#anyways i have a lot of nurse skills now. indeed i was often doing a better job than Actual Trained Nurses

[simptasia]

bless all the nurses who sincerely told me i'd make a great nurse, during the months my mum was dying and i was taking care of her near constantly to the point of around the clock emotional and physical exhaustion. and then i'd have to, thank them but gently inform them I'm Only Doing This Well Because I Have To

[taesmassiveass]

A Turquoise Blue Ring || tk

(drabble)

The day had surprisingly been good, Taehyung wondered as he strolled along the dusty street.

It hadn't poured too often this monsoon, the land looked as dry as on a normal day in the summer months. Despite the temperature having cooled down sufficiently, it was hard for labourers to get by during the windy afternoons when the soil laden air kept getting into everyone's eyes.

Taehyung shrugged and re-adjusted the straps of his luggage over his shoulders. His forearm tingled from the action, confused, he unfold it in his sight.

An almost vertical gash, albeit not too deep, ran across the span of the underside of his forarm, dried blood clots clinging onto the wound.

Nothing too bad, Taehyung sighed. Atleast it wasn't as bad as him having dislocated his shoulder joint two months ago. It had been much hassle for his co-workers to carry him to the nursing room, where he was treated after an hour of writhing in torturous pain.

Taehyung worked as a part of the palace building army, somehow following in the footsteps of his father who was a court architect. Unfortunately, or fortunately for him, Taehyung did not share the same skills and passion as his father.

The old man did love his son a lot, but his keen interest in the field of music always had him worrying for his future. Musicians and dancers were not accepted as a part of the higher society class, to which his entire lineage belonged.

But Taehyung payed little mind to societal norms and settings. The hierarchy didn't make sense to him, what didn't make sense to him he never followed through with.

He did settle for joining the army as his father insisted, and think of it as his karma for the partial disobedience, he was grouped in the labour sect of soldiers, that were responsible for overseeing and helping with the palace extension construction temporarily.

A pebble found it's way under Taehyung's worn out footwear, making him scrunch his nose in discomfort.

"What now."

He lifted his feet and peered at the ground underneath.

Wrong. It wasn't a pebble. It definitely looked a piece of jewellery.

He bent down to examine it closely, picking it up from the dust, blowing over it and rubbing it over the cloth of his hanbok.

Yes, indeed. It was a ring. A beautiful turquoise ring, glowing even in the minimal evening light.

Just then, he caught on the sound of footsteps behind him, hurrying in his direction. He stood up and turned around, the ring within the grip of his fist.

A figure clad in dark blue hanbok rushed towards him, on having getting a closer look, he realised it was this boy from the royal family he knew.

"Ahjussi! Please wait!"

Ahjussi??! The audacity of this kid-

"Did you happen to find a-" the boy broke into a fit of coughing.

Taehyung stood there watching as he struggled to catch his breath.

"a ring, a ring with a blue stone. It was the colour of a clear summer sky. Have you seen it?"

"What's your name, anyway?"

"Huh?" The boy looked confused at his answer, or rather question.

"We see each other often at the palace but I can't quite remember who you are. Are you the son of the royal cook? Or the king's concubine?"

The boy's eyes widen in disbelief, his face slowly starting to grow red from anger and embarrassment.

"WHO DID YOU DARE CALL THE SON OF THE ROYAL COOK? DO I LOOK LIKE A SERVANT TO YOU??"

"Do I look like an ahjussi to you??"

Taehyung pat himself on the back, not caring one bit about the consequences if the kid does indeed happen to belong from the royal family.

The boy in blue hanbok takes a deep breath, and offers him a slow nod.

"I don't really have time for this, have you seen a ring around or not?"

"I did happen to see one, but why should I give you that information for free? It's clearly precious to you," Taehyung stated, tone cheeky. He had no plans to let the offender get by easily.

The kid took another deep breath in, clearly trying to keep his rage within.

"Alright, what do you need from me? What can I offer as trade? Name it, you shall have it."

"Hmm, let's see."

He pretended to think, but Taehyung knew very well what he wanted from the kid.

"Let me know your name."

The boy's eyes widen again, but with surprise this time.

"That's it? You're a strange person. I'm Jeon Jungkook, cousin of the 2nd prince. No, my mother was married to His Majesty's younger sibling, I'm not the son of a concubine."

So he indeed was from the royal branch. If Taehyung had any modesty left in him, he decided it would be the right time to put it to use.

He corrected his posture, putting his feet together and his hands on his either sides. Then he bowed his head.

"Greetings, young prince."

The prince chuckled, making Taehyung peek up from his lowered position.

"You are indeed so strange. One moment, you had all the courage in the world to tease me, but look at you now!"

Taehyung took an instant liking to his laughter. It reminded him of the feeling walking through clouds on his uphill trips.

He straightened back up and smiled sheepishly. The weight in his hands suddenly made him realise him that he was in possession of the ring the prince was so desperately looking for.

He thought maybe this one risk was probably the biggest and last risk he would take in his life.

"Well, I happen to have the ring you are looking for, Your Highness. But there's something else I'm willing to trade it for."

The prince burst out in another fit of laughter. "Now that's unfair! Although I am going to grant it either way, so mention it."

Taehyung grinned slyly, his hand moving on it's own accord sneakily and taking the prince's hand in a gentle hold, catching him off guard.

"What-"

Yes, he could probably get severaly punished for touching a prince without his permission, but Taehyung had little space in his head for after thoughts.

He brought his hand up in the space between them, the young prince allowing him to lead, albeit a little reluctant at first.

Taehyung uncurled the fist of his other hand, revealing the ring resting right in the middle of his palm.

The prince gasped. "You had it with you!"

Taehyung noded, and then proceeded to slip on the ring over the middle finger of the prince's hand. It fit him perfectly, in royalty and in appearance.

The prince let out another gasp.

"What I ask in return for finding this for you is your friendship. Will Your Highness honour this royal soldier by being his companion?"

The prince was bewildered through and through, but he let out another fit of giggles.

"You are so beyond me, I have never met someone like you before. Of course, have it your way. You have my permission to come meet me at the palace, although I wonder if you even care about permissions at all."

Taehyung bit his lip at those words, letting Jungkook's hand go and allowing himself to feel a bit embarrassed.

"Would you look at that! Seems like a nasty wound. How did you get it?"

The prince pointed at his forearm, making Taehyung grant it some attention again.

"Oh, it's nothing for a courageous soldier as me, say, would you like to visit my place and have some tea before you go?"

The prince, still eyeing the cut on his skin, shook his head.

"I hate to decline your offer, my friend-"

"Taehyung-"

"Taehyung. I have already delayed my trip back home a lot, mother will not go easy on me for it" he chuckled. "Although I would love to visit some other day. Thank you for your invitation though, I'm very pleased."

They smiled at each other, Taehyung knew it then that him and the young prince would become really great friends. He couldn't feel happier about it, he was so excited to watch it unfold.

From the next day onwards, Taehyung started to have a better time at the day labour. He would help around as much as he could, excusing himself in between to go meet with Jungkook, who would be waiting for him in the royal garden.

Sometimes, the prince would have his personal maidservant serve them some of the delicacies he would save from the royal breakfast.

As Taehyung munched on it, he would recite to Jungkook about his life outside the palace, and the prince would listen attentively, eyes big and curious. What Jungkook found the most interesting were his philosophical thoughts on life itself, it was refreshing to hear from someone who did not read off the books or share the same stereotypical thought process as the elders.

As they continued to spend more time together, roaming among the garden bushes or walking along the streets on way to taehyung's home in the evening, they began to find their solace in each other.

For Taehyung, the prince was like nature, a pretty view and a fulfilling company to bask in the presence of. As time passed by, and as the turquoise on Jungkook's ring started to lose it's lusture, Taehyung was back to training as a soldier in the backyard of the palace, the prince having more freedom and opportunity to indulge him in his daily life. Their friendship continued to bloom, and perhaps, the coming spring would bless them with more. But Taehyung and Jungkook wouldn't miss a day of their lives, or of the sweetness they shared; in the desserts the young prince would grab from royal kitchen, and in their laughters together.

"Taehyung, do you want to get promoted as the army general?" the prince asked one evening, as they lay on the soft meadowy earth of the garden. The violet sky kept turning a shade darker with evey passing hour, but Taehyung had informed his family of his overnight stay at the palace that day, hence not having to worry about heading home early.

Taehyung yawned, then turned over to look at Jungkook. The prince looked pretty as always, the evening light falling on his fair cheeks like a rose blush, the stars reflecting in his eyes like glistening gems.

"I don't know, I happen to do well in the training and my father might be too proudy about it, but my heart does not feel content."

Jungkook smiled, a soft, radiant smile. His hand stretched across the space between them, his palm open. He placed it over Taehyung's chest, where his heart beat picked up a little.

"What does soldier Kim Taehyung's heart really want?" he spoke in a low voice, eyes staring into his soul.

Taehyung gulped. This was a feeling he had never felt before, although unsettling, he found an odd bliss in it.

His own hand crept over Jungkook's, settling atop of it.

"Can you sing for me?"

Jungkook chuckled. "I can never get used to your unexpected answers, can I? Yes, I can sing for you. I don't know many songs, but this one that mother used to sing me to sleep..."

He shut his eyes close, Taehyung followed the suit.

Soon, a melodious humming filled the silence around them.

Taehyung smiled in satisfaction. He had had a feeling the prince would sing beautifully.

His honey voice and breathy tone occupied his all his senses to the brim, bereft him of all other thoughts and sensations.

You, my darling, are the beauty of the blue moon, a rare sight, healing for sore eyes~

Taehyung observed the voice near him slowly, then he felt the weight of body above his. He felt gentle fingertips tracing his cheekbones.

Taehyung fell in love with music when he was a teenager, attnending the autumn festival where a local choir and a troop of dancers entertained the crowd.

Under the startlit sky, the shadows of the trees, drowning in the melody of an angelic voice, he found himself falling in love again.

His eyes opened slowly, eyelashes fluttering as he locked gazes with the prince.

His sight traced the contours of his face, each harmonius feature. And when those lips stopped moving, he raised himself a little on his arms, and pressed his own against them.

'This is what my heart wants. This is all my heart ever wanted.'

A hand adorned with the turquoise blue ring glinting in the starlight, came up to hold his face, the coolness of the metal against his warm skin making Taehyung smile.

When did he ever care about the norms, anyway?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The end.

[uschangelings]

Did you know that Agatha Christie wrote sci-fi??

“The Hound of Death” by Agatha Christie (short story)

I.

It was from William P. Ryan, American newspaper correspondent, that I first heard of the affair. I was dining with him in London on the eve of his return to New York and happened to mention that on the morrow I was going down to Folbridge. He looked up and said sharply: ‘Folbridge, Cornwall?’ Now only about one person in a thousand knows that there is a Folbridge in Cornwall. They always take it for granted that the Folbridge, Hampshire, is meant. So Ryan’s knowledge aroused my curiosity. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Do you know it?’ He merely replied that he was darned. He then asked if I happened to know a house called Trearne down there. My interest increased. ‘Very well indeed. In fact, it’s to Trearne I’m going. It’s my sister’s house.’ ‘Well,’ said William P. Ryan. ‘If that doesn’t beat the band!’ I suggested that he should cease making cryptic remarks and explain himself.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘To do that I shall have to go back to an experience of mine at the beginning of the war.’ I sighed. The events which I am relating to took place in 1921. To be reminded of the war was the last thing any man wanted. We were, thank God, beginning to forget … Besides, William P. Ryan on his war experiences was apt, as I knew, to be unbelievably long-winded. But there was no stopping him now. ‘At the start of the war, as I dare say you know, I was in Belgium for my paper – moving about some. Well, there’s a little village – I’ll call it X. A one horse place if there ever was one, but there’s quite a big convent there. Nuns in white what do you call ’em – I don’t know the name of the order. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Well, this little burgh was right in the way of the German advance. The Uhlans arrived –’ I shifted uneasily. William P. Ryan lifted a hand reassuringly. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘This isn’t a German atrocity story. It might have been, perhaps, but it isn’t. As a matter of fact, the boot’s on the other leg. The Huns made for that convent – they got there and the whole thing blew up.’ ‘Oh!’ I said, rather startled. ‘Odd business, wasn’t it? Of course, off hand, I should say the Huns had been celebrating and had monkeyed round with their own explosives. But is seems they hadn’t anything of that kind with them. They weren’t the high explosive johnnies. Well, then, I ask you, what should a pack of nuns know about high explosive? Some nuns, I should say!’ ‘It is odd,’ I agreed. ‘I was interested in hearing the peasants’ account of the matter. They’d got it all cut and dried. According to them it was a slap-up one hundred per cent efficient first-class modern miracle. It seems one of the nuns had got something of a reputation – a budding saint – went into trances and saw visions. And according to them she worked the stunt. She called down the lightning to blast the impious Hun – and it blasted him all right – and everything else within range. A pretty efficient miracle, that! ‘I never really got at the truth of the matter – hadn’t time. But miracles were all the rage just then – angels at Mons and all that. I wrote up the thing, put in a bit of sob stuff, and pulled the religious stop out well, and sent it to my paper. It went down very well in the States. They were liking that kind of thing just then. ‘But (I don’t know if you’ll understand this) in writing, I got kinder interested. I felt I’d like to know what really had happened. There was nothing to see at the spot itself. Two walls still left standing, and on one of them was a black powder mark that was the exact shape of a great hound. ‘The peasants round about were scared to death of that mark. They called it the Hound of Death and they wouldn’t pass that way after dark. ‘Superstition’s always interesting. I felt I’d like to see the lady who worked the stunt. She hadn’t perished, it seemed. She’d gone to England with a batch of other refugees. I took the trouble to trace her. I found she’d been sent to Trearne, Folbridge, Cornwall.’ I nodded. ‘My sister took in a lot of Belgian refugees the beginning of the war. About twenty.’ ‘Well, I always meant, if I had time, to look up the lady. I wanted to hear her own account of the disaster. Then, what with being busy and one thing and another, it slipped my memory. Cornwall’s a bit out of the way anyhow. In fact, I’d forgotten the whole thing till your mentioning Folbridge just now brought it back.’ ‘I must ask my sister,’ I said. ‘She may have heard something about it. Of course, the Belgians have all been repatriated long ago.’

‘Naturally. All the same, in case your sister does know anything I’ll be glad if you pass it on to me.’ ‘Of course I will,’ I said heartily. And that was that.

II. It was the second day after my arrival at Trearne that the story recurred to me. My sister and I were having tea on the terrace. ‘Kitty,’ I said, ‘didn’t you have a nun among your Belgians?’ ‘You don’t mean Sister Marie Angelique, do you?’ ‘Possibly I do,’ I said cautiously. ‘Tell me about her.’ ‘Oh! my dear, she was the most uncanny creature. She’s still here, you know.’ ‘What? In the house?’ ‘No, no, in the village. Dr Rose – you remember Dr Rose?’ I shook my head. ‘I remember an old man of about eighty-three.’ ‘Dr Laird. Oh! he died. Dr Rose has only been here a few years. He’s quite young and very keen on new ideas. He took the most enormous interest in Sister Marie Angelique. She has hallucinations and things, you know, and apparently is most frightfully interesting from a medical point of view. Poor thing, she’d nowhere to go – and really was in my opinion quite potty – only impressive, if you know what I mean – well, as I say, she’d nowhere to go, and Dr Rose very kindly fixed her up in the village. I believe he’s writing a monograph or whatever it is that doctors write, about her.’ She paused and then said: ‘But what do you know about her?’ ‘I heard a rather curious story.’ I passed on the story as I had received it from Ryan. Kitty was very much interested. ‘She looks the sort of person who could blast you – if you know what I mean,’ she said. ‘I really think,’ I said, my curiosity heightened, ‘that I must see this young woman.’ ‘Do. I’d like to know what you think of her. Go and see Dr Rose first. Why not walk down to the village after tea?’

I accepted the suggestion.  I found Dr Rose at home and introduced myself. He seemed a pleasant young man, yet there was something about his personality that rather repelled me. It was too forceful to be altogether agreeable.  The moment I mentioned Sister Marie Angelique he stiffened to attention. He was evidently keenly interested. I gave him Ryan’s account of the matter.  ‘Ah!’ he said thoughtfully. ‘That explains a great deal.’  He looked up quickly at me and went on. ‘The case is really an extraordinarily interesting one. The woman arrived here having evidently suffered some severe mental shock. She was in a state of great mental excitement also. She was given to hallucinations of a most startling character. Her personality is most unusual. Perhaps you would like to come with me and call upon her. She is really well worth seeing.’  I agreed readily.  We set out together. Our objective was a small cottage on the outskirts of the village. Folbridge is a most picturesque place. It lies at the mouth of the river Fol mostly on the east bank, the west bank is too precipitous for building, though a few cottages do cling to the cliffside there. The doctor’s own cottage was perched on the extreme edge of the cliff on the west side. From it you looked down on the big waves lashing against the black rocks.  The little cottage to which we were now proceeding lay inland out of the sight of the sea.  ‘The district nurse lives here,’ explained Dr Rose. ‘I have arranged for Sister Marie Angelique to board with her. It is just as well that she should be under skilled supervision.’  ‘Is she quite normal in her manner?’ I asked curiously. ‘You can judge for yourself in a minute,’ he replied, smiling.  The district nurse, a dumpy pleasant little body, was just setting out on her bicycle when we arrived.  ‘Good evening, nurse, how’s your patient?’ called out the doctor. ‘She’s much as usual, doctor. Just sitting there with her hands folded and her mind far away. Often enough she’ll not answer when I speak to her, though for the matter of that it’s little enough English she understands even now.’  Rose nodded, and as the nurse bicycled away, he went up to the cottage door, rapped sharply and entered.  Sister Marie Angelique was lying in a long chair near the window. She turned her head as we entered.  It was a strange face – pale, transparent looking, with enormous eyes. There seemed to be an infinitude of tragedy in those eyes.  ‘Good evening, my sister,’ said the doctor in French. ‘Good evening, M. le docteur.’  ‘Permit me to introduce a friend, Mr Anstruther.’  I bowed and she inclined her head with a faint smile. ‘And how are you today?’ inquired the doctor, sitting down beside her.  ‘I am much the same as usual.’ She paused and then went on. ‘Nothing seems real to me. Are they days that pass – or months – or years? I hardly know. Only my dreams seem real to me.’  ‘You still dream a lot, then?’  ‘Always – always – and, you understand? – the dreams seem more real than life.’  ‘You dream of your own country – of Belgium?’  She shook her head. ‘No. I dream of a country that never existed – never. But you know this, M. le docteur. I have told you many times.’ She stopped and then said abruptly: ‘But perhaps this gentleman is also a doctor – a doctor perhaps for the diseases of the brain?’  ‘No, no.’ Rose said reassuring, but as he smiled I noticed how extraordinarily pointed his canine teeth were, and it occurred to me that there was something wolf-like about the man. He went on:  ‘I thought you might be interested to meet Mr Anstruther. He knows something of Belgium. He has lately been hearing news of your convent.’  Her eyes turned to me. A faint flush crept into her cheeks. ‘It’s nothing, really,’ I hastened to explain. ‘But I was dining the other evening with a friend who was describing the ruined walls of the convent to me.’  ‘So it is ruined!’  It was a soft exclamation, uttered more to herself than to us. Then looking at me once more she asked hesitatingly: ‘Tell me, Monsieur, did your friend say how – in what way – it was ruined?’  ‘It was blown up,’ I said, and added: ‘The peasants are afraid to pass that way at night.’  ‘Why are they afraid?’  ‘Because of a black mark on a ruined wall. They have a superstitious fear of it.’  She leaned forward.  ‘Tell me, Monsieur – quick – quick – tell me! What is that mark like?’  ‘It has the shape of a huge hound,’ I answered. ‘The peasants call it the Hound of Death.’  ‘Ah!’  A shrill cry burst from her lips.  ‘It is true then – it is true. All that I remember is true. It is not some black nightmare. It happened! It happened!’  ‘What happened, my sister?’ asked the doctor in a low voice.  She turned to him eagerly. ‘I remembered. There on the steps, I remembered. I remembered the way of it. I used the power as we used to use it. I stood on the altar steps and I bade them to come no farther. I told them to depart in peace. They would not listen, they came on although I warned them. And so –’ She leaned forward and made a curious gesture. ‘And so I loosed the Hound of Death on them . . .’  She lay back on her chair shivering all over, her eyes closed.  The doctor rose, fetched a glass from a cupboard, half-filled it with water, added a drop or two from a little bottle which he produced from his pocket, then took the glass to her.  ‘Drink this,’ he said authoritatively.  She obeyed – mechanically as it seemed. Her eyes looked far away as though they contemplated some inner vision of her own.  ‘But then it is all true,’ she said. ‘Everything. The City of the Circles, the People of the Crystal – everything. It is all true.’  ‘It would seem so,’ said Rose.  His voice was low and soothing, clearly designed to encourage and not to disturb her train of thought.  ‘Tell me about the City,’ he said. ‘The City of Circles, I think you said?’  She answered absently and mechanically. ‘Yes – there were three circles. The first circle for the chosen, the second for the priestesses and the outer circle for the priests.’  ‘And in the centre?’  She drew her breath sharply and her voice sank to a tone of indescribable awe.  ‘The House of the Crystal . . .’  As she breathed the words, her right hand went to her forehead and her finger traced some figure there.  Her figure seemed to grow more rigid, her eyes closed, she swayed a little – then suddenly she sat upright with a jerk, as though she had suddenly awakened.  ‘What is it?’ she said confusedly. ‘What have I been saying?’  ‘It is nothing,’ said Rose. ‘You are tired. You want to rest. We will leave you.’  She seemed a little dazed as we took our departure. ‘Well,’ said Rose when we were outside. ‘What do you think of it?’ He shot a sharp glance sideways at me.  ‘I suppose her mind must be totally unhinged,’ I said slowly. ‘It struck you like that?’  ‘No – as a matter of fact, she was – well, curiously convincing. When listening to her I had the impression that she actually had done what she claimed to do – worked a kind of gigantic miracle. Her belief that she did so seems genuine enough. That is why –’  ‘That is why you say her mind must be unhinged. Quite so. But now approach the matter from another angle. Supposing that she did actually work that miracle – supposing that she did, personally, destroy a building and several hundred human beings.’  ‘By the mere exercise of will?’ I said with a smile. ‘I should not put it quite like that. You will agree that one person could destroy a multitude by touching a switch which controlled a system of mines.’  ‘Yes, but that is mechanical.’  ‘True, that is mechanical, but it is, in essence, the harnessing and controlling of natural forces. The thunder-storm and the power house are, fundamentally, the same thing.’  ‘Yes, but to control the thunderstorm we have to use mechanical means.’ Rose smiled. ‘I am going off at a tangent now. There is a substance called winter-green. It occurs in nature in vegetable form. It can also be built up by man synthetically and chemically in the laboratory.’  ‘Well?’  ‘My point is that there are often two ways of arriving at the same result. Ours is, admittedly, the synthetic way. There might be another. The extraordinary results arrived at by Indian fakirs for instance, cannot be explained away in any easy fashion. The things we call supernatural is only the natural of which the laws are not yet understood.’  ‘You mean?’ I asked, fascinated. ‘That I cannot entirely dismiss the possibility that a human being might be able to tap some vast destructive force and use it to further his or her ends. The means by which this was accomplished might seem to us supernatural – but would not be so in reality.’  I stared at him.  He laughed. ‘It’s a speculation, that’s all,’ he said lightly. ‘Tell me, did you notice a gesture she made when she mentioned the House of the Crystal?’  ‘She put her hand to her forehead.’  ‘Exactly. And traced a circle there. Very much as a Catholic makes the sign of the cross. Now, I will tell you something rather interesting, Mr Anstruther. The word crystal having occurred so often in my patient’s rambling, I tried an experiment. I borrowed a crystal from someone and produced it unexpectedly one day to test my patient’s reaction to it.’  ‘Well?’  ‘Well, the result was very curious and suggestive. Her whole body stiffened. She stared at it as though unable to believe her eyes. Then she slid to her knees in front of it, murmured a few words – and fainted.’  ‘What were the few words?’  ‘Very curious ones. She said: “The Crystal! Then the Faith still lives!”’  ‘Extraordinary!’  ‘Suggestive, is it not? Now the next curious thing. When she came round from her faint she had forgotten the whole thing. I showed her the crystal and asked her if she knew what it was. She replied that she supposed it was a crystal such as fortune tellers used. I asked her if she had ever seen one before? She replied: “Never, M. le docteur.” But I saw a puzzled look in her eyes. “What troubles you, my sister?” I asked. She replied: “Because it is so strange. I have never seen a crystal before and yet – it seems to me that I know it well. There is something – if only I could remember . . .” The effort at memory was obviously so distressing to her that I forbade her to think any more. That was two weeks ago. I have purposely been biding my time. Tomorrow, I shall proceed to a further experiment.’  ‘With the crystal?’  ‘With the crystal. I shall get her to gaze into it. I think the result ought to be interesting.’  ‘What do you expect to get hold of?’ I asked curiously.  The words were idle ones but they had an unlooked-for result. Rose stiffened, flushed, and his manner when he spoke changed insensibly. It was more formal, more professional.  ‘Light on certain mental disorders imperfectly understood. Sister Marie Angelique is a most interesting study.’  So Rose’s interest was purely professional? I wondered. ‘Do you mind if I come along too?’ I asked.  It may have been my fancy, but I thought he hesitated before he replied. I had a sudden intuition that he did not want me.  ‘Certainly. I can see no ob jection.’  He added: ‘I suppose you’re not going to be down here very long?’  ‘Only till the day after tomorrow.’  I fancied that the answer pleased him. His brow cleared and he began talking of some recent experiments carried out on guinea pigs.

III.  I met the doctor by appointment the following afternoon, and we went together to Sister Marie Angelique. Today, the doctor was all geniality.  He was anxious, I thought, to efface the impression he had made the day before.  ‘You must not take what I said too seriously,’ he observed, laughing. ‘I shouldn’t like you to believe me a dabbler in occult sciences. The worst of me is I have an infernal weakness for making out a case.’  ‘Really?’  ‘Yes, and the more fantastic it is, the better I like it.’  He laughed as a man laughs at an amusing weakness.  When we arrived at the cottage, the district nurse had something she wanted to consult Rose about, so I was left with Sister Marie Angelique.  I saw her scrutinizing me closely. Presently she spoke. ‘The good nurse here, she tells me that you are the brother of the kind lady at the big house where I was brought when I came from Belgium?’  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She was very kind to me. She is good.’  She was silent, as though following out some train of thought. Then she said:  ‘M. le docteur, he too is a good man?’  I was a little embarrassed. ‘Why, yes. I mean – I think so.’  ‘Ah!’ She paused and then said: ‘Certainly he has been very kind to me.’  ‘I’m sure he has.’  She looked up at me sharply. ‘Monsieur – you – you who speak to me now – do you believe that I am mad?’  ‘Why, my sister, such an idea never –’  She shook her head slowly – interrupting my protest. ‘Am I mad? I do not know – the things I remember – the things I forget . . .’  She sighed, and at that moment Rose entered the room.  He greeted her cheerily and explained what he wanted her to do. ‘Certain people, you see, have a gift for seeing things in a crystal. I fancy you might have such a gift, my sister.’  She looked distressed.  ‘No, no, I cannot do that. To try to read the future – that is sinful.’ Rose was taken aback. It was the nun’s point of view for which he had not allowed. He changed his ground cleverly.

‘One should not look into the future. You are quite right. But to look into the past – that is different.’  ‘The past?’  ‘Yes – there are many strange things in the past. Flashes come back to one – they are seen for a moment – then gone again. Do not seek to see anything in the crystal since that is not allowed you. Just take it in your hands – so. Look into it – look deep. Yes – deeper – deeper still. You remember, do you not? You remember. You hear me speaking to you. You can answer my questions. Can you not hear me?’  Sister Marie Angelique had taken the crystal as bidden, handling it with a curious reverence. Then, as she gazed into it, her eyes became blank and unseeing, her head drooped. She seemed to sleep.  Gently the doctor took the crystal from her and put it on the table. He raised the corner of her eyelid. Then he came and sat by me.  ‘We must wait till she wakes. It won’t be long, I fancy.’  He was right. At the end of five minutes, Sister Marie Angelique stirred. Her eyes opened dreamily.  ‘Where am I?’  ‘You are here – at home. You have had a little sleep. You have dreamt, have you not?’  She nodded. ‘Yes, I have dreamt.’  ‘You have dreamt of the Crystal?’  ‘Yes.’  ‘Tell us about it.’  ‘You will think me mad, M. le docteur. For see you, in my dream, the Crystal was a holy emblem. I even figured to myself a second Christ, a Teacher of the Crystal who died for his faith, his followers hunted down – persecuted . . . But the faith endured.  ‘Yes – for fifteen thousand full moons – I mean, for fifteen thousand years.’  ‘How long was a full moon?’  ‘Thirteen ordinary moons. Yes, it was in the fifteen thousandth full moon – of course, I was a Priestess of the Fifth Sign in the House of the Crystal. It was in the first days of the coming of the Sixth Sign . . .’  Her brows drew together, a look of fear passed over her face. ‘Too soon,’ she murmured. ‘Too soon. A mistake . . . Ah! yes, I remember! The Sixth Sign . . .’  She half sprang to her feet, then dropped back, passing her hand over her face and murmuring:  ‘But what am I saying? I am raving. These things never happened.’  ‘Now don’t distress yourself.’  But she was looking at him in anguished perplexity. ‘M. le docteur, I do not understand. Why should I have these dreams – these fancies? I was only sixteen when I entered the religious life. I have never travelled. Yet I dream of cities, of strange people, of strange customs. Why?’ She pressed both hands to her head.  ‘Have you ever been hypnotized, my sister? Or been in a state of trance?’  ‘I have never been hypnotized, M. le docteur. For the other, when at prayer in the chapel, my spirit has often been caught up from my body, and I have been as one dead for many hours. It was undoubtedly a blessed state, the Reverend Mother said – a state of grace. Ah! yes,’ she caught her breath. ‘I remember; we, too, called it a state of grace.’  ‘I would like to try an experiment, my sister.’ Rose spoke in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘It may dispel those painful half-recollections. I will ask you to gaze once more in the crystal. I will then say a certain word to you. You will answer another. We will continue in this way until you become tired. Concentrate your thoughts on the crystal, not upon the words.’  As I once more unwrapped the crystal and gave it into Sister Marie Angelique’s hands, I noticed the reverent way her hands touched it. Reposing on the black velvet, it lay between her slim palms. Her wonderful deep eyes gazed into it. There was a short silence, and then the doctor said:  ‘Hound.’  Immediately Sister Marie Angelique answered ‘Death.’

IV.  I do not propose to give a full account of the experiment. Many unimportant and meaningless words were purposely introduced by the doctor. Other words he repeated several times, sometimes getting the same answer to them, sometimes a different one.  That evening in the doctor’s little cottage on the cliffs we discussed the result of the experiment.  He cleared his throat, and drew his note-book closer to him. ‘These results are very interesting – very curious. In answer to the words “Sixth Sign,” we get variously Destruction, Purple, Hound, Power, then again Destruction, and finally Power. Later, as you may have noticed, I reversed the method, with the following results. In answer to Destruction, I get Hound; to Purple, Power; to Hound, Death, again, and to Power, Hound. That all holds together, but on a second repetition of Destruction, I get Sea, which appears utterly irrelevant. To the words “Fifth Sign,” I get Blue, Thoughts, Bird, Blue again, and finally the rather suggestive phrase Opening of mind to mind. From the fact that “Fourth Sign” elicits the word Yellow, and later Light, and that “First Sign” is answered by Blood, I deduce that each Sign had a particular colour, and possibly a particular symbol, that of the Fifth Sign being a bird, and that of the Sixth a hound. However, I surmise that the Fifth Sign represented what is familiarly known as telepathy – the opening of mind to mind. The Sixth Sign undoubtedly stands for the Power of Destruction.’  ‘What is the meaning of Sea?’  ‘That I confess I cannot explain. I introduced the word later and got the ordinary answer of Boat. To “Seventh Sign” I got first Life, the second time Love. To “Eighth Sign,” I got the answer None. I take it therefore that Seven was the sum and number of the signs.’  ‘But the Seventh was not achieved,’ I said on a sudden inspiration. ‘Since through the Sixth came Destruction!’  ‘Ah! You think so? But we are taking these – mad ramblings very seriously. They are really only interesting from a medical point of view.’  ‘Surely they will attract the attention of psychic investigators.’  The doctor’s eyes narrowed. ‘My dear sir, I have no intention of making them public.’  ‘Then your interest?’  ‘Is purely personal. I shall make notes on the case, of course.’  ‘I see.’ But for the first time I felt, like the blind man, that I didn’t see at all. I rose to my feet.  ‘Well, I’ll wish you good night, doctor. I’m off to town again tomorrow.’  ‘Ah!’ I fancied there was satisfaction, relief perhaps, behind the exclamation.  ‘I wish you good luck with your investigations,’ I continued lightly. ‘Don’t loose the Hound of Death on me next time we meet!’  His hand was in mine as I spoke, and I felt the start it gave. He recovered himself quickly. His lips drew back from his long pointed teeth in a smile.  ‘For a man who loved power, what a power that would be!’ he said. ‘To hold every human being’s life in the hollow of your hand!’  And his smile broadened.

V.  That was the end of my direct connection with the affair.  Later, the doctor’s note-book and diary came into my hands. I will reproduce the few scant entries in it here, though you will understand that it did not really come into my possession until some time afterwards.  Aug. 5th. Have discovered that by ‘the Chosen,’ Sister M.A. means those who reproduced the race. Apparently they were held in the highest honour, and exalted above the Priesthood. Contrast this with early Christians.  Aug. 7th. Persuaded Sister M.A. to let me hypnotize her. Succeeded in inducing hypnoptic sleep and trance, but no rapport established.  Aug. 9th. Have there been civilizations in the past to which ours is as nothing? Strange if it should be so, and I the only man with the clue to it . . .  Aug. 12th. Sister M.A. not at all amenable to suggestion when hypnotized. Yet state of trance easily induced. Cannot understand it.  Aug. 13th. Sister M.A. mentioned today that in ‘state of grace’ the ‘gate must be closed, lest another should command the body’. Interesting – but baffling.  Aug. 18th. So the First Sign is none other than . . . (words erased here) . . . then how many centuries will it take to reach the Sixth? But if there should be a short-cut to Power . . .  Aug. 20th. Have arranged for M.A. to come here with Nurse. Have told her it is necessary to keep patient under morphia. Am I mad? Or shall I be the Superman, with the Power of Death in my hands?  (Here the entries cease) VI.

 It was, I think, on August 29th that I received the letter. It was directed to me, care of my sister-in-law, in a sloping foreign handwriting. I opened it with some curiosity. It ran as follows:  Cher Monsieur,  I have seen you but twice, but I have felt I could trust you. Whether my dreams are real or not, they have grown clearer of late . . . And, Monsieur, one thing at all events, the Hound of Death is no dream . . . In the days I told you of (Whether they are real or not, I do not know) He who was Guardian of the Crystal revealed the Sixth Sign to the people too soon . . . Evil entered into their hearts. They had the power to slay at will – and they slew without justice – in anger. They were drunk with the lust of Power. When we saw this, We who were yet pure, we knew that once again we should not complete the Circle and come to the Sign of Everlasting Life. He who would have been the next Guardian of the Crystal was bidden to act. That the old might die, and the new, after endless ages, might come again, he loosed the Hound of Death upon the sea (being careful not to close the circle), and the sea rose up in the shape of a Hound and swallowed the land utterly . . .  Once before I remembered this – on the altar steps in Belgium . . . The Dr Rose, he is of the Brotherhood. He knows the First Sign, and the form of the Second, though its meaning is hidden to all save a chosen few. He would learn of me the Sixth. I have withstood him so far –  but I grow weak, Monsieur, it is not well that a man should come to power before his time. Many centuries must go by ere the world is ready to have the power of death delivered into its hand . . . I beseech you, Monsieur, you who love goodness and truth, to help me . . . before it is too late.  Your sister in Christ,  Marie Angelique  I let the paper fall. The solid earth beneath me seemed a little less solid than usual. Then I began to rally. The poor woman’s belief, genuine enough, had almost affected me! One thing was clear. Dr Rose, in his zeal for a case, was grossly abusing his professional standing. I would run down and –  Suddenly I noticed a letter from Kitty amongst my other correspondence. I tore it open.  ‘Such an awful thing has happened,’ I read. ‘You remember Dr Rose’s little cottage on the cliff? It was swept away by a landslide last night, the doctor and that poor nun, Sister Marie Angelique, were killed. The debris on the beach is too awful – all piled up in a fantastic mass – from a distance it looks like a great hound . . .’  The letter dropped from my hand.  The other facts may be coincidence. A Mr Rose, whom I discovered to be a wealthy relative of the doctor’s, died suddenly that same night – it was said struck by lightning. As far as was known no thunderstorm had occurred in the neighbourhood, but one or two people declared they had heard one peal of thunder. He had an electric burn on him ‘of a curious shape.’ His will left everything to his nephew, Dr Rose.  Now, supposing that Dr Rose succeeded in obtaining the secret of the sixth Sign from Sister Marie Angelique. I had always felt him to be an unscrupulous man – he would not shrink at taking his uncle’s life if he were sure it could not be brought home to him. But one sentence of Sister Marie Angelique’s letter rings in my brain . . . ‘being careful not to close the Circle . . .’ Dr Rose did not exercise that care – was perhaps unaware of the steps to take, or even of the need for them. So the Force he employed returned, completing its circuit . . .  But of course it is all nonsense! Everything can be accounted for quite naturally. That the doctor believed in Sister Marie Angelique’s hallucinations merely proves that his mind, too, was slightly unbalanced.  Yet sometimes I dream of a continent under the seas where men once lived and attained to a degree of civilization far ahead of ours . . .  Or did Sister Marie Angelique remember backwards – as some say is possible – and is this City of the Circles in the future and not in the past?  Nonsense – of course the whole thing was merely hallucination!

[skyblue-369]

We are so many on this world, but everybody starts their path here in exact the same way, don't they?

Somehow, that was not my case because I shared my birth with only 42 other children.

On The Twelfth Hour Of The First Day Of October 1989, Forty Three Women Around The World Gave Birth. This Was Unusual Only In The Fact That None Of The Women Had Been Pregnant When The Day First Began.

One of those unfortunate ladies was my mother. I don't know much about her. Just that she happened to pass by a very calm city in Northern Italy when I burst in her life. She didn't even have the time to look at me in the eyes that she decided to leave me by the door of a catholic orphanage. I still don't understand the reason why she didn't at least try to raise me by herself, but it's better like this. I must have caused her a hard trauma, and in addition we would have both lived a sad existence knowing that she didn't want me in the first place.

Anyway, being a religious building, there were nuns to run it. They welcomed me with open arms and named me Maria, even though they saw right away what I was capable of.

They always used to tell me how everytime I cried they had to wear gloves to hold me up because I would cover their hands in musk. Or wait, wait, wait! Also that I created little flower patterns on most of the hall floors when I moved my first steps. Yeah, I can grow plants by the way, but let's move on!

I brought some troubles with me, but they couldn't see a monster through this little girl's laughter. I was just another God's gift that needed care and protection. Actually, precisely because I was special, I was the one to receive it the most.

Besides the common bedroom, I had a space all for myself to practice in. Someone would expect some private garden, maybe a backyard. Now that I think of it, mine looked kinda like a cage, a room whose floor was covered in a thick layer of soil. Only the roof was replaced with a glass one in order to give me access to sunlight. I was supervised for all of my "playtime", when I mostly grew food for our supplies. No high plants were allowed except for fruit trees. Sometimes they'd let me recreate some pictures from my botany books, nothing more. Those brick walls made me frustrated, but I was too superficial at the time to understand they wanted to prevent me from escaping.

People continued to reassure me that I was doing good and that everyone relied on me to survive. They drowned my curiosity with privileges such as eating sweets more often than the others, having a higher education or receiving better gifts at Christmas. I cannot say I was living in luxury, but the nuns did their bests to make me live happily.

On the other side, the only thing they couldn't replace was my lack of affection.

The nuns treated me too well, but the other kids didn't seem happy about it.

It's insane that we've lived under the same roof for so many years, but we felt like acquaintances to each other. Although there was tension between us, they were never mean to me. Or maybe they were just gossiping when no one was watching. As a kid, I didn't understand how true friends are supposed to behave towards you. However, I knew that in friendship there should be a sort of feeling of comfort when staying together, and well, we didn't have it.

At the beginning, I was trying too hard to gain their trust, but then I started repeating to myself "I'm way better than everybody here. I could grow a whole forest in less than a minute if I wanted to. Who needs them? I'll have crowds cheering me one day."

...weird flex but okay

Unfortunately, I hoped to escape my very first failure by finding a family. I insisted and I've had some meetings with nice couples. Even if I couldn't show my powers, I was flawless. Aaand I received total rejection.

Probably it was all just a set up. For once, I envied the other children. Who wouldn't in my position? I had so much love to give and I would have been a good daughter! What have I possibly done wrong? I remember crying on the floor of my private room a few times and getting surrounded by weeds when I got up.

Time passed by and I ended up being eleven and without a family.

I used to dream about moving to the Amazon forest to look for a new species of flower. Maybe I would have found a guy who could talk to animals, who knows?

And then, I fell on a banana peel and slid into a series of unlucky events.

One day, we were having lunch and a silly argument came in. I'm still a teenager, it should be pretty normal at my age, shouldn'it? These two kids were mocking me and they were getting really heavy on me. I wasn't used to insults. Moreover, those words looked more and more like pieces of a bigger truth to me, so much that I hurt myself by pushing my hands over my ears. However, it was a single phrase that started it all.

"How can you even think that someone would love a narcissistic freak like you?"

I remember falling on my knees and closing my eyes, hands still on my ears. I just wanted silence, just for a moment. And I had it, indeed. It's only that when I opened my eyes, I saw them. The boys were lifeless, speared by some big branches all covered in blood. Branches that I made. It was my fault. It was my fault.

I needed to be calmed by those I thought as my loved ones, but I just receieved a shocked stare by every single nun. Some were standing still, while others were taking the children away.

"I can't stay here..." my body finally responded and I started running away. I restrained myself from throwing up. I went out and while I was climbing over the gate my left leg got stuck into a tube full of screws. I took it out right away without caring about my open wounds or how much they were making me suffer. I had to go on, I didn't even know where. I was finally visiting the world I wanted to see so desperately and I didn't even realise it. Eventually, I got to the harbour and both the stress and the seagulls put me to sleep in a ship container.

When I woke up, I didn't expect to be on the other side of the world. A bunch of sailors had brought me to the hospital of a little mountain town in the States called Anise Peak. When the nurse spoke English to me I freaked out. Luckily, I had taken some English classes at the orphanage and I could get away with it. Of course I ran away. They would have called the police and have sent me back to where I was from. I was wandering again, this time in the woods that surrounds the city. I was feeling completely lost. The single thought of the horror I had just committed made me impossible to use my powers in the future, so my chances of dying were higher. Nevertheless, something made me change my mind. Maybe God wanted me to stay longer and decided to bring me to a waterfall. I was taking a cold shower when I slipped on a door of leaves and saw that there was a hidden cave behind the waterfall. Eventually, it became my shelter. I've lived in here for almost three years now. How did I make it?

Well, thanks to my abilities I don't really need money for food. But after a while, when I found out that I couldn't live only on vegetables and fruit, I had to make up something. Almost outside the city old Damien has a supermarket, who unfortunately had a big problem at getting fresh veggies in such a cold area. And here it comes a farmer who lives nearby and is always busy, so sends his daughter to offer the man his services. Every two weeks I magically give him tons of goods in exchange of a little pay and some products such as bread or soap. I know it's not legal at all, but people are simple here and Damien was making a lot of money anyway. For me, it's tiring because I feel dizzy after I grow plants for a long period and because of transport, but at least I could live decently. The problem is that I had to be subtle to people's eyes. At night I have to put out the fire, or if I have to go out aside from work hours I have to climb trees and walk very high. I learned with time, and my scars prove it. Or maybe I can't walk around the town because everyone would recognise a new face.

I cannot call this "life" or "home", but it's fine at the moment. I get lonely from time to time, but I can always spy on families that come here camping. It's not that weird and it improves my language skills.

Oh my! Are those...gunshots? From the woods? What the hell is happening? It's better if I go check...

If you want to know more, go check:

[apprenticebard]

How can I make more money like you?

An important question!!

So to start with, I am not a person who has Figured Things Out. I got lucky last year - my friend recommended me for a job in a very high-wage area (specifically, San Francisco’s tech industry) that I happened to be a really good fit for, and that happened to be willing to hire people on a trial basis if they were promising, even if they didn’t have college degrees (’cause I still don’t have one). And that was really good for a while, until some stuff happened and I kinda got eaten. Now I’m unemployed and looking for another job; I think I’ll find something comparatively good again, but I dunno how long it’ll be, and right now I’m looking at both moderately high-paying content-writing jobs and jobs that pay around minimum wage (which is a lot here; nothing pays less than $15 because the bay is lowkey insane), in case getting another really good job takes longer than I’d like it to.

But anyway! Obviously there isn’t a super easy way to make lots of money that’s going to apply to every anon who could possibly have shown up in my inbox, but here are some general pointers:

1) Even if things are going really well for you, you’re gonna tend to make less than most people while you’re early in your career. This is difficult but how it is. It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong, and you might be on track for a great career in a few more years, once you gain more experience. If this is where you’re at, I think the best way to make more money is to work on leveling up at your current job, or looking for a different job of the same kind that either pays better now or will probably allow you to level up faster. It’s good to take on extra responsibilities when you have the time and energy to do so, especially if they use a lot of skills you do have, but also a few skills that you’ll need to figure out as you go along. 

Note that I do think that this advice is less actionable outside of the bay (which is full of startups that are growing rapidly and trying new things). I do think there’s still something to it. If you gain skills and responsibilities as well as you can, I think that even if your current job doesn’t recognize that and reward it, you’ll be building up skills that’ll make you more desirable the next time you change jobs.

2) Say you think you’re in a really good industry, and you know that other people in your industry make decent money, but for some reason, you’re not. Or, alternatively, say that you have a lot of skills and some work experience in a decent industry, but you can’t get anyone to call you back, and you’re beginning to wonder if maybe you’re secretly terrible and have zero Good Employee Qualities.

Getting a new job is hard, and leaving an old job is scary. I know; I just left my old job, and I spend lots of time being scared that nobody’s gonna hire me and I’m gonna have to go back to working at Kroger again, where I only made it through cashiering shifts by imagining that my characters were being tortured and that I could only save them by making it to the end of the next hour. 

But it really does pay to look at what else is out there. You can get some ideas by very casually looking at job sites like Glassdoor or Indeed; there might be nothing, or a bunch of job postings that you don’t understand, but I’ve found that it’s often good to get the lay of the land and figure out what recruiters are looking for in your industry. If you want better odds, and you have some successful friends, it can pay to ask them whether their companies are hiring for a position you can fill, and whether any of them might like to recommend you for it.

If you don’t have an easy way to get your foot in the door, you’re gonna be filling out a lot of applications. This sucks, but it doesn’t mean that you suck. If you really feel like you’re qualified for the sort of job you want, get someone to help you put together a good resume that shows off your skills, put together a portfolio or similar if you’re in the relevant industries, and resign yourself to applying to dozens or maybe hundreds of things. Recruiters are super arbitrary and will totally disqualify you based on things that have nothing to do with your ability to do the job. (This isn’t even because they’re bad people, it’s because they have a stack of resumes on their desk and have only the faintest idea how to tell which of the associated candidates are gonna be good at things.) It’s a numbers game. If you’re not doing something really ridiculous, like applying to every job with a resume that only lists completely unrelated kinds of work experience, then someone’ll probably talk to you eventually. It’ll just probably take way more applications than you’d think.

(Oh, also, all of the requirements in job postings tend to be pretty silly; as long as you think you’re genuinely capable of doing the work, I think you should apply to jobs where you meet maybe 75% of the stated requirements if the job sounds OK, and maybe 50% if it’s something you’d be really excited to get to do.)

3) If you’re not in a career sort of job at all - if you’re stuck behind the counter at Wendy’s right now, in which case my heart goes out to you, anon friend - or you’ve found yourself in a career that pays very badly or makes you unhappy, and you don’t think your skills will translate to anything you like doing, then you might want to look at changing careers entirely. Most people will tell you to go to college, if you haven’t already. I’m gonna tell you that college is a great thing for lots of people, but not always a good idea financially, and not always the best way forward, especially if you’re not very academically inclined. 

Think about what you’re good at, and think about what your dealbreakers are. You’re approaching this from thinking about money, not about passion, but you still don’t want to end up in a job that you’re a terrible fit for; you’ll get fired or be miserable all the time, and that’s no good for anyone. 

As a first line, if you feel that you’re reasonably flexible and talented, here are some very different jobs that make good money; you might want to consider whether you’re a good fit for any of these, and do more research as appropriate. (This is largely an exercise to get you thinking, not to say that these specific jobs are the ones you should definitely be looking at.)- Nursing. There’s a perpetual shortage of nurses, they have to exist everywhere in the country, and they make at least decent pay no matter where they live. For an RN, you’re looking at an average of about $55k per year in the cheapest states, and about $90k per year in the most expensive ones (although remember that this isn’t what you’ll make at the beginning of your career). I don’t recommend it if you really dislike people, long hours, college classes, heavy lifting, or bodily fluids, but I do think it’s a career that a lot more people should be willing to consider. If you think you can hack the education part, but not so much the heavy lifting, the bodily fluids, or the being around people who might be dying, dental hygienists make about the same amount, and their patients hardly ever need to be carried anywhere while possibly dying. I think.

- Software engineering. The pay rate here is kind of insane; if you have the interest and aptitude, then doing a coding bootcamp and getting a programming job in either NYC or San Francisco is a relatively attainable way of making a genuinely six-figure salary within a few years of starting, even if you don’t have a college degree. It’s not for everyone - I’ve tried to learn, a little, but I’ve bounced off pretty hard so far - but it’s a great opportunity for people who can hack it, so to speak. Like nursing, there’s a shortage here, mostly because software is a rapidly expanding industry that has only existed for, like, forty years tops.

- The skilled trades. We’re talking about electricians, mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, and other people in this space. It’s hard in different ways than an office job, but there are a lot of people who these are a good fit for. While they’re not as highly paid as nurses or engineers, people in the skilled trades do OK; reaching $50k per year is totally feasible, and people who are both skilled and lucky can break $80k. These jobs tend to go by apprenticeship systems, so if you don’t have a family member or friend to vouch for you, it’s a good idea to look at trade schools in your area to get you started, and then expect to spend several years in a junior position until you know what’s what.

- Flight Attendants. Not all flight attendants are particularly well-paid, but many are, and things like waitressing can be counted as relevant experience. The first flight attendant job I found on Indeed just now is $18 an hour and doesn’t require any experience or a degree, though the requirements do have a lot to say about your appearance, height (gotta be able to get luggage out of the overhead compartments, after all), and willingness to work really weird hours. The BLS reports that the median flight attendant ultimately makes about $56k per year. 

- Police officers. Obviously there are a ton of very legit reasons not to want to be a police officer, but I am of the opinion that someone’s gotta do it, and it’s better if the people involved wanna do it right, right? (I guess I don’t know if you want to do it right. Please don’t become a police officer purely for the money and then shoot someone, anon.) The median police officer makes about $60k, and it doesn’t require a college education, which is honestly a pretty good deal even if you’re not as passionate as Judy Hopps. I don’t recommend it as a job unless you’re not scared of people, even the creepy ones, ‘cause scared people make mistakes, and when police officers make mistakes, sometimes people end up dead.

If you read that list and were like, “Bard, there’s a reason I’m at Wendy’s, can you lower your expectations here a little,” you might want to look into stuff like warehousing, groundskeeping, janitorial work, sales, garbage collection, or construction work. Job sites are your friends; it’s useful to browse them and see what sorts of jobs pay the kinds of salaries you’re looking for. I also think you might be well-served by considering whether you can move in with friends or family in a part of the country where wages are higher. The big cost of living difference in other places is rent, so if you have a housing situation figured out or can split that cost with a friend, you can make a lot more money just by doing the same thing somewhere else. For example, before I got super lucky and became a Real Content Writer, my plan was to hang out on my friend’s couch for six months rent-free, work at some supermarket in SF, and then take my wages back home to Indiana to pay for the rest of my degree. And honestly, if I hadn’t fallen in love with this ridiculous place and hadn’t immediately gotten a much better job, I think it very well might have worked.

There’s a lot more that I could say here, but this is already pretty long. The main things are to think about where you’re headed, to look around at all of the different possible lucrative directions to head in if you don’t like where you are, and to figure out what steps you’d have to take to get there. You’re welcome to come to my inbox with more questions about this - my last job was all about helping people find jobs themselves, so I guess I should know something about it by now - but you might need to be a little more specific if I didn’t hit on the thing you’re stuck on in this post.

[elizabeth-graham]

The Cost of Surviving A War

Liz‘ hands are slick with his blood. It’s red and wet and sticks to her skin pungently. His body is still warm, but thankfully devoid of life and, thus, pain. It is a small mercy. She is running on autopilot, can barely remember afterwards how she goes through everything without breaking down before she is alone, trying desperately to scrub his blood from her hands. It feels like those hours after Grindelwald had revealed himself in the subway station, only somehow even worse. Hollow. Deafening. Unreal.

He is dead. Gone. No more. Taken from them. Stolen away from Melly whom she does not know how to face now. There is nothing but a void, a friend-shaped hole next to her and inside her and trying not to think about him hurts but thinking about him hurts even more because he will never come back, never give her that lopsided smile again, never again crack one of his awful jokes that still make her smile.

She almost skips his funeral. She cannot keep away, in the end, out of representative reasons alone, although they mean nothing at that time, dull echoes in the back of the back of her mind. What good is duty right now, when a rift has opened and swallowed a part of her life. Her face could as well be carved from stone, as little as her expressions change during the ceremony. Her eyes are surely devoid enough of life to pass for it. She does not feel like crying. Crying is not enough. It is also not right. Crying is reserved for when the night is too dark and sleep too elusive and the silence too loud. But not in front of all those people. Not in front of his casket. He wouldn’t have minded, but he would have known that she would have minded, so he would have accepted her shutting herself off during the memorial. She is one of the six carrying his casket, on the left side, middle position. Walking at his side one last time. Carrying part of his weight on her shoulder just like all of them had always carried each other whenever one had been hurt in the field. They had faced death together too often to count and now it had claimed the first of them when he had been alone and surrounded by enemies. No friendly face to bid him goodbye from this world, no warm voice soothing his final worries.

She does not throw a flower on top of the casket. She pinned his auror badge onto his robe before the casket was closed. That had been her final honoring. They had been more than just colleagues, but it had all begun and it had all ended with them being aurors. It was such a fundamental part of both of them that she was sure he knew what she had been trying to say with that gesture and that he would appreciate it.

She had been asked, among others, to say a few words at the service. At first, she had refused. Absolutely sure that she could not do it, could not keep the composure to do it. But when the service is held, she cannot not say something, just like the others. But she struggles with the words. As so often for her, the right ones refuse to come. Perhaps, she decides for her own sanity, there just are no right words for this. And because that is something that does not concern the numerous people in front of her, she settles on a detail, a side note of what she wants to say. She keeps it at that one sentence.

“Charles Delgado was too good a man to not see when a sacrifice was necessary for helping people and he was too noble one to let others carry that weight.”

She does not visit his grave again.

She closes herself off from the others.

She throws herself into the war effort even more.

She gets more reckless, joining raiding parties and the front lines more often, now that an end to this war is on the horizon. Her tactics grow ruthless. Where she would incapacitate before, she is ready to kill now. She feels like having lost the polar star, like her moral compass cannot pinpoint north any longer. His unabashed goodness had been such a grounding force that she feels like a storm has torn the ground from under her feet. She also sees no reason to try relocate it.

The ambush is brutal, quick and no one knows what is happening before it is almost too late. Grindelwald’s second in command in leading the twelve wizards. Five of her aurors are dead before they hit the ground. She manages to evade the green jet of light just so, more with accidental luck than by any honed skill. Different colours fly through the air in rapid time and she is bleeding from at least four different parts of her body when she finally has a second to breathe, which she uses to disapparate instead. Her ears pick up that there are voices yelling but her brain cannot begin to filter for the words to make sense as she stumbles forward and collapses into the arms of a person with familiar black hair.

When she wakes up again, she is lying in a hospital bed and Amelia Delgado is sitting one of those awfully uncomfortable plastic chairs that are part of every hospital in the world, chin fallen onto her chest and eyes closed. Liz does not know what to feel, is afraid of working through what she is actually feeling but she cannot stop the tears from falling silently as she slowly drifts back to sleep. The next time she wakes up, the others are there, too.

The boss yells at her. Kit threatens her with bodily harm if she is ever that stupid again. Yassa’s voice is so thick and her eyes so bright, Liz feels rotten all over again. And then, Amelia enters the room, a plastic cup of coffee in her hand, and she rushes to the bed and pulls Liz in an embrace, mumbling into her shoulder almost the exact words Kit used about never doing something that stupid again. And then she adds that she does not want to lose any of them, too. A dam breaks inside Liz. She tightens her arms around that young, brilliant woman and clings to her. She does not care for the tears that are falling freely. She babbles that she is sorry over and over again and it feels like it is not enough.

She has to spend a whole week in the hospital. By the fourth day, the president visits her to rope her back into tactical planning since she does not have to move for that. She has never seen a nurse get that angry at the highest ranking MACUSA employee, and she has been an active auror for very long by now.

When she is allowed to sign her lease, she expects to quickly drop by her flat and then head over to MACUSA. She does not expect for Yassa to wait for her on the hallway. She smiles at Liz faintly and escorts her to the Graves manor. The boss, out of all people, is pulling some sort of intervention crap for her. She can stay there. As Yassa does – of course. And as Amelia does. Apparently, even Kit is there most of the time.

“Being alone does not seem to be a good idea for any of us,” they say. They are righter than even they may realise themselves, she muses.

Amelia tries to talk with her. A lot. Liz is still rubbish at talking. They still understand each other, though. Amelia asks her to accompany her to Delgado’s grave. Liz feels like drowning but in the end, she agrees. It is the worst thing she has ever done but standing there at the stone engraved with his name and birth date is, in the end, strangely liberating. Amelia leaves first and then, as she is alone with him, Liz starts talking. She tells him how proud he ought to be of his daughter. How smart she is, smarter than Liz anyway, and that everyone is looking out for Amelia. She tells him how the mattress in her room is too soft and how weird it is to see the boss with bed hair every odd morning. She tells him how stupid she was and apologizes for not dealing better. She tells him how Picquery could not even wait for her to get discharged from the hospital before pestering her again. She tells him how Ibrahim had wreaked havoc in the kitchen at breakfast and how much he would have hated it. She tells him the names of their fellow aurors that also fell. She tells him they will win the war. She tells him how she wants to personally see to bringing Grindelwald to justice. Not by defeating him. She has no delusions of grandeur. But afterwards, when he already is brought down. She tells him she wants to be part of the people deciding his fate, if it comes to a trial, how she will be doing everything to get him the death sentence.

He has always been a good listener. And it is still so easy to confide in him.

“But I’m still not going to bring you flowers next time.”

The next time, she does indeed not bring flowers, but tells him how Grindelwald’s forces are crumbling.

The next time, she feels so numb she is not sure if she should not lie in the ground around somewhere close, too. She stays in front of his grave for two hours. In all that time, she only says two small words.

“It’s over.”

She visits his grave several days every week. He is still the easiest, the best person for her to talk to.

She tells him about the trial. About how long the process is dragged out. She rants about that lunatic Brit that is pledging for life-long imprisonment and how he has no right to rob thousands of people of their justice, no matter how big his final part in taking down Grindelwald has been. She tells him with tears of anger brimming in her eyes that Gellert Grindelwald will not be executed for his crimes.

She tells him, with no little smugness, when Picquery has to resign due to public demand. She tells him with a chuckle that the boss asked her to run for the elections. She tells him how she replied with ‘only if you’ll be my head of DMLE until I can find someone competent for the job’.

She tells him with bafflement that the boss showed up for work the following Monday. She tells him with a helpless laugh that she guesses she has to follow through, now, too.

She visits less frequently during the planning and carrying out of her campaign. It might also have something to do with her workload on top of that, which may not include Director of Magical Security right then, but demands countless hours to rebuild the nation that is still torn after the war per request of the appointed president, who might or might not try to keep her from running against him successfully.

Three years later, the elections take place.

“You’re not gonna believe it, Delgado,” she greets his tombstone with a hollow laugh, “I’m fucking president. I can’t believe I let myself get talked into that shitshow.”

She tells him how she has an eye on Amelia who is climbing ranks faster than a bludger. She tells him how proud he would be of her. How proud she is of her. How proud the others are of her. She tells him all about Amelia’s first own apartment and about the pictures of him on the mantlepiece. She tells him about the order Amelia gets for heroic actions in the field.

She tells him about how annoying politicians are and how much she misses being an auror. She tells him how she thinks that it was a mistake to run for office. She tells him about little things that annoy her, of stones other throw in her way sometimes. She tells him distraught how Amelia was injured on a dangerous mission. She tells him how much more she hates politics now that she has to deal with it as the only part of her job. She tells him when she manages to re-establish a new MACUSA office branch in San Francisco. She tells him how she thinks about screwing with the British delegate in the ICW every now and then because she still hates them sometimes. She tells him how the reform of laws on magical creatures is started.

One day, she tells him that she has decided to run for a second period. She tells him with the same befuddlement as the first time, that the public is apparently stupid enough to like her as their president. She tells him that she doesn’t mind all that much that they seem to not notice how much of a mess she is, even more so after the war than before. She tells him how someone in the wizengamot told her that the people like her for the jaded war hero persona. She tells him how stupid it sounds to her that they think it partly makes her a good leader, or at least a reliable one. She tells him how she still sometimes thinks about just sticking it to everyone and go join the boss who has finally opened his bar. She tells him how stupid she sometimes feels for still calling him boss, since she has technically been his boss for some time and now not even working with him anymore. Again. She tells him how much it hurts to head to the auror offices and not be able to tease Graves about something or other or just share a wary sigh in mutual understanding. She tells him how stupid she thinks herself for that after all that time and with how much she sees him at home since she never moved out of Graves manor after the war.

She tells him how Goldstein the younger came to her office and actually hugged her when the laws forbidding marriage with nomajs are abolished.

She tells him how much she misses the time before the war, when everything had been so much easier.

She tells him when she promotes Amelia to head auror.

She tells him when she starts to think about retirement.

After her last day at work, she first goes to Delgado’s grave. After half an hour of silence, she heads over to Graves’ bar.

She tells him about the Quidditch world cup that is hosted in the US.

She tells him when Amelia decides to run for president.

“You better be fucking proud of your baby girl, because she is going to be the fucking president.”

Maybe someone close by hears her and looks at her, shocked because that kind of crass language seems somewhat inappropriate for a woman of her age. But the one she is talking to would never mind. She knows that. He definitely did not mind while he had been alive, so why should he mind now.

Delgado had always been the easiest, the best person for her to talk to and even death had not been enough to stop him from being a good friend.

[ikemensengokufandom]

hello :) I'm an Ikemen Sengoku EN player. I want to ask you, how if our warlords living in our era? what's their job? and how's our live as husband, wife and have a child? thanks a lot :)

ODA NOBUNAGA:

> He will be a President/Chairman of a big corporate company. > He will still be narcissistic AF, and will do anything to take down his competitor.   Making sure that his company will be the biggest/No. 1 in Japan. > As his wife you’ll be a frickin’ rich housewife.  > You and Nobunaga will probably have a Son.  > Although Nobunaga is busy he will make sure that he will make out some time for you and your son.  > Nobunaga will have Mama Hideyoshi as a very good PA to assist him.  When he really make out some time for his family, poor mama Hideyoshi will probably need to work OT… > Nobunaga will probably teach his son how to fight for survival even though he’s probably a toddler.> You’ll have to constantly get into a small argument of your husband everytime when he overfed your son too much sugar candies.  You know that he won’t listen and he’s too stubborn to understand the consequence of sugar rush.  > But you get used to it anyway and all you can do is sigh as you got a big kid and a small kid to handle.

DATE MASAMUNE:

> He will probably be a hottest chef/restaurant owner if he lives in our era. >His cooking is so good that he won Michelin award. > He is so popular that every female customer wants to bang him.> You as a wife will be assisting him in the restaurant and will get jealous when some female customer got too close to him. > But he still loves you and your daughter anyway. > Did I mentioned that he will have a daughter?  Oh yes.> He will make dad jokes and embarrassed his daughter in front of customers sometimes. > If his daughter has a BF, he will go nuts.  Probably not chasing him around with kitchen knife but showing off his chopping skills scares the poor dude off.> Sometimes when the restaurant are quiet/closing, he’ll do kinky things and you guys probably fuck in the kitchen. > You will have the best sex life with a hot chef ever.  

AKECHI MITSUHIDE:

(Wow, to be honest I am not sure what will his occupation would be considering he’s so mysterious.  Let me give it a try.) > Investor.  He’ll probably be a good investor in a huge investment company considering his sharp tongue. > You and him will have 2 sons, a pair of twin. > As he needs to drink with his clients often, he might not have time for you and your sons. > Your sons are not happy that their papa is not spending enough time with you. > Like their father, they’re pretty smart/scheming.  So they always have something up on their sleeves to make their papa spend more time with you instead of drinking with his clients.  So there’s this one time they used his computer and booked air tickets after they managed to steal Mitsuhide’s credit card when he was bathing. > But their father is smart, like come on kids you’re of the same gene.  He would have figured it out. > Instead of punishing his sons, he just grinned and pretend he knows nothing as he really want to spend time with you and at the same time it make their kids happy.  > He just patted his sons’ head, then kissed you on the forehead saying that he’s giving you a surprise; a holiday trip of four.  

TOKUGAWA IEYASU:

> He will be a doctor. > A doctor that every nurse would want to bang on him but he thinks that they’re annoying and tend to avoid them unless it’s work purposes.> He is also a strict doctor and will tend to get angry with his patients if they don’t take care of themselves, resulting themselves to get worse if they neglected their health. > He’s a strict husband to you as you’re pregnant with a baby girl.  He will control whatever you eat and will make sure that you’re taken care of / have the best as he’s a worrywart.  > Constantly provide baby education by playing classical music and read storybooks as he believe that that’s beneficial for your baby.> Sometimes you’ll get into a small argument with him as he won’t give in your cravings, because he believed that they are not healthy.  > He’ll rubbed on your swollen belly and grumble about it, like as if he is complaining to his baby.> You giggle when you see him talking to the baby, as his smile shows that he cares and has proved that he will be a great father once your baby girl is born.

TOYOTOMI HIDEYOSHI:

> Works for Nobunaga as his PA. > People will call him as “Mama of the company” as sometimes he nags to the staff like as if he is their mother. > A great assistant to Nobunaga, but also strict on Nobunaga’s sugar intake.> A sweet husband who will shower you with morning kisses everyday.  > You and him will have a cute daughter, who likes to be around her papa everyday. > Hideyoshi loves his family, and you and his daughter priority are always number one other than Nobunaga. > He will be the type who will help out with housework and cooking, as he doesn’t want to tire you out.  > He will also be a great teacher to his daughter when it comes to homework, and a very patient dad indeed. > But one day, he went instantly nuts when he saw his daughter holding on a male classmate’s hands while he’s there to pick her up from school.  > Ever since that day, he will constantly make a detour to his daughter’s school and pick her up, as he is worried that the boy might snatched her away from him. > You understand that your husband is jealous, and you couldn’t help but giggled everytime when he’s back with his daughter.  When you asked him when he’ll stop doing that, he replied by saying that until the boy stopped approaching her.  > You imagined that life will be harder if your daughter is getting married in the future…. as you can’t wait what will be his reaction by then.

ISHIDA MITSUNARI:

> He will be a great teacher.> He is patient and will constantly help the students if they are having problem with their subjects.  > You and him will have a son and daughter.  > Both children will be as smart as him, and will constantly ask their papa questions. > Sometimes he will offer to help you in terms of housework and cooking…. but you rather not want his help as he is clumsy and will make things even worse.> But you’ll be nice and told him to read stories to his children instead.> He will also be the one who tell bedtime stories everynight, and his children enjoy that as he’s a good storyteller.> Once your children are asleep, he’ll hugged you from behind and whispered “I love you, thank you for your hard work.” and nibbled on your ears.  > Then he’ll lead you to the bed and shower you with love. > Although he’s a teacher and a good gentle father by day, but at night he’s probably a closet pervert and wanted to explore your body…. using “I need it for biology reference" as an excuse.  

SANADA YUKIMURA : > A hot tsundere policeman. > He will be protective of you and make sure that you’re safe by following you to work and bringing you home everyday.> You and him will have a son, who is as tsundere as him> Your son and him hardly speak to each other due to their similar personality.  > One time it changed when he saw his son got bullied.  > He confronted the bullies and protected his son. > His son will be “It’s not like I want your protection… but thanks.” reaction.  Yukimura still smiled anyway and gave a head pat, telling him that he’ll be teaching him self-defense.  > You’re surprised when you see Yukimura and his son are having training together.  You felt happy as finally you no longer need to be in the middle as you might not need to hear their sarcasm towards each other.  > You thanked Yukimura and gave him a kiss on his cheek.  > When your son saw that he got jealous and hell breaks, things are going back to the starting point again… and oh boy you regretted it.  

TAKEDA SHINGEN :

> He will be an online business owner who sells DIY furniture. (According to his route yep) > When he meet with his customers to deliver the items, he often got approached by the female customers.> As he’s married, he kindly rejected them and spends more time with you instead.> Knowing that you’re pregnant with a boy, he will massage you every single night when you’re having cramps / trying to make you relax.> He will constantly rub on your belly and whisper to his son, telling him to go easy on you as you’re having a hard time right now. > He will be damm patient, especially when you’re having cravings / fits.  He will try to satisfy you and sooth you down by coaxing you.  > He will tell you that everything is going to be alright and will cherish you and your son forever, showering you kisses and hugged you until you’re able to fall asleep.  > He will watched you sleep and won’t sleep until he saw your smile while sleeping.  

UESUGI KENSHIN :

> A strict husband and a father.  > A President/Chairman of a big corporate company, Nobunaga’s competitor. > You’re his secretary and he will make sure that you’re by his side 24/7> He will make any guy to work OT for a week if they approached you and spoke to you for longer than a minute. > Sometimes you tried to persuade him not to do that but he shuts you down with a kiss. > Both of you have a beautiful daughter.  > He is protective AND possessive towards you and your daughter.  > He even made threats towards his daughters’ male classmates and teachers when they talk to her. > You said that he is ruining her social life but he doesn’t care anyway, saying that she should be hanging out with girls more than boys. > He even wanted to send her to a girls’ school / a nun school but you stopped him. > Although he is over protective af, you know that he deeply loves you and his daughter.

[little-blue-tiefling]

♦: Slow dancing

♦: Slow dancing from this prompt list. Would have done this earlier but I’ve been on mobile all day and dont trust writing on mobile.

Pairing: Sara/Vetra (because of course)

A bar on Kadara wasn’t exactly the best place for a date, even by Sara’s standards. It just didn’t exactly have the most romantic atmosphere, with a dagger stuck in between the grains of the bar’s counter and a week old blood splash dried, stubbornly clinging onto the wall by the table next to them.

Not that Sara could complain. It wasn’t as though they had come to Kadara for the purpose of a date or anything. No, in fact she, Vetra and Drack had originally come for another reason. Which then turned into another. And another. For some reason whenever they were on Kadara the second they finished one task another always seemed to crop up. You’d think people who managed to survive for so long without Nexus help wouldn’t be so quick to demand help from the pathfinder – but no. They were almost desperate for the help.

They’d spent the best part of three days traipsing around the place, going as far as they would physically allow themselves for some rather pointless reasons. Granted, it all helped the planet in the long run, but Sara was getting pretty fed up with the planet by now. Well, Sara was pretty tired anyway, but the bar still had her on alert and she was finding it hard to relax. At least, she thought, this is the better of Kadara’s two bars. Though honestly, that wasn’t saying much.

Drack had left her and Vetra to themselves after running into an old contact of his and the only people around right now were a few drunk Salarians and one Krogan. Essentially, this was the most time they’d had alone with one another in a while. There wasn’t much either could think to say now, words having been wasted throughout the rest of the day’s journey, and Sara was officially banned from drinking anything alcoholic while on Kadara. She didn’t need any more of those vids spreading around after all. So they just sat comfortably together, Vetra’s hand resting over Sara’s as she nursed her drink.

It was nice. Comfortable and familiar. The two hadn’t been an official item for all that long, yet they had already fallen into a routine. They had fallen into habits. They had already developed a blissful appreciation of the other. Vetra had a lot of respect for Sara and the problems she had overcome, and Sara, in turn, held respect for Vetra and how she’d raised Sid. When they were together like this, that respect, their adoration, it doubled. Tripled. Small stolen glances, a soft stroke against the back of Sara’s hand, and a gentle smile reminded them how much they cared and how much they’d been through to get to where they were now.

It was clear to Vetra that Sara was still stressed, however. Her girlfriend’s jaw held a stubborn clench and her clear blue eyes were darting around the bar as though something could pounce on them at any minute. “We should dance,” Vetra suggested as the idea came to her, placing the empty glass down on their table and clasping Sara’s hand completely within her own.

“We should not,” Sara countered, the memories of dancing in Kadara were not exactly a high point of her time in Kadara.

Still, Vetra persisted and pulled her to her feet and, despite the initial complaint, Sara quickly became compliant when she realised how close Vetra was to her.

The Turian wrapped an arm around her waist with a smooth action, liquid courage made her more confident than usual and allowed her to take the initiative. “The music doesn’t suit slow dancing,” Sara noted, though there was an excited gleam in her sky blue eyes and a loving smile playing at her lips that told Vetra she didn’t particularly mind.

Indeed, the fast paced techno pulse that beat through the bar like a small bird’s heart when staring down a wolf was not the ideal music for slow dancing, but Vetra hardly noticed. Sara was already the only thing worth her attention right now. “We’ve always moved to our own beat, anyway,” she murmured, sighing as Sara pulled herself in closer and – despite the initial struggle - wrapped her arms around her neck.

Resting her chin atop Sara’s head, Vetra began to sway first. Their armour abandoned in the Tempest - and with only one pistol resting in a holster on Sara’s belt - the two were overly exposed in the Port. But neither cared, for here swaying to music that was far too loud and faced paced to suit their dancing, everything paled and blurred around them.

Rather than the obnoxious tunes coming from the bar’s radio, their movements better matched Sara’s heart. A heart that fluttered gently at every soft brush of Vetra’s hands on her waist, every sigh of contentment she felt against her hair and every step when Vetra drew herself just a little bit closer so that they were just a little bit more connected to one another.

The gentle, soft swaying soothed Sara’s alertness, calmed her and brought her to a state of serenity. This gave her a chance to relax, no, Vetra gave her a chance to relax as she so often did. Sara was thankful for this, something she didn’t even realise she needed so badly. Contact with the girl she loved, something gentle and soft. Something that warmed her from the core of her soul. So much stress unwound when she was wrapped in Vetra’s protecting arms, so much worry dissipated into nothing as though she was swaying on clouds, and not on the dirt covered floor in Kadara.

Sara snuggled closer, letting her forehead come to rest on Vetra’s unusually unarmoured chest.

“You seem happy now,” Vetra noted, the change in Sara an obvious one. She didn’t seem so wound up anymore. She didn’t seem so rigid.

“I admit, you do know how to cheer me up.”

Vetra chuckled, moving her left hand up to play with Sara’s deep brown hair. “Just wait until we get back to the tempest,” she joked with a wink.

“Maybe I’ll teach you how to play ‘Snakes and Ladders’,” Sara suggested with a grin, looking up at her girlfriend to give her the full effect of her teasing.

“Maybe I’ll teach you how to play a game where the rules actually make sense,” Vetra countered back, her hands still playing with Sara’s hair, fascinated as she always had been. The two of them still swayed back and forth, not even noticing when the bar started to fill up with more exiles.

“'Snakes and Ladders’ makes perfect sense. Just wait until we play Monopoly. That one’s always fun to play.”

Vetra didn’t reply to that. Instead, she lowered herself to Sara’s level. One hand still resting on her waist and another still in her hair as she kissed her softly in the middle of the bar, ignoring the world around them completely as they were so lost in each other, and so lost in the sound of their own silent song, that everything else became mute.

——————

I haven’t written fanfiction in a long time, so if its terrible you can inform me. Honestly I just really want to practice my writing since its something I enjoy but need to work on (as with all creative skills - you can always get better)

But I do love these two, and need to play them more so I can get more of a feel for their characters.

[thecloudlight-blog]

New Post has been published on Cloudlight

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The fight over Obamacare is hurting health

The trendy effort to update Obamacare has serious effects for hundreds of thousands of Americans who depend on government-backed fitness care. But it has additionally solid uncertainty on hiring in the fitness care enterprise, which has been a using pressure inside the united states monetary recuperation and growth.

Since the begin of the recession, the fitness care industry has created 2.5 million new jobs in hospitals,

Nursing homes, and health practitioner’s workplaces. Aging baby boomers and the developing quantity of senior citizens who need fitness offerings has led to the higher call for health care people. The passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, which required all Americans to buy medical insurance and multiplied federal subsidies, also recommended hiring.

The today’s jobs record, launched Friday

Shows just how plenty the fitness care region maintains to fuel activity boom. The US economy brought 211,000 jobs in April, consistent with the estimates launched Friday by means of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s greater than double the quantity for March, which was surprisingly low. Aside from entertainment and hospitality jobs, some of the largest activity gains got here from hiring inside the health care zone, which brought 20,000 jobs. Nurses, physicians, and home health aides were many of the maximum in-call for positions.

The Secrets of Scientific Street Fighting

Scientific street preventing is all approximate knowledge the human bodies physiological response to a fight and knowledge the effectiveness of diverse avenue combating strategies based totally on statistics.

Scientific road combating might also sound complex but it is now not. It is actually quite simple. The satisfactory element is it’s far virtually less complicated than getting to know a martial artwork. The key is that medical avenue fighting eliminates showing difficult to do moves in want of simple techniques which have a confirmed music report of fulfillment.

So here we go…

How Your Body Reacts To A Street Fight:

The first component many humans notes (and the most important matters with regards to fighting) is that your palms start to shake. This isn’t always a sign which you are scared; it’s far your body’s natural reaction to a life threatening scenario.

What does this suggest for medical road fighting?

It way that first-class motor competencies shut down, things like handwriting or complicated martial arts moves (like joint locks that require several steps). This is seriously vital so pay interest.

Why inside the international might your frame shut down first-class motor abilities whilst your life is being threatened? The component is your body sacrifices first-class motor skills for increased electricity and pace in gross (or large) motor abilities. These are a good deal extra essential things like going for walks, jumping, punching, and kicking.

The key to clinical avenue preventing is knowing this response

And growing a combating gadget that takes complete advantage of your stronger and quicker gross motor capabilities. Don’t even waste some time looking to research complicated moves your frame simply may not let you use in the warmness of the moment.

The lack of excellent motor talent is via some distance the most crucial part of clinical street preventing however here are a few more response which can be pretty cool:

Your pores and skin will pass faded because your body is limiting blood drift to the skin. This reduces blood loss from shallow cuts and scrapes you may probably get hold of.

To shop electricity you mind stops recording as many quick term memories. This is why human beings regularly can not do not forget precisely what passed off after a disaster or fight.

There are a number of other really cool matters your frame does to get you equipped for a combat, however, when it comes to clinical road fighting the number one component to reflect consideration on is specializing in gross motor capabilities.

ObamaCare, An Epic Failure Indeed

President Donald Trump plans to have his administration paintings with Congress to “repeal and replace” ObamaCare. Our President believes that there are a few excellent provisions inside the law – no denial of medical insurance for existing health troubles and the capacity for dad and mom to preserve their kids on their health plans properly into their 20s. Sure, sounds suitable. Of route, the left does not need the proper to touch ObamaCare and previous President Obama is worried that repealing the AHA – Affordable Healthcare Act destroys his management legacy – and maybe he is right?

Recently, right after the 2016 Presidential Election, I heard a highbrow declare that ObamaCare brought 20 million – folks who never had insurance earlier than. ObamaCare did not upload 20 million. It brought 14 million in case you depend on the quantity of those who have been insured who lost their coverage and have been pressured into ObamaCare. But even that quantity is incorrect as it fast became 12 million and is now at 10.Five million (November 28, 2016). We have 325 million or greater in the US now (no longer such as the unlawful aliens which we definitely haven’t any clue as to exactly how many are here).

Think of this Ten Percent is 32.5 million. 10 million is much less than three% of our populace,

All of the whilst everybody else’s health insurance for the duration of that time went up one hundred%. I’d had been k with it, if my health insurance most effective went up by way of that 10% and 32 million uninsureds were then insured, but their guarantees rang hollow – ObamaCare is an EPIC Failure. Even PEW Research (k-avenue law office/Left-Leaning Think Tank) says ObamaCare simplest brought 12 million and hasn’t up to date that discern on the grounds that.

Worse, in lots of states human beings most effective have one desire now for his or her health insurance and in some states no picks. All the while forty% of the ObamaCare signal-u.S.A.Have not paid their charges. The younger wholesome human beings had been priced out of the medical health insurance marketplace, those millennials are had to pay in and offset the charges so older individuals who do often need fitness care offerings can keep their coverage prices less expensive. It didn’t paintings; ObamaCare is a Flop.

Realize that no one is going to die in the streets without healthcare coverage

Despite the fact that they temporarily don’t have it. You see, it is against the law for an emergency room to not treat a human in immediate need. Further the HIPPA rules (Yes, Bush) killed off maximum of the loose-clinics in large towns because of costs to cope with all those new policies – IT needs, charges to improve – I count on HIPPA regs had been partly because of Silicon Valley lobbyists who like Technocrats assume with computers you could run and manipulate everything. Anyway, because of this and unlawful extraterrestrial beings taking walks into medical institution emergency rooms inflicting a few two hundred hospitals to shut, maximum in poorer regions or near the border — We destroyed our fitness care machine, created a monster and allowed socialists to hijack 1/fifth of our financial system.

It wasn’t just ObamaCare, however, ObamaCare became no answer both, it made it so much worse – and yes, healthcare Ins. Lobbyists wrote that bill and that they signed it to see what became of it. “It changed into a 3000-web page turn and Obama’s legacy is crap,” a few say. I bet I agree, how approximately you (in hindsight of course)?

Gut Health and Autoimmune Disease

One of the most important recent clinical revelations is the critical connection between intestine health and wellness. Ongoing scientific studies indicate that the microbiome, the best bacteria in our intestine, facilitates save you (possibly even heal) autoimmune sicknesses. In truth, our bodies are full of extra wholesome micro organism than real human cells!

Being that the intestine is the center of our immune device (making up almost 80 percentage), it is enormously crucial to develop nourishing exercises and practices. Although a healthful microbiome is partially inherited, there are many alternatives you may make to make sure a functioning, protected and flourishing immune machine – study on below to analyze extra!

Link to Autoimmune Diseases.

Characterized through the immune gadget concentrated on ordinary proteins as although they may be harmful invaders, there are over eighty kinds of autoimmune diseases. This excessive alert response results in a chronically infected immune system. Often debilitating, autoimmune diseases along with rheumatoid arthritis or celiac disease have a big impact on normal lifestyles. Increasing numbers of medical experts agree with that microbiome imbalances can play a component in triggering autoimmune troubles.

Poor Dietary Choices.

The maximum foundational element of preserving a healthful gut is organizing excellent dietary habits. An eating regimen with high quantities of subtle carbohydrates, sugar, and alcohol can increase your intestine’s manufacturing of terrible micro organism and weaken its lining. However, there are countless meals you could upload in your food plan to help facilitate better gut fitness. Be positive to are seeking for out plenty of meals packed with probiotics (or right micro organism) which includes yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, miso paste, sourdough, and pickles. In addition, a weight loss program wealthy in prebiotics will assist to feed those true probiotics. Add for your weight loss plan masses of fruits and vegetables full of fiber such as berries, leafy inexperienced veggies, and cruciferous veggies.