#desperation's summit part 8

[eruden-writes]

Desperation's Summit - Part 8 (Troll x Human)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4  | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 (coming soon)

Summary: What happens when a rich human woman gets kidnapped by a troll in the mountains? The troll claims it was an accident, but is that really true?

cw: spousal death backstory

Taglist: @coolninjavoid

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Rallying herself, Cordelia's nose scrunched up and gave a prim laugh. She almost wish she hadn't as Rakash turned to face her, his eyebrows quirk questioningly. Cordelia didn't let her mask slip this time. She flashed him a sharp smile as she gave him a light push on his chest. "Since I did most of the kitchen, have fun bathing your little atrociously sticky tots."

His eyes fell to his chest, where her palm pressed against him. Half a beat passed, a subtle flare passing between the two adults. Without thinking, Cordelia quickly withdrew her hand, but Rakash's eyes followed it, before flicking to her face.

"Really now?" Rakash drawled, eyes half-lidded as he angled his head to stare at Cordelia down his nose.

Before Cordelia could issue a smart retort, Rakash scooped her up and over his shoulder. She gave a shriek, though it was a paltry mimic compared to the decibel she unleashed that first night. Just another farce, he guessed. Rakash made a circuit around the room, accumulating the triplets in his other arm. Only Kazri was fully awake, Ebra and Zalmir were just on the brink of wakefulness.

But not for long. Squirming and writhing in Rakash's grasp, Cordelia pushed at his shoulder. The only thing keeping her from kicking at his front was her own uncertainty how close the children would be to the targeted zone.

Her struggles against him were useless. Just like that first night. Cordelia only half-noticed him lugging her, and the children, toward the back of the cabin and into the mountain. The fire-heated air of the cabin gave way to a cooler - yet still oddly pleasant - chill.

While half her mind focused on wriggling from his grasp, the other part of Cordelia's brain noted the new surroundings. The hall from the cabin proper to the mountain extended further back than she realized and it widened up, with other corridors branching out. Though it was definitely cooler in temperature, it didn't have the wet musty scent she'd expect. Light cast through the hall from glowing stones, embedded in the walls. Cordelia didn't have a chance to count the doors as Rakash continued to confidently stride straight ahead.

Soon, the dry cold air of the mountain started to warm again. And, oddly, it became humid. Her ears perked, smelling the unmistakable scent of water and hearing the almost silent lapping of water against stone. Rakash was going to bathe his children, so what did he intend to do with her in a bathing area?

An immediate shock filtered through Cordelia as her whole brain returned to struggling. She doubted Rakash was going to do anything as uncouth as literally stripping her. However, that didn't mean she wanted to be dumped into water, with her clothes on. "Unhand me!"

"You're just as crusty as the children," Rakash retorted, as he lowered his children to the floor. Thankfully, his children liked - or at least tolerated - bathtime. As the triplets gathered their toys and towels, Rakash's attention returned to Cordelia.

"I beg your pardon!" A half-scandalized gasp and half-infuriated hiss left Cordelia. Her elbow managed to land hard at a spot between his shoulder blades.

Even fueled by rage, the strike hadn't hurt him. With a snort, Rakash swung Cordelia into a princess hold in his arms as he strode toward the waters. The sudden change in positioning made her squeak, staring wide-eyed and somewhat flushed up at him.

From the corner of her eye, Cordelia took note of the bathing area. It was much larger than expected. Like one of those communal bath houses she'd been to in Tritz or Deloux. What surprised her was the steam coming off the water. A hot spring? This large? Connected to his cabin?

"If that's how you beg," Rakash said, drawing Cordelia from her quiet observation of the area. Her eyes jumped to his face, wide from being caught staring around. He hunched over her a little, keeping his words low, so his children wouldn't hear, "You're going to have to do better."

Her reaction was instant. Red bled into her cheeks as she shoved at his chest and wriggled in his hold in an attempt to get him to drop her, "You wish!"

A deep part of him enjoyed the way she felt, squirming against him. Unprompted, his mind imagined the sensation in a different orientation, her beneath him somewhere other than the bathing pool. But he shoved that thought far, far away.

Rakash simply waded further out into the waters while Cordelia continued to thrash in his arms, until the pool rose waist-high on him. Partly to punish her antics - and partly projecting his own frustration at himself onto her - Rakash rumbled, "Troublemakers get first dunk."

"What?!" Another instant reaction as Cordelia' froze, staring wide-eyed up at him.

Without further argument or prelude, Rakash simply dropped the fully-clothed Cordelia into the waters of the pool. She shrieked, the warm water splashing up around her as she scrambled to find footing. Water soaked her clothes, making them heavy. Once she managed to get upright once more, feet on solid rock beneath her, she turned on Rakash.

He's looking pleased with himself, a smug ghost of a grin minutely tilting at his lips and his hands planted on his hips as he watched her. Her hair clung to the sides of her face, the fabric of her clothes slicked to her body. A flush crawled over Cordelia's cheeks as Rakash's gaze slid over her body, as if he could peer through the cloth itself at her. It made a hot sensation graze down her back.

Which only fueled her irritation at him further. With her outrage, she swung her arm through the water, sending a splash toward the troll.

Rakash broke his stance as the water came at him, putting his arms up instinctively to brace. Her water attack only managed to get about shoulder high and wasn't nearly as satisfying as she had hoped. Still, as Rakash lowered his arms, he pinned her with a sharp look. "I think you need another dunk."

"Don't you think about it!" Cordelia backed away from him, crying out to the triplets with a theatrical point toward Rakash, "Cretins! Attack your father!"

"They don't answer to that," said after a backwards glance to his children. Ebra, Kazri, and Zalmir were too busy sending little waves of water at each other at the very edge of the water. Their shrill giggles echoed in the cavernous bathing room. "Besides, they're too busy splashing each other. Which is your doing."

When Rakash returned his gaze to Cordelia, she pressed a hand to her chest, clearly affronted by the accusation. "I did not teach them to splash!"

"Oh-ho ho, didn't you?" Cordelia flushed at Rakash's mocking fake laughter, feeling the reverberation of his deep voice shoot through her. Her glare doubled, trying to ignore the heat licking at her center. He leaned forward, hands on his hips and a cocky curl to his lips, "What did you do just now that's going to get you dunked again?"

She pressed her lips tight, her shoulders hunching as she continued to simply glare at him. Okay, so maybe, inadvertently, she encouraged a splash war. But the kids weren't doing their part, taking on their own father!

So, instead of coming up with an answer, Cordelia merely ignored the allegation. With a huff, she started to slosh back to the pool's edge. "Well, have fun bathing the hellions. I'm getting out."

There was one problem with her plan, however. Rakash was in the direction she was going. Before she got past him, his arm jutted out in front of her, halting her progress. Cordelia turend a glowering gaze up at him, but Rakash only raised his eyebrows. "Aren't you here to help me?"

"Not after you made me soaking wet!" She heard it a second too late. Her blush flared back to life across her cheeks, but she bit her tongue to keep from acknowledging it.

The innuendo wasn't lost on him, either. Rakash made a sound, as if he was going to say something but stopped himself.

With narrowed eyes, Cordelia hissed, "What?"

"Nothing." He held up his hands, palms facing toward her, as if to stop any potential verbal onslaught.

"Better be," Cordelia huffed, crossing her arms and sticking her nose in the air. Despite the act, her insides squirmed excitedly, even as her words rallied against the sensation. "You already rejected my kind offer at the wagon. So none of those thoughts."

As she passed him, Rakash rumbled, "Just try to stop me."

Those few words were like a jolt down her spine. She barely kept from snapping her wide-eyed gaze at him, predicting the smug look she'd find on his face. Unable to take the heat of the bathing area, coupled with the flush that flooded her cheeks, Cordelia rushed off. Well, as much as one can while wading through water.

While Cordelia beat a hasty retreat, Rakash returned to his children, instructing and supervising their bathtime. Though it'd be a lie if he didn't watch Cordelia leave from the corner of his gaze.

Lucky for Cordelia, there was a stack of towels on a rough hewn shelf not far, so she didn't have to look too hard for something to dry herself off with. Though she did duck quickly to her trunk to retrieve clean and less-wet clothes before quickly stripping. She chose a simple, wine red linen dress. It was something she usually layered beneath other, more intricate, pieces. But she really couldn't be assed, given the events of the day.

To her credit, Cordelia did go around the cribs and stripped the dirty sheets from the mattresses. She needed something to do, alone in the cabin. And she didn't really want to smell rotting fruit. However long it took fruit to rot.

Balling up the messed linens, she tossed them into the sink and filled it. Letting the sheets soak, she rifled about the home in search of clean ones.

She hadn't found any by the time Rakash and his children re-emerged from the recesses of the cave. The triplets were dressed in fresh pajamas, scrubbed clean, and meticulously dried. Cordelia couldn't help but notice even their father had changed his clothes.Just a pair of brown trousers and a white tunic, belted at his waist.

Although, Cordelia did note, with curiosity, the thick fur that trailed along Rakash's outer arms to the back of his palms. Faintly, glancing at his furred feet, she wondered if his legs were just as hairy. It made sense, she supposed, in the mountains.

Instead of heading toward Cordelia, the man diverted to the kitchen. Something seemed off. Following his nose to the sweet, soapy scent, Rakash made a beeline to the sink. He eyed the mucky water, a frown already dancing over his lips as he shot a look at Cordelia. "What's this?"

"Their sheets are soaking," she explained with a sigh. Crossing her arms, staving off embarrassment from her failed attempt at domestic assistance, she looked away from Rakash. "I couldn't find fresh ones."

That answer surprised Rakash. To think Cordelia would consider such a small detail. Of course, he remembered and was planning to do it, but he was a father. It's what he had to do. At least, she had gotten it started for him. "I'll get the sheets. Keep an eye on the kids."

Cordelia watched as Rakash disappeared down the mountain hallway, squinting to see exactly where he went. She didn't want to have to repeat this issue, again. Totally not watching him leave, for other reasons. Nope.

A tug at her gown drew Cordelia's attention away from Rakash's swinging tail. Looking down, she found one of the triplets at her side, blue hair still damp. "Delwi?"

"Yes, Ebra?" Her eyes had just darted down to the little trolling, before glancing back up at Rakash's speedy return. Apparently, the linens weren't stored too far away. Cordelia tried to ignore her added sense of failure, but honestly couldn't tell where he'd had the fabrics hidden.

Ebra shoved the Every Book up toward Cordelia just as she glanced back down at them. "Wead."

"Weed?" Cordelia looked back down at him, feigning ignorance. She offered the little trolling a sweet smile, before tapping the cover. "No, that's a book, Ebra."

"No, no." Ebra's little face scrunched up, their nose wrinkling. "You wead!"

Still playing ignorant, Cordelia tilted her head to the side, eyebrows raised. "I what?"

Ebra gave a little growl, looking in annoyance from Cordelia to their siblings. Zalmir gave a helpless shrug, obviously unaware what the issue was. Kazri seemed to mouth something to Ebra, but the exchange went unnoticed. Although Cordelia caught the other trolling's attempt to help.

"Do you want me to rrread?" She over-emphasized the 'rrr' sound, trying to wordlessly get her point across.

The look Ebra gave her could have curdled milk. It only served to make Cordelia's smile broadened. The little trolling pursed their lips momentarily, before slowly saying, "Delwi rrr-ead."

Cordelia inclined her head, raising her eyebrows pointedly once more.

Another frustrated look passed over Ebra's face. They glanced to the other two trollings. This time, Kazri quietly whispered, "Pwease."

"Oh!" Ebra's gaze jumped back to Cordelia, a broad smile on their face. "Delwi rrrread, pwease."

Cordelia's wry smile curled at her lips, overlooking Ebra and their cohorts in crime. Between the three of them, there was the makings of a polite member of society, perhaps.

"Yes, I will read to you." Cordelia accepted the Every Book from Ebra's hands and situated herself on the floor, cross-legged. The trollings sat on the floor in front of Cordelia, facing her in a little semi-circle. They looked at her expectantly, prepared for a story.

She supposed Rakash simply told them the stories he wanted to tell, at any given time. Which meant it was imperative she gave them some control. "Is there a particular story you three would like? Or anything you want to hear about?"

Ebra, Kazri, and Zalmir exchanged looks. Tension lit through the air in a way it only can with siblings. At once, they all argued over the stories they preferred or denigrated one of their siblings' choices. Cordelia watched and listened, shrewdly.

Kazri wanted a story with princesses and adventure. Ebra howled that adventure was borning, and they wanted something funny and not-so-scary. Then Zalmir said they'd be up for anything - a fib, considering later comments - as long as there was no kissing or frogs, 'whatever those were.'

"I wan' a story with p'incesses an' fightin'!" Kazri was the first to pipe up, their little fists balled up and eyes alight with fire.

"Fightin' is boring!" Ebra howled, giving Kazri a shove. "I want somethin fun and funny! Maybe with a bear."

"As s'long as it don't haf frogs, whatever dey are," Zalmir mumbled watching Kazri and Ebra tussle, before adding with a disgusted face, "And no kissin'."

Cordelia sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, shooting Rakash a dirty look when she heard him snort. He didn't notice her look, as he bent over the sink to clean his children's clothes. Hopefully, he felt it, Cordelia hoped. She wanted it to be like nails raking down his skin. Then again, seeing how he had surprised her with growing salacious comments, maybe that would just entice him.

Although part of Cordelia enjoyed that sort of attention, the other part had to recalibrate her expectations of her stay at his home. The fact he'd seemingly backpedaled so quickly made her wonder how lonely he was. Still, their little... moments of back-and-forth excited something in her that others hadn't quite met. And that made her uncertain.

Shoving those thoughts away for later examination, Cordelia tried to focus on the trollings. Namely finding them a story they'd agree on. It took some time, but eventually the three sprats agreed on a story involving a goblin, a knight, and a dragon. Cordelia read for quite awhile, the triplets rapt or giggling or making faces at the appropriate parts.

Rakash listened from the kitchen, where he scrubbed his children's fruit-encrusted clothes in the sink. He'd heard the whole 'wead' conversation, a flicker of his annoyance and relief skirting his thoughts through the ordeal. Why couldn't she just read to them?

He knew why, though. She was making them think and, obviously, remember their pleases. At least he wasn't Cordelia's sole target of agitation, he supposed, after a moment's thought. Though he was thankful his children didn't bear a greater brunt of it. Or maybe he should be thankful Cordelia seemed to be kinder to them than she was to him.

At least, by allowing her to challenge them, he didn't have to bear his children's disdain, as well.

When the sheets were washed and hung to dry near the fireplace, he moved to sit on his cot. Which happened to be behind Cordelia. As he moved into position, he noted how her body tensed, her back straightening when he settled onto the cot.

By the time Rakash made his way over, the story was nearly at its end. Zalmir had already toddled off, pulling out a wooden box from which blocks tumbled out. Ebra and Kazri continued to listen, until the former finally caved to playtime. Which left Kazri, listening until the end. When Cordelia said the final words and closed the book, the trolling said a quick 'tank you' before going to join their siblings.

She watched them go and continued to observe the three playing. Together, they were building something. They called it a castle, but it looked more like three very tall towers ready to fall over.

The longer she watched the kids, however, the more she felt Rakash's presence at her back. Didn't he have anything else to do? Obviously not, if he sat there quietly. But his presence at her back was unnerving her. Or maybe stoking that excitement from earlier.

Regardless, she didn't want either feeling to take root. Twisting in her spot, Cordelia glanced over her shoulder, straining to look up at him. "By the way, where should I rest?"

"You can have my cot, I'll use my room at night." Rakash was honestly looking forward to sleeping in his own bed again. After so many months sleeping near his children, the twinge in his back had been an ever present companion. Besides, it seemed perfectly reasonable to shove the duty off onto the quasi-nanny.

He nodded toward the hall. "During the night, if my kids need anything you can't do for whatever reason, come get me. My door is the teal one when you enter the mountain, on the far right."

"Wait! I don't even get my own room?" Cordelia balked, turning fully to face Rakash. She settled back on her heels, crossing her arms and glaring up at him.

Those warm, squirmy sensations jolted through her stomach as Rakash obviously looked over toward his children. She could see him judging if they were far enough away. Apparently they were, since he braced his elbows on his knees, leaning down to mutter at her, "You can get one, when you learn to beg better."

"You're wretched," Cordelia hissed, her eyes narrowed and her puckered lips twisting into a pout. The added sight of her kneeling at his knee played havoc in Rakash's imagination. She, too, was very much aware of how she must look. Which only served to make her cheeks pink once more. It was only sheer stubbornness that kept her from altering her pose or expression, though.

Although, as Rakash leaned closer to her, her obstinacy almost broke. Speaking in a low voice that sent shivers down Cordelia's back, Rakash nodded to the book still in her lap, "Why not use your little book to find the correct definition of 'beg?'"

Her reaction was immediate. Cordelia was distracted by the embarrassment eating across her cheeks, before she realized her body was in action. Before she could think, she swatted her book into Rakash's face.

The sound the troll gave was a strangled yelp, caught with something Cordelia almost could believe was a laugh. Before she could verify, however, Zalmir cried out from across the room, "Delwi! Why'd you do dat?"

She was still holding the book out, posed in her swing toward Rakash, who had leaned away. The two adults shared a look. Instantly, his demeanor shifted into one that clearly read 'don't you dare.' But that only made a broad grin tilt at Cordelia's lips.

"Oh, Ebra, Kazri, Zalmir!" She threw herself backward, onto the carpet theatrically. Pressing the back of her palm to her forehead, Cordelia drenched her words with melodramatic woe, "Your Da threatened to eat me again!"

Rakash immediately sat straight, his livid gaze on Cordelia before it bled into desperation as he looked to his children. "I did no such thing!"

"Da!" The chorus of the triplets made fatherly shame creep up Rakash's skin. To disappoint one's children, even if the accusation was false. A flash of mortification arced through Rakash, as his own children tisked his alleged actions.

It worsened as the children abandoned their blocks. Kazri went to Cordelia, comforting her in her obvious hour of need as she amped up her farce of obviously fake boo-hooing. They patted her on the shoulder, consoling her with quiet words.

Ebra and Zalmir approached their father. Zalmir with a serious look on their face and arms crossed. Ebra with their hands on their hips. Intimidating was the last thing the two were, in the face of their troll father, but they were certainly trying their best as they glared up at him.

"Da, don' tw'eten... t'renten," Ebra gave up saying 'threaten' with a sigh, before doubling back over their statement. "Don' say you et Delwi. Delwi fun."

"Yeah!" Zalmir added, intent on not only backing up their sibling but also having Cordelia's back.

Over his kids' heads, Rakash shot Cordelia a dirty look. She only returned it by sticking her tongue playfully out at him, Kazri unable to see the exchange with their face buried in Cordelia's shoulder for a hug.

That is how their little arrangement went for a week and a half for Cordelia and Rakash. Shenanigans and arguments and occasional heated exchanges that had nothing to do with anger. Neither went much further than taunting or teasing. A burn stoked and simmered in both of them, though.

All of that changed, however, when Ebra got sick.

---

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ Want early access to chapters, art, or access to my WIPs? Join my Patreon!

Or you can “buy me a coffee” on  ko-fi. ❤

Comments, reblogs, and replies are also super appreciated!

#troll #monster lover #monster romance #exophilia #exo writing #troll x human #fantasy romance #monster boyfriend #male monster #monster dad #troll dad #rakash #cordelia #ds #desperation's summit #desperation's summit part 8 #ds part 8 #( ͡• ͜ʖ ͡• ) #okay I gave ya'll a bit of cute and a bit of flirtation #now for the DRAMA

[gallifreyanhotfive]

Random Doctor Who Facts You Might Not Know, Part 10

After the Doctor left Gallifrey, the Master and the Rani were so desperate to find him that they kidnapped and interrogated a retired CIA agent named Maris, who had been hired to find him. Maris unfortunately had no idea where he went, but before they could kill her, she was extracted from the situation.

Sabbath Dei cut out the Eighth Doctor's second heart and put it in his own chest.

In an alternate timeline, the Sixth Doctor was imprisoned in the Tower of London for a hundred years and had both of his legs cut off. By refusing to give the Dalek also imprisoned an order, he ensures that the Dalek will kill him.

William Shakespeare and Richard III swapped places in history, so anything "Shakespeare" did from 1597 onwards was actually done by Richard III.

After regenerating, the Ninth Doctor smashed every mirror in the TARDIS, swearing that he would never look at what face he was wearing after killing billions of people. He would eventually look in a mirror again after meeting Rose Tyler, and his meeting with Rose actually occurred after much more time had passed than you might think.

In the UNIT Black Archive, there is a photograph of Mike Yates and Sara Kingdom, suggesting that they interacted at some point.

The Fifth Doctor was once paralyzed from the waist down in a spaceship crash and remained that way for most of the adventure. By the end of the story, he had been healed by nanites.

The Doctor's older brother Braxiatel was Lord Burner at one point, the personal assassin of the President who burned people out of history. After being ordered to burn an old man and his granddaughter running away from Gallifrey, he let them go, and the President who gave him the order mysteriously died when one of the power relays in his office overloaded. Braxiatel led an inquiry on the matter and declared it to be nothing more than an accident.

River Song believes that the Doctor had a crush on the Rani while they were at the Academy.

At the summit of Mount Cadon on Gallifrey, one can see the whole of time itself, but people hardly ever reach it because a hallucinogenic compound in the snow stops them. While a TARDIS can materialize at the top, this is apparently "cheating" according to the Doctor. The Academy is at the foot of Mount Cadon, and it is also the site of the House of Lungbarrow.

The Doctor remembers attempting to climb Mount Cadon several times. On one such attempt, Vansell broke his leg.

When the Eighth Doctor ran into the Brigadier again after regaining his memories from another bout of amnesia, he said he felt much safer with him.

The Third Doctor's tattoo was given to him by the Time Lords to mark that he was in exile. It is basically the equivalent of a brand or a big scarlet letter.

Mustard gas can be fatal to a Time Lord.

Kamelion and K-9 can both be damaged by water.

As Time Tots, the Rani and the Doctor would play hide-and-seek. She was incredibly irritated by the Doctor's exceptional ability to find her hiding spots.

The physical appearance of a Time Lord is but a small aspect of their true forms. In reality, Time Lords are vast, multi-dimensional beings existing in the metaspace realm. These forms are completely invisible to humans.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28

#doctor who #dw #dr who #classic who #new who #big finish doctor who #big finish audios #big finish #doctor who eu #doctor who expanded universe #fifth doctor #eighth doctor #sixth doctor #the master #the rani #first doctor #ninth doctor #rose tyler #mike yates #sara kingdom #braxiatel #gallifrey #river song #vansell #third doctor #brigadier alistair gordon lethbridge stewart #brigadier lethbridge stewart #k 9 #kamelion #dr nyarlathotep

[kp777]

By Tom Phillips

The Guardian

Aug. 8, 2023

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has vowed to haul the Amazon out of centuries of violence, economic “plundering” and environmental devastation and into “a new Amazon dream”, at the start of a major regional summit on the world’s largest rainforest.

Addressing South American leaders gathered in the Brazilian city of Belém, Lula offered a bold blueprint for the future of the Amazon, a 6.7m sq km region that is home to nearly 50 million people spread across eight countries and one territory.

The Brazilian leftist promised to repair his country’s environmental and international reputation after four “disastrous” years under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, during which the rainforest and Indigenous communities came under growing attack. “Thankfully … we have managed to turn this sad page in our history,” said Lula, who took power in January after thwarting Bolsonaro’s re-election plans.

Lula pledged to promote an ambitious model for the rainforest region – 60% of which lies within Brazil – in which environmental protection was accompanied by desperately needed social inclusion, economic growth and technological innovation.

“The rainforest is neither a void that needs occupying nor a treasure trove to be looted. It is a flowerbed of possibilities that must be cultivated,” Lula told the audience, which included the presidents of fellow Amazon nations Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, as well as the prime minister of Guyana and Venezuela’s vice-president.

Pledging to achieve zero deforestation by 2030, Lula said: “The Amazon can be whatever we want it to be: an Amazon with greener cities, with cleaner air, with mercury-free rivers and forests that are left standing; an Amazon with food on the table, dignified jobs and public services that are available to all; an Amazon with healthier children, well-received migrants [and] Indigenous people who are respected … This is our Amazon dream.”

Indigenous communities demand greater change as Amazon rainforest summit begins – video

The comments came at the start of a rare two-day meeting of the eight-member Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (Acto), which Lula called as part of efforts to reposition Brazil on the world stage as a key player in the fight against the climate crisis.

Among the issues being discussed at Acto’s first such meeting in 14 years were a possible deal to halt deforestation by 2030 and joint efforts to fight rampant illegal mining and organised crime groups that are tightening their grip on the rainforest region. Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, has been pushing for an end to oil and gas exploration in the Amazon, although Brazilian moves to develop an oilfield near the mouth of the Amazon River complicate those efforts.

Petro used his intervention to call for the creation of “an Amazonian Nato” under which regional military would join forces to protect the jungle, about 6% of which lies within Colombia’s borders.

“You defend life with reason – but also with weapons,” he said, also proposing a “Marshall Plan” to pump resources into Amazon protection and a specialised Amazonian court to punish crimes against the biome.

Dina Boluarte, the president of Peru, home to about 11% of the Amazon, also urged action to preserve a rainforest that “isn’t just the lungs of the world – it’s the heart of the world”.

“We must act now. There is no time to lose,” said Boluarte, who was making her first trip abroad since Peru was gripped by protests after she took power last December.

After hours of talks, a joint Acto communique, called the Belém Declaration, was published, calling for increased police and intelligence collaboration to fight illegal activities and environmental crime as well as human rights violations against Indigenous people and activists. It said a law enforcement centre would be opened in the Brazilian city of Manaus to promote cooperation among regional police forces.

The 113-point text also urged greater efforts to slash deforestation and promote sustainable development in the region. However, the document fell short of many expectations for failing to include a common goal of zero deforestation by 2030.

Marcio Astrini, the executive secretary of the Climate Observatory group, said he had mixed feelings about a declaration that was weaker than many environmentalists had hoped for.

“It’s a first step. It was important for [these leaders] to come together but there isn’t much concrete in there. It’s a list of very generic promises. It was lacking something more forceful,” Astrini said.

“We’re living in a world which is melting. We are breaking temperature records all the time. How can it be that in a 22-page declaration the presidents of eight Amazon countries can’t clearly state that deforestation needs to stop?”

Read more.

#Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization #luiz inacio lula da silva #amazon rainforest #conservation #deforestation #indigenous peoples #Youtube

[snapscube]

I finished the Yakuza finale VOD and I gotta say, Kaiji Tang is a supremely good voice actor. Just the emotion he put into the finale scenes fucking broke me, and I'm desperate for Yakuza 8 so I can see more of his Ichiban. Thank you for streaming the game, it was a really fun introduction to Yakuza!!

god yeah Ichiban is such a life changing and refreshing character, ESPECIALLY for the style and subject matter of game he’s a part of, and Kaiji Tang’s dub performance is a huge part of that for me. I hope that 8 does him justice as well. I’m still a tiny bit concerned about him sharing the spotlight with Kiryu but the clips they showed during that sizzle reel at the RGG Summit reminded me that any extra amount of Ichi is gonna be a net good for the universe so I’m game for however it’s being packaged to me.

[valeriefauxnom]

You know, the more I read about Narcissistic Personality Disorder, the more I become curious if the writers were actually using it as a guideline for Emile's character and plot involving him. Yes, yes, it's not particularly unique to create a selfish character nor one that has a comically grandiose perception of themselves, nor do are these traits comprehensive to what NPD is, but let me explain, because BOY the dude is a checklist.

As always, long post.

First, let's break out the good ole DSMV. It may not be perfect, but hey. It's what I've got to work with for Official Sources to escape pop psychology sites. Here's the diagnostic criteria for NPD:

How does Emile stack up?

1: He immediately establishes a sense of identity that he believes he is more great than a Greatwyrm.

2: Much of his actions in the main campaign are born from a desire to live out his dreams of power, fame, and recognition.

3: *Gestures vaguely at 98.4% of what Emile says in Dragalia lost* He often refers to others with derogatory names, especially those that reinforce the status differences between them. Honestly, his vocabulary regarding this is rather impressive. Ingrate, peasant, dreck, peon, clod...

4: Here's where I might start to suspect the writers were doing more than just writing an egotistical character. NPD is defined in part by the excessive need for admiration and reinforcement (more on that later). Emile occasionally voices sentiments like above. See also this quote in his Gala story, in which, despite being in desperate need for money, ultimately personally valued the praise he got from the customer more. He's always been a character desperate for positive response.

5: A bit hard to distinguish from some of the standard entitlement royalty does get, but...yeeaaah. Emile is very much entitled in a way that Leonidas, who also expects absolute obedience of subordinates to his orders, isn't. He seems to believe that everyone automatically, no matter who they are, will immediately acquiesce to his will without question, without having any basis for their subservience. Take how he expects, -despite knowing that nobody recognizes him as Emperor at the moment, -a street artist to give up tools of his trade simply because he demands it.

6: Again, quite a large chunk of his motives in the main campaign is exploitive behavior of others. He lies to make Mercury believe her home is in danger and that he can stop it, then establishes he views a pactbound dragon as a slave to his will. Chelle agrees to lend him her androids, and he immediately absconds with the remote she 'accidentally' left lying out to serve his own needs.

Even smaller things in chapter 4, like his demand for Euden to escort him to the summit, is taking advantage of Euden's sense of justice and fairness to ensure he can undergo Jupiter's trial (which he thinks he will win). Take his scheme to foster love for him once he yoinks the throne while everyone else is gone is manipulative. He creates a 'bandit problem' and then sets up scenarios to swoop in to save the day. People see through this one, but it's still manipulative.

7: *Gestures vaguely at Emile again* Emile is...lacking in empathy or consideration for others' lives. I feel like this is pretty self-explanatory.

8: We can see this even in the comics. His first appearence in them checks off several of the traits we've already discussed and adds in 'assumes others are jealous of him' to the book. But even sticking to 'pure' canon, Emile is long, long established that jealousy of his elder siblings in particular is a driving factor regarding his behavior. There's many examples for this, but I'll keep it short since I already used an excuse to drag out the comic.

9: *Gestures vaguely at Emile yet again* Honestly I'm not even going to add any pictures for this point. I think when even your NPC unit description claims you as 'haughty' it's an established character trait.

That's NINE out of nine traits, when FIVE is the requirement for a potential diagnosis. Key word being potential, because we place more requirements on a diagnosis than just matching some features.

But I'd like to go a bit deeper into it. It's one thing to constantly drag out all the moments of Emile being Emile, but digging into the whys of it all also is compelling to me and this argument.

Here's another small exert of the DSMV:

Though hinted at in chapter 4, we gradually came to know more and more about the deeper side and reasons behind Emile's behavior. The long and short of it was: he's jealous. He knows he's inferior, deep, deep down. And we've one connecting factor for what flipped the switch to the degree of behavior he spirals into in canon: Euden. Emile spells it out early himself.

From what we know of their relationship before canon, Euden seemed to be the adoring sibling eager to learn whatever Emile deigned to teach him and was generally subservient as he was to all his siblings. He, unintentionally, fed Emile's ego at being able to instruct an inferior, feeding that need for affirmation. Thus, when canon rolls around, Emile is gravely wounded (emotionally), by Euden's betrayal of 'stepping outside his place'. He's the pillar that's allowed Emile to raise himself so high, and now that he's moved, Emile falls.

In that same conversation, Emile explicitly cites the 'degradation' Euden is putting him through, and thus enters another long-lasting characteristic of NPD. Enter his rage.

Among all his other motivations for appreciation, Emile cultivated quite a potent desire to harm Euden in particular. Several times he expresses a desire or tries to kill him with his 'own two hands', but I think the Persona crossover event is a goldmine for demonstrating the extent of how enamored he is with thoughts of violence regarding Euden in particular after his 'offense'.

He doesn't just want to kill Euden. He wants to short drop hang him (ie, the non-instantaneous kind that leaves you suffocating, though who knows if they even know the 'break the neck instantly' variety either, to be fair). He wants to break him mentally and quite possibly physically, judging by how quick he is to call in Shadows to beat him. Somehow, I'd speculate just by the sheer pleasure he takes specifically in seeing Euden in despair and misery (he should take notes from Ciella) it'd be a quick jump to actual torture if Euden hadn't immediately been busted out as planned.

Why? Again: though his elder siblings left Emile feeling unappreciated and inferior, Euden is the one to have raised him up before dropping him. It's personal. Therein is his fragile self-esteem, so dependent on the one he viewed as inferior.

All this culminates to a surprisingly replete picture of what NPD actually looks like. It's not just base selfishness or some excess ego, but a incredibly strong and persistent pattern of this kind of behavior, all in fulfillment of a need to acquire adoration. It's the fury that can follow the broken self esteem when that adoration isn't given. It's the vengeful fantasies of harming those who wronged him, the lower empathy for others occasionally paving the way for acts of violence.

Somehow, Emile is still compelling (to myself included), despite him being much of what people loathe in the real world. He's bombastic and dynamic in a way that his more emotionally-composed siblings aren't, and that lends him well to comedy in its own way. It doesn't hurt that he's like. Probably the 2nd most common of the royal fam to pop up, after Euden. He's the Saturday morning cartoon villain who is the lowest on the totem pole of threats and thus safe to have a laugh at until he rolls 20 and starts causing very real danger.

That aside, I threw together this for a more light-hearted thing regarding Emile:

Edit: I remembered Zardin. I think it's kinda funny how Emile is a "better", more complete representation of a narcissist is and does than the supposed actual narcissist himself. I think it's a case of Emile being the 'technical' one while Zardin is a 'literary' one. Aside from being obsessed with his looks just as OG Narcissus was, he's... not really displaying many traits that I can recall from him. Still interesting.

#dragalia lost #dragalia #character analysis #dragalia analysis #Forcibly bringing up the fact again that Aurelius and Audric both gave Magnus the authority to kill Emile. I think they knew #There was a Problem but not necessarily the extent to which Emile could go. Either way: did all the siblings have assassin-guards #That were ready to kill them if they grew too too evil? I suppose it's a good way to cull the worst eggs but. Still. #Now to get back to Secret Starfall writing! Got about 5k now. I do hope my recipient enjoys the gift though! #Sorry if any other fics are a bit delayed with that in mind. Other Things To Write(tm) call! #Scaling included as with it being likely right there at the climax I need to try and nail the landing!

[newstfionline]

Saturday, July 8, 2023

Canada wildfires to continue (Bloomberg) Canada is bracing for higher-than-normal wildfire activity to continue into August, as soaring temperatures and drought turn much of the country’s vast forests into kindling. The Canada fire season, which normally runs from April to September, is barely half over but the country has already surpassed the modern historical record.

Biden Weighs Giving Ukraine Weapons Banned by Many U.S. Allies (NYT) For more than six months, President Biden and his aides have been wrestling with one of the most vexing questions in the war in Ukraine: whether to risk letting Ukrainian forces run out of the artillery rounds they desperately need to fight Russia, or agree to ship them cluster munitions—widely banned weapons known to cause grievous injury to civilians, especially children. On Thursday, Mr. Biden appeared on the verge of providing the cluster munitions to Ukraine, a step that would sharply separate him from many of his closest allies, who have signed an international treaty banning the use, stockpiling or transfer of such weapons. Mr. Biden has come under steady pressure from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who argues that the munitions—which disperse tiny, deadly bomblets—are the best way to kill Russians who are dug into trenches and blocking Ukraine’s counteroffensive to retake territory. Yet for months, Mr. Biden and his aides have tried to put off the decision, hoping that the tide of the war would turn in Ukraine’s favor. Part of the concern has been that the United States would appear to lose the moral high ground, using a weapon that much of the world has condemned, and that Russia has used with abandon. When, five days into the war, Jen Psaki, then the White House press secretary, was asked about the Russian use of unconventional weapons, including cluster munitions, she said: “We have seen the reports. If that were true, it would potentially be a war crime.” (Later: The U.S. did decide to send cluster bombs to Ukraine.)

Tijuana, reliant on the Colorado River, faces a water crisis (AP) Luis Ramirez leapt onto the roof of his bright blue water truck to fill the plastic tank that by day’s end would empty into an assortment of buckets, barrels and cisterns in 100 homes. It was barely 11 a.m. and Ramirez had many more stops to make on the hilly, grey fringes of Tijuana, a sprawling, industrial border city in northwestern Mexico where trucks or “pipas” like Ramirez’s provide the only drinking water for many people. Among the last cities downstream to receive water from the shrinking Colorado River, Tijuana is staring down a water crisis driven also by aging, inefficient infrastructure and successive governments that have done little to prepare the city for diminishing water in the region. Entire neighborhoods on Tijuana’s hilly and sometimes grassy far reaches remain unconnected to the city’s water mains and pipes. Accessing water there is a daily struggle—and an expensive one, as trucked-in water usually costs much more than what people connected to the city pay. Water utilities are struggling to keep pace with both Tijuana’s growth and about 8 to 10 years of neglect of infrastructure. Then, there’s drought. Nationwide, more than 44% of municipalities in Mexico were in drought in May, according to Mexico’s National Water Commission.

US says international troops needed for Haiti (USA Today/wire services) At a summit in the Caribbean on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the situation in Haiti has gotten so bad that international troops are needed to stabilize the nation’s growing humanitarian crisis. The crisis started under the rule of U.S.-backed Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, who came to power following a contentious 2016 election with just 21% of eligible voters participating (and a tenth of all ballots disqualified). With the backing of both the Biden and Trump White Houses, his rule became increasingly authoritarian, garnering dissent in Haiti’s general population until he was eventually assassinated after dismantling Haiti’s parliament, plunging the country into chaos. Now, the country faces extreme poverty, widespread famine, and roaming local gangs seizing more and more territory. It appears the U.N. is poised to intervene in Haiti sometime soon. The U.S. State Department says that Blinken and Haiti’s current U.S.-backed Prime Minister Ariel Henry “agreed on the urgency of deploying a U.N.-authorized multinational force or peacekeeping operation,” and that the U.S. “shares the commitment felt throughout the region to help the Haitian people shape their future to restore the country's democratic order through free and fair elections.”

Macron says social media could be blocked during riots, sparking furor (Washington Post) French President Emmanuel Macron’s suggestion that the government might need the ability to block social media access during riots has sparked a backlash in the country, with some arguing that France is going the way of authoritarian regimes. Addressing a meeting of more than 200 mayors of French towns affected by the ongoing protests at the Élysée Palace on Tuesday, Macron accused social media platforms of contributing to the riots following the June 27 fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old of North African descent. Macron proposed that the government regulate or suspend social media when needed. Far-left France Unbowed chief Mathilde Panot comparing Macron to the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Macron’s comments risk “creating a dangerous prototype for those E.U. member states with already weakened rule of law,” said Eliska Pirkova, a senior Europe policy analyst at the digital rights advocacy Access Now. “Such a shortsighted action would mean a strong blow to democracy and its core values that would be very hard to recover from.”

Italy has more people aged over 100 than ever (Reuters) The number of people aged over 100 in Italy hit a record high last year, the national statistics office said on Friday, as the average age of the population grows at a faster pace than its European Union peers. In its annual report, ISTAT said the share of the population aged over 100 had tripled since the beginning of the century and totalled almost 22,000 people as of January this year, most of them women. At the other end of the age range, the figures showed births declined to a historic low of 393,000 in 2022, the lowest since Italian unification more than 150 years ago.

Prigozhin Is Said to Be in Russia, as Wagner Mystery Deepens (NYT) The mercenary leader Yevgeny V. Prigozhin is in Russia and is a “free man” despite staging a rebellion against Moscow’s military leadership, the leader of Belarus said on Thursday, deepening the mystery of where Mr. Prigozhin and his Wagner group stand and what will become of them. President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus told reporters that Mr. Prigozhin was in St. Petersburg, Russia, as of Thursday morning, and then “maybe he went to Moscow, maybe somewhere else, but he is not on the territory of Belarus.” Mr. Prigozhin is at liberty for now, Mr. Lukashenko said, though he conceded that he “did not know what would happen later,” and he brushed off the idea that Mr. Putin would simply have Mr. Prigozhin, until recently a vital ally, killed. If Mr. Prigozhin—vilified as a traitor in state media—is, in fact, free and in Russia less than two weeks after staging what the Kremlin called an attempted coup, it would be one of the more perplexing twists in a story full of them.

As Afghan schools remain closed for girls, mental health crisis builds (Washington Post) Psychiatrist Shafi Azim spent much of his career attending to the trauma caused by two decades of fighting, which ripped apart buildings and families. But over the past months, his hospital—Afghanistan’s primary mental health facility in Kabul—has filled with patients who say they are experiencing a different kind of suffering, he said. With the Taliban leadership severely restricting female education and work, there are mounting concerns about the mental health of girls and women. The restrictions and “sudden changes,” said Azim, appear to be at the root of the trauma suffered by most women and girls now seeking help at this hospital. “They fear they will never be able to go back to work or school,” said Azim, 60. “They are isolated and become depressed.” Mental health professionals at five Afghan hospitals and health centers shared similar accounts of a rising challenge. “As the circle of limitations and restrictions widens,” said a female mental health worker, “even women who were so far not directly impacted by the bans are now being dragged into it.” The Taliban says that women’s lives have improved under its two-year rule.

The Israeli-Palestinian cycle of violence continues (Washington Post) Israel “mowed the grass” again this week—the grim euphemism often deployed for its periodic violent campaigns against militants in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank. The intensive two-day Israeli incursion into Jenin refugee camp saw hundreds of troops sweep into the crammed, densely populated area with support from armed drones and bulldozers. Twelve Palestinians were killed and more than 100 were injured, while the operation caused widespread damage to civilian homes and infrastructure. Thousands of residents were forced to flee to safety elsewhere. One Israeli soldier was killed. The raid was the latest episode in a year that is already on pace to be one of the deadliest for Palestinians, with more than 150 fatalities. Twenty-nine Israelis have been killed in the same span of time. As is the case when one mows the grass, the lawn tends to grow back. In the aftermath of the Jenin raid, the dreaded cycle of violence rolled on, with reports of scattered Palestinian reprisals. It all comes in a context shaped by the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, as well as an increasingly feeble Palestinian Authority, which is both unable to rein in Palestinian militancy and increasingly unpopular among the Palestinian public living under decades of Israeli military occupation. All the while, Netanyahu’s government is accelerating plans for the de facto annexation of much of the West Bank with the further expansion of Israeli settlements in lands once intended to comprise an independent Palestinian state.

UN: Millions left with no aid as West Africa suffers worst hunger crisis in 10 years (AP) The U.N. World Food Program said Wednesday that millions of hungry people in West Africa are without aid as the agency struggles with limited funding to respond to the region’s worst hunger crisis in a decade. Nearly half of the 11.6 million people targeted for food aid during the June to August lean season are not receiving any assistance, the agency said in a statement. It warned that hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of joining armed groups, getting married early or engaging in “survival sex” in their desperation to survive. “We’re in a tragic situation. During this year’s lean season, millions of families will lack sufficient food reserves to sustain them until the next harvests in September,” said Margot Vandervelden, WFP interim regional director for Western Africa. “We must take immediate action to prevent a massive slide into catastrophic hunger,” she said.

Ironic (STAT News) Ozempic, the drug that makes people not want to eat meals, became the hit it is today thanks to a ton of comped meals. Novo Nordisk spent $11 million on meals and travel for doctors last year in its pitch to doctors to start prescribing their brands of semaglutide to patients. Over 12,000 doctors had a meal paid for by Novo Nordisk, with a grand total of 457,000 meals paid for by the pharmaceutical to better educate the physicians about the weight-loss drug over dinner. Indeed, some doctors needed a whole lot of education, with 200 doctors getting over 50 meals paid for by the company.

#headlines #news

[human-do-a-worm]

Ramblings of an Old Soldier Part 3/3

Sorry about the wait. The second dose of COVID vaccine drains you a lot more than the first dose. Anyways here’s part 3, part 1 and part 2 can be found here.

Admiral Sturm sat on the park bench as he always did. Sipping on his coffee and reading the latest news from his datapad. Once again, the Unkall boy approached him and sat beside him on the bench. He noticed that the aging Terran was wearing a strange uniform, with the image of a furred beast embroidered on the chest and upper right arm.

“Good afternoon Mr. Sturm.” “Ah, hello there son. Back for story time again?” “Yes sir. I was wondering what happened after the summit. Almost all traces of you vanished from records 8 cycles ago, and the only mentions of you after that were how the Terran Navy wanted you back.”

“Well, as I said the other day, I became a merc. My crew and I were the best. We took contracts from the Segmentum Norrus, all the way down to the Serectan Void. We didn’t work like most mercenary groups. We sought out our clients, and saw a lot of business. Everything from running escort duty on supply runs to desperate worlds, to taking down entire groups of bandits and pirates. Wherever we went, outlaws and tyrants alike feared the sight of The Wolf’s Den.”

“The Wolf’s Den? I think we heard about a group of people using that ship last cycle in our Galactic History class. Something about taking part in the Gingral war, only a few cycles ago.” “Ah yes, the Gingral war. Some of the bloodiest fighting I’ve ever seen. That was the last contract my crew and I took. We started off in a small role; mostly just escorting supply freighters to the border colonies since most of the supply lines had been cut and the colonists were starving. Our last supply run had been going well, until 6 light cruisers decloaked and opened fire. We did the best we could, but the supply freighter carrying food and civilians was destroyed in only a few minutes.”

“We could have escaped after that. Made a jump to the nearest Unkall station and gotten reinforcements, but My crew and I all knew what had to be done. We knew that the Gingral had to pay. They may have outnumbered us 6 to 1, and they may have had us outgunned, but they didn’t account for us having a mark 7 jump core. We warped around behind them and took down 2 of the light cruisers rather easily, but then we took a hit. The jump core cut out, and we were relying only on engine power.”

“But The Wolf’s Den must have survived somehow. The history logs said that it served through the entirety of the Gingral War.”

“That’s almost right. We knew that we wouldn’t be able to keep her together much longer, so we did what all Terrans do in situations like this. We became unpredictable. We gave all power to weapons and blasted the furthest ship from us, then mustered to the airlocks. We put on EVA gear and as soon as we were close enough to the next ship, we boarded.” “Wasn’t ship boarding added to the prohibited activities of War after the Terran war?” “It was, but targeting civilians has always been among the prohibited activities of War, so we were still committing a lesser infraction. We blasted open the port hangar with a plasma charge, and cleared the first room. Then we cleared the rest of the ship up to the bridge and took out the last remaining light cruiser. Changed the comms channels to the ones we had on The Wolf’s Den, then modified the IFF tag accordingly. When we arrived at the Unkall station we had just left, they demanded an explanation, so we told them what happened.” “And you weren't reprimanded?”

“Oh, we were. There was even a small tribunal held to determine if we could still fight. That’s when the call came in. Rakthis had been attacked, with only a handful of survivors. I immediately got up and started heading to my ship. The Unkall admiral demanded to know where I was going. After calmly telling him that there was now a full scale war, we had work to do. I went to the hangar and got the light cruiser repaired and ready for combat, but not before renaming it. The Wolf’s Den was never destroyed, it just became another ship.”

“What happened next?” the Unkall boy asked. “Weren’t the forces around Rakthis said to be uncounted?”

“They were, that’s why we didn’t go to Rakthis. We went to Waalon instead. Then to Rek’lon, and finally to Scrurros. Everywhere we went, we pushed back the Gingral horde. My first mate, Sarah Callingham, had family on the outer colonies back in the Vrumoid war. Saw most of them killed in front of her when their shuttle was shot down leaving atmosphere on Vrall VII. Scrurros was a tough nut to crack, and she had more crafty ideas than I did. We landed The Wolf’s Den on the uninhabited side of the planet, then bought a grav truck from one of the farmers. It was hard to weld the armor plates on it at the right angle, but mounting the lasguns and mortar was rather simple. I stood in the back, manning two of the lasguns and the mortar while she and two other soldiers were up front in the cab. We got almost to the planetary capital before we faced any resistance.”

“But the history logs said that Scrurros didn’t fall until the later end of the war.” “That’s right. We couldn’t take the planet as easily as we’d taken the others. When the first mortar hit the shield on the planetary governance center, we knew we were in for a fight. We got the truck away with only a few shots on the armor, but we were pursued by the planetary militia. One of the armored gun trucks fired their heavy las gun and took out the rear grav drive. With the back end of the truck along the ground, our speed tanked to a crawl. I was able to keep the militia back for a while by pinning them down with the lasguns, but then another shot hit us, dead center mass.”

“How bad was it? Were you alright?”

“I made it out with only a few scratches, scrapes, and bruises, but Sarah and the others up front weren't so lucky. The shot penetrated the cab and blew up at the steering linkage. Only Sarah, myself, and the one crewman in the back with me made it out of that. We ducked into a nearby building for cover, only to find that it was a school. Not wanting to put the civilians in danger, we lightly dressed Sarah’s wounds and went on into the forest surrounding the city. We came to a cave at the foot of a mountain, and made camp inside.” “Who was the other crewman that was with you? I notice that you haven’t said his name yet.”

“His name was Richard Grumman. He was the newest addition to The Wolfpack, joining us less than a cycle ago. We hadn’t had much time to get to know each other. The Militia found us in the first week, and he was shot to death on the night they raided the cave. Sarah and I managed to get away, but we were far from being safe. The next night we got a transmission from The Wolf’s Den; They had been found, and were wondering what to do. Sarah and I were at least four days away from the ship, so I made the call and told them to leave while they had the chance, to keep fighting and never forget about us.” “So you willingly stranded yourself and an injured crewmate on a hostile planet just to save your crewmates? The stories about the Terrans must be true.” “You’ll learn that those stories don’t even tell half the story if you stick on a Terran ship for even half a cycle. Anyways, there we were, just me and Sarah on Scrurros. I treated her wounds the best I could, but she wasn’t getting much better. Eventually she died, less than half a cycle into our time on that world. I retired with her body to the farmer who sold us the truck, and paid him to let me bury Sarah on his property. Much like with the freighter, the Gingral would pay. I took stock of what I had. Two lasguns, three fragmentation grenades, an energy grenade, and a plasma charge. Not nearly enough to take on the forces of the planet, but maybe enough to make it possible.”

“So what did you do? The Gingral don’t just let prisoners get away. Especially not in the middle of a war.” “Well, I couldn't just storm the Planetary Governance Center. That would accomplish nothing but my own death. Instead I went for something better. Three grids away from the Governance Center was the Defense Center. The plan was simple. Get inside, break as much stuff as I could, and hope that was enough to take down their defenses. It took me ten days to reach the capital again, and another three to figure out how to get inside. Turns out the Gringal didn’t make their roof as secure as they should have. I opened up the ventilation system and got inside. From there it was a short trip to the bunker exterior.”

“Aren’t Gingral bunkers some of the hardest to break open in the entire galaxy? How did you get inside?” “Simple; I didn’t break in; I snuck in. I kicked out the vent and got inside the bunker, then closed and locked the door behind me and smashed the controls. There were only technicians and a few soldiers inside, who were easy enough to dispatch. The harder part was accessing the communications room. Aside from the door of the bunker itself, the communications room was the most secure place in the facility. The door was half a meter thick, and barred at six points. That would prove to be a great challenge, so I left it for later. I quickly found the controls to the weapons system, and took it down. The planet was now mostly defenseless against ships in orbit and low atmosphere.”

“So you took down the guns, but how did you get in?”

“The door was too hard to get through, so I made my own instead. I went above the room and opened up the three fragmentation grenades. Terrna frag grenades use a pressure sensitive explosive to detonate, so I poured it out above the room, then placed the plasma charge on top of it. I ducked out of the room and waited for the explosion. When that charge went off, it was as if the whole planet shook. When I went in to check on the hole, the charge had only just broken through the floor. It took hours for me to get the hole wide enough for me to wriggle inside, but it was worth it. I contacted the Unkall fleet, and they were there within the week. The planet fell and I was pulled from the bunker before the food and water stores were even dented.”

“So that’s why taking Scrurros was so easy for the fleet. There wasn’t as much resistance as the planet originally had. And you were the one to take it down?”

“That’s right. After the war, I was broken. My knees were all but useless for fighting, and I could barely stand without swaying. The Unkall empire never forgot what my crew and I did. We were paid many times more than what was written in our contract, and they even got me a home right here on Unkall Prime. Now I sit here, enjoying retirement in my old age. Though the Terran lifespan is almost 50 cycles, we’re usually out of our working years after only 30 cycles. Our bodies are too old and weak to do most of the hard tasks that we normally would.”

“So what do you do now? Surely after a life like yours you want to do something just as exciting after you’re done working.”

“I mostly just read now. When you spend your life as a soldier, you miss out on so much. I never settled down and had kids, and my time for that is even drawing to a close. I did take up a few hobbies here and there, but nothing really stuck. I still work part time for the Unkall empire, training their soldiers in virtual reality simulations is about all I can do, but I’ve given the Unkall the strength to protect their planets, and given their generals and admirals the knowledge not to go on any missions they will regret. I’m happy with the contributions I’ve made in my life, and if I had the chance, I’d do it all over again. By the way, I never did catch your name.”

“My name is Ruthal Nerzak, and I’m slotted to be a soldier in the Unkall Defense Force.”

“Well Ruthal, I hope we will meet again someday.”

With that, Ruthal stopped recording and went home, finishing his final report.

A few days later, Ukall prime came under attack. A colonial independence group made numerous strikes around the city, and Ruthal had been caught outside on his way home from class. He tried to run away, but was chased by one of the insurgents down an alleyway, when suddenly two lasgun shots rang out. Ruthal though he was dead, but he slowly opened his four eyes and saw that the terrorist was dead on the ground in front of him. Looking up, he was me with a familiar face

“Thank you Mr. Sturm, I thought I was surely dead.”

“Don’t thank me yet, we’re seven grids away from the nearest shelter, and there’s enemies all around us. You said you wanted to be a soldier, well your training just started early.”

Sturm handed Ruthal the lasgun from the dead insurgent, and after showing him how to fire and teaching him how to make sure it doesn’t overheat, he led the Unkall boy out of the alley and down the street. Two blocks later, Sturm pulled the Unkall boy into an alley.

“Alright son, listen up. There’s about fifty armed and angry people between us and shelter. Our espace routes have been mostly cut off, so I need you to listen to me and listen well. When I tell you to run, you run as fast as you can. We should be able to get past most of them by taking the alleys across the street. I picked up some kit off one of these guys. The flashbang should buy us enough time to cross the street, but I’ll have to think of something after we get to our next crossing.”

Sturm threw the flashbang far into the crowd of terrorists, blinding a dozen of them and allowing them to cross the street. After seeing how many insurgents were at their crossing point, Sturm and Ruthal entered a tall residence building across from a big shootout between the insurgent and Unkall forces.

“Alright, we don’t stand a chance of crossing that. Here’s the plan. We’ll get up high, and then open fire on them. If nothing else, we’ll draw their attention away from the defense forces and allow them to break through.”

“I can’t. They’re people, just like us.” “Look around you kid. There’s men, women, and children all gunned down by these guys. I’m not sure what that makes them in Unkall society, but to us Terrans, they’re no longer people; they’re monsters. As a soldier, our job is to get rid of the monsters, so that everyone can sleep soundly at night knowing they’re safe. Taking a life isn’t something one does lightly, but it’s still something that has to be done. It’s better that we take them out, because if we don’t, who knows how many more people they’ll kill. We don’t do this because we like killing, we do this because we love the people we protect, and we’d give anything to keep them safe.”

“But I don’t want to hurt them.”

“I understand. I’m not sure if the Unkall have a saying like this, but Terrans sure do. You have a big heart. You want to keep people safe, not put them in the ground. But sometimes the best way to keep people safe is to put bad people in the ground. We’re between a rock and a hard place. If we sit here and do nothing, they will continue to hold this street, but if we can take them down, even just one or two of them, we can make them fight on two sides, which is the easiest way to break through an enemy line. I recognize a few of the soldiers I can see from up here. I trained them myself. They’ll realize what’s going on and they’ll do the heavy lifting; we just need to give them a helping hand. So, are you ready?”

The young Unkall nodded, then Sturm and Ruthal braced their lasguns on the windowsill, and opened fire on the street below. As Sturm said, the insurgents shifted their position, attempting to defend against incoming fire from two directions. As the Unkall defense forces broke the lines, a single shot came from the street and hit Sturm in the neck

Bleeding badly, Sturm stumbled back, Ruthall catching him in his arms. As he was losing his grasp on consciousness, Sturm held Ruthalls hand

“Never forget what happened here. Never forget the atrocities you saw with your own eyes, and never be afraid to rise up against the monsters who make things like this happen.”

With that, Sturm closed his eyes. Unkall security forces soon burst into the room, seeing the state of the old Terran, they gave him the best aid they could, and sent him off to the hospital, with Ruthall at his side.

After a lengthy surgery and two pints of blood, Sturm woke up in his hospital room, Ruthall asleep on his lap. Colonel Rengar, a soldier in the Unkall defense forces entered the room.

“So Admiral, I see your retirement is going well.”

“Can the crap Colonel. How many did we lose?”

“Casualties are still being counted, but even one is too many.”

“And what about the boy, Ruthall. Why is he still here?"

"His family were among those killed in the attack. We haven’t told him yet, just that we’re still looking for them.”

“So what will happen to him?”

“We don’t know. He doesn’t have any living family, and in our culture friend’s do not step in for situations like these. He will likely be left to become an adoptee for some family here, but after this, I’m not sure who would adopt him.”

“I will.”

“What? You can’t be serious. The looks he would get, especially here in the capital. I’m not sure if he can take it.”

“He knows my story. He knows that I take care of the ones I call family. He didn’t hesitate to pick up a rifle and follow me through the streets today, and he only barely hesitated to fight beside me. He’ll make a fine soldier, and he’ll make a damn good son. Get me the documents dammit.”

“Very well.”

Ruthall woke up, and was told about what happened. He didn’t take his family dying too well, but was glad that he would not be alone. The next day that school was in session, Admiral Sturm put on his old Terran uniform, and walked his son into class. It was not easy adjusting to caring for a young Unkall child, but it was a change that Sturm was happy to make. He had known what it was like to be alone, and now he could keep Ruthall from knowing that pain.

The End

Let me know if you guys want a follow up series about Sturm and Ruthall on Unkall Prime, and how they live their lives together.

#humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #humans are weird #earth is space australia #humans are space australians

[mavda]

Beast Tamers

Ch.1 |  Ch.2 | Ch.3 | Ch.4(1) | Ch.4(2) | Ch.5(1) | Ch.5(2) | Ch.5(3) | Ch.5(4) | Ch.6(1) | Ch.6(2) | Ch.6(3) | Ch.7(1) | Ch.7(2) | Ch.7(3) | Ch.7(4) | Ch.7(5) | Ch.8(1) | Ch.8(2) | Ch.8(3) | Ch.9(1) | Ch.9(2) | Ch.9(3) | Ch.9(4) | Ch.10(1) | Ch.10(2) | Ch.10(3) | Ch.10(4) | Ch.10(5) | Ch.10(6) |

Ch.10: The Two-Tails (7)

The Two-Tails jumps to the guard, who evades and sends dagger after dagger at her body. They pierce into her chakra covered body, but do nothing to deter her attacks. 

    The blue cat jumps and runs after the guard, who has to evade with sharp movements that look desperate and out of control. The moment he realizes Naruto is charging toward him too, he can feel his heart in his throat. 

    This is worse than he had been told.

    His hands move fast and he mutters the seals under his breath with desperation. Faster, faster. The ground shakes and his breathing is already labored. He barely evades the Two-Tails who lunges at him before he can bite at his thumb, draw blood and call forth his hawk summon.

    Naruto brings forward his skeleton claw and slaps the summon away. The bird shrieks and stands immediately after, and the Two-Tails is already on its tail.

    The guard looks up at the Nine-Tails and Naruto steals the quickest glance he can muster, before he remembers he can't look the guard in the eye. 

    He’s a child. 

    He’s the same boy that made him lose control in the Summit.

    “Oh.” It’s the only thing that leaves his mouth. His red chakra shoots forward and grabs the boy, pinning him to the ground. There is a cloud of smoke that signals a body replacement technique. But Naruto scoffs, and as he looks towards the Four-Tails, lo and behold, the boy is there, grabbing the old man by his scalp and forcing eye contact.

    The Two-Tails comes back, with the giant summon in her mouth. The bird looks worse for wear and as soon as the Four-Tails starts emerging she drops it to the ground.

    “I’ll take care of it.”

    “You sure?”

    The monkey-looking Beast roars as it frees itself from his vessel. His hands playing drums on the ground. 

    “You can come help me after you’re done with the child.”

    She flashes in front of his eyes before he can even answer. Her Beast is smaller, but it only makes it easier for her to cut and hit before the monkey can retaliate. 

    The boy jumps back, hoping to put some distance between himself and-

    “Hey!”

    Naruto has the biggest smile in place, the look of distress on the child only making him more euphoric.

    “You think your friends will come when you scream?”

    A red claw flies past the boy, who manages to dodge it. He gives a quick glance to the Four-Tails, but the Beast is too busy swatting away at the Two-Tails, whose blue Beast runs and dodges the monkey’s attacks with ease.

    Fuck.

    Naruto sends red claw after red claw as he comes closer, and the boy can’t do much but keep his eyes focused on evading the bubbling red chakra. 

    If only he could make direct eye contact-

    He is too concentrated on evading the red claws that come at him one after the other. The Nine-Tails’ skeleton claw snatches him middair, squeezing his body and making him scream to the sky.

“Oooh, that’s a good one,” Naruto crushes the boy against a tree, the skeleton claw grabbing the trunk and digging into it. “You think they’ll come fast?” 

The boy doesn’t answer. Can’t answer. The Nine-Tails pushes him into the tree, and he can feel his bones cracking under the pressure. 

Naruto stares at the legs of the child. His screams fill the air but there seems to be no movement near them. The guards have begun filling the place, but they keep their distance, moving closer to their lady than Naruto.

If the enemy doesn’t come now where there is still a sliver of surprise in their favor…

“Come on,” Naruto urges, as a chakra claw engulfs the kid’s leg. The boy grunts as he gets used to the tension in his body, but then Naruto snaps his leg in half and a shrill scream reverberates around them.

Naruto expects something to happen. Wants something to happen. But aside from the boy’s huffing and puffing, and the whines that follow, nothing comes. 

The boy falls to the ground and he can’t even try to get up before the Nine-Tails is on top of him. The man holds one of his arms with his feet and the other with his knee. The boy looks at the Nine-Tails directly into his face, dribble falling from his mouth as the pain grows with each passing second. The Nine-Tails’ eyes stubbornly fixed into the boy’s chest. 

“You monster,” the boy spits.

Naruto punches the boy, his hand then rips the child’s cloak for a makeshift blindfold. “Go on, when are they coming?” Naruto punches him again, his frustration growing. “You think they’ll care if you die?”

“You- You-” The boy sputters, but Naruto has had it. He covers the boy’s mouth with his hand and then covers his eyes with the broken piece of cloak. 

“Fucking-” Naruto starts again, “you wanted us all here, didn’t you? Here we are, fucking come.” 

The boy tries to bite his hand but Naruto presses his knee into his stomach. “Shut the fuck up.” He calls for a couple of guards and hands the kid over to them without a care for his injuries.

“Don’t let him get away, don’t take his blindfold off, and don’t give him away to anyone but me, got it?”

The guards salute Naruto before moving the boy out of his sight, his legs dragging on the ground.

The Two-Tails slides as she jumps away from the Four-Tails, his palm strikes near her and the sound is enough to make her wince.

“Need any help?” 

The Nine-Tails doesn’t wait for an answer as he walks forward. He grabs debris near him and launches it at the monkey. 

“Stay away,” shouts Naruto, “this will get rowdy.”

The Four-Tails raises his arms to protect himself from the falling rocks, grabs a few to send back to the Nine-Tails. The fox is in the middle of covering his skeleton with red bubbly chakra, and the Four-Tails screeches and throws whatever he can get his hands on to the now forming Beast.

Naruto concentrates on forming his four-tailed form, and grabs the debris launched at him with chakra claws that spring from whatever part of his body is closest to the rubble. 

It has been a long while since he was able to reach this form without his father or Jiraiya watching over. Their instructions resonate inside of him, and Naruto’s body is now buried deep down into the Nine-Tails body. 

Four tails are enough. Four tails he can manage. 

The Four-Tails beats the ground with its hands before screeching and lunging itself at the red Beast.

Naruto raises on his  hind legs, launches a claw to the monkey’s head and roars as the hit connects. His mouth opens and he concentrates chakra in front of him, a black orb that makes shrill noises as the energy accumulates.

The monkey thrashes under him, bringing its hands and feet to the Nine-Tails head, feet, whatever it can catch. The moment Naruto is about to set off his attack the monkey twists around and manages to cover the Nine-Tails mouth with its arm. 

The two Beasts thrash about and the ground trembles. 

•····························•····························•

The Beasts roar and screech at each other and the destruction brought by their fight reaches even the other side of the forest. 

    “Lord Naruto’s four tails form.” Ino can’t help but steal a glance at him, the red chakra bubbles everywhere and his beast bomb shoots up to the sky as the Four-Tails hand manages to cover the Nine-Tails’ snout.

    The clouds disperse and the air that whooshes out of the fight is enough to rattle the birds nearby. 

    “Are we close yet?” Lord Gaara asks. His sand following right behind him.

    “Just a little more,” Shino confirms. 

    Ino takes her gaze away from the lord’s fight, empties her mind as they get closer and closer to their objective. 

    She has one shot at this.

    “Rest assured, I will help.” Lord Gaara keeps his face blank as always, but his voice is filled with reassurance and Ino nods at him.

    “At our four o’clock, 700 meters ahead,” shares Shino and everyone becomes quieter. Their steps softer against the ground and branches they use to advance. 

    “Ready?” Temari steps next to Ino, her fan on her hands. The weapon is long enough to reach below her knees when attached at her back, and is now semi-open, ready to call forth her summon and level the trees in front of them. 

    Ino brings her hands together, making a triangle. She breathes out, stares in the direction Shino shared. “Whenever Lord Gaara is ready.”

    “I have one in reach right now,” he answers, his sand following one of the enemies hidden in the forest, almost touching their heels. 

    Temari opens her fan and the group spreads to give her space. Her bloody thumb swaps at her weapon and her hand does seals as she mutters the names under her breath. “Incoming!” she screams, as she fans the air in front of her, where her summon starts cutting down everything and anything it touches. 

    They hope her scream will give the enemy a chance to evade her attack and let survivors in its wake. But Gaara frowns as two of the ones near his sand fall down, unable to stand again. 

    His sand searches, his chakra touching and prodding as they enter the clearing Temari has made. “There,” he whispers, his sand keeping an enemy in place, mouth covered in sand, limbs unable to move.

    He turns his head to Ino, to let her know who’s ready for her technique, but her body lays limp against Sai’s chest and Gaara lets his sand go the second after. 

    Shino and Sai leave immediately after. Temari stays as Gaara brings forth his One-Tail in the open, sending attacks to the many enemies running away from this place. Ino follows behind the enemy, now one of them, and Gaara does his best to keep her away from his attacks. 

    Soon after, Gaara’s attacks become mere sounds and the Nine-Tails heat is but a mirage. 

    Ino blends into the group as they begin to congregate again. And she follows. 

•····························•····························•

Ino mimics the behaviour around her. They don’t talk much and they keep on the move with barely a break. 

    They whisper, worried about what happened back there.

    Sasuke couldn’t even put up a fight, they whisper. 

Did the boss know he was leaving Sasuke behind when he ordered them to retreat? 

Did you see that Beast?

The Nine-Tails… 

Monsters. Monsters all of them. 

Ino stores all and every bit of information she catches on. She chimes in when necessary, and her presence remains dull and unnoticed.

They keep on moving.

You think the other group succeeded?

Sure as hell hope so, or this whole thing was for nothing.

Ino wonders whether to stop her technique now and inform her lord, but her orders are different, so she stays. 

They run, and they run some more. To a place where the clans have little power, to a place where no one really comes. There are 12 of them when they arrive. 7 died, as she learns from the people around her. She commits every detail she can to memory. She focuses on the names and faces around her.

She comes into a practice ground and sees red eyes. She has to fight the urge to look away. 

A man comes to her and asks her why she has taken so long to report. She apologizes and follows, she rummages inside this brain for knowledge she can present.

She wonders if their leader will realize she’s a spy the moment they lay eyes on her. 

She has practiced her movements, she has practiced her speech. She is one more of them, and although she is nervous she steels herself and gives her report to a man whose face is buried in papers. 

She waits for him to dismiss her. No one around her says nothing about her demeanor, no one around her stares at her too long. They keep on their chores, moving papers, and whispering plans in front of their boss. 

The man in front of her nods to no one in particular and waves his hand once for her to leave. Ino bows like she has seen others do and turns around. The man hasn’t looked at her. 

“Wait.”

She does as told. 

“Turn around.”

Red eyes greet her, and although she very much would like to evade his gaze. She paints a confused look on her face. “Yes, boss?” 

The man looks old like Lord Minato, his eyes are redder than most and the black markings inside circle around, making her dizzy. 

“Who are you?”

He’s tall too, tall like Lord Jiraiya.

“Boss, I don’t-”

The man brings his hand to her neck and Ino chokes on her saliva. Her hands clasp at his arm in an attempt to release his hold, but he doesn’t let go.

“Interesting technique, body exchange or mind exchange, huh?” His hand presses harder and Ino starts to lose consciousness. “A member of the Kirikage’s? the Okosu? the Yamanaka?”

The man lets her go and Ino coughs into the ground, her eyes filled with tears. 

“Doesn’t matter, go tell your master what you’ve seen.” His eyes are full of contempt, of arrogance, “I do hope your technique handles the mind, child, I really do.”

His fist comes down to her head, chakra enveloping his limb and Ino wakes into her own body, coughing and clasping at her neck in pain. 

“My lord!” she coughs in between, still feeling the man’s hand wringing her neck, “my lord the clan- an attack.”

Sai helps her steady herself, his hand at her torso. He brings his own waterskin to her lips. Her lord is a few meters away, all menacing and intimidating.

“See? Now you know I’m telling the truth.”

In front of Lord Naruto stands a man with straight black hair in a low ponytail, his voice soft, his stance unassuming. The lord refuses to look the man in the eyes and Ino avoids his eyes immediately after. 

An Uchiha.

#naruto #naruhina #Naruto Uzumaki #Hinata Hyuga #uzumaki naruto #hyuga hinata #fanfiction #fanfic #Beast Tamers #ch.10 #part 7 #poor sasuke never had a chance :( #have a great one and see you next week!!

[shimmersing]

Best Intentions *COMPLETE* Masterpost | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Bonus! Soundtrack @ Spotify

“Master Jedi!”

Elara Dorne called to her from across the hall; Aitahea had just closed the door of her suite, ready to meet Hallam Organa. Finally, she could find Master Sidonie, heal her, and end this plague once and for all. The exquisite gown had been carefully packed away and was en route to the Luminous with the rest of her belongings. She’d donned her carefully cleaned and mended robes this morning with a trace of sadness, a chill that faded once warmly wrapped in the familiar clothes.

“Sergeant, good morning,” Aitahea said, slipping into her kindest smile; it wasn’t hard in the presence of the buoyant former Imperial.

“Are you well after last’s nights events? I’ve never seen anything like that, the dancing, the music!” Aitahea nodded, and the woman beamed brightly. “The Lieutenant hasn’t smiled that much since I’ve known him, though it’s only been since Taris, which isn’t long at all.” She seemed suddenly embarrassed of her ramble, raising her hands to her lips to hide a giggle.

Aitahea couldn’t help laughing, but a spike of jealousy needled through the shared delight when she realized how little time that meant she herself had known him. Months had passed since Taris, but unlike his crew members, Aitahea’s sliver of his time was infinitesimal, scattered across the galaxy.

“And you! You looked like a princess.” Elara’s smile went a bit wistful. “Like you belong here.”

Aitahea ducked into the shadow of her hood, flattered and pleased, but haunted by the sergeant’s words. She felt an uncertainty, a jarring dissonance like she’d felt in the last few moments of the dance when the steps had begun unwinding before her, and then she’d falled, once again, into Erithon’s arms. Aitahea knew she certainly didn’t look like she belonged here, not muted layers of robes, hair back in efficient plaits, and weapon at her side. She wasn’t certain quite where she belonged.

“That’s kind of you, sergeant. Forgive me for the short farewell, but I’m expected in the diplomacy wing. Please take care.”

“Of course. May the Force be with you, Master Jedi.”

~

It would be the grand stairs they’d meet on again, Erithon noted with wry amusement when he spotted the Jedi ascending. Like him, she was back in what passed for a uniform, but very unlike him, she remained as remarkable in earthtones and lightsaber at her side as she’d been in gossamer and flowers and starlight.

Last night had gone so well, until it hadn’t. He’d let things go too far, too fast, and he’d deserved to have her put the brakes on like that. But… I never stopped, she’d whispered. Dreaming, of him. He hadn’t known quite what to do with that information last night, and he hadn’t figured out anything so far this morning either. He had a fellow in the detention center to meet; she’d likely be on the trail of her ill Jedi Master. Back to their assigned roles.

She still looked tired and pale, but her voice held a note of warmth that chased away the morning chill. “Good morning, Lieutenant.”

He swallowed the ache that tightened in his chest when she used his rank, not his name. Names were for dancing and dark hallways, not now, not when they each had someone else to be. “Morning, Jedi. Ready to save the world again?”

“The summit is already underway.” Aitahea exhaled a slow breath. “I only hope I’m not too late.”

Erithon wanted nothing more desperately than to gather her up and hold her until that haunted look disappeared from her eyes. It had, for just a few moments last night, when they’d been dancing. When he’d held her and was certain that in his arms was exactly where she’d wanted to be.

While he struggled for words, Aitahea began to frown at him. Really, she was frowning at the new chest plate supplied by the quartermaster to replace the one he’d… lost. It didn’t match the rest of his armor quite right, different paint batch or something, but at least it didn’t have a huge lightsaber slash through it.

‘Hey, I’m back in action too, see?’ He thunked a fist against the mismatched armor and grinned. Her expression softened after a lengthy moment, melting away like snow in sunlight to reveal a small but bright smile. That did chase the shadows away, for a moment at least.

“Erithon,” she began, and everything he’d wanted to hear was in his name as it left her lips. Then she paused, considering; she still smiled, thoughtful, but a sudden distance stretched between them. “Thank you for rescuing me.” She stared hard at the new chestplate again, then raised her hand and touched her fingertips to the mismatched composite. “May the Force be with you, Lieutenant.”

“You too,” he echoed, a little mystified. He could have sworn he felt her fingertips against his own skin again, touching the vague discoloration that belied the life-ending wound. The wound she’d healed, and here she was, thanking him for her rescue? He started to add something, but she bowed low to him, and before her face disappeared in the shadow of her hood, eyes that seemed just a little too bright. And then she was disappearing around the corner, just a swish of robes and the scent of white flowers.

Duke Charle Organa wandered up, watching as Aitahea disappeared, humming pleasantly to himself. “Last time I saw that kind of longing on your Jedi’s face was when we put her on the ship to Tython.” Erithon startled when Organa said your. The Duke mused at the suddenly flushed trooper. “No one ever wanted to both stay and go as much as that girl did.”

Erithon swallowed hard and nodded. He was pretty sure he felt that, too.

“Duty is a privilege and a burden, I can safely tell you, Lieutenant.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Master Aitahea knows that perhaps less well than she assumes.”

“Folks who work that hard – in particular for the benefit of other people - do it for a lot of reasons, Your Grace. That’s part of her code, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed, Lieutenant. It is indeed. But what about her?”

Erithon pulled a face. “Sir?” Organa gave him an expectant look, so he added hesitantly, “I’m not sure I’m in a position to speculate there, especially about Aita – about Master Daviin.” He grimaced as he stumbled over her title. Organa’s smile grew satisfied.

“Best intentions are all well and good, Lieutenant, but time will slip away before you know it.” The Duke drew up smartly, giving Erithon a sideways glance before he turned away. “You have appointments this morning, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir,” Erithon said in reply. Organa was right, it was time he get to that meeting. He’d have to puzzle through the Duke’s words later.

Best intentions, indeed.

Best Intentions *COMPLETE* Masterpost | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Bonus! Soundtrack @ Spotify

#swtor fanfic #swtor fanfiction #swtor #fanfiction #star wars the old republic #jedi consular #republic trooper #alderaan #best intentions #COMPLETE #chapter 9

[eruden-writes]

The Unexpected Human Problem - Part 26 (Yautja x Human)

Part 1 | Part 2| Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5| Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 (coming soon)

CW: Nothing much, I think. Gets a bit flirty near the end.

Tag list: @ajarofpickledtears, @boogeysmoth

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Early chapter releases available on Patreon for my patrons! ;)

Be one of the first to read Part 27 when it's ready. (The newest part of Desperation's Summit is there, though!)

Comments, tags, and reblogs are real motivators for me, too! ♥

☆ ☆ ☆

Summary: The night her abductors die, Rayelle finds herself running for her life. She doesn’t know where she is, what is following her, where to go. All she knows is she’s not on Earth any longer and the thing chasing her has the capacity to kill.

Tai'dqei never anticipated finding a human when he took the job of tracking and subduing a small contingent of smugglers. It was only when the human attacked and fled fled, Tai'dqei - hopped up on the euphoria of a successful hunt - gave chase, instinct burning at his center.

Will sense return to Tai'dqei before he catches Rayelle? Or will Rayelle be subjected to the yautja’s natural inclinations?

And what happens afterwards?

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There was a long stretch of time where Tai'dqei simply stared at Rayelle, his eyebrow ridges furrowed. A scale tipped and swayed in his mind's eye. Could he risk allowing more to develop, when Rayelle could leave somewhere, some time, he couldn't reach?

There was also the question concerning whether she'd feel obligated to stay with him, if something more built between them. He had no doubt she'd, ultimately, choose her kids. But how she would agonize over that decision bothered him.

He looked like a man mulling over a serious topic, with his elbows braced on his knees and his hands dangling. So still, like a stone statue. Rayelle's teeth worried at her lower lip, realizing not even his mandibles were fidgeting, as he had a habit of doing. The air around both of them was still, and Rayelle wasn't sure how to feel about that.

The longer the silence lasted, the more she was sure he was going to confirm he was simply answering a casual mating urge. That he'd had many before her and planned to have many after. That the bond he and Ah'ke had was different from whatever was happening between her and him.

Those thoughts made an uncomfortable heat flare in her chest, as her eyes flickered to the floor.

"When it first happened, that first night," he started and Rayelle tried to stifle her flinch. His tone was somber and soft, making her brace herself for something she didn't want to hear. Tai'dqei chose his words carefully, navigating on some threshold between 'too-stoic' and 'too-vulnerable.' "It was a combination of my own victory and adrenaline plus you inadvertently going through motions that certainly stoked my instincts."

"This time..." Tai'dqei paused, heaving another heavy breath. His chest felt tight and hot, his heart thrumming a little too hard for a normal conversation. Rayelle dared to glance up at him, seeing that his gaze was turned from her, staring at a wall. His mandibles flexed as he chose what to say. Embarrassed heat climbed up his face, though Tai'dqei doubted Rayelle would notice. "This time, I came back to help you, because you asked me to come. My prerogative wasyou and your safety."

Another heavy gnarl of a sigh left him, as he reached up to rub the back of his neck. The line of 'too-vulnerable' skirted rather close to his words, but he pushed on.

"There is a protectiveness yautja feel for... potential mates." This was true, whether it was reproductive mates - thus parents of one's children - or the more romantic, intimate mates. The only one it could possibly be untrue for were the casual affairs. But that varied from individual to individual. Tai'dqei just wasn't sure how Rayelle wanted to be seen by him. "I hadn't completely ignored the thought that we might end up fucking."

That fluttery heat tickled in Rayelle's chest. Carefully, she watched him, parsing his words with care. What did it mean to be a mate? She needed clarification on what he wanted. What he hoped for.

She couldn't bring herself to be direct. A laugh trickled from her throat, tasting slightly bitter on Rayelle's tongue. "So, you could say I'm a tedious charge that you need to nanny and us fucking was a benefit."

"No, I wouldn't say that." Tai'dqei hadn't even stopped to consider his answer. Heat flared through Rayelle at that realization, the blush deepening as he stood. She hadn't realized standing over the yautja had given her some sense of confidence, a sense of control over the situation. That sense of strength dwindled as he gently took her hand, sandwiching it between his warm palms. "I enjoy your company and I wouldn't be averse to spending more time with you. A long time, if you so choose."

If she chose. A lump formed in her throat, the realization landing in her brain again. She couldn't, wouldn't, choose Tai'dqei over her kids. If there was a chance she could be sent back to her time, she'd follow through. No matter how badly her chest ached at the thought or how horridly her eyes burned with unshed tears.

"What would that even look like, though?" Rayelle gave another semi-bitter laugh, ignoring how her voice cracked. She tried wildly to not entertain the thought of being anything more than a fuck buddy to Tai'dqei. It wasn't fair to her or him. Without thinking, she slid her hand away from his grip, waving the hand at him. "You're a bounty-hunting, general contracting, hitman-for-hire. I'm a human with barely any skills in the here-and-now."

Tai'dqei flinched at her words, presuming she wasn't able to meld his work with her morals. But Rayelle surprised him by pinning him with a pained expression, her free hand pressed to her own chest. "I'd just be a liability, wouldn't I?"

It was a justified concern. And it stoked a little bit of ego in Tai'dqei to have some roundabout acknowledgement from Rayelle concerning his skills.

"It's a big universe. There are plenty of jobs that don't entail killing others." Tai'dqei inclined his head to her, his mandibles pulling up a little one one-side. Almost like a crooked smile, Rayelle thought. "Those just pay the most."

A considering hum left Rayelle's lips. She couldn't really fault him for choosing the best job for his skills. Plus, he had twenty four children to contribute to, as well. Though he wasn't the sole one responsible for their financial safety. Was it too much to ask him to take poorer paying jobs? If only for his safety? Or so she could travel with him on missions without feeling like a hindrance?

Her brain still hadn't fully gripped the whole Tai'dqei is a father fact. She had guessed, since he traveled alone and only really mentioned Ah'ke, Tai'dqei wasn't romantically close with any of his seven former mates. Though she wasn't ready to delve further into that curiosity.

"If you're looking for something grounded, I do have a home."

"What?" And just like that, Tai'dqei made her brain spin in a radically different direction. He had a house? Where? Likely, on his home planet. But what did that look like? How would she be treated? With a motion to the ship around them, she said, "This isn't your home?"

"It is, but I have a place on my world. My mother is looking after it for me." His mother looked after his home? Another indication he wasn't close to those he had kids with, Rayelle supposed. Tai'dqei gave another awkward shrug as words continued from him. "Of course, she might have let it out to a sibling, while I've been away."

Something in Rayelle rippled, her eyes flickering from Tai'dqei to the floor. Mother. Sibling. Yautja had multiples, two or three, per litter. Of course, he'd have siblings. She pressed her lips together, the enormity of the situation suddenly pressing down on her.

She was far in the future, talking to an alien about where their whatever-it-could-be-called was heading. And he had a mother and multiple siblings and former lovers and kids. It made sense. Tai'dqei didn't just pop into existence to help her. He had a life before her, with family - or families? - and lovers and...

Suddenly, dizziness slammed into her, making her sway. She brought a hand to her forehead, inhaling sharply as an ache stabbed at her temples.

She heard more than saw Tai'dqei's step forward. A concerned lilt tightened his voice, "Are you okay?"

"It's just a lot to digest." Rayelle took a slow, deep breath to steady herself. Tilting her head to Tai'dqei, she offered him a little smile, finding his hands outstretched but not touching her.

"Decisions don't have to be made right now." His hands fell from their mid-air position, choosing to trust Rayelle's own assessment of how she felt. Edging into 'too-vulnerable' territory again, as his hands clenched tightly at his sides, he quietly added, "I'm happy you're safe and I can spend more time with you."

"Are you, really?" The words were out of Rayelle's mouth before she could think about it. Her eyes blinked rapidly against the growing heat behind her lids. Desperation had her seeking for any out, any excuse to keep her walls solidly in place. "Even if I choose to go back to my kids and not stay here?"

"Yes." Another answer, said so confidently and without long the need for thought. Rayelle swallowed down a whimper, tears threatening to spill. This situation was so unfair. So very unfair. It made her heart hurt, as if it was being squeezed too tightly on all sides.

Rayelle's whimper arose as Tai'dqei gently pulled her close, his hand splayed on her back. His other hand went to her cheek, coaxing her to tilt her head back as he stooped, pressing his forehead to hers. His eyes closed, before he could look too deeply into Rayelle's eyes. "I know your children come first, Rayelle. I will enjoy whatever time together we have."

A pain twisted through Rayelle as a sob burbled up her lips. She shook her head, dislodging his hand at her cheek, before pressing her face against his chest. Her hands gripped at his sides, fingers threading through the fishnet he wore. The carefully constructed emotional walls buckled as relief and anger and sadness tore through her. Though she still swallowed down her cries, the tears flowed over her cheeks.

Tai'dqei stood quietly as Rayelle cried against him, rubbing his hand up and down her back as his other arm looped around her lower back. When her quiet crying lulled, he tried to softly redirect her focus. "Rest is in order, I think."

Wiping away tears with the heel of her hand, and ignoring how she sniffled, Rayelle tried to rally herself. She shot Tai'dqei a vaguely cheeky - if watery - smile. "Oh, I am sure that was your original plan."

"It was, actually." He said, a touch of reproach in his voice, but mostly exasperation. As Rayelle took a step away from him, Tai'dqei crossed his arms over his chest. The ache of exhaustion was gnawing at his bones, the sense of an adrenaline-drain ready to knock him out. "As enticing as you are, I am tired."

Rayelle grinned, almost tempted to say something about the mighty yautja, needing a nap. But she feared that would go down a less wholesome pathway. She did nudge Tai'dqei with her shoulder as she passed him. "Think you can keep your hands to yourself, if we share your bed?"

"No," Tai'dqei answered, easily coming up beside Rayelle. She shot him a wide-eyed look, a blush biting at her cheeks as she tried to decide whether to be turned on or annoyed. He didn't give her a chance to settle, as his arm reached around her back, his hand falling on her hip. Tai'dqei gave her a playful squeeze. "You are too soft not to pull close."

"Let me rephrase," laughed Rayelle, shoving his hand off her hip and turning, dancing back to keep her distance. Tai'dqei watched her, head cocked as he respected the distance she set forth. Rayelle continued walking toward his quarters as she teasingly asked, "Think you can keep your dick to yourself, if we share a bed?"

Ah, that's what she meant. Tai'dqei gave a nod, just as they breached the threshold of his bedroom. "That, I can do. You have my word."

"Good," Rayelle replied, giving an encouraging nod as she kicked off her shoes. Tai'dqei followed her lead, removing his shoes and fishnets. Though he left his lower garment, realizing Rayelle had only stripped to her hoodie and underwear. She still wanted some layers between them.

Trying to ignore the excited patter of her own heart, Rayelle advanced on the raised dais where the bed lay. She quickly crawled under the pelt-like covers, before she could think too long about all the things Tai'dqei had done in that bed. To himself or others. Her own censorship didn't keep her imagination from leaking the odd thought in, at the back of her head, though.

Before he crawled under the covers, Tai'dqei locked the ship and dimmed the lights from his gauntlet. He was painfully aware of the additional body in his bed, just as Rayelle was aware of how his heavier form made the mattress dip.

Even if they had wanted to sleep on separate sides of the mattress - which they hadn't - it was impossible. As soon as Tai'dqei settled, Rayelle found herself slipping toward him. Which was fine, she told herself, as nerves bolted through her. They turned to face each other, Rayelle's hands slid to Tai'dqei's chest.

Under her palm, he was as firm and warm as he always was. With the knowledge they were already sharing a bed, and they'd been far more intimate than this in recent memory, Rayelle curled against Tai'dqei's chest. Other than the time she caught him leaving the shower, she wasn't sure she ever saw him without the fishnet-like fabric.

Closing his eyes, Tai'dqei allowed himself enough leeway to let his hand land on her hip. Though he fought against the temptation of toying with the fabric beneath his fingers, unsure if it was her underwear or her hoodie. While it was one thing to say he simply wanted rest, it was another thing to keep his body in check. With Rayelle so close, her scent wafting up in his face and her cushiony soft heat pressed against him, urges started to stir at his core.

Not exactly the urge to fuck her, though he wouldn't say no to it. But to touch her. To hear the little sighs and whines. To feel her under his palm, his claws. To see what sounds he could draw from her breath. Beneath those thoughts, the memories of being on top of her, in her, danced around his head as well.

"You're very warm," she sighed, absentmindedly hooking her leg over his hip, pulling his heat closer to her.

Tai'dqei shifted a little, making sure his traitorous growing arousal didn't nudge against Rayelle. Softly joking, he grunted, "You are testing me."

"Am I?" Faux innocence painted Rayelle's words, even though it hadn't been her intention to tempt Tai'dqei's resolve. It was better to act like she was, though. Or else, she'd have to cave to the squirming heat at her core and the desire to touch him more.

"Certainly seems like it," he retorted, eyes cracking open, if only to watch her silhouette in the dark.

Rayelle pressed further against his chest, close enough for him to feel her smile against his skin. "Maybe you're just weak-willed."

He couldn't help himself. Tai'dqei growled, the vibrations emanating out from his chest and into Rayelle's bones. He knew exactly what he was doing, she realized, as he hunched further around her. The heat of his body bled into hers. One arm wrapped around her, his claws dragging down the fabric of her hoodie. Not hard enough to tear the material, but just barely bridging the barrier. A shudder and embarrassing whimper left Rayelle, her breath catching in her throat.

"If I was weak-willed, you'd already be pinned to this mattress and pumped full of my seed, again," Tai'dqei hissed in her ear, causing Rayelle's fingernails to dig into his chest as trickles of pleasure slid down her spine. Her back arched, inadvertently pressing his claws harder against her.

"I thought you were tired." Rayelle ignored the hint of breathlessness in her voice, as she angled her head to look at him. She couldn't see anything, except his silhouette in the dark. And even then, it was hard to get a clear idea of where he was looking. Half-unaware she was doing it, Rayelle's legs hooked around one of Tai'dqei's thighs, seeking pressure against her the needy throb of her core.

"I am. But that doesn't mean my libido is." To make his point clear, Tai'dqei shifted his hips, allowing his semi-arousal to grind against Rayelle's inner thigh. Her soft warmth, coupled with her little gasp, were certainly temptations. He was about ready to say screw sleep, just to bury himself in her once more, but the sensible part of him knew rest was needed. They both needed it. Especially Rayelle, given how she was talking earlier. "And it has overridden exhaustion in the past."

"Okay, okay," she laughed, her cheeks warm with a little bit of shame. Tai'dqei had been restraining himself for much longer than tonight. Not to mention he literally tore up a whole resort to help her. He deserved the rest, without her taunting hormones making it - ahem - hard.

Reaching up to grab his shoulders, Rayelle pulled herself a little higher along his body. It almost made Tai'dqei groan, feeling her slide against him. Pressing her face into the crook of his neck, Rayelle sighed against his throat, "I'll be good."

"Good," he grumbled, though the movement of her lips against his skin did little to ease the heat and pressure in his center. Rayelle's change in position, at least, gave his erection wide berth. Though Tai'dqei wasn't sure if he liked that or not. It was definitely safer.

Other than the occasional movement of Rayelle's lips against his shoulder - half-drowsy kisses, he supposed - and the slow stroke of his hand down her back, the two fell still.

Eventually, thankfully, sleep claimed them quickly after that. Though, the promise of waking in each other's arms when they next roused was, perhaps, a bit of incentive

#exophilia #exo writing #monster lover #yautja #yautja predator #yautja x human #alien x human #monster x human #monster romance #alien romance #yautja oc #yautja boyfriend #the unexpected human problem #tuhp #unexpected human problem #uhp #tai'dqei #rayelle #LOOK #No cliffhanger lol

[zktop10]

Guess who’s back with shitty stats?

Writers in Quarantine

This list is for all fics UPDATED in March, 2020. I’ll be doing another list for new March stories. Happy writing to my fellow authors! Readers, please remember to share the love as we all slowly go crazy from being stuck inside. ALSO! Share this list, because Tumblr will ignore it due to the external links!

As always, I excluded Underage, Rape/Non-Con (LOOK AT TAGS FOR #5), and Crossovers.

And finally, these numbers are arbitrary. This list is not a judgement of works but is merely to push up stories that might get overlooked.

Data pulled April 2, 2020 at 1730 EST

Current Sx: 0.69

Note: Alumni means they’ve been on a major Top 10 list before.

1. There is No War in Ba Sing Se by Polywantsanother (Transparency Note: This is my story.) 9.5/10

Rating: T

Tags: Not Canon Compliant, Alternate Universe- Multiple Timelines, Mulligan AU, Slow Burn (but PG because they’re minors), Drama, friends to strangers to friends?

Words: 27,058

Summary: Zuko went to bed as the new Fire Lord; the war had been ended, his friends were safe, and his uncle was running a tea shop. His future was, finally, hopeful.

When Zuko woke up, he was back on his ship sailing toward Sokka and Katara's village.

Lu Ten is alive, Aang is still missing, and there is no war in Ba Sing Se. Still, Sozin's Comet is coming, and Zuko thinks it's his only way back to his timeline.

If this one doesn't kill him first.

Updates every Thursday!

2. Modern Love by GrapefruitTwostep, 9.1/10

Rating: T

Tags: High School AU, 1980s AU, Underage Drinking, Smoking, Fist Fights, Domestic Violence, John Hughes, Slow Burn, Alumni (All Fic & Rated M 2019)

Words: 93,675

Summary: High school should be the best time of Katara's life -- her brother certainly feels that way -- but after being ostracized by her popular friends, things aren't looking so good for her junior year. On the other hand, Zuko already hates high school and is just counting down the days until he can get out.

In order to make this anything other than the worst year on record, they'll have to contend with malicious siblings, overenthusiastic jocks, the worst friends imaginable, and, most insurmountably ... each other.

3. The Summit by AJ_Lenoire, 8.9/10

Rating: M

Tags: Post Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst, The Blue Spirit, Slow Burn

Words: 97,573

Summary: To commemorate the end of the Hundred Years' War and to ensure nothing like that ever happens again, the Four Nations agree to hold a Summit every year. Two weeks of political talks, cultural immersion and utter harmony. As Fire Lord, Zuko is in charge of hosting the first, set in the Fire Nation capital. As war-heroes, Katara, Sokka, Toph, Suki and of course Aang are in attendance also.

However, as Katara finds herself yearning for a life beyond that of the Avatar's faithful companion, it appears that politics will not be the only tumultuous waters they have to navigate.

4. The Last Waterbender by myshipsaresunk, 8.7/10

Rating: G

Tags: Avatar Katara, Alternate Universe, Creator Chose to Not Use Archive Warnings

Words: 117,365

Summary: AU where Katara is the Avatar// While on a quest to restore his honor, Zuko stumbles across a girl stranded on an iceberg. Katara has no memories when she wakes from the ice. They journey together through the South Pole, Zuko trying to find the Avatar and Katara trying to regain her memories. A cruel twist of fate pits their destinies against each other and even as Katara is accepting her legacy as the Avatar, Zuko must decide between her and his destiny.

5. The Masks we Wear by JiggleWigs, 8.6/10

Rating: M

Tags: Anastasia AU, Displaced Royalty AU, Graphic Depictions of Violence, IMPLIED/REFERENCED RAPE/NON-CON

Words: 100,465

Summary: AU. Soon after the birth of Fire Prince Ozai's second child, an attack on the Fire Nation Royal Family causes the fall of the monarchy of the Fire Nation and the alleged death of all those related to the Fire Lord. Fifteen years later, with the war ended and the Fire Nation fallen, a young man strives only to support and protect his sister and single mother in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se, but when a chance to permanently provide for both of them as well as learn the truth about his past arises, he'll risk everything.

6. The Two Sides of the Sea by anothersilentwriter, 8.3/10

Rating: T

Tags: Canon Divergent, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Fix It Fic

Words: 25,602

Summary: There are two different versions of Katara. One of them sings for blood and controls the drums of heartbeats, and the other stops the tears and heartbreak. She switches between them as easily as a wave crashing into the shore returns to the sea.

Zuko is the only one who has seen both.

7. Thinking Out Loud by jacqstoned, 8.2/10

Rating: T

Tags: Modern AU, Blind Date, No Bending, Fluff, Dating, Humor, Romance

Words: 82,202

Summary: Toph sets up Zuko and Katara on a blind date, and it does not go well. Zutara AU

8. The Lost Firebender by calmecirce, 8.2/10

Rating: G

Tags: Avatar Zuko, Role Swap, Old Man Aang

Words: 25,754

Summary: An AU in which Zuko is the avatar, trapped in ice for 100 years, Aang is a crazy old man hell bent on capturing him so he can teach him air bending, and the whole story is re imagined based on this change:

Water. Earth. Fire. Air.

Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them. But when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, a firebender named Zuko, and although his firebending skills are great, he still has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Zuko save the world.

9. Pride & Politics by melps, 7.9/10

Rating: T

Tags: Drama, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn

Words: 60,660

Summary: Three years after the Comet, Katara and Aang part ways. After a mysterious message from the spirit world, Katara leaves home for the Fire Nation. She takes on the role of Ambassador for her people, while facing ominous interactions with the spirit world, threats on Zuko's life, and her own journey into adulthood. My post-series headcanon. Eventual Zutara. Chapter 13: Revelation

10. Scar Tissue by Neva_Borne, 7.9/10

Rating: Not Rated

Tags: Post Canon, Canon Divergent AU, Fluff and Angst, Eventual Smut

Words: 47,535

Summary: Katara and Zuko both nearly die while fighting Azula for the Fire Nation, but the war is won. They have a long journey of physical and emotional healing ahead of them, the world is demanding their help in rebuilding, and Zuko's mother is out there, somewhere. In their mutual struggle to redefine themselves in a world that demands everything from them, they find themselves gravitating towards each other for support. And within each other, they find the strength they both desperately need.

#zutara fanfiction #zk fanfic #fanfic rec list #fanfic recommendation #zk top 10 #feels good to be back #but none of my formulas make sense anymore #my stupid ass has to relearn all of it #but welcome to the pandemic

[jed-thomas]

Ministers with and without Portfolios

When you want to demonstrate your sincerity, you write a letter.

The summer is nearing its summit and 1982 is disappearing in a confused fog. Somewhere, Micheal Foot opens up an envelope. An ambitious young candidate, recently selected in some leafy suburb of London, has written to him. You can feel the youth in his writing - and, regrettably, a palpable eagerness to impress. Nevertheless, there are some admirable phrases:

Socialism ultimately must appeal to the better minds of the people. You cannot do that if you are tainted overmuch with a pragmatic period in power.

For men like Foot, members of a modern British tradition, politics and oratory are not separable. Even the timbre of your voice comes into it. On some cold picket-line, at some bored union congress, or against the baying of the other half of the House, you have to fill the air and rouse the spirits. In so many ways, the tradition of British socialism is a poetic tradition.

Maybe, then, he spots it a mile away. A lack of inspiration, the absence of a real perspective. That faint sense of pantomime. Or otherwise, Michael Foot, soon to be an ex-leader of the Labour Party, dimly registers the writer’s display of party-loyalty and just puts the letter aside. This man had crashed the party’s vote-share in Beaconsfield. Tony Blair is saving face.

X

Last Friday, it was announced that the constituency of Hartlepool would return its first Conservative MP in 62 years. Labour’s vote-share crashed by 16%. Perhaps most astonishingly, the Conservative victory in Hartlepool is only the second time in 40 years that a party in government has taken a seat from their opposition.

In immediate response, Leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer MP moved to reorganise the Labour Party’s campaign office. Importantly, Deputy Leader Angela Rayner MP was removed from her position as Chair of the Labour Party, the position ultimately responsible for election campaigns. As the Deputy Leader is elected separately, Starmer’s decision has been criticised as an attempt to undermine the influence of a senior elected official. However, as the days have passed, Rayner has emerged with a new position - or, more accurately, a few new positions. Angela Rayner MP now shadows Michael Gove MP as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and occupies the newly-created, elegantly-titled office of Shadow Secretary for the Future of Work.

Former MP for Hartlepool and Minister without Portfolio under Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson has been named by sources within the party to Guardian columnist Owen Jones. According to Jones, Mandelson signed off the press strategy for Shadow Cabinet members following the result in his former constituency.

X

It’s raining in Stockport. The King Street bridge is abandoned. Looking at the slow river, she knows that she is a cliché, a tired punchline. And she knows that she’ll have to leave school. Other girls have done it, so she’ll get through it, too. But it’s an abrupt and unceremonious change to whatever path she was on before. 16 and pregnant. A joke. Then again, wasn’t this always the intended outcome, in one way or another? Cornered. It was going to be a long time before she understood that there was anything that could be done about that.

The wind takes a few of the leaflets out from under his armpit and scatters them all over the carpark of Oxted station. A favour, he thinks. It’s 8 in the morning, they’re all commuters. No-one’s taking them. As if some serious city lawyer is going to read about the future of proletarian resistance, let alone in a pamphlet handed to him by a spotty adolescent. East Surrey Young Socialists. He isn’t blind to the humour of that. Some preachy privately-educated Surrey boy. He had tried to explain that he’d gotten into Reigate fairly and squarely, that it’d only just started asking for fees in the last few years. Much to his chagrin, by the way. People around here don’t listen. If they did, they’d see that there was nothing to be scared of. But they’re closed off, rigid. It’s enough to make you want to pack it all in, honestly.

His father was staring out at the snow falling on the houses of Hampstead Garden in one of his attitudes of preparation. He had an abiding sense of danger, of impending calamity. Peter always attributed that to his religiosity. Eschatology. The End Times. “Have you compiled your application yet?” “Of course, Dad.” Peter knew the counterpoint melody. Your mother and I have worked too hard. He would say it like that because his mother is the real concerned party. Descendants of the Labour Party aristocracy are obsessed with elite education. He is pretty sure that he will get in. He’s clever, goes to a good grammar. And when he gets in, he is going to have fun, the sort of fun you can only have at a place like Oxford. Judgement Day is a long way off.

The Hampstead Garden Suburb was the brain-child of two idealist architects, Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker. The pair were disciples of the Arts and Crafts movement, an aesthetic philosophy with global reach that found particular purchase among British socialists; indeed, Unwin was a life-long and active member of various socialist organisations. Hampstead Garden was to be spacious, communal and open to all social classes. It was built on land purchased from Eton College by a wealthy patron. The Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust Ltd., established in 1906, executed Parker and Unwin’s designs.

Peter Mandelson was born in 1953 to an advertising manager and the daughter of Herbert Morrison, the Leader of the House of Commons under Clement Attlee. He was raised in the Hampstead Garden Suburb, attended a local grammar school and then, studied at Oxford. As a teenager, he was a member of the Young Communist League. At university, he joined the Oxford University Labour Club.

As a veteran in public relations by the time of Tony Blair’s bid for leadership of the Labour Party in 1994, Mandelson, distrusted by trade union representatives within the party, played his part in the successful campaign in near anonymity, being referred to by staff only as “Bobby”. In his acceptance speech, Blair used the moniker when expressing gratitude to his campaign team. After running Blair’s successful general election campaign a few years later, Mandelson was appointed to the office of Minister without Portfolio, allowing him to attend Cabinet meetings without having any formal obligations. Critics have likened it to a sinecure. In 1998, Mandelson resigned from government, having failed to declare dealings with millionaire Cabinet colleague, Geoffrey Robinson. He is now a peer, happy to be part of the club.

Oxted is an incredibly old town. When William the Conqueror ordered a survey in 1086, Oxted had its various assets - hides, churches, ploughs - recorded. It remained a sleepy time-capsule until it was reached by the new railway system in 1884 and run-off trade from London began to bring money into the town. At the beginning of the last decade, it was the twentieth richest town in Britain by income.

Born to a nurse and a toolmaker in 1962, Keir Starmer was named for the first parliamentary leader of what would become the Labour Party, Keir Hardie. He attended a grammar school and was the first in his family to graduate from university, obtaining an undergraduate degree in law from the University of Leeds. As a result, he undertook postgraduate study at Oxford and became a barrister in 1987. During this time, he edited Socialist Alternative, a controversial magazine associated with various factions on the Marxist left.

Starmer is a relatively green politician, having only been selected as a candidate for Holborn and St. Pancras in 2014. The majority of his life has been spent working in the legal system. In 2010, Starmer successfully prosecuted 3 Labour MPs and a Conservative peer on charges of false accounting. In 2011, he encouraged the rapid prosecution of several rioters, sometimes on the testimony of undercover police officers. In 2012, Starmer brought a case against former Energy Secretary Chris Huhne which resulted in the only resignation of a Cabinet Minister over legal proceedings in British parliamentary history. In 2020, as Leader of the Opposition, Starmer ordered Labour MPs to abstain on the third reading of the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill, which granted undercover police officers full legal immunity for all actions undertaken on duty. Desperate to be heard, Starmer re-tweeted a Guardian column by Angela Rayner MP, adding: ‘We’ll make sure you know Labour is on your side.’

Stockport lies just south-east of the City of Manchester at the point where the Rivers Tame and Goyt become the Mersey. Although bisected by the feudal borders of the counties Cheshire and Lancashire, it belongs to a different epoch. Stockport is a town with almost 300 years of industrial history, home to one of the first mechanised silk factories in the entire British Isles. Surveying all of England for his 1845 history ‘The Condition of the English Working Class’, Friedrich Engels remarked that Stockport was ‘renowned as one of the duskiest, smokiest holes’ to be found in the industrial heartlands.

By the time Angela Rayner was born on a Stockport council estate in 1980, the country seemed eager to be free of this history. This eagerness sometimes manifested as a disdain for trade unionists and benefit claimants. Both of Rayner’s parents were eligible for benefits. And at 31, Angela Rayner was a senior official for the public-sector union Unison.

Having left school at 16 to raise her first son, she got her GCSEs by studying part-time at Stockport College, where she eventually qualified as a social care worker. At work, she clashed with management, discovering a flair for negotiation that would get her elected as a union steward. Finally, after years and years of confusion and uncertainty, someone was being made to answer.

#hartlepool #labour #boris johnson #peter mandelson #tony blair #angela rayner #keir starmer #conservative party #owen jones

[naruto-v2]

History of Naruto

Warring Clans era, pre-hidden villages

Huge drop in intermarriages between different clans and a more careful selection of having children. Feudal lords/daimyo ( a large land owner) and other warlords who were not ninja would hire various clans of ninja to fight for them. These clans had no allegiance specifically to any feudal lord or country except what allegiance they might have by way of being hired repeatedly by a lord and having a good relationship.  the clan is everything, here’s no national loyalty. In this era, the clan leader is responsible for his (let’s be real, his) kinsmen. He chooses the jobs to take, he chooses who fights, he oversees training, he ensures payment, he invests, he arranges marriages. Older people would train their own children or bring them out to missions with them to gain experience.

The clan and its continuance was the priority over individual lives. In this landscape, some people over time developed the ability to mold chakra better and better. They started out little better than ordinary soldiers in the real world, taking jobs for hire (mercenaries) but by the Founders Era, shinobi had become so much more powerful than civilians (especially with ninjutsu) that even children were able to be effective soldiers. The power breakthroughs started coming faster and faster, amping up the arms race and resulting in unprecedented bloodshed, which led Hashirama and others to seek a better way.

Why Child soldiers?

People are dying at a rapid rate, resources are in high demand, clan wars raid and take all the assests (Land, resources, money, women and children), leaving many clans devastates. Still, there are so many different clans fighting for the limited number of jobs. To survive, the clans need to maximize their workforce and the children need the experience early on. 

Village Era

Villages start popping up all over the place to ensure common wealth and propper security. Rather than hundreds and thousands of competing clan loyalties, you now have something like a dozen or two hidden villages–a big drop. As a sort of shinobi union, they have more pull in setting prices and preventing people from skipping payment. Clan leaders have all the power within their clan. Clans own a piece of the village, paying taxes based on its population and size of land, minus how much it contributes to the village. You pay taxes to the clan or to the village. 

Year -1: Izuna dies at age 24.

Year 0: Early planning stages of the village. The Uchiha, being poorer than the Senju, having lost so many people, have started to give up hope. The majority of them are children, so many are starting to deflect to the other side.  Hashirama, of course, lets them in, with Tobirama’s condition that they are watched closely.

Year 1/Village founded between Uchiha, Senju, Yamanaka, and Akimichi: Hashi is 28, Tobi is 26, Mada is 29, Mito is 24. Hashi is elected hokage later in this year. 

Year 2: Hashi takes office at the start of the year, marrying an Uchiha to establish the peace. The Academy is opened and there is a restriction placed that only children above 13 can enter the battlefields. Tobi disagrees with Hashi’s peaceful yet weak methods. He spreads rumors that Uchiha get strong by killing their own members and taking their eyes, as Madara had done, and other terrible lies that poses them in a bad light.

Year 3: Madara warns Hashirama that Tobirama may be up to something but Hashirama dismisses it as Madara is merely overreacting.

Year 4: Hashi organizes the first Five Kage Summit and the they reach the consent that each nation should get at least one Kyuubi to balance the power. Hashi gets an alliance with the Uzumaki and adopts their symbol as part the Konoha symbol in return for one of their members to become a jinjuriki. 

Year 5: Madara leaves in a state of despair at age 34 after Hashirama is assasinated at night by Tobi and his followers. (He was too trusting, poor guy.) Tobi kills his Uchiha wife to eliminate any evidence and pins the blame on Madara, stating that he was jealous of the position. Tobi, 31, becomes Hokage. He is extremely cruel to the Uchiha and somehow creates a bitterness with Sand Village. He had an alliance with the Water and the Cloud. Later that year, he marries an Uzumaki, the host of the Kyuubi, a weapon to ensure Konoha’s dominance. 

Year 7: Tobi is extremely utilitarian so tons of new jutsu inventions, massive funds towards the military and weapon research. All the other countries are afraid of this development as by the time word gets out, Konoha is rumored to have the strongest army. He starts a war with many other countries to increase Missions for money. Sand and Stone quickly build a pledge of loyalty to Tobi. Communication sucks at this point and Tobi is monitoring any message pigeons. He builds a trade network and decreases the age for shinobi from his brother’s idiotic 15 years old to 12 years old. He increases the fighting classes in academies, thinks if you can’t fight, you are worthless. Racist towards uchihas and chakra cripled people.

Year 8: Hyuuga clan alliance 

Year 20: Tobi dies at age 46 after being hokage for 15 years. Shokkou Nara at 25 years old, Tobi’s disciple and supporter, becomes Hokage and continues Tobi’s ideals. He creates a council to help him manage the growing city. 

2nd great war due to land disputes, Konoha is trying to take back its fertile land from sand, who in desperation invents the puppet technique. After Tobi, Fire had increased greatly, but not enough. With the massive and powerful army Tobi has created, Konoha wins, putting Sand into a terrible economic status. The nation increases so much that Sokkou creates a council to help direct the nation and grants all the daimyos control over their village as long as they abide by the pledge of loyalty.

Year 41: When Sokkou, a ruthless and land hungry man, kills all of Hinata Hyuuga’s family, Konoha is raided by her and other rebels she gathered. She is a strong headed woman who does not tolerate violence and helps reform Konoha security and defense measures. She rebuilds an alliance with Stone and shinobi are directly financed by the state in order to assist in both common good projects (eg imagine all the infrastructure mud and water (Brick) release can do or Akimichis moving stuff) and helping those who cannot currently afford what they need (especially after constant war which is at least partly your fault, ninja). Non-ninjas are still not represented but are safer in the city so they stay. External affairs are rocky, still tensions with Sand and surrounding Countries for having stolen their land. The era of internal reform.

Year 68: Hinata retires at age 69 and puts Senju Ariko 20 in her place

Year 72: Trade flourishes, chunin is reformed to ban killing and to unite the allied countries, age of prosperity and peace, strong diplomatic ties. The era of Prosperity

Year 78: Senju Arik, 31, falls in love with Daimyo's son.

Year 79: Her actions are discovered and this nearly causes a civil war as the other daimyos feel that she has been favoring him and giving him more benefits/security. She stops seeing him but it's not enough to quell the increasing tensions between the daimyos and the capital city. Shinobi are angry as some Daimyos start giving out less missions to Hidden Leaf Village as a way of protest. When she is assassinated by an enemy, peace returns. The council, made up of her best friends, installed her adviser, Masanori Kazamatsuri as the next Hokage. She enforces rights and protections for the civilians as she had a brother who was born with a failed chakra system. This empowers the civilians to speak their concerns. She accepts their proposal for a separate academy for non ninjas so that there is less discrimination in school and they can focus on academics/skills for a civilian job. Having the insane belief that there will be peace fo a long time, she does not keep up a strong military and defense, causing other countries to take advantage and raid the country. In addition, she is terrible with politics and the economy falls into depression. Daimyo’s are once again directing their missions to more competent villages and swearing alliance to other hidden villages. Many people start moving to other hidden villages.

Year 85: After massive protesting from the citizens, Masanori is taken off the Hokage position. Hiruzen takes the Hokage position at age 25 with Danzo as his adviser. Due to the last Hokage, there is only a fractional population of when Konoha was at its height of prosperity. He rebuilds the military and defense, creating the Anbu to take care of underground missions. 

lowers the war age drastically in order to get more soldiers on the front line. He explained that it was good to build bonds early, and difficult missions will be forestalled until 13. His view is extremely nationalistic. 

Year 90: Just as he cleaned up all the issues and leveled the economy, rebuilding alliances and trade, they are hit with a drought. With the loss of the economy’s greatest profit, agriculture, Hiruzen drastically lowers the age for graduating academy. He foresees a tumultuous time ahead and gathers three top students, including his son, from the Academy and places them under him. They later become the powerful sannin. 

Year 93: The Third Great Shinobi War starts

Year 99: 6 year old Kushina gets the kyuubi from Kiki, who dies due to Suna’s new poisonous techniques. Late into the year, war ends with a treaty between Sand and Fire. 

Year 112: Orochimaru is chased out of the village for being discovered experimenting on people. 

Year 113: Hiruzen, facing criticism for his own son doing such cruel things, retires at age 53 after being hokage for 28 years. Minato, age 19 becomes the youngest Hokage after performing amazing feats in war. 

Year 117: Kyuubi attack. Minato dies at age 24 after being hokage for 5 years. Kushina dies at 24. Naruto is born. Minato’s right hand man and previous teammate Toushirou at age 24 (The black haired guy on Team Jiraiya) takes the position. He believed that the best course of action is to confine Naruto into an apartment that is surrounded by strong genjutsu to hide it from others. He is very trusting of Danzo, an important council member, and allows Danzo to form the root. Due to Itachi’s reports, he believes that the Uchiha will harm Konoha. He allows Danzo to order their massacre for the benefit of peace. He assigns a personal anbu caretaker with her life on the line if she disobeys to take care of Naruto and visits him every month. He saw how Orochimaru had deflected, Kakashi was traumatized, and Gai had attachment issues, connecting to their young age of graduation so he increased genin to 13, chunin to 15 (most pass at 17), and jonin to 18(most pass at 20). Genin had 3 tiers:

Tier 1: D-C- start leaving the village with an older group

Tier 2: D-C-B - out of village with a jonin allowed

Tier 3: mostly B rank missions 

He added lesson plans to all the three man teams, revolutionizing the school system.

Year 132: Hiruzen dies by Orochimaru’s hands. Toushirou dies defeating Rasa. As due to a monarchy, Kankuro becomes the next hokage as he had been trained in politics by his father since his childhood. The council realizes that big things are happening, what with Asuma dying earlier that year, kyuubi attacks all over the place. The other viable candidates all seem to have grudges against Naruto, but he is necessary to the village’s military power so the council orders Jiraya to take the position. He declines, stating that he is crucial to gathering information. He takes Naruto to bring Tsunade, Naruto’s grandmother, back as she will protect Naruto. She becomes the next Hokage.

2 year skip: Kankuro works to reform Gaara’s image but many people are still afraid of him.

#history #naruto #naruto uzumaki #headconon #hc #lore #information #konoha #education #reform #naruto headcanons

[reading-writing-revolution]

Heather Cox Richardson:

December 8, 2020 (Tuesday)

Today is the “safe harbor” date by which state presidential votes that have been certified will go forward to Congress, where they must be counted. While Wisconsin’s votes are delayed by a late challenge, Biden has enough votes to win the Electoral College handily even without those ten electoral votes (which he should still win).

And yet, the lawsuits continue. Today the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, announced he would be filing a lawsuit before the Supreme Court alleging that electors from Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin cannot cast votes because their states changed their voting systems to allow mail-in ballots. He alleges that these changes, made to permit voting during a pandemic, skewed the election results.

Paxton’s complaint echoes those of Trump and his allies and has been widely interpreted as Paxton’s attempt to curry favor with the president. Paxton is being investigated by the FBI for using his office to benefit a political donor, and it is possible he hopes that Trump might intercede in his behalf. Experts say this case will go nowhere; Texas has no standing to complain about how other states count their votes.

Michigan’s Attorney General, Dana Nessel, issued a statement about the lawsuit, saying: “The Motion filed by the Texas Attorney General is a publicity stunt, not a serious legal pleading. The erosion of confidence in our democratic system isn’t attributable to the good people of Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia or Pennsylvania but rather to partisan officials, like Mr. Paxton, who place loyalty to a person over loyalty to their country. The Michigan issues raised in this complaint have already been thoroughly litigated and roundly rejected in both state and federal courts– by judges appointed from both political parties. Mr. Paxton’s actions are beneath the dignity of the office of Attorney General and the people of the great state of Texas.”

The Trump efforts continue to lose in court. Today, the Supreme Court rejected a request from Republicans in Pennsylvania to block the certification of the results in that state. The Supreme Court’s decision appeared to be unanimous, and likely signaled that the justices would like to stay away from Trump’s challenges to the election results.

Today, at his “vaccine summit,” Trump claimed credit for the “miracle” of the coronavirus vaccine and suggested that he, rather than the experts, had had a better sense of the timeline for its availability. In his remarks, he quickly veered to the election results, again insisting that he had won the election and urging Republicans at the state level or the Supreme Court to find the “courage to do what everybody in this country knows is right” and to award him a second term.

Meanwhile, the pandemic worsens. The U.S. just recorded a million new infections in five days, and today we marked more than 15 million infections. More than 285,000 of us have died of Covid-19.

There is confusion over the coronavirus vaccine. This morning we learned that the Trump administration is requiring states to share with federal registries the names, birthdates, ethnicities, and addresses of the people they vaccinate against the novel coronavirus. This requirement seems like a federal intrusion into a patient’s right to privacy, and another attempt to force states to gather information on undocumented Americans, which will almost certainly make them afraid to get the vaccine.

There is also a shortage of money for distribution. While the government has poured money into developing a vaccine, Congress has not appropriated any money for getting out the word about the vaccines, hiring people to give them, or making sure people get both of the shots they need. State officials estimate they will need $8.4 billion to distribute the vaccine.

Meanwhile, the economy is sagging and the country is desperate for a coronavirus relief bill. All sides have gritted their teeth and come together behind a $900 billion bill to provide support for the jobless, support hospitals and essential workers, and float loans to small businesses. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is refusing to bring that bill to a vote unless it stops all Covid-19 related lawsuits that allege injury or death because of corporate negligence.

As least he is now willing to talk about a package. This is likely because his control of the Senate could come down to the two runoff elections in Georgia, where voters want a relief package. In Georgia, Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are being challenged by Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Reverend Raphael Warnock. Today Georgia Republicans began the process of restricting mail-in voting and getting rid of drop boxes for ballots. As journalist Ari Berman notes, Georgia Republicans wrote these laws and approved of them until the recent election, when Democrats and Black and Brown citizens began to take advantage of them. Now they are axing the laws that make it easier for people to vote.

The New York Times adds that Georgia’s third-largest county, Cobb County, dominated by Democrats, will have fewer than half of the early voting locations it had for the presidential election available for the Senate runoffs. Janine Eveler, the Cobb County director of elections, blamed the reductions on staffing shortages, but when fair vote groups offered to recruit volunteers, Eveler said there would not be time to train them.

Cooperation is not high on the Republicans’ list these days. Today, the Republicans on the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies refused to affirm that the committee should be preparing for Biden’s inauguration. McConnell, Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) effectively blocked what is usually a pro-forma vote to recognize the president-elect and to begin work on inauguration events. This feeds the false Republican narrative that Trump might still have a chance to overturn the election, but mostly it’s just another way to gum up the works, making even something like an inauguration, which is supposed to be a celebratory reaffirmation of our democracy, more work for Biden’s team than it ought to be.

Meanwhile, Biden has announced a three-part public strategy to combat the pandemic, pledging to require masks in federal buildings and interstate public transportation, to distribute at least 100 million vaccine shots, and to reopen most schools, all in his first 100 days.

He also continues to build out his cabinet, moving more quickly than his predecessors, at least in part to reassure Americans that he will hit the ground running after a long period when the country has been rudderless. Today Biden announced that he has tapped retired General Lloyd Austin III for Secretary of Defense.

Austin, who is 67, is a 41-year veteran of the army and headed the U.S. Central Command before he retired in 2016. Biden explained that Austin shares his desire to turn the leadership of foreign policy over to diplomats and development experts, using the military only as a last resort. Austin also oversaw the drawdown of 150,000 troops from Iraq, giving him the kind of logistical experience needed to distribute the coronavirus vaccine effectively. If confirmed, Austin will be the nation’s first African-American defense secretary.

But the nomination will require a waiver from both houses of Congress to overrule a law requiring that a military officer be out of the service for seven years before taking the post of defense secretary. This law is designed to emphasize that civilians are in charge of our military. Congress overrode the rule in 2017 for Trump’s first Secretary of Defense James Mattis, but lawmakers made it clear they did not want to make waivers a habit.

Biden has set up an interesting political problem. He is asking Congress to do for him what it did for Trump in 2017. This seems reasonable as a general proposition, but the supremacy of the civilian over the soldier in our government goes all the way back to George Washington. If members refuse either to provide a waiver for Austin or to confirm him, they will be in the position of voting against a highly qualified Black man about to break a barrier. If that occurs, popular anger will likely add momentum to Biden’s next pick, who could well be someone senators like less than they like Austin.

With the pandemic, the failing economy, and the Republicans’ unwillingness to recognize his presidency, Biden is facing an unprecedented crisis. But he definitely knows how Washington works.

[orangeflavoryawp]

Jonsa - “A Violence Done Most Kindly”, Part 5

Okay, I know this chapter is excessively long, but I didn't want to break it up and lose the cohesiveness of it, so yeah, here it is. This one was fucking difficult to write, so I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

“A Violence Done Most Kindly”

Chapter Five: Herald of War

“It’s a promise, Sansa realizes.  If we fall, you fall.  Because she figures, one way or another, dead or alive, the North will come for those who abandoned them to winter.”  -  Jon and Sansa.  Stark is a house of many winters.

Read it on Ao3 here.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 fin

* * *

“I was under the impression this was a summit for peace,” Tyrion says.

           “It is,” Jon sighs.

           “And yet you’re asking us to go to war.”

           “A war against the dead is not the same as one against the living.”  Jon frowns with his explanation, harsh and deep.

           Sansa can see the frustration in the lines around his mouth.

           “You’re asking for quite a lot on faith,” Jaime points out, lounging quite comfortably in his chair.

           “And do you think I’d be here, inviting some of my house’s oldest enemies into my very home, welcoming their armies North, if I weren’t speaking the truth about this?” Jon barks.  His nostrils flare with his vexation.  He spares a dark look Theon’s way.  “Soon you shall all see the evidence of our claims.”

           Somewhere in the crowd of lords, a scoff is heard, an accompanying snort, a rush of heated murmurs.

           “Let’s say what you claim is true,” Tyrion starts, pacing away from his place beside Daenerys and toward the center of the room, glancing around the other gathered lords.  “Have you even a plan to kill them?  Do you even know how?”

           Jon’s eyes flick to the dragon queen, and Sansa’s gut clenches when he tells them, “We know that fire kills them.”

           Daenerys adopts a smug expression, leaning back in her chair as she eyes Jon.  “You need my dragons.”

           He clenches his jaw, nodding just the once. “Aye.”

           “You already know my demands,” she answers easily, eyes shifting toward Jaime.

           A cruel smile curls along Euron’s face while he sits beside Daenerys.  “Looks like you’ll be bending the knee, after all.”

           Jon ignores Euron with great effort, his hands bunching into fists at his side, and then slowly unfurling.

           Tyrion looks to Daenerys, something calculated in his gaze that Sansa can’t quite identify.  She straightens in her seat, voice echoing throughout the room. “Westeros will need more than just dragons to survive the Night King and his army.”

           Daenerys cocks her head at Sansa, an amused smile playing at her lips.  “’Just’ dragons, you say?” she asks in a tone that sounds nearly insulted.

           Sansa swallows tightly, words measured as she looks at the dragon queen.  “Your might is not to be disregarded, Your Grace, but this endeavor will take from all of us.”  She takes a breath, waits for Daenerys’ rebuke, but continues steadily when there is none – none but a look of mild intrigue.  She looks about the room.  “We will need food from the Reach.  And we’ll need the numbers of the Lannister forces.  We’ll need the forces of the Riverlands to secure safe passage of Northern refugees through the Neck and past the Twins.”  Sansa shares a glance with Edmure Tully, who nods in answer, jaw set. She allows a grateful smile to touch her lips, before she turns her steel-cut gaze back to the other lords. “We’ll need the Knights of the Vale,” she goes on, looking to Lord Royce, and then tentatively to Robin Arryn, an inclination of her head both affectionate and demanding, “The greatest mounted cavalry in the known kingdoms,” she says with a flattering flourish that has Robin beaming with pride.

           “We’ll need dragonglass for weapons,” Davos says. “And we’ll need every blacksmith you can spare working day and night to forge them.”

           Jon nods beside Sansa, a dark look to his face. He stands then, taking in the room. “And we’ll need more than that.  Carpenters and masons to help build the defenses around Winterfell.  Healers and cooks and seamstresses, before, during, and especially after the battle, which means they’ll need to stay in Winterfell while we send the other refugees south.  And we’ll need all our armies marching North if we expect to have any hope at defeating the dead.”

           “What do they look like?”

           Jon turns at Robin’s question, confusion drawing over his face.  “My lord?”

           Robin shifts excitedly in his seat, an inappropriate glee pulling at his features that sets Jon’s jaw to clenching.  “What do they look like, these wights you speak of?” he asks again.

           Silence reigns in the room.

           Sansa shifts in her seat toward him.  “Dear cousin,” she begins gently, “I don’t think – ”

           Jaime’s scoff interrupts her, his scornful chuckle swallowed up by the fist at his mouth.  

           Sansa sends him a glare.

           Sighing, Jaime’s hand lowers from his mouth, a sardonic glint to his eye.  “Not like anything you’ve ever seen before, I’m sure, boy.”  His eyes flick to Jon’s.  “If they even exist.”

           Robin’s face pinches at the insulting address but before he can wail his offense, Lord Royce stands from his seat, chest puffing out. “You will speak to my lord with the proper respect his station demands, Ser Jaime, or this summit will be at an end soon enough,” he nearly bellows.

           Jaime only leans back with an amused smirk, Tyrion sending him a desperate look that seems a plea for silence.

           “They look like the dead,” Jon sighs in aggravation, his temper flaring at the need for such an explanation, “In all the gruesome ways death can take a man.”

           Sansa can see how the frustration builds beneath his skin, rippling the cords of muscle at his neck when he swallows. “Now, can we continue?” he asks gruffly.

           Robin scowls at the answer, disinterested immediately.  “I only wished to know what they looked like,” he mutters.

           Sansa sends an urging look Arya’s way, and with a twitch of Baelish’s lips in her flesh mask, she leans over with a false face of appeasement to the young Lord of the Vale, a pat of her hand to his bunched fist.  “And you will, my lord, when you ride North and take the field alongside His Grace. You’ll look the dead in the eye, and – with the Knights of the Vale at your back, heralding your name – you’ll vanquish them from our lands forever.”  A gratifying smile plants itself along Baelish’s face, and Robin grins in response.

           “Yes,” he agrees, straightening in his seat. “Yes, I shall.”

           Lord Royce grumbles something under his breath when he takes his seat, eyes shifted toward Baelish in a mix of reluctant gratitude and poorly disguised mistrust.  

           “And why should I follow you North like a gullible child, Jon Snow?” Daenerys asks coolly, eyes nearly rolling (if such a motion could be queenly) at Royce’s outrage with the pointed barb.

           “My queen,” Tyrion tries, stepping toward her and then instantly stopping at the subtle motion of her hand to stay him.

           Behind Daenerys, and behind Jorah Mormont and the newly met advisor, Missandei, and the commander of the queen’s armies, Grey Worm, somewhere in the slants of shadows, Sansa catches the flicker of tense deliberation along Varys’s face at his queen’s words.  His hands stay linked through heavy, concealing sleeves, his lips pressed into a perpetual purse, eyes watching the hall pensively.  She shifts her gaze away from him before he can meet hers across the hall.

           She remembers all too well that he’s seen the work of the Targaryens firsthand – some being her own blood.

           Sansa pulls a steadying breath in, focus back on the quickly spiraling summit.

           “Why should I commit my forces North on the word of a bastard king when the people are crying for their rightful ruler to save them right here in the South?” Daenerys asks coolly.

           Sansa’s eyes flutter shut, bracing for the inevitable.

           Lord Glover pushes from his seat so violently that it scrapes against the stone and topples back with a loud clang.  “I would follow any son of Ned Stark to the depths of all seven hells before I swear to some murdering Targaryen whore!” he bellows.

           The room erupts into madness.

           Grey Worm steps forward, a cold wrath lighting his features, and the line of Unsullied along the wall at Daenerys’ back uniformly brace their spears to their shields in a motion of readiness, the heavy metallic clash setting the rest of the hall rising into an uproar.

           Jaime barks a laugh.  “Yes, the people are just clamoring for you, Your Grace,” he throws out at Daenerys with raised brows.

           “Ser Jaime,” Brienne hollers from her place behind Sansa, “This is hardly the time.”

           Several of the lesser lords push from their seats, Lady Mormont shouting for them to sit down and stop squalling like children. Jon braces a hand back at Lord Glover, keeping him from stepping further into the circle.  Davos and Tyrion call for order and are subsequently ignored. Northern and Riverland guards edge around the hall toward the swarm of incensed lords.

Jaime lets out another ragged laugh, arms stretching wide to encompass the chaos.  “This seems exactly the time, Lady Brienne!”

Daenerys shoots a deadly glare at Jaime, Ser Jorah at her elbow instantly. “I should take your head right here, Kingslayer.”

           “Please, Your Grace,” Edmure urges above the shouts from the arguing lords.  “This is a summit for peace.”

           Daenerys stands swiftly.  “Then you all should have remembered that before calling the dragon to your table.”

           Brynden swears at Sansa’s back.  “Oh for the love of – ”

Lord Royce advances on a particularly vocal lord from the Stormlands when he throws a casual insult at the young Lord Arryn.  False-Baelish slips back from the mob, staying at the edge of the ring of seats, Sansa always in sight.

Euron stands from his seat, a sneer along his lips.  “I think a little respect would do these Northern bastards some good.”

“Uncle,” Theon says, firm and reproachful.  He stands from his seat, but Sansa’s hand on his arm stays him.  He looks down at her with hesitance.

“Ah,” Euron laughs, a predatory glint to his eye, “This the Northern cunt that bewitched you?”

Brynden’s hand is on his sword instantly, Brienne moving similarly beside him.  “Call my niece that again, you pissant, and I’ll hang your entrails from your own ships’ bow.”

“You can always trust a Lannister to –”

“ – damn Northern pride will be the death of –”

“ – bloody Ironborn – ”

“And where have you cowards been all this – ”

“ – her and her foreign band of rapists and murderers – ”

“Enough!” Jon bellows, his voice echoing off the stone walls, a deep, resonant growl following the words.  “That is enough!”  There’s something wild to his form then, a murderous glint to his eye that settles anyone who catches sight of it into an instant stillness.  He whirls on the room, teeth bared.

At Daenerys’ raised hand, Grey Worm orders his men down, Missandei calling out similar orders to the Dothraki bloodriders alongside the Unsullied. Lord Glover rights his chair, dropping back down to it with a huff.  Lady Mormont glares the other Northern lords into silence.  The lords of the Stormlands slowly retreat to their corner, Robin tugging on Lord Royce’s sleeve to get him to sit back down.  Jaime sits just a bit straighter, his smile falling. Daenerys remains standing, chest heaving.  Beside her, Euron gives one last leer to Sansa and Theon before he slumps back into his seat, Brynden and Brienne finally unhanding their swords.  Slowly, the hall comes back around to silence, tense and perturbed though it is now.

Jon heaves a labored sigh, rubbing at his chin, eyes flashing dark with his fury. “How can you all sit here and squabble over such pettiness when the dead are practically at our door?  How can you call yourselves lords when you would trade your people’s lives for a crown – a crown that will mean absolutely nothing when the dead wash through your lands?” he bites out, gaze landing on Daenerys. “Because make no mistake, if we fall, you fall.  That isn’t a threat.  That’s fact.” he growls out, glancing at each of them in turn.

It’s a promise, Sansa realizes.

If we fall, you fall.

Because she figures, one way or another, dead or alive, the North will come for those who abandoned them to winter.

           “This is all very riveting, to be sure, but if you’re all done beating your chests, I have a question for the King in the North.”  Lady Olenna interrupts for the first time that afternoon, elbows resting on her armrests, hands wound together in a familiar nonchalance, as she stares insistently at Jon in the center of the room.  

All eyes turn to her in the tense quiet.

She clears her throat, settling more comfortably in her chair.  “This summit isn’t about trying to persuade us that peace is our best option, because we wouldn’t be here in the first place if we believed otherwise.  So you can save your thrilling little speeches, Your Grace.  Anyone unwilling to fight for the kingdoms has no claim to them.”

Mutterings begin among the lords once more, Daenerys slowly returning to her seat, hands curled like talons along her armrests, eyes landing on the Tyrell matriarch like flint to steel.

Jon nods stiffly to her, jaw clenched tight.  “And your question, my lady?”

Olenna huffs impatiently, shifting to tap the nail of her forefinger along her armrest.  “When your war is won, and the dead are defeated, will the King in the North acknowledge the independence of the other kingdoms, or is this alliance simply a ploy to seize power?”

The mutterings throughout the hall stop entirely, a taut silence blanketing the room.

Jon turns fully to Lady Olenna.

Sansa remembers suddenly, the way he looked that last night before the Battle of the Bastards – the heat in his eyes, the desperation lining his mouth (that mouth), the dangerous arch of his shoulders and unmistakable incline of his body, the way he shouted at her, pressed her, the way he instantly folded beneath her admission –

If Ramsay wins, I’m not going back there alive.  Do you understand me?

The way he’d wound his hands through her hair and stumbled her back, a growl at his lips, bracing her back against the beam of his tent, his breath panted against her mouth, her hands winding around his wrists, the ragged exhale that left him when he told her, when he demanded of her –

“Shut your mouth.”  Like a wounded, cornered beast.

She’d blinked at him wildly, indignation splashing across her face, breath hitched in her throat as he bore his whole weight into her suddenly, forehead braced to hers, fingers flexing in her hair.

Her throat was parched, her chest heaving.

“Shut that mouth of yours, Sansa, because I can’t – I can’t – ” And then he’d licked his lips, chocking back a sob, his mouth already so close to hers that she thinks she might have tasted his breath in that moment, shared the heat of him, felt the tremble of his mouth against her own just a moment before he kissed her, desperate and ragged and insistent.

Like trying to eat his own terror.

She’d known in that moment, and every moment after, that she’d never follow through on the promise – not so long as he lived.

His hand was hitching up her skirts, his groan filling her mouth, his own reckless promises painting her flesh, well before she’d finally recognized his demand as the plea it truly was.

Stay with me, his body had begged.

Yes, her own had granted.

           Sansa looks to Jon now, eyes easily catching the sharp line of his shoulders, and the clench of his jaw, and the evenness of his gaze on Lady Olenna.

           It must be so exhausting, she thinks, to live always on the precipice of death – to share an intimacy with it so violent that even to refuse it feels like a betrayal of the self.

           I’m not going back there alive.  She should have known not to say such words to him, after all.

           But perhaps that was the start of it, the catalyst to this dangerous dance between them.  He’s become so vibrant in her hands, so thrumming of life, so very not dead.

           She knows now, what it means to linger –

           Stay with me –

           She knows.

           “I never sought this crown.  And I’ve no intention to seek another,” Jon tells Olenna, low and resolute, his shoulders sagging with the weight of it.

           Never sought, no, but he’s grown covetous of it all the same, Sansa thinks.  And even still, Jon has made it clear where his interests lie.

           With the North, and with her.

           Nothing else can sway him.

           It’s the sort of truth that should trouble her, but she can’t find it in herself to be anything but covetous in return.

           “Well then,” Lady Olenna says, fingers linking together, a barely discernible smile crinkling the edges of her mouth.  “You might be the only one in this room who can claim as such.”  She chuckles, leaning back in her chair.  “I like you. Even if you are rather cross and sullen.”

           Jon blinks at her, mouth parting, but no words follow.

           Sansa ducks her head to hide her unexpected smile.

           “Highgarden agrees to the alliance,” she promises, eyes flitting to Sansa for the briefest of moments, “Granted this ‘evidence’ of yours makes itself known.”

           Sansa’s smile steals from her mouth instantly, eyes narrowing at Olenna.

           The older matriarch only shrugs, a hidden smile playing at her lips.

           “You’d follow this whelp?” Euron scoffs, leaning with one hand braced to his knee.  “Just because he can spin some pretty words?”

           Lord Glover almost upends his seat again, but Sansa’s instant narrowing of her eyes in his direction, chin lifted in a motion to heel, has him grumbling his acquiescence, settling back along his chair.

           Olenna grants Euron an unimpressed look, an amused huff leaving her lips.  “I owe you no justification, Lord – what was it?”  She pauses, considering.  “Are you even a lord?”  And then she waves her hand dismissively.  “Never mind, you’ve clearly already answered that.  I suppose even a dog may be allowed to beg for scraps at its master’s table.”

           Euron stands instantly, face screwed up in an ugly disdain.

           The room tenses.  Jon takes an even step forward.  Olenna smirks triumphantly.  Edmure frets uncomfortably.  Daenerys opens her mouth.  Sansa speaks.

           “Perhaps we should leave it at that today, my lords, my ladies.”  Sansa rises smoothly, hands clasped before her.  “I’m sure we each have much to discuss with our respective advisors.  I look forward to renewed talks tomorrow.”

           Jon glances to her, brows furrowed, his impatience warring with his exhaustion, before he nods imperceptibly.

           “I agree,” Tyrion interjects, turning to his queen.  “We have much to think on.”  His gaze is imploring, his mouth set into a thin line.

           Daenerys takes a deep breath, a dissatisfied expression gracing her features as she meets her Hand’s gaze.  Ser Jorah at her elbow is soft but firm when he addresses her. “Khaleesi.”

           She looks to him out of the corner of her eye, softening somewhat.

           The unexpected shift has Sansa blinking dumbly at them.  Words pass between the two, quiet and short, and then the dragon queen is rising swiftly from her chair, barely giving even the courtesy of a nod in farewell before she’s stalking from the room, her advisors in tow.

           Jon closes his eyes and releases a breath, frown deepening.

           In moments, the hall is all but cleared, and Sansa stays watching the silhouette of Jon in the afternoon sun breaking through the windows.  Her lips purse tight, her words stalling in her throat.

           His shadow stretches long, she finds.  Its edge peters out just before the toe of her boots.

* * *

           Jon finds his way to Sansa’s rooms that night, greeting Brienne at the door with a weary face and a sigh of exhaustion. “Will you announce me, my lady?”

           “Of course, Your Grace.”  Brienne tips her head in a motion of respect.  “Ah,” she says, straightening, voice dipping to a whisper, “My lady is in conference with your sister at the moment.”  Her eyes shift down the hall momentarily, watchful.

           Jon nods, voice low.  “I expected as much.  Announce me, Lady Brienne.”

           Brienne raps on the door, short and expedient. “His Grace to see you, my lady,” she calls through the door.

           “Come in,” sounds through the wood in Sansa’s familiar lilt.

           Brienne opens the door for him and Jon stills immediately upon stepping through.

           Seated across from Sansa in a similar armchair by the fire, leaning closely toward her, is Baelish.  For a moment, Jon’s vision goes white, a sharp breath sucked through his lungs, rage rising in his throat, until he remembers.

           (His slumped form along the snow beneath the wierwood, the wash of blood over his chin, the curl of his frozen, grasping fingers stiffened into claws.)

           Baelish is dead.

           The familiar face turns to him.

           Arya, he has to remind himself, the breath raking from him slow and measured.

           She cocks a brow in Baelish’s face that has Jon’s expression souring instantly, the unease branching through his chest.

           “Jon,” Sansa greets, grabbing his attention.

           He looks to her, shaking his head, shutting the door behind him.  “Sorry, I – I just – ”

           The eerie copy of Littlefinger stands with a sigh and a decidedly un-Baelish-like roll of the eyes.  “Please, Jon, you can’t have this reaction every time you see me like this.”  She plants her hands on her hips and Jon scrunches his nose up at the sight.

           Arya sighs dramatically, hands thrown up in the air as she stalks toward him and the door.  “Gods, what I would give to be back home and out of this skin.”

           The words sober Jon instantly.

           Arya stops just before him, catching the look on his face.  He doesn’t know if he’s any good at hiding it, but then, hiding never did him any good when it came to Arya.

           It’s hardly the first skin she’s worn, he realizes. hardly the first life she’s taken.  His little sister.  His Arya.

           Something constricts inside his chest dangerously like regret.

           Arya seems to see something in his face, because her expression schools back into a keen observation so naturally reminiscent of Baelish’s own attentive eyes that Jon has a difficult time separating the two. It only makes his chest clench tighter.

           A stilted silence passes between them, until Sansa is clearing her throat, standing from her seat with a soft grace that flutters her skirts about her legs.  “Keep clear of Lord Varys,” she warns Arya.  “We cannot know if your act will fool him well enough.”

           Arya turns back to Sansa with a single piqued brow.

           Sansa huffs.  “You’ll be careful?” she presses.

           Lifting her chin, smoothing her hands down the silk front of her robe, Arya nods her acknowledgement, the incredulous expression leaving Littlefinger’s face at the note of concern lining Sansa’s voice.  “As careful as a mockingbird.”

           It’s not the kind of comfort Jon thinks Sansa is looking for, if he’s going by the worried expression on her face, but it’s the only kind of comfort he imagines Arya capable of.  It’s just another piece of truth to mourn.

           Arya turns back to Jon, watching him for a quiet, tense moment.

           The steady stare of Baelish this close is unnerving, to be sure, but perhaps even more unnerving is the subtle recognition of Arya’s own stare through a dead man’s eyes.

           She looks to Sansa for a moment, and then turns back to Jon, frown deepening, brows furrowing.  “Do not disgrace her in our mother’s house,” she tells him quietly but firmly, a slip of her own voice threading through the words.

           Jon blinks at her, the image of Baelish throwing him even now.

           Sansa scoffs indignantly, arms crossed behind Arya.

           But Arya only has eyes for their brother.

           Jon nods, unable to curb the pain that etches across his face, the resentment.  “I wouldn’t,” he answers her.

           Arya nods just the once, lips pursed, thoughtful. “Tomorrow’s going to be another long day,” she says.

           Jon gives her a moment, expecting something further.  When she only stares at him, he rubs at his chin, words coming haltingly and unsure. “Yes, it will be,” he says finally, hesitant to say more.

           Arya’s mouth thins into a line as she clears her throat, a quiet affection coloring her words now.  “You should get some rest.”  And then she’s stalking from the room, shutting the door behind her without a further farewell.

           Jon stares at the closed door for many long moments.

           “She loves us,” Sansa says softly.  “She does.”

           Jon stays staring at the door, a sigh leaving him.

           “Perhaps she isn’t rather adept at showing it but – ”

           “Sansa,” he interrupts, finally turning to her, a hand rubbing at his mouth as he tries to shake off the lingering unease.

           She lifts her brows expectantly, arms uncrossing, the indignation having bled from her instantly.

           (She doesn’t stay mad at her sister for long these days, but Jon is too hesitant to name such a thing as hopeful.)

           He softens his features, catching the thrum of disquiet in her stiff posture.  “I know,” he tells her, attempting a smile.

           Sansa nods, lip pulled between her teeth.  She glances out the window, hands smoothing over her skirts.  “Well then,” she starts, looking back to him far more put together than she had been only moments before.  She motions a hand toward the now vacant seat across from her.  “Your Grace,” she offers.

           Jon takes the chair easily, shrugging off his cloak – her cloak.  He catches the way her eyes follow it when he sets it along the back of his chair and a flare of prideful possession streaks through him.  His hand curls along the furs before releasing reluctantly, settling across from her.

           Sansa takes her own seat gracefully.

           Jon leans his elbows along his thighs, hands grasped between his knees.  An exhaustive sigh leaves him.  “Arya has word about Meereen then?”

           Sansa nods, leaning back in her chair. “Baelish’s sources say the city has fallen into disarray.  Daenerys’ appointed representative, Daario Naharis, and the small council she established before leaving, have been slaughtered.  It’s chaos in the streets, last we heard.”

           Jon nods, gaze dark and considering.  “We can use that.”

           “It’s a fine line to walk.”

           He raises a brow in question.

           Sansa brushes at a wrinkle in her skirt.  “It can sway the other kingdoms to our side if they see that their alternative is incompetent when it comes to governance, but calling out such incompetence could also wound her pride enough to make her withdraw.”  She levels a meaningful look Jon’s way.  “And Bran was adamant we sway her to our side, as well.”

           Jon groans, shaking his head.  “She sees herself as a savior, he said.”

           “Yes.”

           He frowns.  “And how do we use that?”

           Sansa purses her lips, silence overtaking her for long moments while she turns the question over in her head.  He can very nearly see the moment illumination lights her features.  “Give her a target,” she says in answer finally.

           “I haven’t exactly kept the Night’s King a secret, Sansa,” he says exasperatedly.  “If ever there was a target for her, that would be it.”

           Sansa shakes her head, a huff leaving her.  “You’re thinking about this all wrong.”

           Jon’s frown deepens, head cocking like a reminder for caution.

           Sansa sits a touch straighter, her hands curling over her armrests in anticipation.  “She hasn’t gone to King’s Landing yet.  Why?”

           His brows draw down.  “Because her enemies are no longer there.”

           “Precisely.  And yet she claims the people are clamoring for her deliverance.  So why won’t she go?”

           Unclasping his hands, Jon leans back in his chair, huffing his frustration.  “I don’t fucking know, Sansa, I’m hardly privy to her council.”

           Sansa’s nostrils flare with her momentary annoyance. “Think, Jon.”

           “Oh, like I’m not trying to?”

           “Not very hard, it seems.”

           “Sansa,” he warns, a hot expel of breath.

           Sansa shakes her head, hand outstretched to stop his admonishment.  “Listen to me, Jon, please.  Just listen.”

           He gives her a spiteful look, but he does not argue further.

           “Starvation and anarchy are hardly foes she can burn into subservience,” she says.

           Jon blinks at her, the realization slow and half-formed.

           She continues.  “Her crusade for freedom across Slaver’s Bay only worked temporarily because, while crucifying the Masters and burning their ships makes for an intimidating show of power, it doesn’t solve any of the problems still plaguing the cities.  She’s not a ruler.  She’s a conqueror.  It’s what she does best.  So we give her someone to conquer.  We give her a body, a living, tangible foe.  We give her a target in the North and she will go North.”

           Jon stands swiftly, hand swiping over his mouth as he stalks to the hearth.  “Sansa, what exactly are you suggesting?”  He looks back at her with dark eyes, half-shrouded in firelight.

           She swallows tightly, rising from her seat as well. “We need Jaime Lannister.”

           Jon’s jaw tightens at the name, drawing in a deep breath.  “We’ve no indication he even believes us, let alone has any inclination to fight for the living.”

           “Brienne vouches for him.”

           Scoffing, Jon gives her an incredulous look.  “And that’s enough to think he’d join us?”

           Sansa steps closer, hands clasping nervously before her.  Jon eyes the motion with a sense of foreboding.  She makes it to the other side of the hearth, standing across from him, when she finally speaks.  “He knew I didn’t kill Cersei.  More importantly, he knew I couldn’t.”

           Jon stares at her, a tightness in his chest.

           He remembers when Bran told them the news, the raven’s scroll from King’s Landing slipping unread from his still-gloved fingers as the three of them met in Winterfell’s dawn-lit rookery.

           He remembers the harsh laugh that broke from Sansa, streaking through the silence with a brand of delirium so striking he actually took a step back from her.

           But she couldn’t stop, a hand braced to her chest, the other moving to steady herself along the rail, her eyes glistening, laughing and laughing and gasping, chest heaving, face screwed up in sudden pain, fingers curled around the rail, her other hand clutching the hook-and-chain necklace at her throat, and then she’s sobbing so instantly her body actually quakes with it, a laugh choked into a wail, and she’s sinking down suddenly, knees giving way, dragging her form down the rail, gasping, keening, howling.

           He’d been unable to do anything for long, immutable moments but stare – watching the wash of relief and grief and release rake through her like a storm.

           He remembers leaning down behind her and gripping her shoulders, pulling her back to his chest and holding her through it.

           When he’d looked up next, Bran was already gone.

           “That doesn’t mean anything, Sansa,” he grits out. It’s a lie, he knows.  Because it has to mean something.

           Sansa closes her eyes, breathes deep, and something shutters beneath her skin he hasn’t a name for.  It’s gone the instant she opens her eyes again.  “It means there’s still something he wants.”

           Jon steps closer, a growl brewing in his throat, the realization inking into color a moment too late.  “Sansa – ”

           “Tell him we can give him his sister’s killer.”

           Jon expels a harsh breath with a muttered curse, dragging a hand through his hair.  “Seven hells, Sansa, you can’t just – ”

           She closes the distance between them instantly, eyes imploring on his, the heat of the fire licking across their forms.  “I don’t mean giving up Arya.  I’d never – I couldn’t – ”  She stops, swallows, eyes shifting anxiously between his.

           Had she expected him to think that of her? Had she expected him to know her so little?  Jon’s shoulders slump at the thought.  He reaches for her arms instinctively, a familiar measure of comfort between them, his rough palms curling around her elbows.  “Sansa,” he breathes lowly, evenly, “Tell me what you mean.”

           She relaxes somewhat, face softening.  “He’s a remnant of a man, Jon.”  The words come out sad beyond measure and Jon doesn’t know what to do with them.  In the wake of his silence, Sansa reaches up, curling her fingers along the leather of his jerkin, eyes fixed to the motion.  “This grief has unmade him.  It’s plain for all to see.  He has nothing left.”

           Jon’s hands slip up her arms and then slowly back down, watching the curve of firelight dip across the bare edge of her collarbone.

           He doesn’t like to think about what that sort of grief would feel like – what that kind of loss does to a man.

           (He doesn’t like to think that he understands Jamie Lannister, if only a little, if only when his fingertips bare their mark on his own sister.)

           “He has nothing left but vengeance.”

           Jon blinks back up at Sansa.  “You mean to use it.”

           She nods, lips pursed tight.

           “And Arya…?”

           “We have Baelish’s spies, his face, his influence. Let us use it.  Let us offer Jaime Lannister a chance at the vengeance he craves.  Arya will be safest when she’s the one controlling the information he receives.”

           “And when he comes North with us, when he agrees to this alliance – ”

           “It will be the largest threat to Daenerys’ sovereignty.  She cannot take such an alliance lightly, especially when the other kingdoms inevitably fall in line.  She’d never allow such an alliance unless she had a hand in it, and she’d want to keep a watchful eye, work to dissolve it from the inside, rain fire and blood if she had to.  But she would go North.  She would not leave her enemies to treat with each other behind her back.  If we cannot tempt her empathy, then we must tempt her with this.”

           Jon heaves a labored sigh, thumbs brushing along the material of her sleeves, winding slow and unmeasured circles.  His eyes fix to the motion.  “Even if she helps us win against the dead, how can you be sure she won’t turn on us the instant the war is won?”

           Sansa sighs, hands uncurling from his jerkin, smoothing over his chest.  “I have to trust that Bran would not urge us to bring her North if he didn’t have the knowledge we’d need to protect against her.”

           The discontent brews in his chest, releasing itself in a gruff exhale.  “Such a risk…”

           “I trust our brother.”

           Jon clenches his jaw, his eyes roving her face, leaning toward her without realizing it.  He stops breaths away from her.  He lifts a hand to trace up her arm, along her shoulder, dipping down toward her collarbone.

           Sansa sucks a breath between her teeth, swift and quiet.  She does not pull from him.

           Jon’s eyes follow the trail his fingers make along the edge of her dress.  “The lords will not like an alliance with the Lannisters.  I’m not sure I like an alliance with the Lannisters.”

           Sansa huffs, and the sound almost makes him laugh, his smile a worn and weathered thing when it touches his lips.

           “They will follow you if you lead them,” she tells him, and it seems such a simple thing when she says it.  It seems such a simple, indisputable thing.

           His eyes flick down to her lips, his hand around her elbow dragging her to him, bracing her against his chest as his other hand slips back along the nape of her neck.  He revels in the mute gasp that leaves her parted lips, the flex of her throat beneath her swallow.  “You can be so sure?” he asks, not knowing why it should matter so much.  Not knowing and yet –

           Knowing exactly.

           “King Jon of House Stark” she’d called him.

           (How he wants to hear the words again – how he wants to watch them stain her lips when he takes her.)

           Sansa lifts her chin, baring her pale throat in the low firelight.  “They’ve followed you thus far,” she says.  “They will follow you further yet.”

           She’s a slight thing, even for her height – all spine and teeth – but she fills his hands seamlessly, his palms fitting perfectly to the mold of her.

           “Tell me again,” he whispers at her mouth, suddenly ragged with the need, suddenly quaking in his own skin.

           Sansa’s brows dip down in confusion, her mouth parting.

           Jon steps into her, walking her back, past the hearth, its flames spitting hot and unrelenting at their retreating forms through the shadows. Sansa stumbles when she hits the desk, one hand going out to steady herself along the ledge, the other still held at his chest.  “Jon,” she breathes, voice catching.

           “Tell me again,” he demands.  “King Jon of House Stark…”  It’s a heavy pant at her lips.

           Sansa’s eyes flash with understanding.

           He presses his hips to hers, pins her there against the desk.  He braces his mouth just above hers, his hand winding into her hair to keep her to him. “My name,” he tells hers – begs her, teeth clenching behind a desperate mouth.

           Sansa slides her hand up his chest and then along his neck, sinking into his hair.  “Your Grace,” she breathes at his mouth, fingers clenching at the nape of his neck.

           With a throaty moan, Jon’s hand leaves her arm and winds around her waist, fisting in the folds of her dress, digging into her hip with an urgency that sets them both to trembling.  “Sansa,” he pants against her.

           “My king,” she whispers darkly, and he groans in response, hand clenching in her hair, tongue wetting his lips, breath raking from him in ragged, unrepentant bursts – so close, so devastatingly close – and damn Arya’s warning, damn their disgrace – not now, not here – with her so warm and pliant in his hands and he leans in, eyes fluttering closed, a needy sigh already teasing his lips, the taste of her – just there – and –

           A knock at the door.

           Jon groans his frustration, lips half a whisper from hers, hands already fisted in her hair and her dress and the intoxicating, breathless whole of her.

           “Your Grace,” sounds Davos’ voice through the door.

           Jon pulls back from her, just slightly, just enough to meet her eyes.  “What is it?” he barks.

           Sansa hums quietly at his chest, nails dragging at the base of his skull.

           Jon closes his eyes to the lure, smothering his own impulses.

           A quiet shuffle sounds on the other side of the door, and then his Hand clears his throat.  “A raven from Eastwatch, Your Grace.”

           Jon glances toward the door, mouth parting. He looks back to Sansa in his arms, watches the shift of heat in her eyes dim to a familiar cold calculation.

           “Tormund,” he says softly, eyes still fixed to hers.

           She nods, seems to steady herself, head dipping low, breath easing into something slow and manageable, her fingers thrumming just the once along the nape of his neck to return his attention.  “Go,” she tells him, when they finally lock gazes again.

           Jon swallows thickly, hesitating, his chest still heaving, his mouth still aching for hers.

Her hand slips from his neck and he feels the loss instantly.  “Go,” she says again, almost reproachfully this time.

He growls his frustration – with Davos’ interruption, with Tormund’s sudden letter, with her own sense of practicality.  Jon curses beneath a sharp exhale – a heady, breathless thing – but he’s already pulling from her, already disentangling from her enticing heat.  He nods, lips turned into a harsh frown.

           She releases him first, but her touch lingers long after he’s left her side.

* * *

           The summit recommences the next morning. Everyone resumes their places from the day before, and Sansa has to admit to her surprise at every seat still being filled.  She half-expected to find certain lords (and queens) to have abandoned their efforts at peace.  There is hope yet, she finds.

           Or perhaps that is being generous.  Perhaps it is better to say that there are still demands to be made.  Perhaps it isn’t peace that keeps them here at all.

           It is of little matter, she tells herself. Jon will get them North, one way or another.  This she knows, because to accept anything less makes them as good as dead already.

           Sansa glances to Theon beside her, eyes searching. He shakes his head slowly, a grim expression on his face.

           No word from Yara, then.

           Sansa takes a deep breath in, turns back to the floor, to her brother making his way to the center once greetings have been properly addressed.

           “My lords and ladies,” he starts, and then to Daenerys, “Your Grace.”

           She nods appreciatively.

           Jon continues briskly.  “I’ll not waste any more time.”  He raises a hand, an unfurled raven scroll resting between his fingers.  “Last night I received a raven from Tormund Giantsbane at Eastwatch.  The army of the dead is already at the Wall.”

           Murmurs break out amongst the crowd, unsettling them. Tyrion steps out from beside his queen to reach for the scroll.  

Jon hands it to him for confirmation, not waiting to continue.  “I don’t think you all quite understand the level of this threat, the numbers we’re facing.”  His voice is low, gravelly, a strum of anger already lighting it.

           They’ve wasted enough time already, to have come to this.

           “The dead are quite literally climbing the Wall,” he stresses, pacing the room to look each occupant in the eye. “Thousands of them – hordes of them – climbing over each other, body upon body toward the top, cascading over the edge like a waterfall.”

           Sansa closes her eyes to the image, her throat tightening beneath the latent fear.  She smothers it well.

           “A fall like that may kill a man, but the dead feel no such effects.  They topple over the wall in a flood, resuming their march on the other side – on our side.  And they do not stop,” he bellows, looking around the room.  “The dead have no need for sleep, or food, or rest of any sort.  We’re losing precious time.  And we need to be there now.”

           Daenerys bends her ear to Tyrion when he returns to her side, something whispered between them that never makes it to air. Jaime sits straighter in his seat, eyes focused in a way Sansa hasn’t seen before.  Euron stews impatiently in his own seat.

           Jon gives the crowd a moment, but only a moment, and then he’s plowing on.  “The time has passed to argue the North’s sincerity.  You either believe me, or you don’t.  But that isn’t the point anymore.  So, let’s cut all the horseshit and talk about why we’re all really here, hmm?” His eyes grow hard.  “Everyone in this room wants something.  Now, some of those things are in my power to grant, but others,” he says, gaze flickering toward Daenerys, “are not – and neither should they be.”

           “If I may – ” Tyrion starts, never getting the chance to finish.

           “Theon Greyjoy,” Jon calls out, turning to the man swiftly.

           Tyrion stares dumbly at Jon as he ignores him.

           Theon blinks up at Jon, standing swiftly, a measure of uncertainty lighting his frame, even with his shoulders straight and chin raised.  “Your Grace,” he answers.

           “You and your sister want the North’s support for her claim as queen of the Iron Islands, and our acknowledgement of your kingdom’s independence.”

           Theon’s mouth opens, closes, opens again. Finally, he simply nods, hands folding behind his back.

           Jon eyes him darkly, and for a moment, Sansa thinks he may take it all back.  His word, his assurance, his trust.  She sucks a quiet breath between her teeth, wanting to reach for Theon and yet knowing that she shouldn’t.  She stays deathly still – hanging on a precipice.

           Jon’s eyes find hers for the briefest of moments, something passing over his gaze she can’t identify, but then he’s looking back at Theon, and she has to remind herself to breathe.

           “You shall have it,” Jon says finally, jaw clenching after the words.

           Euron scoffs across from them, moving to rise in objection when Daenerys’ upheld hand halts him.  She stays watching the exchange intently, lips dipped into a frown. Euron grumbles his reluctance as he retakes his seat.  

           “Your Grace,” Theon says, half question, half disbelief, his brows dipping low, and Sansa wants to hold him suddenly.  She resists the urge to the point of pain.

           Jon doesn’t forgive Theon, she knows, and he might not ever.  But she has never asked him to, and never will.  She has learned to lay her brothers down in the deep.  She has learned to let them rest.  Not because forgiveness comes easier to her, but because survival does.

           Sansa learned long ago to bury her loves, or they will bury her.  It started with Lady, and then never seemed to stop.  There are holes in her heart dug in the shape of graves, and she knows now that some unearthings can never be.

           She does not ask of Jon what he cannot give.

           “Lady Olenna,” he goes on, turning to the Tyrell matriarch.  Theon sits back down, hands fluttering over his knees in a motion to calm.

           Sansa blinks back the ache, focusing.

           Olenna cocks her head at Jon in expectance, a familiar, challenging smirk tugging at her lips.

           Jon nods to her.  “You want my assurance that I’ll not seek another crown – that the North keeps to the North and does not interfere with the sovereignty of the other kingdoms.”

           Her only answer is a purse of her lips, a lone nail tapping along her armrest.

           “You shall have it.”

           “And your proof of the dead?” she eggs on, smirk still steadily put.

           Jon releases a low chuckle, hand wiping down his mouth.  “And my proof,” he repeats, mumbling the sentiment as though to himself.  He shakes his head, not even sparing Theon a glance. “That’s seeming more and more unlikely as time persists.”

           Olenna steeples her hands together over her lap, considering, but Jon isn’t one to linger.

           “Ser Jaime,” he says, turning to the Lannister knight.

           A single, cocked brow is his only acknowledgement.

           Jon licks his lips, fingers flexing at his sides. “You want your sister’s killer.”

           A thick silence pervades the room.  Tyrion dips his head, shoulders bunching with his unsteady exhale.  Jaime stares unblinkingly at Jon, his one good hand curled stiffly over the armrest.

           Jon takes a breath, jaw grinding.  “You shall have it,” he promises lowly.

           Jaime stands swiftly, pushing from his seat with such a fervency Jon’s Northern guard shifts into a ready stance, the clang of their arms resounding in the room.

           Everything goes eerily still.

           Jaime stands staring at Jon, his face screwed up into a visage of quiet wrath, a dangerously still vehemence.  “What did you say?” he breathes out, the words slipping through bared teeth.

           To her credit, Arya does not flinch a single muscle in Baelish’s skin.  Sansa can see her watching the exchange from her place two seats down from the Protector of the Vale.  Somewhere behind Sansa, Brienne shifts, a barely-heard rustle of armor.  But it’s there all the same.

           Jon turns fully to Jaime.  “The North will pledge to search for Cersei’s killer and bring her to justice.”

           Somewhere behind him, Lord Glover grumbles a curse but Lady Mormont’s sharp gaze silences him.  Sansa sends the girl a grateful look and Lyanna nods in return, chin tilted high.

           Jaime takes a step closer, stiff and warring. “You know who killed her?”

           “No,” Jon lies easily enough, a trickle of pity lining his voice just enough to lend it some truth.  “But we will.”  A short pause.  “Lord Baelish,” he calls, turning to the mock Littlefinger.

           Arya offers a perfectly piqued brow.

           “You are a man of the world.  You must lend your efforts to Ser Jaime’s quest. Commit your resources to discovering Cersei Lannister’s murderer.”

           In Baelish’s skin, Arya takes an expected moment of silence, seeming to consider the request (or command, rather).  She doesn’t spare a glance to either of her siblings, only nodding slowly to Jaime, a twist to her lips with just enough reluctance to seem credible.

           Jaime exhales loudly, staggering back a step, eyes fixed to the false Littlefinger.  There’s a pleading to his gaze that strikes Sansa with its earnestness, its unhindered sincerity.  She tightens her hands over her lap at the sight.

           Jon glances to his Northern guard, motioning for them to stand down.  Jaime drops back down to his seat, glancing over to Tyrion.  They stare silently at each other, and Tyrion is the first to look away, a wet sheen to his eyes that Sansa does not miss.  It is hard for her to fathom anyone mourning the loss of Cersei Lannister, but then she remembers that day long ago in the gilded cage that was King’s Landing.

           “Love no one but your children.  On that front a mother has no choice.”

           It’s perhaps the most honest, the most vulnerable, that Cersei has ever been with her.  The moment wears at Sansa some nights, when she lays awake staring at the ceiling, an unspeakable sadness crashing through her.

           Perhaps Cersei’s greatest mistake was in loving all the wrong people in all the wrong ways.

           Sansa blinks back the sudden wetness at her eyes.

           It doesn’t matter.  It never did.  Because dead is dead, and there is no way to love that into un-being.  

She knows.  She’s tried.

(The muddy steps at Baelor’s Sept will always be the start and end of every nightmare she ever has.)

Jon sighs heavily, shifting to face Daenerys, brows dipping down in consternation.

Sansa turns away from Jaime, ignoring the way he stares blandly at the floor, eyes grievous, jaw tight.

“Your Grace,” Jon addresses, stepping closer.

Daenerys lifts an interested brow, a look of amused curiosity crossing her features.

He licks his lips, taking a steadying breath.  “You want the North – and others – ” he says, motioning toward the room, particularly to the silent, dwelling Jaime Lannister, “to declare you our queen, to welcome back a Targaryen reign – to bend the knee.”

Daenerys looks on smugly, back straight, a regality to her posture that Sansa imagines took years to turn from practiced to intrinsic.  

           Silently, Sansa waits for the break.

           “But I cannot give you that,” Jon says firmly, eyes never leaving the dragon queen.

           The room goes dead for many moments, and Sansa swears she can hear her pulse thrumming frantically in her own ears. She swallows back the trepidation, eyeing the room cautiously for any particular reactions.

           Most telling is Daenerys herself, of course. It takes her a moment, a perfectly groomed eyebrow twitching in displeasure, but the shadow that crosses her face can be called nothing but Targaryen in its darkness.

           Tyrion’s eyes widen, and he glances swiftly to his queen, then back to Jon, stepping forward as though to speak.  Daenerys beats him to it.

           “Just as much as you want me for an ally, Jon Snow, you would not want me for an enemy,” she guarantees evenly, a touch of calm to her voice that tells Sansa she is no stranger to voicing such threats.

           It tightens the ball of anxiety in her stomach.

           Euron smirks beside her.

           Ser Davos tries for diplomacy.  “Your Grace, please.”  He takes a deep breath.  “You’ve come to Westeros at an ill time.  We’ve barely survived the carnage that the War of the Five Kings rained across the continent, and our people are tired of war and subjugation.  A man just wants to till his own soil, to put food on the table for his wife and children, to swear to a lord that honors the protection of his own.  That is the kind of freedom the North – and Westeros – wants.”

           “And you think I cannot give them that?” she challenges, chest heaving with her indignant breath.

           Jon steps forward, standing partially in front of his Hand.  “What I think is that the last city you promised such freedom to has paid that price tenfold in blood.  So, you’ll forgive us our skepticism, Your Grace.”

           Her lips purse, nails digging into her armrests. “Come again?”

           False-Baelish rises smoothly from his seat before Jon can speak further.  “Your Grace, you must know by now the fate of Meereen?  Your last conquest?”

           “Know what?” she snaps.

           Arya lets slip a barely held smirk across Baelish’s thin lips.  “Daario Naharis is dead, Your Grace, as is the council you put in place before you abandoned the city.  The Masters have made war on their former slaves.  The streets run red with the blood of your promised ‘freedom’.”

           Sansa sometimes thinks Arya plays her part too well, or rather that she enjoys it too well.  Either way, it gets them a reaction.

           At first, Daenerys is stiff, hardly moving, her eyes widening only minutely with what seems to be a previously unknown revelation, her nostrils flaring in her outrage.  But then something shifts, a crease to her brow, a quiver to her jaw, the quick blinking of her violet eyes.  It’s gone but a moment after it passes over her face.

           Daario Naharis.

           Sansa’s eyes narrow at the dragon queen.  There was affection there.  Perhaps there still is.  Her heart clenches at the realization, a sliver of empathy bleeding out into the light.  She smothers it instantly.

           Daenerys clears her throat, the momentary exposure shuttered up with cool authority.  “Lord Varys,” she calls, glancing toward him out of the corner of her eye.

           He steps forward gracefully, head bowed.

           “Is this true?”  Her voice is low, a decibel away from being called a hiss.

           Varys glances toward Baelish, eyes narrowed in consideration, a thoughtful breath leaving him.  Eventually, he nods, his face shifting into one of remorse.  “I apologize, Your Grace, for not informing you early.  I thought the news would…detract you from your current goal.”

           Her spine snaps impossibly straighter.  “You are not responsible for deciding what it is I should or should not know, Lord Varys.  You will inform, and you will advise, but you will not omit.  You will not presume to think for me, do you understand?”

           “Of course, Your Grace.”  Another bow of his head, hands still hidden in his sleeves. He keeps his gaze from Baelish this time, flicking toward Sansa instead.

           She sucks a mute breath through her lips, face a blank visage, giving nothing away.

           He only looks just a moment, but it’s enough to prickle her skin with unease.

           “I suppose that’s what you should expect when you leave the running of state to a sellsword,” Lady Olenna throws out, shifting in her seat to a more comfortable position.

           Daenerys gives her an unamused look.

           Olenna rolls her eyes in the most ladylike fashion Sansa has yet to master.

           “My queen, we must continue to look forward,” Tyrion interrupts, stepping up to her seat, just at her side.  He raises his hand as though to settle it over hers on the armrest, perhaps in comfort, but a swift glance from her stills his hand mid-air. He flexes his fist, dropping his arm back to his side.

           Sansa watches the quiet exchange with interest.

           Tyrion clears his throat.  “Your vision takes time.  It takes patience, and endurance, and fortitude.  But Westeros can only benefit from such vision.”  He looks about the room, addressing the rest of the occupants now.  “You say you want freedom?  Well, sitting here before you is the Breaker of Chains.  You want a strong leader?  They call her Mhysa and the Unburnt.  You want a way to win against this ‘Night’s King’?  She is the Mother of Dragons!”  He pauses, takes a breath, steadies his voice.  “We’ve all had our failings – some of us more than most.”  He hardly dares to meet Jaime’s eyes across the way.  “There isn’t a person in this room who can say otherwise,” he says critically, voice hardening.  “But Daenerys is the queen we need.  Now – at the edge of this ‘Long Night’ – and always.”

           Sansa bristles at the words – even more so with the fervency with which he says them.

           This is not the man she remembers.  But then, none of them are who she remembers. Every person in this room is a stranger of sorts – even Jon.

           None of these faces filled her childhood.  It is not something she mourns.  It is just a truth.  Just the way of life.

           (She does not think she could have Jon the way she does now if he still wore the face from her childhood.)

           “You’ll forgive my reluctance to follow a Targaryen, brother,” Jaime says finally, “given my history with the last one I served.  A pretty face is not enough to save you from madness.”

           Daenerys flashes unforgiving eyes his way.  “Brave words from a murderer.”

           Jaime leans forward suddenly, face screwed into something ugly.  “And I’d murder him again, given the chance.”

           Daenerys steals a heated breath through her lungs, eyes darkening dangerously, mouth curling into a sharp scowl.  “Shall I just present my back to you now?  Would that be sufficient invitation?”

           “’Burn them all’,” Sansa says with a dark inflection, the words staining her lips in their heat.

           Daenerys snaps her violet gaze to her, sharp and focused, mouth tipped open as though to speak, but no words come.

           Jaime turns stiffly to her as well, but his gaze shifts quickly to the sworn shield at her back, and she doesn’t have to look at Brienne to know that she’s staring resolutely away from Jaime.  Sansa swallows tightly, meeting Daenerys’ incredulous stare.  “That’s what your father told him.”

           Murmurs break out across the room once more, and Jon swings his startled gaze to Sansa.

           (It’d been a moment of quiet confidence when Brienne admitted to her conversation with Jaime, his confession in the hot pools. She’d vouched for him, and not without reason.)

           This is the man who almost killed their father in the open streets, bringing him to his knees, and back into the Lannister fold, where he eventually lost his head.  

           Sansa swallows down the bile.

           This is also the man who killed the king who brutally murdered their grandfather and uncle, who would have brutally murdered more, had he not acted.

           She is tired of trying to understand Lannisters. She doesn’t want to anymore. She wants nothing to do with them, really.  But she’s played the game long enough to know that sometimes enemies make the best allies, when you know how to shift the board.  She won’t forget that lesson easily.

           Baelish taught it to her well, after all.

           (Some wounds linger, she remembers.)

           “Just before Ser Jaime here stuck a blade in him, that’s what your father said – with caches of wildfire buried beneath King’s Landing.  ‘Burn them all’.”

           Daenerys swallows thickly, eyes riveted to hers.  Her ire bleeds from her slowly, almost imperceptibly, if one wasn’t watching closely enough.

           But Sansa is watching.

           The murmurs around the hall grow louder, shouts interspersing the rush of whispers, a wave of agitation and confusion sweeping over the room.

           “Would you do the same?” Sansa asks her evenly, gaze a frost blue.

           Daenerys opens her mouth, stops, huffs her frustration, clamps her mouth shut tightly.  The words pry beneath her skin, Sansa knows.

           “Would you do the same, Your Grace?” she urges, not letting up.

           Chin raised, Daenerys blinks back the daze.  “I am not my father,” she seethes, voice a tremulous wind, something of pain seeping through.

           Sansa only stares at her.  Jon sighs, wiping a hand down his mouth, looking about the room.

           “Your Grace,” Ser Davos begins, an imploring look on his face, “You’ve given us no proof of that one way or the other.  But perhaps, this is your chance.”

           Daenerys throws a withering look at Davos, but she makes no comment.

           “The last Targaryen to sit the Iron Throne murdered our grandfather and uncle in open court, and then demanded that Lord Arryn of the Vale break guest right and kill our father, as well,” Sansa continues, back straight in her seat.  “King Aerys broke faith with his lordships first, and the Starks have more reason than most to refuse Targaryen rule, yet here we are, asking you for help, putting aside past grievances – justified grievances – because none of this will matter if we don’t stop the dead.  None of this will matter when we are the dead.”

           Daenerys takes a heavy breath, the ire now dimmed in her eyes.

           Jon steps forward, dark eyes steady on Daenerys. “Make no mistake, Your Grace, that’s exactly what’ll happen if we don’t stand together – all of us, every single person here.”  He turns to take in the room.  “I can’t promise that we’ll win.  I can only promise that the North will fight regardless.  Now, I’ve come here to ask the same of you.  You’ve all heard my arguments, and you’ve made your demands.  But it’s time to decide.  I understand if you need your proof, but the North can’t wait any longer.  The dead are already at our door and we leave for Winterfell in the morning, with or without allies.”  He looks pointedly at Jaime, a barely discernible nod sent his way.

           Euron looks as though he’s ready to object when Daenerys’ upraised hand silences him in his seat.  He grumbles reluctantly, but she’s looking at Jon with an expression of serious consideration.  Sansa is too practical to call the feeling that brews in her chest hopeful, however.

           Another silence pervades the room, this one so stilted and heavy that Sansa can feel it in her lungs.  A shuffle of feet here, the creak of a chair there.  A cough, a grumble, the rustle of fabric as someone shifts in their seat.  It’s suffocating suddenly – this stagnation, this utter and useless stillness.

           Sansa wants to howl for it.

           “You won’t be leaving alone, Your Grace.”

           Sansa’s gaze snaps to her uncle, watching wide-eyed as Edmure Tully is the one to rise from his seat, hands tugging his jerkin into place, chin raised even while his jaw quakes.  He nods to Jon, swallowing tightly before speaking.  “The Tullys broke bread with the Starks once, not so long ago.”  His gaze shifts to Sansa, infinitely tender and resolute all at once.  “’Family, duty, honor’.  I’ll be damned if I’m the first Tully who disgraces those words.”

           Sansa’s heart swells.

           Just behind her, Brynden lets a gruff smile grace his features, eyes crinkling.

           Jon’s brows rise in surprise, but only for a moment, before his face softens into a weary gratitude, nodding stiffly.  An appreciative smile tugs at his lips as he allows himself the smallest sigh of relief.

           Sansa cannot hide her smile at the sight, glancing down to her lap.

           “The Vale is with you, Your Grace,” Lord Royce pledges as he stands, glancing down toward Robin, who looks up at him only mildly alarmed before he settles back in his seat at the nod of reassurance both Royce and Baelish give him.  “Aye,” the young lord croaks out, clearing his throat, trying again.  “Aye, King Jon, you have the Vale as well.”  Robin puffs his chest out with the words, shoulders pulled back in a show of confidence Sansa is sure he doesn’t entirely feel, but is grateful for, nonetheless.

           Jon turns to address the rest of the lords but never gets the chance.  The sound of boots thumping on the hard stone sounds just moments before a Northern guard bursts through the door to the hall, panting, eyes wide.  “Your Grace!  Your Grace!” he shouts, taking a large gulp of air after his apparent sprint.

           Davos stands swiftly.  “What is it, man?”

           “At the gate,” he says, bracing his hands to his knees as he tries to breathe.  “It’s – it’s Yara Greyjoy!”

           Theon jolts to a stand, eyes wide, and the room erupts behind him, Euron the loudest of them.

           It’s moments later that Yara breaks into the hall, blood dried at her temple, hair and coat still speckled with snow, kicking a shackled undead into the center of the room, its snarl chocked off by the leash around its neck.

           Daenerys stares on in dawning horror.  Jaime’s jaw sets, his eyes hardening.  Olenna blinks back the shock, glancing toward Sansa.

           “Good thing these fuckers hate the water,” Yara says, wiping a hand under her nose, a brilliant smile breaking across her mud-streaked face as she braces a boot to the back of the scrambling corpse’s neck. “So, when do we leave?”

* * *

           It doesn’t take long for Jaime Lannister and Olenna Tyrell to pledge to the North after Yara’s dramatic entrance, with the lords from the Stormlands following suit shortly after.  Daenerys makes a grand enough speech about fighting for the people, about burning the evil away, and Jon suffers through it as stoically as he can, knowing it’s a small price to pay to guarantee her forces come North.

           Euron Greyjoy, however, has different plans than his queen.  He takes one look at the wight and renounces his support, cursing all of them for fools, ignoring Daenerys’ call to heel when he turns his back on her and makes for his ships at the coast.

           They’re already on their march North when they hear word that Euron hadn’t even made it to Harrenhal, let alone Gulltown.  Daenerys Targaryen doesn’t take too kindly to desertion it seems, having burned him where he stood.

           Jon’s sure it’s as much a punishment for Euron as it is a warning for the rest of them.

           Do not betray the dragon, the warning says.

           Jon feels the sinking dread like a stone in his gut when they pass through the gates of Winterfell and the shadow of dragon’s wings blankets the courtyard, darkening the image of their brother’s face as Bran sits waiting for them in reception.

           He doesn’t have time to think about it though, because they throw themselves into preparations quickly enough, shoring up the walls, building trenches, forging weapons with the dragonglass Daenerys promises from Dragonstone.  Tormund and his people make it to Winterfell days later, and Jon’s war council lasts long into the night that first eve of their return.

Sansa takes to the crypts more often of late, and this is where Jon finds her in the short hours before dawn once the council has let out. He’s been hesitant to breach her solitude, her sanctuary.  She stitches black direwolves to her handkerchiefs these days, and it’s a likeness he wishes he could forget, but the severed head of Shaggydog is as haunting a memory as the arrow-riddled body of the young boy who loved him.

           The brother who loved him.

           Sansa stands before Rickon’s statue with her hands folded before her.  A ring of winter roses lays at the base, slowly wilting.

           She heaves a sigh, and it seems to take all of her, but her voice is steady when she tells him, “We’ll have to burn them.”

           Her admission jars him into movement, a hand coming up to brace at her elbow.  “Sansa.” There’s a question laced through her name he doesn’t know how to ask.

           She turns to him then, just slightly, just enough to catch his gaze over her shoulder.  

           He has learned, after many moons, how to read Sansa Stark’s grief – how to discern it by the lines of her face, the stiffness of her frame, the heady weight of her silence.

           His fingers curl more surely around her elbow.

           “If we want to survive the Long Night, then we will have to burn them.”

           Jon looks past her down the long tunnel of crypts.  It’s a shadow-drenched cavern of memory and stone and deep, still quiet that takes him – an ages-old memoriam of long dead Starks.  It’s a line that stretches far, and he remembers suddenly, that it’s a line he is never to join.

           King in the North he may be, but never a Stark.

           Jon grinds his teeth, the ache in his jaw an easy distraction.

           He’d hoped to be buried here one day.  A child’s dream, perhaps.  A foolish wish.

           Jon wants to laugh suddenly.  To laugh and laugh and choke on it – because what a joke.  The gods have ill humor, and he has little appreciation for it.

           Sansa reaches a hand to his side, fingers clutching at his furs.  He sends a baleful look her way.

“I’ll light the fires myself,” she says softly at his side, and he has to swallow back the tartness, eyes fluttering closed at the breath that stains his lungs.  “With Bran and Arya,” she finishes, voice softer than he’s ever heard.

He reaches a hand to the small of her back, dragging her against him.

She settles a palm at his chest where his heart lies, beaten and floundering.

           “I would not have you buried here,” she mutters against his shoulder.

           Jon grips at her dress, fingers bunching in the material at her back.

           “Not yet,” she finishes, mouth sliding against his throat.  “Not for many years to come.”

           He should take it as the hope it is, as the single, rare confession it is – that she isn’t ready for him to leave this world.

           But something too long festered flares to life at the words.  Something too darkly honed.

           The hand bunched in her dress draws upwards, dragging the material with it.  He presses into her, backing her up against the wall.

           Sansa looks up at him with a flicker of concern, hands bracing at his shoulders.

           He’s silent as he unfastens his cloak, letting it fall to the cold ground at his feet.  He pulls his jerkin free of his breeches, unlacing it with practiced ease.

           Sansa stares at him, breath hitching.  Her hands hover uncertainly in the air above his shoulders, her hips pinned to the wall by his.  “Jon.”

           His jerkin hits the floor alongside his cloak, his eyes never leaving hers. He pulls his tunic free of his breeches, hands moving to the laces at his groin.  Sansa’s hands fumble to stop him.

           “Jon, please, what are you – ”

           “I’m a Stark, aren’t I?”  It’s a guttural rush of air that leaves him.

           Sansa’s hands still over his.  She blinks furiously at him, mouth parting, cheeks heated at his stare.

           “You said it yourself,” he whispers, chest heaving.

           Sansa’s eyes shift between his, tongue darting out to lick her lips in her anticipation.  “Jon.”

           “You said it yourself,” he hisses now, accusingly, a bite behind his words he hasn’t a name for.  And then he’s rucking up her skirts, a hand gliding to the back of her knee, tugging it up over his hip.

           Sansa gasps, arching against the wall instinctively.  She pushes her skirts down frantically, chest rising and falling so fast she’s getting lightheaded.  “Jon, wait, this isn’t – this isn’t – ”

           His mouth finds her throat, his tongue reckless and heated against her flesh. Sansa’s head lolls back against the wall.  “Jon,” she pants, fingers stilling at his shoulders with a fierce grip.  “Jon, what – ”

           He grabs at her wrists, tugging them up above her head, holding them there with a single, calloused palm.  His other hand undoes the laces of his breeches completely.  “I’m a Stark, aren’t I?” he asks again, the heat of resentment and longing and regret flaring white-hot inside him.  It comes out a growl.  It comes out a desperation.

           Sansa’s chest heaves against his, tongue wetting her lips.  “Jon.”

           And he’s just so tired of hearing that name.  Just so fucking tired of it.

           He rucks her skirts up, tearing at her smallclothes, fumbling recklessly for the heat of her, that throbbing, sodden heat of her.

           Jon groans when his fingers find home.  He nips at her lips, catching her hitched breath between his teeth.  “This is where I belong,” he says without repentance, sliding into her on a hissed breath, his head dropping to her shoulder as he shudders against her, a deep-seated groan leaving him.

           Sansa’s sharp inhale sounds against his temple, her hips pushing up to meet him.

           Jon releases her wrists, grabbing for her thighs instead, hoisting her up against the wall as he thrusts deeper, drawing her legs around his waist.

           A sigh of contentment breaks against his ear, his name lost in the space between their pants, and he remembers suddenly.

           He remembers where they are.

           “Don’t stop,” Sansa moans breathlessly.

           He grinds his hips into hers faster, deeper, with a mercilessness that almost scares him in its intensity.  One of her hands reaches out to steady herself, bracing against the base of Rickon’s statue.  Jon looks decidedly away from the motion.

           He only fucks his sister harder.  

           The crypts fill with their ragged pants, their dark curses, the fumble of their forms against the crude stone.

           “This is where I belong,” he groans against her mouth, biting down on her bottom lip.

           Sansa cries out, nails digging into the naked flesh of his hips, drawing him deeper into her, and he feels himself breaking, crashing, barreling into her with a ferocity he’s never felt for anything – anyone – no one but her. “Mine,” he growls into her mouth, fingers bruising on her thighs, teeth etching their mark along her throat.  He braces a single, trembling hand against the wall at her back, the rough stone cutting into his palm as his thrusts grow frantic and uneven.  He curls his bloodied hand along the stone wall, nails catching on the rock, and he anchors himself amidst the tide.

           “Mine.”

           It’s a shadow-drenched cavern of memory that takes him.  A place of no light.  A hollow of stone so entrenched with the dead he finds a familiar home.

           Sansa does not let him go.

           Even when he spills inside her.

           Even when he mars her thighs with the discoloration of his need.

           Mine, he swears.

           The declaration clatters around the stone crypts like a herald of war.

* * *

{“Fire sows no seeds,” he tells her.  “It molds no stones.  It tills no earth.  How could it ever fashion life from death?”

           Sansa stops, looking down at her still brother, knuckles white where her hands grip at each other in their wringing.  She slinks slowly back to her chair, the wind rushing from her in something not unlike defeat.  She is just so lonely, suddenly – so desolate and worn and without him.  

Without Jon.

“You knew all along?” she asks almost plaintively, exhaustion echoing along her words.  “You knew the dragons weren’t…”  She stops, swallows, tries again.  “You didn’t bring them here to defeat the dead.  You brought them here because only the dead could defeat them.”

           Bran gives her a look that could only pass for calculating – foreign and jarring though it is on her brother’s tender features. “She was never the solution,” he answers her.}

#jonsa #jon and sansa #jon x sansa #jon snow #sansa stark #arya stark #house stark #starklings #my writing #game of thrones #got fanfic #a violence done most kindly

[tabloidtoc]

Globe, August 24

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: President Bill Clinton cancer nightmare 

Page 2: Up Front & Personal -- Kit Harington adjusts himself, Mama June Shannon’s dress flies up, Sex Pistols singer Johnny Rotten 

Page 3: Paris Jackson, Caitlyn Jenner, Ray Davies of The Kinks out in London 

Page 4: The movie version of the superhit stage musical Cats was such a train wreck that even its composer Andrew Lloyd Webber thinks it stinks, Elton John confesses his addictions would have killed him if he hadn’t gotten help 

Page 5: Queen of mean Ellen DeGeneres has been dumped by her Hollywood pals and now she’s begging long-suffering wife Portia de Rossi not to walk out on her too 

Page 6: Angelina Jolie has turned into a paranoid witch acting like a tyrant to keep her private life under wraps and now her torment has promoted her to torture her help and increase the hell she brings down on ex Brad Pitt, heartbroken Brad Pitt is desperately begging estranged son Maddox Jolie-Pitt to meet for a father-son peace summit to end the bad blood between them because Maddox is still harboring bitterness over the stars’ breakup even after the pair have made peace 

Page 7: Peeved Joe Pesci wants to whack his neighbors’ plans to extend the docks outside their Jersey Shore homes -- he gripes the new docks which are set to extend 300 feet into Barnegat Bay would block homeowners’ views 

Page 8: A videographer who shot promotional teasers for Suits the hit show in which Meghan Markle had a second-rank role recalls her as prickly and standoffish and says they used to call her the princess, furious Queen Elizabeth lit into grandson Prince Harry after he cursed out a palace staffer for not giving in to the demands of his high-maintenance fiancee Meghan Markle as their wedding neared -- the royal tongue-lashing came after Harry threw a fit at the queen’s closest aide Angela Kelly after she nixed Meghan’s sudden insistence to try on the tiara she was to wear at her May 2018 wedding 

Page 9: Charlize Theron doesn’t need a man and reveals she told her daughters that she’s dating herself, bloated big-mouth Alec Baldwin has been read the riot act by his health-nut wife Hilaria Baldwin who’s demanded the doughy dad get rid of his bevy of bulges 

Page 12: Celebrity Buzz -- Cardi B dresses down to run errands in L.A. (picture), Heather Locklear claimed filming the 1996 flick The First Wives Club became gross when on-screen husband James Naughton improvised a humiliating move by circling her nipple area with his finger which wasn’t in the script but James says the move was indeed printed in the script, Reese Witherspoon won the 2020 Award for Biggest Snub of the Year for not receiving even one lousy Emmy nomination for acting in any of three starring roles, former Wonder Woman Lynda Carter still wears the supercool bullet-blocking gold cuffs that were part of her iconic TV character’s wardrobe, Drake ordered custom-made twin pendants depicting his music idol murdered rapper Tupac as a thorn-crowned Jesus figure crying tears made of perfect diamonds and each disembodied heavy gold head dangles from a chain including 70 carats of flawless white and yellow diamonds and worth a reported $600,000 combined 

Page 13: Demi Moore in a fake mustache at her Idaho home (picture), Tom Felton grabs a smoke while skateboarding in L.A. (pic), Brody Jenner and galpal Briana Jungwirth shopping in Malibu (pic), Liam Neeson’s eldest son Micheal Neeson Richardson confides he’s still not over the death of his mother Natasha Richardson who lost her life in a 2009 skiing accident when he was 13 

Page 14: Channing Tatum is producing his own musical take on Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth -- Channing’s take is about a treacherous teenage girl who will have to face the consequences of her ambition with some catchy music of course, Tracy Morgan was fortunate to survive the highway crash that sent him into a coma in 2015 but his marriage to Megan Wollover hasn’t had such a happy ending as they are filing for divorce, Fashion Verdict -- Jenna Elfman 5/10, Kiernan Shipka 2/10, Kristen Taekman 4/10, Joan Collins 9/10, Isabelle Huppert 3/10 

Page 16: Cover Story -- Bill Clinton skin cancer terror -- the former president healing from cryosurgery 

Page 17: The Beatles fans believed the band hated each other when they split up but Paul McCartney insists that wasn’t true, Kelly Osbourne ripped into an internet troll with a curse-laden comeback after saying she’s received a message crowing how great it was that her dad Ozzy Osbourne was dying 

Page 19: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Carrie Ann Inaba, humble hitmaker Garth Brooks has permanently pulled his name from consideration for Entertainer of the Year at the Country Music Association awards show saying it’s time for someone else to have the honor, nine years after leaving Law & Order: SVU Christopher Meloni is returning to the franchise as fan favorite Elliot Stabler in a new spinoff and reuniting with former co-star Mariska Hargitay because he feels his character has evolved 

Page 20: True Crime 

Page 21: Proof that D.B. Cooper survived the jet jump -- new evidence reveals loot was buried 6 months after skyjacking 

Page 23: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are so worried about their failing marriage they’ve hired a hypnotist to help sort out their issues 

Page 24: Official police records that could prove Prince Andrew is lying about his involvement with one of Jeffrey Epstein’s teenage sex slaves have been destroyed by Scotland Yard in a shocking cover-up linked to the royal family’s inner circle 

Page 27: Health Report -- test can sniff Alzheimer’s 20 years ahead 

Page 38: Amber Heard believed billionaire Elon Musk bugged the Tesla electric car he gave her as a gift

Page 44: Straight Talk -- nip/tuck knows no boundaries for teen fools like Kylie Jenner and Gia Giudice 

Page 45: Kathie Lee Gifford has revealed that her late Live! co-host Regis Philbin protected her after her husband Frank Gifford was cheating on her with a married woman in 1997, Stevie Nicks has some sobering news for wannabe rockers: stash some cash for rehab stints, cradle-robbing Sean Penn has tied the knot with galpal Leila George who is a year younger than his daughter 

Page 47: Hollywood Flashback -- Rod Steiger and Sidney Poitier in the 1967 movie In the Heat of the Night, Bizarre But True 

#tabloid #grain of salt #tabloid toc #tabloidtoc #bill clinton #president bill clinton #president clinton #d.b. cooper #db cooper #ellen degeneres #portia de rossi #angelina jolie #brad pitt #maddox jolie-pitt #joe pesci #meghan markle #prince harry #queen elizabeth #prince andrew #charlize theron #alec baldwin #beatles #the beatles #paul mccartney #carrie ann inaba #garth brooks #christopher meloni #elliot stabler #kim kardashian #kanye west