Snippet: Star Wars: AU NOS

More of the Obi-Wan/Asajj AU.

The settlement they land in is washed with a taint that reminds Obi-Wan of the slave holds, as the planet reminds Asajj of Rattatak, though here it is the Hutts who hold sway, rather than local born warlords. It is also the home of the last of the freed slaves from their latest raid, and they had promised to take anyone home who wanted to go.

“Are you sure you want to stay here?” Obi-Wan watches the young twi’lek woman’s face, listens to the Force as she confirms once more that yes, this is where she needs to be before he presses a small pouch of mixed currency into her hands. “Be well, and be free, then.”

She smiles, showing off filed teeth. “One way or another, I will always be free.” She weighs the pouch in her hand a moment. “And I will not be alone. My thanks for this, Jeedi.”

“I am no Jedi.” Obi-Wan shakes his head, knowing she will not believe him. Those who see him wield his inherited light saber rarely do, and he wonders how far the rumors will spread of a Jedi who is freeing slaves on the Outer Rim. If it will make its way to the ears of the Order, and what they will do when they hear.

“As you say.” She tilts her head, before turning around, and stepping out into the bright light of Tatooine’s twin suns, lekku twitching in a way that Obi-Wan has learned is cheerful, if a cheer with an underlying threat.

He looks out at the sandy port, extending his senses and letting himself drift with the currents of the Force. Weighing the idea of staying for a few days and seeing what rumors they might hear about slaver ships. Tolerating a desert to know where to strike next against the slavers they’d quietly declared war on since they left Rattatak.

“Is there anything here worth staying for?” Asajj draws him from his meditation, and Obi-Wan looks over at her. There’s trepidation and a curl of disgust as she looks out at the settlement, and he reaches out to wrap his hand around hers.

“Possibly.”

Hobbit: Flame of Durin

She has asked for a private audience, at the convenience of the King, and now sits at the table which holds the delicate chains and tokens of her home to be braided into her hair. Others, too, which are shorter, for Zhirair, though she would have left his hair as loose as Vahan does his if her husband had not asked that she keep to the traditions of the south for them both.

Letting out a quiet sigh, she picks up the steel comb to brush out hair and beard, dark brown strands threaded with copper that echo that of the chains that will wind through the braids. She parts it carefully, the first braid beginning at her temple, the clever paws of a bronze dragon clasping it close to her scalp, and holding one end of the chain as she weaves it through the seven-stranded braid in the pattern of a married bearer. More hair is gathered as she brings it down in front of her ear to her beard, until she reaches the raven clasp to hold the end.

A second goes on the other side, with a pair of chains for her children – she hopes Vahan has not carried Akhavi to every council meeting since she had left. The rest of her beard is left loose, and she works the other chains into small braids across the top of her head, their clasps smaller and finer, easier to miss in the unbraided mass of the rest of her hair. The final braid has only plain bronze clasps at top and bottom, each marked with a name, to remember her parents who rest in stone and wait in Mahal’s halls for the remaking of the world.

“Amad?” Zhirair dashes across the room, his nurse following behind with an unamused expression on her face. “Jalel says I have to wear the new tunic that’s all stiff.”

Khatar reaches down to pick Zhirair up, settling him in her lap. “We’re to meet with the King Under the Mountain, who is born of the Line of Durin. You and I both need to be dressed in the very best.”

Zhirair reaches out to poke at the chains still on the table. “Do those have to go in my hair?” He turns his head, looking up at her with a pout, and a pleading expression in his eyes. “Adad never wears them.”

“Your adad wasn’t born in Mountain’s End.” Khatar picks up a smaller comb, starting to work the tangles from Zhirair’s hair from the ends up. “He wears his hair like those he was once a part of, before he came south.”

“I want to wear my hair like adad.” Zhirair crosses his arms over his chest, slouching in Khatar’s lap. “The chains pull.”

“Your adad wants you to remember the traditions of the south, little warrior.” Khatar leans down to press a kiss to the top of Zhirair’s head. “I will take them out when we return from meeting the King Under the Mountain.”

“Promise?” Zhirair pokes one of the tiny ravens that will hold the ends of his braids.

“Always, little warrior.”

Note: Vahan is the name that Frerin takes after escaping orcs in Moria (having been captured during Azanulbizar).

Star Wars: We Are Defiance

It only took me two rewrites and three months to get this to cooperate with me.

Rising Challenge

AU: We Are Defiance
Word Count: 1355
Characters: Satine Kryze, Bo-Katan Kryze, Jango Fett

A black swan still rises above the daughters of Duke Kryze, and a different figure marks their connection with the adopted son of the Mand’alor. A silent promise of danger to those who would tear them down.

Satine is not expecting to find her sister waiting at her apartments on Coruscant when she comes back from the Senate building and the frustrating job of trying to be an aide to a politician who finds her very existance distasteful to acknowledge. She hasn’t seen Bo-Katan since their parents had sent her away to Coruscant, barely even heard from her sister in the six years since the younger Kryze had rejected family and clan in favor of the Mand’alor and his warrior’s path.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” Satine ushers Bo-Katan into the tiny space that is all she is granted – and that begrudgingly – by the Senator for Mandalore. “Father will do worse than disown you if he knows.”

Bo-Katan is silent, her face hidden by the helmet she’s wearing, though the owl that Satine still sees, through all the years and changes between them, flares its wings in agitation. Afraid, perhaps, of exactly that happening. That they might be separated more permanently because they dare defy the hopes of their parents that being kept apart will lessen their bond to each other in favor of others.

Only when the door shuts behind Satine does Bo-Katan lift the blue-and-silver helmet, setting it aside, letting Satine see how gray her sister’s skin is, the hollowness of her eyes. “Sande Kryze can’t do anything to me anymore, vod’ika.” She draws in a breath that catches at the end, not quite a sob. “He’s dead, Satine. Death Watch murdered him.”

Satine stares at Bo-Katan, peripherally aware of the key she’d been holding onto hitting the floor with a dull thud. “What?”

Bo-Katan steps close enough for the black swan that Satine has missed to mantle its wings above their heads, reaching out to grip Satine’s hands in her own, the soft leather of the underside of her gauntlets warm. Rubbing her thumbs across the backs of Satine’s hands in a comforting gesture. “Tor Vizla sent an assassin to murder Sande when he refused to chose sides in his rebellion against the Mand’alor. He didn’t even have the courage to face him directly.”

“Father wouldn’t have fought him even if he had come to Kalevala to challenge him.” Satine grips her sister’s hands as tightly as she can, shaking her head. “Why? We would never have joined the Mand’alor, either.”

“I did.” Bo-Katan doesn’t try to pull away, tightening her fingers around Satine’s. “Dafrin has already spoken of doing the same, when he is of age. And no one knows your loyalties in this war.”

“My loyalty is and has always been to our father.” Satine draws a shuddering breath, tears stinging her eyes and blurring her vision. “To Clan Kryze.”

“You cannot be loyal to both.” Bo-Katan’s words are quiet, but no less harsh for that, and Satine yanks away, staring at her sister through her tears.

“I’m not you to reject my name and family, Bo-Katan!”

“I never rejected my name!” Bo-Katan lifts her chin, color rising in her cheeks. “Nor my family. Only Sande Kryze and his cruelty.”

Satine dashes away the tears from her eyes, and gestures angrily at the armor Bo-Katan wears. “You wear armor, and in colors of another clan. How dare you tell me you have not rejected us wearing that!”

“I wear the colors of the Mand’alor while his son wears mine!” Bo-Katan glares back, her hands clenching into fists. “The wolf of his soul painted on Kryze purple and white.”

It feels like a blow to her chest, and Satine is silent for a long moment, staring at Bo-Katan. “We were to be defenders of the faithful.” Her voice sounds thin and hoarse. “Together. Voices a thunderclap of victory.”

“I never forgot that.” Bo-Katan holds out her hand, the midnight blue of her soul shifting in sparks around her, agitated and indistinct. Too close to be solidly her own, too far for the swan to swallow it whole. “Please, Satine. Don’t leave me, not now.”

“You already left.” Satine wraps her arms around herself, watching Bo-Katan’s extended hand. She wants to reach out to take it, desperately, but she can’t. Not with the sharp ache still settling behind her breastbone. “You left, and now our father is dead, and for what? All he wanted was to find peace, to give Clan Kryze peace.”

“The price for his peace was one I couldn’t pay, not alone, not without you.” Bo-Katan’s hand doesn’t waver, and Satine can feel her sister’s gaze fixed on her face. “You never saw the misery among those who did not fit Sande’s vision of what his New Mandalorians should be.”

How could she have seen, when she was sent off before she was even twelve, and had never seen Kalevala outside their home? How did Bo-Katan see, when she should never have had any more chance than Satine?

Drawing a sharp breath, Satine closes her eyes, desperately wishing that she could unhear what had been said. That she could unhear the echoes of messages that she’d only ever gotten parts of – so much of it cut out, and she’d never asked by who or why. Had focused on learning what she had been sent to learn, so she could become the ruler she’d been told she would be since she’d been old enough to understand what was spoken to her.

“I never left you, Satine.”

Letting out a shuddering breath, Satine opens her eyes again, ignoring Bo-Katan’s hand to wrap her arms around her sister in a hug. Holding on while she sees their swan settle around them out of the corner of her eye. It hadn’t vanished, no matter what had changed. Truth that she could not – would not – shut out, no matter how much she hurts, no matter how hard it is.

Jango waits as the ship lands, one hand on his blaster as he waits. Bo-Katan had been close-lipped about why she had left so abruptly after Sande Kryze’s death, and he has an uneasy feeling making his insides churn. Wondering what she had been looking for, and what she had found.

The first figure down the ramp isn’t Bo-Katan, though her features are similar enough that Jango can place her as Satine Kryze, Bo-Katan’s sister and the oldest of the siblings. A cream-colored creature dances around her, something that looks harmless and insignificant save in that he can see it at all.

Satine studies him for a long moment before a small smile curls her lips without touching her eyes. Looking over her shoulder, the smile becomes more genuine, warming her expression as she waits for Bo-Katan to come down the ramp to join her.

Jango wants to stare as the sparks flare and shift with the proximity of the sisters. He’s never heard of siblings that are that close, save as small children, and to see it now makes the uneasy feeling intensify. The more at the great swan that rises above them, wings spread and hissing defiance and challenge as they join hands, watching him with near identical expressions.

“Welcome to Mandalore, Duchess Kryze.” Jango’s glad his voice doesn’t crack any longer, though there’s a strain to it on Satine’s clan-name that makes him want to wince.

“Thank you.” Satine nods her head regally, staying still for a moment.

Bo-Katan pulls her into motion, approaching Jango with measured steps and eyes fixed above his head. Until they’re close enough he could reach out to touch them, and the familiar faded sparks of his own soul flare and vanish, changing around them as it prowls around the three. Long extinct, but still the greatest symbol of the Mando’ade, and Jango wonders that it appears now, for them.

“A snarl of challenge, a dare to any who would stand against us.”

Satine’s voice is quiet, ragged-edged steel, and her expression is mixed sorrow and determination when Jango meets her gaze. She holds out the hand not holding Bo-Katan’s, waiting patiently for him to take it. Silent promise of what’s already been spoken thrumming between them.

Let Vizla throw himself against the Mand’alor, and find the jaws of death waiting for him.

Snippet: Crossover

Another older piece. Consider this clearing out of old stuff.

This one mostly isn’t going anywhere because I haven’t been writing Torchwood for years, I’m utterly unfamiliar with X-Files, and my writing partner who is… is currently busy with life.

Ripples In the Pond

AU: NOS
Fandoms: Torchwood, X-Files
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Alex Krykec, Mickey Smith, Gwen Cooper, Martha Jones, mention of John Hart

Alex has pretty much been at loose ends since the last of the colonists figured out that Earth wasn’t going to roll over as easily as they’d thought, and he’d managed to persuade his alien ‘allies’ to leave as well. He’s been keeping himself in the lifestyle to which he wishes to become accustomed by taking random hits that he thinks won’t be too boring. Captain John Hart was anything but, and after three days of seriously nasty (and nearly fatal at one point, until Alex had convinced the good Captain that he was, if not a better fighter, at least a better cheat) and equally brilliant sex, Alex had been more than willing to take a five million dollar commission to go after a Captain Jack Harkness in Cardiff, Wales – despite the fact that the British government has had him on a wanted list for the past five years.

The money’s in one of his Swiss accounts before he even books the trip – he *likes* John Hart, but he’s not an *idiot* – and two weeks later he’s lurking on Cardiff rooftops with a Dragunov sniper rifle as his only company. (He’s not sure why he picked the Dragunov – nostalgia for his roots, perhaps, though that’s never been a failing of his.) He doesn’t have a picture, but the description – including the 1940’s get up – was distinctive enough that Alex doesn’t think he’ll have problems. And he doesn’t. On his third rooftop he gets a look through the scope at a man that can only be Jack Harkness, brilliant grin and all, and he doesn’t hesitate – lines up the shot, breath falling into the familiar rhythym, finger closing slowly on the trigger – and the shot itself comes almost as a surprise, like it’s supposed to.

He watches as the bullet goes through Harkness’ skull and out the other side, and permits himself a small smile of self-congratulation before beginning the process of breaking the Dragunov down to its component parts.

Ianto absently listens to Jack’s ramble as he pays for the takeout. If it didn’t take two people to carry enough to feed the team and their current set of guests, he’d have been up here alone, and a moment later, he’s rather wishing he had been. If only because the screams of those who couldn’t know Jack would get right back up after being shot was rather disconcerting. At least they’ve already received the food.

Grimacing as he turns to properly look at Jack, Ianto notes the bullet is to the head this time. Which means paying the extra fees for removing brain matter and bits of bone from the great-coat, as well as blood. Reaching up to his com, he pages Gwen, shaking his head. “Gwen, would you have Owen bring up the retcon? Jack’s been shot again. Probably a sniper, considering the lack of gunshots.”

He pauses, a wry smile coming to his face as Gwen mutters something uncomplimentary in Welsh. “I’ll be sure to tell whoever shot him that when we find them.”

“You’d best. Owen’s on his way. Did you at least get the food before Jack got himself killed again?”

“Fortunately, I was just paying for it. We’ll be back as soon as we’ve taken care of things here.”

Jack’s just gasped his way back to life as Ianto turns off the com again, sitting up with a grimace.

Alex glances over his shoulder just once, to check the progress of the expected emergency services – and freezes. The bastard is *sitting up*, and all of a sudden, the five million dollar paycheck seems *less* than reasonable rather than the opposite. He slaps the Dragunov back together in a matter of seconds, and this time he puts three bullets through the mark’s brain, followed by three more through the (temporarily) unmoving chest. The only think he knows that can get back up from a bullet to the brain is an alien bounty hunter. The more damage the bastard takes will mean more time for Alex to get down there with the specialized ice pick that’s the only weapon he’s ever found to work against them, so he adds four gutshots as well before abandoning the rifle, case and all, in favour of going down the side of the building. It’s an emergency escape route, and difficult to manage with just one arm – but not remotely impossible, or he’d not have set it up in the first place.

Rushing along the alley, he’s got the pistol in his prosthetic hand – it will pull the trigger, though not as fast as Alex would like – and the ice pick in his right, thumb hovering over the button. The humans this bastard has snowed will have to die, of course – Alex has never winced at collateral damage. Those two words have never troubled the Russian soul, and have no meaning to Alex; he’d have burned Earth to cinders to keep the invaders out, and nearly did, more than once. The five million in a Swiss account has become less than nothing; Alex’s mission for more than a decade has been to get these alien bastards off of his planet, and if he dies taking down the last of them, so be it. He breaks into the alley, pistol held out in a hand that looks almost real, ice-pick in the other, and does his best to cover all of them with his fake hand.

“Move and die,” he says, and means every word. The prosthetic’s not as fast as Alex’s own reflexes, but it’s fast enough, especially because Alex hasn’t hesitated over a kill in more than a decade. He selects the one closest to ‘Captain Harkness’. "You. Bring it over here.“ His gesture makes it clear that he means the erstwhile Harkness, and he knows that his eyes are all the message he needs to give about his own implacability.

Ianto’s glad Martha had come up with Owen to help corral the scattering people, though it’s perhaps a bit annoying to have three of them hostage to the man he assumes is the sniper. "That involves moving,” he points out, giving the man’s gun a critical look. The hand holding it has the subtle unreality of a good prosthetic, but he’s not exactly willing to risk his life on the man’s reflexes.

Or rather, he’s not willing to risk the lives of the handful of civilians in the alley with them. Not while the man is upright and mobile, which might take a bit of time to remedy, with both Ianto and Martha in his sights.

“Besides,” he adds after a second’s pause, “Jack’ll get up again in a moment. This isn’t the first time he’s been shot.”

“No fucking kidding,” Alex says shortly, and realizes to his annoyance that the accent he’s been hiding for years is starting to come to the fore. Apparently there’s something about long odds that brings out the long-buried Russian in him. "You can take it as –“ And then he stops. Because even under the street lamps, it’s all too obvious that this Jack Harkness is bleeding *red*. That’s something that aliens just *don’t do*, especially since Alex has sacrificed his youth and his life and his health to make sure that that difference, at least, is clearly apparent. He feels like swearing, and for a moment, indulges himself. He can always put a few more rounds into Harkness, if it becomes necessary. The Russian oaths roll off his tongue, rare and satisfying. ”Yeb cas – yov t’boyu mat!“

"Bring him here,” he says flatly. If the aliens have managed to create a shapeshifter that will survive even the weapons in Alex’s only remaining hand, then he’s lost the war, and the pistol in his prosthetic will prove his own escape, if no one else’s. "You can take it as read that I’ve seen this sort of thing before.“ He laughs, the sound brittle and useless in his throat. "He – *It* is an alien, and if you’re still breathing, it’s only because that *thing* thinks you’ll be useful someday. Now. Bring. It. To. Me.” It’s the voice of command that worked in a GULAG camp so far from Moscow that it had forgotten Moscow; the voice he’d used with those bloody peasants who’d thought they were doing him a *favour* by taking his arm. They’d ended up on their knees in front of the KGB – FSB, now – and the looks they’d cast his way had been *gratitude*. Alex grew up in Russia, in a state where twenty million dead was a fair price to pay for control, and he’s never lost that ruthlessness.

“Very much he, actually.” Ianto shrugged, crouching down to grab Jack by the shoulders. It’s not the first time he’d have betrayed Jack, and at least this time, he’s got a much better reason. Like a gun pointed at civilians in the hands of what’s quite possibly a rather mad Russian. “Half of Cardiff will tell you that.”

“Only half?” Martha raised an eyebrow, keeping a wary eye on the gun herself. There are some things that just don’t change, not since she met the Doctor. Despite the lack of running so far.

“That I’m aware of.” Ianto dropped Jack’s body – soon not to be body, he’s sure of that much – at the madman’s feet before straightening. “May I return to where I was before?”

“I think you should stay *right where you are*,” Alex says flatly. The icepick goes in smoothly – and the alien fails to disintegrate into green, poisonous acid. It’s the confirmation of everything he’s been fearing since the mid-nineties, and it makes his stomach hurt, despite the lack of nerves he’s always sworn to possess. Still, the implication that the thing at his feet has a sex life is….unusual, to say the least. The hybrids never bothered with anything of the sort – although, considering that ‘Harkness’ is bleeding red – God alone knows what the hybrids have been up to in the four years that Alex thought them gone. There’s nothing for it, at this point, save to hope that the uranium-reinforced silver-shot rounds in his pistol will be enough to put Harkness down, should the bastard wake up yet again.

“I’ve gotten rid of most of them — thought I had them all,” he continues, because killing duped humans has never made his list of entertaining kills – “but apparently I missed one.” He laughs shortly. "I owe Captain Hart one, and you lot can witness it – even if I doubt you’ll survive the evening. The brainwashing seems to be permanent, sadly enough.“

"I don’t see how an icepick’s supposed to do anything other than add to the dry-cleaning bill.” Ianto is holding very still, watching the madman carefully, ignoring the flicker of movement behind him. He only hopes Mickey decided to grab something a little less lethal than usual, as most anything with projectiles will probably go right through the man, and hit Ianto. “And whatever John Hart told you is not likely even remotely the truth.”

Of course, some of the non-lethal options wouldn’t be too pleasent, either, and Ianto isn’t sure the dry-cleaning bill is worth avoiding aftershocks from one of those. Though, he reflects as Mickey steps into his peripheral vision, and fires, there’s no way to avoid the manman’s gun going off, no matter which weapon Mickey brought. At least the stun-gun means they won’t be cleaning up his blood along with Jack’s.

Alex laughs. "John Hart only hired me when he realized that he couldn’t kill me.“ The alien possession he’d undergone years earlier has had *some* positive repercussions.

And then the gun goes off. Alex throws himself flat onto the ground, his remaining arm and the prosthetic covering his head out of instinct alone, because even this far from everything he’d been raised to know as truth, he *still* doesn’t want to die. The alien tech in the prosthetic should protect him from anything currently on Earth – except that the blackness sweeps up and covers him anyway. He has just enough time to spit curses as the darkness takes him over, and the familiar syllables of Russian threat reverberate after him, follow him into darkness.

"There’s two like Jack?” Mickey lowers the stun gun after a moment, coming forward once he was sure the guy was down.

Ianto shrugged, stepping back toward the still frightened group that needed retconned still. “I doubt he’s like Jack.” He reaches up to activate his com again, a wry smile crossing his face at the steady litany of invective from Gwen. “The only casualty is Jack’s coat, Gwen. Dinner should be on its way shortly.”

“As if I’m going to be worried about dinner when the lot of you are being threatened by a madman!”

Save for Owen, who’d been inside, and Tosh and Mickey, who’d been in the Hub. Ianto would rather bet on the CCTV being the source of their timely rescue, though it could easily have been Owen.

It didn’t take too long to finish the clean-up with two extra pairs of hands, dinner left in the conference room while Ianto and Mickey hauled their prisoner down to the cells. Taking the time to remove the prosthetic as well as any weapons the scanner turned up before closing him in.

“What do you suppose he meant by brainwashing?” Mickey’s question isn’t one Ianto can answer, and he shrugs as they wait for Jack to come down. Even with the CCTV, they aren’t going to leave a prisoner smarter than the Weevils down here alone. Too much of a security risk, particularly after the disaster the last time John Hart had been in Cardiff.

Snippet: Crossover

Abandoned work, though I may clean it up for posting on AO3 later, as it makes for an interesting reread for me.

Word Count: 3421
Characters: Spike, Angel, Romana

Warnings: implied drugging-via-magic without consent

Romana leaned against the retaining wall of the roof, tilting her face into the wind off the ocean, watching the sun set over the water. Waiting until the last possible moment to go inside, footsteps light as she descended to the opulently decorated room that had been her home for the last… well, she’d lost track of the years. It didn’t matter how long she was here, alone and isolated. The last of the Time Lords, locking herself in her tower, allowing only a few to see her, those who all but worshipped her.

Her feet sunk into the thick carpet as she padded across to the door that guarded her private sanctuary, heavy and well-warded. Unlocked only at her touch, at her desire. Solitude assured by those she’d bargained with when she fell, for some small measure of the technology she could command. A gift of time that allowed them to rebuild and restaff the tower she called her home.

She curled up a corner of her mouth in a wry smile, shaking off the thought as she rested her hand on the door handle. Composing herself before stepping out into a sitting room, as lushly furnished as her sanctuary, her gaze flicking around the room to search for any visitors before heading for the table laid out with a light meal. Grateful for the continued solitude, though there was always the chance they’d send someone up before she returned to her room.

Angel hasn’t been on this floor before. There’s a lot of Wolfram and Hart he has yet to see, and he’s been filling the empty hours of the night by wandering the halls. It would, of course, be a more peaceful experience were he not accompanied most of the time by the ridiculous ghost of Spike, who is currently singing ‘Henry the Eighth’ loudly – and off-key. Angel really wishes his irritating descendant were corporeal, if only so that he could administer the ass-kicking Spike so richly deserves.

“I’m–”

“Spike! Stop. Singing. Or I swear I will have you banished to – I don’t know where, but it will be very boring!” he threat of boredom is enough to earn him a bit of silence from his most irritating childe, but only a bit.

“Oi. Prat.”

“What, Spike?”

“That door. It’s never been there before.”

“You’ve been up here?” Angel sighs. Of course Spike has been up here. He has nothing but time on his ghostly hands, and nowhere else to go.

“Duh, to coin a phrase.” Spike rolls his eyes. Angel really wishes he could hit the bastard, but he settles for opening the door.

The fork was halfway to her mouth when the outer door opened, and Romana raised an eyebrow as she set it back down, folding her hands in her lap. The man who came through the door wasn’t anyone she’d seen before, and she waited patiently for him to introduce himself, and tell her why he had come to her. What her allies wanted now, that they had to send someone new.

“Who are you?” Angel demands bluntly. Wolfram and Hart has surprised him unpleasantly more than once with the things that lurk in the endless hallways. He’s not interested in being surprised again. Except – he can practically feel Spike rolling his eyes behind him. He steps through Angel – which Angel *hates*, and Spike *knows this*. Spike’s Victorian upbringing asserts itself at the most unexpected – and inopportune – times.

“Excuse the tosser,” he says easily. "He’s nothing but a jumped-up Irish peasant.“

"You English bastard – ” Angel starts, but Spike is still talking.

“That’s Angelus, Grand High Poombahz of Wolfram and Hart. For now. I’m Spike, former vampire, now a ghost. Which sucks, by the way. You are?”

Romana smiled at Spike, nodding her head at the introduction. It appeared she hadn’t been in contact in some time, if they’d changed the man in charge of her tower. Though she was a bit surprised they’d put a dead man in charge.

“Romanadvoratrelundar.” Her voice was soft, rusty with disuse. “What did you come to ask of me, Spike and Angelus?”

“It was kind of a hostile takeover,” Spike says. Angel cuts in.

“I want to know what you’re doing here, and who – and what – you are. Two heartbeats – means you’re not human.”

Spike, to Angel’s disgust, looks delighted.

“Did you say *two*?” He grins. Angel itches to smack the expression off of his smug English face. "She’s a Time Lord.“

Romana raised her eyebrows, sitting up straighter. It had been so long since she’d heard anyone refer to Time Lords, since anyone recognized what she was. Instead of thinking of her as a goddess, calling her a goddess. The demand from Angelus merely earned him a frown.

"You don’t know who I am?” Still soft-voiced, through a little steadier, more certain. “Did you not learn from the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart? They built this tower for me.”

“If so, they built it for their own purposes,” Angel says flatly. Spike rolls his eyes again. Angel, for the thousandth time, wishes he could just stake the bastard.

“Wolfram and Hart never did anything that wasn’t fuelled by self-interest,” he says airily. Angel hates him all over again, not just for his personality – which is obnoxious enough – but for his English manners and easy grace, even when he’s pretending to be less than he was while mortal. "How in hell did a Time Lord end up in Wolfram and Hart’s menagerie? The Doctor would never have submitted to it, and his TARDIS wouldn’t have let him even had he been willing.“

"The Doctor?” Romana pushed her chair away from the table, stepping toward Spike, frowning darkly at him. “The Doctor is dead. They’re all dead, all the Time Lords. How do you know what I am?”

She ignored the assertation that her allies had built the tower for their own purposes. It was what always happened. It didn’t matter, so long as she had her tower, her sanctuary. Her solitude where she could keep the company of her ship, visited only by those who should think of her of a goddess.

“Where is Nathan? Why have you not been told who I am?”

“The Doctor’s not dead,” Spike says, “or he wasn’t in 1996, anyway. He thinks he’s the last one too, though. And I know what he is because he took me for a ride in that police box of his.”

“Spike.” Angel is trying very hard to stay calm. "What is a Time Lord?“

"Alien,” Spike says casually. They’ve got two hearts, and the ability to travel about in time and space, so long as they’ve got a TARDIS.“ Forestalling Angel’s next question, he says, "It’s a spaceship. Stands for…time and relative dimensions in space, or something like that. The Doctor’s looks like a police box, for some reason, but it’s bigger on the inside.”

Angel is, if anything, more confused by the answer than he was before.

“How do you know about them?”

“The Doctor took me on a trip with him. Well, several trips, actually. Brought me back to the moment I left, but we were out there for a good while.

It’s typical. Angel spends five hundred years in hell; Spike gets to go gallivanting around the universe with an alien, doing god-knows what. He sighs.

"As for Nathan…” He shrugs. "I’m not sure what happened to him. No one even told me you were up here, much less who and what you are.“

Romana’s frown deepened, her eyes narrowing as she looks closer at Spike. Trying to decide if he could be trusted enough to reach out. To see if she could touch the Doctor’s mind, if he really were still alive. Shaking her head after a moment, not willing to risk the pain of the yawning emptiness that she’d found when she’d first woken.

"It doesn’t matter. The Doctor is just one.” She turned away from Spike, looking over at Angel. Watching him for a moment, her head tilted to one side. “Nathan came before you did. Before this tower was built. There was another tower here, the same save for my sanctuary here. They call me a goddess.”

“Do you call yourself a goddess?” Spike asks. There’s a hard edge to his voice that Angel agrees with entirely. Glory and Jasmine had done far too much damage for either of them to be fond of anything claiming divinity.

She laughed quietly, shaking her head. “I call myself Lady Romana.” There was no point to calling herself anything else, not in the privacy of her sanctuary. She accepted what they called her, though, never tried to change their minds. Content to let them see her as what they wished, at least in the past. “What would you call me?”

“A Time Lord, assuming Spike’s not making things up,” Angel says. Spike grins at her appreciatively.

“I’d call you beautiful,” he says, “and if you’re anything like the Doctor, bloody terrifying as well.”

Angel narrows his eyes. Spike’s never been afraid of anything in his life, and he has a thing for beautiful, terrifying women. Fortunately, he’s incorporeal. It may mean that Angel can’t hit him – but it also means that Spike can’t really hit on Romana, not and accompany his words with anything, at any rate.

“Spike, you’re a pig,” Angel says. Spike pointedly ignores him.

“Why do you have a name when the Doctor doesn’t?” he asks instead.

“He has a name.” Romana shrugged, sliding a glance at Spike again, curious a moment before she looked back to Angel. “I am a Time Lord, he’s not making up that much. About the Doctor, I don’t know. I haven’t heard any of my people since they died. All of them, gone from my head, even the Doctor.”

She turned away, settling back at the table, toying with her fork a moment as she looked down at her meal. “Sit with me awhile. Tell me what has happened in the outer world since this tower was built on the ashes of the old.”

“When was that?” Angel asks, sitting down reluctantly, while Spike does the same with considerably more alacrity.

“And what would you like us to call you, luv?” he asks.

Romana frowned at Angel’s question, trying to remember how long it had been since she’d shut herself into her tower. She’d lost so much time to her drifting, curled up in her sanctuary. “I.. don’t remember.” She pressed her fingers to her temples, forcing herself to focus on her sense of time, creeping back along her timeline toward the boundary between her old life, and her solitude here. Trying to remember, and forgetting there was another question asked.

“D’you remember what year it was?” Spike’s tone is surprisingly gentle. Angel can’t help remembering that the other vampire had been absolutely mad for half a year or more, tormented by the First. He hates remembering that Spike has a soul; sometimes he even forgets, when his childe is being particularly obnoxious – and then he does something like this. Of course, Spike has always been a strange sort of vampire. His love for both Drusilla and Buffy had been deep and genuine, as had his love for Dawn, albeit a different sort of love. He’d even had human friends before being either souled or chipped, though not many – and he’d never eaten any of them.

“Year?” Romana looked over at Spike, tilting her head. “No. I never asked. It’s been so long…” She trailed off, still trying to remember. “There was another building, not a tower. They built the tower on its ashes. Ashes and blood.”

She remembered the blood, the way it trickled between her fingers as someone poured it over her hands. Not all of it, that she knew, but she couldn’t entirely remember what had been done with it.

“Well, it’s the twenty-first century now,” Spike tells her. "The last hundred years alone have been pretty bloody intense, if you’ll forgive the pun. Two world wars, three if you count the Cold War, the fall of the British Empire, lots of averted apocalypses…“ He sketches the history of the twentieth century for her, voice softer than usual. Angel tunes him out, listening to the sound of his voice rather than his words, wondering if maybe Spike will spend more time up here rather than down in his office driving him insane. Spike’s thing for beautiful, terrifying women is even more marked if they’re vulnerable, and there’s something terribly vulnerable about Romana – deep loneliness, and a sense that she’s very lost.

"And the Master’s foolishness, and alien invasions the Doctor averted,” Romana said softly, those memories, at least, clear and bright. Better than those of the last… however long it’s been. “I used to travel with him, and I remember his stories of his adventures.” She looked at Spike again, smiling slightly. “I remember before I came here. Before the Time Lords died, before I was alone.”

“You’re not alone,” Spike assures her. "The Doctor’s alive. I might even be able to get in touch with him – rather, Jack Harkness might, and I can get hold of Jack, anyway. And I’ll keep you company even if Jack can’t get hold of him right away. I’m pretty good company, and I’ve had some adventures of my own, some of them with the Doctor, even.“

"Spike,” Angel growls, “you’re not to inflict your presence on Lady Romana unless she actually wants you here. It’s bad enough that you drive me insane.” He wants Spike gone, but he’s not going to fob him off onto anyone else. The look of contempt on Spike’s face says volumes, and he turns back to Romana, giving Angel the two-fingered salute before he does.

“Excuse the peasantry,” he says, traces of his living accent colouring his words. "Vampire ghost or no, I wouldn’t be so uncouth as to come where I am not welcome.“

"You do it to me all the time!” Angel says hotly.

“Because you’re an arse, and I don’t care what you think, much less want.”

Romana frowned at Angel for his command to Spike. “You cannot control who is allowed into my tower, Angelus.” Her voice was sharp, an undertone of command giving it a steel that had been absent before. “Only those for whom I provided time may do so. And only I may say who may or may not enter these apartments. My sanctuary.”

“Your home, your rules,” Angel acquiesces, “but it’s not Angelus. It’s *Angel*,” that vampire says. Spike rolls his eyes.

“He used to be Angelus, back before he got his soul. Doesn’t like being reminded of the bad old days. New person, new name. I, on the other hand, am still Spike, soul or no soul.”

“Unfortunately,” Angel says, sotto voce. Spike, of course, hears him perfectly.

“Just ignore him,” the smaller vampire says. "He thinks he’s the boss of everything, even me.

“Because I *made you*,” Angel tells him.

“No, Dru made me. You just taught me. Big difference, Peaches.”

“It doesn’t matter what your name is, only that you are here on my sufferance.” Romana watched him for a moment longer, before dismissing him with a shrug of her shoulders. Spike intrigued her far more than Angel, and she focused on the transparent form of Spike instead. “You said you’ve traveled with the Doctor. What did he look like?”

“Dark haired bloke, kinda skinny. Sharp suit. Not half-bad looking, actually. About my…well, about the age I look, anyway. "He’s absolutely mad, of course, but I quite liked him, even if he wouldn’t let me eat anyone while I was with him.” He scowls. "The sod. Anyway, he mentioned companions, a blonde girl and Jack Harkness. And he swore the TARDIS wasn’t always a police box, but that it had gotten stuck that way somehow.“

The description wasn’t that of a regeneration she was familiar with, and Romana sat up in her chair a bit more. It could be a regeneration beyond those she knew of. A chance that Spike was right, that she wasn’t alone. "I don’t know who this Jack is, or who his other companion might have been. He has had many over his lives, and more than one have been blond.” She paused, barely daring to hope that Spike was right. “You said you could contact him?”

“Jack?” Spike looks wistful. "I can call him. Can’t go see him; I’m trapped in this sodding building. It’s a shame, too. Torturous, even, having to see Jack without being able to touch him. Can’t guarantee he knows where the Doctor is, but he’ll know better than we do.“ He looks calm, but there’s a hint of melancholy despair in his voice when he speaks that makes Angel wince. "Don’t suppose there’s any way you could fix this”?“ He waves a hand through the table, sounding like a man who already knows the answer will be negative. "It’d be a lot easier to convince Jack in person than over the phone. He’s running Torchwood right now, and he’s got all sorts of things and people crawling out of the Rift over there and trying to wreak havoc on a scale Dru and I might have equaled once or twice.”

“The Rift? And what’s Torchwood?” Angel demands.

“Torchwood’s classified,” Spike says smugly. "The Rift is sort of a temporal and spatial Hellmouth.“

Romana tilts her head, her gaze sharpening as she studies Spike a moment. "I’ve never tried to make an energy being corporeal before. I don’t know how to do it, but I doubt it’s impossible.” She pauses, a bit of a smile curling her lips. “Nothing’s impossible.”

She taps her fingers against the table for a long moment, thinking. Her mind clearer than it has been in a long time. “I couldn’t do it out here. This is not the right place.” Her TARDIS would be more ideal for trying to find a solution for how to make Spike corporeal, instead of energy.

“You really think you could?” There’s a dreadful hope in Spike’s voice, and an undercurrent of fear that makes Angel’s stomach twist. If she fails, Spike will be crushed. "Can we do it now?“ the other vampire continues. "It’s –being stuck like this is the worst thing I’ve ever been through. And I’m a hundred year old vampire who’s killed two slayers, staved off multiple apocalypses, and been tortured by a hellgod.” He’s practically shaking with anticipation and fear and desire, and Angel realizes for the first time just how much effort Spike is putting into not losing it completely. "I’ll do anything for you if you do,“ his childe continues. "I’ll find the Doctor anyway, but you get my body back, and I’ll owe you anything you want.”

That sort of promise is one she’s heard before, familiar in the requests of those who come seeking a goddess. Romana watches Spike for another long moment before she stands, moving across the carpet toward the inner door of her sanctum. She glances back at the two vampires.

“You may leave, Angelus. Now.” Her expression is full of the natural arrogance of her species, an arrogance she’s forgotten, despite the adoration of those who have come to her before. Replaced by a different sort of arrogance, more artificial in nature, that of a living goddess.

“Come, Spike. If there is some way I can do this, it cannot be done here.” She turns away, the door of her private sanctuary opening under her touch, revealing a glimpse of her room, and the wardrobe that her TARDIS appeared to be. Waiting for them to do as she had commanded, standing on the threshold between the rooms.

Angel is torn. He wants to stay, partly because he wants to punch Spike as soon as he’s able to, partly because – though he’d rather die than admit it even to himself – he really does care about what happens to his idiot childe. He looks at Romana.

“If you hurt him,” he says flatly, “I will figure out a way to kill you. And – if it won’t work, for god’s sake, tell him as soon as you find out. Don’t play with his hopes.”

“Oh, Peaches, you do care,” Spike says in falsetto, then sobers. "Thanks, Angel.“ As he leaves, he can hear Spike telling Romana, "He really hates being called Angelus, you know.”

Snippet: Stargate SG-1: Children of Fire

A piece that may or may not be included in the main story, but does contain spoilers for concepts I plan to use at some point in either Four For Fire, or a story that follows up on that arc. Or both.

Visions of Family

AU: Children of Fire
Word Count: 1140
Characters: Sam Carter, Jolinar of Malkshur, Pele

She is memories and dreams, trapped in a the back of a mind that doesn’t know how to listen for her, and cannot help but talk to her. Her shouts might be the barest whispers of instinct, almost never noticed, but sometimes when she listens to the ramble of Sam’s unconscious mind, she thinks perhaps it sometimes is.

Jolinar has no body, no neurons and synapses of her own, only those borrowed unwitting and unwilling – on both their parts – from Sam, and no more strength than a ghost. It gives her both a strange freedom and traps her in a cage she has no means of breaking.

When Sam’s dreams murmur of a David Rossi, of a plea to save his brother, to save Baal, Jolinar wishes she had enough strength to be more than an unconscious whisper, and to rattle her unintended cage. To shake Sam and add her own plea to that of her brother. She has such a small family, and she cannot bear the thought of even the spoiled baby being lost for his capture by those she had once been part of.

She had always been careful to keep him out of their sights, even if she couldn’t keep them from noticing his existance and the empire he would build.

All she can do is scream until she exhausts what strength she has, and shake the dreaming-self and plead her own dream-self horse for her brother’s life. Her mother’s youngest, the baby she had done so much to protect, because she couldn’t protect her other brother, and could only keep her mother secret.

It’s a surprise, then, when she sees the flash of crimson in the dreams that tell her of the world, to see the glowing gold of the queen who she had never thought to see again. To see the loose robes of her youngest brother, the great thrones of carven wood, the riot of jungle and the rich feast of welcome. To know her former host, her last host, has perhaps heard her screams and done what could be done to save Baal. Taken her home to her mother, though she cannot sit at Pele’s feet and lean her head against her knee as she wishes she could.

Cannot chose to leave her host to swim in the rivers of the great mountain, to give Sam release from her entirely, when she is so trapped that all mourn her death-final. It had been good for Sam, before, but now it makes this collection of synapses all the more a cage from which she cannot break free, and cannot bring herself to will into destruction.

“The ashrak killed her. I was there.”

“There is no trace of her body, perhaps, but that does not mean she is dead in finality.”

“I won’t let you destroy my mind just to find some memories of Jolinar.”

“It will not destroy your mind, and it is not memories I seek. Only my daughter.”

It is as if she walks into a garden both familiar and not, the crimson flowers that her mother loves perfuming the air around her. There are others who rest in the garden, Sam looking confused and awed, and Pele as regal as ever, though worry etches lines around gold-glowing eyes.

She doesn’t pay any attention to Sam, going to sit at her mother’s feet, leaning against her knee as she tries to hide a shudder of relief. A broken lock on an unknowing prison, a chance to escape and be given life renewed in a body that is entirely her own. A new host can be found, will be found, there are never a shortage on her mother’s world.

“How is it possible?” Sam is watching her, gaze incredulous. “How does this even work?”

“Like the harakesh, only somewhat less painful. My brother isn’t the only one who meddles with technology.” Jolinar turns her head to look at Sam now, a wry smile crossing her dream-face. “Both of them have their interests. I had mine, and mother had hers.”

“And your death?”

“Was intended. Life was… unexpected, and very annoying. You couldn’t even hear me when I screamed as loud as I could.” Jolinar shivers, and leans into the hand that comes to rest on the back of her neck. She will have to learn to dream herself in her true form again, not in the body of Sam, but for now, it is all she can summon up.

“You can be removed from my mind with this?”

“Yes and no.” Pele’s voice is rich with familiar reverberation, even here. “I can… copy Jolinar from here, and give her memories and a version of her conscious self to a new offspring. But it will not take her from your mind, unless the synapses that she has been are destroyed. Damage to your brain.”

Jolinar can see Sam wince, and can see her beginning to think it over. She does not like to think of herself split, but it is a risk.

“If that happens, and if I agreed to host Jolinar again, would she be able to reintegrate herself from my brain and herself in her new body, and take the other self from me without the same sort of damage?”

It’s a thought that Jolinar isn’t certain of, but intrigued by. Certainly she could repair a certain amount of brain damage in her host, and she could see overwhelming the weaker echo of herself, though which would truly be the weaker echo, she doesn’t know. But if she could do this, and could leave Sam after, it would allow her to know she has not left herself behind.

Pele’s fingers toy with the strands of her dream-self’s hair, silent for a long moment. “There may be another way to do this. This must be discussed with others.” She draws her hand from Jolinar’s neck. “Will you be content to wait for a chance to leave?”

It is a question addressed to Jolinar, and she shifts so she can stand, can pace and think, though the motion is no more physical than any other dream. If she can wait, trapped in neurons and synapses not her own, for a while, there may be a way out without leaving herself behind. But it means remaining in a cage without anyone to hear her for an unknown length of time, and that terrifies her almost beyond reason.

“Can you make it easier to be heard, while I wait?” She hates the momentary wobble in her voice, dislikes the idea of being utterly dependent on others to give her a window to sanity, but she has to. She cannot be trapped here alone again, even if it means having to find a way to destroy a second-self later.

Star Wars: Dark Lady Padmé

Older snippet, because I still haven’t gotten more written.

Padmé closes the eyes of the Bith who’d murdered their shared Master, studying him for a long moment. He’d never expected a tiny slip of a human to challenge him, much less be an actual danger to his life, the more fool he. As far as she could tell, he didn’t think of the Force as anything more than a source of power to be manipulated, either.

Stepping away, she narrows her eyes a moment before unleashing fire to consume the body – and the building as she walks away – and leave nothing of Tenebrous but ash floating on the wind of a desolate planet. This is not his stage upon which to act, and she will not have a rival for her control of the Sith, and ultimately, the galaxy.

Tilting her face into the wind outside a moment, she smiles, a small curve of the lips, and tugs the hood of her robe up to hide her face. Now, all she needs is a proper set of tools, and a place to build upon the plans she and her Master had made to bring the destruction of the Jedi, and the fall of the Republic they loved and served.

The ten-year-old girl meets Padmé’s eyes fearlessly, tilting her chin up as Padmé studies her. The body is very nearly perfect, an echo of the first body she’d called her own, the one she’d been born in, and trained in under her Master. Better than the aging male she appears to be, the nominal grandfather of this small child.

“You will do, child.” She rests a hand on the girl’s head for a long moment, forging the bond she needs to accomplish her desired goal. The girl will be sacrificed, but Padmé will live and continue to seek the goal she has her entire life. And her plans need a new face – her tools are suitably enthralled, and her apprentice is in position to further her plans. He, she worries about, ambitious as he is, but she has not taught him all her secrets, nor plans ever to.

The family of young Padmé Naberrie thinks her silence and her paleness a reaction to seeing her grandfather die, and though they will encourage her soon enough to take an interest in the world once more, she will never be the same again. Everyone thinks the same thing, and in the privacy of her mind, Padmé smiles with amusement.

Star Wars: NOS

Just an older bit of fic that I’m not sure is going anywhere any time soon, and putting it out there so I have a snippet today, since none of the in-progress stuff has enough to put out a new part.

Because of this post, and thus @hamelin-born.

AU: NOS
Word Count: 627
Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Asajj Ventress, Ky Narec
Time Frame: about four years prior to TPM

He’s barely eighteen when the ship he’s on, a public transport, is attacked by pirates. If he’d been a Padawan, had been with his Master, he might have been able to do something about it. As it is, all he can do is survive. He’s good at surviving, even when he’s not sure what the point is.

That the pirates are also cheerfully willing to sell captives as slaves is less appealing, but one he’d have worried less about if they hadn’t made their first stop on a planet he hasn’t heard of, in the back of beyond at the edge of the Republic. If Rattatak even is in the Republic.

Though being bought by another Jedi is a surprise, at least it gives Obi-Wan his freedom once more, and Ky Narec is willing enough to teach him some of the same things he’s teaching his young Padawan, Asajj. It is a chance to be more than simply a failed Initiate, but Obi-Wan refuses to take Master Narec’s attention away from Asajj. It wouldn’t be fair to her, who has a chance at becoming a Jedi Knight, even if she didn’t begin her training in the Temple Creche.

When the warlords of Rattatak kill Master Narec a year later, Obi-Wan can feel the rage and grief that spills from Asajj, and for a moment, he thinks about what would be the Jedi thing to do. Thinks about trying to help her release that into the Force, to seek once more the calm she’s supposed to be learning, the serenity.

Except there are no Jedi here, not any more, and there is no reliable way to get off the planet, not when they’re two teenagers with no power and no money.

Obi-Wan takes up Narec’s lightsaber, and together they wade through blood to destroy those who’d taken him from them. Obi-Wan teaches Asajj what he can remember of using a light saber, while she teaches him how to be a warlord of Rattatak.

And for a time after, it seems enough. For a few months, it feels like vengeance, it feels like freedom, before the euphoria begins to fade. Before it begins to feel like they’re just the biggest rats in a cage, and Obi-Wan doesn’t like the feeling. Can say he hates it, when he’d not have used that word before.

They take the best raider’s ship that comes in, slaughter captain and crew when they find slaves in the hold, and they offer those slaves – only one as old as Obi-Wan, most between him and Asajj in age – the chance to replace that crew. Those who have someone to go back to, who want to go home, they find a way to take home, and then…

Then they have a ship and a small crew and all the galaxy spread before them, and no idea what to do next. Obi-Wan doesn’t want to return to the Jedi – why should they want to take back a failed and Fallen Intiate, especially not one who is arrogant enough to think he can teach another the ways of the Force? And he doesn’t try to lie to Asajj and tell her they’ll welcome her as the Padawan of one of their own. They’ll tut over her anger, and shame her for her grief, and Obi-Wan can’t subject her to that.

No, they’ll be fine on their own. And while Rattatak was a place too remote and isolated to be useful, where being warlords only meant being leaders in a cage, there are plenty of Outer Rim planets where they can make a new start. Places where the Republic doesn’t reach, but trade does, and they can put together something more.

Star Wars: All Her Daughters: The Butcher and the River

Just a snippet today.

Warnings: Suicidal ideation.

Also, this is Butcher and River. They are never going to be easy or nice people to deal with, and they’ve pretty much become an outlet for a very particular sort of rage.

“No one important died.” Butcher can feel the horror that statement elicits from the people on the other side of the wall, watching and listening on their monitors. Can see the frustrated confusion in the Force swirling about her interrogator. And still, they aren’t actually listening. “No innocents were in those rooms. No new faces for River’s skin.”

“The Supreme Chancellor was in his office when you set off those bombs.” The Jedi is watching her with an expression more serene than what he feels.

Butcher nods. “Just one more slaver with blood on his hands and heart.”

She can feel River’s tired frustration in a solid knot at the back of her mind. Wondering if those who’ve imprisoned them are going to ask anything new, or do them the favor of putting them in front of a firing squad. If they won’t listen to their words, maybe they’ll listen to their deaths.

bedlamsbard:

Concept writing for a teenage Kanan and Hera AU – I swear I’ve written non-Inquisitor Kanan before, I just haven’t posted any of the concept work for it. (And yeah, I do generally use the same backstory for everything, so the baseline here is the Inquisition and Syndulla family as presented in Backbone.)

About 2K below the cut.

That was a really
useful tray, Hera thought, dropping it next to the naval crewman she had
just knocked out. Useful, but not
exactly the kind of weapon she wanted to be running through a star destroyer
with. She took his blaster pistol
instead and left the unconscious human behind her, darting down the
corridor. She had to find one of the
star destroyer’s hangar bays; a ship like this ought to carry at least four
shuttles, and if she could get to one of them, she knew she could outfly any TIE
fighter they sent after her in time to jump to hyperspace.

She couldn’t hear any alarms, which meant that no one had
discovered her escape yet. That was
good. Hera just had to get to the
hangars before anyone did, and then find some way to get onto a shuttle –

She didn’t see the being that stepped out from a
cross-corridor.

Hera hit him at full speed, sending them both to the floor
and her stolen blaster flying out of her hand.
She scrambled to her feet as the newcomer did the same – a human male
dressed all in black except for the Imperial cog on his vambraces and shoulder
armor, with a black mask that covered the lower half of his face but left his
greenish eyes visible. He wasn’t
carrying a blaster, but there was a blackened metal cylinder on his belt – a lightsaber,
which could mean only one thing. An
Imperial Inquisitor.

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