Cassian watches the tiny flame dance, the smoke curling in a soft plume above. The pool of wax below it reflects and distorts the minute torch, making the whole surface of the candle into a softly gleaming pool of light.
A floral-scented pool of light.
A “Sweet Frosty Winter Morning” scented pool of light, though the question of why morning should have a scent that isn’t that of caf or a hearty breakfast, Cassian has yet to be given a satisfactory answer for.
He’d try again, but the former princess who bought the candle is asleep on his shoulder. Thankfully not snoring, though Cassian wouldn’t mind she did. Leia has a cute snore, a soft little snuffle as she curls tighter in a bundle of blankets on a cold night…which this night is not.
At least not inside her apartment. Coruscant, as a whole, barely has weather anymore, not as any other planet might track the phenomenon.
So, no, the morning she will soon wake to will not be frosty, despite the candle’s name. It will be winter, though. The first day of a new year.
The first day of another year in this new life they’d found together.
She’d been the one to suggest lighting a candle, while he’d cooked them a very late dinner.The wax melted over the course of their meal, as their conversation slowly turned from the day’s events to hopes and dreams (though, admittedly, Leia shared more of both) for the year ahead.
Only now, when she is asleep, does he find the courage to voice those soft wishes, his voice as unsteady as the candlelight.
“I hope next year is full of many nights like this. With you safe in my arms. With us, together, facing another year ahead. I hope for so much, princesa, but…” he falters. He’s no poet. That trait never came to him, though he’d wished for it on occasions like this. “But this, this moment here, is already more than I ever thought I deserved to hope for. So…”
He trails off.
The candlelight dances.
The chrono strikes midnight.
Leia’s fingers tighten around his, as she stirs, just slightly. Her eyes blink open, slowly, and as she focuses on his face, she smiles. “So dream bigger, Cassian Andor.”
He smiles back at her, at the new year, at all its hopes and dreams.
They kiss, a slow, leisurely embrace, as if they have all the time in the world, and there are no meetings, no pressing problems to solve, no galaxy waiting to be fought for. His arms tighten around her, pulling her closer.
After all, she told him to dream bigger.
What could be a grander dream than peace?
This morning to come might not have frost, but it will be new, and he is sure, with her in his arms, it will be a sweet one.
Even if he still has no idea what the candle smells like.
Cassian is used to giving lessons. To young cadets, to recruits, to other soldiers. Teaching them to square their shoulders, to aim their blasters to kill even if their ideals wish they could shoot to disarm.
Cassian is used to missions, too. The impossible ones, the dirty ones, all the ones that blend together. It’s easier to always be moving forward, than to sit and think of the past.
But even with all of those things being true, he’s never been placed on a mission like this one.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Random question but does anyone recognize this art style? I commissioned it almost years ago for a friend and cannot find any of the contact information for the artist.
A little drabble that never made its way over to Ao3
Cassian had waited at the assigned location for three minutes longer than he should have. A small amount of time for most sentiment beings in the galaxy, assuming they processed time in the standard, linear fashion.Â
But for Cassian Andor, a man both deep undercover and deeply enmeshed inside a dangerous scheme, time is never linear. No, instead, it’s deadly.
A minute’s delay can foil the best laid plans. A few seconds too late in responding can unravel an otherwise foolproof disguise. A wait, like he had suffered through, could mean being caught. And being caught meant, at best, his death, and at worse, torture that would lead to countless more lives lost.Â
It's the weight of those lives, of the Rebellion itself, pressing down on Cassian as he makes his calculation, debating between the benefit of the information his contact had been said to possess, and the risks of being captured. When the next minute ticks by without a single being passing his way (rare on a planet like Coruscant), Cassian nods once, then carefully melts into the crowd.
But he was still late.Â
 Which meant he had to take the shuttle that ran seven minutes after the one he always boarded, which meant he had to fight through a far larger crowd to first reach the dome of the Executive Building (he couldn’t be bothered to think of it as either its new name or its former one, for each held bitterness to him, in ways that he had no time to explain, nor anyone who would listen to such a diatribe), and then, had to wait another two minutes for the turbolift platform to arrive.
The lift always makes him a little uneasy at the best of times, which right now certainly isn’t. All turbolifts do, if he’s honest with himself (something he tries hard to avoid), which makes no sense, when hyperspace, heights, and rooftop chases all fail to send his heart racing even a little.Â
So he shivers again, as the lift lurches to a halt on the top floor, before swiftly exiting from its one glass door.
The pace of his stride doesn’t matter, though, because his absence has clearly already been noted, by the one person he had desperately tried to reach in time. The princess of Alderaan stands there, elegant in her ceremonial white gown, watching him. Though she doesn’t place her hands on her hips, she doesn’t need to.
 A single raised eyebrow from her conveys all that a dramatic expression might have on another being. For her, the simplest actions are the ones that speak the loudest.
“I’m sorry I’m late, I--” he catches his breath, then remembers his appearance, and hurriedly smooths hands down his tunic, adjusts the cape now flung off both shoulders to drape in a more dignified way.Â
The princess of Alderaan holds up a hand, stopping his only half-feigned apologies. “Given your usual tendency toward promptness, I assume you have reasons for this instance of tardiness.”
Tell her, his heart whispers. Trust her.
But his head, which always wins in debates like this, reminds him the first rule of espionage is to trust no one. Not even Leia, not even after they’ve worked together these long months on all sorts of matters of governance.
Governance, not rebellion.
He knows she’s no fan of the Empire, and has learned that even a princess as regal as Leia can curse like an Outer Rim Moisture Farmer when one Moff or another gets under her skin, but there’s a vast gap between frustration and rebellion.
 To assume the latter from the former is a risky game. One that’s gotten other spies, bolder, more reckless than him, killed.
“Do you have any other appointments today?” the princess asks, casually, as she clicks her holopad on. She purses her lips while she reads, clearly annoyed by whatever the message is.
“No, I don’t.” Belatedly, he adds, “your majesty.”
“No titles needed, Aach,” she chides, still not looking toward him.
“Apologies.”
“Accepted.”
They fall into an easy cadence of work, as they so often do, to the point where it seems they can almost read each other’s minds. He knows when she needs a caf refill and she knows all the data he needs transmitted to complete the current project he--acting as Aach--has been assigned.Â
What she doesn’t know is the time he’s spent researching Moff Carstairs, an up-and-coming Imperial officer with a cruel streak that’s notable even among his notorious peers.Â
That task was given to him by the Rebellion, one he’d promised to complete as Cassian Andor, Fulcrum agent, not Aach.
Which is why his heart stutters against his ribs, when the next transmission from Leia’s datapad is a schedule of the Moff’s campaign events on Coruscant next week.
He glances at her, eyebrows lifted.Â
“Something wrong?” asks Leia.
Cassian hesitates just a fraction too long before answering. It's a silence so brief most wouldn't catch it—but Leia isn't most people. Her gaze flicks up from the datapad, sharp and focused now. That gaze has disarmed a hundred men before him. He’s seen it deployed on others, watched them crack under the pressure, melting like putty to Leia’s stronger will.
She is not tall, nor physically the strongest in the room, but her strength, Cassian has learned, is never to be underestimated.Â
“No,” he replies smoothly. “Just didn’t expect this… overlap.”
Leia’s eyes narrow. “Overlap?”
He gestures casually to the screen, playing the part of the dutiful aide. “Moff Carstairs. I’ve heard about him on the holonews, but didn’t realize his actions were of interest at the diplomatic level.”
She doesn't look away. “They are now.”
A beat. “Has something changed?”
Leia doesn't answer right away. Instead, she locks the datapad and places it down slowly, with deliberate precision. “Tell me, Aach… how much do you know about him?”
Too much.
He stays silent.
“He’s invited me to dinner tomorrow night,”Leia murmurs. “A social meal.”
In other words, he’s pursuing something other than business relations with the princess. A friendship? A courtship?
Or an assassination attempt?Â
It could even be a kidnapping, Cassian realizes, if the Moff senses that Leia would provide leverage.Â
“Do you think I should go?” Leia asks, clearly refusing to back down from the conversation. “If there’s something you know about him, please. Enlighten me.”
Cassian weighs the risk. Telling her everything would compromise the mission. Telling her nothing might endanger her.
So he splits the difference.
“I would prefer it if you had other plans, yes.”
“What sort of other plans?” She tilts her head, watching him. “Do you think he is a dangerous man?”
“I think he is an ambitious man.”
Leia tilts her head. “You have kept close watch on him, then, for his ambitions are notably quiet for a man of his rank.”
He doesn’t deny it. Instead, he lets the silence say yes.
Leia rises from her seat and walks to the window, her white gown trailing behind like a whisper. She turns slightly, enough for him to catch her profile—calm, controlled, but lit with something else now. Defiance.
“Tell me,” she says softly, “where do you prefer I go tomorrow, if not to dine with him?
A sudden, irrational thought rises in Cassian’s mind. He wishes, just for a moment, that he could say she should have dinner with him. A social dinner. A true one, not whatever sham the Moff is offering. But that wish has nothing to do with either his undercover life as a senatorial aide, or his real life as a Rebel spy.
“Or is it,” she muses, once more looking out the window, “that you would like me to go, but you feel I should remain protected, guarded, during the dinner? You say he is ambitious. Few others know such a thing. So how did you learn of it?”
“I have my ways.”
“I’m sure you do, Cassian.” She turns fully now, folding her arms.Â
That name—the real one—hits him like a blaster bolt. He’s never told her. He never planned to.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lies automatically.
Leia lifts a brow again “Don’t insult me with a bluff,” she says, gently. “You are a spy for the Rebellion.”
Silence.
Finally, Cassian leans back in the chair, a bitter smile playing at his lips. “You always knew?”
“No. But I suspected. You confirmed it just now.”
He laughs once, dryly. “So what now? You turn me in? Leverage it?”
Leia shakes her head. “I ask for your help. Officially. As Princess of Alderaan and a champion of those who will stand against the empire. Unofficially, I ask for your help, as…” she trails off, her eyes softening. “As someone who finds herself in need of a friend, one who can understand what it is like to lie and bluff and cheat, all for the greater good.
A long moment passes.
Then Cassian nods, once. “You have my help, then, Princess.” He clears his throat, corrects himself. “Leia,” he says her name softly. “I am yours, for as long as you need me.”
“In which capacity?”
“In both,” he replies, finding the words easier than ever before.
She smiles at him. Cassian realizes he’s never seen a genuine smile from her before. Because this one is warm, radiant, trusting. It fills him with a warmth unlike any he’s known in ages, and makes him start to grin in return.Â
Leia offers him her hand. “Then how about we set to work on our own dinner plans, Cassian?”
“As you wish,” he murmurs. Her hand is soft in his, but he feels calluses he realizes belong to a woman who has spent time on Rebellion blaster ranges. And her grip is gentle, but strong, reminding him of all that he's come to appreciate--no, rather, to be fond of--about the princess. "How do you feel about cooking the meal ourselves?"
She laughs. "I think that sounds like a wonderful idea."
Cassian Andor has never been more glad to be late than at that moment.
Welcome to the Les Mis Barricade Day Fanwork Event! (June 4th-7th!)
What is it?
Every year on June 5th, the Les Mis fandom celebrates the anniversary of the novel's rebellion.
This fanwork week will give creators daily prompts to help inspire ideas. Then creators can tag their work with #barricade day event, and we will reblog their work on each day of the event!
When will it happen?
Rather than an entire week, this event will take place over four days. These four days reflect the four important days of the rebellion in the novel:
June 4th: The eve of the rebellion ("One Day More")-- Eponine standing up to her father while defending Marius/Cosette
June 5th: The building of the barricade
June 6th: The fall of the barricades, the death of Les Amis
June 7th: the aftermath of the barricades, and the death of Javert
Okay, but what are the prompts?
That's where yOU come in, random citizen! We need to come up with some prompts fast so people can spend a month working on stuff!
Each of the four days will be themed to the four stages of the barricade, as I mentioned. But we'd also like to have a more specific art/writing prompt for each day to help give people ideas!
We'd like for each day to have both a "quote" prompt and an "object" prompt. (You can submit quotes from the novel, the musical, or any other adaptation. They do not actually have to be a quote from this section of the story, as long as they can apply to this section of the story.)
For example: for June 6th, you can suggest the quote prompt "Permets-tu?" and the object prompt of a flower (because in the novel the National Guard hesitates to shoot Enjolras because it seems "like shooting a flower.")
Submit as many ideas as you like--submissions close in One Week! And the final prompt list will be revealed soon after! We want to give people plenty of time to work on their projects!
Happy creating! Let's put on the biggest talent show this town's ever seen
Hello everyone, by popular demand: BARRICADE DAY FANWORK EVENT!! Help me come up with prompts, and let us burn tumblr down with our beautiful barricade of artwork and fanfic!!!
I’ve been playing the PS2 game Bounty Hunter recently so I really wanted to do a Jango Fett piece and for some reason the first thing that came to mind was that quote from the 90s supermodel Linda Evangelista: “ I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000.”
IT'S TODAY!! TAKE JUST A FEW MINUTES TODAY AND LEAVE AT LEAST ONE COMMENT TO SPREAD THE LOVE AND GIVE A NICE LITTLE VALENTINE'S DAY GIFT TO THE AUTHORS WHO PROVIDE YOU WITH SO MUCH WONDERFUL FIC!!!!!
I love how the parallel between Valjean’s crisis after the Bishop and Javert’s crisis after the barricades is so strong that their thought processes are often described with nearly the exact same metaphors.
The musical conveying this by having them sing the same melody is such a perfect translation of the way their dialogue/descriptions echo each other in the novel...Like:
Valjean:Â
“Is it true that I am to be released?” he said, in an almost inarticulate voice, and as though he were talking in his sleep.
Vs Javert:Â
As though in a dream, (Javert) murmured rather than uttered this question: “What are you doing here?”
—
Valjean:
Like an owl, who should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled and blinded, as it were, by virtue.
Vs Javert:Â
He perceived amid the shadows the terrible rising of an unknown moral sun; it horrified and dazzled him. An owl forced to the gaze of an eagle.
—
Valjean:
He no longer knew where he really was.Â
Vs Javert:
Where did he stand? He sought to comprehend his position, and could no longer find his bearings.(…) He no longer understood himself.Â
Valjean:Â
At times he would have actually preferred to be in prison with the gendarmes, and that things should not have happened in this way; it would have agitated him less.
Vs Javert:
But then, why had he permitted that man to leave him alive? He had the right to be killed in that barricade. He should have asserted that right. It would have been better to summon the other insurgents to his succor against Jean Valjean, to get himself shot by force.
—
Valjean:
He actually saw that Jean Valjean, that sinister face, before him. He had almost reached the point of asking himself who that man was, and he was horrified by him.Â
Vs Javert:
He conceived a horror of himself.Â
—
Valjean:
He could not yield to the evidence of what was going on within him. He hardened himself against the angelic action and the gentle words of the old man.
Vs Javert:
He had not yielded without resistance to that monster, to that infamous angel, to that hideous hero, who enraged almost as much as he amazed him.Â
Valjean:
 By one of those singular effects, which are peculiar to this sort of ecstasies, in proportion as his reverie continued, as the Bishop grew great and resplendent in his eyes, so did Jean Valjean grow less and vanish. After a certain time he was no longer anything more than a shade. All at once he disappeared. The Bishop alone remained; he filled the whole soul of this wretched man with a magnificent radiance.
Vs Javert:
Then his reflections reverted to himself and beside Jean Valjean glorified he beheld himself, Javert, degraded. (…)
Javert, the spy of order, incorruptibility in the service of the police, the bull-dog providence of society, vanquished and hurled to earth; and, erect, at the summit of all that ruin, a man with a green cap on his head and a halo round his brow; this was the astounding confusion to which he had come; this was the fearful vision which he bore within his soul.
—
Valjean:
That which was certain, that which he did not doubt, was that he was no longer the same man, that everything about him was changed, that it was no longer in his power to make it as though the Bishop had not spoken to him and had not touched him.
Vs Javert:
All that he had believed in melted away. Truths which he did not wish to recognize were besieging him, inexorably. Henceforth, he must be a different man.
Valjean:
He examined his life, and it seemed horrible to him; his soul, and it seemed frightful to him.
Vs Javert:Â
He felt himself emptied, useless, put out of joint with his past life, turned out, dissolved. Authority was dead within him. He had no longer any reason for existing.
Valjean:
Did he have a distinct perception of what might result to him from his adventure at Digne? Did he understand all those mysterious murmurs which warn or importune the spirit at certain moments of life? Did a voice whisper in his ear that he had just passed the solemn hour of his destiny; that there no longer remained a middle course for him; that if he were not henceforth the best of men, he would be the worst; that it behooved him now, so to speak, to mount higher than the Bishop, or fall lower than the convict; that if he wished to become good he must become an angel; that if he wished to remain evil, he must become a monster? (….) did he catch some shadow of all this in his thought, in a confused way?
Misfortune certainly, as we have said, does form the education of the intelligence; nevertheless, it is doubtful whether Jean Valjean was in a condition to disentangle all that we have here indicated. If these ideas occurred to him, he but caught glimpses of, rather than saw them, and they only succeeded in throwing him into an unutterable and almost painful state of emotion.
Vs Javert:
God, always within man, and refractory, He, the true conscience, to the false; a prohibition to the spark to die out; an order to the ray to remember the sun; an injunction to the soul to recognize the veritable absolute when confronted with the fictitious absolute, humanity which cannot be lost; the human heart indestructible; that splendid phenomenon, the finest, perhaps, of all our interior marvels, did Javert understand this? Did Javert penetrate it? Did Javert account for it to himself? Evidently he did not. But beneath the pressure of that incontestable incomprehensibility he felt his brain bursting.
..And these are only the lines I've caught tonight. I don't know, as much as Les Mis adaptations love to focus on Valjean and Javert (often without understanding them cough bbc les mis cough) I feel like there are very few that Get how much both of them were broken by the same prison system, and how the trauma of that makes them view themselves and their own feelings through similar lenses.
I am deeply particular about Javert's character and deeply unsatisfied with many of the performances of "Stars" that are available on Spotify! So here are my thoughts:
Terrence Mann (Original Broadway Cast Recording) - 9/10. Listen. It's pretty good. I feel like he really gets into it at all the right times! That being said, I cannot STAND the lyric "Falling from grace, falling from grace". The first "grace" should be "god"!
Philip Quast (Live at Albert Hall) - 7/10. I cannot get past the "there" at the beginning. It's the first word and I hated it. You already turned me against yourself. I also feel like he can be a little breathy when he changes notes (both times he sings "You fall in flame" are good examples). Other than that though his tone is great! He gets a great dynamic range.
Roger Allam (Original London Cast Recording) - 3/10. Holy fuck I hated this one. I HATE what the orchestra is doing (especially in the beginning). Like what is that weird staccato pattern??? It is too early of a production of this show to feel like it needs to be doing something cute to stand out. Also I feel like at times he's trying to do cutesy little runs? And again it just doesn't feel like Javert. He's too serious for those frills. Also the ending pissed me off so much. Why are you petering out? You are supposed to be strong and vivacious! Can you not hit those notes???? What's going on with the lyrics????
Russell Crowe (The Motion Picture Soundtrack) - 4/10. Ok. I don't love what the orchestra is doing at the beginning, that part is too iconic. Also, his voice is just so gentle. I do not believe for a second that he is hunting down a fugitive of the law! Where is the fire! Where is the severity! Where is the last note! Seriously why did they remove the last note?????
Michael Ball (2020 Live Recording) - 6/10. Something about his tone feels kinda mellow? Like idk it just isn't as rich and powerful as I'd like this role to be. (It kinda feels like an overly edited Disney recording, which is funny bc it's LIVE.) He also constantly sounds like he's behind the beat. And I'm sure this is an intentional choice, but I don't like it! Again, Javert is SO regimented and severe that I feel like he would be aggressively on beat (which would then make "Javert's Suicide" even MORE powerful when he stops adhering as strictly to the beat)! I liked the growl on "never rest" though, that ate.
Earl Carpenter (2010 London Cast Recording) - 8/10. I don't love what the orchestra is doing in the beginning? Idk it just really throws me off. (Although they do slay the end!) Also sometimes it feels really rushed. They play too fast + loose with tempo for me. Javert is an EXTREMELY regimented man!
Philip Quast (Manchester Cast Recording) - 8/10. I liked this one MUCH better than the other one he did. Still don't love the "there" but it isn't quite as off-putting somehow. He also has way less of the breathiness! (Fun little aside: his vibrato is tighter than most of the other people on this list, which you can really notice in "lord, let me find him")
Jason Manford (A Different Stage) - 7.5/10. He sounds a little young to me? Like he's missing some of the grit/bassy quality that I want in this role but something about the performance feels soothing? Like it's easy to listen to idk. It does lose points because it is missing some of the fire and passion. He lets a little of it out at the end so I know that he has it in the tank when he wants to use it
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