#my family unable to mourn. being used a host.

[inkskinned]

we really didn't get violent enough about roe v wade being overturned. but and also - you're one person. you donated money. you went to the protest. you did what you could, which felt like doing basically nothing.

recently some big paper published an op ed (why did you even read it? you knew you'd get upset) about how it's gross that men can't find a partner because women don't want to suffer bad dates - they'd rather go to yoga class. you actually laughed - well, yeah! and it was funny until it wasn't, because something about it made your stomach churn. this is the thing, you want to say, but you don't have the words for what the thing is. just that men being bad at dating is your fault.

the thing is also on instagram. you don't know if it's a setting or algorithm thing, but these days, the most hurtful comments always seem to skim the top. simple reaction is don't read the comments but - you're human, so you're curious. you want to respond to every weird, sanctimonious one with replaying something a million times to find evidence they're lying about their gender is literally sexual harassment you shouldn't be proud of this or maybe get a fucking life you absolute dickhead but you've gotten into enough of these battles as a kid. nothing ever resolves. it just makes you upset.

your father was radicalized. the thing is - you go to therapy about it and yet never find the words for exactly the way that one hurts.

the other day your sister predicted that a commercial that aired during the superbowl was going to cause trouble. you wanted her to be wrong about that. this morning, while scrolling, you saw someone post exactly that - he got so angry i had to leave. it was terrifying. it reminds you, however bleakly: there are entire swathes of people who do not worry about domestic violence. who have no idea why you would put keys into your fist. who do not understand "it's better to be rude than dead." who have never googled am i being gaslit.

the other day you found out there's a bill that would make it so if you have a uterus and are braindead, you could fulfil your cattle purpose and carry a fetus to term. you think about the fact that the leading cause of death for pregnant people is murder. you think about ongoing and informed consent. you think about how, out of fear, if your ex boyfriend had pressured you, you absolutely would have said yes to it. in the comments, you write there is no way that these documents wouldn't be immediately forged. this is going to be misused. and then just delete it, sighing. get up and go to work.

the other day they overturned roe v wade. we weren't nearly violent enough about it. somewhere, a clock is ticking. it's been ticking a long time. you want to say it's time, but it's been time for a while, hasn't it.

#<3 time to get cancelled on the internet #btw this is trans inclusive author is nb #writeblr #i had a kind of argument with someone about that bill bc he was like ''oh but we do this for other organs'' and im like #okay so like the time it takes to safely extract an organ #versus NINE MONTHS of not having consent . not being able to bury the body. #my family unable to mourn. being used a host. #even if ALL OF THAT was NOT the case. #i do not believe for a fucking SECOND this would be use safely. i cannot imagine a world in which #it was not immediately and with gusto. used to abuse others

[plural-aita]

AITA for trying to keep my brother alive?

💔

(Sorry for the long post)

Some background: I am the host of our system, our partner system and us have multiple family ties and romantic ties as we have multiple system members married or partnered to one another, or otherwise consider ourselves family. My brother, P, was their long-time system host, though he is currently no longer host.

The trouble started a week ago when I was discussing our lives in the future together with one of my husbands, T, and talking about how we would be legally married and potentially having kids. I was excited about the idea, as we had been planning to live together and be legally married. P, who was host at the time, switched out, and we were discussing it together. He is already making a great sacrifice being legally married to us, as he is gay and we would be presenting as female/feminine. The thought of being married to a woman, much less having a family with one, sickened him. I understood and said that it was alright, that we didn't have to have children, as it would not do if both parents did not want to or could not love them.

My husbands (T and D) and I had never seriously discussed having a family before, so I did not know that having children with them was something that I deeply wanted. I became depressed and ended up going dormant for a bit. P decided that he was getting in the way of our plans for the future, and because he considers himself unable to be happy, he decided to go dormant in order for T and D to co-host.

Everyone in both our systems was mourning, as he was such an important part of our lives. I managed to convince them to take him out of dormancy. I discussed our plans for the future with P, I wanted for everyone to still be together, as we are a family, and I could not imagine living without him. On the other hand, I could not handle being so close by and unable to have what I longed for, to be married to my partners and having a family of our own. I said that I would always support them and be there for them, as family does, but I could not live together with them.

I was, once again, depressed about it and ended up going into dormancy for a bit. P decided to go into dormancy again, citing that everyone's plans were ruined if he continued to host and that in the long run, everyone would be happier without him anyway. We spent a few days without him, and it was hard on everyone. My father, S, who is the gatekeeper in their system, felt that he had betrayed his son by choosing me over him, even though the choice for P to go dormant was not his. My mother, A, who is the gatekeeper for our system, was inconsolable and only wanted to have her son back. T was P's best friend, and he mourned him as well; he began hallucinating that P was still co-fronting with him at times.

Inevitably, A had a mental break and ended up giving me to one of our persecutors in another layer so that I would no longer be host and we would no longer have to follow my wishes or plans. She also became angry and tied up our littles, two of our brothers, when they protested against me being given away. She convinced a member of their system to bring P back from dormancy, as I was no longer around, and he did not need to be gone for us to be able to live together. Members from another layer came and got her settled, freeing the littles and retrieving me from the hands of the persecutor.

P and I discussed how to go about fixing things. I suggested he go to another layer, as he would still be active and no longer need to host. He agreed and went to a layer of his own, where he is the gatekeeper and would not let anyone enter. He promised to keep in contact and continue to talk to us and everyone in his system, but he has been miserable and contemplating dormancy again. He feels abandoned and lonely but will not let anyone in to talk to or visit him. We have been trying to get him to stay up, as he is part of our family, and we would be miserable without him. Currently, he has left to go to another layer with F, his father in source whom he had previously left as they have had a strained relationship. I do not know P's whereabouts currently and none of the others in either of our systems wants him to stay with F, as F is violent and cruel to members in their system and has been previously to P. P and I discussed how to go about fixing things. I suggested he go to another layer, as he would still be active and no longer need to host. He agreed and went to a layer of his own, where he is the gatekeeper and would not let anyone enter. He promised to keep in contact and continue to talk to us and everyone in his system, but he has been miserable and contemplating dormancy again. He feels abandoned and lonely but will not let anyone in to talk to or visit him. We have been trying to get him to stay up, as he is part of our family, and we would be miserable without him. Currently, he has left to go to another layer with F, his father in source whom he had previously left as they have had a strained relationship. I do not know P's whereabouts currently and none of the others in either of our systems wants him to stay with F, as F is violent and cruel to members in their system and has been previously to P.

I want P to stay up, and I want him to be with us, to continue to be part of our family and active in his system, but he sees no way in which us being together in the future and him being around can be compatible. Am I the asshole for wanting to keep my brother alive?

[captainkurosolaire]

Prompt #14 ~ Whetstone

Continuation from: #6 ~ Black Miracle - ♫Shadows♫

A cracked half-mask splintered deep heaving exhales fought to reclaim control. A facility overrun by a single soul. Crimson left leaking trails off his coat like wet sluggish paint. His eyes remained closed even as his blindfold found battle damage lids of sleep deprivation of continuous onslaught. He lived without thoughts nearly removed emotionally. A weapon of slaughter to be sent into a direction like a natural disaster given forecast, conjured as an instrument that revitalized dreams in shadowed force. Serving as resistance a mean's above, with nothing but as a pawn sacrificial existence. His mission inquiries were often built from gossip, fitting where his shade was he absorbed, around the other residence, he lived a normalized outlook life. A small beaten-down apartment, with little attachment hosted, in Shirogane. Working mundane inside a ramen and noodle shop. Where roaming sorts of patrons were hosted during the Summer's of rebellious and dreadful despair from the Far Eastern invasion. Gave him most of his contracts. A grandfather entered the establishment giving him this mission. Barely alive on a tank of oxygen. Unable to remove his stared-gaze at a picture of a young grand-daughter supposedly abducted. He didn't make a plight to emotionally get attached to any mourning. Only one's unanswered or incapable of arming themselves. Even the weak deserved to have power in their corner. He was a vessel burdened that their weight gave his sword-life meaning.

The assailant blacked clad. Listening to his Fae compatriot give him guidance with sight that pierced through walls with chirpy enthusiastic directions opposite of his composure. At the holding-grounds. Swarmed by tortured and experimented Garlean projects. It kept his senses hay-wired and undependable. A sensor protection prevented the storage containment of his contract from entering. Prying out of his pocket an eyeball removed from the socket of it's now deceased host. He gained the authorization and unlocked it. Sharp reflexes but still wounded raised a palm up, as a rabid starved victim, anguished in battle-cry of youth, puncturing through and barely an ilm from seizing his heart. Roaring bellow with flooded tears, managed to resourcefully must have used her nails in breaking and chipped points, to dig out a huge nail from the confinement. "Die! Die! Die!" Gut-wrenching it may have provided emotion. From an untrained person. Her hysteria faltered noticing how much wounds already were on him, behind him was a trail of dismemberment with that traumatizing insignia being dipped in righteousness due to her slavers, insurmountable in numbers all wasted. "I've been hired. Come, we're going home." A blinking familiarity felt something a tinge of almost memories trying to remind him, of his own child he had nearly forgotten under the rubble of murder. Mindlessly working under obligation, for contractors and his own don, would most likely hire a hit upon him. Or the rack of enemies that may find enough evidence to identify him. He tried reaching out a hand for comfort but she smacked it away. "No! I'll never go back! Not to my family, they sold me to keep their titles, adults are mean! Especially when money is involved and prestige." A bombshell of extra codex came but that only carried in biological parents and belief, not the grandfather who once was a samurai in code who gave him the missive of sorrow. Though his emotionless and steel self was composed it almost felt, reassuring. "Payments in strife, day's of uncertainty. Aren't coined... They're... I don't know this feeling." Revealing his standings. In resistance against a looming higher threat. What changed the wind of even the most damning catastrophe was the principal of hope. He intersected two-fingers; like scissors to his own side lips and forced what appeared to be a smile, but it looked goofy. Which brought for the first time in Summers a laughter from how silly his visage was. His lover departed from conception of birth of their child, and where a ring still showed off on him in unmatched devotion, during this, was the same who taught him. How to commendable effort to give; show emotion and be more relatable. Although he couldn't experience the effects. Conditioned Black Miracle's like himself, felt the refraction and measurement against their iron-resolve, it tempered their sword-like lifestyle. Distributing a value, and purpose, the sense and enactment of duty sharpened edges. Even the most minuscule exchange of hope was an infectious blessing worth dying or committing into silence.

#Prompt - Commend #Assassin #FFxivWrite2021 #FFxivWrite #Hoku Solaire #The Past #Nameless #Black Miracles #Probably another part during this challenge for this #Creative Writing #Tales of the Goldbrand #Father of Shadows #All this will connect #And find itself to the present. #Zero Sleep Champion.

[ryujin-zanba]

i realise given the notes that some of y'all are actually interested in reading what the newspaper articles say in this post so here they all are under the cut (please keep in mind that a lot of them contain personal headcanons and some hints at certain pairings which i will tag. it's okay if you disagree with/dislike the thoughts i have ab some characters' futures but if you find that's the case just keep it to yourself and dni please) ʕ•ᴥ•ʔง

[Poster which says: Vote for Froppy 🐸]

(Not so subtle Napoleon Dynamite reference from me)

 Hero Red Riot Saves the Day an Hour Before His Wedding!    As expected of our favourite man in red, but what did the groom have to say about this? (The groom is Bakugou and he was proud of Kiri ❤)

 Pro Weekly Deku takes title of Japan’s number one hero third year running! Following in the shadow of the longest reigning number one hero, newcomer Deku has a lot to live up to, but he is already breaking records and impressing critics with his heroism, and fans just can’t get enough of him.  In only his third year as a licensed pro, Deku has managed some incredible feats and is shaping up to give the former number one quite a run for his legacy. The retired pro recently shared in an interview that he could not be more proud of his junior and that he is cheering for our new number one the whole way.

 A New Ingenium Takes the Mantle But what can we expect of our dashing (pun intended) new pro? The youngest son of the Iida family is following in his brother’s footsteps as he officially takes on the name and the legacy of beloved hero Ingenium.

 Lemillion Saves One Million Golden hero Lemillion reclaims his position among the top five pros in only his first week back. After participating in the saving of a suspected one million lives involved in an international hostage crisis, Lemillion saw a 100% popularity increase in the polls and has been recognised by several world leaders for his incredible display of heroism. Lemillion has recently returned to hero work after taking a year off for paternity leave last Summer. A brief interview with the pro revealed that husband and baby are both doing well and their little one is already starting to show signs of developing a strong quirk.

(Mirio’s husband is Tamaki ❤)

 Former U.A Students Pay Tribute to Late Mentor Yagi Toshinori How the world is mourning a great hero and the people closest to him are upholding his legacy.

[Accompanying image of Toshi in his pinstripe suit, tired but smiling]

 Not All Heroes Wear Capes U.A high graduate goes on to make major advances in the field of restorative medical science.  Eri, formerly of U.A high school, is currently completing her doctorate at Tokyo University and is expecting to graduate this year with her first PHD. Her influence in the field, however, has already sparked plans for the implementation of several quirk-specialised branches in every major hospital across the country, a system speculated to be fully functioning as soon as next Spring. Having already successfully treated several prominent heroes throughout her blossoming career, we can expect many great things from Eri in the future and wish her all the best with her final exams.

 [Crude cat drawing next to the text 1-A]

(Reference to Aizawa’s cat drawing that he put on a banner for his class during the sports festival in Smash, which he then hid from them)

 [Magazine cover of Yaoyorozu with the top text ‘Women in Business’ and the bottom text ‘Creati’]

 Shouto-Out Former pro hero Shouto retires at age twenty five in order to pursue a career in nursing. After the new data that came to light last month showed an incline in children born to forced quirk marriages, the ex-pro expressed his interest in becoming involved with caring for and counselling the startling number of those taken into care every year as a result. His partner had this to say, “Shouto has had a lot of difficulty finding a path in life that he believes he truly chose for himself, but I think this is his way of being the hero he wants to be and he has my full support.”

(If you guessed Midoriya as Todoroki’s partner being quoted in this, you guessed right!)

 Hero affectionately dubbed ‘Pikachu’ by residents of local children’s hospital

(Kaminari, of course ⚡)

 Present Jack Pro hero and musical talent Earphone Jack has officially joined the Put Your Hands Up Radio team. Rumours that she is set to succeed Japan’s favourite radio personality have already started circulating, but we’re pretty sure the nation’s sweetheart, Present Mic, has got many years yet before we’ll see him retire.

 [Magazine cover featuring Midoriya with the top text ‘Deku’]

 Uravity Saves US Space Shuttle First person in history to be awarded a knighthood by NASA and her achievements haven’t stopped there. The hero known as Uravity is a staunch advocate for the proposed universal income scheme and her support for the bill has garnered such enthusiasm from fans that it is likely to pass in court this February.

(In the image I accidentally called her Uraravity instead of Uravity, sorry girl!)

 He’s Still Got It! Present Mic wins lifetime achievement award for Put Your Hands Up Radio, the show he has been proudly presenting since his debut as a hero. Maintaining a huge following and unwavering popularity, his nighttime slot every Friday from 1am to 5am has also earned him a place in the hall of fame for highest number of consecutive awards in radio hosting history, congrats man!

(Mic might not be one of Aizawa’s students, but he is just as proud of his husband’s achievements ❤)

 Tsukuyomi Gets His Wings Tsukuyomi and his quirk, Dark Shadow, have officially taken over at Hawks’ agency after the young hero retired from the field to pour everything into his successor. As it stands, Hawks will continue on to support Tsukuyomi and we wish them both the best with any future plans from here on.

(Possible spoiler for latest manga chapters... but I think the bird man might be taking a leaf from All Might’s book and finding someone to carry on his legacy 😅)

 Kacchan’s Kitchen Newly opened in the most up and coming area of the city, the restaurant will join several others on the renewed marina-front, though its owner and head chef are what really set the place apart. Already it has received great reviews from critics. 

(Personal HC alert! Bakugou decides the hero life isn’t what he wants anymore and invests in his culinary skills instead, making Kiri a very well-fed man lol)

 Dance ‘Til You’re Pink! Pro hero Pinky opens a second dance studio that offers new prospects for passionate kids who are unable to attend paid classes. Children from low-income families are invited to choose from a variety of options when it comes to which discipline they wish to pursue and all equipment, performance outfits and other costs are covered by the studio.

 The Modern Batman Or should we say Catman? Illusive hero known only by his mind-control ability is spotted petting a local cat during his evening patrol.

[Accompanying image of Shinsou petting a black cat and looking almost identical to Aizawa in his attire]

#i should have done this anyway but i didn't think my art would get that much attention so ty everyone! #kiribaku #tododeku #erasermic #miritama #dadzawa #class 1 a headcanons #mha headcanons #bnha headcanons #my wriiting

[bookofjin]

Rise of Sixteen States: 300

(Zhao Xin rebels)

7 February 300 – 25 January 301

(Jin's 1st Year of Yongkang)

Summer, 4thMonth, guisi [7 May], the King of Liang, Rong, and the King of Zhao, Lun, falsely decreed the demotion of Empress Jia to be a commoner. The Minister of Works, Zhang Hua, and the Supervisor of the Masters of Writing, Pei Wei, were both murdered. Palace Attendant Jia Mi and his faction with several tens of people were all executed.

On jiawu,[8 May], Lun falsely decreed a great amnesty, himself to be Chancellor of the State and Commander-in-Chief of All Armies in the Centre and Outside and like Xuan and Wen assisted in the old affairs of Wei.

(Li Te)

1stYear of Yongkang [300 AD], a decree summoned the Inspector of Yi, province, Zhao Xin, to become Great Prolonger of Autumn, and moved the Interior Clerk of Chengdu, Geng Teng, to be Inspector of Yi province and General of Smashing Charges, and follow the clothes and pendants worn by Xin. Xin was Empress Jia's relative by marriage, and when he heard the summons was very afraid.

Earlier, Xin considered Jin's government to be declining, and the Stars of Zhao's Yellow Divinations said “The one whose star is yellow will be King.” Xin thereupon secretly held close disloyal plans and had aspirations of the Liu clan for cutting away and occupying. The lands of Shu had defiles on all sides, and could be used to secure oneself. He therefore poured out the granary stores, to succour and provide for the drifting people, and so gather the heart of the multitudes. Li Te's partisans and kind were all people of Baxi, they and Xin were of the same commandery, and they led many brave and strong. Xin treated them lavishly and considered them as claws and teeth. For that reason Te and others assembled a multitude, and concentrated on robbing and thieving. The people of Shu suffered from them.

Teng several times covertly petitioned:

The drifting people are tough and simple minded, and the people of Shu are weak and timid. Guest and host being unable to regulate each other will surely be the base for chaos. [We] ought to move them back to their original lands. [If we] do not, grant them the narrow passes of the eastern three commanderies. Observe their feelings and attitudes, and do not gradually allow it to grow, otherwise [I] fear the calamities of Qin and Yong will collect in Liang# and Yi.

He also told:

The granaries and storehouses are empty and exhausted, they have nothing with which to respond to the urgencies of spear-points of and arrowheads. Certainly this will add to the sagely court's worries over western concerns.

Xin heard and detested him.

(According to HYGZ2, the “eastern three commanderies” refers to Weixing, Shangyong, and Xincheng, located east of Hanzhong.)

At the time Chengdu was seated in the lesser city, and Yi province was seated in the greater city. Xin was still in the greater city and had not yet departed. The province had received the written decree, and had already dispatched civil and military officials, more than a thousand people, to go and welcome Teng. Teng, since Xin and not yet set out from the province, was at the commandery. Xin summoned Li Xiang's partisans Luo An, Wang Li, and others to take Teng by force, and kill those who had passed on the decree. They where greatly defeated at Xuanhua precinct in Guanghan.

Teng discussed his intention to enter the provincial city. The Board of Merit [official] Chen Xun remonstrated, saying:

Now province and commandery both administer troops, the enmity and discord is deepening daily. To enter the city will surely be a great disaster, It is not as good as calmly lodging in the lesser city, to observe their alterations, and call to arms the various counties to combine villages for protection, and so prepare against the Di of Qin. Chen of the Western Yi is going to arrive, [we] should wait for him. If [we] do not, [we] can withdraw to stay in Jianwei, and go west and cross at Jiangyuan to forestall irregularities.

Teng did not follow.

Winter, 12thMonth [28 December 300 – 25 January 301], Teng led the multitudes to enter the province, and ascend the western gate. Xin dispatched a close intimate, Dai Mao, to attack Teng. Mao told him and then left. Xin again dispatched troops to chastise Teng. Teng's army was defeated, he threw himself off the lesser city and died.

A functionary, Zuo Xiong, carried Teng's son Qi, and relied on a commoner, Song Ning, to hide them. Xin offered as reward a thousand gold, but Ning did not set out. Xin soon after was defeated, and he managed to escape.

The commandery functionaries all ran away and fled, only Chen Xun bound himself and went to Xin, requesting mourning for Teng's death. Xin [found him] right-principled and did not kill him. Xun and a Board of Households official, Chang Chang, together prepared the coffin and tomb, and buried him.

Xin again dispatched troops to confront the Colonel of the Western Yi, Chen Zong. Zong arrived at Jiangyang, and heard Xin had disloyal aspirations. The Master of Accounts, Zhao Mo, advanced to say:

Now province and commandery, are not in concord, surely this will birth a great disaster. However by taking quick action, our office have troops of critical importance. Assist the compliant and chastise the disobedient, and nothing will happen.

Zong increasingly clung to the road, slowing and halting. Hence when he arrived at Yufu Ford in Nan'an, he and Xin's army met each other. Mo made clear to Zong:

Scatter wealth and goods, and recruit soldiers to resist in battle. If we overcome the provincial army, then the province can be gained. If we do not overcome, follow the currents and withdraw, there surely will be no harm.

Zong was not able to again, and said:

Zhao of Yi province was furious at Marquis Geng, and for that reason killed him. He and I have no enmity, how could it be like this?

Mo said:

Now when the province has launched an affair, they surely will establish dominance. Even if we do not fight, we will have no gains.

He talked until tears flowed down. Zong did not listen, and the multitudes slackened. Zong escaped into the grass. Mo put on Zong's clothes, and grappled and fought. Xin's troops killed Mo, and saw he was not Zong, they then searched and looked for Zong, and killed him.

(JS004: 12thMonth [28 December 300 – 25 January 301], a broom star seen in the east. The Inspector of Yi province, Zhao Xin, and Li Xiang, a drifting person of Luoyang [sic], murdered the Interior Clerk of Chengdu, Geng Sheng, the Grand Warden of Jianwei, Li Mi, the Grand Warden of Minshan, Hou Gu, and the Colonel of the Western Yi, Chen Zong. They seized Chengdu in rebellion.)

Xin declared himself Great Commander-in-Chief, Great General, and Shepherd of Yi province. He used the Prefect of Wuyang, Du Shu of Shu commandery, the Separate Carriage Zhang Can, Zhang Gui of Baxi, the Marshal of the Western Yi, Gong Ni, the Prefect of Jiangyuan, Fei Yuan of Jianwei and others as Senior Clerks of Left and Right, Marshal, and Army Advisors. He moved the Grand Warden of Jianwei, Li Xiang, to be General who Daunts the Bandits. He summoned the Prefect of Linqiong, Xu Yan of Fuling, to be Commander of the Serrated Gates. He summoned the various kingly officials, and nobody dared not to go. He also used the Grand Warden of Guanghan, Zhang Wei, the Grand Warden of Minshan, Yang Bin, and the Prefect of Chengdu, Fei Li, as Army Libationers.

At the time Xiang, his younger brothers Liu and Xiang#, his brother-in-law Li Han, Ren Hui of Tianshui, Shangguan Jing [also of Tianshui], Li Pan of Fufeng, Fei Tuo of Shiping, the Di [leaders] Fu Cheng, Wei Bo, Dong Sheng, and others were at the northern gate with 4 000 cavalry.

Xin sent Xiang to block the northern road. Xiang had long standing as Good Commander of Eastern Qiang and was aware of army deployment. He did not employ banners and flag, but raised a lance to make them move in squads. He beheaded people among his section subordinates who had not followed instructions, and the section columns became respectful. Xin detested his uniform orderliness, and wished to kill him but had not yet talked about it.

Senior Clerk Du Shu and Marshal Zhang Can talked to Xin, saying:

The Transmittals state “the Five Greats do not stay at the border”. The General raising troops has begun this way, readily dispatching Li Xiang to hold strong troops at the outside, [I] humbly venture to be puzzled by it. Moreover he is not of our kin and kind, and his heart is surely different. To turn around the halberd and hand it over to [another] person, [I] venture is not possible, and desire the General plan for it.

Xin with composed features said:

The Dignitaries' words precisely fit my thoughts, and can be spoken of as “The one who raised me up is Shang.” This is Heaven sending the Dignitaries to complete my affairs.

(Du Shu is quoting the Zuo zhuan, and Zhao Xin the Analects.)

It happened that Xiang was at the gates, and requested to see Xin. Xin was greatly pleased, and pulled in Xiang to see him. Xiang wished to observe Xin's thoughts and aims, and bowed twice, advanced and said:

Now the Central States are in great chaos, and are again without mainstays and support-ropes. The house of Jin will not be able to flourish again. Your Enlightened Excellency's Way puts together Heaven and Earth, your potency is delimiting their eaves. The affairs of Tang and Wu are truly happening in the present. [You] ought to respond to the Heaven-given time, obey the hearts of the people, help the hundred families among the mud and soot, and cause the beings' feelings to know where to revert to. Then Under Heaven can be settled, not only Yong# and Shu and that is all.

Xin angrily said:

How are these proper words for a subject!

He ordered Shu and others to debate it. Hence Shu and others sent up that Xiang was greatly disobedient and did not follow the Way. Xin therefore killed him, and his sons, nephews and clansmen, more than thirty people.

(HYGZ08: Xiang recommended he declare the great title of Han. Xiang's section subordinates were unrestrained and agitated, Xin and others were hostile to him. Thereupon at a meeting they beheaded Xiang, and his older brother's son Hong and others, more than ten people.)

Xin worried Te and others would make difficulties, and dispatched a person to explain to them saying:

Xiang had improper words, and the response to his crime reached death. It does not extend to his brothers.

He also instructed them to be supervising commanders, and to calm and comfort their multitudes, and returned to Te Xiang's body. That night, Te and Liu thoroughly dispersed the multitudes and returned to Mianzhu. Xin dispatched the former Prefect of Yinping, Zhang Heng, Sheng Qian, and Fei Shu to go and soothe and take them in. All were killed by Te.

The Commander of the Serrated Gates, Xu Yan, sought to be Army Overseer of Badong. Du Shu and Zhang Can firmly held it was not allowable. Yan was angry, and at the provincial postern gate, blade in hand, killed Shu and Can. Shu and Can's left and right then killed Yan. All were Xin's belly and heart.

Li Xiang, courtesy name Xuanxu, was Te's third younger brother. As young he gained a reputation due to his ardent spirit. He served the commandery as Supervisor of Couriers and Master of Accounts, in both cases he was commended by the officials. 4thYear of Yongkang [294 AD], he was examined as Filial and Upright, but did not go. Later, since he was good at riding and shooting, he was recommended as Good Commander, but likewise did not go.

The province considered Xiang's talents to combine both the civil and martial, and recommended him as Flowering Marvel. He firmly refused due to illness. Province and commandery did not listen, and so his name was sent up and made known. The Army Protector of the Centre urgently summoned him, he could not avoid and responded to it. He was designated Cavalry Supervisor of the Centre Army. With bow and horse he was practised and nimble, his bodily strength was beyond other people. At the time opinion compared him to Wen Yang.

Since Luoyang was soon to be in chaos, he claimed illness and left office. He by nature was dutiful and gallant, and fond of helping people with their difficulties. The province's factions strove to adhere to him.

He and the drifting people of the Six Commanderies escaped from difficulties to Liang# and Yi. On the roads and paths there were those who were straving or ill. Xiang regularly kept watch over and protected them, and grieved and cared for them. He aided and provided for the destitute and poor, and greatly gathered the hearts of the multitudes.

When he arrived in Shu, Zhao Xin deeply esteemed him. He discussed the principles of war with him, nothing he did not praise as good. Always when speaking about him to his friends, he said:

Li Xuanxu is perhaps the Guan and Zhang of these times.

When he was about to have disloyal aspirations, he entrusted him with duties of heart and spine, and therefore petitioned for Xiang to be Supervisor of Private Troops. He sent him to summoned and unite the strong and brave of the Six Commanderies, they reached more than ten thousand people.

Due to his merit in chastising rebellious Qiang, he petitioned for Qiang to be General who Daunts the Bandits, to make use of red banners and curved canopy, be ennobled Marquis of Yangquan Precinct, and be bestowed a million cash and fifty-four horses. On the day of his execution, nobody among the gentlemen and myriads of the Six Commanderies did not fell tears for him. At the time he was aged fifty-five.

#r16s

[nonspecificfandomblog]

A She-Ra Film (According to Me)

I am very excited by the prospect of a She-Ra and the Princesses of Power film, and seeing so many theory posts has inspired me with my own plot idea for a She-Ra film, blessed we be that it happens.

Etheria is abuzz as Bright Moon prepares to host Queen Glimmer and Bow’s wedding, which shall surely be the event of the century after so many years spent fighting the Horde.

Aunt Castaspella and King Micah prepare a wonderful magical display, featuring Queen Glimmer of course, Perfuma and her people tend to the gardens and floral arrangements, Frosta crafts ice sculptures filling the entire castle, Mermista and Scorpia travel the seas, spreading the good news, and all feels good in the world. A strong turn-around from the last major event at Bright Moon (the coronation).

Adora is not happy however. She loves Glimmer and Bow and cannot wait for them to be married. Overseeing the entire operation with Glimmer, Bow, and Catra, the castle seems to haunt Adora. Visions and memories come in flashes as one person keeps coming to mind: Queen Angella. Her only daughter, coronated without either of her parents to support her, and marrying without her mother. Glimmer does not seem too bothered, instead smiling at Frosta’s ice sculpture and Perfuma’s hedge of her mom. Still, Adora sees only the reminder that she failed to save Glimmer’s mother, and she must now celebrate this important day without her.

Her friends notice how distracted she’s been, and finally after days of visions and nightmares, Adora comes up with a plan: to free Queen Angella from where she is trapped between dimensions, and finally rid the world of the Horde’s last gaping scar. Although it is not a clear plan, it’s Adora’s plan, and when does she ever think things through?

Adora enlists Entrapta’s help, hoping her experience creating the inter-dimensional portal will enable her to save Queen Angella. Entrapta excitedly agrees to help, bringing Hordak along with her, having created the portal together. Hordak explains the limitations, that as a portal to travel from one dimension to another, he is not sure how they can retrieve someone from between dimensions. However, seeing as the original portal was made with First Ones tech, it would make sense they might have a greater understanding.

The discussion triggers a vision, and Adora sees herself once again as a child--but not on Etheria. She does not know where she is, but as she looks at the two adults cradling her in their arms, she understands that they must be her parents. Overcome with emotions, she breaks down crying, declaring she cannot let Glimmer get married without Angella present. They are going to find the remaining First Ones.

During her outburst, Glimmer, Bow, and Catra had come in and after her declaration, voice their support. Adora cries again, voicing her guilt and shame over what happened to Angella as Glimmer tells her she has already forgiven her. But, if Adora is set on doing this, Glimmer will be with her the entire way. Bow and Catra agree, and the mission is set.

A few days pass, and all the Princesses have gathered to join Adora on her mission, leaving Castaspella and Micah alone to finish the preparations, never fully explaining their true intentions--to rescue Queen Angella--fearing Micah will stop them from risking their lives to save a wife he has already mourned.

Their mission begins and the Princesses start their search by returning to Krytis. Exploring the world with Melog at their side, they try to learn the history of the First Ones in hopes of finding where any who remain might have gone to. Finally, after a long search through the planet’s ruins, they find a clue to the last First Ones’ whereabouts. They set a course.

During the journey, tensions rise between Adora and her friends as her visions and nightmares worsen, now hearing Angella’s voice calling out to her, along with two voices she does not recognize. Refusing their support and comfort, Adora isolates herself, once again hoping to save the day at her own expense.

The team arrives at a planet and, detecting vast catacombs moving throughout the entire planet’s core, go down to search. Choosing to search with Entrapta, Hordak, and Mermista, Adora vents her feelings before trying to run off. Strangely, Hordak stops her and says something profound, having gained a genuine appreciation for friendship and love. Adora’s guilt and shame do not change how her friends feel about her, they only corrupt her perception of herself. Comforted, Adora and the group continue searching before finding a sealed pocket deep in the planet.

Unable to get a message to the two other teams, the group chooses to forge on breaking through the technology sealing off the pocket, finding the lost First Ones.

The First Ones attack, easily overpowering the team, taking them to prison. There, they are reunited with the other two groups who had found the First Ones in different catacombs and were captured. The group finds comfort in each other’s company, before they are interrupted by the Queen and King of the First Ones there to interrogate them.

As they begin questioning, the Queen can’t help but be distracted by Adora. She draws the attention to her, stating she recognizes her. Denying the possibility, Adora has another vision and she sees her mom and dad standing before her, and passes out.

Blinking awake, the Queen and King hold her in their arms, saying, “You’ve come back to us.”

Freed from prison, Adora and the Princesses celebrate with the First Ones as their Princess has returned to them after so many years.

After days of celebration, the Princesses tell the King and Queen their original intentions in finding them: to learn how to save Queen Angella. The First Ones agree to help them, deciding, having learned of the Horde’s dissolution, to come with the Princesses to Etheria.

On their journey, Adora’s friends become increasingly wary of the King and Queen and their motivations. They do not doubt they are Adora’s parents, though they do believe they have not been completely honest with them. They confront Adora who lashes out at them, upset they would doubt her family who she has spent so long not knowing, who she lucked into finding because she was trying to restore Glimmer’s family. The other Princesses become upset, Catra and Glimmer particularly hurt by the implication that they are not Adora’s family.

Entrapta and Hordak have begun working with the First Ones on the technology to bring Queen Angella back, but as they spend more time among them, they too become wary of the First Ones’ intentions. As they learn more and more about their history, their motivations become clear.

Just as they arrive at Etheria, Entrapta and Hordak warn Adora of the First Ones’ plans to harvest Etheria’s magic once more. Upset, Adora confronts the King and Queen hoping to easily resolve the issue only to find everyone’s suspicions were true. Betrayed and hurt, Adora lashes out before being subdued and captured by the King and Queen.

Waking up in the Bright Moon holding cell, Adora finds herself joined by Entrapta and Hordak, who the First Ones intentionally let tell her of their plans to see where her loyalties lied--with the Princesses, or with her “family.” Heartbroken the family she has spent so long wondering about has betrayed her, Adora wallows in self-pity as the Princesses quietly mount a Rebellion against the First Ones who have taken over Bright Moon and plan to conquer the rest of Etheria.

Barely escaping the First Ones, the Princesses landing in the Crimson Waste where they enlist their old friend Huntara to help them rescue Adora, Entrapta, and Hordak, and take back Etheria.

The rescue commences and, after freeing Adora, Entrapta, and Hordak, as the Princesses make their way to the throne room, Adora apologizes for her behavior. Family is about who loves and cares about you, and they do, not the First Ones.

Reaching the throne room, Adora confronts the King and Queen. Although their primary plans involve harnessing Etherian magic, they do want her to be with them, and offer to help rescue Queen Angella if she surrenders and declares her allegiance to them. She promptly rejects their proposal and attacks. A horrible battle ensues which results in the destruction of much of the First Ones technology and their forces.

The First Ones flee Etheria in ruins, saying one day they will return for Adora and Etheria.

The wedding having been pushed off by the First Ones invasion, it is finally time for Bow and Glimmer to be married. Having apologized to her family for how she treated them and forgiven herself for what happened to Queen Angella, Adora is finally at peace and ready to begin the rest of her life with her friends.

Lo and behold, Entrapta managed to steal many of the schematics from the first ones for their technology, and fashion a device to bring back Queen Angella. Telling no one, Entrapta waits until the ceremony is about to begin and uses the machine. Vast Etherian magic swarms around the wedding guests as the sky lights up, and floating down to them is Queen Angella.

Tearful reunion, wedding, happily ever after.

Obviously, this is just an idea, and there are plenty of things which might need to be fixed of changed if this were to be the She Ra movie, however, I think the main ideas are quite strong throughout. More than anything, I want the She-Ra movie to explore the First Ones, Adora’s parents--and subsequently the meaning of family, and reunite Queen Angella with her family. Thanks for reading my long, imperfect idea. More than anything, I’m just so hopeful that there will be more She-Ra in the world and I would love whatever Noelle writes.

#she-ra and the princesses of power #she-ra #shera #she ra spop #she ra film #she-ra and the princesses of power film #adora #catra #catradora #glimmer #bow #scorpia #perfuma #hordak #horde #first ones #entrapta #mermista #frosta #queen angella #king micah #queen glimmer #bright moon #etheria #Krytis #Adora's parents #adora is she-ra #movie for she ra

[rinrinp42]

Today’s @jedijune is Letting Go, so have a sad snippet for TTH (Nomi Sunrider is in this and I estimate she is about 70 - while she could and should be completely white (based on my own redhead family), I extended when she should expect to be completely white based on longer lifespans as SW seems to have)

32489 TYA (3955 BBY), Myrkyr:

Arla eyed the Jetii[i] who stepped out behind Lyssh’ika[ii].  The woman was tall with red hair being overtaken by white at the roots.  Instead of the traditional Jetiise robes Arla knew from the long years of, of Obi-Wan hanging around, she wore a long leaf-green skirt and a matching crop-top, showing that for all she was clearly old, this Jetii was a warrior.

It was the lack of proper Jetiise robes that made Arla take a moment to recognize her.  While never having met the Grandmaster in person, Arla had seen her fair share of holos of the woman.  Nomi Sunrider walked into their camp as if she was just another person, not one of the most powerful Jetii to ever live.

“Ba’vodu[iii],” Lyssh’ika said, stepping forward to embrace her, “Grandmaster is on his way.”

Arla nodded, remembering Obi-Wan’s beloved Master from the wedding.  It was hard to forget a being as unique as Thon.  She kept her arms around Lyssh’ika, but leaned back to look at the Zeltron.

“Lyssh’ika, is there a reason the Grand Master of your Order came as well?”

“Obi-Wan was my brother-padawan,” Nomi Sunrider answered instead, “if it is not too forward, I understand they had a son?”

Arla narrowed her eyes for a moment before relaxing, pulling Lyssh’ika back in, “elek[iv], Boba.  He’s… been taking it hard.”

Nomi nodded.

“If I may, could I speak with him?  As Obi-Wan helped raise him, he was exposed to some Jedi teaching and that can be… difficult to reconcile when it comes to death.”

Arla thought about how Boba had known before the rest of them – days before the call had come asking if a delay had meant ‘Mr. and Mr. Fett’ would be late for their stay. About how he had always known before anyone else when Obi-Wan would show up, and how she would sometimes find Boba sitting with Obi-Wan and meditating while Jango sat nearby, cleaning his weapons, a fond look on his face.

Boba was as much Obi-Wan’s kid as he was Jango’s.  Arla couldn’t fully help him through this – she understood the Mandalorian view on death, not the Jetii way.

She nodded and turned, keeping Lyssh’ika under her arm, to point towards the tent Boba was holed up in.

Sunrider nodded and started for it.

“She’ll help Ba’vodu,” Lyssh’ika murmured.

Arla could only hope.  She turned the two of them away from the tent and started to lead Lyssh’ika towards the alliit[v] closer in age to the Knight.  Marss was already being cuddled by the younger ones.

Nomi stepped into the tent, heart aching as the hurt-confusion-grief that painted the Force inside.

The boy was curled up on a cot, a blanket she well remembered wrapped around him.  Her own grief cut like a knife to the heart at seeing the blanket she had gifted Obi-Wan upon his Padawanship now wrapped around his son.

“May I enter?” she called, coming no further in.

Red-rimmed eyes bounced over to her and suddenly he was scrambling to his feet, sniffling as he did so.

“Uh, y-yeah, there’s a chair…” his gaze darted around, obviously searching.

Small Gods, did she really look that old?

“No need, the ground is just as good,” she told him, stepping forward to sink into a sitting position at the short table that stood in the middle.

Before she could get all the way down though, a pillow was being thrust at her.  She glanced at her young host and saw a stubborn look.  With a nod she took it, and sat on the pillow instead of the ground.

“Do you know who I am young one?” she asked.  She gave a hum when he shook his head, “I am the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, Nomi Sunrider-”

“You’re my ba’vodu! Obi-Wan’b vod[vi]!” he interrupted.

She nodded, glad that Obi-Wan had spoken of her.

“I am.  Lyssha, Marss, and I just arrived for the sendoff,” she told him, “I though I could speak with you?”

He gave her a suspicious look, “you’re not going to say I should mourn them, are you?”

Nomi let herself feel the sharp bitterness of anger that someone could say such a thing to a child before letting it go.

“No, but…” she paused, thinking, “am I wrong to assume that Obi-Wan spoke of being a Jedi and what we believe to you?”

Boba reached up and clutched something around his neck.  With a start, Nomi realized it was a shard of a kyber crystal – of Obi-Wan’s crystal. Boba nodded.

“I thought so,” Nomi said, placing aside her shock – that was something she would need to meditate on later.

“How Jedi view death is sometimes difficult to understand when you haven’t grown up with them.  I struggled when my husband died, and that struggle became a large part of my training.”

“Dad said they wouldn’t leave me, but his crystal’s gone cold,” Boba told her.

Nomi nodded and reached for a bag on her belt.  She dumped it onto the table, a minor use of the Force keeping the seeds in a neat little pile.

“Imagine that this is the Force,” she told him, and then separated three seeds, a small pile, and after a moment of consideration, a smaller pile out, “each person carries some of the Force with them as they live.  Some are like your Buir and have very little,” here she pointed to the three seeds, “while others carry more such as your Dad.”

Boba nodded slowly, hand still around his necklace.

“Jedi believe that when someone dies they go back to the Force,” here she hovered her hands over the three seeds and the larger of the two piles, “but throughout their lives they’ve given parts of themselves to those around them, keeping them alive in a way even after they have rejoined the Force.”

She slid one seed from each to the small pile before sweeping the rest back to the Force.

“That pile is you, you will always have a part of them with you, just as you carry a part of Obi-Wan’s crystal,” her eyes fell on the vambrace that was clearly too big for the nine-year-old wearing it, “and a part of Jango’s beskar’gam.”

Boba’s gaze went to his arm and hand at that, gazing at the reminders of his parents.

“Does it ever stop hurting?” he asked, voice small.

Nomi’s heart ached for his child, ached again for her own daughter who grew up without knowing her father, Nomi’s beloved Andur.

“It will always hurt to think of those who we cannot live with anymore,” she told him honestly, “but if we dwell on it, we cannot live.  To be unwilling to let go is to be unable to move forward.”

Boba blinked at that, eyes coming back to her.

“So Jedi… miss those who are taab’echaaj’la[vii] but to focus on that is to let Arasuum[viii] win?” Boba muttered.

“I’m afraid I do not know enough about Mandalorian culture to comment,” Nomi told him, “but perhaps you have the right of it.”

She swept the seeds back into the pouch, using the Force to make sure none escaped.

“There are those who worry for you outside,” she said, voice soft, “are you ready to face them?”

Boba looked at her, then back and his necklace and vambrace, slowly letting go of the necklace before nodding.

“’lek[ix], Ba’vodu Nomi.”

They rose and, when Nomi offered her hand, Boba took it.  Together they exited the tent to join the rest as they waited for Thon to arrive before beginning.

[i] Jedi (se makes it plural)

[ii] ‘ika is a diminutive suffix, used to denote the speaker is close to the recipient, or the recipient is a small child (i.e. Jango would call Boba Bob’ika)

[iii] Aunt/Uncle

[iv] yes

[v] Clan/Tribe

[vi] Obi-Wan’s sibling (‘b or be makes a possessive)

[vii] deceased, passed on (lit: marched far away)

[viii] Mandalorian sloth-god, the personification of stagnation, the enemy of Mandalorians

[ix] Shortened form of elek meaning ‘yeah’

#My writing #time traveling husbands au #jedi june #boba fett #arla fett #nomi sunrider #letting go #character death #assumed #tw: character death #oc: Lyssha Modoll

[sweetiepie08]

All I Ask of You (Chap 3)

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance fic

Deet x Rian

She walked into his life when all seemed lost. He accepted her when the other surface dwellers didn’t. She was gentle. He was brave. Their first impressions dwelt in their minds and their feelings grew as their journey wore on. They supported each other, comforted each other, and gave each other strength. Together, they were a light in the darkness.

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4.  Chapter 5.

[-]

Deet watched with her friends as the Skeksis, Heretic he called himself, lead Hup to another part of the ruin. She dearly hoped they would stop calling Hup a slave. Her brave little friend deserved much more respect than that. She felt bad letting Hup go off with their hosts. He didn’t seem too happy about being roped into the surprise, but whatever is was, it would get them closer to stopping the Skeksis. Hopefully, he’d understand.

She looked around at her dejected friends. Brea and Rian looked both ready to pounce and on the brink of collapse. Their long journey ran them ragged but the urgency of their mission hastened them on. A rest was at once something they greatly needed and couldn’t afford. She understood their impatience. They finally made it here. Answers were within their grasp. It was frustrating, being told to wait even longer when they were so close. But if they had to wait anyway, they may as well make the best of it.

“Well, a surprise sounds fun,” Deet said, hoping to lift their spirits.

“We don’t have time for fun,” Rian sighed. It made her heart ache. She knew how heavily this whole ordeal weighed on him. Waiting must be agony to him.

“Well,” Brea said, drawing herself up, “if we’re stuck here anyway, we may as well get some rest.”

“I’m really not tired,” Rian insisted, though his sinking posture said differently.

“Don’t be silly.” Brea brushed past them and headed for the curtained-off area the Heretic pointed them toward. “We’ve made a very long journey and staying on our feet isn’t going to make the surprise come faster. We should rest while we have the chance. Who knows what the next part of our quest may bring?”

“I don’t know if I can,” Rian said as they followed Brea to the waiting area. “We’re so close to answers.”

Brea curled up on a pile of rugs. “Well, suit yourself, but I’m going to get some shut-eye.” She closed her eyes and, within minutes, her steady breathing indicated that she had fallen asleep.

Rian marvel at her. “How can she do that?” he said, looking at Brea like she’d just performed some daring feat of acrobatics. “Can you fall asleep that fast?”

“This has all been exhausting,” Deet replied softly, so as not to wake Brea. However, she found herself unable to settle down as well. Instead, she wandered around the space, eyes flitting at the curious objects kept on shelves around them.

“It’s frustrating is what it is,” Rian grumbled, peeking out between the curtains. “They know how important this is. How can they make us wait?”

“If they’re making us wait, it must be important,” she reasoned. “We came for answers, whatever form they come in.”

“Why can’t they just tell us what they know?” he huffed. “What are they going to do? Put on a whole performance first?”

“We made it here, that’s the important thing.”

“And what comes next?” He whirled around and began pacing the floor. “I just want to know what we’re supposed to do so we can do it and be done with it. The sooner the Skeksis are defeated, the better for everybody.”

“I know how you feel.” She put a hand on his shoulder. He stopped pacing but he was still tense. “When I left Grot, the Darkening had already started seeping into the caves. I worry about my home every day.”

Rian let out a long breath and let his shoulders slump slightly. “All I want is to make sure no more gelfling get drained. What happened to Mira should never happen again. It shouldn’t have happened to her.” He cast his eyes down to the floor. “No one deserves to have their life stolen like that.”

Sadness swelled in her heart as the pain showed on Rian’s face. She felt helpless. She’d never experienced the type of loss he had. She could only imagine the hurt he felt right now, and she was sure her imaginings didn’t even come close. He’d opened up to her last night on the cliffs. He trusted her enough to help him through his grief. She only hoped she could find the right words. “I wish I could have met her,” she tried softly. “She sounds like a special person.”

The ghost of a smile formed on his lips. “She would have loved you. She loved anything that could a smile on someone’s face.”

Deet felt her cheeks warm. “I’m glad you think we’d get along.”

His little smile dissolved as quickly as it appeared. “She always knew how to brighten someone’s day. She could find little things to make her smile. It’s been hard for me to do that since this whole thing started. Every time I feel like I’m about to smile or laugh, I remember she’s gone, and any shred of joy gets sucked out of me. It feels wrong to laugh without her.”

“I wonder,” she began carefully, “what Mira would say to that.”

He let out a breath of a chuckle. “She’d kick my hide to all three suns and back if I swore off laughing forever.”

“It’s probably not my place to say but...” she hesitated, unsure of how to put his. After all, she never knew Mira. But, in the end, she decided to share her honest thoughts as best as she could. “If I were gone, I’d want my loved ones to be happy, even if I can’t be there with them.”

Rian went quiet for a moment. This worried her. Perhaps he was offended, thinking she was trying to speak for his lost love. What if she only made him feel worse? She began forming an apology in her head when he turned to her. “I think I’d want that too,” he said, gazing at her with his gentle eyes.

“Because you’re a good person, Rian.”

He stepped back and shook his head. “You’re too kind.”

“It’s true,” she insisted, taking a small step toward him. “You have a big heart and you care very much about the gelfling around you. I…” her face flushed, “I really like that about you.”

He took a step toward her as well. “You’re a very special person, Deet.”

The drifted closer. Being so near him made her heart flutter. She had to admit, he was handsome. He looked at her with kindness in his eyes. She meant every word she said to him. Interesting how one raised to fight could be so gentle at heart. Perhaps it was all in what one fought for.

But the wave of affection passed as reason set in. Rian was still mourning Mira. Her warm feelings for him could only go so far. She could be his friend and he could be hers, but that was all they could be, at least for now.

She stepped back and began wandering around the little space. Rian peaked out through the curtain. She ran her hands over the trinkets on the shelves. They presented her with curious questions. What did the symbols on the talismans mean? What was in these jars? She’d seen so many strange things since she came to the surface, but the circle of the suns was certainly the strangest.

“How much longer do we have to wait?” Rian asked, still looking through the gaps in the curtain.

“They said they’d come get us when the surprise was ready,” she replied. She hoped Hup was alright by himself, though she was sure the Heretic and Mystic wouldn’t hurt him, as strange as they were. “Though I am hungry. Are you hungry?” Her stomach rumbled, reminding her all she’d eaten that day was the Dousan traveler’s bread Rek’yr offered them.

She spotted some berries growing on a vine. This must be how their hosts managed to sustain themselves in the desert. Her stomach growled again. They did invite them to rest back here. Surely they wouldn’t mind if she took a few. She plucked one.

“No wait!” Rias gasped, rushing toward her. “Don’t eat that!”

She stopped just short of putting it in her mouth. “But, berries are food,” she said, though she immediately felt silly for saying it. It should have been obvious, but it clearly wasn’t, not if Rian reacted the way he did.

“They’re not,” he explained. “They’re Urdupes. They’re like medicine. Dousan shamans use them to speak with Thra and glimpse into the future.”

A wave of embarrassment washed over her. Surely a surface dweller would know this. She must have looked like a fool. “Everything up here is strange,” she sighed. “I miss my caves.” Home, where everything was familiar, where she didn’t feel like a clueless childling. “I miss my family.”

“Tell me about them,” Rian coaxed gently.

His genuine request warmed her. No one up here, it seemed, wanted anything to do with Grottons. If they didn’t insult her or push her away, they avoided her like she was diseased. Even the new friends she made on the surface hadn’t asked her about her home. That was understandable, of course. They were all very busy trying to save Thra. They all had a lot on their minds. That Rian made the effort to try to get to know her better meant a lot.

“Well, I have two fathers and a brother and my parents tend nurloch herds. I help them sometimes.”

“What’s a nurloch?”

“It’s a big worm. My dress is actually made from nurloch rump. It’s the softest…” her voice trailed off as she looked into his eyes. There was a trace of amusement in them, but was he laughing with her or at her?

Perhaps he was just being polite. He was a surface dweller after all, a nice one but still, he didn’t understand their world. He grew up in the castle and Stone-in-the-Wood. He wouldn’t want to know about her dress or nurloch farming. Daylighters were used to fancier things. She must look like an unrefined bumpkin to him. “You think I’m weird too…”

“Not at all.” His soft, careful tone made her breath catch in her throat. “I think your rump dress is quite lovely.”

Lovely, he said. She hadn’t heard that from another gelfling since she came to the surface. Dirty, smelly, and strange, sure, but not lovely. Hup was the only one to show her kindness until she met her friends. They were all sweet, kind people in their own ways. Naia was fiercely protective and looked out for everyone’s safety. Gurjin kept their hearts light with his wit. Kylan was generous with both supplies and spirit. Brea’s determination drove them forward. And Hup was her steadfast rock in this strange world. Together they strove to save Thra and protect its inhabitants from those who would harm them.

But Rian, with his brave heart and deep well of compassion, started it all. He never gave up on his quest to spread the truth, even when the others scorned him and cast him out. He wanted to save them, no matter what. How much did he lose? How much had he suffered? She was with him the night before, when he finally let his grief out. He held it in for Thra-knew-how-long. She wanted nothing more than to comfort him and shield him from further harm. Though she knew the latter was out of her hands.

Now, he was here comforting her, making her feel more welcome in the unfamiliar world. He tried to make her feel a little less homesick at least for a minute and his efforts worked. The pain of his journey had not hardened his heart. His kindness and gentleness still shined through.

They drifted closer together. She wanted to be closer. She wanted to feel the warmth of his smile, see his handsome face up close. What must it be like, she wondered, to be held by his strong arms?

They were mere inches apart. Her heart raced. She didn’t know what would happen next, but her imagination went wild. Would they hug? Pull each other into a deeper embrace? Was she bold enough to think he might kiss her?

Any expectations she might have were dashed, however, when the curtain was pushed aside. “It is time,” the Mystic announced. Brea awoke and they left their little corner of oasis. It was time now, indeed. Time to return to the real world, to their mission. All flights of fancy would need to be put on hold, at least for now. Answers awaited the, and the next leg of their journey would begin.

#the dark crystal age of resistance #the dark crystal #the dark crystal:aor #aor #The dark crystal fanfic #aor fanifc #age of resistance #the dark crystal age of resistance fanfic #stonegrot fanfic #stonegrot #deet x rian #deet #brea #the heretic #hup #urgoh the wanderer #all I ask of you #all I ask of you chapter 3 #sweetiepie writes #sweetiepie08 #sweetiepie fanfic #sweetiepiewrites #sweetiepiefanfic #sweetiepie08 writes

[renzu-valra]

Prompt #30: Splinter

Character: Shinza Chousokabe ♦ Region: Doma ♦ Time: 17 years ago

hosted by: @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast​​

“What would you have done had you taken his place that night? To that girl…”

Trailing my hand across the marble shelf, I maneuvered through the darkness. Making my way slowly towards the dark figure seated near the window. The corridor itself was lacking in colour. Naught in that deep midnight blue caught mine eye. Naught save what laid at the very end of it. A woman. Dressed in black. Seated on her legs, and staring out yonder a blaring white window letting in the sun.

“…Yes. You will suffice for now.”

I felt words gripping my throat, begging to be spoken. Yet my voice was missing. Sacrificed a fortnight ago. Even so, I felt as if they were still being spoken aloud. That the woman ahead of me heard each and every question. For when she turned her head, she bore her intense gaze into my skull. Answering every one.

However, I would not stumble here. I would press on with the selfsame tenacity of which I started down this oppressive path. Though the room in which we faced each other was but a dreamscape within my mind, the woman before me was a very real presence which threatened all who came into her view. She could easily pin me down and strangle my neck—choking out all life from my lungs; rendering my waking body paralyzed and without mind. Even so, I was not scared. She would not win.

When I finally stood within arm’s reach of her, she lifted her head upwards and smiled. Extending to me her hand. I humbly accepted and sat down by her side. The wood beneath my legs was cold—the soul inside each plank extracted and lifeless. She had killed it, just by sitting here. And inevitably, one day, she would claim my soul as well.

Resting my head against hers. Leaning my body against hers.

There was nothing loving in this.

“I wonder what she felt. The girl you watched for summers on end from your windowsill. Just like this.”

Her voice directed my eyes forward. The once blinding light shining through the paper dulled—emptied out—and in its place shone something far more brilliant. ‘Shaiwase.’ The gardener’s daughter.

 She was a child in this picture. Barely lived through five springs, and yet she already carried such grace. Her hair was long and black, and skin white as snow. I heard that she was born with a weak body, yet when I first saw her from this window, she seemed so very alive. Her gown was a simple cyan, and it flowed in great length behind her.

I was studying my calligraphy at the time. My teachers would expect nothing less than professional, first-class work despite my young age, and until then I had strived endlessly to meet those expectations. The moment I saw her trying to climb the cherry tree outside, my brush suddenly swirled in my hand. She was beautiful. More beautiful than the meaningless phrase I was recreating onto papyrus. Her small pale hands gripping at the thick wood—tiny nails digging into the flakes until she was high enough to sit inside the base. Looking up and waving to the birds chirping in the branches.

Birds… I don’t think I ever noticed how charming they were until then. Their harmonious song brought a smile to her cheeks, as well as to mine.

Truly, the sight itself appeared to be taken straight out of a painter’s canvas. A tranquil girl seated in-between the separating branches of a sakura tree, her long hanfu billowing in the breeze. The clouds a misty haze of white surrounding her. Except, this wasn’t a mere painting. It had true, genuine life to it, and it could be heard through the birdsong, and the warm breeze wallowing through the pink petals above, causing them to dance. This…feeling that was now blooming in my breast. It wasn’t love. It was marvel. Admiration. A wish that I could keep watching this scene forever.

“I wonder what she felt.”

The woman’s question resurfaced again. ‘What she felt..’

In the years to come, that’s all Shaiwase was. A sight to look forward to when I sat down at my desk to study during the day. And as she aged, she eventually took to learning how to tend the garden. As far as I reckoned, she never spotted me watching her as she worked. She was still frail of body, however that wouldn’t stop her strong spirit from giving life to the flowers she loved.

And yet…

The last time I saw her.

The very last time.

It was still through this very window.

My attendants had arrived in a hurry once the smoke flooded the skies past our estate. The attack on our city had just begun—yet the fires burned high and the sky blazed red. And Shaiwase. She was still tending the garden. Her back turned to the disasters directly behind her. Without a care in the world. Until the caw of a crow caught her attention, and she turned back and screamed. No one would go to her and take her into hiding with the rest of the family. She would be left to fend for herself, as would the rest of the hired staff.

And when the nightmare had ended, and a brief moment of calm was allowed to transpire.. I learned about what happened to her. To those who couldn’t escape. They were killed. Maimed and tortured in a man’s violent need to rage against his cruel fate. Apparently they hadn’t left a singular armed guard to watch over the estate in their absence—and it wasn’t a Garlean soldier who stole into their land and caused such horrific havoc…it was someone born and raised in Othard. A normal man. A crazed, terrible man. I wasn’t allowed to see the bodies.

 “We are the same, you and I.”

The woman by my side spoke—and when I turned my gaze to meet her ruby eyes, I suddenly felt an overpowering dizziness. The dream was ending… and with it.. –

  I awoke in sweat. A cruel nausea swelled within my gut that tasted of black rage. Its bile dripped on my tongue and foamed out onto my lips. I remember this. This bleak poison reminded me of that night naught but a few days past. Although the memory itself remained blurry and unspecified, I knew what occurred, whether I wanted to repress the entirety of it or not. ‘His’ instructions were precise.

Love her. Use her. Take her heart. She is but a woman of the night, and none should mourn her. For our purposes, she will suffice.

Yet mourned her I had. This sensation that swelled inside my veins as I was urged to take her life—I mourned that raw flood of emotions I had never quite experienced before. And I mourned the fact that I’d never be able to feel it with the one person who I wanted to most. The sickening tempest lurking within my bowels that was both unsatisfied and satisfied.

My heart was splintering apart—rending itself in two, and I had to fight desperately against its tearing muscle to keep it whole. There was a blade at my side. A white sword which begged to be grabbed at. I could see the shimmer of raw sharpness glare through the darkness. If I could but reach for it, I could use it to cut open my chest—rip out whatever foul curse rotted away from within.

Ah…but my arms would not function. I could hardly remember the scene which took place before this tormenting strife. I had been drugged, for my own safety. Yet still my hand twitched with need. If I was unable to supress these problematic urges, I would eventually will myself into taking that sharp sword in hand and take my life with it.

She was singing. Calling out for me…to join her in everlasting ‘–———‘

And then, before my eyes, I saw a man I had never seen before.

He touched at my hand…and as if our very souls intertwined together at that exact moment…I felt his voice reach my soul through my very veins.

It…quieted the rage which threatened to destroy me. My limbs eased and I found a resplendent calm drifting through my body—taking the drug which stilled me with it. I felt the hilt of the beating white sword throb within my palm. And I did what I knew needed to be done from the first.

Rend it clean through my heart. Give way for her spirit.

Become as one with who she is. Who I was. Who will come after.

#ffxivwrite2020 #ffxiv rp #Shinza #shinza's delusions #mother:complete ver

[orthodoxydaily]

Saint&Reading: Fri. Oct., 23,2020

Celebrated on October 10_Julian Calendar

Saint Ambrose of Optina (1891)

Alexander Michailovich Grenkov was born Nov. 23, 1812 in the Russian province of Tambov. His parents raised him strictly and with fervent piety. Since he was of a priestly family, it was no surprise when he entered the Tambov theological seminary in 1830. He did well in his studies and was ranked among the top students.

About a year before graduation Alexander became seriously ill. He promised that if God healed him, he would become a monk. Although his prayer was answered, Alexander seemed to forget his promise.

After graduation from the seminary he took a position as tutor to the children of a certain landowner and remained with this family for a year and a half. After this he became a teacher at the local parochial school.

One day in 1839 Alexander and a friend visited the famous hermit Father Hilarion to ask him what they should do with their lives. Alexander was surprised when he was told to go to the monastery of Optina Pustin, where they had great need of him. In September of that same year, however, he seemed to be prepared to continue with his teaching career.

One night he was invited to spend a pleasant evening with some friends. His conversation was witty and brilliant, and all his jokes and puns were on the mark. Although his hosts were amused and impressed by him, Alexander was disgusted by his own frivolity. Perhaps his unfulfilled promise to become a monk weighed on his conscience.

The next morning he quit his job and arrived at Optina in October of 1839. After a trial period he decided to remain in the monastery and dedicate his life to God. He received the monastic tonsure in 1842, and was given the name Ambrose in honor of Saint Ambrose of Milan (December 7). Ambrose knew the famous spiritual directors Elder Leonid and Elder Macarius. He was the cell attendant of Elder Macarius, who undoubtedly influenced the young monk’s spiritual development.

Ordained as a priest in 1845, Father Ambrose’s reverence and piety in celebrating the divine services were noticed by the other monks. His health began to decline shortly afterward, and he had to ask to be relieved of all duties. In 1846 he was so ill that the Mystery of Holy Unction was administered to him. He bore his illness without complaint and slowly regained his strength. By 1848 he was able to walk with the aid of a cane.

Father Ambrose began to help Elder Macarius with his correspondence and in preparing the Russian edition of Saint John Climacus’s LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT, which was published by the monastery.

When Father Macarius had to go to Moscow in 1852, he designated Father Ambrose to take his place until his return. Father Ambrose never gave his personal opinions when he was asked for advice, but always referred people to the writings of the Fathers. If someone did not understand the text he was given to read, Father Ambrose would explain it in simple terms.

Father Macarius died in 1860 without naming anyone to succeed him as Elder. By divine providence, all the other possible candidates either died or were appointed as abbots of other monasteries. This left Father Ambrose as the undisputed spiritual director of the monastery. In his role as Elder, Father Ambrose had to receive many people each day to hear confessions and give advice. He used to say, “The Lord has arranged it so that I would have to talk to people all my life. Now I would be happy to remain silent, but I cannot.”

An average day in Saint Ambrose’s life began at 4 A.M. when his cell attendant came into his cell to read the morning Rule of prayer for him. After this he would wash and have some tea, then he would dictate replies to the many letters he received every day. Visitors would be lining up even as he was having breakfast. Sometimes he would take a break after two hours, but more often he would continue seeing people until noon when he had his lunch.

After lunch he would go out into the next room and greet more visitors. People would call out questions and he would give an appropriate response. He took a short rest at 3 P.M. then talked to people until the evening. At 8 P.M. he had dinner then received more visitors until 11 P.M. At that hour the evening Rule of prayer was read, and Father Ambrose begged forgiveness of the brethren whom he may have offended by thought, word, or deed. After three or four hours of sleep it would all begin again. This routine would fatigue a strong man. It is remarkable that Saint Ambrose, who was often in poor health, was able to keep it up for so many years.

From all over Russia, people flocked to the venerable Elder. The writer Tolstoy visited him on at least three occasions, and left impressed by the wisdom of the holy monk. Fyodor Dostoevsky came to Optina in 1878 after the death of his son Alyosha and was profoundly affected by his meeting with Saint Ambrose. The novelist used Father Ambrose as a model for Starets Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov.

The saint founded Shamordino convent in 1884. This convent, which was near Optina, opened its doors to women who were poor, sickly, or even blind. Most convents were very poor and had to rely on the incomes of women who had a certain personal wealth in order to remain open. Saint Ambrose made it possible for any woman who wished to become a nun to follow this path of salvation.

Shamordino began to decline after the death of the first abbess, Mother Sophia. Saint Ambrose went there in June 1890 to straighten out the convent’s affairs. He was unable to return to Optina due to illness, then winter made it impossible for him to travel. Father Ambrose continued to see visitors at Shamordino, even though his health continued to deteriorate in 1891.

By September, it was clear that he had not long to live. He fell asleep in the Lord at 11:30 A.M. on the morning of October 10 1891. Throngs of people attended his funeral and also his burial at Optina. Fathers Joseph, Anthony, Benedict, and Anatole succeeded him as Elder until the monastery was closed after the Russian Revolution.

The Moscow Patriarchate authorized local veneration of the Optina Elders on June 13,1996. The work of uncovering the relics of Saints Leonid, Macarius, Hilarion, Ambrose, Anatole I, Barsanuphius and Anatole II began on June 24/July 7, 1998 and was concluded the next day. However, because of the church Feasts (Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, etc.) associated with the actual dates of the uncovering of the relics, Patriarch Alexey II designated June 27/July 10 as the date for commemorating this event. The relics of the holy Elders now rest in the new church of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God.

The Optina Elders were glorified by the Moscow Patriarchate for universal veneration on August 7, 2000.

Saint Ambrose was glorified in 1988 by the Patriarchate of Moscow as part of the Millennium celebration of the Baptism of Rus.

Source Orthodox Church of America

Synaxis of the Elders of Optina

Hieroschemamonk Leo (Nagolkin), 1768-October 11, 1841

Hieroschemamonk Macarius (Ivanov),  1788-September 7, 1860

Archimandrite Moses (Putilov),  1772-June, 1862

Abbot Anthony ( Putilov)  1795- August 7, 1865

Hieroschemamonk Hilarion ( Ponamarov) 1805-September 18, 1873

Hieroschemamonk Ambrose (Grenkov) , 1812- October 10, 1891

Hieroschemamonk Anatolius I ( Zertsalov) 1824-January 25, 1894 

Isaacius I (Antimonov)  1810-August 22, 1894 

Hieroschemamonk Joseph (Litovkin), 1837-May 9 1911

Archimandrite Barsanuphius (Plikanov), 1845-April 1, 1913

Archimandrite Anatolius II (Potapov) July 30, 1922 

Nectarius   (Tikhonov)  1857 - April 29 1928 

New Hiero-confessor Nikon  1888- June, 1931

 New Hieromartyr Archimandrite Isaacius II ( Bobrakov) 1865-January 8, 1938

Luke 7:31-35

31And the Lord said, "To what then shall I liken the men of this generation, and what are they like?32 They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, saying:'We played the flute for you, And you did not dance; We mourned to you, And you did not weep.'33 For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, 'He has a demon. 34The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'35 But wisdom is justified by all her children.

Philippians 3:8-19

8Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ9and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;10that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,11if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.12Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.13Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,14I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.15Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.16Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.17Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern.18For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:19whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame-who set their mind on earthly things.

#orthodoxy #orthodoxchristian #ancientfaith #originofchristianity #holyscriptures #gospel #sacred texts #spirituality #wisdom

[thesnadger]

Hard To Extinguish

We don’t know what exactly the connection between Gertrude and Agnes entailed, but I’m very interested in the idea of emotional feedback. Probably something that comes and goes in quick moments so that other people don’t realize what’s happening. But it has an effect all the same.

Ao3 version

- - - 

Truth be told, I don’t know what you actually did do; neither Arthur nor Diego would explain it to me in detail, and Jude simply flies into a rage when it’s brought up.

It was a binding, she knows that much. Why the Mother of Puppets would want her linked to Agnes Montague, Gertrude can’t imagine. It may be that the Web’s aim is the same as hers: stopping the ritual from succeeding. But she very much doubts that. She knows not to be optimistic when dealing with the dread powers. Far more likely that the connection is only one step in some dreadful, convoluted plot.

Still, she doubts there is any merit in trying to understand the Web’s machinations. That line of thinking only to leads to a paranoia that ultimately feeds it. And perhaps there is no greater ‘plan.’ Perhaps the Web simply pulls and guides and manipulates for the sake of it, just as the Slaughter rends and the Desolation destroys and the Eye watches.

She only wishes she knew what exactly she invited into herself that day. Whether binding herself to an avatar of the Desolation will have side effects that Gertrude can’t predict.

She’s in the Archive today, following a potential lead regarding the Church of the Divine Host. Attempting to, at any rate. There’s a new archival assistant there, so new he still thinks this is an ordinary job. He’s clearly hoping to prove himself as an enthusiastic worker by pestering her with questions and suggestions every few minutes. She hints rather blatantly that he probably has work he ought to be doing someplace other than her office. But he remains oblivious to her irritation. He’s wasting her time, and her time is absolutely invaluable.

It’s as the last thought enters her mind that a sudden, white-hot rage rises in her. Before she realizes what she’s doing, she’s wrapped her hand around a letter opener and she’s holding it out, shouting at the man. Growling in a way that doesn’t suit her at all and describing in specific detail exactly what she'll do to him if he doesn't quiet his babbling and get far, far away from her this instant.

He backs out of the room quickly, propelled by a mixture of confusion and animal fear. Until today he’d no doubt seen Gertrude as a reserved, doddering old woman. He won’t know how to respond to the suddenness of her outburst or the downright unsettling knowledge she seems to have of the human nervous system and the various ways to damage it. But he at least has some instinctive sense for danger. He’ll steer clear of her from that day on.

The strange pulse of anger fades after he bolts, and Gertrude is left shaken. Unsettled. Wondering where on earth that all came from.

Agnes is at her apartment with Jude and a few others, staring out the window into the street. She likes watching the people as they walk by outside. She sits and wonders about them, about the places they’re all hurrying towards, what they do with all their days. Whether any of them think about destiny or fate.

Behind her, Eugene is going on about the glory of the Scorched Earth. How everything that stands here now will one day be ash and so on, and so on, and so on. She’s so bored of it all. So tired of hearing the same sermons repeated over and over. She wants him to be quiet so she can think her thoughts about the people outside.

She glances back at them, her family, her caretakers, and her keepers. And something comes over her. Suddenly they all seem . . . ridiculous. Not one of them has a clue how any of this works, but they're all so confident that they're serving a higher purpose. So certain they're powerful, free creatures far above the mass of humanity when they're no less lost than anyone else. It’s ridiculous, it’s absurd, and she can’t help but laugh. But the laugh that comes out of her is an odd one. Her laughter is rare, especially these days, but when she does laugh it’s wild, loud and barking. This is a dry, bitter chuckle--barely audible, but it quiets the room.

With contempt in her voice, Agnes fixes her gaze on Eugene. "Can't you talk about anything else? Your droning is dimming me."

The whole cult freezes, not sure how to react. They've seen her angry. They’re used to that, they understand that. They understand screaming and tears, they understand throwing things and threats made and threats carried out and fire. What they don’t understand is the cool, certain superiority in her as she turns her attention back towards the window.

Eugene isn’t sure whether he’s glad she didn’t burn him. But he quiets down, and Agnes is left with her thoughts again.

Many days later Agnes is alone. She’s in her apartment. Waiting, as she always is, for a future she is meant to bring.

Something creeps into her as she sits. It’s a feeling she’s not able to name because she only knows the word contentment as something to be disrupted. Satisfaction and accomplishment are always setups to the inevitable conclusion, which is devastation. She would not think to apply them to this soft, pleasurable wave that settles on her. It’s the feeling of being someone who has survived another day in a hostile world. Someone who goes to their rest knowing that they’ve arranged a small part of that world to their satisfaction.

For just a moment, Agnes doesn’t feel restless. She doesn’t feel a yearning for something she cannot name. She feels . . . at peace.

It passes, and she feels the hiss and pop of tears evaporating as they roll down her face.

Then one day, Agnes is dead. Gertrude keeps tabs on the cult’s affairs, of course, but in the end it isn’t necessary. She feels it as it is happening.

She’d have expected it to be painful, the binding had certainly been. But when the moment of death arrives Gertrude doesn’t feel anything that she would call pain. Just a sudden absence. A sense of loss and a chill that cannot be eased for days no matter how warm her office is kept or how many sweaters she piles on. She knows what it means. The child born of flame is no more, and another ritual has been prevented.

If Gertrude is unable to feel any pleasure at that thought, it is no doubt because of the binding. She can hardly expect to live through the death of someone she is metaphysically tied to without it affecting her mood, after all.

She’ll get over it. There’s too much to be done for her to sit and mope about.

Time moves on, and so does she. Eugene Vanderstock’s statement fills in the details her assistants in the field had missed. She finds that she’s hardly the worst-off survivor of the affair. That young man, Jack Barnabas . . . Gertrude has a strong stomach, but she feels a twinge somewhere when she sees the photos. The burns, she knows, are only the beginning. For someone as defenseless as him to attract the ire of the Desolation? He would have been far better off if Agnes’s kiss had reduced him to cinders.

Barnabas’s silly, earnest attempt at flirtation stopped a terrible future from coming to pass. And of course, he would never know it. Any more than he’d know why the rest of his days on earth would be filled with misery, torment, and pain. He’d saved the world in ignorance, and he would suffer just as ignorantly. It’s a bit poetic, Gertrude thinks, the tragedy of it all.

She dwells on it as she looks over his file. However little Barnabas understood about the situation, the fact remains that she has him to thank for preventing the Scorched Earth. It seems a shame to let him suffer and die. Besides that, sitting back and watching his fate when she has the ability to intervene feels uncomfortably like what the Beholding would want from her.

Eugene has been taken care of already. She isn’t the type to let someone with a long, long history of murder walk away after threatening to burn her alive. In hindsight, her method of disposal might have been overkill. But then, overkill seems to be the only thing those who attach themselves to the Lightless Flame understand. There can be no doubt that some other representative of them will come banging on her door one day. When they do, perhaps she’ll speak to them directly. And if Jack Barnabas comes up in conversation, well, no harm in making a few extra threats on his behalf. Assuming he’s still alive by that point.

As she makes this decision, she feels a quiet heat rise in her. A feeling of satisfaction tinged with sorrow that is not altogether unpleasant.

“If I die quietly,” Agnes says, taking in the shocked faces around her. “Without fire, anguish or mourning, my spark might return to the Lightless Flame so that a new chosen one can be born. One that will not falter.”

She speaks softly, without emotion. She isn’t certain what she feels and hasn’t been certain of that for a long time. She only knows what she does not feel. Agnes has never known what she wants. But she is finally sure of what she doesn’t want. Perhaps never wanted at all.

A few of the assembled members are shaking their heads, still not believing it. Some clench their fists and shout and growl. Not in true anger, she knows, but in the desperate rage that flies up when one feels their heart begin to break. When one finally, truly realizes that everything they built and toiled and struggled for is being burned. Something that has been inside Agnes ever since her birth is feeding on their misery even now. She can feel it giving her strength she neither needs or desires.

Jude is, of course, one of the people shouting. Her anger does nothing to hide the agony that surrounds her like a haze. She’s saying something, but Agnes isn’t paying attention. She just looks at Jude. The lines of her face, the edges of the tattoo barely visible on her bare shoulders. She’s wearing the same tank top that she’d worn in the cafe a few months back.

They’d been talking about the future. The Scorched Earth, the Lightless Flame, Agnes’s destiny, it seemed like that all they ever talked about. Jude was frustrated with waiting and believed that the best way to release Agnes from whatever tied her to the Archivist was to go to their institute and burn her out of it. She said that an old woman and a pile of ever-so-flammable records would have no hope against Agnes’s full glory. The Eye would be left an ashen husk, and Agnes would be free to embrace the fate she had been born for.

Agnes had never met the Archivist, of course, and there was something appealing about the idea of confronting her. Though she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to kill her as Jude hoped or just see her, face to face.

Either way, she shook her head. “If I did that . . . .” she said, “I think that something in me would burn up with her.”

Jude hadn’t liked that answer. She’d pressed her palms flat on the table and looked pleadingly at Agnes.

“Maybe it’s something that needs to burn,” she’d said. “Something you’re better off without. Even if it isn’t, surely any loss you suffer can only feed the Lightless Flame.”

A week after that day, Jack had asked for her name.

Agnes had been worshiped and adored, and in many ways loved. She’d felt the heat of a supplicant’s devotion and the burn of a fiery, passionate longing. But Jack was the first person who seemed to want to know her. To know the person she was, instead of the person she was going to be - that destined destroyer whose light was so blinding it kept everyone from seeing her. Jack didn’t know her, but he’d wanted to. That had been enough.

Jude is still shouting, and now there are tears. Her words have gone from pleading to recriminating in the face of Agnes’s silence.

“How could you give up on yourself,” she shouts. “After everything we’ve done, all we’ve sacrificed! Do you even realize what losing you will do to me? To us?”

Agnes reaches out, drawing a gentle finger along the side of Jude’s face. A deep groove forms in the melting wax, and Jude is quiet.

“Surely,” Agnes says, her voice cold, “any loss you suffer can only feed the Lightless Flame.”

There are no more protests after that.

Jude Perry has a scar now that extends from cheek to jaw. Wax is easy to mold, she can be rid of any scar with a moment of concentration if she wishes. She keeps it all the same, and whenever the heat of a burning building or the struggling limbs of a person she’s tying up cause it to lose its shape she is careful to reform it exactly as it was before.

Jack Barnabas endures three terrible years. Then slowly, eventually, things begin to turn. He finds a job in a warehouse where no one gives his face much thought, at least not after the initial surprise. He begins to make friends again, moves out of his father’s place and finds an apartment of his own. Things are still difficult, but he can see hope on the horizon.

He thinks about her now and then. Wonders if that end had been what she’d wanted or if those people drove her to it, not sure which answer would sadden him more. He has no way of guessing, of course. He knows he never understood anything about her, couldn’t even say what she was or why her touch held such blistering agony. He won’t ever forget her, though.

The scars on his face still ache sometimes. But it’s the one on his hand, the path of a single teardrop, that hurts the most.

Gertrude Robinson isn’t the mother type. She’d made that very clear, not that Eric had needed reminding. Still, she promised to find his son and has no reason to break that promise. If Gerard is a threat, she’ll deal with him. If not . . . perhaps he can be useful, perhaps not. Either way keeping him close probably isn’t the worst idea given his upbringing.

She is prepared for a threat. What she isn’t prepared for is the young man she eventually finds huddled in the corner of some horrid little dive bar, speaking to no one. Drinking in the mechanical, joyless fashion of someone looking to obliterate their consciousness as quickly as possible. He looks up as she approaches, and she wonders briefly if his connection to the Eye is enough for him to have Seen her coming. Unlikely. She doubts he can see past the edge of his own glass at the moment. Without asking, she sits down across the table from him.

“Well,” she says. “It has certainly been a while, Gerard.”

He looks at her with a little suspicion. Mostly resignation. “Do I know you?”

“Not personally. You could technically say we’ve met, in that I saw you once when you were an infant,” she replies. “But I imagine your mother has spoken of me.”

“Yeah, well. If you’re a friend of mum’s you can fuck off.” Gerard’s expression moves from resignation to dismay the moment Mary is mentioned, and he lowers his head to the table. “Not dealing with more of her stuff today.”

A wry smile moves the corner of Gertrude’s mouth. “‘Friend’ is not the word I would use.”

Gerard sighs heavily. “Look. I’m not in the mood for dancing around the point. If you’re some enemy of hers here to kill or kidnap me to get at her, you’d be better off going after something she actually values. And if you’re one of the ones that likes being creepy on purpose you’re wasting your time. Whatever you’ve got to scare me with, I’ve seen it before.”

Gertrude pauses and considers the young man in front of her. He's half-drunk now, but she doubts he would look better sober. There’s a desperation in him that she’s seen before, usually in people who come in to give statements and then disappear a week later. She doubts he’ll be able to manage much longer unless something changes for him.

Poor man hardly had a chance, really. Raised by someone who could have only seen him as an extension of her will, an heir to mold into the continuation of her legacy. Gertrude isn’t the sentimental type, but she's not unaware, either. She certainly doesn't imagine Mary ever gives much consideration to what Gerard himself is feeling, or if he feels anything at all. Only interested in the person he is going to be, never the person he is.

Her mind briefly wanders to a few years ago. When she’d been shivering under five layers of clothing and for a moment found herself madly, ridiculously wondering whether Agnes Montague had ever dreamed. Were her dreams only of fire, of torturing heat and despair, or were there ever gentle dreams? Dreams of other futures?

It’s a thought Gertrude lets go of quickly. A pointless thing to speculate on even at the time. Agnes is dead, and any dreams she might or might not have had are hardly relevant to the current situation.

“All right,” she says. “To the point, then. How would you like to be rid of your mother?”

Agnes’s death is cold and quiet. But it does not go completely unheard.

#tma #tma spoilers #tma fanfic #fanfic #i made myself sad

[dextersjournal]

Death and Consequences

Thursday, 11 June 2020

My cousins’ grandmother passed away last week.

Given the nature of our relation, one might expect Ma Audrey to not have been very close to our family. On the contrary; she lived in the same building as my cousins, who live just across the park opposite my house. So she was like a second grandmother to me growing up. She would look after my cousins while their parents were at work, so when I would go visit in my youth, we were all in her care.

When I continued to visit my cousins as we got older, she wouldn’t be as present because we no longer needed a babysitter. Still, we (my brother and I) would always make a point of greeting her as we passed the stable-door at the back of her house.

Sadly, the visits became less frequent, due to our lives just generally becoming less busy, but also due to family politics, which I shan’t go into.

Guilt and Memories

My cousin sent me a message on WhatsApp on Thursday, 4 June, to let me know Ma Audrey had passed. I can’t remember what I was busy with, but I was out of the house. I responded with my sympathies when I found the time.

I acknowledged the sadness, but I didn’t feel particularly sad. People might put it down to shock, but I’m not sure that’s what it is. I didn’t like this. Ma Audrey deserves to be mourned, I felt.

I hadn’t seen Ma Audrey very often in recent years. We would usually see each other at family events at least, but those were few and far between as of late. The last time I saw her was Christmas 2019, where she remarked that she doesn’t really see our family anymore. The last time I was in her house was to store some of the desserts in her fridge.

The problem, I think, is that I don’t have many memories of Ma Audrey, not that I can think of offhand, anyway. Not that she or my interactions with her weren’t memorable, but I actually don’t remember much of that period in my life without prompting. To think I would spend so much time there. I feel awful about it.

That’s why I ultimately decided to attend the funeral. I was hesitant at first, given that it would be a gathering of people, but I decided that I would regret it if I didn’t. (Also, thankfully, the physical distancing went pretty well.) I wanted to hear others’ reflections, hoping it would prompt some residual memories. Thankfully, it did.

The Funeral

This was the first funeral I’d attended since my great-aunt Gwen passed away in 2005. I was 10. That was my first funeral where I was cognizant of the events (my paternal grandfather passed away when I was 3). Aunty Gwen’s funeral made me hyper-aware of mortality and I was so afraid of losing my biological grandmother for at least a year after that. Thankfully, my grandmother is alive and well having lived 15 more years, despite a heart problem for which he had successful surgery in 2012.

At the time of writing, South Africa is in Level 3 Lockdown, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Places of worship have been given governmental permission to reopen, a decision I’ve been very critical of.  But thankfully it meant we could host a funeral. Unlike a standard church service, it would be a more controlled environment as people had to stipulate beforehand whether they would be attending.

When I was told of Ma Audrey’s passing, I wasn’t sure that there would be a funeral. I wouldn’t have been surprised if there hadn’t been one, given the circumstances. If there hadn’t been a funeral, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it; given my worldview (read: atheism), I don’t think it’s necessary. Funerals are for the living, not for the dead.

But Ma Audrey was a Catholic woman. We used to go to the same church, back when I did go to church (more on that later). So it is fitting that she would be ‘sent off’ in that way.

At the door of the church, we had our temperatures taken, our hands sanitised, and we were asked via individual questions whether we had any COVID-19 symptoms. The casket was in the foyer; closed. I’d had a slight hope that it would be open so I could see her face in person one last time. (My eyes started welling up during that last sentence.)

The funeral was essentially a standard Catholic Mass, but with the priest testifying about Ma Audrey instead of the usual sermon, and a Wikipedia-esque eulogy read by my older cousin. I admittedly haven’t been to many funerals, but it felt a bit…impersonal. Almost cursory.

The Church

I’m going to go off on a slight tangent here. The funeral was the first time I stepped foot in my old church since Christmas 2008, almost 12 years ago. It was slightly smaller than I remember. Some things had changed; some things had stayed the same.

The PA speakers were the same set that I remember, but the mezzanine where the “Music Ministry” were usually stationed had been extended. No longer did they have an overhead projector; they now had a projector overhead.

The Stations of the Cross portraits detailing the Passion of Jesus were still in the same place. The Seven Sacraments were depicted high on the church walls behind the altar. My eyes traced the path form Jesus’ fingers turning into wheat stalks and then rejoining his body as my mind wandered away from the Bible readings much as it had done in my youth.

It was interesting that being in this building did not evoke any nostalgia. For people who only know me since I became a heathen, that might make sense, but I was actually very involved in the church; I was a reader and a singer in the aforementioned Music Ministry. My departure from the church actually had nothing to do with unbelief; that only came years later.

The Death                                  

Ma Audrey had suffered from cancer. She had been diagnosed with bowel/rectal cancer years ago, but then eventually went into remission. She was later diagnosed with lymphoma as well.

My mother called my uncle, Ma Audrey’s son, on the day of her passing to give her condolences.  According to him, Ma Audrey looked and seemed fine, but she requested to go to the hospice.  He said she refused to continue to take her medication and that she had told him she wanted to die.

When I first heard this, I was glad. I was glad she died on her own terms. It felt like a boss move, like in S02E12 of Grace and Frankie. “Good for Audrey,” I’d said. My younger cousin, who was with her when she died, explained to me after the funeral that it had been more a case that she was tired of suffering and tired of having to rely on others just to live. Being given better context on the circumstances of her decision made it more heart breaking, but no less dignified.

She passed with her remaining child and youngest granddaughter by her side.

Suspension of Disbelief

After the gospel reading, the priest testified about how the church was Ma Audrey’s second home. She had been a part of the soup kitchen, and the Music Ministry at some point as well. She had been part of the committee that would volunteer to clean the church on Fridays for the weekend Masses. Even when she was unable to participate, she would still go to the church on Fridays for the company.

When my family would still attend church, we would offer Ma Audrey lifts. After we’d stopped going to church, we’d still see her making her way across the field on her way to Mass. Like when passing her stable door, we’d be sure to greet her, shouting and waving from our front porch. She was persistent in trying to get us to go back to church, even after my own (Anglican) grandmother had long given up.

Being away from church for so long, I no longer knew the hymns, nor the recitations or responses. From an outsider perspective, the ceremony seems very cult-y; people dressed in robes; mass recitations; ceremonial eating (even if you don’t consider the supposed transubstantiation, which is another story); and the additional pomp and circumstance of altar servicers carrying large candles and a wooded cross on a large stick.

I wasn’t sure whether or not to participate in the recitations. I decided not to, for the most part. Only at the end of the priest’s testimony where he blessed Ma Audrey (in spirit) and her casket, did I join in saying “Amen”.

But still – sitting, standing, kneeling in that church – the jaded, cynical atheist in me was at the forefront at the beginning of the procession, internally scoffing at the same rituals in which I once partook.

But during the priest’s testimony, I thought less of the church and more of what the church meant to Ma Audrey; I felt I should reserve my cynicism out of respect for her, not the church.

During one of the hymns, I decided to interpret the lyrics to be about her instead of God.

But you are always close to me Following all my ways May I be always close to you Following all your ways, Lord

Strange thing to do for someone who doesn’t believe in an afterlife, huh? The thing is, I know one of the purposes of religion is consolation. So no, when it comes down to it, I don’t believe Ma Audrey – or anyone – is up there or out there, but sometimes it’s nice to think that she is.

There was a moment, whilst the priest was blessing the casket, that I actually wished God existed – not the god of the Bible, but a god worthy of Audrey and her worship.

The Dénoument

After the funeral, my brother and I went over to speak to our cousins. It was here my younger cousin explained to me the afore-mentioned circumstances around her grandmother’s decision to die. This conversation only took a couple of minutes until it was interrupted by a flash of lightning then, a few seconds later, a mighty crack of thunder.

We all parted ways and, almost as soon as my brother and I got into his car, so began the hardest hail storm any one of us could remember. Almost like a fanfare from God Himself, if you believe in such things.

#deathandconsequences #death #dexicola #dextersjournal #ma audrey #death and consequences #mourning #funeral #religion #catholic #church #cancer

[webcricket]

Paradise

Characters: CastielXReader ft. Jack Kline and the Winchesters Word Count: 1764 Summary: Before he was born, Jack Kline showed Castiel a vision of the future; in it, the seraph saw paradise. Returning to you and Jack after a hunt with the Winchesters, Cas apprehends that the future is now. Please note, this is written with early season 14 powerless Jack in mind. Introspective angel. Fatherly fluff. Family.

“I saw the future. I saw a world without pain or hunger or want. I saw the world that this child… that your child… will create. And it is a world without fear and without suffering and without hate… I saw paradise.”

[Castiel, 12X23 All Along the Watchtower]

***

Interconnected by a network of river-like asphalt crevasses threatening to part and swallow a mis-stepping wanderer seeking sanctuary from the stormy night whole, inky rainwater ripples a sea of potholes spanning the parking lot. Swirling about a motel – the building a comparatively sunny island oasis in the murk – whose pallid green peeling façade has been moldering since it’s late 50s interstate-side family-fun road tripping hey-day, an ethereal fog faintly reeking of highway exhaust and weighted with the musk of damp earth rises from paved ground where the heat of day absorbed by blacktop thwarts the cooling effect of the downpour. Oily darkness seeps unhindered into the perimeter of pock-marked pavement; the crimson glare of a vacancy sign and choked yellow light blurring the nicotine-tinted windows of the motel’s main office fail, for the most part, in their combined effort to keep at bay the incursion of night; the artificial gleam coalesces – eerie influence heightened now and then by lingering lightening lashing the horizon – to illumine Castiel’s aspect with a celestially subversive hellish hue.

Hands pushed into his pockets out of habit more than to protect against the dank atmosphere, the rain-spattered host of Heaven treads carefully, pausing to let pass a plump earthworm making its way across the roughened concrete walkway; the simple creature toils – a ringed tube of muscle pulsing as its body stretches opaquely pink then contracts again to the color of mud – to Chuck only knows what terminus; and Cas, knowing we all have somewhere special we long to be on tempestuous nights such as these waits so as not to impede its slimy progress.

Standing thus, sodden chestnut curls crushed into the permanent tracts of worry etching his brow, the angel glances upward to determine the source of a steady streamer of droplets smattering his trench coat lapel. Focus following the roof edge, he tarries for a few of his vessel’s heartbeats to appreciate the rhythmic drip-drop-drip sputter of an overworked gutter; the mournful bellow of a fly-by-night tractor trailer interrupts the melodically and moistly saturating song.

That, and the argumentative tones carried in the muggy air of two brothers as they plod, battle-weary and bloodied, bickering over who called dibs on a shower first. The younger concedes to the elder with a sweepingly derisive gesture indicating defeat on account of sheer exhaustion. The elder, ever happy to accept a win – any win – grunts in smug satisfaction and flashes his teeth.

At the sight of them safe – unperturbed, presently anyway, by anything supernatural – the angel permits the subtle softness of a smile to smite some of the usual seriousness squaring his jawline; he keeps an affectionately tempered watch on the men until they reach their destination.

The humidity-swollen door of suite 11 gives way to the ungentle nudging of Dean’s shoulder; the pitch within engulfs his bow-legged form.

Trailing behind his brother, Sam braces a palm to the threshold. Swiping the other across his forehead, he smears at the wet of rain and caked sweat collected there that trickles to sting his vision. Sensing the concentration of a gaze at his back, he turns to peer at the sentry-like seraph situated along the opposite row of rooms; he offers him a tired smile and a courteous nod, the micro expressions a summary of thankfulness they made it through another day – together, and mostly unscathed – and a sincere wish for a goodnight.

Cas lifts a hand from its pocketed confines to acknowledge Sam’s unspoken sentiment before the hazel-eyed hunter, too, disappears from view. Gaze falling to his water-specked boots, seeing no sign of earthworms laboring near the soles, he shifts his attention to the closed door at his right marked 23.

The door appears utterly unremarkable, like any of a thousand other doors; and yet, the two beings lodged behind the wooden barrier – a soul resplendent with a love he strives in all he does to deserve whose fitful breathing pattern he recognizes for one of tenuous slumber over the din of a television left on for distraction in his absence, and a son, not of his conception, but nonetheless his progeny by providential circumstance, choice, and a reciprocal devotion too deep to be anything less than a bond between father and son – are to him of paramount importance.

Superficially speaking, he notes the paint eroded around the knob with repeated use – a once bold hue faded to grey; studying the lock scarred by countless misaimed keys, he sifts through his trousers to locate the puzzle piece of notched metal required to garner entry. Key eluding him, likely long lost in the late kerfuffle with several lately departed demons, he concentrates his intent on the bolt and flicks two fingers to free the mechanism; the latch relents to its divine undoing with a muffled click and the door swings inward.

Warmly caressing the two precious sleeping figures within, a rush of sultry air surges along with the seraph’s irrepressibly welling grace – an angelic greeting of sorts he cannot suppress that swathes your bodies, reassuring him directly of your well-being. Irises sparkling blue, their shining surface reflecting the black and white Western ambling across the television screen, fix on Jack in the nearest bed, and you beyond, curled into yourself and clutching a pillow in lieu of your preferred bed partner, as he endeavors to quickly re-secure the door without disturbing the prevailing peace.

Feeling the familiarity of his grace smooth every inch of your skin, a small sigh of delight escapes your lips as your respiration settles to a restful regularity; even in unconsciousness, you sense the seraph’s energetically charged arrival and respond with relief.

Carpet discoloring where it drenches beneath his feet as though he is a vagabond washed ashore by the tide from a long and aimless voyage at sea, Cas divests himself of his signature – and by convenient chance, weather appropriate – coat, casting it aside to dry on a chairback, before drifting further into the room. Fingers slackening the knot of his tie and unfastening the topmost buttons of his shirt, each initial step inward liberates boots and socks and lightens his heart with the emotion of a homecoming where you discover what you remember with especial fondness endures outside the bounds of time itself. It matters not to him that only a few meager hours have passed apart which may seem to some no time at all; the iterant angel cherishes every minute fortune blesses him with a family; and not just any family – his family – the one he forged and fights for on an unshakeable foundation of faith and fidelity.

Rounding Jack’s bedside, Cas’ regard lands on a comic book loosely hanging from the boy’s grasp; the colorfully graphic pages poise in a precipitous gravitational battle between insensate fingertips and the floor. He collects the comic, reads the title of Constantine plastered across the cover, and stares for a moment at the sight of the trench coat clad centric-character. The soft smile Sam caught a glimpse of earlier eases roundness into the angel’s cheeks and fractures the flesh cornering his blues in a charming chaos of creases.

Setting the comic on the side table for safekeeping, Cas reaches down to lightly comb the hair from Jack’s cloistered eyes; stooping, he tenders a kiss to the bared forehead. “Sweet dreams, my boy,” his lips brush the gravelly murmured hope into the Nephilim’s mind, crowding out the doubt Cas knows dogs him therein; knowing well that very same pain, it hurts the angel’s heart witnessing Jack struggle to find his way in the world – between worlds – just as he did. Cas is grateful he’s here to help him navigate, to pick him up with unfailing belief and forgiveness when he falls down because he understands from experience that is what it takes to go on when it’s so much easier to give in.

A static tingle of awareness runs his vessel’s spine, climbing all the way to pill the hair peppering his nape, a sure indicator of clandestine observation. Steeped in sentimental thought, he missed the signs of you rousing. Straightening, moving with deliberate slowness of action to relish in the escalating uptick of your heartbeat as you eagerly wait for him to turn, he tugs the blanket over the boy’s shoulders and tucks him in.

As soon as the angel’s chin slants in your direction, your eyelids squeeze in a mockery of sleep; you cannot, however, repress the waking of the smile curving your mouth. Swiftly, he’s on you. Arms caging, lips seal over yours to quiet a giggle; unable to subdue the gladness of greeting where mouths meet, the shared smiles meld into something even sweeter.

It’s you – always you, human frailty an affront to the unending potential of angelic passion – that begs mercy for a breath first; pardoning yourself from the kiss to pant into the collar of his shirt, you embrace him round the neck, demanding with gentle insistence he join you in the bed.

He surrenders to the promise of loving comfort without struggle; clambering over you to collapse on the vacant side of the mattress, he notches himself in the welcoming fold of your arms.

Fingers tangling his still damp hair, you draw his head to rest on the cushion of your bosom.

Serenity, safety, and love sheltered within these walls, evenness of your breath calming, he gives himself permission to fully relax. The spectral silhouette of wings unfurling dances upon the wall in the TV's undulant light; blanketing you, the feathery tips stretch across the gap between beds to shroud, too, his son. Contentment hums in his throat.

“You guys take care of those demons?” The hushed query echoes through the laddered rungs of your ribs and into his ears.

“Mm-hmm.” He vibrates in answer.

“Sam and Dean, they’re okay?”

“They’re Sam and Dean,” he teases, volume equally low so as not to wake Jack, “they manage to be fine in spite of themselves and just about everything else that tries to prove otherwise.”

Your chest bounces in a silently contained laugh. “And what about you, angel?”

The question needs no consideration. He’s never been better. This is the future – the paradise – Jack showed him once upon a time: a present without the pain of doubt, the hunger to belong, or the want of purpose. Castiel sees now that paradise isn’t a place you go to, it’s the people you’re with – the people you love and who love you in return. Outside a storm rages and darkness forever encroaches; in here, he nestles nearer, tells you he’s, “Good,” and means it.

Castiel tag list:  (Closed, if you’d like to be removed please let me know!)    @jeepangel  @sammiesamness  @willowing-love  @roxy-davenport  @blueicevalkyrie   @im-the-nerdiest-of-them-a11  @thesugargalaxy    @bluetina-blog  @dont-trust-humanity  @honeybeetrash  @bucky-thorin-winchester  @superwholockz   @tistai  @wordstothewisereaders  @gill-ons  @mrswhozeewhatsis  @marisayouass  @stone-met   @castiel-savvy18  @samualmortgrim  @trexrambling  @magnificent-mantle  @kdfrqqg  @xdifsx  @moon-and-stars-cas  @mandilion76  @rockfairy  @peaceloveancolor  @unicorntrooper  @anisolatedship  @itsilvermorny  @aditimukul  @kudosia  @goofynerd-67babylove  @uninspirationalsonglyrics  @gray-avidan  @mishascupcake   @mishapanicmeow   @praisecastielamen  @roseyhxnt  @jessikared97  @let-the-imaginationflow  @warriorqueen1991   @sebastianstanslefteyebrow   @hisnameisboobear  @kristendanwayne  @fuschiarulerinthebluebox  @coolpencilpie  @jenabean75  @luciathewinchestergirl  @morganas-pendragons  @heyitscam99  @fangirl-and-stuff  @selahbela  @realgreglestrade  @splendidcas  @pointlesscasey  @i-larb-spooderman  @thewhiterabbit42  @thelostverse  @castieliswatchingoverme  @beccollie18  @dragonett8  @dixie-chick  @jtownraindancer   @carowinsthings  @passionghost  @sherlockedtash88  @futureparent  @gabbie7-11  @myfandomlife-blog  @dreamerkim  @shamelesslydean  @earthtokace  @neaeri  @justanormalangel  @lone-loba  @supernaturalymarvel  @lilrubixx  @wings-and-halo  @thehoneybeecastielfollows  @musiclovinchic93  @81mysteriouslyme  @the-bottom-of-the-abyss  @jaylarkson  @iminlokisarmysofi  @pixiedusts  @spookysculderfiles  @laqueus-ludovicus  @missjenniferb @lexininja  @jessiekay2010   @skrratata  @rhiannonj79  @calicat79

#castiel x reader #castiel x you #jack kline #dadstiel x reader #castiel reader insert #castielxreader #castielxyou #cas x reader #cas x you #reader x castiel #you x castiel #castiel imagine #castiel fluff #spn x reader #cricket writes cas

[blueboxesandtrafficcones]

Queen of Hearts - Chapter 16 (Final)

Thirty-year-old Rose Tyler’s matchmaking business is doing very well indeed, bringing her clients such as celebrities, athletes, and the now-happily-married son of the mayor.  All of which brings her to her newest client - one whose royal rank is a far cry above her own title as Queen of Hearts.

Ian, King of Gallifrey, calls off his wedding four weeks before the happy day as he realizes he can’t spend another minute of his life with his betrothed.  The catch - he must take a wife before his Coronation, only a month away.  In desperation, his sister and aunt conspire to find him is happy ever after - and it’s going to take a master matchmaker to do it.

-

Based on the Hallmark Movie ‘Royal Matchmaker’.  Chapters will be posted every Sunday.

As always, beta’d by the wonderful @stupidsatsuma​!  @doctorroseprompts

Masterlist  |  AO3

---

Rose stared down at him, mouth hanging open as she tried to process the scene in front of her.  This man, this wonderful, kind man she was in love with, was asking her to marry him.

She tried to say yes!, tried to make her mouth move, but nothing came out as reality all but came and smacked her in the face.

He wasn’t a man – he was a King.  A king, with a country, one that was far from London and the only life she’d ever had.  Far from her Mum, her friends, her business. I’d have to give up Matchmaking.  Could she leave that?  Could she be so selfish as to abandon her mother?

She was all Jackie had in the world, really, the only family left.  Sure they had cousin Mo, and a small smattering of aunts and uncles, but it had been just the two of them almost Rose’s entire life.

Her mouth moved, no sound coming out, and the King’s happy expression was slowly fading to worry the longer she stayed silent.  She wanted him, that was not in question, but could she make the sacrifices necessary?

And would his family, his people even accept her?  It certainly seemed like the Princess did, given she’d fetched Rose from the station, but did that mean she really wanted her?  Or was she just so desperate not to become queen that at this point anyone would do?

Tearing her eyes away from the King, she sought out the Princess and their aunt – and felt her heart stop.

Four women stood together, all smiling and waiting expectantly.  Sarah Jane, in an elegant plum color, stood next to her niece, the Princess in emerald.  On the other end was Mel, looking no different than when Rose had last seen her, in a lovely shade of mint that went perfectly with her hair.

But the fourth member, the one whose presence brought tears to Rose’s eyes, was none other than Jackie Tyler.

Mum?

Rose blinked rapidly, trying to clear away her tears, but her mother remained there, dressed in a delicate shade of pink and beaming more than the rest of them.  She caught Rose’s eye and nodded, waving her hand in the universal come on! gesture, and Rose sniffled, fighting back a laugh.

Lowering her gaze back to the King, her doubts and fears melted away.

“Yes,” she whispered, and his face lit like the sun.  “Yes,” she repeated, stronger this time, a smile growing across her face as she let out a happy giggle.  “Yes, I’ll marry you!”

“Oh thank God,” he whispered, surging up and wrapping his arms around her in a hug, cradling her tightly to him.  “You were starting to scare me.”

“Sorry,” Rose replied in kind, tightening her own grip on him.  “I was scaring myself for a second.”

They swayed in place, giggling together, for a long moment before-

“Give her the ring already!” the Princess shouted, and they broke apart, laughing.

“Right, the ring,” the King took only a small step back but it still felt like too far, Rose following him like a magnet and making him smile.  “Hand, please.”

Rose presented it, pleased that despite the nerves and anticipation swirling through her, it stayed steady as he gently slid the ring on over her knuckles to settle at the base.

“Perfect fit,” he murmured, raising it to his mouth and pressing a tender kiss to her knuckles, making her giggle once again from happiness.

“Yes, we are.”

Resting her hand against his chest the King held her gaze, wrapping his other arm around her waist and drawing her close.  “May I kiss you?”

“Only if you promise to never stop,” she murmured, meeting him halfway.

It was a bit awkward, knowing their first proper kiss was happening in front of over a hundred people and their families to boot, but Rose was too damn happy to care.  Little more than a gentle press of lips, she still ranked it as one of the best of her life, given they were too busy laughing to do it properly.

The King spun away from her then, keeping hold of her hand and showing her to their audience.  “May I present your future Queen,” he announced, as if any doubts might exist, but the room burst into applause and cheers nevertheless.

Rose thought the smile might permanently freeze on her face, and was perfectly happy with the thought.

“May I have this dance?”

“Of course.”

He gestured for the band to start playing, and they started to waltz, though he held her quite a bit closer than was technically proper for the style.

“I’m so happy,” he whispered, raining kisses to the side of her head closest to his lips, apparently unable to stop kissing her now that he was allowed to.

“Me too.”

They stopped in the middle of the floor, heedless of the other dancers swirling around them, and kissed again.

Just because they could.

-

Eventually the heavy weight of their loved ones’ gaze forced them off the dancefloor, the King should I still call him ‘the King’?  That sounds silly, doesn’t it?  Ian?  Ugh, that feels weird leading her to the table where their families were sitting, Sarah Jane and the Princess and her family next to Jackie and Mel.

“Hi, sweetheart!” her mother enthused, reaching for her, and Rose reluctantly stepped out of the King’s arms and right into her mother’s, as they held each other tight.

“Hi!  What on Earth are you doing here?!”

Jackie jerked her head in Sarah Jane and the Princess’s direction.  “They invited me!  Mel’s idea of course.”

Rose’s spine stiffened, and she shifted to glare at her assistant.  “You knew my Mum was here and let me leave?!”

“I didn’t know she was already here!” Mel protested.  “I had suggested that since Saturday was your birthday that it might be nice to bring her out, but I thought she was coming Friday morning!”

Which meant that the Princess had decided to bring Jackie in early, and Rose turned a narrowed gaze on the woman.  “When exactly did this-” she gestured to herself and the King, “become the plan?”

The Princess and her aunt exchanged looks, pretending to think.  “Um… around… the third?” the redhead said sweetly, and Rose’s jaw dropped.

“That was our second day here!”

The two women shrugged in unison, fighting smiles.  “When we saw how quickly, how easily you got under his skin, we opened ourselves to the possibility,” Sarah Jane said innocently.  “We knew for sure though at the fundraiser – that it was mutual, I mean. You couldn’t take your eyes off each other.”

Rose huffed, crossing her arms and feeling played.  “And you, missy, when exactly did you run me through the software as a potential match?”

Mel burst into laughter.  “Soon as I had numbers to run.  I just thought it’d be funny, didn’t realize you’d be so compatible.”

The King sighed beside her, wrapping an arm around Rose’s waist and pulling her into his side, where she went willingly, uncrossing her arms in favor of holding him.  “So you just let us spend the last two weeks miserable instead of just telling us?”

“Telling you what?” his sister retorted.  “You knew how you felt perfectly well, you were just too much of a coward to do anything about it.  Then you refused to just ask her.  Don’t blame this on us!”

“Ask me?  Ask me what?” Rose asked, brow furrowed, before catching sight of her ring.  “I mean, something beyond the obvious?”

The Princess and Sarah Jane both gave him a pointed look, making him groan and ruffle his hair.

“I may have been under the impression you were engaged,” he grumped, staring down at the floor.  “I overheard you on Thursday, talking about planning a wedding.”

She burst into laughter, heart easing.  “No!  I was going to help my oldest friend plan his wedding – though I suppose I can’t now.”  For a moment, she let herself mourn the life in London she would never return to, but only a moment – her future in Gallifrey was far too bright to be sorry for long.  “That’s alright!  I can always Skype in, if I’ve got the time.”

“He was devastated,” Sarah Jane said knowingly, smirking at her nephew.  “Wouldn’t stop sulking.”

Rose smiled up at the King, squeezing his side.  “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head.  “Not your fault,” he muttered, “that’s what I get for eavesdropping and jumping to assumptions.  I just… resigned myself.  I didn’t think I had any right to try to tempt you away from him.”

“I would’ve gone willingly,” she promised, “even if we had still been together.  I was in too deep with you.”

They kissed again, the table in front of them drawing out their awwww.

“Take a walk with me?” he whispered against her lips, and Rose nodded.

“I’d go anywhere with you.”

-

The ballroom hosting the engagement party was at the back of the castle, with doors that could open out onto the patio in nicer weather.  Despite being late April it was still a touch too cool, but they were able to slip out through one of the doors, and suddenly, they were alone.

“Hello,” Rose laughed, as they laced their arms and meandered down the patio until they were past the ballroom.

“Hello.”

Once out of sight of his- of their guests and wasn’t that a thrill, to think they shared something- of course, now they shared an entire future – he tugged her to a stop, bringing her into his arms and nuzzling her nose with his.

“You’re warm,” Rose- his fiancée, and wasn’t that a trip? murmured, nestling closer, and he belatedly realized she was outside on a cold night in a strapless gown.

“Hold on.”  Reluctantly stepping back he eased his jacket off, mindful of the medals and ribbons decorating it as he draped it around her shoulders.  “Better?”

She hummed, burying her nose in the collar, and though he couldn’t see her mouth, knew she was smiling up at him.  “Thanks.”

He tugged her back to him, cupping her chin and gently angling her head up for a kiss, one she gladly surged onto her toes to lean into, daring to let his tongue trace her plump lips, loving the little gasp she gave and darting inside.

But Rose, his love, was hardly a passive participant, and it was almost obscene, how much pleasure he was drawing from a simple meeting of mouths and tongues, how easy it was to lose himself in the taste of her, holding her tighter against him.

Eventually they pulled away, and he was gratified to see her panting as heavily as he was, eyes heavy with desire.

“That was nice,” she whispered, giving him a teasing smile, tongue peeking out between her teeth.

“If you like, we can spend the rest of our lives doing that,” he rasped, brushing a flyaway hair from her face mostly for the excuse to touch her.

Rose hummed, tapping her chin in mock thought.  “Pretty sure I’ve already agreed to that.”

“I may need some convincing that this is real.”  He sampled her lips again, unable to get over how right it all felt.  “Seems legit.”

A shadow fell over her face, mood shifting to a more serious tone, and Ian sighed.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“Are you sure?” she asked timidly, toying with a button on his dress shirt.  “Not… not personally, I don’t think, but… me.  As queen.  D’you think I can do this?”

Ian laughed, tugging her closer still.  “Of course.  As does everyone else, or they wouldn’t have worked so hard to stop us from making a terrible mistake.  We’ll teach you what you need to know.  It’ll be fine.  It might be hard sometimes, but we’ll get through.  Together.”

“Together.”  Rose fisted his tie, drawing his mouth down to hers for a long moment.  “I like the sound of that.”

“Me too.”  Her brow was still furrowed though, and he nuzzled her nose again.  “What is it?  You can say anything.  There’s no question too dumb.”

She blinked up from beneath her lashes, looking impossibly young and innocent, and for just a moment he had doubts about dragging her into the chaos of monarchy, but forcefully pushed those feelings aside.

“What do I call you?”

Of all the things he’d been preparing himself for, that wasn’t one.  “What?”

“What do I call you?” she repeated, staring at the knot of his tie.  “The King?  Your Majesty?”

“My name’s Ian,” he said blankly, wrinkling his nose at the thought.  “You would use those when speaking about me, but when addressing me, Ian is fine.  Though, for you, I think I’d be rather happy to answer to ‘Husband’.”

Rose let out a deep breath, shaking her head slightly before meeting his eye with a determined glint, her smile back.  “Okay.  We’ll figure it out.  For tonight, let’s just celebrate!”

“Oh?” he teased, swaying her slightly to the distant strains of the band, unable to get over how beautiful she looked in the moonlight.  “Are we celebrating?”

“Yep!”  She popped the ‘p’, making him smile.  “Cause guess what?  We never have to go on any sort of blind date ever again.”

Ian burst into laughter, shaking his head.

“Now

that

is something worth celebrating!”

---

The End

...

For Now

---

Hello!  Thank you for joining me on this lovely journey.  I started writing it in late March, and it’s hard to believe that this particular story is over.  @stupidsatsuma and I have poured many hours into this story, writing it, editing it, and just plotting!  I’m very grateful to all of you who have read it.

But how can this be then end?! you cry.  There’s so much more to the story!

Well, you’ll be pleased to know that we agree!  While it’s still in the early stages, and a ways away, there will be (at least!) one full-length sequel.  I won’t go into details at the moment, but I have reasonably-firm plans for the next story, and tentative ones for the third.

If you’re interested in seeing those when they’re ready to be shared, I recommend subscribing to the Queen of Hearts series on AO3 - once it’s ready, it will be posted both here and there.

Thank you!

#bbatcfic #doctorroseprompts #ficandchips #Doctor Who #12xRose #12th Doctor #Rose Tyler #AU #Queen of Hearts #royalty AU

[morebedsidebooks]

15 Years Later Batman: War Games

I’ve considered myself a comics fan from the time as a little girl I received hand-me-down superhero comics from one of my older brothers. I spent a good deal of my childhood wrapped up in various tales published by DC comics mainly but, also other American creations as well as those from Asia and Europe. Lately I’ve been diving back into some of those DC comics. One character from Batman, Poison Ivy has remained one of my all-time favourites. But I’m not going to be writing about Pam today despite her being a recent topic of conversation. The reason being, during my trip down memory lane I was reminded of another contentious event in DC comics history. The October 2004 issue of Detective Comics #797 included the first part of “Low” a three-part story about Poison Ivy and the Riddler. However, that issue also started the first Act of War Games, an event which with prelude War Drums added in engulfed Batman comics for 10 months beginning earlier in March that year.

War Games, where a hypothetical stratagem Batman devised against Gotham’s underworld is put into action with disastrous consequences, can be memorable for several reasons. I remember it because of another beloved Batman character to me who played a major role Stephanie Brown, aka the Spoiler and for a short time also the fourth Robin among other designations. (She was however not the first young lady Robin if one includes The Dark Knight Returns which is outside main continuity.) The treatment of Stephanie, in War Games is the reason that I took a break from reading DC comics for a long time. 2019 marks 15 years since those events. So, with DC once again facing criticisms about how it wrangles philosophy and portrays violence, trauma and death I think it is time to revisit some of Stephanie’s history too.

Stephanie Brown was created in 1992 by Chuck Dixon and Tom Lyle debuting in Detective Comics #647. A teenager from some difficult circumstances with a criminal dad and mother with a prescription addiction.

She becomes a vigilante named Spoiler to thwart her father, eventually gaining allies and older mentors, also dating Tim Drake the third Robin.

Stephanie like those around her is not a perfect character having her share of mistakes and tribulations but, she also strives to improve and works towards making some difference in the world that isn’t as it should be. The Robin comic was particularly noteworthy for chapters featuring her teen pregnancy by an ex-boyfriend and the decision to put the child up for adoption. (Robin #65, 1999)

As well as in another powerful issue her confiding about an attempted rape at age 11 by her father’s friend who was left to watch her during an effort at rehab for her mother. (Robin #111, 2003)

Through it all she had a perseverance and resilience that became inspiring and her efforts and convictions led to her becoming a part of the Bat-family. So, it was quite a development when unable to stop the sudden murder of a key ally Orpheus (whose bloody body would be featured across pages to come as well) she was extensively tortured by the villain Black Mask, leading to a likewise incredibly difficult death scene with Batman by her bedside at the end of the third act of War Games in December 2004. Orpheus became a martyr figure (currently his last appearance which feels like a waste, along with the causticity  of killing off a character that talked about representation) and characters mourned Stephanie too, with a whole host of emotions as fans tried to come to terms also.

Not to be outdone though some months later when questions arose in War Crimes, the situation around Stephanie’s fate would get even worse with another principal character Dr. Leslie Thompkins given some of the worst (and out of character) motivations for not properly treating Stephanie, betraying her profession and the people close to her.

After Thompkins’ clinic becomes ground zero for the casualties in the massive gang war it’s an absurd decision to send a message to Bruce and young protégés about their actions. Not the first time the heartbreak would be used in such a manner either. It’s not all happy endings. It would be almost four years before DC returned to Stephanie’s fate retconning, revealing the truth of her death as a deliberate falsehood. (Robin #174, July 2008)

However, pouring more salt on the wound those years were a period during which she was also disrespected in death, an executive editor saying Stephanie was never a true Robin despite that going against Batman’s own words written in the comic on more than one occasion. Unsurprisingly behind the scenes editorial decisions about torturing and killing a 16-year-old teenage character apparently did not sit well with all the writers either. Stephanie taking on the Robin role was some small bright point of achievement to be wrestled before the horrible events to come, but also working as a ploy readers would fall into. When Tim’s father has it out with Bruce to put it mildly after discovering their vigilante personas, the developments of a new Robin (a position Stephanie held story-wise only 71 days before Batman fired her) did reportedly boost sales.

But she further had to die as Spoiler because another dead Robin is too much, for Batman. Young as I was in 1988, I too remember the spectacle death of Jason Todd the second Robin whose memory looms from the start in the prologue War Drums.

DC wasn’t done with him either. Reading stories of Jason, some that felt like the material I’d been craving for a long time, nevertheless always make me wonder where we’d be if the vote on his survival all those years ago had been different. A Death in the Family would seem to be a culmination after other titles usually on one’s lips around the experimentation of the late 80s less of interrogation and maturity perceiving a world growing darker inside and out but, the one question of what is too far to come back from.

And 16 years after it, well a dead Spoiler tortured and gone was too much for me. After nearly just as much time again today in 2019 marking the 15th anniversary of War Games I’m surprised in fact at how much the story even now hits me right in the chest. It’s been a long time with many, many people creating countless more titles at DC Comics. Including stories featuring Stephanie Brown who has gone on to take the mantle of Batgirl at one point (that same executive editor finally acknowledging how she connected to a portion of the fanbase and Bat-family in 2009) and likewise been reimagined through the reboots of the comics. (Stephanie in Rebirth’s Victim Syndicate in 2016 was particularly striking to me.)

Yet, I remember most clearly the earlier Stephanie perhaps by virtue being a teenager back then too. Or maybe in a similar fashion as impressionable of a moment as the comics I first received from one of my older brothers, as a young adult War Games seared into me a visual of a brand which gives its characters direction from bad places, hope, lets them rise and then to paraphrase it as a writer once did crush them like a bug. As a young child I could say wow Robins can die. Older, I could ask so what does it mean.

There are all kinds of stories, and what they offer to people as diverse as humanity itself. The ugly, tragedies and heartbreaks are important too for many reasons. I could write instead about such examples I’m fond of or, respect. Pieces of fiction that dance that line of examining and representing truth, little windows maybe the glass becoming a mirror that’s more painful because it is so familiar or, cuts when it breaks. Superheroes don’t live in the real world. But there is a very real world we live in where there are people that have and are growing up with no trust in authorities, screwed up parents, losing parents, becoming parents, facing sexual assault, abuse, gang violence and schools becoming yet another killing ground among other challenges. These sort of wars that are fought can leave a host of scars and casualties. Whether those 18 years or so are good or bad we’re lucky if they are only a small part of a larger life. Too often that’s not the case. But still, I have to ask when I pick up a comic and seem to find the same over and over, as time marches on what about this common story of harm and death has changed and what is its legacy?

#superhero comics #batman war games #stephanie brown #the spoiler #robin #15 years later

[astoryorafew]

When Weird Names do Weird Things

I wrote this for class, the prompt was zombies. Because I like space I decided to make the story about zombies in space. Also the government is corrupt. I’m debating adding to this story, but I’m not sure yet.

Warnings: Zombies I guess?

________________________________________________________________

I open my eyes. The light is bright, and I have to squint to make out my surroundings. My last name, Pogrermmar, runs down the glass of my cryopod. There are large ice crystal deposits in the edges, probably having built up over a long period of time. I am very cold, numb even, almost as if I have been sitting buried in a snow bank for hours. At first, I don’t recognize where I am. Then it hits me. I’m on a pilgrimage to Earth. I left my home planet of Terger almost 300 years ago. 

After humans established colonies in space, it became traditional to go back to Earth to see where humanity once came from, usually in the 20th year, sometimes as old as 25. People have to enter a lottery to go, only the 25 luckiest people get to go with each ship, and ships only launch off Terger every seven years. Everyone enters the lottery, if someone doesn’t, they become an outcast. It’s completely free to those 25, the government sponsors it as a historical attraction, like a museum. Honestly, it’s a miracle I’m even here. At lottery time people kill to get a spot, once someone’s name is announced they automatically have a target on their back because people want their spot so bad. The government even encourages it. If someone gets killed whomever killed them gets their spot.

I had to say goodbye to my family and my friends when I launched. They send us to the stars in cryogenic pods, our bodies frozen in time, but our families and friends aren’t. They would be distant memories by the time I reach Earth. By the time I got back, they would have died half a millennium previously. Waking up is bittersweet. On one hand I am barely able to contain my excitement at finally getting to see the ancient home of humanity, but, on the other hand, if I’m awake, then everyone I knew back home, is dead. I don’t have much time to ponder the intricacies of death and waking up knowing everyone I know being dead. My capsule is being opened, and a rush of cold air accompanies the slight hissing sound.

I climb out of my capsule, and look around. I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror. My skin is waxy, my eyes look like I got punched in the face a couple times. I can see my ribs poking out. My skin is purple tinged, like a giant bruise. I look like a glass doll that could break with the slightest breeze. That’s not right. If 300 years had passed, then I should be back to normal, back to the way I was before the starship Nebula set off to Earth. That’s what the scientists said before we left, at least, that there would be no difference to us when we reached our destination other than being slightly cold. Then I hear Nebula’s AI, VIN, saying on repeat “malfunction in cryo units, all personnel, please assist, then go back to sleep”.

I hear other pods opening. I turn. Everyone else is coming out, and they all look as frail and bruised as I do. Everyone is visibly confused as they see each other. Then the questions start coming and VIN’s words are lost in the babel. “What’s going on?”

“Why did we get woken early?”

“Why are we so damaged?”

“Are we off course?”

“Are we at Earth?”

Other questions circulate in a jumbled mass of consonants and vowels, words that can’t be picked out of the hubbub in a sensible order. I am the first on to look to VIN for answers. All he says though is that there was a malfunction in Erstentot’s pod, and he has no registering vital signs. Having heard that, everyone looks the one remaining closed pod. Across the center of the pod ERSTENTOT is written. The monitor on his pod says he has no heartbeat, however slowed down it may be in the cold, no respiration, and no apparent cognitive function, not even the slightest electrical impulse connecting between synapses. VIN has had him designated dead for the last week.

As we begin to mourn the death of our crewmate, his pod slowly opens, and out steps a completely normal looking Karl Erstentot. His skin is slightly waxy, but not purple or bruised looking. He looks malnourished like the rest of us, yet he does not seem frail and frozen. He looks to almost be in the prime of his health. I, among others, begin to celebrate. Erstentot was easily the favorite of the crew, and we were all happy to see him. Harbingar, always the most on edge, was the first to question his apparent health. His unsteady gait, almost as though he was heavily drunk, his blank face, showing not even the slightest hint of wonder, joy, or confusion, and his slight moan and grumble as he shuffled towards us is all wrong. If he was living and healthy, he would be the same as the rest of us. Purple, bruised, and frailer than a dried-up leaf crumbling under a shoe.

Suddenly, Erstentot lunges at Harbingar. Within an instant, he had been bitten. Color slowly starts returning to his body, his face relaxes, and he lets out a small groan as he turns to the rest of the crew. The other twenty-three of us are sitting ducks and in the next moment three more have been bitten. Kirthen is the first to react. She grabs a backpack from under on of the pods and starts pushing Erstentot towards the inner airlock door. The rest of us, taking her example, start trying herd all of them out of the room and into the airlock. Many of my crewmates, high on adrenaline, don’t think to protect themselves from being bitten. Many of them end up getting the strange infection as well, making isolating them take longer, but, finally, everyone that had been bitten had been shut out.

I look around at those of us that are left. There are only seven. Seven against eighteen is not the best odds. Luckily Kirthen, the brains of the operation and the only one who can think on her feet apparently, was not infected. She suggests asking VIN what happened. VIN, being less than helpful, states “the infection was caused by” and then he pauses for a long moment and continues with “classified”.

Not the answer we wanted to hear from our AI that was supposed to be monitoring everything, on a trip promoted and sponsored by the government, especially since ‘classified’ usually means ‘the government doesn’t want to tell you this’. Kirthen turned to look at me, “I know we aren’t supposed to talk about our lives before, but Pogrermmar, in your introduction you said you were a programmer back on Terger, right? Did you work on government computers and do you think you’d be able to hack an AI?”

I meet her eyes, I want to lie and confidently say ‘of course I can, its not like its rocket science’ just to try to keep up morale, but I can’t bring myself to lie. I’ve never even gotten close to artificial intelligence. I was really good at normal computers, even the super computers that were just between AI and normal computers, but I have never been able to try my hand at AI. No, lying is not the best course of action, because if I fail that makes things so much worse. However, I know that bluntly stating the truth would also make the crew left unscathed panic and lose faith that there is a possible way out. I hate that how I answer might make or break the ability for all of us to live through this. Not knowing what else to do, I hold Kirthen’s gaze, while shuffling my feet nervously, and tell her “I can’t promise anything, but I can try”.

It’s not the reassurance anyone was looking for, but when we’re lost in space and have crazy cannibalistic people that used to be our crew mates in the airlock, its more than nothing. I walk over to the central computer screens, and realize I’m in way over my head. I know what most of the buttons do, but some of them I have never seen before. I decide the best first step is to take the ship itself out of autopilot, causing VIN to become a copilot rather than the mind of the ship. Then since I haven’t come up with any other better ideas, I start the same process I would take if I hacked any other computer.

Somehow it works, and I get access to all of the classified files. Except all of them is only one. It is a video clip of the prime minister of the Federation of Terger, speaking only to a camera. As far as I can tell there is no one else in the room with him. He seems nervous and fidgety, almost as if he’s afraid of being interrupted by someone. He starts out quiet, saying “If you’re seeing this, then you have been able to contain the disease, asked what happened and all you got was ‘classified’ in response, and been able to hack your AI. I can, and will, answer your questions, all of them, even the ones you haven’t asked yet. First, what is the disease? It is an extremely effective parasitic worm that can take over a host within a minute. It also reproduces at a quick rate, meaning that it can transfer to new hosts almost instantly. That we have found, there is no cure.”

He pauses before continuing on, “At first we were developing it as a way to quickly and effectively shut down threats. What we were not expecting however, was how fast and indiscriminately it spread. We found the only way to effectively stop it was to destroy the brain of the host. We barely contained it and kept it from killing the world. We shut it away for years, unable to kill it without it being in a killable host, and that was too risky. One day as the Earth started overpopulating someone brought it up again as a means of population control. Few remembered what had happened the first time, but those who did objected strongly. The only way to placate everyone was to send groups to space to ‘colonize’ the stars, only to release the parasite. When we went to one central planet-wide government we changed the planets name. Soon memory of Earth was forgotten other than as a distant planet we once came from. And then we started advertising trips back to Earth. When we realized that people would kill for a spot, we encouraged it. It was the best form of population control anyone could think of-” He breaks off, glancing toward what was most likely a side door, before he continues, “I’m not supposed to say any of this so I have to go, but if you get this, tell your AI to ‘take us home’ and your ship will bring you back. Make sure you get rid of the zombies before you do though, we don’t need them planet-side ever again. If you do make it back, please share this video with the world. They need to know the truth-”. He stops again turning to the door, and his body takes a hit, a sharp report sounding a second later. With that, he turns once again to the screen, presses a key and the video ends.

The seven of us left slowly process what I just uncovered. Kirthen is the first to move. She walks over with tears in her eyes to the airlock, and she opens it, sending all the bitten into space. Then she walks over to where I am sitting, puts VIN back on autopilot, and says “take us home VIN”.

�b��<�

#When Weird Names do Weird Things #first person pov