#Cluster sampling steps

[marketxcel]

Cluster Sampling: Types, Advantages, Limitations, and Examples

Explore the various types, advantages, limitations, and real-world examples of cluster sampling in our informative blog. Learn how this sampling method can help researchers gather data efficiently and effectively for insightful analysis.

[honeysickledream]

Stellate (sex pollen) | Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish x F!Scientist!Reader

NSFW (minors + ageless blogs DNI) CW for dubcon / dubious consent, sex pollen, fuck or die (possibly?), oral (f!receiving), fingering (f!receiving), squirting, panty stealing, dead dove do not eat [if i missed anything, lmk please!] w/c: ~1.3k a/n: I needed more sex pollen fics in my life so I tried my best to fulfill that need—now i’m gonna see if I can get some work done now, byeeee [edited: this was my first attempt at smut in ages, sorry if it's rough]

You and Soap had been tasked with receiving samples of a plant from a remote enemy research facility that had been reported abandoned. Soap was to act as your bodyguard in case the intel was faulty and a few enemies, or traps, remained while you collected the samples that the head researchers from your lab needed. You accepted the mission, you had no choice but to, and didn’t fuss about Soap’s talkative presence on the journey to the facility. His stories were funny and almost as charming as his blue eyes, and the sense of security he gave you was welcoming.

The intel had been accurate: the research outpost was abandoned, and based on appearances, it had been a hasty abandonment. Partially full gas cans sat beside trucks that had been haphazardly loaded with various crates. In the offices, personal items remained littered on the desktops. The floors of the general labs were stained with various chemicals, research notes and glass from beakers and full titration sets scattered across the floor. Soap pressed forward to the hydroponic labs and you followed him nervously, keeping six feet between you just in case something went wrong ahead.

The hydroponics lab was dimly lit with a faint haze that hung dimly in the air. Florescent tubes flickered randomly behind the glass covers. State-of-the-art hydroponic tables stood in perfectly measured rows with clusters of leafy plants in wide, black plastic pots. The flowers that bloomed in clusters on top were beautiful: stellate petals colored lilac, slashed with a deep orange down the center.

You got to work as quickly as you could, gloving your hands and laying out your equipment on the empty space beside your chosen plant. With a steady hand, you gently plucked a few petals with a pair of long tweezers, placing each one into its own marked specimen pouch. You collected a few leaves, noting that the margins were dentate. You snipped one of the stamens, being sure to not jostle it too much as you lowered into a pouch.

The plant…shuddered when you looked back at it in preparation to swipe a sample of the stigma. You gave the plant a long, hard look. It had shuddered, you knew it had, yet there had been no breeze, and Soap was across the lab doing his own thing. There was no evidence that something was alive in the lab, either: no cocoons or webs, droppings or bite marks on any of the leaves you’d looked at. You pressed the cotton tip of the swab to the stigma and twisted it once for your sample.

It moved again and you took a step back, calling out for Soap. The flowers turned to you—actually turned—and a faintly pink substance sputtered from the stigmas and into your face. A short coughing fit overcame you as your lungs started to burn, your eyes watering and clouding over with a pink haze.

Panic bloomed in your heart and the blood in your veins shot cold before a wave of painful heat slithered through your veins and settled into your bones. Your heartbeat became erratic as whatever compound in the flower’s pollen mixed with the chemical components in your brain, which was no doubt accelerated by your panic.

Soap’s voice, muffled by the faint ringing that had settled in your ears, partially registered in your mind and you looked toward him. His broad form was vaguely recognizable through the pink haze over your eyes. A painful throbbing perfectly in time with your heartbeat settled between your legs as he fussed over your pollen-covered face with a dampened rag. Need. God, you needed something. Him, that’s what you needed.

The little logical voice in your head was long gone, silence by another voice. Its eerie whispers filled every nook and cranny of your mind as it planted image after image of Soap fucking you in every position you’d read about and watched on those lonely nights that had become far too frequent. You fisted the straps of his tactical vest, pulling him closer. “Help,” you panted. You grabbed his hand to guide it between your thighs. He froze and blasphemed under his breath as he felt how wet you were through your slacks. “Help me, please. Do something!” His fingers crooked against your clothed cunt. “Evac’ll be here soon,” he rasped.

Your head shook ‘No’ quickly. “Not soon enough. You gotta help me now!”

“Lass—“

“Please,” you sobbed. “I need it—I want it!”

His hands settled on your hips as he shushed you. He walked you back to the edge of the edge of the hydroponic bench. You’re pressed into the edge and then you were on your back, your slacks and underwear yanked down and tossed aside. Your legs were thrown over his shoulders as he knelt on the concrete floor. His rough thumb worked quickly against your throbbing clit while his tongue moved against your leaking slit. Your hips bucked, pathetic whimpers and breathy moans falling from your lips. All the heat in your veins suddenly moved towards your belly, coiling tighter and tighter. It wasn’t enough all of a sudden. You begged for more as you carded your fingers through his hair and pressed his face harder against you. His hold on you shifted, his tongue replacing his thumb against your clit as his slowly pressed his middle finger into you. A dizzying mix of praise laced with fond degradation was panted against your clit as you clenched around his finger that crooked against that spot that made you see stars behind your eyelids, that spot very few men you’d been with cared to focus on. His ring finger slipped into you and his pace quickened. The stimulation, the stretch, those filthy sweet words he panted against you was quickly becoming your undoing. The coiled tension that sat low in your belly tightened suddenly. You tried to warn him that you were about to cum but all that came from your mouth was a sharp gasp as you gushed around his fingers. You whined when he pulled his fingers from you as he stood. The fog in your mind had begun to dissipate quickly. That eerie voice that told you all the ways you needed Soap had been silenced, you vision cleared of the pink haze. Soap placed your slacks beside you as he licked his lips and fingers clean of you. That image was going to stay with you for the rest of your life, not that you minded. His radio crackled to life, announcing the arrival of the evac and quarantine team. You He carefully slid your specimen pouches and tools into your satchel while you shakily pulled on your slacks— “Where’s…my underwear?” you asked. Soap shrugged and turned on his heels to make his way out of the lab. Your eyes caught the bunch of familiar black fabric sticking out of his back pocket when you call into line behind you. You didn’t mention it. Not after he cured you of whatever that pollen did to you. He deserved a little reward for all his help. You took in a sharp breath as you exited the building. The air was crisp, cool. Soap nudged your side and you looked to your left. A small team of contamination personnel worked to set up their screening tent and laid out PPE for your return to base. “We’re gonna be in quarantine for a while,” you told him. You felt his eyes drift to you, and out of the corner of your eye you noticed him smirk. “Aye. Reckon it’ll be together?” “Hm…Possibly.” “Quarantine can be borin’.” Your lips pursed as you try not to grin. You fail. “That it can. Got some ideas to keep the boredom at bay?” He snorted. “Aye, plenty.”

[lexydakitten]

rot rot rot rot ... this particular kind infests the grounds of my iterator oc one step ahead / osa, and inevitably him as well. time for me to ramble yayy yayy

meant to post this earlier i just was fussing over names. i have concluded that the colloquial name for all these together is inflorescence longlegs because that means that i still get to use the acronym ILL and thats cool i thinks. proto-rot is creeping longlegs, then in order of size smallest to largest is sprout longlegs, flowering longlegs, and wilting longlegs. they're a sort of mutated vine, one which was pretty common on osa's grounds, but he got just a Little screwed over by astronomically low odds. vine turned into rot naturally as certain background environmental conditions on his grounds make that something that happens from time to time (in more than just vines - any organism). the atypical and astronomically low odds part comes from the fact that it did not resolve itself, because when this occurs on his grounds it's usually such a small sample produced that quickly dies or is otherwise destroyed. in this case, by the time it becomes noticeable to him, it's already grown too quickly to be easily fixed.

because of it occurring naturally, a lot of properties and behaviors are retained from what it was originally. this is mostly because it's scarier that way and i made osa for me to project my nightmares onto👍

for visual - osa's grounds are mostly a tight thicket of bushes and shrubs that are adapted to a higher latitude environment. the thicket provided a fair amount of shelter for the ILLs until the infestation had a sizeable population. a common behavior seen in all ILL specimens, proto or not, is that they try to climb up other plants as they infest them, something retained from being a vine. additionally, when they have infested a significant amount of one shrub, they will start trying to spread to find another by growing on the ground in arches (top right) which is another thing based off of certain vines. they're green because they also can still photosynthesize, though because of high energy needs this is only sustainable for smaller specimens and really only means they can survive longer in a starving state. also, they're very thorny, which makes mobile cysts move slower, and they typically prefer not to move much anyways aside from the wilting longlegs. because they originate from a plant, they're all weaker physically, i think a sprout longlegs you could probably spear to death very easily in one cycle if you had enough spears to expend, and none of them are explosive resistant. fighting any of them with explosives in a particularly large thicket of rot though (or a wilting long legs) is something i would not advise though ;3c.

while slls are parallel to blls, flls to dlls, etc, there's a few distinctions worth making. sprout longlegs and flowering longlegs are very small, with sprout longlegs being probably roughly a bit larger than the size of a squidcada and flowering longlegs being the size of blls or a small dll. wilting longlegs are dll/tll sized. flowering longlegs don't break down into sprout longlegs when starving either (though a wilting longlegs may break down into a group of flowering longlegs), and they occur differently. sprout longlegs are commonly found outside of or on the edge of rot thickets and are common in clusters, as they are all cysts that were broken off the main patches by rain, and very few became mobile through normal means. sprout longlegs are though, like blls, completely senseless, and they don't pose a significant threat - i like to imagine they do have a tendency to fall when they start moving as they have the least amount of thorns though, so the majority of their threat comes from falling from above. flowering longlegs occur via normal means, just cysts that became mobile. they have the ability to hear, and in particularly heavy thickets of creeping longlegs they can also have what is effectively telepathy. think orange lizard. wilting longlegs are similar to flowering longlegs here, they're just much much larger cysts that became mobile, in some instances they may even be cysts that have completely consumed a shrub or bush and then became mobile, hence their size.

wilting longlegs.. :3. they can hear, and regardless of where they are, they're large enough to exhibit telepathy towards each other. wilting longlegs are the most aggressive as their ability to photosynthesize is entirely unsustainable for them - a sprout longlegs will last fine consuming things minimally, a flowering longlegs can last though will eventually start starving, wilting longlegs MUST consume however. their size and energy need is too costly and they're practically always on the edge of a starving state. an additional ability is that their toxicity is extremely concentrated - all ILLs produce toxins, as the vine they originate from did. in most instances, it only becomes a significant threat when consuming them. sprout longlegs are a similar effect to the ingame mushroom effects, flowering longlegs would be similar to the effects hunter experiences when rotting. wilting longlegs, due to their size, produce it the most, and it becomes dangerous to creatures that are grabbed by them. because they are covered in it, even if the creature breaks free, they will experience effects of the toxin shortly after. it's not life-threatening, but it would cause temporary immobility, like spitter spider spit does, alongside the psychoactive effects. wilting longlegs are escapable, but they present a greater hazard than a tll does.

said effects also apply to iterators. which osa learns pretty hard. because he can't ever find a fix to the issue, and his group members become too scared to put effort into helping him, he ends up having to deal with it alone. and the infestation reaches him initially through his intake system, but he can flush it out to prevent it from taking hold. it still damages his systems when it does get in, in very small amounts, and the damages accumulate until there's nothing he can do about it getting in. as more and more rot grows and damages him, he also becomes poisoned by it, and suffers from that as well. and the entire time he's terrified of it, even before it starts reaching him, that combined with the negligence of his group members is why he's a vicious jerk. not evil but he isn't in his right mind from the pressure of how terrifying his situation is from his perspective + inevitably becoming sick too. he was pretty unremarkable before, especially considering he's the oldest one in his group - i'd say senior but i'm still not sure if that's a fanon thing or not? i dont wanna accidentally take someone else's ideas by referring to him as that lol

but. i figured i'd make this as a reference and then also as an excuse to ramble about my nightmares goober🙌yay. it didnt make sense to not have significant depth to the nightmare-inspired parts so i fixed it :3

nvm just remembered the thing i forgot to put. also while their starving colors are not shown here, they shift into a more autumnal/stressed set of colors and become significantly lighter and more desaturated as well. wilting longlegs are the ones you'd find with these colors most often and they're already somewhat adjacent to it. just cuz i think it's cool

[sergeifyodorov]

POLL RESULTS JUST DROPPED!!

My hockeyblr experiences are largely catered to my own personal tastes -- mostly Leafs, a little Penguins and Stars, one or two who post about Stevie Y and Sergei Fedorov. These are obviously not the only teams out there.

This study was designed to survey as much of hockeyblr as it possibly could, gathering data on which teams people like and to what degrees. There were five questions and a free space -- my attempt to ask people to rank the teams they enjoyed in three levels, from religiously followed to casually affectionate, and an additional couple of questions on love for players versus team. I received over 500 responses. Here are the results.

Yeah, yeah, you all want to know: The most popular team is the Penguins, by a long shot, then the Leafs.

Because my sample size (n = 523) is actually fairly small compared to the number of NHL teams there are, I find definitive rankings tend to be difficult. It’s also worth noting that, as a mainly Leafs blog, my numbers are definitely going to be skewed a little in favour of the Leafs.

Your Guys

These are the teams closest to your heart: the ship you go down with, metaphorically or, depending on how married your old men are, literally. For me, I picked just the Leafs.

The average respondent had 1.9 teams in this category. The most popular, by far, was the Pittsburgh Penguins. Below is a table of teams, arranged roughly into tiers by the number of respondents. Each team has the number of respondents in brackets next to their three-letter code.

I allowed people to pick as many teams as they would like; the average person picked 1.9 teams, but here’s a distribution of how many teams they picked:

4 people picked 0 “your guys” teams, and 2 people picked seven, nine, or ten each teams. Just about half of people had one main team.

I then wondered: what teams were people most likely to only follow? That is, if you hold [x] team in the closest part of your heart, are you more or less likely to also hold any other teams? Almost exactly 25% of picks were solo; I wondered if there was any correlation at all.

Only a little bit! Of the samples large enough to actually consider (so: nothing in that cluster at the bottom left, who all received fewer than 10 picks total, and a few of whom -- CGY, CHI, NSH -- received zero solo pickers), the most devoted fans chose the Sharks, the Bruins, and the Leafs. The fans who liked the most other teams chose the Avs, the Kraken, the Canucks, Panthers, Sens, and Ducks.

Probably a next step would be to look for correlations: if people are a fan of one team, are they more likely to be fans of another? THAT BEING SAID that’s a lot of regressions. Maybe keep an eye on that for the future, but I don’t know!!

Objects of Enjoyment, and Generally Nice

These two were successive tiers meant to distinguish teams that people like from the ones in the category above. I admit I probably could have phrased the questions better; I received several comments saying that they’d watch any hockey when they wanted to put a game on. The dynamics between Your Guys versus Objects of Enjoyment versus Generally Nice would best be described as devoted fan of versus casual fan of versus favourable opinion towards. 

As I said a few paragraphs back, people picked 1.9 “devoted fan” teams on average. Again on average, they picked 4.7 “casual fan” teams and 6.5 “favourable opinion” teams. Not all ratios are equal, though! Some teams had significantly more casual than devoted fans, and others still were much more liked generally than average.

I gave each team’s “devoted” count an index number of 1 and measured their casual and favourable count as a ratio against the index number. The teams assembled themselves into a few groups.

No Commitment

Arizona and Anaheim have decided to be soulbonded (Excel refuses to let them have different-coloured dots) and it took me three hundred million years to attempt to (and unsuccessfully) fix, so let’s ignore that. These teams all have a fairly high slope of interest -- a range of casual interest at about five times the pace of fervent interest, and good opinion at about ten times fervent interest. The Calgary Flames are an outlier on the entire graph, not just here. 

Casual Interest

I gave up on trying to colour teams according to their real colours shortly after the Anaheim/Arizona debacle. Please employ the legend. Nashville is included on all five graphs for reference. These teams all have a casual interest factor of about 3, and a favourable opinion factor of around 5; the same ratio as the casual fans of the teams in the first category to their fervent fans.

Saturated Market

These teams have a much lower ratio of hardcore:casual:favourable fans, at about 1:2:3. 

We Get It, Those Are Your Guys

Pittsburgh and Toronto; these teams have an almost equal ratio of all three categories.

...Whatever This Is

Every other category is defined by its ratios; this category is defined by its shape. While all teams have their rate of hardcore fandom set as 1, the other two tend to increase in a roughly linear form, without too much significant difference between the first interval and the second interval.

These teams, though (again, Nashville is for scale) don’t do that: they have a set increase between hardcore and casual, and a significantly smaller increase (or, in a couple cases, a decrease) between casual and favourable. This suggests perhaps some kind of divisiveness; if you’re not already in there, do you really want to get in further? Either that, or it’s something closer to what the Leafs and Penguins have: that is, a devotion. Like you’re in or you’re out.

Taking these values together

Because the casual:hardcore ratios are measured as indexes and not absolute values, they say nothing about the actual popularity of the team in question -- Calgary is one of the least popular, which is why I assume it’s so weirdly high up; small sample sizes lead to higher error values!

But we do have the absolute values, so we can measure them against each other.

If we consider the “In or Out” to be a category of its own while the other four are along more of a continuum, then we can absolutely see a correlation here -- larger fandoms tend to have more involved fanbases.

Players or Teams?

I also asked participants if their guys tended to be players or teams -- and if those they liked at a more casual level tended to be players or teams.

The results are… not particularly surprising.

On a hardcore level, people tended to prefer teams, although the variability was pretty slight. On a casual level, individual players were much more popular.

I also wondered if people who chose more teams in the hardcore fan question tended to do that because they prefer players.

On average, people who picked players on their hardcore level chose 2.1 teams. People who picked teams chose 1.7 teams. That’s definitely a difference!

Fun Shtuff

I got way more write-in responses on the hardcore player/team question than on the casual question, including this:

Three separate people answered “Minnesota Wild” for their guys and chose no other teams on any level. Hell yes. (One person also did this for the Kings.)

It took about 300 responses before the first Flames fan (at the hardcore level.)

On all three levels, the Seattle Kraken are really popular -- they’re in the top five in each.

What's Next?

If I were to update this survey, I would probably include a question about where all of you are from -- some people (like me) follow their hometown team, while some people most certainly don't (shoutout to the one person from Edmonton who dislikes the Oilers) and others still don't have a hometown team (shoutout to my brasilian + european + etc mutuals and everyone else!!)

Feel free to shoot me an ask if you want me to do anything else with this data -- examine a specific team, give actual casual fan/etc counts and total aggregate rankings, anything else!

[roseamongroses]

eggheads | en

Shuri/Riri Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Summer Camp Teacher!Riri, Auntie! Riri, Auntie! Shuri, Plot Device Rainstorm, Sexual Content, Missed Connections, Riri Williams is a Hot Mess, Shuri's into it

Summary: Sometimes smart people can be a little dumb when it comes to matters of love.

-

Shuri picks up her nephew from summer camp and meets his rather interesting teacher. Sparks fly--or at least they could, but it'll take a little more effort for them to get to the first date.

ao3

“Science camp?” Shuri repeated outloud, baffled—floored—befuddled even.

She swung her carry-on over her shoulder, her wide, glossy sunglasses sliding into place as she stepped outside the airport, “You paid…American dollars... to send my nephew—my cherished blood— to an…" she tasted the words on her tounge, disgust plain, "American, science summer camp? You could have sent him home for free. Is he being punished?”

Nakia’s holograph flickered over the left lens of Shuri’s sunglasses, “Not at all,” she said with a light-hearted chuckle, “You must understand, he practically begged to go. He wants to be like his auntie,” she teased, eyebrows raising pointedly, “Every kid his age apparently goes there for the summer, so I thought it’d be a good experience.”

And at that—Shuri’s heart warmed a smidge with smug satisfaction, “What does he even do there?” she asked, signaling her driver.

“Well, last week they learned about rock formations and visited a river to collect samples. This week they’re learning about circuits and— ” Nakia paused, squinting a bit, lips pursed as she thought, “He wants to show you himself, so I can’t spoil all the fun.”

“Bah--keep your secrets then,” Shuri said, popping the trunk to her car and throwing her suitcase in without a second glance. She accepted the keys from the driver, passing back a sizable tip in return, “What’s the address again?”

-

Miles away there was a little brick building across from the East Shore Public Library. It was a community center that had seen better years, but it wasn’t any less lively. Rainbow paper-chains threaded through the metal chain-link fences, green cups peppering the front window sills that were filled with budding sprouts, and a faded mural of stars and planets spanned the wall facing the street.

Several kids burst out of the front doors, capes tied around their shoulders as they clambered after one another. They all sprinted towards the jungle-gym out back--an adventure has begun it seems.

Inside, chipped, sickly-yellow walls were littered with peeling flyers. The words were bright, demanding you remember that--and dream for this--and volunteer for that. Little heads slouched along one wall, dark eyes staring ahead--the lot scowling, pouting, and grumbling as they waited to be freed from time out.

A line of colorful doors dotted down the hallway. Inside each classroom there were equally colorful tables, chairs, and walls. The kids clustered around each one--voices overlapping like a chirping nest of birds, grubby fingers reaching for the many tools and materials sprawled across the surface of their respective table. Scissors, wire, little light-bulbs and batteries--they all fought for their weapons of choice.

Their teacher moved about the classroom with ease. She stood tall--which wasn’t saying much, but she stood tall enough. Her grown-out, auburn braids were gathered in a messy bun, sitting crooked at the top of her head. She wore a long, cargo skirt that dragged behind, the sound of her beat-up work boots catching your ear long before you saw her face. The kids dutifully worked on the project, following her instructions.

Well…most of the kids did.

Toussaint stared at the scattered pieces in front of him. Clunky, disconnected--looking nothing like the cartoon diagram. He frowned, mouth shrinking into his face, hands crumpling the instructions as his frustration grew. It tickled his throat and clogged his breath.

“I…don’t get it,” he mumbled to himself, lip wobbling a bit.

What was he doing wrong?

Everyone else understood the instructions just fine. Little lights flickering on one-by-one, each one leaving him behind.

“But it's so easy? I’m done--” Demitrius boasted next to him.

He was a boy who was more afro than face. He had been doodling on the paper and table for most of the time, his project hastily put together long-before they even got instructions. It looked equally wrong and was covered in pudding--gross.

Across the table, the only girl at the table was slumped over, snoring away. Lunella had spent a total of five minutes putting together her project with little difficulty. She didn’t follow the instructions at all. There were parts moving, blinking, and whirring away--most of which she had grabbed from her bag.

She was most likely closer to being a scientist then any of them--then him.

Toussaint flinched at the realization, blinking rapidly as those little drops flowed.

He stared at the paper--it started right back.

Why didn’t it make any sense? Why couldn’t he do something so simple--

Looking up again, Demitrius did a double take, crayon falling as panic flashed across his face. His hand shot up, waving a bit, “Uh…Titi?” he called out, eyes darting around the classroom.

Riri let out a long, drawn out sigh, pinching her nose, “No, lil-man you cannot eat the wires. I done told you this--” she turned around, face falling.

No matter how long she's done this--she could never get used to the face of a crying child.

Toussaint sniffled quietly, tears running hot down his cheeks. They fell onto the instructions, blotting out the words like scattered shadows-- his hands shaking. He didn’t hear the footsteps nor the dragging skirt. He doesn’t know when, but he blinked and the sickly, yellow walls of the hallway were around him.

Riri crouched in front of the child--speaking low and unhurried.

Toussaint didn’t catch a word of what she said, but he pretended to hear. He wiped his nose, “...I’m okay,” he said, voice small--easily swallowed by the noise of the classroom and hallway, “I’m okay, I promise,” he repeated, hoping she’d believe him. Hoping she wouldn’t bring it up to his mom--she was busy enough. He didn’t want to worry her because he was being stupid. At that thought, he let out another choked up sob.

“Hey-hey, hey, I believe you,” Riri reassured softly, nodding as she wiped his face, “We’re jus’ gonna chill for a bit, that’s all.”

Toussaint nodded, sniffling as he blinked back the remaining tears.

After a while they finally returned to the classroom.

Miss Riri eyed the remains of his project curiously for a moment.

Toussaint fidgeted in his chair, looking off, embarrassed, but by the time he looked back--the light was blinking. It didn’t even look all that different from how he had it before and yet it worked.

Bright eyed, Toussaint looked up, “You fixed it,” he said, awed, prodding the project carefully.

“There wasn’t much to fix,” Riri said with a small smile, pointing to the two wires--purple and orange--he had unintentionally crossed, “You were on the right track, you just got a little mixed up.”

Demitrius nodded along, afro bobbing with the movement, “Of course she fixed it, my Titi’s the smartest in the world” he boasted, flashing a toothy grin.

Miss Riri snorted, ruffling his hair, “Well I guess I-”

At that, Toussaint’s nose scrunched up, “She’s not the smartest,” he said, matter of fact.

Demitrius scowled, head whipping around, “Yes she is-”

“No she isn’t-” Toussaint huffed, eyes narrowing as his chin raised, no lingering tears to be seen, “My Tati is the smartest.”

“No my T--”

“I’m sure we’re both smart,” Miss Riri said, cutting them both off with a no-nonsense look, “It’s not a competition, so--" her words were cut short as loud shrieks erupted from a nearby table--a kid threw up. Riri rushed over, conversation long forgotten as she tried to settle down the chaos.

In the meantime, Demitirus and Toussaint stared at each other, eyes glinting as a new challenge had been issued.

-

Afternoon pick up was a shit show like always.

Kids forgetting shit-- the shoes on their feet and the beads in their head. Parents acting tough for no good reason. Xavier had to break up several fights in the parking lot already. One kid crawled behind the front desk and scribbled over the entire sign in/out sheet in metallic sharpie. Then when she went to confiscate the sharpie, he threw up on her.

So yeah-- a normal, shit end to a shit day.

Riri didn’t hate her job, per say, but it certainly wasn't something she ever imagined doing. Wiping noses, breaking up fights, teaching the planets through song. It wasn’t exactly the filthy rich, inventor, astronaut she always envisioned herself becoming.But...it wasn’t like she had many options at this point. It helped that she liked dealing with kids better than undergrads, but she wasn’t sure that a consistent check was worth the biohazard-ass conditions.

After the first wave of pick-ups--the usual stragglers were left. The rest of the summer staff began to either clean up or supervise the remaining kids playing out back.

Riri manned the front desk, busying herself with the mountains of paper-work. She flipped through the sign in/out sheet, wincing as she noticed the sharpie was bleeding on everything else in the stack. Knowing her boss, he’d expect everything to get reprinted. She’d been bugging the man about setting up a digital sign-in, but he was averse to anything that wasn’t invented before the 1900s.

The bell on the front door rang, but she didn’t bother to look up, eyes darting between her open laptop and the stained paperwork.

Light footsteps approached the front desk and someone cleared their throat, “I’m here to pick up Toussaint,” they said with an accent she couldn’t quite place immediately.

Riri was briefly annoyed about the lack of a last name, but then remembered Toussaint was actually the only kid enrolled with that name this summer. She glanced up, before doing a double take.

That...was not Toussaint’s Mama.

Slim fingers with neatly trimmed nails rested against the counter, a long line she couldn’t help but follow up. Tall, lean, with tightly cropped curls. Shades blocking her eyes, dark and glossy like the athleisure set she wore. Expensive. She stood out—then again, she’d stand out anywhere. The stranger smiled—a cheeky flash of silver and dimples. Riri’s stomach flipped--funny—distantly she heard children laughing.

“Uh, right,” Riri blinked, brain doing a hard reset as she set aside the papers she was sorting through, “Can I see some I.D?” she asked, mouth on autopilot.

Reaching behind the desk, she found a beat-up binder, bursting at the seams. She flipped through the pages and accepted their Passport I.D comparing it to the student’s file. Very professional, calm, mature--fuck she looked a mess. She confirmed the information and picked up her walkie-talkie, notifying them to send Toussaint up.

Riri inhaled, putting on her best customer service smile, “You must be the famous Tati,” she mused as she handed back the I.D. She then adjusted her top, hoping to hide the stains.

Shuri raised her sunglasses, perching them on top of her head—distracting, dark eyes, catching the fluorescent glare like unearthed, precious stone, “He talks about me?” she asked.

“You’re all we can get him to talk about,” Riri shared, unconsciously tugging a braid loose from her bun and twirling it as she spoke, “He had us thinking you're the Queen of England.”

“Oh?”

Riri looked her up and down, eyes taking great care to take in every detail. She leaned against the counter, “I can believe it,” she said, looking around before her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, “You’ve got a presence--real regal like.”

“Uh-huh,” Shuri murmured with a creeping smile, “What? Are you saying I'm intimidating?”

“Something like that…” Riri said with a low laugh, fingers tapping against the counter.

Everything about the teacher was--distracting.

Those hands, always in motion. The little cartoon band-aids around her thumbs, a bright, vibrant orange that matched the chain of little flags looping around the marbled, front desk. Gold hoops and a matching chain hanging above her collarbones, moles dotting the curve of her neck. Those broad shoulders and toned arms. Cropped tank-top and that long skirt that hung low on her hips--nothing indecent, but enough to be appreciated. The way her eyes never hesitated to meet her own--a silent challenge—a question.

Then Riri smiled again or rather her smile changed. It became smaller—less polished. Crooked—shy almost. The front gap in her teeth peeking through her lips. Distantly she heard children laughing.

Shuri was unable to decide where her eyes should land.

It was hard to describe--that lingering, something. The air tense, but not unfriendly as they stared at each other-- expectant. As if they were both waiting to see who’d be the first crack--the first to exhale--the first to ask--

Riri stiffened as her walkie-talkie went off again and she remembered herself--her job. She cleared her throat, “Yeah, Toussaint is a sweet student, but…”

At the mention of her nephew, Shuri's attention sharply pivoted, “Did something happen?”

“He had a tough time in lessons today,” Riri gently explained, “He got overwhelmed and had to step out of class for a little bit. Otherwise, he had a pretty good day.”

“Overwhelmed��?” Shuri repeated, uneasy, “Are the lessons difficult?”

After a certain age, she never saw the boy get upset at much. He was always a bright, cheerful child.

Then again, the same could’ve been said about her growing up. More often than not, she became rather adept at hiding the nastier feelings.

Riri sent her a sympathetic look, “The lessons are age-appropriate, but sometimes kids get frustrated and that makes it harder for them.”

Sometimes it wasn’t a matter of being smart enough. Humans are far too complicated to be ruled by logic alone. She knew it unsettled some guardians when their kids struggled. Knowing that it wasn’t something that’d be a quick fix or easily brushed under the rug. Sometimes she’s even had parents pull their kids out of the program--accusing her of all sorts of things, before eventually re-enrolling once they realized the options in the area for affordable S.T.E.M programs were slim to none.

Shuri looked a bit concerned, but she nodded her head, “I’ll be sure to inform his Mother. Thank you for letting us know," she said, making a mental note for later, “So... do you help plan the lessons?” she asked, conversationally.

Riri barked out a laugh, “Nah,” she said, shaking her head, schooling her expression quickly.

Shuri raised her eyebrow, “Not a fan, then?”

Riri hummed, looking off to the side, “The lesson plans are...fine,” she reluctantly admitted, “But, some kids are further along then others, so they get bored and…act up.”

“I’m sure they keep you busy.”

“Mhm," Riri's mouth pinched at the thought, muttering under her breath, "It’s my karma for all the shit I pulled in school growing up.”

“You? A troublemaker?” Shuri asked, leaning against the counter.

“You don’t believe it?” Riri's eyes squinted, cocking her head. A clean scent crept into her space--she didn't entirely mind.

Oh, Shuri believed it.

The teacher was trouble. From that ever elusive smile, to those dangerously sharp eyes--all carefully tucked behind that flimsy professional demeanor.

Growing up, the elders always said that where there was trouble, Shuri would follow.

Today wasn’t any different.

Shuri considered this for a moment, knowing what her next move should be, but--

“Tati--!” Toussaint shouted, sneakers squeaking as he rushed to greet his aunt.

The pair jumped at the sound, pulling away from each other.

Shuri cleared her throat, glancing back uncertainly, but she was quickly distracted as Toussaint jumped into her arms with a bubbly laugh. He was as bright as she remembered. Her worries eased, if only for that moment. It seemed as if her nephew had already forgotten his difficulties.

She lifted him up, the squirming boy falling into another fit of giggles as she tossed him about before setting him down.

Toussaint grabbed her hand, pulling her along as he chatted away. He tossed a careless wave behind, “Bye-bye Miss Riri, ” he called back, pushing through the doors.

Shuri sent Riri one final, lingering look before she was dragged away.

Once the door slammed shut, Riri sucked in her teeth, body slumping against the front desk. She pressed her head against the cool countertop, knocking it a few times for good measure as she collected her thoughts. She let out one, lengthy groan--disappointment rolling right into frustration.

Fucking dammit.

Sure she was sleep-deprived, covered in questionable stains, and looked a mess, but she definitely still had a chance.

If she was lucky, maybe she’d get to see her again.

-

Shuri swung that baby-blue, back-pack decorated with pink cats over her shoulder. She walked slower then normal, eyes glancing back towards the building every-so-often before inevitably returning to her nephew who was skipping, full-speed ahead.

She was confused, to say the least. They were interrupted, but Shuri had some time to at least ask for her number, give her number--something. But her mouth was dry, intended words lost and easily swept away by her nephew’s excitement.

It was undeniable--she froze.

That big brain of her--faltered, lingering far too long to get to the point. That never happens. She’s been attracted to women in the past. It certainly wouldn’t have been her first time initiating and yet she hesitated.

Riri was working. She was clearly exhausted. It didn’t…feel right to hit on someone when they couldn’t easily reject her advances.

That was probably it.

That was all there was to it.

Shuri shook her head, annoyed at herself. Regardless, the other woman was clearly interested. She should’ve taken the chance, but there was no point in getting too hung up over it. She was leaving in a week anyways.

She settled into the car, starting it up. She glanced into the rear-view mirror, making sure her nephew didn’t forget to put on his seatbelt as he continued to talk his head off.

“Did you go to college--” Toussaint randomly asked in the middle of describing the latest episode of that cartoon series he’s been watching.

Shuri took a moment to process the change of topic, pulling out of the parking space, “...College?” she echoed, confused, “No, I haven’t. Why do you ask?”

At that, her nephew’s face crumpled. He fiddled with his hands, mumbling, “Demitrius says you can’t be the smartest if you don’t go to college…”

Shuri paused at that, eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

Demitrius?

It must be one of the kids from camp.

“Our education system isn’t structured the same as western institutions,” she said, meeting his gaze in the mirror.

Toussaint straightened up at her tone, recognizing it as another one of her haphazard lessons.

Seeing that she had his attention, Shuri continued, “A good percentage of our population resides in rural areas, so our education system is relatively decentralized and the other tribes--”

Shuri’s built more schools then she’s attended to be honest. Over the years she’s even expanded beyond Wakanda to set up outreach and educational facilities. It was the reason she was in Chicago to begin with--she was overseeing the final touches of the newest facility.

Toussaint listened avidly as she detailed the various tribes and their educational systems. Sometimes she worried if she was going too fast or using too many words he didn’t understand, but he never balked at their discussions. He always took everything in, drinking in each word. Later on he’d usually quietly ask her to elaborate or explain anything he didn’t catch the first time. She figured that he preferred not to be babied. And considering the fact that he was their future King--she knew it was best to inform him the best she could.

Then out of curiosity, she asked what they were even talking about to bring up college to begin with.

“Oh, Demitrius said Miss Riri was smarter then you cause she went to MIT,” Toussaint explained, scowling at the reminder.

“She did?” Shuri asked, interest stirring once more, “Do you know what she studied?”

Toussaint scratched his head, nose scrunching up for a moment before he shook his head--no.

Shuri sighed, a little disappointed, “...Anyhow, you can’t quantify intelligence based on education alone," she said, deciding to move on, "There're far too many variables that can impact that and it can be difficult to compare across regions. Do you understand?”

Toussaint nodded, arriving to a conclusion. Although it probably wasn’t the conclusion Shuri anticipated. He stared out the window, watching the raindrops scatter towards the bottom, envisioning his raindrop beating the rest to the finish line.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Astronomers discover first pairs of white dwarf and main sequence stars in clusters, shining new light on stellar evolution

Astronomers at the University of Toronto (U of T) have discovered the first pairs of white dwarf and main sequence stars – “dead” remnants and "living" stars – in young star clusters. Described in a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal, this breakthrough offers new insights on an extreme phase of stellar evolution, and one of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics.

Scientists can now begin to bridge the gap between the earliest and final stages of binary star systems – two stars that orbit a shared center of gravity – to further our understanding of how stars form, how galaxies evolve, and how most elements on the periodic table were created. This discovery could also help explain cosmic events like supernova explosions and gravitational waves, since binaries containing one or more of these compact dead stars are thought to be the origin of such phenomena.

Most stars exist in binary systems. In fact, nearly half of all stars similar to our sun have at least one companion star. These paired stars usually differ in size, with one star often being more massive than the other. Though one might be tempted to assume that these stars evolve at the same rate, more massive stars tend to live shorter lives and go through the stages of stellar evolution much faster than their lower mass companions.

In the stage where a star approaches the end of its life, it will expand to hundreds or thousands of times its original size during what we call the red giant or asymptotic giant branch phases. In close binary systems, this expansion is so dramatic that the dying star's outer layers can sometimes completely engulf its companion. Astronomers refer to this as the common envelope phase, as both stars become wrapped in the same material.

The common envelope phase remains one of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics. Scientists have struggled to understand how stars spiraling together during this critical period affects the stars’ subsequent evolution. This new research may solve this enigma.

Remnants left behind after stars die are compact objects called white dwarfs. Finding these post-common envelope systems that contain both a “dead” stellar remnant and "living" star – otherwise known as white dwarf-main sequence binaries – provides a unique way to investigate this extreme phase of stellar evolution.

“Binary stars play a huge role in our universe,” says lead author Steffani Grondin, a graduate student in the David A. Dunlap Department for Astronomy & Astrophysics at U of T. “This observational sample marks a key first step in allowing us to trace the full life cycles of binaries and will hopefully allow us to constrain the most mysterious phase of stellar evolution.”

The researchers used machine learning to analyze data from three major sources: the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission – a space telescope that has studied over a billion stars in our galaxy – along with observations from the 2MASS and Pan-STARRS1 surveys. This combined data set enabled the team to search for new binaries in clusters with characteristics resembling those of known white dwarf-main sequence pairs.

Even though these types of binary systems should be very common, they have been tricky to find, with only two candidates confirmed within clusters prior to this research. This research has the potential to increase that number to 52 binaries across 38 star clusters. Since the stars in these clusters are thought to have all formed at the same time, finding these binaries in open star clusters allows astronomers to constrain the age of the systems and to trace their full evolution from before the common envelope conditions to the observed binaries in their post-common envelope phase.

"The use of machine learning helped us to identify clear signatures for these unique systems that we weren't able to easily identify with just a few datapoints alone,” says co-author Joshua Speagle, a professor in the David A. Dunlap Department for Astronomy & Astrophysics and Department of Statistical Sciences at U of T. “It also allowed us to automate our search across hundreds of clusters, a task that would have been impossible if we were trying to identify these systems manually."

 “It really points out how much in our universe is hiding in plain sight – still waiting to be found,” says co-author Maria Drout, also a professor in the David A. Dunlap Department for Astronomy & Astrophysics at U of T. “While there are many examples of this type of binary system, very few have the age constraints necessary to fully map their evolutionary history. While there is plenty of work left to confirm and fully characterize these systems, these results will have implications across multiple areas of astrophysics.”

Binaries containing compact objects are also the progenitors for an extreme stellar explosion called a Type Ia supernova and the sort of merger that causes gravitational waves, which are ripples in spacetime that can be detected by instruments such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).  As the team uses data from the Gemini, Keck and Magellan Telescopes to confirm and measure the properties of these binaries, this catalogue will ultimately shed light on the many elusive transient phenomena in our universe.

Contributing institutions include the David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, the Department for Statistical Sciences, and the Data Sciences Institute at the University of Toronto, as well as the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation at the Rochester Institute of Technology, the Department of Astronomy & The Institute for Astrophysical Research at Boston University, and the Department of Astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley.

About the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics

The Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto is an endowed research institute with over 80 faculty, postdocs, students, and staff, dedicated to innovative technology, groundbreaking research, world-class training, and public engagement.

The research themes of its faculty and Dunlap Fellows span the Universe and include: optical, infrared and radio instrumentation, Dark Energy, large-scale structure, the Cosmic Microwave Background, the interstellar medium, galaxy evolution, cosmic magnetism and time-domain science.

IMAGE: This image from the ALMA telescope shows star system HD101584 and the complex gas clouds surrounding the binary. It is the result of a pair of stars sharing a common outer layer during their last moments. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Olofsson et al. Acknowledgement: Robert Cumming.

[pencil-inc]

Do you want to know the funniest* thing about toon blood?

It is notoriously hard to clean. It might look like regular ink, but it has the properties of superglue and paint, combined.

We already had rules in place for that reason; when working on autopsy duty, direct lab samples, or even in the room with an injured toon, you wear your damn lab gear.

Every employee had monogrammed labcoats for identification. But you would also be issued your own goggles and pants to wear when working up close. Shoe covers were in every lab. There were a handful of employees that provided their own gear, but not that many. I remember one guy had these bright orange lab goggles for whatever reason.

Anyway. I'm getting off topic. Lab gear.

That's an example of one of our labcoats. I don't have mine; I burnt it when the company collapsed. Just in case.

Back to the blood, though. One day, we had an incident in one of the test rooms; our equipment was malfunctioning and our Stretch Armstrong-like subject had been caught in the machinery.

One of our technicians, Jamie (false name, as are all the other ones I'm mentioning here), hit the emergency stop button and ran inside to try and fix it directly, a labcoat on their back, crouching beside the equipment to fix the faulty sensors.

This was an emergency. If we kept our subject in that position long than they had to be there, we could kill them. Before we needed to kill them, at least. Jamie was light on their feet, and a fast worker, well respected by their department head.

But they were not fast enough.

The subject exploded 7 seconds after they stepped in.

*it's not funny. Sorry.

Jamie’s hair, eyes, and hands were coated in a wad of pitch-like black that sent them stumbling. It seeped into their roots and their half-trimmed fingernails, while they tried to plant one foot in front of the other, unable to see, unable to think, unable to walk straight. In it’s fresh state, it dribbled down in large glops of shiny tar, already hardening fast like magma.

With an uncovered mouth, their screams registered at an average of 101.4 dB inside the chamber, occurring every one to five seconds when they froze in pain and fear. A very, very founded fear.

They were later sedated and brought to our medical team. They looked pale, according to reports.

While the more covered staff collected what samples they could from the accident, Jamie spent the next 6 hours under varying amounts of sedatives, clustered by doctors and nurses who tried to dissolve, cut, grease, leverage, and pick away the ink lodged to their face, their eyesight long gone. Their world was a cacophony of sound, of hurrying, worrying people muttering reassurance into their ears while they silently begged for tears. The “crust” of the ink grew thicker by the hour. They were running out of time. All of them.

At one point, one of the doctors on duty lost their temper. In the early hours, on attempt 15, Jamie had been given an anaesthetic for a procedure when someone pushed Dr. Shelby McGuire (Head of Medical) aside. Her scalpel tumbled to the floor while Dr. Cal Chauncey— one of the stronger members of the department— grabbed a fistful of hair encased in tar, pinning their head down, deaf to the sounds of collective distress.

He pulled.

And pulled.

And pulled.

Until he fell back to the floor from his own strength, panting with effort.

He vomited, 12 seconds later, from the sight of Jamie’s eyeballs, hair, and outlined face glued to the black shell, dripping with wet, dark blood. Human blood.

Urgent reminders to keep equipment on at all times were then displayed in Research & Development, Chemical Research & Distribution, and the cells. It was talked about for a long time; one of the first lethal injuries for staff as a result of a failed test.

Not every story will be this explicit, or this gory. This one stuck in my memory for the way it went so wrong, from the unchecked equipment to the rush of emotion to the untimely death of a twenty-something engineer. I can see their face in my mind, even now, in split-second shock.

As years went on, the most people remembered of Jamie was that lanyard, hung in the Security and Maintenance office. Event became rumour, rumour became warning. Dr. Cal Chauncey's ID photos looked a lot more lifeless, and nobody got a straight answer as to why.

You fuck up sooner, you make less mistakes later. That, I think, was the only positive.

More soon.

— Reference

[voidsumbrella]

huevember day 2: h @ 12 - clay - mangan-diaspore

mangan-diaspore is, as the name suggests, a manganese-bearing form of diaspore. the most "perfect" diaspore crystals form in long hexagonal spikes, sometimes twinning into little hearts, but most of the mangan-diaspore samples ive seen are clustered together in a tangle, or layered in blobs that kinda look like raw meat. clay is haven's next older brother by about a year, and is the one who stepped up to take over the annoying parts of raising everyone when their parents died, this had... limited amounts of success, and mostly just gave him stress-induced health issues and seething resentment towards everyone in his life older than him. he picked up smoking in college (when this drawing is set), which he didn't manage to kick until he had a kid. mangan-diaspore is his assigned mineral, because his theme color is vivid red and im pretentious about picking niche minerals.

day 3: h @ 24 - flint - lithiophilite

lithiophilite is a lithium-manganese-phospate mineral commonly found in lithium deposits (hence the name- lithium + philios, greek for "friend"). it rarely forms crystals, but when it does they show up in these tiny elegant starburst structures, which i find extremely charming. they're also symbolically relevant to the character they're aligned with: flint is haven's youngest brother, and is one of the true Protagonists of their Destined Story, which took place when he was 11. he has spent the rest of his life trying to live up to the precedent that set. he's wondering if everyone's "faith in his abilities" will outweigh their desire to make him a celebrity enough to let him drop out of school and run off to live in a remote cabin in the mountains somewhere, never to be seen again.

[shootybangbang]

[Talking Bird] Chapter 22: In which swallows are shot

[Ao3 link]

[Content Warnings]: implied/referenced sexual assault, implied/referenced incest

I'm immensely grateful to @reddeaddufus and @verai-marcel for editing this. Without their support, I could not have gotten nearly as far in this fic as I have.

Note: dialogue that is spoken in Chinese will be denoted with 《sample text》

Note for people who speak Chinese: for the sake of clarity, all Chinese names have been transcribed in western fashion as [given name_surname] instead of the customary [surname_given name]

————

“One more favor? Last time, I promise.”

“And what might that be,” Trelawney asks stiffly. He keeps his eyes fixed on the green rush of fields and forest streaking across the train’s smudged window, and crosses his arms as he settles into the cracked leather seat opposite your own. 

The man is obviously still miffed by the state of his cheese supply. He’s taking up now the practice he always defaults to when feeling resentful: taking great pains to pretend that he isn’t. But you’d seen the way his face had fallen when he’d caught sight of his depleted reserves, heard what censures he’d hissed at Arthur when he thought you out of earshot— judging by the effort it’s currently taking him to keep himself civil, he’ll be quietly sore about this for a month, at least.

“Would you kindly ask the police to give Martin Street a wide berth on Tuesday? The Chinatown patrol on weekdays is still just old Bertram, I think. Five dollars should do it.”

“Martin St? That’s—”

“My former place of employment, yes.”

“Lee.” Trelawney’s superficial disdain drops the second he realizes the implications. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I could’ve said the same thing to you about a hundred times by now,” you retort. “But I never have. Because it’s not my business.”

“This is different.” He puts his hand to his temples like he’s incurred a migraine. A show of genuine regret. “This is my fault.”

”What’re you talking about?”

“Arthur can sometimes be… shockingly altruistic when it comes to women and children.” He pauses a beat, then amends, “When he thinks nobody’s looking, that is. I told him your situation thinking it might spark some sympathy in him, but if he’s decided to rope you in on some reckless scheme, then—”

“It’s the other way around.”

Trelawney looks at you sharply, with that analytic gaze you’ve always done your utmost to avoid— like he’s peering through a glass house containing all your faults. You stare instead at the small cluster of belongings nestled in your lap. The sum of all your present earthly possessions: the blue notebook, the keyring, and a handful of nickels and dimes you’d managed to wheedle from Morgan before he’d let you step into the train and out of sight.

“I ran an idea past him,” you explain, still not meeting his eyes. “He said he’d think about it. I’m eighty percent sure that nothing’s going to happen at all. But… I’d like the street clear anyway. Just as a precaution. And also the… y’know, the…” Lightly, you chew the inside of your cheek. “The contingency plan.”

“The contingency plan in the event of your death.” He sounds like he’d like to seize you by the shoulders and shake some sense into you.

You nod. “I don’t think it’ll come to that. But if it does, that claim’s gonna need to be filed as soon as possible.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then you’ll have two dead women on your conscience instead of just one.”

He stays silent so long that the pressure of that quiet builds and builds until the sigh he lets out, bereft of any theatricality, hisses rather like the defeated wheeze of a punctured balloon. “There’s no talking you out of this.”

“No. But when have you known me to be reasonable?” You offer him a smile in an attempt to lighten the mood. He does not return it.

“How exactly were you planning on setting this up?” he asks. “Because if you’d like me to serve as a distraction, or—”

“What? I don’t want you to serve as anything.” The confusion in his face confuses you. “You’ve got a wife. Your two boys. And besides, you’ve got no stake in this.”

You can see that irritating shine in his eyes spark up— the one that he always gets when he thinks he’s found a compelling argument, like he’s turned a pin and cracked open a difficult lock. A kindness in his countenance that might disarm you if you let him, and you know you have to shut him up quick.

“Well, you can at the very least tell me what time you —” 

“Trelawney,” you interrupt. “You’re forgetting something. We’re business partners, not friends. I’ve owed you things. You’ve owed me things. This is the very last of it.”

He raises his eyebrows and sinks back against the cushioned seat with his hands folded in his lap. And he observes you now like he did in those early days, when every conversation had in it a deliberate and carefully delineated quid pro quo. “In any case,” he says. “I still don’t want to see you dead.”

“That makes two of us, then.” 

But the words ring hollow even to you.

———

The tenement buildings on Mulberry Avenue are lined by rows of windows cracked and broken like poorly kept teeth, spilling out snippets of the lives they contain on a tepid suggestion of an autumn breeze. Their private melodramas float inconsequential as dead leaves: snatches of disembodied conversation, both tender and fraught with tension, and through the dispersed Babel of languages you can discern the disparate threads of base human existence. Two women bicker from across their respective balconies. A man laboriously practices English phrases in a thick, unrecognizable accent. A child sings brokenly in what might be Polish, and when her mother sings a fluid verse in response, you have to squeeze your eyes shut against the pang in your chest. On the back of your tongue, a phantom sip of river water lingers like a meal sampled from a nightmare.

You keep walking.

These days, crossing beneath Chinatown’s red and gold gate feels like just another level of damnation. You keep your head down as you walk, knowing how much you stand out even here: an Oriental woman walking freely in a white man’s attire. Your clothes are faded and torn, but even now are easily worth more than a laundryman’s monthly wage. A tattered condemnation of bygone ambition and broken aspiration. You glare down at your stained pants and, while deciding between whether to entertain self-hatred or its gentler cousin, self pity, nearly collide with a man hauling a cartful of hens to the butcher’s. The birds are placid in their wire cages, either ignorant of the knife that awaits them or utterly indifferent. As they pull past, a flutter of feathers settles atop the grimy cobblestones like flakes of auburn snow.

You climb up the corridor of an ashy bricked four-story building whose damp, dark stairwells never seem to dry out completely. The narrow window set in its turn lets in a creak of light in which motes of dust glint like suspended chips of gold, sanctifying the patch of black mildew that it falls upon in a meaningless blessing. When you trudge up to the third-floor landing, the guard sitting in his rickety hallway chair takes his cigarette out of his mouth and scrutinizes you with obvious suspicion. Prematurely returned and empty-handed as you are, you can hardly blame him.

《The shipment—》

You interrupt him. 《It’s been taken care of.》

《Lee,》 he says, not unsympathetically. 《You look like shit. What happened?》

《Got robbed.》 Before he can ask for details, the appetite for fresh gossip evident in the straightening of his back, you add, 《I’ll talk to Huang after I’ve gotten some food and a cup of tea in me.》

You plod to the last tenement in that unadorned corridor and slot the key to its lock, but the door catches when you try and pull it open, and you see the brass glint of the slotted latch chain still in place through the skinny gap. Heaving an irritated, bad-tempered sigh, you holler. 《Mei! It’s me!》

《Lee?》you don’t hear her footsteps– never have been able to, with that mincing way that she’s forced to walk. 《You said you wouldn’t be back until Thursday. Is everything—》

《Everything’s fine. Just open the door.》

She starts fretting over you before you can even sit down to unlace your goddamn boots. Her hands flutter a nervous cadence as she restrains herself from touching the bruise on your cheek. To compound things, Baoyu comes out from behind her skirt to curl his small hand tight in the fabric of your trousers, like he’s trying to anchor you before you can leave again. 

The kid looks up at you with wide, unblinking brown eyes uncharacteristically serious for a four year old. He clutches his cloth sheep doll to his chest and asks, “Present?”

Fucking hell. Through the commotion of getting kidnapped, manhandled, and shot at, your customary duty of scrounging for some trinket with which to placate him had completely slipped your mind. “Ah, shi—” 

He perks up. Seems to have a sixth sense for picking up the English words you don’t want him to learn, this kid. So you bite your tongue before it can flick out that damning last consonant and pivot. “I mean, sure. I uh…”  As you rifle through your pockets with the ludicrous hope that something might miraculously manifest, a fit of inspiration strikes you like a conciliatory slap from god. You flip to Morgan’s sketch of Cotorra Springs in your ledger and begin ripping it out.

《He asked you for a present, didn’t he.》

《Yeah.》

《Baoyu.》Mei’s voice is stern, but she sounds more tired than upset. 《What did Mama say about begging Miss Lee for presents?》

Baoyu, already well-learned in the art of petitioning for leniency, looks up at you beseechingly. You sigh, then intercede upon his behalf. For chrissakes, it’s your fault the kid’s in this situation to begin with. 《I’ve been giving him acorns and shiny rocks,》you say. 《It’s fine.》

When you finish tearing the sketch free, you look it over one last time before the kid inevitably scrawls all over it with green crayon, same way he does over near everything he can get his hands on in recent days. There’s a new, and very verdant stain on the wall beneath the kitchen table where Mei had obviously tried very hard to scrub away a doodle of a lopsided forest.

The kid frowns and flips the paper up and down, squinting at it dubiously. 

《What do you say?》 Mei prompts him.

《What is it?》he eyes the drawing with the critical eye of a disappointed patron at the Galerie Laurent. 

His mother’s voice is clipped with expectation. 《Baoyu.》

《Thank you, Miss Lee.》 he says, dejectedly.

《You remember how to say it in English?》 you ask.

He frowns and furrows his brow. He looks angry when he’s deep in thought— a trait he’s somehow picked up from his father, despite the man’s gravedirt tenure for a full quarter of the kid’s life now. 

“Thank you,” you enunciate.

“Thank you,” he repeats, already distracted. He looks longingly towards the corner of the room, where wooden blocks bearing penciled in capital letters on their sides line the wall in crooked, tottering constructions.

“Good.” You give him an absent pat on the shoulder. “Now shoo.”

Mei dogs your steps as you begin ransacking the kitchen cabinets for something other than dry beans and rice. 《You drew that?》

《No.》 You pick up a tin of sardines, consider it for a second, then firmly slot it back.

《I’m sorry, there’s not much. I was planning on going to market today—》

《Don’t bother. I’ll do it later.》

《No, you should rest! And besides—》

《I’m faster,》you interrupt, glancing conspicuously at her feet.

They’re half the size of your own, and bound with bandages beneath the tiny slippers she wears. Crushed beyond recognition into what was considered, she had once informed you bitterly, a lotus bud shape. Back in the motherland (that dream-wrought Avalon to which you owe your eternal classification, that country whose name you have heard sighed and cursed and whispered like a lover’s lament on the yearning tongues of so many workmen), she had murmured, clenching a cup of baijiu so tight that her knuckles had been moon-pale, girls from wealthy families have the bones in their feet broken and set again and again, folded inward and solidified with the distortion of healing. Suffering with it an education whose primary teachings lay in the art of transformation. How to wind golden silk over a ruin of mangled flesh until it resembled the newborn furl of a flower. How to thread a smile over the teeth-clenched rage of one’s own pinioning. How to limp and totter a cripple’s stuttering gait and call it a dance.

It was an education which Mei, the youngest daughter of a failing merchant family, had been bestowed at the tender age of six. And which she had continued to receive, owing to the metastasis of misfortune, through the later ordeal of having been exchanged to a pimp for just eleven silver sycees. The light had glinted off the ingots like shards of white fire, and she had seen the distortion of her own reflection in the rounded curve. A reminder that what was then warped could be contorted further still, the shape of her life twisted beyond reckoning.

She relents now at the reminder of her own debility, thins her lip and lowers her eyes as she crosses her arms tight. And the worst part of you, that which houses the old instinct to pinpoint ways in which you outcompete her, feels a vicious jab of satisfaction.

Well. The larder’s as good as empty. But there’s still tea left in the kettle. You reach for one of the painted china cups you still can’t bring yourself to sell, and Mei notices at last the bandage beneath your sleeve.

《Lee, your arm—》

《I’m fine.》

《Will you at least tell me what happened?》

You do not want to talk to her about this. You do not want to talk to her about any of it, really, and your heart clenches like a fist at the mere prospect of catching a glimpse of that lovely, sympathetic face of hers. The concern there, the genuine worry that brims like a perfect inverse of every hateful impulse you still keep primed for her— it makes you feel vaguely sick, for all your deliberate standoffishness.

Since Feng’s passing, there have been times where the two of you have nearly gotten along: halfway amiable conversations after Baoyu’s been put to bed shared over a draught of cheap rice wine. It’s always you who takes a step back before any real semblance of friendship can develop. And it’s always her who tries to smile and furnish some sort of excuse to allow you the opportunity to awkwardly slip away.

And when Feng had been alive? You’d been polite, but distant, much to his chagrin. Optimistic fool that he was, he’d constantly try and cajole you into conversation with her. Invite you over for dinner, then go out for a long smoke on the balcony, thinking perhaps that by merely stepping out of sight he might loosen the linchpin of your resentment. A fool through and through. 

《Please, Lee.》

But considering what might happen next, you owe her at least the skeleton of the truth. 

《Got robbed a day after I dropped off shipment.》You rattle the words off fast, as if clustered together they might conceal what you’ve chosen to omit. 《Looked pathetic enough that someone paid for my fare back. Walked back from the station, and here I am.》

Even an idiot can tell that you’ve left enough holes in your story that the entire legitimacy of it has been sieved out. Mei frowns. 《And your arm?》

《Got cut while I was getting robbed.》

Her eyes narrow. 《Who drew you that picture?》

《The man who found me pathetic enough to send home.》

《What was his name?》

You fill your cup and keep your eyes fixed on the amber stream of jasmine tea that trickles from the kettle spout. 《Don’t remember.》

《Listen,》 she says. 《You lie to me all the time. And I let you, because I know that if I say anything otherwise, you’ll tell me even less than you do now. But you’ve never come back hurt like this.》

《I’m just a little banged up—》

《I-If someone…》

Her voice breaks, and when you glance at her from over your shoulder, you can see a red rise of fear creeping up her cheeks. Guilt tightens your throat with the unrelenting grip of a hand at your windpipe. She speaks now like a flagging autumn wind. 《If a man hurt you like that…》

If someone did to you what your father did to me—

《... you don’t have to tell me. But everything you’ve gone through, I know it’s for me and Baoyu, and I— I’d like to know the cost of what that—》

《I don’t do it for you,》 you snap.

The retort comes out sharper than you’d intended it to. Mei blinks as though batting a speck of dust from her lashes.

《And not for Baoyu, either,》 you continue. 《I do it for Feng. So it’s him that owes me, not you. And that means it’s none of your business what the… ‘the cost’ or whatever is. And just so you know, it’s very annoying when you constantly pry into my affairs, but it’s even more annoying when you get all pathetic like this, so I’ll just fucking tell you, alright? The man who robbed me is the same man who brought me back home.》 You nod towards the door, where the kid is diligently coloring in Morgan’s sketch with purple and green crayons. 《And he drew me that picture on the way.》

Mei seems to be unsure exactly what kind of emotional response you’re currently trying to get out of her. She tries to settle her face into her usual placid, pretty mask of unbroachable porcelain, but the facade cracks as she looks silently from the drawing, to you, to the drawing again. 《Lee. I don’t… what?》

《You remember those bonds I brought back last time.》

She nods very slowly.

《I stole them off a man called Morgan. I ran into him in Strawberry the morning after I dropped off shipment, and…》

Maybe it’s the way that the ripening noon light filters through the burlap curtains, casting the magnified shadows of coarse fiber against the wall like latticework. Or maybe it’s the deferential tilt of your head as you mark the abstract pointillism the tea sediment settles into, as if reading the minutiae of existence will reveal to you some esoteric path. Or maybe it’s the cadence that runs through it all, the holy repetition inherent in all ritual, most of all the mundane, as you drain and refill the cup again and again. In any case, there’s a distinct air of confession in the arrangement. And accompanying it, an almost sacrosanct relief.

Through the better part of an hour, you tell her nearly everything. The mechanical resistance of the shotgun trigger against your pointer finger. A man’s bewildered profile caught in a halo of evening muzzleflare. Morgan’s promise of cruelty, his failure to follow through. Firelight and peaches, and cold tubfuls of soap and blood. The silhouette of a luna moth slicing a pale green streak through the dark.

You say nothing of the plan, though you give its tenuous outline a certain soundless consideration in the pauses between sentences. If she notices— and no doubt she does, she knows you far too well by now not to recognize the presence of what has been left unsaid, the unknown shape that casts its anonymous shadow when all else is lit— she says nothing of it.

《And,》 you conclude lamely. 《That is why I look like shit.》

Mei nods sagely and, with a thoughtful, contemplative air, offers up the worst idea you’ve ever heard. 《We should invite him to dinner.》

《A man kidnaps me and ties me to his horse, and that’s your reaction.》

《He brought you back to us,》 she says simply, and tilts her chin meaningfully at her son, who lies on his stomach as he embroiders a stand of graphite trees with bold blue scribbles, small legs kicking the air idle as a pendulum. Wholly oblivious to the grim alternative his mother leaves unspoken. As he should be.

《Too late for it now. Morgan’s long gone.》 You shrug as though that possibility doesn’t sting. Your chair skids screechily against the scuffed floorboards as you get to your feet. 《Anyway, I should be going. Huang’ll never let me hear the end of it if I keep him waiting much longer.》

After you’ve pulled on a jacket and swiped your cap from its crooked nail on the wall, something less than half your size and adamant as a small elephant barrels against your leg, nearly knocking you over. Baoyu hugs your shins with all his four-year-old might and sits down, anchoring you.

You groan. 《Oh, Bao. Come on.》

He shakes his head, glaring sullen daggers at the door. Too young to understand that his father is dead, but wise enough by now to glean that what crosses that threshold doesn't always come back.

《Not again,》 Mei hurries towards you as quickly as her bound feet will allow her. 《And he’d been so good about it recently, too.》

《Bao, I’m just going to the market this time.》

《Dun’ wan’ you to.》 His small fists are wadded so tightly in the canvas of your pants that you’re concerned they might tear. The poor kid’s as firm and persistent as bramble. 

Mei kneels beside him, gently tries to pry his fingers loose. And though she shares with you a private glance of exasperation, you hear no trace of it in her coaxing. 《Hey,》 she says, soft and solicitous. She rests her palm on top of her son’s head, angles her head down to look him in the eye. On her lips is that madonna-like smile that seems solely the provenance of doting mothers. For not the first time, you feel the quiet surge of jealousy that always comes with seeing wanted children. The tendrils of that which was denied, that which was lost inching out again from what you’ve tried again and again to keep buried.

《Remember what Mama said about Miss Lee this morning?》 she asks.

Baoyu answers with a furious shake of his head and buries his face against your calf. He clings even tighter. 

《Mama said that Miss Lee always comes back. And she does, doesn’t she? Every time. I bet this time she’ll be back again before you even know it.》

No response. 

《Bao,》 you say. 《That present I gave you this time was pretty terrible, wasn’t it.》

His muffled “mm-hmm” is immediate. Mei turns slightly pink. 《Lee, you really don’t have to–》

You raise your voice to drown hers out. 《So how about I get you a better one?》

The kid peeks partway from behind the crook of your knee, his revealed eye bright with wary interest. He’s precociously shrewd enough to give you his attention by degrees. His father’s son, indeed.

《Maybe… one you can eat?》

He peeks out a little more, but his arms do not loosen.

《It’s been a while since we’ve all had meat for dinner, hasn’t it,》 you remark, and from the reluctant tug of the boy’s smile, you know you’ve won. 《And even longer since we’ve had pork belly.》

《Pork belly,》 he says, with a shine in his face like you’ve dangled something precious on a string, and the black tangle of guilt in your heart twists another snarl.

《Pork belly?》 Mei repeats, doubtful. She puts her hand up and flicks her pointer finger a few sideways strokes, counting off the beads of an invisible abacus.

《There’ll be enough. I’ll get Huang to pay me today.》 You reach down to unhook Bao’s fingers from your trousers, and this time he comes away easy as anything. But his smile falls away when you pick up the market bag and pull open the door, and as you turn the key to click the lock shut, you hear his high, thin whimper. It turns to a wail that loses volume with every rapid step you take from him.

The guard calls your name before you can round the bend in the stairs. Six steps down, with one foot on the seventh, you swivel back to give him your attention, and from the dark of the corridor you imagine you must look like a pilgrim halfway to hell.

《The kid’s cryin’ again, huh?》 he asks.

《Yeah.》

He flips you a dollar coin that spins like a silver star through the gloom. 《Get him a pastry or somethin’,》 he says, and before the last word is out of his mouth, he’s already given you his shoulder in a show of apparent indifference.

How many times have you seen it? These little gestures of pity, presented like indulgences— shameful, secretive. As if with each token one can bury their own complicity. And how little you can judge them for it, seeing as you were a keen patron of it yourself in your lapsed past life. 

In any case, a dollar is a dollar. You nod to him, and continue your descent.

— — —

《They’re called swallows,》 your mother said, and tried her best to describe to you, a five-year-old girl at the time whose only reality consisted of the narrow confines of the brothel, the swift, dark swathe that those fork-tailed birds could cut across the sky. How at times they seemed to plummet downwards like stones, only to swoop upwards mere inches from certain death.

You sat cross-legged on her bed, back turned to her as she wove and unwove intricate plaits through your hair. Your eyes watered every time she pulled a strand too tight, but you uttered no sound of protest. At even that tender age, you knew that the slightest disturbance might shatter this rare, fragile show of intimacy.

《They have black feathers.》She tugged the brushlike end of your long, dark braid and dusted it over your nose until you’d giggled. 《And red throats.》Her fingers briefly alighted to your small mouth, momentary as dragonflies. 《And they fly so quick that nothing can touch them.》

She squeezed your thin shoulders. 《That’s why I named you after them, Yan.》

It’s difficult not to think of her each time you walk towards the man who had owned you both, and it is during these small purgatories that she haunts you most. Though it is just a wisp of a haunting, as if even her ghost has largely abandoned you.

Remember the desperate way she had sometimes tried to love you, her averted-eyed affection. The wasted relief on her young face when she’d passed in her bed, dead of typhus at scarcely twenty-five. The twin poles of what she left you to reconcile.

You never mourned her. Not properly, at least. Hadn’t known how to, back then. But when the missionaries taught you to write— both English script and Chinese characters, back when the assumption that you’d continue their work among your countrymen seemed as absolute as the word of god— her name was among the first characters you’d learned. Mingyue Lee, named for the moon, but in perpetual wane for the six short years you’d known her. Her bones interred in some pauper’s grave on the outskirts of San Francisco, sleeping in the soil of a country she had died cursing. When you were nine, you scratched her name into a large stone in the courtyard with a knife you filched from the kitchen, so that on grave-washing day you’d have something to scrub.

The magnolias that dot the route to Viceroy Street are shedding their blooms. Their white petals have been blown to the edge of the sidewalk, where they collect in lovely, dying heaps. When you tread them underfoot, they muddy to the same indistinct shade of brown that collects between the cobblestones of this place. Horse shit and swamp muck and god knows what else, a pervasive filth so deeply entrenched that it has become its own strata. You count down the bronze-plated numbers affixed to storefronts and houses as you walk the path down to 33, and in the steady subtraction there brews a dread that makes you feel far too young and far too old all at once, trekking the twilight road between memory and present. 

The Chuan Li Benevolent Society is housed in a nondescript building flanked between a curio store and a laundry, with nothing but a weather worn plaque beside the door to proclaim itself. Its peeling blue paint is flecked by the mud-sprays of passing carriages, and the awning that stretches over its entrance is missing so many shingles that it puts you in mind of a poorly scaled fish. 

Putting it simply, it looks like shit.

But its innards are timbered and paneled with red lacquered wood, and from the ceiling of the parlor a chandelier hangs like a luminous octopus, each golden limb dripping with crystalline light that fragments prismatic across the ceiling. Furnishings alternately gilt and velvet, in a theme of burgundy as deep as wine or blood. Both things you’ve known to be spilled here in excess. An altogether gaudy depiction of a poor man’s conception of wealth. 

Putting it simply, it also looks like shit. 

You step over the neat doormat laid in front of the threshold, and proceed to trail a fading mosaic of mud across the floorboards.

《You know you’re just making more work for the maid.》Yulong, who is lying lengthwise on the parlor chaise with his shoes on the cushions, addresses you without looking up from the English primer he is reading. The other man in the room, some underfed grunt who you’ve never seen before, rudely asks who the hell you are. He marks a show of reaching into his jacket for the hatchet you know they all carry.

《Calm the fuck down, Wei. It’s just our railroad mule. Our railroad mule who’s, what… five days early? Ain’t you supposed to be in Strawberry right now?》

《I need to talk to Huang.》

《So you finally fucked up good, huh? Guess you lost the shipment.》

《Shipment’s fine. Tell your goddamn boss I’m here to see him.》

《Should watch that mouth of yours, boy, if you know what’s good for you,》Wei growls at you, hardly more than a boy himself. His cheeks and chin are scraggly with the proud, patchy growths of a first beard, and you glancingly wonder whether he’ll live long enough to see it fill in, this jumped-up kid with criminal notions. 

Yulong closes his book with a snap of its pages and sits up like a man unjustly roused from sleep. His narrow eyes gleam as they always do— like he’s just been privy to some secret joke at your expense. Huang’s right hand man, and easily the most untrustworthy looking creature you’ve ever met. Each time you’ve met with his boss, he’s been standing in the corner, pretending like he doesn’t have his hand on his knife. He approaches you now with his lips drawn in an unfriendly smile.《Naw, that ain’t a boy,》he says. 《Just a woman playin’ at bein’ a man and failin’ at both. How you doin’, Lee?》

《Fuck you.》

《Bet you’d like to, since you ain’t gettin’ it from Feng no more.》

You slap him so hard that his head jerks sharply to the side. Yulong hesitates for a split second looking nearly remorseful, then backhands you with such force that you stagger against the wall, tasting blood.

《Tell the boss she’s here,》 you hear him say. Gingerly, you touch your split lip.

Wei’s voice is unsure, tentative. 《She’s bleeding. Shouldn’t we—》

《Just do it.》

— — —

Huang welcomes you into his office with an amiable greeting and an offer of chrysanthemum tea. His pleasant demeanor does not falter when you roundly refuse him, all the attempted disdain in your rejection about as effective as shooting a gun at an ocean wave. A bullet negated instantly by the cold, infinite dark beneath, the shapeless and breachless indifference of water to that which it drowns. The bastard pours you a cup regardless, slides it across the table on a painted porcelain saucer where it steams like a sigh.

He asks after your health, expresses polite concern over the evening-hued contusion (already fading nicely to a sickly dawnish green) on your face, putting on now the fatherly airs he’d withheld from the entirety of childhood. These days, he speaks to you as though those days of subjugation were an unfortunate accident. A misunderstanding that can surely be forgiven because it’s all in the past, and what’s the point of tallying sins? Be reasonable, Yan.

He folds his hands on the table like he’s guarding a hand of cards and says, 《I understand you and Yulong had something of an altercation in the parlor.》

From his place by the door, Yulong scoffs.《Teachin’ her some manners, more like.》

《Perhaps next time you might find a more delicate means of instruction.》 The fond look Huang gives you then sickens you like the first strains of an ague. Fever and chill that will not douse the other as the man peers tenderly at the only unrotted thing that still carries any trace of your dead mother’s existence. An apparition encased in flesh and bone.

You look just like her, but you have my eyes.

He continues, 《A woman’s face is her life, after all. And we wouldn’t want to ruin Yan’s, would we?》

As if he hadn’t already. 《It’s Lee,》 you remind him, teeth clenched.

He ignores this the same way he’s ignored it every other time you’ve corrected him. But you’ve persisted regardless, speaking your mother’s surname as though it might serve as an incantation to dispel the remnant of your former self. That flinching girl so eagerly servile, hoping that another task completed might be another beating deterred. Terrified little Yan, who had crawled under a table and hid when the city police busted that Frisco brothel, thinking that she’d been rudely introduced to another means of punishment. A white woman had found you there and knelt beneath your wooden shelter, gently asking your name in broken, halting Chinese. When she reached her hand out for you to take, you misread her intention entirely and curled up isopod-like, figuring that a blow to your back would hurt far less than one to your front.

Huang pulls a fresh linen handkerchief from a desk drawer, proffers it like reconciliation. 《Here. Clean yourself up.》

You lick your lips and the tip of your tongue locates the shallow cut at the edge of your mouth. Iron and organic rust, half-clotted. With a slow swipe of your forearm, you smear away the congealing blood with the back of your hand.

《Suit yourself,》 he says. The drawer rattles shut like a threat being withdrawn. 《So tell me then, Yan. What’re you doing back five days early?》

You pull your journal out from your satchel and thumb free the proof of sale tucked inside, then lay the receipt bearing Cheng’s ornate red seal (ridiculous how every one of these smugglers fancies himself a veer of legitimacy) on the heavy, oaken table that separates you from Huang like a bulwark or a gate, possibly both. 《The delivery went fine,》 you say. 《I went to Cheng right after I got into Strawberry and had him sign off on the paperwork. He’ll wire you his usual fee at the end of the month.》

《Very good.》

As a child, you would have worked yourself to the point of collapse at the prospect of that simple praise. And as an adult, there’s still a fragment of you that receives it with idiotic pride. Infuriating really, how those infantile hurts persist even now, as if the past lingers still in your ruminating blood. From a chamber in your subterranean heart, down the catacomb of every iteration of self you’ve laid to rest, Yan stirs from slumber and peers briefly through your eyes in a dark flash of memory. 

You detail the rest of your ordeal with vagaries and half truths. Nothing outright false— walking that middle path again, as you always do. Lacking even the conviction to construct your own lies, you pathetic piece of shit. Dodging commitment the same way a bird dodges a shower of buckshot: which is to say that it can’t. Try to outfly the cluster of pellets all you like, but one is sure to find you and bear you down. And isn’t it fitting that it would be the pierce of the only real promise you’ve ever made that lodges in your breast, sends that dual pronged swallowtail fluttering bannerlike as it drops, red sash of blood ribboning upwards in the wake of that earthward plunge.

An outlaw accosted you in an alleyway, you tell Huang. He marched you up the stairs of your hotel with the cold barrel of his gun jammed between your shoulder blades, then tied your arms behind your back as he ransacked your belongings. Tied your ankles too, for good measure. He left you like that for hours, until another man found you and cut you free from your captivity. You cried and became hysterical and made him so uncomfortable that he had arranged an immediate means to get you back to St Denis, if only to get you to stop your tears.

 You make no mention of the events surrounding the bandage on your arm. Or of Morgan’s sketch, which is currently being meticulously ruined by a four year old’s artistic renderings. Or how in a span of hours before, with the first touch of dawn spreading its dustlike penumbra over the floorboards, you had lain in bed for a full five minutes studying the accumulated shadows of the outlaw’s sleeping face, wondering whether under different circumstances you might have enjoyed the view.

Yesterday in the caravan, you scrubbed clean the bandana that he’d used to bandage your cut as you waited for your clothes to dry, wrung out the rust-colored droplets of your own loosened blood over the basin and watched as they broke perfect, circular lakes through a topography of soap suds. You laid it next to the furnace and watched the moisture wick away, folded it up, and only remembered to return it this morning, while waiting for Trelawney to finish buying train tickets at the station’s front booth.

Morgan had stood beside you in a secluded corner beside a rusted water pump, regarding you with the stiff formality of a spurned gentleman. All stilted vagaries and dismissive affect as he glowered there with his arms crossed and his hat tipped low. He leaned his back against a brick wall still damp with dew and seemed loath to even acknowledge you. Asking whether he’d given your proposition any further consideration seemed at that point only an excellent way to further his scorn. In the hollow of your chest, a setting, a sinking. Something bright clipped beneath a horizon, and only the quiet expectation of inexorable night accompanied it. You drew out the black square of his bandanna from your pocket like a flag of farewell, and said, “Hey. Morgan.”

“What.” His voice was flat as a board. Still wouldn’t look at you, the arrogant prick.

“Forgot to give this back last night. I, uh… I washed it for you. Here.”

He made no motion to receive it. Your proffering arm stretched towards him like an insufficient bridge as he shook his head. “Keep it,” Morgan said. “I got another.”

“Well thanks, I guess. I’ve always dreamt of having a raggedy old bandanna to call my own—”

“Tell you what.” At last, he lifted his eyes to meet your own, and the blue of his irises seemed a softer shade than you’d remembered. The hue of late spring blooms, forget-me-nots. “I’ll take it back next time I see you, alright?”

 And when will that be? you hadn’t asked, all the better to ration out your own specious hopes.

God, but you are stupid, aren’t you. Thinking that there is any chance in hell that he hasn’t crossed the state line by now, leaving the city and the swamp and you behind to fade like a forgotten mirage in a torrent of road dust. Nary a backward glance, as is the nature of his kind. Loyal only to the promise of a payout, and for all his talk of coming back to collect, there’s hardly any chance of him doing so when the certainties surrounding you are slim to none.

Yet his bandanna rests in your pocket like a chivalric favor, and as Huang stares you down with reptilian stillness, saying nothing and blinking seldom, you slip your hand there and clench the frayed black fabric tightly in your fist. Black as mourning, black as swallows’ wings.

You had expected an interrogation. Questions and accusations lobbied, a showing of the straightforward suspicion that most tong men jump to when things go askew. Feng had been like that. At the slightest twitch of another man’s confrontation he’d be afire, the tension in him crackling like a live wire and at once the visible measurement preluding potential violence: how many words until we come to blows, how many steps to close the distance. No patience for subterfuge, no eye for subtlety. No foresight as to what deals might be germinating behind his back, what bargains struck with him at their center. 

But a pimp is a kind of purveyor, and though he occupies a different role now, Huang’s merchant instinct has not left him. He knows well the maddening coax of silence, the expectant desolation that will drive a man to say more than he ought in an attempt to shape a foothold for himself in the midst of that emptiness. He lets you weave your narrative without interruption, and regards its component stitches with a masklike placidity that had frozen you to the marrow when you were Yan, but which crystallizes now as only a passing skin of frost. You brush past the tightening knot of unease wending in your gut and forge into the essentials of what you came here to haggle.

It always snaps a sinewy strand of disgust in you, the way this part comes easy. Flexing the muscle that you and he have in common, the parlance of transaction. There is a rhythm to this that you know how to trace like a finger to a pulse. Open by asking too much, backtrack, pivot, chip at his offers with the knowledge that he is doing the same. Retreat and entreat, and pretend that you don’t see the approving acknowledgment in his face. That you are indeed your father’s daughter.

Huang is unusually agreeable today, and you get the disconcerting impression that he is placating you for something. The spoonful of sugar before the cupful of medicine, as they say.

He’ll have a new valise made within the week. No cost to you— these things happen, he says, nodding in artificial sympathy, and it’s far easier to replace equipment than personnel. A miracle, actually, that you were able to escape in one piece. You want your pay early? Well now, there is protocol to this sort of thing, figures to be kept. The treasurer will certainly be cross… but an exception can be made, just this once. And how very kind of you to offer to host the Tuesday morning poker game! Yes, of course you’ll be compensated. Really, Yan. All this suspicion, and for what? Has he not always played by the rules? Has he not always operated within the bounds that the tongs have set?

Even Feng’s murder, says the seething silence that stretches between you, had been sanctioned. Sam Wah himself had signed off on it in red ink, executioner’s ink. In the cold aftermath, as you stood bloodless and blank and senseless as new paper, the old man had met with you one last time in the Hop Sing drawing room and explained the terms of your expulsion, laying out his justifications as cleanly as black and white weiqi pieces on a game board. 《He should have known what he was courting,》 the old man had said. 《Two Chuan Li men dead. Another beaten so badly he can’t even hold a pair of chopsticks. There were calls for war, Lee. And if I could sacrifice just one man to stay that war…》

Damn it all, the shifting labyrinthine sprawl of custom and regulation and ceremony that governs this hell. And you, aimless and hopeless as a minotaur, wandering these unnavigable halls and waiting for the inevitable blade that will run you through. 

Your negotiation with Huang seems to be drawing to a close, winding into insincere niceties that make you faintly ill to have to receive and resentful to have to reciprocate, when he says (magnanimously, as if he’s gifting you with some great benevolence),《And by the by, I thought you should know— I’ve arranged a new escort for you.》

You draw back in your chair. 《What?》

《I believe you’ve met before. Sam Bennett.》

《Sam Bennett? Sam Bennett?》 Jesus fuck. No. 《You can’t pair me with him. Last year, when I was still with Hop Sing, I—》

《You had him dismissed from the police force for upping his payoffs. Yes, I’m well aware. But the man has agreed to let bygones be bygones in the interest of commerce, and has promised to be on his best behavior.》

《That doesn’t mean shit—》

《Language.》

Shifting again, the corridors of the labyrinth. Reconfiguring into a straight arrow path to Theseus and his golden sword. And you have no recourse but to make your way forward. It wells up in you like a scream, the shivering skitter of a suppressed year’s worth of dread. Racing through your veins like a million frantic ants, your very blood on the trembling verge— and in the midst of this, Huang has the nerve to politely ask you not to curse. You would tear into him and bite open his fucking heart with your own teeth and nails if it would not bring the entire wrath of his tong upon your dead man’s promise. You would gnash him to splinters. You would shred him until he were nothing but insensible meat, until he resembled at last the miserable pile of bloodied and putrid rot you have always known him to be. 

Yulong is here. Yulong is here. Calm down. 

《He’d hurt me,》 you say, your voice shaking the same way your fist in your pocket does, wringing Morgan’s bandanna the way you’ve often imagined wringing Huang’s neck. 《The second he gets me alone. He will.》

《As I said before. He has given his word.》 Huang picks up his teacup and takes a long, savoring sip. Your own sits waiting still on his desk, the steam gone, the liquid that rests inside the sweet brown ochre of a dead leaf. 《But if you’re yet unwilling to continue playing courier… the original proposal still stands.》

The slavemongering bastard opened a parlor house on Harrison Ave when he came here. You have heard talk of it from some of the men. Dead-eyed girls in fine linen and closed doors from which fume the haunted soundscape of your childhood. He would add you to their number, noose you round the neck with a contrived contract and add with each day new debts with which to fetter you. And he would shut you in with him. He would have you take your mother’s place.

《And I suppose if that’s not an option, then I’ll have to take poor Meilan back. But such a shame for a child to grow up without his mother, and you’d know that better than anyone, wouldn’t you.》

His bland, nondescript shopkeeper’s face is as mild as ever, yet there in the pits of his eyes shines a cold and calculating light that you might have named satanic in your missionary days. But it is a child who cannot comprehend that the blackest quadrants of cruelty come not from the divine but are rooted instead in what is altogether too human to bear.

《It’s not a decision to be made lightly, by any means. I believe the next delivery is scheduled for—》Huang fingers the calendar set on the corner of his desk, looking thoughtful as if he hadn’t personally engineered your predicament.《— the 15th. I’ll give you until the 13th to give me your answer. But in the meantime…》

The drawer rattles open again. He withdraws a thick wad of new bills and laboriously counts out a portion with neatly manicured hands, then places a crisp green stack on the center of his desk. You have to stand up and lean forward to reach it, and you shouldn’t be surprised when he closes his fingers round your wrist— his grip tight and cold, the smile on his face still deceptively kind— but you freeze as though your very blood has done the same, rooting you there through the branching of ice through your veins, and you stare up at him rabbit-eyed, and you’re Yan again after all, you always have been—

From his corner, Yulong coughs conspicuously. He follows it up with a loud and truly impressive mustering of tobacco-tinged mucus, which he spits neatly into a nearby spitoon. It pings like the most disgusting and simultaneously blessed bell in existence.

Huang gently places your wages into your open palm. He releases you, and says nothing when you stumble a few steps backwards, then grind the heel of your boot against the floorboard so hard that it squeaks as you turn and propel yourself out the room, into the hall, through the door, and past the front of the building, the laundry, the shops, the faces of jostled onlookers whipping past in murmurs and blurred shouts of indignation, until you reach the iron water pump on the corner of Spruce Street. Its worn handle lets out a series of frantic and angry squeaks as you work it, and a gaggle of girls bedecked in French Quarter finery looks on in vague bemusement as you scrub at your wrist under its torrent of rust-specked, tepid water.

Your sleeve is still damp with it when you reach the butcher. And as you stand there watching the scale’s silver needle quiver as the man weighs out a strip of fat-striped pork, your eyes drift over the tubs of fresh viscera resting behind the glass. Kidneys gleaming a deep cabochon red, pale coils of intestines bunched up like fleshy snakes, a slab of cross-sectioned liver that shines as dully in the afternoon light as unburnished copper— the parceled out fate of a creature sectioned to its most valuable parts and bought piece by piece. The curtain to the back room has been swept aside, and in that blood-reeking, windowless dark dangles a meat hook thronged by a lantern’s eerie flicker. A dead sow hangs from it snout down, her insides hollowed out and her ribs starkly white in the dripping cavity of her chest.

Her ear has been slit. Beholding it, you recognize that notch for what it really is. A prelude to slaughter.

— — —

The more he thinks about it, the worse he feels.

Arthur flicks a scavenging fly off the lip of his soup bowl and stirs what’s left of the sludgy minestrone like he’s sifting for gold amongst bobbing chunks of string bean and gristly pork. In the far corner of the saloon, the piano player struggles through a rendition of Maple Leaf Rag, and the jarring, imprecise notes that litter the score seem appropriate considering the utter mistake that he seems hellbent on walking himself into.

If you were anyone else, I’d have never opened that door in the first place. 

What a fucking joke. 

You had said the words sincerely— he has no doubt of that, those clear eyes of yours so devoid of artifice— but they had obviously been meant for someone else: the avatar of the dead man you seem to see in him. Fong or Feng or Fang, whatever the hell his name was. Arthur lets his spoon drop against the rim of the bowl and gestures towards the barkeep for another shot of bourbon, figuring that the fire of it down his throat will burn away the foul taste at the back of his mouth.

From down the road, a work whistle sounds off and a gate opens like an unhinged maw, loosing from its depths an outpour of workers who stream down the city streets dusty as moths. Worn down men clothed in grease streaked shirts pungent with sweat, and boys among them lively with a youth that dilutes daily with each lever pulled, each heap of coal shoveled in these ashen-hued factories.

A cluster of dark-skinned teenagers, none of them much older than thirteen, runs past the saloon window as they jostle each other for sidewalk space. Exuberant still, the cruel cogitations of the city they inhabit not yet fully manifest for them, they are bright and loud and painfully earnest with an incandescence that will only ever dim in the years they have left. One of them cracks a joke that makes his fellows laugh, and as they make their way towards the slums a white man several feet away casts a disgusted look in their direction and crosses the street. Above it all, the smokestacks like funereal columns holding up the blue catafalque of sky spew soot indiscriminate.

“More of ‘em every year,” the man sitting beside him at the bar grunts.

“More what.”

“You know.” He nods at Arthur with the beleaguered camaraderie of a fellow soldier, huddling miserable in the trenches. “Coloreds. Blacks and Mexicans and god knows what else. Come in like a trickle, but before you know it the water’s at your neck and you’re just barely keepin’ afloat.”

Arthur scoffs. “You say that like the white folk round here are any improvement. They ain’t.”

“Don’t tell me you’re one of them equality minded types—”

“Quit it, Pete.” The bartender sounds weary. “Don’t need you proselytizin’ to every new patron I got.”

Customers come and customers go, and their chatter flows about him like a stream rippling round an obdurate stone. The light that shines through the oily glass begins to take on the ruddying tint of early sunset. A man with a scraggly blond beard and a laborer’s look about him sits down at the bar, begins making idle conversation with the bartender. New in town, and staking out watering holes. Still acquainting himself with what distractions the city has to offer, and might he recommend whereabouts a man might find a decent place to play a hand of poker?

“Prob’ly Chinatown,” the bartender says, polishing a glass with a rag so filthy that the action serves only to counter his efforts. “Only thing worth venturin’ there for. Whole place reeks of piss.”

“Ain’t worth it, if y’ask me,” says Pete, whose opinion has been sought by nobody. “Them chinks’ll cheat a man outta every penny they can get.”

“Parlor on Martin Street’s decent.”

“That the one with the Chinese hostess?” the newcomer asks. “I heard of it. Too bad the ante’s steep as hell.”

“What you think her pussy looks like.”

Arthur nearly spits out his drink. From the corner of his eye, he sees Pete’s yellowed smile, his conspiratorial glance as he spills out his own dubious brand of wisdom. “Because from what I been told, chink pussy’s slanted just like their eyes.”

“Bullshit. What would that even look like.”

“Ask Jonesy. He says he’s had her.”

“I don’t believe a single word outta that bastard’s mouth.”

“Well if anyone knows, it’d be him. That degenerate’s mad for exotic pussy like no one else. Anyway, he says when that chink girl spreads her legs, her gash is sideways—”

When Arthur slams Pete’s face against the blunt edge of the bar, the brawl that ensues has a flavor of confusion to it, like the other man can’t understand what he’s done to deserve it. 

As he stalks down the darkening streets with his knuckles smarting and his hair still dripping with cheap beer, he finds himself approaching the margin between the city and the swamp, where the lines of houses grow in grandiosity until they cease at the muddy wash of the wetlands. A breeze kicks up, carrying in its stream strains of insect song and mallard calls, the repetitious melodies of creatures so caught up in the business of rut that they will cry out incessant amidst a landscape rife with predation. Short-lived, they are. The breadth of their days narrow, and with the horizon of things held in each precarious hour, they have no heed for caution in the face of desire.

In the descending close of day the wooden bridge that leads into the Lemoyne wilds stretches into the rising evening mist like a structure half imagined. How easy it would be to ride towards that merciful anonymity, how freeing to leave every bit of this idiotic sense of obligation behind. 

Arthur sighs. He adjusts his hat and turns back towards St Denis, where the lamplighters are kindling their metal forged charges one by one, glass-amplified fires sparking up in silent welcome.

— — —

Sunday morning, and the Christians are flocking to their god. From the alley off of Calliope Street, Yulong shades his eyes with his hand as he scans through a sea of starched collars and pressed linen dresses. All those good little worshippers so intent on saving the souls of the heathens, and so heedless of that which lies shattered in the wake of their compassionate imposition— they stream towards the stone cathedral that juts from the city square with its spires sharp as icicles, and in their midst he spots a brown-hatted figure weaving through the edge of the crowd.

Oh, Lee. Pretty as a knife. 

Dressed like a boy again, and in a way that certain other men have utterly failed to recognize, it does suit you, given how well it shows the turn of your waist and the quickness in your step. You glance over your shoulder as you approach the alley. A rather futile act of caution, given how loudly the heels of your boots clack against the cobbles.

《Sound like a goddamn elephant stomping over here like that,》Yulong remarks when you come close.

《Oh, shut up.》

《Lemme see your face.》

《Really, Yu. It’s not that bad.》But you let him tilt your head up with his knuckle and squint at the cut on your mouth, though you fold your arms across your chest and roll your eyes as he does so.

The second Wei had left the parlor to inform Huang of your arrival, Yulong had crouched down and tried to help you up. 《Motherfuck,》he whispered.《You okay, Lee? I didn’t mean to hit you that hard—》

You swatted away both his hand and his offer of assistance with an impatient flap of your wrist.《Meet me tomorrow morning.》

《Where?》

《The alley. Eight o clock.》A bright bead of blood ran down your chin as you spoke and he had remembered with a plangent pang like buried regret the bygone days in which you would have welcomed him to tend you. That year which had held in all its seasons the lazy contentment of deep summer before its inevitable fall. 

Your bottom lip is streaked now with a vertical scab the width of a horsehair, and your cheek holds in it an asymmetrical blush of rupture in the shape of his own hand, marked with a small white stripe from the imprint of the ring on his finger. He winces, and instead of the awkward apology that he’d spent all morning stringing together, blurts out,《The hell were you thinkin’, smackin’ me in the face like that. You knew I’d have to hit you back. Woulda looked suspicious as all fuck if I hadn’t—》

《That thing you said about Feng.》Your voice is reproachful, but not angry.《It was mean.》

He concedes this with a rueful twist of his mouth.《It was.》

《Yeah.》

《You wanna take another crack at me now, you’re welcome to it.》

You manage a bleak little smile. As you roll up your sleeve and bop your fist lightly against his shoulder, he sees the pink ring of chafed skin at your wrist— ligature mark the width of his thumb, striated like strands. Rope. His mouth goes dry, his throat tightens. He tries to force away from his mind’s eye the thousand haunted hypotheticals that had plagued him the night before. Lee hurt. Lee crying. Lee broken beneath some faceless white devil leagues away from retribution.

That last image had struck up such a blaze of inconsolable rage that Ruolan had sleepily sat up beside him, blankets rounding over her swelling belly as she pressed her lips to his shoulder. Was he worried about the baby again, she asked him, her voice husky in that way that made his heart and loins wound in sympathetic ache. She was nervous too, she confessed, crossing her arms around him in the soft warren of their bed. But she had a good feeling this time, and especially so far along…

He rolled over and hugged her with such sudden ferocity that she had startled. Ran his palm over the new life that beat in tandem within her and buried his face against her soft neck, and would not worry her by speaking his fears aloud.

《Lee,》Yulong says.《The sonuvabitch who robbed you— gimme a name. Or if you ain’t got that, go down to Kuang’s and give ‘im a description, get ‘im to draw you a picture. He’s good at th—》You shake your head, and it is not shame or revulsion or even simple dismay that clouds your face, but rather the sheepish embarrassment of a moonstruck schoolgirl.《Ah no, that’s not… I mean, it wasn’t exactly a robbery, it was more like a misunderstanding. As in he did take my money, but he also saved my life, and— god, it doesn’t really matter. It’s not why I’m here.》The breath you take rattles through your lungs like nervous conviction, and you close your eyes through the long duration of your exhale. When you open them again, the resolution contained there is thin and weary but nonetheless solid, and it plucks a chord of apprehension in him to witness. 《Yu,》you say simply. 《Help me.》

[professor-amaryllis]

:{ A video file is embedded. It begins as Amy sets the camera up, obscuring most of the frame with a shirt that simply says 'Bread.' in large letters over a photo of a baguette. As they step back the inside of the barn in revealed, once again back in some sort of order, though one of the folding tables is covered in samples of that yellow flowered plant, as well as a few sad looking examples of the white flowered Paldean Burr. Beetroot the Meganium dozes happily in a beam of sunlight just behind the professor.

"Ok, alright. I'm recording this because i think I may have figured something out and I think this might be the best format for this. So, as you can see with these plants side by side they really are nearly identical. Or well, they would be if the samples from Paldea had fared the postal system a little better but-"

Amy is stopped short by the head of Beetroot swinging over towards the table, and they seem alarmed for just a moment until she simply exhales onto the wilted plants which spring back to life almost instantaneously. She then simply settles back into her comfortable position and closes her eyes.

"... I sort of forgot you could do that. It really has been awhile, huh old girl?" he pats her neck and she responds with a sort of deep thrumming noise deep in her chest, which Amy repeats as a gentle hum. After a moment he brings his attention back to the table with a start.

"Right! So, as you can see a little more clearly now, these plants are near identical. The only difference that one can discern visually is the obvious one, the yellow flowers on the Sinnohan samples. now there is one major difference that can't be seen here." Amy leans forward, a bit of excitement in his tone.

"The Sinnohan samples of this plant had a concentration of cadmium that was more than two thousand times the level in the nearest soil samples. In fact, the level of cadmium around clusters if this plant were lower than the average of other places in the area. My friends I think we have ourselves the discovery of a hyperaccumulator property in these common Paldean plants."

He leans back a moment now, before bending over are retrieving a small pot containing another of the same plant, but this one's flowers are a pale yellow, somewhere between the other samples. "This sample was to test a thought I had, and while of course the sample size is low I think it is enough to solidify a theory. This plant is a Paldean sample, planted in soil from just outside. Look how in just a few hours the flowers are already acquiring a color!"

"A plant that only becomes Poisonous once invasive, isn't that fascinating?" the professor laughs a little before leaning forward, obscuring the screen once again before the video ends. }:

[pure-garbage]

Two-Faced Archipelago! The Smile Of Sabaody

The town built on a cluster of ancient mangroves was bright and lively, beckoning Lana with novel sights and sounds.

"You still remember the dock number?" she triple-checked.

"For the last time, yes!" Zoro grumbled.

"Okay. Here, try this."

Zoro accepted a mug from her, sampling its contents with a discerning flair.

"Not bad. Where'd you get it?" he asked.

"That shop. It fronts a distillery."

"Wanna stop in for a while?"

"Maybe on our way back. Gimme some of your hair. I'm gonna split for a while."

He accepted the knife she offered, obliging her request even as he questioned it.

"What do you need my hair for?"

"I heard there's a stall a few streets over that make up vivre cards. I'm going to get them to make us one each," Lana explained.

"What for?"

"Just to have. The whole concept is so neat, I can't resist!"

"If you say so. What do you say we meet back here in an hour?"

"Uh..."

Lana considered the idea of Zoro intentionally trying to find his way back to one specific spot and paled a little at the thought of the chaos that would almost certainly ensue.

"Don't worry about it... I don't know how long this'll take. I'll just find you when it's done, 'kay?" she proposed instead. She didn't wait for him to accept, just ran off before he could protest, leaving him shaking his head.

"With her awful sense of direction?" he scoffed, unaware of the cruel irony. "I'll be lucky to ever see her again."

Lana left the stall with her freshly minted vivre cards much sooner than she'd anticipated.

"Now, Zoro," she muttered to herself as she stepped out into the street. "Where are you?"

She walked for about three minutes before a woman's inconsolable wailing pierced the calm of the grove.

"Yep," she sighed. "Bet my sash that's where Zoro's at."

Lana high-tailed it in the direction the screams, heading for the source of the commotion. Soon, she rounded a corner, but what she saw stopped her cold.

"Z-Zoro!"

He sat on the grass, red covering his head and dripping down off his chin.

"What did you do?! I left you alone for like, twenty minutes! Whose blood is that?" Lana demanded. Her head whipped around, but she didn't see bodies or anyone else injured. Her sole focus turned to Zoro. "Can you stand? What happened?!"

"I'm fine, it's red berry sauce," Zoro grunted, taking her hand and pulling himself up. "You're not gonna believe this, but some crazy chick just knocked me down and splashed it all over me. On purpose."

"What? That's all? I mean, that's pretty bizarre, but I thought you hurt someone. Or got hurt. Mostly hurt someone else, though."

Lana wiped a finger through the red substance and popped it into her mouth, confirming Zoro's claim.

"I almost did," Zoro admitted. "Some whacky guy in the dumbest outfit I've ever seen pointed a gun at me for literally no reason."

"Literally no reason? Come on, Zoro, just pony up and tell me what you did," Lana scoffed.

"I didn't do anything! I have no clue what this guy's problem was!"

"Right, sure. So this connects to the red berry sauce woman how?"

"She knocked me down, splashed me, told me to stay down and then did a whole bunch of caterwauling about how her 'poor brother was dead'. Hey, knock that off!"

Zoro swatted Lana's hand away as she tried to swipe another taste of the syrup.

"But it's good though," she moped. "Whatever, have it your way. That sounds like a really strange encounter, Zoro. I guess that was all the screaming I heard."

"Think that's all considered normal around these parts?" Zoro asked, glancing around surreptitiously for any sign of others being unsolicitedly doused with berry sauce.

"Who knows? Come on. Let's head back to the ship and clean up. Before anything else weird happens."

"Sure you don't want to hang around and see if you can get some berry sauce for yourself?" Zoro smirked as he caught her eying the sticky substance yearningly.

"Ha ha. Very funny. How about we get back to the Sunny and I settle for licking you clean?" she teased.

"You're right, we really should get going," he agreed at once with a wide grin.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Lana realized. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the vivre cards.

"Purple and green?" Zoro asked curiously.

"Yeah, they let you pick the colors. Nifty, huh? Here."

She tore both cards, kept half of each and gave the other halves to Zoro.

"Obviously, mine is the purple one and yours is green."

"That tracks."

"Now don't lose them, or mine won't work."

"Me? You don't lose yours."

"As if. Hey, you still remember the grove number where we docked?"

"Hey!"

________________________________________________

<== Previous Chapter

Next Chapter ==>

== First Chapter ==

[alexwritesit]

The Gentleman in Red

In the whispered echoes of a gala night, I linger on memories of an enigmatic gentleman in red, our exchange a dance of flirtation, his invitation a siren's call, weaving a tale of allure and uncharted desires.

“Good evening,” I offered, my smile a well-practiced facade, the glass of champagne catching the soft glow of the room. My words, laced with a feigned interest, floated towards the cluster of guests. “Are you enjoying the event?” The query, a mere formality, barely concealed my profound ennui.

As if rehearsed, their responses chimed in unison, “Of course, it’s marvelous! Have you sampled the cake? The exquisite cuisine? The wine?” Their voices, a cacophony of eagerness, seemed to dance around me, each syllable dripping with the unspoken desire to weave connections.

The music, a solitary redeeming feature, filled the air with a vivacity that contrasted sharply with the undercurrent of superficiality. The chandeliers, dimmed to a soft, golden hue, cast a gentle light over the scene, their glow reflected in the lively bubbles of my champagne. I brought the glass to my lips, the effervescence teasing my tongue before giving way to the familiar, underwhelming taste.

In this grand charade, every smile, every gesture was a calculated move in a game of unspoken alliances and veiled intentions, set against the backdrop of an evening that promised much yet delivered little more than gilded emptiness.

Each time an invitation landed in my hands, adorned with the words “To our distinguished…”, my eyes couldn’t help but roll in silent cynicism. Despite the reluctance that gnawed at me, I found myself accepting these invitations, knowing full well the predictability that awaited. The events, regardless of their veneer of exclusivity, were always populated by the same faces – familiar smiles, tired camaraderie, each interaction a thinly veiled attempt to curry favor. The gatherings were a tableau of old men accompanied either by their wives or conspicuously younger companions. The monotony of it all was stifling.

Lifting the champagne to my lips once more, I welcomed the brief respite its effervescence provided from the stagnant air of pretense. Yet, even this small pleasure was marred by the lackluster flavor of the drink – a disappointment that mirrored the event itself.

The dance floor, now opened, presented a scene that might have been captivating to a newcomer. Elegant dresses and sharply tailored suits graced the figures of those who moved across it, their attire speaking of a fashion that was just a step ahead of the current trends. The younger attendees, mostly ‘plus-ones’, gravitated towards the dance floor with an enthusiasm that contrasted sharply with the more seasoned attendees. These younger guests frolicked to the orchestra’s tunes, their movements light and carefree.

In stark contrast, the older couples seemed almost anchored to their tables, confined within their select social circles. They engaged little, their interactions limited and guarded. The divide was palpable – the vibrancy of youth on the dance floor, the entrenched solemnity of the older guests at their tables – each group ensconced in their own worlds, separated by unspoken yet deeply ingrained social norms.

The waiter, a silent sentinel amidst the sea of revelry, approached me with a tray of champagne glasses. Each glass sparkled with the promise of effervescence, a fleeting allure. His gaze, though fixed on me, seemed to pierce through to some distant point, devoid of genuine interest. It was a reminder that, like me, he was merely playing a role in this grand charade – he to serve, I to partake, both of us bound by the unspoken rules of this gilded masquerade.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, almost mechanically, exchanging my empty glass for a full one. My eyes lingered on the waiter as he weaved his way through the tables with an effortless grace. His form was a study in physical perfection, each movement fluid and poised, reminiscent of a river carving its path with serene certainty. There was a certain elegance in his simplicity, a stark contrast to the ostentatious display that surrounded us.

Was there a tinge of envy in my observation? Perhaps. In his motion, there was an authenticity that this room, with all its finery and forced gaiety, sorely lacked.

I raised the glass to my lips once more, the initial fizz of the champagne giving way all too quickly to the familiar taste of disappointment – a fitting metaphor for the evening. The bubbles, like so many things in this setting, promised much but delivered little, mirroring the hollow exchanges and superficial smiles that filled the room.

“Where’s your plus one?”

The voice that cut through the din of the crowd held a resonance that tugged at the edges of memory. It was a sound both distant and intimately familiar, like an echo from another time. I turned, my gaze settling on the source: there she stood, a glass of champagne in hand. The liquid inside was a paradox in itself, half full or half empty depending on one’s perspective, much like the expressions that played across her features – a mixture of distaste and amusement.

“I don’t have one,” I responded, my words succinct, free of the usual pretenses.

Her reaction was theatrical, an exaggerated gasp that held no true surprise, only a flair for the dramatic. “Oh, I’ll enjoy this night then,” she declared, a playful chuckle escaping her lips as she brought the glass to her lips. The taste of the champagne, bland as it was, didn’t seem to diminish her spirit.

“Yeah, yeah. Savour the moment,” I replied, a hint of dry humor in my tone. Her presence, an unexpected deviation in the night’s monotonous proceedings, brought a certain liveliness, a spark of genuine interaction amidst the sea of feigned pleasantries. In a setting where authenticity was as scarce as a nuanced flavor in our champagne, her candor was a refreshing, if slightly jarring, interlude.

“How come you came?” she inquired, a hint of curiosity lacing her tone. “Thought last time you said you wouldn’t accept the next invite.”

“I am too much of a nice person to deny an invitation,” I retorted, my response laced with a touch of irony. Catching her raised eyebrow, I conceded, “Fine, I was bored.”

“Ah,” she chuckled, the sound rich with understanding. “I’m here on official business.”

“Aren’t we all?” I quipped, a playful edge to my words.

“Darling, I meant another kind of official business,” she clarified, her voice tinged with a mysterious undertone.

“Oh!” I feigned surprise, playing along with the intrigue. “Who’s the guy?”

Her gesture directed my attention to a youngish man holding court at the center table. His appearance was noteworthy in its completeness – a full head of hair, a perfect set of teeth – and his charm was evident even from a distance. His smile, radiant and seemingly reserved for those he held in high esteem, briefly found her in the crowd. He waved, a gesture of cordial invitation that seemed to light up his entire demeanor.

“That is my call, Darling,” she announced, a playful seriousness in your tone. Turning to face me, she added with a wink, “Don’t be a bore, however. Find yourself a nice looking waiter,” and then, like a whisper in the wind, she was gone, melting into the sea of people before I could muster a reply.

Left to my own devices, I leaned back against the wall, my gaze once again sweeping over the room. The orchestra played on, a backdrop to the rhythmic dance of people and conversations. The tables, a landscape of culinary delights and sparkling drinks, were tended to by waiters in crisp white and black, moving with an elegance that was almost balletic. They navigated the room with an effortless grace, their presence adding a subtle yet undeniable charm to the evening.

Her parting words echoed in my mind, a teasing challenge amidst the tedium. Perhaps there was merit in the suggestion – a diversion, however fleeting, from the predictable narrative of the night. The waiters, undeniably attractive in their uniformity, offered a visual respite from the dreariness of the event. And so, with a newfound sense of curiosity, I began to entertain the possibility of engaging in this little game, a private amusement in an otherwise dull affair.

The gala’s opulence and grandeur, once alluring, had begun to wear thin, casting a sheen of tedium over the evening. Despite a fleeting, tantalizing thought of spending the night in the company of one of the handsome waiters—a notion both scandalous and thrilling—I shook the idea from my mind. Clutching my champagne glass, I made my way towards the exit, eager to escape the stifling atmosphere of the event. The constant hum of conversations and the clinking of glasses had become overwhelming, a cacophony that seemed to amplify the gala’s inherent rigidity.

As I passed the bar, the bartenders acknowledged me with a simple nod, a silent greeting that felt refreshingly straightforward compared to the evening’s pretenses. Pushing open the doors, I stepped out into the back streets of the venue, finding solace in the night’s embrace.

The air outside was a sharp contrast to the stuffy interior I had left behind. It was fresh and crisp, carrying the unmistakable hint of winter on its breath. The chill was a welcome relief, a natural reprieve that seemed to cleanse the palate of the evening’s excesses. The back street, surprisingly tidy for such a space, was dotted with only a few dumpsters tucked away in a far corner, a thoughtful consideration by the venue’s management.

I found a quiet spot amidst several chairs and small tables arranged near the doors. Setting my champagne glass on the table, I sank into the chair, allowing myself to be enveloped by the serene stillness of the night. Here, away from the gala’s forced gaiety and superficial chatter, I could finally breathe, the cool air filling my lungs with a sense of liberation. The quiet of the back street was a stark contrast to the orchestrated liveliness inside, offering a moment of introspection and calm amidst an evening of orchestrated excess.

Fumbling through my pockets, I sought out the pack of cigarettes I reserved for nights like this – those rare moments when the weight of the world seemed to demand a smoky reprieve. I wasn’t a habitual smoker, but some battles, as fate would have it, seemed more bearable with a cigarette in hand. Unearthing the packet, I found a lone cigarette lying within, its solitary presence a reminder to replenish my stock.

Placing the cigarette between my lips, I began the hunt for a lighter. My fingers patted down each pocket – front, back, inner, outer – in a growing crescendo of frustration. But my search was in vain; not a single lighter or even a match graced my attire.

“God- Fuck!” I exclaimed, the irritation spilling out into the quiet back street.

At that moment, an unfamiliar voice cut through the air, “Lack a flame?” The doors clicked shut, and my gaze shifted towards the sound. There, emerging from the shadows, was a figure like no other.

He was clad in a striking red suit, its fabric reminiscent of the velvety petals of roses, a vibrant contrast against the muted backdrop of the night. Gold gleamed around his neck, a necklace studded with diamonds catching the faint light, while pearls adorned his wrists. The buttons of his suit were intricately embroidered with silver, adding to his lavish appearance.

His presence was commanding, almost otherworldly. It was as if I had encountered the devil himself – not a figure of fear, but of temptation, an alluring vision in red and gold. The elegance and extravagance of his attire, coupled with the timing of his appearance, lent an air of surrealism to the moment. Here, in the quiet solitude of the back street, stood a man who seemed to embody both the allure and the danger of a forbidden fruit, a mysterious stranger offering a flame in more ways than one.

Caught off guard by the sudden appearance of this enigmatic stranger, my words faltered, “I, uh, yes.” For a moment, I stood there with my mouth agape, the forgotten cigarette still perched between my lips. Realizing the potential disaster, I quickly closed my mouth, securing the cigarette – which suddenly seemed as precious as gold – from tumbling to the damp, unclean ground.

The man’s movements were a spectacle of grace and poise, utterly captivating. His hands, meticulously groomed and elegant, delved into the pocket of his resplendent red suit, emerging with a lighter. The lighter, too, was red, a perfect complement to his attire. He extended it towards me, his gesture fluid and deliberate.

In that moment, I found myself momentarily paralyzed, spellbound by the sheer presence of the man before me. My usual, mundane task of lighting a cigarette seemed to elude me, as if his aura had momentarily disrupted my basic motor functions. It was the sudden gust of wind that snapped me back to reality, a natural intervention that saved me from the brink of embarrassment.

Gratefully, I reached out, taking the lighter from his hand. The flicker of the flame brought a sense of normalcy back, a reminder of the simple action I was about to perform. I lit the cigarette, inhaling deeply, the smoke providing a much-needed anchor to the surreal situation unfolding in this quiet back street. The presence of this stranger, with his striking attire and captivating aura, had transformed an ordinary moment into something akin to a scene from a vivid, almost otherworldly narrative.

The man took a seat opposite me, his movements fluid and assured. As I indulged in the rare pleasure of the cigarette, my eyes briefly met his. They were a deep, rich brown, reminiscent of the finest African blackwood – dark, intricate, seemingly carved to hold depths of secrets and untold desires.

“What brings you outside?” I asked, curiosity lacing my tone.

“I couldn’t stand the people inside. Thought the rats would be better company,” he replied, his voice smooth, imbued with a honeyed timbre. His response elicited a chuckle from me, a spontaneous reaction to his unexpected candor. I leaned back into my chair, releasing a plume of smoke into the cool night air.

For a brief moment, the surreal quality of the situation gave rise to a question in my mind: Is this a dream? “I guess we’re alike. Do you smoke?” I inquired, trying to maintain a semblance of conversation.

“No, don’t worry,” he assured me.

“Ah, good then, you shouldn’t,” I advised, almost instinctively.

His eyebrow arched, a gesture that seemed to accentuate the enigmatic aura surrounding him. His lips, compelling in their expressiveness, curved into a soft, knowing smile. “Shouldn’t you heed your own advice?” he asked, his voice as warm and inviting as a gentle fire.

I let out a light, self-aware chuckle. “Maybe, but I guess it’s too late for me.” My words were tinged with a hint of resignation, acknowledging the small vices that we clutch onto, even when we know better.

The silence that settled between us was one of those rare, comfortable voids, filled with the ambient sounds of the night. The faint scurrying of rats in the distance, mingling with the muffled strains of music seeping through the windows and cracks of the gala, lent an otherworldly feel to the moment. It was surreal, at least from my perspective. But what about him? What did he think, feel?

Stealing a glance his way, I found myself captivated again. His eyes held the depth of the cosmos, stars and nebulas yet to be explored, secrets begging to be unveiled. There was an undeniable allure about him, a magnetic pull that stirred a desire within me to claim his attention, if only for the duration of the night. In his presence, the notion of him being a devil, albeit one not of sinister nature, seemed almost plausible.

“Is something on my face?” His voice broke through my thoughts, his gaze meeting mine.

“Oh,” I found myself momentarily at a loss for words, scrambling for a coherent response. “No, I just spaced out, I’m sorry.” My reply was an awkward attempt to brush off my apparent staring, a feeble effort to mask the intrigue and attraction that had momentarily rendered me speechless.

My curiosity piqued, I ventured to ask, “What brings you to the gala?” The words eased out of me, breaking through my initial stiffness. Yet, a chill momentarily grazed my spine, a physical reaction to the accelerating beat of my heart each time his gaze met mine.

He paused, considering his response, then let out a chuckle. “I was invited,” he said with an air of playful obviousness. His demeanor shifted slightly as he leaned forward, resting his elbow on the table and his head in his palm, a casual pose that somehow accentuated his enigmatic charm. “Every year I’m invited, yet this is the first time I came.”

“Oh, you as well?” I replied, finding a common thread in our experiences.

“Yup. They’re all a bore,” he said, his tone carrying a hint of dramatization, yet underlined with a sincerity that resonated with my own feelings about these events.

“I always come, unsure why,” I confessed, taking a sip of the now lukewarm champagne in an attempt to steady my nerves. “It’s always the same faces, the same stories, and there I am, sitting in the corner, nursing bland champagne.”

He looked at me, his expression a mix of amusement and a shared sense of mockery. His eyes flickered briefly to the glass in my hand, then back to me as I took another drag of the cigarette. “Oh, poor you,” he replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm yet sweet as honey. “I guess it was a better choice that I came this time.”

“Oh?” I queried, a hint of flirtation edging into my tone. Was he flirting with me? Should I play along? As I met his gaze, a fire ignited within me, my thoughts veering towards realms far removed from the decorum of the gala. And somehow, I sensed he was aware of this unspoken tension.

“It seems the music is dying down,” he remarked, subtly changing the subject. Yet his gaze held mine a second longer than necessary, a fleeting lapse in his otherwise composed demeanor. In that moment, I found myself yearning to close the distance between us, to taste the mystery that he embodied.

“It is…” I responded, my voice trailing off. “The main event should start soon.”

His offer hung in the air, a tangible invitation, as he slowly stood and extended his hand towards me, holding the door open in a gesture that was both courteous and inviting. The simplicity of the act contrasted with the complexity of emotions it stirred within me.

“I-…” My initial hesitation was a brief skirmish between caution and desire, a momentary pause in the unfolding narrative of the night. “Sure,” I found myself saying, the word escaping as a mix of acquiescence and anticipation. I carefully discarded the cigarette, extinguishing it beneath my foot, a symbolic end to one indulgence as I prepared to embrace another.

Taking his hand, I felt a jolt of excitement, an electric connection that seemed to transcend the ordinary. His appearance, devilishly charming and enigmatic, had captivated me from the moment he appeared. And now, as I accepted his invitation, a part of me acknowledged a deeper truth: He may look like a devil, but God knows I want him.

[jabbotmohan]

thank you so much for tagging me @xoxoviva!

Writing Pattern Game!

Rules: Share the first line of your last ten published works or as many as you are able and see if there are any patterns!

the calm before the storm

In the dark hours between night and morning, Attuma prepares for what will come.

rise and shine 18+

Attuma awakens slowly, consciousness descending on him in gentle increments.

i’ve got a dark alley and a bad idea 18+

Okoye slinks through the crowded bar, dodging clusters of drunk white girls and the dudes staring at them predatorily as she makes her way to the back door.

across the ocean blue

Attuma follows K’uk’ulkan through the marketplace, expression carefully blank.

a night for bad dreams

“Attuma!” Okoye jerks awake, heart pounding with the last vestiges of a nightmare she cannot recall.

the stand

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

no place i’d rather be

“All right,” Sarah announces as she tosses some fruit snacks into the cooler and closes the lid, “Cass, you put the towels in the car and, AJ, I need you to carry this cooler. Thank you, baby. I’m gonna get the chairs and umbrella—”

laundry day 18+

Sarah hums softly to herself as she folds towels in the mud room.

let me in 18+

Sarah takes the latest batch of snapper off the grill and hands the plate to AJ.

something like a phenomena 18+

The moment he steps over the threshold, James feels the tension start to leave him.

so, it seems 30% of the sample size is fics that begin with dialogue. the other 70% is comprised of fics that begin with an action of some kind.

i tag with no pressure: @jemgirl86 @spinachgarden @siancore @eusuntgratie @dasphinxone and anyone else who’d like to play!

[muraenide]

Malleus ( @fireandfae ) sent: “Ah, Leech. There you are.” Appearing from the air with a shower of green sparkles as if he were some sort of oversized lightning bug, Malleus steps in front of Jade with a smile entirely too smug as he hands him an odd sort of container. “It is your birthday is it not?”

It’s shaped like a dome, transparent glass tinted the faintest of purples and harboring beneath its lid a small cluster of mushrooms that appear to shimmer with an eerie blue glow amidst the dirt heaped up around them.

“You are so fond of mushrooms, I thought I would gift you a sample of one of the kinds that grow within the boundaries of Briar Valley. Perhaps you may find them intriguing as I am quite certain nothing similar grows near this school.”

Malleus' appearance comes as a surprise. He does not recall seeing the Diasomnia Housewarden at his and Floyd's birthday party. Amid the masses of students gathered at the lounge, he wouldn't have missed it if someone as tall and outlandish as Malleus had paid them a visit.

His gaze falls onto the odd-looking container in the other's grasp, half-expecting the purpose of his visit, but it's still different to think about it in theory rather than witnessing it in person. "You know that I enjoyed studying mushrooms?" A smile sits on his lips. It's a rhetorical question. He hasn't forgotten the club showcase where Malleus' booth had been located just right next to his. Perhaps his displays had made it far too obvious.

Taking the container into his hands, his eyebrows pinch when he realizes the breed of fungi is unlike anything he has ever seen before. "Is this...... Oh." As Malleus explains the origin of his gift, for a few brief moments, the facade melts away. Eyes wide, alight with curiosity and wonderment, his grip around the container tightens visibly, having known the full extent of its value. "I — I couldn't thank you enough. I would never have expected such a thoughtful gift." The excitement in his voice is barely concealed. He didn't mind now that no one was left here except the two of them.

"Are there any special treatments I should take note of to ensure their survival outside of Briar Valley? If you know, you must find a time to tell me about them."

[chroniclers-circle]

chromium 1a

Sys.log: First Impressions

She spotted the orchard as she was resting. There was a cold biting breeze that scuffed along her neck, psychosomatic proof that she was alone and that her surroundings must be as cold as they appear through the glass of her visor, and she looked toward the horizon with her weary shoulders slumped. There was a bitterness in her heart, and she didn’t know what to do with that. It was new—perhaps the only new thing in the world.

Cold steam erupted from the mounds of glittering diamonds beyond the tangle almost-trees, curious and twisting in the faint far light of the white-green star that served as this system’s sun. Whether the distance tainted it those curious colors, or there was something about this planet’s atmosphere, she didn’t know. If she stayed long enough she’d probably discover the reason—but she rarely ever stayed long enough. She shivered and, out of misplaced curiosity or perhaps a lack of anything better to do, set off toward the cluster of curious features.

It only almost looked like an orchard, and looked less like one with every step she took closer; though between the smooth surface of the planet, and the endless starry skies above, it could never have been an orchard she’d ever seen before. What passed for trees thrust from the ground in a twisting briar-bramble of awkward limbs and uncanny boughs, gleaming with the mercury-chrome slickness native to this planet that was done better than any factory product she’d ever seen among the forge-world close to the galaxy’s core.

Along each branch fractalled nodules of fist-sized fruits, colored darker than the branches, like steel or charcoal stained glass. Upon reaching the cluster, she reached out with her off-white gloves and attempted to pluck it from the stem. The stem bent back and forth, and then tore with a crack that sounding like shrieking metal, like the Demetrius had sounded on her first, ill-fated, pilot’s drive.

The fruit squished slightly under her tightening fist. The juice stained her fingers light lilac-purple, as it burst open. She blinked. She hadn’t noticed how hard she was squeezing.

Well—that could have gone better. She’d always been told to be more gentle when dealing with new specimens. She picked another fruit from the tree, reached for the satchel at her side, and tucked the new sample inside.

Then she scanned the area around her. Time to move on, and explore more of this strange planet. She’d need to make a classification soon, and time was running out.

She clicked open her audio-visual recorder, and began a new section of her exploration. The screen crackled sharply. She was supposed to voice over her explorations. It was easy to stay silent in an environment like this.

Sys.log: Strange Trees. Possible Cryo-volcanic Activity

Right—she’d seen those mounds earlier. They’d be a fine place to continue her exploration of this cold and gleaming planet. She found herself hoping nothing would go too badly as she trudged toward the hissing hills.

That thought was enough to damn her, of course.

As she set off across the curiously smooth terrain, trying not to track her reflection’s mirror movement too closely, the ground shuddered and moaned beneath her feet, with a similar twisting and shrieking to the twisted fruit trees. In her hurry not to trip and lose her footing, she missed the singular instant that her reflection fell out of synchronity with her, the moment where—if you peered deeply into her double’s tinted vision—you might be able to see her reflection’s face, twisting and snarling with hatred. Juice still dripped from the gloves of her space-suit.

Despite the heaving ground, she was able to keep herself steady with the ease born from spending summer after summer on the oceans of and quaking shores of her homeplanet, Myril. She was just lucky that this planet didn’t have any seas to threaten destructive force after the planet’s desperate anger. The smooth flat landscape, with its scarce hills and rare gentle swells, would make it hard to run from a tidal wave, if one came. The quake was over as soon as it began, and she was left regaining her equilibrium. If that was the worst this planet had to offer, she would be fine.

After the last of the aftershocks had passed, she let her guard down too quickly—in her defense, with all the monitors on her suit reading plunging temperatures, and the ship’s sensors claiming the planet had a rocky, oozing, half-solid core, she hadn’t been expecting the icy geysers to be volcanic.

But, as it turned out, she’d landed on a planet which seemed to hate her. The mounds she’d been about to climb began to hiss and sputter more urgently than before, and bits of frost belched from the pockmarked holes in the ground. She’d thought they were some sort of strange geyser before—she’d been wrong.

The ground roared as it expelled vitriol at her.

The core of the planet was just as sluggish and frozen as her ship sensors had promised. She’d underestimated the other strange signs, the other curious energy readings, the eerie stillness of a world so static and unchanging. Something had held it in stasis, and she’d disrupted that in moments.

Icy chunks of metal spewed into the sky, and she turned and sprinted for her ship. There was no time to make it all the way to the mounds, to see what they were made of, why they sparkled in the minty starlight—she had to stay alive.

The gangplank rang underneath her feet as she sprinted for the button, hit the airlock, and began emergency takeoff procedures. She couldn’t stay here a moment longer than she already had. Not if she wanted to leave with her life.

The little chrome fruit glittered bright and tarnished silver in her bag where she slung it by the doors, shaking—and that too went unnoticed, as she guided the ship back into interplanetary orbit.

NEXT PLANET

[scotianostra]

30th May 1889 saw the birth near Kirkliston of Isobel Wylie Hutchison.

Another of those strong willed Scottish women, Isobel overcame the constraints that the age, her class, and her own personality placed upon her, to become a solo adventurer in the far North, an accomplished plant collector and a successful poet and writer.

Carlowrie "Castle", a Scots baronial mansion near Kirkliston in West Lothian, was the comfortable upper-middle class home into which Isobel Wylie Hutchison was born in 1889. It was there her father, Thomas Hutchison, a successful wine merchant in Edinburgh, looked after his gardens, and passed on to Isobel his fascination for plants and his habit of meticulous note-taking. I put the commas round castle as, although it is known as a castle by it's name in the old sense of things, having only been built in the mid 19th century, to me a castle needs to have a lot more history than that, Isobels grandfather had it built from scratch, nowadays it is top wedding venue and voted one of the top three venues under 200 bedrooms in Europe.

Back to the lady in question, three deaths were to shatter Isobel’s youth. From 1900 she went to school in Edinburgh where she studied a curriculum suited for a young Victorian Lady. After her sister married a naval officer and saw very little of him for long periods Isobel decided that marriage would restrict her life.

Three deaths were to shatter Isobel’s youth. Her father died suddenly, shortly before her 11th birthday; and her two brothers when she was in her early twenties – one in a climbing accident in 1912, and the other during the First World War. The deaths however meant she has an independent lady of means, affording her the luxury of leading her own life without restrictions.

She travelled to the Arctic, filming the things she saw around her, the landscape and the wildflowers growing there and the daily lives of the indigenous people. Other travellers of the time who wrote of their discoveries did not dwell on the domestic detail that makes Hutchison's work unique. Her first exploration was to East Greenland in 1927, followed in 1928 by a year in Umanak, North Greenland. She filmed eskimos collecting ice for water and hunting seals from a kayak, the wild flowers of Umanak and the Governor's coffee party! Scottish whalers had taught reels and other dances to the locals, Hutchison filmed them a century later still dancing with enthusiasm.

In 1934 she set out for Alaska, travelling by coastal steamer from Vancouver to Skagway and then overland to Nome. Here she found a very small freighter to take her along the north coast of Alaska, ending with 120 miles by dog sledge and returning on mail plane to Alberta. Hutchison brought back samples of the plant life for the Royal Horticultural Society and the Natural History Museum. She had a long connection with the Royal Scottish Geographical Society as Honorary Editor of the magazine and as a fellow and Vice President.

She was awarded the Mungo Park Medal as a tribute to her explorations and in recognition of her original and valuable researches in Iceland, Greenland and Arctic Alaska. She wrote several travel books including 'North to the Rime-Ringed Sun' and 'Stepping Stones from Alaska to Asia' and four volumes of poetry.

In later life she gave frequent lectures, using films and lantern slides, describing her travels for film-making and writing articles for National Geographic' magazine. She died in 1982.

Of her poems I have chosen one I can resonate with, having spent my childhood on the doorstep of the Pentland Hills, south of Edinburgh:

LAMENT FOR THE PENTLAND MEN.

Oh early grey of morning-time! Oh Pentland Hills! The bracken white with frosty rime, The brown peat rills, Home of the wild-bird wet with dew, Heard ye the sunrise yearning For the eager beat of Pentland feet No more, no more, no more returning?

Up from the city’s clustered spires, Up from the glen, The thin sweet bugle-call inspires The Redford men. Home of the wild-bird wet with dew Heard ye the bugle yearning For the eager beat of Pentland feet No more, no more, no more returning?

From high Caerketton’s pebbly ridge, From Kips to Castlelaw, From Loganlee to Redford Bridge, From Dunsyre to Cobbinshaw, Braes where the sheep-dog watches lone Fling wild the echo, yearning For the eager beat of Pentland feet No more, no more, no more returning.

Oh fallen hearts of Pentland gold! Oh bleeding feet that roam The long grey silences that fold The Hills of Home! Hear ye no sobbing faint and far? The grey old Pentlands yearning For the wistful beat of children’s feet No more, no more, no more returning.

You can read more about this little know Scottish explorer and her poetry here https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/isobel-wylie-hutchison/?fbclid=IwAR1xQBXLm5Z020id-