EXT. CAMELOT - CASTLE DAY
(The castle of Camelot stands over grassy hills and crystal clear rolling rivers and seas. Gray clouds cover the sky and hundreds of soldiers and knights can be seen riding toward the castle. Text appears on the screen reading “CAMELOT” and then “CENTURIES AGO”.)
INT. CASTLE - THRONE ROOM - DAY
(MORGANA LE FAY (Centuries-Old), a beautiful middle aged appearing woman with sharp features and long flowing black hair, sits on the throne and holds Excalibur, the Crown of Camelot sits upon her head. Knights and soldiers march in linear motions through the hall. DEWIN (30s), a scruffily charming magician, enters in handcuffs, with guards behind him. Dewin marches up and presents himself to Morgana. Everyone in the room halts.)
MORGANA: State your name.
DEWIN: You know my name, Morgana.
MORGANA: State your name.
DEWIN: Dewinson of Merlin.
MORGANA: You are being tried with treason and conspiracy against the crown. Do you plead guilty to these crimes?
DEWIN: That depends.
MORGANA: On what?
DEWIN: Who you consider the crown to be.
(Dewin slips his handcuffs off and as he does three Blue Jays come flying out of his sleeve and begin to fly around the room.)
MORGANA: Enough foolishness. I find you guilty of the accusations placed upon you.
DEWIN: Then kill me.
MORGANA: Hm?
DEWIN: Let’s skip past the chatter and get my head on a platter. You see what I did there? Chatter platter.
MORGANA: Silence! Death is far too good for you.
DEWIN: Do your worst, no matter what Camelot will fall.
MORGANA: Is that a threat?
DEWIN: A threat would be something I plan on doing to you myself, the fall of Camelot, well that will be purely your doing.
(Morgana gets off the throne and draws a glowing circle around Dewin with Excalibur, as she does so Dewin lets out a small laugh.)
DEWIN: Binding me? My imprisonment shall not halter the winds of time.
MORGANA: I banish you.
DEWIN: What?
MORGANA: From this plane of time and place I banish you.
DEWIN: Not even you have the power to do that. Banishment spells have been hidden away for ages.
MORGANA: Hidden away in scrolls buried in this very castle. Dilflannu o’r awyren hon.
DEWIN: No.
MORGANA: Dilflannu o’r amser hwn.
DEWIN: No, no, stop.
MORGANA: Dilflannu o’r meddwl. Rwy’n eich gwahardd!
(Morgana’s eyes turn purple and electricity sparks all around Dewin and seems to be sucking the energy out of him.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - DAY
(A plain and put together autumnal forest. Text appears over the screen reading “LONDON” and then “EIGHTEEN EIGHTY FIVE”. Electricity sparks and Dewin appears in the forest dazed and confused. He is covered in scars and almost immediately passes out face forward into the ground.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - DAY
(As night begins to dawn Dewin is still incapacitated. A carriage led by a horse named, Sally, comes through the forest and halts at Dewin. ALDEN SMITH (Early 40s), a plump and posh man with a defining bushy mustache, cautiously hops out of the carriage. Alden looks around for a moment before spotting Dewin. Alden approaches Dewin and checks his pulse through his arm. Alden’s eyes linger on Dewin for a moment before looking up.)
ALDEN: Hello!? Is anybody there!?
(Alden waits for a moment before looking back down at Dewin. Alden sighs and then lifts Dewin up and into the carriage before hopping in himself. Alden pulls on the horse’s reins and it begins to march forward.)
EXT. LONDON - WICING DRIVE - NIGHT
(Alden drives his carriage down Wicing Drive and parks in front of a townhome, Twenty Six Wicing Drive. Alden gets out of the carriage, carrying Dewin, and walks up the steps. MINERVA SMITH (Early 40s), a stern yet radiant woman, opens the door in shock.)
ALDEN: It’s a long story.
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT
(A stereotypical Victorian living room made primarily of oak and illuminated by two small oil lamps and a burning fireplace. Dewin is still incapacitated and lies on the table covered in bandages, Alden and Minerva hover over him. Bottles of ointment sit next to Dewin.)
MINERVA: What were you doing in the woods?
ALDEN: It’s the fastest cut home.
MINERVA: And you just-
(Minerva is interrupted by Dewin’s sighing as he wakes up.)
DEWIN: Ah! Where am I? Who are you?
MINERVA: My name is Minnie, and this is my husband, Alden.
DEWIN: What’s happening?
ALDEN: I found you all bruised in the middle of the forest. Do you know what happened to you?
DEWIN: Morgana le Fay banished me.
(Alden and Minerva glance at each other.)
MINERVA: Oh lord, I think you're a bit confused.
DEWIN: I am not confused. I am Dewin, son of Merlin. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask if you could take me to a sage or healer?
MINERVA: Of course, Alden can take you tomorrow morning, but for the night you can stay here.
DEWIN: Why, thank you.
ALDEN: Minnie, may I speak to you in the other room?
MINERVA: Of course.
(Alden and Minerva step into the kitchen.)
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - KITCHEN - NIGHT
ALDEN: We can not keep this man in our home. He is mentally insane.
MINERVA: Which means we must watch over him.
ALDEN: I am looking out for our safety.
MINERVA: And where would we take him?
ALDEN: I don’t know. He is as mad as the Doeth man!
MINERVA: Then that’s where we’ll take him.
ALDEN: Stick to nuts together?
MINERVA: The man has some common sense and he’s very compassionate.
ALDEN: Perfect.
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva Dewin sit in their carriage with Dewin outside of a small house that is slightly separated from the other homes on the street.)
DEWIN: So this is the home of a healer?
ALDEN: According to him. I will go to the door alone, I do not want to scare him.
(Alden gets out of the carriage and starts heading towards the home.)
MINERVA: So you really do believe that you are the son of Merlin.
DEWIN: I know who my father was. Why is this such a puzzle for you and your husband to wrap your heads around?
MINERVA: Why I’ve only heard stories of Camelot, myths of ancient pasts.
DEWIN: So Morgana not only shifted my place but also the time.
(Alden knocks on the home's door and is greeted by ALDRICH DOETH (Hundreds Of Years Old), an older looking man with crystals strapped around his neck.)
ALDRICH: Doctor Smith, have they finally sent someone to take me away to a nuthouse?
ALDEN: On the exact contrary, I’ve found a wounded man who claims to have been sent here by Morgana le Fay.
ALDRICH: That’s what the shift was!
ALDEN: What? You know what it doesn’t matter, as long as you’re willing to take this man.
ALDRICH: Yes, yes, bring him to me.
ALDEN: Minerva, send him up!
(Dewin comes up to the door.)
DEWIN: Hello.
ALDRICH: My goodness, the energy pulsates off of you.
DEWIN (TO ALDEN): This is the healer?
ALDEN: Yes. Now if you two don’t mind I think I will be headed back on my way.
ALDRICH: Are you sure, Doctor? It’s getting rather late, you and your wife are welcome to stay here.
ALDEN: Thank you, but there’s no need.
(Rain starts pouring out of the sky out of nowhere and thunder and lighting begin.)
ALDRICH: What about now, Doctor?
ALDEN: Minnie! We’re staying here tonight!
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - DAY
(A cluttered mess of books, candles, and potions. Aldrich, Alden, Minerva, and Dewin sit on Aldrich’s circular array of couches and chairs.)
ALDRICH: Before we dive in I suggest you go wash off, Dewin. The washroom is that small one to your left.
DEWIN: Thank you, Aldrich.
(Dewin gets up and goes into the washroom.)
ALDRICH: I know what you two think of me, the neighborhood’s resident crazy.
MINERVA: Not at all, Mister Doeth.
ALDRICH: Don’t lie, Minerva, our actions all come back to bite us.
ALDEN: So we think you're mental, what of it?
ALDRICH: There are dark forces amongst us, Mister and Misses Smith. I believe that Dewin is here to save us.
ALDEN: I appreciate you letting us stay here, but I think it’s time we leave.
ALDRICH: I will change this storm into an earthquake to keep you here if I must.
ALDEN: Come on, Minnie.
(Alden and Minerva get up and go to leave when the whole room begins to shake.)
ALDEN: What’s happening!?
ALDRICH: I warned you.
(Aldrich makes silencing symbols with his hands and the storm and the shaking stops.)
ALDRICH: Now will you listen to me?
(Alden and Minerva both sit back down.)
ALDEN: What are you?
AlDRICH: A magician, a clairvoyant, a healer, I am all of those things and more.
ALDEN: Why do you want us here so badly?
ALDRICH: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you are the one who found Dewin, Doctor Smith. He needs a guide in this vast new world. Prophecy states that when the second coming of the Camelot war comes, the savior will have a protector.
ALDEN: And why me?
ALDRICH: There are questions that only we can answer ourselves.
(Dewin comes out of the washroom and sits back down.)
ALDRICH: Dewin, please tell me exactly how you arrived here.
DEWIN: Morgana le Fay used an ancient banishing spell on me.
ALDRICH: The fall of Camelot.
(Suddenly a wind sweeps through the room that blows out all the candles.)
MINERVA: Mister Doeth, are you doing this?
ALDRICH: No.
(A match is lit in the center of the room to reveal GWENWYN LIGHTWOOD (Centuries-Old), a green draconic humanoid woman in black robes and a hood.)
GWENWYN: Aldrich.
ALDRICH: Lady Lightwood.
GWENWYN: I’ve tracked a shift in magic to your home.
ALDRICH: It is this boy, he was banished here from Camelot.
(Gwenwyn goes up to Dewin and takes her hood off to reveal her scaly appearance. Alden gasps in disbelief. Gwenwyn runs her finger down Dewin’s cheek.)
GWENWYN (TO ALDRICH): Hm. I presume you wish to let him roam freely?
ALDRICH: With guidance, yes.
GWENWYN: If one thing goes wrong you will be punished.
ALDRICH: I know.
DEWIN (TO GWENWYN): Who are you?
GWENWYN: The last of the dragons. Just as Aldrich is the last descendent of the Family Merlin.
DEWIN (TO ALDRICH): You're a descendant of my father?
ALDRICH: Of his sister, I have many of her poems and spell tombs still intact here.
GWENWYN: Magic is rare these days, endangered, most people don’t even know it exists. So are we under agreement on the boy, Aldrich?
ALDRICH: Yes, but something is still troubling. If you and I both felt Dewin’s presence then-
GWENWYN: Benjamin did too.
DEWIN: Who is Benjamin?
ALDRICH: A descendant of Morgana who wishes to rule the earth under her ideals.
GWENWYN: A very very dangerous man who will certainly kill me if he finds me here.
(Gwenwyn’s match extinguishes and after a moment the candles all reignite but Gwenwyn is gone.)
ALDEN: By Jove!
ALDRICH: So do you all accept this challenge?
DEWIN: What challenge?
ALDRICH: Defeating Benjamin Fayle.
DEWIN: Of course!
ALDEN: Absolutely not.
ALDRICH: Are you that repulsed by compassion?
ALDEN: I can’t risk Minerva of I’s life on what could all be me hallucinating.
ALDRICH: You're risking the world for a craven excuse.
ALDEN: Goodbye.
(Alden gets up.)
ALDEN: Let’s leave, Minnie.
MINERVA: Thank you for your hospitality, Mister Doeth, and good luck.
(Alden leaves, followed by Minerva.)
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva ride through the street in their carriage.)
MINERVA: We were definitely drugged.
ALDEN: Absolutely.
EXT. LONDON - WICING DRIVE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva hop out of their carriage.)
ALDEN: I’m going to bring Sally back to the stables.
MINERVA: Goodnight, love you.
ALDEN: I love you most.
(Minerva goes up and enters Twenty Six Wicing Drive as Alden detaches Sally from the carriage and begins to guide her down the cobbled sidewalk with one of his hands on her reins.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - NIGHT
(Alden guides Sally through the forest to a set of stables. Sally suddenly rears up and neighs in terror.)
ALDEN: What is it Sally?
(Sally suddenly breaks off her reins and runs towards the stables. A figure in a dark purple hood and robe sweeps past Alden and their eyes glow purple. Alden screams.)
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - BEDROOM- DAY
(Alden and Minerva lay next to each other asleep in bed. Alden wakes up screaming which awakens Minerva.)
MINERVA: What’s the matter?
ALDEN: Just a night terror.
MINERVA: We did the right thing with Dewin, he’s with someone like him now.
ALDEN: Is that really a good thing? I think I’m going to go to the pub.
MINERVA: This early in the morning?
ALDEN: I need to clear my head after yesterday.
INT. GRIFFIN’S TAIL PUB - DAY
(A traditional Victorian pub. Dewin sits at the bar and is served by BRYNN CROWING (Early 30s), a charming bartender.)
BRYNN: What can I get you, Mate?
DEWIN: Just a pint of mead, please.
(Brynn goes and pours Dewin a pint of mead that she brings back to him and he begins drinking.)
BRYNN: I like your outfit, it’s very medieval.
DEWIN: It was made by the tailor of Sir Gawain.
(Brynn gives a light chuckle.)
BRYNN: What’s your name?
DEWIN: Dewin, and yours?
BRYNN: Brynn.
(Alden enters and sees Dewin. Alden leaves, but as he does he spots another person in a dark purple robe and hood with glowing purple eyes.)
DEWIN: You're very beautiful.
BRYNN: Why, thank you.
DEWIN: Would you like to go for a stroll?
BRYNN: My shift here doesn’t end till six.
DEWIN: Then I’ll see you then.
BRYNN: I guess you will.
(Dewin finishes his mead and drops two silver coins with dragons etched into them on the bar before swiftly leaving. Brynn picks up the coins and looks at them with confusion and yearning.)
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - DAY
(Alden knocks on the door and Aldrich opens it.)
ALDRICH: I’ve been expecting you, come in.
(Alden follows Aldrich into the home.)
INT. - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - DAY
(Alden and Aldrich sit across from each other.)
ALDRICH: Can I offer you some tea?
ALDEN: No thank you, I want to be in the clearest state of mind possible here.
ALDRICH: So what ignited your appearance here?
ALDEN: I’ve been seeing these people.
ALDRICH: Who are “these people”?
ALDEN: They wear these dark robes and their eyes glow purple.
ALDRICH: Faley’s society.
ALDEN: What?
ALDRICH: Benjamin Faley, the evil man I mentioned last night. Is this what caused you to believe?
ALDEN: What are you saying?
ALDRICH: That you believe in magic.
ALDEN: You're mad.
ALDRICH: Exactly, so the fact that you came to me shows that there’s at least one lingering thought in your mind that magic is reality and reality is magic.
(There’s a moment of silence between Alden and Aldrich.)
ALDRICH: Where have you been seeing the people you mentioned?
ALDEN: Everywhere that Dewin has been.
ALDRICH: Oh no, oh no, no, no.
ALDEN: What is it?
ALDRICH: Dewin is going out with a woman tonight.
ALDEN: Already? He’s only been here for a day.
ALDRICH: He's charming but also so foolish. You must watch them, in case Faley strikes or even worse this woman is working for him.
ALDEN: What could I even do to stop that?
ALDRICH: You are destined to protect Dewin, and at this point your logic for denying all of this is purely irrational. You're not hesitating because you think it’s not real, you're hesitating because you know it is. He is meeting her at six outside of the “Griffin’s Tail”.
ALDEN: I’m not going.
ALDRICH: We both know that you will.
ALDEN: Farewell, Mister Doeth.
ALDRICH: May the spirit of Merlin be with you, Doctor Smith.
(Alden gets up and leaves.)
EXT. LONDON - GRIFFIN’S TAIL PUB - NIGHT
(Dewin stands outside of the pub when Brynn comes out of the side door and walks towards him.)
BRYNN: I wasn’t expecting you to show.
DEWIN: Why wouldn’t I?
BRYNN: Most men flirt and then leave, half of them are married.
DEWIN: They are not true gentlemen then.
BRYNN: I suppose not.
DEWIN: Shall we begin walking?
BRYNN: Sure.
EXT. LONDON - STREETS - NIGHT
(Dewin and Brynn stroll down the streets of London. Alden follows them from a distance.)
DEWIN: This world is so beautiful.
BRYNN: Compared to all the other worlds you’ve been to?
DEWIN: Well Camelot obviously has a better scenic view.
BRYNN: Camelot?
DEWIN: My home land.
BRYNN: You're full of jokes.
DEWIN: I’m not joking.
BRYNN: What?
(Suddenly someone grabs Brynn into an alleyway and she screams. Dewin quickly turns to see no one beside him and runs after her, followed by Alden.)
EXT. LONDON - ROOFTOP - NIGHT
(The clear skies suddenly turn gray and ominous as Dewin arrives on the roof of a building to see three people with glowing purple eyes in the dark purple robes and hoods with one standing in the center holding Brynn with a dagger to her neck. Alden arrives on the rooftop.)
ALDEN: Bloody hell!
DEWIN: Let go of her!
(The three people take off their hoods and their eyes go to normal shades. The person holding Brynn is revealed to be DABRIA (30s), a menacing looking woman.)
DABRIA: Dim mynd i mewn dim dianc.
(A purple hazy force field appears around the edges of the rooftop.)
DABRIA: So you are the one sent to stop us.
DEWIN: What do you connote?
DABRIA: We are the Citadel of le Fay.
DEWIN: Oh no.
DABRIA: Who are you?
DEWIN: My name is Dewin, I am the son of Merlin, and I demand that you let Brynn go.
DABRIA: Why? Is she your protector?
BRYNN: Dewin, what are they talking about!?
(Dewin starts to move his hands around and a wispy blue energy begins to come out of them.)
DABRIA: Get him!
(The two other people with Dabria rush towards Dewin to attack him, but he uses the energy he created to push them around and drop them both to the ground. Dabria drops Brynn and her dagger and Alden rushes to pick up the dagger and succeeds.)
DABRIA: You are foolish, Dewin.
(Dabria pulls a gun out of her robes and shoots it at Dewin but he turns the bullet into a flower. Dabria shoots more but each time Dewin does the same thing until Dabria is out of bullets. Alden sneaks up behind Dabria and stabs her in the back. Dabria shrieks in pain and then disappears in a cloud of black smoke. Brynn gets up off of the ground.)
BRYNN: What the hell just happened?
DEWIN: Are you okay?
BRYNN: Not mentally. What in the world is going on here? How did you turn bullets into flowers!?
DEWIN: I told you I’m from Camelot.
(Alden drops the dagger.)
ALDEN: Did I just kill that woman?
DEWIN: Most likely not, you didn’t stab deep enough to hit any organs.
BRYNN: What do we do now?
DEWIN: Go home and call it a night.
BRYNN: I can’t forget about this.
DEWIN: I’m not asking you to.
ALDEN: If any of us speak of this people think we’re insane.
DEWIN: Then don’t speak of it.
BRYNN: Will I see you again, Dewin?
DEWIN: Did you enjoy tonight?
BRYNN: I was almost killed.
DEWIN: That doesn’t answer my question.
BRYNN: Meet at the pub on Friday after my shift.
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva lay next to each other.)
MINERVA: Do you think the Citadel will return?
ALDEN: Unequivocally.
MINERVA: What have we gotten into?
INT. BENJAMIN’S LAIR - NIGHT
(A cavern full of crystals and magical runes. BENJAMIN FALEY (30s or 40s), an attractive but uptight looking man, sits on his throne. Dabria enters and walks to face the throne, she bows and then gets back up.)
BENJAMIN: Did you find him?
DABRIA: Yes, Master Faley.
BENJAMIN: And did you find his protector?
DABRIA: Yes, but it’s not the girl.
BENJAMIN: Then who?
DABRIA: A Doctor Alden Smith.
BENJAMIN: Did you kill the doctor?
DABRIA: He deeply wounded me.
BENJAMIN: Then the battle goes on.
DABRIA: For Morgana.
BENJAMIN: For Morgana.
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - NIGHT
(Aldrich and Dewin sit across from each other drinking tea.)
ALDRICH: There are many things in this world, Dewin…
INT. GWENWYN’S CAVE - NIGHT
(Gwenwyn stands in the middle of a circle of candles. She stretches out her hands and forms magic blue charts and graphs with a picture of Dewin.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): Forces we can’t explain…
EXT. LONDON - ALLEYWAY- NIGHT
(Brynn wears only her undergarments and takes a few coins from a man.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): Secrets we hide…
INT. BENJAMIN’S LAIR - NIGHT
(Benjamin sits on his throne.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): And villains we must defeat.
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - NIGHT
ALDRICH: You are the key to this all, Dewin, you are the son of Merlin.

EXT. CAMELOT - CASTLE DAY
(The castle of Camelot stands over grassy hills and crystal clear rolling rivers and seas. Gray clouds cover the sky and hundreds of soldiers and knights can be seen riding toward the castle. Text appears on the screen reading “CAMELOT” and then “CENTURIES AGO”.)
INT. CASTLE - THRONE ROOM - DAY
(MORGANA LE FAY (Centuries-Old), a beautiful middle aged appearing woman with sharp features and long flowing black hair, sits on the throne and holds Excalibur, the Crown of Camelot sits upon her head. Knights and soldiers march in linear motions through the hall. DEWIN (30s), a scruffily charming magician, enters in handcuffs, with guards behind him. Dewin marches up and presents himself to Morgana. Everyone in the room halts.)
MORGANA: State your name.
DEWIN: You know my name, Morgana.
MORGANA: State your name.
DEWIN: Dewinson of Merlin.
MORGANA: You are being tried with treason and conspiracy against the crown. Do you plead guilty to these crimes?
DEWIN: That depends.
MORGANA: On what?
DEWIN: Who you consider the crown to be.
(Dewin slips his handcuffs off and as he does three Blue Jays come flying out of his sleeve and begin to fly around the room.)
MORGANA: Enough foolishness. I find you guilty of the accusations placed upon you.
DEWIN: Then kill me.
MORGANA: Hm?
DEWIN: Let’s skip past the chatter and get my head on a platter. You see what I did there? Chatter platter.
MORGANA: Silence! Death is far too good for you.
DEWIN: Do your worst, no matter what Camelot will fall.
MORGANA: Is that a threat?
DEWIN: A threat would be something I plan on doing to you myself, the fall of Camelot, well that will be purely your doing.
(Morgana gets off the throne and draws a glowing circle around Dewin with Excalibur, as she does so Dewin lets out a small laugh.)
DEWIN: Binding me? My imprisonment shall not halter the winds of time.
MORGANA: I banish you.
DEWIN: What?
MORGANA: From this plane of time and place I banish you.
DEWIN: Not even you have the power to do that. Banishment spells have been hidden away for ages.
MORGANA: Hidden away in scrolls buried in this very castle. Dilflannu o’r awyren hon.
DEWIN: No.
MORGANA: Dilflannu o’r amser hwn.
DEWIN: No, no, stop.
MORGANA: Dilflannu o’r meddwl. Rwy’n eich gwahardd!
(Morgana’s eyes turn purple and electricity sparks all around Dewin and seems to be sucking the energy out of him.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - DAY
(A plain and put together autumnal forest. Text appears over the screen reading “LONDON” and then “EIGHTEEN EIGHTY FIVE”. Electricity sparks and Dewin appears in the forest dazed and confused. He is covered in scars and almost immediately passes out face forward into the ground.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - DAY
(As night begins to dawn Dewin is still incapacitated. A carriage led by a horse named, Sally, comes through the forest and halts at Dewin. ALDEN SMITH (Early 40s), a plump and posh man with a defining bushy mustache, cautiously hops out of the carriage. Alden looks around for a moment before spotting Dewin. Alden approaches Dewin and checks his pulse through his arm. Alden’s eyes linger on Dewin for a moment before looking up.)
ALDEN: Hello!? Is anybody there!?
(Alden waits for a moment before looking back down at Dewin. Alden sighs and then lifts Dewin up and into the carriage before hopping in himself. Alden pulls on the horse’s reins and it begins to march forward.)
EXT. LONDON - WICING DRIVE - NIGHT
(Alden drives his carriage down Wicing Drive and parks in front of a townhome, Twenty Six Wicing Drive. Alden gets out of the carriage, carrying Dewin, and walks up the steps. MINERVA SMITH (Early 40s), a stern yet radiant woman, opens the door in shock.)
ALDEN: It’s a long story.
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT
(A stereotypical Victorian living room made primarily of oak and illuminated by two small oil lamps and a burning fireplace. Dewin is still incapacitated and lies on the table covered in bandages, Alden and Minerva hover over him. Bottles of ointment sit next to Dewin.)
MINERVA: What were you doing in the woods?
ALDEN: It’s the fastest cut home.
MINERVA: And you just-
(Minerva is interrupted by Dewin’s sighing as he wakes up.)
DEWIN: Ah! Where am I? Who are you?
MINERVA: My name is Minnie, and this is my husband, Alden.
DEWIN: What’s happening?
ALDEN: I found you all bruised in the middle of the forest. Do you know what happened to you?
DEWIN: Morgana le Fay banished me.
(Alden and Minerva glance at each other.)
MINERVA: Oh lord, I think you're a bit confused.
DEWIN: I am not confused. I am Dewin, son of Merlin. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask if you could take me to a sage or healer?
MINERVA: Of course, Alden can take you tomorrow morning, but for the night you can stay here.
DEWIN: Why, thank you.
ALDEN: Minnie, may I speak to you in the other room?
MINERVA: Of course.
(Alden and Minerva step into the kitchen.)
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - KITCHEN - NIGHT
ALDEN: We can not keep this man in our home. He is mentally insane.
MINERVA: Which means we must watch over him.
ALDEN: I am looking out for our safety.
MINERVA: And where would we take him?
ALDEN: I don’t know. He is as mad as the Doeth man!
MINERVA: Then that’s where we’ll take him.
ALDEN: Stick to nuts together?
MINERVA: The man has some common sense and he’s very compassionate.
ALDEN: Perfect.
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva Dewin sit in their carriage with Dewin outside of a small house that is slightly separated from the other homes on the street.)
DEWIN: So this is the home of a healer?
ALDEN: According to him. I will go to the door alone, I do not want to scare him.
(Alden gets out of the carriage and starts heading towards the home.)
MINERVA: So you really do believe that you are the son of Merlin.
DEWIN: I know who my father was. Why is this such a puzzle for you and your husband to wrap your heads around?
MINERVA: Why I’ve only heard stories of Camelot, myths of ancient pasts.
DEWIN: So Morgana not only shifted my place but also the time.
(Alden knocks on the home's door and is greeted by ALDRICH DOETH (Hundreds Of Years Old), an older looking man with crystals strapped around his neck.)
ALDRICH: Doctor Smith, have they finally sent someone to take me away to a nuthouse?
ALDEN: On the exact contrary, I’ve found a wounded man who claims to have been sent here by Morgana le Fay.
ALDRICH: That’s what the shift was!
ALDEN: What? You know what it doesn’t matter, as long as you’re willing to take this man.
ALDRICH: Yes, yes, bring him to me.
ALDEN: Minerva, send him up!
(Dewin comes up to the door.)
DEWIN: Hello.
ALDRICH: My goodness, the energy pulsates off of you.
DEWIN (TO ALDEN): This is the healer?
ALDEN: Yes. Now if you two don’t mind I think I will be headed back on my way.
ALDRICH: Are you sure, Doctor? It’s getting rather late, you and your wife are welcome to stay here.
ALDEN: Thank you, but there’s no need.
(Rain starts pouring out of the sky out of nowhere and thunder and lighting begin.)
ALDRICH: What about now, Doctor?
ALDEN: Minnie! We’re staying here tonight!
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - DAY
(A cluttered mess of books, candles, and potions. Aldrich, Alden, Minerva, and Dewin sit on Aldrich’s circular array of couches and chairs.)
ALDRICH: Before we dive in I suggest you go wash off, Dewin. The washroom is that small one to your left.
DEWIN: Thank you, Aldrich.
(Dewin gets up and goes into the washroom.)
ALDRICH: I know what you two think of me, the neighborhood’s resident crazy.
MINERVA: Not at all, Mister Doeth.
ALDRICH: Don’t lie, Minerva, our actions all come back to bite us.
ALDEN: So we think you're mental, what of it?
ALDRICH: There are dark forces amongst us, Mister and Misses Smith. I believe that Dewin is here to save us.
ALDEN: I appreciate you letting us stay here, but I think it’s time we leave.
ALDRICH: I will change this storm into an earthquake to keep you here if I must.
ALDEN: Come on, Minnie.
(Alden and Minerva get up and go to leave when the whole room begins to shake.)
ALDEN: What’s happening!?
ALDRICH: I warned you.
(Aldrich makes silencing symbols with his hands and the storm and the shaking stops.)
ALDRICH: Now will you listen to me?
(Alden and Minerva both sit back down.)
ALDEN: What are you?
AlDRICH: A magician, a clairvoyant, a healer, I am all of those things and more.
ALDEN: Why do you want us here so badly?
ALDRICH: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you are the one who found Dewin, Doctor Smith. He needs a guide in this vast new world. Prophecy states that when the second coming of the Camelot war comes, the savior will have a protector.
ALDEN: And why me?
ALDRICH: There are questions that only we can answer ourselves.
(Dewin comes out of the washroom and sits back down.)
ALDRICH: Dewin, please tell me exactly how you arrived here.
DEWIN: Morgana le Fay used an ancient banishing spell on me.
ALDRICH: The fall of Camelot.
(Suddenly a wind sweeps through the room that blows out all the candles.)
MINERVA: Mister Doeth, are you doing this?
ALDRICH: No.
(A match is lit in the center of the room to reveal GWENWYN LIGHTWOOD (Centuries-Old), a green draconic humanoid woman in black robes and a hood.)
GWENWYN: Aldrich.
ALDRICH: Lady Lightwood.
GWENWYN: I’ve tracked a shift in magic to your home.
ALDRICH: It is this boy, he was banished here from Camelot.
(Gwenwyn goes up to Dewin and takes her hood off to reveal her scaly appearance. Alden gasps in disbelief. Gwenwyn runs her finger down Dewin’s cheek.)
GWENWYN (TO ALDRICH): Hm. I presume you wish to let him roam freely?
ALDRICH: With guidance, yes.
GWENWYN: If one thing goes wrong you will be punished.
ALDRICH: I know.
DEWIN (TO GWENWYN): Who are you?
GWENWYN: The last of the dragons. Just as Aldrich is the last descendent of the Family Merlin.
DEWIN (TO ALDRICH): You're a descendant of my father?
ALDRICH: Of his sister, I have many of her poems and spell tombs still intact here.
GWENWYN: Magic is rare these days, endangered, most people don’t even know it exists. So are we under agreement on the boy, Aldrich?
ALDRICH: Yes, but something is still troubling. If you and I both felt Dewin’s presence then-
GWENWYN: Benjamin did too.
DEWIN: Who is Benjamin?
ALDRICH: A descendant of Morgana who wishes to rule the earth under her ideals.
GWENWYN: A very very dangerous man who will certainly kill me if he finds me here.
(Gwenwyn’s match extinguishes and after a moment the candles all reignite but Gwenwyn is gone.)
ALDEN: By Jove!
ALDRICH: So do you all accept this challenge?
DEWIN: What challenge?
ALDRICH: Defeating Benjamin Fayle.
DEWIN: Of course!
ALDEN: Absolutely not.
ALDRICH: Are you that repulsed by compassion?
ALDEN: I can’t risk Minerva of I’s life on what could all be me hallucinating.
ALDRICH: You're risking the world for a craven excuse.
ALDEN: Goodbye.
(Alden gets up.)
ALDEN: Let’s leave, Minnie.
MINERVA: Thank you for your hospitality, Mister Doeth, and good luck.
(Alden leaves, followed by Minerva.)
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva ride through the street in their carriage.)
MINERVA: We were definitely drugged.
ALDEN: Absolutely.
EXT. LONDON - WICING DRIVE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva hop out of their carriage.)
ALDEN: I’m going to bring Sally back to the stables.
MINERVA: Goodnight, love you.
ALDEN: I love you most.
(Minerva goes up and enters Twenty Six Wicing Drive as Alden detaches Sally from the carriage and begins to guide her down the cobbled sidewalk with one of his hands on her reins.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - NIGHT
(Alden guides Sally through the forest to a set of stables. Sally suddenly rears up and neighs in terror.)
ALDEN: What is it Sally?
(Sally suddenly breaks off her reins and runs towards the stables. A figure in a dark purple hood and robe sweeps past Alden and their eyes glow purple. Alden screams.)
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - BEDROOM- DAY
(Alden and Minerva lay next to each other asleep in bed. Alden wakes up screaming which awakens Minerva.)
MINERVA: What’s the matter?
ALDEN: Just a night terror.
MINERVA: We did the right thing with Dewin, he’s with someone like him now.
ALDEN: Is that really a good thing? I think I’m going to go to the pub.
MINERVA: This early in the morning?
ALDEN: I need to clear my head after yesterday.
INT. GRIFFIN’S TAIL PUB - DAY
(A traditional Victorian pub. Dewin sits at the bar and is served by BRYNN CROWING (Early 30s), a charming bartender.)
BRYNN: What can I get you, Mate?
DEWIN: Just a pint of mead, please.
(Brynn goes and pours Dewin a pint of mead that she brings back to him and he begins drinking.)
BRYNN: I like your outfit, it’s very medieval.
DEWIN: It was made by the tailor of Sir Gawain.
(Brynn gives a light chuckle.)
BRYNN: What’s your name?
DEWIN: Dewin, and yours?
BRYNN: Brynn.
(Alden enters and sees Dewin. Alden leaves, but as he does he spots another person in a dark purple robe and hood with glowing purple eyes.)
DEWIN: You're very beautiful.
BRYNN: Why, thank you.
DEWIN: Would you like to go for a stroll?
BRYNN: My shift here doesn’t end till six.
DEWIN: Then I’ll see you then.
BRYNN: I guess you will.
(Dewin finishes his mead and drops two silver coins with dragons etched into them on the bar before swiftly leaving. Brynn picks up the coins and looks at them with confusion and yearning.)
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - DAY
(Alden knocks on the door and Aldrich opens it.)
ALDRICH: I’ve been expecting you, come in.
(Alden follows Aldrich into the home.)
INT. - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - DAY
(Alden and Aldrich sit across from each other.)
ALDRICH: Can I offer you some tea?
ALDEN: No thank you, I want to be in the clearest state of mind possible here.
ALDRICH: So what ignited your appearance here?
ALDEN: I’ve been seeing these people.
ALDRICH: Who are “these people”?
ALDEN: They wear these dark robes and their eyes glow purple.
ALDRICH: Faley’s society.
ALDEN: What?
ALDRICH: Benjamin Faley, the evil man I mentioned last night. Is this what caused you to believe?
ALDEN: What are you saying?
ALDRICH: That you believe in magic.
ALDEN: You're mad.
ALDRICH: Exactly, so the fact that you came to me shows that there’s at least one lingering thought in your mind that magic is reality and reality is magic.
(There’s a moment of silence between Alden and Aldrich.)
ALDRICH: Where have you been seeing the people you mentioned?
ALDEN: Everywhere that Dewin has been.
ALDRICH: Oh no, oh no, no, no.
ALDEN: What is it?
ALDRICH: Dewin is going out with a woman tonight.
ALDEN: Already? He’s only been here for a day.
ALDRICH: He's charming but also so foolish. You must watch them, in case Faley strikes or even worse this woman is working for him.
ALDEN: What could I even do to stop that?
ALDRICH: You are destined to protect Dewin, and at this point your logic for denying all of this is purely irrational. You're not hesitating because you think it’s not real, you're hesitating because you know it is. He is meeting her at six outside of the “Griffin’s Tail”.
ALDEN: I’m not going.
ALDRICH: We both know that you will.
ALDEN: Farewell, Mister Doeth.
ALDRICH: May the spirit of Merlin be with you, Doctor Smith.
(Alden gets up and leaves.)
EXT. LONDON - GRIFFIN’S TAIL PUB - NIGHT
(Dewin stands outside of the pub when Brynn comes out of the side door and walks towards him.)
BRYNN: I wasn’t expecting you to show.
DEWIN: Why wouldn’t I?
BRYNN: Most men flirt and then leave, half of them are married.
DEWIN: They are not true gentlemen then.
BRYNN: I suppose not.
DEWIN: Shall we begin walking?
BRYNN: Sure.
EXT. LONDON - STREETS - NIGHT
(Dewin and Brynn stroll down the streets of London. Alden follows them from a distance.)
DEWIN: This world is so beautiful.
BRYNN: Compared to all the other worlds you’ve been to?
DEWIN: Well Camelot obviously has a better scenic view.
BRYNN: Camelot?
DEWIN: My home land.
BRYNN: You're full of jokes.
DEWIN: I’m not joking.
BRYNN: What?
(Suddenly someone grabs Brynn into an alleyway and she screams. Dewin quickly turns to see no one beside him and runs after her, followed by Alden.)
EXT. LONDON - ROOFTOP - NIGHT
(The clear skies suddenly turn gray and ominous as Dewin arrives on the roof of a building to see three people with glowing purple eyes in the dark purple robes and hoods with one standing in the center holding Brynn with a dagger to her neck. Alden arrives on the rooftop.)
ALDEN: Bloody hell!
DEWIN: Let go of her!
(The three people take off their hoods and their eyes go to normal shades. The person holding Brynn is revealed to be DABRIA (30s), a menacing looking woman.)
DABRIA: Dim mynd i mewn dim dianc.
(A purple hazy force field appears around the edges of the rooftop.)
DABRIA: So you are the one sent to stop us.
DEWIN: What do you connote?
DABRIA: We are the Citadel of le Fay.
DEWIN: Oh no.
DABRIA: Who are you?
DEWIN: My name is Dewin, I am the son of Merlin, and I demand that you let Brynn go.
DABRIA: Why? Is she your protector?
BRYNN: Dewin, what are they talking about!?
(Dewin starts to move his hands around and a wispy blue energy begins to come out of them.)
DABRIA: Get him!
(The two other people with Dabria rush towards Dewin to attack him, but he uses the energy he created to push them around and drop them both to the ground. Dabria drops Brynn and her dagger and Alden rushes to pick up the dagger and succeeds.)
DABRIA: You are foolish, Dewin.
(Dabria pulls a gun out of her robes and shoots it at Dewin but he turns the bullet into a flower. Dabria shoots more but each time Dewin does the same thing until Dabria is out of bullets. Alden sneaks up behind Dabria and stabs her in the back. Dabria shrieks in pain and then disappears in a cloud of black smoke. Brynn gets up off of the ground.)
BRYNN: What the hell just happened?
DEWIN: Are you okay?
BRYNN: Not mentally. What in the world is going on here? How did you turn bullets into flowers!?
DEWIN: I told you I’m from Camelot.
(Alden drops the dagger.)
ALDEN: Did I just kill that woman?
DEWIN: Most likely not, you didn’t stab deep enough to hit any organs.
BRYNN: What do we do now?
DEWIN: Go home and call it a night.
BRYNN: I can’t forget about this.
DEWIN: I’m not asking you to.
ALDEN: If any of us speak of this people think we’re insane.
DEWIN: Then don’t speak of it.
BRYNN: Will I see you again, Dewin?
DEWIN: Did you enjoy tonight?
BRYNN: I was almost killed.
DEWIN: That doesn’t answer my question.
BRYNN: Meet at the pub on Friday after my shift.
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva lay next to each other.)
MINERVA: Do you think the Citadel will return?
ALDEN: Unequivocally.
MINERVA: What have we gotten into?
INT. BENJAMIN’S LAIR - NIGHT
(A cavern full of crystals and magical runes. BENJAMIN FALEY (30s or 40s), an attractive but uptight looking man, sits on his throne. Dabria enters and walks to face the throne, she bows and then gets back up.)
BENJAMIN: Did you find him?
DABRIA: Yes, Master Faley.
BENJAMIN: And did you find his protector?
DABRIA: Yes, but it’s not the girl.
BENJAMIN: Then who?
DABRIA: A Doctor Alden Smith.
BENJAMIN: Did you kill the doctor?
DABRIA: He deeply wounded me.
BENJAMIN: Then the battle goes on.
DABRIA: For Morgana.
BENJAMIN: For Morgana.
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - NIGHT
(Aldrich and Dewin sit across from each other drinking tea.)
ALDRICH: There are many things in this world, Dewin…
INT. GWENWYN’S CAVE - NIGHT
(Gwenwyn stands in the middle of a circle of candles. She stretches out her hands and forms magic blue charts and graphs with a picture of Dewin.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): Forces we can’t explain…
EXT. LONDON - ALLEYWAY- NIGHT
(Brynn wears only her undergarments and takes a few coins from a man.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): Secrets we hide…
INT. BENJAMIN’S LAIR - NIGHT
(Benjamin sits on his throne.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): And villains we must defeat.
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - NIGHT
ALDRICH: You are the key to this all, Dewin, you are the son of Merlin.

I (17f) recently went on a trip that lasted about a week (5 days). One of these days fell on April 1st. Although not widely celebrated in every single country some people from my country do it as a way to be funny.
Now we all had a set amount of money we were given for the day and what was left over would be added to the next day's amount. Our chaperones, two teachers and one of the teachers husband's were the only adults on this trip and they were obviously tasked with keeping the money and keep it safe.
We were at a concert when the mood suddenly changed and one of our chaperones said we had to get back to our lodging.
We were told that someone had stolen the money and they were searching the rooms.
Me and my two roommates had been together all day and knew neither one of us did it so we weren't freaking out like the others.
They found the person who stole the money but didn't tell any of us who it was. Emotions were high and everyone was pissed off at having their night of fun end because someone stole money we worked hard to get.(All of us worked and promoted the hell out of things just to be able to afford the trip)
My roommates and I decided to go take a shower because we had been sweating like pigs because of the heatwave that was running through the town we were in. It was a I'd dance in the rain if it came type of heat.
While in the shower one of the younger girls (I'm calling her Mia for privacy reasons) came in and asked us if we knew who stole the money.
We said no and she proceeded to tell us that this other girl (Jennie for privacy) was telling everyone it was Mia's best friend.
Now I will be the first to admit. I do not get along with Jennie. We were in the same middle school and she made me an outcast because I was interested in the old traditions of Halloween. Everyone I knew at school said it was something the devil used so that he could run around and do whatever he wants. I was called a satan worshipper because I was stuck in a school with a bunch of not so good Christians. Another instance was when she scrutinized me because I knew about the Gods of Greek Myhtology and said that I would be willing to worship them because of their values. (This was because we had a discussion in class about greek mythology and it's influence on the world past and present). She was not happy about it and kept making snide remarks and judging me.
I'm short, round, blonde and I make myself known. I really don't need to be judged by someone who had a stick up there.
There are other instances where we didn't get along but these two were the biggest reasons because honestly if you're going to call me a Satanist at the least you could get the pire ready.
Anyway, I was raised that innocent till proven guilty, and since no one knew who had done it she couldn't make comments.
I said as much. I also said that she should keep her nose out of it because it wasn't her place because what if it wasn't her and the girl's name was being dragged for something she didn't do? Rumors spread fast and true or not you still get judged for them.
Jennie came into the bathroom and told me to say it to her face instead of behind her back. I did. She got pissed.
Found out it was Mia's friend and only after some whole dramatized spiel of were sending her home, she would be expelled and us wondering if there was something we could do to help her if she was having financial troubles at home.
We were told about it being a prank and just as we got over the shock Jennie looked at me and my friend and said she demanded an apology from the both of us.
My friend also voiced her opinion in the bathroom by I have a pair of lungs, I speak a whole lot more and I'm the only one who had beef with herdue to past events.
I didn't apologize and neither did my friend because, A) Jennie wasn't in on the prank so she showed us her true colours by going around and telling everyone about it. She showed everyone she had made friends with that she was willing to throw them to the wolves if it meant she could have the spotlight. B) Had the scenario been real and I was the one who stole I would have liked for someone to stand up for me in my absence.(A I did a bad thing but I don't deserve to have my name dragged through the mud) Mia and her friend are both 15, Jennie is 19 going 20 (this is true she was held back in kindergarten twice). They are shy and get intimidated easily by older years and Jennie is imposing as f*ck. C)Younger girls are chatty some of them had already messaged some of their friends and told them what Jennie said. 20 people are going to think Mia's friend stole the money before they find out it's a prank.
I don't think I was in the wrong but I recently told this story to one of my other friends and she said I should have apologized because while I was advocating for someone else's right to privacy I was simultaneously hurting someone else's reputation by branding them a liar and a generally untrustworthy person with no sense of boundaries.
So AITA?

Chapter 4
Location: Glimmer Fate
POV: Faror Hend
No rain on the plains in Glimmer Fate. High black grasses make the area extremely hot. Faror Hend is patrolling the edge of the Vitr Sea with her cousin Spinnock Durav. The shore of the Vitr Sea is devoid of life and the breeze coming off of it stings the lungs. The liquid of the sea dissolves almost anything it comes into contact with including stones. Spinnock is sharpening his Hust blade on a stone that has been worn away by the sea. His blade is very old and therefore does not sing. It's new to him, but has been passed down for generations. A third rider in their party, Finarra Stone, was scouting the shoreline out of sight. Nothing lived this close, so it was safe to go alone. Today the Vitr is calm, but recently it has not been and storms had resulted in its claiming more land for the sea. The sea is expanding. Eventually it will come to the border of Kurald Galain if they cannot find a solution. The Tiste have no idea what the source of the Vitr is and how to stop it's expansion. Tiste scholars are also unwilling to consult with anyone outside the Tiste.
Faror Hend is extremely attracted to Spinnock Durav, but their houses are too close in relations for her to act on this attraction. Plus she is betrothed and older, although these would not be a barrier to her. Faror thinks of a line from a Gallan poem, "The ground is bare and hard / and will hold all secrets / and the sky cares not / for the games of those beneath it." She desperately wants to act on her lust, but so far has kept in control. Faror is a big Gallan fan. Spinnock seems to know how his cousin feels and teases her.
POV: Captain Finarra Stone
During her patrol of the Vitr coastline, Finarra finds a carcass. This is puzzling as she has never seen one this close to the sea. It appears to have come out of the sea itself. The corpse is huge with scales and a tail. But a lot of the body eaten away by the Vitr. The head and neck were missing and the top of the torso appears chewed. Very few Tiste had ever claimed to have seen a dragon, but this could be one. However, those legends all had them with wings and Faror did not see any evidence of wings on this beast. A breeze brought the stench to the horse and this caused it to back up a few steps making noise. At this the stump where the neck should be lifted. The creature begins shuffling towards her. With an unbelievably fast lurch it closes the distance and swipes at Faror and her horse with two arms catching the horse with both swipes. Faror finds herself tumbling through the air. She lands on her shoulder and breaks something. The beast is still again after decimating her horse. She decides to head for flatter ground to make better time back to her party. She is the daughter of Hust Henarald and possesses his sword. Her biggest threat now were the naked wolves that roamed Glimmer Fate. Faror contemplates the meaning of dark and light and the impossibility of either without the other. She also says that Mother Dark had been a mortal Tiste woman before embracing darkness. While Finarra is contemplating, something screams at her intending to freeze her with fear. Finarra mortally wounds it as it streaks by.
POV: Faror Hend
Hearing the screams of the wolves and no sound of their prey, Faror fears Finarra is the prey. She has not returned and it has been too long. Faror decides to leave Spinnock at camp and go to investigate. He tells her to be careful and he doesn't want to lose her. She responds by saying that he has many cousins. Faror can hear at least a dozen wolves and knows that it is likely that Finarra is fighting by herself without her horse. Thinking of Spinnock's face, she attempts to replace it in her mind with her betrothed, Kagamandra Tulas. A Tiste who the war had made gaunt. Tulas was of a low house and was under the command of Vatha Urusander. This alone would not have made house Durav attempt a betrothal. However, in the war he had saved the life of Silchas Ruin and by doing so had earned the favor of Mother Dark who would reward him by making him the head of a new High House. She thinks that the war stole Tulas's ability to love anything and she is not sure she can love him either, but she will try.
Eventually she finds the place of the wolf attack. There are many dead wolves. The fighting is over, but she does not see Finarra. She thinks further down the trail she will find wolves eating her corpse. Finarra comes out from behind some boulders. Faror begins to speak, but Finarra tells her to speak softly as something has walked out of the Vitr. Finarra chastises Faror for beginning to follow the path through the grasses that would have led to her death. Faror discovers that she had almost welcomed it. Finarra was tracking whatever had walked out of the Vitr when she came upon Faror. "Small footprints, puddles of Vitr pooled in them" She tells Faror that it is their duty to track it.
POV: Finarra Stone
Finarra in a lot of pain from her shoulder and wolf bites, contemplates the look she caught in Faror's eyes. One that told her she was seeking death. She thinks the cause may be Faror's betrothal to a broken man that may be incapable of love and being in close proximity to Spinnock who oozes it. "Spinnock Durav had been pursued by women and men since he had first come of age. He had learned to not give up too much of himself, since those hands reaching for him desired little more than conquest and possession." Finarra has also caught Spinnock's adoration of his cousin turning in to something else. She knows this kind of torture between them will ruin them. She contemplates how to fix the situation. Transferring one might work, but also thinks of another more sure answer.
POV: Faror Hend
Faror and Finarra are both on the back of Faror's horse. Finarra is unconscious and Faror is having a difficult time keeping her on the horse. She thinks about Finarra only being a few years older than her, but already being a battle veteran. She realizes that the wolves she found were not the ones killed by Finarra, but those of the someone that came from the sea. Faror makes it back to the camp. They treat the unconscious woman's wounds fearing infection.
POV: Spinnock Durav
They had burned away the dead flesh and infection on Finarra's leg hoping they got it all. Finarra has not woken up and is fevered. Spinnock outlines their options whether to stay until Finarra wakes up or to try to transport her as is. Faror informs him that Finarra wanted them to track the stranger from the Vitr. Faror tells Spinnock that Finarra needs a healer and soon, but they also need to track the stranger. Faror will go after the stranger and Spinnock will take Finarra to the outpost. Spinnock follows orders, but now there is a coldness between the cousins.
Following the trail she had discovered the previous night, Faror Hend found several more wolf corpses all killed with savage blows. The path she now followed, if kept straight, would lead directly to Kharkanas. Eventually she comes to a clearing and finds a fair-skinned, blonde woman clothed only in a scaled wolf hide over her shoulders. Everywhere else was sunburnt. She appears young and has no weapon, which is curious considering her roughly cut hair and several wolf corpses. Faror says she means no harm and asks if she is an Azathanai. To this the woman responds, "I know your language. But it is not mine. Azathanai. I know that word. Azat drevlid naratarh Azathanai. The people who were never born." After a few questions that the woman cannot answer, she tells Faror that she recalls nothing not even the sea she came out of or her own name. Faror tells the woman that she will escort her to Kharkanas to meet with Mother Dark and gives the woman a Tiste name until she can recall her own. The name is T'riss. Upon hearing this the woman smiles and says, "I am “born of the sea”. Faror asks if she will walk or ride with her. T'riss says that Faror's horse looks useful and she will have one too. She turns to the grasses and conjures a horse out of them. It seems that it's weight is too much for the grasses used. Looking at Faror, T'riss then conjures clothes, lance, and a sword out of the same grasses. This scares Faror because it is god-like sorcery. "‘Mother Dark.’ T’riss smiled. ‘That is a nice title.’"
Location: 3 days out from Neret Sorr
POV: Sharenas Ankhadu
Sharenas likes the heat. She tans nice unlike most of her cohort. She hates the cold and remembers her time in the campaign against the Jheleck unfondly. She is the commander of her cohort. Her sister and cousin, Infayen Menand and Tathe Lorat, are greatly renowned in the legion and being related to them saw high expectations settled onto Sharenas's shoulders. Her relatives are not currently with the legion. Hunn Raal and Osserc are in the vanguard and Ilgast Rend was not happy to be with them. He questions whether or not Urusander knows what Hunn Raal is doing. Osserc backs up Raal and so Ilgast drops the inquiry. Sharenas thinks Osserc is lying when he says his father knows of and approves this expedition. Sharenas thinks, "Hunn Raal is honourable. He knows what he is doing, and he knows, as do we all, that what he is doing is the right thing to do" She thinks Osserc is impulsive and has a thin skin, but Hunn Raal keeps him from making brash decisions. 3 cousins of Hunn Raal also accompanied them. Serap, Risp, and Sevegg all sleep with Hunn Raal, but their second cousins so it's not illegal. The last of their party is Kagamandra Tulas. He is forbidding and dangerous and hadn't spoken since their departure. They are heading towards the Warden outpost where Tulas's betrothed is stationed. Sharenas asserts that every woman could see that Tulas is dead inside and left his soul in the war. That he longs for death. She contemplates that once Urusander remakes the Tiste into a meritocracy, that arranged marriages will no longer be. Ironically because Tulas had given so much in defense of the Tiste he would be a prize as a husband. She pities Faror Hend and her future with this man. However she considers that Faror, just days after the betrothal, signed up with the wardens to get herself as far away as possible. Sharenas is very interested in witnessing the meeting between Tulas and Faror. She resolves to help Faror out of her predicament although it is only for her own amusement.
POV: Ilgast Rend
Ilgast does not like Hunn Raal or Osserc, thinking the former vain and arrogant and the latter nothing like his father except in appearance. Ilgast does not approve of all the debauchery that his fighting had bought for the Tiste. He thinks that Urusander has lost the plot himself. It wouldn't be long before the legion rebelled under his indifference. He would love it if Draconus was put in his place, but fears this would result in great bloodshed and does not want that. He also knows that if Hunn Raal is allowed to lead the legion in Urusander's absence, civil war was assured. "In a world of blood, everyone drowns". Ilgast is disappointed in Sharenas, thinking she would be wise enough not to fall into the wake of Hunn Raal. He feels he is in the middle of this brewing conflict being of a major house and also a cohort commander in Urusander's legion. Hunn Raal thinks he will help him convince the wardens to join his cause. However, he knows Calat Hustain will not join Hunn Raal. He is far too loyal to his own house. Ilgast remembers when Mother Dark was just a Tiste woman until she found the Gate. "Darkness was many things; most of all, it was selfish"

Mikan has a habit of pondering many things while waiting for her mother to use the restroom. It is not aimless daydreaming, but rather akin to how some people would keep different books by their bedside, toilet, and office. Mikan always use this time to think about light but continuous things. Typically, she'd spend three to five minutes, with the first minute warming up, recalling where she left off in the book from the last time, then staring at her nails, progressing her thoughts bit by bit.
She developed this habit during her first visit to the zoo. That spring, she graduated from kindergarten, and before leaving the house, her mother was in front of the mirror, adjusting Mikan’s elementary school uniform. The zoo was on a seaside cliff, connected to the foot of the mountain by a narrow path lined with cherry blossoms. Children of all ages sat on the steps, waiting for a gust of wind to blow so they could shout for their mothers to take pictures. Mikan buried her head and walked up, thinking the others were childish. At that time, her father was still young; his neck had not yet thickened, and his eyelids had not drooped. When they left, she asked her mother who the strange uncle was, the one who knew so much about giraffes. She couldn’t remember how her mother answered, but she remembered seeing a kitten lying on the hillside, showing its belly to the sunset, making her exclaim "wow" to the cherry blossoms. From that day on, one weekend a month, she would go to the zoo with her mother to meet her father. During the time her mother was in the restroom, Mikan used it to think about the kitten. She had imagined raising three kittens: the first was tortoiseshell, then an orange one like her surname, and the latest was another tortoiseshell. Each cat lived for twelve years, and she thought about the world and herself thirty-six years later.
She didn’t always think about cats. Occasionally, when she didn’t go with her mother, she would talk with her classmates about how they envied the animals in the zoo, like gorillas and hyenas. Although there were no lions or tigers, there were lynxes. They looked so ugly, walking on all fours all their lives, but they were lucky to live by the sea and enjoy the sea breeze for a lifetime. The crude boys in her class would retort, saying, "Yeah, yeah, they can even poop directly into the sea."
After graduation, she never saw that boy again. All the boys would go to Tokyo when they were young; that was the rule. Only when they were old and decrepit would they be reluctantly sent back by the younger ones. But she often thought about that classmate. By the time she raised her third cat, he might have come back. When she saw the sea again, the image of a smooth butt hanging over the cliff came to mind. When she got into Waseda University, she told her mother that she might consider marrying that classmate.
When Mikan was little, she secretly asked her father how he fell in love with her mother. The primate area always had a strange smell, between animal and human. Her mother didn’t like the smell, standing five meters away near the door for ventilation (they couldn’t go further in because they were not allowed to meet outside the guardian’s sight; that was the rule). She didn’t remember what her father said, but she remembered pressing her hand against the glass, with an orangutan looking at her disdainfully. She felt like she was the one being watched. But her father must have said something, without hesitation, as if talking about a daily matter. It was too mundane, overshadowed by the contemptuous orangutan in her memory.
Influenced by her mother, Mikan also didn’t like the smell of the primate area. It wasn’t that it was unpleasant; it was like touching the residual warmth of someone who just left their seat, the mixed smell of decaying wood and butter in old temples, awkward and cautious. The only chance she almost had to be alone with that classmate was during a field trip. Both happened to be lingering at the entrance of the primate area. Mikan was there first, then the boy appeared behind her, peeking around. The introduction at the entrance had been scanned five or six times. Inside, the darkness reminded Mikan of the anteater’s mouth she had just seen. The boy asked, “Are you afraid to go in?” Mikan replied, “Of course not.” The boy retorted, “Coward, the teacher said not to wander off; you definitely won’t dare.” Mikan suddenly felt annoyed and walked in. When she reached the orangutan’s window and looked back, the boy had already disappeared. Mikan thought, childish.
One summer, a cat sneaked into the zoo and was brutally tortured by baboons before being killed. Mikan learned about it from the morning paper, crumbs scattered on it. The front page was about US-Japan trade friction, followed by news about Tokyo, Syria, obituaries, nuclear, and the next Olympics’ sailing event being held on the local beach. The news was arranged from far to near, and finally, in the middle column, she saw this news.
"Such a pity, so sad, so heartbreaking, so infuriating." She inhaled deeply and exhaled.
She didn’t know what this incident meant for the townspeople. Didn’t the middle column mean it was unimportant? She didn’t understand, but the townspeople seemed outraged, eventually passing a resolution to lower the male zoo supervision age to fourteen. The next day, this proposal moved to the front page, although not the headline, it stood alongside news from the US and Europe.
But this wasn’t a distant matter for her. Recently, she had joined the baseball team because that boy also loved baseball. At a celebration party, when discussing future high schools, he talked eagerly about a famous school in Tokyo, jokingly preparing for life there. Everyone laughed at this joke.
The front-page news explained the lawmakers' logic: due to men’s violence and animalistic nature, our country decided to confine men in zoos years ago, something we have always been proud of. Over the years, many outstanding women have joined the country to restrain their husbands' potential harm to the world. But our solution isn’t perfect. When does a child become a man? The radicals believe it’s at adulthood, at twenty, the legal marriage age. Conservatives argue that maleness is in the chromosomes and should be separated at the hospital. The incident with the baboons harming the cat further proves the harm of violence and animality to civilization. We should be more cautious and responsible. Thus, in our town, the second sex characteristic is used as the basis for identifying males.
This event was written into textbooks, leading to significant zoo renovations. Besides old mothers bringing their children to see their fathers, the zoo now provided spaces for the new generation of women to date their boyfriends in the park. For the town’s zoo, this room added at the end of the primate area, with rain hitting the iron roof, animal calls (and conversations from the men’s park) and the sound of waves hitting the cliffs, seemed far from a suitable place for romance. Mikan had never been there.
She never saw that boy again, though he didn’t play baseball. He likely lived the life he joked about, pooping off the cliff.
When her mother came out of the restroom, Mikan was imagining holding the tortoiseshell cat that had just died. She remembered her father saying that the zoo’s most famous animal was a giraffe, but it was a specimen, transported from Tokyo Zoo, always standing in the most conspicuous place. He saw it every morning as if it were still alive. She asked if he would become a specimen too, but she couldn’t remember his answer (she always remembered her questions but not others’ answers).

I had a strange relationship with deconstruction as my dad was trained at a university level to do apologetics. He was an LDS chaplain in the Army, and every night for scripture study, we got discourses on the nuances of our faith and justifications for every question we ever had. I didn’t swear until I was 18 years old, or drink caffinated anything until about that time as well, because it was never a matter of justification. It was what my family, my tribe, my people did, to go to church on Sunday, and to be worthy. I was senior patrol leader and assistant to the bishop if that clarifies who I was. I didn’t have “God will reveal it in due time” parents. I had “Here’s the answer, here’s contemporary discussion about it. Here’s some reading material if you want to learn more” parents, except for they were wicked smart, and had biased conclusions.
I was called to serve in the Mexico City East mission. Shortly before opening my mission call, I broke up with my girlfriend at the time. i left BYU-I and went home to prepare. I received my endowments after lying to my stake president about my worthiness to enter the house of the lord. I came clean, and he threatened to not let me go out for a year because I was unclean. The prick made me talk to a therapist to be cleared for the mission field. The therapist had a brain and let me go out. When I was giving my mission farewell speech, I wrote it to include the teachings of many religions in it. I had drawn inspiration from the 13th article of faith “We believe all things, hope all things-“ and wrote a poem about how Adam and Eve related to the Resurection and Atonement of christ. My dad tells me the stake president was shifting in his seat like he wanted to pull me down from the pulpit. Prick.
The CCM was a pleasure to attend because of my district. The guys in my district there held a secret thanksgiving feast after hours when we were supposed to be in bed with food we had smuggled out of the cafeteria. We had look outs so we wouldn’t be caught by the patrolling teachers. My district was placed under surveillance because of politics against our spanish teacher who we could tell actually cared about us, and we were transferred into a classroom with one sided mirrors, and microphones hanging from the ceiling. An apostle came to speak to the entire CCM, and I thought we would get a chance to meet with him directly, or that he would be even remotely accessible in some way. He was kept away from us, separate and removed even though we had the same mission. I played a lot of volley ball, and got into shape enough that I touched the rim of a basketball hoop for the first time while I was there.
My first companion was a native speaker, and liked to spend the mornings in the cyber (Internet Cafe). He would make sure I was on LDS.org while he looked at softcore porn on instagram. We would spend hours there, and I was disappointed that this was the mission.
We went to a previous investigators house, and while there, we saw preparations for an animal sacrifice. These guys were putting alcohol, cocaine, and blowing smoke onto a white chicken, and placed in into a cardboard box with a bunch of black chickens. They showed us a room full of weapons, with blood and feathers strewn all over the floor. We noped the fuck out, and went home.
I requested an emergency transfer after spending most days in the cyber, watching my companion deface JW’s property, and being an all around dick to me by telling me how to shower and how to sleep.
For his replacement, the person that would help me with his bastion of knowledge, they gave me a white guy who spoke as much Spanish as I did because he was only a transfer further into his mission than me. They made this poor kid senior companion to me before his first transfer was over. Why? Because the kid was a workaholic.
The first thing this elder and I did when we got to our apartment was to pick up and leave to go to the house of a member who had just died. We sang at the wake. I sang in a language I didn’t know, for people I didn’t know, with a companion I didn’t know. We sounded pretty damn good. The elder began setting appointments with the non-believing family members during the service. I just sat and watched the mindless kids chase the family dog.
This elder skipped lunch every day, and made me do the same. We knocked every door in our area twice that transfer. One time, he got very sick, and was delirious out in the sun with me while we were walking. I made us go home for lunch that day, and he made me promise to wake him up after thirty minutes so we could get back to the Lord’s work. Three hours later he woke up, chewed me out for letting him sleep that long, and then begrudgingly thanked me for making him rest.
One time, while walking, this Elder expressed to me that he also had some questions, but he was afraid to share the details because he knew my own testimony was fragile. I pressed him for details of his plight, and he revealed to me the darkest part of church history that he had learned while we were in the CCM, that Joseph Smith had drank alcohol while in Carthage Jail before he died. Thoughts of Fanny Alger, of Mountain Meadows Massacre, and of my own mother’s rather recently implemented looser interpretation of the word of wisdom all flashed through my head. This guy was supposed to be my teacher? All I could do was express how sorry I was for his confusion, and told him to have faith. Heaven knew I couldn’t help him.
One night with this companion, it was storming hard, and the streets were flooded. This guy refused to let us go home. We climbed along fences to avoid getting our already wet shoes soaked, and waded through a foot of water to get to the doors that were slammed in our faces. There was a loose wire on a door bell, and when I rang it, I was shocked by the completed circuit the water made. Rejection after rejection piled up. Finally, my “senior” companion said that this was the last row of houses. On the last house of the last row, there was a family that was all deaf. The father opened the door, and was suprised to see us and didn’t know who we were. I remembered the sign for Jesus from my grandparents who started and ran the ASL endowment ceremony in the Saint George temple. The family was thrilled we knew the sign. When I asked if we could come in, the family politely waved goodbye and closed the door on our faces.
Another time when it rained, something fell into my eye. It was one of those freak nature accidents, and small enough that I couldn’t figure out how to get it out without a mirror. The thing stayed wedged in the corner of my eye for hours before we got home and I could finally get the foreign object out. Looking at it on my finger, I could see it was a small green spider. Days later, still in pain, I pulled what I can only assume was accumulated webbing from the spider that I’d crushed against my eyeball off of my lower eye lid. The pain stopped after that.
I bought a $500 camera. It was stolen within a month.
This Elder and I had the good luck before transfers to baptize two children. They would have been baptized anyways, so I didn’t do any actual converting, but I taught a few lessons, got in the water and did the dunk. Bucket list item, check.
I didn’t have enough time for laundry on P-Day, so I’d wash my outfit and dry in on the radiator through the night. Transfers happen, and my new companion lied to our land lords about the electricity bill, paying it in full but not giving a reason as to why it was so high. I didn’t care anymore, I just needed something clean to wear, but these land lord had treated me and my previous companion well, better than the previous landlord who had stolen our cleaning supplies. I felt these people deserved honesty. My senior companion capitulated eventually, and he and I butted heads regularly after that on the morality of things. I think in hindsight he was a smarter and better man than I was.
The new land lords, the “Lagunez Family”, were wonderful. They included us in their activities, and I felt like I had some people in my corner. When I eventually came home from my mission, a daughter of the family had written me a goodbye letter. She is currently serving a mission. They made some great music, and I have “Infiltradors” on CD, the official name of the band the father of the family was a part of (he was the drummer).
I knew the whole area by heart by that point, so I navigated us to our appointments. Half of the landmarks I watched for to know our location were interesting buildings with unique colors. The other half of my landmarks were dead dogs whose decaying corpses had become second nature to see. I began marking how much time had passed by how deeply a certain dog on a certain dirt path’s chest was caved in.
There was an apartment complex in my area that I had been told not to proselytize in because “It’s dangerous.” Turns out, those people didn’t have any money, so the church didn’t want them. That complex was past the dog and to the east about ten blocks.
My companion and I knocked on a door, and visited a man who was missing his legs. His daughter was there, putting dirty water on the aching wounds. He had a single room for a house, and wheezed when he spoke. He couldn’t afford medication. He still went out and worked all day for his daughter, and gave her whatever money he made, trusting her to keep him alive somehow. The church expected this man to pay tithing. The church expected me to tell this man to pay tithing.
I got the chance to hike up a mountain. At the top, I played chess with a chess set I’d procured from one of the best rapid chess players I’ve ever met. He had been the ward mission leader. He was a good man, a good father, and I wish him the best.
I found another man who was deaf and spoke sign language. I sat with him, and convinced him to come to church all by myself while my companion talked with some tienda tender. I was so excited because this was my own personal project and it was going well. The man came to church, and I sat with him through sacrament meeting. In Sunday school (I can’t believe I did this), I accidentally drooled on the guy. I was just talking so he could read my lips, and I guess I forgot to swallow at some point because a dolup of spit landed on his arm. I apologized profusely, and he played it off, but I never saw that investigator again.
My companion and I knocked a door one day, and a man answered. He wore tattered clothes, and maggots were burrowing into and out of his feet. He muttered something about the stars, missing his wife, and he began to tear up. My eyes stung from the stench. The door closed. Somehow, I knew the man would be dead in a matter of weeks.
I had lost hope that I was doing anything worth while. I looked down on the Doc Martins that had stayed with me five months at this point. I was angry with myself for being so useless in the field, angry with the church for giving me leaders that didn’t listen to my needs or perspective, angry with my mom for drinking while I had to teach people that it was a sin, angry with my dad for giving me the skills and knowledge to justify anything, even pedophilia in the early days of the church, to the point where I could look someone in the eye, and knowing the kind of man Smith was, tell them he was a good man and a true prophet of God. Suddenly a man approached us. He said he recognized us as missionaries, and asked about our message. This never happened. People didn’t just come up to us unless they were crazy or dangerous. But this was a public place, and this guy was genuine. My companion talked to him, and gathered his story, but I was plotting something else. I was done with not caring about these people in a way that mattered. I was tired of walking in another man’s shoes, a man who wasn’t me, who believed different things than me. The chopped leg, the rotting dogs, the infested feet, it all swirled into a single thought in that moment.
What would Jesus do?
I walked over to the man, and in broken Spanish asked him to stand next to me. He did so, and I compared my shoe size to his foot. It was a perfect match. He protested, but I didn’t let him get a word in edge wise. I took off my shoes, put them on his dirty feet, and laced them up nice and tight. Those shoes had cost a ton, and had been meant to last the whole mission. All I had left at this point were my fancy dress shoes that gave my blisters back at the apartment. I didn’t care. I walked home in my socks that day, happy as a lark.
Covid-19 hit a month later. I was one of the few they brought home instead of quarantining. After having served only 6 months. I told God if he wanted me to stay home, he’d have to make them release me.
They released me. I think I was one of maybe a hundred missionaries that were released due to Covid. The church realized their mistake pretty soon after I was released. Once Covid infrastructure began to develop, they didn’t release any more. I guess I didn’t serve a full two years, but I did serve a full mission.
My brother served, and he nearly killed himself due to intense depression brought on by Covid quarantine and poor leadership (I’ve got a few mission president stories, but those are for another time).
I learned lying to someone’s face from my mission, and spent the rest of my time at BYU-I as “nuanced” until the last two years, over which the most epic hoe phase imaginable became my new mission. I spent those years terrified of getting a call from the honor code office.
I’m married now, with my degree irrevocably in my possession. I have friends and loved ones that are in the church and are working on their mission papers. I’m beginning to feel powerless again. I’m seeing the decay again, not on legs, feet, or dogs anymore, but in the souls of the people who the church raises to do their dirty volunteer work. I see them like the animal sacrifices I saw being prepared. I’m not sure what shoes I have left to give to those people that I know are going to be in pain.
My parents are out completely now. It was a long time coming, but they are out and so much happier. I’m working on building a new relationship with my family, one based off of the fact that we won’t be together forever, so we have to make the most of our time together now.
Happy Sunday guys, best of luck to you all. And most importantly, chupa la piña.

Saltpyre from vermintide insists they are beastman who worship a different god, and while the details in the poem where the skaven are first mention doom of Kavzar is intentionally vague we do know two things.
When all remaining survivors of the disaster in their despair turn to chaos, offering human sacrifices and performing rituals to seek aid from the chaos gods nothing happens… with the screaming bell hinted at being the cause. Shortly after the skaven appear out of nowhere and claim to be the lords of the city and all the dwarfs below are dead with the new skaven lords ruling below in their hold.
Whoever wrote this poem was probably either there or had spoken with the survivors who fled before the very end, so not everyone is being included in this account which may have been altered over the years. What if some of the human survivors had become something else?
Assuming the horned rat didn’t exist before the doom of Kavzar then someone in the poem probably becomes the horned rat and who better than the mysterious grey man who fooled them all? All of Kavzar problems started when he finished the tower with a addition of his own god, himself! (Probably) The events of the poem happen slowly at first with endless rain causing a famine snowballing into meteor showers as more people die from starvation. The screaming bell block the aid of good and evil leaving the horned rat in control?
Imagine this situation the logical answer to your food problems were stealing and cannibalism, which would have the group kick you out so lies and deceit became your trade. Whether it was gradual or sudden chaos infesting the city would have turned you into a form that best represents these traits, a rat.
Ironically these ratman would then really be the lords of the city with the black hunger that makes then ravenous a constant reminder of their sins. As far as ratman are concerned everyone in the city still belongs to them and the dwarfs refusal to help earlier and belief they were hoarding halls filled with food made these new ratman attack them and by the time they appear in the poem have likely killed all the dwarfs and eaten whatever food stores were left.
Some among them were probably chosen by the horned rat hearing his voice perhaps for showing particular cunning or because they held power as lords of Kavzar becoming over time grey seers acting on a great plan, a vermintide! But as soon as the poem ends with all remaining humans dead and eaten no food would have cause a civil war that would have destroyed any accounts made by the ratman on the doom of Kavzar and all their education and technology to be lost as most rats don’t care about history. With the horned rat plans constantly failing due to the nature of a rat… Even the name skaven is likely given to them by other races and since be adopted as if they called themselves anything else it would have soon been lost and forgotten in the constant infighting and civil wars, again most rats don’t care about history.
This is my favourite but not the only possibility, they were always rats in the city, maybe they mutated into bigger rats? Children were born deformed maybe maturing quickly into full grown skaven? But these aren’t as twisted as mine, making the choice rather then the choice being made for you is always more interesting… that the people of Kazar in their vanity to touch the heavens fell literally into a hellhole of their own making!
P.s sry for the length of this post but wanted to clue you in on the key parts doom of Kavzar for those who hadn’t read it I have a post somewhere with the full story! Having the skaven being once human implies even they can be redeemed? It also is a warning that humans are more capable of cruelty than any other race in warhammer… on a bad day….

When an author metaphorically pours their heart and soul into their writing, whether it be a novel, poem, song, or any other kind of writing, they also literally pour magic power into it, although it will be dormant for a while. After many years, that power will awaken, and reading these magical writings can cause miraculous events to happen.
For example, let's say someone is trapped indoors due to incessant rain, and decides to read some old poetry to pass the time. One of the poems is about a storm reaching its end and the sky clearing up. The person reads the poem, and then looks up to see that the rain has stopped and the sky is clear. For another example, let's say a person has badly injured their legs and is now in a wheelchair. They read a book about someone who, although wheelchair-bound, dreams of being able to walk again someday. After reading, the person realizes that their legs are completely healed, and they can walk again.
Another way this can work is through delusion. Let's say that an ancient grimoire is discovered that gives instructions on how to summon a demon that can grant you a wish in exchange for you giving up your soul. The reality is that the demon never existed. The author of the grimoire was insane, and would often have vivid hallucinations. However, when someone follows the grimoire's instructions, the demon appears and offers the wish, just as it was written. The demon came into existence because of the author putting their delusions into writing.
This is an idea I came up with a few years ago, but I don't know if I'll actually use it in any writing of mine. Feel free to draw inspiration from this is you want.

Sometimes we expand, sometimes we contract. We are strange clouds with sharp reflections. Lightning splits a tree. Rain falls.
Only prisoners see my graffiti on the prison walls. I wrote: "Naked. At the beginning—motion, breath,a sound." Through the slit in the door, Down the hallway, Through the gates, Falling into the world.
I burned it down. Fire, Prison, Storm. Till the earth till the storm subsided. Do not tell me about myself, I will not look with your eyes. Sometimes we expand, sometimes we contract.
End.
It’s a personal poem making a lot of references to things that only I experienced, so it probably won’t mean much to anyone else, but I wanted to see if I rejiggered things enough to make it make some sense.
I guess, to me, it is suppose to be saying something about braking away from someone, but leaving an ambiguity whether the breaking away is good or bad.

Here is a poem I wrote and performed at my last spoken word event.

Staring at the phone waiting for a call
Hours turn to days, to weeks and you wonder if it will come
Wonder if I still exist somewhere in this grimy world
That fear slowly starts to grip your heart, twisting it inside.
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
Suffering that you do not deserve
The axe forgets, but the tree remembers
My trunk is gnarled with cuts and pieces chopped
My hands tremble as I pull the wrapping from the cheese
Does this sandwich have enough ingredients?
Does it taste terrible?
I feel the pain of a lingering past on my stinging cheek
”Food you wouldn’t feed a dog.”
Twenty years later, I haven’t found enough ingredients.
A twenty year day. But for you, it was Tuesday.
Tough love with extra toughness
Brutal honesty with extra brutality
Felt a lot like tough brutality.
It must have been hard for you
Being the hammer that forged heated metal to iron
Raining blow after blow on the softened metal
It must have hurt you more than it ever hurt me.
You made the sacrifice
Choosing violence to harden and shape me
Into the being I am, a necessary evil.
A labor of love.
But the product of your work is riddled with cracks
Imperfections along my core and in my mind
Because I’m not a fucking sword.
Trauma doesn't make you stronger.
It is a bullet lodged inside you.
Slowly seeping poison into you.
After many forgot you were shot.
It is the unforgettable lesson that
People are capable of evil.
That heroes don't come to save everyone.
It is the feeling that you are never safe.
Even when you're alone.
Even when you're around the people you love.
Trauma is the chemotherapy to the violence
People inflict when they take away your identity, power, and consent.
To stitch together a body cut apart by knives with an unsterilized needle and thread.
A piece of me was carved and cleaved
Upon the butcher's block.
It doesn't make me stronger
That I learned to live without.
But that lesson taught me something new
That I don’t need all of me to survive
I can cut out the parts that hurt and walk away
So I’ll call you when I need you.

People wonder how poets are born,
But to form a sweet prophet in a womb
would likely bring nothing but gloom
Rather, we are molded in a time of great mourning
In a black and white dress, surrounded by death
My first funeral was at age five,
my Great Grandmother whom I loved for as long as I was alive
I asked my aunt why would God kill someone we love?
With the ocean in her eyes, She says it's his plan from up above
I cry as I look down upon her cold face
wishing once more for GG’s warm embrace
she whispered great pearls of wisdom in my ears for no one else to hear
but all of that has faded away now,
I beg her to repeat them but that is not something death allows
My cousin calls me Rain as we listen to the pastor and his proses
we sulk in sunny summer cemeteries Surrounded by Ruth’s roses,
Reminicant of her costume rubies,
I remember she said I would bloom into a great beauty
Salt slicks my fawn face as she’s lowered into her final resting place
by age eleven I no longer believe in God’s great heaven
Seven Tragic Family Messes
Seven little black and white dresses
Seven wakes I wanted to sleep through
My Family being taken from me isn't brand new
My first poem was a eulogy
I spoke it wearing GG’s jewelry

Hi! I’m trying to re-find a poem I came across some time ago. These are the details I think I remember, but it’s entirely possible that they’re not all accurate.
Female author. Published originally in a journal then later in a collection of the author’s poems. Short-ish - maybe ~4 stanzas. I first found it ~20 years ago. It’s written in first person - she runs into an old acquaintance - possibly a former lover - and they catch up. There’s some reference to a death or a funeral - possibly of a parent. They go for a drive together. The image in my mind is along a coastal highway, but I don’t remember if there were words that said that, or that’s just what my mind filled in. They stop somewhere along the way - for gas or drinks or snacks. They stop for the night and I think they sleep together. The poem ends with a great catharsis or a release or letting go. And I’m pretty sure the last line is “… and then the rain.”
I’m likely misremembering some of the details, or filling in imagery from my head that wasn’t explicitly written. But I sure would appreciate any leads. Thanks!

Congratulations to all who are graduating this year! Whether its kindergarten, high school, college or another program you are graduating from you are being celebrated today! 🥳 Best wishes to you graduates as you start a new chapter of life, your future is bright and filled with hope! What will you do? Where will you go? What wonderful adventures await? The path is open and clear, waiting for you to traverse it. As you go out into the world- May you enjoy every day you have on this beautiful planet May your days be filled with sunshine even when it's raining May you have the strength to face each day with positivity and light. May you have the courage to make this world a better place. Best wishes to you all! Sincerely, The Peterborough Voice

This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!
Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us.
The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
The danger is to the body, and it can kill.
The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

[Original source] [Wikipedia]
The above is from a 1993 study on how to warn people in the distant future about the dangers posed by a nuclear waste repository. This message needs to be communicated to people who stumble upon the site, and it needs to be done so non-verbally. As nuclear waste stays dangerous for tens of thousands of years, there will eventually be people who come upon the site who will not share a language with us. They will not share symbols with us. They will not share a culture with us. Yet they will be humans, and we are obligated to protect them.
I came upon this specific ... it's not quite a poem, but that's what Chelsea Weber-Smith of the podcast American Hysteria called it in her most recent episode, which I had the joy to listen to earlier this week. It's about the borderline-bonkers field of study (and one of my occasional obsessions) called nuclear semiotics, which analyzes this problem.
Coincidentally, I started my second playthrough of Tears of the Kingdom the day after listening to this story. As I descended the staircase, through the gloom, past the murals and to G-Do himself, I couldn't help but think... the ancient Hylians/Zonai had a similar problem to our civilization. There is a danger underground that must be contained, and people must be warned. It's interesting how some of the strategies they employ to convey this message are mirrored in the thoughts of nuclear semioticians, and how in other ways went against the most basic ideas of this field. In the end, did they fail? (Yes, the answer is yes) Will we fail to protect our own future people? (yes, but for different reasons)
Worth saying, they had it easy compared to us:

1. We know nothing of the people of 10,000 years from now. They literally had a princess from this future culture at their disposal.
2. All human languages currently in existence will be unintelligible to the people of 12024, more so than how Proto-Indo-European (spoken only ~6k years ago) is unintelligible to us today. Ancient Hylian, on the other hand, is basically Middle English.

They tried many strategies that nuclear semioticians have considered, some implemented better than others, with varying levels of success:

1. An "atomic priesthood", namely the Sheikah and the Royal Family. This is a group of people who are dedicated to the mission of preserving information about the threat across millennia, in the same way religious movements dating to the Iron Age and Classical Antiquity have managed to preserve the teachings of their founders into the present. We know Sheikah tech is seen in the imprisoning chamber, and the royal family pass down the story of the Imprisoning War. Unfortunately, this "priesthood" over the millennia proved small and unstable. Depending on how you place TotK in the timeline, the Sheikah and the royal line were nearly wiped out several times, reduced at one point to kindergarten teacher and a pre-teen pirate captain. Even if the movement survived, the message of "do not go below the castle" was eventually forgotten.
2. Physical monuments. There are three general threads of thought. One is to create some kind of frightening, ominous landscape that communicates "this is a bad place," like a forest of jagged concrete spikes. Another thread, as Weber-Smith put it, thinks that's some very American absurdity, and the best thing is to just hide it somewhere unimportant. Dig a hole in the Arctic, drop it in. Another (more interesting) idea is to make it the center of attention. Build a nuclear-themed amusement park, a nuclear temple, something people will tell stories of and preserve. No one wants to drill for oil on the Acropolis. The Hylians went and built a magnificent castle and their capitol city. It's not clear this helped since the original message was eventually lost.
   1. They appear to have communicated the specifics primarily in writing, and in a single written language: Zonai, a system so obtuse that not even the Internet can crack it. Correct me if I am wrong, but we see no Gerudo hieroglyphs, no Sheikah characters, no other text in the game in any other language warning about what is under the castle. Almost none of this text is near the castle. Much of it is in the goddamn sky. There is text immediately adjacent to the Imprisoning Chamber, on and around statues of Zonai. Zelda just takes pictures and keeps walking.
      1. (I am trying to find a source, and I cannot, but I remember tales of a warning in the castle itself, a very nondescript stela that's like "don't go under the castle." I don't remember what language it is in, but in any case it's not exactly in a prominent place) EDIT: my thanks to u/banter_pants who linked to some screenshots of the stela in question in the comments. You can see it here. Some important points: Link can read it, meaning it is not original to the ancient period, and it is in a space only accessible to the Royal Family and those associated with them. To me, this suggests a later addition related to the "atomic priesthood," preserving this secret memory. What's also really striking is the text really seems to evoke the quote I opened with even including the phrase, "If the site is disturbed..."
3. Written and artistic representations of the message. Nuclear semioticians seem to think this is a challenge. Many proposals that do include written messages would start with it being in multiple languages, with broad, general terms are the periphery of the site (Bad! Malo!), getting more specific as you approach the center (plutonium 1.4km down). There's art, like this, which might not work, as we can't guarantee symbols like ☢️ or skulls will mean the same thing to future people. The Hylians/Zonai just... well they didn't think about any of this.
   1. The statues closest to the source of the danger are Zonai, a race completely forgotten. They are not in a position warning people off. They just stand there, arms at their sides, conveying nothing.
   2. Of course, a discussion of art would be incomplete without talking about the murals... they're a bit too close to the problem. G-Do is literally in the next room. If he was nuclear waste, you're already losing all your hair. The murals are only understandable by people with specific knowledge of the Royal Family's lore. They do not depict useful information (eg. he's literally in the next room), only a legend. And the structure of the space it was in was so poorly constructed that literally the most important bits were obscured by rubble.
4. Finally, there is the physical barrier between the environment and the threat. You bury it in concrete, deep underground, somewhere without a lot of rainfall and earthquakes. The last thing that needs to happen is a bit of groundwater to start carrying plutonium into a well. You don't just leave this stuff in a ditch (unless you do). And yet... there is apparently a staircase directly to G-Do. He keeps spitting out calamities. People are getting sick from the emanation of energy/gloom...

I am not sure I have a point exactly. The lore nerds will rightfully point out that containment failed at exactly the moment it was meant to: ie. when Zelda came upon it and closed the time loop. True fact. I'm just stirring these tropes together. The ancient Hylians/Zonai tried to communicate a danger and how to deal with it to people in their distant future, ultimately showing us a bunch of ways that this did not work.
Us in the real world will have to hope nuclear semioticians have better ideas. Most of this stuff is sitting the parking lots of nuclear power plants as we argue about where to put it. Hopefully we put it underground with good signage before we have our own calamity.

Kyoshi book 1 is the epitome of ‘a meeting that could have been an email’. Its book that should have been a graphic novel. A story that should have been a wikipedia page.
SPOILERS, though I am saving you the read.
TLDR: The story telling is mediocre, and the story would have been just as compelling as a bullet pointed list of story facts. It flubs, glosses over and skips all portions of story that would have required any amount of clever writing or skill. The story is comprised of cringey tropes. This book will not sit among the original series in the annals of history. It sits below Korra and just above M Knight’s film adaption and the disgraceful Netflix reboot.
First, the idea of there being immense trouble identifying the Avatar is a good plot point. Having Kuruk’s team find and teach the next Avatar and have opposing ideals is also a good plot point. Yee also describes the martial arts okay enough, but this is an inherent obstacle when turning highly visual source material into text. This concludes my praise.
Yee tells, but doesnt show. Show more teambuilding and friendship between Kyoshi, Rangi and Yun. They only come together once in the same room to hang out before the main conflict happens, and its a superficial scene straight out of an 80s slasher movie. They come together solely to ‘show’ them being a team as they hang out and exchange banter. This is the first of Yee’s pseudo-“show, don’t tell”. It appears like the story is showing us something, but it is still telling us. It is characterized by vapid, juvenile writing in a scene that is largely inconsequential to the story.
Make the misidentification of the Avatar weigh on each of them and test friendship. Show her being found by Kelsang. The jump forward 9 years is jarring and leaves logic way behind. If she was raised by Kelsang, why didnt he finish testing her as the Avatar? Why did he take pity and raise her after traveling the world and seeing other homeless children? Why didnt she give back the clay turtle relic? Kyoshi is abandoned when she is old enough to remember being abandon, but doesn’t remember where she got the turtle. This line is another example of pseudo-show. Why don’t we dont get any insight into the moment she is abandon? We do not know any of these things. Including these scenes in the book would have made it longer, but its the juiciest piece of the character development. The length of a book is largely forgivable if it is captivating. This is like if you order a burger and they only bring you a bun and a slice of bib lettuce. Its missing the most crucile part.
Show Yun being incorrectly identified as the Avatar. This scene has to be so interesting. There is nothing in the book about this at all. This seems like another artful dodge around having to write something clever, and that tends to be difficult.
Show Kyoshi’s Avatar state. ‘Blacking out’ is not a mysterious way to tell stories. Its a cop out of writing something the author finds difficult. Also, a character can black out and not remember doing something AND the author can still describe it as it happens to the reader. Choosing to ommit more juicey story speaks more to the writers lack of confidence in their writing.
The fans and helmet of her parents are forced clumsily into the story at the height of the inciting incident. They could have been introduced any time. For example, when Kyoshi connects with her parent’s old crime ring and they could be presented to Kyoshi as relics of the group’s deceased leaders. Instead they are introduced to the reader by Kyoshi dropping her luggage and they fall out in the rain and mud. It reads like a scene that is meant to be a story board for a cartoon or comic.
We dont get any insight into Kyoshi’s parents being dead or alive. Kyoshi doesnt seem to ask anyone either. Why? Seems like a reasonable question.
Kelsang realizes Kyoshi is the Avatar when she does some improv poetry that happens to be Avatar Kuruk’s favorite poem? That was the best idea you got?
Kyoshi has a sky bison named PengPeng? Find a new method of transportation, the flying bison had been done before. Pengpeng is also only used as transportation. She doesnt have any personality like Momo and Appa. Total strikeout.
When something new develops that is supposed to surprise the reader, like Kyoshi’s mother being a disgraced airbender, Yee doesnt show this. This is explained away in a moment of dialogue like “once upon a time, this happened.” Then the plot moves on. And what motivation did she have for keeping this from Kelsang? Maybe they knew each other? They are both airbenders who have killed before, which is significant in the fiction. This could have been an opportunity to connect characters and create intrigue. But we only learn this at the end of the book for no reason.
Love between ATLA characters is subtle in the show. Katara and Aang will end up together and we know this implicitly. Sokka loves his friends, particularly Toph, because of the actions we see him take to help her. Rewatch the show, you will see what I mean. However this is not a major plot point that is touched on each episode. Zuko and Mei are together but they are pulled apart temporarily by character motivations. It skips the filler and gets right to the interesting part. However in Kyoshi book 1, love between Rangi and Kyoshi is vapid and foreshadowed from the first pages. Lets set lesbianism aside, its not the issue. The issue is that this love story is not compelling chiefly because we are told they care for each other but are only shown this in the back half of the book on a surface level. Even when we are shown these things, its not believable. The characters act like teenagers do in 2024 America, not like how teenagers would act in a world coming off the heels of a 100 year war. The characters are young, but they have roles, careers, and the responsibilities of adults. This stems from the same problem Yun has with Kyoshi and Rangi. We don’t see them becoming or being friends. We are told they are friends. Thats it.
This connects to Rangi’s character being ambivalent and emotionally indistinct. Rangi is played as a tough, no nonsense soldier that is hired as Yun’s personal bodyguard, the most important job next to being the avatar yourself. But her expressions of love are juvenile and childish. In one scene she is scolding Kyoshi on her duty toward being Avatar then in the next she acts playfully excited like an American weeb teenager when Kyoshi bends water for the first time. Rangi is poorly written and has poor motivation to her Avatar duty. She contributes nothing practical or technical to the story but love interest. If she is a child prodigy badass that earned the job of protecting the Avatar, she should act like it.
Hei Ran, Rangi’s mother, does nothing consequential to the plot. Why have this character? It is stated she knew Avatar Kuruk. The least she can do is bring it up more.
AND FINALLY, Kyoshis character is very opposite from who we see in ATLA. Obviously this is to show growth, but the timid Kyoshi inexplicably switches to confident and intimidating Kyoshi without any growth, then switches back to timid again. We know kyoshi as a tall, confident, matter of fact, powerful bender who sees no difference between murdering Chin the Conquerer and letting him fall to his death. But here we see a still tall, but petulant teen. She is afraid of her bending. She is inconsistently overconfident. She is squemish about murder. Perhaps the growth occurs in book two, but then again change is gradual. We should see some examples of change now. She grew up a homeless street urchin. She needs to act like it.
Yun struggles with his bending but also keeps smiling and acting like everything is ok. This trope is exhausted to death by anime. We do not see a human side of Yun. He is not tortured by the training or the fatique of not being able to bend fire or the pressure and expectation of being Avatar. He just smiles and flirts with Kyoshi. He also asks her to go with him to a peace treaty signing with pirates all because he wants to have her there so he feels loved. But this thinly disguises the fact the author needed a reason to have her at the signing so she can earthbend and save everyone. Take Rangi, your apointed body guard.
Yun returns at the end of the novel as a deus ex machina and kills Jianzhu in an admittedly badass way. 10/10. However, Yun is dead, reappears as a ghost, then earth bends. The possibility of this within the fiction is near zero UNLESS FC Yee is trying add to the lore of spirit magic and bending. To that I say “Learn to be a better writer first.”
Kirima is an okay character. We traditionally see water benders as good guys, but she is a tough leader of a gang of criminals. Again we are told that, not shown. 5/10. Mid teir.
Wong is a worse comedic relief than Sokka. Where Sokka learns to become a leader from a close minded sceptic and redeem this quality, Wong is indistinct from any other background earth bender. He eventually becomes Kyoshis earthbending teacher and he starts to fill out a teacher role but is still indistinct. Up until this time, he carrys no air of educator at all. Remember, he’s a pirate criminal. This turn of character seems to come from the team learning that Kyoshi is the Avatar, something she kept secret. But Wong is the only one who changes their behavior based on this. Meeting the most important person in the world doesn’t effect them, I guess. Doesn’t seem reasonable.
Lek is a kid that idolizes Kyoshi’s parents, but acts out like a toddler when she speaks poorly of them. I am left feeling disatisfied by a criminal outlaw that throws tantrums when someone speaks ill of their pseudo mommy and daddy. Lek is poorly written as a rival to Kyoshi, if if fact that was Yee’s intention. You see it in their banter and interactions. Lek is killed by a poison that only incapacitates all others effected. It was like the author needed him to die real quick and didnt know how to do it, but also didn’t want to rewrite the chapter.
Now is a good time to mention that characters can be annoying to other characters, but they should not be annoying to the reader. Doing this is a form of self sabotage. Its like serving up raw eggs for breakfast on purpose and calling it art. You just wouldn’t do it.
Lao Ge is poorly written too, despite being an interesting character idea. Lao is meant to be Kyoshi’s spiritual leader in this story. He leads her to the ancient technique of prolonging ones life with spirit magic. But this man reads like an embarassing drunk uncle that no one responds to when he speaks. He acts like he’s cool, wanders off constantly and returns covered in blood to a group thats asks no questions. Criminals still ask questions. In fact, they are more paranoid on account of being criminals. For example, there is a scene where they leave without him and realize they forgot him and have to go back. This scene amounts to nothing. Why was it in the book? Whoops, he’s also a master assassin. We are told this over and over but never see it in action. Boo. Don’t suggest violence. Show us violence.
Why is this group of criminals still together anyway? They lost their leaders, Kyoshi’s parents. Wouldn’t the find new jobs? Thin the herd. Theres too many characters.
Jianzhu acts more suspicious after he is identified as the villain which is a trope found in childrens television to remind children he is bad now. The fact it is here insults the readers intellegence. His villain motivations are not explained well. Does he care more about identifying the Avatar than his lifelong friend Kelsang or the life of the innocent? Also, a villain doesnt need to kill someone to be identified as the villain but youll find that trope here too. Clever writing can remedy this all the same. He does do cool evil guy things, but they are explained after the fact instead of showing him coniving these schemes and putting them into action. His death is awesome, but his final confrontation with Kyoshi is not spectacular. There is no final battle like one might expect. He the one that ghost Yun kills.
It is unclear if this book is meant for a YA reader audience or the adult audience that watched ATLA as kids. The story is grittier, bloodier and violent with explicit deaths and torture. All the while bearing a sheen of squeeky clean Nickelodean dialogue and unfunny humor that has an obvious limit. The book says they swear, but the exact words do not show up in dialogue. Characters are impaled and gored, but the 3rd person narration takes breaks from descriptions of this for quippy commentary on the things happening. Who says these things? Kyoshi? But its in third person. This clashes with the perspective and shows indecision on the part of the author.
The perspective is stuck between 1st and 3rd. 1st serves better for the YA audience where Kyoshi might think these quippy things to herself or have thoughts that help the reader understand context better. 3rd person would serve the adult audience better with a matter of fact telling of the story. Maybe even change between characters in some chapters and fill in some of these gaps. Instead the book strattles the line between these two perspectives and suffers greatly. You have humorous commentary and scene descriptions coming from the same source. It breaks immersion when the reader is stuck wondering who is telling the story.
YA is an oversaturatedand flawed genre anyway. Its almost designed to trick teens into thinking they are reading adult books.
Yee includes too many comparisons, similies and analogies. Each one is meant to create world building, where the text compares a creature in the ATLA world to a situation at hand. But they start coming up too often in the back half of the book. This also seems to rise in frequency as descriptions get vaguer. It felt like Yee lacked the proper lexicon to describe what was happening as the story approached the end. Analogies should be used to explain difficult things, not just thrown in recklessly.
One moment sticks out from this book that reminds me of ATLA. While Yun and Kyoshi are silently trying to meditate before Jianzhu summons a spirit to finally identify the correct Avatar, the two teens speak for a second. Eyes closed, Kyoshi whispers “You know what would be funny? If neither of us were the Avatar.” This captures elements of friendship between the two kids, character humor, and SHOWS these two still care for each other no matter what happens next. Yun’s response isn’t even remotely appropriate, memorable or clever. The opportunity is a total loss.
Another moment of total loss and tonal dissonance is when Kyoshi, Rangi and the convicts go to a hidden secret criminal town that is described as being so cut throat, you don’t even look at people in the eye. Just then the group sees two men collide after turning a blind corner and drop their stuff. Page 224. They exchange appologies, act very polite, and depart. (This is told to the reader, not shown with appropriatly funny dialogue). Lek then explains the two men will meet tonight on the challenge grounds and fight to the death. However, that night at the challenge grounds, you don’t see those characters; a total whiff on Yee’s part. Instead you read about one man bludgeoning another man to death with barehands in pure gladitorial bloodsport. This scene shows the whimsy of ATLA, the gorey violence that Yee wanted and his befuddled attempt at writing something that blends the two.
All of this leads me to conclude the book is for a YA audience, which is unfortunate because ATLA was for everyone; YA, adult and children. It is a children’s show that adults can find a surprising amount of depth and humor in. Yee’s doesn’t hold a candle to the writing of Aaron Ehasz.
The argument that this books is allowed to be bad because its for kids falls apart for the same reason. The expert writing of Aaron Ehazs in ATLA is what imortalizes it to this day; the dialogue, the characters, and the story. ATLA is a kids cartoon by which all cinema and television are compared. This is simply not on that level.
When this level of integrity is left to be followed up by an author with one previously published work, underdelivery should be expected. Kyoshi book 1 is FC Yee’s second published work and it shows. I would be interested in learning more about FC Yee’s past unpublished experiences in writing and qualifications.
So again, this book is like a meeting that should have been an email. The story is not “worth the read”. The historical facts are more valuable. For example, telling someone that Kyoshi’s dad is a pirate earthbender and her mother is a disgraced criminal airbender is a total surprise and sparks good speculative conversation. But the way the novel presents this information is clumsy and ignorant of how rare these circumstances are within the fiction. These historical facts are just as compelling when read on the Avatar wiki page, negating the necessity for a book in the first place. I think this is symptomatic of writing a prequal too. We know enough about Kyoshi to be interested in her character, so the facts about her should be presented interestingly with art and showmanship.
This book leaves me with the sneaking suspicion that most of what FC Yee knows about writing was learned from anime, a genre so polluted its not worth even sifting through to find quality content. Hot take, I know.
His other books on Genie Lo (2017, 2020) are teen dramas with ‘the chosen one’ trope, as the summaries suggest. That must be why that shows in this book. Maybe FC Yee can only write one type of book.
Yee is also not an author by trade. He said in an interview that he works in mobile gaming as the guy who makes “everything less fun by adding stuff to the game you have to pay for.” He went to college for Economics, or so I read on his wiki page.
His book publisher proposed the two book series idea to Nickelodeon, it was not a matter of the creators carefully hand picking a writer. He also only worked with Mike DiMartino. In his interview, he says he did not work with Bryan Konietzko and never even mentions Aaron Ehasz. I believe this is to the great detrement of the story.
I’ve heard that people really liked this book. However, I wonder if that is genuine affection or the same kind of denial Star Wars fans had when the Phantom Menace came out. I draw this parallel because my father was that person. He recomended this book to me and gave it high praise in the same way he did when Phantom Menace released.
The fans, my father and myself included, are starved for any canon ATLA material. Feeding the fans undercooked meals is no way to make a fanbase grow. The ATLA fanbase already got food poisoning from M Knight’s movie. It recovered, but at a cost. I hate to think what might happen after the Netflix show and the animated movie of adult Aang.
I understand that Yee was a fan of the material. In fact, he and I share the same favorite character. So know that this is not an attack on a fellow fan of ATLA, I simply believe Yee is not the man for this job. Avatar deserves better than to be relegated to a YA novel lost in a sea of overproduced assembly line YA content. Avatar deserves a better writer. Save your fine cutlery for fine dining, don’t use polished silver to eat fast food.
To end, I leave you with this: if you want more Avatar content, gather some friends and play the Avatar rpg by Magpie Games. It is the most fun I’ve had in the ATLA world since I was a kid. If you play it right, you get that same sense of magic you got back in 2005 when Book Water came out.
Below is a link to an interview with Yee.
https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2019/07/15/from-fan-to-avatar-writer-f-c-yee-on-developing-the-story-of-avatar-kyoshi/amp/

A myriad of possibilities weigh down on my chest
Pinned down at a crossroads at the foot of the mountains
Held in place by arms of thick mud
Tall, thick, fluffy clouds hide the mountains’ peaks
Though I can feel their glare
And hear their urgent calls to ascend
The unknown makes me wary
Will my ascent be in vain?
Will I hurt myself?
My feet feel safely at home, rooted in the ground
The grasp of the mud’s arms comforts me
I’ve surrendered to the unknown
And found solace in this stillness…
A clap of thunder commands the heavy clouds to release their rain
The mud’s arms melt away into a river
The sun’s heat burns the clouds into steam
Golden curtains of light fall from the sky
The mountains’ peaks revealed, naked
It’s time for my ascent
The strength in my legs has atrophied with time
I am relegated to this lonely nest at the foot of the mountains
Their beauty remains etched on the horizon, waiting for me, wondering if I’ll ever ascend

_______
Original poem by Jules Grant
Jules Grant - my site here for more of my work - I would love to connect with you!

I just left the exam hall and now I'm stuck at the exam centre because it's raining outside. Is there a dua for making the rain go away?
Right now, I'm just singing the Poem "Rain Rain go away, little Johnny wants to play".
Edit: I'm home now and I'm wet. (Literally soaked)

Monday is the first day of the work week that many people dread. Not all people dread it, but some. Let's take a look into the Numerology of Monday to decode the energy and what it can be used for to work with it and not against it.
M - this is the 13th letter of the alphabet vibrating at the energy of 4. The energy of 1 is action and the energy of 3 is connecting with others through collaboration. This puts a focus on responsibilities and for most people, it's a work or school day which connects with this. Although it is about being responsible, it's still the energy of 4 which is mellow and controlled energy. O - this is the 15th letter of the alphabet vibrating at the energy of 6 which is about using your creativity constructively to take care of the tasks or duties you need to take care of. 6 is the number of beauty, duty, and routine. N - 14th letter of the alphabet vibrating at the energy of 5. This is about using your energy to be responsible and making space for enjoyment while doing so. 14 is a karmic number, but not when used correctly. As a karmic number, 14 is about someone who ditched their responsibilities and now have to deal with some challeneges(5). Proper use of this energy is using it for creative purposes. D - 4th letter vibrating at the purest energy of 4 which is about calmness, caution, and security. A - vibrating at 1 as the first letter of the alphabet, this is about action and energy. Y - The 25th letter of the alphabet vibrating at the energy of 7, but through cooperation with others(2) and compassion for others(2) and with the use of creativity (5) or even humor(5). Big lover energy as 5 can point to romance and 2 can point to soulmates.
Monday full numerology comes down to 8 and 8 can represent long and drawn out processes, wait times, and pressure. The dreadful energy can be moreso due to this 8 energy. People can work with this energy by being patient as 8 points to tedious tasks. With this insight, you can now simply start expected a little time in between things and pacing yourself. It can seem like a long day or your duties may be plentiful.
This is a day best utilized in a constructive (8) way with the use of wisdom and calculation(7). The 7 is the soul urge influence of Monday based on the vowels. 2 vowels A and O which equals 7. Being calculating and seeking depth will allow you to master the energy of Monday. Use this day to get the most done with your projects or workloads.
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I am looking for a lady between 25 and 35 years old, for a committed monogamous childfree relationship. My goal is to become a true team, supporting each other, caring for each other, nurturing each other and helping each other grow and realise our goals and dreams as much as possible. I'm hoping to find someone that values a relationship as much as I do and takes it seriously. It's not the only thing my life revolves around, but it's also not just something 'nice to have' for me.
I am 186cm tall, slim/fit built, dark brown hair, brown eyes. Both my arms are tattooed (full sleeve), as are my calves and the areas above my ankles. Regarding pictures see below. I am a runner, training multiple times a week. I'm also vegan. My love languages are physical touch and words of affirmation. While I am mostly securely attached, withdrawing from me triggers anxiety and I have made a horrible experience with an avoidant partner in the past, so that is something I fear I cannot deal with again.
I am also an atheist.
I am a very warm, soft and sensitive person, I think I am humorous, I am self reflecting a lot and I can also be really passionate and romantic. Those are traits that also are really important to me in a woman.
I can be quite social, I am a good talker, but also love to listen to really get to know someone on a deeper level. I can enjoy an evening out with friends just as much as the silence of sitting at the shores of the river and watching the sunset in solitude (although I've been craving to watch it together with a partner for a really long time now). I can be out in a pub, at a rave, a metal show or at a football game and have the time of my life, but I cannot do these things every day; I need recharge time (on the sofa, in the woods for a run, a lazy Sunday staying in bed etc.). This should give you an idea; basically, I am a homebody that thoroughly enjoys going out in moderation.
I won't say too much about hobbies; suffice it to say I am into the dark, the obscure, the macabre, the occult, the mysterious, the erotic. It won't surprise you that I had a gothic phase in my youth, bonus points if you did too!
What I'm looking for
Although similar hobbies and interests are a plus, emotional and intimate compatibility are more important to me. I am a very sensitive and emotional person (I do cry easily and by this point I don't think I'll ever be able to change that, sorry), so if you're too, we will definitely understand each other. I need someone who I can open up to (which I do rather quickly, anyway), be myself, bare my soul to and I need these things from you, too. I've had my share of emotionally unavailable women who were afraid of intimacy so I know I can't deal with that again because of the way how those things affect me. I am always emotionally invested with the woman I pursue and in those cases that was to my detriment. But my ability to feel so deep is also something I wouldn't want to change because as of yet, although it's getting harder, I haven't given up on finding someone.
With those emotional needs come two requirements that I found to be vital over the years: First, being able to be silly and cutesy together and to accept each other's inner child and care for it. I am not talking about having to deal with another person's immaturity or inability to perform basic adult skills, rather with the way sadness, hurt, anxiety and being overwhelmed manifests for me (and maybe for you, too?). I need someone who is able to comfort me, to hold me, to allow me to be weak and needy for a while until I've calmed down, and I'm more than ready to offer the same. Your inner child can come out for a while, no problem (: Also in a positive way: Thankfully, today everyone seems to be understanding of the cuteness overload cats (or any animal baby, really) can cause; I need that with a partner. I also still have plushies as comfort animals and ideally, you do too.
Apparently in every relationship, one person is the stronger one. In the past, I have been with women who obviously were stronger than me, but that doesn't mean they always had to be strong, far from it. I certainly need to be able to feel protected, but it's not like I'm a particularly needy partner, like everyone, I have my ups and downs, but I can pull my weight and have been told by past partners that I am very caring and that they felt safe and understood with me, and providing that for my partner is really important for me as well.
Second, intimate compatibility. I am rather insatiable and love to experiment when it comes to the bedroom, so you should, too, in order that we can explore and enjoy together. I found out how fulfilling living out those fantasies can be after years of never being able to try and in a relationship, this kind of fulfillment for both partners is a must for me. I found the term 'filthy best friends and partners' to be a perfect description.
I'm looking for a balance between healthy independence and being emotionally present. A relationship where we 'get' each other; we're both each other's number one and treat each other like royalty. Where a disagreement leads to more intimacy between us as we understand better, not to resentment. Where we're comfortable baring our souls to each other, becoming a safe haven and secure base for each other. I don't like the modern notion that you 'should never feel too safe in a relationship' because that sounds like running from the mafia (and believe me, I love mafia movies); you should always put in effort, yes, but safety is one of the things I always want to experience and provide in a relationship. We shouldn't fear that a disagreement leads straight to breakup. I know ‘self-sufficiency’ is trending right now, but I feel like as partners, we’re partly responsible for each other and not our own but also each other’s happiness. Being dependant and dependable at the same time is important; making each other’s wellbeing a priority. If you’re not able to healthily depend on someone and their support while you’re having a hard time, look elsewhere. If I have to be afraid you’ll run at the first major problem that surfaces, even if it’s a ‘you’-problem, it’s not going to work. I think that all things can and need to be talked about. If you think ignoring someone for days is a form of communication, please look elsewhere.
I am looking for someone real. We all have our problems, I don't want or need a 'perfect' person. You don't have everything figured out or 'all your shit' together. Be imperfect. Admit when you feel sad and angry, lonely, hopeless or even helpless – it's all relatable. Don't hide it. Be quirky, be dorky, be witchy, opinionated, be yourself. Don't pretend.
I'm looking for someone to share romance with. Not great gestures, but small, meaningful ones. Poems for each other, expressing our feelings; cards with heartfelt messages that we put our perfume/cologne on, and a symbol that means something to us only, the print of your lips with lipstick, the way I sign and seal my letters for you.
Just as important to me is agreeing on living a healthy life, staying in shape both for ourselves and for each other, regularly working out and eating healthy. I am drug and disease-free and expect the same of you. I do drink as I love a good beer or glass of wine, rum or whiskey, but I've never really been drinking much and especially during the past year have further reduced it. One vice I have is that I enjoy a couple of cigars a year, but I can definitely accommodate you in this regard.
Another important point is aligned life goals: I value safety more than adventure. I want to build a home together with my partner, a safespace for the both of us, where we always feel loved and protected, a place that we create together, make it cozy together so we just love to get back home there wherever we might have been, a home we decorate together for Halloween (my favourite holiday) or Christmas or Springtime, as we live in tune with the seasons, enjoying nature on a walk or the rain outside, reading in our cozy home. I value stability and harmony.
Appearance-wise, I am into ladies on the smaller side), so I'm looking for someone petite/slim/skinny/healthy-fit. Likewise, I am not really muscular and don't have visible abs; like I said, I'm a runner, so if you're more into the gym-type, I'm not a good fit.
I’d prefer to move from text to voice calls, videochat and then meeting up, all of that rather sooner than later. Not that there’s a need to rush anything, but I’d rather see earlier if we’re compatible or not; as someone who catches feelings fast I need to protect myself.
Caveats

• I don't like travelling as it stresses me out; I don't mind being somewhere else for a week or two, but the organisation part of it drains my energy very quickly and dealing with stuff that doesn't work out is overwhelming to me. Smaller trips are ok, but I'm not the right person to travel the world with.
• I am not the most awake person in the morning (i.e. I identify as nightowl)
• I don't want children and had a vasectomy
• I need space for my own projects/time to recharge after social interaction.
• While I feel like I am in tune with my inner child and working on/with it through therapy, I realise this is something that could be a turn-off for people.
• I have been diagnosed with depressive episodes in the past and am taking anti-depressants right now. I realise that I am a work in progress, maybe more so than in times past, but I manage and the fact that I'm putting myself out here is based on me being ready to get to know someone new.
• I want to create a home together here, as I'm firmly rooted where I was born; I realise this is a lot to ask, but I have seen many people here being open to moving, so I want to at least try reaching out to them.

If you're interested, feel free to message me and include some pictures of yourself and I will reply with my own. Have a nice day (: