izzie's log of ridiculousness

[izzie]

Fun things.

SPOILER: Click to show

Above the Fruited Plain

Through the windows of Alfred's summer home, you can see the green, even rows of grapevines that wind over the hills of Napa Valley. In the early morning, the sun rises behind the mountains to the east. Pale light washes over the floors and weaves itself into the gold strands of Matthew's hair, spread out over the pillowcase like some kind of halo. Alfred smiles unusually quietly, and presses a kiss to the side of his forehead.

At noon, Alfred looks out the French windows, blue eyes tracing the lush landscape. The vineyard is like the ones Francis owned when they were young, when Alfred and Matthew used to run through the rows of grapes in the moonlight. It was a welcome break from the stiff high society events they went to with Arthur.

Try to catch me, Mattie, he would call, darting in between the plants and grinning wildly at the feel of the wind in his face. Not fair! Matthew would complain. Alfred always took off running a bit too early, his laughter ringing through the still evening air and drowning out the sound of his brother's protests as the they chased each other through the vineyard.

Even with Alfred's headstart, Matthew eventually would catch up and tackle him, both of them landing in a tangle of limbs. They sank into the grass, shaking with laughter, and Matthew would glance back and forth between him and the night sky. Got you, he'd say triumphantly, I win, and then Alfred would crawl over and kiss him.

(In the end, Alfred won.)

In the late afternoon, the sun sets in the west, bathing the mountains in a haze of fading orange and pink light, and when darkness falls, Alfred grabs Matthew's hand and drags him out into the vineyard. "Look," he says brightly, "just like France's, right?" There is an inscrutable expression in his brother's blue-violet eyes, but Matthew smiles at him.

"Sure," he agrees. And this is why Alfred loves him, because Matthew understands how he needs to be as good as the others, needs to feel like he can hold a candle to their ancient traditions and centuries of experience. There are times when Alfred is so, so glad that no one else notices him; in the back of his mind there lives a gnawing insecurity that if another person remembered Mattie's name, his birthday, who he was, then he wouldn't have to settle for Alfred.

Alfred needs to feel like someone's hero.

Matthew takes both of his brother's hands in his and pulls him out into the rows of grapevines that are indigo in the moonlight, then pulls away. "Try to catch me," he whispers. So Alfred chases him through the vineyard until both of them collapse into the soft grass, laughing breathlessly, stealing kisses and marveling at the way the rows of grapes stretch on into the darkness, seemingly into eternity.

"I win," Alfred says eventually, resting his forehead against Matthew's. His brother's skin is ivory pale, like the snow that blankets his lands to the north, and cool like the breezes that rustle the leaves on the grapevines.

"Sure you do," Matthew agrees, smiling brilliantly as he leans in for another kiss.

[izzie]

SPOILER: Click to show

The British Isles, called "Britannia" for simplicity's sake, were invaded by Rome in 55 BC with Caesar. It didn't totally lead to a conquering, but it did leave Britannia with twin sons, Alba and Eire (who were known to Rome as Caledonia and Hibernia and to us as Scotland and Ireland). In the next Roman invasion in 43 AD, she was taken captive and had another son, Cymru (Cambria, also known as Wales).

Over the next couple hundred years, Caledonia and Hibernia kidnap Cambria, Hibernia goes to his own island to escape the Romans, and Caledonia teaches Cambria how to be a freedom fighter. The two of them carry out raids on Roman villages, meet Gaul/Gallia (France), and later, in 260 AD, join him and Hispania (Spain) in a rebellion against Rome, trying to get Britannia back. In 269, after the death of Postumus, they lose Spain back to Rome, and the Gallic Empire keeps weakening until in 274, after months of siege, Rome reconquers them.

Anyway, Rome is pissed, everyone gets hurt. Gallia, Hispania, and Cambria are punished and Caledonia is chased away. Rome takes his frustration out on Britannia, and she has a fourth child -- The Boy Who Would Be England, currently known as little Albion. Having now lost all of her land to her four sons, Britannia wastes away. Albion has few memories of her, and is cared for mostly by Cambria. Caledonia is really, really angry about this whole situation, and with the death of Britannia, so is Hibernia, who starts making pirate raids on Roman settlements. For the next century, Caledonia tries to keep Albion out of danger by being mean to him so the poor boy will stay far away.

In 367, Caledonia and Hibernia (with some secret help from Germania) sack and burn the entirety of Roman Britain. In response, Rome retreats from Britain, and takes Albion with him because he is the youngest and least likely to be a 'savage' or whatever. Cambria, who has grown quite attached to Albion, is distraught, but eventually gives his little brother to Gallia to watch over. In the 400s, Germania gets fed up with Roman rule, and with help from the Gothic tribes, some Brits, angry peasants, and political controversy, brings down the Roman Empire... and as a result plunges the world into the Dark Ages.

Culture is more or less kept alive by monks in Ireland transcribing Roman manuscripts. While the British Isles brothers try to rebuild, Continental Europe is racked by barbarian attacks. With Rome dead, there's freedom but no order. The Vandals sack France, Spain, and northern Africa; the Goths are attacking the eastern Roman empire, the Franks are just everywhere, and the Lombards invade Italy.

(Fun fact: Ireland named Merlin after Wales, whose human name was Emrys. Wales made him name King Arthur after England, whose name was originally the Roman "Artorius," a name that turns into "Arthur" in Welsh.)

England doesn't remember much about all this. He just knows that Scotland was mean to him and they gave him away; he doesn't realize that his brothers never hated him. When he returns later, during the Norman Conquest, he then tries to conquer them out of his anger that they were "never a family," and... ironically gives them reason to hate him.

Oh, British Isles. You so silly.

SPOILER: Click to show

1
Her first memories are of cold, so much cold, and her people fleeing back to the mainland. She does not know that humans will eventually call this the Ice Age, just that she is always cold. It is a kind of cold that cannot be cured by eating heavy stews or hiding beneath layers of animal skins. The oldest nations of the early world gather in a cradle of civilization, young immortal children who will grow and change, and come to rule the lands now claimed by ice. They do not have names in these dawning days, but they will.

Someday.

As the years pass, the frost recedes, allowing her and her people to return home just before the waters rise and cut them off from the rest of the world. She is not there when the children she huddled with in those times of bitter cold become Egypt, Greece, Babylon, Rome. They are the first nations, sprung from the Mother Earth, but her brothers and sisters are all far away, across the blue of the ocean.

She is an island, and she is alone.


2
It occurs to her, once, that whenever things are quiet, they are never right. In the years between the ice and the conquest, her tribes attack each other frequently, but meanwhile there is revelry, and hope. There is happiness. Lives are short, but memory is long, and stories of old are passed down from each generation to the next. The people do not yet need the written word to remember ancient tales. She loves her people, even if they don’t love each other.

Now and then she goes to the other island, which is wider but shorter, tucked into its sibling for comfort. It is the same there, groups of wanderers in search of a home that she can give them. She knows that they can coexist, because she represents all of them. They are a nation in the making.

Sometimes, in her loneliness, she wonders if she was meant to be a mother instead of an island.


3
When she returned to her island as the ice melted, she truly believed that she would never see her fellow nations again. She had assumed that they would live their lives apart, always separated by the uncrossable seas, wishing their lands were just a little bit closer or the water not quite so deep.

She was wrong. She does see them again, but it’s nothing like what she had hoped for.

It is raining on the morning when the blue-eyed girl she remembers from long ago comes to visit her, a little boy with golden hair in tow. La Tène is that girl’s name now, and the boy is Gaul. Gallia, they call him on the mainland. They say her name is “Britannia” on the other side of the water. She thinks it sounds nice over there, full of life and sound all the time. It is during this meeting with La Tène that she first begins to realize that things in this world are so rarely what they seem.

“Rome is his father,” La Tène says, gesturing to the boy who is clinging to her leg. (Rome, Britannia finds out, is the boy with brown hair and tanned skin, all grown up and become a great empire.) “He wants all of us dead.”

For the first time, Britannia is glad to be an island. She cannot relate to the threat of having her culture, her land, her people, her life stolen from her, and for that she is endlessly thankful. From the very beginning, there is a part of her that wants to help, to keep such a thing from happening to anyone else, but the other part fears that helping will put her in danger as well. In the end, Gallia is the one to convince her.

While La Tène converses with one of the tribe leaders, Britannia kneels down in front of the young boy, who looks lost and frightened. “I think your hair is very pretty,” she says to him with a smile. He smiles back, just barely, pulling his shawl tightly around himself. He has his mother’s blue eyes.

“He wanted to cut it off,” he said. “To make wigs for the ladies in the city. Maman wouldn’t let him.”

Britannia’s smile fades.

She ruffles Gallia’s golden hair and gets up, approaching La Tène and nodding. Just once. The woman takes her hand, and from that moment on they stand together.


4
Sometimes, she thinks she made the wrong decision. She first thinks it when her warriors start to die, falling in the path of the Roman Empire. They’ve killed each other before, but that’s just a shifting in her bones, maybe a bit of pain in her side. This is different, a hollow feeling in her chest, headaches and stabbing pains that appear without warning out of nowhere and have her doubled over in agony before they fade away like they came.

She doubts her choice again when the Romans come to her land.

They arrived in the afternoon, sailing on a course for the white cliffs of what will one day be Dover. She and her people are there, in war paint and beads, watching them. They follow the ship down the coast and attack in the shallow waters, and for week after week there is a tenseness in the air now and then interrupted by bloody battles. Eventually, the Romans leave, but Britannia knows they’ll be back. She just doesn’t know when.

As it turns out, it is only about a year before she sees them again. This time, she and her people do not oppose their landing. They are too confident, misled by the past.

The Romans may not know the terrain, but there are many of them, and they have more military experience. Despite her people’s attempts to slow their advances, they still push ahead. In the end, six of her own tribes surrender to the invaders and reveal the location of their last stronghold. The Roman leader, a man known as Caesar, lays siege to their fort on the hill and settles in to wait.

Cassivellaunus sends for help, but their diversionary attack fails. They are stranded, and it’s only a matter of time before they run out of food.

She hears rumors that Rome himself has come to watch.

Britannia cannot ask her people to suffer for her obstinacy, and she knows that this siege could continue for an indefinite length of time. (She does not, cannot know that Caesar is actually eager to return to the mainland before the winter, with its icy hold, arrives.) She agrees to negotiate the terms of her surrender.

She and her ambassadors meet them in a place that will one day be referred to as the Devil’s Dyke. If Britannia had lived long enough to hear it, she might have found the name amusingly fitting. The Roman leaders are present, as well as a scribe to record the exchange. He is there, clad in his armor and a red cloak, a victorious smirk on his face. She gives him a hard stare, hating that she can still see the little sun-browned boy who she used to play with during the years of ice. The generals want an annual tribute, a promise that the tribes they’ve allied with will not be attacked after they leave. He wants her.

Britannia is a difficult woman to break. She has no intention of letting this invasion dissuade her from aiding La Tène, no matter what they do to her. She agrees.

The children are born in the long days of summer, twin boys with Britannia’s flame-red hair and pale skin. The sole difference between them is the color of their eyes; the elder’s are amber like his father’s, golden like sunshine and earth, and the younger inherited her own eye color, the green of the fields that surround them. Alba and Eire, she calls them fondly, but when Rome in his faraway homeland hears of their birth, he gives them different names. Caledonia, Hibernia. The words are foreign to her ears. Whatever their names, they are her sons. She is a mother now.

Across the water, a young boy with golden hair loses his.


5
Britannia is just desperate or crazy enough to hope that the Romans never come back. She hopes that killing La Tène, taking little Gallia, and turning some of her own tribes against her is enough for him.

Somewhere, deep in her heart, she knows that it will never be enough.

Caledonia and Hibernia are still young when the legions return — they are not human, of course, but the two of them are about the equivalent of eight year old boys. It seems that the only thing that can make Britannia smile anymore is watching her sons run through the moorlands, chasing each other and dancing in the fields. She fashions wreaths of flowers and grass, crowns for them to decorate their fiery hair with, and laughs when they draw on their faces with clay from the riverbed and call it war paint.

When the Romans come for her again, she watches them land, dread filling her heart. Caledonia and Hibernia are watching her with fear in their eyes. They have always known there is something hanging over their heads, some reason why their mother so rarely seems at ease, and it is suddenly dawning on them that these ships in their harbor are that reason.

She does not wait for the soldiers to set foot on the coastline before she is off running, pushing her sons ahead of her. She can hear the sounds of disembarking in the distance, and she pulls them into the shelter of a clearing before kneeling down in front of them like she had knelt in front of Gallia years before. The fear she saw in their eyes before has now blossomed into full-fledged panic. “Shh,” she says in response to their frantic, half-formed questions, “I need you to listen to me now.” She strokes their hair and presses a last kiss to each of their foreheads.

By the time the soldiers catch up to her, her sons are long gone.

She doesn’t fight when they drag her back to their camp.

Rome brought war elephants with him, apparently prepared for any resistance he might meet. It’s unnecessary — she has given up before the conquest even begins. Some of the tribes try to repel them, but Britannia knows they can never win. She barely feels it anymore when they march through her lands, razing villages and killing her people. She thinks Rome is a little disappointed in her lack of reaction. Good, she thinks bitterly. They can take her land, they can take her people’s lives, but they cannot take her self-control.

It is only when they tell her that the army is moving north, to Caledonia, that she loses that control. She curses at the men guarding her tent, refuses her food, and spits at Rome when he comes to visit. “Don’t you touch my son,” she snarls, seething with rage that only grows when he chuckles.

“Oh, but I’m his father,” he tells her in that infuriatingly cheerful voice. She has a few better words for what he is, and lets him know. Even thousands of years later, she can see traces of the little boy she used to know. He still can’t take criticism.

Weeks later, she runs her palm ruefully over the curve of her stomach, already noticeable due to how thin she’s become, and curses herself for bringing another child into this mess. A stabbing pain blooms in her ribs; another tribe has fallen to the invaders. Rome will be in a particularly good mood tonight, she knows.

Britannia closes her eyes and prays for her children.


6
A young redheaded boy, maybe ten or eleven years old, scrutinizes his reflection in the water of a stream that winds through the woods. His face is smeared with red and white clay, extra decorative symbols drawn in black on his cheeks and forehead. “Look here!” he calls suddenly. “What do you think?”

Some feet away, another boy with the same red hair is wading in the river. “I think you’re needing a wash,” he deadpans.

“How?” the first boy asks, looking affronted. “I want to scare everybody.”

“Well then, you’re doing fine. Carry on,” his brother responds, sinking under the water. The first boy sighs petulantly, pouting at his reflection for a moment, until the second comes up for air and splashes him with a loud laugh. Of course, he is not about to let such a thing pass without retaliation, so he splashes back, and soon they’re locked in a miniature war that only ends when they wrestle each other into the river and both emerge soaking wet, flopping onto the grass with exhausted grins.

The mother that should be there with them is miles away. No one has called them Alba and Eire in years.

“Another raid today?” Hibernia asks quietly. Caledonia nods, dragging his fingers through the mud and spreading it over his cheeks, replacing the design that has been partly washed off. After a pause, Hibernia nods too, dipping a hand into the river and drawing out blue clay that he smears over his face.

Their eyes meet, amber and green. They’re going to make their mother proud.

[izzie]

We've been writing so much "Great Justice" that I have heroes on the brain. Thus, a spoofy superhero original story.

I love the superhero genre, but in a "dear God this is so cheesy" kind of way. I've been meaning to write this thing for a long time. xD

SPOILER: Click to show

the side of GOOD

[/b]: an everyman kind of college student by day, HEROIC MASKED CRIMEFIGHTER by night. His best friend is Rudolph von Doppelganger, who is clearly the son of his archenemy, but he is too oblivious to notice. As the everyman hero character, his powers are just a generalized enhancement of all his normal abilities.
+ Eugene and Muriel Hunter: Scott's grandparents. Both of them are nearing 100, but continue to fend off attackers with their walkers and cans of cat food.[/ul]

the side of EVIL

[/b]: the evil mastermind. He has the power to duplicate himself. Hugo is a two-faced, untrustworthy type, and speaks with a heavy accent that no one is actually able to place (he alternates between sounding German, Russian, and South Californian).
+ Rudolph von Doppelganger: his son. A nerdy, awkward, anxiety-ridden young man, there isn't a single evil bone in his body. He is a great annoyance to the rest of his sociopathic, megalomaniacal family, but they can't kill him because his superpower is healing and regeneration. Thus, they sent him to college instead, figuring the family could use a lawyer.[/ul]

the side of... er, we're not sure

[/b]: a superhero-hating vigilante whose one true love car was destroyed years ago in an epic battle between the hero and villain. Ever since then, he has had a grudge against caped crusaders of any kind, and roams the city streets, hoping to take them down.
+ Katherine "Kate" Moore: martial arts expert, superheroine. Her power is a sort of reality-warping teleportation; she bends the space-time continuum to attack people out of nowhere. She is The Love Interest, though she is unaware of this, and frequently finds herself fighting off people who want to kidnap her in order to get to Scott (who she has never actually spoken more than ten words to). As the plot thickens, she also is forced to protect her little sister from costumed weirdos.
+ Amanda Moore: a teenage girl all the other superheroes and villains want on their side because she has "the power to determine the true identities" of masked crime fighters/causers. In reality, she is just the single character in the story with any common sense. To many people's surprise, she's Asian, having been adopted by the Moores because they were unable to have a second child.[/ul]
[/spoiler]

[izzie]

LRRRR.

Username | Izzie
Character Number | 1st~

Name of Character | Draelaco
Age | 12, almost 13
Gender | Male
Sexuality | Unsure?

Location | Libertas Weyr
Status | Healthy, surprisingly. (Thanks to his clumsiness, he is often injured in some way or another.)
Rank | Dragon candidate
Wing | N/A

Appearance

Much like his elder sister, Aracelle, Draelaco has a rather flimsy form. However, in his case, the lanky, delicate build is due entirely to his metabolism (also, his growth may have been stunted by his frequent injuries). Thus Drae will never really "outgrow" his thinness. He'll probably be tall as an adult, though, if not quite as tall as Ara, so he'll always be something of a beanpole. More of a thinker than a fighter, he isn't bothered by this reality.

His hair color is also closer to his oldest sibling's, a vibrant strawberry blonde that can be noticed from far away. His mother has pressured him into keeping it long since he was very young, insisting it would be a shame to cut it when it's such a lovely color. By this point, he's become accustomed to the style and has more or less adopted it as his own. Unfortunately, it ends up drawing attention that he doesn't particularly want -- his sister Gaelle may want to be noticed, but Draelaco, perhaps because, as his parents' youngest child and only son, he's always been given attention, doesn't place so much importance on being seen.

He has his other sister's eyes. They're a shade of grayish-blue, a shade that Gaelle considers bland and boring, but Drae isn't really concerned about those sorts of things... and he thinks of himself as kind of bland and boring, so maybe it's fitting. There's a light dusting of freckles over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. To his frustration, he blushes easily, so his face is often suffused with redness. When it comes to the way he carries himself, however, Drae is nothing like his sisters. He has neither Ara's self-control nor Gaelle's jaunty stride; instead, he kind of folds into himself for protection, and tends to look uncomfortable and doubtful in large crowds, as if he's trying to disappear.

(All it really does is make people wonder why that boy in the corner looks like he wants nothing but to drop through the floor.)

[/justify]


Personality

You might imagine that Draelaco, as his family's only son, would be self-confident, maybe even a bit egotistical. But when you actually meet the boy, the impression you get is instead of someone stifled by his elder sisters' stronger personalities. He is very shy and introverted; to his credit, though, he rarely comes off as standoffish or unkind, just extremely awkward. It's not often that he decides to approach other people (he will, awkwardly, if the situation gets grave, but in daily life... no), and when he himself is approached, he stammers replies and bolts away at the earliest opportunity. All in all, he's a social disappointment.

His problems most likely stem from a combination of his sisters' examples and the pressure that's put on him as the only son. With Aracelle excelling at being a "proper lady" and Gaelle flirting with practically every living human in the vicinity, Drae's niche in the family is being the socially inept one. As for his parents, they're often frustrated with his inability to interact with other people, and their disappointment just makes him more flustered.

It's kind of a vicious cycle, really.

Social awkwardness aside, Drae is very bright. He learns quickly and excels at academics or lessons of any kind... save for the athletic ones, that is. His body is just not designed for strength. Or speed. Or agility. Anyway, when he isn't falling down stairs and tripping over air, he's a highly intelligent boy. (The fact that he tends to use a lot of big words really doesn't help him talk to other people. He is sadly familiar with that blank look someone gives you when they don't understand a word of what you just said.)

Maybe as a result of feeling overlooked behind his two sisters and their attention-grabbing personalities, Drae has rather low self-esteem. He sees himself as a boring, stuffy person who can't have a normal conversation; compared to Ara and Gaelle, he's a total failure, and he hates failing. In reality, he's talented and pretty insightful, but he can't be convinced of that. He ignores the fact that he was Searched earlier in his life than either of his sisters, that many things come quite easily to him, and that he reads people surprisingly well even if he can't talk to them.

He's not the perfect son, so he must be a failure.

Right?

[/justify]


History

When Draelaco was born, his father breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't necessarily that he didn't care about his two daughters Aracelle and Gaelle (who were seven and four turns, respectively), but he was unmistakeably pleased to finally have a son. As an infant, he was rather sickly. On one occasion, he became very ill and might have died had his parents not been among the richest people in the cothold, and able to get him the best treatment available. His health gradually improved over the years. By the time he was a young child, he had more or less gotten over his old health problems, though he was still a clumsy little thing.

While the sisters grew up with each other and their mother, Draelaco was primarily taught by his father. He learned, among other things, business protocols and etiquette, and excelled at lessons on economics and similar things. He also became familiar with proper manners and the correct way to address and interact with other people, but oddly, no matter how well he knew all of these rules, he couldn't seem to apply them when he approached others. Actually, he couldn't seem to approach others at all.

So Geracon, though he adored his son, spent a lot of time worrying about his apparently stunted social growth, while Draelle was busy reprimanding Ara for her temper and Gaelle for her unladylike behavior. Although his parents, his father in particular, tried not to make him feel like his great shyness was a bad thing, Drae has always been a smart boy, and he knew they must have wished he were better. With his obsessive tendencies, this became a huge issue in his mind, and he was constantly torn between his desire to make his father and mother happy and his inability to do the very thing that would make them happy.

Maybe it's not surprising that he was always a rather anxious, unhappy child.

Ara and Gaelle embraced the family's opulent lifestyle. So did Draelaco, but he was always envious of the freedom he assumed the "commoners" must have. The pressure to be perfect was just as bad for him as it was for Gaelle, if not worse -- from an early age, Draelaco had no confidence in his ability to be a leader or the heir to his family's wealth. (Once, when he was about six turns, his father asked him idly what he planned to do with the family fortune; his response was that he would "let Ara take care of it.")

Needless to say, when Aracelle and Gaelle were Searched at a Gather, Draelaco was not surprised. Both of his elder sisters were more special he was, so it wasn't a great shock that they were chosen to be candidates and he wasn't. That was just the way it was going to be; his sisters would get to have exciting adventures and the freedom that he had always secretly wanted, while he stayed behind and inherited their family's house, wealth, and stifling lifestyle. But one turn later, Draelaco was approached by a Searchrider who told him that he may be a good candidate for the clutch recently laid, and that he should consider traveling to Libertas Weyr.

Though reluctant to leave his parents when both of their other children had also gone away to become dragonriders, Drae was tempted by the promise of freedom, not to mention that he'd be with his sisters (he had always been a bit intimidated by Gaelle, but the boy was very fond of Ara). And so he's come to Libertas, hoping that maybe he'll fit in better there than he ever did back at the hold.

It might be a long-shot, but Draelaco can dream.

[/justify]


Bonus picture. With glasses.