#chenria

Happy birthday, my beloved @chenria 💝

If given 1 million dollars. What would they do with the money?

THESE QUESTIONS ARE SO CUTE thank you so much!!!!!!!

ocs on a rainy day:

eddie is as busy or as bored as ever on rainy days. she works every single day of her life in the little store attached to her house, eager to prove to herself, her father, and the 1860s town around her, that she is more than capable of doing so. if it's raining, you can find her either reading at the counter, or perhaps standing by the door, watching the rain pelt into the dirt road below the porch. there are several raining scenes in my story and she often stands there, wrapped up with her shawl about her. sometimes she'll sit on the front porch and watch the rain, trying to think of new ways of describing it in her mind, but most often she is indoors.

hector doesn't like being uncomfortable, but will suffer through it if it means that he doesn't have to be on his own. he claims not to mind the rain, but soaked denim can take days to dry properly and it's just the worst. he is not given as many hours to work, so if he's not working at the saloon, he might be bothering the local grocery store owner (see above) or reading in the room he rents.

one million smackaroons!

eddie likes to buy herself nice things, and to always dress fashionably (and dress her more reluctant daughter fashionably too) but she is not prone to lavish purchases. she'd probably save most of it, and use some to buy a horse and stable it up at the local farm. she will invest in all of the town's shops and businesses, specifically the school. she'll probably buy one absolutely ridiculous item that she thinks is a stupid waste of money, until her husband is like "life is short buy the peacock shaped lamp" and she's like "ok" so now she has a huge ridiculous peacock shaped lamp or WHATEVER

hector would give all his money to his family so now eddie has 2 million dollars (nice) -- or, okay, she has 1.5 and lily has half a million dollars.

Still just as in love with this as the first time I saw it and now I own a print!!! 😍 @chenria you are amazing, he is amazing and I’m fully in love with him! 💚 He arrived all safe and sound and in immaculate condition! 😁

This is a commission from the lovely @chenria​.

I commissioned this illustration when I was still trying to sort out why the cantina blew up in my fic and how Eva was going to approach an injured Theron for the first time. I had already written a post about Theron’s decisions and why he’s a successful spy; I’ve never liked the characterization of him as being inept and being injured because of this.  In my head, he makes the conscious choice to endanger himself to spare others; some of that is backed up by canon.  We’ve finally reached the point in my fic universe where this illustration is “live.”  Below is an excerpt for Chapter 25, which annotates the illustration:

Theron wasn’t self-conscious about his scars.  He’d earned them.  They were proof that he had completed his missions successfully. He’d made it back alive without giving the enemy anything vital. They were proof that everything he couldn’t talk about had happened and that his life was real, even if there were no corroborating witnesses.  The work he did mattered, even if the case files were sealed and the witnesses were under a gag order.  Even if the victims disappeared into Republic protection systems and started new lives, Theron knew what he had done.

Theron mentally listed all the marks he could still see and remember.

When he was 18, his neural remapping and implant installation had gone sideways; he had an anesthesia allergy, it turned out.  He woke up in a really nice apartment, with two little kids peering over the side of the couch at him.  Mr. Trant introduced Mrs. Trant and the two kids as his own.  Mrs. Trant took care of him.  That was a new experience, being mothered, including being nagged to eat.  He kind of liked it.  But he didn’t let himself like it enough, because if he did, he’d miss it when it ended.  So Theron didn’t let himself get too attached, which was just as well.  Thereafter, he always kept his hair longer than military standard to cover up the scars left by the implant installation all around his brain.

All the nicks and cuts from live-fire practice on the SIS campus decorated his arms and legs.  His initial drug busts were uneventful – a blaster burn here or there, a slash from a vibroknife.  They just added up over time.

The scars got bigger and deeper as he started to match wits with smugglers who ran sentients.  Breaking the slave trade was ugly, dangerous business.  Theron lived for the few absolute victories he had, and he carried on for the sake of the bitter-sweet ones.  The scars started to run together and overlap.  Theron lost most of his teeth in fights.  He lost a few to torture.

Theron had been tortured twice.

The first time had been with Master Zho.  

The second time happened on purpose; he let himself be caught.  It was almost a catastrophic miscalculation, when the torture device decided that dismantling his rib cage – one rib at a time – was a logical strategy after it had disposed of his few remaining natural teeth.

The theoretically “safe” assignments of minding diplomats and escorting them places were surprisingly dangerous whenever he had to do them.  The time he thwarted a Mandalorian assassination plot on a planetary governor led to the first time he ever encountered a slugthrower, intended to thwart the governor’s Jedi bodyguards.  Theron wasn’t a Jedi, and their plot ended pretty quickly.  So did Theron’s protection duty, since he had to get the bullets removed – that was a novel experience for both him and the attending physician.

Corporate espionage against Czerka netted him a nasty chemical burn on his arm from one of the vats that blew up during his extraction.  He’d also had to kill an Imperial agent on the same run as he was.  Theron was the smarter agent and, in this case, the better shot; Theron took a blaster bolt to the thigh, but the Imp agent took a bath in industrial grade acid used to clean the machine parts after Theron shot the chains that held up the catwalk.   

Theron was a bane to nurses chasing him for follow-up appointments.  He never did attend them; he reported his wounds had healed without infection or complication over Holo mail to the physician.  He didn’t want their questions about how he got previous marks.  He didn’t want a referral to a plastic surgeon.  He didn’t want their pity or reassurances either – he didn’t need them.  The doctor – already overworked with SIS agents with far less resilience – stamped his clearance. 

The exception was that one time he’d prevented a slaver from jettisoning a shipping crate of Twi’lek slaves into a star in order to escape the Republic corvette in hot pursuit.  Theron had managed to sneak onboard and sabotage the main engines, only for the captain to decide to destroy the evidence – the people he was trying to smuggle.

Theron manually prevented the seals from releasing properly.  It nearly ripped his arm off.  Kriffing Jonas Balkar had found him and managed to signal for a medic before fainting into  Theron’s pool of blood. 

Balkar got a concussion and third-class medal for being injured in the line of duty. 

Theron got a first-class commendation.  He woke up a few days later in Trant’s apartment, with Mrs. Trant the Second metering his IV. “We really need to stop meeting like this,” were the first words out of his mouth.  She laughed. That was the last time he saw her; she divorced Trant the following year for his chronic infidelity.  Theron heard she got the apartment and physical custody of the kids until they were adults. 

Theron didn’t attend his follow-up appointments for that injury either.  And so his arm still looked like it had been hastily reattached, with more care dedicated to functionality than looks. 

But the Twi’leks were all fine.

Theron had accumulated more scars since then.  He couldn’t explain them to civilians. His work was classified.  But it was real.  He did make a difference in the galaxy.

**

The Grand Reveal on AO3

Another year and I’m still shitty with presents ^^’ I need to do betteer than that. Anyway I would like to wish you a Happy Birthday and a great day in general (as much as possible) *hugs*.

Lucky you! I am still missing that feeling but I am glad you got it back ♥