There's a Mirror On the Wall

The resupply is unstaffed, unlike the first one, and the security is familiar and readily bypassed. He finds less money than he likes, but it will be sufficient for a few weeks. The supply of weapons and ammunition is more acceptable, and there is another stash of the meal bars he's been eating. It all fits easily into the borrowed vehicle, and there are no issues in returning to mission control, and securing the weapons in the garden shed with the new lock installed since his arrival.

After returning the vehicle to its original location, he returns to mission control on foot, and finds Aunt awake when he comes up the stairs. She is at the door to Tiny Mission's room, and a hand raised to kock on it. He takes three long steps, and grabs her wrist with his metal hand, holding it securely.

"No. You will not disturb my mission."

Aunt glares at him, though he can see pain behind the anger and hate in her eyes. He must be holding her wrist too tightly. Oops.

"You're both using resources, and selfishly doing nothing to repay us for the roof over your heads or anything else we have provided." Aunt keeps her voice down to a hissing whisper, though he doesn't think it's for Tiny Mission's sake. More likely for the child in the room on the other side of the hall, as not to wake him. "I won't have it any longer."

---

Snippets go up a week earlier on Patreon. If you want to see things early, come sign up!

A new day, a new year, and here's to it being a better one overall than the previous one.

Despite people still setting off fireworks after one am, I slept well. Because ear buds that actually stay in my ears are fantastic. (The cord from them goes up over my ear instead of dangling down, and thus, there's an extra line of securing it.)

I got words yesterday, also, so have a snippet. Magnificent Seven (TV show), Seven Legends AU (and the incident Buck is apologizing for again is not a canon one, but otherwise is uncertain):

JD shifts to sit up a little further. "Do you know who your father is?"

Buck laughs, grinning sharp and dangerous and happy and bright all at once. "Of course I do. Not exactly intent on calling his attention right now. Or any of them. The rest of you don't need that, not at the moment."

"If they come here from Olympus, I might shoot them." Chris's voice is rougher than usual, like he's trying to gargle with gravel. "I remember last time."

"I said I was sorry about that." Buck grimaces a moment, before tilting his head to study Chris. "At least it was already rock here."

"And will be until it all erodes away." Chris flexes his hands, looking unblinkingly at the talons still there for a long moment before he carefully picks the blanket out from between them and sets it aside. The talons don't vanish the way Ezra's eyes went back to normal, and the scales are still present, but at least so is Chris.

I need to feed the cats and feed me and the rest of the morning routine, but the bed is made, at least. Neighbors are asshats with too-loud music that has a bass that reaches me and throbs like it's trying to be a heartbeat, one that doesn't match mine and tends to disrupt mine if I don't find a white noise to drown it out.

It's overcast and gray and windy outside, and I'm glad not to have to go out at any point.

I did get words yesterday! A couple bits for a Magnificent Seven AU, Seven Legends. Figuring out what and how much to snippet is a bit of an issue, but here, let's try this bit.

---

Vin has blood on his teeth and face and bare chest, carefully flexing his joints as he makes sure all his joints are back where they belong. He'll worry about clothes after he's cleaned up.

Chris is already wrapped in a blanket, huddled almost on top of the fire Josiah had built up, staring blankly as his body struggles to remember what being warm is. There are still scales glittering around his eyes, red and black, and the blanket has holes where the talons that haven't yet retreated to nails have pierced it.

Ezra is nearly as close to the fire as Chris, eyes still slit-pupiled and more gold than green. He's dressed in what remains of his shirt, trousers that are slightly less ragged, and wrapped in another blanket. His boots will wait until he's not likely to stumble over his own feet.

Tolkien, A Path From the Fire AU. Vorlanas decided she wanted to show up for Helm's Deep.

---

"Lindaew. I did not expect to see you here." Aragorn is smiling, for all his words, and he reaches out to pull her into a hug, much as he had Haldir a moment before. "I did not know you'd come west again."

"Came home, and then I left again before I knocked venno and atar's heads together. Someone brought up Doriath." Vorlanas pauses as she pulls back. "Thranduil decided he was not best pleased to have atar in his realm, even if he was visiting family, and forgot that reopening that wound wouldn't make atar leave."

Aragorn closes his eyes as he sighs, before smiling at her again, and turning to the man who'd greeted them as they arrived, though Vorlanas doesn't give him a chance to introduce her before doing so herself.

"Vorlanas Lirulin, of the House of Finwë, called Lindaew Magloriel. If I am to fight alongside Men once more, I would have you know my name in full."

I didn't manage to get an entry yesterday 'cause brain. Headspace today isn't too great, either, but if nothing else, I've got story words to snippet.

So. Back to In Familia Imperatoris for the snippet today. Earlier chronologically than the ones I've been posting, but. Yennefer and Geralt, because while I'm happily plotting other relationships as well, I have no intention of throwing out the canon relationships just to have the ones I'm plotting as well. Because they are all adults and bloody well can figure out how to make it all work.

---

"Of course I got your letters." Yennefer sighs, coming closer, studying him with a small frown that makes him reach out to cup her cheek, smoothing a thumb over the furrow in her brow. "There are interesting rumors in the city about you."

"The usual ones about why the Emperor bothers to have a barbarian Witcher in the family quarters of the palace?" He's heard more than one version of them, though they all boil down to the assumption that he is being fucked or has been fucked by Emhyr, and never mind the more prosaic truth.

Yennefer let out a huff of irritated laughter, leaning into his touch a moment before she straightens, reaching up to clasp his hand rather than leave it in place. "Not once?"

"Not even once." He meets her gaze easily, letting her see the truth of it in his face. Not for lack of an invitation, nor indeed for lack of interest, but he wouldn't do that behind Yennefer's back. He had no desire to hurt her like that.

Because at least I have story words to post, even if I don't have the spoons for my journal entry.

Until it lets me go again, it'll be In Familia Imperatoris. Today, Geralt and Emhyr.

---

"Pavetta was distressed to hear you'd been imprisoned." A pen scratches across parchment, and soon after the dripping of wax and the warm smell of it tells Geralt of something signed and sealed.

"Hmm." Geralt knows Pavetta had to be aware of the risk that he'd not come back from delivering the note she'd asked him to take to Calanthe.

"Yes, she was aware of the possibility. She did not appreciate being proved correct to worry." A quiet click of the pen being set aside, and further rustling of parchment. "Even if you were the one most likely to be left in one piece."

Geralt opens his eyes to a lazy slit when he hears Emhyr's camp chair creak, watching as he comes out from behind the desk to settle instead on one of the stools near the tub. "My sister's writ is fulfilled, though I will never hear the end of it."

"Calanthe didn't surrender." He knows that. Even given the news of Pavetta's survival, of Cirilla being alive, her pride had been unbowed, her fury as bright and sharp and dangerous as it had been when she'd tried to stop Emhyr from marrying Pavetta.

"She retreated to Skellige with three quarters the population of her city, and as much of her army as survived being a rear guard for that evacuation."

More of In Familia Imperatoris. Pavetta and Geralt being quietly adorable.

---

"They agreed to everything." Geralt settles against the bench in the garden where Pavetta is currently laying, staring up at the fading colors of the sunset. He is quiet a moment before he snorts. "They said to think of the loans as a gift, and not to be concerned about repaying them now."

Pavetta lets out a quiet laugh, amusement and satisfaction both in the sound. "They'll be repaid, and with all the interest they could desire. We only needed a little breathing room until Nazair is back on its feet."

"I was covered in whatever is in the sewers other than those drowners." Geralt grins when Pavetta lets out another laugh. "I don't think they wanted to be in the room for longer than they had to in order to get the business concluded."

"Good." She rolls onto her side, reaching out to run her fingers through the still‒damp strands of his hair. "Thank you for meeting with the trade corporations."

Geralt tilts his head back, leaning into her touch. "It's something I'm good at, and something to be of use." He doesn't like that there's so little for a Witcher this far south, but at the same time, he hesitates to go back out on the path. To risk revealing the deception that the Imperial family had inflicted on Cintra and the North. Even if he still isn't sure it was the right thing to do.

Today's snippet from Freelance Spies (James Bond/Harry Potter crossover, and yes I do mean the entire f-ing franchise, it's more fun that way), after Alec is feeling much recovered from Arkangel, thank you, and accidentally sees a six-year-old Harry with his aunt and cousin at a grocery, and well. In Alec's defense, he was left unsupervised, and his friends should know better than to do that. He does things like establish crime syndicates and kidnap the Boy-Who-Lived from his abusive Muggle relatives.

Alec's grandmother would get along with M like a house on fire, and calls Harry "little bird" because it's what she called her son, and her grandson, and she'll call her grandson's adopted son the same while he's a child, just you try and stop her. She calls Alec by his name most of the time, and calls him her crow when she's exasperated with him, and Sanya when she's feeling very sentimental.

And Alec in return calls her babushka and grandmother and never uses her name unless he has to fill out official forms that involve her, and speaks Russian with her at home as much as he can, and teaches Harry how to speak Russian because that's the language of home.

---

His grandmother hums as she looks over Harry. "Where did you say you brought him home from, Alec? I can't think much of the place, he's too skinny."

"I didn't say." Alec takes a breath, tapping the plate in front of him to inform the kitchen he's at the table. "Others will take care of it, grandmother. People who can't be sent back to ruined homes if they get caught."

"I wouldn't be caught, моя ворона." His grandmother sighs when Harry flinches slightly at the sharp note in her voice, reaching out a gentle hand to smooth his hair back. "Now, маленькая птица, you should sit with us and eat a proper breakfast, da?"

Harry darts a glance at Alec, nodding hesitantly, and climbing into the chair Alec's grandmother directs him to. Alec summons a plate from the sideboard, setting it in front of Harry before tapping it.

Goldeneye/MCU crossover, Alec Trevelyan and Natasha Romanov (Natalia Romanova) just post the end of the movie. Backstory is that Bond betrayed Alec and left him in Ourumov's hands, and Alec ended up with some knockoff serum which is why he's not dead.

(There's a lot to the Bond side of this AU I haven't bothered with exploring as yet, because the main drive of what I'm working on is Alec collects himself a Natalia and Yasha and I may potentially have him collect a Tony because silly Sims3 inspiration, and how that all effects the MCU. Especially since I doubt M is going to play nice with SHIELD and Nick Fury once things start happening.)

---

"Your little British spy friend is annoying, Alec." Natalia's voice is a cool balm to the rage that's not entirely burned itself out. Ourumov is dead, his little friend who'd tortured Alec is dead. Bond, however, is not.

"James always has been." Alec keeps his eyes closed, taking stock of his injuries. Half-healed burns, bones set but not fully knitted. The ragged cuts and punctures from the damned radio antenna neatly stitched as they can be, but they'll scar. Like the burns will. "Does he think I'm dead again?"

"Unless you're planning to flaunt your continued existance to him, yes." Natalia shifts slightly, deliberately letting him hear the rustle of fabric and faint creak of leather. "Do you really think MI6 will take the bait?"

"If M has half the intelligence I think she does, she will." It had been useful to have someone Bond wasn't aware of, to let him slip the information into places where it would be found while he played the petty thief. He needs more than Janus ever had to get their soldier, their Yasha out of the hands of the bastards who took him.

via http://ift.tt/29QfUY6:
A piece that may or may not be included in the main story, but does contain spoilers for concepts I plan to use at some point in either Four For Fire, or a story that follows up on that arc. Or both.

Visions of Family

AU: Children of FireWord Count: 1140Characters: Sam Carter, Jolinar of Malkshur, Pele

She is memories and dreams, trapped in a the back of a mind that doesn’t know how to listen for her, and cannot help but talk to her. Her shouts might be the barest whispers of instinct, almost never noticed, but sometimes when she listens to the ramble of Sam’s unconscious mind, she thinks perhaps it sometimes is.

Jolinar has no body, no neurons and synapses of her own, only those borrowed unwitting and unwilling - on both their parts - from Sam, and no more strength than a ghost. It gives her both a strange freedom and traps her in a cage she has no means of breaking.

When Sam’s dreams murmur of a David Rossi, of a plea to save his brother, to save Baal, Jolinar wishes she had enough strength to be more than an unconscious whisper, and to rattle her unintended cage. To shake Sam and add her own plea to that of her brother. She has such a small family, and she cannot bear the thought of even the spoiled baby being lost for his capture by those she had once been part of.

She had always been careful to keep him out of their sights, even if she couldn’t keep them from noticing his existance and the empire he would build.

All she can do is scream until she exhausts what strength she has, and shake the dreaming-self and plead her own dream-self horse for her brother’s life. Her mother’s youngest, the baby she had done so much to protect, because she couldn’t protect her other brother, and could only keep her mother secret.

It’s a surprise, then, when she sees the flash of crimson in the dreams that tell her of the world, to see the glowing gold of the queen who she had never thought to see again. To see the loose robes of her youngest brother, the great thrones of carven wood, the riot of jungle and the rich feast of welcome. To know her former host, her last host, has perhaps heard her screams and done what could be done to save Baal. Taken her home to her mother, though she cannot sit at Pele’s feet and lean her head against her knee as she wishes she could.

Cannot chose to leave her host to swim in the rivers of the great mountain, to give Sam release from her entirely, when she is so trapped that all mourn her death-final. It had been good for Sam, before, but now it makes this collection of synapses all the more a cage from which she cannot break free, and cannot bring herself to will into destruction.

“The ashrak killed her. I was there.”

“There is no trace of her body, perhaps, but that does not mean she is dead in finality.”

“I won’t let you destroy my mind just to find some memories of Jolinar.”

“It will not destroy your mind, and it is not memories I seek. Only my daughter.”

It is as if she walks into a garden both familiar and not, the crimson flowers that her mother loves perfuming the air around her. There are others who rest in the garden, Sam looking confused and awed, and Pele as regal as ever, though worry etches lines around gold-glowing eyes.

She doesn’t pay any attention to Sam, going to sit at her mother’s feet, leaning against her knee as she tries to hide a shudder of relief. A broken lock on an unknowing prison, a chance to escape and be given life renewed in a body that is entirely her own. A new host can be found, will be found, there are never a shortage on her mother’s world.

“How is it possible?” Sam is watching her, gaze incredulous. “How does this even work?”

“Like the harakesh, only somewhat less painful. My brother isn’t the only one who meddles with technology.” Jolinar turns her head to look at Sam now, a wry smile crossing her dream-face. “Both of them have their interests. I had mine, and mother had hers.”

“And your death?”

“Was intended. Life was… unexpected, and very annoying. You couldn’t even hear me when I screamed as loud as I could.” Jolinar shivers, and leans into the hand that comes to rest on the back of her neck. She will have to learn to dream herself in her true form again, not in the body of Sam, but for now, it is all she can summon up.

“You can be removed from my mind with this?”

“Yes and no.” Pele’s voice is rich with familiar reverberation, even here. “I can… copy Jolinar from here, and give her memories and a version of her conscious self to a new offspring. But it will not take her from your mind, unless the synapses that she has been are destroyed. Damage to your brain.”

Jolinar can see Sam wince, and can see her beginning to think it over. She does not like to think of herself split, but it is a risk.

“If that happens, and if I agreed to host Jolinar again, would she be able to reintegrate herself from my brain and herself in her new body, and take the other self from me without the same sort of damage?”

It’s a thought that Jolinar isn’t certain of, but intrigued by. Certainly she could repair a certain amount of brain damage in her host, and she could see overwhelming the weaker echo of herself, though which would truly be the weaker echo, she doesn’t know. But if she could do this, and could leave Sam after, it would allow her to know she has not left herself behind.

Pele’s fingers toy with the strands of her dream-self’s hair, silent for a long moment. “There may be another way to do this. This must be discussed with others.” She draws her hand from Jolinar’s neck. “Will you be content to wait for a chance to leave?”

It is a question addressed to Jolinar, and she shifts so she can stand, can pace and think, though the motion is no more physical than any other dream. If she can wait, trapped in neurons and synapses not her own, for a while, there may be a way out without leaving herself behind. But it means remaining in a cage without anyone to hear her for an unknown length of time, and that terrifies her almost beyond reason.

“Can you make it easier to be heard, while I wait?” She hates the momentary wobble in her voice, dislikes the idea of being utterly dependent on others to give her a window to sanity, but she has to. She cannot be trapped here alone again, even if it means having to find a way to destroy a second-self later.