#Opposite - Axis Bank

[troythecatfish]

[anigdha]

Head Office : 2nd Floor, N Block, Opposite - Axis Bank,

Sector -18, Noida - 201301

[gael-garcia]

Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) is an ad hoc coalition committed to solidarity and the horizon of liberation for the Palestinian people. Drawing together writers, editors, and other culture workers, WAWOG hopes to provide ongoing infrastructure for cultural organizing in response to the war. This project is modeled on American Writers Against the War in Vietnam, an organization founded in 1965.

Statement of Solidarity

October 26, 2023

Israel’s war against Gaza is an attempt to conduct genocide against the Palestinian people. This war did not begin on October 7th. However, in the last 19 days, the Israeli military has killed over 6,500 Palestinians, including more than 2,500 children, and wounded over 17,000. Gaza is the world’s largest open-air prison: its 2 million residents—a majority of whom are refugees, descendants of those whose land was stolen in 1948—have been deprived of basic human rights since the blockade in 2006. We share the assertions of human rights groups, scholars, and, above all, everyday Palestinians: Israel is an apartheid state, designed to privilege Jewish citizens at the expense of Palestinians, heedless of the many Jewish people, both in Israel and across the diaspora, who oppose their own conscription in an ethno-nationalist project. 

We come together as writers, journalists, academics, artists, and other culture workers to express our solidarity with the people of Palestine. We stand with their anticolonial struggle for freedom and for self-determination, and with their right to resist occupation. We stand firmly by Gaza’s people, victims of a genocidal war the United States government continues to fund and arm with military aid—a crisis compounded by the illegal settlement and dispossession of the West Bank and the subjugation of Palestinians within the state of Israel.

We stand in opposition to the silencing of dissent and to racist and revisionist media cycles, further perpetuated by Israel’s attempts to bar reporting in Gaza, where journalists have been both denied entry and targeted by Israeli forces. At least 24 journalists in Gaza have now been killed. Internationally, writers and cultural workers have faced severe harassment, workplace retribution, and job loss for expressing solidarity with Palestine, whether by stating facts about their continued occupation, or for amplifying the voices of others. These are instances that mark severe incursions against supposed speech protections. Specious charges of antisemitism are leveled against Zionism’s critics; political repression has been particularly aggressive against the free speech of Muslim, Arab, and Black people living in the US and across the globe. As was the case following the September 11th attacks, Islamophobic political fervor and the widespread circulation of unsubstantiated claims has galvanized a US-led coalition of military support for a brutal campaign of violence.

What can we do to intervene against Israel’s eliminationist assault on the Palestinian people? Words alone cannot stop the onslaught of devastation of Palestinian homes and lives, backed shamelessly and without hesitation by the entire axis of Western power. At the same time, we must reckon with the role words and images play in the war on Gaza and the ferocious support they have engendered: Israel’s defense minister announced the siege as a fight against “human animals”; even as we learned that Israel had rained bombs down on densely populated urban neighborhoods and deployed white phosphorus in Gaza City, the New York Times editorial board wrote that “what Israel is fighting to defend is a society that values human life and the rule of law”; establishment media outlets continue to describe Hamas’s attack on Israel as “unprovoked.” Writers Against the War on Gaza rejects this perversion of meaning, wherein a nuclear state can declare itself a victim in perpetuity while openly enacting genocide. We condemn those in our industries who continue to enable apartheid and genocide. We cannot write a free Palestine into existence, buttogether we must do all we possibly can to reject narratives that soothe Western complicity in ethnic cleansing. 

We act alongside other writers, scholars, and artists who have expressed solidarity with the Palestinian cause, drawing inspiration from the Palestinian spirit of sumud, steadfastness, and resistance. Since 2004, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has advocated for organizations to join a boycott of institutions representing the Israeli state or cultural institutions complicit with its apartheid regime. We call on all our colleagues working in cultural institutions to endorse that boycott. And we invite writers, editors, journalists, scholars, artists, musicians, actors, and anyone in creative and academic work to sign this statement. Join us in building a new cultural front for a free Palestine.  

Signed,

WAWOG Interim Organizing Committee

Hannah Black

Ari Brostoff (Senior Editor, Jewish Currents)

Elena Comay del Junco

Kyle Dacuyan (Executive Director, Poetry Project)

Kay Gabriel (Editorial Director, Poetry Project)

Kaleem Hawa

E. Tammy Kim

Shiv Kotecha

Wendy Lotterman (Associate Editor, Parapraxis)

Muna Mire

Perwana Nazif

Brendan O'Connor

Alex Press (Staff Writer, Jacobin)

Sarah Nicole Prickett

Dylan Saba

Zoé Samudzi (Associate Editor, Parapraxis)

Jasmine Sanders

Claire Schwartz (Culture Editor, Jewish Currents)

Janique Vigier

Harron Walker

Chloe Watlington

Gabriel Winant (Department of History, University of Chicago)

Audrey Wollen

Hannah Zeavin (Founding Editor, Parapraxis)

Signed, In Solidarity

Fatimah Warner (Noname)

Saul Williams

Susan Sarandon

Janeane Garofalo

Gael García Bernal

Danez Smith

Ocean Vuong

Aria Aber

Saidiya Hartman

China Miéville

+ full list here

[is-on-its-way]

My one Fictober post

(because im a slow writer)

Prompt: 22 why are we doing this again?

This is “au” for after season 8 || read on AO3

She stared out across the lake sized pond, they called lakes ponds here, making her wonder what Maine’s lakes looked like. She made a mental note to ask Mulder to take them to see one after. 

Everything was so vast and open and endless. Sun drenched mountains stood ancient and unmoving past the parting of the trees on the opposite bank. Their rocky tops colored an amber yellow in the sunrise. Tall pine trees hugged the shore but for the rocky beach she was standing on. The water was a clear shade of greenish blue, reminding her of his eyes in the light of a sunrise. 

Rocks as big as her feet under her bare toes were warm to the touch, baked in the morning sun. They felt wonderful in the chill air surrounding her, remembered from the night before. It was cold here in the evenings, the warning of winter came as early as late August. But they were cozy in their cabin, with a cast iron stove and a furnace and a fireplace to keep the chill out. 

She liked the wildness of it and loved feeling the cold prick her skin at the closing and opening of each day, chasing her and being chased by the sun. There was a comfort there, of the silent and unmovable force of nature after being pursued for so much of their lives by things much less impressive. 

They would all flee inside as their daily ritual, Mulder their shepard when she or their boy were inevitably stubborn. But he was being strict with her, and would never allow it. 

She wanted to sit outside around the firepit on occasion but Mulder wouldn’t hear it. He worried about her, insisting she come inside. Telling her there would be other summers and autumns when she could. And the funny thing was, she let him. She didn’t even have to fight herself and her independence at all really, she found his protectiveness, her cheeks reddened just thinking about it, sexy. 

He’d missed out the last time she told herself, he deserved to have this. So she let him herd them all inside and cuddle up as a family every night on the cozy couch by the fireplace and they would all take turns telling stories and adding new chapters to their favorite ones until one of them, usually her, fell asleep. 

Besides it made her feel a comfort she couldn’t describe or understand. His care for them, she couldn’t have imagined how good this could be.

A wind blew off the water wipping her hair around her neck and she shivered pulling her sweater tight around her and glancing back to the hammock tied between two trees to make sure it wasnt swaying too much in the wind. He was warm enough she’d put a sheepskin down and then a wool blanket over top of him. The impression their little boy made was so tiny and she had a sudden wild feeling of joy and sorrow mixed together in the most confounding way. How small he used to be, with his little rabbit ear hat. How big he would seem in seven more months. Everything felt like it was going so slowly in this calm, but when she stopped to look she realized everything was going at the speed of light. 

The truth was he wasn’t tiny, she couldn’t really lift him up anymore, and they’d started transitioning to couch cuddles when he needed comfort. He was in the 94th percentile for height. Mulder had kissed her head and said “Thank those recessive Scully genes your brother got, huh?” at his last checkup. To which she’d muttered back “He's a Mulder.” Mainly to see the pride flicker across his face. He had started planning to put a basketball court in beside the driveway.

She turned back to the water chin dimpling at the passage of time. She’d always loved the fall, the shade of sunlight on her skin in the mornings and the sharp angles and yellow sunsets cast across living rooms in the evenings. This fall though, was the happiest of her life. The stillness of it was turning her world on its axis. God knows, she wasn’t one to remain in one place for long, neither was Mulder. She smiled at the thought. But they had soaked this in for two weeks now and she could envision seven months more, longer. Safe. Him safe. Together and enjoying each other for the first time… ever. 

It was like a honeymoon phase they never really had. They were like teenagers exploring their newfound freedom and the change in their lives for the first time it felt like, for the better. She couldn't stop smiling. Neither could he. Sometimes by the fire in the evenings, her, curled up in the big armchair reading, him, typing on the sofa next to their son fast asleep; they’d meet each others gaze and just grin dopily at each other.

Even Liam saw their newfound giddiness. “Momma you’re happy now?” Hed asked this morning, through a spoonful of oatmeal. They’d eaten a later breakfast than Mulder after he had left for an early morning hike. 

“Yes baby, I’m happy.” she’d said kissing the top of his sun bleached, sandy brown head.

“Are you happy my love?” She asked, playing with his hair.

“Yeaaaaah!” he’d exclaimed and wiggled in his chair and shed laughed.

Shed been saddened a bit by this. It had only been months that they’d finally been free.

Their son had grown up with both of his parents filled with worry, and anxiety, and serious conversations, and fights even, about the right thing to do, the time it would take them, the sacrifices they were making, even the moral thing to do. He’d spent his toddlerhood in an underground medical lab that was soulless and sunless and the bane of her existence for three hellish years.

Scully sometimes couldnt believe they’d gotten through it. Couldn’t believe she and Mulder had come out of it together and loving each other the same way, if not more deeply. 

She shook off her memories of that time determined to enjoy the world in front of her now. Mostly alien-less and beautiful and sunny and windy. Oh how she’d missed the wind. 

And people! Strangers, smiling as you passed them on the street. It’d taken them a couple of days to get used to the college town hospitality but how refreshing it was to see people. No weirdos, no cults, they'd employed the gunmen to double check, just students and parents and seniors posted up at the local coffee shop all day. Nothing but normalicy. Well except for the three of them. But she could live with that. 

She could live with a lot, she realized, once that low hum of anxiety, the constantly on guard state of being she’d become so accustomed to fell away. Mulder too, was more relaxed and happy here, just them, in their own universe. 

——————————

He’d been booked for a flight to a case he’d been working with the lone gunmen when it happened. It would’ve been a normal case with them otherwise, like he had done since they’d been freed. Free of the FBI, free of the conspiracy, and the group that had been a danger to them. Some in the government were taking the threat seriously and many of the survivors had been placed on the most wanted list. They were, more importantly, free of the colonists. They’d gone once the vaccine program had been rolled out, the earth, useless to them now. 

It felt like a weight that she hadn’t known she carried since she had woken up in the hospital in 1994 had been lifted off of her. No more experiments, no more women and children in danger. She could rest now. They could rest now. And rest they had.

She’d come back from the doctor in a daze. She’d been feeling under the weather and silently, she’d feared cancer, she hadn’t said as much to Mulder, but he had offered to drop Liam off at her mothers and go with her. She’d said no, it was probably nothing and if she needed him she’d call. He’d sent her off with an extra tight hug and a thousand kisses, whispering things that made her face flush thinking of them now. When the nurse had told her to do the standard pregnancy test before any imaging could be done she hadn’t even thought…

Mulder and Liam were dozing on the couch when she got home. She’d gone to the kitchen and turned on the faucet, hands shaking, mind blank, watching the water.

Mulder appeared at the kitchen door, wordless and waiting. She swallowed and managed a smile. “Not sick” she’d said.

And he’d been so relieved by this news he’d hardly noticed her fighting to remain calm while he woke Liam and they’d jumped around the kitchen shouting the lyrics to everything’s gonna be alright by Bob Marley. Mulder said they’d been waiting to have dessert with her, so she picked at the ice cream and watched her boys chatter and laugh for what she realized would be the last time as just the three of them. 

She’d waited until they’d put him to bed and he went to the couch holding a hand out, waiting for her to join him in their nightly cuddle. 

Instead she’d sat on the coffee table, taking his hand. She’d whispered “Mulder, I got some news at the doctor.” 

“I thought..?” He’d looked worried then and she’d wanted to beam her thoughts into his mind to stave off the five extra seconds of worry. 

“No its nothing bad, its…” She didn’t quite know how to say it, which if she wasnt so distracted she would find hilarious given this was the one thing she’d rehearsed in her dreams every single night the first time around. It came tumbling out of her mouth instead. 

“We’re going to have a baby.”

He’d blinked at her in complete shock and then his brow had furrowed and she’d wanted to say something else but he’d just leaned into her, took her in his arms and drew her into his lap.

“You’re sure? How scully..?” He’d mumbled from her neck. 

“I dont know” she’d cried, holding onto him like a life raft. 

They’d been overcome, trembling together, his tears wetting her neck. And she’d held him and kissed his cheek. 

He’d whispered ‘oh my god’ and found her hands and kissed each finger and then her face giving her little kisses all over, until the tears turned into giggles and they sat back and looked at each other faces red and puffy and happy.

The feeling that welled inside her then was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. At the chance to tell him. The second chance at everything. 

“What about the placenta?” he'd blurted out serious. And her heart could’ve shattered at his care for her. “Will they check it? Make sure you two will be safe not like last time?” His arms wrapped around her waist hugging her close to him.

“Well it was a great deal more stressful last time.” He squeezed her hand “but yes my OBGYN wants me to come in as soon as possible to do some testing.”

“Tomorrow?”

She nodded. 

“I’ll take you.” he said it with a finality that raised her deeply ingrained self suffient hackles and perplexingly turned her on a little.

Normally she’d have shaken her head. She almost did it automatically. But instead she’d smiled. “I’ll call to see if we can come in when Liam is at Bill and Taras.”

He’d sunk to the carpet, let her lie back on the couch as he rested his chin on her hipbone and whisped salutations to their child. Her fingers raked through his chinchilla hair. Trailing his fingers across her bare belly, asking for her to un button and unzip her pants so as to be as close as possble to where their baby currently inhabited her belly. He whispered about how he hoped they’d get her beautiful nose and come to think of it her eyes and the shape of her earlobes. She’d added 

“Tell them about your jawline and your soft hair.” 

“And your mom wishes you’d get my jawline so maybe work on that in there while you can, but I like her hair better so its up to you kid.”

She’d giggled, and they’d cried, and he’d carried her to bed. That night Mulder wrapped his body around her, entangling his limbs in hers, his hands placed protectively around her belly.

And when they woke up three days later and he’d prepared to go to the airport for the gunmen’s case, they both could barely look at each other. 

And he’d hugged her and said, “Don’t worry Scully, no monsters just run of the mill missing persons.” 

But her stomach dropped into her abdomen and stayed there as the door closed behind him, and as she’d started breakfast and cried silently at the stove begging god not to be so cruel. Not to take him a second time. Knowing he’d be okay but feeing deep down something would go wrong, the darkness would find him. 

And it jumped into her throat ten minutes later as the door crashed open and she heard him call her name and his long strides coming determinedly to her in the kitchen, catching her face in his hands, and wildly searching her eyes.

She’d cried his name as he’d asked desperately.

“Why are we doing this again?”

“I dont know” she’d broken down then; relieved, and so happy he’d come back to her. And he’d grabbed her and kissed her like he should’ve the first time, like he wanted a second chance, like they could relive the past and physically force it to change. 

“I dont want to miss a second of you this time.” he’d muttered into her hair holding her to him. 

“Mulder” she’d choked out, emotions too vast to put into words.

“Momma waffles” Liam had reminded her and she saved them before they burned

“Breakfast” she’d smiled weepily at Mulder, as they both wiped tears away.

“Yes, then let’s get out of here.” he’d said looking at her as seriously as she’d ever seen him.

She tilted her head in question

“Lets go to the maine house.”

She tried to hide a smile. “For how long?”

“The rest of it. A year. Forever. However long you want.”

She’d raised her eyebrows. This was her Mulder, all or nothing all the time. She’d fought a smile. “What happens when we get bored?” She crossed her arms, spatula still in hand, after putting the waffle on Liam's plate.

“I have a book to write that I’ve been putting off. You have a baby to grow and two full shelves of books you've been wanting to get through and…” he searched for more concrete reasons, “you wanted to decorate that house…Fall is the best time for antiquing” he’d said fluttering his eyebrows enticingly.

“We can stop at Brimfield on the way up.” he added in a sing song, knowing this would do the trick.

Her eyes lit up, he knew he had her, and he grinned.

“What about my training?”

“Can you take a sebatical?”

“Maybe, I can ask” 

“Ask”

“Okay I’ll call after breakfast.” She said excited at their new plan. 

“Good” his fingers found hers and pulled them around him spatuala and all, as he pulled her into a hug. 

“I’m so happy.” he mumbled in her hair “Its terrifying.” 

She nodded into his chest and said “I know exactly what you mean.”

And then he started laughing and she laughed with him and then Liam started his cutest five year old laugh and soon everyone had dissolved into giggles and hugs.

—————

The sun dappled her dappled cheeks catching a tree on its rise. She found herself smiling at the memories and she sighed.

He walked up behind her. She didn’t turn around knowing it was him from the sound of his footfalls. He stopped behind her and wrapped his arms under hers and over her slightly swollen belly, tucking his nose into the side of her neck. “Mmm” she hummed “Hi”

“Hi”

“Nice walk?”

“Very relaxing” he muttered into her, lips brushing against the top of her shoulder setting her skin alight in goosebumps. 

“Tomorrow we can all go.” She whispered, tilting her head so he could continue the path up her neck.

“Okay. I found a perfect little outcrop that looks over the lake. The trail is mostly flat.” His nose drifted across her jaw.

She smiled at his worry.

“Mulder” she said in that exasperated voice she knew he loved “I worked for the FBI the first time I was pregnant I can do a hike.”

He just breathed her in. “You smell different.” He murmured from the soft bare skin behind her ear.

“Better or worse” she asked, voice still playful.

“Just different. I love it. I love being here with you, watching you.” He breathed her in deep over exaggerating, and she giggled.

“You’re amazing. Have I told you?”

“Today? Not yet” she teased.

“You’re amazing Dana.” He said kissing her jawline.

“Thank you Fox.” she whispered as if his name was their secret.

“I have something for you.”

She turned in his arms looking at him questioningly. He dug in his back pocket and pulled a notebook out, opened it and on the page there was a perfect maple leaf in fall colors. The veins of it were still green but the colors faded outwards from them in a tricolor rainbow of brightest yellow to deepest red around the very edges.

“It’s beautiful” she said studying the way the colors merged from one vein into another.

“It wasn't ready to fall but it did and it ended up better for it.” He said. “Like us.”

She smiled earnestly up into his eyes. She twirled the stem in her fingertips the light catching it and illuminating the colors even more. 

“Fall always reminded me of you.” He said in a low voice still holding her. She reached up to his face brushing a finger across his plump lower lip. He answered her unspoken request, bending down to brush his lips to hers and allow her to open her mouth to him playing with them between her own, tasting the familiar taste of him on his tongue. Before parting, and pressing her cheek against his chest, looking out at the sun fully risen over the water now.

“I have something for you too” she said glancing up at him, finding his eyes a smile playing on her lips. She dug in her sweater pocket and pulled out a smooth stone and held her hand out with it lying on her palm. He took it beamused, then his eyebrows raised “Its shaped like a UFO” he said surprised. She laughed pleased he could see it too.

It was. It was oblong a perfect sphere from the top with a small hump on one side that could’ve been a cockpit.

“Don’t go imagining it actually is with tiny aliens inside, its just a coincidence in a stone.”

He smirked at her “Maybe” he said suggestively.

She shook her head staring back at her leaf 

“I think I can put this between wax paper and preserve it.”

He kissed her temple their presents held in each others hands.

“I can’t wait for spring, we can swim.”

“The babys due in May, I dont think I’ll be able to for a while after.”

He shrugged. “Then we’ll wait for summer.”

“You’ll take Liam, teach him to swim.” She said with certainty. “We can watch.” She spoke as much to him as her belly.

Mulder smiled and she saw tears flood his eyes threatening to spill over his bottom lashes. She put a hand to his cheek and asked for his eyes. 

He sighed and smiled “Yeah, that sounds perfect.”

@today-in-fic

[mariacallous]

On Oct. 9, 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would “change the Middle East.” Observers may not have been paying careful attention, or they may have thought it was just rhetoric. But in the nearly 20 months of brutal conflict that has followed, the Israelis have done much to realize this goal. With the recent attack on Iran, which occurred just hours ago, they are seeking to strike a final and fatal blow against the Axis of Resistance.

All the death and destruction in Gaza and the attendant international outcry has obscured a critical Israeli achievement. Israel is in a better strategic position—and thus more secure—than it was on Oct. 7, 2023. There is no longer a military rationale for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank because Hamas is no longer a threat. Most of its leaders in Gaza are dead, and the few that remain have few resources, face a growing opposition of ordinary Gazans outraged at what Hamas has brought upon them, and have been forced to rely on lightly trained fighters. The war continues only in service of the annexationist agenda of the far-right politicians in Israel. The dream of taking Gaza and extending Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank has only been made possible by the broader battlefield successes of the IDF, however.

For years, policymakers, elected officials, analysts, foreign affairs columnists, and leaders of all stripes believed that Iran and Hezbollah had checked Israel’s military advantages with hundreds of thousands of rockets of all types. With near unanimity, the Washington foreign-policy community believed that deterrence was the best that Israel could manage. To take on Hezbollah directly would mean utter destruction of Israel’s north and massive damage to its population centers. Yet, armed with 20 years of intelligence and a much-changed willingness to take great risks after Oct. 7, the Israelis decapitated Hezbollah’s leadership. Over the course of a month or so in the fall of 2024, the Israelis nullified the threat the group posed. In the process, there was no mass devastation to Israel. Tel Aviv’s glass towers remained standing. Haifa barely sustained a scratch. No Hezbollah rocket hit the Knesset.

Israel’s willingness to change its security environment also had salutary effects on Lebanon and Syria. Perhaps not all the citizens of those countries welcomed Israeli help. Yet the fact remains that for the first time in four decades, Lebanon has a government that can reclaim sovereignty from a nonstate actor that had become the expeditionary force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It is unclear how Syria’s transition will go; many challenges remain. But many Syrians celebrated the demise of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, which made the overthrowing of the Assad dynasty possible.

Now, it is Iran’s turn: the “head of the snake,” as Israelis refer to the Islamic Republic. There has been endless commentary right up to and during Israel’s initial wave of assaults that the IDF does not have the ability to knock out the Iranians’ nuclear program and that any attempt to do so will result in a regional war. It’s only been a few hours since Israel’s strikes on Iran began, but these certainties no longer seem so certain.

The hint should have come last October when Israel dealt a shattering blow to Iran’s air defenses and missile production facilities using weapons not previously known publicly to be in its inventory. In the recent attack, the Israelis reportedly killed several major regime figures and senior nuclear scientists, destroyed a portion of its missile forces, and attacked the country’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. Israeli leaders said the strikes will continue. This should have come as a surprise only to anyone not paying attention to the way Israel has been carrying out its changed strategy.

It remains to be seen how Iran will respond. But regardless of any specific military developments, the shift in Israeli thinking about security is forcing a potential paradigm shift in the Middle East. The Israelis are clearly not satisfied with doing damage to Iran’s nuclear program but seem to be engaged in regime change. They recognize what too few in the U.S. foreign-policy community seem to grasp. The nature of the Iranian regime is dangerous. Its leaders do not want a new relationship with the United States. They want to leverage American gullibility and caution to Tehran’s advantage.

After Oct. 7, the Israelis clearly had enough of this game and put in train a military solution to its problem that culminated with the attack on Iran. In the early hours after the initial strikes, Israel’s military leaders indicated that they had planned for more than a one-off strike. The targets that were hit made it clear that Israel’s goal was broader than damaging Iran’s nuclear program. It is a risky strategy based on the assumption that if the Iranian regime is gone or greatly weakened, many of the problems that have bedeviled the Middle East may also be gone. The potential upside for Israel is significant—more security, increased prospects for regional integration, and the final foreclosure of a Palestinian state. But the downside is also significant if the regime survives and the Islamic Republic lives to fight another day.

“Existential” has perhaps become an overused term. But Oct. 7 drove home for Israelis the truly existential challenge that they confronted. They woke up to a world that morning in which deterrence no longer made sense. And they were clear from the very start that they needed to find another way to secure Israel’s borders. Therein was the source of tension between the Biden and Trump administrations and the Israeli government: The Americans believed that cease-fires and arms control agreements were the best way to manage Israel’s security problems. Israelis disagreed and sought to finally resolve them.

[parzival911]

Chapter 14 - The Illusion of Evil Triumphant

Recommended Tea: Berry Fusion (for maximum effect cold... and black)

This post reflects on as Lewis phrased it, "The Triumph of the Witch." Rereading this chapter didn't evoke the same methodical delineation of moments to analyze and explore. I simply soaked in the emotion of Aslan's apparent demise, defeat, and death. It reminded me (as Lewis intended) of how I felt a week ago attending liturgy for Good Friday.

I mentioned when I started this blogging journey I would discuss the Christian elements of Lewis' work minimally; I adhere to that now, for the bulk of it will arise in the next post. I wish instead to focus on the quotes the chapter evoked in me. The first comes from Lewis himself (via Devin Brown)...

"A far more serious attack on the fairy tale as children's literature comes from those who do not wish children to be frightened. I suffered too much from night-fears myself in childhood to undervalue this objection. I would not wish to heat the fires of that private hell for any child. On the other hand, none of my fears came from fairy tales... Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker... Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let villains be soundly killed at the end of the book. Nothing will persuade me that this causes an ordinary child any kind of degree of fear beyond what it wants, and needs to feel." ~ C.S. Lewis, Of Other Worlds, "On Three Ways of Writing for Children" (1966)

I felt the same sentiment reviewing the county curriculum, amazed there were no battles for World War II. I always gave the home front social revolution its deserved place of honor, but to skip from Pearl Harbor to D-Day perpetuates a myth; our military was appallingly unprepared, and victory was never guaranteed. While Lewis mulled TLWW, FDR and Churchill discussed how to react an Axis division of the Middle East. Similarly, I deliberately never played "I Have a Dream" in the civil rights unit. I emphasized Claudette Colvin rather than Rosa Parks. Remember not only the victory, but the struggle to reach it.

Studying history is a far easier feat than living through it. When faced with the ascendancy of oppression in one's own time, perseverance is vital to the resistance of the tyrannical.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” -- Edmund Burke

This of course is what the authoritarian banks on, wearing down your hope and stamina to continue. Voldemort seemed so invincible, he seized control of the magical government itself. But power is a fatal disease to all who contract it, since its catalyst is hubris. Each fresh outrage, each newly emergent overreach, only energizes and refuels the rebels in resistance. It revitalizes as a reminder of what you have sworn to defeat at any and all cost.

"And now, who has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? [...] But when you are dead what will prevent him from killing him as well? [...] Understand... you have lost your own life and you have not saved his." -- The Witch (181)

Who has won? Not the coward, who has to bully, demean, and dehumanize his or her opposition into submission in order to "win." Those jeering and sneering are also fearing; their hunger for power insatiable, they can never rest because they never trust and thus can never know peace. And they always underestimate the eternal staying power of martyrdom to those left behind. The void of leadership left by the loss only spurs the true leaders to reach within and tap the potential they never knew they had (or never knew how to utilize).

May we retain from heroes' sacrifices--both fiction and nonfiction--that truth. And may we never, ever forget it.

[mortemoppetere]

TIMING: june 25th PARTIES: @honeysmokedham, @chasseurdeloup, & @mortemoppetere LOCATION: the wicked's rest zoo SUMMARY: when an innocent man is framed for murder, axis investigations is on the case! hey, wait, what's animal control doing here? CONTENT WARNINGS: none!

"Wake up." Nora burst into Emilio's bedroom, door banging against the wall, Perro barking at her heels. "We've got a case." Nora scanned the ground of his bedroom. Neither of the Axis employees could claim to be neat in their lifestyles. Nora picked up two of the less aggressive-smelling articles of clothing and tossed them at the sleeping figure. "It's urgent, come on." Nora also dropped the three-legged dog onto the bed, hoping the little guy would go right for Emilio's face and force him to wake up. Nora slammed the door behind her as she left his room. While she waited for her boss to get it together, she paced a trail in the office space. Back and forth, hands shoved in her pockets. 

Nora had been in the office late that night. It wasn't for work. Sometimes she came in when Emilio wasn't home to use a working bathroom. She was pretty sure he knew but never said anything. Nora liked that arrangement. Nora loved her crypt and the freedom it represented, but she missed the utility of running water. Now that she had added a training routine to her night that left her covered in sweat from pushing herself with exercise, access to a shower was life-changing. Since Nora was playing a game of pretending not to need help, she kept a rotation of places she went to shower. Sometimes it was Van's, Thea's, Metzli's. A gym membership would probably help but the ten dollars a month needed to come from a bank account which she didn't have access to. 

Anyway, she'd been about to leave when a man knocked at the door. He'd been older and looked nervous to be there. "You're the private investigator?" He'd asked upon seeing her, Nora could tell from the look in his eye he didn't believe it. Probably because she looked like a child and knew it. Instead of answering the man, Nora had pointed to the cheap Private Investigator sign on the desk. The man must have been desperate enough to need help because he went right into the story. 

As soon as Emilio came out Nora went into recounting the story. "There's been a murder." Nora kept pacing while she spoke. "They think they know who did it, but our client wants to prove it wasn't who they think it was." Nora started stating the facts she knew. The body was discovered three days ago in the morning when the zoo opened. The cameras were down that night, so there was no video footage. "We won't be able to talk to the suspect. He's a polar bear." Nora stopped her pacing to look at Emilio. This was where she thought the grouchy old man might say no. But, despite her own hatred for her own bear, Nora had a deep fondness for bears. Especially the polar kind. Nora grabbed a file she'd prepared for Emilio off the desk and tossed it to him. "That's everything I know and found on Google." She'd gone to the library to print it off this morning. "Our client is a keeper at the zoo. He says he knows for certain the bear didn't do it." 

Blood on the floorboards, in the dirt, on the walls. The stench of it was overpowering, all iron and rust. He was running, but the ground under his feet was moving in the opposite direction so no step he took actually projected him forward. But he could see her ahead, anyway — dark hair tangled in every direction, tiny body curled into a ball, blood pooling all around her. He’d get there too late, because he always did, but he could see her. He was so close, he just needed to —

A voice cut through the silence of the bedroom, and Emilio started awake, eyes wide and wild. His heart was pounding in his chest as he shifted on the mattress, not yet sitting up but far from sleep. He probably ought to thank Nora for waking him; he’d only been asleep an hour or so, but the nightmares only ever got worse the longer he let himself stay in them. More than an hour of sleep and he woke up screaming his throat raw, shouting out names of long-dead ghosts that had never found him worth haunting. 

Nora was saying something about a case, and then there were clothes being tossed at him, and then a dog. Perro licked his nose once, a very intentional kind of move, as if he, too, was urging Emilio to wake up and listen to Nora. The detective grumbled, pulling on the dirty shirt and sweatpants she’d tossed his way as she exited the bedroom. It took him a moment to get off the mattress; it always did. His knee was stiff, hurting more than usual after the ‘rest’ he’d granted it. He did his best to ignore it as he limped into the living room.

“Do you live here now?” It was only half a joke. Inviting her to move in and forgetting about it wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility to Emilio. Nora accepting such an offer, however, seemed entirely unlikely. He moved into the kitchen as she spoke, starting the process of making a cup of coffee in his ancient, moldy coffee maker. 

Murder wasn’t Axis’s usual fare. That kind of thing was better left to the police, if only because Emilio attempting to take on such a thing seemed like a short walk to a prison cell for him. But apparently, the police hadn’t done their job. He listened as Nora told the story, finding it entirely unsurprising that the cops had the wrong man behind bars for this one. The police liked easy answers, most of the time. They tended to go with whatever suspect looked the best without digging into the evidence. Sometimes, that meant the wrong person got caught up in things. And sometimes, that wrong person had the funds and determination to hire Axis to help them. Not the worst case, really. It was nice of Nora to take it for him, nice of her to…

Wait. 

“Did you say a polar bear?” He caught the file she threw his way, looking down at the printout of some webpage about a polar bear. “A bugbear? It’s a bugbear, right? We can get them to transform and talk to them then?” He wanted, so badly, for the answer to be yes. The more Nora spoke, however, the less likely that seemed to be. “It’s a bear.”

"Live here? In this sty?" Nora rolled her eyes. "Never." It wasn't that Nora hated Axis. It was the opposite. Nora loved Axis. Nora loved how the noire feel of the office space made her feel like a star in a detective movie. She loved that blocked off from prying eyes was Emilio's home, a place where she was welcome to traverse, making her feel welcomed and like she belonged somewhere. There was joy in being able to come in, wake up Mimi, and get to work. No harsh words, no yelling. No demands to keep to a schedule. Axis was the easy and simple life she loved and always wanted. 

But the Crypt was everything to Nora. The Crypt was the symbol of freedom that she'd fought tooth and nail for. An oasis unto herself where no one could tell her what to do, how to exist, and what to be. There was nothing in that Crypt that demanded she twisted herself into different shapes to fit a box that wasn't designed to fit her. The Crypt was someplace she couldn't see herself giving up ever. She knew Emilio hated the Crypt. All of his mentions of the place came with reminders that there were creatures there that wanted to kill her. He was convinced that one day something would claw its way out of death and attack her down there. He was probably right, but her freedom was something she'd discovered she'd die for. 

Nora wasn't done pacing. Her boots slammed a steady beat against the worn wood floor. "A bugbear? It’s a bugbear, right? We can get them to transform and talk to them then?" Those words came with a sting of pain. Nora kept her eyes fixed on the ground in front of her, one boot in front of the other. The hope that it could be a fellow bugbear had crossed her mind when she first heard about the case, but further research into the bear had revealed that the bear was born and raised in captivity. The true sting came from the knowledge that even if it was a bugbear, Nora would have no clue how to tell. As far as she was aware, she was the only bugbear in existence at this current time. Despite her efforts to find others, there had only been one in her life. Her. It was blatantly apparent to her that she lacked something. Something to tell her where the other bugbears were. Something that could answer a question like "It's a bugbear, right?" 

"A bear." Nora repeated. Her voice and face remained as impassive as ever. "It can't defend itself. Someone has to do it." As Nora spoke her hands started fumbling through her pockets. Change. Ham. Snake. Some string. Finally, they came across what she was looking for. Nora pulled out two all-access zoo passes, tossing one at Emilio. "He gave us a way in." Not only did he give them a way in, but the man had also said these would be good all season. Unlimited zoo trips. Nora wasn't going to admit it to Mimi, but she was stoked. She was going to use this pass to try and free all the animals. Sometime. Not now. Right now they had a murder to solve. 

"He said we'd be able to use this to get into where they are holding the bear too." Nora stopped pacing, turning to look at Emilio. "He's sure the bear didn't do it. The bear doesn't have a history of violence. He was originally supposed to be picked up for rehabilitation and then release, but after she was healed her caretakers declared she was too dependent on humans that they didn't think she would survive in the wild." 

“It’s better than your place,” Emilio huffed, though he wasn’t entirely sure that was true. Axis and the Crypt were probably equally terrible for different reasons. Sure, the Crypt was in a graveyard that was potentially full of undead, but Axis was in a building of potentially dangerous people. The guy across the hall had come at Emilio with a switchblade more than once, and it was a lot harder to fight off crazy neighbors than it was to kill spawn vampires. Spawns were easy. You hit them in the chest with a stake and they turned to dust. But people were complicated. You kill one, even in self defense, and you’ve got a world of shit coming down on you. Especially if you were Emilio, he suspected. An undocumented Mexican murdering his neighbor probably wasn’t going to be given any kind of benefit of the doubt. People not turning to dust after dying was, frankly, a little rude of them when you threw that into consideration. 

Still, Emilio was a stubborn bastard. He’d die before he admitted that Nora might have a point about the Crypt being a step above Axis. He’d also never try to convince her to leave it. For whatever reason, she seemed to genuinely like being there. And Nora wasn’t the kind of person who seemed to genuinely like many things at all, so Emilio figured he ought to let her keep whatever she could find. He thought she might do the same for him. 

The coffee machine finished, and Emilio poured the liquid into a reasonably clean mug he pulled out of the sink, pulling a bottle of whiskey down from the cabinet to add a bit of that into the mix as well. With both the cup and the bottle in hand, he walked over to his desk and settled into the rickety chair, leaning back to watch Nora pace.

She was worked up about this. That much was obvious from the way she moved, stress coming off her in waves. It reminded him a little of Rosa when she got herself wrapped up in something, the way she’d walk and talk while making gestures with her hands, frustration clear in her expression. (He and Edgar used to make bets on who she’d take a swing at first. The bets were stupid. It was always Emilio. As the youngest brother, it was his God-given right to be the more annoying of the two.) 

But while Rosa often got worked up over things Emilio could relate to, Nora’s reaction seemed a little more foreign. If it was a bugbear, he’d get it. Even with his disconnect from the life, he’d still feel some sympathy for a slayer wrongfully accused of something and suffering the consequences of it unjustly. But a bear? Nora had admitted that she hadn’t even spent a large amount of time in that form, using it only when she needed to. Did she really feel such a connection to this animal? 

He thought, unwillingly, of Teddy and the way they’d spoken to the animals Joy had trapped away, the anguish in their face when they’d saved Emilio’s life at the cost of letting the baukbear die. He thought of Perro, of the anger he’d felt when he’d seen the condition the dog had been living under in the home of the vampire he’d taken him from. Maybe Nora’s frustration wasn’t as perplexing as he’d first thought. It was just a bear, but it was still something. Something that couldn’t look out for itself, something that needed someone on its side. Emilio bit back a groan. 

Reaching out, he caught the lanyard she threw his way, making a face at it. A zoo pass? Christ, he’d never even been to a zoo. He could only imagine how overwhelming it would be for a man who disliked crowds and had trouble maintaining a strong hold on his own mind. But this was clearly important to Nora, and she’d done plenty for him without protest, so he wrapped the string around his wrist and held the little piece of plastic in his hand. “Okay,” he agreed. “We’ll go in, and we’ll find out what happened. But if we find out the bear did do it, kid, I don’t know what we can do.” It seemed unfair, punishing a bear for doing what bears did. It wasn’t like the vampires Emilio took out who killed with intent; it was a fucking animal. It shouldn’t be punished for that. But how could they stop it? They couldn’t exactly sneak a bear through town and release it into the woods. Emilio didn’t even think polar bears lived in Maine. 

If they had to, he guessed, they could go to Teddy about it. The very thought filled him with irritation, but Teddy had proven to be useful when it came to animals. They’d probably know what to do with a polar bear. With a backup plan that he desperately hoped they could forgo, Emilio forced himself to his feet. “I know someone we can call if we have to,” he said, “but I’d rather we not have to. So tell me everything you know about the murder, and why they think the bear did it. We’ll start there.”

Emilio’s face was a carousel of emotion. With each passing bit of information Nora imparted his face contorted into different shades of what the fuck. “The bear didn’t do it.” The bear probably did it, but Emilio didn’t need to know about Nora’s internal monologue over this case. Nora wanted the bear to be guilt-free, and if it wasn’t well, “If the bear did do it, we can break him out.” Nora always had a straight face; it was part of the emotionless exterior she wore on a day-to-day basis. But this time? She meant it. She wanted it said with a straight face because if the bear did do it, then she would break out the bear. Like for fucks sake, it was a bear not a badly behaved human. Of course, it didn’t know better than to eat a human. “He can live in the crypt with me and Babs.” Nora continued. “We have the space.”

Babadook was taller than Nora while standing on hind legs, and the bear would be taller than Babs and together they would be raising the bar. Ha. That was an old commercial, why did she even think of that? “Who do you know? Mimi, do you…” Nora lowered her voice, as if what she was about to say was the most sacrilegious thing that came out of her mouth today. “Do you have a friend? I’m impressed, Mimi. I was starting to worry that you sat around wallowing by yourself when I’m not around to kick you into gear.” A tease. Her mentor may have the attitude of an ostrich, but he was a good guy. Anyone would be lucky to be his friend.

“Come on, I’ll tell you about the case in the car. I got us a ride.” Neither of them had a car. Nora walked everywhere, and she wasn’t sure how Emilio got anywhere. She wasn’t going to ask him to walk, not with that limp. That’s why she arranged for Mrs. Penelope to drive them. Nora knew basically nothing about the woman except she was very easy to scare. In fact, for the last three months she’d been showing up to Mrs. Penelope’s house at three am on the 18th of every month. Recently she’d approached the woman and told her she knew all about her little monster problem. “I want to help,” Nora had told the woman, “But the only way I can help you is if you drive me and my friend to the zoo.” The fact that it worked was truly a testament to the stupidity of humans.

Nora slid open the soccer van’s door, holding it for Emilio to get in, before following in and slamming the door after them. Mrs. P was a shivering shaking mess in the front seat. Her mascara stained her face, and her hands couldn’t keep a straight grip on the road. “To the zoo, Mrs. P!” Nora announced, slapping a hand against her shoulder. The woman practically jumped out of her seat at the contact, but at least she listened. The car slid out of its parallel parked spot, and they were on their way.

Mrs. P had five kids which meant there were snacks somewhere in this van. Nora rummaged around until she pulled out fruit snack baggies. She threw one at Emilio. He didn’t eat enough. “The bear’s name is Nanook.” Dumb name for a polar bear, considering it was polar bear in Inuit. Almost as dumb as someone naming their dog Perro. “The body was discovered three days ago, but they think he was killed four days ago around midnight. There was an electrical malfunction causing the cameras to go down.” Nora popped fruit snacks in her mouth and kept talking. “The guy killed was the polar bear trainer. He’s been working with that bear since it was born at the zoo.”

Nora had been doing extensive research about the polar bear all night, but what was the information that Emilio would find useful? Nora tapped her foot against the driver’s seat as she thought. Mrs. P let out a startled yelp, increasing the speed of the minivan. “No one saw it happen, and no one knows why he would have been there that late. It was after hours, he should have been home by then. Oh, the dude is married. She’s alive. Maybe she did it.” Wasn’t that what they said on crime shows? The spouse was always the one who did it? Nora figured the chances of being killed by your spouse were probably higher than being killed by a polar bear.

More fruit snacks down the hatch as Nora tried to dig some more information out of her brain. “The man loved his polar bear, and from the articles I’ve read the polar bear liked him.” That was the real shame about Nanook, he could have been so much more terrifying. “The body’s cause of death was assumed to be a bear attack because it was super shredded. Like the kind of shredded that if something else was the cause of death no one would know.” At least that’s what the zoo director had told her when he’d hired them for the case. "That's it, I think." Nora looked over to Emilio. "Do you think we should steal the body to do our own examination?" Nora had never stolen a dead body before, but if she had to guess that would be her greatest triumph yet. Body thief would sound so good on her resume of accomplishments.

This had to have been the stupidest case he’d ever agreed to take on. Stupider than the otter trapper, stupider than the cases that weren’t cases at all, stupider than the line of divorce lawyers who wanted him to help their clients come out on top. Polar bear wrongfully accused of murder really took the fucking cake here, but what could he do? Nora wanted this case solved, and Emilio wouldn’t deny her that. 

But… he wasn’t sure he could allow her to keep a polar bear in her crypt. Especially not a polar bear that might or might not kill people. “What would you feed it?” As if that was the biggest question here. “Look, if we break it out, the guy I’m thinking of probably has some way to get it to… wherever polar bears live.” It seemed like the kind of thing Teddy would know. Asshole. “But they’re not my friend. I have friends. Just not this guy.” Teddy had said as much themself. Do you think we could have been friends in another life meant that they weren’t friends in this one, meant that they never could be. And that was fine, because they were annoying. But he didn’t want Nora… worrying that he didn’t have friends. She had other things to worry about.

She had a ride? Emilio tried to decide whether or not he wanted to question that. It felt like the kind of thing he should probably be concerned about — either they were about to catch a ride from one of Nora’s friends, who would probably be another kid, or they’d catch a ride with someone she’d met and coerced on her way here, which would mean someone from Worm Row. Neither option was entirely appealing. He was about to suggest they just steal Jeff’s car instead, but Nora was already on her way down the hall. Great. Her ride it was, then. 

It wasn’t what he’d been expecting, in any case. The minivan was at least easy to get into, with enough room for him to stretch his leg out in the backseat. The woman driving it looked terrified, which did answer some questions. He nodded to her as he settled into the seat, inspecting her carefully to determine that she wasn’t a threat before saying, “Appreciate the ride, señora.” She didn’t acknowledge him. He slid back against the headrest, shooting Nora a half-amused glance. 

The ride to the zoo was uneventful, with Emilio listening as Nora filled him in on the case. He caught the baggie she threw his way, glancing down at the packaging and making a face, but opening it anyway and popping one of the candies into his mouth. It tasted far too sweet, and he held it back out towards Nora with a shake of his head. She needed it more than he did, anyway, and she certainly seemed to enjoy it more. “Maybe she did,” he agreed when hearing about the wife, nodding his head. Wives and husbands killed each other all the time. As someone who’d been married once, Emilio couldn’t quite understand it. He and Juliana fought sometimes, but he’d never had the urge to feed her to a polar bear. Maybe she’d felt differently about him, though. Who knew? “Anybody talk to the wife? Maybe she can at least tell us why he was there so late. Think that’ll be important to know.”

Despite the outlandish nature of the case, he found himself being sucked in by the evidence all the same. A man, a zoo, a polar bear. If the bear knew him, why would it have attacked him? It had never attacked him before, and he’d presumably been in the enclosure plenty of times. What were the odds that it would only choose to break that pattern when the cameras were down and no one could confirm it? It wasn’t as if the bear would have seen the need to hide the nature of the man’s death from anyone; it was a bear. Stuffing the body in the enclosure would have been a smart move, too, had the killer been of the non-bear variety. When authorities found a corpse in a bear enclosure torn to shreds, they didn’t tend to ask any questions beyond that. They let the obvious answer be the thing they believed, even if it wasn’t true. Which it very well might be — despite Nora’s evidence, which was compelling, Emilio wasn’t entirely sure that this wasn’t just a case of a hungry bear taking a bite out of the wrong meal. 

But Nora was right, he figured. Even if the bear had eaten its trainer, it didn’t really deserve to die. Not if it could be placed somewhere where it wouldn’t be a threat to anyone instead. If they could get it back to its natural habitat, or to some sanctuary somewhere where no humans would bother it, that was what they were going to do. 

As they pulled into the zoo, he considered Nora’s question. “I don’t know how to examine a body,” he admitted. “And if I call the ME, she’s going to be pissed at me.” If Regan found out he’d stolen a body, she’d definitely turn him in. He had no question about that. “Better to just… look at the things we know how to. Like the polar bear’s, uh…” He struggled for the word. “Home. Cage? Where it lived. Can your contact get us in there?” Mrs. P parked the car, still trembling. Emilio glanced between her and Nora before deciding, “You can wait in the car. Only got two passes.” She looked relieved. Emilio decided not to ask.

There had been a time in Nora’s childhood where her life was filled with research of Polar Bears. Each new fact she collected on her Polar Bear board went into her plan to run away one day to the Artic so she could meet her birth family of Polar Bears and ask what went wrong. It was a funny memory, now that Nora knew she wasn’t actually a polar bear. But her fondness for the creatures persisted. “Food.” Nora answered Emilio’s question as if it was the dumbest thing, he could ask her. Like what? Was she going to feed a polar bear trash? What kind of animal did Emilio think she was? “We’ve got a lot of honey at Axis.” Nora commented. They had a lot of honey at Axis because she kept filling Emilio’s kitchen with it.

Emilio was going on about how he knew a person, a person that wasn’t his friend, but could probably help. Also, that Emilio had friends. Nora side-eyed Emilio as she let himself talk his way through that one. “Whatever, sure. You have friends.” Nora rolled her eyes. An exaggerated movement made for Emilio’s benefit. “Just not that friend. At least this not friend can help.”

“Did anyone talk to the wife?” Nora repeated back at Emilio, shooting him a look. He was making a disgusted face over the fruit snacks. God. That man had absolutely no taste when it came to anything. Nora accepted the bag and ate his share of fruit snacks as well. “You think the cops did anything that wasn’t blaming Nanook?” That was a big assumption. The zoo wanted to do something, and they did, by hiring Axis. Talking to the wife was going to be their job. Everything was going to be their job. Humans hated animals. Nora shifted in her seat, her feet slapping against the back of Mrs. P’s seat causing the woman to scream again in absolute horror. “Chill Mrs. P. I’m just moving.” Nora found herself rolling her eyes again. Perhaps it was time to stop scaring the lady so much. She looked like she hadn’t slept in years.

"What do you mean you can't examine a body?” Nora had seen two dead bodies in her life, and she knew how both of them died since one was killed in front of her and the other, she’d killed herself. “You just look at it.” She was also filled with the endless confidence of youth that told her there was nothing in this world she couldn’t do. “You know the ME?” Nora had pulled out her phone and was lounging in the chair scrolling through some social media website as the ride dragged on. This got her to look up from her phone. “Is she one of those friends you keep telling me you have?” Nora went back to scrolling. “Maybe if she’s a good friend of yours she can examine the body for you and tell you what she finds.”

“Habitat.” Nora supplied the word while not looking up from the phone. “Cage works, but I think they want the enclosures to feel like a house and not a jail.” Nora stopped replying long enough to leave a long and scathing comment on something Elias had posted. She knew she was probably still blocked by him, but for some reason Elias liked to unblock her every now and then to see what she was up to. Those were the moments those reviews were for. With that done Nora shoved her phone back into her pocket. “That’s what our passes are for. He said it’ll get us wherever we want to go.” Nora hoped he hadn’t been lying. “He said he’ll meet us behind the polar bear exhibit, or send someone to meet us. I don’t remember.” Nora had to get better at listening when people were giving her direction.

As soon as the car was parked, Nora was slamming the door open and jumping into the nice morning breeze. Normally Nora wasn’t a morning person. They were the worst times to be awake. This morning was different based on the intent. Today Nora would free an innocent Polar Bear. Emilio was saying something to Mrs. P, and taking his sweet ass time about it. “Come on.” Nora called, joining the crowd headed to the gates. Nora made sure to not get too far ahead of Emilio, tracking him by scent in the crowd instead of turning around to look.

At the gates Nora presented her pass and was given a map and ushered in. Nora unfurled the map as she waited for Emilio to finally catch up. The arctic wasn’t that far from where they were. “We can stop by and see penguins on our way there.” Nora told him, pointing out the location on the map. Nora worked very hard on keeping up her tough cool girl exterior. When people saw her, she wanted them to have no doubt in their minds that she was cool, calm and collected. Unfortunately for her, there was something about animals that made her want to lose control and scream for joy like a fucking child. Nora wanted to see those penguins so badly.

The walk through the crowds made their proceedings slower, but they got to the polar bear exhibit eventually. The arctic area was a collection of motifs all designed to look like they were in a snowy paradise. Years of use had caused the once white snow mounds and igloos to turn a shade of gray from wear. A sign hung on the polar bear exhibit that said the animal was currently unavailable. Nora spotted the employees only access tucked away and led them back there. The door was unlocked, and no one was there to stop them. In the center of the employee only area was a polar bear, locked in a cage too small, obviously under supervision from cameras pointed at it. 

“I don’t think polar bears eat honey.” Though, really, what did he know? It wasn’t as if anyone had ever taught Emilio the ins and outs of nonsupernatural wildlife, especially when it came to creatures no one imagined he’d ever come face to face with. Why did a hunter growing up in Mexico need to know anything about a polar bear? His mother certainly never would have guessed that he’d be trying to clear one from a murder charge one day. If she had, maybe she would have added a fact or two into the curriculum. 

Then again, she’d always known he’d be dealing with people, and she’d never taught him much of anything about those, either. If she had, maybe he’d be a little better at understanding friendship, and what did and didn’t qualify as such. “I think they can probably help. They’re good with animals. And they care about them.” And they were a demon, which would probably come in handy somewhere. Maybe Teddy could open some kind of a demon portal to the bear’s natural habitat and let it go there. Or shrink the bear so it would be easier for Nora to keep in her crypt. Whatever.

All right, so Nora probably had a point. Cops, as a whole, were lazy. When they found an answer they liked, they didn’t spend a lot of time looking for alternatives. Even if their answer was wrong. It was why there were prisons full of innocent people… and why guys like Emilio tended to wind up picking up the slack with the ones who got away scot free. The police had decided the bear was to blame, so they wouldn’t talk to the wife. That’d be Axis’s job. And Emilio hated that. Talking to spouses, in cases like this one, was second only to talking to parents on the list of things he couldn’t stand. There was a chance the wife had done it, sure. But if she hadn’t? Then she was someone preparing to bury the person she’d thought she’d spend the rest of her life with. And Emilio could relate to that a lot more than he wished he could.

“I mean I don’t know how to examine a body,” Emilio replied dryly. “There are going to be a lot of wounds on it. I don’t know how to tell if those were there before he died, or if they happened after. And I have a…” He trailed off, trying to think of the right word. “Working relationship with the ME. We’re not friends. She doesn’t like me. But she helps me out when I find a body. I don’t think she’ll help us with this one. She’s weird about corpses.” He tried not to think about it, because if he thought about it, he was going to start trying to figure out what Kavanagh was. A hunter’s mind was a hard thing to shake, even when you were a shitty hunter. He didn’t want to be a man who went around having conversations with people and spending the whole damn time trying to figure out what kind of beast they might be. 

He nodded as Nora provided the correct term, filing it away for later. And he liked the way she did it; casual, without looking. Not like he was stupid, not like he should have known. English was a slippery thing, and there were times when Emilio couldn’t grip it quite right, despite his best efforts. Some people would make you feel stupid in those moments, but Nora didn’t. For all that she liked to poke at people, she never seemed to actively try to hit the buttons that would really hurt. Not with him, at least. “Maybe the bear had a pass,” he said dryly, flipping the little piece of plastic between his fingers absently. 

It was clear that Nora was in a hurry, so Emilio didn’t waste too much time conversing with their reluctant driver before following the kid towards the entrance. She seemed to know where she was going, and he trailed along as quickly as he could without setting himself up for a day of discomfort. They’d probably be on their feet for a while as they trekked through the zoo, so he needed to make sure he didn’t overexert his damn leg. This case was clearly far more important to Nora than she’d admit, and he wasn’t going to risk dropping the ball on it. 

Getting in was easy enough, though he’d figured it would be. Nora had clearly done her due diligence here. It was the first time she’d gotten this involved in a case, though Emilio knew better than to get used to it. This case was special. Raising a brow at her request, he nodded. “All right,” he said. “Never seen a penguin before. Those are birds, right?” Maybe he was playing up his ignorance a little bit, but he figured Nora’d probably get a kick out of it. Maybe she’d like to make fun of him and look at penguins. That seemed right up her alley. 

By the time they finally made their way to the arctic exhibit, Emilio’s leg was aching a little more than he’d like to admit. He trailed a little ways behind Nora, jaw clenched a little as they slipped into the employee’s only section. The sight of the bear caged in the center of the room did fill him with more anger than he’d like to admit, but he was careful not to let it show too much. They’d need to keep a level head here. As much as he’d like to just open the bear’s cage and let it loose, it wasn’t feasible with the crowds outside. “What, they think it’s gonna do a jailbreak?” He scoffed, glancing up at the cameras. “Seems like a little much.” He walked over to the cage carefully, stopping just before he got to the bars. The bear only watched, looking incredibly docile all things considered. It certainly didn’t look like the kind of bear that had killed someone. “Not violent,” he observed. Carefully, he grabbed one of the bars with his hand. The bear still made no move towards it. “What do you think, kid?”

Texting on her phone in the car, body positioned in a way that car seats were not supposed to hold human bodies, Nora dropped her phone as Emilio said something odd about the ME. Nora looked up, turning to face him. “What do you mean she’s weird about corpses? Weird how?” Thoughts were racing, none of them good. Nora swiveled back, resuming her optimal phone position. “I’ve thought about it, and I don’t want to. She’s not your friend, she’s friends with the corpses. Got it.” This had a lot of implications, and all these implications were being saved for a day Nora wasn’t busy trying to save a polar bear’s life.

It was unfortunate that they hadn’t gotten a look at the penguins, but Nora’s one-track mind had forgotten to lead her boring mentor there. What kind of man had never seen penguins before? Was this his first time at the zoo? If Nora could retain any thoughts that didn’t revolve around saving Nanooks life, she would try to remember to take him around to see all the animals. She could tell him that she wanted to show him her favorites, but her favorites were all of them. Besides, Nora had never been to this particular zoo.

Nora had been to a lot of zoos. Nora had made a point of visiting the polar bears every single time she went to zoos. But that didn’t change the feeling she got every time she saw one. The feeling of wonder and longing and confusion all bundled into a tight package presented with a bow. This time it had something new, it had the knowledge that she wasn’t a polar bear but a bugbear, but the old feelings still remained. Nora followed Emilio’s approach to the cage and watched as his hand touched the bars and did nothing. “I told you he didn’t kill anyone.” Nora shoved her own hand through the bars, palm forward hand outstretched. The polar bear sniffed in her direction. Could he smell the sameness on them? That in a different life their roles could have been reversed?

For a brief moment, Nora considered transforming. Maybe if she was a bear then she could talk to a bear. A glance around the room reminded her that was a bad idea. Too many cameras. First, she’d have to take off her clothes, and transform, and then that would turn into a viral sensation, and then she’d be found out as still alive. Better to not tempt YouTube fame over a bear to bear she didn’t know would work. Instead, Nora moved Emilio, positioning him so his back was blacking a camera and then moved herself so her back was blocking another. Reaching inside herself she found that thread of power within her and tapped it.

An illusion bloomed in front of the bear, the perfect image of the man who he’d killed. The bear did nothing. The illusion shifted, showing Nora turning into a bear and the two of them hugging because she wanted the bear to know they were friends and honestly didn’t know how to convey that in bear terms. The bear did nothing. “I don’t know how to talk bear.” It sounded frustrated, even in her monotone voice. Once more she was lacking at something she felt she ought to be able to do. Nora was having the illusion of the bears shake hands when the door swung open, and a familiar scent filled her nose.

Nora flipped around, dropping her illusion, but she was aware that if the man had been paying attention there was no way he would have missed it. “Well, if it’s not my ex-lover.” Because Nora was nothing if not confident that this man wasn’t paying attention. Everything always worked out for her, after all. “You’re a lot shorter than I remembered.” Nora pointed over at Emilio. “This is inspector gadget, John Brown, world renown private investigator and bear fanatic. We’ve been hired by the zoo to clear this bear of all charges. Why are you here?” 

When Kaden heard the talk going around the station about the case where a bear killed its handler, he knew something sounded a little off about all of it. There’s no way someone who worked with this bear day in, day out would be stupid enough to get himself killed by it, not without anyone seeing it. And he wasn’t even mauled? There were too many fucking weird things about it all for him to ignore it. Thankfully, the detective on the case was fine with his suggestion to have animal control go give an inspection of the situation and report back. Probably because there were so many other bullshit cases on his plate for him to want to babysit the glorified dog catcher. Which was fine by Kaden.

That was, until he remembered where the polar bear was located. And what happened the last time he’d been to the zoo. 

Putain de merde. For once in his goddamn life, he opted to wear his uniform. Maybe no one would recognize him as the idiot who fought a mascot with an umbrella if he looked moderately professional. He also made sure to park by the back and use the employee entrance, hoping to avoid as many people as he could manage. When he explained why he was there, the guard let him in and took him to the back office where the coordinators and managers were. “Officer Langley,” he said when he approached the coordinator. “I’m with Animal Control. I’m here to look into the polar bear for Detective Peterson.”

A knowing smirk was spread across the coordinator’s face when he looked up at Kaden. “Here to fight another one of my mascots?” he asked.

Putain. He could feel his cheeks getting red. “I’m, uh, not sure what you’re talking about. But if you could just point me in the right direction, I’ll get to work.”

The zoo employee was clearly not fooled by his attempt at subterfuge and raised a brow. Still, he decided to let it go, nodding towards the direction of the door. “The bear’s being held behind the exhibit. We already have a team of PI’s looking into it. I’m not sure if they’re here yet, but one of the zookeepers can lead the way if you insist. Just so long as you’re not armed with an umbrella, it should be fine.”

Kaden didn’t have to be told twice and rushed out the door and towards the polar bear exhibit. When he reached it and was let into the back, he’d hoped to be alone in the room, just him and the bear. Only when he entered, careful to be quiet and not startle the animal, he saw two figures standing by the cage. Must be the private investigators. He opened his mouth to say something, but shut it closed when he felt the hair on his arms all stand on edge – a shifter was in the room. Beyond that, he recognized both the man and the young woman there. It took everything he had not to curse aloud right then and there. These were the PI’s hired by the zoo? He refrained from cursing and stood back to watch what the fuck Emilio and Nora were doing when they thought no one was watching. 

The hunter thought he was imagining things, slightly worried he’d been hit with some ballybog toxin again when he saw the illusions conjured in the cage with the polar bear. He thought he had a lot of questions before he walked into the room and now they’d all but tripled. He was about to speak up when the kid turned on her heel to face him and had to fucking remind him about the incident at the coffee shop.

Wait. His brows knit together. Did she just call him short? “Putain de merde, first off I’m not your ex-lover or lover of any kind so don’t fucking start with that shit. Second,” he turned to Emilio, “What are you doing here with her?” Kaden crossed his arms against his chest. “And I’m here because I’m animal control, part of the WRPD. Trying to examine the case, report on the bear.” He hoped that sounded convincing since, while he was there on the job, it was hardly at anyone’s request. “I take it you’re the crack team of PI’s they hired. You, I should have guessed,” he nodded to Emilio. “You,” he said, looking at Nora, “not so much. And both of you, get your hands away from the bear, for fucks sake.” 

Whatever conclusions Nora seemed to have jumped to, Emilio wouldn’t correct her. Regan would probably prefer it if Nora thought she was weird enough to avoid, anyway, given how weird she got online any time anyone even suggested friendship in her general direction. They had bigger fish to fry right now, anyway. Or… bigger bears to fry. Or not fry. Bigger bears to free?

This was stupid.

But it wasn’t stupid in the kind of sense that made him think Nora’s insistence that the bear was innocent was wrong. The more time he spent by the cage, the more he figured the kid was onto something. He watched as she made illusions appear, marveling at how different these were than the last ones he’d seen her put up. In the graveyard, that first day they’d met, she’d been trying to scare him. It was clear that her intentions were different now. There was some attempt at communication, but Emilio didn’t know enough about bugbears to know if it would be successful or not. Emilio’s marriage to Juliana meant he knew more about shifters than the average slayer might, but hunters didn’t tend to know much more about what they hunted than they had to. He didn’t know if bugbears could talk to bears; neither did Nora. They were both just taking guesses here. 

“That’s all right,” he told her lowly. “I don’t know how to speak bear, either. We’ll figure out another way, okay?” He could tell she was frustrated, even if she wasn’t one to admit to something. Emilio had spent enough time with the bugbear to read her blank expressions, to notice the minute differences between one and the next. Despite what people tended to assume about him, he was a half decent detective. It was one of the only things he was really good at. Other things, he thought, were much harder to accomplish.

For example… this. The door behind them opened, and Emilio spun around so quickly that he ached with the movement. He was expecting some zoo employee to tell them to keep their hands out of the damn cage, which probably would have been fair. Instead, there was a familiar face in an unfamiliar uniform. And Emilio had a thousand thoughts at once.

Kaden was a ranger. He’d be able to sense a shifter in the room. Kaden knew Emilio was a hunter. He wouldn’t mistake the slayer for the beast that was making his hair stand up on end. Emilio had asked him enough about bugbears to make him at least a little suspicious. Nora had been positioned to hide her illusions from the camera, but not from the door. It didn’t take a half decent detective to string all those things together and realize that Kaden probably had enough to know what Nora was now, and it didn’t take a man as paranoid as Emilio to fear for what that might mean.

His eyes darted between the two, listening as Nora spoke. They’d met each other before. Kaden must have known she was a shifter from the start. Was he planning on targeting her? He wasn’t here for her now — the uniform said he was probably here on official business — but did that mean she was safe later? Andy said that she and Alex didn’t hunt anymore, but Kaden said he killed ‘dangerous shifters.’ How much weight did that qualifier carry? Was Nora dangerous in the eyes of a ranger who seemed to think not everything was? 

He was tense as Kaden turned to him, trying and failing to school his expression into something neutral. “She was hired by the bear,” he replied dryly, a hint of something like a threat in his tone. “I thought the police were finished with this one. We were told you weren’t coming for the bear yet.” They were supposed to have time to actually look at this case before wrenches were thrown into it. But a ranger stumbling into the room with Emilio and his bugbear assistant? That was one hell of a wrench. 

You're not supposed to speak bear, I am. Nora had wanted to snap out the words. Lash out for her own failings. Instead, the words choked in her throat, swallowed down by her own feelings of self loathing. "Fine. Yeah." Nora reluctantly agreed. But wouldn't it have been easier if Nora could figure out how to work the bear part of Bugbear? Fuck. She didn't even know if speaking to bears was something that bugbears could do. Could werewolves talk to wolves? It was another one of those 'fuck you birth parents why couldn't you've given me to another bugbear so I could at least understand something basic about myself.' moments. 

Some people were experts at reading a room. They could look at people's body language and parse out exactly what was happening. Those people could react accordingly to keep tensions at bay. Nora was not one of those people. It slipped by her completely that Emilio had become tense with recognition the moment Kaden entered the room. Nora was too busy caught in the mirth of meeting the man that was the target of so many funny rumors. "Don't start with that shit?" Nora lay a hand over her mouth in mockery of someone who might actually be offended. "Kaden, don't tell me you're here because you're continuing your crusade as the zoo's most invasive species." Nora's eyes raked up Kaden's body. "At least you're wearing clothes today." 

Seeing Kaden there was the perfect redirection for her frustration from moments before. There were many quips and jabs Nora wanted to toss at the man. He was funny. There was something about him that made people want to lie. She'd noticed it online. How did he create such an interesting conundrum he kept putting himself into. Oh, Nora wanted to scare him. Her fingers itched and twitched at the thought. There was a second where she almost reached into the power deep within her and unleashed it, creating a massive creature coming at him. Nora took a deep breath and composed herself. Because she was mature, and this wasn't about her and her love of tormenting Kaden. This was about a polar bear named Nanook and his right to live a long and happy life. 

Because Nora, at this point, and if she was being honest with herself, probably at any point of time, would back up anything Emilio wanted to say to fuck with Kaden. Nora may not have been the proudest of bugbears, it was taking work for her to even become on, but she was a proud fan of bears! They were large, scary and, well, scary! They deserved to eat people if they wanted to. Nora particularly didn't like the way Kaden called them the crack team, or the tone he took with Emilio. Nora could take all the smoke Kaden wanted to throw at her, but Emilio was a good man and a good detective who was here helping her. Nora hadn't believed it at first that he was a good detective, and he'd already proved Nora wrong. Since revealing that he'd known who she was this whole time and had just been keeping it quiet cause he'd detected she didn't want to talk about it, Nora believed the man could solve anything. He didn't deserve Kaden's insults.

Kaden seemed mad that they weren't supposed to be here and it took everything in Nora's trembling body to not make fun of him for being bad at his job. But she refrained. Because she was here to help Nanook. It was a herculean task, holding back the barrage she had for him. Nora forced herself to turn away from Kaden's stupid face and to look at Nanook. The polar bear caught her eye. He looked so sad in the small little cage instead of being in his large habitat, allowed to walk around as he wanted. Nora took a deep breath, centering herself. "If you don't believe us, you can always call the zoo director." Nora tugged at the pass around her neck. "He's the one who gave us these to investigate." Clasping her hands behind her back, she turned herself back towards animal control. “We’re going to prove he’s innocent. You can’t take him.”

Nora's body trembled as she kept back the rage within her. The tongue that wanted to lash out every single insult and rumor she knew about this man. The way she wanted to see his sad and pathetic life made fun of in that moment. He'd go 'stop please I'm so old and tired and I didn't actually want to fight' just like the last time he'd engaged her online and thought he could play her game.  But she refrained. Because she was here to help Nanook. It was a herculean task, holding back the barrage she had for him. Nora forced herself to turn away from Kaden's stupid face and to look at Nanook. The polar bear caught her eye. He looked so sad in the small little cage instead of being in his large habitat, allowed to walk around as he wanted. Nora took a deep breath, centering herself. 

With a quick glance at Kaden, Nora stuck her arm further into the bear cage. "We know he's not a man eater, is that what you're trying to cover up, cop?" Nora asked, a tone of accusation melded into her monotone. It had just been the way he'd added get your hands away from the bear for fuck sakes. Like he, on the team condemning the bear, knew better than them, the heroes of the story. "You're just jealous because if you stuck your hand in here, he'd bite you and it'd be deserved." Nora looked back at Nanook. "It'd be self defense, right buddy?" 

Hired by the bear. Hired by the fucking bear? “Putain de merde,” Kaden muttered to himself. This was going to be a long fucking day. “I’m not coming for the bear. I’m here to investigate, alright.” Alright, sure, he came because he didn’t really believe the reports. Detective Peterson might have thought this was an open and shut case, but Kaden didn’t buy it. Animals in captivity sometimes exhibit aggressive behaviors to their handlers, but rarely was it out of nowhere with no history. And if anything it would be out of boredom or frustration and that would be the fault of the zoo, not the goddamn polar bear. 

“Very fucking funny,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You know I was never naked here in the first place.” Not that it would matter to her one way or the other. He hadn't been sure that Nora was the shifter in the room when they met in the cafe; it was nearly impossible to narrow down in that sort of crowded space, but now there was no mistaking it. And the illusions. Hired by the bear. 

Ah. Bugbear. Had to be.

Wait. Kaden side-eyed Emilio, the guy who had been asking a whole lot of questions about bugbears. And his “apprentice” (if that was even the truth he couldn’t tell with these two) was a bug bear. Was he asking because he was planning to kill her? Seemed like a lot of wasted effort for that. Did that mean he was helping her? Or using her? Strange. He’d taken the man to be the kind to stab first, ask questions later. That still didn’t make him comfortable with the idea of him hanging around Alex. Last time that he’d talked to her, it sounded like Emilio didn’t know what she was. He didn’t plan on changing that anytime soon. But he sure had a lot more questions for the other hunter now. He’d have to figure out when to ask them because here and now wasn’t the place or the time.

“I’m not trying to cover up shit.” Kaden sighed and got closer to the polar bear, keeping his eyes on that seemingly docile predator. His cage was way smaller than it should be – the enclosure was barely large enough and that was far larger. And even so, the bear was calm as ever, even with all these strangers staring at him and sticking their hands in his cage. He tried to look for any signs that the bear might have been sedated, any signs of tranq darts, dilated eyes, anything. There was nothing like that he could see. It was funny that the last time he’d been here, he thought the damn golf cart was a polar bear and he was petting it and now he could practically reach out and touch the creature for real. No illusions. Not anymore, at least. 

It was stupid, but her last jab that the bear would bite him hurt a little. He didn’t care about a lot of things and he wasn’t good at a whole lot of shit, either, but he was good with animals. Someone accusing him otherwise always stung. The other shit she said, about being her lover or being naked at the zoo, that was frustrating, sure, but it didn’t hit quite the same way this had. “I don’t think he’d bite anyone, kid,” he said, unwilling to meet her gaze lest she caught sight of the hurt that might be lingering in his own. “If he’s this calm with no stimulation, I don’t buy that he did anything to the handler.” Kaden crouched down to get a better look at the bear’s paws and legs. “I don’t see any blood stains, either. I would expect those would still be there even if they cleaned him.” 

Kaden rubbed his face with his palms as he stood back up. He had no fucking clue what to do here, he doubted the detective wanted to hear from him, the animal control officer, that he’d fucked up or at the very least had gotten lazy. “So what’s your plan for clearing the bear?”

It was clear that she was frustrated, even if she was trying to hide it. There was a large part of Emilio that wanted to offer her comfort, somehow, wanted to put a hand on her shoulder or share some sage words to help her accept that these things took time or whatever, but he didn’t have much of a chance because there was a ranger in the room staring at them both like they had two heads a piece and Nora was talking to him like he wasn’t built to kill her. It was probably just as well, anyway; Emilio would have been shit at the ‘words of wisdom’ thing, anyway. Losing his daughter was never going to make him a better father, and he’d already been a pretty shit one.

But that didn’t mean he’d repeat all the same mistakes. He might not know how to comfort Nora about her inability to communicate with the bear, but he knew how to protect her from Kaden if he had to. Subtly, he positioned himself with his shoulder between the hunter and the bear, ready to step in if Kaden made a move. He probably wouldn’t do anything here — his reputation at the zoo was already bad enough — but Emilio wouldn’t bet Nora’s life on a logical hunch.

“Nora,” he said quietly as she began mocking Kaden, “not now.” She’d probably have questions about that later, he knew, because it was uncharacteristic of him to stop her. Typically when she went in on someone, Emilio was content to watch and allow himself to be entertained. He doubted she’d assume it was because they were on a case, given the fact that he tended to let her do whatever while they were working, and he wouldn’t have lied to her, anyway. When they got out of here and she asked, he’d tell her. Outing a fellow hunter felt wrong in a way that made his insides twist, but Nora deserved to know this. Especially given how much she seemed to enjoy driving Kaden out of his mind.

Speaking of which… Emilio glanced down to see Nora’s fingers twitching, and he could practically feel how much she wanted to craft some illusion or another against the ranger. In all honesty, Emilio didn’t even know if it would work. Were rangers immune from bugbears’ illusions? He was kicking himself now for all the things he’d never asked Juliana about, though given the fact that she hadn’t tended to hunt bugbears, he wasn’t sure even she would have known. And it wasn’t as if he could ask Kaden now — he’d already made the other hunter suspicious with his questions regarding bugbears the last time they’d had a conversation about it.

In a subtle attempt to communicate to Nora that she should not, under any circumstances, try to scare Kaden right now, the hunter knocked his wrist against hers. He wasn’t sure if the lack of illusions was because his message got across or if she really was so focused on saving the bear that she decided to forgo her usual level of shenanigans, but he was glad for it either way. Less glad that she seemed unwilling to forgo all shenanigans, but she wouldn’t be Nora if she didn’t cause at least a little bit of trouble.

Even without the bugbear of it all, he expected Kaden to argue with them. If he really was here on police business — and given his last experience at the zoo, Emilio couldn’t imagine anything else that would drive him to return — then he shouldn’t be on Axis’s side here. The police had already decided the outcome of this case; it was the zoo that wanted a different answer. Emilio was expecting Kaden to insist that the police’s official stance was the correct one, that the bear had killed the handler and would be put down as a result. Instead, he took a surprising turn, and… agreed with Nora? Emilio blinked, trying not to let his surprise show.

“No shit he didn’t bite anyone,” he replied, though the words weren’t as harsh as they normally might have been. “Look at him. I’ve got clients I’d be more worried about taking a bite out of me than him.” Throughout it all, the bear remained calm behind them. 

Emilio tensed as Kaden approached, but all the ranger did was crouch beside the cage to inspect the bear further. The lack of blood was an important enough observation, though it hardly cleared the bear of any wrongdoing. The presence of blood wouldn’t have condemned him, either, given the fact that the body had been in the bear’s original enclosure. It was a tough case to prove in either direction; without cameras, and with the only ‘witness’ to the case being a bear they couldn’t talk to, there was really only one solution. “Only thing we can do is find out who actually did it,” he replied with a shrug. “Clear the bear by finding the actual killer. The one the police aren’t looking for.”

Two hunters and two bears enter a room. There was a punchline here, but Nora didn't know it probably because she was unaware of the joke's existence, with Kaden firmly remaining a frail and easily targetable human in her mind's eye. The only thing Nora knew was Emilio acting weird. Her favorite thing about the man who'd taken to helping her was his proclivity to play along. "Tell Gael, if you speak to him, that I broke your kneecaps." "Let me scare the shit out of that suspect so he talks." and not even questioning why Mrs. P was crying the whole way here. So why was this a not not situation? It wasn't just a no mocking situation, it was a no illusions situation, his wrist knocking against her as if to say 'knock it off.' Fine. Nora could play the human. 

Kaden wasn't making it easy. Didn't she know he was never naked there? God. The words stung her lips as her teeth bit down to try and keep from retorting 'Oh yeah? Is that what the orangutan said?' Her eyes shifted to the side to Emilio, as if to gauge how serious he was. How far could she push this? The answer was she couldn't. Emilio had already won her steadfast and unwavering loyalty. If there was a reason for this good behavior, it was probably good. Once again she was reminded that her biggest curse in Wicked's Rest was knowing that this sad sad man was basically always right. Nora swallowed back her other retort of 'Oh, was that why you're here today? To strip off for the bear and set the record straight?' This was some shit character development. It would be much more fun to bully the French Canadian. 

As Kaden called Nora kid, she let her normal mask of indifference slip into a death glare. It was an easy step. Instead of looking bored, her eyes burrowed into Kaden. He didn’t get to call her that. “My name is Penny, not kid.” Nora informed him, using the identity of Inspector Gadget’s niece. Not that he expected any of the men to know who that was, or remember that Nora had introduced Emilio under the Inspector’s name. It was disappointing that they’d already known each other. What was the point of fake identities if they already knew the real ones. This was ruining her noir detective experience. 

As the two discussed what they were going to do, and to keep her mind off the burning need to bare her teeth and dig them deep into Kaden's metaphorical hide, Nora turned her attention fully to the bear. The bear looked back at her. They looked at each other. Then the bear stepped forward close to Nora's hand and sniffed her hand. Did it smell the bear on her? Did it smell that they were comrades? The bear rubbed its head against her hand and Nora found her heart shattering into ten million pieces before repairing itself into the face of Nanook. If anything happened to this bear she would burn down the whole town. "Jailbreak the bear." Nora told them. "Come on. We won't need to solve anything, and he'll be free to return to the wild." Or Nora's crypt. Either one. 

Nora reached into her pocket and pulled out a bit of the ham she was saving for later and gave it to the bear. Building trust started like this, right? Giving up what she loved for something she suddenly found herself loving more. "Or we could go talk to his wife." Nora mumbled, knowing already that breaking the bear out was supposed to be their last option. It was worth the try with 'I'm on your side', bootlicker animal control Kaden here.

Either way there was no point in remaining here. Except to talk to the bear. Which Nora still hadn't figured out. "I'll be back for you, I promise." Nora whispered to the bears, in a hushed voice that she hoped the two men couldn't hear. They didn't need to know how invested Nora was in this case. Not that she hadn't made it glaringly obvious already. Nora turned away from the bear, and pointed at Kaden. "You've been no help. At least you know you're playing for the wrong team." Not the cease fire she’d been instructed in, but like Hoobastank’s hit song “The Reason”, Nora was not a perfect person.  Her finger moved to Emilio. "Back to Mrs. P? I've got a home address in the file." 

Kaden tried not to turn his head or furrow his brows or make any sort of visible reaction when he heard the slayer whisper to the kid. Had to wonder if Emilio forgot that rangers had super hearing. Or if he just didn’t care one way or the other if Kaden heard him tell Nora (was that her name?) ‘not now.’ There were too many possibilities as to what that could mean considering that Kaden still didn’t understand the dynamic here. It almost felt like he was being protective of the kid. But from what? Wait, from him? Kaden couldn’t help it, his brows knit together at the thought alone. He had to be wrong about that, there was no way that was what was happening here. He knew he was playing by a different set of hunter codes than most but he didn’t expect anyone else to. There was no way a slayer was knowingly protecting a bugbear. It was weird enough that there were two rangers in town living with a werewolf. 

“Penny?” he asked, looking at the kid. “Here I thought it was Nora.” Probably wasn’t the best idea potentially clueing in Emilio that he’d heard the man before but Kaden couldn’t help himself. “But fine, I won’t call you kid, connasse. That better?” He didn’t know what the fuck he’d done to make himself her target but he was fucking sick of it. Fucking baffling that she was nice to Emilio, maybe even respected him, and all Kaden got was insults and coffee thrown at him. Just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He sighed and crossed his arms, watching Nora interact with the polar bear. A smile found its way onto his face even though he tried to keep his countenance flat. “No jailbreaking the bear,” he told her. “None of us have anywhere to put it and no way to feed it.” That said, if the worst came to worst, well… he didn’t have any better ideas. And he would volunteer to help.

Kaden rolled his eyes as the kid pointed at him. Why was she so fucking obnoxious to him in particular? “Putain, I’m not playing for any team, alright. Other than the bear’s. And I’d rather not have to help you two find it a new habitat if you fuck up the investigation and have to jailbreak the goddamn bear.” He looked back at the polar bear in his cage, as calm and quiet as he had been the whole time. There was no way Kaden was letting anything happen to that bear, whether or not the other two in the room believed him on that front. 

“Anyway, you better figure it out quick. Best I can do is put in my report about the bear and let Detective Peterson know the behavior profile doesn’t match up with the assessment of the crime. But I doubt he’s going to put a whole lot of weight on the dog-catcher cop’s word.” It probably wasn’t wise to clue Nora in on the fact that his job wasn’t exactly respected at the station, but it didn’t seem like it was worth it to hide the reality of things. It didn’t bother him much, to be honest, he knew that if any of those idiots had to work half a day in his job, most of them wouldn’t survive it. They fucking knew it, too, even if they acted like their jobs were more important. The last thing Kaden needed was to be respected as a cop so that was fine by him. The only time it was a problem was in the rare situations like this where he needed the WRPD to listen to him for once. “Hopefully I can help stall things long enough for you to do the rest.” Emilio better be as good a detective as he said he was. He really didn’t want to have to help jailbreak a bear if it came down to that.

 Emilio bristled as Kaden responded with Nora’s name, kicking himself internally. Of course he knew that rangers had enhanced hearing — he’d been married to one for years. He couldn’t grab a beer from the fridge without Juliana hearing him from across the house and asking him to get her one, too, and he couldn’t whisper Nora’s name without Kaden hearing it and taking advantage. He shot his assistant a look that was half an apology and half a promise to explain everything just as soon as they were out of Kaden’s very impressive earshot. 

But first, they had to deal with this. “I told you,” he said at the same time as Kaden’s protest, “that is the last option.” Maybe not the best thing to admit to a cop, even if he was just a cop for animals, but Kaden didn’t seem to disagree. Emilio still didn’t trust the ranger around Nora, but he thought he might trust him around the other bear in the room. “We have a plan for that,” he told Kaden, eyeing him carefully. “We won’t be telling you.” Wasn’t plausible deniability a good thing? They were doing Kaden a favor by keeping him in the dark. If it did come down to breaking the bear out of the zoo and convincing Teddy to help them transport it to wherever it needed to be, Kaden could lose his job for knowing about it. And as much as Emilio distrusted the guy, he didn’t particularly want to be responsible for that. Finding another job that he was similarly suited for would be difficult at best, impossible at worst. 

With a faint smile, he nodded at Nora. “First we talk to the wife,” he agreed. She was either going to be a prime suspect or a potential witness to the discrepancies of the story and, as much as Emilio disliked the process of dealing with other people’s grief, he was good at telling when that grief was genuine. If the wife was lying, he’d be able to sniff it out. She’d be easier to read than Kaden, in any case. And as an added bonus, there was no way the animal control officer would insist on joining them on that leg of their journey considering there were no animals. 

Looking back to Kaden, Emilio tilted his head a little. Dog catcher cop. And here he thought the ranger was still trying to sell his ‘I’m a respected member of the police force’ lie. He’d have to remember this the next time Kaden threatened to arrest him for something. “We’ll let you know what we find out… probably,” he told Kaden with a brief shrug, looking amused. To Nora, he added, “I’ll take the lead with the wife. You can snoop around her house while we’re talking. See if you can find where she keeps her food or something.” The instruction was half in hopes of distracting her from pissing off a ranger… and half genuine. Nora snooping around the house really would come in handy. He began ushering the bugbear out of the room, turning on his heel to offer Kaden a lazy half-salute. “Officer.” 

Kaden said her name, her real name, causing Nora’s eyes to narrow in a glare that attempted to strike Kaden dead on the spot. Had this man recognized her? Did he know? Nora missed the Emilio was giving her as she contemplated Kaden like she could cause him to spontaneously combust if she focused hard enough. What did connasse even mean? Nora made a mental note to google it when they got back to the car.

Emilio often let Nora take point on interrogations because he knew she enjoyed it. He knew she loved scaring people until they told them the truth. But telling her he was going to take the interrogation part so she could snoop also wasn’t odd, because he knew she loved snooping through their houses. Especially the part where she got to eat their food. Her stomach let out a loud grumble just thinking of her next meal. Honestly? Maybe Nora was born to be a private investigator. This work was very conducive to her hobbies. Anyways, those words had been enough to distract Nora for a moment, but then Emilio was shuffling her out the door and Nora realized it was her last chance to bully Kaden.

Looking over her shoulder, Nora winked at Kaden. “Officer.” Her tone oozed with mocking disrespect. “I’m sure they respect you as much as I do.” Nora added, flashing the ACAB badge sewn into her jacket. Before Emilio could weirdly tell her to stop again, Nora walked herself out the door. At least the bear was safe for now. Even if it came from an unlikely ally.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Charade (1963)

1963’s Charade is a comedy, a romance and a suspense thriller all at once. The mix seems incompatible, particularly when your lead couple is separated by 25 years, but the results work. So well. In fact, much of what makes the film special are the ingredients other movies would’ve eliminated. It’s got so many twists it’ll make your head spin off its axis and there’s no way you’ll guess the ending.

Returning from a skiing holiday in the French Alps, Regina “Reggie” Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) discovers her apartment stripped bare, her bank accounts empty and the husband she was about to divorce dead. His four passports - all under different names - lead the police to suspect foul play. All signs point towards the three men who attend his sparse funeral (played by James Coburn, George Kennedy and Ned Glass) being involved in his murder. They threaten Reggie, warning her the money they’re owed better show up soon. With the help of a charming American stranger, Peter Joshua (Cary Grant), Reggie begins sifting through her husband’s last possessions for clues.

From the colourful and stylish opening credits (Designed by Maurice Binder), you know you’re in for an unusual treat. This movie is bright and shiny. When Reggie and Peter are together, all you can think about is them but he’s apprehensive. She just lost her husband - she didn’t love him. They’ve just met - and aren’t they great together? There’s such a big age difference - she doesn’t care, why does he? The banter they have back-and-forth is full of great, witty lines, the kind you want to memorize and pull out at the right moment to knock all your friends off their feet.

But wait. This is a romantic comedy… but it’s also a thriller. Just when you think we’re getting ready to zoom in on that first kiss… a dead body. A hideous murder. A gun. Now you’ve got to wonder. Is he actually hesitant to get with her because of some chivalrous impulse… or is he stringing her along for nefarious purposes? What if it's the opposite. Maybe Reggie knows something we don’t and she’s trying to seduce it out of Peter. Maybe their coincidental meeting wasn’t a coincidence at all! But no, there’s no way there could be anything sinister between Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. They’re simply too good together to be anything but a couple waiting to fall in love.

That’s how you feel during the whole movie. One moment, you’re in knots over the thriller elements. You wonder if the unhelpful CIA agent (Walter Matthau) is up to something no good… until you remember this is a comedy. You think it’s getting fun and screwball-y with people looking into rooms for clues to figure out who’s got the money… and then someone turns up dead. Yikes! This movie keeps you on your toes in a way you’re not used to, which might make it more enjoyable on a second viewing. Then again, this first ride is a blast as you try to figure out who’s lying, who’s going to betray who, what’s a real clue, what’s a dead end, and so on. Not that you’ll be able to figure it out on your own. This is not the kind of movie that will linger on a piece of paper to give away a crucial detail. You might be able to guess certain motivations but where the money went? No way. I suppose you could call that a bit of cheat - part of the fun is usually piecing together all the puzzle's pieces and seeing if you can beat the detectives to the conclusion - but this isn’t a normal thriller. Not at all.

You could never recreate the magic of Charade. You might be tempted to, with the one fight scene that’s a bit clunky and another where everyone decides to go with the flow instead of calling the police, but too much of what makes this movie good is unique to when it was made. The actors fit their roles so perfectly it would be foolish to recast them. The dialogue is too magnificent to be tweaked. The atmosphere is a perfect mix of romance, mystery, and danger. It’s a great choice if you want to know what made Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant icons. (May 14, 2021)

[cherryhodrialsblog]

1.Jews in Israel mainly classify themselves along a fourfold axis, from least to most observant, hiloni (lit. 'secular'); masorti (lit. 'traditional'); dati (lit. 'religious' or 'orthodox', including religious zionist); and haredi (lit. 'ultra-religious' or 'ultra-orthodox').[6][7]

Israeli law guarantees considerable privileges and freedom to practice for the recognized communities,[8][9] but, in tandem, does not necessarily do so for other faiths. The Pew Research Center has identified Israel as one of the countries that place "high restrictions" on the free exercise of religion[10] and there have been limits placed on non-Orthodox Jewish religious movements, which are unrecognized.[11][12] Pew ranked Israel as fifth globally in terms of "inter-religious tension and violence".[13]

2

Most Jews across the religious spectrum agree in principle that Israel can be both a democracy and a Jewish state. But they are at odds about what should happen, in practice, if democratic decision-making collides with Jewish law (halakha). The vast majority of secular Jews say democratic principles should take precedence over religious law, while a similarly large share of ultra-Orthodox Jews say religious law should take priority.

Even more fundamentally, these groups disagree on what Jewish identity is mainly about: Most of the ultra-Orthodox say “being Jewish” is mainly a matter of religion, while secular Jews tend to say it is mainly a matter of ancestry and/or culture.

3,.Roughly eight-in-ten Israeli Arabs (79%) say there is a lot of discrimination in Israeli society against Muslims, who are by far the biggest of the religious minorities. On this issue, Jews take the opposite view; the vast majority (74%) say they do not see much discrimination against Muslims in Israel.

4.Founded in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization is an umbrella organization for groups that represent the Palestinian people before international states.[62] The Palestinian National Authority, officially established in 1994 as a result of the Oslo Accords, is an interim administrative body nominally responsible for governance in Palestinian population centres in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.[63] Since 1978, the United Nations has observed an annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. According to British historian Perry Anderson, it is estimated that half of the population in the Palestinian territories are refugees, and that they have collectively suffered approximately US$300 billion in property losses due to Israeli confiscations, at 2008–2009 prices.[64]

5.The origins of Palestinians are complex and diverse. The region was not originally Arab – its Arabization was a consequence of the gradual inclusion of Palestine within the rapidly expanding Islamic Caliphates established by Arabian tribes and their local allies. Like in other "Arabized" Arab nations, the Arab identity of Palestinians, largely based on linguistic and cultural affiliation, is independent of the existence of any actual Arabian origins.[92]

6.In the 7th century, the Arab Rashiduns conquered the Levant; they were later succeeded by other Arabic-speaking Muslim dynasties, including the Umayyads, Abbasids and the Fatimids.[99] Over the following several centuries, the population of Palestine drastically decreased, from an estimated 1 million during the Roman and Byzantine periods to about 300,000 by the early Ottoman period.[100][101] Over time, much of the existing population adopted Arab culture and language and converted to Islam.[97] The settlement of Arabs before and after the Muslim conquest is thought to have played a role in accelerating the Islamization process.[102][103][104][105] Some scholars suggest that by the arrival of the Crusaders, Palestine was already overwhelmingly Muslim,[106][107] while others claim that it was only after the Crusades that the Christians lost their majority, and that the process of mass Islamization took place much later, perhaps during the Mamluk period.[102][108]

[asiahotelsandresorts]

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[thursdayisbetterthanfriday]

Some of the most intelligent people I know are continually asking questions which, in many circumstances, would get them labelled as idiots by some. The point is, they're not afraid to admit their ignorance AND they're also not afraid to use that as a springboard to find out more. It's an excellent attitude which allows them, and those they work and interact with, to be more accepting of their own limitations and can allow those with knowledge to share and help them to better things.

You'll sometimes see the above Awareness/Knowledge matrix cited when people talking about knowledge. I like to use it as a demonstrational tool for people.

If you don't ask questions, then your known unknowns remain unknown. It doesn't end there however, as the Unknown unknowns you would likely have uncovered by asking the question remain unknown. In other words, your ignorance compounds like bank interest. But take the opposite. Asking questions can not only help you turn Known unknowns into Known knowns, it can also uncover new Unknown unknowns which you hadn't considered, and might be crucial to what you're interested in, or doing.

In fact, if you assume each question uncovers a uniform number of Unknown unknowns each time, and you seek answers to all questions (a highly unrealistic example, but go with it for now) you can see even only 2 unknown pieces of information per question can quickly balloon to if you try to get answers to them all. If it's 4 then, well, just note that the y axis here is logarithmic. This is a feeling familiar to anyone who has done a Wikipedia binge or has encountered a human child. This is likely overwhelming, but note that this is more of an illustration of how much information can compound over time.

Asking questions also allows others, who know Unknown knows relative to you, to do the same. It's really a win-win situation if done right, creating a kind of compound interest of knowledge that builds over time. But unlike bank interest, the rate isn't fixed. One question can uncover multiple Unknown unknowns which become Known unknowns, leading to quadratic, or higher, rates of knowledge depending on how much time you have to find answers.

Not only that, by helping others do the same you can get increasing compounding knowledge as you both turbocharge each other's knowledge.

Luckily information usually isn't just individual, non-linked, snippets. It often, contextually, ties into itself, giving a network effect which can allow you to assimilate new information and fit it into frameworks of understanding that you already possess. If you're new to a subject, such as a small child or a first-timer amateur, you'll need to acquire knowledge to make your own internal information base but, again, this will compound its usefulness over time. As you gain more knowledge, it allows you to create your own internal knowledge structures which make it SO much easier to understand the world, and means you get to better know which questions to ask.

Anyway - It can be difficult to ask questions at first, and create new habits, but it's often worth the effort. By inspiring others to do the same you can significantly increase your collective knowledge base. Or if you want, which is also a completely legitimate choice, you can choose not to know. Knowledge gathering is a time consuming task after all. Just don't judge people for wanting more.

Just remember: There's no such thing as a stupid question, if it leads to you gaining understanding more about the world.

There's a whole demographic of people who are profoundly incurious and just assume everyone else is too, so when they see something unfamiliar they immediately rush to declare that not only have they never heard of it, none of you did either. You're just pretending. You had to look it up, don't lie. You didn't know this

And like, so what if someone had to look something up. That's how you learn new things. People usually say this about knowledge that's pretty damn basic, but I can't get over how they're not only scornful at the idea of people trying to learn something new, they casually assume everyone else is, too

[trimbakeshwarpoojavidhi]

Rahu Ketu Dosh Puja in Trimbakeshwar | Cost, Remedies and Guide

Rahu and Ketu are considered shadow planets in Vedic astrology. Though they don't have a physical presence like other celestial bodies, their impact on human lives is profound. When these two planets are adversely placed in a person's horoscope, it can give rise to Rahu Ketu Dosh, leading to a series of misfortunes, delays, and mental unrest.

One of the most effective remedies for this dosha is Rahu Ketu Dosh Puja in Trimbakeshwar, a sacred town near Nashik in Maharashtra, known for its powerful spiritual energies and ancient temples.

What Is Rahu Ketu Dosh?

Rahu Ketu Dosh, also referred to as the shadow dosha, occurs when Rahu and Ketu are placed in specific combinations in one’s birth chart. This dosha is often confused with Kaal Sarp Dosh, but they are not the same. Rahu Ketu Dosh particularly affects one's mental peace, career stability, relationships, and overall fortune.

Rahu Ketu Dosha Symptoms:

People suffering from Rahu Ketu Dosha may experience one or more of the following symptoms:

Sudden losses in career or business

Repeated failures in relationships or marriage proposals

Nightmares, anxiety, and psychological disorders

Delay or denial in childbirth

Lack of mental peace and spiritual disconnection

Health issues without a clear medical diagnosis

An overall sense of bad luck or unexplained misfortune

These symptoms may vary depending on the position of Rahu and Ketu in the horoscope, their conjunctions, and aspects from other planets.

How to Find Rahu Ketu Dosham in a Horoscope?

A learned astrologer can analyze a person’s Janam Kundli (birth chart) and identify the presence of Rahu Ketu Dosham. Here are some common indications:

Rahu placed in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, or 12th house

Ketu is placed opposite Rahu, creating a nodal axis

Influence on important houses such as Lagna (ascendant), 5th (children), or 7th (marriage)

Malefic aspects or conjunctions with other planets like Mars, Saturn, or the Sun

Once identified, the astrologer can recommend the most suitable remedy to neutralize the dosha.

Remedies for Rahu Ketu Dosha:

While daily remedies like chanting mantras, wearing gemstones, and observing fasts on Saturdays can help, the most powerful and effective remedy is a Rahu Ketu Dosh Nivaran Puja.

This puja is ideally performed at Trimbakeshwar, which is considered one of the 12 Jyotirlingas and a powerful energy center for planetary pacification.

Why Trimbakeshwar for Rahu Ketu Dosh Puja?

Trimbakeshwar is not just a pilgrimage destination—it holds special significance in astrology and spirituality. It is believed that performing dosha nivaran pujas here yields faster and more effective results due to its spiritual aura and divine energy.

The town is located on the banks of the sacred Godavari River and is home to Lord Shiva in his Jyotirlinga form. The vibrations and sanctity of this place make it ideal for performing Rahu Ketu Shanti rituals.

Rahu Ketu Dosh Puja in Trimbakeshwar – Ritual Process

The puja is performed under the guidance of experienced and Vedic-knowledgeable pandits like Pandit Sunil Guruji. He is renowned for conducting accurate and spiritually effective pujas for various doshas, including Rahu Ketu Dosh. Also important for Kaal Sarp Dosh Nivaran puja

Steps involved in the puja:

Sankalp (Oath): The devotee takes a vow to perform the puja with sincerity.

Kalash Sthapana: Sacred water pots are installed as a part of invoking deities.

Navagraha Pujan: All nine planetary deities are worshipped to ensure overall harmony.

Rahu Ketu Jap and Havan: Specific mantras are chanted to appease Rahu and Ketu, followed by a fire ritual.

Purnahuti: Final offerings are made in the Yagya to conclude the puja.

Tarpan and Daan: Charitable offerings and ancestral homage are part of the complete ritual.

The entire process may take around 3–4 hours and should be done on an auspicious day or muhurat.

Trimbakeshwar Puja Booking and Pandit Contact:

For hassle-free arrangements, it is advisable to book the Rahu Ketu Dosh Puja in advance. Pandit Sunil Guruji provides end-to-end support, including muhurat selection, puja samagri (ritual materials), and a comfortable arrangement for performing the rituals.

Contact Pandit Sunil Guruji for puja booking and guidance: +91 7447444346

Important Tips for Devotees:

Arrive at Trimbakeshwar a day before the puja.

Follow dietary and spiritual instructions as provided by Guruji.

Wear clean, traditional clothes during the puja.

Avoid non-veg, alcohol, and tamasic food at least 3 days before the ritual.

Be mentally present and participate actively in the puja.

Conclusion:

Rahu Ketu Dosh can silently obstruct your path in many areas of life. Ignoring it may lead to years of struggle, failed opportunities, and emotional instability. However, with the right Rahu Ketu Dosh Nivaran Puja in Trimbakeshwar, you can remove these obstacles and restore peace and prosperity.

If you or your family members are suffering from the symptoms mentioned, it's time to seek the help of experienced astrologers and pandits like Pandit Sunil Guruji. Performing this powerful ritual at Trimbakeshwar under expert guidance will not only calm the dosha but also bring spiritual healing and clarity. To book your puja or consultation, call now: +91 7447444346

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.1 (after 1940)

1941 – World War II: Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact, allying itself with the Axis powers. 1942 – World War II: Japanese forces land on Java, the main island of the Dutch East Indies, at Merak and Banten Bay (Banten), Eretan Wetan (Indramayu) and Kragan (Rembang). 1946 – The Bank of England is nationalised. 1947 – The International Monetary Fund begins financial operations. 1950 – Cold War: Klaus Fuchs is convicted of spying for the Soviet Union by disclosing top secret atomic bomb data. 1953 – Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin suffers a stroke and collapses; he dies four days later. 1954 – Nuclear weapons testing: The Castle Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb, is detonated on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, resulting in the worst radioactive contamination ever caused by the United States. 1954 – Armed Puerto Rican nationalists attack the United States Capitol building, injuring five Representatives. 1956 – The International Air Transport Association finalizes a draft of the Radiotelephony spelling alphabet for the International Civil Aviation Organization. 1956 – Formation of the East German Nationale Volksarmee. 1958 – Samuel Alphonsus Stritch is appointed Pro-Prefect of the Propagation of Faith and thus becomes the first U.S. member of the Roman Curia. 1961 – Uganda becomes self-governing and holds its first elections. 1962 – American Airlines Flight 1 crashes into Jamaica Bay in New York, killing 95. 1964 – Villarrica Volcano begins a strombolian eruption causing lahars that destroy half of the town of Coñaripe. 1964 – Paradise Airlines Flight 901A crashes near Lake Tahoe, Nevada, killing 85. 1966 – Venera 3 Soviet space probe crashes on Venus becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface. 1966 – The Ba'ath Party takes power in Syria. 1971 – President of Pakistan Yahya Khan indefinitely postpones the pending national assembly session, precipitating massive civil disobedience in East Pakistan. 1973 – Black September storms the Saudi embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, resulting in the assassination of three Western hostages. 1974 – Watergate scandal: Seven are indicted for their role in the Watergate break-in and charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice. 1981 – Provisional Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands begins his hunger strike in HM Prison Maze. 1990 – Steve Jackson Games is raided by the United States Secret Service, prompting the later formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 1991 – Uprisings against Saddam Hussein begin in Iraq, leading to the deaths of more than 25,000 people, mostly civilians. 1992 – Bosnia and Herzegovina declares its independence from Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. 1998 – Titanic became the first film to gross over $1 billion worldwide. 2002 – U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda begins in eastern Afghanistan. 2002 – The Envisat environmental satellite successfully launches aboard an Ariane 5 rocket to reach an orbit of 800 km (500 mi) above the Earth, which was the then-largest payload at 10.5 m long and with a diameter of 4.57 m. 2002 – Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-109 to service the Hubble Space Telescope. 2003 – Management of the United States Customs Service and the United States Secret Service move to the United States Department of Homeland Security. 2005 – In Roper v. Simmons, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the execution of juveniles found guilty of any crime is unconstitutional. 2006 – English-language Wikipedia reaches its one millionth article, Jordanhill railway station. 2007 – Tornadoes break out across the southern United States, killing at least 20 people, including eight at Enterprise High School. 2008 – The Armenian police clash with peaceful opposition rally protesting against allegedly fraudulent presidential elections, as a result ten people are killed. 2014 – Thirty-five people are killed and 143 injured in a mass stabbing at Kunming Railway Station in China.

[oliviarosebennett1]

Why Trade with ECN Forex Brokers? Expert Reviews & Features

The forex market is one of the largest financial markets in the world, attracting millions of traders globally. However, choosing the right broker is essential for a successful trading journey. Among the various types of brokers, ECN Forex Brokers stand out for their transparency, lightning-fast execution, and deep liquidity. If you are searching for ECN Forex Brokers Reviews to identify the most reliable and efficient platforms, this guide provides a detailed look at why ECN brokers are the best choice and highlights the Best ECN Forex Brokers for a superior trading experience.

What Are ECN Forex Brokers?

ECN Forex Brokers Reviews operate on a No Dealing Desk (NDD) model, meaning they do not take the opposite side of a trader’s position. Instead, they provide direct market access (DMA) by connecting traders with liquidity providers, such as banks, hedge funds, and financial institutions. This model ensures that traders benefit from tight spreads, real-time price feeds, and enhanced trade execution.

Key Features of ECN Forex Brokers

1. Raw Spreads & Transparent Pricing

One of the biggest advantages of ECN brokers is their ability to offer raw spreads starting from 0.0 pips. Unlike traditional brokers who add a markup, ECN brokers charge a small commission per trade, ensuring complete transparency in pricing.

2. No Dealing Desk (NDD) Execution

With an NDD execution model, ECN brokers eliminate the risks of price manipulation and requotes. This feature ensures that orders are executed at the best available prices in the market without interference.

3. Ultra-Fast Trade Execution

ECN brokers provide low-latency execution, making them ideal for high-frequency traders, scalpers, and algorithmic traders who rely on split-second trade execution.

4. Deep Liquidity and Market Access

By connecting traders with multiple liquidity providers, ECN brokers offer deep liquidity pools, leading to better pricing, reduced slippage, and seamless order fulfillment.

5. Scalping and Algorithmic Trading Friendly

Due to their tight spreads, fast execution, and lack of restrictions, ECN brokers are perfect for traders using scalping strategies and automated trading systems, including Expert Advisors (EAs) on MetaTrader 4 (MT4), MetaTrader 5 (MT5), and cTrader.

Best ECN Forex Brokers: Expert Reviews

Here’s a list of the Best ECN Forex Brokers that provide outstanding trading conditions and advanced technology:

1. FP Markets

FP Markets is a highly regarded ECN broker offering raw spreads, ultra-fast execution, and high liquidity. It is well-known for its low-cost trading environment and advanced trading platforms.

2. FXPro

FXPro provides an NDD trading environment with tight spreads and deep liquidity. Its multiple account types cater to both beginner and professional traders.

3. Eightcap

Eightcap is a well-established ECN broker providing low-cost trading with access to deep liquidity. It supports multiple trading platforms and offers fast execution speeds.

4. IC Markets

IC Markets is a true ECN forex broker, offering some of the lowest spreads in the market. With high-speed execution and institutional-grade liquidity, IC Markets is a top choice for professional traders and scalpers.

5. FBS

FBS is an award-winning forex broker offering ECN accounts with raw spreads, low commission fees, and deep liquidity pools. It’s an excellent choice for all types of traders.

6. XM

XM offers an ECN-like trading environment, ensuring fast order execution, no requotes, and competitive spreads. It is also well-known for its strong regulatory framework.

7. Axi

Axi is a popular ECN broker providing competitive spreads, deep liquidity, and premium trading tools. It is particularly suitable for professional traders who require high-speed trade execution.

8. HFM (HotForex)

HFM, formerly HotForex, is a trusted ECN broker offering tight spreads, strong liquidity, and fast execution speeds. It is well-suited for both retail and institutional traders.

9. Pepperstone

Pepperstone is widely considered one of the best ECN brokers, offering low trading costs, direct market access, and advanced trading technology. With MT4, MT5, and cTrader, it is a preferred choice for scalpers and algorithmic traders.

How to Choose the Best ECN Forex Broker?

When selecting an ECN broker, consider the following factors:

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[darkmaga-returns]

By Palestine Chronicle Staff

Israeli airstrikes targeted the Yemeni cities of Sanaa and Hodeidah, killing at least nine people and wounding three.

Meanwhile, a missile fired from Yemen hit Tel Aviv, causing serious damage to buildings in the settlement of Ramat Gan.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry (Gaza), 45,059 Palestinians have been killed, and 197,041 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.

Click here for previous blogs.

Thu, Dec 19, 1:39 PM (Palestine Time) Israeli Drone Bombs Car in Tulkarm Camp PALESTINIAN MEDIA: An Israeli drone bombed a car in Tulkarm camp, north of the West Bank.

Thu, Dec 19, 1:39 PM (Palestine Time) Israeli Army Intercepts Drone in Gaza Envelope ISRAELI ARMY: The Israeli army announced the interception of a drone launched from the Gaza Strip towards the Gaza envelope settlements.

Thu, Dec 19, 12:44 PM (Palestine Time) Missile Fragments Fell in Courtyard of Knesset Building WALLA: Parts of interceptor missiles fell in the courtyard of the Knesset building in Jerusalem due to attempts to intercept the Yemeni missile.

Thu, Dec 19, 12:44 PM (Palestine Time) Killed, Wounded in Al-Shati Camp AL-AQSA TV: An air strike on a group of citizens opposite the Al-Ahrar headquarters in Al-Shati camp, west of Gaza City, left a number of martyrs and wounded.

Thu, Dec 19, 12:44 PM (Palestine Time) Kamal Adwan Hospital Bombed, Dealing with 85 Wounded KAMAL ADWAN HOSPITAL DIRECTOR: The hospital is being bombed and we are dealing with 85 injured people, some of whom need urgent surgery.

Thu, Dec 19, 12:44 PM (Palestine Time) Martyr Omar Al-Qassem Forces Bombard Israeli Forces in Netzarim MARTYR OMAR AL-QASSEM FORCES: We bombarded with mortar shells a gathering of Israeli soldiers and vehicles south of the Netzarim axis in the central Gaza Strip.

Thu, Dec 19, 12:44 PM (Palestine Time) Sirens Sound in Several Areas of the Gaza Envelope ISRAELI HOME FRONT COMMAND: Sirens were sounded in several areas of the Gaza Strip envelope due to the suspected infiltration of a drone.

Thu, Dec 19, 12:44 PM (Palestine Time) Israel Destroyed Water Stations in Gaza HRW (to Al-Jazeera): Israel destroyed water stations and deliberately cut off fuel supplies for water in Gaza.

Thu, Dec 19, 12:44 PM (Palestine Time) Woman Killed in Balata MEDICAL SOURCES (to Al-Jazeera): A female citizen was killed by Israeli occupation forces in Balata camp, east of Nablus, in the northern West Bank.

Thu, Dec 19, 11:27 AM (Palestine Time) Sirens Activated in Kiryat Shmona, Manara ISRAELI HOME FRONT COMMAND: Sirens were activated in the settlements of Kiryat Shmona and Manara in the Galilee.

Thu, Dec 19, 11:27 AM (Palestine Time) Israeli Education Minister Confirms School Was Directly Hit by Yemeni Missile ISRAELI EDUCATION MINISTER: An explosive warhead from a Yemeni missile fired at Israel hit a school in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, and caused extensive damage in its vicinity.

Thu, Dec 19, 11:27 AM (Palestine Time) Abu Obeida Blesses Ansarallah Operation ABU OBEIDA:

We bless the missile attack carried out by Ansar Allah towards the heart of the Zionist entity and we commend their steadfast support for Gaza.

We call on the sincere brothers, the Ansar Allah, to escalate their attacks until the occupation submits and stops the war of extermination.

We condemn the terrorist attacks carried out by the Zionist entity against our people in Yemen, which proves that it is an enemy of the entire nation.

[nikedrive]

Chapter 7: Scission

[From Nike Drive, an ongoing crossover fanfiction.]

previous chapter

We see our empire breaking and run from its sharp edges. We are a thousand little lifeboats and a thousand little kings.

In mostly silence, they watched the drill play itself out before them. Kalypso, watching Redford, learned how to spin the projection of the court, and tilt it, and just generally manipulate it on every axis. Sometimes he would pause it, slide it all around, slow it down even further, rolling the ball in and out of the shadow of Jaegerjaquez’s holographic palm. Sometimes she would too, but while he stayed largely still and turned the sluggish replay over and over in his hand, Kalypso would pace the table, sometimes around to one side, leaning over, crouching down to view the diorama of the court from the level of the floor.

“You could do this all day, couldn’t you?”

“No,” she answered, honestly. “I’d get restless.”

She still had the ball she’d taken from the gym, and sometimes she lifted it up to consider its curves or raised a hand to mirror Jaegerjaquez’s angle or contact. Redford would watch her do this. She felt his gaze like a touch, but he never moved from his stool.

The banked heat of his Flare did not roll out between them to scald her. Kalypso kept waiting for it to lash outward, kept bracing for the chemical reaction that was guaranteed to flood her the moment that it happened, but it stayed quiet, inarguably present, but--contained.

Maybe it was the same characteristic of spirit that rendered him content to sit in here watching rather than meeting the challenge presented by his struggling hitter. A weakness in him, Kalypso thought, but…a weakness she could appreciate, off court. A Dominion who did not desire quite so potently was a Dominion with whom it was much, much easier to share a table in the dark.

Was that comfort worth having an unmotivated setter, though?

No. Honestly, no. It wasn’t.

Kalypso ground her teeth.

A swift hiss of a little motor, and then light flooded in from the doorway. Redford glanced in that direction. Kalypso, for her part, froze, tensing, remembering all the moments previous when she could have rejected the seduction of the hologram table and just told Redford she needed his help to get back to her room. Now the die was cast again--another Dominion was entering the small, dark room, looming between her and the door.

“Ah--this is where you went, huh?”

Renji Abarai’s shadow fell over the table as he came to stand opposite Kalypso at the end closest to the door. His words were apparently for her, much to Kalypso’s chagrin. She had nothing to say to that question--its answer was obvious, after all. Because some kind of acknowledgement was clearly expected, she gave him a nod and pointedly returned her attention to the table.

“How’s it looking?”

Happily, this one didn’t appear to be directed at her, because Redford answered immediately. “Better than this morning. You caught up with all of ‘em?”

“I mean,” said Abarai, rather pointedly.

Redford waved a dismissive hand at that. “Yeah, you got a click of the tongue and maybe some muttered filth outta that one, sure--the other two, then.”

“Duibhne’s ready to kill…somebody. Not sure who. Jaegerjaquez is the fairest bet,  but…”

Kalypso did not need to be here listening to this. They were talking like she was invisible, which was preferable to talking to her, all told. She took a slow, unobtrusive step back from the table, running through her options. Redford was clearly playing nice--which made her really not want to owe him. Abarai had business on the mind, though, and might be bitter about being interrupted, especially if--

“Cu Chulainn had good things to say about you.” Goosebumps broke out along her arms as Abarai’s words and attention slid back to her. “You angling for libero, then?”

“You should watch this before it gets wiped,” Redford said to him, tapping the table to pause the current drill, the set hanging halfway to Jaegerjaquez’s chambered approach. “Duibhne’s mad, huh? Thoughts on why, Ixora?”

Which question was she supposed to prioritize? This had the feel of some stupid Dominion dick-measuring contest; one asks a question and the other instantly asks an unrelated one, to see which one she turned toward, which one she appeased first. “Doesn’t matter,” she said, answering both, and by sheer luck able to be honest for both, too.

“Eh?”

“Apologies,” said Redford smoothly, and Kalypso recognized that he’d decided to bulldoze through this moment and deny her whatever evasion she was trying to orchestrate. “We don’t intend to make you tense, not about the…interpersonals. Nevermind about Duibhne.” He tilted his head toward Abarai in tacit invitation.

Okay, so this was complicated dick-measuring then. Kalypso elected not to bother trying to decode this particular power struggle, if that’s what it was.

Rather than wait for them to reframe their questions into some new trap, she said, “It doesn’t matter to me what I play.”

Abarai set a hand on his hip, and tapped the table with his other hand to resume the holographic drill. Then he leaned forward onto that hand, watching as Jaegerjaquez hit a hard cross into Kalypso’s waiting arms.  “Nice pass. What’s, uh, what’s Duibhne blocking there?”

“You tell me,” muttered Kalypso, before she could stop herself.

Redford and Abarai both blinked, then glanced at each other. “Well, then,” said Redford, an eyebrow rising. “You said something to him about it, did you?”

“I asked him to run it like a one-man block instead of an imaginary two-man that’s giving up line. He didn’t want to.” Now more than one eyebrow was raised at her. No Flares--but she did take a bit of issue with those looks even if they weren’t raining hungry chemistry on her with them. “I didn’t dress him down about it. He didn’t want to, I dropped it, drill went on.”

“I see,” said Redford.

“So that’s what you were doing? Jumping from side to side while the middle-court was blocked out? Yeesh.” Abarai was studying the table now while Redford’s measured eye lingered stingingly on her.

Kalypso was more than a bit relieved that the other middle on the team could look at Duibhne in this drill and say ‘yeesh’. That meant, hypothetically, if it had been Abarai up there at net instead of that perfect, silky-smooth poisonous automaton, there might have been more dynamism involved.

Careful, now, careful, little lamb-riddled fool. Kalypso checked her hope hard before it could bud into anything she’d soon regret. This man in front of her, tall, broad, hard-eyed and, she reminded herself, wearing the pelt of a thing that died for his sport and pleasure, was just as much a Dominion as the rest of them--and just as likely to make certain she remembered it. If it had been him at the net, then it would have been him stalking closer to her in the lightless black of the dead court afterward. Same for Redford--it could have been him instead of Cu Chulainn gliding toward the net and driving her backward into Jaegerjaquez’s reach.

“Tomorrow,” Abarai was saying, “let’s get Axel roped in and call dibs on extra court time. We can repeat this, opposite side. Rotate roles, if you want, get you and Axel both swinging.”

“You’re really leaning on that, huh?” observed Redford, his eye sliding from Kalypso to Abarai now.

A little bit of chemistry caught on her skin, a little arrhythmic stutter in her chest, when Abarai’s mouth twitched downward. “Too much to hope for otherwise, ain’t it?”

“Dunno,” said Redford, with a certain air of finality. “You’d have to ask her.”

Ooh. She did not like the sound of that. Nope. Whatever it was, no thanks, do not, in fact, ask her, please and thank you.

But clearly Abarai was not someone who stopped short of a hungry thought, not even when he himself was thinking better of the idea and had another Dominion revving up at his back to boot. That’s what was happening, Kalypso saw with mounting trepidation--the tall redhead was squaring his shoulders, and Redford was setting his chin back into the palm of his hand, watching, the low-burn Flare he’d sustained all this time sweeping outward now, a quiet silent heat rolling across the floor like the first wave of fire across an oil-soaked rug.

This was a moment she did not want to happen. Whatever was about to come out of Abarai’s mouth, it would carry consequences that she didn’t even understand yet, that they hadn’t given her time to feel out, to grasp, to calculate.

“How are you at hitting outside, Ixora?”

Tilts.

Easily bored, disengages with setter.

Cu Chulainn trailing after a furious hitter. Duibhne scanning the room and placing his bets. Redford sitting in here, watching them struggle to get their outside to hit in-bounds. Abarai feeling out those two afterward and coming straight to his setter to report. That vicious firestorm of Flares she’d walked into first thing, between Redford and their other outside hitter, the one with the coin-eyes and the presence like murder.

There were, with her, eight of them, after all.

Kalypso was forced to reassess Redford’s choice to sit in here instead of joining that drill. It wasn’t quite as simple as a Dominion’s schadenfreude overtop a lack of ambition. It was a calculated drawing of lines. This team--ha, clearly that was the wrong word for this collection of egos--was fracturing into factions. Everyone was picking sides.

Jaegerjaquez had tilted, and shown he couldn’t right himself without outside intervention. Yang had, apparently, spat in Redford’s face. In response, Abarai was standing here offering her one of their heads on a platter--if, of course, she was equal to the task.

Which would make her at least one Dominion enemy.

Eyes like golden-coins, devouring her on sight. Hot, cruel fingers snarling through her hair. They were, possibly, based on first impressions and yes, on chemical response as well, the two most dangerous choices for her to usurp. That aside, quite frankly, outside was one of her weaker technical positions. Better than middle, perhaps, but all else being equal, she would be a far bigger asset as basically anything else.

“I told you,” Kalypso said. “I’ll play anything.”

It wasn’t like she was picking their side. It was, simply, that whoever was playing, she would be in there, amidst them, playing too. She doubted she’d get a vote on who they carved out of their formation; that neither surprised nor disappointed her. She’d never harbored any illusions otherwise.

Redford’s grin flashed out like lightning, blinding and faster than anyone could brace for. “Then we’ll be seeing you tomorrow on the court, Ixora. You can hit whatever you fancy.”

A satisfied Dominion always grated. It generally wasn’t really their fault; it was just her own stubborn rejection of her chemistry, which was even now rippling through her skin and heating up her blood and insisting that she blush and stare and creep closer to do some worshipful cuddling. When Dominions got what they wanted, she got a flood of involuntary feelings that she hadn’t asked for and they hadn’t earned--not from her, at least--and that made her bitter.

Right now, it grated more than usual. So she’d given him an honest answer, he’d interpreted it in a manner that suited him best, accepted it as his rightful due, and was now offering headpats?

Kalypso clamped down on that resentment before it could creep onto her face. He’d gotten what he wanted, yes, but in so doing she had also gotten what she wanted. Tomorrow, there would be team practice of some kind, and then afterward, there would be more. That’s what she was here for. That’s all that mattered. Sure, yes, whatever, any of them could have her on their cute little faction roster if it meant she could play more.

The sound of the door opening and the sudden assault of fresh light from beyond made her take another cautious step back. Who now? She really needed to get out of here, get away from the suffocating siege of Dominions, especially since she’d locked in extra time on the court tomorrow. If she vanished now, nothing about her presence would complicate that plan, and if forces beyond her control decided to rip it apart--the thought made her bite that sore abused patch of her cheek again--at least she wouldn’t have to ride out the Flares.

“Still out here, Kalypso?” Axel Lea stepped into the room, his green eyes going first to her before anything else, even though she’d slid back into the shadows out of the light from the door and the holograms. Damned Dominions. “Did nobody help you with your door?”

“Eh?”

“Huh?”

Twinned sounds of confusion from Redford and Abarai, and humiliating though it was, Kalypso seized that proffered escape with both hands and all her teeth. “I’ll take you up on it,” she said, and began a march toward Axel and the doorway he was standing in with all the grim intention of a soldier on a suicide charge.

Three things happened at once: the holograms above the table flickered out, a massive wall-screen at her back hummed to life, casting gray shadows of chairs and men and the table and herself on the walls, and a familiar voice spoke from speakers embedded somewhere in high corners.

“You’ve waited this long to shower, Ixora. You’ll wait another half hour. Asses in seats, the lot of you.”

The fourth thing, the real sinking-feeling thing, happened when Axel stepped inside and was followed by all the remaining Dominions in the facility. They came in slow and thunderous, taking up places around the room that had clearly become habit--Cu Chulainn, hands folded on top of his head, crooked grin and drill-bit eyes both gleaming, Diarmuid ua Duibhne, shaking back his darkly poisonous hair and taking in Redford’s cheer with narrowed eyes, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, slouching in with hands in his pockets, jawbone mask grinding. And Yang. That’s what they’d called him. Yang came in with his Flare already steaming from his shoulders.

Immediately, sickly auras bloomed on the edges of Kalypso’s vision--forget half an hour, this was going to give her a headache in the first two minutes.

Xigbar’s golden eye regarded them all from the massive screen. The fucking team meeting, that’s what this was. Kalypso could think of very little she’d hate doing more, much less in present company. But fine. That’s what this was gonna be like, huh? Fine.

Kalypso found herself a bit of the wall as far as possible from anyone else, pressed her back to it, and--this was weak, but there were times for pride and this was not one of them--slid down it into a little tight-curled knot on the floor, ready to wait this one out. Just like a good, quiet little Lamb should do.

next chapter