and Ivan didn’t even need to meet Loki’s gaze to know his answer.

“If you have a problem with that, feel free to leave. Right now.”

“Come now—”

“Ivan here blasted us all across space and time, without tearing open any paradoxes or destroying any timelines, entirely by accident. Victor? Is the ruler of a sovereign nation feared and respected throughout the realm. I do not know your approach to such things here, but any insult to my allies is an insult to me.”

.

Ivan...probably shouldn’t have been too surprised to discover that Victor had not only amassed a following of rabidly loyal minions, but also managed to meet up with the Winter Soldier. Er... two Winter Soldiers.

Man, this was going to feature in his nightmares for months.

“Where’s Justin?” Was the very first thing Victor said upon seeing them, and he cringed as the rest traded looks because of course the one who’d introduced them to each other was the missing link now. Justin was hands-down everyone’s favorite, and if Ivan was stuck being the one to break it to them after having spent hours hacking just to get a name?

Man, this was not going to be pretty.

“First, you have to promise not to get mad.”

“What.”

Ivan told them.

...suffice it is to say, nobody was happy to hear the answer.

.

“Okay then.” Victor said, face impassive save for the way his eyes gleamed. “It’s been a while since I did a prison break, anyway.”

#No Hero [Downward Descending] #My writing #schrodinger's canon

[senadimell]

The Mysterious Benedict Society as an adaption

So far, The Mysterious Benedict Society adaption feels very faithful to the books. There are definitely changes (Constance, for instance, has been aged up, and likely has a different background. This is understandable. It would be nigh impossible to portray her as she is in the books in live action format--for example, none of the kids in the book suspect she’s a toddler, let alone two years old). However, most changes have all felt reasonable and add to plot and pacing.

I especially enjoy the additions: showing the adult side of the team, for example, or Ms. Perumal’s growing concern about Reynie’s whereabouts, or the girls’ nighttime conversations. Some changes are more extreme. The Mr. Curtain of the books is clearly a villain. He’s condescending and rude, and the only people who like him are bullies. Mr. Curtain of the show is much smoother. It’s easy to see how he’s managed to influence people. Similarly, the L.I.V.E. curriculum is much less obnoxious in the show (not just memorizing nonsense by rote), and as a result, the school’s students seem less stupid and cruel. You can see why they enjoy attendance.

I’m particularly pleased that Number Two’s weirdness has been amplified. Mr. Benedict’s found family is delightfully strange, and I love watching their unusual rhythms. It will be easy to believe when (or if) it’s revealed that the women have been legally adopted into Mr. Benedict’s family.

Similarly, I love how they intensified the quirky feel of the setting and characters. Of course Number Two built a house in the woods in a day because she has a woodworking hobby. Of course there’s secret tunnels and drawers and compartments in Mr. Benedict’s house. Of course Milligan’s disguises and mannerisms are wackily memorable instead of just matter-of-fact. The books themselves have a stylized feel at times (they kind of remind me of Lemony Snickett’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, though with none of the grimness).

I love the overall aesthetic. When I first read the books, they didn’t strike me as being set in the past, but the vaguely vintage feeling works excellently. (I was also a fully grown adult before I realized that the Incredibles wasn’t set in the present, so...) The color schemes, costumes, and sets have distinctive feelings and coordinate well. The effect is stylized rather than naturalistic, which is appropriate and amplifies the tone of the scenes. The bright colors and rough textures of the wooded hideout and its inhabitants’ costumes contrast nicely with the clean lines of tL.I.V.E.’s vintage-pastel interior and sleek exterior.

I also enjoyed the way they did Kate’s flashback as rough home footage. Similarly, I enjoyed the way they showed four kids solving problems on the same screen, how they illustrated Reynie’s thought process with overlaid sketches of the problems, and the way words show up on the screen during the tests for emphasis. The combination of animations, showing multiple things at once, and creative angles for emphasis did a great job conveying the feeling of the tests. (Unfortunately, I lack the vocabulary to describe the techniques they used here).

There’s two things I didn’t enjoy. The first was killing Sticky’s parents to make him an orphan. It mattered in the books that he felt rejected by his own parents. Making it his aunt and uncle who (seemingly) care more about money and fame than the child they’re raising feels a little too much like the wicked stepmother trope. I don’t know why the showmakers decided that Of Course They’re All Orphans, because while most of the book characters are orphans, Sticky isn’t, which serves to show that you can feel rejected and hurt by your parents even when you’ve got an ordinary, non-abusive nuclear family. It’s about feeling isolated, whether or not you’re technically alone.

Secondly, all the wheelchairs have been removed from the adaption. I’m not sure why this was done. Sticky’s mother has bad arthritis and requires a wheelchair. In the books, this was done without fanfare; it was as normal as anything else to oil Ms. Washington’s wheelchair in damp weather, or load and unload it from cars in later books. She was more of a background character, so it didn’t affect the plot, but the casual background representation was a welcome contrast to many books that assume being disabled is strange and uncommon, and that disabilities only exist when they’re plot-significant. The aunt who replaced Ms. Washington used no mobility aids, which disappoints me, especially as the woman she replaces in the books is ultimately shown to be a flawed but loving parent who’s dedicated to making up for her mistakes.

The other person missing their wheelchair is Mr. Curtain, the villain. I’m also not sure why this was removed? It could be to avoid the Evil Disabled Villain trope, but in the book, I didn’t feel like his disabilities were treated as a moral flaw or an excuse for his villainy. He shares his narcolepsy with the unquestionably benevolent Mr. Benedict, so it didn’t feel like his condition was used to vilify him.

He and Mr. Benedict act cope with their condition differently: Mr. Benedict relies on trusted family members for support and chooses to sit on the floor and avoid positioning himself in tall places from which he could fall, whereas Mr. Curtain disguises his narcolepsy by wearing mirrored glasses and using a wheelchair that secures an upright posture, so that no one knows when he has an episode. He does use his wheelchair aggressively, banging through doors and zooming around and forcing people to jog and keep up, but it felt like his use of mobility aids grew naturally from his character.

The books also include a scene where he shocks the children by leaving his wheelchair to chase them. They assumed that using a wheelchair=completely unable to walk, a common view in US society. Importantly, I didn’t feel like the scene was framed as particularly deceptive, like he was lying to them by using a wheelchair when he could walk. Rather, it fit into a pattern of Mr. Curtain managing assumptions and expectations: he doesn’t want people to take advantage of his weaknesses, yet wants to hold a few cards close to his chest. He doesn’t have to lie to people, just let them see and hear and assume what they will.

I don’t use a wheelchair or have narcolepsy, so I’m not in a position to say whether or not the books have good representation. Maybe the fact that Mr. Curtain is evil, and also zooms around and bangs through doors, is uncomfortable. Maybe the fact that his nefarious devices are wheelchair-accessible and in fact designed around his chair sends the wrong message. Maybe using mobility aids to conceal a disability sends a bad message, or maybe it would be better if the good guy was the one to use a wheelchair to cope with his disability. I don’t know. I do know that Mr. Benedict’s condition is played for laughs in both the book and show, and that might be uncomfortable. I do think it’s worth noting that Mr. Benedict’s narcolepsy is seen less and less as funny as the books go on, and grows to be seen as an endearing quality that emphasizes how much he loves people, since his attacks usually underscore with strong emotions and convey worry for his loved ones or joy at their company.

My own sense is that both approaches to narcolepsy make sense, and neither is shown to be inherently faulty. Rather, it’s Mr. Curtain’s character that’s to blame for his villainy--his arrogance, condescension, and mistrust. Both characters feel well-developed and consistent, and their disability is only one part of them. Their disability is colorful, but it’s colorful in the same way as the main characters (Sticky’s anxiety and memory, Kate’s gusto, eye for measurement, and bucket, Constance’s precociousness, etc).

As for why Mr. Curtain’s wheelchair was cut, I’m not sure. Maybe the show writers just didn’t want to deal with the ramifications of depicting a villain in a wheelchair, and decided to cut it altogether (a lazy reason, I think). Alternatively, it seems like they’re depicting narcolepsy without cataplexy, eliminating the need for a wheelchair (a better reason).

On the other hand, Mr. Curtain’s attitude and mannerisms bear the least resemblance to his book counterpart of all the show’s characters. They’re incorporating some backstory from the other books to build a secondary plotline, and I’m not sure how it’s going to play out. From what we’ve seen of him so far, S. Q. Pedalian is also drastically different (shy, cloistered, and openly acknowledged as Mr. Curtain’s son, instead of the gregarious, bumbling, misfit Executive of the books). The TV dynamic between him and Mr. Curtain is largely unrevealed as of yet. Since these changes constitute departures from the book, I’m not sure how the future story’s going to play out around them, and what that reveals about why the wheelchair was cut when it was so characteristic of Mr. Curtain’s mannerisms while other things (like Mr. Benedict’s use of plaid) were included.

Still, it does disappoint me that two wheelchairs were erased, and no one in the show uses one, not even background students. 

Overall, though, apart from the orphan and wheelchair situation, I’m very pleased with this adaption and think that the pacing works wonderfully. It’s a near-ideal format for a video adaption (I think animation would be best, but this is a close second).

#the mysterious benedict society #the mysterious benedict society adaption #tv adaption #the mysterious benedict society show #ledroptha curtain

[metvmorqhoses]

i kinda accept as canon that you watch loki (you do, right?) and i sure as hell want to know what you think it's gonna happen tomorrow in the finale! if i'm mistaken sorry i bothered lol

of course i watch loki, dear anon :) you are absolutely not mistaken. he used to be my favorite marvel character (along with hela), until the characterization kinda took a caricaturing path to the point the most interesting villain of that universe kinda turned into a  (very darling tbh) kind of clown with glorious purposes - which is loosely the thing we are witnessing now in the series, aren't we?

it pains me because every single time (and not only with marvel and disney), when having to deal with really complex, groundbreaking personalities, the choice of literally every single production is to mask abysmality and revolution with buffoonery - loki, lucifer, sabrina's lucifer, the list goes on and on. these characters, impossible to label, literally transuding potential, depth, beauty, horror, chaos, are reduced to comforting domesticity for the sake of a predefined general sense of fake "decency". and this never ceases to let me down, no matter if i understand the safe, commercial kind of reasoning behind it.

that's the reason why i wasn't expecting much out of this series, because loki's character is too much to be possibly dealt with in a serious way on nowadays television. defined genders, sexuality and morals mean nothing to him. he is in wild revolt against every possible society construct. in norse mythology, loki is a male god who turned into a mare to be impregnated by a divine stallion, giving birth to odin's mythical eight-legged horse. he literally fathered the three main beings responsible for ragnarok (the doomsday of the gods and everything along with them) and he himself starts the end of all things, because he's the literal representation of chaos. he is the very embodiment of shock, and of course no one is willing to take the moral responsibility to actually be true to him in a serious way, a way that would probably result alarming to most and therefore problematic to producers.

that's the reason why i was riveted and surprised when, seeing the other loki was a female version of him, i immediately understood the most interesting soulmates/narcissistic/revolutionary implication such a relationship had the potential to develop and dared to hope they would explore it in a worthy way - a confrontational, sarcastic, toxic, obsessive, madly passionate, mirroring, lannister-like kind of love, that would have taken loki to another narrative level.

but it's marvel, and the price we had to pay for an actually very fitting and interesting idea is that it has to be developed in a children book kind of way, or we cannot possibly get away with it. don't get me wrong, they built this pair in a very cute manner, very gentle, very reassuring and undaring, a kitten instead of a beast... but this obviously made it all very, very lukewarm and very close to feeling ooc. once again, while telling a story focusing on a villain, we are de-villanizing him for the sake of making him easier to relate with and more hero-like. writers have to understand a villain can still be relatable and valid even without decharacterizing them. and, as much as this teen-like kind of young romance might feel darling and refreshing, it screams cowardice from every single angle. they threw the stone and hid the hand, as poets say. loki is falling in love with himself, finally allowing himself to see who he is in a genuine and not faked grand, truly loving way, but his perfect female version doesn't look like him in pretty much anything (blonde, cold, unironic, doesn't even want to be called loki), so it almost feels like he likes her because she doesn't look like him at all or because it's in the script. "she's different", he says. it would have been very very interesting if she was "different" while being so him it hurt, but this? we are told sylvie is a variant of loki, but this is literally the only thing that really connects her to him. i would dare to say that an actual ic loki would have never even liked her.

marvel obviously did it on purpose, to minimize the possibilities of having the general audience screaming incest, abuse or utter disgust (thing that is happening nevertheless), but they did it sacrificing a really wildly interesting trope they should have properly developed (not to mention that i fear tomorrow we are gonna be told sylvie was never a loki in the first place, so everyone would be "safe" to ship them).

apparently, everybody likes very much to think themselves "woke", while we actually live in a society of bigots who cannot tolerate even the mere sight of a fictional demi-god falling for his female counterpart (which, funnily enough, is literally the very thing told in that plato's myth of soulmates that everyone loves so much to post on facebook).

now, why did i make this endless preamble to answer your question, my dear friend? simply because i found myself literally unable to predict an ending marvel would find morally acceptable. the totality of everything i might imagine or would actually like to see happening is probably never gonna happen at all, deepening my utter disappointment lol

during the whole series, i was really hoping sylvie wasn't the real "lady loki" and that loki's true mate was still hidden and the actual super-villain of the series (that boy pointing to the devil on the church glass in episode one, is it possible that he perceived sylvie that terribly? it makes no sense to me). but it's very unlikely right now.

what i do truly hope is that they didn't make the "man behind the curtain" kang, or immortus or any other "new villain" of any sort, because i'd really like at least to see a twist providing closure and a full-circle kind of plot - especially one true to the themes of the series.

on my part, i would have probably made the super villain loki - not another variant loki, mind you, but our loki, yet a version of the future of him, that for some reason resolved to create the tva in the future thinking it was necessary and therefore having to betray sylvie, while our loki has not yet betrayed her and is confronted with this terrible reality he doesn't understand because he isn't yet that person and possibly deciding to defeat himself in order to stay true to sylvie and bring down the tva (this thing can work even in reverse, with a sylvie from the future being the super villain, but i think it would be more satisfying to have it with loki). i also would love to have them merge for some "word-saving" reason, creating a finally complete new loki.

i'm positive none of this is going to happen anyway, but a girl can hope. what do you think?

#loki #sylki #loki laufeysdottir #sylvie laufeydottir #marvel #tv series #anon #asks/replies #one and one thousand stories lis told #villains #let villains be villains #loki series #loki show

[tamakeey]

there are children present (pt. 1)

doctor! ushijima wakatoshi x doctor! reader

ushijima is was your typical pediatrician at the miyagi health clinic

the only difference is he’s 6′2 and very beefy which is pretty funny when he’s surrounded by kid-size furniture everyday

his rough exterior scares his patients at times but everyone in the pediatrics department knows he’s a real softie on the inside

everyone until y/n joins the pediatrics team at the miyagi health clinic

on her first day of work, y/n lost her way around the big building 

she looked in all directions hoping someone would see her confused stares and help a poor girl out

luckily ushijima spotted the girl while she was looking down at her phone, seeing the message her supervisor had sent her yesterday about the wing she would be working in

however, in y/n’s eyes, seeing a giant walking towards her with an intimidating aura made the girl shiver in her hospital clogs

as ushijima grew closer to her, she flinched in fear, and began chanting words along the lines of “pls spare me”

when ushijima saw her visibly shaking in his presence, his face morphed into one of confusion

in his mind he was questioning do I really scare people that much

 he took a deep breath and mustered up the most gentle, nurturing voice he could to speak to the woman

“I apologize if I startled you, it was never my intention. you just looked lost and I thought you would need some of my assistance” ushijima said shyly

y/n feels terrible having misjudged his intentions and forms a look of guilt on her face after hearing him speak to her, having a minor yachi panicking moment

“I’m so sorry, I’m just nervous around new people. I would greatly appreciate some help finding my way to the pediatrics department please. I would hate to be late on my first day” y/n responds while craning her neck upwards to look at the tower man

ushijima nods, letting out a quiet “follow me” as he led her to the department he works in everyday

as they arrive to the pediatrics department, y/n is in awe at the miniature chairs and table fit for toddlers, chalkboard cluttered with doodles, and small toys in the waiting area

suddenly she hears the receptionist greet ushijima from the counter 

“ahh hello yamagata, I see you came into the office earlier than usual today” ushijima replies stoically, proceeding to scan his card into the door, allowing him access to the department

y/n begins to question how he has access to the pediatrics department, believing he worked in a different department and only helped to guide her to where she needed to go

as she goes in, she is greeted by her supervisor

however, she did not expect for her supervisor to be a grumpy old man with the bushiest eyebrows she has ever seen

“hello, you must be y/n. I am your supervisor tanji washijou. I see you have met our top pediatrician, Dr. Ushijima Wakatoshi” the elder greeted the poor girl whose soul has suddenly left her body

not only did she misjudge ushijima when he was trying to help her, he’s also her coworker

“you will be assigned a nurse who will be your partner working here. your patients are now their patients, so it’s best to get to know your nurse as you will have to work together to help the patients that come in” washijou continues

the girl nods as she follows washijou down a long hall to an office area where she sees the room section off into cubicles that are labeled with a name plate for each pediatrician

y/n spots the cubicle that has her name plastered on one of its walls and walks towards it

“I see you have found your cubicle, this is where you will work when you have no appointments, whether it’s looking at documents and analyzing test results, all that will happen in here” washijou explains

y/n nods signifying that she understood the elder’s words and began looking around her cubicle, imagining the personal items she may store here to make it feel cozier

washijou brings her out of her thoughts as he walks out the door, informing the young woman that he will be bringing her assigned nurse to her cubicle so they could get to know one another. 

as y/n is unpacking her work bag, she hears the door open which causes her to see who is entering office area

she sees two men walking towards her, one immensely tall and the other shorter in comparison to the giant he stands next to

the shorter male has noticeable ash blonde hair with darker tips, although he looks tough, she notices a comforting aura surrounding him which makes her less frightened than her previous encounters

the taller male, for sure intimidated the poor new girl he’s 6′2 with dark ginger hair and although he is on the lankier side, his resting face is what causes the girl to avoid his piercing stare

as they stop in front of the girl, she realizes these are the nurses that have been assigned to her 

“hello, my name is semi eita. I am a registered nurse who has been here for a few years. I look forward to getting to know you and working along side you” the shorter male introduces himself

y/n notices his gentle, deep voice that has put her in a calmer state as she replies “good morning, I am y/n y/l/n, I am excited to work with you as well and hope we can build a closer bond as we work alongside one another” 

noticing the poor girl fiddling with her fingers as she glances at his taller counterpart, semi begins once again, “this is kawanishi taichi, he is currently fulfilling his residency requirements under my supervision, so he will also be working fairly close beside you” 

“I look forward to working with you” kawanishi speaks for the first time in his lazy tone while bowing to the girl

“thank you, I hope to provide a good learning experience for you” y/n responds, bowing back to the tall boy

soon, the door is being opened again, and y/n sees ushijima walking in with a tall red head wearing blue scrubs

“I’m just saying wakatoshi-kun, the content within the jump magazines are more amusing than the ads” the tall red head asserts

ushijima nods and then approaches the trio standing at y/n’s cubicle

“hello Dr. y/l/n, this is my nurse tendou satori. I apologize, he’s a little bit on the loud side” ushijima says quite bluntly

“wakatoshi-kun, that’s very harsh to say. I’m hurt” tendou replies

y/n giggles before responding back, “pleasure to meet you tendou, I hope to be able to get to know you better while working in the same department with you” 

the rest of the day was spent with the five getting to know each other due to the slow day in the office and none of them having any appointments for the day

during the next few months, y/n is forming close bonds with those she met on her first day (minus washijou) and adjusting to her job phenomenally 

getting to know her patients, noting all their symptoms, and diagnosing them in a fairly quick manner 

leading her to be fairly popular in the office as many parents are bringing their children to her office

ushijima, although very efficient in analyzing his patients’ records and diagnosing his patients very quickly, struggles with communicating to them in a manner that would not scare them off

especially today, when one toddler in particular was not fond of his scary appearance

the little boy had walked into the checkup room, holding his mother’s hand

his bangs cut in a slant direction (they’re basically uneven and looks like the hypotenuse of a triangle, I suck with descriptions so I’m hoping you all know I'm talking about shirabu LOL)

when tendou walked in to take the child’s temperature and blood pressure, the child was struggling to remain calm as a towering red headed male with crazy eyes kept looking at him dead on

after taking the necessary data on the child, tendou says quite animatedly “alright shirabu, Dr. Ushijima will be with you shortly, make yourself comfortable and help yourself to some books in the bucket”

shirabu’s mother hands him a little book which leads him to flipping through the pages and pointing at the cute animals within it

once an a while having to blow his uneven bangs out his eyes

all of a sudden the door opens and when shirabu looks up, his whole face pales and tears begin gathering in his eyes

 to shirabu, a giant, mean looking man stands in front of him, ready to yell at him, kill him, or anything horrible in-between

before ushijima could let a word out, shirabu begins to sob loudly on the examination table

ushijima stops walking towards shirabu, as his mom reaches out to console him

as shirabu’s mother is trying to comfort him and tell him how ushijima is here to make sure he's healthy, shirabu continues to sob louder and repeatedly scream “but he’s so scary”

ushijima freezes on the spot 

usually when children are frightened of him their parents are able to calm them down 

but shirabu is relentless and stubbornly continues to cry to his little toddler bum’s desire

ushijima excuses himself from the room, stating that he will be back shortly, shutting the door behind him

outside the examination room, ushijima was silently panicking

why was I cursed with such a big body

why do people always think my facial expression is scary, it’s just my resting face

I’m not mad at least 98% of the time

I just want the kids to feel safe and comfortable to tell me their problems so I can fix them as fast as possible :(

as he was having an internal conversation with himself, y/n walks by and notices the distress on his face

she begins to grow concern for the man, she’s grown to know as a giant teddy bear

yes she caught feels for him within the past few months

semi and kawanishi never let her live it down, making it their mission to fluster her on the subject at least once a day

she walks over to the conflicted giant, but not before noticing the three nurses around the corner staring at her with a smirk on each of their faces

ofc tendou is in that upside down position (y'all know which one I’m talking about)

rolling her eyes at her three spectators, she turned back to ushijima to deal with his internal crisis

“Ushijima, did you need help with something?” y/n asked as she approached him

“no, I do not understand why my latest patient is so afraid of me. I did not even get to speak a word before he started screaming. usually I at least get one word in” ushijima replies as the cries of shirabu could still be heard through the door

y/n winces at the boy’s shrill cries but is also impressed that it is able to resonate past the wooden door

“did you want me to try to talk to the patient first? hopefully, get him to ease into you” y/n offered

ushijima nodded curtly, handing y/n the patient’s information which she glances over fairly quick

y/n takes a deep breath and opens the door, which causes the cries to come at a higher volume

shirabu opens his eyes after hearing the door open, thinking the scary tall man came back to kill him only to be greeted by a smaller woman with gentle eyes

the child halts his cries, but the tears keep falling silently

y/n grabs some tissues from the counter and wipes the poor boy’s face which is red from all his sobs

she crouches down to the boy’s height and smiles gently at him

“hey little guy, I’m Dr. y/l/n. I heard you’re being a brave little boy visiting the doctor today” y/n speaks in a nurturing voice

shirabu nods shyly, still tucked away in his mother’s arms

“I promise you Dr. Ushijima is nothing you should be scared of, he’s the best doctor in the building who will help you feel better” y/n explains gently to the boy who shakes his head in his mother’s shoulder

“he’s giant and scary” shirabu speaks for the first time while fiddling with his smol bby fingers

“I'll let you in on a secret little guy” y/n whispers towards shirabu

being the curious child he is, shirabu lets go of his mother and scoots his little bum towards the edge of the examination table to listen in on the secret 

“Dr. Ushijima looks scary, but he’s really gentle and soft. just think of him as a soft teddy bear because really that's all he is” y/n whispers making the little boy giggle thinking of the tall mean doctor dressed as a soft bear

“with that said, will you be okay to see Dr. Ushijima now?” y/n asks

shirabu nods with the picture of his doctor dressed as a bear freshly engraved into his mind

y/n nods and bows to shirabu’s mother before stepping out of the examination room to fetch the giant pediatrician

“he’s ready to see you now, he might actually be very excited” y/n informs ushijima

ushijima nods, takes a deep breath, and walks into the room shirabu is in

shirabu look up to the tall doctor, eyes still slightly glassy from his previous crying session

although he is still shaking in his child boots (shoes? sneakers? whatever shoes your heart desires) 

he refrains from screaming out, imagining the big man as a teddy bear like he has been for the past couple minutes

“hello, I am Dr. Ushijima and I am here to help you fix your problems” the giant doctor voices out, still nervous on the inside

after half and hour of speaking to shirabu, ushijima concludes that the poor boy just jammed his fingers and just needs to tape them

“may I ask what you were doing that caused you to jam your fingers?” ushijima asks gently

the boy shakily replies “I was setting the volleyball to my friend but my timing was off” 

ushijima eyes light up at the mention of volleyball as he ask incredulously, “you play volleyball?” 

the child nods timidly as ushijima gets a glint in his eyes that is unfamiliar to the poor boy

“I played in high school, I was a wing spiker” ushijima replies causing the child’s eyes to also light up 

“really, that’s so cool. I’ve been watching old clips from high school nationals and the wing spiker on shiratorizawa is amazing. he has so much power, I wish to set for him someday” shirabu rambles before he looks at ushijima and recognizes him from the videos he’s been watching

“WOAH YOU WERE THE ACE OF SHIRATORIZAWA FROM THE VIDEOS I WATCHED?!?” shirabu exclaims with stars shining in his eyes

ushijima chuckles and hums a positive answer causing the little boy to spitfire questions to the man such as:

how many points did you score each game?

did you ever break the floor with your serve?

has anyone ever broken a bone from your deadly spike?

shirabu’s mom began to scold shirabu for bombarding ushijima with too many questions making the poor toddler bow his head in shame and slap his chubby cheeks with his own hands as a self-punishment

ushijima seeing the poor inflict pain on himself began to panic and continuously ask the boy to stop hurting himself

“I would love to answer your questions sometime but I have a patient coming in 20 minutes but feel free to contact me through my email or phone number on the clinic website if you want to continue talking about volleyball. I see you have a great interest for it” ushijima says making shirabu look up adorned with red cheeks and starry eyes

shirabu nods eagerly asking his mom to help him use the computer when he gets home so he can talk to ushijima

“I also wouldn't mind coaching you on my off days.  I haven’t played volleyball in a long time so please toss for me sometime” ushijima says crouching down to the shirabu’s height and giving him a small smile

said boy squeals in excitement and claps his little hands together

“THANK YOU SO MUCH DR. USHIJIMA” shirabu exclaims, going in and giving ushijima a hug

shirabu’s mom could definitely be heard in the background lecturing shirabu on his manners and personal space

but ushijima doesn’t mind

in fact, he is touched that a patient feels so comfortable with him and enjoys his presence

releasing himself from shirabu’s hug he then speaks, “well then I’ll be off, I hope to hear from you soon” 

shirabu hops off the examination table and bows to the tall man and exclaims, “yes, thank you for everything, doctor”

shirabu grabs his mother’s hand and leaves the room as ushijima holds the door open for them

as ushijima walks into the office room, he sees y/n typing reports on the computer

he approaches her and taps her shoulder causing the poor girl to jump in her seat

“I apologize for startling you, I just wanted to thank you for helping me calm down shirabu earlier” ushijima shows his gratitude 

“it’s no big deal, I'm glad to be of use to the best pediatrician in the whole unit” y/n replies with a smile on her face

ushijima then notices his heart beat quickening and thumping louder than normal

he believes that anyone could hear its rapid beat without requiring a stethoscope 

#haikyuu imagines #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu scenarios #ushijima x reader #ushijima wakatoshi #hq x reader #hq imagines #hq scenarios

[goneseriesanalysis]

Subversion of Tropes

Spoiler warning for Fear, Lies and Plague down below 

TW: mentions of s@xual @ssault and r@pe

In my recent post, Misogyny in Gone, I pointed out numerous instances in the series where misogynistic tropes are present, and how that affects the narrative of the story. The women often seem to be underdeveloped, sexualised and demonised for choices and characteristics that their male counterparts make and have with no consequence. Of course this is not true for every female character, and it is certainly not present all the time, but it still has a huge impact on the story. There is one scene in particular though, that seems to subvert these tropes and I wanted to talk about it as I think it is both a really important aspect of the story and introduces us to a fascinating power dynamic, that I really wish mg had developed further.

The interplay between sex and violence is a theme that is heavily prevalent in Plague and is present in both Lies and Fear. It shows up in many different forms throughout the series and presents itself in multiple ways such as: Caine and Diana’s relationship, Astrid and Orc’s Scene in Plague and Drake with pretty much every attractive woman he comes across. This is a theme that mg writes particularly well – Astrid and Orc’s scene in Plague (with a small cameo from Drake) is one of the best written examples of this trope I have ever read. However, for me personally, this scene is marginally outdone by another example of this trope that occurs in Fear – that being Caine’s cementing.

Not only does this scene have the cathartic tint of revenge to it, but it also subverts this trope in that it is the woman who is the perpetrator and the man (boy) who is the victim. When I first read Fear, nothing about this scene seemed even remotely sexual to me (because I was a child and unless it was outright stated I was never going to pick up on it.) But, when I re-read the scene a few days ago in preparation for my misogyny in gone post, I noticed how reminiscent Penny’s takedown of Caine is to the way women typically experience sexual violence (both in media and real life.)

So the scene starts out with Caine turning up to Penny’s house to discuss the situation with Cigar. Great. Fast forward a bit and we get to Penny outright telling Caine that she has a crush on him….and him outright rejecting her. Instead of accepting this, she pushes, telling him that she could be anyone in his imagination. He rejects her again. And she does not take that well. While she doesn’t show it on the outside, we as a reader get to see her internal monologue, where she has an extremely inappropriate reaction to his rejection. It is clear from this that she feels entitled to his affection, despite him never giving any indication that her feelings were reciprocated. Penny seems to believe that Caine has falsely led her on, but we as a reader know that he has rejected any and all advances that she has made and has not ever, in canon, used her crush to manipulate her. (Before I continue I want to make it clear that I am by no means saying that Caine is innocent. Penny has every right to be angry with him for a multitude of other reasons. But her reasoning here is misguided.) So the first question that this brings to mind is: Would Penny have continued with the cementing if Caine had welcomed her advances?? I think mg left this purposely ambiguous. But I like (and I use this word very loosely) the idea that she wouldn’t have. The trope of a woman having to cater to the desires of a man in order to avoid violence is one that is common in all types of media, and is one that we see throughout Gone as well. The best examples being Astrid with Sam and, of course, Diana with Caine. Both of these women are forced to conform to what Sam and Caine want them to be in order to be safe in the FAYZ, and so mg flipping the switch on this and having Caine’s inability to capitulate Penny’s desires being the final straw to his downfall (even if he was unaware of this fact) is an amazing touch.

This theme is then continued in the way that Penny takes Caine down…by drugging him and incapacitating him. Now, these are occurrences that are usually associated with date r@pe, which is something that is mostly experienced by women. Of course, this is not what actually happened in the book, but the association is there for a reason, I’m sure. Given Penny’s attraction to Caine, her take-down of him is inherently sexual in both its execution and come about. Her extreme reaction to his refusal is probably a result of her less-than-ideal childhood. We are told than Penny’s father used to take inappropriate pictures of her older, but still under-aged sister. When her sister became of age, Penny assumed that her father would move on to her, but instead he skipped her and began taking photos of her younger sister. Mg doesn’t really go into much detail on how this must have affected Penny’s psyche – only that she was so jealous that she took her father’s laptop into the school and showed the other students, resulting in his arrest. It is heavily implied that Penny’s parents were not affectionate – they neglected their children (at least emotionally) and so Penny sought out attention and affection, as any child would. Seeing how much time her father spent with her older sister, and seeing why – it isn’t hard to believe that Penny would equate sexualisation to affection, and even love. (lemme just have a cry real quick.) This makes sense when you take into account her reaction to Caine’s refusal (which was actually pretty mild) and even when you look at earlier events – such as him helping to bathe her. I can’t speak for everyone, but if someone broke MY legs and then came in to help bathe me, I would not be happy, and yet Penny seems to almost enjoy it. We then learn that Penny and her sisters were sent to live with their aunt after their mother became too depressed to care for them. And, once again, Penny found that her sisters were getting all the attention. So she reacted with violence – by putting bleach in her older sister’s cereal. She later found out that her father had committed suicide in prison, after being beaten by other inmates. And so Penny’s formative years have been tinted with sex and violence – two things that no child should be exposed to (although that’s kind of the whole premise of the series.) When you look at her past it becomes clear that her take-down of Caine was an attempt to gain control over one of the many people who have denied her affection in favour of giving it to someone else. As she associates sex with affection, and responds to a lack of affection with violence, it makes sense that she would attack him in a way that is associated with sexual violence.

My final point is in relation to the actions that she takes while Caine is unconscious. She does three things that really give us an insight into her mentality regarding the cementing:

-          She cements him

-          She makes a tin foil crown for him

-          She cuts off his shirt

These actions again are reminiscent, at least subtextually, of the act of r@pe - a sexual crime done with the intent to both incapacitate and embarrass the victim – in essence, a power-play. And this is exactly what Penny does. She begins by entrapping him in the cement, taking his power from him. We know that Penny was not scared of Caine’s power, this was not an act of paranoia as the cementing of the Coates kids was. But rather, she knew how much his power meant to him, how much he relied on it – and she wanted to make him feel just as powerless as he had made her feel. This is further reinforced by her making the tin foil crown. Of course, she partly did this to cause him more pain (she literally stapled it to his head), but the main reason was to embarrass him. To turn his own narcissism against him. And then, to top it all off, she cuts of his shirt – which is just straight up sexual assault. This is the moment in the scene where the interplay between sex and violence really comes out. As she sees it, sexualisation is a form of affection. But as her whole life she has been denied any form of affection she has twisted this in her mind to where she sees violence as a viable outlet of emotions – or rather a replacement for affection. I think Caine’s cementing showed the breaking point for Penny – there are so many things she wants to communicate (her anger at Caine for all the horrible things he has done to her, her affection towards him, her desire for power and respect) and she just doesn’t have the emotional intelligence to do it, due to years of witnessing sexual assault and experiencing neglect. So instead everything gets distilled down into this twisted act of violence where she both expresses all of these things and gets none of them.

I really love this scene as I think it is a great example of mg’s writing ability. I know her attack of Caine was not only due unrequited affections, but I think this side of it is really excellently written, and makes me wish that we has seen more of Penny. I think it would have been a very interesting plot twist and a great use of character if Penny had managed to discard of Drake in Fear and take over his role in the story. Anyway this was only meant to be a short post and I really rambled on (as if anyone is surprised by now). Thank you for reading and please feel free to comment on/ criticise this!! :)

#the gone series #penny

[canyousevmyheavydirtysoul]

Cape Town. (Chapter 6.4) (R. Ross x Reader)

Kirstenbosch Gardens was huge. So huge, in fact, that it would take a full three days to properly explore on foot. If someone like Ryan who didn't know their way around at all had to wonder off alone, the chances of locating them were pretty slim.

That being said, you found him within ten minutes.

He was sitting on a bench under a towering oak tree, gazing out across the rolling fields of flowers. You slowed down your stride as you approached him, not wanting to intrude on what was clearly a personal moment.

Hanging behind the tree, you rested one hand on the trunk and looked over at him. His gaze wondered up at the mountains, and he took in the sights for a moment before closing his eyes and exhaling.

Watching him closely, you noticed his lips move gently, as if he were silently sounding out some unintelligible words. At first, you thought he might've been saying a prayer, but then he reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a tiny, worn-out notebook.

Pulling off the pen that had been hooked over the book's front cover, he opened to a clean page and began jotting down words and phrases. Your lips parted as realisation dawned on you. He was writing song lyrics.

Now you really felt like you were intruding. You knew how personal the songwriting process was – especially to Ryan – and being in his presence while he was immersed in it (without him knowing you were there, nonetheless) felt like a major invasion of privacy.

Deciding it was best to leave him alone for a couple more minutes, you lifted your hand from the tree and started taking backward steps. You didn't get more than two in before the guitarist's head turned and he saw you.

"Hey," he smiled lazily.

Embarrassed that you'd been caught in the act, you stammered a response. "Uh, h-hey." You closed your eyes and waved a hand around. "Sorry, I didn't mean to sneak up. I saw that you were busy and I didn't wanna bother you."

Shifting up on the bench, he patted the empty space in an invitation for you to join him. "You'd never be a bother to me."

Readjusting your hair to hide your flushed cheeks, you walked around the bench to join him. There was silence for a little while. Not the uncomfortable kind, but more the kind that arose between two people who enjoyed each other's company so much that no conversation was even necessary.

Ryan was the one who eventually banished the quiet. "It's so beautiful out here. You're so lucky to have this right in your backyard."

"I love coming here," you sighed, resting your elbow on the back of the bench and letting your head rest in your palm, "Don't get to do it as much as I'd like, though."

"'Cause of your studies?"

"That, and I'd be completely bankrupt if I came here all the time," you laughed.

He shook his head and let out a sigh, then mimicked your pose. "It's criminal that they charge you for entry."

"Eh." With a shrug, you looked around at the natural beauty. "It's to make sure that all of this is preserved, so it makes sense, I guess. Can't be mad about it."

"True."

Noticing the notebook was still clutched in his hand, you nodded toward it. "Did you get some decent material?"

After you asked your question, Ryan's face faltered for a moment, and you mentally kicked yourself when you realised how incredibly prysome you must've sounded.

Immediately, you backtracked. "I'm sorry; I shouldn't have asked. It's none of my business."

"No, no," he chuckled softly, holding up one hand, "It's alright, really. And yeah... so far this trip has been very... inspiring."

He locked his gaze with yours and there was something about the way he was looking at you that made it impossible for you to look away, no matter how red your face was getting. Eventually, when it started to approach the point of being creepy, you broke eye contact and readjusted yourself on the bench.

"So, this whole 'rockstar' thing..." you started, "is it your endgame? Do you still wanna be up on stage when you're 60?"

"Are you kidding?" he smiled widely, perking up and laying his arm across the backrest of the bench, "That's when the fun begins."

Playing along, you furrowed your brows and nodded feverently. "Oh, of course."

The two of you shared a laugh, then Ryan continued talking. "Well, I don't think I can be referred to as a rockstar, by definition. But if you mean do I wanna do music until I'm old and grey, then yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Music's always been my escape. My best friend. It's my-"

"Your first love?"

He looked at you and you saw a twinkle in his eye. "Exactly."

Nodding fondly, you smiled lazily. "I know what you mean."

"You feel that way about... tourism?"

There was an amused, almost confused expression on the musician's face, and you couldn't help but laugh.

"No, definitely not," you chuckled, tucking your hair behind your ear and shaking your head. "No, my first love was – is – writing."

That answer seemed to pique Ryan's interest, as shown by the way he unconciously leaned in closer. "Writing?"

"Yeah. In fact, I had a notebook similar to that one," you pointed at the notebook in his lap, "and I used to write any chance I got. Stories, poems, random nonsense... I just dumped all the thoughts in my head out onto paper."

"Used to?" he questioned your use of words, "You mean you don't do it anymore?"

"Not as much as I'd like to. You know how life is – I got so caught up in studying and work that I ended up neglecting my hobbies."

"How come you didn't pursue it? Study English at uni instead of what you're doing now?"

Blowing a raspberry, you widened your eyes and drew your knees to your chest. "Writing is not really a lucrative career here. At least with tourism, I'd pretty much be guaranteed a steady income. And," you shrugged, giving a small smile, "there are some really great upsides to it... like meeting groups of attractive American band members."

Shocked by your sudden bout of confidence, Ryan arched his brows and gave a small wheeze.

"(Y/L/N), you flirt."

Copying his reaction from a moment ago, you arched your brows and wheezed. "You're one to talk, Ross."

Pursing his lips to fight back a smile, the musician held up his hands and relented. "Fair enough."

"Come on." You cocked your head in the direction of the pathway and stood up from the bench. "We better get back before they send out a search party."

He stood up, stuffing his hands in his pant pockets and rocking back and forth on his heels. "Orrrrr...." he gave you a mischeivous look, "We could go on an adventure?"

✧✧✧

15 minutes into the 'adventure'.

"Watch out!"

"AHHHH!"

Ryan had greatly miscalculated the distance between the third and fourth stepping stones in the rippling stream the two of you were crossing, and ended up with one foot fully submerged in the water as a result.

"Oh noooo," you laughed, not even attempting to hide your amusement at the horrified look on your counterpart's face as he slowly lifted his foot from the running stream.

Snapping his head in your direction, he shot you a glare. "I'm glad you think this is so funny. Ugh," he scrunched his face up in disgust as he inspected the mud sticking to his boot, "This is terrible."

"I guess you could say... there was a terrible splash."

Your joke hung in the air, accompanied by the sounds of the surrounding nature, as you and Ryan stared at each other. A moment later, he spoke up.

"That was awful."

"It was hilarious."

"I think you should stick to being a tour guide, angel. Comedy is clearly not your strong suit."

Pretending you didn't notice the affectionate nickname and fighting to suppress the blush threatening to spread over your cheeks, you stuck your tongue out at him and proceeded to skip across the remaining stones.

Sucking it up, Ryan gave one last sigh and followed your lead, a squelchsounding through the air each time his wet shoe met a stone.

✧✧✧

25 minutes into the 'adventure'.

With a gasp, you pointed at a beautiful natural water feature ahead of you, tucked away in a corner surrounded by rocks and vibrant green leaves. "Look!"

"Oh wow," Ryan matched your enthusium, "That's gorgeous."

"We have to get a picture there."

Taking note of the water flowing from above and the puddles it was forming on the sandy ground, Ryan shifted his weight from one leg to another. He had no desire to have yet another unfortunate water accident today. "Uhhh... we're pretty much guaranteed to get soaked if we stand over there."

"So? It's an adventure," you reminded him, giving his hair a light ruffle before dashing off.

Taking strategic steps to ensure that you weren't directly underneath the water falling from above, you steadied yourself by gripping the surrounding rocks. Now in the middle of the natural feature, you were able to appreciate its beauty in all its glory, and it was spectacular.

Any reluctance Ryan had had instantly dissipated the moment he saw you standing there, smiling that beautiful smile of yours and looking unapologetically happy.

It made him unapologetically fixated.

Realising that he still hadn't joined you, you looked to him and beckoned him over. He obliged without hestitation, not even bothering to dodge the water as he stepped into the space next to you.

The two of you marvelled at the beauty together for a few minutes, snapping a couple of pictures in the process. You had just finished taking a shot of a single flower growing in the secluded spot and were tucking the camera away when you felt his fingers graze your cheek.

His fingertips were rough – undoubtedly from all the guitar playing – and the contrast of that against your soft skin sent a shiver down your spine. Lifting your head, you locked eye contact with him and before you knew it, you were leaning in.

And he was leaning in too.

But then...

"GOTCHA!"

✧✧✧

That evening.

"When. Will. You. Stop. Ruining. My. Life?!" you yelled at (Y/B/F), accentuating each word with a smack of a throw pillow to her head.

"Hey!" Trying and failing to dodge your blows, she scrambled from the couch to the opposite end of the room and held out a hand to stop you. "I was just looking out for you!"

"'Looking out for me', my ass!" You hurtled the pillow at her. It hit her square in the face. "Why can't you let me just get some?!"

"I would gladly let you get some if the 'some' you were getting was not from some foreign musician who's gonna leave you alone in a few weeks!"

"I-"

Stopping your reply when you realised that you had no point to argue with, you chose instead to simply groan loudly, then storm off to your bedroom.

Puffing out her cheeks, (Y/B/F) shook her head and placed her hands on her hips. "She'll thank me eventually."

✧✧✧

Later that evening.

Approaching Ryan's room, Brendon exhaled heavily, mentally preparing to get into yet another argument about how he and (Y/B/F) wouldn't stop interferring with Ryan's attempts to get closer to you.

When he got to the door, however, he noticed his friend sitting on the edge of the bed, adoringly staring at a picture on his phone. Squinting, Brendon was able to make out that the picture Ryan was looking at was a picture of you – a candid shot where you were smelling a bunch of blooming flowers.

Hanging back, Brendon allowed his friend some more time. When he eventually spoke, he leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms.

"You're really falling for her, huh?"

Now aware of the presence of his bandmate, Ryan looked up from his phone. Noticing the serious expression on Brendon's face, Ryan realised that for the first time in this situation, he could talk about it without fear of negative pushback.

"Yup."

With an arch of a brow and a shake of his head, Brendon stepped into the room. "You know that there is no scenario in which neither of you end up getting hurt, right?" he sighed.

"Yup."

"So... what are you gonna do?"

Ryan looked down at the picture of you for a moment, and then back up at Brendon.

"I have no fucking idea."

_______________________________

Thank you for reading x

#ryan ross #ryan ross x reader #Brendon urie #spencer smith #Jon walker #patd #p!atd #panic at the disco #panic! at the disco #cape town #emo #music #bands #emo trinity #emo quartet #emo imagines #imagines #imagine #fanfic #fanfiction #band members #band member imagines #celebs #celebrity #the young veins

[popwasabi]

Civilization is coming: “Black Sails” and when rage is justified

(SPOILERS ahead! You’ve been warned...)

There’s a moment late in the first episode of the highly underappreciated series “Black Sails” that hints not only at the troubled past of its lead character Captain Flint but also describes the larger theme of the story.

Flint has gotten himself into trouble. Along with his crewmember Billy “Bones,” in an effort to secure the financing he needs to capture the gold from the Spanish warship known as L’Urca de Lima, his recklessness has gotten Nassau’s governor shot and injured and his plans all but evaporated. Billy feels they are now in too deep and they should not only turn back but perhaps new leadership is needed for Flint’s crew. It is here that Flint reveals a bit where his true ambitions lie.

(Toby Stephens, ladies and gentlemen.)

On the first viewing, Flint ominously declaring the pending arrival of “civilization” to the new world could mean anything from simply the imperialistic tendencies of the British and Spanish empire, to the draconian rulership of the crown or just “taxes” as he makes light mention of in this speech. But as the series progresses, especially in the second season, “civilization” begins to take a darker, more personal meaning.

The story begins to reveal that the dangerous pirates of Nassau are not at least inherently dastardly, although certainly violent, but victims of their various circumstances; a former slave turned prostitute turned keeper of secrets in Max, a neglected daughter becoming the bookkeeper of the pirates with Eleanor Guthrie, another former slave turned ruthless pirate captain in the vicious Charles Vane, and an abused woman turned deadliest pirate on the island Anne Bony, and none more painfully revealing than that of Flint himself.

You see Flint didn’t always go by this name, he used to be a prominent officer in the British navy named James McGraw until he met Thomas Hamilton, a wealthy proprietor tasked with solving the problem of the pirates of Nassau many years prior. Thomas had the radical idea of pardoning the entire island to bring them back into society, to avoid violence and bloodshed, and to better understand the people who would turn to piracy.

As James gets to know him more and his revolutionary philosophies of empathy and enlightenment the two unexpectedly fall in love and thus seal the fates of both their downfalls from “civilized” society.

With England unwilling to see any other way to end the pirates without exterminating all of them and looking to exploit weaknesses in Thomas to Parliament, he is outed and imprisoned. James along with Thomas’s wife Miranda, who lives in a polyamorous relationship between the two, are persona non-grata-ed and the two flee to Nassau to finish what Thomas started in an act of rebellion.

(This is seriously one of the most heart-wrenching, tragic reveals I have ever seen on TV. I totally knew it was coming at the time and I was still not prepared for how it was delivered.)

There are few things as personal as love and “Black Sails” uses this to show how far society can go to villainize people. Flint wasn’t born a monster, and he is not one for loving Thomas; he is a monster because “civilization” wanted him to be one.

As our own civilization enters a timeline that may promise great change, people who have been othered and victimized by society are finding themselves grappling with their pain and grief in the same way as Flint. People have tried peaceful reconciliation and conformity into society to avoid violence throughout history despite the labels they have been given for no other crime than being who they are, but civilization’s need for a monster always brings people down no matter how hard they try to do it the “right way.”

(Tell me if you see a justice system in this picture that looks interested in listening...)

Native Americans tried playing by the white man’s rules when America began moving west. Compromising over and over again and yet they were killed and still killed and neglected today for it.

African Americans tried becoming rich like their white counterparts in places like “Black Wallstreet” in Tulsa, Oklahoma  and were still bombed and massacred for it.

Asian and Latin Americans immigrated here to flee war and death largely caused by white imperialist countries, to survive and work jobs white Americans would not. Both are othered as foreigners, face violence from the state, and are deported everyday.

Poor working-class Americans try fruitlessly to keep their head above water as they become mired in debt, fighting a pandemic on slave wages essentially, all while our government cuts wealthy companies a fat paycheck annually with our own tax dollars. And anyone who fights back finds themselves without an income and health insurance during a recession and a pandemic.

And the LGBTQ+ community ask for the dignity to be left alone and treated normally but not only are they harassed for it but they are beaten, tortured, and killed for being different.

(Remember, Stonewall was a riot.)

Flint, himself, tries one last time, toward the end of season two, to peacefully resolve his vendetta with England and save Nassau from a war with them but instead finds himself facing the gallows anyways by the Charlestown government.

As they read out his charges, many of them real heinous things he did but also many that were fabricated, Flint stops them from proceeding any further and delivers a final act of defiance to the court.

“I have one regret,” he begins to the court of high society folks who are only interested in seeing him punished before the masses. “I regret ever coming to this place with the assumption that a reconciliation could be found. That reason could be a bridge between us. Everyone is a monster to someone. Since you are so convinced that I am yours, I will be it.”

It is at this point in the story that Flint, perhaps like other revolutionaries of the past, recognize that the system doesn’t want to reason with him, that these people aren’t looking to understand or empathize with him or even try for that matter. They wanted a monster, they made one in him, so he decides there that “civilization” as he had noted in the series first episode is not worth reconciling with and certainly not worthy of forgiveness.

And Flint spends the rest of the series in bloody war with them.

(From season 3. Again Toby Stephens, ladies and gentlemen)

“Black Sails” is about queerness, race, social politics, and the way conformity by force is used against it. It’s about the rage that boils underneath many of us as we are wronged over and over again by society, while being exploited to no end, and what happens when someone finally says “enough.”

Anyone who has experienced what it is like to be othered can find something deeply personal with the anger that Flint carries around with him in each scene of this series. We feel his pain of rejection by society, his grief for feeling ashamed of himself when he and the audience know he shouldn’t.

It's what makes the eventual reveal of his relationship with Thomas so cathartic, as we see the rage-filled guard of Flint drop as he reads Thomas’s words left for him in a book they both loved and shared.

(Again, I cannot emphasize enough how much of a gut-punch this reveal was watching this...)

"Know no shame” is so important to growth of this character and the message of this story. Civilization and those who wish to keep the status quo want those who do not fall in line with their authority and judgments to feel shame for who they are. They not only want monsters, they want you to feel like one and the reason Thomas line speaks so much to both Flint and the audience is that it reminds us there is no shame in who we are.

The country we live in is a powder keg right now experiencing the same rage that Flint feels and more specifically how he felt at the end of season 2. Though this country’s racist attitudes and subjugation of the vulnerable hardly started with this presidency it cannot be argued that it has brought all that hatred in our government and the people who support those views painfully to the surface. When people peacefully protest, peacefully assemble, and peacefully try to cast their vote and are still met with resistance, still met with hatred and violence, people have to start to wonder if operating within the system’s rules can actually affect change.

A lot has been made about the way protesters may have violently lashed out over the past three weeks, with media talking heads and privileged elites asking unironically why they couldn’t do things peacefully but more has been done as result of the rising tension than the previous 50 years combined. You can tell people to “#vote” all you want but it doesn’t change the fact that people have been trying that for decades and people are still getting quite literally killed for it.

(Again, I gotta ask, who is this protecting? Who is this serving?)

If there’s one takeaway I hope a viewer gets from “Black Sails” is that revolution, no matter how serious you are about it, should never be off the table when confronting systemic inequality. A racist, sexist, classist, and/or, in the case of Flint, homophobic power structure does not concede their power if you play to their convenience and when people are being put down, beaten, and often killed for showing their anger at this, calling for “law and order” becomes a slap in the face to the victims.

A government or system that treats you unjustly doesn’t deserve peace.

I’ll say it again.

A government or system that treats you unjustly doesn’t deserve peace.

No one wants it to get this far, I definitely don’t, and certainly not every peaceful mean has been exhausted yet in this fight perhaps but this country was literally founded on violent rebellion after being slighted all the same by out of balance power structures. I’m not advocating for violence or to take up arms against the state right now BUT no one should ever rule it out when the social contract keeps being broken and broken and broken again by those in charge who clearly don’t want to listen.

A government should always feel the threat of an uprising if it keeps wronging its people.

(See my blog post about “Do the Right Thing” if you need help understanding this quote.)

As the more fiery weeks of the protests seem to be in the rearview mirror and we find less activity and calls to action on our social media timelines, I want to remind you all to not let up with whatever you are choosing to do to help and keep fighting back out there. The people who stand to benefit from having angst of the general public leave and dissipate from our collective consciousness want us to forget how angry we are, they want us to feel fatigued and disinterested in continuing the push forward because “this is how they win” as Flint would say.

(Again, Toby Fucking Stephens, everyone.)

We have so much more power than we realize, just look at how much got done just by everyone uniting behind one marginalized group finally over the past three weeks. When we realize we are fighting essentially in the same battle for respect and dignity, justice in our society can be achieved. It can be done, and maybe just maybe we can finally change the world. Afterall who else has been as close to achieving it as we are right now?

Fight for your dignity and respect and stand in solidarity with others in their own fights as well, and always remember “know no shame.”

Raise the colors and Happy Pride, everyone! (credit: Luluxa on Tumblr)

#Black Sails #Starz #happy pride 🌈 #Pride Month #LGBTQ #LGBT #Stonewall #George Floyd #Police Brutality #BLM #Black Lives Matter #Tulsa #Black Wallstreet #Pirates #Toby Stephens #film #TV #movies #protest #protests #pride march #revolution #rage against the machine #do the right thing #Spike Lee

[yennefers-geralt]

Why the ending of GOT will not be the ending of ASOIAF:

Bran will not become the Three-Eyed Raven. Why? Because there is no Three-Eyed Raven in ASOIAF. Brynden Rivers specifically is call the three-eyed crow, but that name doesn’t strip away his personality or his personal feelings. He still hates his half-brother and loves his half-sister. So even when Bran’s training is complete or more advanced, there is no reason to believe he will lose his personality or personal ambitions.

Bran’s powers will not be wasted. Why? Because his powers already exceed what Brynden tells him are possible. He’s already helped Jon activate his powers back in ACOK and is able to make his father hear him slightly in ADWD. He also seems to be able to find Arya through Nymeria. So rather than just being a robot and a target, he will have an actual role to play in the story.

Since Bran will not lose his identity, there is no way he would lose his claim to the North. Why? Because as noted above, Brynden doesn’t lose his identity, so there is no reason Bran would. Also, there is a great deal of foreshadowing for Bran’s deep connection to Winterfell and his training for leadership in the North. That suggests he will be King in the North or Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. 

Arya will not kill the Night King. Why? Because the Night’s King in the book was a historical/legendary figure with a completely different story than the show’s character with a similar name. There’s no suggestion that killing one specific Other will destroy the rest. That said, Arya’s training in the books and her magical abilities will play a key role in the Long Night.

Arya will not go west of Westeros. Why? Because in canon she never expresses any intention of doing so and never wants to become a sailor other than one thought of becoming a second cabin girl so she won’t have to go to Braavos. Arya’s narrative is leading her home to her family the long way around.

Arya’s skinchanging will come into play. Why? Because GRRM said that it would. He said there was a purpose for Nymeria’s pack and compared it to Chekhov’s Gun. So Arya’s growing abilities will play a role in the story and she will likely connect with Bran since he has already found her through Nymeria in TWOW.

Jon’s parentage reveal won’t purely serve as an obstacle for another character, but will matter to him and his character arc. Why? Because it doesn’t make sense that it wouldn’t. I’m no fan of R+L=J. I wish it wasn’t part of the story. But it is. And the reveal will actually matter for Jon rather than purely impacting another character.

Jon won’t take over Stannis’ story. Why? Because in the books, Stannis has Stannis’ story. He is the one who took politically savvy (no, not like that) Jon’s advice and gained the support of Northern lords and is marching to meet the Boltons without burning Shireen. Jon’s first chapters might take place while he is experiencing his second life inside of the aptly named Ghost. There’s a reason we got info on how skinchangers got a second life in the animal they bonded with. His resurrection will result in something beyond a “Get Out of the Night’s Watch Free” card.

Dany won’t come to Westeros with the support of three regions to start waging war on the Lannisters. Why? Because the Dornish prince who came to bring Dany home is dead. Meanwhile, Aegon VI Targaryen (aka Young Griff) has arrived in Westeros with the Golden Company and is conquering the Stormlands, including the unconquerable Storm’s End. He’s also receiving envoys from Dorne and could possibly take the Tyrell alliance away from the Lannisters. 

If Dany and Tyrion become allies, he won’t give her idiotic advice that aims for a bloodless war and predictably leads to the destruction of their forces. Why? Because Tyrion is intelligent and ruthless. He sees what’s going on in the siege of Meereen and sees ways Dany could have destroyed her besieging enemies much faster. He also wants to kill his brother and sister and wouldn’t be opposed to human life being sacrificed during war. Just look at the way he put wildfire on a ship full of his own soldiers during the Battle of Blackwater. So all those pained looks  at each decision Dany made in the show? Nope. She would be the one talking him down.

Dany likely won’t arrive with all three dragons. Why? Because someone has just arrived at Meereen with the intention of claiming her and her dragons with a magic horn. He obviously won’t claim her. But the horn could claim Rhaegal and Viserion either making them Victorian’s or Euron’s.

Dany won’t go insane. Why? Because nothing she has done is any worse than what her male counterparts have done. Like Arya, her journey is about finding her home. Her pursuit of the throne is something she sees as a duty to the people she is told are waiting for her. She supports other claimants whether it’s her brother or her son over her own claim. For herself, she wants a simple life. But she puts the needs of her people above personal goals. Also, the vision of the destroyed Red Keep is a show only invention. She has more complicated visions in the book, none of which suggest she is insane or will be. 

Tyrion will have a far more complex story arc that won’t include judging every move his chosen leader makes. Why? Because book!Tyrion is a completely different character than show!Tyrion. He isn’t a faultless saint with all the morally right opinions. He is the darkest of grey characters who is sympathetic even while growing darker. As a product of his culture, he is familiar with brutal tactics of warfare and implements them. As stated above, if he joins with Dany, as he wishes to, he will be the one with the darker military choices. We know this because of his actions in previous books as well as his analysis of the state of the Meereen siege. He won’t be pushing to burn King’s Landing down, but he won’t be clutching his pearls at every casualty or any morally ambiguous move.

The Others during the Long Night will be the final boss, not Cersei. Why? Because the series is called A Song of Ice and Fire not Game of Thrones. The politics are the subplot, not the main event. It doesn’t make any kind of sense to fight a less threatening boss after the big one. 

Long story short, there is no way the show’s ending can line up with the book ending.

#text post #jmo

[aboveallarescuer]

Dany's empathy, compassion, compromises and sacrifices for other people

As I was rereading ASOIAF, I made it my goal to compile ALL* the book passages showcasing either certain key attributes of Daenerys Targaryen (e.g. that she's compassionate and smart) or aspects of hers that are usually overstated (e.g. that she's ambitious and prophecy-driven).  Doing such a task may seem exaggerated, but I'd argue it's not, for many, many misconceptions about Dany have become widespread in light of the show's final season's events (and even before).

It must be acknowledged that it can be tricky to reference, say, ADWD passages to counter-argument how she was depicted in season eight (which allegedly follows ADOS events). Dany will have had plenty of character development in the span of two books. However, whatever happens to Dany in the next two books, I would argue that there is more than enough material to conclude that her show counterpart was made to fall for flaws that she (for the most part) never had and actions that she (for the most part) would never take. (and that's not even considering the double standards and the contradictions with what had been shown from show!Dany up until then, but that's obviously out of the scope of these lists)

Another objection to the purpose of these lists is that Game of Thrones is different from A Song of Ice and Fire and should be analyzed on its own, which is a fair point. However, the show is also an adaptation of these books, which begs the questions: why did they change Dany's character? Why did they overfocus on negative traits of hers or depicted them as negative when they weren't supposed to be or gave her negative traits that were never hers to begin with? Another fact that undermines the show=/=books argument is that most people think that the show's ending will be the books', albeit only in broad strokes and in different circumstances. As a result, people's perception of Dany is inevitably influenced by the show, which is a shame.

I hope these lists can be useful for whoever wants to find book passages to defend (or even simply explore different facets of) Dany's character in metas or conversations.

 *Well, at least all the passages that I could find in her chapters, which is of course no guarantee that it is perfect, but I did my best.

Also, people can interpret certain passages differently and then come up with a different collection of passages if they ever attempted to make one, so I'm not saying that this list is completely objective (nor that there could ever be one).

Also, some passages have been cut short according to whether they were, IMO, relevant to the specific topic of the list they're in, so the context surrounding them may not always be clear (always read the books and use asearchoficeandfire!). Many of them appear in different lists, sometimes fully referenced, sometimes not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To justify the existence of this list, let's see examples of widespread opinions that I feel misrepresent Daenerys Targaryen:

Along her way Daenerys has convinced herself that she wants to rule for the people and created a utopian ideology around herself as a benevolent freedom fighter -- while on a repressed, involuntary emotional level, the Iron Throne is actually a symbol to her of pain and trauma. So even though she doesn’t understand this herself, all this time her inner dragon wasn’t really driven by hope or the promise of change, but by rage and the will to avenge the abuse she endured at the hands of her enemies. (x)

~

Dany makes big, risky offensive plays, while Cersei -- surrounded by treacherous snakes and haunted by a prophecy that’s outlined how much she will lose - plays defensively. In light of all this, it makes sense why Dany views everything as positive opportunity and Cersei sees the negative angle. Daenerys wins hearts along her way not just because she’s a humanitarian, but also because she has to. (x)

~

[Dany] is a great and terrible leader who is spreading bloodshed and pain in their path. Entire civilizations have been burned at their whim. And her all-consuming desire to rule Westeros? She’s not particularly fussed about the rights of the smallfolk or worried about the impending frozen hell creeping its way from the North. She wants that Iron Throne because it’s her birthright. It’s hers, gosh darn it! Woe to the men and women who stand in her path. (x)

~

It’s likely the idea of Dany as queen would feel more applause-worthy if she stopped burning people alive and avoiding tough chats in favor of actually meeting the people of Westeros. Think about the end of season 3 finale “Mhysa,” when the dragon queen allowed herself to be enveloped by the freed slaves of Yunkai. Although the scene had a distinct and uncomfortable white savior feel, at least we saw Daenerys actually interact with the people she claims to care about so much. None of that behavior has been seen since Dany stepped foot on Westeros, only giving credence to some lords’ claim she is a “foreign” royal, despite her birth on Dragonstone. Instead of getting out and meeting her prospective subjects for a minute, Dany has spent season 7 either holed up in her castle with her advisors or riding her favorite dragon into battle. These are not the actions of someone determined to lift up the common folk. (x)

~

Daenerys isn't bothered by the idea of taking lives to achieve her goal[.] (x)

Dany isn't driven by hope or promise of change? Dany wins hearts because she "has to"? Dany isn't "fussed about the rights of the smallfolk"? Dany doesn't get out and meet her people? Dany isn't bothered by the idea of taking lives to achieve her goal?

I would argue these claims certainly cannot be made after reading the books (some can't even after watching the show's first 71 episodes, but it can be all over the place and .... I digress), so take a look at these passages.

A Dance with Dragons

ADWD Daenerys X

A girl might spend her life at play, but she was a woman grown, a queen, a wife, a mother to thousands. Her children had need of her. Drogon had bent before the whip, and so must she. She had to don her crown again and return to her ebon bench and the arms of her noble husband.

Hizdahr, of the tepid kisses.

~

No, Dany told herself. If I look back I am lost. She might live for years amongst the sunbaked rocks of Dragonstone, riding Drogon by day and gnawing at his leavings every evenfall as the great grass sea turned from gold to orange, but that was not the life she had been born to. So once again she turned her back upon the distant hill and closed her ears to the song of flight and freedom that the wind sang as it played amongst the hill’s stony ridges. The stream was trickling south by southeast, as near as she could tell. She followed it. Take me to the river, that is all I ask of you. Take me to the river, and I will do the rest.

The hours passed slowly. The stream bent this way and that, and Dany followed, beating time upon her leg with the whip, trying not to think about how far she had to go, or the pounding in her head, or her empty belly. Take one step. Take the next. Another step. Another. What else could she do?

~

Dragonstone was still visible above the grasslands. It looks so close. I must be leagues away by now, but it looks as if I could be back in an hour. She wanted to lie back down, close her eyes, and give herself up to sleep. No. I must keep going. The stream. Just follow the stream.

Dany took a moment to make certain of her directions. It would not do to walk the wrong way and lose her stream. “My friend,” she said aloud. “If I stay close to my friend I won’t get lost.” 

~

“Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was ... her name ...” Dany could not recall the child’s name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. “I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons.”

~

I gave you good counsel. Save your spears and swords for the Seven Kingdoms, I told you. Leave Meereen to the Meereenese and go west, I said. You would not listen.

“I had to take Meereen or see my children starve along the march.” Dany could still see the trail of corpses she had left behind her crossing the Red Waste. It was not a sight she wished to see again. “I had to take Meereen to feed my people.”

You took Meereen, he told her, yet still you lingered. 

“To be a queen.”

You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros. 

“It is such a long way,” she complained. “I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl.”

ADWD Daenerys IX

She pushed herself to her feet, splashing softly. Water ran down her legs and beaded on her breasts. The sun was climbing up the sky, and her people would soon be gathering. She would rather have drifted in the fragrant pool all day, eating iced fruit off silver trays and dreaming of a house with a red door, but a queen belongs to her people, not to herself.

~

“How should Meereen ever come to trust the Brazen Beasts if I do not? There are good brave men beneath those masks. I put my life into their hands.” Dany smiled for him. “You fret too much, ser. I will have you beside me, what other protection do I need?”

~

“He would be willing to wait, the woman Meris suggested. Until we march for Westeros.”

And if I never march for Westeros?

~

“Have you ever seen such an auspicious day, my love?” Hizdahr zo Loraq commented when she rejoined him. [...]

“Auspicious for you, perhaps. Less so for those who must die before the sun goes down.”

~

A palanquin lay overturned athwart their way. One of its bearers had collapsed to the bricks, overcome by heat. “Help that man,” Dany commanded. “Get him off the street before he’s stepped on and give him food and water. He looks as though he has not eaten in a fortnight.”

~

“Those bearers were slaves before I came. I made them free. Yet that palanquin is no lighter.”

“True,” said Hizdahr, “but those men are paid to bear its weight now. Before you came, that man who fell would have an overseer standing over him, stripping the skin off his back with a whip. Instead he is being given aid.”

It was true. A Brazen Beast in a boar mask had offered the litter bearer a skin of water. “I suppose I must be thankful for small victories,” the queen said.

“One step, then the next, and soon we shall be running. Together we shall make a new Meereen.” The street ahead had finally cleared. “Shall we continue on?”

What could she do but nod? One step, then the next, but where is it I’m going?

~

Her lord husband stood and raised his hands. “Great Masters! My queen has come this day, to show her love for you, her people. By her grace and with her leave, I give you now your mortal art. Meereen! Let Queen Daenerys hear your love!”

Ten thousand throats roared out their thanks; then twenty thousand; then all. They did not call her name, which few of them could pronounce. “Mother!” they cried instead; in the old dead tongue of Ghis, the word was Mhysa! They stamped their feet and slapped their bellies and shouted, “Mhysa, Mhysa, Mhysa,” until the whole pit seemed to tremble. Dany let the sound wash over her. I am not your mother, she might have shouted, back, I am the mother of your slaves, of every boy who ever died upon these sands whilst you gorged on honeyed locusts.

~

“A boy,” said Dany. “He was only a boy.”

“Six-and-ten,” Hizdahr insisted. “A man grown, who freely chose to risk his life for gold and glory. No children die today in Daznak’s, as my gentle queen in her wisdom has decreed.”

Another small victory. Perhaps I cannot make my people good, she told herself, but I should at least try to make them a little less bad. Daenerys would have prohibited contests between women as well, but Barsena Blackhair protested that she had as much right to risk her life as any man. The queen had also wished to forbid the follies, comic combats where cripples, dwarfs, and crones had at one another with cleavers, torches, and hammers (the more inept the fighters, the funnier the folly, it was thought), but Hizdahr said his people would love her more if she laughed with them, and argued that without such frolics, the cripples, dwarfs, and crones would starve. So Dany had relented.

It had been the custom to sentence criminals to the pits; that practice she agreed might resume, but only for certain crimes. “Murderers and rapers may be forced to fight, and all those who persist in slaving, but not thieves or debtors.”

Beasts were still allowed, though. Dany watched an elephant make short work of a pack of six red wolves. Next a bull was set against a bear in a bloody battle that left both animals torn and dying. “The flesh is not wasted,” said Hizdahr. “The butchers use the carcasses to make a healthful stew for the hungry. Any man who presents himself at the Gates of Fate may have a bowl.”

“A good law,” Dany said. You have so few of them. “We must make certain that this tradition is continued.”

~

The battle was followed by the day’s first folly, a tilt between a pair of jousting dwarfs, presented by one of the Yunkish lords that Hizdahr had invited to the games. One rode a hound, the other a sow. Their wooden armor had been freshly painted, so one bore the stag of the usurper Robert Baratheon, the other the golden lion of House Lannister. That was for her sake, plainly. Their antics soon had Belwas snorting laughter, though Dany’s smile was faint and forced. When the dwarf in red tumbled from the saddle and began to chase his sow across the sands, whilst the dwarf on the dog galloped after him, whapping at his buttocks with a wooden sword, she said, “This is sweet and silly, but …”

“Be patient, my sweet,” said Hizdahr. “They are about to loose the lions.”

Daenerys gave him a quizzical look. “Lions?”

“Three of them. The dwarfs will not expect them.”

She frowned. “The dwarfs have wooden swords. Wooden armor. How do you expect them to fight lions?”

“Badly,” said Hizdahr, “though perhaps they will surprise us. More like they will shriek and run about and try to climb out of the pit. That is what makes this a folly.”

Dany was not pleased. “I forbid it.”

“Gentle queen. You do not want to disappoint your people.”

“You swore to me that the fighters would be grown men who had freely consented to risk their lives for gold and honor. These dwarfs did not consent to battle lions with wooden swords. You will stop it. Now.”

~

The boar buried his snout in Barsena’s belly and began rooting out her entrails. The smell was more than the queen could stand. The heat, the flies, the shouts from the crowd … I cannot breathe. She lifted her veil and let it flutter away. She took her tokar off as well. The pearls rattled softly against one another as she unwound the silk.

“Khaleesi?” Irri asked. “What are you doing?”

“Taking off my floppy ears.” A dozen men with boar spears came trotting out onto the sand to drive the boar away from the corpse and back to his pen. The pitmaster was with them, a long barbed whip in his hand. As he snapped it at the boar, the queen rose. “Ser Barristan, will you see me safely back to my garden?”

Hizdahr looked confused. “There is more to come. A folly, six old women, and three more matches. Belaquo and Goghor!”

“Belaquo will win,” Irri declared. “It is known.”

“It is not known,” Jhiqui said. “Belaquo will die.”

“One will die, or the other will,” said Dany. “And the one who lives will die some other day. This was a mistake.”

~

“Magnificence, the people of Meereen have come to celebrate our union. You heard them cheering you. Do not cast away their love.”

“It was my floppy ears they cheered, not me. Take me from this abbatoir, husband.” She could hear the boar snorting, the shouts of the spearmen, the crack of the pitmaster’s whip.

ADWD Daenerys VIII

“...They can close their fingers around our throat again whenever they wish. They have opened a slave market within sight of my walls!”

“Outside our walls, sweet queen. That was a condition of the peace, that Yunkai would be free to trade in slaves as before, unmolested.”

“In their own city. Not where I have to see it.”

~

So Daenerys sat silent through the meal, wrapped in a vermilion tokar and black thoughts, speaking only when spoken to, brooding on the men and women being bought and sold outside her walls, even as they feasted here within the city. Let her noble husband make the speeches and laugh at the feeble Yunkish japes. That was a king’s right and a king’s duty.

~

No queen has clean hands, Dany told herself. She thought of Doreah, of Quaro, of Eroeh … of a little girl she had never met, whose name had been Hazzea. Better a few should die in the pit than thousands at the gates. This is the price of peace, I pay it willingly. If I look back, I am lost.

~

When the gluttony was done and all the half-eaten food had been cleared away—to be given to the poor who gathered below, at the queen's insistence—tall glass flutes were filled with a spiced liqueur from Qarth as dark as amber.

~

“If it please you, Yurkhaz will be pleased to give us the singers, I do not doubt,” her noble husband said. “A gift to seal our peace, an ornament to our court.”

He will give us these castrati, Dany thought, and then he will march home and make some more. The world is full of boys.

~

Hard by the bay was the abomination, the slave market at her door. She could not see it now, with the sun set, but she knew that it was there. That just made her angrier.

~

“It would please me if he had turned up with these fifty thousand swords he speaks of. Instead he brings two knights and a parchment. Will a parchment shield my people from the Yunkai’i? If he had come with a fleet ...”

[...] “Dorne is too far away. To please this prince, I would need to abandon all my people. You should send him home.”

~

“Bring him to me. It is time he met my children.”

[...] She smiled. “My prince. It is a long way down. Are you certain that you wish to do this?”

“If it would please Your Grace.”

“Then come.”

~

Broken chains clanked and clattered about his legs. Quentyn Martell jumped back a foot.

A crueler woman might have laughed at him, but Dany squeezed his hand and said, “They frighten me as well. There is no shame in that. My children have grown wild and angry in the dark.”

~

“They are ... they are fearsome creatures.”

“They are dragons, Quentyn.” Dany stood on her toes and kissed him lightly, once on each cheek. “And so am I.”

ADWD Daenerys VII

Her foes were all about her. [...] They would not try to take Meereen by storm. They would wait behind their siege lines, flinging stones at her until famine and disease had brought her people to their knees.

Hizdahr will bring me peace. He must.

~

“Dorne is fifty thousand spears and swords, pledged to our queen’s service.”

“Fifty thousand?” mocked Daario. “I count three.”

“Enough,” Daenerys said. “Prince Quentyn has crossed half the world to offer me his gift, I will not have him treated with discourtesy.”

~

“Your Grace does not love the noble Hizdahr. This one thinks you would sooner have another for your husband.”

I must not think of Daario today. “A queen loves where she must, not where she will.”

~

“The day is too hot to be shut up in a palanquin,” said Dany. “Have my silver saddled. I would not go to my lord husband upon the backs of bearers.”

“Your Grace,” said Missandei, “this one is so sorry, but you cannot ride in a tokar.”

The little scribe was right, as she so often was. The tokar was not a garment meant for horseback. Dany made a face. “As you say. Not the palanquin, though. I would suffocate behind those drapes. Have them ready a sedan chair.” If she must wear her floppy ears, let all the rabbits see her.

~

“...This match will save our city, you will see.”

“So we pray. I want to plant my olive trees and see them fruit.” Does it matter that Hizdahr’s kisses do not please me? Peace will please me. Am I a queen or just a woman?

~

Galazza Galare awaited them outside the temple doors, surrounded by her sisters in white and pink and red, blue and gold and purple. There are fewer than there were. Dany looked for Ezzara and did not see her. Has the bloody flux taken even her?

ADWD Daenerys VI

“...Let us distribute the food, Your Grace.”

“On the morrow. I am here now. I want to see.”

~

The Astapori stumbled after them in a ghastly procession that grew longer with every yard they crossed. Some spoke tongues she did not understand. Others were beyond speaking. Many lifted their hands to Dany, or knelt as her silver went by. “Mother,” they called to her, in the dialects of Astapor, Lys, and Old Volantis, in guttural Dothraki and the liquid syllables of Qarth, even in the Common Tongue of Westeros. “Mother, please … mother, help my sister, she is sick … give me food for my little ones … please, my old father … help him … help her … help me …”

I have no more help to give, Dany thought, despairing.

~

It was growing harder to find drivers willing to deliver the food as well. Too many of the men they had sent into the camp had been stricken by the flux themselves. Others had been attacked on the way back to the city. Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved. “I will not turn away from them,” she said stubbornly. “A queen must know the sufferings of her people.”

~

Their eyes followed her. Those who had the strength called out. “Mother … please, Mother … bless you, Mother …”

Bless me, Dany thought bitterly. Your city is gone to ash and bone, your people are dying all around you. I have no shelter for you, no medicine, no hope. Only stale bread and wormy meat, hard cheese, a little milk. Bless me, bless me.

What kind of mother has no milk to feed her children?

~

“Food should not be wasted on the dying, Your Worship. We do not have enough to feed the living.”

He was not wrong, she knew, but that did not make the words any easier to hear.

~

The queen surveyed the scene around her. “If we were to share our food equally …”

“… the Astapori would eat through their portion in days, and we would have that much less for the siege.”

Dany gazed across the camp, to the many-colored brick walls of Meereen. The air was thick with flies and cries. “The gods have sent this pestilence to humble me. So many dead … I will not have them eating corpses.”

~

“I cannot heal them, but I can show them that their Mother cares.”

~

There was an old man on the ground a few feet away, moaning and staring up at the grey belly of the clouds. She knelt beside him, wrinkling her nose at the smell, and pushed back his dirty grey hair to feel his brow. “His flesh is on fire. I need water to bathe him. Seawater will serve. Marselen, will you fetch some for me? I need oil as well, for the pyre. Who will help me burn the dead?”

By the time Aggo returned with Grey Worm and fifty of the Unsullied loping behind his horse, Dany had shamed all of them into helping her. Symon Stripeback and his men were pulling the living from the dead and stacking up the corpses, while Jhogo and Rakharo and their Dothraki helped those who could still walk toward the shore to bathe and wash their clothes. Aggo stared at them as if they had all gone mad, but Grey Worm knelt beside the queen and said, “This one would be of help.”

Before midday a dozen fires were burning. Columns of greasy black smoke rose up to stain a merciless blue sky. Dany’s riding clothes were stained and sooty as she stepped back from the pyres. “Worship,” Grey Worm said, “this one and his brothers beg your leave to bathe in the salt sea when our work here is done, that we might be purified according to the laws of our great goddess.”

The queen had not known that the eunuchs had a goddess of their own. “Who is this goddess? One of the gods of Ghis?”

Grey Worm looked troubled. “The goddess is called by many names. She is the Lady of Spears, the Bride of Battle, the Mother of Hosts, but her true name belongs only to these poor ones who have burned their manhoods upon her altar. We may not speak of her to others. This one begs your forgiveness.”

“As you wish. Yes, you may bathe if that is your desire. Thank you for your help.”

“These ones live to serve you.”

~

“No ruler can make a people good,” Selmy had told her. “Baelor the Blessed prayed and fasted and built the Seven as splendid a temple as any gods could wish for, yet he could not put an end to war and want.” A queen must listen to her people, Dany reminded herself. “After the wedding Hizdahr will be king. Let him reopen the fighting pits if he wishes. I want no part of it.” Let the blood be on his hands, not mine.

~

“Daenerys, my queen, I will gladly wash you from head to heel if that is what I must do to be your king and consort.”

“To be my king and consort, you need only bring me peace.[”]

~

Would she never have a friend that she could trust? What good are prophecies if you cannot make sense of them? If I marry Hizdahr before the sun comes up, will all these armies melt away like morning dew and let me rule in peace?

~

“I thought you would be the one to betray me. Once for blood and once for gold and once for love, the warlocks said. I thought … I never thought Brown Ben. Even my dragons seemed to trust him.” She clutched her captain by the shoulders. “Promise me that you will never turn against me. I could not bear that. Promise me.”

ADWD Daenerys V

Daenerys received them in the grandeur of her hall as tall candles burned amongst the marble pillars. When she saw that the Astapori were half-starved, she sent for food at once.

~

“I’m no maester, mind you, but I know you got to keep the bad apples from the good.”

“These are not apples, Ben,” said Dany. “These are men and women, sick and hungry and afraid.” My children. “I should have gone to Astapor.”

~

“You want me to loot Meereen and flee? No, I will not do that.[”]

~

Daenerys looked at the faces of the men around her. The Shavepate, scowling. Ser Barristan, with his lined face and sad blue eyes. Reznak mo Reznak, pale, sweating. Brown Ben, white-haired, grizzled, tough as old leather. Grey Worm, smooth-cheeked, stolid, expressionless. Daario should be here, and my bloodriders, she thought. If there is to be a battle, the blood of my blood should be with me. She missed Ser Jorah Mormont too. He lied to me, informed on me, but he loved me too, and he always gave good counsel.

~

“I cannot fight two enemies, one within and one without. If I am to hold Meereen, I must have the city behind me. The whole city. I need … I need …” She could not say it.

“Your Grace?” Ser Barristan prompted, gently.

A queen belongs not to herself but to her people.

“I need Hizdahr zo Loraq.”

ADWD Daenerys IV

Two of Dany’s favorite hostages served the food and kept the cups filled—a doe-eyed little girl called Qezza and a skinny boy named Grazhar. They were brother and sister, and cousins of the Green Grace, who greeted them with kisses when she swept in, and asked them if they had been good.

“They are very sweet, the both of them,” Dany assured her. “Qezza sings for me sometimes. She has a lovely voice. And Ser Barristan has been instructing Grazhar and the other boys in the ways of western chivalry.”

~

The cowards broke in on some weavers, freedwomen who had done no harm to anyone. All they did was make beautiful things. I have a tapestry they gave me hanging over my bed.[”]

~

“...You have not harmed any of the noble children you hold as hostage.”

“Not as yet, no.” Dany had grown fond of her young charges. Some were shy and some were bold, some sweet and some sullen, but all were innocent. [...]

Dany pushed her food about her plate. She dare not glance over to where Grazhar and Qezza stood, for fear that she might cry. [...] Hazzea was enough. What good is peace if it must be purchased with the blood of little children? “These murders are not their doing,” Dany told the Green Grace, feebly. “I am no butcher queen.”

~

Only then would her womb quicken once again …

… but Daenerys Targaryen had other children, tens of thousands who had hailed her as their mother when she broke their chains. She thought of Stalwart Shield, of Missandei’s brother, of the woman Rylona Rhee, who had played the harp so beautifully. No marriage would ever bring them back to life, but if a husband could help end the slaughter, then she owed it to her dead to marry.

~

“...Meereen cannot endure another war, Your Radiance.”

That was a good answer, and an honest one. “I have never wanted war. I defeated the Yunkai’i once and spared their city when I might have sacked it. I refused to join King Cleon when he marched against them. Even now, with Astapor besieged, I stay my hand. And Qarth … I have never done the Qartheen any harm …”

~

“...I would sooner perish fighting than return my children to bondage.”

“There may be another choice. The Yunkai’i can be persuaded to allow all your freedmen to remain free, I believe, if Your Worship will agree that the Yellow City may trade and train slaves unmolested from this day forth. No more blood need flow.”

“Save for the blood of those slaves that the Yunkai’i will trade and train,” Dany said, but she recognized the truth in his words even so. It may be that is the best end we can hope for.

~

“So,” she said to him, “it seems that I may wed again. Are you happy for me, ser?”

“If that is your command, Your Grace.”

“Hizdahr is not the husband you would have chosen for me.”

“It is not my place to choose your husband.”

“It is not,” she agreed, “but it is important to me that you should understand. My people are bleeding. Dying. A queen belongs not to herself, but to the realm. Marriage or carnage, those are my choices. A wedding or a war.”

~

“You are fighting shadows when you should be fighting the men who cast them,” Daario went on. “Kill them all and take their treasures, I say. Whisper the command, and your Daario will make you a pile of their heads taller than this pyramid.”

“If I knew who they were—”

“Zhak and Pahl and Merreq. Them, and all the rest. The Great Masters. Who else would it be?”

He is as bold as he is bloody. “We have no proof this is their work. Would you have me slaughter my own subjects?”

“Your own subjects would gladly slaughter you.”

He had been so long away, Dany had almost forgotten what he was. Sellswords were treacherous by nature, she reminded herself. Fickle, faithless, brutal. He will never be more than he is. He will never be the stuff of kings. “The pyramids are strong,” she explained to him. “We could take them only at great cost. The moment we attack one the others will rise against us.”

“Then winkle them out of their pyramids on some pretext. A wedding might serve. Why not? Promise your hand to Hizdahr and all the Great Masters will come to see you married. When they gather in the Temple of the Graces, turn us loose upon them.”

Dany was appalled. He is a monster. A gallant monster, but a monster still. “Do you take me for the Butcher King?”

ADWD Daenerys III

The cedars that had once grown tall along the coast grew no more, felled by the axes of the Old Empire or consumed by dragonfire when Ghis made war against Valyria. Once the trees had gone, the soil baked beneath the hot sun and blew away in thick red clouds. “It was these calamities that transformed my people into slavers,” Galazza Galare had told her, at the Temple of the Graces. And I am the calamity that will change these slavers back into people, Dany had sworn to herself.

~

“I want no slave. I free you.” His jeweled nose made a tempting target. This time Dany threw an apricot at him.

Xaro caught it in the air and took a bite. “Whence came this madness? Should I count myself fortunate that you did not free my own slaves when you were my guest in Qarth?”

I was a beggar queen and you were Xaro of the Thirteen, Dany thought, and all you wanted were my dragons. “Your slaves seemed well treated and content. It was not till Astapor that my eyes were opened. Do you know how Unsullied are made and trained?”

~

He was too eloquent for her. Dany had no answer for him, only the raw feeling in her belly. “Slavery is not the same as rain,” she insisted. “I have been rained on and I have been sold. It is not the same. No man wants to be owned.”

~

“My dragons have grown, my shoulders have not. They range far afield, hunting.” Hazzea, forgive me.

~

Dany wondered how many men thirteen galleys could hold. It had taken three to carry her and her khalasar from Qarth to Astapor, but that was before she had acquired eight thousand Unsullied, a thousand sellswords, and a vast horde of freedmen. And the dragons, what am I to do with them? “Drogon,” she whispered softly, “where are you?” For a moment she could almost see him sweeping across the sky, his black wings swallowing the stars.

~

"As you say, Your Grace. Still. I will be watchful."

She kissed [Barristan] on the cheek. "I know you will. Come, walk me back down to the feast."

~

One of her young hostages brought her morning meal, a plump shy girl named Mezzara, whose father ruled the pyramid of Merreq, and Dany gave her a happy hug and thanked her with a kiss.

~

“We are all dead, then. You gave us death, not freedom.” Ghael leapt to his feet and spat into her face.

Strong Belwas seized him by the shoulder and slammed him down onto the marble so hard that Dany heard Ghael’s teeth crack. The Shavepate would have done worse, but she stopped him.

“Enough,” she said, dabbing at her cheek with the end of her tokar. “No one has ever died from spittle. Take him away.”

~

Dany would gladly have sent the rest of the petitioners away … but she was still their queen, so she heard them out and did her best to give them justice.

~

Late that afternoon Admiral Groleo and Ser Barristan returned from their inspection of the galleys. Dany assembled her council to hear them. Grey Worm was there for the Unsullied, Skahaz mo Kandaq for the Brazen Beasts. In the absence of her bloodriders, a wizened jaqqa rhan called Rommo, squint-eyed and bowlegged, came to speak for her Dothraki. Her freedmen were represented by the captains of the three companies she had formed—Mollono Yos Dob of the Stalwart Shields, Symon Stripeback of the Free Brothers, Marselen of the Mother’s Men. Reznak mo Reznak hovered at the queen’s elbow, and Strong Belwas stood behind her with his huge arms crossed. Dany would not lack for counsel.

~

Reznak mo Reznak gave a piteous moan. “Then it is true. Your Worship means to abandon us.” He wrung his hands. “The Yunkai’i will restore the Great Masters the instant you are gone, and we who have so faithfully served your cause will be put to the sword, our sweet wives and maiden daughters raped and enslaved.”

“Not mine,” grumbled Skahaz Shavepate. “I will kill them first, with mine own hand.” He slapped his sword hilt.

Dany felt as if he had slapped her face instead. “If you fear what may follow when I leave, come with me to Westeros.”

~

“Those left behind in Meereen would envy them their easy deaths,” moaned Reznak. “They will make slaves of us, or throw us in the pits. All will be as it was, or worse.”

“Where is your courage?” Ser Barristan lashed out. “Her Grace freed you from your chains. It is for you to sharpen your swords and defend your own freedom when she leaves.”

“Brave words, from one who means to sail into the sunset,” Symon Stripeback snarled back. “Will you look back at our dying?”

“Your Grace—”

“Magnificence—”

“Your Worship—”

“Enough.” Dany slapped the table. “No one will be left to die. You are all my people.” Her dreams of home and love had blinded her. “I will not abandon Meereen to the fate of Astapor. It grieves me to say so, but Westeros must wait.”

~

“My lord, I will gladly have those ships, but I cannot give you the promise that you ask.” She took his hand. “Give me the galleys, and I swear that Qarth will have the friendship of Meereen until the stars go out. Let me trade with them, and you will have a good part of the profits.”

Xaro’s glad smile died upon his lips. “What are you saying? Are you telling me you will not go?”

“I cannot go.”

ADWD Daenerys II

“Who is that weeping?”

“Your slave Missandei.” Jhiqui had a taper in her hand.

“My servant. I have no slaves.”

~

“Magnificence,” murmured Reznak mo Reznak, “we cannot know that these great nobles mean to join your enemies. More like they are simply making for their estates in the hills.”

“They will not mind us keeping their gold safe, then. There is nothing to buy in the hills.”

“They are afraid for their children,” Reznak said.

Yes, Daenerys thought, and so am I. “We must keep them safe as well. I will have two children from each of them. From the other pyramids as well. A boy and a girl.”

“Hostages,” said Skahaz, happily.

“Pages and cupbearers. If the Great Masters make objection, explain to them that in Westeros it is a great honor for a child to be chosen to serve at court.”

~

“[...] Will you hear my friends? There are seven of them as well. [...] They have come to add their voices to mine own, and ask Your Grace to let our fighting pits reopen.”

[...] Dany had no answer for that. If this is truly what my people wish, do I have the right to deny it to them? It was their city before it was mine, and it is their own lives they wish to squander. “I will consider all you've said. Thank you for your counsel.” She rose. “We will resume on the morrow.”

~

Safe. The word made Dany’s eyes fill up with tears. “I want to keep you safe.” Missandei was only a child. With her, she felt as if she could be a child too. “No one ever kept me safe when I was little. Well, Ser Willem did, but then he died, and Viserys … I want to protect you but … it is so hard. To be strong. I don’t always know what I should do. I must know, though. I am all they have. I am the queen … the … the …”

“… mother,” whispered Missandei.

“Mother to dragons.” Dany shivered.

“No. Mother to us all.” Missandei hugged her tighter. “Your Grace should sleep. Dawn will be here soon, and court.”

“We’ll both sleep, and dream of sweeter days. Close your eyes.” When she did, Dany kissed her eyelids and made her giggle.

~

Somewhere beneath those roofs, the Sons of the Harpy were gathered, plotting ways to kill her and all those who loved her and put her children back in chains. Somewhere down there a hungry child was crying for milk. Somewhere an old woman lay dying. Somewhere a man and a maid embraced, and fumbled at each other’s clothes with eager hands. But up here there was only the sheen of moonlight on pyramids and pits, with no hint what lay beneath. Up here there was only her, alone.

She was the blood of the dragon. She could kill the Sons of the Harpy, and the sons of the sons, and the sons of the sons of the sons. But a dragon could not feed a hungry child nor help a dying woman’s pain. And who would ever dare to love a dragon?

~

“The freedmen work too cheaply, Magnificence,” Reznak said. “Some call themselves journeymen, or even masters, titles that belong by rights only to the craftsmen of the guilds. The masons and the bricklayers do respectfully petition Your Worship to uphold their ancient rights and customs.”

“The freedmen work cheaply because they are hungry,” Dany pointed out. “If I forbid them to carve stone or lay bricks, the chandlers, the weavers, and the goldsmiths will soon be at my gates asking that they be excluded from those trades as well.”

~

“Hizdahr swears that the winners shall share half of all the coin collected at the gates,” said Khrazz. “Half, he swears it, and Hizdahr is an honorable man.”

No, a cunning man. Daenerys felt trapped. “And the losers? What shall they receive?”

~

The guilt …” The word caught in her throat. Hazzea, she thought, and suddenly she heard herself say, “I have to see the pit,” in a voice as small as a child’s whisper. “Take me down, ser, if you would.”

~

What sort of mother lets her children rot in darkness?

~

If I look back, I am doomed, Dany told herself … but how could she not look back? I should have seen it coming. Was I so blind, or did I close my eyes willfully, so I would not have to see the price of power?

[...] On the road to Yunkai, when Daario tossed the heads of Sallor the Bald and Prendahl na Ghezn at her feet, her children made a feast of them. Dragons had no fear of men. And a dragon large enough to gorge on sheep could take a child just as easily.

Her name had been Hazzea. She was four years old. Unless her father lied. He might have lied. No one had seen the dragon but him. His proof was burned bones, but burned bones proved nothing. He might have killed the little girl himself, and burned her afterward. He would not have been the first father to dispose of an unwanted girl child, the Shavepate claimed. The Sons of the Harpy might have done it, and made it look like dragon’s work to make the city hate me. Dany wanted to believe that … but if that was so, why had Hazzea’s father waited until the audience hall was almost empty to come forward? If his purpose had been to inflame the Meereenese against her, he would have told his tale when the hall was full of ears to hear.

 [...] Dany chose to pay the blood price. No one could tell her the worth of a daughter, so she set it at one hundred times the worth of a lamb. “I would give Hazzea back to you if I could,” she told the father, “but some things are beyond the power of even a queen. Her bones shall be laid to rest in the Temple of the Graces, and a hundred candles shall burn day and night in her memory. Come back to me each year upon her nameday, and your other children shall not want … but this tale must never pass your lips again.”

~

Mother of dragons, Daenerys thought. Mother of monsters. What have I unleashed upon the world? A queen I am, but my throne is made of burned bones, and it rests on quicksand. Without dragons, how could she hope to hold Meereen, much less win back Westeros? I am the blood of the dragon, she thought. If they are monsters, so am I.

ADWD Daenerys I

“Your Grace,” said Ser Barristan Selmy, the lord commander of her Queensguard, “there is no need for you to see this.”

“He died for me.”

~

“Grey Worm, why was this man alone? Had he no partner?” By her command, when the Unsullied walked the streets of Meereen by night they always walked in pairs.

“My queen,” replied the captain, “your servant Stalwart Shield had no duty last night. He had gone to a ... a certain place ... to drink, and have companionship.”

“A certain place? What do you mean?”

“A house of pleasure, Your Grace.”

[...] “What could a eunuch hope to find in a brothel?”

“Even those who lack a man’s parts may still have a man’s heart, Your Grace,” said Grey Worm. “This one has been told that your servant Stalwart Shield sometimes gave coin to the women of the brothels to lie with him and hold him.”

The blood of the dragon does not weep. “Stalwart Shield,” she said, dry-eyed. “That was his name?”

“If it please Your Grace.”

“It is a fine name.” The Good Masters of Astapor had not allowed their slave soldiers even names. Some of her Unsullied reclaimed their birth names after she had freed them; others chose new names for themselves. [...]

Dany said a silent prayer that somewhere one of the Harpy’s Sons was dying even now, clutching at his belly and writhing in pain. “Why did they cut open his cheeks like that?”

“Gracious queen,” said Grey Worm, “his killers had forced the genitals of a goat down the throat of your servant Stalwart Shield. This one removed them before bringing him here.”

[...] Shrugging off the lion pelt, she knelt beside the corpse and closed the dead man’s eyes, ignoring Jhiqui’s gasp. “Stalwart Shield shall not be forgotten. Have him washed and dressed for battle and bury him with cap and shield and spears.”

~

To rule Meereen I must win the Meereenese, however much I may despise them.

~

The hall had filled. Unsullied stood with their backs to the pillars, holding shields and spears, the spikes on their caps jutting upward like a row of knives. The Meereenese had gathered beneath the eastern windows. Her freedmen stood well apart from their former masters. Until they stand together, Meereen will know no peace. “Arise.” Dany settled onto her bench. The hall rose. That at least they do as one.

~

“What was the name of the old weaver?”

“The slave?” Grazdan shifted his weight, frowning. “She was … Elza, it might have been. Or Ella. It was six years ago she died. I have owned so many slaves, Your Grace.”

“Let us say Elza. Here is our ruling. From the girls, you shall have nothing. It was Elza who taught them weaving, not you. From you, the girls shall have a new loom, the finest coin can buy. That is for forgetting the name of the old woman.”

~

Reznak would have summoned another tokar next, but Dany insisted that he call upon a freedman. Thereafter she alternated between the former masters and the former slaves.

~

“Some men have brought burnt bones.”

“Men make fires. Men cook mutton. Burnt bones prove nothing. Brown Ben says there are red wolves in the hills outside the city, and jackals and wild dogs. Must we pay good silver for every lamb that goes astray between Yunkai and the Skahazadhan?”

“No, Magnificence." Reznak bowed. "Shall I send these rascals away, or will you want them scourged?”

Daenerys shifted on the bench. “No man should ever fear to come to me.” Some claims were false, she did not doubt, but more were genuine. Her dragons had grown too large to be content with rats and cats and dogs. The more they eat, the larger they will grow, Ser Barristan had warned her, and the larger they grow, the more they'll eat. Drogon especially ranged far afield and could easily devour a sheep a day. “Pay them for the value of their animals,” she told Reznak, “but henceforth claimants must present themselves at the Temple of the Graces and swear a holy oath before the gods of Ghis.”

A Storm of Swords

ASOS Daenerys VI

“I am going to take you home one day, Missandei,” Dany promised. If I had made the same promise to Jorah, would he still have sold me? “I swear it.”

“This one is content to stay with you, Your Grace. Naath will be there, always. You are good to this—to me.”

“And you to me.”

~

“The city bleeds. Dead men rot unburied in the streets, each pyramid is an armed camp, and the markets have neither food nor slaves for sale. And the poor children! King Cleaver’s thugs have seized every highborn boy in Astapor to make new Unsullied for the trade, though it will be years before they are trained.”

The thing that surprised Dany most was how unsurprised she was. She found herself remembering Eroeh, the Lhazarene girl she had once tried to protect, and what had happened to her. It will be the same in Meereen once I march, she thought.

~

“Any man who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman.” She raised a hand. “But they may not sell their children, nor a man his wife.”

~

“Aegon the Conqueror brought fire and blood to Westeros, but afterward he gave them peace, prosperity, and justice. But all I have brought to Slaver’s Bay is death and ruin. I have been more khal than queen, smashing and plundering, then moving on.”

“There is nothing to stay for,” said Brown Ben Plumm.

“Your Grace, the slavers brought their doom on themselves,” said Daario Naharis.

“You have brought freedom as well,” Missandei pointed out.

“Freedom to starve?” asked Dany sharply. “Freedom to die? Am I a dragon, or a harpy?” Am I mad? Do I have the taint?

“A dragon,” Ser Barristan said with certainty. “Meereen is not Westeros, Your Grace.”

“But how can I rule seven kingdoms if I cannot rule a single city?” He had no answer to that. Dany turned away from them, to gaze out over the city once again. “My children need time to heal and learn. My dragons need time to grow and test their wings. And I need the same. I will not let this city go the way of Astapor. I will not let the harpy of Yunkai chain up those I’ve freed all over again.” She turned back to look at their faces. “I will not march.”

“What will you do then, Khaleesi?” asked Rakharo.

“Stay,” she said. “Rule. And be a queen.”

ASOS Daenerys V

Her host numbered more than eighty thousand after Yunkai, but fewer than a quarter of them were soldiers. The rest ... well, Ser Jorah called them mouths with feet, and soon they would be starving.

The Great Masters of Meereen had withdrawn before Dany’s advance, harvesting all they could and burning what they could not harvest. Scorched fields and poisoned wells had greeted her at every hand. Worst of all, they had nailed a slave child up on every milepost along the coast road from Yunkai, nailed them up still living with their entrails hanging out and one arm always outstretched to point the way to Meereen. Leading her van, Daario had given orders for the children to be taken down before Dany had to see them, but she had countermanded him as soon as she was told. “I will see them,” she said. “I will see every one, and count them, and look upon their faces. And I will remember.”

By the time they came to Meereen sitting on the salt coast beside her river, the count stood at one hundred and sixty-three. I will have this city, Dany pledged to herself once more.

~

“Strong Belwas needs liver and onions.”

“You shall have it,” said Dany. “Strong Belwas is hurt.” His stomach was red with the blood sheeting down from the meaty gash beneath his breasts.

“It is nothing. I let each man cut me once, before I kill him.” He slapped his bloody belly. “Count the cuts and you will know how many Strong Belwas has slain.”

But Dany had lost Khal Drogo to a similar wound, and she was not willing to let it go untreated. She sent Missandei to find a certain Yunkish freedman renowned for his skill in the healing arts. Belwas howled and complained, but Dany scolded him and called him a big bald baby until he let the healer stanch the wound with vinegar, sew it shut, and bind his chest with strips of linen soaked in fire wine. Only then did she lead her captains and commanders inside her pavilion for their council.

~

Daario Naharis gave Grey Worm a smile. “Perhaps the Unsullied should wield the axes. Boiling oil feels like no more than a warm bath to you, I have heard.”

“This is false.” Grey Worm did not return the smile. “These ones do not feel burns as men do, yet such oil blinds and kills. The Unsullied do not fear to die, though. Give these ones rams, and we will batter down these gates or die in the attempt.”

“You would die,” said Brown Ben. At Yunkai, when he took command of the Second Sons, he claimed to be the veteran of a hundred battles. “Though I will not say I fought bravely in all of them. There are old sellswords and bold sellswords, but no old bold sellswords.” She saw that it was true.

Dany sighed. “I will not throw away Unsullied lives, Grey Worm.”

~

“...You stopped at Astapor to buy an army, not to start a war. Save your spears and swords for the Seven Kingdoms, my queen. Leave Meereen to the Meereenese and march west for Pentos.”

“Defeated?” said Dany, bristling.

[...] Dany set great store by Ser Jorah’s counsel, but to leave Meereen untouched was more than she could stomach. She could not forget the children on their posts, the birds tearing at their entrails, their skinny arms pointing up the coast road. “Ser Jorah, you say we have no food left. If I march west, how can I feed my freedmen?”

“You can’t. I am sorry, Khaleesi. They must feed themselves or starve. Many and more will die along the march, yes. That will be hard, but there is no way to save them. We need to put this scorched earth well behind us.”

Dany had left a trail of corpses behind her when she crossed the red waste. It was a sight she never meant to see again. “No,” she said. “I will not march my people off to die.” My children. “There must be some way into this city.”

~

The grove of burnt olive trees in which she’d raised her pavilion stood beside the sea, between the Dothraki camp and that of the Unsullied. When the horses had been saddled, Dany and her companions set out along the shoreline, away from the city. Even so, she could feel Meereen at her back, mocking her. When she looked over one shoulder, there it stood, the afternoon sun blazing off the bronze harpy atop the Great Pyramid. Inside Meereen the slavers would soon be reclining in their fringed tokars to feast on lamb and olives, unborn puppies, honeyed dormice and other such delicacies, whilst outside her children went hungry. A sudden wild anger filled her. I will bring you down, she swore.

ASOS Daenerys IV

Dany considered. The slaver host seemed small compared to her own numbers, but the sellswords were ahorse. She’d ridden too long with Dothraki not to have a healthy respect for what mounted warriors could do to foot. The Unsullied could withstand their charge, but my freedmen will be slaughtered. 

~

One of the first things Dany had done after the fall of Astapor was abolish the custom of giving the Unsullied new slave names every day. Most of those born free had returned to their birth names; those who still remembered them, at least. Others had called themselves after heroes or gods, and sometimes weapons, gems, and even flowers, which resulted in soldiers with some very peculiar names, to Dany’s ears. Grey Worm had remained Grey Worm. When she asked him why, he said, “It is a lucky name. The name this one was born to was accursed. That was the name he had when he was taken for a slave. But Grey Worm is the name this one drew the day Daenerys Stormborn set him free.”

“If battle is joined, let Grey Worm show wisdom as well as valor,” Dany told him. “Spare any slave who runs or throws down his weapon. The fewer slain, the more remain to join us after.”

“This one will remember.”

“I know he will. Be at my tent by midday. I want you there with my other officers when I treat with the sellsword captains.” Dany spurred her silver on to camp.

~

Within the perimeter the Unsullied had established, the tents were going up in orderly rows, with her own tall golden pavilion at the center. A second encampment lay close beyond her own; five times the size, sprawling and chaotic, this second camp had no ditches, no tents, no sentries, no horselines. Those who had horses or mules slept beside them, for fear they might be stolen. Goats, sheep, and half-starved dogs wandered freely amongst hordes of women, children, and old men. Dany had left Astapor in the hands of a council of former slaves led by a healer, a scholar, and a priest. Wise men all, she thought, and just. Yet even so, tens of thousands preferred to follow her to Yunkai, rather than remain behind in Astapor. I gave them the city, and most of them were too frightened to take it.

The raggle-taggle host of freedmen dwarfed her own, but they were more burden than benefit. Perhaps one in a hundred had a donkey, a camel, or an ox; most carried weapons looted from some slaver’s armory, but only one in ten was strong enough to fight, and none was trained. They ate the land bare as they passed, like locusts in sandals. Yet Dany could not bring herself to abandon them as Ser Jorah and her bloodriders urged. I told them they were free. I cannot tell them now they are not free to join me. She gazed at the smoke rising from their cookfires and swallowed a sigh. She might have the best footsoldiers in the world, but she also had the worst.

~

“I cannot sleep when men are dying for me, Whitebeard,” she said.

~

“Our own losses?”

“A dozen. If that many.”

Only then did she allow herself to smile.

~

“Sellsword or slave, spare all those who will pledge me their faith. If enough of the Second Sons will join us, keep the company intact.”

~

“Mhysa! Mhysa!”

Dany looked at Missandei. “What are they shouting?” “It is Ghiscari, the old pure tongue. It means ‘Mother.’”

Dany felt a lightness in her chest. I will never bear a living child, she remembered. Her hand trembled as she raised it. Perhaps she smiled. She must have, because the man grinned and shouted again, and others took up the cry. “Mhysa!” they called. “Mhysa! MHYSA!” They were all smiling at her, reaching for her, kneeling before her. “Maela,” some called her while others cried “Aelalla” or “Qathei” or “Tato,” but whatever the tongue it all meant the same thing. Mother. They are calling me Mother.

The chant grew, spread, swelled. It swelled so loud that it frightened her horse, and the mare backed and shook her head and lashed her silver-grey tail. It swelled until it seemed to shake the yellow walls of Yunkai. More slaves were streaming from the gates every moment, and as they came they took up the call. They were running toward her now, pushing, stumbling, wanting to touch her hand, to stroke her horse’s mane, to kiss her feet. Her poor bloodriders could not keep them all away, and even Strong Belwas grunted and growled in dismay.

Ser Jorah urged her to go, but Dany remembered a dream she had dreamed in the House of the Undying. “They will not hurt me,” she told him. “They are my children, Jorah.” She laughed, put her heels into her horse, and rode to them, the bells in her hair ringing sweet victory. She trotted, then cantered, then broke into a gallop, her braid streaming behind. The freed slaves parted before her. “Mother,” they called from a hundred throats, a thousand, ten thousand. “Mother,” they sang, their fingers brushing her legs as she flew by. “Mother, Mother, Mother!”

ASOS Daenerys III

“All,” growled Kraznys mo Nakloz, who smelled of peaches today. The slave girl repeated the word in the Common Tongue of Westeros. “Of thousands, there are eight. Is this what she means by all? There are also six centuries, who shall be part of a ninth thousand when complete. Would she have them too?”

“I would,” said Dany when the question was put to her. “The eight thousands, the six centuries ... and the ones still in training as well. The ones who have not earned the spikes.”

~

Dany let them argue, sipping the tart persimmon wine and trying to keep her face blank and ignorant. I will have them all, no matter the price, she told herself. The city had a hundred slave traders, but the eight before her were the greatest. When selling bed slaves, fieldhands, scribes, craftsmen, and tutors, these men were rivals, but their ancestors had allied one with the other for the purpose of making and selling the Unsullied. Brick and blood built Astapor, and brick and blood her people.

~

“My need is now. The Unsullied are well trained, but even so, many will fall in battle. I shall need the boys as replacements to take up the swords they drop.” She put her wine aside and leaned toward the slave girl. “Tell the Good Masters that I will want even the little ones who still have their puppies. Tell them that I will pay as much for the boy they cut yesterday as for an Unsullied in a spiked helm.”

The girl told them. The answer was still no.


Dany frowned in annoyance. “Very well. Tell them I will pay double, so long as I get them all.”


~

Two thousand would never serve for what she meant to do. I must have them all. Dany knew what she must do now, though the taste of it was so bitter that even the persimmon wine could not cleanse it from her month. She had considered long and hard and found no other way. It is my only choice. “Give me all,” she said, “and you may have a dragon.”

~

“When you are ... when you are done with them ... your Grace might command them to fall upon their swords.”

“And even that, they would do?”


“Yes.” Missandei’s voice had grown soft. “Your Grace.”

Dany squeezed her hand. “You would sooner I did not ask it of them, though. Why is that? Why do you care?”

“This one does not ... I ... Your Grace ... ”


“Tell me.”


The girl lowered her eyes. “Three of them were my brothers once, Your Grace.”

Then I hope your brothers are as brave and clever as you.

~

“Magister Illyrio is not here,” she finally had to tell him, “and if he was, he could not sway me either. I need the Unsullied more than I need these ships, and I will hear no more about it.”

The anger burned the grief and fear from her, for a few hours at the least.

~

“Do you remember Eroeh?” she asked him. “The Lhazareen girl?”

“They were raping her, but I stopped them and took her under my protection. Only when my sun-and-stars was dead Mago took her back, used her again, and killed her. Aggo said it was her fate.”

“I remember,” Ser Jorah said.

“I was alone for a long time, Jorah. All alone but for my brother. I was such a small scared thing. Viserys should have protected me, but instead he hurt me and scared me worse. He shouldn’t have done that. He wasn’t just my brother, he was my king. Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”

“Some kings make themselves. Robert did.”
“He was no true king,” Dany said scornfully. “He did no justice. Justice ... that’s what kings are for.”

~

“Unsullied! Defend us, stop them, defend your masters! Spears! Swords!”

[...] The Unsullied did not so much as look down to watch him die. Rank on rank on rank, they stood.

And did not move. The gods have heard my prayer.

“Unsullied!” Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.” She raised the harpy’s fingers in the air ... and then she flung the scourge aside. “Freedom!” she sang out. “Dracarys! Dracarys!”

“Dracarys!” they shouted back, the sweetest word she’d ever heard. “Dracarys! Dracarys!” And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire.

ASOS Daenerys II

“Tell her that these have been standing here for a day and a night, with no food nor water. [...] Such is their courage. Tell her that.”

“I call that madness, not courage,” said Arstan Whitebeard, when the solemn little scribe was done. He tapped the end of his hardwood staff against the bricks, tap tap, as if to tell his displeasure. The old man had not wanted to sail to Astapor; nor did he favor buying this slave army. A queen should hear all sides before reaching a decision. That was why Dany had brought him with her to the Plaza of Pride, not to keep her safe.

~

He stopped before a thickset man who had the look of Lhazar about him and brought his whip up sharply, laying a line of blood across one copper cheek. The eunuch blinked, and stood there, bleeding. “Would you like another?” asked Kraznys.

“If it please your worship.”

It was hard to pretend not to understand. Dany laid a hand on Kraznys’s arm before he could raise the whip again. “Tell the Good Master that I see how strong his Unsullied are, and how bravely they suffer pain.”

~

“There are other ways to tempt men, besides the flesh,” Arstan Whitebeard objected, when she was done.

“Men, yes, but not Unsullied. Plunder interests them no more than rape. They own nothing but their weapons. We do not even permit them names.”

“No names?” Dany frowned at the little scribe. “Can that be what the Good Master said? They have no names?”

~

“More madness,” said Arstan, when he heard. “How can any man possibly remember a new name every day?”

“Those who cannot are culled in training, along with those who cannot run all day in full pack, scale a mountain in the black of night, walk across a bed of coals, or slay an infant.”

Dany’s mouth surely twisted at that. Did he see, or is he blind as well as cruel? She turned away quickly, trying to keep her face a mask until she heard the translation. Only then did she allow herself to say, “Whose infants do they slay?”

“To win his spiked cap, an Unsullied must go to the slave marts with a silver mark, find some wailing newborn, and kill it before its mother’s eyes. In this way, we make certain that there is no weakness left in them.”

She was feeling faint. The heat, she tried to tell herself. “You take a babe from its mother’s arms, kill it as she watches, and pay for her pain with a silver coin?”

~

Dany climbed into her litter frowning, and beckoned Arstan to climb in beside her. A man as old as him should not be walking in such heat.

~

“Make way!” Jhogo shouted as he rode before her litter. “Make way for the Mother of Dragons!” But when he uncoiled the great silver-handled whip that Dany had given him, and made to crack it in the air, she leaned out and told him nay. “Not in this place, blood of my blood,” she said, in his own tongue. “These bricks have heard too much of the sound of whips.”

~

“Dog,” he said happily when he saw Dany. “Good dog in Astapor, little queen. Eat?” He offered it with a greasy grin.

“That is kind of you, Belwas, but no.” Dany had eaten dog in other places, at other times, but just now all she could think of was the Unsullied and their stupid puppies.

~

“How many men do they have for sale?”

“None.” Was it Mormont she was angry with, or this city with its sullen heat, its stinks and sweats and crumbling bricks? “They sell eunuchs, not men. Eunuchs made of brick, like the rest of Astapor. Shall I buy eight thousand brick eunuchs with dead eyes that never move, who kill suckling babes for the sake of a spiked hat and strangle their own dogs? They don’t even have names. So don’t call them men, ser.”

“Khaleesi,” he said, taken aback by her fury, “the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained—”

“I have heard all I care to of their training.” Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry.

Mormont touched the cheek she’d slapped. “If I have displeased my queen—”

“You have. You’ve displeased me greatly, ser. If you were my true knight, you would never have brought me to this vile sty.”

~

“They have been wild while you were gone, Khaleesi,” Irri told her. “Viserion clawed splinters from the door, do you see? And Drogon made to escape when the slaver men came to see them. When I grabbed his tail to hold him back, he turned and bit me.” She showed Dany the marks of his teeth on her hand.

“Did any of them try to burn their way free?” That was the thing that frightened Dany the most.

“No, Khaleesi. Drogon breathed his fire, but in the empty air. The slaver men feared to come near him.”

She kissed Irri’s hand where Drogon had bitten it. “I’m sorry he hurt you. Dragons are not meant to be locked up in a small ship’s cabin.”

~

Dusk had begun to settle over the waters of Slaver’s Bay before Dany returned to the deck. She stood by the rail and looked out over Astapor. From here it looks almost beautiful, she thought. The stars were coming out above, and the silk lanterns below, just as Kraznys’s translator had promised. The brick pyramids were all glimmery with light. But it is dark below, in the streets and plazas and fighting pits. And it is darkest of all in the barracks, where some little boy is feeding scraps to the puppy they gave him when they took away his manhood.

~

Cheaper than fighting, Dany thought. Yes, it might be. If only it could be that easy for her. How pleasant it would be to sail to King’s Landing with her dragons, and pay the boy Joffrey a chest of gold to make him go away.

~

“Viserys would have bought as many Unsullied as he had the coin for. But you once said I was like Rhaegar ...”

“I remember, Daenerys.”

“Your Grace,” she corrected. “Prince Rhaegar led free men into battle, not slaves. Whitebeard said he dubbed his squires himself, and made many other knights as well.”

“There was no higher honor than to receive your knighthood from the Prince of Dragonstone.”

“Tell me, then—when he touched a man on the shoulder with his sword, what did he say? ‘Go forth and kill the weak’? Or ‘Go forth and defend them’? At the Trident, those brave men Viserys spoke of who died beneath our dragon banners—did they give their lives because they believed in Rhaegar’s cause, or because they had been bought and paid for?” Dany turned to Mormont, crossed her arms, and waited for an answer.

ASOS Daenerys I

The captain appeared at her elbow. “Would that this Balerion could soar as her namesake did, Your Grace,” he said in bastard Valyrian heavily flavored with accents of Pentos. “Then we should not need to row, nor tow, nor pray for wind.”

“Just so, Captain,” she answered with a smile, pleased to have won the man over. Captain Groleo was an old Pentoshi like his master, Illyrio Mopatis, and he had been nervous as a maiden about carrying three dragons on his ship. Half a hundred buckets of seawater still hung from the gunwales, in case of fires. At first Groleo had wanted the dragons caged and Dany had consented to put his fears at ease, but their misery was so palpable that she soon changed her mind and insisted they be freed.


Even Captain Groleo was glad of that, now. There had been one small fire, easily extinguished; against that, Balerion suddenly seemed to have far fewer rats than she’d had before, when she sailed under the name Saduleon. And her crew, once as fearful as they were curious, had begun to take a queer fierce pride in “their” dragons. Every man of them, from captain to cook’s boy, loved to watch the three fly ... though none so much as Dany.

~

“Ser Jorah named Rhaegar the last dragon once. He had to have been a peerless warrior to be called that, surely?”

“Your Grace,” said Whitebeard, “the Prince of Dragonstone was a most puissant warrior, but ...”

“Go on,” she urged. “You may speak freely to me.”

~

“...A change in the wind may bring the gift of victory.” He glanced at Ser Jorah. “Or a lady’s favor knotted round an arm.”

Mormont’s face darkened. “Be careful what you say, old man.”

Arstan had seen Ser Jorah fight at Lannisport, Dany knew, in the tourney Mormont had won with a lady’s favor knotted round his arm. He had won the lady too; Lynesse of House Hightower, his second wife, highborn and beautiful ... but she had ruined him, and abandoned him, and the memory of her was bitter to him now. “Be gentle, my knight.” She put a hand on Jorah’s arm. “Arstan had no wish to give offense, I’m certain.”

~

“A queen must listen to all,” she reminded him. “The highborn and the low, the strong and the weak, the noble and the venal. One voice may speak you false, but in many there is always truth to be found.” She had read that in a book.

~

“It seems to me that a queen who trusts no one is as foolish as a queen who trusts everyone. Every man I take into my service is a risk, I understand that, but how am I to win the Seven Kingdoms without such risks? Am I to conquer Westeros with one exile knight and three Dothraki bloodriders?”

A Clash of Kings

ACOK Daenerys V

“Make way,” Aggo shouted, while Jhogo sniffed at the air suspiciously. “I smell it, Khaleesi,” he called. “The poison water.” The Dothraki distrusted the sea and all that moved upon it. Water that a horse could not drink was water they wanted no part of. They will learn, Dany resolved. I braved their sea with Khal Drogo. Now they can brave mine.

~

The brass merchant was still rolling on the ground. She went to him and helped him to his feet. “Were you stung?”

“No, good lady,” he said, shaking, “or else I would be dead. But it touched me, aieeee, when it fell from the box it landed on my arm.” He had soiled himself, she saw, and no wonder.

She gave him a silver for his trouble and sent him on his way before she turned back to the old man with the white beard.

ACOK Daenerys III

They must weigh twice what they had in Vaes Tolorro. Even so, it would be years before they were large enough to take to war. And they must be trained as well, or they will lay my kingdom waste. For all her Targaryen blood, Dany had not the least idea of how to train a dragon.

~

“The Pureborn refused you?”

“As you said they would. Come, sit, give me your counsel.”

ACOK Daenerys II

The Dothraki sacked cities and plundered kingdoms, they did not rule them. Dany had no wish to reduce King’s Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father.

But before she could do that she must conquer.

~

Beneath Dany's gentle fingers, green Rhaegal stared at the stranger with eyes of molten gold. When his mouth opened, his teeth gleamed like black needles. "When does your ship return to Westeros, Captain?" 

"Not for a year or more, I fear. From here the Cinnamon Wind sails east, to make the trader's circle round the Jade Sea." 

"I see," said Dany, disappointed. "I wish you fair winds and good trading, then. You have brought me a precious gift."

~

Dany laughed. "And will see more of them one day, I hope. Come to me in King's Landing when I am on my father's throne, and you shall have a great reward."

ACOK Daenerys I

They are not strong, she told herself, so I must be their strength. I must show no fear, no weakness, no doubt. However frightened my heart, when they look upon my face they must see only Drogo’s queen. She felt older than her fourteen years. If ever she had truly been a girl, that time was done.

~

Dany hungered and thirsted with the rest of them. The milk in her breasts dried up, her nipples cracked and bled, and the flesh fell away from her day by day until she was lean and hard as a stick, yet it was her dragons she feared for.

~

Jhogo said they must leave her or bind her to her saddle, but Dany remembered a night on the Dothraki sea, when the Lysene girl had taught her secrets so that Drogo might love her more. She gave Doreah water from her own skin, cooled her brow with a damp cloth, and held her hand until she died, shivering. Only then would she permit the khalasar to press on.

A Game of Thrones

AGOT Daenerys X

“You will be my khalasar,” she told them. “I see the faces of slaves. I free you. Take off your collars. Go if you wish, no one shall harm you. If you stay, it will be as brothers and sisters, husbands and wives.” The black eyes watched her, wary, expressionless. “I see the children, women, the wrinkled faces of the aged. I was a child yesterday. Today I am a woman. Tomorrow I will be old. To each of you I say, give me your hands and your hearts, and there will always be a place for you.”

AGOT Daenerys IX

“Eroeh?” asked Dany, remembering the frightened child she had saved outside the city of the Lamb Men.

“Mago seized her, who is Khal Jhaqo’s bloodrider now,” said Jhogo. “He mounted her high and low and gave her to his khal, and Jhaqo gave her to his other bloodriders. They were six. When they were done with her, they cut her throat.”

“It was her fate, Khaleesi,” said Aggo.


If I look back I am lost. “It was a cruel fate,” Dany said, “yet not so cruel as Mago’s will be. I promise you that, by the old gods and the new, by the lamb god and the horse god and every god that lives. I swear it by the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. Before I am done with them, Mago and Ko Jhaqo will plead for the mercy they showed Eroeh.”

The Dothraki exchanged uncertain glances. “Khaleesi,” the handmaid Irri explained, as if to a child, “Jhaqo is a khal now, with twenty thousand riders at his back.”

She lifted her head. “And I am Daenerys Stormhorn, Daenerys of House Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and old Valyria before them. I am the dragon’s daughter, and I swear to you, these men will die screaming. Now bring me to Khal Drogo.”

AGOT Daenerys VIII

“He fell from his horse,” Haggo said, staring down. His broad face was impassive, but his voice was leaden.

“You must not say that,” Dany told him. “We have ridden far enough today. We will camp here.”

~

“We must bathe him,” she said stubbornly. She must not allow herself to despair. “Irri, have the tub brought at once. Doreah, Eroeh, find water, cool water, he’s so hot.” He was a fire in human skin.

[...] While the bath was being prepared, Dany knelt awkwardly beside her lord husband, her belly great with their child within. She undid his braid with anxious fingers, as she had on the night he’d taken her for the first time, beneath the stars. His bells she laid aside carefully, one by one. He would want them again when he was well, she told herself.

~

“Help him,” Dany pleaded. “For the love you say you bear me, help him now.”

[...] “Your khal is good as dead, Princess.”

“No, he can’t die, he mustn’t, it was only a cut.” Dany took his large callused hand in her own small ones, and held it tight between them. “I will not let him die ...”

~

Dany hugged herself. “But why?” she cried plaintively. “Why should they kill a little baby?”

“He is Drogo’s son, and the crones say he will be the stallion who mounts the world. It was prophesied. Better to kill the child than to risk his fury when he grows to manhood.”

The child kicked inside her, as if he had heard. Dany remembered the story Viserys had told her, of what the Usurper’s dogs had done to Rhaegar’s children. His son had been a babe as well, yet they had ripped him from his mother’s breast and dashed his head against a wall. That was the way of men. “They must not hurt my son!” she cried. “I will order my khas to keep him safe, and Drogo’s bloodriders will—”

~

Dany did not want to go back to Vaes Dothrak and live the rest of her life among those terrible old women, yet she knew that the knight spoke the truth. Drogo had been more than her sun-and-stars; he had been the shield that kept her safe. “I will not leave him,” she said stubbornly, miserably. She took his hand again. “I will not.”

~

“This is your work, maegi,” Qotho said. Haggo laid his fist across Mirri’s cheek with a meaty smack that drove her to the ground. Then he kicked her where she lay.

“Stop it!” Dany screamed.

~

“So you have saved me once more.”

“And now you must save him,” Dany said. “Please ...”

[...] “All I can do now is ease the dark road before him, so he might ride painless to the night lands. He will be gone by morning.”

Her words were a knife through Dany’s breast. What had she ever done to make the gods so cruel? She had finally found a safe place, had finally tasted love and hope. She was finally going home. And now to lose it all ... “No,” she pleaded. “Save him, and I will free you, I swear it. You must know a way ... some magic, some ...”

~

She told herself she would die for him, if she must. She was the blood of the dragon, she would not be afraid. Her brother Rhaegar had died for the woman he loved.

~

She caught him by the shoulder, but Qotho shoved her aside. Dany fell to her knees, crossing her arms over her belly to protect the child within.

~

Someone threw a stone, and when Dany looked, her shoulder was torn and bloody. “No,” she wept, “no, please, stop it, it’s too high, the price is too high.” More stones came flying. She tried to crawl toward the tent, but Cohollo caught her. Fingers in her hair, he pulled her head back and she felt the cold touch of his knife at her throat. “My baby,” she screamed, and perhaps the gods heard, for as quick as that, Cohollo was dead. Aggo’s arrow took him under the arm, to pierce his lungs and heart.

AGOT Daenerys VII

The town was afire, black plumes of smoke roiling and tumbling as they rose into a hard blue sky. Beneath broken walls of dried mud, riders galloped back and forth, swinging their long whips as they herded the survivors from the smoking rubble. The women and children of Ogo’s khalasar walked with a sullen pride, even in defeat and bondage; they were slaves now, but they seemed not to fear it. It was different with the townsfolk. Dany pitied them; she remembered what terror felt like. Mothers stumbled along with blank, dead faces, pulling sobbing children by the hand. There were only a few men among them, cripples and cowards and grandfathers.

~

Ogo and his son had shared the high bench with her lord husband at the naming feast where Viserys had been crowned, but that was in Vaes Dothrak, beneath the Mother of Mountains, where every rider was a brother and all quarrels were put aside. It was different out in the grass. Ogo’s khalasar had been attacking the town when Khal Drogo caught him. She wondered what the Lamb Men had thought, when they first saw the dust of their horses from atop those cracked-mud walls. Perhaps a few, the younger and more foolish who still believed that the gods heard the prayers of desperate men, took it for deliverance.

Across the road, a girl no older than Dany was sobbing in a high thin voice as a rider shoved her over a pile of corpses, facedown, and thrust himself inside her. Other riders dismounted to take their turns. That was the sort of deliverance the Dothraki brought the Lamb Men.

I am the blood of the dragon, Daenerys Targaryen reminded herself as she turned her face away. She pressed her lips together and hardened her heart and rode on toward the gate.

“Most of Ogo’s riders fled,” Ser Jorah was saying. “Still, there may be as many as ten thousand captives.”

Slaves, Dany thought. Khal Drogo would drive them downriver to one of the towns on Slaver’s Bay. She wanted to cry, but she told herself that she must be strong. This is war, this is what it looks like, this is the price of the Iron Throne.

“I’ve told the khal he ought to make for Meereen,” Ser Jorah said. “They’ll pay a better price than he’d get from a slaving caravan. Illyrio writes that they had a plague last year, so the brothels are paying double for healthy young girls, and triple for boys under ten. If enough children survive the journey, the gold will buy us all the ships we need, and hire men to sail them.”

Behind them, the girl being raped made a heartrending sound, a long sobbing wail that went on and on and on. Dany’s hand clenched hard around the reins, and she turned the silver’s head. “Make them stop,” she commanded Ser Jorah.

“Khaleesi?” The knight sounded perplexed.


“You heard my words,” she said. “Stop them.” She spoke to her khas in the harsh accents of Dothraki. “Jhogo, Quaro, you will aid Ser Jorah. I want no rape.”

The warriors exchanged a baffled look.

Jorah Mormont spurred his horse closer. “Princess,” he said, “you have a gentle heart, but you do not understand. This is how it has always been. Those men have shed blood for the khal. Now they claim their reward.”

Across the road, the girl was still crying, her high singsong tongue strange to Dany’s ears. The first man was done with her now, and a second had taken his place.

“She is a lamb girl,” Quaro said in Dothraki. “She is nothing, Khaleesi. The riders do her honor. The Lamb Men lay with sheep, it is known.”

“It is known,” her handmaid Irri echoed.

“It is known,” agreed Jhogo, astride the tall grey stallion that Drogo had given him. “If her wailing offends your ears, Khaleesi, Jhogo will bring you her tongue.” He drew his arakh.

“I will not have her harmed,” Dany said. “I claim her. Do as I command you, or Khal Drogo will know the reason why.”

“Ai, Khaleesi,” Jhogo replied, kicking his horse. Quaro and the others followed his lead, the bells in their hair chiming.

“Go with them,” she commanded Ser Jorah.

“As you command.” The knight gave her a curious look. “You are your brother’s sister, in truth.”

“Viserys?” She did not understand.

“No,” he answered. “Rhaegar.” He galloped off.

~

Mormont pulled the girl off the pile of corpses and wrapped her in his blood-spattered cloak. He led her across the road to Dany. “What do you want done with her?”

The girl was trembling, her eyes wide and vague. Her hair was matted with blood. “Doreah, see to her hurts. You do not have a rider’s look, perhaps she will not fear you. The rest, with me.” She urged the silver through the broken wooden gate.

It was worse inside the town. Many of the houses were afire, and the jaqqa rhan had been about their grisly work. Headless corpses filled the narrow, twisty lanes. They passed other women being raped. Each time Dany reined up, sent her khas to make an end to it, and claimed the victim as slave. One of them, a thick-bodied, flat-nosed woman of forty years, blessed Dany haltingly in the Common Tongue, but from the others she got only flat black stares. They were suspicious of her, she realized with sadness; afraid that she had saved them for some worse fate.

“You cannot claim them all, child,” Ser Jorah said, the fourth time they stopped, while the warriors of her khas herded her new slaves behind her.

“I am khaleesi, heir to the Seven Kingdoms, the blood of the dragon,” Dany reminded him. “It is not for you to tell me what I cannot do.” Across the city, a building collapsed in a great gout of fire and smoke, and she heard distant screams and the wailing of frightened children.

~

He started to reach out a hand to Daenerys, but as he lifted his arm Drogo grimaced in sudden pain and turned his head.

Dany could almost feel his agony. The wounds were worse than Ser Jorah had led her to believe. “Where are the healers?” she demanded. [...] “Why do they not attend the khal?”

“The khal sent the hairless men away, Khaleesi,” old Cohollo assured her.

[...] “It is not for Khal Drogo to wait,” she proclaimed. “Jhogo, seek out these eunuchs and bring them here at once.”

~

“The khal needs no help from women who lie with sheep,” barked Qotho. “Aggo, cut out her tongue.”

Aggo grabbed her hair and pressed a knife to her throat. Dany lifted a hand. “No. She is mine. Let her speak.”

~

“The Great Shepherd sent me to earth to heal his lambs, wherever I might find them.”

Qotho gave her a stinging slap. “We are no sheep, maegi.”


“Stop it,” Dany said angrily. “She is mine. I will not have her harmed.”

~

“Know this, wife of the Lamb God. Harm the khal and you suffer the same.” He drew his skinning knife and showed her the blade.

“She will do no harm.” Dany felt she could trust this old, plainfaced woman with her flat nose; she had saved her from the hard hands of her rapers, after all.

 AGOT Daenerys VI

She saw a beautiful feathered cloak from the Summer Isles, and took it for a gift. [...] When Doreah looked longingly at a fertility charm at a magician’s booth, Dany took that too and gave it to the handmaid, thinking that now she should find something for Irri and Jhiqui as well.

AGOT Daenerys V

Dany had not known, had not even suspected. “Then ... he should have them. He does not need to steal them. He had only to ask. He is my brother ... and my true king.”

“He is your brother,” Ser Jorah acknowledged.

“You do not understand, ser,” she said. “My mother died giving me birth, and my father and my brother Rhaegar even before that. I would never have known so much as their names if Viserys had not been there to tell me. He was the only one left. The only one. He is all I have.” ~

A sense of dread closed around her heart. “Go to him,” she commanded Ser Jorah. “Stop him. Bring him here. Tell him he can have the dragon’s eggs if that is what he wants.” The knight rose swiftly to his feet.

“Where is my sister?” Viserys shouted, his voice thick with wine. “I’ve come for her feast. How dare you presume to eat without me? No one eats before the king. Where is she? The whore can’t hide from the dragon.”

~

Her voice made Viserys turn his head, and he saw her for the first time. “There she is,” he said, smiling. He stalked toward her, slashing at the air as if to cut a path through a wall of enemies, though no one tried to bar his way.

“The blade ... you must not,” she begged him. “Please, Viserys. It is forbidden. Put down the sword and come share my cushions. There’s drink, food ... is it the dragon’s eggs you want? You can have them, only throw away the sword.”

~

Distantly, as from far away, Dany heard her handmaid Jhiqui sobbing in fear, pleading that she dared not translate, that the khal would bind her and drag her behind his horse all the way up the Mother of Mountains. She put her arm around the girl. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I shall tell him.”

AGOT Daenerys IV

Dany followed on her silver, escorted by Ser Jorah Mormont and her brother Viserys, mounted once more. After the day in the grass when she had left him to walk back to the khalasar, the Dothraki had laughingly called him Khal Rhae Mhar, the Sorefoot King. Khal Drogo had offered him a place in a cart the next day, and Viserys had accepted. In his stubborn ignorance, he had not even known he was being mocked; the carts were for eunuchs, cripples, women giving birth, the very young and the very old. That won him yet another name: Khal Rhaggat, the Cart King. Her brother had thought it was the khal’s way of apologizing for the wrong Dany had done him. She had begged Ser Jorah not to tell him the truth, lest he be shamed. The knight had replied that the king could well do with a bit of shame ... yet he had done as she bid. It had taken much pleading, and all the pillow tricks Doreah had taught her, before Dany had been able to make Drogo relent and allow Viserys to rejoin them at the head of the column.

~

“So many,” she said as her silver stepped slowly onward, “and from so many lands.”

Viserys was less impressed. “The trash of dead cities,” he sneered. [...] “All these savages know how to do is steal the things better men have built ... and kill.” He laughed. “They do know how to kill. Otherwise I’d have no use for them at all.”

“They are my people now,” Dany said. “You should not call them savages, brother.”

“The dragon speaks as he likes,” Viserys said ... in the Common Tongue.

~

“I will give my brother his gifts tonight,” she decided as Jhiqui was washing her hair. “He should look a king in the sacred city. Doreah, run and find him and invite him to sup with me.” Viserys was nicer to the Lysene girl than to her Dothraki handmaids, perhaps because Magister Illyrio had let him bed her back in Pentos. “Irri, go to the bazaar and buy fruit and meat. Anything but horseflesh.”

“Horse is best,” Irri said. “Horse makes a man strong.”

“Viserys hates horsemeat.”

[...] While her handmaids prepared the meal, Dany laid out the clothing she’d had made to her brother’s measure: a tunic and leggings of crisp white linen, leather sandals that laced up to the knee, a bronze medallion belt, a leather vest painted with fire-breathing dragons. The Dothraki would respect him more if he looked less a beggar, she hoped, and perhaps he would forgive her for shaming him that day in the grass. He was still her king, after all, and her brother. They were both blood of the dragon.

She was arranging the last of his gifts—a sandsilk cloak, green as grass, with a pale grey border that would bring out the silver in his hair—when Viserys arrived, dragging Doreah by the arm. Her eye was red where he’d hit her. “How dare you send this whore to give me commands,” he said. He shoved the handmaid roughly to the carpet.

The anger took Dany utterly by surprise. “I only wanted ... Doreah, what did you say?”

“Khaleesi, pardons, forgive me. I went to him, as you bid, and told him you commanded him to join you for supper.”

“No one commands the dragon,” Viserys snarled. “I am your king! I should have sent you back her head!”

The Lysene girl quailed, but Dany calmed her with a touch. “Don’t be afraid, he won’t hurt you. Sweet brother, please, forgive her, the girl misspoke herself, I told her to ask you to sup with me, if it pleases Your Grace.” She took him by the hand and drew him across the room. “Look. These are for you.”

Viserys frowned suspiciously. “What is all this?”

“New raiment. I had it made for you.” Dany smiled shyly.

He looked at her and sneered. “Dothraki rags. Do you presume to dress me now?”

“Please ... you’ll be cooler and more comfortable, and I thought ... maybe if you dressed like them, the Dothraki ... ” Dany did not know how to say it without waking his dragon.

“Next you’ll want to braid my hair.”

“I’d never ... ” Why was he always so cruel? She had only wanted to help. “You have no right to a braid, you have won no victories yet.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Fury shone from his lilac eyes, yet he dared not strike her, not with her handmaids watching and the warriors of her khas outside. Viserys picked up the cloak and sniffed at it. “This stinks of manure. Perhaps I shall use it as a horse blanket.”

“I had Doreah sew it specially for you,” she told him, wounded. “These are garments fit for a khal.” “I am the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, not some grass-stained savage with bells in his hair,” Viserys spat back at her. He grabbed her arm. “You forget yourself, slut. Do you think that big belly will protect you if you wake the dragon?”

His fingers dug into her arm painfully and for an instant Dany felt like a child again, quailing in the face of his rage. She reached out with her other hand and grabbed the first thing she touched, the belt she’d hoped to give him, a heavy chain of ornate bronze medallions. She swung it with all her strength.

It caught him full in the face. Viserys let go of her. Blood ran down his cheek where the edge of one of the medallions had sliced it open. “You are the one who forgets himself,” Dany said to him. “Didn’t you learn anything that day in the grass? Leave me now, before I summon my khas to drag you out. And pray that Khal Drogo does not hear of this, or he will cut open your belly and feed you your own entrails.”

Viserys scrambled back to his feet. “When I come into my kingdom, you will rue this day, slut.” He walked off, holding his torn face, leaving her gifts behind him.

Drops of his blood had spattered the beautiful sandsilk cloak. Dany clutched the soft cloth to her cheek and sat cross-legged on her sleeping mats.

“Your supper is ready, Khaleesi,” Jhiqui announced.

“I’m not hungry,” Dany said sadly. She was suddenly very tired.

#daenerys targaryen #a dance with dragons #a storm of swords #a clash of kings #a game of thrones #dany passages

[benjimirthursby]

Prompt #10: Avail - “Weaving the Cloaks, Forging the Dagger.” - The Book of Thursby: Scions of Numenor

“I never expected that our work would evade notice, rather I hoped to effect some measure of control over how it was observed, assessed, judged.”

-Benjimir Thursby, “Seven Stars to the Horizon.”

(Revised 9/21 for additional content, details, grammar, and Feng Shui.)

Officially it had no formal title, but in communique and common speech it was referred to as Company Hall.  Among the officers of the Thursby Company it was often named Tondera Hall, for reasons none would explain when asked.  Among the Scions company it was called the White Tree after the first sub-level which had been arranged into a spa by the same name.  The spa was open to the public and frequently served recuperating company members.  The first level held a service desk at which members of all companies, guests, and customers of the spa conducted business.  A crafting, engineering space, which Ossimira Miegs seemed to dwell in all hours the night and day was behind the service desk.  Scattered through the hall, in sub-levels under the main building, were quarters and rooms.  Most were in the hill abutting the hall, others in the sub-levels along the ridge overlooking the nearby streams and lake.  This afforded many rooms windows.  Collectively the design also made the hall seem deceptively small as seen from it’s courtyard.

Benjimir kept personal quarters in Company Hall.  Also, there were offices for the newly appointed business management gurus the Twinkinryker twins.  A few rooms served as backups to their Thursby Company counterparts in Ul’Dah.  Benjimir was in conference with his younger brother Bondermir in one such room.  A plaque on the door identified it as AUXFLTOPS.  The Auxiliary Fleet Operations room.  There was next to it a similar room whose focus was caravans and warehousing related.

In the far end of the room was a large map on the wall.  On the map were color coded paper icons representing company ships, convoys, anchorages and port slips.  Each was pinned to the map with a small slip of paper naming each.  Ships were labelled by class, origin, destination, mission and commander.  Strings from the icons led to each ships destination on the map. 

Two clerks, “up wellers,” Sammie and Adler, sat at the Watch Desk next to the map.  They had a small Linkpearl box in front of them.  The box was of Eorzean craft, intended to channel many links to it.  Those paired links were in boxes aboard each of the ships on the map.  As updates were received, the maps, ledgers, schedules and other information were updated there.  In Ul’Dah an identical room, larger and more elaborate, replicated the effort.  Which room actively took responsibility for “the watch” rotated.  Today “Tondera” had the watch.  Another set of rooms nearby and in Ul’Dah were similarly appointed and focused on caravans.

“Watch, Baxter.  Arriving, Kugane slip 3, FSB 1251.” a voice said over the link box.  Adler marked a log and spoke into the box.  “Baxter, Watch aye.  Time in, Fleet Standard Bell 1251.”  Adler walked to a short step ladder in front of the main map and updated the marker for the ship and moved it to Kugane.

Benjimir returned his eyes from the Watch desk to the map he and Bondermir were standing in front of.  His attention was drawn repeatedly to the older map on the opposite wall.  A few years prior it tracked Company and Maelstrom vessels and points where battles had been fought in the Dragonsong War.  None involved Company ships at that point.  In the years since the current map in front of him traced points of contact and combat, mostly with pirates and the initial engagements with the Confederacy to the present day.  Points of contact with Garlean ships were highlighted.  There had not been any fighting since the previous war and little even then.  The Imperial fleet had been scattered and unable to mass during the conflict.  

“The Alliance wants nothing to do with it, but the sentiment in the ranks isn’t solidly behind their leadership.” Bondermir said.  He pointed up at several places on the map.  “There are skirmishes all along these Imperial zones of control, Ala Mihgo, and such.” he added.  Each zone had one or more ports and shipping lanes traveled by Company ships.

“And we have business interests, caravans and Scions all over those places.” Benjimir lamented.  “If this escalates and the Alliance is drawn into a fight involving the Empire we may have a difficult time avoiding contact this time.  Our footprint is bigger now.” he said rhetorically as Bondermir knew this as well as any in the Company.

“Aye.  It is aligned with our intents and interests to oppose the Imperials.  If this continues to track along its current path the Alliance will get drawn into it.  If they are pulled into a shooting war I don’t foresee how we avoid it either.”  Bondermir said.  Benjimir nodded his head and pointed to the areas nearest to the Imperials.  The conversation paused.

At the duty desk the clerk picked up a small card and reached to another device next to the Linkbox.  It resembled a childs toy, a small keyboard with six keys and a small speaker, set in a wooden box with gold painted decorative details.  The clerk pressed a button on the linkbox which locked the transmission open then began to tap the keys on the new device. She pressed two keys like playing a musical instrument, each resulted in a different tones playing.  She repeated this six times with two different keys each then spoke into the Linkbox.  “Watch testing with Forrostar, Andustar, Baxter, Fairstar, Fairsea, Entulesse. FSB 1300.”

“We need eyes and ears out there.  And everywhere else really.  This is happening weather we or the Alliance wants it or not and we’re still treating this like a research project writ large.” Benjimir said, turning to his brother.  

“Business ledgers, passenger manifests, field reports from the Scions don’t tell us enough of what we need to know.  We have more shipping agents than intelligence agents.  We won’t avail ourselves anything by being passive here.  With the Twinkinrykers onboard now I’m naming you our Director of Strategic Information.  I need spies Bondermir, a lot of them.” Benjimir said.

At the Watch desk the Linkbox squawked with a long three tone signal, which was assigned to the Company Hall.  A voiced followed up as Sammie and Adler began to mark entries into their logs and close them.  “Tondera, Ul’Dah.  Tondera we stand ready to relieve  you.”  the voice said.  Sammie leaned forward and pressed the key to talk on the Linkbox.  “Ul’Dah, Tondera, we stand relieved.”  A moment later the voice from Ul’Dah spoke again.  “Tondera aye.  All players, all players, Ul’dah has the Watch, FSB 1305, good day!”

Bondermir cringed at the identical twin Lalafells taking up much of his work over the Thursby Company but it was something long planned.  “For both companies?” He asked.  Benjimir shook his head.  “No, only the TC.  Keep this clear of the Scions of Numenor.  We need them to keep their hands clean.  Variance from that is at my sole discretion, is that understood?” Benjimir said with a stern look.  

“Understood sir.  When should I begin?” Bondermir asked.

“At once and with haste.  I already feel a draft on our backside.  Like we are missing something.  Right now, we are the fly on the web Bondermir.  The Empire is a ruthless but professional organization.  An unambiguous risk to already know we are here or to endanger our people.  We need to know not only what is happening but to guard ourselves from those that maybe watching”  Benjimir said.

“It will be done.” Bondermir said.  He looked at the center of the room.  There sat the wargaming table.  A prized possession and training tool of commodore T’subaki.  It was a map of Haydaelyn’s Ruby Sea with an overlapping grid.  Along the side of the table, arranged in neat rows were small model ships of unique design, presented from the waterline up.  It was used to model possible engagement scenarios, plan and test responses.

“I wish there was a game for planning this sort of thing out.” Bondermir thought to himself.

*******

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