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TWO // Animation Meme

[ultramegatroutman]

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robecotoren 1991

[illumynare]

Destiny Fic: Field Trip

Summary: Before they were Owl Sector, they were . . . kind of stupid.

Pairings: Shun/Ikora (ish).

Notes: Also available on AO3.

@jencforcarolina was having a bad day so I offered her fic. She wanted Young Owl Sector. I LIVE TO PLEASE.

"We're going to die," says Quist. There's a dead calm to his voice as he crouches next to his friends in the narrow subway tunnel, glancing forward and back.

"No, we're not," Shun contradicts cheerfully.

"Not before I pass my exams," says Beriole, still busily transcribing symbols from the wall.

Quist huffs out a breath. His hands remain steady on his rifle—he's the only one of them who actually knows how to shoot a gun—as he says, "You won't get good grades for stealing a ship from Tower and breaking who knows how many regulations to visit a Crucible arena on Venus."

"And yet," says Beriole, "you're here with us."

"I'm just trying to keep you two Shank-chasing idiots alive," Quist grumbles.

"C'mon, look on the bright side," says Shun, daring to stick his head out for a peek over the nearby ledge.

"What bright side?"

"Ikora might be here?"

"That's only a bright side for you, you cleft of the Tra—"

"Language," Beriole mutters, and then gasps, "Quist! Look!"

"I'll look when I'm— Oh." Quist's rifle lowers as he stares. "That's—"

"—Golden Age cryptography," Beriole gloats.

The two of them huddle together over her notes and the symbols she's scraped clean of moss on the wall. Shun, standing beside them, says, "I guess I'll keep watch, then."

They both ignore him.

Shun is used to that (from his friends, and also his family). Right now, he doesn't care. He's too entranced by Venus: the strange, salt-sweet smell of the air. The very slight, dream-like difference in the gravity. The strange way the sunset light feels like a rainbow.

Ikora has fought here. He has watched her in a hundred matches, and now he wonders if she loved the foreign taste of the air the way he does, or if it was nothing to her, she who has lived centuries and feels the Light of the Traveler in her veins.

He has a friend who has a cousin whose brother-in-law's friend had a sister. The sister died, and was raised as a Guardian.

She visited them a few times, Shun has heard from his friend's cousin's brother-in-law's friend. But she did not like to come back, and soon she stopped. She did not want to be reminded of what she once was—because no Guardian can ever remember the life she had before she died—

It has occurred to Shun, before now, that it's possible he might become a Guardian. But now, when he finally stands in a place where Guardians battle and kill each other, he glances back over his shoulder at his mortal friends.

He doesn't want to forget them.

He doesn't want to forget Ikora.

As he thinks that, he hears a gun cock behind his ear. He turns, and sees—

Ikora. Leveling Invective at his neck.

For the following decade, Shun will regret the words he says next:

"Hey, Korrie."

"It could have been worse," says Berriole, clutching her notebook to her chest.

"You're right," says Quist. "We could have been cut into pieces and fed to the Hive."

"Probably easier to feed us to the Fallen," says Shun, looking out at the gleam of the City beneath them. They're standing in the courtyard of the Tower, after an extremely painful talk with the Vanguard.

Tomorrow they have to report for their orientation as new members of Owl Sector. Apparently the penalty for stealing one of the Vanguard's ships and trespassing on the Vanguard's Crucible is . . . to join the organization that protects the Vanguard.

It's what Shun has wanted for a long time: to serve and to protect the Guardians. But he can't think about them right now. He can't think about the pale, gleaming hulk of the Traveler overhead, either.

All he can think of is Ikora Rey, dragging him and his friends away from Venus. There was a moment when she looked over her shoulder and said, Trespassing in the Crucible? You could have died.

We could have come back as Guardians, Shun had said.

And there was a curious to solemnity to Ikora as she replied, That is not always a blessing.

It will be ten years before Shun—or anyone in the Last City or the Crucible—sees Ikora Rey again.

[jack-fact]

Election-Day Eve Wrestlemania

For those of you who are unaware, there is a special election in Montana tomorrow to fill a vacant House of Representatives seat which used to belong to Rep. Ryan Zinke (R). Zinke left office to become the Secretary of the Interior for Donald Trump, so a new election has to be held to fill the seat. The two candidates are Greg Gianforte (a Republican from New Jersey who lost the Montana governor’s race in November to a liberal Democrat), and Rob Quist (a “heartland”-type, bluegrass-playing Democrat). 

Earlier this evening, reporter Ben C. Jacobs of The Guardian (a newspaper from the UK) tweeted “Greg Gianforte just body slammed me and broke my glasses.” A BuzzFeed reporter who was at the scene, Alexis Levinson, immediately tweeted that “Ben walked into a room where a local tv crew was set up for an interview with Gianforte... all of a sudden I heard a giant crash and saw Ben's feet fly in the air as he hit the floor... heard very angry yelling (as did all the volunteers in the room) - sounded like Gianforte.” Fifteen minutes later she tweeted “Gianforte is now in a car with aides driving away.”

Gianforte’s team responded a bit later, saying that Jacobs “entered the [campaign] office without permission, aggressively shoved a recorder in Greg's face, and began asking badgering questions... after asking Jacobs to lower the recorder, Jacobs declined. Greg then attempted to grab the phone that was pushed in his face. Jacobs grabbed Greg's wrist, and spun away from Greg, pushing them both to the ground. It's unfortunate that this aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene at our campaign volunteer BBQ.” Obviously, this account of the story is quite different from the one that had been alleged so far by Jacobs and Levinson. If only there was some way to find out who was really telling the truth...

Oh wait, there is. As Levinson stated, there was a local news team setting up in the room for an interview with Gianforte. While their cameras did not pick up the incident on video, there was an audio recording. Here’s the link to it. The most telling part of the recording is that Jacobs is actually asking a very pertinent and important question in a low and respectful tone about the recent CBO score of the Republican replacement for Obamacare, when he is given two dismissive non-answers and is not clearly asked to leave or to put down the recorder. Then in the middle of a question from Jacobs you can hear an immediate scuffle, after which Gianforte begins to verbally assault Jacobs. Jacobs claims Gianforte broke his glasses and says he is calling the police. 

If this audio account is not enough to convince you of what happened, the Fox News team who was interviewing him published a quick article with their account of the story. For those of you not inclined to click on links, here’s what they claim: “[Jacobs] walked into the room with a voice recorder, put it up to Gianforte's face and began asking if him if he had a response to the newly released Congressional Budget Office report on the American Health Care Act. Gianforte told him he would get to him later. Jacobs persisted with his question. Gianforte told him to talk to his press guy, Shane Scanlon. At that point, Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him. Faith, Keith and I watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the man, as he moved on top the reporter and began yelling something to the effect of ‘I'm sick and tired of this!’” 

Again, as indicated by the recording, it does not appear that Gianforte and his team were at all truthful in their account of the matter. Jacobs was likely badgering the candidate with questions, as politicians often find happening to them, about an issue which the reporter thought needed to be addressed in a timely manner. According to Levinson, police promptly arrived at the scene and began taking witness statements.

[nyfikenresenar]

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!!!!!

[virtualladygladiator]

[illumynare]

I'd actually LOVE more Owl Sector shenanigans from you, maybe unexpected leader, apologies, and/or glass breaking?

25 prompts meme

21. Glass breaking

(a direct sequel to this ficlet)

“Well,” said Quist, with a sort of dazed calm, “I suppose that was a valuable lesson.”

“I think I’m going to throw up,” said Berriole, eyes squeezed shut. She took a few deep breaths. “Maybe not.”

The bar was in the kind of shambles that could be expected when two Guardians had a violent disagreement. The blood, at least, was gone—transmatted by the unfortunate’s Guardian’s Ghost when it raised him, right before Ikora Rey took his weapons and dragged him out with her. But there were still broken glasses, overturned furniture, and shocked patrons everywhere.

The three students were crouched behind their overturned table. Quist had managed to stack the fallen books, and he was trying to gather up his loose-leaf notes, but his hands kept shaking and slipping. Berriole was hunched in on herself, while Shun held a broken shot-glass, running his thumb over the jagged edges.

“What kind of lesson?” asked Shun.

“Guardians,” Quist said flatly, “are bad news. And why are you playing with broken glass?”

“She broke it with her head,” said Shun.

“Yes! Right before she painted his brains across the wall with her shotgun!”

Berriole made an unhappy noise and took some more slow breaths.

“C'mon, that was Ikora Rey,” said Shun. “Am I the only one excited about this?”

“Yes,” said Quist. He slapped the last of his notes into a stack. “We should go.”

“Already?” asked Shun.

“Well, they clearly aren’t going to bring our fried plantains now,” Quist snapped.

“You never know,” said Shun. His smile was a little off-center. “It’s a very, um …” He trailed off, losing whatever joke he’d been about to make.

“Do we need to tell the authorities what happened?” asked Berriole, determinedly focused on the practicalities.

“The bartender can do that,” said Quist. “We should go.”

Shun did not say anything.

Shun was staring again at the broken shot-glass, still running his thumb over the edge. There had been a smudge of blood on it once, now absorbed by his skin. Ikora Rey’s blood, the blood of a Guardian raised by the Traveler, who fought like a whirlwind in the Crucible but who also protected the Last City from the Darkness. Who had helped raise its walls.

When the other Guardian threw her back, when her head slammed into their table, her eyes had stared up a moment into his. Dark, beautiful eyes—but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the dazed pain in her face. And it was lost a moment later as she pulled herself up and leapt back into the fight, but it had been real.

Shun Li had watched a hundred Crucible matches, had seen Guardians stabbed and shot and vaporized and burnt. But now, as he grasped the glass that Ikora Rey had broken with her head, he thought: they can bleed.

And that was the first time that he wanted to protect them.