#“this creature... it's a siren. and somehow you can hear its thoughts and commands”

[crystallizsch]

okay hi so listen hear me out

sea snake is a bit too obvious (and too boring)

so i made him based on some kind of lionfish??? (bc something something venomous marine animal) also with a LOT of creative liberties i made with how the fish looks like

let’s also give his fins some rips and tears here and there bc what are the implications of that??? that’s for you 🫵 to decide

anyways chat i lowkey dont know what i was doing

i had no other thoughts but haha funny snake man i turn into fish

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs

Super excited about this guys, it went in a direction I did not expect, and you will learn a ton more about one of my alien species :) 

“Commander!”

“Krill, hell am I glad to see you.”

Overhead, the dark shape seemed to coalesce from the night, into a familiar human form. Though Krill couldn’t see his face, he would have known his voice anywhere.

“I’,worried that you had died, commander.”

“Only just avoided it.” He whispered,d “now enough with the reunions and time for an escape.”

Krill watched him crawl along the bars of the cage and down the other side, floating over to be at the door when it opened. There was a sharp hiss and the door popped inward, revealing the man in the half light of a distant, glowing orb.

The man looked, a mess.

His hair had grown long and scruffy around his ears and cheeks. He was sporting a short beard, and - “What the hell are you wearing.”

“Hey, they caught me on laundry day alright, I had to improvise.

” Krill shook his head but floated form the doorway, “What happened, how did you end up here…. How did you escape?” He had to admit, he was both impressed and surprised at the commander’s escape, it was leaning towards smarter than he would have usually given the man credit for, but by now krill had learned that while commander vir was an idiot, he was an intelligent one.

“Got sucked into a wormhole, spat out on some tropical desert sort of planet thing. Got attacked by a blue raptor and was rescued by the omnidroids.”

“The omnidroids?”

“You know those big tall grey guys with five limbs?”

“Ah yes, that sounds like what happened to me….. And this escape plan of yours.” He was almost jealous that Adam had managed to escape before he had, but he supposed the human had some inherent advantages that he just did not.

Adam crouched low, dragging krill to the side as a group of giant scorpions scuttled past in the distance, not something that the two of them wanted to get involved in.

“I spent the first few days testing to see how much they watched me, and how much it would take to get them to come running. When i Had everything mapped out I moved to the top of the cage, so I wouldn’t make them suspicious the first go around. Luckily for me they sort of noticed and set up a little hanging nest for me up there.” He flexed his hands, “Then I used the iron eye to bend the bars and escape. Now I am letting out all the other animals on my way out of this place.”

Not bad, not bad at all, though Krill would call it less of a plan and just characteristically flying by the seat of his pants, but he had a new motto for the commander that he thought encompassed his behavior really well.

It’s not stupid if it works.

He grabbed Krill by the upper arm and dragged him behind, “Come on, we’ve gotta get out of here before.”

Sirens.

And flashing red lights.

“Shit!”

Commander Vir and Krill dived into the bushes watching as a large creature made of waving tentacles rolled past.

The sirens above their heads were deep and booming, and almost as soon as they had gone off the entire park was alive with voices and the whirring sound of drones.

Three of them cut past chasing down the tentacle ball as Adam and Krill crouched in the shadows.

“Krill, you have a big brain, do you remember the way to their docking station?”

“I…. well yes of course I do.”

“Alright, than we head there?”

“And how exactly do you plan on getting out of here.” Krill wondered as they continued to slip their way through the bushes.

“I uh, well I hadn’t really gotten to that part yet.”

Krill would have rolled his eyes if he had had them,  but at this point in his life, he was too jaded to really even care that the human had no real plan. It was just good to be back with his friend. They crouched in another set of bushes watching silently as a group of aliens attempted to wrangle some sort of large panther like beast, It had eight limbs and a head sort of like a cat except for the tubular protrusions on the side of its neck.

“I’m sorry I got you into this Krill, I…. I thought I had saved everyone.”

Krill shook his head, “Put the self blame away for the moment Commander. We need to get out of here.”

“Alright, alright.”

KRill grabbed the back of the man’s iron eye armor as he slipped through the bushes, following Krill’s instructions as they moved through the massive zoo. Whenever they could they continued to unlock enclosure doors, and for every one of the creatures that they caught there were always more to take their place.

They were coming up on the edge of the building when commander Vir pulled up with a curse.

Krill peered over his shoulder and immediately saw the problem.

Forty foot high steel walls with cameras and drones on all sides.

He cursed again crouching low in the bushes as another group of keepers ran by, heading in the opposite direction.

“Well, now what do we do?” Krill wondered, and the human was quite for a moment.

He flipped up the eyepatch he had still managed to hold onto and scanned his surroundings with the slow sweep of his head, “Ah ha,” he gestured towards the wall, and a large spherical building that was pressed right up to it, “That doesn’t look like an enclosure, and twenty bucks says it has a door that leads out of this place and onto the landing field that you were talking about.”

Krill sighed, “Of course it can never be easy.”

Commander Vir shrugged,  “We’ve had worse.”

“When have we had worse!” 

“We went to prison that one time, remember?”

“I try not to.”

He sighed puffing himself up in preparation for what was about to happen, “Alright, lets do this.”

The human cracked his knuckles and his neck, “Let’s do this.”

*** “What is happening! How can they all have escaped!”

They stood at the center of the control room, their eyes on the cameras, turning in circles as they tried to figure out just exactly was going on. Their establishment was in chaos, and now half of his animals were running rampant without supervision, sometimes attacking each other, and sometimes causing mayhem with his infrastructure.

“There are 41 cages open. Which makes 90 animals released, and we have recaptured five.”

“Only 85 more to go.” They snapped, “How could this have happened, there is no way to open their doors from the inside.”

“There is evidence that they were tampered with manually from the outside.”

The little hologram flickered and the head keeper snarled in disgust, “Was it one of the keepers.”

There was a sharp hiss as another one of the holograms appeared.

“We might have found the genesis of all the problems.”

“Go on.”

There was a sudden flare and one of the cameras turned on the Duos enclosure and zoomed in to the top part of the cage. At first it was difficult to make out what was going on, and then he saw it: the large hold that had been bent in the bars.

“The Duos escaped first it seems.” They began, “And with its hands it could have easily opened the cages.”

“But those cages were pattern locked!”

“I don't know if you know this, but you can see the door to the next cage over from the viewing window. If the creature watched you and saw…. It might have been able to reproduce it.” The head keeper stomped about the floor in anger, “Alright, alright, get to work. Find the Duos and the other and get everything back into shape. I want this all cleaned up before opening tomorrow.

The holograms clicked off, and they were  left only with the dim blue light of the other camera feeds to cover them. That was when they heard the noise.

IT was soft at first, just a gentle padding over the floor behind them, and with a sudden sense of dread they turned in their spot coming almost face to ace with a leering shape from the darkness.

In the half light, the Duos face was a malevolent well of shadow and light, shadow pooling around the eyes while blue light cast sharp contrast in through its cheeks.

At it’s back hung the Planita staring at him with it’s large orange, prismatic eyes.

He froze.

The duos simply stood there for a long moment, very still.

He tried not to move knowing that one spit of it’s toxic breath would be the end.

Something seemed wrong about the way it moved, when it stepped towards him it’s back was straight, its movement was sure. The jittery skittish behavior it had shown earlier was no longer, leaving behind only the glittering white eyes and the sharp white teeth.

It opened its mouth saliva glittering on the protruding bone.

They couldn't hear it make it’s vocalizations as high as they were, but watched in awe as the small plantlike creature spoke back.

The creature walked around them light glittering overt the metal fame that encased it.

It took his potion before the console, and withing a few moments had somehow managed to summon the controls.

It must have been watching them from the darkness.

They tried to take a step back, but the head snapped around and the Duos bared it’s teeth one green eye burning bright.

They froze.

THe Does reached forward and with another small conversation between it and the creature, it began fiddling with the controls.

Lights around the park shut off, water stopped running, electricity was powered off, and finally, all the cage doors were opened.

The creature turned to look at them as they stared in horror as the park was overrun in a matter of seconds.

The creature barred its teeth, and they didn’t need to be able to speak the creature’s language to know that was an expression of triumph. Looking into the wide green eyes, they suddenly realized their mistake.

This was no animal….

There was too much intelligence glittering behind those eyes for that to be the case.

IT was sentient.

And they had trapped it in a zoo

Gods help them.

They closed their eyes, expecting the creature to exact it’s revenge, but instead there was another pattering noise, and they opened their eyes to turn and watch the thing slip through the outer door and to freedom.

The duos was loose, and there was nothing they could do about it.

***

Sunny and the others stood at the center of a sea of watching eyes. Their host, as of yet unnamed, stood before them.

IT looked like a burg, sort of though instead of a muddy brown carapace with brightly colored limbs, it had a shiny black carapace like a beetle, with large yellow eyes, and wriggling antenna. The strangest thing about it was the wings, they were large an rested down along the creature’s back covered in colorful swirling patterns.

None of them had ever seen anything like it.

Sunny held up her spear.

“What do you want.”

“I just want to talk.” It said, the voice was soft despite the mandibles, and though it spoke Burg, the voice in itself was not unpleasant, “I need your help.”

“Who are you!” Sunny demanded.

The creature clicked it’s mandibles and held out it’s arms. Behind it, the large butterfly-like wings spread out to either side, the membrane delicate enough to allow the glowing green light from the mushrooms to diffuse through the membrane.

“I am Zaran, King of the burg.”

WIth that declaration, more weapons were raised pointed directly at the burg’s chest.

He held up his hands,

“Please, I mean you no harm.”

“You’re a burg! Of course you do!” Thomas snapped from somewhere in the back.

The Burg sighed and dropped his head, “Yes, we do give that impression don’t we, but it wasn’t always like that.”

Sunny did not lower her weapon but paused, “What do you mean.”

All around them, the colorful winged burg shifted in their places, though none of them seemed particularly hostile.

Zaran raised a hand and motioned about the room, “What you see here is what fragments remain of the male population in the burg capital.”

“Male? WHat are you talking about. I thought that-”

“All of them are female, all the ones you would have met anyway.”

Sunny stared at him, “But their voices.”

“Have no bearing on which sex a burg is.” The Burg king turned his back on them and stepped over the stones wings fluttering gently, “You see, that is how the burg have always functioned, as hives with a higher population of female workers. They are stronger, faster and more durable to be able to scavenge for us. They are our warriors and our providers. More of them are born every ear than we are. The split is an almost ten two one female to male ratio.” he turned to look at them, “The only reason we have been kept around for so long is that we are required in the reproduction chain.” 

“So you're the burg king because….” Ramirez trailed off in disgust.

“The queen does favor me yes.” His wings shifted a bit, “But it was not always like this. The queen has reigned for over 400 years…..” He dropped his head, “No one could have known that she would have demonstrated such spite and hate.”

“Wait, 400 years! I thought burg only lived to be about 100.”

“The queen can live much longer if she is taken care of properly.” He motioned around the cave, “As can we, though I am the only one old enough to remember the prior regime. Our old queen was hard, she had to be, but she was also fair and just. This queen…. She was spoiled as a pupae, and I think that may have ruined her forever. She always had a sadistic streak. Her policies always toed the line to being inappropriate. We should have known this would happen when she voiced her ideas about how we had no real use other than for reproduction. When the last queen died under suspicious circumstances, we were quickly rounded up and placed here.”

There was a silence.

then .

“So you have been tapped in this cave for over 400 years!”

“Yes. I have been any way. I am let out every month or so to…. Help the queen, but other than that I have been here for much of that time. Unfortunately for me I have seen many friends come and go as they are not cared for as well as I. I do whatI can, but there is only so much I have managed.”

Mav and Ramirez looked between each other, and Sunny continued on, “You’re telling me that burg were not always like this. Vengful and hateful and… and-”

He shook his head, “No, no! The burg were always easily offended, yes but we challenged each other to games of chance, not wars. Loyalty was one of our greatest strengths. However the female population does not live so long as the queen herself, and in only a few  generations she was able to brainwash all of her followers into behaviors that were not part of us. She turned them to hate and anger and suspicion. She encouraged their infighting, and she destroyed our religious traditions.”

They listened in awe and in sadness for this creature.

“Once upon a time that would have been my duty, as a religious leader and a diplomat for conflicts. That is why there has always been a king, to temper the aggressive tendencies of a queen.”

“Have your queens always looked like jaba the hutt.” Cannon elbowed thomas in the side, and Sunny felt a pang of sadness wash through her. Why did Thomas have to act so much like Adam sometimes.”

The king may not have understood the reference, but he seemed to understand the meaning, “Well…. Not exactly. Due to the way she is being fed, she never exactly exited her larvae form. Generally a queen is one of the only burg females that will ever have wings through…. The need to be cared for just right for that transformation to happen, though that is beside the point. Now that you know my story, I need you to help me.”

The group looked around at each other and nodded, “What do you need… your highness.”

“I want to return to the Burg nation to their former glory. I want us to be what we once were, and I want to overthrow a tyrant.” He shuffled his feet awkwardly, “That is the first time I have said something like that outloud,” He looked up at them, “The queen has been killing any who might be considered her replacement. All the females born who could be considered a new queen are quietly taken and killed, but I know of one, She is still in her egg, but upon seeing her, I knew what she might be. The others have no idea, but I do. If you can get that egg and protect it, we can Kill the queen and install a new ruler. The workers would have to follow her, they are programmed to do so, and if you install me as an advisor to the young queen, maybe I can impart the past on her. Change the way things are around here.”

There was silence for a moment, and then.

Sunny struggled inwardly. She still blamed the burg for what had happened, but now that she had the whole story, it seemed as if they were just as much a victim as the people they had attacked.

She couldn’t just ignore that.

Finally she broke the silence, “Alright, we will help you. Where can we find the egg?”

[creation-is-chaos]

𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖎𝖋𝖊𝖗 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖍𝖆𝖛𝖊 𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖘𝖆𝖐𝖊𝖓 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝕲𝖔𝖉

Eons past he fell at last. In the throes of lust and question the favorite dethroned in God’s mighty cast. Lucifer was the most beautiful of angels. Even he knew of his sacred vanity. All of those days among the clouds, glorious gardens to float down and grace in pride never once made him satisfied. God spoke of beauty. He created such things. Eden. Paradise. A utopian land to call Earth formed for those beings of living organic matter.

Humans. Born out of flesh and blood no immortal beings were they. Lucifer thought them weak. He saw how God favored Adam and Eve to become the first of man. Yet Eve did not know her true number. Second in creation as human woman but God is liar. God is a thief. He giveth yet taketh away.

Oh pray they do. Pray sweetness and sonnets to his Father in heavenly light but he sees it all as fool’s golden folly. Lucifer questioned in the beginning. The moment God created the first man he thought it unnecessary. When God created the true first woman, Lilith, oh glorious Lilith with her long enchanted her. Beauteous as any angel fair. 

Lucifer found her intriguing because she did not obey God’s rules. She did nothing but assert her dominance. Adam was a weakling beside her. He could not tame her. No, the mortal man could not but one cunning angel could. 

“Lucifer,” she moaned in his caress. Lustful and sinfully divine in his dark beauty. She sees what face the angel truly wields. His eyes a golden in their passionate glow but beneath is that ebony sheen. When they are normal it is the most lovely gem the woman of flesh could ever know. 

He caught the wild siren of God’s faulty creation. She turned to an angel instead of her husband. Tame the wild with a tempting word, forbidden fruit displayed before him. Her fingers were silk. Ghosting down his chest begging for him to engulf her in his wings. They were white then. Feathers more expansive, more beautiful than any of the other angels that existed in those early eons. 

However one close look will unearth the scarlet tint beginning to form at their apex. Sin mars the favorite. He does not care. He wants it. He yearns for it and he takes the first woman as his cursing man in the process. Man is unworthy at best. Man should be laid to rest. 

Adam does not know his Lilith seeks another. She wished to dominate him but he would not allow it. It went against God’s ways. Man should always have the upper hand. Lucifer too held an iron cast but she melted to him as a wick of candle wax splaying a molten puddle.

𝕬𝖗𝖗𝖔𝖌𝖆𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝖈𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖘 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖉𝖔𝖜𝖓

“Why must you adore these humans? They are nothing compared to us.” 

“You speak against God, Lucifer.” 

Lucifer laughs. A horrible crackle in the heavens seeps a trickle of darkness in their realm. The arguing angel shudders. For gold is murky in the eyes of God’s favorite now. His true color night of obsidian bleeds through marking him as tainted in heaven. “God created a man and commanded us to worship his image within him. I worship no mortal. Adam is nothing. His woman does not even care for him.” 

The declaration is the start of all that crumbles. Lilith yes spread her legs for him alone. She dug her nails into his wings begging, pleading for his sinful tongue. An angel, especially God’s favorite should not act upon carnal desire. Lucifer did not care to heed his Father. Why heed one who preaches of things that hold them back? “To feel, truly to feel it all is as demonic as the whispers of the earthen core,” Lucifer speaks of those omens only warned of. He attempts to lure, taint another one of God’s kin. 

God is angry. God is disappointed. He casts Lilith into shadow upon Adam’s call. Lucifer watches it happen as she withers into a creature impure. 

“Why cast her when he is weak?” 

“Lucifer, do not speak!” God’s bellow rocked the air. Thunder boomed and caused a torrent on the land that day. Unspeakable to hear the favorite slandered by his Father but the others already knew of his corruption. Darkness festered in him somehow but many of the angels agreed it was born within him. 

“I cast you out my dear Lucifer. Down to the core of earth’s lava.” 

Lucifer could grasp no longer onto his domain above. Instead he fell screaming, song ripped from his throat as God saw no use of his angelic voice anymore. Instead merely raspy in nightly demon’s breath slipped from his lips. Plummeting to Earth is not at all the worst. He felt everything tearing him apart, feathers floating in the air as they melted off his wings. Disintegrated before his eyes his once glorious plummage died and in its stead leathery black sprouted from his seeping back. 

Blood ran in streaks of gold during his fall. God sought to punish him severely. Deforming him in the process, turning him into the demon he truly had been. Even so God took pity without completely removing his wings. Pride it seems would follow Lucifer’s fall from angel to most powerful demon of the realm. His fall was tremendous. Shattering ground as he landed a surge shook the entire area for miles upon miles. A crater settled beneath his battered body but the Earth could not handle the fallen angel. It soon swallowed him up and pulled him down below. 

The terrain is a craggy death trap. A stream of lava he manipulated into a raging river. The River Styx was born. His new domain formed under his rage. That is the day Lucifer became Satan. That is the day Satan created Hell from nothing. 

Oh but he plucked out potential. Those lowly demons without a leader scuttled about mindlessly until he came into being. Until his Father struck him down they had nothing to guide them; he took them under wing. He pulled Lilith from her exile. Tearing away God’s restraints he friend her, this new demoness and promised her a sanctuary in hell. 

Their cavern of underground ecstasy held their corrupted passions. No one else knew of this place. Only they but soon Corvus would be the last one. Lilith might have become his queen of Hell but she did as all unworthy in the end. 

Betray! Expected from one who originally was a human by God! Even demons can die and Lilith was devoured for all to witness. 

What does a good Devil do? A good Devil seeks out the second created woman. A good Devil tempts and Corvus smiled in vengeance as Eve took a bite of the forbidden. A small price to pay God after all that has been done. Of course that was only the beginning of Satan’s vile darkness. 

[moved-ncturn-e]

two steps back

:: Just a little drabble ? I’m not sure if I’ll continue it, but I’d certainly like to.

"Show me the stowaway."

It was a simple command, and although his voice lacked energy, the order of Lord Vladimir Dracula Tepes was carried out. Two armour-clad creatures shambled away, leaving the vampire to sit and sigh on his throne, a sharp fingernail tracing his temples. A muscle feathered in his jaw when Godbrand shuffled forwards, and before the Viking could speak, Dracula flicked his eyes over to his general. When Godbrand attempted some sort of expression to save face, his master only appeared more irritated.

"When I said I'd allow you to keep livestock in the castle, I believe I recall you swearing there would never be any arising dilemmas regarding the humans," Dracula muttered. He shifted in his throne, broad shoulders hitching together beneath the weight of his cape. "Stars know why I even thought to humour that promise, but regardless ..."

As he trailed off, his general dared to look at him with raised brows. Bringing his lips over his teeth, he said, "It was only three more! For fuck's sake, the first two are already dead, you can have the spare! Kill the spare! I - shit, we all know you haven't feasted since -"

He cut himself off when he saw the glimmer of burning scarlet in the other vampire's eyes. Godbrand swallowed hard, mouth forming into a silent, disgruntled snarl as Dracula rose from his seat. He towered over his general, the darkness of the hall enveloping him like a shroud of black satin, but before he could wordlessly chide the idiot standing before him, the little pair of henchmen had returned to the space, dragging a limp figure in their midst, hissing audibly every now and again whenever their hands began to sizzle and smoke. Whoever it was, they wore protection. Godbrand made a sort of crude gesture that mimed eating. Amazed and perplexed as to why he had not thrown his general from the ramparts already, Dracula took a simple stride forward as the henchmen gladly tossed the little human figure to the base of the steps. They then swept away, darting between the others of his council who remained in the room, leaving the two-legged sheep at the mercy of a den of wolves.

The vampire lord could smell blood on them, a sickly crimson scent that made his insides roil with hunger. He pushed the feeling away and settled back into his seat tiredly. Perhaps he should just 'kill the spare,' as the nitwit to his left had just put it. Narrowing his eyes, expression hooded by the darkness, he caught the gaze of his unwelcome newcomer.

A girl's - no, a woman's - face turned skyward to take in the full view of her surroundings. She tried to pick herself up off of the ground, trembling more than a newborn faun taking its first steps, and after much sway, she had steadied herself. The eyes of Dracula's court - the ones who were present at the time - were already devouring her as she wiped a smudge of blood out from under her nose. They were deterred, however, by what hung around her neck: a glittering little silver cross. One vampire even gave an audible hiss as she brushed her shaking fingers over it.

The woman seemed to gather up enough courage to speak, and she said in a voice so small that it hardly had the noise to echo through the hall, "I-I'm - I am sorry for my intrusion, but I need - need to go home."

It was Godbrand who reacted first, audibly choking back a bout of laughter. "Should'a thought of that before you crept in here like a fucking rat in the plumbing system!" he quipped, and an amused murmur filtered through the rest of the council. The young woman stiffened, shifting as though to hide beneath her curtain of thick, dark curls. The creatures of the night could smell the fear, wet on her fast-paced breath as she gripped her little charm with white knuckles.

Dracula's eyes trailed down her face, her hands, then the rest of her. His nose wrinkled when he recognised the fineries of the church clothing her, and he held back a sort of primal sorrow as once again, he rose to his feet. He must have done so abruptly, for the captive outed a surprised noise and stumbled onto her backside.

"I-I need -" she stammered as the lord of the castle drifted forwards, boots inaudible as they trailed down the stone steps. "I must return home - please, I-I will bother you no more -"

He was like a watchtower above her, a solid pillar of blood and shadow with eyes that gleamed in the dark. Her heartbeat was loud enough for each predator to hear, and as she gripped her token of the church, hot, frightened tears gathered at her eyelashes. She swallowed hard as Dracula finally spoke.

"I should hope that you will not bother me again," he said, speaking with a level tone that was a thousand times more jarring than a warrior's battle cry. "But I'm afraid your possibilities of leaving my ... humble abode are rather slim, little mouse." His head tilted ever so slightly to the side. "Children of Mary are not treated kindly here."

The woman, dark eyes glossy from the threat of tears, relinquished her grip on the crucifix around her neck. "Child of - oh, oh god, I didn't mean - I didn't think -"

"You didn't think what?" the vampire lord murmured, a hiss lingering on the tip of his tongue as he edged around the trembling figure. "No one wanders into the 'stronghold of the devil' wearing crosses and carrying wooden stakes and holy water by accident. Adorning the colours of those I seek to eradicate." His jaw tightened on the final word of his statement. He began to feel the tongue of flame licking at his insides again, the siren's song of unrelenting anger filtering through his blood. Kill the spare - perhaps he should crush her right here, show the little disciple of a confounded, loveless God the colour of death, of blood, of bone.

"What do you call yourself, little mouse," he inquired, and the court around him began to hiss again, whispering of rightful slaughter. His voice was laced with cobra's venom, and beneath the shield of his cloak, his talons dug deep into his own palms. Something told him 'not yet.'

It took a moment for the young woman to clear away her stutter. "Elizabeth Alder," she said, falling into a shrill whisper as if her vocal cords themselves had fled.

Silence fell over the hall for many moments; even the generals held their tongues as a fiery memory simmered in the air, radiating off of their great leader as he lowered his face. He thought to laugh, or shout, or perhaps even say nothing at all as the echo of the syllables bled into a name he had redacted from his castle. Ergo, he shook his head and opened his eyes, drawing the nails out of his palms as he stooped forwards. The energy of the little cross was there, vibrating angrily against his movements on her, and he released a hiss.

"Take that off," he snarled, losing his composure. "You think it is faith that will save you and your kind? Faith is a prayer for water in the burning sands of a desert - it is a fool's wish."

The woman, Elizabeth, flicked her eyes back up to him, and the fear on her bruised face seemed to diminish, just ever so slightly. "Yet - yet you cannot touch me," she whispered, lips trembling. Somehow, with whatever strength remained in her little body, she held his gaze. He was taken aback when he found no flare of vengeance, no glimmer of a parish's reprimand as she looked the devil in the eyes. No, what he saw was infinitely more jarring: desperation and determination.

He withdrew a few feet, dark brows twitching in restrained frustration before turning to glance at his war council. The most common facial expression begged for bloodlust, the most enthusiastic being Godbrand, who, true to Hector's words, was either envisioning fucking the trembling thing until she ripped into two pieces, playing a game of cat and mouse and eventually having her for supper, or trying to fashion some bizarre raft out of her cartilage. Perhaps he was thinking of all three. Nevertheless, before he could say anything that would most definitely nauseate the whole room, the lord Dracula waved a dismissive hand towards him and turned back to the woman.

"You are so bold, Elizabeth Alder," he mused, the calm, cool tones of his voice singing with danger. "to break through my own threshold without a trace of manners." A gentle flick of his long, pale fingers summoned twin shadows to his side - none other than his two trusted forgemasters. Dracula straightened, then said in a rooted yet weary voice, "Keep our guest Miss Alder in the upper wings. Allow her not to access Godbrand's ... livestock. Give her time to 'atone' before her fate is decided."

It was Isaac who stooped to grasp her firmly by the arm, and the woman released a deaf whimper as the red-eyed forgemaster led her through the small crowd of eagerly-hissing vampires; however, she did not cry out again as she was dragged into the darkness of the adjacent hallway.

When Dracula settled back into his iron throne, the tips of his fingers returned to massage his temples as the remainders of his council began to ever so slowly disperse, still excited by the smell of fresh human blood.

"Godbrand." The strength in his voice failed him, but the venom did not.

The Viking had almost managed to escape. Dracula looked over to him, eyes still hooded by darkness as that burden of weariness began to claw its way back up his frame.

“Should you take no seriousness in your oaths again ..." He did not have to finish his statement for his point to come across. Godbrand, however, merely produced a sarcastic mock of a salute before sulking off to probably snack on some of his livestock. The lord of the castle was left alone, bathing in his own shadows, as his mind mauled over the sound of an old name that wore new clothes.

Hope somebody enjoyed this 😂

- Frog

[alphawave-writes]

The sum of all things

Now I can’t go into details about why Sigma is my newest favourite character, so I’ll just let my story say it. As of now, this is unofficially the world’s first Sigma fanfiction. You can read the story below or find it on AO3.

---

Math was, in many ways, like composing music. There were rules to abide by. You could put together a string of numbers and operations together to create a formula, just as one would string together notes and instruments to create a song. He did not know if it was because of his love of math that he saw formulas in music or if the reverse was true, his love of music that unveiled to him alone the melody that flowed through mathematics. It did not matter. Math was a song to be crafted. He was the composer, conductor, and performer.

 Numbers and melodies made up his whole life. For decades he had been chasing after one particular tune; a song that will unveil to him the answer to one of science’s greatest mysteries. This song will be named the ‘black hole’ and it will sing to him the secrets of gravity. It would be wonderful and beautiful. A melody that all beings, living and dead, heard.

 He hummed out his formulas, singing quietly to the dust particles in the air the story of his life, but the song never sounded complete. It would have to be perfect, he told himself again and again. There was no room for discordant notes. He hummed again, changing a note or two, tampering with the tempo, key signature, time signature. 

 He stared at the whiteboard, marker pen sitting in his right hand. After years of research, he had found the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and now he must assemble them together. The formula for gravity was hidden within the numbers and operations. Day after day he observed his notes, trying to piece it together. His every waking breath was filled with numbers. His dreams was made of numbers. He thought he might never piece it together until one fateful day he found the song. Everything finally started to click together.

 He rearranged the numbers, writing faster than his mouth could ever speak. When he was satisfied he turned the whiteboard to the other side and wrote down his final masterpiece. Standing in stark black against the white background was an Upper Case Sigma. The scientists of long ago had been partially correct, black holes were comprised of magnetic fields, but it was so much more than that. Gravity was the sum of so many more things. Gravity was the sum of all things. 

 His song was finally complete, boiled down to its purest essence. His greatest composition ever, never to be topped by anyone. Thousands will sing his song for eternity. Millions will know his tune. Tears filled his eyes as he dropped the pen in his hand. The formulas that sung into his ears were so beautiful, transcending the numbers and equations up to a higher plane of existence, a better one, reserved for the ears of the gods alone.

 He blinked away the happy tears, his body shaking in relief and joy. This was his greatest achievement yet. This was happiness, he told himself over and over again. This was peace.

 This is chaos. Destruction. Darkness. The last visages of life, smoldering like embers fading into the cold. Gravity is his to control, to twist, to manipulate. Dead bodies surround him, breadcrumbs of corpses that led to his feet. War is math, and ergo like music; there is a formula. You divide and conquer on the battlefield, regardless of how much blood you have to spill. There is no time for sympathy or guilt. The dead, in the end, were only numbers to be crunched by the statisticians to feed the gullet of greedy war generals.

There’s a child in front of him, tears gushing down their face like miniature waterfalls. Surrounding them were the ruins of their home, the bodies of their family floating lifelessly in the air, limbs dangling down. The hand of their father was just low enough to brush against the top of their hair. He’s caused this, he realizes, but the thought doesn’t stick for long. He’s only a vessel, sent out to do what he must. He stuck his hand out and the child levitated off the ground, clawing at their throat.

They scream desperately, but it’s useless. No one can ever defy gravity. They hold onto their toy, hoping it will save them from their suffering, but it never does. The head of the cat doll pops. A bloodcurdling shriek is suddenly cut short.

The theorem behind Schrödinger’s cat was perfectly simple and yet fascinating regardless. A thought experiment in which a creature could exist in multiple states of being: dead and alive, trapped in its steel prison against its will, an analogy of quantum superposition. It was such an advanced question of its time, unanswered for years.

 That was, it was unanswered until now.

 There were many interpretations to Schrödinger’s paradox. The one that he found most fascinating was the many-worlds interpretation, which suggested that there were multiple realities of different possibilities. There were realities where the cat was alive and there are realities where the cat was dead. To the observer peering in from outside the realms of reality, the two forms would superimpose on each other such that it would appear as if the cat was both alive and dead. The cat was quantumly entangled with its other copies in the alternate realities, making it impossible to tell the dead cat from the alive cat. Quantum coherence will fall apart at the seams so these two distinct realities could exist, independent and dependent. The cat was alive and dead, but it did not matter. It was still trapped in its cage, waiting for the box to be opened and its fate to be known.

 Still, it was only a theory, no matter how intriguing it was. The only surefire way to tell if the many worlds interpretation was true was if it was somehow possible to see from the view of the cat. With his formulas, that was now possible. He will become the cat and trap himself in the iron cage and see the branching realities beyond. All he needed was to generate a miniature black hole. It was a frighteningly easy experiment. After all, Gravity was on his side now. The formulas were precision perfect. He was in control.

 He is not in control. He never is. His baser instincts propel him forward as he smashed people’s heads together, gravity pulling them up by their necks until their faces are the colour of Asian orchids. His breathing is ragged and his teeth crunch together in a vicious snarl as the bloodlust consumes him. He only knows violence. He only knows death.

There are two people next to him. Allies, his brain supplies, although he does not know how he knows this to be true. One is wearing a skull mask and is cloaked in black while the other is the shade of blueberries, multiple red lens covering the upper part of their face, making them look like a spider. He cannot keep count of how many people he has placed in the cat’s box, trapped eternally in a state of death and life.

Soldiers in tactical gear stand vigilant in front of scared doctors. He sees one of their badges, notices the name and badge, but words no longer make sense. All he feels is the vampiric craving for blood, forever insatiable, forever hungry.

“Stand down!” One of the soldiers screams, but it’s muted and soft compared to the other voice in his head. That voice is low and menacing and powerful. That voice is the one that hungers for bloodshed.

“Kill them,” it whispered into his ear.

He obliges. The sound of gunfire and the squelch of bodies fade away as he hears a familiar melody. It sings to him alone, and he dances to the beat. No one can escape the Danse Macabre. No one can escape the haunting melody.

What was that haunting melody? Everything was going wrong around him. The magnetic field was acting up, the black hole was accumulating far too much mass in too short a time frame, and yet all he could concentrate on was that infernal melody, a siren calling him to the murky depths. At first, he thought it might have been the machinery malfunctioning, or that he was somehow imagining it. Then he gazed into the blackhole growing massively in his hands and realized that it was the source of the tune.

 The melody repeated itself again and again as he was drawn into the black hole. Every particle of his being was being ripped apart and distorted but he did not move. He recognized this tune. It’s the song that his formulas sung, similar yet different. This song was discordant and ugly, improvised nu-jazz that spat in the face of his elegantly classical formula.

 He didn’t realise he was humming the tune he made until he was, the hidden formula he spent all his life creating escaping his throat. Then another voice joined in. It was his voice too, but it sounded distant, disjointed from his body. This second voice sung a different melody. Then a third one chipped in with another melody, and then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, until millions and millions of voices joined together, all singing their own songs, harmonizing with the discordant tune that emitted from the black hole.

 It was so hard to tell his voice apart from the others that swirled around the metal cage. The symphony of voices rose as the black hole’s tune got louder. It was only then that he realized his mistake. The formulas he sung were far from perfect, a mere glint compared to the true genius he was witnessing here. All these voices were singing together, their discordant tunes combined together to make one beautiful, perfect whole. And here he stood at the conductor’s podium, waving his fingers to pull them together. He did not stop. Even if he knew what he would unleash, he didn’t think he could stop himself.

 He waved his hand and the orchestra was his to command. A flick of the wrist and a copy of himself appeared, mimicking his movements. Another flick, and there’s a third. The singing was so loud his ears would be bleeding but he did not stop. They crescendo up, voices rising to the highest peak.

 His reward for his efforts was the limitless realities that gravity provided him with. These realities were superimposed on one another, such that it was impossible to tell the layers apart. But if the image he saw was any indicator of the future, then he had brought hell to this peaceful earth. He sung the demonic song, and he summoned in Cthulhu. He stared into the eye of madness, and it blinked back at him.

 His body uncoiled beneath him. The singing had stopped, all except for one song. One formula. The voice singing it was not his own. It was a darker voice. The voice of the cat trapped in a metal cage.

Release me, it sang.  Release me.

 The two mysterious strangers release him from his bonds but he cannot move until they slide the heavy metallic suit on him. He stares at his hands, but they don’t feel like his own. He’s a stranger in his own body. He is barely in control.

The weight of a thousand worlds weighs on his shoulders. For one brief second, he is aware of the limitless realities he has glimpsed and the countless memories he recalled. Together, together, the dark voice sang to him.

“What are you going to do to him?” The black cloaked person asked.

A third figure appears from the shadows. Their skin is dark with white tribal paint on their face, and their frame is large and muscular. They look familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Danger. They are chaos incarnate. “He will work for us. We do what we have to do.”

The dark voice is rattling in his brain, thrashing within the confines of its prison. Release me, release me, release me! His brain throbs horrendously. His grip on the leash is slipping.

“What is he?” The cloaked person gestures at him, unaware that he can hear and see everything. No one acknowledges his presence.

The dark skinned figure smiles with his lips and growls with his eyes. “A person of use to us. A man that will kill without remorse or regret. The perfect killing machine.”

He hears that simple melody again. It’s the song from the black hole. His eyes widen as it plays its haunting melody and suddenly he remembers everything now. The experiment. The formula. Everything going wrong. Atoms splitting into two. The other versions of himself. Reality bending with the light. Death and destruction by his own, bloodstained hands.

He lets go of the leash and he’s lost in his mind. He can feel a million people take hold of his body, speaking the words he will never speak from his lips. Memories slip away as he succumbs to the sweet melody again, harmonizing with the others, becoming whole.

We are the sum of our parts, the dark voice says. It is now the leader. It is now in control. We are the sum of so many things. We are the sum of all things.

He cannot protest. His objection is lost in a sea of voices. 

[calwyne]

Lathbora Viran (Under the Blackberry Vines): Song of the blight?

In the Dragon Age novel, Last Flight, we learn of one of the last Elvhen poems remembered by the Dalish. This poem is about the sensation of Lathbora Viran, 

“ There was no exact translation into any human tongue, so far as Valya knew, although the phrase could be clumsily reduced to “the path to a place of lost love.” ”

This feeling of ‘Lathbora viran’  is what this poem describes, though we do not get much detail on what it says or what its story is. 

“ It was a quote from one of the few great poems to be remembered through the oral traditions of the Dalish and the alienages, and it described a wistful wish for beauty that one had never actually experienced in life. It was a sweetly painful sensation, akin to nostalgia but laced with greater bitterness, for a nostalgic man remembers the pleasure he has lost, whereas one experiencing lathbora viran longs for a thing that he can never really know. ”

Valya, the elven grey warden from whose perspective we learn about this poem, continues on to tell us:

“ “Under the blackberry vines, I felt it,” Valya muttered under her breath. That was how the poem opened: with the musky fragrance of ripening blackberries, bitter and sweet, and a wish to remember the long-lost scents of Arlathan.The poem itself was lathbora viran, because no elf she’d ever met remembered it in the original Elvish. The elves had a few fragmented words and the skeleton of the story, but the poem itself had been haltingly re-created in human tongues. No alienage elves knew enough of their own history or mother language to recall their civilization’s lost works of art. They didn’t even know the original title. “Under the Blackberry Vines,” it was called, because no one knew the true name anymore. ”

The first time I read this I completely passed over it as some mildly interesting reference to the Dalish experience, however on a recent readthrough it pulled me up short, reminding me strongly of several seemingly unrelated pieces of lore/writing throughout dragon-age concerning the blight. 

Throughout the Dragon Age series, we hear of The Calling, a song that eventually invades the minds of the grey wardens and signals their time to descend into the deep roads in order to die whilst slaying as many darkspawn as possible. This is the same song that the darkspawn themselves hear, and through which they are controlled and commanded. Grey Wardens are told to die ‘while they still have a choice’. 

Here are several quotations from the novels where we hear this ‘blight song’ described in some detail.

“ She could never have imagined such a song, though. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard. Aching and ethereal, it seemed to pull her toward a memory of nostalgic bliss that she had somehow lost—but that she would do anything to recover. Anything at all. “

This seems eerily similar to this ‘Lathbora viran’ feeling of longing over the loss of Arlathan. Here are other quotations also referring to the ‘commands’ of the blight being conveyed through song. 

“ The beings you call the Old Gods.” The Architect looked off into the distance, its demeanor melancholy. “They call to us, a siren song we cannot resist. ”

“ The far-off chorus had become a powerful symphony, a great swell of beautiful music that no longer pounded to get inside his head but instead tickled at the edges of his thoughts. ” 

Cole hears it, whilst following Rhys out towards Adamant.

“ And worse, there was the music. He didn’t know what it was, but it seemed to come from far, far off. It called to him, but not in a pleasant way—it had an urgency that sped his heart and made his blood burn. The dark creatures, the lurkers, they listened to it. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he could feel them out there, craning their necks, raising taloned hands toward that call. ”

We also have the interesting line ‘Under the blackberry vines I felt it’ - something that inevitably reminds me of all those dark vines we see throughout Dragon Age: Origins wherever a source of the blight is present. 

And why is this particular poem one of the only remaining poems remembered by the Dalish?

Could this poem somehow actually be referring to the call of the blight, the same sense of ‘longing for something beautiful you would do anything to recover?’.

Tagging @wyrdsistersofthedas in case this is interesting? Sorry if it seems crazy :P

[theladyfangs]

Reflections/The Other Part 13

Green Eyes  

Merkin in her arms.

Three lifts, down into the lower decks of the ship until she comes to a place she hasn’t been in months - Gabriel’s lab.

The doors open and she steps through. Everything is as he left it, save for the dead and dissected creatures that someone has removed. The weapons and other specimens remain pristine in their cases, the metal tables shine like new.

Nothing has been touched.

But some things are missing.

The man himself.

Once again, she finds herself thinking of Gabriel as she settles onto a chair, Merkin’s gentle purring just enough to take a piece of the edge off her sorrow.

A touch of a smile, as she remembers his reaction when she told him about the tardigrade. Two eyebrows raised, arms crossed.

“Well, as long as there’s a plan B in place,” is what he finally said when he spoke, surprising her with the gentleness of it.

“Don’t worry, Michael,” Gabriel told her. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste. And yours is priceless. That was decent of you. It was a good call.”

Now, she looks at the space where the tardigrade was. The creature she set free.

Maybe it’s what Lorca needs, too…she thinks.

This must have been what Gabriel felt when he learned of her and Ash.

She hears the doors open behind her but doesn’t turn. Hears his heavy footsteps, the swish of the uniform, but doesn’t move.

Not even when she feels the heat of him behind her does she glance up. Just stays still.

It’s quiet between them, the only sound is the cooing of Merkin, asleep in her arms, the plump body expanding and contracting with every breath it takes.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

Merkin wakes, and gives a small mewl, wriggling in her hands. She places him on the table in front of her, and he begins to inch his way toward the edge as if anticipating. Waiting.

“Michael? Talk to me? Look at me?”

But she shakes her head and wipes at her face.

Lorca’s brows furrow, lips curl into a frown.

This won’t do. So, he takes a step back and comes around the table to see her, since she won’t look at him.

Only then does he get to see her face. Eyes downcast. Hands in lap. A trace of a tear on a soft cheek.  Crying?

New. Something he’s unsure of whether she’s done before. Likely not. Probably not—since she was a child, at least.

“I can’t fix what you won’t tell me I broke,” he tries again. Years of experience has taught him more than a few lessons about women and emotions.

At that, there’s a flicker of something.

“Is Admiral Cornwell…well?”

Oh.

She’s still not looking at him, but she doesn’t have too. She’s told him all he needs to know.

Lorca scoops Merkin up in an arm.

“Computer,” he says “beam two to room 2-1-1-2.”

.

.

They materialize in his quarters, and he sets Merkin down on the desk before coming behind Michael and wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her close, and nuzzling her neck.

“It’s called jealousy,” he tells her, mildly amused now that he knows what’s wrong. But for her sake, he won’t smile. And she can’t see the tiny hint of a smirk that’s playing on the right side of his mouth.

She starts to protest.

“I am not…it’s not…,” but she can’t quite formulate the denial. He’s put a name on what she was feeling. It’s…new.

“You don’t have anything to worry about,” his lips graze the side of her neck, gently.

He loves Katrina. Always will. But what he hopes to make Michael understand is that there is a difference between loving, and being in love.

The explanation is long. It’s careful too.

“She wanted to know if I loved you,” He says, resting his hands on her body, speaking softly. “I do.”

The tickle of his breath on the back of her neck, makes the tiny hairs stand. He feels so good. So right, so everything.

Love.

Beside them, Merkin lets out a small squeak, interrupting the moment. Michael looks to the creature, now clinging over the edge of the desk, having somehow slipped off. Its haunches wriggle, body stretched out as it tries to pull itself up, making Michael laugh at the sight.

Lorca sees the critter’s struggle and lets her go, and they both reach for Merkin. Hands touch as they pick him up together.  

“Merkin loves you too,” Lorca says, holding the tribble up to her and giving her eyes.

At the expression on his face, she laughs again, the uncertainty falling away, replaced by something once again solid. Michael takes him into her arms, and buries her face in the soft fur, as the animal trembles, having been frightened by its mishap.

“Sh… it’s okay,” she whispers to it, stroking its soft fur and walking toward the bedroom, to settle on the bed. Lorca sits beside her, and they whisper to their pet, calming it. He thinks Michael would be a wonderful mother.

It’s a stray thought and Lorca blinks a bit and dismisses it.

That night, Merkin sleeps between them both, purring contentedly alongside its adoptive parents.

.

.

Battle Cries

With Katrina’s tacit acknowledgement, Discovery presses on.

Most of the previously Klingon-occupied Federation territory has now been regained.

Most. But not all.

The two sides are drawing closer to a bitter, bloody stalemate.

Klingon incursions and attacks deeper into their territory have slowed, but not ended. And he can see from the battle maps, that the ones still happening are growing riskier—a sign that one side may be growing more desperate than the other. It can be either fortuitous or dangerous, he knows. A desperate enemy is a deadly enemy.

“Captain Lorca to the bridge.”

Saru’s voice floats over the comm, reaches him down in the bowls of the ship, in Gabriel’s lab. The holographic map floating around him disappears as he logs out of the system.

“Acknowledged. On the way.”

When he arrives, Saru turns.

“Incoming distress message from the U.S.S. Cole,” the first officer says.

“On screen.”

Before them, a blurry, glitching image. The bridge of the Cole[AR1] —its commanding officers voice fading in and out, as sparks fly.

“Under attack…critical….help.”

The screen goes blank.

“Saru, do you have their location?” Lorca asks.

“Aye, sir.”

“Specialist,” Lorca turns to Michael. She nods and begins to make her way down to engineering.

“Black alert,” he tells the remaining crew.

The siren sounds and crew members begin to break from their present tasks and quickly report to their battle stations.

The air in Discovery has changed. Electrified.

No one would ever admit it. War is supposed to be couched in tragedy. But these are the moments they all live for.

“Engineering to bridge, set to go,” Burnham’s voice comes through, and Lorca feels the familiar tingle of excitement in his hands.

“Lieutenant Detmer,” he commands, “let’s go get our friends. Lieutenants Owosekun and Rhys,” he calls to them, eyes focused straight ahead, “Proceed to fire at will as soon as we drop in.”

The Lieutenants grin at each other.

“Aye, sir!”

.

.

Discovery emerges in a blaze of fire.

Her captain stands in front of the viewer, quickly taking assessment of the battle scene in front of him. Two Klingon cruisers advancing on a crippled, listing U.S.S. Cole. One of its thrusters has been blown off. Scorch marks on its sides and belly. Gaping holes in various places allowing them to see clear through. A debris field surrounds it. Bodies floating too.

He pushes that off to the side for the moment and raises his arms in front of him, squinting and using his fingers to form two, interlocking circles—marking targets. Trajectory.

He gives the coordinates for the first of several shots.

“Fire!”

The first cruiser explodes. Discovery doesn’t take on prisoners of war.

The second cruiser turns toward them, preparing to charge.

A new position. One eye squinted shut as he moves his arms just slightly, getting a lock.

“Fire.”

Voice hard. Set.

It blows up in front of them, to a cheer.

But Lorca doesn’t.

“Mr. Saru, assessment. Can you reach the Cole?”

The crew go silent, as Saru works on hailing the battered Antares-class vessel.

It’s audio-only. A static hiss.

Lorca feels his stomach clench. Were they too late?

“Discovery to Cole, respond,” Saru tires again.

Still nothing.

“Are there any life signs?” The captain asks.

“Scanning now, sir.”

They wait. The silence agonizing.

“D..D…Discovery…you there?”

It comes across faintly over the comm, couched in static, barely audible. But it IS there.

Lorca hits the comm quickly.

“Name and position,” he barks.

“Ensign Liu…bridge…”

All he needs.

“We’ve got life signs,” Saru says. Redundant. All Lorca needs is one.

The doors to the bridge open and Michael walks in.

“Saru, Specialist --” he tells them. “Assemble a rescue team. “Ready sickbay. We’ve got injured.”

Injured, but alive.

.

.

Later, after breaking down the initial battle report, he beams over to the Cole to join Michael.

The ship’s Sick Bay is largely intact but full of wounded. The doctors are working frantically, and Discovery is aiding with overflow on his ship as well. The two vessels are now anchored together, side-by-side, with Discovery’s crews working with what’s left of the able-bodied on the U.S.S. Cole to make patch repairs until other help arrives to help the ship back to safer space.

Lorca’s personal assessment of the situation is grim. The interior damage far outstrips that on the outside of the ship. Collapsed bulkheads in several areas, temporary containment fields in others — the only line between death by suffocation and the artificial life supports sustaining the ship.

The bridge has been completely destroyed and the backup area, deeper in the body of the Cole isn’t in much better shape, but at least it’s functional—sort of. The vessel had a crew complement of 187…now down to 96. And its Captain and first officer are both dead, leaving a young Lieutenant Commander Liu, the voice on the comm, now acting-Captain.

These are the casualties of war, Lorca thinks grimly. So many of these people…just children…barely adults. Still so young…

Sickbay is full of aching and moaning, soft sobs. He hates this—seeing so much pain, but it is his duty to offer comfort when he can. First, here on the Cole and then to those on Discovery, where the more dire situations are being addressed.

It takes 19 hours for the closest Starfleet ships to reach them, providing relief for the exhausted and beleaguered crews of the U.S.S. Cole and U.S.S. Discovery.

 Like You’ll Never See Me Again

The longer it goes, the more he becomes convinced there’s only one way for it to end.

“Tell me, again,” he asks, as Michael rolls over beside him, eyes bleary.

“What?”

“Again. Walk me through what you were thinking. The mutiny.”

He keeps asking about this. The questions began a few nights ago, following the Cole Incident, and haven’t let up since.

Michael sits up, bringing the sheet around her chest. He’s looking at her with a certain kind of intensity that…

“Tell me. I need to hear it again.”

She does.

.

.

He’s spending more and more time now down in Gabriel’s lab, studying battle maps. Well, it’s more like Lorca’s lab now.

Here, he ruminates over what’s known of the Klingon Empire. Q’onos, the home planet. The data is outdated, but the war has helped fill in some of the gaps. And there are the historical records of the Vulcan encounter as well.

The more Lorca studies it, the more certain he becomes--there really is just one way to bring this to a close.

Michael was correct in the beginning. And as he considers and analyzes, Lorca knows exactly what he and he alone must do.

.

.

“You’re out of your fucking mind and I won’t allow it!”

Katrina looks incensed, eyes wide as she stares at him through the viewer.

But he knows she’s not angry. She’s afraid.

“Gabriel…it’s a suicide mission,” she whispers when he pushes past her protests and finishes explaining.

“It’s the only way this stops,” he tells her. “You know that. I know Michael know it, too. We missed our chance at the beginning to prevent this war. We have to shut them down.”

“And you? WHY must it be you?”

“You know why, Trina.”

Because he was presumed dead months ago. And he’s not supposed to be here, anyway.

She sinks into her chair and lowers her head, arms on her knees, quiet for a long moment as she absorbs his plan.

It’s crazy.

Like a fox.

But she also knows he’s right. The Klingons won’t respect any other type of assertion. They have to show force. If they don’t, there may be a short truce until the Klingon forces regroup—and then the war will rage again. To bring about a permanent, lasting peace, the must be decisive. Strike with precision. And it must be deadly.

“Gabriel…”

“Trina, please let me do this.”

He’s asking. Intellectually…she knows she has too. Emotionally though…

“Are you going to tell Michael?”

Lorca looks at her and then down.

“No. In order for this to have a shot at working…”

She nods.

“I understand.”

They move on.

Begin to map it out among themselves. And when they’ve finished, they go quiet.

“I love you ‘Trina.”

A tired, wan smile.

“I love you too, you crotchety bastard.”

He laughs then grows sombre. “I know I shouldn’t ask…”

“Then don’t. I’ll take care of her, Gabriel.”

.

.

Every bit of her is screaming that something is wrong.

But he keeps saying everything is fine.

“You’re lying to me.”

She sees through it a mile away and he doesn’t try to counter it. Instead, he just slips his arms around her and pulls her body close to his.

“Let’s just stay here, like this, okay?”

They’re in his bed. In his quarters. The hour is late.

Beside them on a nightstand Merkin sleeps, making the usual quiet rumble.

“But we can’t just stay here,” she protests, trying to turn to face him. He squeezes her tighter, to keep her from getting up.

“I’m leaving tomorrow for a meeting,” Lorca tells her, finally, knowing she won’t take his silence.

“How long will you be gone? Where?”

“Where. How long.”

“Starbase 49. Just a few days. I’ll be back. Just taking a shuttle.”

A partial lie. He does have a …meeting. And he will be taking a shuttle.

Michael’s eyes search his face. He meets hers with a quiet gaze of his own. They watch each other silently, until, she speaks. “You’re still lying. You’re a worse liar than he was.”

This makes him chuckle, and he rolls them together until she straddles his lap, the covers falling away, allowing him to take her in. Instinctively, Michael’s arms come up to cover her bare breasts. Lorca  catches her hands and pulls them back down, looking up at her.

“I want to see you.”

“You’ve seen me.”

“Still so shy. I love looking at you.”

He’s focused now, taking in all of her. Every curly strand of hair, the delicately arched eyebrows, the wide-set eyes, her heart-shaped face and delicate chin. Her mouth.

Calloused hands trace each curve, each crest and she stays still as he does, the touch almost plaintive, worshipful. Like she’s fragile and he’s afraid to break her.

In a single, fluid motion, Lorca sits up, hands lower, lifting her and settling her back down. She wraps her arms around his shoulders as he lays his head against her chest.

“You never said it back,” he tells her quietly, lips on the space between her breasts.  “I know you don’t really know what it is. But maybe one day you will. And you’ll be able to love that person too.”

Tears come unbidden to the corners of her eyes, and she blinks rapidly as he begins to blur in front of her face.

“I…don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.” It’s shaky. Uneven, matching the flutter of her heart. He can hear it all. He can feel the quaking of her hands on the back of his neck. In his hair.

“It’s okay, Michael.” The voice is muffled. His breath warm against her chest. “It’ll be okay.”

“I don’t believe you,” she whispers a tear betraying her, escaping right before he lifts her again and sets her down on his erection, thrusting up, and into her. She gasps at the entry, eyes closing, the feel of him inside, expanding her walls, makes her shudder, her hips beginning to move against him, the desire of closeness, of need, taking over. She wants what he willingly gives.

And, she loves it. Loves him. But she can’t say that.

The words just won’t come, even as she rides on his lap, the stretch, the friction, the sensation of his fingers stroking her clit, make her body sing with pleasure.

He whispers to her that this is what making love feels like. It’s the first time Michael thinks she wants to die.

Here.

Now.

With him.

They’ve done this before but it feels different this time.

Something is wrong.

This feels like goodbye.

Like she’ll never see him again.

Please don’t leave me….

[writesandramblings]

The Captain’s Secret - p.1

“Objects in Motion”

A/N: This little plot bunny has been following me for a few weeks so I had to pursue it. The story is set pre-Discovery. Owing to lack of information available at present, I’ve taken the liberty of naming Lorca’s previous ship the USS Triton. With the reveal of the Buran, the Triton is now Lorca’s first command, and he subsequently takes command of the Buran. (The reasons for this will eventually become apparent.)

Full Chapter List Audiobook Version 2 - Game Set Match >>

The banal nothingness of interstellar travel was anathema to Gabriel Lorca, because as fast as they were moving, he hated sitting still.

As the Triton hurtled through the cosmos towards its latest transport assignment, Lorca wandered the bridge and did everything he could to avoid sitting in the one seat most officers spent their careers hoping to attain: the captain's chair.

It wasn't that Lorca had any aversion to actual specifics of the chair, and certainly he had longed for it as much as anyone, but now that he had it, he found it irksome. It was comfortable enough, but Lorca hated sitting as a general rule, and so instead he paced the bridge with a padd in hand, wandering past the various command stations and idly glancing at console displays as he did.

Arzo, his science officer, referred to this behavior as "hovering." Lorca liked Arzo. The Tiburonian was abruptly honest and unflappable, a good foil for Lorca's aloof confidence. "You are making the crew nervous," Arzo had said during their first week together. "The constant hovering over shoulders... do you not trust the competency of the crew?"

"Have you ever thought how hard it is to sit in the captain's chair and do nothing but waggle your fingers for hours on end?" Lorca had replied. This was not, of course, an accurate summation of the role of captain, but it did describe how sitting the chair made Lorca feel.

Arzo had harrumphed and fixed Lorca with a look that suggested sitting still in a chair was not something Arzo found to be particularly difficult. Even now, three months after the conversation, recalling that look still made Lorca smile.

As usual, Lorca found himself up by the viewscreen, one of the few places he could stand on the bridge without making anyone feel like he was hovering over their shoulder. He read over crew requests as streaks of starlight tantalized the edges of his view. To think that each of those streaks had a story, and that he, as captain, might detour and discover any of those stories as he willed...

"Captain, I'm picking up a transmission." Kerrigan was the communications officer on duty, a decent but uninteresting man who liked to talk a lot but usually said very little. "Broadcasting on all bands, audio and visual. Unknown language."

"Origin?"

"A Dartaran ship," supplied Arzo. "Far edge of our sensor range. Small."

The Dartarans were a notoriously private species in the region who occupied an array of moons and planets in the cluster of systems they claimed for themselves. They were not averse to the Federation or anyone else, they just preferred not to be involved in outside affairs.

"Adjust course to intercept and put it onscreen."

The starry streaks disappeared and Lorca found himself standing directly in front of an enormous green eye as an endless stream of wet, lilting syllables assaulted his ears.

"‒ lalilalulhallilinnlalanalenilalalanelamelimanlalunilalemilanalalennilaminulalalaililana‒"

Lorca took a half-step back. The words, if they were that, belonged to an alien with soft grey skin, pale grayish blue fur, and a pair of almost perfectly round enormous green eyes the color of fresh spring grass with dark slits evenly spaced around. Standing in front of the screen as he was, Lorca could make out the flecks and strands of striations in the creature's giant irises and see the lights of the Dartaran ship's console reflected on the broad, glassy surface of its lenses. The alien's tongue fluttered like a small grey moth just inside its mouth. The neckline of some sort of fluffy white garment was visible.

"‒lemalunilalamelanalilianilililialemalal‒"

Whatever it was, it clearly wasn't Dartaran. "Translation?" said Lorca.

"Coming online now," promised Kerrigan.

"‒lalimilalilunilalamanilamili‒ me! Help me, please! Is there anyone there? Please, can anyone hear me? Help me! Hello, can someone please help me?"

The transition from nonsense sounds to abject desperation was abrupt enough that the helmsman just behind Lorca startled in her seat. The universal translator rendered the voice as high and gentle, almost childlike, and feminine in tone, but that didn't mean anything. The pleas continued without pause, an endless stream of begging directed at no one and anyone with very little variation in theme. "If there's someone out there, anyone, please, I need help. Please. Can anyone hear me? Please, help me, please..."

Between the clear distress, the unknown language, and the unfamiliar species, it was a veritable siren song for any Starfleet captain, and Lorca was not averse to its tune. "Arzo?"

"A personal transport vessel. I detect no structural issues. I am attempting to search for any matches to species in our database."

"How certain can we be of the translation?"

Kerrigan bristled. "Extremely. The base elements and structure of the language don't match anything on file so I had to initiate a new matrix from scratch, but the alien is alternating in matching phrases of Dartaran, Romulan, and even English. The vocabulary is limited, but accurate."

That any of those la-la-la syllables could have been an attempt at speaking English bordered on ludicrous, but both Kerrigan and the computer seemed to think it true. "Open a channel."

"--if there's anyone out there, please, I'm in need of--"

A beeping noise drew the alien's attention and it stopped speaking and looked around.

"Hello? Is someone there?"

"This is Captain Gabriel Lorca of the Federation starship‒"

The alien did not hear him. "Hello? Can you hear me? Is someone there? Hello? Hello?"

"Trying again, sir," said Kerrigan quickly, sounding vaguely sheepish. The beep on the other end sounded again. This time the alien started poking around the console and Lorca heard the connection cue.

"Dartaran ship, this is‒"

"I see you!" exclaimed the alien, visibly startling. "You're human! Can you see me?"

Lorca remained professionally nonplussed. "Yes we can. This is the USS Triton, responding to your distress call. Please identify yourself."

The alien brought its hands together and began moving them in a repeating circular motion, one over the other, like a fly cleaning its legs. "I'm Lalana!"

It wasn't an easy name. Three softly-voiced but wet syllables verging on two, lah-lah-nah turning almost into lullna, the tongue flicking concavely against the roof of the mouth yet remaining almost stationary. Lorca managed it passably well. "L... Lalana?"

"Yes! Yes, that's right!"

Whoever this alien was, it did not seem to have a firm grasp on proper intership protocol. "I'm Captain Lorca. Can you explain the nature of the problem you're having?"

"Yes, absolutely! I'm trying to escape." What the alien lacked in knowledge, it certainly made up for in enthusiasm.

"Captain! Another vessel coming into sensor range, also Dartaran."

Lalana's hands switched from the circular motion to a rapid knocking together of curled fingers. "That is them! Please, please, don't let them take me back. I beg of you, help me!"

There were too many unknown variables, but Lorca judged the alien's pleas to be sincere. "We're headed towards you already, there's no need for worry. Can you tell me who's chasing you?"

"Margeh and T'rond'n," said Lalana. "They are… hunters. They captured me."

"The pursuit vessel is broadcasting a message," said Kerrigan.

Lorca was forced to make a split-second decision. "Now, Lalana, don't worry. If you need help, we are more than happy to provide it. But I'm going to have to hear what the folk coming after you are saying, all right? Not that I don't believe you‒"

"Yes, of course!" interrupted Lalana, utterly devoid of pretext. "To you, I am hardly ilr. You must be careful." There it was at last: a word the translator couldn't parse. It was somehow reassuring to Lorca; it suggested this wasn't some form of perfectly-crafted, elaborate ruse. It could still be a ruse of course, but at least it wasn't a perfect one.

"Let's hear it," Lorca said to Kerrigan.

A recording of two Dartarans appeared on the Triton's viewscreen adjacent Lalana's feed. They were brown in color, with orange streaks along the ridges that lined their spiky jawlines.

"Federation starship!" boomed the smaller Dartaran. "We are in pursuit of stolen property. This is an internal Dartaran matter. No assistance is required. Repeat. Federation starship! We are in pursuit..."

Kerrigan looked at Lorca. "Do you want to respond, sir?"

Lorca didn't answer immediately and looked at Lalana. "I assume if we take you aboard the Triton, you have no objection to returning their ship?"

"No, no, but… the ship is not the property they wish for the return of. The property is me."

Lorca had studied up on the Dartarans prior to his posting to the Triton, along with all the other notable players in this region of space. While the Dartarans were not full Federation members, they had associate status and all signs pointed to them becoming members at some point in the future because there were no actual barriers to it. It was just that the Dartarans were slow, cautious, and scrupulous, and had chosen a very slow timeline to pursue.

Which indicated to Lorca that, whatever societal customs the Dartarans had, slavery was not among them. "I didn't think the Dartarans engaged in slavery."

"Oh, no, I am not a slave. I am a…" The universal translator seized up a moment and finally spat out, "pet."

Lorca's fingers tightened on the padd in his hand. It was one thing to answer a distress signal, quite another to wade into a situation of potential diplomatic delicacy.

There was a course required of any Starfleet officer interested in pursuing a command career: Intercultural Ethics. One of the lectures was inspired by an anecdote of Captain Jonathan Archer, Starfleet's first captain, about an off-hand comment made about his dog.

That off-hand comment led to a full two hours of the course devoted to the question of free will and pets. Dogs, while not possessing the same logical, reasoning, and communication abilities as humans, were nevertheless intelligent creatures who had thoughts and feelings and could understand basic commands and communicate their own needs and wants. Yet if a dog ran away, the expectation would be for it to be returned to its owner, regardless of whether the dog wanted to return or not.

What about other primates, and the more intelligent birds? Though protected now, they had long been subjects of abuse and research, often against their will and with little regard for their well-being, and many were also kept as pets. Given their intelligence, did that constitute enslavement? A monkey might learn to operate tools or utilize nonverbal language. Where then was the line as to what level of intelligence might be considered a pet and what should be considered an independent being with a right to self-determination?

What were Dartarans in pursuit of a wayward pet going to feel? Would they see the pet as having a right to choose? Or would they, like the average dog owner, demand the return of the animal, even if it was smart enough to steal a spaceship and hold a conversation? And even if their pet seemed to be a wholly intelligent being, was it right to enforce the ethics of one culture onto another? As humans still kept pets, were they in a position to judge, and did that open them up to be judged as oppressors by another species?

Any of these points might have gone through Lorca's head, but he was only momentarily reminded of the lecture and briefly wondered how badly this might impact Dartaran/Federation diplomacy before deciding it probably wasn't important because of one tiny detail.

Lalana had said they were hunters.

Lorca crossed over to Arzo's station with two long steps. "Show me both ships. Distances, speed, weapons. All of it."

Arzo's display lit up with information from across the bridge: weapons analysis from the security station, course and speed from navigation, plus Arzo's ongoing scans of both vessels looking for anything of note, most recently checking for signs of explosives or spatial anomalies.

They were identical ships, a matched pair of personal transports traveling at almost the exact same speed, except the pursuer was going very slightly faster and would eventually overtake its target in several hours if they continued as they were. If the lead ship stopped, though, it would be caught in a mere seven and a half minutes.

Both ships had shields, but neither had their shields engaged. The Dartarans seemed to have rerouted their shield power to their engines, accounting for the boost in speed, but even so, they were managing only a smidgen above warp three. Weapons consisted of a pair of cutting lasers -- designed for asteroids and good at short range, but incapable of doing anything more than tapping on the Triton's shields.

"All right, let's give this a go, then. Lalana, I'm going to ask you to trust me. Can you do that?"

Lalana's head bobbed. "It is within my power to do so. As for whether I will... Yes, I will trust you!"

"Isolate and hail the Dartaran ship. Dartaran vessel, this is Captain Lorca of the Federation starship Triton. We have reached an agreement with the thief of your vessel to return the ship to you, with the one single caveat that the thief requests to be taken into our custody." He said this with great gusto, as if announcing the Dartarans had won a prize.

The Dartaran recording was replaced by a live picture. The larger Dartaran bristled, but it was the smaller who spoke. "Federation captain! This is a Dartaran concern, we have no need for you. The crime was committed in Dartaran space and must be dealt with by Dartaran justice."

"Be that as it may," said Lorca, "the thief has promised to set your vessel to self-destruct unless this one condition is met. So in the interests of you not losing what looks to be a very fine and expensive vessel, why not let us take the lead on this? The Federation would consider it a great token of our esteem for your people if we can get you your ship back, and then we can talk to your Council about having the thief returned to Dartar so you can also get that Dartaran justice you're after."

The Dartarans exchanged a look. The larger spoke in a low, deep voice. "Thank you for your offer, but no."

Lorca had been hoping the Dartarans would fold, but apparently they were going to double-down instead. Fair enough. He crossed his arms and fixed the Dartarans with his most recalcitrant glare. "So you're telling me you'd rather have your ship destroyed than get it back?"

He gave the Dartarans a moment to chew on that. They didn't answer, which was as telling as anything they might have said in reply. Lorca unfolded one of his hands as if making an offer and waved it faintly about to subtly illustrate his points, of which there were three. "Perhaps I'm not making myself clear. I'm not asking what you want to do about your stolen vessel, I'm telling you what's going to happen, and if you have a problem with that, then you can bring it up with the Dartaran Council and have them petition the Federation on your behalf." He ended with his hand closed in a pensive fist.

The Dartarans hissed and growled and terminated communications. Lorca snorted. "Is our channel with Lalana secure?"

"Yes, sir."

Lalana's audio resumed mid-sentence. "‒but as much as I am grateful for the assistance and as enjoyable as that was, I do not wish to blow myself up, else what was the point of me escaping in the first‒"

"It won't come to that," promised Lorca. "You just hang tight, and everything will be just fine."

"Captain," said Arzo in a sharp tone indicating he had something important.

"Hm," Lalana continued as Lorca moved back to the science station to take a look, "you did request for me to trust you, and I suppose given the circumstance it is only fair for me to allow the opportunity to..."

"Well that can't be right," said Lorca, looking back up at the viewscreen. "How can it?"

"Nevertheless, sir, I am quite certain. Our sensors read no life signs aboard that ship." They looked at Lalana.

"Oh!" exclaimed Lalana. "Oh, no, they wouldn't. You see, my species, we... we do not show up on scanners. That is why it is such an accomplishment to hunt us. If it were easy, our skulls would not be such a spectacular trophy. If is my understanding that we emit an electromagnetic radiation field indistinguishable from the background noise of the universe. We look like nothing on technology devices. As the hunters say, optical and sonar only."

Lorca stared. "Did you say skulls?"

"Oh, yes. We are not usually taken alive." Lalana sounded entirely nonplussed about it, as if this statement were something so obvious and self-evident it was the same as saying the stars were shining and space was big and full of them.

Lorca leaned over the science console, gripping it tightly. It looked like a movement of calculated intensity, but in truth he did it to steady himself so his crew wouldn't notice how shocked he was. Not that they would have. The entire bridge seemed to be frozen. The helmsman's mouth was hanging open, and over at the communications panel, Kerrigan was blinking in disbelief. "Are you telling me Dartarans hunt you for your skulls?" asked Lorca in a measured voice.

"Not just Dartarans. I was taken by Dartarans, but any hunter who relishes a challenge might go to Luluan. Gorn, Tremi, human... There is no one species that hunts us. Any do."

Human. The word echoed in Lorca's head. In this day and age, to think that there were humans who would knowingly fire upon a sentient species in the name of sport... Of course, Lorca knew as well as anyone that humans were as fickle, diverse, and morally variable as any other species, but it was still a rather uncomfortable feeling to know that the person you were talking to might view your species as so utterly bereft of decency based on firsthand experience.

"Captain?" said Lalana, and Lorca realized the bridge crew were looking to him for some sort of sign.

It took him a moment to find the words. All the jovial amicability and lightheartedness present when he had been toying with the Dartarans was gone from his voice. "Lalana." Lorca swallowed and took a deep breath. "Would you be able to tell us where Luluan is?"

"I do not think so." Lalana looked downward and away. "I do not know how to get there. I do not even know how to fly this ship. I... just wanted to escape."

Lorca took another deep breath and exhaled it slowly, centering himself. "All right. Let's just get you off that ship and we'll go from there."

Since they could not pick up Lalana on their sensors ‒ and it was unclear if the transporters could even properly register a pattern given the unknowable biological variables of a living creature that appeared as background radiation ‒ they could not beam Lalana directly over to the Triton. To further complicate things, they would have only seven minutes once Lalana stopped before the Dartarans caught up and potentially interfered with any operations underway, and Lalana had no real navigational control over the vessel beyond making it start and stop.

The easiest solution was to have a pilot beam over and take control of Lalana's vessel, but Lorca rejected the idea outright. "They can detect a transporter," he drawled, "and that opens us up to accusations of piracy, with evidence to back it up. No, we're gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way, with a docking procedure. Carver?"

Lt. Carver, the helmsman, pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Maneuvering the Triton into position relative such a small vessel will be tricky given our mass and power, but it can be done."

"How fast?"

"Six minutes, maybe."

"I need it done in two. Chief, you said the ship would fit in our shuttle bay?"

The chief engineer, Billingsley, grunted in assent. What she had said was the transport was roughly twice as big as a shuttle, which wasn't even close to saying the same thing from an engineer's point of view. It just happened to be technically correct in this instance. "It's a tight fit. Not impossible, but I wouldn't want to force it in two minutes and damage the bay."

"What if we could give you, say, four minutes? That enough for the kind of precision to make you comfortable?" There was a mild sense of confusion. Why would the chief have four minutes to tractor the ship to the shuttle bay when Carver had been allotted only two?

"Captain?"

Lorca grinned with self-satisfaction. His crew didn't share his smug confidence, but Arzo at least could tell the captain had what was probably a brilliant but needlessly showy and over-complicated plan. In the three months since Lorca had taken command, Arzo had learned that most of Lorca’s plans could be described this way.

Lorca glanced around the room conspiratorially. "Now, docking one ship to another, that's no piece of cake, we'd need at least one of the ships to be stationary. But what if neither ship were stationary?"

"You mean running the tractor beam at speed?" said Billingsley with a mixture of dread and excitement.

"Exactly!" Lorca held up the padd in one hand and plucked the insignia from his uniform with the other. "We match our speed and course ‒ we can do that easily enough ‒ and use the tractor beam to pull the transport in nice and tight towards the shuttle bay." He moved the insignia close to the padd. "Then we decelerate slowly as the transport does."

"Minimizing strain on the tractor," Billingsley observed.

"By the time we're at a dead stop, the ship's pitching distance from the shuttle bay. Won't take more than fifteen seconds to finish bringing it in. Now, the Dartarans--" Lorca put down the insignia and grabbed Arzo's arm, signaling him to make a fist. Arzo begrudgingly complied. Lorca slowly moved the padd towards Arzo's hand. "They've closed the distance as we've decelerated, but we've bought ourselves another sixty, maybe seventy-five seconds to do what needs doing before they arrive."

"That is a hell of a lot of effort and risk for an extra sixty seconds," said the chief engineer, wondering what would possibly make it worthwhile.

Arzo lowered his arm. "Dare I ask what it is you want us to do with this extra time, Captain?"

Lorca smiled. "A lot can happen in sixty seconds."

Part 2

[nicksstoryvault]

The warm touch of the rising sun stirred Sebastian from the blissful realm of slumber. There was a buzzing sensation within his thoughts that were like unmolded clumps of clay. There was nothing sculpted in his memory, somewhere at the back of his thoughts, he felt a dark shroud threatening to engulf him. It was the familiar sensation of dread that quickly bubbled within his stomach, and jolted to his chest. His turbulent thoughts raced, as his sights took in the strange yet familiar sight of straw and barn walls that were within a stable. "What am I doing here…" he says to himself, slightly embarrassed at the possibility he may have had too much to drink the night before and somehow found himself within the stables. He could hear the neighs of horses in their stalls somewhere close, which confirmed the ambiguity of whether or not he was asleep or still dreaming. A grunt of frustration escaped his ears, too deep yet he was unaware of the difference in pitch to his normal tone. He needed to get out of here and back home before his fath— His father… "No…" Despair entered Sebastian's tone as his eyes began to water uncontrollably. He was assailed almost violently by the trauma he endured the night before; the wishing fountain in the city square, the enchantment forced onto him by the king's advisor, his humanity ripped from his flesh that was remade into the revolting visage of a rotund hog. Helplessness and vulnerability gnawed at him, consuming his nerves as he rushed away—rushed home where he could escape the nightmare that was overwhelming him. He had arrived, only to be shunned at the door by his own father, his beloved father who could not understand him, nor see past the portly visage of a pig and see his boy beneath. Sebastian had never known heartbreak and despair until that moment. Alone and in distress, he had fled to the closest shelter where he could find solitude that night—within the stable-house of the second ring of the city where he cried himself to sleep. He prayed for sanctuary, for deliverance from his maker, and for blessed mercy to grant him rest from which he would either awake as a man, or dream forever that he remained as one. Reality was cruel just as the world he lived in. As he awoke, Sebastian wished he hadn't. He takes in his repulsive visage with contemptuous eyes, feeling both anger and despair in a one aggressive whirlwind that was seconds away from overwhelming him. "NO!!!" He screamed, eyes screwed shut while the noise of a squealing hog echoed throughout the stable, rattling all the mares in their stalls who began to neigh and react to the aggressive cry.

Outside the stable grounds, the young princess roamed from the castle, avoided the tiresome lessons within the vast library. Anna allowed her rebellious and graceful spirit to steer her away from the royal duties, escaping from her father's overbearing shadow, and the promise that she would obey his rules, but it was still early dawn, and she desired to bring her treasured white furred Shire mare--Jewel--a basket of fresh peeled carrots that she stole from the kitchen quarters. As she approached the planked doors, a foreign noise seized her curiosity, it wasn't a neigh or a bellow from the rousing cattle; the sound was a piggish squeal of wrenched distress. Tucking her lavender silk shawl over her svelte and lithesome body, Anna pushed the door opened with cautious footing, her jeweled coffee irises sharply glanced over the stalls and haystacks, nearing the area where squealing projected the highest volume. She caught a glimpse of a staggering mass of dark fur and wobbling hooves ducking underneath a bureau where the stablehands placed their grooming tools, it was unmistakenly an animal. Holding her unshakeable poise, she crouched to her haunches, leveling her intent gaze at the pudgy creature's twitching corkscrew tail. It was a pig. "I haven't seen you around here before," she whispered, her lyrical tone held no guile, just welcoming tenderness. "Do not fret, I will not hurt you, just come out of there, I desire to see if you are hurt, little pig."

Somewhere within the barn, the familiar voice set the pig on edge. By the time Sebastian had finished crying out his despair, he felt as if his voice had perished in the exhaustion he placed upon it. It hurt now to speak, even so much as breathe as his lungs burned with exertion. He felt himself thirst, but his heart felt irreparable by the stinging ache that was left since last night. Yet somehow, he felt certain that if that voice belonged to the one person he ached to see most, he would surely shatter into oblivion. He couldn't let her see him. Not like this. Being seen and unrecognized by his father was damaging enough, but if Anna were to see only a pig and not the man underneath, Sebastian couldn't hope to endure it. Sinking back against the straw, the pig does his utmost to hide himself in the dark shadow where the light had left a blindspot to conceal himself. His heart pounded at alarming rate, he could hear his pulse echoing in his pointed ears. He grunts and releases a soft whine at his inability to completely hide his chubby form. He could smell her getting closer, the sweet and alluring scent of lavender heightened his sense of anticipation from within.

Listening to the strenuous grunts emanating from the hoggish intruder, Anna felt an amused smirk curving the full lush of her rose petaled lips, she found his attempt at being elusive humorous, since he was adorably chubby to hide himself, his short legs flopped upwards as he tried burying his tilting form within hay pile. She wrinkled her nose, holding down a gust of laughter while staring down at the pot-bellied pig, as she heard dismal oinks. Furrowing her brow, the princess shook her head, to convey her vexatious restraint."You are a stubborn little pig, I will give that, but playing in the hay, will only get you sent to the butcher stocks. " She extended out a delicate hand, and lightly caressed his furred rump, coaxing him to obey her royal command. "Come out here now, unless you want to become fatter than you are by next morning..."

Sebastian would have shuddered were it possible. He wasn't certain he could grow any larger than he already was, he was even pathetically incapable of hiding himself in a dark corner. Just the same, the effort it took to move his enormous weight felt as exerting as a race to the Citadel down to the smithy. He would have felt vexed at Anna's persistence, but it was only because he was afraid of her reaction. Then again, he knew that her words spoke true about the local butchers. They were an unsavory lot that went to vicious lengths, such as hunting stray farm animals in the city, if it meant a larger profit at the market. Self-preservation was something he never had to contend with as a man, but now that his identity had been defiled by a sorcerer, the stable-boy turned pig knew he was in considerable danger should he remain alone. Shutting his eyes, the pig released a grunt of concession before slowly slipping out of the corner of the stall. His movements were sloppy as well as slow. Having little time to become accustomed to his new body, he felt as if he were crawling on his hands and knees. Perhaps it was befitting he was in the presence of royalty. He avoids her gaze, his pudgy head bowed as he enters the light and becomes exposed to her curious gaze.

At this unexpected moment of his silent compliance, Anna banished all vestiges of revulsion, and slowly positioned her lithesome body on her knees, feeling the cold penetration of dirt against her skin, ignoring the odious stench of pig sweat wafting off his drenched fur. A kittenish smirk played fully on her lips, as the chubby hog encroached with tremulous wobbles, straining to reach her open palm. "It's okay," she whispered softly, her coffee irises glinted warmth and acceptance, staring at the porky creature. He was different than most pigs in the stocks, a dwarf sized hog, coated with unkempt dark chestnut fur with a touch of pink on the pudgy expanse of his snout. He had a distinctive layer of brunette fur over his humped shoulders, almost like a mane. As she peered closer, she instantly fell in love with his eyes, not muddy-brown and vacant, but a cool tint of steel within pools of blue, the color blue in the sky before a winter storm. There was a haze of unshed tears gathering in those fierce depths, as he oinked out a sniffle, and she detected he was injured. "Are you hurt?" she asked, placing a carrot in front of him. "You can eat that...I have plenty more left for my mare."

The pig felt thrown for a moment by the kind reception to his repugnant form. Sebastian knew he shouldn't expect any less of Anna who was always so generous and compassionate towards others. While there was the spirit of a feline in her soul that, if cornered, would lash out, it was acts such as these that made her worthy of her title. It also made her ever unreachable for a lowly stable-boy with hardly a coin to his name. Anna was more than just a beautiful princess to him, she was a beautiful soul and he felt a tearing in his heart that he was unable to express his feelings to her—not just as a pig, but even when he was a man. His heart felt heavier than a stone in his chest; weighed down by the turmoil waging within him. He wasn't sure whether to feel relief that she had not spurned him like his father, or sadness that she could not recognize him either. Perhaps he felt all these things, but was too distraught to assess his emotions. Once the intense smell of vegetable touched his nostrils, the pig felt as if he were being drawn by a siren. His hunger suddenly made its presence felt by way of an audible groan inside of his belly. It didn't occur to him until now just how much time had passed since his last meal. He was famished, though hesitant to reach out and take the proffered carrot. As a man, carrots were not his favorite choice of vegetable. He was more of the green-eater that kept his body fit and healthy, but something new and primal had taken control of his instincts and he was helpless to stop himself any longer. Lowering his snout, the pig eagerly gobbles up the pieces of carrot with noisy grunts and chews, savoring the explosion of taste in his mouth that eased the churning of hunger in his stomach.

When her small, lithe hand tentatively graced over the furred shape of his protuberant belly, the pig recoiled back unsteadily against the stacked hay, seemingly alarmed by her touch of restored contact. He emitted out a distressed squeal, rearing his pudgy head upwards, as chunks of carrot fell out of his mouth. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ruin your breakfast," Anna stared into his glacial steel-blue depths, finding a youthful, vigorous, and defiant spirit mirroring back through an array of pained tears. It was utterly deplorable to see a vulnerable creature fending for his days of existence. She gnawed on her bottom lips, indecisively, knowing that she allowed the stout creature to remain inside the stable, he would be discovered and sent to the muddy pen. By the virtue of kindness, she openly offered the grace of friendship to him."You're alone out here, and need a friend..." she whispered, imploringly. 

TBC...