Spoilers for the intro to KotFE. Also just all the backstory spoilers from the Quinncident. This is compliant with Galaxy Without End and might make it into the story once I get there.
*
Ruth wore the Wrath's mask again that day.
It was a shock and awe strike against Zakuul's Knights. Ruth needed the edge of her reputation.
And she wasn't fond of showing off her corrupted face. She could do it for business, and had. Just not as a habit.
But that night she tried to soothe herself down. Raging in the Force had not served to locate her son, the boy who had been left behind when she was taken. Hating and hurting and howling had done nothing. Her link with her child had always been strongest in silence.
Serenity was a distant and painful memory. But she had to try.
Sometimes, when she was young, she had imagined that the Light Side of the Force was a great cat, a mysterious creature of the jungle. She had had the dim idea that it could grant her wishes if she studied well enough. If she was strong, and good, and faithful enough.
She knew this wasn't accurate. But more and more, with no other recourse, she imagined her jungle friend, powerful, ready to listen.
Please, she thought. I will be good. I will undo my past. I will be kind again. Believe me, I can be. I can be. If that means that someone somewhere is being kind to my son. I will do better. Please, I will do better. Just keep him safe until I can come for him.
She had said it before, and then fallen back on the practiced ease of the Wrath. She was alone among this Alliance, tired, haunted, and they were essentially asking her to kill things. But she could do better. She had to. Her child's life depended on it.
He was nine years old. He had entire teeth she had never seen. Did he remember her?
She breathed and felt a whisper of the living Force drifting around her. She focused, stilling herself, keeping her passions in check. But the cat, and her son, never arrived.
*
“I found what you wanted,” said the raspy Jedi. “Pay up.”
“Show me your proof,” Quinn said. He didn't have the protection of his uniform anymore. He wore a short brown cloak with fitted trousers and sturdy boots. His sole nod to his past was a white formal shirt, peeking brilliantly in the yellow-lit cantina.
“No keeping ‘til I get credits,” the Jedi growled, and held up his holo.
A blue image flickered. A standing boy wearing lumpy robes.
Quinn's breath caught. The boy was four years older relative to Quinn's last sighting. His face was Quinn's, just younger. And Quinn knew that in some lights those eyes would be a brighter blue. Everybody said they saw Quinn in the boy, but Quinn couldn’t unsee Ruth peering out at him.
Numbly he fumbled a credstick out of his pocket. “Take this. Give me the rest.”
The boy's image vanished. The Jedi flourished the credstick and pocketed it. “Now, then. You didn't tell me that you're a wanted man, former Major Malavai Quinn. What's to stop me from claiming—”
Quinn shot him in the chest. The sorry Jedi never made it to his weapon. Apparently corruption was bad for one’s reflexes. Expressionless, Quinn claimed the precious holo and walked out.
He activated it in his rank, stained motel room. The boy was labeled with an unfamiliar name. The location stunned him. There was no way a lone Force-blind Imperial deserter could get to Tython.
But he knew who could. She could do anything.
He stared at the holo of his son while he thought.
Quinn knew what interested observers knew. The Emperor's Wrath had been seen in the past few months, scything down Zakuulian forces. What was more, sometimes a slim woman with blue eyes and red lightsabers had been seen on similar missions. After years of invisibility, Ruth Niral was alive and out there.
Hating him. Hating ever since he had betrayed her for a harder Sith who had proved to be weaker. Hating her ex-husband, and for good reason. But she would cooperate for their son. He had never seen them together, he'd been banished from her life while she was still pregnant…but she had to care.
And he had something to act on now. Here, out of credits and out of friends, at the end of his tether, after years of crawling through the filth of the galaxy's underbelly, after time in prison for being an Imperial…finally, he had something to act on.
The stolen boy. His kidnapping was Quinn's failure to crown all failures, exceeding even the attempt to break his bride. But this was it. He could see his son, maybe part time, but be with him again. His heart had been slowly bleeding in a dark corner for four years. It didn't have to bleed forever.
In Ruth's last act of mercy toward anyone she had said, I'll go to my grave loving you. He didn't need her to keep her word. He just needed her to care for their son enough to raid the Jedi hive to get him.
One more sharp turn in his life. One more chance…
He wiped his face without looking away from the precious holo.
It was time to find her. Not as a soldier to a Sith, nor as a patriot to a warrior, and stars knew not as a lover to his beloved. No, despite the fact that they had been all these things for a meteoric heartbeat, what he had to be was a parent dealing with a parent.
A woman who had never explained why she had not only kept the pregnancy but named him caretaker if anything happened to her, and a man who had betrayed her in her absence as thoroughly as he ever had in her presence. Stars. She could hate him for his failures as much as she wanted to, but she had to help their son. She had to.
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I get it. He's been a slave, forced to fight and kill for his food, for a hundred years. That's a lot of trauma. But in game, he never seems to grow towards anything. He's just a former slave. He enjoys not being a slave, I guess.
One of the most important scenes I've written for SWTOR, and I don't remember whether I posted it to @galaxywithoutend , is when Bowdaar shows Vette his stash. He had one under his cage for a long time, and he makes a new one on the Ebon Crock. Little stolen things: a hydrospanner, loose buttons, spare lighting elements. He kept such things so he could have something of his own. He surrenders them to Vette because he doesn't want to live like that anymore. And she buys him a chest with a lock so he can keep anything, just preferably stuff that belongs to him, and nobody can take it away.
That's what I wanted to see for this character. Processing, forward momentum. "I had trauma" x100 is realistic under the circumstances, but it doesn't allow for stories.
It's so easy to curtail what you want because it might offend somebody, because somebody else needs attention and resources more, because you don't have a Good Enough reason to want it.
Screw that. If someone pushes back on your cherished hope, you can deal with it. If. But never turn back on your own needs, or even desires, just because that might happen.
You don't have to play both sides of the debate about whether you can want and take. Let somebody else play the Nay side, if anyone actually intends to do it. But want, it is completely human to want, let yourself desire instead of preoccupying yourself with not bumping into anyone.
I got tagged while drafting these two fragments, so here they are. Ruth/Jorgan, at two unrelated different times.
*
“Commander, that was murder.”
Aric Jorgan had waited all the way to the transport, until the privacy of the bridge, before rounding on Ruth Niral. The light here didn’t do her corrupt skin any favors.
And she looked at him with an air of weary dignity. “Where I'm from,” she said levelly, “raising that objection is a capital offense. Back there I was making an example, to stop other people from dealing dishonestly with the Alliance.”
“He would have negotiated something if you’d settled for scaring him.”
“Do you know that?”
“Did you allow for the possibility? You choked him to death. Publicly. Over a business dispute.”
“And that was wrong.” She said it in a gray tone, like there wasn’t any blood in it.
And he wouldn’t give her that illusion. “Yes. Obviously, yes.”
She was watching him intently. “You don't know the power of the Dark Side of the Force. I see solutions differently.”
Then, before he could get in any good jabs on that, her expression crumpled.
“I remember,” she said, “before it went dark. I remember abhorring wasting life. As you apparently do.” A deep breath, a cloud over her features. “I did badly today, and it cost a stranger his life. I'm sorry. Next time I will work harder to assess my options.”
She meant it. He had never known her to lie. Intimidate, discipline, murder, yes, but never lie.
“Remind me,” she said in a burst of fierceness. “Help me, if you think I'm worth helping. Just look at me next time. I’ll remember.”
A simple request. Jorgan knew very well that the Commander had lost a child, and by logical extension a mate. Yet she ran the Alliance with a firm and usually fair hand, and had never breathed a word of vulnerability to the rank and file. This was new. It wasn’t the Wrath he’d once kept a mission profile on. It was…becoming, or trying to.
Was that enough to hang loyalty on?
*
“You Sith ever have this concept of the girl next door?"
"What, like the one whose weaknesses you track so you can take her down when petty sentiment makes her hesitate down the line?"
Jorgan looked at Ruth.
Ruth looked at Jorgan.
"So," she said, "no, then."
Jorgan shook his head. "It was very specific. Young, ready to go finish studying someplace. Pretty. Ponytail. Wholesome. Simple, she doesn’t have to travel too much or know too many things. Just someone who’s always been there. Who knows and remembers the nicest things about you.”
Ruth picked her jaw up. “I am so sorry you’re with me instead.”
Jorgan grinned. “That's a dream when you're twenty. Something to think about at twenty-five. By thirty-five you might get to thinking that there's too much of you to lay on one girl's shoulders. I wouldn't have said no, but…that's a lot of years to explain, and nobody has time for that. Takes more…substance?...to balance me these days.”
“I wish I could be your girl next door. It'd be nice to fulfill such a long-held dream.”
He shook his head, smirking. “Keep blowing my mind the way you do. I’ll cope with a broken dream. How did we get onto this topic? Who did you think you were going to get?”
“Me? Too many ideas to count.” No, not really. “A Light Side Sith, a great warrior who could fight the good fight with me. Dashing, brave. L-loyal. An equal, a father, a closet revolutionary.”
Jorgan cracked his darkest grin. “And you got me?”
Yes. Yes yes yes. “Isn’t it obvious? You are everything I wanted, and want. Except that by accident you’re not Force sensitive. And that was the least important part.” Loosening that standard had gotten her heart broken once. But it seemed so unimportant next to this.
The grin was gone. He stepped in and slid his hands up her neck into her hair and kissed her. It was okay. It was all okay.
He broke away, still cradling her head. “We’re getting back to that ‘father’ thing.”
“I didn’t mean you have to—”
“There are two separate implications, and if things go well I’m on board for either.”
Her son. Maybe even new children.
“Thought I’d missed my chance,” he murmured. “But strange things happen around you.”
“Corellia is nearly ready to fall,” Darth Tormen said. Calline reflected on Mako’s briefing and kept her mouth shut. Corellia was a dumpster fire, and both sides were pouring on fuel. “The Republic is being aided on the ground by a group of animals called the Selonians. I want you to drag them to a complete surrender.”
Just to set the baseline…“I don’t hunt animals.” Except with Mandalorians, in special cases.
Tormen sneered. “You mistake me. The Selonians are marginally sentient. And loyal citizens of the Republic. I merely name them what they really are.”
Calline felt a prickling between her shoulderblades. She didn’t like Sith, she didn’t like this one, and she didn’t like the insinuation. She prepared a speech. “I don’t hunt animals.”
Tormen gave her a long look that seemed to suggest the ‘animal’ label might just be extended. Calline stared right back.
“Take these citizens’ breeders prisoner,” he said stiffly. “Bring them to me and we shall wring another surrender.”
Calline nodded sharply and backed out.
She took contracts for Tormen. She owed him something for sheltering her from the Republic’s torrent of slander. But between those contracts? She wouldn’t be heartbroken if he had a bad day.
Tagging everybody who wants to show off a snippet!
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Boom! Meme!. Fanfic Reverse Asks - 3, 6, 10 ... 3. The best character you've written for: Cleaner One is best OC. Just the best. What a train wreck. ... 6. Something I remember vividly from reading one of your fics: Cleaner bitching that Twi'leks got three dicks and two of them are exposed. Perfection....10. A ship I didn't enjoy/think about as much before you wrote about them: I might be misremembering, but I think Umrahiel's DS Jaesa got it on with Quinn, which makes painful amount of sense.
Thank you so much!
Cleaner is fun to write even though he's such a terrible person. That was a very early line in Cleaner. Kaliyo stepped on or grabbed one of his lekku; I read somewhere that lekku were part of a Twi'lek's brain as well as erogenous zones so...yeah, sometimes fun, sometimes a giant pain in the...well....dick.
I know I definitely had Quinn wanting DS Jaesa, Jaesa only having eyes for Umrahiel, and that desire being a factor in Quinn's decision to betray Varrel. Social climbing and all that. I can't recall if I actually had Quinn and Jaesa hook up, though.
I planned for Umrahiel to use the Inquisitor's body-swap thing to put his mind and memories into a younger body (yay immortality), but I never did write that out. The most I did was write Umrahiel visiting Zash (who's occupying a Miraluka body) in an herbalist-alchemist-totally-not-invoking-Baba-Yaga shop to start his journey.
Either in the highly atmospheric shop story or a Jaesa dream story, you mentioned thorny brambles and the forum censored it for "horny". I sat there wondering, what is so obscene about these brambles? Are they fucking brambles? Shitty brambles? Cocksucking brambles? (Ow.) Jaesa knew nothing of this; they were just thorny.
Rimblyshivers - that was such a whimsical look into your imagination and writing. And it was a story that was right up my alley as it's the type of lit I look for when I read. 10/10 your storytelling is phenominal 4. Ruth/Jorgan - I'm seriously protective of Jorgan and at first I wasn't sure I could buy his falling in love with an Imperial let alone a Sith. But I can see what he sees in Ruth and I can see they prop each other up. Its lovely. 12. Rimblyshivers and much of NDOW. When you were still posting on the SWTOR boards I would go to your threads for NDOW and reread my favorite parts, or get caught up and read what you had out. Loved it. 13. I have discussed your writing techniques with my husband more than once because I look up to you so much. And I've called you a friend to my Dad while I talked about Rimblyshivers and how I could only dream of having half your imagination. <3
ngl, I describe you as a friend too to my spouse when I get excited about your takes on our favorite characters <3
Rimblyshivers and NDOW, thank you thank you! They're dear to me even so many years after I wrote them.
Jorgan-crack-ship! Jorgan-crack-ship! I find that you, who has explored so much with his character, are very comforting to have on the Ruth/Jorgan side.
1.my favorite fic of yours. Unfair question! Since Ruth fics will appear in other answers I will say my favorite NON-SW fic is Overcoming Adviercity. I really just love Vierce's progression and his interactions with everyone, his struggles to be a good man who contains so. much. murder.
2. Favorite chapter in my favorite fic (anything with Kirsk) also the trapped in ice. Like. I was anxious. And I know they make it. But I was ANXIOUS. That's good stuff.
5. A fic I haven't read yet from you, but I want to. If I haven't read it it's because I disappeared from the internet for a bit (a year) and it was gone before I got back otherwise such fics don't exist that I'm aware.
7. What made me the most emotional after reading. Every time Ruth dies. The relationships are built on her and then boom everyone falls down and it gets me every time and the aftermath is wretched. Why?! Why this? Um worst was when Rylon fell to the dark side and Quinn had to shoot him and Ruth thought the worst of him and Rylon coming back to himself and seeing the result. :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(
10. A character/ship I didn't think about at all before you wrote about them. Jorgan/Ruth. How did you make that plausible? But that is actually my favorite ship of yours.
You used a different message/response mechanism that allowed you to put in paragraph breaks. I am intrigued!
I do kill Ruth, don't I. It's just that she faces it differently every time and I feel like I'm trying to figure out what brings her out most completely. Luckily, she's currently on track to survive all expansions. 😇
Jorgan/Ruth was absolute crack based on how much they must hate working together. (That's Aric Jorgan/Sith Warrior in KotFE.) There's an elevator conversation where they try to describe each other as assassins and it doesn't go well and it gave me Ideas.
Thank you for your kind words! I treasure your enjoyment. It's nice to know my terrible ideas have found someplace to roost.
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13. I was just talking about Forced Companion Daycare with my husband the other day, actually! We were talking about SWTOR (he also used to play a bit, before we met) and Risha came up and I just kept thinking "But we have to do what Risha says!"
I had forgotten little Risha's reign of terror! XD I'm so happy you liked it, thank you!
Today, Tumblr well knows, is the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May, so termed to honor Terry Pratchett's 2002 Discworld masterpiece, Night Watch. A day for demanding Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably Priced Love, and a Hard-Boiled Egg.
Today is also Towel Day, a tribute established in 2001 to that other hilarious, iconic, deeply humane British satirist, Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and, if you want to see his love of the natural world, Last Chance to See.
The lilacs are blossoming and I know where my towel is. I guess from now on it's up to me.
Basically, it's a fanfic asks with a twist - because now it's the askers who answer the questions and send them to YOU! Mostly to give you some love about your writing! Giving you some well deserved ego boost! <3
So, askers - pick a number, or several numbers, to answer in ask boxes that you send to your fic author!
My favorite fic of yours
My favorite chapter in my favorite fic of yours
The best character you've written for
The best ship you've written for
A fic I haven't read yet from you, but I want to
Something I remember vividly from reading one of your fics
What made me the most emotional after reading
What I like the most about your writing
A fic i'm excited for you updating/posting
A character/ship I didn't enjoy/think about as much before you wrote about them
Something I wish/hope you write
A fic of yours that i've re-read
If i've ever shared/talked about your fic to someone else
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When I moved to [town], I was sharing a flat with a fellow recent graduate. He moved his boxes in, then went to the library to get a card.
And I thought, what? How is this guy a better library citizen than me? But I knew he was. I hadn't read for pleasure in months or years.
Here's what had changed during my hiatus:
Ebooks. Downloadable ebooks for ereaders, ebooks on my phone. Magic.
Auto-renewal. If I have a book or movie and its due date comes, but nobody else is waiting for it, it automatically gets renewed.
And if that fails...no late fees. Shame will keep the local systems in line.
Library of things? I confess I haven't looked at my local options, but they've beefed up since I was a kid.
Consortium connectivity. I can search for books and DVDs across thirtysomething libraries and get any of them delivered locally via Interlibrary Loan. This used to be an arduous task of the librarian researching what library might have it; now I can click on a Web page. Also I can drop articles off at any library, so I can fit it into any errand I have in the region.
Magazines. Okay, so I think they always had magazines. I've used this to preview mags I'm thinking about subscribing to - it's how I learned that National Geographic had started using thinner pages that don't feel as good.
Get this...magazines...on my phone. It's two great tastes that taste great together. I don't do it because I don't like the screen size problem, but the fact I can do it pleases me.
So far, in my movie and book plans, there is one book I've been unable to find. That's not a bad record.
It has become obvious that one of the reasons Isaac Asimov was able to write 400 books was that several of them get pretty similar. Square-jawed investigator with unusual ally meets eminent scientist with a pretty daughter (or acquainted with a pretty widow) and intrigue and peril ensue driven by an antagonistic government or society. After reading several of these in a row, it's a relief to reflect on Susan Calvin, who is not in the story to be a love interest or somebody's pretty relative. She is a badass roboticist and she doesn't care who knows it.
He can do better. I vividly remember one short story that followed an elderly woman whose hair was a fashionable shade of apple green, and she had good ideas about optimizing interplanetary communications. He is not incapable, merely disinclined.
All that said, I enjoyed Pebble in the Sky. Earth's threadbare status in the Galactic Empire is fascinating to me. The shorthand of his characters is something I'll forgive because the richness of his ideas.
