#Energie-Wende | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thegildedbee · 4 months

Text

Family/Laugh: May 12 & 13 Prompts from @calaisreno

The exterior nowheres that Sherlock inhabits can be charted by his footfalls as he wends his way through the precincts of temporary cities. The silent drift of assimilating interior nowheres, however, seems to leave no traces, even as he feels unseen changes taking hold. His suspension in the January North of a darkness that persists until late morning, and then quickly returns in the afternoon, intensifies his perception that he lives in a shadow-world, a lone dark figure extracted from the frozen rain that curtains his days.

The patterns he seeks to capture as he hunts amidst the ones and zeros of cyberspace are likewise intangible – extended solitary vigils as his fingers command the keyboard to winnow through the tangle of codes – as well as tangible, of meetings with the technological mix of people here at Tallinn’s crossroads: software developers seeking the leading edge at corporate labs, security experts at NATO’s Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, the underground hackers who traverse the landscape of the digital realm’s hollow earth. Both the intangible and the tangible are intense efforts to spy glimpses of Moriarty’s covert presence in the spaces between the ones and zeros, summoning up the networks and nodes of the intersecting spheres of finance, and energy, and communications, as made manifest in trafficking, and counterfeiting, and hijacking, across the physical and human worlds.

He’s accumulated an abundance of leads, some he’s near-certain he understands, and others he’s yet to decipher – but it’s enough to reveal to him his next move on the chessboard: St. Petersburg. He’ll take the train from Tallinn, without needing to step out for border control, which is handled en route. He’ll be leaving Estonia under a new identity; he hopes to keep Lukas Sigerson in his back pocket for later uses, but it’s time to make his presence difficult to trace: it's time to step away from Mycroft’s grid. He’s left seemingly inadvertent clues to allow Mycrofts’s people to (think that they’re) following him, along a pathway that connects the nefarious doings of Mexican cartels involved in establishing meth labs in Nigeria for the Asian market. Their pursuit of him will be turned to good account in dismantling that nexus, even when they realize he is elsewhere.

St. Petersburg is a hive of hacking activity, the physical site of the infamous Russian Business Network, which catered to the needs of cyber criminals. It’s not surprising that it is the city where Vladimir Putin lived, received his education, and joined the KGB, as an agent in its foreign intelligence wing, before tunneling his way to Moscow. Sherlock doesn’t believe that there are many degrees of separation between Moriarty and the dark internet of Putin’s hellscape.

He arrives at the end of Tallinn’s usefulness on a Friday evening. As he packs up his kit in the office space he’s made homebase through a courtesy loan in deference to his Norwegian technology credentials, some of the younger workers have swept him up into their murmurating flock as they celebrate the coming weekend in search of alcohol, bar food, and music. In London, Sherlock would have begged off such a request, were anyone intrepid enough to suggest it, and he would have been unperturbed at whatever anyone might think. But he’s not Sherlock, he’s Lukas, at least for a short while longer, and although his persona is reserved, businesslike and uninclined to make small talk, Lukas possesses an average quantity of affability; and remaining unobtrusive is best accomplished by being amidst the motions of others, rather than making himself conspicuous by setting himself off from the norms of sociality.

He did not, however, anticipate the karaoke session, which is putting a severe strain on the bonhomie he is channeling to Lukas, as it’s clear that he’s going to need to accede to accepting a turn in the spotlight, lest he put a damper on the good spirits of his companions. He nevertheless protests with a smile, holding out his hands, but any input he might have been able to exert on the decision-making disappears, when two of his impromptu friends conspire to tug him toward the microphone, explaining that all three of them will venture forth together, with a song they insist is dead simple to sing, and that the well-lubricated crowd will be delighted to join in with them in belting out the familiar refrain. Which is how he finds himself being carried along within a punchy, melodic stream that turns out to be excruciating emotionally, as the verses unfurl. He listlessly despairs, marooned, a hollowed-out laugh echoing inside his head in response.

. . . When I'm lonely, well, I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man who's lonely without you And when I'm dreamin', well, I know I'm gonna dream I'm gonna dream about the time when I'm with you. When I go out (when I go out), well, I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you And when I come home (when I come home), I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man who comes back home with you I'm gonna be the man who's comin' home with you . . .

He’s exasperated at the universe conspiring to keep him unsettled, to deny him the solace of alone protecting him. He fears that he is fated to have any social contact whatsoever somehow conjure home and reminders of John. The song ends to raucous cheers, and the enthusiasm surges on, and he’s being importuned to name a new song of his own choice before being allowed to return to the table. He looks at the smiling faces helplessly, immobilized by the churning cacophony playing hide-and-seek inside his guts, incapable of conjuring up the simplest of answers. Undeterred, they jolly him along, prompting him to think of a film he’s recently seen, or club he’s been to, or a favorite television show. At the latter suggestion, his mind does slightly slip free, and there is John again, teasing Sherlock into watching another of his favorite shows, Sherlock pretending to be annoyed at being consigned to such a fate. He turns to the young people, and raises his voice to speak into the nearest person’s ear to be heard over the noisy crowd, and says with a question in his voice, Peaky Blinders? He seems to have pleased them, as they fiddle around to pull the selection, bouncing in high spirits and punching their fists into the air, as the music starts, a bell ringing out, and the slithering deep tones speaking of the edge of town, of secrets in the border fires, of a gathering storm -- and a tall handsome man, in a dusty black coat, with a red right hand.

As Sherlock listens to the song unspool, his mind wanders back to the show's themes, reminding him of a line of thought he’d been considering the last few days – that to focus singularly on Moriarty and faceless confederates is not quite the right way to conceptualize the dead man's web: that there must have also been family members in leading positions, positions of trust. One of the deep divides between himself and Mycroft originated in Sherlock’s refusal in uni to agree to work for SIS. Mycroft knew that he would never be able to trust completely any of the professionals who worked for him – after all they are spies working for money. To be sure, he wanted Sherlock to sign on to be able to appropriate his intelligence, but even more compelling was the fact that never having to question the loyalty of a brother would have made him an asset par excellence. Mycroft considers getting what he wants to be an inviolable law of the universe, and Sherlock doesn't think his brother will ever be able to truly forgive him for the rejection . . . especially given Sherlock's devotion to the inferior endeavors of dedicating himself to a life of metropolitan crime-solving. Family; family is what matters. A Moriarty is gone; but there are other Moriarties yet to be unearthed. ........................................................ @calaisreno @totallysilvergirl @friday411 @peanitbear @original-welovethebeekeeper @helloliriels @a-victorian-girl @keirgreeneyes @starrla89 @naefelldaurk

@topsyturvy-turtely @lisbeth-kk @raina-at @jobooksncoffee @meetinginsamarra @solarmama-plantsareneat @bluebellofbakerstreet @dragonnan @safedistancefrombeingsmart @jolieblack

@msladysmith @ninasnakie @riversong912 @dapetty

.............................................................................

#mayprompts2024 #calaisreno #sherlock bits and bobs #may prompts 2024 #johnlock

36 notes · View notes

samarqqand · 8 days

Note

Hello samarqqand, I love your Maedhros and Maglor fanfictions, I always reread them, I wonder if at some point you will write something about them again, your writing is beautiful and conveys what one feels, I also read one you wrote about Maglor and celegorm, I liked it a lot, there are times when it made me laugh celegorm, greetings.

wow, hello hello!! this is such a pleasant surprise of a message -- thank you so much for reading my fics and for this superbly-kind feedback :] <3 i'm so glad to know they resonated with you-!!

i have one very long Maedhros/Maglor wip, Amon Ereb and Kidnap Dads era -- as is typical of me, it stalled after i wrote myself into a corner and i've been kind of helplessly poking at it ever since, BUT there's more than enough written that i'm delighted to share a hefty snippet -- hopefully gives some idea of what Maedhros and Maglor are up to!! no warnings, except... blood. and blood... licking? tasting. (please excuse any errors in the snippet; it's a draft!!)

thank you very much again-!

“No,” Maglor murmurs, the sight of Maedhros donning a wolf fur mantle. Beyond him, the Star, there: past its perihelion it sails on a journey beyond, aloof to the two sons of Feanor. “No, it will not do. A hooded cloak for these climes, I say.”

“My eyes need no veiling,” Maedhros says.

Maglor curves a long, assessing look his way as Maedhros takes his rucksack. He looks beyond Maedhros’ starless eyes: obstinate. “I would remind you,” he clarifies as loftily as any erstwhile High King at Hithlum, “you are no icy tor.”

He takes his long fingers to the mink at Maedhros’ collar to fluff up what he can. “Could a measure of warmth be so ruinous to you?” Maglor meddles: old, bad habit. Maedhros his bad habit.

“You haven’t recovered from exposure.”

Before Maglor can ask, his head turning hither-thither as if he might find an answer just beyond, show him, show him, Maedhros lifts his chin toward the stooped fortress town beyond the forbidding briarwood. Eyes naturalized to Beleriand’s bosky chaos, he assesses the ferns and woody roots flinging themselves into a silent fervor. It is too wild here for even the dead to lie in wait. “This way.”

Maedhros could sink himself into every grumbling corner, a simmer of potential energy waiting to surge, if not for Maglor’s hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, recognizing the instinct in Maedhros.

“Oh, but I do,” Maglor contends, swinging his rucksack over his shoulder and wending around the witch-hazel. “And it has compelled me afield, to attend to the honey yet untasted upon the lonely larder shelves; further, to reward our Elrond and Elros for their patience with our monotonous menu of lentils and warg. Lentils and warg. Lentils,” he sighs, "and warg."

“Selfless saint,” Maedhros mutters.

Maglor wants to be close to him. There is no other thing living in Beleriand to want this.

There is no other living thing closer to him than Maglor is now, a veiled smile and his eyes clear, still claiming Light.

Only a fool loves a knife.

Maglor looks. He tilts his head, marking the immethodical snarl of skin flayed and healed, a torn ear nearly looking Secondborn, and the adulterated raptor-yellow coloring his stare when the meager light angles against his irises just so — , the shrug of pauldroned shoulder down to unyielding hand upon the sword pommel. Maedhros in parts.

To live, Maedhros had left some things behind.

But Maglor regards him with whole attention, the same he’d reserve for a tapestry: a story the storyteller would know by heart.

“Not there,” Maedhros grunts, abruptly. Maglor’s veiled smile dimples his cheeks even as he plays along, a cant of interested eyebrows. “Here.” Maedhros nods toward a trail through the witch hazel and bramble, walked by generations of deer into existence.

“No caltrops to be found,” Maglor supplies.

“Set your watch here.” Maglor parts his lips to protest, though his gaze is perilously soft. “I’ll find them.”

But Maglor ladders himself gingerly into the razorwire foliage. “We muddle through the thorns together,” he announces, the scion of the proud suffering effortless in his role. “I have borne my share of scrapes, Nelyo.”

Better than that, brother: Maglor has borne all his lashes beautifully.

Maedhros joins him in the thick.

Under Maedhros’ hand, an icy splash of lichen laces a stone before abruptly the blue-white erupts with a sunset-orange hue. There is iron in the soil.

Maedhros halts: aware.

If he were to bore straight on into the wooded depths, hand shoveling past the leafy protests and boots squealing beyond the mud’s warning, the vines might well keep a mind of their own, of their master’s. They might well snap awake. They might ensnare an ankle. Hissing arsenic-green ropes rearing up only to drag him back down to the underworld.

The rusted metal doors in the earth which he may well have only just escaped might be open and gulping already.

Drop his broken parts down, down to his darklong origin.

Welcome back to a prodigal thrall.

– But for Maglor’s scent again. A tap at his shoulder.

Maglor, the only thing in this world wanting to touch him, is crouched and slotted close to Maedhros at the end of the tree tunnel. Just another step, and they’ll be out. He’ll be out.

With a fond and regretful reach, Maglor plucks a thorn from the palm of Maedhros’ hand, and watches where the skin has broken. A question shadows Maglor’s starry gaze and does not lift.

“It is still red,” Maedhros says. He means to jest. He means to reassure. To be rueful. To wonder for how much longer.

He does not know what he means by it.

He can smell his own blood, and hear Maglor’s heart, in all its selfless heat.

Maglor guides Maedhros’ palm against his surcoat to wick away the fresh bloom of blood.

Insinuation of ribs caging all Maglor’s soft insides; plane of torso.

And when Maglor sees the bleeding won’t stop, he brings Maedhros’ palm to his mouth, his lips lavishing comfort on skin.

Plush of lower lip skims flesh – and then presses flush, as if to accept the edge of a cup. A soft ripple.

Maedhros’ palm feels.

– And then his palm returns to his blade’s pommel.

And Maglor turns away in a show of modesty, letting the arrival of deer on the path interrupt him from what he might do if they were given time.

But not before his tongue has darted out, daring to taste Maedhros at his lips.

#maedhros #maglor #maemag #answers #thank you so much for your lovely message again!

18 notes · View notes

theladyofbloodshed · 10 months

Text

You're The Closest To Heaven I'll Ever Be - Chapter 15

Cassian popping up like whack-a-mole

For days, Azriel stuck to Cassian like a cobweb. He never let his brother get an inch closer to Nesta. They’d fly together to the House of Wind for Cassian to train his wings; Azriel used the guise that he’d be there to winnow or help him fly if his wings struggled. Sometimes Nesta was out of her room in the library, but Azriel had forbidden Cassian from going there. He’d block him off or change his course. His brother saw Nesta as a challenge, a wild animal that needed taming. If Cassian so much as upset her, Azriel knew he’d lose control of that single thread of sanity he was clinging to.

It meant he could never approach her either. Whenever they returned to the town house, Rhys needed them both as they gathered more information from Spring and tried to understand Feyre’s position in the court. Whenever Rhys departed to decompress, Cassian wouldn’t let Azriel leave. On the rare time that Azriel returned to the house carved into the mountain, Nesta was fast asleep. He employed her tactics and strained to listen to her heart through the door. It was good that she was sleeping. Azriel should have been jumping for joy that her life was beginning to settle, but he wished to steal a moment with her.

‘I need you to do something for me.’

Morrigan was sprawled out in the sun with an arm tucked beneath her head. She squinted up at Azriel. On instinct, he let his wings spread to shield her face from the sunshine that had lit up Velaris’ skies.

‘What’s in it for me?’

‘Take Cassian into Velaris for the day. Most expensive restaurant. I don’t care. I’ll pay.’

Mor sat up. She groaned and stretched her neck from side to side until it clicked. ‘What’s going on with you?’

A little lie here and there was necessary. It wasn’t all a lie either. ‘He destroyed his wings for me. I can’t take being near him.’

‘Don’t feel guilty, Az. You’d do the same for him.’

At the moment, he wouldn’t. The mating bond he shared with Nesta only saw Cassian as a threat to her safety. It was becoming incrementally harder to not unleash his power on his brother to blast him to Illyria, far away from Nesta.

‘Fine. Early dinner and I can probably get him to Rita’s. But, Az, you really need to unwind too,’ she said. A smile flitted across her face. ‘For a pretty face like yours, Rita’s is always open to you.’

How could Morrigan be so unbothered by it all? Even when Rhys was trapped for fifty years, Mor hadn’t slowed her attendance at the bar.

‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t wince when you get the bill.’

A nervous energy flooded Azriel’s bones the moment he knew that Cassian was elsewhere, occupied by Mor. His shadows picked up on it and buzzed around him like a swarm as he stood in the window, watching the Sidra roll by.

Nesta. Nesta. Nesta.

‘Maybe we’ll go,’ he replied, as one skated across his cheek. ‘It’s not the same as it was before.’

Azriel couldn’t even say what it had been in the mortal manor beyond a few lingering looks in quiet moments. It had been a beginning though, a force pulling him to her. The bond had snapped when they dined for the first time. He’d thought an arrow had struck him through the heart because the force had been so strong. Even then, Cassian had been sizing Nesta up as a challenger. The thought made him burn with rage. Who was Cassian to enter the home as a guest then try to start a fight?

A cold shadow wended its way into his closed fist to force Azriel to let the tension go.

Go, they seemed to say.

Perhaps Nesta would hate him for the rest of her life. Perhaps it was deserved. Or, perhaps, this would be the first step to a future.

He had never been afraid like this. The things that Azriel had seen, the acts he had committed, never affected him deeply. He was capable of closing down his emotions. It wasn’t possible when it came to Nesta Archeron. There was so much at stake, so much to lose, to gain. His father’s rejection had ruined him. Every single relationship in his life had been impacted by his formative years – even when he knew that he was behaving irrationally, Azriel struggled to pull himself out of it.

He thought of his mother. Her unwavering love.

Azriel did know unconditional love. As much as he knew rejection, he knew how it was to be loved unconditionally. That was what he needed to hope for again.

Azriel eased out a breath.

‘You’ll be with me?’ Shadows blustered around him. ‘She likes you more than me.’

***

Repetition created habit.

Each morning, Nesta forced herself to rise, wash, dress then leave the room. A numbing dread trailed her when she entered the library, in case another confrontation with Cassian happened, but the more she repeated the behaviour, the stronger the habit became. He hadn’t been near. Sometimes she heard his booming voice, followed by the deep, quiet murmur of Azriel. Eventually, her muscles stopped tensing in the library. She could ease out the breath she was holding, perhaps even put her feet up.

Bit by bit, there was a slight improvement with Elain too. She slept less but did remain in the bed a lot of the time. Once, Nesta even managed to get her as far as the corridor before she turned around, as if awoken from a dream, and went back to the bedroom. Whenever Nesta returned to her, Elain hadn’t closed the curtains, sometimes she’d not even be in the covers, and she would eat more bites of food than previously. Elain was nowhere near where she ought to be, but there had been an improvement. That was worth being happy about.

A breeze filtered through the open window and sunlight spilled into Nesta’s lap. She was five chapters deep into a new book when a shadow crawled up her body to settle on her shoulder, almost hesitantly. She didn’t react to it, just continued reading. More and more of them came to peer over her shoulder at the book. One daring shadow brushed against her cheek, as if to say it had missed her.

‘I won’t forget you let him in my bedroom,’ she murmured then flicked the page over.

A few of the shadows scattered away bashfully at her comment but the braver ones remained nuzzling against her.

It was not until chapter seven that their singer made an appearance. Azriel swept his head into submission as he entered the library.

‘May I come in? There are a few maps I need.’

‘It is not my library,’ she said stiffly.

‘I want you to be comfortable,’ he replied.

In silence, Azriel leafed through the thick piles of maps that were gathered in the library beneath a cloth so the light would not damage them. Nesta kept her eyes pinned to him – and the open door behind him in case Cassian made an appearance.

Shadows darted at him like birds pecking at his skin.

‘Not now,’ he murmured.

They continued badgering him until he hissed out a, ‘Later.’ Then, he fled from the room with shadows chasing him.

Nesta didn’t know why but it made her laugh. For the first time since this horrible ordeal began, she pressed her knuckles to her lips and laughed on the couch with her eyes squeezed shut. It had just been so terribly funny to see Azriel chased from the room by his own shadows.

The noise drew him back to the doorway. A wedge of sunlight fell across the rug as if blocking him from entering. Azriel stood like a fallen angel, his large umber wings spread out behind him, and black hair fell into his eyes. He was beautiful. The most beautiful faerie that Nesta had seen.

‘May I come in?’ He asked the question again, eyes never wavering from her face. There was such an intensity to his voice, an urgency that had her nodding in response.

It seemed that he was trying to slow himself down as if his feet were hurrying him towards her. Indeed, shadows swirled about his boots.

‘I have something for you.’

Nesta couldn’t help but peer around his waist in case this was a trap, that another would be standing in the doorway ready for an argument. The tension of the last few months had turned her brittle, so Nesta did not know how much more she could take.

‘It will be a nice surprise, I hope,’ he explained, as he backed from the room, colour dotting his cheeks. As Azriel turned, he slammed into the door frame, making her snort with laughter again. The side of his head had clattered against the wood and the bone of his wing was lucky it did not shatter the glass. He had always seen so composed, sophisticated with his movements and being, but this was like a fawn learning how to walk. Shadows spiralled after him – even they looked as if they were mocking his unravelling.

Apart from the red mark above his eyebrow, Azriel was put together again when he returned. In his hands, he carried two large bags made of a grey material. He knelt down and loosened the drawstrings of the first bag which was bulky and heavy.

‘I ventured to the mortal manor. These are Elain’s clothes, shoes, and as many of her belongings as I could gather.’

A knot rose in Nesta’s throat as she peered into the sack and saw a familiar pastel pink gown that Father had bought her to celebrate that he had made his first trade agreement since their wealth was returned.

‘If you ever want to return there, I can-’

‘I never want to see that place again,’ Nesta said shortly.

It had never felt like a home. It was borrowed wealth from a faerie lord who had stolen her sister. No good could come from returning there.

The second bag was noticeably emptier than the first. His scarred fingers prised open the drawstring carefully. ‘There was little in your room.’

Beneath his fingers, Nesta saw gowns of cool blue and soft grey, even a cream nightgown that was her favourite to sleep in.

‘You said you had read all of the books so I didn’t bring them, but I can go back if that’s what you want.’

Nesta blinked back her tears and shook her head. ‘No. You do not need to go there again.’

‘It’s not about need, it’s about wanting, Nesta. I want you to call this home. I know it’s hard and won’t feel that way for a long time, but I want you to be happy in Velaris. I’ll do what I can to bring your happiness.’

‘Why?’

His eyes flared wide. Azriel waged an internal battle. His mouth twisted into a grimace, then he said, ‘Because you deserve to be happy.’

‘No, I’m a terrible sister who couldn’t protect either of them.’

Heat burnt in her cheeks, but Nesta could not look away from the anguish in Azriel’s eyes.

‘Do not say that.’

‘It’s the truth,’ she replied.

When his hand slid over hers, Nesta did not protest. His cool fingers encased her hand, holding it tightly. ‘It was never your responsibility to protect them, Nesta. Even so, you have done admirably.’

Before she could pull away, before she could deny his words, Azriel pulled an item from the bag.

It was the book that had been on her bedside table. She’d stayed up late reading it until her tallow candle had burnt out.

‘I don’t think you finished this one. Maybe it will have to wait with the selection available to you here.’ Azriel gave a cursory glance to the library to drive his point home.

Nesta could not stop herself.

Azriel was on his knees, holding the book out to her with one hand whilst his other held hers.

The dam ruptured.

She lifted her hand free and pressed both to her face so she could sob. Azriel had thought of her, cared enough to find her few possessions from the manor, cared enough to make meals for the last few weeks so there was always something for her to eat. For so long, Nesta had needed somebody to look after her instead. All she had ever wanted was safety, warmth, and a belly that didn’t ache from hunger. She was so tired of surviving.

Azriel slipped onto the couch beside her, arms cradling her body while she cried. Her tears were endless.

It had been so long since anybody had let her cry – since she had let anybody hold her while she cried.

The deep reverberation of Azriel’s voice came. He had opened the book from the mortal land and began to read it as if he wasn’t sure what else to do to slow her tears. Eventually, her crying slowed. Azriel continued to read, his thumb stroking a rhythm against her shoulder. Nesta knew it would be better to pull away, to scurry to her room and pretend none of his had happened – pretend he hadn’t seen her at her weakest – but it was just too nice to be close to another. For once, Nesta wasn’t holding Elain and drying her tears. It was another doing it for her.

While Azriel read, her eyes grew heavier and heavier until Nesta allowed them to close. She promised herself it would only be for a moment or two and that she’d still listen to his reading.

It was dark when she awoke. Nesta was in a bed that was unfamiliar. A sliver of moonlight filtered through the slim gap where the curtains hadn’t been pulled together properly.

For a moment, she panicked, trying to gather her bearings.

Her shoes had been removed, but not her clothing. The pins from her hair had been pulled loose too.

At the movement, Azriel snapped awake. The male had been asleep on the floor beside the bed without a blanket on his body.

‘I didn’t want to disturb Elain,’ he said suddenly, explaining why he’d brought her to this room.

Was it his room?

There was nothing within. It was barer than the guest rooms they had been put in with only a single walnut dresser in the corner and a bed.

‘I should return to Elain,’ replied Nesta.

She had to tread carefully not to put her foot on his wing. Azriel shifted to sit up, rubbing his eyes.

‘Is this your bed?’

He gave a swift nod.

‘It’s very comfortable.’

‘You can remain in it,’ he said, voice delicate. ‘I can check on Elain. I’ll sleep elsewhere.’

Why was he being so kind to her? Nesta had not earned his kindness. She could not understand why he’d try to make her happy if she had nothing to give him.

Voices carried down the corridor, filling Nesta with cold dread.

Azriel partially flew across the bedroom to bolt the door just before the handle was turned.

‘Are you still awake, brother?’

From the other side of the wood, Nesta heard a shushing sound. ‘You’ll wake the sisters.’

‘Az,’ called Cassian, with a drum of his knuckles on the door.

Azriel screwed his eyes shut then pointed beneath the bed. Fear of Cassian and Mor finding her in Azriel’s bed had her following his direction and shimmying beneath the bed frame. Nesta had been wrong about his room being barren; beneath the bed was a cache of various weapons that she had to wiggle amongst to hide.

She heard the soft trail of the door along the carpet.

‘Did you have to wake me up?’

‘You don’t sleep,’ came Cassian’s reply.

Azriel gave a sigh. ‘Tonight, I do.’

‘If you won’t come to Rita’s, you’ve got to drink with us here,’ he slurred. ‘We are celebrating.’

‘Celebrating that Cassian managed to keep it in his pants for once at Rita’s,’ supplied Mor.

Nesta tried not to roll her eyes from her hiding place. She did not know what Rita’s was, but she could make a good prediction. From the reek, they had been drinking for many hours. To her sensitive hearing, it all felt terribly loud. If they did not leave soon, Nesta would flip the bed upside down and yell at them to keep it down.

‘Not tonight, Cass. I’m exhausted. Another time.’

‘Don’t be boring.’

A long silence followed then Mor chirped up, ‘He’s right, Cass. We can drink together like old time’s sake.’

Even after the door was closed and bolted, Nesta remained on her back, staring up at the wooden slats of the bedframe.

Azriel’s knees clicked as he knelt down and peered at her. ‘You can come out.’

‘They’re drinking in the living room, aren’t they?’

To get to her room, Nesta would need to pass through that. With Cassian drinking, she knew she’d never escape a verbal spat or worse.

‘As soon as it’s clear, I’ll get you back to your room. I can’t winnow within these walls or I would already take you there.’

Nesta was stuck in Azriel’s room for the night. He seemed to realise this fact at the same moment.

‘I’ll sleep on the floor,’ he said. ‘Do you need something to wear?’

An old shirt was found for her and loose-fitting bottoms that were far too large to cover her legs. Azriel pressed his face into the corner of the room but Nesta still dressed in a hurry and continued to check over her shoulder to ensure he hadn’t peeked at her. When it was his turn to change, she leapt into the bed to pull the quilt over her head to hide.

Both of them were wide awake after the conversation with the other two. It was made worse by Azriel’s constant turning on the floor. His wings rustled each time.

‘Are you uncomfortable?’

‘I won’t make a habit of sleeping on the floor.’

Nesta swallowed. ‘There is room in the bed.’

Tension snapped across the room.

‘Pardon?’

In the dark, she screwed her eyes shut out of embarrassment. ‘I won’t say it again.’

Nesta wasn’t sure that she even could say it again. If the mountain caved in on them, she might thank it.

What had possessed her to say it? It wasn’t guilt. She wasn’t a kind person. There was this gnawing need that she could not name that wanted Azriel close to her.

The mattress dipped as Azriel settled on the other side of the bed. Both of them kept close to the edge, leaving an expanse of space in the middle.

‘Goodnight Azriel.’

‘Goodnight Nesta.’

#nezriel #and they were roommates

50 notes · View notes

aquarium-ina-bag · 1 year

Text

Where Danger Finds Me, it Follows with Tides - 6

Never stay the whole night ch6

Words: 2k

Parings: Wednesday x Reader

Warnings: blood, bullets, small violence.

A/N: A longer one since I need to take a break so I can be productive rq, but give me ideas of what u wanna see, like how Ty will be revealed, or lil hc's, anyways enjoy.

This sheep is still here, mocking Wednesday with its existence. From the moment she woke up, it was in her face, chewing at the comforter. She wondered if you’d notice it was gone; surely if she buried it well, you wouldn’t know. Right, the task at hand is to figure out why you’re in this school in the first place, plus get rid of this Hyde.

You were at the table when she came out for the morning; you leaned against it, refusing to sit down. Your groggy eyes glued on Enid made Wednesday a little angry; all your attention was stuck on the blonde, while everyone else’s eyes at the table were stuck on you, Bianca almost was able to mirror Wednesday’s death stare. What were you talking about that was so important to the point you didn’t even look at Wednesday?

She finally started to approach the group, avoiding your eyes almost as a punishment for avoiding hers.

Yoko laughed after finishing her sip of donated blood, saying, "Speak of the devil."

Enid turned around with enough energy that it almost looked as if she had broken her neck in the process. She slammed her hands on the table, "Wednesday, please, can we keep Skate?" Those damn puppy eyes, "Y/n said it was up to you; I promise he won’t eat your stuff; I’ll keep him clean; he won’t even go on your side."

"No." Wednesday deadpanned.

Ajax was trying to understand the situation. "Who the hell is Skate? And why does he eat things?"

"It’s my new sheep!" Enid started to pull up a picture of her and the sheep; he was full of hair clips and nail paint.

"You have a sheep?! Weems is so gonna kill you if she finds out." Kent budded in, trying to get a closer look at the picture.

"That’s why we aren’t keeping it, I don’t care what Enid or Y/n says we are putting it back." Wednesday scolded.

"If you don’t want him so badly, get up so we can show Mr. Kovacs." You whispered. Wednesday shuddered; your breath tickled the shell of her ear when you spoke. When she turned around to possibly beat the brains back into you, you weren’t there, you were still leaning against the table, looking at everyone else, before taking a small glance at her.

She had to be going crazy because nobody made a comment about how close you were to her, but it had to be real because you gestured for her to get up. Like she was in some trance, she did. Everyone seemed to ignore the fact that you two were leaving until both of you were out of sight.

"What was that?" Wednesday, still appalled. She scanned you for any differences in body language.

"It’s called walking; I learned it when I was a baby." You joked and continued to walk to her dorm.

"Not that, how you said something behind my ear but you didn’t even move."

"I know your therapists labeled you as crazy, Wends, but jeez. I didn’t think It was that bad."

"You looked at my files?" She was more offended that you looked at her student files than her nickname.

"Spoiler alert: when I was still working, Weems told me you'd be under my watch if things went south. Keep you out of trouble, you know?" You paused and laughed, saying, "Well, things did go south, but she wanted to spare you, plus I was busy fixing your Xavier mess up, how you falsely accused him, and I was trying to keep you out of jail from behind the scenes."

Wednesday noticed how slowly the two of you were walking. "I don’t believe that."

"Well, it’s the truth, hun." You shrugged.

"Don’t call me that; Weems said you’re mandatorily stuck in this school. Why?"

"Because it’s a place for outcasts?" Duh."

"I understand that, but what makes you an outcast?" Wednesday was about avoiding the long game.

But you made her play anyway, "because I’m an emo loner." You laughed and quickened your pace to get to the room.

You opened the door to find Skate relaxed on Wednesday's bed, chewing on the pillowcases. You turned to Wednesday’s irked face and laughed. She mumbled something about killing it before dragging him off the bed, the pillow still in his mouth. She let out a muffled groan.

"Carry him to the class," Wednesday ordered.

You faked a yawn, "Don’t know, Ms. Addams, I kinda don’t feel like it, I did carry him yesterday." You stretched your torso, she watched you tuck your shirt back in, stuff your hands in your pockets, and sway, waiting for Wednesday to move the sheep.

"He’s at least 200 pounds, you can’t imagine me carrying that."

"I did it, so get to lifting or find some other way."

Wednesday turned around to pull out a drawer from the black desk, she white-knuckled a raveled-up rope in anger. The angry girl started to make a lead for Skate; he was getting jittery once she attempted to put it around him. Wednesday looked up to stare into your eyes. You nodded and helped her keep him still without hurting him. Though she used this opportunity to make you walk him to the class,

────────────

"You stole a whole damn sheep." Mr. Kovacs gaped, staring at you, Wednesday, then back to the sheep.

You slowly nodded, "Now give us our grade," in a demanding tone.

"Fine fine, just please put it back before I have to report you to Weems; its nails are painted. What the hell?"

You both nodded and turned to leave the class with Skate. Wednesday didn’t refuse this time when you took him back to her dorm.

"I’ll be back later tonight to drop him off back at the farm." You leaned against the doorway, watching the raven remove the lead from Skate, and ushered him outside on the balcony.

"Do it now, I want him gone."

"Aw, lighten up, you don’t mean that." That damn whispering again in her ear, she fanned the area around her ear, hoping to hit you.

"You just did it again, the whispering." Wednesday sounded agitated.

"I said loud and clear, ‘I need to do it at night so it’s darker.' Get your head and ears checked out."

"I’m not dissimulating; I know what I heard and felt; you were right behind me and whispered something."

You chuckled, "You take something today?"

"I refuse to participate in narcotics, but I won’t sanction your gaslighting."

"Still don’t know what you’re talking about. Anyway, see you tonight, Addams." You pushed off the doorframe and walked away. Of course, who other than Enid replaced your presence.

"Another date again?" She giggled

"It wasn’t a date." The raven bit, "Don’t you have a class to go to?"

"Don’t you? But I’m here to check on my little Skater. I brought him food." Enid walked toward the spider web window and went out of it. Feeding the animal outside. Wednesday rolled her eyes, getting ready to leave for her next class.

────────────

A knock at the door startled the girls in the room who were watching the scary movie. Wednesday’s cello playing wasn’t helping the eerie feeling either.

"Yoko, you get it!" Enid pushed the vampire out of the huddle of people, blankets, and pillows.

"I'm not getting it! You have claws; you get it." Another knock, and the girls scream again.

"Divina, come with me, so you can siren song them, and then I’ll claw their eyes out." Enid proposed.

"Claw my eyes out, we’re going to have a problem, Sinclair." Your voice wasn’t recognizable to them.

Enid got up in fear "IT KNOWS MY NAME!" Wednesday playing sharpened, they all ran outside on the balcony with Skate and Thing. Wednesday paused and looked at the group as they scrambled to explain all at the same time.

"PERSON AT DOOR!" "THEY KNOW MY NAME! "THEY’RE GOING TO KILL US!" "HELP WEDNESDAY, PLEASE!" "Bah," she pieced what she could, excluding the bah. To get out of this hellscape, she went to the door and opened it. You looked down to stare at her.

"Hi." Flashing those gorgeous teeth of yours, she thought.

"Good evening."

"What are they watching?" You craned your neck to view the Macbook on the ground.

"Scream franchise."

You giggled, "Ironic, but where’s my sheep?" Wednesday moved to guide you outside. The other posse calmed down.

"Oh, it’s you." Divina spoke. Removing herself from the group, she went back inside.

"Hi Y/n, want to join us for the movie?" Enid invited.

"No, but I must take Rollerblade here." You picked him up and headed for the window door, but were stopped by Yoko and Enid, who protested.

"DON'T TAKE HIM AWAY PLEASE!" "IT'SDON'T NOT HIS TIME!" "MY BABY!"

Enid was so eager to get her sheep back that she accidentally dug her claws into your side. You hissed and pulled yourself out, and blood oozed on your white T-shirt.

Enid immediately apologized and let you go. "I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I’m sor-" moving her hand back and forth, contemplating if she should touch you again.

"-It’s fine, it’s nothing. "I just wasn’t prepared." You laughed.

Wednesday watched you in vexation and reached her hand out to help, but you shook your head.

"I’m good, I promise." You smiled again. How could you be okay? Enid’s nails are long, that has to be deep.

They watched you head back into the room, and they followed. Enid sat back down, drowning in guilt. Wednesday and you left the dorm and shut the door.

"Let me at least clean it." Her eyes were softened, way more than she would be with Enid.

"Here, I’ll go head to my room to fix it before I drop him off." A tight-lipped smile to calm down the girl in front of you.

She sighed out her nose before nodding. You walked in the wrong direction, away from your room. Wednesday almost said something, but let you go. When you were out of sight, she cursed herself for not forcing you to get help.

You were on your way behind the school, deeper in the woods, making sure nobody could see. The bleeding stopped; the blood was even gone—not even a drop on the white tee. But more should be shed now.

Your back started to welt, almost as if something was trying to escape, and it did. Clawing its way out from your back, cracking, crushing, and popping, ripping the back of said tee and your flesh, large bones equal to bird wings clawed out, the blood coated against them forming feathers, blood red feathers fading to something darker at the base. It was silky, cognate to blood when you stretched out in the moonlight. There was not a wince, whine, or cry from you when these extra appendages scratched out of you. You just sighed and lifted yourself and the sheep off the ground, heading back for his home.

As you dropped him down, a bang echoed, and all you felt was something hot stuffed inside your wing. You groaned and flew with the speed of the fastest hawk back to your balcony. The landing was a little wobbly, but you still made it. The feathers dropped elegantly on the cold concrete, where they puddled into blood. The flesh hugging the bird bones was midnight, coextensive to bat wings; they poured down as syrupy blood, and the bullet fell into the puddles. Those long, blood coated bones crawled back into your back with the same cracking, wet crushing, and popping. The pool of blood crawled up your article of clothing and back into the large open wounds on your back; it shut and healed like nothing ever happened tonight, and your tattoo is still perfectly scarred on you—not a scar, nothing.

"I’m not on my game today, am I?" You laughed before going inside, to do your nightly routine.

#jenna ortega x reader #wednesday addams imagine #wednesday x reader #wednesday addams #wednesday x y/n #Where Danger Finds me it Follows with Tides #WDFMIFWT

71 notes · View notes

late-to-the-fandom · 7 months

Text

Find the Word Tag

Thank you very much to @owlsandwich , @amewinterswriting @tildeathiwillwrite @thewritingautisticat for the find the word tags over the last few days. I don’t usually do these anymore, but in honor of me successfully coming off hiatus and working on Wend in the Shadows again, I read through what I’ve already posted to try and find the assigned words: moon, noon, soon, spoon, trick, refuse, cruel, energy, draw, velvet, inspiration, side, scatter, listen, study.

Tagging: @mousterian-writes @pancakewithamace @magic-is-something-we-create @sesshy380 @imbrisvastatio @sleepywriter00 @indecentpause @allisonreader @frozen-fountain to find any four words of the above list (if you like)

MOON

No moon! Revendreth doesn’t have one.

NOON

No noon, either – Revendreth doesn’t have one of those either. As one character explains away for me: “Ha. Welcome to Revendreth," said Nadjia, executing a particularly elaborate lunge. “Time is really more a social construct here. You’ll get used to it.”

SOON - found in Chapter 2: Lay of the Land

It took a few seconds for Renathal to rearrange his face into something more appropriately inscrutable, before saying, “I see. Well, that is… highly unusual,”; then several minutes more to assure the dredgers he did not hold them personally responsible for their errand’s failure. Another full minute spent thanking them as graciously as his tumultuous mental state allowed, then, as soon as they had all trudged out again, visibly relieved, Renathal threw himself back into his chair.

SPOON - found in Small Bites, the drabbles that go with Wend

"Surely, you did not think discretion was required purely in regards to your status?” Elisewin's little shrug was the picture of casual unconcern, but her hair swung suspiciously across her face again as she spooned sugar into Renathal's cup.

TRICK - found in Chapter 7: Formal Refreshments

Renathal turned tactfully away, allowing her time to recover, and inspected the reflection of his irrepressibly smug smile in the mirror of the chiffonier. This was no expertly crafted, anima-imbued Venthyr creation, but a slightly warped mortal looking-glass, acquired from the Night Market epochs ago and chosen specifically for the way it lent Renathal’s torso a slightly more generous breadth. He admired it for a few satisfied seconds, then flicked his gaze to the image of Elisewin straightening up behind him, and wondered if the dark, almost hungry glint in her blue-white eyes as she appraised him was simply another trick of the imperfect glass.

REFUSE - found in Chapter 6: Home Improvement

She glared at him. An expression of such insolence the Dark Prince could have had its wearer condemned to a crypt for an age. Instead, he caught up her reluctant hand, brought it to his lips and pressed his smug smile against it. And what could he tell himself about that besides how soft and warm her skin felt and how much he enjoyed the flush suffusing her suddenly expressionless face? Nothing believable. It refused to be spun into anything but the sheer, dangerous indulgence it was.

CRUEL - found in Chapter 5: The Proper Punishment

Then, Denathrius smiled. Not a cruel smile, or a punitive one. Something had shifted in his face, sliding quick as mercury from fury to fatherly benevolence. He cocked his head, appraising his Firstborn with an almost formal interest, flicked his eyes to the half-hidden mortal, then back to Renathal again.

ENERGY - found in Chapter 6: Home Improvement

“Elisewin," and the echo of dominion in the way he said her name seemed to still some of Elisewin's manic energy. "You are... tired," he chose after a pause. "Nightmares are taxing, I expect. Come." He extended a slow, careful arm, and when Elisewin did not flinch away, draped it loosely across her shoulders, guiding her back to the bed.

DRAW - found in Chapter 8: Safe in the Shadows

It was, strictly speaking, treason. By right, he ought to have summoned Stone Legion representatives to clap the Accuser in chains and escort her to the nearest convenient crypt. But the re-education of a Harvester would necessarily draw the Master’s eye, something Renathal was actively avoiding as his dredger driver raced his carriage at unprecedented speeds through back ways and side roads in an attempt to avoid the castle grounds.

VELVET & STUDY - found in Chapter 10: Mix, Mingle, and Meddle

For all his personal animosity towards the Harvester of Desire, Renathal could not deny she was unparalleled in her expertise at choreographing an event. The groups of guests, whether posing together or perambulating across the immaculately manicured garden of the Eternal Terrace, looked placed, and likely were; as much a part of the decor as the polished sinstones or the topiaries. There were precious few stoneborn or dredgers to be found, except in the roles of guards or servants. The Countess extended invitations only to Venthyr aristocracy, each one a study in the finest luxury goods Revendreth had to offer. Deep crimson velvets, vibrant vermillion silks, stark and stately black leathers all dripping with silver and jingling gems dotted the garden like ornate, expensive flowers.

INSPIRATION – closest I had was this variation in Chapter 8: Safe in the Shadows

Elisewin blinked. She shot a glance at the closed parlor door before accepting Renathal’s outstretched hand and letting him gather her onto his lap. His fingers stroked almost reverently through her dark, silky waterfall of hair, basking in the colligation of comfort and arousal her warm mortal flesh inspired. Renathal closed his eyes, and imagined eternity like this: his lover a permanent fixture instead of running on stolen time. But he knew better. She had spoken the inexorable, infuriating truth. Nothing stayed secret from the Sire

#tag games #writblr games #wend in the shadows #renathal x maw walker

15 notes · View notes

lailoken · 1 year

Text

Blackened Whitethorn Wand (For Sale)

This wand was created using a branch of storm-blown Hawthorn wood, which I discovered on Imbolc of 2023. It measures approximately 32 inches/81 centimeters in length, and it is currently being sold for $99.

After debarking the piece and allowing it to fully dry, I went about carefully smoothing the surface of the wood, making sure to preserve any larger thorns present on tne piece. Once I was satisfied with the texture of the specimen, I blackened it with a stain made with Hearth Soot harvested from the interior of our Wood Stove, which I used to coat the wand, layer after layer, for days. In the end, having thoroughly layered the black pigment onto the wood, I used Wisefool's Oil (a ritually enlivened oil of empowerment, which also serves as a lovely wood conditioner) to polish away the excess, and then sealed the whole piece with Wisefool's Glaze (a personally developed wood varnish made from an array of precious and potent arboreal resins, such as Dragon's Blood, Storax, and Black Frankincense.) Finally, I gave it one last, thin coating of polyurethane to help thoroughly protect it.

Between the rich magical folklore of the Hawthorn, and the energy, time, and care that went into creating it, I believe this wand has the potential to serve as an lovely tool in the hands of the right practitioner.

If you are interested in purchasing this piece, then please free free to reach out to me through tumblr messenger, or buy it directly on my shop, Wending Wares Occult Parlor.

#hawthorn #whitethorn #hawthorn wand #wand #wand for sale #pagan wand #ritual tools #ritual implements #magical tools #wending wares #pagan woodwork

27 notes · View notes

gardenofhera · 1 year

Text

Sekhmet, Bast, and Hathor: Power, Passion, and Transformation through the Egyptian Goddess Trinity

By Normandi Elis | GODDESSES IN WORLD CULTURE | 2010

Three very powerful goddesses take a single form as the oldest divine being in ancient Egypt. They are the lion goddess Sekhmet, the cat goddess Bast, and Hathor, the beautiful woman who wears cow horns. All three goddesses can be found in the Old Kingdom of pharaonic Egypt (circa 3000 BCE) and may predate the First Dynasty (5000-3150 BCE).

Hathor originated in the predynastic cult of the sacred cow, which saw the Milky Way as the body of the sky goddess. All the stars that lay therein were souls of her children waiting to be born or returning to her in the afterlife. Sometimes Hathor the cow was called Mehurt, whose breasts flowed with milk. Images of the dancing horned goddess were carved on the rocks of the Egyptian savannah as early as 6000 BE. The cow goddess appeared atop the Palette of Narmer, the first pharaoh of a united Upper and Lower Egypt. By the Fourth Dynasty, the face of the cow mother had turned into the sweet, beautiful face of a young maiden. In human form, she wore a crown of cow horns that cradled between them the gleaming disc of the moon or the sun. They called her "The Golden One." The diadem recalls Hathor's celestial home.

She was, at various times, both mother and daughter of Ra, the sun god, and the consort of many divine beings whose temples flanked the Nile. Most notably, at the Temple of Edfu, she was the consort of the hawk god Horus, who was embodied in the living pharaoh while the pharaoh's queen embodied beautiful Hathor. Through all of her incarnations for more than 6000 years, Hathor remained the most frequently seen goddess in temples up and down the Nile. In some form or another, all goddesses drew upon her attributes; even the goddess Isis, whose appearance in Egypt coincides with the cow goddess, was often depicted wearing cow horns and was, at times, called the daughter of Hathor.' Two other ubiquitous goddesses embodied the duality of her nature-Sekhmet when she manifested solar attributes. and Bast in her lunar attributes.

Bast appeared dressed in green, the color of fecundity. A nurturing presence, she exhibited those feminine qualities associated with the moon. Her presence in the niches of most Egyptian homes was a peaceful, loving one. She tended her children, fed them, bathed them, loved

them, and soothed their hurts. This cat-headed goddess was the tamed version of her bloodthirsty sister Sekhmet.

Powerful Sekhmet wore a crimson robe. Fiery, fecund, and magical-the energy of life itself--the lion goddess protected the pharaoh. More statues of her remain in Egypt that of any other divinity. On the walls of Karnak temple, the lion goddess may be seen dashing alongside the chariot of pharaoh Ramses II as he entered battle. Sekhmet was considered a great spiritual warrior. She protected the temples and borders and exhibited in female form the solar qualities most identified with the sun god Ra. When the wicked of the world wearied the god, Ra sent his daughter Sekhmet to deal with them.

The Solar Origins of Sekhmet

Sekhmet's main feast day in Egypt was celebrated when the star Sirius in the constellation of Canis Major rose prior to sunrise during the month of August. The rise of Sirius signaled the coming change and renewal that occurs each year following the "Dog Days" of summer. After the thaw of snowcaps in central Africa's mountains, the annual Nile flood begins to wend its way northward, ending the summer drought and initiating the season of inundation.

In dramatic fashion, the rising Nile waters pushed the flood from Khartoum in Sudan, down through Upper Egypt, and finally all the way to the Delta in the north. When the inundation first trickled forth, the waters looked greenish before they turned an opaque, dark ruddy color from a type of red algae pushed out of the central African tributaries and downriver by the melting snow and floodwaters. The Arabs called this the Red Nile.

The red flow soon precipitated a burst of life-generating activity along the Nile banks. It may help here to realize that the Egypt of 10,000 BCE was a different place than today's land. Rather than being primarily desert, Egypt was a lush savannah, teeming with life. Some suggest that the overgrazing of cattle and climate change may have caused the Sahara savannah to turn into desert. After this change, around 6000 BCE, life in Egypt shrank to occupy primarily the Delta and the narrow strip of arable black earth washed down into the bottomland on either side of the Nile.

One of the many festivals that celebrated the flood and opened the Egyptian New Year was called "The Inebriety of Hathor." The beer-and wine-drinking festival that followed the first sign of flood was connected to the intoxicating drink that soothed the savage Sekhmet, a solar form of Hathor. The festivities that accompany the festival of "The Ine-briety of Hathor commemorated the saving of Egypt from the ravaging power of Sekhmet.

Ra, who created all things, ruled the earth in peace for thousands of years. But as he grew old, his human subjects forgot him and no longer offered their adoration. Outraged, the god summoned his council, soliciting their advice. Nun, god of primordial waters, suggested sending forth Ra's fiery solar eye, Sekhmet. The idea of sending his lioness daughter delighted Ra, who imagined irreverent humans fleeing, trembling in terror, and cowering in the mountains.

At her father's bidding, Sekhmet began to teach humankind a lesson by devouring every man, woman, and child who crossed her path. She ravaged all the land in both Upper and Lower Egypt, through the mountains and savannahs east and west of the river. She started in Nubia and ate her way north toward the Delta. The river ran red with the blood of those she had slain (a reference to the Red Nile flood). As the fierce goddess waded through the carnage, her feet turned red with the blood of her victims.

Ra looked down upon the havoc Sekhmet had created and felt immediate remorse. The thirst of his daughter for blood knew no bounds. He tried to rein her in, saying, "Come home. Thou hast done what I asked thee to do." But Sekhmet replied, "By my life, I love the taste of blood.

My heart rejoices and I will work my will upon humankind." She would not be deterred.

Ra realized he had made a grave mistake, but neither god nor human could stop Sekhmet. But if she could not be stopped, perhaps her willful passions could be diverted. Ra turned to Thoth, god of wisdom. Thoth quickly sent his messengers to Elephantine Island, where the river burst forth from rocks. "Bring me the fruit that causes sleep," he said, "the fruit that is scarlet and its juice crimson as human blood." When the messengers returned, Thoth and Ra commanded the women in the city of Heliopolis to crush red barley and make beer. They mixed it with the juice of pomegranates and other magical ingredients, according to the recipe of Thoth. The women of Heliopolis made 7000 measures of this red beer.

At dawn, this soothing red brew was poured into a pool outside the city, where Sekhmet would find it. Thinking it was the blood of her vic-tims, the lioness lapped up the mixture until it was gone. When the potion took effect, the heart of the fierce goddess was soothed. Sekhmet lay down and purred, no longer seeking revenge. She stretched out in the field for a sweet little sleep, having transformed herself into the gen-tle, nurturing, loving cat goddess, Bast.

This myth shows for the first time the emerging dual nature of Hathor. Bast is the sensual, purring, nurturing aspect, while Sekhmet is the roaring lion, a goddess with a temper. Bast reveals the nurturing mother of her kittens; Sekhmet shows herself the protector of her pride and her cubs. When Hathor's solar qualities are the focal point, the goddess assumes Sekhmet's lion form, and when her lunar qualities are at play, she appears as Bast the cat.

The beer that soothed Sekhmet was a staple of the Egyptian diet.

Because the brewing and fermentation processes made the Nile water more potable and healthful, beer was offered at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

But wine was the favored drink of great celebrations. Whenever Hathor appeared as the "Queen of Happiness" and "Mistress of Drunkenness, Jubilation and Music" in one of more than forty festivals held in her temple at Dendera, alcoholic beverages were in plentiful supply. The sacred wine that induced a trancelike state may have contained psychotropic plants, says Robert Masters, possibly including belladonna, wormwood, or opium? C. J.

Bleeker believed that this sacred drunkenness was "the medium through which contact could be effectuated with the world of the gods."

Triple Aspects of the Goddesses

Bast and Sekhmet are such tightly linked aspects of Hathor that the three goddesses were sometimes sculpted standing back to back on the handle of a cosmetic mirror. Because the ancestry of all three goddesses reaches back into the early dynasties of Egypt, they may be aspects of a single, superlative feminine divinity. The goddesses names evoke that divine being by her attributes: Sekhmet (the powerful one), Bast (the soul of mother Isis), and Hathor or Het-hor (the house or shrine of the gods."

In later times, the Ptolemaic Greeks (circa 300 BE linked Hathor with Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. Their reasoning is easy to follow, for Hathor's consorts were many. She was consort to Horus the Younger, the falcon god. She was linked as well to a number of gods, among them the crocodile Sobek, the ithyphallic Min, and the solar Ra. She shared her power equally with the gods but remained independent of the Goddesses

The festival of "The Inebriety of Hathor" calmed that inner rage and provided Egypt's general populace with an outlet for their pent-up emo-tions. "Similar festivals were celebrated at the end of battle, in order to pacify the goddess of war, so that there would be no more destruction.

On such occasions, the people danced and played music to soothe the wildness of the goddess."

The Blood Mysteries

Together Hathor, Bast, and Sekhmet create a unified image of the divine feminine as maiden, mother, and crone. The three goddesses represent the stages of the blood mysteries that rule a woman's life as she moves across the roles of lover, mother, and elder. Beautiful Hathor is the consort of Egypt's gods and the perfect embodiment of the queen partnered with the pharaoh who embodies Horus. Bast is the mother protector of children, surrounded by her litter of kittens; she is also the bridge between the sensual young adult woman and the older, but still sexual wife and mother.

Sekhmet embodies the cyclical blood that flows at birth and death; the blood that flows from mother to child in the womb; the blood on battle-fields, and the menstrual blood or the blood of circumcision that separates the budding young adult from childhood. It is the cyclical red flood of the River Nile that became equated with the red, renewing menstrual blood that cleanses and prepares the way for renewal and regenesis. This blood is a kind of communion, in which humankind partakes of the divine drink of the gods. That is the mystery of transubstantiation.

Blood held within was called the "wise blood," and menopause marked a time for women in ancient Egypt when the inner Sekhmet produced divisions and created magic. The red henna (or Egyptian privet) that adorned the heads of women in Egypt was a tribute to her and was said to be her "magic blood." Heads, hands, and feet were dipped in the colors of the goddess. Cheeks and lips were brushed with her paint. Even mummy cloths were sometimes dipped in henna as a sign of rebirth from the blood of the goddess.

To the left of the 'Temple of Karnak sits a small temple dedicated to the great trinity of Memphis Ptah, Sekhmet, and their offspring Nefertum.

During the Eighteenth Dynasty the pharaoh Thutmose III refurbished the temple to honour the trinity. He made his annual harvest festival offering of "Feeding the Gods" at that smaller temple rather than at Karnak. To this day, inside that temple resides a large, black basalt statue of Sekhmet, who was said to be "great of magic." In fact more statues of Sekhmet can be found at Karnak than at any other temple and more statues exist in situ than any other divinity.

Thutmose III beseeched Sekhmet by calling her Mut, a word used to mean both "mother" and "death"; its hieroglyph of the vulture symbolized both. Not only does the vulture lay eggs, but it eats the dead. On a higher level, nurturance often demands sacrifice. The goddess feeds her people, who in turn feed the goddess. Thutmose III provided thrones of gleaming electrum for Ptah, Sekhmet, and Nefertum. He filled their temple with vessels of gold and silver, with "every splendid, costly stone," with fine linens and "ointments of divine ingredients." On the day of her feast, Thutmose stood before the altar and made the sacrifices that restore Egypt to "life, prosperity, and health." His gifts line the offering table: many jars of wine and jugs of beer, ducks and geese, a multitude of loaves of white bread, bunches of vegetables, baskets of fruits, and "offerings of the garden and every plant."

The Healing Arts

The healing arts were part of the magical power of a wise woman, and Sekhmet was known as an important healing divinity. Inside one of the ten side rooms that surround the inner sanctuary at the Temple of Edfu, a medical library was kept, and in this place the healing priests, called wab sekhmet, conducted healings." On the left side of the doorway was inscribed the magical, repeating image of a lion-headed cobra. A serpentine Sekhmet seemed to unwrap herself from seven coils and rise out of a shallow basket, her lioness head held high, her eyes glittering, and her tongue thrust between her teeth. Here the goddess appears as the life force itself.

While the priests and priestesses of Bast were adept at soothing jangled nerves and easing depression with herbal potions and music, the healers who were "great of magic" were more often high priests and priestesses dedicated to Sekhmet. They wore leopard skins to link them to her powerful feline energies. Because these goddesses understood the powerful visions brought by intoxication, both Sekhmet and Bast were said to bring healing dreams.

The Beneficent Role of Bast

The cat Bast offered the image of a kinder, more nurturing feline form.

She often appeared as a woman with a cat's head carrying on her arm a basket with a litter of kittens. Mythologist Robert Briffault remarked upon the cat's great adaptability to motherhood and her ability to love substitute children equally with her own. Typically, cats who have lost a kitten willingly adopt the kittens from another litter.' In this area, Bast and Isis share the role of surrogate mother. Before Isis begat her son Horus, she mothered the jackal-headed god Anubis who had been abandoned in the desert.

A number of Egyptologists cite Greek sources that describe Bast as the "Soul of Ra"; like a cat that had nine lives, the sun god Ra had nine divine beings under his command. These nine primordial gods, called the Great Ennead, were generated from Ra's light substance. Other ancient Egyptians identified Bast with Isis as the true mother of all, whether she was mothering her own children or the abandoned children of others. Nearly every household with children had a wall niche devoted to Bast. Before her were laid fresh flowers, cups of milk, or other offerings. Statues of Sekhmet may have been the appropriate energy to guard the temples, the borderlands and the pharaoh, but Bast was the welcome guardian of the home. Little cat figurines of Bast with round head and pointed ears were produced in great quantities for private devotion. Families often owned a number of cats.

Affectionate and graceful, they made great companions, and they kept away mice and snakes. When a cat died, it was mourned as a beloved family member, mummified in great ceremony, and buried with honour. Fifteen centuries later when the Suez Canal was being dug, workmen had to stop for weeks at a time to clear away the multitude of cat mummies they had uncovered in ancient pet cemeteries.

The cat goddess sometimes wore a necklace bearing the healing Eye of Horus, called the wadjet. At other times she wore on her breastplate the lion's head of her sister Sekhmet, a reminder of her fierce other self and of the mercurial ability of the feline goddess to change from lap kitty into warrior in the blink of an eye.

The dual nature of the goddess-her loving nature on the one hand and her wild anger and abandon on the other are nowhere more tightly woven than in the myths of Bast and Sekhmet. Prayers to Hathor are quick to praise both aspects, lest one offend the other. This Hymn to Sekhmet-Bast appears in The Egyptian Book of the Dead:

Mother of the gods, the One, the Only. Sekhmet is th name when thou art wrathful. Bast, beloved, when thy people call. (Sekhmet) daughter of the sun, with flame and fury. . .. Bast, beloved, banish all our fears. Mother of the gods, no gods existed Til thou . . . gave them life.

In the Nile Delta Bast retained her stature from prehistory down to the reign of the Ptolemaic Greeks (343 BCE. According to the histories of Manetho, Bast's sacred city Bubastis, was active as early as 2925 BE and influenced the theology of the priests of nearby Memphis, Heliopolis, and Sais." During the Fourth Dynasty, pharaohs Khufu and Khafre kept laborers busy refurbishing and adding to Bast's main temple, in addition to building the pharaohs' grand pyramids. One royal inscription found on the Giza Plateau near Khafre's pyramid reads: "Beloved of the Goddess Bast and beloved of the Goddess Hathor."? Such an inscription linking Bast and Hathor is remarkable, since no other inscriptions of any kind occur elsewhere on the site.

During the Twenty-Second Dynasty, pharaoh Sheshonk I elevated Bast from local patron to the stature of a national heroine, chiefly because his lineage descended from her sacred city of Bubastis. By 930 BE all Egypt adored Bast. King Sheshonk I, who considered himself a son of Bast, boldly moved the capital city from its long-standing home in Thebes to his hometown in Bubastis.

Although only a few crumbling walls remained in Bubastis, Sheshonk restored the Old Kingdom temples and erected new temples to honor the cat goddess. According to Herodotus, who visited the city around 600 BCE, no other temple compared with the grandeur of that of Bast. It was built in the very heart of the city, situated on an island enclosed by two divergent streams of the Nile that ran on either side of a single pas-sageway. Each stream seemed 100 feet broad, and on the banks of the river were "fair-branched trees, overshadowing the waters with a cool and pleasant shade." A tall tower could be seen clearly from every part of the city. Inside the enclosure wall a beautiful garden of trees shaded the priests who carefully tended it. Part of the temple was said to have been built around an ancient sacred persea (avocado) tree. At the center of the temple stood a beautiful golden statue of the goddess Bast.

Throughout the Delta in general, and at her sacred city Bubastis in particular, Bast was adored for her sensuality, congeniality, and loving nature. The Greeks especially loved her, and Bast festivals were never more popular than during the Graeco-Roman period. When migrating Libyans appeared in the Delta around 100 BE. the nonulation of the city soared once again.

Herodotus calls the "Great Festival of Bast at Bubastis" (April 15) one of the most important festivals in Egypt. At times bawdy, at times ecstatic, the festival celebrated Hathor as the consort, while it also celebrated Bast and her sister Sekhmet. The three were never found far apart. This may have been a result of the wine- and beer-drinking that accompanied nearly every feast day in Egypt, all the more so when one is reminded of the mystery of blood that transformed the ravaging Sekhmet into the purring Bast.

During the Great Festival visitors came from far and wide, clattering through the streets, clustering along the riverbanks, and crowding their boats onto the Nile. The festivals often drew over 700,000 people_-including men, women, and children-and the days were filled with dancing, music-making, love-making, and wine-drinking. Drinking wine was viewed as a high religious sacrament, for its color was reminiscent of the blood of the divine and a reminder of spiritual renewal. Bubastis was the wine capital of ancient Egypt, its rich Delta soil providing large pharaonic estates bearing the choicest grapes. The white wines of Lower Egypt were called the Wine of Bast, while the red wines of Upper Egypt were called the Wine of Sekhmet.

Bast's island temple could only be reached by the crowded little ferry-boats that plied the waters of the Nile. Some of the larger boats filled with richly adorned noblemen and women sailed down river all the way from ancient Thebes. As they approached the little towns along the Nile, villagers heard the swelling strains of music coming from the flute players and the women playing castanets. They heard the songstresses and sometimes trickles of laughter. Long before Bubastis was reached, the wine and beer had begun flowing. As the boats neared town, the villagers came down to the edge of the water to greet the entourage. If the boats stopped in town to freshen supplies, even more people crowded aboard to join the sailing party.

Herodotus said that more wine was consumed in Bubastis during the festival than at any other time of the year. Delicious foods included honeyed breads, raisin cakes, pomegranates, figs, roasted fowl, and meats.

The streets fairly writhed with dancing, music playing, and singing all day and night.

Hathor: Goddess of Dualities

The ubiquitous goddess Hathor who reigned in heaven, on earth, and in the afterlife was the patron goddess of all women in whatever stage of life, but she is most beloved as the consort or divine wife. Her name Het-hor literally meant "the house" or "the shrine" of Horus, the falcon god. That shrine was her sacred womb.

In older myths, Hathor was the mother of Horus the Elder when he appeared as the solar child that the sky mother birthed onto the horizon.

In later myths, Hathor became the beloved of Horus the Younger, whose mother was Isis. Whether she was connected to the elder or younger Horus, Hathor remained always eternally youthful and beautiful, even though she was older than Isis.

Her temples were found at Memphis, Thebes, the Sinai, and elsewhere.

She was honored at Edfu, Kom Ombo, and Esna. The most important and well known of her temples was the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, which in its present condition is a Ptolemaic temple built around 332 BCE, but its inscription says it was built upon the previous site where the Fourth Dynasty King Cheops erected a temple to the goddess.!* Its most famous attribute is its dramatic astronomical ceiling with symbols of the zodiacal signs that can clearly be recognized as the twelve familiar constellations.

And yet, its pole star is not in Ursa Major but in Draco, the constellation that it would have appeared as pole star around 4500 BE, an age that predates the temple having been built by Cheops. This representation of the sky and the temple of the sky goddess Hathor seems to point to the dawning of ancient Egyptian civilisation.

In her temple Hathor's statue was venerated and venerable, adored and adorned for thousands of years. Thus, the statue acquired the power to heal, to speak, and to bring dreams to her worshipers. Pure Nile water poured over the base inscriptions of her statue could heal diseased bodies, minds, and spirits. The pilgrims wrote stories of their miraculous healing in prayers, poems, and inscriptions through the Dendera temple.

As the oldest goddess in Upper Egypt, Hathor was assimilated into nearly every other goddess. Isis the mother and Hathor the consort become interchangeable. Wherever there was a temple that honored Hathor, there was also a smaller temple that honored Isis, and vice versa. In the Temple of Isis at Philae, the inscribed "Songs of Isis" praise the beauty and majesty of Hathor.

Oh, Lady of the Beginning, come thou before our faces in this her name of Hathor, Lady of Emerald, Lady of Aset, the Holy!'S Because there were so many temples devoted to Hathor, many more women than men served in priestly offices engaged in her service, a custom unlike that of other temples in Egypt. At daybreak the pharaoh engaged in a ritual in which he broke the clay seal on the door of her shrine in order to gaze in silent adoration upon the beautiful face of the goddess. To the mistress of heaven he offered incense, the menat necklace, the sistrum rattle, and maat, the image of truth. 'These were among the pharaoh's gifts to his beloved, for Hathor was the goddess of the queen and thus coming before her was the culmination of a love story.

The sacred marriage of the pharaoh (as the embodiment of Horus) and the queen (embodiment of Hathor) was celebrated in May, during one of many harvest festivals. The festival began at the Temple of Hathor in Dendera and lasted about fourteen days, ending in Edfu at the

'Temple of Horus. During the festival, the statue of "The Golden One" was carried along the Nile by boat amid music, dance, and song. The union of the two most important lights in heaven was the culmination of the meeting of Hathor and Horus in Edfu. Their marriage took place precisely on the day of the new moon, when the sun (Horus and the moon (Hathor) met in heavenly conjunction. The ancient Egyptians called this "The Day of the Beautiful Embrace."

On the inner face of the east pylon of the Temple of Edfu is a description of the annual festival of the sacred union. The ritual marriage took place privately inside the temple where the divine couple remained for three days, consummating their holy marriage. Meanwhile outside the temple walls the entire population of Edu continued their celebration: drinking, feasting, singing, and dancing.

One song performed for the wedding celebration was called "Hymn to the Golden One." It was sung in chorus by several priestesses while the pharaoh enacted the offering rituals:

The pharaoh comes to dance. He comes to sing for thee. O, mistress, see how he dances! O, bride of Horus, see how he skips! ... He offers thee This urn filled with wine. O, mistress, see how he dances! O, bride of Horus, see how he skips!!?

The first record of a celebration of the sacred marriage appeared during the reign of the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Amenemhet I, around 2000 BE. Linked with the harvest season rites, it commemorated the first fruits of the field and was held in honor of the ancestors.

In the union of the god and the goddess, all life had its regenesis. Of all the festivals in Egypt, this truly was Hathor's day. It was a festival in honour of the bride, for it is she who becomes mother of the holy child.

The hierogamos or sacred marriage was a union of opposites. In this pair, Hathor is the divine mother, the sky, and Horus is the falcon god and the earthly king. It is a sacred marriage of sprit and flesh, heaven and earth. Every royal couple who ever lived reenacted the marriage sacrament as much for the renewal of the land and their people as for themselves.

Three days after the hierogamos was celebrated, the festival of the "Conception of Horus" occurred, which celebrated the seed that means the renewal of life. This was also considered the conception day of the pharaoh and of the child who would succeed him. From lovemaking came the heir to the throne. Here, father and son were merged into one.

Hathor's love was sexual, maternal and spiritual. These triple aspects represent the deep passion for love, life, and light that runs through all her cosmic creation. Her powers generated "constant and ceaseless becoming." Her love for humankind was eternal.

Notes

Normandi Ellis, Feasts of Light: Celebrations for the Seasons of a Woman's Life Based on the Egyptian Goddess Mysteries (Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 1999), 144.

Robert Masters, The Goddess Sekhmet: Psychospiritual Exercises of the Fifth Way (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1991), 44.

C. J. Bleeker, Hathor and Thoth: Two Key Figures of the Ancient Egyptian Religion (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1967), 91.

Ibid., 132.

Masters, The Goddess Sekhmet, 44.

See the "Cannibal Hymn of Unas" in Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. 1, The Old Kingdom (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 36-38.

James Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1906), 2:225-248.

Normandi Ellis, Dreams of Isis: A Woman's Spiritual Sojourn (Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 1995), 178.

Robert Briffault, The Mothers New York: Macmillan, 1927), 594.

Margaret Murray, Egyptian Religious Poetry (London: John Murray, 1949), 103.

E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians New York: Dover, 1969), 1:445.

Marilee Bigelow, "Bast," Khepera 2, no. 2 (March 1991).

Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, 1:449.

Bleeker, Hathor and Thoth, 76.

James Teackle Dennis, The Burden of Isis (London: John Murray, 1918), 55.

Lucie Lamy, Egyptian Mysteries: New Light on Ancient Spiritual Knowledge New York: Crossroads, 1981), 80.

"Hymn to the Golden One," in Bleeker, Hathor and Thoth, 99. Reprinted with permission.

Bibliography

Bigelow, Marilee. "Bast." Khepera 2, no. 2 (March 1991).

Bleeker, C. J. Hathor and Thoth: Two Key Figures of the Ancient Egyptian Religion. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1967.

Breasted, James. Ancient Records of Egypt. 5 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1906.

Briffault, Robert. The Mothers. 3 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1927.

Budge, E. A. Wallis. The Gods of the Egyptians. 2 vols. New York: Dover, 1969.

Dennis, James Tackle. The Burden of Isis. London: John Murray, 1918.

Ellis, Normandi. Dreams of Isis: A Woman's Spiritual Sojourn. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 1995.

Ellis, Normandi. Feasts of Light: Celebrations for the Seasons of Life Based on the Egyptian Goddess Mysteries. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 1999.

Lamy, Lucie. Egyptian Mysteries: New Light on Ancient Spiritual Knowledge. New York: Crossroads, 1981.

Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature. Vol. 1, The Old Kingdom. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.

Masters, Robert. The Goddess Sekhmet: The Way of the Five Bodies. New York: Amity House, 1988.

Murray, Margaret. Egyptian Religious Poetry. London: John Murray, 1949.

#sekhmet #bast #hathor #egyptian goddesses #blog #goddesses #world history

15 notes · View notes

caitlynskitten · 11 months

Text

Wednesday Cheating

Bianca and Divina peak into Wednesday’s room to find her and Yoko having sex in bed

Divina whispering: Holy shit! Yoko?

Bianca whispering: I knew it. That raven bitch. She’s such a fucking cheater.

Divina: Fuck. Enid…. oh my god poor Enid. Should we tell her?

Bianca: Well of course. But this is gonna be hard. Fuck, what am I gonna say to her?

Divina: Come on, let’s go.

The sirens quietly close the door and sneak through the hallway

Yoko pulls away from Wednesday and collapses next to her in bed

Yoko: Wends, fuck. I’m so exhausted.

Wednesday: Babe, I’m so close, please! A little longer. I’m almost there.

Yoko: Fuck, I can’t. I need to drink water.

The vampire gets out of bed and picks up her underwear and shirt to put on

Yoko: Enid, you’re up.

Enid gets up from her bed, exhausted and stripping off her clothes

Enid: Fuck, Wednesday I don’t know how you still have this much energy.

Wednesday: I’m an Addams, we’re always horny, Mon Coeur. Now can you please come here and make me cum again?

#wednesday #wednesday addams #wenclair #enid sinclair #the addams family #incorrect quotes #incorrect wednesday #incorrect wednesday addams #wednesday netlfix #wednesday netflix #wednesday series #yoko tanaka #yoko and wednesday

194 notes · View notes

lilyliveredlittlerichboy · 1 year

Text

4 (continued)

��Your sister is likely no longer alive,” you said, seeing no reason not to say it. She threw back her pale head and laughed outright. “Corona!” she said, when she was done. “My sweet baby Corona is far too stupid to die—she’d walk backward out of the River swearing blind she was going in the right direction. I will tell you when my sister is dead, thank you, Harrowhark—and that day is not today.”

Oh, interesting. Again, I'm so intrigued by all the things Ianthe seems to know.

The Emperor, at the end of the last book, told Harrow that they couldn't retrieve certain bodies - Coronabeth's being one of them. I have hope, then, that she's still alive, along with Camilla.

Though if they're still at the First, that spells bad news anyway. The skeletons who were serving them were all destroyed, weren't they? Where did they even get all their food from? It doesn't seem like a particularly stable place to, you know, survive in.

For the first time, when you looked at her, Ianthe gleamed with thanergy as a coal gleamed red with heat.

ThaNergy, I note. Death-energy. This is required for the Lyctors to heal? This chapter has been an absolute goldmine(minefield) of information so far.

I kind of appreciate doing this as a liveblog, which is forcing me to read more slowly and consider all things a lot more carefully. It makes for a very different reading experience, one which - in this case - I think is highly rewarding.

You grasped the wrist she was also grasping with your free hand; you poured thalergy in with embarrassing torrents, a hot, shameless gush of it, flicking free chips of bone and wending muscle back into muscle. This took effort and thought.

So Harrow uses ThaLergy for this, living energy. Soooo interesting. It seems to require similar processes as her bone necromancy, though.

#i need a tag for my own rambles #harrow the ninth #harrow the ninth liveblog #htn liveblog #tlt liveblog #htn spoilers #tlt spoilers #the locked tomb

13 notes · View notes

fatehbaz · 2 years

Text

Insects in the sky. A “green wave.” Fig wasps building entire tree groves. Hummingbird hawkmoths keeping endangered violet flowers alive. Migratory creatures and the prosperity of a “salmon year.” Creatures do “not need to be big to be consequential,” do not need to be warm-blooded “to register in the very heartwood of a forest.”

---

On the natural exodus and ingress of insects, science was, for much of history, limited to guesswork. Invertebrates have proved hard to track for all the obvious reasons - tininess, diffusion, difficulty telling kindred species apart - and, too, because many insects shapeshift across their lifecycle. Especially elusive have been “noctivagant” or night-wandering insects, those that take advantage of a drop in thermal currents after sunset to wend their way by cover of darkness. Even in very large numbers, nocturnal insects can pass by unnoticed. One morning the bugs are just here: they’re everywhere. An old magic is frisking the shrubbery. No wonder the thinkers of antiquity held that many insects were inert matter sparked to life. [...]

The fact of insect migration - not to mention the basic biology of metamorphosis - has since been well substantiated, but though researchers have known for over a century that insects undertake seasonal, long-distance travel, the misguided belief that such movement is entirely passive and dictated by the winds persisted into the 1980s. Some insects clearly are at the mercy of the weather [...]. But [...] it has become clear that several winged insects - including bogongs - sense, and selectively choose, which air currents to ride, some forming massive, multispecies “bioflows” at high altitude. [...] What [entomologists have] seen up there is, frankly, astounding. The spectacle of animal migration may be typified by the grandeur of herds sweeping over the Serengeti, but most terrestrial migrants are insects -- by number of individuals and, perhaps more surprisingly, by mass. One study showed that each year in south-central Britain two to five trillion high-flying insects migrate over an area roughly the size of Georgia. Together, those insects have an estimated biomass greater than that of the nation’s migratory songbirds. Indeed, the volume of insects up in the air is so tremendous that researchers have suggested thinking of them as “the plankton of the sky”: a constant particulate, bobbing overhead.

At the same time our [knowledge of aerial insects] [...] has been upgraded, so too has our understanding of the impact of insect migration down on the ground. Large, traveling vertebrates, including elephants, caribou, and wildebeest, have long been known to link up ecosystems, transporting energy and nutrients [...]. Upstream salmon rushes in British Columbia have been shown to pump nitrogen into surrounding forests, where fish carcasses fertilize fir, spruce, and cedar (so much so that tree rings record rapid growth in a banner salmon year). An animal does not need to be big to be consequential; it does not need to be warm-blooded, or a grazer, to register in the very heartwood of a forest.

The passing of mammalian herds and fish runs can score a landscape visibly by magnetizing carnivores to an area, leaving torn-up vegetation behind, or creating a “green wave” where animal activities encourage plant growth. But though the movements of insects are often more covert, over generations their transit can shape an ecosystem in equally durable ways. Very small beings have system-wide effects.

Because many winged insects are pollinators, they create gene flows between plants they alight on along the route of their journey. In Spain, for instance, endangered violets surviving in geographically distant islands of habitat are genetically enchained together by the migration of hummingbird hawkmoths. Each hawkmoth threads flower to flower.

Trees along a 250-kilometer stretch of the Ugab River, in Namibia, have genetic linkages that flow with the easterly movement of fig wasps.

Billions of pollen grains are shifted southward each year by high-flying hoverflies in the UK, some lifted over the English Channel to the landing-pads of flowers in Europe -- a targeted haulage the wind alone could never achieve.

---

Text by: Rebecca Giggs. “Noiseless Messengers.” Emergence Magazine. 27 June 2022. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized first paragraph/heading added by me.]

39 notes · View notes

siverwrites · 1 year

Text

Breath of fresh air

@fyeahghosttrick Ghost Swap with a treat for @catgirl-frostmoon!

Prompt: Pre-canon Lynne and Kamila interactions; a mixture of sweetness and the overlaying darkness underneath is preferred.

Pre-canon's always fun to consider... Happy Ghost Swap times!

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47976322

Kamila rested a cheek against one hand while her pencil remained still over the paper, and she frowned at nothing. Lynne was willing to let it go—let her think in peace without her interruptions—until she let loose a big sigh. That was enough to set her book aside and enough for Missile to take his head off her knee, ears pricking, and she really took in the sight of the young girl sitting at the table appearing to get absolutely nowhere with her homework.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know what to do for this science project… We can make a poster or build something…”

“I’ll bet you could make something cool,” Lynne tried. “I’ve got tomorrow off. We can go shopping for anything you need.”

Kamila’s shoulders hunched and she glanced away.

“Or a poster!” Lynne corrected.

“I don’t know… it’s kind of… I don’t know.”

Lynne gently nudged Missile off and hopped up from her couch. “You know what you need? A break. We’ll pick something up from the Chicken Kitchen, go to a park for a picnic then get ice cream. What do you say? Nothing like some food and fresh air to clear the head. Then we can do some planning this evening, yeah?”

Kamila brightened. “Can we bring Missile?”

“Of course! There’s still lots of places he hasn’t seen after all.”

“Like Temsik Park!” She covered her mouth. “Ah! Sorry...”

Lynne brushed it aside. “Nah, in this weather? It’ll be super busy. There’s a nice spot not far from the Chicken Kitchen.”

She turned away to find Missile’s harness while Kamila got ready to go. Then there was getting the wriggling ball of rippling fur into the harness. “If you want to come, you have…to stay…still,” she grunted out while Kamila giggled behind her.

“He’s so cute,” Kamila said.

“And easier to handle when he’s older,” Lynne said though without much rancour. As rambunctious as the puppy was, he was awfully adorable and a great cheering distraction for Kamila.

Finally, with a picnic hamper in hand and Missile bounding around their feet, they were ready and set off. It was a warm, sunny and breezy day and they chattered happily, Lynne carefully avoiding all topics to do with school or her project or anything that would make those shoulders hunch like that again.

Once they picked up their meal, they made their way to a small pleasant park and took a random spot on the grass to eat. Lynne felt a swell of warmth that had nothing to do with the sunshine washing over them. Kamila already looked so much happier while she ate and slipped little bits of chicken to Missile. They had a great time with great-as-always food and Lynne realized the slow stress she’d been building up was washing away too.

After they finished eating Lynne flopped in the grass to watch Kamila and Missile chase each other around. She was glad she’d found him too. He sure brought some extra brightness into their home. It was with some reluctance she finally called them back over, both panting, Kamila beaming and Missile’s tail waving wildly. It was reluctance swiftly banished. After all ice cream was nothing to protest either.

Especially this ice cream—great big scoops on tasty cones. They ate them as they slowly wended their way home taking round-about routes to get there. At one point Lynne had to pick up and carry Missile who’d finally exhausted his seemingly inexhaustible energy, but that was okay too.

Eventually they found their way home. While Lynne settled Missile on the couch to nap, Kamila went back to the table. She looked more thoughtful than worried now. Lynne went to the table intending to join her in a brainstorming session when she abruptly jumped up from the chair. Kamila flung her arms around Lynne’s waist, burying her face in her stomach.

“Thank you,” she said, voice muffled but the sincerity pierced.

Lynne squeezed her back. “Hey, that’s what sisters are for.”

#ghost trick #ghost swap #catgirl-frostmoon #lynne #kamila #missile #ghost trick fic #pre-canon #slide of life #fluff

14 notes · View notes

ritterum · 1 year

Text

The Trials of Arteama

When Arteama turned fourteen, she snuck out of the temple unsupervised (something that, she would later learn, was a necessary part of her ascension ritual). The streets of Vimvi were still waking, none of the usual bustle yet to be found. Arteama, wending her way through the near-empty alleys and boulevards, felt as if the morning sun was embracing her in a cloak of divine safety, within which nothing could harm her. Eventually, she would learn that the penalties meant nobody would dream of harming a novice of the Wandering Serai in the first place. But she knew none of that at the time, and was amazed at the impunity with which she wandered the city.

Eventually she came across a stone carvers’ workshop, where she noticed one man out in the yard, his face in his hands and weeping. Driven to compassion, she approached and said to him: “Uncle, why do you weep so?”

He looked up at her with eyes still damp. “Little niece, I beg forgiveness for seeing me in such a state. I am not a good tool for the empire - my fellow workers do not respect me, for I walk differently from them, and behave too strangely. Often they leave me to complete the work of three men, and they rebuke me when I fail in their tasks. I have no recourse for justice, since the foreman thinks as they do, and will not even give me the time of the day.”

Arteama was filled with pity, and in that moment felt inspired by divine wisdom. She removed her girdle and spoke a prayer over it, then handed it over to the stone-carver. “Take this, uncle, and worry not. This girdle has been blessed by the gods, and as long as you wear it, you will work thrice as fast as the fastest worker. Thus, even though your fellows give you the work of three men, their evil wills shall be stymied, for you will not fail in your task, and those in power shall reward you truly.”

The man stared at the girdle, staying silent for a moment. “You are most generous, little niece, but surely you see that this girdle cannot solve my problems completely. What am I to do when my crew decides to increase my work-load to that of five men, or nine men? Then I will be back where I started, lest I find a priest to change the blessing each time.”

Arteama laughed gently. “That is nothing to worry about - you will be the fastest worker in your group, so the girdle will make you work three times as fast as yourself, and three times as fast as even that, if need be. In this manner will you be able to achieve whatever work-load you are assigned.”

The man looked troubled, but nodded nevertheless. “Thank you, young niece; you are right. I merely wish to be a good tool for the empire.” And, fastening the girdle around his waist, he vanished into the workshop without another word.

Arteama departed into the ever-busier streets, full of pride and satisfaction at having helped a person in need. Everywhere she went, she felt the love of the townspeople radiating out to each other: vendors presenting children with their best produce, young apprentices observing their parents with admiration, innkeepers setting out food for the beggars living on their corner. What other city took such good care of its people? And what better place on earth could there be?

Before long, however, she came upon a neighborhood with an unsettling air to it. Many in the area attributed this to an abandoned house, which they claimed to be haunted; ever since its tenant, a young soldier, had died while away in battle, the house had taken on its current aura. The neighborhood people besought her that she might dispel the house’s foul energy, and Arteama, never one to turn down such a desperate request, agreed.

The first oddity she noticed upon entering was that, far from being decrepit or fallen into disrepair, the house was well-kept. Dust had settled on some shelves and decorative drums; portraits on the wall were likewise cobwebbed, but the chairs were clear, the floor was cleanly swept, and the faint scent of porridge hung in the air. The kitchen, of modest size, also displayed no sign of pests, and none of the fruits or bread on the table had gone rotten or moldy.

The second oddity was the figure sitting in the corner, its outlines fuzzy and vague, but distinctly there. Arteama muttered a prayer under her breath, and the figure grew more solid enough that it could be recognized as a woman, eyeing Arteama suspiciously, as old as the high priestesses at the temple, and as proud.

“Goodness and grace unto you, aunt,” said Arteama, “and forgive my intrusion into your home.” At the sound of her voice, the woman started.

“You see me?” she asked, voice breaking, and Arteama nodded.

“I am of the Wandering Serai,” Arteama said. “We are granted the privilege to see what - or who - lies in the sands between.”

“Then help me, niece,” pleaded the woman. “Ever since my son died, I have become like a ghost. None of my neighbors see or hear me, and the ones that do shun my presence as if I were diseased. I could easily lift a loaf of bread, for no shopkeeper would acknowledge me; indeed, though it embarrasses me to say, I have had to resort to such measures of late to keep myself alive, since it was my son who would support me in daily life.”

“Of course,” said Arteama. “And your son, did he carry any titularies? Had he any heirs? I may have an idea of your malady, good aunt, but I must know these things first.”

The woman bowed her head in thought. “Naught that I know of, save for the seal of the house and the seal of the family line, which I gave to him in the hopes that he could start a family. This was before we knew that he would be sent off to war. He was called up before a marriage could be arranged, and he never planned on adopting, so I do not believe he has any heirs.”

“I see,” said Arteama, her pity for the old woman growing. “We are taught of circumstances such as these. I fear, my aunt, that because your son died while these seals were in his possession, they have become unbound, and in the eyes of the great city of Vimvi, this house is ownerless and your family line dead. The deep Authority that flows through these stones, which keeps our society running smoothly and obedient to the law, no longer views you as a person; hence, the people of the city no longer see nor hear you as well.”

“How is that possible?” cried the woman. “I meant for none of this to happen. Nobody told me this would happen. It is not fair.”

“This is not a common situation,” said Arteama, apologetically, “but not uncommon, either. Fortunately there are ways of rectifying errors like this, which we of the Wandering Serai are specially called for. I could even take care of this myself, but I understand if you would rather talk to a more experienced priestess than a novice.”

“Oh please, no more waiting,” said the woman, despondent. “Send for them if you must, but I beg you - do something now!”

Arteama nodded and laid her hands on the woman’s head, and in that instant, a strange glow filled the room, blue and gold, as of festival pyres seeded with exotic chymicals. “Behold: the vast and boundless Identity which surrounds us even now, which giveth every man, woman, and child a face to greet all faces. You, who have chosen to remain in this mortal land, are entitled to a face - so it has been decreed from the days of the empire’s founding. In stripping you of your face, the goodly empire has transgressed against you; in restoring it to you, the Serai makes you whole again. Let gladness fill your heart, aunt L—-, for you are once again legible to Authority.”

At this, the woman’s figure became solid again, and she wept with joy, bowing and kissing Arteama’s feet, and promising the better part of her riches to the Serai for releasing her from such a horrendous fate. Arteama, knowing little of the protocol involved in such lavish displays of gratitude, politely declined; her job now done, she had little desire to linger when so much of the divine power suffusing her remained to be applied to more problems.

Upon exiting the humble domicile, she was surprised to find that a small crowd had gathered, presumably drawn by the rippling effects of her spiritual magic, and at its head, pushed forward by the gathering throng, was a young boy in too-large clothes, no older than eight or nine years of age. Perhaps an orphan, thought Arteama without hesitation, for in the boy’s eyes there was an unmistakable look, lost but also hardened against the world, and while he appeared decently cared for, his parents did not seem to be around, and the insistence of the crowd seemed to insinuate familial demands upon her. But perhaps he was merely sick and needed healing.

“This is P—-,” said one of the old men, nudging the boy forward. “His parents and sister died of the grippe two summers ago. We noticed you were performing rites and thought we would bring him to your attention, since we know orphans are dear to your order.”

“Yes,” said Arteama, watching the boy as he looked down at his sandaled feet. “That they are.”

She knelt down on one knee in front of him and tried to meet his gaze. “You must have found something profoundly meaningful in this land, that you remained when even your sister departed. I cannot imagine what that must have been, but know that we are honored by your presence.” She offered her hand, meaning to grasp his, but he ignored it.

The old man coughed. “We were, ah, wondering if the temple would take him in or offer him an apprenticeship in place of what he lost. He has no family, and we here in the area have been taking care of him, but an extra mouth…” He threw up his hands. “Not to mention that when his Naming comes, ai! Who will stand in for him at the Devourer? Whose lines will he inherit? Too many things to consider, too much uncertainty for poor people like us..”

Arteama stood up and turned to face him, frowning. “Shame on you! You stand before this most noble pearl of Adam - this soul who, as you yourself told me, chose to remain in our sorry world when he easily could have returned to the Door of Time - and all you can think about is money! Do you not understand that these children are the foundation of the empire you call home? Do you not see that as you slap or stroke them, so do you slap or stroke the very bosom of the emperor himself? Unspeak your words and make as if I never heard them; I would sooner have fermenting horse dung in my ears.

“But as for you–” Here she took from her robes an ivory bead the size of a soursop seed and gave it to the boy, who ran it over his fingers wordlessly. “I give you this memento, that it might inspire you towards your apprenticeship. It is a sensatiaball: if you hold it like so and like so–” Here she instructed him on the proper handling of the bead, “--you will cause color and image to flow through and remain on its skin. Show us what beauty and wonder prompted you to remain in this land, young one, and I promise that the land will repay you in kind.”

Retreating from the crowd, Arteama was less thrilled to see a contingent from the Serai waiting at the edge of the crowd. They were but two, an acolyte and a monk, but the younger one’s height, their body-long prayer-bead chains, and their cinnabar-colored robes made them impossible to miss.

“Goodness and grace to you, sister Arteama,” said the monk. They both genuflected as she met their eyes. “You have missed morning services.”

“I had some business to attend to,” Arteama blurted out petulantly. “I have been doing good works in the city.”

“So we have heard.” The monk bowed again. “Even if we hurry back, we will just have missed noon services. Perhaps it would be best if we take our time walking, so you have more time to reflect on your adventures for the Deputy Primate.”

Arteama blanched - surely her departure could not be so grave that it warranted a talking-to from the head of the temple branch. She’d heard of other novices who would sneak out as well, some of whom had even gone on to become priests and priestesses in their own right. But nobody had told of being reprimanded - maybe even thrown out of the order. What had happened to the novices who hadn’t ascended in the temple? Perhaps they were sacrificed to fuel the Authority, if that was even possible (it wasn’t), or they were banished to the far reaches of Ukkabal in the claws of sky-lobsters (they weren’t). Maybe they were turned into the statues that lined the capitol’s streets, new ones unveiled every year; or they were stripped of their names like poor auntie L—-, and made to wander the countryside visible only to the leopards and the wolves. New scenarios popped up and turned over in her head, each more fanciful than the last, until before she knew it, the three of them were cresting the little hill on which the temple complex rested, and entering the great gate through which the welcoming fragrance of jasmine and ylang-ylang beckoned.

The Deputy Primate was already awaiting them in the courtyard with a couple of novices. Though she barely came up to their shoulders, the authority she exuded made Arteama want to hunch in her presence.

“Come,” said the Deputy Primate to Arteama. “Away,” she said to the other clerics, and they vanished obediently into the surrounding hallways.

Arteama followed her up the dimmed stairwell into the mess hall, and from there into the modest room that served as the Deputy Primate’s office and quarters. The birdsong was light and crisp, its echoes muffled this far in the temple.

“Before a novice ascends,” said the older woman, seating herself behind her desk and closing the windows, “it is essential that they display the three elements of character fundamental to the priesthood. These are curiosity, charity, and prudence. These three elements keep each other in check, and without them, a novice will inevitably fail to adapt to the priestly role - that is, to act as a conduit for divine intervention. You may have thought your exit from the compound a daring escape at the time; this is what we wanted you to believe, for it is essential that a priest occasionally bend the rules to get at something their heart so desires, if only to gauge it and see its qualities better. The timid stay back and let others pave the road for them - in their hands, divine power becomes a dangerous tool. Here you chose to break free and explore the city that you loved one last time before it would be denied you. In this, you showed curiosity, and I commend you.

“The charity you displayed also speaks well of you, for what is our burden as keepers of the Serai if not to ease the travelling of others? Yes, we noted the three gestures of kindness you performed - not insignificant ones either. In this, I commend you, too.”

The Deputy Primate withdrew an incense burner from beneath the desk, set it on the surface, and muttered a short chant. “However.” The burner began puffing smoke, and she removed her hand from it. “Prudence was not in great supply.” The smoke filled Arteama’s sinuses, making her eyes water, and as she coughed and sniffled to clear her head, the voice of the superior boomed in her ears. “Observe.”

And now it was as if a dozen dozen images of Vimvi swam in front of Arteama’s eyes, like all these were the spots of a leopard’s pelt, and all these spots nearly the same, but different in their own way. In the center, closest one, she saw the laborer whom she had given the girdle of speed to, collapsed on the floor of his workshop and pale with exhaustion. “This man, you gifted the ability to do the work of three men, but you did not consider that, without the respect of his crew, this would cause his workmates to pile more and more tasks upon him until he died from fatigue.”

The view shifted, zooming through the streets and over the rooftops until it settled on the second house, where city guards were dragging aunt L—- out kicking and screaming. “This woman, you made legible to Authority, but this put her in the eye of the City, and without the destroyed seals, the City no longer considers her house her own.”

Then the picture leapt to P—- the orphan, stuck in a tiny room with a tiny window, surrounded by dozens of tiny beads which he was painstakingly decorating with a single brush. “And this orphan child, whose honor you rightly defended. You remanded him to society, but did not take into account the greed of the wiser and more cunning around him, who now keep him from his mandate of play.

“It is not uncommon for novices to fail at prudence,” sounded the Deputy Primate’s voice, as the visions contracted into a single point, and Arteama found herself staring at the wood grain on the table. “You are all of fourteen years; the world has much to teach you, and in the end, what matters most is that you are able to right what you have wronged. What you have seen can still be changed. So tell me, soon ex-novice - how will you change it?”

Arteama thought for a few minutes, letting the vision-incense clear from her head, before insight struck and the answers lay bare before her. “I know now what must be done.”

The Deputy Primate nodded and got to her feet. “Then show it, and let us be off.”

So they went out of the temple and down the winding, twisty hill-ways, and though the sun shone less brightly than it had when Arteama had first left, still she felt full of vim and vigor, for she had the bottomless well of ingenuity on her side, with the floodgates of prudence to stem its flow. Presently they came to the stone carvers’ workshop, where a group of workers was looking on idly as the laborer from that morning carved inscription after inscription with inhuman speed.

“Uncle!” Arteama cried, and the laborer stopped to look at her, panting and wiping the sweat off his brow. The group of workers yelled in frustration, and one of them stepped forward, visibly pushier than the rest.

“I am the foreman here, and this is no place for two temple flowers to alight on,” said the worker. “As you have no business here, I must insist that you leave.”

“Ah,” said Arteama, “but I do have business here. Your man has something of mine, and I have come to reclaim it.” She gestured to the man to approach; he was already unfastening the girdle, a puzzled expression on his face. “I must ask for this girdle back, for I erred in giving it to you. However, in return, I have something that will fulfill your obligations and make your life much easier from now on.” Here, she took a brooch from her robes that was in the shape of a Keeper’s Mask, and as she handed it over, beams and ribbons of light surrounded it, changing its size and form until it was a full-sized bronze Mask, in all senses that of a Keeper, except that it had the most delicate ivory and jade ornamentations along the rim.

“This,” she said as he tried it on, “marks you as an Artisan of Special Skill; for as long as it is bonded to you, all will know that you answer only to yourself, to your commissioners, and to the temple of the Serai. You may continue to work in this place, for all artisans ultimately must answer to our temple, but Authority binds everyone here to treat you fairly and as your position accords. Be at peace.”

And as she and the Deputy Primate departed, already she could see that the laborer was working unmolested by his fellows, who had taken to their own tasks, occasionally jerking spastically as they attempted to fight the geas. (Such is the state of human cruelty, she would come to learn again and again; one only hoped they would soon tire of it.)

Next they came to L—’s house, where they found her outside, chatting with some acquaintances as she swept the threshold. “Little niece!” greeted the old woman. “Oh, how wonderful it is of you to come by. I was just talking with my neighbors about what life was like without access to Identity. Can you believe they forgot I even existed at all!”

“That’s how it is, aunt,” said Arteama, “but if you will forgive us, we must take care of something very quickly, and then we will be on our way. May we come inside?” And without waiting for a reply, she entered the house.

Quickly, she gathered an assortment of things from the four corners of the house on both floors: a stick of charcoal, a picture of an azalea, a cast-iron pot, two decorative war-drums, a wooden cat, a stool, and a coin. These she arranged roughly in a circle in the middle of the greeting-room, before stretching out her arms, palms down, and beginning to pray: “O bones of the earth! Through time and chance, you’ve become unbound, your carapace sloughed off and your sinews loosed. Let your ties be renewed, by the great power of VIMVI - cry out your allegiance to the Wandering Serai, and let nothing be done to you without Their forbearance. So it ever was; so it shall always be.”

Then she returned the things to their proper places and left, bidding aunt L—- a swift but hearty farewell, to the old lady’s bemusement and puzzlement.

Lastly, they sought out the young boy, which was not hard - he was playing with the sensatiaball in the dirt, in the square on the other side of the building. Seeing the pair approaching, he stared up at them with wide eyes, hiding the bead in his shirt.

“Have no fear,” said Arteama, and she took his hand, and, with the assistance of the Deputy Primate, she bonded him to the mercy of the temple, so that when he became of age, he would be able to undergo the rites of Naming and not vanish into the unseen for want of a guardian to stand in for him at the Passage through the Gates of Hours. And when this was done, the three of them went to a quiet spot by his old house and set there a memorial slab for his two parents and sister. For it is important that while orphans must be remanded into society, it should not be forgotten that their primary mandate is to explore and enjoy the world. Grief, which weakens the resolve, and renders them vulnerable to the predations of others, must thus not be foremost in their heart.

All her objectives now done, Arteama and her superior left the city and made for the temple.

“How have I done, Wise One?” asked Arteama.

The Deputy Primate nodded and smiled down at her. “It is satisfactory, Keeper Arteama.”

Runao’s Commentary:

Prudence is the hardest-won of the virtues; therefore exercise it when you can, that it may grow in your heart. Be cautious in your dealings with the temple of trade and travel, for their power is handled by fools.

#fiction i guess #hour of cloth #loom of hours

19 notes · View notes

positivlyfocused · 7 months

Text

Traveling Outside My Body: A Wonderful Update

As mentioned in previous posts, I’m soothing resistance so that I can enjoy “astral projections”. By “soothing resistance” I mean letting go of beliefs preventing being able to leave my body.

Since everything is possible, doing this is easy. We all do it, after all. Every night we “dream” that’s what we’re doing. We’re traveling astrally.

So projecting my consciousness outside my body isn’t something to “learn”. Rather, it’s something to “allow”. How do we allow? We do it by soothing beliefs making doing so seem impossible.

This post updates my progress so far.

Let’s dive in.

Moving beyond mind

Previous out of body travels were predominantly involuntary experiences. They came unexpectedly. One minute I’d be in my body. The next, I was out. These mostly happened while sleeping or meditating. That makes sense because resistant beliefs aren’t active in those mind states. Especially beliefs that trigger fear of the experience.

Meanwhile, my Broader Perspective knows how to work around those beliefs. This is the case with all desires. Broader Perspective wends its way through what Abraham calls “the cracks of least resistance”. These are pathways through our resistant beliefs, beliefs standing between where we are and what we want. In this way our Broader Perspective knows better than our ego awareness how to manifest desires. This explains why it’s not our ego’s job to figure out how something must happen.

Besides, ego consciousness isn’t equipped to do that. That’s why when we focus on the how, we usually get bogged down in our befuddlement. Brains are physical manifestations of ego consciousness. They are not equipped to understand the how.

Traveling outside the body necessitates leaving all that behind. I must be getting better at doing that because my recent results are astounding.

Deliberate baby steps…

Since I had an adverse reaction long ago to a particularly powerful awakening moment, my Broader Perspective is easing me through the “how”. This process therefore feels extremely gradual. My Broader Perspective knows which of my beliefs could shut down my experience. I can feel that awareness working in me.

Just to clarify; our Broader Perspective isn’t outside is. It’s not a god or other divine being separate from what we are. Our Broader Perspective IS us. It is that aspect of us which remains in nonphysical. It remains there so as to guide the other aspect of us which comes into these physical bodies.

It’s therefore a mistake to picture Broader Perspective as separate from us. Doing that can introduce distortions in beliefs. Distortions that can make what I’m up to difficult or impossible.

Since I’m not making that mistake, I’m finding progress towards leaving my body happening consistently as weeks go by. It’s still gradual. No earth-shaking, amazing occurrences are surprising me. Instead, expansion into astral travel abilities feels like deliberate, baby steps to eventually sojourning through creation while my body lies in repose on my bed.

I’ll share what those baby steps feel like next.

Perceiving the ephemeral

It’s 4:06 as I’m writing this. I just came out of a pleasing meditation. I typically meditate for between an hour and 90 minutes around this time every morning. Usually between two and four AM. I believe those hours hold special energies for such practices.

Coming out of meditation, I received an impulse to write this post.

While prepping for bed last night, I felt familiar urging of my Broader Perspective. It encouraged me to settle my mind and focus in ways that heighten spiritual awareness. Doing so, I can feel varying degrees of vibrations. It’s extremely subtle. Perceiving vibration this way results from a rigorous spiritual practice involving of a lot of meditation and other Positively Focused practices.

^^I really did write this in the early morning!

While in that heightened awareness and perceiving those frequencies, I also felt my Broader Perspective guiding me to “feel” my ephemeral presence, my “spirit body”, or that ethereal body that is my inner energetic being. I know all that sounds extremely “woo”. But how else can I explain it? It really is a “you had to be there” moment. In other words, having the experience is a better way of explaining this than trying to explain it.

Anyway, while focused on that energy body, I didn’t have to really do anything other than focus on it. Not with a “hard” focus though. Instead I do better perceiving it when I focus like I do when using peripheral vision. Or maybe seeing things in really low light. I’m not looking directly at the thing, but see it anyway. Does that make sense?

I hope so.

Gaining comfort with the ephemeral

As I focused on that energy body, I felt it/me becoming more and more distinct from my physicalbody. And this is where the progress happened.

Rather than try to will a travel experience, I instead decided to focus on “feeling” or “witnessing” that ephemeral feeling; the feeling of what that energy body feels like. It was like running my physical hands all over my physical body. Only I was doing that with “energy hands” over my “energy body”. I knew this was the step to take because it would accomplish two things.

One it would amplify the experience by confirming what was happening. It would also soothe resistant beliefs. After all, I can’t disbelieve an experience I’m actually having, can I?

Second, it would give me greater control, comfort and familiarity with this new-to-my-ego experience. That was important. It was important because my ego is responsible for violently shutting down that powerful awakening experience I had long ago. And I didn’t want to repeat thatexperience.

Enjoying the peak moment

So I remained in that state feeling myself for probably 40 minutes. It felt amazing! And in doing that I also felt the “boundary” between my physical body and this energy one. It literally felt like the two were slightly out of sync. Which is exactly what it should feel like as one separates from the other!

Then, at one moment, I decided to try coming back into the physical body. When I did, my legs “jiggled” and I felt an electric wave move through them. It was like the body was receiving into itself the energetic sensation of “me” returning to “it”!

I’m sure you can imagine how amazing that experience felt.

After a few more of these moments, I decided to fully re-enter the physical body. When I did I noticed something very peculiar. And this was the peak moment of this whole experience.

In my body I didn’t feel cold. But when I touched certain parts of my body with my physical hands —my knees, the top of my feet, for example— they felt VERY cold. Again, I didn’t feel cold in my body. But parts of my body, when touched with my physical hands did feel cold.

The cold surfaces correlated with parts of the body I would have left “last” as I “rose” out of the body. I was on my back. The parts I touched were all parts at the upper most part of my body in repose.

This all happened while laying toasty under a fleece blanket, a fleece top sheet, fleece bottom sheet and a down duvet. There was no physical-reality explanation for feeling cold. Especially in the locations where I felt cold!

You had to be there!

Ok. So I get this may not sound very thrilling. I swear you need to have the experience to really get it. Nevertheless I’m THRILLED with these results.

While writing this, I’m eager about experiments I want to run to further improve my awareness. I want to visit friend’s locations, observe things I could only see were I there, then call my friends and report what I saw. Then I want to travel to distant places and see what I can bring back.

That’s right, Seth says I can even travel to such places and actually bring back physical artifacts from those destinations. Can you imagine!?

I can!

I’m eager for more of this. And I deeply appreciate All That Is and my core intention, both of which are leading me on this auspicious trajectory.

Maybe my journey is inspiring you to take your own. If so, I can help, obviously. Become a client! Let’s do this.

#positive thinking #positivevibes #spiritualawakening #positivity #spirituality #positivethinking #spiritual life #spiritualgrowth #happiness #psychology #mental health

2 notes · View notes