#time in the hourless houses

[blackkatmagic]

I love time in hourless houses so I am so excited! I’m now going to reread the entire thing! Thank you! <3

<3

Myles snorts, then breathes out a quiet groan as Xanatos passes a hand over his calf one more time, easing the lingering tension and soreness—

“This,” Jaster says, dry as dust, “seems like the sort of thing I should either interrupt or pretend I don’t see, with nothing in between.”

Xanatos blinks, raising his head, then realizes precisely what they must look like from the doorway, with Xanatos kneeling between Myles's legs and Myles sprawled out like he just had a mind-blowing orgasm, making sounds that do nothing to disprove the illusion. Myles is frozen, too, red washing up his face, and it’s the first time Xanatos has ever seen him anything even close to flustered.

Clearly the only thing to do is to push even further. Obviously.

With a pointed hum, he shifts, sliding a deliberate hand up Myles's thigh and leaning against the inside of his knee. “Oh, husband,” he says wickedly. “What a terrible moment for you to walk in. And right after our wedding, too. What on earth should I do?”

The black helmet tips, just slightly, and through the black tar of Jaster's presence, Xanatos catches a flash of honey-bright humor. “With my own right hand man,” he says, chiding. “In my own kitchen, even. Myles, this betrayal can't stand.”

Myles is deeply flushed, and he looks like he wants to slide down and crawl under the table, but can't with Xanatos in the way, all but sprawled over his knee. “Mand'alor,” he says, a complaint except for the way it cracks, and Xanatos smiles like a cat with cream.

“Come, Myles, we’ve been caught fairly,” he says, feigning resigned defeat. “Best to honor our love with honesty and stay true—”

With a loud, disgusted groan, Myles gets a hand on his face and shoves him back, and Xanatos goes, laughing wickedly.

#kat answers #time in the hourless houses

[quatredraws]

Last Line Challenge

Rules: in a new post, show the last line you wrote (or drew) and tag as many people as there are words (or as many as you feel like). 

Thank you @omaano for tagging me!!!🥳🤩🤩🥰 (note: my main is @lesquatrechevrons, but @quatredraws is were I put art only)

Apologies for the delay, I have not shared or posted in years so it took me a while to find the courage to share! 🥲

In turn I’m tagging a few mutuals from a bunch of fandoms, I'd love to see what you guys are up to (writing or drawing!): @hollyand-writes @atimeofbeing @avalencias @heliocharis @autodiscothings @saintsideways @korblez @saltfieldsandroses @isaksbestpillow @dumpsterhipster as well as anyone else that feels like showing their stuff, tag me! :D

On the 24th I was still reeling from reading Time in the Hourless Houses by Blackkatmagic so I wanted to a) figure out how to draw Xanatos as well as his son, Granta:

I only managed the above at the end of a few hours of trying (at first from memory, and then from a few studies of Daniel Wu as a base), which you can see under the read more!

You can tell the struggling, but it was the first time I looked at it and used it as a level up process rather than deleting it:

#Star Wars #xanatos du crion #granta omega #WIPs #last line meme #thank you so much Omaano! I appreciate it so much!!

[forsoothsayer]

For The Marriage of Faustus and Helen by Hart Crane

“And so we may arrive by Talmud skill And profane Greek to raise the building up Of Helen’s house against the Ismaelite, King of Thogarma, and his habergeons Brimstony, blue and fiery; and the force Of King Abaddon, and the beast of Cittim; Which Rabbi David Kimchi, Onkelos, And Aben Ezra do interpret Rome.” —THE ALCHEMIST.

      I

The mind has shown itself at times Too much the baked and labeled dough Divided by accepted multitudes. Across the stacked partitions of the day— Across the memoranda, baseball scores, The stenographic smiles and stock quotations Smutty wings flash out equivocations. The mind is brushed by sparrow wings; Numbers, rebuffed by asphalt, crowd The margins of the day, accent the curbs, Convoying divers dawns on every corner To druggist, barber and tobacconist, Until the graduate opacities of evening Take them away as suddenly to somewhere Virginal perhaps, less fragmentary, cool.         There is the world dimensional for       those untwisted by the love of things       irreconcilable ... And yet, suppose some evening I forgot The fare and transfer, yet got by that way Without recall,—lost yet poised in traffic. Then I might find your eyes across an aisle, Still flickering with those prefigurations— Prodigal, yet uncontested now, Half-riant before the jerky window frame. There is some way, I think, to touch Those hands of yours that count the nights Stippled with pink and green advertisements. And now, before its arteries turn dark I would have you meet this bartered blood. Imminent in his dream, none better knows The white wafer cheek of love, or offers words Lightly as moonlight on the eaves meets snow. Reflective conversion of all things At your deep blush, when ecstasies thread The limbs and belly, when rainbows spread Impinging on the throat and sides ...     Inevitable, the body of the world Weeps in inventive dust for the hiatus That winks above it, bluet in your breasts. The earth may glide diaphanous to death; But if I lift my arms it is to bend To you who turned away once, Helen, knowing The press of troubled hands, too alternate With steel and soil to hold you endlessly. I meet you, therefore, in that eventual flame You found in final chains, no captive then— Beyond their million brittle, bloodshot eyes; White, through white cities passed on to assume That world which comes to each of us alone. Accept a lone eye riveted to your plane, Bent axle of devotion along companion ways That beat, continuous, to hourless days— One inconspicuous, glowing orb of praise.       II Brazen hypnotics glitter here; Glee shifts from foot to foot, Magnetic to their tremulo. This crashing opera bouffe, Blest excursion! this ricochet From roof to roof— Know, Olympians, we are breathless While nigger cupids scour the stars! A thousand light shrugs balance us Through snarling hails of melody. White shadows slip across the floor Splayed like cards from a loose hand; Rhythmic ellipses lead into canters Until somewhere a rooster banters. Greet naively—yet intrepidly New soothings, new amazements That cornets introduce at every turn— And you may fall downstairs with me With perfect grace and equanimity. Or, plaintively scud past shores Where, by strange harmonic laws All relatives, serene and cool, Sit rocked in patent armchairs. O, I have known metallic paradises Where cuckoos clucked to finches Above the deft catastrophes of drums. While titters hailed the groans of death Beneath gyrating awnings I have seen The incunabula of the divine grotesque. This music has a reassuring way. The siren of the springs of guilty song— Let us take her on the incandescent wax Striated with nuances, nervosities That we are heir to: she is still so young, We cannot frown upon her as she smiles, Dipping here in this cultivated storm Among slim skaters of the gardened skies.       III Capped arbiter of beauty in this street That narrows darkly into motor dawn,— You, here beside me, delicate ambassador Of intricate slain numbers that arise In whispers, naked of steel;                                       religious gunman! Who faithfully, yourself, will fall too soon, And in other ways than as the wind settles On the sixteen thrifty bridges of the city: Let us unbind our throats of fear and pity.                                             We even, Who drove speediest destruction In corymbulous formations of mechanics,— Who hurried the hill breezes, spouting malice Plangent over meadows, and looked down On rifts of torn and empty houses Like old women with teeth unjubilant That waited faintly, briefly and in vain: We know, eternal gunman, our flesh remembers The tensile boughs, the nimble blue plateaus, The mounted, yielding cities of the air! That saddled sky that shook down vertical Repeated play of fire—no hypogeum Of wave or rock was good against one hour. We did not ask for that, but have survived, And will persist to speak again before All stubble streets that have not curved To memory, or known the ominous lifted arm That lowers down the arc of Helen’s brow To saturate with blessing and dismay. A goose, tobacco and cologne Three winged and gold-shod prophecies of heaven, The lavish heart shall always have to leaven And spread with bells and voices, and atone The abating shadows of our conscript dust. Anchises’ navel, dripping of the sea,— The hands Erasmus dipped in gleaming tides, Gathered the voltage of blown blood and vine; Delve upward for the new and scattered wine, O brother-thief of time, that we recall. Laugh out the meager penance of their days Who dare not share with us the breath released, The substance drilled and spent beyond repair For golden, or the shadow of gold hair. Distinctly praise the years, whose volatile Blamed bleeding hands extend and thresh the height The imagination spans beyond despair, Outpacing bargain, vocable and prayer.

#hart crane #a belated born on this day #american poetry

[blackkatmagic]

What’s this I see? Is this Jaster, catching fEeLiNgS?!?!

;)

But they won't be safe as long as the chips are in place, because even Jaster can't fight what’s been done to them with orders. It makes Xanatos hum, and he slides fingertips over Jaster's bare knuckles. Jaster's breath catches, and Xanatos smiles, pleased.

“Help me take the beads out of my hair,” he says. “I think we’re well past the wedding.”

Jaster tips his head, then rises, using his grip on Xanatos’s hands to pull him up as well. “I don’t want to break them,” he says, and Xanatos snorts.

“Telosian pearls aren’t that fragile,” he says, sinking down on the ottoman with his back to Jaster. “Especially since I had to throw myself into a river to escape. Exposure to water makes them as hard as diamond.”

There's a pause, and then a breath. Out of the corner of his eye, Xanatos watches Jaster carefully, slowly slide his other gauntlet free, setting it aside. Then there are hands in his hair, straightening the strands, and a gentle tug. The first bead slides free, clicking into the empty box on the table, and Jaster says, faintly amused, “Telos seems to produce a certain type.”

#kat answers #time in the hourless houses

[blackkatmagic]

Kat, I've been re-reading 'Time in the hourless houses' and Tarre, god damn. He goes from 'not another bitch ass motherfucker wielding my blade' to ' I can work with this' in the span of a single conversation and then kisses a man on his wedding day. Truly no one is doing it like him. And I can see him having approximately 0 patience with Jaster being jealous of Xanatos flirting with him. He'd tell Jaster to get fucking grip force damn it. Love him

:D

“Hells,” Xanatos mutters, pressing a hand over his eyes as he tries to steady his vision, tries to stay upright. There's a hiss as his lightsaber goes dark, and a moment later an arm slides around his waist, holding him on his feet.

“Xanatos?” Jaster asks, but Xanatos forces his eyes open, waves Jaster off.

“I'm perfectly well,” he says, and goes to one knee beside the Nightsister's body. The steadiness of being on the ground is something of a relief, and he pushes through some of the distraction, the fog, and focuses, a frown sliding across his face as he takes in the wound. Maybe it’s just his imagination, but—it seems smaller than it did just a moment ago. “Though I’ll admit, for all of your many inherent flaws, your sense of timing remains impeccable.”

There’s a rough, impatient breath, the poisoned water of Jaster's presence rippling. Jaster takes one careful look around them, checking on the fight, and then says curtly, “Here.”

His lightsaber. Xanatos raises a brow, but takes it, deactivating the Darksaber and blithely flipping the hilt at Jaster's face. “Then you take yours back. It’s a maddening blade. What person with taste would use something so noisy? And ill-mannered on top of that.”

#kat answers #time in the hourless houses

[blackkatmagic]

My week has been super long already but seeing those two updates were just !!!! I am absolutely loving Mace in Death sent the bridegroom and hourless houses has been one of my favorites for a long time so just thank you for all of your hard work and lovely stories!

I hope your week gets better! 💗

When the Mandalorian guards come to fetch Xanatos, Granta slips away.

Xanatos has long since honed his ability to at least see his son, even if he can't sense him, but even he misses the exact moment when it happens, when Granta focuses himself and disappears from every mind present like a ghost. One moment he’s there, lounging against the wall as Padmé and Dormé do one last check of the wedding robes as the Mandalorians and a squad of clones try to hurry them out the door, and the next Xanatos is letting Padmé help him out of the speeder, kilometers away, and only just remembering that he has a son at all.

It's been a very long time since Granta turned his ability on Xanatos, but it never manages to be any less alarming.

“Prince Xanatos?” Padmé asks quietly, catching Xanatos’s arm as he almost falters. She’s back in her finery, places traded with Sabé, and her eyes are worried as she watches him beneath the canopy of lights.

“Forgive me, it’s harder to move than I had remembered,” Xanatos says smoothly, which is only mostly a lie; the outer robe is long and sweeping and heavy, but the inner one is light silk that Padmé herself recommended, the sides split to allow for freedom of movement. Xanatos spent years as First Citizen in even heavier, more ornate costumes, and this isn't nearly enough to trip him up.

But. Granta is gone from the wedding escort, and Xanatos didn’t even think of him in the last half an hour, he erased himself so thoroughly.

There was no explicit goodbye, but—that’s all right, Xanatos tells himself. They knew there wouldn’t be, seeing as no one is meant to realize Granta is gone until it’s too late. He wasn’t able to say a farewell to Ahsoka, Barriss, or Katooni either, and it’s simply something to live with, well worth their safety in exchange.

#kat answers #time in the hourless houses

[blackkatmagic]

sdkfgdkKHSDKGJSKJDGH ARLA

:D

Arla laughs, and some of the tension eases. “Shut your mouth and take the help,” she tells Xanatos. “Mand'alor—”

There's a pause as Jaster considers her, and then he nods. “Silas, find Arla a jetpack of her own,” he orders. “And arrange for armor fittings, if she requires them.”

Arla closes her eyes, and—well. Xanatos could beat Jaster over the head and force him to stop manhandling people. But—Arla looks like she’s seeing sunlight for the first time after years of darkness, and he can feel her relief and her bittersweet joy right up against his own skin.

“I worked for Tor,” she says, and the name is a curse.

“I once worked with Tor as well,” Jaster says, perfectly steady. “And it seems that your time with him was far less willing than mine.” Another pause, careful, and Jaster looks away. There's an ache in him that steals Xanatos’s breath, blots out even the ache of his injuries, and it crests, settles, hurts.

“Your brother was my heir,” he says quietly. “He was my son. I always regretted what I assumed was your death at Tor’s hands, and the fact that he was the only one I could save that day. Arla, if you would like to join my clan, I would welcome the chance to make some part of my failure that day right.”

#time in the hourless houses #kat answers

[blackkatmagic]

holy fuck that cliffhanger. I died.

it seems as if xanatos can't get one day off, lol, poor little sassy boy.

His day is just going to get worse, too. ;)

The woman on top of him doesn’t move, doesn’t even shift for a solid two minutes as te silence stretches. Then, careful, she slides off Xanatos, eels forward, and peers out underneath the branches.

“There’s supposed to be a doctor coming soon,” she says, low. “If they catch him in the halls…”

“I'm afraid he won't be a doctor much longer except on his death certificate,” Xanatos says, and winces as he pushes up as best he can. His whole arm aches, and when he tugs scorched cloth away, the skin beneath is burned and already blistering. Not a bolt set to stun, then. Not that he was expecting it.

Not after what happened to Myles.

To his surprise, the woman huffs, sinks back. “Good riddance,” she mutters. Rolling over partway, she gives Xanatos a narrow look, then asks, “Are you a patient here?”

Xanatos snorts, shifting his wrap to cover the torn sleeve. “I didn’t even realize it was a hospital,” he says. “I came in through a window, trying to get away from those uncultured and trigger-happy swine.”

“Asylum,” the woman corrects, and when Xanatos raises a brow, she meets his eyes. “Not a hospital. You're in the Valorum Center. Judicial psychiatric center for extreme cases.”

“Intriguing,” Xanatos says, and sits up as best he can. “You're an extreme case?”

#kat answers #time in the hourless houses

[blackkatmagic]

chewing glass about the new hourless houses chapter

Xanatos’s nose is bleeding.

It’s been years since he overextended himself in using the Force, years since any act of using it managed to affect him physically, and he’d forgotten the low-down ache, like a pulled muscle that can't be soothed. It’s deeply unpleasant, deeply aggravating, and his nose won't stop bleeding.

Out in the relatively fresh air of the Old Market, Xanatos breathes as shallowly as he can, leaning forward, and presses a square of gauze to his face, trying not to inhale blood. Trying not to snarl, or react to the clones so close by, one of the ARC troopers from Rex's memory posted beside him like a guard.

All he wants right now is Granta, a quiet place, maybe a stiff drink. Anything but ghosts in the Force and strange memories he didn’t ask for.

Of course, what he gets instead is the emperor of the known universe, looming over him like a shadow.

“Is this something that the Force considers exceptionally large, and therefore too much to heal?” Jaster asks, and he settles on the bench beside Xanatos, offering him a fresh pad of gauze.

The tone is mild, not mocking, but Xanatos gives him a dark, narrow look even as he takes the gauze.

“Oh yes,” he says, cutting. “Let me just use more of the Force when my body is already having a negative reaction to the extent of my exertion with it, I'm sure that will most certainly help.”

Jaster pauses, slowly drawing his hand back, and the curl of that dark gauntlet makes Xanatos think of the moment when he opened his eyes, Jaster holding him up, a flicker just for a moment of something—

“Forgive me,” he says on a sigh, and leans forward a little more, pulling away the bloodied gauze. Drops of blood splatter the stone, and he grimaces, lets it go for a moment before he presses the fresh gaze to his face. “I haven’t had this sort of reaction in…years.”

The last time was the first time Granta was sick, when he’d tried to heal him and realized that there was no way, steeped in the Dark Side as he was, for it to work. Days of meditation as Granta suffered, days of desperation that finally gave way to clarity, and then clarity to exhaustion in the aftermath, and Xanatos had slept for nearly two full days as he recovered. This isn't quite so terrible a reaction, but it’s certainly aggravating.

#kat answers #time in the hourless houses

[blackkatmagic]

I for one cannot w a i t for Xanatos to go absolutely no holds barred feral bastard on Jaster. This man is going to regret so much and maybe fall in love a lil bit

;)

“Reckless,” Jaster says, low. “What do you hope to gain with this, Xanatos?”

“You, kneeling at my feet, perhaps,” Xanatos says, makes it lazy, makes it taunting. He tips his head, flicks his hair back over his shoulder, and—not being able to get the Darksaber is a disadvantage. He’d thought that putting Jaster off-balance would be enough, but clearly Jaster isn't so easily caught off-guard. Something to factor into his strategy. Smiling, he raises a hand, crooks a finger, and calls up the shattered pieces of the mirrors from where they’ve fallen. They rise, a flight of deadly silver birds that spark and shine in the light, and Jaster turns his head to look.

“You’ll get nowhere by grandstanding,” he warns, cold.

“Won't I?” Xanatos asks, silken, and keeps moving, circling Jaster where he stands.

#kat answers #time in the hourless houses

[blackkatmagic]

So I finally read Time in the hourless houses, and oh my god, Jaster admitting that his son was both dar'manda and demagolka. Acknowledging that Jango had fallen so far that he killed children just so he could have his revenge in the form of a genocide.

Yeah, it is....not a happy story where the Jaster-Jango relationship is concerned. Jaster is in a pretty nasty spiral over what his son did and became, and it's just. it's a tragedy because there's no fixing it and also Jaster will never escape the reminder, because Jango imprinted his face into the millions of men he sold as slaves and condemned to death.

Honestly it's kind of easy to see why Jaster went full Dark Side when he came back to that.

#kat answers

[blackkatmagic]

I'm rereading time in the hourless houses, and was struck by the similarities you've used in arcana regarding the Sith languages and how they don't have traditional endearments. Is this something you have created from a head canon, or is there a whole lot of lore about the Sith languages I'm not aware of? I mean. The level of lore in SW is intimidating but... I dunno. I just love that you have found a way to make something that seems so like, self centred and unable to care for others work so well for characters who ache to the core with how much they do care. It's neat.

... I'm also just loving the explorations of Xanatos and Granta a whole bunch with the sliding scale of functional relationships they're in across your fics. It's also very neat lol

I have a great number of feelings about how different Xanatos would be in Dark Side-version vs. wandered back to the light version, and how that would change his whole relationship with Granta, and the weight of his Dark-fueled obsession on his family, and just. All of ti.

As for the Sith language, that's just a headcanon, but if I manage to wring out an interesting thought that I think fits as far as world-building goes, I try to keep it around. The story of the pureblood Sith species and the Exiles fascinates me tbh - Sith culture before them wasn't particularly nice, but to have a handful of outsiders take over and turn their whole culture into one massive religion worshiping pain and suffering is such a horrifying thought. I can't help but wonder about all the changes that happened to them, particularly when the new Sith Lords started using the Sith people's language and writing as a basis for literal evil magic.

Anyway. Sith pureblood character in canon (outside video games) when??

#kat answers

[blackkatmagic]

I'm re-reading Time in the Hourless houses and I forgot how much this line cracks me up: "Xanatos slaps his helmet three times in quick succession, ringing it like a bell, and can only hope that the impact rattles some sense loose as Jaster laughs."

I can't help but imagine the way a cat slaps the shit out of something that's annoying him, and I think offended cat describes Xanatos pretty well xD

Asdkfjds I mean. Basically. He is absolutely offended cat energy all the way down.

#kat answers

[blackkatmagic]

Time in the hourless houses update

Chapter 29 is now up!

#my writing #star wars #jasterxanatos #jaster mereel #xanatos #feemor

[blackkatmagic]

Hello Kat! Do you have any favorite fics among your own? (ask respectfully, my apologies if it's incorrect)

It depends on my mood, but right now it's probably a tie between like a wolf at a live heart and Time in the hourless houses.

#kat answers

[blackkatmagic]

Tarre !! I love seeing him, between time in the hourless houses and now bridegroom, I'm very happy. The idea of a Mandalorian Jedi is so amazing and since we barely know anything about him, he's free real estate and you grabbed that opportunity and are using it so well. Everything is slowly unfolding, the end is so close, I'm vibrating at every new chapter.

He's such a fun character, especially with so much wiggle room around the edges of canon. I have a bunch of WIPs with him that I really need to work on, because there's a criminal lack of Tarre in fandom.

#kat answers