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Destiny's Choices

Summary:

Destiny will always come to those who were never given the chance to be who they wanted to be. She will always come for the lost innocents. The lonely children, the souls that still held hope and love in spite of tragedy, those who lost everything and died still in mourning. She comes to those in need of happy endings.

WARNING: Mentions of suicide, war, violence from WWI, the Blitz, Kosovo War, 9/11 and Syrian Civil War, sexual assault, neglect and child abuse, deaths by hanging, deaths by drowning, hunting accidents and accidental poisoning.

Some of the stories will only make sense if you have already read afterandalasia's Destiny series.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

Destiny will always come to those who were never given the chance to be who they wanted to be. She will always come for the lost innocents. The lonely children, the souls that still held hope and love in spite of tragedy, those who lost everything and died still in mourning.

Destiny does not discriminate. She offers her love, peace and happiness to all.

In England during the days of Edgar the Peaceful a young woman’s body is hung from a tall tree overlooking the North Sea. This woman, Destiny finds as she draws closer, was killed in retaliation by furious Saxons. This woman’s only crime was to fall in love with a Viking, a warlord who claimed to be descended from Odin himself. She was entranced by his tales of his land and his gods and yearned to see the beauties he described before he left for home. The Saxons cannot traverse the ocean and kill the men who have slaughtered and enslaved their families and burnt their crops. But they can take their revenge on her. While the young woman’s father and sister have already escaped to London, she was ambushed before she could follow them. Now as Destiny holds her close, she decides to give this woman a new name, Jane Foster, and a new life thousands of miles and over a thousand years into the future. In this life Jane can figure out exactly where she belongs.

Being a royal at a young age is always a terrible twist of fate. But as Destiny flies over the Andes mountain range and into the city of Cuzco, she finds one such boy whose head was too childlike and immature to have ever worn the crown. This young man became the emperor a few years earlier and since then has not been able to understand the full responsibilities he inherited. So when the boy king drinks a poison that was slipped into his wine by an angered advisor, Destiny decides to try and make him a better person. She sees that if he had lived then he would have learnt to be kind to those less fortunate than himself. But alas, this was not to be. So Destiny gives him a new name for his second chance; Kuzko, after the great city he perished in. While she still keeps his cockiness – this was a big part of his personality, after all – Destiny lets him survive his assassination, albeit with strange results. She allows him to be the best that he can be with the drawbacks he has.

It is with great sadness that Destiny must return soon after to the royal household. Another manchild, this time a loyal servant of the advisor, has been killed for daring to argue with the new emperor. As he was buried alive on the orders of the former advisor, Destiny’s heart seems to break when she finds that Kronk still thinks the world of his murderer. Destiny chooses to change Kronk’s fate so that he is accepted by both the advisor, now much less dangerous than before, and the young emperor.

During the last days of the Venetian Kingdom, a boy has drowned in a terrible accident on the beach. Pinocchio was a dim but kind boy whose choice to run away from his father was due to peer pressure than anything else. Going along with the bad boys to play in the streets, Pinocchio is scolded by the local minister when he is caught stealing from a puppet-master. The minister, a short man with a crocked back and a cane, tells Pinocchio that if he wants salvation then he should stop acting like a jackass. But Pinocchio, although conflicted, is pulled away by his friend Lampwick to go to drinking taverns and pool halls. It is while drunk and disorientated that Pinocchio stumbles over a cliff and into the sea, washing up on the beach the next morning. When Destiny comes for him, he asks about his friends, mixed in with his fear of a devil providing false kindness. As his friends are still alive, she cannot help them. This worries Pinocchio, but Destiny tells him not to think of their fate, but of his. Pinocchio wants to be a good little boy, so she gives him an opportunity to redeem himself as he sees fit, going from a puppet that should be controlled by others to a child honest and true.

In the jungles of the British-controlled Raj a young couple is killed as they sail down a river. It is to their son Mowgli that Destiny approaches. The infant’s fascination with the colorful world around him allows Destiny to make a world of beauty in the jungle, to give him the chance to learn his place and to be a man.

In 1909, a young boy named Pete is treated horribly by the family who purchased him. One night he decides to run away into the forests that surround the house, his imaginary friend Elliott the Dragon coming with him. But the boy gets lost and dies of exposure before he can reach safety. Destiny decides to give Pete his make-believe dragon friend life and to truly escape his abusive owners and find a family to love him.

In 1910 a house fire in Cherry Lane in London consumes all those inside. Destiny sees two rowdy, lonely children, asleep in their beds when they died, along with an overworked and tired father who had unintentionally started the fire by falling asleep too close to the fireplace with the newspaper in his hands. Destiny finds the solution to this problem to be a tricky one, so she decides to instead fix them in a very unusual way. She herself appears to them as a stern, no-nonsense nanny who will help the Banks into becoming a better family.

Four years later and many miles across the sea a chimney sweep lies in a ditch in No Man’s Land. Bert has never been healthy, given his occupation before he enlisted, but now as he lies close to death Destiny comes to him. Noticing that he worked for the Banks family before their demise, she decides to give him the same dream as them, allowing herself to be the wonderful woman that he has yearned for.

That same year a young girl in London is forced to grow up far too quickly. Mute from birth, nicknamed Tinkerbell from the small bells she carries for her master’s decoration business, the girl is an easy target for his overseas partners. These men are already treated with disdain due to the country’s hatred of foreigners, even though in this war they are technically on the same side, but when they come across the girl, who is not even fully developed yet, alone in her master’s house when he is out, they barge in and have their way with her. The last thing that Tinkerbell sees are the night stars through a window. Destiny guides her towards the star as she weaves the young girl her dream. Tinkerbell’s jealously of other girls for their abilities to talk is quite strong, but Destiny helps her to become a better person nevertheless.

While war rages in Europe, America is free for now. But freedom does not come to everyone and that is true for the young boy who works for the circus. His sick and tired mother works day and night cleaning the animal pens, hoping to be thanked. But both she and her son know that people like them are frowned upon because of what they look like. The sole kindness the young boy receives is from some other circus workers who, like him, have never learnt to read or write. It seems that kindness is not enough as when the young boy, having drunk some illegal moonshine from his friends’ caravan, has a bad reaction and contorts on the ground, he is alone while the show goes on. When Destiny comes for him, she turns him into one of the animals he has loved all his life, to fight back against the cruel ringmaster and to be free.

A year later, a hunting accident in the forest claims the lives of a boy and his mother. Bambi adored the outdoors and exploring the woods, with his mother always reminding him to be careful. While he and his mother are out walking, the boy picks up a rifle he found on the ground. His mother tells him to be careful and to put it back down, but he accidentally shoots her in the heart. Panicking, he darts through the woods to find help, unable to find the path in his frantic worry, but trips and falls down a ravine, hitting his head on a rock. As Destiny tends to him, she finds that Bambi understands that his mother is dead and is adamant that she can’t come back. Destiny takes this in mind, but is still heartbroken when she has to separate them again. However, she does give Bambi an opportunity to grow into the man his mother always knew he would be.

During the summer of 1942 three children in London are going to be sent to the countryside after a heavy bombing raid. Charlie, Carrie and Paul Rawlins imagine what their new home will be like. Charlie wants adventure and to fight the evil Nazis. Carrie simply wants a happy family, having already lost their parents in the intense raids eighteen months earlier. Paul wishes for magic, just like in the books and films he adores. When the bombs hit the night before they are to go and all three children perish, Destiny gathers them up and soothes their troubled brows. She grants them all three of their hopes and dreams, creating a wondrous time filled with delight.

Adopted by a cruel woman in the Louisiana swamps, Penny is mistreated horribly and told that no-one else would want her. As such, the girl is sitting out on the decks of the woman’s houseboat when she slips and falls, hitting her head on a rock and drowning quickly. Destiny comes to Penny, giving her a chance to overthrow the callous and greedy woman who only adopted her for benefit money, letting Penny escape with the help of unlikely friends and receiving a life she always wanted.

After a man’s wife and daughter are killed in a massacre in waterlogged Third World country, he stops caring about his own safety. When he is killed in a fight not long after, Destiny visits Drax and tells him that she can give him his family back. But Drax tells her that he knows they are dead and cannot come back. So she attempts to try to give him a new family, one made of friendship and filled with adventure, in places far grander than he could have ever believed possible.

In the summer of 1995 two bodies lie in the wreck of a car that has been hit head on during a crash. Nick Fury has seen horrific sites abroad during his time in the army, but this is where his story should have ended. But Destiny sees his intuition and his ability to stay calm under pressure and thinks that he should have a chance to make his deceased father proud. She makes Fury the leader of the greatest secret organization the world has ever seen. Destiny glimpses Fury’s friend in the passenger seat. Maria Hill is a competent woman with a firm head on her shoulders. Destiny decides that she can join him.

During the 1990s there is civil unrest in the undisputed country known as Kosovo. People are killed every day, by bombs and bullets. One of these many victims is Wanda Maximoff, a young girl who is killed by a shell hitting their house whilst she and her family are watching her favourite sitcom. Wanda accepts death even at this young age. Destiny cradles the girl and tells her that while she cannot completely bring her familyback, Wanda can grow into adulthood and have the love she has always wanted. Wanda’s mind is too deeply rooted in tragedy to comprehend happiness, which makes Destiny’s attempts difficult. Her desperation to be accepted and to hold onto a loving family only seem top cause misery for those around her. But soon the girl is given a life she finds reasonable.

The terrible day in September 2001 that shaped the coming years is one such event that makes Destiny wonder if there will ever be happiness on Earth. She tends to many, many victims that day and in the coming days, weeks and months. But one particular story stays with her. Mia Thermopolis was the overworked child of a single mother. Mia used to read fairy tales when she was younger and wish that a fairy godmother would come and make her a princess. She had gone to the towers that morning to drop off her mother’s lunch, as she had yet again forgotten it. Mia had been going up in the elevator when it started and was therefore unable to escape. When Destiny arrives for her, she grants Mia the opportunity to be a princess in a land far, far away, just like the fairy tales she loved so much.

It is when Destiny is called to the island of Kauai in the Pacific Ocean that she notices she knows this young girl, cut down too soon by an accidental overdose of ecstasy left out by an ignorant social worker. Destiny remembers the dream she gave young Nani Pelekai and realizes that this is her little sister Lilo. Lilo’s desperation to have a family, an ‘ohana, to put everything in its place as she wanted to be after the death of her parents and sister, Destiny decides to give the girl her sister’s dream. Perhaps seeing alien wonders through a child’s eyes could help her to grow.

In the Colorado Rockies, in the middle of a wooded area, lies a summer camp. Destiny sees that a young boy has died in a drowning accident. Still a young boy, as he sees himself despite his Bar Mitzvah a few weeks ago, Destiny comes up to him as his body is lain out on the sand. To her surprise, when Destiny peeks inside his mind she sees the bus accident that she attended a few months ago. Ron lost the love of his young life on that bus, the girl who defended him when he was bullied in elementary school. As Destiny attempts to create a life where the two lovers will develop a relationship, she notices that Ron still clings onto childhood. Destiny soothes him, telling him that he can become a man if he wants to, but Ron does so very slowly, all the while trying to show Kim his feelings. By the time she has finished, Destiny leaves the two of them embracing after saving the world and graduating high school, the final event in a child’s journey to adulthood.

Two brothers die of exposure in the Appalachian Mountains after they are left there by harsh foster parents. The older brother is disabled and can only speak a few words, while the snarkier, younger one goes off to find food, hoping that those supposed in charge of them will come back soon. But the night draws on and the two boys hold each other close in this dark forest. As the older one’s eyes close and the younger brother places his only toy, a stuffed raccoon, on the ground by a log, he pleads for his brother to stay with him. When Destiny finds the two boys, the younger one has frozen to death beside his friend’s body. Disgusted by the ignorant people who should have taken care of them, Destiny offers them a new chance. Both boys look up at the stars as she gathers them, turns them into creatures other than human and grants them a new family, one they built themselves with other lost souls.

It is in New York City that Destiny finds a father and young daughter, dead of a gas leak in their apartment building. Robert and Morgan are used to tragedy, Destiny discovers, as Morgan’s mother had died a few years ago and the woman Robert had been dating had recently died on the operating table while trying to donate part of her liver. Morgan’s head is still filled with fairy tales and talks of happy endings. Robert knows the ugly truth; that fairy tales don’t come true and life is hard and grim. Destiny decides to help Morgan receive the happy family and magic she deserves, while giving no-nonsense Robert a chance of new love and the joys that life can offer. How sad, Destiny admits, that this joy can only come when the two are gone.

In the slums of India Destiny comes across an American doctor lying on his bed, his gun having clattered to the floor. Bruce Banner had been a mean drunk, just as his father had been. The doctor had woken up from one of his blackouts one morning to find that his girlfriend had left him. Bruce had tried to contact her father, only to be threatened with a restraining order. Bruce, in denial, had put this episode behind him and tried to better himself by going to India to help the sick. But voices in his head criticized him for every little thing he did wrong. That he was going to turn into a monster like his dad. That wherever he went, he would always be feared. Bruce believes that he will never be free. As Destiny finds him, she realizes that she cannot change his feelings. So she alters him somewhat, to make him into both a monster and a man, where there is no difference. This still unsettles him, so she creates a journey where he will learn to be accepted for who he is and to bring peace to both sides of himself.

A man who has lost his entire family in a home invasion kills himself not long after. On that day, Clint Barton had been teaching his daughter archery when he had heard a scream coming from the house. Running back over to help, he was hit with a bullet in the stomach and left for dead. His physical wounds could be healed, but his mourning spiraled into depression. When Destiny comes for Clint now, in the same room where his wife and sons died, she notices his longing to save others. While she admits that his family will not be entirely safe, this time around he will have the chance to bring them back himself, as well as be the hero he felt he had failed to be.

A car crash in Upstate New York draws Destiny’s attention. The driver, a doctor from New York, is not normally the sort of person that Destiny would try to help. But when she sees his character and decides to change him to someone better, he picks up on her magic. Stephen Strange has never believed in magic, but he now begs Destiny to teach him. She bluntly replies no, but then chooses to show him a world beyond his wildest dreams and unlike anything he has ever believed in. Destiny lets him be a part of a world where his hard work pays off and he becomes the best he can be.

Destiny creates the most wonderful stories for those robbed of life. She will carry on doing this until the end of time and until there is no more suffering, no more fear, no more anguish.

Destiny comes to those from all walks of life, from all situations and to those with different faiths and dreams. For Destiny can make their dreams come true and in ways beyond imagination.

Notes:

I think I've finished my 'Destiny' series. I created this for afterandalasia, but I am glad that so many people have enjoyed it.

It was impossible to translate Jane Foster's name into Anglo-Saxon English, so I left her name out. While I am Wiccan and this is why I did not create a 'Destiny moment' for Thor or Loki, which is why I compromised with Jane, people have claimed to be descended from gods. Our current queen is descended from a Viking who claimed to be the son of Woden (Odin), so I decided that that was good enough.

The Dumbo story was a little difficult to do. I wanted to keep the Crows, as aside from Timothy the mouse they were the only characters to be kind to Dumbo, so I purposely didn't state Dumbo's race in this story. On a related note, I made Wanda from Kosovo even though geographic-wise - and judging by her accent - Sokovia seems to be in the Poland-Czechoslovakia area because it was a conflict that would have gone on during Wanda's childhood.

By the way, defining racism as being someone with a different skin color is a fairly modern viewpoint and an American one. I'm not exaggerating; look up the histories of Ireland and Poland or the boiling hotpot that was Turn of the Century New York with Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrants hating each other and being hated by 'real Americans'. Or the near-millennium of the love-hate relationship between England and France. Or the treatment towards the Flemish or the Huguenots. Or the Turks and Kurds or the Armenian Genocide, the first genocide of the twentieth century.

I'm not excusing any of this, I am just explaining that racism isn't as - ironically - black and white as it seems. I just try to entertain and educate without being preachy or failing to do the proper research.

TAKE THAT, CHRIS CHIBNALL!

Sorry, where was I? Oh, yes.

Anyway, enough rambling. I hope that you found reading this to be an experience.

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