Let Death bypass the brave

Evelyn: “We dig up dead people who often have monstrous curses placed on them!”

Rick: *grabs sword from equally ominous looking wall full of weapons one of which seems to be glowing* fantastic I was getting a bit rusty

Rick: Have I mentioned how wonderful my wife is yet, I really feel like I haven’t really expanded enough on how wonderful she is

Gomez: do go on, I would be delighted to hear about how wonderful your wife is, I strongly encourge all men to extoll the virtues of their wives with rapturous praise, however I should perhaps mention my wife is in fact better

The Decay: The Osraighe Trilogy By J. H. Pratt

With the end of the war behind them, a new threat besieges London as the citizens struggle through the onslaught of relentless hardships. Vincent Bonner is a British sniper, having been discharged from service with the knowledge that his time was ticking to the end. With one last fight set before him, he aims to end this new war before his inevitable demise. In a literal fight to the death, with his best friend and closest companion Vukašin Babić by his side, they will face the tide of battle to thwart this hidden enemy one last time. In The Decay, the journey is hard when coming to terms with grief, and accepting the inevitable fate of chronic illness. The impact on relationships is a hardship shared as Vincent comes to terms with his encroaching end. With a family found and forged in the aftermath of a war, he discovers that home isn't just the place one grew up in. It's the people around him, and the ones he loves and trusts dearly.

To celebrate the release of the novel, the epub and the pdf will be available for free for the month of October here.

But here there are paladins.

There are signs that the Church and knightly orders know to watch for in new acolytes and squires, subtle connections to the divine less stable than that of a cleric. Of these identified candidates, only few are offered the special training necessary to become full paladin initiates, and even fewer complete their training. You do not become a paladin by accident. You must choose it, day after day.

As soon as a Damned Innocent is identified, they're paired off with a waiting paladin initiate who has completed their training. A bond begins to form between the two, eventually becoming complete and unbreakable, even by death, when the paladin formally swears their oaths. From that moment onward the paladin is responsible for being guardian, role model, and parole officer to their ward.

The bond is a symbiotic one. The paladin's holy magic cannibalizes some of the Evil infecting their ward, breaking it down and burning it for fuel. In exchange, the Evil's grip on the ward is suspended, allowing their true personality and will to assert itself.

Not every story of this sort ends happily. A paladin's bond gives their ward the chance to choose good, but it cannot make them do so. Sometimes a ward chooses, of their own free will, to embrace the full breadth of their nature. In these cases, the paladin's oaths to protect innocents force them to cross blades with the person closest to their heart in all the world.

Perhaps even more tragic are the Oathbreakers, once-paladins who abandon their oaths and draw on their ward's Evil directly for greater power with less responsibility, damning them both in the process.

It's not a perfect system. Far from it. It is as fallible as the men and women who make it work. But it is hope where there would otherwise be none.

The lexical divergences didn't make the mutual intelligibility any service.

Polish: I'm looking for kids at the shop.

Czech: I'm fucking kids in the basement

I ugly-laugh/cackled in a short burst when I saw this.

A) because language is INSANE; B) because OH MY GOD how unfortunate;

and C) that you knew my language nerd self would appreciate this (truly awful) situation.

I really just have to summarize Thomas's entire life:

He was in a committed relationship with a male swan named Henry for 18-24 years before a female swan named Henrietta showed up and mated with Henry.

Thomas was initially jealous of the pair and attacked them, breaking 2 of the 5 eggs Henrietta had laid. However, once the remaining eggs hatched, Thomas warmed up to them and helped raise them.

Henry couldn't fly because of an injured wing, so Thomas taught the cygnets how to fly.

When they needed to reduce the goose population in the pond where Thomas and the swans lived, they dyed Thomas's feathers red so he wouldn't be separated from Henry.

Henry, Henrietta, and Thomas remained in their happy throuple for years and raised 68 cygnets before Henry died in 2009. After Henry's death, Henrietta found another swan and flew away, leaving Thomas alone.

Thomas finally met and mated with a female goose in 2011 and had his own babies. However, another goose named George stole them and raised them himself.

As Thomas grew elderly and blind, he was relocated to a wildlife center where he raised orphaned cygnets.

His caretaker at the center described him as "pretty high maintenance."

Thomas died in 2018 at the age of around 40. He had a funeral that included a small coffin and a procession that was led by a bagpiper. He was buried under the stone where Henry was buried, the two finally reunited in death.