#Anonymous has asked: Silver shall receive!

[krowsselfindulgy]

IDK HOW TUMBLR WORKS I HOPE IM DOING THIS RIGHT! Do 4 with Curt and Kristine i feel like that would be hilarious

A/N: Time to remember what knowledge was there from the oversimplified prohibition period! This was a nice thing to write through. Thanks, anonymous! Whoever you can be. (lighthearted)

Escape The Night AU/Scenario

They open the door with a creak.

"This is... empty." Ivan looks from the back of the rest whilst Den coughs.

"Oh god what the hell-" She continues coughing as Curt pats her back. Christian walks into the dark room, a paper in hand.

"Wow, this is..." Kristine follows his lead, a flashlight in her hand. It illuminates alan unkempt stage, bar area and multiple seats and tables.

"Is this it?"

"Looks like it. Its an abandoned speakeasy." Curt holds another flashlight, it pointing to something on the stage. It seems to be an upside down pyramid shaped... Thing. The bottom is bent to look like its suctioning the wood it stand on. Though, it looks more like a wine glass now that she thinks about it...

"There! Thats the artifact!" Den state the obvious as she runs up to it, trying to snatch it from the pedestal its placed on.

"Wait, dont touch it yet! You wont know what it does." Curt easily catches up to her.

"Why not? I dont want to go do another voting thingy! Ill just take it, easy!" She faces towards him whilst walking back to the artifact before turning to it hastily, easily getting it out of its place. Nothing happens. Kristines looks around the place curiously.

"Thats... Easy-" The sudden round of jazz music made her jump. What she doesnt notice is Christian getting the paper.

"At least this tells us what to do..." Amongst the music, his voice just sounds like a second echo.

"Ugh, could that music just STOP already?!" Ivans dreads as he covers his ears.

"Den, place it back!" Christian turns to her, whos shaking the artifact.

"Ooh, theres alcohol in here..." Den tries to open it by herself, which, proves to not budge.

"DEN!" Now she can hear his voice.

"Uh, huh?"

"PLACE IT BACK THERE!" Den... Looks away from him. "Oh my GOD. DEN."

"Fine, fine...." She places it back on the pedestal, and the music stops. Everyone gives a sigh of relief.

"Fucking finally I can read this, ahem...

'Before you is the artifact you are looking for. Sadly, it is incomplete and will need some ingredients to complete the cocktail. This place is full of-' POISON GAS?! WHAT THE FUCK?! 'and the cocktail will provide the cure. But first,'"

A light from above shines onto a box on the table.

"Oh shit, uh, 'Two people will have to volunteer themselves.'

Now what the hell does that mean?"

"We wont know until after it happens."

"Then why dont you do it, Ivan?"

"I LITERALLY HELPED YOU ALL WITH THE LAST ONE I AM NOT RISKING MY LIFE AGAIN-"

"Okay, okay, its fine Ivan. Ill do it, it alright. Kristine will also, 'cause Ill be dragging her into this."

"Wait, why I dont wanna do this-" She sputters out

"Dont worry, you will." He grabs Kristine as he walks over to the table. "So... What do I do, Christian?"

"Oh. Put your hands in there."

"Okay so can I just NOT do this, pleas-"

"Kristine yoive literally done almost nothing."

"Noooooo!" She reluctantly places her habd in the box, right after Curt, and then...

Click!

She decides to pull her hand out and- "NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"Oh my god you two are handcuffed." Ivan looks on with surprise. "So, what do we do now?" Everyone looks over to Christian, though nervous ftom hearing other footsteps from inside. Christian takes a deep breath in...

"RUN." And sprints out the front door with a cheeky grin.

"Hey, what the-"

"Bitch!"

"I am not going to make it..."

"You literally have me with you, Kris-" Gunshots quickly sound the room.

"OH GOD IS THIS A CHASE SEQUENCE?!" Ivan decides to run after Christian, wherever hes gone through. Den goes to the back door, surprisingly not getting hit. Kristine has multiple questions in her mind before being carried away from the scene because of Curt.

"PUT ME DOWN, PUT ME DOWN, PUT ME DOOOWN!" She could probably hear him laughing at this.

...

She doesnt know how long hes running for.

"Are we safe, Kristine?"

"Looks like it, can you put me down no-"

"Not yet."

"Come on... What are we supposed to find, anyways?"

"Itd probably be noticable, but I think... Ingredients? What can you think?"

"Something like... Lime? Other alcohol stuff?"

"Oh, maybe that clinic over there. We could probably find something there... Maybe..?"

"Alright..." She gets finally put down as they both go inside...

"Oh. So this is it." Before them is a table with three bottles in a clear glass, visibly in different colors: red, blue, and yellow. They both walk forward and grab the paper.

"Find the color Brown." Kristine

"Damn, I know... Nothing about this."

"Me too! Do we just... Mix it all together? Then just chug it."

"Were not supposed to chug it, Kristine."

"I know, I know!

...

But..."

"Oh my god..." Kristine giggles. "Why am i with you?"

"Your fault now deal with MY bullshit!" They both laugh.

"But, mixing it all together seems plausible. Do it." Kristine grabs the bottles and mixes them up together, it all in a small bottle.

"Yep, thats brown! Ill keep it." Kristine hands over the mixture to Curt, keeping it in his pocket.

"Oh yea, that artifact needs... Four ingredients, right? Those four compartments?"

"Good eye." They were interrupted by a gunshot.

Kristine looks out, despite her doubts. "Den..?"

Den holds out a gun in one hand, artifact in the other. She eyes around for anyone else.

"DEN!" She says again whilst runs out, before hearing a thud. "Oh. Sorry Curt." He looks back at her, inconvenienced. The two look back to run over to her.

"Hey! We got something!" Curt alarms her.

"Put it here!" Den runs over to them as Curt pours in the substance. "What is that?"

"Probably more alcohol. How many did you get?"

"Ivan should be here with one of them. I was just trying to take care of these guys."

"You havent found Christian?"

"No. Not at all. Was hoping he got something."

"HERE!" Ivan runs in with another bottle, pouring it in.

"Two down, two more... Where have you searched?"

"The clinic, right over there." Kristine pointd over to where they were.

"I just stole something from a house."

"Good job, Ivan. Ill try to search somewhere else, so you carry this." She hands over the artifact to him.

"Wait, wha- aaannd shes gone. Where the hell..."

"I can go somewhere else-" Kristine walks back before she trips bit keeps her stand. "Sorry! I forgot about-"

"The handcuff thing."

"The handcuff thing."

"God damnit, why did those weird lights bring us into here..." Ivan furrows his brow at Curts statement.

"Wait... Lights... Wouldnt that be... Den?"

"Den?" Kristine seems confused at that inquiry.

"Yea. Shes the god of chaos with like, multiple souls in her body."

"Oh shit. The souls revoluted?!"

"Maybe? I dont know. The only person who could know about it is...

Chilly."

"What is she again?"

"Raptor God. I... Dont know where she went." They were soon interrupted by a rushing Den with an injured Christian.

"I FOUND IT! THE TWO!"

"CHRISTIAN!" Curt runs towards them causing Kristine to almost get dragged across the street.

"HEY HEY HEY! IM HANDCUFFED TO YOU!"

"Sorry!" Curt picks Kristine up again.

"WHY?! I DID NOT CONSENT!"

"Okay, Ill put you down." He eyes worridly to his injured friend.

"WERE YOU GUYS JUST STANDING HERE?!" Insert an awkward silence.

"Is Christian alright?"

"Im fine..." Definitely not. Absolutely not. "Now wheres the one..." Den places her ingredient into the artifact, then Christian places his in, blood accidentaly dripping onto the item. It glows on where it was.

"What the hell does that mean..." He picks it up and Ivan notices a peculiarly shaped thick paper on the ground, its ends being a weird, short ridge poking out of it in an even space. He picks it up.

"Yo, I think this dropped a paper."

"Read it, Ivan."

"Alright,

'You have found four ingredients, but are missing one. An essence of someones life.' God damnit." The rest groan in response. " 'You will have to vote on two people to fight the people chasing after you. Quite a show, is it not?

Well then, you have the key.'

Thats it...."

"When are we not going to be handcuffed anymore? If one of us gets in, how about ME?"

"Yea, how about- Kristine."

"That was a joke!" Christian eyes the paper for a few moments, grabbing it and looking to Curt.

"Give me your hand."

"The cuffed one?" He nods in response. Curt shows him and Christian uses the oddly shaped paper to unlock the handcuffs. "Oh..."

"Ah, smart!" And thus, they are free from whatever that volunteering was for. "So, how do we vote?"

"Thats easy!" A cheery person appears to them like a goddess, her rather strange arm holding out papers. "Sorry for being late."

"What are you hiding..?" Ivan stares at Chilly. She stares back, in the creepy way like a doll could.

"Just write the name of whom you want to participate in these papers! Just one, though! But, lets go somewhere else comfortable so that someone doesnt shoot you all in the open." She walks away.

The rest have no choice but to follow. To control and be controlled of their lives

A/N: Time to remember what knowledge was there from the oversimplified prohibition period! Th

[tiktaaliker]

is lucky shot a cowboy? I like the design. 👀

yep, lucky shot is very much meant to look like a weird little raptor-cowboy c: he's def one of my fav to draw other than null. he's TECHNICALLY a mage, the gun he has is a prop gun and he uses it as a magical focus. the only spell he knows is "bullet."

this is the full ref that's on the chart, kinda old but still accurate

and above is a significantly more recent one where i did a quick animation of lucky shot fumbling his gun

[azen13]

100 Follower Special: The Starlight Pawnshop

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Welcome to my 100 Follower Special, The Starlight Pawnshop! For a brief period of time, I'll be holding a special sale on ten items. Each item corresponds to a oneshot about a certain Honkai Star Rail or Genshin character; through the item's description, you may receive some hints as to which character and what themes will be present in that oneshot.

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Rules for Purchasing

Please leave a request through my ask box mentioning the Starlight Pawnshop, as well as which item you would like to purchase.

You cannot request to purchase an item if you are asking anonymously, as this sale only allows for one purchase per person. To prevent any such incidents, please make sure the "Ask anonymously" option is off.

Only the first five orders will be taken. After the fifth order, all the other items will not be for sale and cannot be purchased.

After making a purchase, please wait five to seven days for your item to ship.

All oneshots will contain yandere themes, so please keep that in mind.

For Sale Items

Aquamarine Ring: A dazzling aquamarine ring enchanted with the power of the seas. The silver band has tarnished from the previous wearer's sins, though they were brought to justice and cleansed through rehabilitation.

Dragon's Scales: A small pile of sepia-colored scales that hold the power of the earth. Rare and valuable, the dragon they came from was hidden away from the world by a god for eons to protect them from hunters and other dangers.

Flowers From Another Era: Four flowers, tied in a bouquet by a scarlet ribbon. Between the lavender and violet petals lies tainted knowledge that destroyed a fruitful love between gods on a distant planet eons ago.

Grass Ring: A small, shoddily-woven ring made from dead grass, containing echoes of childhood promises uttered in a land of frost. Maybe the ring’s maker, after disappearing from the world for three months before returning, acted on those vows.

Painted Teacup: A small teacup with floral designs hand-painted by an artist. A jagged crack runs down its side, severing the stem of a crimson carnation.

Wanted Posters: Two wanted posters for the same criminal. The two people who were tracking this target crossed paths, and in doing so drastically altered each of their fates in radically different ways.

Purchased Items

Avian Necklace: A silver necklace with a pendant in the shape of a bird mid-flight, imbued with a strange energy strong enough to shackle its wearer in paradise forever.

Chess Pawn: A finely-carved chess pawn. If life is a chessboard, then so too are people pawns in other's games. Based on this pawn’s pristine condition, whoever controlled it loved it quite dearly.

Double-Sided Coin: A coin where both sides show the same pattern, allowing its desperate holder to not need to rely on luck to win this bet and secure their prize.

Fool's Mask: A red and white mask with an eerie smile. When the clock strikes twelve, its wearer shall don it and dance with his love for their affection.

Grass Ring: A small, shoddily-woven ring made from dead grass, containing echoes of childhood promises uttered in a land of frost. Maybe the ring’s maker, after disappearing from the world for three months before returning, acted on those vows.

[martyrbat]

[ID: The title panel for 'The Bat-man' and 'The Case of the Chemical Syndicate'. In it, a mysterious silhouette is standing on a rooftop as they look out at the skyscrapers in the background. The silhouette has giant wings that resembles a bat! They flare out on each side of the figure as their human-esque legs and head stick out from it. The sky is light blue as the narration explains: The "Bat-man", a mysterious and adventurous figure fighting for righteousness and apprehending the wrongdoer, in his lone battle against the evil forces of society… His identity remains unknown. END ID]

detective comics #27 | (#627 reprint)

(full comic & ID below cut!)

[ID:

We see a young man sitting in a blue chair and smoking a pipe as an older man sits across from him. The narration reads: The home of Commissioner Gordon, who at the moment is entertaining his young socialite friend, Bruce Wayne. — Bruce is wearing an amber, windowpane checked suit and has his black hair neatly combed back. Gordon, the older man with silver hair and glasses, wears a white suit with black lines forming a herringbone pattern across it. Bruce has his chin resting against his palm in boredom as he asks, "Well, commissioner, anything exciting happening these days?" Gordon responds, "No-o – except this fellow they call the 'Bat-man' puzzles me!" He's interrupted by his phone ringing.

Gordon talks into the phone, "Hello… What's that? Lambert, The Chemical King… Stabbed to death? His son's finger prints on the knife? – I'll be right over!" He hangs up the phone and tells Bruce, "Talk about something exciting… Old Lambert has been murdered at his mansion… I'm going there now. Like to come along?" Bruce nonchalantly says, "Oh well, nothing else to do, might as well." They speed off to Lambert's residence, where they greet the police sergeant. He leads them to the scene of the crime and after a thorough examination, Gordon begins to talk to the murder suspect: 'Young' Lambert, who's already insisting that he wasn't the one that killed his father!

Gordon orders the distressed man to calm down and explain what happened. Young Lambert wipes at his forehead nervously as he reluctantly elucidates, "Well sir… Tonight I came home early, and as I was passing the library I heard a groan... I rushed in and there was my father lying on the floor, with a knife in him! … And as I rushed in, I got the impression of something leaping out of the window… I also noticed that father's safe was opened… I pulled the knife out of my father's body, and turned him toward me just in time to hear him say 'contract'... And then he died. That's how I got my fingerprints on the knife… That's the truth, commissioner!" Two panels accompany Young Lambert's words. It shows him finding his father's body by the open window before cradling his father close to him. 'Old' Lambert vaguely warns his son about the contract before dying in his arms.

Gordon raises his hand to his chin in thought before asking, "Hmm! Did your dad have any enemies or people who had an interest in his business activities?" The man hesitantly answers, "... not that I know of, except his three former business partners... Let's see, they were Steven Crane, Paul Rogers and Alfred Stryker." Before Gordon can continue to question him, he's interrupted by another cop. He's alerted, "Commissioner, there's a man named Steve Crane who wants to speak to Old Lambert... When I told him that Old Lambert was murdered he got very excited and wanted to speak to you!"

Gordon takes the phone and asks what's the trouble. Crane hastily explains, "Yesterday, Mr. Lambert called and told me he received an anonymous threat on his life... today I received the same... That's why I called up... and I'm afraid I'll be next... what shall I do?" Gordon orders, "Wait… And do not let anybody in… We'll be over soon as we can – what's that, Bruce?" He hangs up as Bruce Wayne's actions distract him. Bruce – who's been silently observing this whole time – smacks his tobacco pipe against his open palm, dumping the ashes onto the floor of the crime scene. He apathetically announces, "Ho hum! I'll leave you here to finish your work… I'm going home."

Meanwhile, Crane sits in his home library with a feeling of impending danger as he waits… Before a gunman suddenly breaks in! He shoots Crane dead without hesitation before stealing a paper from his safe and leaving through the window! He joins his partner on the roof, who checks if the murderer got the paper. The narration reads: ... As the two men leer over their conquest, they do not notice a third menacing figure standing behind them… It is the "Bat-Man!" — The cowardly criminals recoil in shock at the masked man. He wears a cowl that conceals the top half of his face and has bat like ears sticking out. His arms are crossed as he broadly stands with his legs spread. On his chest is a bat emblem and he has a big, dramatic cape draped from his shoulders that flare out – it too resembling a bat.

But suddenly the Bat-Man punches the accompanying partner, knocking him unconscious! He grabs the murderer in a headlock and with a mighty heave, he sends the burly criminal flying through the air and off the roof! Commissioner Gordon and his men are just arriving at the scene – the commissioner announcing it's the Bat-Man and to 'get him', prompting the other cops to start firing at the mysterious stranger! The Bat-Man flees from the scene at once, but not before quickly snatching the paper the criminals stole from Crane's safe!

He escapes to his red sedan and reads the paper he took from the killers before a grim smile stretches across his lips. He speeds off to an unknown destination! During which, the butler informs Gordon and his men that Crane has been murdered. Gordon tells another cop, "That's two dead partners out of the four that received threatening notes. The other two must have received them too… Let's go to Rogers next!"

Meanwhile Rogers, who has learned of Lambert's death by news broadcast, has already gone to the neighboring laboratory of his erstwhile partner, Alfred Stryker… — Rogers greets Stryker's assistant, Jennings. Jennings invites the distraught man inside before clubbing him in the head and tying him up in the laboratory's basement! Jennings schemes to himself, "Heh! Heh! One more out of the way – soon I'll control everything!"

Rogers wakes to find himself in a trap and calls Jennings a fiend! Jennings laughs again as he taunts, "This is the gas-chamber I use to kill guinea pigs, to experiment with – but now you are my guinea pig! When the glass lid covers you entirely, gas will come through the jet and kill you! I'm going down now to turn the gas on… Sleep well!" he leaves with one last giggle and with a pull of the brake to cause the glass chamber to start to descend!

But at that very moment, the Bat-Man jumps through an open transom! He seizes a wrench from a table and leaps for the gas-chamber, barely managing to get inside before it seals itself against the floor! Swiftly, the Bat-Man plugs the gas jet with a handkerchief. He unties Rogers and with a powerful swing, he uses the wrench to break the glass!

Jennings returns and is startled at seeing the Bat-Man! He reaches for his gun but the masked vigilante 'greets' him with a flying tackle and punch, knocking the murderous assistant unconscious!

Meanwhile, Stryker has heard the crash of the gas-chamber being broken. He enters the laboratory and finds Rogers and his assistant, failing to notice the Bat-Man has secluded himself in the shadows. Rogers exclaims that Stryker's assistant tried to kill him! Stryker responds, "So he didn't get you after all… Well, I'll finish you and then throw your body in the acid tank below." He pulls a knife and goes to attack Rogers before the Bat-Man springs into action!

He grabs Stryker's hand harshly, forcing him to drop the knife in shock! Rogers asks the masked man why did Stryker try to kill him as the Bat-Man holds the would-be murderer by his collar to prevent his escape. He explains, "This rat was behind the murders! You see, I learned that you, Lambert, Crane, and Stryker were once partners in the Apex Chemical Corporation. Stryker, who wished to be sole owner, but having no ready cash made secret contracts with you, to pay a certain sum of money each year until he owned the business. He figured by killing you and stealing the contracts, he wouldn't have to pay this money."

Rogers can't help but to admire, "Hmm, a very clever scheme, and being the contracts were a strict secret between the four of us, our heirs or the outside world wouldn't know a thing about them… But how did you know all this?" The Bat-Man pulls a rolled up piece of paper out of nowhere before simply stating, "I secured this contract from one of his hired killers."

Suddenly, Stryker, with the strength of a madman, tears himself free from the grasp of the Bat-Man… — He shoves himself away in an attempted escape but the Bat-Man knocks him off-balance with a right hook punch to the man's face! He stumbles backwards and crashes through the flimsy railing, falling into the tank of acid. Bat-Man solemnly remarks that it's 'a fitting ending for his kind'. Rogers turns to the mysterious man, starting to ask how could he ever thank him, but the Bat-Man is already fleeing by the skylight window.

The next day, young Bruce Wayne is again a visitor at the commissioner's house… Who has just finished telling Bruce the latest exploits of the "Bat-Man". — Bruce is skeptical of the story, telling Gordon, "Hmm! A very lovely fairy-tale, commissioner, indeed." After Bruce departs, the commissioner mumbles to himself, "Bruce Wayne is a nice young chap – but he certainly must lead a boring life… Seems disinterested in everything."

Bruce returns to his home and goes to his bedroom. A short while later, the door slowly opens, revealing to us Bruce Wayne's greatest secret and something that would surely amaze all… That he himself is the Bat-Man!

END ID]

[mrs-gucci]

The Forbidden Fruit {medieval priest!Kylo Ren x Reader}

anonymous:

Priest!Kylo + tavern + visiting his known mistress

author’s notes: hello, hello! ooo, priest!Kylo is a dirty man and I am very much here for it ;) thanks for the request! (post-writing note: this got waay longer than I originally intended lol)

warnings: a touch of fluff. smut. general filth. the incorrect use of the Adam and Eve bible story. oral sex (f receiving). a bit of religion-infused coercion. innocence kink if you really squint. hints of praise kink. virginity loss. 

tw’s: extramarital affair/sex (as was common in medieval times). (!!) dubcon (!!) **please let me know if I missed any warnings and/or tw’s!!**

word count: 1.8k

kylo’s taglist peeps! @goddessofsprings​ @icarusinthesea​ my general taglist peeps! @safarigirlsp​ @babbushka​ ​@mrs-zimmerman​ @dirtytissuebox​ @thepalaceofmelanie

[NOT my edit. full credit goes to sacklers_sack on Twitter]

Father Kylo walks into the Adam and Eve Tavern and steps up to the bar, ordering a mug of frothy golden brew. He takes a sip as he walks over to his usual corner table, fingers fiddling with the ring around his thick finger. 

Even though his wife already knows of his affair, he still feels a small twinge of guilt whenever he lies to her about his whereabouts. It’s a very slight feeling of remorse, though, considering the fact that she’s one of Satan’s disciples.

You walk in only minutes later, flipping the hood of your cloak off the top of your head. He looks over at smiles at the sight of you, admiring your pure and raw beauty. He’s almost sure you’re some sort of angel in disguise, too beautiful and pure to be anything less. Gods, he wants nothing more than to wreck you, split you in half with his cock.

“Hello, angel.” He purrs as you walk over and sit down at the table with him, eyes lingering on your bosom, which is accentuated greatly in this particular gown. “I am glad to see your beautiful face this eve.”

Your lips curl up into a small smirk. “No need for such flattery, Father. We both know why you summoned me here.”

“I’ve always loved how you get right down to business.” Kylo chuckles devilishly. “There are a series of rooms upstairs, the very reason I chose this particular establishment to conduct our...meeting. Step into the last one down the hall and strip bare, lay down on the bed. I will join you in a moment.”

Nodding, you stand and make your way up to the room, swaying your hips a bit extra for the Father. He smirks when he notices this, taking another sip of his beer as he feels his length twitch to life ‘neath his robes.

He waits a few minutes, finishing the mug of beer and leaving behind a tip for the barkeep before walking up to the room he’s reserved for the night. When he walks in, the sight of your nude body illuminated by the warm orange glow of the crackling fire greets him. Gods, is there a better sight to behold than this one?

Your chest rises and falls gently, rhythmically, breasts rising and falling along with your steady breathing. He’s hypnotized, momentarily, drinking in the angelic beauty that lays across the bedsheets.

His robes are swiftly removed and draped over one of the chairs, leaving him in only his undergarments. He points to your legs with his pointer and middle fingers, silently indicating that he’d like you to spread them. You do.

“Tell me, angel. Have you heard the Biblical tale of Adam and Eve?”

You shake your head, biting down on your lip when he takes a step forward towards the bed. “No, Father, I have not.”

He smirks, standing with his hands clasped behind his back. Remnants of his hot breath tease your bare skin, causing you to shudder.

“Adam and Eve were the first human beings created by God, and they inhabited in the Garden of Eden. They were given allowed to use or consume any of the other plants in the Garden, but they were told not to eat any of the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

You gasp when his hands suddenly seize your ankles and pull you to the end of the bed.

“But,” The Father sinks to his knees, never breaking eye contact. “They failed to resist the temptation. The fruit...”

He pushes your legs as far apart as they can go, then lightly traces your glistening slit with his fingertips. Your breath hitches in your throat at his featherlight touch on your center.

Your eyes widen when his nose nudges your outer lips and he takes a long, slow inhale of your natural scent. He shudders, groaning under his breath before his tongue suddenly licks an agonizingly slow stripe up your cunt.

“The forbidden fruit was just too sweet.” Kylo says, licking his lips with a small smirk at the corners of his mouth. “It was so tender, so juicy; it just felt too right to be wrong, too delicious to be sin.”

You can’t stop the desperate whimper that escapes between your parted lips, insides clenching desperately against themselves. He notices the way your hole puckers, and his smirk grows a bit wider.

His mouth opens, then, and he encapsulates your entire core in a sloppy kiss. Your back arches and you gasp loudly, head pressing back against the pillows. The coarse hairs of his beard scratch your skin in the most delightfully pleasurable way, only adding to the sensations he’s creating with his mouth.

“F-Father--ohh!” Your feet plant and your hips lift up off the bed. “Oh gods, mmmm!”

He begins moving with more aggression, passionately slurping up each and every drop of the sweet nectar that leaks from your cunt. His assault doesn’t let up, not until his efforts bring you to the ultimate high.

“Father! F-Father, oh Christ!” You shriek softly, legs quaking as you hit your peak with an Earth-shattering intensity.

Kylo pulls away shortly after you’ve ridden out your high and he’s consumed every single drop of your sinful sweetness, upper lip and beard glistening with your release. He practically rips his undergarments off and wraps a large, veiny hand around the base.

“Lay up at the head of the bed, now. I shall claim your innocence tonight, angel.”

Your eyes widen and you sit up, chewing on your now-tender bottom lip. “I d-don’t know...”

The Father shakes his head, quickly pinning you to the bed, caging you with his large body. You watch his silver Holy Cross necklace shimmer in the dim light, reminding you that he is a man of God and that he would never ask anything of you that he didn’t think you were ready for.

“Do not fear it, my child; why would His Holiness grant us the bodies we posses, ones that can bring such pleasures, if we aren’t intended to use them? Trust me, angel, all will be alright.”

You’re not much of a religious woman, but he makes a reasonable argument...

“O-Okay.”

He smiles, reaching down to place a gentle kiss on your lips. “I will go slowly for you. It may hurt at first, but I promise it will get better.”

You nod. “I trust you, Father.”

His tip swipes all through your slick before settling at your entrance, ready to push in. He holds your cheeks, looking deep into your eyes.

“Are you ready, my angel?”

As soon as you nod, his pelvis pushes forward and his length pushes through your unstretched walls. You cry out, tears instantly burning your eyes as they instantly begin to collect in the corners.

Once he’s fully seated inside you, he remains still, jaw clenched so tight you’re worried he’ll crack his teeth should he clench any tighter. It’s taking every single ounce of his willpower not to fuck you raw, but he knows what he must take care of you this eve. There will be plenty of time for all of that in the future.

“You’re doing sssso well, angel. Taking me so well.”

His words of encouragement, his mutters of of praise reassure you that this was a good choice. You’ve never felt so stuffed in your entire life, not even after holiday feasts and the more your insides stretch in accommodation, the better it begins to feel.

You nod up at him, the first tear escaping your overflowing eyes.

“I’m a-alright now, Father.”

He plants a kiss on your forehead, still cradling your face as he draws back, then pushes forward once more. The noises that escape your lips are positively sinful and they only encourage him on, hips steadily gaining speed and force with each passing moment.

Soon, your body and breasts and excess flesh bounce in time with his hips’ sharp, forceful thrusts. By now, the pain has completely subsided and made way for the pleasure to build in your loins.

“S-So sssweet,” He grunts quietly in your ear. “So j-juicy and tender...and you’re a-all mine...”

Your small whimpers and gasps turn to scandalous moans and cries of desperation. You hold onto his arms tightly, fingernails digging deep into his alabaster skin, surely leaving marks.

“Please, Father, please...”

Kylo can feel his control, his restraint beginning to slip as he nears climax. He’s unable to hold it off, unwilling to deny himself this heavenly pleasure whilst his cock is stained with fresh virgin’s blood.

The thought of that alone thrusts him right up to the edge, looking over the cliff to the peak of bliss.

“Y/N, my a-angel, I...I will not be able to endure much l-longer.”

You nod, grabbing hold of his hair firmly. “It is alright, F-Father. Use m-me, use my body to bring yourself p-pleasure.”

Those words send him careening into climax and he quickly pulls away just as the first rope of his foggy liquor emerges. His hips still give half-hearted mock thrusts as he spills his creamy seed all over your puffy, used cunt.

He crawls off of you once he’s finished, beginning to redress immediately. You sit up, shakily and already you can feel the pain in your loins beginning to build from the Father’s hardened intrusion.

Your eyes catch sight of some red dripped down onto the bedsheet and your cheeks warm, acute worry flaring up inside of you. Is that supposed to happen?

Almost as if he read your worried mind, Father Kylo steps up to you and holds your chin up so that you can look into his eyes.

“Bleeding is typical for virgins, nothing is the matter, I promise.”

You nod, sighing softly in relief. “Thank you, Father.”

He smiles, bending down to place a chaste kiss on your lips. “It is I who should be thanking you, my child. Thank you for giving your innocence to me, for trusting me. You did so well for me tonight, angel.”

Your cheeks warm in flattery, smile splitting your face. But, your expression falls into a frown when you see him drape the cloak over his shoulders.

“Must you leave so soon, Father?”

Father Kylo nods as he pulls on his shoes. “I must get back to the convent, angel; I apologize for having to rush off so quickly. But, I promise I will make it up to you next time, yes?”

You nod, offering a small, disappointment-tinged smile. “Yes, of course, Father. I understand.”

He reaches ‘neath his robes and pulls out the small, silver Holy Cross necklace, draping it around your neck.

“Something to remind you of me, ‘till we next meet.” Kylo says, kissing your temple. “Farewell, my beloved angel.”

Your lips tug up into a genuine smile, fingers toying with the silver charm as he approaches the door and slips out.

“Farewell, Father.”

[philliamwrites]

The Dawn Will Come [Chpt.6]

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Pairing: Dimitri x Reader, Claude x Reader, Edelgard x Reader, Yuri x Reader, Edelgard x Byleth, lots of minor pairings

Tags: #gn reader, # platonic love byleth & reader, #reader is a tactical unit, #angst, #slow burn, #subplots, #unreliable narrator, #pining, #remporary amnesia, #reluctant herp, #canon divergence, #lost twin au, #many chapters, #original content

Words: 5.1k

Summary: Waking up in a forest without any knowledge of your past and who you are, you join the house leaders of the Officers Academy to search for a way to return your memories. Unfortunately, the church has different plans for you, and Fate places you in the centre of a cruel game with deadly stakes. It certainly doesn’t help to fall in love with a house leader who is doomed to be your demise.

Notes: Chapter 5 | Chapter 7

Chapter 06: From The Beyond

Ah! It is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace.

[Mary B. Shelley, Frankenstein]

��   Thinking back on it later, the events during Garland Moon were probably what set the hare running toward its demise. Not that any of you could have known that. Not the students who joyfully spend their days in cherished halls where daylight passes through coloured glass; not Byleth with her gift to correct past mistakes with a flick of her wrist and change the course of time; not you with your foresight to see what dangers await in the future and prepare a different path for those you care for to walk safely.

    Thinking back on it later, everything that followed surely ascribed to and served Fate, and not even Sylvain could charm her with his silver tongue and golden wit, for Fate’s lover is Time and she does not look kindly upon those who enslave him.

    Maybe that is why things turned out the way they did for Byleth and you.

    But that future is still far away and every single one of you still believes the goddess has Fate tightly leashed to her side, her benevolence endless and spreading to every corner in Fódlan.

    That is why you don’t think too much about it when one day, Seteth disturbs your seminar, a deep frown settled in his features as you explain how to turn an ambush to your advantage to the students.

    “Apologies for the disturbance, Herald. Lady Rhea asks to see Ashe.”

    The boy gives a pitiful squeal but is up on his feet nonetheless. “Me? Why?”

    “You will see. Please come.” Seteth holds the classroom’s door open.

    You nod, a little worried about the frightened glance Ashe sends your way like he hopes you can actually say no and decline Rhea’s command. An encouraging smile is everything you can give him on his way before the door shuts behind him. Its sound wakes everyone else from their slumber and it takes a few minutes to reclaim order and their attention. It certainly does help that the Blue Lion House isn’t as chaotic as a certain other, not to name any names.

    Said house proves again to be more difficult to teach. Or tame. You didn’t have the courage to ask why they thought it was a good idea to see whose shoe would leave the darkest stain on Claude’s bedroom’s ceiling. Even days after their mischief students kept talking about how they have never seen Seteth this furious.

    “Herald, please,” Hilda cries, tragically draped over the back of her chair, a maiden in bittersweet agony over her loss of free time. “It was all Claude’s fault.”

    “Liars never prosper,” Claude calls from the far back of the room. He’s hunched over his papers, working vigorously on Seteth’s punishment. He ordered them to write hundred times I shall not throw footwear against any ceiling in the monastery. They’ve been at it for about twenty minutes and Claude’s quill hasn’t stopped its furious scratching against parchment at all.

    “I won’t mess with Seteth,” you tell them and lean dangerously far back on your chair to place your feet on the teacher’s desk. “And you deserve it. Or do they not teach you proper manners in your noble homes?”

    “Well, it’s not like anyone taught us not to do it,” Hilda chirps. You throw a glare her way and she quickly dugs her head and continues writing. Quills scratch on paper for about seven seconds before Hilda stops again.

    “Herald,” she says. “What do you think about Lady Catherine’s Thunderbrand?”

    You look up from your book titled Noticeable War Generals. Smile gone from her face, Hilda looks up at you with sharp curiosity. It’s eerily silent now, and a quick glance towards Claude shows he is listening as well.

    Catherine’s Thunderbrand. Its sight is still burned into the back of your closed eyes: Golden ivory forged into a grotesque sword, a blood red Crest Stone in its middle that seemed to pulsate—as if it breathed. As if it was a living thing with a heart. You had simply stared at it in awe and thought What a mesmerising weapon.

    “It’s … fascinating,” you manage. “A Hero’s Relic. There are more than just Thunderbrand, right?”

    “Ten exist,” Claude calls from the back. “Bestowed by the goddess upon ten heroes, they are passed down to their descendants. House Riegan and House Goneril have one in their possession as well.”

    “Then why don’t you use it?” You certainly wouldn’t miss a chance to own and wield a mighty weapon like that.

    “Wield that?”Hilda shudders in disgust. “No thank you. It looks so weird, pulsating and moving like an insect.”

    “And we’re way too inexperienced to use it in a real battle.” Claude puts his quill between his nose and upper lip and tries to hold it there. “They’re locked away anyway and hidden from those who might misuse their power.”

    Claude has a point. Nonetheless, you’d gladly take a look at them. Maybe even hold one … Did the Herald own one as well? A special weapon only forged for the Herald. A slight shudder runs down your spine at the thought of using it in battle.

    Ten minutes later, Claude jumps to his feet. He hurries towards you, slams his parchments on the table and leaves just as fast. “Bye Herald!”

    “No way!” Hilda pales. “How is he so fast?”

    You wonder as well and take a look at his papers. Instead of writing what Seteth has told them, Claude simply left poor drawings of their crime and promised with one sentence he wouldn’t do it again.

    And we of House Riegan never break our promises, reads the last line.

    You groan. Now it’s your turn to think about a good explanation to Seteth’s questions why you haven’t paid more attention.

    Month three passed within the blink of an eye. Garland Moon brought the sweet smell of white roses to Garreg Mach, a tradition much anticipated by the students. Everywhere you went, garlands and gifts made of white roses were given to each other as a sign of friendship or budding love. Some found their way to your desk, though your admirers preferred to stay anonymous whereas Byleth was busy to stow them somewhere—not a day passed without her receiving something or a group of giggling students following her around.

    “I really don’t know what to do with all those flowers,” she told you one day during a tea session, a deep frown on her face. “They wilt. Then I throw them away. It’s a waste.”

    “Your students love it,” you replied but were glad not to be in her place.

    Another good deed Garland Moon brought with it is longer days and shorter nights. Students lounged outside in their summer uniforms after class, enjoying those last warm days before raining season arrived with fierce gusts and heavy pouring, forcing them back inside where they spent their free time inside the library or the dining hall, playing little games to kill time.

    For a change of pace, Byleth and Jeralt decided they’d hold a grilled fish dinner on every last day of each week and most of the invited either didn’t have the heart or the courage to tell them once every week was once every week too much.

    Everything happened too fast after that. Rhea informed the teacher’s faculty and her Knights of Lord Lonato Gaspard’s planned rebellion against the church. With that, the mystery of why Seteth had demanded to speak with Ashe was solved; it also explained why he spent so much time inside the chapel, praying and wondering himself about his adoptive father’s reasoning.

    “There is no question about it,” Rhea says in her cool, demanding voice once every teacher and Knight of Seiros gathered inside the War Room to discuss the matter. “We will send a troop to meet them halfway in Kingdom Territory. They will pay for mocking our goddess.”

    “Allow me to lead the Knights, Lady Rhea,” Catherine says. Even now, you can’t take your eyes off Thunderbrand strapped on her back. “I know Gaspard and what he’s capable of.”

    “We did not forget what you’ve done back when—” Seteth starts. Catherine silences him with one look, leaving no doubt she doesn’t wish to speak of it.

    “And that is exactly why I have to go.”

    Rhea nodded. “So be it. I know I leave this mission in your capable hands.”

    “But why is he leading this rebellion?” you wonder. “I thought the Kingdom is strongly devoted to Seiros’ teachings.”

    “Every flock has its black sheep,” Rhea says, sounding sad. “We will get our answers once we defeat and capture them.”

    “What about the surrounding villages and those who support Gaspard’s rebellion but don’t fight?” Byleth asked. Until now, you haven’t really thought of those not directly involved in it, but she does make a good point.

    Rhea squared her shoulders. “What about them?”

    “They’re not directly involved but might try to get in our way.” Byleth glanced at the strategic map laid out before her. There is a way through the forest for your units to approach Lonato’s stronghold. Surrounding villages are marked with a red pin. They surround the forest in a loose circle, making an intrusion possible, though sending Knights of Seiros out to watch them and stop them could be quite easy—

    “Everyone who supports this foolish rebellion should receive the rightful punishment,” Rhea says, her voice so cold it freezes your thoughts of how to make the villagers stay out of this. Your head snaps up as you stare at her. Byleth raises an eyebrow but remains silent just like everyone else. Something about that makes you shudder.

    “But they’re civilians, right? If we can avoid having them interfere—”

    “By joining Lonato Gaspard’s rebellion they pledge guilty to his cause.” Rhea looks up at you, scorn flashing briefly in her eyes. “I will not have them simply go if it opens the possibility for revenge one day.”

    If you squinted really hard, there was reason behind her words. Still, your stomach turned at the thought of endangering civilians even though it could be prevented. Without any protests, that was the plan for the operation.

    You sat this one out. There was much to prepare for the upcoming Rite of Rebirth, a ceremony when the Church of Seiros and its believers unite to pray for the return of the goddess. Even though you wouldn’t call yourself a believer—many find it strange that you remember the way of war but not the way of the Church as if you lived somewhere without Seiros’ teachings—your presence was of outmost importance as well. Though after you heard how the mission went, you really wished you had joined the Blue Lions fighting against Gaspard instead of sitting around and deciding which ceremonial robes fit better.

    Loud voices drift through the closed door of a classroom, voices you immediately recognise belonging to Dimitri and Byleth.

    “Are you insane?” You flinch back even though a heavy wooden door separates you from what is undoubtedly Dimitri’s wrath. “Those were civilians.”

    A reply is lost, too quiet for you to hear, but whatever Byleth said, it wasn’t the right thing. A second later, Dimitri storms through the doors. The distress in his features stops you from asking what is wrong, a flash of betrayal lurking in his eyes seals your mouth shut. You look after him until he disappears around the corner, only slowly turning towards Byleth. She is propping herself up on the table, learning on her strong arms and staring at the opposite wall, her mouth a grim line—solid rock that stands against the raging waves summoned by Dimitri, her grip on the edge of the table hard enough to turn her knuckles white.

    “Everything okay?” An unnecessary question answered by a simple shake of her head. You lean your hips against the table. “Do you want to talk about it?”

    Byleth is silent. Only slowly, like a tight knot finally coming lose, the tension in her shoulders dissipates and she takes a long, deep breath.

    “Dimitri told me about their mission. How they dealt with Lord Lonato’s revolt.” She finally steps away from the table and kneads the muscles in her shoulders. You imagine they’re hard like a rock. “They faced simple peasants who defended their Lord. Peasants who didn’t even know how to wield a sword without cutting their own thumbs off.”

    “And Rhea made quite clear how to deal with them,” you finish, summoning unwanted imaginations about a gruesome butchery in your mind. Byleth nods.

    “Dimitri asked for my advice,” she continues, her gaze drifting towards the door as if said young man might return like a bad haunting if his name is simply muttered. “If there was anything they could have done different. I told him there wasn’t.” She tears her eyes away from the door and fixes them on you. “I told him that is the way of war.”

    She is right, a part of you insists. Such facts cannot be changed and claiming anything different is foolish, naive. Yet, something stirs, a tiny tiny voice, a feeling, that challenges that thought. A feeling you didn’t expect to be part of you.

    “I don’t know about the details,” you say, shuffling from left to right, “but maybe it was avoidable. Lord Lonato must have known how his subjects felt about it. He didn’t need to involve them.”

    “I think they joined on their own. The students gave them a chance to lay down their weapons.”

    “Still—”

    “Still they decided to follow their foolish Lord,” a voice from the door joins, cold and imperious, chilling you to the bone. Rhea enters the War Room, her expression void of any warmth or kindness. “There is no place for doubt. We must punish any sinner who may inflict harm upon believers, even if those sinners are civilians.”

    “And you think to have the students punish them is right?” Byleth asks, earning a sharp glare from Rhea. She quickly, but somewhat begrudgingly adds, “Your Grace.”

    “I have heard that some students struggled with completing the task,” Rhea acknowledges, doing her best to show how unaffected she is by Byleth’s criticism. “I pray they learnt a valuable lesson about the fate that awaits all who are foolish enough to point their blades towards the heavens.”

    An icy shudder crawls up your spine, cold fingers tighten around your throat to keep you silent—a leash forged of obedience and intimidation, the mistress standing before you. It would be wise to keep your mouth shut, not draw unnecessary attention; keep your head low and nothing can slice it from your shoulders. But the words, burning hot on your tongue, demand freedom.

    “Fearing the Church isn’t the same as respecting it.”

    Something sharp flashes in Rhea’s eyes. “If fear is the only way to control them, then so be it. They are traitors to the holy teachings.”

    “They are people. People with families.”

    “People who would be wise to remember it was the progenitor god who gave them these lands and their life,” Rhea answers, growing impatient. She notices something in the way you look at her, for she takes a moment to collect herself by taking a deep breath. “I do not enjoy seeing those who wronged our holy teachings punished, Herald,” she continues, now much calmer. “But punish them we must before they hurt those who are dear to us.” Upon her last words, her eyes dart to Byleth, looking at her with so much fondness and care, a sting of jealousy in your chest forces you to avert your gaze to the ground. It isn’t the first time you notice Rhea’s palpable interest in Byleth’s wellbeing though no answer comes to mind why it is like that. If Byleth noticed the same, she doesn’t show it.

    After that, the incident is quickly forgotten, making room for the new incident occupying everyone’s mind: an assassination plot on Rhea on the day of the Rite of Rebirth found in Lonato’s possession. You aren’t the only one wondering why he’d carry something like that around where it’s easy to find. Multiple theories go around, one more farfetched than the other. One particular makes sense, its source none other than sharp witted Claude who thinks this plot is a simple distraction for something much bigger.

    “If security is focused on the Rite of Rebirth inside the Goddess’ Tower, pretty much anyone can simply stroll around the monastery and do who knows what,” he told you on the day Byleth and her class set out to discover what important places might become a target. Garreg Mach hides many secrets and treasures. Some of them even you are not allowed to see like relics passed down from archbishop to archbishop, guarded by the elite of the Knights of Seiros, tall and bulky men and women with grim mouths and determined eyes rooting them in place day and night in front of locked doors only Rhea knows what they hide.

    With every passing day, tension hangs in the air like a thick blanket waiting to smother you all. But it isn’t simply the anticipation for whatever the Western Church has planned. It is also the holy ceremony of the Rite of Rebirth, one you’ve practised under the stern eyes of Seteth who doesn’t settle for anything less than perfect. Every word, every step is engraved in your mind.

    On the day of the Rite of Rebirth the sun relentlessly blazes down at the monastery. Your ceremonial robes are heavy and woven from thick jacquard fabric lined with fine golden patterns that depict the Herald’s Crest on the back. You’ve barely finished preparing everything inside the round chamber inside the Goddess’ Tower but perspiration glues your hair to your forehead.

    A whole feast is prepared; food offerings and gifts from the townsfolk and priests served on golden and silver plates on long tables covered with white table clothes. In the middle Seteth prepared a small platform for Rhea to stand and speak in honour of the goddess that she may return to Fódlan and show its people her infinite grace. In short, you’d do anything to join the students who are securing the locations lacking in defence right now instead of standing around and waving at pilgrims. The only joy lies in Flayn’s bright presence and her never ending optimism. She’s a sweet girl and has been looking forward to the ceremony since the beginning of Blue Sea Moon. Looking upon her, it is hard not to catch her excitement and joy when the ceremony finally begins.

    Because of certain circumstances you couldn’t quite follow, the holy relic used for the ceremony, the Chalice of Beginnings, has been missing for a long time. Because of that, a mock chalice was prepared by the cardinals, a handful of high authority men and women who make it no secret they can’t quite decide if they like or dislike you and your position.

    “You must excuse them,” one of the cardinals says after a group of them simply shook their heads at you happily scooping tons of food on a plate. His dark hair falls to his shoulders and unlike the other cardinals, his brown eyes are filled with kindness. “They simply think in old patterns and value their old traditions. You are quite young, Herald. They don’t know how to handle that.”

    “But you do?” you wonder and notice too late how unfriendly that sounds. But he simply laughs.

    “I do frequent with young folk, yes,” he says. “They are my flock and I will do anything to protect them.”

    “That again, Aelfric?” Catherine joins you and slaps his shoulder just when he was about to drink from his cup. You pretend the pastries on your plate are far more interesting than watching him choke on wine. “You’re way too good for them, you know?”

    “Who is ‘them?’” you ask but Catherine just sways her hand as if he wants to get rid of a nasty fly.

    “Unimportant. You did a good job carrying the chalice to the podium.”

    “I did almost trip over these.” You pluck at the heavy robes, already looking forward to getting out of them.

    Catherine laughs but it is short lived. Out of nowhere, a knight hurriedly approaches and leans over to her, muttering, “They are after the tomb of Saint Seiros.”

    Glass shatters as her grip tightens around the fragile stem but without so much as noticing it she storms towards Rhea, fury blazing in her eyes. Something happened. Something far more exciting than playing a believer in front of everyone, so you follow her to listen in more.

    “Those dastards from the Western Church infiltrated the Holy Mausoleum,” she says. Rhea pales. “I will take some knights and go there at once.”

    “Go and be swift, Catherine.” Rhea’s words are barely a puff of breath, those news shaking her but she remains stoic in front of everyone to prevent panic. Her voice drops dangerously low. “Punish those heathens.”

    Catherine’s head dips in a slight bow. “I will, Your Grace.”

    “I want to help too.”

    Both turn around at your voice. Catherine narrows her eyes to sharp slits, but it is Rhea who says, “No. I need you here for the ceremony, Herald.”

    “Please, let me,” you beg. Something inside you demands to follow, demands to see what is inside the Holy Mausoleum that causes so much bloodshed. “I can’t explain, but I need to be there.”

    Rhea presses her lips into a thin line. Before she reopens her mouth to decline your wish, you whirl around and leave the ceremony room, Catherine in hot pursuit. You manage halfway down the hallway before she reaches you and grabs your arm hard.

    “Even though you are the Herald, I won’t allow you to show this disrespect towards Her Grace,” she snarls. “If she tells you to stay, you listen.”

    “I don’t expect you to understand,” you say, trying to free your arm from her bone breaking grip. “But something calls me to this place and I need to follow it.”

    Catherine isn’t pleased but she knows better than do you any real harm. With a crude nod, she allows you to follow. Several knights wait for you and together you make your way through the warm evening air towards the Holy Mausoleum that lies behind the chapel.

    You enter right before chaos erupts. At the end of the hall, its ceiling so high up it’s barely visible in the dark, Byleth stands tall and rises a sword that flashes in a bright red light. A throb goes through your body and brings you to your knees. It feels like an arrow drove into your chest, the stinging pain unlike anything you’ve felt before—no, it’s a pain you haven’t felt since the Crest appeared on your eye for the first time. And then that thrumming energy within you exploded, a sharp crimson that drenched every corner of your right vision, rushing through your veins.

    “Kill them!” an enemy mage commands, fury fuelling him to a last desperate attack. With his remaining companions, they summon a giant fire spell you’ve only read about in books, a combination of spells into a group flame that covers a large area—the pre-stage to a much more fatal blaze that can scorch the land. Blaze or no, the effect watching the giant fire ball curling and sparking until it grows large enough to wipe out anything in its way is the same. Fear paralyses your body. Move, your mind screams, but you can’t. Your muscles have locked up; a high whine of terror fills your head and fizzes in your blood like poison, yet you do not understand where this fear of fire comes from.

    “Take cover!” Catherine roars but it is too late. The blast hits the ground right before you, dispersing your small group of reinforcements like wind scattering leaves in all directions. A loud crack beneath you makes your heart skip a beat, a rumble shakes the hall and before you can fully comprehend what is happening, the ground gives way.

    The last thing you hear is Byleth shouting, not Herald, but your name before you plunge into darkness.

    Wake up.

    You have to wake up.

    This darkness is terrifying, so utterly black and choking, curling around you like a tight fist. Like someone is holding you in their dirty, tainted clutches, smelling of death and horror. Wake up, you tell yourself, more urgent now, your mind struggling to escape from claws digging into your consciousness, their goal unknown but you don’t want to stay here to find out what they are after. What they want to take from you.

    Wake up, this time another voice, the voice, echoing like a sweet bell’s chime, the flicker of light in a darkness so black it hums. You have to wake up.

    Your eyes snap open, the sudden white ceiling hurting like a sudden flash of light. Once you’re used to the brightness, you realise this isn’t a room, this is … this is your consciousness—no walls, no windows. It’s just a space, and yet you can clearly determine borders. Somewhere is an exit you’re free to use, nothing holds you captive. It’s your safe place. Your haven. Which doesn’t explain how you’ve gotten here.

    All you know is it feels safe. It feels like a warm embrace, the feeling of hope, watching a budding flower embraced by soft, fragile hands—asteritrope, your mind provides out of nowhere, the flower always turning its head towards the Blue Star.

    It is like breaking a spell. First, everything is simply white, empty, a second later, you stand in a vast field of asteritropes, an ocean of purple, gently swaying flowers at your feet. Everything smells of sweet innocence, of honey dipped fingers and bittersweet regret. It is a familiar scent, one your body remembers and reacts to with a shudder so strong it rattles deep in your bones; a chill so cold it freezes you on the spot, the slightest movement threatening to shatter you entirely.

    What is this grief, this sadness? Is it your own or have you fallen into a sea of tears wept by someone else? Your chest is heavy with a burden, a pulling towards the unknown that is yet so familiar. It is homesickness towards a place you have never been but long to visit.

    The flowers shaped like little stars stretch beyond what you think are the edges of this place. If this is a dream, you don’t want to wake up anytime soon, relishing in this peace and quiet.

    A peace and quiet that lasts only a moment until you notice it. Not it, him. In the middle of the field, a boy sits, bent over something that demands his complete attention. Dark curls fall against pale skin, his brows pulled tightly together as his fingers work something in his lap. He is wearing a simple white robe, though it is unlike any of the religious wear you've seen on the priests and nuns; it seem ... too old for that. Only after you approach, you see he is folding purple flowers and green steams into a crown.

    “Hello?” you say, only now entertaining the idea you might have died and this is the afterlife, the first point before returning to the goddess’ side. It is a strangely tranquil thought. “Can you hear me?”

    The boy’s head snaps up, his eyes wide as he momentarily forgets his work, and you take a step back, struck by how bright his steel grey eyes are. They roam over you, up and down, back up again, as he slowly raises to his feet.

    “You’re here,” he says, awestruck. “You’re finally here. It is so nice to meet you after all this time.”

    His voice is like a punch to your gut. You recognise it immediately, the voice who pulled you back from the darkness.

    “You—” Nothing makes sense. “Who are you? What are you?”

    “There is nothing to fear,” he says, offering you his hand. The tips of his fingers are purple from handling delicate petals. The crown lies at his bare feet, forgotten. He looks strangely vulnerable.

    You take another step back, worry a steady, hard pulse against your neck. The air catches in your lungs. You feel like the ground is opening beneath your feet. “Are you … the goddess? A god?”

    The boy blinks, then throws his head back and bursts out laughing, the sound like sweet bells chiming in the wind. “You people love to call everything you do not understand god.”

    “Then what are you?” It comes out as a breath, and for a brief second you think it’s fear that seizes your body, but no. You should be afraid and yet instead of frenzy panic there is a calm spreading inside you as if you belong here. You can’t say if it’s the boy’s presence or the familiar scent of wildflowers.

    The boy leans his head to the side, his smile as vibrant as early sunlight casting away leftover shadows from a dark night. “Hmmm … the End, perhaps? Or why not just … a friend?”

    “The end? My end?”

    “No, the end is never simply the end,” he says, shaking his head.

    “Is that supposed to reassure me?”

    “It may be a rebirth,” he continues. “Or the passing into a new era. Into a new dawn.”

    “A new dawn,” you mumble. The realisation makes your knees weak. “Don’t tell me—” You suck in a sharp breath, unable to belief where your thoughts are hurling towards in lightning speed. You kneel onto the soft flowerbed, careful not to crush any flowers. “Why are we here … do you know me by chance?”

    “I … cannot say for sure,” he starts slowly, uncertainty turning his features even younger. “I have been watching you since you awoke four moons ago. On that day, I as well awoke from a deep slumber. But I do not know why it is you that I am bound to.”

    “Bound to?” Your head spins. “What do you mean?”

    “You must have felt it by now, have you not? I am here because of this,” he says, and lifts his hand to point at your right eye. You flinch back as if he smacked you right across your face.

    “So you are him,” you whisper, a shudder ripping through your body. “You’re the first Herald. You are Seiros’ Champion.”

    The boy smiles.

[the-angst-chronicles-fanworks]

DRACO’S WISH [PT 7/14]

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WORD COUNT: 3303

PAIRING: Drarry

TAGS:

hidden identity

Down and Out Draco Malfoy

Pretty Draco Malfoy

Talented Draco Malfoy

Auror Harry Potter

Smitten Harry Potter

Harry Potter Being an Asshole (just for a while)

Angst

Fluff

Angst with a Happy Ending

Falling In Love

Torture

Skipping Meals/Hunger

Cold Weather

Libraries

Hot Chocolate

Veritaserum

SUMMARY: Draco does a good deed and is granted a wish - 12 days of anonymity in a world that hates him CHAPTER SUMMARY:   Draco and Harry’s ice-skating plans get interrupted

on FF.net

on AO3

STORY:

December 14th , 2007

To his great disappointment, the next day does not come with a change in weather. “Merlin’s great ugly hairy ballsack,” he grumbles, glaring balefully at the dark window. He’s woken before the sun. Again.

There’s no use laying in bed though, so he gets up and takes his two-minute shower, pouting at the weather conspiring to ruin his day ice-skating for the second time in a row. He tugs on his clothes and then frowns down at his thin, raggedy coat. Maybe he can transfigure it into something warmer.

But no, it takes skill to have a transfigured object retain its new properties for any significant length of time, and transfiguration is more difficult to do wandless besides.

Hoping fervently that the sun brings with it some warmth, Draco leaves the bathroom and approaches his little kitchen corner. He looks at the stove critically – he is going skating later, which will use up energy, but he also ate yesterday. He waffles for a moment, drumming his fingers on his little folding table, but decides against it. He’s probably going to have to beg off early due to the cold anyhow. Food can wait for tomorrow.

There’s nothing to hang around the flat for, and he’ll have to cast a heating charm if he does besides, so he steps out into the hallway and jams his door shut again. It’s very early still – the sun has not yet risen – and Knockturn is empty but for those few straggling to or from work and the usual selection of shady characters who quite go away.

These twilight hours are beautiful, and if it wasn’t for the horrid cold Draco would slow down to appreciate the early morning stillness. As it is, he hurries along the familiar path, out of Knockturn and into the properly deserted Diagon. The street twinkles serenely, decorative lights throwing glittering sparkles onto the snow. It makes Draco’s breath catch, and he finds himself irrationally wondering if Potter has ever seen Diagon like this.

Where has that come from? He shakes away the thought with a frown. It must be because they’ve been spending so much time together, he reasons. It’s only natural that he think of Potter’s company when he wants to share something. He absolutely refuses to believe that he’s getting attached to the charming git.

The library is only just opening when he arrives and the librarian seems surprised to see him, but smiles and greets him warmly anyway. “My, my, you’re here bright and early,” she says. “Come on in, it’s terribly cold out there.”

Draco blinks, surprised by the change in their daily routine of one-to-two word greetings, but returns her smile. “Thank you,” he says gratefully, stepping into the warm building.

“Don’t worry about it dear,” she replies, patting him on the arm. She totters off, disappearing behind her counter. Draco watches after her, and wonders if she was the same librarian who had worked here when he’d come as a child. He’d never paid attention to those whom he’d considered ‘the help’ back then. Merlin, but he’d been a brat.

Draco makes his way over to the wandless magic section, where he takes his time perusing the volumes. The one he’s been using has dissolved mostly into practice and examples, which are useful but for which he has no time. As long as he knows the theory, he’s confident that he’ll be able to figure out other spells given enough time.

He picks out a slightly older but more advanced tome and returns to his armchair. This book is more concerned with theory than the last, and it goes into the differences that must be accounted for with different branches of magic. It’s incredibly tediously worded, but the concepts are fascinating, and Draco is more than happy to sink into it for a few hours.

He doesn’t allow himself to fall asleep this time – he has no desire to embarrass himself in front of Potter again – so whenever he feels himself drifting off, he takes a walk out into the little side street and entertains himself by trying out some of the new notions that he’s learning. These excursions never last too long, because it’s still bloody freezing out there, but he’s cold-woken and newly eager to delve further into his study when he returns.

It’s after one such excursion, once he’s back to pouring over his book, that a shadow suddenly falls across the cramped text on the page. He glances up, expecting it to be Potter arrived early, but to his surprise it’s the librarian standing there, her wrinkled old face smiling at him over a steaming teacup.

“Hi dear,” she says, “just coming by to see if you’d like a cup of tea?”

Draco eyes the cup warily. She’s trying to sell him tea? He cannot deny that it’s an appealing thought – he’s still shivering from the chill of being outside, and the caffeine would be welcome – but he doesn’t have that kind of money to spare.

“Erm…no thank you,” he says regretfully. The old lady shrugs good-naturedly.

“If you change your mind just let me know,” she says, and totters off. Draco looks after her retreating back and wonders when libraries have started selling tea. He’s certainly never received such an offer from a librarian before, though he’s spent a lot of time in libraries.

Potter shows up at one o-clock today, striding determinedly into the little alcove and then faltering when he sees Draco. He laughs. “Beat me to it huh?” He says. “Are you that eager to see me?” He waggles his eyebrows ridiculously, and Draco snorts.

“Yes Potter, I live my life ardently awaiting the next time I get to see you,” he drawls, before closing his book primly. “I come here to study, as you know.”

Potter laughs. “Right, our wandless savant. How could I forget?”

Draco feels a blush rising up his cheeks and frowns. “I’m hardly a savant,” he argues. There’s no way for Potter to know that he’s been working on this for around seven years now, he supposes, but he doesn’t feel comfortable with the description.

“Right, no, of course,” says Potter, scratching at the back of his head. He shuffles awkwardly from foot to foot, before he asks, “Shall we get going then?”

“Yes, let’s,” says Draco. He rises gracefully from his seat, then turns to smirk at Potter as a thought occurs to him. “By the way Potter, it did not escape my notice that you’ve come here an hour early. I wonder if it isn’t you who’s eager to see me?”

Potter sputters, his face rapidly reddening, and Draco can’t help but chuckle at his incredulous expression as he goes to shelf his book.  Still, he wonders just how fond Potter is becoming of him. It makes him feel guilty – after all, Potter would want nothing to do with him if he knew who he was.

He shakes away the self-reproach after a moment. It’s not as though he’s seeking Potter out or forcing his company on him. Isn’t it worse at this point to start blowing Potter off now, to his face? Surely it’s kinder for Emory to just disappear one day.

It still doesn’t feel right, though, and the easy smile on Potter’s handsome face when he returns to the other man makes his stomach twist with shame. He frowns and resolves to kindly rebuff any future invites from Potter.

“What’s the matter?” asks Potter, his brow crinkling with worry as he catches sight of Draco. Draco forces a smile and shakes his head.

“No need to worry, I’m perfectly fine.” He says. “Shall we go?”

Potter raises his eyebrows, but lets it go with a “Sure,” before following Draco to the door. A pleasant warmth falls over Draco as they leave, and a glance at Potter shows the other man putting away his wand.

“Thanks,” he mutters, his smile turning more real at the show of consideration. Potter grins back at him.

“No problem,” he says, leaning closer and bumping Draco with his shoulder.

Draco blushes at the press of his sturdy shoulder and shoves back at Potter, playful, but also putting a bit more distance between them. It backfires, however, because then Potter laughs and throws an arm over his shoulders.

“Get off you great oaf, you’re heavy,” he complains dramatically, shrugging Potter’s arm off. Potter gasps in mock offence.

“Are you calling me fat?” He asks.

Draco scoffs. “I’m not blind,” he says. He pokes at Potter’s chest, and yeah, it’s just as solid as it looks. Draco is reminded sharply of just how long it’s been since he’s been with someone, and his face flames. He rapidly backpedals and turns away to march ahead down the street. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches an infuriatingly smug grin on Potter’s face.

“Don’t go getting cocky Potter,” he warns over his shoulder.

He can hear the laughter in Potter’s voice when he replies, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

They walk down the same streets as they had yesterday, and Potter directs him to a charming little park that looks like something out of a picture book, all strung up with lights that twinkle against the snow and alive with people. The ice rink is a main feature, at least in winter, occupying a place of honour right at the centre. It’s surrounded by benches and a couple of tiny warming huts, and there’s a stand selling beverages and warm treats off to one side.

Potter comes to a stop and turns to him. “I – um – I got you something,” he says, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain. He pulls a little box out of his coat and flicks his wand, unshrinking it. It’s long and silver, sparkling prettily and wrapped with a bow. Potter is furiously red as he offers it to Draco. “Think of it as an early Christmas present.”

Draco looks at it, slightly panicked. Are they exchanging gifts? Is that what they’re doing?

“I didn’t get you anything,” he says uncertainly, making no move to take the box.

Potter snorts a short laugh and shoves it further toward him. “I know Emory. I didn’t expect you to. Just open it?”

He frowns but takes the box and looks at it dubiously. Potter is practically bouncing on his heels now, so he takes it to a nearby bench and sits down, setting it on his lap so that he can undo the bow. With one final look at an eagerly grinning Potter, he lifts the lid and the thin paper layer that lays directly on top, and his breath catches.

It’s a new coat, black and thick looking. When he lifts it out of the box, it falls long and heavy and surely down to his knees at the very least. In the box underneath it is a new hat, scarf, socks, and fur-lined gloves. Draco looks at Potter, slack-jawed and completely speechless.

Potter begins to look sheepish. “We can’t use warming charms on the ice,” he says, scratching the back of his head nervously, “I figured if we’re going to go skating, you’ll need a warmer kit.”

Draco frowns. It’s absolutely sweet of Potter to do this...but his pride stings. “I don’t need your pity Potter,” he mumbles, his face flushing with embarrassment.

Potter’s eyes widen, and he brings his hands up in front of him placatingly. “It’s not pity, I swear!” He says. “It’s kind of self-serving, actually. I wanted to spend more time out on the ice that’s all. Like I said, think of it as an early Christmas present.”

His eyes are guileless under Draco’s searching gaze and, after a moment, Draco sighs. “Very well. In that case…thank you,” he says stiffly.

Potter beams, bouncing eagerly on the balls of his feet. “No problem,” he says. “Are you going to put it on?”

Still pink-cheeked, Draco rolls his eyes fondly. “I may as well, seeing as you’ve gone to all this trouble,” he says. He stands from the bench and holds up the new coat. It’s certainly not large enough to go over his current coat so, with some regret, he slips off his own raggedy little garment and folds it neatly. He has no love for the coat, nor is he cold thanks to Potter’s warming charm, but he feels somehow more vulnerable in front of Potter with his overlarge shirt that he knows makes him look smaller by comparison.

Potter is watching him, of course, with those intense eyes of his, and Draco’s sure that the pink is stained onto his cheeks permanently by this point. He quickly slides his arms into the new coat and pulls it closed around him. The first thing he notices is that the coat has a built-in warming charm, and he looks up at Potter with shock. Potter just smiles unabashedly back at him, as though this is normal.

Draco’s head is spinning. For a charm to be built into a garment and not fade as the magic wears away, it has to be woven into the fabric itself. To properly make such a coat, the charm has to be applied continuously throughout the creation process. It’s finicky, time-consuming, and very, very expensive. “Potter, this is far too much,” he protests.

Potter, the complete arse, lies through his teeth. “It’s not,” he insists. “It was barely anything, honestly.”

Draco stares. “You are a horrid liar!” He accuses. There’s no way that this coat cost less than 500 Galleons. “I can’t possibly accept this.” Potter frowns.

“Well it isn’t going to fit me,” he says stubbornly, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at Draco sternly.

Draco is completely boggled. “You’re serious” he says disbelievingly.

Potter comes up to him, frowning, and takes his hand. “Look Emory. It’s really no more than I do for any of my other friends. Please, it’s not a big deal.”

Draco looks down at where Potter’s hand curls around his, hesitant. He remembers the days when he could throw money like this around, like it was nothing. He knows that, for Potter, this is little more than a drop in the bucket. But still, to him it’s not nothing. It’s significant. It’s bloody lifechanging. He’d be a fool to turn it down.

Draco sighs, and swallows his pride. “Thank you,” he says quietly, looking back up at Potter.

Potter smiles. “It’s my pleasure,” he says. His eyes are very green, and very, very intense, warm as they meet Draco’s own. Draco flushes again and looks down, breaking his gaze. His fingers fumble, unusually graceless as he does up the buttons and slips of his threadbare gloves, making sure to tug down his sleeves to prevent the Mark from showing. The new gloves are not charmed, but they are fur-lined and unbelievably soft.

Potter moves closer still, taking the hat and scarf from the box.

“Let me,” he says, draping the scarf about Draco’s neck and sliding the toque over his hair. Draco looks up at him, eyes wide, and Potter meets his gaze steadily. His cheeks are flushed red against his bronzed skin, his hair thick and tousled, and those lovely green eyes are bright, reflecting the warm yellow lights that decorate the park. Draco feels his heart skip and he quickly looks away, cheeks reddening.

“Let’s go then,” he mutters, turning back to the rink.

Potter joins him after a moment, enthusiasm visibly growing on his face as they approach the ice. “I haven’t skated in forever,” he says, charming their shoes to skates with the wave of a want. “Fair warning, though – I’m pants at it.”

Potter is not lying. He is, in fact, pants at it. Draco is wobbly when he first steps out onto the ice, his skating skills rusty from disuse, but Potter is almost tragically off-balance. Draco catches his arm to steady him before he falls on his arse, laughing slightly at the way Potter clutches at him. He’s beginning to wonder if Potter has ever been on the ice at all.

“Potter, why in Merlin’s name did you want to come ice-skating?” He asks.

Potter flushes red. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” he says, allowing Draco to steady him with hands on Potter’s waist. “Besides,” he adds, his voice dropping to something more intimate, “It’s not so bad when you’re here to help me.”

Draco blushes, but meets his eyes steadily. Potter’s gaze is dark and intense, and Draco feels an answering heat burning in his gut. This is too dangerous. Abort, he has to abort.

He pulls back, letting go of Potter’s waist and catching his strong hands instead. At Potter’s raised eyebrows, Draco smirks. “I can’t in good conscience allow the Saviour of the Wizarding World to continually be bested by some ice, can I?” He asks. Potter groans.

“Don’t call me that,” he protests half-heartedly, but he allows Draco to take his hands, clinging on for dear life.

“Alright, alright,” Draco concedes. He frowns thoughtfully. He is a decent skater, but no kind of teacher. He thinks back to his first time on ice, when his father had tried to teach his impatient arse. “Let’s take this slow Potter. Don’t try to glide or anything. Just…move like a penguin.”

He lets go of Potter to demonstrate. Potter watches closely, then reaches for him and clutches his arm nervously as he imitates his steps. Draco gives him gentle corrections (“Open your toes Potter”, “No don’t walk, shift your weight, like this”, “Don’t put your heel down like that, you’re going to fall!”), and Potter furrows his brows and follows along with more concentration that this necessarily warrants.

It’s somewhat slow going, but the way that Potter’s eyes light up as he manages to travel a few paces without the threat of wiping out makes it entirely worth it to Draco. “That’s right, just like that,” he encourages. “You make a half-decent penguin, Potter.” He pauses and grins, and Potter throws him a dirty look.

“Don’t,” he warns, but Draco only laughs.

“Penguin Potter,” he repeats. “Has a nice ring to it, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’ll kill you,” Potter groans, dropping his head forward. Then he almost stumbles, and clings to Draco with fresh vigour.

Draco hums, steadying him gently. “I’m afraid you’ll have to make an appointment,” he says. “I’m very busy you see.”

Potter raises his eyebrows and grins. “Are you?” He asks. “You don’t seem all that busy right now.”

“I am, as a matter of fact,” Draco says primly. “I’m helping a penguin with two left feet. It’s very noble of me.”

Potter smacks him on the shoulder. “Arse!” He laughs. “Teach me something else then, I’m done being a penguin.”

Draco sighs dramatically, but obligingly moves in front of Potter and takes his hands. “If I must,” he says. He directs Potter into doing short glides, skating along backwards in front of him. Potter picks this up faster, getting the hang of being on ice now, but then nearly bowls Draco over when Draco stops.

“I thought we agreed that we were not going to kill me,” he objects, smacking Potter’s shoulder. Potter looks sheepish.

“Sorry, I didn’t know how to stop,” he says.

Draco flushes. “Oh…right,” he mutters. “Okay, to stop you turn your toes inward and sort of push out…like this.” He skates a bit away from Potter and demonstrates.

Potter tries gliding toward him and stopping, and nearly falls over again. Draco catches him, laughing. “Allow me,” he says, taking Potter’s hands again. “we’ll continue like this until you get the hang of it, alright?”

“Yeah,” says Potter eagerly. He skates toward Draco and almost falls on him again.

Potter takes a lot longer to get this right. He keeps stopping too harshly and nearly falling on Draco. It’s only once Draco starts complaining about Potter’s considerable weight – though he’s not actually that upset, he’s gotten his hands all over those muscles during the past little while– and threating to drop Potter on his arse that they start making progress.

It’s more fun that Draco expects, teaching Potter. He’s never been a great teacher, always impatient and tetchy, but having Potter’s incredible body draped all over him every time Potter doesn’t succeed is great motivation for him to put up with it.

They get Potter stopping consistently, and also performing a passable swizzle before he begs off, declaring that he needs a rest. Draco helps him along to a bench, but he returns to the ice. He hasn’t been skating in forever, and he isn’t going to waste a moment of it sitting on his arse.

He can’t play around the way he had when he was a kid – the pond they’d used as a rink had been on their property and was thus empty, whereas this public ice was somewhat busy – but he can still enjoy himself. He skates fast, just relishing in the movement and sense of freedom it brings for a few laps before he starts showing off for Potter as he skates by, doing lunges and turns, emboldened as he gets the hang of skating again. It ends with him landing on his arse after trying an ill-advised jump, and the sight of Potter cracking up over on the bench has him laughing too.

“I’d like to see you do better!” he calls, making his way over to the git. Potter grins at him in response.

“Give me a couple of years and I’ll take you up on that,” he says cheekily.

Draco blinks. “Bold of you to assume I’ll be waiting around for two years on your skating abilities,” he says, but his cheeks are flushed. Potter, after a moment, goes red as well, and there’s a beat of awkward silence between them.

“Come back out,” Draco says, just to break it, and Potter grasps his outstretched hand and pulls himself to his feet.

“Only if you teach me how to do all that?” he bids easily.

“What, fall on your arse?” Draco asks, cocking an eyebrow. “I’m afraid you don’t need my help for that Potter. You’re a deft hand.”

“And you’re an arse,” returns Potter around a grin. “Come on, show me how to do the turns like that!”

“Do you always ask for favours with an insult?” Draco wonders. “No wonder you’re being banned from stores.”

“I do,” says Potter seriously. “You should have seen Robards’ face when I went up to him and asked, I’d like to take my vacation now you ugly bastard.”

Draco lets out a snort of laughter before he can stop himself, and Potter gives a victorious smile. They’re back on the ice by now, so Draco takes pity on Potter and starts by showing him some more basics.

They never get anywhere near twirls, because as soon as Potter masters push-and-gliding with any decent speed, he immediately challenges Draco to a race. Draco laughs in his face at his overconfidence.

“You’re on Potter,” he says, and darts off. Potter, to his credit, doesn’t try and outdo his own abilities and by the time Draco’s coming up behind him he’s made it a quarter way around the rink and hasn’t fallen down yet.

He glides past Potter, spinning to skate backwards in front of him and smirking. “It seems I’ve bested you Potter,” he says. Potter doesn’t seem too put out – he’s sporting a huge grin as he skates along.

“I’ll catch you yet,” he says playfully. Draco smirks and curls his finger at his chin as if in thought.

“Is this also in two years?” He asks. “Shall I make an appointment?”

Potter growls and lunges for him, but Draco twists out of the way with a laugh. “You’ll have to try harder than that,” he teases.

Potter huffs and drops his arms. “Alright, I know when I’m beat,” he grumbles.

Draco preens. “Ah, to have bested a penguin,” he says dramatically. “Truly, there is no greater hon- ack!” He wiggles away just in time as Potter grabs at him again. Potter is grinning deviously. “Ah, he’s being sneaky!” Draco says with a smirk. “I thought you Gryffindors were supposed to be the upright, honest sort,”

Potter laughs. “Maybe that’s what we want you to think,” he says. He’s tucked his hands back into his pockets now, and Draco watches him carefully, worried that he might misbalance and fall without them. Potter has proven rather uncoordinated on the ice.

“Potter, if your grand plan is to fall over and make me catch you so that you may grab me, rest assured that I will let you fall,” he warns. Potter blinks, and then breaks out into laughter.

“That’s terribly cold of you!” He says cheerfully. Draco scowls distrustingly, but Potter is just skating along with a smile now. Then, something hits the back of his legs and he falls, yelping. Potter is immediately there to catch him, and he’s got a self-satisfied smirk on. Draco stares at him, wide-eyed, before the familiarity of the earlier feeling hits him.

“Did you just use a Tripping Jinx on me?” He accuses.

Potter smirks, unrepentant. “I caught you,” he points out.

Draco stares, incredulous. “By cheating!” he protests. Potter smirks some more and then, quite abruptly, dips him.

“I got my prize, though, didn’t I?” He asks quietly in Draco’s ear. Draco doesn’t answer, too busy clinging to Potter for dear life to even feel flustered at Potter being so close.

“Don’t you dare drop me!” He shrieks, and Potter laughs.

“I won’t drop you,” he assures, but then he tries to straighten them and loses his balance, and they both fall both into the snowbank that edges this portion of the ice.

“Oops,” says Potter sheepishly, sitting up and shaking snow out of his hair. There’s still plenty caught in the thick thatch, though, and he just looks ridiculous.

“You are unbelievable,” Draco says, shaking his head in wonder. Potter looks too smug at that, so Draco throws a handful of snow at him. While he indignantly sputters, Draco scrambles up and back onto the ice, zipping away from where Potter is also struggling to his feet with a bellow of challenge.

They play a little game of cat and mouse for a while, if the mouse were taunting the cat by darting around him just out of reach, until Potter gets worn out and returns to his bench. Draco skates up to him, cocking his head to the side.

“Are you ready to go then?” he asks. Potter leans back on the bench and shakes his head, waving a hand in the general direction of the ice.

“You can keep skating,” he says. “I’m just taking a little breather. You do more of your fancy tricks, they were fun.”

Draco laughs. “I’m all out I’m afraid. I’m no pro unfortunately.” But he goes back to the ice. He skates a few more laps, and then tries again to impress Potter with tricks and fancy footwork. He won’t say he that he’s entirely successful, but Potter is laughing and smiling brightly, and Draco’s having immense fun, so he’s not complaining.

Eventually Potter joins him again, and they skate along peacefully, side-by-side. Potter is still giddy about skating under his own power and keeps interrupting his own Auror stories to coax Draco to show him how to do something Draco had done while showing off to him.

Draco’s interrupted sleep and lack of food is getting to him by this point – he’s been fooling around rather too energetically, and it’s not as though he’s in peak physical condition. He pushes through, though, not quite willing to stop what is, all considered, a pleasant evening. It’s only once he thinks he’s ready to collapse from exhaustion that he admits defeat.

“You should have said so sooner!” Exclaims a very dismayed Potter once he catches sight of Draco’s trembling legs. The stumble off the ice together and Potter charms their shoes back to normal before, without warning, picks Draco up in a princess lift.

“P-Potter, what are you doing?” Draco yelps, clinging to the other man’s shoulders tightly. Potter grins.

“Taking you to get hot chocolate,” he says cheerily, striding assuredly along. The ease with which he carries Draco is staggering, and it makes his mouth a little dry to think about. He can feel every shift in Potter’s muscles as he’s carried, past the benches and warming huts and food stands and–

“Potter, we’ve passed the hot chocolate stand,” he says.

“I know a better place,” Potter says. “It’s outside the park, so it’s a bit further away, but it’s worth it, trust me.”

Draco blinks up at him, then nods. He does trust Potter. He squirms, vying to get down, but Potter just tightens his grip and holds fast. Draco wrinkles his brow at him.

“Surely you don’t mean to carry me the entire way there,” he says.

Potter laughs. “Of course,” he replies, as though it’s inconceivable that he won’t want to carry a grown man all the way to wherever they are going. Potter carries him as though he weighs nothing, though, and so Draco tips his head forward to rest it against Potter’s collarbone to hide the heat on his face.

“You’re bloody barking,” he mutters, and Potter’s chest rumbles with laughter. He can’t deny, though, that it’s nice. It occurs to him that Potter is recreating the childhood routine Draco had told him about as best he can, and it’s so impossibly sweet that Draco actually groans.

“You okay?” Potter asks, voice full of concern.

Draco nestles in further, refusing to look at him. “’M fine,” he mumbles. “Thanks Potter.”

Potter swallows. “I – uh – no thanks necessary,” he stutters. Draco does blink up at him then, and Potter’s face is bright red.

“Are you getting tired? I can walk,” he offers, but somehow he knows that that’s not the case. He doesn’t want to examine it too closely, however. He’ll just be reminded of what a truly terrible idea this all is. He should not be here with Potter.

Potter smiles at him so tenderly, and says, “Don’t worry Emory. I’ve got you.”, and Draco’s insides warm impossibly.

“You really do,” he mutters to himself. This is a terrible idea, but he can’t bring himself to pull away.

Potter takes him to a tidy little alley behind the park, which turns out to house another entrance to Muggle London. The alley on the Muggle side is tiny and holds rubbish bins, but opens out onto a massive, bustling street, surrounded by large, mostly square buildings. It hums with the Muggle lights that line the street and shine from windows and storefronts. Even the Muggle version of Christmas lights emit the sound.

Although it’s late, the Muggle street is still terribly busy with their automobiles, the kind that haven’t been charmed to dodge between obstacles nor to have obstacles dodge around them. They make Draco anxious – he’d nearly been hit by them, once, when he’d wandered beyond his lonely little street with its park and corner store. The vehicle had swerved around him at the last moment, and then the driver had leaned out the window and very angrily threatened to shrink him.

Draco clings closer to Potter and eyes the racing vehicles nervously, glad that Potter doesn’t seem inclined to put him down. Potter glances down at him, and his green eyes dance in amusement even as he says, “Sorry, I should have warned you it was in Muggle London. It can be a bit overwhelming the first time.”

“I’ve been to Muggle London before,” Draco replies, indignant. He doesn’t mention that the vast majority of his trips have been to one mostly empty street.

“Ah, sorry,” Potter says contritely. He sets Draco to his feet and gestures at a nearby door. “Here we are,” he says.

Draco follows him in, looking around curiously. The shop is small and cramped, with high tables scattered throughout. It’s busy, buzzing with chatter and yet more Muggle lights. There is more holiday décor here, bows and shiny garlands and a tall, skinny, tree wedged in a corner and laden with decorations. A wireless in the ceiling is playing Muggle music. “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” opines the Muggle singer in a deep, rich voice. Draco smiles. It sure is.

“Save us a table,” says Potter as he joins the large queue waiting at the counter. Draco winds his way through the little shop, finding an empty two-top near a window at the back. He quickly snags a seat and turns to watch the brightly-lit Muggle street curiously.

Muggle vehicles race along the street, their lights leaving bright streaks when Draco blinks. Bundled up Muggles walk by, mostly alone or in pairs. They usually stay out of the road but deftly avoid the vehicles when they do cross. Many of them have small boxes that emit a small square of light, and they hold these up to their ears or poke at their lower half intently.

Draco watches with interest a moment longer, then glances around the café. Many of the Muggles here have the little glow-boxes as well, although some have much larger ones that open like a book – albeit not all the way – that they’ve set on their tables. Draco catches sight of the glowy part of one of these that is faced toward him, and it is projecting what appears to be a moving photograph, although it does not loop. Maybe a portrait? If so, it’s very realistically rendered.

He watches curiously as a handsome dark-haired man yells at a pretty dark-haired woman. They don’t seem to get along. Draco feels terrible for them being trapped in that portrait together. He wonders if the subject of Muggle portraits can move between pictures as well. Maybe one of them should escape to another device.

Draco looks around at the many boxes they could jump to, and his eyes meet with a young woman who’s holding her small box up with the non-glowing side facing him, right as he hears the familiar sound of a camera shutter. Ah, so the small boxes are cameras. Strangely shaped, though.

He blinks, while the girl, who’d apparently been trying to discreetly take his picture, turns red and slides her box shut in a rush. She then studiously avoids looking at him at all.

Draco self-consciously tugs his hat lower. What is she getting his picture for? Could she be an undercover Auror who has somehow recognized him? But no…she’s not familiar to him. He doesn’t see how she would be able to recognize him on sight without him at least doing the same. Maybe he’s just dressed funny for a Muggle and she wants to laugh at it later. He doesn’t think so, based on what he sees them wearing, but who knows what the unifying Muggle theme is?

Potter, thankfully, takes that moment to return. He’s laden with two enormous mugs of the most ridiculous hot chocolate, topped with whipped cream and crushed candy canes and chocolate chips and syrup, as well as a plate of biscuits. “Sorry I took so long,” he says, setting one of the drinks down in front of Draco.

“Potter…what monstrosity is this?” he asks, looking at the concoction in front of him. Potter shrugs, sheepish.

“I didn’t know what you liked so I got…everything?” he says. Draco gives him an incredulous look, but gamely takes a sip. It’s ridiculous, absolutely, and he shouldn’t like it… but it’s warm and sweet and, underneath the pile of toppings, actually has a lovely flavour. Besides, Draco has always had a horrid sweet-tooth.

“Thanks Potter,” he says, allowing a small smile onto his face. Potter grins hugely back at him and slurps at his own drink.

They settle into a cozy sort of quiet, just enjoying one another’s company. Potter hums along with the wireless, and Draco alternates between peeking glances at him and gazing around the café. At length, he catches sight of another Muggle putting his little camera box to his ear, and frowns.

“Potter,” he mutters. Potter looks up from where he’s crunching on a biscuit and tilts his head in question. Draco gestures at the Muggle. “They all take pictures of their ears. Is it a Muggle thing?”

“Sorry?” asks Potter, sounding utterly bewildered. Maybe Draco’s overestimated his knowledge of the Muggle world. But he has seemed very at ease so far.

He points a little less discreetly at the Muggle, who thankfully doesn’t notice. He’s talking to the air about what presents to get for someone named ‘Gracie’. “That camera, he’s got it at his ear. And not just him. I saw many Muggles doing that.” He leans forward. “Are ears important to Muggles?”

Potter goggles at him. “Are…what? Ears – Yeah, of course they are…I mean- no more so than ours are to us! But…Emory, those are not cameras. They’re cell-phones.” He’s looking at Draco as though he’s grown a second head. Draco frowns.

“Well, what is a ‘sell-fone’ then?” He asks, taking a biscuit.

“It’s…Merlin-” Potter flounders, “it’s like an owl?”

“An owl?” Draco repeats with a frown. “No, I’m certain it’s a camera. I heard it, when that Muggle girl took a picture of me.” He bites into the biscuit. It’s absolutely delicious – rich and buttery and sweet. He hums appreciatively. “Merlin, Potter, these are incredible.”

Potter is frowning. “Someone took a picture of you?” He repeats, ignoring the biscuits. Draco nods, turning slightly in his seat to find the girl and point her out to Potter. To his surprise, she’s watching him again. As Draco looks at her, she goes red and ducks her head down.

“Her,” he says with a confused frown. Potter starts laughing.

“Aww, I think she has a crush on you,” he says gleefully. His voice is free of the cruel mocking that Draco’s friends would have carried in school. Plenty of people had crushes on him then, and he supposes the behaviour matches, but…

“What on Earth for?” He asks, frowning. He knows what he looks like – he’s seen himself just this morning in the mirror. There is nothing attractive left about him.

Potter blinks at him. “Are you serious?” He says.

Draco flushes. Ah, Potter doesn’t like self-deprecation. He ought to have known, really. Potter is too much of a goody-goody to accept people talking down on themselves like that.

He decides to change the subject before Potter decides to try and convince Draco of some ‘unique beauty’ he possesses. “Well, in the event that she does, she’s plum out of luck I’m afraid,” he mutters. “She’s not quite my type.”

“Oh?” Potter raises his eyebrows. “What is your type then.”

You, Draco thinks. He flushes. “Decidedly more…masculine,” he says, feeling the flash of nervousness that always accompanies telling someone of his preferences. It’s a remnant from his childhood, when his father had taken him aside and told him kindly but firmly that what he does in the bedroom is his business, but he must be discreet if they are to arrange a good marriage for him.

Potter sits up straight. “Oh,” he says, his face lighting up. “That’s…brilliant. Me too, actually. Well, both really, but you know…” Ah. Draco has suspected, but never confirmed. Another piece of the puzzle Draco’s been firmly ignoring clicks into place.

“Oh…” he echoes quietly, his cheeks pinking again. Potter seems to have released some previously imperceptible tension, and he has a quiet confidence about him as he leans back in his seat and smiles at Draco. Draco returns the smile, then ducks his head to hide his blush and busies himself with his hot chocolate.

“All I want for Christmas is you!” Sings the Muggle on the wireless, and it rings in Draco’s chest. He peers up at Potter through his lashes – the other man is humming along, happily stirring his drink with a candy cane and then sticking it into his mouth, and the realization trickles down his spine, slow and warm like treacle, that he’s maybe falling a little bit in love.

He’s absolutely bloody screwed.

[ginnyzero]

Completely Harmless Ch. 37

Completely Harmless An SSO SilverGlade Re-imagining Story (Or Fix it Fan Salt fic) By Ginny O.

When Lily and her friends wanted to buy horses and were directed to the Silverglade Manor and its myriad of problems, they didn’t expect to start a revolution. They were just a bunch a stable girls. Completely harmless. Right?

A/N: Things are only canon if I say they’re canon. Pre-Saving the Moorland Stables compliant for the most part. Posted in its entirety on my website. Posted in 2000 to 4000 word bits here. Rated T for Swearing Word Count 177,577

Chapter Thirty-Seven Vandalism and The Valley of the Hidden Dinosaur

Rainbow Week it appeared had invigorated Baroness Silverglade. For the very next morning she called an employee meeting over breakfast. Everyone from her children, to the people who worked the shops and restaurants, and the stable help were all in attendance.

Over waffles with vanilla ice cream and piled high with mixed berries and served with duck egg omelets, the Baroness sipped her coffee before she said without any preamble. “We have several projects that need to be handled in the upcoming weeks before Midsummer. While most of our house has been put in order, and we have received high marks on our recent inspection.” The Baroness’ lips tightened since it had been anonymous and she’d only received the results after it’d been completed. “There are still things left to finish and the rest of our domain hasn’t been so lucky.”

No one quite dared to say anything.

“As for the Winterwell family, I have sent a strongly worded admonishment to Baron Winterwell about paying more attention outside of that mockery of what he calls a town and to the rest of his part of the county. If I have to step in, I will be informing Count Marchenghast.” The baroness swiftly buttered her toast. “Fortunately, you ladies are a credit to your various upbringings and are an asset to this county.”

Not even Linda knew what to say to that. A simple thank you didn’t seem sufficient. Not that the Baroness seemed to require any responses. This was her meeting and interruptions weren’t on the agenda.

The Baroness’ knife went on the side of her plate. “Ms. Lily, please arrange for me to meet with Ms. Melissa of the Valedale Running Bulls? Anytime today will be preferable.”

“Yes, Baroness,” Lily made a mental note to text Melissa after the meal was over.

“The contractors will be starting our permanent event pavilion over the next week. Something about having to build the proper molds to have a level floor. It involves a big pipe and honestly, as long as they get it done and its level, I don’t care how they manage it. After the pavilion has been finished, we will be moving onto to the race track.”

Godfrey appeared with several boards filled with pictures and architectural sketches. He placed them on easels so everyone could see them properly.

“The racetrack will reflect the pride of the Silverglade family and honor the prior Moon Riders and Aideen,” the Baroness said. “Those who come to compete and to watch the races will see the care and grandeur of the place, and give our family the respect it deserves.”

There was a very large entrance arch over what would be the main entrance and it was perpendicular to the rest of the building. To either side of it were banks of columns and then each side had a porch with statues of women dressed in Greek clothes. Those must be the former Moon Riders of the Silverglade family and Aideen.

The inside stands had more columns holding up the roofs. The roofs curved inwards where there were stairs. The stands curved around both ends of the track.

“Antonia, the Silver Glade will be providing food for an outdoor café at the entrance,” the Baroness said. “There will be stables for the competitors on the first floor of the stands, while the atrium will be the ticketing area. I won’t expect you ladies to take care of the stables at the race track as well. We will be hiring specifically for the times the race track is in use. I won’t ask you to put up with a rival club so nearby. Nor will I stand for another club near my manor.”

“Thank you, Baroness,” Lily murmured. It was the only appropriate thing to say.

“While the contractors are working on that, we shall be dealing with the shameful prospect that is Valedale,” the Baroness took a bite and wiped at her lips. “And for that we’re going to have to find out how bad things are and how far this has spread.”

Linda cleared her throat. “There’s a scientist in Crescent Moon Village that knows who to test soil and water samples, Dr. Hayden.”

“He’s a bit of a grouch,” Lily warned.

“I can deal with grouches as long as they can do the work,” the Baroness nodded.

“He’s an entomologist,” Linda added tentatively.

“Then he would have to keep an eye on the water and the soil to see if it is effecting the bugs,” the Baroness’ lips twitched. “Or at least, he should be instead of capturing them and pinning them to boards.”

“I don’t know if that’s his type of entomology,” Lily murmured. “I don’t think Ginny and Susan have much to do with him.”

“Or want to,” Pauline added.

“Lily,” the Baroness turned her attention to her. “I want you and Melissa to go to the Valley of the Hidden Dinosaur and check the source of the water there. The Great Tank drains off into the lake under the ice and from there it trickles down through springs and the Silversong River throughout the Valedale, Firgove, and Mistfall areas. Dress warmly.”

“What about Firfall?” Lily asked.

“What about Firfall?” the Baroness voice turned tart.

“They’ve been cut off through an avalanche of rocks and brambles,” Lily said.

The Baroness closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “And what were the rangers going to do, shovel them out?” She asked, voice vicious. “Well, I guess we’re borrowing the bulldozer again. Though we might need the excavators as well and several skips from Jorvik City. Aaron, get the permits and papers ready to clear the road to Firfall. Hire some skips. Lily, you managed to get G.E.D. to bend last time.”

“Cookies and shillings,” Lily said.

“Have Harold bake them a month’s worth of cookies and I’ll pay them. We can get to it as soon as the papers and permits are ready.”

“I’ll get that started today, mother,” Aaron said quickly.

“It’s probably former Councilman Skoll who didn’t say anything. He was working with G.E.D. to get money to the town. Maybe he thought he could get them to clear the road for him.” Lily explained. “I don’t know if Rania’s mother knows about it yet. She’s got a large mess to sort out with the town as it is. They really need a ferry.”

“Aaron, add that to the list.”

“New Hillcrest needs a ferry,” Tyra murmured.

“That’s up to Baron Winterwell,” the Baroness shook her head. “Now, who is the new leader of Dundull?”

“Sigry Varanger,” Linda said. “Rania Varanger is her daughter.”

“Good woman. I like her,” the Baroness nodded. “We all know what we need to be doing,” she said and applied to her food.

They all finished breakfast and scattered to do chores and take up their posts at their jobs. Aaron was muttering about getting back to Jorvik City right away. Anastasia had designers to check on in order for all the other girls to have their own new outfits.

Linn came back to the stable, riding fast. “Lily! Linda! Judy! Someone’s spray painted rude messages on the riding hall, and there’s trash all over, and egg on the windows!”

“What?” Linda gaped at her.

They mounted their horses and rode down to the stables to assess the damage.

“Who would do this?” Linn waved her arms. “We worked so hard to clean it.”

“It’s a good thing that marble is protected.” Linda sucked her cheeks in.

“We’ll get it cleaned up,” Lily promised Linda.

“You shouldn’t have to do stuff like this. Take pictures. Document everything before you clean it.” Linda said. “And I’m not unlocking it until it’s clean.”

“It’s lucky you locked it then.”

Linda shook her head. “Not luck, precaution. I don’t want people to sneak in the arena at night to try the course and hurt themselves.”

They went back to the stable for cleaning supplies and returned.

Sabine stood outside the door with a nasty smile on her face, but she was also checking her watch. “What’s the hold up? The arena should be open by now.” Her timer stood behind her wringing her hands.

“If you used your eyes, you’d see why it isn’t open yet,” Lily told her. “The Arena will be open once it’s ready.”

“If you want it open sooner, you can help,” Linn smirked. “There are plenty of supplies.”

Sabine glared at them and marched off with her horse.

Linn shuddered. “Her and her horse give me the creeps.”

“Then why did you time for her so long?”

“My job?”

Lily shrugged. Point.

All the girls hurried up their chores to help out as soon as possible as they had to scrub off paint and eggs, and pick up trash.

By the time they were done, the contractors had arrived and were locking together molds to make the floor of the pavilion. It was a kit so it should go up fairly quickly once they had the floor poured and they could set the walls onto it.

They saw what the Baroness meant by a big pipe. They had a big pipe it looked like that they were going to use to roll across the top of the molds to make the floor level.

But it looked like the contractors were digging some of the dirt out. Bjorn and Agnetha were taking it away in wheelbarrows. They knew better than to ask.

Lily texted Melissa about seeing the Baroness.

Melissa texted back she’d be down right away.

Lily headed back up to the Manor as Agnetha drafted a couple of the girls to help them shift the dirt.

Melissa had a new outfit on with a stylized charging bull in green and deep maroon.

“Nice,” Lily said.

“Anastasia came through. I’m so happy not to be wearing druid symbols anymore. Elizabeth kept giving us the stink eye.” Melissa rubbed her hands on her breeches.

The Baroness was in her office. “Someone vandalized my arena,” was the first thing out of her mouth.

Lily passed her phone over with the pictures.

“Send these to Aaron,” the Baroness said after she looked through them. “If we can catch them, we’ll press charges.”

Lily took her phone back and did just that. Poor Aaron was going to have a busy day.

“Tell me what you have,” the Baroness ordered Melissa.

Melissa got out her own phone. “We’ve taken as many pictures as we could. One of my members is an amateur photographer. So, we rented a zoom lens to take pictures of what they’re doing above the mountains. We can’t see much since they’ve penetrated the mountain now. There’s one way in and one way out. The path curls around the mountain from the lake to over the village. Both waterfalls are being affected. But they’ve posted no bills. We think there isn’t any more than three or four of them.”

The Baroness looked through it. “Can you send these to my son? We can see what we can do about trespassing and not having the proper permits.”

Melissa took her phone back and Lily showed her Aaron’s information. Lily sent him an email to expect Melissa’s email.

“Has Elizabeth been giving you any trouble?”

“Not Elizabeth.”

“Someone is?”

“Rhiannon has gone through our horses and insists that several of them are Starbreeds. We paid for those horses fairly. We have papers,” Melissa turned red in anger. “We aren’t giving them up.”

“Nor should you,” the Baroness said. “The druids have long overstepped in trying to acquire what they call starbreeds. Whether or not Starbreeds exist is none of my concern. My concern is the welfare of the horses that are under my care and that I sell. And I don’t know what the druids do with my horses, thus I refuse to sell to them.” In her mind, it was as simple as that.

“Baroness Silverglade,” Lily said it tentatively. “You, don’t seem to have a good relationship with the Keepers of Aideen.”

“I have my faults. One of them is the firm belief that the Keepers of Aideen do very little for Jorvik and instead lure young women in with false promises of sisterhood and then refuse to impart anything useful to them before putting them into danger.” The Baroness laced her fingers together and appraised them. “Keeping their secrets hasn’t rid Jorvik of John Sands and his like. Have they ever won against them? Or are we in an eternal stalemate.”

Lily inhaled sharply.

The Baroness changed the subject. “As I told Lily earlier, I would like the two of you to go to the Valley of the Hidden Dinosaur. Dress warmly and do whatever you need to do to get into it. Linda may have some information for you about it.”

Lily stood. “Then we better get going so we can return quickly.”

Melissa stood as well. “Thank you, Baroness Silverglade.”

They left her and went to the library.

“Anything we should know about the Valley of the Hidden Dinosaur?”

Linda chewed her lip and gestured for them to sit. “The Valley of the Hidden Dinosaur is an ecological anomaly. It’s believed that is where a meteor crashed and hit Jorvik before Aideen came. The meteor’s magical and scientific properties such as having its own magnetic field, have created an area of eternal winter. The meteor crater originally completely filled with water. The water drained out and created an ice cap over it. Researchers were able to explore under the ice cap until it collapsed in 1912. No one has been there since.”

“So, dress warm? Have lots of rope?”

“Your horses might not move as fast in the Valley. There are references to the pack animals being slow until they brought in the Icelandic Horses. Those horses got left behind when they left and that’s why there is most likely a herd of them there today. Assuming they survived.”

“Take a shovel,” Melissa said.

“Sunglasses,” Lily murmured.

“The notes say there was an elevator down into the crater. I have no idea if it works or not.”

“After a hundred years of abandonment?” Lily raised her brows. “There is this thing called entropy.”

Linda smiled. “I don’t know, thus, I say so.”

“All right. We’ll check that first.” Lily said. “Good thing, Anastasia included a winter coat in all of this. And New Hillcrest had mittens.”

The two agreed to meet at the base of the mountain in Valedale with supplies. Not sure how cold, cold, really was, Lily grabbed a purple sweater she’d bought and put it in her saddlebag along with her winter coat. There wasn’t any reason not to layer. She put on wool pants instead of cotton and tugged on the winter boots.

She raided the tack room for a shovel and a bunch of rope. Then asked Antonia for food. She didn’t know how long she was going to be gone. How big was this area anyways?

Satisfied she was as ready as she was going to be, Lily put on a beanie and took the transport to Valedale.

Melissa waited on her horse at the base of the mountain as agreed, also wearing warm clothes on the bottom. She and Elizabeth were exchanging glares. Lily inserted herself between them.

They urged their horses up the mountain towards the snow covered pass. At the top, they were able to look over across the waterfall and see Dark Core’s camp. Black smoke streamed out of the machines as green water flowed out of their cave and into the waterfall.

“What a mess,” Lily murmured.

Wind hit the snow and them making them shiver.

They pulled on sweaters and shrugged into winter coats buttoning them up and tugged on mittens.

“The pass must have opened recently. I’ve been checking it since we got here,” Melissa said. “We sent some lemmings up this way.”

“Can anything really live there if it’s been covered in snow?” Lily asked.

“I hope we don’t find a pile of horse bones,” Melissa whispered. “That’d be sad.”

“We might find horse bones and living horses,” Lily said and urged her horse forward.

Her stallion’s nostrils flared in distaste but he went.

The pass turned and opened out to a cliff on the edge of the mountain. Right in front of them was a huge wooden structure with a snow covered wooden walkway; the elevator.

They walked up the ramp and got off to look at the elevator. There weren’t any boxes, only thick chains hanging down. Lily knelt by the edge and looked down.

“Oh, that makes me dizzy, Lily. Stop.” Melissa groaned.

Lily took several pictures using the zoom function on her phone. “The cars are both down there, but I don’t see any of the mechanics up top, do you?”

Melissa looked around. “Not at all.”

“So, the controls are down there,” Lily backed up and stood.

Leading the horses, they searched the cliff area.

Melissa pointed. “That could be a way down.” She said gesturing at the cliffs.

“But I’m not going to call it a way back up, and I’m not going down unless we can get out,” Lily bit her lip. She pulled out her phone and sent a president wide group text. They needed a mechanic.

FOR THE ACCOMPANYING IMAGES PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE MY WATERMARK AND CONTACT INFORMATION. THANK YOU. I get it. Some of you might get excited and want to see this stuff in the game, especially the clothes, tack, and pets. However, the only way I want to see this in the game is if I get paid for it. If I see it in the game and I’m not paid for it, there will be hell to pay. You think I’m salty. I’d be angry. Personally, I’m not going to send this info to SSO. If you do, leave my contact information there! Don’t give them any excuses to steal.

Now, I’ll know you haven’t read this note if you leave me comments about how ‘salty’ I am about the game and if I hate it so much I should do something else. I am doing something else. It’s called Mystic Riders MMORPG Project. Mystic Riders however is a very baby phase game. You can check out our plans on the game dev blog. (Skills, Factions, Professions, Crafting, Mini-Games, 25+ horse breeds!) If you know anyone who would be interested and has money or contacts about game making, direct them to the blog.

[ravenqueen89]

Commission fill time

I was commissioned by the wonderful @numphet to write a fic featuring her amazing OC Katla Hawke. I really loved writing Katla, she’s such a complex and nuanced and vivid character, and I loved spending time with her. Thank you so much for the opportunity!

Fandom: Dragon Age II

Title: Keep this feeling safe tonight

Pairing: Katla Hawke/Ser Thrask

Rating: R

Summary: A relationship that occurs in the shadows has its one evening in public aka Katla and Thrask go to Satinalia together.

Notes: Is there rambling? Yes. Is there no dialogue? Also yes. Same old, same old in terms of style. There is also: angst, mentions of body image issues, mentions of using alcohol as a coping mechanism, and a lot of gloomy weather. This is the suit Katla wears, inspired by my lurking in her OC tag. I also randomly used details associated with Saturnalia when describing Satinalia. Title from PJ Harvey’s One Line. 

Also on AO3. 

There is no snow in Kirkwall’s winters,  just a chilled damp and the wind rushing in from the sea, howling with the voices of ghosts through Hightown’s streets and insinuating disease into the chests of Darktown dwellers.

Katla leaves the windows open when the wind comes because the desperation in the sound is as familiar as the taste of wine and of Thrask’s skin. On sleepless nights when she is intimate only with the emptiness inside her she stands on the balcony with the alcohol souring on her tongue and reddening her skin and finds solace in the noise, in the fury of the wind, in the way it sings of loss. It smells of brine and decay and it fits on her, tangling in her hair and clutching at her skin like the lover she won’t admit she misses.

It is after one such night, when she still carries the imprint of her own nails across her palm, that Isabela drags her to a nondescript building, the clouds heavy and dark above them, the humidity making it hard to breathe, making them shiver. The wine still in Katla’s blood isn’t as guilty of making her stumble as the wind, and the streets are almost empty. She knows better than to ask Isabela what this is about and braces herself for yet another hat shop, but inside the building there is an explosion of fabric, and in the midst of all that colour a woman dressed in black, her hair silver and her face lined and drained by life.

Katla stands half-naked in the middle of the room as Isabela chats away about Satinalia fashion trends and how to ignore them, the seamstress holding various materials next to Katla’s skin, measuring with practiced efficiency. There is a mirror in front of her, and Katla stares at herself with little kindness, trying to distract from the reflection by remembering Thrask’s hands on the fullness of her thighs, the mark of his fingerprints along the soft sprawl of her belly. She knows that everything about her is too much, overflowing, but he never seems to mind it in their stolen moments together. He always seems as hungry for her as she is for him, and nothing makes him pause, not her magic, as red as their hair, not her body, not the way she screams at him when her feelings claw their way out of her throat.

Isabela talks and talks without requiring a reply, and Katla finds comfort in the sound without paying attention to the words. The seamstress asks no questions, but notices where Katla’s eyes wander, notices the colours and materials she reaches out to touch, notices which of the displayed outfits she studies.

By the end of the appointment, Isabela drags her out, thirsty for rum and gossip at the Hanged Man, and Katla remains none the wiser regarding her Satinalia outfit.

*

It had started off as a joke influenced by wishful thinking, whispered in the lack of space between them as Thrask kept kissing her like he wanted to remove the wine stain from her lips.

He’d said it first, as the wind slammed the doors and windows of her estate and witnessed the illicit way their bodies came together. The words ‘I would like to take you to Satinalia’ slipped from his lips and reached under her ribs, making hope bloom in her heart. Hope was never something she truly trusted, however, and what she said in return was not ‘yes’, but ‘won’t your dear Order comment on it?’ and she couldn’t stop the rest of the snide words descended from all her fears and anger, his mention of the traditional masks preserving their anonymity only stoking her ire. By the time dawn broke, he was gone and Katla was drinking, and it took days for her to slip a note with her answer to him through Isabela’s mediation. She watched, unseen, as he smiled upon receiving the scribbled word, and her heart beat faster and faster until she had to look away from him, the hope as painful as the futile longing for a normal life - a long life- with him.

*

When Katla goes to collect the suit on the morning that heralds the beginning of the festivities, she doesn’t look into the mirror until she is fully clothed and when she then glances at her reflection she doesn’t see an enemy there.

The suit fits her so well she almost suspects some sort of magic at work, but the scent and trace of lyrium is absent from the seamstress and her shop, so Katla can only stare, stunned, as Isabela wolf whistles, pulling Katla’s hair into a low bun that settles heavily at the nape of her neck.

There is contrast at play between the stark whiteness of the shirt and the darkness of the jacket, balanced by accents of velvet in the same crimson as the waistcoat.

‘I had some lace sent from the Valence cloister lying around,’ the seamstress says, as Katla touches the delicate material woven over the suit, the final touch of a masterpiece.

The half-mask is simple and  the colour of burnished gold, making her eyes glow and matching the earrings that Isabela slips out of her barely-there pocket with a sly grin that makes Katla unwilling to ask questions about the provenance of the jewellery. None of it is what Katla would usually wear while dealing with the complications of her daily life, but she feels invincible in a way she hasn’t felt in years. She feels alive, her flushed cheeks highlighting her freckles. Her reflection smiles at her from the corner of her mouth, and when Isabela twirls her around, Katla laughs.

* Katla had thought it best to meet Thrask at the Lowtown festivities, so Isabela half-drags her through the crowds that are starting to gather and then takes over Varric’s quarters for the afternoon. The three of them drink together, and Isabela braids Katla’s hair with perfumed hands before pinning it in place. The perfume smells like heat and leather, like sweetness and smoke, and Isabela brushes the scent over Katla’s wrist, leaving the trace of it behind her ears, and Katla knows she should feel anxious but she only feels powerful. Varric and Isabela are staring at her like they are entranced, and there’s a giddiness in her that has little to do with the wine.

Before she dons the mask and makes her way down the stairs, she paints lipstick the colour of blood along the lines of her lips, and everyone turns to stare at her as she walks through the bustle, the drunken crowd parting around her.

Thrask is standing right outside the tavern, his posture as impeccable as always, and Katla’s breath stutters not only at the sight of him out of armour, but also because he’s not wearing a mask, because he’s right there, bare-faced and making her heart sing in a way it shouldn’t. He looks so handsome in his dark blue outfit, the scar around his neck mimicking the stars of the night sky, the material so soft looking that her hands ache to tear it. Katla wants to take her time and watch him, but the moment she moves his blue eyes find her straight away, and the way his lips part at the sight of her makes her magic hum inside her, make her blood rush to her head. Thrask reaches for her hand and presses his mouth to her wristbone, leading her into the revelry, and it all feels like she’s dreaming, like the Fade is showing her everything she wishes, as she walks hand in hand with him in the midst of a crowd of witnesses. She is wearing her mask, but the way Thrask holds onto her cannot be confused for anything else. She remains anonymous, but she is clearly not one of his rumoured conquests from the Rose, those rumoured conquests that shield them from the Order. If anyone were to look closely enough at her hair and her eyes, they would know, and Katla feels almost drunk on the feeling, on the defiance that surges within her.

She has wanted to claim him for too long, and for one night, Kirkwall shall watch.

*

The dreariness of Lowtown seems hidden underneath the Satinalia decorations, the usual greyness masked by crimson garlands and wreaths of greenery. The wind is still screeching its way around crowds and corners, tangling itself into Katla’s hair and around where her hand is entwined with Thrask’s. It also helps with chasing the smell from the streets, preserving the dreamlike atmosphere, dangling the lamps and creating a dance of lights.

The stalls are both colourful and plentiful, standard fare for the holiday, but Katla can’t say she’s noticed them much before. She’s kept away from Kirkwall festivities throughout the years, preferring to drink either at a tavern or in private, especially as the loss and the despair grew.

This occasion feels different, as Thrask whispers in her ear, letting his lips linger along the sensitive skin of her neck as he breathes in her perfume. There’s something racing inside her, something she can’t name, won’t name, and it makes her magic glow in her eyes, so she looks down, at her hand in his.

Thrask leads her to several stalls, where they taste hot spiced wine and the lightest of pastries, his fingers lingering on her tongue as he feeds her delicacies, and it would look scandalous, even for Lowtown, if everyone else weren't lost in the same lack of inhibition.

Katla takes advantage of the headiness in the air and kisses Thrask, in front of everyone, the smell of sugar and spice and brine and him around her, his beard soft against her jaw. She leaves the trace of her lipstick on his mouth and neither of them bother to wipe it off as her fingers tangle in the redness of his hair. Katla says nothing, because she knows her voice would shake with the weight of it, with the beauty of it, and she doesn’t want to break the moment with the acknowledgement of its enormity.

It feels like she’s part of the wind, light on her feet, whirling as the crowd parts around her, around them. Food has been like ash on her tongue for months, but tonight she feasts with Thrask on gilded cakes chased off with the decadence of the spiced wine. She kisses caramel off his lips that golden apples leave behind and basks in it, in kissing Thrask of the Templar Order in public, and she a mage and a blood mage at that, no matter how willing.

She laughs and he laughs with her, the lines left by suffering on his face smoothing over at the same time as her heart soars, and when he leads her into a dance she doesn’t even stumble, not once.

They dance until the bells of the Chantry toll over the city, marking midnight. Tradition states that during Kirkwall’s days of Satinalia, masks come off each time the bells strike midnight, but Katla knows better than to dare, so she holds onto Thrask and kisses him, for luck, for hope, for all the things she’s not allowed to want, like those forbidden dreams of futures that cannot happen.

She kisses him to forget the pain, kisses him to remember how it feels to be alive, kisses him to tell him how she feels in a way she’ll never be able to say out loud, and when she stops kissing him, when she presses her forehead to his and looks right into his eyes in that open way she seldom allows herself, he unties the ribbon holding her mask up, ever so slowly, and takes it off. Katla catches her breath before it turns into a gasp, and when he kisses her there is no anonymity left, there’s nothing but a templar and a mage, out in the open, part of the world.

They have so much hunger for each other between the two of them that by the time they stop kissing Katla is almost sure it must be dawn already. When she looks around, no one is watching them, the drunken crowd staggering together and coming apart, the crunch of shattered fragments of golden ornaments underfoot. The wind staggers, and then returns with renewed violence, bringing rain with it, and shouts mingle with laughter and bawdy songs.

Katla can feel the illusion coming to an end so she holds on, her face buried in his shoulder, taking her comfort in the way he holds her back, in the soothing pattern of his breathing, in the way he feels so alive, in the way he makes her want to exist. They stand together for long, languid moments, and it feels right, it feels the way it should, but the growing realisation that she can’t hold on forever makes the familiar bitterness bloom on Katla’s tongue.

When she moves, Thrask follows, but he catches hold of her hand before she gets too far ahead, and it hurts to want it, but she needs him there, needs to pretend just a while longer, so they walk the way back to the Hanged Man together once more, hand in hand, rain catching in Katla’s lashes, her suit most likely ruined in a way that feels fitting, and the wind slipping its chill back into her heart.

Thrask is drawing patterns along her palm with his thumb when they turn the corner right next to the tavern, but then he is gone, so abruptly that it almost jars her into thinking they are being attacked. Katla has to look behind her to see him, quite a few paces to the side and looking not at her but at the group of templars in front of the entrance to the Hanged Man. Just like that, Katla is sober and fully immersed in reality, and thirsty for wine and oblivion, the same way she always is.

With one last look at Thrask, she squares her shoulders and her mask, wrapped around her hand, falls to the ground, left to the mercy of the storm or the gangs, whichever gets there first.

She walks into the tavern alone, her heart screaming with all the fervour of the wind coming in from the sea, but certain, at least, that he will follow according to their usual routine, his lips carrying her mark as the inside of her thighs carry his.

Throughout the city, the wind reigns, and sings, and destroys.

[chalabrun]

no time (lunardyn)

Word Count: 3,476 Pairing: Lunafreya Nox Fleuret/Ardyn Izunia Rating: E Warnings: Explicit sexual content Summary: They're not in love. She has a duty to the Chosen King, to the people, to the Star. He's the very thing she's going to aid in destroying someday. These are distractions, nothing more.

At least, this is what she keeps telling herself.

                                                READ ON AO3

She knew when he was melancholy. For some reason or another, in all his ghostly wanderings and badgering, there were moments when no sharp words sprang to his silver tongue or cunning settled in his looks like coiled serpents. Such was a day. Clouds hung low in Tenebrae, mists traveling around the floating mountainscape and hanging like veils over the land, pale and translucent. Ardyn stared out such a window, the beginnings of a smile frozen on his features but she knew far, far better. It kept people away, that mask. But Oracles easily saw through such ruses.

“Chancellor, a moment of your time?”

Ardyn’s features became mischievous at the sound of her voice, sweeping off his hat and holding it in a  performative motion to his breast. “Why, Lady Lunafreya, what have I done to earn the most esteemed pleasure of your attention?” he queried grandiosely, smile Cheshire-like.

Luna didn’t answer him at first before she advanced into his personal space, a pleased rumble beginning in his throat when it came further to her pinning him to the wall, that prodigious Oracle blood loaning to such inhuman strength for so small a girl. “Do not hide behind riddles this time, Chancellor,” Luna besought him, their breaths mingled heavily together as his eyes dilated widely. She coaxed a knee between his legs, craning up and grateful for her heels that minimized his height somewhat. “...Let me take care of you.”

“And what have I done for such affection, hm?” he purred sensuously in her ear before he felt those lips kiss along his throat, a shudder racing down his spine as she added her teeth and tongue, so very grateful this wing of Fenestala was so very deserted. “Ah—you clever little minx...” Already he could feel his cock straining in his trousers, humping her thigh in some desperate bid for friction. The words were gasped from his lips, Ardyn nuzzling into blonde locks almost gratefully.

This strange affair had begun abruptly as that night’s tryst, roughly three years ago when she’d a heated argument with Ravus about leaving Fenestala and being denied once more. Ardyn had been there, sometimes a constant at Ravus’ side, and had come upon the distraught princess. A saccharine tease had died on his lips when he recognized how terribly lonely she was, how touch-starved, and without thinking a tear had been wiped from her cheek and she’d looked upon him like she’d been struck by lightning. That touch turned to morning tea the next day, a secret meeting in a cafe in Pagla, to needless dancing lessons in Fenestala’s ballroom when Ravus was away in military campaigns.

No one really saw them, for she looked anonymous with her hair down, with no make-up on. And a year later, their strange and distant sweetness had been consummated as strangely as this.

“Ardyn, did I not say to cease the riddles?” she suddenly asked, interrupting his bliss with a touch to his cheek, Ardyn breathing pleasurably and warm. Amber eyes cracked open, a haze of lust softening them.

“And to what must I say? Shall I explain this old sadness in my eyes?” Ardyn challenged softly, closing in on her soft lips and pecking them chastely at first, then leaning back and contentedly coaxing her hand near his mouth and taking it with his own calloused hand. “Regale you with tales behind the innumerable scars you’ve seen?” Jeweled amber pierced her azure gaze, taking her index and forefinger into his mouth and purring headily as he sucked on her digits with soft moans spilling between his tongue and teeth that he knew were arousing to the Oracle. Poor thing rarely received attention as it was.

“And what if I wished to hear it?” she murmured close to him, Ardyn releasing her fingers with a wet pop and licked his lips lewdly. Without being prompted did Luna deftly undo the fly of his trousers, hiking his vestments high enough to do so. Musculature she craved twitched pleasurably to her touch, Ardyn bowing his head and purposefully moaning into her ear until it flushed the tips pink. Burying her digits in his pubic hair did she find his straining cock and began to stroke it, earning a buck of his hips. “I only wish to take care of you.”

“Take care of me, hm?” he hummed softly, Ardyn’s hands moved past her waist and took generous handfuls of her rear, sucking a mark into her neck and lapping at her sweet flesh like a beast, fondling her rear generously. “Not here.” He smirked distantly when she jolted with a faint squeak. “Your room. Perhaps we ought be grateful for the sheer lack of staff, hm?”

Even though part of her burned with bitterness at how frugally Niflheim forced them to live—for the sheer lack of company she found in the servants—he was right. They’d been prolonging this affair publicly more than was proper. “Very well, Chancellor.”

Just as Ardyn had the door shut did he pin her against a bookshelf, but not antagonistically. Luna shuddered richly when her dress incrementally rose as he fell to his knees, the Oracle watching as he manually spread her legs and kissed her inner thighs that made her blush and bite down a moan. The man was practically ravenous as she heard lusty growls in his throat, maneuvering her legs over his broad shoulders and genuflecting for better leverage. Luna jolted from the suddenness, hands scrambling to find hold in corner where two different bookcases met that provided a sturdy enough hold for her to cling to for purchase.

Luna’s bosom heaved and her toes curled as she cursed the damn heels she wore. Ardyn tore off the lace panties she wore, and while the woman wished to protest the motion, when the older man buried his face into her sex the notion died on her tongue and her thighs squeezed his cheeks and he chortled huskily. “Dear me, Lunafreya, are you so undone already?” he teased, stubble becoming milky with the her pearly essences smeared there. It caused Lunafreya to blush deeply at the lecherousness of it all. “Gods, how I’ve hungered for you. Truly, you parading as such a pure thing awakens the beast in me.”

“Mm...” Luna’s voice shuddered incoherently, panting and staving away a mewl. A strong arm cradled around her rear and hips to prevent her from sagging, part of her surprised at his prodigious strength. “Ardyn!” she mewled as his tongue dug into her sex, back arching and nearly knocking off little trinkets she lined the shelves with. The stubble paired with moist lips made her thighs clench, a hand relinquishing a chance for propping her and instead resigning to digging into his maroon mane of hair.

His words had a stirring effect on her. Like a rabbit caught in the gaze of a serpent, only it was exhilarating. That she could have such an effect upon the Chancellor made her bosom heave, her aroused mind cloud with flattery. Stroking an ego that was rarely there. “Oh, gods…!” she moaned heatedly, trying to shrug the sleeves of her outing dress off by doing the zipper until it became a voluminous garter about her waist.

Ardyn growled again, and some silly, incoherent segment of her imagined she was a maiden being ravaged by the wolf. The thought of such fanciful savagery was improper for a grown woman, let alone the Oracle. But it seemed fitting. Scandalously, transiently fitting. The thought of Ardyn being so beastly shouldn’t have fueled her arousal so much, but it did.

And gods above, he knew it.

Ardyn’s deep gold eyes slowly emerged and locked with hers for a long, lustful moment, while his lips became slack and for all her pleasured squirming did she freeze and gulp audibly. Still so utterly enraptured and frozen until he suddenly feinted too fast for Lunafreya to realize, the woman finding herself pressed into the shelves that jutted into her bosom, but not cruelly. Just enough that those tiers would leave shallow indents into her skin. But enough that she felt his body loom over her, his cock still contained in his trousers strained and yearning for her.

The man brought her closer, enough for his height and bulk to almost completely envelop her, her soft rear molded to his groin that Ardyn ground into while an arm wrapped around her waist to anchor her there. She felt like a schooner adrift at sea and he was the ocean lapping against her. In this moment, she remembered how small she was compared to him. How she practically straddled his thigh whilst he fumbled to free his cock, purring lustrously as he slid its pre-cum veneer between her cheeks that made her shiver from the warmth, the stickiness.

“Do you wish to understand this pain, this agony then, my dear?” he began, and she felt small. The rabbit remembering predators larger than itself. With a grunt did he slide his cock between her inner thighs, the erection giving her womanhood some straining relief when he began rocking his hips and another hand rose to grope her breast that elicited a shy mewl. Strange, as even through the brutish want to rut did a gentility exist in his fingertips: asking, waiting, for her silent and complete assent.

“How I would delight in nothing more than silencing those whorish masses that mewl for healing? Those men whose looks linger too long? Those who dare treat you familiarly?” His voice was a ravenous growl in her ear, taking the lobe between his teeth that caused Lunafreya to suck in her breath sharply. This… No, it wasn’t the pain he’d spoken of earlier. The old pain. The immortal one. But… Gods, even in the brutal life that had taught her better, that learned to see through syrupy words in all their illusion, this, it…

She’d never thought their affairs as something tender. They had never even shed their clothes this far. Pleasured by hands and mouths, but they’d never exposed each other to this extent. Ardyn’s growl and a thrust so hard she could barely stand on the tips of her toes (not that she hadn’t been straining enough as it was) brought her back to reality. A reality where Ardyn had become wolfish, and...dare she say possessive. The very idea caused her cheeks to burn.

“Do you envy the men who are familiar with the idea of me, of my station, or who I truly am?” she challenged suddenly, even while Ardyn’s mouth was so stuffed with hair and skin he couldn’t answer at first. “Is it the Oracle you lust after? The princess you so adore? Or...is it me? Simply me who is neither of those things.”

Ardyn grunted as his feet shifted to brace himself, Luna gasping as she was all but swept off the floor and had his arm about her waist tighten while the other trained his cock to her womanhood and targeted it just right to thrust as he wished, she suspended for a moment before that hand braced under her arm and gripped her shoulder like a sash before she sagged enough that he was partially sheathed, announced by Luna’s sharp gasp.

The man himself sighed contentedly as they settled into a rhythm, hips undulating before thrusting sharply as he acquired more depth into her sex. “A-Answer me!” Luna cried out in unison of a hard, full thrust that caused her head to loll against his shoulder. No longer was she rammed against the shelves, but in the corner and against the Chancellor.

Ardyn breathed raggedly in her ear, growls seeming to underline each throaty exhalation. “Oh my darling, you know nothing of the nature of beasts, do you?” he purred lustily into her ear, stubble of his chin scraping her neck. She knew what he was. She knew the monster, and still, she craved the monster under her bed more than she could stand sheer loneliness. The loneliness of a once mirrored charge. That thought caused him to smile wickedly. “I lust for the Oracle, I adore the princess, and I wish to possess you. I am not content with only one. For I am greedy, and I am lust itself, dear Lunafreya.”

That should’ve frightened her. His words were like dripping poison and she knew what precipice she stood upon, what the gods saw in this damned consummation between accursed and oracle. An unholy union she wondered if the Infernian’s flames would take her for.

Luna cried out when he thrust hard, but not from pain. She hadn’t known this level of pleasure of before. As though Ardyn were an incubus she’d invited into her bed, and it was by sheer will that she didn’t sound as though she were sobbing. Though this wasn’t their first sexual escapade, it was the first time she’d been penetrated by a man, let alone a phallus. Vaginal walls clenched around him, Ardyn heaving into her ear that only maximized her pleasure.

“I wish to see you, Lunafreya. Must you always turn your back to me?” This surprised her, and they stilled in tandem. Turn her back to him? Why in the name of the Star… Perhaps it had been from a life before. When he’d been healer, like she. They paused and she stared down for a long moment before nudging her cheek against his own, Ardyn responding by nuzzling back longingly and the moment was so tender she thought her heart might burst.

“Ardyn, let me down...upon my bed, if you please.” Sweeping her into his arms, he laid her reverently upon it. He disrobed himself while she shrugged off the last of her pesky dress. Now, truly bare before each other, azure eyes watched him as he slowly stripped off his clothing methodically, through its many layers. Remembering her own complex ponytail, Luna undid it and the two adjoining braids, blonde hair fanning like a halo about her. When Ardyn saw her, he almost stopped, but his eyes were so tender she could feel herself melting.

He crawled over her, Luna’s heart throbbing at the exquisiteness of his body. An older man’s body to be sure, softness pronounced on his belly with bulky muscles undefined everywhere else, but part of her preferred this. A real man, not some chiseled statue hewn from stone.

The only clear thought in her mind was simple: she wanted him. It was as simple and complicated as that. The distance between them made her swear he looked...lonely, almost. Smiling sadly until she couldn’t take it. She embraced him with her legs spreading and hitching around his waist, letting his cheek rest upon her bosom where he might listen to her heartbeat and collected respiration, stroking through that mane. Ardyn’s eyes slowly closed and he nuzzled her breast, until lust reminded them why they were there.

Rolling his head, he lapped at her nipples hungrily, pleasurable rumbles roiling in his chest. Luna’s back arched and she moaned, a prolonged and keening sound. “Ah—Ardyn!” she gasped in a half-scream, especially as he thrust into her again and he grinned down at her, smothering her cries in hungry kisses that consumed like flame.

Luna felt like gelatin beneath him, flesh and softness and muscle of Ardyn’s body pressing into her own warmly while worshiping her with kisses. He gathered her into muscular arms while his hips gyrated hard into her. She wondered if he felt less alone, them like this—skin to skin. His cock sheathed so deeply inside of her she wondered if this is what hell felt like. The place she was destined because she was human, because she couldn’t be the woman the gods wanted her to be who ignored her humanity in favor of her duty. Here and now, so then would she damn herself in the devil’s embrace.

It was with a cry that she felt herself climax, body seizing up beneath him and perspiration slicking the skin between them. As she did, Ardyn seemed too as well, growling when his own body shuddered and thrust powerfully in her as he milked his own orgasm with her heat and tightness.

While the afterglow lingered, the frame of mind that entranced her in this encounter fell away into duty and a rushed need to return to life goaded her. She attempted to pry Ardyn off her, but was only met with resistance. He buried his face in her neck stubbornly and clung to her, Luna grunting with exertion. “Ardyn, please! If Gentiana finds us like this—”

Ardyn snarled resentfully. “Let the damned gods find us! Let the Lord of the Skies smite us for our transgression!” he snapped with teeth bared into her skin. He words were broken by a growl, embrasure around her tightening possessively. “The gods have stolen everything from me! I’ll be damned before they take you as well! You, darling oracle, belong to me.” The anger in his words just distantly receded, a neediness and vulnerability marking him. He buried his face in her neck and she swore she could feel him shivering.

Resignedly, a grimness settled upon her face like winter frost, staring into the complexities of the ceiling that arced above like the night sky. The sky she found solace in with Noctis—the boy she was destined to serve, whom a great part of her still loved.

“Are you in love with me?”

The sudden question caused Ardyn to rear back, Lunafreya deadpanned by the even the signs of scourge whenever a part of him became unhinged. Maybe it was a foolish question to ask, but with the threat of Gentiana’s ability to manifest at any moment, she couldn’t afford to dally in post-coital intimacy as she was sure Ardyn wished to.

They had their duties. And hers were lead by masters who were not as clement as the ones Ardyn manipulated on puppet string.

Slowly did he peel himself from her, aghast. On his knees on her soiled sheets while she stared on almost impassively, calculatingly. She curled her legs away from beneath him, able to sit up and gaze at him unflinchingly.

“What...did you say?” he demanded in a chilled rasp, disbelieving.

Lunafreya rose from the bed, pawing through a dresser drawer nearby for undergarments to change afresh into, taking a wash cloth to swipe away excess sweat before neatly drawing a robe over her shoulders. She could draw a bath, then. As it was nearly noon and she was needed in Pagla by two.

“I simply asked if you loved me,” she stated again, bluntly, combing through an itinerary she and Gentiana had prepared over the weekend. Healing, and a memorial service for newly perished in Niflheim’s wars. Nothing novel, but utterly necessary. “Chancellor, if you would be so kind, please dress yourself. I have no intention of causing a scandal.”

In the vanity mirror as she was combing through her hair, she saw Ardyn appear from behind her and remain like a phantom, arms wrapping around her waist. Though she didn’t protest the gesture, she didn’t lean back to encourage him. Instead, she stared dispassionately at her own reflection and continued combing through tangled blonde locks she drew over her shoulder.

“Lunafreya...” Ardyn rasped, it impossible to see his eyes when his bangs cascaded over his face.

“I must leave within the hour. Please collect your things and go.”

This caused him to visibly stiffen, the hold around her waist relinquished and feeling his comfortable heat recede. The harder she stared into the mirror, the more his form faded into a ghostly translucence until he vanished into thin air. For several moment she absently combed through her hair before glancing over her shoulder, seeing all evidence of him vanished, even his clothing.

It was a strange thing, love. The love she bore for Noctis, for her people, and the world; it felt impossible for her to love more. For her family, absolutely. Gentiana, Ravus, Maria… But, where did Ardyn fit into all this?

She knew. Even if it was a cold, cold realization.

A dalliance. That’s what this all was. Luna didn’t know Ardyn’s true emotions and perhaps she wished not to. For it wouldn’t matter in the end. She would be the instrument that would bring peace to him and light back forevermore into the world.

Her duty was to Noctis. Not herself. To the world, to the Star, to the gods.

The brush was lain upon her vanity table, vision blurring.

If that was so damn true, why on earth did it feel like her heart was being torn to shreds?

She felt tears cascade down her cheeks. Hot, salted, real.

It hurt.

It always would, in the end.

[sburbian-denizens]

Land of Moonlight and Whispers

Land for an Anonymous Prince of Blood

A Land covered by hundreds of gleaming massive Cities and divisive sectors. The planet contains dozens of mega-cities upon its surface, Cities so large, each could count as its own nation. Each City is built upon its predecessors and its laborers, literally and metaphorically. Each tier serve as a District, the higher you go, the wealthier you are. The Nadir Districts, the parts of each city that houses the Working Caste and the Consorts that maintain the City, are at the very bottom. Meanwhile, the Vertex Districts, home of Elite Caste of each City; the wealthiest of Consorts and the Carapacian Representatives, stand at the top. The Mezzo Districts, where the Middle Caste of the City resides, serve as a buffer between Nadir and Vertex.

There used to be only a single Caste, then the Denizen came.

The planet used to have a moon, one made out of glowing moonstone, but the Denizen shattered it and scattered its pieces all along the planet's orbit. Several of the Fragments fell to the Land, some crashing harmlessly in the uninhabited areas of the planet, while others crashed into the Cities themselves, toppling several buildings, crashing to the foundations of the metropolises, and lodging themselves into the very bottom of each principality. The rest of the moon’s Fragments circle the planet it its orbit, they had broken into numerous enough pieces to make travel through orbit quite hazardous, but whole enough to bathe the world in ethereal moonlight, and to block out the light of Skaia. They now form a sort of shield in the outer reaches of the Land, keeping outsiders from getting in, and the Consorts from getting out.

This is bad, because the land gets most of its supplies through trading with the other Lands, Derse, and Prospit. With the light of Skaia eclipsed and the Moon’s light diffused, growing crops is all but impossible. The Cities were starving, so the wealthy redirected all the food and luxuries to themselves, let some of the better off Consorts have a piece of their wealth, and left the poor to starve and fight over the scraps of the entitled. Thus the Districts were born, and the Consorts were divided into Castes. Things looked bleak for the Land, for the food will run out eventually, it’s just a matter of who starves first.

Then the Prince arrives, and with them, the Gates opened. Gates leading to other Land. Gates that allow for trades to continue once more. Obviously, the Hero of Blood is then praised as the savior, and given refuge in the very top of the Vertex Districts.

But the Quest is not over yet. Far from it, in fact. The grudge between Nadir and Vertex run deep. The Elites wish to maintain their power, to keep their lessers in line, to attempt to squeeze even more out of the Workers. The Workers wish to overthrow their betters, to finally receive what they deserve, what has been denied to them by the Elites for so long. The Medians hear the whispers of both sides, and know that bloodshed is coming, that they would need to pick a side, Vertex or Nadir?.

Moonlit Corruption

The Elites of the Cities wish to maintain their grip on their authority, going so far as to oppress and steal from those they think are beneath them. All of them seem nice enough, but beneath all the smiles and pleasantries are people that simply with to rise in the world. Even at the cost of the Working Caste’s misery. They sabotage the efforts of both Working and Middle Caste advocates to spread their wealth to the people while simultaneously working behind the scenes to both reinforce and to grow their influence and power.

There are exceptions of course, some of the Elites sympathize with the plight of the Workers, working to expose their fellows and to aid the needy. Most of the information these Sympathizers leak are discredited and claimed as false by the others, but some has slipped through the cracks in their efforts. Enough to draw more advocates to the front, and to draw the attention of the Prince of Blood.

Silver Reformation / Scarlet Revolution

The Player’s Quest is to discover the machinations of the Corrupt Elite and to free the Workers from their oppression. This is no easy task due to the cover ups run by most of them, but the remaining threads are there for the Prince to follow. They would need to ask around each of the Districts, talking and investigating members of each Caste and figure out the truth, and the extent of the situation, for themselves. Finding the Denizen and his insidious and far reaching influence, facing him, and making the Choice.

They may Choose to incite a Reformation, talking to each of the Consorts, of every Caste, and having them come to terms with each other. Diffusing their rivalry, and freeing the Workers from their oppression.

They may Choose to incite a Revolution, feeding the burning hatred the Workers have for the Elites and sparking that same hatred in the Medians. Turning it into a mighty Crimson Blaze that shall devour the Elite Caste.

Once the Quest is complete, the Prince would be able to count on the support of the Consorts, their Castes having been dissolved and equality achieved. They will forever remember the Player as the greatest hero of their Land.

Locations

Bullet Train - The Cities are interconnected by a network of trains, ones fast enough to make traveling all around the Land quite simple. As an Elite, the Player shall not have to pay for a ride on the train, and even gets a fancy first class cabin to go with their ride. Middle Castes can ride, but must pay their fare, while Workers are outright banned from even entering the stations.

Cities of the Shattered Moon - The Cities of the Consorts are vast and many, with there being several dozen Cities on the Land, each divided into three groups of Districts containing somewhere between five and ten Floors in each of them, there are truly monolithic marvels. Each City is divided into three Districts, Nadir, Mezzo, and Vertex, the more powerful you are the higher your Floor. Each District would provide different scenery, different items, and different prices. Nadir is the overcrowded run down areas of the Cities, filled with starving Worker Caste Consorts, the stuff there is cheap and easily produced, but they lack quality and maintenance. Mezzo is the Middle Caste Districts and are generally like any other middle class area on earth, it’s maintained well enough, but there is still some dirt here and there, the stuff here are average in prince and in quality, a great compromise between quality and quantity. Vertex is the very top of the Cities, unnaturally clean and sterile the place seems impossibly beautiful, the stuff there are quite expensive, but there’s no doubt that they have sheer quality on their side.

Metropolitan Districts - The Cities work as both Dungeon and Settlement, as the Fragments of the Moon scattered everywhere spawn Underlings and cause problems. The Player would be must both deal with the Underling infestation, and investigate the Consorts of each one of the Districts in order to make an informed Choice.

Fallen Fragments - While most of the moon Fragments sit at the orbit of the planet, content in causing suffering through their blockade, some of these pieces have decided that that wasn’t enough and crashed down upon the Cities to make the lives of the Consorts that much harder. Each of the Fragments have destroyed a large part of the Cities they reside in, and have fallen low enough to rest at the very bottom of the Nadir district. Larger than skyscrapers, made out of solid, eerily glowing moonstone, and infested with Underlings, the Elites have decided to leave the Fragments where they are, content to let the Workers suffer. Some of the Workers have dug out the insides of the Fragments, re-purposing them as both new homes and as secret bases. The Player must venture into these Fragments to face the main body of the Resistance.

Castle Moonstone - The Largest of the Fallen Fragments, one whose descent managed to destroy the entirety of the City it had landed on, the original Capital of the Cities. The insides of the Fragment has been carved out to resemble an actual castle, albeit one made entirely out of precious moonstone. Like all other Fragments, it is filled with Underlings, much more than all others in fact. It is here that the Denizen rests, tired after using most of his power to shatter the moon, and to ignite the hatred between both sides. It is here that the Player must make the Choice, and decide the fate of the Land.

Denizen

Alastor, Spirit of Vendettas - The Spirit of Blood Feuds. The first thing he did upon arriving on the Land is shatter the moon into a million pieces and prevent any and all trade and food growth on the planet, needless to say he’s not very well liked by the Consorts. He is awaiting the Prince of Blood in Castle Moonstone, where the Choice shall be made. Before that, he has been pulling strings and influencing events all over the Land, stoking the fires of rivalry between the Workers and Elites, and generally turning the Consorts against one another.

[frederickwiddowson]

Genesis 37:12-36 comments: Joseph sold into slavery by his own brothers

Genesis 37:12 ¶ And his brethren went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem. 13  And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I. 14  And he said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. 15 And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou? 16  And he said, I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks. 17 And the man said, They are departed hence; for I heard them say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan. 18  And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. 19  And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. 20  Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams. 21  And Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him. 22  And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again.

Here goes Joseph on another reporting expedition for his father. No wonder his brothers can’t stand him. Are they expecting another evil report?

Introduced into the narrative is someone who enters the picture several times in the Bible. He or she is a seemingly random person who accomplishes something important or is used as an example. His or her existence makes one wonder about the place of so-called “divine appointments” in our everyday lives denying our very concepts of randomness, luck, and chance. I am referring to the references to a certain man or a certain woman who do something noteworthy but whose name isn’t given. As two examples;

Judges 9:53  And a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech’s head, and all to brake his skull.

1Kings 22:34  And a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness: wherefore he said unto the driver of his chariot, Turn thine hand, and carry me out of the host; for I am wounded.

A certain man found Joseph wandering, unsure of where to find his brothers. This anonymous individual lets Joseph know where to find them and exits the narrative.

Their hatred of Joseph is so great, their envy is so murderous, that they conspire against him as they see him approaching them. Jesus’ own brethren would not receive Him and conspired against Him.

John 1:11  He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

He spoke against the Jews’ practices of His time and they conspired against Him. But, Joseph will yet save them all as we will see, as Christ came to save His own people.

They cynically and with blood in their hearts want to kill Joseph but Reuben, Jacob and Leah’s firstborn, refuses them their wish to end Joseph’s life and blame it on an animal. Here we see one of the definitions of evil as intending to do violence.

Reuben’s desire is to deliver Joseph, to return him to their father, Jacob. Reuben, who had before this committed the grievous sin of having sex with his father’s concubine, Bilhah, has a heart of mercy toward Joseph. This goes to show just how complex and really normal these patriarchs were in that they were not two dimensional but like us and all men were capable of evil and good. We do err when we paint the Bible’s human characters as having only one side; when we ignore Moses’ temper, Jeremiah’s doubts, or David’s sexual weakness. Only Christ, who is God in the flesh, was without sin, and, pastors, that includes Paul.

Genesis 37:23 ¶  And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him; 24  And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. 25  And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. 26 And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? 27  Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content. 28  Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt. 29  And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothes. 30  And he returned unto his brethren, and said, The child is not; and I, whither shall I go?

Joseph is now cast into a dry pit and they took off his coat of many colors much like Jesus’ garment was removed in Matthew 27:35 and John 19:23 although the similarity is limited to the removal only. Notice the difference in the nastiness of the dungeon Jeremiah will be thrown into in Jeremiah 38:6. It is then Judah, without Reuben present, who suggests they sell their brother to the Ishmaelite traders who are traveling to Egypt. This is done as an act of mercy as Judah says that it would be better to do this than to kill him. The brothers consent. This passage seems to indicate that the Midianites were also Ishmaelities; Midianites through Abraham’s wife, Keturah;

Genesis 25:1 ¶  Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah. 2  And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah.

…and Ishmaelites through his concubine, Sarai’s handmaid, Hagar;

Genesis 16:15  And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son’s name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael.

So, we see how quickly the genealogies of the Ancient Near East became muddled.

Joseph’s life was worth twenty pieces of silver to the traders. Jesus was betrayed for thirty. To Reuben’s dismay, when he returned from wherever he had gone not knowing about or approving the sale of Joseph, his brother was gone. Tearing one’s clothing was a sign of grief in the Ancient Near East as evident in many places throughout the Bible.

What was Reuben going to do now?

Genesis 37:31 ¶  And they took Joseph’s coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood; 32  And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found: know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no. 33  And he knew it, and said, It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces. 34  And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. 35  And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him. 36  And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, and captain of the guard.

Joseph’s coat of many colors is now used to present false evidence that Joseph was killed by a wild animal. As explained previously an evil beast would refer to an animal intent on violence. It would have nothing to do with a supposed moral condition. Evil in this context has to do with an intention of malice and violence, not sin.

The lie worked and Jacob is grieving and like Job, those close to him seek to comfort him to no avail. He states that he will go to his grave mourning for Joseph, who is sold by the traders to an Egyptian officer.

If we create in our minds a spiritual comparison to what happens to Joseph and what happened to Jesus, understanding that types rarely hold up on deep examination, we might muse that the Midianite traders taking Joseph out of the pit are like angels transporting the souls of the dead to their destination.

Luke 16:22  And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; 23  And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

And we know that Jesus went to Hell, which Joseph’s destination, Egypt, is like in type, not to suffer but to preach. (see Deuteronomy 4:20; 1Kings 8:51; and Jeremiah 11:4 for Egypt as an iron furnace.)

1Peter 3:18 ¶  For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19  By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; 20  Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

Potiphar is said to be captain of the guard. The Hyksos were a group of Asiatic people who conquered Egypt in antiquity.[1] Some scholars call The Hyksos the Shepherd Kings. I contend, as some scholars do, and we’ll have Biblical evidence later in Exodus, that Joseph and his family came into Egypt under their reign. The Hyksos are said to have ruled through Egyptian vassals who would have worshipped the traditional gods of Egypt and, of course, longed for an Egyptian revival, hating anyone who represented the shepherd economy of Canaan, longing to reestablish authority over not only their own country but Canaan as well. This will explain a couple of statements we will find later in the Bible in other books.

Exodus 1:8  Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.

This native Egyptian pharaoh of Exodus, like the rest of the Egyptians, would have held the shepherds from the area of Canaan in great contempt and hatred. He, or his dynasty, would have reestablished authority over Canaan and so, when the Pharaoh and his army are destroyed in the Red Sea disaster Canaan’s cities would have been without their protector. The Amarna Letters give us an indication that the Canaanite cities were vassals of Egypt and were under great threat around the time of the Exodus without Pharaoh’s army to protect them.[2]

Number 14:9  Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.

These are just some ideas that will help you connect the dots, so to speak, in the Bible. Apparently, God doesn’t regard them as all that important as He provides no great explanation through Moses, but it is interesting to think about, nonetheless.

Verse 35 shows us that either Dinah was not Jacob’s only daughter or daughters could logically include daughters-in-law as in The Ancient City De Coulanges talks about how ancient custom required a woman to leave her family and join her husband’s family.

[1] History World International, “The Hyksos,” http://history-world.org/hyksos.htm (accessed 3.5.3017).

 [2] The History of Israel, “Amarna Letters,” http://www.israel-a-history-of.com/amarna-letters.html (accessed 3.5.2017).

[awesomeexampapers-blog]

NR-512 Fundamentals of Nursing Informatics Entire Course

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NR512 Week 1 Discussion Integration of Nursing Informatics Skills and Competencies (graded) Reflect on your own practice. Discuss how informatics is used in your practice. What is your primary area where you would use informatics? NR512 Week 2 Discussion Wisdom Versus Judgment (graded) How does the concept of wisdom in nursing informatics compare to the concept of professional nursing judgment? What is DIKW and how do you “use” it in your practice? NR512 Week 3 Discussion Reflections on Second Life Experiences (graded) You are working in Second Life now completing a number of activities. What do you see as a benefit to augmenting course assignments through the use of a virtual learning environment (VLE)? NR512 Week 4 Discussion Informatics Skills (graded) How do the informatics skills you are now developing/expanding upon and validating help you meet current informatics skills levels? Did the TANIC self-assessment change your impression of your current informatics skill levels? NR512 Week 5 Discussion Knowledge Generation Through Nursing Informatics (graded) In one of the reading assignments this week you reviewed advance nurse practitioner (APN) roles and the application of project management concepts, one of the major elements of NI, but new to most nurses. Does this have an application to your practice? Why or why not? NR512 Week 6 Discussion HealthIT Hot Topic of the Week and Impact on Practice (graded) What was the HealthIT Hot Topic you selected related to your specialty? Why did you select it? How will this impact your practice? NR512 Week 7 Discussion Safeguarding Health Information and Systems (graded) A new concept for some organizations is to allow nurses to bring in their own devices known as bring your own devices (BYOD) to use at work. What are some of the security issues you might encounter if this were allowed? How would you address these issues? NR512 Week 8 Discussion Reflection on Second Life Experiences, Nursing Informatics Skills and Impact on Speciality (graded) Discuss how Course Outcomes were supported and met by the activities you have completed in this course. NR512 Week 4 Scavenger Hunt W4_NR512 Second Life (SL) Scavenger Hunt Work Sheet Student Name: Dorinda Ezell Avatar Name: Dvezellnr512 INSTRUCTIONS

  Instructions: 1. As you complete the Scavenger Hunt, please write your answers to the questions on this worksheet. 2. Save it as a MS Word document in the following format: YourName_NR512_ScavengerHunt 3. Upload the worksheet to the Drop Box in your course page by the end on Week 4 on Sunday at 11:59 pm MT. Remember if you need assistance when you are in Second Life, please contact the Support Specialist in-world or email.com”>vle@whitemouseproductions.com

Support Assistance in Second Life 4:00 am – 12:00 pm eastern time, Monday-Friday 10:00 am – 2:00 pm eastern time, Saturday-Sunday Phone Support:1-855-623-7013 9:00 am – 1:00 pm eastern Monday-Friday 3:00 pm – 9:00 pm eastern Monday-Friday   STATION 1 — Points Possible = 20

  Find the ANA Code of Ethics book in the Medical Library; click and get the web link towww.nursingworld.org. Select from Provision 1, 2, or 3. Bring content from the Provision you selected – discuss and report on the Provision you selected here. Reference the Provision you will discuss here; cite in proper APA format. ANSWER: As per the Code (ANA 2015) all registered nurses have a set of obligations and ethics that they have to follow. There are 9 prime responsibilities of the nurses with statements explaining the how these provisions are guided hereafter. These provisions came by in a scenario of Mrs. Williams who was severely ill but her condition had not been spoken of to their family members as well. Two nurses taking care of this patient Keisha and Kyle broke the patient confidentiality clause and spoke about the condition of Mrs. William in an elevator openly while her daughter who was unaware of the condition heard about her mother and broke down. “PROVISION 1: The nurse practices with compassion and respect for the inherent dignity, worth, and unique attributes of every person” (Lachman, 2014 ). “Respect for human dignity.”In this case we have two nurses who despite being compassionate and maintaining a good relationship with the patient they disrespected her privacy and did not pay heed to the need for confidentiality. “Relationships with patients” The nurses were friendly in nature but not individuals to help build relationshipas they spoke indiscriminately about the patient in the elevator while the patients daughter heard upon them. This led to the relative getting anxious about the patient. “Nature of health.”In retrospect the nurses prior to being off from duty should have ensured that the reports were delivered to the patients relatives. At the same time they should have made sure that the Doctor in charge and the surgeon had delivered the news of impending surgery and the worsening condition of Mrs. Williams to the family. “The right to self-determination.”It was crucial after the results were out to ensure that the discussion regarding the surgery and thereafter about what best next step was possible for the patient and all pros and cons should have been well discussed. American Nurses Association (ANA). (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. Silver Spring, MD: Author. Lachman, V. D., Swanson, E. O. C., &Winland-Brown, J. (2014). The New ‘Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements’ (2015): Practical Clinical Application, Part I.nursingworld.or/”>http://www.nursingworld.org STATION 2 – Points Possible = 30

  Go to the City Government building and locate the mayor. Click on him to get information about aabout a federal hurricane disaster plan disaster plan. Answer these 3 questions: Where will this plan be used? Who will oversee the plan?Where was it used most recently in 2013?Place your answers below and then continue to the next page of the worksheet to complete Station 2. ANSWER: Good morning sir, I am Dorinda looking for a few answers regarding your disaster management program for a school scavenger hunt 1. Where will this plan be used? Post Hurricane 2. And who will oversee the plan? FEMA 3. Can you tell me where has it been used in the past? Hurricane Sandy in 2013 is the most successful illustration for this program. STATION 2 – continued

  Take picture/”selfie” with the mayor. To take a picture:choose your snapshot camera icon from your left toolbar. Then click on Save to Disk. Then from the highlighted green dropdown barchoose 320 x 240and then click SAVE. Remember to save the photograph to your desktop to easily locate it. Copy and paste your photo in the box on the next page. Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 STATION 2 – copy and paste your picture in this box STATION 3 – Points Possible = 30

  Find the board room in the Hospital Administration Building. Click on the CEO to receive information on a new cardiac wing. Answer these two questions: Who is the donor and what are the two next steps for hospital board project? Place your answers below. ANSWER: Greetings Sir, My Name is Dorinda and for a school project I need to gather data regarding the Cardiac wings put in place by your institution? 1. May I ask who is the Donor? The cardiac wing was created through anonymous donor. 2. What are the next two steps for hospital board project? We hope to target next the opening of the Cardiac Wing as the completion of the wing is due Jan 2017. STATION 4 – Points Possible = 30

  Locate the Smartroom in the Hospital/Urgent Care building. Find the patient sitting on the exam table; complete hand washing prior to interacting with the patient. You are now going to assess the patient for newly diagnosed pre-hypertension. Your patient has just had his blood pressure taken. Click on the blood pressure cuff to get his blood pressure. What is your patient’s BP? Now click on your patient to get answers to the following questions: What is your diet? How many times a week do you exercise? Document your answers to ALL questions below. ANSWER: BP: 130/90 Hello, I am Dorinda your nurse, I shall begin with checking your blood pressure followed by a couple of questions in regards to your diet and exercise so as to help you get it under control will that be fine with you? 1. What is your diet? Due to pressure issues my diet is that of low sodium consumption. 2. How many times a week do you exercise? Currently I work out three times a week which is relatively higher than my regular schedule. STATION 5 – Points Possible = 30 STATION 5 – Points Possible = 30

  Go to the patient room on the first floor of the Hospital/Urgent Care building. Observe the patient in bed hooked up to an EKG.Click on EKGmachine and determine whether the EKG findings is a normal or abnormal reading. If abnormal readingwho and whatwould you do next? Place your answer below. ANSWER: Greetings, how are you today, I am your nurse Dorinda. I am going to go through your vital signs today. HR-111, BP 156/97, SPO2 89 First readjust the pulse ox and once again check for blood pressure, if reading remains the same than put the patient on oxygen cannula to help them breathe as the oxygen level in body is low(2LNC, at this time is what I would put it on), while this takes place would call in my tech to run the EKG and apply IV. Draw blood and get labs and check electrolytes and cardiac enzymes, stat, (along with cultures,). This will be done keeping in mind the policy of the hospital. I shall continue conversing with the patient find out issues regarding pain, cardiac history and other chronic problems. To ask them regarding their previous visit to their local doctor and medications that they have been prescribed, and medications presently being taken. Lastly would contact their Dr. In chargeand discuss if patient will be admitted to hospital. STATION 6 – Points Possible = 30

  Go to City Government Building. Find theinfectious disease department inPublic Health Office. Find the representative who most likely would be in charge of any Zika virus outbreak in the community. Click on the representative to get the web link to the CDC office providing oversight for Zika. Identify the correct type of mosquito and list three symptoms indicating infection. What test is required for diagnosis and what are the vaccine options? Place your answers below. ANSWER: Hi, I am Dorinda, I need some information regarding Zika virus. I would like to know if there is a web link which talks about this virus in detail? Yes there is follow the link below.cdc.gov/zika/index.html%20?”>http://www.cdc.gov/zika/index.html ? 1.What is the type of mosquito that carries the Zika virus? Zika is spread through the bite of infected Aedes species mosquito (Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus). 2.What are the three symptoms indicating infection? Red Rashes, high fever combined with Joint pain. 3.What test is required for diagnosis? The Zika virus can be confirmed through the blood or urine test. 4.What are the vaccine options? Currently there are no specific options available. STATION 7 – Points Possible = 30

  Go to the Education classroom in the Hospital Administration Building; Take photo standing beside title slide only of PowerPoint presentation; Copy and paste your photo in the worksheet.Choose your snapshot camera icon from your left toolbar. Then click on Save to Disk. Then from the highlighted green dropdown barchoose 320 x 240and then click SAVE. Remember to save the photograph to your desktop to easily locate it. Copy and paste your photo in the box on the next page. Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 STATION 7 – copy and paste your photo below TOTAL POINTS POSSIBLE = 200

  Remember to: Save this worksheet as a MS Word document in the following format: YourName_NR512_ScavengerHunt Place it in the Scavenger Hunt folder in the Drop Box in your course page by the end on Week 4 on Sunday at 11:59 pm MT. NR512 Week 5 HealthIT Hot Topic of the Week Assignment NR512 HealthIT Topic of Week Assignment Guidelineswith Scoring Rubric Purpose This assignment is designed to help students Develop an appreciation for informatics, basic skills and knowledge required in practice settings.Students will select a “hot” or popular topic of particular interest to their practice to discuss. The topic will be selected from the website using the link provided in the course Assignments section. Course Outcomes Through this assignment, the student will demonstrate the following ability. (CO 6) Describe health information systems within healthcare setting and the profession of nursing in all practice domains and settings including electronic health records (EHR), their management and patient-care information technology (IT). (PO 4) (CO 7) ExploretrendsandissuesinNIandtheirimpactonnursingpracticeinall domains.(POs9,11) Due Date:Sunday 11:59 p.m. MT at the end of Week 5. Total Points Possible: 125 Requirements Students will login to FierceEMR and FierceHealthIT using the link provided in the course Assignments and select a “current/popular” topic of the week that may impact their practice. Students, in a professionally developed paper, will discuss the rationale for choosing the topic, how it will impact practice in a positive or negative manner, citing pros and cons. Include a discussion of how informatics skills and knowledge were used in the process relevance to developing the assignment. In the conclusion, provide recommendations for the future. Submit completed FierceHealthIT Topic paper for Wk. 5 to dropbox by end of Week 5. Preparing the paper 1. TheFierceEMR and FierceHealthITCurrent/Popular Topic of the Week assignmentmust be a professional, scholarly prepared paper. See the guidelines for writing a professional, scholarly paper in the Course Resources. The professional paper will have an introduction, body of paper to explain what you are doing, summary/conclusion, and at least three scholarly references. 2. Required texts may be used as references, but a minimum of three sources must be from outside of course readings. 3. All aspects of the paper must be in APA format as expressed in the 6th edition. 4. The paper (excluding the title page, introduction and reference page) is 4-6 pages in length. 5. Ideas and information from professional sources must be cited correctly. 6. Grammar, spelling, punctuation, and citations are consistent with formal academic writing NR512 Week 6 Narrated PowerPoint Presentation Assignment PowerPoint Presentation (PPT) Assignment Guidelineswith Scoring Rubric Purpose This assignment is designed to help students Develop an appreciation for informatics, basic skills and knowledge required in practice settings.Students selected a popular topic of particular interest to their practice to discuss in week 5. This week student will develop a narrated slide PowerPoint (PPT) presentation of 8-10 slides summarizing the assignment. Refer to the PowerPoint sample template in Course Resources. Course Outcomes Through this assignment, the student will demonstrate the following ability. (CO 6) Describe health information systems within healthcare setting and the profession of nursing in all practice domains and settings including electronic health records (EHR), their management and patient-care information technology (IT). (PO 4) (CO 7) ExploretrendsandissuesinNIandtheirimpactonnursingpracticeinall domains.(POs9,11) Due Date:Sunday 11:59 p.m. MT at the end of Week 6. Total Points Possible: 150 Requirements The FierceEMR and FierceHealthIT topics of the week assignment for week 5 will be summarized in 8-10 narratedslides for week 6. Studentswillsummarize the rationale for choosing the topic, how it will impact practice in a positive or negative manner, including pros and cons. Include discussion of how informatics skills and knowledge were applied in the process relevance to developing the assignment. In the conclusion, provide recommendations for the future. Submit completed FierceHealthIT Hot Topic narrated PPTassignment to dropbox by end of Week 6. Preparing the Presentation 1.TheFierceEMR and FierceHealthIT Topic of the Week is a recap of the assignment from Wk.5 andmust be a professional, scholarly prepared PowerPoint narrated presentation of 8-10 Including at least three scholarly references. 2.You should have at least 8-10 slides. It is important to note that if you could not give your presentation and someone would have to stand in for you, he or she would need to know what you were going to say. Use the speaker-notes section so that someone may step in for you and not miss a beat. 3.Maintain the 6x6x6 rule for a professional PowerPoint presentation. No more than 6 lines per slide, 6 words per line, and 6 slides without a graphic. 4.All aspects of the presentation must be in APA format as expressed in the 6th edition. 5. Ideas and information from professional sources must be cited correctly. 6. Grammar, spelling, punctuation, and citations are consistent with formal academic writing. NR512 Week 2 Informatics Key Terms Quiz Question 1. Question : (TCO 1) Match the Informatics Key terms with their definition. 3 : Wisdom » 3 : Knowledge applied in a practical manner 2 : Cognitive science » 1 : Foundational science for informatics that looks at how the human mind works 5 : Electronic health record » 5 : Longitudinal record of one’s health and treatment interventions 7 : National Health Information Infrastructure » 7 : An initiative to improve healthcare quality, efficiency, and effectiveness by making healthcare information available when and where it is needed through technology, standards, interoperability, governance, and cooperation 1 : Cognitive informatics » 2 : Emerging field of study that focuses upon how information is processed both in the human mind and the computer 6 : Information science » 6 : Foundational science for informatics that looks at the application and use of information and knowledge in organizations and the interface between people, organizations, and information systems 4 : Artificial intelligence » 4 : Field or application that attempts to capture human thought processes and intelligence Question 2. Question : (TCO 1) Match the Informatics Key terms with their definition. 2 : Electronic medical record » 2 : An online record of treatment, typically limited to one episode, whether that might be an emergency room or clinic visit or a hospital stay 7 : Knowledge work » 7 : Process that generates information and knowledge as a product 3 : Health information exchange » 3 : The process of electronic transmission or sharing of healthcare information or an organization that organizes and oversees the transmission process 6 : Information system » 6 : The people, data, actions, and components used to create information for a user or organization 4 : Knowledge » 4 : Processed information which places relationships in context 5 : Data » 5 : Raw fact without meaning in itself 1 : Computer science » 1 : Foundational science for informatics that looks at the theory underlying information and computation and their implementation in computer systems

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THE HEADQUARTERS of the San Francisco Chronicle announces itself with a six-story clock tower; the whole edifice looms above Mission Street like a clipper ship with lighted portholes. I used to work there on the nightshift.

While my friends wrote UNIX code and got rich on stock options during the belle époque of the year 2000, I wrote about drug homicides and late-running meetings at City Hall for low pay inside an old-line newsroom. I also fielded phone calls from cranks.

This was part of my job. For every hundred people who calls up a newspaper at 9:00 p.m. wanting coverage of their garden show the next day or an investigative reporter to look into the rotten oysters sold at the fish counter of the Food King, there’s one who might have a tip worth pursuing.

One of these calls came from an abrasive guy with a New Jersey accent. He had a theory on the Zodiac Killer he wanted me to see. He’d be in town soon and wanted to talk about how he had — single-handedly — solved the notorious case, which was then about four decades stale from its first murder. Police had long since given up on it; the killer would be elderly, if he were even still alive.

The homicides had electrified California in the late 1960s, but that period was about as antique to the Chronicle’s newsroom as the 1906 earthquake. This weird call should have been prime hang-up material, but I kept talking to the guy, whose name was Mike Rodelli and whose theory turned out to be remarkably cinematic.

He told me the Zodiac Killer was still living, and not in squalor or obscurity, but at the levels of beau monde San Francisco society. He was a wealthy sports-car dealer, a horse-breeder, and a philanthropist who slept in a Presidio Heights mansion, but from December 1968 until October 1969, he had lived a murderous double life, stalking lovers’ lanes around the Bay Area and killing at least five people.

Rodelli told me he was traveling out to town in that spring to meet with a fellow amateur Zodiac investigator and asked if I would meet with him. He promised more details. He said I would have little doubt in his theory once I saw the proof. I equivocated, telling him that it would be dependent on whether there was breaking news that night. But part of me felt compelled to hear him out. Sure, I said. Come see me at the Chronicle when you’re out here.

And so in April, I sat with Rodelli — a trim guy with the perfect everyman look of a spy — in the third-floor conference room after all the desk editors had gone home and the newsroom was practically deserted. He explained how he zeroed in on his suspect, and I had to admit that it was ingenious.

Like Jack the Ripper before him, Zodiac had distinguished himself from more obscure serial killers by sending handwritten letters to the newspaper that read like a combination of insane babble, soaring egotism, and a coy scattering of facts that were either clues or red herrings.

“This is the Zodiac speaking,” he wrote to the editor of the Chronicle on October 13, 1969, with his customary salutation.

I am the murderer of the taxi driver over by Washington St. + Maple St. last night, to prove this here is a blood stained piece of his shirt. […] School children make nice targets, I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning. Just shoot out the front tire + then pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out.

The killer wrote at least 20 of these letters (a few are of disputed authenticity) in the same block handwriting before they faded away after 1974. Rodelli’s insight was that a person so accustomed to writing imperious notes to the newspaper must have also been in the habit of doing so under his real name. So he asked an associate in the Bay Area to search the Chronicle’s files on microfiche until he came across one that matched the Zodiac’s literary style.

On June 26, 1969, a wealthy car importer of Norwegian descent named Kjell Qvale wrote to the editor complaining that the paper was supporting “militants and lawbreakers” and warning of a “bloody confrontation” if society didn’t shape up. This rant might be read as a reactionary piece of fretting typical of the late 1960s, but Rodelli saw an ominous voice. He learned everything he could about the author, spoke to him directly, concluded he was likely the Zodiac Killer, and has compiled 18 years of painstaking research into a book recently published on Kindle: The Hunt for Zodiac: The Inconceivable Double Life of a Notorious Serial Killer.

After discovering the forgotten Chronicle letter, Rodelli’s next logical step was to find a photograph of Qvale from the late 1960s to compare it to the best police sketch taken from witnesses who saw him fleeing from his final murder.

Qvale’s home in Pacific Heights was a few blocks from where the cabdriver had been murdered. Rodelli then tried to trap Qvale into giving him a handwriting sample by sending him an innocuous question through the mail. But he received only a typed note in response. Curiously enough, it was written on an unusual trim size of stationery known as Monarch — a bit smaller than ordinary typing paper — that had been the same kind favored by the Zodiac in his letters to the newspapers.

Rodelli had passed his thick file — along with the envelope from Qvale with what he hoped would contain fingerprints and saliva DNA — to the San Francisco police. They only brushed him off, as had the Napa County Sheriff’s Office. I couldn’t blame them. Here was one of an estimated 3,000 suspects that had been suggested by detectives and amateurs alike over the last 30 years, in a once-glitzy case whose evidence had been shoved into lockers long ago. Qvale was also not your average homicide suspect: he had been one of the West Coast’s biggest importers of MGs, Jaguars, Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, and Austin-Healeys.

But Rodelli’s obsession and the enduring interest in the case gave me the hook I needed for a feature article on how amateur investigators keep the memory of the Zodiac alive. I was, of course, 30 years late to the story, but what struck me most while recapping all this was how lame these actual murders were compared to the level of thought Zodiac had put into creating a public persona. Two teenagers shot in their car in Benicia, California; a similar slaying in Vallejo, California, in which the killer emptied bullets into a car in a lovers’ lane; a picnicking couple at a lake attacked by a costumed man wielding a knife; a final execution-style murder of a San Francisco cabbie. In the heartless logic that governs media attention, these wouldn’t have gotten much attention from the newspapers. But the pure weirdness of the way Zodiac talked about himself gave it marquee status. I found a criminal behavior specialist who told me: “In no way was he a genius, except as a marketing genius.” Like the Manson family murders in Los Angeles, they caught a wave of social anxiety about the permissiveness and liberalization of the 1960s. The gleeful nihilism of the anonymous killer, as expressed in his creepy letters, seemed like the face of evil that resisted all negotiation or explanation.

Now I was in the position of having to go down to Qvale’s luxury automobile dealership on Van Ness Avenue without calling in advance and asking him the equivalent of, “Um, excuse me, I’m from the Chronicle and I was wondering if there was any chance you might happen to be the Zodiac Killer?” That day, I told several people where I was going to be before walking over to the showroom and taking a deep breath.

I told the receptionist who I was, asked to speak with the boss, and Qvale came out a few minutes later, an affable-looking silver-haired man of means, 81 years old. I asked him if we might go into a side office, where, embarrassed and guilty, I told him of Rodelli’s accusation and asked for a response.

He paused, then stood up, stretched his hands out in front of him, and rubbed them together. Then he began to pace back and forth, his lips thin. I wondered if this could be seen as a sign of guilt. I also wondered if I would have reacted any differently if, out of the blue, somebody from the metropolitan newspaper had — in effect — accused me of committing a notorious murder outside my own house.

Finally, Qvale laughed. “You can’t find anybody in this city that’s less likely to be the Zodiac Killer than me,” he said. “I haven’t hit anybody since I was a kid. It’s goofy.” He said of Rodelli: “He has nothing. This is all circumstantial nonsense in his eyes. I have a lot of assets to bring to bear, and that son of a bitch is going to be sorry he did it.” I wrote about this.

Qvale never did sue Rodelli. In fact, he agreed to meet him in person five years after I left the Chronicle. Over the phone, he displayed the same affability and charm that he had shown me in person, as though he were cheerfully giving street directions to a young man who had lost his way. Rodelli described these conversations “like old friends renewing acquaintances.”

But he wasn’t as friendly in person on September 27, 2006, when Rodelli went into the dealership, along with a retired detective from the Vallejo police named Jim Dean. They came forearmed with one of the truly rare elements of the Zodiac story: a new fragment of information. An SFPD officer named Armond Pelissetti, who had canvassed the neighborhood the night of the cab driver’s murder, had confirmed he briefly had spoken that night with a man out walking his dog, asked him if he had seen anything unusual, and then moved on. He indicated the dog walker had been Qvale.

Then followed a truly bizarre meeting, in which Rodelli first apologized to Qvale for the nature of the conversation and then hit him with the entire investigative file, running him through a series of questions. Qvale said it wasn’t him that the officer talked to that night, as he hardly ever walked his dog; he claimed never to have touched a firearm, despite serving in World War II; he said he had “no idea” where he was on the dates of the other murders that didn’t happen near his house; that he didn’t even read the thick report of circumstantial evidence that Rodelli had compiled for him. There wasn’t much to go on, but Rodelli found him slippery on details, and not vigorously protesting his innocence. But what was he supposed to do? That seemed to be that.

Qvale died in 2013, four years after having taken up piano lessons at the age of 90. The New York Times eulogized him as “one of the earliest American importers of European cars, ultimately selling a million automobiles as a distributor and dealer.” Having failed to persuade any law enforcement agency to interrogate him, Rodelli decided to marshal together all his research into the Kindle where it can be considered an artifact of crime history, one of the most impressive public briefs ever compiled on the approximately 2,500 people who have been identified as Zodiac suspects, both during the red-hot period of the active investigation and the inevitable chill that followed.

This is probably the right place to disclose that I have stayed in occasional touch with Rodelli via email and gave him some advice as to how to find a literary agent. He also described my Chronicle interview with Qvale in his narrative. When his book published, I gave it a nice review on Amazon. Because if nothing else, it serves a monument to persistence and a record of dogged tenacity.

Rodelli studied to be an oceanographer and spent a few years mucking about in Malaysian swamps looking for mangroves before he found a career in telecommunications, and later in advertising copywriting. The logical cast of his mind helped inform his research.

He has vacuumed up every available scrap of information about Qvale from the public record and put it on display. We learn about his birth in Trondheim, Norway (whoa — an official sister city to Vallejo, a Zodiac murder site), his automobile business (he autographed a few cars with a felt pen, just like the murderer), loads of head-spinning details about significant dates in his life (two murders happened on the anniversaries of his parent’s dates of deaths), the geometry of his Presidio Heights neighborhood (a little similar to the killer’s drawing of a bus bomb), even the exterior pattern on one of his car factories in Italy (which looks sort of like the murderer’s logo). For an amateur investigator, Rodelli is more thorough than most district attorneys, and for an amateur writer, he tells a thoroughly absorbing story of sifting through obscure records and playing a cat-and-mouse game that lasts 18 years.

Part of what makes it all so appealing is Rodelli’s mixture of obsessive drive combined with a surprising humility. He acknowledges at several points when he is out of his depth — he admits he is no trained interrogator when he goes to face Qvale and wishes at many points that the actual police would take over for him. He does not arrogantly proclaim that he has solved the case; only that he believes his suspect to be especially compelling. A reader senses his discomfort at possessing a conviction that others have not embraced. This makes his incomplete journey of discovery almost as compelling as the Zodiac himself — a rare literary act in the true crime genre, which tends to demand neat endings and clearly defined characters.

This isn’t to say that his book is perfect. There is seemingly no detail of Qvale’s life that doesn’t seem shaded for maximum ominous value, down to the names of his racehorses Gun Barrel and Skystalker. As the protagonist of his own detective story, Rodelli also creates an overcooked sense of melodrama around his discoveries. “I felt a chill suddenly pass through me,” he writes at one point. “The hair on the back of my neck immediately stood up,” he says another time. Through most of the book, however, he keeps a check on the pulpy prose and builds his case from fact.

What always appealed to me about Rodelli’s thesis — from a strictly literary point of view, as opposed to anything forensic — was the way it linked the nastiest elements of society to the aristocrats, a bit like the 1996 graphic novel From Hell, which postulated that Jack the Ripper, who stalked prostitutes in the scuzzy Whitechapel neighborhood, was one of Queen Victoria’s physicians. It weirdly speaks to the hidden unity of a population — the aristocrats are intrinsically connected with the dregs, no matter how much wealth and segregation may divide them.

Another compelling feature, common to all Zodiac resurrections: The case is firmly embedded in the distinct anxieties and contradictions of late 1960s San Francisco, which was a conservative and conventional town in many ways, despite the famous hippie superstructure. The Zodiac’s world is a lost one of rotary dial phones, ubiquitous cigarettes, men’s sideburns, plaid jackets, lovers’ lanes, jazzy speech, and bulbous car hoods. It was also an era in which physical newspapers were king, and readers hung on their content.

Mystery novels in which the killer leaves riddles, codes, or some version of a scavenger hunt also owe their modernist inspiration to the Zodiac, whose very name taps into an arcane demi-world of secret meanings and gnostic texts. The four ciphers he sent to Bay Area newspapers were full of strange symbols. Only one of them was ever cracked, significantly not by police but by a schoolteacher in Salinas. It reads like the rant of an uneducated psychopath. Here is the text, complete with misspellings:

I like killing people because it is so much fun it is more fun than killing wild game in the forrest because man is the most dangeroue anamal of all to kill something gives me the most thrilling experence it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl the best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the (people) I have killed will become my slaves I will not give you my name because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves for my afterlife

This fantasy does not sound like one coming from a suave and educated importer of luxury cars, one who could charm even the eccentrics who walked into his marbled showroom. But perhaps such a gifted actor had the ability to shift his range for a particular audience, adopting the literary style of a murderous lunatic — with strangely British tics like “rather” and “the most” — even as he lived as a ordinary public citizen?

Whoever the Zodiac may have been, he deployed a similar obtuse and taunting tone in his uncoded letters. He filled them with enough eccentric tidbits to give armchair investigators a lifetime of leads to chase: references to the musical The Mikado and the novel Don Quixote; an eerie postcard sent to the Chronicle with the legends “peek through the pines” and “sought victims”; hints that future murder scenes could be determined by following radians keyed to the peak of Mount Diablo; a pleading letter to celebrity attorney Melvin Belli; brags about his victims; promises to wipe out more if the public didn’t start wearing lapel buttons with his trademark circle and crosshairs logo. When he killed a woman and severely wounded her male companion on the shores of Lake Berryessa, he wore a white KKK-like costume bearing this logo. Then he penned a note on the car door, noting the dates of previous killings: Vallejo 12-20-68, 7-4-69 Sept 27—69—6:30 by knife.

Like many of the amateur Zodiac investigators, Rodelli got hooked on the case not from contemporaneous memories — he was 13 when most of it was going on — but from a book published in 1987, the foundational Zodiac: The Shocking True Story of the Nation’s Most Bizarre Mass Murderer by former Chronicle editorial cartoonist Robert Graysmith, which has sold nearly four million copies.

Graysmith worked in the noirish clipper ship of the Chronicle building when the letters began arriving. His book is structured like a timeline, progressing from the first canonical shooting at Lake Herman Road on December 20, 1968, all the way to the frustrating fizzile as the killings stopped, the letters halted, and the era faded away.

“At first, I was merely fascinated by the purely visual qualities of Zodiac’s symbols,” he writes in the introduction. “Then, gradually, a resolve grew within me to unravel the killer’s clues, to discover his true identity, and failing that, at least to present every scrap of evidence available so that someday someone might recognize the Zodiac killer.”

Graysmith’s book was the source material for the 2007 film Zodiac, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr. One of its most fascinating elements to me is the role played by time. The active period of the murders lasted no more than 16 months, but the speculation, frustration, and the pursuit of thin leads continues to this day. Characters in the film seem to age before us; they sift the same evidentiary sand with the same disappointing results. The Zodiac mystery never resolves. Perhaps this is a part of his evergreen lure.

I don’t think that it is a coincidence that Graysmith’s narrative spends only its first third in the 1968–’69 period when the murders were actually taking place. The bulk of the book — and the secret of the enduring interest in the Zodiac — lies in the ensuing quietude, and the dreadful chasm of the future. As Graysmith points out, the killer was almost caught multiple times and seemed, via his letters, to wish for a spectacular capture and a show trial. But it never happened. He may have been killed by accident or suicide. Or he may have faded into retirement like Wichita’s BTK Killer or Sacramento’s Golden State Killer after his psychosis ran out of youthful fuel. What’s left is a sizable cottage industry dedicated to him that thrives on the open question. There are now at least half a dozen websites and message boards that get regular traffic from armchair investigators and at least 35 published nonfiction books about the case, many of which feature the killer’s cross-and-circle logo on the cover, some of them which put forward various suspects. Graysmith himself was convinced Zodiac was really an oil refinery worker named Arthur Leigh Allen. He also hypothesized that up to 44 unsolved Bay Area killings — most of them with women as victims — might have been the handicraft of his subject.

The San Francisco police thought they might still be holding a thin fragment of his biological essence — some old DNA recovered from possible saliva on the stamp and envelope of one of his letters. Such technology wasn’t available in the era of rotary phones and leaded gasoline when the murders were taking place. But the San Francisco police have since acknowledged that the DNA sample appears to be “background” material that could have come from any of the hundred hands that touched the letter, and that Zodiac might not have ever licked his own stamps.

“If there is one key word for the entire story of the Zodiac mystery, it is obsession,” wrote Graysmith. One of his closest readers, Mike Rodelli, has poured much of his life into pursuing a theory he believes correct, in hopes of finally answering a great American riddle that remains officially unanswered.

When I first met him in the Chronicle conference room, he was 44; he is now 62. Most of the key investigators and witnesses are dead, and those that remain have fuzzy memories. If the killer himself is still alive, he would be 85 at the very youngest. And unless Qvale left a diary of his purported crimes in an attic somewhere, or if the police of the distant future are somehow able to do a better DNA analysis of the Zodiac letters and match it to Qvale’s relatives, Rodelli will never live to see his suspicions either validated or dismissed for certain.

After having gone over Rodelli’s voluminous file representing 18 years of digging, do I think that the affable — even presidential — Kjell Qvale could have been living a double life and been out killing teenagers when he wasn’t selling Bentleys? I don’t know. I’ll probably never know. The ambiguity has kept the story of the Zodiac alive for half a century, and the enduring dilemma — an answer dangling just out of sight — recalls that of the 2001 film The Pledge in which a police detective played by Jack Nicholson makes a promise to grieving parents to catch their daughter’s killer, and spends decades chasing a suspect only to lose him in the end. The viewers of the film are permitted to know what the protagonist isn’t: he was right all along.

In an even broader sense, this frustration captures man’s existential dilemma in a Platonic universe of unknowable absolutes. Truth exists. Answers exist. A hard foundation of reality exists underneath a concealing fog. But humans will not always see it.

¤

Tom Zoellner is the Politics Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books.

The post The Serial Killer as a Marketing Genius appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books https://ift.tt/2kc1DLv

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NR-512 Fundamentals of Nursing Informatics Entire Course

 Follow Below Link to Download Tutorial

http://tutorialsmarket.com/downloads/nr-512-fundamentals-nursing-informatics-entire-course/

 For More Information Visit Our Website (   https://homeworklance.com/ )

 Email us At: Support@homeworklance.com  or lancehomework@gmail.com

 NR-512 Fundamentals of Nursing Informatics Entire Course

  NR512 Week 1 Discussion

 Integration of Nursing Informatics Skills and Competencies (graded)

 ·         Reflect on your own practice. Discuss how informatics is used in your practice. What is your primary area where you would use informatics?

  NR512 Week 2 Discussion

 Wisdom Versus Judgment (graded)

 How does the concept of wisdom in nursing informatics compare to the concept of professional nursing judgment? What is DIKW and how do you “use” it in your practice?

 NR512 Week 3 Discussion

 Reflections on Second Life Experiences (graded)

 You are working in Second Life now completing a number of activities. What do you see as a benefit to augmenting course assignments through the use of a virtual learning environment (VLE)?

NR512 Week 4 Discussion

 Informatics Skills (graded)

 How do the informatics skills you are now developing/expanding upon and validating help you meet current informatics skills levels? Did the TANIC self-assessment change your impression of your current informatics skill levels?

 NR512 Week 5 Discussion

 Knowledge Generation Through Nursing Informatics (graded)

 ·         In one of the reading assignments this week you reviewed advance nurse practitioner (APN) roles and the application of project management concepts, one of the major elements of NI, but new to most nurses. Does this have an application to your practice? Why or why not?

  NR512 Week 6 Discussion

 HealthIT Hot Topic of the Week and Impact on Practice (graded)

 What was the HealthIT Hot Topic you selected related to your specialty? Why did you select it? How will this impact your practice?

 NR512 Week 7 Discussion

 Safeguarding Health Information and Systems (graded)

 ·         A new concept for some organizations is to allow nurses to bring in their own devices known as bring your own devices (BYOD) to use at work. What are some of the security issues you might encounter if this were allowed? How would you address these issues?

  NR512 Week 8 Discussion

  Reflection on Second Life Experiences, Nursing Informatics Skills and Impact on Speciality (graded)

Discuss how Course Outcomes were supported and met by the activities you have completed in this course.

  NR512 Week 4 Scavenger Hunt

 W4_NR512 Second Life (SL) Scavenger Hunt Work Sheet

Student Name: Dorinda Ezell Avatar Name: Dvezellnr512

 INSTRUCTIONS

Instructions:

1. As you complete  the Scavenger Hunt, please write your answers to the questions on this  worksheet.

2. Save it as a MS  Word document in the following format: YourName_NR512_ScavengerHunt

 3. Upload the  worksheet to the Drop Box in your course page by the end on Week 4 on Sunday  at 11:59 pm MT.

 Remember  if you need assistance when you are in Second Life, please contact the  Support Specialist

in-world  or email.com”>vle@whitemouseproductions.com

Support Assistance in Second    Life

4:00 am – 12:00 pm eastern time,    Monday-Friday

10:00 am – 2:00 pm eastern time,    Saturday-Sunday

Phone Support:1-855-623-7013

9:00 am – 1:00 pm eastern    Monday-Friday

3:00 pm – 9:00 pm eastern    Monday-Friday

STATION 1 — Points Possible = 20

Find the ANA Code of  Ethics book in the Medical Library; click and get the web link  towww.nursingworld.org. Select from Provision 1, 2, or 3. Bring content from  the Provision you selected – discuss and report on the Provision you selected  here. Reference the Provision you will discuss here; cite in proper APA  format.

ANSWER:

As per the Code (ANA  2015) all registered nurses have a set of obligations and ethics that they  have to follow. There are 9 prime responsibilities of the nurses with  statements explaining the how these provisions are guided hereafter.

These provisions  came by in a scenario of Mrs. Williams who was severely ill but her condition  had not been spoken of to their family members as well. Two nurses taking  care of this patient Keisha and Kyle broke the patient confidentiality clause  and spoke about the condition of Mrs. William in an elevator openly while her  daughter who was unaware of the condition heard about her mother and broke  down.

“PROVISION 1: The  nurse practices with compassion and respect for the inherent dignity, worth,  and unique attributes of every person” (Lachman, 2014 ).

“Respect for human  dignity.”In this case we have two nurses who despite being compassionate and  maintaining a good relationship with the patient they disrespected her  privacy and did not pay heed to the need for confidentiality.

“Relationships with  patients” The nurses were friendly in nature but not individuals to help  build relationshipas they spoke indiscriminately about the patient in the  elevator while the patients daughter heard upon them. This led to the  relative getting anxious about the patient.

“Nature of  health.”In retrospect the nurses prior to being off from duty should have  ensured that the reports were delivered to the patients relatives. At the  same time they should have made sure that the Doctor in charge and the  surgeon had delivered the news of impending surgery and the worsening  condition of Mrs. Williams to the family.

“The right to  self-determination.”It was crucial after the results were out to ensure that  the discussion regarding the surgery and thereafter about what best next step  was possible for the patient and all pros and cons should have been well  discussed.

American Nurses  Association (ANA). (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive  statements. Silver Spring, MD: Author.

Lachman, V. D.,  Swanson, E. O. C., &Winland-Brown, J. (2014). The New ‘Code of Ethics for  Nurses with Interpretive

Statements’ (2015):  Practical Clinical Application, Part I.nursingworld.or/”>http://www.nursingworld.org

STATION 2 – Points Possible = 30

 Go to the City  Government building and locate the mayor. Click on him to get information  about aabout a federal hurricane disaster plan disaster plan. Answer these 3  questions: Where will this plan be used? Who will oversee the plan?Where was  it used most recently in 2013?Place your answers below and then continue to  the next page of the worksheet to complete Station 2.

ANSWER:

Good morning sir, I  am Dorinda looking for a few answers regarding your disaster management  program for a school scavenger hunt

1. Where will this  plan be used? Post Hurricane

2. And who will  oversee the plan? FEMA

3. Can you tell me  where has it been used in the past? Hurricane Sandy in 2013 is the most  successful illustration for this program.

STATION 2 – continued

 Take  picture/”selfie” with the mayor. To take a picture:choose your snapshot  camera icon from your left toolbar. Then click on Save to  Disk. Then from the highlighted  green dropdown barchoose 320 x  240and then click SAVE.  Remember to save the photograph to your desktop to easily locate it. Copy and  paste your photo in the box on the next page.

Step  1 Step 2 Step 3

STATION 2 – copy and paste your picture in this box

STATION 3 – Points Possible = 30

 Find the board room  in the Hospital Administration Building. Click on the CEO to receive  information on a new cardiac wing. Answer these two questions: Who is the  donor and what are the two next steps for hospital board project? Place your  answers below.

ANSWER:

Greetings Sir, My  Name is Dorinda and for a school project I need to gather data regarding the  Cardiac wings put in place by your institution?

1. May I ask who is  the Donor? The cardiac wing was created through anonymous donor.

2. What are the next  two steps for hospital board project? We hope to target next the opening of  the Cardiac Wing as the completion of the wing is due Jan 2017.

STATION 4 – Points Possible = 30

 Locate the Smartroom  in the Hospital/Urgent Care building. Find the patient sitting on the exam  table; complete hand washing prior to interacting with the patient.

You are now going to  assess the patient for newly diagnosed pre-hypertension. Your patient has  just had his blood pressure taken. Click on the blood pressure cuff to get  his blood pressure. What is your patient’s BP? Now click on your patient to  get answers to the following questions: What is your diet? How many times a  week do you exercise? Document your answers to ALL questions below.

ANSWER:

BP: 130/90

Hello, I am Dorinda  your nurse, I shall begin with checking your blood pressure followed by a  couple of questions in regards to your diet and exercise so as to help you  get it under control will that be fine with you?

1. What is your  diet? Due to pressure issues my diet is that of low sodium consumption.

2. How many times a  week do you exercise? Currently I work out three times a week which is  relatively higher than my regular schedule.

STATION 5 – Points Possible = 30

STATION 5 – Points Possible = 30

Go to the patient  room on the first floor of the Hospital/Urgent Care building. Observe the  patient in bed hooked up to an EKG.Click on EKGmachine and determine  whether the EKG findings is a normal or abnormal reading. If abnormal readingwho  and whatwould you do next? Place your answer below.

ANSWER: Greetings,  how are you today, I am your nurse Dorinda. I am going to go through your  vital signs today.

HR-111, BP 156/97,  SPO2 89

First readjust the  pulse ox and once again check for blood pressure, if reading remains the same  than put the patient on oxygen cannula to help them breathe as the oxygen  level in body is low(2LNC, at this time is what I would put it on), while  this takes place would call in my tech to run the EKG and apply IV. Draw  blood and get labs and check electrolytes and cardiac enzymes, stat, (along  with cultures,). This will be done keeping in mind the policy of the  hospital. I shall continue conversing with the patient find out issues  regarding pain, cardiac history and other chronic problems. To ask them  regarding their previous visit to their local doctor and medications that  they have been prescribed, and medications presently being taken. Lastly  would contact their Dr. In chargeand discuss if patient will be admitted to  hospital.

STATION 6 – Points Possible = 30

Go to City  Government Building. Find theinfectious disease department inPublic Health  Office.

Find the  representative who most likely would be in charge of any Zika virus outbreak  in the community.

Click on the  representative to get the web link to the CDC office providing oversight for  Zika.

Identify the correct  type of mosquito and list three symptoms indicating infection. What test is  required for diagnosis and what are the vaccine options? Place your answers  below.

ANSWER: Hi, I am  Dorinda, I need some information regarding Zika virus.

I would like to know  if there is a web link which talks about this virus in detail? Yes there is  follow the link below.cdc.gov/zika/index.html%20?”>http://www.cdc.gov/zika/index.html  ?

 1.What  is the type of mosquito that carries the Zika virus? Zika is spread through  the bite of infected Aedes species mosquito (Ae. aegypti and  Ae. albopictus).

2.What  are the three symptoms indicating infection? Red Rashes, high fever combined  with Joint pain.

3.What  test is required for diagnosis? The Zika virus can be confirmed through the  blood or urine test.

4.What  are the vaccine options? Currently there are no specific options available.

STATION 7 – Points Possible = 30

 Go to the Education  classroom in the Hospital Administration Building; Take photo standing beside  title slide only of PowerPoint presentation; Copy and paste your photo in the  worksheet.Choose your snapshot camera icon from your left toolbar. Then click  on Save  to Disk. Then from the highlighted  green dropdown barchoose 320 x  240and then click SAVE.  Remember to save the photograph to your desktop to easily locate it. Copy and  paste your photo in the box on the next page.

 Step  1 Step 2 Step 3

STATION 7 – copy and paste your photo below

TOTAL POINTS POSSIBLE = 200

 Remember to: Save  this worksheet as a MS Word document in the following format:

YourName_NR512_ScavengerHunt

Place it in the  Scavenger Hunt folder in the Drop Box in your course page by the end on Week  4 on Sunday at 11:59 pm MT.

 NR512 Week 5 HealthIT Hot Topic of the Week Assignment

 NR512

HealthIT Topic of Week Assignment

Guidelineswith Scoring Rubric

Purpose

This assignment is designed to help students

·         Develop an appreciation for informatics, basic skills and knowledge required in practice settings.Students will select a “hot” or popular topic of particular interest to their practice to discuss. The topic will be selected from the website using the link provided in the course Assignments section.

Course Outcomes

Through this assignment, the student will demonstrate the following ability.

(CO 6) Describe health information systems within healthcare setting and the profession of nursing in all practice domains and settings including electronic health records (EHR), their management and patient-care information technology (IT). (PO 4)

(CO 7) ExploretrendsandissuesinNIandtheirimpactonnursingpracticeinall domains.(POs9,11)

Due Date:Sunday 11:59 p.m. MT at the end of Week 5.

Total Points Possible: 125

Requirements

Students will login to FierceEMR and FierceHealthIT using the link provided in the course Assignments and select a “current/popular” topic of the week that may impact their practice. Students, in a professionally developed paper, will discuss the rationale for choosing the topic, how it will impact practice in a positive or negative manner, citing pros and cons. Include a discussion of how informatics skills and knowledge were used in the process relevance to developing the assignment. In the conclusion, provide recommendations for the future. Submit completed FierceHealthIT Topic paper for Wk. 5 to dropbox by end of Week 5.

Preparing the paper

1.     1. TheFierceEMR and FierceHealthITCurrent/Popular Topic of the Week assignmentmust be a professional, scholarly prepared paper. See the guidelines for writing a professional, scholarly paper in the Course Resources. The professional paper will have an introduction, body of paper to explain what you are doing, summary/conclusion, and at least three scholarly references.

2.     2. Required texts may be used as references, but a minimum of three sources must be from outside of course readings.

3.     3. All aspects of the paper must be in APA format as expressed in the 6th edition.

4.     4. The paper (excluding the title page, introduction and reference page) is 4-6 pages in length.

5.     5. Ideas and information from professional sources must be cited correctly.

6.     6. Grammar, spelling, punctuation, and citations are consistent with formal academic writing

  NR512 Week 6 Narrated PowerPoint Presentation Assignment

 PowerPoint Presentation (PPT) Assignment

Guidelineswith Scoring Rubric

Purpose

This assignment is designed to help students

·         Develop an appreciation for informatics, basic skills and knowledge required in practice settings.Students selected a popular topic of particular interest to their practice to discuss in week 5. This week student will develop a narrated slide PowerPoint (PPT) presentation of 8-10 slides summarizing the assignment.

·         Refer to the PowerPoint sample template in Course Resources.

Course Outcomes

Through this assignment, the student will demonstrate the following ability.

(CO 6) Describe health information systems within healthcare setting and the profession of nursing in all practice domains and settings including electronic health records (EHR), their management and patient-care information technology (IT). (PO 4)

(CO 7) ExploretrendsandissuesinNIandtheirimpactonnursingpracticeinall domains.(POs9,11)

Due Date:Sunday 11:59 p.m. MT at the end of Week 6.

Total Points Possible: 150

Requirements

The FierceEMR and FierceHealthIT topics of the week assignment for week 5 will be summarized in 8-10narratedslides for week 6. Studentswillsummarize the rationale for choosing the topic, how it will impact practice in a positive or negative manner, including pros and cons. Include discussion of how informatics skills and knowledge were applied in the process relevance to developing the assignment. In the conclusion, provide recommendations for the future. Submit completed FierceHealthIT Hot Topic narrated PPTassignment to dropbox by end of Week 6.

Preparing the Presentation

1.TheFierceEMR and FierceHealthIT Topic of the Week is a recap of the assignment from Wk.5 andmust be a professional, scholarly prepared PowerPoint narrated presentation of 8-10 Including at least three scholarly references.

2.You should have at least 8-10 slides. It is important to note that if you could not give your presentation and someone would have to stand in for you, he or she would need to know what you were going to say. Use the speaker-notes section so that someone may step in for you and not miss a beat.

3.Maintain the 6x6x6 rule for a professional PowerPoint presentation. No more than 6 lines per slide, 6 words per line, and 6 slides without a graphic.

4.All aspects of the presentation must be in APA format as expressed in the 6th edition.

5.     5. Ideas and information from professional sources must be cited correctly.

6.     6. Grammar, spelling, punctuation, and citations are consistent with formal academic writing.

  NR512 Week 2 Informatics Key Terms Quiz

 Question 1. Question :

(TCO 1) Match the Informatics Key terms with their definition.

3

: Wisdom » 3 : Knowledge applied in a practical manner

2

: Cognitive science » 1 : Foundational science for informatics that looks at how the human mind works

5

: Electronic health record » 5 : Longitudinal record of one’s health and treatment interventions

7

: National Health Information Infrastructure » 7 : An initiative to improve healthcare quality, efficiency, and effectiveness by making healthcare information available when and where it is needed through technology, standards, interoperability, governance, and cooperation

1

: Cognitive informatics » 2 : Emerging field of study that focuses upon how information is processed both in the human mind and the computer

6

: Information science » 6 : Foundational science for informatics that looks at the application and use of information and knowledge in organizations and the interface between people, organizations, and information systems

4

: Artificial intelligence » 4 : Field or application that attempts to capture human thought processes and intelligence

Question 2. Question :

(TCO 1) Match the Informatics Key terms with their definition.

2

: Electronic medical record » 2 : An online record of treatment, typically limited to one episode, whether that might be an emergency room or clinic visit or a hospital stay

7

: Knowledge work » 7 : Process that generates information and knowledge as a product

3

: Health information exchange » 3 : The process of electronic transmission or sharing of healthcare information or an organization that organizes and oversees the transmission process

6

: Information system » 6 : The people, data, actions, and components used to create information for a user or organization

4

: Knowledge » 4 : Processed information which places relationships in context

5

: Data » 5 : Raw fact without meaning in itself

1

: Computer science » 1 : Foundational science for informatics that looks at the theory underlying information and computation and their implementation in computer systems

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New Post has been published on The Maier Files

New Post has been published on http://the.maier-files.com/the-philosophers-stone-appeared-in-de-nederlanden/

The Philosopher’s Stone appeared in de Nederlanden

At the present time, our materialistic science derides alchemists as misplaced mystics who pursued a dream of finding a chemical compound that might transform base metals into gold. Indeed, they recognize that much scientific breakthrough was achieved through these pursuits, but they throw out out the goal of the alchemists as simply a fanciful or impossible plan and fantasy. However, there exist fascinating incidents, a few so deeply curious that the mind can barely cope with the outcomes, and they are instantly thrown away as far too fantastic for serious consideration. Let’s recount some of them here so that the reader who is unfamiliar with the literary works might be sufficiently intrigued to do research on his/her own.

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But first, a quick discussion of the “Philosopher’s Stone”. This is the quest of the Alchemist; a fabled material which could not just transmute metals into gold, but might cure any specific disease, banish all sickness from a person’s life, and award a prolonged lifespan, if not immortality, on the body. At least, that is how it is depicted. That may or may not be a “cover story”.

In an anonymous 17th Century alchemical text, The Sophic Hydrolith, this process is described as “purging the mineral of all that is thick, nebulous, opaque and dark”, and what would be left would be a mercurial “water of the Sun”, which had a pleasant, penetrating odor, and was very volatile.

  Portion of this fluid is set aside, and the remainder is then blended with a twelfth of its weight of “the divinely endowed body of gold”, (regular gold won’t perform because it is defiled by every day use). This mix then forms a strong amalgam that is heated for a week. It is then dissolved in some of the mercurial water in an egg-shaped urn. After that, the leftover mercurial water is added slowly, in seven portions; the urn is sealed, and held at such a temperature as will hatch an egg. After forty days, the urn’s ingredients is going to be black colored; after seven additional days compact grainy bodies similar to fish eyes ought to appear.

After that the “Philosopher’s Stone” starts to make its physical appearance: first reddish in color; then white, green and yellow like a peacock’s tail and then stunning white-colored; and afterwards an intense glowing red. Finally, “the revivified body is quickened, improved and glorified” and is found in a ravishing purple. This as well as some similarly difficult to understand and weird appearing scripts are the bulk of Alchemical Literature. Maybe these texts were a code, and we must persist in reading many texts of this kind and searching for clues there and in the stories of the alchemists themselves. Now when you read the anecdotes about so-called Alchemists, something very mysterious is going on …

For instance: In 1666, Johann Friedrich Schweitzer, physician to the Prince of Orange, writes of having been visited by a stranger who was “of a mean stature, a little long face, with a few small pock holes, and most black hair, not at all curled, a beardless chin, about three or four and forty years of age (as I guessed), and born in the northern part of the Netherlands.”

Before finnishing the story, it must be highlighted that Dr. Schweitzer, who was the author of a number of medical and botanical books, was a cautious and also objective observer and was an associate of the philosopher, Baruch Spinoza. Schweitzer was a skilled scientific observer;a respected medical man, and not given to frauds or even practical jokes. However, his story is, in modern comprehending, impossible.

  Now, what happened was that the stranger made small talk for awhile and then, more or less out of the blue, asked Dr. Schweitzer whether or not he would recognize the “Philosopher’s Stone” if he saw it. He then took out of his pocket a little ivory container that held “three ponderous bits or small lumps … each about the size of a small walnut, transparent, of a pale brimstone colour.

  The stranger informed Schweitzer that this was the very substance hunted for such a long time by the Alchemists. Schweitzer held one of the bits in his hand and questioned the stranger if perhaps he might have just a tiny part. The man rejected, but Schweitzer was able to steal a tiny bit by scraping it with his fingernail. The visitor left after ensuring to come back in three weeks time to show Dr. Schweitzer certain “curious arts in the fire”. Well, the instant he was gone, Dr. Schweitzer ran to his laboratory where he melted some lead in a crucible and added the small piece of stone. But, the metal failed to transform into gold as he expected. Instead, “almost the entire bulk of lead flew away, and the rest transformed into a mere glassy earth. Three weeks later, the mysterious stranger was at his door once again. They conversed, and for quite a while the man refused to allow Dr. Schweitzer to observe his stones again, yet, finally Schweitzer said “he gave me a crumb as big as a rape or turnip seed, saying, receive this small parcel of the greatest treasure of the world, which truly few kings or princes have ever known or seen”.

  Schweitzer must have been a real complainer and crybaby because he recounts that he protested that this was not sufficient to transmute as much as 4 grains of lead into gold. At this, the stranger took the piece back, cut it in half, and casted one part in the fire, saying: “it is yet sufficient for thee!” At this point, Schweitzer confessed his theft from the previous visit, and described how the substance had behaved with his molten lead. The stranger began to laugh and told him, “Thou are more sly to commit theft than to apply thy medicine; for if thou hadst only wrapped up thy stolen prey in yellow wax, to preserve it from the arising fumes of lead, it would have penetrated to the bottom of the lead, and transmuted it to gold.” The guy leaves at this point and promises to return the next morning to show Schweitzer the correct way to perfom the transmutation but, the next day he came not, nor ever since.

Schweitzer recounts:

Only he sent an excuse at half an hour past nine that morning, by reason of his great business, and promised to come at three in the afternoon, but never came, nor have I heard of him since; whereupon I began to doubt of the whole matter. Nevertheless late that night my wife… came soliciting and vexing me to make experiment… saying to me, unless this be done, I shall have no rest nor sleep all this night… She being so earnest, I commanded a fire to be made – thinking, alas, now is this man (though so divine in discourse) found guilty of falsehood… My wife wrapped the said matter in wax, and I cut half an ounce of six drams of old lead, and put into a crucible in the fire, which being melted, my wife put in the said Medicine made up in a small pill, which presently made such a hissing and bubbling in its perfect operation, that within a quarter of an hour all the mass of lead was transmuted into the … finest gold.

  Baruch Spinoza, who lived  close by, came the following day to examine this gold and was persuaded that Schweitzer was telling the truth. The Assay Master (officer who assays or tests gold or silver coin or bullion) of the province, a Mr. Porelius, analyzed the metal and pronounced it authentic; and Mr. Buectel, the silversmith, subjected it to additional test that confirmed that it was gold. The testimony of those men survives to this day.  Hence, either they all are lying, or Dr. Schweitzer really did have a strange experience precisely as he describes it. The fascinating thing is that other people have described comparable visitations by strange men who proclaim to them the truth of the alchemical process, demonstrate it, and then mysteriously disappear. It has happened sufficiently often, in widely enough separated places and times to suggest that it is not a collusive fraud nor a delusion.

Twenty years earlier, the Flemish chemist, physiologist, and physician,  Jan Baptiste van Helmont, who was responsible for several important scientific discoveries, and was the first man to realize that there were other gases than air; and who invented the term “gas”, wrote: For truly I have divers times seen it (The Philosopher’s Stone), and handled it with my hands, but it was of colour such as is in Saffron in its powder, yet weighty, and shining like unto powdered glass. There was once given unto me one fourth part of one grain [16 milligrams]… I projected [it] upon eighty ounces (227 grams) of mercury made hot in a crucible; and straightaway all the quicksilver, with a certain degree of noise, stood still from flowing, and being congealed, settled like unto a yellow lump; but after pouring it out, the bellows blowing, there were found eight ounces and a little less than eleven grains of the purest gold. Sir Isaac Newton studied alchemy until his death, remaining convinced that the possiblity of transmutation existed. The great philosophers and mathematicians, Descartes and Leibnitz, both were convinced that transmutation was a reality. Even Robert Boyle who wrote a book entitled The Sceptical Chymist, was sure until the end of his life, that transmutation was possible … Weird or what?

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