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blooming-violets · 8 months

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CREATURE LIKE ME || CHAPTER FIVE (part one): YOU'RE IN A CULT

[TASM Peter Parker!Werewolf AU]

Story Summary: Kraven and his guild of hunters have been tracking and quelling the werewolf population for centuries. The time has come for Aylin to complete her first solo hunt to prove herself to the guild. It was supposed to be simple. One wolf, one death, one victory. She never expected to end up with a secret hostage on her hands.

Chapter Five Warnings (spoilers): mild sexual exhibitionism (fondling an exposed breast) in front of an unwilling person, being unknowingly drugged

[link to chapter index]

The familiar scent of pine soothed her worried soul as she stepped through the threshold of her home.

Their little, brown cabin, with its sturdy fireplace of stacked, gray stones, and pine needle covered roof gave off the illusion of a safe haven. She might be back in her guild’s territory but this was her house. Her home. Here, she could find respite.

It was quiet as she stood in her cozy living room. Everything was still. By mid day, her mother would have been in the communal kitchen preparing meals for anyone who might want to stop by for a free lunch. Their guild supported their members and made sure no one would ever go hungry. They functioned as a bunch of tiny parts all moving in unison to form a single, powerful behemoth. They worked on the bartering system and the good will of their neighbors. If something was taken, something else would always need to be given.

Mrs. Harkner, down the road, gave her time to teach the children academics, in return, the children would pick the crops from her garden so her focus could be spent on lesson planning. Mr. Jacobson, at the other end of town, couldn’t aim a gun to save his life, but was an expert in construction and could fix any housing issue that arose. In return, the hunters would make sure he was always provided with fresh game and a well stocked freezer. Eight year old Christopher Lennings would sell freshly made apple juice from the apple tree in his front yard every Saturday morning and all it would cost was the coolest looking rock you could find. Everyone had a job and everyone was taken care of.

As long as they followed the rules.

Aylin had formulated a plan during her five mile hike back home. She knew she would have the house to herself at this time. If she could quickly pack her car full of gear, staying out of sight, then she could head back to Peter for the next few days. During that time, she would get every bit of information she could about Kat’s pack. When she finally returned back to the guild, she could trade that information as an apology for not completing her ritual to become a full time hunter. Trading was how their guild functioned. Information could be traded for a lighter sentencing. Sergei would be more focused on taking action against an entire pack than dealing out punishments for her defiance. She could right all the wrongs before the situation got too out of hand.

It wasn’t a perfect plan but it would have to do.

The old floorboards creaked under foot to alert the only available member of the household to her presence. Her large, sleek black cat lazily rose his head off the sofa to see who dared to disturb his nap. When he caught sight of Aylin, his ears perked up and he gracefully leapt to the floor to greet her by weaving between her legs. He gave a piercing whine, begging for attention.

“Yes, yes. I missed you, too, Kedi.” Aylin bent down to scoop him into her arms where he proceeded to be carried like a baby up the stairs to her bedroom loft. “Has mom been worried about me? Have you been looking after her?”

Kedi purred, his golden eyes squinting up at her. It was a rarity to find him inside their cabin. He preferred to be out hunting for his next meal or clawing his way up the highest tree. Finding him willingly behind walls meant that he knew something was wrong. He had probably spent the night curled up next to Nesrin. Sometimes Aylin swore that he was actually a person trapped inside the body of a cat. She imagined him to be a grumpy, old man who would yell at innocent children to get off his lawn but secretly loved the attention they gave him. He was fearless, tenacious, and a ferocious serial killer of all rodents.

A family of killers. Is that all they were?

Peter’s words from this morning still buzzed around her thoughts like an annoying gnat that refused to leave her personal space.

“We’re not in a cult, right? I’d know if I was in a cult,” she mused down at the cat in her arms.

He responded with a deep, guttural purr that vibrated his entire body.

“Sergei isn’t Jim Jones or Charles Manson. He has a reason behind what we’re doing. There’s a purpose. A meaning. We’re helping people. We’re…” She paused and gave a long sigh. “My father wouldn’t have been best friends with a cult leader. He was smarter than that. He was a good man. Peter’s wrong. He doesn’t know us, does he, Keds? He’s a stupid, low life, pathetic, disgusting werewolf. He’s-”

She stopped to listen to the words falling from her lips. No one was around to hear them and she was still holding deep prejustice for a man who had done nothing but show her kindness and grace despite her attitude.

Lycans. That’s what Peter referred to himself as. Not a werewolf. A lycan. A person with the ability to shift into a wolf.

A person. Not a monster.

Good and bad people. That’s what Peter had said. There were always good and bad people regardless where you stood in the world.

Which one was she?

Aylin carefully dropped Kedi onto her bed so she could pack a bag, trying to pull her thoughts away from Peter’s grasp and focus them back onto the task at hand. Some extra clothes, camping supplies, her crossbow, and more food would be on her list of needed items. She quickly changed out of her dress and into something more practical for forest living. She began tossing clothes out of her drawer and into the waiting duffle bag. As she turned around to pack them more neatly, she stopped to see Kedi curled up under the growing pile.

“You’re not helping, Ked. You’ll suffocate under there if I zip it up,” she smiled softly down at the stubborn cat who merely squinted back at her. He was always able to lift her mood. “Okay fine, you can stay but I’m going to keep packing around you.”

She grabbed an unopened pack of spare toothbrushes and ripped it apart. Carefully, she glanced over the colors, selecting a red and blue striped one for Peter. She felt like he would suit those colors…and he really needed to brush his teeth. It had probably been a while since he had a toothbrush of his own.

With some basic grooming items taken care of and a duffle full of spare clothes, Aylin shooed Kedi out of the way to finish her getaway bag. He followed as she made a handful of trips from the house to her car, filling the trunk with everything her and Peter might need to survive for the next few days. She slammed the full trunk closed, tucking her keys into her pocket, and put her hands on her hips. A sense of determination settled over her.

“There! We have a camping stove, some canned food, extra water…I think we should be all set for a couple days,” she spoke down to the cat waiting patiently at her feet. “If you would like to come with me, Keds, I would be more than happy to bring you. I don’t think Peter would mind the extra company.”

Kedi’s fur raised along his back, his ears flattening, and he gave a long hiss before darting to the safety of the darkness under her car.

“Wha- he’s not that bad, jeeze,” she frowned at his sudden change of attitude, wondering what had set him off, when she heard the crunching of footsteps making their way up her dirt driveway.

“Going somewhere, Aylin?” The familiar baritone voice caused her skin to erupt in goosebumps. Her heart leapt into her throat as a wave of nausea overtook her. She suddenly felt faint.

She wasn’t fast enough.

The only other time she had seen Kedi display fear like that was when a black bear broke through their screened in porch one afternoon to try and grab a bite of his cat food. Even then, he had darted back out from under the safety of a chair to claw the bear across the snout before running away again. Today, he stayed hidden.

Aylin straightened her back, attempting to fix a warm smile onto her lips, and turned around to face Sergei standing in the middle of her driveway. He was dawning his signature werewolf pelt draped over his shoulders and giving her a grin that was stretched far too thin to be anything but forced. The sight of the pelt made her sick to her stomach when she thought about the person who it once was ripped from. Barbaric. He might as well be wearing a pelt of human flesh.

Where was she going? She tried to steady her fluttering heart as a million potential answers swirled around her panicked thoughts.

“I’m planning on going to the Catskills to hike along the Devil’s Path like I do every year,” she lied, thinking quickly. With the way her trunk was currently packed, it easily resembled a hiking trip. She could fake this scenario.

“Isn’t it a little early for that?” He raised his scraggly brow at her. He was starting to get flecks of silver among his dark hair. The silver stood out more prominently against the midday sun and made him look closer than usual to his age. It was rare to catch signs of him aging. He seemed to always be in his prime despite how many years have passed. “Don’t you typically do that hike closer to the summer?”

Aylin shrugged, trying to play it off like it wasn’t a big deal, “Last summer was too hot. Thought I’d go early this year.”

“In the rainy season, I imagine parts of the hike would be really dangerous?”

She held firmly onto her bluff, knowing he was trying to break her, and kept her eyes locked with his to help sell the lie, “Sure, but isn’t that part of our training? To overcome difficult feats despite the challenges that face us? Besides, it’s not called the Devil’s Path for nothing. It’s meant to keep you on your toes. I think I could use a good challenge. ”

Sergei squinted at her with a hard glare, “Yes. About that. I think we need to have a talk about exactly what challenges are facing you. Something seemed to bother you the other night, did it not?”

She could tell from his tone that he was carefully keeping his voice steady. Under the surface, he was boiling. He wanted her to pay for the other night. There had to be consequences. Aylin had not only gone against his direct orders but, in her defiance, belittled his authority in front of the guild. If there’s one thing to never do to Sergei, it would be to embarrass him. She was now caught in an unwanted game of cat and mouse and she was terrified of losing.

She widened her eyes like it was a shock to hear that and not a conversation she had been dreading, “Oh? You mean when I ran from the ceremony? I’m so sorry about that. Really. I must have eaten something weird. Probably undercooked meat. I got really sick. I spent the night on the toilet. I had to run before I had an accident in front of everyone. You know how it is. When you gotta go, you gotta go.”

He took a step closer, a dreadful smile flicked at the corner of his lips, “Really? I stopped by your house to check on you later that night. I wanted to make sure you were okay after that shameful display you pulled in front of everyone. Your mother told me you weren’t home. Poor woman was worried sick about you. She thought you might have run off and done something stupid.” He paused, closing the gap between them. The cold metal of her car door pushed against her back as he towered over her. He propped an arm against the roof of her car to pin her in place. “Well? Did you? Do something stupid, I mean.”

Her stomach flipped with nerves as she shook her head. She was going to lose this game. The cat was ready to pounce and she had nowhere to hide, caught in place, forced to face her demise. Sergei went in for the kill, sensing he was gaining the upper hand in their silent standoff, and threw a heavy arm around her shoulders. He had her locked tightly in place against his side and gave a loud, dark laugh as if that would expel the thick tension between them. She couldn’t run. Couldn’t hide. He had her exactly where he wanted.

“Why don’t you come take a walk with me, Aylin?” He started to drag her down the driveway. “Cal made rabbit stew earlier. We can have some tea and lunch and discuss our futures. I have a proposition for you. What do you say, kid?”

Despite his question, there was no choice to be had. She was going to be coming with him even if he had to throw her over his shoulder and carry her there.

“Uh, yeah, I guess that’s okay. I should go leave a note for my mom so she knows where I’m at when she gets back…” Aylin tried to dig her heels into the dirt but got shuffled along like she weighed nothing. Any resistance would be futile. She had lost the game. The cat had caught the mouse and was now boastfully parading her squirming body down the road as he carried it proudly between his salivating jaws.

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll inform her exactly where you are should she come asking. There’s nothin’ to worry about. You’re safe with me. You know that.” The weight of his words hung over her like a rapidly approaching storm. There wasn’t a single ounce of truth behind anything he said.

It was only a matter of time before the cat clamped down, piercing her flesh with his razor sharp teeth.

The Kravinoff residence was the largest house in their town. A two story cabin with breathtaking floor to ceiling windows to let in all the natural light. The eaves of the red gabled roof were decorated with ornate wooden details. They had been handcarved by Sergei Sr. when he rebuilt the Kravinoff home many years ago before his passing; his final gift to his spoiled son.

Their kitchen was larger than the floor plan of her entire house with brightly painted, red cabinets to match the color of their roof. A pot of yellow sunflowers brightened up the room to soften the red and create an inviting atmosphere. Calypso lounged against the double wide, walnut island wearing nothing more than a skimpy, silk robe. Her dark, tight curly hair haloed around her head and she flashed Aylin her infamous, pointy toothed grin.

“Ah, the weakling has returned, I see,” she slinked over to the younger woman, standing tall in front of her. “Such a disappointment you gave the guild last night, was it not? I don’t know why Sergei holds you in such high regards. You don’t look like much to me.”

Sergei placed a possessive hand over Aylin’s shoulder, “Now, now, Cal. Enough teasing. Everyone makes mistakes. She says she wasn’t feeling well. Ate some bad meat. Happens to the best of us. Aylin is our guest and should be treated as such. She’s here for a chat over drinks. Why don’t you make us some of your special tea?” His eyes flashed into his wife, giving her a silent command. “The kind we save for our very important guests. Aylin needs to be reminded how much her community values her.”

Calypso smiled and bowed her head, “Of course, dear.”

Aylin was led into the dining room with the sounds of Calypso rustling through the cabinets following her out the door. A long, black cherry dining table, lined with tall chairs, greeted them. At the head of the table was a throne, carved out of the trunk of a tree and adorned with giant wolf claws at the end of the legs. Kraven sank down onto the pelt covered seat. He looked like a true king of his castle. He waved a large hand for her to sit in one of the normal chairs beside him.

She took a hesitant seat, having stayed quiet this whole time, terrified that speaking the wrong words would get her further into trouble. It was better to play defense with Sergei. Let him take the lead so she could match his energy.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been in our home,” he mused, lazily scratching at his beard. “You used to visit all the time with your father. I believe the last time you stepped foot inside these walls was when you were merely 16 years of age.”

After Samuel and Emir’s funeral.

Sergei had held a repast at his home after the burial service. Everyone in town had attended, each bringing a dish of food or drinks, to show their support for the fallen members. Nesrin was too busy weeping in the bathroom to know her daughter was getting wasted off some stolen liquor. Aylin had snuck away from the guests with her bottle in hand to hide in one of Segei’s guest rooms. The rest of the night was a blur but she distantly remembered him finding her tucked away in the corner behind a bed and holding her while she cried. Everything after that was dark. That entire year had been dark.

She remembered a time when she felt protected in his arms. His presence used to come with a warm safety. Now, it came with a foreboding sense of danger, like stumbling upon a sleeping rattlesnake. If she was careful enough, she might get away without a fight. If she took one wrong step, all it would take was a mere second for the snake to strike.

“Things got bad after-” She stopped. She didn’t need to say anything else.

Sergei gave a solemn nod, “Yes. I can imagine. Sam was my good friend. He was an important, valuable member of our guild. It was hard for everyone.”

He was studying her face, trying to read every micro expression she held, but she kept her features stiff. She should have left sooner. Maybe if she hadn't spent so much time doting on Kedi, she would have escaped before Sergei arrived. She wished she was already back with Peter and wondered how long he would stay in her trailer before he started to wonder if she’d ever return.

“Who’s Peter?” Sergei asked with an air of innocence, as if he had directly read her mind, but kept a close eye on how she responded. He was carefully studying her every move.

Aylin’s eyes widened in shock for only a split second before she softened her face but there was no doubt that Sergei had caught it. Had he read her mind? There was no other way he could possibly know about Peter…was there? Her stomach churned with nerves at the question but she raised her eyebrows in feigned confusion, “What do you mean?”

He shifted on his throne, leaning towards her, and placing his arm on the table, “When I came to pick you up, I heard you say ‘I don’t think Peter would mind the extra company.’ So, who’s Peter?”

That’s what she got for speaking out loud to a cat. She should have kept her mouth shut.

“He’s my friend,” she lied, thinking on her feet. “Works at the gas station a few miles out. He works nights. I’ve met him a few times and we got to talking. He enjoys hiking as much as me. He was planning a trip of his own so I invited him on mine. I thought we could both use the company.”

“Is he your boyfriend?” Sergei’s tone was light but his tense shoulders gave off the impression of a possessive, jealous lover. Aylin was beginning to see him as an overgrown child who refused to share his toys with others. She felt like she was nothing more than his property.

She repressed a gulp, refusing to let her eyes wander from his, “No. He’s a friend.”

He ignored her statement. “After Leah Rivera, I thought you might not be not interested in men. It’s good to know you appreciate both sides,” Sergei leaned back to give off the illusion of someone who was casually lounging instead of someone fishing for information. They were both playing a difficult game of chess, each crafting their next move, while simultaneously trying to find their opponents weakness to exploit. “Cal swings both ways, too.”

“He’s not my boyfriend. He’s just someone who enjoys hiking as much as me,” Aylin’s jaw tightened, giving him a stiff reply. She desperately hoped the heat burning behind her cheeks wasn’t outwardly noticeable. Her racing heart spiked at the mention of Leah. That was a name she hadn’t heard spoken aloud in years. “I don’t swing any way. Leah was nothing more than a friend, too.”

Liar. Leah was more than a friend. She was Aylin’s childhood best friend, her favorite person, her first crush, her first love. Leah used to be her everything.

Until she was nothing.

“Right, right,” he chuckled. “Cal and I were just friends once. I get it. But, Aylin, you know how this guild feels about outsiders. You can not trust them. It’s best you let that friendship drift away before it’s too late. I don’t want you going on a trip with that boy. It’s too dangerous. Cancel it. Stop seeing him. There’s more than enough eligible men here for you to attach yourself to. I can think of at least three off the top of my head who would love a chance. Stay within the guild.”

She had tried to stay within the guild until Sergei caught on about her and Leah’s relationship. She remembered his eyes flaring with hatred when he saw them share a quick kiss behind the school house one afternoon. Neither of the girls could understand why he would care what a couple of sixteen year olds got up to. It wasn’t long after that Leah’s entire family disappeared in the middle of the night. One day they were there, the next they were gone. Banished. No explanations given. No goodbyes said. Their empty house was demolished, as per tradition, whenever someone leaves the guild. Erase everything and build back up from scratch without the tainted memories. They were to never speak about the Rivera’s again. Every ounce of Leah’s existence in Aylin’s life was gone overnight until it was almost as if she never existed at all. If it wasn’t for the pictures hidden in a shoebox in the back of her closet, sometime’s Aylin might wonder if she dreamed up the entire thing. First, her best friend disappeared, then, her father and brother were slaughtered by wolves. Sixteen had not been kind to her.

But that was years ago. Leah was gone and so was the person Aylin used to be. She didn’t want Peter to become another pained memory added to the ever growing pile of forgotten people. She would protect this one. She wouldn’t let him be another soul for Sergei to steal from her.

Even if that made her a traitor.

She fixed a pleasant smile onto her face, “You’re probably right. I don’t know him that well anyway. I was just looking for a hiking buddy. Not a big deal and I’d better be safe than sorry. You never really know what those outsiders are like. Although, I do think I would be able to overtake him if it ever came to that. I’ve taken down werewolves. I think I can manage to get the upper hand on a random gas station employee. You’ve trained us well.” She threw Sergie her best attempt at a cheeky wink despite the anxious tightening of her throat. Her desperation for him to believe her was suffocating.

Outsiders. Traitors. Banishment.

Maybe Peter was right. She might be in a cult.

The truth hit her hard. She forced a smile onto her face despite wanting to slide under the table and crawl away.

Canceling fake plans with an imaginary boyfriend was easier than the truth of her deception. Outsider Peter was better than Werewolf Peter. One was a simple mistake at the hands of a lovestruck young woman. The other was direct treason against everything she ever knew.

He didn’t look impressed with her response.

Earthy, herbal smells wafted out from the kitchen door. She caught notes of lavender and chamomile mixed with some kind of sharp spice she was unfamiliar with. Sergei noticed her analyzing the scent.

“It’s not something we grow here in the mountains,” he remarked, blatantly ignoring her attempts to butter him up. “Calypso has family in Haiti. They send her all sorts of home grown products she can’t get here. She likes to think of herself as a bit of an alchemist when she’s in the kitchen. She makes the most wonderful tea. You’ll love it.”

As if on cue, Calypso burst through the doorway with a tray in hand. A clear teapot was placed on the table in front of them. Bits of loose herbs floated around inside the amber liquid. Skinny, swirling trails of hypnotizing white steam rose from the spout. She lifted the pot to pour out the delicious smelling tea into the delicate china cups. Aylin was handed the first one.

“For our guest,” Calypso smirked. “Made with love.”

Aylin ignored the snarky edge to her words and gave a polite smile. She took a small sip, happy for the distraction. It burned her tongue but slid smoothly down her throat. It was like nothing she’d ever had before. Warm and cozy with a sharp tang of spice as a lingering aftertaste. She took another big gulp as it gave her something to do with her fidgety hands.

Calypso perched on the thick arm of Sergei’s throne as she watched her guest drink, “How is it?”

“It’s wonderful. Thank you,” she feigned a smile. She wasn’t lying. It was delicious. She just struggled to make her voice sound genuine when her and Peter’s lives hung on her every word.

“Pleased to hear it.”

Sergei patted his wife’s thigh, “Aylin was just telling me about her gas station boyfriend. An outsider. They’re already planning a trip together.”

Calypso leaned against him, running her fingers through his hair, “A gas station boyfriend? Even she can do better than that.”

“He’s not my bo-” She was cut off by Sergei.

“I already told her that it would be best to let that relationship fade away. I think we could find her someone better. One of us. I would be doing Sam a disservice if I let his daughter run away with an outsider.”

Aylin bit her tongue and refused to mention that her mother was once an outsider. The longer they stayed on the topic of her lie, the more anxious she became. She didn’t want to have to keep thinking on her feet. It was exhausting her psyche.

“I said I would. It’s not a big deal,” she huffed, taking another sip of her tea. “He means nothing to me. I just thought it might be fun to have someone to hike with but I prefer being on my own anyway.”

Calypso smirked, “That’s what I like to hear. Outsiders are nothing. They don’t deserve your time of day. You have everything you need right here.” She shifted her body to lean forward, her deep brown eyes penetrating into Aylin’s very soul. “We’re all you need.”

She was most definitely in a cult. How could she have ever been so oblivious?

She might be the stupidest person alive.

This would be her downfall. The people she loved and fought to protect were the one’s holding the knife. They would be the ones to fatally stab her. Not the Lycans.

Before the realization could overtake her, Calypso’s loose robe had fallen open when she moved and her right breast had pushed its way out from the silky material. The sight of the woman’s freshly exposed skin caused her spiraling mind to halt. Sergei’s arm wrapped around his wife to grasp onto her breast, absentmindedly flicking her dark nipple with his thumb, as they both stared in her direction. Aylin’s ears heated up with a mixture of disbelief and horrific embarrassment. She quickly averted her gaze to the table. She got uncomfortable watching people kiss in public. Watching someone blatantly fondle his wife in front of her made her want to claw out of her own skin. They had always been overly affectionate with each other but it had never been as in her face as it was now. This was different. New. It was like they were challenging her. Like this was some kind of sick test she’d have to pass. From the moment Sergei showed up behind her, she was being tested. Her every move was stuck under a microscope and picked apart with a watchful eye.

These were not the people she once thought they were.

A new found hatred wrapped around her like a warm blanket. They were toying with her. Teasing her. Playing with her. They were getting off on watching her squirm. They liked this.

This was who they really were.

Aylin focused on her tea to keep herself distracted. She heard Calypso stifle a laugh under her breath. They were getting off on her discomfort. Her head was starting to feel dizzy and her heart felt like it was pounding in her ears. She suddenly felt very sweaty like there was a fire igniting in her stomach and spreading up her chest towards her throat. She hated them. That much was clear to her now. The guild was not a safe place. It never was. It had only felt that way because she was drinking the Kool Aid along with everyone else just like Peter said. Her whole life she had been fed a lie which she happily lapped down. Her world was crumbling down around her. Piece by piece it fell with deafening crashes and she was beginning to suffocate on the smokey rubble filling her lungs.

A headache was rapidly growing and her vision blurred for a millisecond before she blinked it back into focus.

“Ms. Aylin was just about to tell me what happened last night,” Sergei spoke, still massaging Calypso without any hint of embarrassment. His tone had flipped, losing the fake lightheartedness from earlier. He was serious. There was no more time for games. “She was going to explain exactly why she refused to kill a wolf in front of her entire guild.”

She was?

“For someone who claims to have killed two on her own, without any proof, you’d think a malnourished, caged bitch would be easy,” Calypso remarked. “It sounds to me like there might be a little white lie hiding somewhere in your story, dear girl. Don’t worry, darling, you can tell us. We won’t judge. We just want the truth.”

She took another sip of the tea to avoid having to answer them right away. Was she the only one drinking? Neither of them had touched the stuff.

Aylin didn’t want to look in their direction to check. She didn't want to watch what they were doing. They were making her uncomfortable on purpose. A power play. A way to prove that she was nothing but inferior to them. She didn’t want to be here. Her head felt like it was swimming with a million thoughts but none of them were making it to her lips. Her body was refusing to function. She couldn’t make her mouth and brain work as one.

“I, uh,” she stuttered over her words. “I…”

Her mind was starting to feel like it was slowly filling with sand. An hourglass at the verge of tipping. Her mouth felt dry so she downed the rest of her cup.

“That girl- she…she…was just…so…so young…” Aylin gave a slow blink, her chin bobbing down to her chest before quickly steadying her head back upright. “I…feel…”

She was suddenly exhausted. The empty tea cup slipped from her hand to shatter into pieces across the floor. She finally turned her attention to the couple, fearing that she was coming down with an illness. She was seeing double. Their forms wavered like rain in a puddle.

“Something’s not right,” she whispered.

“That would be the tea,” Sergei spoke, his voice steady. “Don’t worry, my dear. You’ll be fine.”

He pushed himself up from his throne to walk over to her. Aylin slumped into his arms, feeling paralyzed, as he easily lifted her to his chest. He cradled her there while he moved through his house, each room flashing slowly before her lagging eyes, until he stopped in front of a large bookcase.

“Wha-” she tried to speak but words were useless to her.

Sergei kicked his foot at something hidden against the side of the bookcase, tucked away from view, where the wall meets the floor.

With a low grumble, the bookcase slid slowly to the right to reveal a set of wooden steps leading underground. They creaked underfoot as he carried deeper into the abyss.

The musty smell of mildew and copper hit her nose.

“No…” Aylin managed to whisper, in a last ditch effort to protect herself before the drugs completely captured her mind.

“Sleep now,” Calypso purred over Sergei’s shoulder. “We have some important business to discuss. You’ll need your strength. Shh, drift off, little one. We’ll keep watch over you. Sleep.”

[CHAPTER FIVE (part two)]

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prismstonearchives · 10 months

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おはなまんかい - Flowers in Full Bloom

#waccha primagi!#primagi #lovely melody #pop #super rare #live #flowers in full bloom #primagi studio chapter 4 #coords #coord #pink #white

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ichore · 10 days

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CHAPTER 2: CHOUKA

synopsis: your investigation leads you to suguru geto and his followers, and they welcome you with open arms. have you found a new family or are you going to be a butterfly caught in a spiderweb?

pairing: suguru geto x fem!reader (read warnings)

wc: est 3.5

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warnings: MINORS & BLANKS DNI, DEAD DOVE. description of a murder scene of young children at the end, mentions of suicide, appearance of postpartum depression curse, pairing is strangers to teacher and student vibes (non-romantic and non-sexual, but suggestive) relationship, reader's pseudonym is chouka. reader gets high from the agarwood incense.

2015, Tokyo

November 27

The enormous metal gates close with a baleful thud behind you. The walls are white, the windows are high with freshly coated wooden borders and the vibrant lilac of the rug reaches across each hallway - all too pompous for an association that's barely known. Manami Suda's high heels click against the vitrified floor, each step taken with elegance and swaying hips as her honeyed voice is painting the picture of your possible future.

“Geto-sama was so delighted to hear about you, I'm sure you'll feel like you're part of the family very soon. Don't you worry your pretty head over those inferior species anymore.” The disgust in her tone contradicts her fragile appearance; the bile of words towards non-sorcerers mix into the suffocating cloud of her expensive perfume and the remains of her blueberry scented lotion that she got on your palm when she shook your hand. Which reminds you to stop the anxious fidgeting of your fingers.

Perhaps coming here was a mistake, you think to yourself as you're shown to your room and you place your suitcase on the bed. And maybe coming here alone was just outright inept, which was already confirmed by the chief on the call you had with him while you were walking to the Association.

“The old lady who found the victim? Not interviewed. Your interview with the first responder? Terrible work. The lab found nothing. The press is sitting on my ear for new information. Your only lead is a thief who has no records of any previous violence, and the trails show you the way to a shady religious group. And you do what? Go to Tokyo without asking for permission, without backup. Are you stupid or what? I didn't raise you like this.” You could only imagine how red Machida's face was with wrath, how the office was standing still and his bellowing roared through his door to the cubicles of your colleagues.

“So, like I said, the reports are gonna be late,” you say, unfazed. “And give me two weeks before sending anyone, don't wanna have my cover blown, you know. And no worries, I can take care of myself, you trained me like that. See ya.”

There is a strange, gaping hole inside where you should feel remorse or anger. Machida spent the last twenty years of his life looking over you, after all, and you were mere inches away from the finish line of becoming the next best investigator in Kyoto. All the extra classes after work, the nights spent with physical training that left your body aching in blue and lilac bruises, all the petty chases of junkies and mischievous younglings, all the onigiri and donuts you brought to the office to win over your coworkers and superiors. All for nothing, because Machida is a liar. Most detectives are, that's a common knowledge in the law enforcement, but you wanted to believe they only use it on suspects and the victims’ family members. All your keen-edged senses for falsehood were blinded by love. You can recall myriad memories now where he was acting suspicious; telling you that the throbbing fear on people's shoulders were not really there, how many times he found you in the garden in the middle of the night as you stood still and soaked in the moonlight, and how your sensitivity to artificial light is completely normal. There's nothing normal about you, or him, for that matter. Your throbbing headache reminds you of that as you take in an aspirin and swallow it without water before deciding to turn off all lamps in your room.

As you begin to unpack your clothes, bubbles of laughter pass by your door before it fades away, urging you to undo your luggage faster. Your phone lays in one of the trash cans on the street, your laptop, gun and badge were left in your hotel room. The usual clothes of beige trench coat, suit, white shirt and polished shoes are now changed to converse, jeans and long-sleeved Henley - you feel bare and exposed, an easy target, like a naked slug in the middle of the road that can get crushed anytime. The fact Manami let you know your interview was canceled right at the entrance door, and they were ready to take you in right away did not help your nerves. Was there a possibility they were trying to lure you here? The ritual for the Harvest Moon and your sensitivity to moonlight are far too much of a coincidence, but how would a sorcerer in Tokyo know that you would be assigned to the case? Why you? And where is Uehara Hachiro?

Your feet carry you across the hallways in silence towards the room of beige walls, placards of unknown enchantments and thick cumulus of sweet-balsamic incense. A deep inhale, you relax your shoulders before you make the final turn - even if this is all a trap specifically for you, this is a path you don't want to stray away from. For Fuji, for yourself, for truth.

“Everyone, this is Chouka-chan. Geto-sama wants everyone to give her a very warm welcome,” Manami says cheerfully, her voice like a small bird's song on an early spring morning while she smoothes her palm against your shoulder. The bulk of the odor of incense, the remaining heat of myriad followers and the overwhelming dose of cursed energy makes your eyes water and your throat itch between the introductions and the hand shakes. Every last one of them has the same sliver of smile on their mouth like Manami, calculated and forced, their eyes screaming a certain type of wariness. It makes you fetch a clean glass and pour some bourbon for yourself at the first given opportunity.

The calmness of the afternoon is suddenly broken by the sparkling laughter of two young girls, neither of them looking more than thirteen, as they're riding a one and a half meter tall curse in between the members. They jump off with precision, their hands connect and they swing the knot of fingers in between each other as they make their way to you.

“Chouka-chan, was it?” the bright caramel haired asks, but she doesn't wait for an answer. “Have you ever killed a curse?”

The question registers in your brain five seconds too late. Just yesterday, you didn't even know that these types of cursed spirits existed and now here's an enormous one, and it's being treated like a pony. By two children. In the building where a potential cult is residing. The intensity of the adult members makes your skin prickle, your fingers tighten around your empty glass and your throat begins to itch again. “Only one” Barely.

“Cool,” says the brown haired girl, and you feel another hard question coming. Suddenly, the interview cancellation makes perfect sense. “I can barely see your energy. Is this part of your cursed technique?”

“I'm sorry, didn't quite catch your name there,” you hold a hand to your ear as you tilt your head to the side. The alcohol already begins to bloom with warmth in your stomach, and the aspirin snaps your headache into a buzzing torpidity, relaxing your nerves just enough to make an attempt at taking control of the conversation. Yet, reminding the girls of their manners seems to hit a nerve as rosy pink blooms on their full cheeks and tears begin to glimmer at the edges of their bulbous eyes. Someone lets out a chuckle in the distance.

“The name is Nanako and she's Mimiko,” says the bright haired one as she motions towards her sister. “Didn't mean to offend you. Geto-sama told us you're a special one. We're just curious is all.”

“Girls, what did I tell you about pestering new recruits?” a man's voice comes from behind you. You didn't sense his approach, his closeness startles you into quickly turning around with widened eyes and bated breath. The glass slips from your hand, and the man and you catch it both at the same time before it reaches the floor. His skin feels like silk against your shaky fingers, his breath smells like soap seeping through his knowing smile. “Impressive reflexes” he whispers, and takes the glass away from you to put it onto the table before hiding his arms in the sleeves of his yukata robe, and turns to face his people who are already on their knees with their foreheads against the ground.

“I understand your suspicion about Chouka-chan. It's not common for us to immediately welcome someone so soon, especially someone so new to jujutsu, but I put my trust in her and I want you to do the same. Treating her poorly is equivalent to mistreating me, understand?”

“Yes, Geto-sama,” they all mumble and nod in unison before they're ordered to leave the room to you and Geto. The one named Miguel offers you an apologetic smile when he catches your eye as he's leaving. The other named Larue doesn't even bother to look your way, it's as if he's deep in a dreamy thought ever since his Master appeared. Mimiko and Nanako's faces stiffen after Geto ruffles each of their hairs, slightly whining about the man messing up their hairdo and they're all too busy fixing that while they're leaving.

You can barely even remember your early teenage years, you realize. The point where you started caring about your looks, your growing body, a healthy nature of selfishness, the boys and the girls you might want to kiss. Normal teenage things, and you can't recall any of it. You remember learning how to carry a gun, though.

“You may sit next to me,” a large palm on the small of your back jolts you out of reverie as it leads you across the empty space. The lines of Suguru Geto begin to wash away ahead of your eyes, his fingertips keep tapping against your skin in a rhythm you can't recognize while his all-knowing smile never falters. You're high; your blurred vision, clouded mind and labored breathing makes your body feel heavy as Geto helps you sit down next to his armrest. Was it the combo of aspirin and alcohol? You wonder to yourself while the man moves across the room with the lightness of a feather in the wind to turn off all the lamps and set candles aflame, swapping away the buzzing ache from the back of your head. Oh, this man knows exactly who you are.

“So let's start again,” The room is cast in a warm, flickering glow from the dancing flames of the candles. Geto leans in close as he places himself next to you, his piercing eyes fixating on yours, their intense gaze making your heart race. You can feel the weight of his presence as he invades your personal space, his body almost touching yours as he seems to see through your defenses, searching for any hint of emotion or reaction. The air is charged with an unspoken tension, and you find yourself feeling helpless under his scrutinizing gaze. His smile makes the fuzz on your nape stand high. “Who are you?”

“I have a feeling you already know that,” maybe even better than I do, you want to add, but his chuckle cuts you off. In the dim light and your mind above the clouds, you continue to stare at him with a deluged affection that people tend to feel towards anything beautiful. You're trapped in a strange mixture of dread and intimacy as he puts the weight of his palm on your shoulder.

“I didn't expect you to come here so soon, Detective. You didn't get much sleep, did you?” His voice is low with a fatherly genteel. It makes you want to hug him, but the rational part of your mind continues to scream danger. Your lips begin to tremble and tears burn your eyes as he pats and caresses your skin, like a parent consoling his child after yelling at them for doing something mischievous.

“What's the meaning of all this? What's happening to me?” it amuses him how quickly you break. A trembling, sobbing mess under his touch against your cheek as he leads your head against his thigh.

“You shouldn't have drunk that shot of whiskey,” he lies. “Just lay down and relax. Your cursed energy is overwhelming you, and I'm here to help if you let me,” every word spilling out of his mouth is like a honeyed string of duplicity. Yet you can't help, but feel at ease as he strokes your hair and hushes your sobbing while your tears are soaking the black material of his yukata on his thigh. “Will you let me?”

“Yes,” you say. How strange it is to feel more loved by a cult leader, a potential murder suspect than you ever felt with your own father. The pain in your heart feels physical, making you gasp for air as your weeping flows again and you hold onto Suguru's knee for support.

“Breathe,” he commands, his fingers brushing your hair out of the wetness on your face as his other hand gingerly forces you by the cheek to look at his face. “Focus on the outline of my cursed energy.”

When your teary gaze meets with his, you're faced with the faintest tug of smile hiding at the corners of his lips. Your brows furrow in suspicion, your chest falling and rising to fight for air until you notice the crimson color enveloping the two of you. His thumb strokes your cheek, wordlessly reminding you to focus on his energy which is a pale blue beating around him in a steady rhythm. The last of your tears wet his finger when you finally lose yourself in the dance of his aura. A salty taste remains in the back of your throat, but your inhales gradually become deeper. The red shadow of your energy is soon soothed; it shrinks into the same size as Suguru's, matching its balanced pulsating. Calmness washes over you, the vehemence of your heart beating ebbs away and the sudden clarity of your mind makes you recognize pride behind Suguru's simper.

“You'll make a fine sorceress, Detective. I hope to have you on my side in the future, that's why I want you here” starts the man, still stroking your hair like you're a cat resting on his lap.

“The boy didn't have to die,” you mumble as you mindlessly pinch a strand of his black hair between your fingers, playing with it, and you recognize the fragrance of the same shampoo and hair oil you smelt on the twins. These girls love this man enough to tend to his hair, his people trust him enough to let a stranger into their circle, and his cursed energy is in harmony with yours - for a second, you feel like you found someone you can rely on. But then he speaks again.

“That boy was nothing, but a monkey. It was a necessary evil to get you here, and it worked,” you let go of his hair, and sit up while using the sides of your hands to dry up your tears while he continues. “Your adoptive father never loved you, I can taste it in your tears. He only adopted you, so he can keep a close eye on you and make sure you'll never become a master of jujutsu.”

“What was the point of doing all that?”

“Fear? Envy? I don't know, I gave up on trying to understand the way monkeys feel or think a long time ago,” he shrugs and shakes his head in disbelief, as if Machida's way of raising you offends him more than it does you. There's a still of silence between the two of you before he speaks up again in a sweeter tone. “Where did the name Chouka come from?”

“She was a five year old girl, a murder victim” you begin. You can recall the murder scene clearly just like it happened yesterday, even though the last time you read her files was two years ago; it started with a frantic call from a single mother of two, her baby boy stopped breathing in the middle of the night, she weeped into the phone. Little did everyone know that it was no mere accident, the boy's body was so badly beaten he could've barely been identified, his blood and gore painted the baby blue of his bedroom walls crimson and black. In a fit of rage, the mother blamed the boy's older sister, Chouka-chan who had her baby brother's blood all over her Hello Kitty nightgown. By the time you got there, it was a case of double homicide and a suicide. The throbbing darkness that you now know as curses was overwhelming when you set foot into the house, but you had no way of knowing the causes of deaths were supernatural, so Chouka-chan was named the murderer of the infant. Yet, the wounds on her body and the flesh under her nails told you she was fighting tooth and nail to protect the other child.

“It was a grade one curse,” says Suguru. With a snap of his fingers, he summons a monster akin to a weeping woman, her hair dark and wet like weeds on the bottom of a dirty lake, her skin dark and spotted with something akin to leper. “Postpartum depression curses usually appear around hospitals, but your victim accumulated so much negative energy on her own that she created this and caused the death of her own children,” with a second snap, the curse vanishes and he continues. “It was the first place I ever sensed your residue. You didn't even know, but the sheer power of your will made this curse hide in fear. She knew you could easily kill her if you were to see her. Ever since then, I knew I had to have you in my family.”

“I can't control it, though. The curse I killed… I just stepped on it,” you confess, and Suguru's sudden laugh startles you.

“Did seeing it make you feel disgusted, by any chance?” he asks, and he smooths his palm across the back of your head when you nod. “Imagine a world where these disgusting creatures never existed. If it weren't for the monkeys oozing out cursed energy, Chouka and his brother would still be alive. If it weren't for your cowardly stepfather, you could've saved so many lives. The best we can do right now is move forward, step towards evolution and purge the world from these filthy curse machines, Detective. Don't you agree?”

Your mind finally feels clear and your bosom is light. The dried salt of your tears are the only thing remaining of your sorrow as you're looking into the brown gaze of this man whose judgment you decide to not trust. You snap away his hand. “I think there are many flaws in your plan, Geto-sama. Bring me Uehara Hachiro or I'll arrest you instead. Or kill me, and have the entire Kyoto and Tokyo Police Department hunting you down for murdering the daughter of the Chief Inspector. If you need me, you're far away from having enough manpower to withstand two cities worth of law enforcement.”

“Disappointing answer, but I had an inkling suspicion you'd say something like that,” he says while standing up and making his way to the light switches. You expect a sudden ache to come as the artificial light illuminates the room, but to your utmost surprise, you feel nothing out of the ordinary. Suguru smiles, and it earns a click of your tongue to know everything still goes according to his plans. “Give me two weeks to train you, both body and mind. If by then, you'd still decide to leave, I'll give you Uehara Hachiro.”

“And what do you gain from that outcome?”

“Oh, rest assured, you'll pay back the favor when the time comes. But right now, your cursed energy is so unstable that it may very well kill you, or you can turn into a curse. Imagine the disaster the latter could cause,” you follow him in silence as he blows out each candle. His arms hidden in his sleeves, that irritating curve of his knowing smile never threatens to fade while he accompanies you back to your room - he already knows you have to say yes.

“Fine, two weeks,” you say with a sigh.

“And your father?”

“He gave me enough time. No one else will come or call. I'm all yours.”

“Did anybody ever tell you you're even prettier when you cry?” his breath feels hot against your cheeks. He's so close, you're forced to tilt your head to the side to be able to look him in the eye. His smile widens as your pearly canines are slightly bared in a ginger smirk.

“You're not my type. Sorry to disappoint you twice, Geto-sama,”

“That's alright,” Suguru chuckles. He takes a step back, so you can give him a proper bow before he turns on his heels and begins to make his way to his chambers. “Sleep well, Detective. I won't go easy on you during your training.”

#where the lycoris blooms #jjk fanfic #jjk x reader #jjk x you #suguru geto #suguru x reader #btw chouka means butterfly #a totally irrelevant thing for the future chapters >.>

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coladaminx · 1 year

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😢 asahi asked imari to start a company with him and they look so happy together *cries* THOSE FOND LOOKS!! ARE KILLING ME📣

#butai ni sake #bloom on the stage #shou harusono #imari kikuji #asahioniwa #imahi #sasaki to miyano #chapter 20 #舞台に咲け！#i feel like they're emplied to like each other lol #but honestly i don't know #as long as their happy 😊#then ALL IS WELL WITH THE WORLD #take my translation with a grain of salt im no pro but i try :3 #i do believe its an acting company their starting together which is sweet

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rist-ix · 6 months

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I'm wondering how well (or not, lol) tbhtbh valtor would handle bloom not only being in love and in a relationship with someone else, but if it was with someone who wasn't so... lackluster and insecurity-inducing as sky. if it was someone like stella or another character who had her total devotion and who couldn't be a weakness to exploit in the way that sky was for bloom.

His ego would never recover, he'd go full pining Jane Austen character with a side dish of world destroying rage.

#or vice versa #asks #fic: to be hunted to be haunted #srsly though he ALREADY IS incredibly jealous of Stella. they interact for a total of like 12 seconds in chapter 3 #and he is vibrating with envy the entire time #at once point bloom looks back at Stella and Valtor's face just turns ten shades more murderous on the spot #funnily enough he handles Bloom's interest in people he thinks inferior a lot better #half the reason he has it out for Stella (or any of the winx in her place) specifically is because he has a begrudging respect for her #and acknowledges that she is a formidable fairy #he really can’t look down on her that much and it drives him CRAZY

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murasaki-cha · 6 months

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And what if I say Serena/Frederick and Eiser/Diah are parallels of each other as both relationships are born out of necessity and neither truly ever loved each other? What then?

#new chapter was wild #so much lore unlocked #we got served #serena webtoon #serena manhwa #serena #selena manhwa #selena #serena serenity #eiser leinz grayan #eiser grayan #frederick bloom #diah de laurent #manhwa #webtoon

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canmom · 8 months

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entropy and life//entropy and death

This is a discussion that spun out of a post on web novel The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere. However, it's mostly a chance to lay out the entropy thing. So most of it is not Flower related at all...

the thermodynamics lesson

Entropy is one of those subjects that tends to be described quite vaguely. The rigorous definition, on the other hand, is packed full of jargon like 'macrostates', which I found pretty hard to wrap my head around as a university student back in the day. So let's begin this post with an attempt to lay it out a bit more intuitively.

In the early days of thermodynamics, as 19th-century scientists like Clausius attempted to get to grips with 'how do you build a better steam engine', entropy was a rather mysterious quantity that emerged from their networks of differential equations. It was defined in relation to measurable quantities temperature and heat. If you add heat to a system at a given temperature, its entropy goes up. In an idealised reversible process, like compressing a piston infinitely slowly, the entropy stays constant.

Strangely, this convenient quantity always seemed to go up or stay the same, never ever down. This was so strictly true that it was declared to be a 'law of thermodynamics'. Why the hell should that be true? Turns out they'd accidentally stumbled on one of the most fundamental principles of the universe.

So. What actually is it? When we talk about entropy, we are talking about a system that can be described in two related ways: a 'nitty-gritty details' one that's exhaustively precise, and a 'broad strokes' one that brushes over most of those details. (The jargon calls the first one a 'microstate' and the second one a 'macrostate'.)

For example, say the thing you're trying to describe is a gas. The 'nitty gritty details' description would describe the position and velocity of every single molecule zipping around in that gas. The 'broad strokes' description would sum it all up with a few quantities such as temperature, volume and pressure, which describe how much energy and momentum the molecules have on average, and the places they might be.

In general there are many different possible ways you could arrange the molecules and their kinetic energy match up with that broad-strokes description.

In statistical mechanics, entropy describes the relationship between the two. It measures the number of possible 'nitty gritty details' descriptions that match up with the 'broad strokes' description.

In short, entropy could be thought of as a measure of what is not known or indeed knowable. It is sort of like a measure of 'disorder', but it's a very specific sense of 'disorder'.

For another example, let's say that you are running along with two folders. Each folder contains 100 pages, and one of them is important to you. You know for sure it's in the left folder. But then you suffer a comical anime collision that leads to your papers going all over the floor! You pick them up and stuff them randomly back in the folders.

In the first state, the macrostate is 'the important page is in the left folder'. There are 100 positions it could be. After your accident, you don't know which folder has that page. The macrostate is 'It could be in either folder'. So there are now 200 positions it could be. This means your papers are now in a higher entropy state than they were before.

In general, if you start out a system in a given 'broad strokes' state, it will randomly explore all the different 'nitty gritty details' states available in its phase space (this is called the ergodic hypothesis). The more 'nitty gritty details' states that are associated with a given 'broad strokes' state, the more likely that it will end up in that state. In practice, once you have realistic numbers of particles involved, the probabilities involved are so extreme that we can say that the system will almost certainly end up in a 'broad strokes' state with equal or higher entropy. This is called the Second Law of Thermodynamics: it says entropy will always stay the same, or increase.

This is the modern, statistical view of entropy developed by Ludwig Boltzmann in the 1870s and really nailed down at the start of the 20th century, summed up by the famous formula S=k log W. This was such a big deal that they engraved it on his tombstone.

Since the Second Law of Thermodynamics is statistical in nature, it applies anywhere its assumptions hold, regardless of how the underlying physics works. This makes it astonishingly powerful. Before long, the idea of entropy in thermodynamics inspired other, related ideas. Claude Shannon used the word entropy for a measure of the maximum information conveyed in a message of a certain length.

the life of energy and entropy

So, everything is made of energy, and that energy is in a state with a certain amount of thermodynamic entropy. As we just discussed, every chemical process must globally increase the entropy. If the entropy of one thing goes down, the entropy of something else must increase by an equal or greater amount.

(A little caveat: traditional thermodynamics was mainly concerned with systems in equilibrium. Life is almost by definition not in thermodynamic equilibrium, which makes things generally a lot more complicated. Luckily I'm going to talk about things at such a high level of abstraction that it won't matter.)

There are generally speaking two ways to increase entropy. You can add more energy to the system, and you can take the existing energy and distribute it more evenly.

For example, a fridge in a warm room is in a low entropy state. Left to its own devices, energy from outside would make its way into the fridge, lowering the temperature of the outside slightly and increasing the temperature of the inside. This would increase the entropy: there are more ways for the energy to be distributed when the inside of the fridge is warmer.

To cool the fridge we want to move some energy back to the outside. But that would lower entropy, which is a no-no! To get around this, the heat pump on a fridge must always add a bit of extra energy to the outside of the fridge. In this way it's possible to link the cooling of the inside of the fridge to the increase in entropy outside, and the whole process becomes thermodynamically viable.

Likewise, for a coherent pattern such as life to exist, it must slot itself into the constant transition from low to high entropy in a way that can dump the excess entropy it adds somewhere else.

Fortunately, we live on a planet that is orbiting a bright star, and also radiating heat into space. The sun provides energy in a relatively low-entropy state: highly directional, in a certain limited range of frequencies. The electromagnetic radiation leaving our planet is in a higher entropy state. The earth as a whole is pretty near equilibrium (although it's presently warming, as you might have heard).

Using a multistep process and suitable enzymes, photosynthesis can convert a portion of the incoming sunlight energy into sugars, which are in a tasty low entropy state. This is a highly unfavoured process in general, and it requires some shenanigans to get away with it. But basically, the compensating increase in entropy is achieved by heating up the surroundings, which radiate away lower-temperature infrared radiation.

the reason we don't live forever

Nearly all other lifeforms depend on these helpfully packaged low-entropy molecules. We take in molecules from outside by breathing in and eating and drinking, put them through a bunch of chemical reactions (respiration and so forth), and emit molecules at a higher entropy (breathing out, pissing, shitting, etc.). Since we constantly have to throw away molecules to get rid of the excess entropy produced by the processes of living, we constantly have to eat more food. This is what I was alluding to in the Dungeon Meshi post from the other day.

That's the short-timescale battle against entropy. On longer timescales, we can more vaguely say that life depends on the ability to preserve a low-entropy, non-equilibrium state. On the simplest level, a human body is in a very low entropy state compared to a cloud of carbon dioxide and water, but we generally speaking do not spontaneously combust because there is a high enough energy barrier in the way. But in a more abstract one, our cells continue to function in specialised roles, the complex networks of reaction pathways continue to tick over, and the whole machine somehow keeps working.

However, the longer you try to maintain a pattern, the more low-probability problems start to become statistical inevitabilities.

For example, cells contain a whole mess of chemical reactions which can gradually accumulate errors, waste products etc. which can corrupt their functioning. To compensate for this, multicellular organisms are constantly rebuilding themselves. On the one hand, their cells divide to create new cells; on the other, stressed cells undergo apoptosis, i.e. die. However, sometimes cells become corrupt in a way that causes them to fail to die when instructed. Our body has an entire complicated apparatus designed to detect those cells and destroy them before they start replicating uncontrollably. Our various defensive mechanisms detect and destroy the vast majority of potentially cancerous cells... but over a long enough period, the odds are not in our favour. Every cell has a tiny potential to become cancerous.

At this point we're really not in the realm of rigorous thermodynamic entropy calculations. However, we can think of 'dead body' as generally speaking a higher-entropy set of states than 'living creature'. There are many more ways for the atoms that make us up to be arranged as a dead person, cloud of gas, etc. than an alive person. Worse still should we find we were in a metastable state, where only a small boost over the energy barrier is needed to cause a runaway reaction that drops us into a lower energy, higher entropy state.

In a sense, a viral infection could be thought of as a collapse of a metastable pattern. The replication machinery in our cells could produce human cells but it can equally produce viruses, and it turns out stamping out viruses is (in this loose sense) a higher entropy pattern; the main thing that stops us from turning into a pile of viruses is the absence of a virus to kick the process off.

So sooner or later, we inevitably(?) hit a level of disruption which causes a cascading failure in all these interlinked biological systems. The pattern collapses.

This is what we call 'death'.

an analogy

If you're familiar with cellular automata like Conway's Game of Life, you'll know it's possible to construct incredibly elaborate persistent patterns. You can even build the game of life in the game of life. But these systems can be quite brittle: if you scribble a little on the board, the coherent pattern will break and it will collapse back into a random mess of oscillators. 'Random mess of oscillators' is a high-entropy state for the Game of Life: there are many many different board states that correspond to it. 'Board that plays the Game of Life' is a low-entropy state: there are a scant few states that fit.

The ergodic hypothesis does not apply to the Game of Life. Without manual intervention, the 'game of life in game of life' board would keep simulating a giant version of the game of life indefinitely. However...

For physical computer systems, a vaguely similar process of accumulating problems can occur. For example, a program with a memory leak will gradually request more and more memory from the operating system, leaving more and more memory in an inaccessible state. Other programs may end up running slowly, starved of resources.

In general, there are a great many ways a computer can go wrong, and few that represent it going right.

One of the ways our body avoids collapsing like this is by dedicating resources to cells whose job is to monitor the other cells and intervene if they show heuristic signs of screwing up. This is the evolutionary arms race between immune system and virus. The same can be true on computers, which also support 'viruses' in the form of programs that are able to hijack a computer and replicate themselves onto other computers - and one of our solutions is similar, writing programs which detect and terminate programs which have the appearance of viruses.

When a computer is running slowly, the first thing to do is to reboot it. This will reload all the programs from the unchanging version on disc.

The animal body's version of a reboot is to dump all the accumulated decay onto a corpse and produce a whole new organism from a single pair of cells. This is one function of reproduction, a chance to wipe the slate clean. (One thing I remain curious about is how the body keeps the gamete cells in good shape.)

but what if we did live forever?

I am not particularly up to date on senescence research, but in general the theories do appear to go along broad lines of 'accumulating damage', with disagreement over what represents the most fundamental cause.

Here's how Su discusses the problem of living indefinitely in The Flower That Blooms Nowhere, chapter 2:

The trouble, however, is that the longer you try to preserve a system well into a length of time it is utterly not designed (well, evolved, in this case) for, the more strange and complicated problems appear. Take cancer, humanity’s oldest companion. For a young person with a body that's still running according to program, it's an easy problem to solve. Stick a scepter in their business, cast the Life-Slaying Arcana with the 'cancerous' addendum script – which identifies and eliminates around the 10,000 most common types of defective cell – and that's all it takes. No problem! A monkey could do it. But the body isn’t a thing unto itself, a inherently stable entity that just gets worn down or sometimes infected with nasty things. And cancer cells aren’t just malevolent little sprites that hop out of the netherworld. They’re one of innumerable quasi-autonomous components that are themselves important to the survival of the body, but just happen to be doing their job slightly wrong. So even the act of killing them causes disruption. Maybe not major disruption, but disruption all the same. Which will cause little stressors on other components, which in turn might cause them to become cancerous, maybe in a more 'interesting' way that’s a little harder to detect. And if you stop that... Or hell, forget even cancer. Cells mutate all the time just by nature, the anima script becoming warped slightly in the process of division. Most of the time, it's harmless; so long as you stay up to date with your telomere extensions, most dysfunctional cells don't present serious problems and can be easily killed off by your immune system. But live long enough, and by sheer mathematics, you'll get a mutation that isn't. And if you live a really long time, you'll get a lot of them, and unless you can detect them perfectly, they'll build up, with, again, interesting results. At a deep enough level, the problem wasn't biology. It was physics. Entropy.

A few quirks of the setting emerge here. Rather than DNA we have 'the anima script'. It remains to be seen if this is just another name for DNA or reflecting some fundamental alt-biology that runs on magic or some shit. Others reflect real biology: 'telomeres' are a region at the end of the DNA strands in chromosomes. They serve as a kind of ablative shield, protecting the end of the DNA during replication. The loss of the telomeres have been touted as a major factor in the aging process.

A few chapters later we encounter a man who does not think of himself as really being the same person as he was a hundred years ago. Which, mood - I don't think I'm really the same person I was ten years ago. Or five. Or hell, even one.

The problem with really long-term scifi life extension ends up being a kind of signal-vs-noise problem. Humans change, a lot, as our lives advance. Hell, life is a process of constant change. We accumulate experiences and memories, learn new things, build new connections, change our opinions. Mostly this is desirable. Even if you had a perfect down-to-the-nucleon recording of the state of a person at a given point in time, overwriting a person with that state many years later would amount to killing them and replacing them with their old self. So the problem becomes distinguishing the good, wanted changes ('character development', even if contrary to what you wanted in the past) from the bad unwanted changes (cancer or whatever).

But then it gets squirly. Memories are physical too. If you experienced a deeply traumatic event, and learned a set of unwanted behaviours and associations that will shit up your quality of life, maybe you'd want to erase that trauma and forget or rewrite that memory. But if you're gonna do that... do you start rewriting all your memories? Does space become limited at some point? Can you back up your memories? What do you choose to preserve, and what do you choose to delete?

Living forever means forgetting infinitely many things, and Ship-of-Theseusing yourself into infinitely many people... perhaps infinitely many times each. Instead of death being sudden and taking place at a particular moment in time, it's a gradual transition into something that becomes unrecognisable from the point of view of your present self. I don't think there's any coherent self-narrative that can hold up in the face of infinity.

That's still probably better than dying I guess! But it is perhaps unsettling, in the same way that it's unsettling to realise that whether or not Everett quantum mechanics is true, and if there is a finite amount information in the observable universe, an infinite universe must contain infinite exact copies of that observable universe, and infinite near variations, and basically you end up with many-worlds through the back door. Unless the universe is finite or something.

Anyway, living forever probably isn't on the cards for us. Honestly I think we'll be lucky if complex global societies make it through the next century. 'Making it' in the really long term is going to require an unprecedented megaproject of effort to effect a complete renewable transition and reorganise society to a steady state economy which, just like life, takes in only low-entropy energy and puts out high-entropy energy in the form of photons, with all the other materials - minerals etc. - circulating in a closed loop. That probably won't happen but idk, never say never.

Looking forward to how this book plays with all this stuff.

#fiction #sff #web serials #entropy #physics #biology #thermodynamics #the flower that bloomed nowhere #ok that's all i have to say about the first twelve chapters lmaooo

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