#swanto

I did the fucking thing 😤🎉 Feelin' pretty good despite being a little sad it's over

A very short preview (for a very short epilogue chapter):

~

It is said that one should keep one’s allies within view, and one’s enemies within reach.

But what of friends?

Aaahh! 😍 *settles in to ramble way too much*

If I'm remembering right, the whole thing started just from wondering how the start of Thrawn 2017 might have gone for Thrawn if Eli wasn't there (possibly because I'd been thinking about the original Legends version of that scene, and how weird it was to read it after reading the new version of the scene so many times).

Anyway, for that to happen I needed a reason for why Eli wasn't there. So that led into a vague idea of him somehow getting in trouble with the Empire instead, and being on the receiving end of that brutal side that he doesn't really catch on to in canon till the wookiee slave ship incident. And if I could somehow get his path to cross Nightswan's as well as Thrawn's... boom, excuse to actually get him and Thrawn on the rebel's side instead of the Empire's. But that basic concept just sat untouched in my ideas list titled "Rebel AU" for.. probably around a year, though, give or take. Cause I knew expanding on it and writing it would require Actual Story and I'd pretty much convinced myself I couldn't do plot unless it was entirely sex-based plot like Need 😅

Buuuut I started to go 👀 a little after working on Ice to Fire with jewell and actually helping out with story & wordlbuilding brainstorming, and with encouragement from amazing people like jewell, Zs, rev, whale, dd, and drac (who said things like No it's not a dumb story idea and Yes you can totally write plot if you want to and Post it notes are magic didn't you know), I decided to try doing something with my languishing Rebel AU idea for Nanowrimo last year (since I was unemployed and had the time to write full-time anyway).

All that to say, I finally sat down like a week or so before Nov 1 last year and started brainstorming details and ideas and multiple potential scenes/story directions/etc (I can't remember which planning method I used, but the Nano site had some really good resources). Nov 1st I started writing, I actually passed the 50k words goal just before the end of the month, and then I spent (checks AO3 posting date) three and a half months cleaning it up, filling in the gaps, and running to Rev (my wonderful beta with endless reserves of patience) and other wonderful supportive friends for repeated reassurance and advice and feedback until it was essentially finished. (...it felt like a lot longer than 3.5 months at the time though, wow)

I kept working on later bits while posting for the first while too, probably for the the first couple months, so start to finish it took more than half a year to write. Including about a month during which I essentially treated it like it was my full-time job, which is the only reason I was able to get the majority of the planning and writing actually done in so short a time.

And also Magic Post-it Notes 💫

It's almost finished aaaaaa I'm not ready

Eli was chewing mechanically on his ration bar and trying not to let his jittering nerves show when they came for him.

Two stormtroopers strode into the crushers station not long after the lunch droid had left, eyeless masks swivelling around and fixing on him. Eli suppressed a shiver, a curl of fear twisting through his gut. It should be Nevil and Thrawn, but if it wasn’t… if they’d been caught… Eli wouldn’t know until it was too late.

Not that he could do much about it even if he did know, to be fair.

“Take him,” one of the stormtroopers said, pointing at Eli. Eli thought it sounded a bit like Nevil… but with the typical, tinny voice distortion he couldn’t be sure.

The other stormtrooper nodded sharply— he was the taller of the two, and Thrawn had said he would speak as little as possible in case his accent gave them away— then strode over to Eli, grabbed him by the jumpsuit, and hauled him roughly to his feet.

“What— wait, I didn’t do anything!” Eli protested, raising his hands in surrender.

“Where are you taking him?” one of the guards asked, shooting Eli a suspicious look as he was manacled, wrists yanked behind his back.

“There’s been an incident. We’re taking this one for questioning,” the first stormtrooper answered; then turned to Eli. “Move.”

Eli swallowed hard, and didn’t have to fake his nerves as he was shoved forward towards to the access tunnel. The guard frowned even more suspiciously at him and didn’t raise any objections.

We're almost at the end aaaaaaa

Nevil woke up with a jolt long before the morning alarm. The bunkroom was dark and still. Eli was asleep behind him, one arm draped over Nevil’s ribs and his breath coming in soft, warm puffs against the back of Nevil’s neck. It was comfortable, familiar and calming; but Nevil was already wide awake nonetheless.

Because this was it. This was the day they would escape, or die trying.

Literally.

Eli stirred against Nevil’s back. “Hey,” he murmured, his voice thick and croaky.

Not entirely asleep after all, then.

“Go back to sleep,” Nevil said softly, giving Eli’s forearm a gentle squeeze. “There’s still a little time yet.”

“Mmm… no. Can’t sleep anymore,” Eli said. His hair tickled across the back of Nevil’s neck as he shook his head, and his hand slipped down onto Nevil’s hip.

Smiling into the darkness, Nevil let Eli tug him over, rolling onto his other side and shuffling in close. Eli’s mouth found his with a soft, sleepy hum, his thigh sliding between Nevil’s legs and his hand running up Nevil’s back beneath his thin undershirt. Ignoring the inevitable morning breath as they kissed, light and slow and unhurried, Nevil trailed his fingers through Eli’s messy hair, savouring every last second of sensation and emotion as Eli burrowed down into his neck, nuzzling into him and licking soft, wet kisses into his skin.

Eli was stiffening slowly against him, too, hips rocking idly to rut gently against the front of Nevil’s thigh. Nevil already knew he wasn’t going to be able to get fully into the mood himself, too nervous and keyed up for today…

But he was more than amenable to keeping Eli distracted from it all a little longer.

*whispers* I mentally call this chapter "end of Part 1"

Also thinking of starting to update twice weekly at some point... any thoughts or preferences?

Eli woke up to darkness before the morning alarm even went off. He blinked into consciousness with his face buried in the side of Nevil’s chest, Nevil’s arm around his shoulders, and a sleepy smile already on his lips before he’d even quite remembered why.

“Good morning,” Nevil said softly, the familiar sound of his quiet smile making Eli’s deepen.

“Mm… g’mornin’.” Scooting up a little higher, he pressed a soft, lingering kiss to Nevil’s mouth before snuggling in tighter, throwing a knee over Nevil’s thigh. “Think we’ve got time for another round before the day starts?” Eli murmured, only half joking.

This one is.. spicyyy 😏

“Come on,” Eli said. Giving Nevil a nudge with his elbow, he nodded meaningfully in the direction of the showers. “We can eat after.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Nevil asked him.

“Oh, I absolutely am,” Eli said mischievously, biting his lip and glancing sideways at Nevil as they slipped out of the loose line towards the mess hall and headed for the ‘freshers instead.

Nevil grinned, the tip of his tongue darting out to wet his lips. “Now that you mention it… I could go for a little snack before dinner myself.”

Even though they’d been in one of the first groups riding the lift up out of the mines, the showers were— as Eli had hoped— open already. And everyone else in the early wave seemed to have gone to supper first tonight. He and Nevil stripped off quickly, shoving their dirty clothes down the chute. Eli led the way through the banks of showers, winding all the way through to the very back corner; where Nevil had taken him the night he arrived so he would have a little privacy.

Tonight, Eli had very different plans in mind for that privacy. Taking Nevil’s hand, he thumbed on the end shower by the wall and pulled Nevil down into a long kiss as the hot water streamed over their skin. Nevil almost melted against him with a quiet hum of pleasure, meeting Eli’s tongue with his, those strong, calloused hands dropping down to cup Eli’s ass.

Welcome to Part 3...

No one is immune from failure. All have tasted the bitterness of defeat and disappointment. But not all learn from their errors.

That is something those who seek to dominate others know very well, and know how to exploit. If an opponent has demonstrated a particular weakness, his enemy will first try again to exploit that weakness, hoping the failure will be repeated.

What the manipulator sometimes forgets, and what a warrior must always remember, is that no two sets of circumstances are alike. One challenge is not like another. The would-be victim may have learned from his earlier failure.

So, too, can no battle plan anticipate all possible contingencies. There are always unexpected factors, including those stemming from the opponent’s initiative.

A battle thus becomes a balance between plan and improvisations, between intellect and reflex, between error and correction.