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yeoldontknow · 4 years

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Ciperion: 1/2

Author: @yeoldontknow as part of the Anchors & Arrows collaboration with @imdifferentshadesofpurple Pairing: Jaebeom x Reader (oc; female) Genre: fantasy!au; shipwreck au; jaebeom is a fisherman; romance; angst; elements of horror; ghosts; eventual smut Summary: Everyone on the Isle Indolon knows the story of Ciperon, though none believe it is true. Over centuries, the tale of the long lost ghost ship on the high seas has become little more than urban legend. In his youth, Jaebeom always thought the story was heartbreaking, and he did his best to avoid it - the same way he avoids the missionaries that have taken occupation on the island. On the anniversary of Ciperion’s ill-fated port date, you wash up on sea, and only you have the answers he’s always been seeking. If only you could remember who you are. Rating (this part): PG-13 Warnings (this part): angst; shipwrecks; references to head trauma; jaebeom does CPR; jaebeom rescuing an unconcious woman; allusions to sexual assault but it didnt happen, he just is protective and misinterprets everything; anxiety; ptsd; vomiting; ghost stories; graphic depictions of violence; mentions of blood; non-major character death; themes of horror; lots of grief; memory loss; jb doesnt really know what to do with himself; mentions of becoming a widow; it sounds really sad but i promise its not that bad; tbh oc is a really great sport Word Count: 17.5K

Three hundred miles off the emerald coast of Isle Indolon, Second Mate Ansil Green looks up at the shimmering night of the dark sky and feels a chill of apprehension burrow deep within his bones.

There are only three days left to their journey, and for five months he has charted each with meticulous accuracy. It is easy to rely on the stars, he thinks. Their steadfast illumination and the reassurance found in their seasonal rotation have brought him immeasurable comfort throughout his life, and not once, not even on nights when storms threaten to eat their way through the ship’s bowsprit, have they ever led him astray.

In the berthing hull, the missionaries say their prayers with tightly clasped hands, while others read their scrolls in preparation for new lectures once they reach the shore. Back in Indolon, Ansil’s wife and two children anxiously await his triumphant return, and everyone, every crew member and stow away rat, is eager to breach land. Even now, he can see it clearly - his wife’s pretty eyes as she laughs, small crescent moons that remind him of the night sky; the youthful, almost violent laughter of his sons as they play in the fields; the creaking if their iron bed frame as he rocks between her thighs, not unlike the ship as she rocks against the sea.

Tonight, he wonders if these simple treasures have fallen too far out of reach, if they have slipped, imperceptibly, out of his grasp.

Because tonight, the stars are wrong.

Gripping the mahogany banister, he leans against the side and cranes his neck, angling his view slightly to the right in the hopes of correcting the pattern. Something about this is terribly wrong, wrong enough that the deepening doubt bites at him, heating his skin like a fever. Chewing the inside of his cheek, he does his best to swallow this worry, attempts, rather meekly, to focus on the light flapping of the mainsail above him, on its rhythmic and soothing white noise that often helps him drift, hazily, through sleepless nights. Now, it offers him little comfort, the wind that moves the ship rustling through his hair, stroking against the shell of his ear, carrying whispers of splintered wood and rocky shores blackened by sea water mixing with spilled blood.

Heavy footsteps make their approach from behind, the purposeful strides and confident gait of Captain Grier L’Allante causing the heels of his boots to shatter the false sense of peace. Ansil does not move to greet his Captain, and while this would be considered an insult on any other crew ship, he supposes Grier has become used to his flippant and yet focused attitude when the stars are out, decades of manning ships alongside one another having reduced the rules of propriety almost entirely non-existent. Keeping his gaze on the sky, he feels Grier come to stand beside him, the heat of his closeness full of pride and awe; admiring the vastness of the sea before him, he exudes an energy that puts a sour taste in the back of Ansil’s throat.

How he hates to ruin the evening.

‘We’re going in the wrong direction,�� he announces, feeling Grier stiffen rather than deflate entirely.

His captain hums in consideration, never one to give over to fear or uncertainty. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Look at the stars.’ Ansil corrects his posture and regards his friend with pleading eyes. It is, perhaps, the first time he has ever shown signs of fear with his captain, but Grier maintains his composure and presses his lips into a thin line. ‘They’re at the wrong angle by about twenty-six degrees,’ he continues to explain.

Pointing up at the constellation Cassiopeia, he gestures a long straight line back behind him, back towards the foresail, in the direction of Hydra. Turning once again to look at Grier, he waits for some kind of flicker of emotion to pass over his features, and when nothing comes, he simply sighs, pressing his friend for more.

‘This distance shouldn’t be this wide,’ he offers grimly, straightening his posture to stand at his full height. ‘Did we turn?’

‘No.’ Grier barks his reply with forceful authority, though, behind his eyes there is a storm brewing, a brief flash of concern that placates Ansil. ‘I helm this ship myself, and you know in your heart we haven’t turned. You said straight on until dawn, and the wind is steady at four knots to the South-West. We’re still on course.’

In unison, they turn back to the sky, and Ansil tightens his grip on the railing. ‘There’s something bad about this. I can feel it.’

Grier chuckles amicably. ‘What you’re feeling is five months staring at the same bloody lights in the sky.’ His gaze falls on Ansil’s profile, and he can feel him regarding his features with probing scrutiny. ‘You didn’t even take a woman at the last port,’ he states, nudging his shoulder with a force that makes Ansil lean to the side.

‘They’re not precisely the same,’ he admonishes with a laugh. Grier regards him expectantly, but all Ansil can manage is a sigh of longing. He’d love to laugh at this kind of crude joke, and normally he would, but three days is somehow longer than five insurmountable months, the ability to count them transmuting the number into something brutal. ‘And you know I’d never do that to Mala.’

Taking off his hat, Grier runs a hand through the greasy black strands of his hair, grimacing through his laugh. ‘Too loyal for your own good.’

This is something Ansil can tease him about, and he offers his friend an impish grin, taking his own opportunity to nudge Greir’s shoulder roughly, revealing his hidden strength. ‘And your prick is too slippery for your health.’

It’s childish, the way they punch their fists into one another’s arms, the jovial nature of this making him feel as though they are teenagers once again. At once, he is nineteen and Grier has just convinced him to come out to sea, to stow away on his father’s vessel, and they are laughing at the reckless foolishness of this idea. But they are smiling, already hungry for the adventure, already wanting the spray from the waves and the salt that shall never leave their skin. They are young and they are hopeful, and now, even after the bloodshed and the violence and the horror they have seen among the ocean, he thinks they have never been quite as dangerous as they were then.

‘You need rest, mate,’ Grier advises once they’ve settled back against the railing. They look out over the ocean, the water as black as the night it reflects, light of the moon illuminating the peaks of waves and casting shadows behind them as long as the sea is wide. Releasing a deep sigh through the flare of his nostrils, he suddenly becomes alarmingly serious. ‘Otherwise, it’s scurvy.’

A beat of silence passes between them, a pregnant pause in which neither one of them breathes, the word hanging heavily between them both, unwilling to be touched. Until, they erupt into laughter, Ansil leaning against the railing to steady himself atop the wet baseboards. A wave hits the side of the ship and sprays gently against his cheeks, cooling his skin and for a moment, he is grounded in the happiness of this. For a moment, the sky is clear and he can see Grier’s warm, too kind smile; can see the way the ship is heading home, steadfast and unyielding in her journey.

For a moment, there is peace.

Calming his breath, he runs a hand over his face and nods. ‘What I would give for a peach.’

Ansil waits for the inevitable hum of commiseration, a sound of companionship in the memory of the juicy ripeness of Indolon peaches - the yellow of their fruit so moist it would leave their hands sticky for days. He can almost taste the burst of flavor in his mouth, tongue wet in desperation for something other than the salt and brine of oysters and trout, and finds the only consolation for this hunger is that they shall arrive in time for the peak season.

Ansil waits for Grier, but the sound never comes, his captain watching the waves beyond the ship with lips parted in pale shock. Knotting his brow, Ansil takes his time turning to look where Grier’s focus rests, the tendrils of dread rising once more within his belly. The fear in him feels almost inhuman, taking full control of his joints as they stiffen, keeping him rigid and held firmly in place. Grier continues looking out to sea, blood rushing away from his cheeks, likely retreating within to service more important pieces in preparation of survival.

When Ansil finally gathers his strength, he swallows thickly, and looks out to the water. He has lived through war - a great many battles on Naval ships both larger and smaller than this. He has seen dying men beg for both life and death, the fear in their eyes making it unclear which they crave more. He has seen waves rise taller than the ships he crews, seeking an immortal companion for her enduring loneliness.

But he has never seen fog overtake the earth quite like this, or with such wrath.

It comes from nowhere and everywhere all at once, swallowing both sea and sky as it crawls across the horizon. From its center, an ethereal light seems to glow, a beacon to herald the nothingness that surrounds them, but even this light too is a half formed shadow, the core of its rays smeared across miles as it spreads within the clouds. The blood in his ears in unrelenting, the rush of his blood to his thunderous heart making his head begin to hurt as he watches it spread. Has anything ever been so fast?

The fog works quickly to cover everything in sight, racing towards the ship at a speed he simply cannot comprehend. When he was young, and newly appointed to Third Mate Naval Officer, he sailed aboard the Cygnus, the fastest ship Indolon had ever produced - reaching a record breaking thirteen knots in the correct wind conditions. Somehow, this fog is so much faster, ravenous for absolutely everything it touches as the waves begin to still beneath its touch.

The wind ceases.

The waves still, cannibalised by the fog.

And as he looks to Grier, their eyes mirroring the horror they find in each other, he realizes the ship has come to a full stop.

It is when the fog touches the boat that he hears it, the anguished screaming of men beneath their feet. Even at war, he has never heard such terror as this. The sound is born from men suddenly learning that they will die, this death an ambush to the unsuspecting and therefore all the more gruesome in its wake. He regards his feet with a disgust that taints his numbness, the abjection of this noise releasing a myriad of feelings within his veins - the urge to run, the urge to scream, a tightness in his throat so painful he fears he may suffocate on the size of it, and the overwhelming desire to cry. Yet, it seems his body cannot decide upon any of these, and so settles on none, rendering him absolutely and completely silent.

They stand above the berthing hull, listening to the missionaries burst to life for one extraordinary moment before their echoes die one by one, their last breath a wail of anguish. As Ansil takes in a long, slow inhale to steady his growing panic, he can smell the acrid stench of blood and piss wafting up between the boards, bile rising to the back of his throat. The silence that befalls them in the aftermath is threatening, an eerie calm that raises gooseflesh along his skin. Bones brittle and mouth dry, he simply stares at Grier and takes in every detail he can, unfailingly certain this is the last time they will see one another.

In the distant horizon a tall mast looms beyond the mist, the main mast taller than that of their vessel. The crow’s nest is empty, and if he focuses long enough he has the passing sensation he could look right through the wood into an empty, eternal void.

‘It can’t be,’ he whispers, reminding himself it is just a legend and that legends are buried in the past.

They are buried.

His voice carries no echo, the atmosphere around them tight enough his voice lives and dies before him, reaching nowhere else but his own ears. Grier does not even react, does not make any movement at all, save for the shifting of his attention to the world behind Ansil, eyes trained on something that makes his adam’s apple bob in the effort of swallowing his trepidation.

A bead of sweat glides down Ansil’s spine, and he can feel an angry shadow looming behind him. Burning like hellfire, he waits for the scent of his own flesh bubbling beneath his chemise to reach his nose, readying for immolation. Death comes slowly for people like him, he supposes. It likes to take its time weighing the worth of his soul and the value of his existence. He has made love and he has made life, but he has taken far more than he has created, and so he suspects this slow conquering of his person is deserved - retribution for the bloodstains etched into his palms.

‘Ciperion,’ Grier says, eyes widening in sudden, terrible realization.

It is the last thing Ansil sees and hears before cold hands wrap around his jaw, pressing fingers into his mouth and pulling until the pain in his bones, his skin, his muscles is so great the world turns black.

Standing on the old oak dock behind his home, Jaebeom stares out at the open sea and knows that, today, the water is ruthless.

He can feel the rage beneath her waves, the violent and unforgiving aggression of the current guiding the water as it rolls up against the edge of the dock, shaking its legs as if testing the foundation’s strength. The first light of morning is unable to penetrate the intense cloud cover along the horizon, their peaks and valleys tinged with red shadows behind the murky green and black. Awake far too early to begin his descent to the jetty, he balls his fists in the pockets of his linen coat and eyes the gathering storm with suspicion.

Once again, he’s been brought out.

Pulled from his feather bed by some unseen force, it has become a habit for him to spend his early hours on the dock, overtaken by a profound sense of longing. Rooting himself to the wood, he has grown used to the passage of time that drifts beyond him, and finds that he is unencumbered by these lost moments. It’s been happening more often as late, his sleep interrupted by the desire to see and to know, an endless stream of questions burning at the back of his mind that chase the sleep from his limbs. But, always, the words are garbled, the thoughts unclear.

It is worse today - somehow, he knows this with all of his being. Even as he stands, completely alone and unseen, he feels naked all the way down to his nerves. Narrowing his eyes, he peers at the water, unblinking, taking hold of the ache within his chest. Something is missing, has been lost. Or, perhaps, it was taken from him, the intense longing in his chest delivering him a nostalgia too great to be expressed or understood. If he looks long enough, he can almost envision it emerging from the horizon, precariously balanced as though hanging on a thread.

But the image never fully forms, never reveals its nature, and he is left bereft, hissing a sigh of frustration between his teeth.

Gulls pass overhead, making way for the Southern shore. Their calls are the music of the morning, a siren song that only serves to mire him deep within his thoughts, and he blinks several times as he rolls his shoulders back, trying, and failing, to collect himself. The current sends a rough breeze through the thin fabric of his chemise, the uncharacteristically cool summer air nipping at his skin, and he bristles though he does not shiver. Digging his nails into his palm, he struggles to gather the will to leave, every bone in his body telling him he must wait.

Each morning Jaebeom finds himself in this position, looking out to the open water and waiting - wanting to write love letters, wanting to write odes, often wanting to simply cry or curse the tide for what it has taken, but he remains mute, dumbfounded, lingering expectantly for an answer that will not come. And he is angry, muttering to himself that he must leave, that there is no purpose here, but the thought of missing it only serves to aggravate his insistence on keeping still, on looking and looking harder.

‘Come on,’ he mumbles, as if willing a response from the sea.

When nothing comes, the muscles in his arms and thighs tense as he presses himself into the dock. ‘Show me,’ he hisses, emphatically.

Immediately he feels terribly silly, not even certain to whom he is speaking. It is not the first time he has made these demands, not the first time he has called out to the sea as if it would even deign to reply. The answering silence and empty air should neither surprise nor disappoint him, but as his posture curls and his chest deflates, he finds both of these things happen in quick succession. Something is out there, something beyond the place the light touches, and he thinks what frustrates him most is the endless unknowing.

Voices along the shore break his concentration, a group of missionaries walking side by side, barefoot in the warm sand as they talk, sometimes laugh, amongst one another. The sound of their chatter breaks the magic of this hour, an unwelcome interruption to the morning solitude. At once he returns to himself, hands in his pockets relaxing out of the fists he’s been holding, and suddenly he feels rather neutral about his position on the dock, about the ocean, and the thick clouds overhead.

The town has started to wake, the missionaries commencing their morning walk a sign that he is late - terribly late, and the time it will take him to prepare his sails and his nets will likely cause him to miss the golden fishing hour. Closing his eyes, he hangs his head and sighs, certain he will lose the best crabs of the day.

Briskly walking along the shore to the jetty, he keeps a wide berth from the missionaries as he passes. Jaebeom keeps his eyes trained on the rocky jut of the shoreline, keeping his posture rigid in the effort of not being overtaken by the staggering sense of unease that gradually drops his feet to his stomach with each step he takes. He’s certain they must feel this, must feel the crushing weight of his discomfort, and he furrows his brow, swallows thickly, and grits his teeth as he prepares for conversation.

‘Good day,’ they chime in unison, bowing their heads in greeting. The steely chill in their voices makes him shiver. ‘May Deus keep you.’

Jaebeom simply nods politely, but says nothing, finding no solace in their words. On instinct, his attention diverts to the slotted diamond shaped symbols on their rosaries, a sense of nausea rising in his stomach. Lifting his gaze to their faces, he focuses on their features - their eyes, their well practiced smiles, their royal blue square hats - but all the while, he battles against himself, soul willing him with all its might to look, once more, at the rosaries.

Quickening his steps, he hurries past them, releasing a breath he did not know he had been holding. Running a hand through his hair, he chastises himself sheepishly for his disrespectful behavior. He’s old enough now, nearly thirty and well past the age of childish anxiety, to know they are harmless, it is harmless, but still he feels a rattle in his bones even after they have disappeared from view. He remembers the monthly service ceremony - his mother, her pleading eyes, and his frightened distress as she brought him along. Long into the night, he would be plagued with the memory of their long faces and their empty expressions, the fear and hatred in him making him feel sick with fever.

Eventually, he grew out of this level of anguish but still his maturity and his logical reasoning do not serve as a comfort. In the numerous missionaries that occupy Indolon, he finds no refuge, no joy, somehow more sure now, in his old age, than ever of their wrongness.

His schrooning boat is docked at the base of the rocky cliff side, just below the lighthouse and pushed far away from the crowded wharf. As he makes his approach, he feels the eyes of other fishermen bore into his spine, their judgement of him, his lack of a First Mate, a crew, and his placement of his boat always deeply felt at this hour of the morning. But he does not mind.

Since he was small, Jaebeom’s understanding of the sea, of her nature and her cruelty, has kept him at a great distance from his peers. As a child, he preferred to listen - to listen to the ocean and to watch it change, finding a deep affinity in her tumultuous loneliness. This kind of loving relationship, he thinks, has developed into a skill that keeps his family well paid, a roof over his head, and the bellies of many full. Maintaining a crew would simply distract him, his mind less on the water and more on the work of his members.

And while he, too, might have agreed the placement of his boat against the rocks is reckless at best, it is placed where he would catch crabs as a child with his father - the best location to spot their lavender and purple shells as they eat the moss along the stones. And just below, the bright vermillion of the king crabs glittering as they sink to the ocean floor.

Stepping onto his boat, he sheds his linen jacket and cranes his head back to observe the large mast, its mainsail tied neatly at the base with a strong sailor’s knot. Rolling up his sleeves, he lets the sea breeze kiss his warm skin, heated and dewy with moisture from his walk, and watches light behind the clouds do its best to illuminate the land below. The rains will likely start soon, the hours left in the day for adequate fishing conditions dwindling, and so he hoists himself up on the shroud, untying the sail in quick, easy motions.

Climbing up the iron ladder connected to the mast, he reaches for the rope at the center of the sail and latches his fingers, giving one large tug to set the sail free. It flaps loosely in the wind, releasing itself to its full length, and as he makes his way down in the cover of its shadow, he looks out to the lighthouse, admiring the way the tall grass is somehow more viridescent beneath the grey skies as it reaches upwards, asking for rain. Autumn is nestled in the branches of the trees, the peak summer season soon to give way to the burning gold of autumn, but as he regards the lighthouse field he finds it difficult to imagine the world any other way than this. It’s as though the earth has always been green, always been bright, too alive to ever fully be witnessed.

As he takes in the splendor of the earth, letting pleasure root itself against his ribs, he notices, rather curiously, a pile of cloth discarded amongst the rocks. Strewn carelessly across the sharp incline, the ivory cloth has been yellowed and torn, resting long forgotten in the shallows. Narrowing his eyes, he steps off the shroud and leans over the edge of his boat, glad that it is still tied to the fender and not drifting away with the sudden displacement of his weight. As he continues to look, the ivory gives way to the vitality of flesh and long limbs, and his mouth runs dry.

‘By Deus,’ he whispers, the dread in his veins restricting the volume of his voice. ‘It’s a person.’

Limbs moving of their own accord, Jaebeom is carried back to the dock, hands working quickly to remove his boots. Gaze unwavering, he keeps his eyes on the body, transfixed and horrified, afraid of letting his eyes wander for fear of it disappearing altogether. His heart beats like thunder against his sternum, warring with too many emotions and unable to allow any one a victor. Behind the worry, the confusion, the terror, a curious sense of relief is building, a calm that would almost have him believe he is not in the process of coming undone.

If he focuses on it, he gets the sense that this is what he has been waiting for - not just in the morning before the dawn breaks, not just in the crash of waves against his boat and their icy waters demanding his spirit, but for always. In this moment, the hollowed sensation in his heart, the sense of something long absent, is scabbing over with each breath he takes.

Barefoot, he moves at a slow run, something like grief and hope mixing in his blood and putting a swell in the joints of his fingers. Jaebeom stifles these feelings, grounds himself in the reality that someone might be hurt, might be in need, and reminds himself, dutifully, that it is not the time to be carried away with his emotions. Still, there is a tingle at the base of his neck, an urgency that goes beyond humanitarianism, pushing him forward with exhilaration.

'Help.'

A female voice is carried on the wind, musical in its cadence and pleasurable in the way it sings its request. The ocean spray delivers it to him at the same moment the water bursts over the rocks, the sea mist rising up against his cheeks before retreating through the crevices in the earth, cooling the flush beneath his skin. Inside him, it burrows, reaching down and deep to nestle in the long empty caverns of his heart. As he moves over the rocks, carefully placing his feet to maintain his balance, he strains to hear it once more, certain it is a woman he is racing to help and she is begging to be saved.

'Help heal.'

'I'm coming,' he calls out, voice as shaky as his legs and echoing over the ocean’s roar.

He does his best not to cut his toes on the angular shards that have been eroded over years of rough sea water, but with each step he takes the water rises over the rocks with an aggression bordering on feral, demanding all of him within its foam. With each rush of water, he has the feeling it is reaching for his ankles, hands desperate to clutch at his person and drag him down, and down.

Yet, the closer he gets, the more he feels as though he could weep - from joy, from desperation, from loss - and this alone is enough to make him want to rush, pushing through the erratic rhythm of his heart and beyond the lump in his chest that makes each inhale ache. Now, with a clear vision of the body, it is as though you have been spit from the ocean’s mouth, cast out for your transgressions and all the corrupted ways you have disappointed the ocean. There is tragedy in the way you are draped over the rocks, body poised at woeful angles for having displeased the gods. Now, you have been forced to greet the horror of your retribution.

Only a few rocks away, Jaebeom allows himself a brief pause and takes you in, letting his eyes take their time in their discovery of your person. Hugging himself, he suddenly feels conflicted, as though he is learning your shapes while still becoming reacquainted with something long missed. This state of being is a paradox, and in the full emptiness of it, he has the passing sensation that he is learning the essence of love, and little else.

Shaking himself free from his idle reverence, he takes a few steps closer and notices the silk of your dress is ruined, perhaps permanently. His jaw drops slightly at the still gleaming shine of the fabric, the most expensive silk he has ever seen. It clings to your skin, dampened and tarnished, fraying at the ripped edges but still doing its best to hold you delicately, clinging to you in the effort of keeping you safe. Something about the cut of the dress triggers a memory he cannot quite reach, a familiarity in its lines and shapes that make him recall there was a purpose behind this outfit, a reason that it is both extraordinary and unforgettable, but it vanishes from him as quickly as it came. The fog in his mind is heavy, muddling his thoughts and pulling at the edges of his concentration and he knits his brow together to keep himself grounded.

In the aftermath of this brief recollection, he bites a whine of longing burning at the back of his throat, a pathetic sound of loss, regret, mourning. Your hair spills over the rocks, eyes closed and skin bruised though not scraped to bleeding. Flickers of recognition press at him, mind racing around the image of your soft lips, the high angle of your cheekbones, and the delicate elegance found in your wrists. Struggling to recall your name, Jaebeom approaches gently, coming to a kneel at your side, unsure what to say at all.

Pressing two fingers to the pulse point in your neck, he feels a dull, yet ever present, throb of life beneath your skin and releases a breath he did not know he had been holding. Alive, though just barely and unconscious, lungs likely full of sea water. Everything about you is soft, the warmth of life fading quickly beneath his fingers and rendering you terribly fragile, and he retracts his hand for fear of his touch giving bloom to more marks along your flesh.

Glancing around the cliff face, he looks for signs of wood, other bodies, ripped sails or bent iron, but finds nothing. No signs of shipwreck, no signs of a waiting party to receive you. You are alone in this torment, rejected by land and sea, and forced to exist within the limbo of life and death.

Before he can stop himself, he lifts you to his chest, cradling you close as he rises to a stand. If you were awake, you would be shivering, would tremble in the chill that means to overtake your very bones, and he hurries as best he can back to his boat and the woolen blankets he keeps in case of cold summer rains. Moving quickly over the shore, he stumbles slightly, feet tripping over themselves in surprise as he feels you burrow into him, seeking warmth with a low moan, and brow furrowed in what he hopes is simply the effort of healing.

Finally aboard once more, he takes you into the small cabin beneath the helm and tucks you into the straw bed he keeps for nights when the winds are threatening and violent, remaining on the boat in case the waves should do their best to reclaim the wood. Draping several blankets over you, he crawls close enough the heat from his chest could radiate into your skin, encouraging a rush of blood in your veins. His fingers twitch, wanting to brush stray strands of hair out of your eyes, but he presses the flat of his hand into the bed, resisting his urges.

The medic will need to be informed. This realization hits him with a bitterness that speaks of separation, chest restricting and tightening against the air in his lungs until it hurts to breathe. Against his bones, his muscles battle the urge to hold you close and he shuts his eyes with a grimace as a headache blooms at the base of his skull. Yet, as he strains to focus in the quiet of the cabin, he is acutely aware there are no traces of your breath, no labored wheeze no even inhalation, and so he resolutely declares that he will ferry your oxygen, coming to sit up on his knees as he plugs your nose and presses his lips to yours, opening them slightly.

Cradling your chin between his thumb and forefinger, Jaebeom exhales deeply, letting the strength of his breath travel into the limit of your lungs. Squeezing his eyes closed, he exhales for as long as he can manage, giving everything within himself to you before, all at once and all over again, he feels as though he has stepped out of himself.��

Once more, voices materialize at the back of his mind, these new sounds more like echoes that erupt from nowhere and no when, fingerprints of a bygone era carried to him on wings. Their words are a garbled mess of sounds, undeterminable cadences lacking diction or emphasis, but he hears the sound of a man, low and gentle and wondrously tender.

He hears a man, and the man is unmistakably, unfailingly, him.

Opening his eyes, he drinks you in, and surrenders to the notion he is being conquered by the mere sight of you. One word from you, and it would be as violent as a new beginning, a great shattering of all the comforts he knows of the world. And he would welcome it, knows, as if by magic, that he has given over to it before, would give over to it again, the power in you so great only ritual could contain it.

Blinking several times to clear the shock from his mind, he quickly moves his hands to your chest and presses against your sternum in the rhythmic way his sister taught him when he announced he wanted to be a fisherman, just like their father. Her eyes had glazed over then with the memory of loss and strife, and so she laid him on the floor and promptly taught him how to save a life should the sea threaten to claim a man as her own. The muscles in his harms strains as he continues pressing, and he thinks maybe he will need to press his lips to yours once more, bracing, instinctively, for more voices to fill his head, but a rush of water bursts from between your lips and he quickly moves back, turning you to your side to let it drain completely.

Falling back on your side, you release a cough but you do not wake, the small puddle of water between you both at once threatening and sacred, a reminder that everything Jaebeom has seen and felt is real, tethered to this moment. Tethered to you.

‘Who are you?’ he murmurs, but even as he says it, even as the words leave his mouth, he knows this is not the right question.

In the oncoming silence, the correct words swell on his tongue, nearly tumble from his lips, but, instead, he chews the inside of his cheek, aware that the right question will insight a riot in him he is unprepared to endure.

When Jaebeom carries you into his home, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, overtaken by the staggering weight of deja-vu.

He’s been in this position before, holding you against him in the center of his small kitchen as the elasticity of his emotions stretches outward for an eternity. There is an awakening occurring at the very center of his soul, bursting like a new star as its white heat slithers down his spine. Glancing down at you, your soft lips, your closed eyes, and your limp frame, held so closely to him, he feels the earth move beneath his feet, the shifting tectonics of his life all leading to this single moment.

Shaking his head, he releases himself from this, moving to his bedroom with focused steps as he places you in his bed. Igniting the oil lamps, he works quickly to bathe you in warm light, covering you with his down comforter before moving to the furnace tucked in the corner of the room. In summer, he keeps little coal and kindling but he uses the last of the brush wood he’s saved from the recent winter to ignite a small fire that burns red and gold behind the latched closing.

He regards your still form with a frown, running a hand through his hair in distress and grits his teeth. The last several days have been almost unbearably hot, but it seems August’s heatwave has been broken by the cool wind of the day, the overall gloom breaking the humidity and blocking the sun from her usual path. Of all days, it pains him that this would be the day the sea released you from her clutches, sent you from the cold depths of her darkness back to the shore where the sun refused to keep you.

From his kitchen, he takes a small linen cloth, inspecting it for cleanliness, and folds it into a long rectangle. Warming it in front of the furnace, he rotates it in circles before he feels it is sufficiently heated, just enough to ease tension in your muscles and restore heat where you need it most. It warms his hands, palms already swollen and grown clammy, room becoming relatively stuffy as he slides the cloth beneath your neck while you sleep. Already, a pink flush has begun to settle within your cheeks, the relief in him not unlike a rapture.

What will you say when you wake, he wonders. How will you sound when you look him in the eye, unsure of where you are? More importantly, he worries if you will wake at all, if perhaps the rush of blood beneath your skin is the last tour it will take before it stills altogether, heart too sluggish to keep a steady flow. The thought sends a tremor of heartbreak into the base of his spine, and a pained gasp tumbles through his lips, scorning the very notion of the thought.

He needs an occupation to distract, needs a purpose to feel as though there is progress being made, and so he turns on his heel and grabs his coat, supposing that when you do wake, he should at least be ready.

The walk to his sister’s cottage is not long, one that he usually relishes in the spring when the path is lined with blossom trees and the foxes play around their dens, their ruddy tails bouncing amongst the high grasses. Today, his strides are long but the journey feels endless, the path reaching well beyond the limits of the land, his mind thinking only of arrival rather than enjoying the view.

Another group of missionaries passes him along the dirt road, and he crosses to the other side to give himself space, freedom, liberation from their watchful eyes. Offering them sidelong glances, he studies the way they regard him conspicuously, whispering to one another as though he cannot hear the faint sounds of their voices, the conviction of their stares a judgement he feels with all of his body. Do they somehow know that he has found and kept a woman? Have they heard the voices too, the echoes he is resurrecting just by being near you?

He finds he cares little for the answers to these questions, deeming their existence as something infinitely less important or significant in the light of resolute purpose.

Byeol answers the door after three hard knocks, her face a picture of confusion that still does nothing to mar her beauty. She stands just shy of his height, one hand on the door and the other on her hip, the laugh lines along her cheeks carrying a secret smile within them.

‘Jaebie,’ she announces, more a question than a statement. Arching a single brow, her brown eyes bore into his with the chastising admonishment only an older sibling could manage. ‘Shouldn’t you be fishing?’

Jaebeom nods, a noncommittal gesture of affirmation, and presses his way through the doorway, past her slight frame. He wastes no time slipping off his boots as he fumbles for an explanation.

‘Sorry for the unexpected arrival,’ he mumbles, only partially apologetic. ‘Something’s…’ his voice drifts away, eyes looking everywhere but her face as he searches for the right words. To tell the truth means he must tell the whole truth, unable to hide anything from her, and so he settles for one single, vague word. ‘Happened,’ he says, finally.

Immediately, he regrets it.

Byeol’s eyes widen, hands raising to gently cup his face in her palms. Satisfied he is whole, they run down his shoulders to his arms, searching. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘No, no.’ He pulls himself from her grasp, hands raised in surrender, offering her a sheepish smile of amiable regret. ‘Nothing like that. I, uh, need to borrow some of your clothes.’

She takes a single step back, brow knit together in bewilderment. A myriad of emotions pass over her face, and Jaebeom does his best to count them all, the youth of her features rising and falling between her fear, her amusement, her apprehension. Eventually, she settles on curiosity as her eyes rake him up and down, one hand resting on her chest, perplexed yet surprised.

Rolling his eyes, he turns away from her and moves through her home, heading towards the wooden staircase. ‘They’re not for me.’

Byeol follows close behind, hot on his heels. ‘You’re telling me you…’

There’s too much excitement in her voice, the sound and volume of it making him close his eyes as if bracing for a storm. In one fluid motion, she rounds in front of him to block his path, eyes wide in delight as she makes an inappropriate gesture with her hands.

‘No!’ he scolds, though he finds he must swallow the early threads of a laugh. ‘Not that either.’

Resting his hands on her shoulders, he feels a slight flush creep into his cheeks as she giggles in childish glee. Gently easing her to the side, he continues up the stairs with heavy thuds of his feet. It always amazes him how easily, and how quickly, Byeol can manipulate the atmosphere in the room, her energy always barely contained and always terribly infectious. Questions are burning at the back of her throat, and she follows closely behind, the bounce in her step echoing around the house behind him.

Just like their mother, she will not let this go until she is satisfied, will not let him leave until she has received at least one answer, and so he releases a silent sigh as he reaches the landing, turning down the hall towards her room. He should be commended, he thinks, for the bravery he must assume to endure her interrogation.

‘There’s a woman -’ he begins slowly, only to be cut off.

‘You bastard!’ she exclaims delightedly, slapping his shoulder blade with enough force to make him stumble.

She takes his slight hesitation as an opportunity to run ahead of his once more, the glee in her eyes wild and bright, a look he once found vindictive in their youth. Spreading her arms wide, she presses her hands into the frames of her bedroom doorway, full of impish joy as she stares him down. The love he feels for her blurs together with his frustration, the affection in him rising like a tide.

‘Would you stop?’ he pleads, though now he does not bother to stop his laugh. ‘I just need some stays. A chemise and some trousers, too, if you have them.’

Standing to her full height, she raises her head elegantly, full of self-importance and authority, swallowing her smile for a serious expression of warning. ‘You can borrow them on the grounds that you give me her name.’

Exasperated, he looks away, letting his gaze move to the side and into the small rectangle that is Sun Hee’s room. It’s messy, the bed unmade and several books piled onto their mother’s antique rocking chair. Atop the books, her stuffed crochet kitten rests, presiding over the chaos like a queen. Along the walls, sepia portraits of his mother and father hang beside cross-stitch pieces his sister did while pregnant: one a rabbit, another a bundle of wild flowers, one a vestige of the sea. In the center of the wall, above her small wrought iron bed, a portrait of her father is framed and hung, the frame a silver gilded edge that catches all the light, even when the clouds threaten to block the sun.

When he looks once more at his sister, he sees how his silence and avoidance has riled her further, her wry grin returned once more with all its damning inquisitiveness.

‘Do I know her?’ she presses, narrowing her eyes.

He shakes his head, and offers a small shrug of his shoulders. ‘No,’ he explains, ‘I actually don’t know it.’

Jaw dropping, she reaches forward once more and slaps his arm. ‘Jaebie!’

Dropping his head, he presses his fingers into his eyes and wishes, with all of him, that her assumptions of his perpetual loneliness and solitude were not such a concern. Wishes, more than anything in this moment, that Sun Hee did not frequently ask for an auntie to play with, her lack of a father rendering her wishes for a sibling obsolete. For any other man on Indolon, a woman in his home, let alone his bed, would hardly be news, would hardly warrant any discussion at all, but Byeol has watched him try, and fail, over the years to find a woman who loves as ardently, as openly, as intensely as he does.

She has watched him resort to his life by the sea, watched him spend days alone on his boat, returning at sunset and smelling of brine and salt. All her life she has watched and she has worried, alluding to the full weight of her concern only in jest.

‘Can I please just have them?’ he groans weakly.

Lowering her arms from the doorway, she steps to the side and welcomes him through. ‘Yes,’ she acquiesces. ‘Take what you need from the closet, but this isn’t over. And be quick, I’m on my way out.’

Jaebeom tosses her a silent expression of gratitude over his shoulder, moving through her room with quick steps. ‘Where are you going?’ he asks, sliding open her wardrobe and taking things he knows she keeps but does not often wear, certain she will not miss them. ‘Isn’t Sun-hee already at school.’

Byeol moves behind him, gathering her headscarf from atop her bed and tying it with a hum of confirmation. ‘I’m going to Mala Green’s. Her husband’s ship was meant to port two days ago. It never made it.’

Jaebeom stills, clothes draped haphazardly over his arm as he turns to greet her eyes. Together, they regard one another in silence, a cold chill seeming to overtake the room. He remembers the look he sees in her eyes now, remembers the bone deep anxiety and the way she did not sleep for weeks, not even months. In a single moment, it is four years ago and they are both bereft.

‘The Pyxis?’ he murmurs, remembering how he and his sister and his niece, and all the town had watched it sail away from port eight months ago, waving until it disappeared from the horizon.

She nods minutely, a small motion almost imperceptible had he not been watching her intently, looking down at her hands where she nervously picks at her fingernails. ‘She is thinking the worst.’

Dropping the clothes to the bed, Jaebeom takes a few strides and comes to stand before his sister. Letting his hands rest on her shoulders, his thumbs press idle, reassuring circles into her muscles, hoping his expression looks hopeful, at least. ‘It could just be delayed.’

Taking in a shaking breath, Byeol nods but does not lift her eyes to his, gaze trained instead on the unsteady motions of her hands.‘We always like to think that, but…’ Falling quiet, she glances towards her vanity, a distant expression of longing painting her features. He knows she is looking at her wedding photo, but he does not mention it. ‘A woman always knows, doesn’t she?’ she finishes, finally looking at him with an empty smile.

And just like that, in the length of the shallow stretch of her lips, they fall back in time to Port Vela. She clutched his hand as the Aquila departed, the strength in her grip enough to turn both their knuckles white. The intensity of this touching reminded him that to love is to open the heart to grieving, that to love means to welcome the notion of losing, and so he pressed his fingers against hers with the same force, joining her in solidarity.

Even before the missionaries declared him dead, she knew he was lost. The tears she shed in childbirth were not those of bodily trauma but those of heartbreak, once more holding his hand and begging for him to tell her why Dong Hyun wasn’t there with her, why the missionaries were forcing her to believe he was still alive. She said it hurt to know they were teasing with the heart of a widow, that moment perhaps the last time he ever feigned trust in the gods and their mortal vessels.

Dong Hyun had left to deliver a group of missionaries from a nearby port, and they were angry for weeks at their failed return, citing a growing population that needed more help. Jaebeom never knew why they didn’t come to the funeral, his sister and his newborn niece crying in unison against an empty coffin while he pressed his feet into the wet grass. He wanted them to see what their selfishness had done, the rage in him putting a sheen of sweat on his neck, the most angry he had ever been.

‘He’ll be okay,’ he states, pulling them both out of the darkness of their thoughts. ‘They will all be okay.’

It’s a nice thing to say, he thinks, something that sounds reassuring and optimistic, but he wonders, quietly in the back of his mind, to whom he is offering this confidence.

Byeol startles slightly, eyes glassy and slightly glazed over with memory as she takes him in. ‘Yes, well,’ she begins, stepping out his hold to gather her things. ‘It will be good to be there for her.’

Jaebeom watches her move towards the door, hands balled into fists and pressing his nails into his palms. It’s more visceral now, somehow more tangible than ever, the unease he feels when he thinks about their blue cloaks - their endless, royal blue.

‘Launder those when you’re done please,’ she says, coming to a halt and pointing her long index finger at the clothes piled on the bed. ‘I don’t want to be wearing any of your remains -’

Jaebeom’s eyes widen, the spell of his thoughts broken by Byeol’s teasing giggle. ‘Byeol!’

She simply steps into the hallway and moves down the stairs, her laughter carrying through the house as though the sadness had never been let in.

It was only when you said you were leaving, announcing the date of your expected departure with wild eyes and ink stained hands, that he thought maybe, horribly, he had not told you he loved you enough.

You showed him the boarding papers, the crew notes, the bonds list and you were laughing, disbelieving that good fortune could shine on the persistent. Years of work had culminated in this opportunity, and you could not tear your eyes away from the King’s signature, it’s black script so formal you pressed your fingers to your lips to hide the ferocity of your smile. He loved you most then, burning in silence and struggling to find the right way, the best way, to tell you that his love for you demanded he become monstrous, too many hearts in his chest to contain the totality of this wanting.

‘It will be the longest we’ve ever been apart,’ you said, chancing a look at him, and the briefest flickers of grief walked across your face. In an instant, you tucked them away, smoothed your smile over and put the light back in your eyes, hiding from him the very thing that could bring him to his knees.

‘I’ll send a hawk to woo you,’ he offered, the smile tugging at his lips only half genuine, only half true.

He was certain you knew it, too, but you simply chuckled, arched one perfect brow and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

‘You’ve already done that.’

He only had a week to show you that he loved you beyond reason, beyond the human capacity for emotion. One week, and you would be gone, drifting away from him at sea, and he would be waiting, always waiting.

‘Then I’ll do it again.’

Again and again he would do his best to win you over, holding you tightly against his chest and reminding you there was nowhere as safe, nowhere as sacred as against his skin, against his heart. You leaned up to kiss him, always eager and impatient for the things you wanted most, but he breathed against your lips, let your twin exhales unify your heartbeats and reminded himself that you were still here.

He could feel you. You were still there.

Jaebeom wakes with a start, hairline dampened with warmth, stress, and confusion.

The dawn breaks through the sheer curtains of his bedroom window, the heat in the room oppressive and stifling as the embers within the furnace strain to match the gleam of the sun. Curled in a ball atop the lambskin carpet at the foot of his bed, the joints of his knees and elbows are aching, having been forced into one position too long. Tentatively, he stretches his limbs with a low groan, elongating his back against the floor and does his best to remain quiet in his relief.

When he’d returned home, you were still sleeping. Unchanged and in the exact position he had left you, a brief anxiety overtook him at the sight of your too relaxed face and the weakness in your limbs. There was a fragility in you that frightened him, a treacherous sort of quiet that promised great annihilation consuming the room and reaching down, deep within his ribs, compressing his lungs. He would have shed tears for you, would have unleashed an expression of grief so holy and so silent it would have broken worlds - but you moaned, almost regal in your suffering, and, for a moment, he was weightless.

In the tense tranquility that followed he slumped into the reading chair beside his bookcase, head buried in his hands, and sighed. With his eyes closed, he could pretend things had not changed, that he was still himself, that he still belonged to himself. It was as though there were two of him, battling within his blood - the one that knew nothing, that craved the assurance and predictable simplicity inherent in the life he had built for himself.

But the other is violent, a torrent against his bones reminding him this life is not his, that you are his life, and the passion in him is pushed into madness at the notion of not being able to follow where you have gone.

‘All this?’ he lamented into the rough skin of his palm. ‘All this over the desire to be loved?’

The moon was midway through its journey across the sky when he fell asleep, nestling into the rug at the foot of your bed - at your feet, though still giving you the distance, giving himself the distance. And all night he had seen you, felt you, let his whole world become enamored with you.

Pressing the base of his palms into his eyes, he groans, letting the dark become coloured with reds, whites, and purples under the pressure. Rustling from somewhere in the room makes his heart stutter in its rhythm, motions still and muscles tense with the effort of not moving, simply listening. His is not the only breath in the room, and when he takes his hands away from his eyes, his vision adjusts to see you - your face framed by your hair as you lean over the bed, regarding him curiously.

Startled, Jaebeom sits up, head dizzy with the sudden movement, and he presses a hand to his temple though he does not close his eyes, fearing he might still be dreaming. A dark night lives in your irises, hungry for everything that comprises his very being, and even as he lets his vision focus, lets himself recline into the intensity of your stare, he feels as though you are burning inside him, tearing your way through his sinew, the most voracious thing he’s ever seen. You regard him, unblinking, studying every detail and nuance of his features with tension in your brow and parted lips.

Briefly, he wonders how long it has been since someone looked at him like this, looked at him as though he is both the universe’s greatest secret and its most coveted answer.

‘You’re awake,’ he manages, throat dry and voice constricting beneath such coveted attention.

Instantly, he curses himself for such a simple and obvious statement. All night he had imagined hundreds of first conversations with you, knowing his first words with you would ultimately be the most important, and already he has betrayed himself. You’ve taken all the power from him, left him in such a state of shock, he supposes his words have withered, nothing in the world as sacred as your eyes on him.

But the smile you offer him at the sound of his voice could combat the sun, the world brightening around the fullness of your cheeks and the pleasure you keep at the corner of your lips, like a secret. A blush burns at the tips of his ears, and he is glad it does not immediately live in his cheeks, pleased he has learned, somehow, to not give himself away all at once.

‘I am,’ you nod in affirmation. A chill walks down Jaebeom’s spine, the sound of your voice an echo of his dreams, exactly as he heard it all night long. ‘You found me.’

Seconds stretch between your bodies, an infinite eternity between your last syllable and his first breath, his eyes on yours like a pledge of loyalty.

‘Were you looking for me?’

Hope invades his words without his permission, helpless against their desire to be the thing you sought most, to be lucky enough to be your prize. His fingers press into the soft strands of the carpet beneath him, and he watches as you fall back against your legs, shoulders slumped as you look around the room. All at once, emptiness overtakes you, the light in your eyes dimming as you search within yourself for an answer.

‘I don’t know,’ is your whispered reply. Looking at him once more, he feels as though you are rooting within his soul, continuing the expedition within him. But still, you are lost, voice adrift and lost at sea. ‘I can’t remember.’

He smiles encouragingly, wanting you to know, more than anything, that it is okay. For himself, he reminds you both that everything is okay.

Inching along the carpet, he clears his throat as he rests his arms on the bed, gazing up at you as though he is making wishes on the moon. He wants to be close to you - more than he’s ever wanted anything, Jaebeom wants to be in your orbit, close enough he could taste the salt that still lingers on your skin. Biting his tongue, he swallows all his rushed, messy emotions and clears his throat, choosing instead the words of logic, the words of practicality.

‘What is your name?’

Little by little, your smile slowly fades, burned by this simple question. Still, you remain calm, perplexed and unsure of how much of you has truly been misplaced. ‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s okay,’ he reassures you gently. ‘My name is Jaebeom.’ In saying his name, he waits for a flicker of recognition, a response that would confirm all he has spent the night feeling, but you simply regard him blankly, glad for the conversation. Shaking his head, he sighs. ‘How did you get here?’ he tries, keeping his voice calm so you find no reason to panic or run.

Now, your smile disappears completely and all that is left behind is you, your sadness, and the way it clings to your body like a shadow. The smallness of you in this moment puts an ache in his chest that feels like an inheritance - something he has been owed, that you owed one another having vanished in the completeness of your unknowing, and, together, you grieve. With a slow shake of your head, you confirm there is a void surrounding the nature of your being and the reason for your arrival, and the longer he looks the more he sees how this torments the deep desire that quakes inside you.

He knows nothing of you, knows only that you are here and you are tangible and you are emptied, but still he can sense you are a wild, impossible beast of a woman. The storm in you could tear the world asunder, and so he tries a different tactic, choosing to ask what is felt rather than what can be recalled, wanting to hold onto as much of you as he possibly can.

‘Are you hurt?’

For a long moment, you consider his question, as if thinking through the concept of hurt, the very notion of it, rather than the truth of it. Running his eyes over your frame, he notices that some bruises on your arms have already faded, as if the midnight sky was your healer. You are far healthier and far more whole than the person he found yesterday, but there is a strangeness to the way you look at him, to the way you think through his questions that gives him the passing sensation that you are not there at all.

He fears, all the way down to his marrow, that if he were to look away, you would disappear completely.

‘It does hurt, yes,’ you admit finally. Offering him a small nod of confirmation, your eyes grow wide as though you yourself are surprised by the experience, the ability to truly hurt a clandestine experience.

Jaebeom had feared this. Always, the most lethal of wounds are the ones not worn on the skin. ‘Where?’

Slowly, you lift a hand to your chest, right above your heart. Pain etches itself on your face, the turmoil of bewilderment and confusion, the misery of things long lost, making a home of your soft features. He watches your brow knit together as you regard him, a slight downturned frown tugging at your lips as you silently beg him for answers.

Reaching a hand forward, his fingertips nearly graze the smooth skin of your knee, exposed between the ripped threads of your silk dress. When he’s close enough he can feel the warmth from your skin, he remembers himself, retreating back to curl his hand into a fist.

‘Did a man hurt you?’

He hates the way the words taste, sour and acrid on his tongue, but he supposes this dress is your wedding gown and he’s seen more than his fair share of broken hearts around town. This, of course, would be the worst he has ever seen, but he chooses not to worry you further, keeping his voice soothing and calm.

‘No,’ you shake your head, looking beyond him into a distance that is both contained within and expanding outward. ‘Not one,’ you continue with a dark whisper. ‘Many.’

Jaebeom does not think himself a man prone to violence or aggression but, in a single moment, he feels his heart is a weapon. His spine straightens as he rears back slowly, relying entirely on the support of the floor beneath him. His hands are no longer his own, knuckles taught with the desire to tear his way through flesh and sinew. There is no limit to the monstrous creatures he would face standing up for you; he’s burning, fully ablaze alongside you, and it surprises him how quickly kindness can burn away.

‘We can report it when you are well enough,’ he announces, clearing his throat in the effort of remembering himself. As much as he would go to battle for you, he similarly does not want to frighten you. ‘When you remember the details we can report it. They won’t get away with it.’

Shoulders relaxing, your hand falls away from your chest as you find comfort in his words, and a small sense of pride prickles at his ears and neck. With anyone else, he’d be sheepish that he is giving himself and his emotions away so quickly with you, but he can’t help it, he thinks. Not when you look at him like this, like he’s the part of summer you’ve been anticipating most and are pleased by the mere sight of him. People don’t look at him like this, especially the people he wishes would look at him and want to continue the mere act of seeing him. You make him feel like someone, and he is more with you than he ever has been on his own.

Keeping your eyes on his, you shift so you rest on your hands and knees, crawling across the bed towards him. Jaebeom leans back, pushes himself away from the bed and it is only when the heat from the still burning furnace threatens to sear his chemise that he pauses, looking over his shoulder to pout at the proximity. Your hand presses against his foot, stopping his movements and he returns his focus to you once more, all breath and blood flow halted in his veins.

You’ve climbed off the bed, settled on the floor with your hand on him and a glimmer behind your eyes that says you know he has longed to be touched. Has he been real before this moment? Has he truly existed until the moment you placed your hand on his skin, a paradoxically cold warmth that sends a chill up his legs and into his groin. Until this moment, he has been afflicted with the strangest sense of object permanence, but only of himself - himself and his relation to you, the only thing that has ever truly mattered.

‘You won’t come close to me,’ you explain, sounding terribly sad.

Deflating, he leans forward and places his hand on yours, finally, running his thumb along your knuckles. The salt from the sea has turned your skin into the softest thing he’s ever touched, and he applies just enough pressure to remind himself you are tangible, real, present.

There’s something familiar and, simultaneously, ephemeral about the way his hand moves over yours. He finds it impossible to look away as he explains, ‘I wanted to give you space.’

‘I’ve had enough,’ you counter, and the sharpness in your words has him taking in your lips, your cheeks, your face in wonder. You are every bit the tempest he knew you would be, and he smiles, amused and gladdened by your confident vehemence.

Pulling your hand out from under his, you raise it to the side of his face, tucking strands of hair behind his ear and letting your fingers glide along his cheekbone. The intimacy leads him, momentarily, to believe that he is completely naked, exposed to you in all the ways that could truly break him. Once more, he feels you searching within him for something you can almost grasp. Words live and die on his tongue, answers he too craves fading before he has the chance to truly process them.

You are unified in this complex looking, the act of remembering both a mysterious and a fact.

‘You’re familiar to me.’ Cocking your head to the side as you speak, the childlike curiosity you exude has him pressing his hands into the carpet, reminding himself it is still too early to take hold of you, too early to hold you against his heart as he had done in his dream.

‘Have we met before?’ he offers gently.

Excitement colours you, has you straightening as you pull your hand from his skin. ‘Do you know me?’

It’s his turn to shake his head, his turn to smother hope with little disappointments. ‘No.’

‘Then I suppose not.’

With a slight shrug, you return your hand once more to the side of his face, palm cupping his cheek to trace the contour of the bone. Little by little, your eyes soften and a silent yearning overtakes your features. Jaebeom wants to tell you everything when you look at him like that. Things he’d never breathe to another person, things he had long since forgotten rise up in his throat and he nearly chokes on them, wanting you to have absolutely everything.

Running your thumb over his bottom lip, a blissful sigh escapes from the center of your chest, eyes slightly glazed as you luxuriate in the texture of his skin beneath your finger. ‘I don’t mind, though. I like looking at you.’

How like a child he feels when he is with you - suddenly restless and impatient and young, the boundaries and the calculated logic he has spent years cultivating in his adulthood dissolving the moment he learns you are pleased with him. In his dream, he somehow knew your kisses were a hurricane, all raindrops and wild winds that made his skin feel electric. The way you seem to tear through him now is a confirmation he was correct, the summer in you so immaculate he thinks it is always the bloom of July in your soul.

Were he to look elsewhere in the room, he is certain it would be a betrayal - the treachery of looking away from the gods’ sky. Jaebeom is calmed by the sight of you, the anxious itch in the back of his mind dormant simply because you have decided he is worthy of being adored. He wonders where he has been looking all this time, if he has truly seen anything at all until this moment, the colours of the world infinitely more rich because of how you choose to wear them.

Clearing his throat, he looks briefly at your hand where it holds his foot like a cross and trembles. ‘I like looking at you, too.’ It feels so silly and unimpressive, repeating your words back like a parrot, but he means it - there is more conviction in those small words than any other promise he has ever made and, when he looks at you again, he hopes you can feel it.

Your answering smile is so rich and full, he finds his thoughts are rendered unintelligible, and so he lowers his gaze to the ripped dress that does its best to maintain the echo of its former shape.

Clearing his throat, he slowly pulls his foot out from your grip, skin tingling from the loss of contact. The warmth from your hand still lingers, and he frowns, regretting his decision even through his commitment to the choice. Pressing his hands to the floor, he rises to stand and brushes off his trousers, looking for ways to keep his hands busy.

‘Can you stand?’ You look up at him, expectant and congenial. ‘Are your legs strong enough?’

Copying his earlier movements, you press your hands into the floor and, unsteadily, lift yourself to a stand. For a moment your knees wobble, but you keep your eyes on his, shoulders rolling back as you take in a slow inhale. Finding your balance takes focus, brow knotted together with the effort of standing on weakened muscles, but you keep your feet planted, hands spread at your sides to aid in maintaining your center of gravity. And when you stand, stable and sure, at your full height, you nod proudly, delighted you have surprised yourself.

‘Good.’ The most natural thing in the world, he finds, is praising you; a long dormant habit awakening once more ‘I’m actually not sure what I’d done if you couldn’t,’ he admits sheepishly.

Amidst your infectious giggle, Jaebeom finally has an opportunity to truly take in the state of your clothes. He wonders what torment you have seen, what hell you’ve walked through that has torn the silk and chiffon down to the essence of their threads. The bodice hugs your waist, but the whalebone corset is torn at the ribs, threatening to expose your skin. There will be no saving the sleeves that hang limply off your shoulders, falling behind your back like a ragged cape. Sea water has stained the silk to a tarnished, bleak yellow, the sand of the seabed nestled deep within the folds of your skirts.

Still, too much of your skin is visible to him. The skirts have pulled away from the bodice and a large portion of your thigh remains bare, the other leg free of clothing from the ankle to just above your knee. Standing before him, he sees you as a survivor of a slaughter that bore no claws, and he aches to pull you close, to keep you safe, to remind you that you are whole.

Perhaps, he thinks, the reminder is mostly for himself.

‘I brought you some clothes,’ he announces gently. Gesturing vaguely to the wardrobe in the opposite corner, his nerves get the better of him, words becoming bashful. ‘You look like the size of my sister, so they should fit.’ Running a hand through his hair and gripping the strands to alleviate the tension in his wrists, he pulls himself out of your orbit and heads toward the wardrobe. ‘We need to go into town anyway to see the medic, so I can get you some if these don’t fit properly. I just…’

Opening the doors, he pulls out the clothes he borrowed from his sister- stays for night time, two pairs of trousers, a woolen skirt he remembers buying for his sister one solstice that she has never worn, and three chemises he hopes will fit you. He lays them out delicately on the bed, arranging them into outfits he hopes you find comfortable. Fixating on the trousers, he looks at them too long as his stomach drops. Indolon is one of the few islands where women wear trousers, their propensity for skirts just as enthusiastic and common. He hops the sight of them will not offend you.

‘Thank you.’ Approaching the bed with light, careful steps, the smallness of your voice does little to mask your immense gratitude, hands coming to graze the myriad of fabrics he has selected.

Something about the feel of them between your fingers astounds you, a stunned silence turning adding a weight to the room that did not previously exist.

‘These are beautiful.’ Your hand moves to the skirt, the difference in its texture putting a glee in your eyes that makes his heart swell. ‘Thank you for caring for me,’ you finish, finally looking up at him once more.

Time bleeds past him as he falls into you, falls beyond himself and into a love that consumes him. Around your body, light seems to vibrate, uncertain how to hold you and so it holds all of you, and none of you, at once, bending around your back until he wonders if the very nature of this conversation is merely an illusion. Should he look away, he worries you would vanish, that he might forget, and so he steps near enough that he might touch you.

Keeping his hands forced at his sides, he drowns momentarily in his wanting before he speaks. ‘Anyone would do it.’

Lowering the skirt, you reach up to cup his face, forcing him to look at you. A shiver walks down his spine, followed swiftly by an unfamiliar heat in his blood as you speak. ‘I don’t remember much of the world, but I do remember that is not true. Not everyone would do as you have done.’ You lean into him, close enough your breaths touch between your bodies, his entire existence narrowing to this single moment. ‘I’m grateful for you.’

All of him craves giving in to the boundless lust that rages within his chest, memories of his dream resurfacing to haunt his bones. There were other memories within that dream, memories of your body wrapped beneath his, memories of your lips and the way you always pressed hard against his mouth, ensuring he would feel you long after you had departed. Jaebeom wants to live in those memories now, wants to force them into his reality so badly his hands and his sides start to shake.

But in those memories, lives the texture of your skin and the way his fingers have mapped every node of your spine. And it is only when he recalls the distant blur of this experience, so foreign to him it is as though it belongs to someone else, that he remembers there is nowhere in his home for you to undress.

When he had selected this house by the sea, he had assumed his life would contain the dawn, the dusk, the ocean, and little else in between. His home is merely one large square, the kitchen bleeding into his open bedroom and the sitting area tucked into corners he felt would be comfortable. There is, fundamentally, no element of privacy, and this is the only thing, he thinks, that gives him the strength to pull away - the desire to keep you comfortable and to be polite his only saving grace.

‘Sorry,’ he mumbles, taking one small step back. It is enough for his head to become clear, enough for the sadness in your eyes at the separation to not sting like a bullet. ‘I can leave you to change.’

He moves around you, not really certain what he would say should you inform him you will need assistance with your bodice and corset. They are torn enough and ruined enough he imagines they will not be a problem, but the mere idea of his fingers accidentally caressing the smooth expanse of your back puts a tightness in his chest the magnitude of which has him both frightened and bewildered.

Jaebeom does not want people like this, certainly does not want them this badly and with this much conviction, and so he walks through the bedroom and into the kitchen, the cool metal of the doorknob a balm against his skin. And it is only when he is outside, eyes closed as he lets the breeze overtake his heart, his spirit, his soul, does he feel like himself once more.

It is only when he is in an entirely different location, far enough away from you he cannot feel you, that he remembers to breathe.

The walk to town, by your side, is among the most eventful experiences of his life.

Having roamed the island roads all his life, he has grown used to the view, the unchanging scenery resulting in him finding it to be rather dull and grey. He cannot remember the last time he saw this world with fresh eyes, the last time he took in the trees, the slope of the land and felt joy - the last time this world brought him pleasure. You however, combat the very essence of his ennui with your inherent enthusiasm, taking in every sight and every sound as if it is, not the first time you have witnessed them but, the first time you have reunited with them after many years away.

In you, a language of reconciliation is being cultivated - one that only you will be able to understand, and one that makes Jaebeom cast you curious side long glances as you press your hands together in consternation. Your scrutiny of each detail slows the walk considerably, your presence somewhat distant and hollow as you struggle to define the essence of familiarity within you. Each time, it fades miserably and quickly, leaving you momentarily disheartened only for new wonder to replace the frustration once more.

Through you, he begins to see the town as something eternal, something so long lasting and sacred that, even if it is forgotten, it is still unchanged and important enough to be missed. Selfishly, he ponders what place he held in your old life, if he held any place at all, aware that, sometimes, you look at him with this same questioning fixation. In his own life experiences, you appear missing, but the way you look at him and touch him assures a small, needy piece of his heart that he is remembered, and therefore not ephemeral.

Still, he is certain you have been here, on Indolon, that this is your home and nowhere else. Having decided to forgo the shoes he had taken from his sister in favor of your bare feet, claiming it felt more natural to feel the earth beneath your toes, your steps are confident as you walk. Your eyes take everything in with too much intensity, but your steps are sure, certain of the placement and used to the cracks and the gravel that line the journey. When you are not focused on a building, a face, a view, you do not follow behind him. Instead, you are perhaps just a hair’s breadth ahead of him, relaxed in your inherent certainty.

‘Is any of this triggering your memory?’ he quietly tries, hoping he does not completely disrupt your train of thought.

‘Yes, but at the same time no.’ Your lips continue moving even as your voice dies, murmuring mysteriously to yourself as you look around. ‘It’s like I’ve seen this before in a dream, but then anything can look like anything if you want it to badly enough.’ Offering him a sly smirk, you peer up at him through your eyelashes. ‘I still like looking at you the most, though.'

Heat paints pink smears along his cheeks, and he glances down to his feet momentarily to smile at himself, flattered and, helplessly, twitter-patted. With you beside him, so close, his fingers dig into the pockets of his coat, gripping the cloth in the effort of stifling the desire to reach for your hand.

'Thank you,' he begins, his smile unwilling to fade. Still, he does his best to warp his features into a serious expression. 'I'm glad I'm more interesting than trees and brick.'

The music of your laugh is an eruption, the juicy fullness of it breaking over his tongue and filling his mouth with unprecedented gladness. You are unshy with your laughter, endearingly liberal and letting it echo through the air, demanding everyone hear your pleasure. Jaebeom swallows thickly, feeling almost as though he can taste you on the wind, in his mouth, and he holds his breath wanting to keep you inside him just a moment longer.

'I'm serious,' you tease, nudging into his side

Passing the field of pink and blue wildflowers, you become transfixed by a group of small children playing amongst the grass. Holding hands, they jump and dance in a circle, their laughter interrupting the song they are singing in broken unison. He recognizes the nursery rhyme of Ciperion immediately, remembering how his sister and some of the older children would make him play this game with them, dancing in a circle until the song ended and they had to remain completely still. Always, one of his sister's older friends, usually the boy she had a crush on, would play Ciperion, choosing a victim to steal away from the group. Only then would the circle continue dancing over and over until only one player remained and they had to outrun Ciperion to win.

He chuckles at the memory, how petulant he always felt at being the first one out - always, and without fail. Now, he realizes it was merely because of his strong reaction to being taken that made it more entertaining for his sister's friends, his cries and yells something they would tease him about for days.

‘What are they singing?’ you ask softly, interrupting his thoughts.

Jaebeom hears your voice and looks to his side, finding you are no longer with him. Turning, he finds you have come to a halt alongside the edge of the field, watching the children with a dark fascination that runs a chill down his spine.

He approaches you slowly, looking between the children and you, finding the tether of your fixation to be unbreakable. ‘The song of Ciperion,' he explains gently.

When you look at him again, your inquisitive expression is marred by such a sincere sense of aloneness his throat runs dry. Your prying eyes demand more from him, demand explanations and answers, so greedy and so painfully hopeful he wonders what the word wounded in you.

‘It’s an old urban legend on the island,’ he begins, looking back at the children who have now stilled, a little girl roaming behind the group with her hands raised like claws. ‘Everyone knows it, primarily because we grow up hearing it from friends or parents. It’s really just a ghost story. Parents tell it to make sure their children don’t go too far near the shore if they can’t see them, and kids tell it amongst friends just to see who is the most brave.’

Mystified, you keep your eyes on the group of children. ‘And it’s a song?’

He shakes his head, meeting your eyes on the raised arms and laughing faces of the children, hoping this contact of just your twin gazes is a comfort. ‘Not really, no. It’s a story, but it’s so old it’s become a nursery rhyme.’

‘Tell me.’

Jaebeom hums, trying to remember the way his mother told him this story when he was small. ‘Centuries ago, there was a ship called Ciperion that was meant to arrive at Port Vela.’

At the word Ciperion, you bristle, eyes widening slightly, though if in terror or recognition he cannot tell.

‘It was commissioned by the King, back when there were Kings,’ he continues, watching your reactions in the corner of his eye. ‘In those days, it was the fastest ship ever created, and had been assigned one of the largest crews - they called it the jewel of the sea. The crew was composed of experts in every field - cartography, cosmology, anthropology - and the ship’s sole mission was exploration.’

When you finally look at him, the heat from your gaze puts a fire in his veins, the sheer fervor and earnestness of your attention making him shudder. Swallowing thickly, he continues.

‘Legend says that they reached an island and saw how corrupt the Indolon King had been, how far reaching his power and torment really was.’ In the field, a little boy is taken by a young Ciperion, his scream of surprise mingling with the relieved laughter of the other children. ‘They rushed home to stop him from destroying their land, but the ship never made it. No one knew where the ship had gone, especially because the waters had been calm the night of their intended arrival.’

‘So they all perished?’ Even as the words leave your mouth, your focus turning back to the children, he knows this question is not meant to be answered, a small voice in the back of his mind advising him you already know this answer. Its rhetorical nature is anguished, lost, full of a yearning he presumes no language could ever express.

Coughing to clear his throat, Jaebeom nods knowing you cannot see him, and continues. ‘The lighthouse stayed on for weeks, even on clear nights. But still, Ciperion never came back.’

The silence in you is a sea, and once more he presses his fingers in the fabric of his jacket, warring within himself to keep his hand still. Your own hands look lonely, hanging limply at your sides as though you have been defeated by something much larger, and much more complex, than just your lack of memory. As he studies your changing expression, he counts the emotions that swim over your features - anger, fury, loss, grief, and, strangely, happiness - before you settle on none of these, choosing instead to remain empty.

But the magnitude of this choice renders you disheartened, tears pooling in your eyes, and he watches you swallow, fighting them back to the depths within your heart.

‘There’s never been any proof that Ciperion was real,’ he offers, hoping this will aid in bringing you comfort. It was never real, he supposes, and so there is no need to mourn the loss of made up things.

Yet, this consolation does not help, only serves to insight frustration, hands at your side curling into small fists as your eyes narrow.

Looking back at the children, Jaebeom combats the ever creeping flush at his neck and ears with the rest of the story. ‘Some say that every twenty years, on the anniversary of its port date, you can see the ghost ship Ciperion sailing along the horizon, looking for ways to dock. Only if the night is clear, that is.’

‘And if it isn’t?’ you question, a bitterness biting at your words that takes him aback.

‘If it’s cloudy,’ he offers delicately, ‘the fog along the water is so thick it blocks the lighthouse altogether. It moves up from the water onto the shore, looking for ways into houses or into town as if it has a mind of its own. And if it touches land, you can hear screams in the clouds themselves.’

As if they never happened at all, as if, all along, you nothing of this story had touched a bleeding wound within you, the tears in your eyes seem to dissolve. Your hands unfurl from their fists, and a touch of pink warms your cheeks. There is contentedness all over you, and you turn to face, a pleasant smile tugging at your lips.

‘That’s a nice story,’ you say, simply, blinking up at him in genuine interest.

A laugh bursts from his chest, one that comes from nowhere at all and instead is a bark of surprise rather than a logical expression of amusement. Furrowing his brow, he laughs to himself through the fear and the confusion, waiting for your earlier expression of grief to overtake you once more. But when it does not come, when you giggle along with him merely because it is something to share rather than an honest or sincere experience of humor, he silences himself with a low grumble and kicks the stones at his feet.

‘Yes,’ he agrees quietly. ‘It’s just something we grow up hearing, but nothing ever comes of it.’

‘Is it the anniversary, then?’ You smile up at him, seeming happy to be included in a story, happy, too, to be sharing his company, and you press your bare feet into the stones, making little shapes with your toes. ‘They’re singing with so much fervor.’

‘Yeah,’ he hums in confirmation, watching you draw circles into the earth. ‘Actually, I think it’s tomorrow.’

‘And will you look for the ship?’

Cocking his head to the side questioningly, he studies your face as he speaks. ‘Would you like to?’

‘Are you asking me?’ you press, tilting your head to the same angle as his. The sight of you makes his breath catch, your beauty always somehow the most arresting, the most bewitching, but watching you mirror his position creates an uncanny sense of unease in his belly. ‘I’m not sure what I would be looking for,’ you finish, uncertainty lacing your tone.

‘I’m not either,’ he laments, furrowing his brow as he takes you in. There are so many things he’d like to say to you, only to you, so many things he’d like to ask, but starting feels painful, complicated, as though he’s attempting to speak a language he does not yet understand, so he swallows, drawing the same circles as you with his shoe. ‘I haven’t gone looking for it since I was a kid.’ Your circles are so clean, while his are oblong, and he is unsure why this matters, but he is excited, fundamentally, that there is so much he can learn from you. ‘The last time it was here, I was eight, and even then we didn’t see anything.’

Nodding in understanding you hum, knitting your brow together in consideration of his words. ‘It would be...fun?’

‘If you want to, we can,’ he chuckles, peering at you through his lashes, still waiting for another response of sadness, of melancholic heartbreak to rise up in you again. The legend of Ciperion stirred something in you, touched pieces of your spirit denying access to all else, and he thinks, perhaps, it is the tragedy of lost life and torn wood that triggers memories of spilled blood. Anyone would weep at the horror of this, and so he clears his throat, remembering true horrors are the ones humanity can touch.

‘But,’ he begins, loud enough the children in the field turn to look at them, worrying their play will be halted before continuing to sing once more, ‘you washed up on the rocks.’ Looking at you fully, he feels his chest tighten, remembering the shredded silk and the way your hair wound over the rocks, latching into deep crevices just to keep you safe. ‘People don’t just come from the sea. If there’s a shipwreck somewhere, we’d have to tell the medic and the council. That’s a more pressing ship to be looking for.’

Biting your lip, your eyes grow distant and glassy as you retreat inward, mind racing towards shadowed images that render your voice small and soft. ‘I don’t remember where I was before this.’

‘Sometimes that can happen with trauma,’ Jaebeom advises, and it strikes him that your admission does not bring despair, only annoyance at your failing memory.

Through all of this, not once have you expressed fear at the notion of death, unafraid for your own mortality even after the very essence of it has been threatened and challenged. It hits him now that the only time you have ever been afraid is when confronted with the notion of others experiencing a fate meant for you. One tale of a shipwreck, and so soon were you unmade into a dark beast, woven together by sorrow.

Kicking the stones away from his feet, he tilts his head encouragingly, wordlessly advising that you continue alongside him. ‘The medic is one of my old school friends,’ he explains with a small grin, readying for Stefan’s loud laugh and teasing sarcasm. ‘He’ll be able to tell you more once he can run a few tests. You’ll like him. He’s quite funny.’

Walking beside him, there is a bounce to your step. ‘I remember that I like funny people,’ you announce, tossing him a playful smirk. ‘Maybe I will like looking at him as much as I like looking at you.’

Jealousy tightens itself around his ribs, the selfish desire for him to be the only thing that brings you pleasure rising in his throat like bile. It is an entirely new experience for him, the notion of love that one must remember its fragility, the sacredness of a lover's admiration more divine than the gods. Already, every breath he takes is heavy with you, body and soul hypnotized by your existence, and, in the effort of appearing aloof and affable, he grits his teeth through a humorless laugh.

‘Better not,’ he teases, though the jovial nature of it is almost nonexistent. As soon as he says it, he becomes upset with himself, the statement alone so preposterous and out of his character he shivers to shake the sound of it off his skin.

You, however, do not seem to notice, nudging into his shoulder once more as you continue on the journey.

Jaebeom has not seen the entirety of Isle Indolon, his ability to travel limited by his small income and the availability of everything he needs being centered to the town. However, he has never truly felt the need to explore, their small city of Sunridge Keep the capital of the island and therefore so full and bustling with activity he finds it impossible to muster the desire to leave. Orange red brick buildings decorated with limestone columns line the road, the gravel and dirt of the path turning into smooth cobblestone, warmed by the light of the blazing sun.

Hissing slightly as your toes touch the warm stones, you pull your foot back in surprise, only to place it back down with careful movements, mind racing once more as you take tentative steps forward. Immediately, your eyes are everywhere, touching everything all at once. You are hungry for absolutely everything, reading names of shops, studying faces of strangers as they pass, watching the florist hand out daffodils from her wicker basket as though nothing has ever been so marvelous. The bread maker offers you a warm sticky bun, and you look instead to the man’s face, not to the pastry held in his large palm, studying him as though his name might arrive on your tongue.

Jaebeom guides you away, offering the vendor a dismissive wave of his hand, only to find your eyes latched onto something else. He grows light headed watching the trajectory of your focus, your wild discontent and ravenous hunger gnawing you into a frenzied state of almost savage inquisitiveness. There is not a single thing your gaze does not touch, and occasionally you stop in front of shop windows to look in, eyes searching ever deeper for something familiar.

The center of town always smells the sweetest to Jaebeom, and so he leads you in this direction, hoping that the star shaped expanse and its wide angles will ease some of your tension. Childishly, he plans to acquire some roasted chestnuts, certain their candied deliciousness will provide you comfort even if it does not inspire remembrance. The throng of people eases as he approaches town center, the citadel bell chiming the late early hour, and you pause, looking up into the sky in awe. He’d always loved the bell tower - even if he did not trust the missionaries, even if he made himself believe it was deception that lurked behind their irises and not concern, he always appreciated their music.

Leading you to the large fountain directly in the center of the star, he settles on the warm marble and gestures for you to sit beside him. The rushing water calms his erratic heartbeat, and, yet again, with his eyes closed he can pretend he is small, little more than a boy who belongs completely to himself and to his mother, the whim of his will the only thing that stirs his reason.

‘We have a bit of time to rest here,’ he says, leaning back and closing his eyes as the sun cascades over his skin. It warms him from within, the magic of his childhood returning on the breadth of a sunbeam. ‘I always like to sit here a while before I run my errands. One can never deny music, can they?’

Jaebeom awaits your response, what feels like his very spirit existing in anticipation of you. But when it does not come, his skin begins to tighten amidst another wave of unease, and he opens his eyes to find you have retreated so far within yourself the shock of it lives on your features.

Hands in your lap, your back is rigid and straight, gaze flicking between the citadel tower and the people mingling at its base - up and down and back again, rushing between each as though you will never have your fill, teeth chewing at the inside of your cheek. Your fingernails pick at your skin before pressing crescent shapes into your palms, adrenaline putting you in a state of anxiety so severe he finds he, too, is sitting up straight and watching the crowd for familiar faces.

‘Do you recognize something?’ It takes work to keep his voice calm and soothing, doing his best not to startle you.

‘There’s something wrong with this,’ is all you whisper, and Jaebeom scours the crowd for a sign of injury, panic, even an out of place cart, but he comes up empty, finding nothing untoward in the surroundings.

Once more, he studies every face that passes, every horse drawn carriage that moves past, wondering which of these is the culprit for your turmoil. It is only when your hand moves to his thigh, gripping tightly enough he comes to see your grip as a vice, that he notices what it is that has you so undone.

At the base of the citadel, the crowd has started to dissipate, the smiling faces of mothers and their children departing after receiving their blessings. A group of four missionaries stands, handing out pamphlets and greeting passerby with neutral, unreadable expressions. Their royal blue cloaks catch the late morning sun, the velvet of the fabric gleaming in all their expensive glory, putting cerulean shadows on the limestone behind them. In this way, they are glowing, ephemeral visions that at once are otherworldly and oppressive, the sort of power in their light that would bring one to their knees.

As always, he shivers at the sight of them, but your grip on his leg tightens and when he looks at you again you are murmuring to yourself and he feels his jaw go slack.

‘Murderers,’ you hiss, softly enough that only he can hear but you say the word over and over, voice rising in pitch until your voice dies altogether.

You watch them, unblinking and repulsed, the fear and loathing in you so great he sees you now as a mere apparition of the woman you once were. A great tremor has started to creep through your limbs, body rocking back and forth as though you are at sea, your center of gravity warped as you continue to look and look.

Running his hand up and down your back in an effort to calm you, Jaebeom feels his own voice start to waver. ‘What is it?’

You say nothing, merely shake your head, unwilling to speak for fear that they may hear you. All his question manages to do is inspire another round of mumbling, calling them murderers only to yourself and only to Jaebeom, simply because he is close enough for your voice to reach. His eyes scour the crowd for a discreet way to remove you from the fountain, looking in the direction of Stefan’s practice only to drop to a disappointed frown. In front of the pathway, at his end of the star,a group of people have gathered to inspect a vendor of Veruvian silk.

‘Murderers,’ you say again, and this time it is loud enough that a young boy passing by hears your voice, his eyes widening in surprise.

Jaebeom grimaces apologetically, waving the boy along as he pulls you into his side, holding you close. Even in his state of panic, his heart breaks that this should be the first time he holds to him, the first time you would be able to remember, the comfort his arms reduced to merely a time and a place, and not a feeling. The trembling in your muscles is palpable, tangible enough his hands feel as though they are gripping something monstrous, something absolute in its knowledge and power. In a single moment, you have become something Other, shaking against his ribs with enough violence he fears you may tear the marble of the fountain asunder. Your hand leaves his thigh and comes to grip your seat, fingers pressing against the stone until your knuckles turn white.

He’s certain the missionaries must see you, certain this will turn into something holy and something wholly unwelcome, but they seem to pay you both no mind, their attention devoted instead to the good and to the whole.

And just when he thinks he may be able to ease words out of you, the noise of you reduced to slow, deep inhales between your parted lips and the shaking in your muscles coming abruptly to a halt, you bed over, eyes wide in shock, as you vomit sea water, seaweed, and, most horribly of all, blood at your feet.

Author’s Note: lord god, im telling you i thought this was going to be a very short story but here i am...all this with so much more to go. im just really in love with this world and actually really proud of it? ive never done anything like this and ive been in love with fisherman!jb ever since the dye preview pics came out. ive had this in my mind since i messaged @imdifferentshadesofpurple in may about it and im just so glad it lives. did i make an entire story out of that one promo pic and the oyster dress by alexander mcqueen? sure bet but you cannot blame me.

tag list: @red-exo @heatofmyexoheart @majci @yehet-me-up @lamichellee @ahgishaman @softly-savage-mint-yoongi

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blodreina-noumou · 3 years

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what would the show have had to have done to be considered good for you? I thoroughly enjoyed my time watching the show, so I look back at it fondly.

Oh god, where do I even begin?

For starters - if you’re one of the people who enjoyed The 100 in its entirety, good for you! That’s awesome! I don’t want to diminish that. These are just my feelings and my opinions, and I don’t intend for them to make anyone else feel bad for what they like. The ending could’ve been much worse, I’ll give it that. And there were obviously moments I enjoyed throughout the final season, and the series as a whole will still stand (unfortunately) as one of my favorites.

HOWEVER.

I found the ending thoroughly disappointing. It robbed our characters of any of the development they made in the final season, for the sake of propping up Clarke (canonically, that is why they stayed.)

The final season provided us with some really fascinating journeys for our characters. Without recapping the whole season, I can say that I really liked where Octavia, Emori, Murphy, and Echo ended up in their respective arcs. They all had to overcome their past tragedies to fulfill new roles. It was interesting and engaging.

The show itself provided us with so many interesting conflicts, with so many different groups who had competing goals and ideals. On some level, it promised us that peace was not possible until these folks all learned to work together and stop killing each other. That was the goal, all along.

Survival of the human race was the first goal of the show, and survival of the human race is only possible if they (a) stay human and (b) survive.

Neither of those things happened by the end. The goal of our protagonists - the thing they allegedly existed for, in their stories - to save the human race and survive and thrive and all of that, did not happen for the vast majority of people.

Transcendence and the final scene on the beach erases all of the hard work they did in showing us those character journeys, and in making us invest time and energy into different groups that would only continue to suffer assimilation and homogenization by the end.

What was interesting to me about our main characters - Clarke, Bellamy, Monty, Raven, Murphy, Octavia, Emori, and Echo - was that they appeared to be the ones best suited (according to the storytellers) to save the human race.

The moment the show introduced the Grounders, I wanted a political thriller that I was probably never going to get. I accept that.

What I cannot accept is that they erased all of their conflicts with a convenient deus ex machina, and everything that our characters learned is more or less pointless because of it. I’ll focus on their s7 arcs, but I think it applies to their entire storylines.

Octavia learns about her brother’s way of raising her and comes to forgive him for it. She becomes a parent herself. She manages to bridge the gap between two cultures yet again (Bardo and...everyone else, I guess) by falling in love with Levitt.

She will never utilize any of those skills again. Hope no longer needs a parent. There will never be another culture different from them again. She and Levitt will never have children.

Murphy learns to put value in the group, and to recognize his own abilities as a leader and as a man. He saves multiple people in Sanctum, becoming their protector and their shield.

Emori learns to put value in herself, and to recognize her abilities to empathize with outcasts and those deemed “less worthy” by society. She becomes a queen in her own right, a protector and a diplomat.

No one will ever need them to fulfill these roles, ever again. There was no point in them leading those people.

Echo had to go back to a deeply painful role, one which has cost her dearly in life - a spy among her enemy. When she’s brought to her lowest, to the brink of committing genocide, it’s her love for her family that keeps her from going over the edge. She reemerges as herself, recognizing that her painful past does not define her, and she can find love despite it.

Too bad the love of her life was murdered by Clarke!

I wanted our heroes to save the human race, not be the only humans that ended up saved. Does that make sense?

Clarke gets the closest thing to a happy ending of anyone, since she was the one who insisted for seven seasons that “[her] people” were the most important thing in the world, and that she would stop at nothing to protect them. Welp, now there’s nothing to protect them from. Her genocidal rages get a little slap on the wrist and then she gets to spend an endless beach day bossing everyone around and pouting.

It just sucked.

I hate the magic hand-wave of all of the conflicts. You can try to tell me that transcendence was a choice all you want. Plenty of people chose the City of Light, too. That didn’t make the way it erased their individuality and personal goals okay. Frankly, the ending to me feels like everyone just decided to go into the City of Light anyway. And sure, they keep their bad memories and some semblance of individuality, but what do those things even mean when you just one blip of a species that works, moves, lives, and decides things as one?

They didn’t overcome their tribalism. All of the other tribes just got assimilated into the borg. And sure, they maintain some semblance of personality once they transcend - we know that because of Madi’s message to Clarke. But what kind of lives are they going to have as part of that big glowy shit? Madi never gets to grow up, or fall in love, or pet dogs again. (Picasso is always going to wonder where her new best friend went.)

And who were those alien assholes anyway? Who are they to say that their way is better, that they have the right to judge entire species based on one representative? That they can just exterminate anyone whose way of life doesn’t match up with theirs?

Our heroes didn’t save the human race. The human race turned into something else entirely, and its last survivors get to watch each other die knowing that that’s it, that’s the end of them all.

No societies. No cultures. No new art, or music, or fashion.

No children, no future. No hope.

It’s very disappointing and scary to me. I don’t like the messaging and I don’t like the implications for the surviving characters.

There was a brief, brief moment when I saw a glimpse of an ending that I could’ve liked. When Raven says, “just give us another chance,” I was really expecting the aliens to swoop off and leave humanity to their own devices. No crystallization. No transcendence. All of the remaining groups have to come together and figure out how to thrive together. Discuss and establish a system of government that doesn’t rely on state-sanctioned child battle royales, or body snatching, or extreme restrictions on how many children people can have. Obviously, in this ending, nobody gets shot and nobody almost dies. Madi retains control of her body, somehow. Fill in the details yourself, but my ending would include just about everybody surviving.

Build a society that will grow. Let our characters take the lessons they’ve learned and apply them in a meaningful way, a lasting way. Show us that humanity will survive and will rebuild, on the planet of our birth. Let them rest, but let that rest and that peace mean something more than, “Good job! You made it to episode 100!”

Not to mention, the fact that Earth did eventually heal made everything that Monty and Harper did at the end of s5 completely pointless. Monty thought he was delivering the human race to a new hope. He was just steering them towards assimilation to the borg. I don’t think that’s the “do better” that he wanted, you know?

I could go on, but this is long enough. I’ll just end by saying this - if someone had told me, back in 2015 when I started watching, that this is how the show would end, I never would’ve started it. Not for Lexa, not for Octavia, not for anything.

The ending made everything they went through so painfully pointless.

#asks #anon #forgot I had anon on lol #should turn it off again #saltblogging #stephspeaks #long post

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thijihiguri · 3 years

Text

The Emperor’s Ascension - Part 2: The Diamond Prophecy

Disclaimer: it is highly recommended that you read up on the previous chapters prior to reaching this point, or you will find yourself lost in the narrative. They are posted below for your convenience.

Introduction: https://www.facebook.com/notes/2304709552987721/

Part 1a: https://www.facebook.com/notes/280199693228168/

Part 1b: https://www.facebook.com/notes/811622582740697

The capital of Hyoga was tranquil this time of year. Everyone waited out these remaining few weeks before the first snow. Winter was the most active time of the year for the Land of Glaciers, and the first snowfall heralded the changing of the seasons.

On the western portion of the capital, in the residential districts, there stood a lovely mansion which could easily be spotted from anywhere in the district. Other than the architecture heavily contrasting that of Hyogan make, it was teal. From chimney to foundation, every brick and shingle was the same color. Within this monocolor abode was a theater, which was empty save for one woman, who was enjoying a pleasant dessert beverage over a movie, seemingly about a special girl who could harness the powers of the rainbow. Her hair was wrapped in a towel and wore a bathrobe – all of which was teal. She sighed with content as she watched, almost as if she was reminiscing over days long past.

Just as the movie was seeming to get interesting, the picture was beginning to distort. The woman ceased the enjoyment of her beverage and stood up, watching as the screen was beginning to shift into an image of a white-haired maid in blue-and-white, who greeted her with a smile. Knowing her as Sakuya, the woman robed in teal sat back down and put her drink aside…

Sakuya: Madam Shuji. Sorry to have interrupted that grand movie; it was getting to the best part.

Nora: It’s no problem, Queen Mikazuki! If you’re here, then somethin’ big must be goin’ down!

Sakuya: Have you been made aware of your pupil’s recent excursions?

Nora: Who, Thiji? I heard somethin’ about him fightin’ a bunch of ice people lately. Why, may I ask?

Sakuya: Is your estate empty?

Nora: Yup! All my appointments and meetings have been taken care of for the day!

Ripples began forming on the screen as the Eternal Human then walked through it as if it were a portal, appearing before Nora in person as the movie resumed behind her.

Sakuya: Then I can speak to you about this personally. But first, let’s finish this film, yes?

Nora nodded in agreement, and the two ladies watched the rest of the movie to its end, conversing and laughing all the while. They regaled each other over the days when Thiji, Koyuki, and the others were yet young and full of creative energy. Once the movie ended, they relocated to Nora’s office (take a guess at what color it was). Nora shut the blinders and Sakuya closed the door to maintain privacy, during which time she would give her pitch to the Teal Quaintrelle…

Nora: Wait a minute… He’s doin’ what?! How was I, Elementa’s #1 socialite, not made aware of this?!

Sakuya: That’s partially my fault, Madam Shuji.

Nora: Please, Your Majesty! Just “Nora” will do for you!

Sakuya: I’ve only been sharing this information with the Handmaidens of Peace so far, but Thiji has accelerated through the Trials much faster tha new anticipated, which can only mean that he is as anxious to become a God as are my sisters. But if you can get the word out on this, it would mean a lot to me. Not to mention it could bring untold amounts of publicity to Shuji Studios.

Nora: As temptin’ as that already sounds, I’d have done this without such delicious bait! To think that the boy I tutored so long ago became an Emperor of an entire continent, and now he’s gonna become a bona-fide God of Winter! You don’t need to ask twice, My Queen – I’ll happily tell the world! And it’s gonna go down here, before the First Snow! They’ll be callin’ it the “Winds o’ Destiny” once this whole thing blows over!

Sakuya, chuckling: I’m glad you saw things my way, Nora. Just a reminder that you cannot disclose the full details of this event until the moment it starts. If too much information gets out, it’d spark a lot of undue tension throughout Elementa.

Nora: As if I need to be reminded o’ that! Gimme a week and the Borealis Stadium will be so filled to capacity that there won’t even be room for SRO! Let this be known as Shuji’s Finest Hour!

Sakuya: Thank you again, Nora. I’ll be looking forward to your report.

Nora: Oh, one more thing! I’m gonna need footage o’ Thiji kickin’ ass across the multiverse! I know you have some holo-footage lyin’ around somewhere!

Sakuya: Anything you need to get the word out, Nora. I got you covered. I must attend to our Eternal-to-be.

Nora: Then you’ve got yourself a signal-boostin’ deal!

After they shook hands, Sakuya’s form began to fade out of the material plane, leaving behind a small orb in the palm of Nora’s hand. This was no doubt the recorded footage of Thiji’s recent accomplishments.

Nora searched for her hyperdimensional purse and whistled a special tune. Out from within jumped a fully-equipped stage crew, complete with cameramen, stylists, clothiers, and every other possible accoutrement. They all seemed eager and raring to go, for they have not been called by their mistress in what felt like ages.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s been one hell of a ride with y’all so far,” Nora told them, “but we’ve got the biggest scoop to have ever graced Elementa, and we’ve only got a week to get the word out, so let’s get to work, because once this is all over, even unborn children will know of the Shuji name!”

https://youtu.be/EuKGNGZjUJI?t=11437 (3:10:36 - 3:16:14)

Everyone cheered and scrambled throughout the estate, setting themselves up for the biggest report ever. Meanwhile, within the Spiral of Time, Thiji had just returned from his final leg of the Trials of Winter. He had contended with other god-like beings that commanded a great deal of winter’s might, and has learned (and re-learned) just about everything there is to know about ice and its many facets. The sheer amount of knowledge he had unearthed intrigued him, and that alone motivated him to learn all he could about winter so that he would be that much better off for his ascent.

With his final battle in the Trial thus settled, the Proofs all gathered, circling around Thiji as the latent energies reacted with his body, instilling their knowledge and memories into him. All he could do from that point was heave a great sigh of relief and fell backwards, landing on his back.

After a few long moments of rest, he rose to a sitting position and noticed a familiar figure walking out of a portal, greeting him with applause.

“Congratulations, Thiji,” spoke Sakuya, “the Trials of Winter have been conquered, and you are now one step closer to achieving your destiny. How do you feel?”

“As if a two-ton weight was placed upon my shoulders…” Thiji groaned as he struggled to stand, the adrenaline in his body finally giving way to massive fatigue.

“You worked tirelessly to make it this far, and it shows,” Sakuya stated. “Now it is time for you to rest; your final Trial is near. Within one week’s time, when the first snows fall upon Hyoga, your penultimate task will begin. Until then, you may find solace in my domain, and recuperate unperturbed. Remember your training; trust your instincts, and ready yourself in mind, body, and soul. This last trial will undoubtedly be your most daunting.”

The Eternal Human waved her hand and placed her nephew in a stasis field, rendering his body motionless. The Emperor wasted no time in surrendering to the sweet embrace of slumber, his body drifting through the limitless expanse that was the Spiral of Time. Meanwhile, Nora was already hard at work getting everything set up for the big broadcast. She spent the entire week signal boosting and utilizing her various media techniques to inform not only Elementa, but to their allies from other realms as well. When it came to the power of media, Nora Chelsea-Izumi Shuji could command the attention of even Gods! Her face was seen on every poster and every television; her voice was heard on every radio and podcast. There was nothing stopping Shuji Studios from seizing the radio waves.

“Goood mornin’, Elementa and beyond! This is Nora Shuji here live in the Borealis Tundra to give you what is perhaps the most special report ever! If you’ve been livin’ under a rock, in a cave, or under the sea all your life, then fear not! I’m here to enlighten ya! Our lovable Emperor of Hyoga, Lord Thiji Higuri, has been undergoin’ some grueling trainin’ recently to be bestowed the rarest of honors: ascension to godhood! He’s been goin’ across the mysterious multiverse and kickin’ the cans of all the guys, gals, and creatures that consider themselves to be masters of winter! But he’s beaten every single one of ‘em, and now the time has come for him to face his final test against an unknown adversary! Is it a person from Thiji’s past? Or a long-lost rival lookin’ to settle a score? The only way you’ll find out for sure is if you head on over to Hyoga yourself to witness this monumental event! Tickets are on sale now, and you’ve got only one week before showtime! But even if you can’t make it, Shuji Studios has you covered: we’ll be takin’ control of the radio waves so that everyone in Elementa can watch the spectacle from the comfort of their own homes! Are you lookin’ to see what a real battle of ice and snow looks like? Then you’d better tune in, because this is a once-in-a-hundred-lifetimes chance! The Borealis Stadium is expected to be filled to capacity, so you’d better act fast and start makin’ your travel arrangements! This has been Nora Shuji reportin’ to you from the icy bosom of the Land of Glaciers, and remember: If It Ain’t Shuji, It Ain’t Worth Jack!”

From the subaquatic city of Arazsha, to the capitals of all thirteen continents and even the Soramori, news of Thiji’s ascension spread like wildfire. People from all around the globe began to flock towards the Land of Glaciers, where the greatest moment in Elementa’s history would unfold.

A week’s time had passed, and it was a peaceful, sunny morning in Hyoga. Atop the glistening walls of Yukiga-To’s outer gates, the leader of the Brides of Winter, Confessor Sylla, sat upon the parapet. Two more individuals approached her, meeting her gaze toward the horizon. They were Celuwen, the Virtuemother and Shijima Yukino, the Voice of Winter, and together with the First Bride, they were the highest-ranking individuals of the Handmaidens of Peace. They watched as the Hyogan skies were dotted by airships and various flying creatures eager to witness the spectacle – one of which was a large airship bearing the image of a multicolored, exploding star upon its sails. This was the War Star, the airship belonging to the Battle Vixens guild, with the entire crew on deck with their warrior elite: Lupi Flametress, the hot-blooded Knight; Aege Stonemantle, the steadfast Whitesmith; Elua Windgaze, the free-spirited Sniper, and Heal-Do, the calm yet fierce Assassin Cross.

Approaching the Frozen Shore were seafaring vessels and seaborne fauna who have befriended the people of Hyoga – the most important of whom being the Glacierfin Naga, led by Queen Mizu and her council. Accompanying her was the Mist Queen, Shiro Reina, Mizu’s old friend and former master.

“I knew that man was something else,” Shiro stated, “but never in my life did I imagine him joining Elementa’s pantheon… I’d like a few words with him when this is over before he parts.”

“To ssee a sshorewalker grace the very heavenss would be a sssight for any Naga to behold,” commented Z’hira. “Let uss make hasste to the sstadium!”

It was truly a sight to behold from the city proper: people from all corners of Elementa and beyond, flocking to one singular location, the stadium slowly filling in its seats. The Borealis Stadium itself was impressive, to say the least, easily accommodating at least half a million people, including exclusive club seating, skyboxes, and luxury suites – one of which housed the Eternals themselves, and even Nora. The Teal Quaintrelle wasted no expense in having as many people filling the stadium as possible, and to attract such a crowd could only be possible for a media mogul like her.

And on the far side of the fields stood a solitary ice block, the man of the hour himself within. Thiji awaited the coming battle, taking this time in solitude to gather himself and focus his power. It appeared to have been under control - no paling skin or abnormal protrusions from his body.

“Looks like it’ll be a full house, sisters!” Raiko excitedly pointed out. “This stadium is freakin’ huge! It should be a landmark!”

“It is,” Homura and Sakuya said simultaneously.

“Where the heck’s Mizore? She should be watching her son’s finest hour!” the Eternal Succubus asked as she took a big gulp of her drink.

“She’s got her reasons for being tardy,” Sakuya calmly replied. “For now, let’s get comfy. Thiji’s battle will be approaching soon.”

In the premium club seats were Princess Seraphina and her entourage: her cousins Kasui & Kasho, along with the Generals of the Tundra Force. She was excited to see her father’s final performance, along with Queen Shiro and the others – everyone of Hyoga’s Finest had arrived to bear witness to this occasion. Turning to her immediate left, she would find herself being greeted by a beautiful silver-white fox with nine tails, swinging them eagerly.

“I know he’ll succeed – I will see him in the heavens!” she thought aloud. This was Da Ji, Purity’s Envoy, and Guardian deity of Amatsu. A close friend of Thiji’s, she was more eager than anyone to watch Thiji’s performance.

With everyone in place, the time had come to commence the event. A large teal dirigible flew over the stadium, and titantrons began activating along the outer edges of the stadium, allowing comfortable viewing access from any and all angles. The Glacierfin Council “seated” beside Shiro and Mizu gazed in awe at the enlarged visage of Nora, and the technology she boasted.

“Thiss woman iss… eccentric,” Zhira commented, “but her pressentation iss not wanting! Thiss is the marvel of sshorewalker technology!”

“And she’s a fierce fighter besides,” Shiro commented. “In fact, she taught Thiji martial arts, among other things.”

“PEOPLE OF ELEMENTA AND BEYOND! ARE YOU READY?!” cried Nora from the airship. The crowd let out a jubilant uproar of cheers and applause in response. “To all tunin’ in today, you’re in for the more delectable treat in Elementa’s history: the hour of Thiji’s ascension! The Emperor of Hyoga himself, Thiji Higuri, has been rampagin’ all over the multiverse to beat all contenders who would get in his way of bein’ Lord of Winter, and now he’s back in the world of Elementa to face his final trial – and you’re all invited to witness it! Any moment now, his final opponent will make their appearance, and the most epic battle of your lives will commence! Now let’s hear it for our lovable ice man, the Emperor himself: Thiji Sorin Higuri!”

The ice block shattered and the man of the hour rose to his feet, gazing upon the countless masses applauding him. He could make out familiar voices cheering him on: his daughter; his niece; Da Ji, and even Shiro. He couldn’t help but smile at all the people whose lives he touched and changed motivating him one last time as a mortal. Because after today, he would become a God.

As the hour of judgment drew closer, the Handmaidens’ leadership began to make their way towards the stadium. However, they would only be able to take a few steps before Confessor Sylla felt a wave of dread wash over her. She frowned as she laid a hand upon her heart, giving her sisters cause for concern.

https://youtu.be/EuKGNGZjUJI?t=6329 (1:45:29 - 1:47:37)

“Confessor?” spoke Celuwen.

“This pang upon my breast…” she whispered. “Is this truly Winter’s will…?”

“What did you see?” Shijima inquired. Sylla remained silent, only pointing towards the heavens above the Borealis Stadium. The clouds were beginning to part as a single pillar of amethyst-colored light shone through – it was finally time. Thiji readied himself as a lotus flower fell from above. Its descent was blindingly swift, and as it touched down, a storm of petals danced throughout the stadium, wowing the audience. The flower itself grew in size until it was tall enough to fit an adult male, and once the petals parted to reveal its passenger… the world stopped.

Everyone – from the spectators in the stadium, to the people watching from all corners of the realm, to even Thiji himself – was utterly frozen. Not a single breeze blew through the arctic. All was still; all was silent.

“Psst. Hey, Sakuya,” Raiko whispered. “I know this is for dramatic effect and all, but we kinda need time to move again.”

“This isn’t me, sister,” the Eternal Human defended. “Even the families of Heaven of Hell are aware of this moment; all of Elementa is still.”

Out from the flower strode a maiden in a violet qipao, her hair and skin flawless. Angel wings were seen protruding from her back and in front of her ears. In her right hand she gripped a decorative jian, an oriental broadsword, and flowers began to blossom through the snow upon which she stood. Her face was tense – not with anger, but with determination, as she glared daggers at Thiji.

Once the perception of time went back to normal, Thiji’s focus shattered. He beheld his final opponent, his penultimate obstacle standing in the way of his rightful ascension:

The Snow Flower herself, Koyuki Kazahana, was his final opponent.

“Hello, my lord,” Koyuki greeted firmly. “It is finally time for you to embrace your destiny.”

“The High Empress…?!” gasped Celuwen and Shijima.

“That I did not foresee this until now…What is Winter plotting…?” Sylla asked herself aloud.

“I am certain we will find the answers we seek once we make it to the stadium. Come, sisters!” Celuwen ordered, and with a strum of her oud, she brought the winds of the north to heel as they swirled around herself and the others, carrying them to the Borealis Stadium.

“My mother… She was an Angel all this time?” Seraphina inquired.

“Always has been, Princess Seraphina,” Shiro replied. “In fact, she is a Seraph, an Angel raised and trained for battle. Note the two pairs of wings.”

“Just like my name! It makes so much sense now!” the Princess giggled.

“That she is a Seraph can only mean that she went to the Dawn Academy at some point... which implies that our Empress is a lot older than she seems!” Hira deducted.

“Preposterous!” scoffed Chui, General of the Wavemenders. “That’d mean she’d be half a century old at the least!”

“Normally you’d be correct, Wavecaller,” coolly spoke Galetracker Yori Honshou, General of the Hailvolleys, “but if there’s one thing I know about the Kazahana Clan, it’s that they hold a lot of skeletons in their closet - the Pure Branch, especially!”

“You’re not just saying that because your bow was blessed by them, are you...?” the Spring Elf Arasil questioned, rolling her eyes.

“He has a point, though,” Hira followed. “The Kazahana Clan are the most powerful and prominent family in Elementa for a reason. Some even say that their capabilities border on the unnatural.”

The others shrugged off the notion and fell silent, refocusing on center field.

“Koyuki, my flower, what are you doing…?” Thiji questioned. He took a step forward, but would be met with only a blade pointed toward him. He looked upon his wife and immediately took notice of her demeanor: she wasn’t the cheerful and demure lady by which she was so known and loved. No, this Koyuki was far different – eyes burning with fervent determination, a fury quelled by the serenity her very presence brings. He had surmised that she has awakened the Kazahana blood within her, turning the Snow Flower into a weapon of war.

“Doing what must be done, my lord,” she replied. “You have completed the Trials of Winter, and now your final test is upon you. Did you think you were the only one training, my Emperor? I, too, have been honing my skills, preparing myself for this fateful day where we would meet each other – as opponents. And as many are wont to say: the more beautiful the flower, the deadlier its thorns, and I have been touted as the most beautiful in all of Elementa.”

“But I’ve sworn an oath to defend and uphold your purity!” Thiji interjected, taking a stance. “Laying a hand on you in aggression is sacrilege of the highest order; the Kazahana Clan is the most powerful in all of Elementa, and drawing their blood is original sin – especially the blood of a Pure Branch member – most of all its head!”

“You’re right: you are still oathbound to protect me, my lord,” Koyuki pondered, “which is why I declare upon this day that you, Thiji Sorin Higuri, shall protect me no longer. I deem you freed from the manacles by which this oath has bound you, sworn no longer to safeguard my purity!”

The entire stadium gasped; some of the Handmaidens were so taken aback that they began fainting on the spot. As for Thiji, he was crushed by this so that he collapsed, falling to his knees. The Eternals watched silently from their box with anticipation, counting on the Snow Flower to carry out their mission. Thiji wanted to feel utter sorrow, but his heart was not as affected by this as he had thought. In fact, he was not even brought to tears. But the same sadness lingered as he rose his head to the heavens, wondering what cruel hand fate had dealt him to come to this occasion. After loving, serving, and protect his beloved Snow Flower – his destined, star-crossed wife – she casts his oath aside like an old toy.

His head felt heavy now. The weight became too much to bear that he would once again lower it to the ground, seemingly losing all energy to move. He was still, as the first snow had finally begun to fall upon Hyoga. Thiji had shut his eyes, hoping that it was all a nightmare. But a voice broke through the silence.

“Thiji. Draw your sword. If you are to claim your destiny, then you must strike me down.”

https://youtu.be/EuKGNGZjUJI?t=11775 (3:16:14 - 3:19:26)

These words came from Koyuki’s lips. But it only hurt him further. Again, the emotional blow was softened by some unknown force. No response from the Emperor of Hyoga. Koyuki pressed the matter once more.

“Raise your head, Thiji. Draw your sword and meet me in battle.”

“What madnesss is thiss?!” Z’hira gasped.

“What corruption has befouled the High Empress?!” Deshir followed.

“Koyuki is incorruptible,” Queen Mizu said telepathically. “She’s plotting something, but it involves battle. I know Lady Shiro and Lady Koyuki well; they wouldn’t do things without some ultimate goal in mind.”

Seraphina only watched on in silence, unable to say a single word from the sheer emotion wrought by this moment. Thiji, again, did not speak or budge. Thus did Koyuki resort to more direct measures. With a beat of her wings, she took the the skies, grasping her blade as gravity gave way.

As she descended, memories of Thiji’s past surged through his mind – all of which involved Koyuki. His most cherished moment, when they were mere children, replaying over and over in his mind. How tenderly he held her that cold day… how icy wet his face was from the tears he shed for her… and the words he spoke to her:

“Please, Koyuki… don’t go. I need you.”

He kept that memory closest to his heart all his life, and now it seemed to have been for naught. Of all the opponents he could have faced, he never once dreamed of raising a blade against Koyuki. But just like the other assaults upon his heart, yet again, the blow was mitigated. Why did not feel so crushed as he originally anticipated? Was his warrior’s spirit taking over? Whatever the cause may be, he found the strength to rise back to his feet, conjuring a katana of ice just in time to clash blades with Koyuki, a loud ring heard throughout the stadium. The resulting force sent the falling snow blowing in all directions, pelting the crowd in a flurry of frost and angel down.

“Good, my lord,” she congratulated as she stared her husband down, that same determination in her eyes. His eyes, however, were filled with something else – cold yet raging. He did not question why he acted in such a way, only that it felt right. “For the glory of Hyoga, unleash your soul and face me!”

And thus the battle had begun.

“Game on, sisters…” Sakuya declared, reclining in her seat. The two concluded their deadlock and forced each other back to opposite ends of the arena. Thiji made the first move and sent blades of ice toward the Snow Flower, who answered with graceful dodges to the left and right. She performed another wingbeat, sending flower petals forward and strewing them about the arena.

Thiji rose his katana and charged, watching the petals explode in a small radius as he came close. She had set a floral minefield to deter Thiji. Stepping directly atop a petal, he was sent flying upwards, throwing him off balance. Koyuki took the skies to meet him, ready to greet Thiji with a series of blade attacks. He was able to recover from the explosion he triggered to meet Koyuki in a clash of blades once more, parrying her blows with his katana. Seeing an opening, Koyuki performed a lunge with her sword, aimed at Thiji’s chest. The Emperor was able to spin in midair to avoid it, sheathing his blade for a brief moment before unleashing stored energy to perform a blinding iai slash at the Empress’ midsection. The attack hit its mark, but Koyuki’s form vanished into flower petals.

“A flower clone…” he thought to himself. He made a quick 180-degree turn as soon as he felt Koyuki’s presence, though try as he did to react, the Snow Flower had already grabbed him by the arm, whirled him around, and threw him straight downward.

Utilizing his newfound strength, Thiji turned to face the ground, clenching his free hand into a fist and slammed the ground with all his might, upheaving the floral minefield and detonating all the petals in a beautiful display of flower and snow. The audience could not help but cheer at the spectacle, scattered cheering for either side to win. Everyone was beginning to get into the fighting spirit, it seemed.

“You’re gettin’ all this, right, boys?!” Nora shouted to her crew, who all gave a thumbs-up. “Good! Ain’t nobody’s takin’ this moment away from us!”

“Thiji... One way or another, I will help make you see,” Koyuki thought as she looked down at Thiji. She began her descent, seeking to meet Thiji head-on once more. As they clashed blades once more, she stared once more into his icy-cold eyes. “Dance with me, my lord,” she invited aloud. “Bring me the beauty and grace of battle that only you can provide me!” Her husband pushed her away, and she performed a somersault before sticking the landing, sliding several meters back along the snow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU0ehpWSZdg

“Then I shall lead…” he coolly replied before wreathing his katana in frost energy. She did the same for her blade, enveloping it in a violet aura of floral energy, and their dance began: a graceful and frenetic flurry of steel, as gusts of snow and flowers whirled around the stadium. The crowd cheered them on as their dance went on, with either side showing little sign of letting up. For Seraphina, however, the residual energies they were giving off reacted with her own body – so much so that it was beginning to feel as though they had counted on this to happen.

The Alabaster Rose hugged herself, unsure of what was going on with her body…

“Cousin! Are you well?!” Kasui said as she hurried to her side. She would then be pushed back as the halo which levitated behind her illuminated, and focused her energies into the heavens, drastically altering the scenery. Kasho caught Kasui, after which they would look up to notice that the clouds had parted, revealing a sunless sky, with the glorious light of Tsukuyomi illuminating the area. Once this atmospheric phenomenon occurred, all jubilation ceased, and only silence followed. All were entranced by the dazzling display.

“What… What is this…?” General Hiro gasped.

“In all my battles, I’ve seen nothing like this before…” Snowmistress Hira stated.

“C’est magnifique…”

Everyone turned toward the source of the voice: the newly-ordained Duchess of Yukiga-To, Masao Inkina Muyo. “A rarity unlike any other: a joining only made possible through the Higuri Clan and the Kazahana Pure Branch; a vibrant and mystical dance of twirling petals and snowy zephyrs beneath the silvery gaze of the moon: the Beauty of the Four Seasons: the Setsugekka no Utsukushi-sa.”

“How do you know of this, Duchess?” inquired Mikomi Toushou, Nomad of Hope, who sat right beside Su Da Ji.

“I’ve served the Royal Family long enough to learn of the unique bond shared between the Higuri Clan and the Kazahana Pure Branch,” she explained. “With Great Empress Kaiyuki’s blessing, I was the one who oversaw a young Lord Thiji’s rise to Prime Minister of Yukiga-To before his 15th birthday. The Higuri have always been the most loyal retainers to them, and of the many bonds that form between Clans, theirs is the most graceful and beautiful in all of Elementa. The Great Empress told me this secret, and I’ve kept it well-guarded until the time was right. Their very powers alter the world around them: Lord Thiji, of the snow; Lady Koyuki, of the flower… and Princess Seraphina, of the moon. Together, they complete this rarest of dances…”

A singular tear fell from her face, compared to the countless others who also shed tears from the serene beauty of the sight – even the Glacierfin Naga cried, never witnessing a more beautiful spectacle since the coming of their Queen. And up above, Nora and her crew were practically bawling.

“D-Don’t stop filmin’ this, gentlemen – no matter how w-watery your eyes get…!” Nora ordered, choking back tears with little success. The Eternals, too, were moved by this sight, though Homura was trying her hardest not to show her tears.

“Man… I oughta slap the white off of Mizore for not witnessing her own flesh and blood doing this!” Homura grumbled.

On the eastern section of the stadium, the Handmaidens leadership arrived just in time to witness the show with Nisou and the others. The Handmaidens either fainted from the overwhelming beauty or were praying in reverence to Winter; Sylla felt utter bliss, hurrying to her nieces’ side to watch with them; Celuwen and Shijima were simply stunned.

The length of their dance was reaching its end; the Borealis Stadium and surrounding area darkening as a sign, until the moonlight was focused only on the circumference of the arena. The two warriors disengaged to focus all their respective energy into their weapons again, before zooming towards center field to meet one another in one final clash beneath the lunar spotlight. The ground then began to shake as the residual energies focused onto a singular area – the stadium itself. A raging blizzard of snow and blossom petals filled the area, contained in a transparent veil of moonlight which protected the audience. The storm rose to the very heavens, until the barrier would finally break from the resulting explosion, releasing a flash of light which temporarily blinded all who gazed upon it.

Once the light had faded and the skies returned to normal, the crowd beheld the last vestiges of the dancing iceflowers, as both contestants laid on the ground.

“Did… Did he win…? Is it over…?” Da Ji asked hopefully. Thiji and Koyuki slowly rose to their feet after recovering from the shock of the explosion, barely a scratch on them, save for a small cut on their cheek.

“Well done, Thiji…” Koyuki said in her mind. “All under Heaven and above the Underworld will remember this day. And with this dance concluded, you’re one step closer… But still you must see. You must further be catalyzed. Only then will the truth be revealed. Jenivieve… Liliana… Dr. Rieleigh… everyone… after all we’ve done for him… I pray that you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.”

Grasping her blade, she took to a piercing stance, wings outstretched. Taking this moment in her hands, she charged at Thiji with all her might, her blade aiming straight for his heart.

“MY LORD, TAKE CARE!!” shouted Da Ji, reaching out to the man she loves. Try as he could, he was unable to react, his body feeling… cold. Rigid, even. He only watched as his beloved wife came toward him at full speed, bracing himself for the inevitable blow…

… But destiny had other plans.

A loud clang resounded throughout the stadium, which such force that the wind generated from it blew everyone off of their seats (figuratively, of course). Thiji slowly opened his eyes, gasping at what he beheld: his heart was untouched, a strange barrier holding Koyuki’s blade a meter from it! He rose his head to meet Koyuki’s gaze, who shut her own eyes in response. And in the midst of it all, Thiji could not help but think that Koyuki felt… relieved by this.

Setting the notion aside, he released his pent-up energy in a radial wave of force which knocked the Snow Flower back towards her end of the arena. Koyuki caught herself, getting to her knees as she watched Thiji’s body… changing.

“It’s done…” Koyuki quietly cheered under her breath. The Emperor’s eyes shut as he winced in pain, clutching his chest as he saw his body crystallizing!

“She did it!” Sakuya cheered with a fist pump. “It’s all on her now.”

“I-Is this a result of the dance, Duchess Muyo?!” Mikomi asked.

“Non,” she answered. “This is something entirely different; a first-time occurrence for us all.”

As Thiji fought his hardest to stop this process, he dropped to his knees, clutching his chest desperately to stem the pain. It was then that he heard a voice in his head:

“Thiji… do not fight it.”

His eyes opened, scanning the area for the source, but he saw only Koyuki, and the masses who gathered today to watch him. The voice called to him again:

“Give in to it. This is your destiny. Your time has finally come.”

“I know that voice…” he whispered…

“Come to me… and all will be made clear.”

A protective dome of permafrost formed around Thiji, leaving everyone stupefied.

“The plot glaciates…!” Nora exclaimed.

https://youtu.be/EuKGNGZjUJI?t=10967

Thiji reopened his eyes and found himself in a different realm – far from the Borealis Stadium – far from Hyoga – and far from Elementa. A vast forest blessed by eternal winter; trees turned white and blue by snow and frost; arctic fauna both normal and magical roaming the land. Light snowfall persisted no matter where one went in the forest, and the wind was calm and serene. Thiji was beyond awestruck at the stark beauty of this land. His reverence would be cut short, however, as a snowy owl landed before him, staring at him expectantly. It lifted a wing and pointed it to the path behind it, gesturing him to follow.

Thiji threw caution to the wind and proceeded down the path, until he would eventually come to a glade of pristine snow and ice. Waiting for him in the center sat a lone woman robe in an ornate white-and-blue kimono. Her waist-length hair and skin were as white as the very snow, and icicles decorated her form – from hair ties with red ribbons to lining her obi in a manner akin to strings of charms.

The owl perched itself on a nearby nest, alerting the woman to Thiji’s presence – though she already knew he had come. She rose from her seat and turned slowly to gaze at Thiji, greeting him with a smile warm enough to melt the snow around her.

“My son – my sweet Yukinko…” she greeted with the most gentle of voices.

“Mother…” Thiji replied under his breath. He broke into a sprint towards his beloved parent, and memories flashed back in both their minds, to a time when Thiji was a mere child. This mother of the Emperor of Hyoga was none other than Mizore, the Eternal Yuki-Onna of Ice, and by proxy, Empress Dowager of Hyoga. He embraced his mother tenderly, for he had missed her so, just as she missed him. “Where am I, Mother…? What is going on?”

“Be still, sweetest son,” she replied. “I will explain. Firstly, this is my – and soon to be, your – domain: the Antarctic Glade. I summoned you here personally to help you on your final step towards your ascension. First, I would ask of you to create a reflection.”

“Yes, Mother,” he immediately acknowledged. Mizore then used her powers to conjure a large slab of ice before them, while Thiji utilized the powers of the Glacial Guardian to project his memories onto the ice, replaying them as though it were a television.

“Thiji,” Mizore began, “do you recall a certain crucial moment in time where you changed drastically in demeanor? I will give you a hint: it was during your burgeoning adult years.”

Thiji thought for a moment, which caused the ice to react. The reflections began replaying a younger Thiji with Koyuki, whom he was on the verge of proposing to, and the actual wedding. Then it replayed a moment in time with Thiji and Koyuki again, a few years older, but with a third familiar face: flowing, platinum-blonde hair; stunning violet eyes…

These particular moments kept playing over and over as Mizore continued her explanation…

“Your destiny was delayed due the love you shared with the Snow Flower and the Dragon Empress. Though they may have given you power through love, they had, unbeknownst to them, been holding you back. This was not your fault, nor theirs, for your love was star-crossed. However, you have learned all you could, and now you are at the crux of your power; the zenith of your potential.”

“So Koyuki and Liliana… them changing my heart affected me so?” Thiji asked. Mizore responded with a nod.

“Love is powerful, Thiji,” she said. “so powerful that it can soften one’s resolve. Elementa is in need of new protectors, and it is unanimous that none are a better candidate than you to ascend to godhood. But in order for this to occur, you had to undergo the Trials of Winter – they served as a means of reminding you of your roots as a child born of Winter. You bear it in all forms: its savagery; its ferocity; its serenity; its beauty. Your heart needed to be re-hardened, and you have done just that in record time. To ascend to godhood, you needed to become the undisputed mortal ruler over all things cold and frigid. This… is the Diamond Prophecy. You passed yourself off as the Diamond Emperor, but now you can truly be the Diamond Emperor. This will be your first – and final – transformation.”

“That is why my body was crystallizing!” Thiji realized. “It was a diamond cocoon!”

“Precisely!” his mother affirmed. “Koyuki knew of this, and now she stands between you and your ascension. Though you are among the incredibly rare few to have multiple true loves, you must learn to let them go. Koyuki wanted you to see that; in time, I am sure Liliana will understand as well. We are living forces of nature; the limits of our strength far surpass even that which love can bring. So I ask you, Thiji: will you strike down the Snow Flower – your greatest love – to ascend?”

“I will,” he immediately stated, his expression turning cold. “I must.” Mizore took note of this, smiling in approval – not a single bit of doubt or remorse present on his face.

“Then I have done my duty. Now I’ll just need to give you a little jump-start!”

She lifted her index finger, and condensed the glade’s latent glacial energy into a small orb, resting on its tip. As it drew closer to his heart, Mizore gave her parting words to her son:

“When next I see you, Thiji, you will be a God. For now, I think it’s time you left; you have one last show to put on!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7mt36xZhrk&list=RDj7mt36xZhrk&start_radio=1

As soon as she touched his heart, the energy discharged and quickly enveloped his body, consuming him in a white light that transported him out of the glade and back to Hyoga. Everyone watched with bated breath over the glacial dome that has now been hardened into diamond.

“What could be goin’ on inside that dome?!” Nora shouted. “If you’re still holdin’ your breath, then you’ve got the lung capacity of an Olympic gold medalist!”

“Think she did it?” Homura asked Sakuya.

“For sure. Look at the dome,” she replied. The dragoness looked back, noticing that cracks were forming along the dome. The crowd gasped as the cracks began splitting, growing in length and width. Light broke through the fractures, which made everyone grow concerned.

“That dome’s about to burst! Watch out, everyone!!” Nora warned. The crowd did not have much time to react until the dome burst, sending shards of diamond out in all directions. The audience and Nora and her crew did their best to shield themselves from horrible lacerations and puncture wounds, only to find that the shards have been trapped in stasis before it would strike anyone. They looked around and beheld nothing but a glistening stadium of diamond, as Thiji emerged from his cocoon, completely transformed: his normal garb has been replaced with regal clothing; it along with his hair took on an ice blue-to-white gradient; his skin, pallid and pure white, like the snow. Upon his head was a crown made of pure diamonds, with the shards of the selfsame mineral dancing about him. Koyuki smiled at the sight of her lord – remade whole once more – his former self, restored.

“Is… Is that Lord Thiji?!” Nora gasped. “Ladies and gentlemen and everybody tuned in: the unthinkable has happened! In the heat of battle, the master of ice himself has undergone a PHENOMENAL change, and has stilled the power of winter itself with a mere glare! This can only mean one thing: we’re witnessin’ the first – and last – transformation of Thiji Higuri, the Diamond Emperor!!”

The crowd cheered loudly once more, chanting “Diamond! Emperor! Diamond! Emperor!” Regaining her composure, Koyuki picked up her blade and assumed her best fighting stance.

“Are you prepared, my lord…?” Koyuki called out. He rose his head and slowly opened his eyes, revealing cold orbs of ice blue to match his emotionless countenance.

“Time to find out…” he answered lowly.

With a few slashes of her jian, she called forth miniature petals which gleamed in the light, as though they were tiny blades in disguise. She sent them forth to assail Thiji, who responded with a mere tilt of his head, forming a barricade from the diamond shards. The sound of numerous tiny blades clashing against rock was heard as Koyuki’s attack was nullified.

This, however, was merely a distraction. Koyuki flew forward at full speeds, drifting around the barricade and kicking up snow as she did to strike at Thiji’s blindside, using her deceptive combat style to find a hole in his defenses. Fortunately, he was very focused on the battle, effortlessly deflecting her attacks with his katana, now made from diamond. Koyuki then wheeled around and swung her blade in a clockwise arc, but Thiji easily no selled her attack by planting his blade in the ground. With his free hand, he made a swiping motion with his index and middle finger, shaving off some of the barricade to send a cloud of diamond towards Koyuki, who had to fly to evade.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this side of Father before,” an awestruck Seraphina mused.

“He was... a different man back then, Princess,” Shiro followed. “He was far more cold and calculating in his ways before he was reunited with your mother. Thiji was well on his way to becoming one of - if not, the most - powerful practitioner of ice in Elementa. But now, it looks like he’s done just that.”

“How poetic - Elementa’s progenitor of winter, he must first rule it as a mortal,” Sylla thought aloud. “A pity we will only see this once in our lifetime.”

Thiji then retrieved his sword and slashed it behind him, sending a wave of frost in an arc towards the Snow Flower, who barely rose a floral shield to fend it off, an ice shard or two cutting her face. Koyuki then planted more lotus flowers on the ground, sprouting into man-sized plants into which she would enter. As she did, that flower shrunk into the ground, effectively teleporting her to another one nearby, utilizing this tactic to get the element of surprise on Thiji. Again, it seemed to provide little effect, as he reacted quickly to where she would appear, clashing swords with and forcing her away as she fell into flower after flower to repeat the same tactic. Another clash, and Thiji pushed Koyuki high into the air with his newfound might, using this time to disable her means of teleportation by shredding each and every flower with his diamond shards.

Running thin on options, Koyuki called upon the heavenly host to fill her with light, swooping down to meet Thiji once more in a deadlock, the resulting force causing another shockwave of ice and flowers to spread, though they were contained by the diamonds which formed a barrier around the arena. Thiji slid his blade toward the guard of her sword, using his leverage to pull her down to the earth in a kneeling position. She gazed into Thiji’s eyes as their blades remained deadlocked, and she felt her very soul running cold. They were devoid of feeling – empty save for the unforgiving chill that his very presence brought.

The Snow Flower stilled the quickness of her heart, keeping her gaze fixed on the only man she ever loved. She was completely helpless; if she lost this deadlock, this battle was his. But she saw no point in reasoning with him now, for she had already gone too far – which is what she had wanted all along. She braced herself for what was to follow.

“I’m ready, Thiji…” she said in her mind. Everyone watching stood up from their seats, some even on the verge of falling over the arena. Seraphina couldn’t bear to watch and shielded her eyes. Mizu and the other ladies covered their mouths in shock at what was going to happen.

“Sh-Should we keep filming, ma’am?” asked the cameraman.

“YES! No matter what!” Nora immediately replied. Thiji sent the diamond cloud into the blade, fusing with and hardening its surface, thus increasing its strength. So much so that he applied just a bit more pressure, causing her sword to split in two… The memories of their teary farewell surged into her mind. She remembered it all: the words he said to her; the way he held her; the countless tears he wept for her…

… Then, time stood still once more, as the only sound that followed… was steel piercing flesh.

#thiji higuri #elementa #drama #winter #is #coming

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heartlessconviction · 4 years

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So...The Dark Avatar

Ok I’m not going to defend this I hate the execution, however I do like the idea of the avatar having an equal in this regard, due to the concept of Yin and Yang. The Avatar is seen as the bridge between the Humans and the Spirits, the middle man to put it in a crude manner. However I’ve always disliked this in many respects for a show that is all about balance and different perspectives among with the many cultures it draws inspiration from the avatar themselves whilst is a balance between a human and a spirit. Doesn’t exactly have an equal or a shadow to put it simply, they are seen as this one definitive figure in the universe where I feel the concept could have been handled much differently. My whole issue with this draws from the origin of Vaatu and Raava, whilst intending to represent Yin and Yang two opposites of the spectrum that cannot exist without the other. Their entire history contradicts this principle. Raava definitively is seen as the spirit of peace and light, her defeating Vaatu is what is defined as balance in the Avatar universe which disregards the entire principle of Yin and Yang and the cosmic duality that encompasses this principle. Yes Vaatu still survives in Raava but that isn’t duality, that is one force dominating the other and thats why I dislike the origin of the Avatar somewhat. The concept of having a Dark Avatar isn’t whats asinine, merely the execution. As having a second Avatar that influences the world in the Shadow of Korra or whoever the current Avatar is, learning to co-exist and balance the responsibility is balance. Where the Avatar is, the “dark” Avatar lingers on in their shadow, the Avatar themselves are not deities, they are humans and as such have flaws and shortcomings. They can make mistakes which can inflict horrible consequences onto the world they are tasked with maintaining the balance off, how would this go down with two Avatars, each with their own sense of morality and ideologies that may conflict with one another? How would they maintain the balance not of the spirit world and the human world but each other? This is what mainly pisses me off about season 2 of Korra the potential of having this concept was there, but they didn’t go through with it. Some people who have also delved into this idea proposed that Kuvira should have been the Dark Avatar as she represents all of Korras worse traits. The Yin and Yang, whilst I agree with the assessment I disagree with the choice of character. Strictly because I believe the Dark Avatar needs to represent the opposite spectrum of the role of the Avatar, not the traits of the current Avatar. As in my version the Dark Avatar from the moment they appear, is in the lore and world for good, reincarnating each cycle. So what is the Avatars role? To maintain balance, what is the opposite of balance? Imbalance or disorder, in other words chaos. What is the opposing force of order? Anarchy. As such I believe the “Dark Avatar” has to be no other than Zaheer. Zaheer as a character and his philosophy is the opposing force to both Korra and the role of the Avatar, the shadow in the light and thus he alone has to be. So how would I do this? Alright season 1 goes ahead like normal, however just like we did in The Legend of Aang hearing about Sozins comet we hear about Harmonic Convergence and the fact that its swiftly approaching, this roles into season two. The only things I will change here is that Harmonic Convergence doesn’t occur until Season 3, her uncle isn’t evil just misguided and is thus killed in the final battle Vaatu is still imprisoned and only 1 of the two spirit portals remain open. So Korra doesn’t lose access to her past lives let me be clear here. Season 3 will be a longer season which ends roughly the same as it does in the original. However the start will center around Zaheer breaking out of prison through the influence of Vaatu, with Harmonic Convergence approaching whilst Vaatu is still imprisoned he does have a tiny bit of leverage on the world. I don’t believe Zaheer would fall for this, for a stubborn man in the face of his principles he is not one to be deceived so easily. Hence why Vaatu shrouds his identity by posing as Guru Laghima, I think due to how Zaheer respects the legend and lessons of Laghima having Vaatu pose as this will be the way to get Zaheer on board Zaheer kidnaps Jinora which forces Korra to open up the second spirit portal freeing Vaatu when Harmonic convergence begins, Zaheer explains the motives of the Red Lotus foreshadowing the rest of the season and merges with Vaatu to create the Yang to the Avatars Yin. Korra and Raava battle Zaheer and Vaatu whilst Korra has the advantage of all four elements the beefed up Zaheer can combat her on an equal footing, the fight ends in a stalemate and Zaheer escapes. Harmonic Convergence ends and Korra decides to leave both of the spirit portals open, Jinora is saved etc however its a hollow victory. Now a timeskip occurs here which leads up to Season 3 and Zaheer discovering his air bending. Now the thing that I think allows me to do this, is that the whole Air benders returning is extremely vague, whilst it makes sense for both Bumi and Zaheer you’d be hard pressed for me to believe that everybody who did gain the ability to bend Air is descended from the Air Nomads at some point, I just believe it was the worlds way of restoring balance after Harmonic Convergence and with the spiritual energy being as potent as it is in the human world now. So what am I getting at? With the universe maintaining the balance in this manner, by giving non benders the ability to bend. Its not a stretch to believe with the existence of a now second Avatar after Harmonic Convergence Zaheer doesn’t just gain the ability to Air Bend, but also the affinity of the other three Elements as well although he awakens Air Bending first. This is where the Season 3 of the original and mine align, Zaheer isn’t just saving the fellow members of the Red Lotus to capture and kill the Avatar this time, whilst thats still his objective to achieve true anarchy and freedom. He is also saving them in order for them to guide him and teach him to master the other 3 elements.. I also believe since Zaheer would be the Shadow to Korras Light, his Avatar cycle should be counter clockwise to the Avatars. Avatar: Water-Earth-Fire-Air “Dark” Avatar- Air-Fire-Earth-Water The season plays out like it usually does, with the Red Lotus trying to capture Korra, with each encounter we see Zaheer becoming more adept with the other elements, though his primary element will still be Air. Korra is eventually poisoned when captured and their final battle ensues when P’li dies giving Zaheer the ability to fly once his final earthly tether is severed. So this battle instead of it just being Korra in the Avatar State and Zaheer with his air bending, we see Avatar vs Avatar, both flinging the elements at each other, both in their respective Avatar states which makes this battle all the harder for the poisoned Korra who is just trying to survive this battle. With a few new tricks, inevitably we are back at the moment where Zaheer is trying to kill Korra by sucking the air out of her. Now with Korras Avatar state we can all agree in general its much less impressive than Aangs, it makes sense in the original season 2 with her ties to her past lives being severed. However I kinda believe its due to her having less experience but also having less of a spiritual connection than her past lives. Aang for example, even when he couldn’t control the state we all saw how powerful it could be when he was enraged or in danger. For me this makes more sense since Aang by default has a more enriched spiritual connection at 12, than Korra ever had throughout the series, thats my headcanon I’m sticking to it, in order to explain why Korras was so weak even before losing her connection to her past lives. Zaheer on the other hand, whilst having that spiritual connection has the disadvantage of being the first in his respective Avatar Cycle. Meaning he is handicapped, which is why even though this battle is a hell of a lot harder for Korra. In the end due to this and Zaheers inexperience with the Avatar State, he is still pulled into the wind tornado and subdued. This makes the moment in Season 4 where he helps Korra enter the spirit world more impactful, as he is not only somewhat atoning for what he just brought onto the earth kingdom which is against his ideals of Anarchy. As the opposite to the Avatar he is maintaining the balance of their duality by assisting Korra to regain the Avatar State and her connection to the spirit world. As he states to Korra their interests align. The only thing I will change in Season 4 is that this isn’t the last time we see Zaheer. Later on he escapes from the prison he is being kept in to assist team Avatar in taking down Kuvira, via his mastery of Metal Bending. Whilst he does this solely on the principle of his own ideals. Nevertheless he is fulfilling his role in maintaining the balance by helping his counterpart in the final battle, both Avatars co-existing and in this case working together on this common objective.

The finale ends the same way, just with Zaheer fleeing and from that point on in the comics of my version, we get to experience the consequences of having two Avatars roaming around. Not only from a spiritual perspective but the political aspect as well. Obviously I’m not a writer, and I may have overlooked some things. That wasn’t the point of this however, the point of this was to display the potential of having a “Dark Avatar.” The concept itself wasn’t the issue, it has potential. The execution not only from the misrepresentation of Yin-Yang through Raava and Vaatu but how rushed it all felt as a whole. I would love for them to come back to the concept and try again, I honestly believe the Avatar should have its opposite in such a manner. Rather than having one almighty being that burdens this responsibility on their own, it makes them an outlier in my opinion. I also had the luxury of spanning this across book 1-2-3-4, were as they clearly had to rush it out for Season 2. Anyway this got way too long, but yeah it is what it is.

#Avatar #The last airbender #The Legend of Korra #The missed potential of the Dark Avatar #Why it could have worked #Dark Avatar #Korra #Zaheer #Yin-Yang #Raava #Vaatu #Opinion piece

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liunaticfringe · 4 years

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NOTE: Google translation (LiunaticFringe highlighting)

Lucy Liu: Root Freedom | Jia Ren Cover

2020 opened a new decade.

Idols of the eighties,

Some are still active on the screen and the Internet.

Some have disappeared,

Some are also attracting much attention,

Some have fallen asleep.

We finally arrived at the "future" in science fiction,

Discover with Liu Yuling the familiar sense of time in this "future."

(Gucci lace dress

Tiffany T1 Wide Ring in 18K Rose Gold

Tiffany T1 Narrow Bracelet with Diamonds in 18K Rose Gold

Tiffany T1 Wide Bangle in 18K Rose Gold with Diamonds

Tiffany T1 Narrow Bracelet in 18K Rose Gold

Tiffany T1 Narrow Ring in 18K Rose Gold

Tiffany T1 Narrow Diamond Ring in 18K Rose Gold

Tiffany T1 Wide Ring in 18K Rose Gold with Diamonds

Tiffany T1 Wide Bangle in 18K Rose Gold with Diamonds)

At 11:30 am, in the city of Brooklyn, New York, a 19th-century warehouse remodeled art community and creative studio, Liu Yuling, full of silver hair, wore large retro glasses and her body turned sideways. She was holding an eleven-inch old-fashioned black-and-white TV in her right hand, and the antenna stood like unruly hair, and the screen was flashing monotonous white noise lines, just in the same direction as her black-and-white striped tie. The prototype of this shape is Andy Warhol.

After the April issue of "Jia Ren" covers the retro theme of the 1980s, Liu Yuling proposed that it should be more interesting to play. She worked with the creative team to select several fashion icons that have a profound impact on her personally and the world-David Bowie, Prince, BoyGeorge, Debbie Harry , Madonna and Andy Warhol, re-enact their classic looks with seasonal fashion. The last idol is Liu Yuling herself. Two sets of fashions are the retro punk style of the 1980s and the modern minimalist department. The New Wave movement of the 1980s has become an old dream, and Liu Yuling is pushing the new wave of this era.

This original look from Andy Warhol comes from the cable television show Andy Warhol Online that he launched in the 1980s. He was addicted to TV and said, "I love TV, and I'm super jealous of people who can have their own programs on TV. I also want to have my own program."

In 1979, he spent $ 40,000 on a premium broadcast-quality camera, and hired professional television producers to start broadcasting his own programs on Manhattan Cable at his own expense. The television dream continued throughout his eighties, until 1987, when he suddenly died of a myocardial infarction.

Artists who do not want to be on TV are not good actors. Like Andy, Liu Yuling has a strong curiosity in all aspects of the world and has made breakthroughs in different fields. At the age of fifteen, she wants to be an artist. She creates collages, walks through the streets of New York with a big camera, and transfers from the Department of Communication at New York University to study Asian language and culture at the University of Michigan. During college, she was spotted by scouts in the New York subway, she took commercial shots of stationery stores, and began to take on guest roles in some episodes. Until the last year of college, she was selected by the student troupe to star in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", after which she began to fully realize her actor dream.

She said to herself that she had never thought of giving up since the moment she made her decision. On the Hollywood screen, there are few faces of Chinese-American actors. It is even more difficult for her petite and ordinary person to want to break out of her own world. On her first debut, she lived in two small jobs and lived in a small apartment rented by her brother, rushing to deliver resumes, auditions, and appointments. Looking back, Liu Yuling said: "I am brave and simple. I think pure is a good thing because it means freedom. I just want to learn and do what I like to do."

At the age of 29, Liu Yuling had debuted for eight years. She first appeared on the screen as a hostess in "Flying Over Beverly Hills" (1991), and later as a female student in the CBS drama "Pearl", her popularity has gradually increased. And what really made her fame was that she played the Chinese lawyer Wu Ling in the American drama `` Sweet Girl '', a clever, cool, decisive and slightly weird character that won the hearts of the audience with a strong aura. It also subverts the stereotype of Chinese Americans in American film and television works.

It was originally a temporary arrangement with only eight episodes, but screenwriter David Kelly changed her role to a resident character at the request of the audience. The incident sparked widespread debate in the American community about the Asian impression, and she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award.

Every character since then, whether it is the fiercely popular special agent in "Pili Jiaowa", the elegant and cold killer in "Kill Bill", or the female version of "Watson" in "Holmes: Basic Deduction", or In the exaggerated socialite of the woman, Liu Yuling is always climbing over various invisible glass ceilings, transcending the gulf of identity, gender, and age, and challenging seemingly impossible roles.

To this day, Liu Yuling still devotes herself to life and work with the courage and simplicity of her debut. For her, every day is a new beginning, and it is worth investing all your energy in learning, reading, and experience. Create new selves in the process of meeting different people.

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According to current buzzwords, Liu Yuling is an out-of-the-box slash youth, acting, hosting, director, producer, game dubbing, artistic creation, United Nations Children's Fund ambassador, she is fully committed to every job. At the age of forty-six, she made the bravest decision in her life and helped her become a self-selected single mother through third-party transplantation for in vitro fertilization. For Liu Yuling, there is no difference in work. As long as you start, you must take it seriously.

The itinerary of the day of shooting was dense from morning to night. At eight in the morning, she personally sent her four-year-old son to school, and then rushed to the shooting scene in Brooklyn. The filming continued from 9:30 a.m. to the evening. Seven sets of looks were made, and the staff took turns to change the work. And Liu Yuling maintains a high degree of concentration throughout the process, injecting soul into each character, sometimes it is David Bowie, who is male and female, sometimes sexy Madonna, sometimes a neutral and feminine George boy, sometimes an eclectic security. Di Warhol.

Instead of playing them, she gave them part of herself. She used her body and soul to travel through time and space and talk to them. In the end, she returned to herself. She didn't want to conceal the wrinkles in the corner of her eyes, all the wind and frost was smoothed by the eyes of understanding the world.

At 11.40 in the evening, half of the staff had already left the field, and Liu Yuling was finally able to change into her original clothes and sit at the dressing table to remove makeup. Suddenly remembered something, she turned back and said aloud to the rest of the staff: "Thank you."

There were many people at the beginning, and she always stayed to the last.

She has been an actor since she was nineteen years old, and still loves acting, and her role has become increasingly full. In the long course of her life, she kept adding new roles for herself.

She appeared in the "Kung Fu Panda" series as a beautiful woman snake, and then accepted a series of game voice acting work, including "High Speed Skiing", "Thunderbolt: Thrilling Game" and "Rogue Blood". Liu Yuling said that in real life, she doesn't play games often, but she also devotes herself when playing. She is always trying new things, and sound performances allow her to delve into different ways of acting. She is also passionate about the director. In 2010, she started crying and started shooting a short film "Mena" in Mumbai, based on the Indian girl Mena who was trafficked as a sex slave at the age of eleven, and then directed the sixth season of "Holmes: Basic Deduction", and The eighth episode of Deadly Woman.

In the play, she likes the replacement of different identities. The same is true in real life. As an actor, she is located at one end of the lens to pass the role to the world. The director's work allowed her to stand on the other side of the camera, and through communication and collaboration, the entire team understood the picture she wanted to convey and made it a reality.

She said: "If I don’t have enthusiasm, I won't do it. And if I love it, I will go all out every day with my eyes open. My personality is so strong that I can't spend my life in peace, Everything is necessary to go all out, whether it is to be a chef, an actor, or even in a garment factory, I must inject all the energy and do my best. "She did the work of the garment factory. Yuling Liu, who grew up in Queens, New York, is a second-generation immigrant. Originally a senior intellectual's parents immigrated to the United States in the 1960s and found it difficult to enter the mainstream American society. In order to subsidize households, she was doing two jobs at the same time: serving plates and working in a garment factory. Since then, she has been working in the performing arts circle to support the actor's dream.

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Liu Yuling grew up in a harsh family with almost militarized management. Parents are struggling for a living, and they don't have much time for spiritual communication except eating and sleeping. It wasn't until her father had cancer that she had the opportunity to talk to him more about how Chinese culture and immigration experience shaped him and connected his family. Now, she takes the sick mother back to live with her and her son, and examines everything that went through her childhood, as if she knew each other again.

Son Rockwell grew up in New York and has lived in the spotlight since he was a child. However, Liu Yuling still hoped that he would grow up in a low-key environment and teach him the meaning of work and his mission as a person: "I want him to realize that material is not the most important thing. I grew up in a material-deficient environment. I don’t think life is lacking. Understanding the value of hard work, being a humble person, and loving what you do is an unparalleled gift. I think the most exciting thing is to do what you do with love. He may want to be a doctor, an artist, it doesn't matter what he wants to do. I just hope that he can pursue his dreams bravely and fearlessly. "

As the second generation of immigrants, Liu Yuling felt the empathy of the late actress Huang Liushuang in the difficult immigration life and the pressure of ethnic minorities. On February 8, 1960, the name of Huang Liushuang, (Anna May Wong) who had died, appeared on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, becoming the first Chinese-American actress to stay here. Sixty years later, Liu Yuling left the second star next to her name, becoming the second Chinese actress to leave her name here.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Huang Liushuang was born in Chinatown, Los Angeles, and his father made a living from the laundry. With a Chinese face, she was racially discriminated from an early age.After entering Hollywood, she could only play the Asians under the stereotype-prostitutes, Mongolian slaves, often dying by death, gorgeous but weak, usually attached to high-ranking White male. In the end of his life, Huang Liushuang couldn't get rid of the Chinese face of Hollywood, nor could he get the approval of the Chinese. The number of films gradually decreased, and eventually he died of heart disease due to excessive drinking.

During the star awarding ceremony, Liu Yuling said: "How lucky I am to have seniors like Huang Liushuang and Bruce Lee to lay the ground for Chinese actors. If my life's work can bridge the gap, the role of stereotypes played in Huang Liushuang is now mainstream in Asian I will be very happy to build a bridge in the role of the movie industry. I am also part of this change. "

Speaking of Huang Liushuang, Liu Yuling was quite moved: "Huang Liushuang has never realized the dream of a real actor. I think she died because of a broken heart. She has enthusiasm but cannot share. She plays various stereotyped roles, but cannot find To the true self. That must be very unbearable. "

Where is her true self? Liu Yuling recalled her childhood. The family did not bring her nourishment of art and culture. The Chinese family struggling with the food and clothing line did not have time to take the children to appreciate and feel the beauty. And she was looking for beauty on the cement street, between the dirt. In the cracks in the street, there are ants, and under the soil, there are snail shells. There is not much space in reinforced concrete New York, but she will spend hours squatting on the ground, staring at the cracks in the ground, trying to find the mysteries of the universe from them.

The mystery of the universe was opened to her further after she transferred from New York University to Michigan.

At the University of Michigan, Liu Yuling chose to major in Asian language and culture. She hopes to leave New York and study her subjects in a quieter city and learn about her native culture: "I want to go deeper into Chinese and study Asian philosophy, which will help me better understand myself and my parents At that time, I just connected the dots, stepped back, and saw the complete picture for the first time in my life.

I feel like I've been holding my breath for a long time, and finally I can breathe out. And when you exhale, you finally see your place in the world, their place in the world, and the relationship between the world and you. It's as if the lens is zoomed out and you start to see everything as it was. With this perspective, you can finally accept yourself and others emotionally, really enjoy getting along with others, and know what you really want. "

Participating in the summer project of Beijing Normal University gave her the opportunity to come to China for the first time. Liu Yuling recalled that it was an incredible journey of self-exploration: "For the first time in my life, I looked at the people around me, all of whom had the same skin color and the same eyes. I finally knew where I came from. Mountains and rivers I feel like part of them. I finally found a sense of cultural belonging. Everything has a new meaning. "

If the streets and lanes brought Liu Yuling's first contact with contemporary China, then the trip to the Temple of Heaven made it possible for her to visually connect with this ancient civilization. Numbers, colors, shapes, and every detail are closely linked to the cosmic view of heaven and man.

The prayer hall has four large columns, which symbolize the four seasons of the year; the twelve gold pillars in the middle layer, which symbolize the twelve months of the year; the twelve pillars in the outer layer, which means twelve hours a day; Implied twenty-four solar terms. Long history contains wisdom connected with nature. Liu Yuling closed her eyes and clearly described what she saw and said at the time: "We cannot change the flow of the four seasons, the ebb and flow. We are part of nature and the universe. All the content learned in these books is presented in front of me in an intuitive image. It's like reading a classic for the first time, and you can't believe that you met it for the first time in your life. And for centuries, it has been waiting for you in this world. "

Rumi's poems give her the same feeling: "They are so simple, yet so timeless. About friendship, about love, about death. People have not yet invented language, but only communicated through stones and symbols. When you were young, you thought that the world started with you and finally you, and gradually grew, and you realized that you are only a small component. The more you see, the more you can break through your small cage and become Humility and harmony. "

"At this moment, I was tied to the cane of love; at this moment, I gave up thinking about the consequences ... I destroyed my thoughts and eliminated my anxiety. What else do I need? Blood flows in my veins. I am life itself. "— Rumi

"I didn't start to be a mother at that time. I would work all night in the studio. Art immerses me and forgets the passage of time. I thought it was only an hour, but it was dawn. I remember I had a chocolate Colored Labrador, it will sit in the studio with me, and then go back to sleep in the bedroom. Sometimes it will come back, sigh in front of me, and then get down. Then I will You know, I've forgotten time again. It's as if the whole night suddenly disappeared. "

She closed her eyes and seemed to catch the most accurate sentence from the air: "Time is condensed."

Liu Yuling's career as an artist began almost simultaneously with her career as an actor. Since 1993, she has begun her creative work. She has been involved in various art media, photography, abstract expression style oil painting, ink painting, sketching, screen printing, and collages and installations.

Her love for art made her choose Andy Warhol as one of the tribute idols for this shoot. Liu Yuling appreciates Andy's talent in bringing commercial art to the extreme, and also appreciates his solitary appreciation. She also likes Willem de Kooning, Georgia O 'Keeffe, whose influence can be seen in her Chunga oil painting series. The images of these works are from the Spring Palace in the Ukiyo-e paintings of the 17th century. They use bold and vivid colors to show the wanton display of love.

Liu Yuling's Totem series explores the human spine, and she embroiders human bones with threads on bare linen. Liu Yuling said that if she returns to college, she may choose to continue to explore medicine, understand the structure of the body and organs, and how they operate precisely. For her, the spine represents the basic characteristics of human nature, and the different textures in each work symbolize the deep interpretation of different emotions. The spine is also like a node in life. In the perception of pain, emotions are always closely connected with the body.

In 2019, he presented the double exhibition "Unhomed Belonging" with artist Rao Shubi at the National Gallery of Singapore, covering works from various media. The highlight of this artist's career made her realize the inherent connection in her creative medium. As early as 2008, she has started using ready-made objects for her creations, and the newly presented Lost and Found series further extends the method of misappropriating ready-made objects. Liu Yuling collected overprinted and discarded book covers at a printing factory in Italy, rebind them into books, cut the inside pages, and embedded them in everyday life, such as shells, rocks, and soft drinks Tins, paper coffee cups, metal accessories.

Liu Yuling said: "These lost things once belonged to them and were abandoned after they were used. In these pages, they found a new home." The 195 bound books presented at the exhibition contain the items The stories of different places, different cities, and different people, and at this time they are converged by the cause of fate, Liu Yuling found a new home for some of them. At the time of sale, ten books will be recommended to the collector as a whole group. Liu Yuling will choose the content of the book based on the people in the collection, so the final "library" will have an internal connection with the new home.

If different works reflect different aspects of Liu Yuling's character, then the identity of the artist and the actor are also her different aspects. She cannot make a choice: "I am an actor and an artist." The two often meet, but they have some differences. Different: "Creation requires privacy and absolute focus, while actors need to work with the lens and collaboration."

What is the purpose of this kind of identity? Liu Yuling explores exactly on each road. Over the age of fifty, Liu Yuling has gone through a lot of life and death. The Seventy Two series is inspired by the Hebrew alphabetic sequence of 72 God's names. The Velocity series focuses on individual choices in collective events. After the 9/11 terrorist attack, she took a picture of the New York City skyline at Battery Park, the site of the attack, and became the background for this group of works. "People who jump off the ninety-ninth floor know that they are not alive. But they still hold their hands and jump out of the window. Maybe they believe that as long as they hold their hands firmly, they can find another one after death. road."

On top of the collage photos are found items found on the ruins, as well as poems she wrote: "I will search all corners, as if rain covered every street in the world. I will find you."

At twelve in the evening, Liu Yuling finally stepped out of the shooting scene. There is no rain tonight in New York, but there is a salty tide brought by the East River. In endless time, among countless stars, what is she looking for? Thought that what is lost will always find belonging at the other end.

#Lucy Liu #marie claire china #April 2020 #Author / He Yu #interview #in depth #China

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sawickies · 5 years

Note

okay, newish hockey fan who doesn’t really follow isles/leafs/etc.: what do you mean by “the way” Tavares left? would you be willing to explain what was so bad about it?

Man, okay.

So, last season his contract was expiring. Leading up to the expiration of a contract, the team a player is already signed with has a window of opportunity to sign them to an 8 year contract instead of a 7 year. The deadline for that happening was midnight on July 1st.

Throughout the season when asked about the contract, Tavares maintained that he wanted to be an islander for his entire career, that he loved playing on Long Island, that he hadn’t considered playing anywhere else. At the trade deadline, the last chance for the islanders to trade Tavares for other assets, he reportedly asked the GM not to trade him, once again maintaining that he planned to sign with the Islanders & be an islander for the rest of his career.

When the week-long window before the July 1st deadline rolled around, he met with other teams to see what was out there, as was his right & basically is what was expected. He reportedly met with the Bruins, Leafs, and Sharks, in addition to hearing a pitch by the Islanders management—management that had just been revamped completely in the hopes of assuaging any lingering doubts Tavares had about staying. They had gotten Lou Lamoriello as the new GM, who had won 3 cups with the devils, was already inducted into the hall of fame, and had been key in Toronto’s rebuild. They also got Barry Trotz, who brought a crew of seasoned NHL coaches with him, and had just won the cup with Washington. This was a complete 180 from the previous mismanagement the team was under, and was prompted in large part by a movement by the fans calling for the firing of now-former GM Garth Snow.

—>I’ll address the mismanagement under Snow a little later.

So Tavares had his meetings and the week began to tick by. There was complete silence on all sides, for the entire week. Nobody heard anything until July 1st, when it was announced that he’d accepted the Maple Leafs deal. It came out shortly after that he didn’t share his decision with the Islanders until late the night before (I believe the report was 9pm but I don’t remember exactly).

He tweeted the photo of himself in leafs bedsheets with the caption “not every day you get to live a childhood dream” immediately after the announcement.

He maintained that it was a difficult decision for him (the reason for the late notice) and that he truly made the decision at the last minute after wrestling seriously with his choices.

This turned out to be less than true, as his agent subsequently said that he knew as early as the Thursday night before the deadline that he wanted to sign with Toronto. More recently it’s been reported that people close to him knew for a while that he wanted to go to Toronto. As further corroboration to this, his fiancée apparently took a job in Toronto well before the end of the season.

As a side note regarding this, at the point that he told the Isles no it was known that the Bruins were out of the running. The Sharks, however, were strung along until the end along with the Islanders, which is why sharks fans now boo Tavares as well—he basically held them hostage during a key negotiation period where they could have been pursuing other pieces. So, yeah. We’re not the only ones that don’t think he handled it the best.

tl;dr: he repeatedly told management and fans that he wanted to be an islander forever/resign with them long term, then turned around and signed with Toronto after handicapping them by not telling his decision until the last minute, and additionally seems to have lied about wanting to stay on the island in the first place.

I put that tl;dr there, because now I’m going to get into the emotional side of this, as I see it. I get that people aren’t going to be understanding, they’re going to continue to shit on isles fans no matter what I say, but I’ve been trying to find a way to articulate all the things I’ve been feeling as an islanders fan, as a fan whose second favorite team has been the leafs for as long as I’ve been a hockey fan, since I got the notification on July 1st that it was official. I think after last night I finally have the clarity to do that.

We know the management for his time here was terrible. God, do we know it. We know the other pieces on the team were lackluster, that they never got the pieces he deserved to have for his talent. We put up billboards calling for Snow to be fired for fucks sake (and y’all made fun of that, too). We demanded trades we never got. We dealt with a stubborn coach that loved to play grizzly veterans who couldn’t skate worth a damn over young pieces that could have actually helped make a difference. WE. We. We thought we were all in it together, with JT, and that now that things were finally turning around we could reap the rewards together. Was it naive? Absolutely. At the end of the day, sports is a business like anything else, and any perceived loyalty the players have to fans or an organization is there to comfort fans, to make them feel like they’re a part of something, and is not always genuine. This is proof of that.

But isn’t that the way fans of sports are supposed to feel? That you’re in it together with your team? That no matter what happens, you’ll get through it together? Win lose or draw, you’re watching the game anyway because you love the team, you love the players, and they love you because you support them. Isn’t that the way it works?

So why are people so surprised that we’re upset? Can you fans of other teams really look me in the eye and say that if your star player, who swore up and down until the moment he signed with another team that he wanted to be the captain of your team for his entire career, can you really tell me you wouldn’t be upset? Wouldn’t be hurt? Wouldn’t feel betrayed?

I don’t care what people say, we supported him through thick and thin while he was here. He gave his everything to us, and one day he’ll get what’s due to him for that. He deserves it. But the wound is raw. We’re trying to move on, and we are! The islanders are in first place in the metro, a point behind the leafs, a million miles away from where everyone thought we’d be this season. On days when we’re not playing John Tavares’ Maple Leafs, our incredible team is what we’re focused on.

But last night? Last night was catharsis. Last night was 13,000 Islanders fans coming home and coming together and supporting each other through their pain. He should have known what was coming, he’s had enough experience with fans at the barn to know what was coming.

I’d bet that’s the last time it’s that wild. No doubt there’ll still be boos and we don’t need yous in the future, but that much energy? That much hurt? We needed to get it out of our systems, release the pressure that’s been building since July 1st. If you think that makes us assholes, that’s your right, but it’s also our right as fans to get closure on an era of our team that turned out to be noting but empty promises & pain. The Tavares chapter on Long Island is officially over. I’m sure everyone on both sides is relieved.

Finally, if you have any doubt that the animosity we hold toward JT is born from anything other than the passionate love we had for him while he was here, consider this: at the end of the game, a few sections of fans tried to get a chant going that went “thanks for leaving”. Every other chant started that night gained momentum and eventually took over the entire coliseum. That one? That one petered out and faded, barely a dull roar by comparison. In our hearts, in my heart of fucking hearts, I wish more than anything he was here with us to share in this amazing success with the team that drafted him, that loved him so passionately for so long. I’m crying right now, for the first time since July 1st, thinking about how amazing it would be if we had found this success while he was still our captain. Maybe it would have been enough to get him to stay, even if our fans and our love for him wasn’t.

#long post #anon #sorry it took me so long to answer #i actually got to go to the game last night so thats why #leafs #isles #john tavares #k watches the nhl #islanders #maple leafs #the second half is cross posted on twitter with some edits

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violetsmoak · 5 years

Text

no safety or surprise [1/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18035168/chapters/42616919

( See First Chapter for full Disclaimers & Warnings)

Summary: A haunting broadcast reveals the Joker’s final act and sets off a chain of events that will destroy the world. Terry finds himself collaborating once more with the estranged members of Bruce’s former team. As the end nears, however, he and the other Bats are faced with hard choices about survival—and forgiveness.

Rating: T (may change depending on the amount of graphic/details I decide on)

________________________________________________________________

chapter one: the calm before the storm

Neo-Gotham, Friday, June 13, 2042 9:04 AM

MCGINNIS

Siblings, Terry thinks as he scowls down at the little gremlin on the couch, are highly overrated.

At some point, while he was getting ready for school, Matt snuck into his room and stole his comforter. The twip is now wrapped up like a giant burrito, watching television and pretending he doesn’t see Terry’s irritated expression.

“Don’t you have your own?” he grumbles. “You’re going to get your sick germs all over it.”

“You can just wash it later.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I think it’s cute,” Mom interrupts, stopping the fight in its tracks the way she always does. She doesn’t look up from her phone, thumb flying through a text. “And you used to do the same thing, by the way.”

Terry blinks. “I did not.”

“You did. With mine and your father’s bedspread. That, and homemade soup? Always made you feel better when you were sick.”

Which, okay, Terry can sort of remember that.

There was something safe about being wrapped in blankets that smelled like Dad’s aftershave and having Mom spoil him with food made just for him. A pang of sadness hits him, leeching away from his irritation; Matt was never able to do that. Their parents divorced rather soon after he was born, and Dad wasn’t around Matt much afterward, let alone when he was sick.

Since Warren McGinnis’ death, Terry is the only adult male presence his brother has in his life.

And I’ve done a pretty crap job of that so far.

He’s always so busy, working for Mr. Wayne on and off the books. The criminal element in Gotham makes it practically impossible to maintain connections outside the life.

It’s ironic that Batman is better at being a role-model for Matt than Terry is.

The fight drains out of him, and he gives a put-upon sigh. “Fine. He can have it. But if I get sick, I’m going to hang him over the balcony by his feet." He turns away, but knows Matt is sticking his tongue out at the back of his head; it’s what he’d do at that age. “So, what’s the verdict? Staying? Going?”

Whatever Matt has, their mother seems to be coming down with as well. She’s been debating all morning about whether she intends to go into work or not. Terry’s stuck around, in case she does decide to go, and he has to watch Matt; he can Livestream his classes, she can’t exactly do the same for her job.

“I don’t know,” Mom says, frowning at the screen. “Jarvis and Riley are out today too apparently.”

Terry whistles; he’s happy he hasn’t caught whatever’s going around. It’s still the cold part of June, around the time when the temperatures fluctuate between mild and freeze-your-nuts off. Mom always tells him how when she was a young girl, the weather already started warming up in May, but because of global warming summer doesn’t really arrive until July.

So now, June is the summer flu season.

Point being, I could still catch it. And won’t that be fun.

Because Batman doesn’t get sick days, and Terry knows from experience that having a cold while wearing the cowl is probably the most disgusting feeling ever. And that includes wading through sewage and cleaning rotten food out of the refrigerator.

While Mom continues to debate with herself, he fires off texts to Dana and Max, asking them to cover anything he misses for the first period, in case he’s late. There are about ten seconds before he gets a response from Max.

‘No problem. Is it work? Or work?’

Before he can respond, Dana’s text comes in. ’everything OK w/ mr wayne?’

And he can’t help a smile at that, because he doesn’t have to make up any kind of lie or excuse, because they both know. He’s still getting used to the fact that Dana knows, and that she understands. And wants to help.

It’s more than he ever thought he’d get when he started this whole thing.

‘Wayne OK far as I know,’ Terry texts them both back, mentally crossing his fingers that he isn’t jinxing anything. ‘Mom & Matt not feeling great. Keeping an eye on them a bit.’

‘aw, sux. tell them feel better from me. dnt worry, got u covered! <3’

There’s a minute or so before Max responds.

‘Too bad. Nasty flu this year, huh? Not feeling great either, but test period 2, so…’

Terry’s eyes widen. ‘Wait. What test?’

‘LOL.’

‘Srsly, what test?!?!’

There’s no answer, and Terry frowns down at his phone, trying to decide if Max is messing with him or not. He’s about to double-check with Dana when his mother speaks.

“I think I will stay home,” she decides, rubbing her cheekbones. “My face hurts. I really hope it’s not another sinus infection. That’s all I need on top of everything.”

“Hey, take it easy,” Terry tells her with a comforting smile. “It’s been a while since you had the day off. Besides, the world’s not going to shut down because one astronomer doesn’t come into work.”

“You say that now,” Mom says dryly. “If an asteroid is hurtling toward the earth and it’s my job to spot it, you’re going to feel pretty foolish.”

“Nah, never happen.” He grabs his bag and starts for the door, stopping to press a kiss to the top of his mother’s head. “With Superman out there? And the Justice League? Pretty good job security, I’d say.”

“Lame,” Matt grumbles from his blanket cocoon. “Batman can take them all. He probably has a special rocket to shoot stuff down.”

And, okay, maybe Terry might rethink his stance on siblings, because damn if those words don’t make him grin.

Matt notices and frowns at him. “Why are you smiling at me like a creeper?”

And, there goes that good feeling.

“Trying to decide whether to take a pic and send to your friends and show them how pathetic you are right now. You’re like a human-larva hybrid. It’s gross.”

“Yeah, well—well, you’re adopted!”

That’s his latest insult to everyone when he can’t think of anything else to say.

“Matt!”

“At least I was planned,” Terry retorts.

It takes a moment before the penny drops, and his brother’s overly pale face goes red. “Moooooom!”

“Terry, leave your brother alone, he’s sick,” she sighs, rubbing her eyes.

“What’s his excuse for the rest of the time?”

“Go to school, hon.”

Matt smirks at him, and returns his attention to the television, flipping through cartoons. Terry rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything about favoritism, because it always comes back to how he’s an adult now and should know better than to stoop to the level of a ten-year-old.

I can win a fight against the deadliest member of the Society of Assassins, but not this. Go figure.

“Will Mr. Wayne need you today?” Mom asks as he puts on his jacket. He knows she’s wondering if he’ll be able to come home and relieve her from Matt-duty at some point, which he totally understands.

“We’ll see. I’ll probably drive out to check on him tonight, but I think I can get home after school if you need a break.”

“That would be appreciated.”

“Do you want me to bring you guys anything while I’m out—?”

There is a sudden, sharp drop in pitch throughout the entire house. Terry’s ears pop a little, the same way they do whenever Shriek mutes the sound in the surrounding area, but somehow his hearing simply becomes sharper now.

Before Terry can wonder if it’s a sign the sound-terrorist is back out on the street, the living room is filled with music. A jaunty, haunting carnival tune that instantly has the hair on the back of Terry’s neck raising.

His gaze whips to the television screen, which is flickering between static and a blank screen with the words HA HA HA flashes across it in red.

His mouth goes dry.

________________________________________________________________

WAYNE

Bruce is starting to wonder if a Lazarus Pit might not have been a better idea than the liver transplant. Of the methods for artificially prolonging life, at least with the Pit, he would eventually start to feel like he was recovering.

After the madness subsided, at least.

On days like today—when it’s damp and chilly, and there’s nothing going on in Gotham to keep him glued to the computer screen in the Cave—it’s hard to remember the arguments he’s always made against using the restorative powers of a Lazarus Pit. His body protests with every movement as he eases it through several slowed kata variations. Part of his physical therapy, as suggested by his doctors.

Since his procedure, he feels the exhaustion much more keenly. It’s bone-deep fatigue that seeps into every muscle, emphasizing the way his bones creak and grind against each other, cartilage worn away from age and decades of abuse. It’s the way his energy levels drain so much faster now, to the extent that even his usual ability to will himself into action seems to wane every day.

Not that he really had a choice in the matter. He was in end-stage liver failure, and the nearest Pit is in New Cuba. He’d just been lucky that there was a suitable donor in the hospital at the right time.

‘Luck’ is one word for it. ‘Cruel irony’ might be a better phrase.

Douglas Tan is one of the names he’s going to carry on his conscience for the rest of his life; or, at least on his liver.

Terry still makes jokes about Batman having a piece of a Joker inside him, but then Terry tends to use humor to cover up when he’s worried. Dick always did that, too; and Jason.

Bruce scowls, bothered by the direction of his thoughts, as well as the raggedness to his breath. He isn’t even moving very fast, but it’s taking him every bit of strength to keep at it.

Ace is curled up in his usual spot in the cave, watching Bruce with what seems to be narrowed eyes. As if to say, don’t overdo it or I will knock you over.

The dog is smarter than most people.

Ace is one of the reasons the doctors were willing to leave him to pursue recovery on his own and not under some beady-eyed nurse in the hospital. Money isn’t as much an incentive as it once was, with so many legal and health standards in the way; the older he gets, the less likely people are to trust his ability to make decisions, lawyers or not.

He tolerated a private nurse for about a day while having Terry make other arrangements and manufacturing a piece of paper saying Ace was a certified service dog. He’s not, but Bruce has no doubt the dog would activate the medical alert button at the computer if something were to happen. And Terry has an alarm set up, keyed into the surveillance and motion sensors in the Cave. If anything were to happen, he can be here faster than any ambulance.

Old age has fed into long-buried fears, and it gives him an embarrassing sense of relief knowing there’s someone to look in on him. It has always bothered him, being dependent—being weak.

Some days he’s more accepting of it; some days he wishes he had Kryptonian DNA.

Which is usually the point at which he forces himself to occupy his mind with other things because envying Kal-El can only lead down a dark, frustrating path of self-pity. One he’s determinedly avoided ever since meeting the other man.

After another fifteen minutes of forcing himself to think about nothing but the movement of his limbs, Bruce finally finishes his exercises. Sweat coats his back and his muscles ache with the same burn as if he just spent several hours grappling through the Gotham skyline. Even if it took fewer challenging movements to reach this point, that burn is comforting.

Familiar.

And that’s a word that’s been cropping up more in his thoughts lately. History tends to repeat, after all, but it’s still strange to experience. Terry’s been an excellent example of that.

Like Bruce, the McGinnis boy started out with nothing but a suit and an old man’s voice in his ear. Now, he’s got a network. Friends who he trusts and who will keep his secret. A steadily growing list of allies in the field.

The Police Commissioner. The Justice League.

And a Catwoman too, for Christ sakes.

He wonders what Selina would think about that.

Bruce just hopes the kid won’t make his mistakes. Forty years is a long time to rack up regrets.

At least Dick’s back in contact now.

Sort of.

He showed up the second night that Bruce was recovering from his procedure at the hospital; he’d managed to convince Terry to go out on patrol instead of wasting his time watching an old man sleep.

“Batman doesn’t get a day off.”

Bruce had dozed for a bit, but not deeply; it wasn’t difficult to discern that he wasn’t alone.

One minute the room was empty and in the next, Bruce could feel that familiar presence—the one of a man who had carried the mantles of Robin, Nightwing, and Batman—and somehow lived to tell the tale. Then his estranged son was stepping out of the shadows, glaring down at him, muscles in his jaw working and fists clenching and unclenching.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Bruce had croaked, wishing he had thought to ask for ice chips before the nurse left. “I’m too stubborn to die.”

The silence hanging afterward was filled with everything he couldn’t say yet. For once, Dick didn’t call him on it.

“You’re more stubborn than God,” his boy countered.

(He’ll always be a boy to Bruce, grey hair and eye-patch be damned.)

And yet, Dick sat, arms crossed and spine stiff for the rest of the night. Still angry, but present nonetheless. He stayed until morning rounds without saying anything and then left.

They haven’t seen each other since, but sometimes Bruce can hear feedback on the comms when he’s directing Terry’s patrols. The tinny whisper of signals crossing from the bug he pretends he doesn’t know Dick planted on the underside of his medical ID tag.

It’s not much, but it’s something. The opening of the possibility that at some point, he’ll come around.

Barbara did, after all.

Mostly because of Terry, but afterward Bruce started making the effort. They can have conversations alone now that don’t end with her yelling at him (or punching him, on one or two memorable occasions). Bruce forgot how much he enjoyed her sense of humor and intelligence—how much he enjoyed their friendship—from before they slept together.

(That might be one of his life’s biggest shames. Oh, he has regrets associated with all of the family for one thing or another, but this is the one that still wakes him up at night feeling dirty.)

In a way, it’s easier with Tim, and that’s a bridge Bruce thought had been obliterated long ago.

Granted, he’s leaving Gotham again—the last incident with the Joker army rattled him enough that he put in for a transfer to the Beijing division of Wayne Enterprises—but he stuck around long enough to collaborate with Bruce on a subdermal antitoxin deployment implant against Joker venom.

(None of them want to be caught unawares again.)

It’s in the prototype phase, with only five of the devices in existence; he, Tim and Terry are testing them personally. It’s not exactly something the FDA is going to approve for human testing anytime soon, not with all the new legislation, but with the state of Gotham, it’s unwise to wait on it.

(He sent one to Barbara and one to Dick but doesn’t know if they’ve bothered to activate them. At least they haven’t sent them back.)

If the implant works, Bruce is seriously considering modifying the tech for the Wayne Enterprises medical division. There are a lot of illnesses and viruses out there which require regular dosages of medicine to keep them under control. The difficulty is finding funding and ensuring the board of the directors doesn’t jump on the chance to charge exorbitant amounts of money for the technology. The whole point of the tech is to help anyone who needs it, not just the filthy rich.

Maybe that’s the next project, after CAIN, he muses, grabbing his towel from where he draped it over one of the computer processors.

His global Clean Air Initiative Network is something he’d been working on before stepping back from the company. It was shelved almost immediately by Derek Powers when he took over, but since Bruce has been back, he’s been revisiting a lot of old projects.

Lucius’ boy did most of the technical work on it, and Foxtecha will have joint ownership of the patent when it’s ready for public consumption. Bruce would have asked Tim, but he knows how determined his estranged son is to get out of Gotham. He can read it in the tone of his emails, which have thankfully lost the stilted, formal business tone they’ve had since he returned to the company.

(Bruce mentioned paying a visit in the future, and Tim didn’t say no, so he counts that as a win.)

It’s a little disconcerting how the family is coming together again; disconcerting but welcome.

He’s received a vid call last week from Cassandra expressing concern over his surgery, and then a short, gruff email from Duke all-but ordering him to get better. There’s even a letter from Stephanie—or Eurus, as she goes by these days—smelling of dust and desert sun and incense found only in Nanda Parbat. Her messy, looping scrawl, echoed Dick’s sentiment about Bruce’s stubbornness and alluded to its genetic inheritability.

(That said more than if she had mentioned Damian outright; his youngest son has remained stubbornly silent.)

Bruce lost track of her not long after Damian’s short and brutal stint under the cowl; it had surprised him to find out she ended up in Tibet.

It also relieved him. Because no matter how dark a path his son wandered, at least there would be someone to challenge him. To not obey without question. To give him a link to the life he once had, to being human and alive.

(Bruce very carefully doesn’t think about Jason—doesn’t wonder if things had been different if he wouldn’t have reached out as well. Even after so many years, that wound is still raw.)

The whole thing is a stark difference from the last few times he ended up in the hospital, including when he was dosed on Joker venom several months ago. He didn’t hear anything from them at that point, which makes him think someone really thought he was dying this time and reached out.

Barbara, maybe. Or Dick. However much tension there is between himself and Bruce, he does keep in touch with the others. Hell, it might even have been Terry. The kid doesn’t know the rest of them personally, but he’s gotten adept at navigating the computer in the cave.

And he’s always been curious about his predecessors.

Bruce’s first family.

Or maybe just the first phase of the family.

Bruce shies away from that secret bit of knowledge he has about Terry, and his brother Matt. What he discovered the first time the kid returned to the Cave with bloody gashes that needed stitching up. The files and medical information buried beneath every firewall he could fashion, so the latest Batman can never stumble upon it accidentally.

The most Bruce has allowed himself to acknowledge it is an amendment in his will setting aside trust funds for both boys.

As if triggered by his thoughts, the screen of the Bat-Computer flickers to life. He rolls his shoulders, expecting an alert on some heist or robbery going on in the city; another case to add to the docket for Terry to investigate after school (depending on the severity).

Bruce doesn’t expect the Cave to suddenly fill with a jaunty, haunting carnival tune that makes his entire body seize in recognition. And yet, he already knows what’s coming even before the words HA HA HA coalesce upon the screen.

“Hell-O World! It’s your favorite rascal…”

________________________________________________________________

GORDON

There are times when Barbara misses being a vigilante, if only because there was a lot less paperwork involved. Questionable legality aside, there was always a simplicity to the whole endeavor: track down the bad guy, entrap-and-or-beat said bad guy into submission, and then drop them off at the GCPD.

Now that she’s the one behind the desk, though, she has a lot more appreciation for the work her father did. She wonders how he never developed an aneurysm or stress-related heart condition due to the grief Batman (and the rest of them) caused the department.

She has barely sat down in her office, but there’s an influx of emails flooding her inbox. She scans through the first few—requests from someone in IA sniffing around some of her open cases on the barest hint that she’s allowing Batman to help, reminders about upcoming social functions she would rather skip, two officers that have to be brought up on disciplinary charges—and sighs. It’s just the first two dozen.

Today is going to be a triple espresso kind of day, I can tell, she decides, rolling her shoulders and tilting her neck from side to side.

Another message chimes as it comes in.

Crime Alley and Tricorner are requesting more plainclothes officers in the area, ostensibly to deal with an upswing in crime over the past twenty-four hours.

Barbara frowns at this—it must be significant if those particular precincts are reaching out, they usually hate working with Central. Then again, everyone’s been jumpy about security since the Jokerz almost destroyed Gotham.

They’re still finding bodies from that one. She’s got three of her officers’ families grieving without any closure.

Barbara goes back over incident reports from the last few hours, noting a rise in attacks on the homeless, property damage and extreme road-rage (twenty-six separate incidents of that, which is a new daily extreme for her). From the initial investigations into each of the unrelated events—all in different areas of the city—there doesn’t seem to be any motivating factor or link.

What the hell is going on?

A crime spike isn’t ordinary for June; they usually start around now and then play out over the course of weeks.

Not hours. Have any of our usual players been released from custody lately? There’ve been no outbreaks or escapes that I know of.

If there is someone out there stirring things up, she hopes to God it’s just someone like Walter Shrieve. Arrogant and brilliant offenders she can deal with; they’re always so eager to prove themselves the best, and it always leads to their downfall. It’s the criminally insane ones that keep her up for days on end trying to restore some semblance of sanity to a city that’s never going to get any better. Even worse is a combination of the two.

Uneasy, she fires off a message to her counterparts in New York and Toronto, to see if they’re seeing similar phenomena in their jurisdictions. She hopes this is nothing, but she’s getting a hunch. And her hunches never lead her to anything that could be remotely called good.

“Get me Commissioner Sawyer over at MPD,” she tells the computer. She and Maggie go way back, and the other woman doesn’t pull that intercity rivalry crap when it comes to sharing important information.

“Yeah, the dregs are coming out of the woodwork here, too,” Maggie tells her after they exchange the requisite pleasantries. Her voice is carefully measured in a way that tells Barbara she’s not having a good day, either. “We had a damn flash mob that caused an A-trak derailment this morning. I have no idea how there weren’t more casualties, but…”

“Where’s Superman when you need him, right? I’d heard he was back in play.”

According to Bruce and Terry, anyhow.

“If he is, he must be off-world or something, because I doubt he’d be sitting on his ass at a time like this. What about on your end?”

“Well, we’re not exactly beyond the powers of the GCPD right now,” Barbara replies, a little smugly. “No need to take the Bat-signal out of storage.”

Yet, the unwelcome voice in her head echoes.

“Oh-ho, aren’t we getting confident in our old age?” Maggie sneers, but there’s no real malice to it. “For all our sakes, I hope it stays that way. But I’ve got a hunch...”

“Yeah,” Barbara sighs, her stomach dropping. “Me too.”

It’s not a good sign when both she and her opposite number in Metropolis are on the same wavelength.

As Maggie hangs up, three more incident reports pop up on the side of her screen. Skirmishing at Gotham General—that’s all they need now. If things are just warming up, it’s looking like another long day.

Sam’s not going to like it…

Barbara dials in the number herself this time on her personal line. There’s a trill and the viewscreen pops up to show her husband in his office at the DA, scowling down at a tablet. His expression clears when he sees her.

“Didn’t I just see you this morning?” he jokes. “Or were you that keen to see me again?”

“Always,” Barbara tells him, softer than she speaks to anyone else. “But I’m actually calling to apologize. It’s going to be a day, and I don’t know if I’ll get home for supper.”

“It must be bad since you just got there.”

“Things have been hairy all night,” she admits. “I’ve got incident reports multiplying as we speak. You’d think with the bug going around people would be staying home to recuperate, but it looks like they think it’s an excuse to break the law.”

“Well, it’s Gotham. After all this time, it’s not a surprise.”

“It’s really, really not.”

“I know I’d rather be home in bed,” Sam says, and normally a comment like that would have innuendo behind it. This time it’s all too earnest. He rubs his face tiredly. “I think I’m coming down with it too, to be honest.”

“If you give it to me, you’re sleeping on the couch for the next week,” Barbara informs him automatically. “I can’t afford to miss any work for the next…forever.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, hon. The minute they see you blink in this business, you’re dead in the water.” Sam grimaces and rolls his shoulders, and Barbara experiences a tinge of concern because he does look pale.

“Maybe you should go home,” she suggests. “You can work on your cases at home, can’t you?”

“Unfortunately, no. I’m due in court at ten o’clock.”

“If you’re dead from the flu, do you know how many criminals are going to walk free?” she demands, only a little bit joking.

He chuckles. “Come on, Babs, you know no one’s died of the flu in twenty years.”

Barbara has a witty retort on her tongue, but it stalls when Sam’s image freezes in front of her. It seems at first to be a lag, but then the screen morphs from his office to what looks like a brick wall.

She feels an icy cold slice through her, the same one she always gets when anything is associated with him. It’s the echo of a bullet, tearing through her internal organs and spine, and the hair-raising chill.

Barbara doesn’t really read the words, too focused on the high, cold cackle in the that somehow blocks out every other sound.

________________________________________________________________

DRAKE

For the first time in a long time, Tim is happy.

His house is a gutted mess of boxes and detritus, but unlike in his younger years, it’s not because some supervillain has come crashing in to threaten him. He smiles, a little whimsical, at the date on the holographic calendar, and the word that hovers there: Moving.

In a week, he and Arlene will be in Beijing, and forever free of Gotham City.

They made the decision together in the weeks following the Jokerz attack, after Tim escaped the Cave the last time. He made it clear to Bruce and his new apprentice that it was the last time.

He doesn’t mind continuing to work for Wayne Enterprises—hell, he helped build that company, he takes a certain amount of pride and responsibility for it—but he won’t be doing that from Gotham. There’s too much history here, too much…everything. Apparently living on the outskirts or even in the same state (even on the same continent) isn’t enough for Tim to completely escape the lingering, nightmarish legacy of Batman.

Of Robin.

He wants normal. And after everything he’s been through, he more than deserves it.

“Oh, I’ll be sure to tell your dad, he’ll be happy to hear that,” Arlene says, chatting with their daughter Janet on the vidphone across the kitchen. In the den, the low sounds of the television provide background noise.

“—the level of unrest breaking out in the world’s major cities, has politicians asking, ‘is this another Yellow Vest Movement?’—"

“Honey, Janet says she and Maeve will be coming to help with the move after all.”

“You mean coming to eat pizza and beer,” Tim replies with a smile; they’ve already hired movers.

“Semantics,” he hears his youngest daughter laugh. “Either way we’ll be there.”

“Always happy to see you, kiddo.”

“Now, I’ve got to let you go,” Arlene says. “I have a nine-thirty conference call with Peking U., but I’ll speak to you later on.”

She has a follow-up interview for a position in the Linguistics Department there. It’s a step down from her current professorship at Gotham University, where she was on the tenure track, but when Tim pointed this out, she insisted his mental health was more important than her job prospects.

He tells himself he gave in so easily because after so many years of marriage it’s futile to argue with her. He tries not to acknowledge the total relief that he didn’t have to argue with her about it.

“Yeah, no problem Mom. Talk to you soon.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too!”

The video feed of their daughter winks out.

“Do you need me to get out of your hair?” Tim asks.

“No, I’ll take the call up in the office,” his wife replies and presses a kiss to his temple as she passes. Then she pauses, turns around and grabs the coffee pot to bring with her. “And I’m cutting you off. Any more of this and you’re not sleeping tonight.”

Tim sighs. “It’s like you know me or something.”

“And don’t forget it, mister!”

He listens carefully to the sound of his wife retreating up the stairs and over the landing, and then reaches for the microwave, where he surreptitiously stashed an extra cup earlier that morning.

And swears when he finds it missing; a quick glance to the sink sees it already washed out.

Damn it, she does know me.

But the thought is more fond than irritated.

Arlene is the only sure thing in his life, especially after his trauma. They met through Kate Kane—or rather, because of Kate Kane. The two women attended West Point at the same time, and Arlene acted as a character witness for Kate prior to the dishonorable discharge. Though Arlene graduated from the Academy, she did not spend much time on active duty before she was injured by a roadside bomb and lost her leg. Afterward, while dealing with her own PTSD, she pursued an academic career. She and Kate lost touch, and it wasn’t until the media released news of Kate’s murder that she heard of her again.

Arlene attended the funeral, which is where Tim met her for the first time. Two weeks later, they met in a support group for trauma survivors and started getting coffee together. It took Tim a year to figure out she was flirting with him (which Jason never stopped teasing him about, even when he was on his deathbed). After everything with Stephanie, and then with Jason, Arlene offered a safety none of his other partners ever had.

There’s a high-pitched trill from his cellphone, and he glances down to read the text from Cass.

‘ayt? need yr flight info. to pick u up from airport next wk. :) :) :)’

His sister still prefers to text over talking by phone, even all these years later, which he’s pleased about. So much these days is done with face-to-face screens or even holographic technology; he wasn’t really a people person before, but it’s getting rarer and rarer to have any kind of privacy. Texting—especially across the encrypted server he’s set up—is a relief.

Tim relays the details to her, along with the implied greetings from his wife, and expects that to be it. But then he gets another text.

‘question? 4 work.’

Tim tenses.

Cassandra Cain works as a retired ballerina who opened her own school of dance; it’s highly unlikely the work-related question has anything to do with that. It’s probably for Black Bat.

But he cautiously texts back, ‘As long as it’s just a question.’

He’s had to re-learn to establish boundaries.

‘fair. u worked cybersecurity. ever hear of Morningstar. hacker/agency???’

Tim frowns, thinks back, and shakes his head even though she can’t see it. ‘No. Never dealt with anything like that.’

Ok! 3Q. worth a shot. will c u & arlene on thurs. 520GG!’

‘88MM’

He waits a few minutes, but there are no more messages forthcoming, and then sends out the last message—‘88MM’, before putting his phone away.

Unlike everyone else from his vigilante days, Cass knows how to not push.

And yet…

She rarely asks him about anything that might involve her after-hours work, both out of familial courtesy and because her operation is, at least unofficially, supported by the Chinese government. Legally, there’s not a lot she can involve him in; when she does, it’s only where she has absolutely no other recourse and it involves paperwork and non-disclosure agreements.

Only twice has she asked him something in an off-hand way, which he knew instinctively had to do with Black Bat but pretended not to realise. The last time, his information helped her locate and dismantle a eugenicist breeding program using homeless girls.

Perhaps that’s why he finds himself reaching for his laptop and looking into anything to do with Cass’s mysterious ‘Morningstar’.

The word generates a broad spectrum of results, even when he searches through the Dark Web. Nothing to do with drugs, nothing related to human trafficking or weapons—nothing that wouldn’t immediately stand out to Cass in her own searches. He narrows search parameters, skating through encryptions and IP trails and layers and layers of disturbing data—

Within ten minutes he comes across the exact word in connection with a burgeoning hacktivist group known as DevilNight, but no indications as to what it refers to. It’s odd, considering the group has only existed for a short while and has hardly done anything worthy of attention. It makes no sense that something like this would be on Cass’s radar, especially considering based on his tracking, the group is based in Idaho.

He has just started to peel back the layers of the group’s security when his computer screen freezes. A beat later, words begin to type on his screen, and the blood drains from his cheeks.

H E L L O J U N I O R

Even as the words register, Tim is already shoving himself backward, away from the screen. His hand slaps against the spot in his neck where Joker’s microchip was implanted—the spot where he injected Bruce’s anti-venom deployment system. It’s a reassurance, a reminder, he will be safe—

Horror suffuses him as another message typed out in front of him:

D O N ’T B E A N A U G H T Y B O Y

Bile rises in his throat and Tim feels the world spin. Instantly, he is back in that horrible room, hysterical laughter in his ears and a falsely cheerful melody playing in the background.

He has to fight himself back under control, checking his surroundings, going over simple facts about himself in his head—

Not Junior not Junior not Junior—

My name is Timothy Jackson Drake. Drake-Wayne.

He is still that, even if he never uses the name anymore. He never got around to changing it, never had the courage to.

My parents were Jack and Janet Drake. Mom died when I was a boy, Dad remarried. Dana. But they died—

Kidnapped, poisoned, murdered, went insane—

No, he’s getting off track. Facts, he needs facts about himself, to ground him, to remind him of who he is and not what he has lived through.

I work as a communications director and do contract work for Wayne Enterprises. I have two daughters—Kate and Janet. Kate is a veterinarian; Janet is a stockbroker. She married Maeve last year. Kate is pregnant with our first grandchild. Arlene and I go to Florida every winter…

At long last, he gets himself under control again, can separate himself from the specter of Junior.

He expects the laughter and the inner echoes of carnival music to fade away.

Instead, it becomes louder and more distinct.

Tim stares at his screen in horror as the message vanishes, the words replaced with something even more sinister.

HA HA HA.

No.

Not again.

He can’t do this again.

________________________________________________________________

GRAYSON

Dick only ever feels his age in the mornings.

There’s just something about his body waking up after a long sleep, before his training kicks in to ignore the aches and pains, that can’t fight off the heaviness as fast anymore. Every day it’s more painful putting himself through the usual routine of exercises to keep himself in shape.

Thankfully, he’s still outwardly put-together enough to hide it.

He smiles ruefully at his reflection in the bathroom mirror—more of a grimace, really—and studies the patchwork of old scars and not-so-old bruises across his chest.

He knows he doesn’t look his age. It’s not even due to cosmetic surgery or organ replacements or even the personal holograph projections that have gotten popular in the last decade. Longevity just happens to run in his family; John Grayson’s father was still pulling triple somersaults at eighty and Mary Lloyd’s grandmother lived to be a hundred and thirteen.

The only thing artificial in his body are metal plates and pins that replaced bones fractured beyond natural healing, and the biotech keeping the bullet in his spine from moving. (And the antitoxin implant Bruce sent him; because no feud is worth getting dosed with Joker venom, whether the bastard is dead or not.)

Not bad for fifty-nine, he decides and heads for the kitchen.

There’s a moan from his bedroom, and he pauses briefly as he passes to consider the woman lying in his bed in nothing but his bedsheets. In her sleep, she curls to one side, causing the sheet to slip a little and reveal bruises in the shape of his fingers across her hip. He can feel the matching set on his own back.

Definitely not bad for fifty-nine.

For a moment he debates the merits of returning to bed and continuing where they left off last night, but that would be against one of the unspoken rules they established when they started sleeping together.

The other is that they don’t use real names.

He doesn’t know or want to know hers—after a lifetime of failed relationships and broken hearts he knows better than to get attached. And though he’s aware she knows his—the world knows his name since that fiasco with the wannabe Hush—she never uses it. If she must, she calls him Wing, and it’s a clear reminder that she has no intention of crossing any boundaries to let things become personal.

He has no problem with that; he calls her Black.

He’ll never call her Cat because that’s what Bruce called Selina Kyle. Associating this Catwoman with the original just feels a little too oedipal to Dick.

(Selina never really gave off motherly vibes, but she was the most constant presence of all Bruce’s paramours, so she sort of ended up in that role by association).

The original Catwoman was the only one Bruce could never completely push away—though that might say more about Selina’s stubbornness than the old man trying to keep hold of the people in his life. She decided when they were in a relationship, or out of one, whatever Bruce wanted.

In the end, even that wasn’t enough though. Her heart was never as strong after the incident with the real Hush.

Dick remembers attending the funeral. Bruce didn’t show up at the service or the burial. It was a few years into his self-imposed exile, right after Damian’s departure, and soon after Steph and Cass. He obviously hadn’t wanted to face any of them (maybe couldn’t face them).

But there was a crack in the headstone the next time Dick brought flowers (an imprint of a fist he would know anywhere) and he knows Bruce blamed himself for that too.

Dick heads to the kitchen, grabbing a coffee for himself. He debates for a moment, leaving one out for Black, but if the usual pattern holds, she’ll be jumping out his bedroom window soon without even coming into the kitchen. She’s not exactly one for goodbyes. Instead, he leans on the counter and pulls out his mobile, scrolling through the day's news stories.

Call him old fashioned, but he prefers to read the news than watch the featureless blue talking heads on the television. He spends about a minute skimming a beat piece on the successful launch of Wayne Enterprises' latest environmental initiative. Tim was telling him something about that the other day; it was the most animated and relaxed Dick had seen him since that night with the Jokerz.

“It’s basically like a planetary rebreather,” his estranged brother enthused. “You know how trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen? It’s sort of like that, but on a larger scale. Once it's all set up, any toxins pumped into the atmosphere will get filtered out and converted to oxygen.”

Tim had then gone on a lengthy explanation about the technical details that Dick had no chance of following, but given how enthused he’d seemed, it hadn’t mattered.

He’s going to miss him, now that he’s headed off to Beijing, but Cass is ecstatic. As far as Dick knows, they haven’t seen each other in ten years. It almost makes him want to head over and join the reunion.

Except that would be counterproductive to his current plans.

Dick is in Gotham on the pretense of opening a second athletics course, but really, it’s to keep an eye on things.

He doesn’t trust Bruce not to screw up whatever he’s doing with this new kid, and the boy’s too green to notice the signs of losing himself to Bruce’s mission. When the old man cuts him off—and it’s when, not if, because Bruce will inevitably screw this up—the McGinnis kid is going to need someone to keep his head above water.

Dick’s only been around him a handful of times, but there’s a cockiness and attitude there that reminds him of Jason. That’s concerning enough on its own, but what really makes the hair on the back of Dick’s neck stand up is the sense he has of this kid’s potential to do damage. He’s seen that, before, too, along with the results.

Christ, the kid even looks like Damian. If I didn’t know Bruce so well, I’d think…

He shakes off the thought because it’s too disturbing to contemplate.

The point is, Terry McGinnis needs someone looking out for him, even if he doesn’t realize it. Bruce isn’t going to do it and Barbara has clearly forgotten a hell of a lot of history since she’s allowing the boy to fly around her city risking his life.

So it’s up to Dick.

Again.

I’m way too old to be getting another brother, he thinks darkly, in what once might have been genuine humor but now feels just exhausting. Especially considering his track record with the others.

He doesn’t even know where Duke ended up.

Something flickers on the edge of his eyesight, and he turns to look out the window of his apartment. Across the street, the giant vid-screen advertising the latest energy drink blinks and goes briefly blank. Along with every other screen as far as the eye can see.

Dick narrows his eyes, taking a step forward to study the phenomena, and then freezes as his quiet apartment is invaded by obscenely cheerful music and a laugh he wishes he could forget.

Every screen for miles spells it out, and he knows immediately that things are about to get worse.

________________________________________________________________

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#batman #batman beyond #bat family #batfic #batfam #terry mcginnis #bruce wayne #barbara gordon #tim drake #dick grayson #fanfiction #dc universe #dcau #action #adventure #angst #drama #introspection #calm before the storm

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kkglinka · 6 years

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I see many writers characterizing Blake Belladonna as fundamentally timid, receding, someone “who has always run” etc, and I think that's wrong, for a number of reasons. I strongly suspect that pre-Adam Blake was anything but those things — that they aren't character traits at all, but outward coping mechanisms. Before I explain, I want to establish that we're on the same page:

Abuse is a pattern of manipulative or controlling behavior. The majority of abuse is emotional and psychological, followed by sexual, then physical violence, with financial aspects mixed throughout. The vast majority of abuse is non-violent and hinges on things like gas-lighting, causing financial dependence, isolating their victim from potential support networks, entrapment and coercion. The only uniting factors among abusers are relatively high intelligence and narcissism. They typically appear like nice, likable, often charming and admirable folks to anyone who is not their victim — enabling their abuse through social disbelief. Above all else, they want their victim's attention and energy, no matter what form it takes. Even constant, focused hostility is a desirable response because the abuser feeds off the emotional attention.

The majority of their victims are not weak-willed or stupid. That is a social myth, one often fostered by abusers themselves, because it leave their real targets unguarded. Beginners will start this way, but for most experienced abusers, a weak person is boring. They don't provide much fight, much effort, much resulting attention. Instead, they often target “strong” people that they can manipulate, whittle down, force into emotional attendance, take all that energy for themselves, then bask in the achievement of gaining and maintaining control over such a challenge.

Adam Taurus fits the Sensitive/Passionate Man model of abuser. He's suave, handsome, a charismatic leader, persuasive enough to both gain numerous followers and manipulate them into achieving his goals. Oh, but he's so sensitive, able to cry in very artful restraint in front of certain followers, gaining sympathy, evoking empathy because surely he must be in pain; he must be the true victim. And suddenly everyone is coddling, reassuring — even the victim themselves — showering the abuser with attention and support.

Blake's aggressive avoidance (preemptively fleeing) of emotional confrontations in which she believes she will be blamed by someone she cares about, even for actions over which she had little or no agency, is consistent with severe emotional abuse and gas-lighting. In this scenario, the abuser holds their victim responsible for any displeasure they experience. Even in cases where their victim is clearly not at fault, they are guilty of insufficient compassion and sympathy, especially if the victim themselves is in any way demanding emotional comfort. For instance, an abuser might attack their victim until they cry, then condemn them for “trying to get attention.”

Contrast this avoidance with what we know of her formative years:

Given that no one suggested Chief Ghira Belladonna be removed or replaced in office during the attempted coup, I believe that his office is hereditary, which is in line with other aspects of the Remnant universe. I'm guessing that he stepped down from the previous White Fang political party, and became Chief, when an older relative died. I'm inclined to believe any formal royalty the faunus might have had were executed by the victorious human forces prior to the establishment of Menagerie, but that's the cynical historian in me. Regardless, the Belladonna's clearly have a high social status, which also explains a puzzle: Blake's obvious lady-like behavior, which didn't fit with the peasant orphan narrative.

If she comes from a political line of succession — if her family is the equivalent of old money — then she would have been groomed for her role as a political leader her entire childhood. Even if she's not a formal heir, her family name carries enormous prestige, a valuable asset. She would have been well-educated, any leadership abilities she naturally possessed would have been bolstered. Her political and social engagement with a wider community would have been encouraged, and she would have studied strategy, public speaking, crowd control, along with the more subtle “good manners” that are used to guide small groups.

Yet we also know she participated in front line, violent protests. In many noble families, civil or military service is a tacit expectation. It might be considered a civic duty to experience the full range of human/faunus conflicts, to witness front and center what problems exists and the effects they have on their people Given their own pasts, it makes sense that Blake's parents would train their only child — and possible heir — to be equally engaged.

We know she was passionate enough about her beliefs to fight tooth and nail over it with what seems to be a very loving, supportive, and respectful family. A runner doesn't draw that sort of line in the sand to the point of rejecting their own family. What she did, as a naive but highly principled teen, wasn't run away; it was run toward and to hell with anyone who wasn't brave enough to stand with her on the front lines. Altogether, this suggests a pattern of confrontational behavior — an angry idealist.

She would have been the perfect target for a charismatic man with political ambitions — and I'm sure her parents knew it. If she was trained to have all the skills I described, she would have been a very useful lieutenant. Given her age when she joined RWBY, she was at best sixteen when this, at least somewhat, older man charmed her away — young enough to groom. Fortunately, she had a strong enough formative period that she was able to overcome the gas-lighting and escape on her own. This is a very difficult achievement for any abuse victim, but next to impossible for someone already inclined toward passivity and avoidance.

Next we have Blake's initial conflict with Weiss during Season 1. Background narrative tells us that the two were engaged in repeated verbal debates before Blake finally loses her temper, accidentally revealing her race to someone she knows is a key (future) political rival. Only after she reaches that level of confrontation does Blake's abuse-related coping mechanism come into play, triggering immediate and irrational avoidance. That level of pnaic is an excessive and abnormal learned behavior — not a mere personality trait.

Back up, rewind, abusers isolate their victims. They lie and manipulate friends and family into abandoning the victim. They disrupt outings, invent excuses to cancel events, fabricate evidence and lie about their victim to that individual's friends and family. They make the victim look bad, irrational, hysterical, unreliable, cowardly...You name it, until the friends leave in frustration. A particularly vicious abuser might even arrange harmful events that the victim learns about but is unable to stop. I can easily imagine Adam sending Blake's budding friends on suicide missions or otherwise putting them at risk, to sever their emotional support. Consequently, Blake expects to be rejected by potential friends; expected to be rejected by her own family.

In real life, an abusive ex will often violently target a new lover or partner, sometimes attempt murder, because it's only when their victim's emotional attention shifts away that the abuser feels threatened. So running in response to her former abuser enacting demonstrable harm to a new loved one was completely rational.

Adam is strong, intelligent and calculating. You'll notice that he didn't “lose his temper” (abusers always remain in emotional control of themselves), but made a strategic choice to demonstrate his continued power and control. Given that he successfully disabled RWBY's strongest member, given that abusers will use almost any tactic to separate their victim from supportive networks, leaving was the most logical choice. Abusers don't stop until they're appeased or their entire system of control is destroyed.

Blake's actions really did protect the rest of her team by "giving Adam what he wanted", but you'll notice that she headed straight toward another support network. Good on her; that was a sound, strategic choice and in contrast to another maladaptive coping strategy: the urge toward self-isolation.

Another thing in abuse survivors is overcompensation. Yes, she felt irrationally guilty over Adam's malevolent actions and Yang Xiao Long's conscious choice — neither of which are within Blake's agency — but her entire relationship with Adam probably centered on his feelings, needs and desires. Survivors need time to attend themselves, and Blake never really did that. She went straight from putting all her energy into Adam and the White Fang into serving RWBY. She was bound to be overwhelmed by a need for self-care sooner or later...but abuse victims learn early on that no one will do emotional labor on their behalf. So again, we've got a learned coping mechanism rather than inherent trait, and one that was repeatedly challenged by Sun Wukong and both her parents.

What we really have is two people, Blake and Yang, who have spent most of their lives doing emotional labor for other people — for different reasons — and won't ask for any in return. One has been taught harsh lessons about how risky it is to expect any. The other convinced herself she was too strong to need any. But in this latest seasons we see both of them begin trying. In Blake's case, she needed to regain confidence in her own judgment enough that she was able to command her community (which achieved what she wanted). Her confrontation with Adam demonstrated how much having support makes a difference.

In Yang's case, she better start bloody well asking for what she wants instead of cavalierly dismissing her own emotional needs. Yeah, that's on her; it's not Blake's job to play guessing and appeasement games. That's unhealthy. You don't hold a partner responsible for your own feelings, especially if you've made no direct, honest attempt to communicate them — which is called emotional avoidance. So I was relieved to see her break down in front of Weiss, confessing that need, but even moreso when she finally allowed herself to get past that machismo and cry. Baby steps, y'know?

In conclusion, Blake is a passionate, confrontational firebrand who acquired maladaptive coping strategies consistent with gas-lighting and emotional abuse, and those should not be conflated with core personality traits. Also, she doesn't have psychic powers and I look forward to seeing Yang use her words instead of brooding.

#fandom #rwby #blake belladonna #tw: abuse #bumbleby #rwby meta

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icedanceupstarts · 6 years

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JGP Ostrava and Nebelhorn Trophy

JGP Ostrava:

Khudaiberdieva/Nazarov RD FD won easily as expected and have qualified to JGPF. Their tango has been sharp since the beginning, and this was another great showing of it here. In the free dance they made some changes since their first outing week one, most notably swapping the placement of their choreographic spin and straight line lift. They ran into some issues with their combination spin, but still set a new season’s best with improved components. We look forward to seeing their continued progress in December!

Kazakova/Reviya RD FD had an excellent JGP debut in their second season as a team, utilizing their speed and flair for drama to grab silver. We love that stationary choreographic lift they close out their free dance with. They’re both such expressive and committed performers that they would be a delight even if their technique wasn’t as strong as it is.

Davis/Smolkin RD FD

As you may have heard, Davis is Eteri Tutberidze's daughter, and they made a very solid JGP debut here. You can tell they're lacking in experience compared to the teams that placed above them when it comes to interpretation, but they make up for it with commitment and some admirably difficult tech content. They had some solid lifts and speed and a good deal of expressiveness even if their interpretation was not always enhancing the music, and their enthusiasm and energy were palpable.

Bronsard/Bouaraguia RD FD

A great JGP debut for this highly charming team. We would have liked their tango to have a little more tango in it, and we still aren't a fan of mixing rhythms, but their quickstep was very strong and showed off their personalities well. Bouaraguia is a very strong partner with a solid presence and a good lead, and they've both got a real sense of showmanship, which is fortuitous with their free dance being what it is. It's an even better vehicle for them than the rhythm dance, since the whole thing is molded to their strengths, whereas they didn't seem to quite get the tango section in the same way. They're a very promising team and we wish them luck over the rest of the season.

Nebelhorn Trophy:

Gilles/Poirier RD FD

Gilles/Poirier are, as always, entirely themselves, artistic and creative and constantly innovating. We've already written about how they've pushed the boundaries of the sport and predicted trends, and they continued that here. Their twizzles need a little practice to make it clear that the unique, difficult positions are intended and not mistakes that they're just rolling with, and there are a couple tricky transitions they get stuck in in both programs, but overall this is some of their strongest packaging to date. Their tango manages to be different from their very successful free dance from two seasons back as well as different from the rest of the field while still maintaining the feel of a tango. Their free dance has a few rough spots but was lovely and fascinating and should grow into a powerful vehicle soon enough.

Parsons RD

They started off strong with a tango that showed off the polish, maturity, and experience that they gained in the year they've been seniors that helped them secure the silver. Unfortunately for the second competition in a row their free dance is unavailable on youtube, and we haven't been able to find an alternative link, but they showed off their warm, natural sibling connection and stayed uncannily linked throughout, minus a small bobble at the end where she lost her balance that counted as a fall. They're really making this music their own and we're glad that they had such a strong performance of a program that holds such meaning to them. They finally cleaned up their levels on their fourth international outing of the season and look strong and prepared for their grand prix events.

Carreira/Ponomarenko RD FD

Carreira/Ponomarenko continued their solid senior debut with two more strong skates, including a level 4 on the first section of the tango romantica pattern. Carreira also was the only ice dancer in the event to achieve a level 4 on the one foot step sequence. Their programs are technically ambitious and should continue to grow with every outing, and their speed and dynamic energy is already fully present. They continue to utilize their strong, versatile chemistry in both programs, and they're really settling into the interpretation and nuances of their music. We can't wait to see them continue to develop throughout the season.

Fear/Gibson RD FD

Bringing the fun back to ice dance! The music alone would brighten our day, but they show off their stamina by keeping up the energy all the way through, combined with some difficult elements and some seriously fun knee slides. While their disco free dance is the real star, their tango is very solid as well and we'll be intrigued to see them again at Skate America in a few weeks where they'll be facing their domestic rivals Tweedale/Buckland.

Koch/Nuchtern FD

Their tango needs a little more tango feeling, but is a solid program, although apparently not worthy enough to appear on youtube. We have a big soft spot for Notre Dame de Paris, and they milk every ounce of drama from it. They use the highs and lows very well, letting the program build and build until they finish off with a big choreographic lift where she shakes her fists at the sky before swooning into his arms so he can cradle her dying form as her body goes limp in one of the best on ice deaths we've seen recently. Although we would suggest a minor tweak in his hold in the end pose, because at the moment it kind of looks like he's feeling up her corpse which is frowned upon in most societies.

Muller/Dieck RD FD In the wake of Lorenz/Polizoakis' split, they are trying to push the limits to become German #1. Very good tango, the best tango feel of the German teams, just an unfortunate fall from him at the end of the diagonal step sequence. As for the free dance, we're not quite sure that four minutes reflecting on our own mortality is quite what we're looking for in ice dance, but its certainly unique and attention grabbing. They made a coaching change to Gorshkov over the summer and you can already begin to see the improvements in their skating skills. Slightly wish that they would bring back their free dance from last year, ice dance needs more Whitney, and with the field increasingly trending towards moodiness we'd prefer to see a fun dance party on ice rather than somewhat distracting voiceovers declaring YOUR TIME IS LIMITED. But this is clearly a meaningful program for them, and we hope to see them continue to grow into Memento Mori On Ice.

Kaliszek/Spodiriev RD FD

Kaliszek/Spodiriev could have fought for a medal but took themselves out of contention in the RD when she fell on the twizzles. We love the commitment though-- pre-skate posing including a slap to get into character is the kind of unselfconscious theatricality that ice dance could use more of. Shout out to Spodiriev for winning the deep V contest we didn't even know was happening, and she looks like a beautiful leaf in her unusual tango dress. Fantastic rotational lift to open their free dance. Some struggles on the twizzles and the one foot sequence couldn’t take away from the innovativeness and potential of this program. We hope they have a stronger outing in a few weeks at Skate America!

Nazarova/Nikitin RD FD

This is one team that never fails to push the boundaries and show off their quirky personalities, but unfortunately they didn't have a great competition. They fell early on in the pattern in the rhythm dance and got rattled and never quite got back into it. Perhaps Nikitin would have stayed on his feet better if there weren't a pair of disembodied hands strangling him? The free dance went somewhat better, but all in all not their best skates. If you look beyond the messiness, though, you'll find a lot to like. Even when scrambling they're incredibly fun performers, and have loads of difficult, interesting transitions. Their lifts are as great as always, with acrobatic and eye catching and utilizing their flexibility and balance as well as strength. Shout out to Nazarova for smashing the gender binary with her black boots, and we hope they pull it together in time for Skate America.

#ice dance #nebelhorn trophy 2018 #jgp ostrava 2018 #jgp 2018 #review #season: 2018 2019

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petercapaldork · 6 years

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A Secret Santa

Here is my MM Secret Santa gift for Apollo888 on Fanfiction.net, which I shared via Google Docs first. I wanted to make sure it was shared here as well. Happy holidays and enjoy!

Read on ff.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12774346/1/A-Secret-Santa

Pens scratched and pages rustled as students revised their essays, a hum of silence filling the room along with a hint of anxiety.

Mary watched in silence from her desk, on hand to help any who needed it.

It was difficult enough to encourage concentration so close to the holidays, but especially trying to maintain while students worked on essays over Jonathan Swift, Paradise Lost, and other Restoration period topics. Students were clamoring for next term and Gothic literature, like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or to delve into a bit of Austen.

But after a month-long holiday break. Mary was aching for it herself.

“Miss Grantham, how much longer until the period is over?”

The class looked up, all waiting with bated breath for her answer, and Mary glanced at the clock on her desk, about to respond with, “Half an hour,” when she heard a loud bang from down the hall. One of the girls nearest the ajar door screamed and dropped her pen.

Mary rose from her seat as the students began to murmur amongst themselves about the source of the sound, but she already knew where it had come from.

The chemistry lab.

“Please continue your revisions, I’ll be right back.”

Once out in the corridor she found Anna Bates, the French teacher and her neighbor.

“What on earth was that bang?” Anna asked, looking in the direction of the sound.

“I’ll give you a wild guess,” Mary said.

“Oh mon Dieu,” Anna said as Mary turned for the science wing. “Don’t be too hard on him.”

“The rest of us are working on revisions and studying for final exams and he’s going to blow up the school,” Mary replied, leaving Anna to mutter in French under her breath. Mary knew she could count on her friend to keep an eye on her own students while she told off the school’s very own mad scientist.

Her heels clicked their way down the granite corridor, taking her under holiday decorations that student groups had hung at the beginning of December. Holly and garland of evergreen boughs and Menorahs, paper snowflakes cut out and snowmen tapped to the walls made the entire school festive and ready for the season. Mary’s own classroom had been decorated by her students throughout the month to liven the place up, remind them of home, and give them a break before the final push for exams. And now it seemed they’d get another one.

“Now we just witnessed--Maggie what was the term for the chemical reaction I just showed you?”

“An exothermic reaction of ethanol vapor, Mr. Crawley.”

“It was combustion, more specifically,” another girl piped up.

“Yes, very good, Claudia.”

The students, or the female students at least, all giggled at the teacher’s praise before he returned to his lesson with animation.

“As opposed to endothermic reactions, in exothermic reactions, the enthalpy, or stored chemical energy which is a thermodynamic quantity, it is lower for the products than the reactants. So who can tell me what that means for this experiment?”

At this query, Mary knocked hard on the slightly open door. Twenty faces turned toward her, surprise on the face of Mr. Crawley while the students looked on in great interest.

“Ah, Miss Grantham, what brings you here?”

“May I speak with you privately?” she requested, plastering a smile on her face for the benefit of the students, most of whom were familiar to her.

“But of course.” He turned to his class. “I’ll be right back and someone better have my answer about the enthalpy for this chemical reaction. It might even have an answer that is quantifiable.”

He followed Mary out into the hall, leaving the students looking nervously at each other, but interested in what their teachers were discussing.

“What can I do for you, Mary?” He pushed a pair of safety goggles onto the top of his head. “What brings you down to our laboratories?”

Mary forced herself not roll her eyes at him and his antics of sometimes pretending to be a mad scientist. His getup complete with a white lab coat, it wasn’t much of a stretch, although it was adorable. Not that she’d let him know that. He had enough admirers from most of the teenaged girls in the school.

She’d known Matthew Crawley for over three years now and she still couldn’t figure him out. They weren’t the most chummy of colleagues, oil and water at times, but he loved to get her riled up.

“Well, Doctor Crawley, if you and your minions could refrain from blowing up anything else this afternoon, we’d be much obliged. The rest of the school is trying to study for exams, not put on a show and wonder if we need to call the fire department.”

He raised his eyebrows in amusement, clearly not troubled by her tone or her Despicable Me reference.

“My class is studying for exams. Did you not hear me drilling them on exothermic and endothermic reactions? We’ve already studied the Periodic Table and gone over units about ionic bonding, balancing equations. This is the final unit to review before we have our exam tomorrow.”

“And your review involves possibly blowing up the school?”

“I have a fire extinguisher on hand, but the combustion is pretty well-contained, I shouldn’t need to use it.” He smirked, and Mary’s frown deepened.

“Seriously? We are trying to keep things quiet for the students and maintain a bit of calm before the holidays. You know how hard that is, Matthew. You’re deliberately trying to break their concentration!” She was growing so angry that she had to drop her voice to a whisper to keep herself from yelling at him. Her fists clenched.

“I am not, Mary,” he said, holding out his hands in surrender. “Our subjects are just very different animals. Yours is all talking, writing, thinking. Mine is very hands-on. The students can’t learn about exothermic and endothermic reactions without seeing them in action. It’s chemistry.”

There was a half-smile, one that she found herself on the receiving end of more and more lately. The other women teachers called Matthew “charming.” Well, Mary knew he could be when he wanted to be. Apparently this was one of those times.

“It made one of my students shriek in surprise. So keep it down or I’ll complain to the headmistress,” she said, but could feel her resolve to be angry wilting slightly.

He smiled again, blue eyes sparkling.

“We’ll try our best to keep the explosions to a minimum, Mary,” he agreed, and Mary hardly dared to believe him. “I’ll see you at Dr. Hughes’ holiday party, won’t I, if not sooner?”

For the first time since entering the corridor, Mary happened to glance over Matthew’s shoulder, startled to see the door was not quite shut on Matthew’s classroom. From the narrow window beside the door, she could see that the entire chemistry class was dead silent and hanging on every word of their conversation. No one was trying to work out any equation regarding the chemical reaction. Mary couldn’t tell if it was because half the girls were in love with Matthew, or if they were interested for some other reason.

“Yes, I’ll be there,” she said, brief. “I should get back.”

“Happy Shakespeare-ing,” Matthew said, bringing down his safety goggles once more.

Mary didn’t bother to correct him, wanting to get away from the enraptured gazes of the students.

“Don’t burn the place down,” she requested, and Matthew laughed, giving her a salute.

“Aye, aye.”

Mary simply nodded stiffly before walking away.

Anna was still outside when she returned, but had clearly been flitting between their two classrooms to check on both groups of students in her absence.

“What happened?” she asked, crossing her arms with great interest.

“Matthew is doing some kind of experiment, an exothermic reaction that is obviously intended to drive us all crazy but not to burn down the school, according to him. I fully chastised him for conducting such a loud test right before exams, but he told me it was part of his review process,” Mary complained. “What a bunch of-”

“Des ordures.”

“In English.”

“Garbage,” Anna said. “I know he likes to get a rise out of you, but does it have to be at the expense to the rest of us?”

“You think he’s conducting experiments this close to exams to toy with me?” Mary asked.

Anna shook her head. “Not exactly. Just you’re really the only one who would be upset about it, aren’t you? La querelle d'amoureux.”

“La que...what? Amour? That means ‘love’. Anna, what are you talking about? Matthew and I are hardly friends, we’re not in love!” Mary dropped her voice again, agitated by her friend’s insinuation that there was something going on with her and Matthew. “What else did you say? I don’t remember anything from high school French class.”

“That makes me feel like my job is worthwhile,” Anna said, wrinkling her nose. I said, ‘A lover’s quarrel’. You really need to brush up on your French.”

Mary scoffed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No? The whole school has been talking about you two for the past term, even the students. What do they call it these days, ‘shipping’, I think? Oh, yeah, everyone ships you with Mr. Crawley,” Anna said, matter-of-fact.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous or not, it’s true,” Anna replied, backing into her classroom and leaving Mary dumbfounded in the hall.

The following day Mary returned from a hasty lunch in the teacher’s lounge to prepare for an afternoon of grading while her last group of students finished up their essay revisions. She was as ready for the holiday break as the students were and all that stood in the way was another day of final grading and tomorrow evening’s holiday party at the home of Dr. Hughes and her husband, Mr. Carson.

Mary couldn’t wait.

She turned on the light, absentmindedly walking over to her desk and about to unlock the drawer where she kept finished essays to grade when she noticed something out of order on her neatly organized desk. Two packages wrapped in brown paper and tied together with red ribbon had been placed in front of her chair, an envelope tucked beneath one of the bands of ribbon.

Frowning, Mary picked up the envelope and pulled out a nondescript holiday card. Inside, only two words had been written, “From Santa.” She didn’t recognize the handwriting immediately, but thought perhaps the gift was from Anna and her husband had written the card, or even a student had dropped it off on her desk during lunch.

The contents of the packages would prove her wrong.

After sliding the ribbon off from around the packages, both of which were clearly books, Mary removed the brown paper from the top one to find a book entitled, Coping with Difficult People: The Proven-Effective Battle Plan That Has Helped Millions Deal with the Troublemakers in Their Lives at Home and at Work. Reminded of the incident with Matthew yesterday, Mary again thought of Anna and laughed at the title of the older, which was evident from the worn, multi-color cover. She set it aside, picking up the next book to unwrap it.

Pulling the brown paper off and looking at the marbled hardback cover, Mary nearly dropped the edition she held. She felt as though she should be wearing gloves rather than hold it with her bare hands, and with bated breath Mary glanced at the spine of the book to read the words Mansfield Park. She exhaled slowly, gingerly opening the cover to look at the frontispiece: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen; Persuasion by the Same.

The publication date was 1833 by Richard Bentley, which Mary knew to be the second publication of Persuasion, her favorite Austen novel, and the first single-volume edition.

But who else knew she was such a nerd about it?

After gingerly wrapping the nearly 200-year-old book and tucking it away in her desk, Mary made a beeline for Anna’s classroom. She found Anna grading French exams at her desk.

“What’s the big idea?” she asked, not bothering to preface her visit.

“What are you talking about?” Anna looked up from her tests, confusion on her face.

“The books you left on my desk. That 1833 edition of Mansfield Park and Persuasion had to cost you upwards of £1,000 or more.” Mary’s tone was scolding and also baffled that her friend would purchase such an expensive gift for her. “What were you thinking?”

“Someone bought you a book that cost £1,000?”

“You can give it up already, I know it was you, Santa,” Mary said. “How many people here even know Persuasion is my favorite Austen novel? And the other book with it, Coping with Difficult People? Who would buy me such a book?”

Anna’s eyes widened. “Not me, I swear. And honestly, after the row you had with Matthew yesterday, that one sounds like a book he’d buy you as a joke.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t explain the second edition. The book that’s practically a paycheck. Why would he get me something like that?”

“Well, il est amoureux de toi,” Anna murmured, not meeting Mary’s gaze.

“You know I hardly understood a word you said except for ‘amour,’ but he is not in love with me,” Mary said, indignant.

“That’s exactly what I said, and we’ve all just been waiting to see how long it takes for the two of you to do something about it. It’s been three years and, God, it’s good so see Matthew finally doing something,” Anna said. “Plus, we’ve been taking bets in the teacher’s lounge and mine was about to expire.”

Mary’s jaw fell open. “I can’t believe you, my friend, have been making bets about my love life!”

“Oh, come on, it was harmless, and the whole school knows about you two. If you thought the students were bad, well, the teachers are even worse.”

“Clearly,” Mary said, eyes narrow. “But I really don’t think it was Matthew.”

Anna shrugged. “Who else could it be?”

“P-perhaps, Dr. Hughes-?” she began, but Mary was floundering. “Or a student.”

“What student is going to buy you a book that costs that much? Want me to ask Matthew tomorrow?”

Mary shuddered at the thought. “No, don’t bring it up,” she said. “I’m certain it wasn’t him. It has to be someone else. We don’t even get along.”

But the more she denied that it could be Matthew, the more she felt that she was wrong, and not just based on the facts in front of her.

His behavior over the last year had been so much different than it was before. In the past, they didn’t see each other much. Sure, they ran into each other in the teacher’s lounge or the halls on occasion, but ever since term began in September she saw Matthew practically every day, even on weekends as she shopped in town, which had rarely happened before. In these instances he’d gone out of his way to interact with her, making small-talk about her family, what she was doing in her off-hours, and generally being pleasant. So, in hindsight, she was wrong; they didn’t always get along, but it was clear that he often tried to be friendly when he saw her, especially outside of work.

And now she wondered, how did he know where and when she shopped, what she liked to read? Was he stalking her?

“He makes you laugh,” Anna said, interrupting Mary’s thoughts about her whereabouts last weekend when she ran into Matthew outside a shop while looking for gifts for her two sisters and their husbands. “Although sometimes you force yourself not to.”

Out in the corridor she could hear the sounds of students filing back from lunch for their final rounds of exams before the holidays.

“It wasn’t him,” Mary repeated, more and more unconvincing by the minute.

“Mmhmm,” Anna demurred, eyes returning to her exams as students began to file into the room.

Unfocused, Mary returned to her own classroom, the Austen edition weighing heavily on her mind as it sat locked at the bottom of her desk drawer.

The holiday party at the home of Charles Carson and Dr. Elsie Hughes provided a ceremonial bookend to the school term every year for the staff. Being welcomed into the home of the headmistress and her husband, while intimidating at first, was usually a highlight of Mary’s holiday season before she went home to a family visit that included happy sisters and their husbands and lots of nieces and nephews, as well as endless commentary on her own singleness. Plus, it gave the staff a chance to imbibe on the more traditional holiday spirits and richer treats of the season after completing final marks. But for Mary, this year she was keen to avoid Matthew. Or confront him. She hadn’t decided what she wanted.

As she stood in a corner of the sitting room, nursing some mulled wine that Mr. Carson had poured for her, she kept glancing to the door in expectation of Matthew’s arrival. She hadn’t seen him since receiving the gifts, but in the day that followed, she had resolved to bring it up when she saw him. And two glasses of wine in less than an hour had almost strengthened her resolve enough for her to see it through.

“How is he not here yet?” Mary finally spoke, interrupting Anna’s conversation with her husband John about some incident regarding students that Mary had not been paying mind to.

“Matthew, you mean? Perhaps he is, but you’ve trapped yourself as far away from him as possible. Good on you,” Anna said, taking a sip of her own drink more daintily than Mary’s final gulp of her mulled wine. “How many of those have you had?”

“Not nearly enough,” Mary said. “I’m going for a refill, does anyone need more to drink?”

“No, but some food would be good,” Anna ventured. “I saw they had those little puds, didn’t you see, John, the tartlets?”

“Maybe later,” Mary said, leaving the pair in search of more to drink.

She slipped through the crowd of her colleagues, issuing perfunctory greetings to those she hadn’t seen yet, but really making haste toward the dining room where the refreshments were being kept. She switched out her mulled wine for a glass of champagne, taking a long drink as others filtered in to refill their own glasses or plates. As she drank, she watched as Matthew entered the room, deep in conversation with Mr. Carson. Both men were in search of more food, already holding plates in their hands.

She wondered when Matthew had arrived, although it was obvious he hadn’t bothered to seek her out. See, Anna? It wasn’t from him.

“Now, that’s where I think you’re wrong, Matthew. Sure Manchester United has some quality football players, but when it comes to the Premier League, it has to be-”

No one heard Mr. Carson’s response because Mary found herself interrupting the two men’s conversation.

“Matthew, might I speak with you?”

Neither had noticed Mary in the room, as there were others about as well, but both were surprised at her interruption.

Looking flummoxed, all Matthew said to Mary was, “Sure.” To Mr. Carson he begged to be excused, setting his plate aside before following Mary from the room. Mary held onto her champagne glass.

She led him out to the sunroom overlooking the back garden, knowing the chance of being interrupted in there would be slim since it was chilly and almost like being outside. The wood-burning stove that sat in one corner of the room was cold, as the occupants of the house had not expected anyone to bother going out back, although they had decorated the room for Christmas. Lights had been strung across the ceiling along with garland and other tinsel, bringing the festive feeling of the house out into the back garden.

“What’s up?” Matthew asked. His original shock at seeing Mary in the dining room had quickly been replaced by ease.

But Mary was on edge. She hesitated briefly before saying what first came to mind.

It was like word-vomit, but more rehearsed.

“Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed.”

Even reciting the first paragraph from her favorite novel did little to relax her as it usually could. During her speech, Matthew’s eyebrows had risen slowly out of confusion, but now he frowned at her monologue.

“What’s this? Are you going all English-major on me for some reason that I don’t understand?” he asked.

She sighed, aggravated, but no closer to figuring out where the blasted books had come from.

“Never mind. Someone left two books on my desk yesterday. Anna thought it might be you, but she was clearly incorrect. I told her it had to be someone else,” Mary explained.

She turned to go, champagne glass still in-hand, when Matthew spoke.

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.”

Mary halted abruptly, shoulders tense. She set her glass on a nearby shelf holding some books on bird watching and a pair of binoculars before facing Matthew again.

“What?” Her voice was a whisper, a hush of disbelief.

A half-smile played across his lips, eyes dancing.

“For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes?”

Mary’s heart throbbed madly in her chest, her pulse making it difficult to hear her own thoughts, if she even had any in her head anymore.

“What...what are you saying?” She shook her head. “You did buy those books for me?”

He nodded.

In spite of all the warnings from Anna, Mary was shocked. “Matthew, that book must have cost you over a thousand pounds.”

“It’s not important,” he said, gentle.

“But w-why would you do such a thing?”

Looking nervous for the first time, he moved a few steps toward her, reaching out to take her hand.

“Mary.”

He only spoke her name, but she felt a jolt of electricity move through her at his voice, his touch, willing her to step toward him.

She was closer to him than ever before, his blue eyes warming her like the sun on a summer day as she gazed at him. The current that she had felt when he spoke her name now hummed through her, and she wondered if he felt it too, that energy that had always lay beneath the surface now coming to life under the twinkling lights.

With her free hand she reached up and, after a moment’s hesitation, brushed her fingers through his hair. This final touch was all the encouragement Matthew needed to erase the remaining space between them.

He kissed her, the territory unfamiliar and yet she was completely at ease. Not that the kiss wasn’t exciting; no, her heart pounded wildly as Matthew backed her into a wall, she tugged on his hair and even parted his lips with her tongue. It wasn’t that.

She felt no embarrassment at snogging Matthew, even in the sunroom of Elsie Hughes and Charles Carson. If anyone were to discover them, she was sure she would shrug it off and, hell, even kiss him again. It felt right, as though they should have been doing this all along.

He pulled back from her, smiling once more and Mary found herself genuinely smiling for the first time that night.

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that,” he said, hands on Mary’s waist. “God, I’ve had such a schoolboy crush on you.”

“You hid it well,” Mary said, brushing her thumb against his cheek. “Especially the constant teasing and jokes about chemistry. And lately showing up at my regular shops in town? I was beginning to think I had a stalker on my hands. But never would I have guessed such a grand gesture was awaiting me. How did you even know Persuasion was my favorite Jane Austen novel? Did Anna tell you?”

“I wasn’t I going to ask her that,” he said, leaning into her touch. “No, last spring I overheard some of my students mention it so I started calling rare bookstores for early editions. It is amazingly difficult to find a first printing, so I had to settle for the second.”

“Last spring? You’ve been planning this for almost a year?” Mary was astonished he would put so much effort into a gift for her, but then she remembered Anna’s words from a few days ago, well, the English translation: he’s in love with you.

She felt warmth and panic at the same time.

“I may have gone a bit overboard,” he admitted, oblivious to Mary’s conflicting emotions. “I just wanted you to have something you’d enjoy.”

“Were you planning on revealing your secret identity to me, Santa?” Mary asked, her hand gliding down his neck until she laid it on his shoulder. She played with his shirt collar, fingers brushing against the knot of his tie to distract herself from any concerns she had regarding Matthew’s precise feelings for her. She felt like she’d already come to terms with her own, which were stronger than she realized.

“In good time,” he said, refusing to answer, but still grinning. “I didn’t expect you to drunkenly confront me before I got the chance.”

“I’m not drunk,” Mary said. “I just wanted a straight answer, which you hardly gave me.”

“Quoting from your favorite book isn’t direct enough for you? Next time do I need to ride in on a white horse?” he teased, kissing the end of her nose. “But wait, wait, wait. You know how I feel. What about you? Why’d you let me kiss you? As a courtesy?”

“No,” she said, feeling self-conscious now that he was asking Mary to share her thoughts aloud. She kept her eyes on his tie.

“As a ‘thank you’? What?” She could hear the growing frustration in his voice, as though he didn’t believe that it wasn’t some drunken kiss. That she regretted it.

She met his gaze again, for she did not regret it, only wanted to do it again. She was surprised he hadn’t pulled away from her, that his hands still remained on her waist, warm and reassuring.

“For someone who spends most of her time studying the works of great authors who write of beauty and glory and...love, well, I am not adept at sharing my own feelings at the ready.”

Matthew’s eyes softened. “Is it too much for me to ask you to try?”

She cleared her throat, resolving not to look away until she was done.

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

Mary’s fingers wrapped around Matthew’s tie, pulling his face closer to hers.

“Contrary to popular knowledge, I didn’t memorize the whole of Persuasion to impress you. Just those few lines,” he joked.

“That line is actually from Pride and Prejudice,” Mary said, smiling in response.

“Haven’t read it and I didn’t see the movie,” Matthew said.

He rested his forehead against hers for a brief moment, and Mary half-wondered why she had fought Anna’s assertions the previous day about Matthew’s feelings for her, and her own feelings for him. But instead of contemplating them further, she kissed him again, all but forgetting her hesitation as their lips met.

“So, I should warn you about something before we go back in there,” Mary said, Matthew taking her hand after their prolonged snogging session.

“And what’s that? Have you been tearing the mickey out of me behind my back?” He joked. Other than the incident a few days ago, she couldn’t remember anything that would have caused her to speak of him to someone else at all, let alone poorly.

“Nothing like that,” Mary said, halting them on the threshold of the sunroom before re-entering the kitchen. “It seems the other staff had this bet going about when the two of us would get...romantically involved. Anna told me about it the other day.”

“Hmm.” He didn’t look overly nonplussed by the realization, but actually seemed to find it rather funny. “Do you think it’s too late for me to get in on some of that action?”

“Matthew!” Mary scolded him. “Since you’re one of the reasons they thought there was anything going on at all, there would be no way they’d let you place a bet.”

“I mean, the odds were actually only fifty-fifty that I’d win anything,” he observed. “And I could really use some extra quid. My girlfriend has expensive taste in books.”

Mary felt herself blush for the first time that night, but didn’t question his use of the word ‘girlfriend’.

“Well, no one told you to buy it,” she said, teasing him easily. She retrieved her champagne glass, not wanting to leave it for their boss to find later.

“You’ve known me for over three years now, Mary. You should realize by now that I am a man of big gestures.”

“Is that why your chemistry lab is constantly on the verge of blowing up the school?” she questioned, leading him back inside.

“It’s called hands-on learning, love,” he retorted as they walked entered the kitchen to find Dr. Hughes preparing to take more trays of hors d'oeuvres into the dining room.

“Mary, Matthew, what on earth were you doing out there? It’s bloody freezing-” She began to scold them in her Scottish brogue, but halted when she saw they were holding hands. “Oh, damn, I can’t believe I lost the bet!”

“You too?” Mary asked, setting the champagne glass aside. She was astounded even the headmistress of the school was involved in the petty gambling ring like the rest of the staff.

“Oh, everyone wanted a piece of the action, it was such a sure thing,” Dr. Hughes said. “But the key was timing. I thought it would take the two of you at least until next spring to soften up. Some of us hadn’t factored in the enchantment of the holidays.”

“Or expensive gifts,” Matthew muttered.

“Gifts? Do tell.” Dr. Hughes had all but forgotten the trays of brie and decorated biscuits that were in her hands.

“Matthew gave me a Bentley edition of Mansfield Park and Persuasion. 1833,” Mary explained, proud. Matthew shifted, uncomfortable for the first time that night, but Mary cast a smile at him and he rebounded with a small grin.

“My, oh my, how romantic,” Dr. Hughes replied, stunned. “And everyone knows what an Austen fan you are, Mary. Didn’t you take your class to Winchester last spring just so you could show them her final home and resting place in Winchester Cathedral?”

“I did,” Mary said. Visiting the places where her favorite authors once lived, wrote, and even died was, at times, morbid, usually invigorated Mary.

“Well, I suppose I should get ready to empty out my pocketbook. Charles will not be pleased.”

“How much had the pool gotten up to?” Matthew asked with interest.

“A couple hundred quid,” Dr. Hughes admitted. “Rather silly, but nearly all of it will go to Anna Bates.”

Mary snorted. “That seems like quite a conflict of interest. Shouldn’t there be some sort of regulations on whether Anna should be allowed to participate?”

“Maybe we can get her to donate it to the school trip fund,” she replied. “Or your wedding, hmm?”

With this, Dr. Hughes then exited with the trays, unaware of the discomfort she had left between Matthew and Mary.

“From secret Santa to wedding planning, huh?” Matthew finally spoke, breaking the silence that threatened to last for endless minutes. “Well, I hope Anna does contribute her gambling winnings, I haven’t the funds to throw a wedding.”

“Please don’t listen to them,” Mary requested, meeting his eyes once again. “They’re all much too invested in our relationship.” She could tell the blush that had happened upon Matthew calling her his ‘girlfriend’ was creeping back into her cheeks, and wondered if she could blame it on the heat of the room if he asked.

“You’re not embarrassed, are you?”

Mary could tell he was unsure, and she again wanted him to know that she did not regret a moment that had passed since they’d entered the sunroom.

“By you? Of course not,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze. “Sure, I wish our colleagues were less involved in our relationship, but I’m not embarrassed.”

And to give him a final reminder, aware that they could be seen through the doorway to the dining room, Mary kissed her secret Santa.

#mm secret santa 2017 #for Apollo888 #downton fanfic #mary x matthew #downton abbey #my writing

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