#edda-earth

How very Roman, Freya murmured.

Is he, y'know, [pantomines calling the enemy onto your own turf instead of chasing them down forever] Roman?

Odin rubbed at his empty eye socket.

that sounds disgusting. I suppose someone who actually has one eye knows what that actually means/feels like, but my mental image is Not Pleasant.

Sigrun wanted to tell Quetzalcoatl, You had better survive, old friend, but the usual sense of cognitive dissonance stayed the words. Ehecatl was in there. But so, too, was Quetzalcoatl, who had been ancient before she was born. She didn’t have the right to address him as a comrade in arms.

except he literally is. he is literally your peer at this point. maybe he has seniority, but you are both gods and I am going to spray you with a water bottle

“I am saying my farewells.

checking in with all your companions before the final boss battle

“You know, forty years or so ago, I was working my way up to trying to ask you out for coffee, when Adam got hurt, and you took the wounds from him. It was all over after that.” He shook his head in rueful amusement. “Do you ever wonder, Sig, what the world would look like, if we’d made other choices?”

YES. YES I DO.

Her eyes filled. All the time. I suspect I could have easily fallen in love with you. You were so innocent then. I’d like to think that you’d have warmed me, and that I’d have gotten along very well with Saraid, as I always have.

I'm convinced Davitt really wants to write polyam romance and just doesn't (or at least didn't at the time; I don't know her life) have the real-life reference points to know how to write a long-term polycule and instead ends up offending me personally. or equally likely is the chance that she's only familiar with the concept of a full triad 'cule, where everybody's dating everybody, and has stated in the past that she's uncomfortable writing gay relationships because of lack of personal experience to draw from (she got better in the prequel series, kind of) so doesn't know how to make a V 'cule work bc Sigrun is very straight and also [gestures at every time I've yelled at her for her Married People Don't Get To Talk To Anyone But Each Other bs].

also (bc this aside isn't long enough already) there's every chance in this hypothetical timeline that Sigrun as she was then wouldn't have shared Trennus with Saraid so easily, or Saraid with Sigrun (though the fact that Sigrun is Not Lassair might have helped).

OKAY I'M DONE BACK TO THE BOOK

“I am of Valhalla,” she said, her heart contracted down to a tiny, painful lump of cold-hot diamond in her chest. “I may love people who live here, but my loyalty is to my people, as a whole. This is the same duty I have had since I was born. This is the same duty in me that you accepted when we married. In that regard, nothing has changed, except your willingness to accept it.” She gestured at the city outside the windows. “But explain to me why I should abandon millions of my people to death, when they are in immediate danger, to protect this land, which has its own god, if a silent one?”

YEAH

(very hard not to paste their entire argument here bc we all know how much I love yelling at adam)

“How can you save anything by becoming solely destruction?” Sigrun’s voice caught. “I might ask you the same thing.”

Adam is planning to sacrifice himself to summon a godslayer, because he is an idiot. Sigrun's main abilities are healing, truthsense, and fertility. Please fuck off forever, Adam.

I trust in the gods. Because I have no faith left in humanity.

that might not be the best place for your faith either, honestly

It wasn’t black. It was the absence of light.

Vantablack. No, wait, that's not the darkest one anymore, shit

You would be surprised what I can hold inside of me, Venus snapped, and Mercury laughed, a mad, fey cackle.

always time for a dick joke

Another shockwave, and the major godling that Pluto was fighting absorbed it. Swallowed it. Stop feeding it! Juno snapped.

fucking feeders

Another tear trickled down a perfect cheek as Venus replied, He is with my beloved Mars. And if I knew where they were, I would go with you to meet them.

So Pluto pulled all of Rome into the Veil, because he's a madman, and Livorus' widow's first thought was that she was dead and would get to see him again.

WEH

“It’s said that she and the dragon, Niðhoggr, killed Hel, stole her kingdom, and now rule over the dead. So now she’s the queen of lost battles and the night sky.”

I mean. he's got the spirit.

“Maybe your friend the goddess will give us a lift on her wee dragon, then.”

Don't tease him, Sig was purposefully hiding herself. Again. (For a good reason this time, at least.)

I would be a very poor moon goddess, if I could not provide for my people in my own realm.

no dogs tho

Mothers, fathers, and children were not separated.

stares into the camera in american

Remember two years ago, when that Hellene technomancer had a suit breach when he was exploring Aristoteles Crater with the geology team? He sealed his suit by solidifying the air at the breach site itself, and prevented the air from subliming away in the vacuum.”

that's...pretty neat, actually

Linnea watched the people, who, straight-backed, continued to walk towards the great hatch that led into the hangar area. Some of them were barefoot. And last in line was a woman who was close to a jotun’s height, but covered in blue-green scales, like a nieten...but who just as plainly was not mortal. And behind her, a long, solid box of what appeared to be gold floated above the ground. “This is a god at work, Larus.” Oh, good. Gods can bend the laws of physics. That, I can accept.

I don't know why this is so fucking funny to me. "Humans are walking on the moon??? IMPOSSIB oh, a god did it. That's fine."

Why have I never remembered this before?

nith just broke sigrun's ptsd baby gate

No hiding on this night, daughter, [Tyr] chided her, gently. We do not cower in the face of death. We rejoice. You may rejoice all that you wish, Loki returned, sardonically. I plan to resist it to the end.

I enjoy Loki

Fenris, who lounged by the fire, with Ciele, Njord’s daughter, who’d fallen asleep on the wolf’s fur.

That's fucking adorable. (Of course I can only picture Fenris as the wolf goddess from mononoke and therefore Ciele is a tiny San.)

What, no flyt for Niðhoggr? Thor gibed Loki now. Nepotism, I see. Have you ever tried to rhyme ‘Niðhoggr’ with anything?

he's got a point

No, daughter. It is because your heart is too fragile yet for such. There is no target I could aim at, that would not make you bleed. And such is not the point of flyting. Flyting overturns the social order, but also reaffirms it. How can I make you one with us, by cutting you asunder with my words?

I enjoy Loki

Eat, and be renewed, Freya told her, kindly. Everyone must change to grow. Everything must change, to endure.

"be in a poly with the dragon"

She could not go back to Judea as Sigrun Caetia. She had to say farewell. Not to the people in her life, not entirely. They would always have a place in her heart, and she would always be there for them. But she had to say farewell to herself. She had to be ready to die in battle. She had to be ready to live. Either way, she had to let go.

Sigrun finally finishes ascending, after Eating The Fucking Apple. Again.

I have always wondered what Sophia felt, with her prophecies pressing in on her. And only now do I realize that I have lived with the weight of her vision all my life.

You are having A Moment and thus I will not yell at you about Sophia. I'm just gonna think about it real hard.

I love you. He forced the thought out. I have loved you since I met you. Is that not strange?

niiiith

Your mother twisted and tortured you, and held you back from all acquaintance for two thousand years. You cannot judge if you love— A low rumble of sound broke from the dragon’s chest. Yes, I can. I know what is in my heart.

I am not a smart dragon, but I know what love is

I love you, too.

y yo a ti

You love many people, Stormborn. By your own words, you could have—should have loved Worldwalker.

I know I did that whole rant up there but it wasn't in my original notes, so I'm including THIS rant from my original notes for posterity: I believe in my heart that Sigrun was made for a polyamorous lifestyle. She just never had the chance to experience it until she saw Trennus & Co. and by then she was locked into Adam's bullshit and also probably took Lassair's issues as a sign that poly doesn't work. WHICH IS WHY WE NEED MORE HEALTHY POLY REPRESENTATION I'm done now

I would have accepted him being soul-bound to me, for that it would have kept him alive, and young, and would have given you joy. And I might have shared some small spark of that joy. He paused again. And yet, I say he is a fool.

nith gets me

No more, Nith. I love him. And I love you. A mortal love, and an immortal one. One who will leave me, and one who will never forsake me.

[gestures at Polyam Sigrun Conspiracy Board with one hand and That's Not How Polyamory Works powerpoint with the other]

I love you, you who are so much more than mere death and darkness. I love you with my goddess-self, and I love you with my mortal heart. Will you take it, though it bleeds?

yessss put that dramatic emo shit in my VEINS

He shook as his form shifted and blurred, dropped to a crouch that felt wrong, because his knees no longer bent the proper way, and then stared down at his hands, recognizing them from the times he’d carried Sigrun in this shape.

where is my animorphs cover

We could course the heavens forever. Visit every star.

this is what happened with Joker and EDI in Spirit of Redemption. and I still love it.

also nith would rather flee into space than try to make his face look human.

In this case, she had the opportunity to make the face match the voice she’d heard in her mind so often.

and then sig spent ten hours in the character creator

I will resume my dragon form. No.

cowards

His instincts were, unsurprisingly, inhuman; he nipped and bit at her neck,

I just realized that Sigrun survived 44 years of the blandest, most vanilla sex mankind is capable of

And for now, she embraced the goddess.

title drop

Love is never wrong. It is sometimes inappropriately timed.

nith gets me

Nith...my sister’s prophecy... A child in your womb? The father a man alive and yet dead, your husband and yet never truly wed...

[pounds fists on table] dragon babies DRAGON BABIES

You were all bound to the defense of the city, long ago. This is the day and this is the hour that you have awaited!

The gargoyles have jumped off the Odinhall to fight the mutations attacking Burgundoi and it is every inch that one scene in the last Harry Potter movie

It came to be because it happened the way it happened, and it also came to happen because we would be and always have been bound...now.

veil time is bullshit

Catch this. What? Visionweaver had blurted, and then Dvalin had pulled the trigger. His hand had snapped up of its own accord, and there had been a dull sensation of impact, as if he’d been aiming for a nail with a hammer, and missed. He’d sworn, and brought his new hand down gingerly, fully expecting to see a gaping hole in the metal. Instead, he found the bullet, malformed and very hot, sitting in the palm of his hand.

Gloves of Missile Snaring! (did you really have to take Rig's hand off to give him these? Just let him take a level in Monk, it's fine.)

You’ve all worked with him before. You know what to look for.” “Something that lands on the Persian in front of you in the body of a wolf, and then leaps away looking like a lindworm, or a lion, or whatever the gods sent him as an impulse today?”

you leave maccis alone, he's a good, creative egg

Content with the damage he’d done for now,

I can only picture the Goose. you know which one.

A burst of quick pride; a male voice that said at the back of his head, That’s my wife. Look at her go!

wife guy brandr

“Listen. When Joris...died...you were angry. Don’t...set the world on fire. Not for me. Don’t need...that big a pyre...”

hey fuck this actually. not in the way I usually mean "fuck this" in this book but "fuck this" in the sense of Fuck This Thing In Particular

he dug his hands into the wolf’s ruff, and more or less pummeled Maccis in greeting.

solinus no he's been through Some Shit

Two hours ago. There were Persians fleeing the fight. A pause. They aren’t fleeing anymore.

I enjoy Maccis. Don't enjoy what happened to him. Just him as a concept.

Kanmi grimaced. He hated not knowing why the ground here, and the entire ley-system, seemed resistant to the deaths of mad godlings and gods. His current theory was that the god of Abraham had spread himself out into the soil of the province, silent and intangible...and turned himself into the world’s biggest heatsink, dispersing and absorbing the power of the gods who died here.

it's not the worst theory

“You...you betrayed your own kind. All the god-born have. They should be helping us against the gods!”

all of Potentia ad Poplum is very stupid

Death! came the echoes from millions of minds below, and Sigrun reeled with it, echoing the word, herself. Calling out to oblivion, acceptance and taunt. Come and take me, you bastard, if you dare.

I'll punch death, I don't give a fuck

You are bound to me, Niðhoggr, and I do not permit you to die! I will not permit you to leave me!

I'm not going back three books to check, but this seems akin to what Lassair said to Trennus before she autographed all his insides

Sadb found a bench to sit on, and for the first time in what felt like days, remembered the rose that had fallen at her feet, from the miraculous bush that had bloomed downtown, in the very face of winter. She’d have thought she’d lost it, but there it was, still tucked inside her shirt, in the protective cradle of her bodice. As she pulled it out, everyone in the training area went silent, and its scent wafted through the air, bringing with it an odd sense of peace. “What is that?” the bear-warrior asked, his voice reverent. “I’m not sure,” Sadb admitted. “I was thinking you might know.” She cradled it in her fingers, feeling unaccountably warm. And as she looked down into the petals, which had unfurled further against the warmth of her body, her eyes widened. “That’s a wonder, now,” she whispered softly, as Drust wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and looked down into the rose with her. Inside its heart, where there should have been golden stamen, they could both see a galaxy’s worth of stars swirling with cold, unending light.

Congratulations, Sadb, you're a goddess now

The Odinhall trembled, and became a pillar of light as Odin, Freya, and Tyr all liberated their entire stores of energy, at once.

Congratulations, Sig and Loki, you lead the Valhallan pantheon now. You also are the entire pantheon, but semantics.

And then, as he looked up, the stars went out.

and then they were in kingdom hearts

She couldn’t hear the screams of the men, but she could see the flash of their guns going off, and winced. Some of those bullets could injure the books on the shelves around them.

zaya's priorities are Correct

And she glanced down at the fiery tablet in her hands, and her lips started to mouth the word Azar...

HO DON'T DO IT

“Oh, I know who you are.” Her voice was thin. “Your Name is Nanghaithya. You are the daeva of discontentment. And while I have probably given you too much power in my life to this date, today, I abjure you. I am a daughter of the Magi. These archives are my charge. And this is not your place.”

zaya is more badass than you

But there is a difference between a loving parent, who steps aside to allow the child to walk on their own...and a parent who is entirely absent. Or worse, indifferent.

which sig TOLD you, and you bitched at her. you don't get to feel like you've had some great revelation (ha) now

He’d made the wrong damned choices.

y'think?

Sigrun! Neshama! I am so sorry that I couldn’t believe in you. Doubts and fears clouded my mind, and I couldn’t see. Can you ever forgive me?

look down, whisper no

—Why do you fight me? You and I are the same. We are one. We always have been, disunited on the opposite sides of time— We are not the same. You are not me. I am not you.

I am thou, thou art I

You are the first to have come so far. You are the first who has remained who you are. And thus, we are one. As we always have been.

"Humans require change to be human." "Correct." "I have stayed as I am." "This is a bad thing." "This is the best possible thing." I feel like that This Is Your Wallet tiktok audio

“Sorry, Sig,” he said, quietly. “Sorry it took me so goddamned long. I had to do it...my way, I guess.”

YOU LITERALLY DID THE THING SHE LEFT YOU FOR EVEN CONSIDERING. And instead of being part of her, beside her, you are being an enormous tool and risking the absolute worst outcome on the basis of "rip to all the other godslayer hosts but I'm different". Fuck off.

Visionweaver blinked, looking up to see Hecate join them.

We are potential, possibility, waiting to be birthed.

we are waiting for the scratch, scratch, scratch, of a universe being born

Many of the men wore tight-fitting vests of thick material that had had sleeves added to them,

Okay so Sig is looking into another universe - ours, presumably - and I cannot for the life of me figure out what this is supposed to be. Suit jackets???

She has Memory with her, where I have Thought. And she’s fought a lost battle.

there's a metaphor in here somewhere

She could see every moment of them, unfolding like the chain of lives on Juno’s tapestries, except they unfolded off the side of the road, like droplets of rain trickling along the outside of a moving motorcar’s windows. She could stare at them forever, fascinated. Hypnotized.

doors and windows

Especially as the Veil was a single dot of time, where the mortal realm was a continuum comprised of such points? She could enter the Veil, and exit it at any place in reality. And at any point in time.

it's all coming together

Such a task requires . . . an able, active gardener. Willing to prune and weed as needed. She paused. Or perhaps, instead of an absent father...an involved parent.

where's my theory about the Voice

I will knit Sophia’s mind whole, and I will tear Apollo of Delphi’s  grip from her. If he attacks me for it, I will execute him, and give his power to Sophia as a gift. Possibly with a bow to adorn it.

PUT SOPHIA IN THE GOD SQUAD

She put her arms around her former self, and Muginn cawed and leaped off the valkyrie’s shoulder, landing on Stormborn’s right shoulder, balancing opposite Huginn, who already perched on the left, and then both launched themselves to circle overhead. Sigrun put her head on Stormborn’s shoulder, and wept. Let go. Surrendered. Her outline wavered and dissolved. Faded into a sphere of energy, nestled in the palm of the goddess, with a tiny point of light inside of it. She studied it tenderly for a moment, before dissolving her armor, and tucking the spark into her bodice, just at her heart. I will give you and your memories to the next Sigrun. And like the one whose name we bear, perhaps her third chance at life will be the best. I will remain the goddess. She may choose her own way. Mortality. Divinity. Something in between. Nothing will be lost. Nothing will be forgotten. Not this time. She looked at the two ravens, as they circled over her head. Follow me. She paused. We’re going back.

WHERE'S BOOK FOUR

WHERE IS SIG3'S ADVENTURES IN A NOT-FUCKED-UP UNIVERSE

Our Story to Date

this is a solid fifteen pages

In between the whistles and thumps from the west, Solinus could hear the boy calling for his mother. Oh, gods. Yes, it’s a trap. Yes. I’m going to spring it.

that’s our boy

“What are you?” Panic and glee at the same time. 

Legionnaire. Twenty-fifth Legion, levy force.

also a godborn, but idk if that would scare the kid or not

Latirian sounded angry, and Solinus watched her face harden. She could look surprisingly like Aunt Sig, sometimes.

looks like lassair wound up using that dna template after all

“I watched Baal-Hamon die,” Rig said, dropping all illusion, and stood in the door of the radiological room, his assault rifle in his hands. “Dagon and Baal-Samem, too.”

now you’re just bragging.

(side note, I looked up the term daeva - which is what’s possessing the little boy - and wiki’s definition is “a term for a particular sort of supernatural entity with disagreeable characteristics” and I have no idea why that’s making me laugh as hard as it is)

“I see you have all been busy,” Sigrun said, her voice weary as she stepped forwards into the room, having taken Solinus’ wounds.

The only thing that’s wrong in this house is me. “Nothing new to report.” Apparently, my condition has been present for some time.

Oh, her body was still cursedly young, and she couldn’t deny that some evenings she did feel somewhat twitchy...

that’s what trennus is for

I might have powers I never asked for, but that does not make me a goddess, or worthy.

sigrun. sigrun.

Of course, they thought they could contact the dead this way, in spite of everything I said. All they ever called were Veil spirits, but that did not stop them. Humans are like that.

I love Prometheus

I have seen Emberstone in all your minds. I would greatly have enjoyed meeting him, I think. A powerful mind and an irreverent spirit. Kin!

excuse you, I am kanmikin. no doubles.

You seem unwilling or unable to claim the power and the privileges that are yours by right of battle, but all too eager to embrace the responsibility. The victor has the right to the spoils, my friend. Nith swiveled his head around on his neck, and exhaled frost crystals at her. I thought it best to remind people who you are. Including you. Though the message appeared to go unheard.

Nith tries so hard

And I hate the sound of it. If I could tear my Name out of myself and become nothing at all, I would.

The dragon lurched to his feet, and slammed into her, hard enough to knock her into the wall, and pin her there. Never say that! Never say that again! You are my friend, and I will not see you treat yourself so!

“stop saying mean things about my friend!”

Nith snorted at her until she reluctantly used othersight

I’m just picturing Nith spraying ice on her when she acts stupid like spraying a cat with water

She pulled the hood of her cloak up around her face, and noted, curiously, that the white feathers had turned night-black. The Veil, she thought. It warps everything it touches.

You know when you’re trying to counter someone’s depression and they just keep coming up with reasons why you’re wrong and they’re actually terrible? This is like that except it’s me yelling at a book on my phone at 3 am.

Mimir, who has nothing left to fight with besides his teeth, for his ability to manifest anything more than his head was lost long ago.

look, he was easily the best character in dad of war

Lassair is . . . doing whatever Lassair wishes to do.

damn straight she is

“I am who I am,” she said, desperately. “Is it not enough that I will live this lie for you?”

It’s not a lie! It is a literal real thing that is happening to you at this very moment!

If you take charge of your image now, you can be who you wish to be, instead of whom they invent you as.

get a good pr rep

[Nith] hesitated. It would be nice to be able to seek a mate. That has never been an option.

[coughs]

If you wish me to make the attempt, I would consider it. But I think it best if I should wait. A surprisingly gentle touch on her mind. I say ‘we two’ to you, but Steelsoul has not heard this yet. And a human form would be . . . threatening. Steelsoul would not understand.

threaten him then

Solinus went flame-form, burning his sheet to ash.

sol just stay in human torch form until this is over

She was fond enough of Lassair, but she really rather thought that the spirit had taken advantage of Trennus’ good nature over the years.

she’s....not wrong

So these unwanted gifts might not be such horrible things? Saraid pressed, gently. Sigrun shrugged. It didn’t matter. The powers were not hers. They had not been asked for, or earned.

You know, I think it amusing that everyone except for Lassair calls Trennus Worldwalker. I think it suits him far more than Flamesower. One shows what he is to everyone. The other only shows what he is to Lassair. Sigrun had long since learned the art of turning aside most difficult conversations. Prometheus, Freya, and Tyr could not be put aside. Saraid? Saraid was simple to divert. 

As Saraid’s spluttering embarrassment quickly proved.

the cuteness of this exchange does not get you out of addressing your issues, SIGRUN

The result was a kind of tunnel-vision that didn’t let him see much outside of the fifty-square-mile area in which he was currently positioned.

>> tunnel vision >> fifty square miles

godborn

And Stormborn? The black cloak stayed the same, but sometimes, she looked like an ancient crone, white hair tumbling free, and every rune-mark on her body was a bleeding wound. And sometimes, he caught sight of something else. Something emerging from her, like a phoenix from the egg. The black cloak was the same, but inside the folds, he could see shimmers that looked like a night sky, full of stars. Instead of the crone’s white locks, pale copper hair tugged loose from a braid, whipping on the wind, and electrical sparks crackled here and there in it. Her face, when she turned back to look at him, was shrouded by her hood, but the features were young, though her eyes were as old as night. Surrounded by the black hood, every inch of her skin blazed with radiance, illumined from within by the rune-marks, and her spear, balanced in front of her, crackled with blue-white light, as well.

long quote, but she’s still the same at her core. she’ll always be the same at her core.

[...] when he’d come of age and entered the Legion, he’d periodically prayed to and cursed at his father. It probably did no good, but everyone needed something to focus on when they were being shot at.

I cuss my dad, too. It’s therapeutic.

Several of us are concerned that such energy leaks will not only damage the earth, but the actual dimension in which this world resides. Tears could develop. Flaws. Fractures.

I maintain that she played more of Inquisition than she let on. Or Bioshock Infinite.

Let me offer you healing, so that you might know our good intentions. I ask nothing in return. This is a gift.

Sig. Sig no. Jorgamand big snake. Big snake got big boo-boo. Sig no.

Freya’s tone was stern. Rig wasn’t sure that Jormangand would take that well. Freya’s words were a leash, a check on the enraged creature. And, sure enough, it lashed out at the closest creature in fury at Freya’s words.

mom-voice is not effective here

Precise angle and aim, to avoid any back-blast, and he clearly waited until Jormangand once more belched fire at him . . . and met it with deathfrost.

next time on dragonball z

He called Aunt Sig a goddess. And said she had more of my father’s power in her, than I did. His mind was numb to wonder at the moment, however, and his reaction was therefore muted. Something . . . something to ask her about, assuming I survive the next couple of hours. And assuming she’s all right.

that conversation will go well

And the dragon himself—reduced in size to that of a lindworm, and sprawled on the floor beside her

puppy

She needed to start moving as the old, dead skin sloughed off, to ensure that the new skin didn’t grow in too tightly

that is a grisly thing to know to do out of habit

I am used to going first into battle, and others backing me up, knowing that I will take the brunt of an enemy’s attention, and that their role is to use their magic and their weapons from a distance to destroy it, while I . . . occupy it.

“I’m a tank main, what do you want from me.”

But I do not understand why you hate your Name. It is who you are. Hate it, and you hate yourself.

congratulations, you solved sig’s self-loathing puzzle

And until this moment, because of the unremitting pain, the necessity of healing, and the not-warm-not-cool temperature around her in this place, she hadn’t even registered that she was as naked as if she were at a Roman bath, or at the sea-shore.

I never believe this. How do you not feel your own naked?

The woman there was bleeding. Hundreds of wounds, a flayed goddess, like Xipe Totec was a flayed god. I thought I had healed! She looked down at her arms. Nothing there but clean skin. No burns. No wounds. 

[...] That is how you see yourself, Stormborn. If you persist in this imagining, it will become your reality.

freya tried to tell you

How I wish I could tell Adam about this, she thought, and a tear crept down her cheek. How I wish I could.

there are so many other, better, more understanding people in your life

He knew when people were telling half-truths. He’d seen a lot of them tonight, and it was getting on his nerves. His security clearance was active and valid, and he’d taken down gods with everyone at the table.

it’s because nobody likes you, adam

Humans like to believe that they are the pinnacle of creation. No. I was never human. No more than Stormborn is. Nith's voice was calm, but his tail lashed. There is no special virtue in being human, specifically. But I do remember being other than I am now.

I like Nith.

“And yet, to this day, you do not value humanity?” Adam raised his eyebrows, the expression doubtless lost to darkness. 

I did not say that I do not value humans. You, and your belief, your love, and your hate are what makes this planet . . . interesting. Spirits could go to your Mars, but it was of little interest save to elementals, until life and sapience came to it, too. The dragon’s sense of careful indifference returned. I value humans. I simply know that I am not one of you. I am other. 

“Could you regain your humanity?” Adam asked. The implications for Sigrun made him key in, rapidly. 

What value would I have, were I human? I could not fly. I could not fight as I do. I could not move freely from the Veil to the stars and back again. 

“But distance from humanity is usually what turns people into monsters,” Trennus said, quietly. 

Monster, you say? Am I such? Nith’s tone was  chilly. Are the fenris? The jotun?

Trennus held up a hand. “Sociopaths. Serial killers. And, dare I say it, gods like . . . Hel. Too distant from humanity to care about the individual anymore.” Tren sounded deeply concerned. 

I would suggest that sometimes, distance is necessary for . . . perspective. Is there not a  distance between the commander and the commanded? Detachment is a very necessary thing, for a god-born that intends to survive the centuries.

looong quote, but nith is trying to lead them away from human-as-default, and they’re all being very thick. even trennus. tren why.

“Last I checked, lictors don’t usually rate bodyguards of their own.” Part of him rebelled. It’s my job to protect her.

Please remove your fucking male ego from this conversation

He hoped she still loved him, and that she wasn’t staying with him merely out of...duty and obligation.

If you had nothing to offer someone, besides yourself, no paycheck, and just a pile of debts . . . you shouldn’t get hand-fasted, in Maccis’ opinion. You had to prove yourself worthy, and stay that way.

Money is a garbage reason to not get married. And anyway what happened to “grabbing happiness while you can”???

The small creature hopped and waddled closer to Nith’s enormous forepaw, and stared up at the dragon. And then creeled at him, appealingly. 

I am not here to play with you, no. 

Another creel.

Give me a baby lindworm or give me death

They understand that there is one male leader, and his queen, and all others follow behind them.

wolves live in family units and share leadership

Mine, the young man said, quickly. I will be your hostage, Fenris. I am the son of the Lady of the Wilds and Worldwalker. If any betray you, you may feel free to bite off my hand . . . or even take my life. And while I am your guarantee, I ask that you teach me. [...] Zee. Damn it. Zaya may actually kill me for this. She might have the right to, too.

Sure sex is great, but have you ever bound yourself to a giant god-wolf in exchange for their service in a war against mad godlings, without telling your maybe-fiance?

Saraid manifested. I do not plan to fight either of them, but it is my forest that they are destroying, and my people, who have looked to me for protection under those branches for thousands of years! The thought was savage, and Trennus blinked.

Saraid’s finally tired of sharing. 

“Where are the gods?” someone shouted, hysterically. “Call to them! Call to Toutatis the protector, the crafter, Taranis the thunderer, Nodens of the sea, and to the Morrigan! Call to Cernunnos!

“look how many Celtic gods I know”

Trennus froze, his mind working. Not just the people. The people aren’t enough. People without their land, without their homes, without their places of employment . . . are just another group of displaced refugees. No home. No purpose. No industry. My people without their land . . . would hardly know what to do with themselves. They wouldn’t be themselves. They would be another wave of lost refugees, in perpetual search of a home they can never regain.

trennus

It can’t be just the people, wild-heart. It can’t be just a building or two, either. I mean to take my home there. Our home, Saraid.

trennus whatcha doin

“My brother said to evacuate our people. That is exactly what I’m doing,” Trennus said, grimly.

trennus this is unwise

She has never chosen to release me, and I love her, and always will . . . but you were there first. Patient, quiet, and abiding. I should have understood so many things when I was young. Lassair is passion. But you are the stone that endures and the green things that grow. You are the wilderness, hunter and hunted. And you are love, and all that abides. Trennus leaned down, and kissed her, very gently. If I die here today? I die very well indeed.

I have a Thing about this that I’ll get into later but also Trennus is being a very sweet idiot right now

They are not listening. They were sweet, biddable children, and then they turned into adults with minds of their own.

funny how that happens

She’d given them life, and yet they didn’t see her or know her, and she did not understand how that was possible.

Because being a mother is more than just giving life. Honestly, to my own chagrin, I compare this to the Duggars - they have so many kids that the youngest were raised by the oldest, and don't see their parents as actual *parents*. (Well, Trennus tried.) And Lassair had a kid whenever she wanted, thinking they were gifts to Trennus instead of living, breathing creatures that require care and love, and denied both of them a meaningful relationship.

The soul-bond snapped free, and for a moment, Lassair was completely bereft. She could feel masses of energy leaving her, and recoiling back to him. She wasn’t, again, precisely lessened by this, but she was missing her most important conduit . . . but she still had the children. They still bound her to this realm. Her anchor-points in reality. And she was still bound to Flamesower by love. Perhaps . . . perhaps that would be enough.

You gotta make your own bonds and not rely on people feeling like they owe you out of love or familial connection.

But as he’d said, and said truly to Saraid, Lassair was fire; she was passion. Passion consumed. And then, when there was no more fuel, it might turn to the warm embers of a gentle, abiding love. 

Or it burned itself out, leaving only ashes.

I HAVE A THING I’M GONNA SAY ABOUT THIS 

He was spirit-touched—god-touched, if he was going to be honest about it. And now all his power was coming home to him. He was what Akhenaten and Sayri Cusi, the Sapa Inca, had wished to become . . . but while they had wrestled and forced and broken to achieve it, Worldwalker had done it by peaceful bargaining, by partnerships and alliances and good will. He had become a god. A little one, perhaps, a demigod . . . but still a god.

welcome to the god squad

You must enter the Veil physically to maintain that conduit for periods of time. Every winter, if not six months a year.

trensephone

Veilic energy

this is the only time she uses this word in this entire doorstopper of a series and that is a CRIME

There had been talk of expanding the station into a cylinder, years ago

you made the Citadel

Relax and be one with me.

👀

Interrogation? That was not my intention. I plan to drop him once I achieve suitable altitude. The rocket offended me.

nith is the only valid character

An hour later, she was loading lindworm eggs into a sack that Minori had given her—something Amaterasu had made, apparently. No matter how much material was loaded into it, it still looked only half-full, and the thing needed, always rose to hand.

I love when you can tell authors play D&D

And that is well and good, but how, precisely, are you serving humans now, by trying to be one of them, when you are not, and never truly were? I think it may be time to acknowledge the simple truth of what you are . . . . 

“What, above them?”

A goddess. You are a goddess. Jesus Christ.

You are above them, but I do not mean it in any arrogant fashion. Think of it this way, if you would: You have been promoted.

Yeah! Good metaphor!

So there is precedent, then, for you to accept that you will require distance from the rank and file. And that there is nothing here about which to feel shame.

NITH IS THE ONLY VALID CHARACTER

Intimacy meant not going on separate trips for pleasure’s sake. That one shouldn’t go off alone for a day or two at a time with a member of the opposite gender (or the same gender, if one’s inclinations led that way) also seemed to go without saying.

1. Sometimes people need alone time to decompress, this is normal and healthy 2. People of different genders can be friends

Excluding one’s spouse from enjoyed activities was also a grand way to invite jealousy and separation into a relationship.

if your spouse is a shitty possessive child, yes

LIKE I’ve been in the same relationship for 5 years. Cohabitation, co-parenting, everything but filing jointly. We have differing interests, and interests that overlap. If it’s not something we do together, we still talk to each other about it. We still engage with each other. Having interests that don’t overlap with your partner’s is not a death knell for the relationship. 

If one spouse’s only interest was watching the far-viewer, and the other was intellectually or physically active—a philosopher, a scientist, an athlete, or an outdoorsman—the relationship was doomed, unless the far-viewer watcher could get off the couch and participate in life.

oh fuck off

She couldn’t share her . . . entity-self with him. But she also wouldn’t allow it to destroy what they had.

sigrun’s views on relationships are the cause of so much of her stress

Sigrun hoped that Adam wouldn’t look out a window at that precise moment. He could find out afterwards, after she’d seen if she could do anything for Trennus or not.

Alright. Alright. Look. This is a legit life and death emergency. I will give Adam the benefit of the doubt here and assume he is okay with you attending to the emergency before seeing him.

Kanmi had teased him, mercilessly, about the crush Kanmi had supposed Trennus had on her. Sigrun had never really seen any signs of it

that’s because you’re just a smidge oblivious, sig

Sigrun’s breath caught in her chest, in silent acknowledgment of the bond of unspoken love between them

Sig’s part of the polyblob now no takebacks

It is no bad thing, to be the fire of the hearth. It is no crime to be the mother. But you took your sister aspects into yourself, at least their poor Names, when their essences were torn asunder, long ago. You were the eldest then, the essence of spring, and a maiden. The mother and the youngest and coldest, who was death, joined with you, and you were three-in-one. And now, you are the mother, and they are shadows within you.”

That wasn’t Min’s voice. It was definitely Amaterasu’s, and Sigrun shuddered at hearing it. 

But I am more than that! 

Sigrun stared at the floor. “Freya told me not long ago, that I must shape myself, or others will shape me,” she said, her heart empty. “Shape yourself, Lassair. Make yourself who you wish to be. There isn’t anyone here who wouldn’t help you—even Trennus would, and you know it.

Lassair is part of the god squad now - well, she kind of was before, but Things Happened - and is having an identity crisis

“Is this the place of reward or the place of punishment?” It was clearly an attempt at a joke. “Either way, I didn’t think I rated three queens to see me to my rest.”

SIG IS PART OF THE POLYBLOB NOW NO TAKEBACKS

Min shook her head rapidly. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Hurt in her voice, a small preview of what Sigrun could expect from Adam, if Adam ever realized what she was.

it’s the secret-keeping, not the godhood! and min is literally carrying a goddess in her brain, she not only would have understood, she could have helped.

Nith was currently covered in Matrugena children, to the dragon’s evident disbelief.

that’s fucking adorable

“. . . that god-born wrap themselves around some moment of crisis or pain, and forge their whole identity around it, never changing, in all their long lives?” Sigrun shrugged. 

“That was it, yes. I thought it was apt.” Minori folded her hands in front of her. “Is that true of you?” 

Sigrun sighed. “My moment of crisis hasn’t happened yet

No, your moment of crisis was your shitty stepmother being shitty, and it shaped your whole perception of yourself. ABUSE COUNTS AS A CRISIS you just can’t remember it because ptsd

“Leave the trees alone.”

I AM THE LATIRIAN I SPEAK FOR THE TREES

“What happens if the trees are intelligent enough to tell who actually caused the fire?” 

“Intelligent trees.”

sounding kinda xenophobic

Eisa sounded uncomfortable. “Mother’s not here. She’s, ah . . . moved out. Sort of.”

“Mother” is Lassair, and here’s the thing I wanted to talk about.  I am not upset that Lassair left; it was important for her character growth. What upsets me is that in what I've read of this author (which, in fairness, is this and Spirit of Redemption but that’s roughly 4000 hours of reading time put together) there are two whole polyamorous relationships (unless I'm forgetting one from the Caesarion books) and both of them lose a member because of some personal revelation. And as a person in a long-term polyblob, it bothers me! The idea that polyam relationships only last until one person realizes what they REALLY want. Just. Have a healthy polyam, for fuck's sake.

But he was sixty-three, and at that stage of life, it took a little more effort to adapt to sudden changes than it had when he’d been younger.

Bullshit, Adam’s just a prick

“Though for a couple of decades, people have been talking about microclimate change here . . . .”

that would be thanks to your wife and her girlfriends

After forty years of marriage . . . all right, not really marriage, but close enough

fuck you, they were married

But I thought they were . . . forever. I mean, look at how many children they have . . . .

Children do not a healthy relationship make

Harah. She put her nose into this triangular relationship and that’s just going to wind up pulling us in . . .

sig done been in it, you’re just a tool

“Gods damn it, Adam, if you were handed a pill that cured arthritis and gave you another ten years, you’d take the damned pill. But even though you’ll accept magic put on your bullets, you’ll carry a god-touched weapon, and you’ll agree to contracts with house-spirits, you won’t accept a magic effect that would do the same thing as the pill?” Trennus was as irritated as Adam had ever seen him.

same fucking hat

“Let me put it to you this way. I’m probably about to be made king of the Picts. You will be offending the ruler of a small nation if you do not visit me in my court.”

I mean Adam offends me

Adam could even see a handful of Chaldean flying carpets in the air—a few with fenris aboard, of all things—accompanied by flights of harpies. “They’re not frightened of it,” Adam said, suddenly. That said something to him. “Something this strange, people should be avoiding it.”

you’re strange and people should avoid you

Yes, but I’m not alien to humanity, Adam thought. I’m the only one of all my friends who can . . . still claim that.

your friends aren’t aliens, you soggy donut, and you’re not better than them for having remained as you are

Was it not a bad neighborhood, not long ago? A drycleaner and a row of empty shops, with graffiti in three languages?”

graffiti does not make a bad neighborhood, sig

Sigrun’s eyes narrowed, and there was a faint tingle in the air, as from static electricity, a sensation like a storm was about to strike. “Reginleif.” Her tone was flat.

“I had not realized that Niðhoggr could change his size, that he could speak, or that he would condescend to use me as a throw-pillow.”

 It was that, or chew-toy.

only valid character

A sword—a simple Roman shortsword, used by legates and tribunes and centurions to denote rank—had somehow been slipped into the poured stone.

Livorus :(

The face in Fritti’s mind clarified. He was the teacher, the mentor, the friend, the lover, the mysterious father, the lord of lies, the master of illusion and trickery, and the sacrificed god, all at once.

People are complicated, gods are shaped by their people, the circle of stupidity is complete

Come home, she thought, standing, and put all the force of her gift from Baldur and the Evening Star into it. For an instant, she wondered what either of them would think of her choice to use this gift to bring back Loki. Loki had supposedly slain—or was supposed to slay—Baldur, after all. [...] It doesn’t matter. They gave us our powers, as Sigrun once told me, in the expectation that we would use our judgment. Today I am a valkyrie. Today, I choose life.

Fritti ❤

Fritti suddenly found her face burning in the darkness. Did they hear . . . ? 

I muffled your sounds. Or did I? His tone became musing. I may have been distracted . . . .

perils of schtupping a trickster god

Naglfar, Loki said, his voice intrigued. It was the name of the boat that would supposedly bring the survivors of Ragnarok to safety. Your Name has changed, Sigrun Stormborn. Your wyrd has changed. I did not expect this.

fuck yeah

“I considered that, but taverna owners object to decapitations beside the salad bar. Unhygienic.”

keep that shit in the bbq pit where it belongs

“Undersea seismological events?”  A clatter so loud she thought the chimes might have impaled themselves in the ceiling.

that’s how you know it’s kanmi

Amaterasu’s vision swam across Minori’s eyes, and for an instant, she could see a small, amorphous blob that looked vaguely like a jellyfish made of red light, bobbing around the room.

kanmiblob

Lassair sank in on herself. Why are we talking about this? This is not why I came here.

“I wanted to bang, not get lectured about my maturity.”

A little breath of wind across her face. “You’re stronger right now, aren’t you?” 

Yes. One word, breathed in her ear. Minori closed her eyes on the sudden sting of tears. This was all the validation she needed. 

“Because I told her no? Or because you’re angry with her right now?” 

The breeze caressed her, but no other words whispered themselves against her ear.

Kanmi subsists entirely on anger, we all know that

I can almost feel Kanmi readying himself to throw chalk at me every time I do so.” 

Minori laughed out loud, and caught sight, behind Sigrun, of a book slowly opening and riffling through its own pages.

Kanmi don't be a dick

Sigrun looked down. “Yes, Min.” She sighed. “So Nith reminds me on almost a daily basis.” 

From across the room, a piece of chalk winged itself at Sigrun, who jumped slightly and stared at Minori. “Not me,” Min said, spreading her hands, but she could feel her own smile spreading across her face now. Sigrun’s eyes widened slightly, and she stared around the room, her expression faintly confused.

the return of Esh the Bastard

“I’d tell you to tell Adam to believe—”

“but fuck that guy”

Half the girls Zaya had known who’d taken their basic diploma, were now married, and half of them were pregnant.

Military marriage culture

He shifted form, slowly, in front of the younglings, keeping to a crouch, so he’d look smaller. These children were Goths of some variety . . . they’d probably been raised with public nudity in Roman baths and pools, sporting arenas and beaches. Still, there was no reason to risk shocking either of them further.

penises are shocking

She’d patted them on their heads, and offered them fresh meat to eat—human, naturally, which had only traumatized the children further.

found the cannibalism

“Apparently, he makes his new followers eat their former leaders. After he picks out the brains for himself.”

found more cannibalism

I would like you and your people to circle in and go after the leader. Capture if possible. Kill if there’s no other option.” 

And then what, daughter of Tyr? Fenris bared his teeth. Bind him?

I feel like Fenris might have some unresolved issues

“Talk to Saraid. Fenris wouldn’t stop you. And you’d feel less disconnected.”

call your dang mom, maccis

“I am taking advice on the writing of love letters from a dragon, while crouching naked in the snow,” Maccis muttered. 

“I didn’t want to point that out,” Sigrun noted

tfw you look at your life from the outside fir a second and realize how weird everything is

The earliest known production of steel had been in Anatolia, four thousand years ago, and some had been produced in East Africa fourteen hundred years before Caesar, but in both cases, the technology simply hadn’t been adopted on a wider scale. The earliest large-scale production had been in India and Sinhala, and it had been picked up and spread north through Qin and west through Persia. By four hundred years before Caesar, steel had been in use in the Roman Empire . . . but only for weapons.

there WILL be a quiz

A certain amount of distance is necessary, if you wish to retain your sanity. If you allow yourself to love mortals, as a mortal does, then you are bound to suffer when they die. And suffer you will, over and over and over again. In time, all you will see in a newborn is the inevitability of their death.

I mean that just sounds like having anxiety but go off I guess

A brief, highly male thought entered Brandr’s head

Being inappropriately sexual isn't "male", it's gross.

he wondered if her lustrous black wings would get in her way if she was on her back in bed, or if she’d prefer, for her own comfort, for her lover to taker her on her hands and knees.

There's something here about not even considering if she'd want to be on top but I'm too tired to find it

“N-not Hellene.”

(this is also not entirely how stammers work)

“T-tell . . . L-loki . . . to . . . to t-take . . .” he stopped, and inhaled. “To take b-back his d-damned m-mem . . . memories. I would r-rather re-remember the truth. Even if it is that I d-did vile d-deeds. Or let me r-remember n-nothing at all. B-better that th-than a . . . f-fucking lie.” He balled up a fist. It had taken so damned long to say it all.

Yeah, stammering or stuttering is displayed within a set of sounds, or with a kind of aphasia, or as stretching out sounds in the middle of words, not just catching the start of every word. I get that it's probably easier to read, but if you're already having him limit his own speech, just spell it out. 

But no. Fenris, in the midst of a hunt, was implacable, and mere geography did not deter him. Without access to the Veil, he’d long since learned to tighten the surface bonds of water so that he could run atop it. He could even run on empty air. And so long as the pack stayed close enough to him, they all shared in his narrow path of solid-surfaced water.

Just run your whole pack across the ocean, nbd

a central market area, or a playa

oh good, we’re back to this

Maccis pounced on the back of one of the statues, as the stone began to crack, and light radiated out of it, as the god began to make himself manifest. He raked and tore with all four lindworm paws, not expecting to do much against stone . . . but at least I’ll distract one of them . . . .

So while Illa’zhi had been the boy’s stepfather since the age of eight, there were constants in the universe, and one of them was that young men and their fathers argued and pushed one another.

I mean, they don’t HAVE to, unless you’re really dead-set on perpetuating toxic tropes

I have never created anything before. I am a spirit of destruction. I … did not even think that we would succeed, until now, in even this much.

Zhi ♥

He put a hand on her hair, which was so dark a garnet as to be almost black, but shot through with blond strands. Like living fire. The only mark of her heritage on her.

Somehow in all the times I’ve read this I missed that detail. That sounds gorgeous.

Propraetor Antonius Valerius Livorus (Ret.) … Assassinated in his home

“Oh, do put Livorus on. Sigrun won’t let me tell him not to shake hands with the man who hates his roof. He’ll boil the blood in his veins if he does.”

Her psyche, fragile and unformed at the age of ten, might have been resilient enough to stretch around the gift of prophecy … but she’d simply received too much of it. It had broken her mind—Lassair called her a broken mirror, reflecting truth, but in shards. And it was true.

:(

Of course, when have the gods ever been merciful to me? Oh, sister, how I wish this gift had never come to me. That I could turn it away, make it sleep. Encyst it within myself. But I cannot. I have to keep looking. Deeper. Further. Because I have tiny reasons for hope. I know you’ll live. And if I keep true to the path, I’ll … get to see it, through you. That’ll be enough, won’t it? Tears ran down her face. Why don’t I get to be one of the ones who will live? Have I not done everything that could ever be required of me? Why must I taste only of the bitter cup of poison, and never of the sweet?

Sophia Deserved Better

He loved Sigrun, for all her prickly nature and cool demeanor, and he knew Lassair and Saraid did, too, but he didn’t think Adam had thought through some of the underlying implications.

poly

Now, the whole world explodes, and she’s somehow the only survivor? I think anyone would have problems then.” Trennus chuckled, but sobered, watching Adam’s face shut down a bit. “Hey, come on. Sophia’s prophecies haven’t come true yet. And, gods know, as long as Loki’s curse on Sig persists? I’m not going to worry about the world ending.”

🤔

Also? Literally every single thing she has ever told you has come to pass. Literally everything. You all just lack an enormous amount of foresight.

“Sophia told me, the first time I spoke with her on the phone in Nahautl, that Lassair used to be a fertility goddess, and that she wanted to tell Kanmi she was sorry about his wife.” Adam’s expression was grim, and Trennus’ cup slipped in his hand, spilling coffee on the conference room table. “Admittedly, I just don’t see the whole ‘your wife will be your widow before you meet her again’ thing coming true, but … better safe than sorry.” 

Trennus mopped up his spilled coffee before any of it could reach Adam’s stacks of papers. “Morrigan’s mercy.  … What else did she say?” 

“That she wanted to tell Livorus not to shake hands with the man who hated his roof. That he’d have his blood boiled, if he did.”

🤔

Flip through my list of contacts, and find Sophia Caetia’s number. Should be under the heading of either ‘Oracle of Delphi’ or ‘pain in my ass.’

adam 

I’m not quoting it but I just wanted to state for the record that Caesarion IX’s eulogy always makes me cry

“No one ever said it was real,” Kanmi told her, calmly. “It’s just religion, after all.”

kanmi be nice it’s a funeral

“One small point. My father’s sword.” He looked at the four lictors who’d been with Livorus until his retirement. “He always carried it with him. It’s not … I’m sorry to ask this, but it’s not in his effects.” He sighed. “I thought I might carry it, to remember him.” 

“It’s in Fennmark,” Adam told him, simply. “Pushed into the ground to mark the spot where a god died.” 

Marcus’ blue eyes widened, and then he nodded to Adam, who’d been his father’s chief body-guard for most of his life. “Good enough,” he admitted. “Thank you for telling me.”

I mean if you can think of a better memorial I’d like to hear it

Duilus attempted to stare him down. “Let me ask the questions here.” 

“Oh, by all means. When you get to one that’s interesting, let me know.” Kanmi couldn’t help the goad.

kanmi be nice he’s a baby

The one thing he’d been careful not to explain to the young and paranoid Agent Duilus was that when dealing with the five percent of the world’s sorcerers, ley-mages, and summoners, who played the game at his level … it was very, very unwise to anger them.

This is in response to Himi getting shot in the spine during a riot in Carthage, so add messing with kanmi’s kids into the mix…

“I’m not a god-born. I yell into the wind, I get a face-full of saliva.”

gross. accurate, but gross.

“A god is missing, yes?” He paused. “Yours, by chance? I hear rumors that he’s very quiet.”

yes but we don’t talk about it, kanmi

“So you want me to research this CLP group more intensely?” 

Adam closed his eyes. “No. I want you to join them.” 

Kanmi froze. “What did you just say?”

w e l p

Why is it always me? Why is it never Matru or you, ben Maor?

Please picture for a moment, Trennus Matrugena, the enormous, ageless barbarian with the tattoos and the purple eyes…undercover.

Also Adam’s a tool.

Unfortunately, that was the last time any of them saw Kanmi Eshmunazar for three years. 

After two weeks without word from him, Lassair stretched out her feelers of attention, trying to find a familiar mind, to no avail. Saraid, likewise, could not find the Carthaginian sorcerer anywhere. 

It was as if he had vanished into the deserts of northern Africa, and had not even left behind a ghost.

:(

Sigrun had seen the joy in Trennus’ face at holding his newest children from Saraid … and a week later, tightness around his lips, and worry in her old friends’ eyes, as Lassair had presented him with another pair.

lassair

But it wasn’t her business, so Sigrun kept her mouth firmly shut. But she did hope that Trennus would open his own, at some point.

trennus talk to your wife challenge

I am grandmother to the entire damned world, Sigrun occasionally reflected. If Fritti is the maiden and spring, Saraid is gentle summer and new life, Lassair is the mother and the harvest, then I am the crone. I am death and winter. But then again, that’s hardly anything new.

yeah about that

Looking at the broken pieces of mirror reminded her of … something. Sigrun stared at the floor, as if expecting to see the rest there, then down at her hands, half-thinking that she’d see blood welling from her fingertips. She couldn’t quite understand the sensation of panic that expanded up through her chest, the tightness to her own breath. There was a memory, but she couldn’t bring it forwards in her mind. Something a very long time ago. Wearing a very long dress, and broken glass everywhere … .

that’s a ptsd right there

I’m sorry, Truthsayer. The good news is, I can tell you when you’ll see him again. Your future stays easy to read, all the way to the end. And though you’ll carry a piece of the sun inside of you, you won’t be … eclipsed by it, or burned alive by the flames, as the Archmage is and will be.”

actually one of sophia’s less obvious prophecies, to be fair

Sigrun rather thought that Sophia was trying to be comforting. Trying to express her vision in words that they could understand, for a wonder.

You not understanding her isn’t her fault, Sig, it’s you not trying to understand. Like put in the .5 seconds of work to put together the clues she is trying to give you, or at the very least try to remember them so you recognize them when they show up.

A tear rolled down her face and splashed on the page. “It’s so hard, Sigrun. It’s so hard to know … all the things that I know.”

sophia ;-;

“I’m so sorry. For everything. I love you, sister. I might not … I might not always be able to tell you that. But I do.” 

Sigrun sighed. “I love you, too, Sophia.” 

“Do you know … what the difference … between a servant and a slave is, Sigrun?” The words were barely audible. 

Sigrun considered it for a moment. “A servant can say no.” 

“And you do, Sigrun. You say no every single day. Oh, how I envy you that word.”

Sophia. Deserved. Better.

“His terror is what’s filling you. And he’s not protecting you from it, out of spite. Like he cursed Cassandra for refusing to share his bed, permitted no one to believe her prophecies.” Rage at the injustice filled her. What can you expect of a god whose primary hobby was chasing dryads, nymphs, and young men and seducing or raping them? And I cannot call him to account for it!

apollo deserved worse

Somehow, the day had gone from bright and sunny, somewhere around eighty degrees, to the miserable kind of cold drizzle that usually only appeared in Hellas in midwinter.

🤔

Sigrun blinked. “My winds are used for defensive purposes,” she objected, rapidly, as the two columns came closer. “I can bat away projectiles. I cannot use them for offense!” 

Learn, valkyrie. And learn quickly, would be my advice.

zhi understands. zhi gets me.

Black and red burns laced her skin, and she ached, but a sudden downpour of rain coursed over her body, and a howling wind forced water into all the efreet on the battlefield.

hey look at that

“I’m not doing that!’ Sigrun shouted back. “Weather is weather. Gods influence it, but it’s a confluence of natural events, highs and lows spread out over thousands of miles. I can’t move that much air, let alone summon water. Lightning, yes! Localized winds, yes! Rain, no!” 

Zhi’s enormous, fiery eyes regarded her. Just as you say, Stormborn. The sensation of barely leashed rage dissipated.

goddamit sig

Sigrun wanted to object. The usual rule of spirits being the only things that could truly kill other spirits rushed to her lips, and then she remembered Hel sneering at Brandr, You think that we would give to a mere god-born, a weapon capable of defeating one of us? How foolish. 

We … can. Of course we can. I’ve killed a god, however … lucky the circumstances. Of course I can … truly slay a spirit. Brandr probably could have killed Hel, if he’d been stronger, or if he’d had a more powerful weapon to hand. And Nith did kill her … and he’s as much a god-born as any I’ve ever seen. We’re half-mortal, half-spirit. We can reach them, so long as they are manifested. And that is, of course, why Zeus wished to kill all his mortal descendants. How foolish I was, not to understand that sooner. I had all the pieces, but  … didn’t apply them. And the gods keep very quiet about this … and bind us very tightly, in these days, so that we do not have random traitors killing gods.  No wonder they have kept such close tabs on me, over the years. They want to ensure that I do not tell others of this. That the god-born are well-suited to being godslayers.

you rationalize that denial, sigrun. you rationalize the hell out of it.

“Your other choice is to continue as you’ve been going along—and I am certain there has been some going along going on—and wait until one or the other of you slips.” She raised her eyebrows at them. “Want a cookie?”

everybody’s grandmother

A hissing sound, that she’d come to associate with laughter. “We must come up with a better system of communication than my asking questions, and getting yes and no answers. Perhaps I could teach you to write?”

where I am now in the books, nith is talking, and it hurts to go back to him being mute :(

Adam, however, required almost nothing to make him anonymous.

a bland tool

I can barely see him, Lassair replied, in a tone of perfect horror and anguish. His spirit is barely visible. It is like looking at someone who has endured horrific suffering, and has locked themselves away inside of themselves … or one who has been bound. Unwillingly.

:(

Kanmi went rigid behind her. “Himi married one of Tren’s brood?”

1. yeah he did 2. I am torn between hating the “main cast’s kids all marry each other” trope and finding it appropriate in this case. like there are very few people who understand being spiritborn or raised around magic or both, so it makes sense they’d be drawn to each other that way. Also the fact that 95% of their childhoods are classified.

Kanmi put his head against her throat again, and she could feel something hot and wet streak against her neck.

:(

Another hot, wet drop, and then Kanmi whispered, “I’m going to kill Trennus. Just for the record. And possibly his son, too. It may take me a while.”

lassair is right there, kanmi

“And one of the ways they ensure loyalty?” His voice was sick. “They took me from the conference to an old shrine in the desert. And they held me, blindfolded and bound, with a gun to my head … and cut my hands open, so I bled into a fire. Blood sacrifice, Min. They fucking blood-bound me to Baal-Hamon.”

:(

“Doesn’t that mean that Baal-Hamon knows you’re … ?” 

“Faithful to the Praetorians? Yes. But he doesn’t care. That’s the … really strange thing. He’s … in my head, sometimes … “ Kanmi sounded sick. “But he doesn’t seem to care why I do what I do, so long as I do it.”

Honestly this whole storyline makes me feel awful and the only reaction I have is :( (Min says some of it, about how Kanmi refused to be bound by anyone or anything, and then was forced into a contract with a god he’s eschewed all his life. It’s devastating for both Kanmi and the people who love him and know how much this is opposed to his very nature.)

But … he might understand … that I’m not necessarily a traitor to my people. That the CPL themselves might be, instead. He listens to them. But he … does hear me.” Kanmi looked up, his face gray with tiredness. “I’ve had worse bosses.”

see, everyone likes kanmi eventually.

And at the moment, his thoughts were clearly scattered to the four winds. Possibly because the god that bound him was … in and of himself … scattered. This infuriated Minori. Her husband’s mind was a bright flame, a beacon, and seeing him so … distracted, degraded, by circumstances and a god’s touch hurt.

hits ba’al hamon with yang’s motorcycle

…if you think I’m being taken over … then Adam takes his gun and he shoots me in the head. You understand? Two shots, Adam ben Maor. Make sure the brain is gone.”

:(((((

“Fuck that. I’m not doing this to be a hero. I’m not doing this for the good of the fucking Empire. And while I wish I could claim that I was doing it to save innocent lives, that’s not why, either. I’m doing it because a good man asked me to. A man I know is better than I am myself. And I trust Adam’s opinion more than I trust my own.” Kanmi’s voice was miserable. “I’m compromised. I know it. But I’m coming home. Or I’m going to die trying.”

1. literally way 2. kanmiiiii

Is it too much to hope for, that if I ever happen to be there when a god is slain again, that it might be Apollo of Delphi’s death that I witness?

kick him in the dick

“Don’t cry, Zaya. It’s just important to realize that we never get anywhere entirely on our own.

Zaya is honestly my favorite of the next-gen kids, bc she’s one of like four that gets any development outside of “married another one of the kids”

Lassair assured Minori, calmly, folding her hands over her pregnant belly.

lassair NO

What else am I going to do with all these illusions? Special effects for the cinema? Play games while the world burns around me?

I get it, but…don’t underestimate the power of fiction and escapism in difficult times

Fritti watched, in amusement, as the seeds with which they’d pelted the couple began to grow around Inghean’s bare feet, sprouting into an abundance of flowers around the bench on which they sat.

inghean is cute

She’d only seen his true face once. But it had haunted her dreams for over two decades now, first in anger, and then in regret. Radulfr. Loki.

“Here’s where Rig and Inghean are going to get married, in 1985. His father will be there for the ceremony, you know. Fritti’s going to see Loki, like a ghost at the feast, and cry on your shoulder when she can’t find him.“

I will … endeavor to be ready. I may not be able to stand with my brethren. But I can, at least, stand with humanity. And with you.

loki deserved better. (it gets better. eventually.)

An individual person could be deeply intelligent. But put that intelligent person in the middle of a crowd and subject that person to the mob mentality, and all vestiges of intelligence would drain away, being replaced with social dynamics, really.

"A person is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals.”

He still wasn’t sure if he should be vaguely threatened by her obvious attachment to the beast…

oh my god, Adam. at his point in time nith is little more than a particularly expressive mount, as far as either of you know, and you are a paranoid tool.

“True. But … you get used … to being around someone … all the time.” Her words grew further and further apart. “You grow into them … like two trees, leaning on each other. And when they’re gone … there’s no one to help you … hold yourself … up.” She moved her fingers in his. “You helped … hold me up,” she told him. “You’re a … good son.” Abigayil sighed, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “I wish you had been able …  to have children … of your own.”

hey look now that I’m in a long-term relationship for the first time this bit (abagayil on her deathbed talking about missing her late husband) is fucking devastating

“But I am powerless.” 

“Nonsense. I am arming you with the most powerful weapon in existence.” “What’s that?” 

“Knowledge.” 

Zaya thought that was possibly the stupidest adult thing to say, ever, but couldn’t say that to her mother, of course.

give it time, zaya

I had something better in mind. I will move the whole house.

just the whole thing. it’s fine.

A few of the servants, including her pedagogue, were sitting on the ground, rocking back and forth and holding their heads, and moaning. Some of the servants just shrieked and ran into the woods, and some of them … were just plain missing. They usually had a staff of twenty people. Zaya only saw twelve.

the veil isn’t kind to mortals, and zhi had priorities on who to protect

A swan preened itself in a vast lake,

🤔

Jerusalem, her father said. His form was flickering in and out of existence, to her horror. An empty lot your mother purchased, years ago. Shadeslore … .

“Go!” her mother cried. “Go rest!” 

Her father winked out, and Zaya reached out for him again, crying in earnest now. “Father!” 

He didn’t reappear for two weeks.

1. zhi :( 2. “shadeslore” is just a really cool name

One of the houses was completely covered in vines. Flowers, grapes, everything. It was just a mound of green that happened to have doors and windows.

That’s Our Matrugenas

The course of history would have been different if the empire had fallen two thousand or fifteen hundred years ago, but Kanmi couldn’t even imagine what a map of the world would look like without Rome. A mosaic of tiny, petty kingdoms, all squabbling for scraps to survive, he thought, and buried the thought.

get off the fourth wall, kanmi, it’s fragile

You want something from me in sacrifice? You take my life. Not my son’s. You understand me?”

:(

If this doesn’t work, Min, don’t come looking for me too soon. If there’s an afterlife, I will kick your ass if I find you there before your time.

always the romantic

“Syphilis. I caught it off this Nipponese prostitute. Looks just like you.”

1. Kanmi you little shit 2. Why is it always syphilis 3. Why does that make me miss Mollymauk

When my time comes, bury me in Jerusalem. A notable Pythia of Delphi once told me that this was important to my continued survival. I have no idea how this is even possible, but fine, pop me in the ground there like a seed. 

Maybe I’ll sprout. 

—Kanmi Eshmunazar

I don’t have a note, this is just so Kanmi it hurts

He almost wished he could fly with her, but after having seen what had happened to Erida’s fully-human servants on being pulled through the Veil? Adam would really rather pass. Though he did have an itch of curiosity about Trennus’ dream-realm there.

you should go. maybe stay forever.

Hissing laughter, and then he launched himself skywards again, and Sigrun headed for the main doors, resigned to the fact that Nith, after two thousand years as Hel’s lackey, had clearly decided that he was not about to be banished to the shadows again now that Hel was dead. Or perhaps, he’d decided that he wasn’t going to let Sigrun lurk there, herself.

Nith ♥

You’re expected, Sigrun Stormborn, the dwarf greeted her without preamble. Tyr, Odin, and Freya. Quite an audience. Mind your manners. We don’t need any more thunderstorms in the area.

Dvalin gets it. (Dvalin gets pretty much everything.)

We’re all rather fascinated. A mortal, building a constructed realm in the Veil. Never been done before. I’d personally like to visit, if he’d give me permission. You will ask him, won’t you? I like to see how other people have surmounted the technical challenges I encountered in designing this place with Odin. 

Sigrun blinked, rapidly, as her worlds collided inside of her head. After a moment, flummoxed, she replied, “I will ask him if he, Asha, and Sari might be inclined to receive you as a guest.”

in over your head yet, sig?

Why this insistence, that god-born are what they are, and nothing more? You will not remember, but I will have your thoughts, Sigrun Stormborn.

tfw your own gods call you out

… she’d found her dead mother’s clothing, locked away in a chest, and pulled them out. Scattered them all over her father’s room. Sigrun pulled on a fancy silk dress, peacock blue and shimmering … .

… She laughed, knowing she was getting away with something, but prune-faced Medea was out in the front yard, talking with the neighbors. Sigrun had time, and she danced in front of the mirror in her father’s room, another relic of her dead mother. A perfect oval, twice her height, balanced on swinging hinges. She undid her braid and floated up to grab her mother’s old brush off the dresser and swept it through her hair, letting it ripple down over her shoulders, and flew back over to hover in front of the mirror, well-pleased by what she saw there. If I fly up a little higher … yes! That way, the dress doesn’t drag on the ground. This is what I’ll look like when I grow up!

She peeked over her shoulder and out the window. She didn’t see Medea still out there, talking to the neighbors. Uh-oh. She flew over to peek out the window more carefully, and that was when Medea found her. Dressed in her dead mother’s clothing, and the very image of the dead woman. Sigrun’s eyes had widened, and she’d babbled apologies, but Medea had been merciless. You worthless little wretch. You don’t need to look in a mirror. It’s a good thing you’ll never be beautiful. After all, you’re nothing but a weapon for these brutish northern gods, do you hear me? You’re going to be covered in scars. Better that you learn that early. All you are is a crow capering around in peacock feathers …  .

… the mirror shattered, even as Sigrun stared at herself in it, pieces clattering to the floor. Medea had ripped the brush out of Sigrun’s hands and thrown it at the mirror. Now, almost spitting down into Sigrun’s face, the formal slave’s collar at her throat with its small silver tag indicating Ivarr’s ownership of her services glittering in the light coming in the window. You think an accident of birth makes you better than everyone else? It doesn’t! It makes you a slave, the same as me! Get that through your head! You’re nothing but a slave, and you’re going to learn your place … .

… Weeping on the floor. Picking up the pieces of broken mirror, one at a time, each slicing her fingers open. The cuts healed, but the blood stayed on the floor, soaking into the wood. Seeing her face in fragments and pieces, jagged and broken, a hundred tiny images, and every one of them promised pain. And when her father got home, Medea told him that Sigrun had been playing with her mother’s things, and that Sigrun had broken the mirror, in her carelessness. Her father’s disappointment, particularly since Sigrun refused to tell the truth and confess her crime. His spanking hurt worse than every caning Medea ever dished out, because he believed Medea, and not her. And Sigrun knew, looking into Medea’s eyes, that the woman had won. Her father would always believe her pedagogue. It would do no good to tell him about the canings. It would do no good to say anything at all. Oh, she’d finally told him. Twenty-three years later, as she protected Sophia from Medea’s wrath. In all the years between that moment, and Ivarr’s death, he’d never raised the subject again. Had stayed married to Medea until the end. And thus Sigrun had known, though he often had questions in his eyes, that her father had preferred Medea’s lies to her truth. Comfortable, familiar lies. Or at least, a comfortable, familiar life … .

 For the young valkyrie, there was nothing for it, but to try to avoid the behaviors that triggered Medea’s rage. No mirrors. Nothing that hinted at vanity. No pride. But when Medea was wrong, and Sigrun’s sense of justice flared, she held fast. She was a valkyrie. The bruises would heal. She learned not to turn her head and not to flinch. Valuable lessons for later. But the harshest lesson of all, was the inner understanding of human jealousy. Medea had not had a hard life, for a slave; she was included in the family, given respect; Ivarr had even paid her a wage, though he had certainly not been required to do so. In no way had she been treated as a slave, except that the law required her to wear a collar, and did not permit her to leave Ivarr’s service until he manumitted her or sold her contract. But Medea had envied a child. She’d envied Sigrun her freedom, which Medea’s parents had taken from her when they sold her to pay off her father’s debts. She’d envied the girl the loving relationship with her father, and had introduced distance between them, though probably not consciously. She’d envied the god-born child her bright future and her powers.

I am as human as I can be. I choose mortality. This, and nothing more, or everything will fall apart, and I’ll be destroyed. Crow in peacock feathers … .

This is pieced together in and around other scenes of Sigrun being told she was trying to be too much, taking responsibilities and powers that were too good for her, but this was the important bit. Her whole THING, the avoidance of mirrors, the insistence that she could never advance past what she was at the time…all because Medea was jealous of a child.

Medea deserved worse.

You do not wish even a bite? Freya asked her, mildly. 

Sigrun blinked. She felt as if she’d been asked that question before, just … some other way. “Ah, no. Thank you.” The apples supposedly gave the gods eternal health and youth. Sigrun suspected that they were actually some kind of a physical analogue or conduit for raw Veil energy. Eating one seemed … unhealthy.

the fabled apple

Muninn flapped away, leaving behind a caw that sounded slightly mocking. As if to say that memory would never let her have peace.

I mean he’s not wrong

“We’re about to have a really public fight.” Minori grimaced. “The kind that destroys property.

the best kind

Minori’s smile was only in her voice as she stood, glaring at him, and with a surge of power, threw the table at him.

(that’s not the gif I wanted but it’s cute and I can’t find the one from bleach I want)

Except, she left enough oxygen and pressure in the sphere that Kanmi had to pop the blood vessels in his own eyes—

D:

They’ve been offering sacrifices and blood-bindings to Baal-Samem, and some of the summoners have been sacrificing to Dagon, too.

(it dagon)

“There have been times in my life when I’ve wished people would just invent a way for me to get by without sleep.

it’s called cocaine

“In the end, it is your call, Adam. Whether or not we trust that local gardia have not been compromised, and whether or not we call for backup from local Praetorian offices.”

this is one of those netflix CYOA things isn’t it. like telling bear grylls whether or not to eat worms.

“The gods said that I was not here as their agent, Niðhoggr! Your presence here could start a war between the gods themselves!”

too late

Infinitely preferable, Trennus had once told Adam, with a hint of a smile. I’m not the sort of man who should ever try to look like a woman. At my height and weight, it’s fairly ridiculous.

support tall trans women

If it was a firearm, and inside her sixty-foot range

those moments you can really tell the author plays d&d 

“Dagon!” the summoners cried out, as one. “Dagon, Dagon, Dagon!”

“THE FUCK Y’ALL WANT”

Though these limbs were no longer intended to bear his massive weight in any bipedal fashion, he still managed to rake his talons along Nith’s side as the dragon sped past, and Nith’s razor-barbed tail, long and sinuous, whipped out, thought-fast, and caught the creature across its armored snout.

NITH used TAIL WHIP

(that is not what Tail Whip does)

Lassair felt the child’s last flickers of thought. Vague, incoherent gratitude that the pain had gone away. Love of the father, bewilderment, what did I do that was bad?

look. I got kids. this is Bad for my Psyche. 

(normally senseless child death is a good way to get me to drop a series BUT this isn’t done in a “look how edgy I am, look how far I’m willing to go” way. looking at you, game of thrones. and the walking dead. and the strain.)

She looked at the father, still on the floor, but staring now at his son’s body, his eyes wide. She couldn’t read his emotions. And they didn’t matter. Lassair rose out of the tiny body, fighting for a form that somehow expressed the full fury of her rage, her desire for vengeance, and knew, dimly, that she was teeth and claws and flame, all at once, as she fell on the man, who rolled away, putting up his arms and a sorcerous barrier of some sort, meant to hold away fire. You shield yourself from the flames? Her claws skated over the shell of energy, and she could feel some of her power drained, blunted, taken away from her. It only enraged her further. You, who threw your own child to them? She pounced on him, dropping him with her weight, seeing the shocked eyes go even wider. You dare? You who should have protected him from the flames? She settled her weight onto her front claws and brought up her rear ones, kicking and raking at his belly and shields. Who should never have brought him here! You dare!

lassair is me in this moment

You know my servant, fireling … I have felt your presence in his wife before … . 

Have known him and loved him longer than your Name has meant anything to him than something to swear by. Lassair’s lips curled back from her teeth, and she wondered what would happen if she shattered the god’s damnable statue. Could I kill him? Could I free Emberstone, so?

do it

Saved by a god. How the mighty have fallen.

kanmi I get you but also maybe be a little grateful

“I am a battle-maiden of Tyr,” Sigrun taunted softly. “You will find that I dare many things. Perhaps you should test yourself against me, instead of against fertility spirits and mortal children.”

Lots of grounding points, I suppose. Either that, or Caetia ate Baal-Samem raw and whole.

yeah about that

Require safety/succor/harbor/body/AVATAR!

this doesn’t end well

A memory, over fifty years old, surfaced. Being held down beneath the water by his brothers, his lungs burning with the need to breathe. It had been just as hard then, to cling to consciousness. It had been just as hard to fight against an infinitely superior force. I will not give in, I will not give up, I will not give in, I will not give up, I will not give in, I will not give up … . Minori’s face flickered in his mind, and Kanmi clung to that, too, old, young, in between. Masako’s. Bodi’s. Himi’s. I will not give in! I will not give up!

I will not bow I will not bend I will not break

Kanmi turned, and Adam was stunned to see that he still had sun-shards in place of his eyes. It was worth a try, Kanmi told them all. Adam didn’t realize, until much later, that the words had been in his mind. Too much Baal. Too many of them.

:(

My choice this time, valkyrie. Not yours. Now get out of here, all of you.

I’m remembering why I don’t reread these books often

Stay, Min, he told her, gently, the words echoing in her mind, like a spirit’s, and tears began to roll down her face. This is mine to do. And if there’s a way. If there’s any way at all … you know I’ll come back to you. Bury my bones, assuming you can find any of them, in Jerusalem. And live.

maybe he’ll sprout

Minori didn’t look away from the explosion. The brightness should have seared her eyes to blindness, and in her despair, she wanted that. She wanted the last thing she would ever see to be the funeral pyre that claimed her husband, but he’d wrought his protective spell around them too well for that. The fireball lifted off, and cloud convection formed a towering mushroom cloud that went up probably into the stratosphere, and all Minori could do was stare up at it in anguish. Because Kanmi’s mind no longer touched hers.

dramatic ass

No bodies. No humanity. Just the last, twisted remnants that had been Baal’s fragmenting consciousness. Given perhaps a little direction by the remaining human minds that had melded with the god. Minori was aware of … mad laughter. Glee, really. And then all of them rose into the sky, and fled, leaving only their laughter in their wake.

off to form the plot of the third book

A dozen or more vortexes of power that had once been human, but now were gods had just taken to the sky—the very thing that Kanmi had given his life to prevent.

“He’ll die saving you. All of you. He’ll be a hero. Admittedly, it won’t help in the end, but …” She shrugged. “Nothing really will, now will it?

When we were lictors under the late propraetor, Antonius Valerius Livorus, we often joked that the four of us were the fingers in Rome’s fist, or its extended hand of friendship. Eshmunazar, no doubt, was the digit most often responsible for rude gestures…

#kanmikin

“Besides, the last time your mother sent the car, your butler said something about finding dog hair in the back seat. And I didn’t even change.” [Maccis] shrugged.

eat him

Zaya flopped down into a hammock

Bullshit. No one flops into a hammock without ending up on the ground.

In Hellas, Sophia Caetia had awoken this morning, and didn’t see herself taking any appointments. For once, she knew precisely what day it was

I don’t want it

I can already see her, the swan-maiden disguised as the swan. Red eyes and black hair, replacing blue and white. You’ll be coming home soon, won’t you, lost one?

🤔

The small woman pushed away from her escorts, and slipped and slid her way to the pillar of salt. She wrapped her arms around it, and pressed her lips to its cold surface … and it began to crumble away, revealing what was trapped inside. Bones. Carbon-black, as from being burned, but perfectly preserved, when they should have been vaporized by the blast wave … as, indeed, all other flesh in the immediate vicinity had been.

plant my bones in Judea…

It seems to me, from your records, that any time that you are sent somewhere, the result is nothing but destruction.”

hey. rude. kind of true, but still rude.

Agent Duilus poked his head in

“Hear me,” he said, and the back of his mind told him that he probably shouldn’t enjoy this, as he caught the back of Duilus’ head in his other hand, and, with two points of contact and a side-step, brought the other man’s face down on his desk.

I shouldn’t have enjoyed that this much, either.

However, she hadn’t slept at night, since Kanmi’s death.

🤔

When I was a child, he told me, that there are monsters in the world, and that there are people whose responsibility it was, to go out and fight them, so that other people didn’t have to do so. I wanted … nothing more, than to be as good a man as he was. To be a sorcerer, if I had the gift, and to go fight monsters, as he did.”

bodiii

He threw back his head, and howled, and for miles around, all across the city, fenris paused in their tracks and echoed him, an homage that went on for fifteen full minutes, in spine-tingling intensity.

laruuuuus

And that if we kept up with this long enough, he might well come back as a god.”

I mean….

If anyone… if anyone has enough strength of will… and he knew his Name… it would be him.”

“He’d do it just to piss people off,”

spite is an excellent motivator

“Tired again? You should try sleeping, Caetia.”

“I would love nothing more.” She yawned.

relateable

This is the fun of being seventy-eight years old, she told herself. No one gets your jokes without ten minutes of explanation first. What’s the point?

it’s a joy of being thirty tbh

She’s resisting it. She’s encysted it. It wouldn’t cause her so much pain, if she accepted it into her. Let it suffuse her. But she sees it as an intrusion, a wound, a foreign object violating her body and mind, and so she resists. […]Concentration, now, trying to see what the darkness meant, and the world around Sigrun faded. The chairs, tables, food … replaced with night. The dark of the void, and stars, here and there, twinkling faintly. And she resists that, too.

that’s it, that’s the trilogy

A shrug. “True enough.” A pause. “You’re sure he can’t change forms?”

yeah about that

People with enough strength of purpose to shape their own lives, survived, and even thrived in the transformations. People who drifted through life aimlessly, with no more ambition than seeing what was on the far-viewer at night, died or went mad.

stop

“It’s about making the game last as long as we can, and saving as many people as possible, in the end. Good-bye, Sigrun. The next time we meet … I might not be able to tell you. But I do love you, my stubborn, stubborn sister. Good-bye.”

I Don’t Want It

The rest of the lesson practically flew after that, as Zaya suddenly found herself highly motivated to learn everything she could about device-based magic. This was something she could use.

congratulations, you’re batman

Zhi continuously put forth the notion that he had no virtues, and that while love was definitely an emotion worth experiencing, other human emotions were inherently weak, and that he did not experience them—pity, compassion, tolerance, and forgiveness. She suspected that he did experience them, in varying forms, and usually simply tamped down on them, when they did not directly concern his family.

zhi ❤

Illa’zhi’s mortal form had been patterned off the males he saw around Erida, and those he saw most often in her thoughts. […] Maybe a hint of Carthaginian, for flavor.

erida and kanmi hooked up and I will not hear otherwise

Are you saying that you have a stomachache? Erida rubbed a hand between his shoulder blades, trying not to smile. 

When you next consume a mad god, I will not laugh at you, Zhi informed her with hauteur. I may ask, instead, if you require a glass of water with bicarbonate of soda, but I will not laugh at you.

I love these two

Shiori was a mutt, in other words,

I am really looking forward to this terminology dying out as mixed-race families become more common

But he did poke Sigrun in the ribs about it. “Not even a bite for yourself?” he teased, as she cut another one into thin slices, one for each of the children currently playing in their backyard. 

“No.”

eat the fucking apple

But what Argos had, or claimed to have, was the last resting place of the Fire-Bringer.

8D

She was affiliated, too, with the crossroads, the places between.

eluvians

One path led him to power. The other, to knowledge. And faced with that kind of a choice, Prometheus could only make one decision. He chose knowledge.

I’m standing at a crossrooooooads

“I’m afraid I’m not conversant with the etiquette of the gods,” she said, her eyes only slightly wide as she beckoned a servant in with a silver tray. “However, it’s difficult to go wrong with tea and cakes.” 

Ahh, the laws of hospitality have not changed much, then. Excellent.

look I just love prometheus a lot

Zaya stared at Prometheus. This was nothing like she’d thought meeting a god or demigod would be. He was as filled with wonder, in a way, as a caveman might have been at the modern world … but he was also not overwhelmed by it. He clearly understood the principles behind some of the technology. And he was delighted by it.

I love him

He was also the only adult she knew, other than servants and teachers, who had no powers at all. He wasn’t a sorcerer, ley-mage, summoner, or god-born. And he’d worked with people who were, for over thirty years, and remained, somehow, integral and respected.

debateable

She patted her burgeoning waistline and smiled. Zaya caught the tired expression that flickered across Master Matrugena’s face like a shadow at Lassair’s words. The expression of mild annoyance that flickered across Mistress Caetia’s. But she didn’t understand either.

lassair

And you … are servant to this Tyr? 

“If they are the same entity, then yes.” 

A servant. He repeated the word carefully. 

Mistress Caetia appeared puzzled, but nodded again, politely. “It is my duty to stand as intermediary and intercessor between my gods and humanity. To provide the power of the gods, as needed, to administer justice, to protect humans, and to serve the gods.” 

If you are the servant, I shudder to meet the masters.

sig he is trying to tell you something

Zaya scribbled notes and periodically had the pen slip from nerveless fingers as the people she’d known as prosaic individuals … revealed themselves. Maccis’ father, a counter-summoner working in law enforcement? His neighbors,  the retired Praetorian and the valkyrie, the ones who taught martial arts and had a bottomless cookie jar? Her mother’s colleague, the college professor? They were figures out of legend.

hear that, babe? we’re legends.

That would be a massive amount of water to release back into the oceans

climate change is a qin conspiracy

Minori frowned. Apparently, young people in her homeland weren’t being raised properly these days.

[waves cane]

The old woman shook her head and sighed. “The world has become a suspicious and untrusting place, with no appreciation of the mythic”

back in MY DAY

Your summoner friend really must teach you to bargain better.

I don’t know why this is so funny to me. Amaterasu asked for a conduit, promised not to get weird with Minori’s body, and Minori was all for it.

So, I’m never going to be alone again, am I? 

Is that a bad thing? 

On the whole, Minori didn’t think that it was. It was, in fact, somewhat comforting, and soothed the raw ache that had been a part of her soul for two years now.

:(

Minori thought about it, and realized, Forgiveness is … irrelevant. She brings nothing useful with her. No knowledge. No skills. And that has been the focus of everyone you have had me … recruit. Useful people.

The context is Minori seeing the woman who sexually and emotionally manipulated her begging to get on a plane out of Nippon. Normally the “useful people” line would make me roll my eyes, and it kind of does, but also fuck that lady

He knew his Name. He was a sennin, a sorcerer and summoner, not just a poet. And he had strength of will, and a family who believed in him. He never truly died. His spirit had just enough power to stay, and their belief sustained him … he became a god. Truly? 

Truly, Amaterasu replied. 

A whisper at the back of her mind told her, That means there’s hope for Kanmi. There really is.

And he shall be unto a god. A cranky, cynical god.

Minori stirred in her chair, opening her eyes briefly to realize there were tears running down her face. Her father had not looked away. He had wanted to see the goddess of the sun in all her glory. He had. The radiance had blinded him, and had proven so agonizing, that his heart had stopped … but he had, somehow, died with a smile on his face, and his sword in his hand, prepared to fight against whatever his gods battled in the sky. A good death for a samurai, she thought, and covered her face.

I will fight the sky or die trying

He was something different from almost every other spirit, proof that the human could become the divine, and yet, remain active in the world.

🤔

He’d suggested, about five years ago, that perhaps they should stop having children at all, at least until all of the current ones were out of the house, and added, I’d kind of enjoy having you and Saraid to myself again. Sometime before the turn of the century. Lassair had looked struck, but had hedged.

good for you, trennus

He made a point of talking to everyone in the house, every day. Every child got a little time, even if it was just a word or two before bed. A chance for them to tell him anything at all that happened to be on their minds.

tren is a good dad

“Uncle Adam says all he’s ever needed is a gun, his hands, and the wisdom to know when to use them.” 

“Uncle Adam doesn’t know everything.

uncle adam knows very little

No clutter, beyond a single glass perfume bottle that Trennus had been told had belonged to her mother. Part of a set, with a hairbrush and hand mirror that had been lost, decades ago.

:(

But none of the things you mentioned are actually art.”

trennus. be better.

It’s very far to travel. I can’t be there and here at the same time. She hesitated. Also, the Qin gods may … take it amiss if I go there. 

He raised his eyebrows, and Lassair winced. I have grown too much, she admitted, softly. So has Saraid, but Saraid is … quieter, for all that so many now believe in her. The harpies and the dryads call her name now, before they speak that of Artemis, did you know that?

and that’s how you steal a nature god

Saraid seemed to prefer that half of his name, and he didn’t blame her; Flamesower made him sound like Lassair’s property.

I mean

This sounds like the physicists’ talk of other quantum universes. Ones in which causality and decisions made, have led them to fragment off. But the Veil cannot fragment, because it is eternal. And it cannot open onto every one of these quantum universes. If it did, spirits could travel between them, freely. And they would remember. They would remember everything that they saw and experienced in other worlds, and would be able to tell the differences, because the memories of one realm would not match the memories of other realms.

They’re standing in what is for all intents and purposes alternate London (maybe ours, but I’m not familiar enough with it to recognize the statue that’s described) and I just picture it in the glitchy, grainy monochrome of Elizabeth’s tears in Bioshock Infinite

It was overwhelming to think that Saraid had known it all, in advance. Then why … he floundered. Why did you wait until after Lassair… ? 

Because you were not ready for me, and you had so much more to do and see and experience. And then you found her, and chose to keep her alive, and events progressed. In the end, it does not matter. You will protect my woods and my people, when the time comes. I do not know how, but all I see is fire and smoke in the future. And you love me now, as I have always loved you.

saraid :(

(also all narration in the veil is in italics and it is the fucking worst; the narration is in italics and the dialogue is thought-speech so it’s differentiated by being in italics and underlined, but none of that helps, it still gives me a headache)

Wild-heart … I’m sorry. I did not know. I was a fool when I was young. 

That is, as far as I can tell, the purpose of being young, for humans.

she’s not wrong

“I’m not leaving without you. Kanmi would jump up out of his grave and strangle me if I did, and Asha will kill me if I’m not home to help with the children by dinnertime. Please don’t make me choose between which horrible fate I’d rather face, and just come along quietly.”

I don’t have a comment, tren is just cute

And she knew, with sudden acuteness, that Trennus had that same sensation of … missing a wheel in his own mind. Kanmi had brought much to them each, which now was lost. “I know,” she finally said, her throat aching, and he squeezed her hand, tightly.

poly

“Carrying a piece of the sun,” Minori said, very quietly, her eyes downcast. “Just as Sophia once told me I would.”

wow imagine if you had listened to her

She put the pictures on the table, and put a little incense burner between them. Lit the sweet substance, and let herself focus on the twirling, swirling veils of smoke. I believe in you, Kanmi, she said, silently. I believe in you. You’ll come home to me, someday. But know, that for the moment, I’m … all right. I’m not alone. 

It might have been her imagination, but she thought a breath of wind caressed her face.

❤

“Reginleif!” she said, frowning slightly. 

The harpy’s eyes widened, and she hastily put a few coins down on the table and excused herself from her companions.

She has power beyond her own reckoning, but she will not embrace it, because to do so, would be, in her mind, to betray him.”

I apparently highlighted this on a previous read-through. I assume because it made me angry, as it does now

Hokkigai, or raw fresh clams, maguro, or raw tuna, and a little tako, or cooked octopus,

Literally just tell me what it’s made of. Having the names and then the translation just makes it look like you’re celebrating your ability to use Google

What we have always done. We go solve problems.” 

“Yes, and the last several times we went to solve problems, we made them worse.”

she’s….not wrong

But she could reach out and slide whips made of wind along its body, scything off its scales and armor.

She and Sig are riding Nith against a kraken and I have never wanted fanart of a scene so badly in my life

Sigrun turned in time to see Minori, her face a mask of concentration, let herself fall from Nith’s back, a sword that looked like a piece of the sun in one hand.

Again: art pls

“There’s half of some old statue sticking through the hull down here. That’s the source of the hull breach. The creature must have found it on the bottom and used it as a weapon—”

wuhoh

I wished for the first words I spoke in millennia to be for her ears. And I speak to her. She could hear me if she chose to do so. But she fears to understand me.

nith :(

For that she is mine, and I am hers. We are bound, we two. We are … the same. Night. Death. Ice. Darkness. She has always smelled like home to me. When she understands herself, she will understand me. Though I wonder sometimes, if she ever will.

eat the apple so nith will be happy

Sigrun slipped off the dragon’s side, and landed, lightly, beside Minori, clearly not hearing the exchange. “Understand myself?” A faint, bitter laugh. “I know precisely who and what I am, Minori. I am god-born. I stand as intercessor, the intermediary between the gods and humanity, much as Trennus as a summoner stands between humans and spirits. I serve both gods and humanity.” She held up a hand, as Minori’s lips parted, stilling the words on her lips. “I am, more specifically, a valkyrie and a battle-maiden of Tyr. I was born to fight lost battles, and I carry over a thousand scars. I serve Rome. I defend its laws and its people. I am the wife of a mortal man, mother of none, sister of a mad prophetess, and grandmother to everyone else’s children. How can I understand, more fully, who I am?” Exasperation in Sigrun’s voice, and frustration, and Minori saw her look up at the dragon for a moment.

I am going to scream

(I’d like to point out that even though this is my third or so readthrough, this shit has bothered me from the start. Just the whole time. Forever.)

Aprilis 10, 1991 AC

no

But it’s the only thing I can do. If I don’t go, if I … stay right here, where I am, safe in my room … the future breaks. I don’t know what will happen then. I know what will happen if I do. I’ll go insane. Truly insane. I’ll still have my Name. I’ll still be Trueseer. But I’ll be broken till the day I die, and maybe even after that … but it’ll be all right, because … at least a few people will survive. The world can be renewed. Reborn.  She wiped the tears from her face. Certainty—knowing Sigrun and Judea and those there would survive, and that some tiny spark of her own awareness might pass on, into her sister, as well—was better than the howling abyss of uncertainty.

sophia deserves better

“I’m scared, Sigrun. I don’t want this.”

me either

Her hands froze as she pulled on her sandals. And then, shaking, she took them back off again. Threw them across the room. And pulled on her boots, instead. It wouldn’t matter. It didn’t change the images in her mind. But at least her feet wouldn’t bleed. Fuck the future, Sophia thought, in despair. And fuck Apollo, too.

sophia is more badass than you

Her own daughter was too good for her, apparently, the daughter she’d loved and cherished and made so much of.

no, you’re just a garbage person

For ten years, she’d been able to spoil the girl, and then Sophia, too, had turned out to be god-born. And of course, it was Sigrun’s fault. If she hadn’t come home that night … .

fuck all the way off, medea

It all came down to Sigrun, again. She’d turned Medea’s sweet Sophia against her.

fuck oooooffffff

She had to make her sister see. And behind and over her, she could feel … something bigger than herself. Something that burned as brightly as the sun, and it was paying attention to her, and it recognized her. And it hated her. Sigrun could protect her, though. Sigrun would always protect her. That’s what her sister was for.

This is ten-year-old Sophia, the night she told Sigrun she was godborn, and I am going to cry

Even at ten years of age, Sophia already knew her own Name: Trueseer … and the god to whom she was bound had just awakened to the fact that she existed. That the girl he remembered at the end of the world had awakened to him. And he reached out and shoved his memories into her mind, encysting them there, because he remembered what would happen, and she dared to be better than a god … .

Apollo can fuck off too

The central tragedy of a life lived in reverse was about to play out.

no

Realizing that the god was coming for her. Apollo of Rome was dead. She was his last conduit to the mortal realm, and the doctors were going to euthanize her. He knew it. She knew it. He was coming to take her body as he’d raped her mind daily since she was ten years old … no, no, no, no, I am done with you, Apollo, I am done! 

Sigrun, telling her that there were always choices, that even choosing not to choose is a choice, damn it … . 

Looking down and seeing hiking boots on her feet. 

Looking ahead and seeing Sigrun striding out into the unknown along that black road that was the Styx … . 

Faces above her own, lovers past, for once not decayed, for once, no futures …

Oh, to be unaware of the blood and the sweat and the shit and the pain … . 

Seeing Maccis and Zaya trading bites of apple and kisses … . 

Seeing Sigrun flying towards her on death’s own black wings … . 

Seeing the world end … . 

Seeing a summer garden, and Adam taking down an apple from the tree. Seventy years old, and finally willing to defy everything … . 

Fuck you, Apollo! I die free!

Long quote but also one of the most powerful parts of the series, imo. Sophia is diving into prophecies in an attempt to escape, mentally, being raped by five centaurs. (Stop giving your female characters rape backstories.) But they’re all a little bit different now, because she put on boots instead of sandals. There’s a sixth centaur now, one she never saw in her visions, who tried to stop the others (and got similarly assaulted for his trouble). She broke free of Apollo’s future-memories.

Fuck you, Apollo.

Her phone vibrated in the poke tied to her belt, but she didn’t feel it. She had yet another fight ahead of her, Adam wasn’t due to call her for a few days, and she had the damnable thing silenced for a reason. She was already the servant of her gods and the servant of Rome. She did not need a tiny electronic master now, too.

sig you really wanna take this one

Her own body became the spear, and she landed, boots-first, on the back of the centaur behind Sophia. A hundred and seventy pounds of body-weight accelerated to her top speed, applied to the equine’s lumbar vertebrae resulted in a pulverized spinal column.

I feel like sig should weigh more than that, but then I also feel like she should be taller than adam so what do I know

Another impact of hooves, and Nikolaos reflected, bitterly, that he’d have been better off dying beside some lake or stream, long before this. They were torturing the woman to death, and then they’d progress to him. But he couldn’t participate in this. Not even if it meant his own life. A line had to be drawn.

The sixth centaur. He had a choice between “join this group” or “get eaten by harpies” and I think he’s starting to miss the harpies

Nikolaos could just make out the confusion on his erstwhile companion’s face as the woman’s glowing body dissolved into shadow, moonlight, and wind, and blew through him.

I forgot about this! Sig unconsciously using her god powers while in a murderous rage

Their disbelief that she’d managed to travel from Germania to Hellas to Judea inside of an hour was mitigated somewhat as Niðhoggr leaned down and impatiently snorted ice crystals on them.

dragons mean never having to answer questions

Adam found it even more unnerving than usual to be around her, for she always greeted him with a single word. “Godslayer!” And she never met his eyes. Just looked up, whenever she had to address him, above the level of his head.

you know what I’ll give him that one

The first, was an image of a small girl, long, pale blond hair, just hints of red to it, Trying on clothing too big for her as she stood beside a free-standing mirror. Innocence and joy in the loose lines on this page. Then the next page … a woman in a black dress loomed over the girl in the next image, the mirror shattered, and the girl’s hands bleeding as she picked up the pieces of glass, tears streaking down her face. Medea? Sigrun broke a mirror when she was a child? This … well, it might explain why she doesn’t like mirrors, but I have no idea what it means.

it means child abuse

“Actually,” Zaya whispered, softly, “I have a ring that might help. It works like a soul-trap. Get close to a spirit, push the button, and it should bind the spirit into the gem in the housing.”

what kind of skyrim bullshit

It was one of the woodcuts from their textbook, and showed the ass, Lucian, mid-copulation with the rich woman who had fancied him. That didn’t bother her. The fact that the woman had been labeled as Zaya, and the donkey had been labeled as Maccis, however, did.

children are terrible

 “You don’t have to talk to Spiro,” she told him. Touch made her a little bolder than usual. “I don’t mind if people think … I mean, I wouldn’t mind … I  … damn it.” 

Her cheeks burned, but he’d already moved on, his mind intent on the subject of his anger. “No, he doesn’t get to talk that way to you, or about you or …” Maccis rocked to a halt and looked down at her, his brain apparently catching up with the rest of the conversation. “I … you what?” 

Zaya swallowed, hard. “I said I don’t care what people think we do or don’t do, and I wouldn’t mind if we were, actually … you know.”

still smoother than any confession I ever made

Zaya’s mouth opened and closed again as she rapidly reassessed how sheltered her world was.

honestly relateable

“You don’t have to wait with me—” 

“Have to, no, want to, yes.” He grimaced, and ran his free hand over his hair. “It’s probably going to take me a little while to get over what I saw and smelled last night, Zee. I don’t think I could actually let you wait for the bus alone right now.”

He was there when Lassair was trying to heal Sophia. Another reason the woodcut thing bothered him so badly.

I’ll ensure that he and Saraid and one of Lassair’s … selves … are on the guest list, too, so that you need not fear I am about to cook and eat your young man.”

I enjoy Erida

“You didn’t notice the additional three digits of coding on the card catalogue entry. Godslayer-related. Not for general distribution. You take it at face value, because Prometheus lives in a room of our house.”

that’s a sentence

“Is there … anything I could do?” Zaya asked. “I mean, I don’t know her. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want strangers visiting me if I were in that … condition.” 

Erida had left her desk to give Zaya an unexpected embrace. “I doubt there’s anything that you can do, besides to be kind to Sigrun when you see her. But you have a good heart, little one.”

Zaya’s a good egg.

Today, he met one of the rarest creatures: a centaur who’d never actually lost his mind. “I came close a few times,” the male admitted tiredly. He was covered in fading bruises and healing scabs. “Name’s Nikolaos. Nikolaos Dmitrou.”

this guy

But the centaur’s scent was … definitely not one of the ones he’d caught on Sophia’s body. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d have done if it had been. Tearing out someone’s throat in the middle of the welcome area, with hundreds of people around them, in chairs and in lines, all filling out forms, didn’t seem a good option, but it had  flashed through his mind for a moment.

“I prevented a murder today!” “How’d you do that?” “Self-control.”

“I’m sorry, but that wasn’t a goddess,” he said, politely. “That was a valkyrie. Sigrun Caetia. Saraid’s not a goddess, either.”

false and false

Hand-fasting, in the Gallic and Gothic fashion, was a one-year agreement to live as husband and wife, which could be extended at the end of the first year,

or if you’re turian, manus rites

For most Gauls and Goths, it wasn’t a real marriage until a child was born.

wait fuck is that what that part of sophia’s prophecy means I never noticed that before now

He’d always assumed that his father’s children with Lassair held more of Trennus’ heart. In a flash, he suddenly realized that while his father loved Lassair, she was a demanding mate. Saraid was a giving mate, and his father had, over the years, perhaps come to cherish her the more for it.

remind me to complain about how this author treats poly relationships

Do not put your own joy entirely aside in your dealings with Fireflower, my son. I beg of you. I have watched those dear to me do precisely this for far too many years.

eat the fucking apple, sigrun

“Fireflower is new. I didn’t see her here before. Never in the asylum. She must be here because I put my boots on. And that’s different, and the difference frightens Apollo almost as much as seeing two godslayers in the same room!”

It’s dark as fuck but I’m going to start blaming every unforseen occurrence on my boots

Also fuck Apollo

they’re going to write in my chart that unlike the centaurs and the harpies, my madness isn’t caused by a god, so I should be able to become healthy again. Isn’t that funny! They won’t think it’s caused by a god!”

fuuuuuuck apollo

Adam lowered himself, slowly, to a crouch in front of Zaya, and she could hear his knees pop as he did so.

I read this and all I can picture is my dad 

My way of killing is too personal and horrifying, and it’s not terribly efficient. Not unless I rip the earth open and start burying a platoon at a time. His father had given him a look as Maccis had swallowed. Which I could probably do these days. Thank the gods, Maccis, that you’re probably never going to fight someone like me.

“What’s the best way to fight someone like me?” “Don’t.”

Fireflower informs me that you are under the impression that I could, and I quote, ‘throw you so far into the Veil that your father couldn’t find you with a radar telescope.’ 

Oh, thanks for mentioning that, Zee. “That has been my general assumption for years, sir.” Maccis grimaced. “Of course, if you were to do so, my father would probably try to bind you, Lady Erida would try to remove my father’s skin, and my mother and Lassair would try to tear her apart. It’s just best if I don’t do anything that might start that unfortunate chain of events.”

I want to say Maccis is a good boy but I don’t know if that’s offensive.

“You … just made me bloom? Wait. I’m not a tree.”

It’s a fertility night. My mother’s a wilderness spirit. I don’t know if it’ll happen every time I concentrate on you like that, but you only smell like you do now once a month.

They’re talking about ovulation, not menstruation, which took me a couple of passes to realize. Also, there are other things y’all can do. Just saying.

It was a particularly ancient-looking and ugly statue. Mesopotamian, certainly, and over fifteen feet tall, the creature depicted had the mouth of a scorpion, a scorpion’s claws in place of hands, and enormous, folded wings. Various professors of archaeology were interviewed, all in varying stages of eloquent excitement. Apparently, finding such a thing at the bottom of the Mediterranean, so close to Cyprus, was highly unusual. The statue had surely weighed over a ton, an enormous weight to be carried by ships of its evident era. Some were apparently calling it a fraud or a hoax, while others seemed to wish to maintain an open mind, until they could get a team down to translate the writings chiseled into its sides, which years of coral growth and silt had largely obscured.

uh oh

But in his darker moments, he had to wonder if he’d brought anything to Sigrun’s existence but the promise of pain to come.

in which adam realizes he only exists to make other people miserable

Adam ben Maor raised his eyes once more. 

And once again, there was no answer. 

He sighed, and stood. You make it terribly hard to believe in you.

upsettingly relateable

“Aha. A thief. A miscreant.” Aunt Sig’s voice was lightly mocking, and Maccis jumped a little.

I love Sig with the kids. They…I don’t want to say “humanize” her, but they give her a chance to be something other than miserable

Maccis thought for a moment, and then tossed an apple at her. “These always make me feel better,” he told her, cheerfully. “You should eat one.”

“eat the fucking apple, aunt sig”

Her shoulders, usually pulled back, sagged. Her head drooped. And Sigrun took a cautious bite.

fucking THANK YOU

The scent swirled around her like smoke, teasing and pressing in on her consciousness. Reminding her of … things past. Flashes of memory. A clear image of her mother, smiling at her father. Riding on a boat with them, floating down the Aeturnus River, the golden light of sunset turning the rippling waters into molten mercury. Sigrun pushed the memory away, and stolidly ate another bite. There were undercurrents to the taste. Cinnamon. Clove. Wine. Honey. Snatches of music, melodies she hadn’t heard in years. Another bite, and a starfield flickered behind her eyes.

soon….soooon

Zaya was never sure if she should thank the apple for it, or years of dance training, but there was also no pain.

that’s a myyyyyth

The world was falling apart around them. In less than a year, he’d be off and fighting in the same war that was consuming the lives of almost everyone else they knew. It didn’t seem such a bad thing, to reach for happiness now, when it could all be taken away, in a heartbeat. And while she had been raised to consider Marduk to be her god, at least nominally … Marduk was dead. There was a sense, Zaya felt, that this was a new age, with new rules, and few debts to the strictures of the past. Why not seize happiness when it lay before her?

danged millennials

A massive head, as big as a five-story building, surged up, and eyes the size of doors, and ember-red, glared down at them. Every scale on the creature’s body was obsidian black, but limned with an ember-glow. Jormangand, Illa’zhi said, softly, and in a tone of actual reverence.

wuhoh

You really must learn how to run, efreet.

but he has no efeets

I’ll show myself out

But not Nith. Nith has attached himself to me, for some reason.

“some reason”

Sigrun hesitated. Freya had, arguably, manipulated her.

she TRIED to teach you how to control the power you’d inadvertently gained before you went off like a fucking magic nuke, but you were so bullheaded about it she had to program failsafes into you since you wouldn’t fucking control yourself 

I HAVE OPINIONS ABOUT FREYA

That … does sound Olympian.

Is he, y'know…[mimes being an enormous infant who shattered an innocent woman’s mind for being prettier and better at prophecy than him] Olympian?

The room was very still, and Sigrun could feel Tren’s big, warm hand suddenly on her shoulder, and she turned slightly towards her old friend, like a plant towards the sun.

The knowledge Freya gave you was to prepare you for a possibility she foresaw. She did not give you seiðr. You know this, in your heart. You only choose to forget what you already knew.

YEAH. YEAH WHAT HE SAID.

Emberstone—the Archmage of your sister’s visions—performed calculations. Some of Tlaloc’s energy did not disperse into the earth, nor was consumed by Lassair, and Saraid absorbed only a trace. Where could it have gone, but into you?

He was a god of grain and plenty. You give of bounty, as well, but in small ways. Unconsciously.

justice cookies

Her throat was tight, and she was doing her best not to let any tears fall. The fact that there was a rumble of thunder in the distance only distressed her more.

finally she fucking notices

Oh, gods, what about Adam … .?

what ABOUT adam?

Leave no ripples. Do what is necessary, but pass through life like water through water. No traces. Just do your job and then disappear.

sigrun go to therapy challenge

Prometheus’s sense flickered. Loki remains the best chance. However, the odds are better if a goddess, who seems to be as much of Loki’s heir as his own son, and is backed by Niðhoggr, made overtures to the world-serpent …  than if a handmaiden of Tyr made the case for alliance. 

It actually took Sigrun a moment to register what Prometheus meant.

welcome to the pantheon

In the drawing room, Prometheus sat down, and picked up his cup of tea. And now you understand why Zeus hated me so, he said, simply.

truth hurts

I have rarely encountered so much self-loathing in one person before, but I think it largely stems from the self-deception. As I said, it conflicts with her basic self. With the deception removed, she can uncontort herself. In time.

the truth is vicious and you owe it something

My sister grieves. Saraid’s voice was tight. The heavens grieve with her. There was, indeed, rain drumming on the roof. She feels as if her life is at an end. I have tried for so long to show her … She put her head against Trennus’ shoulder. I have tried to show her that being what we are, is not … a bad thing. To be at peace. She is my sister, and I love her. She loves me. She accepts Lassair. She accepts us both without question or hesitation. And yet she cannot accept being … what we are. Honest grief in Saraid’s voice, as if Sigrun’s rejection of herself, was also somehow a rejection of the quiet forest-spirit, but also grief for Sigrun, as well.

:(

Sigrun rubbed at her face. Night. Death. Ice. Storms. All things associated with evil. But I can’t escape my nature.

dark is not evil, SIGRUN

She’d gotten better at tolerating the touch of others, over the years. Lassair she put up with, Saraid she could accept, and Trennus had held her in the Veil while they regained their strength to return to the mortal world after Loki’s exile. It had formed a bond of which Sigrun had never spoken, never acknowledged, but was nevertheless there.

sigrun join the matrugena poly challenge

Saraid’s voice was quietly horrified. Stormborn, my sister, the power is … what you make of it.

yeah, what she said

How much better and easier would my life have been, if I’d had the great good sense to fall in love with you, Trennus?

who says you didn’t?

“That was then. Since we moved to Judea, he hasn’t so much as gone to the solstice bonfires. Oh, he approves of them, for Goths, but he won’t go, and I’ve never asked. I’ve never permitted there to be conflict.”

that’s 👏 not 👏 a 👏 healthy 👏 relationship 👏

Sigrun turned slightly at the anguish in Saraid’s voice, and just wept for a moment, aware as Trennus stood, and once more stroked her hair, lightly. Sigrun wanted, desperately, to accept their comfort. And for a moment, she let herself be weak enough to do so.

accepting 👏 comfort 👏 isn’t 👏 weak

But in the end, using them was, apparently, required of her. And her gods would have her obedience in this, as in all things.

Sigrun how do you finally do what is healthiest for you in the least healthy way possible

You … heard me. Shock and joy in the dragon’s voice. You hear me! You hear me at last!

niiiith

I had best get that under control before I see Adam again.

"I’m not fond of fish,” she returned, with aplomb. 

Adam grinned at her. “You are hardly a good representative of the people who built the boats who brought the armies of the Empire to these shores, Sigrun.”

One of the things I do bc I'm both an asshole and a nerd is rewrite some of these unwieldy lines that crop up occasionally. I came up with "'Hardly what I expected from a member of a seafaring culture'" for this one, which removes some of the background info BUT also doesn't make my brain trip over its own feet reading it.

"[...]You god-born are arrogant, and your arrogance will be your undoing. You will not always be able to cow everyone you meet with a show of force. A new day is coming. One in which the power of the so-called gods will be in all our hands, every man and woman will be as a mage, and there will never again be common-born and god-born.”

Take notes, this'll be on the quiz. (I have a whole separate highlight color for prophesies and foreshadowing.) (Because I'm a nerd.)

The Atenist, on the other hand, looked past the woman’s shoulder. Made eye-contact with the man at the table, and the Egyptian’s eyes narrowed, and a smirk crossed his face. Adam stiffened slightly, suddenly wary. He knew that look. The Egyptian suddenly smiled, without mirth. 'Oh. I understand. The barbarian woman likes sucking circumcised c—'

At the table, the hooded man looked up at the ceiling. "Bad move," he muttered. “Very bad move.”

Another clap of thunder shook the building. And before the Egyptian could even react, the tall woman caught him by the wrist with her right hand, stepping deftly in behind him and pulling smoothly up between his shoulder blades. There was no effort in her movements, and though the man resisted, her single hand remained rock-steady, forcing him forwards onto the bar with an ungentle thump. “All right,” she said, her voice tired. “That’s one count of proselytizing without a license to preach, and in a public establishment, at that. One count of disrespect towards an officer of the law. The first is usually a two solidi fine.” Two solidi would pay the rent of a one-bedroom apartment in most major cities in the Empire and thus represented a stinging rebuke to someone found guilty of a crime. “The punishment for the second offense is usually determined by the whim of the magistrate in question. By happy chance, I am a magistrate.” She paused. “Do stop struggling. You have no hope of freeing yourself.”

She produced her rarely-used shackles from where they rode at the small of her back, and clicked them into place around the first wrist, casually planted a knee against the Atenist’s back, and reached around to seize his other hand. At which point, he managed to turn his head and spit into her glowing face. “God-born whore.” The man in the corner uncoiled from the booth at that point, taking two steps closer. “Sig—” The woman let the Atenist’s left hand loose just long enough to shift position, still retaining control of his right. Her own left hand slid up, found the back of his neck, and she slammed his head, face-first, into the counter. Hard.

okay this is a long quote BUT it's always bothered me; Sig only got in the guy's face in the first place because he was badmouthing god-born, of which she is one (the previous quote was said to her), so absolutely all of this reads as a gross abuse of power that she gets away with because she's a god-born of the local population's pantheon and a high-level bodyguard type person to boot, and the only excuse she gives at all is "I have logged over eighteen hours in a plane and quite a few more in a crowded motorcar in the past two days. So I might be ill-tempered." Like. Not an excuse, Sig.

"I’m perfectly aware that there are other gods. They’re just not my god."

the only good thing Adam ever said

"Ley-power has given people light and power for devices in their homes—without being bound to smelly coal-burning plants—”

“Judea uses nuclear reactors, these days—” He felt compelled to defend his homeland.

“Oh, that is obviously so much better.” A hint of sarcasm in her tone. “And think of this. Ley-powered devices, like those motorcars out there? Travel used to be something reserved for the wealthy, in the main. People well-enough off to own horses, which required stabling, fodder, land, exercise, and constant care. Ley-taps and ley-power are a miracle of the modern age, and the ley-grid employs thousands of technomancers and ley-mages. Sorcerers . . . the users of seiðr, as my people call it . . . have not always been held in high esteem. The Gauls have treated their ley-mages better. And the result is a better standard of living for everyone. It’s hard to see the harm in that.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

Shut up, Adam.

“Hmm. His version of the story . . . now that he’s regained consciousness. . .” a sidelong and slightly disapproving look at Sigrun now[...]"

That's right local police guy you shame the godborn

“I wouldn’t stoop to using the power of the gods on one such as him.” Sigrun’s voice was flat. “It would be dishonorable. After he insulted me personally, I did, however, execute justice on him.”

That's not justice, Sig, that's pettiness. (The cop says as much a moment later but gets shut down by Sig's fancy Secret-Service-slash-Federal-Marshall credentials, which is gross)

Even after two years in India, and a year on this continent, he still didn’t entirely trust anything that didn’t run on electricity.

Because he's an idiot, and whatever -ism would be applied to hating mages for no good fucking reason

She was a puzzle. And Adam ben Maor enjoyed puzzles.

wow that doesn't sound like a serial killer at all

Sigrun, on the other hand, for all that she was god-born, didn’t have faith. She didn’t need it. She had assurance. Two very different things.

Didn't Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl have a conversation about this in the JL cartoon

So Adam sat and watched the news with a slightly jaundiced eye, shaking his head over the protestors in Xunantunich, all holding signs in Quecha and Latin, demanding an end to a Roman occupation that had already lasted for centuries. “Yes . . . that’s going to get results."

Shut up, Adam

Propraetor Antonius Livorus sat in the bathing area of the hotel room, patiently allowing his personal body-servant to shave him with a straight razor [...] “I will never understand how someone can do this properly themselves,” he murmured, gesturing at his face as he turned to study himself in the mirror.

Livorus I love you but that's just a little ridiculously privileged

A serpent and a jaguar were visible there, and, on his arms, bared to the elbow by his rolled sleeves, images of his strange, squat-looking gods.

This is referring to Aztec gods, and Sig's being racist.

“Sometimes, the worst monster of all, is humanity itself.”

ow the edge

“We have something in Judea now. We call them flak jackets. You should consider them. Unless the armor is just for show?”

"You should do this thing I say instead of the thing that's important to your religion, because I don't think it's necessary and therefore you shouldn't either"

“We’ve got a turnoff in about a mile,” Sigrun warned. He could see how tightly she was gripping the inner handle of the door, in spite of the fact that the car was barely going forty-five miles an hour. She was not an easy passenger. Another facet of her personality that amused him.

"Your fear is hilarious to me!"

In his left hand, Livorus held a bundle of sticks. The fasces.

I cannot read this word or a description of the item and not picture an old man in a toga bopping someone on the head with it

“If that one opens his mouth again to lie,” Livorus said, conversationally, gesturing at the young man, and speaking to Ehecatl, “please tell the king and his elders that I request that they remove his tongue and present it to me as a gift. In reparation for my time . . . and Rome’s time . . . that his words waste.”

Antonius Livorus has Zero Chill

“This is how we teach the young what’s important, yes?” Ptah growled it out.

yes. by shooting them. good job, ptah.

“Darkness is coming, Roman.” The eyes closed, then re-opened, vaguely. “Do you know...where your gods are?”

I don't even have a comment, I just like this line, for all its clicheness

“Sigrun, my dear, can you walk? Can you help this young lady back to our motorcar?” “Yes, propraetor. I think so.” Sigrun started to get to her feet, the lines of her face tautening as she did.

Ben Maor cut in, sharply, “Sir, she should not be walking, and I do not care what kind of magic was used to repair her wounds.

Shut up, Adam

The man stepped out of the way. “Go. Bring your machine. And tell your Roman that the chief would speak to him.” 

“I’m sure the propraetor will be happy to speak with your king [. . .]”

I forgot about this; there's a lot of just...not respecting native terms or customs. And I know it's Because Rome and the whole...do as the Romans do, or whatever, but also: stop it

Adam thought she might have been beautiful, if not for the lines of a very hard life on her weathered face.

she is gorgeous and you are a tool

Livorus nodded slowly, absorbing the woman’s words, and said, quietly, “And you were given as a wife to this friend of your brother, weren’t you, my dear.” It wasn’t quite a question.

And the woman nodded, rapidly, and Adam could only stare in shock. They’d killed both her father and her husband, in one day, and while there was sorrow in her face, there was no vengeance at all. Either the strongest woman I have ever seen, or the most worn, he thought, stunned.

1. the entire preceding conversations suggests she might not have even liked either of them 2. not everyone starts barfights over petty insults, Adam

Some god-born aged more or less as humans did. Some, like Sigrun, did not age physically at all.

which Adam will never notice until he decides to be mad about it

“He was a good man, in the main. A good enough husband.” Another weary shrug. “He was faithful, and he did not beat me. But I would not call what I felt love. More the memory of it. Love’s shadow.” She looked at Sigrun, and then down at the corpse of her father. “Love dies.”

and this, adam, is why we do not make assumptions. tool.

“Do I look Hellene to you?”

"is he, y'know...[pantomines letting your critically injured friend lay his head in your lap on the way to the hospital] gay?" (all hellenes are gay. all of them. queer as a bunch of three-dollar bills.)

"Instead, I require that one child from the family of each man who is executed for having taken part in this conspiracy, be sent to a boarding school in Novo Gaul. Close enough to visit their relatives, but they will be expected to improve their minds, and learn Latin. Roman ways. Roman thoughts. Roman ideas."

I know, okay. I know. Roman Empire, whatever, this just gives me such uncomfortable feelings of indigenous kids getting "civilized" in Christian schools

Still, the young man’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, and now I am consumed by my curiosity.”

“Then be devoured by it, Adam ben Maor, and may you give it indigestion.”

get vored by your emotions

“The chain mail is heavy, and does you very little good.”

stop mansplaining her armor at her adam

"First, I wear it when it is Tyr’s day. Respect."

so shut up, adam

"And third. . .” She shrugged. “I can still die, Adam. I’m not a goddess.”

[stares into the camera like I'm on the office]

“I am a valkyrie. [..] “That means, largely, that I will die in battle, Adam. No sickness will claim me. And even in battle, it would probably take an immediately mortal wound. Decapitation, or complete obliteration of the heart."

"Tyr is not a god of healing. He is a god of justice. His gift is...tempered. He requires that I understand the suffering of a victim, in order to restore them. [...] It’s not a mercantile arrangement. But there is a saying: ex nihilo nihil fit.” Nothing comes from nothing. “You have to give, if you wish to receive.”

"ex nihilo nihil fit" has been lodged in my mind since the first time I read this

“But [Fritti’s] strong. She’ll be just fine.”

citation needed

[Adam] was highly amused to note that Sigrun had gripped onto the arms of the chair, and that her knuckles were already white. They had yet to leave the ground. “Would it help if I held your hand?”

[braun strowman voice] you can GET THESE HANDS

It wasn’t that he was unused to other cultures;

it was that he was a tool

"he’d had his mind forcibly expanded in India and in the course of serving Rome"

adam is that guy who spends a week in a resort town and never shuts up about how "worldly" he is now

(I swear I get nicer once other characters are introduced and we don't spend so much time with adam)

Sangua Foederis. Blood Pact.

i c u mass effect reference

“Since when is Matrugena my summoner?”

Oh, just you wait, Sig

Adam grinned at her. She reacted rather nicely to teasing.

g r o s s

In the public baths, people sat around stark naked, in the pools, or taking a steam. The most one might have was a towel. It required certain mental adjustments. Most notably remembering not to hit anyone whose eyes dropped below neck level.

but adam you're so enlightened

The Pict had dark blond hair, dressed back in a half dozen braids

I never ever picture him as blonde. he always has red hair. I don't know why I have so much trouble with this when it is clearly stated, right there.

“What woman is ever going to be interested in things like that? You might as well put up a sign that says ‘in bonded servitude to books, in perpetuity.’”

leave trennus alone he's a Good Boy 

He had...no idea what to do with the fact that he had just gone from seeing her as a weapon, then a woman, and now, suddenly, as both at the same time.

admit that you're a gross tool and then get out of my book

“True enough,” Adam admitted, tautly. “I can’t say I’m thrilled with the idea of working with a summoner. It’s an inevitable and slippery slope into desiring more and more power, Trennus; dealing with spirits is inherently evil.” He paused; the man was regarding him steadily. “Isn’t it?”

"Knowledge is neither inherently good nor inherently bad,” Trennus told him, with a certain sober intensity. “Knowledge is neutral. It's what we do with what we know that matters."

trennus is a Good Boy

“What does it matter? There’s no one on this team who’s a noble.”

Trennus coughed into his hand.

Kanmi turned and gave him a pained look. “Eat shit and die. You’re not a noble.”

#kanmikin

Another long, steady look. “I can’t hate him,” Kanmi announced, after a moment. “It’d be like kicking a puppy.”

don't take it personally, everybody loves trennus. like literally, it’s a Thing

“She kills things. I carry her bags.”

this is in fact your only purpose in the world

“I do have other options besides lightning.”

“Yes, but how many of them are non-lethal?”

A pause. “I could just punch them. Carefully. Being mindful that their teeth do not grow back.”

Sigrun Caetia is a forever mood

“I don’t think I’m capable of being anything more than what I am right now.”