#pitchinersand

[gretchensinister]

fic title: here fishy fishy

A lighthearted, silly Pitchinersand AU roughly based on the fairy tale “The Fisherman and His Wife” except the golden fish is a little Sandy mermaid and the escalating wishes are all about getting him to spend more time with the couple

[gretchensinister]

After the Honor and the Punishment, What is Left?

For Fave Ship Week Day 3: Trials and Tribulations

Set in my Golden Age, the Pitchinersand verse.

Cybele paced back and forth through the sitting room, her feet dragging with exhaustion. She needed to rest, but she couldn’t figure out how. Her stomach cramped with hunger, her tongue stuck dryly to the roof of her mouth, but she could not stop her pacing. After all, she had to stay ready, she had to stay alert. If she didn’t stay alert she might miss if something happened to Sera, she might miss if Sera started to cry again—

Cybele pressed her fist to her mouth to stifle her own sobs, her own screams. Koz was gone! Not even decently dead, terrible as that would be. No, he was gone and changed to something awful, a vessel for a planet’s-worth of fearlings, and Koz had said so many times that that wasn’t how it worked, that it never happened like that, but oh, now it had, now it had!

And so much had been for nothing! Koz had won the war, he’d won the war for the people who made him the Golden General, but what had he really done? Why, he’d become the hero of everyone who had lived in fear of fearling attacks, but he’d also taken away the toy of the general-makers. Yes, he’d broken their good war, their perfect light-against-darkness war. And then he’d made it clear that he wouldn’t fight in any wars less good, he wouldn’t make gray wars black and white by leading Constellan forces in his shining ship and shining armor. They’d made him to fight the fearlings and that was done.

He was too loved to be executed as a traitor to the empire, especially when he never said any of this explicitly or in public.

But. But they could honor him as the galaxy’s protection against fearlings, and they could honor him and punish him at the same time, sending him to guard the prison planet all alone. And then they could honor her and punish her by giving her more council duties that ever, making it clear that if she did not discharge her duties she would rapidly lose what little influence she did have. And she needed that influence, didn’t she, what with the surely groundless rumors that she and her husband had engaged in a highly irregular relationship with an alien—we know those are just nasty rumors, Cybele, but it’s not the kind of thing you want to spread, not with you the only guardian over your young daughter, now. We don’t want anyone thinking that she could have been exposed to anything unwholesome. And so they’d kept her from going to Koz, as surely as if they’d chained her to the council hall.

Anger lanced through Cybele at the thought of it. How dare they, how dare they, how had she ever thought the Constellan Empire was anything but gilded rot, a bauble twisting on a string in front of the eyes of its subjects to distract them from the blood and pain all around them?

Ah, but the gilding had been so thick. And then with the end of the black-and-white war, the pretty war, the gilding had become so much thinner.

And she had helped wear it away just as Koz had, in her council work and her salon, her nasty habit of bringing up the losses in the battles she talked about. And who knew how much the general-makers knew, but Cybele knew she had helped end the war by loving Koz, loving him as Koz, loving him so he believed in a time after the war; they had made Seraphina because they believed in a time after the war. She had loved him enough for him to reject martyrdom, no matter how many times it was quietly offered. And so they had both been honored, and both been punished, and now Koz was gone and changed.

Oh, but she had not been the only one to love Koz that much. Where was Sandy now, the beloved newcomer—newcomer! Their ten-year anniversary had not seemed so far away when they had been together celebrating the end of the war. Oh, Sandy, Sandy! Of course they could still be busy as a pilot, pilots were always needed, especially ones as skilled as Sandy, but they had been known as a friend of the Pitchiners and rumored to be more.

Cybele sank to the floor and allowed her head to sink against a couch cushion. This new position of rest brought no relief. Her feet throbbed, and the rest of her muscles ached with tension. It was so dangerous being a pilot, and Sandy wasn’t famous. Only those who knew him would mourn him if there was an accident. And Cybele—she wasn’t supposed to be so close to them, not as a Constellan and not as a lady of rank. No one would tell her if something happened to them. But then, no accident needed to happen. Things would be complicated with Isle, Sandy’s homeworld, for some time as they realized the Constellans weren’t withdrawing as quickly as they’d said they would after the war. As an Isler who had become part of the Golden Army during the fearling war, Sandy was intensely vulnerable to whatever political situation developed, and the best way for them to stay alive would no doubt be for them to be strictly obedient to their Constellan commanding officer.

It would be a simple thing for Sandy to be kept away from Origin forever, like that.

Cybele did not sob, but her breaths grew short and rough. She wanted Sandy, she needed Sandy. She needed someone to talk to who knew Koz like she did, to help her understand the news that was growing day by day.

The records showed that Koz opened the door willingly.

Koz took the emergency ship from the planet and within twelve hours had used it to take a stunningly well-equipped luxury runnership, setting the crew into his former vessel to tell the tale. He wasn’t the Golden General anymore. He was Pitch Black. He spoke for the fearlings within him.

He had struck out with the runnership, now named the Nightmare Galleon, and attacked Golden Army ships, supply lines, and manufactories as if he intended now to single-handedly win the war for the fearling side, now. He had even used that runnership, impossibly, to destroy two Constellan planet-killers and cripple the bases that supported them.

Cybele’s breath slowed slightly as her mind set to work on this fact. Koz had destroyed planet-killers. The planet-killers that the Constellan Empire had used not just once, but twice. Tsar after tsar after tsar had said that they would never be used again, but they were kept in perfect condition, and dozens more had been built in the reigns of all the tsars who said never. If they meant never they would have decommissioned them. Thinking about the planet-killers had been when Cybele thought she had really started to pull away the gilt that had surrounded her understanding.

But now two were fully decommissioned. Maybe more would be.

All of the news she had been able to get had said that Koz seemed to be cleaving a path of wanton destruction towards Origin and the Gems. That he seemed bent on the utter downfall of the Constellan Empire. The latter seemed more true than the former. And though she wanted to scream for every dead soldier, she didn’t know if the downfall of the empire was something to be lamented. It was a ghastly thing, and Sandy had taught her and Koz that there were ways of living without it.

But Koz wasn’t the one destroying planet-killers. Pitch Black was. Koz was still gone.

Cybele stopped, and did not know how long she stopped for, but what started her again was the sound of someone entering her house. She used the couch to claw her way to her feet, and despite that she felt as weak as water, she cast about for some weapon. She didn’t know who would be coming in now, at this hideously early hour of the morning, but they had no right to be here, and even the tsar himself she would force out on the end of a kitchen knife, if she had to.

But she found something that would serve much better.

*

When she arrived at the front hall she was stunned to find the low lights on, as if whoever was intruding was arriving in their own home, and she rushed into the space, holding Koz’s ornamental scythe directly in front of her, looking wildly about for whoever dared enter her house of grief without permission.

“Cybele!”

The voice was terrified, but she recognized it at once. Sandy. She dropped the scythe with a clang and fell to her knees, bursting into tears.

Sandy emerged from the alcove they had hidden in upon seeing the blade enter the room and ran to Cybele, embracing her, their tears mingling with hers. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t be here,” they said, finally. “I wouldn’t have known how else to safely contact you.”

Cybele hugged them tighter to her. “How did you get here? When the war was over and you left, it didn’t seem like it would be so long, but then Koz was sent away, and I didn’t hear from you, and I knew why, but I was so alone and then Koz….”

Sandy kissed both her cheeks and rested their head on her shoulder. “I would never have gotten to see you again if they had had their way. But I won’t let anyone take my family away from me, or me from my family. No matter who, and no matter what, they are.”

“Sandy,” Cybele breathed. “Tell me exactly what you’re saying.”

Sandy backed up so they could look her in the eyes. “I’ve defected from the Golden Army. But not from my Isler pilot cadre. They know what I’m doing, and they helped me. They moved my shipsoul from my fighter to a starleaper, even though I don’t have the leap-gift.” They gave her a weak, ironic echo of their usual grin. “It helped that I was able to steal the leap-engine from one of the new battleships to help me get to Isle in the first place.”

“You used a full leap-engine on one fighter?” Cybele asked, running her hands over them as if checking for injury.

“You Constellans still don’t know how different Isler ships are,” Sandy said. “On the plus side, so far the Golden Army thinks I’m dead—I guess they didn’t tell you.” Any trace of a grin vanished.

Cybele shook her head, and they embraced again, in silence.

“So, I’ve defected from the Golden Army,” Sandy said. “And I have a starleaper. I came to find you and Sera, and to…oh, it’s not like the time is going to get any better. I want you to come with me. I’ve seen the news on Koz. But he and I both saw lots of things during the war that showed fearlings weren’t exactly as they seemed. None of us ever figured it out, but…we both know that we don’t have the full story yet.”

“We’re going to find Koz,” Cybele said.

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” Cybele said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“We’re going to get him back, too,” Sandy said. “He’s ours. No matter what.”

“I think I was coming to that same conclusion, myself,” Cybele said. “I assume you want to leave as soon as possible?”

“Considering that my starleaper is outside on your lawn, yes.” Sandy’s smile was more genuine this time. “I’ll help Sera pack. You get your things, and then we’ll go somewhere less noticeable for a good meal. I think we all might manage to eat one, now.”

“Yes, yes.” Cybele took a deep breath, her first waking one in days. “Sandy, what if Koz really is trying to destroy the Constellan Empire?”

“I will save lives, but I will save Koz’s life, yours, and Sera’s before all others,” Sandy said. “I won’t act to save the empire.”

“We are in perfect agreement in our mission, then,” Cybele said, then laughed weakly. “I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you,” they replied. “And we love Koz.”

“So let’s get him back,” she said.

[gretchensinister]

My Number 1 Kozmotis Fic

There were only four fills in the kinkmeme that I filled that centered on Kozmotis! I’ve written much more just on my own! But these top posts are all about the Rise of the Guardians kinkmeme, so I’m just listing this one. But the others are here. 

1.  Capture (background Pitchinersand)(9/21): Though this fic began life as a Stargate crossover, it’s a good taste of how I treat Kozmotis in my version of the Golden Age. Pitchinersand is Kozmotis, Cybele his wife, and Sandy their lover. But this fic is about Kozmotis going to investigate a report that some scientists have found a way to contain a fearling. 

[gretchensinister]

ROTG Month:

Day 5: Constellations 

This is a fun one, because it allows me to explore some headcanons I have for my version of the Golden Age (so far of this I have published Asterion’s Choice on Ao3, as well as some Pitchinersand things in the Kozmotis Masterpost, but as I develop the story those may not end up being canonical). 

Constellations aren’t the ones we see from Earth, because those stars aren’t actually grouped together in any way when you’re looking at them from a different perspective, which the people of the Golden Age would be. However, the people of the Golden Age do have share the concept of constellations with us, which is why “shaped groupings of stars” constellations and social constellations share the same word.

 In my version of the Golden Age, Constellations are the powerful sociopolitical groupings that make up the Constellan Empire. When the original Constellans (obviously not called that at the time) developed faster than light (FTL) travel (a misnomer, it’s done by bending space, you can’t go faster than light—interestingly, this same technology allows for the manipulation of gravity so in the Constellan Empire you’ve got a lot of floating stuff and impossible architecture and tiny spaceships that don’t have to spin to allow you to drink water like a planetside person)…Um. Where was I? Oh, yes. When the Constellans developed FTL travel, they used it to reach the planets that non-FTL spacecraft had been sent to thousands of years ago in hopes of establishing colonies. Also there was terraforming of planets that hadn’t been worth sending people to with the wave of colony ships. 

THIS is done narratively because a) it helps explain why there are so many humans and planets inhabited by humans and b) it gives the FTL Constellans a (not very good in pure justice terms) reason to think that all these other planets are THEIRS. GIMME GIMME GIMME. 

Side note, because space is weird and planets are weird and this is a space opera and also sometimes tech doesn’t progress linearly and also some blathering about post-humanism, this is also how we get fun almost-human “aliens.” Also due to the time involved between first colonization and FTL contact, a lot of these planets don’t have societies that remember that they came from the Constellan’s homeworld. 

ANYWAY. The Constellan homeworld, which they now call Origin because it’s fancy and it’s the origin of all sentient life, right? Is SUPER EXCITED about finding all these Lost Constellan Colonies (they still don’t call themselves Constellans yet so it’s more like the Lost Origin Colonies) and so they decide to take them all over because if we use OTHER planets for resources we can turn Origin into a fancy garden with mmmmmaybe 2 billion people on it. 

Obviously a lot of people are going to get fucked over here. 

So Origin is not unified at first but it does have a significant number of Really Fuckin’ Rich People. And these people are so FR (Fuckin’ Rich) that they can take over planets. Yes. With an S. And they do! Because we know the FR would do that if they could. So whenever they can the FR take over the Lost Colonies, generally within as close clusters as they can because gravity-bending FTL isn’t cheap even to them (this is honestly technobabble but the REASON is to make travel between planets equivalent to travel between countries in The Age of Sail [but why aren’t you writing a piraaatteee novel then Gretchen? Joke’s on you I don’t know if this will even come to fruition and ALSO of course there are space pirates what do you take me for. But I wanted to make the political situation up out of whole cloth so that’s why I’m not writing about pirates in the actual Age of Sail]). 

So after a bunch of time passes you have these big FR corporations/families in charge of clusters of planets orbiting their various stars and then someone, somewhere, was like, “Ah yes we are Constellations now” 

BUT THEN 

Okay the time scale here is whack. Enough time passed between the first non-FTL colonization wave and FTL rediscovery that all the record-keeping went to shit so not all the Lost Colonies were found in the initial Constellation grabby-hands years. This allows for More Drama When My Main Characters Are Alive.

 Okay so most of the FR have taken over a few planets and become family/corporation/mini-empires but one…one FR family is like, “Heeeeeeyyyyyyy what if we…stayed on Origin….while everyone else went 60 LY (light years) etc away?” And then this family/corporation (support your local business?) declares themselves the rulers of Origin and also by the way we have terraformed the other planets in our solar system SO GUESS WHAT we own your home now. Nice. B) 

So this triggers war. Of course. Like all those warring city states back in the day when that was a thing. I’ll buy the textbook on Italian history after the manuscript is done OR maybe I will just watch Jupiter Ascending again. 

So. Obviously a lot of people are going to get fucked over. 

BUT AFTER THAT. We end up with one MAAAAAAASIVE Constellan Empire (we are now the best and most civilized and most harmonious and shiny people in the universe) united under one Emperor called the Tsar or maybe not (who’s Joyce? I can’t read suddenly, I don’t know) and it mostly works as long as there are more planets to expand to and everyone is really, really polite. 

And you don’t get weird hostile terrifying shadow aliens popping up. But that won’t happen. I’m sure. 

And all this was a really long answer to the question of Constellations. They’re giant families/corporations/dynasties that rule clusters of planets that really didn’t want them in the first place. But enough centuries have passed by the time my stories start that They Are Constellans Now (Or At Least They Know How To Look And Act Like Them Around Other Constellans). 

(Where are you cribbing half this stuff from Gretchen? Please see Ursula K. LeGuin’s Hainish Cycle stuff, the Ancillary Justice series, this book called Halfway Human which incidentally was also the first book with an ace and nonbinary main character that I ever found, and Jupiter Ascending.)

[gretchensinister]

Capture (background Pitchinersand)(9/21)

Original Prompt:

So I was working on cosplay and I had Stargate Atlantis on as background noise, and the episode 'Hide and Seek' came up. It stuck the worst plot bunny in my head but I'm suffering from the worst writer's block so I figured I'd post it here. Basically, in 'Hide and Seek', a creature that feeds on energy and looks like a cloud of darkness gets released from its prison in Atlantis and begins feeding upon the city and scaring the inhabitants. It's sentient (mostly) and eventually becomes so powerful that it has to be tricked into leaving the city. One of the characters, Teyla, has a great line in that that would really work for something like this- "Everything is afraid of something." So what if it was a Fearling that had been caught? What if the Ancients were part of the Constellations, working to destroy the darkness in the universe? The Wraith are certainly terrifying, maybe dump Pitch in Pegasus and let him loose to terrorize anyone that comes across his path and gain his old power back? I really just want anything with this. Anything at all. I'm not picky. It would just be the greatest thing ever. Please, thank you and blue jello for all.

What I did for this one was write a Golden Age fic where fearlings have so far been impossible to capture, until someone in Atlantis manages it. Kozmotis goes to verify that it was really a fearling that was captured, and contemplates what that might mean.

“So, you managed to capture it,” Kozmotis said. The container which Dr. Kiva had told him held a live, whole fearling resembled a coffin to him, though if pressed, he would of course say that it was simply an oblong box. After all, he was the Golden General, and if he was moved at all by coffins, it was to be moved to displays of sympathy towards the loved ones of the fallen. Developing an instinctual, irrational revulsion to anything that looked like one was not an image of the Golden General that fit with his public persona. But he had known this for some time and did not need to carefully consider this revulsion and how it fit into everything else that he thought, felt, or did that failed to correspond to the Golden General personality. He could, thankfully, focus on what Dr. Kiva was telling him, because what she had to say might actually make a difference in the progress of the war. “Yes,” Dr. Kiva said. “We hadn’t set out to capture a fearling, specifically, but our lab works in general to develop new means of containing esoteric substances, and I think you might agree that the substance of a fearling is perhaps the most esoteric of all. Why, I know some of our scientists who would give multiple limbs just to get closer to the front lines! We hardly see any fearlings out here, and you’ll probably tell us to be grateful, but,” she put her hand on the container casually, as if it didn’t contain one of the beings that had spread like a plague of both body and mind through the Constellan confederation and then the surrounding galaxy, as if it didn’t look like a coffin, as if it was truly secure, as if anything was truly secure. Kozmotis heard Dr. Kiva pause and realized he had not heard anything she had had to say after she had put her hand on the container. “What is it made of?” he asked, hoping he wasn’t asking her to repeat something she had just told him. She didn’t look at him strangely, and he relaxed a little. If she had just been talking about wanting to see more fearlings, it was probably for the best that he hadn’t heard. “Lead, mostly—of all things,” she told him. “I know that must seem somewhat counterintuitive, based on what data has been gathered on the apparent relationships between fearlings and non-living substances, but it’s true. I should probably wash my hands after touching it.” Yes! Kozmotis thought. Yes! Yes, you should! He nodded, not trusting his voice to keep his unusual vehemence hidden. Dr. Kiva continued speaking with him as she walked to a nearby sink. “Now, I know you’re here because you were to verify that the thing we captured was actually a fearling, and I’d like to get your opinion of the best way to go about that. We lost Dr. Bew getting it contained in the first place, and while that was a terrible accident, we can’t exactly have two terrible accidents within such a short time of each other.” “Excuse me, what did you say?” Kozmotis felt sweat prickle at the back of his neck. It’s a coffin it’s a coffin it’s really really a coffin. “Well, the only thing that draws fearlings is sentient fear,” Dr. Kiva said with a shrug. “It was bad luck that Dr. Bew was inside the container at the time, testing for any corrosion left by one of the substances we intended this container to be used for, but it probably saved the rest of us. Dr. Bew was always the most afraid of the fearlings, which was good, because most of the rest of us were flat-out panicking as we sealed the container. But it’s held. We were all so afraid that it wasn’t secure, that if that was the case, we would have found out right away.” Kozmotis wondered if her calm was a façade, like his had been for months after having to deal with his first fearling-possessed comrade. But she was right. If the fearling was loose, Atlantis would have noticed by now. He could make this case easily to the Constellan Council. And yet. “We will not be sacrificing anyone else for the sake of opening and reclosing this fearling’s prison,” Kozmotis said. “However, you must provide the broad-spectrum data records for the time leading up to and immediately following the fearling’s capture, so that it may be verified that what you captured was a fearling.” He paused, watching Dr. Kiva nod. “After this, gather all the information required to reproduce the container. This information will not be demanded, at least initially.” He folded his hands behind his back. “But you can no doubt easily see how it could be classified almost immediately as information vital to the preservation of sentient life in the universe. Once it is determined that you have captured a fearling, be prepared to accept the offer made to you. Atlantis will probably be given a monopoly on production for the length of your lifetime. Do not ask for more unless you want to receive nothing.” “Are you threatening me?” Dr. Kiva asked. She sounded utterly surprised, and also as if she wanted to argue, as if she had never heard of threats except in some long ago workplace ethics meeting in which she had been informed never to submit to such things. Kozmotis fought the urge to sigh and rub his temples. “No. I am explaining to you what is likely to happen. If I was threatening you I would want you to be afraid. Currently, I simply want you to be informed so you can make an appropriate choice.” * When he had returned to his quarters on Atlantis, Kozmotis lay on his side, curled up, looking at the wall if he looked at anything. What would it change if the fearlings could be captured? Would it mean fewer coffins? Would it mean the war could actually end? Fearlings could be sliced up and driven off, but no one was sure if that actually killed them or not. If they could be contained, then perhaps their fighting numbers could finally be reduced. Perhaps he could start to feel like the Golden General again, winning real victories. It was a lot of hope to place on one coffin, but it helped him curl less tightly, so he didn’t fight it. What would it be like if the war ended? What would it be like, to have home be where he lived? To have his biggest worry be how to ask Sandy to stay permanently with him and Cybele. For Seraphina to have more than one parent around. Could things get that simple for the Golden General? He wasn’t sure. He had been recruited to be the Golden General, and the people that had made him were quite enamored of their craftsmanship. What would they make of him once all the fearlings were captured? At this point, he felt it would be worth almost everything to find out.

[gretchensinister]

A Perfect Circle

Cybele and Sandy make a pledge together. In their conversation, I think I've started to work out why this particular Koz would become a particular kind of Boogeyman.

***

            "He's trying to convince himself that we don't need him," Cybele says softly to Sandy as they linger in the large bed. "I saw him that way when Lord Asterion asked for my hand. It was a rational match, Koz said. Better a born rank than earned."

            "What did you tell him?" Sandy asks.

            "I told him the right choice was not the one that would make us both miserable, no matter what anyone else said."

            "You've told him that many times," Sandy says.

            "Yes," Cybele whispers, pulling Sandy closer and kissing the skin just behind his ear. "I think I knew I wanted you before he did, the way he talked about you. Very naughty, our Koz, taking a lover at his wife’s command."

            A blush rises to Sandy's face. “And a true lover,” he whispers back, feeling Cybele nod in reply. He takes her hand in his own, kissing her fingertips. Even now, after enough shore leave to remove all doubt on the matter, it still is a source of wonder to him that the great Golden General and Lady Pitchiner have welcomed him not only into their bed, but into their hearts as well. Constellans, and several other species in the Constellar alliance, were often curious about the bodies of Stars like him, small, soft, round, and golden, seemingly made for sensual pleasure by many of their lights. Few offered love with their desire.

            Koz had loved him from the start, in his strange way that had stayed his hand from Sandy’s flesh for far too long, even after Sandy told him he loved him back, not just as the General but as Koz. “A true lover, but a bit absurd. I thought his jaw was like to fall off when I joked about the possible advantages I might find with a partner so tall.”

            Cybele laughs into the back of his neck, ending her laugher with a kiss. “Absurd,” she says. “Absurd he is, our Koz, and I have never been able to answer why. And the absurdity is not always the kind to bring laughter.”

            “That’s right enough,” Sandy says. “I think…he thinks his self is dross. I can’t imagine why. When we were out there, it took him months for him to let my kisses stray even lower than his neck, though his mouth had left none of my skin untouched.”

            “And that was slow enough progress,” Cybele guesses. “Koz asking permission for every new kiss?”

            Sandy nods.

            “I fought with him on our honeymoon over such things,” Cybele says. “Before our wedding I thought him modest, on our wedding night I was not pleased to find he thought himself undesirable. As if his only worth was in the honor conferred upon him by others.”

            “He thinks the whole universe is against him,” Sandy says sadly. “That happiness and peace are not his rights.”

            “He’s acted this way as long as I’ve known him.” Cybele twines her fingers with Sandy’s. “As if the right decision will always be the one that causes him the greatest pain, as if he fears that by taking his own joy he’ll depriving someone of theirs, as if he thinks it is wrong for him to be needed.”

            “You said you didn’t know why, but you guess,” Sandy says.

            “I guess.” Cybele’s voice is bitter. “Koz is very young for a general. And when they started making him a general, they started with nothing but a lighthouse-keeper’s son who wanted to protect others from things worse than rocky shores. They made him their weapon, and though…though he deserves to be a general, he does not deserve the rest they did to him. They brought him into a glittering sea with no lighthouses to mark the rocks, and gave him respect for a rank they had placed upon him. And always, always they reminded him that they needed him, needed a general, because of the war. He was their warrior, their perfect warrior.

            “I think he cannot let go of this. He thinks without the war he will be nothing, that there is no Koz who is not a general. But he has seen the horrors of war, and he makes plans to end it.”

            “Does he think he will vanish?”

            “I think he thinks he should, when the war is over,” Cybele says. “And so he places us together, as though he could disappear and we would not seek him, husband, lover, father, Koz, to the edge of the universe.”

            Sandy turns to face her. “Cybele, pledge with me that we will not lose him. If the laws of the Constellans allowed, you would be my wife and Koz, my husband. You are my spouses, and I love Sera as my own child. You are my family. I would seek all of you to the edges of the universe.”

            “I pledge,” Cybele says, “that we will not lose our Koz when he is no longer a general. When this war is no more, he will still be ours.”

            “So sealed,” Sandy says, kissing her on the lips.

            “So sealed.” Cybele presses her forehead to his, sliding her fingers through the thick curly hair on his head, as Sandy mirrors her, twining his much smaller hands in her hair.

                        Though at the doorway he’s too far away to hear what they’ve been saying, the sight of Cybele and Sandy so wrapped up in each other calms Koz. No more do they leave space between them. The animal in him demands to press against one edge or another anyway, but he is wiser than such desires, especially with the threat of reorganization of the Star Pilots within the Golden Army looming. He takes a last, lingering look at them before leaving for the garden, where he can spend the few hours before his next meeting without being tempted to break their perfect circle.

[gretchensinister]

bowlingforgerbils replied to your post:Right, so I’ve decided that Lady Pitchiner is...

I like this idea a lot. Some sort of Earth spirit, to go along with Pitch and Sandy and her daughter? Spirit of the ocean, maybe?

I've seen a couple stories in RotG fandom where the concept of Justice is an embodied spirit, and I think that would fit really well for Lady P with other headcanons I'm developing in this timeline. Also, I think it might help with getting Pitch back, if she's Justice. Like, "you do need to be punished, but not forever" and also she would have known just how corrupt things were getting in the Golden Age and that Koz wasn't really the singular, ultimate source of its downfall. 

Also, uh, there's still some good opportunity for trauma here because Justice is, after all, blind, and in my stories so far the mortal Lady P wasn't...

bowlingforgerbils