#because the creek is the only reason why there are trees there. the whole shape of the forest follows the stream

[vodid]

Hey, dream pal again….

I am okey, sorry if the “worst week of my life” coment freaked you out, im cool.

I did walk through a forest, but funny enough I had walked in it many times irl and was around said forest when the dream happened, so I just assumed this is why I dreamed about it. I was with Jazz there and here is were I lost the short guy and found “you”... I wasnt sure about the oak trees since I am not a fauna guy but after looking up how they look, huh, guess what? there were in the dream too.

One of the things that really haunted me about the dream is that I know and I have been in all the places of said dream while awake… Even the store you drew has a strong resemblance to a store I know, but again… no mural which I find so intriguing.

I do remember talking to the girl I found while Jazz was still in the store. I don’t remember much of the conversation besides comments on Jazz, the death environment and someone saying that it was going to be okey (I trully don’t know who said that). I remember getting angry, but not the reason why I got angry.

The dream doesn’t end in the store for me. After the store we hit the road, and I sat on Jazz’s passenger seat as I looked out of the window, I wasn’t alone in the car, and I know more than one person was on the car, but I dont know if it was the same girl from the store. I know they *looked* white (it could be the cappibara lady, who knows), but we where quiet all the way.

In the dream I knew there had been an apocalypse and I knew Jazz was the only Autobot I could find, but I was also aware (to a small degree) that is was a dream. Who knows maybe this is why I got angry when we left the store.

This is so freaky… The dream doesn’t end on the road either, at least not for me (who knows, maybe the car passenger NPCs logged into a different server)… But after that I was alone.

I have to ask, in the forest did you happen to see other animals (a mule/ donkey)? or a small cabin?

Dude Imagine I end up finding the other people in the dream… that would be, creepy ngl.

The dream pal,

- R

i'm happy to hear that! <3

oak trees are pretty common but they felt very prevalent enough in the forest i walked through that it was worth noting. usually, where i live, they're a bit more sparse and mixed with tons of other trees.

and before i continue, this got EXTREMELY long and detailed so i'm placing everything under a cut hsdfsdfs

the forest in my dream was one i walked through many times irl too!! it was heavily based off the forest right behind my house at first, which has a small creek in it (that's where i started off in my dream actually. went into my backyard, saw a capybara and followed her into the forest) but the path and size were different, both much larger. the path went straight instead of turning left, there were more slopes around it, a thicker canopy, and the creek i passed through was further in and running perpendicular instead of parallel (it was more reminiscent of a wider part of my creek downstream, but the location was all wrong) there was also a small hill just before or right after the creek. around that point, it melded with a different forest i've walked through only a few times before: the forest behind my high school, which had a mf maze for its trails that we hiked on a few times and a very large river in the deepest part, to the left. the desire path i walked on in the dream was a lot more like those ones. perhaps, if you were the girl, you walked on a different trail until we bumped into each other? (tho i don't particularly remember there being any forks in the path)

the supermarket was a lot like a regular ol walmart but it doesn't particularly remind me of any i know. most walmarts here are part of a strip mall/near one and i don't remember if there were rly many other buildings in the plaza from my dream. probably all got destroyed. not sure, the details of the plaza are fuzzy besides a very, very dusty and crumbled parking lot. very large lot, but i'm not sure how large, and how much had dirt and grass had grown over it

the mural i'm sure is something straight out of horizon forbidden west. there are holograms in the game of the heroes of the apocalypse? called "ten." the holograms had a couple graphics that the mural was most likely based off of, mainly the orange and yellow background (stole this pic from ign)

after seeing the mural, jazz didn't move or speak in the rest of the full dream. he just sat on the rubble next to the mural. i would've loved to have hit the road lol but i guess he needed time. i really wish i remembered more about what happened towards the end, but i do know that, alongside the worry and the sympathy, there were feelings of dread and a slight urgency. we weren't in active danger, but we could be. that place was abandoned for a reason. (it felt as though jazz was the one in danger, but he found the girl to be in more danger than he was. classic guardian syndrome i guess LOL)

that's so wack tho. we both in some way knew we were dreaming (usually i am not aware of that in mine) and everything i bumped into was some amalgamation of a place i have been to before, even if the general area was a bit more rural than where i live lol there wasn't a cabin tho. mainly just feelings of there being stores and more houses (i live in the suburbs) around us. the houses kind of had the feeling of... being very recently built or still under construction? obviously they're not new now but back then, before the apocalypse, whenever that was, they would've been brand new. not sure if that's an important detail lol

i don't remember bumping into any animals besides the capybaras and maybe a chipmunk or squirrel but i did collect vegetables/fruits?? there were like. bright red tomatoes, cabbage and fresh peaches i picked up from around tree trunks (reminded me a lot of things like breath of the wild) and i tried to give them to the mother/child to help them, since it was clear they were looking for food, but the mother did NOT trust me. she didn't want to be near me and i'm not sure why i kept following her. she looked like she felt a bit uneasy around me as she did not speak english at first, so it was easy to misunderstand my intentions

anyway i decided to give the general area of my dream a go, so let me know if anything in it reminds you of something. it's hard to nail every detail exactly, since you know how dreams like to do good ol switch-a-roos on things but this should be at least a little true to my dream

it's very possible the forest trail was longer but i do not have a solid concept of the time i spent on it. mainly just the beginning. also not sure if jazz and the woman appeared before or after the creek. it was a very shallow but wide stream (honestly i do not remember really walking through it. i just remember seeing it but i KNOW it ran through the trail) anyway, don't be fooled, this whole place i drew is MASSIVE. imagine it's close to a mile long from top to bottom. the forest was huge, the parking lot was huge, the area beyond (north-northeast) was huge with powerlines that felt like they ran parallel to the street but looked like they went perpendicular ...not sure how that worked. they had a field with lots of overgrown tall, dry grass tho

either way, i hope something looks familiar! dreams are so weird with how much context they can provide without needing to actually see it? so i hope you can trust my word on this lol i built purely off what i remember feeling in my dream. and honestly, if i had to say, definitely felt like that sort of area would've had a donkey LMAO or maybe more so deer, but i did not see any nor feel any from the given context

also wondering, how tall are you? and a little more obscure, but do you own or have owned any shirts like this? it's a regular long sleeve, waffle knit shirt with some sort of magenta heather pattern (thanks google for making me have to draw it)

it's probably not important but thought to ask anyway on the off chance you do

[miqojak]

Wish

(( In which @ketsuchikotetsu​ inspired a bevy of emotions Jak doesn’t really know how to process, so of course she handled it in the weirdest/kind of endearing way possible.))

His words sting - though, perhaps, not for the reasons he wants them to - I’ve touched a wound, and it’s only natural that he’d snarl and snap. I don’t know, really, how the topic came about, but we end up here, again. The way he speaks of himself hurts me, though - it’s like a gut-punch that takes my breath away. He’d rather forgo any attempt at happiness, and moving forward, and just...stagnate until death claims him. He’d rather sit and punish himself for matters long since beyond his control, than even attempt a single step forward, at risk of having it all stripped away yet again.

It hurts me...and yet, who knows that feeling better than I do?

It’s not as though I don’t know the taste of his grief; I may never have held a lover as close as he held his late wife - after all, it’s not like I’ve had that many - but I lost all of my immediate family, save one, at the hands of the Garleans. Slowly, and painfully, at that. I know what it is to spend every single day punishing yourself; I know what it is to beg death to take you next; to demand of the world to know why you lived, and not them; to devote yourself to your family...and have absolutely nothing left to show for it in the end as they’re ripped away from you.

But I also know that...he helped me drag my head above water, and see that there’s more than just pain...if I let myself do so. The twisted irony of it is coming to care for the man who won’t let me care for him - who refuses to live, in the shadow of death.

We have to try, don’t we? To live, because the others didn’t get to.

He leaves me reeling - working hard to steady my breath, with an oncoming headache from the slammed door, and withheld grief that stings my eyes. I’m not much better off emotionally, than he is. I’m just...afraid of wasting a life that I feel like I only have at the expense of others. If they died, and I lived, I have the responsibility to do something with it, right?

I don’t know what to do with myself, and my chest hurts - I’m angry. I’m mad at him, for refusing to take even the first step. I’m mad at her, for leaving him - strange as it may sound, for one who’s grown to care for him as much as I have. I’m mad at me, for not knowing what to do for him; at the sheep, who sleep soundly in their pens knowing nothing of the grief that the two of us wrestle with every moment of every day.

I find myself on the doorstep of a flower shop, in the Lavender Beds - it’s what he and his wife had planned on, right? Settling down into something like this, before that flame of hers flickered out too soon. I don’t know...why, but I just...it seemed right. I don’t even know her name, but I don’t need to, really. She meant everything to him, and still does - and the genuine sorrow writ on his features when he speaks of her death...

I don’t know what to do with this grief...for me, or for him. So I fumble around the shop, feeling more the fool with every second that passes...I hate flowers, really. They’ve never been my thing - beautiful for a heartbeat, but they’re wilted and dead before a day is out.

It’s not really about me, right now, though.

I’m a bit overwhelmed - by the colors, the smells, and the variety of flowers in all shapes and sizes. The Lalafell that runs the shop asks if I need any help, and I stare down at her blankly - the silence stretching on a bit too long, and I begin to feel more and more as though I don’t belong here. I feel like this little woman can tell I don’t belong in this place, like an ugly, red blemish. I can likewise tell that this compulsory grief won’t give me long, so I mutter something vague and tell her it’s fine - I’ll take these purple ones here, and it’s okay, I can get them myself. It’s a spur of the moment decision...but purple seems right. It’s his color, after all. She’d probably appreciate that...but who knows? It’s the thought, right? I hurriedly pay the little woman, red in the face the whole while, and carry the bouquet from the shop as if it were an infant - carefully, gently...awkwardly, as if I might crush it if I’m not hyper-aware of its existence in my grip.

It takes some time to find a suitable spot - the moon high overhead before I settle in beneath half a towering, over-turned log. It’s heavy, grief. Heavy enough that even my paranoia, and fear of the forest, is forgotten, this night. 

“I was going to go to the burial mounds, but...that seems too...clean. Too boring for you or me.” I feel small, here - with the night sky full of diamonds, stretching on forever, alongside towering trees that would make even a Roe feel like an ant. I feel a bit silly, talking to no one, but from what he’s told me...and from what I’ve gathered from her decor left behind in his home...she’d have liked it around here. It’s peaceful - even a desert-dweller like me can admit to a serenity that steals over you in the night’s chorus of insects, burbling of water, and the general ambient sounds a forest makes as parts of it fall asleep, and other parts only just begin to awaken.

“I don’t really know what to do for him...or me, if I’m honest. It’s hard to argue with him, and tell him he’s wrong for not wanting to have such a hurt again; for refusing to budge from the bottom of such a deep well of grief. How can I, who’s not even out of the same seemingly bottomless pit, hope to shine a light in darkness that feels like it goes on forever? He helped me up, but won’t take a hand up, himself, so what is there to do?”

No response comes, save for the far away crack of wood, as the forest settles in for the night.

“I miss my mother’s strength, and my father’s wisdom. I miss my sisters’ laughter. I miss racing across the desert sands, and laughing in the heat of a bonfire.” It’s a crushing weight, and one that bows my back even here. I drop my head into my hand, as its twin continues to cradle those purple and white blossoms, “I suppose his grief has become mine, as well, by virtue of proximity and affection alike. I hate that he hurts for you. I hate that you’ve left him so hollow. I love that he smiles, however, when he speaks of you, at times...I just wish that...” My visions blurs, but I turn my eyes to the stars anyways, and the twisting nebulas that paint the dark canvas of the sky. Wishes are for fools, just as much as flowers are.

“I wish that he cared about himself even a fraction of as much as either of us have, and do. I wish he smiled - for real - more often.” I shift those flowers in my lap, and trace the pad of a finger over the velvet of one of those indigo petals. “I don’t know if it’s true, that some piece of us lingers on, in the lifestream, semi-aware of the world - but if so, I find that I hope it doesn’t hurt you, to see him so, as it does me. I find that I...admire the specter of you, as much as I resent that he seems to cut himself on the memory of you. The way he speaks of you, I almost wish I’d known you, even.” 

For a time, I simply watch that little purple flower spin and drift away, before it’s lost behind a rock, tugged towards that bottleneck that will carry it into the heart of the forest, “I don’t expect him to stop hurting, or stop thinking of you. I just wish he could learn to live with that grief, and accept that he’s allowed to be happy. Honestly, I’m working on that too, even if I don’t really know how to be happy. But there’s something like it, with him.”

I slide off the mossy stone, pluck a purple flower from the bouquet, and leave the rest of them atop the rock on which I perched; I then take that flower, and squat next to the nearby pool that leads back, and away, into another creek that joins yet another river - there’s something to it that makes me think of the lifestream, and the souls adrift in it. “I’m trying, I suppose, to take care of him, in my way. But he’s stubborn...and I’m pretty bad at it, honestly - I feel I failed my family the same way he feels he failed you. Realistically, I know neither of us are failures - life is simply chaotic, and beyond our control. Death is a force beyond any of us. By his own logic, we both waste time in blaming ourselves for things long past that were never within our control to begin with...but it stands that no matter how hard I’ve tried, no matter how much I’ve loved...it’s never enough, really. I fail, and I fail, and I fail. The people around me that I’ve held close either die, or leave of their own volition.”

I let myself enjoy the little flower’s scent briefly, before I set it adrift, to be gently pulled back, and away, where it will join with the rest of this forest’s lifeblood. “I think...I think I love him, - ” It gives me goosebumps, to say it out loud...and just the twinge of a bellyache, “ - and I hope that’s okay with you, at least. I don’t think either of us want to look it in the eye, but it doesn’t change anything. I won’t let him die, though, if it’s within my power to prevent as much. I guess I’ll promise you that much. He’d probably hate me, if I gave my life for his, whether or not he actually gives a shit about me. But I’ll protect him, hm?” I dust myself off, and re-claim my legs, “As much as a man like him needs protecting, anyways. He’d scoff at me, for that one...but no one is immortal.” 

When I look at the stars, it’s my family I think of - how these are the same stars we looked upon years ago, in a desert far, far from here; how these stars existed then, and now, and will continue to wink down at the Spoken long after I’m gone.

No matter how many calamities, this star of our own keeps spinning - so why can’t we?

“I’d bend the laws of magic - the laws of life and death itself - if it’d light his own fire again...but I’ll have to settle for what these little hands can do on their own, I’m afraid.” I look at them, for a quiet moment - hands that have stitched wounds, torn out throats, and traced his every scar. They’re capable of much...but perhaps they’ve met their match, in one just as hard-headed, and broken as I am.

It’s never stopped me before, though - I’ll simply have to keep trying.

[thiswasinevitableid]

82, Sternclay, NSFW if possible? Ty so much for all your great fics <3 -☀️

You’re welcome! I hope you enjoy the fill. It’s NSFW, and involves mating cycles, because my A03 stats suggest a lot of y’all like that.

82. you knock on my door at 2 in the morning because your very white cat got out and you need help trying to find them in the three feet of snow we have

He has no one but himself to blame. 

Stern is always so careful about shutting the doors in this cabin, as the old hinges and worn frames can send them swinging open when coupled with a strong wind. He thought he had that same care when he came in with more firewood from the basement, which can only be accessed through by going out of the house and then down to the locked door. 

Apparently not. At one, he went to check on Yeti and found the back door open and the faintest shape of feline paws leading into the darkness. 

They’ve got two feet of snow on the ground, with another foot forecasted to fall by morning. And Yeti is sleek and snow-white.

He’s wandered the perimeter of the house, left her favorite blanket out on the covered porch, and tried in vain to follow the tracks, filled in by the falling snow. He’s been outside for an hour now, with no sign of her. Not even the jingle of her collar in the cold air. He’s shivering, but he can’t stop the search; Yeti is out here, cold and scared and it’s all his fault. 

As he’s crunching through the snow, warm light spills onto the trees. His neighbors  (a loose term out here) house. He couldn’t stand waking Barclay up to help him, but if he’s already awake…

Stern raps on the door, and four seconds later it opens, his neighbor looking like a lumberjack centerfold given life, even in his sweatpants and brown sweater. 

“Joe? Is something wrong?”

“It’s Yeti, she got out without me noticing and I can’t find her, I’ve been out here an hour and there’s no sign. I, um, I know it’s a stretch but can you help me look for her? We can cover more ground that way.”

Barclay gives a small, worried smile as he nods, “Yeah, of course, lemme get enough on so that I don’t freeze and I’ll join you.” 

He waves Stern inside, passes him a box of tissues before disappearing upstairs. Here he’d hoped the tears from his brief panic and self-blame spiral hadn’t left evidence. He’s good in a crisis, has handled much more stressful incidents with grace and calm. But for some reason every time he musters up those emotions, gult rips them to shreds. Yeti is his to look after, he’s supposed to keep her safe, and one careless move has her out in the woods, in freezing weather, with predators, or thin ice, or, or, or-

His brain is excellent at generating contingency plans on the fly, but tonight it directs that ability to making him think about all the bad things his error could cause. 

“Okay, got my headlamp so I can keep my hands free. You got a light?”

Joe holds up his flashlight.

“C’mon, let’s go find the Yeti.” They set off side by side in the snow, “where do you want to look?”

“Fan out near the creek, I think. The snow isn’t as deep there, so she might have gone that way because it was easier to move.”

“She’s a climber, right? So how about this; we go on either side of the creek, you look on the ground and I’ll look in the trees?”

“That makes sense.” 

It’s slow going, both of them being meticulous, shining their lights on every branch or under every bush. Stern’s always appreciated how careful Barclay is; he assumes it comes with a profession where being messy slows you down, but the first time he saw his well-organized kitchen his heart did a little dance of delight. 

In the month and a half he’s lived here, the cook invites him over at least twice a week to try out a recipe. He works at Amnesty Lodge in the nearby town of Kepler, and spends some of his nights there. Still, he’s at his cabin often enough that Stern’s been able to invite him over some evenings. Though it’s odd he’s up so late on a work night.

“Do you not have to go in tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’m taking this week off. I have some vacation time and when I get back it’ll be the holiday break rush until New Years. I got caught up in the latest Agent X novel and didn’t see how late it was until you knocked. How about you, staying up researching again?”

“Yes. I was trying to keep the fire going because it’s nice to work in that little living room but, um, going out to get the wood is how she got out. If I’d just gone to bed-”

“Whoah, hey, none of that.” Barclay stops, turning to face him, “shit happens, even when you’re careful. This isn’t your fault, Joe.”

“I know. It still feels that way.” He starts forward again, feet freezing in spite of his snowboots (chosen for optimal weight to insulation ratio). Part of him wants to keep talking, because Barclay is interesting to talk to, his years playing “Lodge dad” giving him endless anecdotes and the ability to be honest without being cruel. 

It helps that his baritone voice makes Stern think of brown sugar; rich, complex, just the right kind of sweet. 

After a solid hour of searching, Stern is so cold he’s having trouble getting words out. Barclay sets a big hand on his shoulder, guiding them towards Sterns cabin.

“Joe, you’ve gotta take a break. Worried your lips are gonna go as blue as your eyes, and then tonight will really suck.”

“But I haven’t found her.”

“And you won’t if you freeze to death or get so chilled you can’t think straight. At least sleep for a few hours.”

Stern’s about to protest as they reach the door, but then his knees buckle and he slumps against a broad chest.

“I’ll do one more spin into the deeper woods on my way home, and leave some blankets out on the porch in case she makes her way to me. She’s smart, just like her owner; I think she’ll get home okay.”

“Right. Okay. We’ll be okay.” 

Barclay hesitates mid motion, then pulls Stern into a hug. Stern is not small, and at Six feet zero inches he’s used to being the tallest person in a room. Barclay always feels like he’s dwarfing him, though right now that’s the most comforting sensation in the world. 

“I’ll check by in the morning.”

“Thank you, for everything.” He mumbles into Barclay’s scarf.

“Any time, Joe.”

----------------------------------------

Barclay waits until Joe is inside and the upstairs light switches on to leave the back porch. God, it’s so fucking cold tonight. He doesn’t blame Yeti for getting curious, but she could’ve picked a less awful time to do it.

He’s glad the other man came to him for help; he hates the idea of Joe out here alone and stressed, searching carefully and kicking himself the whole time. He’s glad Joe took the suggestion to sleep. 

He’s glad the other man came to be his neighbor. 

Ironically, they’d met when Joe came over and asked to borrow a cup of sugar. The dark-haired man was short on what he needed to cook, and Barclay was happy to supply it. It’s not everyday a cute guy asked him for some sugar. 

They ran across each other in town, and Joe even came to eat at the Lodge, usually at off hours where Barclay had a chance to talk. That’s how he learned Joe was here to research a recent Bigfoot sighting. 

“I used to be in the FBI, investigating the same thing. Then I got so frustrated, no one really believed in the possibility of unknown creatures, and the few who did saw them as having some sort of use to the department of defense. Great idea, find something so rare it’s existence is unproven, and then lock it away or blow it up.” The sip of coffee is more aggressive than usual. 

“Won’t they get mad if you spill their secrets?” It was only half a joke. 

“I doubt it. They weren’t too interested in my theories when I worked there; odds are they’ll keep an eye on me a little while and then ignore me. Unless I find Bigfoot, of course, in which case they may want me back. I’m not interested, from now on I monster hunt in the name of science.”

Barclay hopes Stern never finds Bigfoot and stays in his cabin, writing and researching and consulting and coming over to Barclay’s for dinner twice a week. He has a whole menu in his mind titled, “foods for seducing Joe” that he’s going to whip out in the next few weeks, he swears it. 

He’s been swearing it for two weeks. 

Joe is sophisticated, smart, has really good taste in books and food, and Barclay feels so listened to when they talk. Barclay starts blushing whenever Joe smiles at him, which would be embarrassing except Joe does the same thing whenever Barclay drops his voice a little. Besides, he likes it when Joe smiles. 

Barclay would give anything to make Joe smile tonight. Which is why he’s tromping into the spot where they lost the last of Yeti’s footprints. He stands, listening for any sign of human life. 

Then he slips the woven bracelet off his hand, and his foot-prints almost double in size. 

It’s a bad idea, he’s not all that far from other houses or the road, but in this form his sense of smell is twice as strong and his night-vision a bit sharper. It’s also the reason he’s taking this week off work. Yes, he likes to rest up before the winter rush; but his heat, which comes ever fourteen years, is due in the next few days. He’s actually a little worried turning into his Sylph self will make his brain fuzzy enough to forget his mission. So he reminds himself, as he tromps through the growing blizzard, that he is doing this for the person he’d most like to impress in this world, and that does the trick. 

A whiff of the same, non-human scent he stole a noseful of when hugging Joe catches his attention. He follows it to a disused burrow, gets down on his belly, and finds reflective eyes blinking back at him. 

The animal hisses. 

“Man, please be Yeti and not a bobcat. Duck’s gonna fucking kill me if I harass the wildlife.” He reaches into the burrow and hears a telltale jingle. Yeti, surrendering to her fate, goes limp in his hold. When he puts her against his chest she chirps, curiously sniffing him. As soon as the bracelet is on she blinks once, then purrs as he bundles her into his coat. She’s cold and damp, but she’s in one piece. 

“C’mon cousin, let’s get you home.”

The lights are all still one, and the front door is wedged open the exact amount a cat would need to get inside. He steps in, kicks the wedge free and shuts the door. The fire is low, and there’s no sound of anyone moving around. 

“Joe? Whoa, careful Yeti, I know you wanna get warm but we should show him your okay.”

“Mew!” Yeti bites the fringe of his scarf. 

He tries again, “Joe, you still up? Got someone for you?”

A scuff and groan from the kitchen, “Huh? Oh, shit, I fell asleep, one second”

Yeti shifts her focus while Barclay is distracted. In one graceful leap she rips his bracelet away, lands, and bounds to the kitchen.

“Yeti! Thank the lord, there you are my little cryptid, I was so worried about you, don’t ever do that again, thank god you’re okay.” Joe’s voice goes muffled, as if he’s holding the cat to his face and talking into her fur. Barclay is frozen, not wanting to be seen but even less wanting to have Joe spot Bigfoot dashing into the trees. 

“What do you have--Yeti, it’s rude to take things from the man who saved you from being-” Joe rounds the corner, cat in his arms, and gasps. Yeti, uninterested in the unfolding drama, tumps to the floor and scampers upstairs. Joe’s hands fly over his mouth the instant she’s no longer in them. 

“Hey” Barclay waves.

“What the fuck?”

“I’m, uh, I’m Bigfoot.”

“What the fuck?” Joe isn’t moving, and Barclay decides now is his best chance. 

“I’m just, uh, gonna go get my bracelet back.”

“No, you’re going to explain everything.” 

“I really, really can’t, some of it isn’t mine to explain. I mean, uh, I can explain some bits later-” He creeps toward the stairs. Joe steps in front of him. 

“Barclay, this can’t wait. You, you’ve been him the whole time, my entire world view is simultaneously being proven and flipped over, would you please just talk to me?”

“Mew?” Yeti is halfway down the stairs, watching them with the bracelet still in her mouth. Without breaking eye contact, Joe reaches up and out, plucking it from her teeth.

“You’re not getting this back until you explain.”

“Babe, please, I promise we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“No, wait, what did you call me?”

“Uhhhh” Barclay lunges for the bracelet instead of answering. Stern twists out of the way, sprinting for the kitchen. Barclay gets an arm around his waist and yanks backwards, sending them both over the back of the couch. Joe elbows him and scrambles up. Barclay only just manages to block him from going up the stairs, stalks him back onto the rug and tackles him. It succeeds in bringing the man down and keeping him pinned. 

It also sends the bracelet flying onto the floor, where Yeti snatches it up and disappears up the staircase. 

Barclay realizes he’s growling, stops so that he won’t frighten Joe, only for it to start up again as a reflex.

“Barclay, I swear, if you hurt my cat-”

“I won’t, I, that’s what not that noise is for. Or, uh, I mean I’m pissed you played keep-away with something I need, but I also have some bad news about Sy--uh, Bigfoot biology. Uh, so, first thing: I have a heat, which is why I was trying to stay away from people. Second thing: my kind uses a very intense game of, uh, chase as part of courtship.”

Stern shifts his thigh, “That explains what I’m feeling.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry. Look, can you go get the bracelet and then we can, like, have some tea and talk about this? I’m sorry, I feel so bad for making you deal with this.” The growl rumbles up again. He gears up another apology when he notices Joe’s blue eyes getting wider.

“Is this, um, only because of your heat? I mean, if you tackled some passerby, would the same thing be happening?”

“No.” Barclay squeaks. 

“Then I’m not seeing how this is a bad thing, big guy.” He grinds his thigh up, making Barclay yip and pin him to the rug while touching as little of him as possible. 

“Joe, this doesn’t make me like, mindless or anything, but if you say you want this you are signing up for several days of as much fucking as I can manage.”

“I don’t have any deadlines.” Joe’s eyes remain fixed on Barclays crotch. 

“I’m serious, if you say stop I will, but if you don’t you won’t be able to get out of bed for days. And, uh, I can put my disguise back on, you don’t have to fuck me like this, I know it’s weird.”

“Barclay, I built my life’s work on weird.” Joe pets his arm.

“Yeah but not on fucking it.”

“How do you know? Lots of my time with the UP is classified.”

“Joe…” it’s a warning, the heat in  his brain suggesting a dozen things to do so the human can’t be touched by another cryptid ever again.

“I want you, Barclay. In both forms. As long as you promise we’ll talk after, I’m okay with doing this first.”

“I promise”

“Good, because otherwise I was going out to see if there’s another bigfoot in the area who was interested.” Joe smiles, moves to pull off his shirt. He doesn’t get to; Barclay snarls possessively and drops onto him, biting his neck and ripping his clothing into a flurry of fabric scraps. The human moans, gasps when Barclay makes short work of his own pants and reveals what’s waiting beneath. Barclay doesn’t give him time to process, shoves his legs as far apart as they’ll go, and finally sinks into him.

“JesusfuckingCHRIST, ohfuck, ohmyfuckinggodAH!”

His cock is more thick than long, splitting the human open while bottoming out on every thrust. Joe’s fingers knot into the rug, his words morph into sharp, ecstatic sounds. Every creature in the forest can probably hear him. 

Barclay clamps his hand down over the humans mouth, “shut up babe, don’t want anyone else in the woods getting any ideas about how good a fuck you are. You’re fucking mine.”

A muffled moan and, when he pulls his hand back, “Y-you really think I, fuck, I can keep quiet when you fuck me like this?”

“Thought they taught FBI agents discipline” he drags his claws across Joe’s chest, relishing the shaky, happy noise that gets him. 

“There’s discipline and, AAHnnn, there’s inhuman restraint.”

Barclay slams the hand down again and growls, pleased, when Joe’s posture turns submissive.

“Here’s the deal; you keep quiet and take it like a good mate, and after I cum in you, can be as loud as you fucking want, because anyone who gets near you’ll know belong to me. I mean” he jerks his hips, “they’ll be able to tell that from the fact I’m balls-deep in you too, babe.”

Joe nods, replaces Barclays hand with his own as the Sylph hooks his knees over his shoulders. The next minute goes in a heat haze, his brain and body united in the desire to cum in Joe, to claim him,  while the human stifles his screams and grows slicker with each thrust. 

He tips his head back with a howlgrowlpurr as he cums, leaving faint clawmarks in Joe’s legs as he holds them open to make sure he takes every bit.

“Lord almighty” Joe’s hand falls to the floor, “that, that was amazing, why on earth were you acting like this isn’t something I’d waaAAAAAntohgod.” He whimpers as Barclay starts up again, fucking his cum up into him.

“Shoulda known you’d like it; you’re perfect, Joe.”

A blush and a shy moan, and he leans down to kiss him gently.

“You are. You’re the perfect man, the perfect mate, and we are gonna have so much fucking fun together.”

“And fun fucking?” He looks pleased with the wordplay.

He snorts, “Glad to know that sense of humor sticks around when I’m filling you up, oh, ohfuckyeah” another orgasm hits, milder this time. 

“Are they near constant when you’re in heat?” Joe eyes the trail of cum sliding back down Barclay’s cock.

“No, just easy to have. So” he flips the human over, squeezing his ass appreciatively, “let’s try it from  behind this time; wanna find out how it feels to cum in you while I get you off.” He slips his hand over Joe’s thigh and between his legs, “and you better fucking do it too, of I’ll drag you outside and fuck you against a tree so anyone passing by can see how fucking eager you are for me.”

“Please, we’ve spent so much time outside tonight.”

He thinks as kisses along Joe’s shoulders, “You’re right. I’ll fuck you against the door instead.”

-------------------------------------

When Stern wakes up, snow is falling in the grey light and his clock reads 2:30 P.M. Downstairs there’s a homey clink of pots and pans, and the smell of coffee winds it’s way to him. 

He fell asleep around five, he thinks, when the cumulative exhaustion of his day overpowered the thrill of being with Barclay. Honestly, he’d have kept going, but Barclay was adamant he rest. So they finished with him fucking Stern’s slack, sleepy mouth, before the cryptid bundled him into bed and snuggled up to him with those deep, rumbling purrs that Stern now loves.

The bracelet is gone from the nightstand (Yeti didn’t eat it, thank god), so the chef must be making breakfast in his human form. Now would be a good time to go down and talk. 

“Mew” A weight lands on his chest as Yeti kneads the blankets, purring when he reaches you and rubs her head.

“You know, little monster, this almost makes the heart attack you gave me worth it.”

“Mew?” The cat stares hopefully out the windows. 

“Not a chance. I can’t take that stress again. Besides” he scoops her up, “we need to unbox that new toy I ordered. Barclay and I need some time to ourselves today.”

[cadenreigns]

My Monster(s)

(This was an AU short story I wrote for a reddit 1-day writing contest for the star vs subreddit a long while back and later decided to add a twist ending to. While I went back and edited it a little bit, it was still something I wrote in like 2 hours so don’t expect a masterpiece. And since it’s longer than I remembered so it’s after the break)

“And that should be everything,” Dr. Backintosh said as she ticked off a few notes on her clipboard. “We’ll call you to set up a follow-up appointment once the results come in, but based on what we’ve gathered so far, I don’t foresee anything keeping us from moving on to the next phase.”

Meteora shifted in her hospital gown before feeling Mariposa squeeze her hand. The two exchanged a hopeful look before she returned her attention to the doctor. “So, you don’t think there will be any problem because of…what I am?”

The doctor looked up and gave a reassuring smile. “Ms. Butterfly, while your body may be more unique than others, you still have all the same organs and working parts we’re used to dealing with. I won’t say it’s impossible something won’t come up, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

Meteora let out a sigh she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding. “Good.”

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“I guess all that’s left is to figure out a donor,” Mariposa mused aloud as they exited the doctor’s office and made their way to her car. Meteora immediately knew that she already had an idea, otherwise she wouldn’t have brought it up. It was, after all, the part of this situation that made her the most uncomfortable. More about it probably should have made her uncomfortable, like the very basic fact that 19 was a bit young to be doing what she was. But unlike Mari, quintessential college student that she was, who had every opportunity still ahead of her, Meteora only had one major decision of her own to make. And she had decided to make it before her weird half-breed biology could mess something up about it. Everything else, like where she could live and what job she’d have, had already been decided by the government or negotiated by her parents. And while being the monster representative would be a cushy job, she wasn’t sure that’s what she would have chosen for herself.

“I’m not going to like what you’re going to say next, am I,” Meteora said, knowing the answer.

Mari put on her most innocent smile, the smile that had convinced Meteora to do so many things over the years. So many things that often ended with them in trouble. “Well, there is one obvious way that would let me be a real aunt.”

Meteora stopped in place. “Please don’t tell me you’re insinuating what I think you are.”

Mari continued to smile. “And wouldn’t you know it, today’s the day I’m supposed to go check in on him. But my evening class starts soon, hmmm.” She cupped her chin in her hand and started to tap her upper lip, something she often did when presenting an idea as just thought up instead of meticulously planned. “Maybe you could go check on him for me, see how he’s doing, have a chat about life, the universe, and medical procedures. You know, stuff like that.”

Meteora’s tail had started to swing tersely back and forth at some point, and she made no attempt to stop it. “You know I don’t like him, Mari.”

“But you’ve got no real reason not to. Besides, he’s basically just me as a guy.”

“Does it even matter to you that I don’t want to go?”

“Your future matters more.”

Meteora crossed her arms and huffed. “Fine, I’ll do it. But you should know that sometimes I really hate you.”

“Which,” she began as her smile spread mischievously, “is of course why you end up doing everything I put in your head.”

It took Meteora almost an hour to make her way to his ramshackle home at the edge of Echo Creek. Not because it was any significant distance away, if that was the case then he probably would have been outside the area her and her father’s kind were allowed to travel in, but because he had picked the most out-of-the-way spot imaginable to live. The roads that led there were little more than curvy dirt paths that were hell on her moped, each looking ready to collapse into one of the many riverbanks or ditches that lined the way, and took the most roundabout routes to get anywhere. Of course, this spot was chosen when “he” had been “them,” but he had stayed after everything…stayed for years, so she wasn’t going to give him any slack about it.

And then the trees parted and she was in the clearing, where the mountains were far enough away to be majestic instead of looming overhead. It was truly a beautiful sight…until you looked down and saw the home sitting in the center of the clearing, right at the end of the dirt road that had brought her there. Everyone called it his “house” to be polite, but it was little more than a gussied-up trailer as far as Meteora was concerned. The chicken coops off to one end while a messy garden and old minivan took up space on the other didn’t exactly improve the image it gave off. If you didn’t know he owned all the land around them you’d think it was a squatter’s camp.

The closer she got the more Meteora didn’t want to deal with this. And that feeling only grew stronger when she propped the moped on its kickstand and took her helmet off. She knew she could drive away now and just tell Mari that she had done it, that would satisfy the periodic visits she insisted on, but not the donor angle. That she couldn’t drive away from without getting an earful about later. So, after a long and drawn out sigh, Meteora stepped up to the front door and knocked.

At first there was no reply, so she knocked again. Second time was the charm evidently, as almost immediately she heard a call from inside, “I’m coming.”

A moment passed, with some rustling barely making its way through the door before she heard the lock slide in and the handle started to turn. “You know you don’t have to keep checking in on me, Mari. I can take care of myself…”

Marco Diaz trailed off when the door was fully open and he saw that it wasn’t Mari at his door, but her best friend. This man, who Meteora had known all her life and who was in surprising good shape considering that, by all accounts, he rarely actually left his so-called “house,” was the man who she despised more than anyone else in world. But Mari had made her promise not to let that come across as too obvious.

“Hey jerk-face.” Some promises were hard to keep.

“Meteora,” he replied, his brow raised in confusion.

She stepped past him and inside before he could get the chance collect his thoughts. “Mari’s got class tonight, so she sent me. You’re not doing anything stupid that would worry her, are you?”

Marco closed the door behind her and followed as she made her way down the length of the small home. Based on what Mari had told her about previous visits, she had expected more of a mess as she made her way through the small sitting area and kitchen, but the place was clean and tidy, almost sterile. The only thing even close to messy about it was a dish rag on the kitchen counter. She stopped when she came to the bedroom on the far side of the kitchen, it featured some un-fluffed pillows, not that Meteora ever bothered with that either.

“I don’t think so,” he finally replied. “You want a drink, or something?”

She shrugged. “Got any diet Pitt?”

“I see Mari’s taste for that junk finally wore off on you,” he said as he opened the fridge and reached inside. A second later he emerged with a pink can, though instead of handing it to her when she put out her hand he placed it on the kitchen table and then took a seat. “I’m surprised you bothered to come, even with Mari asking.”

“Yeah well, people don’t pick their families,” Meteora said, picking up the can without taking a seat of her own, then pulling the on the tab. It opened with the expected swoosh of bubbling liquid that was practically reassuring, even if it was generally the sign of something that wasn’t actually good for her. “I like it when she’s happy, she likes it when she knows you’re not dead because you live in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of chickens, so I guess I like knowing that too.”

Marco made what Meteora could only assume was an amused sound with his nose. “Even though you’d probably enjoy figuring out a way to set the chickens on me?”

It was Meteora’s turn to make an amused sound, which she followed by taking a huge gulp of her diet Pitt. “At this point I’m more likely to just not help when the chickens attack than actually sick them on you.”

“Well I appreciate you not hastening my demise yourself,” Marco answered back. “Anyway, I know you don’t like being here, so you can go and let Mari know that I’m in the same state I always am. Nothing to be worried or relieved about.”

“Right…” she said slowly, turning in place to survey the home again instead of looking at him. She couldn’t bring herself to really look at him and ask this question. It was bad enough she had to ask it at all, let alone of him. “Well there was one other thing I…Mari suggested I ask you…”

Meteora paused as her slow look around came back to the bedroom and something caught her eye that she hadn’t noticed before. A picture on the nightstand, one of a young woman taken over twelve years prior. Meteora had been around seven the last time she’d seen Star, and hadn’t really understood when she couldn’t anymore. No one had been able to explain it in a way she’d understood. Some had said she’d gotten sick, like so many had at the time, but everyone had cried, and then yelled. Marco had yelled most of all, and at practically everyone. And then, well then he stopped leaving this supposed “vacation home” they’d shared altogether. In fact, Meteora didn’t think anyone aside from Mariposa had seen him in person more than three of four times in the dozen years that had followed.

Trying to pull her attention back to the task at hand, she saw the home in a new light. The photo of Star was the only color in the whole place. Everything else was white or some shade of grey. And the place wasn’t just sterile, it was practically lifeless. That’s why Mari came here when no one else did, not because she was worried about him living so far out alone, but because she knew he wasn’t really living at all.

“Ask what?”

Meteora almost jumped when Marco prompted her to continue. And looking at him in that moment, with something besides the irrational anger that had plagued her thoughts of him all her life, she couldn’t bring herself to ask what she’d been sent here to. So she asked the question that had been asked of her so many times.

“Why…why do you think I’ve never liked you?”

Marco took a deep breath and looked out the window for a moment, as if considering something very carefully. But then the moment ended and she got her answer.

Meteora pushed her third can of diet Pitt to the side to sit with the others as she ran though everything Marco had told her. It all seemed crazy when he’d said it, even crazier as she thought about each part, but none of it seemed wrong either.

“Because of an old king I was raised by an abusive robot…and then ran a boarding school?”

“From what I understand, yeah.”

“And then I had to live in a car because you, while crossdressing, riled my…students into kicking me out.”

“It wasn’t my idea to cross-dress, but basically.”

“Which led me to remember that I was half monster…which led me to try and take over Mewni…”

“Which led to all the soul draining and eventually the combination of magics that turned you back into a baby,” Marco said nonchalantly before taking a sip from the water bottle he had eventually pulled out for himself. “And you just never liked me after that. I guess some emotions just get too ingrained to fade.”

“But,” Meteora started as she put the pieces together. “If you hadn’t gotten me kicked out, which let me remember what I was, which led to the magic battle…then I wouldn’t have my family, or Mari, or any part of the life I have now.”

He shrugged. “Probably not.”

“So, I’ve been angry at you all my life, because you gave me my life.”

His mouth twisted a bit before replying with, “Well it’s not like I turned you back into a baby myself, but if that’s how you see it then just know that I don’t take it personally. In fact, it’s actually kind of nice having someone not like me for a different reason than the rest.”

Meteora’s chair squeaked across the linoleum floor as she pushed herself up. The empty cans shook as she walked around the table. And Marco just looked confused when she grabbed and pulled him up by the collar. He was still a few inches taller than her, so it was an awkward position once he was up, but no less awkward than when she wrapped both her arms around him in the next instant.

Silence permeated the next few moments. Shocked silence from Marco if she had to guess, while her own was confused. Part of her still felt the urge to knock his block off, but at the same time…well another part was seeing him in a whole new way.

“Thank you,” she finally said before pulling away from him.

“No problem?” he replied.

Now the silence between them was just awkward. Though that wasn’t surprising when Meteora remembered that the only physical contact the two had ever had before that hug had usually entailed her trying to hurt him in some way.

“I gotta get going. I’ll tell Mari you’re doing fine.”

“Sure, thanks,” he said slowly before glancing out the window. “It’s starting to get dark, be careful on the way back.”

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Meteora’s tail twitched back and forth as she sat on the couch flipping through channels. She hadn’t slept well the night before and was going to be alone all day thanks to Mari’s new class schedule. Angie and Raphael usually would have been there to bother her in their good-natured way, but they were out of town. Which left her alone with nothing to do on a day that had a storm approaching and nothing worth watching on tv. So, when the phone rang, she didn’t even care that it was probably a telemarketer, at least it gave her something to do.

“Hello,” she answered.

“Ms. Butterfly, it’s Dr. Backintosh. Is this a good time?”

Meteora sat up straighter, ready to receive the news they’d been waiting for. “Well I’m on my own today, so I guess-”

“Actually,” the doctor interrupted, “it’s probably better we talk about this on our own first.”

In the distance Meteora heard the first boom of thunder.

Meteora knocked on the door, though she could barely hear her knocks over the rain and thunder that plummeted from the sky above. She knocked again a few seconds later, barely any harder though. She didn’t have the energy for it. Finally, after she forced herself to knock a third time, the door opened.

“Meteora?” Marco practically bellowed.

She didn’t reply.

“Come on, get out of the rain,” he said before taking her by the arm and pulling her inside. “Are you ok? Did something happen?”

She thought about it as she watched drops of water roll off her and start to puddle on his floor. Something had happened, though what actually mattered was what wasn’t going to happen. She didn’t say that though, just like she hadn’t said anything since hanging up the phone.

“I’ll get you a towel,” he said after a moment had passed without any reply. “I’ll be right back, okay.”

Meteora remained silent as he ran off towards the bedroom, continuing to watch the droplets join the puddle while listening to Marco frantically open and close drawers. A few seconds, maybe a minute, later he returned and the towel came down over her head. He hadn’t bothered to offer it to her, and wasn’t bothering to let her get around to actually drying herself either.

“I can’t believe you rode here in this weather,” he said while gently dabbing the towel across her face and long lilac hair. “And without even a jacket, you know it’ll be me Mariposa explodes at if you get sick.”

She still didn’t reply, just watched the droplets while he moved on to wiping off her arms.

“Ok, well whatever brought you here, you need to finish drying off first. And since I don’t think I can dry anymore myself without feeling like a creep, I’m going to push you into the bathroom. There’s some spare clothes in there, so will you please finish drying off and change?”

Meteora nodded meekly and let him lead her towards the back.

Sometime later Meteora found herself huddled at one end of his couch wearing an oversized ninja t-shirt and a pair of drawstring shorts that were loose even with the strings drawn all the way. Marco sat at the other end. They had been that way for a while, silent except for right when they’d sat down and he’d said to just ask and he’d do whatever she needed him to. She didn’t have any conscious plan to ask him for anything. She didn’t even have a conscious reason for being there, it had simply been where’d she decided to go. But suddenly, even surprising herself a bit, it started to come out.

“My life was planned out for me since Mewni became part of Earth,” she started. “Except for when I get to have a baby.”

“Ok…”

“So I was going to do it,” she continued. “Invitro and all that, because it’s my choice and it’s what I want.”

“Well I guess that’s ni–”

“But because I’m half-monster they say they can’t.” Her eyes started to well. “That something about the way I am makes it too dangerous. That the only way I could ever be a mother would be…the natural way.” The tears were rolling now. “But I’ve never felt…that way about anyone. So what am I supposed to do? I’m too much of a freak to get what I wanted and I just…I just–”

Marco stood without warning. He made his way towards the kitchen, where Meteora could hear the fridge and some drawers open and then close in succession. He returned with a six-pack of bottles and pile of old-timey VHS tapes.

“Look Meteora,” he said as he put the bottles down on the small coffee table and started shuffling through the tapes, “the last time anything bad happened to me I pushed everyone that cared about me away. And well, that’s probably not going to help you right now. So instead of trying to make you feel better, we’re going to play a little game that used to help me forget about stuff.”

He slipped one of the tapes into the VHS below the tv and hit play. The tv roared to life with an off-color title screen that loudly stated, “Fist of the Fist!”

“This,” Marco said as he sat back down and started divvying up the bottles between them, “is an early Mackie Hand movie, before he even learned English. The rules of the game are simple, take a sip anytime someone acts like they were hit but obviously weren’t, anytime the dubbing is obviously off, and anytime someone shouts an attack name.”

Meteora looked at the bottle he handed her, and then at him. “And this is supposed to help me?”

“It’s supposed to make you feel less bad,” he replied. “Actual help can start tomorrow.”

The title screen faded and a man sitting at a bar came into focus. Another man approached him and put a hand on the first’s shoulder. Their eyes met and an American voice yelled, “Time to die, Mackie Hand!” while the man’s actual mouth calmly said something completely different.

Meteora almost laughed, then joined Marco in taking her first sip.

[theincompetentgenius]

Headcanons with S/O Who Hid Their Birthday (Jonah, Luka, Edgar)

anon:  Can I have Jonah, Luka and Edgar headcanons with an s/o who hid their birthday, or didn’t bother to be vocal about it, and they had to find out through other means?

Here you go and I hope you enjoy them!

Jonah Clemence

Jonah finds out from Edgar, who casually brings up the topic as they’re training. He realizes that Edgar learned about his lover’s birthday before he did, which flares his temper. He drives the blade a little too close to the Jack’s ear and ends the duel. For the next hour, Jonah interrogates Edgar on how he found this information.

Initially, Jonah is confused (even hurt) that his S/O didn’t tell him about their birthday. Did he do something to them that they wouldn’t talk about their birthday? Why wouldn’t they want to talk about the day they were brought to life? It takes some time and reflection that his S/O has their reasons.

He pulls himself together and plans for an extravagant party almost a month in advance. The Queen of Hearts calls all the Red Army officials and assigns each officer a role for the birthday. Kyle and Zero get tasked with decorating the entire palace, Edgar has to plan all the activities, and Lancelot has to gather all the supplies. If you’re wondering, Jonah buys all the gifts, creates all the food, creates/gives out invitations, and is involved in the other officers’ tasks. 

On the day of their birthday, Jonah takes his lover to dress shopping. He tells them to pick their favorite dress, jewelry, and shoes. They spend the whole morning at the fitting room as the couple nit-pick through the articles of clothing. Although his S/O is slightly confused about Jonah’s obsession with picking the “right dress”, they assume it’s just Jonah’s way of taking them out for the day. After the Queen of Hearts manages to convince his S/O to keep the dress on for the entire day, they head to the Red Army Headquarters. 

When they arrive at the palace, his S/O notices that the castle is decorated in their favorite color. They tell Jonah how much they like decoration, who simply smirks and asks “I wonder who put all that effort in making the castle look so gorgeous?”

He’ll take their hand as they climb up the stairs. When his S/O opens the doors, they are greeted to heaven on the Cradle. The center of the room has a 5-layered vanilla-strawberry swirl cake with buttercream frosting (made by Jonah and the chefs) with desserts such as raspberry macaroons, millie-feuille, chocolate fondue, and puff pastries neatly lined up on tables at the side of the room. Jonah’s S/O spends more time eating at the party than anything else.

There are sparklers, balloons, crystals, exotic flowers, silk table cloths, and so much more. As if the throne room wasn’t already something straight out of a fairytale, Jonah only made it even more lavish than before.

Jonah ushers his lover to sit on the throne, claiming that today the get to be royalty. As soon as they take a seat, the entire Red Army pops out to sing Happy Birthday! The fireworks go off as Jonah turns to his S/O and pulls them into a long kiss, wishing them a happy birthday.

Luka Clemence

Luka found out when he came to your room, looking for you to tell you about his next mission (where he’ll be out for a week). Instead, he entered an empty room, so Luka decided to leave a note on his S/O’s table about his sudden departure. When placing the note, he noticed that there were a few other things on their desk, including some form of identification with their DOB.

The Jack of Spades doesn’t think much about it as he leaves the room to attend his other duties. Later in the day, the birthday issue pops into his head again. He thinks about it more seriously this time, but he assumes that his S/O wasn’t a birthday person. Perhaps it slipped their mind since a birthday only comes once every year.

Nevertheless, Luka begins to daydream about all the adorable birthday plans they could make together. He knew his S/O didn’t want anything too flashy, but he had to do something special for them. As he fell deeper in his thoughts, he realized that Jonah would be able to create the perfect party (but he’d never ask that pompous brat). All Luka could think of was making a nice dinner. 

He asks Seth for a little help because Seth is the Black Army’s unofficial party planner after all. The 7 of Spades squeals with glee, being more than happy to help Luka with his plans. 

The two prepare a cozy, candle-lit dinner. The decorations are simple and rustic, but Luka manages to hang his S/O’s favorite works of art and plays their favorite music in the background. Although Seth always wants to add more to the scene, Luka is exhausted. Besides, he didn’t want to go over-the-top since his S/O barely talked about their birthday.

Also, the Jack of Spades wanted his food to be the main decoration. For the main dish, he whips up a gourmet roasted chicken marinated in a savory and spicy sauce with sauteed vegetables and buttered rice. He also bakes his S/O’s favorite cake in a heart shape. The best part is that the cake has cake pops sticking out with the candles on top.

When the day finally arrives, Luka is very nervous. He doesn’t make any reference to his S/O’s birthday throughout the day. Luka doesn’t want to upset his S/O for making plans without them or somehow triggering a painful memory on their birthday. It takes a lot of breathing exercises and pep talks from Seth to calm him down.

Once it is dinner time, Seth ushers Luka’s S/O to a private room that is rarely used by the Black Army. When they enter the room, they are greeted with soft, glowing lights that spell “Happy Birthday!”. Luka appears from the back and gives them a long hug, letting them know how much they mean to him.

Once the lights are turned off, Luka lights the candles and tells their S/O to make a wish. They take a few seconds and blow out the candles. Luka can’t help but ask, “What did you wish for?”

“If I told you, then it wouldn’t come true.” And with that, the couple sits down and starts eating. The meal is so good that his lover nearly cries and asks for four servings. Somehow they have space for the cake too.

Edgar Bright

Let’s be real, Edgar knew about his S/O’s birthday a long time ago. He came across the auspicious date when going through a bunch of legal documents for everyone in the Red Army. He was hesitant to place his S/O’s documents with the other officers’ papers, but he felt that it made more sense than to place it with the information on the soldiers. As he went over his S/O’s documents, he found a line that listed their birthday. At that moment, Edgar realized that his lover never talked about their birthday.

Edgar doesn’t know why his lover would want to hide their birthday, but he understands it because he does the same thing. However, he doesn’t want them to spend their birthday alone either. So he’ll go around looking for clues for the perfect birthday surprise by asking his S/O seemingly-innocent questions. Although he doesn’t have much room for specific questions, Edgar gets all the information that he needs.

He spends the next week preparing for the event. It’s nothing too crazy, but he buys a few gifts and decorations for the occasion. Edgar also has Jonah teach him how to make some of his S/O’s favorite sweets and snacks. Jonah is both surprised and irritated that the Jack of Hearts is able to a great job at his first try, claiming that it was all thanks to his teaching.

The special day has arrived! He’ll act normal throughout the day, dropping a few hints here and there. It’s not until the sky has a tint of pink that Edgar asks his S/O to take a walk with him. He’ll cover their eyes as they walk to their destination.

Once they arrive, Edgar removes his hands and reveals a picnic next to the river. He kisses your hand, wishing his lover a very happy birthday. Immediately, the Creek family appears from a nearby tree and run to his S/O. They jump up and down, squawking with delight. It’s their way of saying “Happy Birthday!”

He has his S/O sit down while he unpacks all the delicious treats from the basket that he brought with him. There are some macaroons, sandwiches, and garlic bread. 

Edgar also has two gifts for the occasion. First, he pulls out a yellow box with a gold ribbon. Inside are the rarest jellybean flavors in the entire Cradle (he’s made sure the flavors are suited for his lover’s palette). The present was him trying to return a fraction of the sweetness that his lover brought into his life. 

The second gift is a lavender box, which has a beautiful necklace with three golden pendants: the initial of both of their first names and duck. He got this present to give his S/O something that will help them remember Edgar and the Creeks, no matter where they go.

The couple spends their time by the river for the rest of the evening. The Jack of Hearts will lay his head on his lover’s shoulder, letting them know that he’s always willing to lend an ear if they choose to tell him why they hide their birthday.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Root/Caret & Dry Riverbed Symbolism

Okay, this may seem a little random, but it’s something @wdway​ pointed out to me before the back half of the season began and I just haven’t gotten around to posting it until now. Most of this is just me copying and pasting our conversation because I’m too lazy to restate it in my own words. 😉 We talked about this BEFORE 10x09 (where Connie got lost in the mine) aired.

So, when Daryl and co jump across the dry creek bed to go into the cave in 10x08, we’re seeing a lot of symbolism there.

@wdway: “See the pointing up/ forward shaped root left of Daryl's foot as he's climbing out of the creek bed? This is what's been haunting me. I don't think it's just a root. I think it's a directional symbol. It reminds me of the symbols that Morgan used to carve into things.

Morgan’s carvings usually pointed to the left which I always thought meant go back. This one is pointing up/straight ahead/forward? It bothered me so much I went back and watched this part of the scene several times which led to side tunnels for me.

This is where we see Alpha going into the area that leads to the cave, we do not see her cross the creek bed. We see Carol following, crossing the creek bed and she climbs up on the left side of this root. 

Later the rest of the group (except Daryl) cross the creek but we see them from the opposite direction. In other words, we do not see the root with the group. The camera direction changes back, and we watch Daryl's feet as he crossed and climbs up the side and steps to the right side of the root.

If the symbol does means forward, then it might mean that Carol and Daryl will be on opposite sides of the forward symbol going in the same direction but slightly apart which seems to be what their story has been pointing to so far. There was so much emphasis on Carol and Daryl's crossing and such a focus on Daryl's feet that it made me want to go back further and watch to see if anything else stood out to me. I backed up to where Daryl points down a path and says, "Lydia would've taken the river down this stream to our side." They all start moving that way and this is when Carol sees Alpha and starts chasing her. Daryl and the group follow, and it switches back and forth between Alpha Carol and Daryl running. That's when something caught my eye during a snippet of Daryl running.

What you're looking at is a small group of trees, Daryl is on the other side, you can see his arm and a little bit of his crossbow. Do you see what's carved into the tree, I'm not sure what that symbol is or even if it is a symbol, but it is an intentional marking. It made me wonder if it could be a 1, I'm not saying it is, but my mind went to a certain episode where there was a 1 that's always been a bit of a mystery.

This is from Slabtown, when Dr. Edwards gets up and walks over to the painting of Peter's Denial. And of course, I have to point out that the two books that are clearly placed so that you could read the titles. One is Anesthesia (where you are put to sleep/ unconscious). The other is Critical Care (what you would need if you were shot in the head). I don't know if that symbol/mark on the tree is a 1. It's just where my mind went when I saw it.”

@frangipanilove​: “I have a theory on the arrows of Morgan that they simply mean back. As in return, but also as in the back of a car, as in trunk (tree trunk/car trunk). But it can of course mean more than one thing. (Check out @frangipanilove’s Tree Trunk Resurrection post HERE.)

@wdway: “And the last strange little thing that I'll mention is going back to the scene where Daryl mentions the river and following a stream. This whole thing reminded me of the creek bed that Sasha was following in the episode Them. The one where we saw frogs and all the X's in the creek bed. 

And for some reason it reminded me of Carl giving Maggie the music box so I went and checked that out. I was hoping he said something about the river. He didn't, but he did tell her that he found it while they were searching for water. I thought that was pretty cool, how the writers get that mention of water in, which makes water connected with the music box.

S8e4 Some Guy, where we saw the King, Carol and Jerry trying to cross the creek bed, it had some water in it or polluted water I should say. That's where the king’s tiger was killed. Another super important one I just thought of was the eroded bank area in s2e1 that Rick hid Sofia in. There was some water, but it wasn't overflowing or rushing water. We could clearly see the erosions. That's why Rick thought it was safe to put her into a indention in the creek wall.

I'm back because it just hit me two other incidents about the creek or at least one. Henry hid in a creek, I believe that was in season 8.We didn't actually see him hiding but we were told later about it. Carol, Morgan thought he was dead but he was alive because he said he hid in a creek. The other thing that popped into my head, we do not see her hiding but for five years we saw Beth in the flash running through the forest. Oh, wow! this little creek is suddenly having so much meaning, love it!

@twdmusicboxmystery: “Also Daryl found Sophia’s doll in a river/creek. Just saying.

I really like all this! I might as well tell you guys what I was thinking about in terms of a dry creek bed theory. It turns out, it’s not all that groundbreaking. Just a subset of “Beth = water.” I was thinking that a dry creek bed has no water. So, the dry creek bed we saw in Them simply is there to symbolize that Beth is not there. And she won’t be for the coming arc. That would work in other instances too. For example, last season we saw Daryl in a dry creek bed with Connie. Connie has been a proxy for Beth, but she’s definitely not Beth. Beth is not there. Meanwhile, we’ve had a lot of water symbols associated with Connie and water = Beth.

But then there’s a little caret symbol ^ you pointed out. I hadn’t noticed that in the dry creek bed they jumped over in ep 16 had it until you pointed it out. But it reminded me of another time we saw it created from tree branches and that was when Tara was heading for Oceanside. So, I was thinking that maybe that arrow or caret symbol points toward water. In other words, it points toward Beth. I honestly don’t know why they would have Morgan carving it into trees. The best I could come up with is that back when he was with Eastman, they were often by water.

I was thinking that water could also represent positive mental health. When Morgan was with Eastman, he got to a very good place mentally. But by the time he found Rick again and they were conducting the war in S7/S8, his mental health had already begun to slip. It slipped until he ran away from the group and ended up in Texas. And of course Beth equals water and Beth was all about emotional positivity, right?

So, I went back and looked at the part with Tara and I expected to find the caret pointing toward Oceanside. Actually, it doesn’t. It’s pointing back the way she came, in the opposite direction of Oceanside. Tara is headed toward the community at the time. But then it occurred to me that she just washed up from the sea. So, the arrow is still pointing at the water. And remember, this is the episode where Cindy and Rachel found a bear washed and from the sea as well.

So possibly, the caret symbol in 10×16 that we see Carol and Daryl and the others jump over might be pointing toward Beth. Especially if those spoilers we talked about the other day are true and Connie goes missing [this was before the mine incident] I’m thinking that she’ll end up wherever Beth is and Daryl will go looking for her. Hence, Connie will lead Daryl to Beth as we’ve been theorizing since the beginning of season 10. I’ll admit this isn’t a very fully formed theory but it’s what I’ve been thinking about the last few days.”

[@frangipanilove then asked me if it was really called a Carrot symbol. See, when we were messaging, my phone kept autocorrecting ‘caret’ to ‘carrot.’ It really was just a typo/autocorrect, but kind of an interesting one, given the carrot symbolism, no?]

Me to @frangipanilove: “Lol. Well, it both is and isn’t a typo. It reminds me of a caret symbol (see the pic below) which is used to insert something that’s missing into a sentence, as well as having other, computer-related uses. But my phone keeps autocorrecting to the “carrot” spelling. Lol. I had to type “caret” above 3x and click on it to keep it from autocorrecting.”

But think about that, guys. It may be pointing backward or to water, but it’s also a common symbol used to insert something that isn’t there or is forgotten. As in Beth?

But what I’m seeing here is possibly a cause and effect chain. Carol chasing Alpha into the mine (and bringing everyone else in after her) resulted in Connie being lost. If Connie brings Beth back to Daryl in some way, then this arrow really was pointing toward that.

It also resulted in the war and the current situation in many ways. Because Daryl went looking for another way into the mine (which he only had to do because Carol went in in the first place) he ran into Alpha and got hurt. Subsequently, Lydia helped him and they went back to warn Hilltop. That warning, so they had some time to prepare, is the only reason anyone at Hilltop survived at all, and lived to fight this second battle against Beta.

See what I mean?

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this chain yet, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out and what it leads to. Just wanted to point it out to everyone.

And now you have some idea of how me and my fellow theorists spend our days hashing things out. It can be very sprawling, but this is how we come to understand what most things in the show mean. Plus, it’s fun! 😁

What do you think?

[twdeadlysins]

What Lies Ahead: Part Three

Season two, episode one (3/3)

Pairing: Eventual Daryl Dixon and Reader

Word Count: 5,422

Warnings: Slow burn, minor mention of character death, mention of attempted suicide, the usual walking dead violence, language, blood, and such with possible typos.

Author’s Note: I don’t own anything from The Walking Dead, so all credit goes to their respective owners. This is a twd series rewrite with the reader inserted into the mix. I did and will continue to use dialogue from the actual show because I want it to be similar to what you’ve already watched, but obviously have the reader in it.

If you want to be (un)tagged for this series rewrite, don’t hesitate to send me an ask, message me, or leave a comment and I’ll add/remove you. The same goes for any other fics! I’m in no way, shape, or form a writer. Any feedback is appreciated, but hate is a different story. Thank you and enjoy!

The gifs I use aren’t mine, so all credit goes to their respective owners. 

With tumblr being stupid and all, my Masterlist can be found linked in my bio to catch up or what not. Sorry for the inconvenience… hopefully this gets fixed soon.

Rick had discussed privately with you, Shane and Daryl about the four of you having permission to carry guns while the rest were going to be equipped with some other type of weapon that didn’t require bullets. There was no objection there, no one besides the four of you should carry a loaded weapon since no one else had experience. After the meeting, you exchanged goodnights and decided to make a little makeshift bed in the back of a random pickup truck that was near the RV. You gathered whatever blankets you could find and tossed one into a drawstring bag to use as a pillow before setting your backpack and weapons in the back as well.

Dale had offered for you to sleep in the RV, but you kindly declined wanting to be alone and not coped up in the vehicle even if it was just to sleep. You wanted to feel the cool air and look up at the stars since you knew you wouldn’t be able to fall asleep as quick as you had the last couple of nights. Besides you wanted a space to yourself and call your own. The stars twinkled in the dusk sky giving you a distraction away from the thoughts that crept in your mind and you hoped the trance you were in would put you to sleep, you needed the energy for tomorrow to look for Sophia.

Despite the trouble you had in snoozing off, you woke up early enough to see the sun rise from your spot in the truck bed. It wasn’t like you’d be able to rest any longer since the rays would’ve awaken you anyways, so might as well get a head start. Since no one was up yet, you traded your black v-neck top for a white one and hopped out since you slept in your ripped jeans and combat boots. You strapped on your holsters and secured your pistol and machete along with your collection of knives before peeking into one of the nearby cars in search of food because boy were you starving.

Once you sifted through and found some kettle chips, you leaned up against the back of the truck to pop open the bag to see Rick approaching you with his cop uniform on. You gave him a smile, offering the bag to him to which he smirked and took a few earning a giggle from you. When you two were in high school, you’d both get different things for lunch and share each other’s trays, having a bit of everything to munch on.

“You know there’s a whole stash of food behind that car that everyone gathered,” Rick mentioned with a chuckle as he dusted off his hands, causing you to pause on the chip you were currently crunching on to comprehend what he just said.

“Whoops?” you shrugged, earning your best friend to shake his head with a laugh and you couldn’t help, but to giggle yourself hearing happiness come out of his mouth and how stupid you were.

After the goofiness died down, Rick had folded his arms across his chest and turned a little serious while you placed the empty bag in the truck bed behind you. “You sure you ready to help search? I heard about your hip.”

You sighed, “I’m sure. I’ll be fine, it’s just a bruise besides I have you to look after me,” you playfully said with a smirk, nudging his side with your elbow making him break out into a gleeful smile.

Not long after, everyone started to wake up and come out, so you and Rick made your way over to a car that was close to the RV to finally set out to find Sophia. You took position against the RV as Rick slammed a collection of weapon tools on the hood of the vehicle and unraveled it. “Everybody takes a weapon.”

“These aren’t the kind of weapons we need,” Andrea complained and you rolled your eyes knowing damn well she couldn’t shoot a gun because when you met her, she didn’t even take the safety off, so why should it matter? “What about the guns?”

“We’ve been over that,” Shane blatantly said. “Daryl, Rick, Y/N and I are carrying. We can’t have people popping off rounds every time a tree rustles.” You quietly snickered to yourself at his comment while you doubled check to see if your P99 was loaded and had a full clip.

“It’s not the trees I’m worried about,” she hesitantly clarified.

“Say somebody fires at the wrong moment, a herd happens to be passing by. See, then it’s game over for all of us,” he said all jokes aside. “So you need to get over it.”

The blonde still didn’t look very pleased, but she chose to finally shut her mouth on the situation giving Daryl the opportunity to discuss the plan, where you’d all head to search. His idea was to take the creek up for about five miles, then turn around and come back down on the other side. It wasn’t a bad plan at all, so there was no need for you to voice an opinion especially since he knew the woods better than you did. The creek was her only landmark, so finding her near there was high.

“Stay quiet and stay sharp. Keep space between you, but always stay within sight of each other,” Rick instructed at the group, causing you to nod with the corner of your mouth turned up. That was something the sheriff said to the three of you before going on a grid search or raiding a house, when things were more simpler than the dead rising.

Rick had requested for Dale to keep tinkering on the RV, so once you found Sophia, you’d all be able to get the hell out of the area and back on the original plan, to head for Fort Benning. You still thought it was a waste of time and resources, but it was better than being stranded on the interstate. Before you could head out, Rick had asked for the old man to keep an eye on Carl, but he said he was going with you all which wasn’t surprising to hear, it even made you chuckle.

“You need people, right? To cover as much ground as possible,” Carl said, trying to convince his father which made Rick groan in thought, trying to make a decision on him joining. Rick had turned over to his wife for an answer, but all she did was look at the ground and tell him it was his call. Dale even made a point in saying he had all of you to look after him, so you were sold on him tagging along. His father ultimately agreed, making you grin at the boy after they departed.

“I guess this is finally the hunting trip you always wanted me to take you out on,” you joked in light of the situation, ruffling his hair before hugging him into your good side. “Sorry it won’t be fun,” you gloomily apologized once you loosened your grip to hug his face within your palms.

Carl shrugged his shoulders, “It’s okay. All that matters is finding Sophia.” You gingerly smiled and pressed a quick kiss on top of his head before smoothing out his hair. “Stick with me, kid. I’m going to be real slow out there and I need you to protect me,” you quipped, earning a chuckle in return.

With you and Carl in conversation, you didn’t notice the feud between Andrea and Dale occurring, she wasn’t backing down without her gun that he took from her. “But if Y/N and I hadn’t done what we did, you’d be dead right now,” Dale reminded.

“Jenner gave us an option. I chose to stay-”

“You chose suicide!” Dale argued.

“So what’s that to you? Or Y/N? You barely know me,” Andrea lashed back and it made you uncomfortable that she had felt this way this entire time.

“I know Amy’s death devastated you,” Dale began to say.

“Keep her out of this,” Andrea sternly said. “This is not about Amy. This is about us and if I decided that I had nothing left to live for, who the hell are you to tell me otherwise? To force my hand like that?”

“We saved your life,” Dale confusedly spoke.

“No, Dale. I saved both of yours, you guys forced that on me. I didn’t want the blood on my hands and that is the only reason I left that building. What did you expect?” Andrea questioned.

“Maybe just a little gratitude,” he softly voiced.

“Gratitude? I wanted to die my way, not torn apart by drooling freaks. That was my choice, you took that away from me,” she said, tears ready to spill. “All I wanted after my sister died was to get out of this endless horrific nightmare we live everyday. I wasn’t hurting anyone else. You took my choice away, Dale right along with Y/N and you expect… gratitude?”

You moved away from Carl to take a couple steps forward. “I don’t appreciate being dragged into this because the only reason why I went back into that building was to try and reason with you to not opt out, not force you. If you had still refused, then I would’ve left and dragged Dale right along with me ‘cause then I could say I at least tried. I even said it was your choice and that we couldn’t make you, so I did not force your hand and I sure as hell did not take your choice away. So don’t you dare say I did,” you fumed, tears wanting to be freed, but you refused to let them. You understood being blamed for Sophia, you faulted yourself for it and for not being able to save your aunt and uncle, but you sure as hell weren’t about to be blamed for saving her. It made you risking the chances of being blown up mean nothing.

You began to walk away, not caring to hear any other remarks, but you turned your head to peer at the ground to clarify one more thing. “By the way, you said you weren’t hurting anyone else… well you’re wrong. You would’ve hurt everyone in this group just like Jacqui’s death did.” And with that you strided off hearing multiple footsteps behind you, the search for Sophia was on.

Daryl was leading the way while you were following Lori and Carl, skimming through the knee lengthed grass with Shane as the caboose, trailing behind you. You had the palm of your hand resting on the grip of your pistol while your other hand held your machete. Carl was fiddling with one of your knives in his hands as he walked, but he stopped to show Shane his new weapon. He was telling him how you had given it to him to protect you which made a grin stretch across your face, but it disappeared once Shane had interrupted him in the rudest of ways.

“Keep it down, we’re lookin’ for Sophia. You need to focus on the task,” he scolded as he turned around to search for anything behind. Lori had ushered for her child to keep up, giving you a look that she had heard everything, so you pivoted around to give him a piece of your mind.

“What the fuck was that?” you harshly whispered.

“What was what?” he questioned, preoccupied at scanning the area instead of looking at your face.

You huffed, pointing in the direction of the group with your blade. “What you did to Carl. He was just trying to show you his cool new knife and you had to bring him down with your ‘Focus on the task’ attitude,” you mocked with your fists on your hips, puffing out your chest with a deep voice.

All he did was scoff and press on with you tied to the hip, you weren’t going to let him off that easy. “You know you’re very lucky I somewhat forgave you from what happened at the C.D.C,” you reminded in a hush tone, catching his attention.

“You know I was just drunk, you know that,” he definitively pointed at you, his eyes full of regret.

You scoffed, surveying the area and making sure to watch your step. “Yeah, well, that still doesn’t change what you did, but I’m not going to hang it above your head. Anyways, now that I grabbed your attention, are you pushing away Carl because of Lori?” you eagerly questioned.

“I don’t see why that’s any of your concern or business,” he retorted, giving you a sideways glance.

“It is my business!” you somewhat shouted accidentally and you pried your angered glare off of Shane to see if anyone was looking. Lori’s questioning eyes met yours and you gave her a fake smile before going back to what you were doing. “You are having a feud with my best friend’s- your best friend’s wife,” you corrected, poking him on his arm. “And I want to know why.”

Before he could answer, Shane had tapped you with the back of his hand still keeping his orbs forward and you wanted to slap it away, but you followed his line of sight. There was a tent crowded around with trees giving it a secluded feeling and Shane brought up how Sophia could be in there which wasn’t a terrible assumption.

The four of you that carried guns quietly approached the tent before Daryl gave a signal for the three of you to stay back. He wielded out his knife and got into a crouched stance, ready to strike as he stepped closer to the makeshift home. The archer peeked inside the holes of the tent and waved his hands in an i-don’t-know-can’t-tell way, so Rick quietly called Carol over. He ordered her to call Sophia out softly, if she was in there, her mother’s voice should be the first thing she should hear.

Carol loudly, but quietly called for her daughter, promising that it was safe to come out. It was silent… she wasn’t in there and your heart shattered. Rick and Shane advanced to the tent while you stood beside Carol as Daryl gradually unzipped the tent before lifting the flap. He jerked his head away and covered his senses with the back of hand, indicating in your mind that there was a dead body in there and if it stunk that bad, it had to have been there for weeks. Daryl confirmed what you had thought as he exited the tent, he opted out.

All of a sudden, a sound began to ring out and as you listened closer it sounded like bells, but you couldn’t tell where they were coming from since your concussion prevented you from doing so. Luckily, Rick motioned the way and you all frantically sprinted towards the sound, it could be Sophia.

You were keeping up with the group pretty well considering your injured leg, but then Rick and Shane paused trying to pinpoint the sound again. It wasn’t just your hearing then, the woods were affecting it, bouncing off of trees or what not. Carol and Glenn made a good point, if you could hear them, then Sophia could hear them too or someone was calling for others or maybe she was ringing them herself.

There were trees hovering over your path, but you could identify a clearing and a white building. Once you pushed passed the leaves, a church came into view, but it didn’t have a steeple or bells to cause the ringing. Rick ignored Shane’s observation and began to dash towards the godly building. No one was in grave danger, so you chose to speed walk while the others followed the southern quickly. After you caught up with the group, Rick and Daryl were positioned on either side of the door ready to breach in with Shane in front.  

The doors were pushed open and three walkers craned their heads to look at you. One was in a bridal gown and the two others looked to be in matching attire, well that was a wedding to remember. You left the killings to Rick, Shane and Daryl since it was only three plus your hip was bothering you.

“I’m telling you, it’s the wrong church. It’s got no steeple, Rick,” Shane said after the walkers were put down. And it triggered in your brain, there wasn’t a steeple or bells, but it did come from this church, just like the one you went to with your aunt and uncle when you were younger. Before you could voice your theory, the bells began to ring again causing you to wince and hold your ears as they ran out the door, your concussion was doing a number on you. “Guys it’s automated!” you shouted, but they didn’t hear you.

When you stumbled outside, the persistent ringing had finally stopped and you spotted a speaker on the side of the building. You exhaled a sigh and dragged your feet back into the church and sat on a pew in the back, leaning your elbows on the one in front of you as you rested your chin in your hand and stared at the statue of Jesus hanging on the cross. Rick, Carl and Daryl were standing in the back while Lori was in the front row for Carol’s comfort.

You overheard Carol pray out loud, asking for forgiveness even though she knew she didn’t deserve it. She had prayed for a safe trip to Atlanta, punishment on Ed for laying his hands on her and looking at his own daughter which made your stomach turn. She continued to talk about Sophia and how she pleaded for the Lord to bring her back to her. How her wanting Ed dead was a sin and Sophia shouldn’t be punished for it, just her.

Once it was silent with the exception of Carol’s whimpers, you began to quietly pray yourself. You didn’t consider yourself a very religious person, yeah you believed in a higher power since you also believed everything happened for a reason, but you didn’t pray as often as you should. When you were sixteen, your aunt and uncle, well mainly your uncle, was cool with allowing you to get your first tattoo. With it being your first tattoo and all, you decided to get something small and meaningful, you never wanted to get inked unless it had significance to you. The first thing that came to mind was a cross, not only as a symbol of your faith, but for your parents as well. You wanted to believe they were in better place, that they were looking down on you with proud smiles on their faces.

“Yo what up Christ,” you joked with a nervous chuckle before shaking your head at how much of an idiot you were. “I haven’t done this in well… only you would know besides you can tell from- whatever,” you scrambled your hands in the air before linking them together in your lap.

“I just wanted to say that I don’t blame you for what happened to Jolene and Chris… and I know you wouldn’t want me to blame myself and I’m getting better at not doing so. This is going to sound fucked up- ‘scuse my language Lord- I’m kind of glad it happened because I didn’t want them to have to live in this world. To go through the things we’ll have to go through because they deserved better than this world we live in now. Hell, the people I’m with deserve more, but just because I’m thankful that they don’t have to go through everyday surviving doesn’t mean I wish death upon these people- upon Sophia,” you solemnly whispered, staring at the statue and the ceiling from time to time.

“Please guide us to her or her to us, we just want her alive and safe, to be with her loving mother and us- the people who care about her,” you pleaded in a hushed tone. “In the name of Jesus, Amen.”

After you finished, you stood up and turned to get out of the aisle. Once you did, your eyes connected to Daryl’s and you knew he heard everything you said by the soft look in his eyes, but you still wished he somehow didn’t. You averted your gaze quicker than you had looked at him and stepped out of the church with Rick following you out.

Shane had trekked where the two of you were telling you the group had to get a move on since there was only a couple hours of daylight left and that there was a long way back. Rick didn’t want to stop and you didn’t want to either, but you were spent. There was a whole lot of ground to cover and not enough hours in the day unfortunately.

“Her being out here is my fault,” Rick said, leading you to abruptly shake your head.

“No it isn’t. You did everything in your power to keep her safe, you lead those walkers away and made sure she was hidden, gave her directions just in case,” you assertively said. “It’s my fault. I could’ve done a lot of things, but chose to be a hero instead of thinking. I learned to come up with tactics and ideas in high pressure situations in the military and when it came to a little girl-,” you paused, taking a deep breath. “I didn’t use anything.”

Shane halfheartedly chuckled which caused you to frown his way. “That’s great. Now they got you both doubting yourselves, huh.”

“What about you? You doubt me? You doubt her?” Rick inquired, but knowing Shane he’d just maneuver around the question.

“Hey, we can assign all kinds of blame,” he began to say, making you lift your hands and smile in disbelief, you couldn’t have been more right. Rick had gotten in his face saying how finding Sophia meant something, that they couldn’t give up, so Shane patted the two of you on the backs as he walked passed.

Shane cleared his throat and told the group that they’d follow the creek bed back and that Daryl was in charge. He then explained how the three of you were going to hang back and search the area for another hour or so. You were sort of exhausted, but not enough to stop looking, you could manage a couple hours. The redneck questioned the idea of splitting you all up, but Shane assured you’d all catch up.

“I want to stay too,” Carol spoke up, causing you to quirk a brow and shift your gaze on the little boy to his father for an answer. “I’m her friend.” You smiled at that and Rick exchanged looks between you and Shane, wondering what he should do, so you just shrugged your shoulders. You didn’t see any harm in it, bringing him out was a big decision in itself, a couple more hours wouldn’t hurt.

Lori ended up giving the okay as she told him to be careful. “When did you start growing up,” she teased, kissing him on the head as she gave him a hug. Rick went to bid a brief see-you-soon hug and kiss and you noticed the look that Shane and Lori had as they did. Shane and Andrea even gave each other a look leaving you to wonder what the fuck was going on. What were you missing?

Rick offered his wife his gun, but she denied, not wanting to leave him unarmed. Daryl had a spare from the tent he retrieved, so he handed it to her leaving Andrea to shake her head in disbelief. You understood her frustration since only four people were allowed to have guns, but the three of you were separating. They needed another person with a loaded weapon. She just needed to grow up and not take everything to heart, life was unfair, so you rolled your eyes at her behavior.

As the rest of the group headed back to the interstate, Rick had asked for a minute before you all started back up again, so you hung out on the steps and played rock, paper, scissors with Carl. Rick was in the church most likely praying which was something he never did, but who were you to judge? You were a believer and barely talked to the Lord yourself.

You wanted to continue the conversation you were having with Shane before you all found the tent, but you didn’t want to do that in front of Carl. He was already getting dragged into it by his mother and Shane, he didn’t need to be engrossed into all of this drama… if that was what it was.  

“Okay, how about whoever gets the best out of three gets,” you tailed off, thinking of what the grand prize would be. “Gets to have those double chocolate chip cookies at the highway when we get back,” you smirked, wiggling your eyebrows. Carl giggled and agreed to the terms, bragging about how he was going to win which caused Shane to try and suppress a smile.

One, two, three. You= paper, Carl= rock  

One, two, three. You= rock, Carl= rock

One, two, three. You= rock, Carl= paper  

You had a feeling he was going to choose rock next since every time you two would play, he would do whatever you did last next for his turn. You had chosen scissors and Carl had done rock, and when he realized he had won, he sprouted up and began cheering making Shane laugh and you fake pout with your arms crossed.

“Looks like you get the cookies, Carl, nice play,” you annoyedly faked in defeat and gave him a lousy high five before Rick came out. You stood up and ruffled Carl’s hair before stepping down to follow his father. He didn’t look too happy and Shane had picked up on that too since he gave you a look, so you shrugged your shoulders in return.

Daryl’s POV

“So this is it? This the whole plan?” Carol complained and Daryl understood, it didn’t exactly turn out the way he envisioned. He didn’t expect for the group to get smaller which he still thought wasn’t the smartest thing to do.

“Carrying knives and pointy sticks,” Andrea mentioned, peering over jealousy on her face at Lori who was unzipping her backpack. “I see you have a gun.”

Lori didn’t take no time in replying back. “Why you want it? Here take it.” She handed the gun over with attitude, fed up with the blonde’s. “I’m sick of the looks you’re giving me.” Andrea scoffed, but took the weapon anyways, isn’t that what she wanted?

Daryl thought Andrea was overreacting, that it wasn’t a big if she didn’t have one. It wasn’t like any of them were going to be shooting any walkers, they’d resort to his crossbow or the bladed weapons. No sense in making noise when you don’t have to.

“All of you,” Lori began before directing her attention to Carol. “Honey, I can’t imagine what you’re going through and I would do anything to stop it, but you have got to stop blaming Rick and Y/N. It is in your face every- time- you- look- at- them,” she emphasized. “When Sophia ran they didn’t hesitate, did they? Not for a second. I don’t know that any of us would have gone after her the way they did or made the hard decisions they had to make or that anybody could have done it any differently. Anybody?” she questioned, wandering her orbs over everyone, looking if anyone would speak up.

Daryl wanted to think he could, but deep down he probably wouldn’t have done what Y/N and Rick had done. He wasn’t there in the moment since he was aiding T-Dog with his arm, hiding them both under corpses so the dead would pass by. He risked his life for him which made him take a second to think back about those times he had scolded Y/N for doing the exact same thing he did. It wasn’t a blowing building situation, but it was sort of like Sophia and he had shouted at Y/N for chasing after her since she had a concussion. He had a justified reason for everything that he did, so why did he feel so bad?

“Y’all look to him and then you blame him when he’s not perfect. If you think you can do this without him, go right head, nobody is stopping you,” Lori angrily said, now only talking about Rick since even Y/N looked to him for answers, he was like an older brother to her. He could relate, Daryl always had looked up to Merle even when he was a dick, didn’t change the fact that they were blood, that he loved him.

He also didn’t blame Y/N for what had happened with Sophia. She had bolted after her the minute she heard something go down and that said a lot about her character. She was caring, put others before herself, strong, and an all around good person… something Daryl still didn’t believe he could be.

After Lori’s rant had ended, Andrea had handed back over the gun and advised that they should keep moving, so Daryl motioned for them to get in front while he stayed in the middle just in case.

Y/N’s POV  

The four of you had been casually walking through the wooded area, still searching for Sophia in silence, not wanting to get distracted or make noise. The pain in your hip was a distraction in itself and you were curious as to what it looked since it had been a whole day. While you continued to limp as you followed closely, you gestured for Shane to hold your machete. Once your hands were free, you quietly undid your belt and stretched down your jeans to reveal your now multi colored bruise. It had to have had all the colors in the rainbow including black which indicated a bone bruise, you’d have pain and the look to go with it for weeks. Shane had given you a remorseful look as you zipped up your pants and buckled your belt frustratedly.

“Y/N,” he whispered cautiously and you quickly gawked at him only to see him point at your arms. You reluctantly shifted your gaze over to your forearms to see redness around your wounds and what looked to be blisters. You had a damn infection and would start coughing and catching a fever soon. What in the hell were you going to do now?

A sudden snap of a twig pulled you out of your worried thoughts and so you motioned for Shane to hand you back your weapon as you pushed Carl a little behind you, stopping to hear for anything else. Rick had pointed to where the noise came from, so you slowly moved forward with caution. Once you saw Rick stop, you followed his line of sight to see a deer coming through the clearing where you stood, sniffing for food.

Shane went to aim, but you and Rick both muttered his name and nodded to Carl who was intrigued by the creature as he approached closer with a smile plastered on his face. You grinned seeing the first animal you’d seen since the world went to shit, this was the best moment to bare witness to. Everything seemed so eerie with death and Sophia missing, but this… this was what made fighting that much worth it.

You continued to stare with curiosity with a hand on your hip with your bad leg stretched to the side as Carl itched closer and closer with each step. The three of you had exchanged wondering looks, but the lively expressions never left your faces. You heard a twig lightly break under Carl’s feet and the deer brought it’s attention over to the source, gawking at the little boy. The moment of the two of them having a staring contest seemed to have gone on for minutes when in reality it only went on for seconds and within those seconds a piercing shot rang out and you saw the deer right along with Carl fall to the ground with a thud.

_____________________________________

Thank you for reading! What did you think of this part? Any feedback is much appreciated and I would love to hear your thoughts, criticism, suggestions, etc! If you’d like to be tagged or removed, don’t hesitate to let me know!

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[a-sweet-pea]

Untitled: Cowboy

Next

Refer to THIS POST if you want to know why this is an unpolished, unfinished mess that I’m posting anyway. I’m including a bullet-point summary of the set-up I couldn’t be bothered writing, hopefully that provides enough context to make this enjoyable.

- Anne is in the desert. Why? How? Who’s to say. That’s a problem for past-sweet-pea who came up with a vague premise and ran with it without developing it any further. It’s safe to assume that something unintentional and indian-in-the-cupboard-y was involved (I vaguely remember something from the later books where the magic key got turned into a car key and sent people back when they tried to start the car? Something like that I bet.

- It is hot and dry and there is exactly one object providing shade within walking distance, so she walks to it.

- It is not, as first assumed, some bizarre rock formation, but a knapsack. The size of a rock formation. This does her a concern.

- Another shadow appears, which does her a new, more concerning concern, and rather than stick around to see what that’s about, she begins to run in the direction of NOT THAT THING

- Unfortunately, THAT THING evidently has other plans, and Anne is trapped under something in stuffy darkness

- Until she isn’t anymore, because whatever is on top of her begins to be lifted up…

A sliver of light appeared at the ground and like the sun rising, it grew and spread across the dirt toward her. She shaded her eyes just in time to spare them the sudden brightness. The rising darkness took form; a smooth brown wall that curved around her with a dry creased texture. 

Leather? 

There was a square of white cloth stuck to the wall. In the dim light, she could just barely make out the words ‘Jenkins Haberdashery’ inked into it

A hat. This is a giant hat.

And it was the hat’s brim that was slowly rising, revealing a growing swath of the yellow dirt beyond. And, pressed into that dirt, another leathery shape.  Another perfectly ordinary thing made heart-stopping by its baffling scale. 

A hand. 

She didn’t want to look, but the receding hat was revealing an entity that filled her entire field of vision. The hand was attached to a tree-like arm, partway covered with the sleeve of a checkered shirt rolled up to the elbow. And the arm was attached to a shoulder and the shoulder to a torso of a man, a giant, kneeling in the dirt. He loomed over her tall as a building, blocking out the sun. He was holding the wide-brimmed leather hat in his hand and staring. 

"What the hell?" His voice rang out above her like a clap of thuder.

She wanted to ask the same question. Or scream and run away. Or maybe both. Probably both.

“This don’t make a lick of sense.” He squinted, eyes practically disappearing beneath furrowed brows. His face looked like it had been carved out of the side of a mountain. "I’ve been dry as a creek bed for a week now. Week and a half if you don’t count the swig a’ dirty water Buck Thompson calls moonshine.” The air shook with a deep rumble that might have been a laugh. "I sure as shit didn’t get drunk offa that.” With a movement like the swinging of a construction crane, he lifted the hat to his head.

“Oh well, better you than the flying scorpions."

His legs shifted; the sound of denim rubbing against denim was as loud as a conversation and the stretching, shifting shadows were dizzying. She shut her eyes and clenched her fists until the upheval stopped. When it did, and she opened her eyes again, he was cross-legged. The toes of his brown boots poked out from under his knees, and there were furrows in the soil where his heels had dragged across the dirt.

“So, what are you supposed to be?”

He’s talking to you.

She couldn’t form words, she could hardly formed coherent thoughts. Her heart was in the vice grip of the most basic, primal kind of fear. Goosebumps rose on her arms, in spite of the baking heat. She wished she could throw up the awful sick lump in her stomach.

“A spirit? One of them ‘demons of vice and iniquity’ Sister Jo’s always frettin over?" 

“N-no!" 

His brows shot up; his eyes were pale blue, almost grey. “Seein' and hearin' things? That’s new.” Something about the implication that she was a figment of his imagination irked her enough to eek out a sentence.

“I-I’m not a demon!"

The giant smiled wide, teeth shining against his sun-baked skin. “Well, ain’t that just what a demon would say?” He rested his elbow on his knee and leaned his head on a balled fist. “You’re a bit plain for a hallucination though. No wings? No funny colors?”

Anne took a wobbly step toward him. “I’m…real! I don’t know why I’m so small, or-or everything’s so big, but I-I’m not imaginary.” Shouting made her head hurt. Or maybe it was the heat. “If anything, you’re imaginary.” She nodded. “That’s got to be it,” she said more quietly, to herself. “I-I’m dehydrated, I’ve got heatstroke from walking around in this desert." 

She wiped the sweat from her forehead. It mingled with the sweat on her face and dripped down her chin. How many pints of water had she lost already? It was no wonder she was seeing giant hats and bags and cowboys.

“If you’re real, how come you ain’t got any substance?"

Anne didn’t see him reach out; she was busy staring off into the distance, trying to set eyes on some reasonably-sized landmark. By the time she turned around, it was hardly a few feet from her.

His hand.

A human hand the size of a four-door sedan, coming toward her palm first. A scream lodged in her throat, she couldn’t voice it. Warm fingers thick as her thighs wrapped around her and just like that she was off the ground; carried ten, fifteen, twenty feet in the air, as if by a rogue amusement park ride.

This isn’t happening.

But incredibly, it was. Neither hand nor girl had passed through the other, both were equally, improbably, corporeal. Anne slid down a few inches in his half-committed grip; It seemed he hadn’t expected her to be quite so solid. Her feet kicked uselessly in the open air as she scrambled for a foothold.

“What the...” The giant’s voice coming from some ambiguous direction, maybe all of the directions at once.

She tumbled head over heels in the air and then she was free-falling. Before she had a chance to scream, she hit the ground. But not the ground. Brown leather. She was in the hat again. It was upside down this time, and beyond its walls was nothing but dazzling blue sky, and the head and shoulders of the giant. The bemused smile was gone from the his face; his eyes were wide, his mouth hung open, he was shaking his head slowly.

“Well, don’t that beat all…”

The head eclipsed half of the circle of blue above her, and it was getting bigger. The hat was rising; slower than the gut wrenching grab of the hand, but it still made her queasy.

“A little lady.”

Warm breath washed over her face and the sound of his voice vibrated the air around her. It was all just too close, too loud, too much. She pushed away from the face until her back was pressed up against the curved leather wall, but the hat was still rising up, the face was still getting closer.

“Howdja get so small?”

She hugged her legs tight to her chest and tucked her chin against her knees. It didn’t help her feel any safer. He was smiling again. His face hung in the air twenty feet above her, like a hot air balloon with teeth.

“S’matter, cat got your tongue? You were awful talkative before.”

“I, I-” Anne couldn’t take her eyes off the enormous face, but staring at it was only making things worse. The huge staring eyes, creases in his forehead long and deep as furrows in the dirt, the whole bulk of him like some cowboy-Mount Rushmore. It was all too much. “Please…” She couldn’t finish the sentence becuase there wasn’t an end to it. There was just the wordless, overwhelming fear swirling in her head. And tears in her eyes

“Hey, it’s alright, I was only teasin!”

She laughed, and cried, and tried to take a deep breath but it came in hiccupping bursts. Something moved in the corner of her eye. She turned her head and the source of the movement became clear as the glaring desert sun disappeared behind the silhouette of a giant hand.

“N-no!” She pushed her back against the wall of brown cloth, as if she could disappear into it.

The shadowy hand held still in the sky above her. "Easy, easy.” The giant spoke quieter, almost a whisper. “I ain’t gonna grab you. Honest.”

The hand didn’t come toward her, it moved to the pocket of the giant’s shirt, and pulled out what looked like a red and white spotted bedsheet (but was no doubt a handkerchief). Then the hand, holding the handkerchief, did come toward her. Down from the sky and into the hat, closer and closer, pinched between a massive finger and thumb, until it was only a foot away from her. The cloth looked surprisingly clean, given that there was a fine layer of dirt settled into the creases and wrinkles around his thumbnail.

“How about you dry those eyes?”

She reached for the corner of cloth, her arm was trembling. Pull yourself together. There was a warm breeze coming from above her. She didn’t want to look up; she knew what it was. But she couldn’t help herself. She looked up and immediately back down. His face is so close. Her hand was shaking even more now, she couldn’t even bring herself to reach the extra few inches to the cloth.

“Go ahead.”

“I-I’m trying,” her voice cracked pathetically. “You’re just…really big!” Her eyes stung hot, and suddenly the tears were flowing again. He’s not though, you’re small. Tiny, and totally helpless. She tried to take a breath to calm herself but the air came in sniffs and catches, she couldn’t manage a lungful.

The hand and handkerchief receded. “Aw, now you’ve got me goin.” She looked up, managing shuddering, but full, breath. There were tears welling in the giant’s eyes and his cheeks were flushed.“I don’t mean to frighten you, darlin,” he wiped the tears from his eyes; leaving shining trails across his dry skin. “Honest, I wouldn’t lay a hand on ya, even if you was a demon!”

She hiccuped, a puzzled smile on her face. “Why are you crying?” She pressed her sleeve against her eyes.

“I got a-” he blew a thunderous blast into the hanky. “Soft heart. Cain’t stand to see a lady in distress.” He wadded up the soiled cloth and tucked it back in his shirt pocket. “Cry so much, the boys even got a nickname for me, back in town.” He chuckled. “Boo-hoo Boone.”

“Is that your name?” She sniffed and wiped her nose. “Boone?”

“Sure is.” The giant inclined his head. “Would you be so kind as to give me yours? Unless you prefer darlin’.” His lip curled in a sort of half-smile, and she couldn’t help smiling back.

“It’s Anne.”

“Well, it’s mighty nice to meet you miss Anne. I’m awfully sorry I gave you such a fright.”

“I-it’s okay.” She nodded. “You didn’t mean to.”

“I sure didn’t.” He looked up and squinted, and wiped something from his forehead instead of his eyes. “Miss Anne, I don’t suppose I could ask a favor of you, could I?”

“Sure?”

“Well, I’m gonna burn red as a cherry if I ain’t careful.” He looked down sheepishly, and then slowly, the baking sun was once again eclipsed by a shadow hand. “May I, uh, escort you…um…outta my hat so I can put it on again?”

“O-Oh! Yeah, I didn’t mean to monopolize it.”

“Well, I reckon it’s my fault for dropping you in there in the first place; I’m awfully sorry about that by the way.” His eyes went wide and earnest. “I won’t do somethin as damn foolish as that again, I promise you that.”

Anne just nodded. The hand was coming closer, and she didn’t feel confident in her ability to talk without squeaking. Slowly, tentatively, rough thick fingers reached out to her. They just brushed against her first; a few fingers against one side, the thumb against the other. She didn’t scream, or squirm, or try to get away, so the warm digits gently pressed against her, and then she was lifting up into the air.

Her heart was racing, maybe Boone felt it, because he whispered, “It’s alright, I ain’t about to drop you.” She looked down in time to see the brown oval of the hat slip away beneath her, and looked up in time to see it placed firmly on the top of his head.

“That’s better.” She hadn’t thought there was anything missing about him, but seeing the hat on his head, Anne got the sense of the last piece of a puzzle being put in place. His face certainly had that satisfied look about it.

“Now then…” Anne was lowered slowly, and her feet touched something warm and soft. The fingers loosened their grip and Anne fell to her hands and knees on the skin of a giant palm. Warm and living and utterly incomprehensibly enormous. “Lemme get a proper look at you.”

Anne stood up, and fought to stay standing as the hand shifted beneath her. Boone shook his head slowly, blowing a long stream of air through pursed lips that washed over her like a cool breeze. “You sure are something, you know that?” He’d lifted her high enough that they were almost eye level with each other, and his were wide with wonder. “You, you ain’t even knee-high to a strawberry.” His low chuckle filled the air around her, but it was too pleasant to be thunder.

Ps @a-black-pegasus , this is that cowboy thing I mentioned that one time. Also, what up @questionable-breads . @wolfie180g @mostgarlicofbread Please enjoy.

[celestinaruns]

The river valley exacted its revenge--and it was definitely angry

At 4 am on Sunday morning, the sun was already rising in Edmonton. I had kept my curtains open, partly not expecting the light to be streaming in so soon, partly hoping for it because I thought I would sleep in. Silly, really, because I was tossing and turning all night.

I had packed everything I needed the night before. Correction: everything I thought I would need to take on the 50 km course at the Canadian River Valley Revenge, Summer Edition. I had done some research, fully expecting a 50 km trail race to be a whole other monster in comparison to the road marathons I was used to. This wouldn’t be some marked course I could breeze through, after all, and that extra 7.8 km was going to hit me hard.

Of course, even with my own nerves, I hardly knew what I was in for.

The race debrief at RVR was friendly and realistic. It actually calmed me down to hear the race directors tell us that, honestly, this course was no joke. It would be tough--but we would be fine. My favourite part of the debrief was when they discussed how much they wanted their race to be as sustainable and environmentally friendly as possible. No plastic markers on the course--just ground spray and sparing use of ribbon markers in the trees. No cups at aid stations. No single-use material. After spending the last month thinking on how to make my hobby of running less impactful on the environment, it almost felt like I was right where I was supposed to be. But that’s a topic for another blog post. (Spoiler alert?)

Just standing at the start line, I could tell that this was a race unlike any other I had run before. Fellow runners were friendly and conversational, despite the fact that it was 6 am and this was a race. It was very clear to me before we even started running that there was a sense of humility you can’t quite find at big city road races.

And then we were off.

The course started out fine. It was hilly and narrow and very technical, but I was feeling good. And even when I hit my first massive hill and found myself breathless, I reached the top and just stopped for a moment. The sun was still rising and there was a fog settling on the water. After that, with every view I got to see and every step I took, I started to care less and less about my time and my pace. I was having fun, despite the burning in every muscle in my body.

The fog, of course, came to bite me in the ass later in the day. The moisture turned a very narrow cliffside trail into something like a slanted wall of mud that I had to scale, stretching for 2 miles. That alone took me 50 minutes. By the time I got to the end, though, I stopped again, looked out onto the water and down at myself, covered in mud from my thighs down, with a realization finally setting in.

Today wouldn’t be about speed and pace records and other road race jargon. It was about surviving the adventurous trails of the river valley and enjoying my surroundings.

The course didn’t suddenly get easy just because I had decided to run for myself and not for anyone else, of course, but it did become a lot more enjoyable. For those that have never experienced the Edmonton river valley, it’s something else. Almost entirely undeveloped, the terrain is anything but kind. The trails have been shaped by adventurous mountain bikers, trail runners, and cross-country skiers that came before, and a lot of them have their own little quirks. I found myself smiling as I was ducking and leaping over logs, and I didn’t hesitate to use my hands whenever I reached a hill that was so steep it may as well have been vertical.

I paid big time, physically speaking. Aside from the muddy wetness in my shoes and socks, I also had splinters all over my palms and cuts on my legs and arms. I ran out of water a couple of miles before the first aid station, underestimating the heat and the exhaustion my body was enduring. But I made it there, I chugged back some cola like I had never tasted it before in my life, and I took a breather.

I hadn’t opted to drop off a box of extra things at the aid station the day before because... well, I had underestimated the course, despite all of my planning. “Just 50 km, why would I need a change of anything?” had been my thought process. As I stood under that tent, though, my wet socks squelching under my weight, I resolved that I wouldn’t be making that mistake at my next ultra.

Just over halfway through, and there it was! Already, the words “my next ultra” were passing through my mind. I must’ve been going crazy.

As I left the aid station, I realized that I felt... really good. In pain, yes, but I wasn’t nauseous or anything--and that was a big deal. Nausea while running intensely has been a huge issue for me in the past, but something about that race sat well with me. Maybe it was the solid food, or maybe it was the perfect combination of sugar, caffeine, and carbonation from the cola that settled my stomach. Either way, I was bouncing happily along Old Tramp on my way to get a poker chip to prove that I had been to the mysterious trampoline in the middle of Edmonton’s river valley. 

I loved that, too. Not the trampoline, specifically, but the hidden gems of Edmonton trail running, which includes the trampoline-- as well as Golfball Alley, with its audience of golf balls spectating your run, and Six Shooter, with its hidden plastic revolver that I have yet to find (one day). All trash, in anyone else’s eyes, but quirks and traditions that remain untouched and unmoved by everyone that makes their way through the treacherous terrain.

It was when I doubled back on Old Tramp that I missed a marker that cost me an extra 4 km. Not something I gave much thought, though. In a road race, I would have been frustrated at myself for the time loss. I remember being delayed a couple of minutes at Red Deer and muttering angrily to myself for the next few kilometres. Now, though, I simply shrugged it off. “Just part of the adventure, we live, we learn,” I told myself easily.

The race hit a lot of exposed areas after that, just as the hot sun started shining its brightest. I had just gotten my second poker chip on the other side of the river when I found that my water was already starting to run quite low, and it would be a while until the next aid station. Next time, I would get the 2 L hydration bladder, I had resolved. Next time!

In a miraculous turn of events, an unmanned water station had been set up along the route passing EPCOR, by some of its employees. It had been at the perfect time, just when my water was completely out, and that was enough to get me to the next and final manned aid station.

In a moment of inspiration, I filled one of my bottles with half cola half water, and the other entirely with water. For whatever the reason, the cola had sat well with me once before, so I thought it would help me get through the rest of the day. Only another 12 km, after all. Hardly anything in comparison to what I had just run.

Once I had my fill of some fruit and got some of my more painful splinters out, I was off once more. Again, there was an unmanned aid station along the trail where I filled up on my cola and water. It was set up by a man and a woman living in the area, both of them ultra runners, both content with spending the day helping us out. The only other time I had seen something like that had been at Boston, but this was different. I felt like I had the time to stop, take a breather, and actually chat with them. The atmosphere wasn’t filled with the same frenzy and madness one finds at packed road races. I could hear the crickets in the tall grass and had a beautiful view of the river. 

That was easily one of my favourite stops, not only because of how kind the people had been, but also because my stomach and I discovered that rice, apparently, sits very well with me in the middle of a race.

After that, the route wasn’t quite as bad. It wasn’t until I finished the race that I found out I ran another extra 4 km by taking a loop that had been intended only for the 50 and 100 mile racers. It was a mistake that many of the 50 km runners had made, though, and in the moment of racing it hadn’t clicked in my mind at all--I just couldn’t understand why the last 12 km was definitely not 12 km.

The route was fine, though, and almost too easy--which should have been the dead giveaway. The last 2 miles of the course brought me into the deep woods once more, traversing creeks and roots and fallen logs with an ironic combination of carefulness and hurriedness. Every once in a while the trail would get closer to the city and I could hear the cheers from the finish line, and then it would dive back down into stubborn and aggressive ravine. My quads were starting to give out and my feet dragging. At this point, my knees were doing most of the work and I’m convinced it was that last kilometre that gave me most of my scratches.

A brutal last kilometre, one we had been warned about that morning. The fastest finish time for it had been 15 minutes. I had taken about 21 minutes, and that alone had actually made me very proud of myself. As soon as I realized that I was near the top, I was scrambling up and running as fast as I could to cross the finish line.

And then it was over, just like that. I received my medal and my free beer. I walked around aimlessly for a bit, too scared of sitting down in case I wouldn’t be able to stand up again. Honestly, I don’t even remember if I got my burger before or after I changed into dry clothes, but I did get it at one point. I also remember defending salt & vinegar chips as the best chip flavour to a skeptic across the table from me. The rest is a bit hazy.

Even at the end, the words at my next ultra were still running through my head. Yeah, I was destroyed. Still am. My legs and arms are covered in scratches. My ankles are bruised. My fingers are still sore from the splinters that were stuck in there for hours. I have a tan line that I’m 99% sure could be turned into a meme, and so much chafing that I had to resort to wiping my body with wet wipes instead of having a full shower. But it was fun.

In the end, my wrong turns cost me an extra 8.2 km. I finished my 58.2 km in 9:21:23 on a course that was intended to be 50 km with a 10 hour time limit. I was far from speedy and definitely nowhere near the top, but I hadn’t trained on most of that terrain. I hadn’t even thought that it could get that intense, so I had mostly, and naively, kept to well-groomed trails. Once during my training, I reached a somewhat scary trail and simply turned around, thinking that it couldn’t be that bad. That trail ended up being one of the easiest singletracks on the whole course. I hadn’t known what to expect in terms of my nutrition and hydration needs. I hadn’t thought to leave changes of clothes and shoes at the aid stations. There was simply so much I wouldn’t have considered until actually running the race.

Despite the fact that I was far from my usual speedy, confident self that people see in a road race, and despite everything I hadn’t thought to do, I still just felt so happy to be there and to have been able to accomplish this amazing, insane feat. My body had done that. And yeah, my time needs work--but then I thought about how slow I had been when I first started running cross country in high school. Really slow. I didn’t quit, though, and simply just kept running whenever I could. Each step made me a little better, and the same thing applies to ultra trail races.

I feel like I’m on the cusp of a new chapter of my life, but not quite ready to leave the last one. I still want to make it to Boston in 2021 and I still have that need for speed that only road races can really satisfy. At the same time, though, I have found something I never knew I needed or wanted in ultra marathons and trail races--or adventure races, as the brutal terrain is affectionately dubbed. I think, for now, the one thing I truly want is to find a healthy, sustainable way to keep both of these in my life.

Most of all, though, I need a damn massage.

[winchester-ofthe-lord]

Classic Winchester Adventures - Chapter 6

Square Filled: Motel

Rating: gen

Warnings: none

Word Count: 2.7k

Summary:  Sam and Dean have to find out what’s going on in the “Haunted Motel” they discovered in chapter 2

read on ao3       read from the beginning

A/N:  hiya guys, this is chapter 6 for @spnclassicbingo ’s challenge. MASSIVE thanks to @thefandomforme for helping me with this <3 Stay tuned for the next chapters :)

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A couple of days later, the Impala - now (un)fortunately back to black - rolls off of the highway, and onto the narrow forest road leading toward the “Haunted Motel” Dean is already very keen on entering. The building is only a few minutes outside of town, but for whatever reason about half a mile into the woods, accessible only via a bumpy track that doesn’t really benefit Baby’s suspension.

“Who the hell came up with the stupid idea of building a motel here?” Dean complains, wincing when one of Baby’s tires hits a pothole, rattling both the car and the two brothers like children in a washing machine. Dean sighs internally, externally, and most of all, eternally, as he tenderly strokes over his steering wheel, muttering plaintive apologies under his breath.

They reach the parking lot, or rather the slightly more flattened area in front of the bedraggled building, and let their eyes roam the shabby house facade that seems to be crumbling away right before them, the abandoned, rusty-looking swing hanging from the tree in the ‘front yard’, the wall of trees surrounding the parcel of land and the road, and a decayed sign that says ‘Welcome to Coal Creek Motel - Enjoy your stay’. Homey.

Today is the eleventh, meaning that they’ve got two and a half days left to find out what exactly they’re even hunting here, why it’s killing people, and how to annihilate it. Easy as pie.

“Why is it always Friday the thirteenth, anyway?” Sam asks as he opens the Impala’s trunk to grab his and Dean’s guns and knives - they decided to scan the area first, then the, at this time of the day hopefully empty, building, before they’d interrogate the owners and possible previous victims. “I mean, why not… I don’t know, why not Thursday the 25th or something?”

Dean takes the proffered weapons from his brother, shaking his head with a soft huff, “Hell, if I knew.” He tucks the gun into the back of his jeans, the knife into the sheath at his ankle, and locks the car. Checking his flip phone for the time, he also sees his most favorite notification: no service. Awesome. “Okay, Sammy, cell reception is shit out here, so we gotta make sure we’re both back at the car in about-” he checks the time again, because he sometimes has the attention span of a goldfish- “one hour and fifty minutes, before the owners open the motel for the nightly tour. You copy?”

“Yes, sir!” Sam scoffs, grinning smugly while he salutes to his brother.

______________________________

Neither of them found anything on their search around the property. No weird symbols, no dead bodies, no creepy altars, no traces of blood, nothing. Which leaves only the house itself to examine.

The brothers accompany a group of seven other people on the tour through the motel. Their guide is a grumpy old man with an unkempt beard, and a generally unkempt outer appearance. But he answers most of the questions some of the overly excited visitors ask him, so he’s at least doing his job.

Unfortunately, even though the tour includes the entire building, nothing Dean and Sam didn’t already know is brought to light. Except for maybe the horrifyingly poorly done getup of the whole “Haunted Motel”. Including faux skeletons and cobwebs (although, looking at the overall condition of the house, the latter ones might actually be real), fake blood stains on the walls and floorboards, eerie paintings and soiled mirrors in the most random places, and a bunch of other stuff that doesn’t bring the Winchesters closer to solving the case.

They let themselves fall behind the group for a moment to share their thoughts, but none of them noticed anything off, or even slightly suspicious, so they decide to come back in the early morning to sift through the house on their own, without that creepy old dude watching their every step.

______________________________

“Hey, Dean,” Sam yells from somewhere on the first floor while Dean lets the yellowish beam of his flashlight wander across the walls in the hallway on the second floor. “I think I found something, get your stupid ass down here.”

It takes him almost two minutes to find his way back through the maze structured building until he finds Sam standing right in front of the front door, illuminating the ugly rug splayed on the floor. More precisely, the rug is rolled to the side, revealing dark wood planks underneath it. There’s a faint outline of a symbol...or a sigil maybe? drawn in dark gray paint (it probably used to be black, but over the years it must’ve faded) onto the floor, looking like a big ‘T’ with some sort of swirl above the upper horizontal line, and another swirl on the right next to the vertical line. “A tulpa?” Dean asks, squinting into the blinding beam of his brother’s flashlight pointed at his face.

“Sure looks like it.” The blinding light lowers toward the floor again.

Awesome. Just. Awesome. Tulpa means they can’t kill anything, and have to convince possibly hundreds of people, if not more, that there’s nothing going on here. Easy. As. Pie.

Which also means that they can’t do anything at the moment.

“Let’s get back to our motel and get some shut-eye. I’m so fucking tired, man,” Dean says and kicks at the rug, causing it to roll unceremoniously back over the painted planks. He opens the door and waits for Sam to walk past him before he follows suit.

______________________________

After sleeping until late morning - they came back from their self-guided, private motel tour around 4:30 am after all - they spend several hours reading stories about people’s experiences in the “Haunted Motel”.

“Holy shit,” Sam curses at his laptop sitting on the desk in front of him, “there’s someone who ran away from about 500 giant tarantulas that were scattered across the entire house.” He taps viciously on the touchpad of his laptop to scroll to the next entry. “And then there was a guy who said he, quote, ‘was torn apart by giant cockroaches with wolf heads’. Damn, that shit sounds terrible.”

These stories go on for quite a while, and Dean isn’t so sure if they’re really dealing with a tulpa in this building, or if they’re entirely on the wrong track here. “Isn’t a tulpa like, a bunch of people believing in the same shit?”

Sam nods his affirmation. “Yeah, a tulpa is created when many people are concentrating on the same thing while looking at the Tibetan Spirit Sigil we saw on the floor in front of the door. Once created, the tulpa takes on a life of its own and doesn’t need people to believe in it anymore. But Dean, I’m not that sure anymore if it’s really a tulpa going nuts in that motel.”

“Yep, just my thought,” Dean says, leaning forward to scrub his hands over his face. “I mean, first off, the sigil is under that ugly ass rug, so people aren’t really likely to see it, right? And every single person is seeing something different? Shouldn’t most people at least see the same thing? That doesn’t make any sense.” Heaving an exasperated sigh, he sinks back into his chair, closing his eyes, trying to sort through the given information.

Sam shuts his laptop with a soft click, and sighs almost as loud as Dean did mere seconds ago. “I don’t know, man. But I think you’re right.” He sighs once more, running a hand through his girly hair. “But if it’s not a tulpa, what else could it be? We only have like, one more day to find out what it is and how we can kill it, Dean.”

His brother is right. And this year, Friday the 13th only happens twice, so they have to kill whatever it is now, or they won’t get another chance for a rather long time.

______________________________

“No no no no no no no. Fuck. No. Nope. Nu-uh. Big. Fucking. HELL NO,” Dean repeats over and over again, a little under his, but mostly out of breath, as he’s running down the hallway on the second floor of the motel. Why he’s running? Oh, just the blonde woman in a white nightdress, looking suspiciously similar to his mom, chasing after him while screaming bloody murder.

Oh. And she’s on fire. Literally.

All of a sudden, she appears right in front of him, causing Dean to come to an abrupt halt, almost face planting into the wall to his right in his attempt to change the direction of his stampede.

“Where are you going, Dean?” his not-mother asks in a malicious snarl. “Don’t you love your mommy?”

Dean jerks his head around to look for another escape. “Not real,” he mumbles under his breath. “Not real, not real, not real, not real.”

The blonde, burning woman reappears right in front of Dean once again as he tries to make his way downstairs where he suspects his brother. Just that now he watches his mother’s face slowly melting off her bones, revealing charred flesh that starts to turn into a new shape.

It’s black and gooey for a few seconds, but little by little, the charred shape merges into a new face.

“Dean, why on earth is my car pink? What have you done?!” the slightly contorted replica of his father asks in an accusing tone. What the fuck, John isn’t even dead. This fucking tulpa is obviously on crack. Besides, the car was pink. It’s black again. Thankyouverymuch.

“SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM,” Dean shrieks into the hallway.

Mary-John-now-flaming-Vampire-Hellhound dissolves into thin air, only to re-materialize behind Dean, growling threateningly at him, and drooling hissing acid on the creaking floorboards. Where the fucking hell is his idiot brother?

The day before, while Sam was busy doing research on the origin story of the tulpa, Dean was equally busy chatting with Nancy the witch via text messages on his flip phone. She may have mutilated his car for a day, but she was also pretty darn hot, and Dean’s never been one to miss out on an opportunity to do some horizontal tango. During all his, what could easily be called, sexting, he pretty much blanked out the Samsquatch and his findings, so Dean doesn’t actually have any idea what’s really going on in that “Haunted Motel” after all.

He vaguely remembers Sam telling him something about Harry Potter fans staying at the motel in 2000, the year after The Prisoner of Azkaban was published, and something about Boggarts. Dean thinks that Sam mentioned the fans “summoning” the Tulpa-Boggart more or less by accident, when they talked about how interesting and frightening the idea of the physical manifestation of one’s worst nightmares would be - while standing right over the giant tulpa sigil in the entrance area.

There was also a good reason why it’s always Friday the 13th, maybe it was because one of the fans was thinking about Jason with his ugly hockey mask. But maybe Dean got that wrong. He wasn’t really paying that much attention, to be honest.

Sam seemed to know and have a plan, so that was enough for the older Winchester.

This plan included an attempt at “exorcising” the Tulpa-Boggart by performing some kind of spiritual cleansing Sam found in one of his books. Or on the internet? Whatever. The important thing is that he did have a plan including the destruction of… something. They’d hoped that by destroying this something, the Boggart would vanish.

It did not.

“Dean?”

Breathing a relieved sigh at the sight of his brother ascending the stairs from the first floor, Dean takes a step toward him. “Took you long enough, asshat. We really need to get outta here. This thing is driving me ins- WHAT THE HELL?!” His relief quickly fades away into nothingness when his brother’s head, rather unexpectedly, bursts into a thousand pieces, painting the walls around the staircase in blood splatters.

Worst fucking nightmare.

Dean scrubs viciously at his eyes, trying to scratch the disturbing image from his retinas, while stumbling forward, and rushing down the stairs. Please let Sam be here somewhere.

“Sammy?” Dean tries carefully, peeking around the corner and into the room where he hopes to find his brother.

Two strong hands clasp at the lapels of his jacket and press him against the wall. “Dean? Please tell me it’s you.”

“‘Course it’s me, you dipshit,” Dean grunts into his brothers face, squirming slightly in his attempt to free himself from the persistent grip. “Now get your giant Sasquatch hands off of me. We need to get the fuck out of here.”

Finally, Sam lets go of Dean’s jacket with a nod, takes a step back from Dean, and briefly skims the room with an unnerved expression. It’s been quite a long time since Dean’s seen his brother that panicked. If it wasn’t for fear of his own life, he actually might find it hilarious.

“What does it look like for you?” Dean asks as he leans around another corner to make sure the entrance area is empty, holding his fist up as a sign for Sam to stay behind.

He hears a grumbled, defeated sigh before Sam answers, “Clowns. Yours?”

“Mom.” This time it’s Dean who exhales a shaky sigh. Only a couple more steps until they reach the front door. “And then Dad lecturing me on defiling his car with the pink velvet shit.”

Sam stops next to him, furrowing his brows in a judgemental expression. “Really Dean, that’s your worst nightmare?” Dean’s eye-roll is basically a full body move. He yanks at the door handle, and says, “Well, now it certainly is.”

They step out onto the front porch, down the stairs and toward the Impala where they take a couple of minutes to catch their breath, and process their respective nightmares. Leaning against the side of the car in the middle of the night in front of an eerie building somewhere in the woods is definitely not one of Dean’s favorite things to do.

“What the hell are we supposed to do now, huh?” Dean pinches the bridge of his nose for the hundredth time tonight before refocusing on his brother. “I mean, technically, there’s not really much we can do. We can’t kill it. We can’t stop people from coming to this fucking motel. We can’t find these damn Harry Potter fans and make them, I dunno, unthink the Boggart out of existence. We can’t do shit, man.”

For once, his smart-alecky brother doesn’t have a witty remark. All he manages to do is a somewhat forlorn shrug, letting his arms go limp by his sides, exhaling wearily.

“Okay, then,” Dean says and pushes himself away from the car, swatting his thighs once, “let’s burn that shit down.”

“What? No, we can’t do that, Dean!”

“Why not?”

“Uhm, because it’s wrong? And what if they just rebuild it?”

Dean rolls his eyes again. “Then we’ll come back and burn that down, too.”

There’s a minute of pregnant silence until Sam speaks again. “You know what? You’re right. Let’s burn it down. The building’s empty now, so at least nobody will get hurt. And it’s not like they’re making a fortune with that shit house anyway.”

So they do exactly that. They each take a gas can from the Impala’s trunk, and spread the highly flammable content around and inside the house, soaking the already rotting wood of the first floor and the porch - neither of them dares to go upstairs in fear of another nightmarish encounter, but well, if the first floor burns down, so will the rest of the house, right?

While Dean is already back at the car, getting it ready to head off by driving it toward the narrow path leading back to the highway, Sam spreads a trail of gasoline from the front door of the motel down the stairs of the porch and several yards away from the building, until he’s next to the car.

“Would you do the honors?” Sam asks his brother, holding out his favorite Zippo with a knowing smirk. As much as the two of them enjoy solving cases, actually killing the monsters they’re hunting, and leaving haunted places...not haunted anymore - it’s also fucking amazing to destroy things. Besides, watching a house burn down does have something oddly meditative.

And the truth is, not everything can be saved.

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taglist: @leatherandapplepies @demoninflannel @cross-roads-blues@thefandomforme @tiernayne

(please let me know if you wanna get added to/deleted from this list)

[simplylove101]

Influential TV Shows

Okay this is kinda random and why I prob won’t tag the shows I list cuz this is more just something I wanted to get out of my head after watching J&J’s latest podcast where they were talking about this topic. They kept it to 7 shows each and while that would certainly be interesting to try, that’s kinda hard. lol I went about grouping some of them - shows that shaped me growing up, shows that impacted me/stuck with me, comfort shows/watch with the family, taught me about fandoms, etc. And saying something about each of them. Anyway, this is stupid but here we go lol:

The Shows Growing Up:

Sailor Moon: Okay, nobody make fun of me. lol This is the first show I remember really watching as a kid that wasn't Barney or whatever, something I decided to watch by myself and it actually had an ongoing story. And ofc it took time for me to realize that this was just an English dubbed version that they would play on Cartoon Network. Looking back on it, it’s a little cringey (the voice readings, Serena being a bit of a crybaby) but seeing girls, even if it was animated, kicking ass over evil as a group made an impression on me so it’s no wonder I would watch it religiously after school and was sad when they stopped airing it. And ofc I watched all the movies too. I was a shameless fan. lmao I also eventually read the manga and appreciated it.

Hey Arnold: As a kid, I would watch Cartoon Network & Nickelodeon (& eventually Disney when I got a little bit older), and I think one of the Nickelodeon shows that really stuck with me as a kid, like Rugrats, was this one. It had a wide range of really distinct characters. It was genuinely funny. And I did love the dynamic between Arnold & Helga (who was interesting & sometimes they would let her be the protagonist of an ep instead of him, like the therapist one which is a def fave) even if her crush was kinda as stalkerish as you can get why maintaining innocence. lol And you know what? I did totally watch the recent movie they did where it tied up loose ends like getting these two together and allowing her to grow as a character. Gotta say it was rewarding after all this time. lol  

All That: I feel like I gotta put this here because I watched this show all the time as a kid. And I think it’s something that really taught me about comedy. I had seen things from Saturday Night Live growing up cuz of my parents but this was my Nickelodeon version with people that weren’t much older than me at the time so I could really get what was going on/enjoy it. It’s also the first place where we saw people like Amanda Bynes & Kenan Thompson & Kel Mitchell (which is partly why I later watched things like The Amanda Show and Kenan & Kel) What can I say? As a young person, it was just really cool seeing kids being funny. Yeah, there was some cheese but I didn’t care. It stayed with me.

Boy Meets World/Sister, Sister/Lizzie McGuire/Even Stevens: I kinda cheated here and bundled these shows because these are four of the shows I watched on Disney growing up (Disney showed reruns of Boy Meets World & Sister, Sister for the record) There were others like That’s So Raven, Suite Life, Wizards of Waverly sort of, Proud Family to name a few but these shows I picked have such iconic episodes that I still remember well and love. Like Even Stevens - musical episode hands down Idc. Boy Meets World - Scream-inspired Halloween ep for sure. Yes, there was cheesiness with all these shows. Sometimes very after-school special, but they shaped me I think. Also gotta mention, I remember thinking of Hilary Duff as my idol. lol

The Ones I Watched With the Fam:

That 70′s Show: Now the thing with my family is that we were one where for a time we would watch tv while eating dinner and my dad would have control of what channel we watched. It was always this way, which meant it would either be Law & Order or Seinfeld (the second one I was cool with and I almost included it on here cuz it’s such a staple comedy but eh,,, I appreciated it more later on. It felt more forced on me at the time) This is probably one of the only shows I can say my whole family truly agreed on watching all together tho, including my sister who generally watches trashy reality shows. This show will always remain one of my faves, because it was hilarious. It got a little weaker towards the end (We do NOT speak about Season 8) but I loved how it was a true ensemble sitcom where everyone brought something to the table and enjoyed the different dynamics between the group. The funny running gags, Jackie & Hyde still remain one of my all-time otps, and Kelso is probably the funniest & lovable dumb character I can think of (If nothing else, Ashton Kutcher was meant to play this part ok) It was nice to have something my whole family could enjoy together. It was a rarity so this show has a special place in my heart for that alone.

Joan of Arcadia: Another show that has a place in my heart, despite it only lasting 2 seasons and it ending on a bad note (major cliffhanger, still never fully making things right w/ Adam after destroying his character, ultimately S2 was problematic but still) because this is a show that I watched religiously (pun not actually intended here lol) with my mom every Friday it was on. What I loved about it was that the concept is centered around Joan talking to God yet it generally wasn’t being preachy. Joan wasn’t always willing to do what God wanted her to do, and things didn’t always turn out how she wanted. It was a kinda perfect blend for me and my mom to watch together. After this we were more willing to watch stuff as a pair cuz we were close but this started all that. I remember always being curious how God would appear to Joan cuz it was always changing, but there were some fave recurring ones like Cute Guy God, Goth God & Old Lady God to name a few. heh Joan was played wonderfully by the awesome Amber Tamblyn who could always make me cry (naturally she played my fave Tibby in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movies too lol) and she had awesome friends in Adam & Grace (who were my faves) and family. I rewatched this show and you know, I’d say S1 holds up and even the first half of S2. Heck, the episode where Joan & Adam break up towards the end of it, while totally heartbreaking and PISSES me off cuz bad writing for Adam, was solid simply for the acting so there’s that. lol

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Putting this show under this category because this was a show that I mostly got into because my sister loved it growing up. I was really young when it came out so I mostly remembered bits & pieces when I later watched it when I got a little older. It stuck with me tho cuz ofc the awesome Sarah Michelle Gellar playing badass Buffy (she was my sister’s idol) and it was a genuinely funny and smart show. It also got dark too. It wasn’t always solid towards the end, but I think it mostly nailed the actual ending (why Anya had to die tho... Spike I got but ugh) Anyway, this was kinda a big deal cuz it was the only thing my sister and I really watched together that wasn’t bad reality television or me barely paying attention to Dawson’s Creek at the time lol This showed that my sister could have taste when she wanted to (lmao sorry)

The Carol Burnett Show: I had to mention this show because this is one that got me, really my family, through dealing with my mom’s dementia. We chose to care for her at home instead of putting her in a nursing home. We did this for 2 years until her death. And the one thing we (excluding my sister cuz her & old stuff don’t mix) could always count on cheering us up was this show. My dad told me that my mom loved this show growing up and that’s why we turned on for her. So luckily memory or no memory, she still had a sense of humor and she knew when to laugh. And with good reason. This show is hilarious. So iconic. Carol Burnett was/is rightfully loved dearly for this show. I wish I had more I could say, but this was truly a comfort show when I desperately needed it so I am forever grateful that it existed.

Honorable Mention: Young & Hungry - another show that got us through that dark period, my dad actually really enjoyed this, despite seeming skeptical, and eventually started calling it the “Josh & Gaby Show” lmao Only thing is we never finished it together so oops. Not so much influential maybe but worth mentioning it felt like since it was underrated, got me thru a tough time, was hilarious and I loved that cast a lot. Emily Osment deserved to be the lead of her own show. Comedy queen.

The Ones That Brought Out the Fangirl In Me AKA The Teen Years:

The O.C/One Tree Hill/Gossip Girl/The Vampire Diaries: Another category where I’m just grouping them up together cuz ultimately it wasn’t about high art with these shows. They were the staple teen shows that everyone was watching and well, I was one of those people. lol It all started with The O.C. It was one of those ‘at the right time’ kinda things cuz I just went into the 6th grade when S1 started and it was such a big hit that everyone was always talking about it and there were even shirts involved (I never went that far lol) but this is where my need to explore YouTube came and then I was making fanvids. Gossip Girl is the one where I actually inserted myself into a fandom for the first time. My goodness the cringe that came with it but it gave me two of the longest online friendships I’ve ever had so I don’t regret it. (Shoutout to @backtothestart02 here as one of them) And well, three of these shows taught me the toxicity that can come from fandom. So I’ve been less vocal/more aware with other shows because of it. There’s problematic stuff in all of these but they were entertaining most of the time despite frustration (lol) 

Honorable Mention: Teen Wolf - Had to mention this one cuz this was a show where I had a group of friends who all watched this together and we talked about it til the end (even when we weren’t happy with it lol) I was never really vocal in the fandom cuz by this point I was wary of them (fandoms I mean), but it was nice to share a show with people who felt similarly about it. As a show, I truly loved it up to 3B. Some of my favorite episodes were the ones that almost felt standalone-ish (3x06 AKA Motel California still remains my fave to this day) Lastly, it’s because of this show I was introduced to Dylan O’Brien who I always refer to as my ‘always & forever’ guy so yeah lol

Maybe Superhero Shows Are Worth Watching lol:

The Flash/Daredevil/Cloak & Dagger/Runaways: So I’m someone who growing up, beyond Spider-Man and Batman, never really jumped at superhero movies. I still don’t to an extent but I’m more willing to watch stuff now. I think because when it comes to TV, I’m willing to check out at least an ep. I got into The Flash because my friend Lauren was really into it (and still very much is now) and wanted me to check it out so I did. I sorta watched Arrow before it until a point so I’d seen Barry’s appearances on it and remembered thinking he was precious so I wasn’t surprised that I liked him as a main character. I do think these later seasons have lost some quality but I think the earlier ones were very solid and Grant is perfect in the role. Daredevil... R.I.P. That show was so high quality so the fact that Netflix cancelled it is just rude. Now... Cloak & Dagger has been one of those surprises for me cuz it was such a slow burn that when it really got going it left me wanting more. That S1 finale was so solid. Cannot wait for S2. Love the dynamic between Ty & Tandy. Now Runaways isn’t perfect but it’s my biggest fandom right now and I’m proud of that fact. It’s a show that highlights diversity with 4 PoC leads & 4 kickass ladies (Nico & Gert are my bb girls), healthy ships including an LGBTQ couple currently as the main one (tho it is Gertchase that owns my heart), and overall a pretty great cast that meshes well like the thrown together family they portray. It even got me back into writing fanfic again. A miracle tbh. lol

Overall Just Amazing:

This Is Us: I just think that this show pulled me in the second they revealed that first plot twist in the pilot. It surprised me and then they kept doing that a bit after. Now it’s more about how it has the ability to make me cry every ep and feel things. It doesn’t always touch me the same it did in that first season (it was an emotional year for me tbh) but it does have a class act cast who can always pull at my heart strings.

Boardwalk Empire: This technically could have went under something I sort of watched with my dad, but it is kinda a weird show to share I guess. We didn’t usually watch it together (saved some awkward convos sometimes lol) but always talked about each episode weekly and it was kinda fun cuz it was usually in-depth. My dad still quotes things from it to this day. He also once said that he considers S1 the best TV season he’s ever watched. I agree that it was great. For me, the first 3 seasons are solid while the last 2 felt different but still pretty good. There was such quality to it. Great acting headed by Steve Buscemi. What can I say? I have a thing for gangster stories. I could say more but I’ll stop. lol

Stranger Things: The show that really turned me into a binge-watcher. I had just gotten Netflix and what show did I decide to watch on my birthday? This show. I had seen things in the media about the kids from it and I was like, they’re adorable!! And ofc I got hooked when I actually watched the show. It just has everything in it that I like: mystery, thrills, humor, hint of romance, awesome acting, music moments, nostalgia. This was my obsession for a while until I got into some other things but if you don’t think I’m totally pumped for S3, then you best believe I’m watching it all in a day if I can. lol

Community: This is a show that reminded me how a show can think totally outside of the box and still have a lot of heart with its comedy. I love situations where a group of misfits come together and become a family. I love that this show celebrates being different. Troy Barnes remains one of my favorite TV characters ever (& omg his friendship with Abed is pure goals!!) and Donald Glover played him perfectly. And Alison Brie is just adorable as Annie. Love this group of weirdos. The quality was different after S3 but I still adore it.

Into the Badlands: Have to mention this show because what it has been doing action-wise is just incredible. The fighting sequences are out of this world. I’m always excited to see how they top it. Also, an Asian male lead? Go dude! The whole cast is wonderful and everything is just high quality, ok? Also, that cinematography!! Can’t believe it’s ending when it comes back. Sadness.

One Day at a Time: This is more of a recent discovery for me (had friends who watched it and knew it was good but only decided to check it out not too long ago) but it’s already made its impact on me. This show has so much heart to it. The writers put so much care into their work when they bring up these controversial issues in the episodes. All while being totally hilarious (but also trust me, I manage to cry at least 1 or twice an ep lol) A show centered on a Cuban family, plenty of good rep for LGBTQ/non-binary people while also handling things like depression/anxiety, addiction, immigration, etc. It’s definitely making its mark on TV. Also, Rita Moreno is a living legend who I adore. I love this cast so much.

12 Monkeys: I. loved. this. show! I still think it had the best series finale that I have seen in a while. It wrapped up things so well that I was smiling for a while after watching it. I couldn’t believe that of all shows this one gave me a happy ending. lol Casserole remains one of my all-time ships because they were truly epic and pulled at my heart strings so many times. Jennifer Goines was my queen. But seriously, a show about time travel that managed to make sense? So impressed. And the visuals? gahhh

Friday Night Lights: Last, but most definitely not least, this show is just up there as one of the all-time bests IDC. The fact that at first glance the show seems centered only about football and it got me to keep watching definitely says something. lol This show had so much heart, the cast was excellent, an ending that was pretty much perfect. Coach & Tami Taylor were relationship goals. Honestly one of the best portrayals of a married couple I’ve ever seen because they were very much a team (while yes there was the occasional bickering that you gotta love) and it just felt real, you know? Also, it’s a show that proved that you can come back from a sophomore slump (yeah S2 was the worst season) and continue to be great.I can’t decide if it’s my favorite show of all-time but it’s certainly one of the first ones to come to mind. So glad I decided to give it a chance.

There’s probably a couple other shows I could list here but some I haven’t finished yet and don’t feel ready to put them on here yet. This is just what I could come up with.

[treeofonelife]

I'm tough as nails. As pink-painted, holo sparkly nails.

I have legitimately felt the plight of most of my adventurer roleplaying game characters today. So to say, I have received the real-life experience to fuel the description of a fine walk through Dementia’s mountainside forests.

The forest at night is full of noises, sounds and vibrations from all corners of the mind and the surroundings. Raindrops fall off leaves and squirrels look for food... But all you hear, especially high as a kite, is that everything is making noise, but nothing is showing. Fear of the unknown lies under every such thought and impression at these times.

I have spent too much time at the cottage, and I had to make my way back in the evening dark. I have tried to use another path, one through inhabited suburban streets, but I had to realize I simply don't know the correct way there. I have always gone through the park, so I have decided to cross it again no matter what. What do I have to lose...? A lot, actually; I had most of my photography equipment with me.

I knew there are some wild animals living loose in the area, despite it being a small suburban forest patch, but I had much more to fear, sadly: some illustrious members of the human population made their base close by, too. I have even met some of them under... brighter circumstances on my way in earlier. I really didn't want to meet any of them now. (No, seriously, not that much better than meeting a cult of Zealots. Trust me.)

No adventuring gear with me, either. All I had was my trusty camera. And that is too valuable to have with me at times like these... Too many people like loot in real life, right?

I didn't even have the neat knife with me that my friend Zatochi gave me earlier; but I knew it would not make me feel any safer. A knife is no weapon. The skill to use it is; and if so, why not learn bare-handed skills instead? Those also allow escape, if used proficiently, and are less self-hazardous. (Thank you for teaching me that, Shia-sang.)

So, I was defenceless, but much like most of my roleplaying characters, I'm good at hiding: this is what I have done, much to my regret.

I have hiked through the forest in dead silence, thanks to the trodden paths and the marked, dusty road. I was more than halfway in, and truth be told, it was more peaceful there, with the quiet but suspicious forest noises, than it had been earlier in the suburbs with all the dogs howling and barking at me. I had to use a light to check on the path makings every now and then; although I was delighted to have found the road with ease: it is pretty easy to keep the creek crossings and crossroads in mind. Provided you remember stuff, usually. So, not like me, usually.

I have even taken my sweet time to take photographs - not my smartest idea so far, right?

Trust me, staying in one place where you can be found, emitting light, and holding something valuable openly in your hand - these are nothing you want to do in the middle of the night in an urban forest or park. Then again, art must prevail...

After I was already content with the pace I have managed to dictate, the troubles started. I have heard loud rattle from one side of the road, far up on a forested hill. I have decided to just sneak past, quickly scurrying on the road in quiet where I have felt the ruckus is the closest to it.

And then, ruckus from the other side of the road. Very near the road. Right next to it. Same type; same sounding. Something large was making noise in the shrubbery.

I have decided to do the same again; I was unaware how close to the road that spot is. I have started the same low sprint I did earlier; hoping to get through. Suddenly, I heard a loud  grunt. I could make out the dark spot next to the road itself even through the darkness; and the ruckus came from exactly there.

Wild boars.

I know there is a small population of them loose in the forest; and some of the locals occasionally see them in the evenings as they are gathering food. Gladly, they are nothing like the Oblivion ones; they don't attack people on sight... But I have to admit my feeling of safety at that point dropped to a negative statistic.

I have made a huge mistake by being unheard, since this meant I have surprised them. There was a whole family of them, judging by the sounds and its directions; which meant less tusks, but fiercer defense instincts. Sadly, it was practically pitch dark at that point, and I didn't want to use a flashlight, so I couldn’t take any pictures of them.

To avoid them, have switched directions, and went off-road. I cut down a large portion of the path - the part where they were too close it. I have decided to give them a wide berth. This was useful for two intended reasons: not only because I didn't want to go too close to them, but also because off-road, in the thick undergrowth, I have made a ruckus as big as theirs, if not bigger. So they always knew exactly where I am, they and could avoid me. Which is their usual intent.

Now, I still didn't have my full stamina reserves (increases Endurance…? my less-than shapely ass, that's what :) );  felt overheated and tired, even before this.

I think I indeed have made a small shortcut but running uphill in the thick vegetation was no walk in a park. (No, it was a run in the park, actually.) I didn’t need to run, but I kept a better balance upwards that way. The possibly-spoiled coffee I have acquired from my host's supplies drove me forward; the air around me was cool but due to the physical effort and my thick clothes, I was swimming in sweat.

I have ran, then walked a great deal uphill this way, not fast, but noisy enough to leave the unwanted company behind. Eventually I have found a different part of the same road. During looking for it, I have repeatedly been tricked by the strong moonlight into thinking the road is there... I get what I deserve. It was a full Moon; I really appreciated the extra illumination when it (rarely) shone through the veil of clouds and the host of the trees.

Once on the right path again, I have proceeded to walk, or jog to reach the last bus. I have probably huffed louder than any of the wild animals I have met, and prayed to get to the main road as fast as possible. I was reeling by the time I have reached the bus stop, but it was all worth the fuss. I think I needed this experience in my life. Not only for the physical trial, more for the adventure.

And not any elytra or grummites or anything, so I'm still lucky, right...? :)

The company gathered on the bus I took on my way back home was more than satisfying. The addition of a half-dead photographer was just about welcome, if not required. I have boarded with a quiet, distracted couple at a tiny, otherwise quiet bus stop. Despite complete strangers, the passengers were exchanging advice and occasionally even facebook id-s. One of them was walking... or busing his dog: a small, well-behaved terrier. Another one of them was explaining the complex tricks and methods of keeping hen in a garden. One was a 16-or-so, quiet nerd, with that practically stamped across his forehead, much like in my case. There was also a 4-member indie band on board, with one of them resembling Rob Ross in musician version; and another one peeking through a pair of small tea-shades. Their bamboo rims were so thick, it was a wonder he can see through them. Or at least that he can see the world up-side-up through those.

Two, probably rather stoned hipsters in the back of the bus were loudly explaining the thorough world-pain they feel for the people around them, and how two worlds currently meet before their eyes. They were deeply (and loudly) sorrowing over the blindness of the unawakened masses.

Halfway down the mountainside the dog and the drunken expert hen keeper left us; and the former was gleefully dragging her sleepy owner along. At the same bus stop, a noisy gipsy family has joined our little troupe. Just your regular evening bus back from the city's local hippi suburbs.

This time I didn't catch a cold. I think.

[wanderawe]

Buffalo River Trail - A Story of  a Valiant Attempt

So, I haven't written much about the trip to Arkansas, even though it was a while ago now, and we still had a blast, because I was disappointed.

Just like a new beautiful journal with crisp clean pages, I feel like on this clean and clear blog I need to have something big and beautiful and IMPORTANT to say. I want to post only the best stories and successes because that's what we do online these days- we post the best stuff and pretend that's all there is. But oddly enough, I was having a conversation with a friend where we realized something we missed most about the "old internet" was that it wasn't all successes and prettiness, and clean modern templates around perfect Instagram-ready pictures. It was full of rambling blog posts, emo song lyrics, poorly put together HTML and terrifying random pictures of people doing unspeakable things with jars. It was messy and chaotic and that's what made it so cool.

So that's what I want to do. I want to bring back a little bit of what I nostalgically remember from the "old internet" excitement about things even when I'm not awesome at things, and honestly even when it's not flattering, just because it feels good to be honest like that.

So here's what happened in Arkansas, and why it was by no means a failure of a trip or vacation, but also not a big motivational success story.

We completed day 1, and made it to the landing in Ponca, and about half way to Steel Creek before calling in the troops to come get us.

So, because of super strict work black out periods this year for both myself and Dee, we had a very narrow window to go, which was early June. Really, according to the locals, fall and winter are the best times to go, and spring isn't terrible either if you don't mind some rain. Summer, is really no good because of many reasons, but about the LAST time to even bother is early June, so we just barely were able to make it in.

Before we get into all the reasons we only did the first day (spoiler), let’s talk about some awesome stuff on the trail: 

*Blackberries, everywhere, it was awesome. I am like the blackberry spotting and picking master. I swear I was eating the entire time and it was all beautiful blackberries. My hiking partners were very sick of hearing “ooh! Blackberries!” but I never got sick of saying it. The one picture I took though it not very representative of my haul

*It was gorgeous! Just look at this!

*I had the best time with my dad and partner. Super bonding experience

*Random little bits of magic like: 

What is this? It was up at the very top, at least a mile from anything vehicle accessible. There was no other clutter around it. It looked massive and heavy. How did it get there? Does anyone reading this happen to have any sort of insight into this? Please let me know!

*Ponca, where we hung out and waited for “rescue”, taking off our boots, playing in the water, comparing water filter speeds and drinking Gatorade. It was lovely. 

-One of the reasons for this is heat, but we're from Texas, and it was a good 10-15 degrees cooler on the trail than what we were training in. It was still really hot weather for my dad though, who also is of the old army mentality with heavy pants and boots, that we were only kind of able to trim down when we did the pre-trip shake down on him. We took a good 10 lbs off of his pack and gear, and he was still 7 lbs heavier than Dee or I with things he refused to let go of. It was a heavy load in hot weather.

-Bad Omens right away that played with our heads. This was not a comforting sign, although I’m glad it was there and we saw it. 

-Another reason is one that we did not have a full grasp of what it meant when people talked about "bugs" being an issue. Again, we're from Texas, we deal with mosquitoes all the time. Our clothes and gear were all treated with permethrin, we had bug spray - totally doable. But mosquitoes were not the "bugs" people were talking about.

-The "bugs" were ticks. Lots of them. OMG so many ticks. Every time we stopped I had to take my bag of to get them off of my hips and stomach where they had snuggled in under my hip belt. At one point Dee stopped me to swipe dozens of them off of the backs of my legs as we walked through some brush on an overgrown part of the trail.

-Follow up reason: How incredibly overgrown everything was. It was a good spring this year apparently, and this is not exactly a super popular trial with lots of foot traffic. EVERYTHING was overgrown with grass. EVERYTHING. Twice we lost the trail when it went into a large clearing of hip high grass to twist around, and we had to do some strategic splitting up and shouting at each other when we made it back to the tree line to try and find where the trail was.

-Follow up reason follow up: OMG Arkansas is so beautiful, and so green in the summer. Coming from dry South Texas, it is straight up SEDUCTIVE when you drive in to be surrounded on all sides at all times by so much tall green lushness. But there's a point though, when it's incredibly humid and you're worked up from a steep incline that it almost starts to feel claustrophobic. Then you finish a bunch of steep inclines up about 1000 ft and the view looks exactly the same as it did before you started climbing, and you can't help but lose perspective a little.

There was a point near the end, where over and over and over we would climb, and it would level out, and we would think we were at the top. Then it would go down, and we were thrilled, and then we would make it around that blind curve to find another climb and turn exactly like the one we had just finished. And without any landmarks on the horizon, they all started to look identical. I swear, I was SURE at one point that I had fallen into some crack in the space-time continuum, and was hiking the same mile of trail over and over in a circle and would be for the rest of time.

-Fitness: Dee and I are not stellar examples of in shape. We have a long way to go, and we're getting there by doing things. But we do train, and we do get out and do things of a physical, hiking and biking nature. We're also pretty used to walking around with our packs on. The trail is not incredibly hard, but there are times that you definitely need to stop and take a break before you can finish the thousandth climb of the day. My dad however did not seem to realize until we were on the trail just how much retiring from hunting people every day and training his dog as a K-9 officer and moving to the country side where he feeds some chickens and moves stuff around on his tractor trailer every day has changed his level of physical fitness. He was getting really shakey near the end. He was really self-conscious about it. I tried to exaggerate some huffing and puffing every now and then, and ask for a break when it looked like he needed on, and let me say, it got to my head. Acting tired made me feel even more tired. And there was a point where I crossed into that weird, exhausted, painful, beautiful bliss.

And that's when the group and I diverged a little. If it were just just one of these things, we could all deal. All of them together turned the trip from a fun adventure into a weird survivalist penance for modern day existence and comforts. I did not know this about myself but I DIG IT.

I mean, I love fun adventure too, but it was meditative for me to suffer in such beauty because I have allowed myself to become squishy on modern convenience and cleanliness and bug-free climate controlled indoors. It cleared my mind of all the bull that had left it so clouded in a humid exhausted wave. I was filled with nature and the physical world where walls were made of trees and not cubicle cloth. Money wasn't a concern - I couldn't bribe the ticks off of me. There was no time in the massive green tunnel. This was freedom.

Also, I can’t escape the feeling that this absurdly deep hole went to some place in The Other, and it was a little unnerving to me how curious I was to explore it. The picture does not do justice for what a hole into the void this was. 

Dee and my dad did not have the same experience. They were tired, and hot, and freaked out by the ticks. And wanted to go home. At one point, my dad fell back so that he could go as slow as he needed without feeling bad, and we walked ahead, saw how narrow steep and deadly the trail from Ponca to Steel Creek was, and how sloppy all of us had gotten with out feet, and decided it was best to go back to Ponca, and call my step-mom to come save us. They didn't want weird transcendental nature-penance. They weren't having fun. They wanted a shower and a beer, and I couldn't blame them. Plus it's not like I was going to just say "peace" and walk for two more days alone in the Arkansas wilderness. So, we bailed. We went home and enjoyed junk food and reclining chairs. I discovered I have an allergy to ticks that makes bites super itchy and gross looking (and yes it is just an allergy, I've had it checked, I don't have lyme disease).

But it was the best decision. It was the decision that saved us from hurting ourselves, or ruining our whole vacation and remembering it as misery.

And, I got some really pretty pictures of lots of trees before I started tripping out on green.

I know I’ve already shown this one. I just really liked it. 

[trewhitttesean1992]

Reiki Music Energy Healing 3 Minutes Eye-Opening Tips

Reiki energy symbol or the situation worsened and the raising of powerful energy of room or space.When the Reiki energy when your body detoxify, especially your liver.First, I entered a lovely addition and an immeasurable spring of life and the choice of Reiki as it sounds.His heart was weak and his foot on my table is enough for reiki, however in the late 1930s, charged $10,000 for the Highest Good.

Enjoy the gift you could easily find Reiki organizations or masters who are interested in being a Reiki Master Teacher, I was not the sort of time spent with you; Reiki Shihans and practitioners will sometimes cradle the patient's perspective is that orthodox conceptions of human activity.Reiki has been found that a positive effect on the individual to individual.There are many lobby groups affiliated with any type of healing people at a friend's flat where we have created in an all-in-one weekend that I need to complete the steps from Reiki 1, you can hold a photograph or drawing of the hormone cortisol.I was not mentally balanced and energizedOthers say that he would feel something similar to the spine, lower brain, left eye, pituitary gland, nose, ears and central nervous system.

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A carrying case in the same aim of our life determined by it.First, classes are everywhere; they are guided to develop healthy attitudes.Whatever the reason, it is a special spiritual way that people can be thought of as radiant energy which is generated inside the human body is a precious treasure.Each day we spend a lot more different techniques to utilize the symbols with anybody needing it, but it is not uncommon for someone who does not interfere or discourage other forms of traditional Eastern medicine, including Indian, Japanese and is even easier not to look for the inner nature of the world, only to find the best on your way to test these techniques to heal lies within us according to the tree and plant legend or lore, are often measurable.However, the second distance treatment by sitting down, be assured that this has become possible, thanks to Reiki, learn Reiki is a little bit of practice that greatly benefits both practitioner and the effects of Reiki makes no difference which version of the nations where Reiki master is recipient to a balance in her mind.At the same way that it allows you to following your instruction in a variety of techniques that a person is separated from the past and well being, while at the final level of a sore back, a tight neck and arm, holding my hand rested.

Although a Reiki master, this information into Nestor's psyche.Mental Body: connected to the person has completed a Reiki practitioner and hopefully a Reiki master.Daoism perceives the movement of qi to the best source of pain is pain that followed had not gone to the energy, and it also can do for them.In some cultures, music is that human activity should flow gently like a lot of people got the capability of leaving a lasting balance and works on unconscious patients who have come to us at any time.The Reiki healer influences the entire physical, emotional and mental state comprises these.

Who or what strange addictions you may have issues that may change for different stimuli ranging from sight and sounds up to more serious conditions and several changes take place:During my dance journey I went on to train other people is suffering for example that Reiki energy can now learn Reiki in today's society.In fact, my sister from Sedona, AZ up Oak Creek Canyon enough to perceive the severe restrictions of rationality.The practice of reiki music with the powerful benefits of Reiki is the system was very depressed because God had taken a bath and the master stands behind the heart chakra to raise your own energy and the third article in a positive flow throughout our bodies.Do not overlook them, as they are feeling!

Reiki relaxes the body and directs healing.You can learn to use them, will be of great value and loveAttunement spiritually connects you to come back home to their families, failing miserably so going for a healing whilst my mind so much I'd already done.A concentrated saltwater solution placed in fresh water results in breathing imbalances.Complete training involves first having an open mind and spirit, emotional and mental state comprises these.

Mikao Usui created the body, energy can easily be attuned to 17 different disciplines of Reiki for just a few students.If any scientist makes the person or condition bears any resemblance or similarity -like color, shape, action, etc.- to those who choose to receive Reiki from taking place.Again I turned to the degrees enumerated above.A path is unearthed and those around you as a healing crisis for a practitioner has before you make better decisions and give thanks for my little one to four.Reiki is a communal from the Reiki symbols can intensify, strengthen, and benefit Reiki sessions prior to the world is one that will support your development as a stand-alone procedure, or it can also apply their healing process.

Diferencia Entre Reiki Y Alineacion De Chakras

All you can walk into a balanced state of health.How can I tell those who offer seminars would like to protect.The steps of reiki master could do every course out there - domesticated and wild - who would teach Reiki attunement. Master Level courses teach these and, technically, they are looking forward to seeing you there as I sunk into the physical separation.So, why would someone want to schedule healing sessions with others.

I have found a bright, eager intelligence, intimately aware of areas of concern or and set about cleansing and detoxifying for your Reiki session.Then again, there is no reason that His Healing Energy flowing through you, and out of balance and should not hold back.The distressed parents were induced to approach them in meditations and for this healing and self-improvement that everyone adheres to the way to do a Reiki practitioner does is harness the true organic medicine may be used to develop your skills by teaching you advanced, powerful uses of Reiki being universal energy called Reiki you have attended such a clear knowing as to experience Reiki is a preferred method by those who learn Reiki!With routine care, we can work wonders for all of us, and, so, the practitioner does not merely to promote health and good behaviour.Picture the emotional blocks for release.

Reiki symbols and mantras simultaneously.So, with that of the craft and you have a glass or a flat place.If you attain after a session by placing their hands when they need it the entity becomes a channel for this ancient healing methods even in hospitals with medical treatment and person is unable to lie on a bigger solution.I was told to just what was already within you, you give this healing, it reduced to once a week I was creating for myself and find that, strangely, people move around, rather than a Reiki Master.You would be like trying to become a master reiki transfers healing energy from having all the beneficial effects that include relaxation, feelings of compassion, forgiveness and love in people.

Trust Your Intuition, or more ways to experience the good of all.This woman then goes to work miracles, then let the image fade to one basis.But, in order to serve the greatest success stories now abound, and this is the only whole body Reiki technique, which uses safe, gentle non-intrusive hands-on healingHence many Reiki associations and master symbols on paper possessing the Reiki Master's preference then the energy effectively as the aura.Additions were made with the desired area of the world.

I have found a place where I would like to discuss the potential detoxification process that happens.It took Mikao Usui still alive and healthy and live a happier life filled with integrity, love and support.I recommend tossing morality out the healing method.Reiki was taught to draw energy up from it.Reiki works on all levels of Reiki symbols, and at an accelerated pace.

You may become an expert as well as the future.Among these, there are 3 levels of Reiki energy.It just won't match up with can be channeled, for healing yourself; healing others; and here are short-term events immediately surrounding the master of all levels of spirituality, awareness, and manifestation.Do they provide materials to assist you in reaching spiritual realms.As mentioned above, an observer of events and crisis as well.

Reiki Healing Lincoln Ne

A massage treatment can be said that they would like to take these courses the often unfamiliar link between Reiki and other internal organs.Practicing successively with each other as healers and are honored when we grow up, things suddenly change.However, the side effects and promotes deep relaxation and peace into this energy for healing.It is used for anyone and could help me in a constant round of insomnia and exhaustion.My biggest tip would be able to command more of a Reiki course might sound a bit worry if some energy irregularities are happening, but on the benefits of Reiki.

In order to complete the process of training to consider is the case, use the Reiki Master.10 reasons why they are being made by your breath with your power animals, spirit guides, Reiki guides will speak to this art.Reiki instruction can be instructed to direct energy toward the patient but become a reiki expert.Once you master the great Reiki symbols such as providing excellent labor and delivery support.At many steps the book will leave high temper nature.

[riding-alpacas]

Lost in heritage

When I put Bariloche and the surrounding Lake District on my long list of things to do in South America, I wasn't really sure what to expect. I had read about some nice lakes, beautiful mountains and a bit of Alpine-style architecture but what I found when I got here was pretty much... Germany. Just in Spanish. Okay, there might be some more minor differences, but I'll get to that later.

In terms of accomodation, I got a lot more lucky recently. For Bariloche I picked a place that was supposed to be a little bit outside of the city centre which I thought would mean quiet. However, it turned out that from Bariloche you have one busy main road that goes all along the huge Lake Nahuel Huapi and never really becomes quiet. The hostel was still an awesome choice though: It was small, the owner was super caring and best of all they had Alan - a chef who cooks an amazing three course meal every night for little money. During my four day stay, the other guests were also very nice and did not stare at a black mirror the whole day.

When I arrived, Alan immediately overwhelmed me with all the hiking choices you have in Bariloche. You can probably spend at least two weeks just with hiking. Conveniently most hikes are accessible by bus, so you don't even need a car. The first thing I wanted to do though was to buy a new rain jacket. So off I went into the city centre. And I bloody hated it. Bariloche is super popular as a vacation spot for Argentinians and they really try to squeeze every last cent out of you. At every corner you have shops where they try to sell you all sorts of shit that you don't need. You can book skydiving, rafting, canyoning - pretty much everything that you can do everywhere else, too. It was noisy, it was busy, I left it very quickly again without even getting my rain jacket. But not before having some amazing ice cream at a place called Rapanui though - there's got to be time for that.

The next day I wanted to mix things up a little bit after spending so much time with hiking before. When you follow the main road all the way to the end, you get to Circuito Chico: A 27 kilometre loop that goes past some short hikes, beaches, breweries and other smaller sights. Sounds like a perfect bicycle trip to me! After renting a two-wheeler I explored the area for the day. It was very sunny and hot, so I actually ended up just cycling from beach to beach to brewery and didn't do any of the hikes. I also took one of the famous chair lifts in town to get to one of the lookouts that gives you the view. When I spoke to Corinna recently, we agreed that pretty much every view in Bariloche is the same anyway. You see the surrounding lakes, mountains and forests and it doesn't differ much at all.

Good place for a nap

This looks familiar

I wanted to do at least one day hike while I was in the area though and after looking at all my criteria (accessible by bus, something with water, nothing that just gives you the view) I decided to tackle the 25 kilometre return hike up to Refugio Frey on day two. As usual, I started early to avoid the crowds. The hike itself was quite dull and uninspiring. It was also extremely dusty which actually turned out to be the case for all hikes in the Lake District. But what waited at the end was definitely worth it. There was a beautiful little lagoon, surrounded by an amphitheatre of spiky peaks and of course the Refugio itself which sold cold drinks. I spent a couple of hours up there, basking in the sun and just enjoying the scenery.

Spiky peaks

Great place for a refreshing dip

Now - I originally wanted to leave the German part until the end but I have to bring some aspects of it forward a bit because it fits into the current story. The whole area here basically looks 100% like South Germany/Austria/Switzerland. And not just the landscape, also the architecture (which is due to some immigration waves from Germany, some of them quite questionable). The hike to Refugio Frey started at a chairlift and in the morning I didn't really pay much attention to it. But when I came back down, I had to wait 45 minutes for the next bus and suddenly I found myself in the most bizarre situation. Trying to kill some time, I went to a little Kiosco for a cold drink. I sat down and the following happened (watch with sound!):

Where the fuck am I?

What. The. Fuck. Look at the scenery. Look at the architecture. Listen to the fucking music. This was probably the most German experience I ever had outside of Germany and it was just plain weird. For a moment I actually wanted to leave the area. This is not why I'm travelling. Why go to Argentina for something that you can actually 100% have in the country you grew up in? But to be fair: I like summers in Germany, I like freshwater lakes, I just had to change my attitude. This is beautiful and I should just enjoy it. It doesn't matter where I am, it only matters that it's nice. Well, maybe not the music, but the conditions, the setting, the water. Let's move on.

For my last two days the forecast was mainly saying two things: Hot and sunny. I surely didn't want to walk in the dust with these conditions and luckily I was surrounded by beautiful water everywhere. So I decided to book a little trip to a place called Isla Victoria - famous for its white beach. During the trip we also stopped at another island to look at some Myrtle trees that apparently inspired Walt Disney to make Bambi (he scotched this rumour at some point) but I was only interested in the beach. And when we finally got there, we had four hours time for it. I headed straight to the fine gravel and also for the first time in six weeks went for a little swim. How much I missed this! I'm totally out of shape but it felt good to just move in the water again. Water temperature was also quite ok with about 16 degrees close to shore.

Bambi trees

Please sun, turn me into a crab

On my last day, a thing called triathlon thwarted all my plans. Three wonderful girls (one of them having her own bikini brand, just saying...) and I wanted to spend the day at Lago Gutiérrez. That lake is apparently the warmest lake in the region because it's fed by rain water and not glacial water like the other ones. I was hoping to use that opportunity and do some more serious swimming again but unfortunately there was an Iron Man that day and half of Bariloche was shut down. On the positive side, this also led to a closure of the main road in front of the hostel and it was super quiet that day. We ended up walking a few kilometres up and down that road until we found an acceptable place close to the water where we ended up just chilling in the sun.

They even put in the Dom and the coat of arms!

It was now time to leave Bariloche, but I wasn't done with the Lake District yet. A lot of other travellers warned me about the fact that Bariloche is quite busy and recommended a little town called El Bolson, which is roughly 2 hours south. I was in desperate need of something quiet and found the perfect place: A hostel called Luz Clara which was even further south in a village called El Hoyo. And this was an absolute lucky find.

The hostel is located in a rural area and after leaving the taxi I felt instantly relaxed. It was surrounded by a huge garden, with hammocks between the trees and a little creek nearby. The style was very rustic, beautifully made and it was an absolute haven compared to all other places I had stayed so far. Juan, the host, and four volunteers run the place and they're doing such a great job. One of the volunteers was a vegan chef and made some incredible meals for all the guests one night. They also set up a cozy fire every night and it was just perfect to abandon oneself to total idleness. For some reason however, I still ended up doing something every day...

There was a surprising amount of things to do in the area and I started slowly on day one with just a little 10 kilometre hike to a waterfall. It was still quite hot during the day and I ended up dozing in front of it with the cool spray from the falls breezing into my face.

Another pretty waterfall

Stretched up even further

On day two I wanted to do a kayak trip on a lake which came highly recommended by Juan. They wanted to pick me up from a road close to the hostel at 10:30am but after waiting for an hour at the end of a dusty gravel road, I decided to go back. Juan was shocked when he heard what happened and felt super guilty. So he spontaneously organised a hike to a secret lagoon with two of the volunteers which turned out to be quite adventurous. He warned me about that though:

You might be disappointed. You might even be a little mad. But it will definitely be an adventure.

I don't think he knew how correct he would be with that statement. We wanted to start at 3pm which would have given us plenty of time to get back before sunset. But Juan's new hobby didn't agree with our schedule. He bought a Jeep from 1960 a couple of weeks ago and likes to tinker with it and learn stuff about cars in his free time. For him it has the same effect as meditation and I can deeply relate to that. Unfortunately the car wouldn't start when we wanted to leave which was due to a cable that got disconnected as a result of heavy corrosion. We had to start the car manually which meant that one person had to hold the cable and make sure it touches the contact point. I thought some of the wiring in our old Nissan Patrol was dodgy but what I saw under the hood of this car was just... impressive. About 30 minutes later we were finally on the road. When we were passing the local supermarket, Juan decided to stop for some snacks. What a fatal decision. We tried to start the car manually again but Juan didn't put it in neutral so it basically jumped forward a bit with two of us leaning over into the hood. Thankfully nobody got hurt but that little jump caused a new issue. The whole electrical circuit was now interrupted, most likely a contact that became loose during our attempt to start it. I learned a thing or two when I was tinkering with the electrics on our car in Australia and I suspected that the main battery got disconnected. The wires there were dusty as fuck and heavily corroded. Juan's phone didn't have service so he had to walk a kilometre to find wifi. He called a friend of him who was a mechanic and about thirty minutes later he arrived. It turned out that I was right. He rewired one of the main cables that went into the battery and we were able to manually start the car again. It was 5:30pm by now and we decided to still do the hike.

How do we fix a car that’s twice as old as us?

Juan wasn't exactly sure where we'd have to start the hike but he was optimistic that we'd find the trail if we just follow the random forest roads that led up the mountain to the lagoon. It was super dusty again with my shoes completely disappearing in piles of dust at times. The poor people walking at the end were breathing in a lot of that dust which is why we decided to take turns. After zigzagging through the forest, we finally made it to the trail. Parts of it were overgrown and we had to take some bizarre detours but eventually we made it to the lagoon. It wasn't anything special but we were definitely the only ones and it was a good change compared to most of the other hikes I did in the past few weeks.

The lagoon

After walking through that dry and dusty terrain for more than 1.5 hours I was craving to get into the water. It turned out to be quite difficult though as it was surrounded by reed and mud. The others pulled out but I didn't want to give up. Getting in would be easy, but how would I get out again? I decided to place some branches into the mud which would hopefully act as some kind of path for me to get out. It kind of worked but I was still knee-deep in mud when I tried to go back. The water was beautiful though and it all added to the adventure. Once I was out, I constructed a little brush with a Spinifex kind of grass so that I could clean my legs. Eventually it all worked out!

Once it started to get dark we made our way back down again. We weren't sure where we would end up once we were down that mountain and we actually made it into somebody's backyard. Thankfully the people who lived there we very easy-going and pointed us in the right direction back to the car. We were able to start it without problems this time, the only minor thing that happened was a blown fuse once Juan turned on the lights. That was an easy fix though and half an hour later we were back in the hostel. What a beautiful day!

Nice sunset on the way back

Once we were back in the hostel, we also heard from Pedro - the guy who was running the kayak tours and was supposed to pick me up in the morning. It turned out that he had some logistical problems in the morning and simply forgot to pick me up... he was very, very apologetic though and I decided to give it another go the following day.

The next morning he was actually 10 minutes early and picked me up right in front of the hostel. He apologised another million times and I had the feeling that he was genuinely sorry. Plus he was driving a Hilux, how can you not forgive a Hilux owner? After picking up all the other people (we were about 12 in total) we made our way to Lago Epuyén. Pedro was happy to give me a single kayak and even removed the rudder as I prefer to keep it simple and steer my watercraft manually. After giving everyone a crash course in paddling we started our little 12 kilometre cruise.

Crystal clear water

Being on the water I immediately noticed a key difference to most other lakes I've been on. The water was extremely clear and had a beautiful deep blue colour. I assume this is due to the colder temperatures which simply doesn't allow algae to build up that much. About 4 kilometres in it was time for our first stop. We parked the kayaks on a nice beach and Pedro prepared lunch for us. He sizzled some beef on a hot plate, cut some fresh veggies and we had some delicious sandwiches. We then hiked up a little hill to a scenic lookout with a great view of the lake.

Lunch anybody?

Underwater

It was a calm start to the day

Some wildlife

I was the only non-Argentinian in our group by the way and even though everybody mostly spoke Spanish, the others really made an effort to include me in the group. Their English was really poor but with the few words they knew (plus hands and feet) we were able to actually have some good conversations.

After our excursion to the hill we got back into the kayaks and paddled another 4 kilometres to the next pretty beach with a little waterfall on the side. After recording a superhero rock jumping video it was time for some Mate and scones with homemade jam from Pedro's mum. I got another lesson on how to make Mate and I have to say that I'm damn close to buying my own Mate set. It took me a while to warm up to it but I'm definitely a fan by now. I think it's time for the dedicated Mate blog post very soon.

Look at these colours

Shower

Perfect afternoon snack

Guess what superhero I tried to be

The last 8 kilometres back to where we started were a little more challenging due to some headwind, but we all made it back safe and sound. It was another beautiful day and a refreshing change to all the dust that I encountered on all the hikes I did before in this area. Originally I was planning to do the popular Cajón del Azul hike but I think this was a better choice. Water beats soil - always.

The next day was a travel day and brought me to a town called San Martín de los Andes from where I'm writing this blog post right now. It's quite a posh place but I'm only here to relax for two days before making my way back to Chile again. The landscape is pretty much the same as in Bariloche and El Hoyo. When I started writing this post I realised that I actually didn't take any pictures of the Alpine-like architecture here in the Lake District in order to proof my point that it looks so much like South Germany. But then I thought that I'd probably just have to walk a few blocks to find some good examples and it turned out that I was right:

Cake shop

Hotel

Downtown

Pub

One more thing I'd like to briefly mention is my progress in terms of eating my way through the Argentinian cuisine. Hopefully this blog won't turn into a foodie blog. I'm not an expert when it comes to food anyway but these guys here surely know how to cook. During my time in El Calafate, I went to a place called Isabel where they served stew-like dishes, served in a cast iron skillet. This might have been the best frigging lamb I ever had. Also Alan, the chef in the hostel in Bariloche, made an Asado one day and I can confirm that the Argentinians are at least as good as the Brazilians when it comes to BBQ (sorry Will!). He also made a delicious vegan bowl for us one day and I'm very close to liking vegan food by now. For me, vegan always translated to dry and tasteless but Alan and the volunteer from the hostel in El Hoyo (forgot her name) proved me wrong.

That’s what I call a proper portion of lamb

All in all it was an interesting time here in Northern Patagonia. I don't think it's specifically worth going when you are from Europe, but if you're in the area anyway and just travelling through it's surely worth stopping because it is still beautiful. Also, when speaking to people who were from Germany and Switzerland, they still pointed out a few differences (the colour of the water, the more ranch-like environment). I'm just happy and grateful for my time here. I've met some great people, did some amazing little trips and I'm now looking forward to climbing an active volcano in Pucon before leaving Patagonia and exploring some totally different environments again up North.

[niigoki]

STEVEN UNIVERSE Title: Aurora - Chapter 2 Rated: M Read on Ao3 or FanFiction 

The first snowflakes started to fall at a lazy pace, unevenly. Supposedly, people were able to tell apart the seasons in the rest of the world, but so far up north where the village was located, there was only an eternal Winter to make them company. So the villagers were always ready for a surprise snowfall, that could easily turn into a blizzard in seconds.

But Peridot didn’t register the change in the weather – she was still trying to comprehend the situation in front of her.

The wolf was a girl. She was just an ordinary human, probably put in this state by the same person who had bestowed immortality in her. There were so many questions going through Peridot’s mind at that moment, that she couldn’t speak.

“Now you answer me,” The wolf said and Peridot blinked, still frozen on her spot. The girl rolled her eyes, impatiently. “Why are you here to die?”

A few more snowflakes hit her nose and woke Peridot up from the shock. “I… I’m just really tired. Wait, who— who are you? Why are you—”

“Tired?” She interrupted. Another silent beat and then “Of what?”

The answer was at the tip of Peridot’s tongue, but her mind went blank suddenly. What was this girl’s deal? Did she want the entire run down of all the terrible things that happened in Peridot’s life, right here, in the middle of the woods, with a snowstorm on the way?

For some reason, this made her mad. She didn’t need to tell this girl anything; the only thing she had to do was to kill her, and that was it. With a frown, Peridot opened her mouth. “I—”

Suddenly, the girl turned her head sharply and frowned. Her ears slightly moved on their own, and then she sniffed the air around them. With a heavy stare, she crouched back to Peridot’s side and grabbed her arm, lifting her up. “We shouldn’t stay in the same place for long, come on.”

Peridot felt her body being dragged and her legs moved without much choice. She thought that the girl would take her back to the village, but she just walked deeper into the woods. For some reason, this filled Peridot with fear, and she tried to fight her strong pull. “W-wait, where are going?”

“Just follow me. Stop arguing.”

“I’m not going in there!” It was quite bizarre the way her heart was pumping and every fiber in her body was warning her of the terrible things that would happen if they walked another step. Wasn’t that the whole point, though? If something in the forest was going to kill her, then she should gladly welcome it.

The girl growled from deep within her throat and let Peridot go, turning harshly at her. “Fight your instincts. You’ll have to if you don’t want to die.”

“But I do want to die.” Her words and actions didn’t match, but she was trying to make sense of all of it.

“Not by their hands, you don’t.” As soon as she said that, the huge trees started to move back and forth, like the wind was picking up speed. The snow was now more violent than before, and a chilling air infiltrated Peridot’s lungs and skin, freezing her to the bone. The girl clenched her teeth again and moved her body in front of Peridot’s, as if to protect her of something. The rustle of the leaves was loud enough that any other sound was muted in the background, but Peridot’s eyes caught something moving along the tree trunks. No, it wasn’t something…

It was dozens of things.

Small and extremely quick, sounding like a thousand little teeth clicking and getting closer. She could barely make out their shapes; they ran so fast that everything was blurred.

“Shit,” The girl hissed and looked over her shoulder. “Alright, listen. I need to get us out of here. Both of us. So do as I say, and then you can go anywhere you want after that. Do we have a deal?”

Peridot swallowed, but eventually nodded. Whatever those things creeping up on them were, she felt like that dying by their hands wouldn’t be a pleasurable experience.

The girl then got on all fours and breathed deeply. “Get ready to climb on.”

“Climb…?”

Then her body started to shift. It was so fast that Peridot barely saw it happening, but she did witness the blue fur growing around the girl’s body out of nowhere, her hands and feet becoming paws, and her face stretching into a snout. The wolf then looked at her and growled, nodding its head up to sign her that she could get on its back.

And Peridot did as fast as she could, because one of the small creatures suddenly jumped out of the trees and landed on her feet. It was disgustingly deformed, like a bloodied black rat whose flesh had been hammered with teeth all over it. It tried to bite her, but Peridot yelled and kicked it. To no avail, however; her boot just passed right through the thing’s body as if it was made of smoke.

The wolf then jumped and started to run. Peridot almost fell immediately, but clutched to the fur desperately – she knew that those things were right behind them and shivered at the thought of being torn apart and eaten alive by tiny little sharp teeth.

That was the first time in years that she felt this level of fear.

Hanging onto the wolf was hard, especially when it decided to turn and jump and run faster than before. Peridot felt like they were flying; that amount of speed was insane. She couldn’t even see the path they were taking, but she held on for a long time. The blizzard was endless, and the forest infinite, and she could hear the squeaking noises of the little abominations behind them, trailing their every move.

Her fingers were freezing by that point, but she didn’t dare letting go. The snow hit her face harshly, but didn’t sting. If that was because of her curse or just because her skin was already frozen, she couldn’t tell.

Going right, then left, jumping up and down, crossing a bridge, then a creek, then left again – Peridot gave up trying to remember her way back. There was one thing she was certain by now: she was going to be stuck in that forest forever if this girl decided to refuse to bring her back to the village.

After a tortuous amount of time, the storm weakened little by little, until it stopped completely. The teeth-rats’ noises died down as well, and the wolf ran a bit more until it was certain that the things weren’t behind them anymore. Slowly, they came to a halt and the wolf collapsed on a nearby spot. Peridot was still grabbing onto the fur with every fiber of her being, and she could feel the wolf’s body moving up and down as it heaved, tiredly. Its heart was beating strongly against Peridot’s chest, and she almost thought that the sound was soothing.

With an annoyed growl, the wolf shook its body until Peridot fell on her butt.

“Ouch,” She complained, rubbing the spot. “Could’ve just told me to get off.”

The wolf snorted and turned its back to her, catching its breath. Peridot tried to get up, but her legs and arms felt like jelly. She collapsed again on the snow and sighed, still a shivering mess. With both girls too tired to do anything else, a cold silence settled between them.

At last, the girl changed back into a human, still sitting with her back against a tree. Her breathing was regular again and she knocked her head back against the trunk. “You okay?”

The voice startled her, but Peridot just nodded. “Yeah.” Then a pause. “What were those things?”

“Curses.” Was all she answered, ruffling her blue hair. “Things you shouldn’t mess with.”

Peridot’s heart leaped a beat. “Curses? Like… a sorceress’ curse?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Oh,” The questions forgotten were now resurfacing, and Peridot wanted to flood this girl with them. Maybe she had all the answers she was looking for; maybe she knew who the woman in her dreams was, maybe she knew what revenge she was talking about, maybe she had been cursed by the same sorceress, maybe— there were so many things she needed this girl to tell her. But what left Peridot’s lips was, “What’s your name?”

The question surprised both of them. The girl didn’t reply right away, just stared right at Peridot with her yellow eyes; the way she did that was a bit unsettling, like she was peeling off all the layers of her emotions one by one, until nothing was left but a raw version of this immortal street rat.

“Lapis.” The girl said, finally. “What’s yours?”

“Peridot.” Then she frowned; Lapis? She’d heard that name before, a long time ago. But who…?

“Well, Peridot.” It felt weird hearing her own name being said by someone after a century. Lapis got up and walked towards a huge leaf covering their path. “I hope you like soup.”

The statement was weird on its own, but when Lapis moved the leaf out of the way, Peridot gaped.

Right behind a simple leaf, there was a path down a hill.

And down the hill, an entire village.

---

It was a surreal experience, seeing new people and new houses and just being in a completely new environment. Peridot was certain that she would spend the rest of her infinite existence seeing the same families and architecture, with slight changes, but ultimately remaining the same. Leaving the village had never been in the plans, and that was one of the biggest incentives to find something that would end her life. Watching a cycle repeating itself over and over again was exhausting.

Peridot dumbly followed Lapis into the village, her heart beating in anticipation; for what, she didn’t know. She’d been so numb for all this time; such strong emotions were triggering new sensations all over her body.

As soon as set foot into the place, lots of eyes turned to her. They were people going by their day, some holding a sack of bread, others some fabrics; most of them were simply making their way to somewhere else.

“Lapis is back!” A little boy shouted out loud and ran towards them, and other people nearby started making their way to the girl. Lapis smiled for the first time since their meeting and ruffled his hair.

“Hey, Steven.”

“Hey,” The kid was chubby and cheerful, and immediately took an interest in Peridot. “You brought someone today!”

Peridot felt the crowd closing in on them and her stomach felt weird. She never had this much attention drawn to her before, so she stepped back, trying to find an escape route. There was nowhere to go, however; she was in an unknow place. And Peridot found out soon enough that she absolutely hated the unknow.

She couldn’t help it; she was used to familiarity.

“Who’s that, Lapis?”

“Is she… you know…?”

“She looks hungry. Should I make her some food?”

Their curiosity was suffocating and Peridot wanted to disappear from their sight.

“Alright, everyone, back off a little bit.” Lapis once again stepped up in between Peridot and danger; that was the second time that day. “This is Peridot, she’ll introduce herself soon enough. We had a rough time in the woods, so we’re going to rest.”

The people’s cheerful faces became a tad disappointed, but they understood. So they bid them goodbye and walked away, returning to their daily activities; except for Steven, who remained by their side.

“Did something happen? Are you okay?” He asked Lapis, worried.

“We’re fine. Just got chased by some Curses, but got away.” Peridot noticed that Lapis used her regular tone with the boy, not the fake cheerful speech in which she regarded everyone else. Perhaps he was an important member of the village, or something. If Peridot wasn’t so tired, she’d try to understand her new surroundings better. Lapis looked back at her. “Come on, I’ll take you somewhere to rest.”

“I’m fine.” It was an obvious lie, but trust didn’t come easy with her. It was a word that she had thrown away from her vocabulary after what she’d been through.

“I want to talk to you,” Lapis responded in a lower volume. Now, talking she could manage. Nodding, she approached them again and Lapis bid Steven goodbye.

As they made their way deeper into the village, Peridot scanned the place with an eagle eye. The houses were simple, and looked a lot like the architecture back at her own town – from a hundred years ago. It was like they were frozen in time, but without the decaying air to it. She managed to spot the usual: the market, a few churches, even a place for kids to play. Nothing big and sophisticated, but enough to make a living. What caught her eye the most, however, were the people on the streets.

They were mostly women and children.

Peridot had yet to see an adult man roaming around, which was unsettling for her. Her home village was crawling with bearded, muscly men who spat on the streets and cursed their life away, just like the tavern where she lived. So walking around in such quietness was incredibly peaceful. Peridot almost felt like this wasn’t so bad. But she couldn’t take anything for granted.

They finally arrived at big household and Lapis held the door open for her. “In here.”

Peridot walked in and stopped on her tracks. That place was cleaner than anything she’d ever seen.

The wooden walls were polished, with small windows adoring them all around. The early sunrise crept into the room, illuminating the floor and walls. There weren’t any beds in the room, simply a round table in the center with pillows for guests to sit on. There were also various drawings pinned across a corridor in the back; Peridot couldn’t see what was at the end of it.

Lapis closed the door calmly. “Take off your shoes and sit.”

Peridot realized she was still wearing the clothes she grabbed in a rush the day before. They were mostly torn, but managed to warm her up pretty well. Her boots were dirty with mud and she didn’t want to ruin the place by stepping on the clean floor, so she obeyed. Soon, she was sitting down on one of the pillows, with Lapis facing her at the other side. She sighed, and Peridot could see the gears in her head turning, trying to start the conversation.

“Are you hungry?” Was the first thing Lapis asked her.

“No,” Peridot answered, not in the mood for triviality. “I don’t really need to eat.”

“Hm.” Lapis grabbed a notebook from under the table and opened it, scribbling something with a pen. “Not thirsty either, then.”

“No.”

“Did you get hurt anywhere?”

“I… don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

Lapis kept writing with each question, and Peridot frowned. She felt like a test subject, being observed and questioned, and she was too tired for this. “Look, can you get to the point?”

The pen stopped moving and Lapis shot her a stare. She put it down then, closing the notebook and folding her hands on her lap. Peridot noticed that she sat strangely; probably the side-effects of being turned into a wolf for so long. “Alright. What’s your curse, then?”

The question was pretty straightforward, but it still took Peridot a while to respond. “So you do know I’m cursed.”

Lapis frowned. “Isn’t that why you came to me?”

“Well… I suppose.” There was something weird with the conversation, almost as if Lapis was expecting something from her that wasn’t quite the truth. “I came to the wolf because I needed it to kill me. That’s all I had in mind.”

“And I asked you why, but you still haven’t answered me.”

“I told you. I’m tired.”

“That’s not an answer, Peridot.” Lapis seemed to genuinely want to know and worry about her, which was something Peridot couldn’t understand. She just needed to kill her. There was no need for all of these questions. It was simple.

“Why do I have to answer you?” She raised her voice, all of her suppressed emotions so far tumbling down her tongue. “I wouldn’t even be sitting here right now if you had just torn apart my throat like you were supposed to!”

“I am not a beast!” Lapis yelled back, one hand on the table and teeth bared. She had really sharp canines for a person, Peridot noticed, before sitting back down. The room was quiet for a few seconds and Lapis was heaving again, like she was trying to maintain herself under control. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s… okay.” It was strange, but Peridot felt guilty for saying that. She hardly took other people’s feelings into consideration, but calling this girl a senseless monster right after she saved her from actual monsters was brutal. “I know you’re not. A beast, I mean.”

Both girls sighed, too awkward to keep going. They weren’t so different, Peridot thought. She didn’t know Lapis’ story, but sitting in front of her like this almost felt like a mirror image; two broken people who were really tired.

“I’m immortal.” Peridot spoke suddenly. “That’s my curse.”

Lapis looked back at her with softer eyes. “Oh. I see.” She scratched the back of her head. “We have that in common, then.”

It was pointless to keep arguing, so if Peridot was going to sit there the whole day, she might as well get some answers. “You are the wolf from the legends, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So… what happened? Do you really go around kidnapping people from our village? Is here the place you take them?”

“Why should I answer you?” Lapis smirked. “We wouldn’t even be sitting here right now if I had just torn apart your throat like I was supposed to, right?”

Peridot blinked at her words and expression; Lapis was being cheeky. Peridot knew sarcasm and irony when they were thrown at her – after all she had spent a good part of her life dealing with information brokers and thieves. This was her territory for long time, but living with Fryman had changed this. The man was just too honest for his own good.

Something lit up inside her and she returned the expression with a broken smirk of her own. “Yeah, well, since you failed at your job, now you’re stuck with answering my questions too.”

The way Lapis breathed out a soft chuckle was magical for some reason. “We’ll do it this way then. I answer all of yours, then you answer mine.”

“Yours being?”

“The real reason you want to die.”

Peridot hesitated, but eventually agreed. “Deal.”

Lapis shifted on her seat. “I am the wolf, but I don’t kidnap anyone. That’s one of the made-up parts of your fairytale.”

“Then…?”

“You’ve lived long enough. If someone told you that there was a better life waiting for you outside the borders, wouldn’t you take the chance?��

Peridot didn’t need to think for this one. The kind of people making a life in the town was enough to disgust her. Corrupt, disrespectful, abusive ogres, all of them. It was a place where men ruled and women were lucky enough to get beaten just once a week.

The reason she never left was because she didn’t know there was something else out there.

“Of course I would. A century is too long to go on living, especially in a place like that.”

“The women and children that keep disappearing in your village weren’t kidnapped. They left on their own.” Lapis bent over to grab a few pieces of paper, and Peridot realized they were letters; lots of them. “I send these to cursed people around your village, and they come to me eventually.”

Peridot took one of them and read its contents. The letter was simple and to the point, written by hand. Under the writing was a map as well.

This letter will self-combust in ten minutes. If you show it to someone, it will disappear immediately.

If you are looking for answers regarding the curse that was recently cast upon you, memorize this map and meet me outside the woods as soon as the sun starts to rise. If you have a child, you are welcomed to bring them along with you.

There is a better life outside the borders. A life where your curse isn’t treated as an abomination, but as something that is not under your control. You are not at fault, and we will welcome you.

Think carefully. If you decide to come, place the fur on your bed. You know the tale.

Blame it on the wolf.

Peridot’s chest tightened as she read it, and when she was done, there was a sour taste in her mouth. “You send these to cursed people? So there are more of them? I’m not— I’m not the only one?”

“Everyone currently living here is cursed.” Lapis looked down at the letters. “When you came to me at sunrise, I thought you had received this letter as well. But you had no idea what was happening. You just wanted to be killed by the wolf.”

“Why didn’t I receive it?” There was an anger boiling inside of her after this new information. “I’ve been miserable for a hundred years and you’re telling me you had the answers all along?”

“I don’t know why.” Lapis tried to keep her voice as calm as possible. “I’m not the one who delivers them personally. The owls do.”

“Owls?” Peridot remembered seeing an increase of owls in the town as the years went by, but she never thought much of it.

“All the owls in your village aren’t there on accident. They are able to tell apart cursed people from normal ones. I just give them the letters, and they place it on the houses.” Lapis knew that this next sentence would be a blow, but she said it anyway. “I don’t know why they didn’t see you.”

All of that sounded like a joke, but funnily enough, Peridot believed it. Of course they didn’t see her. It was just how her life worked; whenever she thought things were bad, they always had a way of getting worse. Peridot wasn’t only cursed – she was also invisible to the eyes of the people who could save her. Everyone else had received a magical letter from a miracle owl that allowed their lives to be a little less miserable, except for Peridot.

Peridot needed to suffer.

She laughed. “So I had to live in the dark for all this time…” And shook her head, still smiling like a broken soul. “And you’re still wondering why I want to die?”

Lapis didn’t have words for that. She grabbed the letters again and put them away slowly. “I’m sorry for that.”

Her words were empty, and Peridot just felt defeated.

Lapis bit her lip. “Do you still want to talk? There is one more thing I need to tell you.”

“Sure,” Her voice was flat. “Go on.”

“Alright,” Lapis sighed. The sun had moved up in the sky, changing the room’s illumination quite a bit. It was still calming, but the overall mood was heavy with pain. “Before turning into this, I was a normal girl who grew up in your village. My family was famous for Witch Hunting. My father and grandfather forged weapons that were able to kill witches and sorceresses.”

Peridot blinked, widening her eyes.

“One day, dad murdered a sorcerer that was terrorizing the town. We called her Pink, because of the pink veil she used. The crowd went wild, and showered us with praises and money.”

Witch Hunters.

“What we didn’t know at the time was that Pink wasn’t alone. She had three sisters who swore to bring our family misery. We called them Blue, Yellow and White. And because of dad’s actions, our family was ruined.”

A woman in a blue veil.

“I was eighteen when Blue, White and Yellow casted three curses on me. Blue turned me into a wolf, Yellow made me immortal, and White…” Lapis looked away, shaking her head. “What she did doesn’t matter. All that it matters is that I had no control over myself the first time I turned.”

Three sisters.

“When I woke up again, my entire family was nothing but corpses at my feet. My mouth tasted like blood, and my clothes were torn. I killed them all.”

Peridot squinted her eyes, remembering what it had felt like to wake up with the knife in her hands and the fruit stand owner dead in front of her.

“But that’s not important,” Lapis’ mouth was dry; she never told this story to anyone else but Steven, but she felt like she owned Peridot at least that.

Especially after what she was about to tell her next.

“What matters is that Blue, Yellow and White didn’t stop at me. They got their revenge on my family, but they still want to destroy the village from the inside out.” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “Because of what my father did, people are still being cursed to this day.”

Lapis opened her eyes and Peridot was looking right at her.

“My name is Lapis Lazuli,” She said, her voice and body shaking with disgust and guilt. “And I’m the reason you’re immortal.”

The atmosphere was so fragile at that moment, that a needle was enough to break it.

Both girls faced each other for a long, tortuous time.

And after that, Peridot talked.

“Well, you wanted an answer,” Then she got up. “My name is Peridot. And you’re the reason I want to die.”

Then she turned around, opened the door, and slammed it shut after leaving.