#the fell

[agape-warrior]

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

The plan is out of order. There is a dying nonbinary in your arms. Civilians are screaming in terror. Where had everything gone wrong?

Everything had been perfect at first. You had planned to die during one final battle against a supervillain, say goodbye to your friends in the same faked scene, then skip town with your pet Turtle, Timmy, to enjoy your relaxation for a while. You had saved up most of the money people always tried to shove at you for your selfless acts for a moment such as this. A retirement was due. Maybe you would get a part-time job at a small library and be able to smile at the kids that visited without lingering guilt. You hoped to finally find a partner (you didn't really care if it was platonic or romantic) after so many years of pushing people away. A hobby that didn't leave you covered in bruises and scars on the inside and out afterwards sounded good too. Many things were better than being a superhero.

This corrupt world where the rich tried to buy out anyone with talent had you sick. You were tired of people comparing you to dollars and cents. You were tired of trying so hard to not be a pawn. You were tired of causing pain with every act of kindness. You were tired of constantly battling against someone who hated this society just as much as you. You were tired of comforting kids when you most likely were the reason they cried.

You were tired.

But, the luck you never knew if you should believe in finally slammed you right in the face today. Everything was too perfect when the fight with The Fell, your nemesis, began. They had been harboring criminals again. Guns had gotten involved when you got involved. The "bad guys" had been apprehended, but you went for capturing The Fell in hopes that the fight would escalate to a scene that would make it believable that you died as a sacrifice instead of the selfish you knew yourself to be. You were not in any way a physical match for them.

The plan was going smoothly. Your nemesis had been surprised but seemed to be much too eager to fight as well. The city was now in uproar due to both destructive powers striking each other in the sky. Their lighting lit up the cloudy skies to match your matter manipulation. The dramatic effect was not lost to either of you. You ignored the warnings in your head when you noticed Fell was fighting with less than half of their actual effort; and you ignored the louder warnings when they seemed to be making the display as showy as possible rather than trying to escape. You should have known something was up when their contents of their signing was different than usual.

The fateful stroke, a blinding white-hot flash, their screams of pain – The Fell writhed in your arms as their life force poured out of them. Your powers exploded in what was supposed to be your ending and became theirs instead. You are clueless as to what to do. Panic sets in. The bounty on their head sentences them to death by any person who could get close. You declaring them as your nemesis all those years ago had been the only way you were able to protect them from the worse powered beings hunting them down. Calling another your nemesis was a well respected claim in the powered community. Even the ones without honor for the code of conduct never went out of their way to attack someone that already had "dibs" called on them.

As you fall from the sky with their blood covering both of you, you wonder how a supposedly dead hero could ask for assistance from anybody. The mercenaries you knew would leak your still alive status. Your fellow heroes expected you to do this job until you actually died. Villains were never to be trusted. Anti-heroes hate you for a good reason. The consequences of isolation within a friendly facade falls on you with more bricks than your castle of deceit needs. You can feel your composure crumble as well as your carefully crafted walls. This landing was going to hurt without being able to use the full extent of your powers. The tree line was approaching all too fast.

The Fell's screams of pain had turned to whimpers. Their grip on you was surprisingly strong. Tree branches and trunks alike snap off soon after you exit the lowest stratus clouds. Your eyes widen in surprise when they flip the two of you over, preparing to take the brunt of the impact. You open your mouth to speak and shut it once more. All you can do is attempt to shield them as you two form a crater in the mountain a few towns away from where you lived.

BOOM

The world turns black and everything is ringing. Flesh and bone mix with terrible sound. Pain. It rains for a short time. The smell makes you realize the "rain" was you two's blood falling at a slower rate than your bodies. Your eyes pry themselves open despite the coating. Your powers get to work on the shock and immobility immediately, recovering the most life-threatening parts of your injuries before working with the rest at an extremely slow rate.

A gaping hole in the clouds signifying where you came from passes over your head. You know your right leg has splintering fractions just from moving it slightly. An occasional groan sounds out underneath you. Your adrenaline kicks in. You know you should not manipulate your adrenal glands and other internal processes, but any long-term damage is of less importance at the moment.

Get up; get up; get up.

You wince, and your arms tremble under your body's weight.

"Fell, stay with me."

The worry in your voice is obvious to even you. You see clear drops fall on them through your blurred vision. When did you start crying?

Their shaky breaths are the only indicators that they are still alive. Blood dribbles down their chin.

You notice their right hand raising to communicate with you. Despite your skewed vision you try your best to concentrate. Their hands takes the shape of an A and rubs their chest.

"I'm sorry."

You can tell they meant what they signed deeply. Their expression says all you need to know about how they feel. Like they fucked up. You would know. You had to look at the same expression in the mirror everyday.

"Stop apologizing," a hiss of pain escapes you before you lower your voice, "It's my fault after all."

A scoffing sound escapes them. The scoffs turn into coughs. Their blood splatters against your torso, mixing with your own.

Your arm wraps around them as best as you can, pulling them up enough that they don't choke on their own blood. Despite the waves of darkness that threaten to flood your eyelids by force, you pull them and yourself into a sitting position.

"F-Fell," you wheeze from the effort, "I need your cooperation," each word is spoken with a tremble.

The Fell raises their fist and bends at the wrist a few times, signaling their compliance. You feel a broken smile tug at your lips. No more words are signed or spoken between the two of you as the struggle to drag yourselves out of the crater and into the woods is made. Every scrape and crack and grunt and cry make them flinch; you cannot imagine why.

By some miracle, both of you make it into the woods and under an alcove before collapsing.

"See you when we're both awake if we don't get caught before then?" you are too tired to express your humor through tone or expression.

In response, their hand creeps into yours and interlocks. They squeeze gently. The darkness you held at bay for longer than you should have consumes you.

~~~

Bonus POV:

I can't even pass out from exhaustion.

The Fell turns over fitfully and opts to stare at Hesing Taint's sleeping visage instead.

Did you plan the same as me, oh broken one?

Covered in blood and internal matter, Hesing still looks beautiful to Fell. What a man, to chose to protect one weaker than himself no matter the occasion. If Fell did not know better, they would think she loved them. Could they be described in that sense? Their dynamic was no completely foreign in their society, but to shield a "villain" constantly in such a way...

The midday passes to early evening. Lost in thoughts, Fell's body moves on it's own to sit up. Their ribs scrape with the effort, no doubt further displaced. Practiced hands move to set their hero's bones properly before he can rest up and begin healing in earnest. They lower themselves back down to hold the other's hand and stare as the sun sets. Knowing how bad it was, Hesing may sleep for several days.

I can wait. I just pray- they pause the thought, unsure of what exactly they want. The answer is not found as they drift off to a doze. But maybe, they will find the answer the longer they intertwine.

[walks-the-ages]

[ID: the "our blessed homeland / their barbarous wastes political cartoon by Tom Gauld, now edited so it lists out the castes of the Raksura on one side and the Fell on the other, so that the comic reads: Our blessed Courts vs Their Barbarous Flights Our glorious Queens vs Their wicked Progenitors Our Great Consorts vs Their primitive Rulers Our Noble Arbora vs Their Backward Dakti Our Heroric Warriors vs Their Brutist Kethel The comic itself is very simple, showing a simple river with boats and castles mirroring each other on opposite sides, the only difference being what color their flags are. End ID]

imagine if we got to meet actual Fell (or literally any other predator species besides the Raksura) who are just living in a society and care about each other and have laws and settlements or an actual reason to be nomadic and actually make sense as a sentient species ,

instead of having the entire species reduced to "evil sadistic cannibals" and the only good ones are those who are genetically half good-guy who are only capable of changing their society for the better because they're mixed race and were raised by their good-guy father because "nature vs nurture" except it's literally saying that Fell by Nature are intrinsically evil and only the influence of the good-guys can make them not evil.

All we would have needed would have been one (1) Fell Flight that is an actual example of Fell society instead of the literal brainwashed , mind-controlled cults that are going around massacring cities, but nope, instead all Fell are intrinsically evil by nature and only being mixed with the good-guys and raised by the good-guys can make them even have half a chance of being a good person.

EDIT DECEMBER 2025: yeah no not leaving this original post untouched. If you, too, hated how the fell are handled in these books, you should know in 2023, Martha Wells posted a link to a rave -review/essay filled with that reviewers headcanons of these books that said 'you can't call the Fell racist caricatures of inherently evil people, because that would be like calling the og British Colonizers evil, and we all know THATS not true!'

You know, the British Colonizers who committed countless atrocities around the world that are still relevant today, including all of American history, chattel slavery, everything done in India and the Congo and so many more places...

So yeah. Martha Wells has refused to listen about the racism in these books and instead has been doubling down on it almost a decade later, instead of learning to do better.

[blood-starved-beast]

Have been discussing this with a friend who's currently reading the books atm but I really like how Wells presents the culture of the Raksura in her books. In that it is an a flawed and inherently biased society.

So the Raksura operate on the base concept of inverted gender roles. Queens are the head of the colonies, and female warriors have more respect/say than male warriors. Consorts are expected to be woo-ed by Queens and are "married off" to Queens of other colonies usually. Said friend who reads a lot more romance media than I do pointed out often and when characters are involved in certain tropes associated with either male or female characters in romance works, but are inverted in the case of the Raksura. Chime is Moon's lady-in-waiting, consorts and male warriors engage in catty behavior over Queens (Moon and River's drama). Jade being the Quintessential Male love interest. Among other things. What I really like though, is how this is not just something that exists in the story, but explored within.

Moon being an gender-expectations defying Consort, is both admired and an outcast. He flounders social norms. Jade accepts him, but it's clear that it's only to an extent - she tells him that only Queens fight other Queens, never to touch consorts that way in book 2 for ex. Moon showing that he's capable doesn't necessarily "change" the system. He's just one person in a culture that has long since predated them and is strongly enforced.

And what I love more is how Wells presents a culture with a caste system goes in turn continues to "think" in the same caste system with regards to other things. How it's an "us vs them" with the Fell, who're scavengers and an entire different species with their own things. How they disparage them and have their biases towards cause of their very complex and difficult history with one another. Things like how the Fell "stink" to Raksura (smell is very sensitive for the Raksura), Stone saying how Raksura are supposed to "kill Fell" among others. And you get where it's coming from cause the Fell have destroyed colonies and kidnapped and raped Arbora and Consorts before. At the same time, it doesn't stop people from having negative assumptions about the Hybrids trying to do better such as Consolidation and her Flight and Hybrids who're just living such as Shade and Lithe.

Idk, I love to see it when fictional societies are written in way with nuance and flaws. And more specifically, those flaws are explored and discussed within the narrative.

[rjalker]

Martha Wells has many flaws and yes many racist things in her writing. (biological essentialism is inherently racist! Lots of the shit in The Books of the Raksura is in fact racist!)

But she also makes the purposeful and very blatant decision to have the only white characters be the villains.

In the Books of the Raksura, the Fell are literally the only species of people we see who are described as having white, or even pale skin. Literally. They are the only ones. (And yes, there /are/ a lot of problems with how the Fell are handled that are indeed racist, but giving them white skin is /not/ one of them)

In The Murderbot Diaries, literally the only character clearly described as white so far is the fucking corporate pig who works for GrayCris! That's it! He's literally the only one clearly described as having pale skin and light colored hair! Literally the only one!!

If you didn't notice this, then re-read the books again and pay attention to the way people are described, and pay attention to who, specifically, is actually described as being clearly white, and not just not described in detail.

[blood-starved-beast]

One day I will write about my three billion headcanons about the Raksura Forerunners but I can't help but think how interesting it is that out of all the Hybrids that exist it's only Shade that ever approximates what a forerunner actually looks like. This is outright stated in the Edge of Worlds.* Meaning that out of all the atrocities committed to both consorts and Arbora, it's only successful in producing one (1) Forerunner mimic. And remember that despite Opal Night's oversight many baby hybrids died in childhood, so even if a child does approximate a forerunner, there's no guarantee that it'll be healthy enough to survive to adulthood. What a tragedy.

But going back to Shade, Shade is such an interesting character. Out of all the Aeriat - he's the most interesting in reading for pleasure. Yes, we were introduced to Moon with him looking through books, but I never got the sense that reading itself was a thing he liked. Heck, Chime gets kicked out of the other courts' libraries a lot cause reading is not something Aeriat do. But Shade reads.

And that's something that's ticked me off about Forerunners. They lived in massive fortresses with crazy illusion magic and worked with great architects. They had books that seem more like technology, according to that one Patreon story. I wonder if forerunners were intellectuals. And that was bred out of them when they intermingled with Arbora and collapsed when the Fell became the Fell.

*I suspect that Consolidation isn't a ~ true ~ Queen so much as Warrior Forerunner. But it could a male vs. female liger situation where female ligers are fertile but males are not due to how sex genetics works in hybridization. In biology this is called Haldane's Rule, where in early speciation, one sex is infertile while the other is not. The sex that is heterogametic - that is, has two different sex chromosomes to present for that sex - is usually sterile. If this is the case, this implies that for Forerunners and likely Aeriat/Fell, females are the heterogametic sex. Which is fascinating.

[rjalker]

like that’s just fucking unconciounably racist. Saying that Shade shouldn’t have kids because he’s mixed race and his kids might turn out to be evil.

The fact that Shade isn’t evil, and that Consolation isn’t evil, does not negate this absurd level of racism, especially because the only reason they aren’t evil is because they’re half Raksura.

Consolation, who is half Raksura, despite being a child, leads the rest of her flight who are fully Fell, even though there has to be at least one person there who’s older than her. And the only reason her flight isn’t evil is because, again, they are led by someone who isn’t fully Fell, so that’s why they’re not evil.

Because fuck the kethel and dakti from other flights even after it gets explicitly stated that they are being abused by the rulers and progenitors on a universal scale, I guess /s

They don’t get to kill their abusers and escape and be sympathetic because they’re Fell without being part Raksura, so no one cares about them.

Like, Consolation is great.

But why the hell is she leading them. She is a child. And a bunch of them are probably also children but you can’t expect me to believe she’s the oldest one there. I refuse to believe that.

Why are adult Fell following a half-Raksuran child. Why are we told that this is the only way they have morals.

Why couldn’t we see a 100% purely Fell flight that wasn’t fucking evil and abusive? Why couldn’t we see 100% purely fell dakti and kethel revolt and kill their fucking abusive families? You can’t fucking tell me every single ruler and progenitor is evil and abusive, because in that case the only option for the kethel and dakti if they want t stop being enslaved is to fucking kill them all and guess what that leads to???? the extinction of their species. Since rulers and progenitors are the only ones who can have kids.

it’s bullshit. It’s racist bullshit.

Species are not factions. And no, saying that only people who are half-Evil™-species are capable of morals is not a moral statement to make.

We should have seen Fell that weren’t fucking evil abusive bastards. We should have seen kethel and dakti who didn’t need a half-Raksuran savior to free them. We should have seen rulers and progenitors who were fighting back with the kethel and dakti against the abusive peices of shit running their flights.

[rjalker]

Things bad about The Books of the Raksura, in no particular order.

Contains spoilers for a bunch of stuff throughout the series, including the first book

(Archived read-more link in case of random disaster)

The Fell aren’t inherently evil because species aren’t factions and we should have seen more “real” Fell who had morals and were revolting against their abusive fucking flights without having to be shown how to do so by a half-Raksuran kindergartner. 

______________ Pearl’s abuse of her court is never actually condemned or like, taken seriously. Everyone just immediately forgives her for allowing River and Drift and the rest of her warriors to abuse the Arbora and her own fucking literally unthinkable attack on Moon and the fact that she literally trapped them all there to die for years even after she knew something was completely fucking irreparably wrong.

Literally if any functioning court had even gotten a whiff of any of the shit she was just letting happen for years, Indigo Cloud would have been wiped off the fucking map with Pearl fucking executed and the warriors either killed or adopted depending on how fucking willing they were to be accomplices and all the Arbora adopted.

Malachite was 100000000000000% correct to be fucking enraged and if she even knew half the story, she would be entirely fucking justified in murdering Pearl and Jade and especially fucking Stone for their part in it. Especially Stone. That old man needs to get the shit beat out of him for what he did.

______________ Literally just the fact that Moon and Jade are only together because Moon has been traumatized into thinking that if he fucks up his relationship with the first group of Raksura he meets he’ll never be allowed to interact with any other Raksura ever again, and Jade has grown up with Pearl as an abusive mom in a completely fucked up court and literally no other court would even think about sending one of their kids to live in this fucking hellhole they call a colony so she literally had to have Moon as a consort or she’ll just never have any consort ever :|

Moon literally thinks (CORRECTLY, I MIGHT ADD) that if he weren’t in a relationship with Jade, that he would be kicked out of Indigo Cloud, and that he wouldn’t have any chance of joining another colony because Indigo Cloud is fucked up almost beyond repair and he still can’t fit in with them, so what fucking chance does he have with an actually functioning, non-abusive, actually fucking decent colony????

Like if Sky Copper and whoever else Stone asked first was their fucking ally I don’t even want to know what the fuck was going on at Sky Copper because if they know everything Pearl was doing and they were just fine and dandy with it that means they were either doing the same thing or they were doing something even fucking worse.

______________

The way the other characters treat Chime is transphobic. I don’t care if it’s not a 1:1 metaphor. I don’t care. It is transphobic. Chime is still a fucking arbora, he is still a fucking mentor, it is not his fault he was magically fucking changed to a different gender against his will because the reigning queen of his colony is an abusive negelectful peice of shit!

The fact that Pearl let River beat Chime for the crime of being a victim of Pearl’s negligence is just. fucking gods I want to kill her. The only reason River stopped beating Chime is because Moon beat the shit out of him and sincerely threatened to murder him if he did it again. And no one before Moon had ever fucking stepped up to defend Chime. Not even fucking Jade or Balm. Are you fucking serious.

And then even after other courts learn what happened to him, they still won’t treat him like a mentor. he isn’t allowed into their libraries. They act Shocked and Surprised when he knows first aid and shit even though they know he was a mentor before he was forcibly changed into a warrior.

______________

And that leads to the next problem!

We only ever meet Raksura who are 100% fine with the roles their culture pushes them all into.....and if they aren’t happy with their roles, then they’re also abusive peices of shit like River, or straight up serial killers like Rift.

Aside from the physical aspects of the change, no one should even need to fucking treat Chime any differently than they did before because it shouldn’t fucking matter whether he’s a mentor or a warrior. It shouldn’t fucking matter. There’s no damn reason trusted warriors shouldn’t be allowed into the libraries of other courts. There’s no damn reason warriors shouldn’t not only know how, but help the arbora properly clean kills and process hides and harvest food and all that shit.

Moon once thinks to himself that he thought it was simply tradition that stopped warriors from doing most of the hunting for a court, but then he found out they were just completely useless at hunting..........even though they literally aren’t. There’s nothing stopping warriors, even warriors as silly as Root, from being just as good at hunting and hunting safely and efficiently as any arbora or even fucking Moon. The only reason warriors are “bad” at hunting is because no one teaches them how to do it properly and no one wants to teach them how to do it properly.

They were setting up a tent and Chime was trying to help because you know, he knows how to fucking pitch a tent because unlike the warriors he was actually taught how to do it, and instead of letting him help, Bramble fucking chases him away! And it’s supposed to be funny! Even though there’s no reason not to let him help! We’re expected to believe that just because he has wings now that it means he’s lost all his ability to be helpful!

Like,,,,,,,,,,,it’s like the arbora are the shitty parents who don’t teach their kids how to do anything and then get mad when their kids don’t know how to do anything! No one shows the warriors how to properly dress kills, and then they get mad when they bring home kills that are messed up!

And you can’t tell me the warriors don’t want to help, because we’ve seen that they do! They just aren’t allowed to, for some stupid fucking reason!

______________

Also the fact that Lithe and Shade say no one has ever treated them differently because they’re mixed-race but also Lithe is so ashamed of being mixed-race that she never shifts unless she has to :| the fact that Shade thinks it would be “too dangerous” for him to have kids :| and Moon agrees. 

______________

and more stuff I forget