#but we were cleaning out the coop so we let them run around for a minute

[curiosityschild]

The flock!

The three in the back:

Daphne (welsummer), Delilah (welsummer), Pingu (barred rock)

The four on the left:

Fauna (easter egger), Flora (easter egger), Meriwether (speckled sussex), Eleanor (welsummer)

The four on the right:

Ella (easter egger), Elsa (easter egger), Maryanne (welsummer), Baby (golden laced wyandotte)

[genshingorlsrevengeance]

Request: Velvet and Eleanor reacting to Magilou flirting with their younger sibling (the reader) right in front of them.

(Tales of Berseria) Velvet and Eleanor reacting to Sibling!Reader getting flirted with

To quote our lord Steve Harvey, "KILL"

Velvet was always protective of Laphicet and (Y/N), even before she became a daemon.

And since (Y/N) was the last person Velvet had in her life, she wasn't going to let anything hurt them.

Even beyond just protecting them from harm, her big sister instincts still remained.

Which meant especially that people trying to engage romantically with (Y/N) was signing their death warrant.

And so enters: The Magilou.

(Y/N) was in the middle of preparing dinner for the night before hearing footsteps approach them.

(Y/N) "Hey, whoever that is, could you pass me the ladle? I need to do a taste test."

(Magilou) "Oh, here you go, dear (Y/N)!"

(Y/N) "...Oh no-"

Magilou hopped in front of them, dramatically extending her hands upwards to the sky, ladle in hand.

(Magilou) "Fear not, for I, the great Magilou, will help prepare a dish fit for the gods above!"

(Y/N) "Respectfully Magilou, I don't need help. Velvet taught me everything I need to know about cooking."

(Magilou) "Surely you jest! There's nothing Velvet can do that I cannot perform better!"

She leaned in close to them with a smirk.

(Magilou) "In fact, ignore your sister for a moment and listen to my advice! You may even win my heart, should you perform well enough!"

(Y/N) "I...doubt that.-"

(Magilou) "WHAT?! Am I not the prettiest woman you have ever laid eyes on?! How can you resist such alluring charms?!"

(Y/N) "Listening to you speak, for one-"

(Magilou) "Psh! It seems a foul mouth runs in the family-"

Suddenly, a young voice came from behind the two.

(Laphicet) "VELVET! MAGILOU IS PICKING ON (Y/N)!"

(Magilou) "What the-HANG ON YA LITTLE TYKE! I WAS JUST-"

Before the three of them could even blink, Velvet closed the distance from seemingly nowhere

Magilou fumbled with the ladle in genuine shock as Velvet began speaking.

Magilou backed off in fear, hiding behind (Y/N).

(Magilou) "H-Hang on now! I was just playing around, it was a goof! It was a gag!"

(Laphicet) "That's not what I heard! You said that both Velvet and (Y/N) had a foul mouth!"

(Magilou) "And you have a loose one, ratting me out like this!"

Velvet grabbed the ladle from the floor, and hit Magilou over the head with it.

Saying nothing else, she scooted Laphicet to sit next to (Y/N) before crouching down and turning to her sibling with a softer expression.

(Y/N) "Sis, you don't have to end Magilou, it's nothing she hasn't done before. And thanks to you too, Laphicet."

Laphicet nodded with a big smile as well.

(Laphicet) "Mhm!...Oh, we need to clean the ladle now!"

(Velvet) "Yeah. Give me a sec and we'll see how you did on the soup."

Magilou rubbed her injury, muttering to herself.

(Magilou) "Freakin' sister complex-"

(Velvet) "I heard that."

Eleanor was completely against (Y/N) joining her as she chased Velvet and her group, but the Abbey had decreed it so.

Which resulted in both of them being taken as "prisoners".

She feared for their lives, but she didn't realize that she also had to fear for their love life.

And she sure as hell would not let (Y/N) date anyone from this group of misfits.

Especially a certain one.

Well, two, actually. But Velvet didn't really seem to care about dating, thank god.

Neither did option one, but that didn't stop her from being an absolute nusiance.

(Magilou) "(Y/N)!"

(Y/N) was offput by her sudden arrival, considering that they were just in their room thinking.

(Y/N) "What the- Why did you kick open my door?!"

(Magilou) "How can our days be brightened without the young exorcist's beloved sibling? Instead of being with us, you are cooped up in your room!"

(Y/N) "E-Eleanor told me to stay here for a little bit. I'm not exactly inclined to against her wishes-"

(Magilou) "Ah, but you are shackled in here, like a bird in a cage! You must let your wings spread out and fly, little dove!"

(Y/N) "I think I'm good, thanks-"

(Magilou) "Y'know, listening to your big sister all the time will leave you maidenless for the rest of your life! She'll shield you from all the joys and wonders of the world!"

(Y/N) "I'm not doing your laundry, Magilou. And neither is Eleanor!"

(Magilou) "Fine, I'll just have to put on my dazzling magics to get you to see reason-"

(Eleanor) "YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING!"

Eleanor stomped towards Magilou, shoving her outside the room before standing at the doorframe, arms crossed.

(Eleanor) "Do not engage my little brother/sister in your tomfoolery! I will not allow it!"

(Magilou) "See? This is exactly what I'm talking about! Eleanor will prevent any kind of love from blossoming-"

(Eleanor) "BE QUIET!"

She turned to (Y/N), getting even more flustered and angry.

(Y/N) "I don't think any other person will be like Magilou...I-I hope."

(Magilou) "Hmph! Both of you don't know a true dazzler when you see one-"

(Eleanor) "All I see is someone trying to leech off my sibling just to get their laundry done!"

(Magilou) "Why does everyone assume that I'm just here for my stinking clothes?! Can't I be here for romance, drama, or even anything else?!"

(Y/N) and Eleanor glared at Magilou.

(Magilou) "And for your information, I was here to recruit either of you to make dinner instead of me!"

(Y/N & Eleanor) "GET OUT!"

[inkycherie]

I have had the most amazing summer. In July, my best friend came to visit. I brought her to Paris (her first time), showed her around my town and other neighbouring cities around Geneva, and we drove to the south of France. I made different meals for everyone to enjoy, danced to the loveliest music, and drank the best wine(s).

The third week of August, I went back to the Philippines. We had a long overdue family reunion. Our uncle from Canada also came to visit with his family, and my cousin who works for months at a cruise ship extended his vacation.

We all flew to Zamboanga del Sur to surprise my grandma and our extended family whom we haven't seen in 13 years ! We spent a week there living the simple life, eating pandesal for breakfast, and singing karaoke kahit brownout.

The first few days of September, I spent back in my hometown. I saw Bowie again. I didn't let any minute pass without cuddling him. Whenever I'm in the PH and everyone else is back home, my sisters and I stay in one bedroom with our parents (and Bowie), chatting away until we all fall asleep. These nights were even more special because we were all cooped up in one room while there was a storm outside. Felt just like the good old days when my sisters and I would spend nights holed up in our parents room trying to pass the time until electricity was back on.

I was also sooo happy to walk around the malls with Christmas music already playing in the background ! We bought surprise presents for our parents. My sisters and I chipped in to buy papa his dream TV, and mama a new iPhone. The rest of my money I spent on groceries, more presents for the fam, pasalubongs for Jon, books, Cheetos, Spicy Century Tuna, Vienna sausages, and Spam. lol

We spent my last week in Manila. Took mama, my sisters, and our aunt on a date - brunch in Wildflour and shopping at Rockwell, and then continued to shop in MOA. I wanted to make dinner for everyone, so I made sinigang na baboy which was perfect for the stormy weather. We had drinks with our cousins before bed (red horse, spicy Oishi, and isaw at bbq).

The next day, I brought my parents to IKEA so I can buy them stuff for the house. I could tell mama was so excited to drive back home so she can start using everything we got. Uncle flew back from Zamboanga later than everyone else so the day after he arrived, he went straight to the condo so we can spend more time with him. We asked him to make lola's bistek Tagalog as he is the only one who can make it exactly the way lola does. I am glad to report that I watched him closely as he was making it - even volunteered to be the sous chef - so I will make it for dinner tomorrow.

The day before my flight, the entire family celebrated my aunt and cousin's birthdays. I made some of my specialty meals, and we ordered a bunch of other food. Of course, there was cake.

I flew back to Switzerland on the 7th. I arrived on Friday at 8 in the morning, unpacked my stuff, ate pancit canton, and fell asleep at 16hr. I woke up at 3am still tired, but I managed to clean up and do all the laundry. I was hanging clothes at the balcony even before the sun was out. I found it hilarious. The rest of the day, I spent on the couch still feeling quite sluggish and brushing off the fact that I was having chills, and my nose wouldn't stop running.

Jon and I went on a quick café date and I couldn't taste the coffee nor the pastry I ordered which I found strange but thought nothing of. We did errands and bought groceries but I started feeling sicker as the hours passed. As soon as we got home, I checked to see if I had covid. The test came out positive. Dinner wasn't much fun. I was much sicker so I couldn't enjoy the food Jon prepared for me - he made me the perfect steak which I couldn't taste hahaha and some soup to make me feel better.

This morning, I woke up at 5am and called my family right away. The symptoms are getting worse, and now I have chills, body pains, and constant headache. I will rest more so I can feel better by tomorrow. I just find this to be a silly end to an incredible summer.

[victorluvsalice]

Hi folks -- we're back with the Chill Valicer Save this week, working our way through the trio's Spring Wednesday! And this one proved to be a bit busier than anticipated, so let's get straight in --

-->First things first – picked up with the gang just bumming around their house at about two in the morning, as they do. As Alice needed Fitness skill to help fulfill her Renaissance Sim aspiration (and thus her New Year's Eve resolution), I sent her off on a feral run, while Victor got to go back to bed for a little more sleep, and Smiler –

Got put on weeding duty. Because, despite cheating the glitched plants from the previous episode to be weedless, the minute I checked the greenhouse, I saw that the weeds had resprouted! I hoped that maybe now they were non-glitched weeds and would go away when vacuumed up, but nope, Smiler once again got stuck in a loop when they tried to weed them. *grumble* And when I tried resetting the weed growth state again later on, the weeds disappeared...and then just grew right back again! What the hell – what’s even the POINT of letting me get rid of the weeds if it won’t ACTUALLY let me get rid of them?? *shakehead*

-->Anyway – once I saw that Smiler was stuck in the loop, I canceled the action and instead had them go lecture Surprise about playing in a trash pile that was next to the garden sink (from when Alice repaired it last time). The cat didn’t exactly know what she was being lectured for, but at least she stopped making a bigger mess! Smiler scavenged the pile for parts, put it in their inventory, then went back to their robotics bench to make more mechanisms and computer chips for that Servo project I’d like them to start at some point (you know, to help around the house and the store). As they were doing that, Alice returned from her feral run, and I had her pick up the mail –

Which contained a giant plush bunny! Their reward for finding all those decorative eggs, I presume! :) I decided it could go next to the knitting basket and rocking chair in the séance room – only to discover the darn thing was not live draggable, unfortunately. So Alice had to go there manually and put it in the world herself. *shrug* I figured while she was up there, she could get some meditation in (helps keep the Fury at a manageable level, after all), and had her plonk her butt down on the stool for a little while (at least, until she started levitating). Not only did she end up getting Wellness level 6 during her little Zen session, she ALSO got a pop-up stating she’d thought of a hilarious joke while meditating and got Comedy level 5 out of it too! Two skills for the price of one, I love it! :D

-->While Alice was getting her chill on, Victor got up, used and Scruberooed the toilet, then popped down to the greenhouse to do some tending (and get stuck in a few weeding loops of his own on those glitched plants *sigh*) before grabbing some honey out of the bee box, picking all the grown over-sized crops (the big mushroom wasn’t QUITE ready), and super-selling everything else because, well, they don’t really need any more fruit, veggies, or flowers JUST at the moment. XD Smiler, meanwhile, got put on livestock duty – feeding the chickens, cleaning the coop, telling them some jokes, and telling Surprise that she was not to play in the chicken feed either, before moving on to clean and chat with Moory. Moory didn’t think much of their attempts to talk about the weather, but did like their joke, so Smiler was able to successfully milk her, yay. We appreciate when the cow cooperates with us!

-->We also appreciate when the Sims decide to be cute on their own – case in point, Victor, having finished in the greenhouse, promptly went over to Smiler after they’d finished milking Moory and made out with them right by the cow shed. XD I then had Victor offer his wrist to a thirsty Smiler (his plasma is their favorite, after all), while I had Alice return to normal after her meditation session and go get the eggs. Once Victor was done being drained, he went over and had a little slow dance with Alice in front of the chicken coop – seems like farm chores encourage him to be romantic. XD Shadow came over and started whining at them for a walk midway through, though, so I had Smiler go over and play with her a bit to keep her occupied. Cute family times are cute! :) Anyway, with the chores done and everyone having gotten their adorableness quotient for the day fulfilled, I tried to have Victor set up the trip to the store –

Only for him and Alice to get obsessed with playing with the clay blob, with Victor insisting on walking all the way to the living room even when I canceled the action in favor of them going traveling. *shakes head* Sims sometimes, I swear..

[aeoki]

Zodiac 2 - Rooster

Location: Yumenosaki Grower Barn Characters: Tomoya, Hokuto & Wataru Season: Winter Writer: Yoshino Yuuki

TL Note:

Daifuku are rice cakes with a sweet filling inside.

Wataru originally says this line in English.

Wataru: Hello, it’s yours truly – Wataru Hibiki…☆

Fufufu, aren’t you all cheerful today? There, there ♪ 

Hokuto: President, don’t let the parrots out. It’ll be trouble if they escape… Hey, are you listening to me?

Wataru: No need to worry! I’m listening to you while I feed the parrots~ I can hear everything you say.

Hokuto: I see. It’s perched on your shoulder and appears to be quite well-behaved. Looks like I don’t need to worry.

If you’ll tend to the parrots, then Tomoya and I will check on the chickens.

I’ve seen Isara handle them before, so it might be best for the two of us to tend to them.

Wataru: Hokuto-kun, I was simply feeding them while I greeted them, but I don’t mind tending to the chickens, either.

It’ll be interesting to teach them a few tricks as well. Hokuto-kun, please tend to “Daifuku-chan” ♪ 

Hokuto: Who the heck is that…?

No wait, why do you know that?

Wataru: Oh, I don’t remember when it was, but you were sitting abent-mindedly in the clubroom one time.

And I came over thinking I could give you some advice as your upperclassman.

Then, you started muttering “daifuku… daifuku[⁎]…”.

So I decided to run off to the convenience store to buy some and when I stuffed it in your mouth, you choked quite badly on it!

It gave me thrills when you shouted, “Are you trying to kill me!” Hatred is also love! How wonderful it is to see you’ve awakened to a new kind of love…☆

In any case, you were the one who introduced it to me. All I did was outstretch my hand that was full of love to you! Have you understood now?

Hokuto: Yeah, I’m starting to remember…

I was the one who requested it, but I meant the name of the white rabbit that’s kept here instead of the food.

Wataru: You’ll get more attached to something if you give it a name, after all. But the clubs take turns taking care of the animals here.

If you carelessly give it a name, then it’d be troubling if it stops responding to it.

Hokuto: I know. You know I haven’t called it that during the times we’re feeding it.

But I’ve been busy preparing for “SS” and have left the task to Tomoya… Sorry about that.

Tomoya: It’s okay, I like animals so I enjoyed the time! In fact, I wouldn’t mind feeding them every day!

Wataru: The animals like you a lot, don’t they, Tomoya-kun? As do I ☆

Tomoya: What the heck!? Anyway, it’s going to get dark if we keep chatting like this… so shall we decide who’s going to take care of what?

Wataru: Then, I shall feed the chickens, cock-a-doodle-doo~...☆

Tomoya: How about you, Hokuto-senpai? The club president already fed the parrots, so all that’s left is to clean up after them. It’s pretty easy~♪ 

Hokuto: I’d like to say I want to feed the rabbits… but they’re wiggling their noses because they want you to take care of them. I’ll clean up the parrots.

Tomoya: Alright!

Be good, okay~? Ahaha, you don’t have to crowd around my legs like that. I’ll pet you all in good time ♪ 

Oh, what’s the matter? Your ears are all perked up and you’re alert…?

This rabbit’s stuck in the corner and it looks like it’s scared.

…Hm? The chicken coop sounds oddly noisy. Did he anger them or something?

He won’t be able to feed or clean their coop if that’s the case. I’ll go take a look.

Wataru: Come, spread your wings and fly high! Let us sing a song! La~ lala~...♪ 

Tomoya: …What’re you doing?

Wataru: Oh, Tomoya-kun! What am I doing? You can tell, can’t you?

If you can’t, then close your eyes! Have you closed them? I can see they’re not fully closed~

Alright, you’ve got them closed this time! Now, open your eyes slowly! It’s time to wake up~♪ 

Tomoya: Woah, the chickens are right in front of me!? What’re you gonna do if I accidentally kick them!? They’ll get hurt!

Hm? Why do you have a hula-hoop…?

Wataru: Hehehe, you’ve finally noticed.

I was trying so hard to get your attention and yet you only had eyes for the chickens. I might as well be biting a handkerchief in my mouth out of frustration.

Tomoya: Uh, there wasn’t a hula-hoop around before, right? Where’d it come from?

Wataru: I made it appear with a few tricks ☆ Anyway, what you should be focused on isn’t the hula-hoop – Focus on the chickens~☆

They’ll now pass through the hula-hoop!

There, they succeeded. A round of applause, please~☆

Next, I shall hold the hula-hoop to my hip!

Another success~ You’d think things would end there, wouldn’t you?

Overcome your limits! I shall hold the hula-hoop higher than myself next!

Show us a miracle…!

Tomoya: T–They flew…!? No, chickens aren’t supposed to fly! What the? How did they fly…?

Wataru: A nice reaction. I’m overjoyed to have succeeded in surprising you, Tomoya-kun!

It appears the chicken’s ancestors weren’t very good at flying, but it wasn’t true that they couldn’t fly at all.

Most chickens nowadays come from selective breeding and cannot fly… Or I suppose I should say they’ve been made that way because flying would be unnecessary for them.

These little ones aren’t too chubby and succeeded in flying all the way here. Well, it would certainly be difficult for them to fly about in the sky, though.

In any case, I’m finished with the feeding and cleaning, so I shall help you with your tasks, Tomoya-kun.

Tomoya: Huh? You didn’t just spend all that time teaching those chickens tricks…? You did the cleaning too!?

Wataru: That’s right[⁎]…☆

I finished feeding them the moment I brought out the hula-hoop! Time is money, after all! Let us deepen our friendship with our remaining time! Love blossoms by having conversations and making connections with others. Let us make miracles blossom as well…☆

[whatgaviiformes]

September Prompts 24. Harvest Moon With Chicken Dad - pre story

I cheated and you totally got this in advance....

But for everyone else:

Summary: a broken man, a maran, and the moon.

Genre: it's fluff, I promise. if you squint

Characters: Gordon Tracy, John Tracy

Words: 1.7K

Ao3 if you are so inclined. I started an "Adventures of Chicken Dad" series

Full Moon Rising

“I don’t know what I am doing, you know,” he tells the small creature. The laugh bubbles out of him with a bite of hysteria and an overwhelming exhilaration towards the feathered being that represents something new. At the Sheridan farm, some of the chicks had been like small fluffballs in his palm, but this one, at just a manner of months old, has the look of the hen she will grow to be. She fits in one hand still, and a miniature set of eyes looks up at him with curiosity. “I promise,” he tells her, petting the soft dark chocolate feathers on her back, “even though I am new at this, I will make sure you have a loved, fulfilled life. We’ll get you a nice coop outside and some friends. You’ll be cared for.”

There was a part of him that still feels silly having somewhat spontaneously decided to start his own chicken flock after touring the local homestead. But there was no one he was really trying to impress, no one except the chick he already loved with his whole heart. All those young baby chicks had been so small and delicate that he’d been scared when he was holding them. But she felt strong in his grasp, the dark feathered youth with the orange spark in her eyes and copper running down her head and neck. A Black Copper Maran, the woman told him.

She said chickens were an investment at first, and they certainly weren’t “free eggs” as some people would tell you, but in the end outdoor chickens were relatively easy care since the coop could be coordinated as self-sustaining. Food, water, shelter, protection from predators, a bi-weekly change of the nesting material, and twice a year a larger cleaning of the coop. Easy.

A few more pointers to keep them healthy, and she’d given him her number for any questions he might have. Don’t let them get too hot. Keep them dry if it gets too wet. Give them enough space; they preferred not being so confined.

He understood that. He’d bought all this space for the same reason. It would be easy to get her set up with a whole run if she wanted, something that was not too big, not too small. He feels a bit like her in this small house by the sea. It is larger than a fishing shack, though that’s what he calls it anyway with its few rooms, and the ever-present spray of the waves below.

So near the edge. He swallows past the dryness in his throat, counts a controlled exhale, and re-focuses.

“As I said, I’m Gordon, and I’m your chicken dad, I suppose.” The floor is not the best place for him to be sitting, and he stretches his legs out along the creaky wood of the small seaside home. When that does little to relieve the pain in his back and leg, he groans and rolls to his side, grabbing the seat of the chair nearby to help lift himself back into a better sitting position. It was the least graceful he could be getting up off the floor, but he is pretty sure the chicken won’t blackmail him.

He hates being further away from the creature he’d hoped to comfort as she considered her new space and the new face, but her curiosity towards him is stronger than her desire to look around the home. She walks toward him.

That’s his girl.

“We need to get you a name. What strikes your fancy, sweetheart?” he croons, lowering a hand towards her, which she nuzzles with her beak.

She trills an answer.

“Sorry, I don’t speak chicken yet, but we’ll work on it.”

~*~

She settles into his hold, protected by just the one arm so the other can focus on supporting himself with his cane as he walks through the small garden of herbs.  They spent the afternoon bonding, and she’s been at his side in a small makeshift pen, watching him assemble the vegetable stew that will be his dinner. His only stipulation for the inquiring eyes was that she should understand that he’s still figuring out the learning curve for cooking for only one person instead a family of eight, and he asked her not to judge him for his proportions. As such, he’s out of rosemary.

In his cupboard he is out of rosemary.

In his garden, the herb is plentiful. His last harvest he took about a third of the plant to give the rest time to continue to produce, so there will be new stems for him to trim fresh. She’d looked up at him with such interest he couldn’t bear to leave her alone in the house, and if he had to be honest with himself, the company was welcome.

Over the hill, the sea chants her hush, and he tightens the grip on the little chicken as he walks through rows of seasonal fruits and vegetables and into the herb garden – some in the ground, and others in grow pots. Once the house is ready, he’ll be able to transport them inside for the winter. He doesn’t have the space in the shack.

“What do you think? Should we put your coop over here by the garden?” he asks her. “Or maybe over towards the pond and you can befriend the ducks.” He points with his cane towards a place in the distance, over land so expansive he isn’t sure what he can do with it all, and it scans past the skeleton foundations of the rancher being built on the land, and the frame of its only floor. That is intentional so he’ll have minimal steps in the space that’s to be his refuge. The construction workers have all gone at this time of day and so the building stands empty amidst the fields.

His heart pounds; he wants to fill it, to turn the house into a home and rebuild.

The young chicken purrs and he looks down at the slowly drifting eyes, feeling her flutter in his arms. “Sorry, honey. I’ll be fast.”

The snips rest heavily in the pocket of his cardigan, and awkwardly he shifts his cane under his armpit so he can cut the sprigs of rosemary once he reaches the plant. He feels silly again. It’s a two-handed task, and his body has already been rebelling at the treatment from the afternoon so kneeling down makes him feel every piece of metal screwed into his bones.

As the groan slides past his lips, the chicken jumps – not out of his arms, but onto his shoulder where she messes with his hair, and he laughs, as she re-settles.

“Thanks.”

He makes quick work of the rosemary, and stumbles back through the uneven dirt of his garden, this time with the chicken on his shoulder, an array of herbs in his free hand, and the light of the full moon casting an orange glow where the first stars of night speckled past the dusk. He’d always known the moon based on her force on the tides, but here, now, he watches her as a different man. She is light, the last bit at the start of night where she gives more time to the harvest.

He smiles up at her. The moon is the turn of tides, the change of seasons, the light of the harvest. He is just one of many farmers in the course of history to gather by the moonlight. He won’t be the last.

Days will get shorter and the frost will eventually wipe his lush garden clean.

But it will begin again.

He can do it too; he will begin again.

“Your uncle is up there,” he says, looking to the sky. It all must be so expansive to the little chicken, and he wonders what the world looks like to her, what it must be like from her perspective to see the sphere come and go and color the earth in amber. He maneuvers the sprigs of herbs into his pocket (he’ll clean them when he gets in) and takes a photo on his phone, sending it off to John on Five. 

His older brother was the first to explain to him the significance of the full moon nearest the change of seasons when they were younger and would appreciate the view from planetside. Between her hue and her size, she is magic, and he gets it now, the beauty of the celestial body that is powerful enough to move even the treacherous sea. 

There’s a full moon rising

The little chicken shifts on his shoulder, and he’s staring up into the starlight and a suspiciously resonating satellite crosses the night sky when the call comes in; the phone is still open in his hand.

“Gordon,” John says. “You sounded lonely.”

He doesn’t know how John can do that, can read emotion through written words. He’ll say it's his familiarity with the nuances of language, but Gordon doesn’t think that’s enough of an explanation for the subtleties of the human heart.

“I’m not,” he tells him, thoughtfully. “Not really.”

There are times he feels a ghost of himself, walking along the fields without direction and cut off from the pull of his heart, creaking as loudly as the shack in the wind, and as empty as the outlined walls of the buildings on his estate.

This is not one of those times.

“Are you ok?” John asks, and the chicken leans forward towards the strange hologram of his brother. “What is that?”

“Who,” he corrects, nudging her back. “This is your chicken niece.”

“A chicken! Gordon!”

He nods.

“Her name is Mocha,” he tells him, thinking of the blend of dark brown in her feathers, the sugary sweet version of the coffee Vi- his brothers would make for him in the heat of the Island summer, all whipped cream and cocoa powder and cold brew. And it’s not so much longing this time, or remembering what he lost, but acknowledging the little things that make him happy. Old things like iced mocha and cute animals and house plants and cooking. New things like the color of ochre, and the moon and stars, and the tang of freshly snipped spice on his tongue, and the rows of crops on his land, and the sheer feat of walking.

The responsibility of the little life on his shoulder.

Because it’s the little joys that will carry him through his own change of seasons and out the other side.

He’ll find his heart again.

[consoledacup]

going off of the idea that jordan and layla would’ve found each other eventually, what do you think it would look like if all american ever did a “what if” episode in which spencer never transferred to beverly?

OMG, such a different story. Because Spencer's arrival to Beverly unravels so much.

Like, this is a earth-shattering, mind-bending event. It would splinter me in pieces to go down all the different avenues how this would affect all characters, all relationships, all situations... This is gonna be a vague overview of one possible pathway.

Oh boy, okay. So let's say it played out where all the characters are the same age they are. Spencer might've met Jordan in college???? Like at GAU?? And maybe when Billy is visiting Jordan after a game, he runs into Spencer who's like, I know you? Because Billy tried to get Spencer to transfer to Beverly, but he never took the bait.

And Jordan and Spencer bond and start to hang, which will inevitably result in Spencer's introduction to the Beverly Crew, including Olivia Baker, Asher Adams, and Layla Keating.

And where would we find these characters? Would Asher and Layla still be complacently dating? I doubt it. In a What If? ep, they could go that route, but that would take some serious suspension of disbelief. Yes, Layla broke up with Asher for Spencer. But they also just needed to break up and eventually realized they were never right for each other.

Asher cheating with Olivia would've still come out. Asher would've still fallen in love with Olivia. Asher most likely would've still taken steroids and messed with his health. And Asher and Olivia would've still broken up because she didn't need to keep saving him. So he's killing it as a coach hopeful at Coastal and probably met Jaymee still.

Okay, but Olivia would still be pursuing journalism, but I'm not sure if she'd be at GAU or not. But the initial sparks she'll share with Spencer will be so interesting because a college athlete and a journalist??? Spencer would feel dubious of her wanting to spend time with him because did she just want a quote? And she'd feel dubious and wonder if he really likes her or is he just interested in a sports feature?

And Olivia probably still would've relapsed and would've still pursued activism as an outlet. Because she's always gonna be a change maker.

Layla would've still dealt with her depression in full force. She didn't have Spencer to help her like he did in s2, whether she wanted the help or not. But she would've had Olivia. And she wouldn't have met Coop, so she wouldn't have anyone to inspire her enough to experiment with producing. So she'd most likely be in college.

She would've still gone to Running Springs. She would've met Carrie. She would've gone through what she did. Jordan would've been affected like he was, after casually dating and moving from girl to girl. And they would've fallen in love because he refused to give up on her.

But it would not have lasted. She didn't trust him to really take them seriously, and he would've been upset far more and not known how to maturely handle conflict.

Because Jordan had tried relationships before Layla, but they never lasted more than a few months. He and Asher were football kings at Beverly, and he loved loved loved the attention. But he had not undergone training from Billy or Spencer, so he doubted himself constantly and coasted on bravado.

But with Spencer popping up in Beverly?? He and Jordan train together. Jordan learns to push himself to become a great athlete. Spencer's constant presence around Jordan, and then Olivia finally finally finally convinces Billy to come clean to Laura about his affair. Because Corey had popped up a couple years prior to offer his forgiveness. And it stuck with Billy, but also it was in the past, right? Spencer was happy at South Crenshaw, and he never sees Grace, so none of it needed to be addressed.

So the affair is out. Olivia and Spencer have no idea how to handle their feelings along with the knowledge of the affair, so that tears them apart. Jordan flies off the handle and has fling after fling until Layla confronts him about it. And then you got two separated ships trying to find their way back to each other.

In the show, Spencer's arrival in Beverly set off truth bombs and connection shifts and breakups and a real dichotomy of two worlds crashing together.

Whether that would've happened sooner or later is irrelevant. Because the truth always comes out, right?

[hummingbird-of-light]

Against All Odds

Part 295

McCoy

McCoy stretched out on his back and looked at the sky through the tree above them. Scotty had found a blanket and they were lying in the shade in the back garden. They couldn’t stay cooped in the house any longer, and the backyard would provide some privacy.

“What’s it like?” McCoy asked. “Your family’s beach house?”

Scotty was running his hand idly through McCoy’s hair, and let out a small laugh.

“Don’t be getting the wrong idea love. It really is a wee place. Mum and Dad inherited it years ago from her parents. It’s a short drive out of the city, but still close. We’d spend summers there when we were small, and Mum and Dad could still be close enough for work.”

McCoy moved his eyes from watching clouds to look at his boyfriend’s face. Scotty’s gaze was distant as he stopped speaking. McCoy lifted a hand to the side of Scotty’s face.

“You have his smile,” he said softly.

Scotty looked down and his eyes refocused in the present.

“It’s really not much bigger than the cabin at the lake. Pair of bedrooms and a living room and kitchen together. But plenty of space outside and the beach right down from the front door.”

“It sounds great. I can’t wait to see it. Can we swim?”

Scotty chuckled. “Ye can wade in and see what ye think. I won’t be. I have some sense of self preservation.”

“Hey!” McCoy protested with a laugh. Scotty gave a light tug to his hair. “We gonna go for the day or the weekend?” he asked when they had settled down again.

“Not sure,” Scotty said. “It’d be a tight squeeze with all of us.”

McCoy pulled on Scotty until he was lying down next to him. He wrapped an arm over him holding Scotty close.

“I don’t mind a tight squeeze if it’s with you,” McCoy grinned.

Scotty rolled his eyes, but kissed the prince anyway.

The drive to the beach house wasn’t long when the weekend came, but everyone was glad to be out of the crowded car when they arrived. A neat, clean little yellow house stood in front of them. White shutters covered the windows, and a wildly growing garden lined either side of the front door.

“Jim! Ye cannae just jump in the North Sea!” Robbie shouted as Jim took off towards the water, shirt landing behind him on the sand.

“Oh let him,” Scotty said, waving a dismissive hand. “He’ll learn.”

“Monty!” Francine admonished.

“It’s true Francine,” McCoy said. “Jim won’t listen.”

“He is quite foolhardy,” Spock added.

“Come on lads,” said Granddad, opening the trunk of the car.

Each of the boys grabbed something out and followed as Francine unlocked the front door. They had set everything on the dining table when Jim burst into the room shivering.

“Told ye so,” Robbie said smugly.

“Here k’diwa,” Spock said and walked a towel to Jim.

“Go sit in the sun,” said Granddad. “There’s some chairs in the wee shed.”

“Come on,” Scotty grabbed McCoy’s hand. He led him around to the back of the house.

Granddad wasn’t wrong when he said the shed was small. It was barely bigger than a closet. Some folding chairs and a small folding table were inside. The two boys grabbed what they could carry and took it back around front.

McCoy turned his face up. It was cooler with the breeze off the ocean than it was at the Scott’s home, but still warm. Seagulls flew above them screeching noisily. McCoy kicked his shoes off when the chairs and table were set up and curled his toes in the sand.

“Is the water really that cold?” he asked.

“Do ye ever see Jim give in?” Scotty asked.

“Point taken,” McCoy laughed. “But Jim doesn’t have you to keep him warm,” McCoy said for only Scotty to hear. He smiled as the color rose on his boyfriend’s face.

“There!” Francine said, coming out the door. “Everything squared away for ye lads.”

The plan was for the boys to stay the night, while Francine and Granddad headed back to the city and returned in the morning. It had taken much convincing over the previous days to get Francine and Granddad to agree. Francine worried that something would happen to McCoy while under her care and Granddad worried reporters may find them.

In the end the boys had convinced the adults, with Spock promising that if he even thought they were being followed out of the city, he would say something and no one would stay the night.

“A walk?” McCoy asked, taking Scotty’s hand.

“Alright.”

“There’s a few houses to the left,” Francine said, “but none on the right for about a mile or so.”

“Right it is,” McCoy smiled at her. He slipped his shoes back on, and gave Scotty’s hand a tug as he began to walk.

Part 296

Scotty

They strolled hand in hand along the beach while Scotty explained this and that to Leonard. He told him approximately when the tides would change the sea, told him about the lunar cycle. They were lucky that the sea level was quite high at the moment and they didn't have to look too far to spot the water and waves.

Seagulls were circling over the North Sea, screeching and trying to catch prey.

"I used to play in the mudflats a lot when I was a kid. Robbie and I would throw mud at each other and then mum would always have to force us to go under the shower. We were pretty stubborn back then."

Leonard laughed out.

"Poor Francine. I can imagine how exhausting that must have been for her."

Scotty smiled as he thought back to those days. It had always been nice.

"Aye... But she always enjoyed her time here, too."

By now, the family used the house less often, but whenever they were there, Scotty could see how sentimental it made his mother.

She thought of her husband.

And Scotty also connected a lot with his father when he visited the sea.

He had always carried his sons on his shoulders, romped around with them and built sand castles with them.

Scotty quickly blinked away the tears that threatened to come at these memories.

"It's really nice," Leonard said beside him, and Scotty gave him a quick kiss before he abruptly ran off.

"Catch me!"

A glance over his shoulder showed him that Leonard was also on the move.

They ran along the beach before Scotty changed direction slightly and hurried toward the dunes.

It was uphill for a bit and Scott had misjudged his pace because a hand grabbed his arm and together Leonard and he fell to the ground.

They laughed up and Leonard leaned over and whispered in his ear.

"Gotcha!"

Scotty grinned and raised his hands.

"Okay, ye win. What reward do ye want?"

Leonard thought about the question for a moment before grinning, too.

"A kiss."

No sooner said than done.

"And... another kiss."

Their lips touched again.

"One more."

Scotty rolled around and pressed Leonard to the ground, kissing him again and again.

When they returned to the house after a while, they found a table set.

Scones with jam, cakes and cookies were ready and also a pot of tea.

"This looks great Francine," Leonard said enthusiastically as the boys sat down.

"I hope ye enjoy it."

"I sure do!" Jim reached for one of the cookies and stuffed it in his mouth.

"Mmm, these are great!" he mumbled with his mouth full, and Francine laughed.

"I'll be glad to give ye the recipe, Jim."

They ate and drank and enjoyed the afternoon together and as it grew later, Francine and Granddad said their goodbyes.

"Let me know if anything comes up," Francine said, placing kisses on her sons' foreheads.

"Aye."

"And stay close to the house."

"Aye."

"And lock up when ye go to bed."

Granddad just laughed and grabbed Francine by the arm.

"The lads are old enough, Francine. They'll be fine."

With a wave, the group said goodbye to the adults and watched as the car drove away.

A whole evening just for them. What could be better?

[robobirdie]

Dazed Weekend

After writing the short Anatomy of a Droid I thought of this fun little short. A summary of the short is Kai, Lloyd, Cole and Zane are on their own for a weekend. They wish to have a chill time with no responsibilities but after Zane gets a hit to the head and becomes dazed they run into an interesting weekend as they try to ignore his issues to have a care free weekend.

This short can also be found on AO3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46030210

I would highly recommend you check out my other independent short Anatomy of a Droid before reading this one as of the some concepts used in this short are talked about and fully explained in that short. You can find that short here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44691181

“We’ll be back on Sunday night try not to nearly burn down the monastery while we are gone,” Nya told Kai as she and Jay prepped to head out for the weekend. The two were going to spend the weekend with Kai and Nyas parents so they could get to know Jay who was nervous about this some more. They were going to be back Sunday night.

“So I set fire while cooking a few times and you won’t let me live that down. Don’t worry we’ll be fine, Zanes here you know he’ll keep things under control and fine,” Kai commented and Jay noted, “it’s good at least someone responsible with their head on straight will be here.”

“Well him and Cole when he wants to be responsible that is and not goof around with the rest of you,” Nya noted and Kai proclaimed, “don’t worry you two just go have fun. We’re not kids and can handle ourselves perfectly fine. Everything will be alright you’ll see.” Nya commented ‘sometimes I think most of you haven’t matured past the age of a kid’ before she and Jay left the monasteries courtyard and after closing the door he headed inside to join Lloyd, Cole and Zane who were in the entertainment room playing a video game.

“So it’s just us this weekend huh,” Kai commented as he hopped on the couch and joined in the game.

“Yep Wu has gone to a tea festival for the weekend and won’t be back till Monday,” Lloyd noted and Zane added, “Pixal has gone to investigate some disturbances in the south of Ninjago and likely will not be back till sometime later in the week.”

“So it’s just the four of us huh what do you say to a chill weekend; snacking, video games and maybe some time in the hot tub,” Cole offered and Zane commented, “that does sound as you call it chill but we do have work to be done around here we cannot just brush off. There is laundry, we should run a vacuum through this place, the chickens coop could also use for a cleaning, the potted plants could use for a watering plus the yard could also use for some sweeping…”

“Okay we’ll chill after we get some work done,” Cole stated and Lloyd added, “plus if we get a call to action it is just us four who are up for duty this weekend.”

“So we don’t get a whole weekend just to chill. That’s a bit of a bummer,” Kai noted before Cole wondered, “so for our first night alone what should we do for dinner?”

“I say why don’t we go into town for dinner?” Kai suggested and they were all in agreement Cole even offering up a possible location for dinner a BBQ place he wanted to try. They were in agreement so after their round of the game they shut it down and headed out for dinner using a makeshift van Nya and Pixal had come up with for them to use for daily travels into the city for things like groceries, acquiring household goods or furniture and other more mundane tasks so they didn’t have to drag the Bounty out for those. It was much easier and less noticeable to drive this little vehicle which they had deemed the Von-Bounty around in the city than the actual Bounty. While looking similar to a large van the vehicle was decked out with wooden paneling on the outside to give it a feel and look like the Bounty. Jay had also commented it felt less creepy that way. They had to park a bit of a distance from the restaurant but that was fine it was going to be a nice evening so they didn’t mind the walk. By the time they got out it was dark but they took their time enjoying the evening. As they headed back to the vehicle they passed an alley way in which Lloyd caught a glimpse of some folk who appeared suspicious. He alerted the others to take a look. There was three of the individuals and they were prepping some tools which looked like they were designed to drill into something. By the fact they were by a door with some serious locks they were pretty sure these individuals were up to no good; likely seeking to enter wherever that door led. Accessing some digital maps through his mind Zane was able to find the place they were trying to break into was a pawn shop which likely held various types of valuables including some with high prices. Knowing the individuals were up to no good the four decided to intervene.

“Hey you what do you think you are up to?” Lloyd questioned as they approached them and Kai stated, “if you guys give in we’ll go easy on you.” At hearing them talk the suspicious folks looked at them and quickly recognised them taking off. The four wasted no time in trying to catch them. Kai managed to get in a struggle with one rather quickly preventing it from escaping while the other three chased the other two down the alley. Lloyd caught one of the others tackling them to the ground and trying to restrain them while Cole and Zane continued after the last one who managed to exit the alley. They continued after the crook who in defence surprised them as they exited the alley with a taser shocking the first who came around which was unfortunately Zane. Even though they had it set to the lowest level because of his make Zane got quite a shock and ended up a bit dazed while Cole tackled the crook to the ground taking the taser from his hand. While he was dazed from the shock Zane stumbled into the nearly empty street becoming more unfortunate to get hit by the only vehicle on the road. The vehicle wasn’t going to fast and the moment she hit him the woman driving the car stopped it. After getting hit Zane came to lay on the ground unconscious. The woman got out of the car to apologise worried to have hurt Zane while Kai and Lloyd came over with the crooks they had caught. They sat the three together against the building and waited for the cops who they had called to pick them up. While they waited they pulled Zane onto the side walk and did a quick inspection of him. He looked to be fine just unconscious. They assured the woman who had hit him that Zane was fine, it would take more than a minor bump from a car to hurt him, he was just unconscious from hitting his head on the ground after getting hit. He would regain consciousness soon and be fine. The cops didn’t take long to get there and take the criminals away. Zane was still unconscious then so Cole had to carry him back to their vehicle. He wasn’t conscious by the time they got back to the monastery so they brought him into the entertainment room and laid him on the pool table for a quick examination. None of them really knew how to work on Zane if something was wrong so they weren’t entirely sure what to do. Jay and Nya were the experts in working with Zane and as a fellow droid so was Pixal but they weren’t there.

“Do you think we should call one of them?” Cole wondered and Kai stated, “no we can handle this. No need to worry anyone.”

“It doesn’t look too complicated. According to the book he probably just needs a reboot to wake up. We could do it with no problem,” Lloyd noted looking through a book Nya and Jay had made for everyone about care and work throughs for Zane and Pixal when they weren’t around. It included basic things like how to do a basic manual reboot when knocked unconscious if they weren’t waking up on their own like Zane currently was along with basic first aid in case they got hurt to hold them off till someone who knew what they were doing could tend to them, what they could and couldn’t have, what to do or give them if they did have something they couldn’t have, things to keep them away from or to keep away from them to prevent injuries and other basic or essential things to keep them safe and healthy or to solve minor issues that could arise with them. Lloyd then went and got his tablet from his room before following the instructions in the book to connect the tablet through the app Nya had made for them to connect their devices to Zane and Pixals neural networks. He had to use the secret password they all knew to gain access to his systems then followed the basic steps to reboot him. It took a couple seconds after which Zane awoke and slowly sat up rubbing the back of his head a little confused.

“Did car hit me into?” he inquired. How he said that had them a bit confused. They understood what he was trying to say but the way he said it was at least off; it was like he had mixed the words up a bit. They weren’t sure if he was aware he had done that or if he was just a bit dazed still.

“Yha buddy, are you okay?” Cole wondered and Zane replied, “yha, I do not sense anything wrong. It was accident.”

“Alright then well now with you awake, the crooks were caught and dinner had what do you say to a few rounds of some games,” Kai inquired and Cole commented, “well we could but it is a bit late…” Zane agreed, “true and we tasks do have tomorrow for.” Zanes weird scrabble of the words caught the three off guard and had them a bit confused.

“Sounds like you’re still a bit dazed buddy. I think a good night’s rest might help you get your head in a better state,” Lloyd commented as Cole helped Zane off the pool table and onto his feet. He seemed a little unsteady on his feet but didn’t take long to get his bearings. With that they headed to bed. Zane was the first to head off, Cole followed, Lloyd decided to check and make sure the place was locked up first before heading to bed while Kai decided to play a few rounds of a game first before going to bed. Not long after leaving the room they heard a noise in the hall and rushing over they found Zane laying on the floor with a planter that was in the hall on him. Cole was lifting the plant off him and setting it back up.

“What happened?” Lloyd inquired as he and Kai helped Zane up brushing some of the dirt from the planter off him. Cole commented, “I think he’s still a little dazed. He walked into the planter.” Lloyd expressed, “well good thing then he’s going to bed. Hopefully you’ll be better in the morning huh Zane.”

“I fine am,” Zane commented as they helped him to his room to keep him from stumbling. They didn’t have any further problems that night. The next morning Cole, Kai and Lloyd were drawn out of their rooms by a loud commotion in the kitchen; Cole had still been asleep, Lloyd had been getting some clothes for a shower while Kai was up perusing social media on his phone. They got up quickly to investigate and found Zane sitting on the ground in the kitchen looking confused. There were some pans, dishes and utensils on him and the floor around him. By the looks he had been making breakfast and likely lost his footing.

“Are you okay Zane?” Cole wondered as they helped him up.

“I slipped think fine,” Zane commented as they helped him up and noting he was still speaking funny Lloyd noted, “looks like a night’s sleep didn’t fully fix your head huh. Why don’t you take a break for the moment while we clean all this up; I’ll make breakfast this morning while you fix your head okay?” Zane was confused but agreed and headed out of the room walking into the wall a bit confused as he left the room while the three cleaned up the mess which had them a bit confused. They guessed he was trying to make breakfast but some things didn’t look right. For one they weren’t sure exactly what he had been making. He had placed a bunch of utensils and un-cracked eggs on a pan on the stove however while a burner was on he hadn’t put the pan on this burner. He’d put it on one that was off. He’d put a frozen slab of meat, various fruits and a jug of milk in a baking pan and put it in the stove which wasn’t on. While putting things away they found some dishes placed in the fridge along with one of the consoles joysticks. He had given the chicken an egg for its breakfast instead of its normal feed. The bird was just sitting confused looking at it looking unsure what it was supposed to be doing with what it had been given.

“I think his heads still a bit fuzzy from yesterday,” Kai commented as they put things back in their places. They were suddenly startled by loud music coming from the recreation room. Rushing over to investigate they found Zane standing covering his ears while staring at a portable speaker on the floor in front of him. It was loudly playing music.

“Zane what are you doing just turn it off,” Lloyd loudly commented over the sound as Cole went over and picked up the speaker to shut it off. Zane just watched the speaker.

“Zane what were you doing?” Kai inquired as they came up to him. Zane didn’t respond still looking at the speaker as Cole put it on the table his hands still over his ears. Noting he wasn’t responding Kai waved his hand in Zanes vision to catch his attention. Zane noted and looked over taking his hands off his ears commenting as he did, “sound gone back hearing on. Can you that do?”

“Do what?” Lloyd wondered confused and Zane responded, “control device mind through music memory play from.”

“I wish I could do that, it would be so fun,” Cole commented and Kai noted, “no we can’t. You can do that because you’re a nindroid.”

“Nindroid? That what?” Zane commented confused. His confusion had the rest of them confused.

“That’s what you are? Don’t you remember? You can’t tell me you’ve forgotten that have you?” Lloyd noted and after a moment’s pause to look over himself Zane commented, “guess am I. Explains much.”

“Okay…” Cole noted before taking the other two aside to talk quietly with each other, “I think he needs a little more than a simple reboot. I think his mind might be a little scrambled.”

“It defiantly sounds like it. He’s a little clumsy, looks like he’s forgotten some things about himself plus he’s talking funny and doing weird things,” Kai commented and picking up off the pool table the care guide book for Zane Lloyd stated, “I think so. Maybe he just needs some calibration or something like that. We can see what the book says.” They started going through the book trying to determine what was possibly going on. From what they could tell there was obviously some sort of communication error causing him to jumble up sentences he was trying to say, he was having some issues with balance and possibly navigation, from what they had seen in the kitchen there was likely some form of confusion involved as well and his actions and comments around the speaker indicated possible memory issues at the least some forgetfulness of some sort. They were finding some things in the guide relating to it but were not fully sure what it could be. He could just be in some dazed state that was highly possible especially since he had gotten a hit to the head. He had also been shocked and even though it was only minor and wouldn’t have damaged anything it combined with the hit to the head could have damaged or at least done something. They doubted he’d swallowed magnets; those would only cause navigation and balance issues not the other problems he was having. It also most likely wasn’t some form of virus; the only ones known to infect nindroids attacked internal systems to weaken and make them sick by having systems and senses operate improperly or cause functioning issues. He wasn’t showing any signs of those. The accident could have caused some system malfunctions but they would have to hook him up to the computers in the hanger bay to do a full analysis for that or any other possibilities as it also seemed from comments he had made that whatever was going on Zane didn’t seem aware something was wrong with himself. There was also the issue that if they did find anything depending on what they found it could be too complex for them to work on and might not be covered in the book they had. They were unsure what to do. Hooking him up to the computers for an analysis was a good idea but if it did find something they couldn’t fix on their own then what would they do? They didn’t want to just leave him offline all weekend; they felt it would be cruel plus it wasn’t too healthy for him. They could contact the others but they didn’t want to disturb any of them. Plus Kai and Lloyd wanted to prove they could be responsible and handle things on their own and could get out of problems on their own. They wanted to prove they could be responsible and care for Zane without the help of the others. Cole wanted to prove this too but he felt this wasn’t something they should mess with. It could be dangerous, he was pretty sure it wasn’t healthy for him plus it wasn’t very fair to leave Zane in this state. He was pretty sure if Zane was in his right mind he would agree with his thoughts too.

“If we don’t contact them then what do we do?” Cole commented; he wasn’t in agreement with the other two thinking it best they get some help. Kai countered, “I think for the next two days he’ll be fine. It’s not like he’s causing much problems. He’s just being a bit weird; he’s always been a bit weird so it’s no biggy.” Lloyd added, “you’re not wrong there. You know he isn’t hurting himself really or others. He’s just a little off. I guess as long as he’s not getting hurt it will be okay to let him be till the others return. Maybe even his problems will solve themselves on their own.”

“I’m not sure if it works like that also what if we get called to duty and he’s still like this?” Cole wondered and after some thought Lloyd commented, “then we could just leave him here maybe give him a video game to play to keep him occupied.”

“You know with Zane like this we could get out of doing chores this weekend and have a truly chill weekend,” Kai suggested. He was not really wanting to do chores all day. He wanted to chill, relax and maybe play video games. Not liking what Kai might be thinking Cole wondered, “what are you on about?”

“Well of all of us Zanes the most responsible and would make sure we got the chores done before having fun. With him all confused like this he probably won’t care if we get the chores done or not so we could brush them off and relax all weekend. If anyone asks why we didn’t get things done we can say we were taking care of Zane,” Kai declared and Cole wondered, “and if they ask why we didn’t just fix Zane or call them for help?” After a quick thought Kai suggested, “we can say we were afraid to mess something up and the reason we didn’t call was we didn’t want to bother them.” The others thought about it.

“It would be nice to just relax but we also should get some stuff done at least a few things to make it look like we got some things done,” Lloyd commented. While Lloyd could also go for a care free weekend he knew they also needed to get some things done and wasn’t too sure about this.

“Come on when’s the next time we’ll get a chance like this. Just us with a weekend of nothing to do and no one really to force us to get chores done and a good excuse for why we didn’t do them,” Kai suggested and Cole questioned, “what about Zane?”

“He’ll be fine. It’s not like he’s dangerous in this state. We just keep him close and keep an eye on him and he’ll be okay. I’m pretty sure he’ll be okay with playing games with us besides he could learn to be a little less responsible. You’d think as the master of ice he’d know how to be more chill with things,” Kai declared. After a quick think Lloyd stated, “I guess it couldn’t hurt. Maybe we just get a few things done like a load of laundry or at least clean the chickens coop to make it look like we got something done.” Kai proclaimed, “sure sounds like a good idea. How about you Cole what do you say? So far it’s two against one.”

“Fine if that’s how you want to work this out I guess we could do that. We’re just going to have to be very cautious and keep a good eye on Zane to make sure he doesn’t get hurt or into trouble; speaking of which where did he go?” Cole commented after a moment’s pause before looking around. While they were occupied Zane had left the room. As they wondered where he had gone Zane came into the room carrying a watering can.

“Getting some of those daily chores done huh pal,” Kai commented as Zane started to water the potted plants in the room. As he did this Cole commented, “does anyone else smell oranges?” Curious they came over to Zane and inspected the watering can he was using. Zane was just confused unsure why they were confused.

“Zane why are you watering the plants with orange juice?” Lloyd stated and Cole wondered, “would watering a plant with the juice of another plant be considered cannibalism?”

“I’m not sure but it doesn’t seem very right,” Kai commented while Zane went back to watering the plants. Despite it being weird they just let him do it. It was keeping him busy. They had Cole keep an eye on him and help him water and care for the plants while Lloyd made them all breakfast and Kai took care of the chicken giving it proper food. Zane was rather fine in this time though stumbled a few times and walked into some furniture and walls a few times. He was at least careful to water the plants and not spill the liquids outside the planters. Cole made sure that when they needed to refill the watering can it was filled with water and not orange juice. Lloyd made some pancakes and bacon for breakfast. They didn’t have much trouble with Zane over breakfast but to be safe Cole cut his food up for him and put the utensils properly in his hands to avoid problems. Afterwards Cole helped Zane with the dishes while Kai took out some trash and recycling while Lloyd had his shower. After they decided to get a few chores done to make it look like they had done something before they planned to spend the rest of the day playing games. Zane went about trying to act as normal and get chores done with them. To prevent problems they decided it best one of them helped him out. Lloyd got Zane to help him with laundry. While he went and collected laundry from the laundry baskets in everyone’s rooms he had Zane sort out what was already in the room and those Lloyd brought in for preparation to wash them. It was a simple task that shouldn’t cause too much problems or be too hard. He just had to make sure there was nothing in any pockets and put them in the right baskets to organise things in preparation for washing; lights in the lights basket, darks in darks, reds on their own so they wouldn’t dye or stain other colors, bedding and towels each on their own. Things were going fine till Lloyd paused to help Kai who was cleaning the chickens coop by distracting the chicken who didn’t want to have her personal space cleaned. Once that was done they started getting the recreation room set up for their all weekend gaming session. While they were doing that Cole came rushing to get them. He had been vacuuming the bedrooms when he caught the strong smell of dish soap confusing him. They too had noticed the smell but brushed it off not wanting to get bothered by it. Cole couldn’t just brush it off and going to see why the smell was oddly strong he had found the washing machine overflowing with bubbles and the tub in the laundry room on and overflowing with both water and dish soap. Zane who Lloyd had forgot he had left alone in there hadn’t been in sight. They rushed to the laundry room to stop the washing machine and turn off the sink before mopping up the mess. By the looks Zane had started a wash but instead of using detergent he had used dish soap which unlike detergent made a great deal of bubbles when mixed with water. By the dirty kitchen towels left in the sink which had clogged the drain allowing the sink to overflow Zane had been rinsing them off likely to put them in the wash but for some reason forgot to turn the sink off and just left the towels in there. He had put random bits of laundry including clothes, towels and bedding along with the bottles of detergent and fabric softener in the wash. He had at least not added anything red into the mix so nothing would get stained but he had made quite a mess. Along with the water and soap his organising was not the neatest with items placed in random baskets and not the proper ones. He had even just left some lying around on the floor. They shut off the machine, turned off the taps, took the towels out of the sink so it could drain and cleaned up the mess ringing out what was wet, mopped up the overflow of water and bubbles and properly organised the bins placing things back where they should be. While they cleaned it all up the chicken had herself some fun playing with bubbles and scratching and splashing in the water. Kai and Lloyd were not happy with cleaning up the mess wanting to just leave it once they had the water mopped up and the washer cleaned out but Cole convinced them to go further and make sure no damp areas were left in the room and to get laundry going to prevent mold from building up which could let the others know of the accident and lead to problems in the future. To help dry up the room after they had the mess cleaned up which took them over an hour nearly two to clean the whole thing up and get the room fairly dry Cole having to lift the machines to make sure they got them and the area around them dry they put out some floor fans and a dehumidifier they got out of the storage in the basement to dry out the room and the laundry in it some more. They got a proper load of laundry started to get the damp clothes left by the incident clean before they realised they had forgotten Zane. They had been too busy cleaning the mess that they forgot to look for him.

“Hopefully he hasn’t gotten into too much trouble,” Cole commented as they headed off to find him. They couldn’t find him but did note where he had been. He was clearly still trying to do chores but in his confused state was messing up with them. He had put the dishes they had left in the drying rack from breakfast away though clearly still in the weird head space put them in the wrong and weird places. He’d put some of them in the fridge along with some books which they guessed he had gotten from the library or that had been left lying around the monastery.

“Well at least he didn’t turn this on with those in it,” Kai noted when he inspected the microwave to find metal utensils in it after noting it was oddly left open a bit. They took the items out and put them all in their proper places. Lloyd put the books back in the library where he found Zane had misplaced several books and scrolls in the wrong places which he had to properly place back in their spots; while he did that Kai and Cole continued to look for Zane. By the looks he had started cleaning the bathroom using shampoo to mop the floors and wash the toilets having clogged the one by putting the bottle of shampoo in it. Kai had ended up slipping on the soapy wet floor. They decided to come back and fix that after they found Zane. They couldn’t find him in the monastery but noticed the door to the courtyard open.

“That’s not good,” Kai noted and Cole commented, “no it isn’t. He could have wandered off anywhere and could get or even be hurt. You still think it’s okay to wait to get the others help.” Not wanting to change his mind yet Kai noted, “we can find him with no problem.” Kai went into the monastery and came back out with a tablet and the guide book. He then used them to track the signal from Zanes in built GPS tracker. Zane hadn’t gone far. Following the signal they found him a few meters down the steps leading to the monastery on a terrace of the mountain feeding bread to some birds; a little flock of pigeons, sparrows, parrots and crows.

“Having a nice little break there buddy,” Kai commented as they came up to Zane catching his attention. Zane responded handing out the rest of the bread, “bread date out morrow, us use time not so give birds to.”

“I’m betting they’re real happy with their treat. Now that you’re done with that why don’t we get back to the monastery? In your state you shouldn’t just wander off like that,” Cole commented as they led Zane back to the monastery. As they headed back Zane commented clearly confused, “what state? Fine I.”

“Clearly you’re not aware but trust us buddy your heads a little off,” Kai commented as they led Zane back into the monastery. They decided it best that Zane take a break from chores and sat him down to play a video game. Zane was confused wanting to continue with the chores. It took some persuading but they managed to convince him to ignore the chores and play the game. With him occupied they went and cleaned the mess he had made with the bathroom which was more extensive than they had first thought. He hadn’t just shampooed surfaces and clogged drains but dis-organised the cupboards and to Kai’s dislike used his tooth brush to scrub surfaces instead of the normal cleaning brush. Lloyd took a while to finish with the library as Zane had placed books and scrolls randomly in the room instead of their proper places. He wanted to just leave them but knew his uncle would notice this and he didn’t want to leave any hints that they tried to brush off chores and left Zane in the state he was in just so they could have a care free weekend. Lloyd then put the wash in the laundry into the dryer before starting another load before coming to help the other two. Kai and Lloyd were not happy to be cleaning up the messes wanting to get to playing video games. Cole however managed to convinced them that unless they wanted others to find out about this mess up they should clean it up not to mention they didn’t want to have to use the bathroom with it in this state. The shampoo made everything slippery and none of them wanted to slip and fall potentially getting a serious injury because of it. While the two cleaned the bathroom Cole went back to finish the vacuuming. Afterwards they decided to stop for a break and lunch. When they went to check on Zane they became worried. He wasn’t there. The game was still going but he wasn’t playing it and there was no sign of where he had gone.

“Not again,” Cole commented while Kai stated using the tablet to locate Zane, “no worry we can find him.” After a moment he stated, “looks like he wandered off again; at least though it looks like he’s coming back.” They headed out to the monasteries courtyard just in time to meet Zane who had come back in and to their confusion was carrying a skinny looking Red Fox with darker legs and tail with silverish patches to its hips, lower back and shoulders than a normal fox; a cross fox morph.

“Gate open not should leave you; pets escape. Aaron out got again. Paw his hurt,” Zane lectured them as he brought the fox into the monastery. They were all confused.

“Uh we don’t have a pet fox?” Cole commented before they followed him. Zane took the fox to the bathroom where he started to give it a bath in the one shower. The fox looked scared over having a strange being having likely just grabbed it and was equally as confused as they were over what was going on. They could see on its left front paw missing fur and a large wound looking like it had been caught in a trap most likely a snare and had torn itself free getting hurt in the process.

“Well it won’t hurt for him to help it…” Lloyd noted and Kai commented, “yha but we can’t keep it, foxes and chickens don’t get along the greatest. The one tries to eat the other.”

“We can call a wildlife rehab later and have them pick it up. For now we can just let him work with it. It will at least keep him busy while we make lunch,” Cole noted and they were in agreement. While Cole made lunch for them Lloyd helped Zane with cleaning the fox and doing some first aid on its paw finishing by wrapping the foreleg to up to halfway up its forearm with a green bandage. The fox was at first annoyed and tried to chew the bandage off till Zane brought it with them to lunch. The moment it smelt the food it calmed down until it noticed the chicken in the room. She quickly noticed the fox and was not pleased to see the predator who wasted no time in hopping from Zanes arms to start stalking towards her. The fox however wasn’t realising that his perceived prey was no ordinary breed of chicken. With some grumbles and croaks instead of the fox pouncing on the chicken the chicken pounced on the fox letting off a shocking display which had the hunter bolting around the room in terror as the chicken gave chase. The four ninja wasted no time in trying to stop the fight and managed to get things under control before things got too bad. Zane grabbed the terrified fox and restrained it while Cole and Lloyd grabbed the chicken both getting shocked in the process.

“Okay is everyone settled? This isn’t the best idea but we could still make it work,” Kai noted standing between the two animals and holding a hand up at each to hold their attentions.

“The chicken can eat off the counter for now while the fox stays on the floor,” Lloyd declared as he placed the chicken on the counter and Cole put her feed and water bowls on the counter. Kai helped Zane get a chicken breast out of the freezer and warm it up for the fox placing it on a plate on the floor before they put the fox by it. The two critters ignored each other letting them get to lunch. After lunch they decided it best to avoid problems to keep the fox locked in the bathroom while they went about their day making sure it had a bowl of water and some towels to sleep in. Cole and Kai cleaned up the kitchen both the dishes and the mess of items the chicken and foxes chasing had knocked around while Lloyd got Zane to help him fold and put away some of the first batch of clothes that were done before getting another batch of laundry started. With some chores done they decided to call it a day and start their chill weekend by playing some video games. They got a few rounds in before they got a call to deal with some suspicious activity in a nearby farming town. It didn’t sound too interesting largely vandalised farm equipment, some missing livestock and strange cargo found abandoned in the area. While they were not entirely up to the task they knew it best that they dealt with this. They had been called to the task and it was part of their job to deal with things they were called in for so had to go. Even though he wanted to come they decided it best that Zane stay at the monastery while they looked into it.

“This one evah nye useful skills built into in nature my that skill tracker spy make useful in circumstance to evidence track desoppus criminals high than yew rest of,” Zane tried to contradict when they told him to stay there. They had noticed as time went on Zanes confused sentences were starting to get a little worse as he started using inaccurate and often random or similar sounding words for what they believed he was trying to say. They were pretty sure too some of them were actually backwards words as they didn’t recognise them but when trying to understand the word he said if they pronounced it backwards they were able to get a word they recognised. Even though he messed up the sentences and started to use words that didn’t match with what he was wanting to say they knew Zane well enough to deduce what he was trying to say. While they agreed with his view he was clearly in no shape to be on duty and it was best he stayed at the monastery till he was better.

“I have rather useful skills built into my being that could prove useful in this circumstance to help identify and track the supposed criminals better than the rest of us; that’s what you are trying to say right?” Cole noted confusing Zane who responded with, “copy why?”

“I know you’re having trouble understanding this Zane but you’re heads not in the right space. I don’t think it’s a good idea you come with us. I think it’s best you stay here this time, maybe you can keep an eye on the fox for us. We can’t really leave him all alone here. Someone needs to keep the chicken and him apart,” Lloyd told Zane who just looked more confused. Kai quietly commented to Cole, “I think he’s starting to have trouble understanding things now.”

“Guess here one need be animal control dedeen,” Zane noted and Kai encouraged, “yha that’s it besides this is probably just some teenagers having fun and nothing we can’t do on our own. No need for you to waste your skills on this.” Cole, Lloyd and Kai left to investigate leaving Zane behind. They were on duty for around 2 and a half hours. It wasn’t teenagers causing the problems just some crooks who had taken the parts and animals to try and make a quick buck elsewhere with them. The cargo was just random stuff they believed to have been accidently shipped to the wrong location. The stuff looked to be welding materials which had probably been destined for a factory or mechanics shop and got mixed up with the fertilizers the town had on order which likely had been sent to whoever ordered the welding tools. That was something the town had to deal with the delivery service about. They couldn’t do anything about it. As they returned to the monastery through the hanger bay they headed to the recreation room thinking Zane would still be there. They were confused to find he wasn’t there. They checked a few other rooms for him including the library, kitchen, his room and the bathroom which was open and the fox nowhere to be seen. Curious they headed out to the courtyard thinking he might have gone out to relax outside; it was a nice day after all. When they got there they were stumped and rather surprised. The fox and chicken were sitting next to each other on the wood decking watching as Zane looked to be cleaning the courtyard however instead of using a broom he was for some reason using a mop and spreading mud over the ground. He had dirt placed in several places making little garden plots where he had also dumped compost from the compost bins on the garden terrace Cole had made a little ways down the mountain from the monastery; he had done it feeling a want to get more in tune with his powers feeling the activity of working with the earth helped him with that plus he was enjoying growing some fruits and vegetables there. Zane had added a section of flora for birds and bees to enjoy there as well. By the looks Zane was still trying to do some chores and likely had gotten confused and mixed up some garden work with sweeping of the courtyard. Along with the dirt Zane had also taken various plant bits and sticks from somewhere and planted them in the dirt piles, the door to the yard was wide open and various tools from the shed on the garden terrace including a wheel barrow were there. Zane himself was covered in mud and debris and didn’t seem aware anything was off.

“Uh Zane what have you been doing?” Kai questioned stumped and after hearing their voices Zane turned to them and commented, “yard court sweep.”

“Yha okay but why is their mud and compost everywhere?” Kai wondered and Zane commented continuing to work as they came up to him, “mud? Dray? Garden need weeding done; garden missing.”

“What do you mean garden missing?” Cole wondered confused and Zane replied, “not here, dirt invisible plants no see.”

“Plants no see? That’s probably because this is the monasteries courtyard and not the gardens… you do realise that right?” Kai wondered and Zane replied stopping his work confused, “Garden where?”

“Okay, is it just me or is his mind maybe getting a bit more unravelled?” Kai wondered using the handle to a trowel he picked up to hit Zane on the head a few times thinking it might knock some sense into him. Zane was just confused rubbing his head where hit and muttered, “for what that?”

“Possibly,” Lloyd commented and Cole chastised the other two, “are you still thinking we shouldn’t call anyone?”

“This isn’t too bad; nothing we can’t fix. We clean this up and no one will even know what happened. We should just not leave Zane alone again. Now why don’t we get all this cleaned up, it shouldn’t take too long,” Kai commented and seeing he wasn’t going to easily be able to change the others minds Cole stated to Zane while leading him over to the wheelbarrow by a hand on his shoulder, “come on buddy we might as well get this mess fixed up.”

“Garden this not?” Zane wondered confused as Cole got him to help shovel dirt into the wheel barrow. They began cleaning up the mess putting the dirt in the wheelbarrow to take back to the gardens and compost in buckets to take down to the compost bins. Most of the plant matter in the dirt piles looked to be debris from the compost bins but some to their confusion looked like food from the kitchen. They found some carrots, a few apples, a head of lettuce, some oranges, some potatoes, a bag of rice and some mushrooms though they couldn’t tell if those were actually from the kitchen or not. To be safe the mushrooms went in the compost along with the lettuce which was dirty and didn’t look to good. A small cleaning and the rest would be fine. The dirt Zane had gotten from the garden terrace and various terraces and ledges on the mountain near the monastery. He hadn’t done serious damage to the garden and clearly was aware of the plants in it and steered clear of taking anything close to them so not to disturb them. They put the dirt back in the garden and in any place they found that it looked like he had taken some from and put the compost back in its bins. Lloyd and Kai then sweeped and properly washed the monasteries courtyard to get rid of any evidence of Zanes makeshift garden while Cole got Zane to help him fix up and de-weed the actual garden. While working Cole noted with some help and guidance he was able to help Zane keep fairly focussed and get the job done fairly well. He was still clearly in some form of confused dazed state getting distracted, performing tasks improperly or inaccurately but he was able to function more normally and properly perform tasks with some help. He also noted Zane might not have been as clueless to his state as they thought and was aware at least to some minor extent that his head wasn’t in the best of states but he wasn’t sure what was wrong. Some of what Cole could translate of Zanes scrambled and odd speech and certain behaviours and emotions he displayed revealed this to him. This confusion left him more confused and unsettled so Cole encouraged and comforted him that they would get things back to normal for him soon. This looked to ease some of his restlessness. They managed to get the work done and everything cleaned up before the sun had fully set having taken longer than Kai or Lloyd liked. When done they decided to make dinner. Zane started to help them out but with his state they felt that was a bad idea. The chances of a dangerous accident occurring were too high. He was also still quite dirty. Lloyd decided he’d help Zane clean up while Kai and Cole made dinner. While they worked in the kitchen Lloyd took Zane to the bathroom and started to help him prep for a shower. Zane was confused. He seemed aware yet somehow at the same time unaware that he was dirty. He just tried to rub some of the dirt off and thought that had gotten himself clean when Lloyd commented about him being dirty but that just ended up making the mess worse. Lloyd helped him get his shirt off then told him to continue getting undressed for his shower while he prepped the water. It didn’t take him long but when he turned back to get Zane he wasn’t there. Lloyd had a feeling he had wandered off so shut the water off and went looking for him. Sure enough as he went into the hall he found Zane who was bringing the chicken to the bathroom.

“Zane what are you doing?” Lloyd wondered and Zane replied, “duck dluoc too wash use.” The chicken just looked confused. Zane brought it to the bathroom. Lloyd let him keep the chicken which he placed in the sink and started bathing it. The fox that was already in the room hopped up curious over what was going on. Lloyd decided to just let him clean the chicken. Even though the chicken was clearly confused it wasn’t minding the actions. It only took Zane a few minutes to clean her washing and drying her off using just water to clean her.

“Okay now that you’ve got that done you need a cleaning. Now let’s get you cleaned up buddy,” Lloyd brought him back to the shower and got it started. Zane was still wearing his pants and underwear and was about to just get in the shower with them on. Lloyd stopped him and took a few moments to convince Zane to start taking them off before they heard a commotion come from the kitchen.

“Zane stay here,” Lloyd told Zane who was in his underwear confused. Zane got even more confused when he tried to go see what the noise was and Lloyd told him like he was a dog to stay even making hand motions at him like he was a dog. Going to see what the sound was Lloyd found Kai and Cole in a panic in the kitchen putting out a fire in a frying pan on the stove with a fire extinguisher Kai telling Cole who had soot on him and was filling a measuring cup with water not to use water again as it would make the fire worse. There was a blueish tinted smoke filling the room and several things on the stove were on fire.

“What’s going on?” Lloyd inquired confused as they put the fires out and completely shut the stove off.

“Cole messed up,” Kai blurted out coughing a bit from the smoke with patches of soot on him and Lloyd wondered to Cole, “what did you do?” After coughing a bit and fanning some of the smoke away Cole explained, “I thought since his condition is probably bothering him even if he doesn’t realise it I would make Zane a special treat. I was marinating the portion of chicken for his part of the food in that motor oil made from kelp he likes…”

“I told you that stuff is flammable,” Kai stated and Cole defended, “I didn’t think though plain heat would set it off, you can leave the stuff in the sun on a hot day in a metal container and it doesn’t light on fire.”

“Yha but that heat isn’t the same as a few hundred degrees from an electrical appliance where if a drop of that stuff gets in where the electricity is like the connectors for the burners or touches the very hot burners it will light on fire. It also doesn’t help that someone’s first thoughts to put it out was to splash water on it… you should have listened to me fires my element so I know what I’m talking about with it. Never pour water on fires started by oils, greases or gasoline that makes them worse. Use an extinguisher, smother it with something like the lid to a pot or get Zane to freeze it. The water just caused it to splash around everywhere spreading it and making it worse!” Kai declared.

“I’ll remember that for the future,” Cole commented and Lloyd wondered looking at the mess, “okay is anything salvageable?”

“Uhm… I don’t think the stuff from a fire extinguisher is safe to eat, at least it’s probably not healthy plus thanks to Cole the oil got on most things. I’m not sure if we can eat that stuff. The kelp is editable but I’m not sure if the motor oil made from it is,” Kai began and looking over everything Lloyd wondered, “do we have anything else we could make?”

“Maybe, we’re going to have to clean things up first though which will take a while plus we’re probably going to have to do an inspection of the stove to make sure it’s safe to use again… the water did splash oil everywhere,” Cole commented. After a thought Lloyd decided, “maybe we should order something in then.” Cole agreed happy with the idea, “sounds like a good idea. We’ll get everything cleaned up once it’s ordered then.” Lloyd then went back to work with Zane who had disobeyed his orders to follow him and see what was going on; the fox and chicken had followed as well. Lloyd led Zane back to the bathroom to get cleaned up the chicken and fox remaining coming to inspect the mess in the kitchen.

“Got any ideas for dinner?” Cole wondered and after a quick thought Kai proclaimed, “yha just leave it to me. Why don’t you get started cleaning up and I’ll get it ordered.” Kai then left while Cole started cleaning things up. There was soot and oil over many areas by the stove along with the foam from the extinguishers. Due to a minor explosion caused when things had first started fire small loose items that had sat around the stove had been flung about the room. Everything they had been making was burnt, soot had gotten on the ceiling and there was still quite a bit of oily smoke in the air. After calling in the food Kai returned and helped Cole clean everything up. They opened some doors and windows for about half an hour to help get rid of the smoke, they put the food in the kitchen compost bin and set the pans, pots and utensils they had been using in the sink to soak. They had to scrub every surface down with some heavy duty soaps to get all the soot and oil cleaned up.

“So what did you order?” Cole wondered as Kai came back in and Kai proclaimed, “you’ll see.” While they cleaned the kitchen Lloyd had a bit of trouble with Zane who kept trying to wander off likely as Lloyd felt to help the others clean up. Lloyd managed to get him to stay put and let him help him get clean by giving Zane a rubber duck toy. He at first didn’t seem interested till Lloyd squeezed it and it made a noise. He also put some water in it through a hole in its mouth and made it squeeze water out. Zane became confused over the toy and took it to inspect it. Lloyd knew Zane knew and understood what the toy was but in his current state he felt Zane was probably having trouble recognising the object which he found useful as it was keeping Zane occupied and keeping him from wandering off so he could complete his task. Zane had gotten quite dirty making Lloyd wonder if he had been rolling around in the mud. He helped Zane get clean which took about an hour. Zane seemed to be aware he was just trying to help him and didn’t give him much of a hassle though Lloyd could tell and understood that Zane wasn’t entirely comfortable with having someone have to clean him plus being completely naked in front of someone else. Zane was rather modest and wasn’t very comfortable with being naked in front of others. Lloyd also knew he knew his non flesh and blood make was scary to many and he didn’t like to unnecessarily unnerve others. Lloyd wasn’t too bothered though they all knew Kai was rather uncomfortable with Zanes non human skin. After getting him cleaned up and dried off Lloyd put Zane in his PJ’s so they could get his normal attire cleaned. By the time they were done Cole who had cleaned himself up once done with the kitchen and Kai had been done with the kitchen for a while and were playing a video game; the chicken and fox were relaxing in the room watching them. Lloyd brought Zane into the room sitting him onto the one couch and told him to stay while he went and cleaned Zanes attire. Zane just sat confused about why Lloyd had started talking to him like he was a dog. Not long after Kai got a text and got up giving his controller to Zane before leaving the room. Zane was having a bit of trouble playing the game messing up directions and actions but wasn’t too bad. After a couple minutes Kai called them to dinner. They went to the dining room and were surprised to find Skylor there with Kai and Lloyd.

“I see you ordered some of Chens. Was it just for the food or were you wanting some company,” Cole teased and embarrassed by Coles comments Kai stated, “she had nothing to do this weekend so I thought why not invite her over.”

“That’s okay we don’t mind the company right Zane?” Lloyd commented and Zane responded, “Yew nothing gorw it that.” Skylor was rather surprised by Zanes odd speech.

“I see what you were talking about. Did you try a reboot on him?” Skylor wondered and Kai explained, “it was the first thing we did. He was a bit off after but not as bad as this.”

“Our best guess is he’s still in some type of dazed state from hitting his head,” Cole explained gently tapping Zane on the head confusing Zane who wondered, “eye have elbourt stacking rednu yew think thing some gnorw mew.”

“I think he was trying to say ‘I am having trouble understanding why you all think something is wrong with me’; right Zane?” Cole translated. Zane nodded an agreement. Cole had started getting better at translating what Zane was trying to say offering them some ability to understand Zanes scrambled speaking. Lloyd explained to Skylor, “we think whatever is wrong he’s not fully aware of it.”

“Not to mention for some reason he seems to be getting worse,” Kai noted and Zane questioned, “neam what yew having sore?” Cole believed Zane was trying to say ‘what do you mean getting worse?’

“Has this happened before?” Skylor wondered and Lloyd noted, “kind of yha. He can become clumsy and have speech problems when he gets a serious hit to the head. Usually all it takes is a reboot though and he’s fine. We’re guessing the double hit of getting shocked and hitting his head has maybe messed up his head a little.”

“Have you contacted one of the others?” Skylor wondered and Cole explained, “I thought we should but the other two don’t want to.” Kai was quick to explain, “we want to prove we can handle things after all we can’t always rely to have my sister, Jay or Pixal around if something goes wrong with him.”

“That is true but unless you know what you are doing you should contact them. It could really help after all you don’t want to make things worse,” Skylor suggested and Lloyd stated, “I think we’ll be fine. We’re planning to hook him up tomorrow to the computers and run a diagnostic then fix him from what we find. We have a guide book to help us work it all out so we should be able to handle it.”

“Well if that’s your plan, if you don’t mind then I think I’ll stick around and give you a hand. From what you told me you could use it,” Skylor began and Cole agreed, “yha considering what we’ve had to deal with today we could use your help.”

“We don’t mind having you over and don’t worry you’ll see we can handle this. Zane will be fine besides it’s not like he is hurting anyone” Kai commented while Lloyd stated “Sure you can stay. I’ll get the spare room set up for you after dinner…” The fox jumping onto the table to inspect the food Skylor had brought caught their attention.

“Uhm why is there a fox in here?” Skylor wondered as Cole picked it up so it wouldn’t get the food while Zane went and opened two cans of cat food that were on the table onto a plate.

“Yha Zane found it and seems to think it’s our pet. We’re not sure where he got it but he calls it Aaron. It was injured so he brought it back here. We’re going to take it to a rehab tomorrow,” Lloyd explained and Skylor commented, “so that’s why you wanted me to stop by a pet store and pick up cat food.” Zane and Cole took the fox back to the bathroom setting it up for the evening with food and water before locking it in. The others set out the food for dinner so they could get started when the two got back. They didn’t have much trouble over dinner from Zane though he was a bit clumsy. He was having trouble holding and working with the utensils they gave him and after a few times of him dropping them on the floor Cole got the idea of taping a fork to his hand for him to use. While the others thought it was a good idea Zane was just left confused and spent a few minutes wondering over it confused before just accepting it. The idea worked quite well though he now had a bit of trouble getting his drink, some of the motor oil they knew Zane liked which Cole had given him as a treat. For his health they tried to keep Zane from consuming too much motor oils as it wasn’t healthy for him but Cole felt to make him feel better to let him have some as a treat. Thinking ahead Cole had stuck it in a lidded container with a metal straw with a washer melded onto it to keep the straw from being able to be pulled out to keep him from spilling or making a mess with it. Despite their attempts Zane made a bit of a mess over dinner spilling some of his food on himself. He got some of the mess on him making Cole and Skylor give him a bit of a clean up after dinner while Lloyd and Kai did dishes and cleaned up the dining room. Zane didn’t give them much of a hassle but was very confused over why he had problems doing such simple tasks as eating and drinking. To have some fun after dinner they decided to play a board game thinking it wouldn’t be too hard for Zane to play along. They sat at the dining table playing a zombie game that involved placing tiles with designs of roads and buildings to make a town when placed down and next to each other for their little plastic characters to move on till they got the tile that brought up the heli-pad to which the first character to get there and not be killed by the zombies of which they had a pile of plastic zombies to place on the tiles as obstacles. To help with translations and in case Zane had problems they sat him next to Cole while Lloyd sat at the end of the table and Kai and Skylor sat across from them. When they started the game things started going well but it wasn’t long till they ran into some problems. They had noticed Zane seemed confused by the tiles they were placing looking them over and looking at both sides as if he was looking for something he was missing ever since they started.

“You okay Zane? Do we need to explain the rules to you?” Lloyd wondered noting Zanes confusion. Zane responded with, “air vines our travel raptors on?” Taking a moment to think out what Zane was likely trying to say Cole translated, “I think he means ‘where are the lines for our I think he means characters in place of raptors to travel on?’”

“Parrot me nigh?” Zane wondered confused and confused over what they believed Zane was trying to say Kai stated, “there are no lines Zane. We’re playing Zombie Escape. We’re building a town till we get the helicopter pad and can escape… what game do you think we are playing?”

“Hey one air dluib hath dragon rad not rye hit more wyvern to in other Acers,” Zane responded and after a second to think it over Cole translated, “I think he said ‘the one where you build a path for dragons and try not to hit your dragon into someone else’s’. I think he thinks we’re playing Tsuro… Zane what are you doing?” While translating Cole noticed out of the corner of his eye Zane pick something off the table and eat it. He was confused because there was nothing edible where he grabbed something. There was a bowl with candy coated chocolates on the table that Cole had put out for everyone but it was on his other side between him and Lloyd who sat at the end of the table not between him and Zane. Zane had taken some earlier following the rest of them, even if he wasn’t interested or hungry at the time he would copy things they all did in order to not feel left out, but he’d already finished the candies he had taken so didn’t have any sitting on the table where he had grabbed something. The only thing there was a pile of the plastic zombies to put on the game tiles when a tile called for it. They had split the zombies into two piles with one by Kai and one between Cole and Zane.

“Earwigs,” Zane commented and grossed out by the word Kai stated, “earwigs? As in those creepy bugs with pinchers on their butts? Why would you want to eat those?” Cole explained, “I think he meant candies.”

“But the candies are over there,” Skylor noted pointing to the bowl by Lloyd. They were all a bit confused and thinking it over while looking over the pile of plastic zombies Cole noted their pile was smaller than he remembered but Kai had largely been the one placing the pieces on the tiles from his pile. Cole had only done it once so they should have had more pieces than what they had. It didn’t take much for Cole to realise why.

“He’s been eating the pieces,” Cole groaned and Zane commented confused, “no tea earwigs not parts.” Cole believed that Zane likely didn’t realise in his confusion that he had already had all the candies and was absent mindedly grabbing whatever was placed next to him thinking it was the candies. Moving the pieces away from Zane Cole commented, “no Zane you’ve been eating the game pieces not candies.” He put a handful of candies by Zane to keep him from grabbing any other pieces in case he absently reached for them again.

“That’s not good for him is it?” Skylor wondered and Lloyd commented a bit worried, “just like with us no it isn’t. How many did he have?”

“Not sure, how many Zombie pieces come with the game?” Cole wondered and Kai stated reading the game box, “30, how many are left.” After a quick count to all those they had out Cole noted, “23, he’s eaten seven of them.” Zane was just confused over what they were all talking about.

“That’s not good. Hopefully they won’t cause problems and he’ll be okay till the others return. If not that’s defiantly something that would involve work we’re not qualified for,” Lloyd commented and Kai suggested, “you know I can’t believe I’m saying this for Zane and not Cole but maybe we should play something where he can’t eat the pieces.” They felt that a good idea. Clearly Zanes confusion was more intense than they had assumed. Putting the game away they decided to go for a video game. The only thing there he could potentially eat was the joystick and even though he had the jaw strength that he could bite through it with no problem they doubted he would as it was very unlikely he could confuse a joystick for candy. They decided to play a relaxing co-operative game in order to be fair to Zane and to make it easy on him as in his confused state he was going to have trouble playing. Zane wasn’t minding the change in game but was quite confused over why his character was doing the opposite to what he wanted it to do. Noting his troubles Cole gave him a bit of a hand figuring out how to play through his confused state. While not entirely fixing it getting him to use the opposite buttons and directions to what he was intending to do helped him play the game more normally. Zane was confused why that was working. After a while they decided to head to bed. Cole helped Zane get ready for bed while Kai made up the spare room for Skylor and Lloyd locked the place up. Cole had a little trouble with Zane who was having trouble remembering how to brush his teeth so Cole had to show him after which he helped Zane to his bed to keep him from tripping or walking into things. Along the way they came across Kai who was standing in his doorway talking with Lloyd and Skylor while wearing what looked like a pink dress.

“If you didn’t think it was yours then why did you put it on?” Lloyd wondered and Kai commented, “I wasn’t sure what it was. I thought maybe some of my clothes accidently got bleached during a wash. I’m not sure but I’m pretty sure this is one of my sisters Kimonos. By any chance you didn’t let Zane put the clothes away on his own earlier did you?”

“Yha I did. I didn’t think he’d have a problem with it though. The task seemed so simple. He must have put some of the wrong clothes in the wrong drawers,” Lloyd responded while Cole teased as they approached, “expressing a bit of your feminine side there are we?” The others were amused though Kai wasn’t. Zane asked confused, “dig when ayn return?”

“What did he ask?” Kai wondered unable to understand his speech and after a quick think Cole translated, “I think he said ‘when did Nya return’. I think because you’re wearing her clothes in his confused state he thinks you’re your sister.” Lloyd commented jokingly, “yha I can see the resemblance. All he needs is a ponytail.” Kai wasn’t amused though Cole and Skylor were. Zane was just confused.

“I think we’re going to have to go through drawers later and make sure everything is in the proper places,” Lloyd commented as they headed to bed. Kai took off his sisters attire to put his own on finding some of the others clothes also in his drawer. Cole put Zane in his bed before going to his room to head to bed. When he got his PJ’s Cole found some of the others clothes in his drawer too. Lloyd too found clothes from the others in his drawers telling him Zane had likely put the wrong clothes in the others dressers as well. Not wanting to just rummage around in the drawers of others Lloyd felt it best they wait for everyone to get back then go through and find where Zane had misplaced everything. They all spent some time, around an hour, relaxing in their rooms before most went to sleep.

About an hour after then Cole was surprised to be awoken from his sleep. Zane had woke him looking to be confused and on edge muttering in his jumbled speech what Cole believed was about hearing voices and thinking strangers were in the monastery. Cole had a feeling Zane had been dreaming and in his confused state mistook his dreaming as something happening in the awake world.

“You were just dreaming Zane. I know it can be scary at times but it’s okay dreams can’t hurt you,” Cole comforted Zane as he took him back to his room. Zane didn’t seem convinced by his words and looked a bit on edge. Cole felt his dazed state was giving Zane problems with his sleep and he could use for something to relax him when he ran into problems.

“Here when I have trouble sleeping or have problems with bad dreams I find some music can help me sleep it will probably work on you too. Here I think you’ll like this,” Cole stated setting up a portable speaker on Zanes nightstand and connecting it to his phone to play calming music with nature sounds largely birds and rain mixed in with the music. Zane looked to calm down liking it. Cole helped him onto his bed and Zane relaxed and looked to go to sleep. Cole then headed back to bed. Ten minutes later Lloyd was surprised to find Zane coming into his room muttering about something while he lay in bed reading. Lloyd wasn’t too skilled in Zanes jumbled speech but felt he was anxious over dreaming confusing it as something actually happening.

“It’s alright buddy they were just dreams. It might seem strange but you do dream. Don’t worry they won’t hurt you,” Lloyd comforted Zane taking him back to his room. Noting Zanes skin was awfully cold compared to its normal room temperature to warm state Lloyd decided to tuck him in under the blankets of his bed feeling he might be having troubles controlling some of his powers in his confused state and the cold feeling might be making him restless so if he was kept warm it would help him sleep. Once he was in bed and looked to be heading to sleep Lloyd went back to his room. Fifteen minutes later Kai was surprised by Zane tapping him on the shoulder with a cold hand startling him as he watched videos on the internet on his phone of people trying to do stunts or have fun and messing up often in humorous ways. From what Kai believed Zane was trying to say to him in his jumbled speech Zane was agitated about what he thought might be something messing with his senses and that Cole and Lloyd weren’t listening to him. Kai felt Zane was getting confused by dreams.

“Zane buddy it’s just dreams. I know you think you don’t dream but trust me you do. Maybe eating plastic gave you some weird dreams kind of like cheese dreams. I don’t know can it do that to you? Anyway here I’ll get you something that could help you sleep,” Kai stated taking Zane out to the hall and to a closet room used for storing bedding, spare pillows and a bunch of teddies they had received as gifts often from young children which were often gifted to Jay, Lloyd or Nya and sometimes Cole. Thinking having something soft and plushy to hold and hug when scared might help calm Zane to his dreams Kai went through them looking for one he felt Zane would like the best. The teddies were all of various animals including cats, dogs, an elephant, some birds and even some reptiles and snakes. Kai grabbed a cat one for Zane. When handed it Zane just looked at the plushy confused. He didn’t let it go though and kept hold of it as Kai took him back to his room and put him back in bed putting him back under the covers noting one of the others had put him under them before. Once back in his bed and starting to go asleep Kai went back to his bed to go to sleep. Twenty minutes later Skylor was surprised by Zane waking her up. He was confused and mumbling about something hard to make out but Skylor felt was the others not listening to him and something about dreams.

“Having some troubles sleeping Zane? I get your probably having a lot of trouble with confusion from your condition but don’t worry we’re here for you. The best thing you could do rate now is just get some sleep. We’ll tackle some of your problems in the morning okay,” Skylor told him taking him back to his room. Zane looked to just be confused as she put him back in his bed. Feeling he could use some company to comfort and keep him calm so he could sleep Skylor went and got him something. She left the room and came back a few minutes later with the chicken and placed her on the bed with Zane telling him, “here she’ll keep you company till morning now just relax and get some sleep.” She went back to her room leaving Zane who just looked at the chicken confused and let down. At first after the reboot he didn’t think anything was wrong with himself. His self diagnostics were not identifying anything wrong but it hadn’t taken him long to realise something was wrong with himself. When he spoke what he said rarely matched up with what he was intending to say, he was having some balance and navigation issues, he had periods where he had problems with memory and focus, when he did things he was supposed to for some reason which he couldn’t understand he was screwing up even though he seemed to think there was nothing wrong with what he was doing but deep down he knew he was not doing things right and he could see how the others reacted, their expressions and things they said that they clearly could see something was wrong. They kept mentioning that something was wrong and mentioning confused and dazed often when talking about him or to him. Despite his senses and diagnostics not sensing anything wrong he trusted the others observations. Clearly something was wrong messing with him and interfering with his ability to sense or discover what was wrong with himself. He had tried some things to try and fix what he felt might be wrong but he had a feeling he might have made whatever was wrong worse as he was having more problems and confusion and the others were getting more confused with him.

Despite this confusion he knew what the others were thinking wasn’t right. He was hearing voices and they were not from dreams like they were thinking. The voices he was picking up were external audio and not in his mind like with a dream. Even without the enhancements and additions to his senses from being a nindroid even the base human styled senses he had were stronger than a persons and more sensitive to stimulus. At times it could be a bad thing while for others like this it was a good thing. He wasn’t dreaming it there were strangers in the monastery; thieves who he had heard say they were there looking for any special or powerful item they could make a quick profit from. They seemed to think the ninja would have some. While that wasn’t wrong what they did have was locked up where common crooks like these two could not find them. Even though they were trying to be quite to avoid detection Zane could hear what sounded like two of them as they investigated the others rooms. Knowing in his current state he would not have much luck confronting the crooks he had tried to get the others help but they kept thinking he was reacting to dreams. He had tried each of them and basically got the same results each time and he was pretty sure if he tried again they would again tell him he was dreaming. He knew he wasn’t dreaming. Though he sometimes had problems with them often leading to them confusing and shaking him up Zane could tell the difference between dreams and reality at least around 87% of the time. On rare occasions he would get dreams that felt so real it was hard to tell. Those ones really shook him up. Since the others weren’t listening and he was the only one aware of what was going on he decided to deal with it himself. He hoped he wouldn’t mess things up. Getting out of bed he checked the bedrooms for the two crooks the chicken getting up and following him to join in the search. As he searched he put a great deal of effort into trying to keep control of his balance and navigation in order to not screw up. He didn’t want to wake the others nor alert the crooks when he was near their location. He was pretty sure the crooks were aware he knew they were there. He had heard them talking about it in the next room. They were also clearly aware something was off with him which they felt a good thing as they knew out of everyone there he was the most likely to pick up they were there and be a threat. Him and the chicken that was but they didn’t fear her; Zane knew they were being foolish there. Chickens were not the animals these individuals thought they were and defiantly a creature one should be wary of. From what he’d overheard of the two whispering to each other as they quietly searched was every time he had tried to warn the others the two would go silent and hide to avoid catching anyone’s attention. Him frequently getting up had them nervous of being caught and they were getting annoyed at him. They were though pleased that his dazed or as they considered glitching, state was preventing him from alerting the others to them. Zane found no one in any of the others bedrooms. Everyone else was asleep unaware of the potential danger. Thinking they might be avoiding the bedroom area for a while hoping he’d fall asleep making their task easier he decided to check other rooms. In all the rooms he checked Zane found nothing though at one point he was pretty sure he heard them talk mentioning they were aware he was looking for them and what sounded like someone quickly shuffling out of the recreation room behind him when he went in to inspect it. He felt the sound meant he had gotten close to finding them and the crooks were just a step ahead of him. Following where he felt they might be heading Zane went to the kitchen. If someone was desperate enough to hide he was pretty sure they could use the cupboards and appliances in there to hide in. When he got there he couldn’t immediately see anything but before he began to search in things he noted a sound from in the hall; sounded like someone headed down to the basement storage rooms. Zane went out to the door that led down to the monastery basement which held various store rooms for things including a cold storage room. He opened the doors as quietly he could to not let the crooks know he was onto them. He could hear them talking down there.

“We should just leave. The tin man knows we’re here. I told you we should wait till both him and the female one were out of here then try this,” the one said and the second replied, “it could be a long time till that happens besides we could handle him. That’s what the tasers are for. If he does find us we just shock him and escape then we’ll try again later now keep quite so he doesn’t hear us.”

“This was a bad idea; basements are always the worst place to hide. Dark, few places to escape often store potentially dangerous items,” the first crook commented before the second told him to be quite. Zane made his way into the basement feeling by the sounds the two were likely hiding in the main room. He could hear them acknowledge he was coming and move off to where he felt was the utilities room at the back of the main room. Along with the utilities room which held the monasteries water heater, furnace, meters for things like electricity and water and circuit board there was a storage room for food and cleaning supplies and a cold storage room for items that needed to be kept cool like drinks. Looking into the utilities room he couldn’t see anything so wandered in deeper to see if they were hiding behind something. When he reached the middle of the room Zane was suddenly shocked from behind. The shock lasted only a few seconds but caused him a great deal of pain. When the shock was over he collapsed to lay face down on the ground stunned. It took a few minutes for him to recover and start getting back up. He worried the crooks would get away but the chicken had his back and attacked them after the one attacked him. As he recovered the chicken managed to corner the two in a back corner behind the furnace. They clearly had misjudged the danger of chickens and were scared by it. Zane saw nothing to recognise or identify the individuals as the two wore dark attire with hooded jackets and wore face masks that let only their eyes be visible. Zane went to tell them to ‘freeze’ so he could restrain them without hurting them so he could tie them up for the others to deal with in the morning but instead he uttered ‘crocuta’ and to his surprise he ended up shooting ice from his hands at them freezing them to the wall leaving only their heads free of ice. Zane felt it was normal for him to be able to do that but at the same time he didn’t think he could do that or recall doing that before having him confused. He just looked at his hands in confusion muttering quietly to himself about his confusion not hearing or aware of the two crooks who were terrified and pleading to be spared. After a minute of confusion over his powers Zane became confused over why he was down in the utilities room and what he had been doing. Seeing his confusion the crooks remained silent not wanting to draw Zanes attention worried over what he could do. Not noticing the crooks and unable to figure out what he was doing Zane decided to go to bed; as he went to bed the chicken followed him relaxed now that the crooks were contained. He tripped up the stairs a bit and walked into the walls a few times as he headed to bed. Before he went to bed he stopped by the bathroom and feeling the fox was probably not happy with being confined in there he opened the door and let it out. The fox was nervous and confused but didn’t react as Zane picked it up and brought it to his room placing it on the bed. Without thinking much he put himself back under the covers and held the teddy he had been given close to himself as he lay on his side and fell asleep the fox and chicken cuddling up to him in his sleep.

Nobody was aware of the crooks who unable to get free of the ice decided to wait for the ice to melt to make their escape hoping the ice would melt before anyone was up or could find them. The two at least were in a location that was largely hidden giving them safety from easily being seen by anyone coming down to the basement. During the night Kai got up to use the bathroom while Cole got up to get a drink and both stopped to check in on Zane to make sure he was sleeping. They were relieved he had calmed down and gone to sleep. They were also surprised to find the fox on his bed but since it was calm and looked relaxed and Zane was calm and sleeping they decided to just let it be.

In his confused mental state Zane woke up earlier than usual and was the first of them up. He decided to get some work done before the others were up. He tried his hardest to not mess up in the tasks. He started a load of laundry before putting away dishes from the previous night then feeding the chicken and fox before deciding to get himself something. He felt he had done pretty good managing to only trip over and into a few things and only to drop things twice both times with things that wouldn’t break or get harmed by being dropped. Lloyd on the other hand didn’t think that the case when he got up and went to get himself some breakfast to find Zane at the table with the chicken and fox. He’d given each of the animals a plate with what looked like cat food, shredded chicken in gravy cat food he found precisely as he read the cans on the table. To his unnerve the chicken was more than happy with eating the food despite it coming from chickens. Zane had a bowl of something Lloyd was pretty sure came from the kitchen organic wastes bin maggots which had manifested in it since it hadn’t been cleaned and everyone had just kept piling things in it for almost a week included and something that looked like pale blue milk which he couldn’t say for sure but felt was likely fabric softener. He pardoned himself and quickly got the others. According to what Cole could translate of Zanes scrambled speech Zane seemed to think he had chicken fried rice and milk which he thought had gone bad as it tasted and smelled off even though he was still drinking it. Inspecting the work he had done they found he had put the dishes away in the library and used milk instead of fabric softener or detergent in the laundry. They guessed because he was doing a load of whites he might have in a confused state thought a white liquid should be used to clean them so used milk instead. He had left a near empty milk jug in the laundry room while placing the detergent and fabric softener in the fridge. His breakfast was a filled bowl of compost from the green waste bin in the kitchen which had a good deal of maggots in it and inspecting the milk they confirmed by its smell that it was indeed fabric softener. They weren’t sure why Zane had taken the fabric softener thinking it was milk though they were guessing he had taken the compost since Cole had put their failed cooking from the previous night which had the oil Zane liked on it in the bin and being attracted by the smell of the oil became attracted to it. They quickly took away from him what he was eating and drinking leaving Zane confused as they looked through the guide book on what to do. Kai held the bowl away from Zane getting grossed out by the maggots anytime they crawled out onto his hand while the chicken was more than happy to peck them up. They were pretty sure it wasn’t good for Zane to consume the compost or softener and didn’t know what to do about it. They weren’t really finding much in the book but this wasn’t really something any of them ever thought they had to worry about with Zane; Cole yes Zane no. He knew enough not to consider these things as potential or safe food. The best they could relate their situation too was consuming things he wasn’t supposed to have, that made him fairly sick or was the droid equivalent of allergic too. Zane didn’t seem to be affected yet by consuming the stuff but he’d only had it recently despite already eating a third of the bowl and drank over half the cup. It would take a short while before he would start showing effects from his mistake.

“The book says here the best thing we could do is give him this sort of medicine stuff to combat any negative effect from the stuff and keep his systems healthy. It will also help make him feel better when he starts to feel sick from the stuff. We’ll have to give it to him a few times during the day and all through tomorrow about a tablespoon per cup each time. It’s recommend mixing it into chocolate milk to give it to him. It binds well to the fats and proteins in the milk and those will keep the stuff in his system longer so it will last longer therefore work more efficiently and have more of an effect and the chocolate flavour will hide the flavour of the stuff as Zanes not fond of it so might not take it if he can taste it especially with his head all messed up,” Lloyd commented looking through the book and Cole commented, “okay I know where the stuff is. I’ll get it and mix it up while I make breakfast for everyone.”

“We’ll keep Zane out of trouble in the meantime,” Skylor stated and Kai commented, “plus put the compost out that way he doesn’t go for it again and to get rid of the maggots. Is it just me or does it feel a little cold in here?” They all agreed to feel a bit of a damp chill in the area. Looking they were surprised and a little worried to note Zane was having some trouble with his powers. While they had been talking Zane just watching confused over what was going on he had become even more confused when he felt his hands getting cold and feeling a strange energy in himself. He had quickly noted ice forming on his hands and arms starting to freeze them to the table. He had managed to get one hand free but then got it frozen to the wrist of his other hand as he attempted to try and pull that arm free. He had ice slowly growing up his arms and starting to build on parts of his face as he struggled to free his arms.

“Hold on buddy we’ll get you free,” Kai stated as he and Skylor went over to help Zane free himself Skylor touching Kai to absorb some of his powers. They worked together to melt the ice that was building on Zane in order to free him.

“Uh what does the book say about this?” Cole wondered and searching through Lloyd noted, “certain emotions can affect his powers but not to this extent usually. If given certain things his powers can go a little haywire like snowberries for some reason. Bad dreams can cause it, so can certain system malfunctions, sometimes when he’s dazed like he is now it can happen. That’s probably what’s going on here.” Freeing Zane was proving a little difficult as with his loss of control mixed with his confusion and anxiety over his loss of control the ice kept building up as fast as Kai and Skylor melted it.

“Is there anything we can do to combat it?” Kai wondered as they got Zanes one hand free Zane looking to have regained some control over his powers stopping them from spreading.

“Kind of I’ll get what’s needed. It will only keep his hands from freezing things but not prevent him from freezing or affecting the environment though,” Lloyd noted and Kai stated, “that’s okay. As long as he’s not getting stuck like this it will do.” Once Zane was free Lloyd took Zane down to the storage room down in the hanger bay for their weapons and gear while Kai took the compost out, Cole made breakfast and Skylor gave the chicken its proper feed giving the cat food it had been given to the fox. The stuff they needed to get for Zane was in a bottle in a mini fridge in the basement and Cole got the separate measuring tools for it from the bin marked as first aid for Zane and Pixal that was in the basement storage room. The basket held various substances and equipment to be used as first aid for the two. Their first aid bin had been in the bathroom with everyone else’s first aid equipment but after Cole had a screw up mistaking something meant for Zane and Pixal as hydrogen peroxide to use on a cut and got sick from it they moved the stuff to a different room to keep anyone from making that mistake again. To avoid contaminating normal utensils in case not properly washed they had separate ones used for the formula which was a concoction of chemicals and pro-biotic materials meant for droids which would make a person sick if they had any. As he got the stuff Cole noted they would need to order some more of the stuff. They had enough to give Zane the proper doses for the next two days and for a few more days but they would need to get more for future use. He also noted some other things they would need to pick up for both current and future use. They would need of course detergent and fabric softener, he also felt for the gardens to help with the disturbance from the previous day could use some fertilizers and formulas to help root growth for the plants, they could also use soap for the floors and shampoos. While down there he inspected the cold storage and normal storage rooms to see if they needed anything; he could think and see of some other things to pick up that they could use and or need. While in the basement he also heard what sounded like some rustling down there. Sounded like rats; he added rat traps to the list of things to get. When he got back to the kitchen he went to the special sight noted in Nya and Jays guide book for Zane and Pixal on his tablet to order more of the medicine stuff then started to make a shopping list while he prepared breakfast going through the cupboards, fridge and freezer as well to identify more things for the list making a list of meals for the next week. There was enough milk for Cole to make one batch of the mixture for Zane using some of a chocolate milk mix in the cupboard. They’d need more for later. They also needed orange juice since Zane had used a good deal on the houseplants. They had enough for him, Lloyd, Skylor and Kai to have some with breakfast but they would need more. By breakfast he had a bit of a list made. The others thought it a good idea even adding some things to the list and decided they should make a trip out later that day to get some things. Lloyd had gotten for Zane a set of gloves meant to protect them from serious cold temperatures like those of the Wailing Alps to put on his hands. While meant to protect from the cold their specially insulated design could work in the opposite way as well so if he did lose control the ice would be contained in the gloves and not leech onto anything he touched. They had breakfast with little problems and luckily Zane didn’t seem to be aware of the medicine they were giving him. Afterwards they took Zane down to the hanger bay and hooked his head up to the computers for them to do a diagnostic. It took about half an hour for the diagnostic to complete a full run. Zane seemed confused not understanding what or why they had him hooked up to the computers and wasn’t sitting still so they forced him through the connection from the computer to sleep for the scan in order to keep him from causing problems waking him up when it was done and unhooking him as they went over the findings. To keep Zane there and from wandering off as he was wanting to get some chores done they managed to get him to stay there by sitting him in a chair and giving him a bunch of animal videos including funny and informative ones to watch off a tablet to distract him. It kept him distracted, happy and most importantly from wandering off.

“So what does it say?” Kai wondered when the scan was done. None of them were experts with Zanes workings and programming’s so they were using the guide book to make better sense of their findings. Looking over what they got and the book Cole deduced, “he is dazed and by the looks quite dazed. It also looks like he attempted to fix some things while dazed and he may have screwed some things up. To fix it looks like we’ll have to do a neural restore and recalibration which will take a few hours then a neural reboot which won’t take long. He will be offline the whole time and one of us will have to be present in case problems arise.”

“Okay then why don’t we get it started,” Kai stated and Lloyd agreed, “yha then he’ll be back to his normal self in no time plus before anyone gets back.”

“Do you think we should maybe wait till later say tonight instead?” Skylor wondered and thinking it over Cole agreed, “you know that might be a good idea. If we get called out for a job or when we go out to get some shopping done we might have to leave him alone. I don’t want to just leave him here on his own and offline. If something were to happen he would be defenceless also what if issues arise and we need to do something to keep things running smoothly? It might be better to wait.” He did have a point. Even though the chances of something bad happening were slim they all knew things could go wrong and they didn’t want to risk that. They didn’t want to risk Zanes safety. Kai and Lloyd however were nervous of that idea. Waiting would mean there was a high chance of them having these restore and reboots run when Jay and Nya returned which would mean they would find out about Zane getting dazed and the two brushing it off as nothing serious so they could get out of chores all weekend. That was not a responsible act which would go against them trying to prove they were responsible. Neither had told the two anything and when Kai was texting his sister during the previous day and that morning there was no evidence that Cole had told them anything so they likely had no clue what was going on.

“Are you sure about that? If we do it now we can get it done before Jay and Nya return so they won’t have to get involved when they return; I’m pretty sure they won’t be wanting to have to work on Zane when they get back,” Kai commented and Cole countered, “they’re going to have to work on him anyway to remove the plastic pieces he swallowed.”

“I’m pretty sure they could work on that tomorrow though,” Lloyd added and Skylor offered, “if we time it right we could still get it done before they return. If we get the shopping done in the morning then we can get him worked on in the afternoon before they get back.” Cole added, “besides I’m pretty sure Zane would want to see the fox off to the rehab himself after all he found it and has been caring for it. He probably would want to say goodbye to it you know for some closure for rescuing it.” They felt that was a safe and good idea.

“I guess that could work,” Kai stated and Lloyd wondered, “okay then what are we going to do with him till then to keep him out of trouble?” Cole noted, “well for starters we shouldn’t leave him alone at least not for long.”

“Then first we’re going to have to find him,” Skylor noted. While they were going over their findings Zane had wandered off. They tracked his signal to find it luckily still in the monastery. Heading to where it showed they found him checking on the laundry and attempting to switch it over. They stopped him as they needed to rewash everything with actual detergent and softener. Zane was confused about this but didn’t give them a hassle. They decided to get the day started and head out to get some shopping done and deliver the fox to a wildlife rehab. They took the Bounty in case they got an on duty call. They stopped off first at a large hardware store to get the cleaners, fertilizers and root grow. Zane did pretty fine with them in the shop. Cole made sure to keep him close to keep him out of trouble as they went through and got what they needed. He only wandered off once where they found him in the garden section. He luckily hadn’t caused problems or had any issues getting there. Along with what they had come for they also got some things they felt they could use including some lidded containers to better store some food items in to keep critters out of them, some rat traps, some kitchen towels to replace a few that had got burnt and a few new fire extinguishers. They also got a few garden decorations. They already had a solar powered lighthouse that had a light that went in circles like a real lighthouse in the garden, a flamingo, a little stone dragon and some resin animals largely a cat, a few hedgehogs, a few rabbits, some song birds and a puppy. Cole found a stone tortoise he liked the look of and for some reason Zane became interested over a large resin parrot and kept petting it and carrying it like it was his pet. Cole didn’t have the heart to take it from him so they got it. As they were leaving Cole noted a small mom and pop restaurant in the plaza which he stopped off at before they left to get himself a soda, another drink which he didn’t reveal what it was and some fries as a snack. They decided to head to get some groceries but along the way got a call to aid with capturing some criminals.

“Uhm I don’t think we should have Zane get involved with this. He’s not in very good condition to be on active duty,” Kai commented and Lloyd noted, “he’ll likely try to follow us though.” Skylor added, “we can’t leave him alone here though.”

“Don’t worry I got a plan for that. Cole left and after a few moments he came back with a large to go cup from the restaurant. He made sure Zane wasn’t close or paying attention. Lloyd was keeping him occupied by having him play video games on his tablet to prevent him from interacting with the ship as in his dazed state he could cause problems if he did that. It luckily seemed to be working.

“What’s that?” Kai wondered and Cole replied, “a little something I thought could help. I got a chocolate shake and mixed in a sleeping potion we know affects him. Given his dazed state he probably won’t be able to counter the effects of these and fall asleep. Just to make sure he’ll drink it I also mixed in a little of that kelp motor oil to catch his attention and so he can’t resist it.”

“Are you sure that’s going to work?” Skylor wondered and Cole replied, “yha just watch.” Cole went over to Zane and gave him the drink telling him he’d gotten him a treat. Zane didn’t look to sure or interested even though he took the drink. He just spent a while looking at it confused. They left him alone as they went over what they had been called into deal with; a break in at a bank. The crooks were apparently trying to get into the vaults while holding some individuals hostage. The cops wanted the ninja to sneak in while the crooks were distracted with them out front and take the crooks down from behind. While they thought out a plan of action they kept an eye on Zane not letting him know they were looking at him. Clearly in his dazed state he was not fully aware that they had been called to duty or what the others were doing though by the way he was looking at the computers he knew something was up and was trying to figure it out. He at least was drinking the shake clearly having accepted and now enjoying it.

“How long does it usually take for sedatives to work on him?” Skylor wondered and Lloyd replied, “usually 20 to 30 minutes.”

“What do we do with Zane till then?” Kai wondered as they got to their location and Lloyd agreed, “yha we don’t want him passing out randomly on us down there.” Cole had already thought that out proclaiming, “we give him something to do here that seems important in order to keep him distracted here.” Zane was starting to come over to them starting to clue in that something was going on and asking about it. Cole intervened and led Zane back to the computers telling him they needed him there on the ships and at the computers to keep an eye on surveillance systems of the location to help them figure out the locations of the crooks and lead them to the best places to get them. Cole got Skylors help to load up on the computers for Zane some surveillance and maps of the location for Zane to look over. Zane was confused but accepted his role with little hassle. With him distracted Cole, Lloyd and Kai who were joined by Skylor who touched Zane in order to use his powers for the mission headed off to get to work. They made sure to check in with Zane every few minutes to make it seem like he was still playing a role in everything as they snuck in through the roof access of the building Cole having to break the door handle to get it open. They then slowly snuck down to the main room making a sweep of each floor to take out any of the crooks present there. There was a few thugs that were patrolling the halls of the office spaces to the three stories above the bank’s main floor at ground level that they took out tying them up for the cops to get them later. By the time they had cleared the second floor and were about to head to the ground floor Zane had stopped responding when contacted but they didn’t pay much attention to that believing the sedative had finally worked on him. It didn’t take them long to take down the crooks and free everyone they had sitting on the floor as hostages while a group of the crooks worked on trying to break into the vaults. With the crooks taken out they headed back to the Bounty. At first they couldn’t see Zane making some of them worry but Cole felt they had no reason to worry. He was especially feeling confident by the presence of some crows that were hanging around the command center. They found Zane sitting on the floor with his back against the computer holding the cup he’d been given with both hands on it while some crows hung around him intrigued by his skin and trying to get the cup from his grip. One was even grooming him rubbing its beak through his synthetic hair. After shooing away the crows they did some tests and found Zane unresponsive. He was asleep having drank everything in the cup Cole had given him. It had worked just as Cole had suspected. With Zane asleep Cole took him below deck and lay him in his bed in the bedroom.

“How long will he be out?” Kai wondered when Cole returned to the command center and Cole replied, “from the chart I followed in the book three to five hours. Should give us enough time to stop for some lunch and get the rest of the shopping done. If we want to wake him before then all we need to do is manually override the effects by hacking his brain.” They went and had lunch taking an hour to chill before continuing with the shopping checking on Zane between the two activities to make sure he was fine. He was fine and still in a deep sleep. They left him there as they headed off to do the shopping. It took longer than they intended to get the shopping done, over two hours. They couldn’t decide the kind of bread to get Cole sneaking in a few cakes to the cart while they argued over it. They couldn’t decide either the smell to the dish soap they wanted Cole finding citrus too strong a smell, Lloyd wanting at least some smell so it smelt clean and Kai not really caring what they used. Kai spent about ten minutes trying to figure out which shampoo he wanted and getting a new toothbrush while they lost Lloyd to the cookies aisle at one point. To make things easier they got a few 2 litre jugs of chocolate milk to mix Zanes ‘medicine’ into. Lloyd kept sneaking into the cart candies while the others weren’t looking and Kai wanted to get the spicy versions to some things like some chips, ramen noodles and some pre-made egg rolls just to mess with Jay; Jay who couldn’t handle spicy food very well tended to not really read the labels to things and would just have them assuming them to be the usual which could result in humorous reactions if things were more sour or spicy than he expected. Cole wouldn’t let him do that. Kai did manage to get some pre-made spicy burritos for a potential quick lunch which he knew Jay would have without taking note of their spicy-ness as he snuck food. Just to further mess with Jay he wanted to get a small container of sour cream to mix in some milk for when Jay did have something spicy to give him just to gross him out but Cole stopped him from doing that. While they were there Skylor got some shopping done for herself while the three did their shopping. She was done before them. She dropped her stuff off in the Bounty checking on Zane to make sure he was fine before returning to the others to help them get the rest of their shopping done. It took over half an hour longer for them to get their shopping done. When done they brought all they had got to the Bounty and put it away below deck in proper storage for the way home. Once everything was away Cole went to check on Zane and was quickly worried. Zane wasn’t there. When they tried to contact him they didn’t get a response making them even more worried.

Unbeknownst to the rest of them around ten minutes after Skylor checked on him Zane had been awoken suddenly forcing himself to resist the sedatives effects when a loud commotion was detected unconsciously by his senses making him feel he was in danger. In defence a sub conscious programming activated and override the programming that had forced him asleep when sensors in his body picked up sedative chemicals in it to force him awake to defend against a possible danger. He hadn’t seen anything and after a quick search of the rooms below deck found the noise had been the fox knocking over a cabinet and a bunch of things in the shower room where they had placed it till they could take it to the rehab. Zane cleaned up the mess the best he could before leaving to find the others making sure the fox was still locked in. Zane couldn’t recall how he had ended up in bed just remembering trying to help the others getting frustrated at his mis-functioning communications and his confusions before suddenly finding himself numbly sitting down to fall asleep. He was guessing the others had put him in bed when finding him asleep. He was also wondering if they had purposely done something to make him sleep. He hadn’t thought about it at the time thinking it was just Cole trying to cheer him up from his condition by giving him the milkshake as it was Coles typical thing to do to cheer someone up by giving them foods or drinks he knew they liked and made them feel good when they were down but he now wondered if Cole had maybe done something to it to make him sleep. Zane wanted to talk to him about it but couldn’t find any of the others on board. They were still in the city and he did note they had parked the Bounty near a supermarket. He knew the others intended to get some shopping done as they had made a list and talked about it so he reasoned they were there. Strangely despite his complications with communication he wasn’t having much of a problem understanding the others. A few times he would have some trouble but most he was pretty okay with his understandings of the others. The communication issues were largely on his end of the issue. To not scare or make anyone uncomfortable Zane activated his cloak to look human struggling with it a few times to get it fully activated and stable before heading off to the shop trying his hardest not to stumble, stay balanced or to walk into things. It was a bit of a struggle him having a few close calls but he managed rather well. As he got close to the store he noted a guy looking at him scared and a woman pull her scared child close to her as the two hid behind a car while looking at him. He thought it odd. He made himself look human so as to not scare anyone so why were they being scared of him. It wasn’t till some kids he walked by who were playing around climbing on a car who freaked out running and screaming from him calling him a monster did he maybe think something might be a bit off. Curious he checked his reflection in the tinted back window of a car and was surprised and a little shocked before looking himself over worried.

He had thought he was just disguising his skin and hair to look human like usual but somehow instead had changed his looks to a humanoid were-wolfs including claws, fur and torn attire and giving himself a wolf looking head and wolves tail. He had used this cloak twice before once during the Day of the Departed and a few times for the Jesters festival, a week’s long festivity in the beginning of spring for fun, comedy, pranks and jokes that celebrated the coming of spring and entertainers whose work often helped get many through winter the darkest and down-est time of the year. All times it had been to have fun and help some of the others largely Cole and Kai in some pranks against each other particularly Jay and Lloyd. Somehow instead of displaying his normal cloak to fit in with people his cloak had activated this design. He tried to change it or at least shut it off but after it glitched a few times the cloak didn’t change or deactivate. It was stuck on and displaying this monster form. Zane was nervous. This look would defiantly make him stand out and scare others which wouldn’t be helped by his scrambled speech or clumsy demeanour. It could get him in trouble with the law for public disturbance or disruption of peace and causing unnecessary panic. He could already see the children he had spooked talking with a beat cop about a monster. The cop wasn’t believing them thinking they were just getting confused and overworked by a stray or wild animal till they dragged the cop closer towards him. Seeing him the cop was more understanding not seeing him as a monster but they thought Zane was just goofing around for some fun to play a prank on some people likely for an internet video. Nervous Zane tried to explain his circumstance to the cop but it came out in his scrambled speech which was frustrating him making him sound more aggressive than he intended due to his frustrations.

“Okay buddy no need to get moody. That’s a pretty good costume but now’s not the time to be playing around as a monster just to scare people. Now I don’t know what language you’re speaking but maybe we can get a translator back at the station to clear things up now why don’t you take off the head piece and come with me. You’re not in trouble we just want a word with you,” the cop told him. Zane tried to explain the problem but his attempts were useless as nothing he said came out clearly making him more frustrated and nervous. Without realising it agitated he was slowly backing away from the cop worried they might pull out a taser on him. It really hurt him to be shocked so he wanted to avoid that as much as possible. He backed up into a car setting off its alarm when he bumped into it. With his nervousness the sudden sound from the car startled him and without thinking he rushed off to escape the situation feeling overwhelmed and trapped from it all. When he bolted the cop called for reinforcements when he didn’t listen to them when they told him to stop. Not wanting to be caught Zane looked for a place to hide. He thought of an alleyway but he knew that would be the first place they’d look for him. He rushed to behind the store where he found a creek with foliage along its banks lining the alleyway behind the building. The creek went under a road where it went through a tunnel beneath the bridge. That didn’t seem like a place many would look for him. Thinking that would be a safe place to hide he got down to the river and hid under the bridge putting himself in the shadows. Not long after he hid the cop joined by two others and a few civilians including a worker from the store came around back looking for him. Sure enough they didn’t suspect the river thinking he wouldn’t want to get his costume wet so instead were checking the bins behind back. The only ones that seemed to realise he was there were the ducks chilling in the creek who were keeping their distance and looking at him nervous and wary clearly unsettled and confused by his cloak but they at least were quite not catching anyone’s attention. After a couple minutes and not finding anything the cops felt he had crossed the bridge and headed off to look down the street while the others went back to their business elsewhere. Despite no one being there to look for him Zane didn’t feel comfortable leaving his hiding spot worried to catch more of the wrong attention. He tried to focus and gain control of his cloak but couldn’t. It was glitched out and in his dazed state he had lost control of it. He remained there for a short time the ducks soon loosing fear of him and coming close to investigate getting baffled over why when they bit his illusions tail it glitched in and out of existence and they couldn’t get anything. The ducks at least helped him calm down and relax a little. It wasn’t long till the others found him when they came looking for him after finding he wasn’t on the ship. Lloyd nearly hit him with his powers scared to see him hiding in the shadows with the monster disguise thinking he was a real monster but Cole luckily stopped him before he hit Zane with a blast of his powers.

“Zane is that you?” Cole wondered and Zane tried to explain what happened cautiously coming up to them. Cole was able to deduce a good deal of what Zane was trying to say and translate it for them. Zane was embarrassed by his screw up and getting into trouble. He was also worried of getting caught by the police.

“Seems you’re having more problems huh; why don’t we get back to the Bounty and we can try to fix this. Don’t worry if we run into any cops we can fix things,” Lloyd comforted as they led Zane back to the Bounty. On the way back they did run into a cop but the others were able to clear things up and get Zane out of trouble. They explained that it was an accident as Zane wasn’t doing so good, Kai referred to it as glitching, the cops were rather understanding and just let them off with a warning suggesting not to leave Zane alone when he was in this state. When they got back to the Bounty as they headed home Lloyd and Skylor worked on fixing Zanes cloak. They had to manually hack him in order to forcefully shut it off. They advised him that till his head was better to avoid using his cloaking ability as his dazed state was causing it to glitch. Before they got home they stopped off and delivered the fox to a wildlife rehab; the fox was rather chill with everything. When they returned home knowing he was destined to just screw up in his state Zane just let the others get to work putting things away while he wandered around unsure what to do afraid to do anything in case he screwed something up and keeping out of the others way. He had his powers malfunctioning cooling the area, leaving ice patches on his skin and causing ice to build on surfaces he touched or liquids nearby like in bottles, the toilets and even on the damp clothes in the laundry which Lloyd was starting up to clean them from Zanes mistake earlier to prevent mold from developing on anything. The gloves he was wearing were at least keeping Zanes hands from getting stuck frozen to things. Cole was quick to note that not only was his state bothering him but was now upsetting Zane and lowering his mood making his loss of control to his powers worse. Seeing his state Cole felt Zane could use something to cheer him up which could help him regain control of his powers further cheering him up so sat him in the recreation room to play some video games while they finished working to put things away, clean up the ice Zane had left in various places and inspect the stove from the previous nights events and fix anything they could. As they worked Cole kept an eye on Zane to make sure he didn’t wander off. Things were fine till after nearly two hours of work the one time Cole went to check on Zane he found him missing. They could see no sign of where he went; it looked like he had just got up and left. Worried they checked on a tablet to help find Zane instead of just wandering around to look for him. When they picked up his signal they were quite surprised. They expected Zane to be somewhere close by in the monastery but somehow he had wandered off out of the monastery down the mountain to a forested area below. Not long after they had returned to the monastery it had started to rain heavily outside. Even though Zane wasn’t bothered by rain, it couldn’t hurt him or make him sick, they never expected he would just wander off through the wilderness while it was raining especially on his own in his current condition. He would have played it safe and stayed in the monastery till his head was in better state. Cole felt in his dazed state Zane had just gone for a walk to relax likely forgetting he was not in the best of shapes. It took them nearly twenty minutes for them to reach where Zane was. They located Zane in a small boggy bay to a small lake along a path in the woods. When they found Zane he was standing knee deep in the boggy section next to a flooded stump that had some foliage growing out of it holding a little turtle that was clearly scared of being held trying to get out of his hands while Zane looked over it confused.

When they questioned him what he was doing they believed Zane was trying to determine the species of turtle. Instead of just observing it and letting it be or being more gentle and careful when interacting with it like he normally would in his dazed state he had just wandered into the pond and picked it up like it was just some random object to inspect it. It wasn’t hard for them to convince him to put the turtle back in the water and come ashore. Along with being wet he was rather dirty clearly having fallen down a few times as he had wandered off likely falling once in the swamp as well putting mud, some algae and plant debris stuck to him and in his hair. Cole and Lloyd asked him why he had wandered off as they picked off as much of the debris and algae they could off him. From what Cole could understand when they asked him why he had wandered off Zane had gone for a walk in the wilderness to relax and calm down. The game had been helping but he had still been causing ice to build up on things in the room. Worried it could damage something he decided to go for a walk where he was not likely to severely damage anything till he had regained control of his powers. He had been very careful to try and not trip. He had managed to get down the mountain fine but got distracted by a birds song once in the forest. Without thinking he had just wandered off stumbling a bit through the woods to find the bird giving the song. It was a species of warbler making the sound. After watching it a short time enjoying its singing he noted the swamp and saw the turtle. He couldn’t figure out what it was so went to get a better look tripping into the swamp landing face down in it. He felt strange to not register that he had fell just getting up and continuing to inspect the turtle as if nothing had happened. He defiantly seemed more relaxed than when they had returned to the monastery from his walk and clearly had regained control of his powers.

“I think it’s time we head back now and get Zane fixed up before he gets into more trouble and hopefully before the others return,” Lloyd worried and Cole commented giving Zane a pat to the shoulder as he talked to Zane “yha I think it’s time we get your head all fixed up huh pal.” They decided they’d get the recalibration started for Zane while some of them went to get some dinner as they had still been working on the stove before having to search for Zane which needed a serious cleaning to get it fit for use again. On their way back Zane tripped up the steps to the monastery a few times but they didn’t have much trouble getting him back to the Monastery. When they got to the Monastery grounds all but Zane were surprised to find two complete strangers decked out in burglar style attire nervously sneaking through the courtyard towards the door. After having spent the night largely trapped in ice the two had spent the day trying to quietly break free as the ice slowly melted. Every time someone came downstairs to get something from one of the storage rooms they stopped and went quiet waiting for whoever came down to leave. Cole had mistaken them trying to keep some ice from falling off the ice that still trapped them from the chest down as rats, Lloyd had thought the same a little later when he’d gone down to check on his secret stash of candies he had hidden in the pantry storage room. Kai had heard a noise when he went to confirm for Cole on the list he was making for shopping if they had some things they could use for meals during the week however he had just brushed the noises off thinking he had just heard things. It had taken nearly all day for the ice to melt enough for them to get free then warm up enough to feel able to try and escape. They had heard and seen as Cole, Lloyd and Kai restocked things in the basement and felt they would have to wait till nightfall to try and escape not wanting to run into Zane or the chicken again. When they heard the others rush out to find Zane they decided to take that break with them all out to escape hoping to make it out before they returned but had run into the chicken who had chased them around till they managed to trap her in the basement. The two had then started to sneak out hoping they were now free only to run into the ninja as they returned.

“Hey who are you two?” Kai wondered and after a moments pause the one crook mumbled, “site seeing?” Cole quickly countered, “on private property? This is our home not some museum. Unless we invited you then you shouldn’t be here and I don’t recall inviting either of you.”

“If you surrender we’ll…” Lloyd began before the two fearing to get in a fight with them and knowing they were in trouble and caught tried to make an escape rushing back towards the monastery hoping to find another way out or somewhere to hide to escape later but Cole, Lloyd, Kai and Skylor were quickly after them. Zane just walked past not seeming to be aware anything was going on as he headed into the monastery stumbling up the wooden decking and walking into a wall as he headed in. It didn’t take long for the four to restrain the criminals who pleaded they’d show mercy.

“What were you two doing?” Lloyd wondered and the one responded, “we were told you have plenty of special and unique items in your monastery that we could get some serious coin for…” The second then started, “all we found was a crazy chicken and a night frozen in ice.” The two in fear then went on to babble about sneaking in after Lloyd locked up climbing over the wall and starting to search rooms while Zane kept bothering them aware they were there then how Zane had cornered them in the basement before they got attacked by a chicken after shocking Zane who then froze them and seemed to forget about them then about their day trying to break free before finally getting free only to get attacked by the chicken again before getting caught. Seeing they were just petty criminals they decided to let them off lightly and take them to the cops to be charged for trespassing. Cole got Lloyd and Kai to take them to the cops and pick up some dinner telling them to remember that Nya and Jay would likely be back by the time they got back so to make sure they got enough for them too while he and Skylor would remain at the Monastery to help Zane. Lloyd and Kai wanted to be the ones to stay back so when Nya and Jay returned they could talk to them and keep the truth of what happened over the weekend a secret. Cole felt it better if it was him and Skylor who stayed while the two went out. Knowing Nya and Jay could be back before them Kai and Lloyd managed to get Cole and Skylor to promise not to say anything about them putting off work with Zane wanting to use his dazed state to get away with chilling all weekend and the problems his state had caused. They wanted them to pretend why they were having to do work with Zane was a result of their fight with the crooks they were taking to the cops. The two were worried they’d get in trouble for their rather irresponsible actions with Zane. Cole and Skylor were to their surprise rather co-operative with this idea. The two took the Von-Bounty for their excursion. The two crooks gave them no hassle though were nervous of having Lloyd drive thinking he wasn’t old enough nor had a drivers license. When they went into the Monastery Cole and Skylor found Zane using a dry towel by the kitchen sink which he had on but wasn’t using any of the water to try and clean himself. Turning off the tap they took him to the showers to give him a cleaning. Despite Lloyd and Kai wanting to wait till he was back to normal Cole and Skylor felt it would be nicer to Zane to get him cleaned up first so he didn’t have to bother when back to normal. They gave him a quick shower Zane not giving them any problems as they helped him get clean before putting him in his PJ’s while they washed his clothes with another load of laundry they started. They then took him down to the Hanger Bay to hook him up to the computers and start the restore, recalibration and reboot laying him on a table and putting him offline while it went. The computer estimated it would take two hours to complete. About halfway through Nya and Jay returned home.

When Nya and Jay got home Skylor met them and brought them down to the Hanger Bay to check on their work. As they had promised Cole and Skylor went with what Kai and Lloyd had worked out pretending Zanes state was from a recent incident. Nya and Jay were rather surprised at how well Cole had done getting the whole restore, recalibration and reboot done as while no stranger to technologies he wasn’t very knowledgeable with advanced tech work or robotics. While Zane was out the two removed the game pieces from Zanes stomach which they were stuck in. Following Kai and Lloyds idea they chalked up the reason for that as an accident. Lloyd and Kai tried to get things done quickly hoping to be back before Zane got up knowing he was very likely to spill the truth over what happened unless they could convince him first to say nothing. Unfortunately the two ran into trouble with traffic and construction taking them longer than they hoped and from keeping in touch with Cole found they had been successful and Zane was awake with Jay and Nya there before they could return. After that they took their time to return to the Monastery worried over what they could be facing knowing Zane likely would have already said something which likely would get them in some trouble and wondering what they could do to escape any form of or at least serious punishment. No one said anything and when they contacted Zane he to their surprise said he wasn’t going to say anything. That just made them worried. It was not like Zane to not tell about something like this. He would rat them out so they would face punishment for their irresponsible actions. It had them worried to head home feeling the others might be up to something to punish them and were keeping quiet about it. They returned around half an hour after the work with Zane was done. As they returned Nya met the two in the kitchen while the rest were in the common room playing video games. She didn’t seem mad at them or like she knew of what had gone on making them wonder if maybe Cole had gotten Zane to go with their idea before he could say anything.

“What took you so long? Cole said you left hours ago?” Nya questioned as they dropped what they had got in the kitchen and Kai commented, “we got dinner.” Nya noted, “I know, Cole told me about his screw up with the stove but it shouldn’t have taken you two that long to drop off two crooks and get dinner.”

“We got stuck in traffic; you know what supper time traffics like. Everyone trying to get home at the same time…” Kai blurted and seeing Nya was not convinced Lloyd played into Kais thinking and elaborated, “first though we did some shopping thinking we could wait out the worst of the traffic and got some treats for everyone for a chill evening but it was a busy evening and we still got stuck in traffic anyway.” To emphasize where they had been they pulled out of some of the bags they had brought in some sweats and baked goods including a cake for Cole, some cookies, donuts, candies, sweet drinks, they’d even got a slushy for Zane.

“What inspired you to do that?” Nya wondered and Kai responded, “nothing just wanted to get some things for a chill evening.”

“Oh really, you sure it’s not to try and butter up certain individuals to cover up for the interesting weekend you caused?” Nya noted and Kai calmly stated pretending to brush the whole thing off, “it wasn’t that interesting. We had some minor problems but nothing we couldn’t handle. How was your weekend?”

“Not bad, Jays still nervous of being around dad while dad thinks Jays a little weird. How about you? I hear you had an interesting time with Zane,” Nya noted and Kai commented, “oh yha he got a little bump to the head earlier today when we took down some crooks who tried to steal from the monastery and was dazed but Cole got it fixed.”

“So I’ve heard. So what did you all get up to all weekend? I see Skylor stopped by,” Nya wondered. Kai regaled, “oh not much just did some chores, had some problems on some farms and in a bank to deal with, did some shopping to restock things… did we mention the thieves in the monastery?”

“You did and how did Zane end up swallowing 7 little plastic zombies?” Nya wondered and Lloyd commented, “oh that was an accident on Coles part. The two were goofing around seeing how many they could fit in their mouths and Zane accidently swallowed them.” Nya expressed not sounding too convinced, “I could see Cole doing that kind of activity but it doesn’t seem like something Zane would do.”

“Well since others were taking breaks he wanted to try being more relaxed and playful than usual,” Kai stated and Nya wondered, “well that’s good for him; I think Zane could use some more time to relax and be playful and not have to be the responsible one all the time. Am I to assume then someone else took the responsible role to get some things done around here. If so who do I talk to about having some of Coles underwear in my drawers? And how about the orange smell coming from some of the planters?” The two were unsure what to answer with and before they could say anything Nya continued, “I know what happened. Zane got dazed on Friday night not this evening. You two brushed off getting his head back in the right space so you could try and spend the weekend playing video games. Didn’t turn out as well as you thought it would did it?”

“Who tattled? Zane or was it Cole? We made Cole promise not to say anything he broke his promise didn’t he! He had to be the responsible one,” Kai blurt out and Nya explained, “no he didn’t break any promise. He kept his promise. Besides you made him promise tonight not to say anything and he didn’t but you said nothing about promising Saturday morning when he let me know. Besides technically it wasn’t him that let us know. Zane had told Pixal what happened Friday night. She found his speech was odd and when she contacted him in the morning and it hadn’t improved even seeming to be worse she contacted me, I contacted Zane and had to agree with her that something was wrong so then I contacted Cole knowing he would be the responsible one; he explained everything.”

“How could we forgot Zane could still contact others…” Kai commented realising in their initial idea they had overlooked one major flaw in their plan and Lloyd added, “he’s a nindroid why did we never think he could do that? How long have you known?” The two felt rather defeated and very embarrassed over forgetting such a major complication to their plans. They had thought their chill weekend plan would have been fool proof. Sure it didn’t go the way they wanted but they thought they had thought out all the workings of it. They couldn’t believe they had forgot such a crucial and important flaw. Nya replied to his question, “since Saturday morning after his incident with the speaker while Zane watered the plants with orange juice and Cole finally responded to mine and Jays texts.”

“Wait if you knew since then why whenever you texted all weekend you said nothing about it?” Kai wondered confused. While both had gotten texts from her and Jay all weekend neither had said anything or given any hints that they knew about the issue all weekend.

“Me, Jay, Cole and even Skylor agreed since Zane was in no serious danger to say nothing to let the two of you suffer the consequences of your decision…” Nya began and surprised Kai cut her off to comment, “wait Skylor told you too?” Lloyd added, “was Zane in on this?”

“Zane wasn’t in on it. With his head all dazed he was actually rather confused and not fully aware of what was going on. He was just being himself and trying to continue on like normal despite his condition. As for Skylor she let me know she was staying over and helping Cole keep Zane from getting hurt after seeing his condition. The two kept us informed about what was going on while making sure Zane was kept safe and cared for in his condition. Cole even encouraged Zane to cause problems. Knowing in his state he’d make problems he encouraged Zane to do as he felt like and not worry; the rest of you would fix everything no matter the mess he made. They also pushed off the work to fix him for later just to make you even more nervous about your little idea being found out plus so we could help fix him and remove the plastic zombies your idea caused him to eat. Jays not happy about having to do that after just getting back; it was rather gross and not something we wanted to deal with after just getting home but had to be done. Anyway me, Jay and Pixal heard quite a bit about some of the hassles Zane gave you. Couldn’t have much of a relaxing video game centered weekend with everything that went on could you? The mess in the laundry room, the shampoo bath to the bathroom, dishes in the library, the garden in the yard, washing laundry with milk, Kai in one of my dresses, the fox…” Nya explained.

“We’re in trouble aren’t we?” Lloyd wondered he and Kai accepting their defeat and waiting to know of their punishment.

“Well we talked and we all agree what you went through was a pretty good start for punishment but you’re not getting off easy. Zane also thinks you two should do his and Coles chores for a week or two as further punishment,” Nya explained.

“I guess that’s not too bad and fair,” Lloyd commented and Kai countered, “hey how come Cole gets out of this punishment?”

“Because unlike you two he wanted to do the responsible thing and get Zanes head all fixed up. He also still did his chores and didn’t complain about having to do them or having to fix the messes Zane made. Not to mention he was taking care of Zane to keep him from getting hurt and to try and make him feel better from the predicament you left him in,” Nya explained and Kai commented, “I guess that is fair.”

“Now hopefully you brought home some actual dinner and not just sweets cause Coles getting a little hangry,” Nya commented and Lloyd stated, “yha we did. We’ll get it set up in the dining room.”

“Good I’ll let the others know. Also don’t forget you need to make some of the medicinal mixture for Zane. Also I hope you two learned a lesson and will take the more responsible route in the future when something like this happens,” Nya stated before leaving the room and Lloyd stated, “yha I’m pretty sure we learned I don’t want to have to go through another weekend like this again.”

[bog--unicorn]

we don’t have running water out by the sheep field yet, so to refill their trough I either use a 5 gallon bucket and haul water from the lake or I fill up a 35 gal tank from the hose near the house and bring that down on the RTV and just open the spout and let gravity do the work. either way watering the sheep takes 45 minutes or so theee times per week which during certain times of the year is pretty miserable, but this time of year (as long as I go out before dawn cloudcover breaks or after the sun has begun to set) is very nice. I let the sheep out of their paddock to graze around the meadow and climb the sand piles and they have a great time. I take them out to graze longer when I’m not simultaneously chorin’ but even a short graze is nice as far as they’re concerned. there is nothing in this world happier than a grasseater turned out onto tall grass.

I did the chickens this morning too. J got a new feeder and waterer for them so I only have to top them up once per week or so and everything stays very clean which is awesome. they aren’t tame like some of the chickens you see on social media. we used to free range them but there are way too many predators where we are, the losses were just not worth it. they have a big coop and a big run that we will probably expand in the next year or so and they are pretty happy being more or less feral, doing chicken things without human intervention (as far as they know we only come in to make a lot of noise and fuss and the food/water filling up is coincidental).

my project for the fall is getting holyfield halter trained. she’s admittedly become a favorite and she had a sweet and calm personality that would be nice if I could bring her up by the farm stand sometimes and let people pat her. people really don’t know what sheep look like, especially hair sheep (ie guys who aren’t wooly year round), so I think folks would be interested in meeting them.

[ahdenyadahling]

Final Fantasy XV- Fate & Destiny

Chapter Two, Part One

Chapter Two: Fight or Flight

Storm clouds were rolling in just as I had finished cleaning out the Chocobo coop and rotating the eggs. We had two full-grown Chocobo females left. We had five females and two males six months ago, but as I previously mentioned: predators. The females were dutiful egg-sitters, albeit somewhat clumsy. Sometimes an egg would roll away. It’s chances for survival after being in the open for less than a day were still high, but with this sudden chill to the air, I fortified their nests with more straw and a few sticks to better insulate them.

Not half an hour later, soft rain began to fall, and I breathed deeply, enjoying the scent of a new rain, the smell of the evergreen woods. I set my rake aside as I watched my mother open the front door, leaning forward to call to me:

“Deni, you’d better hurry up and get inside. Didn’t you see that Engine above?”

I looked up, bringing my hand over my brow, blocking the rain as I scanned the sky. I caught sight of a glowing red orb perhaps a half-mile away, oddly stationary. I opened my mouth to tell her not to worry, it was still pretty far away, when thunder crashed so loudly, I nearly jumped in surprise. The airship floor opened, dropping its mechanical soldiers into the field. It was then that I noticed a purple-tinted car stop in front of them; it appeared three or four people jumped out to confront the soldiers.

The rain began to pour harder, faster, and I urged my mother to get inside. We began to hear the muffled shouts and the clanging of steel on steel, and I saw sparks fly from one of the damaged machines.

This was getting a little too close for comfort. Seeing that my mother had ducked back inside the house, I jogged to the fence to be sure the Chocobos were locked inside. I heard a few squawks, but they fell silent as I approached. A chill ran through my body as the rain began to soak through my clothes, and I froze, mid-step, paralyzed with fear. Perched atop our coop was a Voretooth, its mouth dripping with saliva. A tongue as long and thick as my arm lashed out as if measuring the distance between us. Its black eyes were now fixed on me, a bigger meal than a Chocobo chick. My hands went numb as my heart lurched into my throat, not knowing whether to make a run for it or not. I tried to recall the information my father gave me on combat and defending myself, but it was hard to do, seeing those razor-sharp teeth and claws not twenty feet from me. But two things did occur to me: get a weapon, and find out where the others were. I took my eyes from it for just a moment to search for a weapon, and when I broke contact, it lunged at me, clearing the five-foot tall fence in one pounce. When it jumped, I rolled forward, under and past it, grabbing the only weapon available: my garden hoe.

Standing upright, holding the hoe like a staff, defensively in front of me, two more Voretooths appeared, circling around the first. My heart was pounding in my ears; I had no idea if I was going to get out of this alive. I heard my mother shout my name from inside the house, and as I began to shimmy toward the door, another creature appeared, blocking the entrance, lured there by my mother’s voice. She quieted, and I pictured her in tears, helpless in assisting her only child. I couldn’t let that one break down the door and get her, either. As the three in front of me snapped at each other as if trying to lay claim to me, I saw a brief opening. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled as I darted past the one on the left. I headed for higher ground, racing toward the closest tree in my yard. There was one perhaps fifty feet away. I got about fifteen feet before the left one turned, whacking me in the back with its strong tail, its tongue wrapping around my ankle. I fell with a thud to the dampened earth, quickly rolling over with the hoe in both hands, shielding my face as a set of massive teeth clenched down on the wooden handle. It tried to bite through as it shook its head like a dog with a toy. It snorted putrid breath in my face as its body writhed above me. Its companions stomped their feet, gnashed their teeth inches from my head. Saliva dripped from their jaws, streaking down my arm. It burned so badly, I wanted to curl up into myself and cry.

[petrikaira]

The Maid

Barman's Keep, pg 4 (previous)

Rating: G general audiences

TW: Implied financial issues

She swallowed. If the Prince was something inhuman, there were a few more questions she needed answered, weren’t there?

“Lady Pandev, may I ask you what the job entails? What are the hours, and what does the work day look like?” Retha asked. She felt it was just good to ask those questions, anyways, to begin.

“Since it is a maid job, I am afraid the hours do go long into the day- we get up usually around 4 am, have to start the fires for the lords and ladies of the house and sometimes run bath water,” Zillah Pandev said. “And from there, we get a chance at a small breakfast before we help the cooks serve the lords and ladies. Then, we clean the castle until we get a small lunch, and resume after. It’s large enough that the various cleaning duties- laundry, dusting, mopping, whatever it happens to be at the time- tend to go until 8 or 9 at night. Then, we have dinner, maybe have a bath of our own if it’s our day, and go to bed to start it all over again. It can be grueling for those not wanting this sort of lifestyle.”

That sounded close to what Retha already had to put up with. The chicken farm’s hours perhaps didn’t go so late, since the sun set earlier and the chickens themselves would often go to bed, but once the sun fell she did have to help lock up the chicken coop. It didn’t seem that bad.

“Is there anything you would like to tell me about it?” Retha asked, voice low as she leaned forward, studying Zillah’s face.

The woman’s lips curled as she thought about it, a strand of graying hair gentle against her cheek. Retha was surprised to see that the worry lines across the woman’s forehead were as equal to the smile lines around her mouth. Someone who had worried as often as she had smiled- that seemed right, for the head maid. It didn’t alarm her.

“Well,” Zillah said thoughtfully. “Queen Aikaterine and her new Prince don’t always see eye to eye, so sometimes tensions run high.”

Retha settled back, feeling a sense of relief coming from deep in her chest. Zillah had waited so long to say anything, but it had felt like someone trying to figure out exactly what needed saying instead of things being hid. And she was no stranger to married couples not being on the same page- it wasn’t as if her parents were always on the same page. 

“All of that seems fine to me,” Retha admitted. “What about the pay? How much?”

“A copper every hour,” Zillah said.

Retha’s eyes widened. A copper every hour! As it was with her parents, she was lucky to get a copper once a week. In her mind she began figuring that out, counting how much that was- 4 am- 9pm, that was what? Eighteen hours? Eighteen coppers a day! She felt her heart soaring. Eighteen coppers a day! She couldn’t let them know how excited that made her.

Beside her, she could her Braam choke back on a bite of toast, clearly having put those numbers together himself. “That-” He said. Slowly. “That would be a fair wage for any maid in your castle, I’d say.”

“I would agree,” Retha said, forcing her voice to remain calm as she laced her fingers together in her lap. 

“We need time to discuss this,” Braam said. Steering the conversation. Retha was grateful for it, since she felt a little overwhelmed suddenly, herself. “How long is the offer on the flyer open for? There seems to be no date.”

“We’ll be in town for the next week, waiting to hear from any people interested,” Prince Yuki said. “Can you clean?”

Retha blinked. Looking up at him. “Yes, I’m the eldest daughter, I clean the house with Mama. Sweep the floors, scrub the windows, wipe the walls, dishes- you name it, I can do it.”

“She even does our laundry,” Braam said, flexing his arm. “See how soft my yellows are? Reth does that.”

Retha was glad her brother was actually sticking up for her. She was also surprised he remembered that she had been the one to clean his outer sleeves this time.

“Oh, that color is brightly lasting,” Zillah said, leaning forward. “I would be glad to take someone with those skills under my wing.”

Retha felt her heart welling with a bit of pride at that. She did work hard at it, even if she didn’t particularly like doing laundry. She could do it for a copper an hour, though. “Thank you.”

The Prince nodded once. “Then, we would be glad to wait for your decision, if Zillah is impressed.”

Retha took a bite of the toast to stop herself from squealing. She was right. Her excitement was as loud as ocean waves. She knew that so long as her family let her, she was accepting the position.

[lo-carb]

Ughhhh had a terrible morning. Let chickens out of coop into their safe pen, an hour later I opened my window to let some fresh air in and heard them making noises I've never heard. Ran outside and found two random dogs, they had broken into the pen and ripped out the bottom of the coop trying to get at the chickens. Ran them off and checked on the chicks, missing one. We assumed the worst and that a dog had nabbed her and taken her home, two others were lightly injured. One has a small amount of blood around her nose, another is favoring her eye, both acting normal otherwise, so we've been advised to keep an eye on them for any changes.

We drove the neighborhood and found their house pretty quickly, and oh.my.god. There was at least 15 dogs (including the 2 I ran off) out front lounging loose. The place was very run down and the dogs were in very ill condition, (crusty/boogery eyes, eyes crusted shut on many, with all of the cataracts I saw many are assumably aged) all longhaired dogs with impacted coats with dirt and twigs matted in. Waded through all of the dogs and knocked on the door, no answer.

Bf contacted sheriff since there was property damage, and we're wanting to be sure what rights we have in regards to our animals. I'm hoping since it is such a small town, that the sheriff might know the dog owners situation, and hopefully I might be able to get in some contact with her, because I've been told she's an elderly woman who lost her husband and has been declining in her ability to care for herself/animals. If that is the case, then I'm hoping I can start contacting some local organizations to help her with the animals and her own welfare. I was absolutely pissed and ready to tell someone off this morning until I realized where these dogs were coming from. This is not a clean cut situation and I'm willing to help if she's willing to take it, but I'm worried for her and her animals. This is also gun-happy rural O.K. so I'm not keen on returning to her door again and her feeling threatened by a stranger knocking, if that's why she didn't initially answer.

And THANKFULLY, even after I looked through our property high and low, the missing chicken showed up. She was just waiting at our back door unscathed after she felt it was safe to come out, like a good chicken. So very relieved she's okay.

[victorluvsalice]

Welcome to Winter Friday in the Chill Valicer Save, aka The Proper Grand Opening Of The Grocery Store! We have a lot to get through, as per usual, so let's get to it --

-->Since I started with Victor and Alice snoozing away and Smiler singing into the rec room microphone after storing their latest frog acquisitions, I took the opportunity to put away all their non-decoration-box Winterfest decorations (Smiler took down the decoration box ones later); buy them a new tree to decorate next Winterfest (hopefully this one doesn’t go up in flames too); sell the unnecessary fridge, microscope, and karaoke machine in the household inventory (Clement Frost, bring better presents next year!); and buy a new rug for the downstairs (I couldn’t remember which rug they’d had originally, so I found another big one with a pattern I liked -- though I'm actually second-guessing my choice now, especially with that color scheme). I actually want to give the house another small makeover now that they have some money and can afford to upgrade even more furniture and whatnot, but I’ll save THAT for a future update!

-->With that all sorted, I decided that I should probably let Victor and Alice sleep until about 5 AM or so in an attempt to get them on a better sleep schedule. This meant it fell to Smiler to take care of the earliest morning chores -- namely, starting the laundry (and making sure to put a snow drop into the washing machine to guarantee it all smelled nice), refilling the pet bowls (one was out entirely, and the other dispensed its last bowl right after Smiler filled up the other one), and entertaining Surprise and Shadow (after Shadow came in from her chilly nap on the porch, anyway! Why'd you decide to sleep out there next to your own poop and pee, dog?). Ah, the curse of being the one Sim in the family who doesn't have to sleep at all...

-->Not that Victor and Alice are sleeping much, because their excellent bed meant they were up by 4:45 AM anyway. XD I figured that was close enough and had Victor check on Smiler’s Sixam Mosquito Trap plant Snappy (all good) before going downstairs to make himself breakfast (fruit and yogurt parfait, yum yum :D), while poor Alice got to clean out the upstairs litter box and then run down to the back porch to lecture Surprise on drinking from puddles. Specifically, the puddle that Shadow left there. *grimace* Fortunately, Surprise listened and learned not to drink from puddles at all, and Alice was able to clean up the mess with no further “gross pets” incidents. XD I figured things would go pretty smoothly from there --

-->And then I got a message from the game claiming Moory had been unhappy for a while and might be leaving if she didn’t receive an increase in her quality of care. I was like "what?!" and sent Smiler over to investigate. Turns out she was dirty, and since she hadn’t come out of her shed the other day (due to the blizzard -- I mean, can't blame her), she’d been dirty for longer than she wanted to be. Smiler cleaned her off, then made sure she had enough attention by asking about secret cow worlds and suchlike, which fortunately she found amusing. Hopefully that convinces the cow that she’s appreciated around the farm!

And, of course, if the cow was unhappy, the chickens might be too! They didn't have a great day in the blizzard either. So Alice got sent to make sure the coop was clean, the feed was spread, and everybody was well-socialized. Gotta take good care of your animals, after all! Especially if you haven't gotten the upgrade parts necessary to upgrade their coop/pen. (Really gotta start doing Finchwick errands again...)

[banditcoyote]

Wrangled and Tangled

Sasuga stood by the sink washing the last of the dishes from tonights meal. She smiled softly to herself as her tail flicked behind her, happy about the sets of cups and plates she had picked out, feeling domesticated and settled looking over the two sets of dishes her and her lover had shared, something about them in the drying rack felt almost romantic to her. But maybe it was just the way the sunset was showing so pink and purple over the water that was making her feel that way, the cool summer breeze blowing in from the open Lanai. She hummed to herself a little as she dried her hand and reached for the first plate, ready to dry them herself, when the dish cloth was plucked out of her hands swiftly.

“Let me take care of that.” Simon said perching himself onto the counter and starting to dry one of their plates.

“All the left overs put away?” she asked leaning against the counters and bringing her wine to her lips.

“Most of them.” he said with a nod. “Except for the second helping I couldn’t resist, which is now residing in my stomach.”  

She laughed lightly, brushing her hair back behind her ear “Well I’m glad you enjoyed it.” She said with a nod, moving to cozy up to him just a little bit, her eyes full of warmth, and maybe a bit of mischief. “Maybe we can enjoy some other things when you’re done putting those dishes away.” She said with a curl to her lips.

Simon returned the smile and took a moment to lean down to kiss her easily, drawing back with a little hum. “I can think of some things for sure.” He added. “But before we get too distracted.” He placed the clean plate down on the counter and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small ring box and placing it on the counter next to her hand. “Happy Anniversary.”

Sasuga froze at the sight of the small velvet box and her large eyes went wide, slowly looking up into Simon’s face, searching for the meaning.

Simon at once realizing what she might have thought smiled and blushed. “I know we’ve talked about it, but this is just a promise ring.”  Sasuga let go of the breath she was holding with some relief. He picked the box up and opened it. “See?” inside was a thing gold band with a small rose quartz crystal cut into the shape of a heart that side horizontal to the finger. He reached for her left hand and slid it on to her ring finger kissing it into place. “I love you Sasuga, I know that this might not be perfect, but I wanted you to know how much you mean to me.” Sasuga looked to the ring on her finger, feeling tears pull at the corner of her eyes. He hopped down from the counter “Oh no….is it too much? I know we said we weren’t going to do anything, that dinner was enough but-“

She shook her head “Don’t be stupid.” She said choking back her emotions. “I love it. I love you….Thank you.” She looked at the ring again before reaching up to tug on one of his horns pulling him down into a kiss. “Forget the dishes….come on.” She said, her tail already snaking up around his waist to guide him toward their bedroom.

Coyote woke up with a start, staring up into the dark ceiling above him. He contemplated for a moment what that dream could have meant, and his jaw tightened in his face. Did Sasuga sleep with Simon while he was away, it was the only rule he had given. Or maybe that had made the whole thing more enticing for the two of them. Still, why would Sasuga end up with Simon, he had the feeling he was absent, that house not looking familiar to him in the slightest. He closed his eyes again, almost willing it to come back to him, but some of the finer details were already fading from his memory, and all he remembered was the way the pair looked longingly at each other before they kissed. He gave a little growl and pushed himself up quickly to throw on some jeans and a shirt.

“Coyote?” Shishi asked lifting his head from where he was curled up on one of the pillows. “Where are you going?” he asked rubbing one of his eyes sleepily.

“I’m heading back to the Makai” he told Shishi as he pulled his shirt down over his torso.

The imp eyed the view appreciatively before his senses snapped back to him. “Should I be worried?” he asked knowing of Coyote’s sometimes prophetic dreams, and he wondered if he had some type of vision of Sasuga’s fights. “Do you want me to come with you?”

Coyote shook his head. “No. No. It’s nothing like that it’s….” only he wasn’t entirely sure he could begin to really understand it himself. He shook his head “Sasuga’s fine. I just need to see her. I only had that one other show at the end of the week anyway, stay here, I’ll go tell Russell to pack everything up and head on home. You’ll be fine finding a flight right? I mean, stay the night, don’t leave on my account.”

Shishi laughed “Oh it was that kind of dream was it?” he grinned. “Okay, Well, tell her I said hello and get back safely.” He said as he yawned and laid back down to sleep. “I’m sure Kurama and Gatlin will be happy to have me home, if they haven’t torn each other apart yet…”

Coyote slapped on his cowboy hat and grabbed a jacket though he felt his skin burning. “And you remember what we said about this right?” he asked as he headed toward the door.

“My lips are sealed.” Shishi murmured. “Not a word to anyone”

“Especially to Sasuga.” He confirmed hand on the door.

“Especially Sasuga.” Shishi promised “She’d probably be more upset with me than you anyway” and waved him off.

Coyote found himself easily at his ring manager’s trailer, pounding on the door. He felt bad to be waking Russell up like this but he knew he couldn’t just disappear in the middle of the night and leave Shishi to explain for  him, things looked weird enough having him around. Russell answered the door, looking as if he was still blinking back sleep. “Coyote, everything alright?” he asked looking around.

“No…Um no, there was a fire back at the ranch.” He said lying on his feet. Thinking easily of the fire at Thom’s he could use as a cover even if the time line wouldn’t match up. He figured it would never get back to Russell anyways. The manager looked concerned. “It’s nothing big, a small one thank god, no one hurt, but I really should get out there, I know we only have the exhibit at the end of the week so I was just going to head home now. Would that be too much of a pain for ya’ll to handle?”

Russell cleared the sleep from his eyes with his hand “Yeah, yeah I can handle it no problem. Take care, hope it’s as small as you say.” He said and headed back to his bed.

Coyote made one more stop, saying farewell to Poncho in his trailer, before he headed towards the nearest portal in the woods, which was still pretty far, and Coyote had to be careful no one saw him as he slipped into the woods and transformed, having to sprint as fast as he could to reach the portal before daylight. He was glad he had the foresight to try and keep his motorcycle as close to him as possible, as the only other way he could have gotten there was to fly back home and then race to her, and he wasn’t sure he could stand being on a plane the way he was feeling.  All cooped up without being able to run or move, or do anything. It would have been torture, not like the past few weeks hadn’t been. The time away from Sasuga had been harder than he’d like to admit, and he already knew he would never plan on being away from her like this again. All the time away from her he had felt like pulling his skin off. He had helped Thom around her house before he left, and at the rodeo he did more of the manual work than anyone really wanted him to. He ran Poncho as often as he felt he could without causing the poor animal too much strain, and then would run laps as fast as he could as long as he could well into the night. But it was never enough, the women that tried to greet him as soon as he stepped out of the rodeo corral still enticed him to the point he had to nearly run back to his RV. All that hair, perfume, and how the hell where they making such good bras now adays? Though he was sure that some of breasts out there weren’t only held up by a bra but maybe some type of surgery, that didn’t sway him away any. Then the fact that in some of the more populous areas there were actual demon women in the crowds, and those he really had to avoid. He was sure they’d sense something about him, and he was doing his best to be incognito. Luckily his prior years of fooling around with plenty of the women at these things rarely had any of his crew spotting him being social, so now that he was hiding out on his own it went unnoticed. Coyote tried to run himself ragged, exercise, the rodeo, his variety of plants and a few sex toys paired unironically with the body pillow he had snuck on board, none of it had done the exact trick. Which had then led him to call Shishi. It had been a long shot, but it didn’t take much convincing getting him to come out to see him in secret, even if he was a bit miffed at having to mostly stay hidden at the events. Coyote let him have the pass into where the wives or girlfriend’s normally sat, and he posed in his refinery during the events when it fancied him. It had helped tire him out, but he still hadn’t been getting enoug

He thought he could remain out here for the full month, and they had gotten so close, it was almost silly to run now. But after the dream with her and Simon he just couldn’t deny the ache he felt for his mate any longer and he had to find his way back to her. Dawn was just about to break as he reached the portal and he wasted no time heading through it and heading towards where he had hidden his bike. He felt like a dog that had gotten a scent, and he wasn’t going to rest until he got to her. **** Four days later still hours from dawn, Coyote stashed the bike behind the hotel, barely taking care to hide it, and stumbled into the lobby. He had all the faith in the world that Sasuga was still in the tournament, and held the most hope that meant she was still in the hotel room that he had the key stashed for. He limped into the lobby where the clerk paled at the site of him. “Sir….” He said rushing around the desk and towards him. “Do you need a medic?” he asked looking him over.

Coyote didn’t waste the energy to speak to him and only shook his head as he stumbled forward before catching his balance again. He knew what he looked like, but wasn’t stopped as it was clear the clerk in his pristine uniform was afraid to touch him at all.

“Is there someone I can call?” he said walking along side him as Coyote shuffled to the elevator, bracing himself against the lobby wall and causing a smear of blood to press into the wall paper.

Coyote considered it for a moment, but shook his head again. If Sasuga was still in the tournament this late in the game there was a chance she was injured as well, and he wanted her to save her strength for fighting. He’d be okay. He just needed a shower, some stitches, and her.

The clerk did not follow him into the elevator, being the main hotel for the tournament he was surely not the only injured guest they received, and he retreated back to their desk, probably to call for maintenance to clean up whatever other mess Coyote had left behind him. He leaned against the wall as it started it’s ascension toward the upper floors, again leaving a smear of dirt and blood where his shoulder braced himself. A few droplets of blood dripping from somewhere onto the floor. It seemed to take forever for the elevator to reach it’s destination, the doors pausing once as a couple was about to get on, but after seeing him let him go on without a question. Coyote almost passed out, unsure if it was from blood loss or exhaustion, but the dinging and wooshing of the doors riled him, and he staggered out into the hallway. Knowing he was so close to Sasuga spurred him on, and he was relieved to find that the card key still worked. He let himself into the hotel room, finding it dark and quiet and he did his best to move with stealth into the bathroom. He passed the bed and spotted Sasuga sleeping peacefully by herself, he was grateful for this because with the rage that was still somewhat in his veins if he had found Simon with her he might have taken a regrettable action. In that moment iat took everything in him to not simply cover her with himself, though with how dirty he was he knew it would only concern her more. There was blood in his mouth and under his fingernails, matting his hair down and sticking to his hat. Better to clean himself up first, and he shut the bathroom door behind him before turning on the light.

He did his best not to look at himself in the mirror, but finding it a necessity to assess some of the damage. If he had made it this far like this it couldn’t have been too bad. Still he was in rough shape. Not only was his face cut, bruised, and swollen, but he had also lost enough weight that he appeared gaunt under the torn and dirty clothes he wore. He slowly undressed, assessing each wound, fresh bruises forming on top of old ones, some cuts that were still bleeding every time he moved, gashes that would no doubt need to be closed up. He hissed as some of the clothing stuck to him where blood had dried, let his effects fall to the floor, his gun empty and tucked back in his holster, and stepped into the shower letting the water strike at his feet until it was warm enough to step into. He braced himself against the wall, letting it flow over his hair and down his back, feeling the sense of relief start to fill him as well. He had made it, he was close to resting, and he was close to his mate, that was all he could ask for right now.

[saradika]

Bred

Din Djarin x F!Reader

Rating: E | 6.1k words

“Don’t push me.” His voice is lower than you’ve ever heard it, practically a growl.

“Or what?” You taunt, your self-preservation disappearing faster than credits at a sabacc table, “You’ll fuck a baby into me?”

The silence that fills the room is absolutely deafening.

----

Or - Mando realizes he has a Breeding Kink

Tags/Warnings: Breeding Kink, No Pregnancy (but talks of it), Praise Kink, light sub/dom-ish, did I mention praise kink?

[Also posted to A03 here!]

-----

“No.”

Karga sighs, hands on his hips as he throws an impatient glance at Din. You glance between them, holding the Child in your arms, as the four of you stand outside the cantina on Nevarro. Your eyes scan the structure, it seems recently repaired and freshly repainted - not at all the blasted up pile of rubble Din had described.

The three of you had touched down on the volcanic planet earlier this morning, a “quick detour” from your true destination of Corvus. The Razor Crest was in desperate need of repairs, and you had done your best patching the old girl in space. But sometimes, you just had to swallow your pride and ask for help.

Karga met Din when you landed, offering to help out with the repairs in exchange for a personal favor. And apparently it was time-sensitive, and you were already running late.

“He’ll be okay in here for the day.” Karga gestures at the open, bright doorway.

“I said, no.” Din argues, crossing his arms over his chest, “I’m not leaving him in a Cantina all day.”

“It’s not a Cantina anymore, it’s a school. He’ll be safe, you can help me out, and your lady can take a well-earned rest.” He cajoles, shooting an amiable wink your way. “And we can finally be on our way.”

You roll your eyes internally. Karga was nice enough, but some of his smooth comments made your lip curl. But you still take a few steps forward, glancing in the doorway enough to see that he is right. The building has been transformed, the dingy floor now fresh and clean, with chairs and desks arranged in neat little rows.

Din grunts noncommittally while crossing his arms, obviously still uncomfortable with the suggestion.

“I’m not pushing you, but I think he’d love it.” You nod down at the Child, who’s large eyes were taking in the buzzing room with excitement.

He considers your words for a long moment before sighing, giving a short, quick nod. Smiling, you gather the Child up in your arms, entering the brightly-lit room. You are being honest, you are sure that the Child would love to play with someone closer to his size, rather than the two boring adults he’s been cooped up with in space for the past few weeks.

A protocol droid was teaching a small class of students, assisted by an older human woman. She smiles when you enter the room, glancing down at the kid, and pointing at an open seat on the end row. You shoot her a grateful smile as you walk towards the seat she gestures to.

“Mind your manners, okay sweetheart?” You kiss the Child’s head, gently settling him in the seat, “Your Dad and I will pick you up in a bit.”

You knew Din wasn’t really his Dad, but didn’t want to bother explaining the whole backstory to the teacher. Even with the old bounties gone, sometimes it was safer to just let them assume. You make for the door, throwing him one last look and smiling at his obvious enthusiasm.

As you wave goodbye, his large, dark eyes focus on you for a long moment, before they whip around to view the other kids in the room, his mouth falling open into a joyous smile. The sight of him makes you sigh, your heart tightening in your chest.

“I’ll pick him up this afternoon.” You tell Din, but he’s still gazing at the Child, looking so tender and small at the human-sized desk.

“I won’t let anything happen to him.” Your hand brushes his arm, pulling him back to the present.

His head tilts your way, studying you for a moment before giving you a small nod of acknowledgment, “I know.”

“Okay Mando, let’s begin.” Karga claps him on the shoulder, leading him away to meet up with the others.

You made your way back to the ship, skirting around the Mimbanese who was already pulling panels off the side. The afternoon was uneventful, after giving the Crest a once-over you took the rare free time to wander the market, hoping whatever Karga got Din into wasn’t too dangerous. Eventually you make your way back, settling on a flat rock in the shade of the ship, taking in the sights.

A few hours later they arrive back in town, the Mythrol they took with them looking fairly put out. Karga ia laughing, obviously delighted about the favor - whatever it was - turned out. He claps Din on the back, and they spend a few minutes talking before he turns, making his way towards you.

You take him in, long, purposeful strides, the sun glinting off the silver Beskar, cloak billowing in the strong desert breeze. You tilt your head back as he stops next to you, shooting him a warm smile.

“How’d it go?” You ask, shielding your face from the sun with your hand.

“Fine.” His answer is short, but that wasn’t unusual. You’re sure he’ll tell you more about it later.

“Well, the Child is almost done with school, do you want to pick him up with me?”

Of course he did, he had probably been worrying about how the Child was doing all day. The walk to the renovated school was short and quiet, and the children are just finishing up for the day. The droid is cleaning up the tables, and the older woman is helping all the children gather their belongings together.

“Hey little guy, your mom is here.” The teacher calls the Child, who was sitting at the little desk and holding a - blue cookie? Where in Maker’s name did he get that?

She scoops the Child up in her arms, making her way over to you. She pauses for a moment when she spots Mando in the hallway next to you, eyes widening at first, but then she smiles.

“Oh, and your Dad is too! That’s so sweet. He’s an absolute darling, we all will be happy to see him again tomorrow if you’re still in town.”

Mando visibly stiffens next to you, his already tight posture becomes as rigid as durasteel. He inhales a short breath, the sound crackling through his vocoder.

“O-oh, I’m not-, he’s, uh-” you stutter, but the teacher is already handing the Child to you, anxious to keep an eye on the rest of the children.

“Sorry Mando, I know he’s not… I mean, I didn’t say he was-,” You turn to face him, the little green guy perking up as he sees Din.

“It’s fine.” He replies tersely, voice strained while gesturing to the door with a tilt of his helmet. “Let’s go.”

As you turn to leave, the teacher reappears at the door, thrusting a folded piece of paper into your hand. You take it automatically, brow wrinkling in confusion.

“We drew our families in class today,” she explains, distracted, “I’m sure your child would love to tell you all about it.”

Thanking her, you adjust Grogu on your hip, unfolding the paper as you exit the renovated schoolhouse.

The paper was a mess of scribbles, and it seems like he used every color available. In the middle of the multicolored swirl was a small greenish circle, the lines pressed deep into the paper. Next to him was what looked like a tall gray oval, and on the other is a shorter oval.

You hold the paper in front of you as you walk, showing it to the Child.

“This is so good, buddy!” You praise, while pointing at the short green figure, “Is this you?”

He giggles happily, doing a sort of nod, his arms waving at the paper.

You laugh too, moving on to the tall oval, “And this has to be Mando, right?”

Right again, and the giggling continues as he enjoys this little guessing game.

“Who is this?” You ask, pointing to the third figure. “Karga?”

He shakes his head, large eyes focusing on you, ears wiggling.

“No? Is it Cara?” You question, cocking your head to look down at him.

The Child’s eyes blink up at you, his tiny hand coming up to point a little finger towards your face.

“It’s me?”

His nod and smile are infectious, and your heart melts.

“Oh, buddy.” You coo, as you squeeze him, a high-pitch squeal coming from his little, smiling face.

Din walks just a little faster after that, making it to the Crest before you. He disappears into the bowels of the ship before you can even make it up the ramp.

Shrugging, you pin the drawing to one of the metal panels in the cockpit, settling down in one of the seats to ask the Child about his day. And find out where he got that delicious-looking cookie.

-----

It’s hours later, and Din has run out of guns to clean. Every single piece he owns has been stripped down, cleaned, and reassembled. The carbonite chamber has been checked, and his armor has been polished.

Dragging himself up to the cockpit, he sits down in the pilot’s chair. He gazes out of the window but it’s late, and there’s not much to see outside. He swivels slowly in his seat, pausing when the Child’s drawing comes into view. After a long look he grunts, stands back up, and heads back to the lower level.

The Girl and the Child went to bed a while ago, and he does feel bad about that. He knows he’s been avoiding her all day, but it was for the better. He looks in on them, she’s wrapped in a blanket in his bunk, her arm stretching out in her sleep towards the pram. Shaking his head, he leaves, making quietly down the hallway to the refresher at the end.

Din growls to himself, muscles clenching as he strips down, removing his armor and creating a careful pile in the corner.

His brown eyes scan over his face in the small, dingy mirror, eyebrows knit together in a glare, cheeks flushed. He couldn’t bring himself to go to her like this, so he locks himself in here, promising that he’ll feel better after a quick release.

“Stop it.” He points a finger at himself, “Stop thinking about her like that.”

He steps into the sonic shower but he can’t, he can’t stop the visions pouring into his mind. Things that he’s been thinking all day, half-hard and unable to concentrate on anything else.

Din had always been aware of the budding, tender feelings he felt towards the Girl. Seeing her kindness and goodness with the Child, how she accepted both of them so completely and with such compassion. Somewhere along the way it evolved from “he’d protect the Child with his life” to “he’d protect them with his life”.

But it feels like something has changed, like something in his head has cracked open, allowing thoughts he’s never fully entertained to flood in. Like something primal had awakened in him, and he was just now starting to understand it.

In the low light he can’t help it, he thinks about… about how she’d look, on her knees and begging for him to fill her. How he would, day after day until they got it right, leaving her full to the brim with his release. How everyone that would see her would know she was his, swollen and heavy with his child.

He wonders if, in another life, they would be a clan of four. If she would wear his Mudhorn signet stitched on her clothes or even - and this makes his breath hitch - tattooed on her skin like a brand.

His hand drops to wrap around his length, already hard and aching against the tight muscles of his stomach. Din’s thumb circles the tip, feeling how his precome already dampens the skin. He closes his eyes as he strokes himself, thinking about her perfect lips around him - her sweet pussy, always so tight and so wet, just for him.

Mouth dropping open, his tongue swipes over dry lips as his hand moves to stroke his length. He’s already close, his forearm coming up to brace against the wall, supporting himself. His forehead rests on his arm as his hips jerk, flexing as he fucks hard into his hand.

Her name is on his lips, a groan that’s already too loud and shameless in the tiny, cramped room. His mouth shifts up and he bites down on his own wrist hard to silence himself as he comes, teeth creating matching grooves that will bruise his skin for days to come.

Hot, sticky release covers his hand, coming out of him in heavy, thick ropes as he pumps himself dry. The relief is instant from a full day of edging, from being too busy to take care of his problem.

Panting, he cleans himself, trying not to think too hard about his behavior. It was just a fantasy, it was fine. He could do this.

Kriff, they would only be on this goddamn planet for another day or so - he could hold it together until then. Then, once it wasn’t taunting him every day, he could finally forget about all of this and they could get back to normal.

-----

The next morning, the bed is as empty as when you went to sleep, Din already awake and outside with the Child. You stop by the refresher and change, preparing to meet them outside to take the Child to school. He no longer needed to go, but the ship would be grounded for another day, and he’d love to spend another day with the other children.

The teacher meets you at the door, a smile on her kind, wrinkled face, “So glad to see you returned. Everyone will be excited to see your Child, he is so polite for a child his age. You two are great parents.”

This time you can’t mistake the low growl from Din, his hands curling into tight fists at his side. His body tilts away from you, shifting until he’s looking out over the dunes, hands moving to grip his belt tightly, the leather of his gloves creaking.

You smile in thanks, handing the Kid over to her, “You hear that, little guy? Be good today, too.”

He coos in reply, already smiling at the noise and chatter in the room. You wave as he disappears inside, the droid starting to call the class to order.

When you get back to the Crest, you break apart, Din moving further into the ship, while you inspect some of the wiring that had been repaired yesterday. You weren’t great with the electrical components yet, most of your repair experience was with the mechanical side of the ship.

You had left your datapad in Din’s bunk a few days ago, and decide to head that way to retrieve it. Might as well use the spare time to figure out what went wrong, in case there was a next time. Nevarro might not always be so close by.

The bunk door is open, something you catalog as a little unusual, but perhaps the current wiring they were working on ran through the walls in that room. You step inside, almost running into Din, who is rummaging through some of the storage crates off to the side.

“Oh, hey.” You smile, not expecting to see him inside. He was rarely in his bunk, only to sleep, or when spending alone time with you.

He seems to freeze, almost guarding himself as you enter the room. You eye him suspiciously in response, your head tilting slightly as you examine him.

“Is everything okay?” You ask, taking in his rigid posture, the way his helmet moves to face slightly away from you, instead of looking at you.

“Of course.” His reply is terse. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

You’d always been intuitive, something that had both saved your life in the past, and gotten you into trouble more times than you’d like to admit. Something was definitely up, and you were going to find out what.

“You’ve been acting... funny lately. And I think you’re avoiding me.” You gently accuse, narrowing your eyes in thought, “Ever since you went off with Karga. Did something happen?”

His helmet snaps towards you, as if he didn’t expect this line of questioning, “No, nothing happened. It went fine. And I am not avoiding you.”

You shrug one shoulder, trying to think what else it could be. Honestly, you thought he had been acting a little unusual since before he left. Other than the mission, the only thing that had gone on was landing on Nevarro in the first place, and then taking the Child to school. Realization dawns on you. Oh, right.

“Is it what the teacher said?” Your voice is quiet, eyes searching his helmet. “That I was the Child’s mom?”

Din stilled, helmet turning slowly to face you. He hesitates before looking away, crossing his arms over his broad chest in a protective, and somewhat guilty, gesture.

“Kriff, Din. I told you I didn’t ask her to call me his mother. I would never.” You didn’t mean to sound angry, but you did, “Are you still upset about that?”

You knew perfectly well what the situation was. You had been traveling with the two of them for months, you knew how complicated things were. The only reason you hadn’t corrected or denied it was to keep the Child safe. He had to know that.

But it still hurt a little, that he would react in such a way. That he would reject the idea of you being mistaken as a motherly figure so utterly, so completely that it caused a physical reaction from him. You thought the two of you were closer than that, but you suppose you misunderstood. This realization only adds fuel to your already building irritation.

“No,” Din’s voice was rough, as if he was grating his teeth behind the helmet. “I wasn’t… upset.”

“Then what were you?” You raised your eyebrows, “You sure as hell didn’t seem happy about it. I don’t know why you’re mad at me. I didn’t-”

“I’m not mad. I wasn’t mad.” He interrupts you with a snarl, temper getting the better of him.

“Then what?” You press, arms folding defensively.

He makes a frustrated sound, one hand raising to slide over the top of his helmet uncomfortably, his shoulders curving in on himself.

“What? Did it make you upset?” You knew you were being ridiculous, but you were too wound up to stop. “Sad? Were you annoyed?”

“No, I-.” He’s shifting uncomfortably, but you keep pushing.

“Did you like it?” You throw this emotion out at random, dead set on asking every possible combination until he answers.

“Y-Yes.” He breaks under your pressure, the word sliding out as a quiet, low groan.

Oh. You blink as a heavy silence fills the room, and you sense that Din did not mean to say that out loud. And you were certainly not expecting that answer. You lick your lip, the burning anger fading to just a small, smoldering flame. Not angry anymore, but you’re still annoyed and more than a little curious, and you’re not ready to let it go just yet.

“You, uh... liked that she thought I was the Child’s mom?”

“Drop it.” He warns, pointing a finger at you and quickly making towards the door.

You are closer and just a hair faster, beating him to the doorway and throwing out your arms to block him. He hesitates, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. This was interesting, was Mando actually flustered?

“Or did you like thinking I was the mother of your child?” Your voice drops as your hip pushes out, blocking more of the exit.

“Don’t push me.” His voice is lower than you’ve ever heard it, practically a growl.

“Or what?” You taunt, your self-preservation disappearing faster than credits at a sabacc table, “You’ll fuck a baby into me?”

The silence that fills the room is absolutely deafening.

The two of you state wordlessly at each other for a long moment, until something in him snaps. His posture changes, shoulders uncurling, waves of anger radiating off him.

“You are going to regret that smart mouth.” He vows softly, taking a menacing step towards you, crowding your space.

You take a step back, your self-satisfied smirk dropping from your lips. Kriff, you may have just pushed too far. His hand closes on your upper arm, tugging you forcefully back into the room while slamming the control panel to the door with the other. The door slides shut with a hiss as you stumble, hitting the edge of the bunk and falling back.

He lets go and you drop, landing on the padded mattress with a short squeak, scrambling to push yourself up on your elbows.

Din towers over you, stomping angrily until he’s standing in front of you. Gazing at him, your eyes travel up his legs, sweeping over the Beskar armor, moving up and up. Your eyes snag on his waist, at the heavy bulge straining against the fabric of his dark flight suit.

His glove-clad hand passes over it almost unconsciously, large hand cupping over his erection and squeezing it in his palm.

Your gaze raises to meet his helmet, cheeks flushing and eyes filling with heat. He bends, placing a knee on the bed between your thighs and pressing against you until your breath is catching and your lips are parting with a soft moan.

“Not so mouthy now, are you?” His voice is like honey, gliding over your skin.

You stare up at him, eyes wide, taking in the tilt of his helmet, the glint of his armor, and those wide, broad shoulders. Kriff, he was a sight, and you’d run your mouth every day if he meant he’d tower over you like this. But at the moment, your words are stuck in your throat.

“Where did your fight go, mesh’la?” He taunts. “Don’t dish out what you can’t take.”

His knee digs into your center, pressing the seam of your pants along your slit. Your legs fall open, looking down as his hands reach for you, fingers wrapping around the hem of your shirt as he tugs it off of you.

As soon as your arms are free again, you are grabbing at your trousers and undergarments, ripping them down your legs at the same time as you kick your boots off. Fully bare, you lean back on your elbows, legs spread and bracketing his thick thighs.

He pauses now, helmet tipping down to view your soft, warm skin, scanning slowly past your heaving breasts, right down to your spread thighs, arousal already dampening your center. He hums, fingers digging into your thighs.

“Are you going to fuck me or not?” You try to growl, but there’s no anger left to back it up. Just a raw, animalistic need to have this man in you, now.

He chuckles, low in his throat as he eases back, standing at the edge of the bed. Ripping his gloves off, you sigh as his bare hands wrap around your thighs again, yanking you down the bunk until your hips are level with his.

“Always so needy.” He hums, only now reaching to undo his belt and pull up his flak jacket, his other hand sliding down the zipper of his flight suit. Slowly he reaches in to pull himself out, revealing his hot, thick length. 

You loved his bare skin against yours, late at night with the lights turned off. The feeling of his lips against yours, the curls of his hair, mapping his face with your fingertips as he rocked into you. But there was something about him in his amour, covered except his hands and his cock, that made you absolutely feral.

He holds his erection over you, using the flushed tip to slide up between your folds, bumping against the nub of your clit. Your teeth bite down on your lip as you watch, his tip glistening with the slick from between your thighs.

Din moves his fist, wrapping it around the base of his shaft as he measures himself against you, seeing just how far his cock will reach inside you. He hums deep in his throats as his velvety length brushes against your skin, curving up and towards your belly.

“Think you can take all of it, sweet girl?” He coos, jerking himself over you.

You nod, lifting your hip up to rub against him. His fingers dip down to your core, brushing up your slit and feeling your arousal. His thick finger sinks into you, pumping in and out a few times before a second one slips in to join it, his palm already damp with your slick.

“Oh you’re so wet, sweet girl.” He marvels, his fingers curling and scissoring you apart. “I bet you can take me just like this.”

Usually Din will drag this part out, will fuck you with his fingers and tongue into you are a whimpering, panting mess. Only filling you with his cock when you are exhausted and spent, his length coated in your release as he enters you. But sometimes, like tonight, he can’t afford to wait that long, he needs to move, needs you to just take him. And you will.

Din lines himself up, pressing the tip into your entrance. He shifts his hips forwards and it does sting some, but he’s come to know your body better than yourself, and what it can take. With another push he sinks into you with a long, slow stroke, all the way to the hilt. You pant and gasp around him, feeling yourself stretch to accommodate his impressive girth and length.

His fingers trail up your chest, pressing against your lips and you open, letting them slide in to press down on your tongue and teeth. You both moan, your lips closing and sucking on his digits, tasting yourself. He watches, completely entranced by the way your cheeks hollow as you suck on him, how your tongue traces his calloused fingertips.

Fingers withdrawing, he seems to consider something for a moment before beginning to move, pulling himself out half-way before slamming back in. The smack and your gasp fills the air, and his hand tightens on your waist as he repeats the motion.

“I-I can’t take it, I’m sorry-” he breathes, voice hoarse, “I have to tell you-”

You purposely clench around him, tightening your muscles around his cock and beg, “Tell me.”

“Fuck, ever since that woman said-,” he groans, the confession tumbling from his lips. “C-called you his mother, I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Tell me what you think about.” You beg, rocking up against him, meeting his thrusts. “Do you think about fucking me, spilling your seed into me?”

“Maker, you can’t say things like that.” He groans hopelessly, head dropping down toward his chest.

You hum smugly at his reaction, one of your hands reaching to cover his with a squeeze, “Tell me, please.”

He moans at your words, hip stuttering as he loses his rhythm, “I-I think about-”

You spread your thighs wider to take him in deeper, meeting him thrust for thrust with your hips.

“H-How your sweet tits will get nice and swollen with milk,” his hands move up your waist, brushing over your ribs to squeeze your breasts with his large hands, making you groan. His thumbs circle over your tight nipples, feeling them stiffen into peaks.

“How your belly will grow with our child,” he pants, voice heavy against your skin. “Everyone will know you are mine.”

He’s picking up confidence and speed at your reactions, thrusting until he is pounding into you. His hands follow the curves of your hips, wrapping around your waist and pressing down hard, anchoring you to the bed.

“Makes me want to fuck you every day until you’re pregnant and full with my come.” He enunciates his fantasies with sharp thrusts, his cock bumping places deep within you.

You knew this was pretend, something just in this moment. This wasn’t your first time with Din, there’d been plenty of other times when he’d been buried so deep in you that you’d walk funny the next day. You knew just how much he loved coming in you, often choosing your wet cunt over your mouth when it was offered. He loved the way you looked, sprawled out on the bed, chest heaving as his spend leaked out of you.

He knew you had an implant, it was something you’d discussed before. But fuck, the way he was talking made you want to book the next open appointment at the nearest Medcenter.

Your belly tightens, his words and the current angle of his cock doing magical things to your insides and he rocks against that spot within you.

“Fuck,” you growl, hands gripping the sheet so tight it makes your joints ache. “I’m close, Din, please.”

He hums, his hand reaching down so he can feel the way you’re split open on his cock, before moving up and resting against your clit. He circles the sensitive bud with his thumb, making you keen under him.

Din loves seeing you like this, laid out on his bunk under him. Your hair spread out, a beautiful pink flush working from your pretty face down to the soft curves of your breasts. The way your body responds to him, craves him, always needing more and more. Always ready for anything and everything he can give you.

“Please what, pretty girl?” He asks, voice silky soft. He makes you ask, teases you as you beg, teetering just on the edge. Holding you taut as a bowstring, until he is ready to give you the release you need.

“Please let me come.” You beg, like he knew you will.

“Hmm, I don’t think so.” He hums slowly, shaking his head, “You were so bad earlier, pushing me like that. You know only good girls get to come.”

He growls, helmet tipping down to take you in, split open on his cock, “And I don’t think you’ve been good at all, sweet girl.”

Maker, his words, some of the things he says is enough to get you off. You reach down, managing to touch yourself for a brief, glorious moment before he grabs your wrists, pulling them above your head. One strong hand secures them there, trapped tightly within his grip.

“Stars, I-I’ll do anything.” You grit out, fighting against his hold on your wrists. He makes a deep sound in his throat, almost a chuckle.

“Anything, mesh’la?” His voice is dangerously dark, “You’ll let me fill you full of warriors?”

“Yes!” You cry out, tears pricking your eyes with frustration, “Make me yours, make me come, please.”

He relents, holding your wrists for just a moment longer before releasing them. Silently letting you know this was his decision, that he’s allowing you to come.

“Just remember, when you’re pretty and swollen with my child,” He grips your body, pulling your thighs around his hips, “That you asked for this. Begged for me to breed you.”

“Yes,” Your eyes roll back in your head. “Fuck me with your big cock. Breed me.”

“Such a good girl.” He croons, one hand sliding down your thigh while the other returns to your clit.

It only takes a moment of his talented fingers touching you before you’re having the best orgasm of your kriffing life, legs seizing up as your back bows off the bed. Your cunt clenches around his thick cock, gripping him tightly as your walls spasm around him. The groan that comes out from your lips is other-wordly, the sound of someone completely, utterly satisfied.

As your legs begin to relax he pulls out of you, leaving you empty and clenching. His strong arms circle your waist, flipping your body and pushing you up and onto your hands and knees. You take a moment to steady yourself on wobbly thighs, head dropping to the mattress to catch your breath. He moves to stand behind you, lining his cock up to your soaking entrance.

“Oh, it’s like you were made for this.” He sighs, slowly pressing into you with one long, deep stroke. “Made just to take my thick cock.”

He fills you completely, stroking deeper into you with his new angle. His hand grip your hips, fingers sinking into your flesh as he yanks you back to meet him.

Your breaths fill the air as he fucks into you, his head thrown back as you take him, his cock appearing and then disappearing into your heat with each stroke. The room is filled with wet, obscene sounds as he pounds into you, his heavy balls slapping against your skin.

“So tight, so perfect.” The praise tumbles from his lips, making you keen with pleasure. Always so generous with words when it’s the just two of you, so different that the stoic Mandalorian he presents to the world.

Angling yourself down, you press your shoulders into the mattress, turning your head to watch him. He’s a work of art, broad shoulders and a trim waist, his tanned hands splaying across your skin. The closest thing to a god that you’d ever seen.

He notices you watching and he stutters, thrown off rhythm by your worshipful gaze. Your jaw goes slack as he hits that spot within you again, making your eyes roll back in your head.

“Keep going,” You groan loudly, eyes fluttering open, “F-feels so good, no one fucks me like you do.”

“Fuck, sweet girl.” He moans, helmet dipping to press into your shoulder. “I-I’m so close, want to fill you. Fill your sweet cunt with my come.”

Your head turns and your mouth falls open, eyes closing again as you moan into the mattress, hands clenching in the fabric.

“Please Din,” you beg, “Need you to, please.”

Your words do him in and he shudders, a low whine ripping from his throat. His hips snap bruisingly into yours, flattening you roughly into the mattress as he ruts wildly into you.

His moan is guttural when he comes, a deep, animalistic sound that makes your toes curl. Din’s cock flexes in you, jerking as he spills his hot and wet release against your inner walls. Chest heaving, he grinds his hips against yours as he makes sloppy, short thrusts, letting your tight cunt milk him dry.

His hips move one more time, pressing as deep into you as he can before he rolls to the side, taking you with him. You land sideways on the mattress, his cock still filling you, holding all of his come in.

“Such a good fucking girl.” He repeats quietly, arms wrapping around your waist and pulling you tightly against his chest.

Eventually he softens, and eases himself gently out of you. His come starts to leak out, staining your thighs with his release. You hear the rustle of fabric as he tucks himself away, before his thick fingers are gathering his come and pressing it back into your sensitive pussy.

“Hold it all in, cyar’ika.” He grunts, fingers sinking into your wet heat, “Don’t waste a single drop.”

You groan, flexing around him as he repeats the gesture. Once he is satisfied, his hand drops to the lower curve of your stomach, hand splaying out across your abdomen. His fingers trace your skin, brushing across the soft skin, feeling your soft curves.

After a long moment you turn, shuffling your body around until you’re facing each other, your hands tucking under your cheek. You gaze at him a long time, over the strong curves of his helmet, the dark tint of his visor, completely content. You can sense that he is doing the same, mapping out your face, memorizing every feature.

“Maybe,” you whisper as you reach for him, your fingers curling against the hot skin on the back of his neck. “Maybe we-, well, I could... get my implant out. At the next planet.”

Din’s head turns slowly, helmet tilting down to face you, almost in wonder. He takes your hand, pressing it against his groin, letting you feel his cock starting to again harden already. You gasp as he chuckles, the sound a deep rumble in your ear.

“Just make sure you know what you’re asking for, cyar’ika. You won’t leave this bunk for weeks.”

You smile - that would be just fine with you.

-----

References:

Nevarro - A volcanic planet and home to the Bounty Hunter’s Guild

Corvus - A forest planet that was home to the city of Calodan.

Mimbanese - An alien species from the planet Mimban

Mesh’la - Mando’s for “beautful”

Cyar-ika - Mando’s for “beloved” or “darling”

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