#but like. genuinely fucking HEARTBREAKING that they got ripped away from the literal sea and now

[biillys]

Don't think about Billy shaking Max awake when the house is filled with snores not muffled whines. Bruises hidden in the dark but wincing as he lifts his arm, Max rolling away until she stills in realization. They leave together, breath held as the window frame in a bedroom slides up. The Camaro starts - if Billy has the key. maybe they walk the few miles to the pool, Hawkins is small and it's dark and the demodogs aren't coming back. They're making themselves safe, just by leaving for the night.

The pool beckons, familiar shadows in the poolhouse and stacked chairs higher than Max is tall. Billy pulls one down for her, a screech of metal legs over poured concrete. He doesn't wince at the sound as Max raids the lost & found for towels. Or maybe they just keep a stash of towels, a spare set of clothes in Billy's lifeguard locker. No blankets or pillows, nothing that can't be explained away even if they're always gone with the dim rays of dawn peeking through the forest. The pool glitters in those brief moments, almost peaceful even if it's not the sea that Billy misses so badly it aches.

It's not meant to be more than an occasional thing, but Billy can't bear leaving her alone in the house on Cherry Lane. It won't be permanent, he just needs a little more in his rainy day fund. A bank account that Neil can't touch, one that has his name and maybe Susan's on it.

He thinks he'll have enough money for an apartment, maybe a trailer on the other side of town with scraggly weeds and his dealer, by the end of July.

losing my mind losing my mind losing my mind please this is exactly what i wanted to hear about after writing those tags on that post i love you 🥺

#its billy sneaking into her room anc silently shaking her awake in the dead of the night!!! #its them driving to the pool!!! the camaro probably the only car on the road at that time of night #probably a rare trip with no music blasting! just the silence! #or! them walking! probably not even really saying a word to each other! just slowly making their way to their end destination! #no need to explain or fill the quiet! #'they're making themselves safe; just by leaving for the night.' luc!!!!! #its them having a familiar routine once they get to the pool! max on the chair! billy on the pools edge! #towels laid out! #'the pool glitters in those moments; almost peaceful even if its not the sea billy misses so badly it aches.' LUC!!!!!!! #i know we bang on about billy and the ocean and max and surfing and the pool and everything that there is About That #but like. genuinely fucking HEARTBREAKING that they got ripped away from the literal sea and now #have to make do with some cheap piss poor chemicalised imitation of the great big body of water that was the ocean herself #and just. be okay with that. like they just have to live with that and accept that theyre just. never gonna see the ocean again anytime soon #not gonna see it unless they make it happen themselves. #'but billy cant bear leaving her alone in the house on cherry lane' luc 🥺🥺🥺 #he just!!! needs a little more time!!!! and a little more money!!! for his rainy day fund!!! #so they can start Step One of their Get The Fuck Outta Here journey!!! #and if step one isn't california herself but instead a cheap trailer on the bad side of town #thats a start!!! thats the first step baby! #thats close to work for billy! thats close enough to hawkins high for max! thats close to (eddie! chrissy! uncle wayne!) supportive people! #god luc u fucking Get it #also u gave me permission to post this so i am 🥺💞 #luc tag <3 #billy x max fic #eddie munson #msgs <3

[preservationandruin]

Oathbringer Liveblog, Part Four: Chapters 88-92

Part Four: Defy! Sing Beginnings! 

Interesting. Both in this and the prior title, we get what almost sounds like part of a poem. There’s a massive, massive list of POVs here: Adolin, Shallan, Kaladin, Dalinar, Navani, Szeth, Taravangian, and Venli. Hoo boy. 

A group of our heroes are on a very strange road trip, and we touch in with Szeth and his sword, who is sulking. 

Another flashback, this time to eight years ago. He’s still...not over the Rift. Obviously. You never get over something like that. When he just looks at people, this happens: 

He saw fires reflected in their eyes, and heard the weeping of children in the back of his mind.  Don’t be weak, Dalinar thought. It’s been almost three years.  Three years, living with what he’d done. Three years, wasting away in Kholinar. He’d assumed it would get better.  It was only getting worse. 

Sadeas managed to fucking pull a spin job on them putting a town to the torch by saying the fire itself had been an accident and their hands had been forced due to the “killing of Dalinar’s wife.” 

Bullshit. But it worked--the message here is that Gavilar doesn’t want to send Dalinar on missions, because who knows what could happen? Nobody wants that. So everyone will go out of their way to give Gavilar any option that is not fighting. 

So efficient. All it had cost was one city. And possibly Dalinar’s sanity. 

Here we were thinking that Gavilar’s death was what broke Dalinar--and it did, in part, but he’d also broken long,  long ago. Dalinar can’t stand to be in the same room as fire anymore. He can’t stay in his own keep anymore. 

Renarin is burning incense in their rooms--the same scent Evi liked. I’ll bet this is Renarin’s way of mourning, but...I can’t imagine that Dalinar will take that well. Dal, if you’re shitty to Renarin at all I will find a way to go back in time and manifest in the cosmere and kick your ass. 

He can’t find any wine--he thinks Gavilar may have moved it, although he says he only drinks “on bad days.” I...doubt that. I’ve literally heard the excuses of alcoholics, and that’s one of the main ones. 

He can’t even really interact with Adolin. Adolin says he has a duel set up, he’s fifteen and cheerful and thrilled and: 

Emotions warred inside of Dalinar. Memories of good years spent with his son in Jah Keved, riding or teaching him the sword.  Memories of her. The woman from whom Adolin had inherited that blond hair and that smile. So genuine. Dalinar wouldn’t trade Adolin’s sincerity for a hundred soldiers in proper uniforms. But he also couldn’t face it right now.

So he admonishes Adolin for not acting like a proper soldier. Because he wanted to be excited at his dad about getting a duel set up. Because he wanted Dalinar to be proud of him. 

There’s a beggar on the beggar’s porch called Ahu, a strange man who always has a bottle. Dalinar goes to find him; he calls Dalinar “little child.” And he’s ethnically strange, too dark to be Alethi. 

...DID DALINAR GO GET WASTED WITH ONE OF THE HERALDS ON THE REGULAR?????

“How are the voices?”  “Soft, today. They chant about ripping me apart. Eating my flesh. Drinking my blood.” 

DALINAR ABSOLUTELY GOT WASTED ON THE REGULAR WITH ONE OF THE HERALDS. JESUS CHRIST. 

“Which one got to you, child? The Black Fisher? The Spawning Mother, the Faceless? Moelach is close. I can hear his wheezing, his scratching, his scraping at time like a rat breaking through walls.”  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  “Madness,” Ahu said, then giggled. “I used to think it wasn’t my fault. But you know, we can’t escape what we did? We let them in. We attracted them, befriended them, took them out to dance and courted them. It is our fault. You open yourself to it, and you pay the price. They ripped my brain out and made it dance! I watched.” 

Yeah. Definitely a Herald, talking about the unmade, talking about how humans draw them to them, about how you have to let them in, just like you have to let the Voidbringers out. They wait for you to be vulnerable, and they make you vulnerable, and then they take and take and take. 

And he gets back and hears Adolin talking to Gavilar about how worried he is about Dalinar. Oh, that’s heartbreaking. Elhokar is there too--Dalinar is surprised that Elhokar isn’t a child anymore. He calls Dalinar a drunken fool, and we get that Gavilar didn’t remove the wine--Dalinar already drank it all. 

Adolin snaps at Elhokar; Gavilar has to calm them down, assuring them that Dalinar will fight through it. Dalinar goes to ignore them, collapsing on the nearest couch. 

We get a bit of a map of “the sea of lost lights,” which I’ll bet is another name for Shadesmar. Unclear whose it is, but it has notes in it like “I hate this lake” and “I managed to ride a manda from here to there so you owe me money” so like, could be Nazh, could be Wit, could be another shithead worldhopper. 

An Adolin viewpoint, and epigraphs here are from the Mythica, the book on the Unmade. I’m so glad we’re getting good information on them. 

Adolin is like 99% sure he’s in Damnation, which, no, but you could get there from here, I’m pretty sure Braize can be accessed from Shadesmar it’s only like one planet over. 

Adolin tries to summon his Shardblade and the spren with scratched-out eyes screeches at him, pretty much confirming my hunch about who it is. It’s his sword’s spren, isn’t it. 

“That is your sword,” Pattern said in a perky voice. He had no mouth that Adolin could see. “Hmmmm. She is quite dead. I don’t think you can summon her here.”

God, Pattern must be so unnerving to Adolin. Hi here’s this vaguely eldritch-looking creature with no visible face. He’s always chipper and thinks you’re nice and, although you don’t know it, was considering marrying you for a moment. 

The fact that Pattern got excited about that line still kills me. 

They try to get Kaladin to do something and Syl is just standing by him, a hand protectively on his back, going “Kaladin’s not well.” She’s trying so hard to protect him. I love Kaladin and Syl. 

Anyway, a giant claw shoots up out of the sea of beads--the physical form of the Unmade. Yike. 

More emerged in other directions. An enormous hand was reaching slowly upward through the glass beads. Deep beneath them a heartbeat began sounding, rattling the beads. 

Adolin, still understandably freaked-out, stumbles and comes face-to-face with the eyeless spren of his sword again. He is very, very sure he’s in hell right now. 

We cut over to Shallan, the only one there with the surge of Soulcasting and thus the one most likely to get them a boat. Unfortunately, Pattern says that soulcasting something here might not actually work. She manages to use a shield’s bead to make a solid replica of it out of stormlight and beads--one that Pattern can jump up and down on without sinking. 

“You,  sword lady!” Shallan said,  pointing at Azure. “Help me over here. Adolin, you too. Kaladin, see if you can brood this place into submission.” 

Shallan is repressing pretty much everything again, focusing on the task at hand. She finds souls--spren of swords, who feel that they’ve failed if their owners have fallen. For a moment, she finds Drehy the bridgeman, panicking--but he’ll have to find his way through alone. She manages to make a copy of the Oathgate control building, letting them climb onto its roof. She basically uses a door and a building to make progressive stepping-stones, letting them get to the river. 

So the Oathgate in Kholinar is corrupted, but it looks like Sja-anat succeeded in trying not to kill them. They didn’t end up in a great place, but they’re alive. Meanwhile, Adolin is feeling useless--understandably. But he helps Kaladin move along. 

“Hey,” Adolin said. “It will be alright.”  “I survived Bridge Four,” Kaladin growled. “I’m strong enough to survive this.”  “I’m pretty sure you could survive anything. Storms, bridgeboy, the Almighty used some of the same stuff he put in Shardblades when he made you.” 

That is simultaneously the most heartwarming and most badass compliment i have ever heard. 

Adolin keeps talking to Kaladin--Kaladin snaps and asks why, and Adolin admits that he talks when he’s frightened. Adolin works to keep Kaladin talking and keep him moving, though, which is good. Kal’s in shock right now. He needs something to keep him going and hey--out of the lot of them there, Adolin’s the one who’s best at empathy and intuition. 

Azure followed, her shoulders sagging. In fact, her...her hair was fading. It was the strangest thing; Adolin watched it dim from Alethi jet-black to a faint grey as she sat down. Must be another effect of this strange place. 

Nope, that’s just that’s she’s Vivenna. 

Also, although Adolin is saying that he’s useless,  he’s the one insisting that they camp because Azure, Shallan, and Kaladin are all exhausted. He finds a good place, he gets them to move and set up. He’s...he’s good at this. I love Adolin. 

Adolin: I’m useless Adolin: is singlehandedly keeping the group focused and together

Adolin also realizes that, um...he’s third in line to the throne, and little Gav is gone, and Dalinar has abdicated--meaning that technically, Adolin is king of Alethkar. 

Yikes. 

Anyway, we’re over to Szeth! Who we haven’t heard from in a while. Apparently, in restoring him, Nale was almost too late and Szeth’s soul didn’t attach right to his body. Those who are close to the Surges see him leave a glowing afterimage as he moves, which is, I admit, a little creepy. Also, Nightblood is talking to Szeth again and remains, well, nightblood: 

You should draw me, Szeth! I would love to see the lake. Vasher says there are magic fish here. Isn’t that interesting?

I love Nightblood. 

Anyway, Szeth is like “this sword is an interesting test from Nale, I don’t know what it’s supposed to teach me yet, but--” and I’m like. Nale was just sick of Nightblood yelling in his head and pawned it off on you Szeth it’s not a test it’s Nale just trying to get rid of constant excited sword noises in the back of his head. 

Anyway, we get that Szeth is not entirely sane--he’s hearing whispers in the spiritual realm of the people he’s killed, and they keep him up at night, sobbing. Also, Nightblood has Opinions of the superior Skybreakers. 

“Hopefuls,” [Ki] said in Azish, “you have been brought here because a full Skybreaker has vouched for your dedication and solemnity.”  She’s boring, the sword said. Where did Nale go? “You said he was boring too, sword-nimi,” Szeth whispered.  That’s true, but interesting things happen around him. We need to tell him that you should draw me more often. 

Nightblood also complains that Vasher always drew him, which...is untrue. Of course. But hey, Nightblood is sulky. Apparently, nobody has sworn all five of the Skybreaker ideals in centuries--although I suspect that might have something to do with how rigid and unyielding a system the Skybreakers have. 

The ideals are as follows--The Ideal of Radiance, which is the first one; the Ideal of Justice, to seek and administer it; the Ideal of Dedication, requiring having bonded a highspren, after which they’re taught Division as a surge; the Fourth is Crusade, choosing and completing a personal quest to the satisfaction of a highspren. The fifth is to become the Law, to become truth--no wonder a group so dedicated to following the law is having trouble. 

I don’t know if anyone else in here reads Discworld, but Sam Vimes absolutely has all of those ideals down. Especially the last one. Hell, a Sammy is what they call a cop in Ankh-Morpork. Although Sam is probably not the kind of Skybreaker Nale is looking for. 

Nightblood is still sulking. 

Anyway, over to Kaladin. The Mythica says that the Unmade were almost definitely still spren. 

Kal is flashing back to when he was in Amaram’s army, a time he froze on the front lines and was assigned to crem-clearing duty. Kal says he didn’t freeze because he was scared of getting hurt, it was because he was scared of hurting someone else; Tukks, his sergeant, notes that that’s a different problem, says he manages it because his squad is like his family, and he can’t let them down. But he didn’t tell Tukks the truth. It wasn’t that he was scared he was going to hurt someone. It was because he had realized that he could, if he needed to, and that terrified him. 

All shadows, in Shadesmar, point toward the sun. Syl comes over to sit by Kal, in the present day, while the others are still asleep. She thinks it’s strange that Pattern is so nice. Kaladin is refusing to talk about the real problem, though--the fact that he froze up in battle. 

Over to Szeth again. He’s seeking down a convict who escaped into a lake; they have tattoos on their foreheads marking them. Much like Kaladin, then. Szeth suspects the test is of more than that, though--because if it was just about “how fast can you kill the guilty,” it wouldn’t be much of a test. 

Szeth says that he knew a voice in his mind like Nightblood’s, when he was young, but that “he hopes things go better this time.” Hm. Was he going to be a Radiant even then? Was he being pushed to talk about having visions of the Desolation? 

Hard to say. 

Anyway, Nightblood is getting irritated at the lack of killing evil that is happening. A convict was hiding and jumps out at Szeth; he stops himself from killing him, knowing that he needs to question him instead. Anyway, Szeth is almost being drowned in the Purelake, which is great. And he drops Nightblood. 

And, given that it’s Nightblood, the convict instantly grabs for it. Good old Nightblood, drawing evil to it. Szeth paralyzes the man and leaves him to drown, saying it’s less cruel than the alternative--feeding him to a greatshell. 

Vivenna used to tell me that cruelty is only for men, as is mercy. Only we can choose one or the other, and beasts cannot. “You count yourself as a man?”  No. But sometimes she talked like she did. And after Shashara made me, she argued with Vasher, saying I could be a poet or a scholar. Like a man, right? Shashara? That sounded like Shalash, the Eastern name for the Herald Shush-daughter-God. So perhaps this sword’s origin was with the Heralds. 

Close, but no. Interesting that Shashara’s name is so similar to Shalash, but we know Shalash is alive and Shashara is dead from Warbreaker. Szeth figures out how horribly-maintained the prison was and that there was only one guard, and that nobody stopped them from making weapons. 

Szeth turned from him to Ki. “Do you have a writ of execution for this man?”  “It is the first we obtained.” 

There’s the test. Not “catch the criminals,” but “find out who the true lawbreaker is, find out how this happened.” 

And Szeth draws Nightblood. Colors change around him, Szeth’s skin is in pain, and the entire poor nobleman vanishes into smoke. His hand, which he used to wield it, has been bleached grey-white. He’ll need some stormlight for that. 

Anyway, we get that Nightblood--of course--forgets when he’s been drawn and also doesn’t really have a good sense of time. Or scale. Or...well. He’s Nightblood. 

Anyway, Ki has decided to take Szeth on as her squire. Turns out there was an argument among the Skybreakers over who got to, because he’s clearly one of the best of the hopefuls. 

Szeth nodded. “I swear to seek justice, to let it guide me, until I find a more perfect Ideal.”  “These words are accepted,” Ki said. 

That’s...that’s an interesting way to swear an oath. Until I find a more perfect Ideal. Well, it’s very Szeth-esque. Also, he’s got the sky back now!!!

#oathbringer spoilers #stormlight archive liveblog #adolin kholin is a ray of light #i love my weird sword child #shadesmar road trip