#Judge of the Dead Patron

[bugpysforge]

Banette strikes a contract with an underworld deity in an effort to multiclass. Their lord occasionally requests terrible things, such as cursing Banette's allies.

Race: Living Doll Class: Warlock Subclass: Judge of the Dead Patron Location: Spikemuth Lairs for the Dark Arts Alignment: Neutral Evil

View the pokedex of all dungeon pokemon by following the link in the menu.

[irisintheafterglow]

touya todoroki doesn't like talking. sure, he'll quip and joke and mock a dead horse until it's begging to be killed again, but discussing serious topics were as foreign to him as the next galaxy. not just about his family or his accident or his vendetta against endeavor, but he is the man of few words. physically, it tears his throat to speak for extended amounts of time, and emotionally, he's not the type to share his inner anguish at length.

so when he starts to murmur something in the darkest hours of the night, your head on his chest as he gently runs a fingertip in spirals on your bare back, you tense. and, since he never misses anything when it comes to you, he tenses too.

"something wrong?"

"no," you say too quickly, already aware of how you'd essentially blown up his train of thought. "nothing. keep going."

"you're lying," he mutters against your temple, his voice darker and sharper than whiskey. "thought we said no more lying."

"we also said you'd never end up back in my bed, yet here we are," you remark and there's a small puff of air when he huffs, amused. "it's nothing, really." your eyes fall shut and your body syncs to his breathing rhythm, on the verge of sleeping when he speaks so quietly, you could've missed what he said.

"i don't like when you say that." you blink slowly, fighting to stay awake.

"say what?"

"that something is nothing, like i'm supposed to ignore what you said."

"maybe it was something stupid that you don't need to worry about," you propose but he has none of it.

"then i'll be the judge of that." sighing, you prop yourself onto one elbow and look down at him, his lower half covered by your comforter and his upper body completely exposed. your thumb lightly brushes the seam of his burn scars, stalling in hopes that he'll forget what you were arguing about. he doesn't, of course. "so?"

"so what?"

"if you're gonna keep ogling me, you might as well say what you want to say," he smirks and you roll your eyes.

"ogling is such a strong word." your lips purse and you make to pull your hand away, but he's fast to grab your wrist and press your palm to his heart. it's a steady thump, thump, thump that you could recognize as his in any other world. "i'd say 'admiring' is a better word for it."

"you'd be the first to think so, sweetheart."

"you don't like when i ogle you?" you ask teasingly, your fingertips grazing his collarbone, over the spot that vaguely held the mark of your teeth.

"well, yeah," he confirms like it was written in neon graffiti on your bedroom walls. his eyes flick down to your hand as it caresses the mottled skin. "no one thinks this is pretty. 's just not the way the rest of the world works." his eyes flutter shut under the safety of your touch; something pangs in your chest and you suddenly have the urge to cry. "don't start with all that."

"how did you know--"

"you swallow and blink a lot when you're about to cry."

"but your eyes are--"

"i can imagine your eyelashes fluttering, dear, and you're too sensitive when it comes to me," he explains patiently, with only the slightest patronizing tone. cracking a single eye open, he pulls you back down to his body and presses his lips softly to your forehead. "don't cry for me. i'm not worth it."

"of course you're worth it," you insist and he scoffs. "maybe i'm not like the rest of the world, because i think you're beautiful." it's his turn to fall silent, unsure of how to respond to such blunt statements of adoration. "stop it."

"stop what?"

"stop...stopping," you shrug and he snorts.

"what are you on about?"

"stop not talking," you frown in spite of his smirk. "i want you to keep talking." his chest rises and falls beneath your ear, warm and nothing but yours. "please?"

"if you insist," he murmurs, "but only for you."

---

i miss my bf again man...it's iris misses touya hours every hour

[strangersteddierthings]

Sequel to Good People - The fic in wherein Wayne doesn't like Steve and overheard a conversation he shouldn't have. Here's the aftermath of that :3

Part One🦇Part Two🦇Final Part

-

Wayne had stayed in his bedroom long after he heard the boys leave. Eddie had knocked on his door to let him know he'd be staying at Steve's and to not expect him back until late tomorrow, a courtesy he'd never shown until after he'd been the victim of a manhunt back in spring. Wayne never asked him to do that but he thinks Eddie picked up on how worried Wayne would get if he were gone for any amount of time.

Eddie's always been good at reading people when he bothers to pay attention to them. Maybe that should have been enough reason for him to give pause to his dislike of the Harrington boy, instead of needing to overhear the boy crying about how he thinks there's something rotten deep within him that only Wayne can sense.

He'd been so sure he knew what kind of person Steve Harrington was. Eddie had been hung up on boys just like him pert-near his whole life, Wayne thinks, and it's never ended differently.

It's a Tuesday night and his friends usually gather at the bar on Friday nights, but Wayne needs to get out of the trailer to think. A beer might help. So, he grabs his keys and heads out.

He's been a regular at this bar since before he was even old enough to drink. Used to come with his pa, may he rest in peace, just to get out of the house. He's been a patron longer than any of the staff have worked there, he realizes.

"Hello Linda," Wayne greets as he takes a seat at the bar instead of at his usual table. He'd done a cursory glace when he came in and confirmed none of his drinking buddies were in before choosing the bar.

"This isn't your usual day," Linda says, leaning a hip on the counter, "but it's always a pleasure to see you."

"I got some thinkin' to do," Wayne replies and Linda nods and moves away, returning soon with a bottle of his usual beer. She picks up the bottle open and removes the cap before setting the drink down in front of him.

"Need a sounding board, hun?" She asks.

Wayne does a quick survey of the bar again but it's pretty quiet so he returns his gave to Linda and says, "if you wouldn't mind too much hearin' about how an old man might have messed up."

Linda laughs. "You aren't even half a decade older than me, so you best not be sprouting that 'old man' nonsense around me, 'cause I am not some old lady."

"Terribly sorry, Linda. I'm just really feelin' like an old fool."

A small frown comes to Linda's face then. "Now what could you have possibly done?"

"Well, I guess I'm tryin' to figure out if I did mess up. Eddie's got a friend and I don't trust 'im. Thought I had good reason not to, but, well, I overheard somethin' I wasn't supposed ta and now I'm not sure."

Linda hums, "hmm, that doesn't sound like you, judging someone unrightly. You are usually a good read about people."

"I'll admit, I haven't bothered to spend enough time with the boy to, uhh, judge him."

"Wayne Munson," Linda scolds, "you best not be telling me you judged that boy because of other people."

Judging by Linda's raising brow line, he thinks his guilt must be clear on his face. "You know Eddie, and how people have treated him. And with what he just went through- I just want 'im safe. Sure, his new friend graduated last year, but he was on the basketball team his whole career. And I'm jus' supposed ta believe this one boy didn't side with the group who started the manhunt?"

"Unless you've got evidence otherwise, yes," Linda says, brows furrowed.

Wayne sighs. "I ain't got proof. I got a lot of people sayin' he's good, actually. But it's the Harrington boy. The same boy Eddie would come home and complain 'bout. Harrington, Hagan, Hargrove, though I shouldn't speak ill of the dead. All them boys treatin' Eddie like he wasn't worth nothin' until they wanted somethin' form him."

Linda's mouth is almost a perfectly straight line with how much she's pursed her lips the more he talks, but she doesn't interrupt and no customer calls for her, so he continues.

"And you know what Richard Harrington was like. I know y'all only shared one school year together, but Janice wasn't any better, and she was your year, wasn't she?" Linda gives him one nod in response. "That boy's a product of them. I- You can't fault me for thinkin' differently."

"So, when do you expect Eddie to end up in prison?"

The question throws Wayne and fills him with anger at the same time. "Now, Linda, I ain't likin' what you are implyin'."

"I ain't implyin' nothing," she says, using the same tone with him that he did with her. "I'm applying your logic. Eddie's a product of his parents, ain't he? Al's in prison, and his mama's long gone, bless her soul. And since Eddie ain't sick, last I heard, he must be following after his daddy."

The anger leaves him then, and all he's left with is shame. "Point made. And if I'm bein' fully honest with ya, I don't even need ya to defend that boy. That thing I overheard. That what's eatin' at me. He called me good people."

Linda softens, shoulders dropping, "you are good people, hun."

"That boy told my Eddie that I'm 'good people', and that his parents are bad ones, and I. I don't know what to do about that."

"He thinks his own parents are bad?"

Wayne nods, "is what he said. Thinks I can somehow sense he's also rotten just by association."

"There's nothing to it, then," Linda says, like they've already talked out the tangled mess that is Wayne's thoughts on Steve Harrington and have reached a conclusion. Well, perhaps Linda already has. She's always been bright, and she's usually right. "You, Wayne Robert Munson, need to apologize to that boy. The guilt and shame's gonna put you into your cups otherwise."

Wayne nods slowly, though he isn't even sure if he agrees or is just acknowledging what she said before he takes a long pull from his bottle before lowering both his arms to rest on the counter as he replies, "You're right as usual, Linda my dear. I just gotta let go of the fact he's Richard Harrington's son and try and see just Steve."

"Damn right. Eddie might be Al's by birth, but you raised him and he turned out alright. Maybe Steve got the same treatment. Had his own Wayne around to raise him right."

There might be a bit of truth to that. He's heard enough talk about Steve Harrington over the years to think that. One of his drinking buddies used to be Jim Hopper. He's heard about the amount of parties he'd had to go shut down at the Harrington's house, with no parents to be seen. (Always Jim's biggest gripe back then. "Where's this kids goddamn parents!?) Wayne always assumed their kid just took advantage every time his parents were gone, but maybe it's the opposite. Maybe they were always gone, and Steve had parties to not be alone in his house.

Linda's right. There is nothing to it. He needs to talk to Steve, properly apologize, and go from there.

"It ain't an easy thing, admittin' you might be wrong," Wayne sighs.

Linda reaches across the counter and places a hand on Wayne's arm just below his wrist. Wayne looks up from where he'd ended up staring at his bottle, making eye contact with her. "If your boy is friends with this boy, it's for a reason. Just give him a chance. You are one of the good ones, but even we can have a lapse in judgment now and then. Doesn't make you bad, makes you human."

"Ain't no one perfect but the good Lord," Wayne says and Linda nods in agreement.

"Alright. I'll leave you to your beer and your thoughts for now, but you best keep me updated on your situation. I wanna know how it goes," Linda retracts her hand and heads down the counter to check on the few other people sitting about nursing drinks.

Wayne sits in his thoughts more than he drinks, so by the time he's done with the beer it's warm but that's fine. He will talk to the Harrington kid, but he wants to talk to Eddie first. He owes his nephew that much, and he does recall Eddie saying something to the effect of 'he'll come around' to Steve, and Wayne wants to tell Eddie he'll try.

Also he doesn't want to just corner the boy after he's been somewhat intimidating intentionally. He's going to get Eddie to ask if Steve'll talk to him.

True to his word, Eddie returns home late the next day. The clock says it's almost 6 when Eddie finally comes through the front door. If he's surprised to see Wayne awake, he doesn't show it. He does work the graveyard shift, and he's got a shift at 10 tonight, usually wakes up two hours before his shift. He'd wanted to make sure he caught Eddie, though, so he's been up since three.

"Eddie, you got a minute?" Wayne says.

"Sure. What's up?" Eddie says as he pulls off his jacket, depositing it on the nearest surface before plopping sideways on the couch so he's facing Wayne.

"I gotta come clean. I overheard some of what you and Steve were talkin' about," Wayne says, because he's a man of his word and he's always been good at doing the hard thing if it also turns out to be the right thing. He's got to be honest with Eddie, so he can be honest with himself. "Heard Harr- Steve talkin' 'bout how he thinks I'm a good person, and his parents aren't."

Eddie's quiet for a moment, blinking owlishly back at him while he thinks. "Oh. Umm. Sorry. I just- I think this is the first time I've heard you say Steve's name."

"Not the part I thought you'd focus on," Wayne huffs a laugh, "but I owe your boy an apology and I was hopin' you could help me make it happen."

"My boy- what is happening," Eddie drops his voice to whisper the question to himself.

"What's happening is I'm doin' the thing I always told you ta do. Taking accountability and fixin' my mistake."

"Oh. Oh!" Eddie narrows his eyes at Wayne, "you've made an ass out of me. All those times I assured Steve you were just being standoffish and you were- what were you doing?"

"Intentionally keepin' the boy at a distance 'cause I thought he was gonna hurt you. I sure as hell ain't been friendly. I been judging him because I knew his parents, thinkin' about how an apple don't fall far from the tree," Wayne stops, giving pause to see if Eddie will speak but he isn't. He's just staring at Wayne like he's a puzzle. "It was brought to my attention that it's mighty unfair to judge someone 'cause of how their parents act."

Eddie's brow furrows and his lips purse. It makes him think of Linda. She'd made the exact same face. "I- Jesus fuck this is weird, but I. I think I'm mad at you. Disappointed."

Eddie doesn't say it with an angry tone, and his face still looks more puzzled than mad, but the sentence feels like a kick to the chest anyway. Eddie and he have never been mad at each other, not in the eight years Eddie's lived here with him. They've been worried and scared for each other that, or mad at someone or something else that they take out on each other, but never mad at each other.

"You've every right to be."

Eddie stands from the couch, paces down the hallway, and Wayne thinks this might be the end of any conversation tonight, but instead Eddie comes storming back up the hall. "So, what, did you take me in expecting me to be my dad!?"

"No. He mighta contributed to your birth, but we both know that man ain't nurtured you a day in his life."

"Yeah, well, Steve's parents didn't raise him either, so all this has been bullshit! You made Steve think he's, he's broken and a bad person! And," Eddie's eyes are wet and he's angry but also about to cry. Wayne hasn't seen him like this in a long time. Not since the day they learned Al was in prison, fifteen years with a chance for parole if he's on his best behavior. Eddie had been so angry, and sad, and hurt by the news. Eddie's like that now, worked up so much he's repeating himself as he hiccups his words out around the lump in this throat, "And, and you made me help him feel that way! Because I didn't take him serious when he said, said you didn't like him! I thought you were being, being a dad, all fake gruff to intimidate the guy I like but it's- you were- FUCK!"

Wayne lets him yell. He deserves it, and Eddie needs it. Eddie's not saying anything untrue. He takes in what Eddie is yelling at him; Steve's parents didn't raise him, and how Wayne's cold shoulder must have added to whatever else Steve has going on in his life.

"I, I h-held him while he b-bawled into my shirt last night! He, he thinks- and you, you didn't even trust me! T-trust my own j-judgment of, of Steve! I, I need- I can't-" Eddie doesn't finish the sentence. He turns on his heel and storms back down the hall, the slamming of his door finalizing this conversation.

To say that Wayne feels terrible is inadequate. He's hurt his boy, and he's hurt his boy's boy, and he's got no one to blame but himself.

Now he's got two apologies to make.

I tried to tag as many people as I could remember that expressed interest in a follow up fic. I am SO sorry if I missed you. Please let me know if you want to be tagged in the final part. I will only be tagging people who ask to be tagged going forward 'cause it's a lot of people to remember and my memory is garbage.

@i-less-than-three-you @nburkhardt @afewproblems @skepsiss @unclewaynemunson @itsthestrangestthings @emofratboy @devondespresso @finntheehumaneater @loopholesinmydreams @yourmom-isgay @wrenisflying @emsgoodthinkin @messrs-weasley @madigoround @jackiemonroe5512 @gutterflower77 @zerokrox-blog @eriquin @samyuck @lunarmaruna @mugloversonly @kaij-basil-lionelli88

[artfulacrostic]

okay, do you want to know too much about st. yves, aka the guy in the litany that appears via matt's narration twice in ddba ep 6? well me and my childhood catholic education are here for you, but let me just say they hit the nail on the head with that one.

first of all: st. yves is the catholic patron saint of lawyers and the law in general (barristers, solicitors, jurists, etc). he was basically well known for fairly upholding the standards of the law, including refusing to accept bribes after he eventually became the middle ages version of a judge, and his big thing was all about helping and protecting the poor and the oppressed, especially widows and children. he was so into charity that he is usually shown with a bag of money to give away in one hand and the symbol of the law/judges in the other (some kind of scroll), or shown as mediating between a rich man and a poor man.

it's super clear to me and probably also you by this point why st. yves is a saint that matt would feel a particular connection with. it's a no brainer. the actual prayer he is praying is a snippet from the end of the litany of st. yves. a litany, in case you're wondering, is a kind of prayer usually formatted as a petition, and there are (i think, don't fail me now brain) five that are actually approved as public litanies that can be prayed at mass, while there are a bunch of other private litanies that you might do on your own or at home, with a bit less emphasis on the call and response format that is so big on the public ones like the litany of the saints.

a litany like the litany of st. yves is usually designed to call for that particular saint's intercession, aka to get them to put in a good word for you to god, since they are basically in the top tier of souls who are in good standing up in heaven. so while the saint themself can't do much, they can be like "yo i think my man matt could use some mojo would you mind giving that a look please?" and god is more likely to bestow some grace upon the person and their prayer intentions.

what's fascinating about the litany of st. yves is that in using it to pray for st. yves' intercession and help with the things that are being listed in the petition, matt isn't just asking for justice (although he is). the section he prays onscreen: "O God, from whom cometh all that is right and just, Thou didst establish Saint Yves as a judge in the midst of his brethren, making him the friend and advocate of the poor. Do Thou make us, by his intercession, steadfast in the pursuit of justice and confident in Thy merciful goodness. Through Christ our Lord. Amen."

great, easy to see why matt relates to the desire to be a friend and advocate to the poor, why he wants to be made steadfast in the pursuit of justice, and why he wants to renew his confidence in god's mercy and goodness. great. nice and clear.

but.

if you're a big daredevil person, you know matt's faith and his willingness to go beat the shit out of evil people in the dead of night are deeply intertwined.

included in the actual petition portion of the litany of st. yves:

"Saint-Yves, devoted to penitence, pray for us."

gee, i wonder what matt feels guilty about that he feels the need to repent for.

"Saint Yves, friend of young people, pray for us. Saint Yves, companion of adolescents, pray for us."

gee, i wonder who the main focus of the episode is on matt saving. (angela.) gee, i wonder which demographic he caves for every time, and does what maybe he shouldn't, from the child he saved from the abusive father because he couldn't bear to listen anymore, to the boy who was kidnapped by the russians, who matt went after even though he knew it was a trap that they were using to try and kill him. (kids.)

"Saint Yves, helper of all who invoke thee, pray for us."

gee, i wonder who came to matt to ask for help, help that he was struggling to give via the system.

"Saint Yves, bright light among men of law, pray for us."

gee, i wonder why matt is struggling to find guidance on what he should do, when doing what he knows foggy would have wanted has been his guiding light—except it's been getting harder and harder to see that the system works at all.

"Saint Yves, terror of demons, pray for us."

gee. i wonder who might be feeling the urge to put some righteous terror back into the hearts of evil-doers.

and those are just the most immediately relevant lines. so maybe they just googled the patron saint of lawyers and jumped on that bandwagon. but maybe matt's looking for intercession for all those things and more. because of course we know that he prays more and more when he starts to let the devil out.

[fear-is-truth]

I need your opinion! Originally I was gonna try asking a Patrick Bateman role play account for advice, but like, practically all of em are gone? ;-;. ANYWAY!! How do you write Patrick criticizing (maybe patronizing is a better term?) someone? Like, I’m writing about Patrick helping someone with their skincare routine (exfoliating, moisturizing, etc etc) and I’m just stumped cause what I wrote doesn’t fit him. Thank you for your time!

PATRICK BATEMAN will calmly listen to you describe your routine (if it can even be called that) with something akin to mild, intellectual disgust. he’s already judging, harshly. he can tell that you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing—all points to a failure to adhere to even the most basic principles of self-maintenance. when you mention skipping moisturizer on some days, his stomach twists like a wet rag being wrung. it’s vaguely mortifying about hearing the details (or rather, lack of thereof) uttered aloud. such negligence has patrick physically restraining himself from cringing.

❝ you’re using soap? on your face? ❞

❝ this is why people look thirty by twenty-five. ❞

❝treating your skin like that—it’s self-sabotage. ❞

patrick doesn’t launch into one of his usual monologues (like when he usually does with suits or discography). that kind of emotional display would be effeminate. but make no mistake: in his head, he’s screaming. outwardly, he mansplains. thinly veiled condescension dressed up as restrained patience, the way an executive might take pity on a particularly stupid intern. he immediately begins mentally diagnosing the issues. you don’t exfoliate properly, meaning there’s likely a buildup of dead skin cells dulling your complexion. you don’t use the right moisturizer (or worse, skip it entirely!! ) leading to dehydration, premature aging, fine lines that will deepen over time. no vitamin c? no retinol? no weekly masks? jesus. it’s almost impressive, how little effort you put into something so fundamental.

[safarigirlsp]

The Museum Beast

Historian Nicholas Mills x OC

Word Count: 13.8k

Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Horror. Lots of Violence. Gore. Chasing. Monster Action. This is heavily inspired by one of my favorite novels, Relic. If you like any of this, I highly encourage you to read it!

I’m willing to continue this and write more if people like it!

Note: Going forward, I'm going to write characters from now on instead of Readers just because it's really annoying trying to switch back and forth for the non-fic writing I do. However, the female characters will be totally physically vague aside from having a name, so they can still easily be read as an insert by anyone who chooses to insert themselves.

Based on two requests I combined then butchered from @iamburdened and @queeniebee

AO3 Link

Two of the world’s tallest free-standing dinosaurs were frozen mid-battle in the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda on the second floor of the New York Museum of Natural History. In dramatic repose, a Barosaurus reared to protect its young from an attacking Allosaurus. The skeletal titans made the browsing museum patrons look like ants milling at their feet. Alice was never unable to walk past the dinosaurs without craning her neck upward to admire their towering presence. The great saurians were much more interesting to focus on than the throng of chattering primates that inhabited the museum during business hours. Walking through the past with her heels echoing on tile hallways that stretched the length of city blocks, she allowed herself to be distracted by the jungle of extinct species giving life to their dioramas. From the tiny, feathered dinosaur skeleton displayed in a dramatically lit shadow box to the gigantic open jaws of a megalodon framing the entrance to an adjoining hallway, there was always something interesting that caught her eye.

If she walked briskly it was a decent cardio session to make her way to the North American section of the museum. A special exhibit had just opened, an exhibition on the American Old West. It had all the good stuff. Cowboys, gunslingers, train robbers, mountain men, and miners. The exhibit was livelier curated than most, or maybe the subject simply lent itself to action and movement. Standing guard on either side of the entrance were the wax likenesses of Buffalo Bill, wearing his original buckskin outfit, bedazzled with fringe and conchos, and Sitting Bull, dressed in a magnificent headdress boasting a rainbow of colors in its plumage. In one corner was a round table of wax men dressed in full regalia, engaged in a heated poker game. A man with luxurious curly hair sat with his back facing the audience, displaying his hand of aces and eights, the famous Dead Man’s Hand, held by ‘Wild’ Bill Hickock when he was gunned down. The mural painted in the corner Hickock faced even showed the characteristic swinging doors of a saloon, being pushed open by a man with a gun in his hand and murder in his eyes. In another corner ‘Hanging’ Judge Parker sat at his desk, writing in his ledger, backlit by a mural of a man swinging from the gallows outside his office window.

Alice was delighted to see some of the famous men of the old west depicted in less obvious settings than gunfights. These exploits were detailed in paintings that supplemented the exhibits and dozens of informative plaques, but many characters were shown in niche exposes that spoke to the true enthusiasts among the visitors.

The most famous lawman of all, Wyatt Earp, was depicted indulging in his guilty pleasure of gambling with his notoriously beautiful actress wife playing right alongside him as she smoked a cigar. Instead of being shown in his best-known role as Wyatt Earp’s right hand in the infamous Tombstone events, Doc Holliday was portrayed as a suave gentleman, dressed in a fancy brocade vest and cravat, focused on the smiling attentions of his consort, Big-Nosed Kate. The deadliest outlaw of all and likely psychopath John Wesley Hardin was shown lounging on a dirty bunk inside a jail cell. He was intently focused on a large law book. After serving his time, he turned from gunfighting to the practice of law. The plaque detailing his exploits explained tongue-in-cheek that he had traded the illegal form of lawlessness for the legal alternative.

Ample attention was also given to women of note. From saloon owners to cut-throat madams, women’s stories were interspersed with the male narrative. There was of course a display devoted to Calamity Jane, dressed as a man and just as dangerous. Prominently featured was the lesser known but equally successful outlaw Belle Starr, shown wearing a pretty red dress while brandishing a six-gun astride her huge, coal-black horse, Venus. The most famous woman of all, and arguably one of the most iconic figures of the Old West, Annie Oakley, was given a full diorama of her own. A wax figure depicted the pint-sized sharpshooter holding a rifle as she aimed for the cigarette held between her husband’s lips.

An armory worth of firearms from the period were on display. From iconic Colt .45 revolvers and Winchester 30-30 lever action rifles to unique pieces like tiny six-barreled pepper-box derringers and huge Sharps rifles, there were enough firearms to lay siege to a small country. It was befitting for the period, when a man’s gun and his horse were the best friends he could ever have. Without either, a man’s lifespan would likely be reduced to weeks or even days.

The exhibition hall was spacious, even with a veritable herd of visitors milling through it like buffalo on the plains. School children raced through the halls and between dioramas as unchecked as packs of coyotes, while their teachers and handlers tried in vain to wrangle them under control. It was afternoon and most groups were on their final turn around the exhibits before leaving. A few pairs of surly teenagers lingered on the sidelines, looking like they were trying to find a place to whip out a cigarette to enhance their cool, and probably having escaped their own class trip from some other section of the vast museum. Despite the chaos the minors instigated, snippets of intelligent conversation also fluttered around the room.

In an attempt to avoid the class field trips, Alice moved to an adjacent room inside the sprawling exhibit. This spacious room was devoted to art of and from the period, Native American weavings and pottery, animated bronze sculptures, and vibrant oil paintings. The more sedate nature of the art exhibits appealed to a more sedate crowd, unable to hold the interest of children and teenagers. The only other people in the art room were an elderly couple, a group of three college-age people who looked like modern beatniks, and one impressively built man standing off to one side, studying the plaque of a detailed mural-size painting.

Alice couldn’t help but appraise the man discreetly as he stood quartering away from her. He was tall and broad, his robust physique apparent through his flannel shirt and jeans. Even from her angle, she could tell his features were strong and masculine. Dark hair curled around his collar and his strong stubble-covered jaw flexed as he read, his bright eyes darting quickly over the text. She wondered briefly about approaching him – men that attractive were rare to find out in the wild – but it struck her as ridiculous to approach the man like she was in a bar and ask him if he came here often. Rolling her eyes inwardly at herself, she turned her attention toward the opposite wall and a painting of a painfully skinny man riding an equally emaciated white horse on a moonlight night.

It was rewarding when out of the corner of her eye she saw the man turn and pause just to look at her. The man glanced toward the doorway leading back into the main exhibit then back at her, seeming to decide whether or not he too wanted to risk making an ass of himself with a clumsy come-on in an art exhibit. Alice fought to hide her smile when he made his decision in her favor.

The handsome man sidled up to her, his approach practiced and laissez-faire. His shoulders were squared and his stride confident, but he angled across the exhibit hall from the side, his eyes fixed on the oil paintings instead of his prize, like a lion casually strolling by a gazelle to gauge distance before an attack. There was an impulse to turn to him with an accusatorily arched eyebrow to show she was onto him. But he was attractive enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. Being pursued added a certain spice to the air, after all. With his large hands in his pockets and his posture confident but relaxed, he dripped with top notes of James Dean and undertones of Clint Eastwood.

“Frederick Remington,” the man read the artist’s name when he stopped beside her. He was a full head taller and his voice was deep and a little gravely, barely tinged with a Western drawl. “I think my dad has one of his 30.06 rifles.”

Alice hoped he was teasing, that there were a few active brain cells sparking inside that pretty head. The hint of a smirk twisting the man’s lips confirmed it. Keeping her face deadpan, she played along. “Yeah? These artists must have been starving during their lifetimes, being forced to branch out like that. I hear the guy behind Winchester Arms was really into weird avant garde architecture, too.”

The man grinned and turned to face her, fixing her with a pair of bright eyes the color of whiskey. “I think that was his wife. Leave it to a woman to spend a man’s hard-earned gun money on a house in the California hills, complete with staircases leading to ceilings and dead ends. Think she had a Remington on the walls?”

“I don’t know if Sarah Winchester was a fan of Frederick Remington, but I bet there were a few works by Eliphalet Remington somewhere inside,” Alice teased.

“I’m impressed,” the man laughed. “I couldn’t have pulled that name out of thin air.”

“I bet now you’re wondering if I’m a gun nut or just a history buff. A woman should keep an air of mystery about her.” She smiled and looked at him squarely. She decided he looked at home in the Old West exhibit, exuding a ruggedly masculine quality that was all too rare in modern society. He had a face that belonged on the streets of Dodge City, those crisp hooded eyes staring down the barrel of a Colt .45. She realized she had been staring into those eyes for a rudely long moment, and continued talking to smooth over that faux pas, “I never cared much for Remington’s paintings. They’re drab and all the subjects are in painfully sorry condition – horses and men alike.” She pointed to an incredible scene of two cowboys roping a grizzly bear, their movements frozen on canvas mid-stride, mid-lasso, and mid-snarl, painted with confident strokes in a vibrant palette. “Charlie Russell is my favorite. You can’t beat the color and the action in his paintings.”

“I wonder if that’s worse than having a tiger by the tail,” he pondered, pointing at the lassoed grizzly, snarling and swiping at the horse and rider. “What would your boyfriend say?”

“That position is currently vacant. What a brash way to inquire.” She smiled and nodded back at the snarling grizzly. “I’m sure three out of four ex-boyfriends would say they’d take their chances with the bear.”

“It’d take more than a bear or a tiger to scare me away from such a pretty face,” he teased, using those impressive eyes as tactically as a gun. “I never did have much instinct for self-preservation. Plenty of brash though, and other things synonymous.”

She laughed genuinely. “You’ve covered art, guns, tigers, and balls in three minutes flat. That’s quite an icebreaker without even introducing yourself. What else should I know?”

“Nicholas Mills.” He grinned handsomely and extended his hand, it was callused and powerful and large, easily swallowing hers in his warm grip. “I’m here consulting on this exhibition, on loan from the Old West Museum in Cheyanne.”

“Alice,” she returned, giving his hand a firm shake. “You’re a historian?” Her tone was skeptical as she pointedly eyed his flannel shirt and jeans. “Is tweed out of vogue for you types these days?”

“In the west it’s all denim and cotton.” He popped the collar of his shirt. “Linen if you want to be pretentious. Dust sticks to tweed like hell, not to mention burs.”

“What about your ten-gallon hat and dinnerplate-sized belt buckle?” The question gave her a convenient excuse to gauge the way he filled out his jeans. He wasn’t a man who skipped leg day.

“Those are only fashion accessories in Texas. Maybe Santa Fe. Where I’m from, if you’re wearing a cowboy hat, it better have a sweat ring around the headband, and if you’re wearing a belt buckle, it better be tarnished. Those are work accessories for working ranch hands, not fashion statements.” He let his eyes travel the curves of her figure under the guise of admiring her outfit of jeans and a blazer. “I suppose those duds work equally well for business or pleasure in most fields.” He smirked, but moved on before she could wonder at the double entendre. “Do I get a last name or just Alice?”

Smiling coyly, Alice replied, “I’ll give you a hint and see how well you know your stuff. It’s the name of one of my favorite songs and of a color that looks terrible on me, and I share it with a gunfighter who I’m sad to see isn’t featured in your exhibit. He had one of the best names in the business. That’s three hints, actually. So, are you posing as a historian to hit on unsuspecting women, or the real deal?”

“I’m not up on music and I can’t imagine there’s a color that could make you look terrible,” Nick frowned and pursed his lips. “I know of a couple of noteworthy Browns and even a Dunn, but their names don’t have any special ring to them. If I was a betting man, I’d put my dollar on ‘Texas’ Jack Vermillion. Alice Vermillion?”

“If you were betting, you’d have hit the jackpot,” Alice said with a genuine smile. “A man who knows Texas Jack and Charlie Russell. I’m not yet impressed, but I am intrigued.”

“If this goes the direction I’m hoping, I may yet hit that jackpot and you’ll be very impressed.” He didn’t give her the chance to address that sentiment before changing the subject. He cocked his head toward another painting depicting a man and woman seated side by side beneath an upside down canoe propped above them, taking shelter from a torrent of rain in a thick forest. Despite the weather, the couple was engaged in smiling conversation. “I’m a Goodwin man, myself. But I’m biased. Every time I look at his paintings of cowboys packing up in Alaska or canoeing in the Great North, adventurous couples fishing and hunting together, I get nostalgia for a place I’ve never been.” He smiled to himself. “Someday.”

“Isn’t New York about as far away as a man can get from canoeing up in the Great North and fighting grizzlies over your catch of the day?” she teased. “Not much chance of facing down a maneater on the mean streets of NYC. Although, I hear these days you’re more likely to get bitten by a New Yorker than a shark.”

“You must not know about the Museum Beast.” He flashed a grin that was lopsided and full of mischief.

Alice cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s a little early in the day for ghost stories. Shouldn’t you invite me someplace nicer before you start trying to rattle the delicate woman into wanting to cling to your big, strong arm?”

“I’m appalled you think I’m that easy, miss.” He flexed one of those big, strong arms in question in the sluttiest possible way. “It’s no campfire ghost story. The folks who work here believe it. They say there’s a huge beast living in the basement, roaming the halls at night.” Holding up his hands, he hummed the Twilight Zone theme. “They say it preys on researchers who embezzle grant money and curators who hit on their secretaries.”

Alice laughed, maybe snorted a little, decidedly unladylike. “So, you’re saying I’m safe then?”

“I’ll keep you safe,” he teased with faux gravity. “Just stick close to me.”

“That sounds like a pretty firm offer to help with some research to me.” She put her hands on her hips in a playful challenge.

“Would it be smart of you to trust the research skills of a man who’s not wearing a tweed jacket?” He grinned. “What kind of research? Are you a student?”

“God no!” she laughed. “I haven’t been a student in over a decade. I’m something much worse.”

Nick raised his eyebrows, inquiring.

“I’m a defense lawyer, trying desperately to find an angle to show my very guilty client has a mitigating defense.” She mirrored his expression, raising her eyebrows. “You want the facts? They’re not for the squeamish. You don’t have a full stomach, do you?”

“A pretty face with a shady job and an iron stomach to boot?” he laughed again. “You have my attention.”

“Have you ever gotten carried away and gone down some weird rabbit holes?” she asked with a self-deprecating grin.

‘Sure.” He nodded. “I’m not surprised you’re one to go chasing rabbits, Alice.”

“My client is a murder, a serial killer. A cannibal, to be precise.” She watched him for any of the silent tells she was used to seeing when a listener wanted her to stop, or to chew their arm off and escape her work stories. Seeing none, she continued. “He grew up in Centralia, Pennsylvania before the town was evacuated, then worked in mines all of his adult life. He tells me this affected him. Sadly, conventional psych evals don’t back up his claim. So, before I lay out the big bucks on an expert to say whatever I want, I wanted to do some research on the effects of heavy metal poisoning on miners and a correlation with cannibalism. I figured looking at the Old West miners before there were regulations might be a good place to start.”

“Cannibalism, huh? Romantic topic. Did you see the Donner Party exhibit?” He smirked and jerked his thumb in the direction of a diorama of several wax figures huddled around a dying campfire, clutching furs around them to fight the bitter blizzarding cold while suggestively roasting skewers of meat.

“It’s very nice.” She looked back at the macabre display. “But not what I’m looking for. They had a different defense to cannibalism. Duress, definitely. If I were representing one of them, I’d also argue self-defense, in an eat or be eaten sense. I’d win.”

Nick grinned then pursed his lips, nodding as he considered her problem. “You won’t find anything useful up here but if you want to go deeper down this rabbit hole, you’d want to have a look in the museum’s archives. This museum has the largest collection of natural history artifacts in the world. That’s one reason I’m here, frankly, is a chance to explore their collection of Old West relics. It’s better than being a kid in a candy store. It’s almost as good as an occultist getting a backstage pass to the Vatican Archives.” He fixed his intense eyes on hers. “I bet we could find some good stuff in there.”

“Are you offering to sneak me into the museum’s archives with you?” She added a seductive edge to her voice and added, “You’re going to lift up the museum’s skirt for me and show me her goods?”

“I’ll have you know skirt-lifting is a great talent of mine.” He waggled his eyebrows playfully. “Yeah, I’m offering, so long as you let me take you out afterwards. We can discuss our findings over dinner.”

“You won’t get in trouble?” she asked sincerely.

“They can’t fire me.” He shrugged. “The worst they could do is chew me out and deport me back to Cheyanne. What do you say? Dinner in exchange for a private curated tour and me risking getting a big ole ass-chewing?”

“Deal.” Alice smiled, offering her hand again and they shook on it.

*******************************************************************************************

It was creeping toward five when Nick led Alice out of an employee service elevator on one of the lower levels of the museum. They had met an exodus of employees heading the opposite direction on their way home for the day.

“Is it too late for this adventure?” Alice asked as they walked down a hallway so long she could barely see the end of it. The lights were dim and there were no windows on this lower level. They passed dozens of closed doors and multiple other hallways branching off. She thought the minotaur could get lost in this place.

“I have my all hours, all access pass.” He tapped his jeans pocket where a laminated card was stowed. It served as both an ID card and a key to most of the locked doors in the museum and the employee-only areas.

“How do you not get lost in here?” Alice asked, looking around the endless halls. Especially with no natural light or signage, it seemed impossible.

“Nah, I get lost all the time. I consider it part of the adventure,” he laughed, then saw her askance look and added sheepishly, “Sorry, I forgot I was supposed to be your intrepid guide. I won’t let on if I get lost. Just consider it exploring.”

“That’s comforting,” she laughed too. Secretly, she thought it might not be the most terrible thing to be lost for a few hours or even the night in a place with so much to explore with a handsome man.

Alice was convinced they had covered the distance of several city blocks before they arrived at a pair of heavy oak doors with a plain brass plate announcing they had reached the B Archives.

“Does that mean there’s an entire alphabet of archive rooms and collections?” she asked as Nick held the door open for her.

“Probably.” He shrugged. “I’ve only poked around in Archives A, B, and C. Those collections date from the recent past until the eighteenth century or so.”

Inside the B Archives, Alice was reminded of an enormous library that had seen better days. Or the basement of an ultra-rich hoarder. Rows of metal shelves streaked away as far as she could see in the dim lighting, seven-feet high and with another foot or two of boxes piled on top. Between rows there was enough space for two people to walk abreast if they wanted to get a little cozy with one another. At various intervals in the rows there were alcoves fitted with small tables where one could examine their find without taking it up to the front. The light added to the aged feel, the bulbs candlelight-yellow, a few of which were weak and flickering. The front of the room had a kind of sitting area with chairs and a spattering of small tables. There was a small office inside too, a door with a smoked glass window open ajar.

A hunched old man with white hair and coke bottle glasses poked his head out from the office door, squinting at Nick for several seconds before addressing him. “You’ve been bothering me a lot lately.”

“This time I brought a pretty girl who wants to bother you,” Nick said, placing his hand on the small of Alice’s back as he led her toward the old man. “She’s curious what you have on mines in the old west. Particularly mines with gruesome histories. Murders, deaths, breakouts of illness or insanity. All that good stuff. Cannibalism in particular, if you have any of that on the menu.”

“Cannibalism? On a perfectly decent Friday afternoon?” The old man scoffed, but proceeded to ponder the matter, his bushy white eyebrows drawing together in thought. After a moment, he held up a triumphant finger. “You know, there is a rather curious box of effects that might interest you. It’s some remnants of an old Colorado sheriff’s things. He led quite an illustrious life, it seems. His heirs donated most of his effects to the museum. I took a quick peek through it years ago when it came in, but I haven’t thought of it since.” He pointed a bony finger down the row of aisles. “Aisle S, box 5425, if memory serves, and it always does.”

“How in the hell do you do that?” Nick asked, shaking his head.

“Photographic memory.” The man tapped his temple. “Which also means I’ll remember you precisely if you mess up my boxes.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Nick assured him then led the way toward aisle S.

It took them some time to locate box 5425, partially because many of the labels were faded beyond readability. When they found it, Nick had to stand on his tiptoes and stretch his arms to their full reach to nudge it off its perch on top of another box on the top shelf. He nearly dropped the box when it came free, catching it with one hand and fumbling for balance for a harrowing second. Once he held it securely in his arms, he smiled cockily at Alice and headed toward the nearest alcove in their row.

The alcove was centered in the row and seated directly under a flickering yellow light. Nick set the box down on the small table, barely large enough for a coffee date. The lights were sparsely spaced, leaving shadowy stretches between pools of yellow light. There were still several towering rows of shelving between them and the entrance, but sound carried well in the sepulcher-like room. He was spreading the contents of the box out on the table when he heard then entrance door creak open and a voice bounced down the aisle toward them.

“I’m clocking out for the day.” The old man called. “Put that box back where you found it and don’t tell anyone I left you unattended in here, and we’ll still be friends tomorrow.”

“You got it,” Nick replied, projecting his deep voice so it boomed through the archives. Then he turned to Alice with a wolfish expression, “I hope you didn’t want a chaperone.”

“All a chaperone does is keep an honest man honest,” she replied, appreciating just how close they stood at the small table. “I think you’re a man who will break as many rules as I let you, chaperone or not.”

“Maybe so.” He grinned sideways and chewed his lip as he opened the box.

It may have been a mistake, she realized, allowing herself to be shut away privately and in such close confines with this man. Her profession was dominated by men, she was used to working closely with men and attractiveness or lack thereof never entered into it. Rarely, at least. It was a foreign feeling to be dominated by hormones the way she was now. Her senses felt assaulted, a gate failing before a battering ram. The way he looked and the rich gravel in his voice were bad enough, but now in the close space, Alice couldn’t ignore the masculine scent that subtly infiltrated her nose. She didn’t know if the scent of pine and leather mingled with musk was cologne or if it belonged to him. The small table necessitated him being close to her, their bodies almost touching. He didn’t crowd her, but still the size of him was tantalizingly imposing with the minimal space between them. She felt the heat from his body on her skin when he leaned over to study the papers spread across the table next to her. It made her think of being overpowered, manhandled, taken, even – the things that modern empowered women were supposed to have evolved beyond but that the base part of them craved when they sensed a man masculine enough to give it.

Nick pulled a letter from the box, the paper brittle and yellowed with age. Protocol dictated he should be wearing gloves to handle it, but he didn’t want to leave Alice alone long enough to fetch a pair. Despite his bravado, he had always found these dark and mostly abandoned places inside the museum creepy. He never let it get to him or get in the way of anything he needed to do, of course. But it was still an unsettling sort of environment, surrounded by the dead and their effects, in a place where voices echoed and shadows creeped. It was easy to imagine wakeful spirits watching him from the corner of his eye, just at the edges of the feeble light.

Not unlike being inside a deep, dark mine, he thought as he looked at the letter. He read aloud to Alice, thinking he might have actually struck gold, at least in terms of finding something to keep their afternoon interesting.

October 13, 1882

Darlin Belle,

I’m sure missin you tonight. I don’t know if you’ll ever read this but I hope it will find its way to you. I’m gonna write you like you was here with me and I was just talkin to you over dinner. It makes me miss you less. Every time I think about bein home, all that is to me is bein with you. The men in the posse kid me for bein whipped by you but I can’t find a damn to give over it. Miserable lonely bastards, the lot of em. But I guess they didn’t leave no one behind to miss em when they died. I hope you’ll miss me and remember the things that were good about me. There aren’t many, so it shouldn’t be hard.

“That sounds romantic,” Alice said with a wistful lilt. “I’m not sure it’s useful for my purposes, but I like it.”

Nick grinned and nodded. He read ahead to himself, but decided not to share it with the woman who was now looking at him with a pretty, hopeful smile. Best not to spoil the mood. He read the next few paragraphs to himself, feeling a prickly chill drag along the length of his spine like ghostly fingernails.

It’s been snowin up here in these mountains for days and it’s up over my knees now. Sure makes me miss the warmth of your touch. There’s nothin finer than holdin you in my arms, smellin your hair like flowers and cinnamon, feelin you soft n warm. I think you might be the only thing that can thaw me out ever again. Here I gone and got myself all hot and bothered just thinkin about you. But the snow’s been a blessin for me. It made the blood trail of the one I wounded easy to follow. I found him holed up under a ledge and finished him off with my knife so as not to fire off a shot. Sound carries in these mountains. The snow got thicker after dark. Thick enough to hide my tracks from the rest who are huntin me.

They haven’t found my hideout yet, but they will. I have to beat em to the punch.

I ain’t got much time cause they know the mountains better than me. It makes hidin hard and ambushin harder.

Sorry my writins goin from bad to worse fast. My fingers are numb as hell.

Curious, Alice leaned in to look at the letter and read it along with him. Spender folded it back together with a snap, too rough for the old paper and cleared his throat. He hastily put it back in the box – in the bottom of the box, under some other more innocuous looking items. “I don’t think the rest is worth reading today.”

Instead, he reached for a pocket watch with a gold hunting case, beautifully engraved with an elk hunting scene. Holding it delicately in his hands, he popped open the cover and read the engraving aloud, “To my handsome sheriff. You carry my love for you wherever you go. Belle.”

“That’s beautiful.” Turning toward him, Alice looked into his eyes as she spoke. Though his composure remained steady on the surface, she saw the way his chest expanded, his jaw clenched, his throat bobbed. It gave her a feeling of power knowing Nick was just as affected by their proximity as she was, maybe even more. She told herself she wouldn’t completely give into hormones. But she could give a little. How long had it been since she’d made out with a man like a horny teenager during a study session? Probably not since she had been a horny teenager. She could live a little now. Resting her ass against the tale, she leaned back against it and looked up at him, intentionally giving him the image of her laying sprawled beneath him. It would be a perfectly innocuous posture if the air wasn’t so charged between them, the attraction so tangible. The way he swallowed thickly told her that it wasn’t innocuous to him either.

The next move was his, Nick realized. Smirking to mask the way his pulse thundered, he stepped closer to her, using the excuse of setting the watch down on the table near her hip resting against the table’s edge. He left his hand there on the table, and when Alice kept looking up at him rather than anywhere else, Nick knew he had her tacit approval to act bolder. With his next step, he positioned himself in front of her. His right hand still rested near the pocket watch that held less interest to Alice than the man. He flattened his right hand on the table beside her then planted his left hand on her opposite side. There was still space between their bodies, if only inches, but he now caged her against the table and loomed over her.

“Find anything that interests you down here yet, darlin?’” he asked, letting the huskiness in his voice reflect his mounting arousal.

Alice heard something that sounded like a faint scratch from somewhere inside the archives. It was hardly enough to pull her attention away from the stupidly attractive man who was doing his best to make her forget all the dating rules and run every base right here in this dusty archive.

“I don’t have enough information to know if I’m interested in anything yet,” she teased. Angling her chin up, she presented her jaw and neck in a favorable angle for kissing.

“What do I need to clear up for you?” he played along as he lowered his head, trailing his nose over her cheek and his lips over her jaw, kissing lightly and teasing her with the scratch of his beard.

A box shifted on a shelf deeper in the archive, as though something had bumped it or rubbed against it. Alice heard that too, but she didn’t care. Not when Nick’s lips had moved to her neck and were giving her goosebumps, making her breath come short and her spine tingle. Encouraged by the way her body arched toward his and the way her hands had flown to his shoulders, Nick hooked his hands behind her thighs and hoisted her up onto the table. Pushing her legs apart, he stepped between them, bringing their bodies together then letting his hands caress her thighs and back as he continued kissing her neck. Every part of his body was hard beneath her roving hands, each plane and ridge of muscle a new excitement to discover. She could feel how hard he was inside his jeans too, but she would save exploring all of him for another time. She had talked herself into a nice makeout session with a handsome stranger, but she hadn’t yet abandoned all of her morals.

Bringing his hand to the back of her neck, he cradled her head while he exerted that subtle masculine control that could make a woman want to submit to him. Nick teased the side of her neck with his teeth, also teasing her restraint. He grinned against her skin when he pulled a soft moan from her throat, beginning to lose himself in the feel of her body against his, her soft skin under his callused hands.

When she moaned, Alice heard a strange response from somewhere in the dimly lit room. Something like a wet huffed breath, or a sloppy inhale. It sounded like a large dog snuffling. It was unmistakably not something she could attribute to the old room or hear ears playing tricks on her.

“Nick,” she whispered, not from arousal but trepidation. “Did you hear that?”

“’Course, darlin,’” he muttered dismissively as he nosed and kissed along her collarbone, his fingers digging into her thigh.

“What is it?” She was starting to pull back, making him tighten his hold on her.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing,” he spoke against her skin, trying to placate her. He hadn’t heard anything, but if there was something, it was probably a fucking rat the size of a wiener dog. They had those fuckin’ things in New York. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her that. Giant rats wouldn’t do a damn thing to keep her revved up for him. Forcing the thought from his own mind, he resumed kissing her, rubbing his words in with his lips. “It’s an old place. There’s bound to be some weird noises.”

“Listen!” she whisper-yelled, grabbing a fistful of his thick hair and yanking far too harshly to be mistaken for anything sexy.

He winced and frowned at her through one eye, the other was squeezed shut from the pain in his scalp. “You could just tell me to fuckin’ stop, you know?”

“Listen,” she said again, this time her whisper was barely audible. She heard another scrape and maybe another sniffing breath. But everything was quieter now, more subtle. As if whatever was making those faint noises was trying to be stealthier.

“That could be anything,” Nick said at full volume with a laugh on his voice. His voice seemed to boom throughout the archives, sparking off Alice’s inflamed nerve endings.

She clapped a hand over his mouth, hard enough to make him flinch. Her body was bolt upright, incidentally pressing her body flush to his, her every muscle taught. She knew her system had shot into a fight or flight response, but she didn’t know why. Her consciousness hadn’t registered anything that warranted such a reaction, a few odd sounds in an old museum was hardly noteworthy. But something about what she heard struck a chord in her core, deep in her subconscious where instinct reigned. Every sense she had sparked like live electric wires, screaming at her to run away as fast as she could, but she didn’t know what she was running from or even which direction to bolt. Her eyes were wide and terrified when they met Nick’s and she whispered, “Something’s in here with us. Listen. We have to get out.”

His eyes crinkled with amusement and he kissed her palm still held over his mouth. Taking her wrist, he plucked her hand away and kissed her there on her pulse point. He did it teasingly, but he lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper, “I spooked you good with that story about the Museum Beast.” He smirked and teased further, “I thought you were a big girl who could handle some campfire tales.”

“Can you not hear anything over the sound of your hard on?” she hissed, placing a restraining hand on his chest. “Listen, and try to think with the right head for a minute.”

Nick laughed, he always had a weakness for the feisty ones. He was about to tell her as much and steal another kiss when he heard it. A kind of snuffling, like someone with a runny nose, but also different and unmistakable. Growing up in Wyoming, he had spent plenty of time outdoors around wildlife, hunting, fishing, and hiking. He’d heard that sound once before when he’d come face to face with a grizzly around a bend in a trail. Given their poor eyesight, grizzlies tended to grunt and sniff their way along, their way of assessing their environment. He didn’t believe what his mind registered. There couldn’t be a fucking bear in a New York museum. But he also couldn’t rationally attribute the sound to some wheezy curator or a congested janitor, especially not when paired with a stealthy padded footfall.

“We need to run.” Alice fisted his lapel. Her voice had dropped below a whisper to an urgent breath.

“No, darlin,’ don’t run.” He grabbed her waist and pulled her off the table, returning her feet to the floor. Taking her arm, he pulled her behind him, placing himself closest toward the strange noises and whatever creature made them. He began to back slowly away down the aisle, pushing her behind him, trying to keep his steps silent. His mind raced frantically, but he forced his body to remain in control, repeating, “Don’t run.”

“Can we fight it?” she asked, touching his back from behind, trying to calm herself by keeping contact with him

“We may have to,” Nick gritted, unsure what to do since he had no idea what was creeping toward them from a few rows away. “Just don’t run. If there’s some kind of animal in here with us, the worst thing you can do is run.”

*******************************************************************************************

That little bitch, Warren thought petulantly as he walked down the dim hallway. The hallway that stretched on for the length of a city block. It was such bullshit. He hadn’t walked this much since he got kicked off his co-ed flag football team in junior high. Fuck her, he thought again as he kicked at a piece of crumpled paper on the tile floor, missed, and stumbled sideways. At least no one was around to see him. His uppity date was nowhere to be found. She had the gall to shove him away when he tried to fondle her boobs before running away from him. The ungrateful bitch. Warren had used his lunch hour to help her sneak out of high school, had paid her admission into the museum, and wasted his afternoon leading her around the exhibits and thrilling her with his acumen. She owed him a feel. He would just tell all her friends she sucked his dick in his car and have the last laugh.

Sullenly picking at the chipped black paint on his stubby fingers, he turned down yet another pointlessly long hallway. Despite being as blonde as a California It Girl and having a dumpy potatoesque physique, he thought that his crooked guyliner and black skinny jeans that revealed a tantalizing glimpse of a sweaty plumber’s crack gave him the hot goth look the girls liked. Not so much the girls in his peerage at college – they were stuck up bitches anyway, already hounding after the guys who were studying law at Harvard – but the girls who were just about to graduate from high school, just turned eighteen, maybe a little homely and desperate for a date to prom. Those were his preferred prey. He usually had some meager success with them, before their fathers found out about him and heartlessly separated them. It enhanced his view of himself as a tragic, long-suffering Shakespearean love interest who had turned to goth rock to bemoan his existence.

Since Warren had somehow managed to get turned around inside the maze of hallways until after it closed for the day, the museum was also devoid of employees. He thought it was only a matter of time before he ran into a security guard. He had a story lined up for why he was inside after hours, a grand tale that emphasized his victimhood. Maybe he could even end up with his name in the paper over it. That would really impress the girls.

Now, Warren lumbered along a random hallway, trying to find his way to an exit. He needed to find an elevator first. He had sneaked into some kind of service elevator with the girl and gone down several floors in his search for privacy. He thought he was in some kind of storage area or basement now, every room he passed was vacant save for troves of weird antiques. He had found the door to a stairwell a few turns back down the hallway, but he wasn’t about to walk up several flights of stairs. His day had been shit enough so far without climbing stairs.

After what seemed like an eternity, he came to a pair of double doors marked B Archives. He couldn’t remember the last time he had walked so far. He must have put in over two miles inside this stupid museum already. Like, a month’s worth of walking. Maybe there was a desk inside with a chair he could rest in even if he couldn’t find an employee to lead him out of this suckhole.

Success! Inside the B Archives were rows of forgotten looking shelves that Warren couldn’t give a shit less about, but there was also an office with an open door and the promise of a desk and cushy chair. The lights were on inside, giving him the additional hope that some diligent employee still remained there after hours.

“Hey?” he called out to anyone who might answer. His voice echoed eerily down the rows and off the tile like tumbleweeds rolling down the streets of a ghost town. “Is there anyone here? I need some directions to the way out.”

Something sounded in response from far back in the archives, down one of the dim rows. It sounded like a startled step, like he had caught someone off guard and they had turned around fast.

“If you could call a guard or even just tell me how to find the exit, that would be great,” Warren shouted. He walked toward the sound, down toward the back of the archives past the ends of the phalanx of aisles. A strange feeling began to creep into his senses, like the uneasy feeling he got when he watched horror movies alone. The feeling that had made him instigate a rule that he didn’t watch scary movies after nine. He even thought he heard the sound of something breathing heavily. Maybe he needed to ration his porn intake too, now he was blending porn sound effects with horror reactions. He mumbled to himself, “Who wouldn’t be creeped out by all this stupid old shit?”

Warren hadn’t paid attention to the way his walk had slowed without him meaning to or the way his mouth had gone dry. He jumped like he had bumped into an electric fence when one of the lightbulbs overhead surged then dimmed. He was glad the girl had run off now, so she couldn’t see him sweat and his hands shake. He heard something down the aisle to his left, something like a single impatient rap of nails on a desk.

The flickering of a waning yellow bulb drew his attention down the aisle. In the flickering light, it looked like something was moving in the aisle, just beyond the reach of the light on the far side. Something crouched and hulking in the shadows. It must be a trick of the dim light. That and being a little freaked out from being stuck down here all alone for what felt like hours. Still, Warren wished he had worn his smudged glasses. He didn’t wear them when he was trying to impress a girl because they weren’t cool.

He was focusing too hard on the shadows. Focus too hard on something and it can seem like the thing is moving. It was a common optical illusion, and the flickering light didn’t help. It made the weird shape in the shadows look like an animal with its head lowered, stealthily sneaking toward him down the aisle.

“Fuck this,” Warren exclaimed, throwing his hands up like an overwrought woman. He didn’t need to be in the creepy old room in the creepy old museum basement. At least the never-ending hallways weren’t filled to the brim with weird antiques.

Down the aisle something sniffed, like someone with a runny nose. Something definitely moved just beyond the light.

“Shit’s probably haunted,” he decided. That made it easier. He was a staunch Ghost Hunters fan and he’d learned a thing or two from them. Forcing a laugh, he added, “Suck my balls, ghosts!”

Turning on his heel in a flippant insult to the ghosts, he walked briskly back the way he had come. He heard something else, seemingly misplaced inside the haunted archives. He very distinctly heard the sound of a footfall and what sounded like a muffled voice, maybe two if one was whispering, coming from deeper down one of the aisles. But it was immediately overshadowed by the sound of a heavy body rushing down the aisle with the flickering light, and nails scraping on tile. Or claws.

Looking back over his shoulder, Warren saw a huge dark body moving fast down the aisle toward him in a kind of lope. An animal, grunting and running toward him. His mind couldn’t process all the details, or it didn’t want to. What his mind hitched on were the teeth. When the creature ran through the scant pool of light, vicious exposed teeth glinted inside its snarling jaws.

Warren ran.

The beast lunged after its prey with the instinct of a predator to chase after a fleeing animal. Warren felt it when the beast gave chase, like the stale air had chilled and all the ghosts inside the archives were watching him. Claws scrambling on tile and heavy galloping echoed behind him, punctuated by grunts.

Warren could see the exit door. It wasn’t far. He could make it. Trying to make his legs pump faster, he looked back over his shoulder. The creature had rounded the end of the aisle and was charging straight at him in large bounding strides. It was bigger than a lion with terrible yellow eyes and teeth like ivory daggers. And it was close.

With a sob, Warren tried to eke out more speed from his already failing legs, but his steps were clumsy and his breathing labored. All that walking all day had done him in. Something slammed into his back, heavy and sharp at the same time, sending him careening forward face down onto the tile. His back felt like it was on fire, stinging and melting at the same time with hot fluid slicking his shirt to his skin.

Crying, Warren looked over his shoulder, expecting to see the creature’s mouth open as it came in for the killing bite. But the beast sat on its haunches, poised like a giant cat, flicking a broad reptilian tail from side to side and drumming the claws of its forepaw on the tile. It watched him with evil yellow eyes, and it waited. With another blubbering sob, Warren staggered up to his feet and tried to run again. He didn’t get as far this time, only a few steps. The beast bounded after him, swiping one of its razor-clawed paws at Warren’s legs. Warren felt his flesh tear as his feet gave out from under him and he collapsed again. He had played enough gory video games to guess the beast had clawed through his calf on one leg and severed his Achilles tendon on the other.

The creature paused again, watching its crippled prey with a curiously cocked head as the pitiful human crawled away, one foot turned the wrong direction and flopping lifelessly on the floor, leaving a wide swatch of delicious smelling blood in its wake.

Warren couldn’t stand back up this time, and he barely had enough gumption left to crawl. After a few desperate flailing attempts, he turned over and flopped onto his back. He stared at the horrendous beast, his watery eyes meeting those of fearsome yellow. With a sickening horror that churned in his bowels he realized what the beast was doing. It was playing with him. The fucking monster was toying with him like a cat with a mouse. The beast cocked its head to the other side as it gave an impatient flick of its tail. Just like a cat with a mouse, the fun was over when the mouse stopped running.

Warren swore he saw an excited gleam flash inside those eyes as the monster lunged at him one final time. He looked into its ravenous eyes, as a heavy weight landed on his chest, pinning him in place. He felt his body being ripped open from throat to crotch with a sound like tearing burlap. The pain was extraordinary, but he couldn’t close his eyes against it.

Gruesome wet smacking noises filled the archive and Warren’s body jerked, tugged from someplace deep inside. He tried to scream but couldn’t with his diaphragm slashed open. Warren was still very much alive when the monster started eating him.

*******************************************************************************************

Nick could hear it clearly now, a heavy body moving with great stealth and wet breathing. Closing in on them from a couple aisles away. There could be no doubt, no mistaking it for the noises of an old room or for scuttling vermin. He had placed his body between the approaching animal and the woman. It was a protective male instinct and gallant, but not an act that would be overly helpful if the thing attacked them. A human’s top speed was equivalent to a chicken. If an Olympic sprinter would have a hard time outrunning a rooster, Nick had no delusions that he could outrun an apex predator. All running would do would trigger it into attacking. He also didn’t think he could fight it off, not if it really wanted to attack. He didn’t have a weapon and humans were really quite feeble animals without their tools. He knew the ways a man could try to survive a predator attack – play dead with a grizzly, fight a black bear, shout at a lion to try to scare it off. None of them would work if the animal really wanted to get him. Then, a man could only hope the animal lost interest before it killed him. Balling his fists, he decided that if it came to a fight, he’d fight until his last breath. Or until he was torn apart.

“Hey! Is there anyone here? I need some directions to the way out,” an unfamiliar voice sounded through the archives.

Nick froze, every sense piqued. He reached behind him and grabbed Alice’s hand, squeezing tightly, silently willing her to stay calm and quiet. He didn’t know the woman and he hoped to hell she had enough sense to stay still and silent, not to yell back toward the stranger or to run in his direction. A mistake like that would be their death sentence. Alice squeezed his hand back, reassuring him, and placed her other hand on his back. The monstrous beast had stilled, its attention captured by the noisome intruder instead of the quieter, more boring quarry. It sniffed the air, assessing the stranger.

Each heartbeat pounded in Nick’s ears like war drums, each second an agony as they waited for the monster to decide which prey it wanted to hunt. With frightening quickness, the beast turned and vanished into the shadowy depths of the aisle.

Keeping hold of Alice’s hand, Nick turned to her and met her eyes. Very deliberately, he brought his forefinger to his lips in the universal gesture for utter silence. He tugged her with him down the aisle in the opposite direction the creature had gone. They heard the stranger’s voice asking the room if someone could tell him how to find the exit. Nick led Alice away from the stranger and away from the beast.

The unknown man was toast. There was nothing Nick could do, and he wasn’t going to waste the life of a woman trying to save a man he didn’t know. He was also smart enough or shellfish enough to value his own life over that of a foolhardy stranger. He hoped the fool would distract the monster enough for them to sneak around it and make the exit themselves. His mind raced ahead of his feet, thinking past the exit to the museum. If they made it out of the archives, they would find themselves back in a long, straight hallway with nowhere to hide and no chance of outrunning whatever the hell this animal was.

To reassure himself, he felt his pocket for the museum key card. He didn’t know if it would help them, but without it they had no chance.

The stranger’s footsteps echoed through the archives as the man started walking down along the ends of the forest of aisles. Nick gambled that the beast’s attention was fixed on that sound and that victim. Pulling Alice along beside him, he trotted down the aisle as swiftly as he could while keeping his footsteps light. For such a large man, he could move stealthily, a skill ingrained by a youth spent hunting with his father and refined by a stint in the military. He was pleased that Alice matched him in both pace and silence. He ran to the far end of the aisle, listening to the intermittent mutterings from the idiot bumbling around at the front of the vast room. The beast could no longer be heard, which worried him, but he had gambled on this hand and now he had to let it ride.

The back of the archives was notably darker than the front and even in between the aisles with the temperamental lightbulbs. An animal stink hung in the air along the back wall, as if the animal used this shady area as a trail of sorts. They moved quickly past the ends of the aisles in the direction of the exit. Nick was a step ahead, still holding Alice’s hand. Looking down each aisle they passed, the archives flashed in time with their steps, giving a visual picture of the room pieced together in morse code.

Nick stopped suddenly, causing Alice to collide with his back. He was so solid, she didn’t even knock him off balance, like running into a warm sculpture. He didn’t so much as look down at her, his wide eyes fixed down the aisle. Thirty feet away from them down the aisle, a hulking silhouette crouched in the center. It looked black in the feeble light and had no discernable features, but they could tell it faced away from them by a broad crocodilian tail flicking back and forth as it watched and waited. Nick didn’t dare move again, not even to step back behind the end of the aisle. It was blind luck the beast had been so focused on the stranger that it hadn’t seen or heard them creeping up at its back. His heart thundered so loudly in his own ears that he thought the beast must surely hear it too.

“Suck my balls, ghosts!” the fool shouted from the end of the aisle, then he started marching away back toward the exit. The beast’s tail stilled, as it watched its prey retreat.

Nick squeezed Alice’s hand, a signal to make ready. The stranger hadn’t taken three steps when the beast launched itself forward down the aisle, entirely focused on its prey. Nick whispered urgently, his voice little more than a growled breath, “Now, we run!”

Nick charged ahead, sprinting full tilt down the back of the archives, pulling Alice along with him. She gripped his hand tight, letting herself be all but dragged along, her feet barely seeming to touch the ground. There was no other way she could keep pace with his long surging stride. Their running footsteps were overshadowed by the sharp sound of claws scrambling on tile and a heavy pounding gallop, then by the sobbing screams of the stranger when the beast caught him. There was no mistaking the anguished cries that filled the archive like a whirring saw in a butcher shop.

At the end of the room, Nick careened around the last aisle, his boots slipping on the tile, and pushed himself even harder down the last straight stretch along the wall toward the door. The screaming continued, now imbued with a gurgling wet quality and sickening chewing and crunching. Alice had heard sounds like that before on National Geographic shows featuring lions over a kill. A meaty abattoir smell engulfed them as they raced down the aisle, bringing them closer to both the beast and the exit.

There was open space at the front of the room, where the beast presently feasted on its dying prey. About fifteen feet worth of open floor between the ends of the aisles and the exit door. There was no option of hiding or stealth when they crossed it. Nick made a mad dash when he reached the end of the aisle, bursting out onto the open floor like a pheasant breaking cover in front of a hound.

The beast reared up from its kill, startled by the two humans erupting from the aisle. It took a second to assimilate these new targets, enough time for them to cover half the open floor. Gnashing its bloody jaws, the beast lunged after the two new fleeing morsels. It landed on forepaws slick with blood, its front legs slipping and splaying out on the tile. Its wet claws found no purchase on tile, and the beast fishtailed before getting its balance.

Nick turned loose of Alice’s hand a step before the double doors and barreled into them with his shoulder at full speed. The doors exploded open, shooting splinters of wood out into the hallway, with Nick falling through off-balance. Alice jumped through on his heels and he pushed her ahead of him as he recovered his footing and ran. Reaching into his pocket for the museum badge, he heard the beast grunting and scrambling through the broken wooden doors, very close behind them.

The nearest door down the hallway was marked obscurely Lab 754, a single door with no windows and a scanner beside it. He didn’t know what was inside, but he knew they couldn’t outrun the monster down a straight hallway. Grabbing Alice by the waistband of her jeans, Nick skidded them both to a stop at the door. His fingers felt clumsy when he articulated the badge over the scanner. A militant light flashed red and an insolent tone told him the card was declined.

“Fuck, fuck fuck,” Nick growled as Alice’s nails dug painfully into his arm. Turning the badge over so his gawky picture faced outward and the barcode on the back faced the scanner, he pressed it against the scanner again and gripped the doorknob in a blanched white fist. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the hulking creature charging down the hallway at them, eyes gleaming yellow, teeth glinting white.

A green light flashed, taking too long to approve their entry with a pleasant tone. The beast was another stride closer, close enough to see individual drops of blood slinging from its jaws. The lock slid open with a metallic click. Nick wrenched the doorknob and yanked the door open toward him. Alice rushed inside, but he shoved her ahead of him anyway as he slipped in behind her. The beast crashed into the open door, slamming it shut right behind Nick’s back with violent force. He had thrown himself inside and barreled into Alice, all but tackling her to the floor as he fell and sprawled over her. He cringed involuntarily at the sound of the beast colliding with the wooden door, hunching over Alice beneath him.

All doors opened outward in public buildings like the museum, pursuant to fire code regulations. And most of the doors in this older basement area of the museum were thick, sturdy wood. The door shuddered ominously, but it held.

Nick looked down at Alice from the position of a lover with his hands planted on either side of her head, his hips pinning her down, their chests touching and their noses nearly so. “Are you alright? We have to keep moving. That door won’t hold for long.”

“Waiting on you,” she said breathlessly, shoving on his broad chest to push him back.

The beast roared and hit the door again. This time splinters shot into the room from the dying doorframe like tiny javelins.

Nick pulled her up with him as he pushed up to his feet. They each looked around the room, trying to quickly assess their surroundings. Fluorescent light lined the ceiling instead of weak yellow bulbs. A long central table ran the length of the room piled with what looked like various artifacts and fossils, including the impressive skull of a sabretooth tiger. Chairs were pulled up to the table at intervals, demarcating different workstations. The air inside was cool and crisp and a subtle whirring indicated a local air system. A shop broom leaned in the far corner, its bristles chalky white with bone dust.

“A restoration lab, damn it to hell.” Nick slammed his hand angrily on the tabletop. “We won’t find anything useful in here.” But he began looking anyway as he made his way through the room.

Alice lingered behind him, turning on several bright lamps placed over the table and pointing them at the rapidly weakening door. She turned on one of the drills on the table, leaving it to buzz and bounce across the tabletop. Nick looked at her with a frown and she shrugged and told him, “It might buy us a few more seconds.”

The back of the room ended depressingly in a simple wall. Nick glared at it as if he could burn a hole through the plaster with his anger. He grinned sardonically at Alice, “The hallway makes a U bend. The service elevator we came down in is probably less than twenty away on the other side of this wall. You don’t happen to have a battering ram hidden in your brassier, do you?”

“That would be my other bra,” she said, looking back at the door as it took another thunderous hit, this time accompanied by the squeal of the metal hinges bending inward.

Nick leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling in frustration. His body jerked like he’d been startled and he ran to the broom standing in the corner. Grabbing it, he sprinted back to the far wall, holding it like a spear. Using the wide, bristled head, he rammed it straight up above his head and into the square air vent in the ceiling. Another hard thrust and the vent crumpled and fell out of the ventilation shaft, leaving a gaping square hole in the ceiling ten feet above their heads.

“Here!” he told Alice urgently, clapping his hands together before linking his fingers to form a stirrup with his hands. The beast struck the door again, tearing a hole through the wood. It pawed through the hole with its claws, scraping and tearing at the wood as it snarled in frustration.

“Can you get up there too?” Alice asked as she placed her foot in his hands.

“Don’t think about it,” Nick grunted as he hefted her up into the square vent like she was nothing but a doll. She hoisted her high enough to bring her chest level with the inside of the vent. Planting her elbows on the flat metal and kicking her legs, she struggled inside. Laying on her stomach, she looked back down through the square hole at Nick below.

Bending his knees, he jumped straight up into the vent opening. It was at the far reach of his vertical jump, but his fingers caught the metal lip. But there was no purchase on the slick metal and his hands slipped off almost instantly. Alice leaned down into the opening, reaching a hand down to him.

“Get out of the way!” he waved her hand away. She began to protest, but he shouted, “Can you curl two-thirty-five? Then I’ll only pull you back out with me.”

The beast crashed into the door a final time, bursting into the lab in an explosion of splinters. It halted immediately when the brilliantly bright spotlight hit its eyes, sitting back on its haunches and shaking its head.

“Give me the broom!” Alice said.

Grinning with understanding despite it all, Nick shoved the head of the broom up into her hands. The beast snarled and swiped the light out of its eyes, then turned its attention to the jumping drill and its grating, high-pitched whine. Alice maneuvered the broom so its handle spanned the square opening, wedged as tightly against the sides as she could get it. The beast crushed the drill with its teeth, shaking its head with the drill in its mouth like a dog with a squeaky toy, then throwing it aside. Fixing its ferocious yellow eyes on Nick at the far end of the room, it charged.

Nick bent his knees, looking up at the broom handle inside the vent. He would only get one shot. Swinging his arms, he jumped up with everything he had. The beast swiped at Nick’s legs as he caught the broom handle, but he jerked them up just in time. Using the broom handle like a pull-up bar, he hoisted himself up into the ventilation shaft. Alice shoved herself backward to make room for him as he lunged forward into the small space, making sure his long legs were clear of the opening.

The beast jumped up after him, slamming its head into the metal of the shaft, denting it upwards. Roaring in frustration, it jumped again, making another dent. Then it reared on its hind legs and clawed at the metal. The sound was a terrible, deafening squeal inside the shaft, ringing in their ears. There was enough space for them to crawl on their hands and knees, and Alice crawled frantically away.

“Can’t beat the view,” Nick quipped, following right behind her.

The beast tried jumping at the vent once more before apparently realizing it was futile. The silence when it stopped was much more unnerving than the banging and scratching and snarling had been.

It didn’t take long for them to come to another vent. Looking through the metal slats, Nick quickly assessed they were now over the section of hallway that housed the service elevator. He easily yanked it open and dropped down through it to the floor. Alice lowered herself down feet first until she felt him catch her legs in a reassuring bearhug and let her slide the rest of the way down his body. Holding her against him, he grinned at her and jerked his chin to the side, “Look what we found.”

The service elevator was no more than fifteen feet away. As she sighed with relief, collapsing into Nick’s arms, Alice heard the now familiar sound of clawed feet scrambling on the tile. “It guessed where we were heading!”

They sprinted to the elevator and Nick punched the Up button over and over. The arrow above the doors illuminated green and the bell dinged. But the doors were old and slow to open. The beast rounded the corner of the hallway in a fury of claws and teeth and lather, charging at them with its horrible teeth bared in a snarl. But claws for all their ferocity did not keep traction on smooth tile. When the beast rounded the tight corner, it did so in an uncontrolled skid. The beast scrambled to keep its balance, but it had charged into the corner too fast. Its shoulder slammed into the opposite side of the hallway as it slid, paws flailing haphazardly beneath it, buying its prey an extra second to live. Nick shoved Alice inside when the opening between the doors was still too narrow for him to fit. Even as the doors still opened, she was pushing the button for the upper floor. Nick slipped inside as the beast ran him down, only one good lunge away.

Nick and Alice pressed themselves to the back of the elevator, watching helplessly as death charged at them and the doors closed too slowly. Their view between the doors narrowed with terrible sluggishness until all they could see were those slitted yellow eyes and bloody frothing jaws. The beast lunged at the gap in the doors, striking the metal with a horrendous crash. Saliva and blood spewed through the opening, splattering Alice and Nick, just as the doors closed and the elevator lurched upward.

The doors opened to a main hallway on one of the upper floors, home to the biggest and most popular museum exhibits. Large windows lined this hallway admitting the moonlight and there was enough light in the individual exhibits to allow the security cameras to identify a thief if needed. Many smaller hallways branched off this main one, each leading to an exhibit. They were near the entrance to an exhibit that glowed green in the dim light, labeled Rainforest. A metal stairwell door was beside the elevator.

“Now at least I know where we are,” Nick could have laughed with relief. He ducked into Alice and stole a quick kiss from her lips.

“Freeze!” A militant voice sliced through the silence in the hall. “Put your hands up!”

They turned to see a short and corpulent museum security guard standing behind them, holding a revolver trained on Nick. He had just rounded a corner of the hallway and shuffled toward them as quickly as his pendulous gut would allow, his utility belt jingling with every labored step. Using his gun, the guard gestured from Nick to the far wall, and ordered, “Turn and face that wall right now. And I better see your hands while you’re sniffing plaster. Move!”

“There’s something in here with us,” Alice said, trying to calm the guard. “You need to take us all out before it finds us.”

“I’m sure there is, honey,” the guard sniggered and took a belligerent step toward Nick. “I gave you a command, hoss.”

The security guard held his gun on Nick, the barrel shaking in his uncertain grip. He was the most dangerous sort of person to hold a man at gunpoint – nervous and unfamiliar with a weapon or with apprehending a suspect. Those were the men likely to shoot first and ask questions later, or even shoot accidentally when they shook hard enough to spasm their trigger finger.

“Turn around now!” the guard shouted again, spittle flying from his lips, his jowls quaking.

The guard was too far away from Nick to make a grab for the gun or knock it away. So, he turned, faced the wall, and planted his hands flat on its smooth surface. He made a great effort to keep his voice calm when he spoke over this shoulder, “Look, buddy, there’s something after us. Something chasing us. Something monstrous. None of us are safe here, including you. You have to get us all out right now. Arrest me and charge me with whatever the hell you want, just get us out.”

The guard spoke into the radio clipped to his belt, “I caught someone sneaking around inside the rainforest exhibit. Looks like a pair of lovebirds who broke in to get it on. I need backup. The guy’s giving me hell. He’s a big bastard too. Threatened my safety already.”

“Ten-Four,” a voice crackled through the radio static. “Sending backup. Just cuff ‘em and keep ‘em where you have ‘em until backup gets there.”

Risking a bullet, Nick growled, “Look, you stupid bastard. You can get all the backup you want and you can arrest me. So long as you get us the fuck outta here, and you do it now! We need to move, goddamnit!”

“The big guy is making more threats,” the guard radioed.

The sound of a door being shoved open inside the stairwell echoed behind the door. It sounded like it came from a flight or two below. Alice heard claws scrambling up the stairs. She met Nick’s cool eyes and she winked.

“Excuse me, sir,” Alice said to the guard in a demure tone. “Our friend’s in the stairwell. Go see for yourself. He’s the one you want to arrest.”

“What the Christ are you all doing in here?” the guard scoffed. “Bunch of assholes ruining my night to have a goddamn orgy!”

The scrambling reached the nearest steps, the sound of a heavy body closing in on the door. The guard heard it too. Keeping his gun pointed at Nick’s back, he stepped to the stairwell door. Grabbing the doorhandle, he yelled with gusto, “Hey asshole, this is museum security. I hear you in there. I’m gonna open the door and I better see your hands!”

He didn’t need to open the door. The door exploded open with a metal screech and a monstrous creature burst from the darkness of the stairwell, aiming for the blustering guard. The guard yanked the trigger when the beast struck him with the force of a wrecking ball, sending a bullet into the wall as man and beast went careening together twenty feet across the floor. Its body had passed Alice by inches, close enough for her to smell the fresh blood and older rancid death on its scaly hide.

Nick shoved away from the wall, grabbing Alice’s arm and running with her in the opposite direction from the carnage. The guard was screaming, but it lasted only as long as a few of their running strides before it was cut off with a wet gurgle and replaced by a sound like an overfull trash bag bursting.

They ran into the thick of the rainforest exhibit, where they were surrounded by vibrant dioramas and luscious vegetation. The windows on this floor admitted silver moonlight, allowing them to see it very clearly. Birds of every color of the spectrum were frozen mid-flight, golden jaguars prowled, and ancient Amazonian architecture formed a visual feast. The highlight of the rainforest exhibit was also the centerpiece of the exhibit hall. A huge glass terrarium filled with tropical vegetation housed an army of living butterflies. Thousands of beautiful butterflies of kaleidoscopic colors flitted through the plants inside in a living whirlwind of colorful wings.

They ran past the butterflies to the far end of the exhibit where another hallway branched off. Nick pointed down it and whispered, “The old west exhibit is just down that way. The guns in there are all functional, and a few of the gunbelts still have live rounds. Maybe…”

“Will the bullets still fire after sitting for more than a century?” Alice asked skeptically.

“As long as the primers haven’t gone bad. Or gotten wet. And the cartridges have remained sealed, and the gunpowder hasn’t leaked out.” He grinned sardonically.

“So, probably not,” Alice surmised.

“Probably not,” Nick agreed. “But do you have a better idea?”

The beast entered the rainforest exhibit with its nose held high, sniffing the air. Nick pulled Alice to him and backed against the wall, hiding them as best he could behind an Amazonian monolith decorated with carvings of ancient deities. The beast froze, its eyes fixed ahead, its posture rigid. It looked as if it stared right at them through the length of the butterfly terrarium. With an excited grunt, the beast swiped at the end of the glass cage, breaking it open, and jumped inside. Thousands of butterflies came to life like confetti, fluttering around the beast that had disturbed them. The beast was captivated, cocking its head curiously at the butterflies, flicking its tail as it swiped its paws at them and tried to chomp them between its jaws. It jumped and twisted and twirled inside the terrarium like a cat confronted with a thousand laser dots. It grunted happily as it pounced on a large Monarch then snorted when another flew at its nose.

Slowly, Nick pulled Alice with him toward the hall leading to the old west exhibit. They edged along the wall at a crawling pace so as not to draw the beast’s attention while it chomped and swiped at the whirlwind of butterflies. The old west exhibit came into view at the end of the hallway, horses and cowboys and bison materializing in the dim light. Nick brought his lips to Alice’s ear and told her, “You go grab all the guns you can find. I’ll start looking through the gunbelts for live rounds. .45’s and 30-30’s are going to be our best bets for a match.”

She nodded her understanding as another sound boomed through the hall. The sound of several running footsteps and the clink of metal. Narrow beams of light bounced around inside the old west exhibit from flashlights held by running men.

Nick stopped short, his hold on her arm keeping Alice beside him. He pulled her down with him when he dropped to his knees, raising his hands above his head in a clear posture of supplication, just as several armed security guards ran into the hallway from the old west exhibit. The light hit Nick’s face, momentarily blinding him, as the men rushed them, guns drawn. Alice looked behind them and saw a huge shadow looming in the entrance to the rainforest exhibit, watching them with gleaming eyes. The guard’s light didn’t reach it and they were too focused on Nick to notice the real threat. The shadow seemed to disintegrate back into the darkness like a receding nightmare. The beast must be intelligent enough to avoid confronting so many drawn firearms. Or it was simply biding its time for the right moment.

“You’re under arrest!” the lead guard shouted as he rushed Nick. Turning him bodily around, he shoved him to his stomach with his face pressed into the tile and yanked his arms behind his back.

“We didn’t do anything, you idiot!” Alice said futility. “There’s something in here with us.”

“Save it, lady,” the guard said gruffly. “You both have the right to remain silent and I suggest you fucking use it.” He prodded his gun rudely into Nick’s back and cuffed his hands. “I heard all about you on the radio. Some big bastard resisting arrest after breaking in. And I saw some of your handiwork already.”

“You have to listen, it wasn’t me,” Nick gritted. “There’s some kind of animal in here with us.”

“Yeah, get started on that insanity defense right off the bat, you murdering sonofabitch,” the guard hissed. “Just keep talking so I can testify to all your bullshit.”

Two guards came and hefted Nick up by his arms, yanking them painfully back and straining his shoulders. Alice looked at him when he stood, giving him her steadiest and most reassuring gaze. “Don’t tell them anything. It won’t do you any good. Let your lawyer do the talking for you.” She winked at him for the second time that night. “I promise you have a good one.”

*******************************************************************************************

 © safarigirlsp 2024

Tagging some buddies!

@babbushka @in-silks-and-flesh-and-leather @mrs-gucci @mrs-zimmerman @iamburdened @gabesprincess @rynwritesstuff @candycanes19 @caillea @cas-backwards-tie @queeniebee @mythrielofsolitude @ghoulian13 @icarusinthesea @reyloaddict55 @reylokisses @heartlight-starlight @richbrittstein @thepalaceofmelanie @reveluving @fax4life27 @vedavan @queen-of-elves @srorgana1 @kyloremus @lumberjack00fantasies

[talonabraxas]

“Skyfather and Lord of Firmament, or the Great Above.”

Anu 𒀭 Talon Abraxas

Anu (also known as An) is an early Mesopotamian sky god who was later viewed as the Father of the Gods and ruler of the heavens, a position which then passed to his son Enlil. He is the son of the couple Anshar and Kishar (heaven and earth, respectively), the second-born of the primordial couple Apsu and Tiamat.

He was originally a Sumerian sky deity known as An (meaning 'sky') first referenced in writing during the Early Dynastic Period (2900-2334 BCE) who was adopted by the Akkadians c. 2375 BCE as Anu ('heaven') the all-powerful. Sargon the Great of Akkad (r. 2334-2279 BCE) mentions Anu and Inanna in his inscriptions as legitimizing his rule or helping him in his conquests as he established the Akkadian Empire and maintained order.

Anu is most often represented in iconography simply by a crown or crown on a throne symbolizing his status as King of the Gods, an honor and responsibility later conferred upon Enlil, Marduk (son of Enki/Ea, the god of wisdom), and Assur of the Assyrians, all of whom were believed to have been elevated by Anu and blessed by him. His consort is Antu (also known as Uras, goddess of the earth), and among their many children are the Annunaki, the gods of the earth and judges of the dead, and Nisaba, the Sumerian goddess of writing and accounts. He is also given as the husband of his sister Ki (earth) by whom his son Enlil is born.

Although Anu is not featured prominently in many myths, he is often mentioned as a background figure. This is because, as veneration of the god progressed, he became more and more remote. Initially a sky god and one of the many younger gods born of Apsu and Tiamat, Anu gradually became the lord of the heavens above the sky and the god who ordered and maintained all aspects of existence.

Along with Enlil and Enki, Anu formed a triad which governed the heavens, earth, and underworld (in one version) or, in another, heaven, the sky, and the earth. He was also listed among the oldest gods of the Seven Divine Powers: Anu, Enki, Enlil, Inanna, Nanna, Ninhursag, and Utu-Shamash.

Even though he is rarely a main character in a myth, when he does appear, he plays an important role, even when that role might seem minor. He is referenced in some of the best-known myths from Mesopotamia including Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld, The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Myth of Adapa, and the Enuma Elish.

The Most High God

Anu's benevolence infused the other gods as he himself withdrew higher and higher into the heavens. He was finally seen as the master creator behind all the workings of the universe but distanced from both humanity and the other gods. The only deity who had access to Anu was his son Enlil who gradually took on his father's characteristics and power.

Even after Enlil became more popular, however, Anu continued to be venerated throughout Mesopotamia. In the city of Uruk, where Inanna was the patron deity, Anu was honored by a large temple-ziggurat which continued in operation from c. 2000 BCE to c. 150 BCE and served as an astronomical observatory and library. A hymn to Anu from early in this period illustrates the high regard he was accorded. The hymn reads, in part:

O Prince of the gods, whose utterance ruleth over the obedient company of the gods; Lord of the horned crown, which is marvellously splendid; thou travellest hither and thither on the raging storm; thou standest in the royal chamber to be admired as a king.

At thy word the gods cast themselves on the ground in a body like a reed on the stream; they command blows like the wind and causes food and drink to thrive; at the word the angry gods turn bck to their habitations

May all the gods of heaven and earth appear before thee with gifts and offerings; may the kings of the countries bring to thee heavy tribute; may men stand before thee daily with sacrifices, prayers, and adorations.

To Uruk, thy city, do thou show abundant favor; O great god Anu, avenge thy city in hostile lands. (Wallis Budge, 106-107)

Even though he was eventually prayed to less and less directly, he was still considered the power behind the power of the gods. Offerings continued to be brought to his temple complex at Uruk long after he was no longer associated closely with the daily lives of the people. Scholar Stephen Bertman writes:

Anu was the august and revered "chairman of the board" of the Mesopotamian pantheon. His name literally meant "heaven". He was the supreme source of authority among the gods, and among men, upon whom he conferred kingship. As heaven's grand patriarch, he dispensed justice and controlled the laws known as the meh that governed the universe.

When the Assyrian Empire fell in 612 BCE, many of the Mesopotamian gods associated with their rule were abandoned. The Assyrians had taken characteristics of many different gods for their own (the best example of this is their great god Assur/Ashur), and those people who felt they had suffered under Assyrian rule vent their frustration and vengeance on Assyrian cities, temples, and the statues of the gods.

Some gods continued to be acknowledged, however, and Anu was among these. Worship of Anu continued into the Hellenistic period of Mesopotamian history and, through his association with Marduk, on up to c. 141 BCE when the Parthians took control the region and the religion of Zoroastrianism became more widespread.

[carpwood]

♱ andrej / andrea(s)｡ ´ཀ` 18 He / She Sys permahost (1) genderfluid/boygirl rabid deadboy corpsething. human but in a vague foxlike animal way.. i like masc & fem terms Never use they/them for me unless referring to me as the mortuary (my system as a whole). autistic w bpd & did, i have memory issues. (book) simon henriksson + smile dog fictive/irl and extremely delusional about it Not even in an "omg hes literally me" way i just am him and he is me and we are one. dead ass. i'm Him. theeeeee book simon. i cannot stand doubles but i do judge comfortability wit U all based off of whether i fw u or not. EXTREMELY mixed individual; indigenous (tribally enrolled), hispanic + sephardic, kurdish, serbian, czech, russian, and semi-distant swedish, hungarian + mongolian blehhhh. english is my first language but i can respond in swedish & russian. criminal justice major & chronic clip studio paint truther. general disclaimer i don't condone the shit i write about. normally i am the only person in my system that uses this acc but posts from the brainworms will be signed off with our names thumbs up emoji i post art and occasional ramblings about my ocs and my interests. i don't really call myself religious but i am definitely spiritual and i practice a mix of my tribe's traditional beliefs mixed with kemeticism & reverence for angels. set/sutekh is my primary patron deity & i also work with bastet & archangel chamuel, with connection to archangel micheal. i'm in a lot of subcultures but my mains are metalhead, scene & gyaru ^_^

i HEART psych horror, grungy gritty ps2 graphics, faux snuff, artistic gore, first person shooters & guns, old slashers, theology, the paranormal, catholic art & architecture, creepypasta, scp, zombies & apocalyptic media, rob zombie films, southwestern gothic, etc.... number 1 special interest of all time ever is cry of fear. obviously. competitors include horror as a genre, tornadic meteorology, cults, wolves, psychology, film, music, and art. i am also super into the walking dead, gta 4, afraid of monsters, texas chainsaw massacre, 3 from hell, house of 1000 corpses, metro 2033, the last of us, dark winds, reservation dogs, transformers, nuclear winter, postal, faith: the unholy trinity, marble hornets, ghost rider, mortal kombat, halo, reacher, metalocalypse, 28 days later franchise, s.t.a.l.k.e.r franchise, lollipop chainsaw, terminator, the alien franchise, call of duty, cs2, and supernatural

i listen to so much music bruh. fav genres are shoegaze, dsbm, death metal, stoner doom metal, psych/blues rock, russian post-punk, industrial metal/rock, 90s grunge, nu metal, death metal, goregrind, gorenoise, pornogrind Sometimes, breakcore, r&b, 80s-2000s rap, midwest emo & 2000s emo, dad rock, goth rock, doomerwave, blues rock, horrorcore, etc.... many many many favorite and loved bands. lifelover, electric wizard, досвидошь, psychonaut 4, xasthur, apati, sorry..., deadlife, fentanil, hypothermia, my useless life, decalius, carnica gore (GATEKEPT I AM CARNICA GORES NUMBER 1 FAN OF ALL TIME EVER SLASH SRS), mortician, couple skate, phyllomedusa, acid bath, mc bushpig, insane clown posse, south park mexican (sorry.), kraanium, happy days, malodorous, my bloody valentine, slowdive, alison's halo, swirlies, the breeders, radiohead, panchiko, kmfdm, ic3peak, last days of humanity, ploho, kino, lumen, sleep, cough, conan, bongzilla, bongripper, glukoza, deftones, alice in chains, nirvana, hole, together pangea, loathe, the nightblooms, starflyer 59, they are gutting a body of water, birth day, sign crushes motorist, ssshhhiiittt!, pisse, molchat doma, eyehategod, jack off jill, marilyn manson, slipknot, backhand (gatekept 😝😝😝), orgy, nine inch nails, rob zombie, white zombie, rammstein, none, suizid, lifeless, duster, monolord, chainsaw castration, toughguy, fulci, napalm death, pornofilmy, nero's day at disneyland, lauren bousfield, buerak, soundgarden, audioslave, hinder (Sorry.), stone temple pilots, big thief, razorrape, putrid stu, bile, sisters of mercy, scary bitches, she wants revenge, boy harsher, mindless self indulgence, polvo, pale saints, blue smiley, lsd and the search for god, the nightblooms, alex g (my goat), whirr, meat puppets, pavement, windhand, witchfinger general, pentagram, weedeater, igorrr, wipers, superheaven, zdechly osa, rory in early 20s, vestron vulture, filter, nails, cathedral, bloodbath, godsmack, black label society, get scared, korn, calabrese, the union underground, powerman 5000, blackbraid, medicine horse, harley poe, 1782, uncle acid & the deadbeats, diva destruction, paleface swiss, korol i shut, bishkek, genitorturers, sooo many more i am missing I LOVE SOUNNDS AND ARRANGEMENTS AND NOISE i also make music! very self conscious about i will get the balls to post demos someday but my primary projects are vidrig (dsbm), tikho/тихо (russian postpunk & doomerwave), reverse crucifixion (gorenoise), & slowburner (shoegaze) ☆

socials discord: boyvvomit (feel free 2 add/dm) ao3: boyvomit insta: carpwood & boyvvomit twt/x: dopesickn simplyplural: mortuary (feel free 2 add) cohost tumblr: @sjukdomaar spotify: mortuary

[turidtorkilsdottir]

Golden Tongue

My third entry for Illario Appreciation Week by @captastra

Day 3: Sweet Talker (NSFW if you squint)

Read on AO3 or Below (763 words):

One arm to keep the target in place, one hand to silence his gasp of surprise, the other hand guiding a dagger between the ribs where it would puncture the lung and the heart at the same time. He had done this countless times before, it was a routine. The body in his grip twitched for a few more seconds - a last stand in a losing battle - then the man slumped to the ground in front of him and fell straight into the river. How convenient that he had chosen this spot of all places for a nocturnal rendezvous. 

Illario checked his clothes for traces of blood. The dagger followed its victim into the water and would remain at the bottom forever. The dead man himself would probably reappear in a few days, miles away from where he had died. And people wouldn’t dare to ask questions. They never did. Contract fulfilled.

Satisfied with himself, Illario put his mask back on to return to the ball through the gardens. A glass of wine was in order, now that his work was done. He had almost reached the villa when he heard footsteps on the gravel beneath his feet and looked around carefully. His gaze fell on an approaching figure - another guest, it seemed, as they were also wearing a mask. Judging by their movements, they were male and probably still young. The hair, however, fell in soft, blond waves around their cheeks. A colour that was rarely seen around here and Illario could not deny that his interest was piqued. Nevertheless, he remained cautious and waited for the other to speak first.

And they did, revealing a rather high but definitely male voice: “Oh, excuse me, Sir. Have you seen Señor Héctor? I think he wanted to go for a walk.”

“I'm afraid not,” Illario replied and ventured a few steps closer. The other's mask was nothing more than artfully curved black lace that could barely conceal the young man's large blue eyes and handsome face. Perhaps the evening had even more to offer than wine and gossip. “I’m sure you don’t need to worry about him,” he went on. “With so many guests he surely just got lost in conversation.”

The blonde seemed indignant, if only a little. “Well, he's my patron, so I should be worried about him.“

Illario smirked. In these circles, patron meant nothing else than an older person who kept one or more young people in his household to pass the time. Depending on the person, it wasn't the worst way for a pretty girl or boy to live free of charge. 

“In that case, would you allow me to accompany you in your search?” he offered, showing his most seductive smile and tilting his head ever so slightly before he added, “Or... Perhaps I can be of service to you in another way?”

The other's eyes widened for a fraction of a second, but Illario didn't miss it. Nor did he miss how he briefly let his gaze wander along his body and seemed not averse to what he saw - because the next moment a gentle smile danced around his lips.

“Are you always so straightforward, Sir?” he asked politely but with a hint of playfulness.

“Only when I meet someone who’s so irresistible.” Illario walked even closer to him, close enough to run a gloved finger over the expensive buttons of the robe in front of him. The young man was barely noticeably shorter than him and smelled of flowery perfume and light-coloured wine. And in the dim light of the torches, one could almost have missed the faint blush on his cheeks.

“You flatter me,” he said, eyes half-lidded.

Illario let his gaze wander deliberately slowly to his lips. “I am tempted to do much more than that.”

The corners of the other’s mouth twitched and he huffed, “What do you have in mind, Sir?” 

“Whatever it is that you would like to give, I will certainly enjoy it very much,” Illario murmured sweetly and it made the other smile even wider. “So?”, he went on, now grazing the jawline of his counterpart with the backside of his fingers and closing the last distance between them. “Do you know somewhere more - private - we could go?”

“I certainly do,” the blonde whispered, almost leaning in for a kiss. But then he withdrew and walked a few steps backwards, reaching out a hand. “Follow me.”

“With pleasure,” the Assassin agreed and took the hand that was offered to him.

What a perfect way to end a job.

[jenn2d2]

A Word With Friends | 5-5

Guest edition for @hedwigoprah ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Posting a bit on a Monday for me, because time zones make it Tuesday somewhere else. What is time really, anyway?

Rules: Use the challenge word to write a sentence or scene and then tag a few friends. Happy writing!

This week's word is Perspicacious

Definition: Quick in noticing, understanding, or judging things accurately or of acute mental vision or discernment. Also Perspicaciously, Perspicaciousness , or Perspicacity.

Tagging to start: @strugglinggranola, @serensama, @tkwritesdumbassassins @thedissonantverses, @tacoteddy22, @thecraftybaroness, @himluv, @notyourmamasdeerbat, @bubblecat-co, @operative-arrow, @davrinsleftpectoral, @seaglassmelody, @sidneysussex but anyone can jump in if they'd like!

For mine, I'm slowly but surely adding onto a WIP of CSI: Tevinter, The Stolen Fish Case below the cut.

The head stared back at Neve and Emmrich from the exam table, dull blue eyes and frosty runes on the forehead glowing as they had been when Hal found it this morning. Rana had several Templars pick up the remains along with a selection of other things from Hal's stall that they had all agreed needed further study. Tarquin loitered at the back of the room 'examining' several of the extra fish skewers Hal had thrown in as a cautious thank you for not arresting him on the spot. In theory, he was observing to ensure that the mages didn't do anything they shouldn't, but really he was just feeling nosy. This was a hell of a lot better than shuffling around everyone's paperwork.

"I can see why you have asked for my assistance, Neve," Emmrich leaned forward to get a better look at the runes. "While the enchantment is not too uncommon, obviously the application to living flesh is quite unheard of. Certainly not something I would care to see repeated."

"Living flesh? He looks pretty dead to me, Professor," Tarquin said sourly.

"Ah, perspicacious as ever, Tarquin," Emmrich turned to favor the Templar with a slight smile, which honestly felt a little patronizing. "Sadly, this particular individual was quite alive when someone branded him with these frost runes. It would have been a very slow and excruciating way to die, possibly over the course of several hours, if not days."

Tarquin paused with the fish skewer partially in his mouth, then slowly put it back down on the piece of newspaper next to him on the table. "What, days? Just, slowly freezing?"

"Oh, yes," Emmrich turned back to the neatly severed head with clear interest. "Quite a terrible way to die, right up until your brain gets too cold to keep you awake."

[syn4k]

survivorship bias

During WWII, the United States used survivorship bias to improve their planes. The bullet holes in returning aircraft represented areas where a bomber could take damage and still fly, while bullet-free areas needed reinforcement because planes that got shot in those areas did not come back at all.

Why do you think every single queer person of significant age is so loud and defiant about who they are? Why is the stereotype of a loud queer who makes being gay their entire personality so prevalent? Why do you see them everywhere?

Here is a statistic for you: queer youth in the United States are four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers, with 12% of them making successful attempts. From a study conducted by the Trevor Project in 2022, over a third seriously considered suicide in the past year. That number jumps to 42% for genderqueer youth. 

Take a moment and process that. Fourty two percent. That's almost half. 

For every trans person over 20 you meet breathing on the street, there is another one with one foot already in the grave. 

What I'm saying is that there is a reason that the proud ones are the only ones that remain.

As an at least somewhat visibly genderqueer teenager, a question I get asked a lot is "if you could magically be switched into the body of your target gender with no questions and no repercussions and everyone forgot you were trans at all, would you do it?" They are well-meaning, most of the time. They are curious. They simply want to know. 

My response, every time, is "absolutely not." 

(For some reason, they never expect that answer.) 

I am one of the lucky ones. When I say lucky, I mean beyond blessed and beyond fortunate to have been born into the family I have. My parents are devoted to each other and to raising a child who is going to make it to adulthood one day, and while they may not understand everything, they understand that it is far, far more important to have a kid who is strange alive and happy than it is to have a kid who is miserable and regular and dead. 

You do not get things for free in this world. As hard as we may wish for her, there is no magical fairy that will descend from the sky and instantly change my body to what I hope it will be some day. God knows if that fairy existed we would not have fourty two percent suicide statistics. God knows she'd be a patron saint in her own right. 

But these things take time and these things take money and these things take luck. You have to watch your words when dealing with the fae lest they use your own phrases against you. When I made a plan to get top surgery, my doctor, my mother and I all agreed to tell the insurance company that we were doing it to ease back pain so that they'd agreed to pay for it. These are the things we have to deal with. It's not even too urgent of a procedure for me. I can live with what I am. 

Too many cannot. 

I do not want to be invisible. I do not want to be silent, because silence is what drove my peers to despair and eventually to death. Silence kills. 

I want scars on my chest and two weeks of recovery time and every dirty look from the soccer moms at the pool when I go shirtless. I want to stride into the county court and testify in front of a judge to get a legal name change. I love this body. It is not perfect but it is mine and it is home. 

Silence kills. I want to be loud. I will viciously, visibly love myself and every demonized miscreant for the sake of the quiet ones who are looking for a reason, any reason to stay alive. I will be that reason. I will be a light in the darkness and I will love them as I love myself, as their parents and friends should love them. 

Do you understand? I do not have a choice. I have to survive this world for the sake of my brethren who didn't. 

I hope that one day we do not have to look at bullet holes in planes and razor blade scars on arms to reverse engineer how to survive in a harsh world. I hope that one day we will all wake up and look at the sun shining through the window and think my god, it's beautiful. How lucky I am to be alive. How lucky I am to be here in this moment despite everything. 

I hope we all make it. I hope it gets easier. 

Until then, I will be a beacon for those lost in the darkness. I will persevere. I will show them that it is not all suffering, this, and that it is in fact an altogether beautiful thing that you are here despite and in spite of all the forces leveled against you. 

I am one of the lucky ones who made it. I love this life and this body of mine and I accept every flaw contained wherein because it is infinitely better than the alternative. I choose the pain of living over the pain of oblivion. I choose to stay, imperfect though the location is. I do not have the choice to do anything else. None of us do. 

You only get one life. 

Do not spend it hesitating in the dark. 

[metalwarrior22]

Arcane S2 - On how the death of [redacted] brought peace

Probably.

[This is obviously from my perspective, so take it with a grain of salt.]

The alternate world shown on episode 7 differed greatly from the one we know, specifically, Piltover and Zaun coexisted in harmony, their societies mingling with each other with ease. The event that apparently marked the beginning of this big change was the death of one young Vi.

There were some key differences in the robbery of Jayce’s apartment, the one that put all things in motion for the show. When the gemstone blew up, Vi was caught in the blast of the explosion, perhaps protecting Powder, losing her life. What followed was the arrival of officer Marcus, who witnessed firsthand the grief of three kids over the death of a member of their family.

How did this tragic incident bring peace to two antagonistic cities?

In the main timeline (MT), four kids partially destroyed a building, causing Piltover to fear for its own denizens. In the alternate one (AT), a kid from Zaun, a place with less than Piltover, lost her life while trying to steal to survive. Vi’s death, instead of fear, caused sympathy for Zaun and its people.

In the MT, word traveled fast, reaching The Last Drop even before the kids made it home. In the AT the scenario was almost the same, but the focus was not on the explosion, but on the girl who would not leave her dead sister’s side. It was the first thing the enforcers saw when they arrived, and probably the first thing people in the vicinity heard after the explosion: the inconsolable crying of a small girl. (Important to note that the death of any of the other kids would not have caused such a heartbreaking scene.) After a quick investigation, it would be revealed that the explosion, though probably caused by the kids, was the responsibility of Jayce Talis, a student of Piltover’s Academy.

In summary, Vi’s death was Piltover’s fault.

On the Kirammans

Cassandra Kiramman, a member of Piltover’s council, was indirectly involved in the incident for various reasons: she owned the building that was destroyed, she was Jayce’s patron, and her daughter was near the site of the explosion (probably). Would this, coupled with the sympathy for the mourning girl, be enough for her to take action towards the betterment of Zaun? Not really.

Cassandra was a pragmatic woman, the name of her family carried a lot of weight in the city, and it was a currency she wasn’t going to squander. In the MT, she supported Jayce before the other members of the council, but only to demonstrate that she was a good judge of character, that Jayce was misguided but that she hadn’t made a mistake by sponsoring him. The moment the “trial” ended, she turned her back on Jayce because he had turned into a liability.

Back to the AT, Cassandra would have been minimizing the damage to her House’s name and nothing else. Enter, Caitlyn.

Caitlyn’s inquisitive nature would have led her to learn about Zaun and its people, on why its society was so different from Piltover’s despite the cities being next to each other. Four zaunite kids breaking and entering opened up her whole world. Why? Because the kid that passed away was about her age, yet both couldn’t have been more different in their upbringing. And again, it was Piltover’s fault.

Season 2 revealed that the Kirammans built a ventilation system for the underground, one neglected by them and forgotten by everyone else… and yet, the Lanes have clean air in the AT. It’s possible that Caitlyn’s efforts to help and understand Zaun would have led to her mother finally using them for their intended purpose. It’s also possible that I’m way off mark… but the fact remains that Zaun had clean, unpolluted air.

On Piltover

This one is harder to explain, we don’t know much about the council members aside from Mel and Heimerdinger, the former looking to leave her mark on the world, the latter pretty content with the state of things. And of course, Cassandra, who I’ve already talked about.

Vi’s tragic death comes into play again, pushing the council to truly pay attention to Zaun for the first time in ages and how to help it so that nothing like that happened ever again. Maybe one of the steps they took towards this goal was to create a meeting place for both societies, one where they could mingle and truly look at each other, hence, the bridge market was created, offering goods and services from both cities, encouraging people to cross to the other side.

With this point of view in mind, it’s possible that the Kirammans’ ventilation system was used not only to help Zaun, but to ensure Piltover’s people safety. A selfish reason, but one that fits the current narrative.

On Jayce

Jayce is not present at all in the AT, but it’s easy to infer what happened to him, initially. After his tampering with magic and the subsequent demise of Vi, he was swiftly banished from Piltover, his research destroyed. Thus, Hextech was never invented.

(MT Heimerdinger was “transported” to the AT 3 years before Ekko’s arrival, that is roughly 4 years after Vi’s death, so he wouldn’t have been able to interfere in these events.)

On Silco

Chem baron in one universe… savior in another one?

Despite being at odds after their failed rebellion, Silco kept tabs on Vander and his family, and he quickly learned of the death of Felicia’s daughter. Maybe it was a way to respect Felicia’s memory, but it didn’t take long for him to approach Vander and recognize the grief he was experiencing, the same grief that turned to rage and led to the fallout between the two brothers. This time there was no rage, just deep sorrow. And if Silco was not keen on forgiveness yet, he was open to try once more for a better Zaun, because that was his dream: Piltover and Zaun as equals.

Silco could have used Vi’s death as a way to instill rebellion once more in Zaun, but there were no hints that shimmer was ever used in the AT (Singed did invent it); Benzo, being one of its first victims, was alive and well. Plus, the enforcers never flooded Zaun with their numbers, Piltover’s efforts focused on healing instead of punishing.

Putting his plans to become a chem baron on hold, Silco looked for ways that would actually help Zaun. With Vander’s involvement, arguably the most respected person in the Lanes, and the recent show of goodwill from Piltover, there was an opportunity there to lift up Zaun and its denizens.

In the MT, after Vander’s death, Silco was able to control Zaun and its criminal world thanks to careful years of planning. What if in the AT, he took that planning not to become a chem baron, but to undermine them and remove power from them? His objectives were the same, but his approach changed.

Finally, MT Silco became more resentful of Piltover’s progress thanks to the Hexgates, he felt Zaun would never be able to be equal to Piltover with them, but given that those were never invented in the AT, his sense of inadequacy was never exacerbated.

(I don’t know where to shoehorn this, but Silco’s face looks fine in the AT, healthy. Perhaps he received help from Piltover?)

In short, Silco and Vander worked together at some point, like in old times, but this time it wasn’t an uphill battle, tragedy gave way to opportunity, and they seized it to achieve their shared vision of the nation of Zaun.

In summary, Vi’s death alone didn’t bring peace to Piltover and Zaun, but the circumstances around it created a sequence of events that ultimately led to the thriving and prosperity of Zaun, putting it on more equal grounds with Piltover.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. If you don’t agree with me and want to let me know, be civil about it.

[nerissalmao]

The Slow Death of the Director in Nimona

If you’re reading this, congratulations. You’ve accepted me as the patron saint of all these weird Director posts (go through my account— I’m basically a Director stan account at this point), and I’m BOOM BACK BABY to do ANOTHER ONE! Except this one is a bit more linear.

See, the Director is actually killing herself throughout Nimona— she’s her own judge, jury, and character assassinator. She starts the film with a facade— in flashbacks and all. She’s stiff, emotionless, and regal. She stands tall and everyone knows to respect her; her soft voice seems analytical and she’s always a bit distant from emotion.

Even when the Queen dies and the Director seems all shocked, she never stops being.. her. She kneels down to check on her and looks shocked, but still retains an element of being in control. Of course, this could partially be because we all know she was faking or either half-faking her shock, because she’s the one who actually killed the Queen. However, as I said, even during that flashback where she checks Ballister’s sword, that air of soft superiority and coolness stays. Her eyes are shifty, but the rest of her is the same.

While she asks Ambrosius what’s wrong, she may look attentive, but her posture is still very regal and refined.

It’s when she sees Nimona— gets confirmation that, in her own twisted mind, the reason she killed the Queen was valid —that she starts to change. Her posture is less regal and more on-guard. She gets genuinely shocked, face-warpingly shocked, then angry and crouching as if ready to fight, baring her teeth, and looking on with concern as she watches Nimona’s chaos.

Of course, we all know that while she’s watching replays, her eyes are all narrowed, and when she stands, she switches from vulnerable to condescending while talking to Ambrosius, only to make a heel-turn and violently stab him, and resume her elegant posturing— but her face is clearly angry. Then she goes back to comedically scared when she figures out it was a ruse, and we get the ✨beautiful✨ scene of her GROWLING at Ambrosius. This, to me, is when she ACTUALLY loses it.

I think that before she managed a balancing act— she occasionally let bits of paranoia show, maybe while engineering the weapon to kill the Queen —but with Nimona in the picture, she’s clearly messed up. While Nimona may take the form of creatures and monsters, she isn’t one, and remains painfully human.

The Director stews. She bares her teeth.

And by the end of the film her last words are a growl once more.

As Nimona grows more comfortable with being human— that is, accepting herself and becoming more calm around Ballister —the Director loses it. She doesn’t use her persona anymore. She cracks and becomes paranoid, loud, animalistic even. She’s so far gone she even fakes regret and continues a plan she’s been alerted to being obviously bad, bordering on the genocidal. She has accepted the idea that she may be wrong— then instantly regrets it and goes even further down.

The Director didn’t need to die at the end of Nimona because her persona is already dead. She’s so fractured and paranoid and insane that she could almost be a totally different character.

[iloveelvisss]

Hiiiii!!! If you have time, I would like to request a fic of cowboy!Elvis X shy!reader.

Now, this one can be a little blurb or a whole fic, I do not mind, whatever makes you comfortable girliee 🫶

Where reader is entering a bar(could be in modern times) from being on the road for 6 hours straight moving to a new house in another state and when she's walking around shyly, trying to be as small as possible, Elvis notices her and immediately becomes obsessed with her and decides to go flirt?

Kinda random but I think that would be so cute🤭

Take all the time you need!❤️

Awww, ofccc!!! Love this just like I love talking to you about our man💓. Hope I can do you justice with this!!!

Cute lil’ cowboy (Elvis fic)

Pairing: cowboy!Elvis x shy!Reader

Summary: While driving to your new home, you stop in at a small town bar, just wanting a break from the long trip. You catch the eye of a certain local cowboy and he tries his hand at opening you up.

Warnings/triggers: None, I don’t think. Mostly just fluff💓

At this point, you sort of wished you’d said no to the job offer. All it was, was a secretary position for some big company, and you thought now that you’d been on the road for six whole hours, that your old job was much better. And your old apartment was quite comfortable (it wasn’t, you just wanted another thing to complain about on this torturous car trip).

So as you pulled into the next town, you park your car outside a quaint little bar. The town is small, and it’s quite obvious, but you desperately need a break from this awful drive, so you get out anyways.

But your introverted self regrets it as you enter the bar, and the little bell on the door alerts every patron of your out-of-place presence. Every single pair of eyes zero in on you, and you suddenly feel as though you can’t breathe. You’ve always been shy— your mother always tried to get you out of such a habit. But in situations like being in a bar in a town you’ve never been before, with people that look like they’re judging your every move, you lose your ability to speak— or look up from the floor.

Unbeknownst to you, one particular pair of eyes can’t look away, even after everyone else has went back to minding their own business. Elvis just thinks you’re absolutely gorgeous. The way you so obviously feel uncomfortable is just adorable to him. He wants to talk to you— no needs to talk to you. He wants to know who’s under the cute little shy cover. You intrigue him in a way no other passing-through woman has.

He saunters over to you, and he’s keen on the way your eyes widen— it makes him smile. He tips his hat as he sits beside you. “Hi there. Ain’t seen ya before, what’s yer name, darlin’?” He makes sure to pile on the charm, putting on his most attractive smile.

And then there’s a large amount of time where he just gets to watch you sputter and act like a child that can’t speak yet. But all the while he’s smiling, finding your shyness endearing.

Finally, after what feels like an agonizingly long time, you sigh and find your words, “I- I’m… I’m Y/N. S’ nice to meet you,” you smile cutely and awkwardly stick out your hand, to which he presses a soft kiss to. “Aw, well that’s a pretty name for pretty lil’ thing like you. My name is Elvis,” he sets your hand down and then stuns you with piercing eye contact— his eyes are absolutely beautiful, so blue and electric. “Now, what brings ya in here?”

You look around before attempting to maintain eye contact again. “Needed a break from my road trip. I’m moving for a job.” You smile back at him and he swears it almost makes him drop dead. He nods along, “I see, I see. So ya wanna ‘nother drink, darlin’? S’ on me.”

It’s about then that you backtrack on your earlier thoughts, and are actually quite grateful you stopped in here. You also find yourself wondering what his pretty lips would be like to kiss. He seems to notice because a small smirk shows up on said lips. You shake yourself from your trance, “U- um, yes. Yeah, that’d be great, thank you so much.” You stumble over your words, embarrassed you’d been caught staring. He notices your blush, but it only makes him smirk even more.

He nods and asks the bartender, who you now know is Albert, for two beers. And then for the next thirty minutes, he pulls out all the tricks to get you out of your shell— it works. You’re giggling and talking and having an amazing time by the time you finish your beer.

You look up from a giggling fit to his eyes piercing into you with an expression you can quite place. All you know is that it sends butterflies flying through your belly. “What…?”

Your tone is nervous, thinking maybe he’s lost interest or something, or that your laugh has made him question himself— you’ve always been a chronic overthinker. But he makes you gasp as he reaches up and pushes some of your hair behind your ear.

His voice is gentle and sweet— reverent, “I wanna kiss ya. Would ya like that, honey?”

Your breath leaves you and you just stare at him with wide eyes for at least two minutes. He starts to pull away, second-guessing himself, as you begin nodding. He then smiles dazzlingly.

It seems like the world stops as he leans in. His lips feel plush and oh so amazing as they press against yours. You respond almost immediately, and fireworks shoot off.

When he pulls back, he’s already grinning. “How ‘bout ya jus’ get back on the road in the mornin’? My house makes for a great hotel.”

You find yourself giggling yet again as you nod, “I think that’s a great idea. Thank you, Elvis.”

I’ve come to the realization that I just don’t like any of my writing and I’m my biggest critic, but I wanted to get this out like I promised. Much love to all of you lovies, and I hope you might enjoy anyway?😋🤠 (also Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates).

Tags: @queenstarlight @jhoneybees (lmk if you wanna be added)

[heylittleriotact]

I completed mortuary school and worked in a funeral home between 2018-2022 and ultimately left the profession because Covid burned me the fuck out and there just aren’t the appropriate supports in place for funeral workers tbh. It’s a profession that’s 20 years behind where it needs to be in a lot of ways.

Anyway, after months of anxiety attacks, insomnia, socially withdrawing from friends and family, and spending what little free time i had basically staring at a wall while drinking and chain-smoking, I decided I’d had enough after I was interrogated on a daily basis over the phone and told I can’t possibly be too sick to come back to work when i had Covid (after having called in sick twice in the entire 4 years I’d worked there).

It seemed questionable to expect me to return to work with Covid when it was very much still a day-to-day concern (and I was sick as shit to boot): I didn’t want to be responsible for bumping off an 80 year old widow who’d come in to make arrangements for her husband and caught Covid because of me.

It was the last fucking straw: I knew going into it that this profession was one of service and that I would be sacrificing holidays and weekends and time with my friends and family. I knew I wasn’t going to make $150k/year. I knew it was thankless, misunderstood work, but it was vital. But over those four years I watched decent, well-meaning, hard working people get bullied and humiliated out of their jobs because they didn’t fit in with the “right” people at the firm. I watched amazing professionals with decades of experience quit en masse because of the patronizing, condescending, unscrupulous way that ownership treated them. I watched standards that were incredibly high when I started, plummet to the point where I was pushing back on ownership about the ethics of selling flawed product to grieving families knowing full well that it was of poor quality. I went to school for this. I gave up weekends and holidays and important family milestones for this.

I wanted to help people, but I couldn’t continue setting myself on fire to do it.

So I said fuck it and tossed a hastily drafted resume and cover letter to a law firm whose posting I saw online while I was still at home, sick as hell. I didn’t actually think they’d call me back - it just felt like by submitting the application I’d made some sort of step in the direction of getting the fuck out of dodge like so many other colleagues had.

But then they actually did. And I had two interviews, and they hired me as a receptionist, because to be honest after working at an unhinged funeral home DURING a global pandemic, I needed a fucking ✨nothing✨ job where I just had to show up every day, look cute, answer phones, and show rich lawyers how to work the Keurig machine from time to time. It was the perfect job for me to get over the burn-out. Even stressful shit was not really stressful when compared to what I’ve already dealt with (my mantra around the office has become: “Okay but has anyone died?” Seriously. I get that your brief is due in 2 hours and all the tabs are fucked, but has an attendant just called you to tell you that they accidentally showed the WRONG dead person to a grieving family and now they’re traumatized?)

ANYWAY. A very nice partner who recently left the firm because he was appointed a Provincial Court Judge, remarked to another partner prior to his departure that maybe they should ask if I had any interest in going down the legal assistant -> paralegal pipeline, because I seemed smart, and uh… overqualified for my current role.

So anyway, that’s what my new year looks like. It took an entire two years to get my feet back under me and start feeling like a person again after I burned out: I started writing again this year. Started dance lessons again this year. Actively pursued life again this year because I had the energy to do it. I’m ready for a new challenge.

I miss funerals a fucking lot. If you follow me here that’s probably obvious by how much I go off about death and nerd out over Emmrich. I truly believe it was my calling, and just based on the way the timing and the way the cards fell, it didn’t work out for me. I’ll always be a bit sad about that, but I’m so, so excited for where I’m going next. It was officially announced to the team today, so I guess it feels real now?

Phew.

I’m going to fucking nail it, I think.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

A Wise Pair of Fools: A Retelling of “The Farmer’s Clever Daughter”

For the Four Loves Fairy Tale Challenge at @inklings-challenge.

Faith

I wish you could have known my husband when he was a young man. How you would have laughed at him! He was so wonderfully pompous—oh, you’d have no idea unless you’d seen him then. He’s weathered beautifully, but back then, his beauty was bright and new, all bronze and ebony. He tried to pretend he didn’t care for personal appearances, but you could tell he felt his beauty. How could a man not be proud when he looked like one of creation’s freshly polished masterpieces every time he stepped out among his dirty, sweaty peasantry?

But his pride in his face was nothing compared to the pride he felt over his mind. He was clever, even then, and he knew it. He’d grown up with an army of nursemaids to exclaim, “What a clever boy!” over every mildly witty observation he made. He’d been tutored by some of the greatest scholars on the continent, attended the great universities, traveled further than most people think the world extends. He could converse like a native in fifteen living languages and at least three dead ones.

And books! Never a man like him for reading! His library was nothing to what it is now, of course, but he was making a heroic start. Always a book in his hand, written by some dusty old man who never said in plain language what he could dress up in words that brought four times the work to some lucky printer. Every second breath he took came out as a quotation. It fairly baffled his poor servants—I’m certain to this day some of them assume Plato and Socrates were college friends of his.

Well, at any rate, take a man like that—beautiful and over-educated—and make him king over an entire nation—however small—before he turns twenty-five, and you’ve united all earthly blessings into one impossibly arrogant being.

Unfortunately, Alistair’s pomposity didn’t keep him properly aloof in his palace. He’d picked up an idea from one of his old books that he should be like one of the judge-kings of old, walking out among his people to pass judgment on their problems, giving the inferior masses the benefit of all his twenty-four years of wisdom. It’s all right to have a royal patron, but he was so patronizing. Just as if we were all children and he was our benevolent father. It wasn’t strange to see him walking through the markets or looking over the fields—he always managed to look like he floated a step or two above the common ground the rest of us walked on—and we heard stories upon stories of his judgments. He was decisive, opinionated. Always thought he had a better way of doing things. Was always thinking two and ten and twelve steps ahead until a poor man’s head would be spinning from all the ways the king found to see through him. Half the time, I wasn’t sure whether to fear the man or laugh at him. I usually laughed.

So then you can see how the story of the mortar—what do you mean you’ve never heard it? You could hear it ten times a night in any tavern in the country. I tell it myself at least once a week! Everyone in the palace is sick to death of it!

Oh, this is going to be a treat! Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had a fresh audience?

It happened like this. It was spring of the year I turned twenty-one. Father plowed up a field that had lain fallow for some years, with some new-fangled deep-cutting plow that our book-learned king had inflicted upon a peasantry that was baffled by his scientific talk. Father was plowing near a river when he uncovered a mortar made of solid gold. You know, a mortar—the thing with the pestle, for grinding things up. Don’t ask me why on earth a goldsmith would make such a thing—the world’s full of men with too much money and not enough sense, and housefuls of servants willing to take too-valuable trinkets off their hands. Someone decades ago had swiped this one and apparently found my father’s farm so good a hiding place that they forgot to come back for it.

Anyhow, my father, like the good tenant he was, understood that as he’d found a treasure on the king’s land, the right thing to do was to give it to the king. He was all aglow with his noble purpose, ready to rush to the palace at first light to do his duty by his liege lord.

I hope you can see the flaw in his plan. A man like Alistair, certain of his own cleverness, careful never to be outwitted by his peasantry? Come to a man like that with a solid gold mortar, and his first question’s going to be…?

That’s right. “Where’s the pestle?”

I tried to tell Father as much, but he—dear, sweet, innocent man—saw only his simple duty and went forth to fulfill it. He trotted into the king’s throne room—it was his public day—all smiles and eagerness.

Alistair took one look at him and saw a peasant tickled to death that he was pulling a fast one on the king—giving up half the king’s rightful treasure in the hopes of keeping the other half and getting a fat reward besides.

Alistair tore into my father—his tongue was much sharper then—taking his argument to pieces until Father half-believed he had hidden away the pestle somewhere, probably after stealing both pieces himself. In his confusion, Father looked even guiltier, and Alistair ordered his guard to drag Father off to the dungeons until they could arrange a proper hearing—and, inevitably, a hanging.

As they dragged him to his doom, my father had the good sense to say one coherent phrase, loud enough for the entire palace to hear. “If only I had listened to my daughter!”

Alistair, for all his brains, hadn’t expected him to say something like that. He had Father brought before him, and questioned him until he learned the whole story of how I’d urged Father to bury the mortar again and not say a word about it, so as to prevent this very scene from occurring.

About five minutes after that, I knocked over a butter churn when four soldiers burst into my father’s farmhouse and demanded I go with them to the castle. I made them clean up the mess, then put on my best dress and did up my hair—in those days, it was thick and golden, and fell to my ankles when unbound—and after traveling to the castle, I went, trembling, up the aisle of the throne room.

Alistair had made an effort that morning to look extra handsome and extra kingly. He still has robes like those, all purple and gold, but the way they set off his black hair and sharp cheekbones that day—I’ve never seen anything like it. He looked half-divine, the spirit of judgment in human form. At the moment, I didn’t feel like laughing at him.

Looming on his throne, he asked me, “Is it true that you advised this man to hide the king’s rightful property from him?” (Alistair hates it when I imitate his voice—but isn’t it a good impression?)

I said yes, it was true, and Alistair asked me why I’d done such a thing, and I said I had known this disaster would result, and he asked how I knew, and I said (and I think it’s quite good), that this is what happens when you have a king who’s too clever to be anything but stupid.

Naturally, Alistair didn’t like that answer a bit, but I’d gotten on a roll, and it was my turn to give him a good tongue-lashing. What kind of king did he think he was, who could look at a man as sweet and honest as my father and suspect him of a crime? Alistair was so busy trying to see hidden lies that he couldn’t see the truth in front of his face. So determined not to be made a fool of that he was making himself into one. If he persisted in suspecting everyone who tried to do him a good turn, no one would be willing to do much of anything for him. And so on and so forth.

You might be surprised at my boldness, but I had come into that room not expecting to leave it without a rope around my neck, so I intended to speak my mind while I had the chance. The strangest thing was that Alistair listened, and as he listened, he lost some of that righteous arrogance until he looked almost human. And the end of it all was that he apologized to me!

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather at that! I didn’t faint, but I came darn close. That arrogant, determined young king, admitting to a simple farmer’s daughter that he’d been wrong?

He did more than admit it—he made amends. He let Father keep the mortar, and then bought it from him at its full value. Then he gifted Father the farm where we lived, making us outright landowners. After the close of the day’s hearings, he even invited us to supper with him, and I found that King Alistair wasn’t a half-bad conversational partner. Some of those books he read sounded almost interesting.

For a year after that, Alistair kept finding excuses to come by the farm. He would check on Father’s progress and baffle him with advice. We ran into each other in the street so often that I began to expect it wasn’t mere chance. We’d talk books, and farming, and sharpen our wits on each other. We’d do wordplay, puzzles, tongue-twisters. A game, but somehow, I always thought, some strange sort of test.

Would you believe, even his proposal was a riddle? Yes, an actual riddle! One spring morning, I came across Alistair on a corner of my father's land, and he got down on one knee, confessed his love for me, and set me a riddle. He had the audacity to look into the face of the woman he loved—me!—and tell me that if I wanted to accept his proposal, I would come to him at his palace, not walking and not riding, not naked and not dressed, not on the road and not off it.

Do you know, I think he actually intended to stump me with it? For all his claim to love me, he looked forward to baffling me! He looked so sure of himself—as if all his book-learning couldn’t be beat by just a bit of common sense.

If I’d really been smart, I suppose I’d have run in the other direction, but, oh, I wanted to beat him so badly. I spent about half a minute solving the riddle and then went off to make my preparations.

The next morning, I came to the castle just like he asked. Neither walking nor riding—I tied myself to the old farm mule and let him half-drag me. Neither on the road nor off it—only one foot dragging in a wheel rut at the end. Neither naked nor dressed—merely wrapped in a fishing net. Oh, don’t look so shocked! There was so much rope around me that you could see less skin than I’m showing now.

If I’d hoped to disappoint Alistair, well, I was disappointed. He radiated joy. I’d never seen him truly smile before that moment—it was incandescent delight. He swept me in his arms, gave me a kiss without a hint of calculation in it, then had me taken off to be properly dressed, and we were married within a week.

It was a wonderful marriage. We got along beautifully—at least until the next time I outwitted him. But I won’t bore you with that story again—

You don’t know that one either? Where have you been hiding yourself?

Oh, I couldn’t possibly tell you that one. Not if it’s your first time. It’s much better the way Alistair tells it.

What time is it?

Perfect! He’s in his library just now. Go there and ask him to tell you the whole thing.

Yes, right now! What are you waiting for?

Alistair

Faith told you all that, did she? And sent you to me for the rest? That woman! It’s just like her! She thinks I have nothing better to do than sit around all day and gossip about our courtship!

Where are you going? I never said I wouldn’t tell the story! Honestly, does no one have brains these days? Sit down!

Yes, yes, anywhere you like. One chair’s as good as another—I built this room for comfort. Do you take tea? I can ring for a tray—the story tends to run long.

Well, I’ll ring for the usual, and you can help yourself to whatever you like.

I’m sure Faith has given you a colorful picture of what I was like as a young man, and she’s not totally inaccurate. I’d had wealth and power and too much education thrown on me far too young, and I thought my blessings made me better than other men. My own father had been the type of man who could be fooled by every silver-tongued charlatan in the land, so I was sensitive and suspicious, determined to never let another man outwit me.

When Faith came to her father’s defense, it was like my entire self came crumbling down. Suddenly, I wasn’t the wise king; I was a cruel and foolish boy—but Faith made me want to be better. That day was the start of my fascination with her, and my courtship started in earnest not long after.

The riddle? Yes, I can see how that would be confusing. Faith tends to skip over the explanations there. A riddle’s an odd proposal, but I thought it was brilliant at the time, and I still think it wasn’t totally wrong-headed. I wasn’t just finding a wife, you see, but a queen. Riddles have a long history in royal courtships. I spent weeks laboring over mine. I had some idea of a symbolic proposal—each element indicating how she’d straddle two worlds to be with me. But more than that, I wanted to see if Faith could move beyond binary thinking—look beyond two opposites to see the third option between. Kings and queens have to do that more often than you’d think…

No, I’m sorry, it is a bit dull, isn’t it? I guess there’s a reason Faith skips over the explanations.

So to return to the point: no matter what Faith tells you, I always intended for her to solve the riddle. I wouldn’t have married her if she hadn’t—but I wouldn’t have asked if I’d had the least doubt she’d succeed. The moment she came up that road was the most ridiculous spectacle you’d ever hope to see, but I had never known such ecstasy. She’d solved every piece of my riddle, in just the way I’d intended. She understood my mind and gained my heart. Oh, it was glorious.

Those first weeks of marriage were glorious, too. You’d think it’d be an adjustment, turning a farmer’s daughter into a queen, but it was like Faith had been born to the role. Manners are just a set of rules, and Faith has a sharp mind for memorization, and it’s not as though we’re a large kingdom or a very formal court. She had a good mind for politics, and was always willing to listen and learn. I was immensely proud of myself for finding and catching the perfect wife.

You’re smarter than I was—you can see where I was going wrong. But back then, I didn’t see a cloud in the sky of our perfect happiness until the storm struck.

It seemed like such a small thing at the time. I was looking over the fields of some nearby villages—farming innovations were my chief interest at the time. There were so many fascinating developments in those days. I’ve an entire shelf full of texts if you’re interested—

The story, yes. My apologies. The offer still stands.

Anyway, I was out in the fields, and it was well past the midday hour. I was starving, and more than a little overheated, so we were on our way to a local inn for a bit of food and rest. Just as I was at my most irritable, these farmers’ wives show up, shrilly demanding judgment in a case of theirs. I’d become known for making those on-the-spot decisions. I’d thought it was an efficient use of government resources—as long as I was out with the people, I could save them the trouble of complicated procedures with the courts—but I’d never regretted taking up the practice as heartily as I did in this moment.

The case was like this: one farmer’s horse had recently given birth, and the foal had wandered away from its mother and onto the neighbor’s property, where it laid down underneath an ox that was at pasture, and the second farmer thought this gave him a right to keep it. There were questions of fences and boundaries and who-owed-who for different trades going back at least a couple of decades—those women were determined to bring every past grievance to light in settling this case.

Well, it didn’t take long for me to lose what little patience I had. I snapped at both women and told them that my decision was that the foal could very well stay where it was.

Not my most reasoned decision, but it wasn’t totally baseless. I had common law going back centuries that supported such a ruling. Possession is nine-tenths of the law and all. It wasn't as though a single foal was worth so much fuss. I went off to my meal and thought that was the end of it.

I’d forgotten all about it by the time I returned to the same village the next week. My man and I were crossing the bridge leading into the town when we found the road covered by a fishing net. An old man sat by the side of the road, shaking and casting the net just as if he were laying it out for a catch.

“What do you think you’re doing, obstructing a public road like this?” I asked him.

The man smiled genially at me and replied, “Fishing, majesty.”

I thought perhaps the man had a touch of sunstroke, so I was really rather kind when I explained to him how impossible it was to catch fish in the roadway.

The man just replied, “It’s no more impossible than an ox giving birth to a foal, majesty.”

He said it like he’d been coached, and it didn’t take long for me to learn that my wife was behind it all. The farmer’s wife who’d lost the foal had come to Faith for help, and my wife had advised the farmer to make the scene I’d described.

Oh, was I livid! Instead of coming to me in private to discuss her concerns about the ruling, Faith had made a public spectacle of me. She encouraged my own subjects to mock me! This was what came of making a farm girl into a queen! She’d live in my house and wear my jewels, and all the time she was laughing up her sleeve at me while she incited my citizens to insurrection! Before long, none of my subjects would respect me. I’d lose my crown, and the kingdom would fall to pieces—

I worked myself into a fine frenzy, thinking such things. At the time, I thought myself perfectly reasonable. I had identified a threat to the kingdom’s stability, and I would deal with it. The moment I came home, I found Faith and declared that the marriage was dissolved. “If you prefer to side with the farmers against your own husband,” I told her, “you can go back to your father’s house and live with them!”

It was quite the tantrum. I’m proud to say I’ve never done anything so shameful since.

To my surprise, Faith took it all silently. None of the fire that she showed in defending her father against me. Faith had this way, back then, where she could look at a man and make him feel like an utter fool. At that moment, she made me feel like a monster. I was already beginning to regret what I was doing, but it was buried under so much anger that I barely realized it, and my pride wouldn’t allow me to back down so easily from another decision.

After I said my piece, Faith quietly asked if she was to leave the palace with nothing.

I couldn’t reverse what I’d decided, but I could soften it a bit.

“You may take one keepsake,” I told her. “Take the one thing you love best from our chambers.”

I thought I was clever to make the stipulation. Knowing Faith, she’d have found some way to move the entire palace and count it as a single item. I had no doubt she’d take the most expensive and inconvenient thing she could, but there was nothing in that set of rooms I couldn’t afford to lose.

Or so I thought. No doubt you’re beginning to see that Faith always gets the upper hand in a battle of wits.

I kept my distance that evening—let myself stew in resentment so I couldn’t regret what I’d done. I kept to my library—not this one, the little one upstairs in our suite—trying to distract myself with all manner of books, and getting frustrated when I found I wanted to share pieces of them with Faith. I was downright relieved when a maid came by with a tea tray. I drank my usual three cups so quickly I barely tasted them—and I passed out atop my desk five minutes later.

Yes, Faith had arranged for the tea—and she’d drugged me!

I came to in the pink light of early dawn, my head feeling like it had been run over by a military caravan. My wits were never as slow as they were that morning. I laid stupidly for what felt like hours, wondering why my bed was so narrow and lumpy, and why the walls of the room were so rough and bare, and why those infernal birds were screaming half an inch from my open window.

By the time I had enough strength to sit up, I could see that I was in the bedroom of a farmer’s cottage. Faith was standing by the window, looking out at the sunrise, wearing the dress she’d worn the first day I met her. Her hair was unbound, tumbling in golden waves all the way to her ankles. My heart leapt at the sight—her hair was one of the wonders of the world in those days, and I was so glad to see her when I felt so ill—until I remembered the events of the previous day, and was too confused and ashamed to have room for any other thoughts or feelings.

“Faith?” I asked. “Why are you here? Where am I?”

“My father’s home,” Faith replied, her eyes downcast—I think it’s the only time in her life she was ever bashful. “You told me I could take the one thing I loved best.”

Can I explain to you how my heart leapt at those words? There had never been a mind or a heart like my wife’s! It was like the moment she’d come to save her father—she made me feel a fool and feel glad for the reminder. I’d made the same mistake both times—let my head get in the way of my heart. She never made that mistake, thank heaven, and it saved us both.

Do you have something you want to add, Faith, darling? Don’t pretend I can’t see you lurking in the stacks and laughing at me! I’ll get as sappy as I like! If you think you can do it better, come out in the open and finish this story properly!

Faith

You tell it so beautifully, my darling fool boy, but if you insist—

I was forever grateful Dinah took that tea to Alistair. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen the loophole in his words—I was so afraid he’d see my ploy coming and stop me. But his wits were so blessedly dull that day. It was like outwitting a child.

When at last he came to, I was terrified. He had cast me out because I’d outwitted him, and now here I was again, thinking another clever trick would make everything well.

Fortunately, Alistair was marvelous—saw my meaning in an instant. Sometimes he can be almost clever.

After that, what’s there to tell? We made up our quarrel, and then some. Alistair brought me back to the palace in high honors—it was wonderful, the way he praised me and took so much blame on himself.

(You were really rather too hard on yourself, darling—I’d done more than enough to make any man rightfully angry. Taking you to Father’s house was my chance to apologize.)

Alistair paid the farmer for the loss of his foal, paid for the mending of the fence that had led to the trouble in the first place, and straightened out the legal tangles that had the neighbors at each others’ throats.

After that, things returned much to the way they’d been before, except that Alistair was careful never to think himself into such troubles again. We’ve gotten older, and I hope wiser, and between our quarrels and our reconciliations, we’ve grown into quite the wise pair of lovestruck fools. Take heed from it, whenever you marry—it’s good to have a clever spouse, but make sure you have one who’s willing to be the fool every once in a while.

Trust me. It works out for the best.