#he's the most loving + genuine soul with an innate ability to make people laugh

[novantinuum]

that fantasy au concept is so interesting! it has such a cool emotional core with neat worldbuilding while still staying true to the spirit of the show, and just seems to... idk how to put it but it Works?

a aaa thank you ;w;

i have a metric butt load of ideas for it, some of them being:

-Lots of typical fantasy creatures like elves, dwarves, dragonborn, gnomes, orcs, etc etc etc alongside humans

-The visual aesthetic of the larger cities is strongly victorian steampunk. This is a world right on the edge of technological revolution, and as a result, oftentimes magic and those who perform it are kinda left behind and ignored in lieu of new inventions and ideas.

-Magic is something all denizens of this fantasy world can learn if they put their minds to it enough- but there are definitely some people who have an innate closer connection to the magical aspect of this world and have an easier time with it. This often runs through family lines- i.e. if a parent is a powerful witch, for example, their child will also have an innate inclination towards performing powerful magic.

-All the magic in this world is really personalized. Each individual will have an inclination towards a few types of magic that speak towards their personality and heart. It’s kinda... soul magic? So when I said the eldritch beings Rose was once a part of consume people’s souls, they’re basically feeding on pure magic. 

-Rose is, of course, secretly an eldritch horror disguised as an elf. She’s like... super long-lived? She’s been around for hundreds upon hundreds of years in this world, far beyond the normal lifespan of elven folk. However, she flies under the radar and is never really questioned because everyone just assumes the immense power of her magic is what’s keeping her alive. She deals very deeply in eldritch magic, and also boasts considerable healing/restorative powers. She’s still alive when Steven is born, and is loving as a mother, but... she tends to be very reclusive, and starts to keep him at arm’s length the older he becomes. (see: she’s super stressed and distracted about trying to find a way to save this realm when her ward fails in a few years.) This may be an AU, but Steven still gotta have mommy issues. 

-Pearl is her first love, the elven woman she fell for when she first came to protect this world. Rose has granted her long life, afraid to see the people she loves die. Pearl is a skilled fighter and mage, able to show others impeccably accurate visions of her memory in a cloud of smoke, conjure an illusionary version of any item she’s seen, and even summon light soldiers to cover her.

-Garnet is another early friend she made, during that initial fight against the eldritch beings trying to consume this plane of existence. Garnet has also been granted the power of long life. She is a clairvoyant seer who can see potential paths of the future, but while she uses this power she temporarily goes blind as she accesses her “third eye,” so to speak. As a result, this is a magic she must use wisely, outside immediate dangers. Haven’t decided what fantasy people she’s of.

-Amethyst is a young human girl these three came into care of much later, someone without a home to call her own. She’s scrappy, and is adept with forming illusions and shapeshifting. Her magic is very handy in conflict with distracting and disorienting others, and is also fun for cheap tricks to get a laugh. These days, it’s a rare day she’s NOT in some shapeshifted form.

-Greg is a human, and he’s absolutely a bard :D Most of his magic he actually learned from Rose, as his parents didn’t allow him to seek out magic training when he was a kid under their thumb. 

-Connie is a human who lives in one of the larger cities of this world with her parents, and she quite literally ran into Steven in the streets one day... which eventually lead to them striking up a close friendship and their stories intertwining. She’s always wanted to study magic, but as of late, with all the technological revolutions, texts on it are becoming harder and harder to find. Magic is becoming something that is more often only passed down within families... something unfairly insular. Neither her mother or father are innate magic users, so she has no one to teach her. No one, that is... until she met Steven and his family. Steven... who is the son of the literal most AMAZING sorceress who ever walked this world.

She is a quick learner, and over time picks up some mid-level telepathic abilities- which allow her to poke into people’s inner thoughts at will. She also becomes adept at scouring information- magically soaking up words in a book like a sponge, and at sensing hidden sources of magic many others cannot. She trains with Pearl as a swordfighter, as well. 

-Steven... genuinely believes he is a half-elf for most of his childhood. His mother is an elf, of course, and his father a human. He’s got pointed ears like his mom, and shares her natural magical aptitude. However, since he is actually half-eldritch instead, there’s a lot of very, very subtle, unusual physical quirks about him he doesn’t know to mask, some of which are:

His eyes shimmer with little pinpricks of light occasionally, almost as if an entire galaxy were encapsulated within them. This only happens when he’s feeling very strong emotions. It’s not something anyone would notice unless they were looking for it.

Sometimes... rarely... when you look at him close, it’s as if for a brief glimmer of a moment his form feels off. Like something’s missing, or your sight is somehow glitching. Like there’s something about him you can’t quite see.

He doesn’t feel warm to the touch, nor does he feel cold. The closest description of sensation I could make for what someone feels when making contact with him is like... TV static.

If you know him long enough, eventually you’ll grow to recognize a slight dissonant harmony within his voice. It’s very subtle, but always there.

These quirks are things Rose shares, but knowingly masks. Every single day she doesn’t tell him the truth about her origins is a day she fears these quirks will grow so strong it’ll put him in danger, but what’s even more dangerous is the thought of having to burden him with her secret, and... likely have to deal with the fallout of everyone discovering that she’s lied about what she is for all this time.

Steven’s magic is heavy on abjuration. He’s very adept at summoning barriers and shields and at casting all sorts of defensive spells. He can also bring plants to life, but this is incredibly draining for him earlier on in his magic training. He’s got a bit of healing ability, although nowhere near his mother’s, and he’s also a strong empath. As his power grows, so too does the strength and longevity of his shields and creations. However, along with that, his empathic abilities become so powerful that he often finds himself overwhelmed by the emotions of people around him. He’s largely unable to just “turn it off,” and thus prefers to stick to peaceful, secluded areas rather than trundle through highly populated areas all the time. Music is a really good diversion for him when he feels too overwhelmed by everyone’s emotions.

-At some point, Steven and Connie come to question Rose’s secrecy, and pry into what she’s doing a bit... Connie attempts to use her telepathy to peek into her surface thoughts, and... hoo boy, that’s not a super wise move on Connie’s part, because Rose can feel this girl picking around in her mind. The two of them get into big trouble, as Rose is terrified at people discovering her true identity at this point, at people learning about the truth and then pressing into her dangerous world. While she doesn’t intend to be, Rose gets kinda... scary when she’s upset. Don’t upset her.

#jen rambles #su fantasy au #gonn tag this #cloudyskiesandfireflies

[piduai]

sansa and dany are two sides of the same coin, or rather, are cut from the same cloth - as not to imply that they are drastically different in a sense in which they complete each other, more like they’re each other’s foil in a much more subtler way than arya and sansa are.

they are both pre-teens that are introduced in the game as pawns who gradually gained knowledge and agency just enough to make them players. daenerys was a pawn to a whole bunch of people - to varys and illyrio for the biggest part as they both seem to harbor plans for her that i would not be surprised to learn are different at their core, and to doran martell. these three are high-ranking players, and dany was a tool for them. to viserys in a lesser extent, since he thought he was a player but has been a pawn all along, and died for it.

sansa initially wasn’t part of the game. ned going to the capital and joining the game automatically included her though, and again, unlike arya, who escaped and still managed to stay an ambivalent bystander, sansa had to partake in it. she was childish and she was naive and she immediately made herself one of cersei’s pawns, and with it subscribed to littlefinger’s agenda, who is a much bigger fish in the game than cersei herself. i wager that using sansa has been on littlefinger’s mind since day one, and seeing that he smashed the tyrell engagement plan and most probably was the one to plant the idea of marrying sansa off to tyrion in tywin’s head is foreshadowing to when he formally introduces sansa to the game and tries to feed her the illusion that, by including her, he decided to make her a player - which she doesn’t buy, but becomes one nevertheless.

anyway they both start off as clueless children, sansa aged 11 and dany aged 13. they were both born in nobility, though have drastically different fates; sansa has been pampered her entire life, living in comfort and love and safety, while daenerys spent all her life on the go. from her own words, she knew what it was like to be homeless, cold and hungry. however, they’re both idealists, but while for sansa this is a result of her soft and pandering childhood, for daenerys it’s an innate trait. they were both fed tales of high valor and lies. 

viserys would tell daenerys exaggerated tales about the nobility of their deranged house, while sansa would read stories about knights and ladies. bottom point is that they both, being children, are introduced having inflicted ideals from the outside world, because they didn’t have the means to gain their own themselves (daenerys living in exile with only a delusional brother to teach her about the world, and sansa being highly sheltered). with time and with trauma sansa’s idealism weakens and she becomes more pragmatic, while dany’s idealism becomes stronger. this is where their paths, as children, divide. they mature in opposite ways, seeing that dany grows gaining her own agency and power and security, while sansa lives in perpetual abuse while being a hostage.

fast-forward to when they witness their first murder. daenerys, a child bride, sees a man being murdered at her wedding, and is genuinely horrified. sansa sees a man die during a tourney and thinks to herself how weird it is that she doesn’t care about his death at all. later on they’re both called soft, but they maintain the same attitude towards murder. none of them condone it, and neither of them are inherently cruel, and while they both pray for the death of their enemies, they’re accepting actual deaths differently. 

while marching on meeren, dany sees a trail of corpses of child slaves, and upon establishing her rule, she avenges them - which we see she feels faulty about it; even if in her case murders were justified, she is still guilt-driven. sansa is devastated at ned’s death because it took her completely unawares, but for the rest she doesn’t care - joffrey, ser dontos, lysa tully, robert arryn (implied), as long as they’re murdered for her own sake and safety, she doesn’t feel guilt or grief over them.

she’s still not cruel, though. during the battle of the blackwater we have perhaps some of the most introspective sansa povs. “do you want to be loved, sansa?”, “everyone wants to be loved”.

then sansa gets forcibly married at age 12, a year younger than dany. unlike daenerys, who learnt to cope and developed stockholm syndrome towards her husband, she was utterly miserable in her marriage. eventually she fled, never thinking about her husband again, while daenerys thinks about drogo up to her last pov. however considering littlefinger’s plans for marrying sansa to harry, that would land them both with two political marriages neither of them wanted. “who would dare to love a dragon?”, dany wonders. “nobody will marry me for love”, sansa broods. they both share a fear of not being loved.

and they both want to give that love back. “if i’m ever queen, i’ll make them love me”, thinks sansa during the battle outside her walls, a girl who has NOT grown with the idea that one day she will be a queen (unlike cersei, for example), while in one of her povs daenerys thinks, “ i want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way viserys said they smiled for my father”. they both want to live in peace and prosperity, and this is where their idealistic sides show.

they both are also nothing short of dutiful. they yearn for home. “i don’t want to marry him, i want to go home”, daenerys tells her brother in her first pov. she is consumed with dreams about her house with the red door and the lemon tree under her window constantly. at the end of the day, she just wants to go somewhere where she knows she’s safe - a sentiment that sansa shares. at first she was thrilled to leave winterfell, but after everything she’s been through, she realizes that she’s the strongest within the walls of winterfell. home gives her solace, it gives her courage and a sense of safety. but alas, home is not a destiny for either of them. dany is loyal to her queenship, and always puts the needs of her people over her own desires: “it’s time to don my floppy ears”. sansa also has more tully in her than her looks alone, as she does everything required of her despite her personal wishes. they value their sense of duty over their sense of self.

they are both highly adaptable. dany had to quickly adapt to the rough dothraki lifestyle if she ever wanted to be accepted, and sansa had to adapt to the court rules of lies and conspiracies if she wanted to stay alive. they’re both quick learners who can use their head regarding their own survival. “i know that she’s strong. how not? dothraki despise weakness”, tyrion reflects about daenerys in one of his povs. but from their ability to adapt grows the sense of not belonging. daenerys never belonged anywhere she went; firstly within dothraki, then in quarth, then in meeren - she was always considered an outsider, and the house with the red door, she didn’t belong even there. sansa also doesn’t belong where she is. her position in king’s landing is forced, she thinks to herself “they made me a lannister” after being wed to tyrion, but she still didn’t belong there. and later, when she was at the eyerie, it’s brought up in the narrative: “ White towers and white snow and white statues, black shadows and black trees, the dark grey sky above. A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here. Yet she stepped out all the same”.

they also both lost everyone they loved, at some point. “ If Lady was here, I would not be afraid. Lady was dead, though; Robb, Bran, Rickon, Arya, her father, her mother, even Septa Mordane. All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now” sansa thinks wistfully. “He’s gone, then. My father and my mother, my brothers, Ser Willem Darry, Drogo who was my sun-and-stars, his son who died inside me, and now Ser Jorah”, dany thinks upon jorah’s banishment. they are both alone in the world. the only difference is that sansa had lost lady forever - and considering that it is implied that the direwolves are literally part of the stark children, bound to them by fate - a piece of her soul with her. dany still has drogon by the end of book 5. otherwise they’re both surrendered by enemies.

i don’t watch the show and don’t care what they did to their characters in there. i’m sure they threw in more parallels and such but i don’t care about those. the only thing i’ve picked up is that they are at odds with each other, and this is what leaves me utterly baffled. they would work together fantastically, and would grow fond of each other, because they have more things in common than it should be allowed for two characters who live on opposite sides of the world.

i really wish they met in canon. i wonder how their relationship would be handled by their actual creator.

#sansa stark #daenerys targaryen #a song of ice and fire #daensa #asoiaf

[dapper-ships-herself]

@dokiqx @raudrfox2

The answer changes a bit depending on the s/i, so I'm gonna start with more general and like personal and then go into my s/is.

Dazai and I both, let's say wrestle with certain feelings about life and the world around us. When it feels like you're adrift and very little matters, it helps a great deal to have someone to ground you, and that's Dazai and I for each other. When the world is cruel, we can reach out our hands and feel the warmth, and through that feel safe and real. Neither of us are used to letting ourselves be fully vulnerable to the people around us, we're always masking something, maybe not for entirely the same reasons, but we are. Our relationship is when we both let those walls fall bit by bit, letting go of fear and trepidation. He never even thought he could feel real love before, both of us had thought we weren't worthy of it.

And Dazai is a genius, he's amazing and confident in his abilities, he can see straight through pretty much anyone, so I think why would he even want me, I'm so boring and predictable, I'm not a fan of taking risks and putting myself out there. But Dazai sees all my good qualities, he appreciates my strong empathy and my compassion, he sees how even though I struggle with my own worth I put so much worth into the lives around me, and I have a fun way of thinking about a lot of things, I'm creative bright even when I think I'm not. I become like a fresh, sunny spring day for his soul. And Dazai, his hands are so stained and his mind so jaded, even as he works to redeem himself and be on the side that saves people, he thinks there's too much darkness to ever truly be washed away. But I know that even though he's done a lot of bad, what matters most is what he's doing now; he's trying so hard to be good, to move away from the darkness that only acted as a negative feedback loop for him, that was never good for a boy with a mind like his. He is actively trying to be a good man, and I remind him of that. Neither of us are ever going to be perfect, but that's fine when we're together through our flaws. And through it all, we help each other see the beautiful things to live for.

Okay, now let's go into some specifics for the s/is.

ADA! Gillian has been through some pretty deep trauma with the loss of her little sister when they were kids, and at the time she thought she'd never ever recover from that and stay in the emotionless darkness forever, but with the help of Fukuzawa and Ranpo and the other agency members, she was able to heal. Despite the guilt and trauma that still sticks to her, how easy it would be to write the world off as simply cruel and uncaring, that's not her style. She loves the world, she loves the people in it, she knows that there's darkness but that only means that the rest of them should try their hardest to spread as much love and compassion as they can to balance that out. To Dazai, her unwavering light is strange but so calming. She's so strong in her determination to protect her family and everyone and everything that needs saving, it really touches something in him. She teaches him that it's okay, that they deserve to laugh and love and live, and she helps show him how to actively view the world for it's good parts. Even if someday it's hard, some days she's sad and can't forget the past, some days she tries very hard to push away the anger that festers in her at the unfairness that abounds, she still tries and now they can stand by each other's sides and try together. And he also knows what it's like to suffer and lose the one person who's most important, and he helps her confront the guilt that still clings to her, in fact that's something mutual. And she also, even though she accepts and appreciates her ability for how it lets her help people, it's also an ability that takes away a person's free will and can cause a lot of destruction, and she is afraid of the inherent evilness of it, and though Dazai respects how she's made the concious choice to only use it to help people, he sees her fear and helps her accept it.

Mafia! Gillian and Dazai probably have the most complicated relationship of all. Neither really wanted friends or saw the use of them, but they became each other's first real friend after he joins the mafia. They connect and resonate in a much stronger and more natural way than either were really prepared for; and then they were part of the quartet with Ango and Oda too, and she loved them all. She could be quoted as saying the three of them were probably the only things keeping her sane in the Port Mafia. And then she went away on a mission for a few weeks, no contact with her friends, and suddenly that little slice of joy she had was shattered, Oda was killed, Ango had been a double agent the whole time, and Dazai had abandoned her without so much as a good bye, much less and explanation. It sent her to a dark place for a while. She wanted to hate Dazai, and she certainly felt bitter, but she couldn't bring herself to hate him; how could she, really. She disliked being in the Port Mafia, but not only does she feel she'd have no where else to go, that if she left she'd be leaving her father, Ougai, aka the only person who's ever seen to genuinely want her around and stay that way, but her ability is literally to control darkness and too much light literally causes her pain and discomfort, it's clear to her that she was born to forever stay in the world of darkness and never be able to stand in the light. When she and Dazai eventually meet again four years after he left the mafia, there's a lot of complicated feelings too work through. She's bitter and angry and can't understand why he'd leave her like that if their friendship really meant anything; Dazai thought it was the right move at the time, he justified it to himself by reasoning that he knew she felt chained to the mafia and he had to leave quickly and cleanly in order to successfully rid himself of his dark past, he couldn't risk waiting for her to come back from her mission and having to convince her. But, really, he was afraid. After all, he's convinced that everything he desires will slip through his fingers the moment he obtains it. If he tried to hold on to the happiness she brought him and selfishly took her with him, he'd only bring her ruin some other way, and he wasn't deserving of her. He genuinely does regret it though, and it's not easy for him to admit that he was wrong but he knows that this is one instance where he was so terribly wrong. They have to work through these feelings in order to get anywhere, and she also has to realize that she does have the capability to step into the light, which she does partially with Dazai's help. There's a lot of fighting through the bullshit to finally be together.

Jekyll! Gillian takes the stuff mentioned earlier about always masking some part of ourselves to the extreme. Her ability, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, literally manifests her jaded view of the world into a physical creature of chaos, aka Hyde. And she rejects Hyde hardcore, that's why she's so unstable, destructive, and difficult to control, as well as hates her in return. She puts on the sugariest of sweet faces to try and mask this darkness, but Dazai is able to see it. He recognizes her mask easily, because he's basically doing the exact same thing. Eventually, after a lot of plot haha, they're able to help each other let go of their facades a bit and better accept themselves for who they are. They find this kinship in each other that honestly makes it easier for them to let go of their guards at least a little bit. They both hold a lot of jaded darkness with themselves, and they've both done some pretty terrible things and dirtied their hands, him in the mafia and her in the Order of the Clocktower, and they were both able to break away from that to try and become better people, and that's really nice for them to be able to relate to each other.

Circus! Gillian is, true to the name of her troupe the Circus of the Disillusioned, disillusioned about much of the world. It's dirty and cruel and not on your side. But, the circus always promoted family, the whole reason Voltaire formed the troupe was to attempt to not lay there and accept their wretched fate, that they as humans should try and create at least small pockets of a world more right and colorful. And this ideal stays with her. So yeah, they're both not huge fans of the world, but she has a more innate desire to change that, and she believes it's the duty of humans to fight through and not back away from the world through means like suicide (does that make sense? Trying to word it properly). So she actually is pretty, hm, disgusted is too strong of a word to use, she clashes a lot with Dazai's suicidal jokes. And she's too tsundere and jaded herself to outright be all flowery ~I will help you~, but that sort of discussion is a theme between them early on. Their abilities are foils for each other as well, Dazai is an ability nullifier, she's an ability amplifier, and that sort of reflects their views too.

Guild! Gillian at first seems to have the most innocent view of the world, after all she's rich and spoiled by her father, Francis. And she acts rather carefree too, like someone who's always been secure and never known difficulty. But she has known pain, and there's more than a naive rich girl beneath the surface. She's cunning and knows how to read people, she's been trained in the art of business since she was a child and had it drilled into her that you must never roll over for the world. She's also been taught that she's the daughter of the great Fitzgerald, which means she's meant for greatness too, and she hides it from her father but that's left her with a desperation to prove herself and live up to a great big shadow. But she's genuinely kind too, she loves the world for it's flaws and wants to support the people in it. So yeah, they're ways of thinking clash a bit, but at the same time they work perfectly in other aspects. At first, it's more like he's interested in her for the sort of contradictions she poses, but he starts to genuinely respect her and admire how she chooses to see kindness and work for it, how she takes things in to her own hands to make the world she sees in her mind real. And she respects him for his intellect and eventually for his resolve once she learns of his past. And respect is pretty much the bud that will bloom into love.

There's a lot of fighting to find the light in the dark and acceptance of ourselves.

I hope this was all coherent and not to rambly ha.

#self ship #selfship #self shipping #selfshipping #self insert #dapper answers #dazian #dapper inserts #dapper inserts: ada #dapper inserts: mafia #dapper inserts: jekyll #dapper inserts: circus #dapper inserts: guild

[writesandramblings]

The Captain’s Secret - p.64

“Where the Wild Things Are”

A/N: Takes place after episode 5, "Choose Your Pain."

Also, I was asked a question about the usage of "Rove" a couple chapters back. Hm, yes, that was odd, wasn't it? I wonder what that was about... (Has anyone been noticing any other odd details? It's almost like there are some secrets around here or something. All shall be revealed in due time...)

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << Part 63 - A Laughing Rain Part 65 - The Stars, Broken >>

Ripper was gone. While Lorca endured a bout of physician-mandated rest (sometimes it was impossible to argue with Starfleet medical, especially when the request was an entirely reasonable "get eight hours of sleep after being tortured" that turned out to be a much-needed ten and then some), Burnham and Tilly released the tardigrade into space under Saru's supervision.

Saru reported this to Lorca in the form of a ready room confession first thing in the morning, admitting he had timed the release so that Lorca could not offer any objections to the action. "The tardigrade had suffered enough," said Saru, "and it was no longer necessary to keep it on board in light of Mr. Stamets ability to compensate for the tardigrade's function."

Lorca registered a distasteful frown. It seemed on the surface to be in response to Saru's little deception, but the truth was more nuanced.

"I will accept any punishment as you see fit," said Saru.

Lorca stood there, silently hemming and hawing, then said, "Dismissed."

Saru did not understand. He was prepared for a lecture from the captain at the very least, or more likely an expression of outright vitriol for his deception. "Sir?"

"Dismissed," Lorca repeated, with more emphasis, but still entirely calm.

Saru wandered out, confused as to why there had been no reprimand.

Lorca turned towards the ready room window. Ripper was out there somewhere, free and unfettered, roaming the mycelial network and dining on mycelium spores. Ripper had murdered Landry and gotten away scot free. Lucky little bastard. Maybe murder was too strong a word, but at the very least, killed in self-defense.

The kicker was that, for all that he had told Burnham to make full use of Ripper, he was fond of the giant tardigrade and would have liked to have been there when they released it, or at least have been afforded the chance to bid it some sort of farewell. He saw a lot of himself in Ripper. Out of all the many living things on the ship, it was the monsters Lorca identified most with. Ripper had been king of the monsters, and if Ripper was king, Lorca was Emperor, because it wouldn't do for the tardigrade to outrank Discovery's captain.

Yes, it was true, they would never be able to plunder the tardigrade's genetic code for new biological materials or technology to exploit, but on some level, Lorca preferred the monster being free. At least one of them was unfettered by any rules or obligations.

He took a cookie from the bowl, shattered it between his hands, and read the fortune. Many receive advice, but only the wise profit by it. Then, with a certain degree of reluctance, he contacted Starfleet Command.

He received Cornwell in response. Waiting in ambush was more like it. She was as good as the Klingons in that regard. Which, come to think of it, the Klingons had found him as surely as if she had tipped them off. Had it not been for her summons to forward command, he would never have been captured in the first place, and the fact colored his reception towards her. To top it off, their last exchange of words had been largely unkind.

Oblivious to the roiling discontent in Lorca's mind, Cornwell looked genuinely happy to see him alive and well. "Gabriel!"

Lorca grimaced faintly. "Admiral," he said, entirely businesslike. "Reporting in I've been cleared for duty by our CMO and Discovery is back—" he almost said in action but the words were entirely inaccurate "—online."

Cornwell's face fell at the lack of reciprocity. She tried again, exuding friendly concern as she asked, "Are you all right?"

He remained impassive. "Never better."

The stubbornness he was displaying in the moment hurt her and it showed. "Gabriel. It's just me asking. When I realized you'd been taken..." She inhaled, shaking her head as he did, and then exhaled heavily. Words could not express the worry, fear, and upset she had felt at the news.

"Were you worried about me? Or the things I know." He'd seen the orders sent in his absence, watched the replay of her instructing Saru to retrieve him before the secrets of the spore drive could fall into Klingon hands.

She registered shock. "You, of course!"

That, at least, he believed, and he felt a little guilty for pressing her on the point and looked away. Then he relaxed, shrugged lightly, and lifted his head up. "I'm fine. Really." He even managed a smirk.

"The Klingons had you for almost forty-eight hours," said Cornwell.

"Pleasure cruise," he suggested.

Though the joke was potentially a positive sign, Lorca's history of avoiding processing things suggested it was more likely to be the usual pattern. "Don't do that. Don't shut me out."

He blinked. "What do you want from me, Katrina? You want me to curl up into a ball and cry?"

"That at least would be some sort of reaction commensurate with what you've been through," pointed out Cornwell.

"Well, sorry to disappoint, but I've been through much worse. They didn't break me. Frankly I'm a little offended you thought they would." This wasn't San Francisco. He had no need to convince her of anything. "And you should see the other guy. Seven months he was in that hellhole. Still didn't break him. What happened to me wasn't even a flash in the pan. Barely a tickle." He smirked, confident, jesting.

Somehow Cornwell doubted Lorca's ability to psychologically assess the recovered lieutenant. She equally doubted his ability to assess himself, but there was no way this was being resolved via commlink.

"If you need to talk," began Cornwell earnestly.

"I know exactly who to call." He smiled again.

Cornwell was not reassured in the slightest.

Lorca checked on Tyler in sickbay and brought him the "traditional welcome aboard gift of Discovery," as he put it, handing Tyler a fortune cookie. Tyler's recovery was going well and he was almost cleared to leave sickbay, which was remarkable given what he had been through. Tyler was a resilient officer. Lorca had already arranged some decent quarters so Tyler could finally sleep in a real bed.

"This ship wasn't even active when I was captured," noted Tyler, still amazed by how much time had gone by during his captivity. It did not feel like seven months so much as one long, unending day. "You have traditions?"

Lorca shrugged. "Might be more my tradition than Discovery's. This was the family business back when business was a thing." Lorca had a cookie of his own and cracked it. "Ah, this is a good one! 'You don't become a failure until you're satisfied with being one.' As someone who's never satisfied..." Lorca smirked in satisfaction, .

Tyler opened his. "Your love life will be happy and harmonious."

Lorca chuckled. "Well, with a face like yours, lieutenant." Tyler's dark, soulful eyes and fine features were probably capable of melting whatever heart he chose to direct them towards.

Tyler smiled faintly and pressed the pieces of cookie to his lips, eating slowly. He was not quite to the point of mustering a real laugh of his own yet, but it was good to hear laughter again after so many months with only screams for company.

"So, you given any thought to what you're going to do next?" asked Lorca.

"Sir?"

Lorca leaned against the side of the biobed. "I don't think anyone would blame you if you used this opportunity to hightail it on out of here. You've certainly been through more than your fair share in this war."

Tyler considered that, his brow furrowing. "I want to stay on, sir. If they'll let me."

"Oh? Is it vengeance you're after, lieutenant? Not that I'd blame you."

Tyler considered that, his brow furrowing. "I don't think so, sir. It's more... if I did leave, then it would be like the Klingons beat me."

Lorca was impressed. It was not just that Tyler had survived so much, but he had come through it with a remarkable resolve and even a degree of introspection where most people might have fallen apart. Whatever he had told himself to get through the long days and nights, it had been enough.

"Someday you'll have to tell me your secret," said Lorca, smiling kindly. Tyler looked confused. "The thing that got you through."

Tyler looked down and away, head shaking faintly. "I don't know, captain, I just... got lucky."

Lorca's smile pulled into an entirely lopsided twist of amusement. Luck alone did not get you through an ordeal like that. Survival on such a level required an innate reserve of strength as rare as a green star. You had to be wily, and determined, and possess the ability to forgive yourself, because otherwise you would go mad.

"We both got lucky," said Lorca. "Wouldn't have made it out of there without you."

"It was good thing you knew how to work that raider," said Tyler. "I didn't learn that in the cell."

"Now that," said Lorca, perking up, "wasn't luck at all. That was preparation."

Tyler looked at Lorca with his big brown eyes, eager to hear more.

Lorca was more than happy to comply. "You have to know your enemy in order to beat them," he said, "and you, Mr. Tyler, know our enemy from the inside. Everything I know is from the out. Between the two of us, we might know everything there is to know about Klingons. Certainly more than any other two people in Starfleet. It'll be a few days yet before there's any chance of you leaving Discovery. I hope, in the interim, you'll do me the favor of letting me pick your brain about our former hosts."

There was the faintest flicker of hesitation. It was true Tyler knew the Klingons more than anyone, but a lot of that knowledge was far too intimate, things he would rather forget. Still, he was Starfleet, and he was determined to make what had happened to him count. "Anything, captain."

Lorca smiled. He had no intention of letting Ash Tyler go anywhere else. He liked Tyler, and the potential he saw there was worthy of cultivation.

Typically, when Lab 26 called late at night, it was Lalana for their almost-daily discussion. This time it was not.

"O'Malley to Captain Lorca."

From the comfort of his quarters, Lorca considered declining the comm, but he answered.

"I seem to have more beers than I know what to do with. Fancy a drink?"

Lorca snorted. "How about something a little stronger?"

"If you're referring to my emergency anti-claustrophobia supply, then, no."

There was no sign of Lalana and Mischkelovitz in the main lab area. "They're watching this movie Melly likes, Caddy-catsy or something. It's just pictures and music. I can't stand it myself. I'm not particularly fond of music," explained O'Malley as he opened the beers.

Lorca took one. "You don't like music," he said with mild incredulity.

"Not really, no. Melly does! Loves it, in fact. She's always got something going in her ears. I'm just glad she spares me the inconvenience." They sat down, O'Malley in Groves' chair and Lorca in Mischkelovitz's. "There is this one song I don't mind. I can't remember what it is, though." With a shrug, O'Malley started on his beer.

"There's no music you enjoy?" said Lorca.

"What about you?" shot back O'Malley.

"Good ol' country boy like me? What do you think."

"How typically American," said O'Malley, rolling his eyes. A moment went by of silent drinking. "How are you, by the way?"

Lorca's eyebrows shot up and he leaned back in the chair. "Cornwell put you up to this?"

"Good god, nothing so formal," said O'Malley, looking genuinely insulted. "It's just, you've been through an ordeal, and if I'd gone through what you had, I'd want a friendly drink or two. Or five, really."

"You wouldn’t have survived what I've been through," said Lorca darkly, but as always, there was a macabre sort of humor in it.

O'Malley scowled. "You know, you always make it out like you're some sort of special survivor so much better at it than the rest of us, but the fact of the matter is, you can't say that. You don't know what I've been through, what I've survived."

"So tell me," said Lorca, sipping at the beer.

"You'd like that, would you? An entire lifetime's worth of blackmail material. Sorry, leverage. Because you're too good for blackmail, aren't you?"

Lorca started to snicker. "Why the hell would you say that?"

"Oh, so you don't have an inflated opinion of yourself?"

Lorca decided to give O'Malley that one. "Doesn't mean I'm above blackmail."

O'Malley laughed and Lorca chuckled. "Tell you what," said O'Malley. "You can ask me three questions about myself and I'll answer one as a sort of welcome home present."

"How magnanimous," drawled Lorca in a total deadpan.

"I have my moments. Now hurry it up before I change my mind."

The first question Lorca asked was what O'Malley and Mischkelovitz's mother had done to them. This was a clear non-starter, but there was no harm in trying. The second question entailed what an alien with no romantic proclivities saw in O'Malley, because clearly it wasn't looks or personality. The third question was, if he hated John Groves so much, why did he bother looking after him?

"To answer the second," said O'Malley, "she said my blood smelled delicious."

Lorca snorted in amusement, then realized it wasn't a joke. "Seriously?"

"Misellians drink blood. Any blood, really, but I've got a rare type, so why not a delicious walking blood bag anytime you want a snack?" O'Malley smiled to himself. "God, I miss her." He resumed drinking his beer.

It was obvious what Aeree was interested in. What the hell O'Malley got out of his marriage, Lorca couldn't tell. "You let her drink your blood?"

"She's always careful about it, metes it out in quantities that don't cause any lasting harm. I don't love it, but it's not so bad. Here, look." O'Malley pulled his collar loose, unzipped the tunic partway, and revealed a box-shaped scar just below his left collarbone about two inches tall and nearly as wide. There was something odd about the texture of it.

Lorca reached towards O'Malley with a glance of sought permission. O'Malley did not recoil from the advance. Touching his finger to the spot, Lorca discovered the skin felt somehow chitinous, like the membrane of an insect's wing. "What in the..."

"Careful now," warned O'Malley, "if you press it too hard, blood'll come right out. It's a graft, you see, slightly porous biosynthetic material. Beats getting sliced, bitten, and stabbed every time Aeree wants a drink."

In other words, a shunt. Lorca was enthralled by the modification. It was delightfully gross. "And what does she do for a drink when you're not around?" he asked, half-hoping to find out O'Malley's wife was drinking other men behind his back.

"I shudder to think. This is why I can't get a cat." It was said in jest, but the next line out of O'Malley's mouth was entirely somber. "And why it's probably a good thing we can't have children."

There was no denying the longing and regret of that admission. O'Malley wanted children and had sacrificed that desire to live with someone who viewed him as convenient snack. It beggared belief. Lorca said, "You could always adopt."

"I'm not sure taking a child into a household where the mother drinks blood is such a good idea. Mind you we could adopt a Misellian, but then the child would drink my blood, and I don't have enough for two." O'Malley sighed. "Anyway, I've got Melly."

It made a sort of sense. In lieu of a child of his own, an emotionally-stunted kid sister would seem to do the trick. It put O'Malley's unnatural attachment to Mischkelovitz into a slightly changed light. The bond wasn't just sibling, it was also vaguely parental.

"And Mr. Groves," pointed out Lorca.

O'Malley groaned. "I wish I didn't, but it's for his own good. Honestly, if you'd kicked him off Discovery, the loneliness would have killed him."

A shadow crossed Lorca's face. "You said it was Emellia needed him, not the other way around."

"I said what I thought would work in the moment," admitted O'Malley. "And Emellia would be heartbroken to lose another sibling. We all would."

"I didn't realize you lost one already," said Lorca, sympathetic.

O'Malley froze. "We... we don't like to talk about that."

"Fair enough," said Lorca, putting a pin in the subject for the moment. It felt like he had stumbled onto something. He wondered if the family secret was that their mother had killed one of her own children. He pondered the possibility as they sat there drinking. Then Lorca asked, "So, Mac, if I get kidnapped and tortured by Klingons again, you'll answer another question?"

O'Malley lifted an eyebrow. "Try it and see." They both laughed, a good laugh, and despite whatever misgivings Cornwell had and everything else going on in the universe, from where the two of them were sitting, life wasn't so bad.

Eventually, Mischkelovitz came out of Lalana's room, which was Lorca's opportunity to enter it. He caught a small exchange between the siblings in the process. When Mischkelovitz told O'Malley she loved him, O'Malley replied, "Just as much."

Lalana was pleased to see him in person for the second night in a row. "Tonight you will not be called away to sickbay," she noted.

"That is certainly true." He sprawled out comfortable on her couch, half a beer still in his hand.

They talked. About Ash Tyler and what Lorca saw in him, about Ripper's unceremonious departure and Saru's deception. "Do you know, I think Saru actually thought I intended Ripper harm. It's not like I told him to go all out and risk Ripper to rescue me." He drank the last of the beer and put the glass bottle down on the table.

"No," said Lalana, "that was me."

Lorca blinked in surprise as he leaned back onto the couch and stretched his arms across the back. "You?"

"I told Saru in no uncertain terms he must use any means necessary to retrieve you. I may have suggested Discovery would fall apart if he did not."

"For the record, Lalana? Tyler and I were doing a pretty good job of rescuing ourselves."

"You might have died in the process."

"I'm a survivor," said Lorca. "I'll die when I'm done with the universe, and not a moment sooner."

Lalana slid up next to him on the couch and pressed against his side. "I do wish I could believe that," she said, "but experience has taught me different." She brought her tail up and stroked his cheek.

Lorca smiled. It was strange to think that, once upon a time, he had looked at her and seen something so unforgivably alien it bordered on the incomprehensible. Looking at her now, he saw a person, strange and blue-grey with green eyes that never blinked and could be poked with a finger if he so chose, whose presence made him happy.

"You are different," she said. "Something happened on that Klingon ship."

"Not you, too," said Lorca, thinking of Cornwell accusations. "I'm fine. It wasn't that bad."

Her tongue clicked. "No, not something bad, something good."

"You think being tortured was good?" he chided her lightly.

"I only know what I can see," said Lalana, "and what I see is good."

Lorca reached over and brushed his fingers across the filaments on her head as if they were Mischkelovitz's hair. "What can I say. A little light torture now and again serves to remind a person what's good in life."

He had realized something on the Klingon ship, in that moment when the lights were burning into his retinas and the Klingon captain had tried to guess at who he was. A cosmos full of agonizing light? Maybe so, but it was a pain he would happily endure for the chance to be right where he was, surrounded by monsters he loved.

Part 65

#Star Trek Discovery #Star Trek #Discovery #fanfic #fanfiction #Captain Lorca #Gabriel Lorca #Saru #Ash Tyler #Commander Saru #Katrina Cornwell #Admiral Cornwell